11120	----	[Illustration: THE YOUNG NAVIGATORS.] HURRAH FOR NEW ENGLAND! OR THE VIRGINIA BOY'S VACATION. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE BOY OF SPIRIT" "WHEN ARE WE HAPPIEST?" ETC. CONTENTS LETTER I. THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION II. FITTING OUT FOR THE CRUISE III. OUR MESSMATES IV. TALK ABOUT GREAT MEN V. OLD JACK VI. VISIT TO THE CUNARD STEAMER VII. MOODY DICK'S SISTER LOUISA VIII. DAVID'S GLIMPSE OF NOBILITY IX. BOSTON LIONS HURRAH FOR NEW ENGLAND! LETTER I. THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION. FROM PIDGIE TO HIS COUSIN BENNIE. Marblehead, July 1st, 1846. Do you remember, my dear cousin, how scornfully we used to look at "little crooked Massachusetts," as we called it, on the map, while comparing the other States with good old Virginia? I don't believe that we ever even noticed such a town in it as Marblehead; and yet here I am, in that very place; and though I love our noble State as well as ever, I am beginning to think that there are some other places in the world fit to live in. I don't mean, though, that I have the smallest inclination to take up my abode in this town, but I should like to have you see it, for it is the funniest place you can imagine. The old, queer-looking houses seem to be placed cornerwise on the most crooked of streets, all up hill and down, and winding around so that I begin to think they have lost themselves and will come to a stop, when out they start, from behind some red or green house which they had run around just for fun. Then there are _heaps_, as we Southerners say, of droll little children running about, some of them quite nicely dressed, with no servant to take care of them; and yesterday, on the rocks that look out upon the ocean, I met a little boy who could scarcely walk tottling along beside one but little older, as independent and happy as if he might not at any time fall and hit his little white head against one of the sharp stones. They say that some of our most distinguished Congressmen, and even our United States Senators, have been brought up in this way, and though I don't see how these boys can ever learn to be polished gentlemen when they mix with all sorts of children, yet some of them are as intelligent as if they had done nothing but read all their lives, and as brave as their sailor fathers. Yesterday a fishing-vessel came in, which had been out for several months, and I spied a little fellow clambering down a ladder, placed up to one of the tall chimneys, as fast as he could go, and then, starting out the door like lightning, he was by the water-side before the boat touched the shore, and his mother was not far behind him. But how I am carried away by what is around me! I forget that you don't even know how I came to be here, and while I am writing are perhaps wondering all the time if I am not playing a trick upon you, after all, and dating from some place where I never expect to be. But I am in real earnest, Bennie, and will try and tell you, as soberly as I can, how I happen to be here. You remember, the day that Uncle Bob brought the horse home for me to ride to Benevenue, he said something about Master Clarendon's not being able to ride Charlie much of late, so that I would find him rather gay. When I got to the place, I found every thing in confusion, and Dr. Medway talking very earnestly with brother Clarendon, who was looking quite thin, and not at all pleased. "I should think a voyage to Europe would be quite as beneficial," he said, turning to the Doctor, with his proudest air, as soon as he had greeted me. "No," replied Dr. Medway, smiling at his displeased manner; "you must have work, Sir,--hard work, and hard fare. It would do you no more good to take a luxurious trip in a steamer, than to remain quietly in your fashionable lodgings at Baltimore. Your dyspepsia, Sir, can be best cured by your taking a cruise in a Yankee fishing-smack, bound for the Banks of Newfoundland." "Then I shall die," said Clarendon; "and I had almost as lief, as to be cooped up in a dirty fishing-smack with vulgar sailors, half-starved with their miserable fare." "It will do you good in more ways than one," observed Dr. Medway; and he gave mother a significant look. "We poor Virginians think it impossible to exist except in a certain way; but you are a young man of sense, in spite of your prejudices, and will be very much benefited by a little more familiar intercourse with your fellow-men." As I stood by, listening to this conversation, I was not surprised at Clarendon's reluctance to follow Dr. Medway's advice, but much more astonished when, after arguing the point half an hour longer, he called for Sukey,--his old mammy, you know,--and told her to have every thing in readiness for him to leave the next day. As soon as the Doctor was gone, Clarendon began to see more plainly than ever the disagreeabilities of the scheme to which he had consented; but he was too proud to give it up after his word had been pledged. "I wish I could find somebody to accompany me on this horrid excursion," he exclaimed. "Miss Sukey! there's no use putting in my guitar-music. A pretty figure I should cut, strumming away on that, upon the dirty deck of a Down East schooner! I can't have the face to ask any friend to accompany me. O ho! it's a desperate case!" All at once, as if a sudden idea had struck him, while pacing the room impatiently, he turned to me:--"What say you, Pidgie, to spending the holidays on this fishing excursion?" You may be sure that I was ready enough to accept the proposal, for you know I have always been crazy to go on the water, and like seeing new places above every thing. "Indeed, and double indeed, brother, I would rather go to the Banks with you, than to see Queen Victoria herself. I'll run and ask 'ma directly if she can spare me, and if she will, I won't even unpack my valise, but shall be all ready to start in the morning." So saying, I darted into 'ma's chamber, and she declares that my eyes were almost dancing out of my head for joy, when I told her of the proposal. At first she hesitated, for it was a trial to her to part with me so soon again; but you know Clarendon is the pride of her heart, and for his sake she at last gave her consent. Sister Nannie was grieved at having both her brothers taken from her, but she is a little woman, and always ready to make sacrifices for others; so she sat down very quietly to looking over some of Clarendon's clothes, and though a tear now and then rolled down her cheek, she would look up from her work with quite a pleasant smile. Before I had time to realize what had taken place, I was perched up in the carriage with Clarendon, and in five minutes more had taken leave of every thing at home but Uncle Jack, who was driving us to the cars, in which we were to start for Baltimore. You have heard so much of New York and Boston, that I cannot, probably, tell you any thing new about them, though, to be sure, when there, I felt as if the half had not been told me. All the streets and houses look so nice and comfortable in the New England towns, that I cannot imagine where the poor people live. At the hotel in New York, when I rang the bell, such a nice-looking young gentleman came to our door, that I thought he was a fellow-boarder who had made a mistake in the room. I asked him, very politely, if he would have the kindness to tell me where any servants were to be found, as they did not answer the bell. He stared at this request, and then answered, quite proudly,--"I wait on gentlemen, my young friend; but we are all free men here." I cannot get used to this new state of affairs, and should be quite out of patience, having to do so many things for myself, if brother Clarendon did not keep me laughing all the while with his perfect fits of despair. But he is calling to me to stop writing, for, since here in Marblehead they won't let him have any peace in sleeping till eleven o'clock, he insists on going to bed with the chickens, or he shall die for want of rest. Love to all, men, women, and children, horses and dogs, from your affectionate cousin, PIDGIE BEVERLEY. LETTER II. FITTING OUT FOR THE CRUISE. TO BENNIE ALLERTON AT BELLISLE. Marblehead, July 3d, 1846. DEAR BENNIE,--Just now I heard a rolling of small wheels, and then the barking of a dog. Forgetting where I was, I thought of you and Watch, and walked to the window actually expecting to see you, with Watch in his new harness, drawing the little wagon. I only saw a strange boy, rolling a wheelbarrow along, with a great Newfoundland dog at his side, which I should have bought for you if I could have sent it back to Virginia. But, after all, you would not have liked it as well as Watch, and I am sure that I don't know of a fault he has, but chasing chickens and every thing else on the road, besides barking all night when the moon shines. I always liked moonlight nights, but never knew half how glorious they were till now. Last evening, Clarendon said, it was too ridiculous for him to be going to bed when it was so beautiful; so he called to me to take a stroll with him on a cliff, not far from the house, which commands a magnificent prospect of the sea. I snatched up my cap in a moment, delighted at the proposition, and ran along at his side, as I always have to do, to keep up with his long, fast strides. Even brother's melancholy countenance grew animated as he gazed on the scene before us. A bright sheet of water separated the peak on which we were standing from another rocky ledge, connected with the main land by a narrow strip, called Marblehead Neck, that looked like a wall inclosing the quiet bay. Behind us lay the town, with its strange, wild confusion of roofs and spires, and to the south we could descry Nahant and Boston, with Cape Cod stretching out beyond them, along the horizon. My eyes, however, did not rest on the land, but turned to the broad ocean, which lay beyond the light-house, that stood up like a spectre in the moonlight, and I thought I could spy here and there a sail among the many which I had seen that afternoon scattered over the waves. Clarendon sat down on one of the rocks, and his love of the beautiful overcame, at that moment, his dislike to praising any thing in which he has no personal interest. "This is magnificent," he said, and commenced repeating with enthusiasm Byron's address to the ocean,-- "Roll on, thou dark blue ocean! roll," &c. At the sound of his fine, manly voice, a boy about my age started up from a rock near him, and listened to the lines with the most profound attention. When they were concluded, he remarked with a modest yet independent air,--"That certainly is very fine, Sir; but we have poets of our own that can match it." Clarendon at first frowned at what he deemed the height of impertinence; but as he looked on the boy's broad, open forehead, and frank, sweet mouth, in which the white teeth glittered as he spoke, his haughty manner vanished, and he replied quite civilly,--"So you know something about poetry, my little lad." "To be sure, Sir," replied David Cobb, for such I afterwards found to be his name. "How could a boy be two years at the Boston High School and not know something about it? But I knew Drake's Address to the Flag, and Pierpont's Pilgrim Fathers, and Percival's New England, when I was not more than ten years old." "Percival's New England!" said Clarendon, quite contemptuously. "Pray, what could a poet say about such a puny subject as this Yankee land of yours?" "Do you not know that poem?" asked David; and we could see, by the moonlight, that there was something very like indignation at such ignorance in his fine dark eyes. "Hear it, then, and see if you do not call it poetry." If you could only have seen him, Bennie, as he stood on the cliff, with his rough, sailor-like hat in hand, and the breeze lifting his dark hair from his broad forehead, while, looking with absolute fondness on the scene around him, he repeated,-- "Hail to the land whereon we tread, Our fondest boast! The sepulchre of mighty dead, The truest hearts that ever bled, Who sleep on glory's brightest bed, A fearless host; No slave is here;--our unchained feet Walk freely, as the waves that beat Our coast. "Our fathers crossed the ocean's wave To seek this shore; They left behind the coward slave To welter in his living grave; With hearts unbent, and spirits brave, They sternly bore Such toils as meaner souls had quelled; But souls like these such toils impelled To soar. "Hail to the morn when first they stood On Bunker's height, And, fearless, stemmed the invading flood, And wrote our dearest rights in blood, And mowed in ranks the hireling brood, In desperate fight! O, 'twas a proud, exulting day, For e'en our fallen fortunes lay In light! "There is no other land like thee, No dearer shore; Thou art the shelter of the free; The home, the port, of liberty Thou hast been, and shall for ever be, Till time is o'er. Ere I forget to think upon My land, shall mother curse the son She bore. "Thou art the firm, unshaken rock On which we rest; And, rising from thy hardy stock, Thy sons the tyrant's power shall mock, And slavery's galling chains unlock, And free the oppressed; All who the wreath of freedom twine Beneath the shadow of their vine Are blest. "We love thy rude and rocky shore, And here we stand. Let foreign navies hasten o'er, And on our heads their fury pour, And peal their cannon's loudest roar, And storm our land; They still shall find our lives are given To die for home,--and leant on heaven Our hand." Did you think that a real Yankee could be so proud of living out of Virginia? I am sure those we have seen appear to be half ashamed of their country,--and to be sure it is not as good as ours; but I could not help liking this boy's warm, honest love of his native soil. Even Clarendon admired it, and, when he had done repeating his favorite lines, handed him a silver dollar, saying,--"There! buy yourself a book of just such poetry, if you choose, and if you can find any in praise of the Old Dominion, read it for my sake." I knew that brother meant to do a gracious thing; but still there was something about David's appearance which would have made me afraid to give him money, and I was not surprised at the indignant flush which rose to his cheek, or the scornful way in which he threw the poor dollar over the rock into the sea. "I am Captain Cobb's son, Sir," he said very proudly, "and must tell you, that, though a New England boy is not ashamed of earning money in any honest way, he never takes it as a gift from strangers. I should have pocketed your silver with great pleasure if I had sold you its worth in fish, or taken you out in the skiff for a day's excursion; but my mother would scorn me if I had taken alms like a beggar-boy." I never saw Clarendon more confused than he was at this speech; yet he has so much pride himself, that he could not help liking the boy's honest love of independence. His curiosity was so much excited, that he prolonged the conversation, and discovered that David was the son of the captain of the Go-Ahead, the very schooner in which we are to sail to-morrow for Newfoundland. It will he the fourth of July, and the sailors were at first averse to going out upon that day, but concluded to celebrate it on shore in the morning, and depart in the afternoon. David is going to accompany his father on the trip, having studied a little too hard at school, and it being the custom here to intersperse study with seasons of labor. "You see," he said, "that I am rigged already sailor-fashion"; and he pointed to his wide trousers, round jacket, and tarpaulin. "O brother! can't I have just such clothes?" I asked. "They would be so comfortable, and I should have no fears of hurting them, as I should these I have on." "You got yours for economy, did you not, boy?" said brother to David. "Not altogether, Sir. They are the only ones proper for fishing. Of course, if you are going to work, you will get some of the same kind; for that finery of yours would be very much out of place." Finery! Could you have heard David's tone of contempt, and seen his glance at brother's last Paris suit, you would have laughed as I did. I think Clarendon is getting more patient already; for a few weeks since nothing could have saved a boy from a flogging that had dared to give him such a glance; but his good-sense is getting uppermost. "Well, Master David," he said, good-humoredly, "since you don't like our clothes, you must come to-morrow to our lodgings, and show Pidgie and myself where to get such beautiful ones as yours." This morning, before we had half done breakfast, I heard a bright, pleasant voice asking of our host, in a free and easy way,--"Captain Peck, is there considerable of a pretending chap here who's going out fishing in our craft to-day? When the salt water has washed some of his airs out of him he'll be good for something; and his brother ain't so bad now." You should have seen Clarendon taking as much of a glance at himself in the little wooden-framed looking-glass, opposite the breakfast-table, as the size of it would allow, when he heard this qualified compliment. "A pretty way, that, of speaking of Clarendon Beverley!" he exclaimed, almost fiercely. "These Yankees have no respect for any thing on earth, but their own boorish selves." "But he is only a little boy, about thirteen or fourteen, brother," I said, coaxingly; "and that's his way of praising." For I did not want to lose our new acquaintance. "He can show us where to get our clothes, just as well as if he had better manners." The scene at the little shop where we went for our new clothes was comical, even to me, though I am used to brother's ways; so I could not wonder that some sailors at the door laughed out. "I would like some coarse jackets and trousers for this lad and myself," he said. "Of course, we do not need any different under-clothes." "That shirt of yours," said the shopman, pointing to the ribbon binding of a fine silk shirt, which had slipped below brother's beautiful linen wristband, "would be terribly uncomfortable when it was wringing wet, and soon spoiled by sailor's washing. Nobody of any sense would think of going to sea in such things as those." Poor Clarendon! the thought of those red-flannel shirts was near killing him; for they were just like those our negroes wear, and so were the duck trousers. When, at last, he was persuaded to have them sent home, and put them on for trial, they did seem most ludicrously unsuitable. I never saw him, however, look so handsome in my life; for his tarpaulin is mighty becoming to his pale, dark face, and those jet moustaches of his, when he has not time to tend them and keep every hair in place, will be quite fierce. He looked as solemn when he got his sea-rig on, as if he was about preaching a sermon. O, that reminds me that I have not told you of our visit to old Father Taylor's church in Boston! His text was,--"He that cometh unto me shall never thirst." And every word of the sermon was just suited to the plain tars whom he was addressing. He baptized some children more touchingly than any one I ever saw. Their mother was the widow of a sailor, who had been lost on a late cruise, and sat beside the altar alone with two little boys, the youngest an infant in her arms. As the old father took it from her and kissed it, a tear of sympathy with the bereaved parent actually fell from his kind eye, on the little, round cheek; and I shall never forget the manner in which, after the rite was performed, he replaced it in her arms, saying,--"Go back to your mother's bosom, and may you never be a thorn there." Captain Peck, our host,--and a worthy man he is, who was himself a sailor till he was washed overboard and lost his health,--has just come in to say that it is time for "our chest," as he calls brother's portmanteau, to be on board; so I must say good by. My next will probably be sent from some port, into which we may run for a few hours. Yours, ever, PIDGIE. LETTER III. OUR MESSMATES. FROM PIDGIE TO HIS COUSIN BENNIE. Bay of Fundy, July 9th, 1846. O Bennie, how I wish you were here! You used to enjoy so much skulling around that little pond of Mr. Mason's in his flat boat, what would you do to be bounding over the water as we are now? I am sitting Turk-fashion on the deck-floor, leaning against the mast, and, as you see, writing with a pencil, being afraid to use my inkstand, lest some stray wave should give it a capsize. There comes one now, that has washed our floor for us, and it needed it badly enough; nor do I mind the wetting, for I am bare-footed and my duck trousers always expect it. We have been five days now upon the water, and since we have thrown overboard the good things that Clarendon laid in for the voyage, and taken to sailor's fare, we have no more of that horrid sea-sickness. Hard biscuit and water are just as good as any thing else, if you only get used to it, and the fish which we caught this morning are delicious. We came upon a fine shoal of them, and for several hours had nothing to do but pull them in, one after another, as fast as we could put our hooks down. I got hold of a very big fellow, myself, but he was nearer drawing me out of the schooner than I him into it, till David Cobb came to the rescue, and gave such a tug at the line, that he was soon floundering about on the deck. I never knew what an apt comparison "like a fish out of water" is, till I saw him flapping round. If you only knew David I am sure you would like him. He is as different as can be from our Virginia boys, and yet we are excellent friends. I thought at first that he did not know any thing, when I found out that he had never even heard the names of some of our most distinguished families, and I suspect he despised me in his heart because I was so ignorant about the old Pilgrim Fathers. We have many an argument about New England and the Old Dominion, but keep our tempers pretty well, and each of us finds a great deal to boast of. There is one thing I can say which really troubles him, for he can't deny that it is a great honor to the State, and that is, that General Washington was born and brought up and died in Virginia. O, how he glories even that Washington was an American, and what would he not give if he could claim him for his dear Massachusetts! I used to think that the Yankees were all cold-hearted and never got excited about any thing; but David looks as if his soul was all on fire when he speaks of the Father of his Country, and he drinks in every word I can tell him of Mount Vernon. He has made me tell him over as much as three times all the stories grandfather told us of the time when he belonged to Washington's military family, and what he said to grandmother when they were both children. There goes Clarendon, staggering up and down the deck from sea-sickness. He will not take enough of the sailor's fare to do him any good, and the wry faces which he makes over a few mouthfuls are pitiful. Before he could get the sails shifted, I am sure the wind would change, and though the crew try to be polite, they can't help laughing to see what an awkward hand he is at doing any thing. There goes the "Heave ho!" which sounds so delightfully to me. There is one man who has just come up from below that interests me so much that I can't help watching him all the time he's in sight. The first time I saw him was the day we came on board. The schooner had dropped down a mile or two, and Captain Peck, our worthy host at Marblehead, came out in a little boat to bring some of Clarendon's clothes, which had been left by accident. He is a clever fellow, for though Clarendon was not half civil to him, he was always polite in his way, and his frank, well-meaning civility so won upon brother, that when they parted he apologized for his rudeness, and told the Captain that he had shown himself the most of a gentleman of the two. Beside brother's extra trappings, Captain Peck brought a package of books, which Captain Cobb looked at with surprise, and asked, with an oath, who they were for. O Bennie! I should enjoy myself a great deal more if two or three of the sailors did not swear so dreadfully; but I hope when they have read those books they will stop using such wicked words; for what should they be but Bibles, sent on board by the Seamen's Friend Society. "Let us throw them overboard," said "Brown Tom," a coarse, red-featured man, who is more fond of grog than reading. "Pshaw! Tom, don't talk of treating a lady's present in that way," exclaimed Captain Peck, who, after his fashion, has a great respect both for religion and womankind, and his own wife in particular. "O, if that's the case," remarked a melancholy looking man, who had not before spoken, "let us stow them away somewhere; for women always mean well, and perhaps it would be better for us if we followed their advice." I thought he sighed as he said this, and I wondered what made him so unhappy. "Well done for Moody Dick! he's sailing under new colors. Who would have thought of his hoisting a petticoat for a flag?" said Blunt Harry, an old, fat seaman, who is esteemed the wit of the crew. "Not I," replied Brown Tom; "but if the giver of these books has a pretty face of her own, they are worth keeping; if not, I don't care for any of her lumber." "Well, that she has," said Captain Peck, warmly; "you'll have to go round the world again before you find a sweeter face than Miss Louisa Colman's. She begged me to bring them on board, and ask each sailor to accept a copy for his own use." "I'll take one for myself, and thank ye, too, for mine was left by mistake at the tavern, there," observed Old Jack, a quiet man, who had just come on deck. So saying, he took up the largest of the Bibles with an air of reverence, quite in contrast with his usual bold, careless manner, adding, as he saw the name of the donors on the fly-leaf,--"Bless the Seamen's Friend Society and Miss Colman, too, if she's like the rest of the dear ladies who take such an interest in us poor wanderers of the deep." As the name of Miss Colman was mentioned, the face of Moody Dick met my eye, and never did I see such powerful emotion as his toil-worn features betrayed. His eyes, which are of that pale blue peculiar to mariners, were filled with tears, and, unable to control his feelings, he turned suddenly round towards the water; but his distress was evident from the agonized writhing of every limb and muscle. The sailors, rough and coarse as they are, had too much real feeling to remark upon this surprising change, and in a few moments it seemed forgotten in the excitement of finally setting sail. When I next saw him, Dick's features were hard and stony as ever; but last night, when almost every one was asleep, I saw him bring out the Bible of which he had quietly taken possession, and I noticed that he had sewed a coarse covering over it, and held it as if it were made of gold. When you and I, Bennie, used to kneel down so regularly, and say our prayers every night, I did not think that the same act would ever require a stronger effort of moral courage than any thing I have ever done. The first night we were out, after reading a chapter, as we always do at home, before getting into my little berth, I knelt down, without even thinking that there was any body on board who would not do the same thing. I was so taken up with the duty I was performing, that I did not notice if others were looking at me; for if ever I felt the need of the protection of God, it is now. The land is so full of things that men have made, and they are so busy all around you, that it does not seem half so much as if it were God's own world as the ocean, where every object, except the little vessel you are in, is of his creation. As I looked up and saw all the universe he had made, and round on the broad waters, and thought how soon, with one wave, they could sweep us out of existence, I felt the need of prayer more than ever before, and I cannot now imagine how those men could sleep, without first asking God to take care of them. I am afraid, though, that some of the sailors don't even believe that there is such a being, and they say his awful name without any fear, and ask him to curse each other every few moments, as if they had never heard what a dreadful thing it is to be under the displeasure of the Almighty. When I got up from my knees, I heard a loud laugh from "Blunt Harry," who called out to Clarendon,--"Why don't you rock that baby to sleep, now he has said his prayers, and then say your own and turn in?" Clarendon would have made some angry reply, but he has found out that there is no use in getting in a passion, for the men consider him on a perfect level with themselves, and will say what they choose to him. "Let the boy alone," interposed Moody Dick. "I only wish I could say my prayers this night with the same childlike confidence." "No, don't mind them, my fine fellow," said Old Jack, the same man who had spoken so warmly of the Seamen's Friend Society, and he gave me a rough tap on the shoulder, which even my coarse shirt did not prevent from stinging. "They all envy you, for I used to talk just as they do, and when at the worst I would have changed places with any body who had a fair chance of landing in heaven." While this conversation was going on, Clarendon bit his lips with displeasure, and the next day he told me that I might as well say my prayers after I got into my berth. I was surprised that my proud brother, who scorns the idea of being influenced by the opinion of any one, should want to have me ashamed of worshipping God before those whom he pretends to despise. Though I love him dearly, I did not follow his advice, and when the second night I did the same thing, no one laughed at me. The next day, David Cobb shook hands heartily with me, and said I ought to have been a Yankee boy; for though he had not been brought up to say his prayers himself, if he had, there was not that man living who should laugh him out of it. I shall try and persuade David to do right himself, as well as to approve it in others, for I remember mother's saying,--"Even a boy has his share of influence, and it is a talent for which he must account." I will tell you more about Old Jack and Moody Dick when I next feel like writing. I do not know when I shall have a chance to send a letter, but I shall try and have one ready all the while. Give my love to all the children, and don't forget to remember me to the servants, especially old Aunt Molly. Your absent but loving cousin, PIDGIE. LETTER IV. TALK ABOUT GREAT MEN. FROM PIDGIE TO BENNIE. Banks of Newfoundland, July 15th, 1846. I begin to feel, dear Bennie, very much as if I should like to hear from you, and sometimes I am a little homesick, when I think how pleasantly Bellisle is looking, and how happy you all must be. Then what would I not give for your pet bookcase with its treasures, the nice Rollo books and Marco Paul's adventures, and dear old Robinson Crusoe! I am tired, too, of looking at men, and fairly long to see some one who will remind me of mother, or my sweet sister Nannie, or of the "Queen of Flowers,"--you know who I mean. I suspect that brother Clarendon has something of the same feeling, for yesterday I saw him take a miniature out of what I had always thought before was a watch-case, and it was such a pretty face that I don't wonder that he sighed when he looked at it. But in spite of sighing and groaning, and hard fare and hard work, Clarendon is getting better very fast, and some of the sailors, who at first laughed at his affectation, are beginning to have a profound respect for him, and he in his turn seems to look much more benevolently upon mankind in general, and to be able to interest himself in the rough characters around him. I think he cut the greatest figure washing out his red-flannel shirt yesterday, and he laughed himself at the idea of some of his fashionable friends catching a glimpse of him while thus employed. I do not like Captain Cobb much, though he is very shrewd, and sometimes tells David and me such funny stories; but he seems to have no principle, and has brought up David to think that if he can ever be a great man it is no matter whether he is a good one. Yesterday, David and I were having one of our long talks, for we pass a great deal of time in chatting when the weather is not favorable for fishing, and I think we shall soon know pretty well the history of each other's lives. He was telling me about the Latin High School in Boston, and, from what he says of it, I am sure if a boy don't learn there it must be his own fault. One day we were discussing our favorite characters in history, just as you and I used to do at Bellisle, and David was very much amused when I told him that those I most admired were Aristides, St. Paul, and General Washington. His favorites are Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Washington. So we agree about one of them, but differ widely as to the other two. David absolutely laughed when I mentioned St. Paul with Aristides, and seemed to think that I only named him because I had been taught that it was right to do so. I asked if he had ever read the life of Paul with attention, and this question appeared to amuse him still more; and then he told me he had been through the Book of Acts in Sunday school, and had learned several chapters in it by heart; but for all that he had never thought of St. Paul as a hero. I asked him what made a hero,--if it was not courage in the time of danger. "Yes," he said, "but it must be in action, not in words." I reminded him then of some of the Grecian orators, who made themselves immortal by their speeches, when their country was in danger, and asked if their words were not considered heroic. This question puzzled him a little, and he was not willing to own that it was a similar case, but I defied him to find a Greek or Roman who had hazarded his life more freely for the good of others than St. Paul. Then I turned to the chapter containing Paul's speech before Agrippa, and asked him where he could match its eloquence. Then I read over the account of the sufferings of this brave Apostle, and demanded of David whether any other man could give a catalogue of so many and great evils so manfully borne. Finally, we reviewed the story of Paul's shipwreck at Melita, and David was forced to avow that my hero showed a calmness and self-possession in that hour of danger which few mariners display. If I only had had you to help me argue the point, I should have made him own that Paul was very far superior to Alexander the Great. You must not think, from what I say of David, that New England boys are not as piously brought up as the Virginians; for I believe the generality of them are much better instructed; but you know we have had peculiar advantages, and David has been but little at home with his mother, and his father cannot teach him what he does not himself know. David will be a good man one of these days, and would be better now if he had not the idea that there was something manly in being wicked. I am so glad that I was not brought up to think the same, for I begin to see how true it is, that, the older we grow, the more difficult it is for us to change our course. There is poor Moody Dick! I really believe he would like to be a better man. They say that he is not more than twenty-five, but I thought that he was over thirty, for his face is wrinkled already, and there are gray hairs around his temples. Yesterday, David and I were talking about our sisters. I told him all about Nannie, and that I thought she was the prettiest girl in the whole State of Virginia, and that was saying a great deal for her. He allowed that this might be true, but he had a sister of his own who was a match for her, and began describing her quite like a poet, and then quoted some pretty lines from a piece addressed to a sister, by Mr. Everett, I believe. The words seemed to touch Moody Dick, who was pacing the deck near us, for he stopped and listened to them with that same distressed expression of countenance which I had noticed before, and when they were finished he said, half unconsciously,--"A sister! I have a sister. There is none like her." "Have you seen her lately?" I asked. "It must be hard to be so much away from her." "I have not seen her for many years; but what is that to you?" he replied, almost angrily. My question might have been injudicious, and I immediately made an apology for it, which appeased Dick. He walked up and down the deck two or three times, as if debating some point in his own mind, and then, returning, said, in a very sad tone,--"My life has been a useless one, but I wish to make what is left of some service to others. You two boys are still young, and may be saved from the errors into which I have fallen. Come with me to the end of the vessel, where there are no listeners, and I will tell you the story of my life, and you will then know better how to appreciate a sister's love than you have ever done before." You may imagine that we accepted this invitation very readily, but just as I was seated Clarendon called to me to come quickly to him, for he was very ill; so I had to jump up and run away. I found that brother had only an attack of pain in his chest, which proceeds from his dyspepsia; but it alarmed him very much, and when it was over, I saw that Dick was reading his Bible by the dim light of the only lantern on board, and as I knew it would do him good, I did not disturb him again that night. I am really anxious to know more about his sister, and why he staid away from her so long. I don't think that it would be pleasant to go to sea for a business, on the whole. I used to imagine that a sailor's life must be one of the happiest in the world; but now I see it has very great trials. I am so glad that the people on land are beginning to feel an interest in those on the water; for they sacrifice much to procure for them the comforts and luxuries of foreign lands. I expect, Bennie, that you will be half asleep before you have done reading this letter, for I was a little homesick when I began it, and that makes any one stupid. Brown Tom saw that I looked, as he said, "rather watery," and, by way of cheering me, he told me, if that black cloud in the northeast was coming over us, I would have something worse than home-sickness before night. It does look rather like a squall, and I am not ashamed to own that I should very much prefer to be in my little snug chamber at Bellisle, out of the reach of harm. Tell Corty that I have taken a sketch of a schooner, that has kept near us for the last twenty-four hours, which is just like the one I am in; and when she sees it I hope, with a little explanation, that she will know as much about one as I do, though she has never seen any kind of craft but a canal-boat, and I don't think they are worthy to be named with any thing but Noah's ark. O, how I want to see you all! I never will leave home again. Remember me to every thing I love, as your affectionate cousin, PIDGIE. LETTER V. OLD JACK. FROM PIDGIE TO BENNIE. Banks of Newfoundland, July 16th, 1846. Little did you think, dear Bennie, while sleeping last night quietly at Bellisle, that your poor cousin Pidgie was in danger of being drowned. But so it was. The storm, of which Brown Tom had warned me, came on with tremendous force, and our poor little schooner was tossed about like a feather on the angry waves. I was so sick, however, from the roughness of the sea, that I feared little, and realized less, of our critical situation. Clarendon says that Captain Cobb showed himself a brave man, and David was more active than the oldest of the sailors. As for brother himself, he did wonders. Old Jack told me this morning, that, when we came on hoard, he thought Clarendon was such a good-for-nothing that his life was scarcely worth saving; but there was not a man on board who showed more presence of mind and energetic courage. He really looks better this morning for his exertions. Sick as I felt last night, there was one thing struck me forcibly, and that was, that those who had sworn the loudest, and appeared the boldest in wickedness since we started, were most frightened, and prayed most heartily to that Being whose existence they were before hardly willing to acknowledge. I can give you no better description of the scene than is found in the Psalm, which is so often quoted by those who are at sea; for the ship did indeed "reel to and fro like a drunken man." Old Jack was perfectly composed. And well he may be; for he says that he always thinks in a storm that he may arrive shortly at a better port than he otherwise could reach in many years. He has been telling us this morning how he came at this happy state of mind, and several of the sailors were made serious enough, by the perils of last night, to listen patiently to his story, and perhaps you may do the same. Before it was considered possible for a sea-faring man to be perfectly temperate, Jack took more than his share of grog; and, when on shore, spent all his time in dissipation. Luckily, he had no wife to be made miserable by his errors, though perhaps a good woman might have had an excellent influence on him. As he had no home of his own, his time when in port was spent at some miserable tavern by the water-side, where he could meet the crews of vessels from all quarters of the world, and join with them in folly and vice. Two years ago, he had returned from a long voyage to the East Indies, and landed at New York. One Sunday evening, when staggering along by the docks and looking at the different ships, trying to meet with some of his old messmates, he noticed what seemed to him a most curious-looking vessel, and called out to a sailor near him,--"What in the name of sense is that odd-looking craft, without sail or steam, good for?" "Have you never before seen the floating chapel?" asked the trim-looking tar whom he accosted. "Come aboard, and you will be never the worse. It's a church, man! Don't stare your eyes out, but walk inside and hear good plain doctrine." "No, no," replied Jack; "I can't be pressed into that service. I am in no rig either for going into such a concern; and, besides, it's ten long years since I have been inside a church, and I should act so strangely that they would throw me overboard. There's never a word in the gabbling one hears at such places that I can understand." "But this preaching is meant for sailors," continued Jack's new acquaintance, "and there is nobody else there; so you will be rigged as well as any of the congregation. Come along! let's board her right off." Jack had a great deal of curiosity, and, after a little more parley, consented to go into the floating chapel. I wish I could repeat to you the sermon which he heard there, with the simple eloquence with which he delivered it to us. The text was,--"The sea shall give up its dead." The clergyman imagined the millions who should rise, on this momentous occasion, from the recesses of the vast ocean, and as he pictured the probable characters of many who should then come forth to judgment, and their unfitness to stand before that holy tribunal, Jack felt as if he were describing some of his own friends whom he had seen ingulfed by the waters. When thus summoned, as they must be, before long, to appear, with the same tempers and dispositions which they had displayed in life, would they be found prepared for a heaven of purity? Then came a vivid picture of the perils of a sailor's life, and the probability that its termination might be equally sudden. The sermon closed with an earnest exhortation to each one then present to live every moment in such a state, that, if death should surprise them, they might rise again to life eternal; and Jack, as he listened to the concluding words, felt as if the warning were the last which would ever fall on his ears. He might have soon banished the seriousness occasioned by this visit to the chapel, among his jovial companions, had he not met with a loss, which he now considers a most providential occurrence. On returning to his boarding-house, Jack went to his room, and, on going to his chest, found to his dismay that it had been opened during his absence, and all that remained of his wages for the last cruise stolen. He rushed down to the landlord in great distress, but obtained little satisfaction; and there was something in his manner which made the poor sailor think that he had known of the theft. Jack left the house in despair, not knowing which way to turn, when he met the same sailor who had induced him to go to church, and who now offered to show him a more comfortable lodging-place. "Don't talk to me of lodging!" Jack exclaimed. "I have not a penny in the world, and must ship myself in the first vessel that goes." Jack's companion, with seaman-like generosity, offered him half of all he owned in the world, and was certain, that, if he would go to the Sailor's Home, he would find friends who would assist him in recovering his stolen treasure. Jack allowed himself to be led by his companion, and soon reached the comfortable building which had been erected by one of those benevolent associations which are an honor to the Northern cities. The poor wanderer felt a greater sense of comfort than he had experienced for years, as he entered a pleasant little chamber in this truly homelike abode. When he had made the acquaintance of the kind-hearted landlady, he found her willing to let him remain, even after he had told her of his destitute condition; and she promised that every effort should be made to restore to him his hard earnings. On going back to his snug quarters, after this conversation, there was something like thankfulness to the Giver of all good in Jack's heart. By his bedside he found a Bible, a volume which he had not seen since the one his mother gave him was lost, five years before, when he was wrecked upon the coast of Africa. He thought of the sermon which he had heard that afternoon, and took up the book to look for the text,--"The sea shall give up its dead." The first words upon which his eye fell were,--"For this my son was lost and is found." The beautiful story of the Prodigal Son, as he had heard it in childhood, came full into his mind, and he remembered how often he had read it at his mother's knee. The tears rolled down his cheek, as, sitting down beside the little pine table, he read again that touching picture of God's love for his wandering children; and when he came to the confession of the penitent son, it burst forth from his own heart. From that hour Jack has been a changed man. Some of the benevolent persons in the city of New York, who have the welfare of mariners so much at heart, procured him a new situation, favorable to his improvement in character; and the next ship in which he sailed was commanded by a pious captain, who was a good friend to every man on board. When he returned from this cruise, he felt too old for another long voyage, and for the future was going to try and content himself with being out for two or three months on expeditions like that in which he is at present engaged. Perhaps, dear Bennie, I have tired you by repeating this long story, which cannot be as interesting to you as it was to me from Jack's own lips, in the morning after a night of such excitement, with the sailors standing around, listening attentively to every word of it. Even brother Clarendon was touched by the earnest exhortations to them with which the narrative closed; and it seems as if being out of society had made him more serious than he ever was before. He laughs at me now very often, and says I was cut out for a Methodist preacher; but on Sunday he did not read any of the novels he brought with him, and though that does not seem a proof of much goodness, yet in him it shows improvement. If he should get his health, and become a pious man, what a comfort he would be to 'ma; for she thinks he is almost perfect now. We have just "come to" in a fine shoal of mackerel, so I must quit writing and go to fishing; for David and I have a great strife which will catch the most on the voyage. Love, as usual, to every body, from yours, PIDGIE. LETTER VI. VISIT TO THE CUNARD STEAMER. FROM PIDGIE TO BENNIE. Nowhere in particular, July 22d. I was almost in despair, dear Bennie, of ever getting a chance to send you the nice long letters I had written. Though we had been nearly three weeks from home, we had not stopped at any port, or spoken a single vessel. Yesterday evening, Clarendon was amusing himself with a spy-glass which he brought with him, and David and I were wondering whether it could make something out of nothing,--for there was no land in sight, or any thing else to spy at, that we could perceive. Brother's eyes, however, were better than ours; for he saw a speck in the distance, which he found to be a vessel of large size, and he called the captain to take a look at it. Captain Cobb pronounced it forthwith, from its peculiar form and the day of the month, to be one of the British steamers, which had got a little to the north, on its way to Halifax. He soon found that his conjectures were right; and as she appeared to be at rest, and the wind was fair, we made towards her with all possible speed. It is a marvel to me how such a great, unwieldy thing can float on the water, especially as there is so much iron about it. After all, I like our old fishing-smack better than being within continual hearing of that monstrous engine; and then the smell of smoke and steam would, I am sure, take away my appetite, so that I could not even enjoy one of their splendid dinners. But you have no idea, Bennie, what elegant style every thing is in on board these steamers. Two or three turns on the long, shining deck would be quite a morning walk, and the immense dining-room appears larger still, from the mirrors on every side. I had heard so much of the state-rooms, that I expected more than was reasonable; and when I saw them, the idea of passing night after night in such little closets was not agreeable. The pantry presented a beautiful assortment of glass and china; but every tumbler and cup had to be fastened to the wall by hooks, or, in case of rough weather, there would be fatal smashing. The castors, too, looked so droll, suspended over the table like hanging lamps! The ladies appeared quite as much at home in their delightful saloons as in the most luxurious apartments in the city, and few Virginian drawing-rooms could make such a display of Wilton carpets, velvet lounges, and splendid mirrors. These steamers must be nice things for women and children, for it cannot seem at all as if they were at sea when the weather is pleasant, and they are so used to spending their time in reading and working that it does not much matter where they are, if they keep on with these occupations. I suppose these ladies would have been miserable on such an old schooner as ours,--and some of the men, too, who looked almost as effeminate. I think Clarendon himself would very much prefer one of these nice little state-rooms, where he could make his toilet so comfortably, to his straw-bed in the old Go-Ahead. I am sure a dinner on board the steamer would be much more to his taste than biscuit and water, even with such nice fish as we caught this morning for a relish. He pulled up a whole barrel full of them himself, and that gave him a most excellent appetite. At first, Clarendon declared that he could not go on board the steamer in his sailor rigging; but he had no other with him, and at length the desire to see what he called "civilized people" once more carried him over. You should have seen some pretty ladies, who were sitting in the dining-room, stare at him. "That is a remarkably genteel-looking man for one in his condition," remarked the oldest of the group. "What kind of a vessel did he come from?" "I heard one of the gentlemen say, as it approached us, that it was a Yankee fishing-smack," observed her daughter. "He walks about as if he had been quite used to elegance," observed a third, "and does not stare around like that plump little fellow beside him, who is too fair to have been long on the water." You may be sure that "the plump little fellow who stared about" was your cousin Pidgie, for David never looks astonished at any thing, and has so often visited all kinds of vessels that he is quite at home in any of them. He was able to explain all the machinery to brother and myself, pointing out the improvements which have been recently made in steam navigation with a clearness that I never could equal. I don't believe, though, that Clarendon heard a word of this explanation; for the remarks of the ladies in the dining-room had reached his ear, and he was terribly discomfited at being taken for a Down East fisherman. David really seems to have more independence than my proud brother, for he don't care what people take him for, so there is nothing disgraceful about it, and verily believes that there is not a situation in the world which he could not do honor to, or make honorable. Captain Cobb did not go on board himself, but deputed David to deliver a message to the captain about some fish, and no man could have discharged his commission with more quiet indifference. You could see at a glance that the son of the owner of the fishing-smack Go-Ahead considered himself quite equal to the captain of the royal steamer. "Have you had good luck in fishing this season, my fine fellow?" said an English gentleman to Clarendon, who was standing with his back towards him. I would have liked to have seen brother's face at being thus addressed; for I knew that there was a pint, at least, of the best old Virginia blood in his cheeks and forehead. The moment that he turned round, there was something in his air which showed the man of the world his mistake. "I beg your pardon, Sir," he said quickly. "Your dress made me mistake you for one of the sailors; but I see from your complexion that you have not been long on the sea." Clarendon received the apology very graciously, and now became interested in conversing with the stranger. Before parting with the acquaintance made thus unceremoniously, they had exchanged names,--for cards they had none at hand,--and the English gentleman partly promised to visit Clarendon Beverley at his own plantation of Altamac, which brother is to superintend on his return home. There was a young Italian girl on board, as nurse to one of the ladies, who reminded me of a poor little fellow that recently died at Boston. David told me about him, and said that his face was the saddest that he ever saw. He earned a scanty support in a strange land by exhibiting two little white mice, which he carried in a small wooden cage hung around his neck. He offered to show them without asking for money, and when they ran up and down his arms, and over his hands, he would look upon them with the most mournful affection, as if they were the only friends he had on earth. Every one who saw him longed to know his history; but he could speak but little English, and shrank from the notice of strangers. He was taken sick and carried to the Massachusetts Hospital, where his gentleness won him many friends. But they could not stop the progress of his disease, or comfort his poor, lonely heart. The night before he died, no one near him could sleep for his piteous moaning and sad cries,--"I am afraid to die; I want my mother." O Bennie! if we had seen this poor little fellow, so unprotected and sorrowful, with no means of support but exhibiting those poor little white mice, we should, I am sure, have felt that we could not be too thankful for all the comforts of our dear home. Yet, when I heard this story, the contrast with my own favored lot did not at first make me happier; for I began to realize how many miserable beings there are in the world, whose suffering we cannot relieve, and may never know. I could not eat a mouthful that day, for thinking of the melancholy little Italian boy. I wonder if that was his sister on board the steamer! How could his mother let him go so far away from her? Perhaps, though, she was starving at home, and had heard of America as a land of plenty. I don't think that I shall ever want to go abroad myself; for they say that in foreign countries one sees so many poor, miserable children; and that would make me so unhappy that I should not enjoy any thing. I said so to David; but he talks like a young philosopher. He seems to have a way of keeping himself from feeling badly about others, though he has a very good heart, and, if he gave way to it, could make himself as unhappy about others as I sometimes do. He says he could enjoy looking at St. Peter's quite as much if there were a few beggars around it. I was sure, for my part, that I could take no pleasure in looking at the most beautiful building, if I saw any one who was suffering at the same time. Clarendon laughed when he heard me make this remark, and said that I was too chicken-hearted for a boy, and ought to have been a girl. He need not smile at me, for he feels himself more quickly than the New-Englanders, though, after they have weighed any case of suffering in their own minds, they would do quite as much to relieve it. I can never think them cold-hearted, after visiting Boston and seeing their hospitals and schools. While I was there, there was a tremendous fire in the neighbourhood, by which a great many poor people lost their all. But the intelligence was hardly received before thousands of dollars were subscribed for their relief. They certainly have a great deal of real feeling and generosity, and if they would only express a little more of it in manner and words, every body would allow them to be, what I know they are, the kindest people in the world, always excepting the dear old Virginians. They speak, act, think, and feel just as they ought to do. You will perceive, from this last remark, that I am not turning traitor to the Old Dominion. We have been so successful in our fishing that I hope ere long to see it once more; and, till then, shall remain affectionately yours, PIDGIE BEVERLEY. LETTER VII. MOODY DICK'S SISTER LOUISA. FROM PIDGIE TO BENNIE. Schooner Go-Ahead, August 1st, 1846. You will think from my last letters, dear Bennie, that I have lost all interest in Moody Dick; and to be sure I did forget his story in the excitement of our visit to the Cunard steamer. The evening after that great event was so pleasant, that David and I, who in general are great sleepy-heads, had no desire to rest; perhaps from having seen so much that was new during the day. The sailors are too used to such visits to think any thing about them; and, besides, they are a mighty independent set of men, and care as little for the world as the world for them. Clarendon sat on one end of the schooner reading some English papers by the moonlight, which was intensely bright, while at the other end Brown Tom and some of his friends were regaling themselves with a smoke and a long yarn. I had not seen Dick since morning to notice him, but could not help observing him now, as he walked about with the air of a man who is trying to free himself from some melancholy thought. I did not interrupt him, when he passed the place where I was sitting with David, but two or three times he halted as he came by us. My Yankee friend was giving me a lively description of a clam-bake at Swampscot, in return for a picture I had drawn of life on a plantation in Virginia; but though it was most amusing, I could not help pitying Dick. By and by he stopped near us, and stood looking earnestly at something which he had taken from his bosom. A sudden wave struck the vessel, which gave it a tilt, and in preserving his footing Dick dropped a small locket on the edge of the deck, which David caught fast as it was slipping into the water. As he handed the trinket to its owner, I could not help seeing that it held the miniature of a lovely child, not more than four years old. The hair was very light, and curled so sweetly, that the eyes were like Lily Carrol's, only a little sadder; but the mouth seemed as ready to smile as hers always is. The face was not at all like Dick's, but yet it reminded me of what his might have been when a child. "O, how beautiful!" I exclaimed involuntarily, as David placed it in Dick's hand. "Do you think so?" he asked, earnestly. "Look again at this merry face, and tell me if it ever ought to have been saddened by sorrow." "But, you know, 'by the sorrow of the countenance the heart is made better,'" I replied, wishing to soothe the grief which he evidently felt, as he held the miniature for me to look at it again. "Better!" repeated Dick, sternly. "There could not be a better heart than my sweet sister Louisa always had. That picture gives only a faint idea of her lovely face, for it represents its least pleasing expression, and she had not then reached the height of her beauty. Yet it is very like," he added, gazing sadly upon it. "Even now I seem to hear those rosy lips utter their first sweet lisp,--'Dear brother.'" "No wonder that you loved her, if she was even prettier than this!" I exclaimed; "for I could lay down my life for such a sister." "I did not love her," he answered, to our great surprise. "You are astonished at the confession; but I am not sure that, affectionate as you boys both seem, you either of you know what true love is. I was proud of Louisa. When she was an infant I liked to hear her praises; and as she grew more and more beautiful, and began to pour out the first woman feelings of her guileless heart upon me, I received them with gratitude, and really believed she was, what I called her, 'my heart's treasure.'" "Then why do you say that you did not love her?" I inquired, hesitatingly. "Because years have convinced me," he replied, "that I was even then, what I have ever since been, one mass of selfishness. I never gave up a single wish for her pleasure, or made one effort to add to her happiness. Never say, my boys, that you love any one, till you find your own will giving way to the desire to please them, and that you can cheerfully renounce your most cherished plans for their sake." As he said this, Bennie, I asked myself whether it could be true that I did not even love my mother, and tried to think whether I had ever made the least sacrifice of my will to her comfort. O, how many acts recurred to my mind of selfish imposition upon her yielding gentleness! I am afraid that we boys all take the kindness of our parents too much as a matter of course, and do not often enough question ourselves whether we are making any return for their love. But I am getting to scribble away my own thoughts quite too freely. Yet it is only a year since I could think of no other commencement to a letter than "As this is composition day, I thought that I would write to you." As Dick thus spake of his own want of consideration for the feelings of his little sister, he became exceedingly agitated and was unable to proceed. Clarendon, who had finished reading his papers, came to the side of the boat where we were sitting, and told me that he was going to turn in, and that it was quite time for me to be asleep too. I was very reluctant to go, but when brother was out of hearing, Dick said,--"It is as well. I find I have not self-command enough to go over the sad story of my own folly. If you will give me a pencil and some paper, to-morrow I will write such portions of it as I think may interest or be of service to you. Do not criticize the expressions, for it is many years since I have done any thing of the kind, and the life I have led has about destroyed all traces of my early education." Of course, David and I were obliged to accept this promise in lieu of the evening's entertainment which we had expected, and marched off to our berths. The next day we came upon a fine shoal of mackerel; so every one was busy, and it was not till nearly a week afterwards that Dick handed us two closely-written sheets of paper, with a caution not to show them to any one else. David and I read them with much interest, and I copied them to send to you. Here they are, and you must take care that I have them safe on my return. CONTINUATION OF DICK'S STORY. "It was not from pride that I was unable to go on with the history of my own early years; but I find that I had not the fortitude to bear the sad recollection of my own selfishness and ingratitude. My little sister's image rose before me with such sweetness and purity that I could not utter another word. "I will pass over the years of my infantine tyranny till, when at the age of fourteen, I became possessed with a strong desire to be sent to a public school. My father was sitting in his large arm-chair, in the porch, after tea, when I made this request, which, at first, he refused to grant. "'I shall never be any thing but a baby,' I exclaimed angrily, 'brought up with nobody but a mere child, and that a girl, too, for my playmate. Do send me where I can make a man, and be a match for other boys of my age.' "My old father looked very sadly at this outbreak of passion, but did not reprove my disrespectful tone. 'Where do you wish to go?' he asked, soothingly. 'Can you find any one who will love you better than your sweet little sister and I do? She would be very unhappy if I were to send her dear brother away.' "'And so,' I said, 'I must be tied to Miss Louisa's apron-string all my life, for fear the little baby will cry for me! If my interest is always to lend to her pleasure, I might as well give up all hope of ever being any thing now.' "At this moment, Louisa, who sat swinging on the garden gate, fanning her fair cheek with the little round hat which she had just been trimming with roses, caught the sound of my angry voice; and never did a cloud more quickly obscure the sweet star of evening than the shadow fell on her young face. She dropped her hat beside her on the grass, and the ever-ready tear rose to her dark hazel eye; but she dashed it away, knowing that I was always angry with her instead of myself when I made her weep. She left her seat, and, coming up the walk with a timid air, stole to my father's side and whispered,--'O, don't cross Richard, father! If he wants to go away from us, let him. He will be happier where there are boys of his own age.' "'And what will you do, my sweet pet?' asked my father, fondly, as he drew her to his knee. 'Will you stay alone with your old father, and try and comfort him.' "'O, yes indeed!' she answered earnestly, as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. 'We shall get along so nicely together, and be so happy when we have pleasant letters from Dick, telling us how he is improving in every thing.' "Hers was love; for she cared nothing for her own loneliness in comparison with the gratification of my wishes. "So I left our quiet country home, with all its holy influences, for the turmoil and heartlessness of a large school, where I soon became the ringleader in all sorts of mischief. Before long, accounts of my evil doing reached my father; but Louisa, incredulous of evil, as the pure ever are, persuaded him that her brother had been misunderstood, and not treated with sufficient gentleness. 'His spirit has been imprudently roused,' she said, 'and that makes him perverse and forgetful of his better self. But all will soon be well again.' "By being more cunning in my wicked exploits, I contrived to hide them from my teacher, and consequently was allowed to remain at school for several years, till considered ready to enter college. During this time I had made very short visits at home, and almost dreaded the long vacation before entering the Sophomore class at Harvard University. "It is possible that in some respects I might have improved in appearance during my residence at school; but evil tempers and evil habits will leave their traces on the countenance, and my excellent parent sighed as he looked upon the hardened face of his only son. Louisa, also, found something unpleasant in the change, but said that no alteration would have pleased her which made me differ from the dear little brother with whom she had passed so many happy hours. I could not say the same of her; for, though my baby sister had seemed perfect, the tall girl of fifteen, who stood at the garden gate to welcome me, was lovelier still. The responsibility of presiding over her father's household and her anxiety for me had infused a shade of thoughtfulness into her otherwise lively countenance, which might have made it seem too full of care for one so young, had not the sweeter Christian principle changed it to an expression of quiet peacefulness. "When I told of my school follies at home, Louisa would sometimes sigh; and then I would be angry at what I named her 'daring to dictate to me.' But I never could frighten her into approving what was wrong. I was not happy in her society, for much of my time of late years had been spent in a manner of which she could not fail to disapprove, and her whole life was at variance with mine. I do believe, now, in spite of her unwearied affection, that it was a relief to her when the vacation was over, and she had no longer the annoying presence of her wicked, wayward brother. "Sometimes Louisa would allude to the way in which we had been educated, entirely unconscious that I not only had given up all religious observances, but even dared to make them a matter of sport. I was half ashamed, and quite as much provoked, when at parting she handed me a book of 'Private Devotions,' with a mark, worked in her own hair, at a prayer for absent friends. "'You had better keep this book for yourself, little Methodist,' I exclaimed, trying to laugh off my vexation. 'Students have no need of such text-books, I can tell you.' "'But students need the protection of an Almighty Creator,' she replied, seriously, 'and their absent friends, also, are only safe under his keeping. I always pray for you, my dear brother, as our mother taught me to do; and I had hoped that you had not given up the petition for your sister which you also used to say at her knee.' "This remark brought before me the image of our departed mother, as she looked the last time I remembered to have seen her, seated in an easy chair which she rivalled in whiteness, so mild and calm, with the little curly head of my baby-sister in her lap, while she dictated to her the simple form of prayer,--'God bless my dear brother!' "As the stage-coach rolled away from my father's door, I could not banish the vision called up by Louisa's parting words, and I then resolved to try and become what my mother would have wished. Vain resolution! Six weeks saw me immersed in all the dissipation that the city afforded, and in three months I had an empty purse, enfeebled health, and a hardness of heart which would have taken some men years to acquire. "To pay my 'honorable debts,' as I called my gambling ones, I wrote to Louisa, requesting her to ask my father to send me a fresh supply of money. She sent me a moderate sum in a purse of her own knitting, which she playfully observed, 'would not part with its treasures unless they were to be worthily employed.' "The funds so easily obtained were soon scattered to the winds, and I sent a repetition of my former request to Louisa, couched in the most affectionate language, adding many words of endearment, without once thinking of the meanness of thus employing her affection to pander to my own selfish gratification. "But I was mistaken in Louisa! While she thought that she could benefit me, there was no limit to her kindness; but her principles were too firm for weak indulgence. She replied to my demand kindly, but decidedly. Her conscience would not allow her to impose on the generosity of our excellent parent, and to take from him that which was necessary for the comfort of his old age, for the sake of indulging me in my vicious pursuits. She begged me to give him an honest statement of my affairs, and to assure him of my resolution to renounce the follies in which I had become thus entangled, cautioning me against endeavouring to warp his judgment by expressions of affection, while my whole conduct showed such utter disregard of his happiness. "These were the first words of severity which I had ever heard from Louisa, and only her devotion to our father could have called them forth. I was in a perfect rage at the receipt of her letter, and determined to do something which should make my sister repent of her boldness. "That night my effects were all packed up, excepting a few valuables, of which I disposed at any price, to pay off my debts to my reckless companions, and the next day saw me on my way to New York. "When I arrived at that city, I wrote a few lines to Louisa, but not a word to my father. I remember them as plainly as if they were now before me, for they haunted me for years. These were the cruel words with which I took leave of the sweetest of human beings:--'Since you think, Miss Louisa, that my father is too poor to support me, I will no longer tax his kindness. I can take care of myself, and be free from your reproaches. I am going to sea in the first vessel that sails from this port. I care not where it is bound, so that it bears me away from those that once loved me, but who have now cast me off from them for ever.' "The first ship which I could find was just starting for a long whaling voyage; and, careless of consequences, I entered it as a common sailor, little aware of the trials I was about to endure. A fit of sea-sickness made me soon repent of the rash step that I had taken; but it was too late to return; the vessel kept mercilessly on its course, carrying me away from my only true friends. The tyranny of the coarse captain brought painfully to my remembrance the indulgence I had always received from my kind parent, whose only weakness was the readiness with which he yielded to my wishes. "At first I refused to have any thing to say to my messmates, many of whom were morally better than myself; but I was naturally social, and, soon forgetting my refined education, began to enjoy their conversation. I became quite a hero among them, and led them into mischief in every port at which we stopped. Many of our pranks would have brought us before the civil authority, had we not sailed away before their authorship was ascertained. "After an absence of three years I returned to New York, with nothing in the world which I could call my own but my sailor's clothes and my last month's wages. As soon as we were discharged I repaired to a low tavern near the dock, with some of the most unworthy of the crew, determined that my family should never hear of my arrival in the country. On taking up a paper one day, I saw, to my surprise, among the advertised letters one to myself, which was speedily procured for me by a messmate, as I was anxious not to be seen in the more frequented part of the city. "The letter was from Louisa. I have it still, but it is too sacred to meet any eyes but my own. It contained all that Christian principle and sisterly affection could dictate to recall a wanderer home, and it went to my heart. Inclosed was a large sum of money, the fruit of her own labor during my absence; and she informed me that another letter containing a similar inclosure was in the post-office at Boston. After much inquiry, my father had discovered the name of the ship in which I had sailed, and the probable length of its cruise, and therefore Louisa had expected my return to one of these ports during the summer, if I was still alive. Our dear parent, she informed me, was ready to receive me with open arms; and, for herself, her affection had undergone no change. "You will of course conclude that I did not delay one moment, after the receipt of this letter, returning to a home where such an angelic being waited to receive me. It seems impossible to me, now, that I could have done otherwise. Yet so it was. Pride, my besetting sin, made me inflict still deeper wounds on that gentle heart. "I had determined, as soon as I could procure suitable clothing, to go directly to Charlottesville, for that was the name of our village; and for this purpose I walked for the first time toward the business quarter of the city. As I was going up Broadway, in my ragged sailor's dress, keeping close to the inside of the walk to escape observation, I saw a pale, slender girl coming towards me, accompanied by two gentlemen, one of whom was a fine-looking officer, in a naval uniform. The lady was engaged in animated discourse, and, by the pleasant countenance of the gentlemen, very agreeable, for one laughed aloud, apparently at some remark which had dropped from her lips. "In an instant I recognized my sister, and was ready to fall on my knees before her; but then I remembered my own shabby appearance, and deferred our meeting till I could execute my present design, and make myself more respectable. "As I passed I saw her face grow sad, for she caught a glimpse of my dress, and though the glance was too hasty for her to recognize me, yet I doubt not that it brought her poor brother to her mind, for I heard her sigh deeply. "As I went on my way, my mind was full of bitterness. Whenever I had done wrong myself, I always began to imagine that others had injured me; and now I tried to persuade myself that Louisa was indifferent to my welfare, and had only sent me money for fear that I should disgrace her by appearing again at home. 'Proud girl!' I exclaimed, 'you need not fear that such a miserable wretch will claim your relationship, or disturb your enjoyment of congenial society.' "When Satan can find entrance into the soul for such wicked thoughts, they soon drive out all better ones; and, before I had reached the tailor's shop to which I was going, I had determined never to return home. "Without taking any notice of the letter I had received from Louisa, I secured a berth immediately in a vessel bound for the Pacific, and for three years again deserted my native land. "About eighteen months after this ship sailed, we fell in with a man-of-war, and I went on board. The moment that I saw the captain I recognized in him the officer whom I had seen with my sister in New York. For once the love of home was stronger than my pride, and I asked anxiously if he could tell me any thing of Miss Louisa Colman. "The instant that I made this inquiry, the captain gave me a keen, scrutinizing glance, and then replied quickly,--'You are the brother Richard, I presume, of whose fate Miss Colman has been so long uncertain?' "I was taken too much by surprise to deny this fact, and Captain Hall continued,--'I had the pleasure of becoming intimate in Dr. Colman's family, and my wife is devotedly attached to your sweet sister. Through her I heard of your absence from home, and the grief it had given to all who loved you. My belonging to the navy seemed to give me an interest in Miss Louisa's eyes, and shortly before I sailed, she implored me to make inquiry of every ship which came in my way, to discover, if possible, whether you were still among the living.' "'I saw her in New York,' I remarked very coldly, as the scene in Broadway recurred to my mind; 'and though it was only for a moment, I perceived that she was in excellent spirits.' "'Miss Louisa Colman can never be long unhappy,' he replied, sternly, 'while she leans on Heaven and employs her whole time in doing good to others. Misery is their lot alone, who, to gratify their own selfish whims, will trample on the happiness even of their dearest friends.' "I felt the reproof contained in these words, but was too proud to show any emotion, even when Captain Hall gave me a description of the scene at home, after my first departure became known. In her grief, Louisa never forgot what was due to her father, and the cheerfulness which she managed to maintain, notwithstanding her affliction, was all that supported his broken spirit. Captain Hall then informed me that the old man's health was failing, and his last letters from America had spoken of his increased weakness. "This information was a dreadful blow, but it did not make me a better man. I tried to drown sorrow in intoxication, and almost obliterated the remembrance of home, excepting when, in the silence of night, it would come over me with irresistible power. "When, after the lapse of three years, I once more approached my native land, I was much more unworthy of being recognized by my friends than in returning from my previous voyage. Still I proceeded directly to Charlottesville, and stopped at the old mansion, which I had not seen for six long years. Alas! it was tenanted by strangers. A new tombstone was in the village grave-yard, and on one side of it the name of my father, and the other bore my own. I asked the sexton, who was just opening the church for an evening lecture, when Richard Colman died. He replied very readily,--'O, about a year since. The old gentleman heard of the loss of the vessel in which he sailed, and dropped away himself very suddenly.' "I dared not inquire after Louisa, for I felt that she must look upon me as the destroyer of our father. I hastened to Boston, and had determined on leaving the country for ever, when, by accident, I had tidings of my sweet sister. "After the melancholy information I obtained at Charlottesville, I had become a temperance man, and took up my abode at the Sailor's Home. While there, a poor man, who had been ill for months, and finally was obliged to have his leg amputated, spoke often of the goodness of a young lady who had been often to see him, and whom he considered almost an angel. My curiosity was excited, and I inquired of the excellent landlady the name of his friend, and was answered by a warm tribute of praise to my own sister. I found that she was living in the family of an aunt, and was devoted to benevolent objects of all kinds, but chiefly interested in schemes for improving the temporal and spiritual condition of seamen. O, my poor Louisa! I knew, at that moment, that love for her miserable brother's memory had dictated these exertions. "Yet even then I did not seek to see her. 'I will leave her in peace,' I said to myself, 'for she thinks I am dead, and it would be better for her if I really were.' Still, now that she was alone, I could not bear to go so far from her again, and therefore made up my mind to enter the fishing-service, that I might not long be absent from the city. "You may remember the day that Captain Peck brought the Bibles on board, which had been left for distribution by a lady of Boston. That lady was my sister, and I trust that the bread which she thus cast upon the waters may indeed be returned to her before many days. I have read that Bible daily, first, because it was her gift, and then because I found that it could give me more peace than I had ever known before in my whole life. I shall go to my sister as soon as we return, and I feel that she will not cast me away. I have so impaired my constitution, that only a few years may remain to me; but whatever time I am spared shall be spent in repaying as far as possible her unwearied affection. "I have written this story with great reluctance, but my heart was almost breaking from so long repressing its emotions. You are still boys. Try, then, while it is in your power, to make those who love you happy, instead of laying up years of remorse and misery by selfish indulgence of your own wishes, at the expense of their comfort and peace. Read now the book which I have so lately learned to prize, and you will not have to look back upon the grave of a father whom you never honored, and the counsels of a mother so long despised." Poor Dick! Although he was so unkind, do you not feel very sorry for him, Bennie? I long so to hear of his meeting with his sister, that I am really impatient to return. David did not say much after reading this story, but I know he thinks a great deal about it. Yesterday he said to me,--"Did you ever know, Pidgie, that girls were so tender-hearted? I think I must often have hurt my little sister's feelings. She is a good little thing, and, though not quite so pretty as that picture of Louisa Colman, yet a very fair-looking girl in her way." I suppose this long letter will not go till I have a chance of writing another, all about myself; but if it does, you ca imagine that I am spending my time pretty much as I have described before; and believe me still your affectionate cousin, PIDGIE. LETTER VIII. DAVID'S GLIMPSE OF NOBILITY. FROM PIDGIE TO BENNIE. Schooner Go-Ahead, August 16th, 1846. You will see by the date, dear Bennie, that more than two weeks have passed since I last wrote to you. In the mean time your poor cousin Pidgie has been lying on his straw-bed, sick with a fever. It has been rather gloomy, to be sure; but now that I am better I can think of nothing but the kindness of the sailors. It must be the salt water which keeps their hearts so good and warm, for when any one is in real trouble they are as tender as little children. There were two or three of them, whom I had not even thought worth mentioning, that spent every moment, when they were not busy, in trying to amuse me. One had been to China, and you don't know how many curious things he had seen there. He tells me that there is a Chinese museum in Boston, and when I go back there I shall visit it, and I will try and remember every thing worthy of notice to tell you on my return. How many pleasant evenings we shall spend together, in the old school-room at Bellisle, with all the girls sitting by the long window, or near us out on the porch! I love the sea, and yet I long to take a stroll down the lawn before your door on the sweet green grass. It is a blessed thing that travelling of any kind has so much to interest, or else how would any one ever be able to make up his mind to leave home? Since I have heard poor Dick's story I don't much wish to go to a public school; but Clarendon says that's a silly prejudice, for it was the same disposition which made him unhappy at home, that prevented the school from being of service to him. Yet I am afraid that I have not principle enough to go among so many boys and do what is right. It is harder to be laughed at by those of our own age than by older people. I have learned this lately, for I find that I don't feel half as much ashamed when brother makes fun of what he calls my Methodistical habits, as I do of David's ridicule. He has a way of putting aside all the reasons I give him for doing right, as if they were so utterly unworthy of a boy's consideration, that I hardly dare to try and argue with him. A few nights since, one of the old sailors took out a pack of greasy cards, and, calling to one of his companions, said that he would teach David and I to play a two-handed game, which we should find very amusing. David was all eagerness to learn; but I told him that I had rather not touch them. "Nonsense, man!" said David; "I thought that you had too much sense to be afraid of little pieces of pasteboard, with red and black spots on them. They are not going to poison you." "But I have promised my mother that I would never play cards," I replied; "and, besides, it would give me no pleasure, for I have heard of so much evil from the use of them that I cannot see them without pain." The old sailor, who had only wished to please me, was very angry at what I said, and began swearing dreadfully. David tried to pacify him, and proposed that they should take a game together, and he'd be bound that I would want to play before they had done with it. "Would you wish," I asked, "that I should be tempted to break a promise to a widowed mother, who never in my life denied me any thing that was reasonable?" "No!" said David, after a moment's thought; "give me your hand! You are perfectly right, and I honor you for it." Before he had time to say any more, Brown Tom came in to look for a gun, which had been brought on board; for the water was covered with ducks, and he was anxious to have a shot at them. I should like to try my hand in the same way; for when fish and birds are used for food, my conscience don't hurt me about killing them. That's the reason that I like mackerel-fishing, though I have no fondness for mackerels themselves, for they are cannibals. We use a piece of one for bait for the rest, and don't have lines more than three or four yards long. This is a very different thing from catching cod, where they pull them up through many fathoms of water. Clary says that next year he means to go out to the Banks for cod, if he can get some of his friends to make up a party for the purpose. You never saw any one so changed as he is. Last week there came up a storm, when we were near the land, and they hauled into port. Clarendon walked off on shore in his fishing-clothes, without appearing in the least ashamed of them, and went to make a call on a gentleman in the place, whom he had seen in Virginia a year or two since. I wish I had been well enough to have gone with him, for he saw a great many things which were new to him, and he says that British America is as different from the United States as if it were not a part of the same continent. None of the crew minded walking about on shore in the rain, and while they were gone I was alone, excepting Dick, and he was on deck writing a letter to his sister, to send across the country and prepare her for his return; for you know she thinks that he is dead. When David came back, though, I had fun enough; for he gave me the most amusing description of every thing he had seen. "Hurrah for New England!" he exclaimed, as soon as he got on board. "John Bull don't beat Brother Jonathan yet. Let them talk of their lords and their ladies; there is not a gentleman in Boston that is not quite as noble-looking as the one that I saw, and a great deal more knowing, I can tell you. We saw a splendid carriage and four, with a troop of soldiers in red tramping after it, and a passably pretty flag flying over them. I asked a little boy whom we met what they were about, and he replied, that they were escorting a great British general, who had just come over to the Provinces. I ran forward to get a peep at the wonder, and had a good stare at the old fellow; and such another fright you never saw. I wished I had a temperance tract to give him, for his face was redder than the sun last night, when it went down in a cloud, and his eyes looked like stoppers to a whiskey-bottle, which had got soaked through. He'd better not have much to do with fire-arms, for he'd blow up to a certainty. They say he lies in bed till twelve o'clock every day, and then does nothing but just drink and eat, and drink and smoke, till midnight. I am glad that our government has no such loafers to maintain." "But did not the place itself look flourishing?" I asked, amused at his warmth. "No, indeed!" he replied; "every body had a constrained air, as if they were in bondage, and it made my blood boil to see two fine-appearing men waiting so obsequiously on a good-for-nothing young scamp, just because he had a title to his name. I hope that I shall never live to see the day when there is any such nonsense tagging to my label as they string on to theirs. How much better George Washington sounds than the Honorable Alexis Fiddle Faddle, &c." "That's a nobleman I never heard of," said old Jack, laughing at David's vexation; "but Nelson is a very fine-sounding name, for all it's an English one." "And the Duke of Wellington, too," said I, "is not an ugly title, and I would give a great deal to see the man who bears it." "Ah! ah!" said David, shaking his head; "you Virginians will never get over some of those Tory notions you got from the old Cavaliers, that had to clear out of England when Cromwell made it too hot for them." "And you Yankees," I replied, with equal warmth, "will always have the blind obstinacy of the Barebones Parliament, and think that there is no morality or religion in the world but your own, and that calling a man an ugly name will make him a better Christian." We might have gone on disputing thus till we had made each other very angry, had not Old Jack stopped us by saying,--"Come, come, boys, be done quarrelling! Don't you both belong to the same country? When you have sailed round the world as I have, Old Virginny and Boston Bay will seem all the same thing, and you will love every inch of ground over which the stripes and the stars wave. I love all Yankees, from Maine to Texas; and if we would only keep tight together, we could whip all the world." "That's sound sense," said Clarendon, who had just come in. "We Yankees should stick to our motto,--'United we stand, divided we fall.' In our days, we think too much of our being 'pluribus,' and too little that we are 'in unum.'" Don't Clarendon deserve three cheers for that speech? To think of his calling himself a Yankee! Why! I have seen the time when he would have knocked any one down who had dared to say the same thing of him. And when Jack, sung out, in a tremendous voice,-- "Hail Columbia, happy land!" Clary joined in with all his might, and so did the rest of the sailors, and such a singing of Yankee songs as they kept up for a full hour, you never heard. If brother practises that kind of music, he'll find hard work in fetching his guitar to match it. Captain Cobb has just told us, that, when we have caught a few barrels more of mackerel, the schooner can carry no more, and then right about for Boston Harbour. O, how my heart jumps with delight! Home, home, sweet home! Your happy cousin, PIDGIE. LETTER IX. BOSTON LIONS. FROM PIDGIE TO BENNIE. Tremont House, Boston, August 27th, 1846. You will see, dear Bennie, that I am once more on dry land, and a very nice place it is that I have anchored in. Shortly after I last wrote to you, the Go-Ahead had her full complement of mackerel, and, with hearty rejoicing, we set sail for home. Fortunately, the wind was fair, and in a few days we came in sight of Marblehead, which had lost none of its peculiarities during our absence. David and I were right sorry that the time of our parting was so near; but Clarendon gave him a warm invitation to visit us in Virginia. Captain Cobb did not think it at all unlikely that we might have a visit from his son one of these days, for New England boys think nothing of being a few hundred miles from home. I did not, however, bid David good by at Marblehead, for he promised to come up to Boston and show me the lions. On Saturday, he appeared at the Tremont, and I scarcely knew him, for he looked so nice in a suit of new clothes. Clarendon was glad to give me into his hands, for he is enjoying himself in his own way with some very pleasant young gentlemen, to whom he brought letters of introduction. There is no use in saying that New-Englanders are not hospitable, for brother has been invited out every day, and he says that the dinners are quite equal to any that he has seen at home, and that the conversation is the most intelligent to which he ever listened. David actually began dancing for joy at this remark; for he thinks Boston men of the present day are superior to all the rest of the human race. You will wonder why we stay here; but the truth is, that we have no money to get home, as brother has not yet received the drafts from Virginia that he expected to meet him on his return from the Banks. While waiting for them to come on, I am determined to see all that I can, and we cruise off every morning and evening on a voyage of discovery. Yesterday I visited the Chinese Museum, and there will be no use now in my going to China itself, for I can tell how every thing looks almost as well as if I had been there. Then I saw the Institution for the Blind at South Boston, and another for the Insane at Charlestown. David and I just jump into the omnibus, and away we go to any of the surrounding towns. I think I like Cambridge best of all of them, and, if 'ma sees fit, I should prefer to go to Harvard University, for they have a beautiful library full of nice books, and it is so near to Mount Auburn, and I could spend a day there every week with pleasure. I don't see why we can't have such beautiful burial-places in Virginia, for some of our land is quite as fine. I know of a spot now which could be made such a sweet one with a little pains. Why can't we have just such a lovely cemetery? I will tell you more about it, and some of the pretty monuments, when I return. You should have seen David and I dining together at the Tremont to-day, quite like two young gentlemen; for brother was invited out, and he begged David to take his place. I must own that my friend's house at Marblehead was rather a shabby old affair, and he has been brought up in the plainest way; yet he does not show the least awkwardness at our elegant table, but has the air of one quite accustomed to luxury. He handles a silver fork with the greatest freedom, takes the name of every dish readily from the bill of fare, and orders the waiters round as if they were his own particular servants, only in such a conciliatory way, that they seem delighted to do any thing for him. On Sunday morning we went to a Swedenborgian church, which is one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It has a large window of stained glass at one end, of such a color that it makes every thing look as if the light of the setting sun was falling upon it. There was a curious sort of tower opposite this window, with a kind of niche in it for a large Bible, which the minister took out with the greatest reverence, and he read from it all the prayers and psalms which were used. I liked the service very well, but, of course, I prefer our own. In the afternoon, David took me to Trinity Church, and I was perfectly delighted to hear our dear liturgy again, after being so long deprived of it. Some of the people did not kneel down, but I could not help doing it, for my heart was so full. Just as we were coming out of church, I observed one of the sweetest young ladies that I ever saw, who looked as if she had been crying, and yet there was a happy smile on her face. I was wondering why she looked so familiar to me, when she said, in a perfectly musical voice, to some one near her,--"Is it not delightful to worship God with his own chosen people once more?" I turned to see who she thus addressed, and, notwithstanding the change in his dress, at once recognized Richard Colman. I cannot describe to you the joy I felt at finding him thus restored to his sister. Before I thought that I was among strangers, I flew to his side, and exclaimed,--"O, I am so glad that you have got your sister! I hope you will never leave her again." "He never will," Miss Louisa replied; for poor Dick was too much overcome by the suddenness of my greeting to answer me. "You," she said, looking at David and myself, "are, I doubt not, the little friends that my brother has been telling me about. Come tomorrow and see us in Chestnut Street, for I am anxious to make your acquaintance." Dick then joined in this invitation, and David accepted it for both of us. We called upon Miss Colman the next day, and received a warm welcome; but, of course, she did not allude to her brother's long absence, only now and then as she looked at him her beautiful dark eyes would fill with tears. O, Bennie, if you could only see her! for she is the most lovely being that I ever met; but I hope that you may some day, for Dick half promised Clarendon to pay us a visit, and I am going to get mamma to write and beg his sister to come on with him. I am so impatient now for Clarendon's letters to come! After we are once started, we shall not stop till we reach Virginia. Yet I shall be sorry to leave this same Yankee land, with its morality, its intelligence, and its kindness. If for nothing else, I shall bless this fishing excursion for having opened my eyes to the virtues of the excellent people whom I really used to despise. Though a Virginian still in heart, I can join David heartily in crying,--"Hurrah for New England now and for ever!" Till we meet, which will, I trust, be soon, your affectionate cousin, PIDGIE BEVERLEY. THE END. 
14762	----	NOW OR NEVER Or, The Adventures of Bobby Bright. A Story for Young Folks by OLIVER OPTIC Author of _The Boat Club_, _All Aboard_, _In Doors and Out_, etc. Boston: Lee and Shepard, Publishers. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham, 49 Greene Street 1872 TO MY NEPHEW, CHARLES HENRY POPE. This Book IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. PREFACE The story contained in this volume is a record of youthful struggles, not only in the world without, but in the world within; and the success of the little hero is not merely a gathering up of wealth and honors, but a triumph over the temptations that beget the pilgrim on the plain of life. The attainment of worldly prosperity is not the truest victory, and the author has endeavored to make the interest of his story depend more on the hero's devotion to principles than on his success in business. Bobby Bright is a smart boy; perhaps the reader will think he is altogether too smart for one of his years. This is a progressive age, and any thing which Young America may do need not surprise any person. That little gentleman is older than his father, knows more than his mother, can talk politics, smoke cigars, and drive a 2:40 horse. He orders "one stew" with as much ease as a man of forty, and can even pronounce correctly the villanous names of sundry French and German wines and liqueurs. One would suppose, to hear him talk, that he had been intimate with Socrates and Solon, with Napoleon and Noah Webster; in short, that whatever he did not know was not worth knowing. In the face of these manifestations of exuberant genius, it would be absurd to accuse the author of making his hero do too much. All he has done is to give this genius a right direction; and for politics, cigars, 2:40 horses, and "one stew," he has substituted the duties of a rational and accountable being, regarding them as better fitted to develop the young gentleman's mind, heart, and soul. Bobby Bright is something more than a smart boy. He is a good boy, and makes a true man. His daily life is the moral of the story, and the author hopes that his devotion to principle will make a stronger impression upon the mind of the young reader, than even the most exciting incidents of his eventful career. WILLIAM T. ADAMS. DORCHESTER, Nov. 15, 1856. CONTENTS. CHAP. I.--In which Bobby goes a fishing, and catches a Horse. CHAP. II.--In which Bobby blushes several Times, and does a Sum in Arithmetic. CHAP. III.--In which the Little Black House is bought, but not paid for. CHAP. IV.--In which Bobby gets out of one Scrape, and into another. CHAP. V.--In which Bobby gives his Note for Sixty Dollars. CHAP. VI.--In which Bobby sets out on his Travels. CHAP. VII.--In which Bobby stands up for certain "Inalienable Rights." CHAP. VIII.--In which Mr. Timmins is astonished, and Bobby dines in Chestnut Street. CHAP. IX.--In which Bobby opens various Accounts, and wins his first Victory. CHAP X.--In which Bobby is a little too smart. CHAP. XI.--In which Bobby strikes a Balance, and returns to Riverdale. CHAP. XII.--In which Bobby astonishes sundry Persons, and pays Part of his Note. CHAP. XIII.--In which Bobby declines a Copartnership, and visits B---- again. CHAP. XIV.--In which Bobby's Air Castle is upset, and Tom Spicer takes to the Woods. CHAP. XV.--In which Bobby gets into a Scrape, and Tom Spicer turns up again. CHAP. XVI.--In which Bobby finds "it is an ill wind that blows no one any good." CHAP. XVII.--In which Tom has a good Time, and Bobby meets with a terrible Misfortune. CHAT. XVIII.--In which Bobby takes French Leave, and camps in the Woods. CHAP. XIX.--In which Bobby has a narrow Escape, and goes to Sea with Sam Ray. CHAP. XX.--In which the Clouds blow over, and Bobby is himself again. CHAP. XXI.--In which Bobby steps off the Stage, and the Author must finish "Now or Never." CHAPTER I. IN WHICH BOBBY GOES A FISHING, AND CATCHES A HORSE. "By jolly! I've got a bite!" exclaimed Tom Spicer, a rough, hard-looking boy, who sat on a rock by the river's side, anxiously watching the cork float on his line. "Catch him, then," quietly responded Bobby Bright, who occupied another rock near the first speaker, as he pulled up a large pout, and, without any appearance of exultation, proceeded to unhook and place him in his basket. "You are a lucky dog, Bob," added Tom, as he glanced into the basket of his companion, which now contained six good-sized fishes. "I haven't caught one yet." "You don't fish deep enough." "I fish on the bottom." "That is too deep." "It don't make any difference how I fish; it is all luck." "Not all luck, Tom; there is something in doing it right." "I shall not catch a fish," continued Tom, in despair. "You'll catch something else, though, when you go home." "Will I?" "I'm afraid you will." "Who says I will?" "Didn't you tell me you were 'hooking jack'? "Who is going to know any thing about it?" "The master will know you are absent." "I shall tell him my mother sent me over to the village on an errand." "I never knew a fellow to 'hook jack,' yet, without getting found out." "I shall not get found out unless you blow on me; and you wouldn't be mean enough to do that;" and Tom glanced uneasily at his companion. "Suppose your mother should ask me if I had seen you." "You would tell her you have not, of course." "Of course?" "Why, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you do as much as that for a fellow?" "It would be a lie." "A lie! Humph!" "I wouldn't lie for any fellow," replied Bobby, stoutly, as he pulled in his seventh fish, and placed him in the basket. "Wouldn't you?" "No, I wouldn't." "Then, let me tell you this; if you peach on me I'll smash your head." Tom Spicer removed one hand from the fish pole and, doubling his fist, shook it with energy at his companion. "Smash away," replied Bobby, coolly. "I shall not go out of my way to tell tales; but if your mother or the master asks me the question, I shall not lie." "Won't you?" "No, I won't." "I'll bet you will;" and Tom dropped his fish pole, and was on the point of jumping over to the rock occupied by Bobby, when the float of the former disappeared beneath the surface of the water. "You have got a bite," coolly interposed Bobby, pointing to the line. Tom snatched the pole, and with a violent twitch, pulled up a big pout; but his violence jerked the hook out of the fish's mouth, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the river. "Just my luck!" muttered Tom. "Keep cool, then." "I will fix you yet." "All right; but you had better not let go your pole again, or you will lose another fish." "I'm bound to smash your head, though." "No, you won't." "Won't I?" "Two can play at that game." "Do you stump me?" "No; I don't want to fight; I won't fight if I can help it." "I'll bet you won't!" sneered Tom. "But I will defend myself." "Humph!" "I am not a liar, and the fear of a flogging shall not make me tell a lie."' "Go to Sunday school--don't you?" "I do; and besides that, my mother always taught me never to tell a lie." "Come! you needn't preach to me. By and by, you will call me a liar." "No, I won't; but just now you told me you meant to lie to your mother, and to the master." "What if I did? That is none of your business." "It is my business when you want me to lie for you, though; and I shall not do it." "Blow on me, and see what you will get." "I don't mean to blow on you." "Yes you do." "I will not lie about it; that's all." "By jolly! see that horse!" exclaimed Tom, suddenly, as he pointed to the road leading to Riverdale centre. "By gracious!" added Bobby, dropping his fish pole, as he saw the horse running at a furious rate up the road from the village. The mad animal was attached to a chaise, in which was seated a lady, whose frantic shrieks pierced the soul of our youthful hero. The course of the road was by the river's side for nearly half a mile, and crossed the stream at a wooden bridge but a few rods from the place where the boys were fishing. Bobby Bright's impulses were noble and generous; and without stopping to consider the peril to which the attempt would expose him, he boldly resolved to stop that horse, or let the animal dash him to pieces on the bridge. "Now or never!" shouted he, as he leaped from the rock, and ran with all his might to the bridge. The shrieks of the lady rang in his ears, and seemed to command him, with an authority which he could not resist, to stop the horse. There was no time for deliberation; and, indeed, Bobby did not want any deliberation. The lady was in danger; if the horse's flight was not checked, she would be dashed in pieces; and what then could excuse him for neglecting his duty? Not the fear of broken limbs, of mangled flesh, or even of a sudden and violent death. It is true Bobby did not think of any of these things; though, if he had, it would have made no difference with him. He was a boy who would not fight except in self-defence, but he had the courage to do a deed which might have made the stoutest heart tremble with terror. Grasping a broken rail as he leaped over the fence, he planted himself in the middle of the bridge, which was not more than half as wide as the road at each end of it, to await the coming of the furious animal. On he came, and the piercing shrieks of the affrighted lady nerved him to the performance of his perilous duty. The horse approached him at a mad run, and his feet struck the loose planks of the bridge. The brave boy then raised his big club, and brandished it with all his might in the air. Probably the horse did not mean any thing very bad; was only frightened, and had no wicked intentions towards the lady; so that when a new danger menaced him in front, he stopped suddenly, and with so much violence as to throw the lady forward from her seat upon the dasher of the chaise. He gave a long snort, which was his way of expressing his fear. He was evidently astonished at the sudden barrier to his further progress, and commenced running back. "Save me!" screamed the lady. "I will, ma'am; don't be scared!" replied Bobby, confidently, as he dropped his club, and grasped the bridle of the horse, just as he was on the point of whirling round to escape by the way he had come. "Stop him! Do stop him!" cried the lady. "Whoa!" said Bobby, in gentle tones, as he patted the trembling horse on his neck. "Whoa, good horse! Be quiet! Whoa!" The animal, in his terror, kept running backward and forward; but Bobby persevered in his gentle treatment, and finally soothed him, so that he stood quiet enough for the lady to get out of the chaise. "What a miracle that I am alive!" exclaimed she when she realized that she stood once more upon the firm earth. "Yes, ma'am, it is lucky he didn't break the chaise. Whoa! Good horse! Stand quiet!" "What a brave little fellow you are!" said the lady, as soon as she could recover her breath so as to express her admiration of Bobby's bold act. "O, I don't mind it," replied he, blushing like a rose in June. "Did he run away with you?" "No; my father left me in the chaise for a moment while he went into a store in the village, and a teamster who was passing by snapped his whip, which frightened Kate so that she started off at the top of her speed. I was so terrified, that I screamed with all my might, which frightened her the more. The more I screamed, the faster she ran." "I dare say. Good horse! Whoa, Kate!" "She is a splendid creature; she never did such a thing before. My father will think I am killed." By this time, Kate had become quite reasonable, and seemed very much obliged to Bobby for preventing her from doing mischief to her mistress; for she looked at the lady with a glance of satisfaction, which her deliverer interpreted as a promise to behave better in future. He relaxed his grasp upon the bridle, patted her upon the neck, and said sundry pleasant things to encourage her in her assumed purpose of doing better. Kate appeared to understand Bobby's kind words, and declared as plainly as a horse could declare that she would be sober and tractable. "Now, ma'am, if you will get into the chaise again, I think Kate will let me drive her down to the village." "O, dear! I should not dare to do so." "Then, if you please, I will drive down alone, so as to let your father know that you are safe." "Do." "I am sure he must feel very bad, and I may save him a great deal of pain, for a man can suffer a great deal in a very short time." "You are a little philosopher, as well as a hero, and if you are not afraid of Kate, you may do as you wish." "She seems very gentle now;" and Bobby turned her round, and got into the chaise. "Be very careful," said the lady. "I will." Bobby took the reins, and Kate, true to the promise she had virtually made, started off at a round pace towards the village. He had not gone more than a quarter of a mile of the distance when he met a wagon containing three men, one of whom was the lady's father. The gestures which he made assured Bobby he had found the person whom he sought, and he stopped. "My daughter! Where is she?" gasped the gentleman, as he leaped from the wagon. "She is safe, sir," replied Bobby, with all the enthusiasm of his warm nature. "Thank God!" added the gentleman, devoutly as he placed himself in the chaise by the side of Bobby. CHAPTER II. IN WHICH BOBBY BLUSHES SEVERAL TIMES, AND DOES A SUM IN ARITHMETIC. Mr. Bayard, the owner of the horse, and the father of the lady whom Bobby had saved from impending death, was too much agitated to say much, even to the bold youth who had rendered him such a signal service. He could scarcely believe the intelligence which the boy brought him; it seemed too good to be true. He had assured himself that Ellen--for that was the young lady's name--was killed, or dreadfully injured. Kate was driven at the top of her speed, and in a few moments reached the bridge, where Ellen was awaiting his arrival. "Here I am, father, alive and unhurt!" cried Ellen, as Mr. Bayard stopped the horse. "Thank Heaven my child!" replied the glad father, embracing his daughter. "I was sure you were killed." "No, father; thanks to this bold youth, I am uninjured." "I am under very great obligations to you, young man," continued Mr. Bayard, grasping Bobby's hand. "O, never mind, sir;" and Bobby blushed just as he had blushed when the young lady spoke to him. "We shall never forget you--shall we, father?" added Ellen. "No, my child; and I shall endeavor to repay, to some slight extent, our indebtedness to him. But you have not yet told me how you were saved." "O, I merely stopped the horse; that's all," answered Bobby, modestly. "Yes, father, but he placed himself right before Kate when she was almost flying over the ground. When I saw him, I was certain that he would lose his life, or be horribly mangled for his boldness," interposed Ellen. "It was a daring deed, young man, to place yourself before an affrighted horse in that manner," said Mr. Bayard. "I didn't mind it, sir." "And then he flourished a big club, almost as big as he is himself, in the air, which made Kate pause in her mad career, when my deliverer here grasped her by the bit and held her." "It was well and bravely done." "That it was, father; not many men would have been bold enough to do what he did," added Ellen, with enthusiasm. "Very true; and I feel, that I am indebted to him for your safety. What is your name, young man?" "Robert Bright, sir." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket several pieces of gold, which he offered to Bobby. "No, I thank you, sir," replied Bobby, blushing. "What! as proud as you are bold?" "I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Bravo! You are a noble little fellow! But you must take this money, not as a reward for what you have done, but as a testimonial of my gratitude." "I would rather not, sir." "Do take it, Robert," added Ellen. "I don't like to take it. It looks mean to take money for doing one's duty." "Take it, Robert, to please me;" and the young lady smiled so sweetly that Bobby's resolution began to give way. "Only to please me, Robert." "I will, to please you; but I don't feel right about it." "You must not be too proud, Robert," said Mr. Bayard, as he put the gold pieces into his hand. "I am not proud, sir; only I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Not paid, my young friend. Consider that you have placed me under an obligation to you for life. This money is only an expression of my own and my daughter's feelings. It is but a small sum, but I hope you will permit me to do something more for you, when you need it. You will regard me as your friend as long as you live." "Thank you, sir." "When you want any assistance of any kind, come to me. I live in Boston; here is my business card." Mr. Bayard handed him a card, on which Bobby read, "F. Bayard & Co., Booksellers and Publishers, No. ---- Washington Street, Boston." "You are very kind, sir." "I want you should come to Boston and see us too," interposed Ellen. "I should be delighted to show you the city, to take you to the Athenaeum and the Museum." "Thank you." Mr. Bayard inquired of Bobby about his parents, where he lived, and about the circumstances of his family. He then took out his memorandum book, in which he wrote the boy's name and residence. "I am sorry to leave you now, Robert, but I have over twenty miles to ride to-day. I should be glad to visit your mother, and next time I come to Riverdale, I shall certainly do so." "Thank you, sir; my mother is a very poor woman, but she will be glad to see you." "Now, good by, Robert." "Good by," repeated Ellen. "Good by." Mr. Bayard drove off, leaving Bobby standing on the bridge with the gold pieces in his hand. "Here's luck!" said Bobby, shaking the coin. "Won't mother's eyes stick out when she sees these shiners? There are no such shiners in the river as these." Bobby was astonished, and the more he gazed at the gold pieces, the more bewildered he became. He had never held so much money in his hand before. There were three large coins and one smaller one. He turned them over and over, and finally ascertained that the large coins were ten dollar pieces, and the smaller one a five dollar piece. Bobby was not a great scholar, but he knew enough of arithmetic to calculate the value of his treasure. He was so excited, however, that he did not arrive at the conclusion half so quick as most of my young readers would have done. "Thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed Bobby, when the problem was solved. "Gracious!" "Hallo, Bob!" shouted Tom Spicer, who had got tired of fishing; besides, the village clock was just striking twelve, and it was time for him to go home. Bobby made no answer, but hastily tying the gold pieces up in the corner of his handkerchief, he threw the broken rail he had used in stopping the horse where it belonged, and started for the place where he had left his fishing apparatus. "Hallo, Bob!" "Well, Tom?" "Stopped him--didn't you?" "I did." "You were a fool; he might have killed you." "So he might; but I didn't stop to think of that. The lady's life was in danger." "What of that?" "Every thing, I should say." "Did he give you any thing?" "Yes;" and Bobby continued his walk down to the river's side. "I say, what did he give you, Bobby?" persisted Tom, following him. "O, he gave me a good deal of money." "How much?" "I want to get my fish line now; I will tell you all about it some other time," replied Bobby, who rather suspected the intentions of his companion. "Tell me now; how much was it?" "Never mind it now." "Humph! Do you think I mean to rob you?" "No." "Ain't you going halveses?" "Why should I?" "Wasn't I with you?" "Were you?" "Wasn't I fishing with you?" "You did not do any thing about stopping the horse." "I would, if I hadn't been afraid to go up to the road." "Afraid?" "Somebody might have seen me, and they would have known that I was hooking jack." "Then you ought not to share the money." "Yes, I had. When a fellow is with you, he ought to have half. It is mean not to give him half." "If you had done any thing to help stop the horse, I would have shared with you. But you didn't." "What of that?" Bobby was particularly sensitive in regard to the charge of meanness. His soul was a great deal bigger than his body, and he was always generous, even to his own injury, among his companions. It was evident to him that Tom had no claim to any part of the reward; but he could not endure the thought even of being accused of meanness. "I'll tell you what I will do, if you think I ought to share with you. I will leave it out to Squire Lee; and if he thinks you ought to have half, or any part of the money, I will give it to you." "No, you don't; you want to get me into a scrape for hooking jack. I see what you are up to." "I will state the case to him without telling him who the boys are." "No, you don't! You want to be mean about it. Come, hand over half the money." "I will not," replied Bobby, who, when it became a matter of compulsion, could stand his ground at any peril. "How much have you got?" "Thirty-five dollars." "By jolly! And you mean to keep it all yourself?" "I mean to give it to my mother." "No, you won't! If you are going to be mean about it, I'll smash your head!" This was a favorite expression with Tom Spicer, who was a noted bully among the boys of Riverdale. The young ruffian now placed himself in front of Bobby, and shook his clinched fist in his face. "Hand over." "No, I won't. You have no claim to any part at the money; at least, I think you have not. If you have a mind to leave it out to Squire Lee, I will do what is right about it." "Not I; hand over, or I'll smash your head!" "Smash away," replied Bobby, placing himself on the defensive. "Do you think you can lick me?" asked Tom, not a little embarrassed by this exhibition of resolution on the part of his companion. "I don't think any thing about it; but you don't bully me in that kind of style." "Won't I?" "No." But Tom did not immediately put his threat in execution, and Bobby would not be the aggressor; so he stepped one side to pass his assailant. Tom took this as an evidence of the other's desire to escape, and struck him a heavy blow on the side of the head The next instant the bully was floundering in the soft mud of a ditch; Bobby's reply was more than Tom had bargained for, and while he was dragging himself out of the ditch, our hero ran down to the river, and got his fish pole and basket. "You'll catch it for that!" growled Tom. "I'm all ready, whenever it suits your convenience," replied Bobby. "Just come out here and take it in fair fight," continued Tom, who could not help bullying, even in the midst of his misfortune. "No, I thank you; I don't want to fight with any fellow. I will not fight if I can help it." "What did you hit me for, then?" "In self-defence." "Just come out here, and try it fair?" "No;" and Bobby hurried home, leaving the bully astonished, and discomfited by the winding up of the morning's sport. CHAPTER III. IN WHICH THE LITTLE BLACK HOUSE IS BOUGHT BUT NOT PAID FOR. Probably my young readers have by this time come to the conclusion that Bobby Bright was a very clever fellow--one whose acquaintance they would be happy to cultivate. Perhaps by this time they have become so far interested in him as to desire to know who his parents were, what they did, and in what kind of a house he lived. I hope none of my young friends will think any less of him when I inform them that Bobby lived in an old black house which had never been painted, which had no flower garden in front of it, and which, in a word, was quite far from being a palace. A great many very nice city folks would not have considered it fit to live in, would have turned up their noses at it, and wondered that any human beings could be so degraded as to live in such a miserable house. But the widow Bright, Bobby's mother, thought it was a very comfortable house, and considered herself very fortunate in being able to get so good a dwelling. She had never lived in a fine house, knew nothing about velvet carpets, mirrors seven feet high, damask chairs and lounges, or any of the smart things which very rich and very proud city people consider absolutely necessary for their comfort. Her father had been a poor man, her husband had died a poor man, and her own life had been a struggle to keep the demons of poverty and want from invading her humble abode. Mr. Bright, her deceased husband, had been a day laborer in Riverdale. He never got more than a dollar a day, which was then considered very good wages in the country. He was a very honest, industrious man, and while he lived, his family did very well. Mrs. Bright was a careful, prudent woman, and helped him support the family. They never knew what it was to want for any thing. Poor people, as well as rich, have an ambition to be something which they are not, or to have something which they have not. Every person, who has an energy of character, desires to get ahead in the world. Some merchants, who own big ships and big warehouses by the dozen, desire to be what they consider rich. But their idea of wealth is very grand. They wish to count it in millions of dollars, in whole blocks of warehouses; and they are even more discontented than the day laborer who has to earn his dinner before he can eat it. Bobby's father and mother had just such an ambition, only it was so modest that the merchant would have laughed at it. They wanted to own the little black house in which they resided, so that they could not only be sure of a home while they lived, but have the satisfaction of living in their own house. This was a very reasonable ideal, compared with that of the rich merchants I have mentioned; but it was even more difficult for them to reach it, for the wages were small, and they had many mouths to feed. Mr. Bright had saved up fifty dollars; and he thought a great deal more of this sum than many people do of a thousand dollars. He had had to work very hard and be very prudent in order to accumulate this sum, which made him value it all the more highly. With this sum of fifty dollars at his command, John Bright felt rich; and then, more than ever before, he wanted to own the little black house. He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr. Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it. The landlord was a hard man. Every body in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy. Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr. Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money. He asked the poor man four hundred dollars for the old house and the little lot of land on which it stood. It was a matter of great concern to John Bright. Four hundred dollars was a "mint of money," and he could not see how he should ever be able to save so much from his daily earnings. So he talked with Squire Lee about it, who told him that three hundred was all it was worth. John offered this for it, and after a month's hesitation, Mr. Hardhand accepted the offer, agreeing to take fifty dollars down and the rest in semi-annual payments of twenty-five dollars each, until the whole was paid. I am thus particular in telling my readers about the bargain, because this debt which his father contracted was the means of making a man of Bobby, as will be seen in his subsequent history. John Bright paid the first fifty dollars; but before the next instalment became due, the poor man was laid in his cold and silent grave. A malignant disease carried him off, and the hopes of the Bright family seemed to be blasted. Four children were left to the widow. The youngest was only three years old, and Bobby, the oldest, was nine, when his father died. Squire Lee, who had always been a good friend of John Bright, told the widow that she had better go to the poorhouse, and not attempt to struggle along with such a fearful odds against her. But the widow nobly refused to become a pauper, and to make paupers of her children, whom she loved quite as much as though she and they had been born in a ducal palace. She told the squire that she had two hands, and as long as she had her health, the town need not trouble itself about her support. Squire Lee was filled with surprise and admiration at the noble resolution of the poor woman; and when he returned to his house, he immediately sent her a cord of wood, ten bushels of potatoes, two bags of meal, and a firkin of salt pork. The widow was very grateful for these articles, and no false pride prevented her from accepting the gift of her rich and kind-hearted neighbor. Riverdale centre was largely engaged in the manufacturing of boots and shoes, and this business gave employment to a large number of men and women. Mrs. Bright had for several years "closed" shoes--which, my readers who do not live in "shoe towns" may not know, means sewing or stitching them. To this business she applied herself with renewed energy. There was a large hotel in Riverdale centre, where several families from Boston spent the summer. By the aid of Squire Lee, she obtained the washing of these families, which was more profitable than closing shoes. By these means she not only supported her family very comfortably, but was able to save a little money towards paying for the house. Mr. Hardhand, by the persuasions of Squire Lee, had consented to let the widow keep the house, and pay for it as she could. John Bright had been dead four years at the time we introduce Bobby to the reader. Mrs. Bright had paid another hundred dollars towards the house, with the interest; so there was now but one hundred due. Bobby had learned to "close," and helped his mother a great deal; but the confinement and the stooping posture did not agree with his health, and his mother was obliged to dispense with his assistance. But the devoted little fellow found a great many ways of helping her. He was now thirteen, and was as handy about the house as a girl. When he was not better occupied, he would often go to the river and catch a mess of fish, which was so much clear gain. The winter which had just passed, had brought a great deal of sickness to the little black house. The children all had the measles, and two of them the scarlet fever, so that Mrs. Bright could not work much. Her affairs were not in a very prosperous condition when the spring opened; but the future was bright, and the widow, trusting in Providence, believed that all would end well. One thing troubled her. She had not been able to save any thing for Mr. Hardhand. She could only pay her interest; but she hoped by the first of July to give him twenty-five dollars of the principal. But the first of July came, and she had only five dollars of the sum she had partly promised her creditor. She could not so easily recover from the disasters of the hard winter, and she had but just paid off the little debts she had contracted. She was nervous and uneasy as the day approached. Mr. Hardhand always abused her when she told him she could not pay him, and she dreaded his coming. It was the first of July on which Bobby caught those pouts, caught the horse, and on which Tom Spicer had "caught a Tartar." Bobby hastened home, as we said at the conclusion of the last chapter. He was as happy as a lord. He had fish enough in his basket for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning, and money enough in his pocket to make his mother as happy as a queen, if queens are always happy. The widow Bright, though she had worried and fretted night and day about the money which was to be paid to Mr. Hardhand on the first of July, had not told her son any thing about it. It would only make him unhappy, she reasoned, and it was needless to make the dear boy miserable for nothing; so Bobby ran home all unconscious of the pleasure which was in store for him. When he reached the front door, as he stopped to scrape his feet on the sharp stone there, as all considerate boys who love their mothers do, before they go into the house, he heard the angry tones of Mr. Hardhand. He was scolding and abusing his mother because she could not pay him the twenty-five dollars. Bobby's blood boiled with indignation, and his first impulse was to serve him as he had served Tom Spicer, only a few moments before; but Bobby, as we have before intimated, was a peaceful boy, and not disposed to quarrel with any person; so he contented himself with muttering a few hard words. "The wretch! What business has he to talk to my mother in that style?" said he to himself. "I have a great mind to kick him out of the house." But Bobby's better judgment came to his aid; and perhaps he realized that he and his mother would only get kicked out in return. He could battle with Mr. Hardhand, but not with the power which his wealth gave him; so, like a great many older persons in similar circumstances, he took counsel of prudence rather than impulse. "Bear ye one another's burdens," saith the Scripture; but Bobby was not old enough or astute enough to realize that Mr. Hardhand's burden was his wealth, his love of money; that it made him little better than a Hottentot; and he could not feel as charitably towards him as a Christian should towards his erring, weak brother. Setting his pole by the door, he entered the room where Hardhand was abusing his mother. CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH BOBBY GETS OUT OF ONE SCRAPE, AND INTO ANOTHER. Bobby was so indignant at the conduct of Mr. Hardhand, that he entirely forgot the adventure of the morning; and he did not even think of the gold he had in his pocket. He loved his mother; he knew how hard she had worked for him and his brother and sisters; that she had burned the "midnight oil" at her clamps; and it made him feel very bad to near her abused as Mr. Hardhand was abusing her. It was not her fault that she had not the money to pay him. She had been obliged to spend a large portion of her time over the sick beds of her children, so that she could not earn so much money as usual; while the family expenses were necessarily much greater. Bobby knew also that Mr. Hardhand was aware of all the circumstances of his mother's position, and the more he considered the case the more brutal and inhuman was his course. As our hero entered the family room with the basket of fish on his arm, the little crusty old man fixed the glance of his evil eye upon him. "There is that boy, marm, idling away his time by the river, and eating you out of house and home," said the wretch. "Why don't you set him to work, and make him earn something?" "Bobby is a very good boy," meekly responded the widow Bright. "Humph! I should think he was. A great lazy lubber like him, living on his mother!" and Mr. Hardhand looked contemptuously at Bobby. "I am not a lazy lubber," interposed the insulted boy with spirit. "Yes, you are. Why don't you go to work?" "I do work." "No, you don't; you waste your time paddling in the river." "I don't." "You had better teach this boy manners too, marm," said the creditor, who, like all men of small souls, was willing to take advantage of the power which the widow's indebtedness gave him. "He is saucy." "I should like to know who taught you manners, Mr. Hardhand," replied Bobby, whose indignation was rapidly getting the better of his discretion. "What!" growled Mr. Hardhand, aghast at this unwonted boldness. "I heard what you said before I came in; and no decent man would go to the house of a poor woman to insult her." "Humph! Mighty fine," snarled the little old man, his gray eyes twinkling with malice. "Don't Bobby; don't be saucy to the gentleman," interposed his mother. "Saucy, marm? You ought to horsewhip him for it. If you don't, I will." "No, you won't!" replied Bobby, shaking his head significantly. "I can take care of myself." "Did any one ever hear such impudence!" gasped Mr. Hardhand. "Don't, Bobby, don't," pleaded the anxious mother. "I should like to know what right you have to come here and abuse my mother," continued Bobby, who could not restrain his anger. "Your mother owes me money, and she don't pay it, you young scoundrel!" answered Mr. Hardhand, foaming with rage. "That is no reason why you should insult her. You can call _me_ what you please, but you shall not insult my mother while I'm round." "Your mother is a miserable woman, and--" "Say that again, and though you are an old man, I'll hit you for it. I'm big enough to protect my mother, and I'll do it." Bobby doubled up his fists and edged up to Mr. Hardhand, fully determined to execute his threat if he repeated the offensive expression, or any other of a similar import. He was roused to the highest pitch of anger, and felt as though he had just as lief die as live in defence of his mother's good name. I am not sure that I could excuse Bobby's violence under any other circumstances. He loved his mother--as the novelists would say, he idolized her; and Mr. Hardhand had certainly applied some very offensive epithets to her--epithets which no good son could calmly bear applied to a mother. Besides, Bobby, though his heart was a large one, and was in the right place, had never been educated into those nice distinctions of moral right and wrong which control the judgment of wise and learned men. He had an idea that violence, resistance with blows, was allowable in certain extreme cases; and he could conceive of no greater provocation than an insult to his mother. "Be calm, Bobby; you are in a passion," said Mrs. Bright. "I am surprised, marm," began Mr. Hardhand, who prudently refrained from repeating the offensive language--and I have no doubt he was surprised; for he looked both astonished and alarmed. "This boy has a most ungovernable temper." "Don't you worry about my temper, Mr. Hardhand; I'll take care of myself. All I want of you is not to insult my mother. You may say what you like to me; but don't you call her hard names." Mr. Hardhand, like all mean, little men, was a coward; and he was effectually intimidated by the bold and manly conduct of the boy. He changed his tone and manner at once. "You have no money for me, marm?" said he, edging towards the door. "No, sir; I am sorry to say that I have been able to save only five dollars since I paid you last; but I hope--" "Never mind, marm, never mind; I shall not trouble myself to come here again, where I am liable to be kicked by this ill-bred cub. No, marm, I shall not come again. Let the law take its course." "O, mercy! See what you have brought upon us, Bobby," exclaimed Mrs. Bright, bursting into tears. "Yes, marm, let the law take its course." "O Bobby! Stop a moment, Mr. Hardhand; do stop a moment." "Not a moment, marm. We'll see;" and Mr. Hardhand placed his hand upon the latch string. Bobby felt very uneasy, and very unhappy at that moment. His passion had subsided, and he realized that he had done a great deal of mischief by his impetuous conduct. Then the remembrance of his morning, adventure on the bridge came like a flash of sunshine to his mind, and he eagerly drew from his pocket the handkerchief in which he had deposited the precious gold,--doubly precious now, because it would enable him to retrieve the error into which he had fallen, and do something towards relieving his mother's embarrassment. With a trembling hand he untied the knot which secured the money. "Here, mother, here is thirty-five dollars;" and he placed it in her hand. "Why, Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Bright. "Pay him, mother, pay him, and I will tell you all about it by and by." "Thirty-five dollars! and all in gold! Where did you get it, Bobby?" "Never mind it now, mother." Mr. Hardhand's covetous soul had already grasped the glittering gold; and removing his hand from the latch string, he approached the widow. "I shall be able to pay you forty dollars now," said Mrs. Bright, taking the five dollars she had saved from her pocket. "Yes, marm." Mr. Hardhand took the money, and seating himself at the table, indorsed the amount on the back of the note. "You owe me sixty more," said he, maliciously, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "It must be paid immediately." "You must not be hard with me now, when I have paid more than you demanded." "I don't wish to come here again. That boy's impudence has put me all out of conceit with you and your family," replied Mr. Hardhand, assuming the most benevolent look he could command. "There was a time when I was very willing to help you. I have waited a great while for my pay for this house; a great deal longer than I would have waited for anybody else." "Your interest has always been paid punctually," suggested the widow, modestly. "That's true; but very few people would have waited as long as I have for the principal. I wanted to help you--" "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, interrupting him. "Don't be saucy, my son, don't," said Mrs. Bright, fearing a repetition of the former scene. "_He_ wanted to help us!" ejaculated Bobby. It was a very absurd and hypocritical expression on the part of Mr. Hardhand; for he never wanted to help any one but himself; and during the whole period of his relations with the poor widow, he had oppressed, insulted, and abused her to the extent of his capacity, or at least as far as his interest would permit. He was a malicious and revengeful man. He did not consider the great provocation he had given Bobby for his violent conduct, but determined to be revenged, if it could be accomplished without losing any part of the sixty dollars still due him. He was a wicked man at heart, and would not scruple to turn the widow and her family out of house and home. Mrs. Bright knew this, and Bobby knew it too; and they felt very uneasy about it. The wretch still had the power to injure them, and he would use it without compunction. "Yes, young man, I wanted to help you, and you see what I get for it--contempt and insults! You will hear from me again in a day or two. Perhaps you will change your tune, you young reprobate!" "Perhaps I shall," replied Bobby, without much discretion. "And you too, marm; you uphold him in his treatment of me. You have not done your duty to him. You have been remiss, marm!" continued Mr. Hardhand, growing bolder again, as he felt the power he wielded. "That will do, sir; you can go!" said Bobby, springing from his chair, and approaching Mr. Hardhand. "Go, and do your worst!" "Humph! you stump me--do you?" "I would rather see my mother kicked out of the house than insulted by such a dried-up old curmudgeon as you are. Go along!" "Now, don't, Bobby," pleaded his mother. "I am going; and if the money is not paid by twelve o'clock to-morrow, the law shall lake its course;" and Mr. Hardhand rushed out of the house, slamming the door violently after him. "O Bobby, what have you done?" exclaimed Mrs. Bright, when the hard-hearted creditor had departed. "I could not help it, mother; don't cry. I cannot bear to hear you insulted and abused; and I thought when I heard him do it a year ago, that I couldn't stand it again. It is too bad." "But he will turn us out of the house; and what shall we do then?" "Don't cry, mother; it will come round all right. I have friends who are rich and powerful, and who will help us." "You don't know what you say, Bobby. Sixty dollars is a great deal of money, and if we should sell all we have, it would scarcely bring that." "Leave it all to me, mother; I feel as though I could do something now. I am old enough to make money." "What can you do?" "Now or never!" replied Bobby, whose mind had wandered from the scene to the busy world, where fortunes are made and lost every day. "Now or never!" muttered he again. "But Bobby, you have not told me where you got all that gold." "Dinner is ready, I see, and I will tell you while we eat." Bobby had been a fishing, and to be hungry is a part of the fisherman's luck; so he seated himself at the table, and gave his mother a full account of all that had occurred at the bridge. The fond mother trembled when she realized the peril her son had incurred for the sake of the young lady; but her maternal heart swelled with admiration in view of the generous deed, and she thanked God that she was the mother of such a son. She felt more confidence in him then than she had ever felt before, and she realized that he would be the stay and the staff of her declining years. Bobby finished his dinner, and seated himself on the front door step. His mind was absorbed, by a new and brilliant idea; and for half an hour he kept up a most tremendous thinking. "Now or never!" said he, as he rose and walked down the road towards Riverdale Centre. CHAPTER V. IN WHICH BOBBY GIVES HIS NOTE FOR SIXTY DOLLARS. A great idea was born in Bobby's brain. His mother's weakness and the insecurity of her position were more apparent to him than they had ever been before. She was in the power of her creditor, who might turn her out of the little black house, sell the place at auction, and thus, perhaps, deprive her of the whole or a large part of his father's and her own hard earnings. But this was not the peculiar hardship of her situation, as her devoted son understood it. It was not the hard work alone which she was called upon to perform, not the coarseness of the fare upon which they lived, not the danger even of being turned out of doors, that distressed Bobby; it was that a wretch like Mr. Hardhand could insult and trample upon his mother. He had just heard him use language to her that made his blood boil with indignation, and he did not, on cool, sober, second thought, regret that he had taken such a decided stand against it. He cared not for himself. He could live on a crust of bread and a cup of water from the spring; he could sleep in a barn; he could wear coarse and even ragged clothes; but he could not submit to have his mother insulted, and by such a mean and contemptible person as Mr. Hardhand. Yet what could he do? He was but a boy, and the great world would look with contempt upon his puny form. But he felt that he was not altogether insignificant. He had performed an act, that day, which the fair young lady, to whom he had rendered the service, had declared very few men would have undertaken. There was something in him, something that would come out, if he only put his best foot forward. It was a tower of strength within him. It told him that he could do wonders; that he could go out into the world and accomplish all that would be required to free his mother from debt, and relieve her from the severe drudgery of her life. A great many people think they can "do wonders." The vanity of some very silly people makes them think they can command armies, govern nations, and teach the world what the world never knew before, and never would know but for them. But Bobby's something within him was not vanity. It was something more substantial. He was not thinking of becoming a great man, a great general, a great ruler, or a great statesman; not even of making a great fortune. Self was not the idol and the end of his calculations. He was thinking of his mother, and only of her; and the feeling within him was as pure, and holy, and beautiful as the dream of an angel. He wanted to save his mother from insult in the first place, and from a life of ceaseless drudgery in the second. A legion of angels seemed to have encamped in his soul to give him strength for the great purpose in his mind. His was a holy and a true purpose, and it was this that made him think he could "do wonders." What Bobby intended to do the reader shall know in due time. It is enough now that he meant to do something. The difficulty with a great many people is, that they never resolve to do something. They wait for "something to turn up;" and as "things" are often very obstinate, they utterly refuse to "turn up" at all. Their lives are spent in waiting for a golden opportunity which never comes. Now, Bobby Bright repudiated the Micawber philosophy. He would have nothing to do with it. He did not believe corn would grow without being planted, or that pouts would bite the bare hook. I am not going to tell my young readers now how Bobby made out in the end; but I can confidently say that, if he had waited for "something to turn up," he would have become a vagabond, a loafer, out of money, out at the elbows, and out of patience with himself and all the world. It was "now or never" with Bobby. He meant to do something; and after he had made up his mind how and where it was to be done, it was no use to stand thinking about it, like the pendulum of the "old clock which had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint." Bobby walked down the road towards the village with a rapid step. He was thinking very fast, and probably that made him step quick. But as he approached Squire Lee's house, his pace slackened, and he seemed to be very uneasy. When he reached the great gate that led up to the house, he stopped for an instant, and thrust his hands down very deep into his trousers pockets. I cannot tell what the trousers pockets had to do with what he was thinking about; but if he was searching for any thing in them, he did not find it; for after an instant's hesitation he drew out his hands, struck one of them against his chest, and in an audible voice exclaimed,-- "Now or never." All this pantomime, I suppose, meant that Bobby had some misgivings as to the ultimate success of his mission at Squire Lee's, and that when he struck his breast and uttered his favorite expression, they were conquered and driven out. Marching with a bold and determined step up to the squire's back door--Bobby's idea of etiquette would not have answered for the meridian of fashionable society--he gave three smart raps. Bobby's heart beat a little wildly as he waited a response to his summons. It seemed that he still had some doubts as to the practicability of his mission; but they were not permitted to disturb him long, for the door was opened by the Squire's pretty daughter Annie, a young miss of twelve. "O Bobby, is it you? I am so glad you have come!" exclaimed the little lady. Bobby blushed--he didn't know why, unless it was that the young lady desired to see him. He stammered out a reply, and for the moment forgot the object of his visit. "I want you to go down to the village for me, and get some books the expressman was to bring up from Boston for me. Will you go?" "Certainly, Miss Annie, I shall be very glad to go for _you_," replied Bobby with an emphasis that made the little maiden blush in her turn. "You are real good, Bobby; but I will give you something for going." "I don't want any thing," said Bobby, stoutly. "You are too generous! Ah, I heard what you did this forenoon; and pa says that a great many men would not have dared to do what you did. I always thought you were as brave as a lion; now I know it." "The books are at the express office, I suppose," said Bobby, turning as red as a blood beet. "Yes, Bobby; I am so anxious to get them that I can't wait till pa goes down this evening." "I will not be gone long." "O, you needn't run, Bobby; take your time." "I will go very quick. But, Miss Annie, is your father at home?" "Not now; he has gone over to the wood lot; but he will be back by the time you return." "Will you please to tell him that I want to see him about something very particular, when he gets back?" "I will, Bobby." "Thank you, Miss Annie;" and Bobby hastened to the village to execute his commission. "I wonder what he wants to see pa so very particularly for," said the young lady to herself, as she watched his receding form. "In my opinion, something has happened, at the little black house, for I could see that he looked very sober." Either Bobby had a very great regard for the young lady, and wished to relieve her impatience to behold the coveted books, or he was in a hurry to see Squire Lee; for the squire's old roan horse could hardly have gone quicker. "You should not have run, Bobby," said the little maiden when he placed the books in her hand; "I would not have asked you to go if I had thought you would run all the way. You must be very tired." "Not at all; I didn't run, only walked very quick," replied he; but his quick breathing indicated that his words or his walk had been very much exaggerated. "Has your father returned?" "He has; he is waiting for you in the sitting room. Come in, Bobby." Bobby followed her into the room, and took the chair which Annie offered him. "How do you do, Bobby? I am glad to see you," said the squire, taking him by the hand, and bestowing a benignant smile upon him--a smile which cheered his heart more than any thing else could at that moment. "I have heard of you before to-day." "Have you?" "I have, Bobby; you are a brave little fellow." "I came over to see you, sir, about something very particular," replied Bobby, whose natural modesty induced him to change the topic. "Indeed; well, what can I do for you?" "A great deal, sir; perhaps you will think I am very bold, sir, but I can't help it." "I know you are a very bold little fellow, or you would not have done what you did this forenoon," laughed the squire. "I didn't mean that, sir," answered Bobby, blushing up to the eyes. "I know you didn't; but go on." "I only meant that you would think me presuming, or impudent, or something of that kind." "O, no, far from it. You cannot be presuming or impudent. Speak out, Bobby; any thing under the heavens that I can do for you, I shall be glad to do." "Well, sir, I am going to leave Riverdale." "Leave Riverdale!" "Yes, sir; I am going to Boston, where I mean to do something to help mother." "Bravo! you are a good lad. What do you mean to do?" "I was thinking I should go into the book business." "Indeed!" and Squire Lee was much amused by the matter-of-fact manner of the young aspirant. "I was talking with a young fellow who went through the place last spring, selling books. He told me that some days he made three or four dollars, and that he averaged twelve dollars a week." "He did well; perhaps, though, only a few of them make so much." "I know I can make twelve dollars a week," replied Bobby, confidently, for that something within him made him feel capable of great things. "I dare say you can. You have energy and perseverance, and people take a liking to you." "But I wanted to see you about another matter. To speak out at once, I want to borrow sixty dollars of you;" and Bobby blushed, and seemed very much embarrassed by his own boldness. "Sixty dollars!" exclaimed the squire. "I knew you would think me impudent," replied our hero, his heart sinking within him. "But I don't, Bobby. You want this money to go into business with--to buy your stock of books?" "O, no, sir; I am going to apply to Mr. Bayard for that." "Just so; Mr. Bayard is the gentleman whose daughter you saved?" "Yes, sir. I want this money to pay off Mr. Hardhand. We owe him but sixty dollars now, and he has threatened to turn us out, if it is not paid by tomorrow noon." "The old hunks!" Bobby briefly related to the squire the events or the morning, much to the indignation and disgust of the honest, kind-hearted man. The courageous boy detailed more clearly his purpose, and doubted not he should be able to pay the loan in a few months. "Very well, Bobby, here is the money;" and the squire took it from his wallet, and gave it to him. "Thank you, sir. May Heaven bless you! I shall certainly pay you." "Don't worry about it, Bobby. Pay it when you get ready." "I will give you my note, and--" The squire laughed heartily at this, and told him, that, as he was a minor, his note was not good for any thing. "You shall see whether it is, or not," returned Bobby. "Let me give it to you, at least, so that we can tell how much I owe you from time to time." "You shall have your own way." Annie Lee, as much amused as her father at Bobby's big talk, got the writing materials, and the little merchant in embryo wrote and signed the note. "Good, Bobby! Now promise that you will come and see me every time you come home, and tell me how you are getting along." "I will, sir, with the greatest pleasure;" and with a light heart Bobby tripped away home. CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH BOBBY SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS. Squire Lee, though only a plain farmer, was the richest man in Riverdale. He had taken a great fancy to Bobby, and often employed him to do errands, ride the horse to plough in the cornfields, and such chores about the place as a boy could do. He liked to talk with Bobby because there was a great deal of good sense in him, for one with a small head. If there was any one thing upon which the squire particularly prided himself, it was his knowledge of human nature. He declared that he only wanted to look a man in the face to know what he was; and as for Bobby Bright, he had summered him and wintered him, and he was satisfied that he would make something in good time. He was not much astonished when Bobby opened his ambitious scheme of going into business for himself. But he had full faith in his ability to work out a useful and profitable, if not a brilliant life. He often said that Bobby was worth his weight in gold, and that he would trust him with any thing he had. Perhaps he did not suspect that the time was at hand when he would be called upon to verify his words practically; for it was only that morning, when one of the neighbors told him about Bobby's stopping the horse, that he had repeated the expression for the twentieth time. It was not an idle remark. Sixty dollars was hardly worth mentioning with a man of his wealth and liberal views, though so careful a man as he was would not have been likely to throw away that amount. But as a matter of investment,--Bobby had made the note read "with interest,"--he would as readily have let him have it, as the next richest man in the place, so much confidence had he in our hero's integrity, and so sure was he that he would soon have the means of paying him. Bobby was overjoyed at the fortunate issue of his mission, and he walked into the room where his mother was closing shoes, with a dignity worthy a banker or a great merchant. Mrs. Bright was very sad. Perhaps she felt a little grieved that her son, whom she loved so much, had so thoughtlessly plunged her into a new difficulty. "Come, cheer up, mother; it is all right," said Bobby in his usual elastic and gay tones; and at the same time he took the sixty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. "There is the money, and you will be forever quit of Mr. Hardhand to-morrow." "What, Bobby! Why, where did you get all this money?" asked Mrs. Bright, utterly astonished. In a few words the ambitious boy told his story, and then informed his mother that he was going to Boston the next Monday morning, to commence business for himself. "Why, what can you do, Bobby?" "Do? I can do a great many things;" and he unfolded his scheme of becoming a little book merchant. "You are a courageous fellow! Who would have thought of such a thing?" "I should, and did." "But you are not old enough." "O, yes, I am." "You had better wait a while." "Now or never, mother! You see I have given my note, and my paper will be dishonored, if I am not up and doing." "Your paper!" said Mrs. Bright, with a smile. "That is what Mr. Wing, the boot manufacturer, calls it." "You needn't go away to earn this money; I can pay it myself." "This note is my affair, and I mean to pay it myself with my own earnings. No objections, mother." Like a sensible woman as she was, she did not make any objections. She was conscious of Bobby's talents; she knew that he had a strong mind of his own, and could take care of himself. It is true, she feared the influence of the great world, and especially of the great city, upon the tender mind of her son; but if he was never tempted, he would never be a conqueror over the foes that beset him. She determined to do her whole duty towards him, and she carefully pointed out to him the sins and the moral danger to which he would be exposed, and warned him always to resist temptation. She counselled him to think of her when he felt like going astray. Bobby declared that he would try to be a good boy. He did not speak contemptuously of the anticipated perils, as many boys would have done, because he knew that his mother would not make bugbears out of things which she knew had no real existence. The next day, Mr. Hardhand came; and my young readers can judge how astonished and chagrined he was, when the widow Bright offered him the sixty dollars. The Lord was with the widow and the fatherless, and the wretch was cheated out of his revenge. The note was given up, and the mortgage cancelled. Mr. Hardhand insisted that she should pay the interest on the sixty dollars for one day, as it was then the second day of July; but when Bobby reckoned it up, and found it was less than one cent, even the wretched miser seemed ashamed of himself, and changed the subject of conversation. He did not dare to say any thing saucy to the widow this time. He had lost his power over her, and there stood Bobby, who had come to look just like a young lion to him, coward and knave as he was. The business was all settled now, and Bobby spent the rest of the week in getting ready for his great enterprise. He visited all his friends, and went each day to talk with Squire Lee and Annie. The little maiden promised to buy a great many books of him, if he would bring his stock to Riverdale, for she was quite as much interested in him as her father was. Monday morning came, and Bobby was out of bed with the first streak of dawn. The excitement of the great event which was about to happen had not permitted him to sleep for the two hours preceding; yet when he got up, he could not help feeling sad. He was going to leave the little black house, going to leave his mother, going to leave the children, to depart for the great city. His mother was up before him. She was even more sad than he was, for she could see plainer than he the perils that environed him, and her maternal heart, in spite of the reasonable confidence she had in his integrity and good principles, trembled for his safety. As he ate his breakfast, his mother repeated the warnings and the good lessons she had before imparted. She particularly cautioned him to keep out of bad company. If he found that his companions would lie and swear, he might depend upon it they would steal, and he had better forsake them at once. This was excellent advice, and Bobby had occasion at a later period to call it to his sorrowing heart. "Here is three dollars, Bobby; it is all the money I have. Your fare to Boston will be one dollar, and you will have two left to pay the expenses of your first trip. It is all I have now," said Mrs. Bright. "I will not take the whole of it. You will want it yourself. One dollar is enough. When I find Mr. Bayard, I shall do very well." "Yes, Bobby, take the whole of it." "I will take just one dollar, and no more," replied Bobby, resolutely, as he handed her the other two dollars. "Do take it, Bobby." "No, mother; it will only make me lazy and indifferent." Taking a clean shirt, a pair of socks, and a handkerchief in his bundle, he was ready for a start. "Good by, mother," said he, kissing her and taking her hand. "I shall try and come home on Saturday, so as to be with you on Sunday." Then kissing the children, who had not yet got up, and to whom he had bidden adieu the night before, he left the house. He had seen the flood of tears that filled his mother's eyes, as he crossed the threshold; and he could not help crying a little himself. It is a sad thing to leave one's home, one's mother, especially, to go out into the great world; and we need not wonder that Bobby, who had hardly been out of Riverdale before, should weep. But he soon restrained the flowing tears. "Now or never!" said he, and he put his best foot forward. It was an epoch in his history, and though he was too young to realize the importance of the event, he seemed to feel that what he did now was to give character to his whole future life. It was a bright and beautiful morning--somehow, it is always a bright and beautiful morning when boys leave their homes to commence the journey of life; it is typical of the season of youth and hope, and it is meet that the sky should be clear, and the sun shine brightly, when the little pilgrim sets out upon his tour. He will see clouds and storms before he has gone far--let him have a fair start. He had to walk five miles to the nearest railroad station. His road lay by the house of his friend, Squire Lee; and as he was approaching it, he met Annie. She said she had come out to take her morning walk; but Bobby knew very well that she did not usually walk till an hour later; which, with the fact that she had asked him particularly, the day before, what time he was going, made Bobby believe that she had come out to say good by, and bid him God speed on his journey. At any rate, he was very glad to see her. He said a great many pretty things to her, and talked so big about what he was going to do, that the little maiden could hardly help laughing in his face. Then at the house he shook hands with the squire and shook hands again with Annie, and resumed his journey. His heart felt lighter for having met them, or at least for having met one of them, if not both; for Annie's eyes were so full of sunshine that they seemed to gladden his heart, and make him feel truer and stronger. After a pleasant walk, for he scarcely heeded the distance, so full was he of his big thoughts, he reached the railroad station. The cars had not yet arrived, and would not for half an hour. "Why should I give them a dollar for carrying me to Boston, when I can just as well walk? If I get tired, I can sit down and rest me. If I save the dollar, I shall have to earn only fifty-nine more to pay my note. So here goes;" and he started down the track. CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH BOBBY STANDS UP FOR "CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS." Whether it was wise policy, or "penny wise and pound foolish" policy for Bobby to undertake such a long walk, is certainly a debatable question; but as my young readers would probably object to an argument, we will follow him to the city, and let every one settle the point to suit himself. His cheerful heart made the road smooth beneath his feet. He had always been accustomed to an active, busy life, and had probably often walked more than twenty miles in a day. About ten o'clock, though he did not feel much fatigued, he seated himself on a rock by a brook from which he had just taken a drink, to rest himself. He had walked slowly so as to husband his strength; and he felt confident that he should be able to accomplish the journey without injury to himself. After resting for half an hour, he resumed his walk. At twelve o'clock he reached a point from which he obtained his first view of the city. His heart bounded at the sight, and his first impulse was to increase his speed so that he should the sooner gratify his curiosity; but a second thought reminded him that he had eaten nothing since breakfast; so, finding a shady tree by the road side, he seated himself on a stone to eat the luncheon which his considerate mother had placed in his bundle. Thus refreshed, he felt like a new man, and continued his journey again till he was on the very outskirts of the city, where a sign, "No passing over this bridge," interrupted his farther progress. Unlike many others, Bobby took this sign literally, and did not venture to cross the bridge. Having some doubts as to the direct road to the city, he hailed a man in a butcher's cart, who not only pointed the way, but gave him an invitation to ride with him, which Bobby was glad to accept. They crossed the Milldam, and the little pilgrim forgot the long walk he had taken--forgot Riverdale, his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie, for the time, in the absorbing interest of the exciting scene. The Common beat Riverdale Common all hollow; he had never seen any thing like it before. But when the wagon reached Washington Street, the measure of his surprise was filled up. "My gracious! how thick the houses are!" exclaimed he, much to the amusement of the kind-hearted butcher. "We have high fences here," he replied. "Where are all these folks going to?" "You will have to ask them, if you want to know." But the wonder soon abated, and Bobby began to think of his great mission in the city. He got tired of gazing and wondering, and even began to smile with contempt at the silly fops as they sauntered along, and the gayly-dressed ladies, that flaunted like so many idle butterflies, on the sidewalk. It was an exciting scene; but it did not look real to him. It was more like Herr Grunderslung's exhibition of the magic lantern, than any thing substantial. The men and women were like so many puppets. They did not seem to be doing any thing, or to be walking for any purpose. He got out of the butcher's cart at the Old South. His first impression, as he joined the busy throng, was, that he was one of the puppets. He did not seem to have any hold upon the scene, and for several minutes this sensation of vacancy chained him to the spot. "All right!" exclaimed he to himself at last. "I am here. Now's my time to make a strike. Now or never." He pulled Mr. Bayard's card from his pocket, and fixed the number of his store in his mind. Now, numbers were not a Riverdale institution, and Bobby was a little perplexed about finding the one indicated. A little study into the matter, however, set him right, and he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the bookseller's name over his store. "F. Bayard," he read; "this is the place." "Country!" shouted a little ragged boy, who dodged across the street at that moment. "Just so, my beauty!" said Bobby, a little nettled at this imputation of verdancy. "What a greeny!" shouted the little vagabond from the other side of the street. "No matter, rag-tag! We'll settle that matter some other time." But Bobby felt that there was something in his appearance which subjected him to the remarks of others, and as he entered the shop, he determined to correct it as soon as possible. A spruce young gentleman was behind the counter, who cast a mischievous glance at him as he entered. "Mr. Bayard keep here?" asked Bobby. "Well, I reckon he does. How are all the folks up country?" replied the spruce clerk, with a rude grin. "How are they?" repeated Bobby, the color flying to his cheek. "Yes, ha-ow do they dew?" "They behave themselves better than they do here." "Eh, greeny?" "Eh, sappy?" repeated Bobby, mimicking the soft, silky tones of the young city gentleman. "What do you mean by sappy?" asked the clerk, indignantly. "What do you mean by greeny?" "I'll let you know what I mean!" "When you do, I'll let you know what I mean by sappy." "Good!" exclaimed one of the salesmen, who had heard part of this spirited conversation. "You will learn better by and by, Timmins, than to impose upon boys from out of town." "You seem to be a gentleman, sir," said Bobby, approaching the salesman. "I wish to see Mr. Bayard." "You can't see him!" growled Timmins. "Can't I?" "Not at this minute; he is engaged just now," added the salesman, who seemed to have a profound respect for Bobby's discrimination. "He will be at liberty in a few moments." "I will wait, then," said Bobby, seating himself on a stool by the counter. Pretty soon the civil gentleman left the store to go to dinner, and Timmins, a little timid about provoking the young lion, cast an occasional glance of hatred at him. He had evidently found that "Country" was an embryo American citizen, and that he was a firm believer in the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Bobby bore no ill will towards the spruce clerk, ready as he had been to defend his "certain inalienable rights." "You do a big business here," suggested Bobby, in a conciliatory tone, and with a smile on his face which ought to have convinced the uncourteous clerk that he meant well. "Who told you so?" replied Timmins, gruffly. "I merely judged from appearances. You have a big store, and an immense quantity of books." "Appearances are deceitful," replied Timmins; and perhaps he had been impressed by the fact from his experience with the lad from the country. "That is true," added Bobby, with a good-natured smile, which, when interpreted, might have meant, "I took you for a civil fellow, but I have been very much mistaken." "You will find it out before you are many days older." "The book business is good just now, isn't it?" continued Bobby, without clearly comprehending the meaning of the other's last remark. "Humph! What's that to you?" "O, I intend to go into it myself." "Ha, ha, ha! Good! You do?" "I do," replied Bobby, seemingly unconcerned at the taunts of the clerk. "I suppose you want to get a place here," sneered Timmins, alarmed at the prospect. "But let me tell you, you can't do it. Bayard has all the help he wants; and if that is what you come for, you can move on as fast as you please." "I guess I will see him," added Bobby quietly. "No use." "No harm in seeing him." As he spoke he took up a book that lay on the counter, and began to turn over the leaves. "Put that book down!" said the amiable Mr. Timmins. "I won't hurt it," replied Bobby, who had just fixed his eye upon some very pretty engravings in the volume. "Put it down!" repeated Mr. Timmins, in a loud, imperative tone. "Certainly I will, if you say so," said Bobby, who, though not much intimidated by the harsh tones of the clerk, did not know the rules of the store, and deemed it prudent not to meddle. "I _do_ say so!" added Mr. Timmins, magnificently; "and what's more, you'd better mind me, too." Bobby had minded, and probably the stately little clerk would not have been so bold if he had not. Some people like to threaten after the danger is over. Then our visitor from the country espied some little blank books lying on the counter. He had already made up his mind to have one, in which to keep his accounts; and he thought, while he was waiting, that he would purchase one. He meant to do things methodically; so when he picked up one of the blank books, it was with the intention of buying it. "Put that book down!" said Mr. Timmins, encouraged in his aggressive intentions by the previous docility of our hero. "I want to buy one." "No, you don't: put it down.". "What is the price of these?" asked Bobby, resolutely. "None of your business!" CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH MR. TIMMINS IS ASTONISHED, AND BOBBY DINES IN CHESTNUT STREET. It was Mr. Bayard. He had finished his business with the gentleman by his side, and hearing the noise of the scuffle, had come to learn the occasion of it. "This impudent young puppy wouldn't let the books alone!" began Mr. Timmins. "I threatened to turn him out if he didn't; and I meant to make good my threat. I think he meant to steal something." Bobby was astonished and shocked at this bold imputation; but he wished to have his case judged on its own merits; so he turned his face away, that Mr. Bayard might not recognize him. "I wanted to buy one of these blank books," added Bobby, picking up the one he had dropped on the floor in the struggle. "All stuff!" ejaculated Timmins. "He is an impudent, obstinate puppy! In my opinion he meant to steal that book." "I asked him the price, and told him I wanted to buy it," added Bobby, still averting his face. "Well, I told him; and he said it was too high." "He asked me twenty-five cents for it." "Is this true, Timmins?" asked Mr. Bayard, sternly. "No, sir, I told him fourpence," replied Timmins boldly. "By gracious! What a whopper!" exclaimed Bobby, startled out of his propriety by this monstrous lie. "He said twenty-five cents; and I told him I could buy one up in Riverdale, where I came from, for six cents. Can you deny that?" "It's a lie!" protested Timmins. "Riverdale," said Mr. Bayard. "Are you from Riverdale, boy?" "Yes, sir, I am; and if you will look on your memorandum book you will find my name there." "Bless me! I am sure I have seen that face before," exclaimed Mr. Bayard, as he grasped the hand of Bobby, much to the astonishment and consternation of Mr. Timmins. You are--" "Robert Bright, sir." "My brave little fellow! I am heartily glad to see you;" and the bookseller shook the hand he held with hearty good will. "I was thinking of you only a little while ago." "This fellow calls me a liar," said Bobby, pointing to the astonished Mr. Timmins, who did not know what to make of the cordial reception which "Country" was receiving from his employer. "Well, Robert, we know that he is a liar; this is not the first time he has, been caught in a lie. Timmins, your time is out." The spruce clerk hung his head with shame and mortification. "I hope, sir, you will--" he began, but pride or fear stopped him short. "Don't be hard with him, sir, if you please," said Bobby. "I suppose I aggravated him." Mr. Bayard looked at the gentleman who stood by his side, and a smile of approbation lighted up his face. "Generous as he is noble! Butler, this is the boy that saved Ellen." "Indeed! He is a little giant!" replied Mr. Butler, grasping Bobby's hand. Even Timmins glanced with something like admiration in his looks at the youth whom he had so lately despised. Perhaps, too, he thought of that Scripture wisdom about entertaining angels unawares. He was very much abashed, and nothing but his silly pride prevented him from acknowledging his error, and begging Bobby's forgiveness. "I can't have a liar about me," said Mr. Bayard. "There may be some mistake," suggested Mr. Butler. "I think not. Robert Bright couldn't lie. So brave and noble a boy is incapable of a falsehood. Besides, I got a letter from my friend Squire Lee by this morning's mail, in which he informed me of my young friend's coming." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket a bundle of letters, and selected the squire's from among them. Opening it, he read a passage which had a direct bearing upon the case before him. "'I do not know what Bobby's faults are,'"--the letter said,--"'but this I do know: that Bobby would rather be whipped than tell a lie. He is noted through the place for his love of truth.'--That is pretty strong testimony; and you see, Bobby,--that's what the squire calls you,--your reputation has preceded you." Bobby blushed, as he always did when he was praised, and Mr. Timmins was more abashed than ever. "Did you hear that, Timmins? Who is the liar now?" said Mr. Bayard, turning to the culprit. "Forgive me, sir, this time. If you turn me off now, I cannot get another place, and my mother depends upon my wages." "You ought to have thought of this before." "He aggravated me, sir, so that I wanted to pay him off." "As to that, he commenced upon me the moment I came into the store. But don't turn him off, if you please, sir," said Bobby, who even now wished no harm to his discomfited assailant. "He will do better hereafter: won't you, Timmins?" Thus appealed to, Timmins, though he did not relish so direct an inquiry, and from such a source, was compelled to reply in the affirmative; and Mr. Bayard graciously remitted the sentence he had passed against the offending clerk. "Now, Robert, you will come over to my house and dine with me. Ellen will be delighted to see you." "Thank you, sir," replied Bobby, bashfully, "I have been to dinner",--referring to the luncheon he had eaten at Brighton. "But you must go to the house with me." "I should be very glad to do so, sir, but I came on business. I will stay here with Mr. Timmins till you come back." The truth is, he had heard something about the fine houses of the city, and how stylish the people were, and he had some misgivings about venturing into such a strange and untried scene as the parlor of a Boston merchant. "Indeed, you must come with me. Ellen would never forgive you or me, if you do not come." "I would rather rest here till you return," replied Bobby, still willing to escape the fine house and the fine folks. "I walked from Riverdale, sir, and I am rather tired." "Walked!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "Had you no money?" "Yes, sir, enough to pay my passage; but Dr. Franklin says that 'a penny saved is a penny earned,' and I thought I would try it. I shall get rested by the time you return." "But you must go with me. Timmins, go and get a carriage." Timmins obeyed, and before Mr. Bayard had finished asking Bobby how all the people in Riverdale were, the carriage was at the door. There was no backing out now, and our hero was obliged to get into the vehicle, though it seemed altogether too fine for a poor boy like him. Mr. Bayard and Mr. Butler (whom the former had invited to dine with him) seated themselves beside him, and the driver was directed to set them down at No. ---- Chestnut Street, where they soon arrived. Though my readers would, no doubt, be very much amused to learn how carefully Bobby trod the velvet carpets, how he stared with wonder at the drapery curtains, at the tall mirrors, the elegant chandeliers, and the fantastically shaped chairs and tables that adorned Mr. Bayard's parlor, the length of our story does not permit us to pause over these trivial matters. When Ellen Bayard was informed that her little deliverer was in the house, she rushed into the parlor like a hoiden school girl, grasped both his hands, kissed both his rosy cheeks, and behaved just as though she had never been to a boarding school in her life. She had thought a great deal about Bobby since that eventful day, and the more she thought of him, the more she liked him. Her admiration of him was not of that silly, sentimental character which moon-struck young ladies cherish towards those immaculate young men who have saved them from drowning in a horse pond, pulled them back just as they were tumbling over a precipice two thousand five hundred feet high, or rescued them from a house seven stories high, bearing them down a ladder seventy-five odd feet long. The fact was, Bobby was a boy of thirteen and there was no chance for much sentiment; so the young lady's regard was real, earnest, and lifelike. Ellen said a great many very handsome things; but I am sure she never thought of such a thing as that he would run away with her, in case her papa was unneccessarily obstinate. She was very glad to see him, and I have no doubt she wished Bobby might be her brother, it would be so glorious to have such a noble little fellow always with her. Bobby managed the dinner much better than he had anticipated; for Mr. Bayard insisted that he should sit down with them, whether he ate any thing or not. But the Rubicon passed, our hero found that he had a pretty smart appetite, and did full justice to the viands set before him. It is true the silver forks, the napkins, the finger bowls, and other articles of luxury and show, to which he had been entirely unaccustomed, bothered him not a little; but he kept perfectly cool, and carefully observed how Mr. Butler, who sat next to him, handled the "spoon fork," what he did with the napkin and the finger bowl, so that, I will venture to say, not one in ten would have suspected he had not spent his life in the parlor of a _millionnaire_. Dinner over, the party returned to the parlor, where Bobby unfolded his plan for the future. To make his story intelligible, he was obliged to tell them all about Mr. Hardhand. "The old wretch!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "But, Robert, you must let me advance the sixty dollars, to pay Squire Lee." "No, sir; you have done enough in that way. I have given my note for the money." "Whew;" said Mr. Butler. "And I shall soon earn enough to pay it." "No doubt of it. You are a lad of courage and energy, and you will succeed in every thing you undertake." "I shall want you to trust me for a stock of books on the strength of old acquaintance," continued Bobby, who had now grown quite bold, and felt as much at home in the midst of the costly furniture, as he did in the "living room" of the old black house. "You shall have all the books you want." "I will pay for them as soon as I return. The truth is, Mr. Bayard, I mean to be independent. I didn't want to take that thirty-five dollars, though I don't know what Mr. Hardhand would have done to us, if I hadn't." "Ellen said I ought to have given you a hundred, and I think so myself." "I am glad you didn't. Too much money makes us fat and lazy." Mr. Bayard laughed at the easy self-possession of the lad--at his big talk; though, big as it was, it meant something. When he proposed to go to the store, he told Bobby he had better stay at the house and rest himself. "No, sir; I want to start out to-morrow, and I must get ready to-day." "You had better put it off till the next day; you will feel more like it then." "Now or never," replied Bobby. "That is my motto, sir. If we have any thing to do, now is always the best time to do it. Dr. Franklin says, 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to day.'" "Right, Robert! you shall have your own way. I wish my clerks would adopt some of Dr. Franklin's wise saws. I should be a great deal better off in the course of a year if they would." CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH BOBBY OPENS VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, AND WINS HIS FIRST VICTORY. "Now, Bobby, I understand your plan," said Mr. Bayard, when they reached the store; "but the details must be settled. Where do you intend to go?" "I hardly know, sir. I suppose I can sell books almost any where." "Very true; but in some places much better than in others." Mr. Bayard mentioned a large town about eighteen miles from the city, in which he thought a good trade might be carried on, and Bobby at once decided to adopt the suggestion. "You can make this place your head quarters for the week; if books do not sell well right in the village, why, you can go out a little way, for the country in the vicinity is peopled by intelligent farmers, who are well off, and who can afford to buy books." "I was thinking of that; but what shall I take with me, sir?" "There is a new book just published, called 'The Wayfarer,' which is going to have a tremendous run. It has been advertised in advance all over the country, so that you will find a ready sale for it. You will get it there before any one else, and have the market all to yourself." "The Wayfarer? I have heard of it myself." "You shall take fifty copies with you, and if you find that you shall want more, write, and I will send them." "But I cannot carry fifty copies." "You must take the cars to B----, and have a trunk or box to carry your books in. I have a stout trunk down cellar which you shall have." "I will pay for it, sir." "Never mind that, Bobby; and you will want a small valise or carpet bag to carry your books from house to house. I will lend you one." "You are very kind, sir; I did not mean to ask any favors of you except to trust me for the books until my return." "All right, Bobby." Mr. Bayard called the porter and ordered him to bring up the trunk, in which he directed Mr. Timmins to pack fifty "Wayfarers." "Now, how much will these books cost me apiece?" asked Bobby. "The retail price is one dollar; the wholesale price is one third off; and you shall have them at what they cost me." "Sixty-seven cents," added Bobby. "That will give me a profit of thirty-three cents on each book." "Just so." "Perhaps Mr. Timmins will sell me one of those blank books now; for I like to have things down in black and white." "I will furnish you with something much better than that;" and Mr. Bayard left the counting room. In a moment he returned with a handsome pocket memorandum book, which he presented to the little merchant. "But I don't like to take it unless you will let me pay for it," said Bobby, hesitating. "Never mind it, my young friend. Now you can sit down at my desk and open your accounts. I like to see boys methodical, and there is nothing like keeping accounts to make one accurate. Keep your books posted up, and you will know where you are at any time." "I intend to keep an account of all I spend and all I receive, if it is no more than a cent." "Right, my little man. Have you ever studied book-keeping?" "No, sir, I suppose I haven't; but there was a page of accounts in the back part of the arithmetic I studied, and I got a pretty good idea of the thing from that. All the money received goes on one side, and all the money paid out goes on the other." "Exactly so; in this book you had better open a book account first. If you wish, I will show you how." "Thank you, sir; I should be very glad to have you;" and Bobby opened the memorandum book, and seated himself at the desk. "Write 'Book Account' at the top of the pages, one word on each. Very well. Now write 'To fifty copies of Wayfarer, at sixty-seven cents, $33.50,' on the left hand page, or debit side of the account." "I am not much of a writer," said Bobby, apologetically. "You will improve. Now, each day you will credit the amount of sales on the right hand page, or credit side of the account; so, when you have sold out, the balance due your debit side will be the profit on the lot. Do you understand it?" Bobby thought a moment before he could see through it; but his brain was active, and he soon managed the idea. "Now you want a personal account;" and Mr. Bayard explained to him how to make this out. He then instructed him to enter on the debit-side all he spent for travel, board, freight, and other charges. The next was the "profit and loss" account, which was to show him the net profit of the business. Our hero, who had a decided taste for accounts, was very much pleased with this employment; and when the accounts were all opened, he regarded them with a great deal of satisfaction. He longed to commence his operations, if it were only for the pleasure of making the entries in this book. "One thing I forgot," said he, as he seized the pen, and under the cash account entered, "To Cash from mother, $1.00." "Now I am all right, I believe." "I think you are. Now, the cars leave at seven in the morning. Can you be ready for a start as early as that?" asked Mr. Bayard. "O, yes, sir, I hope so. I get up at half past four at home." "Very well; my small valise is at the house; but I believe every thing else is ready. Now, I have some business to attend to; and if you will amuse yourself for an hour or two, we will go home then." "I shall want a lodging-place when I am in the city; perhaps some of your folks can direct me to one where they won't charge too much." "As to that, Bobby, you must go to my house whenever you are in the city." "Law, sir! you live so grand, I couldn't think of going to your house. I am only a poor boy from the country, and I don't know how to behave myself among such nice folks." "You will do very well, Bobby. Ellen would never forgive me if I let you go any where else. So that is settled; you will go to my house. Now, you may sit here, or walk out and see the sights." "If you please, sir, if Mr. Timmins will let me look at some of the books, I shouldn't wish for any thing better. I should like to look at the Wayfarer, so that I shall know how to recommend it." "Mr. Timmins _will_ let you," replied Mr. Bayard, as he touched the spring of a bell on his desk. The dapper clerk came running into the counting-room to attend the summons of his employer. "Mr. Timmins," continued Mr. Bayard, with a mischievous smile, "bring Mr. Bright a copy of 'The Wayfarer.'" Mr. Timmins was astonished to hear "Country" called "Mister," astonished to hear his employer call him "Mister," and Bobby was astonished to hear himself called "Mister;" nevertheless, our hero enjoyed the joke. The clerk brought the book; and Bobby proceeded to give it a thorough, critical examination. He read the preface, the table of contents, and several chapters of the work, before Mr. Bayard was ready to go home "How do you like it, Bobby?" asked the bookseller. "First rate." "You may take that copy in your hand; you will want to finish it." "Thank you, sir; I will be careful of it." "You may keep it. Let that be the beginning of your own private library." His own private library! Bobby had not got far enough to dream of such a thing yet; but he thanked Mr. Bayard, and put the book under his arm. After tea, Ellen proposed to her father that they should all go to the Museum. Mr. Bayard acceded, and our hero was duly amazed at the drolleries perpetrated there. He had a good time; but it was so late when he went to bed, that he was a little fearful lest he should oversleep himself in the morning. He did not, however, and was down in the parlor before any of the rest of the family were stirring. An early breakfast was prepared for him, at which Mr. Bayard, who intended to see him off, joined him. Depositing his little bundle and the copy of "The Wayfarer" in the valise provided for him, they walked to the store. The porter wheeled the trunk down to the railroad station, though Bobby insisted upon doing it himself. The bookseller saw him and his baggage safely aboard of the cars, gave him a ticket, and then bade him an affectionate adieu. In a little while Bobby was flying over the rail, and at about eight o'clock, reached B----. The station master kindly permitted him to deposit his trunk in the baggage room, and to leave it there for the remainder of the week. Taking a dozen of the books from the trunk, and placing them in his valise, he sallied out upon his mission. It must be confessed that his heart was filled with a tumult of emotions. The battle of life was before him. He was on the field, sword in hand, ready to plunge into the contest. It was victory or defeat. "March on, brave youth! the field of strife With peril fraught before thee lies; March on! the battle plain of life Shall yield thee yet a glorious prize." It was of no use to shrink then, even if he had felt disposed to do so. He was prepared to be rebuffed, to be insulted, to be turned away from the doors at which he should seek admission; but he was determined to conquer. He had reached a house at which he proposed to offer "The Wayfarer" for sale. His heart went pit pat, pit pat, and he paused before the door. "Now or never!" exclaimed he, as he swung open the garden gate, and made his way up to the door. He felt some misgivings. It was so new and strange to him that he could hardly muster sufficient resolution to proceed farther. But his irresolution was of only a moment's duration. "Now or never!" and he gave a vigorous knock at the door. It was opened by an elderly lady, whose physiognomy did not promise much. "Good morning, ma'am. Can I sell you a copy of 'The Wayfarer' to-day? a new book, just published." "No; I don't want none of your books. There's more pedlers round the country now than you could shake a stick at in a month," replied the old lady petulantly. "It is a very interesting book, ma'am; has an excellent moral." Bobby had read the preface, as I before remarked. "It will suit you, ma'am; for you look just like a lady who wants to read something with a moral." Bravo, Bobby! The lady concluded that her face had a moral expression, and she was pleased with the idea. "Let me see it;" and she asked Bobby to walk in and be seated, while she went for her spectacles. As she was looking over the book, our hero went into a more elaborate recommendation of its merits. He was sure it would interest the young and the old; it taught a good lesson; it had elegant engravings; the type was large, which would suit her eyes; it was well printed and bound; and finally, it was cheap at one dollar. "I'll take it," said the old lady. "Thank you, ma'am." Bobby's first victory was achieved "Have you got a dollar?" asked the lady, as she handed him a two dollar bill. "Yes, ma'am;" and he gave her his only dollar, and put the two in its place, prouder than a king who has conquered an empire. "Thank you, ma'am." Bidding the lady a polite good morning, he left the house, encouraged by his success to go forward in his mission with undiminished hope. CHAPTER X. IN WHICH BOBBY IS A LITTLE TOO SMART. The clouds were rolled back, and Bobby no longer had a doubt as to the success of his undertaking. It requires but a little sunshine to gladden the heart, and the influence of his first success scattered all the misgivings he had cherished. Two New England shillings is undoubtedly a very small sum of money; but Bobby had made two shillings, and he would not have considered himself more fortunate if some unknown relative had left him a fortune. It gave him confidence in his powers, and as he walked away from the house, he reviewed the circumstances of his first sale. The old lady had told him at first she did not wish to buy a book, and, moreover, had spoken rather contemptuously of the craft to which he had now the honor to belong. He gave himself the credit of having conquered the old lady's prejudices. He had sold her a book in spite of her evident intention not to purchase. In short, he had, as we have before said, won a glorious victory, and he congratulated himself accordingly. But it was of no use to waste time in useless self-glorification, and Bobby turned from the past to the future. There were forty-nine more books to be sold, so that the future was forty-nine-times as big as the past. He saw a shoemaker's shop ahead of him; and he was debating with himself whether he should enter and offer his books for sale. It would do no harm, though he had but slight expectations of doing any thing. There were three men at work in the shop--one of them a middle-aged man, the other two young men. They looked like persons of intelligence, and as soon as Bobby saw them his hopes grew stronger. "Can I sell you any books to-day?" asked the little merchant, as he crossed the threshold. "Well, I don't know; that depends upon how smart you are," replied the eldest of the men. "It takes a pretty smart fellow to sell any thing in this shop." "Then I hope to sell each of you a book," added Bobby, laughing at the badinage of the shoemaker. Opening his valise he took out three copies of his book, and politely handed one to each of the men. "It isn't every book pedler that comes along who offers you such a work as that. 'The Wayfarer' is decidedly _the_ book of the season." "You don't say so!" said the oldest shoemaker, with a laugh. "Every pedler that comes along uses those words, precisely." "Do they? They steal my thunder then." "You are an old one." "Only thirteen. I was born where they don't fasten the door with a boiled carrot." "What do they fasten them with?" "They don't fasten them at all." "There are no book pedlers round there, then;" and all the shoemakers laughed heartily at this smart sally. "No; they are all shoemakers in our town." "You can take my hat, boy." "You will want it to put your head in; but I will take one dollar for that book instead." The man laughed, took out his wallet, and handed Bobby the dollar, probably quite as much because he had a high appreciation of his smartness, as from any desire to possess the book. "Won't you take one?" asked Bobby, appealing to another of the men, who was apparently not more than twenty-four years of age. "No; I can't read," replied he, roguishly. "Let your wife read it to you then." "My wife?" "Certainly; she knows how to read, I will warrant." "How do you know I have got a wife?" "O, well, a fellow as good looking and good natured as you are could not have resisted till this time." "Has you, Tom," added the oldest shoemaker. "I cave in;" and he handed over the dollar, and laid the book upon his bench. Bobby looked at the third man with some interest. He had said nothing, and scarcely heeded the fun which was passing between the little merchant and his companions. He was apparently absorbed in his examination of the book. He was a different kind of person from the others, and Bobby's instinctive knowledge of human nature assured him that he was not to be gained by flattery or by smart sayings; so he placed himself in front of him, and patiently waited in silence for him to complete his examination. "You will find that he is a hard one," put in one of the others. Bobby made no reply, and the two men who had bought books resumed their work. For five minutes our hero stood waiting for the man to finish his investigation into the merits of "The Wayfarer." Something told him not to say any thing to this person; and he had some doubts about his purchasing. "I will take one," said the last shoemaker, as he handed Bobby the dollar. "I am much obliged to you, gentlemen," said Bobby, as he closed his valise. "When I come this way again I shall certainly call." "Do; you have done what no other pedler ever did in this shop." "I shall take no credit to myself. The fact is, you are men of intelligence, and you want good books." Bobby picked up his valise and left the shop, satisfied with those who occupied it, and satisfied with himself. "Eight shillings!" exclaimed he, when he got into the road. "Pretty good hour's work, I should say." Bobby trudged along till he came to a very large, elegant house, evidently dwelt in by one of the nabobs of B----. Inspired by past successes, he walked boldly up to the front door, and rang the bell. "Is Mr. Whiting in?" asked Bobby, who had read the name on the door plate. "Colonel Whiting _is_ in," replied the servant, who had opened the door. "I should like to see him for a moment, if he isn't busy." "Walk in;" and for some reason or other the servant chuckled a great deal as she admitted him. She conducted him to a large, elegantly furnished parlor, where Bobby proceeded to take out his books for the inspection of the nabob, whom the servant promised to send to the parlor. In a moment Colonel Whiting entered. He was a large, fat man, about fifty years old. He looked at the little book merchant with a frown that would have annihilated a boy less spunky than our hero. Bobby was not a little inflated by the successes of the morning, and if Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte had stood before him then, he would not have flinched a hair--much less in the presence of no greater magnate than the nabob of B----. "Good morning, Colonel Whiting. I hope you are well this beautiful morning," Bobby began. I must confess I think this was a little too familiar for a boy of thirteen to a gentleman of fifty, whom he had never seen before in his life; but it must be remembered that Bobby had done a great deal the week before, that on the preceding night he had slept in Chestnut Street, and that he had just sold four copies of "The Wayfarer." He was inclined to be smart, and some folks hate smart boys. The nabob frowned; his cheek reddened with anger; but he did not condescend to make any reply to the smart speech. "I have taken the liberty to call upon you this morning, to see if you did not wish to purchase a copy of 'The Wayfarer'--a new book just issued from the press, which people say is to be the book of the season." My young readers need not suppose this was an impromptu speech, for Bobby had studied upon it all the time he was coming from Boston in the cars. It would be quite natural for a boy who had enjoyed no greater educational advantages than our hero to consider how he should address people into whose presence his calling would bring him; and he had prepared several little addresses of this sort, for the several different kinds of people whom he expected to encounter. The one he had just "got off" was designed for the "upper crust." When he had delivered the speech, he approached the indignant, frowning nabob, and with a low bow, offered him a copy of "The Wayfarer." "Boy," said Colonel Whiting, raising his arm with majestic dignity, and pointing to the door,--"boy, do you see that door?" Bobby looked at the door, and, somewhat astonished replied that he did see it, that it was a very handsome door, and he would inquire whether it was black walnut, or only painted in imitation thereof. "Do you see that door?" thundered the nabob, swelling with rage at the cool impudence of the boy. "Certainly I do, sir; my eyesight is excellent." "Then use it!" "Thank you, sir; I have no use for it. Probably it will be of more service to you than to me." "Will you clear out, or shall I kick you out?" gasped the enraged magnate of B----. "I will save you that trouble, sir; I will go, sir. I see we have both made a mistake." "Mistake? What do you mean by that, you young puppy? You are a little impudent, thieving scoundrel!" "That's your mistake, sir. I took you for a gentleman, sir; and that was my mistake." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed a sweet, musical voice, and at that moment a beautiful young lady rushed up to the angry colonel, and threw her arms around his neck. "The jade!" muttered he. "I have caught you in a passion again, uncle;" and the lady kissed the old gentleman's anger-reddened cheek, which seemed to restore him at once to himself. "It was enough to make a minister swear," said he, in apology. "No, it wasn't, uncle; the boy was a little pert, it is true; but you ought to have laughed at him, instead of getting angry. I heard the whole of it." "Pert?" said Bobby to himself. "What the deuse does she mean by that?" "Very well, you little minx; I will pay the penalty." "Come here, Master Pert," said the lady to Bobby. Bobby bowed, approached the lady, and began to feel very much embarrassed. "My uncle,", she continued, "is one of the best hearted men in the world--ain't you, uncle?" "Go on, you jade!" "I love him, as I would my own father; but he will sometimes get into a passion. Now, you provoked him." "Indeed, ma'am, I hadn't the least idea of saying any thing uncivil," pleaded Bobby. "I studied to be as polite as possible." "I dare say. You were too important, too pompous, for a boy to an old gentleman like uncle, who is really one of the best men in the world. Now, if you hadn't studied to be polite, you would have done very well." "Indeed, ma'am, I am a poor boy, trying to make a little money to help my mother. I am sure I meant no harm." "I know you didn't. So you are selling books to help your mother?" "Yes, ma'am." She inquired still further into the little merchant's history, and seemed to be very much interested in him. In a frolic, a few days before, Bobby learned from her, Colonel Whiting had agreed to pay any penalty she might name, the next time he got into a passion. "Now, young man, what book have you to sell?" asked the lady. "'The Wayfarer.'" "How many have you in your valise?" "Eight." "Very well; now, uncle, I decree, as the penalty of your indiscretion, that you purchase the whole stock." "I submit." "'The Wayfarer' promises to be an excellent book: and I can name at least half a dozen persons who will thank you for a copy, uncle." Colonel Whiting paid Bobby eight dollars, who left the contents of his valise on the centre table, and then departed, astounded at his good fortune, and fully resolved never to be too smart again. CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH BOBBY STRIKES A BALANCE, AND RETURNS TO RIVERDALE. Our hero had learned a lesson which experience alone could teach him. The consciousness of that "something within him" inclined him to be a little too familiar with his elders; but then it gave him confidence in himself, and imparted courage to go forward in the accomplishment of his mission. His interview with Colonel Whiting and the gentle but plain rebuke of his niece had set him right, and he realized that, while he was doing a man's work, he was still a boy. He had now a clearer perception of what is due to the position and dignity of those upon whom fortune has smiled. Bobby wanted to be a man, and it is not strange that he should sometimes fancy he was a man. He had an idea, too, that "all men are born free and equal;" and he could not exactly see why a nabob was entitled to any more respect and consideration than a poor man. It was a lesson he was compelled to learn, though some folks live out their lifetimes without ever finding out that. "'Tis wealth, good sir, makes honorable men." Some people think a rich man is no better than a poor man, except so far as he behaves himself better. It is strange how stupid some people are! Bobby had no notion of cringing to any man, and he felt as independent as the Declaration of Independence itself. But then the beautiful lady had told him that he was pert and forward; and when he thought it over, he was willing to believe she was right, Colonel Whiting was an old man, compared with himself; and he had some faith, at least in theory, in the Spartan virtue of respect for the aged. Probably the nabob of B---- would have objected to being treated with respect on account of his age; and Bobby would have been equally unwilling to acknowledge that he treated him with peculiar respect on account of his wealth or position. Perhaps the little merchant had an instinctive perception of expediency--that he should sell more books by being less familiar: at any rate he determined never again to use the flowery speeches he had arranged for the upper crust. He had sold a dozen books; and possibly this fact made him more willing to compromise the matter than he would otherwise have been. This was, after all, the great matter for congratulation, and with a light heart he hurried back to the railroad station to procure another supply. We cannot follow him into every house where his calling led him. He was not always as fortunate as in the instances we have mentioned. Sometimes all his arguments were unavailing, and after he had spent half an hour of valuable time in setting forth the merits of "The Wayfarer," he was compelled to retire without having effected a sale. Sometimes, too, he was rudely repulsed; hard epithets were applied to him; old men and old women, worried out by the continued calls of pedlers, sneered at him, or shut the door in his face; but Bobby was not disheartened. He persevered, and did not allow these little trials to discompose or discourage him. By one o'clock on the first day of his service he had sold eighteen books, which far exceeded even his most sanguine expectations. By this time he began to feel the want of his dinner; but there was no tavern or eating house at hand, and he could not think of leaving the harvest to return to the railroad station; so he bought a sheet of gingerbread and a piece of cheese at a store, and seating himself near a brook by the side of the road, he bolted his simple meal, as boys are very apt to do when they are excited. When he had finished, he took out his account book, and entered, "Dinner, 10 cents." Resuming his business, he disposed of the remaining six books in his valise by the middle of the afternoon, and was obliged to return for another supply. About six o'clock he entered the house of a mechanic, just as the family were sitting down to tea. He recommended his book with so much energy that the wife of the mechanic took a fancy to him, and not only purchased one, but invited him to tea. Bobby accepted the invitation, and in the course of the meal, the good lady drew from him the details of his history, which he very modestly related, for though he sometimes fancied himself a man, he was not the boy to boast of his exploits. His host was so much pleased with him, that he begged him to spend the night with them. Bobby had been thinking how and where he should spend the night, and the matter had given him no little concern. He did not wish to go to the hotel, for it looked like a very smart house, and he reasoned that he should have to pay pretty roundly for accommodations there. These high prices would eat up his profits, and he seriously deliberated whether it would not be better for him to sleep under a tree than pay fifty cents for a lodging. If I had been there I should have told him that a man loses nothing in the long run by taking good care of himself. He must eat well and sleep well, in order to do well and be well. But I suppose Bobby would have told me that it was of no use to pay a quarter extra for sleeping on a gilded bedstead, since the room would be so dark he could not see the gilt even if he wished to do so. I could not have said any thing to such a powerful argument; so I am very glad the mechanic's wife set the matter at rest by offering him a bed in her house. He spent a very pleasant evening with the family, who made him feel entirely at home, they were so kind and so plain spoken. Before he went to bed, he entered under the book account, "By twenty-six Wayfarers, sold this day, $26.00." He had done a big day's work, much bigger than he could hope to do again. He had sold more than one half of his whole stock, and at this rate he should be out of books the next day. At first he thought he would send for another lot; but he could not judge yet what his average daily sales would be, and finally concluded not to do so. What he had might last till Friday or Saturday. He intended to go home on the latter day, and he could bring them with him on his return without expense. This was considerable of an argument for a boy to manage; but Bobby was satisfied with it, and went to sleep, wondering what his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie were thinking of about that time. After breakfast the next morning he resumed his travels. He was as enthusiastic as ever, and pressed "The Wayfarer" with so much earnestness that he sold a book in nearly every house he visited. People seemed to be more interested in the little merchant than in his stock, and taking advantage of this kind feeling towards him, he appealed to them with so much eloquence that few could resist it. The result of the day's sales was fifteen copies, which Bobby entered in the book account with the most intense satisfaction. He had outdone the boy who had passed through Riverdale, but he had little hope that the harvest would always be so abundant. He often thought of this boy, from whom he had obtained the idea he was now carrying out. That boy had stopped over night at the little black house, and slept with him. He had asked for lodging, and offered to pay for it, as well as for his supper and breakfast. Why couldn't he do the same? He liked the suggestion, and from that time, wherever he happened to be, he asked for lodging, or the meal he required, and he always proposed to pay for what he had, but very few would take any thing. On Friday noon he had sold out. Returning to the railroad station, he found that the train would not leave for the city for an hour; so he improved the time in examining and balancing his accounts. The book sales amounted to just fifty dollars, and after his ticket to Boston was paid for, his expenses would amount to one dollar and fifty cents, leaving a balance in his favor of fifteen dollars. He was overjoyed with the result, and pictured the astonishment with which his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie would listen to the history of his excursion. After four o'clock that afternoon he entered the store of Mr. Bayard, bag and baggage. On his arrival in the city, he was considerably exercised in mind to know how he should get the trunk to his destination. He was too economical to pay a cartman a quarter; but what would have seemed mean in a man was praiseworthy in a boy laboring for a noble end. Probably a great many of my young readers in Bobby's position, thinking that sixteen dollars, which our hero had in his pocket, was a mint of money, would have been in favor of being a little magnificent--of taking a carriage and going up-town in state. Bobby had not the least desire to "swell," so he settled the matter by bargaining with a little ragged fellow to help him carry the trunk to Mr. Bayard's store for fourpence. "How do you do, Mr. Timmins?" said Bobby to the spruce clerk, as he deposited the trunk upon the floor, and handed the ragged boy the four-pence. "Ah, Bobby!" exclaimed Mr. Timmins. "Have you sold out?" "All clean. Is Mr. Bayard in?" "In the office. But how do you like it?" "First rate." "Well, every one to his taste; but I don't see how any one who has any regard for his dignity can stick himself into every body's house. I couldn't do it, I know." "I don't stand for the dignity." "Ah, well, there is a difference in folks." "That's a fact," replied Bobby, as he hurried to the office of Mr. Bayard, leaving Mr. Timmins to sun himself in his own dignity. The bookseller was surprised to see him so soon, but he gave him a cordial reception. "I didn't expect you yet," said he. "Why do you come back? Have you got sick of the business?" "Sick of it! No, sir." "What have you come back for then?" "Sold out, sir." "Sold out! You have done well!" "Better than I expected." "I had no idea of seeing you till to-morrow night; and I thought you would have books enough to begin the next week with. You have done bravely." "If I had had twenty more, I could have sold them before to-morrow night. Now, sir, if you please, I will pay you for those books--thirty-three dollars and fifty cents." "You had better keep that, Bobby. I will trust you as long as you wish." "If you please, sir, I had rather pay it;" and the little merchant, as proud as a lord, handed over the amount. "I like your way of doing business, Bobby. Nothing helps a man's credit so much as paying promptly. Now tell me some of your adventures--or we will reserve them till this evening, for I am sure Ellen will be delighted to hear them." "I think I shall go to Riverdale this afternoon. The cars leave at half past five." "Very well; you have an hour to spare." Bobby related to his kind friend the incidents of his excursion, including his interview with Colonel Whiting and his niece, which amused the bookseller very much. He volunteered some good advice, which Bobby received in the right spirit, and with a determination to profit by it. At half past five he took the cars for home, and before dark was folded in his mother's arms. The little black house seemed doubly dear to him now that he bad been away from it a few days. His mother and all the children were so glad to see him that it seemed almost worth his while to go away for the pleasure of meeting them on his return. CHAPTER XII. IN WHICH BOBBY ASTONISHES SUNDRY PERSONS AND PAYS PART OF HIS NOTE. "Now tell me, Bobby, how you have made out," said Mrs. Bright, as the little merchant seated himself at the supper table. "You cannot have done much, for you have only been gone five days." "I have done pretty well, mother," replied Bobby, mysteriously; "pretty well, considering that I am only a boy." "I didn't expect to see you till to-morrow night." "I sold out, and had to come home." "That may be, and still you may not have done much." "I don't pretend that I have done much." "How provoking you are! Why don't you tell me, Bobby, what you have done?" "Wait a minute, mother, till I have done my supper, and then I will show you the footings in my ledger." "Your ledger!" "Yea, my ledger. I keep a ledger now." "You are a great man, Mr. Robert Bright," laughed his mother. "I suppose the people took their hats off when they saw you coming." "Not exactly, mother." "Perhaps the governor came out to meet you when he heard you was on the road." "Perhaps he did; I didn't see him, however. This apple pie tastes natural, mother. It is a great luxury to get home after one has been travelling." "Very likely." "No place like home, after all is done and said. Who was the fellow that wrote that song, mother?" "I forget; the paper said he spent a great many years in foreign parts. My sake! Bobby; one would think by your talk that you had been away from home for a year." "It seems like a year," said he, as he transferred another quarter of the famous apple pie to his plate. "I miss home very much. I don't more than half like being among strangers so much." "It is your own choice; no one wants you to go away from home." "I must pay my debts, any how. Don't I owe Squire Lee sixty dollars?" "But I can pay that." "It is my affair, you see." "If it is your affair, then I owe you sixty dollars." "No, you don't; I calculate to pay my board now. I am old enough and big enough to do something." "You have done something ever since you was old enough to work." "Not much; I don't wonder that miserable old hunker of a Hardhand twitted me about it. By the way, have you heard any thing from him?" "Not a thing." "He has got enough of us, I reckon." "You mustn't insult him, Bobby, if you happen to see him." "Never fear me." "You know the Bible says we must love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us." "I should pray that the Old Nick might get him." "No, Bobby; I hope you haven't forgot all your Sunday school lessons." "I was wrong, mother," replied Bobby, a little moved. "I did not mean so. I shall try to think as well of him as I can; but I can't help thinking, if all the world was like him, what a desperate hard time we should have of it." "We must thank the Lord that he has given us so many good and true men." "Such as Squire Lee, for instance," added Bobby, as he rose from the table and put his chair back against the wall. "The squire is fit to be a king; and though I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn't mind seeing a crown upon his head." "He will receive his crown in due time," replied Mrs. Bright, piously. "The squire?" "The crown of rejoicing, I mean." "Just so; the squire is a nice man; and I know another just like him." "Who!" "Mr. Bayard; they are as near alike as two peas." "I am dying to know about your journey." "Wait a minute, mother, till we clear away the supper things;" and Bobby took hold, as he had been accustomed, to help remove and wash the dishes. "You needn't help now, Bobby." "Yes, I will, mother." Some how our hero's visit to the city did not seem to produce the usual effect upon him; for a great many boys, after they had been abroad, would have scorned to wash dishes and wipe them. A week in town has made many a boy so smart that you couldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. It starches them up so stiff that sometimes they don't know their own mothers, and deem it a piece of condescension to speak a word to the patriarch in a blue frock who had the honor of supporting them in childhood. Bobby was none of this sort. We lament that he had a habit of talking big--that is, of talking about business affairs in a style a little beyond his years. But he was modest to a fault, paradoxical as it may seem. He was always blushing when any body spoke a pretty thing about him. Probably the circumstances of his position elevated him above the sphere of the mere boy; he had spent but little time in play, and his attention had been directed at all times to the wants of his mother. He had thought a great deal about business, especially since the visit of the boy who sold books to the little black house. Some boys are born merchants, and from their earliest youth have a genius for trade. They think of little else. They "play shop" before they wear jackets, and drive a barter trade in jackknives, whistles, tops, and fishing lines long before they get into their teens. They are shrewd even then, and obtain a taste for commerce before they are old enough to know the meaning of the word. We saw a boy in school, not long since, give the value of eighteen cents for a little stunted quince--boys have a taste for raw quinces, strange as it may seem. Undoubtedly he had no talent for trade, and would make a very indifferent tin pedler. Our hero was shrewd. He always got the best end of the bargain; though, I am happy to say, his integrity was too unyielding to let him cheat his fellows. We have made this digression so that my young readers may know why Bobby was so much given to big talk. The desire to do something worthy of a good son turned his attention to matters above his sphere; and thinking of great things, he had come to talk great things. It was not a bad fault, after all. Boys need not necessarily be frivolous. Play is a good thing, an excellent thing, in its place, and is as much a part of the boy's education as his grammar and arithmetic. It not only develops his muscles, but enlarges his mental capacity; it not only fills with excitement the idle hours of the long day, but it sharpens the judgment, and helps to fit the boy for the active duties of life. It need not be supposed, because Bobby had to turn his attention to serious things, that he was not fond of fun; that he could not or did not play. At a game of round ball, he was a lucky fellow who secured him upon his side; for the same energy which made him a useful son rendered him a desirable hand in a difficult game. When the supper things were all removed, the dishes washed and put away, Bobby drew out his pocket memorandum book. It was a beautiful article, and Mrs. Bright was duly astonished at its gilded leaves and the elegant workmanship. Very likely her first impulse was to reprove her son for such a piece of reckless extravagance; but this matter was set right by Bobby's informing her how it came into his possession. "Here is my ledger, mother," he said, handing her the book. Mrs. Bright put on her spectacles, and after bestowing a careful scrutiny upon the memorandum book, turned to the accounts. "Fifty books!" she exclaimed, as she read the first entry. "Yes, mother; and I sold them all." "Fifty dollars!" "But I had to pay for the books out of that." "To be sure you had; but I suppose you made as much as ten cents a piece on them, and that would be--let me see; ten times fifty--" "But I made more than that, I hope." "How much?" The proud young merchant referred her to the profit and loss account, which exhibited a balance of fifteen dollars. "Gracious! Three dollars a day!" "Just so, mother. Now I will pay you the dollar I borrowed of you when I went away." "You didn't borrow it of me." "But I shall pay it." Mrs. Bright was astonished at this unexpected and gratifying result. If she had discovered a gold mine in the cellar of the little black house, it could not have afforded her so much satisfaction; for this money was the reward of her son's talent and energy. Her own earnings scarcely ever amounted to more than three or four dollars a week, and Bobby, a boy of thirteen, had come home with fifteen for five days' work. She could scarcely believe the evidence other own senses, and she ceased to wonder that he talked big. It was nearly ten o'clock when the widow and her son went to bed, so deeply were they interested in discussing our hero's affairs. He had intended to call upon Squire Lee that night, but the time passed away so rapidly that he was obliged to defer it till the next day. After breakfast the following morning, he hastened to pay the intended visit. There was a tumult of strange emotions in his bosom as he knocked at the squire's door. He was proud of the success he had achieved, and even then his cheek burned under the anticipated commendations which his generous friend would bestow upon him. Besides, Annie would be glad to see him, for she had expressed such a desire when they parted on the Monday preceding. I don't think that Bobby cherished any silly ideas, but the sympathy of the little maiden fell not coldly or unwelcomely upon his warm heart. In coming from the house he had placed his copy of "The Wayfarer" under his arm, for Annie was fond of reading; and on the way over, he had pictured to himself the pleasure she would derive from reading his book. Of course he received a warm welcome from the squire and his daughter. Each of them had bestowed more than a thought upon the little wanderer as he went from house to house, and more than once they had conversed together about him. "Well, Bobby, how is trade in the book line?" asked the squire, after the young pilgrim had been cordially greeted. "Pretty fair," replied Bobby, with as much indifference as he could command, though it was hard even to seem indifferent then and there. "Where have you been travelling?" "In B----." "Fine place. Books sell well there?" "Very well; in fact, I sold out all my stock by noon yesterday." "How many books did you carry?" "Fifty." "You did well." "I should think you did!" added Annie, with an enthusiasm which quite upset all Bobby's assumed indifference. "Fifty books!" "Yes, Miss Annie; and I have brought you a copy of the book I have been selling; I thought you would like to read it. It is a splendid work, and will be _the_ book of the season." "I shall be delighted to read it," replied Annie, taking the proffered volume. "It looks real good," she continued, as she turned over the leaves. "It is first rate; I have read it through." "It was very kind of you to think of me when you have so much business on your mind," added she, with a roguish smile. "I shall never have so much business on my mind that I cannot think of my friends," replied Bobby, so gallantly and so smartly that it astonished himself. "I was just thinking what I should read next; I am so glad you have come." "Never mind her, Bobby; all she wanted was the book," interposed Squire Lee, laughing. "Now, pa!" "Then I shall bring her one very often." "You are too bad, pa," said Annie, who, like most young ladies just entering their teens, resented any imputation upon the immaculateness of human love, or human friendship. "I have got a little money for you, Squire Lee," continued Bobby, thinking it time the subject was changed. He took out his gilded memorandum book, whose elegant appearance rather startled the squire, and from its "treasury department" extracted the little roll of bills, representing an aggregate of ten dollars which he had carefully reserved for his creditor. "Never mind that, Bobby," replied the squire. "You will want all your capital to do business with." "I must pay my debts before I think of any thing else." "A very good plan, Bobby, but this is an exception to the general rule." "No, sir, I think not. If you please, I insist upon paying you tea dollars on my note." "O, well, if you insist, I suppose I can't help myself." "I would rather pay it, I shall feel so much better." "You want to indorse it on the note, I suppose." That was just what Bobby wanted. Indorsed on the note was the idea, and our hero had often passed that expression through his mind. There was something gratifying in the act to a man of business integrity like himself; it was discharging a sacred obligation,--he had already come to deem it a sacred duty to pay one's debts,--and as the squire wrote the indorsement across the back of the note, he felt more like a hero than ever before. "'Pay as you go' is an excellent idea; John Randolph called it the philosopher's stone," added Squire Lee, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "That is what I mean to do just as soon as I can." "You will do, Bobby." The young merchant spent nearly the whole forenoon at the squire's, and declined an invitation to dinner only on the plea that his mother would wait for him. CHAPTER XIII. IN WHICH BOBBY DECLINES A COPARTNERSHIP AND VISITS B---- AGAIN. After dinner Bobby performed his Saturday afternoon chores as usual. He split wood enough to last for a week, so that his mother might not miss him too much, and then, feeling a desire to visit his favorite resorts in the vicinity, he concluded to go a fishing. The day was favorable, the sky being overcast and the wind very light. After digging a little box of worms in the garden back of the house, he shouldered his fish pole; and certainly no one would have suspected that he was a distinguished travelling merchant. He was fond of fishing, and it is a remarkable coincidence that Daniel Webster, and many other famous men, have manifested a decided passion for this exciting sport. No doubt a fondness for angling is a peculiarity of genius; and if being an expert fisherman makes a great man, then our hero was a great man. He had scarcely seated himself on his favorite rock, and dropped his line into the water, before he saw Tom Spicer approaching the spot. The bully had never been a welcome companion. There was no sympathy between them. They could never agree, for their views, opinions, and tastes were always conflicting. Bobby had not seen Tom since he left him to crawl out of the ditch on the preceding week, and he had good reason to believe that he should not be regarded with much favor. Tom was malicious and revengeful, and our hero was satisfied that the blow which had prostrated him in the ditch would not be forgotten till it had been atoned for. He was prepared, therefore, for any disagreeable scene which might occur. There was another circumstance also which rendered the bully's presence decidedly unpleasant at this time--an event that had occurred during his absence, the particulars of which he had received from his mother. Tom's father, who was a poor man, and addicted to intemperance, had lost ten dollars. He had brought it home, and, as he affirmed, placed it in one of the bureau drawers. The next day it could not be found. Spicer, for some reason, was satisfied that Tom had taken it; but the boy stoutly and persistently denied it. No money was found upon him, however, and it did not appear that he had spent any at the stores in Riverdale Centre. The affair created some excitement in the vicinity, for Spicer made no secret of his suspicions, and publicly accused Tom of the theft. He did not get much sympathy from any except his pot companions; for there was no evidence but his bare and unsupported statement to substantiate the grave accusation. Tom had been in the room when the money was placed in the drawer, and, as his father asserted, had watched him closely while he deposited the bills under the clothing. No one else could have taken it. These were the proofs. But people generally believed that Spicer had carried no money home, especially as it was known that he was intoxicated on the night in question; and that the alleged theft was only a ruse to satisfy certain importunate creditors. Every body knew that Tom was bad enough to steal, even from his father; from which my readers can understand that it is an excellent thing to have a good reputation. Bobby knew that he would lie and use profane language; that he spent his Sundays by the river, or in roaming through the woods; and that he played truant from school as often as the fear of the rod would permit; and the boy that would do all these things certainty would steal if he got a good chance. Our hero's judgment, therefore, of the case was not favorable to the bully, and he would have thanked him to stay away from the river while he was there. "Hallo, Bob! How are you?" shouted Tom, when he had come within hailing distance. "Very well," replied Bobby, rather coolly. "Been to Boston, they say." "Yes." "Well, how did you like it?" continued Tom as he seated himself on the rock near our hero. "First rate." "Been to work there?" "No." "What have you been doing?" "Travelling about." "What doing?" "Selling books." "Was you, though? Did you sell any?" "Yes, a few." "How many?" "O, about fifty." "You didn't, though--did you? How much did you make?" "About fifteen dollars." "By Jolly! You are a smart one, Bobby. There are not many fellows that would have done that." "Easy enough," replied Bobby, who was not a little surprised at this warm commendation from one whom he regarded as his enemy. "Yon had to buy the books first--didn't you?" asked Tom, who began to manifest a deep interest in the trade. "Of course; no one will give you the books." "What do you pay for them?" "I buy them so as to make a profit on them," answered Bobby, who, like a discreet merchant, was not disposed to be too communicative. "That business would suit me first rate." "It is pretty hard work." "I don't care for that. Don't you believe I could do something in this line?" "I don't know; perhaps you could." "Why not, as well as you?" This was a hard question; and, as Bobby did not wish to be uncivil, he talked about a big pout he hauled in at that moment, instead of answering it. He was politic, and deprecated the anger of the bully; so, though Tom plied him pretty hard, he did not receive much satisfaction. "You see, Tom," said he, when he found that his companion insisted upon knowing the cost of the books, "this is a publisher's secret; and I dare say they would not wish every one to know the cost of books. We sell them for a dollar apiece." "Humph! You needn't be so close about it. I'll bet I can find out." "I have no doubt you can; only, you see, I don't want to tell what I am not sure they would be willing I should tell." Tom took a slate pencil from his pocket, and commenced ciphering on the smooth rock upon which he sat. "You say you sold fifty books?" "Yes." "Well; if you made fifteen dollars out of fifty, that is thirty cents apiece." Bobby was a little mortified when he perceived that he had unwittingly exposed the momentous secret. He had not given Tom credit for so much sagacity as he had displayed in his inquiries; and as he had fairly reached his conclusion, he was willing he should have the benefit of it. "You sold them at a dollar apiece. Thirty from a hundred leaves seventy. They cost you seventy cents each--didn't they?" "Sixty-seven," replied Bobby, yielding the point. "Enough said, Bob; I am going into that business, any how." "I am willing." "Of course you are; suppose we go together," suggested Tom, who had not used all this conciliation without having a purpose in view. "We could do nothing together." "I should like to get out with you just once, only to see how it is done." "You can find out for yourself, as I did." "Don't be mean, Bob." "Mean? I am not mean." "I don't say you are. We have always been good friends, you know." Bobby did not know it; so he looked at the other with a smile which expressed all he meant to say. "You hit me a smart dig the other day, I know; but I don't mind that. I was in the wrong then, and I am willing to own it," continued Tom, with an appearance of humility. This was an immense concession for Tom to make, and Bobby was duly affected by it. Probably it was the first time the bully had ever owned he was in the wrong. "The fact is, Bob, I always liked you; and you know I licked Ben Dowse for you." "That was two for yourself and one for me; besides, I didn't want Ben thrashed." "But he deserved it. Didn't he tell the master you were whispering in school?" "I was whispering; so he told the truth." "It was mean to blow on a fellow, though." "The master asked him if I whispered to him; of course he ought not to lie about it. But he told of you at the same time." "I know it; but I wouldn't have licked him on my own account." "_Perhaps_ you wouldn't." "I know I wouldn't. But, I say, Bobby, where do you buy your books?" "At Mr. Bayard's, in Washington Street." "He will sell them to me at the same price, won't he?" "I don't know." "When are you going again?" "Monday." "Won't you let me go with you, Bob?" "Let you? Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business." Bobby did not like the idea of having such a co-partner as Tom Spicer, and he did not like to tell him so. If he did, he would have to give his reasons for declining the proposition, and that would make Tom mad, and perhaps provoke him to quarrel. The fish bit well, and in an hour's time Bobby had a mess. As he took his basket and walked home, the young ruffian followed him. He could not get rid of him till he reached the gate in front of the little black house; and even there Tom begged him to stop a few moments. Our hero was in a hurry, and in the easiest manner possible got rid of this aspirant for mercantile honors. We have no doubt a journal of Bobby's daily life would be very interesting to our young readers; but the fact that some of his most stirring adventures are yet to be related admonishes us to hasten forward more rapidly. On Monday morning Bobby bade adieu to his mother again, and started for Boston. He fully expected to encounter Tom on the way, who, he was afraid, would persist in accompanying him on his tour. As before, he stopped at Squire Lee's to bid him and Annie good by. The little maiden had read "The Wayfarer" more than half through, and was very enthusiastic in her expression of the pleasure she derived from it. She promised to send it over to his house when she had finished it, and hoped he would bring his stock to Riverdale, so that she might again replenish her library. Bobby thought of something just then, and the thought brought forth a harvest on the following Saturday, when he returned. "When he had shaken bands with the squire and was about to depart, he received a piece of news which gave him food for an hour's serious reflection. "Did you hear about Tom Spicer?" asked Squire Lee. "No, sir; what about him?" "Broken his arm." "Broken his arm! Gracious! How did it happen?" exclaimed Bobby, the more astonished because he had been thinking of Tom since he had left home. "He was out in the woods yesterday, where boys should not be on Sundays, and, in climbing a tree after a bird's nest, he fell to the ground." "I am sorry for him," replied Bobby, musing. "So am I; but if he had been at home, or at church, where he should have been, it would not have happened. If I had any boys, I would lock them up in their chambers if I could not keep them at home Sundays." "Poor Tom!" mused Bobby, recalling the conversation he had had with him on Saturday, and then wishing that he had been a little more pliant with him. "It is too bad; but I must say I am more sorry for his poor mother than I am for him," added the squire. "However, I hope it will do him good, and be a lesson he will remember as long as he lives." Bobby bade the squire and Annie adieu again, and resumed his journey towards the railroad station. His thoughts were busy with Tom Spicer's case. The reason why he had not joined him, as he expected and feared he would, was now apparent. He pitied him, for he realized that he must endure a great deal of pain before he could again go out; but he finally dismissed the matter with the squire's sage reflection, that he hoped the calamity would be a good lesson to him. The young merchant did not walk to Boston this time, for he had come to the conclusion that, in the six hours it would take him to travel to the city on foot, the profit on the books he could sell would be more than enough to pay his fare, to say nothing of the fatigue and the expense of shoe leather. Before noon he was at B---- again, as busy as ever in driving his business. The experience of the former week was of great value to him. He visited people belonging to all spheres in society, and, though he was occasionally repulsed or treated with incivility, he was not conscious in a single instance of offending any person's sense of propriety. He was not as fortunate as during the previous week, and it was Saturday noon before he had sold out the sixty books he carried with him. The net profit for this week was fourteen dollars, with which he was abundantly pleased. Mr. Bayard again commended him in the warmest terms for his zeal and promptness. Mr. Timmins was even more civil than the last time, and when Bobby asked the price of Moore's Poems, he actually offered to sell it to him for thirty-three per cent. less than the retail price. The little merchant, was on the point of purchasing it, when Mr. Bayard inquired what he wanted. "I am going to buy this book," replied Bobby. "Moore's Poems?" "Yes, sir." Mr. Bayard took from a glass case an elegantly bound copy of the same work--morocco, full gilt--and handed it to our hero. "I shall make you a present of this. Are you an admirer of Moore?" "No, sir; not exactly--that is, I don't know much about it; but Annie Lee does, and I want to get the book for her." Bobby's checks reddened as he turned the leaves of the beautiful volume, putting his head down to the page to hide his confusion. "Annie Lee?" said Mr. Bayard with a quizzing smile. "I see how it is. Rather young, Bobby." "Her father has been very good to me and to my mother; and so has Annie, for that matter. Squire Lee would be a great deal more pleased if I should make Annie a present than if I made him one. I feel grateful to him, and I want to let it out some how." "That's right, Bobby; always remember your friends. Timmins, wrap up this book." Bobby protested with all his might; but the bookseller insisted that he should give Annie this beautiful edition, and he was obliged to yield the point. That evening he was at the little black house again, and his mother examined his ledger with a great deal of pride and satisfaction. That evening, too, another ten dollars was indorsed on the note, and Annie received that elegant copy of Moore's Poems. CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH BOBBY'S AIR CASTLE IS UPSET AND TOM SPICER TAKES TO THE WOODS. During the next four weeks Bobby visited various places in the vicinity of Boston; and at the end of that time he had paid the whole of the debt he owed Squire Lee. He had the note in his memorandum book, and the fact that he had achieved his first great purpose afforded him much satisfaction. Now he owed no man any thing, and he felt as though he could hold up his head among the best people in the world. The little black house was paid for, and Bobby was proud that his own exertions had released his mother from her obligation to her hard creditor. Mr. Hardhand could no longer insult and abuse her. The apparent results which Bobby had accomplished; however, were as nothing compared with the real results. He had developed those energies of character which were to make him, not only a great business man, but a useful member of society. Besides, there was a moral grandeur in his humble achievements which was more worthy of consideration than the mere worldly success he had obtained. Motives determine the character of deeds. That a boy of thirteen should display so much enterprise and energy was a great thing; but that it should be displayed from pure, unselfish devotion to his mother was a vastly greater thing. Many great achievements are morally insignificant, while many of which the world never hears mark the true hero. Our hero was not satisfied with what he had done, and far from relinquishing his interesting and profitable employment, his ambition suggested new and wider fields of success. As one ideal, brilliant and glorious in its time, was reached, another more brilliant and more glorious presented itself, and demanded to be achieved. The little black house began to appear rusty and inconvenient; a coat of white paint would marvellously improve its appearance; a set of nice Paris-green blinds would make a palace of it, and a neat fence around it would positively transform the place into a paradise. Yet Bobby was audacious enough to think of these things, and even to promise himself that they should be obtained. In conversation with Mr. Bayard a few days before, that gentleman had suggested a new field of labor; and it had been arranged that Bobby should visit the State of Maine the following week. On the banks of the Kennebec were many wealthy and important towns, where the intelligence of the people created a demand for books. This time the little merchant was to take two hundred books, and be absent until they were all sold. On Monday morning he started bright and early for the railroad station. As usual, he called upon Squire Lee, and informed Annie that he should probably be absent three or four weeks. She hoped no accident would happen to him, and that his journey would be crowned with success. Without being sentimental, she was a little sad, for Bobby was a great friend of hers. That elegant copy of Moore's Poems had been gratefully received, and she was so fond of the bard's beautiful and touching melodies that she could never read any of them without thinking of the brave little fellow who had given her the volume; which no one will consider very remarkable, even in a little miss of twelve. After he had bidden her and her father adieu, he resumed his journey. Of course he was thinking with all his might; but no one need suppose he was wondering how wide the Kennebec River was, or how many books he should sell in the towns upon its banks. Nothing of the kind; though it is enough even for the inquisitive to know that he was thinking of something, and that his thoughts were very interesting, not to say romantic. "Hallo, Bob!" shouted some one from the road side. Bobby was provoked; for it is sometimes very uncomfortable to have a pleasant train of thought interrupted. The imagination is buoyant, ethereal, and elevates poor mortals up to the stars sometimes. It was so with Bobby. He was building up some kind of an air castle, and had got up in the clouds amidst the fog and moonshine, and that aggravating voice brought him down, _slap_, upon terra firma. He looked up and saw Tom Spicer seated upon the fence. In his hand he held a bundle, and had evidently been waiting some time for Bobby's coming. He had recovered from the illness caused by his broken arm, and people said it had been a good lesson for him, as the squire hoped it would be. Bobby had called upon him two or three times during his confinement to the house; and Tom, either truly repentant for his past errors, or lacking the opportunity at that time to manifest his evil propensities, had stoutly protested that he had "turned over a new leaf," and meant to keep out of the woods on Sunday, stop lying and swearing, and become a good boy. Bobby commended his good resolutions, and told him he would never want friends while he was true to himself. The right side, he declared, was always the best side. He quoted several instances of men, whose lives he had read in his Sunday school books, to show how happy a good man may be in prison, or when all the world seemed to forsake him. Tom assured him that he meant to reform and be a good boy; and Bobby told him that when any one meant to turn over a new leaf, it was "now or never." If he put it off, he would only grow worse, and the longer the good work was delayed, the more difficult it would be to do it. Tom agreed to all this, and was sure he had reformed. For these reasons Bobby had come to regard Tom with a feeling of deep interest. He considered him as, in some measure, his disciple, and he felt a personal responsibility in encouraging him to persevere in his good work. Nevertheless Bobby was not exactly pleased to have his fine air castle upset, and to be tipped out of the clouds upon the cold, uncompromising earth again; so the first greeting he gave Tom was not as cordial as it might have been. "Hallo, Tom!" he replied, rather coolly. "Been waiting for you this half hour." "Have you?" "Yes; ain't you rather late?" "No; I have plenty of time, though none to spare," answered Bobby; and this was a hint that he must not detain him too long. "Come along then." "Where are you going, Tom?" asked Bobby, a little surprised at these words. "To Boston." "Are you?" "I am; that's a fact. You know I spoke to you about going into the book business." "Not lately." "But I have been thinking about it all the time." "What do your father and mother say?" "O, they are all right." "Have you asked them?" "Certainly I have; they are willing I should go with _you_." "Why didn't you speak of it then?" "I thought I wouldn't say any thing till the time came. You know you fought shy when I spoke about it before." And Bobby, notwithstanding the interest he felt in his companion, was a little disposed to "fight shy" now. Tom had reformed, or had pretended to do so; but he was still a raw recruit, and our hero was somewhat fearful that he would run at the first fire. To the good and true man life is a constant battle. Temptation assails him at almost every point; perils and snares beset him at every step of his mortal pilgrimage, so that every day he is called upon to gird on his armor and fight the good fight. Bobby was no poet; but he had a good idea of this every-day strife with the foes of error and sin that crossed his path. It was a practical conception, but it was truly expressed under the similitude of a battle. There was to be resistance, and he could comprehend that, for his bump of combativeness took cognizance of the suggestion. He was to fight; and that was an idea that stood him in better stead than a whole library of ethical subtleties. Judging Tom by his own standard, he was afraid he would run--that he wouldn't "stand fire." He had not been drilled. Heretofore, when temptation beset him, he had yielded without even a struggle, and fled from the field without firing a gun. To go out into the great world was a trying event for the raw recruit. He lacked, too, that prestige of success which is worth more than numbers, on the field of battle. Tom had chosen for himself, and he could not send him back. He had taken up the line of march, let it lead him where it might. "March on! in legions death and sin Impatient wait thy conquering hand; The foe without, the foe within-- Thy youthful arm must both withstand." Bobby had great hopes of him. He felt that he could not well get rid of him, and he saw that it was policy for him to make the best of it. "Well, Tom, where are you going?" asked Bobby, after he had made up his mind not to object to the companionship of the other. "I don't know. You have been a good friend to me lately, and I had an idea that you would give me a lift in this business." "I should be very willing to do so: but what can I do for you?" "Just show me how the business is done; that's all I want." "Your father and mother were willing you should come--were they not?" Bobby had some doubts about this point, and with good reason too. He had called at Tom's house, the day before, and they had gone to church together; but neither he nor his parents had said a word about his going to Boston. "When did they agree to it?" "Last night," replied Tom, after a moment's hesitation. "All right then; but I cannot promise you that Mr. Bayard will let you have the books." "I can fix that, I reckon," replied Tom, confidently. "I will speak a good word for you, at any rate." "That's right, Bob." "I am going down into the State of Maine this time, and shall be gone three or four weeks." "So much the better; I always wanted to go down that way." Tom asked a great many questions about the business and the method of travelling, which Bobby's superior intelligence and more extensive experience enabled him to answer to the entire satisfaction of the other. When they were within half a mile of the railroad station, they heard a carriage driven at a rapid rate approaching them from the direction of Riverdale. Tom seemed to be uneasy, and cast frequent glances behind him. In a moment the vehicle was within a short distance of them, and he stopped short in the road to scrutinize the persons in it. "By jolly!" exclaimed Tom; "my father!" "What of it?" asked Bobby, surprised by the strange behavior of his companion. Tom did not wait to reply, but springing over the fence, fled like a deer towards some woods a short distance from the road. Was it possible? Tom had run away from home. His father had not consented to his going to Boston, and Bobby was mortified to find that his hopeful disciple had been lying to him ever since they left Riverdale. But he was glad the cheat had been exposed. "That was Tom with you--wasn't it?" asked Mr. Spicer, as he stopped the foaming horse. "Yes, sir; but he told me you had consented that he should go with me," replied Bobby, a little disturbed by the angry glance of Mr. Spicer's fiery eyes. "He lied! the young villain! He will catch it for this." "I would not have let him come with me only for that. I asked him twice over if you were willing, and he said you were." "You ought to have known better than to believe him," interposed the man who was with Mr. Spicer. Bobby had some reason for believing him. The fact that Tom had reformed ought to have entitled him to some consideration, and our hero gave him the full benefit of the declaration. To have explained this would have taken more time than he could spare; besides, it was "a great moral question," whose importance Mr. Spicer and his companion would not be likely to apprehend; so he made a short story of it, and resumed his walk, thankful that he had got rid of Tom. Mr. Spicer and his friend, after fastening the horse to the fence, went to the woods in search of Tom. Bobby reached the station just in time to take the cars, and in a moment was on his way to the city. CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH BOBBY GETS INTO A SCRAPE, AND TOM SPICER TURNS UP AGAIN. Bobby had a poorer opinion of human nature than ever before. It seemed almost incredible to him that words so fairly spoken as those of Tom Spicer could be false. He had just risen from a sick bed, where he had had an opportunity for long and serious reflection. Tom had promised fairly, and Bobby had every reason to suppose he intended to be a good boy. But his promises had been lies. He had never intended to reform, at least not since he had got off his bed of pain. He was mortified and disheartened at the failure of this attempt to restore him to himself. Like a great many older and wiser persons than himself, he was prone to judge the whole human family by a single individual. He did not come to believe that every man was a rascal, but, in more general terms, that there is a great deal more rascality in this world than one would be willing to believe. With this sage reflection, he dismissed Tom from his mind, which very naturally turned again to the air castle which had been so ruthlessly upset. Then his opinion of "the rest of mankind" was reversed; and he reflected that if the world were only peopled by angels like Annie Lee, what a pleasant place it would be to live in. She could not tell a lie, she could not use bad language, she could not steal, or do any thing else that was bad; and the prospect was decidedly pleasant. It was very agreeable to turn from Tom to Annie, and in a moment his air castle was built again, and throned on clouds of gold and purple. I do not know what impossible things he imagined, or how far up in the clouds, he would have gone, if the arrival of the train at the city had not interrupted his thoughts, and pitched him down upon the earth again. Bobby was not one of that impracticable class of persons who do nothing but dream; for he felt that he had a mission, to perform which dreaming could not accomplish. However pleasant it may be to think of the great and brilliant things which one _will_ do, to one of Bobby's practical character it was even more pleasant to perform them. We all dream great things, imagine great things; but he who stops there does not amount to much, and the world can well spare him, for he is nothing but a drone in the hive. Bobby's fine imaginings were pretty sure to bring out "now or never," which was the pledge of action, and the work was as good as done when he had said it. Therefore, when the train arrived, Bobby did not stop to dream any longer. He forgot his beautiful air castle, and even let Annie Lee slip from his mind for the time being. Those towns upon the Kennebec, the two hundred books he was to sell, loomed up before him, for it was with them he had to do. Grasping the little valise he carried with him, he was hastening out of the station house when a hand was placed upon his shoulder. "Got off slick--didn't I?" said Tom Spicer, placing himself by Bobby's side. "You here, Tom!" exclaimed our hero, gazing with astonishment at his late companion. It was not an agreeable encounter, and from the bottom of his heart Bobby wished him any where but where he was. He foresaw that he could not easily get rid of him. "I am here," replied Tom. "I ran through the woods to the depot, and got aboard the cars just as they were starting. The old man couldn't come it over me quite so slick as that." "But you ran away from home." "Well, what of it?" "A good deal, I should say." "If you had been in my place, you would have done the same." "I don't know about that; obedience to parents is one of our first duties." "I know that; and if I had had any sort of fair play, I wouldn't have run away." "What do you mean by that?" asked Bobby, somewhat surprised, though he had a faint idea of the meaning of the other. "I will tell you all about it by and by. I give you my word and honor that I will make every thing satisfactory to you." "But you lied to me on the road this morning." Tom winced; under ordinary circumstances he would have resented such a remark by "clearing away" for a fight. But he had a purpose to accomplish, and he knew the character of him with whom he had to deal. "I am sorry I did, now," answered Tom, with every manifestation of penitence for his fault. "I didn't want to lie to you; and it went against my conscience to do so. But I was afraid, if I told you my father refused, up and down, to let me go, that you wouldn't be willing I should come with you." "I shall not be any more willing now I know all about it," added Bobby, in an uncompromising tone. "Wait till you have heard my story, and then you won't blame me." "Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business; but let me tell you, Tom, in the beginning, that I won't go with a fellow who has run away from his father and mother." "Pooh! What's the use of talking in that way?" Tom was evidently disconcerted by this decided stand of his companion. He knew that his bump of firmness was well developed, and whatever he said he meant. "You had better return home, Tom. Boys that run away from home don't often amount to much. Take my advice, and go home," added Bobby. "To such a home as mine!" said Tom, gloomily. "If I had such a home as yours, I would not have left it." Bobby got a further idea from this remark of the true state of the case, and the consideration moved him. Tom's father was a notoriously intemperate man, and the boy had nothing to hope for from his precept or his example. He was the child of a drunkard, and as much to be pitied as blamed for his vices. His home was not pleasant. He who presided over it, and who should have made a paradise of it, was its evil genius, a demon of wickedness, who blasted its flowers as fast as they bloomed. Tom had seemed truly penitent both during his illness and since his recovery. His one great desire now was to get away from home, for home to him was a place of torment. Bobby suspected all this, and in his great heart he pitied his companion. He did not know what to do. "I am sorry for you, Tom," said he, after he had considered the matter in this new light; "but I don't see what I can do for you. I doubt whether it would be right for me to help you run away from your parents." "I don't want you to help me run away. I have done that already." "But if I let you go with me, it will be just the same thing. Besides, since you told me those lies this morning, I haven't much confidence in you." "I couldn't help that." "Yes, you could. Couldn't help lying?" "What could I do? You would have gone right back and told my father." "Well, we will go up to Mr. Bayard's store, and then we will see what can be done." "I couldn't stay at home, sure," continued Tom, as they walked along together. "My father even talked of binding me out to a trade." "Did he?" Bobby stopped short in the street; for it was evident that, as this would remove him from his unhappy home, and thus effect all he professed to desire, he had some other purpose in view. "What are you stopping for, Bob?" "I think you better go back, Tom." "Not I; I won't do that, whatever happens." "If your father will put you to a trade, what more do you want?" "I won't go to a trade, any how." Bobby said no more, but determined to consult with Mr. Bayard about the matter; and Tom was soon too busily engaged in observing the strange sights and sounds of the city to think of any thing else. When they reached the store, Bobby went into Mr. Bayard's private office and told him all about the affair. The bookseller decided that Tom had run away more to avoid being bound to a trade than because his home was unpleasant; and this decision seemed to Bobby all the more just because he knew that Tom's mother, though a drunkard's wife, was a very good woman. Mr. Bayard further decided that Bobby ought not to permit the runaway to be the companion of his journey. He also considered it his duty to write to Mr. Spicer, informing him of his son's arrival in the city, and clearing Bobby from any agency in his escape. While Mr. Bayard was writing the letter, Bobby went out to give Tom the result of the consultation. The runaway received it with a great show of emotion, and begged and pleaded to have the decision reversed. But Bobby, though he would gladly have done any thing for him which was consistent with his duty, was firm as a rock, and positively refused, to have any thing to do with him until he obtained his father's consent; or, if there was any such trouble as he asserted, his mother's consent. Tom left the store, apparently "more in sorrow than in anger." His bullying nature seemed to be cast out, and Bobby could not but feel sorry for him. Duty was imperative, as it always is, and it must be done "now or never." During the day the little merchant attended to the packing of his stock, and to such other preparations as were required for his journey. He must take the steamer that evening for Bath, and when the time for his departure arrived, he was attended to the wharf by Mr. Bayard and Ellen, with whom he had passed the afternoon. The bookseller assisted him in procuring his ticket and berth, and gave him such instructions as his inexperience demanded. The last bell rang, the fasts were cast off, and the great wheels of the steamer began to turn. Our hero, who had never been on the water in a steamboat, or indeed any thing bigger than a punt on the river at home, was much interested and excited by his novel position. He seated himself on the promenade deck, and watched with wonder the boiling, surging waters astern of the steamer. How powerful is man, the author of that mighty machine that bore him so swiftly over the deep blue waters! Bobby was a little philosopher, as we have before had occasion to remark, and he was decidedly of the opinion that the steamboat was a great institution. When he had in some measure conquered his amazement, and the first ideas of sublimity which the steamer and the sea were calculated to excite in a poetical imagination, he walked forward to take a closer survey of the machinery. After all, there was something rather comical in the affair. The steam hissed and sputtered, and the great walking beam kept flying up and down; and the sum total of Bobby's philosophy was, that it was funny these things should make the boat go so like a race horse over the water. Then he took a look into the pilot house, and it seemed more funny that turning that big wheel should steer the boat. But the wind blew rather fresh at the forward part of the boat, and as Bobby's philosophy was not proof against it, he returned to the promenade deck, which was sheltered from the severity of the blast. He had got reconciled to the whole thing, and ceased to bother his head about the big wheel, the sputtering steam, and the walking beam; so he seated himself, and began to wonder what all the people in Riverdale were about. "All them as hasn't paid their fare, please walk up to the cap'n's office and s-e-t-t-l-e!" shouted a colored boy, presenting himself just then, and furiously ringing a large hand bell. "I have just settled," said Bobby, alluding to his comfortable seat. But the allusion was so indefinite to the colored boy that he thought himself insulted. He did not appear to be a very amiable boy, for his fist was doubled up, and with sundry big oaths, he threatened to annihilate the little merchant for his insolence. "I didn't say any thing that need offend you," replied Bobby. "I meant nothing." "You lie! You did!" He was on the point of administering a blow with his fist, when a third party appeared on the ground, and without waiting to hear the merits of the case, struck the negro a blow which had nearly floored him. Some of the passengers now interfered, and the colored boy was prevented from executing vengeance on the assailant. "Strike that fellow and you strike me!" said he who had struck the blow. "Tom Spicer!" exclaimed Bobby, astonished and chagrined at the presence of the runaway. CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH BOBBY FINDS "IT IS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD." A gentleman, who was sitting near Bobby when he made the remark which the colored boy had misunderstood, interfered to free him from blame, and probably all unpleasant feelings might have been saved, if Tom's zeal had been properly directed. As it was, the waiter retired with his bell, vowing vengeance upon his assailant. "How came you here, Tom?" asked Bobby, when the excitement had subsided. "You don't get rid of me so easily," replied Tom, laughing. Bobby called to mind the old adage that "a had penny is sure to return;" and, if it had not been a very uncivil remark, he would have said it. "I didn't expect to see you again at present," he observed, hardly knowing what to say or do. "I suppose not; but as I didn't mean you should expect me, I kept out of sight. Only for that darkey you wouldn't have found me out so soon. I like you, Bob, in spite of all you have done to get rid of me, and I wasn't a going to let the darkey thrash you." "You only made matters worse." "That is all the thanks I get for hitting him for you." "I am sorry you hit him, at the same time I suppose you meant to do me a service, and I thank you, not for the blow you struck the black boy, but for your good intentions." "That sounds better. I meant well, Bob." "I dare say you did. But how came you here?" "Why, you see, I was bound to go with you any how or at least to keep within hail of you. You told me, you know, that you were going in the steamboat; and after I left the shop, what should I see but a big picture of a steamboat on a wall. It said, 'Bath, Gardiner, and Hallowell,' on the bill; and I knew that was where you meant to go. So this afternoon I hunts round and finds the steamboat. I thought I never should have found it, but here I am." "What are you going to do?" "Going into the book business," replied Tom, with a smile. "Where are your books?" "Down stairs, in the cellar of the steamboat, or whatever you call it." "Where did you get them?" "Bought 'em, of course." "Did you? Where?" "Well, I don't remember the name of the street now. I could go right there if I was in the city, though." "Would they trust you?" Tom hesitated. The lies he had told that morning had done him no good--had rather injured his cause; and, though he had no principle that forbade lying, he questioned its policy in the present instance. "I paid part down, and they trusted me part." "How many books you got?" "Twenty dollars worth. I paid eight dollars down." "You did? Where did you get the eight dollars?" Bobby remembered the money Tom's father had lost several weeks before, and immediately connected that circumstance with his present ability to pay so large a sum. Tom hesitated again, but he was never at a loss for an answer. "My mother gave it to me." "Your mother?" "Yes, _sir_!" replied Tom, boldly, and in that peculiarly bluff manner which is almost always good evidence that the boy is lying. "But you ran away from home." "That's so; but my mother knew I was coming." "Did she?" "To be sure she did." "You didn't say so before." "I can't tell all I know in a minute." "If I thought your mother consented to your coming, I wouldn't say another word." "Well, she did; you may bet your life on that." "And your mother gave you ten dollars?" "Who said she gave me ten dollars?" asked Tom a little sharply. That was just the sum his father had lost, and Bobby had unwittingly hinted his suspicion. "You must have had as much as that if you paid eight on your books. Your fare to Boston and your steamboat fare must be two dollars more." "I know that; but look here, Bob;" and Tom took from his pocket five half dollars and exhibited them to his companion. "She gave me thirteen dollars." Notwithstanding this argument, Bobby felt almost sure that the lost ten dollars was a part of his capital. "I will tell you my story now, Bob, if you like. You condemned me without a hearing, as Jim Guthrie said when they sent him to the House of Correction for getting drunk." "Go ahead." The substance of Tom's story was, that his father drank so hard, and was such a tyrant in the house, that he could endure it no longer. His father and mother did not agree, as any one might have suspected. His mother, encouraged by the success of Bobby, thought that Tom might do something of the kind, and she had provided him the money to buy his stock of books. Bobby had not much confidence in this story. He had been deceived once; besides, it was not consistent with his previous narrative, and he had not before hinted that he had obtained his mother's consent. But Tom was eloquent, and protested that he had reformed, and meant to do well. He declared, by all that was good and great, Bobby should never have reason to be ashamed of him. Our little merchant was troubled. He could not now get rid of Tom without actually quarrelling with him, or running away from him. He did not wish to do the former, and it was not an easy matter to do the latter. Besides, there was hope that the runaway would do well; and if he did, when he carried the profits of his trade home, his father would forgive him. One thing was certain, if he returned to Riverdale he would be what he had been before. For these reasons Bobby finally, but very reluctantly, consented that Tom should remain with him, resolving, however, that, if he did not behave himself, he would leave him at once. Before morning he had another reason. When the steamer got out into the open bay, Bobby was seasick. He retired to his berth with a dreadful headache; as he described it afterwards, it seemed just as though that great walking beam was smashing up and down right in the midst of his brains. He had never felt so ill before in his life, and was very sure, in his inexperience, that something worse than mere seasickness ailed him. He told Tom, who was not in the least affected, how he felt; whereupon the runaway blustered round, got the steward and the captain into the cabin, and was very sure that Bobby would die before morning, if we may judge by the fuss he made. The captain was angry at being called from the pilot house for nothing, and threatened to throw Tom overboard if he didn't stop his noise. The steward, however, was a kind-hearted man, and assured Bobby that passengers were often a great deal sicker than he was; but he promised to do something for his relief, and Tom went with him to his state room for the desired remedy. The potion was nothing more nor less than a table spoonful of brandy, which Bobby, who had conscientious scruples about drinking ardent spirits, at first refused to take. Then Tom argued the point, and the sick boy yielded. The dose made him sicker yet, and nature came to his relief, and in a little while he felt better. Tom behaved like a good nurse; he staid by his friend till he went to sleep, and then "turned in" upon a settee beneath his berth. The boat pitched and tumbled about so in the heavy sea that Bobby did not sleep long, and when he woke he found Tom ready to assist him. But our hero felt better, and entreated Tom to go to sleep again. He made the best of his unpleasant situation. Sleep was not to be wooed, and he tried to pass away the dreary hours in thinking of Riverdale and the dear ones there. His mother was asleep, and Annie was asleep; and that was about all the excitement he could get up even on the home question. He could not build castles in the air, for seasickness and castle building do not agree. The gold and purple clouds would be black in spite of him, and the aerial structure he essayed to build would pitch and tumble about, for all the world, just like a steamboat in a heavy sea. As often as he got fairly into it, he was violently rolled out, and in a twinkling found himself in his narrow berth, awfully seasick. He went to sleep again at last, and the long night passed away. When he woke in the morning, he felt tolerably well, and was thankful that he had got out of that scrape. But before he could dress himself, he heard a terrible racket on deck. The steam whistle was shrieking, the bell was banging, and he heard the hoarse bellowing of the captain. It was certain that something had happened, or was about to happen. Then the boat stopped, rolling heavily in the sea. Tom was not there; he had gone on deck. Bobby was beginning to consider what a dreadful thing a wreck was, when Tom appeared. "What's the matter?" asked Bobby, with some appearance of alarm. "Fog," replied Tom. "It is so thick you can cut it with a hatchet." "Is that all?" "That's enough.' "Where are we?" "That is just what the pilot would like to know. They can't see ahead a bit, and don't know where we are." Bobby went on deck. The ocean rolled beneath them, but there was nothing but fog to be seen above and around them. The lead was heaved every few moments, and the steamer crept slowly along till it was found the water shoaled rapidly, when the captain ordered the men to let go the anchor. There they were; the fog was as obstinate as a mule, and would not "lift." Hour after hour they waited, for the captain was a prudent man, and would not risk the life of those on board to save a few hours' time. After breakfast, the passengers began to display their uneasiness, and some of them called the captain very hard names, because he would not go on. Almost every body grumbled, and made themselves miserable. "Nothing to do and nothing to read," growled a nicely-dressed gentleman, as he yawned and stretched himself to manifest his sensation of ennui. "Nothing to read, eh?" thought Bobby. "We will soon supply that want." Calling Tom, they went down to the main deck, where the baggage had been placed. "Now's our time," said he, as he proceeded to unlock one of the trunks that contained his books. "Now or never." "I am with you," replied Tom, catching the idea. The books of the latter were in a box, and he was obliged to get a hammer to open it; but with Bobby's assistance he soon got at them. "Buy 'The Wayfarer,'" said Bobby, when he returned to the saloon, and placed a volume in the hands of the yawning gentleman. "Best book of the season; only one dollar." "That I will, and glad of the chance," replied the gentleman. "I would give five dollars for any thing, if it were only the 'Comic Almanac.'" Others were of the same mind. There was no present prospect that the fog would lift, and before dinner time our merchant had sold fifty copies of "The Wayfarer." Tom, whose books were of an inferior description, and who was inexperienced as a salesman, disposed of twenty, which was more than half of his stock. The fog was a godsend to both of them, and they reaped a rich harvest from the occasion, for almost all the passengers seemed willing to spend their money freely for the means of occupying the heavy hours, and driving away that dreadful ennui which reigns supreme in a fog-bound steamer. About the middle of the afternoon, the fog blew over, and the boat proceeded on her voyage, and before sunset our young merchants were safely landed at Bath. CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH TOM HAS A GOOD TIME, AND BOBBY MEETS WITH A TERRIBLE MISFORTUNE. Bath afforded our young merchants an excellent market for their wares, and they remained there the rest of the week. They then proceeded to Brunswick, where their success was equally flattering. Thus far Tom had done very well, though Bobby had frequent occasion to remind him of the pledges he had given to conduct himself in a proper manner. He would swear now and then, from the force of habit; but invariably, when Bobby checked him, he promised to do better. At Brunswick Tom sold the last of his books, and was in possession of about thirty dollars, twelve of which he owed the publisher who had furnished his stock. This money seemed to burn in his pocket. He had the means of having a good time, and it went hard with him to plod along as Bobby did, careful to save every penny he could. "Come, Bob, let's get a horse and chaise and have a ride--what do you say?" proposed Tom, on the day he finished selling his books. "I can't spare the time or the money," replied Bobby, decidedly. "What is the use of having money if we can't spend it? It is a first rate day, and we should have a good time." "I can't afford it. I have a great many books to sell." "About a hundred; you can sell them fast enough." "I don't spend my money foolishly." "It wouldn't be foolishly. I have sold out, and am bound to have a little fun now." "You never will succeed if you do business in that way." "Why not?" "You will spend your money as fast as you get it." "Pooh! we can get a horse and chaise for the afternoon for two dollars. That is not much." "Considerable, I should say. But if you begin, there is no knowing where to leave off. I make it a rule not to spend a single cent foolishly, and if I don't begin, I shall never do it." "I don't mean to spend all I get; only a little now and then," persisted Tom. "Don't spend the first dollar for nonsense, and then you won't spend the second. Besides, when I have any money to spare, I mean to buy books with it for my library." "Humbug! Your library!" "Yes, my library; I mean to have a library one of these days." "I don't want any library, and I mean to spend some of my money in having a good time; and if you won't go with me, I shall go alone--that's all." "You can do as you please, of course; but I advise you to keep your money. You will want it to buy another stock of books." "I shall have enough for that. What do you say? Will you go with me or not?" "No, I will not." "Enough said; then. I shall go alone, or get some fellow to go with me." "Consider well before you go," pleaded Bobby, who had sense enough to see that Tom's proposed "good time" would put back, if not entirely prevent, the reform he was working out. He then proceeded to reason with him in a very earnest and feeling manner, telling him he would not only spend all his money, but completely unfit himself for business. What he proposed to do was nothing more nor less than extravagance, and it would lead him to dissipation and ruin. "To-day I am going to send one hundred dollars to Mr. Bayard," continued Bobby; "for I am afraid to have so much money with me. I advise you to send your money to your employer." "Humph! Catch me doing that! I am bound to have a good time, any how." "At least, send the money you owe him." "I'll bet I won't." "Well, do as you please; I have said all I have to say." "You are a fool, Bob!" exclaimed Tom, who had evidently used Bobby as much as he wished, and no longer cared to speak soft words to him. "Perhaps I am; but I know better than to spend my money upon fast horses. If you will go, I can't help it. I am sorry you are going astray." "What do you mean by that, you young monkey?" said Tom, angrily. This was Tom Spicer, the bully. It sounded like him; and with a feeling of sorrow Bobby resigned the hopes he had cherished of making a good boy of him. "We had better part now," added our hero, sadly. "I'm willing." "I shall leave Brunswick this afternoon for the towns up the river. I hope no harm will befall you. Good by, Tom," "Go it! I have heard your preaching about long enough, and I am more glad to get rid of you than you are to get rid of me." Bobby walked away towards the house where he had left the trunk containing his books, while Tom made his way towards a livery stable. The boys had been in the place for several days, and had made some acquaintances; so Tom had no difficulty in procuring a companion for his proposed ride. Our hero wrote a letter that afternoon to Mr. Bayard, in which he narrated all the particulars of his journey, his relations with Tom Spicer, and the success that had attended his labors. At the bank he procured a hundred dollar note for his small bills, and enclosed it in the letter. He felt sad about Tom. The runaway had done so well, had been so industrious, and shown such a tractable spirit, that he had been very much encouraged about him. But if he meant to be wild again,--for it was plain that the ride was only "the beginning of sorrows,"--it was well that they should part. By the afternoon stage our hero proceeded to Gardiner, passing through several smaller towns, which did not promise a very abundant harvest. His usual success attended him; for wherever he went, people seemed to be pleased with him, as Squire Lee had declared they would be. His pleasant, honest face was a capital recommendation, and his eloquence seldom failed to achieve the result which eloquence has ever achieved from Demosthenes down to the present day. Our limits do not permit us to follow him in all his peregrinations from town to town, and from house to house; so we pass over the next fortnight, at the end of which time we find him at Augusta. He had sold all his books but twenty, and had that day remitted eighty dollars more to Mr. Bayard. It was Wednesday, and he hoped to sell out so as to be able to take the next steamer for Boston, which was advertised to sail on the following day. He had heard nothing from Tom since their parting, and had given up all expectation of meeting him again; but that bad penny maxim proved true once more, for, as he was walking through one of the streets of Augusta, he had the misfortune to meet him--and this time it was indeed a misfortune. "Hallo, Bobby!" shouted the runaway, as familiarly as though nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of their relations. "Ah, Tom, I didn't expect to see you again," replied Bobby, not very much rejoiced to meet his late companion. "I suppose not; but here I am, as good as new. Have you sold out?" "No, not quite." "How many have you left?" "About twenty; but I thought, Tom, you would have returned to Boston before this time." "No;" and Tom did not seem to be in very good spirits. "Where are you going now?" "I don't know. I ought to have taken your advice, Bobby." This was a concession, and our hero began to feel some sympathy for his companion--as who does not when the erring confess their faults? "I am sorry you did not." "I got in with some pretty hard fellows down there to Brunswick," continued Tom, rather sheepishly. "And spent all your money," added Bobby, who could readily understand the reason why Tom had put on his humility again. "Not all." "How much have you left?" "Not much," replied he, evasively. "I don't know what I shall do. I am in a strange place, and have no friends." Bobby's sympathies were aroused, and without reflection, he promised to be a friend in his extremity. "I will stick by you this time, Bob, come what will. I will do just as you say, now." Our merchant was a little flattered by this unreserved display of confidence. He did not give weight enough to the fact that it was adversity alone which made Tom so humble. He was in trouble, and gave him all the guarantee he could ask for his future good behavior. He could not desert him now he was in difficulty. "You shall help me sell my books, and then we will return to Boston together. Have you money enough left to pay your employer?" Tom hesitated; something evidently hung heavily upon his mind. "I don't know how it will be after I have paid my expenses to Boston," he replied, averting his face. Bobby was perplexed by this evasive answer; but as Tom seemed so reluctant to go into details, he reserved his inquiries for a more convenient season. "Now, Tom, you take the houses on that side of the street, and I will take those upon this side. You shall have the profits on all you sell." "You are a first rate fellow, Bob; and I only wish I had done as you wanted me to do." "Can't be helped now, and we will do the next best thing," replied Bobby, as he left his companion to enter a house. Tom did very well, and by the middle of the afternoon they had sold all the books but four. "The Wayfarer" had been liberally advertised in that vicinity, and the work was in great demand. Bobby's heart grew lighter as the volumes disappeared from his valise, and already he had begun to picture the scene which would ensue upon his return to the little black house. How glad his mother would be to see him, and, he dared believe, how happy Annie would be as she listened to the account of his journey in the State of Maine! Wouldn't she be astonished when he told her about the steamboat, about the fog, and about the wild region at the mouth of the beautiful Kennebec! Poor Bobby! the brightest dream often ends in sadness; and a greater trial than any he had been called upon to endure was yet in store for him. As he walked along, thinking of Riverdale and its loved ones, Tom came out of a grocery store where he had just sold a book. "Here, Bob, is a ten dollar bill. I believe I have sold ten books for you," said Tom, after they had walked some distance. "You had better keep the money now; and while I think of it, you had better take what I have left of my former sales;" and Tom handed him another ten dollar bill. Bobby noticed that Tom seemed very much confused and embarrassed; but he did not observe that the two bills he had handed him were on the same bank. "Then you had ten dollars left after your frolic," he remarked, as he took the last bill. "About that;" and Tom glanced uneasily behind him. "What is the matter with you, Tom?" asked Bobby, who did not know what to make of his companion's embarrassment. "Nothing, Bob; let us walk a little faster. We had better turn up this street," continued Tom, as with a quick pace, he took the direction indicated. Bobby began to fear that Tom had been doing something wrong; and the suspicion was confirmed by seeing two men running with all their might towards them. Tom perceived them at the same moment. "Run!" he shouted, and suiting the action to the word, he took to his heels, and fled up the street into which he had proposed to turn. Bobby did not run, but stopped short where he was till the men came up to him. "Grab him," said one of them, "and I will catch the other." The man collared Bobby, and in spite of all the resistance he could make, dragged him down the street to the grocery store in which Tom had sold his last book. "What do you mean by this?" asked Bobby, his blood boiling with indignation at the harsh treatment to which he had been subjected. "We have got you, my hearty," replied the man, releasing his hold. No sooner was the grasp of the man removed, then Bobby, who determined on this as on former occasions to stand upon his inalienable rights, bolted for the door, and ran away with all his speed. But his captor was too fleet for him, and he was immediately retaken. To make him sure this time, his arms were tied behind him, and he was secured to the counter of the shop. In a few moments the other man returned dragging Tom in triumph after him. By this time quite a crowd had collected, which nearly filled the store. Bobby was confounded at the sudden change that had come over his fortunes; but seeing that resistance would be vain, he resolved to submit with the best grace he could. "I should like to know what all this means?" he inquired, indignantly. The crowd laughed in derision. "This is the chap that stole the wallet, I will be bound," said one, pointing to Tom, who stood in surly silence awaiting his fate. "He is the one who came into the store," replied the shopkeeper. "_I_ haven't stole any wallet," protested Bobby, who now understood the whole affair. The names of the two boys were taken, and warrants procured for their detention. They were searched, and upon Tom was found the lost wallet, and upon Bobby two ten dollar bills, which, the loser was willing to swear had been in the wallet. The evidence therefore was conclusive, and they were both sent to jail. Poor Bobby! the inmate of a prison! The law took its course, and in due time both of them were sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the State Reform School. Bobby was innocent, but he could not make his innocence appear. He had been the companion of Tom, the real thief, and part of the money had been found upon his person. Tom was too mean to exonerate him, and even had the hardihood to exult over his misfortune. At the end of three days they reached the town in which the Reform School is located, and were duly committed for their long term. Poor Bobby! CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH BOBBY TAKES FRENCH LEAVE, AND CAMPS IN THE WOODS. The intelligence of Bobby's misfortune reached Mr. Bayard, in Boston, by means of the newspapers. To the country press an item is a matter of considerable importance, and the alleged offence against the peace and dignity of the State of Maine was duly heralded to the inquiring public as a "daring robbery." The reporter who furnished the facts in the case for publication was not entirely devoid of that essential qualification of the country item writer, a lively imagination, and was obliged to dress up the particulars a little, in order to produce the necessary amount of wonder and indignation. It was stated that one of the two young men had been prowling about the place for several days, ostensibly for the purpose of selling books, but really with the intention of stealing whatever he could lay his hands upon. It was suggested that the boys were in league with an organized band of robbers, whose nefarious purposes would be defeated by the timely arrest of these young villains. The paper hinted that further depredations would probably be discovered, and warned people to beware of ruffians strolling about the country in the guise of pedlers. The writer of this thrilling paragraph must have had reason to believe that he had discharged his whole duty to the public, and that our hero was duly branded as a desperate fellow. No doubt he believed Bobby was an awful monster; for at the conclusion of his remarks he introduced some severe strictures on the lenity of the magistrate, because he had made the sentence two years, instead of five, which the writer thought the atrocious crime deserved. But, then, the justice differed from him in politics, which may account for the severity of the article. Mr. Bayard read this precious paragraph with mingled grief and indignation. He understood the case at a glance. Tom Spicer had joined him, and the little merchant had been involved in his crime. He was sure that Bobby had had no part in stealing the money. One so noble and true as he had been could not steal, he reasoned. It was contrary to experience, contrary to common sense. He was very much disturbed. This intelligence would be a severe blow to the poor boy's mother, and he had not the courage to destroy all her bright hopes by writing her the terrible truth. He was confident that Bobby was innocent, and that his being in the company of Tom Spicer had brought the imputation upon him; so he could not let the matter take its course. He was determined to do something to procure his liberty and restore his reputation. Squire Lee was in the city that day, and had left his store only half an hour before he discovered the paragraph. He immediately sent to his hotel for him, and together they devised means to effect Bobby's liberation. The squire was even more confident than Mr. Bayard that our hero was innocent of the crime charged upon him. They agreed to proceed immediately to the State of Maine, and use their influence in obtaining his pardon. The bookseller was a man of influence in the community, and was as well known in Maine as in Massachusetts; but to make their application the surer, he procured letters of introduction from some of the most distinguished men in Boston to the governor and other official persons in Maine. We will leave them now to do the work they had so generously undertaken, and return to the Reform School, where Bobby and Tom were confined. The latter took the matter very coolly. He seemed to feel that he deserved his sentence, but he took a malicious delight in seeing Bobby the companion of his captivity. He even had the hardihood to remind him of the blow he had struck him more than two months before, telling him that he had vowed vengeance then, and now the time had come. He was satisfied. "You know I didn't steal the money, or have any thing to do with it," said Bobby. "Some of it was found upon you, though," sneered Tom, maliciously. "You know how it came there, if no one else does." "Of course I do; but I like your company too well to get rid of you so easy." "The Lord is with the innocent," replied Bobby, "and something tells me that I shall not stay in this place a great while." "Going to run away?" asked Tom, with interest, and suddenly dropping his malicious look. "I know I am innocent of any crime; and I know that the Lord will not let me stay here a great while." "What do you mean to do, Bob?" Bobby made no reply; he felt that he had had more confidence in Tom than he deserved, and he determined to keep his own counsel in future. He had a purpose in view. His innocence gave him courage; and perhaps he did not feel that sense of necessity for submission to the laws of the land which age and experience give. He prayed earnestly for deliverance from the place in which he was confined. He felt that he did not deserve to be there; and though it was a very comfortable place, and the boys fared as well as he wished to fare, still it seemed to him like a prison. He was unjustly detained; and he not only prayed to be delivered, but he resolved to work out his own deliverance at the first opportunity. Knowing that whatever he had would be taken from him, he resolved by some means to keep possession of the twenty dollars he had about him. He had always kept his money in a secret place in his jacket to guard against accident, and the officers who had searched him had not discovered it. But now his clothes would be changed. He thought of these things before his arrival; so, when he reached the entrance, and got out of the wagon, to open the gate, by order of the officer, he slipped his twenty dollars into a hole in the wall. It so happened that there was not a suit of clothes in the store room of the institution which would fit him; and he was permitted to wear his own dress till another should be made. After his name and description had been entered, and the superintendent had read him a lecture upon his future duties, he was permitted to join the other boys, who were at work on the farm. He was sent with half a dozen others to pick up stones in a neighboring field. No officer was with them, and Bobby was struck with the apparent freedom of the institution, and he so expressed himself to his companions. "Not so much freedom as you think for," said one, in reply. "I should think the fellows would clear out." "Not so easy a matter. There is a standing reward of five dollars to any one who brings back a runaway." "They must catch him first." "No fellow ever got away yet. They always caught him before he got ten miles from the place." This was an important suggestion to Bobby, who already had a definite purpose in his mind. Like a skilful general, he had surveyed the ground on his arrival, and was at once prepared to execute his design. In his conversation with the boys, he obtained, the history of several who had attempted to escape, and found that even those who got a fair start were taken on some public road. He perceived that they were not good generals, and he determined to profit by their mistake. A short distance from the institution was what appeared to be a very extensive wood. Beyond this, many miles distant, he could see the ocean glittering like a sheet of ice under the setting sun. He carefully observed the hills, and obtained the bearings of various prominent objects in the vicinity, which would aid him in his flight. The boys gave him all the information in their power about the localities of the country. They seemed to feel that he was possessed of a superior spirit, and that he would not long remain among them; but, whatever they thought, they kept their own counsel. Bobby behaved well, and was so intelligent and prompt that he obtained the confidence of the superintendent, who began to employ him about the house, and in his own family. He was sent of errands in the neighborhood, and conducted himself so much to the satisfaction of his guardians that he was not required to work in the field after the second day of his residence on the farm. One afternoon he was told that his clothes were ready, and that he might put them on the next morning. This was a disagreeable announcement; for Bobby saw that, with the uniform of the institution upon his back, his chance of escape would be very slight. But about sunset, he was sent by the superintendent's lady to deliver a note at a house in the vicinity. "Now or never!" said Bobby to himself, after he had left the house. "Now's my time." As he passed the gate, he secured his money, and placed it in the secret receptacle of his jacket. After he had delivered the letter, he took the road and hastened off in the direction of the wood. His heart beat wildly at the prospect of once more meeting his mother, after nearly four weeks' absence. Annie Lee would welcome him; she would not believe that he was a thief. He had been four days an inmate of the Reform School, and nothing but the hope of soon attaining his liberty had kept his spirits from drooping. He had not for a moment despaired of getting away. He reached the entrance to the wood, and taking a cart path, began to penetrate its hidden depths. The night darkened upon him; he heard the owl screech his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will chant his cheery song. A certain sense of security now pervaded his mind, for the darkness concealed him from the world, and he had placed six good miles between him and the prison, as he considered it. He walked on, however, till he came to what seemed to be the end of the wood, and he hoped to reach the blue ocean he had seen in the distance before morning. Leaving the forest, he emerged into the open country. There was here and there a house before him; but the aspect of the country seemed strangely familiar to him. He could not understand it. He had never been in this part of the country before; yet there was a great house with two barns by the side of it, which he was positive he had seen before. He walked across the field a little farther, when, to his astonishment and dismay, he beheld the lofty turrets of the State Reform School. He had been walking in a circle, and had come out of the forest near the place where he had entered it. Bobby, as the reader has found out by this time, was a philosopher as well as a hero; and instead of despairing or wasting his precious time in vain regrets at his mistake, he laughed a little to himself at the blunder, and turned back into the woods again. "Now or never!" muttered he. "It will never do to give it up so." For an hour he walked on, with his eyes fixed on a great bright star in the sky. Then he found that the cart path crooked round, and he discovered where he had made his blunder. Leaving the road, he made his way in a straight line, still guided by the star, till he came to a large sheet of water. The sheet of water was an effectual barrier to his farther progress; indeed, he was so tired, he did not feel able to walk any more. He deemed himself safe from immediate pursuit in this secluded place. He needed rest, and he foresaw that the next few days would be burdened with fatigue and hardship which he must be prepared to meet. Bobby was not nice about trifles, and his habits were such that he had no fear of taking cold. His comfortable bed in the little black house was preferable to the cold ground, even with the primeval forest for a chamber; but circumstances alter cases, and he did not waste any vain regrets about the necessity of his position. After finding a secluded spot in the wood, he raked the dry leaves together for a bed, and offering his simple but fervent prayer to the Great Guardian above, he lay down to rest. The owl screamed his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will still repeated his monotonous song; but they were good company in the solitude of the dark forest. He could not go to sleep for a time, so strange and exciting were the circumstances of his position. He thought of a thousand things, but he could not _think_ himself to sleep, as he was wont to do. At last nature, worn out by fatigue and anxiety, conquered the circumstances, and he slept. CHAPTER XIX. IN WHICH BOBBY HAS A NARROW ESCAPE, AND GOES TO SEA WITH SAM RAY. Nature was kind to the little pilgrim in his extremity, and kept his senses sealed in grateful slumber till the birds had sung their matin song, and the sun had risen high in the heavens. Bobby woke with a start, and sprang to his feet. For a moment he did not realize where he was, or remember the exciting incidents of the previous evening. He felt refreshed by his deep slumber, and came out of it as vigorous as though he had slept in his bed at home. Rubbing his eyes, he stared about him at the tall pines whose foliage canopied his bed, and his identity was soon restored to him. He was Bobby Bright--but Bobby Bright in trouble. He was not the little merchant, but the little fugitive fleeing from the prison to which he had been doomed. It did not take him long to make his toilet, which was the only advantage of his primitive style of lodging. His first object was to examine his position, and ascertain in what direction he should continue his flight. He could not go ahead, as he had intended, for the sheet of water was an impassable barrier. Leaving the dense forest, he came to a marsh, beyond which was the wide creek he had seen in the night. It was salt water, and he reasoned that it could not extend a great way inland. His only course was to follow it till he found means of crossing it. Following the direction of the creek, he kept near the margin of the wood till he came to a public road. He had some doubts about trusting himself out of the forest, even for a single moment; so he seated himself upon a rock to argue the point. If any one should happen to come along, he was almost sure of furnishing a clew to his future movements, if not of being immediately captured. This was a very strong argument, but there was a stronger one upon the other side. He had eaten nothing since dinner on the preceding day, and he began, to feel faint for the want of food. On the other side of the creek he saw a pasture which looked as though it might afford him a few berries; and he was on the point of taking to the road, when he heard the rumbling of a wagon in the distance. His heart beat with apprehension. Perhaps it was some officer of the institution in search of him. At any rate it was some one who had come from the vicinity of the Reform School, and who had probably heard of his escape. As it came nearer, he heard the jingling of bells; it was the baker. How he longed for a loaf of his bread, or some of the precious ginger-bread he carried in his cart! Hunger tempted him to run the risk of exposure. He had money; he could buy cakes and bread; and perhaps the baker had a kind heart, and would befriend him in his distress. The wagon was close at hand. "Now or never," thought he; but this time it was not _now_. The risk was too great. If he failed now, two years of captivity were before him; and as for the hunger, he could grin and bear it for a while. "Now or never;" but this time it was escape now or never; and he permitted the baker to pass without hailing him. He waited half an hour, and then determined to take the road till he had crossed the creek. The danger was great, but the pangs of hunger urged him on. He was sure there were berries in the pasture, and with a timid step, carefully watching before and behind to insure himself against surprise, he crossed the bridge. But then a new difficulty presented itself. There was a house within ten rods of the bridge, which he must pass, and to do so would expose him to the most imminent peril. He was on the point of retreating, when a man came out of the house, and approached him. What should he do? It was a trying moment. If he ran, the act would expose him to suspicion. If he went forward, the man might have already received a description of him, and arrest him. He chose the latter course. The instinct of his being was to do every thing in a straightforward manner, and this probably prompted his decision. "Good morning, sir," said he boldly to the man. "Good morning. Where are you travelling?" This was a hard question. He did not know where he was travelling; besides, even in his present difficult position, he could not readily resort to a lie. "Down here a piece," he replied. "Travelled far to-day?" "Not far. Good morning, sir;" and Bobby resumed his walk. "I say, boy, suppose you tell me where you are going;" and the man came close to him, and deliberately surveyed him from head to foot. "I can hardly tell you," replied Bobby, summoning courage for the occasion. "Well, I suppose not," added the man, with a meaning smile. Bobby felt his strength desert him as he realized that he was suspected of being a runaway from the Reform School. That smile on the man's face was the knell of hope; and for a moment he felt a flood of misery roll over his soul. But the natural elasticity of his spirits soon came to his relief, and he resolved not to give up the ship, even if he had to fight for it. "I am in a hurry, so I shall have to leave you." "Not just yet, young man. Perhaps, as you don't know where you are going, you may remember what your name is," continued the man, good naturedly. There was a temptation to give a false name; but is it was so strongly beaten into our hero that the truth is better than a falsehood, he held his peace. "Excuse me, sir, but I can't stop to talk now." "In a hurry? Well, I dare say you are. I suppose there is no doubt but you are Master Robert Bright." "Not the least, sir; I haven't denied it yet, and I am not ashamed of my name," replied Bobby, with a good deal of spirit. "That's honest; I like that." "Honesty is the best policy," added Bobby. "That's cool for a rogue, any how. You ought to thought of that afore." "I did." "And stole the money?" "I didn't. I never stole a penny in my life." "Come, I like that." "It is the truth." "But they won't believe it over to the Reform school," laughed the man. "They will one of these days, perhaps." "You are a smart youngster; but I don't know as I can make five dollars any easier than by taking you back where you come from." "Yes, you can," replied Bobby, promptly. "Can I?" "Yes." "How?" "By letting me go." "Eh; you talk flush. I suppose you mean to give me your note, payable when the Kennebec dries up." "Cash on the nail," replied Bobby. "You look like a man with a heart in your bosom."--Bobby stole this passage from "The Wayfarer." "I reckon I have. The time hasn't come yet when Sam Ray could see a fellow-creature in distress and not help him out. But to help a thief off--" "We will argue that matter," interposed Bobby. "I can prove to you beyond a doubt that I am innocent of the crime charged upon me." "You don't look like a bad boy, I must say." "But, Mr. Ray, I'm hungry; I haven't eaten a mouthful since yesterday noon." "Thunder! You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam Ray. "I never could bear to see a man hungry, much more a boy; so come along to my house and get something to eat, and we will talk about the other matter afterwards." Sam Ray took Bobby to the little old house in which he dwelt; and in a short time his wife, who expressed her sympathy for the little fugitive in the warmest terms, had placed an abundant repast upon the table. Our hero did ample justice to it, and when he had finished he felt like a new creature. "Now, Mr. Ray, let me tell you my story," said Bobby. "I don't know as it's any use. Now you have eat my bread and butter, I don't feel like being mean to you. If any body else wants to carry you back, they may; I won't." "But you shall hear me;" and Bobby proceeded to deliver his "plain, unvarnished tale." When he had progressed but a little way in the narrative, the noise of an approaching vehicle was heard. Sam looked out of the window, as almost every body does in the country when a carriage passes. "By thunder! It's the Reform School wagon!" exclaimed he. "This way, boy!" and the good-hearted man thrust him into his chamber, bidding him get under the bed. The carriage stopped at the house; but Sam evaded direct reply, and the superintendent--for it was he--proceeded on his search. "Heaven bless you, Mr. Ray!" exclaimed Bobby, when he came out of the chamber, as the tears of gratitude coursed down his cheeks. "O, you will find Sam Ray all right," said he, warmly pressing Bobby's proffered hand. "I ain't quite a heathen, though some folks around here think so." "You are an angel!" "Not exactly," laughed Sam. Our hero finished his story, and confirmed it by exhibiting his account book and some other papers which he had retained. Sam Ray was satisfied, and vowed that if ever he saw Tom Spicer he would certainly "lick" him for his sake. "Now, sonny, I like you; I will be sworn you are a good fellow; and I mean to help you off. So just come along with me. I make my living by browsing round, hunting and fishing a little, and doing an odd job now and then. You see, I have got a good boat down the creek, and I shall just put you aboard and take you any where you have a mind to go." "May Heaven reward you!" cried Bobby, almost overcome by this sudden and unexpected kindness. "O, I don't want no reward; only when you get to be a great man--and I am dead sure you will be a great man--just think now and then of Sam Ray, and it's all right." "I shall remember you with gratitude as long as I live." Sam Ray took his gun on his shoulder, and Bobby the box of provision which Mrs. Ray had put up, and they left the house. At the bridge they got into a little skiff, and Sam took the oars. After they had passed a bend in the creek which concealed them from the road, Bobby felt secure from further molestation. Sam pulled about two miles down the creek, where it widened into a broad bay, near the head of which was anchored a small schooner. "Now, my hearty, nothing short of Uncle Sam's whole navy can get you away from me," said Sam, as he pulled alongside the schooner. "You have been very kind to me." "All right, sonny. Now tumble aboard." Bobby jumped upon the deck of the little craft and Sam followed him, after making fast the skiff to the schooner's moorings. In a few minutes the little vessel was standing down the bay with "a fresh wind and a flowing sheet." Bobby, who had never been in a sail boat before, was delighted, and in no measured terms expressed his admiration of the working of the trim little craft. "Now, sonny, where shall we go?" asked Sam, as they emerged from the bay into the broad ocean. "I don't know," replied Bobby. "I want to get back to Boston." "Perhaps I can put you aboard of some coaster bound there." "That will do nicely." "I will head towards Boston, and if I don't overhaul any thing, I will take you there myself." "Is this boat big enough to go so far?" "She'll stand anything short of a West India hurricane. You ain't afeerd, are you?" "O, no; I like it." The big waves now tossed the little vessel up and down like a feather, and the huge seas broke upon the bow, deluging her deck with floods of water. Bobby had unlimited confidence in Sam Ray, and felt as much at home as though he had been "cradled upon the briny deep." There was an excitement in the scene which accorded with his nature, and the perils which he had so painfully pictured on the preceding night were all born into the most lively joys. They ate their dinners from the provision box; Sam lighted his pipe, and many a tale he told of adventure by sea and land. Bobby felt happy, and almost dreaded the idea of parting with his rough but good-hearted friend They were now far out at sea, and the night was coming on. "Now, sonny, you had better turn in and take a snooze; you didn't rest much last night." "I am not sleepy; but there is one thing I will do; and Bobby drew from his secret receptacle his roll of bills. "Put them up, sonny," said Sam. "I want to make you a present of ten dollars." "You can't do it." "Nay, but to please me." "No, sir!" "Well, then, let me send it to your good wife." "You can't do that, nuther," replied Sam, gazing earnestly at a lumber-laden schooner ahead of him. "You must; your good heart made you lose five dollars, and I insist upon making it up to you." "You can't do it." "I shall feel bad if you don't take it. You see I have twenty dollars here, and I would like to give you the whole of it." "Not a cent, sonny. I ain't a heathen. That schooner ahead is bound for Boston, I reckon." "I shall be sorry to part with you, Mr. Ray." "Just my sentiment. I hain't seen a youngster afore for many a day that I took a fancy to, and I hate to let you go." "We shall meet again." "I hope so." "Please to take this money." "No;" and Sam shook his head so resolutely that Bobby gave up the point. As Sam had conjectured, the lumber schooner was bound to Boston. Her captain readily agreed to take our hero on board, and he sadly bade adieu to his kind friend. "Good by, Mr. Ray," said Bobby, as the schooner filled away. "Take this to remember me by." It was his jackknife; but Sam did not discover the ten dollar bill, which was shut beneath the blade, till it was too late to return it. Bobby did not cease to wave his hat to Sam till his little craft disappeared in the darkness. CHAPTER XX. IN WHICH THE CLOUDS BLOW OVER, AND BOBBY IS HIMSELF AGAIN. Fortunately for Bobby, the wind began to blow very heavily soon after he went on board of the lumber schooner, so that the captain was too much engaged in working his vessel to ask many questions. He was short handed, and though our hero was not much of a sailor, he made himself useful to the best of his ability. Though the wind was heavy, it was not fair; and it was not till the third morning after his parting with Sam Ray that the schooner arrived off Boston Light. The captain then informed him that, as the tide did not favor him, he might not get up to the city for twenty-four hours; and, if he was in a hurry, he would put him on board a pilot boat which he saw standing up the channel. "Thank you, captain; you are very kind, but it would give you a great deal of trouble," said Bobby. "None at all. We must wait here till the tide turns; so we have nothing better to do." "I should be very glad to get up this morning." "You shall, then;" and the captain ordered two men to get out the jolly boat. "I will pay my passage now, if you please." "That is paid." "Paid?" "I should say you had worked your passage. You have done very well, and I shall not charge you any thing." "I expected to pay my passage, captain; but if you think I have done enough to pay it, why, I have nothing to say, only that I am very much obliged to you." "You ought to be a sailor, young man; you were cut out for one." "I like the sea, though I never saw it till a few weeks since. But I suppose my mother would not let me go to sea." "I suppose not. Mothers are always afraid of salt water." By this time the jolly boat was alongside; and bidding the captain adieu, he jumped into it, and the men pulled him to the pilot boat, which had come up into the wind at the captain's hail. Bobby was kindly received on board, and in a couple of hours landed at the wharf in Boston. With a beating heart he made his way up into Washington Street. He felt strangely; his cheeks seemed to tingle, for he was aware that the imputation of dishonesty was fastened upon him. He could not doubt but that the story of his alleged crime had reached the city, and perhaps gone to his friends in Riverdale. How his poor mother must have wept to think her son was a thief! No; she never could have thought that. _She_ knew he would not steal, if no one else did. And Annie Lee--would she ever smile upon him again? Would she welcome him to her father's house so gladly as she had done in the past? He could bring nothing to establish his innocence but his previous character. Would not Mr. Bayard frown upon him? Would not even Ellen be tempted to forget the service he had rendered her? Bobby had thought of all these things before--on his cold, damp bed in the forest, in the watches of the tempestuous night onboard the schooner. But now, when he was almost in the presence of those he loved and respected, they had more force, and they nearly overwhelmed him. "I am innocent," he repeated to himself, "and why need I fear? My good Father in heaven will not let me be wronged." Yet he could not overcome his anxiety; and when he reached the store of Mr. Bayard, he passed by, dreading to face the friend who had been so kind to him. He could not bear even to be suspected of a crime by him. "Now or never," said he, as he turned round. "I will know my fate at once, and then make the best of it." Mustering all his courage, he entered the store. Mr. Timmins was not there; so he was spared the infliction of any ill-natured remark from him. "Hallo, Bobby!" exclaimed the gentlemanly salesman, whose acquaintance he had made on his first visit. "Good morning, Mr. Bigelow," replied Bobby with as much boldness as he could command. "I didn't know as I should ever see you again. You have been gone a long while." "Longer than usual," answered Bobby, with a blush; for he considered the remark of the salesman as an allusion to his imprisonment. "Is Mr. Bayard in?" "He is--in his office." Bobby's feet would hardly obey the mandate of his will, and with a faltering step he entered the private room of the bookseller. Mr. Bayard was absorbed in the perusal of the morning paper, and did not observe his entrance. With his heart up in his throat, and almost choking him, he stood for several minutes upon the threshold. He almost feared to speak, dreading the severe frown with which he expected to be received. Suspense, however, was more painful than condemnation, and he brought his resolution up to the point. "Mr. Bayard," said he, in faltering tones. "Bobby!" exclaimed the bookseller, dropping his paper upon the floor, and jumping upon his feet as though an electric current had passed through his frame. Grasping our hero's hand, he shook it with so much energy that, under any other circumstances, Bobby would have thought it hurt him. He did not think so now. "My poor Bobby! I am delighted to see you!" continued Mr. Bayard. Bobby burst into tears, and sobbed like a child, as he was. The unexpected kindness of this reception completely overwhelmed him. "Don't cry, Bobby; I know all about it;" and the tender-hearted bookseller wiped away his tears. "It was a stroke of misfortune; but it is all right now." But Bobby could not help crying, and the more Mr. Bayard, attempted to console him, the more he wept. "I am innocent, Mr. Bayard," he sobbed. "I know you are, Bobby; and all the world knows you are." "I am ruined now; I shall never dare to hold my head up again." "Nonsense, Bobby; you will hold your head the higher. You have behaved like a hero." "I ran away from the State Reform School, sir. I was innocent, and I would rather have died than staid there." "I know all about it, my young friend. Now dry your tears, and we will talk it all over." Bobby blowed and sputtered a little more; but finally he composed himself, and took a chair by Mr. Bayard's side. The bookseller then drew from his pocket a ponderous document, with a big official seal upon it, and exhibited it to our hero. "Do you see this, Bobby? It is your free and unconditional pardon." "Sir! Why--" "It will all end well, you may depend." Bobby was amazed. His pardon? But it would not restore his former good name. He felt that he was branded as a felon. It was not mercy, but justice that he wanted. "Truth is mighty, and will prevail," continued Mr. Bayard; "and this document restores your reputation." "I can hardly believe that." "Can't you? Hear my story then. When I read in one of the Maine papers the account of your misfortune, I felt that you had been grossly wronged. You were coupled with that Tom Spicer, who is the most consummate little villain I ever saw, and I understood your situation. Ah, Bobby, your only mistake was in having anything to do with that fellow." "I left him at Brunswick because he began to behave badly; but he joined me again at Augusta. He had spent nearly all his money, and did not know what to do. I pitied him, and meant to do something to help him out of the scrape." "Generous as ever! I have heard all about this before." "Indeed; who told you?" "Tom Spicer himself." "Tom?" asked Bobby, completely mystified. "Yes, Tom; you see, when I heard about your trouble, Squire Lee and myself--" "Squire Lee? Does he know about it?" "He does; and you may depend upon it, he thinks more highly of you than ever before. He and I immediately went down to Augusta to inquire into the matter. We called upon the governor of the state, who said that he had seen you, and bought a book of you." "Of me!" exclaimed Bobby, startled to think he had sold a book to a governor. "Yes; you called at his house; probably you did not know that he was the chief magistrate of the state. At any rate, he was very much pleased with you, and sorry to hear of your misfortune. Well, we followed your route to Brunswick, where we ascertained how Tom had conducted. In a week he established a very bad reputation there; but nothing could be found to implicate you. The squire testified to your uniform good behavior, and especially to your devotion to your mother. In short, we procured your pardon, and hastened with it to the State Reform School. "On our arrival, we learned, to our surprise and regret, that you had escaped from the institution on the preceding evening. Every effort was made to retake you, but without success. Ah, Bobby, you managed that well." "They didn't look in the right place," replied Bobby, with a smile, for he began to feel happy again. "By the permission of the superintendent, Squire Lee and myself examined Tom Spicer. He is a great rascal. Perhaps he thought we would get him out; so he made a clean breast of it, and confessed that you had no hand in the robbery, and that you knew nothing about it. He gave you the two bills on purpose to implicate you in the crime. We wrote down his statement, and had it sworn to before a justice of the peace. You shall read it by and by." "May Heaven reward you for your kindness to a poor boy!" exclaimed Bobby, the tears flowing down his cheeks again. "I did not deserve so much from you, Mr. Bayard." "Yes, you did, and a thousand times more. I was very sorry you had left the institution, and I waited in the vicinity till they said there was no probability that you would be captured. The most extraordinary efforts were used to find you; but there was not a person to be found who had seen or heard of you. I was very much alarmed about you, and offered a hundred dollars for any information concerning you." "I am sorry you had so much trouble. I wish I had known you were there." "How did you get off?" Bobby briefly related the story of his escape, and Mr. Bayard pronounced his skill worthy of his genius. "Sam Ray is a good fellow; we will remember him," added the bookseller, when he had finished. "I shall remember him; and only that I shall be afraid to go into the State of Maine after what has happened, I should pay him a visit one of these days." "There you are wrong. Those who know your story would sooner think of giving you a public reception, than of saying or doing any thing to injure your feelings. Those who have suffered unjustly are always lionized." "But no one will know my story, only that I was sent to prison for stealing." "There you are mistaken again. We put articles in all the principal papers, stating the facts in the case, and establishing your innocence beyond a peradventure. Go to Augusta now, Bobby, and you will be a lion." "I am sure I had no idea of getting out of the scrape so easily as this." "Innocence shall triumph, my young friend." "What does mother say?" asked Bobby, his countenance growing sad. "I do not know. We returned from Maine only yesterday; but Squire Lee will satisfy her. All that can worry her, as it has worried me, will be her fears for your safety when she hears of your escape." "I will soon set her mind at ease upon that point. I will take the noon train home." "A word about business before you go. I discharged Timmins about a week ago, and I have kept his place for you." "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, thrown completely out of his propriety by this announcement. "I think you will do better, in the long run, than you would to travel about the country. I was talking with Ellen about it, and she says it shall be so. Timmins's salary was five hundred dollars a year, and you shall have the same." "Five hundred dollars a year!" ejaculated Bobby, amazed at the vastness of the sum. "Very well for a boy of thirteen, Bobby." "I was fourteen last Sunday, sir." "I would not give any other boy so much; but you are worth it, and you shall have it." Probably Mr. Bayard's gratitude had something to do with this munificent offer; but he knew that our hero possessed abilities and energy far beyond his years. He further informed Bobby that he should have a room at his house, and that Ellen was delighted with the arrangement he proposed. The gloomy, threatening clouds were all rolled back, and floods of sunshine streamed in upon the soul of the little merchant; but in the midst of his rejoicing be remembered that his own integrity had carried him safely through the night of sorrow and doubt. He had been true to himself, and now, in the hour of his great triumph, he realized that, if he had been faithless to the light within him, his laurel would have been a crown of thorns. He was happy--very happy. What made him so? Not his dawning prosperity; not the favor of Mr. Bayard; not the handsome salary he was to receive; for all these things would have been but dross, if he had sacrificed his integrity, his love of truth and uprightness. He had been true to himself, and unseen angels had held him up. He had been faithful, and the consciousness of his fidelity to principle made a heaven within his heart. It was arranged that he should enter upon the duties of his new situation on the following week. After settling with Mr. Bayard, he found he had nearly seventy dollars in his possession; so that in a pecuniary point of view, if in no other, his eastern excursion was perfectly satisfactory. By the noon train he departed for Riverdale, and in two hours more he was folded to his mother's heart. Mrs. Bright wept for joy now, as she had before wept in misery when she heard of her son's misfortune. It took him all the afternoon to tell his exciting story to her, and she was almost beside herself when Bobby told her about his new situation. After tea he hastened over to Squire Lee's; and my young readers can imagine what a warm reception he had from father and daughter. For the third time that day he narrated his adventures in the east; and Annie declared they were better than any novel she had ever read. Perhaps it was because Bobby was the hero. It was nearly ten o'clock before he finished his story; and when he left, the squire made him promise to come over the next day. CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH BOBBY STEPS OFF THE STAGE, AND THE AUTHOR MUST FINISH "NOW OR NEVER." The few days which Bobby remained at home before entering upon the duties of his new situation were agreeably filled up in calling upon his many friends, and in visiting those pleasant spots in the woods and by the river, which years of association had rendered dear to him. His plans for the future too, occupied some of his time, though, inasmuch as his path of duty was already marked out, these plans were but little more than a series of fond imaginings; in short, little more than day dreams. I have before hinted that Bobby was addicted to castle building, and I should pity the man or boy who was not--who had no bright dream of future achievements, of future usefulness. "As a man thinketh, so is he," the Psalmist tells us, and it was the pen of inspiration which wrote it. What a man pictures as his ideal of that which is desirable in this world and the world to come, he will endeavor to attain. Even if it be no higher aim than the possession of wealth or fame, it is good and worthy as far as it goes. It fires his brain, it nerves his arm. It stimulates him to action, and action is the soul of progress. We must all work; and this world were cold and dull if it had no bright dreams to be realized. What Napoleon dreamed, he labored to accomplish, and the monarchs of Europe trembled before him. What Howard wished to be, he labored to be; his ideal was beautiful and true, and he raised a throne which will endure through eternity. Bobby dreamed great things. That bright picture of the little black house transformed into a white cottage, with green blinds, and surrounded by a pretty fence, was the nearest object; and before Mrs. Bright was aware that he was in earnest, the carpenters and the painters were upon the spot. "Now or never," replied Bobby to his mother's remonstrance. "This is your home, and it shall be the pleasantest spot upon earth, if I can make it so." Then he had to dream about his business in Boston and I am not sure but that he fancied himself a rich merchant, like Mr. Bayard, living in an elegant house in Chestnut Street, and having clerks and porters to do as he bade them. A great many young men dream such things, and though they seem a little silly when spoken out loud, they are what wood and water are to the steam engine--they are the mainspring of action. Some are stupid enough to dream about these things, and spend their time in idleness, and dissipation, waiting for "the good time coming." It will never come to them. They are more likely to die in the almshouse or the state prison, than to ride in their carriages; for constant exertion is the price of success. Bobby enjoyed himself to the utmost of his capacity during these few days of respite from labor. He spent a liberal share of his time at Squire Lee's where he was almost as much at home as in his mother's house. Annie read Moore's Poems to him, till he began to have quite a taste for poetry himself. In connection with Tom Spicer's continued absence, which had to be explained, Bobby's trials in the eastern country leaked out, and the consequence was, that he became a lion in Riverdale. The minister invited him to tea, as well as other prominent persons, for the sake of hearing his story; but Bobby declined the polite invitations from sheer bashfulness. He had not brass enough to make himself a hero; besides, the remembrance of his journey was any thing but pleasant to him. On Monday morning he took the early train for Boston, and assumed the duties of his situation in Mr. Bayard's store. But as I have carried my hero through the eventful period of his life, I cannot dwell upon his subsequent career. He applied himself with all the energy of his nature to the discharge of his duties. Early in the morning and late in the evening he was at his post, Mr. Bigelow was his friend from the first, and gave him all the instruction he required. His intelligence and quick perception soon enabled him to master the details of the business, and by the time he was fifteen, he was competent to perform any service required of him. By the advice of Mr. Bayard, he attended an evening school for six months in the year, to acquire a knowledge of book keeping, and to compensate for the opportunities of which he had been necessarily deprived in his earlier youth. He took Dr. Franklin for his model, and used all his spare time in reading good books, and in obtaining such information and such mental culture as would fit him to be, not only a good merchant, but a good and true man. Every Saturday night he went home to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath with his mother. The little black house no longer existed, for it had become the little paradise of which he had dreamed, only that the house seemed whiter, the blinds greener, and the fence more attractive than his fancy had pictured them. His mother, after a couple of years, at Bobby's earnest pleadings, ceased to close shoes and take in washing; but she had enough and to spare, for her son's salary was now six hundred dollars. His kind employer boarded him for nothing, (much against Bobby's will, I must say,) so that every month he carried to his mother thirty dollars, which more than paid her expenses. * * * * * Eight years have passed by since Bobby--we beg his pardon; he is now Mr. Robert Bright--entered the store of Mr. Bayard. He has passed from the boy to the man. Over the street door a new sign has taken the place of the old one, and the passer-by reads,-- BAYARD & BRIGHT, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS. The senior partner resorts to his counting room every morning from the force of habit; but he takes no active part in the business. Mr. Bright has frequent occasion to ask his advice, though every thing is directly managed by him; and the junior is accounted one of the ablest, but at the same time one of the most honest, business men in the city. His integrity has never been sacrificed, even to the emergencies of trade. The man is what the boy was; and we can best sum up the results of his life by saying that he has been true to himself, true to his friends and true to his God. Mrs. Bright is still living at the little white cottage, happy in herself and happy in her children. Bobby--we mean Mr. Bright--has hardly missed going to Riverdale on a Saturday night since he left home, eight years before. He has the same partiality for those famous apple pies, and his mother would as soon think of being without bread as being without apple pies when he comes home. Of course Squire Lee and Annie were always glad to see him when he came to Riverdale; and for two years it had been common talk in Riverdale that our hero did not go home on Sunday evening when the clock struck nine. But as this is a forbidden topic, we will ask the reader to go with us to Mr. Bayard's house in Chestnut Street. What! Annie Lee here? No; but as you are here, allow me to introduce Mrs. Robert Bright. They were married a few months before, and Mr. Bayard insisted that the happy couple should make their home at his house. But where is Ellen Bayard? O, she is Mrs. Bigelow now, and her husband is at the head of a large book establishment in New York. Bobby's dream had been realised, and he was the happiest man in the world--at least he thought so, which is just the same thing. He had been successful in business; his wife--the friend and companion of his youth, the brightest filament of the bright vision his fancy had woven--had been won, and the future glowed with brilliant promises. He had been successful; but neither nor all of the things we have mentioned constituted his highest and truest success--not his business prosperity, not the bright promise of wealth in store for him, not his good name among men, not even the beautiful and loving wife who had cast her lot with his to the end of time. These were successes, great and worthy, but not the highest success. He had made himself a man,--this was his real success,--a true, a Christian man. He had lived a noble life. He had reared the lofty structure of his manhood upon a solid foundation--principle. It is the rock which the winds of temptation and the rains of selfishness cannot move. Robert Bright is happy because he is good. Tom Spicer, now in the state prison, is unhappy,--not _because_ he is in the state prison, but because the evil passions of his nature are at war with the peace of his soul. He has fed the good that was within him upon straw and husks, and starved it out. He is a body only; the soul is dead in trespasses and sin. He loves no one, and no one loves him. During the past summer, Mr. Bright and his lady took a journey "down east." Annie insisted upon visiting the State Reform School; and her husband drove through the forest by which he had made his escape on that eventful night. Afterwards they called upon Sam Ray, who had been "dead sure that Bobby would one day be a great man." He was about the same person, and was astonished and delighted when our hero introduced himself. They spent a couple of hours in talking over the past, and at his departure, Mr. Bright made him a handsome present in such a delicate manner that he could not help accepting it. Squire Lee is still as hale and hearty as ever, and is never so happy as when Annie and her husband come to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath. He is fully of the opinion that Mr. Bright is the greatest man on the western continent, and he would not be in the least surprised if he should be elected president of the United States one of these days. The little merchant is a great merchant now. But more than this, he is a good man. He has formed his character, and he will probably die as he has lived. Reader, if yon have any good work to do, do it now, for with you it may be "NOW OR NEVER." 
13997	----	Proofreading Team REAL FOLKS by MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 1893 CONTENTS I. THIS WAY, AND THAT II. LUCLARION III. BY STORY-RAIL: TWENTY-SIX YEARS AN HOUR IV. AFTERWARDS IS A LONG TIME V. HOW THE NEWS CAME TO HOMESWORTH VI. AND VII. WAKING UP VIII. EAVESDROPPING IN ASPEN STREET IX. HAZEL'S INSPIRATION X. COCKLES AND CRAMBO XI. MORE WITCH-WORK XII. CRUMBS XIII. PIECES OF WORLDS XIV. "SESAME; AND LILIES" XV. WITH ALL ONE'S MIGHT XVI. SWARMING XVII. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS XVIII. ALL AT ONCE XIX. INSIDE XX. NEIGHBORS AND NEXT OF KIN XXI. THE HORSESHOE XXII. MORNING GLORIES I. THIS WAY, AND THAT. The parlor blinds were shut, and all the windows of the third-story rooms were shaded; but the pantry window, looking out on a long low shed, such as city houses have to keep their wood in and to dry their clothes upon, was open; and out at this window had come two little girls, with quiet steps and hushed voices, and carried their books and crickets to the very further end, establishing themselves there, where the shade of a tall, round fir tree, planted at the foot of the yard below, fell across the building of a morning. "It was prettier down on the bricks," Luclarion had told them. But they thought otherwise. "Luclarion doesn't know," said Frank. "People _don't_ know things, I think. I wonder why, when they've got old, and ought to? It's like the sea-shore here, I guess, only the stones are all stuck down, and you mustn't pick up the loose ones either." Frank touched lightly, as she spoke, the white and black and gray bits of gravel that covered the flat roof. "And it smells--like the pine forests!" The sun was hot and bright upon the fir branches and along the tar-cemented roof. "How do you know about sea-shores and pine forests?" asked Laura, with crushing common sense. "I don't know; but I do," said Frank. "You don't know anything but stories and pictures and one tree, and a little gravel, all stuck down tight." "I'm glad I've got one tree. And the rest of it,--why listen! It's in the _word_, Laura. _Forest_. Doesn't that sound like thousands of them, all fresh and rustling? And Ellen went to the sea-shore, in that book; and picked up pebbles; and the sea came up to her feet, just as the air comes up here, and you can't get any farther,"--said Frank, walking to the very edge and putting one foot out over, while the wind blew in her face up the long opening between rows of brick houses of which theirs was in the midst upon one side. "A great sea!" exclaimed Laura, contemptuously. "With all those other wood-sheds right out in it, all the way down!" "Well, there's another side to the sea; and capes, and islands," answered Frank, turning back. "Besides, I don't pretend it _is_; I only think it seems a little bit like it. I'm often put in mind of things. I don't know why." "I'll tell you what it is like," said Laura. "It's like the gallery at church, where the singers stand up in a row, and look down, and all the people look up at them. I like high places. I like Cecilia, in the 'Bracelets,' sitting at the top, behind, when her name was called out for the prize; and 'they all made way, and she was on the floor in an instant.' I should like to have been Cecilia!" "Leonora was a great deal the best." "I know it; but she don't _stand out_." "Laura! You're just like the Pharisees! You're always wishing for long clothes and high seats!" "There ain't any Pharisees, nowadays," said Laura, securely. After which, of course, there was nothing more to be insisted. Mrs. Lake, the housekeeper, came to the middle upper window, and moved the blind a little. Frank and Laura were behind the fir. They saw her through the branches. She, through the farther thickness of the tree, did not notice them. "That was good," said Laura. "She would have beckoned us in. I hate that forefinger of hers; it's always hushing or beckoning. It's only two inches long. What makes us have to mind it so?" "She puts it all into those two inches," answered Frank. "All the _must_ there is in the house. And then you've got to." "I wouldn't--if father wasn't sick." "Laura," said Frank, gravely, "I don't believe father is going to get well. What do you suppose they're letting us stay at home from school for?" "O, that," said Laura, "was because Mrs. Lake didn't have time to sew the sleeves into your brown dress." "I could have worn my gingham, Laura. What if he should die pretty soon? I heard her tell Luclarion that there must be a change before long. They talk in little bits, Laura, and they say it solemn." The children were silent for a few minutes. Frank sat looking through the fir-tree at the far-off flecks of blue. Mr. Shiere had been ill a long time. They could hardly think, now, what it would seem again not to have a sick father; and they had had no mother for several years,--many out of their short remembrance of life. Mrs. Lake had kept the house, and mended their clothes, and held up her forefinger at them. Even when Mr. Shiere was well, he had been a reserved man, much absorbed in business since his wife's death, he had been a very sad man. He loved his children, but he was very little with them. Frank and Laura could not feel the shock and loss that children feel when death comes and robs them suddenly of a close companionship. "What do you suppose would happen then?" asked Laura, after awhile. "We shouldn't be anybody's children." "Yes, we should," said Frank; "we should be God's.' "Everybody else is that,--_besides_," said Laura. "We shall have black silk pantalets again, I suppose,"--she began, afresh, looking down at her white ones with double crimped ruffles,--"and Mrs. Gibbs will come in and help, and we shall have to pipe and overcast." "O, Laura, how nice it was ever so long ago!" cried Frank, suddenly, never heeding the pantalets, "when mother sent us out to ask company to tea,--that pleasant Saturday, you know,--and made lace pelerines for our dolls while we were gone! It's horrid, when other girls have mothers, only to have a _housekeeper_! And pretty soon we sha'n't have anything, only a little corner, away back, that we can't hardly recollect." "They'll do something with us; they always do," said Laura, composedly. The children of this world, even _as_ children, are wisest in their generation. Frank believed they would be God's children; she could not see exactly what was to come of that, though, practically. Laura knew that people always did something; something would be sure to be done with them. She was not frightened; she was even a little curious. A head came up at the corner of the shed behind them, a pair of shoulders,--high, square, turned forward; a pair of arms, long thence to the elbows, as they say women's are who might be good nurses of children; the hands held on to the sides of the steep steps that led up from the bricked yard. The young woman's face was thin and strong; two great, clear, hazel eyes looked straight out, like arrow shots; it was a clear, undeviating glance; it never wandered, or searched, or wavered, any more than a sunbeam; it struck full upon whatever was there; it struck _through_ many things that were transparent to their quality. She had square, white, strong teeth, that set together like the faces of a die; they showed easily when she spoke, but the lips closed over them absolutely and firmly. Yet they were pleasant lips, and had a smile in them that never went quite out; it lay in all the muscles of the mouth and chin; it lay behind, in the living spirit that had moulded to itself the muscles. This was Luclarion. "Your Aunt Oldways and Mrs. Oferr have come. Hurry in!" Now Mrs. Oldways was only an uncle's wife; Mrs. Oferr was their father's sister. But Mrs. Oferr was a rich woman who lived in New York, and who came on grand and potent, with a scarf or a pair of shoe-bows for each of the children in her big trunk, and a hundred and one suggestions for their ordering and behavior at her tongue's end, once a year. Mrs. Oldways lived up in the country, and was "aunt" to half the neighborhood at home, and turned into an aunt instantly, wherever she went and found children. If there were no children, perhaps older folks did not call her by the name, but they felt the special human kinship that is of no-blood or law, but is next to motherhood in the spirit. Mrs. Oferr found the open pantry window, before the children had got in. "Out there!" she exclaimed, "in the eyes of all the neighbors in the circumstances of the family! Who does, or _don't_ look after you?" "Hearts'-sake!" came up the pleasant tones of Mrs. Oldways from behind, "how can they help it? There isn't any other out-doors. If they were down at Homesworth now, there'd be the lilac garden and the old chestnuts, and the seat under the wall. Poor little souls!" she added, pitifully, as she lifted them in, and kissed them. "It's well they can take any comfort. Let 'em have all there is." Mrs. Oferr drew the blinds, and closed the window. Frank and Laura remembered the strangeness of that day all their lives. How they sat, shy and silent, while Luclarion brought in cake and wine; how Mrs. Oferr sat in the large morocco easy-chair and took some; and Mrs. Oldways lifted Laura, great girl as she was, into her lap first, and broke a slice for her; how Mrs. Oldways went up-stairs to Mrs. Lake, and then down into the kitchen to do something that was needed; and Mrs. Oferr, after she had visited her brother, lay down in the spare chamber for a nap, tired with her long journey from New York, though it had been by boat and cars, while there was a long staging from Homesworth down to Nashua, on Mrs. Oldways' route. Mrs. Oldways, however, was "used," she said, "to stepping round." It was the sitting that had tired her. How they were told not to go out any more, or to run up and down-stairs; and how they sat in the front windows, looking out through the green slats at so much of the street world as they could see in strips; how they obtained surreptitious bits of bread from dinner, and opened a bit of the sash, and shoved out crumbs under the blinds for the pigeons that flew down upon the sidewalk; how they wondered what kind of a day it was in other houses, where there were not circumstances in the family, where children played, and fathers were not ill, but came and went to and from their stores; and where two aunts had not come, both at once, from great ways off, to wait for something strange and awful that was likely to befall. When they were taken in, at bedtime, to kiss their father and say good-night, there was something portentous in the stillness there; in the look of the sick man, raised high against the pillows, and turning his eyes wistfully toward them, with no slightest movement of the head; in the waiting aspect of all things,--the appearance as of everybody being to sit up all night except themselves. Edward Shiere brought his children close to him with the magnetism of that look; they bent down to receive his kiss and his good-night, so long and solemn. He had not been in the way of talking to them about religion in his life. He had only insisted on their truth and obedience; that was the beginning of all religion. Now it was given him in the hour of his death what he should speak; and because he had never said many such words to them before, they fell like the very touch of the Holy Ghost upon their young spirits now,-- "Love God, and keep His commandments. Good-by." In the morning, when they woke, Mrs. Lake was in their room, talking in a low voice with Mrs. Oferr, who stood by an open bureau. They heard Luclarion dusting down the stairs. Who was taking care of their father? They did not ask. In the night, he had been taken care of. It was morning with him, now, also. Mrs. Lake and Mrs. Oferr were calculating,--about black pantalets, and other things. This story is not with the details of their early orphan life. When Edward Shiere was buried came family consultations. The two aunts were the nearest friends. Nobody thought of Mr. Titus Oldways. He never was counted. He was Mrs. Shiere's uncle,--Aunt Oldways' uncle-in-law, therefore, and grand-uncle to these children. But Titus Oldways never took up any family responsibilities; he had been shy of them all his single, solitary life. He seemed to think he could not drop them as he could other things, if he did not find them satisfactory. Besides, what would he know about two young girls? He saw the death in the paper, and came to the funeral; then he went away again to his house in Greenley Street at the far West End, and to his stiff old housekeeper, Mrs. Froke, who knew his stiff old ways. And, turning his back on everybody, everybody forgot all about him. Except as now and then, at intervals of years, there broke out here or there, at some distant point in some family crisis, a sudden recollection from which would spring a half suggestion, "Why, there's Uncle Titus! If he was only,"--or, "if he would only,"--and there it ended. Much as it might be with a housewife, who says of some stored-away possession forty times, perhaps, before it ever turns out available, "Why, there's that old gray taffety! If it were only green, now!" or, "If there were three or four yards more of it!" Uncle Titus was just Uncle Titus, neither more nor less; so Mrs. Oferr and Aunt Oldways consulted about their own measures and materials; and never reckoned the old taffety at all. There was money enough to clothe and educate; little more. "I will take home _one_," said Mrs. Oferr, distinctly. So, they were to be separated? They did not realize what this was, however. They were told of letters and visits; of sweet country-living, of city sights and pleasures; of kittens and birds' nests, and the great barns; of music and dancing lessons, and little parties,--"by-and-by, when it was proper." "Let me go to Homesworth," whispered Frank to Aunt Oldways. Laura gravitated as surely to the streets and shops, and the great school of young ladies. "One taken and the other left," quoted Luclarion, over the packing of the two small trunks. "We're both going," says Laura, surprised. "_One_ taken? Where?" "Where the carcass is," answered Luclarion. "There's one thing you'll have to see to for yourselves. I can't pack it. It won't go into the trunks." "What, Luclarion?" "What your father said to you that night." They were silent. Presently Frank answered, softly,--"I hope I shan't forget that." Laura, the pause once broken, remarked, rather glibly, that she "was afraid there wouldn't be much chance to recollect things at Aunt Oferr's." "She isn't exactly what I call a heavenly-minded woman," said Luclarion, quietly. "She is very much _occupied_," replied Laura, grandly taking up the Oferr style. "She visits a great deal, and she goes out in the carriage. You have to change your dress every day for dinner, and I'm to take French lessons." The absurd little sinner was actually proud of her magnificent temptations. She was only a child. Men and women never are, of course. "I'm afraid it will be pretty hard to remember," repeated Laura, with condescension. "_That's_ your stump!" Luclarion fixed the steadfast arrow of her look straight upon her, and drew the bow with this twang. II. LUCLARION. How Mrs. Grapp ever came to, was the wonder. Her having the baby was nothing. Her having the name for it was the astonishment. Her own name was Lucy; her husband's Luther: that, perhaps, accounted for the first syllable; afterwards, whether her mind lapsed off into combinations of such outshining appellatives as "Clara" and "Marion," or whether Mr. Grapp having played the clarionet, and wooed her sweetly with it in her youth, had anything to do with it, cannot be told; but in those prescriptive days of quiet which followed the domestic advent, the name did somehow grow together in the fancy of Mrs. Luther; and in due time the life-atom which had been born indistinguishable into the natural world, was baptized into the Christian Church as "Luclarion" Grapp. Thenceforth, and no wonder, it took to itself a very especial individuality, and became what this story will partly tell. Marcus Grapp, who had the start of Luclarion in this "meander,"--as their father called the vale of tears,--by just two years' time, and was y-_clipped_, by everybody but his mother "Mark,"--in his turn, as they grew old together, cut his sister down to "Luke." Then Luther Grapp called them both "The Apostles." And not far wrong; since if ever the kingdom of heaven does send forth its Apostles--nay, its little Christs--into the work on earth, in these days, it is as little children into loving homes. The Apostles got up early one autumn morning, when Mark was about six years old, and Luke four. They crept out of their small trundle-bed in their mother's room adjoining the great kitchen, and made their way out softly to the warm wide hearth. There were new shoes, a pair apiece, brought home from the Mills the night before, set under the little crickets in the corners. These had got into their dreams, somehow, and into the red rooster's first halloo from the end room roof, and into the streak of pale daylight that just stirred and lifted the darkness, and showed doors and windows, but not yet the blue meeting-houses on the yellow wall-paper, by which they always knew when it was really morning; and while Mrs. Grapp was taking that last beguiling nap in which one is conscious that one means to get up presently, and rests so sweetly on one's good intentions, letting the hazy mirage of the day's work that is to be done play along the horizon of dim thoughts with its unrisen activities,--two little flannel night-gowns were cuddled in small heaps by the chimney-side, little bare feet were trying themselves into the new shoes, and lifting themselves up, crippled with two inches of stout string between the heels. Then the shoes were turned into spans of horses, and chirruped and trotted softly into their cricket-stables; and then--what else was there to do, until the strings were cut, and the flannel night-gowns taken off? It was so still out here, in the big, busy, day-time room; it was like getting back where the world had not begun; surely one must do something wonderful with the materials all lying round, and such an opportunity as that. It was old-time then, when kitchens had fire-places; or rather the house was chiefly fire-place, in front of and about which was more or less of kitchen-space. In the deep fire-place lay a huge mound of gray ashes, a Vesuvius, under which red bowels of fire lay hidden. In one corner of the chimney leaned an iron bar, used sometimes in some forgotten, old fashioned way, across dogs or pothooks,--who knows now? At any rate, there it always was. Mark, ambitious, put all his little strength to it this morning and drew it down, carefully, without much clatter, on the hearth. Then he thought how it would turn red under those ashes, where the big coals were, and how it would shine and sparkle when he pulled it out again, like the red-hot, hissing iron Jack-the-Giant-Killer struck into the one-eyed monster's eye. So he shoved it in; and forgot it there, while he told Luke--very much twisted and dislocated, and misjoined--the leading incidents of the giant story; and then lapsed off, by some queer association, into the Scripture narrative of Joseph and his brethren, who "pulled his red coat off, and put him in a _fit_, and left him there." "And then what?" says Luke. "Then,--O, my iron's done! See here, Luke!"--and taking it prudently with the tongs, he pulled back the rod, till the glowing end, a foot or more of live, palpitating, flamy red, lay out upon the broad open bricks. "There, Luke! You daresn't put your foot on _that_!" Dear little Luke, who wouldn't, at even four years old, be dared! And dear little white, tender, pink-and-lily foot! The next instant, a shriek of pain shot through Mrs. Grapp's ears, and sent her out of her dreams and out of her bed, and with one single impulse into the kitchen, with her own bare feet, and in her night-gown. The little foot had only touched; a dainty, timid, yet most resolute touch; but the sweet flesh shriveled, and the fierce anguish ran up every fibre of the baby body, to the very heart and brain. "O! O, O!" came the long, pitiful, shivering cries, as the mother gathered her in her arms. "What is it? What did you do? How came you to?" And all the while she moved quickly here and there, to cupboard and press-drawer, holding the child fast, and picking up as she could with one hand, cotton wool, and sweet-oil flask, and old linen bits; and so she bound it up, saying still, every now and again, as all she could say,--"What _did_ you do? How came you to?" Till, in a little lull of the fearful smart, as the air was shut away, and the oil felt momentarily cool upon the ache, Luke answered her,-- "He hed I dare-hn't, and ho I did!" "You little fool!" The rough word was half reaction of relief, that the child could speak at all, half horrible spasm of all her own motherly nerves that thrilled through and through with every pang that touched the little frame, hers also. Mothers never do part bonds with babies they have borne. Until the day they die, each quiver of their life goes back straight to the heart beside which it began. "You Marcus! What did you mean?" "I meant she darsn't; and she no business to 'a dars't," said Mark, pale with remorse and fright, but standing up stiff and manful, with bare common sense, when brought to bay. And then he marched away into his mother's bedroom, plunged his head down into the clothes, and cried,--harder than Luclarion. Nobody wore any new shoes that day; Mark for a punishment,--though he flouted at the penalty as such, with an, "I guess you'd see me!" And there were many days before poor little Luclarion could wear any shoes at all. The foot got well, however, without hindrance. But Luke was the same little fool as ever; that was not burnt out. She would never be "dared" to anything. They called it "stumps" as they grew older. They played "stumps" all through the barns and woods and meadows; over walls and rocks, and rafters and house-roofs. But the burnt foot saved Luke's neck scores of times, doubtless. Mark remembered it; he never "stumped" her to any certain hurt, or where he could not lead the way himself. The mischief they got into and out of is no part of my story; but one day something happened--things do happen as far back in lives as that--which gave Luclarion her clew to the world. They had got into the best parlor,--that sacred place of the New England farm-house, that is only entered by the high-priests themselves on solemn festivals, weddings and burials, Thanksgivings and quiltings; or devoutly, now and then to set the shrine in order, shut the blinds again, and so depart, leaving it to gather the gloom and grandeur that things and places and people do when they are good for nothing else. The children had been left alone; for their mother had gone to a sewing society, and Grashy, the girl, was up-stairs in her kitchen-chamber-bedroom, with a nail over the door-latch to keep them out while she "fixed over" her best gown. "Le's play Lake Ontario," says Marcus. Now Lake Ontario, however they had pitched upon it, stood with them for all the waters that are upon the face of the earth, and all the confusion and peril of them. To play it, they turned the room into one vast shipwreck, of upset and piled up chairs, stools, boxes, buckets, and what else they could lay hands on; and among and over them they navigated their difficult and hilarious way. By no means were they to touch the floor; that was the Lake,--that were to drown. It was Columbus sometimes; sometimes it was Captain Cook; to-day, it was no less than Jason sailing after the golden fleece. Out of odd volumes in the garret, and out of "best books" taken down from the secretary in the "settin'-room," and put into their hands, with charges, of a Sunday, to keep them still, they had got these things, jumbled into strange far-off and near fantasies in their childish minds. "Lake Ontario" included and connected all. "I'll tell you what it is," said Marcus, tumbling up against the parlor door and an idea at once. "In here!" "What?" asked Luke, breathless, without looking up, and paddling with the shovel, from an inverted rocking-chair. "The golden thing! Hush!" At this moment Grashy came into the kitchen, took a little tin kettle from a nail over the dresser, and her sun-bonnet from another behind the door, and made her way through the apartment as well as she could for bristling chair-legs, with exemplary placidity. She was used to "Lake Ontario." "Don't get into any mischief, you Apostles," was her injunction. "I'm goin' down to Miss Ruddock's for some 'east." "Good,"; says Mark, the instant the door was shut "Now this is Colchis, and I'm going in." He pronounced it much like "cold-cheese," and it never occurred to him that he was naming any unusual or ancient locality. There was a "Jason" in the Mills Village. He kept a grocer's shop. Colchis might be close by for all he knew; out beyond the wall, perhaps, among the old barrels. Children _place_ all they read or hear about, or even all they imagine, within a very limited horizon. They cannot go beyond their world. Why should they? Neither could those very venerable ancients. "'Tain't," says Luclarion, with unbeguiled practicality. "It's just ma's best parlor, and you mustn't." It was the "mustn't" that was the whole of it. If Mark had asserted that the back kitchen, or the cellar-way closet was Colchis, she would have indorsed it with enthusiasm, and followed on like a loyal Argonaut, as she was. But her imagination here was prepossessed. Nothing in old fable could be more environed with awe and mystery than this best parlor. "And, besides," said Luclarion, "I don't care for the golden fleece; I'm tired of it. Let's play something else." "I'll tell you what there is in here," persisted Mark. "There's two enchanted children. I've seen 'em!" "Just as though," said Luke contemptuously. "Ma ain't a witch." "Tain't ma. She don't know. They ain't visible to her. _She_ thinks it's nothing but the best parlor. But it opens out, right into the witch country,--not for her. 'Twill if we go. See if it don't." He had got hold of her now; Luclarion could not resist that. Anything might be true of that wonderful best room, after all. It was the farthest Euxine, the witch-land, everything, to them. So Mark turned the latch and they crept in "We must open a shutter," Mark said, groping his way. "Grashy will be back," suggested Luke, fearfully. "Guess so!" said Mark. "She ain't got coaxed to take her sun-bonnet off yet, an' it'll take her ninety-'leven hours to get it on again." He had let in the light now from the south window. The red carpet on the floor; the high sofa of figured hair-cloth, with brass-headed nails, and brass rosettes in the ends of the hard, cylinder pillows; the tall, carved cupboard press, its doors and drawers glittering with hanging brass handles; right opposite the door by which they had come in, the large, leaning mirror, gilt--garnished with grooved and beaded rim and an eagle and ball-chains over the top,--all this, opening right in from the familiar every-day kitchen and their Lake Ontario,--it certainly meant something that such a place should be. It meant a great deal more than sixteen feet square could hold, and what it really was did not stop short at the gray-and-crimson stenciled walls. The two were all alone in it; perhaps they had never been all alone in it before. I think, notwithstanding their mischief and enterprise, they never had. And deep in the mirror, face to face with them, coming down, it seemed, the red slant of an inner and more brilliant floor, they saw two other little figures. Their own they knew, really, but elsewhere they never saw their own figures entire. There was not another looking-glass in the house that was more than two feet long, and they were all hung up so high! "There!" whispered Mark. "There they are, and they can't get out." "Of course they can't," said sensible Luclarion. "If we only knew the right thing to say, or do, they might," said Mark. "It's that they're waiting for, you see. They always do. It's like the sleeping beauty Grashy told us." "Then they've got to wait a hundred years," said Luke. "Who knows when they began?" "They do everything that we do," said Luclarion, her imagination kindling, but as under protest. "If we could jump in perhaps they would jump out." "We might jump _at_ 'em," said Marcus. "Jest get 'em going, and may-be they'd jump over. Le's try." So they set up two chairs from Lake Ontario in the kitchen doorway, to jump from; but they could only jump to the middle round of the carpet, and who could expect that the shadow children should be beguiled by that into a leap over bounds? They only came to the middle round of _their_ carpet. "We must go nearer; we must set the chairs in the middle, and jump close. Jest _shave_, you know," said Marcus. "O, I'm afraid," said Luclarion. "I'll tell you what! Le's _run_ and jump! Clear from the other side of the kitchen, you know. Then they'll have to run too, and may-be they can't stop." So they picked up chairs and made a path, and ran from across the broad kitchen into the parlor doorway, quite on to the middle round of the carpet, and then with great leaps came down bodily upon the floor close in front of the large glass that, leaned over them, with two little fallen figures in it, rolling aside quickly also, over the slanting red carpet. But, O dear what did it? Had the time come, anyhow, for the old string to part its last fibre, that held the mirror tilting from the wall,--or was it the crash of a completed spell? There came a snap,--a strain,--as some nails or screws that held it otherwise gave way before the forward pressing weight, and down, flat-face upon the floor, between the children, covering them with fragments of splintered glass and gilded wood,--eagle, ball-chains, and all,--that whole magnificence and mystery lay prostrate. Behind, where it had been, was a blank, brown-stained cobwebbed wall, thrown up harsh and sudden against them, making the room small, and all the enchanted chamber, with its red slanting carpet, and its far reflected corners, gone. The house hushed up again after that terrible noise, and stood just the same as ever. When a thing like that happens, it tells its own story, just once, and then it is over. _People_ are different. They keep talking. There was Grashy to come home. She had not got there in time to hear the house tell it. She must learn it from the children. Why? "Because they knew," Luclarion said. "Because, then, they could not wait and let it be found out." "We never touched it," said Mark. "We jumped," said Luke. "We couldn't help it, if _that_ did it. S'posin' we'd jumped in the kitchen, or--the--flat-irons had tumbled down,--or anything? That old string was all wore out." "Well, we was here, and we jumped; and we know." "We was here, of course; and of course we couldn't help knowing, with all that slam-bang. Why, it almost upset Lake Ontario! We can tell how it slammed, and how we thought the house was coming down. I did." "And how we were in the best parlor, and how we jumped," reiterated Luclarion, slowly. "Marcus, it's a stump!" They were out in the middle of Lake Ontario now, sitting right down underneath the wrecks, upon the floor; that is, under water, without ever thinking of it. The parlor door was shut, with all that disaster and dismay behind it. "Go ahead, then!" said Marcus, and he laid himself back desperately on the floor. "There's Grashy!" "Sakes and patience!" ejaculated Grashy, merrily, coming in. "They're drownded,--dead, both of 'em; down to the bottom of Lake Ontariah!" "No we ain't," said Luclarion, quietly. "It isn't Lake Ontario now. It's nothing but a clutter. But there's an awful thing in the best parlor, and we don't know whether we did it or not. We were in there, and we jumped." Grashy went straight to the parlor door, and opened it. She looked in, turned pale, and said "'Lection!" That is a word the women have, up in the country, for solemn surprise, or exceeding emergency, or dire confusion. I do not know whether it is derived from religion or politics. It denotes a vital crisis, either way, and your hands full. Perhaps it had the theological association in Grashy's mind, for the next thing she said was, "My soul!" "Do you know what that's a sign of, you children?" "Sign the old thing was rotten," said Marcus, rather sullenly. "Wish that was all," said Grashy, her lips white yet. "Hope there mayn't nothin' dreadful happen in this house before the year's out. It's wuss'n thirteen at the table." "Do you s'pose we did it?" asked Luke, anxiously. "Where was you when it tumbled?" "Right in front of it. But we were rolling away. _We_ tumbled." "'Twould er come down the fust jar, anyway, if a door had slammed. The string's cut right through," said Grashy, looking at the two ends sticking up stiff and straight from the top fragment of the frame. "But the mercy is you war'n't smashed yourselves to bits and flinders. Think o'that!" "Do you s'pose ma'll think of that?" asked Luclarion. "Well--yes; but it may make her kinder madder,--just at first, you know. Between you and me and the lookin'-glass, you see,--well, yer ma is a pretty strong-feelin' woman," said Grashy, reflectively. "'Fi was you I wouldn't say nothin' about it. What's the use? _I_ shan't." "It's a stump," repeated Luclarion, sadly, but in very resolute earnest. Grashy stared. "Well, if you ain't the curiousest young one, Luke Grapp!" said she, only half comprehending. When Mrs. Grapp came home, Luclarion went into her bedroom after her, and told her the whole story. Mrs. Grapp went into the parlor, viewed the scene of calamity, took in the sense of loss and narrowly escaped danger, laid the whole weight of them upon the disobedience to be dealt with, and just as she had said, "You little fool!" out of the very shock of her own distress when Luke had burned her baby foot, she turned back now, took the two children up-stairs in silence, gave them each a good old orthodox whipping, and tucked them into their beds. They slept one on each side of the great kitchen-chamber. "Mark," whispered Luke, tenderly, after Mrs. Grapp's step had died away down the stairs. "How do you feel?" "Hot!" said Mark. "How do you?" "You ain't mad with me, be you?" "No." "Then I feel real cleared up and comfortable. But it _was_ a stump, wasn't it?" * * * * * From that time forward, Luclarion Grapp had got her light to go by. She understood life. It was "stumps" all through. The Lord set them, and let them; she found that out afterward, when she was older, and "experienced religion." I think she was mistaken in the dates, though; it was _recognition_, this later thing; the experience was away back,--at Lake Ontario. It was a stump when her father died, and her mother had to manage the farm, and she to help her. The mortgage they had to work off was a stump; but faith and Luclarion's dairy did it. It was a stump when Marcus wanted to go to college, and they undertook that, after the mortgage. It was a stump when Adam Burge wanted her to marry him, and go and live in the long red cottage at Side Hill, and she could not go till they had got through with helping Marcus. It was a terrible stump when Adam Burge married Persis Cone instead, and she had to live on and bear it. It was a stump when her mother died, and the farm was sold. Marcus married; he never knew; he had a belles-lettres professorship in a new college up in D----. He would not take a cent of the farm money; he had had his share long ago; the four thousand dollars were invested for Luke. He did the best he could, and all he knew; but human creatures can never pay each other back. Only God can do that, either way. Luclarion did not stay in ----. There were too few there now, and too many. She came down to Boston. Her two hundred and eighty dollars a year was very good, as far as it went, but it would not keep her idle; neither did she wish to live idle. She learned dress-making; she had taste and knack; she was doing well; she enjoyed going about from house to house for her days' work, and then coming back to her snug room at night, and her cup of tea and her book. Then it turned out that so much sewing was not good for her; her health was threatened; she had been used to farm work and "all out-doors." It was a "stump" again. That was all she called it; she did not talk piously about a "cross." What difference did it make? There is another word, also, for "cross" in Hebrew. Luclarion came at last to live with Mrs. Edward Shiere. And in that household, at eight and twenty, we have just found her. III. BY STORY-RAIL: TWENTY-SIX YEARS AN HOUR. Laura Shiere did not think much about the "stump," when, in her dark gray merino travelling dress, and her black ribbons, nicely appointed, as Mrs. Oferr's niece should be, down to her black kid gloves and broad-hemmed pocket-handkerchief, and little black straw travelling-basket (for morocco bags were not yet in those days), she stepped into the train with her aunt at the Providence Station, on her way to Stonington and New York. The world seemed easily laid out before her. She was like a cousin in a story-book, going to arrive presently at a new home, and begin a new life, in which she would be very interesting to herself and to those about her. She felt rather important, too, with her money independence--there being really "property" of hers to be spoken of as she had heard it of late. She had her mother's diamond ring on her third finger, and was comfortably conscious of it when she drew off her left-hand glove. Laura Shiere's nature had only been stirred, as yet, a very little below the surface, and the surface rippled pleasantly in the sunlight that was breaking forth from the brief clouds. Among the disreputable and vociferous crowd of New York hack drivers, that swarmed upon the pier as the _Massachusetts_ glided into her dock, it was good to see that subduedly respectable and consciously private and superior man in the drab overcoat and the nice gloves and boots, who came forward and touched his hat to Mrs. Oferr, took her shawl and basket, and led the way, among the aggravated public menials, to a handsome private carriage waiting on the street. "All well at home, David?" asked Mrs. Oferr. "All well, ma'am, thank you," replied David. And another man sat upon the box, in another drab coat, and touched _his_ hat; and when they reached Waverley Place and alighted, Mrs. Oferr had something to say to him of certain directions, and addressed him as "Moses." It was very grand and wonderful to order "David" and "Moses" about. Laura felt as if her aunt were something only a little less than "Michael with the sword." Laura had a susceptibility for dignities; she appreciated, as we have seen out upon the wood-shed, "high places, and all the people looking up." David and Moses were brothers, she found out; she supposed that was the reason they dressed alike, in drab coats; as she and Frank used to wear their red merinos, and their blue ginghams. A little spasm did come up in her throat for a minute, as she thought of the old frocks and the old times already dropped so far behind; but Alice and Geraldine Oferr met her the next instant on the broad staircase at the back of the marble-paved hall, looking slight and delicate, and princess-like, in the grand space built about them for their lives to move in; and in the distance and magnificence of it all, the faint little momentary image of Frank faded away. She went up with them out of the great square hall, over the stately staircase, past the open doors of drawing-rooms and library, stretching back in a long suite, with the conservatory gleaming green from the far end over the garden, up the second stairway to the floor where their rooms were; bedrooms and nursery,--this last called so still, though the great, airy front-room was the place used now for their books and amusements as growing young ladies,--all leading one into another around the skylighted upper hall, into which the sunshine came streaked with amber and violet from the richly colored glass. She had a little side apartment given to her for her own, with a recessed window, in which were blossoming plants just set there from the conservatory; opposite stood a white, low bed in a curtained alcove, and beyond was a dressing-closet. Laura thought she should not be able to sleep there at all for a night or two, for the beauty of it and the good time she should be having. At that same moment Frank and her Aunt Oldways were getting down from the stage that had brought them over from Ipsley, where they slept after their day's journey from Boston,--at the doorstone of the low, broad-roofed, wide-built, roomy old farm-house in Homesworth. Right in the edge of the town it stood, its fields stretching over the south slope of green hills in sunny uplands, and down in meadowy richness to the wild, hidden, sequestered river-side, where the brown water ran through a narrow, rocky valley,--Swift River they called it. There are a great many Swift Rivers in New England. It was only a vehement little tributary of a larger stream, beside which lay larger towns; it was doing no work for the world, apparently, at present; there were no mills, except a little grist-mill to which the farmers brought their corn, cuddled among the rocks and wild birches and alders, at a turn where the road came down, and half a dozen planks made a bit of a bridge. "O, what beautiful places!" cried Frank, as they crossed the little bridge, and glanced either way into a green, gray, silvery vista of shrubs and rocks, and rushing water, with the white spires of meadow-sweet and the pink hardback, and the first bright plumes of the golden rod nodding and shining against the shade,--as they passed the head of a narrow, grassy lane, trod by cows' feet, and smelling of their milky breaths, and the sweetness of hay-barns,--as they came up, at length, over the long slope of turf that carpeted the way, as for a bride's feet, from the roadside to the very threshold. She looked along the low, treble-piled garden wall, too, and out to the open sheds, deep with pine chips; and upon the broad brown house-roof, with its long, gradual decline, till its eaves were within reach of a child's fingers from the ground; and her quick eye took in facilities. "O, if Laura could see this! After the old shed-top in Brier Street, and the one tree!" But Laura had got what the shed-top stood for with her; it was Frank who had hearkened to whole forests in the stir of the one brick-rooted fir. To that which each child had, it was already given. In a week or two Frank wrote Laura a letter. It was an old-fashioned letter, you know; a big sheet, written close, four pages, all but the middle of the last page, which was left for the "superscription." Then it was folded, the first leaf turned down twice, lengthwise; then the two ends laid over, toward each other; then the last doubling, or rather trebling, across; and the open edge slipped over the folds. A wafer sealed it, and a thimble pressed it,--and there were twenty-five cents postage to pay. That was a letter in the old times, when Laura and Frank Shiere were little girls. And this was that letter:-- DEAR LAURA,--We got here safe, Aunt Oldways and I, a week ago last Saturday, and it is _beautiful_. There is a green lane,--almost everybody has a green lane,--and the cows go up and down, and the swallows build in the barn-eaves. They fly out at sundown, and fill all the sky up. It is like the specks we used to watch in the sunshine when it came in across the kitchen, and they danced up and down and through and away, and seemed to be live things; only we couldn't tell, you know, what they were, or if they really did know how good it was. But these are big and real, and you can see their wings, and you know what they mean by it. I guess it is all the same thing, only some things are little and some are big. You can see the stars here, too,--such a sky full. And that is all the same again. There are beautiful roofs and walls here. I guess you would think you were high up! Harett and I go up from under the cheese-room windows right over the whole house, and we sit on the peak by the chimney. Harett is Mrs. Dillon's girl. Not the girl that lives with her,--her daughter. But the girls that live with people are daughters here. Somebody's else, I mean. They are all alike. I suppose her name is Harriet, but they all call her Harett. I don't like to ask her for fear she should think I thought they didn't know how to pronounce. I go to school with Harett; up to the West District. We carry brown bread and butter, and doughnuts, and cheese, and apple-pie in tin pails, for luncheon. Don't you remember the brown cupboard in Aunt Oldways' kitchen, how sagey, and doughnutty, and good it always smelt? It smells just so now, and everything tastes just the same. There is a great rock under an oak tree half way up to school, by the side of the road. We always stop there to rest, coming home. Three of the girls come the same way as far as that, and we always save some of our dinner to eat up there, and we tell stories. I tell them about dancing-school, and the time we went to the theatre to see "Cinderella," and going shopping with mother, and our little tea-parties, and the Dutch dolls we made up in the long front chamber. O, _don't_ you remember, Laura? What different pieces we have got into our remembrances already! I feel as if I was making patchwork. Some-time, may-be, I shall tell somebody about living _here_. Well, they will be beautiful stories! Homesworth is an elegant place to live in. You will see when you come next summer. There is an apple tree down in the south orchard that bends just like a horse's back. Then the branches come up over your head and shade you. We ride there, and we sit and eat summer apples there. Little rosy apples with dark streaks in them all warm with the sun. You can't think what a smell they have, just like pinks and spice boxes. Why don't they keep a little way off from each other in cities, and so have room for apple trees? I don't see why they need to crowd so. I hate to think of you all shut up tight when I am let right out into green grass, and blue sky, and apple orchards. That puts me in mind of something! Zebiah Jane, Aunt Oldways' girl, always washes her face in the morning at the pump-basin out in the back dooryard, just like the ducks. She says she can't spatter round in a room; she wants all creation for a slop-bowl. I feel as if we had all creation for everything up here. But I can't put all creation in a letter if I try. _That_ would spatter dreadfully. I expect a long letter from you every day now. But I don't see what you will make it out of. I think I have got all the _things_ and you won't have anything left but the _words_. I am sure you don't sit out on the wood-shed at Aunt Oferr's, and I don't believe you pound stones and bricks, and make colors. Do you know when we rubbed our new shoes with pounded stone and made them gray? I never told you about Luclarion. She came up as soon as the things were all sent off, and she lives at the minister's. Where she used to live is only two miles from here, but other people live there now, and it is built on to and painted straw color, with a green door. Your affectionate sister, FRANCES SHIERE. When Laura's letter came this was it:-- DEAR FRANK,--I received your kind letter a week ago, but we have been very busy having a dressmaker and doing all our fall shopping, and I have not had time to answer it before. We shall begin to go to school next week, for the vacations are over, and then I shall have ever so much studying to do. I am to take lessons on the piano, too, and shall have to practice two hours a day. In the winter we shall have dancing-school and practicing parties. Aunt has had a new bonnet made for me. She did not like the plain black silk one. This is of _gros d'Afrique_, with little bands and cordings round the crown and front; and I have a dress of _gros d'Afrique_, too, trimmed with double folds piped on. For every-day I have a new black _mousseline_ with white clover leaves on it, and an all-black French chally to wear to dinner. I don't wear my black and white calico at all. Next summer aunt means to have me wear white almost all the time, with lavender and violet ribbons. I shall have a white muslin with three skirts and a black sash to wear to parties and to Public Saturdays, next winter. They have Public Saturdays at dancing-school every three weeks. But only the parents and relations can come. Alice and Geraldine dance the shawl-dance with Helena Pomeroy, with crimson and white Canton crape scarfs. They have showed me some of it at home. Aunt Oferr says I shall learn the _gavotte_. Aunt Oferr's house is splendid. The drawing-room is full of sofas, and divans, and ottomans, and a _causeuse_, a little S-shaped seat for two people. Everything is covered with blue velvet, and there are blue silk curtains to the windows, and great looking-glasses between, that you can see all down into through rooms and rooms, as if there were a hundred of them. Do you remember the story Luclarion used to tell us of when she and her brother Mark were little children and used to play that the looking-glass-things were real, and that two children lived in them, in the other room, and how we used to make believe too in the slanting chimney glass? You could make believe it here with _forty_ children. But I don't make believe much now. There is such a lot that is real, and it is all so grown up. It would seem so silly to have such plays, you know. I can't help thinking the things that come into my head though, and it seems sometimes just like a piece of a story, when I walk into the drawing-room all alone, just before company comes, with my _gros d'Afrique_ on, and my puffed lace collar, and my hair tied back with long new black ribbons. It all goes through my head just how I look coming in, and how grand it is, and what the words would be in a book about it, and I seem to act a little bit, just to myself as if I were a girl in a story, and it seems to say, "And Laura walked up the long drawing-room and took a book bound in crimson morocco from the white marble pier table and sat down upon the velvet ottoman in the balcony window." But what happened then it never tells. I suppose it will by and by. I am getting used to it all, though; it isn't so _awfully_ splendid as it was at first. I forgot to tell you that my new bonnet flares a great deal, and that I have white lace quilling round the face with little black dotty things in it on stems. They don't wear those close cottage bonnets now. And aunt has had my dresses made longer and my pantalettes shorter, so that they hardly show at all. She says I shall soon wear long dresses, I am getting so tall. Alice wears them now, and her feet look so pretty, and she has such pretty slippers: little French purple ones, and sometimes dark green, and sometimes beautiful light gray, to go with different dresses. I don't care for anything but the slippers, but I _should_ like such ones as hers. Aunt says I can't, of course, as long as I wear black, but I can have purple ones next summer to wear with my white dresses. That will be when I come to see you. I am afraid you will think this is a very _wearing_ kind of a letter, there are so many 'wears' in it. I have been reading it over so far, but I can't put in any other word. Your affectionate sister, LAURA SHIERE. P.S. Aunt Oferr says Laura Shiere is such a good sounding name. It doesn't seem at all common. I am glad of it. I should hate to be common. I do not think I shall give you any more of it just here than these two letters tell. We are not going through all Frank and Laura's story. That with which we have especially to do lies on beyond. But it takes its roots in this, as all stories take their roots far back and underneath. Two years after, Laura was in Homesworth for her second summer visit at the farm. It was convenient, while the Oferrs were at Saratoga. Mrs. Oferr was very much occupied now, of course, with introducing her own daughters. A year or two later, she meant to give Laura a season at the Springs. "All in turn, my dear, and good time," she said. The winter before, Frank had been a few weeks in New York. But it tired her dreadfully, she said. She liked the theatres and the concerts, and walking out and seeing the shops. But there was "no place to get out of it into." It didn't seem as if she ever really got home and took off her things. She told Laura it was like that first old letter of hers; it was just "wearing," all the time. Laura laughed. "But how can you live _without_ wearing?" said she. Frank stood by, wondering, while Laura unpacked her trunks that morning after her second arrival at Aunt Oldways'. She had done now even with the simplicity of white and violet, and her wardrobe blossomed out like the flush of a summer garden. She unfolded a rose-colored muslin, with little raised embroidered spots, and threw it over the bed. "Where _will_ you wear that, up here?" asked Frank, in pure bewilderment. "Why, I wear it to church, with my white Swiss mantle," answered Laura. "Or taking tea, or anything. I've a black silk _visite_ for cool days. That looks nice with it. And see here,--I've a pink sunshade. They don't have them much yet, even in New York. Mr. Pemberton Oferr brought these home from Paris, for Gerry and Alice, and me. Gerry's is blue. See! it tips back." And Laura set the dashy little thing with its head on one side, and held it up coquettishly. "They used them in carriages in Paris, he said, and in St. Petersburg, driving out on the Nevskoi Prospekt." "But where are your common things?" "Down at the bottom; I haven't come to them. They were put in first, because they would bear squeezing. I've two French calicoes, with pattern trimmings; and a lilac jaconet, with ruffles, open down the front." Laura wore long dresses now; and open wrappers were the height of the style. Laura astonished Homesworth the first Sunday of this visit, with her rose-colored toilet. Bonnet of shirred pink silk with moss rosebuds and a little pink lace veil; the pink muslin, full-skirted over two starched petticoats; even her pink belt had gay little borders of tiny buds and leaves, and her fan had a pink tassel. "They're the things I wear; why shouldn't I?" she said to Frank's remonstrance. "But up here!" said Frank. "It would seem nicer to wear something--stiller." So it would; a few years afterward Laura herself would have seen that it was more elegant; though Laura Shiere was always rather given to doing the utmost--in apparel--that the occasion tolerated. Fashions grew stiller in years after. But this June Sunday, somewhere in the last thirties or the first forties, she went into the village church like an Aurora, and the village long remembered the resplendence. Frank had on a white cambric dress, with a real rose in the bosom, cool and fresh, with large green leaves; and her "cottage straw" was trimmed with white lutestring, crossed over the crown. "Do you feel any better?" asked Aunt Oldways of Laura, when they came home to the country tea-dinner. "Better--how?" asked Laura, in surprise. "After all that 'wear' and _stare_," said Aunt Oldways, quietly. Aunt Oldways might have been astonished, but she was by no means awestruck, evidently; and Aunt Oldways generally spoke her mind. Somehow, with Laura Shiere, pink was pinker, and ribbons were more rustling than with most people. Upon some quiet unconscious folks, silk makes no spread, and color little show; with Laura every gleam told, every fibre asserted itself. It was the live Aurora, bristling and tingling to its farthest electric point. She did not toss or flaunt, either; she had learned better of Signor Pirotti how to carry herself; but she was in conscious _rapport_ with every thing and stitch she had about her. Some persons only put clothes on to their bodies; others really seem to contrive to put them on to their souls. Laura Shiere came up to Homesworth three years later, with something more wonderful than a pink embossed muslin:--she had a lover. Mrs. Oferr and her daughters were on their way to the mountains; Laura was to be left with the Oldways. Grant Ledwith accompanied them all thus far on their way; then he had to go back to Boston. "I can't think of anything but that pink sunshade she used to carry round canted all to one side over her shoulder," said Aunt Oldways, looking after them down the dusty road the morning that he went away. Laura, in her white dress and her straw hat and her silly little bronze-and-blue-silk slippers printing the roadside gravel, leaning on Grant Ledwith's arm, seemed only to have gained a fresh, graceful adjunct to set off her own pretty goings and comings with, and to heighten the outside interest of that little point of eternity that she called her life. Mr. Ledwith was not so much a man who had won a woman, as Laura was a girl who had "got a beau." She had sixteen tucked and trimmed white skirts, too, she told Frank; she should have eight more before she was married; people wore ever so many skirts now, at a time. She had been to a party a little while ago where she wore _seven_. There were deep French embroidery bands around some of these white skirts; those were beautiful for morning dresses. Geraldine Oferr was married last winter; Laura had been her bridesmaid; Gerry had a white brocade from Paris, and a point-lace veil. She had three dozen of everything, right through. They had gone to housekeeping up town, in West Sixteenth Street. Frank would have to come to New York next winter, or in the spring, to be _her_ bridesmaid; then she would see; then--who knew! Frank was only sixteen, and she lived away up here in Homesworth among the hills; she had not "seen," but she had her own little secret, for all that; something she neither told nor thought, yet which was there; and it came across her with a queer little thrill from the hidden, unlooked-at place below thought, that "Who" _didn't_ know. Laura waited a year for Grant Ledwith's salary to be raised to marrying point; he was in a wholesale woolen house in Boston; he was a handsome fellow, with gentlemanly and taking address,--capital, this, for a young salesman; and they put his pay up to two thousand dollars within that twelvemonth. Upon this, in the spring, they married; took a house in Filbert Street, down by the river, and set up their little gods. These were: a sprinkle of black walnut and brocatelle in the drawing-room, a Sheffield-plate tea-service, and a crimson-and-giltedged dinner set that Mrs. Oferr gave them; twilled turkey-red curtains, that looked like thibet, in the best chamber; and the twenty-four white skirts and the silk dresses, and whatever corresponded to them on the bride-groom's part, in their wardrobes. All that was left of Laura's money, and all that was given them by Grant Ledwith's father, and Mr. Titus Oldways' astounding present of three hundred dollars, without note or comment,--the first reminder they had had of him since Edward Shiere's funeral, "and goodness knew how he heard anything now," Aunt Oferr said,--had gone to this outfit. But they were well set up and started in the world; so everybody said, and so they, taking the world into their young, confident hands for a plaything, not knowing it for the perilous loaded shell it is, thought, merrily, themselves. Up in Homesworth people did not have to wait for two thousand dollar salaries. They would not get them if they did. Oliver Ripwinkley, the minister's son, finished his medical studies and city hospital practice that year, and came back, as he had always said he should do, to settle down for a country doctor. Old Doctor Parrish, the parson's friend of fifty years, with no child of his own, kept the place for Oliver, and hung up his old-fashioned saddle-bags in the garret the very day the young man came home. He was there to be "called in," however, and with this backing, and the perforce of there being nobody else, young Doctor Ripwinkley had ten patients within the first week; thereby opportunity for shewing himself in the eyes of ten families as a young man who "appeared to know pretty well what he was about." So that when he gave further proof of the same, by asking, within the week that followed, the prettiest girl in Homesworth, Frances Shiere, to come and begin the world with him at Mile Hill village, nobody, not even Frank herself, was astonished. She bought three new gowns, a shawl, a black silk mantle, and a straw bonnet. She made six each of every pretty white garment that a woman wears; and one bright mellow evening in September, they took their first tea in the brown-carpeted, white-shaded little corner room in the old "Rankin house;" a bigger place than they really wanted yet, and not all to be used at first; but rented "reasonable," central, sunshiny, and convenient; a place that they hoped they should buy sometime; facing on the broad sidegreen of the village street, and running back, with its field and meadow belongings, away to the foot of great, gray, sheltering Mile Hill. And the vast, solemn globe, heedless of what lit here or there upon its breadth, or took up this or that life in its little freckling cities, or between the imperceptible foldings of its hills,--only carrying way-passengers for the centuries,--went plunging on its track, around and around, and swept them all, a score of times, through its summer and its winter solstices. IV. AFTERWARDS IS A LONG TIME. Old Mr. Marmaduke Wharne had come down from Outledge, in the mountains, on his way home to New York. He had stopped in Boston to attend to some affairs of his own,--if one can call them so, since Marmaduke Wharne never had any "own" affairs that did not chiefly concern, to their advantage, somebody else,--in which his friend Mr. Titus Oldways was interested, not personally, but Wharne fashion. Now, reader, you know something about Mr. Titus Oldways, which up to this moment, only God, and Marmaduke Wharne, and Rachel Froke, who kept Mr. Oldways' house, and wore a Friend's drab dress and white cap, and said "Titus," and "Marmaduke" to the two old gentlemen, and "thee" and "thou" to everybody,--have ever known. In a general way and relation, I mean; separate persons knew particular things; but each separate person thought the particular thing he knew to be a whimsical exception. Mr. Oldways did not belong to any church: but he had an English Prayer-book under his Bible on his study table, and Baxter and Fenelon and à Kempis and "Wesley's Hymns," and Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell" and "Arcana Celestia," and Lowell's "Sir Launfal," and Dickens's "Christmas Carol," all on the same set of shelves,--that held, he told Marmaduke, his religion; or as much of it as he could get together. And he had this woman, who was a Friend, and who walked by the Inner Light, and in outer charity, if ever a woman did, to keep his house. "For," said he, "the blessed truth is, that the Word of God is in the world. Alive in it. When you know that, and wherever you can get hold of his souls, then and there you've got your religion,--a piece at a time. To prove and sort your pieces, and to straighten the tangle you might otherwise get into, there's _this_," and he laid his hand down on the Four Gospels, bound in white morocco, with a silver cross upon the cover,--a volume that no earthly creature, again, knew of, save Titus and Marmaduke and Rachel Froke, who laid it into a drawer when she swept and dusted, and placed it between the crimson folds of its quilted silken wrapper when she had finished, burnishing the silver cross gently with a scrap of chamois leather cut from a clean piece every time. There was nothing else delicate and exquisite in all the plain and grim establishment; and the crimson wrapper was comfortably worn, and nobody would notice it, lying on the table there, with an almanac, a directory, the big, open Worcester's Dictionary, and the scattered pamphlets and newspapers of the day. Out in the world, Titus Oldways went about with visor down. He gave to no fairs nor public charities; "let them get all they could that way, it wasn't his way," he said to Rachel Froke. The world thought he gave nothing, either of purse or life. There was a plan they had together,--he and Marmaduke Wharne,--this girls' story-book will not hold the details nor the idea of it,--about a farm they owned, and people working it that could go nowhere else to work anything; and a mill-privilege that might be utilized and expanded, to make--not money so much as safe and honest human life by way of making money; and they sat and talked this plan over, and settled its arrangements, in the days that Marmaduke Wharne was staying on in Boston, waiting for his other friend, Miss Craydocke, who had taken the River Road down from Outledge, and so come round by Z----, where she was staying a few days with the Goldthwaites and the Inglesides. Miss Craydocke had a share or two in the farm and in the mill. And now, Titus Oldways wanted to know of Marmaduke Wharne what he was to do for Afterwards. It was a question that had puzzled and troubled him. Afterwards. "While I live," he said, "I will do what I can, and _as_ I can. I will hand over my doing, and the wherewith, to no society or corporation. I'll pay no salaries nor circumlocutions. Neither will I--afterwards. And how is my money going to work on?" "_Your_ money?" "Well,--God's money." "How did it work when it came to you?" Mr. Oldways was silent. "He chose to send it to you. He made it in the order of things that it should come to you. You began, yourself, to work for money. You did not understand, then, that the money would be from God and was for Him." "He made me understand." "Yes. He looked out for that part of it too. He can look out for it again. His word shall not return unto him void." "He has given me this, though, to pass on; and I will not put it into a machine. I want to give some living soul a body for its living. Dead charities are dead. It's of no use to will it to you, Marmaduke; I'm as likely to stay on, perhaps, as you are." "And the youngest life might drop, the day after your own. You can't take it out of God's hand." "I must either let it go by law, or will it--here and there. I know enough whom it would help; but I want to invest, not spend it; to invest it in a life--or lives--that will carry it on from where I leave it. How shall I know?" "He giveth it a body as it pleaseth Him," quoted Marmaduke Wharne, thoughtfully. "I am English, you know, Oldways; I can't help reverencing the claims of next of kin. Unless one is plainly shown otherwise, it seems the appointment. How can we set aside his ways until He clearly points us out his own exception?" "My 'next' are two women whom I don't know, my niece's children. She died thirty years ago." "Perhaps you ought to know them." "I know _about_ them; I've kept the run; but I've held clear of family. They didn't need me, and I had no right to put it into their heads they did, unless I fully meant"-- He broke off. "They're like everybody else, Wharne; neither better nor worse, I dare say; but the world is full of just such women. How do I know this money would be well in their hands--even for themselves?" "Find out." "One of 'em was brought up by an Oferr woman!" The tone in which he _commonized_ the name to a satiric general term, is not to be written down, and needed not to be interpreted. "The other is well enough," he went on, "and contented enough. A doctor's widow, with a little property, a farm and two children,--her older ones died very young,--up in New Hampshire. I might spoil _her_; and the other,--well, you see as I said, I _don't know_." "Find out," said Marmaduke Wharne, again. "People are not found out till they are tried." "Try 'em!" Mr. Oldways had been sitting with his head bent, thoughtfully, his eyes looking down, his hands on the two stiff, old-fashioned arms of his chair. At this last spondaic response from Marmaduke, he lifted his eyes and eyebrows,--not his head,--and raised himself slightly with his two hands pressing on the chair arms; the keen glance and the half-movement were impulsively toward his friend. "Eh?" said he. "Try 'em," repeated Marmaduke Wharne. "Give God's way a chance." Mr. Oldways, seated back in his chair again, looked at him intently; made a little vibration, as it were, with his body, that moved his head up and down almost imperceptibly, with a kind of gradual assenting apprehension, and kept utterly silent. So, their talk being palpably over for this time, Marmaduke Wharne got up presently to go. They nodded at each other, friendlily, as he looked back from the door. Left alone, Mr. Titus Oldways turned in his swivel-chair, around to his desk beside which he was sitting. "Next of kin?" he repeated to himself. "God's way?--Well! Afterwards is a long time. A man must give it up somewhere. Everything escheats to the king at last." And he took a pen in his hand and wrote a letter. V. HOW THE NEWS CAME TO HOMESWORTH. "I wish I lived in the city, and had a best friend," said Hazel Ripwinkley to Diana, as they sat together on the long, red, sloping kitchen roof under the arches of the willow-tree, hemming towels for their afternoon "stent." They did this because their mother sat on the shed roof under the fir, when she was a child, and had told them of it. Imagination is so much greater than fact, that these children, who had now all that little Frank Shiere had dreamed of with the tar smell and the gravel stones and the one tree,--who might run free in the wide woods and up the breezy hillsides,--liked best of all to get out on the kitchen roof and play "old times," and go back into their mother's dream. "I wish I lived in a block of houses, and could see across the corner into my best friend's room when she got up in the morning!" "And could have that party!" said Diana. "Think of the clean, smooth streets, with red sidewalks, and people living all along, door after door! I like things set in rows, and people having places, like the desks at school. Why, you've got to go way round Sand Hill to get to Elizabeth Ann Dorridon's. I should like to go up steps, and ring bells!" "I don't know," said Diana, slowly. "I think birds that build little nests about anywhere in the cunning, separate places, in the woods, or among the bushes, have the best time." "Birds, Dine! It ain't birds, it's people! What has that to do with it?" "I mean I think nests are better than martin-boxes." "Let's go in and get her to tell us that story. She's in the round room." The round room was a half ellipse, running in against the curve of the staircase. It was a bit of a place, with the window at one end, and the bow at the other. It had been Doctor Ripwinkley's office, and Mrs. Ripwinkley sat there with her work on summer afternoons. The door opened out, close at the front, upon a great flat stone in an angle, where was also entrance into the hall by the house-door, at the right hand. The door of the office stood open, and across the stone one could look down, between a range of lilac bushes and the parlor windows, through a green door-yard into the street. "Now, Mother Frank, tell us about the party!" They called her "Mother Frank" when they wished to be particularly coaxing. They had taken up their father's name for her, with their own prefix, when they were very little ones, before he went away and left nobody to call her Frank, every day, any more. "That same little old story? Won't you ever be tired of it,--you great girls?" asked the mother; for she had told it to them ever since they were six and eight years old. "Yes! No, never!" said the children. For how _should_ they outgrow it? It was a sunny little bit out of their mother's own child-life. We shall go back to smaller things, one day, maybe, and find them yet more beautiful. It is the _going_ back, together. "The same old way?" "Yes; the very same old way." "We had little open-work straw hats and muslin pelisses,--your Aunt Laura and I,"--began Mrs. Ripwinkley, as she had begun all those scores of times before. "Mother put them on for us,--she dressed us just alike, always,--and told us to take each other's hands, and go up Brier and down Hickory streets, and stop at all the houses that she named, and that we knew; and we were to give her love and compliments, and ask the mothers in each house,--Mrs. Dayton, and Mrs. Holridge (she lived up the long steps), and Mrs. Waldow, and the rest of them, to let Caroline and Grace and Fanny and Susan, and the rest of _them_, come at four o'clock, to spend the afternoon and take tea, if it was convenient." "O, mother!" said Hazel, "you didn't say that when you _asked_ people, you know." "O, no!" said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "That was when we went to stop a little while ourselves, without being asked. Well, it was to please to let them come. And all the ladies were at home, because it was only ten o'clock; and they all sent their love and compliments, and they were much obliged, and the little girls would be very happy. "It was a warm June day; up Brier Street was a steep walk; down Hickory we were glad to keep on the shady side, and thought it was nice that Mrs. Bemys and Mrs. Waldow lived there. The strings of our hats were very moist and clinging when we got home, and Laura had a blue mark under her chin from the green ribbon. "Mother was in her room, in her white dimity morning gown, with little bows up the front, the ends trimmed with cambric edging. She took off our hats and our pelisses,--the tight little sleeves came off wrong side out,--sponged our faces with cool water, and brushed out Laura's curls. That was the only difference between us. I hadn't any curls, and my hair had to be kept cropped. Then she went to her upper bureau drawer and took out two little paper boxes. "'Something has come for Blanche and Clorinda, since you have been gone,' she said, smiling. 'I suppose you have been shopping?' We took the paper boxes, laughing back at her with a happy understanding. We were used to these little plays of mother's, and she couldn't really surprise us with her kindnesses. We went and sat down in the window-seat, and opened them as deliberately and in as grown-up a way as we could. Inside them were two little lace pelerines lined with rose-colored silk. The boxes had a faint smell of musk. The things were so much better for coming in boxes! Mother knew that. "Well, we dressed our dolls, and it was a great long sunshiny forenoon. Mother and Luclarion had done something in the kitchen, and there was a smell of sweet baking in the house. Every now and then we sniffed, and looked at each other, and at mother, and laughed. After dinner we had on our white French calicoes with blue sprigs, and mother said she should take a little nap, and we might go into the parlor and be ready for our company. She always let us receive our own company ourselves at first. And exactly at four o'clock the door-bell rang, and they began to come. "Caroline and Fanny Dayton had on white cambric dresses, and green kid slippers. That was being very much dressed, indeed. Lucy Waldow wore a pink lawn, and Grace Holridge a buff French print. Susan Bemys said her little sister couldn't come because they couldn't find her best shoes. Her mother thought she had thrown them out of the window. "When they all got there we began to play 'Lady Fair;' and we had just got all the 'lady fairs,' one after another, into our ring, and were dancing and singing up and down and round and round, when the door opened and mother walked in. "We always thought our mother was the prettiest of any of the girls' mothers. She had such bright shining hair, and she put it up with shell combs into such little curly puffs. And she never seemed fussy or old, but she came in among us with such a beautiful, smiling way, as if she knew beforehand that it was all right, and there was no danger of any mischief, or that we shouldn't behave well, but she only wanted to see the good time. That day she had on a white muslin dress with little purple flowers on it, and a bow of purple ribbon right in the side of her hair. She had a little piece of fine work in her hand, and after she had spoken to all the little girls and asked them how their mothers were, she went and sat down in one of the front windows, and made little scollops and eyelets. I remember her long ivory stiletto, with a loop of green ribbon through the head of it, and the sharp, tiny, big-bowed scissors that lay in her lap, and the bright, tapering silver thimble on her finger. "Pretty soon the door opened again, softly; a tray appeared, with Hannah behind it. On the tray were little glass saucers with confectionery in them; old-fashioned confectionery,--gibraltars, and colored caraways, and cockles with mottoes. We were in the middle of 'So says the Grand Mufti,' and Grace Holridge was the Grand Mufti. Hannah went up to her first, as she stood there alone, and Grace took a saucer and held it up before the row of us, and said, '_Thus_ says the Grand Mufti!' and then she bit a red gibraltar, and everybody laughed. She did it so quickly and so prettily, putting it right into the play. It was good of her not to say, '_So_ says the Grand Mufti.' At least we thought so then, though Susan Bemys said it would have been funnier. "We had a great many plays in those days, and it took a long afternoon to get through with them. We had not begun to wonder what we should do next, when tea time came, and we went down into the basement room. It wasn't tea, though; it was milk in little clear, pink mugs, some that mother only had out for our parties, and cold water in crimped-edge glasses, and little biscuits, and sponge-cakes, and small round pound-cakes frosted. These were what had smelt so good in the morning. "We stood round the table; there was not room for all of us to sit, and mother helped us, and Hannah passed things round. Susan Bemys took cake three times, and Lucy Waldow opened her eyes wide, and Fanny Dayton touched me softly under the table. "After tea mother played and sung some little songs to us; and then she played the 'Fisher's Hornpipe' and 'Money Musk,' and we danced a little contra-dance. The girls did not all know cotillons, and some of them had not begun to go to dancing-school. Father came home and had his tea after we had done ours, and then he came up into the parlor and watched us dancing. Mr. Dayton came in, too. At about half past eight some of the other fathers called, and some of the mothers sent their girls, and everybody was fetched away. It was nine o'clock when Laura and I went to bed, and we couldn't go to sleep until after the clock struck ten, for thinking and saying what a beautiful time we had had, and anticipating how the girls would talk it all over next day at school. That," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, when she had finished, "was the kind of a party we used to have in Boston when I was a little girl. I don't know what the little girls have now." "Boston!" said Luclarion, catching the last words as she came in, with her pink cape bonnet on, from the Homesworth variety and finding store, and post-office. "You'll talk them children off to Boston, finally, Mrs. Ripwinkley! Nothing ever tugs so at one end, but there's something tugging at the other; and there's never a hint nor a hearing to anybody, that something more doesn't turn up concerning it. Here's a letter, Mrs. Ripwinkley!" Mrs. Ripwinkley took it with some surprise. It was not her sister's handwriting nor Mr. Ledwith's, on the cover; and she rarely had a letter from them that was posted in Boston, now. They had been living at a place out of town for several years. Mrs. Ledwith knew better than to give her letters to her husband for posting. They got lost in his big wallet, and stayed there till they grew old. Who should write to Mrs. Ripwinkley, after all these years, from Boston? She looked up at Luclarion, and smiled. "It didn't take a Solomon," said she, pointing to the postmark. "No, nor yet a black smooch, with only four letters plain, on an invelup. 'Taint that, it's the drift of things. Those girls have got Boston in their minds as hard and fast as they've got heaven; and I mistrust mightily they'll get there first somehow!" The girls were out of hearing, as she said this; they had got their story, and gone back to their red roof and their willow tree. "Why, Luclarion!" exclaimed Mrs. Ripwinkley, as she drew out and unfolded the letter sheet. "It's from Uncle Titus Oldways." "Then he ain't dead," remarked Luclarion, and went away into the kitchen. "MY DEAR FRANCES,--I am seventy-eight years old. It is time I got acquainted with some of my relations. I've had other work to do in the world heretofore (at least I thought I had), and so, I believe, have they. But I have a wish now to get you and your sister to come and live nearer to me, that we may find out whether we really are anything to each other or not. It seems natural, I suppose, that we might be; but kinship doesn't all run in the veins. "I do not ask you to do this with reference to any possible intentions of mine that might concern you after my death; my wish is to do what is right by you, in return for your consenting to my pleasure in the matter, while I am alive. It will cost you more to live in Boston than where you do now, and I have no business to expect you to break up and come to a new home unless I can make it an object to you in some way. You can do some things for your children here that you could not do in Homesworth. I will give you two thousand dollars a year to live on, and secure the same to you if I die. I have a house here in Aspen Street, not far from where I live myself, which I will give to either of you that it may suit. That you can settle between you when you come. It is rather a large house, and Mrs. Ledwith's family is larger, I think, than yours. The estate is worth ten thousand dollars, and I will give the same sum to the one who prefers, to put into a house elsewhere. I wish you to reckon this as all you are ever to expect from me, except the regard I am willing to believe I may come to have for you. I shall look to hear from you by the end of the week. "I remain, yours truly, "TITUS OLDWAYS." "Luclarion!" cried Mrs. Ripwinkley, with excitement, "come here and help me think!" "Only four days to make my mind up in," she said again, when Luclarion had read the letter through. Luclarion folded it and gave it back. "It won't take God four days to think," she answered quietly; "and you can ask _Him_ in four minutes. You and I can talk afterwards." And Luclarion got up and went away a second time into the kitchen. That night, after Diana and Hazel were gone to bed, their mother and Luclarion Grapp had some last words about it, sitting by the white-scoured kitchen table, where Luclarion had just done mixing bread and covered it away for rising. Mrs. Ripwinkley was apt to come out and talk things over at this time of the kneading. She could get more from Luclarion then than at any other opportunity. Perhaps that was because Miss Grapp could not walk off from the bread-trough; or it might be that there was some sympathy between the mixing of her flour and yeast into a sweet and lively perfection, and the bringing of her mental leaven wholesomely to bear. "It looks as if it were meant, Luclarion," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, at last. "And just think what it will be for the children." "I guess it's meant fast enough," replied Luclarion. "But as for what it will be for the children,--why, that's according to what you all make of it. And that's the stump." Luclarion Grapp was fifty-four years old; but her views of life were precisely the same that they had been at twenty-eight. VI. AND. There is a piece of Z----, just over the river, that they call "And." It began among the school-girls; Barbara Holabird had christened it, with the shrewdness and mischief of fourteen years old. She said the "and-so-forths" lived there. It was a little supplementary neighborhood; an after-growth, coming up with the railroad improvements, when they got a freight station established on that side for the East Z---- mills. "After Z----, what should it be but 'And?'" Barbara Holabird wanted to know. The people who lived there called it East Square; but what difference did that make? It was two miles Boston-ward from Z---- centre, where the down trains stopped first; that was five minutes gained in the time between it and the city. Land was cheap at first, and sure to come up in value; so there were some streets laid out at right angles, and a lot of houses put up after a pattern, as if they had all been turned out of blanc-mange moulds, and there was "East Square." Then people began by-and-by to build for themselves, and a little variety and a good deal of ambition came in. They had got to French roofs now; this was just before the day of the multitudinous little paper collar-boxes with beveled covers, that are set down everywhere now, and look as if they could be lifted up by the chimneys, any time, and be carried off with a thumb and finger. Two and a half story houses, Mansarded, looked grand; and the East Square people thought nothing slight of themselves, though the "old places" and the real Z---- families were all over on West Hill. Mrs. Megilp boarded in And for the summer. "Since Oswald had been in business she couldn't go far from the cars, you know; and Oswald had a boat on the river, and he and Glossy enjoyed that so much. Besides, she had friends in Z----, which made it pleasant; and she was tired, for her part, of crowds and fashion. All she wanted was a quiet country place. She knew the Goldthwaites and the Haddens; she had met them one year at Jefferson." Mrs. Megilp had found out that she could get larger rooms in And than she could have at the mountains or the sea-shore, and at half the price; but this she did not mention. Yet there was nothing shabby in it, except her carefully _not_ mentioning it. Mrs. Megilp was Mrs. Grant Ledwith's chief intimate and counselor. She was a good deal the elder; that was why it was mutually advantageous. Grant Ledwith was one of the out-in-the-world, up-to-the-times men of the day; the day in which everything is going, and everybody that is in active life has, somehow or other, all that is going. Grant Ledwith got a good salary, an inflated currency salary; and he spent it all. His daughters were growing up, and they were stylish and pretty; Mrs. Megilp took a great interest in Agatha and Florence Ledwith, and was always urging their mother to "do them justice." "Agatha and Florence were girls who had a right to every advantage." Mrs. Megilp was almost old enough to be Laura Ledwith's mother; she had great experience, and knowledge of the world; and she sat behind Laura's conscience and drove it tandem with her inclination. Per contra, it was nice for Mrs. Megilp, who was a widow, and whose income did not stretch with the elasticity of the times, to have friends who lived like the Ledwiths, and who always made her welcome; it was a good thing for Glossy to be so fond of Agatha and Florence, and to have them so fond of her. "She needed young society," her mother said. One reason that Glossy Megilp needed young society might be in the fact that she herself was twenty-six. Mrs. Megilp had advised the Ledwiths to buy a house in Z----. "It was just far enough not to be suburban, but to have a society of its own; and there _was_ excellent society in Z----, everybody knew. Boston was hard work, nowadays; the distances were getting to be so great." Up to the West and South Ends,--the material distances,--she meant to be understood to say; but there was an inner sense to Mrs. Megilp's utterances, also. "One might as well be quite out of town; and then it was always something, even in such city connection as one might care to keep up, to hail from a well-recognized social independency; to belong to Z---- was a standing, always. It wasn't like going to Forest Dell, or Lakegrove, or Bellair; cheap little got-up places with fancy names, that were strung out on the railroads like French gilt beads on a chain." But for all that, Mrs. Ledwith had only got into "And;" and Mrs. Megilp knew it. Laura did not realize it much; she had bowing and speaking acquaintance with the Haddens and the Hendees, and even with the Marchbankses, over on West Hill; and the Goldthwaites and the Holabirds, down in the town, she knew very well. She did not care to come much nearer; she did not want to be bound by any very stringent and exclusive social limits; it was a bother to keep up to all the demands of such a small, old-established set. Mrs. Hendee would not notice, far less be impressed by the advent of her new-style Brussels carpet with a border, or her full, fresh, Nottingham lace curtains, or the new covering of her drawing-room set with cuir-colored terry. Mrs. Tom Friske and Mrs. Philgry, down here at East Square, would run in, and appreciate, and admire, and talk it all over, and go away perhaps breaking the tenth commandment amiably in their hearts. Mrs. Ledwith's nerves had extended since we saw her as a girl; they did not then go beyond the floating ends of her blue or rose-colored ribbons, or, at furthest, the tip of her jaunty laced sunshade; now they ramified,--for life still grows in some direction,--to her chairs, and her china, and her curtains, and her ruffled pillow-shams. Also, savingly, to her children's "suits," and party dresses, and pic-nic hats, and double button gloves. Savingly; for there is a leaven of grace in mother-care, even though it be expended upon these. Her friend, Mrs. Inchdeepe, in Helvellyn Park, with whom she dined when she went shopping in Boston, had _nothing_ but her modern improvements and her furniture. "My house is my life," she used to say, going round with a Canton crape duster, touching tenderly carvings and inlayings and gildings. Mrs. Megilp was spending the day with Laura Ledwith; Glossy was gone to town, and thence down to the sea-shore, with some friends. Mrs. Megilp spent a good many days with Laura. She had large, bright rooms at her boarding-house, but then she had very gristly veal pies and thin tapioca puddings for dinner; and Mrs. Megilp's constitution required something more generous. She was apt to happen in at this season, when Laura had potted pigeons. A little bird told her; a dozen little birds, I mean, with their legs tied together in a bunch; for she could see the market wagon from her window, when it turned up Mr. Ledwith's avenue. Laura had always the claret pitcher on her dinner table, too; and claret and water, well-sugared, went deliciously with the savory stew. They were up-stairs now, in Laura's chamber; the bed and sofa were covered with silk and millinery; Laura was looking over the girls' "fall things;" there was a smell of sweet marjoram and thyme and cloves, and general richness coming up from the kitchen; there was a bland sense of the goodness of Providence in Mrs. Megilp's--no, not heart, for her heart was not very hungry; but in her eyes and nostrils. She was advising Mrs. Ledwith to take Desire and Helena's two green silks and make them over into one for Helena. "You can get two whole back breadths then, by piecing it up under the sash; and you _can't_ have all those gores again; they are quite done with. Everybody puts in whole breadths now. There's just as much difference in the _way_ of goring a skirt, as there is between gores and straight selvages." "They do hang well, though; they have such a nice slope." "Yes,--but the stripes and the seams! Those tell the story six rods off; and then there _must_ be sashes, or postillions, or something; they don't make anything without them; there isn't any finish to a round waist unless you have something behind." "They wore belts last year, and I bought those expensive gilt buckles. I'm sure they used to look sweetly. But there! a fashion doesn't last nowadays while you're putting a thing on and walking out of the house!" "And don't put in more than three plaits," pursued Mrs. Megilp, intent on the fate of the green silks. "Everything is gathered; you see that is what requires the sashes; round waists and gathers have a queer look without." "If you once begin to alter, you've got to make all over," said Mrs. Ledwith, a little fractiously, putting the scissors in with unwilling fingers. She knew there was a good four days' work before her, and she was quick with her needle, too. "Never mind; the making over doesn't cost anything; you turn off work so easily; and then you've got a really stylish thing." "But with all the ripping and remodelling, I don't get time to turn round, myself, and _live_! It is all fall work, and spring work, and summer work and winter work. One drive rushes pell-mell right over another. There isn't time enough to make things and have them; the good of them, I mean." "The girls get it; we have to live in our children," said Mrs. Megilp, self-renouncingly. "I can never rest until Glossy is provided with everything; and you know, Laura, I _am_ obliged to contrive." Mrs. Megilp and her daughter Glaucia spent about a thousand dollars a year, between them, on their dress. In these days, this is a limited allowance--for the Megilps. But Mrs. Megilp was a woman of strict pecuniary principle; the other fifteen hundred must pay all the rest; she submitted cheerfully to the Divine allotment, and punctually made the two ends meet. She will have this to show, when the Lord of these servants cometh and reckoneth with them, and that man who has been also in narrow circumstances, brings his nicely kept talent out of his napkin. Desire Ledwith, a girl of sixteen, spoke suddenly from a corner where she sat with a book,-- "I do wonder who '_they_' are, mamma!" "Who?" said Mrs. Ledwith, half rising from her chair, and letting some breadths of silk slide down upon the floor from her lap, as she glanced anxiously from the window down the avenue. She did not want any company this morning. "Not that, mamma; I don't mean anybody coming. The 'theys' that wear, and don't wear, things; the theys you have to be just like, and keep ripping and piecing for." "You absurd child!" exclaimed Mrs. Ledwith, pettishly. "To make me spill a whole lapful of work for that! They? Why, everybody, of course." "Everybody complains of them, though. Jean Friske says her mother is all discouraged and worn out. There isn't a thing they had last year that won't have to be made over this, because they put in a breadth more behind, and they only gore side seams. And they don't wear black capes or cloth sacks any more with all kinds of dresses; you must have suits, clear through. It seems to me 'they' is a nuisance. And if it's everybody, we must be part of it. Why doesn't somebody stop?" "Desire, I wish you'd put away your book, and help, instead of asking silly questions. You can't make the world over, with 'why don'ts?'" "I'll _rip_," said Desire, with a slight emphasis; putting her book down, and coming over for a skirt and a pair of scissors. "But you know I'm no good at putting together again. And about making the world over, I don't know but that might be as easy as making over all its clothes, I'd as lief try, of the two." Desire was never cross or disagreeable; she was only "impracticable," her mother said. "And besides that, she didn't know what she really did want. She was born hungry and asking, with those sharp little eyes, and her mouth always open while she was a baby. 'It was a sign,' the nurse said, when she was three weeks old. And then the other sign,--that she should have to be called 'Desire!'" Mrs. Megilp--for Mrs. Megilp had been in office as long ago as that--had suggested ways of getting over or around the difficulty, when Aunt Desire had stipulated to have the baby named for her, and had made certain persuasive conditions. "There's the pretty French turn you might give it,--'Desirée.' Only one more 'e,' and an accent. That is so sweet, and graceful, and distinguished!" "But Aunt Desire won't have the name twisted. It is to be real, plain Desire, or not at all." Mrs. Megilp had shrugged her shoulders. "Well, of course it can be that, to christen by, and marry by, and be buried by. But between whiles,--people pick up names,--you'll see!" Mrs. Megilp began to call her "Daisy" when she was two years old. Nobody could help what Mrs. Megilp took a fancy to call her by way of endearment, of course; and Daisy she was growing to be in the family, when one day, at seven years old, she heard Mrs. Megilp say to her mother,-- "I don't see but that you've all got your _Desire_, after all. The old lady is satisfied; and away up there in Hanover, what can it signify to her? The child is 'Daisy,' practically, now, as long as she lives." The sharp, eager little gray eyes, so close together in the high, delicate head, glanced up quickly at speaker and hearer. "What old lady, mamma, away up in Hanover?" "Your Aunt Desire, Daisy, whom you were named for. She lives in Hanover. You are to go and see her there, this summer." "Will she call me Daisy?" The little difficulty suggested in this question had singularly never occurred to Mrs. Ledwith before. Miss Desire Ledwith never came down to Boston; there was no danger at home. "No. She is old-fashioned, and doesn't like pet names. She will call you Desire. That is your name, you know." "Would it signify if she thought you called me Daisy?" asked the child frowning half absently over her doll, whose arm she was struggling to force into rather a tight sleeve of her own manufacture. "Well, perhaps she might not exactly understand. People always went by their names when she was a child, and now hardly anybody does. She was very particular about having you called for her, and you _are_, you know. I always write 'Desire Ledwith' in all your books, and--well, I always _shall_ write it so, and so will you. But you can be Daisy when we make much of you here at home, just as Florence is Flossie." "No, I can't," said the little girl, very decidedly, getting up and dropping her doll. "Aunt Desire, away up in Hanover, is thinking all the time that there is a little Desire Ledwith growing up down here. I don't mean to have her cheated. I'm going to went by my name, as she did. Don't call me Daisy any more, all of you; for I shan't come!" The gray eyes sparkled; the whole little face scintillated, as it were. Desire Ledwith had a keen, charged little face; and when something quick and strong shone through it, it was as if somewhere behind it there had been struck fire. She was true to that through all the years after; going to school with Mabels and Ethels and Graces and Ediths,--not a girl she knew but had a pretty modern name,--and they all wondering at that stiff little "Desire" of hers that she would go by. When she was twelve years old, the old lady up in Hanover had died, and left her a gold watch, large and old-fashioned, which she could only keep on a stand in her room,--a good solid silver tea-set, and all her spoons, and twenty-five shares in the Hanover Bank. Mrs. Megilp called her Daisy, with gentle inadvertence, one day after that. Desire lifted her eyes slowly at her, with no other reply in her face, or else. "You might please your mother now, I think," said Mrs. Megilp. "There is no old lady to be troubled by it." "A promise isn't ever dead, Mrs. Megilp," said Desire, briefly. "I shall keep our words." "After all," Mrs. Megilp said privately to the mother, "there is something quietly aristocratic in an old, plain, family name. I don't know that it isn't good taste in the child. Everybody understands that it was a condition, and an inheritance." Mrs. Megilp had taken care of that. She was watchful for the small impressions she could make in behalf of her particular friends. She carried about with her a little social circumference in which all was preëminently as it should be. But,--as I would say if you could not see it for yourself--this is a digression. We will go back again. "If it were any use!" said Desire, shaking out the deep plaits as she unfastened them from the band. "But you're only a piece of everybody after all. You haven't anything really new or particular to yourself, when you've done. And it takes up so much time. Last year, this was so pretty! _Isn't_ anything actually pretty in itself, or can't they settle what it is? I should think they had been at it long enough." "Fashions never were so graceful as they are this minute," said Mrs. Megilp. "Of course it is art, like everything else, and progress. The world is getting educated to a higher refinement in it, every day. Why, it's duty, child!" she continued, exaltedly. "Think what the world would be if nobody cared. We ought to make life beautiful. It's meant to be. There's not only no virtue in ugliness, but almost no virtue _with_ it, I think. People are more polite and good-natured when they are well dressed and comfortable." "_That's_ dress, too, though," said Desire, sententiously. "You've got to stay at home four days, and rip, and be tired, and cross, and tried-on-to, and have no chance to do anything else, before you can put it all on and go out and be good-natured and bland, and help put the beautiful face on the world, _one_ day. I don't believe it's political economy." "Everybody doesn't have to do it for themselves. Really, when I hear people blamed for dress and elegance,--why, the very ones who have the most of it are those who sacrifice the least time to it. They just go and order what they want, and there's the end of it. When it comes home, they put it on, and it might as well be a flounced silk as a plain calico." "But we _do_ have to think, Mrs. Megilp. And work and worry. And then we _can't_ turn right round in the things we know every stitch of and have bothered over from beginning to end, and just be lilies of the field!" "A great many people do have to wash their own dishes, and sweep, and scour; but that is no reason it ought not to be done. I always thought it was rather a pity that was said, _just so_," Mrs. Megilp proceeded, with a mild deprecation of the Scripture. "There _is_ toiling and spinning; and will be to the end of time, for some of us." "There's cauliflower brought for dinner, Mrs. Ledwith," said Christina, the parlor girl, coming in. "And Hannah says it won't go with the pigeons. Will she put it on the ice for to-morrow?" "I suppose so," said Mrs. Ledwith, absently, considering a breadth that had a little hitch in it. "Though what we shall have to-morrow I'm sure I don't know," she added, rousing up. "I wish Mr. Ledwith wouldn't send home the first thing he sees, without any reference." "And here's the milkman's bill, and a letter," continued Christina, laying them down on a chair beside her mistress, and then departing. Great things come into life so easily, when they do come, right alongside of milk-bills and cabbages! And yet one may wait so long sometimes for anything to happen _but_ cabbages! The letter was in a very broad, thick envelope, and sealed with wax. Mrs. Ledwith looked at it curiously before she opened it. She did not receive many letters. She had very little time for correspondence. It was addressed to "Mrs. Laura Ledwith." That was odd and unusual, too. Mrs. Megilp glanced at her over the tortoise-shell rims of her eye-glasses, but sat very quiet, lest she should delay the opening. She would like to know what could be in that very business-like looking despatch, and Laura would be sure to tell her. It must be something pretty positive, one way or another; it was no common-place negative communication. Laura might have had property left her. Mrs. Megilp always thought of possibilities like that. When Laura Ledwith had unfolded the large commercial sheet, and glanced down the open lines of square, upright characters, whose purport could be taken in at sight, like print, she turned very red with a sudden excitement. Then all the color dropped away, and there was nothing in her face but blank, pale, intense surprise. "It is a most _won_derful thing!" said she, at last, slowly; and her breath came like a gasp with her words. "My great-uncle, Mr. Oldways." She spoke those four words as if from them Mrs. Megilp could understand everything. Mrs. Megilp thought she did. "Ah! Gone?" she asked, pathetically. "Gone! No, indeed!" said Mrs. Ledwith. "He wrote the letter. He wants me to _come_; me, and all of us,--to Boston, to live; and to get acquainted with him." "My dear," said Mrs. Megilp, with the promptness and benignity of a Christian apostle, "it's your duty to go." "And he offers me a house, and two thousand dollars a year." "My dear," said Mrs. Megilp, "it is _emphatically_ your duty to go." All at once something strange came over Laura Ledwith. She crumpled the letter tight in her hands with a clutch of quick excitement, and began to choke with a little sob, and to laugh at the same time. "Don't give way!" cried Mrs. Megilp, coming to her and giving her a little shake and a slap. "If you do once you will again, and you're _not_ hystericky!" "He's sent for Frank, too. Frank and I will be together again in dear old Boston! But--we can't be children and sit on the shed any more; and--it _isn't_ dear old Boston, either!" And then Laura gave right up, and had a good cry for five minutes. After that she felt better, and asked Mrs. Megilp how she thought a house in Spiller Street would do. But she couldn't rip any more of those breadths that morning. Agatha and Florence came in from some calls at the Goldthwaites and the Haddens, and the news was told, and they had their bonnets to take off, and the dinner-bell rang, and the smell of the spicy pigeon-stew came up the stairs, all together. And they went down, talking fast; and one said "house," and another "carpets," and another "music and German;" and Desire, trailing a breadth of green silk in her hand that she had never let go since the letter was read, cried out, "oratorios!" And nobody quite knew what they were going down stairs for, or had presence of mind to realize the pigeons, or help each other or themselves properly, when they got there! Except Mrs. Megilp, who was polite and hospitable to them all, and picked two birds in the most composed and elegant manner. When the dessert was put upon the table, and Christina, confusedly enlightened as to the family excitement, and excessively curious, had gone away into the kitchen, Mrs. Ledwith said to Mrs. Megilp,-- "I'm not sure I should fancy Spiller Street, after all; it's a sort of a corner. Westmoreland Street or Helvellyn Park might be nice. I know people down that way,--Mrs. Inchdeepe." "Mrs. Inchdeepe isn't exactly 'people,'" said Mrs. Megilp, in a quiet way that implied more than grammar. "Don't get into 'And' in Boston, Laura!--With such an addition to your income, and what your uncle gives you toward a house, I don't see why you might not think of Republic Avenue." "We shall have plenty of thinking to do about everything," said Laura. "Mamma," said Agatha, insinuatingly, "I'm thinking, already; about that rose-pink paper for my room. I'm glad now I didn't have it here." Agatha had been restless for white lace, and rose-pink, and a Brussels carpet ever since her friend Zarah Thoole had come home from Europe and furnished a morning-room. All this time Mr. Grant Ledwith, quite unconscious of the impending changes with which his family were so far advanced in imagination, was busy among bales and samples in Devonshire Street. It got to be an old story by the time the seven o'clock train was in, and he reached home. It was almost as if it had all happened a year ago, and they had been waiting for him to come home from Australia. There was so much to explain to him that it was really hard to make him understand, and to bring him up to the point from which they could go on together. VII. WAKING UP. The Ledwiths took apartments in Boston for a month. They packed away the furniture they wanted to keep for upper rooms, in the attics of their house at Z----. They had an auction of all the furniture of their drawing-room, dining-room, library, and first floor of sleeping-rooms. Then they were to let their house. Meanwhile, one was to be fixed upon and fitted up in Boston. In all this Mrs. Megilp advised, invaluably. "It's of no use to move things," she said. "Three removes are as bad as a fire; and nothing ever fits in to new places. Old wine and new bottles, you know! Clear all off with a country auction. Everybody comes, and they all fight for everything. Things bring more than their original cost. Then you've nothing to do but order according to your taste." Mr. Oldways had invited both his nieces to his own house on their arrival. But here again Mrs. Megilp advised,--so judiciously. "There are too many of you; it would be a positive infliction. And then you'll have all your running about and planning and calculating to do, and the good old gentleman would think he had pulled half Boston down about his ears. Your sister can go there; it would be only generous and thoughtful to give way to her. There are only three of them, and they are strange, you know, to every thing, and wouldn't know which way to turn. I can put you in the way of rooms at the Bellevue, exactly the thing, for a hundred and fifty a month. No servants, you see; meals at the restaurant, and very good, too. The Wedringtons are to give them up unexpectedly; going to Europe; poor Mrs. Wedrington is so out of health. And about the house; don't decide in a hurry; see what your uncle says, and your sister. It's very likely she'll prefer the Aspen Street house; and it _would_ be out of the way for you. Still it is not to be _refused_, you know; of course it is very desirable in many respects; roomy, old-fashioned, and a garden. I think your sister will like those things; they're what she has been used to. If she does, why it's all comfortably settled, and nobody refuses. It is so ungracious to appear to object; a gift horse, you know." "Not to be refused; only by no means to be taken; masterly inactivity till somebody else is hooked; and then somebody else is to be grateful for the preference. I wish Mrs. Megilp wouldn't shine things up so; and that mother wouldn't go to her to black all her boots!" Desire said this in secret, indignant discomfort, to Helena, the fourth in the family, her chum-sister. Helena did very well to talk to; she heard anything; then she pranced round the room and chaffed the canary. "Chee! chee! chee! chiddle, iddle, iddle, iddle, e-e-ee! Where do you keep all your noise and your breath? You're great, aren't you? You do that to spite people that have to work up one note at a time. You don't take it in away down under your belt, do you? You're not particular about that. You don't know much, after all. You don't know _how_ you do it. You aren't learning of Madame Caroletti. And you haven't learned two quarters, any way. You were only just born last spring. Set up! Tr-r-r-r-e-e-ee! I can do that myself. I don't believe you've got an octave in you. Poh!" Mrs. Ripwinkley came down from the country with a bonnet on that had a crown, and with not a particle of a chignon. When she was married, twenty-five years before, she wore a French twist,--her hair turned up in waves from her neck as prettily as it did away from her forehead,--and two thick coiled loops were knotted and fastened gracefully at the top. She had kept on twisting her hair so, all these years; and the rippling folds turned naturally under her fingers into their places. The color was bright still, and it had not thinned. Over her brows it parted richly, with no fuzz or crimp; but a sweet natural wreathing look that made her face young. Mrs. Ledwith had done hers over slate-pencils till she had burned it off; and now tied on a friz, that came low down, for fashion's sake, and left visible only a little bunch of puckers between her eyebrows and the crowsfeet at the corners. The back of her head was weighted down by an immense excrescence in a bag. Behind her ears were bare places. Mrs. Ledwith began to look old-young. And a woman cannot get into a worse stage of looks than that. Still, she was a showy woman--a good exponent of the reigning style; and she was handsome--she and her millinery--of an evening, or in the street. When I began that last paragraph I meant to tell you what else Mrs. Ripwinkley brought with her, down out of the country and the old times; but hair takes up a deal of room. She brought down all her dear old furniture. That is, it came after her in boxes, when she had made up her mind to take the Aspen Street house. "Why, that's the sofa Oliver used to lie down on when he came home tired from his patients, and that's the rocking-chair I nursed my babies in; and this is the old oak table we've sat round three times a day, the family of us growing and thinning, as the time went on, all through these years. It's like a communion table, now, Laura. Of course such things had to come." This was what she answered, when Laura ejaculated her amazement at her having brought "old Homesworth truck" to Boston. "You see it isn't the walls that make the home; we can go away from them and not break our hearts, so long as our own goes with us. The little things that we have used, and that have grown around us with our living,--they are all of living that we can handle and hold on to; and if I went to Spitzbergen, I should take as many of them as I could." The Aspen Street house just suited Mrs. Ripwinkley, and Diana, and Hazel. In the first place, it was wooden; built side to the street, so that you went up a little paved walk, in a shade of trees, to get to the door; and then the yard, on the right hand side as you came in, was laid out in narrow walks between borders of blossoming plants. There were vines against the brick end of the next building,--creepers and morning-glories, and white and scarlet runners; and a little martin-box was set upon a pole in the still, farther corner. The rooms of the house were low, but large; and some of the windows had twelve-paned sashes,--twenty-four to a window. Mrs. Ripwinkley was charmed with these also. They were like the windows at Mile Hill. Mrs. Ledwith, although greatly relieved by her sister's prompt decision for the house which she did _not_ want, felt it in her conscience to remonstrate a little. "You have just come down from the mountains, Frank, after your twenty-five years' sleep; you've seen nothing by and by you will think differently. This house is fearfully old-fashioned, _fearfully_; and it's away down here on the wrong side of the hill. You can never get up over Summit Street from here." "We are used to hills, and walking." "But I mean--that isn't all. There are other things you won't be able to get over. You'll never shake off Aspen Street dust,--you nor the children." "I don't think it is dusty. It is quiet, and sheltered, and clean. I like it ever so much," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "O, dear, you don't understand in the least! It's wicked to let you go on so! You poor, dear, simple little old soul!" "Never mind," said Mrs. Megilp. "It's all well enough for the present. It pleases the old gentleman, you know; and after all he's done, he ought to be pleased. One of you should certainly be in his neighborhood. _He_ has been here from time immemorial; and any place grows respectable by staying in it long enough--from _choice_. Nobody will wonder at Mrs. Ripwinkley's coming here at his request. And when she _does_ move, you see, she will know exactly what she is about." "I almost doubt if she ever _will_ know what she is about," said Laura. "In that case,--well,"--said Mrs. Megilp, and stopped, because it really was not in the least needful to say more. Mrs. Megilp felt it judicious, for many reasons, that Mrs. Ripwinkley should he hidden away for awhile, to get that mountain sleep out of her eyes, if it should prove possible; just as we rub old metal with oil and put it by till the rust comes off. The Ledwiths decided upon a house in Shubarton Place that would not seem quite like taking old Uncle Titus's money and rushing away with it as far as city limits would allow; and Laura really did wish to have the comfort of her sister's society, in a cozy way, of mornings, up in her room; that was her chief idea about it. There were a good many times and things in which she scarcely expected much companionship from Frank. She would not have said even to herself, that Frank was rusty; and she would do her faithful and good-natured best to rub her up; but there was an instinct with her of the congruous and the incongruous; and she would not do her Bath-brick polishing out on the public promenade. They began by going together to the carpet stores and the paper warehouses; but they ended in detailing themselves for separate work; their ideas clashed ridiculously, and perpetually confused each other. Frank remembered loyally her old brown sofa and chairs; she would not have gay colors to put them out of countenance; for even if she re-covered them, she said they should have the same old homey complexion. So she chose a fair, soft buff, with a pattern of brown leaves, for her parlor paper; Mrs. Ledwith, meanwhile, plunging headlong into glories of crimson and garnet and gold. Agatha had her blush pink, in panels, with heart-of-rose borders, set on with delicate gilt beadings; you would have thought she was going to put herself up, in a fancy-box, like a French _mouchoir_ or a _bonbon_. "Why _don't_ you put your old brown things all together in an up-stairs room, and call it Mile Hill? You could keep it for old times' sake, and sit there mornings; the house is big enough; and then have furniture like other people's in the parlor?" "You see it wouldn't be _me_." said Mrs. Ripwinkley, simply. "They keep saying it 'looks,' and 'it looks,'" said Diana to her mother, at home. "Why must everything _look_ somehow?" "And every_body_, too," said Hazel. "Why, when we meet any one in the street that Agatha and Florence know, the minute they have gone by they say, 'She didn't look well to-day,' or, 'How pretty she did look in that new hat!' And after the great party they went to at that Miss Hitchler's, they never told a word about it except how girls 'looked.' I wonder what they _did_, or where the good time was. Seems to me people ain't living,--they are only just looking; or _is_ this the same old Boston that you told about, and where are the real folks, mother?" "We shall find them," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, cheerily; "and the real of these, too, when the outsides are settled. In the meantime, we'll make our house say, and not look. Say something true, of course. Things won't say anything else, you see; if you try to make them, they don't speak out; they only stand in a dumb show and make faces." "That's looking!" said Hazel. "Now I know." "How those children do grow!" said Mrs. Ripwinkley, as they went off together. "Two months ago they were sitting out on the kitchen roof, and coming to me to hear the old stories!" "Transplantin'," said Luclarion. "That's done it." At twelve and fourteen, Hazel and Diana could be simple as birds,--simpler yet, as human children waiting for all things,--in their country life and their little dreams of the world. Two months' contact with people and things in a great city had started the life that was in them, so that it showed what manner of growth it was to be of. And little Hazel Ripwinkley had got hold already of the small end of a very large problem. But she could not make it out that this was the same old Boston that her mother had told about, or where the nice neighbors were that would be likely to have little tea-parties for their children. VIII. EAVESDROPPING IN ASPEN STREET. Some of the old builders,--not the _very_ old ones, for they built nothing but rope-walks down behind the hill,--but some of those who began to go northwest from the State House to live, made a pleasant group of streets down there on the level stretching away to the river, and called them by fresh, fragrant, country-suggesting names. Names of trees and fields and gardens, fruits and blossoms; and they built houses with gardens around them. In between the blocks were deep, shady places; and the smell of flowers was tossed back and forth by summer winds between the walls. Some nice old people stayed on there, and a few of their descendants stay on there still, though they are built in closely now, for the most part, and coarse, common things have much intruded, and Summit Street overshadows them with its palaces. Here and there a wooden house, set back a little, like this of the Ripwinkleys in Aspen Street, gives you a feeling of Boston in the far back times, as you go by; and here and there, if you could get into the life of the neighborhood, you might perhaps find a household keeping itself almost untouched with change, though there has been such a rush and surge for years up and over into the newer and prouder places. At any rate, Titus Oldways lived here in Greenley Street; and he owned the Aspen Street house, and another over in Meadow Place, and another in Field Court. He meant to stretch his control over them as long as he could, and keep them for families; therefore he valued them at such rates as they would bring for dwellings; he would not sell or lease them for any kind of "improvements;" he would not have their little door-yards choked up, or their larger garden spaces destroyed, while he could help it. Round in Orchard Street lived Miss Craydocke. She was away again, now, staying a little while with the Josselyns in New York. Uncle Titus told Mrs. Ripwinkley that when Miss Craydocke came back it would be a neighborhood, and they could go round; now it was only back and forth between them and him and Rachel Froke. There were other people, too, but they would be longer finding them out. "You'll know Miss Craydocke as soon as you see her; she is one of those you always seem to have seen before." Now Uncle Titus would not have said this to everybody; not even if everybody had been his niece, and had come to live beside him. Orchard Street is wide and sunny and pleasant; the river air comes over it and makes it sweet; and Miss Craydocke's is a big, generous house, of which she only uses a very little part herself, because she lets the rest to nice people who want pleasant rooms and can't afford to pay much rent; an old gentleman who has had a hard time in the world, but has kept himself a gentleman through it all, and his little cheery old lady-wife who puts her round glasses on and stitches away at fine women's under-garments and flannel embroideries, to keep things even, have the two very best rooms; and a clergyman's widow, who copies for lawyers, and writes little stories for children, has another; and two orphan sisters who keep school have another; and Miss Craydocke calls her house the Beehive, and buzzes up and down in it, and out and in, on little "seeing-to" errands of care and kindness all day long, as never any queen-bee did in any beehive before, but in a way that makes her more truly queen than any sitting in the middle cell of state to be fed on royal jelly. Behind the Beehive, is a garden, as there should be; great patches of lily-of-the valley grow there that Miss Craydocke ties up bunches from in the spring and gives away to little children, and carries into all the sick rooms she knows of, and the poor places. I always think of those lilies of the valley when I think of Miss Craydocke. It seems somehow as if they were blooming about her all the year through; and so they are, perhaps, invisibly. The other flowers come in their season; the crocuses have been done with first of all; the gay tulips and the snowballs have made the children glad when they stopped at the gate and got them, going to school. Miss Craydocke is always out in her garden at school-time. By and by there are the tall white lilies, standing cool and serene in the July heats; then Miss Craydocke is away at the mountains, pressing ferns and drying grasses for winter parlors; but there is somebody on duty at the garden dispensary always, and there are flower-pensioners who know they may come in and take the gracious toll. Late in the autumn, the nasturtiums and verbenas and marigolds are bright; and the asters quill themselves into the biggest globes they can, of white and purple and rose, as if it were to make the last glory the best, and to do the very utmost of the year. Then the chrysanthemums go into the house and bloom there for Christmas-time. There is nothing else like Miss Craydocke's house and garden, I do believe, in all the city of the Three Hills. It is none too big for her, left alone with it, the last of her family; the world is none too big for her; she is glad to know it is all there. She has a use for everything as fast as it comes, and a work to do for everybody, as fast as she finds them out. And everybody,--almost,--catches it as she goes along, and around her there is always springing up a busy and a spreading crystallizing of shining and blessed elements. The world is none too big for her, or for any such, of course, because,--it has been told why better than I can tell it,--because "ten times one is always ten." It was a gray, gusty morning. It had not set in to rain continuously; but the wind wrung handfuls of drops suddenly from the clouds, and flung them against the panes and into the wayfarers' faces. Over in the house opposite the Ripwinkley's, at the second story windows, sat two busy young persons. Hazel, sitting at her window, in "mother's room," where each had a corner, could see across; and had got into the way of innocent watching. Up in Homesworth, she had used to watch the robins in the elm-trees; here, there was human life, in little human nests, all about her. "It's the same thing, mother," she would say, "isn't it, now? Don't you remember in that book of the 'New England Housekeeper,' that you used to have, what the woman said about the human nature of the beans? It's in beans, and birds, and bird's nests; and folks, and folks' nests. It don't make much difference. It's just snugness, and getting along. And it's so nice to see!" Hazel put her elbows up on the window-sill, and looked straight over into that opposite room, undisguisedly. The young man, in one window, said to his sister in the other, at the same moment,-- "Our company's come! There's that bright little girl again!" And the sister said, "Well, it's pretty much all the company we can take in! She brings her own seat and her own window; and she doesn't interrupt. It's just the kind for us, Kentie!" "She's writing,--copying something,--music, it looks like; see it there, set up against the shutter. She always goes out with a music roll in her hand. I wonder whether she gives or takes?" said Diana, stopping on her way to her own seat to look out over Hazel's shoulder. "Both, I guess," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "Most people do. Why don't you put your flowers in the window, Hazel?" "Why, so I will!" They were a great bunch of snowy white and deep crimson asters, with green ivy leaves, in a tall gray glass vase. Rachel Froke had just brought them in from Miss Craydocke's garden. "They're looking, mother! Only I do think it's half too bad! That girl seems as if she would almost reach across after them. Perhaps they came from the country, and haven't had any flowers." "Thee might take them over some," said Mrs. Froke, simply. "O, I shouldn't dare! There are other people in the house, and I don't know their names, or anything. I wish I could, though." "I can," said Rachel Froke. "Thee'll grow tall enough to step over pebbles one of these days. Never mind; I'll fetch thee more to-morrow; and thee'll let the vase go for a while? Likely they've nothing better than a tumbler." Rachel Froke went down the stairs, and out along the paved walk, into the street. She stopped an instant on the curb-stone before she crossed, and looked up at those second story windows. Hazel watched her. She held up the vase slightly with one hand, nodding her little gray bonnet kindly, and beckoned with the other. The young girl started from her seat. In another minute Hazel saw them together in the doorway. There was a blush and a smile, and an eager brightness in the face, and a quick speaking thanks, that one could read without hearing, from the parted lips, on the one side, and the quiet, unflutterable gray bonnet calmly horizontal on the other; and then the door was shut, and Rachel Froke was crossing the damp pavement again. "I'm so glad Aspen Street is narrow!" said Hazel. "I should hate to be way off out of sight of people. What did you say to her, Mrs. Froke?" she asked, as the Friend reentered. Hazel could by no means take the awful liberty of "Rachel." "I said the young girl, Hazel Ripwinkley, being from the country, knew how good flowers were to strangers in the town, and that she thought they might be strange, and might like some." Hazel flushed all up. At that same instant, a gentle nod and smile came across from window to window, and she flushed more, till the tears sprung with the shy, glad excitement, as she returned it and then shrunk away. "And she said, 'Thank her, with Dorris Kincaid's love,'" proceeded Rachel Froke. "O, _mother_!" exclaimed Hazel. "And you did it all, right off so, Mrs. Froke. I don't see how grown up people dare, and know how!" Up the stairs ran quick feet in little clattering heeled boots. Desire Ledwith, with a purple waterproof on, came in. "I couldn't stay at home to-day," she said, "I wanted to be where it was all-togetherish. It never is at our house. Now it's set up, they don't do anything with it." "That's because it '_looks_'--so elegant," said Hazel, catching herself up in dismay. "It's because it's the crust, I think," said Desire. "Puff paste, like an oyster patty; and they haven't got anything cooked yet for the middle. I wonder when they will. I had a call yesterday, all to myself," she went on, with a sudden change of tone and topic. "Agatha was hopping and I wouldn't tell her what I said, or how I behaved. That new parlor girl of ours thinks we're all or any of us 'Miss Ledwith,' mamma included, and so she let him in. He had on lavender pantaloons and a waxed moustache." "The rain is just pouring down!" said Diana, at the garden window. "Yes; I'm caught. That's what I meant," said Desire. "You've got to keep me all day, now. How will you get home, Mrs. Froke? Or won't you have to stay, too?" "Thee may call me Rachel, Desire Ledwith, if thee pleases. I like it better. I am no mistress. And for getting home, it is but just round the corner. But there is no need yet. I came for an hour, to sit here with friend Frances. And my hour is not yet up." "I'm glad of that, for there is something I want you to tell me. I haven't quite got at it myself, yet; so as to ask, I mean. Wait a minute!" And she put her elbows up on her knees, and held her thumbs against her ears, and her fingers across her forehead; sitting squarely opposite the window to which she had drawn up her chair beside Diane, and looking intently at the driving streams that rushed and ran down against the glass. "I was sitting in the bay-window at home, when it began this morning; that made me think. All the world dripping wet, and I just put there dry and safe in the middle of the storm, shut up behind those great clear panes and tight sashes. How they did have to contrive, and work, before there were such places made for people! What if they had got into their first scratchy little houses, and sat behind the logs as we do behind glass windows and thought, as I was thinking, how nice it was just to be covered up from the rain? Is it all finished now? Hasn't anybody got to contrive anything more? And who's going to do it--and everything. And what are we good for,--just _we_,--to come and expect it all, modern-improved! I don't think much of our place among things, do you, Mrs. Froke?--There, I believe that's it, as near as I can!'" "Why does thee ask me, Desire?" "I don't know. I don't know any whys or what fors. 'Behold we know not anything,'--Tennyson and I! But you seem so--pacified--I suppose I thought you must have settled most things in your mind." "Every builder--every little joiner--did his piece,--thought his thought out, I think likely. There's no little groove or moulding or fitting or finish, but is a bit of somebody's living; and life grows, going on. We've all got our piece to do," said Rachel. "I asked Mrs. Mig," Desire pursued, "and she said some people's part was to buy and employ and encourage; and that spending money helps all the world; and then she put another cushion to her back, and went on tatting." "Perhaps it does--in spite of the world," said Rachel Froke, quietly. "But I guess nobody is to sit by and _only_ encourage; God has given out no such portion as that, I do believe. We can encourage each other, and every one do his own piece too." "I didn't really suppose Mrs. Mig knew," said Desire, demurely. "She never began at the bottom of anything. She only finishes off. She buys pattern worsted work, and fills it in. That's what she's doing now, when she don't tat; a great bunch of white lilies, grounding it with olive. It's lovely; but I'd rather have made the lilies. She'll give it to mother, and then Glossy will come and spend the winter with us. Mrs. Mig is going to Nassau with a sick friend; she's awfully useful--for little overseeings and general touchings up, after all the hard part is done. Mrs. Mig's sick friends always have nurses and waiting maids--Mrs. F---- Rachel! Do you know, I haven't got any piece!" "No, I don't know; nor does thee either, yet," said Rachel Froke. * * * * * "It's all such bosh!" said Kenneth Kincaid, flinging down a handful of papers. "I've no right, I solemnly think, to help such stuff out into the world! A man can't take hold anywhere, it seems, without smutting his fingers!" Kenneth Kincaid was correcting proof for a publisher. What he had to work on this morning was the first chapters of a flimsy novel. "It isn't even confectionery," said he. "It's terra alba and cochineal. And when it comes to the sensation, it will be benzine for whiskey. Real things are bad enough, for the most part, in this world; but when it comes to sham fictions and adulterated poisons, Dorris, I'd rather help bake bread, if it were an honest loaf, or make strong shoes for laboring men!" "You don't always get things like that," said Dorris. "And you know you're not responsible. Why will you torment yourself so?" "I was so determined not to do anything but genuine work; work that the world wanted; and to have it come down to this!" "Only for a time, while you are waiting." "Yes; people must eat while they are waiting; that's the--devil of it! I'm not swearing, Dorris, dear; it came truly into my head, that minute, about the Temptation in the Wilderness." Kenneth's voice was reverent, saying this; and there was an earnest thought in his face. "You'll never like anything heartily but your Sunday work." "That's what keeps me here. My week-day work might be wanted somewhere else. And perhaps I ought to go. There's Sunday work everywhere." "If you've found one half, hold on to it;" said Dorris. "The other can't be far off." "I suppose there are a score or two of young architects in this city, waiting for a name or a chance to make one, as I am. If it isn't here for all of them, somebody has got to quit." "And somebody has got to hold on," repeated Dorris. "You are morbid, Kent, about this 'work of the world.'" "It's overdone, everywhere. Fifth wheels trying to hitch on to every coach. I'd rather be the one wheel of a barrow." "The Lord is Wheelwright, and Builder," said Dorris, very simply. "You _are_ a wheel, and He has made you; He'll find an axle for you and put you on; and you shall go about his business, so that you shall wonder to remember that you were ever leaning up against a wall. Do you know, Kentie, life seems to me like the game we used to play at home in the twilight. When we shut our eyes and let each other lead us, until we did not know where we were going, or in what place we should come out. I should not care to walk up a broad path with my eyes wide open, now. I'd rather feel the leading. To-morrow always makes a turn. It's beautiful! People don't know, who _never_ shut their eyes!" Kenneth had taken up a newspaper. "The pretenses at doing! The dodges and go-betweens that make a sham work between every two real ones! There's hardly a true business carried on, and if there is, you don't know where or which. Look at the advertisements. Why, they cheat with their very tops and faces! See this man who puts in big capitals: 'Lost! $5,000! $1,000 reward!' and then tells you, in small type, that five thousand dollars are lost every year by breaking glass and china, that his cement will mend! What business has he to cry 'Wolf!' to the hindrance of the next man who may have a real wolf to catch? And what business has the printer, whom the next man will pay to advertise his loss, to help on a lie like this beforehand? I'm only twenty-six years old, Dorris, and I'm getting ashamed of the world!" "Don't grow hard, Kenneth. 'The Son of Man came not to condemn the world, but to save it.' Let's each try to save our little piece!" We are listening across the street, you see; between the windows in the rain; it is strange what chords one catches that do not catch each other, and were never planned to be played together,--by the _players_. Kenneth Kincaid's father Robert had been a ship-builder. When shipping went down in the whirlpool of 1857, Robert Kincaid's building had gone; and afterward he had died leaving his children little beside their education, which he thanked God was secured, and a good repute that belonged to their name, but was easily forgotten in the crowd of young and forward ones, and in the strife and scramble of a new business growth. Between college and technical studies Kenneth had been to the war. After that he had a chance to make a fortune in Wall Street. His father's brother, James, offered to take him in with him to buy and sell stocks and gold, to watch the market, to touch little unseen springs, to put the difference into his own pocket every time the tide of value shifted, or could be made to seem to shift. He might have been one of James R. Kincaid and Company. He would have none of it. He told his uncle plainly that he wanted real work; that he had not come back from fighting to--well, there he stopped, for he could not fling the truth in his uncle's face; he said there were things he meant to finish learning, and would try to do; and if nobody wanted them of him he would learn something else that was needed. So with what was left to his share from his father's little remnant of property, he had two years at the Technological School, and here he was in Boston waiting. You can see what he meant by real work, and how deep his theories and distinctions lay. You can see that it might be a hard thing for one young man, here or there, to take up the world on these terms now, in this year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-nine. Over the way Desire Ledwith was beginning again, after a pause in which we have made our little chassée. "I know a girl," she said, "who has got a studio. And she talks about art, and she knows styles, and who has done what, and she runs about to see pictures, and she copies things, and she has little plaster legs and toes and things hanging round everywhere. She thinks it is something great; but it's only Mig, after all. Everything is. Florence Migs into music. And I won't Mig, if I never do anything. I'm come here this morning to darn stockings." And she pulled out of her big waterproof pocket a bundle of stockings and a great white ball of darning cotton and a wooden egg. "There is always one thing that is real," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, gently, "and that shows the way surely to all the rest." "I know what you mean," said Desire, "of course; but they've mixed that all up too, like everything else, so that you don't know where it is. Glossy Megilp has a velvet prayer-book, and she blacks her eyelashes and goes to church. We've all been baptized, and we've learned the Lord's Prayer, and we're all Christians. What is there more about it? I wish, sometimes, they had let it all alone. I think they vaccinated us with religion, Aunt Frank, for fear we should take it the natural way." "Thee is restless," said Rachel Froke, tying on her gray cloak. "And to make us so is oftentimes the first thing the Lord does for us. It was the first thing He did for the world. Then He said, 'Let there be light!' In the meantime, thee is right; just darn thy stockings." And Rachel went. They had a nice morning, after that, "leaving frets alone," as Diana said. Diana Ripwinkley was happy in things just as they were. If the sun shone, she rejoiced in the glory; if the rain fell, it shut her in sweetly to the heart of home, and the outside world grew fragrant for her breathing. There was never anything in her day that she could spare out of it, and there were no holes in the hours either. "Whether she was most bird or bee, it was hard to tell," her mother said of her; from the time she used to sweep and dust her garret baby-house along the big beams in the old house at Homesworth, and make little cheeses, and set them to press in wooden pill-boxes from which she had punched the bottoms out, till now, that she began to take upon herself the daily freshening of the new parlors in Aspen Street, and had long lessons of geometry to learn, whose dry demonstrations she set to odd little improvised recitatives of music, and chanted over while she ran up and down putting away clean linen for her mother, that Luclarion brought up from the wash. As for Hazel, she was only another variation upon the same sweet nature. There was more of outgo and enterprise with her. Diana made the thing or the place pleasant that she was in or doing. Hazel sought out new and blessed inventions. "There was always something coming to the child that wouldn't ever have come to no one else," Luclarion said. "And besides that, she was a real 'Witch Hazel;' she could tell where the springs were, and what's more, where they warn't." Luclarion Grapp would never have pleaded guilty to "dropping into poetry" in any light whatsoever; but what she meant by this was not exactly according to the letter, as one may easily see. IX. HAZEL'S INSPIRATION. What was the use of "looking," unless things were looked at? Mrs. Ledwith found at the end of the winter that she ought to give a party. Not a general one; Mrs. Ledwith always said "not a general one," as if it were an exception, whereas she knew better than ever to undertake a general party; her list would be _too_ general, and heterogeneous. It would simply be a physical, as well as a social, impossibility. She knew quantities of people separately and very cordially, in her easy have-a-good-time-when-you-can style, that she could by no means mix, or even gather together. She picked up acquaintances on summer journeys, she accepted civilities wherever she might be, she asked everybody to her house who took a fancy to her, or would admire her establishment, and if she had had a spring cleaning or a new carpeting, or a furbishing up in any way, the next thing was always to light up and play it off,--to try it on to somebody. What were houses for? And there was always somebody who ought to be paid attention to; somebody staying with a friend, or a couple just engaged, or if nothing else, it was her turn to have the sewing-society; and so her rooms got aired. Of course she had to air them now! The drawing-room, with its apricot and coffee-brown furnishings, was lovely in the evening, and the crimson and garnet in the dining-room was rich and cozy, and set off brilliantly her show of silver and cut-glass; and then, there was the new, real, sea-green China. So the party was had. There were some people in town from New York; she invited them and about a hundred more. The house lit up beautifully; the only pity was that Mrs. Ledwith could not wear her favorite and most becoming colors, buff and chestnut, because she had taken that family of tints for her furniture; but she found a lovely shade of violet that would hold by gas-light, and she wore black Fayal lace with it, and white roses upon her hair. Mrs. Treweek was enchanted with the brown and apricot drawing-room, and wondered where on earth they had got that particular shade, for "my dear! she had ransacked Paris for hangings in just that perfect, soft, ripe color that she had in her mind and never could hit upon." Mrs. MacMichael had pushed the grapes back upon her plate to examine the pattern of the bit of china, and had said how lovely the coloring was, with the purple and pale green of the fruit. And these things, and a few more like them, were the residuum of the whole, and Laura Ledwith was satisfied. Afterward, "while they were in the way of it," Florence had a little _musicale_; and the first season in Shubarton Place was over. It turned out, however, as it did in the old rhyme,--they shod the horse, and shod the mare, and let the little colt go bare. Helena was disgusted because she could not have a "German." "We shall have to be careful, now that we have fairly settled down," said Laura to her sister; "for every bit of Grant's salary will have been taken up with this winter's expenses. But one wants to begin right, and after that one can go on moderately. I'm good at contriving, Frank; only give me something to contrive with." "Isn't it a responsibility," Frank ventured, "to think what we shall contrive _for_?" "Of course," returned Mrs. Ledwith, glibly. "And my first duty is to my children. I don't mean to encourage them to reckless extravagance; as Mrs. Megilp says, there's always a limit; but it's one's duty to make life beautiful, and one can't do too much for home. I want my children to be satisfied with theirs, and I want to cultivate their tastes and accustom them to society. I can't do _everything_ for them; they will dress on three hundred a year apiece, Agatha and Florence; and I can assure you it needs management to accomplish that, in these days!" Mrs. Ripwinkley laughed, gently. "It would require management with us to get rid of that, upon ourselves." "O, my dear, don't I tell you continually, you haven't waked up yet? Just rub your eyes a while longer,--or let the girls do it for you,--and you'll see! Why, I know of girls,--girls whose mothers have limited incomes, too,--who have been kept plain, actually _plain_, all their school days, but who must have now six and eight hundred a year to go into society with. And really I wouldn't undertake it for less, myself, if I expected to keep up with everything. But I must treat mine all alike, and we must be contented with what we have. There's Helena, now, crazy for a young party; but I couldn't think of it. Young parties are ten times worse than old ones; there's really no _end_ to the expense, with the German, and everything. Helena will have to wait; and yet,--of course, if I could, it is desirable, almost necessary; acquaintances begin in the school-room,--society, indeed; and a great deal would depend upon it. The truth is, you're no sooner born, now-a-days, than you have to begin to keep up; or else--you're dropped out." "O, Laura! do you remember the dear little parties our mother used to make for us? From four till half-past eight, with games, and tea at six, and the fathers looking in?" "And cockles, and mottoes, and printed cambric dresses, and milk and water! Where are the children, do you suppose, you dear old Frau Van Winkle, that would come to such a party now?" "Children must be born simple, as they were then. There's nothing my girls would like better, even at their age, than to help at just such a party. It is a dream of theirs. Why shouldn't somebody do it, just to show how good it is?" "You can lead a horse to water, you know, Frank, but you can't make him drink. And the colts are forty times worse. I believe you might get some of the mothers together for an ancient tea-drink, just in the name of old association; but the _babies_ would all turn up their new-fashioned little noses." "O, dear!" sighed Frau Van Winkle. "I wish I knew people!" "By the time you do, you'll know the reason why, and be like all the rest." Hazel Ripwinkley went to Mrs. Hilman's school, with her cousin Helena. That was because the school was a thoroughly good one; the best her mother could learn of; not because it was kept in parlors in Dorset Street, and there were girls there who came from palaces west of the Common, in the grand avenues and the ABC streets; nor did Hazel wear her best gray and black velvet suit for every day, though the rich colored poplins with their over-skirts and sashes, and the gay ribbons for hair and neck made the long green baize covered tables look like gardenplots with beds of bloom, and quite extinguished with their brilliancy the quiet, one skirted brown merino that she brushed and folded every night, and put on with fresh linen cuffs and collar every morning. "It is an idiosyncrasy of Aunt Frances," Helena explained, with the grandest phrase she could pick out of her "Synonymes," to cow down those who "wondered." Privately, Helena held long lamentations with Hazel, going to and fro, about the party that she could not have. "I'm actually ashamed to go to school. There isn't a girl there, who can pretend to have anything, that hasn't had some kind of a company this winter. I've been to them all, and I feel real mean,--sneaky. What's 'next year?' Mamma puts me off with that. Poh? Next year they'll all begin again. You can't skip birthdays." "I'll tell you what!" said Hazel, suddenly, inspired by much the same idea that had occurred to Mrs. Ripwinkley; "I mean to ask my mother to let _me_ have a party!" "You! Down in Aspen Street! Don't, for pity's sake, Hazel!" "I don't believe but what it could be done over again!" said Hazel, irrelevantly, intent upon her own thought. "It couldn't be done _once_! For gracious grandmother's sake, don't think of it!" cried the little world-woman of thirteen. "It's gracious grandmother's sake that made me think of it," said Hazel, laughing. "The way she used to do." "Why don't you ask them to help you hunt up old Noah, and all get back into the ark, pigeons and all?" "Well, I guess they had pretty nice times there, any how; and if another big rain comes, perhaps they'll have to!" Hazel did not intend her full meaning; but there is many a faint, small prophecy hid under a clover-leaf. Hazel did not let go things; her little witch-wand, once pointed, held its divining angle with the might of magic until somebody broke ground. "It's awful!" Helena declared to her mother and sisters, with tears of consternation. "And she wants me to go round with her and carry 'compliments!' It'll never be got over,--never! I wish I could go away to boarding-school!" For Mrs. Ripwinkley had made up her unsophisticated mind to try this thing; to put this grain of a pure, potent salt, right into the seethe and glitter of little Boston, and find out what it would decompose or precipitate. For was not she a mother, testing the world's chalice for her children? What did she care for the hiss and the bubble, if they came? She was wider awake than Mrs. Ledwith knew; perhaps they who come down from the mountain heights of long seclusion can measure the world's paces and changes better than they who have been hurried in the midst of them, on and on, or round and round. Worst of all, old Uncle Titus took it up. It was funny,--or it would have been funny, reader, if anybody but you and I and Rachel Froke knew exactly how,--to watch Uncle Titus as he kept his quiet eye on all these things,--the things that he had set going,--and read their revelations; sheltered, disguised, under a character that the world had chosen to put upon him, like Haroun Alraschid in the merchant's cloak. They took their tea with him,--the two families,--every Sunday night. Agatha Ledwith "filled him in" a pair of slippers that very first Christmas; he sat there in the corner with his old leather ones on, when they came, and left them, for the most part, to their own mutual entertainment, until the tea was ready. It was a sort of family exchange; all the plans and topics came up, particularly on the Ledwith side, for Mrs. Ripwinkley was a good listener, and Laura a good talker; and the fun,--that you and I and Rachel Froke could guess,--yes, and a good deal of unsuspected earnest, also,--was all there behind the old gentleman's "Christian Age," as over brief mentions of sermons, or words about books, or little brevities of family inquiries and household news, broke small floods of excitement like water over pebbles, as Laura and her daughters discussed and argued volubly the matching and the flouncing of a silk, or the new flowering and higher pitching of a bonnet,--since "they are wearing everything all on the top, you know, and mine looks terribly meek;" or else descanted diffusely on the unaccountableness of the somebodies not having called, or the bother and forwardness of the some-other-bodies who had, and the eighty-three visits that were left on the list to be paid, and "never being able to take a day to sit down for anything." "What is it all for?" Mrs. Ripwinkley would ask, over again, the same old burden of the world's weariness falling upon her from her sister's life, and making her feel as if it were her business to clear it away somehow. "Why, to live!" Mrs. Ledwith would reply. "You've got it all to do, you see." "But I don't really see, Laura, where the living comes in." Laura opens her eyes. "_Slang_?" says she. "Where did you get hold of that?" "Is it slang? I'm sure I don't know. I mean it." "Well, you _are_ the funniest! You don't _catch_ anything. Even a by-word must come first-hand from you, and mean something!" "It seems to me such a hard-working, getting-ready-to-be, and then not being. There's no place left for it,--because it's all place." "Gracious me, Frank! If you are going to sift everything so, and get back of everything! I can't live in metaphysics: I have to live in the things themselves, amongst other people." "But isn't it scene and costume, a good deal of it, without the play? It may be that I don't understand, because I have not got into the heart of your city life; but what comes of the parties, for instance? The grand question, beforehand, is about wearing, and then there's a retrospection of what was worn, and how people looked. It seems to be all surface. I should think they might almost send in their best gowns, or perhaps a photograph,--if photographs ever were becoming,--as they do visiting cards." "Aunt Frank," said Desire, "I don't believe the 'heart of city life' is in the parties, or the parlors. I believe there's a great lot of us knocking round amongst the dry goods and the furniture that never get any further. People must be _living_, somewhere, _behind_ the fixings. But there are so many people, nowadays, that have never quite got fixed!" "You might live all your days here," said Mrs. Ledwith to her sister, passing over Desire, "and never get into the heart of it, for that matter, unless you were born into it. I don't care so much, for my part. I know plenty of nice people, and I like to have things nice about me, and to have a pleasant time, and to let my children enjoy themselves. The 'heart,' if the truth was known, is a dreadful still place. I'm satisfied." Uncle Titus's paper was folded across the middle; just then he reversed the lower half; that brought the printing upside down; but he went on reading all the same. "_I_'m going to have a real party," said Hazel, "a real, gracious-grandmother party; just such as you and mother had, Aunt Laura, when you were little." Her Aunt Laura laughed good-naturedly. "I guess you'll have to go round and knock up the grandmothers to come to it, then," said she. "You'd better make it a fancy dress affair at once, and then it will be accounted for." "No; I'm going round to invite; and they are to come at four, and take tea at six; and they're just to wear their afternoon dresses; and Miss Craydocke is coming at any rate; and she knows all the old plays, and lots of new ones; and she is going to show how." "I'm coming, too," said Uncle Titus, over his newspaper, with his eyes over his glasses. "That's good," said Hazel, simply, least surprised of any of the conclave. "And you'll have to play the muffin man. 'O, don't you know,'"--she began to sing, and danced two little steps toward Mr. Oldways. "O, I forgot it was Sunday!" she said, suddenly stopping. "Not much wonder," said Uncle Titus. "And not much matter. _Your_ Sunday's good enough." And then he turned his paper right side up; but, before he began really to read again, he swung half round toward them in his swivel-chair, and said,-- "Leave the sugar-plums to me, Hazel; I'll come early and bring 'em in my pocket." "It's the first thing he's taken the slightest notice of, or interest in, that any one of us has been doing," said Agatha Ledwith, with a spice of momentary indignation, as they walked along Bridgeley Street to take the car. For Uncle Titus had not come to the Ledwith party. "He never went visiting, and he hadn't any best coat," he told Laura, in verbal reply to the invitation that had come written on a square satin sheet, once folded, in an envelope with a big monogram. "It's of no consequence," said Mrs. Ledwith, "any way. Only a child's play." "But it will be, mother; you don't know," said Helena. "She's going right in everywhere, with that ridiculous little invitation; to the Ashburnes and the Geoffreys, and all! She hasn't the least idea of any difference; and just think what the girls will say, and how they will stare, and laugh! I wish she wasn't my cousin!" "Helena!" Mrs. Ledwith spoke with real displeasure; for she was good-natured and affectionate in her way; and her worldly ambitions were rather wide than high, as we have seen. "Well, I can't help it; you don't know, mother," Helena repeated. "It's horrid to go to school with all those stiffies, that don't care a snap for you, and only laugh." "Laughing is vulgar," said Agatha. If any indirect question were ever thrown upon the family position, Agatha immediately began expounding the ethics of high breeding, as one who had attained. "It is only half-way people who laugh," she said. "Ada Geoffrey and Lilian Ashburne never laugh--_at_ anybody--I am sure." "No, they don't; not right out. They're awfully polite. But you can feel it, underneath. They have a way of keeping so still, when you know they would laugh if they did anything." "Well, they'll neither laugh nor keep still, about this. You need not be concerned. They'll just not go, and that will be the end of it." Agatha Ledwith was mistaken. She had been mistaken about two things to-night. The other was when she had said that this was the first time Uncle Oldways had noticed or been interested in anything they did. X. COCKLES AND CRAMBO. Hazel Ripwinkley put on her nankeen sack and skirt, and her little round, brown straw hat. For May had come, and almost gone, and it was a day of early summer warmth. Hazel's dress was not a "suit;" it had been made and worn two summers before suits were thought of; yet it suited very well, as people's things are apt to do, after all, who do not trouble themselves about minutiæ of fashion, and so get no particular antediluvian marks upon them that show when the flood subsides. Her mother knew some things that Hazel did not. Mrs. Ripwinkley, if she had been asleep for five and twenty years, had lost none of her perceptive faculties in the trance. But she did not hamper her child with any doubts; she let her go on her simple way, under the shield of her simplicity, to test this world that she had come into, for herself. Hazel had written down her little list of the girls' names that she would like to ask; and Mrs. Ripwinkley looked at it with a smile. There was Ada Geoffrey, the banker's daughter, and Lilian Ashburne, the professor's,--heiresses each, of double lines of birth and wealth. She could remember how, in her childhood, the old names sounded, with the respect that was in men's tones when they were spoken; and underneath were Lois James and Katie Kilburnie, children of a printer and a hatter. They had all been chosen for their purely personal qualities. A child, let alone, chooses as an angel chooses. It remained to be seen how they would come together. At the very head, in large, fair letters, was,-- "MISS CRAYDOCKE." Down at the bottom, she had just added,-- "MR. KINCAID AND DORRIS." "For, if I have _some_ grown folks, mother, perhaps I ought to have _other_ grown folks,--'to keep the balance true.' Besides, Mr. Kincaid and Dorris always like the _little_ nice times." From the day when Dorris Kincaid had come over with the gray glass vase and her repeated thanks, when the flowers had done their ministry and faded, there had been little simple courtesies, each way, between the opposite houses; and once Kenneth and his sister had taken tea with the Ripwinkleys, and they had played "crambo" and "consequences" in the evening. The real little game of "consequences," of which this present friendliness was a link, was going on all the time, though they did not stop to read the lines as they folded them down, and "what the world said" was not one of the items in their scheme of it at all. It would have been something worth while to have followed Hazel as she went her rounds, asking quietly at each house to see Mrs. This or That, "as she had a message;" and being shown, like a little representative of an almost extinct period, up into the parlor, or the dressing-room of each lady, and giving her quaint errand. "I am Hazel Ripwinkley," she would say, "and my mother sends her compliments, and would like to have Lilian,"--or whoever else,--"come at four o'clock to-day, and spend the afternoon and take tea. I'm to have a little party such as she used to have, and nobody is to be much dressed up, and we are only to play games." "Why, that is charming!" cried Mrs. Ashburne; for the feeling of her own sweet early days, and the old B---- Square house, came over her as she heard the words. "It is Lilian's music afternoon; but never mind; give my kind compliments to your mother, and she will be very happy to come." And Mrs. Ashburne stooped down and kissed Hazel, when she went away. She stood in the deep carved stone entrance-way to Mrs. Geoffrey's house, in the same fearless, Red Riding Hood fashion, just as she would have waited in any little country porch up in Homesworth, where she had need indeed to knock. Not a whit dismayed was she either, when the tall manservant opened to her, and admitted her into the square, high, marble-paved hall, out of which great doors were set wide into rooms rich and quiet with noble adorning and soft shading,--where pictures made such a magic upon the walls, and books were piled from floor to ceiling; and where her little figure was lost as she went in, and she hesitated to take a seat anywhere, lest she should be quite hidden in some great arm-chair or sofa corner, and Mrs. Geoffrey should not see her when she came down. So, as the lady entered, there she was, upright and waiting, on her two feet, in her nankeen dress, just within the library doors, with her face turned toward the staircase. "I am Hazel Ripwinkley," she began; as if she had said, I am Pease-blossom or Mustard-seed; "I go to school with Ada." And went on, then, with her compliments and her party. And at the end she said, very simply,-- "Miss Craydocke is coming, and she knows the games." "Miss Craydocke, of Orchard Street? And where do you live?" "In Aspen Street, close by, in Uncle Oldways' house. We haven't lived there very long,--only this winter; before that we always lived in Homesworth." "And Homesworth is in the country? Don't you miss that?" "Yes; but Aspen Street isn't very bad; we've got a garden. Besides, we like streets and neighbors." Then she added,--for her little witch-stick felt spiritually the quality of what she spoke to,--"Wouldn't Mr. Geoffrey come for Ada in the evening?" "I haven't the least doubt he would!" said Mrs. Geoffrey, her face all alive with exquisite and kindly amusement, and catching the spirit of the thing from the inimitable simplicity before her, such as never, she did believe, had walked into anybody's house before, in this place and generation, and was no more to be snubbed than a flower or a breeze or an angel. It was a piece of Witch Hazel's witchery, or inspiration, that she named Miss Craydocke; for Miss Craydocke was an old, dear friend of Mrs. Geoffrey's, in that "heart of things" behind the fashions, where the kingdom is growing up. But of course Hazel could not have known that; something in the lady's face just made her think of the same thing in Miss Craydocke's, and so she spoke, forgetting to explain, nor wondering in the very least, when she was met with knowledge. It was all divining, though, from the beginning to the end. That was what took her into these homes, rather than to a score of other places up and down the self-same streets, where, if she had got in at all, she would have met strange, lofty stares, and freezing "thank you's," and "engagements." "I've found the real folks, mother, and they're all coming!" she cried, joyfully, running in where Mrs. Ripwinkley was setting little vases and baskets about on shelf and table, between the white, plain, muslin draperies of the long parlor windows. In vases and baskets were sweet May flowers; bunches of deep-hued, rich-scented violets, stars of blue and white periwinkle, and Miss Craydocke's lilies of the valley in their tall, cool leaves; each kind gathered by itself in clusters and handfuls. Inside the wide, open fireplace, behind the high brass fender and the shining andirons, was a "chimney flower pot," country fashion, of green lilac boughs,--not blossoms,--and woodbine sprays, and crimson and white tulips. The room was fair and fragrant, and the windows were wide open upon vines and grass. "It looks like you, mother, just as Mrs. Geoffrey's house looks like her. Houses ought to look like people, I think." "There's your surprise, children. We shouldn't be doing it right without a surprise, you know." And the surprise was not dolls' pelerines, but books. "Little Women" was one, which sent Diana and Hazel off for a delicious two hours' read up in their own room until dinner. After dinner, Miss Craydocke came, in her purple and white striped mohair and her white lace neckerchief; and at three o'clock Uncle Titus walked in, with his coat pockets so bulgy and rustling and odorous of peppermint and sassafras, that it was no use to pretend to wait and be unconscious, but a pure mercy to unload him so that he might be able to sit down. Nobody knows to this day where he got them; he must have ordered them somewhere, one would think, long enough before to have special moulds and implements made; but there were large, beautiful cockles,--not of the old flour-paste sort, but of clear, sparkling sugar, rose-color, and amber, and white, with little slips of tinted paper tucked within, and these printed delicately with pretty rhymes and couplets, from real poets; things to be truly treasured, yet simple, for children's apprehension, and fancy, and fun. And there were "Salem gibraltars," such as we only get out of Essex County now and then, for a big charitable Fair, when Salem and everywhere else gets its spirit up to send its best and most especial; and there were toys and devices in sugar--flowers and animals, hats, bonnets, and boots, apples, and cucumbers,--such as Diana and Hazel, and even Desire and Helena had never seen before. "It isn't quite fair," said good Miss Craydocke. "We were to go back to the old, simple fashions of things; and here you are beginning over again already with sumptuous inventions. It's the very way it came about before, till it was all spoilt." "No," said Uncle Titus, stoutly. "It's only 'Old _and_ New,'--the very selfsame good old notions brought to a little modern perfection. They're not French flummery, either; and there's not a drop of gin, or a flavor of prussic acid, or any other abominable chemical, in one of those contrivances. They're as innocent as they look; good honest mint and spice and checkerberry and lemon and rose. I know the man that made 'em!" Helena Ledwith began to think that the first person, singular or plural, might have a good time; but that awful third! Helena's "they" was as potent and tremendous as her mother's. "It's nice," she said to Hazel; "but they don't have inch things. I never saw them at a party. And they don't play games; they always dance. And it's broad, hot daylight; and--you haven't asked a single boy!" "Why, I don't know any! Only Jimmy Scarup; and I guess he'd rather play ball, and break windows!" "Jimmy Scarup!" And Helena turned away, hopeless of Hazel's comprehending. But "they" came; and "they" turned right into "we." It was not a party; it was something altogether fresh and new; the house was a new, beautiful place; it was like the country. And Aspen Street, when you got down there, was so still and shady and sweet smelling and pleasant. They experienced the delight of finding out something. Miss Craydocke and Hazel set them at it,--their good time; they had planned it all out, and there was no stiff, shy waiting. They began, right off, with the "Muffin Man." Hazel danced up to Desire:-- "O, _do_ you know the Muffin Man, The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man? O, _do_ you know the Muffin Man That lives in Drury Lane?" "O, yes, I know the Muffin Man, The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man, O, yes, I know the Muffin Man That lives in Drury Lane." And so they danced off together:-- "Two of us know the Muffin Man, The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man, Two of us know the Muffin Man That lives in Drury Lane." And then they besieged Miss Craydocke; and then the three met Ada Geoffrey, just as she had come in and spoken to Diana and Mrs. Ripwinkley; and Ada had caught the refrain, and responded instantly; and _four_ of them knew the Muffin Man. "I know they'll think it's common and queer, and they'll laugh to-morrow," whispered Helena to Diana, as Hazel drew the lengthening string to Dorris Kincaid's corner and caught her up; but the next minute they were around Helena in her turn, and they were laughing already, with pure glee; and five faces bent toward her, and five voices sang,-- "O, _don't_ you know the Muffin Man?" And Helena had to sing back that she did; and then the six made a perfect snarl around Mrs. Ripwinkley herself, and drew her in; and then they all swept off and came down across the room upon Mr. Oldways, who muttered, under the singing, "seven women! Well, the Bible says so, and I suppose it's come!" and then he held out both hands, while his hard face unbent in every wrinkle, with a smile that overflowed through all their furrowed channels, up to his very eyes; like some sparkling water that must find its level; and there were eight that knew the Muffin Man. So nine, and ten, and up to fifteen; and then, as their line broke away into fragments, still breathless with fun, Miss Craydocke said,--her eyes brimming over with laughing tears, that always came when she was gay,-- "There, now! we all know the 'Muffin Man;' therefore it follows, mathematically, I believe, that we must all know each other. I think we'll try a sitting-down game next. I'll give you all something. Desire, you can tell them what to do with it, and Miss Ashburne shall predict me consequences." So they had the "Presentation Game;" and the gifts, and the dispositions, and the consequences, when the whispers were over, and they were all declared aloud, were such hits and jumbles of sense and nonsense as were almost too queer to have been believed. "Miss Craydocke gave me a butter firkin," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "I was to put it in the parlor and plant vanilla beans in it; and the consequence would be that Birnam Wood would come to Dunsinane." "She gave me a wax doll," said Helena. "I was to buy it a pair of high-heeled boots and a chignon; and the consequence would be that she would have to stand on her head." "She gave me," said Mr. Oldways, "an iron spoon. I was to deal out sugar-plums with it; and the consequence would be that you would all go home." "She gave me," said Lois James, "Woman's Rights. I shouldn't know what to do with them; and the consequence would be a terrible mortification to all my friends." "She gave me," said Hazel, "a real good time. I was to pass it round; and the consequence would be an earthquake." Then they had "Scandal;" a whisper, repeated rapidly from ear to ear. It began with, "Luclarion is in the kitchen making tea-biscuits;" and it ended with the horrible announcement that there were "two hundred gallons of hot pitch ready, and that everybody was to be tipped into it." "Characters," and "Twenty Questions," and "How, When, and Where," followed; and then they were ready for a run again, and they played "Boston," in which Mr. Oldways, being "Sceattle," was continually being left out, whereupon he declared at last, that he didn't believe there was any place for him, or even that he was down anywhere on the map, and it wasn't fair, and he was going to secede; and that broke up the play; for the groat fun of all the games had come to be Miss Craydocke and Uncle Titus, as it always is the great fun to the young ones when the elders join in,--the older and the soberer, the better sport; there is always something in the "fathers looking on;" that is the way I think it is among them who always do behold the Face of the Father in heaven,--smiling upon their smiles, glowing upon their gladness. In the tea-room, it was all even more delightful yet; it was further out into the garden, shaded at the back by the deep leafiness of grape-vines, and a trellis work with arches in it that ran up at the side, and would be gay by and by with scarlet runners, and morning-glories, and nasturtiums, that were shooting up strong and swift already, from the neatly weeded beds. Inside, was the tall old semicircular sideboard, with gingerbread grooves carved all over it; and the real brass "dogs," with heads on their fore-paws, were lying in the fire-place, under the lilac boughs; and the square, plain table stood in the midst, with its glossy white cloth that touched the floor at the corners, and on it were the identical pink mugs, and a tall glass pitcher of milk, and plates of the thinnest and sweetest bread and butter, and early strawberries in a white basket lined with leaves, and the traditional round frosted cakes upon a silver plate with a network rim. And Luclarion and Mrs. Ripwinkley waited upon them all, and it was still no party, to be compared or thought of with any salad and ice-pudding and Germania-band affair, such as they had had all winter; but something utterly fresh and new and by itself,--place, and entertainment, and people, and all. After tea, they went out into the garden; and there, under the shady horse-chestnuts, was a swing; and there were balls with which Hazel showed them how to play "class;" tossing in turn against the high brick wall, and taking their places up and down, according to the number of their catches. It was only Miss Craydocke's "Thread the Needle" that got them in again; and after that, she showed them another simple old dancing game, the "Winding Circle," from which they were all merrily and mysteriously untwisting themselves with Miss Craydocke's bright little thin face and her fluttering cap ribbons, and her spry little trot leading them successfully off, when the door opened, and the grand Mr. Geoffrey walked in; the man who could manage State Street, and who had stood at the right hand of Governor and President, with his clear brain, and big purse, and generous hand, through the years of the long, terrible war; the man whom it was something for great people to get to their dinners, or to have walk late into an evening drawing-room and dignify an occasion for the last half hour. Mrs. Ripwinkley was just simply glad to see him; so she was to see Kenneth Kincaid, who came a few minutes after, just as Luclarion brought the tray of sweetmeats in, which Mrs. Ripwinkley had so far innovated upon the gracious-grandmother plan as to have after tea, instead of before. The beautiful cockles and their rhymes got their heads all together around the large table, for the eating and the reading. Mr. Geoffrey and Uncle Titus sat talking European politics together, a little aside. The sugar-plums lasted a good while, with the chatter over them; and then, before they quite knew what it was all for, they had got slips of paper and lead pencils before them, and there was to be a round of "Crambo" to wind up. "O, I don't know how!" and "I never can!" were the first words, as they always are, when it was explained to the uninitiated; but Miss Craydocke assured them that "everybody could;" and Hazel said that "nobody expected real poetry; it needn't be more than two lines, and those might be blank verse, if they were _very_ hard, but jingles were better;" and so the questions and the wards were written and folded, and the papers were shuffled and opened amid outcries of, "O, this is awful!" "_What_ a word to get in!" "Why, they haven't the least thing to do with each other!" "That's the beauty of it," said Miss Craydocke, unrelentingly; "to _make_ them have; and it is funny how much things do have to do with each other when they once happen to come across." Then there were knit brows, and desperate scratchings, and such silence that Mr. Geoffrey and Uncle Titus stopped short on the Alabama question, and looked round to see what the matter was. Kenneth Kincaid had been modestly listening to the older gentlemen, and now and then venturing to inquire or remark something, with an intelligence that attracted Mr. Geoffrey; and presently it came out that he had been south with the army; and then Mr. Geoffrey asked questions of him, and they got upon Reconstruction business, and comparing facts and exchanging conclusions, quite as if one was not a mere youth with only his eyes and his brains and his conscience to help him in his first grapple with the world in the tangle and crisis at which he found it, and the other a grave, practiced, keen-judging man, the counsellor of national leaders. After all, they had no business to bring the great, troublesome, heavy-weighted world into a child's party. I wish man never would; though it did not happen badly, as it all turned out, that they did a little of it in this instance. If they had thought of it, "Crambo" was good for them too, for a change; and presently they did think of it; for Dorris called out in distress, real or pretended, from the table,-- "Kentie, here's something you must really take off my hands! I haven't the least idea what to do with it." And then came a cry from Hazel,-- "No fair! We're all just as badly off, and there isn't one of us that has got a brother to turn to. Here's another for Mr. Kincaid." "There are plenty more. Come, Mr. Oldways, Mr. Geoffrey, won't you try 'Crambo?' There's a good deal in it, as there is in most nonsense." "We'll come and see what it is," said Mr. Geoffrey; and so the chairs were drawn up, and the gray, grave heads looked on over the young ones. "Why, Hazel's got through!" said Lois, scratching violently at her paper, and obliterating three obstinate lines. "O, I didn't bother, you see! I just stuck the word right in, like a pin into a pincushion, and let it go. There wasn't anything else to do with it." "I've got to make my pincushion," said Dorris. "I should think you had! Look at her! She's writing her paper all over! O, my gracious, she must have done it before!" "Mother and Mr. Geoffrey are doing heaps, too! We shall have to publish a book," said Diana, biting the end of her pencil, and taking it easy. Diana hardly ever got the rhymes made in time; but then she always admired everybody's else, which was a good thing for somebody to be at leisure to do. "Uncle Oldways and Lilian are folding up," said Hazel. "Five minutes more," said Miss Craydocke, keeping the time with her watch before her. "Hush!" When the five minutes were rapped out, there were seven papers to be read. People who had not finished this time might go on when the others took fresh questions. Hazel began reading, because she had been ready first. "'What is the difference between sponge-cake and doughnuts?' 'Hallelujah.'" "Airiness, lightness, and insipidity; Twistiness, spiciness, and solidity. Hallelujah! I've got through! That is the best that I can do!'" There was a shout at Hazel's pinsticking. "Now, Uncle Titus! You finished next." "My question is a very comprehensive one," said Uncle Titus, "with a very concise and suggestive word. 'How wags the world?' 'Slambang.'" "'The world wags on With lies and slang; With show and vanity, Pride and inanity, Greed and insanity, And a great slambang!'" "That's only _one_ verse," said Miss Craydocke. "There's another; but he didn't write it down." Uncle Titus laughed, and tossed his Crambo on the table. "It's true, so far, anyway," said he. "_So far_ is hardly ever quite true," said Miss Craydocke Lilian Ashburne had to answer the question whether she had ever read "Young's Night Thoughts;" and her word was "Comet." "'Pray might I be allowed a pun, To help me through with just this one? I've tried to read Young's Thoughts of Night, But never yet could come it, quite.'" "O, O, O! That's just like Lilian, with her soft little 'prays' and 'allow me's,' and her little pussy-cat ways of sliding through tight places, just touching her whiskers!" "It's quite fair," said Lilian, smiling, "to slide through if you can." "Now, Mr. Geoffrey." And Mr. Geoffrey read,-- "'What is your favorite color?' 'One-hoss.'" "'Do you mean, my friend, for a one-hoss shay, Or the horse himself,--black, roan, or bay? In truth, I think I can hardly say; I believe, for a nag, "I bet on the gray." "'For a shay, I would rather not have yellow, Or any outright, staring color, That makes the crowd look after a fellow, And the little _gamins_ hoot and bellow. "'Do you mean for ribbons? or gowns? or eyes? Or flowers? or gems? or in sunset skies? For many questions, as many replies, Drops of a rainbow take rainbow dyes. "'The world is full, and the world is bright; Each thing to its nature parts the light; And each for its own to the Perfect sight Wears that which is comely, and sweet, and right.'" "O, Mr. Geoffrey! That's lovely!" cried the girl voices, all around him. And Ada made a pair of great eyes at her father, and said,-- "What an awful humbug you have been, papa! To have kept the other side up with care all your life! Who ever suspected _that_ of you?" Diana and Hazel were not taken so much by surprise, their mother had improvised little nursery jingles for them all their baby days, and had played Crambo with them since; so they were very confident with their "Now, mother:" and looked calmly for something creditable. "'What is your favorite name?'" read Mrs. Ripwinkley. "And the word is 'Stuff.'" "'When I was a little child, Looking very meek and mild, I liked grand, heroic names,-- Of warriors, or stately dames: Zenobia, and Cleopatra; (No rhyme for that this side Sumatra;) Wallace, and Helen Mar,--Clotilda, Berengaria, and Brunhilda; Maximilian; Alexandra; Hector, Juno, and Cassandra; Charlemagne and Britomarte, Washington and Bonaparte; Victoria and Guinevere, And Lady Clara Vere de Vere. --Shall I go on with all this stuff, Or do you think it is enough? I cannot tell you what dear name I love the best; I play a game; And tender earnest doth belong To quiet speech, not silly song.'" "That's just like mother; I should have stopped as soon as I'd got the 'stuff' in; but she always shapes off with a little morriowl," said Hazel. "Now, Desire!" Desire frantically scribbled a long line at the end of what she had written; below, that is, a great black morass of scratches that represented significantly the "Slough of Despond" she had got into over the winding up, and then gave,-- "'Which way would you rather travel,--north or south?' 'Goosey-gander.'" "'O, goosey-gander! If I might wander, It should be toward the sun; The blessed South Should fill my mouth With ripeness just begun. For bleak hills, bare, With stunted, spare, And scrubby, piney trees, Her gardens rare, And vineyards fair, And her rose-scented breeze. For fearful blast, Skies overcast, And sudden blare and scare Long, stormless moons, And placid noons, And--all sorts of comfortablenesses,--there!'" "That makes me think of father's horse running away with him once," said Helena, "when he had to head him right up against a brick wall, and knock everything all to smash before he could stop!" "Anybody else?" "Miss Kincaid, I think," said Mr. Geoffrey. He had been watching Dorris's face through the play, flashing and smiling with the excitement of her rhyming, and the slender, nervous fingers twisting tremulously the penciled slip while she had listened to the others. "If it isn't all rubbed out," said Dorris, coloring and laughing to find how badly she had been treating her own effusion. "You see it _was_ rather an awful question,--'What do you want most?' And the word is, 'Thirteen.'" She caught her breath a little quickly as she began:-- "'Between yourself, dear, myself, and the post, There are the thirteen things that I want the most. I want to be, sometimes, a little stronger; I want the days to be a little longer; I'd like to have a few less things to do; I'd better like to better do the few: I want--and this might almost lead my wishes,-- A bigger place to keep my mops and dishes. I want a horse; I want a little buggy, To ride in when the days grow hot and muggy; I want a garden; and,--perhaps it's funny,-- But now and then I want a little money. I want an easy way to do my hair; I want an extra dress or two to wear; I want more patience; and when all is given, I think I want to die and go to heaven!'" "I never saw such bright people in all my life!" said Ada Geoffrey, when the outcry of applause for Dorris had subsided, and they began to rise to go. "But the _worst_ of all is papa! I'll never get over it of you, see if I do! Such a cheat! Why, it's like playing dumb all your life, and then just speaking up suddenly in a quiet way, some day, as if it was nothing particular, and nobody cared!" With Hazel's little divining-rod, Mrs. Ripwinkley had reached out, testing the world for her, to see what some of it might be really made of. Mrs. Geoffrey, from her side, had reached out in turn, also, into this fresh and simple opportunity, to see what might be there worth while. "How was it, Aleck?" she asked of her husband, as they sat together in her dressing-room, while she brushed out her beautiful hair. "Brightest people I have been among for a long time--and nicest," said the banker, concisely. "A real, fresh little home, with a mother in it. Good place for Ada to go, and good girls for her to know; like the ones I fell in love with a hundred years ago." "That rhymed oracle,--to say nothing of the _fraction_ of a compliment,--ought to settle it," said Mrs. Geoffrey, laughing. "Rhymes have been the order of the evening. I expect to talk in verse for a week at least." And then he told her about the "Crambo." A week after, Mrs. Ledwith was astonished to find, lying on the mantel in her sister's room, a card that had been sent up the day before,-- "MRS. ALEXANDER H. GEOFFREY." XI. MORE WITCH-WORK. Hazel was asked to the Geoffreys' to dinner. Before this, she and Diana had both been asked to take tea, and spend an evening, but this was Hazel's little especial "invite," as she called it, because she and Ada were writing a dialogue together for a composition at school. The Geoffreys dined at the good old-fashioned hour of half past two, except when they had formal dinner company; and Hazel was to come right home from school with Ada, and stay and spend the afternoon. "What intimacy!" Florence Ledwith had exclaimed, when she heard of it. "But it isn't at all on the grand style side; people like the Geoffreys do such things quite apart from their regular connection; it is a sort of 'behind the scenes;'" said Glossy Megilp, who was standing at Florence's dressing-glass, touching up the little heap of "friz" across her forehead. "Where's my poker?" she asked, suddenly, breaking off from the Geoffrey subject, and rummaging in a dressing box, intent upon tutoring some little obstinate loop of hair that would be _too_ frizzy. "I should think a 'blower' might be a good thing to add to your tools, Glossy," said Desire. "You have brush, poker, and tongs, now, to say nothing of coal-hod," she added, glancing at the little open japanned box that held some kind of black powder which had to do with the shadow of Glossy's eyelashes upon occasion, and the emphasis upon the delicate line of her brows. "No secret," said Glossy, magnanimously. "There it is! It is no greater sin than violet powder, or false tails, for that matter; and the little gap in my left eyebrow was never deliberately designed. It was a 'lapsus naturæ;' I only follow out the hint, and complete the intention. Something _is_ left to ourselves; as the child said about the Lord curling her hair for her when she was a baby and letting her do it herself after she grew big enough. What are our artistic perceptions given to us for, unless we're to make the best of ourselves in the first place?" "But it isn't all eyebrows," said Desire, half aloud. "Of course not," said Glossy Megilp. "Twice a day I have to do myself up somehow, and why shouldn't it be as well as I can? Other things come in their turn, and I do them." "But, you see, the friz and the fix has to be, anyhow, whether or no. Everything isn't done, whether or no. I guess it's the 'first place,' that's the matter." "I think you have a very theoretical mind, Des, and a slightly obscure style. You can't be satisfied till everything is all mapped out, and organized, and justified, and you get into horrible snarls trying to do it. If I were you, I would take things a little more as they come." "I can't," said Desire. "They come hind side before and upside down." "Well, if everybody is upside down, there's a view of it that makes it all right side up, isn't there? It seems to be an established fact that we must dress and undress, and that the first duty of the day is to get up and put on our clothes. We aren't ready for much until we do. And one person's dressing may require one thing, and another's another. Some people have a cork leg to put on, and some people have false teeth; and they wouldn't any of them come hobbling or mumbling out without them, unless there was a fire or an earthquake, I suppose." Glossy Megilp's arguments and analogies perplexed Desire, always. They sometimes silenced her; but they did not always answer her. She went back to what they had been discussing before. "To 'lay down the shubbel and the hoe,'--here's your poker, under the table-flounce, Glossy,--and to 'take up the fiddle and the bow,' again,--I think it's real nice and beautiful for Hazel--" "To 'go where the good darkies go'?" "Yes. It's the _good_ of her that's got her in. And I believe you and Florence both would give your best boots to be there too, if it _is_ behind. Behind the fixings and the fashions is where people _live_; 'dere's vat I za-ay!'" she ended, quoting herself and Rip Van Winkle. "Maybe," said Florence, carelessly; "but I'd as lief be _in_ the fashion, after all. And that's where Hazel Ripwinkley never will get, with all her taking little novelties." Meanwhile, Hazel Ripwinkley was deep in the delights of a great portfolio of rare engravings; prints of glorious frescoes in old churches, and designs of splendid architecture; and Mrs. Geoffrey, seeing her real pleasure, was sitting beside her, turning over the large sheets, and explaining them; telling her, as she gazed into the wonderful faces of the Saints and the Evangelists in Correggio's frescoes of the church of San Giovanni at Parma, how the whole dome was one radiant vision of heavenly glory, with clouds and angel faces, and adoring apostles, and Christ the Lord high over all; and that these were but the filling in between the springing curves of the magnificent arches; describing to her the Abbess's room in San Paolo, with its strange, beautiful heathen picture over the mantel, of Diana mounting her stag-drawn car, and its circular walls painted with trellis-work and medallioned with windows, where the heads of little laughing children, and graceful, gentle animals peeped in from among vines and flowers. Mrs. Geoffrey did not wonder that Hazel lingered with delight over these or over the groups by Raphael in the Sistine Chapel,--the quiet pendentives, where the waiting of the world for its salvation was typified in the dream-like, reclining forms upon the still, desert sand; or the wonderful scenes from the "Creation,"--the majestic "Let there be Light!" and the Breathing of the breath of life into Man. She watched the surprise and awe with which the child beheld for the first time the daring of inspiration in the tremendous embodiment of the Almighty, and waited while she could hardly take her eyes away. But when, afterward, they turned to a portfolio of Architecture, and she found her eager to examine spires and arches and capitals, rich reliefs and stately facades and sculptured gates, and exclaiming with pleasure at the colored drawings of Florentine ornamentation, she wondered, and questioned her,-- "Have you ever seen such things before? Do you draw? I should hardly think you would care so much, at your age." "I like the prettiness," said Hazel, simply, "and the grandness; but I don't suppose I should care so much if it wasn't for Dorris and Mr. Kincaid. Mr. Kincaid draws buildings; he's an architect; only he hasn't architected much yet, because the people that build things don't know him. Dorris was so glad to give him a Christmas present of 'Daguerreotypes de Paris,' with the churches and arches and bridges and things; she got it at a sale; I wonder what they would say to all these beauties!" Then Mrs. Geoffrey found what still more greatly enchanted her, a volume of engravings, of English Home Architecture; interiors of old Halls, magnificent staircases, lofty libraries and galleries dim with space; exteriors, gabled, turreted and towered; long, rambling piles of manor houses, with mixed styles of many centuries. "They look as if they were brimfull of stories!" Hazel cried. "O, if I could only carry it home to show to the Kincaids!" "You may," said Mrs. Geoffrey, as simply, in her turn, as if she were lending a copy of "Robinson Crusoe;' never letting the child guess by a breath of hesitation the value of what she had asked. "And tell me more about these Kincaids. They are friends of yours?" "Yes; we've known them all winter. They live right opposite, and sit in the windows, drawing and writing. Dorris keeps house up there in two rooms. The little one is her bedroom; and Mr. Kincaid sleeps on the big sofa. Dorris makes crackle-cakes, and asks us over. She cooks with a little gas-stove. I think it is beautiful to keep house with not very much money. She goes out with a cunning white basket and buys her things; and she does all her work up in a corner on a white table, with a piece of oil-cloth on the floor; and then she comes over into her parlor, she says, and sits by the window. It's a kind of a play all the time." "And Mr. Kincaid?" "Dorris says he might have been rich by this time, if he had gone into his Uncle James's office in New York. Mr. James Kincaid is a broker, and buys gold. But Kenneth says gold stands for work, and if he ever has any he'll buy it with work. He wants to do some real thing. Don't you think that's nice of him?" "Yes, I do," said Mrs. Geoffrey. "And Dorris is that bright girl who wanted thirteen things, and rhymed them into 'Crambo?' Mr. Geoffrey told me." "Yes, ma'am; Dorris can do almost anything." "I should like to see Dorris, sometime. Will you bring her here, Hazel?" Hazel's little witch-rod felt the almost impassible something in the way. "I don't know as she would be _brought_," she said. Mrs. Geoffrey laughed. "You have an instinct for the fine proprieties, without a bit of respect for any conventional fences," she said. "I'll _ask_ Dorris." "Then I'm sure she'll come," said Hazel, understanding quite well and gladly the last three words, and passing over the first phrase as if it had been a Greek motto, put there to be skipped. "Ada has stopped practicing," said Mrs. Geoffrey, who had undertaken the entertainment of her little guest during her daughter's half hour of music. "She will be waiting for you now." Hazel instantly jumped up. But she paused after three steps toward the door, to say gently, looking back over her shoulder with a shy glance out of her timidly clear eyes,-- "Perhaps,--I hope I haven't,--stayed too long!" "Come back, you little hazel-sprite!" cried Mrs. Geoffrey; and when she got her within reach again, she put her hands one each side of the little blushing, gleaming face, and kissed it, saying,-- "I don't _think_,--I'm slow, usually, in making up my mind about people, big or little,--but I don't think you can stay too long,--or come too often, dear!" "I've found another for you, Aleck," she said, that night at the hair-brushing, to her husband. He always came to sit in her dressing-room, then; and it was at this quiet time that they gave each other, out of the day they had lived in their partly separate ways and duties, that which made it for each like a day lived twice, so that the years of their life counted up double. "He is a young architect, who hasn't architected much, because he doesn't know the people who build things; and he wouldn't be a gold broker with his uncle in New York, because he believes in doing money's worth in the world for the world's money. Isn't he one?" "Sounds like it," said Mr. Geoffrey. "What is his name?" "Kincaid." "Nephew of James R. Kincaid?" said Mr. Geoffrey, with an interrogation that was also an exclamation. "And wouldn't go in with him! Why, it was just to have picked up dollars!" "Exactly," replied his wife. "That was what he objected to." "I should like to see the fellow." "Don't you remember? You have seen him! The night you went for Ada to the Aspen Street party, and got into 'Crambo.' He was there; and it was his sister who wanted thirteen things. I guess they do!" "Ask them here," said the banker. "I mean to," Mrs. Geoffrey answered. "That is, after I've seen Hapsie Craydocke. She knows everything. I'll go there to-morrow morning." * * * * * "'Behind' is a pretty good way to get in--to some places," said Desire Ledwith, coming into the rose-pink room with news. "Especially an omnibus. And the Ripwinkleys, and the Kincaids, and old Miss Craydocke, and for all I know, Mrs. Scarup and Luclarion Grapp are going to Summit Street to tea to-night. Boston is topsy-turvey; Holmes was a prophet; and 'Brattle Street and Temple Place are interchanging cards!' Mother, we ought to get intimate with the family over the grocer's shop. Who knows what would come of it? There are fairies about in disguise, I'm sure; or else it's the millennium. Whichever it is, it's all right for Hazel, though; she's ready. Don't you feel like foolish virgins, Flo and Nag? I do." I am afraid it was when Desire felt a little inclination to "nag" her elder sister, that she called her by that reprehensible name. Agatha only looked lofty, and vouchsafed no reply; but Florence said,-- "There's no need of any little triumphs or mortifications. Nobody crows, and nobody cries. _I_'m glad. Diana's a dear, and Hazel's a duck, besides being my cousins; why shouldn't I? Only there _is_ a large hole for the cats, and a little hole for the kittens; and I'd as lief, myself, go in with the cats." "The Marchbankses are staying there, and Professor Gregory. I don't know about cats," said Desire, demurely. "It's a reason-why party, for all that," said Agatha, carelessly, recovering her good humor. "Well, when any nice people ask me, I hope there _will_ be a 'reason why.' It's the persons of consequence that make the 'reason why.'" And Desire had the last word. * * * * * Hazel Ripwinkley was thinking neither of large holes nor little ones,--cats nor kittens; she was saying to Luclarion, sitting in her shady down-stairs room behind the kitchen, that looked out into the green yard corner, "how nicely things came out, after all!" "They seemed so hobblety at first, when I went up there and saw all those beautiful books, and pictures, and people living amongst them every day, and the poor Kincaids not getting the least bit of a stretch out of their corner, ever. I'll tell you what I thought, Luclarion;" and here she almost whispered, "I truly did. I thought God was making a mistake." Luclarion put out her lips into a round, deprecating pucker, at that, and drew in her breath,-- "Oo--sh!" "Well, I mean it seemed as if there was a mistake somewhere; and that I'd no business, at any rate, with what they wanted so. I couldn't get over it until I asked for those pictures; and mother said it was such a bold thing to do!" "It was bold," said Luclarion; "but it wasn't forrud. It was gi'n you, and it hit right. That was looked out for." "It's a stumpy world," said Luclarion Grapp to Mrs. Ripwinkley, afterward; "but some folks step right over their stumps athout scarcely knowin' when!" XII. CRUMBS. Desire Ledwith was, at this epoch, a perplexity and a worry,--even a positive terror sometimes,--to her mother. It was not a case of the hen hatching ducks, it was rather as if a hen had got a hawk in her brood. Desire's demurs and questions,--her dissatisfactions, sittings and contempts,--threatened now and then to swoop down upon the family life and comfort with destroying talons. "She'll be an awful, strong-minded, radical, progressive, overturning woman," Laura said, in despair, to her friend Mrs. Megilp. "And Greenley Street, and Aspen Street, and that everlasting Miss Craydocke, are making her worse. And what can I do? Because there's Uncle." Right before Desire,--not knowing the cloud of real bewilderment that was upon her young spiritual perceptions, getting their first glimpse of a tangled and conflicting and distorted world,--she drew wondering comparisons between her elder children and this odd, anxious, restless, sharp-spoken girl. "I don't understand it," she would say. "It isn't a bit like a child of mine. I always took things easy, and got the comfort of them somehow; I think the world is a pretty pleasant place to live in, and there's lots of satisfaction to be had; and Agatha and Florence take after me; they are nice, good-natured, contented girls; managing their allowances,--that I wish were more,--trimming their own bonnets, and enjoying themselves with their friends, girl-fashion." Which was true. Agatha and Florence were neither fretful nor dissatisfied; they were never disrespectful, perhaps because Mrs. Ledwith demanded less of deferential observance than of a kind of jolly companionship from her daughters; a go-and-come easiness in and out of what they called their home, but which was rather the trimming-up and outfitting place,--a sort of Holmes' Hole,--where they put in spring and fall, for a thorough overhaul and rig; and at other times, in intervals or emergencies, between their various and continual social trips and cruises. They were hardly ever all-togetherish, as Desire had said, if they ever were, it was over house cleaning and millinery; when the ordering was complete,--when the wardrobes were finished,--then the world was let in, or they let themselves out, and--"looked." "Desire is different," said Mrs. Ledwith. "She's like Grant's father, and her Aunt Desire,--pudgicky and queer." "Well, mamma," said the child, once, driven to desperate logic for defense, "I don't see how it can be helped. If you _will_ marry into the Ledwith family, you can't expect to have your children all Shieres!" Which, again, was very true. Laura laughed at the clever sharpness of it, and was more than half proud of her bold chick-of-prey, after all. Yet Desire remembered that her Aunt Frances was a Shiere, also; and she thought there might easily be two sides to the same family; why not, since there were two sides still further back, always? There was Uncle Titus; who knew but it was the Oldways streak in him after all? Desire took refuge, more and more, with Miss Craydocke, and Rachel Froke, and the Ripwinkleys; she even went to Luclarion with questions, to get her quaint notions of things; and she had ventured into Uncle Titus's study, and taken down volumes of Swedenborg to pry into, while he looked at her with long keen regards over his spectacles, and she did not know that she was watched. "That young girl, Desire, is restless, Titus," Rachel Froke said to him one day. "She is feeling after something; she wants something real to do; and it appears likely to me that she will do it, if they don't take care." After that, Uncle Titus fixed his attention upon her yet more closely; and at this time Desire stumbled upon things in a strange way among his bookshelves, and thought that Rachel Froke was growing less precise in her fashion of putting to rights. Books were tucked in beside each other as if they had been picked up and bestowed anyhow; between "Heaven and Hell" and the "Four Leading Doctrines," she found, one day, "Macdonald's Unspoken Sermons," and there was a leaf doubled lengthwise in the chapter about the White Stone and the New Name. Another time, a little book of poems, by the same author, was slid in, open, over the volumes of Darwin and Huxley, and the pages upon whose outspread faces it lay were those that bore the rhyme of the blind Bartimeus:-- "O Jesus Christ! I am deaf and blind; Nothing comes through into my mind, I only am not dumb: Although I see Thee not, nor hear, I cry because Thou mayst be near O Son of Mary! come!" Do you think a girl of seventeen may not be feeling out into the spiritual dark,--may not be stretching helpless hands, vaguely, toward the Hands that help? Desire Ledwith laid the book down again, with a great swelling breath coming up slowly out of her bosom, and with a warmth of tears in her earnest little eyes. And Uncle Titus Oldways sat there among his papers, and never moved, or seemed to look, but saw it all. He never said a word to her himself; it was not Uncle Titus's way to talk, and few suspected him of having anything to say in such matters; but he went to Friend Froke and asked her,-- "Haven't you got any light that might shine a little for that child, Rachel?" And the next Sunday, in the forenoon, Desire came in; came in, without knowing it, for her little light. She had left home with the family on their way to church; she was dressed in her buff silk pongee suit trimmed with golden brown bands and quillings; she had on a lovely new brown hat with tea roses in it; her gloves and boots were exquisite and many buttoned; Agatha and Florence could not think what was the matter when she turned back, up Dorset Street, saying suddenly, "I won't go, after all." And then she had walked straight over the hill and down to Greenley Street, and came in upon Rachel, sitting alone in a quiet gray parlor that was her own, where there were ferns and ivies in the window, and a little canary, dressed in brown and gold like Desire herself, swung over them in a white wire cage. When Desire saw how still it was, and how Rachel Froke sat there with her open window and her open book, all by herself, she stopped in the doorway with a sudden feeling of intrusion, which had not occurred to her as she came. "It's just what I want to come into; but if I do, it won't be there. I've no right to spoil it. Don't mind, Rachel. I'll go away." She said it softly and sadly, as if she could not help it, and was turning back into the hall. "But I do mind," said Rachel, speaking quickly. "Thee will come in, and sit down. Whatever it is thee wants, is here for thee. Is it the stillness? Then we will be still." "That's so easy to say. But you can't do it for me. _You_ will be still, and I shall be all in a stir. I want so to be just hushed up!" "Fed, and hushed up, in somebody's arms, like a baby. I know," said Rachel Froke. "How does she know?" thought Desire; but she only looked at her with surprised eyes, saying nothing. "Hungry and restless; that's what we all are," said Rachel Froke, "until"-- "Well,--until?" demanded the strange girl, impetuously, as Rachel paused. "I've been hungry ever since I was born, mother says." "Until He takes us up and feeds us." "Why don't He?--Mrs. Froke, when does He give it out? Once a month, in church, they have the bread and the wine? Does that do it?" "Thee knows we do not hold by ordinances, we Friends," said Rachel. "But He gives the bread of life. Not once a month, or in any place; it is his word. Does thee get no word when thee goes to church? Does nothing come to thee?" "I don't know; it's mixed up; the church is full of bonnets; and people settle their gowns when they come in, and shake out their hitches and puffs when they go out, and there's professional music at one end, and--I suppose it's because I'm bad, but I don't know; half the time it seems to me it's only Mig at the other. Something all fixed up, and patted down, and smoothed over, and salted and buttered, like the potato hills they used to make on my plate for me at dinner, when I was little. But it's soggy after all, and has an underground taste. It isn't anything that has just grown, up in the light, like the ears of corn they rubbed in their hands. Breakfast is better than dinner. Bread, with yeast in it, risen up new. They don't feed with bread very often." "The yeast in the bread, and the sparkle in the wine they are the life of it; they are what make the signs." "If they only gave it out fresh, and a little of it! But they keep it over, and it grows cold and tough and flat, and people sit round and pretend, but they don't eat. They've eaten other things,--all sorts of trash,--before they came. They've spoiled their appetites. Mine was spoiled, to-day. I felt so new and fussy, in these brown things. So I turned round, and came here." Mr. Oldways' saying came back into Mrs. Froke's mind:-- "Haven't you got any light, Rachel, that might shine a little for that child?" Perhaps that was what the child had come for. What had the word of the Spirit been to Rachel Froke this day? The new, fresh word, with the leaven in it? "A little of it;" that was what she wanted. Rachel took up the small red Bible that lay on the lightstand beside her. "I'll will give thee my First-Day crumb, Desire," she said. "It may taste sweet to thee." She turned to Revelation, seventh chapter. "Look over with me; thee will see then where the crumb is," she said; and as Desire came near and looked over her upon the page, she read from the last two verses:-- "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. "For the _Tenderness_ that is in the midst of the _Almightiness_ shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Her voice lingered over the words she put for the "Lamb" and the "Throne," so that she said "Tenderness" with its own very yearning inflection, and "Almightiness" with a strong fullness, glad in that which can never fall short or be exhausted. Then she softly laid over the cover, and sat perfectly still. It was the Quaker silence that falls upon them in their assemblies, leaving each heart to itself and that which the Spirit has given. Desire was hushed all through; something living and real had thrilled into her thought; her restlessness quieted suddenly under it, as Mary stood quiet before the message of the angel. When she did speak again, after a time, as Rachel Froke broke the motionless pause by laying the book gently back again upon the table, it was to say,-- "Why don't they preach like that, and leave the rest to preach itself? A Sermon means a Word; why don't they just say the word, and let it go?" The Friend made no reply. "I never could--quite--like that about the 'Lamb,' before," said Desire, hesitatingly. "It seemed,--I don't know,--putting Him _down_, somehow; making him tame; taking the grandness away that made the gentleness any good. But,--'Tenderness;' that is beautiful! Does it mean so in the other place? About taking away the sins,--do you think?" "'The Tenderness of God--the Compassion--that taketh away the sins of the world?'" Mrs. Froke repeated, half inquiringly. "Jesus Christ, God's Heart of Love toward man? I think it is so. I think, child, thee has got thy crumb also, to-day." But not all yet. Pretty soon, they heard the front door open, and Uncle Titus come in. Another step was behind his; and Kenneth Kincaid's voice was speaking, about some book he had called to take. Desire's face flushed, and her manner grew suddenly flurried. "I must go," she said, starting up; yet when she got to the door, she paused and delayed. The voices were talking on, in the study; somehow, Desire had last words also, to say to Mrs. Froke. She was partly shy about going past that open door, and partly afraid they might not notice her if she did. Back in her girlish thought was a secret suggestion that she was pushing at all the time with a certain self-scorn and denial, that it might happen that she and Kenneth Kincaid would go out at the same moment; if so, he would walk up the street with her, and Kenneth Kincaid was one of the few persons whom Desire Ledwith thoroughly believed in and liked. "There was no Mig about him," she said. It is hazardous when a girl of seventeen makes one of her rare exceptions in her estimate of character in favor of a man of six and twenty. Yet Desire Ledwith hated "nonsense;" she wouldn't have anybody sending her bouquets as they did to Agatha and Florence; she had an utter contempt for lavender pantaloons and waxed moustaches; but for Kenneth Kincaid, with his honest, clear look at life, and his high strong purpose, to say friendly things,--tell her a little now and then of how the world looked to him and what it demanded,--this lifted her up; this made it seem worth while to speak and to hear. So she was very glad when Uncle Titus saw her go down the hall, after she had made up her mind that that way lay her straight path, and that things contrived were not things worth happening,--and spoke out her name, so that she had to stop, and turn to the open doorway and reply; and Kenneth Kincaid came over and held out his hand to her. He had two books in the other,--a volume of Bunsen and a copy of "Guild Court,"--and he was just ready to go. "Not been to church to-day?" said Uncle Titus to Desire. "I've been--to Friend's Meeting," the girl answered. "Get anything by that?" he asked, gruffly, letting the shag down over his eyes that behind it beamed softly. "Yes; a morsel," replied Desire. "All I wanted." "All you wanted? Well, that's a Sunday-full!" "Yes, sir, I think it is," said she. When they got out upon the sidewalk, Kenneth Kincaid asked, "Was it one of the morsels that may be shared, Miss Desire? Some crumbs multiply by dividing, you know." "It was only a verse out of the Bible, with a new word in it." "A new word? Well, I think Bible verses often have that. I suppose it was what they were made for." Desire's glance at him had a question in it. "Made to look different at different times, as everything does that has life in it. Isn't that true? Clouds, trees, faces,--do they ever look twice the same?" "Yes," said Desire, thinking especially of the faces. "I think they do, or ought to. But they may look _more_." "I didn't say _contradictory_. To look more, there must be a difference; a fresh aspect. And that is what the world is full of; and the world is the word of God." "The world?" said Desire, who had been taught in a dried up, mechanical sort of way, that the Bible is the word of God; and practically left to infer that, that point once settled, it might be safely shut, up between its covers and not much meddled with, certainly not over freely interpreted. "Yes. What God had to say. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. Without him was not anything made that was made." Desire's face brightened. She knew those words by heart. They were the first Sunday-school lesson she ever committed to memory, out of the New Testament; "down to 'grace and truth,'" as she recollected. What a jumble of repetitions it had been to her, then! Sentences so much alike that she could not remember them apart, or which way they came. All at once the simple, beautiful meaning was given to her. _What God had to say._ And it took a world,--millions, of worlds,--to say it with. "And the Bible, too?" she said, simply following out her own mental perception, without giving the link. It was not needed. They were upon one track. "Yes; all things; and all _souls_. The world-word comes through things; the Bible came through souls. And it is all the more alive, and full, and deep, and changing; like a river." "Living fountains of waters! that was part of the morsel to-day," Desire repeated impulsively, and then shyly explained. "And the new word?" Desire shrunk into silence for a moment; she was not used to, or fond of Bible quoting, or even Bible talk; yet sin was hungering all the time for Bible truth. Mr. Kincaid waited. So she repeated it presently; for Desire never made a fuss; she was too really sensitive for that. "'The Tenderness in the midst of the Almightiness shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of water.'" Mr. Kincaid recognized the "new word," and his face lit up. "'The Lamb in the midst of the Throne,'" he said. "Out of the Heart of God, the Christ. Who was there before; the intent by which all things were made. The same yesterday, and to-day, and forever; who ever liveth to make intercession for us. Christ _had to be_. The Word, full of grace, must be made flesh. Why need people dispute about Eternity and Divinity, if they can only see that?--Was that Mrs. Froke's reading?" "Yes; that was Rachel's sermon." "It is an illumination." They walked all up Orchard Street without another word. Then Kenneth Kincaid said,--"Miss Desire, why won't you come and teach in the Mission School?" "I teach? Why, I've got everything to learn!" "But as fast as you _do_ learn; the morsels, you know. That is the way they are given out. That is the wonder of the kingdom of heaven. There is no need to go away and buy three hundred pennyworth before we begin, that every one may take a little; the bread given as the Master breaks it feeds them till they are filled; and there are baskets full of fragments to gather up." Kenneth Kincaid's heart was in his Sunday work, as his sister had said. The more gladly now, that the outward daily bread was being given. Mr. Geoffrey,--one of those busy men, so busy that they do promptly that which their hands find to do,--had put Kenneth in the way of work. It only needed a word from him, and the surveying and laying out of some new streets and avenues down there where Boston is growing so big and grand and strange, were put into his charge. Kenneth was busy now, cheerily busy, from Monday morning to Saturday night; and restfully busy on the Sunday, straightening the paths and laying out the ways for souls to walk in. He felt the harmony and the illustration between his week and his Sunday, and the one strengthening the other, as all true outward work does harmonize with and show forth, and help the spiritual doing. It could not have been so with that gold work, or any little feverish hitching on to other men's business; producing nothing, advancing nothing, only standing between to snatch what might fall, or to keep a premium for passing from hand to hand. Our great cities are so full,--our whole country is so overrun,--with these officious middle-men whom the world does not truly want; chiffonniers of trade, who only pick up a living out of the great press and waste and overflow; and our boys are so eager to slip in to some such easy, ready-made opportunity,--to get some crossing to sweep. What will come of it all, as the pretenses multiply? Will there be always pennies for every little broom? Will two, and three, and six sweeps be tolerated between side and side? By and by, I think, they will have to turn to and lay pavements. Hard, honest work, and the day's pay for it; that is what we have got to go back to; that and the day's snug, patient living, which the pay achieves. Then, as I say, the week shall illustrate the Sunday, and the Sunday shall glorify the week; and what men do and build shall stand true types, again, for the inner growth and the invisible building; so that if this outer tabernacle were dissolved, there should be seen glorious behind it, the house not made with hands,--eternal. As Desire Ledwith met this young Kenneth Kincaid from day to day, seeing him so often at her Aunt Ripwinkley's, where he and Dorris went in and out now, almost like a son and daughter,--as she walked beside him this morning, hearing him say these things, at which the heart-longing in her burned anew toward the real and satisfying,--what wonder was it that her restlessness grasped at that in his life which was strong and full of rest; that she felt glad and proud to have him tell his thought to her; that without any silliness,--despising all silliness,--she should yet be conscious, as girls of seventeen are conscious, of something that made her day sufficient when she had so met him,--of a temptation to turn into those streets in her walks that led his way? Or that she often, with her blunt truth, toward herself as well as others, and her quick contempt of sham and subterfuge, should snub herself mentally, and turn herself round as by a grasp of her own shoulders, and make herself walk off stoutly in a far and opposite direction, when, without due need and excuse, she caught herself out in these things? What wonder that this stood in her way, for very pleasantness, when Kenneth asked her to come and teach in the school? That she was ashamed to let herself do a thing--even a good thing, that her life needed,--when there was this conscious charm in the asking; this secret thought--that she should walk up home with him every Sunday! She remembered Agatha and Florence, and she imagined, perhaps, more than they would really have thought of it at home; and so as they turned into Shubarton Place,--for he had kept on all the way along Bridgeley and up Dorset Street with her,--she checked her steps suddenly as they came near the door, and said brusquely,-- "No, Mr. Kincaid; I can't come to the Mission. I might learn A, and teach them that; but how do I know I shall ever learn B, myself?" He had left his question, as their talk went on, meaning to ask it again before they separated. He thought it was prevailing with her, and that the help that comes of helping others would reach her need; it was for her sake he asked it; he was disappointed at the sudden, almost trivial turn she gave it. "You have taken up another analogy, Miss Desire," he said. "We were talking about crumbs and feeding. The five loaves and the five thousand. 'Why reason ye because ye have no bread? How is it that ye do not understand?'" Kenneth quoted these words naturally, pleasantly; as he might quote anything that had been spoken to them both out of a love and authority they both recognized, a little while ago. But Desire was suddenly sharp and fractious. If it had not touched some deep, live place in her, she would not have minded so much. It was partly, too, the coming toward home. She had got away out of the pure, clear spaces where such things seemed to be fit and unstrained, into the edge of her earth atmosphere again, where, falling, they took fire. Presently she would be in that ridiculous pink room, and Glossy Megilp would be chattering about "those lovely purple poppies with the black grass," that she had been lamenting all the morning she had not bought for her chip hat, instead of the pomegranate flowers. And Agatha would be on the bed, in her cashmere sack, reading Miss Braddon. "It would sound nice to tell them she was going down to the Mission School to give out crumbs!" Besides, I suppose that persons of a certain temperament never utter a more ungracious "No," than when they are longing all the time to say "Yes." So she turned round on the lower step to Kenneth, when he had asked that grave, sweet question of the Lord's, and said perversely,-- "I thought you did not believe in any brokering kind of business. It's all there,--for everybody. Why should I set up to fetch and carry?" She did not look in his face as she said it; she was not audacious enough to do that; she poked with the stick of her sunshade between the uneven bricks of the sidewalk, keeping her eyes down, as if she watched for some truth she expected to pry up. But she only wedged the stick in so that she could not get it out; and Kenneth Kincaid making her absolutely no answer at all, she had to stand there, growing red and ashamed, held fast by her own silly trap. "Take care; you will break it," said Kenneth, quietly, as she gave it a twist and a wrench. And he put out his hand, and took it from hers, and drew gently upward in the line in which she had thrust it in. "You were bearing off at an angle. It wanted a straight pull." "I never pull straight at anything. I always get into a crook, somehow. You didn't answer me, Mr. Kincaid. I didn't mean to be rude--or wicked. I didn't mean--" "What you said. I know that; and it's no use to answer what people don't mean. That makes the crookedest crook of all." "But I think I did mean it partly; only not contrarimindedly. I do mean that I have no business--yet awhile. It would only be--Migging at gospel!" And with this remarkable application of her favorite illustrative expression, she made a friendly but abrupt motion of leave-taking, and went into the house. Up into her own room, in the third story, where the old furniture was, and no "fadging,"--and sat down, bonnet, gloves, sunshade, and all, in her little cane rocking-chair by the window. Helena was down in the pink room, listening with charmed ears to the grown up young-ladyisms of her elder sisters and Glossy Megilp. Desire sat still until the dinner-bell rang, forgetful of her dress, forgetful of all but one thought that she spoke out as she rose at last at the summons to take off her things in a hurry,-- "I wonder,--I _wonder_--if I shall ever live anything all straight out!" XIII. PIECES OF WORLDS. Mr. Dickens never put a truer thought into any book, than he put at the beginning of "Little Dorrit." That, from over land and sea, from hundreds, thousands of miles away, are coming the people with whom we are to have to do in our lives; and that, "what is set to us to do to them, and what is set for them to do to us, will all be done." Not only from far places in this earth, over land and sea,--but from out the eternities, before and after,--from which souls are born, and into which they die,--all the lines of life are moving continually which are to meet and join, and bend, and cross our own. But it is only with a little piece of this world, as far as we can see it in this short and simple story, that we have now to do. Rosamond Holabird was coming down to Boston. With all her pretty, fresh, delicate, high-lady ways, with her beautiful looks, and her sweet readiness for true things and noble living, she was coming, for a few days only,--the cooperative housekeeping was going on at Westover, and she could not be spared long,--right in among them here in Aspen Street, and Shubarton Place, and Orchard Street, and Harrisburg Square, where Mrs. Scherman lived whom she was going to stay with. But a few days may be a great deal. Rosamond Holabird was coming for far more than she knew. Among other things she was coming to get a lesson; a lesson right on in a course she was just now learning; a lesson of next things, and best things, and real folks. You see how it happened,--where the links were; Miss Craydocke, and Sin Scherman, and Leslie Goldthwaite, were dear friends, made to each other one summer among the mountains. Leslie had had Sin and Miss Craydocke up at Z----, and Rosamond and Leslie were friends, also. Mrs. Frank Scherman had a pretty house in Harrisburg Square. She had not much time for paying fashionable calls, or party-going, or party-giving. As to the last, she did not think Frank had money enough yet to "circumfuse," she said, in that way. But she had six lovely little harlequin cups on a side-shelf in her china closet, and six different-patterned breakfast plates, with colored borders to match the cups; rose, and brown, and gray, and vermilion, and green, and blue. These were all the real china she had, and were for Frank and herself and the friends whom she made welcome,--and who might come four at once,--for day and night. She delighted in "little stays;" in girls who would go into the nursery with her, and see Sinsie in her bath; or into the kitchen, and help her mix up "little delectabilities to surprise Frank with;" only the trouble had got to be now, that the surprise occurred when the delectabilities did not. Frank had got demoralized, and expected them. She rejoiced to have Miss Craydocke drop in of a morning and come right up stairs, with her little petticoats and things to work on; and she and Frank returned these visits in a social, cosy way, after Sinsie was in her crib for the night. Frank's boots never went on with a struggle for a walk down to Orchard Street; but they were terribly impossible for Continuation Avenue. So it had come about long ago, though I have not had a corner to mention it in, that they "knew the Muffin Man," in an Aspen Street sense; and were no strangers to the charm of Mrs. Ripwinkley's "evenings." There was always an "evening" in the "Mile Hill House," as the little family and friendly coterie had come to call it. Rosamond and Leslie had been down together for a week once, at the Schermans; and this time Rosamond was coming alone. She had business in Boston for a day or two, and had written to ask Asenath "if she might." There were things to buy for Barbara, who was going to be married in a "navy hurry," besides an especial matter that had determined her just at this time to come. And Asenath answered, "that the scarlet and gray, and green and blue were pining and fading on the shelf; and four days would be the very least to give them all a turn and treat them fairly; for such things had their delicate susceptibilities, as Hans Andersen had taught us to know, and might starve and suffer,--why not? being made of protoplasm, same as anybody." Rosamond's especial errand to the city was one that just a little set her up, innocently, in her mind. She had not wholly got the better,--when it interfered with no good-will or generous dealing,--of a certain little instinctive reverence for imposing outsides and grand ways of daily doing; and she was somewhat complacent at the idea of having to go,--with kindly and needful information,--to Madam Mucklegrand, in Spreadsplendid Park. Madam Mucklegrand was a well-born Boston lady, who had gone to Europe in her early youth, and married a Scottish gentleman with a Sir before his name. Consequently, she was quite entitled to be called "my lady;" and some people who liked the opportunity of touching their republican tongues to the salt of European dignitaries, addressed her so; but, for the most part, she assumed and received simply the style of "Madam." A queen may be called "Madam," you know. It covers an indefinite greatness. But when she spoke of her late,--very long ago,--husband, she always named him as "Sir Archibald." Madam Mucklegrand's daughter wanted a wet-nurse for her little baby. Up in Z----, there was a poor woman whose husband, a young brakeman on the railroad, had been suddenly killed three months ago, before her child was born. There was a sister here in Boston, who could take care of it for her if she could go to be foster-mother to some rich little baby, who was yet so poor as this--to need one. So Rosamond Holabird, who was especially interested for Mrs. Jopson, had written to Asenath, and had an advertisement put in the "Transcript," referring to Mrs. Scherman for information. And the Mucklegrand carriage had rolled up, the next day, to the house in Harrisburg Square. They wanted to see the woman, of course, and to hear all about her,--more than Mrs. Scherman was quite able to tell; therefore when she sent a little note up to Z----, by the evening mail, Rosamond replied with her "Might she come?" She brought Jane Jopson and the baby down with her, left them over night at Mrs. Ginnever's, in Sheafe Street, and was to go for them next morning and take them up to Spreadsplendid Park. She had sent a graceful, polite little note to Madam Mucklegrand, dated "Westover, Z----," and signed, "Rosamond Holabird," offering to do this, that there might not be the danger of Jane's losing the chance in the meanwhile. It was certainly to accomplish the good deed that Rosamond cared the most; but it was also certainly something to accomplish it in that very high quarter. It lent a piquancy to the occasion. She came down to breakfast very nicely and discriminatingly dressed, with the elegant quietness of a lady who knew what was simply appropriate to such an errand and the early hour, but who meant to be recognized as the lady in every unmistakable touch; and there was a carriage ordered for her at half past nine. Sin Scherman was a cute little matron; she discerned the dash of subdued importance in Rosamond's air; and she thought it very likely, in the Boston nature of things, that it would get wholesomely and civilly toned down. Just at this moment, Rosamond, putting on her little straw bonnet with real lace upon it, and her simple little narrow-bordered green shawl, that was yet, as far as it went, veritable cashmere,--had a consciousness, in a still, modest way, not only of her own personal dignity as Rosamond Holabird, who was the same going to see Madam Mucklegrand, or walking over to Madam Pennington's, and as much in her place with one as the other; but of the dignity of Westover itself, and Westover ladyhood, represented by her among the palaces of Boston-Appendix to-day. She was only twenty, this fair and pleasant Rosamond of ours, and country simple, with all her native tact and grace; and she forgot, or did not know how full of impressions a life like Madam Mucklegrand's might be, and how very trifling and fleeting must be any that she might chance to make. She drove away down to the North End, and took Jane Jopson and her baby in,--very clean and shiny, both of them,--and Jane particularly nice in the little black crape bonnet that Rosamond herself had made, and the plain black shawl that Mrs. Holabird had given her. She stood at the head of the high, broad steps, with her mind very much made up in regard to her complete and well-bred self-possession, and the manner of her quietly assured self-introduction. She had her card all ready that should explain for her; and to the servant's reply that Madam Mucklegrand was in, she responded by moving forward with only enough of voluntary hesitation to allow him to indicate to her the reception room, at the door of which she gave him the little pasteboard, with,-- "Take that to her, if you please," and so sat down, very much as if she had been in such places frequently before, which she never had. One may be quite used to the fine, free essence of gentle living, and never in all one's life have anything to do with such solid, concrete expression of it as Rosamond saw here. Very high, to begin with, the ceiled and paneled room was; reaching up into space as if it had really been of no consequence to the builders where they should put the cover on; and with no remotest suggestion of any reserve for further superstructure upon the same foundation. Very dark, and polished, and deeply carved, and heavily ornamented were its wainscotings, and frames, and cornices; out of the new look of the streets, which it will take them yet a great while to outgrow, she had stepped at once into a grand, and mellow, and ancient stateliness. There were dim old portraits on the walls, and paintings that hinted at old mastership filled whole panels; and the tall, high-backed, wonderfully wrought oaken chairs had heraldic devices in relief upon their bars and corners; and there was a great, round mosaic table, in soft, rich, dark colors, of most precious stones; these, in turn, hidden with piles of rare engravings. The floor was of dark woods, inlaid; and sumptuous rugs were put about upon it for the feet, each one of which was wide enough to call a carpet. And nothing of it all was _new_; there was nothing in the room but some plants in a jardiniere by the window, that seemed to have a bit of yesterday's growth upon it. A great, calm, marble face of Jove looked down from high up, out of the shadows. Underneath sat Rosamond Holabird, holding on to her identity and her self-confidence. Madam Mucklegrand came in plainly enough dressed,--in black; you would not notice what she had on; but you would notice instantly the consummate usedness to the world and the hardening into the mould thereof that was set and furrowed upon eye and lip and brow. She sailed down upon Rosamond like a frigate upon a graceful little pinnace; and brought to within a pace or two of her, continuing to stand an instant, as Rosamond rose, just long enough for the shadow of a suggestion that it might not be altogether material that she should be seated again at all. But Rosamond made a movement backward to her chair, and laid her hand upon its arm, and then Madam Mucklegrand decided to sit down. "You called about the nurse, I conclude, Miss--Holabird?" "Yes, ma'am; I thought you had some questions you wished to ask, and that I had better come myself. I have her with me, in the carriage." "Thank you," said Madam Mucklegrand, politely. But it was rather a _de haut en bas_ politeness; she exercised it also toward her footman. Then followed inquiries about age, and health, and character. Rosamond told all she knew, clearly and sufficiently, with some little sympathetic touches that she could not help, in giving her story. Madam Mucklegrand met her nowhere, however, on any common ground; she passed over all personal interest; instead of two women befriending a third in her need, who in turn was to give life to a little child waiting helplessly for some such ministry, it might have been the leasing of a house, or the dealing about some merchandise, that was between them. Rosamond proposed, at last, to send Jane Jopson in. Jane and her baby were had in, and had up-stairs; the physician and attending nurse pronounced upon her; she was brought down again, to go home and dispose of her child, and return. Rosamond, meanwhile, had been sitting under the marble Jove. There was nothing really rude in it; she was there on business; what more could she expect? But then she knew all the time, that she too was a lady, and was taking trouble to do a kind thing. It was not so that Madam Mucklegrand would have been treated at Westover. Rosamond was feeling pretty proud by the time Madam Mucklegrand came down stairs. "We have engaged the young woman: the doctor quite approves; she will return without delay, I hope?" As if Rosamond were somehow responsible all through. "I have no doubt she will; good morning, madam." "Good morning. I am, really, very much obliged. You have been of great service." Rosamond turned quietly round upon the threshold. "That was what I was very anxious to be," she said, in her perfectly sweet and musical voice,--"to the poor woman." Italics would indicate too coarsely the impalpable emphasis she put upon the last two words. But Mrs. Mucklegrand caught it. Rosamond went away quite as sure of her own self-respect as ever, but very considerably cured of Spreadsplendidism. This was but one phase of it, she knew; there are real folks, also, in Spreadsplendid Park; they are a good deal covered up, there, to be sure; but they can't help that. It is what always happens to somebody when Pyramids are built. Madam Mucklegrand herself was, perhaps, only a good deal covered up. How lovely it was to go down into Orchard Street after that, and take tea with Miss Craydocke! How human and true it seemed,--the friendliness that shone and breathed there, among them all. How kingdom-of-heaven-like the air was, and into what pleasantness of speech it was born! And then Hazel Ripwinkley came over, like a little spirit from another blessed society, to tell that "the picture-book things were all ready, and that it would take everybody to help." That was Rosamond's first glimpse of Witch Hazel, who found her out instantly,--the real, Holabirdy part of her,--and set her down at once among her "folks." It was bright and cheery in Mrs. Ripwinkley's parlor; you could hardly tell whence the cheeriness radiated, either. The bright German lamp was cheery, in the middle of the round table; the table was cheery, covered with glossy linen cut into large, square book-sheets laid in piles, and with gay pictures of all kinds, brightly colored; and the scissors,--or scissorses,--there were ever so many shining pairs of them,--and the little mucilage bottles, and the very scrap-baskets,--all looked cozy and comfortable, and as if people were going to have a real good time among them, somehow. And the somehow was in making great beautiful, everlasting picture-books for the little orphans in Miss Craydocke's Home,--the Home, that is, out of several blessed and similar ones that she was especially interested in, and where Hazel and Diana had been with her until they knew all the little waifs by sight and name and heart, and had their especial chosen property among them, as they used to have among the chickens and the little yellow ducks at Homesworth Farm. Mrs. Ripwinkley was cheery; it might be a question whether all the light did not come from her first, in some way, and perhaps it did; but then Hazel was luminous, and she fluttered about with quick, happy motions, till like a little glancing taper she had shone upon and lit up everybody and everything; and Dorris was sunny with clear content, and Kenneth was blithe, and Desire was scintillant, as she always was either with snaps or smiles; and here came in beaming Miss Craydocke, and gay Asenath and her handsome husband; and our Rosa Mundi; there,--how can you tell? It was all round; and it was more every minute. There were cutters and pasters and stitchers and binders and every part was beautiful work, and nobody could tell which was pleasantest. Cutting out was nice, of course; who doesn't like cutting out pictures? Some were done beforehand, but there were as many left as there would be time for. And pasting, on the fine, smooth linen, making it glow out with charming groups and tints of flowers and birds and children in gay clothes,--that was delightful; and the stitchers had the pleasure of combining and arranging it all; and the binders,--Mrs. Ripwinkley and Miss Craydocke,--finished all off with the pretty ribbons and the gray covers, and theirs being the completing touch, thought _they_ had the best of it. "But I don't think finishing is best, mother," said Hazel, who was diligently snipping in and out around rose leaves or baby faces, as it happened. "I think beginning is always beautiful. I never want to end off,--anything nice, I mean." "Well, we don't end off this," said Diana. "There's the giving, next." "And then their little laughs and Oo's," said Hazel. "And their delight day after day; and the comfort of them in their little sicknesses," said Miss Craydocke. "And the stories that have got to be told about every picture," said Dorris. "No; nothing really nice does end; it goes on and on," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "Of course!" said Hazel, triumphantly, turning on the Drummond light of her child-faith. "We're forever and ever people, you know!" "Please paste some more flowers, Mr. Kincaid," said Rosamond, who sat next him, stitching. "I want to make an all-flower book of this. No,--not roses; I've a whole page already; this great white lily, I think. That's beautiful!" "Wouldn't it do to put in this laurel bush next, with the bird's nest in it?" "O, those lovely pink and white laurels! Yes. Where did you get such pictures, Miss Hazel?" "O, everybody gave them to us, all summer, ever since we began. Mrs. Geoffrey gave those flowers; and mother painted some. She did that laurel. But don't call me Miss Hazel, please; it seems to send me off into a corner." Rosamond answered by a little irresistible caress; leaning her head down to Hazel, on her other side, until her cheek touched the child's bright curls, quickly and softly. There was magnetism between those two. Ah, the magnetism ran round! "For a child's picture-book, Mrs. Ripwinkley?" said Mrs. Scherman, reaching over for the laurel picture. "Aren't these almost too exquisite? They would like a big scarlet poppy just as well,--perhaps better. Or a clump of cat-o'-nine-tails," she added, whimsically. "There _is_ a clump of cat-o'-nine-tails," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "I remember how I used to delight in them as a child,--the real ones." "Pictures are to _tell_ things," said Desire, in her brief way. "These little city refugees _must_ see them, somehow," said Rosamond, gently. "I understand. They will never get up on the mountains, maybe, where the laurels grow, or into the shady swamps among the flags and the cat-o'-nine-tails. You have _picked out_ pictures to give them, Mrs. Ripwinkley." Kenneth Kincaid's scissors stopped a moment, as he looked at Rosamond, pausing also over the placing of her leaves. Desire saw that from the other side; she saw how beautiful and gracious this girl was--this Rosamond Holabird; and there was a strange little twinge in her heart, as she felt, suddenly, that let there be ever so much that was true and kindly, or even tender, in her, it could never come up in her eyes or play upon her lips like that she could never say it out sweetly and in due place everything was a spasm with her; and nobody would ever look at her just as Kenneth Kincaid looked at Rosamond then. She said to herself, with her harsh, unsparing honesty, that it must be a "hitch inside;" a cramp or an awkwardness born in her, that set her eyes, peering and sharp, so near together, and put that knot into her brows instead of their widening placidly, like Rosamond's, and made her jerky in her speech. It was no use; she couldn't look and behave, because she couldn't _be_; she must just go boggling and kinking on, and--losing everything, she supposed. The smiles went down, under a swift, bitter little cloud, and the hard twist came into her face with the inward pinching she was giving herself; and all at once there crackled out one of her sharp, strange questions; for it was true that she could not do otherwise; everything was sudden and crepitant with her. "Why need all the good be done up in batches, I wonder? Why can't it be spread round, a little more even? There must have been a good deal left out somewhere, to make it come in a heap, so, upon you, Miss Craydocke!" Hazel looked up. "I know what Desire means," she said. "It seemed just so to me, _one_ way. Why oughtn't there to be _little_ homes, done-by-hand homes, for all these little children, instead of--well--machining them all up together?" And Hazel laughed at her own conceit. "It's nice; but then--it isn't just the way. If we were all brought up like that we shouldn't know, you see!" "You wouldn't want to be brought up in a platoon, Hazel?" said Kenneth Kincaid. "No; neither should I." "I think it was better," said Hazel, "to have my turn of being a little child, all to myself; _the_ little child, I mean, with the rest of the folks bigger. To make much of me, you know. I shouldn't want to have missed that. I shouldn't like to be _loved_ in a platoon." "Nobody is meant to be," said Miss Craydocke. "Then why--" began Asenath Scherman, and stopped. "Why what, dear?" "Revelations," replied Sin, laconically. "There are loads of people there, all dressed alike, you know; and--well--it's platoony, I think, rather! And down here, such a world-full; and the sky--full of worlds. There doesn't seem to be much notion of one at a time, in the general plan of things." "Ah, but we've got the key to all that," said Miss Craydocke. "'The very hairs of your head are all numbered.' It may be impossible with us, you know, but not with Him." "Miss Hapsie! you always did put me down, just when I thought I was smart," said Sin Scherman. Asenath loved to say "Miss Hapsie," now and then, to her friend, ever since she had found out what she called her "squee little name." "But the little children, Miss Craydocke," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "It seems to me Desire has got a right thought about it." Mrs. Ripwinkley and Hazel always struck the same note. The same delicate instinct moved them both. Hazel "knew what Desire meant;" her mother did not let it be lost sight of that it was Desire who had led the way in this thought of the children; so that the abrupt beginning--the little flash out of the cloud--was quite forgotten presently, in the tone of hearty understanding and genuine interest with which the talk went on; and it was as if all that was generous and mindfully suggestive in it had first and truly come from her. They unfolded herself for her--these friendly ones--as she could not do; out of her bluntness grew a graciousness that lay softly over it; the cloud itself melted away and floated off; and Desire began to sparkle again more lambently. For she was not one of the kind to be meanly or enviously "put out." "It seemed to me there must be a great many spare little corners somewhere, for all these spare little children," she said, "and that, lumped up together so, there was something they did not get." "That is precisely the thing," said Miss Craydocke, emphatically. "I wonder, sometimes," she went on, tenderly, "if whenever God makes a little empty place in a home, it isn't really on purpose that it might be filled with one of these,--if people only thought." "Miss Craydocke," said Hazel, "how did you begin your beehive?" "I!" said the good lady. "I didn't. It began itself." "Well, then, how did you _let_ it begin?" "Ah!" The tone was admissive, and as if she had said, "_That_ is another thing!" She could not contradict that she had let it be. "I'll tell you a queer story," she said, "of what they say they used to do, in old Roman Catholic times and places, when they wanted to _keep up_ a beehive that was in any danger of dwindling or growing unprofitable. I read it somewhere in a book of popular beliefs and customs about bees and other interesting animals. An old woman once went to her friend, and asked her what she did to make her hive so gainful. And this was what the old wife said; it sounds rather strange to us, but if there is anything irreverent in it, it is the word and not the meaning; 'I go,' she said, 'to the priest, and get a little round Godamighty, and put it in the hive, and then all goes well; the bees thrive, and there is plenty of honey; they always come, and stay, and work, when _that_ is there." "A little round--something awful! what _did_ she mean?" asked Mrs. Scherman. "She meant a consecrated wafer,--the Sacrament. We don't need to put the wafer in; but if we let _Him_ in, you see,--just say to Him it is his house, to do with as He likes,--He takes the responsibility, and brings in all the rest." Nobody saw, under the knitting of Desire Ledwith's brows, and the close setting of her eyes, the tenderness with which they suddenly moistened, and the earnestness with which they gleamed. Nobody knew how she thought to herself inwardly, in the same spasmodic fashion that she used for speech,-- "They Mig up their parlors with upholstery, and put rose-colored paper on their walls, and call them _their_ houses; and shut the little round awfulness and goodness out! We've all been doing it! And there's no place left for what might come in." Mrs. Scherman broke the hush that followed what Miss Hapsie said. Not hastily, or impertinently; but when it seemed as if it might be a little hard to come down into the picture-books and the pleasant easiness again. "Let's make a Noah's Ark picture-book,--you and I," she said to Desire. "Give us all your animals,--there's a whole Natural History full over there, all painted with splendid daubs of colors; the children did that, I know, when they _were_ children. Come; we'll have everything in, from an elephant to a bumble-bee!" "We did not mean to use those, Mrs. Scherman," said Desire. "We did not think they were good enough. They are _so_ daubed up." "They're perfectly beautiful. Exactly what the young ones will like. Just divide round, and help. We'll wind up with the most wonderful book of all; the book they'll all cry for, and that will have to be given always, directly after the Castor Oil." It took them more than an hour to do that, all working hard; and a wonderful thing it was truly, when it was done. Mrs. Scherman and Desire Ledwith directed all the putting together, and the grouping was something astonishing. There were men and women,--the Knowers, Sin called them; she said that was what she always thought the old gentleman's name was, in the days when she first heard of him, because he knew so much; and in the backgrounds of the same sheets were their country cousins, the orangs, and the little apes. Then came the elephants, and the camels, and the whales; "for why shouldn't the fishes be put in, since they must all have been swimming round sociably, if they weren't inside; and why shouldn't the big people be all kept together properly?" There were happy families of dogs and cats and lions and snakes and little humming-birds; and in the last part were all manner of bugs, down to the little lady-bugs in blazes of red and gold, and the gray fleas and mosquitoes which Sin improvised with pen and ink, in a swarm at the end. "And after that, I don't believe they wanted any more," she said; and handed over the parts to Miss Craydocke to be tied together. For this volume had had to be made in many folds, and Mrs. Ripwinkley's blue ribbon would by no means stretch over the back. And by that time it was eleven o'clock, and they had worked four hours. They all jumped up in a great hurry then, and began to say good-by. "This must not be the last we are to have of you, Miss Holabird," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, laying Rosamond's shawl across her shoulders. "Of course not," said Mrs Scherman, "when you are all coming to our house to tea to-morrow night." Rosamond bade the Ripwinkleys good-night with a most sweet cordiality, and thanks for the pleasure she had had, and she told Hazel and her mother that it was "neither beginning nor end, she believed; for it seemed to her that she had only found a little new piece of her world, and that Aspen Street led right out of Westover in the invisible geography, she was sure." "Come!" said Miss Craydocke, standing on the doorsteps. "It is all invisible geography out here, pretty nearly; and we've all our different ways to go, and only these two unhappy gentlemen to insist on seeing everybody home." So first the whole party went round with Miss Hapsie, and then Kenneth and Dorris, who always went home with Desire, walked up Hanley Street with the Schermans and Rosamond, and so across through Dane Street to Shubarton Place. But while they were on their way, Hazel Ripwinkley was saying to her mother, up in her room, where they made sometimes such long good-nights,-- "Mother! there were some little children taken away from you before we came, you know? And now we've got this great big house, and plenty of things, more than it takes for us." "Well?" "Don't you think it's expected that we should do something with the corners? There's room for some real good little times for somebody. I think we ought to begin a beehive." Mrs. Ripwinkley kissed Hazel very tenderly, and said, only,-- "We can wait, and see." Those are just the words that mothers so often put children off with! But Mrs. Ripwinkley, being one of the real folks, meant it; the very heart of it. In that little talk, they took the consecration in; they would wait and see; when people do that, with an expectation, the beehive begins. * * * * * Up Hanley Street, the six fell into pairs. Mrs. Scherman and Desire, Dorris and Mr. Scherman, Rosamond and Kenneth Kincaid. It only took from Bridgeley Street up to Dane, to tell Kenneth Kincaid so much about Westover, in answer to his questions, that he too thought he had found a new little piece of his world. What Rosamond thought, I do not know; but a girl never gives a young man so much as she gave Kenneth in that little walk without having some of the blessed consciousness that comes with giving. The sun knows it shines, I dare say; or else there is a great waste of hydrogen and other things. There was not much left for poor little Desire after they parted from the Schermans and turned the corner of Dane Street. Only a little bit of a way, in which new talk could hardly begin, and just time for a pause that showed how the talk that had come to an end was missed or how, perhaps, it stayed in the mind, repeating itself, and keeping it full. Nobody said anything till they had crossed B---- Street; and then Dorris said, "How beautiful,--_real_ beautiful, Rosamond Holabird is!" And Kenneth answered, "Did you hear what she said to Mrs. Ripwinkley?" They were full of Rosamond! Desire did not speak a word. Dorris had heard and said it over. It seemed to please Kenneth to hear it again. "A piece of her world!" "How quickly a true person springs to what belongs to--their life!" said Kenneth, using that wrong little pronoun that we shall never be able to do without. "People don't always get what belongs, though," blurted Desire at last, just as they came to the long doorsteps. "Some people's lives are like complementary colors, I think; they see blue, and live red!" "But the colors are only accidentally--I mean temporarily--divided; they are together in the sun; and they join somewhere--beyond." "I hate beyond!" said Desire, recklessly. "Good-night. Thank you." And she ran up the steps. Nobody knew what she meant. Perhaps she hardly knew herself. They only thought that her home life was not suited to her, and that she took it hard. XIV. "SESAME; AND LILIES." "I've got a discouragement at my stomach," said Luclarion Grapp. "What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Ripwinkley, naturally. "Mrs. Scarup. I've been there. There ain't any bottom to it." "Well?" Mrs. Ripwinkley knew that Luclarion had more to say, and that she waited for this monosyllable. "She's sick again. And Scarup, he's gone out West, spending a hundred dollars to see whether or no there's a chance anywhere for a _smart_ man,--and that ain't he, so it's a double waste,--to make fifty. No girl; and the children all under foot, and Pinkie looking miserable over the dishes." "Pinkie isn't strong." "No. She's powerful weak. I just wish you'd seen that dirty settin'-room fire-place; looks as if it hadn't been touched since Scarup smoked his pipe there, the night before he went off a wild-gandering. And clo'es to be ironed, and the girl cleared out, because 'she'd always been used to fust-class families.' There wasn't anything to your hand, and you couldn't tell where to begin, unless you began with a cataplasm!" Luclarion had heard, by chance, of a cataclysm, and that was what she meant. "It wants--creation, over again! Mrs. Scarup hadn't any fit breakfast; there was burnt toast, made out of tough bread, that she'd been trying to eat; and a cup of tea, half drunk; something the matter with that, I presume. I'd have made her some gruel, if there'd been a fire; and if there'd been any kindlings, I'd have made her a fire; but there 'twas; there wasn't any bottom to it!" "You had better make the gruel here, Luclarion." "That's what I come back for. But--Mrs. Ripwinkley!" "Well?" "Don't it appear to you it's a kind of a stump? I don't want to do it just for the satisfaction; though it _would_ be a satisfaction to plough everything up thorough, and then rake it over smooth; what do you think?" "What have you thought, Luclarion? Something, of course." "She wants a real smart girl--for two dollars a week. She can't get her, because she ain't. And I kind of felt as though I should like to put in. Seemed to me it was a--but there! I haven't any right to stump _you_." "Wouldn't it be rather an aggravation? I don't suppose you would mean to stay altogether?" "Not unless--but don't go putting it into my head, Mrs. Ripwinkley. I shall feel as if I _was_. And I don't think it goes quite so far as that, yet. We ain't never stumped to more than one thing at a time. What she wants is to be straightened out. And when things once looked _my_ way, she might get a girl, you see. Anyhow, 'twould encourage Pinkie, and kind of set her going. Pinkie likes things nice; but it's such a Hoosac tunnel to undertake, that she just lets it all go, and gets off up-stairs, and sticks a ribbon in her hair. That's all she _can_ do. I s'pose 'twould take a fortnight, maybe?" "Take it, Luclarion," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, smiling. Luclarion understood the smile. "I s'pose you think it's as good as took. Well, perhaps it is--spoke for. But it wasn't me, you know. Now what'll you do?" "Go into the kitchen and make the pudding." "But then?" "We are not stumped for then, you know." "There was a colored girl here yesterday, from up in Garden Street, asking if there was any help wanted. I think she came in partially, to look at the flowers; the 'sturtiums _are_ splendid, and I gave her some. She was awfully dressed up,--for colors, I mean; but she looked clean and pleasant, and spoke bright. Maybe she'd come, temporary. She seemed taken with things. I know where to find her, and I could go there when I got through with the gruel. Mrs. Scarup must have that right off." And Luclarion hurried away. It was not the first time Mrs. Ripwinkley had lent Luclarion; but Miss Grapp had not found a kitchen mission in Boston heretofore. It was something new to bring the fashion of simple, prompt, neighborly help down intact from the hills, and apply it here to the tangle of city living, that is made up of so many separate and unrecognized struggles. When Hazel came home from school, she went all the way up the garden walk, and in at the kitchen door. "That was the way she took it all," she said; "first the flowers, and then Luclarion and what they had for dinner, and a drink of water; and then up-stairs, to mother." To-day she encountered in the kitchen a curious and startling apparition of change. A very dusky brown maiden, with a petticoat of flashing purple, and a jacket of crimson, and extremely puzzling hair tied up with knots of corn color, stood in possession over the stove, tending a fricassee, of which Hazel recognized at once the preparation and savor as her mother's; while beside her on a cricket, munching cold biscuit and butter with round, large bites of very white little teeth, sat a small girl of five of the same color, gleaming and twinkling as nothing human ever does gleam and twinkle but a little darkie child. "Where is Luclarion?" asked Hazel, standing still in the middle of the floor, in her astonishment. "I don't know. I'm Damaris, and this one's little Vash. Don't go for callin' me Dam, now; the boys did that in my last place, an' I left, don' yer see? I ain't goin' to be swore to, anyhow!" And Damaris glittered at Hazel, with her shining teeth and her quick eyes, full of fun and good humor, and enjoyed her end of the joke extremely. "Have you come to _stay_?" asked Hazel. "'Course. I don' mostly come for to go." "What does it mean, mother?" Hazel asked, hurrying up into her mother's room. And then Mrs. Ripwinkley explained. "But what _is_ she? Black or white? She's got straight braids and curls at the back of her head, like everybody's"-- "'Course," said a voice in the doorway. "An' wool on top,--place where wool ought to grow,--same's everybody, too." Damaris had come up, according to orders, to report a certain point in the progress of the fricassee. "They all pulls the wool over they eyes, now-days, an sticks the straight on behind. Where's the difference?" Mrs. Ripwinkley made some haste to rise and move toward the doorway, to go down stairs, turning Damaris from her position, and checking further remark. Diana and Hazel stayed behind, and laughed. "What fun!" they said. It was the beginning of a funny fortnight; but it is not the fun I have paused to tell you of; something more came of it in the home-life of the Ripwinkleys; that which they were "waiting to see." Damaris wanted a place where she could take her little sister; she was tired of leaving her "shyin' round," she said. And Vash, with her round, fuzzy head, her bright eyes, her little flashing teeth, and her polished mahogany skin,--darting up and down the house "on Aarons," or for mere play,--dressed in her gay little scarlet flannel shirt-waist, and black and orange striped petticoat,--was like some "splendid, queer little fire-bug," Hazel said, and made a surprise and a picture wherever she came. She was "cute," too, as Damaris had declared beforehand; she was a little wonder at noticing and remembering, and for all sorts of handiness that a child of five could possibly be put to. Hazel dressed rag babies for her, and made her a soap-box baby-house in the corner of the kitchen, and taught her her letters; and began to think that she should hate to have her go when Luclarion came back. Damaris proved clever and teachable in the kitchen; and had, above all, the rare and admirable disposition to keep things scrupulously as she had found them; so that Luclarion, in her afternoon trips home, was comforted greatly to find that while she was "clearing and ploughing" at Mrs. Scarup's, her own garden of neatness was not being turned into a howling wilderness; and she observed, as is often done so astutely, that "when you _do_ find a neat, capable, colored help, it's as good help as you can have." Which you may notice is just as true without the third adjective as with. Luclarion herself was having a splendid time. The first thing she did was to announce to Mrs. Scarup that she was out of her place for two weeks, and would like to come to her at her wages; which Mrs. Scarup received with some such awed and unbelieving astonishment as she might have done the coming of a legion of angels with Gabriel at their head. And when one strong, generous human will, with powers of brain and body under it sufficient to some good work, comes down upon it as Luclarion did upon hers, there _is_ what Gabriel and his angels stand for, and no less sent of God. The second thing Luclarion did was to clean that "settin'-room fire-place," to restore the pleasant brown color of its freestone hearth and jambs, to polish its rusty brasses till they shone like golden images of gods, and to lay an ornamental fire of chips and clean little sticks across the irons. Then she took a wet broom and swept the carpet three times, and dusted everything with a damp duster; and then she advised Mrs. Scarup, whom the gruel had already cheered and strengthened, to be "helped down, and sit there in the easy-chair, for a change, and let her take her room in hand." And no doctor ever prescribed any change with better effect. There are a good many changes that might be made for people, without sending them beyond their own doors. But it isn't the doctors who always know _what_ change, or would dare to prescribe it if they did. Mrs. Scarup was "helped down," it seemed,--really up, rather,--into a new world. Things had begun all over again. It was worth while to get well, and take courage. Those brasses shone in her face like morning suns. "Well, I do declare to Man, Miss Grapp!" she exclaimed; and breath and expression failed together, and that was all she could say. Up-stairs, Luclarion swept and rummaged. She found the sheet and towel drawers, and made everything white and clean. She laid fresh napkins over the table and bureau tops, and set the little things--boxes, books, what not,--daintily about on them. She put a clean spread on the bed, and gathered up things for the wash she meant to have, with a recklessness that Mrs. Scarup herself would never have dared to use, in view of any "help" she ever expected to do it. And then, with Pinkie to lend feeble assistance, Luclarion turned to in the kitchen. It was a "clear treat," she told Mrs. Ripwinkley afterward. "Things had got to that state of mussiness, that you just began at one end and worked through to the other, and every inch looked new made over after you as you went along." She put the children out into the yard on the planks, and gave them tin pans and clothes-pins to keep house with, and gingerbread for their dinner. She and Pinkie had cups of tea, and Mrs. Scarup had her gruel, and went up to bed again; and that was another new experience, and a third stage in her treatment and recovery. When it came to the cellar, Luclarion got the chore-man in; and when all was done, she looked round on the renovated home, and said within herself, "If Scarup, now, will only break his neck, or get something to do, and stay away with his pipes and his boots and his contraptions!" And Scarup did. He found a chance in some freight-house, and wrote that he had made up his mind to stay out there all winter; and Mrs. Scarup made little excursions about the house with her returning strength, and every journey was a pleasure-trip, and the only misery was that at the end of the fortnight Miss Grapp was going away, and then she should be "all back in the swamp again." "No, you won't," said Luclarion; "Pinkie's waked up, and she's going to take pride, and pick up after the children. She can do that, now; but she couldn't shoulder everything. And you'll have somebody in the kitchen. See if you don't. I've 'most a mind to say I'll stay till you do." Luclarion's faith was strong; she knew, she said, that "if she was doing at her end, Providence wasn't leaving off at his. Things would come round." This was how they did come round. It only wanted a little sorting about. The pieces of the puzzle were all there. Hazel Ripwinkley settled the first little bit in the right place. She asked her mother one night, if she didn't think they might begin their beehive with a fire-fly? Why couldn't they keep little Vash? "And then," said Diana, in her quiet way, slipping one of the big three-cornered pieces of the puzzle in, "Damaris might go to Mrs. Scarup for her two dollars a week. She is willing to work for that, if she can get Vash taken. And this would be all the same, and better." Desire was with them when Luclarion came in, and heard it settled. "How is it that things always fall right together for you, so? How _came_ Damaris to come along?" "You just take hold of something and try," said Luclarion. "You'll find there's always a working alongside. Put up your sails, and the wind will fill 'em." Uncle Titus wanted to know "what sort of use a thing like that could be in a house?" He asked it in his very surliest fashion. If they had had any motives of fear or favor, they would have been disconcerted, and begun to think they had made a mistake. But Hazel spoke up cheerily,-- "Why, to wait on people, uncle. She's the nicest little fetch-and-carrier you ever saw!" "Humph! who wants to be waited on, here? You girls, with feet and hands of your own? Your mother doesn't, I know." "Well, to wait _on_, then," says Hazel, boldly. "I'm making her a baby-house, and teaching her to read; and Diana is knitting scarlet stockings for her, to wear this winter. We like it." "O, if you like it! That's always a reason. I only want to have people give the real one." And Uncle Titus walked off, so that nobody could tell whether _he_ liked it or not. Nobody told him anything about the Scarups. But do you suppose he didn't know? Uncle Titus Oldways was as sharp as he was blunt. "I guess I know, mother," said Hazel, a little while after this, one day, "how people write stories." "Well?" asked her mother, looking up, ready to be amused with Hazel's deep discovery. "If they can just begin with one thing, you see, that makes the next one. It can't help it, hardly. Just as it does with us. What made me think of it was, that it seemed to me there was another little piece of our beehive story all ready to put on; and if we went and did it,--I wonder if you wouldn't, mother? It fits exactly." "Let me see." "That little lame Sulie at Miss Craydocke's Home, that we like so much. Nobody adopts her away, because she is lame; her legs are no use at all, you know, and she just sits all curled up in that great round chair that Mrs. Geoffrey gave her, and sews patchwork, and makes paper dolls. And when she drops her scissors, or her thread, somebody has to come and pick it up. She wants waiting on; she just wants a little lightning-bug, like Vash, to run round for her all the time. And we don't, you see; and we've got Vash! And Vash--likes paper dolls." Hazel completed the circle of her argument with great triumph. "An extra piece of bread to finish your too much butter," said Diana. "Yes. Doesn't it just make out?" said Hazel, abating not a jot of her triumph, and taking things literally, as nobody could do better than she, upon occasion, for all her fancy and intuition. "I wonder what Uncle Oldways would say to that," said Diana. "He'd say 'Faugh, faugh!' But he doesn't mean faugh, faugh, half the time. If he does, he doesn't stick to it. Mother," she asked rather suddenly, "do you think Uncle Oldways feels as if we oughtn't to do--other things--with his money?" "What other things?" "Why, _these_ others. Vash, and Sulie, perhaps. Wouldn't he like it if we turned his house into a Beehive?" "It isn't his house," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, "He has given it to me." "Well,--do you feel 'obligated,' as Luclarion says?' "In a certain degree,--yes. I feel bound to consider his comfort and wishes, as far as regards his enjoyment with us, and fulfilling what he reasonably looked for when he brought us here." "Would that interfere?" "Suppose you ask him, Hazel?" "Well, I could do that." "Hazel wouldn't mind doing anything!" said Diana, who, to tell the truth was a little afraid of Uncle Titus, and who dreaded of all things, being snubbed. "Only," said Hazel, to whom something else had just occurred, "wouldn't he think--wouldn't it be--_your_ business?" "It is all your plan, Hazel. I think he would see that." "And you are willing, if he doesn't care?" "I did not quite say that. It would be a good deal to think of." "Then I'll wait till you've thought," said clear-headed little Hazel. "But it fits right on. I can see that. And Miss Craydocke said things would, after we had begun." Mrs. Ripwinkley took it into her thoughts, and carried it about with her for days, and considered it; asking herself questions. Was it going aside in search of an undertaking that did not belong to her? Was it bringing home a care, a responsibility, for which they were not fitted,--which might interfere with the things they were meant, and would be called, to do? There was room and opportunity, doubtless, for them to do something; Mrs. Ripwinkley had felt this; she had not waited for her child to think of it for her; she had only waited, in her new, strange sphere, for circumstances to guide the way, and for the Giver of all circumstance to guide her thought. She chose, also, in the things that would affect her children's life and settle duties for them, to let them grow also to those duties, and the perception of them, with her. To this she led them, by all her training and influence; and now that in Hazel, her child of quick insight and true instincts, this influence was bearing fruit and quickening to action, she respected her first impulses; she believed in them; they had weight with her, as argument in themselves. These impulses, in young, true souls, freshly responding, are, she knew, as the proof-impressions of God's Spirit. Yet she would think; that was her duty; she would not do a thing hastily, or unwisely. Sulie Praile had been a good while, now, at the Home. A terrible fall, years ago, had caused a long and painful illness, and resulted in her present helplessness. But above those little idle, powerless limbs, that lay curled under the long, soft skirt she wore, like a baby's robe, were a beauty and a brightness, a quickness of all possible motion, a dexterous use of hands, and a face of gentle peace and sometimes glory, that were like a benediction on the place that she was in; like the very Holy Ghost in tender form like a dove, resting upon it, and abiding among them who were there. In one way, it would hardly be so much a giving as a taking, to receive her in. Yet there was care to assume, the continuance of care to promise or imply; the possibility of conflicting plans in much that might be right and desirable that Mrs. Ripwinkley should do for her own. Exactly what, if anything, it would be right to undertake in this, was matter for careful and anxious reflection. The resources of the Home were not very large; there were painful cases pressing their claims continually, as fast as a little place was vacated it could be filled; was wanted, ten times over; and Sulie Praile had been there a good while. If somebody would only take her, as people were very ready to take--away to happy, simple, comfortable country homes, for mere childhood's sake--the round, rosy, strong, and physically perfect ones! But Sulie must be lifted and tended; she must keep somebody at home to look after her; no one could be expected to adopt a child like that. Yet Hazel Ripwinkley thought they could be; thought, in her straightforward, uncounting simplicity, that it was just the natural, obvious, beautiful thing to do, to take her home--into a real home--into pleasant family life; where things would not crowd; where she could be mothered and sistered, as girls ought to be, when there are so many nice places in the world, and not so many people in them as there might be. When there could be so much visiting, and spare rooms kept always in everybody's house, why should not somebody who needed to, just come in and stay? What were the spare places made for? "We might have Sulie for this winter," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, at last. "They would let her come to us for that time; and it would be a change for her, and leave a place for others. Then if anything made it impossible for us to do more, we should not have raised an expectation to be disappointed. And if we can and ought to do more, it will be shown us by that time more certainly." She asked Miss Craydocke about it, when she came home from Z---- that fall. She had been away a good deal lately; she had been up to Z---- to two weddings,--Leslie Goldthwaite's and Barbara Holabird's. Now she was back again, and settled down. Miss Craydocke thought it a good thing wisely limited. "Sulie needs to be with older girls; there is no one in the Home to be companion to her; the children are almost all little. A winter here would be a blessing to her!" "But the change again, if she should have to make it?" suggested Mrs. Ripwinkley. "Good things don't turn to bad ones because you can't have them any more. A thing you're not fit for, and never ought to have had, may; but a real good stays by; it overflows all the rest. Sulie Praile's life could never be so poor again, after a winter here with you, as it might be if she had never had it. If you'd like her, let her come, and don't be a bit afraid. We're only working by inches, any of us; like the camel's-hair embroiderers in China. But it gets put together; and it is beautiful, and large, and whole, somewhere." "Miss Craydocke always knows," said Hazel. Nobody said anything again, about Uncle Titus. A winter's plan need not be referred to him. But Hazel, in her own mind, had resolved to find out what was Uncle Titus's, generally and theoretically; how free they were to be, beyond winter plans and visits of weeks; how much scope they might have with this money and this house, that seemed so ample to their simple wants, and what they might do with it and turn it into, if it came into their heads or hearts or consciences. So one day she went in and sat down by him in the study, after she had accomplished some household errand with Rachel Froke. Other people approached him with more or less of strategy, afraid of the tiger in him; Desire Ledwith faced him courageously; only Hazel came and nestled up beside him, in his very cage, as if he were no wild beast, after all. Yet he pretended to growl, even at her, sometimes; it was so funny to see her look up and chirp on after it, like some little bird to whom the language of beasts was no language at all, and passed by on the air as a very big sound, but one that in no wise concerned it. "We've got Sulie Praile to spend the winter, Uncle Titus," she said. "Who's Sulie Praile?" "The lame girl, from the Home. We wanted somebody for Vash to wait on, you know. She sits in a round chair, that twists, like yours; and she's--just like a lily in a vase!" Hazel finished her sentence with a simile quite unexpected to herself. There was something in Sulie's fair, pale, delicate face, and her upper figure, rising with its own peculiar lithe, easily swayed grace from among the gathered folds of the dress of her favorite dark green color, that reminded--if one thought of it, and Hazel turned the feeling of it into a thought at just this moment--of a beautiful white flower, tenderly and commodiously planted. "Well, I suppose it's worth while to have a lame girl to sit up in a round chair, and look like a lily in a vase, is it?" "Uncle Titus, I want to know what you think about some things." "That is just what I want to know myself, sometimes. To find out what one thinks about things, is pretty much the whole finding, isn't it?" "Don't be very metaphysical, please, Uncle Titus. Don't turn your eyes round into the back of your head. That isn't what I mean." "What do you mean?" "Just plain looking." "O!" "Don't you think, when there are places, all nice and ready,--and people that would like the places and haven't got 'em,--that the people ought to be put into the places?" "'The shirtless backs put into the shirts?'" "Why, yes, of course. What are shirts made for?" "For some people to have thirty-six, and some not to have any," said Mr. Oldways. "No," said Hazel. "Nobody wants thirty-six, all at once. But what I mean is, rooms, and corners, and pleasant windows, and seats at the table; places where people come in visiting, and that are kept saved up. I can't bear an empty box; that is, only for just one pleasant minute, while I'm thinking what I can put into it." "Where's your empty box, now?" "Our house _was_ rather empty-boxy. Uncle Titus, do you mind how we fill it up,--because you gave it to us, you know?" "No. So long as you don't crowd yourselves out." "Or you, Uncle Titus. We don't want to crowd you out. Does it crowd you any to have Sulie and Vash there, and to have us 'took up' with them, as Luclarion says?" How straight Witch Hazel went to her point! "Your catechism crowds me just a little, child," said Uncle Titus. "I want to see you go your own way. That is what I gave you the house for. Your mother knows that. Did she send you here to ask me?" "No. I wanted to know. It was I that wanted to begin a kind of a Beehive--like Miss Craydocke's. Would you care if it was turned quite into a Beehive, finally?" Hazel evidently meant to settle the furthest peradventure, now she had begun. "Ask your mother to show you the deed. 'To Frances Ripwinkley, her heirs and assigns,'--that's you and Diana,--'for their use and behoof, forever.' I've no more to do with it." "'Use, and behoof,'" said Hazel, slowly. And then she turned the leaves of the great Worcester that lay upon the study table, and found "Behoof." "'Profit,--gain,--benefit;' then that's what you meant; that we should make as much more of it as we could. That's what I think, Uncle Titus. I'm glad you put 'behoof in." "They always put it in, child!" "Do they? Well, then, they don't always work it out!" and Hazel laughed. At that, Mr. Oldways pulled off his spectacles, looked sharp at Hazel with two sharp, brown eyes,--set near together, Hazel noticed for the first time, like Desire's,--let the keenness turn gradually into a twinkle, suffered the muscles that had held his lips so grim to relax, and laughed too; his peculiar, up-and-down shake of a laugh, in which head and shoulders made the motions, as if he were a bottle, and there were a joke inside of him which was to be well mixed up to be thoroughly enjoyed. "Go home to your mother, jade-hopper!" he said, when he had done; "and tell her I'm coming round to-night, to tea, amongst your bumble-bees and your lilies!" XV. WITH ALL ONE'S MIGHT. Let the grapes be ever so sweet, and hang in plenty ever so low, there is always a fair bunch out of reach. Mrs. Ledwith longed, now, to go to Europe. At any rate, she was eager to have her daughters go. But, after just one year, to take what her Uncle Oldways had given her, in return for her settling herself near him, and _un_settle herself, and go off to the other side of the world! Besides, what he had given her would not do it. That was the rub, after all. What was two thousand a year, now-a-days? Nothing is anything, now-a-days. And it takes everything to do almost nothing. The Ledwiths were just as much pinched now as they were before they ever heard from Uncle Oldways. People with unlimited powers of expansion always are pinched; it is good for them; one of the saving laws of nature that keeps things decently together. Yet, in the pink room of a morning, and in the mellow-tinted drawing-room of an evening, it was getting to be the subject oftenest discussed. It was that to which they directed the combined magnetism of the family will; everything was brought to bear upon it; Bridget's going away on Monday morning, leaving the clothes in the tubs, the strike-price of coal, and the overcharge of the grocer; Florence's music, Helena's hopeless distress over French and German; even Desire's listlessness and fidgets; most of all Mrs. Megilp's plans, which were ripening towards this long coveted end. She and Glossy really thought they should go this winter. "It is a matter of economy now; everybody's going. The Fargo's and the Fayerwerses, and the Hitherinyons have broken all up, and are going out to stay indefinitely. The Fayerwerses have been saving up these four years to get away, there are so many of them, you know; the passage money counts, and the first travelling; but after you _are_ over, and have found a place to settle down in,"--then followed all the usual assertions as to cheap delights and inestimable advantages, and emancipation from all American household ills and miseries. Uncle Oldways came up once in a while to the house in Shubarton Place, and made an evening call. He seemed to take apricot-color for granted, when he got there, as much as he did the plain, old, unrelieved brown at Mrs. Ripwinkley's; he sat quite unconcernedly in the grand easy chair that Laura wheeled out for him; indeed, it seemed as if he really, after a manner, indorsed everything by his acceptance without demur of what he found. But then one must sit down on something; and if one is offered a cup of coffee, or anything on a plate, one cannot easily protest against sea-green china. We do, and we have, and we wear, and we say, a great many things, and feel ourselves countenanced and confirmed, somehow,--perhaps excused,--because nobody appears surprised or says anything. But what should they say; and would it be at all proper that they should be surprised? If we only thought of it, and once tried it, we might perhaps find it quite as easy and encouraging, on the same principle, _not_ to have apricot rep and sea-green china. One night Mr. Oldways was with them when the talk turned eastwardly over the water. There were new names in the paper, of people who had gone out in the _Aleppo_, and a list of Americans registered at Bowles Brothers,' among whom were old acquaintance. "I declare, how they all keep turning up there" said Mrs. Ledwith. "The war doesn't seem to make much difference," said her husband. "To think how lucky the Vonderbargens were, to be in Paris just at the edge of the siege!" said Glossy Megilp. "They came back from Como just in time; and poor Mr. Washburne had to fairly hustle them off at last. They were buying silks, and ribbons, and gloves, up to the last minute, for absolutely nothing. Mrs. Vonderbargen said it seemed a sin to come away and leave anything. I'm sure I don't know how they got them all home; but they did." Glossy had been staying lately with the Vonderbargens in New York. She stayed everywhere, and picked up everything. "You have been abroad, Mrs. Scherman?" said Mrs. Ledwith, inquiringly, to Asenath, who happened to be calling, also, with her husband, and was looking at some photographs with Desire. "No, ma'am," answered Mrs. Scherman, very promptly, not having spoken at all before in the discussion. "I do not think I wish to go. The syphon has been working too long." "The Syphon?" Mrs. Ledwith spoke with a capital S in her mind; but was not quite sure whether what Mrs. Scherman meant might be a line of Atlantic steamers or the sea-serpent. "Yes, ma'am. The emptying back and forth. There isn't much that is foreign over there, now, nor very much that is native here. The hemispheres have got miserably mixed up. I think when I go 'strange countries for to see,' it will have to be Patagonia or Independent Tartary." Uncle Oldways turned round with his great chair, so as to face Asenath, and laughed one of his thorough fun digesting laughs, his keen eyes half shut with the enjoyment, and sparkling out through their cracks at her. But Asenath had resumed her photographs with the sweetest and quietest unconsciousness. Mrs. Ledwith let her alone after that; and the talk rambled on to the schools in Munich, and the Miracle Plays at Oberammergau. "To think of _that_ invasion!" said Asenath, in a low tone to Desire, "and corrupting _that_ into a show, with a run of regular performances! I do believe they have pulled down the last unprofaned thing now, and trampled over it." "If we go," said Mrs. Megilp, "we shall join the Fayerwerses, and settle down with them quietly in some nice place; and then make excursions. We shall not try to do all Europe in three months; we shall choose, and take time. It is the only way really to enjoy or acquire; and the quiet times are so invaluable for the lessons and languages." Mrs. Megilp made up her little varnishes with the genuine gums of truth and wisdom; she put a beautiful shine even on to her limited opportunities and her enforced frugalities. "Mrs. Ledwith, you _ought_ to let Agatha and Florence go too. I would take every care of them; and the expense would be so divided--carriages, and couriers, and everything--that it would be hardly anything." "It is a great opportunity," Mrs. Ledwith said, and sighed. "But it is different with us from what it is with you. We must still be a family here, with nearly the same expenses. To be sure Desire has done with school, and she doesn't care for gay society, and Helena is a mere child yet; if it ever could"-- And so it went on between the ladies, while Mr. Oldways and Mr. Ledwith and Frank Scherman got into war talk, and Bismarck policy, and French poss--no, _im_-possibilities. "I don't think Uncle Oldways minded much," said Mrs. Ledwith to Agatha, and Mrs. Megilp, up-stairs, after everybody had gone who was to go. "He never minds anything," said Agatha. "I don't know," said Mrs. Megilp, slowly. "He seemed mightily pleased with what Asenath Scherman said." "O, she's pretty, and funny; it makes no difference what she says; people are always pleased." "We might dismiss one girl this winter," said Mrs. Ledwith, "and board in some cheap country place next summer. I dare say we could save it in the year's round; the difference, I mean. When you weren't actually travelling, it wouldn't cost more than to have you here,--dress and all. "They wouldn't need to have a new thing," said Glossy. "Those people out at Z---- want to buy the house. I've a great mind to coax Grant to sell, and take a slice right out, and send them," said Mrs. Ledwith, eagerly. She was always eager to accomplish the next new thing for her children; and, to say the truth, did not much consider herself. And so far as they had ever been able, the Ledwiths had always been rather easily given to "taking the slice right out." The Megilps had had a little legacy of two or three thousand dollars, and were quite in earnest in their plans, this time, which had been talk with them for many years. "Those poor Fayerwerses!" said Asenath to her husband, walking home. "Going out now, after the cheap European living of a dozen years ago! The ghost always goes over on the last load. I wonder at Mrs. Megilp. She generally knows better." "She'll do," said Frank Scherman. "If the Fayerwerses stick anywhere, as they probably will, she'll hitch on to the Fargo's, and turn up at Jerusalem. And then there are to be the Ledwiths, and their 'little slice.'" "O, dear! what a mess people do make of living!" said Asenath. Uncle Titus trudged along down Dorset Street with his stick under his arm. "Try 'em! Find 'em out!" he repeated to himself. "That's what Marmaduke said. Try 'em with this,--try 'em with that; a good deal, or a little; having and losing, and wanting. That's what the Lord does with us all; and I begin to see He has a job of it!" The house was sold, and Agatha and Florence went. It made home dull for poor Desire, little as she found of real companionship with her elder sisters. But then she was always looking for it, and that was something. Husbands and wives, parents and children, live on upon that, through years of repeated disappointments, and never give up the expectation of that which is somewhere, and which these relations represent to them, through all their frustrated lives. That is just why. It _is_ somewhere. It turned out a hard winter, in many ways, for Desire Ledwith. She hated gay company, and the quiet little circle that she had become fond of at her Aunt Ripwinkley's was broken somewhat to them all, and more to Desire than, among what had grown to be her chronic discontents, she realized or understood, by the going away for a time of Kenneth Kincaid. What was curious in the happening, too, he had gone up to "And" to build a church. That had come about through the Marchbankses' knowledge of him, and this, you remember, through their being with the Geoffreys when the Kincaids were first introduced in Summit Street. The Marchbankses and the Geoffreys were cousins. A good many Boston families are. Mr. Roger Marchbanks owned a good deal of property in And. The neighborhood wanted a church; and he interested himself actively and liberally in behalf of it, and gave the land,--three lots right out of the middle of Marchbanks Street, that ran down to the river. Dorris kept her little room, and was neighborly as heretofore; but she was busy with her music, and had little time but her evenings; and now there was nobody to walk home with Desire to Shubarton Place, if she stayed in Aspen Street to tea. She came sometimes, and stayed all night; but that was dreary for Helena, who never remembered to shut the piano or cover up the canary, or give the plants in the bay window their evening sprinkle, after the furnace heat had been drying them all day. Kenneth Kincaid came down for his Sundays with Dorris, and his work at the Mission; a few times he called in at Uncle Oldways' after tea, when the family was all together; but they saw him very seldom; he gave those Sunday evenings mostly to needed rest, and to quiet talk with Dorris. Desire might have gone to the Mission this winter, easily enough, after all. Agatha and Florence and Glossy Megilp were not by to make wondering eyes, or smile significant smiles; but there was something in herself that prevented; she knew that it would be more than half to _get_, and she still thought she had so little to give! Besides, Kenneth Kincaid had never asked her again, and she could not go to him and say she would come. Desire Ledwith began to have serious question of what life was ever going to be for her. She imagined, as in our early years and our first gray days we are all apt to imagine, that she had found out a good deal that it was _not_ going to be. She was not going to be beautiful, or accomplished, or even, she was afraid, agreeable; she found that such hard work with most people. She was not ever--and that conclusion rested closely upon these foregoing--to be married, and have a nice husband and a pretty house, and go down stairs and make snow-puddings and ginger-snaps of a morning, and have girls staying with her, and pleasant people in to tea; like Asenath Scherman. She couldn't write a book,--that, perhaps, was one of her premature decisions, since nobody knows till they try, and the books are lying all round, in leaves, waiting only to be picked up and put together,--or paint a picture; she couldn't bear parties, and clothes were a fuss, and she didn't care to go to Europe. She thought she should rather like to be an old maid, if she could begin right off, and have a little cottage out of town somewhere, or some cosy rooms in the city. At least, she supposed that was what she had got to be, and if that were settled, she did not see why it might not be begun young, as well as married life. She could not endure waiting, when a thing was to be done. "Aunt Frances," she said one day, "I wish I had a place of my own. What is the reason I can't? A girl can go in for Art, and set up a studio; or she can go to Rome, and sculp, and study; she can learn elocution, and read, whether people want to be read to or not; and all that is Progress and Woman's Rights; why can't she set up a _home_?" "Because, I suppose, a house is not a home; and the beginning of a home is just what she waits for. Meanwhile, if she has a father and a mother, she would not put a slight on _their_ home, or fail of her share of the duty in it." "But nobody would think I failed in my duty if I were going to be married. I'm sure mamma would think I was doing it beautifully. And I never shall be married. Why can't I live something out for myself, and have a place of my own? I have got money enough to pay my rent, and I could do sewing in a genteel way, or keep a school for little children. I'd rather--take in back stairs to wash," she exclaimed vehemently, "than wait round for things, and be nothing! And I should like to begin young, while there might be some sort of fun in it. You'd like to come and take tea with me, wouldn't you, Aunt Frank?" "If it were all right that you should have separate teas of your own." "And if I had waffles. Well, I should. I think, just now, there's nothing I should like so much as a little kitchen of my own, and a pie-board, and a biscuit-cutter, and a beautiful baking oven, and a Japan tea-pot." "The pretty part. But brooms, and pails, and wash-tubs, and the back stairs?" "I specified back stairs in the first place, of my own accord. I wouldn't shirk. Sometimes I think that real good old-fashioned hard work is what I do want. I should like to find the right, honest thing, and do it, Aunt Frank." She said it earnestly, and there were tears in her eyes. "I believe you would," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "But perhaps the right, honest thing, just now, is to wait patiently, with all your might." "Now, that's good," said Desire, "and cute of you, too, that last piece of a sentence. If you had stopped at '_patiently_,' as people generally do! That's what exasperates; when you want to do something with all your might. It almost seems as if I could, when you put it so." "It is a 'stump,' Luclarion would say." "Luclarion is a saint and a philosopher. I feel better," said Desire. She stayed feeling better all that afternoon; she helped Sulie Praile cut out little panels from her thick sheet of gray painting-board, and contrived her a small easel with her round lightstand and a book-rest; for Sulie was advancing in the fine arts, from painting dollies' paper faces in cheap water colors, to copying bits of flowers and fern and moss, with oils, on gray board; and she was doing it very well, and with exquisite delight. To wait, meant something to wait for; something coming by and by; that was what comforted Desire to-day, as she walked home alone in the sharp, short, winter twilight; that, and the being patient with all one's might. To be patient, is to be also strong; this she saw, newly; and Desire coveted, most of all, to be strong. Something to wait for. "He does not cheat," said Desire, low down in her heart, to herself. For the child had faith, though she could not talk about it. Something; but very likely not the thing you have seen, or dreamed of; something quite different, it may be, when it comes; and it may come by the way of losing, first, all that you have been able yet, with a vague, whispering hope, to imagine. The things we do not know! The things that are happening,--the things that are coming; rising up in the eastward of our lives below the horizon that we can yet see; it may be a star, it may be a cloud! Desire Ledwith could not see that out at Westover, this cheery winter night, it was one of dear Miss Pennington's "Next Thursdays;" she could not see that the young architect, living away over there in the hundred-year-old house on the side of East Hill, a boarder with old Miss Arabel Waite, had been found, and appreciated, and drawn into their circle by the Haddens and the Penningtons and the Holabirds and the Inglesides; and that Rosamond was showing him the pleasant things in their Westover life,--her "swan's nest among the reeds," that she had told him of,--that early autumn evening, when they had walked up Hanley Street together. XVI. SWARMING. Spring came on early, with heavy rains and freshets in many parts of the country. It was a busy time at Z----. Two things had happened there that were to give Kenneth Kincaid more work, and would keep him where he was all summer. Just before he went to Z----, there had been a great fire at West Hill. All Mr. Roger Marchbanks's beautiful place was desolate. House, conservatories, stables, lovely little vine-covered rustic buildings, exquisitely tended shrubbery,--all swept over in one night by the red flames, and left lying in blackness and ashes. For the winter, Mr. Marchbanks had taken his family to Boston; now he was planning eagerly to rebuild. Kenneth had made sketches; Mr. Marchbanks liked his ideas; they had talked together from time to time. Now, the work was actually in hand, and Kenneth was busy with drawings and specifications. Down at the river, during the spring floods, a piece of the bridge had been carried away, and the dam was broken through. There were new mill buildings, too, going up, and a block of factory houses. All this business, through Mr. Marchbanks directly or indirectly, fell also into Kenneth's hands. He wrote blithe letters to Dorris; and Dorris, running in and out from her little spring cleanings that Hazel was helping her with, told all the letters over to the Ripwinkleys. "He says I must come up there in my summer vacation and board with his dear old Miss Waite. Think of Kentie's being able to give me such a treat as that! A lane, with ferns and birches, and the woods,--_pine_ woods!--and a hill where raspberries grow, and the river!" Mrs. Ledwith was thinking of her summer plans at this time, also. She remembered the large four-windowed room looking out over the meadow, that Mrs. Megilp and Glossy had at Mrs. Prendible's, for twelve dollars a week, in And. She could do no better than that, at country boarding, anywhere; and Mr. Ledwith could sleep at the house in Shubarton Place, getting his meals down town during the week, and come up and spend his Sundays with them. A bedroom, in addition, for six dollars more, would be all they would want. The Ripwinkleys were going up to Homesworth by and by for a little while, and would take Sulie Praile with them. Sulie was ecstatically happy. She had never been out of the city in all her life. She felt, she said, "as if she was going to heaven without dying." Vash was to be left at Mrs. Scarup's with her sister. Miss Craydocke would be away at the mountains; all the little life that had gathered together in the Aspen Street neighborhood, seemed about to be broken up. Uncle Titus Oldways never went out of town, unless on business. Rachel Froke stayed, and kept his house; she sat in the gray room, and thought over the summers she had had. "Thee never loses anything out of thy life that has been in," she said. "Summer times are like grains of musk; they keep their smell always, and flavor the shut-up places they are put away in." For you and me, reader, we are to go to Z---- again. I hope you like it. But before that, I must tell you what Luclarion Grapp has done. Partly from the principle of her life, and partly from the spirit of things which she would have caught at any rate, from the Ripwinkley home and the Craydocke "Beehive,"--for there is nothing truer than that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven,--I suppose she had been secretly thinking for a good while, that she was having too easy a time here, in her first floor kitchen and her garden bedroom; that this was not the life meant for her to live right on, without scruple or question; and so began in her own mind to expect some sort of "stump;" and even to look about for it. "It isn't as it was when Mrs. Ripwinkley was a widow, and poor,--that is, comparative; and it took all her and my contrivance to look after the place and keep things going, and paying, up in Homesworth; there was something to buckle to, then; but now, everything is eased and flatted out, as it were; it makes me res'less, like a child put to bed in the daytime." Luclarion went down to the North End with Miss Craydocke, on errands of mercy; she went in to the new Mission, and saw the heavenly beauty of its intent, and kindled up in her soul at it; and she came home, time after time, and had thoughts of her own about these things, and the work in the world there was to do. She had cleaned up and set things going at Mrs. Scarup's; she learned something in doing that, beyond what she knew when she set about it; her thoughts began to shape themselves to a theory; and the theory took to itself a text and a confirmation and a command. "Go down and be a neighbor to them that have fallen among thieves." Luclarion came to a resolution in this time of May, when everybody was making plans and the spring-cleaning was all done. She came to Mrs. Ripwinkley one morning, when she was folding away winter clothes, and pinning them up in newspapers, with camphor-gum; and she said to her, without a bit of preface,--Luclarion hated prefaces,-- "Mrs. Ripwinkley, I'm going to swarm!" Mrs. Ripwinkley looked up in utter surprise; what else could she do? "Of course 'm, when you set up a Beehive, you must have expected it; it's the natural way of things; they ain't good for much unless they do. I've thought it all over; I'll stay and see you all off, first, if you want me to, and then--I'll swarm." "Well," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, assenting in full faith, beforehand; for Mrs. Ripwinkley, if I need now to tell you of it, was not an ordinary woman, and did not take things in an ordinary selfish way, but grasped right hold of the inward right and truth of them, and believed in it; sometimes before she could quite see it; and she never had any doubt of Luclarion Grapp. "Well! And now tell me all about it." "You see," said Luclarion, sitting down in a chair by the window, as Mrs. Ripwinkley suspended her occupation and took one by the bedside, "there's places in this town that folks leave and give up. As the Lord might have left and give up the world, because there was dirt and wickedness in it; only He didn't. There's places where it ain't genteel, nor yet respectable, to live; and so those places grow more disrespectable and miserable every day. They're left to themselves. What I think is, they hadn't ought to be. There's one clean spot down there now, in the very middle of the worst dirt. And it ain't bad to live in. _That's_ started. Now, what I think is, that somebody ought to start another, even if its only a little one. Somebody ought to just go there and _live_, and show 'em how, just as I took and showed Mrs. Scarup, and she's been living ever since, instead of scratching along. If some of them folks had a clean, decent neighbor to go to see,--to drink tea with, say,--and was to catch an idea of her fixings and doings, why, I believe there'd be more of 'em,--cleaned up, you know. They'd get some kind of an ambition and a hope. Tain't enough for ladies--though I bless 'em in my soul for what I've seen 'em do--to come down there of a Fridays, and teach and talk awhile, and then go home to Summit Street and Republic Avenue, and take up _their_ life again where they left it off, that is just as different as heaven is from 'tother place; somebody's got to come right down _out_ of heaven, and bring the life in, and live it amongst them miserable folks, as the Lord Jesus Christ came and did! And it's borne in upon me, strong and clear, that that's what's got to be before all's righted. And so--for a little piece of it, and a little individual stump--I'm going to swarm, and settle, and see what'll come." Mrs. Ripwinkley was looking very intently at Luclarion. Her breath went and came hurriedly, and her face turned pale with the grand surprise of such a thought, such a plan and purpose, so simply and suddenly declared. Her eyes were large and moist with feeling. "Do you _know_, Luclarion," she exclaimed at last, "do you realize what this is that you are thinking of; what a step it would be to take,--what a work it would be to even hope to begin to do? Do you know how strange it is,--how almost impracticable,--that it is not even safe?" "'Twasn't _safe_ for Him--when He came into the world," Luclarion answered. "Not to say I think there's any comparison," she began again, presently, "or that I believe there's anything to be really scared of,--except dirt; and you _can_ clean a place round you, as them Mission people have done. Why, there ain't a house in Boston nicer, or sweeter, or airier even, than that one down in Arctic Street, with beautiful parlors and bedrooms, and great clean galleries leading round, and skylighted,--_sky_ lighted! for you see the blue heaven is above all, and you _can_ let the skylight in, without any corruption coming in with it; and if twenty people can do that much, or a hundred,--one can do something. 'Taint much, either, to undertake; only to be willing to go there, and make a clean place for yourself, and a home; and live there, instead of somewheres else that's ready made; and let it spread. And you know I've always looked forrud to some kind of a house-keep of my own, finally." "But, Luclarion, I don't understand! All alone? And you couldn't use a whole house, you know. Your neighbors would be _inmates_. Why, it seems to me perfectly crazy!" "Now, ma'am, did you ever know me to go off on a tangent, without some sort of a string to hold on to? I ain't goin' to swarm all alone! I never heard of such a thing. Though if I couldn't _swarm_, and the thing was to be done, I say I'd try it. But Savira Golding is going to be married to Sam Gallilee, next month; and he's a stevedore, and his work is down round the wharves; he's class-leader in our church, and a first-rate, right-minded man, or else Savira wouldn't have him; for if Savira ain't a clear Christian, and a doing woman, there ain't one this side of Paradise. Now, you see, Sam Gallilee makes money; he runs a gang of three hundred men. He can afford a good house, and a whole one, if he wants; but he's going in for a big one, and neighbors. They mean to live nice,--he and Savira; and she has pretty, tasty ways; there'll be white curtains, and plants blooming in her windows, you may make sure; she's always had 'em in that little up-stairs dress-making room of hers; and boxes of mignonette and petunias on the ledges; and birds singing in a great summer cage swung out against the wall. She's one of the kind that reaches out, and can't be kept in; and she knows her gifts, and is willing to go and let her light shine where it will help others, and so glorify; and Sam, he's willing too, and sees the beauty of it. And so,--well, that's the swarm." "And the 'little round Godamighty in the middle of it,'" said Mrs. Ripwinkley, her face all bright and her eyes full of tears. "_Ma'am_!" Then Mrs. Ripwinkley told her Miss Craydocke's story. "Well," said Luclarion, "there's something dear and right-to-the-spot about it; but it does sound singular; and it certainly ain't a thing to say careless." * * * * * Desire Ledwith grew bright and excited as the summer came on, and the time drew near for going to Z----. She could not help being glad; she did not stop to ask why; summer-time was reason enough, and after the weariness of the winter, the thought of Z---- and the woods and the river, and sweet evenings and mornings, and gardens and orchards, and road-side grass, was lovely to her. "It is so pleasant up there!" she would keep saying to Dorris; and somehow she said it to Dorris oftener than to anybody else. There was something fitful and impetuous in her little outbursts of satisfaction; they noticed it in her; the elder ones among them noticed it with a touch of anxiety for her. Miss Craydocke, especially, read the signs, matching them with something that she remembered far back in the life that had closed so peacefully, with white hairs and years of a serene content and patience, over all unrest and disappointment, for herself. She was sorry for this young girl, for whom she thought she saw an unfulfilled dream of living that should go by her like some bright cloud, just near enough to turn into a baptism of tears. She asked Desire, one day, if she would not like to go with her, this summer, to the mountains. Desire put by the suggestion hastily. "O, no, thank you, Miss Craydocke, I must stay with mamma and Helena. And besides," she added, with the strict, full truth she always demanded of herself, "I _want_ to go to Z----." "Yes," said Miss Craydocke. There was something tender, like a shade of pity, in her tone. "But you would enjoy the mountains. They are full of strength and rest. One hardly understands the good the hills do one. David did, looking out into them from Jerusalem. 'I will look to the hills, from whence cometh my strength.'" "Some time," said Desire. "Some time I shall need the hills, and--be ready for them. But this summer--I want a good, gay, young time. I don't know why, except that I shall be just eighteen this year, and it seems as if, after that, I was going to be old. And I want to be with people I know. I _can_ be gay in the country; there is something to be gay about. But I can't dress and dance in the city. That is all gas-light and get-up." "I suppose," said Miss Craydocke, slowly, "that our faces are all set in the way we are to go. Even if it is--" She stopped. She was thinking of one whose face had been set to go to Jerusalem. Her own words had led her to something she had not foreseen when she began. Nothing of such suggestion came to Desire. She was in one of her rare moods of good cheer. "I suppose so," she said, heedlessly. And then, taking up a thought of her own suddenly,--"Miss Craydocke! Don't you think people almost always live out their names? There's Sin Scherman; there'll always be a little bit of mischief and original naughtiness in her,--with the harm taken out of it; and there's Rosamond Holabird,--they couldn't have called her anything better, if they'd waited for her to grow up; and Barb _was_ sharp; and our little Hazel is witchy and sweet and wild-woodsy; and Luclarion,--isn't that shiny and trumpety, and doesn't she do it? And then--there's me. I shall always be stiff and hard and unsatisfied, except in little bits of summer times that won't come often. They might as well have christened me Anxiety. I wonder why they didn't." "That would have been very different. There is a nobleness in Desire. You will overlive the restless part," said Miss Craydocke. "Was there ever anything restless in your life, Miss Craydocke? And how long did it take to overlive it? It doesn't seem as if you had ever stubbed your foot against anything; and I'm _always_ stubbing." "My dear, I have stubbed along through fifty-six years; and the years had all three hundred and sixty-five days in them. There were chances,--don't you think so?" "It looks easy to be old after it is done," said Desire. "Easy and comfortable. But to be eighteen, and to think of having to go on to be fifty-six; I beg your pardon,--but I wish it was over!" And she drew a deep breath, heavy with the days that were to be. "You are not to take it all at once, you know," said Miss Craydocke. "But I do, every now and then. I can't help it. I am sure it is the name. If they had called me 'Hapsie,' like you, I should have gone along jolly, as you do, and not minded. You see you have to _hear_ it all the time; and it tunes you up to its own key. You can't feel like a Dolly, or a Daisy, when everybody says--De-sire!" "I don't know how I came to be called 'Hapsie,'" said Miss Craydocke. "Somebody who liked me took it up, and it seemed to get fitted on. But that wasn't when I was young." "What was it, then?" asked Desire, with a movement of interest. "Keren-happuch," said Miss Craydocke, meekly. "My father named me, and he always called me so,--the whole of it. He was a severe, Old-Testament man, and _his_ name was Job." Desire was more than half right, after all. There was a good deal of Miss Craydocke's story hinted in those few words and those two ancient names. "But I turned into 'Miss Craydocke' pretty soon, and settled down. I suppose it was very natural that I should," said the sweet old maid, serenely. XVII. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. The evening train came in through the little bend in the edge of the woods, and across the bridge over the pretty rapids, and slid to its stopping-place under the high arches of the other bridge that connected the main street of Z---- with its continuation through "And." There were lights twinkling in the shops, where they were making change, and weighing out tea and sugar, and measuring calico, although outside it was not yet quite dark. The train was half an hour late; there had been a stoppage at some draw or crossing near the city. Mr. Prendible was there, to see if his lodgers were come, and to get his evening paper; the platform was full of people. Old Z---- acquaintances, many of them, whom Desire and her mother were pleased, and Helena excited to see. "There's Kenneth Kincaid!" she exclaimed, quite loudly, pulling Desire's sleeve. "Hush!" said Desire, twitching away. "How can you, Helena?" "He's coming,--he heard me!" cried Helena, utterly impenitent. "I should think he might!" And Desire walked off a little, to look among the trunks that were being tumbled from the baggage car. She had seen him all the time; he had been speaking to Ruth Holabird, and helping her up the steps with her parcels. Mr. Holabird was there with the little Westover carryall that they kept now; and Kenneth put her in, and then turned round in time to hear Helena's exclamation and to come down again. "Can I help you? I'm very glad you are come," he said, cordially. Well; he might have said it to anybody. Again, well; it was enough to say to anybody. Why should Desire feel cross? He took Helena's bag; she had a budget beside; Mr. Prendible relieved Mrs. Ledwith; Desire held on valiantly to her own things. Kenneth walked over the bridge with them, and down the street to Mr. Prendible's door; there he bade them good-by and left them. It was nice to be in Z----; it was very sweet here under the blossoming elms and locusts; it was nice to see Kenneth Kincaid again, and to think that Dorris was coming by and by, and that the lanes were green and full of ferns and vines, and that there was to be a whole long summer; but there were so many people down there on the platform,--there was such a muss always; Ruth Holabird was a dear little thing, but there were always so many Ruths about! and there was only one cross, stiff, odd, uncomfortable Desire! But the very next night Kenneth came down and stayed an hour; there was a new moon glistening through the delicate elm-tips, and they sat out on the piazza and breathed in such an air as they had not had in their nostrils for months and months. The faint, tender light from the golden west in which the new moon lay, showed the roof and tower of the little church, Kenneth's first beautiful work; and Kenneth told them how pleasant it was up at Miss Arabel's, and of the tame squirrels that he fed at his window, and of the shady pasture-path that led away over the brook from the very door, and up among pines and into little still nooks where dry mossy turf and warm gray rocks were sheltered in by scraggy cedars and lisping birches, so that they were like field-parlors opening in and out from each other with all sorts of little winding and climbing passages, between clumps of bayberry bushes and tall ferns; and that the girls from Z---- and Westover made morning picnics there, since Lucilla Waters had grown intimate with Delia Waite and found it out; and that Delia Waite and even Miss Arabel carried their dressmaking down there sometimes in a big white basket, and stayed all day under the trees. They had never used to do this; they had stayed in the old back sitting room with all the litter round, and never thought of it till those girls had come and showed them how. "I think there is the best and sweetest neighborliness and most beautiful living here in Z----, that I ever knew in any place," said Kenneth Kincaid; "except that little piece of the same thing in Aspen Street." Kenneth had found out how Rosamond Holabird recognized Aspen Street as a piece of her world. Desire hated, as he spoke, her spitefulness last night; what she had said to herself of "so many Ruths;" why could not she not be pleased to come into this beautiful living and make a little part of it? She was pleased; she would be; she found it very easy when Kenneth said to her in that frank intimate way,--"I wish you and your mother would come over and see what Dorris will want, and help me a little about that room of hers. I told Miss Waite not to bother; just to let the old things stand,--I knew Dorris would like them,--and anything else I would get for her myself. I mean Dolly shall take a long vacation this year; from June right through to September; and its 'no end of jolly,' as those English fellows say, that you have come too!" Kenneth Kincaid was fresher and pleasanter and younger himself, than Desire had ever seen him before; he seemed to have forgotten that hard way of looking at the world; he had found something so undeniably good in it. I am afraid Desire had rather liked him for his carping, which was what he least of all deserved to be liked for. It showed how high and pure his demands were; but his praise and admissions were better; it is always better to discern good than to fret at the evil. "I shall see you every day," he said, when he shook hands at parting; "and Helena, if you want a squirrel to keep in your pocket next winter, I'll begin training one for you at once." He had taken them right to himself, as if they belonged to him; he spoke as if he were very glad that he should see them every day. Desire whistled over her unpacking; she could not sing, but she could whistle like a blackbird. When her father came up on Saturday night, he said that her eyes were brighter and her cheeks were rounder, for the country air; she would take to growing pretty instead of strong-minded, if she didn't look out. Kenneth came round on Monday, after tea, to ask them to go over to Miss Waite's and make acquaintance. "For you see," he said, "you will have to be very intimate there, and it is time to begin. It will take one call to be introduced, and another, at least, to get up-stairs and see that beautiful breezy old room that can't be lived in in winter, but is to be a delicious sort of camping-out for Dolly, all summer. It is all windows and squirrel-holes and doors that won't shut. Everything comes in but the rain; but the roof is tight on that corner. Even the woodbine has got tossed in through a broken upper pane, and I wouldn't have it mended on any account. There are swallows' nests in the chimneys, and wrens under the gable, and humming-birds in the honeysuckle. When Dolly gets there, it will be perfect. It just wants her to take it all right into her heart and make one piece of it. _They_ don't know,--the birds and the squirrels,--it takes the human. There has to be an Adam in every garden of Eden." Kenneth really chattered, from pure content and delight. It did not take two visits to get up-stairs. Miss Arabel met them heartily. She had been a shy, timid old lady, from long neglect and humble living; but lately she had "come out in society," Delia said. Society had come after her, and convinced her that she could make good times for it. She brought out currant wine and gave them, the first thing; and when Kenneth told her that they were his and Dorris's friends, and were coming next week to see about getting ready for her, she took them right round through all four of the ground rooms, to the queer corner staircase, and up into the "long west chamber," to show them what a rackety old place it was, and to see whether they supposed it could be made fit. "Why it's like the Romance of the Forest!" said Helena, delighted. "I wish _we_ had come here. Don't you have ghosts, or robbers, or something, up and down those stairs, Miss Waite?" For she had spied a door that led directly out of the room, from beside the chimney, up into the rambling old garret, smelling of pine boards and penny-royal. "No; nothing but squirrels and bees, and sometimes a bat," answered Miss Arabel. "Well, it doesn't want fixing. If you fix it, you will spoil it. I shall come here and sleep with Dorris,--see if I don't." The floor was bare, painted a dark, marbled gray. In the middle was a great braided rug, of blue and scarlet and black. The walls were pale gray, with a queer, stencilled scroll-and-dash border of vermilion and black paint. There was an old, high bedstead, with carved frame and posts, bare of drapery; an antiquated chest of drawers; and a half-circular table with tall, plain, narrow legs, between two of the windows. There was a corner cupboard, and a cupboard over the chimney. The doors of these, and the high wainscot around the room, were stained in old-fashioned "imitation mahogany," very streaky and red. The wainscot was so heavily finished that the edge running around the room might answer for a shelf. "Just curtains, and toilet covers, and a little low rocking chair," said Mrs. Ledwith. "That is all you want." "But the windows are so high," suggested Desire. "A low chair would bury her up, away from all the pleasantness. I'll tell you what I would have, Mr. Kincaid. A kind of dais, right across that corner, to take in two windows; with a carpet on it, and a chair, and a little table." "Just the thing!" said Kenneth. "That is what I wanted you for, Miss Desire," he said in a pleased, gentle way, lowering his tone to her especial hearing, as he stood beside her in the window. And Desire was very happy to have thought of it. Helena was spurred by emulation to suggest something. "I'd have a--hammock--somewhere," she said. "Good," said Kenneth. "That shall be out under the great butternut." The great butternut walled in one of the windows with a wilderness of green, and the squirrels ran chattering up and down the brown branches, and peeping in all day. In the autumn, when the nuts were ripe, they would be scrambling over the roof, and in under the eaves, to hide their stores in the garret, Miss Arabel told them. "Why doesn't everbody have an old house, and let the squirrels in?" cried Helena, in a rapture. In ten days more,--the first week of June,--Dorris came. Well,--"That let in all the rest," Helena said, and Desire, may be, thought. "We shan't have it to ourselves any more." The girls could all come down and call on Dorris Kincaid, and they did. But Desire and Helena had the first of it; nobody else went right up into her room; nobody else helped her unpack and settle. And she was so delighted with all that they had done for her. The dais was large enough for two or three to sit upon at once, and it was covered with green carpet of a small, mossy pattern, and the window was open into the butternut on one side, and into the honeysuckle on the other, and it was really a bower. "I shall live ten hours in one," said Dorris. "And you'll let me come and sleep with you some night, and hear the bats," said Helena. The Ledwiths made a good link; they had known the Kincaids so well; if it had been only Dorris, alone, with her brother there, the Westover girls might have been shy of coming often. Since Kenneth had been at Miss Waite's, they had already grown a little less free of the beautiful woods that they had just found out and begun fairly to enjoy last autumn. But the Ledwiths made a strong party; and they lived close by; there were plans continually. Since Leslie Goldthwaite and Barbara Holabird were married and gone, and the Roger Marchbankses were burned out, and had been living in the city and travelling, the Hobarts and the Haddens and Ruth and Rosamond and Pen Pennington had kept less to their immediate Westover neighborhood than ever; and had come down to Lucilla's, and to Maddy Freeman's, and the Inglesides, as often as they had induced them to go up to the Hill. Maud Marchbanks and the Hendees were civil and neighborly enough at home, but they did not care to "ramify." So it came to pass that they were left a good deal to themselves. Olivia and Adelaide, when they came up to Westover, to their uncle's, wondered "that papa cared to build again; there really wasn't anything to come for; West Hill was entirely changed." So it was; and a very good thing. I came across the other day, reading over Mr. Kingsley's "Two Years Ago," a true word as to social needs in England, that reminded me of this that the Holabirds and the Penningtons and the Inglesides have been doing, half unconsciously, led on from "next" to next, in Z----. Mr. Kingsley, after describing a Miss Heale, and others of her class,--the middle class, with no high social opportunities, and with time upon their hands, wasted often in false dreams of life and unsatisfied expectations, "bewildering heart and brain with novels," for want of a nobler companionship, says this: "Till in country villages, the ladies who interest themselves about the poor will recollect that the farmers' and tradesmens' daughters are just as much in want of their influence as the charity children and will yield a far richer return for their labor, so long will England be full of Miss Heales." If a kindly influence and fellowship are the duty of the aristocratic girls of England toward their "next," below, how far more false are American girls to the spirit of their country, and the blessed opportunities of republican sympathies and equalities, when they try to draw invisible lines between themselves and those whose outer station differs by but so little, and whose hearts and minds, under the like culture with their own, crave, just as they do, the best that human intercourse can give. Social science has something to do, before--or at least simultaneously with--reaching down to the depths where all the wrongs and blunders and mismanagements of life have precipitated their foul residuum. A master of one of our public schools, speaking of the undue culture of the brain and imagination, in proportion to the opportunities offered socially for living out ideas thus crudely gathered, said that his brightest girls were the ones who in after years, impatient of the little life gave them to satisfy the capacities and demands aroused and developed during the brief period of school life, and fed afterwards by their own ill-judged and ill-regulated reading, were found fallen into lives of vice. Have our women, old or young, who make and circumscribe the opportunities of social intercourse and enjoyment, nothing to search out here, and help, as well, or as soon as, to get their names put on committee lists, and manage these public schools themselves, which educate and stimulate up to the point of possible fierce temptation, and then have nothing more that they can do? It was a good thing for Desire Ledwith to grow intimate, as she did, with Rosamond Holabird. There were identical points of character between the two. They were both so real. "You don't want to _play_ anything," Barbara Holabird had said to Rosamond once, in some little discussion of social appearances and pretensions. "And that's the beauty of you!" It was the beauty of Desire Ledwith also; only, with Rosamond, her ambitions had clothed themselves with a grace and delicateness that would have their own perfect and thorough as far as it went; and with Desire, the same demands of true living had chafed into an impatience with shams and a blunt disregard of and resistance to all conventionalisms. "You are a good deal alike, you two," Kenneth Kincaid said to them one day, in a talk they all three happened to have together. And he had told Rosamond afterward that there was "something grand in Desire Ledwith; only grand things almost always have to grow with struggles." Rosamond had told this again to Desire. It was not much wonder that she began to be happier; to have a hidden comfort of feeling that perhaps the "waiting with all her might" was nearly over, and the "by and by" was blossoming for her, though the green leaves of her own shy sternness with herself folded close down about the sweetening place, and she never parted them aside to see where the fragrance came from. * * * * * They were going to have a grand, large, beautiful supper party in the woods. Mrs. Holabird and Mrs. Hobart were the matrons, and gave out the invitations. "I don't think I could possibly spend a Tuesday afternoon with a little 't,'" said Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks laughing, and tossing down poor, dear, good Mrs. Hobart's note upon her table. "It is _rather_ more than is to be expected!" "Doctor and Mrs. Hautayne are here, and Dakie Thayne is home from West Point. It will be rather a nice party." "The Holabirds seem to have got everything into their own hands," said Mrs. Marchbanks, haughtily. "It is always a pity when people take the lead who are not exactly qualified. Mrs. Holabird _will_ not discriminate!' "I think the Holabirds are splendid," spoke up Lily, "and I don't think there's any fun in sticking up by ourselves! I can't bear to be judicious!" Poor little Lily Marchbanks had been told a tiresome many times that she must be "judicious" in her intimacies. "You can be _pleasant_ to everybody," said mother and elder sister, with a salvo of Christian benignity. But it is so hard for little children to be pleasant with fence and limitation. "Where must I stop?" Lily had asked in her simplicity. "When they give me a piece of their luncheon, or when they walk home from school, or when they say they will come in a little while?" But there came a message back from Boston by the eleven o'clock train on the morning of the Tuesday with a little "t," from Mr. Marchbanks himself, to say that his brother and Mr. Geoffrey would come up with him to dinner, and to desire that carriages might be ready afterward for the drive over to Waite's grove. Mrs. Marchbanks marveled, but gave her orders. Arthur came out early, and brought with him his friend Archie Mucklegrand, and these two were bound also for the merry-making. Now Archie Mucklegrand was the identical youth of the lavender pantaloons and the waxed moustache, whom Desire, as "Miss Ledwith," had received in state a year and a half ago. So it was an imposing cavalcade, after all, from West Hill, that honored the very indiscriminate pleasure party, and came riding and driving in at about six o'clock. There were the barouche and the coupé; for the ladies and elder gentlemen, and the two young men accompanied them on horseback. Archie Mucklegrand had been at West Hill often before. He and Arthur had just graduated at Harvard, and the Holabirds had had cards to their grand spread on Class Day. Archie Mucklegrand had found out what a pretty girl--and a good deal more than merely pretty--Rosamond Holabird was; and although he might any day go over to his big, wild Highland estate, and take upon himself the glory of "Sir Archibald" there among the hills and moors,--and though any one of a good many pretty girls in Spreadsplendid Park and Republic Avenue might be induced, perhaps, if he tried, to go with him,--all this did not hinder him from perceiving that up here in Z---- was just the most bewitching companionship he had ever fallen in with, or might ever be able to choose for himself for any going or abiding; that Rosamond Holabird was just the brightest, and sweetest, and most to his mind of any girl that he had ever seen, and most like "the woman" that a man might dream of. I do not know that he quite said it all to himself in precisely that way; I am pretty sure that he did not, as yet; but whatever is off-hand and young-mannish and modern enough to express to one's self without "sposhiness" an admiration and a preference like that, he undoubtedly did say. At any rate after his Christmas at Z---- with Arthur, and some charade parties they had then at Westover, and after Class Day, when everybody had been furious to get an introduction, and all the Spreadsplendid girls and their mothers had been wondering who that Miss Holabird was and where she came from, and Madam Mucklegrand herself--not having the slightest recollection of her as the Miss Holabird of that early-morning business call, whose name she had just glanced at and dropped into an Indian china scrap-jar before she went down-stairs--had asked him the same questions, and pronounced that she was "an exceedingly graceful little person, certainly,"--after all this, Archie had made up his--mind, shall I say? at least his inclination, and his moustache--to pursue the acquaintance, and be as irresistible as he could. But Rosamond had learned--things do so play into our lives in a benign order--just before that Christmas time and those charades, in one of which Archie Mucklegrand had sung to her, so expressively, the "Birks of Aberfeldy,"--that Spreadsplendid Park was not, at least his corner of it,--a "piece of her world;" and she did not believe that Aberfeldy would be, either, though Archie's voice was beautiful, and-- "Bonnie lassie, will ye go?" sounded very enticing--in a charade. So she was quite calm when the Marchbanks party came upon the ground, and Archie Mucklegrand, with white trousers and a lavender tie, and the trim, waxed moustache, looking very handsome in spite of his dapperness, found her out in the first two minutes, and attached himself to her forthwith in a most undetachable and determined manner, which was his way of being irresistible. They were in the midst of their tea and coffee when the West Hill party came. Miss Arabel was busy at the coffee-table between the two oaks, pouring out with all her might, and creaming the fragrant cups with a rich lavishness that seemed to speak of milky mothers without number or limit of supply; and Rosamond, as the most natural and hospitable thing to do, conducted the young gentleman as soon as she could to that lady, and commended him to her good offices. These were not to be resisted; and as soon as he was occupied, Rosamond turned to attend to others coming up; and the groups shifting, she found herself presently a little way off, and meanwhile Mrs. Marchbanks and her son had reached the table and joined Archie. "I say, Arthur! O, Mrs. Marchbanks! You never got such coffee as this, I do believe! The open air has done something to it, or else the cream comes from some supernal cows! Miss Holabird!" Rosamond turned round. "I don't see,--Mrs. Marchbanks ought to have some of this coffee, but where is your good woman gone?" For Miss Arabel had stepped round behind the oak-tree for a moment, to see about some replenishing. In her prim, plain dress, utterly innocent of style or _bias_, and her zealous ministry, good Miss Arabel might easily be taken for some comfortable, superior old servant; but partly from a sudden sense of fun,--Mrs. Marchbanks standing there in all her elegant dignity,--and partly from a jealous chivalry of friendship, Rosamond would not let it pass so. "Good woman? Hush! she is one of our hostesses, the owner of the ground, and a dear friend of mine. Here she is. Miss Waite, let me introduce Mr. Archibald Mucklegrand. Mrs. Marchbanks will like some coffee, please." Which Mrs. Marchbanks took with a certain look of amazement, that showed itself subtilely in a slight straightening of the lips and an expansion of the nostrils. She did not _sniff_; she was a great deal too much a lady; she was Mrs. Marchbanks, but if she had been Mrs. Higgin, and had felt just so, she would have sniffed. Somebody came up close to Rosamond on the other side. "That was good," said Kenneth Kincaid. "Thank you for that, Miss Rosamond." "Will you have some more?" asked Rosamond, cunningly, pretending to misunderstand, and reaching her hand to take his empty cup. "One mustn't ask for all one would like," said Kenneth, relinquishing the cup, and looking straight in her eyes. Rosamond's eyes fell; she had no rejoinder ready; it was very well that she had the cup to take care of, and could turn away, for she felt a very foolish color coming up in her face. She made herself very busy among the guests. Archie Mucklegrand stayed by, and spoke to her every time he found a chance. At last, when people had nearly done eating and drinking, he asked her if she would not show him the path down to the river. "It must be beautiful down there under the slope," he said. She called Dorris and Desire, then, and Oswald Megilp, who was with them. He was spending a little time here at the Prendibles, with his boat on the river, as he had used to do. When he could take an absolute vacation, he was going away with a pedestrian party, among the mountains. There was not much in poor Oswald Megilp, but Desire and Rosamond were kind to him now that his mother was away. As they all walked down the bank among the close evergreens, they met Mr. Geoffrey and Mr. Marchbanks, with Kenneth Kincaid, coming up. Kenneth came last, and the two parties passed each other single file, in the narrow pathway. Kenneth paused as he came close to Rosamond, holding back a bough for her. "I have something very nice to tell you," he whispered, "by and by. But it is a secret, as yet. Please don't stay down there very long." Nobody heard the whisper but Rosamond; if they could have done so, he would not have whispered. Archie Mucklegrand was walking rather sulkily along before; he had not cared for a party to be made up when he asked Rosamond to go down to the river with him. Desire and Dorris had found some strange blossom among the underbrush, and were stopping for it; and Oswald Megilp was behind them. For a few seconds, Kenneth had Rosamond quite to himself. The slight delay had increased the separation between her and Archie Mucklegrand, for he had kept steadily on in his little huff. "I do not think we shall be long," said Rosamond, glancing after him, and looking up, with her eyes bright. She was half merry with mischief, and half glad with a quieter, deeper pleasure, at Kenneth's words. He would tell her something in confidence; something that he was glad of; he wanted her to know it while it was yet a secret; she had not the least guess what it could be; but it was very "nice" already. Rosamond always did rather like to be told things first; to have her friends confide in and consult with her, and rely upon her sympathy; she did not stop to separate the old feeling which she was quite aware of in herself, from something new that made it especially beautiful that Kenneth Kincaid should so confide and rely. Rosamond was likely to have more told her to-night than she quite dreamed of. "Desire!" They heard Mrs. Ledwith's voice far back among the trees. Desire answered. "I want you, dear!" "Something about shawls and baskets, I suppose," said Desire, turning round, perhaps a little the more readily that Kenneth was beside her now, going back also. Dorris and Oswald Megilp, finding there was a move to return, and being behind Desire in the pathway, turned also, as people will who have no especial motive for going one way rather than another; and so it happened that after all Rosamond and Archie Mucklegrand walked on down the bank to the river together, by themselves. Archie's good humor returned quickly. "I am glad they are gone; it was such a fuss having so many," he said. "We shall have to go back directly; they are beginning to break up," said Rosamond. And then, coming out to the opening by the water, she began to talk rather fast about the prettiness of the view, and to point out the bridge, and the mills, and the shadow of East Hill upon the water, and the curve of the opposite shore, and the dip of the shrubs and their arched reflections. She seemed quite determined to have all the talk to herself. Archie Mucklegrand played with his stick, and twisted the end of his moustache. Men never ought to allow themselves to learn that trick. It always comes back upon them when it makes them look most foolish. Archie said nothing, because there was so much he wanted to say, and he did not know how to begin. He knew his mother and sister would not like it,--as long as they could help it, certainly,--therefore he had suddenly made up his mind that there should be no such interval. He could do as he pleased; was he not Sir Archibald? And there was his Boston grandfather's property, too, of which a large share had been left outright to him; and he had been twenty-one these six months. There was nothing to hinder; and he meant to tell Rosamond Holabird that he liked her better than any other girl in the world. Somebody else would be telling her so, if he didn't; he could see how they all came round her; perhaps it might be that tall, quiet, cheeky looking fellow,--that Kincaid. He would be before him, at any rate. So he stood and twisted his moustache, and said nothing,--nothing, I mean, except mere little words of assent and echo to Rosamond's chatter about the pretty view. At last,--"You are fond of scenery, Miss Holabird?" Rosamond laughed. "O yes, I suppose I am; but we don't call this scenery. It is just pleasantness,--beauty. I don't think I quite like the word 'scenery.' It seems artificial,--got up for outside effect. And the most beautiful things do not speak from the outside, do they? I never travelled, Mr. Mucklegrand. I have just lived here, until I have lived _into_ things, or they into me. I rather think it is travelling, skimming about the world in a hurry, that makes people talk about 'scenery.' Isn't it?" "I dare say. I don't care for skimming, myself. But I like to go to nice places, and stay long enough to get into them, as you say. I mean to go to Scotland next year. I've a place there among the hills and lochs, Miss Rosamond." "Yes. I have heard so. I should think you would wish to go and see it." "I'll tell you what I wish, Miss Holabird!" he said suddenly, letting go his moustache, and turning round with sufficient manfulness, and facing her. "I suppose there is a more gradual and elegant way of saying it; but I believe straightforward is as good as any. I wish you cared for me as I care for you, and then you would go with me." Rosamond was utterly confounded. She had not imagined that it could be hurled at her, this fashion; she thought she could parry and put aside, if she saw anything coming. She was bewildered and breathless with the shock of it; she could only blindly, and in very foolish words, hurl it back. "O, dear, no!" she exclaimed, her face crimson. "I mean--I don't--I couldn't! I beg your pardon, Mr. Mucklegrand; you are very good; I am very sorry; but I wish you hadn't said so. We had better go back." "No," said Archie Mucklegrand, "not yet. I've said it now. I said it like a moon calf, but I mean it like a man. Won't you--can't you--be my wife, Rosamond? I must know that." "No, Mr. Mucklegrand," answered Rosamond, quite steadily now and gently. "I could not be. We were never meant for each other. You will think so yourself next year,--by the time you go to Scotland." "I shall never think so." Of course he said that; young men always do; they mean it at the moment, and nothing can persuade them otherwise. "I told you I had lived right here, and grown into these things, and they into me," said Rosamond, with a sweet slow earnestness, as if she thought out while she explained it; and so she did; for the thought and meaning of her life dawned upon her with a new perception, as she stood at this point and crisis of it in the responsibility of her young womanhood. "And these, and all the things that have influenced me, have given my life its direction; and I can see clearly that it was never meant to be your way. I do not know what it will be; but I know yours is different. It would be wrenching mine to turn it so." "But I would turn mine for you," said Archie. "You couldn't. Lives _grow_ together. They join beforehand, if they join at all. You like me, perhaps,--just what you see of me; but you do not know me, nor I you. If it--this--were meant, we should." "Should what?" "Know. Be sure." "I am sure of what I told you." "And I thank you very much; but I do not--I never could--belong to you." What made Rosamond so wise about knowing and belonging? She could not tell, herself; she had never thought it out before; but she seemed to see it very clearly now. She did not belong to Archie Mucklegrand, nor he to her; he was mistaken; their lives had no join; to make them join would be a force, a wrenching. Archie Mucklegrand did not care to have it put on such deep ground. He liked Rosamond; he wanted her to like him; then they should be married, of coarse, and go to Scotland, and have a good time; but this quiet philosophy cooled him somewhat. As they walked up the bank together, he wondered at himself a little that he did not feel worse about it. If she had been coquettish, or perverse, she might have been all the more bewitching to him. If he had thought she liked somebody else better, he might have been furiously jealous; but "her way of liking a fellow would be a slow kind of a way, after all." That was the gist of his thought about it; and I believe that to many very young men, at the age of waxed moustaches and German dancing, that "slow kind of a way" in a girl is the best possible insurance against any lasting damage that their own enthusiasm might suffer. He had not been contemptible in the offering of his love; his best had come out at that moment; if it does not come out then, somehow,--through face and tone, in some plain earnestness or simple nobleness, if not in fashion of the spoken word as very well it may not,--it must be small best that the man has in him. Rosamond's simple saying of the truth, as it looked to her in that moment of sure insight, was the best help she could have given him. Truth is always the best help. He did not exactly understand the wherefore, as she understood it; but the truth touched him nevertheless, in the way that he could perceive. They did not "belong" to each other. And riding down in the late train that evening, Archie Mucklegrand said to himself, drawing a long breath,--"It would have been an awful tough little joke, after all, telling it to the old lady!" "Are you too tired to walk home?" Kenneth Kincaid asked of Rosamond, helping her put the baskets in the carriage. Dakie Thayne had asked Ruth the same question five minutes before, and they two had gone on already. Are girls ever too tired to walk home after a picnic, when the best of the picnic is going to walk home with them? Of course Rosamond was not too tired; and Mrs. Holabird had the carryall quite to herself and her baskets. They took the River Road, that was shady all the way, and sweet now with the dropping scents of evening; it was a little longer, too, I think, though that is one of the local questions that have never yet been fully decided. "How far does Miss Waite's ground run along the river?" asked Kenneth, taking Rosamond's shawl over his arm. "Not far; it only just touches; it runs back and broadens toward the Old Turnpike. The best of it is in those woods and pastures." "So I thought. And the pastures are pretty much run out." "I suppose so. They are full of that lovely gray crackling moss." "Lovely for picnics. Don't you think Miss Waite would like to sell?" "Yes, indeed, if she could. That is her dream; what she has been laying up for her old age: to turn the acres into dollars, and build or buy a little cottage, and settle down safe. It is all she has in the world, except her dressmaking." "Mr. Geoffrey and Mr. Marchbanks want to buy. They will offer her sixteen thousand dollars. That is the secret,--part of it." "O, Mr. Kincaid! How glad,--how _sorry_, I can't help being, too! Miss Waite to be so comfortable! And never to have her dear old woods to picnic in any more! I suppose they want to make streets and build it all up." "Not all. I'll tell you. It is a beautiful plan. Mr. Geoffrey wants to build a street of twenty houses,--ten on a side,--with just a little garden plot for each, and leave the woods behind for a piece of nature for the general good,--a real Union Park; a place for children to play in, and grown folks to rest and walk and take tea in, if they choose; but for nobody to change or meddle with any further. And these twenty houses to be let to respectable persons of small means, at rents that will give him seven per cent, for his whole outlay. Don't you see? Young people, and people like Miss Waite herself, who don't want _much_ house-room, but who want it nice and comfortable, and will keep it so, and who _do_ want a little of God's world-room to grow in, that they can't get in the crowded town streets, where the land is selling by the foot to be all built over with human packing-cases, and where they have to pay as much for being shut up and smothered, as they will out here to live and breathe. That Mr. Geoffrey is a glorious man, Rosamond! He is doing just this same thing in the edges of three or four other towns, buying up the land just before it gets too dear, to save for people who could not save it for themselves. He is providing for a class that nobody seems to have thought of,--the nice, narrow-pursed people, and the young beginners, who get married and take the world in the old-fashioned way." He had no idea he had called her "Rosamond," till he saw the color shining up so in her face verifying the name. Then it flashed out upon him as he sent his thought back through the last few sentences that he had spoken. "I beg your pardon," he said, suddenly. "But I was so full of this beautiful doing,--and I always think of you so! Is there a sin in that?" Rosamond colored deeper yet, and Kenneth grew more bold. He had spoken it without plan; it had come of itself. "I can't help it now. I shall say it again, unless you tell me not! Rosamond! I shall have these houses to build. I am getting ever so much to do. Could you begin the world with me, Rosamond?" Rosamond did not say a word for a full minute. She only walked slowly by his side, her beautiful head inclined gently, shyly; her sweet face all one bloom, as faces never bloom but once. Then she turned toward him and put out her hand. "I will begin the world with you," she said. And their world--that was begun for them before they were born--lifted up its veil and showed itself to them, bright in the eternal morning. * * * * * Desire Ledwith walked home all alone. She left Dorris at Miss Waite's, and Helena had teased to stay with her. Mrs. Ledwith had gone home among the first, taking a seat offered her in Mrs. Tom Friske's carriage to East Square; she had a headache, and was tired. Desire felt the old, miserable questions coming up, tempting her. Why? Why was she left out,--forgotten? Why was there nothing, very much, in any of this, for her? Yet underneath the doubting and accusing, something lived--stayed by--to rebuke it; rose up above it finally, and put it down, though with a thrust that hurt the heart in which the doubt was trampled. Wait. Wait--with all your might! Desire could do nothing very meekly; but she could even _wait_ with all her might. She put her foot down with a will, at every step. "I was put here to be Desire Ledwith," she said, relentlessly, to herself; "not Rosamond Holabird, nor even Dolly. Well, I suppose I can stay put, and _be_! If things would only _let_ me be!" But they will not. Things never do, Desire. They are coming, now, upon you. Hard things,--and all at once. XVIII. ALL AT ONCE. There was a Monday morning train going down from Z----. Mr. Ledwith and Kenneth Kincaid were in it, reading the morning papers, seated side by side. It was nearly a week since the picnic, but the engagement of Rosamond and Kenneth had not transpired. Mr. Holabird had been away in New York. Of course nothing was said beyond Mrs. Holabird and Ruth and Dolly Kincaid, until his return. But Kenneth carried a happy face about with him, in the streets and in the cars and about his work; and his speech was quick and bright with the men he met and had need to speak to. It almost told itself; people might have guessed it, if they had happened, at least to see the _two_ faces in the same day, and if they were alive to sympathetic impressions of other people's pain or joy. There are not many who stop to piece expressions, from pure sympathy, however; they are, for the most part, too busy putting this and that together for themselves. Desire would have guessed it in a minute; but she saw little of either in this week. Mrs. Ledwith was not well, and there was a dress to be made for Helena. Kenneth Kincaid's elder men friends said of him, when they saw him in these days, "That's a fine fellow; he is doing very well." They could read that; he carried it in his eye and in his tone and in his step, and it was true. It was a hot morning; it would be a stifling day in the city. They sat quiet while they could, in the cars, taking the fresh air of the fields and the sea reaches, reading the French news, and saying little. They came almost in to the city terminus, when the train stopped. Not at a station. There were people to alight at the last but one; these grew impatient after a few minutes, and got out and walked. The train still waited. Mr. Ledwith finished a column he was reading, and then looked up, as the conductor came along the passage. "What is the delay?" he asked of him. "Freight. Got such a lot of it. Takes a good while to handle." Freight outward bound. A train making up. Mr. Ledwith turned to his newspaper again. Ten minutes went by. Kenneth Kincaid got up and went out, like many others. They might be kept there half an hour. Mr. Ledwith had read all his paper, and began to grow impatient. He put his head out at the window, and looked and listened. Half the passengers were outside. Brake-men were walking up and down. "Has he got a flag out there?" says the conductor to one of these. "Don't know. Can't see. Yes, he has; I heard him whistle brakes." Just then, their own bell sounded, and men jumped on board. Kenneth Kincaid came back to his seat. Behind, there was a long New York train coming in. Mr. Ledwith put his head out again, and looked back. All right; there had been a flag; the train had slackened just beyond a curve. But why will people do such things? What is the use of asking? Mr. Ledwith still looked out; he could not have told you why. A quicker motion; a darkening of the window; a freight car standing upon a siding, close to the switch, as they passed by; a sudden, dull blow, half unheard in the rumble of the train. Women, sitting behind, sprang up,--screamed; one dropped, fainting: they had seen a ghastly sight; warm drops of blood flew in upon them; the car was in commotion. Kenneth Kincaid, with an exclamation of horror, clutched hold of a lifeless body that fell--was thrust--backward beside him; the poor head fractured, shattered, against the fatal window frame. * * * * * The eleven o'clock train came out. People came up the street,--a group of gentlemen, three or four,--toward Mr. Prendible's house. Desire sat in a back window behind the blinds, busy. Mrs. Ledwith was lying on the bed. Steps came in at the house door. There was an exclamation; a hush. Mr. Prendible's voice, Kenneth Kincaid's, Mr. Dimsey's, the minister's. "O! How? "--Mrs. Prendible's voice, now. "Take care!" "Where are they?" Mrs. Ledwith heard. "What is the matter?"--springing up, with a sudden instinct of precognition. Desire had not seen or heard till now. She dropped her work. "What is it, mother?" Mrs. Ledwith was up, upon the floor; in the doorway out in the passage; trembling; seized all over with a horrible dread and vague knowledge. "_Tell_ me what it is!" she cried, to those down below. They were all there upon the staircase; Mrs. Prendible furthest up. "O, Mrs. Ledwith!" she cried. "_Don't_ be frightened! _Don't_ take on! Take it easy,--do!" Desire rushed down among them; past Mrs. Prendible, past the minister, straight to Kenneth Kincaid. Kenneth took her right in his arms, and carried her into a little room below. "There could have been no pain," he said, tenderly. "It was the accident of a moment. Be strong,--be patient, dear!" There had been tender words natural to his lips lately. It was not strange that in his great pity he used them now. "My father!" gasped Desire. "Yes; your father. It was our Father's will." "Help me to go to my mother!" She took his hand, half blind, almost reeling. And then they all, somehow, found themselves up-stairs. There were moans of pain; there were words of prayer. We have no right there. It is all told. * * * * * "Be strong,--be patient, dear!" It came back, in the midst of the darkness, the misery; it helped her through those days; it made her strong for her mother. It comforted her, she hardly knew how much; but O, how cruel it seemed afterward! They went directly down to Boston. Mr. Ledwith was buried from their own house. It was all over; and now, what should they do? Uncle Titus came to see them. Mrs. Ripwinkley came right back from Homesworth. Dorris Kincaid left her summer-time all behind, and came to stay with them a week in Shubarton Place. Mrs. Ledwith craved companionship; her elder daughters were away; there were these five weeks to go by until she could hear from them. She would not read their letters that came now, full of chat and travel. Poor Laura! her family scattered; her dependence gone; her life all broken down in a moment! Dorris Kincaid did not speak of Kenneth and Rosamond. How could she bring news of others' gladness into that dim and sorrowful house? Luclarion Grapp shut up her rooms, left her plants and her birds with Mrs. Gallilee, and came up to Shubarton Place in the beginning. There were no servants there; everything was adrift; the terrible blows of life take people between the harness, most unprovided, unawares. It was only for a little while, until they could hear from the girls, and make plans. Grant Ledwith's income died with him; there was ten thousand dollars, life insurance; that would give them a little more than a sixth part of what his salary had been; and there were the two thousand a year of Uncle Titus; and the house, on which there was a twelve thousand dollar mortgage. Mrs. Ledwith had spent her life in cutting and turning and planning; after the first shock was over, even her grief was counterpoised and abated, by the absorption of her thoughts into the old channels. What they should do, how they should live, what they could have; how it should be contrived and arranged. Her mind busied itself with all this, and her trouble was veiled,--softened. She had a dozen different visions and schemes, projected into their details of residence, establishment, dress, ordering,--before the letters came, bringing back the first terribleness in the first reception of and response to it, of her elder children. It was so awful to have them away,--on the other side of the world! If they were only once all together again! Families ought not to separate. But then, it had been for their good; how could she have imagined? She supposed she should have done the same again, under the same circumstances. And then came Mrs. Megilp's letter, delayed a mail, as she would have delayed entering the room, if they had been rejoined in their grief, until the family had first been gathered together with their tears and their embraces. Then she wrote,--as she would have come in; and her letter, as her visit would have been, was after a few words of tender condolence,--and they were very sweet and tender, for Mrs. Megilp knew how to lay phrases like illuminating gold-leaf upon her meaning,--eminently practical and friendly, full of judicious, not to say mitigating, suggestions. It was well, she thought, that Agatha and Florence were with her. They had been spared so much; and perhaps if all this had happened first, they might never have come. As to their return, she thought it would be a pity; "it could not make it really any better for you," she said; "and while your plans are unsettled, the fewer you are, the more easily you will manage. It seems hard to shadow their young lives more than is inevitable; and new scenes and interests are the very best things for them; their year of mourning would be fairly blotted out at home, you know. For yourself, poor friend, of course you cannot care; and Desire and Helena are not much come forward, but it would be a dead blank and stop to them, so much lost, right out; and I feel as if it were a kind Providence for the dear girls that they should be just where they are. We are living quietly, inexpensively; it will cost no more to come home at one time than at another;" etc. There are persons to whom the pastime of life is the whole business of it; sickness and death and misfortune,--to say nothing of cares and duties--are the interruptions, to be got rid of as they may. The next week came more letters; they had got a new idea out there. Why should not Mrs. Ledwith and the others come and join them? They were in Munich, now; the schools were splendid; would be just the thing for Helena; and "it was time for mamma to have a rest." This thought, among the dozen others, had had its turn in Mrs. Ledwith's head. To break away, and leave everything, that is the impulse of natures like hers when things go hard and they cannot shape them. Only to get off; if she could do that! Meanwhile, it was far different with Desire. She was suffering with a deeper pain; not with a sharper loss, for she had seen so little of her father; but she looked in and back, and thought of what she _ought_ to miss, and what had never been. She ought to have known her father better; his life ought to have been more to her; was it her fault, or, harder yet, had it been his? This is the sorest thrust of grief; when it is only shock, and pity, and horror, and after these go by, not grief enough! The child wrestled with herself, as she always did, questioning, arraigning. If she could make it all right, in the past, and now; if she could feel that all she had to do was to be tenderly sorry, and to love on through the darkness, she would not mind the dark; it would be only a phase of the life,--the love. But to have lived her life so far, to have had the relations of it, and yet _not_ to have lived it, not to have been real child, real sister, not to be real stricken daughter now, tasting the suffering just as God made it to be tasted,--was she going through all things, even this, in a vain shadow? _Would_ not life touch her? She went away back, strangely, and asked whether she had had any business to be born? Whether it were a piece of God's truth at all, that she and all of them should be, and call themselves a household,--a home? The depth, the beauty of it were so unfulfilled! What was wrong, and how far back? Living in the midst of superficialities; in the noontide of a day of shams; putting her hands forth and grasping, almost everywhere, nothing but thin, hard surface,--she wondered how much of the world was real; how many came into the world where, and as, God meant them to come. What it was to "climb up some other way into the sheepfold," and to be a thief and a robber, even of life! These were strange thoughts. Desire Ledwith was a strange girl. But into the midst there crept one comfort; there was one glimpse out of the darkness into the daylight. Kenneth Kincaid came in often to see them,--to inquire; just now he had frequent business in the city; he brought ferns and flowers, that Dorris gathered and filled into baskets, fresh and damp with moss. Dorris was a dear friend; she dwelt in the life and the brightness; she reached forth and gathered, and turned and ministered again. The ferns and flowers were messages; leaves out of God's living Word, that she read, found precious, and sent on; apparitions, they seemed standing forth to sense, and making sweet, true signs from the inner realm of everlasting love and glory. And Kenneth,--Desire had never lost out of her heart those words,--"Be strong,--be patient, dear!" He did not speak to her of himself; he could not demand congratulation from her grief; he let it be until she should somehow learn, and of her own accord, speak to him. So everybody let her alone, poor child, to her hurt. The news of the engagement was no Boston news; it was something that had occurred, quietly enough, among a few people away up in Z----. Of the persons who came in,--the few remaining in town,--nobody happened to know or care. The Ripwinkleys did, of course; but Mrs. Ripwinkley remembered last winter, and things she had read in Desire's unconscious, undisguising face, and aware of nothing that could be deepening the mischief now, thinking only of the sufficient burden the poor child had to bear, thought kindly, "better not." Meanwhile Mrs. Ledwith was dwelling more and more upon the European plan. She made up her mind, at last, to ask Uncle Titus. When all was well, she would not seem to break a compact by going away altogether, so soon, to leave him; but now,--he would see the difference; perhaps advise it. She would like to know what he would advise. After all that had happened,--everything so changed,--half her family abroad,--what could she do? Would it not be more prudent to join them, than to set up a home again without them, and keep them out there? And all Helena's education to provide for, and everything so cheap and easy there, and so dear and difficult here? "Now, tell me, truly, uncle, should you object? Should you take it at all hard? I never meant to have left you, after all you have done; but you see I have to break up, now poor Grant is gone; we cannot live as we did before, even with what you do; and--for a little while--it is cheaper there; and by and by we can come back and make some other plan. Besides, I feel sometimes as if I _must_ go off; as if there weren't anything left here for me." Poor woman! poor _girl_, still,--whose life had never truly taken root! "I suppose," said Uncle Titus, soberly, "that God shines all round. He's on this side as much as He is on that." Mrs. Ledwith looked up out of her handkerchief, with which at that moment she had covered her eyes. "I never knew Uncle Titus was pious!" she said to herself. And her astonishment dried her tears. He said nothing more that was pious, however; he simply assured her, then and in conversations afterward, that he should take nothing "hard;" he never expected to bind her, or put her on parole; he chose to come to know his relatives, and he had done so; he had also done what seemed to him right, in return for their meeting him half way; they were welcome to it all, to take it and use it as they best could, and as circumstances and their own judgment dictated. If they went abroad, he should advise them to do it before the winter. These words implied consent, approval. Mrs. Ledwith went up-stairs after them with a heart so much lightened that she was very nearly cheerful. There would be a good deal to do now, and something to look forward to; the old pulses of activity were quickened. She could live with those faculties that had been always vital in her, as people breathe with one live lung; but trouble and change had wrought in her no deeper or further capacity; had wakened nothing that had never been awake before. The house and furniture were to be sold; they would sail in September. When Desire perceived that it was settled, she gave way; she had said little before; her mother had had many plans, and they amused her; she would not worry her with opposition; and besides, she was herself in a secret dream of a hope half understood. It happened that she told it to Kenneth Kincaid herself; she saw almost every one who came, instead of her mother; Mrs. Ledwith lived in her own room chiefly. This was the way in which it had come about, that nobody noticed or guessed how it was with Desire, and what aspect Kenneth's friendship and kindness, in the simple history of those few weeks, might dangerously grow to bear with her. Except one person. Luclarion Grapp, at last, made up her mind. Kenneth heard what Desire told him, as he heard all she ever had to tell, with a gentle interest; comforted her when she said she could not bear to go, with the suggestion that it might not be for very long; and when she looked up in his face with a kind of strange, pained wonder, and repeated,-- "But I cannot _bear_,--I tell you, I cannot _bear_ to go!" he answered,-- "One can bear all that is right; and out of it the good will come that we do not know. All times go by. I am sorry--very sorry--that you must go; but there will be the coming back. We must all wait for that." She did not know what she looked for; she did not know what she expected him to mean; she expected nothing; the thought of his preventing it in any way never entered into her head; she knew, if she _had_ thought, how he himself was waiting, working. She only wanted him to _care_. Was this caring? Much? She could not tell. "We never can come _back_," she said, impetuously. "There will be all the time--everything--between." He almost spoke to her of it, then; he almost told her that the everything might be more, not less; that friendships gathered, multiplied; that there would be one home, he hoped, in which, by and by, she would often be; in which she would always be a dear and welcome comer. But she was so sad, so tried; his lips were held; in his pure, honest kindness, he never dreamt of any harm that his silence might do; it only seemed so selfish to tell her how bright it was with him. So he said, smiling,-- "And who knows what the 'everything' may be?" And he took both her hands in his as he said good-by,--for his little stops were of minutes on his way, always,--and held them fast, and looked warmly, hopefully into her face. It was all for her,--to give her hope and courage; but the light of it was partly kindled by his own hope and gladness that lay behind; and how could she know that, or read it right? It was at once too much, and not enough, for her. Five minutes after, Luclarion Grapp went by the parlor door with a pile of freshly ironed linen in her arms, on her way up-stairs. Desire lay upon the sofa, her face down upon the pillow; her arms were thrown up, and her hands clasped upon the sofa-arm; her frame shook with sobs. Luclarion paused for the time of half a step; then she went on. She said to herself in a whisper, as she went,-- "It is a stump; a proper hard one! But there's nobody else; and I have got to tell her!" * * * * * That evening, under some pretense of clean towels, Luclarion came up into Desire's room. She was sitting alone, by the window, in the dark. Luclarion fussed round a little; wiped the marble slab and the basin; set things straight; came over and asked Desire if she should not put up the window-bars, and light the gas. "No," said Desire. "I like this best." So did Luclarion. She had only said it to make time. "Desire," she said,--she never put the "Miss" on, she had been too familiar all her life with those she was familiar with at all,--"the fact is I've got something to say, and I came up to say it." She drew near--came close,--and laid her great, honest, faithful hand on the back of Desire Ledwith's chair, put the other behind her own waist, and leaned over her. "You see, I'm a woman, Desire, and I know. You needn't mind me, I'm an old maid; that's the way I do know. Married folks, even mothers, half the time forget. But old maids never forget. I've had my stumps, and I can see that you've got yourn. But you'd ought to understand; and there's nobody, from one mistake and another, that's going to tell you. It's awful hard; it will be a trouble to you at first,"--and Luclarion's strong voice trembled tenderly with the sympathy that her old maid heart had in it, after, and because of, all those years,--"but Kenneth Kincaid"-- "_What_!" cried Desire, starting to her feet, with a sudden indignation. "Is going to be married to Rosamond Holabird," said Luclarion, very gently. "There! you ought to know, and I have told you." "What makes you suppose that that would be a trouble to me?" blazed Desire. "How do you dare"-- "I didn't dare; but I had to!" sobbed Luclarion, putting her arms right round her. And then Desire--as she would have done at any rate, for that blaze was the mere flash of her own shame and pain--broke down with a moan. "All at once! All at once!" she said piteously, and hid her face in Luclarion's bosom. And Luclarion folded her close; hugged her, the good woman, in her love that was sisterly and motherly and all, because it was the love of an old maid, who had endured, for a young maid upon whom the endurance was just laid,--and said, with the pity of heaven in the words,-- "Yes. All at once. But the dear Lord stands by. Take hold of His hand,--and bear with all your might!" XIX. INSIDE. "Do you think, Luclarion," said Desire, feebly, as Luclarion came to take away her bowl of chicken broth,--"that it is my _duty_ to go with mamma?" "I don't know," said Luclarion, standing with the little waiter in her right hand, her elbow poised upon her hip,--"I've thought of that, and I _don't_ know. There's most generally a stump, you see, one way or another, and that settles it, but here there's one both ways. I've kinder lost my road: come to two blazes, and can't tell which. Only, it ain't my road, after all. It lays between the Lord and you, and I suppose He means it shall. Don't you worry; there'll be some sort of a sign, inside or out. That's His business, you've just got to keep still, and get well." Desire had asked her mother, before this, if she would care very much,--no, she did not mean that,--if she would be disappointed, or disapprove, that she should stay behind. "Stay behind? Not go to Europe? Why, where _could_ you stay? What would you do?" "There would be things to do, and places to stay," Desire had answered, constrainedly. "I could do like Dorris." "Teach music!" "No. I don't know music. But I might teach something I do know. Or I could--rip," she said, with an odd smile, remembering something she had said one day so long ago; the day the news came up to Z---- from Uncle Oldways. "And I might make out to put together for other people, and for a real business. I never cared to do it just for myself." "It is perfectly absurd," said Mrs Ledwith. "You couldn't be left to take care of yourself. And if you could, how it would look! No; of course you must go with us." "But do you _care_?" "Why, if there were any proper way, and if you really hate so to go,--but there isn't," said Mrs. Ledwith, not very grammatically or connectedly. "She _doesn't_ care," said Desire to herself, after her mother had left her, turning her face to the pillow, upon which two tears ran slowly down. "And that is my fault, too, I suppose. I have never been _anything_!" Lying there, she made up her mind to one thing. She would get Uncle Titus to come, and she would talk to him. "He won't encourage me in any notions," she said to herself. "And I mean now, if I can find it out, to do the thing God means; and then I suppose,--I _believe_,--the snarl will begin to unwind." Meanwhile, Luclarion, when she had set a nice little bowl of tea-muffins to rise, and had brought up a fresh pitcher of ice-water into Desire's room, put on her bonnet and went over to Aspen Street for an hour. Down in the kitchen, at Mrs. Ripwinkley's, they were having a nice time. Their girl had gone. Since Luclarion left, they had fallen into that Gulf-stream which nowadays runs through everybody's kitchen. Girls came, and saw, and conquered in their fashion; they muddled up, and went away. The nice times were in the intervals when they _had_ gone away. Mrs. Ripwinkley did not complain; it was only her end of the "stump;" why should she expect to have a Luclarion Grapp to serve her all her life? This last girl had gone as soon as she found out that Sulie Praile was "no relation, and didn't anyways belong there, but had been took in." She "didn't go for to come to work in an _Insecution_. She had always been used to first-class private families." Girls will not stand any added numbers, voluntarily assumed, or even involuntarily befalling; they will assist in taking up no new responsibilities; to allow things to remain as they are, and cannot help being, is the depth of their condescension,--the extent of what they will put up with. There must be a family of some sort, of course, or there would not be a "place;" that is what the family is made for; but it must be established, no more to fluctuate; that is, you may go away, some of you, if you like, or you may die; but nobody must come home that has been away, and nobody must be born. As to anybody being "took in!" Why, the girl defined it; it was not being a family, but an _Insecution_. So the three--Diana, and Hazel, and Sulie--were down in the kitchen; Mrs. Ripwinkley was busy in the dining-room close by; there was a berry-cake to be mixed up for an early tea. Diana was picking over the berries, Hazel was chopping the butter into the flour, and Sulie on a low cushioned seat in a corner--there was one kept ready for her in every room in the house, and Hazel and Diana carried her about in an "arm-chair," made of their own clasped hands and wrists, wherever they all wanted to go,--Sulie was beating eggs. Sulie did that so patiently; you see she had no temptation to jump up and run off to anything else. The eggs turned, under her fingers, into thick, creamy, golden froth, fine to the last possible divisibility of the little air-bubbles. They could not do without Sulie now. They had had her for "all winter;" but in that winter she had grown into their home. "Why," said Hazel to her mother, when they had the few words about it that ended in there being no more words at all,--"that's the way children are _born_ into houses, isn't it? They just come; and they're new and strange at first, and seem so queer. And then after a while you can't think how the places were, and they not in them. Sulie belongs, mother!" So Sulie beat eggs, and darned stockings, and painted her lovely little flower-panels and racks and easels, and did everything that could be done, sitting still in her round chair, or in the cushioned corners made for her; and was always in the kitchen, above all, when any pretty little cookery was going forward. Vash ran in and out from the garden, and brought balsamine blossoms, from which she pulled the little fairy slippers, and tried to match them in pairs; and she picked off the "used-up and puckered-up" morning glories, which she blew into at the tube-end, and "snapped" on the back of her little brown hand. Wasn't that being good for anything, while berry-cake was making? The girls thought it was; as much as the balsamine blossoms were good for anything, or the brown butterflies with golden spots on their wings, that came and lived among them. The brown butterflies were a "piece of the garden;" little brown Vash was a piece of the house. Besides, she would eat some of the berry-cake when it was made; wasn't that worth while? She would have a "little teenty one" baked all for herself in a tin pepper-pot cover. Isn't that the special pleasantness of making cakes where little children are? Vash was always ready for an "Aaron," too; they could not do without her, any more than without Sulie. Pretty soon, when Diana should have left school, and Vash should be a little bigger, they meant to "coöperate," as the Holabirds had done at Westover. Of course, they knew a great deal about the Holabirds by this time. Hazel had stayed a week with Dorris at Miss Waite's; and one of Witch Hazel's weeks among "real folks" was like the days or hours in fairy land, that were years on the other side. She found out so much and grew so close to people. Hazel and Ruth Holabird were warm friends. And Hazel was to be Ruth's bridesmaid, by and by! For Ruth Holabird was going to be married to Dakie Thayne. "That seemed so funny," Hazel said. "Ruth didn't _look_ any older than she did; and Mr. Dakie Thayne was such a nice boy!" He was no less a man, either; he had graduated among the first three at West Point; he was looking earnestly for the next thing that he should do in life with his powers and responsibilities; he did not count his marrying a _separate_ thing; that had grown up alongside and with the rest; of course he could do nothing without Ruth; that was just what he had told her; and she,--well Ruth was always a sensible little thing, and it was just as plain to her as it was to him. Of course she must help him think and plan; and when the plans were made, it would take two to carry them out; why, yes, they must be married. What other way would there be? That wasn't what she _said_, but that was the quietly natural and happy way in which it grew to be a recognized thing in her mind, that pleasant summer after he came straight home to them with his honors and his lieutenant's commission in the Engineers; and his hearty, affectionate taking-for-granted; and it was no surprise or question with her, only a sure and very beautiful "rightness," when it came openly about. Dakie Thayne was a man; the beginning of a very noble one; but it is the noblest men that always keep a something of the boy. If you had not seen anything more of Dakie Thayne until he should be forty years old, you would then see something in him which would be precisely the same that it was at Outledge, seven years ago, with Leslie Goldthwaite, and among the Holabirds at Westover, in his first furlough from West Point. Luclarion came into the Ripwinkley kitchen just as the cakes--the little pepper-pot one and all--were going triumphantly into the oven, and Hazel was baring her little round arms to wash the dishes, while Diana tended the pans. Mrs. Ripwinkley heard her old friend's voice, and came out. "That girl ought to be here with you; or somewheres else than where she is, or is likely to be took," said Luclarion, as she looked round and sat down, and untied her bonnet-strings. Miss Grapp hated bonnet-strings; she never endured them a minute longer than she could help. "Desire?" asked Mrs. Ripwinkley, easily comprehending. "Yes; Desire. I tell you she has a hard row to hoe, and she wants comforting. She wants to know if it is her duty to go to Yourup with her mother. Now it may be her duty to be _willing_ to go; but it ain't anybody's else duty to let her. That's what came to me as I was coming along. I couldn't tell _her_ so, you see, because it would interfere with her part; and that's all in the tune as much as any; only we've got to chime in with our parts at the right stroke, the Lord being Leader. Ain't that about it, Mrs. Ripwinkley?" "If we are sure of the score, and can catch the sign," said Mrs. Ripwinkley, thoughtfully. "Well, I've sung mine; it's only one note; I may have to keep hammering on it; that's according to how many repeats there are to be. Mr. Oldways, he ought to know, for one. Amongst us, we have got to lay our heads together, and work it out. She's a kind of an odd chicken in that brood; and my belief is she's like the ugly duck Hazel used to read about. But she ought to have a chance; if she's a swan, she oughtn't to be trapesed off among the weeds and on the dry ground. 'Tisn't even ducks she's hatched with; they don't take to the same element." "I'll speak to Uncle Titus, and I will think," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. But before she did that, that same afternoon by the six o'clock penny post, a little note went to Mr. Oldways:-- "DEAR UNCLE TITUS,-- "I want to talk with you a little. If I were well, I should come to see you in your study. Will you come up here, and see me in my room? "Yours sincerely, DESIRE LEDWITH." Uncle Titus liked that. It counted upon something in him which few had the faith to count upon; which, truly he gave few people reason to expect to find. He put his hat directly on, took up his thick brown stick, and trudged off, up Borden Street to Shubarton Place. When Luclarion let him in, he told her with some careful emphasis, that he had come to see Desire. "Ask her if I shall come up," he said. "I'll wait down here." Helena was practicing in the drawing-room. Mrs. Ledwith lay, half asleep, upon a sofa. The doors into the hall were shut,--Luclarion had looked to that, lest the playing should disturb Desire. Luclarion was only gone three minutes. Then she came back, and led Mr. Oldways up three flights of stairs. "It's a long climb, clear from the door," she said. "I can climb," said Mr. Oldways, curtly. "I didn't expect it was going to stump _you_," said Luclarion, just as short in her turn. "But I thought I'd be polite enough to mention it." There came a queer little chuckling wheeze from somewhere, like a whispered imitation of the first few short pants of a steam-engine: that was Uncle Titus, laughing to himself. Luclarion looked down behind her, out of the corner of her eyes, as she turned the landing. Uncle Titus's head was dropped between his shoulders, and his shoulders were shaking up and down. But he kept his big stick clutched by the middle, in one hand, and the other just touched the rail as he went up. Uncle Titus was not out of breath. Not he. He could laugh and climb. Desire was sitting up for a little while, before going to bed again for the night. There was a low gas-light burning by the dressing-table, ready to turn up when the twilight should be gone; and a street lamp, just lighted, shone across into the room. Luclarion had been sitting with her, and her gray knitting-work lay upon the chair that she offered when she had picked it up, to Mr. Oldways. Then she went away and left them to their talk. "Mrs. Ripwinkley has been spry about it," she said to herself, going softly down the stairs. "But she always was spry." "You're getting well, I hope," said Uncle Titus, seating himself, after he had given Desire his hand. "I suppose so," said Desire, quietly. "That was why I wanted to see you. I want to know what I ought to do when I am well." "How can I tell?" asked Uncle Titus, bluntly. "Better than anybody I can ask. The rest are all too sympathizing. I am afraid they would tell me as I wish they should." "And I don't sympathize? Well, I don't think I do much. I haven't been used to it." "You have been used to think what was right; and I believe you would tell me truly. I want to know whether I ought to go to Europe with my mother." "Why not? Doesn't she want you to go?"--and Uncle Titus was sharp this time. "I suppose so; that is, I suppose she expects I will. But I don't know that I should be much except a hindrance to her. And I think I could stay and do something here, in some way. Uncle Titus, I hate the thought of going to Europe! Now, don't you suppose I ought to go?" "_Why_ do you hate the thought of going to Europe?" asked Uncle Titus, regarding her with keenness. "Because I have never done anything real in all my life!" broke forth Desire. "And this seems only plastering and patching what can't be patched. I want to take hold of something. I don't want to float round any more. What is there left of all we have ever tried to do, all these years? Of all my poor father's work, what is there to show for it now? It has all melted away as fast as it came, like snow on pavements; and now his life has melted away; and I feel as if we had never been anything real to each other! Uncle Titus, I can't tell you _how_ I feel!" Uncle Titus sat very still. His hat was in one hand, and both together held his cane, planted on the floor between his feet. Over hat and cane leaned his gray head, thoughtfully. If Desire could have seen his eyes, she would have found in them an expression that she had never supposed could be there at all. She had not so much spoken _to_ Uncle Titus, in these last words of hers, as she had irresistibly spoken _out_ that which was in her. She wanted Uncle Titus's good common sense and sense of right to help her decide; but the inward ache and doubt and want, out of which grew her indecisions,--these showed themselves forth at that moment simply because they must, with no expectation of a response from him. It might have been a stone wall that she cried against; she would have cried all the same. Then it was over, and she was half ashamed, thinking it was of no use, and he would not understand; perhaps that he would only set the whole down to nerves and fidgets and contrariness, and give her no common sense that she wanted, after all. But Uncle Titus spoke, slowly; much as if he, too, were speaking out involuntarily, without thought of his auditor. People do so speak, when the deep things are stirred; they speak into the deep that answereth unto itself,--the deep that reacheth through all souls, and all living, whether souls feel into it and know of it or not. "The real things are inside," he said. "The real world is the inside world. _God_ is not up, nor down, but in the _midst_." Then he looked up at Desire. "What is real of your life is living inside you now. That is something. Look at it and see what it is." "Discontent. Misery. Failure." "_Sense_ of failure. Well. Those are good things. The beginning of better. Those are _live_ things, at any rate." Desire had never thought of that. Now _she_ sat still awhile. Then she said,--"But we can't _be_ much, without doing it. I suppose we are put into a world of outsides for something." "Yes. To find out what it means. That's the inside of it. And to help make the outside agree with the in, so that it will be easier for other people to find out. That is the 'kingdom come and will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' Heaven is the inside,--the truth of things." "Why, I never knew"--began Desire, astonished. She had almost finished aloud, as her mother had done in her own mind. She never knew that Uncle Oldways was "pious." "Never knew that was what it meant? What else can it mean? What do you suppose the resurrection was, or is?" Desire answered with a yet larger look of wonder, only in the dim light it could not be wholly seen. "The raising up of the dead; Christ coming up out of the tomb." "The coming out of the tomb was a small part of it; just what could not help being, if the rest was. Jesus Christ rose out of dead _things_, I take it, into these very real ones that we are talking of, and so lived in them. The resurrection is a man's soul coming alive to the soul of creation--God's soul. _That_ is eternal life, and what Jesus of Nazareth was born to show. Our coming to that is our being 'raised with Him;' and it begins, or ought to, a long way this side the tomb. If people would only read the New Testament, expecting to get as much common sense and earnest there as they do among the new lights and little 'progressive-thinkers' that are trying to find it all out over again, they might spare these gentlemen and themselves a great deal of their trouble." The exclamation rose half-way to her lips again,--"I never knew you thought like this. I never heard you talk of these things before!" But she held it back, because she would not stop him by reminding him that he _was_ talking. It was just the truth that was saying itself. She must let it say on, while it would. "Un--" She stopped there, at the first syllable. She would not even call him "Uncle Titus" again, for fear of recalling him to himself, and hushing him up. "There is something--isn't there--about those who _attain_ to that resurrection; those who are _worthy_? I suppose there must be some who are just born to this world, then, and never--'born again?'" "It looks like it, sometimes; who can tell?" "Uncle Oldways,"--it came out this time in her earnestness, and her strong personal appeal,--"do you think there are some people--whole families of people--who have no business in the reality of things to be at all? Who are all a mistake in the world, and have nothing to do with its meaning? I have got to feeling sometimes lately, as if--_I_--had never had any business to be." She spoke slowly--awe-fully. It was a strange speech for a girl in her nineteenth year. But she was a girl in this nineteenth century, also; and she had caught some of the thoughts and questions of it, and mixed them up with her own doubts and unsatisfactions which they could not answer. "The world is full of mistakes; mistakes centuries long; but it is full of salvation and setting to rights, also. 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened.' You have been _allowed_ to be, Desire Ledwith. And so was the man that was born blind. And I think there is a colon put into the sentence about him, where a comma was meant to be." Desire did not ask him, then, what he meant; but she turned to the story after he had gone, and found this:-- "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifest in him." You can see, if you look also, where she took the colon out, and put the comma in. Were all the mistakes--the sins, even--for the very sake of the pure blessedness and the more perfect knowledge of the setting right? Desire began to think that Uncle Oldways' theology might help her. What she said to him now was,-- "I want to do something. I should like to go and live with Luclarion, I think, down there in Neighbor Street. I should like to take hold of some other lives,--little children's, perhaps,"--and here Desire's voice softened,--"that don't seem to have any business to be, either, and see if I could help or straighten anything. Then I feel is if I should know." "Then--according to the Scripture--you _would_ know. But--that's undertaking a good deal. Luclarion Grapp has got there; but she has been fifty-odd years upon the road. And she has been doing real things all the time. That's what has brought her there. You can't boss the world's hard jobs till you've been a journeyman at the easy ones." "And I've missed my apprenticeship!" said Desire, with changed voice and face, falling back into her disheartenment again. "No!" Uncle Oldways almost shouted. "Not if you come to the Master who takes in the eleventh hour workers. And it isn't the eleventh hour with you,--_child_!" He dwelt on that word "child," reminding her of her short mistaking and of the long retrieval. Her nineteen years and the forever and ever contrasted themselves before her suddenly, in the light of hope. She turned sharply, though, to look at her duty. Her journeyman's duty of easy things. "Must I go to Europe with my mother?" she asked again, the conversation coming round to just that with which it had begun. "I'll talk with your mother," said Uncle Oldways, getting up and looking into his hat, as a man always does when he thinks of putting it on presently. "Good-night. I suppose you are tired enough now. I'll come again and see you." Desire stood up and gave him her hand. "I thank you, Uncle Titus, with all my heart." He did not answer her a word; but he knew she meant it. He did not stop that night to see his niece. He went home, to think it over. But as he walked down Borden Street, swinging his big stick, he said to himself,-- "Next of kin! Old Marmaduke Wharne was right. But it takes more than the Family Bible to tell you which it is!" Two days after, he had a talk with Mrs. Ledwith which relieved both their minds. From the brown-and-apricot drawing-room,--from among the things that stood for nothing now, and had never stood for home,--he went straight up, without asking, and knocked at Desire's third-story door. "Come in!" she said, without a note of expectation in her voice. She had had a dull morning. Helena had brought her a novel from Loring's that she could not read. Novels, any more than life, cannot be read with very much patience, unless they touch something besides surface. Why do critics--some of them--make such short, smart work,--such cheerful, confident despatch, nowadays, of a story with religion in it, as if it were an abnormity,--a thing with sentence of death in itself, like a calf born with two heads,--that needs not their trouble, save to name it as it is? Why, that is, if religion stand for the relation of things to spirit, which I suppose it should? Somebody said that somebody had written a book made up of "spiritual struggles and strawberry short-cake." That was bright and funny; and it seemed to settle the matter; but, taking strawberry short-cake representatively, what else is human experience on earth made up of? And are novels to be pictures of human experience, or not? This has nothing to do with present matters, however, except that Desire found nothing real in her novel, and so had flung it aside, and was sitting rather listlessly with her crochet which she never cared much for, when Uncle Oldways entered. Her face brightened instantly as he came in. He sat down just where he had sat the other night. Mr. Oldways had a fashion of finding the same seat a second time when he had come in once; he was a man who took up most things where he left them off, and this was an unconscious sign of it. "Your mother has decided to sell the house on the 23d, it seems," he said. "Yes; I have been out twice. I shall be able to go away by then; I suppose that is all she has waited for." "Do you think you could be contented to come and live with me?" "Come and _live_?" "Yes. And let your mother and Helena go to Europe." "O, Uncle Oldways! I think I could _rest_ there! But I don't want only to rest, you know. I must do something. For myself, to begin with. I have made up my mind not to depend upon my mother. Why should I, any more than a boy? And I am sure I cannot depend on anybody else." These were Desire Ledwith's thanks; and Mr. Oldways liked them. She did not say it to please him; she thought it seemed almost ungrateful and unwilling; but she was so intent on taking up life for herself. "You must have a place to do in,--or from," said Mr. Oldways. "And it is better you should be under some protection. You must consent to that for your mother's sake. How much money have you got?" "Two hundred and fifty dollars a year. Of my own." This was coming to business and calculation and common sense. Desire was encouraged. Uncle Oldways did not think her quite absurd. "That will clothe you,--without much fuss and feathers?" "I have done with fuss and feathers,"--Desire said with a grave smile, glancing at her plain white wrapper and the black shawl that was folded around her. "Then come where is room for you and a welcome, and do as much more as you please, and can, for yourself, or for anybody else. I won't give you a cent; you shall have something to do for me, if you choose. I am an old man now, and want help. Perhaps what I want as much as anything is what I've been all my life till lately, pretty obstinate in doing without." Uncle Oldways spoke short, and drew his breath in and puffed it out between his sentences, in his bluff way; but his eyes were kind, as he sat looking at the young girl over his hat and cane. She thought of the still, gray parlor; of Rachel Froke and her face of peace; and the Quaker meeting and the crumbs last year; of Uncle Oldways' study, and his shelves rich with books; of the new understanding that had begun between herself and him, and the faith she had found out, down beneath his hard reserves; of the beautiful neighborhood, Miss Craydocke's Beehive, Aunt Franks' cheery home and the ways of it, and Hazel's runnings in and out. It seemed as if the real things had opened for her, and a place been made among them in which she should have "business to be," and from which her life might make a new setting forth. "And mamma knows?" she said, inquiringly, after that long pause. "Yes. I told you I would talk with her. That is what we came to. It is only for you to say, now." "I will come. I shall be glad to come!" And her face was full of light as she looked up and said it. * * * * * Desire never thought for a moment of what her mother could not help thinking of; of what Mrs. Megilp thought and said, instantly, when she learned it three weeks later. It is wonderful how abiding influence is,--even influence to which we are secretly superior,--if ever we have been subjected to, or allowed ourselves to be swayed by it. The veriest tyranny of discipline grows into one's conscience, until years after, when life has got beyond the tyranny, conscience,--or something superinduced upon it,--keeps up the echo of the old mandates, and one can take no comfort in doing what one knows all the time one has a perfect right, besides sound reason, to do. It was a great while before our grandmothers' daughters could peaceably stitch and overcast a seam, instead of over-sewing and felling it. I know women who feel to this moment as if to sit down and read a book of a week-day, in the daytime, were playing truant to the needle, though all the sewing-machines on the one hand, and all the demand and supply of mental culture on the other, of this present changed and bettered time, protest together against the absurdity. Mrs. Ledwith had heard the Megilp precepts and the Megilp forth-putting of things, until involuntarily everything showed itself to her in a Megilp light. The Megilp "sense of duty," therefore, came up as she unhesitatingly assented to Uncle Oldways' proposal and request. He wanted Desire; of course she could not say a word; she owed him something, which she was glad she could so make up; and secretly there whispered in her mind the suggestion which Mrs. Megilp, on the other side of the water, spoke right out. "If he wants her, he must mean something by her. He is an old man; he might not live to give her back into her mother's keeping; what would she do there, in that old house of his, if he should die, unless--he _does_ mean something? He has taken a fancy to her; she is odd, as he is; and he isn't so queer after all, but that his crotchets have a good, straightforward sense of justice in them. Uncle Titus knows what he is about; and what's more, just what he ought to be about. It is a good thing to have Desire provided for; she is uncomfortable and full of notions, and she isn't likely ever to be married." So Desire was given up, easily, she could not help feeling; but she knew she had been a puzzle and a vexation to her mother, and that Mrs. Ledwith had never had the least idea what to do with her; least of all had she now, what she should do with her abroad. "It was so much better for her that Uncle Titus had taken her home." With these last words Mrs. Ledwith reassured herself and cheered her child. Perhaps it would have been the same--it came into Desire's head, that would conceive strange things--if the angels had taken her. Mrs. Ledwith went to New York; she stayed a few days with Mrs. Macmichael, who wanted her to buy lace for her in Brussels and Bohemian glass in Prague; then a few days more with her cousin, Geraldine Raxley; and then the _City of Antwerp_ sailed. XX. NEIGHBORS AND NEXT OF KIN. "I'll tell you what to do with them, Luclarion," said Hazel briskly. "Teach them to play." "Music! Pianners!" exclaimed Luclarion, dismayed. "No. Games. Teach them to have good times. That was the first thing ever we learnt, wasn't it, Dine? And we never could have got along without it." "It takes _you_!" said Luclarion, looking at Hazel with delighted admiration. "Does it? Well I don't know but it does. May I go, mother? Luclarion, haven't you got a great big empty room up at the top of the house?" Luclarion had. "That's just what it's for, then. Couldn't Mr. Gallilee put up a swing? And a 'flying circle' in the middle? You see they can't go out on the roofs; so they must have something else that will seem kind of flighty. And _I'll_ tell you how they'll learn their letters. Sulie and I will paint 'em; great big ones, all colors; and hang 'em up with ribbons, and every child that learns one, so as to know it everywhere, shall take it down and carry it home. Then we will have marbles for numbers; and they shall play addition games, and multiplication games, and get the sums for prizes; the ones that get to the head, you know. Why, you don't understand _objects_, Luclarion!" Luclarion had been telling them of the wild little folk of Neighbor Street, and worse, of Arctic Street. She wanted to do something with them. She had tried to get them in with gingerbread and popcorn; they came in fast enough for those; but they would not stay. They were digging in the gutters and calling names; learning the foul language of the places into which they were born; chasing and hiding in alley-ways; filching, if they could, from shops; going off begging with lies on their lips. It was terrible to see the springs from which the life of the city depths was fed. "If you could stop it _there_!" Luclarion said, and said with reason. "Will you let me go?" asked Hazel of her mother, in good earnest. "'Twon't hurt her," put in Luclarion. "Nothing's catching that you haven't got the seeds of in your own constitution. And so the catching will be the other way." The seeds of good,--to catch good; that was what Luclarion Grapp believed in, in those dirty little souls,--no, those clean little _souls_, overlaid with all outward mire and filth of body, clothing, speech, and atmosphere, for a mile about; through which they could no more grope and penetrate, to reach their own that was hidden from them in the clearer life beyond, than we can grope and reach to other stars. "I will get Desire," quoth Hazel, inspired as she always was, both ways. Running in at the house in Greenley Street the next Thursday, she ran against Uncle Titus coming out. "What now?" he demanded. "Desire," said Hazel. "I've come for her. We're wanted at Luclarion's. We've got work to do." "Humph! Work? What kind?" "Play," said Hazel, laughing. She delighted to bother and mystify Uncle Titus, and imagined that she did. "I thought so. Tea parties?" "Something like," said Hazel. "There are children down there that don't know how to grow up. They haven't any comfortable sort of fashion of growing up. Somebody has got to teach them. They don't know how to play 'Grand Mufti,' and they never heard of 'King George and his troops.' Luclarion tried to make them sit still and learn letters; but of course they wouldn't a minute longer than the gingerbread lasted, and they are eating her out of house and home. It will take young folks, and week-days, you see; so Desire and I are going." And Hazel ran up the great, flat-stepped staircase. "Lives that have no business to be," said Uncle Titus to himself, going down the brick walk. "The Lord has His own ways of bringing lives together. And His own business gets worked out among them, beyond their guessing. When a man grows old, he can stand still now and then, and see a little." It was a short cross street that Luclarion lived in, between two great thoroughfares crowded with life and business, bustle, drudgery, idleness, and vice. You will not find the name I give it,--although you may find one that will remind you of it,--in any directory or on any city map. But you can find the places without the names; and if you go down there with the like errands in your heart, you will find the work, as she found it, to do. She heard the noise of street brawls at night, voices of men and women quarreling in alley-ways, and up in wretched garrets; flinging up at each other, in horrible words, all the evil they knew of in each other's lives,--"away back," Luclarion said, "to when they were little children." "And what is it," she would say to Mrs. Ripwinkley telling her about it, "that _flings_ it up, and can call it a shame, after all the shames of years and years? Except just _that_ that the little children _were_, underneath, when the Lord let them--He knows why--be born so? I tell you, ma'am, it's a mystery; and the nigher you come to it, the more it is; it's a piece of hell and a piece of heaven; it's the wrastle of the angel and the dragon; and it's going on at one end, while they're building up their palaces and living soft and sweet and clean at the other, with everything hushed up that can't at least _seem_ right and nice and proper. I know there's good folks there, in the palaces; _beautiful_ folks; there, and all the way down between; with God's love in them, and His hate, that is holy, against sin; and His pity, that is _prayers_ in them, for all people and places that are dark; but if they would _come down_ there, and take hold! I think it's them that would, that might have part in the first resurrection, and live and reign the thousand years." Luclarion never counted herself among them,--those who were to have thrones and judgments; she forgot, even, that she had gone down and taken hold; her words came burning-true, out of her soul; and in the heat of truth they were eloquent. But I meant to tell you of her living. In the daytime it was quiet; the gross evils crept away and hid from the sunshine; there was labor to take up the hours, for those who did labor; and you might not know or guess, to go down those avenues, that anything worse gathered there than the dust of the world's traffic that the lumbering drays ground up continually with their wheels, and the wind,--that came into the city from far away country places of green sweetness, and over hills and ponds and streams and woods,--flung into the little children's faces. Luclarion had taken a house,--one of two, that fronted upon a little planked court; aside, somewhat, from Neighbor Street, as that was a slight remove from the absolute terrible contact of Arctic Street. But it was in the heart of that miserable quarter; she could reach out her hands and touch and gather in, if it would let her, the wretchedness. She had chosen a place where it was possible for her to make a nook of refuge, not for herself only, or so much, as for those to whom she would fain be neighbor, and help to a better living. It had been once a dwelling of some well-to-do family of the days gone by; of some merchant, whose ventures went out and came in at those wharves below, whence the air swept up pure, then, with its salt smell, into the streets. The rooms were fairly large; Luclarion spent money out of her own little property, that had been growing by care and saving till she could spare from it, in doing her share toward having it all made as sweet and clean as mortar and whitewash and new pine-boards and paint and paper could make it. All that was left of the old, they scoured with carbolic soap; and she had the windows opened, and in the chimneys that had been swept of their soot she had clear fires made and kept burning for days. Then she put her new, plain furnishings into her own two down-stairs rooms; and the Gallilees brought in theirs above; and beside them, she found two decent families,--a German paper-hanger's, and that of a carpenter at one of the theatres, whose wife worked at dressmaking,--to take the rest. Away up, at the very top, she had the wide, large room that Hazel spoke of, and a smaller one to which she climbed to sleep, for the sake of air as near heaven as it could be got. One of her lower-rooms was her living and housekeeping room; the other she turned into a little shop, in which she sold tapes and needles and cheap calicoes and a few ribbons; and kept a counter on the opposite side for bread and yeast, gingerbread, candy, and the like. She did this partly because she must do something to help out the money for her living and her plans, and partly to draw the women and children in. How else could she establish any relations between herself and them, or get any permanent hold or access? She had "turned it all over in her mind," she said; "and a tidy little shop with fair, easy prices, was the very thing, and a part of just what she came down there to do." She made real, honest, hop-raised bread, of sweet flour that she gave ten dollars a barrel for; it took a little more than a pint, perhaps, to make a tea loaf; that cost her three cents; she sold her loaf for four, and it was better than they could get anywhere else for five. Then, three evenings in a week, she had hot muffins, or crumpets, home-made; (it was the subtle home touch and flavor that she counted on, to carry more than a good taste into their mouths, even a dim notion of home sweetness and comfort into their hearts;) these first,--a quart of flour at five cents, two eggs at a cent apiece, and a bit of butter, say three cents more, with three cents worth of milk, made an outlay of fifteen cents for a dozen and a half; so she sold them for ten cents a dozen, and the like had never been tasted or dreamed of in all that region round about; no, nor I dare almost to say, in half the region round about Republic Avenue either, where they cannot get Luclarion Grapps to cook. The crumpets were cheaper; they were only bread-sponge, baked on a griddle; they were large, and light and tender; a quart of flour would make ten; she gave the ten for seven cents. And do you see, putting two cents on every quart of her flour, for her labor, she _earned_, not _made_,--that word is for speculators and brokers,--with a barrel of one hundred and ninety six pounds or quarts, three dollars and ninety-two cents? The beauty of it was, you perceive, that she did a small business; there was an eager market for all she could produce, and there was no waste to allow a margin for. I am not a bit of a political economist myself; but I have a shrewd suspicion that Luclarion Grapp was, besides having hit upon the initial, individual idea of a capital social and philanthropic enterprise. This was all she tried to do at first; she began with bread; the Lord from heaven began with that; she fed as much of the multitude as she could reach; they gathered about her for the loaves; and they got, consciously or unconsciously, more than they came or asked for. They saw her clean-swept floor; her netted windows that kept the flies out, the clean, coarse white cotton shades,--tacked up, and rolled and tied with cord, country-fashion, for Luclarion would not set any fashions that her poor neighbors might not follow if they would;--and her shelves kept always dusted down; they could see her way of doing that, as they happened in at different times, when she whisked about, lightly and nicely, behind and between her jars and boxes and parcels with the little feather duster that she kept hanging over her table where she made her change and sat at her sewing. They grew ashamed by degrees,--those coarse women,--to come in in their frowsy rags, to buy her delicate muffins or her white loaves; they would fling on the cleanest shawl they had or could borrow, to "cut round to Old Maid Grapp's," after a cent's worth of yeast,--for her yeast, also, was like none other that could be got, and would _almost_ make her own beautiful bread of itself. Back of the shop was her house-room; the cheapest and cleanest of carpet,--a square, bound round with bright-striped carpet-binding,--laid in the middle of a clean dark yellow floor; a plain pine table, scoured white, standing in the middle of that; on it, at tea-time, common blue and white crockery cups and plates, and a little black teapot; a napkin, coarse, but fresh from the fold, laid down to save, and at the same time to set off, with a touch of delicate neatness, the white table; a wooden settee, with a home-made calico-covered cushion and pillows, set at right angles with the large, black, speckless stove; a wooden rocking-chair, made comfortable in like manner, on the other side; the sink in the corner, clean, freshly rinsed, with the bright tin basin hung above it on a nail. There was nothing in the whole place that must not be, in some shape, in almost the poorest; but all so beautifully ordered, so stainlessly kept. Through that open door, those women read a daily sermon. And Luclarion herself,--in a dark cotton print gown, a plain strip of white about the throat,--even that was cotton, not linen, and two of them could be run together in ten minutes for a cent,--and a black alpacca apron, never soiled or crumpled, but washed and ironed when it needed, like anything else,--her hair smoothly gathered back under a small white half-handkerchief cap, plain-hemmed,--was the sermon alive; with the soul of it, the inner sweetness and purity, looking out at them from clear pleasant eyes, and lips cheery with a smile that lay behind them. She had come down there just to do as God told her to be a neighbor, and to let her light shine. He would see about the glorifying. She did not try to make money out of her candy, or her ginger-nuts; she kept those to entice the little children in; to tempt them to come again when they had once done an errand, shyly, or saucily, or hang-doggedly,--it made little difference which to her,--in her shop. "I'll tell you what it's like," Hazel said, when she came in and up-stairs the first Saturday afternoon with Desire, and showed and explained to her proudly all Luclarion's ways and blessed inventions. "It's like your mother and mine throwing crumbs to make the pigeons come, when they were little girls, and lived in Boston,--I mean _here_!" Hazel waked up at the end of her sentence, suddenly, as we all do sometimes, out of talking or thinking, to the consciousness that it was _here_ that she had mentally got round to. Desire had never heard of the crumbs or the pigeons. Mrs. Ledwith had always been in such a hurry, living on, that she never stopped to tell her children the sweet old tales of how she _had_ lived. Her child-life had not ripened in her as it had done in Frank. Desire and Hazel went up-stairs and looked at the empty room. It was light and pleasant; dormer windows opened out on a great area of roofs, above which was blue sky; upon which, poor clothes fluttered in the wind, or cats walked and stretched themselves safely and lazily in the sun. "I always _do_ like roofs!" said Hazel. "The nicest thing in 'Mutual Friend' is Jenny Wren up on the Jew's roof, being dead. It seems like getting up over the world, and leaving it all covered up and put away." "Except the old clothes," said Desire. "They're _washed_" answered Hazel, promptly; and never stopped to think of the meaning. Then she jumped down from the window, along under which a great beam made a bench to stand on, and looked about the chamber. "A swing to begin with," she said. "Why what is that? Luclarion's got one!" Knotted up under two great staples that held it, was the long loop of clean new rope; the notched board rested against the chimney below. "It's all ready! Let's go down and catch one! Luclarion, we've come to tea," she announced, as they reached the sitting-room. "There's the shop bell!" In the shop was a woman with touzled hair and a gown with placket split from gathers to hem, showing the ribs of a dirty skeleton skirt. A child with one garment on,--some sort of woolen thing that had never been a clean color, and was all gutter-color now,--the woman holding the child by the hand here, in a safe place, in a way these mothers have who turn their children out in the street dirt and scramble without any hand to hold. No wonder, though, perhaps; in the strangeness and unfitness of the safe, pure place, doubtless they feel an uneasy instinct that the poor little vagabonds have got astray, and need some holding. "Give us a four-cent loaf!" said the woman, roughly, her eyes lowering under crossly furrowed brows, as she flung two coins upon the little counter. Luclarion took down one, looked at it, saw that it had a pale side, and exchanged it for another. "Here is a nice crusty one," she said pleasantly, turning to wrap it in a sheet of paper. "None o' yer gammon! Give it here; there's your money; come along, Crazybug!" And she grabbed the loaf without a wrapper, and twitched the child. Hazel sat still. She knew there was no use. But Desire with her point-black determination, went right at the boy, took hold of his hand, dirt and all; it was disagreeable, therefore she thought she must do it. "Don't you want to come and swing?" she said. "---- yer swing! and yer imperdence! Clear out! He's got swings enough to home! Go to ----, and be ----, you ---- ---- ----!" Out of the mother's mouth poured a volley of horrible words, like a hailstorm of hell. Desire fell back, as from a blinding shock of she knew not what. Luclarion came round the counter, quite calmly. "Ma'am," she said, "those words won't hurt _her_. She don't know the language. But you've got God's daily bread in your hand; how can you talk devil's Dutch over it?" The woman glared at her. But she saw nothing but strong, calm, earnest asking in the face; the asking of God's own pity. She rebelled against that, sullenly; but she spoke no more foul words. I think she could as soon have spoken them in the face of Christ; for it was the Christ in Luclarion Grapp that looked out at her. "You needn't preach. You can order me out of your shop, if you like. I don't care." "I don't order you out. I'd rather you would come again. I don't think you will bring that street-muck with you, though." There was both confidence and command in the word like the "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." It detached the street-muck from the woman. It was not _she_; it was defilement she had picked up, when perhaps she could not help it. She could scrape her shoes at the door, and come in clean. "You know a darned lot about it, I suppose!" were the last words of defiance; softened down, however, you perceive, to that which can be printed. Desire was pale, with a dry sob in her throat, when the woman had gone and Luclarion turned round. "The angels in heaven know; why shouldn't you?" said Luclarion. "That's what we've got to help." A child came in afterwards, alone; with an actual clean spot in the middle of her face, where a ginger-nut or an acid drop might go in. This was a regular customer of a week past. The week had made that clean spot; with a few pleasant and encouraging hints from Luclarion, administered along with the gingerbread. Now it was Hazel's turn. The round mouth and eyes, with expectation in them, were like a spot of green to Hazel, feeling with her witch-wand for a human spring. But she spoke to Desire, looking cunningly at the child. "Let us go back and swing," she said. The girl's head pricked itself up quickly. "We've got a swing up-stairs," said Hazel, passing close by, and just pausing. "A new one. I guess it goes pretty high; and it looks out of top windows. Wouldn't you like to come and see?" The child lived down in a cellar. "Take up some ginger-nuts, and eat them there," said Luclarion to Hazel. If it had not been for that, the girl would have hung back, afraid of losing her shop treat. Hazel knew better than to hold out her hand, at this first essay; she would do that fast enough when the time came. She only walked on, through the sitting-room, to the stairs. The girl peeped, and followed. Clean stairs. She had never trodden such before. Everything was strange and clean here, as she had never seen anything before in all her life, except the sky and the white clouds overhead. Heaven be thanked that they are held over us, spotless, always! Hazel heard the little feet, shuffling, in horrible, distorted shoes, after her, over the steps; pausing, coming slowly but still starting again, and coming on. Up on the high landing, under the skylight, she opened the door wide into the dormer-windowed room, and went in; she and Desire, neither of them looking round. Hazel got into the swing. Desire pushed; after three vibrations they saw the ragged figure standing in the doorway, watching, turning its head from side to side as the swing passed. "Almost!" cried Hazel, with her feet up at the window. "There!" She thrust them out at that next swing; they looked as if they touched the blue. "I can see over all the chimneys, and away off, down the water! Now let the old cat die." Out again, with a spring, as the swinging slackened, she still took no notice of the child, who would have run, like a wild kitten, if she had gone after her. She called Desire, and plunged into a closet under the eaves. "I wonder what's here!" she exclaimed. "Rats!" The girl in the doorway saw the dark, into which the low door opened; she was used to rats in the dark. "I don't believe it," says Hazel; "Luclarion has a cut, a great big buff one with green eyes. She came in over the roofs, and she runs up here nights. I shouldn't wonder if there might be kittens, though,--one of these days, at any rate. Why! what a place to play 'Dare' in! It goes way round, I don't know where! Look here, Desire!" She sat on the threshold, that went up a step, over the beam, and so leaned in. She had one eye toward the girl all the time, out of the shadow. She beckoned and nodded, and Desire came. At the same moment, the coast being clear, the girl gave a sudden scud across, and into the swing. She began to scuff with her slipshod, twisted shoes, pushing herself. Hazel gave another nod behind her to Desire. Desire stood up, and as the swing came back, pushed gently, touching the board only. The girl laughed out with the sudden thrill of the motion. Desire pushed again. Higher and higher, till the feet reached up to the window. "There!" she cried; and kicked an old shoe off, out over the roof. "I've lost my shoe!" "Never mind; it'll be down in the yard," said Hazel. Thereupon the child, at the height of her sweep again, kicked out the other one. Desire and Hazel, together, pushed her for a quarter of an hour. "Now let's have ginger-cakes," said Hazel, taking them out of her pocket, and leaving the "cat" to die. Little Barefoot came down at that, with a run; hanging to the rope at one side, and dragging, till she tumbled in a sprawl upon the floor. "You ought to have waited," said Desire. "Poh! I don't never wait!" cried the ragamuffin rubbing her elbows. "I don't care." "But it isn't nice to tumble round," suggested Hazel. "I _ain't_ nice," answered the child, and settled the subject. "Well, these ginger-nuts are," said Hazel. "Here!" "Have you had a good time?" she asked when the last one was eaten, and she led the way to go down-stairs. "Good time! That ain't nothin'! I've had a reg'lar bust! I'm comin' agin'; it's bully. Now I must get my loaf and my shoes, and go along back and take a lickin'." That was the way Hazel caught her first child. She made her tell her name,--Ann Fazackerley,--and promise to come on Saturday afternoon, and bring two more girls with her. "We'll have a party," said Hazel, "and play Puss in the Corner. But you must get leave," she added. "Ask your mother. I don't want you to be punished when you go home." "Lor! you're green! I ain't got no mother. An' I always hooks jack. I'm licked reg'lar when I gets back, anyway. There's half a dozen of 'em. When 'tain't one, it's another. That's Jane Goffey's bread; she's been a swearin' after it this hour, you bet. But I'll come,--see if I don't!" Hazel drew a hard breath as she let the girl go. Back to her crowded cellar, her Jane Goffeys, the swearings, and the lickings. What was one hour at a time, once or twice a week, to do against all this? But she remembered the clean little round in her face, out of which eyes and mouth looked merrily, while she talked rough slang; the same fun and daring,--nothing worse,--were in this child's face, that might be in another's saying prettier words. How could she help her words, hearing nothing but devil's Dutch around her all the time? Children do not make the language they are born into. And the face that could be simply merry, telling such a tale as that,--what sort of bright little immortality must it be the outlook of? Hazel meant to try her hour. * * * * * This is one of my last chapters. I can only tell you now they began,--these real folks,--the work their real living led them up to. Perhaps some other time we may follow it on. If I were to tell you now a finished story of it, I should tell a story ahead of the world. I can show you what six weeks brought it to. I can show you them fairly launched in what may grow to a beautiful private charity,--an "Insecution,"--a broad social scheme,--a millennium; at any rate, a life work, change and branch as it may, for these girls who have found out, in their girlhood, that there is genuine living, not mere "playing pretend," to be done in the world. But you cannot, in little books of three hundred pages, see things through. I never expected or promised to do that. The threescore years and ten themselves, do not do it. It turned into regular Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Three girls at first, then six, then less again,--sometimes only one or two; until they gradually came up to and settled at, an average of nine or ten. The first Saturday they took them as they were. The next time they gave them a stick of candy each, the first thing, then Hazel's fingers were sticky, and she proposed the wash-basin all round, before they went up-stairs. The bright tin bowl was ready in the sink, and a clean round towel hung beside; and with some red and white soap-balls, they managed to fascinate their dirty little visitors into three clean pairs of hands, and three clean faces as well. The candy and the washing grew to be a custom; and in three weeks' time, watching for a hot day and having it luckily on a Saturday, they ventured upon instituting a whole bath, in big round tubs, in the back shed-room, where a faucet came in over a wash bench, and a great boiler was set close by. They began with a foot-paddle, playing pond, and sailing chips at the same time; then Luclarion told them they might have tubs full, and get in all over and duck, if they liked; and children who may hate to be washed, nevertheless are always ready for a duck and a paddle. So Luclarion superintended the bath-room; Diana helped her; and Desire and Hazel tended the shop. Luclarion invented a shower-bath with a dipper and a colander; then the wet, tangled hair had to be combed,--a climax which she had secretly aimed at with a great longing, from the beginning; and doing this, she contrived with carbolic soap and a separate suds, and a bit of sponge, to give the neglected little heads a most salutary dressing. Saturday grew into bath-day; soap-suds suggested bubbles; and the ducking and the bubbling were a frolic altogether. Then Hazel wished they could be put into clean clothes each time; wouldn't it do, somehow? But that would cost. Luclarion had come to the limit of her purse; Hazel had no purse, and Desire's was small. "But you see they've _got_ to have it," said Hazel; and so she went to her mother, and from her straight to Uncle Oldways. They counted up,--she and Desire, and Diana; two little common suits, of stockings, underclothes, and calico gowns, apiece; somebody to do a washing once a week, ready for the change; and then--"those horrid shoes!" "I don't see how you can do it," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "The things will be taken away from them, and sold. You would have to keep doing, over and over, to no purpose, I am afraid." "I'll see to that," said Luclarion, facing her "stump." "We'll do for them we can do for; if it ain't ones, it will be tothers. Those that don't keep their things, can't have 'em; and if they're taken away, I won't sell bread to the women they belong to, till they're brought back. Besides, the _washing_ kind of sorts 'em out, beforehand. 'Taint the worst ones that are willing to come, or to send, for that. You always have to work in at an edge, in anything, and make your way as you go along. It'll regulate. I'm _living_ there right amongst 'em; I've got a clew, and a hold; I can follow things up; I shall have a 'circle;' there's circles everywhere. And in all the wheels there's a moving _spirit_; you ain't got to depend just on yourself. Things work; the Lord sees to it; it's _His_ business as much as yours." Hazel told Uncle Titus that there were shoes and stockings and gowns wanted down in Neighbor Street; things for ten children; they must have subscriptions. And so she had come to him. The Ripwinkleys had never given Uncle Titus a Christmas or a birthday present, for fear they should seem to establish a mutual precedent. They had never talked of their plans which involved calculation, before him; they were terribly afraid of just one thing with him, and only that one,--of anything most distantly like what Desire Ledwith called "a Megilp bespeak." But now Hazel went up to him as bold as a lion. She took it for granted he was like other people,--"real folks;" that he would do--what must be done. "How much will it cost?" "For clothes and shoes for each child, about eight dollars for three months, we guess," said Hazel. "Mother's going to pay for the washing!" "_Guess_? Haven't you calculated?" "Yes, sir. 'Guess' and 'calculate' mean the same thing in Yankee," said Hazel, laughing. Uncle Titus laughed in and out, in his queer way, with his shoulders going up and down. Then he turned round, on his swivel chair, to his desk, and wrote a check for one hundred dollars. "There. See how far you can make that go." "That's good," said Hazel, heartily, looking at it; "that's splendid!" and never gave him a word of personal thanks. It was a thing for mutual congratulations, rather, it would seem; the "good" was just what they all wanted, and there it was. Why should anybody in particular be thanked, as if anybody in particular had asked for anything? She did not say this, or think it; she simply did not think about it at all. And Uncle Oldways--again--liked it. There! I shall not try, now, to tell you any more; their experiences, their difficulties, their encouragements, would make large material for a much larger book. I want you to know of the idea, and the attempt. If they fail, partly,--if drunken fathers steal the shoes, and the innocent have to forfeit for the guilty,--if the bad words still come to the lips often, though Hazel tells them they are not "nice,"--and beginning at the outside, they are in a fair way of learning the niceness of being nice,--if some children come once or twice, and get dressed up, and then go off and live in the gutters again until the clothes are gone,--are these real failures? There is a bright, pure place down there in Neighbor Street, and twice a week some little children have there a bright, pure time. Will this be lost in the world? In the great Ledger of God will it always stand unbalanced on the debit side? If you are afraid it will fail,--will be swallowed up in the great sink of vice and misery, like a single sweet, fresh drop, sweet only while it is falling,--go and do likewise; rain down more; make the work larger, stronger; pour the sweetness in faster, till the wide, grand time of full refreshing shall have come from the presence of the Lord! Ada Geoffrey went down and helped. Miss Craydocke is going to knit scarlet stockings all winter for them; Mr. Geoffrey has put a regular bath-room in for Luclarion, with half partitions, and three separate tubs; Mrs. Geoffrey has furnished a dormitory, where little homeless ones can be kept to sleep. Luclarion has her hands full, and has taken in a girl to help her, whose board and wages Rachel Froke and Asenath Scherman pay. A thing like that spreads every way; you have only to be among, and one of--Real Folks. * * * * * Desire, besides her work in Neighbor Street, has gone into the Normal School. She wants to make herself fit for any teaching; she wants also to know and to become a companion of earnest, working girls. She told Uncle Titus this, after she had been with him a month, and had thought it over; and Uncle Titus agreed, quite as if it were no real concern of his, but a very proper and unobjectionable plan for her, if she liked it. One day, though, when Marmaduke Wharne--who had come this fall again to stay his three days, and talk over their business,--sat with him in his study, just where they had sat two years and a little more ago, and Hazel and Desire ran up and down stairs together, in and out upon their busy Wednesday errands,--Marmaduke said to Titus,-- "Afterwards is a long time, friend; but I mistrust you have found the comfort, as well as the providence, of 'next of kin?'" "Afterwards _is_ a long time," said Titus Oldways, gravely; "but the Lord's line of succession stretches all the way through." And that same night he had his other old friend, Miss Craydocke, in; and he brought two papers that he had ready, quietly out to be signed, each with four names: "Titus Oldways," by itself, on the one side; on the other,-- "RACHEL FROKE, MARMADUKE WHARNE, KEREN-HAPPUCH CRAYDOCKE." And one of those two papers--which are no further part of the present story, seeing that good old Uncle Titus is at this moment alive and well, as he has a perfect right, and is heartily welcome to be, whether the story ever comes to a regular winding up or not--was laid safely away in a japanned box in a deep drawer of his study table; and Marmaduke Wharne put the other in his pocket. He and Titus knew. I myself guess, and perhaps you do; but neither you nor I, nor Rachel, nor Keren-happuch, know for certain; and it is no sort of matter whether we do or not. The "next of kin" is a better and a deeper thing than any claim of law or register of bequest can show. Titus Oldways had found that out; and he had settled in his mind, to his restful and satisfied belief, that God, to the last moment of His time, and the last particle of His created substance, can surely care for and order and direct His own. Is that end and moral enough for a two years' watchful trial and a two years' simple tale? XXI. THE HORSESHOE. They laid out the Waite Place in this manner:-- Right into the pretty wooded pasture, starting from a point a little way down the road from the old house, they projected a roadway which swept round, horseshoe fashion, till it met itself again within a space of some twenty yards or so; and this sweep made a frontage--upon its inclosed bit of natural, moss-turfed green, sprinkled with birch and pine and oak trees, and with gray out-croppings of rock here and there--for the twenty houses, behind which opened the rest of the unspoiled, irregular, open slope and swell and dingle of the hill-foot tract that dipped down at one reach, we know, to the river. The trees, and shrubs, and vines, and ferns, and stones, were left in their wild prettiness; only some roughness of nature's wear and tear of dead branches and broken brushwood, and the like, were taken away, and the little footpaths cleared for pleasant walking. There were all the little shady, sweet-smelling nooks, just as they had been; all the little field-parlors, opening with their winding turns between bush and rock, one into another. The twenty households might find twenty separate places, if they all wanted to take a private out-door tea at once. The cellars were dug; the frames were up; workmen were busy with brick and mortar, hammer and plane; two or three buildings were nearly finished, and two--the two standing at the head of the Horseshoe, looking out at the back into the deepest and pleasantest wood-aisle, where the leaves were reddening and mellowing in the early October frost, and the ferns were turning into tender transparent shades of palest straw-color--were completed, and had dwellers in them; the cheeriest, and happiest, and coziest of neighbors; and who do you think these were? Miss Waite and Delia, of course, in one house; and with them, dividing the easy rent and the space that was ample for four women, were Lucilla Waters and her mother. In the other, were Kenneth and Rosamond Kincaid and Dorris. Kenneth and Rosamond had been married just three weeks. Rosamond had told him she would begin the world with him, and they had begun. Begun in the simple, true old-fashioned way, in which, if people only would believe it, it is even yet not impossible for young men and women to inaugurate their homes. They could not have had a place at Westover, and a horse and buggy for Kenneth to go back and forth with; nor even a house in one of the best streets of Z----; and down at East Square everything was very modern and pretentious, based upon the calculation of rising values and a rush of population. But here was this new neighborhood of--well, yes,--"model houses;" a blessed Christian speculation for a class not easily or often reached by any speculations save those that grind and consume their little regular means, by forcing upon them the lawless and arbitrary prices of the day, touching them at every point in their _living_, but not governing correspondingly their income, as even the hod-carrier's and railroad navvy's daily pay is reached and ruled to meet the proportion of the time. They would be plain, simple, little-cultured people that would live there: the very "betwixt and betweens" that Rosamond had used to think so hardly fated. Would she go and live among them, in one of these little new, primitive homes, planted down in the pasture-land, on the outskirts? Would she--the pretty, graceful, elegant Rosamond--live semi-detached with old Miss Arabel Waite? That was just exactly the very thing she would do; the thing she did not even let Kenneth think of first, and ask her, but that, when they had fully agreed that they would begin life somehow, in some right way together, according to their means, she herself had questioned him if they might not do. And so the houses were hurried in the building; for old Miss Arabel must have hers before the winter; (it seems strange how often the change comes when one could not have waited any longer for it;) and Kenneth had mill building, and surveying, and planning, in East Square, and Mr. Roger Marchbanks' great gray-stone mansion going up on West Hill, to keep him busy; work enough for any talented young fellow, fresh from the School of Technology, who had got fair hold of a beginning, to settle down among and grasp the "next things" that were pretty sure to follow along after the first. Dorris has all Ruth's music scholars, and more; for there has never been anybody to replace Miss Robbyns, and there are many young girls in Z----, and down here in East Square, who want good teaching and cannot go away to get it. She has also the organ-playing in the new church. She keeps her morning hours and her Saturdays to help Rosamond; for they are "coöperating" here, in the new home; what was the use, else, of having coöperated in the old? Rosamond cannot bear to have any coarse, profane fingers laid upon her little household gods,--her wedding-tins and her feather dusters,--while the first gloss and freshness are on, at any rate; and with her dainty handling, the gloss is likely to last a long while. Such neighbors, too, as the Waites and Waterses are! How they helped in the fitting up, running in in odd half hours from their own nailing and placing, which they said could wait awhile, since they weren't brides; and such real old times visiting as they have already between the houses; coming and taking right hold, with wiping up dinner plates as likely as not, if that is the thing in hand; picking up what is there, as easily as "the girls" used to help work out some last new pattern of crochet, or try over music, or sort worsteds for gorgeous affghans for the next great fair! Miss Arabel is apt to come in after dinner, and have a dab at the plates; she knows she interrupts nothing then; and she "has never been used to sitting talking, with gloves on and a parasol in her lap." And now she has given up trying to make impossible biases, she has such a quantity of time! It was the matter of receiving visits from her friends who _did_ sit with their parasols in their laps, or who only expected to see the house, or look over wedding presents, that would be the greatest hindrance, Rosamond realized at once; that is, if she would let it; so she did just the funniest thing, perhaps, that ever a bride did do: she set her door wide open from her pretty parlor, with its books and flowers and pictures and window-draperies of hanging vines, into the plain, cozy little kitchen, with its tin pans and bright new buckets and its Shaker chairs; and when she was busy there, asked her girl-friends right in, as she had used to take them up into her bedroom, if she were doing anything pretty or had something to show. And they liked it, for the moment, at any rate; they could not help it; they thought it was lovely; a kind of bewitching little play at keeping house; though some of them went away and wondered, and said that Rosamond Holabird had quite changed all her way of living and her position; it was very splendid and strong-minded, they supposed; but they never should have thought it of her, and of course she could not keep it up. "And the neighborhood!" was the cry. "The rabble she has got, and is going to have, round her! All planks and sand, and tubs of mortar, now; you have to half break your neck in getting up there; and when it is settled it will be--such a frowze of common people! Why the foreman of our factory has engaged a house, and Mrs. Haslam, who actually used to do up laces for mamma, has got another!" That is what is said--in some instances--over on West Hill, when the elegant visitors came home from calling at the Horseshoe. Meanwhile, what Rosamond does is something like this, which she happened to do one bright afternoon a very little while ago. She and Dorris had just made and baked a charming little tea-cake, which was set on a fringed napkin in a round white china dish, and put away in the fresh, oak-grained kitchen pantry, where not a crumb or a slop had ever yet been allowed to rest long enough to defile or give a flavor of staleness; out of which everything is tidily used up while it is nice, and into which little delicate new-made bits like this, for next meals, are always going. The tea-table itself,--with its three plates, and its new silver, and the pretty, thin, shallow cups and saucers, that an Irish girl would break a half-dozen of every week,--was laid with exquisite preciseness; the square white napkins at top and bottom over the crimson cloth, spread to the exactness of a line, and every knife and fork at fair right angles; the loaf was upon the white carved trencher, and nothing to be done when Kenneth should come in, but to draw the tea, and bring the brown cake forth. Rosamond will not leave all these little doings to break up the pleasant time of his return; she will have her leisure then, let her be as busy as she may while he is away. There was an hour or more after all was done; even after the Panjandrums had made their state call, leaving their barouche at the heel of the Horseshoe, and filling up all Rosamond's little vestibule with their flounces, as they came in and went out. The Panjandrums were new people at West Hill; very new and very grand, as only new things and new people can be, turned out in the latest style pushed to the last agony. Mrs. Panjandrum's dress was all in two shades of brown, to the tips of her feathers, and the toes of her boots, and the frill of her parasol; and her carriage was all in two shades of brown, likewise; cushions, and tassels, and panels; the horses themselves were cream-color, with dark manes and tails. Next year, perhaps, everything will be in pansy-colors,--black and violet and gold; and then she will probably have black horses with gilded harness and royal purple tails. It was very good of the Panjandrums, doubtless, to come down to the Horseshoe at all; I am willing to give them all the credit of really admiring Rosamond, and caring to see her in her little new home; but there are two other things to be considered also: the novel kind of home Rosamond had chosen to set up, and the human weakness of curiosity concerning all experiments, and friends in all new lights; also the fact of that other establishment shortly to branch out of the Holabird connection. The family could not quite go under water, even with people of the Panjandrum persuasion, while there was such a pair of prospective corks to float them as Mr. and Mrs. Dakie Thayne. The Panjandrum carriage had scarcely bowled away, when a little buggy and a sorrel pony came up the road, and somebody alighted with a brisk spring, slipped the rein with a loose knot through the fence-rail at the corner, and came up one side of the two-plank foot-walk that ran around the Horseshoe; somebody who had come home unexpectedly, to take his little wife to ride. Kenneth Kincaid had business over at the new district of "Clarendon Park." Drives, and livery-stable bills, were no part of the items allowed for, in the programme of these young people's living; therefore Rosamond put on her gray hat, with its soft little dove's breast, and took her bright-striped shawl upon her arm, and let Kenneth lift her into the buggy--for which there was no manner of need except that they both liked it,--with very much the feeling as if she were going off on a lovely bridal trip. They had had no bridal trip, you see; they did not really want one; and this little impromptu drive was such a treat! Now the wonders of nature and the human mind show--if I must go so far to find an argument for the statement I am making--that into a single point of time or particle of matter may be gathered the relations of a solar system or the experiences of a life; that a universe may be compressed into an atom, or a molecule expanded into a macrocosm; therefore I expect nobody to sneer at my Rosamond as childishly nappy in her simple honeymoon, or at me for making extravagant and unsupported assertions, when I say that this hour and a half, and these four miles out to Clarendon Park and back,--the lifting and the tucking in, and the setting off, the sitting side by side in the ripe October air and the golden twilight, the noting together every pretty turn, every flash of autumn color in the woods, every change in the cloud-groupings overhead, every glimpse of busy, bright-eyed squirrels up and down the walls, every cozy, homely group of barnyard creatures at the farmsteads, the change, the pleasure, the thought of home and always-togetherness,--all this made the little treat of a country ride as much to them, holding all that any wandering up and down the whole world in their new companionship could hold,--as a going to Europe, or a journey to mountains and falls and sea-sides and cities, in a skimming of the States. You cannot have more than there is; and you do not care, for more than just what stands for and emphasizes the essential beauty, the living gladness, that no _place_ gives, but that hearts carry about into places and baptize them with, so that ever afterward a tender charm hangs round them, because "we saw it _then_." And Kenneth and Rosamond Kincaid had all these bright associations, these beautiful glamours, these glad reminders, laid up for years to come, in a four miles space that they might ride or walk over, re-living it all, in the returning Octobers of many other years. I say they had a bridal tour that day, and that the four miles were as good as four thousand. Such little bits of signs may stand for such high, great, blessed things! "How lovely stillness and separateness are!" said Rosamond as they sat in the buggy, stopping to enjoy a glimpse of the river on one side, and a flame of burning bushes on the other, against the dark face of a piece of woods that held the curve of road in which they stood, in sheltered quiet. "How pretty a house would be, up on that knoll. Do you know things puzzle me a little, Kenneth? I have almost come to a certain conclusion lately, that people are not meant to live apart, but that it is really everybody's duty to live in a town, or a village, or in some gathering of human beings together. Life tends to that, and all the needs and uses of it; and yet,--it is so sweet in a place like this,--and however kind and social you may be, it seems once in a while such an escape! Do you believe in beautiful country places, and in having a little piece of creation all to yourself, if you can get it, or if not what do you suppose all creation is made for?" "Perhaps just that which you have said, Rose." Rosamond has now, what her mother hinted once, somebody to call her "Rose," with a happy and beautiful privilege. "Perhaps to escape into. Not for one, here and there, selfishly, all the time; but for the whole, with fair share and opportunity. Creation is made very big, you see, and men and women are made without wings, and with very limited hands and feet. Also with limited lives; that makes the time-question, and the hurry. There is a suggestion,--at any rate, a necessity,--in that. It brings them within certain spaces, always. In spite of all the artificial lengthening of railroads and telegraphs, there must still be centres for daily living, intercourse, and need. People tend to towns; they cannot establish themselves in isolated independence. Yet packing and stifling are a cruelty and a sin. I do not believe there ought to be any human being so poor as to be forced to such crowding. The very way we are going to live at the Horseshoe, seems to me an individual solution of the problem. It ought to come to pass that our towns should be built--and if built already, wrongly, _thinned out_,--on this principle. People are coming to learn a little of this, and are opening parks and squares in the great cities, finding that there must be room for bodies and souls to reach out and breathe. If they could only take hold of some of their swarming-places, where disease and vice are festering, and pull down every second house and turn it into a garden space, I believe they would do more for reform and salvation than all their separate institutions for dealing with misery after it is let grow, can ever effect." "O, why _can't_ they?" cried Rose. "There is money enough, somewhere. Why can't they do it, instead of letting the cities grow horrid, and then running away from it themselves, and buying acres and acres around their country places, for fear somebody should come too near, and the country should begin to grow horrid too?" "Because the growing and the crowding and the striving of the city _make_ so much of the money, little wife! Because to keep everybody fairly comfortable as the world goes along, there could not be so many separate piles laid up; it would have to be used more as it comes, and it could not come so fast. If nobody cared to be very rich, and all were willing to live simply and help one another, in little 'horseshoe neighborhoods,' there wouldn't be so much that looks like grand achievement in the world perhaps; but I think maybe the very angels might show themselves out of the unseen, and bring the glory of heaven into it!" Kenneth's color came, and his eyes glowed, as he spoke these words that burst into eloquence with the intensity of his meaning; and Rosamond's face was holy-pale, and her look large, as she listened; and they were silent for a minute or so, as the pony, of his own accord, trotted deliberately on. "But then, the beauty, and the leisure, and all that grows out of them to separate minds, and what the world gets through the refinement of it! You see the puzzle comes back. Must we never, in this life, gather round us the utmost that the world is capable of furnishing? Must we never, out of this big creation, have the piece to ourselves, each one as he would choose?" "I think the Lord would show us a way out of that," said Kenneth. "I think He would make His world turn out right, and all come to good and sufficient use, if we did not put it in a snarl. Perhaps we can hardly guess what we might grow to all together,--'the whole body, fitly joined by that which every joint supplieth, increasing and building itself up in love.' And about the quietness, and the separateness,--we don't want to _live_ in that, Rose; we only want it sometimes, to make us fitter to live. When the disciples began to talk about building tabernacles on the mountain of the vision, Christ led them straight down among the multitude, where there was a devil to be cast out. It is the same thing in the old story of the creation. God worked six days, and rested one." "Well," said Rose, drawing a deep breath, "I am glad we have begun at the Horseshoe! It was a great escape for me, Kenneth. I am such a worldly girl in my heart. I should have liked so much to have everything elegant and artistic about me." "I think you do. I think you always will. Not because of the worldliness in you, though; but the _other_-worldliness, the sense of real beauty and truth. And I am glad that we have begun at all! It was a greater escape for me. I was in danger of all sorts of hardness and unbelief. I had begun to despise and hate things, because they did not work rightly just around me. And then I fell in, just in time, with some real, true people; and then you came, with the 'little piece of your world,' and then I came here, and saw what your world was, and how you were making it, Rose! How a little community of sweet and generous fellowship was crystallizing here among all sorts--outward sorts--of people; a little community of the kingdom; and how you and yours had done it." "O, Kenneth! I was the worst little atom in the whole crystal! I only got into my place because everybody else did, and there was nothing else left for me to do." "You see I shall never believe that," said Kenneth, quietly. "There is no flaw in the crystal. You were all polarized alike. And besides, can't I see daily just how your nature draws and points?" "Well, never mind," said Rose. "Only some particles are natural magnets, I believe, and some get magnetized by contact. Now that we have hit upon this metaphor, isn't it funny that our little social experiment should have taken the shape of a horseshoe?" "The most sociable, because the most magnetic, shape it could take. You will see the power it will develop. There's a great deal in merely taking form according to fundamental principles. Witness the getting round a fireside. Isn't that a horseshoe? And could half as much sympathy be evolved from a straight line?" "I believe in firesides," said Rose. "And in women who can organize and inform them," said Kenneth. "First, firesides; then neighborhoods; that is the way the world's life works out; and women have their hands at the heart of it. They can do so much more there than by making the laws! When the life is right, the laws will make themselves, or be no longer needed. They are such mere outside patchwork,--makeshifts till a better time!" "Wrong living must make wrong laws, whoever does the voting," said Rosamond, sagely. "False social standards make false commercial ones; inflated pretensions demand inflated currency; selfish, untrue domestic living eventuates in greedy speculations and business shams; and all in the intriguing for corrupt legislation, to help out partial interests. It isn't by multiplying the voting power, but by purifying it, that the end is to be reached." "That is so sententious, Kenneth, that I shall have to take it home and ravel it out gradually in my mind in little shreds. In the mean while, dear, suppose we stop in the village, and get some little brown-ware cups for top-overs. You never ate any of my top-overs? Well, when you do, you'll say that all the world ought to be brought up on top-overs." Rosamond was very particular about her little brown-ware cups. They had to be real stone,--brown outside, and gray-blue in; and they must be of a special size and depth. When they were found, and done up in a long parcel, one within another, in stout paper, she carried it herself to the chaise, and would scarcely let Kenneth hold it while she got in; after which, she laid it carefully across her lap, instead of putting it behind upon the cushion. 'You see they were rather dear; but they are the only kind worth while. Those little yellow things would soak and crack, and never look comfortable in the kitchen-closet. I give you very fair warning, I shall always want the best of things but then I shall take very fierce and jealous care of them,--like this.' And she laid her little nicely-gloved hand across her homely parcel, guardingly. How nice it was to go buying little homely things together! Again, it was as good and pleasant,--and meant ever so much more,--than if it had been ordering china with a monogram in Dresden, or glass in Prague, with a coat-of-arms engraved. When they drove up to the Horseshoe, Dakie Thayne and Ruth met them. They had been getting "spiritual ferns" and sumach leaves with Dorris; "the dearest little tips," Ruth said, "of scarlet and carbuncle, just like jets of fire." And now they would go back to tea, and eat up the brown cake? "Real Westover summum-bonum cake?" Dakie wanted to know. "Well, he couldn't stand against that. Come, Ruthie!" And Ruthie came. "What do you think Rosamond says?" said Kenneth, at the tea-table, over the cake. "That everybody ought to live in a city or a village, or, at least, a Horseshoe. She thinks nobody has a right to stick his elbows out, in this world. She's in a great hurry to be packed as closely as possible here." "I wish the houses were all finished, and our neighbors in; that is what I said," said Rosamond. "I should like to begin to know about them, and feel settled; and to see flowers in their windows, and lights at night." "And you always hated so a 'little crowd!'" said Ruth. "It isn't a crowd when they _don't_ crowd," said Rosamond. "I can't bear little miserable jostles." "How good it will be to see Rosamond here, at the head of her court; at the top of the Horseshoe," said Dakie Thayne. "She will be quite the 'Queen of the County.'" "Don't!" said Rosamond. "I've a very weak spot in my head. You can't tell the mischief you might do. No, I won't be queen!" "Any more than you can help," said Dakie. "She'll be Rosa Mundi, wherever she is," said Ruth affectionately. "I think that is just grand of Kenneth and Rosamond," said Dakie Thayne, as he and Ruth were walking home up West Hill in the moonlight, afterward. "What do you think you and I ought to do, one of these days, Ruthie? It sets me to considering. There are more Horseshoes to make, I suppose, if the world is to jog on." "_You_ have a great deal to consider about," said Ruth, thoughtfully. "It was quite easy for Kenneth and Rosamond to see what they ought to do. But you might make a great many Horseshoes,--or something!" "What do you mean by that second person plural, eh? Are you shirking your responsibilities, or are you addressing your imaginary Boffinses? Come, Ruthie, I can't have that! Say 'we,' and I'll face the responsibilities and talk it all out; but I won't have anything to do with 'you!'" "Won't you?" said Ruth, with piteous demureness. "How can I say 'we,' then?" "You little cat! How you can scratch!" "There are such great things to be done in the world Dakie," Ruth said seriously, when they had got over that with a laugh that lifted her nicely by the "we" question. "I can't help thinking of it." "O," said Dakie, with significant satisfaction. "We're getting on better. Well?" "Do you know what Hazel Ripwinkley is doing? And what Luclarion Grapp has done? Do you know how they are going among poor people, in dreadful places,--really living among them, Luclarion is,--and finding out, and helping, and showing how? I thought of that to-night, when they talked about living in cities and villages. Luclarion has gone away down to the very bottom of it. And somehow, one can't feel satisfied with only reaching half-way, when one knows--and might!" "Do you mean, Ruthie, that you and I might go and _live_ in such places? Do you think I could take you there?" "I don't know, Dakie," Ruth answered, forgetting in her earnestness, to blush or hesitate for what he said;--"but I feel as if we ought to reach down, somehow,--_away_ down! Because that, you see, is the _most_. And to do only a little, in an easy way, when we are made so strong to do; wouldn't it be a waste of power, and a missing of the meaning? Isn't it the 'much' that is required of us, Dakie?" They were under the tall hedge of the Holabird "parcel of ground," on the Westover slope, and close to the home gates. Dakie Thayne put his arm round Ruth as she said that, and drew her to him. "We will go and be neighbors somewhere, Ruthie. And we will make as big a Horseshoe as we can." XXII. MORNING GLORIES. And Desire? Do you think I have passed her over lightly in her troubles? Or do you think I am making her out to have herself passed over them lightly? Do you think it is hardly to be believed that she should have turned round from these shocks and pains that bore down so heavily and all at once upon her, and taken kindly to the living with old Uncle Titus and Rachel Froke in the Greenley Street house, and going down to Luclarion Grapp's to help wash little children's faces, and teach them how to have innocent good times? Do you think there is little making up in all that for her, while Rosamond Kincaid is happy in her new home, and Ruth and Dakie Thayne are looking out together over the world,--which can be nowhere wholly sad to them, since they are to go down into it together,--and planning how to make long arms with their wealth, to reach the largest neighborhood they can? In the first place, do you know how full the world is, all around you, of things that are missed by those who say nothing, but go on living somehow without them? Do you know how large a part of life, even young life, is made of the days that have never been lived? Do you guess how many girls, like Desire, come near something that they think they might have had, and then see it drift by just beyond their reach, to fall easily into some other hand that seems hardly put out to grasp it? And do you see, or feel, or guess how life goes on, incompleteness and all, and things settle themselves one way, if not another, simply because the world does not stop, but keeps turning, and tossing off days and nights like time-bubbles just the same? Do you ever imagine how different this winter's parties are from last, or this summer's visit or journey from those of the summer gone,--to many a maiden who has her wardrobe made up all the same, and takes her German or her music lessons, and goes in and out, and has her ticket to the Symphony Concerts, and is no different to look at, unless perhaps with a little of the first color-freshness gone out of her face,--while secretly it seems to her as if the sweet early symphony of her life were all played out, and had ended in a discord? We begin, most of us, much as we are to go on. Real or mistaken, the experiences of eighteen initiate the lesson that those of two and three score after years are needed to unfold and complete. What is left of us is continually turning round, perforce, to take up with what is left of the world, and make the best of it. Thus much for what does happen, for what we have to put up with, for the mere philosophy of endurance, and the possibility of things being endured. We do live out our years, and get and bear it all. And the scars do not show much outside; nay, even we ourselves can lay a finger on the place, after a little time, without a cringe. Desire Ledwith did what she had to do; there was a way made for her, and there was still life left. But there is a better reading of the riddle. There is never a "Might-have-been" that touches with a sting, but reveals also to us an inner glimpse of the wide and beautiful "May Be." It is all there; somebody else has it now while we wait; but the years of God are full of satisfying, each soul shall have its turn; it is His good _pleasure_ to give us the kingdom. There is so much room, there are such thronging possibilities, there is such endless hope! To feel this, one must feel, however dimly, the inner realm, out of which the shadows of this life come and pass, to interpret to us the laid up reality. "The real world is the inside world." Desire Ledwith blessed Uncle Oldways in her heart for giving her that word. It comforted her for her father. If his life here had been hard, toilsome, mistaken even; if it had never come to that it might have come to; if she, his own child, had somehow missed the reality of him here, and he of her,--was he not passed now into the within? Might she not find him there; might they not silently and spiritually, without sign, but needing no sign, begin to understand each other now? Was not the real family just beginning to be born into the real home? Ah, that word _real_! How deep we have to go to find the root of it! It is fast by the throne of God; in the midst. Hazel Ripwinkley talked about "real folks." She sifted, and she found out instinctively the true livers, the genuine _neahburs_, nigh-dwellers; they who abide alongside in spirit, who shall find each other in the everlasting neighborhood, when the veil falls. But there, behind,--how little, in our petty outside vexations or gladnesses, we stop to think of or perceive it!--is the actual, even the present, inhabiting; there is the kingdom, the continuing city, the real heaven and earth in which we already live and labor, and build up our homes and lay up our treasure and the loving Christ, and the living Father, and the innumerable company of angels, and the unseen compassing about of friends gone in there, and they on this earth who truly belong to us inwardly, however we and they may be bodily separated,--are the Real Folks! What matters a little pain, outside? Go _in_, and rest from it! There is where the joy is, that we read outwardly, spelling by parts imperfectly, in our own and others' mortal experience; there is the content of homes, the beauty of love, the delight of friendship,--not shut in to any one or two, but making the common air that all souls breathe. No one heart can be happy, that all hearts may not have a share of it. Rosamond and Kenneth, Dakie and Ruth, cannot live out obviously any sweetness of living, cannot sing any notes of the endless, beautiful score, that Desire Ledwith, and Luclarion Grapp, and Rachel Froke, and Hapsie Craydocke, and old Miss Arabel Waite, do not just as truly get the blessed grace and understanding of; do not catch and feel the perfect and abounding harmony of. Since why? No lip can sound more than its own few syllables of music; no life show more than its own few accidents and incidents and groupings; the vast melody, the rich, eternal satisfying, are behind; and the signs are for us all! You may not think this, or see it so, in your first tussle and set-to with the disappointing and eluding things that seem the real and only,--missing which you miss all. This chapter may be less to you--less _for_ you, perhaps--than for your elders; the story may have ended, as to that you care for, some pages back; but for all that, this is certain; and Desire Ledwith has begun to find it, for she is one of those true, grand spirits to whom personal loss or frustration are most painful as they seem to betoken something wrong or failed in the general scheme and justice. This terrible "why should it be?" once answered,--once able to say to themselves quietly, "It is all right; the beauty and the joy are there; the song is sung, though we are of the listeners; the miracle-play is played, though but a few take literal part, and many of us look on, with the play, like the song, moving through our souls only, or our souls moving in the vital sphere of it, where the stage is wide enough for all;"--once come to this, they have entered already into that which is behind, and nothing of all that goes forth thence into the earth to make its sunshine can be shut off from them forever. Desire is learning to be glad, thinking of Kenneth and Rosamond, that this fair marriage should have been. It is so just and exactly best; Rosamond's sweet graciousness is so precisely what Kenneth's sterner way needed to have shine upon it; her finding and making of all manner of pleasantness will be so good against his sharp discernment of the wrong; they will so beautifully temper and sustain each other! Desire is so generous, so glad of the truth, that she can stand aside, and let this better thing be, and say to herself that it _is_ better. Is not this that she is growing to inwardly, more blessed than any marriage or giving in marriage? Is it not a partaking of the heavenly Marriage Supper? "We two might have grumbled at the world until we grumbled at each other." She even said that, calmly and plainly, to herself. And then that manna was fed to her afresh of which she had been given first to eat so long a while ago; that thought of "the Lamb in the midst of the Throne" came back to her. Of the Tenderness deep within the Almightiness that holds all earth and heaven and time and circumstance in its grasp. Her little, young, ignorant human heart begins to rest in that great warmth and gentleness; begins to be glad to wait there for what shall arise out of it, moving the Almightiness for her,--even on purpose for her,--in the by-and-by; she begins to be sure; of what, she knows not,--but of a great, blessed, beautiful something, that just because she is at all, shall be for her; that she shall have a part, somehow, even in the _showing_ of His good; that into the beautiful miracle-play she shall be called, and a new song be given her, also, to sing in the grand, long, perfect oratorio; she begins to pray quietly, that, "loving the Lord, always above all things, she may obtain His promises, which exceed all that she can desire." And waiting, resting, believing, she begins also to work. This beginning is even as an ending and forehaving, to any human soul. I will tell you how she woke one morning; of a little poem that wrote itself along her chamber wall. It was a square, pleasant old room, with a window in an angle toward the east. A great, old-fashioned mirror hung opposite, between the windows that looked out north-westwardly; the morning and the evening light came in upon her. Beside the solid, quaint old furnishings of a long past time, there were also around her the things she had been used to at home; her own little old rocking-chair, her desk and table, and her toilet and mantel ornaments and things of use. A pair of candle-branches with dropping lustres,--that she had marveled at and delighted in as a child, and had begged for herself when they fell into disuse in the drawing-room,--stood upon the chimney along which the first sun-rays glanced. Just in those days of the year, they struck in so as to shine level through the clear prisms, and break into a hundred little rainbows. She opened her eyes, this fair October morning, and lay and looked at the little scattered glories. All around the room, on walls, curtains, ceiling,--falling like bright soft jewels upon table and floor, touching everything with a magic splendor,--were globes and shafts of colored light. Softly blended from glowing red to tenderly fervid blue, they lay in various forms and fragments, as the beam refracted or the objects caught them. Just on the edge of the deep, opposite window-frame, clung one vivid, separate flash of perfect azure, all alone, and farthest off of all. Desire wondered, at first glance, how it should happen till she saw, against a closet-door ajar, a gibbous sphere of red and golden flame. Yards apart the points were, and a shadow lay between; but the one sure sunbeam knew no distance, and there was no radiant line of the spectrum lost. Desire remembered her old comparison of complementary colors: "to see blue, and to live red," she had said, complaining. But now she thought,--"Foreshortening! In so many things, that is all,--if we could only see as the Sun sees!" One bit of our living, by itself, all one deep, burning, bleeding color, maybe; but the globe is white,--the blue is somewhere. And, lo! a soft, still motion; a little of the flame-tint has dropped off; it has leaped to join itself to the blue; it gives itself over; and they are beautiful together,--they fulfill each other; yet, in the changing never a thread falls quite away into the dark. Why, it is like love joining itself to love again! As God's sun climbs the horizon, His steadfast, gracious purpose, striking into earthly conditions, seems to break, and scatter, and divide. Half our heart is here, half there; our need and ache are severed from their help and answer; the tender blue waits far off for the eager, asking red; yet just as surely as His light shines on, and our life moves under it, so surely, across whatever gulf, the beauty shall all be one again; so surely does it even now move all together, perfect and close always under His eye, who never sends a _half_ ray anywhere. * * * * * She read her little poem,--sent to her; she read it through. She rose up glad and strong; her room was full of glorious sunshine now; the broken bits of color were all taken up in one full pouring of the day. She went down with the light of it in her heart, and all about her. Uncle Oldways met her at the foot of the wide staircase. "Good-day, child!" he said to her in his quaint fashion. "Why it _is_ good day! Your face shines." "You have given me a beautiful east window, uncle," said Desire, "and the morning has come in!" And from the second step, where she still stood, she bent forward a little, put her hands softly upon his shoulders, and for the first time, kissed his cheek. 
22626	----	AN ODE: pronounced before the INHABITANTS OF BOSTON, September the seventeenth, 1830, at the CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION of the SETTLEMENT OF THE CITY. BY CHARLES SPRAGUE. BOSTON: John H. Eastburn ... City Printer. MDCCCXXX. CITY OF BOSTON. In Common Council, September 17, 1830. _Ordered_, That the Committee of Arrangements for the celebration of this day be, and they are hereby, directed to present the thanks of the City Council to CHARLES SPRAGUE, Esquire, for the elegant, interesting and instructive Poem, this day pronounced by him, and respectfully request a copy thereof for the press. Sent up for Concurrence, B. T. PICKMAN, _President_. _In the Board of Aldermen, September 20, 1830._ Read and concurred. H. G. OTIS, _Mayor_. A true copy--Attest, S. F. M'CLEARY, _City Clerk_. _Boston, September 17, 1830._ Charles Sprague, Esq. The Undersigned, the Committee of Arrangements for the Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, have the honor to enclose you an attested copy of a vote of the City Council, and respectfully ask your compliance with the request contained therein. Harrison Gray Otis, Benjamin Russell, Winslow Lewis, Benjamin T. Pickman, Thomas Minns, Joseph Eveleth, John W. James, John P. Bigelow, Washington P. Gragg. ODE. I. Not to the Pagan's mount I turn, For inspiration now; Olympus and its gods I spurn-- Pure One, be with me, Thou! Thou, in whose awful name, From suffering and from shame, Our Fathers fled, and braved a pathless sea; Thou, in whose holy fear, They fixed an empire here, And gave it to their Children and to Thee. II. And You! ye bright ascended Dead, Who scorned the bigot's yoke, Come, round this place your influence shed; Your spirits I invoke. Come, as ye came of yore, When on an unknown shore, Your daring hands the flag of faith unfurled, To float sublime, Through future time, The beacon-banner of another world. III. Behold! they come--those sainted forms, Unshaken through the strife of storms; Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down, And earth puts on its rudest frown; But colder, ruder was the hand, That drove them from their own fair land, Their own fair land--refinement's chosen seat, Art's trophied dwelling, learning's green retreat; By valour guarded, and by victory crowned, For all, but gentle charity, renowned. With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart, Even from that land they dared to part, And burst each tender tie; Haunts, where their sunny youth was passed, Homes, where they fondly hoped at last In peaceful age to die; Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurned-- Their fathers' hallowed graves; And to a world of darkness turned, Beyond a world of waves. IV. When Israel's race from bondage fled, Signs from on high the wanderers led; But here--Heaven hung no symbol here, _Their_ steps to guide, _their_ souls to cheer; They saw, thro' sorrow's lengthening night, Nought but the fagot's guilty light; The cloud they gazed at was the smoke, That round their murdered brethren broke. Nor power above, nor power below, Sustained them in their hour of wo; A fearful path they trod, And dared a fearful doom; To build an altar to their God, And find a quiet tomb. V. But not alone, not all unblessed, The exile sought a place of rest; ONE dared with him to burst the knot, That bound her to her native spot; Her low sweet voice in comfort spoke, As round their bark the billows broke; She through the midnight watch was there; With him to bend her knees in prayer; She trod the shore with girded heart, Through good and ill to claim her part; In life, in death, with him to seal Her kindred love, her kindred zeal. VI. They come--that coming who shall tell? The eye may weep, the heart may swell, But the poor tongue in vain essays A fitting note for them to raise. We hear the after-shout that rings For them who smote the power of kings; The swelling triumph all would share, But who the dark defeat would dare, And boldly meet the wrath and wo, That wait the unsuccessful blow? It were an envied fate, we deem, To live a land's recorded theme, When we are in the tomb; We, too, might yield the joys of home, And waves of winter darkness roam, And tread a shore of gloom-- Knew we those waves, through coming time, Should roll our names to every clime; Felt we that millions on that shore Should stand, our memory to adore-- But no glad vision burst in light, Upon the Pilgrims' aching sight; Their hearts no proud hereafter swelled; Deep shadows veiled the way they held; The yell of vengeance was their trump of fame, Their monument, a grave without a name. VII. Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand, On yonder ice-bound rock, Stern and resolved, that faithful band, To meet fate's rudest shock. Though anguish rends the father's breast, For them, his dearest and his best, With him the waste who trod-- Though tears that freeze, the mother sheds Upon her children's houseless heads-- The Christian turns to God! VIII. In grateful adoration now, Upon the barren sands they bow. What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer, As bursts in desolation there? What arm of strength e'er wrought such power, As waits to crown that feeble hour? There into life an infant empire springs! There falls the iron from the soul; There liberty's young accents roll, Up to the King of kings! To fair creation's farthest bound, That thrilling summons yet shall sound; The dreaming nations shall awake, And to their centre earth's old kingdoms shake. Pontiff and prince, your sway Must crumble from that day; Before the loftier throne of Heaven, The hand is raised, the pledge is given-- One monarch to obey, one creed to own, That monarch, God, that creed, His word alone. IX. Spread out earth's holiest records here, Of days and deeds to reverence dear; A zeal like this what pious legends tell? On kingdoms built In blood and guilt, The worshippers of vulgar triumph dwell-- But what exploit with theirs shall page, Who rose to bless their kind; Who left their nation and their age, Man's spirit to unbind? Who boundless seas passed o'er, And boldly met, in every path, Famine and frost and heathen wrath, To dedicate a shore, Where piety's meek train might breathe their vow, And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow; Where liberty's glad race might proudly come, And set up there an everlasting home? X. O many a time it hath been told, The story of those men of old: For this fair poetry hath wreathed Her sweetest, purest flower; For this proud eloquence hath breathed His strain of loftiest power; Devotion, too, hath lingered round Each spot of consecrated ground, And hill and valley blessed; There, where our banished Fathers strayed, There, where they loved and wept and prayed, There, where their ashes rest. XI. And never may they rest unsung, While liberty can find a tongue. Twine, Gratitude, a wreath for them, More deathless than the diadem, Who to life's noblest end, Gave up life's noblest powers, And bade the legacy descend, Down, down to us and ours. XII. By centuries now the glorious hour we mark, When to these shores they steered their shattered bark; And still, as other centuries melt away, Shall other ages come to keep the day. When we are dust, who gather round this spot, Our joys, our griefs, our very names forgot, Here shall the dwellers of the land be seen, To keep the memory of the Pilgrims green. Nor here alone their praises shall go round, Nor here alone their virtues shall abound-- Broad as the empire of the free shall spread, Far as the foot of man shall dare to tread, Where oar hath never dipped, where human tongue Hath never through the woods of ages rung, There, where the eagle's scream and wild wolf's cry Keep ceaseless day and night through earth and sky, Even there, in after time, as toil and taste Go forth in gladness to redeem the waste, Even there shall rise, as grateful myriads throng, Faith's holy prayer and freedom's joyful song; There shall the flame that flashed from yonder ROCK, Light up the land, till nature's final shock. XIII. Yet while by life's endearments crowned, To mark this day we gather round, And to our nation's founders raise The voice of gratitude and praise, Shall not one line lament that lion race, For us struck out from sweet creation's face? Alas! alas! for them--those fated bands, Whose monarch tread was on these broad, green lands; Our Fathers called them savage--them, whose bread, In the dark hour, those famished Fathers fed: We call them savage, we, Who hail the struggling free, Of every clime and hue; We, who would save The branded slave, And give him liberty he never knew: We, who but now have caught the tale, That turns each listening tyrant pale, And blessed the winds and waves that bore The tidings to our kindred shore; The triumph-tidings pealing from that land, Where up in arms insulted legions stand; There, gathering round his bold compeers, Where He, our own, our welcomed One, Riper in glory than in years, Down from his forfeit throne, A craven monarch hurled, And spurned him forth, a proverb to the world! XIV. We call them savage--O be just! Their outraged feelings scan; A voice comes forth, 'tis from the dust-- The savage was a man! Think ye he loved not? who stood by, And in his toils took part? Woman was there to bless his eye-- The savage had a heart! Think ye he prayed not? when on high He heard the thunders roll, What bade him look beyond the sky? The savage had a soul! XV. I venerate the Pilgrim's cause, Yet for the red man dare to plead-- We bow to Heaven's recorded laws, He turned to nature for a creed; Beneath the pillared dome, We seek our God in prayer; Through boundless woods he loved to roam, And the Great Spirit worshipped there: But one, one fellow-throb with us he felt; To one divinity with us he knelt; Freedom, the self-same freedom we adore, Bade him defend his violated shore; He saw the cloud, ordained to grow, And burst upon his hills in wo; He saw his people withering by, Beneath the invader's evil eye; Strange feet were trampling on his fathers' bones; At midnight hour he woke to gaze Upon his happy cabin's blaze, And listen to his children's dying groans: He saw--and maddening at the sight, Gave his bold bosom to the fight; To tiger rage his soul was driven, Mercy was not--nor sought nor given; The pale man from his lands must fly; He would be free--or he would die. XVI. And was this savage? say, Ye ancient few, Who struggled through Young freedom's trial-day-- What first your sleeping wrath awoke? On your own shores war's larum broke: What turned to gall even kindred blood? Round your own homes the oppressor stood: This every warm affection chilled, This every heart with vengeance thrilled, And strengthened every hand; From mound to mound, The word went round-- "Death for our native land!" XVII. Ye mothers, too, breathe ye no sigh, For them who thus could dare to die? Are all your own dark hours forgot, Of soul-sick suffering here? Your pangs, as from yon mountain spot, Death spoke in every booming shot, That knelled upon your ear? How oft that gloomy, glorious tale ye tell, As round your knees your children's children hang, Of them, the gallant Ones, ye loved so well, Who to the conflict for their country sprang. In pride, in all the pride of wo, Ye tell of them, the brave laid low, Who for their birthplace bled; In pride, the pride of triumph then, Ye tell of them, the matchless men, From whom the invaders fled! XVIII. And ye, this holy place who throng, The annual theme to hear, And bid the exulting song Sound their great names from year to year; Ye, who invoke the chisel's breathing grace, In marble majesty their forms to trace; Ye, who the sleeping rocks would raise, To guard their dust and speak their praise; Ye, who, should some other band With hostile foot defile the land, Feel that ye like them would wake, Like them the yoke of bondage break, Nor leave a battle-blade undrawn, Though every hill a sepulchre should yawn-- Say, have not ye one line for those, One brother-line to spare, Who rose but as your Fathers rose, And dared as ye would dare? XIX. Alas! for them--their day is o'er, Their fires are out from hill and shore; No more for them the wild deer bounds, The plough is on their hunting grounds; The pale man's axe rings through their woods, The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods, Their pleasant springs are dry; Their children--look, by power oppressed, Beyond the mountains of the west, Their children go--to die. XX. O doubly lost! oblivion's shadows close Around their triumphs and their woes. On other realms, whose suns have set, Reflected radiance lingers yet; There sage and bard have shed a light That never shall go down in night; There time-crowned columns stand on high, To tell of them who cannot die; Even we, who then were nothing, kneel In homage there, and join earth's general peal. But the doomed Indian leaves behind no trace, To save his own, or serve another race; With his frail breath his power has passed away, His deeds, his thoughts are buried with his clay; Nor lofty pile, nor glowing page Shall link him to a future age, Or give him with the past a rank: His heraldry is but a broken bow, His history but a tale of wrong and wo, His very name must be a blank. XXI. Cold, with the beast he slew, he sleeps; O'er him no filial spirit weeps; No crowds throng round, no anthem-notes ascend, To bless his coming and embalm his end; Even that he lived, is for his conqueror's tongue, By foes alone his death-song must be sung; No chronicles but theirs shall tell His mournful doom to future times; May these upon his virtues dwell, And in his fate forget his crimes. XXII. Peace to the mingling dead! Beneath the turf we tread, Chief, Pilgrim, Patriot sleep-- All gone! how changed! and yet the same, As when faith's herald bark first came In sorrow o'er the deep. Still from his noonday height, The sun looks down in light; Along the trackless realms of space, The stars still run their midnight race; The same green valleys smile, the same rough shore Still echoes to the same wild ocean's roar:-- But where the bristling night-wolf sprang Upon his startled prey, Where the fierce Indian's war-cry rang, Through many a bloody fray; And where the stern old Pilgrim prayed In solitude and gloom, Where the bold Patriot drew his blade, And dared a patriot's doom-- Behold! in liberty's unclouded blaze, We lift our heads, a race of other days. XXIII. All gone! the wild beast's lair is trodden out; Proud temples stand in beauty there; Our children raise their merry shout, Where once the death-whoop vexed the air: The Pilgrim--seek yon ancient place of graves, Beneath that chapel's holy shade; Ask, where the breeze the long grass waves, Who, who within that spot are laid: The Patriot--go, to fame's proud mount repair, The tardy pile, slow rising there, With tongueless eloquence shall tell Of them who for their country fell. XXIV. All gone! 'tis ours, the goodly land-- Look round--the heritage behold; Go forth--upon the mountains stand, Then, if ye can, be cold. See living vales by living waters blessed, Their wealth see earth's dark caverns yield, See ocean roll, in glory dressed, For all a treasure, and round all a shield: Hark to the shouts of praise Rejoicing millions raise; Gaze on the spires that rise, To point them to the skies, Unfearing and unfeared; Then, if ye can, O then forget To whom ye owe the sacred debt-- The Pilgrim race revered! The men who set faith's burning lights Upon these everlasting heights, To guide their children through the years of time; The men that glorious law who taught, Unshrinking liberty of thought, And roused the nations with the truth sublime. XXV. Forget? no, never--ne'er shall die, Those names to memory dear; I read the promise in each eye That beams upon me here. Descendants of a twice-recorded race, Long may ye here your lofty lineage grace; 'Tis not for you home's tender tie To rend, and brave the waste of waves; 'Tis not for you to rouse and die, Or yield and live a line of slaves; The deeds of danger and of death are done: Upheld by inward power alone, Unhonoured by the world's loud tongue, 'Tis yours to do unknown, And then to die unsung. To other days, to other men belong The penman's plaudit and the poet's song; Enough for glory has been wrought, By you be humbler praises sought; In peace and truth life's journey run, And keep unsullied what your Fathers won. XXVI. Take then my prayer, Ye dwellers of this spot-- Be yours a noiseless and a guiltless lot. I plead not that ye bask In the rank beams of vulgar fame; To light your steps I ask A purer and a holier flame. No bloated growth I supplicate for you, No pining multitude, no pampered few; 'Tis not alone to coffer gold, Nor spreading borders to behold; 'Tis not fast-swelling crowds to win, The refuse-ranks of want and sin-- This be the kind decree: Be ye by goodness crowned, Revered, though not renowned; Poor, if Heaven will, but Free! Free from the tyrants of the hour, The clans of wealth, the clans of power, The coarse, cold scorners of their God; Free from the taint of sin, The leprosy that feeds within, And free, in mercy, from the bigot's rod. XXVII. The sceptre's might, the crosier's pride, Ye do not fear; No conquest blade, in life-blood dyed, Drops terror here-- Let there not lurk a subtler snare, For wisdom's footsteps to beware; The shackle and the stake, Our Fathers fled; Ne'er may their children wake A fouler wrath, a deeper dread; Ne'er may the craft that fears the flesh to bind, Lock its hard fetters on the mind; Quenched be the fiercer flame That kindles with a name; The pilgrim's faith, the pilgrim's zeal, Let more than pilgrim kindness seal; Be purity of life the test, Leave to the heart, to Heaven, the rest. XXVIII. So, when our children turn the page, To ask what triumphs marked our age, What we achieved to challenge praise, Through the long line of future days, This let them read, and hence instruction draw: "Here were the Many blessed, Here found the virtues rest, Faith linked with love and liberty with law; Here industry to comfort led, Her book of light here learning spread; Here the warm heart of youth Was wooed to temperance and to truth; Here hoary age was found, By wisdom and by reverence crowned. No great, but guilty fame Here kindled pride, that should have kindled shame; THESE chose the better, happier part, That poured its sunlight o'er the heart; That crowned their homes with peace and health, And weighed Heaven's smile beyond earth's wealth; Far from the thorny paths of life They stood, a living lesson to their race, Rich in the charities of life, Man in his strength, and Woman in her grace; In purity and love THEIR pilgrim road they trod, And when they served their neighbor felt they served their God." XXIX. This may not wake the poet's verse, This souls of fire may ne'er rehearse In crowd-delighting voice; Yet o'er the record shall the patriot bend, His quiet praise the moralist shall lend, And all the good rejoice. XXX. This be our story then, in that far day, When others come their kindred debt to pay: In that far day?--O what shall be, In this dominion of the free, When we and ours have rendered up our trust, And men unborn shall tread above our dust? O what shall be?--He, He alone, The dread response can make, Who sitteth on the only throne, That time shall never shake; Before whose all-beholding eyes Ages sweep on, and empires sink and rise. Then let the song to Him begun, To Him in reverence end: Look down in love, Eternal One, And Thy good cause defend; Here, late and long, put forth Thy hand, To guard and guide the Pilgrim's land. 
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19736	----	SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S BY LAURA LEE HOPE AUTHOR OF "THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES," "THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES," "THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES," ETC. _ILLUSTRATED_ NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS BOOKS By LAURA LEE HOPE * * * * * _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. 50 cents per volume._ * * * * * =THE SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES= SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDMA BELL'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT COUSIN TOM'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT GRANDPA FORD'S SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT UNCLE FRED'S * * * * * =THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES= THE BOBBSEY TWINS THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA * * * * * =THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES= BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY * * * * * =THE OUTDOOR GIRL SERIES= THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE =GROSSET & DUNLAP,= PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Copyright, 1918, by GROSSET & DUNLAP * * * * * _Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's_ [Illustration: THE CHILDREN WERE HAVING LOTS OF FUN WITH THEIR FUNNY LITTLE PET. _Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's._ _Frontispiece_--(_Page 158_)] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A QUEER HUNT 1 II. GOOD-BYE TO GRANDMA 11 III. ON THE BOAT 22 IV. IN BOSTON 32 V. ALEXIS IS SPLASHED 42 VI. THE POCKETBOOK 52 VII. A SAD LETTER 62 VIII. RUSS MAKES A FOUNTAIN 72 IX. WHAT HAPPENED TO WILLIAM 83 X. ROSE MAKES AN AIRSHIP 92 XI. VI IS LOST 103 XII. MARGY TAKES A RIDE 112 XIII. MUN BUN DRIVES AWAY 122 XIV. THE WHISTLING WAGON 133 XV. LADDIE'S FUNNY "RIDDLE" 144 XVI. ROSE BREAKS HER SKATE 151 XVII. THE SKATE WAGON 163 XVIII. THE SPINNING TOPS 171 XIX. FLYING A KITE 181 XX. THE JUMPING-ROPE 191 XXI. MUN BUN IN A HOLE 202 XXII. OUT TO NANTASKET BEACH 210 XXIII. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 219 XXIV. ROSE FINDS HER DOLL 228 XXV. THE POCKETBOOK OWNER 238 SIX LITTLE BUNKERS AT AUNT JO'S CHAPTER I A QUEER HUNT "Let me count noses now, to see if you're all here," said Mother Bunker with a laugh, as her flock of children gathered around her. "Don't you want some help?" asked Grandma Bell. "Can you count so many boys and girls all alone, Amy?" "Oh, I think so," answered Mother Bunker. "You see I am used to it. I count them every time we come to the woods, and each time I start for home, to be sure none has been left behind. Now then, children! Attention! as the soldier captain says." Six little Bunkers, who were getting ready to run off into the woods to frolic and have a good time at a good-bye picnic, laughed and shouted and finally stood still long enough for their mother to "count noses," as she called it. "And I'll help," said Grandma Bell, at whose country home in Maine, near Lake Sagatook, the six little Bunkers were spending part of their summer vacation. "Russ and Rose!" called Mother Bunker. "Here we are!" answered Russ, and he pointed to his sister. "Vi and Laddie!" went on Mrs. Bunker. "We're here, but we're going to run now," said Laddie. "I'm going to think of a riddle to guess when we get to the woods." "Where are you going to run to?" asked Vi, or Violet, which was her right name, though she was more often called Vi. "Where you going to run to, Laddie?" she asked again. But Laddie, her twin brother, did not stop to answer the question. Indeed it would take a great deal of time to reply to the questions Vi asked, and no one ever stopped to answer them all, any more than they tried to answer all the riddles--real and make-believe--that Laddie asked. "Well, that's four of them," said Grandma Bell with a laugh. "Yes," said Mother Bunker. "And now for the last. Margy and Mun!" "We's here!" said Margy, who, as you may easily guess, was, more properly, Margaret. "Come on, Mun Bun!" she called. "Now we can have some fun." And for fear you might be wondering what sort of creature Mun Bun was, I'll say right here that he was Margy's little brother, and his right name was Munroe Ford Bunker; but he was called Mun Bun for short. "They're all here," said Grandma Bell, with a smile. "Yes," answered Mrs. Bunker, as she saw the six children running across the field toward the woods. "They're all here now, and I hope they'll all be here when we start back." "Oh, I think they will," said Grandma Bell with a smile. "I'm sorry this is your last picnic with me. I certainly have enjoyed your visit here--yours and the children's." The two women walked slowly over the field and toward the woods, in which the six little Bunkers were already running about and having fun. The woods were on the edge of Lake Sagatook, and not far from Grandma Bell's house. "Come on, Rose!" called Russ to his sister. "We'll have a last ride on the steamboat." "I want to come, too!" shouted Laddie, dropping a bundle of pine cones he had picked up. "So do I," added Vi. "I want a ride." "Say, we can't all get on the steamboat at once!" Russ cried. "It'll sink if we do." "Then we can play shipwreck," proposed Rose. "Yes, we could do that," Russ agreed. "But if the steamboat sinks it'll be on the bottom of the lake, and it won't move and we can't have rides. That'll be no fun!" And the boy began to whistle, which he almost always did when he was thinking hard, as he was just now. "Well, what can we do?" asked Rose. "I want a ride on the steamboat." It wasn't really a steamboat at all, being only some fence rails and boards nailed roughly together. It was more of a raft than a boat, but it would float in the shallow water of the lake near the shore, and the children could stand on it in their bare feet and paddle about in a small cove that a bend in the shore-line of the lake made. The reason they had to take off their shoes and stockings was because the water came up over the top of the raft, and splashed on the children's feet. Anyhow, it was more fun to go barefooted, and no sooner had the six little Bunkers reached the shore of the lake in the midst of the woods, than off came their shoes and stockings. "I want to ride on the steamer, too," said Mun Bun. "No, we don't want to do that," put in Margy, who was standing near him. "Why?" he asked. "'Cause." "But why?" "Don't you 'member? We're goin' to roll downhill where the pine needles make it so slippery." "Oh, yes," agreed Mun Bun. "We'll roll downhill, and then we'll ride on the steamer." "But I want a ride now!" insisted Violet. "So do I," added Laddie. "I asked first," cried Rose. "But I s'pose mother'll make me give in to you two, 'cause I'm older'n you; but I don't want to," she added. "My! what's all this about?" asked Mother Bunker, as she came along with Grandma Bell, the two women having walked more slowly than the children. "Has anything happened?" She could tell by the faces of the little ones that everything was not just right. "Oh, they all want to ride on the steamboat at once, and it isn't big enough," explained Russ. "Then you must take turns," said Mother Bunker quickly. "That's the only way to do. Rose, dear, you are the oldest; you will let Laddie and Violet have the first ride, will you not?" "There! I _knew_ you'd ask me to do that!" cried Rose, and her voice was not just as pleasant as it might have been. "Never mind, Rose," whispered Russ to her. "I'll give you a longer ride than I give them. Anyway, they'll soon get tired of the raft, and then you and I can play sailor, and steamboat around as much as we like." "And will you let me help push with the pole?" asked Rose. "Yes, you can do that, of course," Russ agreed. "All right," assented Rose. "I'll wait. Go on, Violet and Laddie. You may have your ride first." With shouts of glee the twins ran down to the edge of the lake where the raft, or, as Russ called it, the "steamboat," was tied by a rope to an old stump. Russ, with the help of Tom Hardy, the hired man, had made the raft, and on it the children had had lots of fun. Russ now took his place in the middle, holding a long pole by which he pushed the raft about in the shallow cove of the lake. The water here was not deep--hardly over the children's knees. "All aboard!" cried Russ, and Laddie and Violet got on the raft. Mother Bunker and Grandma Bell sat down in the shade to watch, while Mun Bun and Margy ran over to a little hill, covered with dry, slippery pine needles, and there they started to roll over and over down the slope, tumbling about in the soft grass at the foot, laughing and giggling. Up and down, and around and around the little cove of Lake Sagatook Russ pushed his little twin brother and sister. The raft was just about large enough for three children of the size of those who were on it, but any more would have made it sink to the sandy bottom of the lake. Then, though they might have played "shipwreck," it would not be as much fun, Russ thought. "Toot! Toot!" cried Russ, making believe he was the steamboat's whistle. Then he ding-donged the bell and hissed, to let off steam. Violet and Laddie laughed, and did the same thing, pretending they were part of the engine of the boat. "Well, I think you have ridden on the steamboat long enough now, Laddie and Vi!" called Mother Bunker, after a bit. "Give Rose a turn." "Just one more ride!" pleaded Laddie. "All right--just one more. But that's the last," said Russ. So he poled the raft across the cove again, and then his little brother and sister got off while Rose waded out in her bare feet and got on board, carrying a pole so she could help push the raft; for it had no sails like a sailboat, and no motor like a motor-boat, and to make it go it had to be pushed. "Come on, Vi. Let's go over and roll downhill with Margy and Mun Bun," said Laddie, after watching Rose and Russ a bit. "They're having lots of fun." The two smallest of the six little Bunkers did, indeed, appear to be having a good time. Over and over they rolled down the clean, slippery hill covered with the brown pine needles. Soon Laddie and Vi joined in the fun, and their shouts and laughter could be heard by Mother Bunker and Grandma Bell, where they were sitting in the shade of the trees. All at once Laddie, who had rolled to the bottom of the hill, ending with a somersault in the soft grass, stood up and called: "Listen! What's that?" Vi, Margy and Mun Bun listened. "I don't hear anything," said Vi. "I do," went on Laddie. "It's some one hollering!" And, as the children became quiet and listened more intently, they did, indeed, hear a voice calling: "Come and get me! Come and get me!" "Oh, it's somebody lost in the woods!" said Violet. "A little boy, maybe!" exclaimed Laddie. "Or a little girl," added Mun Bun, his eyes big with wonder. "Let's go and hunt for 'em," proposed Laddie. "If we were lost, we'd like some one to hunt for us. Come on!" The other children did not stop to think whether or not this was right. Laddie was the oldest of the four, except Violet, who was just as old, except maybe a minute or two, and Mun Bun and Margy thought what Laddie said must be right. "Come and get me! Come and get me!" cried the voice again, and to the four little Bunkers it seemed to be a sad one. "Come on!" exclaimed Laddie. And the children started on a queer hunt. CHAPTER II GOOD-BYE TO GRANDMA Mrs. Bunker, who was busy talking to Grandma Bell, looked up just in time to see Laddie, Violet, Margy and Mun Bun running off through the woods. "Children! Children!" she cried. "Where are you going?" Faintly came back Laddie's answer: "There's a little boy or girl lost in the woods, an' they're callin' to us and we're going to hunt for 'em!" "Oh, my!" exclaimed Mother Bunker. "Wait, children! Wait for me!" she continued. "Russ--Rose! Come off the raft! I don't want you on it while I'm not near you!" "Where are you going?" asked Grandma Bell, as she saw her daughter getting up. "I'm going to see what those children mean," was Mrs. Bunker's answer. "I can't tell what mischief they may get into." And while Rose and Russ poled the raft toward shore, as their mother told them to, and got off, Mrs. Bunker started after the other children, who were going to find the strange voice that had called to them. And while this is going on I shall have a chance to tell my new readers something about the little Bunkers. There were six of them, as, perhaps, you have counted. Russ, or Russell, to give him the whole of his name, was eight years old. He was the oldest, a great boy for making things to play with, such as a steamboat out of some old boards, or an automobile from a chair and a sofa cushion. He was also very fond of whistling, and knew several real tunes. Rose, who came next, was seven years old. She was a regular "mother's helper," and often sang as she washed the dishes or did the dusting. She had light hair and blue eyes while Russ had a dark complexion. Then there came Violet and Laddie, the twins, aged six. Laddie's real name was Fillmore Bunker, but he was seldom called that. His hair was curly, and his eyes were gray, and whether that made him so fond of making up riddles, or of asking those others made up, I can't say. Anyhow he did it. His twin sister loved to ask questions. She could ask more questions in a day than several persons could answer. No one ever tried to answer all Vi asked. Her hair and eyes were just like Laddie's. Next came Margy and Mun Bun. Margy was five, and her brother was a year younger. He had blue eyes and golden hair, and, you can easily imagine, was a pretty picture. "Daddy" Bunker, whose name was Charles, had a real estate and lumber office in Pineville, which was in Pennsylvania, and was on the Rainbow River. About twenty thousand people lived in Pineville, and it was a very nice place indeed. The home of the Bunkers was on the main street of the town, and was less than a mile from Daddy Bunker's office. Then there was Mother Bunker, whose hands were full keeping house and looking after the six little Bunkers. Her name was Amy, and before she married Daddy Bunker her last name had been Bell. Those of you who have read the first book of this series, called "Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's," remember that there were two other members of the "family"--Norah O'Grady, the good-natured Irish cook, and Jerry Simms, the man who had once been a soldier and who was very kind to the children. Jerry did odd bits of work about the house, and often ran the automobile for Mr. Bunker. The Bunkers had many relatives. There was Grandma Bell, who was Mrs. Bunker's mother, and there was Grandpa Ford, who was Daddy Bunker's stepfather. He was kind and good, and had loved Daddy Bunker when Daddy Bunker was a little boy, and now loved the six little Bunkers as well. Grandma Bell lived in Maine, near Lake Sagatook, and Grandpa Ford lived at Tarrington, New York, his place being called Great Hedge Estate. Then there was Miss Josephine Bunker (she was "Aunt Jo," you know), who lived in Boston; Uncle Frederick Bell, of Moon City, Montana; and Cousin Tom Bunker, who lived at Seaview, on the New Jersey coast. In the first book I told you about the six little Bunkers when on a visit to Grandma Bell, in Maine, and how they helped solve a mystery and find some valuable real estate papers that an old tramp lumberman had carried off in a ragged coat. I can't begin to tell you, here, all the fun the six little Bunkers had at Grandma Bell's. They spent the last of July and the first part of August there, and now, just before leaving, they were planning for the rest of the summer vacation. But, just at the present moment, something else was happening. The children's play had been stopped by the voice in the woods; a voice heard by Laddie, Vi, Mun Bun and Margy. "Are you sure it was a little child you heard calling?" asked Mrs. Bunker, overtaking the four children. "Oh, yes; sure!" answered Laddie. "It was a little boy." "I think it was a little girl," said Violet. "Hark!" exclaimed Grandma Bell, who had come with Mother Bunker. "There it goes once more!" And, surely enough, the voice called again: "Come and get me! I'm lost!" "Poor thing!" said Grandma Bell. "I wonder whose little boy or girl it is." "'Tisn't any of us," said Violet, "'cause we're all here!" "Yes, I counted to make sure," said Mother Bunker. "But we must find out who it is. Come on, children. Are we going too fast for you, Mother?" she asked Grandma Bell. "Oh, no, indeed!" "We must find the lost one," Mother Bunker continued, and so they kept on with the queer hunt. Every now and then they could hear the voice calling. Pretty soon Mrs. Bell said: "I can hear some one coming." Then the voice called again: "Come and get me! I'm lost!" "Oh, there it is! Over in that direction!" exclaimed Grandma Bell. They hurried toward a thick clump of trees, from which the voice seemed to come. Then, all at once, another voice called: "Oh, there you are! I see you! Now come right here to me, and don't go away again!" "Why, I know who _that_ is!" exclaimed Grandma Bell. Before the children could ask they heard a funny voice say: "Oh, hello! Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll! Polly wants a cracker!" "Well, you'll get one, and it won't be a sweet cracker, either, if you fly out of your cage again," said a man's voice. "You'll get a fire-cracker! Now you flutter right down to me and be good!" "Hello! Hello!" said the funny voice, and then came a strange laugh. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" "Why--why! It's a _parrot_!" shouted Laddie. "I can see his green feathers!" "Yes, and there is Mr. Hixon after him," said Grandma Bell. "You have been fooled by Bill Hixon's parrot, children, just as you were teased once before. It wasn't a little boy or girl lost in the woods at all. It was just the parrot." "That's just what it was, Mrs. Bell," said Mr. Hixon, and a man stepped out from behind a tree. "Were you after him, too?" he asked, as he held out his hand the parrot flew down out of the tree and alighted on his finger. "The children, playing in the woods, heard your parrot calling, and thought it was a lost child," said Mrs. Bunker. "Did he get out of his cage?" "That's what he did," said Mr. William Hixon, or "Bill," as his neighbors called him. "He got out early this morning, and I've been looking for him ever since. I followed along through these woods, because a man said he had seen a green bird flying about in here, and, surely enough, I heard my Polly singing out about being lost, and wanting some one to come and get her. She always begs that way when she gets lost." "We heard her," said Laddie. "But I thought it was a little boy." "And I thought it was a little girl," added Violet. Mun Bun and Margy didn't say anything. They just stood and looked at the green parrot on Mr. Hixon's finger. The bird seemed happy now, and bent its head over toward its owner. "She wants it scratched," said Mr. Hixon. "Well, I'll be nice to you now, but I won't like you if you get out of your cage again," he said. "She can open the door herself," he explained to Grandma Bell and Mrs. Bunker. "She talks very plainly for a parrot," said Grandma Bell. "I remember the day the six little Bunkers first came, and Polly was in the back of the auto. We thought it was a child then." "Yes, Polly is a good talker," said Mr. Hixon, who lived not far from Grandma Bell's. "But I think I'll have to get her a new cage so she can't get out. It keeps me busy chasing after her." "Polly wants a cracker! Polly wants a sweet cracker!" chanted the parrot. "Well, you'll get a sour one if you aren't good!" said Mr. Hixon, with a laugh. "I'm sorry my parrot fooled you, and made you think a child was lost in the woods," he went on. "Oh, that's all right," said Mother Bunker. "We didn't mind hunting, and we're glad no one was lost." "How are all the six little Bunkers?" asked the owner of the green parrot, as he started for his home. "Well, these four, as you see, are fine," said Grandma Bell. "The other two, Russ and Rose, are playing steamboat on the lake. But I am going to lose them all." "Lose them all!" cried Mr. Hixon. "How's that?" "We are going to pay a visit to Mr. Bunker's sister, who lives in Boston," explained Mrs. Bunker. "She wrote and asked us to come, and this is our last week at Grandma Bell's." "Well, I'm sure we'll miss the six little Bunkers when they go," said Mr. Hixon. "Indeed we shall!" said Grandma Bell. "But they are coming to see me again." "We love it here," put in Vi. "And we've had lots of fun," added Margy. "Maybe we'll have fun at Aunt Jo's," said Laddie. "I'm sure you will. I guess you could have fun anywhere, you six," said Mr. Hixon with a laugh. "Well, good-bye, if I don't see you again!" "Good-bye!" said the others. "Good-bye," echoed the parrot. Grandma Bell, Mother Bunker and the four children went back to the shady cove of the lake. "Where'd you go?" asked Russ and Rose, who were walking along to meet them. "Oh, we thought somebody was lost in the woods," answered Laddie. "But it was Mr. Hixon's parrot," added Vi. The children went back to their play. A day or so later they helped pack the things they had brought with them to Grandma Bell's. "We're going to Aunt Jo's! We're going to Aunt Jo's!" shouted Rose, dancing about. "In Boston! In Boston!" added Russ. "And we'll have Boston baked beans!" The next day the children said good-bye to Grandma Bell and, with Daddy and Mother Bunker, started for Aunt Jo's. They hardly even dreamed of all the good times they were to have there, nor of the strange things that were to happen. CHAPTER III ON THE BOAT From Grandma Bell's home, near Lake Sagatook, the six little Bunkers, with their father and mother, were taken to the railroad station in a big automobile. As the children looked back, waving their hands to their dear grandmother, who had made their visit such a pleasant one, Russ said: "Oh, dear!" "What's the matter?" asked his father. "You seem sad." "I wish we could take that nice lake with us," explained Russ. "We had such fun there." "And the boat, too," added Rose. "Can we have a boat at Aunt Jo's, Daddy?" "I hardly think so," answered Mr. Bunker with a smile. "Aunt Jo lives in the city--in Boston, in the Back Bay section, and I hardly think there is a place there where you can paddle a raft." "Can we go wadin'?" asked Laddie. "Not unless there is a little lake in some park near by," his father answered. "Couldn't we wait for it to rain and make a mud puddle?" asked Vi. "We could wade in that! We do when we're home!" "But Boston isn't home. And you can't do in a big city the things you can do at home in Pineville," said Mrs. Bunker, as the automobile chugged along through the woods. "Can't we have _any_ fun?" asked Russ. "Oh, yes, lots of fun," his father replied. "Aunt Jo wouldn't ask us to spend two weeks or more at her house, if she didn't know you children could have fun, even if she does live in a city. Don't worry about that--you'll have fun." "But we can't have a boat," sighed Rose. She and the other children loved the water, and, living so near Rainbow River as they did, they were used to paddling about, playing with make-believe boats and toys like that. "Well, if you can't have a boat at Aunt Jo's in Boston, you are going to ride on one before you get to her house," said Mother Bunker with a smile. "Are we?" cried Russ and Rose together. "Yes. Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Daddy Bunker. "We are going to Boston by boat, instead of by train. That is, we are going most of the way by boat." "Where is there any water for a boat?" asked Vi, looking around in the woods through which they were riding. "You can't make a boat go lessen you have water." "Oh, I know. Yes, you can! Yes, you can!" suddenly cried Laddie. "How can you?" asked Russ. "You can't sail a boat without water." "Yes, you can!" said Laddie again, and he was laughing now. "I just thought of a riddle. This is it. What kind of a boat can you sail without water? It's a riddle!" "Huh! I should say it _was_! Nobody could answer a riddle like _that_!" declared Russ. "Yes, they can!" insisted Laddie. "It's a riddle! And I made it up all by myself. Nobody told me, and I know the answer." "Well, that's more than I do," said Mrs. Bunker with a laugh. "Suppose you tell us, Laddie." "And then Daddy can tell us about the boat we're going to ride on to Aunt Jo's," suggested Rose. "Yes, I'll do that," said Mr. Bunker. "Go on, Laddie. What is the riddle you thought of?" "What kind of a boat don't have to go in water?" asked the little boy, his eyes shining, for he loved to make up riddles. "Well, go on. Tell us the answer," said his mother. "It's a gravy boat!" laughed Laddie. "You know, a gravy boat. It's the kind of a dish we have on the table, with gravy in it, for your bread. You don't have to put _that_ kind of a boat in water." "That's right! You don't," said Mr. Bunker. "That was a good riddle, Laddie." "And maybe I could think up another one," went on the little boy. "I almost got one. It's about what makes bread always fall with the butter-side down. But I haven't thought of the answer yet." "Well, don't tell us any more riddles now," said Russ. "We want to hear about the boat we're going to ride on to Aunt Jo's. Tell us, Daddy." "All right, I will," promised the children's father. Then he went on to tell that, by taking a train to a station on the coast, they could get a boat that would take them to Boston. "We shall have to travel all night though, just as we did in the sleeping-car," said Mr. Bunker. "Why?" asked Vi. "Because it will take that long to reach Boston," explained her father. Rose had quite a large doll, her best one, which she carried with her in her arms whenever the family went traveling. Rose had brought her doll to Grandma Bell's and something funny had happened to the doll in the sleeping-car. You may read about it in the book before this one. "I must see if my doll is asleep," said Rose. She had put her toy in a cosy corner of the auto seat, and covered her with a blanket. But when Rose went to look for Sue, as she called her doll, Sue was not to be found. "Oh! Sue's gone! Sue's gone!" cried Rose. "Somebody has taken my Sue!" "Who did?" asked Vi. "Are you sure she hasn't fallen to the floor of the car?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "No, she isn't here at all," wailed Rose. "Maybe you didn't bring her. Perhaps you left her at Grandma Bell's," said Mr. Bunker. "Oh, no! I'm sure I had her," sobbed Rose. "Don't you all 'member that I held her up and wiggled her hand at grandma to say good-bye?" "Yes, I do remember that," said Mrs. Bunker. "Rose surely had her doll when we started. Have any of you children seen Sue?" she asked. None of them had, and then Daddy Bunker called to the man driving the auto to stop. "What are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "I thought I'd walk back a little way and see if Sue had not dropped out along the road," answered her husband. "Have we got time for that? Won't the train go?" "Well, we've got a little time," said the driver. "I'll get out and help you look, Mr. Bunker." "Why'd you lose Sue, Rose?" asked Vi. "Why, Vi Bunker, I didn't mean to lose her!" exclaimed Rose. Rose was still searching among the blankets, hoping that, somehow or other, the doll might be found, and her father and Mr. Mead, the auto driver, were getting out, when they heard a shout behind them. "That's some one calling," said Mrs. Bunker. They looked and saw riding toward them a boy on a bicycle. He had something in one hand, and clung to the steering bars with the other. "Oh, he has my doll! He has my doll! I can see Sue!" cried Rose, clapping her hands in joy. "He found her!" "I do believe he has the child's doll," said Mother Bunker. "But where did he get her?" asked Vi. "He must have picked her up along the road after she slipped out of the auto," answered Mrs. Bunker. By this time the boy on the bicycle had caught up to the auto, which had stopped in a shady place. "This doll dropped out of your car in front of our house," panted the bicycle boy. "I saw it fall, and I picked it up and rode after you. But I had hard work to catch you." "I'm glad you did catch us," said Mr. Bunker, taking the doll from the boy's hand. "You had quite a ride. Aren't you tired?" "Oh, I'm a little tired, but not much," said the boy. "The doll is all right. She had a little dust on her, but I brushed it off." "I'm ever so much obliged to you," said Mr. Bunker. "Thank you--a whole lot!" murmured Rose. "I was 'fraid my doll was lost forever." "And here is something for your trouble," said Mr. Bunker, giving the boy a silver quarter. "Oh, I don't want to take it!" he said, backing away. "Of course you must take it!" insisted Rose's father. "You had a hard ride to bring the doll back to us, and you saved us a long walk to look for her. Take the money and get yourself something with it." "All right. Thank you," said the boy, blushing a little under his tan. "I'll get me a new knife. I want a knife a lot. My old one's no good." Then the boy told of having seen the doll bounce out of the automobile as it went past his house. He had called, but the machine made such a noise, and the six little Bunkers were probably talking so much, that no one heard the lad. So he picked up Sue from the road and hurried on after the car. "And I never want to lose you again," said Rose, as she hugged her doll close in her arms. Mr. Bunker and Mr. Mead got back into the auto, and they set off again, Rose and the children waving good-bye to the boy, who stood near his bicycle, looking at the silver quarter in his hand. "Why'd you give the boy a quarter, Daddy?" asked Vi. But that was one question too many from Vi, and her father did not explain. A little later the Bunkers reached the railroad station, without losing anything more, and they were soon on their way to take the boat for Boston. They had had much fun in Maine, at Lake Sagatook, but just as good times were ahead of them, they all felt. It was evening when they went aboard the big steamer that was to take them to Boston. The children were rather tired from the day's journey in automobile and train. "I guess we'll all be glad to get into our little beds," said Mother Bunker, as they went to their staterooms, there being two, one next to the other. "Now let me count noses, to make sure you're all here," she went on. "Russ, Rose, Laddie, Vi, Mun Bun--Where is Margy?" she suddenly cried, as she missed the little girl. "Margy isn't here! Where is she?" It was true. Margy wasn't with the other little Bunkers. There were only five in sight! CHAPTER IV IN BOSTON Daddy Bunker and Mother Bunker were used to having things happen to the six little Bunkers. Not that they liked to have things happen--that is, unpleasant things--but the father and the mother knew they could not travel around with half a dozen children and not find a bit of trouble now and then. And now trouble had come! Margy was not to be found! "I'm sure she came on the boat with us," said Daddy Bunker. "Yes, I know that," said his wife, as she looked quickly around the deck. "I saw her with the rest not a minute ago." "Then where can she have gone?" asked Mr. Bunker. "As the steamer has not moved away from the dock, maybe she ran back to shore to get something, or look at something." "Why'd Margy go away?" asked Vi. "Margy is too little to go off by herself," said Mrs. Bunker. "Do you mean some one took her--maybe a gypsy?" asked Russ. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Rose. "Are there gypsies here?" "Nonsense! Of course not!" answered Mr. Bunker, seeing that what Russ had said might frighten the children. "No one has taken Margy. Maybe she is just playing hide-and-go-seek!" Mr. Bunker didn't really believe Margy was doing this, but he said it to make the children feel better. "You take the children down to the stateroom," said Mr. Bunker to his wife, "and I'll look for Margy. I'll find her in a jiffy, which is very quick time, indeed," he told the children. "Run along now, Mun Bun, and you too, Vi and Laddie. Rose, you go with your mother and help take care of Mun Bun." "Shall I come with you, Daddy?" asked Russ. "Yes," answered Mr. Bunker, "you may come with me, Russ. You can run faster than I can, and if we find Margy playing tag with some of the other little boys and girls on the steamer you can catch her more easily than I can." Mr. Bunker said this for fun. He didn't really think Margy was playing tag. But he had to say something so the others would not be frightened. And, to tell the truth, Mr. Bunker was a little bit frightened himself, and so was his wife. "Where do you suppose Margy can be?" Mrs. Bunker asked her husband, as she started down the stairs for the staterooms, or bedrooms, where they were to spend the night. "Oh, she's around somewhere," he answered. "She may be watching the men load the steamer." Boxes and barrels were still being put into the hold, or "cellar," of the steamer, which would soon start for Boston. Margy, from the upper deck, might have seen this work going on, and have stepped out of sight to watch. "Come on, Russ, we'll find her," said Mr. Bunker. Many people were now coming on board the steamer. There were some boys and girls, and certainly a number of them were tired and sleepy. As Mrs. Bunker went down the stairs with the four little Bunkers, she looked at every other child she saw, hoping it might be Margy. But she did not see her smallest daughter. Russ and his father walked around the upper deck. They met several men who worked on the steamer, and asked them if they had seen a little girl about five years old, with dark hair and eyes, for that is how Margy looked. Each of the men Mr. Bunker asked said he had not seen the little lost girl, and then Mr. Bunker said: "Well, Russ, we'll go down on the next deck. Maybe she is there." There were several decks to the steamer, just as there are several floors in a large house. Russ and his father went downstairs, and as they started to look on the lower deck they met a man who had shiny gold braid on the sleeves of his coat, and also on his cap. "Are you looking for some one?" asked this man, who was a mate, or helper, to the captain. "We are looking for my little girl," said Mr. Bunker. "She has wandered away since we came on board." "Was she a very little girl?" asked the mate. "Rather small," answered Daddy Bunker. "And did she have dark hair?" "Yes!" exclaimed Russ eagerly. "Oh, have you seen her? She's my sister Margy." "Well, I just happened to pass a stateroom, where I chance to know no little girl belongs on this trip. The door was open, and I looked in," went on the mate. "On the bunk, which is what we call the beds on a steamer," he told Russ, "I saw a little girl with dark hair curled up in a heap. She seemed to be asleep, and there was a little white poodle dog with her." "A little white poodle dog!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "Then I'm afraid it can't be my little girl. We have no white poodle dog." "Maybe Margy found one, Daddy, and that's why she didn't come with us," said Russ. "Better take a look at this little girl," went on the mate. "She seems to be all alone in this stateroom, and she may be yours." "We'll look," said Mr. Bunker. "But I hardly think it can be Margy." He followed the mate, holding Russ by the hand so the little boy would not get lost, though Russ was almost too big for this. "Here she is," said the mate, as he came to a stop at an open door of a stateroom. And there, on the clean, white bunk, curled up with one arm around a white poodle dog was a little girl, whose dark hair mingled with the white coat of the poodle. "Oh, it is Margy!" exclaimed Russ. "Yes, so it is," said Mr. Bunker. "Thank you," he added to the captain's helper. "Now we are all right. We have found our lost little girl." "I was wondering to whom she belonged," said the mate. "And I was going to tell the captain about her. Now I won't have to." When Mr. Bunker and Russ went into the room, the little poodle dog raised up his head, opened one eye, and wagged his little stump of a tail, as if he were saying: "It's all right. You don't need to worry. I'm taking care of Margy and she's taking care of me." And it was Margy asleep in the bunk! Poor, tired, sleepy little Margy Bunker. "My dear little girl," said Daddy Bunker softly, as he took her up in his arms. "We were so worried about you. Where have you been?" "I--I founded a little dog," said Margy sleepily, as she put her head down on her father's shoulder. "He was a little white dog an' I loved him an' I went with him an' we went to--went to--we----" And then Margy herself went to where she was trying to tell her daddy she had gone--to sleep. "We'll ask her about it in the morning," said Mr. Bunker. "I'll carry her to her mother now, so she won't be anxious any more." Margy was in slumberland once more, and so was the little white poodle dog. He just looked up, with one eye, when he saw Mr. Bunker carrying his little girl away, and then doggie went to sleep again also. "Aren't you glad we found Margy?" asked Russ, as he walked back with his father to where Mrs. Bunker and the other children were waiting. "Indeed I am," said Margy's daddy. "Where was she?" asked Mrs. Bunker, as she saw her lost little girl. "She had wandered into some other stateroom, and had gone to sleep," Mr. Bunker answered. "And the little poodle dog was asleep with her," added Russ. "Where's the little poodle dog?" demanded Laddie, who was almost asleep himself. "Oh, we couldn't bring him," Russ said. And then his father told how Margy had been found. The little girl was still too sleepy to talk, so her mother undressed her and put her to bed. "We can ask her in the morning what happened," she said. Now the six little Bunkers were together again, and happy once more, and Mr. and Mrs. Bunker were no longer worried. They all went to bed, and then the steamer traveled through the night, getting to Boston the next day. The children were awake early, and when they were dressed they went out on deck. They had breakfast on board, in the big dining-saloon. "When shall we get to Aunt Jo's?" asked Rose, as she helped her mother pick up some of the things the other children had scattered about the stateroom. "We'll be there in time for dinner," said Mr. Bunker. "But we haven't yet heard what happened to Margy. Why did you go to sleep in the strange bed?" he asked his little girl. "'Cause I wanted the doggie," she answered. And then she told how it had happened, though they had to ask her many questions to get the whole story. Soon after coming on board the steamer Margy, walking a little distance apart from the other little Bunkers, had seen the white poodle dog running about the deck. She made friends with him, and when the dog, who belonged to an elderly lady passenger, went off by himself, Margy followed. The poodle went into the stateroom where his mistress was to sleep, and jumped up on the bed. Margy did the same thing, and then they both fell asleep. Through the open door the mate saw them and then Mr. Bunker came and got his little girl. "But you mustn't do it again, Margy," he said. "No, Daddy. I won't," she promised. "But he was an awful nice little dog." "Could we have him?" Mun Bun wanted to know, for they had seen the white poodle running about the deck that morning. "Oh, no," replied Mrs. Bunker. "We're going to Aunt Jo's, and she may have a dog herself." "That'll be fun!" laughed Margy. "I likes a dog!" "Has Aunt Jo a dog, really?" asked Vi. "Well, maybe," returned her mother. A little later the six little Bunkers were riding through the Boston streets on their way to Aunt Jo's house. CHAPTER V ALEXIS IS SPLASHED "Well, well! Oh, I'm _so_ glad to see you! Now stand still, please, while I look at you to make sure you're all here!" This is what Aunt Jo said as she stood smiling on the steps of her beautiful house in the fashionable Back Bay section of Boston. The six little Bunkers, with Daddy and Mother, had arrived in a big automobile that Mr. Bunker had engaged at the steamer dock. It needed a large machine to take the whole family, with their baggage, through the city. And when they had rung the bell Aunt Jo was waiting to answer it herself, as she expected her visitors. "One, two, three, four, five, six!" she counted, pointing her finger, first at Russ, as he was the oldest, and ending with Mun Bun, who was the youngest. "All here! And I'm _so_ glad to see you," she went on. "And we're glad to see you!" added Daddy Bunker as he kissed his sister, for Aunt Jo was his sister, you remember. "I'm afraid you won't find room for us all." "Oh, yes, I shall," said Aunt Jo, and she laughed and looked so jolly that the six little Bunkers loved her at once. "I've got lots of room in this big house," she went on. Just then a big dog, the kind called a Great Dane, came stalking into the hall where the Bunker family was gathered. The dog seemed pleased when he saw the children, and wagged his tail. "I can sleep with the dog if you haven't got room for me anywhere else," said Margy, as she went up to Alexis, which was the dog's name. "I did sleep with a dog on the boat, and he did love me and I did love him." "Has you got a cat?" asked Mun Bun. "I want to love something, too," and he looked at Aunt Jo with big, round eyes. "No," answered Daddy's sister, "I haven't a cat, but Alexis is large enough for all you six little Bunkers to love, I guess," and truly the Great Dane seemed so. "What makes Alexis so big?" asked Vi. "Because he's a Great Dane." "What makes a Great Dane be so big?" "Vi, Vi!" protested her mother. "Don't ask any more questions now." "But come in and get your things off," went on Aunt Jo. "I'm keeping you standing in the hall as if I didn't have room for you inside. Come in, make yourselves at home and I'll have Parker hurry the lunch. You must be starved." "We had breakfast, but it wasn't much," said Russ. "I guess it's on account of war times." Russ had really eaten a big breakfast, but, of course, that had been a long time before. "Well, of course we must all help with the war," said Aunt Jo, "but I think Parker can give you enough to eat." "Is Parker a cat?" asked Vi. "Oh, no!" laughed Aunt Jo. "Parker is my cook. I call her by her last name instead of her first name, as it is the same as mine. Parker is a very good cook, you'll find." "If Parker was a cat maybe I could think up a riddle about her," put in Laddie. "Anyhow, I know a new riddle, Aunt Jo." "Do you? Well, I must hear it," she said, as she opened the door to the sitting-room. "Oh, Laddie, can't you wait to ask riddles until we get our things off?" asked his mother. "I--I'm afraid I might forget it," said the little boy. "It's a hard riddle." "Well, let me hear it," said Aunt Jo with a laugh. "I used to be pretty good at guessing them." "This is it," said Laddie. "I didn't make it up, but I asked one of the sailors on the steamer for a good riddle, and he told me this one. It's, 'What can you put in your left hand that you can't put in your right hand?' That's the riddle." "Pooh! there can't be any answer to that," said Russ. "If you can put anything in your left hand you can put it in your right, too. Look!" He took his knife from his pocket, and put it first in his right hand and then in his left. "But I don't mean a knife," said Laddie. "'Tisn't what you _can_ put in both hands, it's what you _can't_." "Let me hear the riddle again," begged Aunt Jo. "What can you put in your left hand that you _can't_ put in your right?" asked Laddie. "It's awful hard--you'll never guess it," he went on, laughing at the puzzled look on Aunt Jo's face. They all tried to guess the riddle--that is all except the smallest children--Mun Bun and Margy, and they were too much taken up with loving the dog Alexis. Aunt Jo tried several things, but she found she could put them in one hand as easily as she could in the other, so that couldn't be the answer. "Do you give up?" asked Laddie. "Yes," said his father, "we all give up. Tell us the answer." "It's your right elbow," said the little boy with a laugh. "Your right elbow?" cried Russ. "Yes," Laddie went on. "Look! You can hold your right elbow in your left hand, but you can't put your _right_ elbow in your _right_ hand. Nobody can!" And, surely enough, when they tried, no one could do it. And you can quickly prove it for yourself to make sure Laddie was right. You can easily rest your _right_ elbow in the palm of your _left_ hand. But try to put your _left_ elbow in your _left_ hand, or the _right_ elbow in the _right_ hand, and see how hard it is. "Well, that's a good riddle!" laughed Aunt Jo. "I shall have to put on my thinking cap when you ask me any more, Laddie." "Oh, I know _lots_ more riddles," cried Laddie eagerly. "Some I made up myself. I know one about why don't the railroad tickets get mad when the conductor punches 'em, but I never can think of an answer for that riddle." "Well, a riddle isn't much fun unless you know the answer," agreed Aunt Jo. "And now I'll show you to your rooms, and you can get ready for lunch." They went upstairs, Alexis following, for he seemed to like children. And the six little Bunkers certainly liked the big dog. "Does he like dolls?" asked Rose, as she held her Sue close in her arms. "Well, I never saw him bite any," said Aunt Jo. "I don't want to put my doll down where he could get her if he would carry her off," went on the little girl. "Would Alexis do _that_?" asked Vi. "No, I don't believe Alexis would hurt the doll," said Aunt Jo. "Here, we will try him. Come to me, Alexis!" she called. The dog managed to get away from Mun Bun and Margy, who were trying to see who could hug him the hardest, and he stood near his mistress. "Do you see this doll, Alexis?" went on Aunt Jo, holding Sue out for him to see. "Look at her!" "Bow-wow!" barked Alexis, and that meant: "Yes, I see her, what about it?" "You must be very nice to her, and not chew her nor carry her off and put her in some hiding-place, as you do your bones," went on Aunt Jo. Alexis waved his big tail, sniffed at Rose's doll, and then barked again. "He will never hurt your toy, Rose," said Aunt Jo. "You may safely leave her anywhere in the house." "She's my best doll, and she's been lost in the woods and had lots of adventures," Rose said. "But I wouldn't like a dog to carry her off--'specially not such a big dog." "Well, don't worry about Alexis," said Aunt Jo. "He won't hurt your Sue." The visitors were shown to their different rooms, and their baggage was carried up so the children could change their clothes. "Why do we have to change our clothes?" asked Vi. "We want to put on some old things so we can have some fun," returned Russ. "Can we sail a boat anywhere around here?" asked Laddie. "I'm afraid not," said Aunt Jo. "You see this is a big city, and not the country, as at Grandma Bell's, where you have been staying. True, we are near the bay, but you couldn't very well sail boats there. I shall have to think up some other fun for you." "We like fun," added Violet. By this time Mun Bun and Margy had been fitted out with their "play clothes" as they called them; clothes that could not easily be soiled. Russ and Rose had dressed themselves, and Mrs. Bunker was seeing to Laddie and Violet. "And when you're all ready I'll have Parker serve the lunch," said Aunt Jo. "If you'll just excuse me now, I'll run down and see about it," she added to her brother. "Go ahead," said he. "We'll be right down." "Can Alexis stay up here with us?" asked Mun Bun. "Oh, yes, he likes to be with children," said Miss Bunker, for that really was Aunt Jo's name, she being Daddy Bunker's sister. So Aunt Jo went downstairs to see that the cook got a nice lunch ready for the six little Bunkers. Mr. and Mrs. Bunker, now that they had the children ready, could stop and "get their breaths," as Mother Bunker said. Really it is a good deal of work to look after six children. "Come on!" called Daddy Bunker, when he had helped his wife put the baggage away in the rooms they were to have while at Aunt Jo's house. "Come down to lunch, children!" Russ, Rose, Violet and Laddie came from the windows, out of which they had been looking at scenes in the street. "Where is Mun Bun?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "And Margy?" added her husband. "I saw 'em a minute ago," answered Rose. And just then, from down the hall, came strange sounds. "Now it's my turn, Mun Bun! It's my turn to splash him!" shouted Margy. "No, it's mine!" insisted her brother. "You splashed him a lot, an' I'm goin' to do it now. You let me pull it!" "Oh, what are those children doing now?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "I'll go and see," offered her husband. And then, from a room down the hall, came the sound of splashing water and the barking of Alexis, the big dog, while Mun Bun could be heard calling: "Let me pull it! Let me pull it! I want to splash him, too!" "What are Mun and Margy Bunker doing?" asked Vi. CHAPTER VI THE POCKETBOOK "Where are they?" asked Daddy Bunker, looking at his wife. "They must be in the bathroom," she answered. "Oh, do go and look please, and see what is happening." "What is it? May I go and see?" cried Vi, going toward the bathroom without waiting to have her questions answered. Mr. Bunker ran down the hall. The bathroom door was open and within he saw a strange sight. Mun Bun and Margy had, somehow or other, got the big dog Alexis to jump into the bathtub. Perhaps the dog had done it before. Anyhow he was in it now, and, as he stood there, Margy and Mun Bun were having a sort of tug of war to see who should pull the handle of the chain that worked the shower bath. Margy had her chubby fists on the handle, and she was pulling, but Mun Bun was trying to pull her hands away so he could take hold of the chain himself. So the pull of the two children was enough to make the water spurt out from the overhead shower. Down the water came, splashing on Alexis, but he seemed to like it. He barked, but not too loudly, and wagged his tail. [Illustration: DOWN THE WATER CAME, SPLASHING ON ALEXIS. _Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's._--_Page 53_] "Mun Bun! Margy! What in the world are you doing?" cried their father. Of course he could see, perfectly well, what they were doing, but, somehow or other, that seemed the most natural thing to ask. "What are you doing?" he cried. "We're splashing Alexis," said Margy. "It's my turn to do it, but she won't let me," complained Mun Bun. "She's splashed him a lot, and now I want to." "You mustn't either of you splash Alexis any more like this!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, wanting to laugh at the funny sight, but really not daring to, lest the children try it again some time. "Stop it at once," he said. "Turn that water off, Mun Bun!" "I'm not pulling it--it's Margy!" said the little boy. "Both of you stop!" commanded their father. "Come here, Alexis!" he called, and the big dog jumped out of the bathtub. Luckily the floor of the room was of white tile, so the water that dripped on it from the dog did no harm. But when he gave himself a shake, as dogs always do when they come out of water, the drops splashed on the two children and also on Mr. Bunker. "Oh! Oh!" cried Mun Bun. "I'm--I'm all wet!" "So'm I!" added Margy. She had let go of the shower-bath chain, and the water no longer ran out. "Alexis got me wet, too," said Daddy Bunker. "But you children should not have done this. It was very wrong." "But Alexis was very hot," said Margy. "His tongue was stickin' out of his mouth just like Grandma's dog Zip's used to, and so we wanted to cool him off; didn't we, Mun Bun?" "Yes, we did," answered the little boy. "So I told him to get into the bathtub, and we pulled the chain and the water splashed out on him." "I should say it _did_ splash!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, trying not to laugh. "I don't know what Aunt Jo will say." "Well, she said she wanted us to have fun," went on Margy, "and we did have fun, and Alexis liked it." "Perhaps he did," said her father, for the dog did not seem to mind being wet. "But it was very wrong to do it. You children are very wet." "Did anything happen?" asked Mrs. Bunker, as she came down the hall toward the bathroom, with Russ, Rose and Laddie. "Well, lots happened, but nothing very bad," said her husband. "Alexis had his bath, that's all." "Oh, my dears!" cried Mrs. Bunker, when she saw the splashed bathroom and how wet the two children were. "How _could_ you do it?" "I'll show you how to do it!" exclaimed Mun Bun, not exactly knowing what his mother meant. "This is how!" and he reached for the handle of the shower-bath chain. But his father caught him just in time to stop him from splashing any more water about. "It is a good thing I changed their clothes," said Mrs. Bunker. "Poor Alexis! Did you think it was raining?" she asked, as she patted the dog's wet head. But the Great Dane did not seem to mind. He wagged his tail joyfully, and, after all, the day was a hot one. "Don't mind about a little water, as long as the children are all right," said Aunt Jo, when she heard what had happened. "Alexis loves to get a bath, but he is generally washed out in the garage by William, the man who attends to the car. I had never put him in a bathtub, but I suppose he liked it." "He waggled his tail like anything," said Mun Bun. "Well, then that's a sure sign he was pleased," said Aunt Jo. Margy and Mun Bun had been partly dried off in time for lunch, and the six little Bunkers, with the rest of the family, were now at table. "What we going to do this afternoon?" asked Vi. "What would you like to do?" inquired her aunt with a smile. "Well, I'd like to see something," Russ put in. "I want to see some cows and sheep," added Laddie. "Maybe I could think up a riddle about them if I was to see some. We had some at Grandma Bell's." "And he gave 'em sugar 'stid of salt," said Russ with a laugh. "Well, they liked it," Laddie declared. "Only the old ram--_he_ wasn't nice!" "I'm sorry, but there aren't any sheep or cows around here," said Aunt Jo with a smile. "You must remember that this is a city, and not the country. But there are many things to see here. We can go to visit Bunker Hill Monument, and we can go on excursions to Nantasket Beach--oh, we can do lots of things to have fun!" "That's good!" murmured Rose. "I think I'd like to go for a walk, and see things." "So would I," agreed her mother. "If you like, Rose, you and I will take a walk. I want to get a few things from the store." "Well, you can do that," said Daddy Bunker, "and I'll stay here with Aunt Jo and look after the children. I'm afraid even five little Bunkers will be too much for her to manage." "Oh, no!" exclaimed Aunt Jo. "I love children!" She had never had any of her own, being unmarried, but no mother could have been more kind nor have loved children any more than did Aunt Jo. "Well, if mother and Rose go downtown for a walk, we'll stay here and look around a bit," said Daddy Bunker. "And maybe I can find something to make," said Russ, as he walked about, whistling his shrillest. Russ was not quite happy unless he was making something, whether it was whittling a sword out of a piece of wood, or building an airship. So, while Daddy Bunker took the children out into Aunt Jo's back yard--and she had a large one, for which the boys and girls were very glad--Mrs. Bunker and Rose got ready to go shopping. At one end of the yard was the garage for the automobile. The reason she had not sent it to the dock to meet her brother and the children when the boat came in was that she did not know at just what hour they would arrive. Working around the garage was William, the chauffeur, who also helped about the house, taking out the ashes in winter and cutting the grass in summer. "We've a man named Jerry Simms who does that at our house," said Russ, when he learned what William did for Aunt Jo. "Jerry is a soldier, or he was. Are you a soldier, Mr. William?" "No, but I may be, some day," he answered. "Have you got any corn shuckers here?" asked Laddie. "A corn shucker? No. What's that?" "Well, it's a thing, and you put ears of corn in a spout and turn a wheel and the kernels of corn come out of one end, and the empty cob comes out of the other end. Grandma Bell's got one." "And we put Rose's doll in and shucked off all her buttons," added Russ. "That's what they did," said Daddy Bunker. "I'm glad you haven't one here, William. Rose didn't like it when all the buttons came off her doll." "But it was lots of fun," added Laddie. "Maybe I could think up a riddle about a corn shucker, if I tried real hard." "Oh, look! Here's a hose!" cried Russ, as he saw one with which William had been washing the automobile. "May we squirt it?" "I'm afraid you'll get wet," said the chauffeur, with a look at Mr. Bunker. "A little water won't hurt them," said the children's father. "They have on their old clothes. But perhaps you don't want them to take it." "Oh, I was going to water the lawn, anyhow," said William; "and I'd just as soon they would do it if you don't mind." "Hurray!" cried Laddie. "I'm going to have first turn at squirting!" insisted Russ. Their father settled this little dispute by saying that Vi and the two older boys might have the hose for five minutes at a time, and he would stay near by to see that everything was fair. So Laddie and Russ and Vi began to sprinkle the lawn, while Margy and Mun Bun found a pile of clean sand near the garage, where they could play. And now I must tell you something that happened to Rose and her mother. They were walking down one of the Boston streets, after having bought some things in one of the stores, when Rose, who was walking a little ahead of her mother, suddenly called: "Look! Look, Mother!" "What is it?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "It's a pocketbook," went on Rose, pointing to one on the sidewalk. "And it looks as if it had money in it. Shall I pick it up, Mother?" "Yes. Why not?" said Mrs. Bunker, glancing about, and seeing no one who might have dropped it. "Why shouldn't you pick it up, Rose?" "'Cause maybe it's an April fool one, and somebody will pull it away with a string," the little girl answered. CHAPTER VII A SAD LETTER April fool was something Mrs. Bunker had not thought of as she looked at the pocketbook lying on the sidewalk. As Rose had said, it did seem to have money in it, but perhaps it might be stuffed with paper. Then, too, there might be a string tied to the wallet, and boys, hidden somewhere near, might pull on the string and yank the pocketbook away just as soon as any one stooped over to pick it up. Still Mrs. Bunker said to Rose: "This is too late for April fool. This is August, and no boys would think of playing such tricks now." "Maybe not, Mother," Rose agreed. "I just thought maybe that was what it was there for. But I'll pick it up. I hope it's got a lot of money in it!" With shining eyes Rose stooped to pick up the purse. "Open it, Rose, and see what is inside," said Mrs. Bunker. "We may find out the name of the owner, and, if she lives around here--for it looks like a lady's pocketbook--we can take it to her." "But we don't know the streets, Mother," said Rose. "We can ask a policeman. If we find the name of the owner, and it is too far for us to go where she lives, we can give the pocketbook to the policeman and he will deliver it for us. But open it and see what is in it," returned Mrs. Bunker. The pocketbook opened easily enough, and as Rose turned back the flap she gave a cry of surprise. "What's the matter?" asked the excited child's mother. "Oh! Oh, it's just _full_ of money!" cried the little girl. "It's piled full of money, Mother! Look!" She hurried to her mother's side with the opened pocketbook. Surely enough, when Mrs. Bunker looked, she saw a roll of green bills. Just how many were in the pocketbook she could not tell. "Well, this is quite a find!" said Rose's mother. "The person who lost this will feel bad about it. We must try to find the owner." "Oh, can't I keep it?" asked Rose. "Of course not," said her mother. "Whenever we find anything we must try to discover the owner and give the lost thing back. If you lost your doll you'd want whoever found her to give her back; wouldn't you?" "Oh, of course, Mother! But Sue--she isn't a _pocketbook_ full of money." "No," agreed Mrs. Bunker with a smile. "If Russ were here I suppose he'd say your doll was full of sawdust. However, no matter what it is, we must give back whatever we have found if we can find the owner. Of course, after we have tried hard, if we can't discover who lost whatever we have found, we may keep it." "How can we tell who lost this pocketbook and all the money?" asked Rose. "We'll look inside, and we'll also count the money," said her mother. "Maybe it's a hundred dollars!" exclaimed the little girl, her eyes shining brightly. "Perhaps it may be," said Mrs. Bunker. "But we won't count it out here on the street. We have nearly finished shopping, so we will take the pocketbook home with us, and show it to Daddy and Aunt Jo." Rose had the wallet open, looking at the roll of bills inside. Now her mother gently took it from her and closed it. "What made you do that?" asked Rose. "Because the wind might blow some of the money out," was the answer, "and then we could not give it all back to the poor person who owns it." "What makes you think the pocketbook is a poor person's?" asked Rose, who was asking almost as many questions as would her sister Vi had she been there. "Well, the pocketbook is rather a shabby one, even though it seems to have quite a lot of money in it," said Mrs. Bunker, as she put it away in her own shopping bag. "The leather is worn and it is torn. But we will go over it more carefully when we get home." Rose could hardly wait to get back to Aunt Jo's house to look farther into the pocketbook and see what it held. No one on the street had paid the slightest attention to Rose and her mother when the wallet had been found, and no policeman was in sight who could be asked about it. So Mrs. Bunker thought the best thing to do was to take it with her and examine it later. When Aunt Jo's house was reached Laddie, Vi and Russ had about finished watering the lawn. They had watered themselves a little, also, for they were so eager, and took so many turns with the hose that it splashed on them. But the day was warm, and, as they had on their old clothes, their father did not mind, as long as they did not get too wet. "Oh, we had lots of fun!" cried Russ as he saw his mother and Rose coming along. "We had a dandy time!" added Laddie. "You don't know what I found!" cried Rose, not thinking so much about her brothers' fun with the hose as she was about what had happened to herself and her mother. "I found something!" "What?" asked Vi. "Was it a little kittie?" asked Mun Bun, who, with Margy, had finished playing in the sand pile. "No, it wasn't a kittie, though I wish I could find one," said Rose. "Did you find a new riddle?" Laddie wanted to know. He thought more of riddles than of many other things that most boys like. "No, it wasn't a riddle," answered Rose. "You'd never guess, so I'll tell you. I found a pocketbook, and maybe it's got two hundred dollars in it! So there!" "Oh, you did not! Did she, Mother?" asked Russ, in surprise at what his sister had said. "Yes, Rose did find a pocketbook," answered Mrs. Bunker. "It was lying on the sidewalk in front of us. But whether it has two hundred dollars in it, or only one hundred, I don't know yet." "Where is it? Where is it?" cried Vi over and over. "In my bag. We really did make quite a find," she went on to her husband and Aunt Jo, who came out on the porch just then. "Look!" and Mrs. Bunker took the purse out of her shopping bag, handing it over to her husband. "See if you can find out who owns it," she suggested. "And if nobody owns it I'm going to keep it for mine," said Rose. "Can she, Mother?" Russ wanted to know. "Well, we'll see," said Mrs. Bunker. Meanwhile her husband was opening the pocketbook. He saw the roll of bills and whistled. "Well, there's some money here, anyhow," he said. "I'll count it first, so we'll know just how much it is." Mr. Bunker was used to counting over bills. He could not do it quite as fast, perhaps, as the cashier in a bank, but he soon had spread out the money in a chair in front of him on the porch, and he said: "There are just sixty-five dollars here." "Sixty-five!" exclaimed Rose. "I thought it was two hundred." "Is sixty-five dollars much money?" asked Vi. "Well, sixty-five dollars is a lot of money if you lose it," said her father. "And whoever lost this will be very glad to get it back, you may be sure." "Is there anything else in the pocketbook to tell who may own it?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "No, there doesn't seem to be anything but just the roll of bills," he answered. "Hold on, though!" he exclaimed, as he looked in another part of the pocketbook, "here is some sort of a paper." "That may have the owner's name on it," said Aunt Jo. "I always carry in my purse a slip with my name and address on it, so if I lose my pocketbook whoever finds it will know where to bring it back. Probably that is what this is." "No, it doesn't seem to be," said Mr. Bunker. "This appears to be part of a letter. Of course it isn't nice to read letters that are for other people, but as we are trying to find out to whom this money and pocketbook belong it will be all right. I'll read this." He took out a folded paper from a compartment in the pocketbook next to where the money had been, and began to read. He read it aloud. It said: "DEAR MOTHER: I am so glad you have the sixty-five dollars, for then you will not have to work so hard, and can take a little rest. It was so good of Uncle Jack to send it to you. I feel so much better now that you have this money. You will not have to worry so much. I am working hard myself, but I like it, and I will save all I can and send all I can spare to you. Take good care of the money and don't lose it, for you may never have as much again. I am very lonesome and wish I could see you, but I know the rest will do you good. With lots of love." "Is that all?" asked Mrs. Bunker, as her husband stopped reading. "That is all," he said. "Isn't there any name or address to that little letter?" Aunt Jo wanted to know. "No, nothing like that," answered her brother. "The only name in it is 'Uncle Jack,' and that might mean anybody. There must have been a name signed to the letter, but it has been torn off. You can see where the paper has been torn across. I don't see how we can find who owns the money from this letter." "Maybe there is something else in the pocketbook," said Russ. Mr. Bunker looked, and did find a Chinese coin with a square hole in it. There was only the letter, addressed to "Dear Mother," and the sixty-five dollars, and the Chinese coin. "We'll have to put an advertisement in the paper, saying we have found a pocketbook," said Mr. Bunker. "Whoever has lost it will see the advertisement and call here. And we must look in the 'lost and found' advertisements in the paper to-night." "Yes, we'll do that," said Aunt Jo. "The poor woman must be very sad over her loss. She will be very glad to get it back, and----" Just then the telephone in Aunt Jo's house gave a loud ring. "Oh," cried Rose. "Maybe that's some one now to ask about the pocketbook I found. Oh, maybe it is!" CHAPTER VIII RUSS MAKES A FOUNTAIN The six little Bunkers, as well as their father and mother, waited while Aunt Jo went to answer the telephone, which kept on ringing as though in a hurry. Vi had asked "Who's ringing?" but of course nobody could tell her until Aunt Jo answered the call. "Yes! What is it?" asked Aunt Jo into the mouthpiece of the instrument, which stood on a table in the sitting-room. "Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. North?" she went on. "What's that? Did we lose anything? No, not that I know of. One of my little guests _found_ something, but I haven't heard of anything being lost. Wait a minute, though, until I count noses. I'll see if all the six little Bunkers are here. I might have missed one and not know it." Laughing, Aunt Jo turned from the telephone to look at the children. They were all there, from Russ the oldest to Mun Bun the youngest. Then Aunt Jo spoke again into the instrument. "No, we haven't lost anything," she said. "Oh, you'll bring it over, will you, Mr. North? Thank you!" "Was it something about the pocketbook?" asked Rose eagerly. "No, it was nothing like that," answered her aunt. "The gentleman who telephoned was Mr. North, my next-door neighbor. He says he has something belonging to one of you children, and he is going to bring it right over. Did any of you leave out any of your toys when you were playing in the yard?" "I didn't," said Russ, and none of his brothers or sisters could think of anything of theirs that was missing. In a few minutes the door bell rang, and when this was answered, Mr. North brought in what seemed to be a bundle of rags. "Your dog Alexis brought this over and left it on my door mat," he said to Aunt Jo. "Oh, it's my doll Sue!" cried Rose, as she ran forward to take it. "I forgot all about her. I left her to sleep on the porch in the sun so she would get nice and tanned, as I do when I go to the seashore, and then I went downtown with mother and I forgot all about her." "Well, I'm glad to bring her back to you," said Mr. North with a smile. "I guess I must have been holding her upside down," and so he had. That was what made Sue look so like a bundle of rags. Really she was a nice doll when she was held right side up. "It's queer Alexis brought her to your house, instead of in here to me," said Aunt Jo. "Oh, Alexis and I are great friends," said Mr. North. "He often brings me my paper when the boy leaves it at the front gate instead of walking up to the porch with it, and perhaps your dog might have thought this was a paper, though a very large one," and Mr. North smiled at Rose. Mr. North had been introduced to the six little Bunkers, and also to Daddy and Mother Bunker, when he entered, and he stayed some little time, talking with them, for he liked children, though all his were grown into big boys and girls now. "I found a pocketbook," said Rose, when she had got over her first bit of shyness sufficiently to talk to the visitor. "Did you, indeed? Well, you are lucky!" said Mr. North. Then he was told about the sixty-five dollars, and shown the sad letter in the pocketbook. "We are going to put an advertisement in the paper," said Aunt Jo. "And if you hear of any poor woman who has lost this sum of money, or read about any in the paper, I wish you would tell us." "I will," promised Mr. North. "Well, Rose, you have had quite an experience almost as soon as you come to Boston. What are you children going to do the rest of your stay here?" "I'm afraid I won't know how to provide fun for so many of them," said Aunt Jo. "I want them to have a good time, and remember their visit pleasantly, but I have no toys for girls and boys----" "That's just what I was going to speak about," said Mr. North. "There is an express wagon in my barn, and an old velocipede, as well as a coaster wagon. They used to belong to my youngsters, but they have outgrown them. If the six little Bunkers would like to play with those toys they are very welcome." "That will be splendid!" cried Aunt Jo. "I was just wondering what I could do to amuse Russ and the others, for I haven't any things that children like, and we can't go on sight-seeing trips or excursions all the while, though we will go on some. The toys you have, Mr. North, will be just the thing." And indeed they did prove so. The next day Russ and his brothers and sisters went over to Mr. North's barn. It was an old-fashioned one, the kind horses and carriages used to be kept in before there were automobiles. Mr. North also had a garage for his cars, but the old barn stood far back in his yard, which was a large one next to Aunt Jo's, and in it were the velocipede, the express wagon, a coaster wagon and other things with which to have fun. "Oh, we can have jolly good times now!" cried Russ. "And I can give my doll a ride, after Alexis carried her in his teeth," put in Rose. "Can't we have rides, too?" asked Vi. "'Course you can," answered Russ. "I'll give you a nice ride." And then, while Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker went to a Red Cross meeting and while Daddy Bunker went downtown to put an advertisement in the paper about the pocketbook Rose had found, the children played around Mr. North's barn and Aunt Jo's yard. "Will it be all right to leave them while we go out?" asked Aunt Jo of Mrs. Bunker. "Oh, yes, as long as your man, William, and your cook, Parker, and your housemaid, Anne, are around to sort of look after them. I often leave them with our Norah and Jerry Simms." So the six little Bunkers were left to themselves. And you can easily imagine that they had all sorts of good times. There was a stone walk around Aunt Jo's house, as well as around Mr. North's, and there Russ and his brothers and sisters rode in the express wagon, on the velocipede and on the coaster. They laughed and shouted, and every now and then there would be an upset, but no one was hurt and they all seemed to like it. Now and then Parker or William or Anne would come out from the house or the garage to look and see that the six little Bunkers were coming to no harm, and when they found the children were all right they smiled, for it was fun to watch them play. "I know what we can do," said Russ to Laddie, after they had taken turns riding on the velocipede and coaster. Just at this time Margy and Mun Bun had the coaster and were playing steam-car with it. "What can we do?" asked Laddie, always ready to have fun with his older brother. "We can make a harness for Alexis, and hitch him to the express wagon," went on Russ. "Oh, that'll be lots of fun!" cried Laddie. "But what'll we make a harness of? Aunt Jo hasn't any horses and Mr. North hasn't either." "We can make it of string," said Russ. "It doesn't need to be very strong, for we aren't very heavy to pull." So Russ and Laddie begged pieces of string from Parker, not telling what they were going to make. "If it's a cat's cradle you have cord enough for a dozen," said the good-natured cook, as she handed out the pieces of string she had saved from the grocery packages. "No, we're not going to make cats' cradles," answered Russ. "You can see it when we get finished." It was no very hard matter to catch Alexis and fasten a lot of pieces of string around him, as nearly like a harness as the two little boys could manage. The dog loved children, and asked nothing better than to be with them. So he stood very still, just hanging his tongue out of his mouth, as the day was hot, while Laddie and Russ tied the cord around him. Then they fastened the ends to the express wagon, tying a number of knots. "We've got to have lines to drive him with," said Laddie. "Else we can't guide him the way we want him to go." "Yes, I'll make some lines," said Russ. He tied two strings around the neck of Alexis, one for the left-hand side and the other for the right. "I can't put a bit in his mouth, as I could if he was a horse," said Russ, "'cause Alexis holds his mouth open so much, to cool off his tongue, that the bit would fall out." "That's right," said Laddie. "Anyhow, we don't want a bit. Now can we have a ride?" "I guess so," said Russ. There was quite a collection of strings tied around Alexis and made fast to the little express wagon. "We'll get in now," said Russ, when he had the cord reins in his hands, "and we'll drive around the walk where Rose and Vi are playing with their dolls," for the two girls were having a party, with cookies and sugar water, which had been given to them by Parker. Into the wagon got Russ and Laddie. Alexis, harnessed to the little wagon, turned his head to look at them, as if to make sure they were all right. "Gid-dap!" called Russ, as he would to a horse. "Bow-wow!" barked the dog, meaning, perhaps: "I will!" Then he started to walk off. Now, when I tell you that Alexis was a big, strong dog, and that Laddie and Russ in the express wagon made quite a heavy load, and when I say that the string harness was not very strong, you can easily imagine what happened. Alexis had not taken more than two steps before---- Snap! went the string harness, and it broke in several places. "Whoa! Whoa!" called Russ. "Whoa there, Alexis!" But Alexis never "whoaed" a bit. He kept on walking, and he walked right off with the bits of the string harness clinging to him, leaving the express wagon with the two little boys in it on the walk at the side of the house. "Come on back and give us a ride!" called Laddie. "I guess we'll have to make a stronger harness," said Russ with a laugh. "I guess so, too," agreed Laddie. Anyhow, Alexis didn't come back. Just outside Aunt Jo's fence he saw another dog which he knew, and he ran up to have a "talk" with him, in bow-wow language, of course. "Well, we didn't get a ride," said Laddie. "No," agreed Russ, "we didn't. But I know what else we can do." "What?" asked Laddie. Russ did not answer for a moment. He was looking at a shovel lying in the back part of the yard, where William had been spading for a late flower bed. Then Russ saw the hose with which the man had been washing the automobile. "We can make a fountain, Laddie!" exclaimed Russ. "A fountain! How?" "Come on, I'll show you!" said Russ. Then he and his brother began to make a fountain. And I suppose you wonder how they did it. CHAPTER IX WHAT HAPPENED TO WILLIAM "First," said Russ, as he took up the shovel, "we've got to make a hole." "I thought you said we were going to make a fountain," said Laddie. "We are," Russ went on. "But first you have to have some place for the fountain water to run into, don't you?" "I guess so," agreed Laddie, who was not quite sure. "'Course you have," insisted his older brother. "Don't you 'member how a fountain is? It has a big basin where the water splashes in out of a thing like a hose, and us boys could paddle our feet in the water if we wanted to." "Oh! are you goin' to make _that_ kind of a fountain?" asked Laddie. "Sure," said Russ. "Come on, help me dig the hole, and then we'll fix the hose in it and run it full of water and then we can paddle in it--I mean in the hole full of water--and the hose'll be squirtin', and that will be a fountain." "That'll be fine!" cried Laddie. "I'll get a shovel and help you dig." Laddie found a small shovel in the barn, and, Russ using the larger one, which was really too big for him, the two brothers began to make their fountain. If their father and mother had been at home, or even Aunt Jo had seen them, I don't suppose they would have been allowed to do this, for it wasn't exactly right, no matter how much fun they thought they would have. But the boys went on digging, making a deep and large hole in the garden. They tossed the dirt out with their shovels, and, as the soil was soft, it was easy for them to dig in it. "Isn't it 'most big enough now?" asked Laddie, after a while. "Almost," Russ answered, as he looked up from where he stood in the hole. "I'm tired--my back aches," Laddie went on. "I'm tired, too," said Russ. "But I guess when you build a fountain it makes 'most everybody tired. We'll only dig a little more, and then we can run the water in and wade. I haven't had a good wade since we came from Grandma Bell's." "Neither have I," said Laddie. So they dug some more, until they really had quite a large hole in the garden, and then Russ went to get the hose. It was still attached to the faucet, but the water was not turned on. If William had seen what the boys were doing he would have stopped them. For, though Mr. and Mrs. Bunker had said nothing about not letting the children play in the water, and though Aunt Jo had not spoken of it, either, still, I feel sure William would have stopped Laddie and Russ from making their fountain if he had seen them. But he did not. He was doing something inside the garage just then, and it was at this time that Russ took the nozzle end of the hose, and dragged the long, rubber pipe over toward the hole he and Laddie had dug. "Now all we've got to do is to fasten the hose in the hole, so it sticks up straight," said Russ. "Then I'll turn the water on, and we'll have a fountain and we can wade in it." "That'll be fun!" exclaimed Laddie. At first Russ did not have an easy time trying to make the hose nozzle stand up straight in the hole he and his brother had dug. Then the boy, after whistling a bit, and thinking as well as he could, exclaimed: "I know how to do it!" "How?" asked Laddie. "Why, I'll just drive a stick down in the middle of the hole, and I'll leave part of it sticking up. Then I can tie the end of the hose to it, sticking up in the air, you know, and when I turn the water on it'll squirt right straight up and come down in the fountain." "That'll be nice," said Laddie. But you just wait and see what happens. Russ found an old broom-handle, and, using the shovel for a hammer, he drove this stick down into the soft dirt, leaving enough showing above the bottom of the hole to which to tie the hose. Laddie helped his brother do this, and then the fountain was ready to "play" as it is called. I suppose the water bubbling up and down, as it does in a fountain, really looks as though it were playing. "Now we're all ready to turn it on," said Russ when the hose was tied fast. "And then we can wade in the fountain," added Laddie. "I'm going to get my shoes and stockings off now," and he sat down on the ground, near the hole, and began to do this. Russ went back to where, on the outside wall of the garage, the hose was screwed on the faucet. He tried to turn the brass handle. But it was stiff, and more than his little fingers could manage. "Come here, Laddie!" called Russ. "You've got to help me turn on the water." "Wait till I get my other shoe off!" said Laddie. "No, come on! Do it now!" said Russ. "You can take your shoe off afterwards, while we're waiting for the fountain basin to fill." So, with one shoe on and the other off, Laddie limped over to the garage to help his brother turn the faucet. Before this William had finished what he was doing, and had gone to the house to ask Parker something. He did not notice what Laddie and Russ were doing, but on his way back to the garage the chauffeur saw the pile of dirt, noticed the hole and looked at the end of the hose sticking up in the air. "Now I wonder what that is," said William to himself. "I didn't leave the hose like that, and I don't believe Alexis could have dug such a big hole. I must certainly see what it is." So William, forgetting for the moment about the little Bunkers, walked over to the hose. He saw it sticking up in the hole and, as he bent over it, he said: "This must be the work of Laddie and Russ. I wonder what they're going to do. Play fireman, maybe." And it was just then, as William leaned over the hose, that Russ and Laddie managed to turn the faucet. You can imagine what happened after that. Through the hose spurted the water, out of the end, right in William's face. But of course Laddie and Russ did not mean to do that. "Oh, my! Here! What's this! Oh, I'm all wet!" spluttered the chauffeur. He jumped back, but not quite far enough, for he stumbled over some of the dirt, and fell down, and the water, shooting up into the air, came down on him in a regular shower. "I say now! Stop it! Shut off the water!" cried William. At first Laddie and Russ did not know what he meant. Then they looked toward the hole, which they intended for a fountain, and saw the chauffeur getting wet. William's legs seemed to be so tangled that he couldn't get up in a hurry, and he was getting very wet. "Turn off the water! Turn off the water!" he begged. "I'm getting all mud!" Laddie and Russ were frightened, then, and they tried to shut off the faucet. But, just as, often, when you want to do a thing in a hurry you can't, so it happened with the two boys. The faucet wouldn't turn, and the water kept on spurting, and William kept getting wet, until he finally managed to roll out of the way and then he stood up, looking at the showering hose. "What's all this?" asked the dripping chauffeur, but he was not angry. "What are you boys doing?" "Please, it's a fountain we made," said Russ. "And we're goin' wadin' in it!" added Laddie. "Oh, look, Russ! It squirts fine! I'm going to take off my other shoe!" He sat down to do this. Really the fountain made from the hose, was sending out a fine shower of water that sparkled in the sun. The water was beginning to fill the hole the boys had dug. "What are you going to do?" asked William, wiping the water from his face. "We're goin' wadin' in the fountain," explained Laddie. "That's what we made it for." "Oh, no, you'd better not," said William. "I'm sorry, but your aunt wouldn't like a fountain in her garden. It'll only be a mud-hole, and you'll get all dirty. Your father and mother wouldn't want that. I guess I'd better shut off the water. When your aunt comes home, if she lets you do it, why then it will be all right. But I'm afraid I can't let you do it now." Russ and Laddie looked disappointed. After all their work not to have the fountain! It was too bad! "We--we're sorry you got wet," said Russ, thinking perhaps William felt a little vexed at them. "Oh, that's all right," said William. "I don't mind. These are my old clothes, anyhow. But I'd best shut off the water." He started toward the faucet to do this. Already the hole Laddie and Russ had dug was half full, and would have made, as Russ said, a "dandy" place to wade. But it was not to be. As the boys stood beside the hole half filled with water, and as William was at the faucet, ready to turn it off, a loud barking was heard, and into the garden came racing a little dog, chased by big Alexis, who was barking loudly. "Oh, look!" cried Russ. And then something else happened. CHAPTER X ROSE MAKES AN AIRSHIP The little dog that Alexis was racing after must have thought the puddle of water Russ and Laddie had made would be a good place in which to hide. For right into it he ran, and he splattered some of the muddy water over the two boys, who stood near the hole they had dug. William was over at the garage, turning off the faucet, so he did not get wet this time. And it was a good thing, too, as he was quite wet enough already. The little dog kept on paddling in the puddle, but big Alexis did not stop when he came to the edge. With a loud bark, in he jumped, and as he was almost as big as a small Shetland pony you can easily imagine what a big splash he made. "Oh! Oh!" cried Russ, as he felt the muddy water shower all over him. In the puddle floundered Alexis after the smaller dog, and as the water was not deep enough for Aunt Jo's Great Dane to swim in, he just ran through it, really making more of a splash than if he had swum. And he splashed a lot of muddy water over Russ and Laddie. "Oh, look at me!" cried Laddie, as he glanced down at his suit, which was speckled and checkered with wet and brown spots. "I'm the same way," said Russ. "But I don't care! We couldn't help it, and these are our old clothes, anyhow." Just then the little dog scrambled out on the far side of the hole, and Alexis, with a bark, sprang after him. "Oh, stop him, William!" cried Laddie. "Stop him! Alexis will bite the little dog all to pieces." "No, he won't do that," replied the chauffeur. "The two dogs are good friends. The little one lives down the street a way, and he and Alexis often play together this way, and race all over the yard. But I never saw 'em go into a mud-puddle before. Say, but you two youngsters are sights! Look at the mud!" He had shut off the water by this time, and come back to the hole. Meanwhile Alexis was rolling on the grass, letting the little dog pretend to bite his ears. "The mud'll brush off," said Russ. "These are our old clothes," added his brother. "Well, that's a good thing," said the chauffeur. "We're all in the same boat, I guess. But don't dig any more holes in the yard, and don't play with the hose unless your aunt says you may. She may blame me as it is." When Mrs. Bunker and Aunt Jo came home, the mud had pretty well dried on the clothes of Russ and Laddie, and they did not look so dirty. But of course they told what had happened. "You must never do it again!" said their mother. "Don't make any more fountains in Aunt Jo's yard." "We won't," promised Laddie. "Could we make one over in Mr. North's yard?" asked Russ. "Maybe he'd like one." "No, not over there, either," his mother said, trying not to laugh. So that was how Russ made a fountain, and what happened afterward, and for many a day he and Laddie had fun telling the other little Bunkers what they had done. As the summer days went by the children had lots of fun at Aunt Jo's. They went downtown to see the sights of Boston, including Bunker Hill monument, saw some nice moving-picture shows and went on excursions. Meanwhile, Daddy Bunker and others had looked in the paper to see if any one had advertised for a lost pocketbook with sixty-five dollars in it. But no one had. And to make sure of finding the owner Mr. Bunker put an advertisement in himself, stating that such a purse had been found, and offering to give it to the real owner. But no one came to claim it. The shabby wallet, with the roll of bills and the sad little letter, was locked in Aunt Jo's safe, waiting for the owner to come. But no one came. "And can I keep the money?" asked Rose, who inquired, each day, whether any one had yet come for it. "We'll see," promised her mother. "I'd like to have the money to spend," went on Rose. "Oh, my dear! What would you spend so much money for?" asked Aunt Jo. "I'd buy a lot of circus balloons," answered Rose. "I know a store, about two blocks down the street, that sells 'em. And I want some." "Oh, well, if you only want money for a toy balloon I'll give you that," said her mother. "May I have one, too?" asked Vi. "And me?" added Margy. "And me?" said Mun Bun. "What is it?" He always wanted what the others had, whether or not he knew what it was. "Let's all get one!" exclaimed Russ, who seemed to have an idea. "Let's all get a balloon, and then we can tie strings to 'em and see which one goes the highest." "We can have a race!" suggested Laddie. "That's right!" agreed Russ. "We'll have a race." Thinking this would be harmless fun for the children, Mrs. Bunker gave them money enough so each one could buy a good ten-cent toy balloon, for Rose wanted that kind. "The tenners are bigger than the fivers," she said, "and they go higher and last longer." With shouts of glee and laughter the six little Bunkers went down the street to get the toy balloons. It was not far, and their mother knew they would not get lost. "I'm afraid the children aren't having as much fun here at my house in Boston as they had at Grandma Bell's," said Aunt Jo, as the youngsters went down the street after the balloons. "Oh, they are indeed!" said Mother Bunker. "They always have a good time, wherever they go. Don't worry about them." "If the weather keeps nice we'll go down to Nantasket Beach some day," said Aunt Jo. "I think they'll like it there. It is a seaside resort." "They'll be sure to," said Mrs. Bunker. "I do wish we could find the person who owned that sixty-five dollars. I have an idea it must be the savings of some poor woman, or rather, from the letter, money some one sent her. It must be hard for her to lose it, but we can't seem to find to whom it belongs." "Perhaps we shall, some day," said Aunt Jo. And they were to, in a very strange way, as you shall hear in due time. Down the street ran the six little Bunkers, to get the toy balloons. They saw them in the store window--red, green and blue ones, and they picked out different colors. "Don't they look pretty?" cried Vi, as they marched back with the blown-up rubber bags floating in the air over their heads. As yet the balloons had only short strings on them, and Rose, to make sure the toys of Mun Bun and Margy would not get away, tied the strings to their wrists. "They look like big plums or apples," said Laddie. "Maybe I could think up a riddle about the balloons." "Well, you can be thinking about it when we have a race to see which one goes highest in the air," said Russ. "When we get to Aunt Jo's house, we'll get string and let the balloons sail away up." Mother Bunker said strong thread would be better than string, as it would not be so heavy, and soon the six little Bunkers were out in the front yard, letting their toys sail high above their heads. "Mine's the highest!" cried Russ, as he looked at his green balloon floating high above the trees. "That's 'cause you let out all the thread," said Laddie. "I'm not going to let all mine unwind." And neither did the other children, for they were afraid their toys might get away. For some time they had fun in this way, pulling the balloons down when they got very far up in the air, and then letting them float upward again. Then came a call from the house. It was Mother Bunker, saying: "Here is some bread and jam for hungry children. How many of you want it?" There was no question as to how many did. Each of the six little Bunkers was hungry. "Let's tie our balloons to the fence and leave 'em here until we get back," said Russ, and this was done, he and Rose tying the threads of Mun Bun and Margy, who could not make very good knots as yet. And so, with the balloons floating out in front, the children went back to sit under the grape-arbor and eat bread and jam that Parker spread for them. It was so good that some of them had two slices, and then William brought the automobile out of the garage and began to get it ready for a run. Aunt Jo was to take the children for a ride. "What's William doing to the auto?" asked Vi. "Come on! Let's watch him!" proposed Russ, and he and Laddie, with Vi, Mun Bun and Margy, ran over to where the chauffeur was doing something to the car. "Will our balloons be all right?" asked Laddie. "Yes, they can't get away," said Russ. Well, that was true enough. The balloons could not have gotten away by themselves, but something happened to them. Rose did not go with her brothers and sisters over to watch William. Instead, she went into the house, got Lily, one of her dolls, and a small basket. Rose had a queer idea in her little head, and she was going to carry it out. A day or so before an airship had flown over Boston, circling around the Back Bay section, and right over Aunt Jo's house. The children were much excited by it, and at first Russ was going to make one. But he found it harder than he supposed, so he gave it up. "But I can make an airship," said Rose to herself. "Anyhow I can make something to give my doll a ride in the air in a basket." And that is what the little girl was going to do. She had felt how hard one balloon pulled--for they were filled with gas just as a real balloon is--and Rose thought that if one balloon pulled so strongly six would pull harder yet. "I'll tie all six balloons to the basket, and put Lily in and give her an airship ride," said Rose. So, while her brothers and sisters were watching the chauffeur, this is what Rose did. She carefully loosed each balloon, besides her own, from the fence, and tied the strings to the handle of the basket in which she put Lily. Lily was not heavy like Sue, the doll about which I told you before, the one the lady once thought was her baby in the car. The basket was not heavy, either. So that when Rose had tied the last balloon to the handle, she found that it rose into the air with her doll, and would have floated off, only Rose tied a cord to the bottom of the basket, and kept hold of that. "Now I've got an airship for my doll!" exclaimed the little girl, and, really, she did have one kind of airship. Up above her head floated the basket with Lily in it, and Rose was quite pleased. [Illustration: ABOVE HER HEAD FLOATED THE BASKET WITH LILY IN IT. _Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's.--Page 102_] "I can make things as good as Russ, even if I can't whistle like him," she said. "This is fun! Don't you like it, Lily?" Of course Lily couldn't answer and say that she did, but if dolls like airship rides I'm sure this one of Rose's did. Up and along floated the balloons, lifting the basket, and then, all of a sudden, something happened. CHAPTER XI VI IS LOST Rose said, afterward, that it was not the fault of Alexis, though the barking of the big dog made her jump and lose her hold on the string that was fast to the basket in which the doll Lily rode as if in an airship. But that is what happened. As Rose was walking along, letting the balloons float over her head, and giving a ride to Lily, the big dog came bounding out of the side yard. He wanted to play with Rose, and he raced toward her, jumping up and down. Rose was afraid he would jump up and put his paws on her, and Alexis was so big that when he did this to any of the six little Bunkers he almost always knocked them down. In fact, he had knocked Mun Bun and Margy down more than once, but only in fun, and he had not hurt them. "Go away, Alexis! Now go away!" exclaimed Rose, as she held the string above her head. "I can't play with you now, because I got to give Lily an airship ride. Go away, Alexis!" But Alexis didn't want to go away! He barked and he danced around, and he kept coming closer and closer to Rose, until he really almost bumped into her. And then it happened. Rose let go of the string, by which she was holding the basket that had Lily in it, and up it shot, high in the air, pulled by the gas-filled toy balloons. There were six of them, extra big ten-cent ones, and they could easily lift the small doll in the basket. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried Rose, three times. "Look what you made me do, Alexis! Oh! Oh!" And yet, afterward, Rose said it wasn't the dog's fault. "I oughtn't to have taken anybody's balloon but mine, and then they wouldn't be lost," said the little girl sadly. For that is what happened. Up and up into the air, high above Rose's head, shot the six balloons--red, green and blue--carrying the doll. When she first felt the string pulling out of her hand Rose did not know what to do. Then, as she saw the balloons sailing away, she jumped up into the air and tried to grab them. But it was too late. Away over the trees sailed the airship Rose had made, carrying her doll on an unknown voyage. "Oh, dear!" cried the little girl again, as she saw that, no matter how high she jumped, she could not get hold of the string again. "Oh, dear!" She looked at the six floating balloons, hoping they might get caught in a tree, as once one did that Mun Bun had. But no such good luck as this happened. The balloons sailed clear of the trees and went on and on and up and up, becoming smaller and smaller. "Oh, my poor, dear Lily!" sobbed Rose, and she was really crying now. "My dear, darling Lily!" "Why, what is the matter, my dear?" asked Aunt Jo, who came along, just then. "Has anything happened? Did Alexis hurt you?" for she saw the big dog standing near Rose, and thought perhaps, in his play, he might have scratched the little girl. "No, it wasn't the fault of Alexis," said Rose, "though he did bump into me and make me let go of the string. But I ought never to have taken the balloons." "The balloons?" asked Aunt Jo, not exactly understanding at first. "Yes," said Rose. "They're gone. I made an airship of 'em for my doll, and--there she goes!" She pointed up into the air. Aunt Jo saw the toy balloons, tied to the handle of the basket, and they were getting smaller and smaller. "Oh, my dear little girl!" said she. "And you have taken all the balloons! That's too bad!" And Rose cried harder than ever. Really she had not done just right, but of course she had not meant to spoil the fun of her brothers and sisters, and lose their toys. But she had. Pretty soon Russ, Laddie and the others came from having watched William get the automobile ready. "Where are our balloons?" demanded Laddie, not seeing them tied to the fence. "They're gone," said Aunt Jo softly, as she put her arms around Rose. "Gone?" cried Russ. "Where? Did they bust?" "I made an airship of 'em," confessed Rose, "and let go the cord when Alexis bumped me, and--and there they go!" and she pointed to the sky. Well, you can easily imagine that the five little Bunkers felt quite bad at losing their balloons. Margy and Mun Bun cried, being the smallest. Vi looked as if she wanted to, and so did Laddie. But Laddie felt he was too big, and Vi didn't want to do anything her twin brother didn't do; especially crying. Russ swallowed what seemed to be a lump in his throat, and then, learning that his sister's doll had been carried off in the "airship" and seeing how bad Rose felt, and noticing the tears on her cheeks, he said: "Oh, well, maybe the balloons would have busted anyhow. I don't care 'cause you lost mine, Rose." "I don't either," said Laddie bravely. Then Vi said the same thing. Wasn't that good of them? I think so. Of course Margy and Mun Bun, being little, felt worse over the loss of their balloons than the others did. But Aunt Jo found some pieces of candy for the little tots, and promised they could have new balloons in a few days. "And now we'll all go for an auto ride," she said. That made Margy and Mun Bun smile, and the other little Bunkers also felt better. "Will you take us out the way the balloons are blowing?" asked Russ, for the "airship" could still be seen, a faint speck in the sky. "Why do you want to go that way?" asked Aunt Jo. "Because maybe then we can get the balloons back," Russ said. "And my doll, too, and the basket!" added Rose eagerly. "Maybe," said Russ. "You know balloons and airships have always got to come down. They can't sail on forever, and when this one you made, Rose, comes down, we can get it, and your doll, too." "Oh, won't that be good!" cried the little girl. "I do hope we can!" "Well, of course you may find it," said Aunt Jo; "but I'm afraid you never will, Rose. Of course I know, around the Fourth of July, sometimes fire balloons, that burn out and don't burn up, come down. Once one came down in our yard, and William got it. And this may happen to the balloons you sent up, or that you let get away from you. The gas may all go out of them, as it probably will, and the basket and the doll will come down." "I'd like to get Lily again, awful much," said Rose. "'Course she wasn't my best doll, but I love her just the same." "Well, we'll take an automobile ride," said her aunt, "and if we see the airship down anywhere we'll get it." "Maybe some other little girl will find it, as you did the pocketbook, and want to keep it," suggested Russ. "Well, if she knew it was my doll wouldn't she give it back to me?" asked Rose. "I'm sure she would," put in Aunt Jo. "But don't set your heart too much on it, my dear. I'm afraid your doll is gone forever." But you just wait and see what happens. They all went for an automobile ride, and, though they looked in the direction the balloons had floated, they did not see the "airship." Rose and Russ even asked several policemen they passed if they had seen the balloons and basket with the doll in it come down, but none had. Of course Rose felt bad, and so did the other little Bunkers, about losing their balloons, but there was no help for it. They were gone. It was a day or so after this, and the children were talking about a trip to Nantasket Beach Aunt Jo was to take them on, when just as lunch was about to be served, Parker came in to say: "We are all out of bread, Miss Bunker. The baker forgot to stop. Shall I send William for some?" "Oh, let me go!" begged Vi. "I know where there is a bakery, right down the street. It isn't far." "Are you sure you know the way?" asked Aunt Jo. "'Course I do," Vi answered. "Well, you may go," said Aunt Jo. "Only be careful not to get lost. Don't turn around the wrong corners." "I won't," promised Vi. But that is just what she did. She got the bread all right, but, on the way back she stopped to pet a kitten that rubbed up against her. And then Vi got turned around, and she went down a side street, and walked two or three blocks before she knew that she was wrong. "Aunt Jo doesn't live on this street," said the little girl to herself, as she stopped and looked around. "I don't see her house and I don't see Mr. North's. I must have come the wrong way." So she had, and she turned to go back. But she went wrong again, making a turn around another corner and then Vi didn't know what to do. She stood in front of a house, with the bread under her arm, and tears came into her eyes. "Oh, dear!" sighed Vi. "It's terrible to be lost so near home!" CHAPTER XII MARGY TAKES A RIDE This was not the first time Violet had been lost. More than once, even in her home town of Pineville, she had wandered away over the fields or out toward the woods, and had not been able to find her way back again. But always, at such times, Norah or Jerry Simms, or Daddy or Mother Bunker had come to find her and take her home. "But I don't see any of them now," said Vi, as she gazed around her. There were quite a number of persons on the street, for it was the noon hour, but the little girl knew none of them, and none of them seemed to pay any attention to her. I think, though, almost any one of those who passed by poor little Vi, standing there in the street, if they had known she was lost, would have gone up to her and tried to help her. But there were many children in the street, and several of them were standing still, looking not very different from Vi, except that she was crying--not a great deal, but enough to make her eyes wet. "I guess I'd better walk along a little," said Vi to herself, after a bit. "Maybe I'll see Aunt Jo's house, or Russ or Rose or--or somebody that knows me." Poor little Vi, just then, would have been glad to see even Alexis, the big dog. Alexis would lead her home, Vi felt sure. But the big dog was not in sight. Vi walked a little way down the street, and then a little way up it. She looked at all the houses and at every one she met, still holding fast to the loaf of bread. But she did not see Aunt Jo's house, and she did not know any of the men or women or boys or girls that passed her. "Oh, I'm worse lost than ever!" sighed the little girl. "I wonder what I can do. I'm going to ask some one!" Now the best way for Vi to have done was to have gone up to one of the houses and asked where her Aunt Jo's home was. But the funny thing about it was that Vi wasn't quite sure what her aunt's name was. Her own name, she knew, was Violet Bunker, but she never spoke of Aunt Jo except just by that name, never using the last part and, while it was the same name as her own, Vi didn't know it. She felt she couldn't very well go up to a house and say: "Where does my Aunt Jo live?" The person in the house would be sure to ask: "What is your aunt's last name, my dear, and on what street does she live?" But Vi didn't know that. So you see she was quite badly lost, though she had only been away from her aunt's home a little while. And then, as the little girl stood there, the tears coming into her eyes faster than ever, along came a rather tall girl with a pleasant face, who, as soon as she saw Vi, went up to her and asked kindly: "What is the matter? Did you lose your money?" "Oh, no," Vi answered, "I didn't lose my money, but I've lost myself. I spent the money for bread for Aunt Jo, but I came on the wrong street, I guess, and I don't know where she lives." "Where who lives?" "Aunt Jo. I'm one of the six little Bunkers and we're staying at Aunt Jo's, but I don't know where she lives." Then this tall, pleasant-faced girl asked, just as any one else would have done: "What's Aunt Jo's other name?" And Vi didn't know! Then the girl tried to get Vi to tell in what sort of house Aunt Jo lived, and near what other houses or big buildings it was. But Vi was only six years old, and she hadn't noticed much about houses. She had been too busy playing. "But Aunt Jo has a big dog," said Vi. "He's an awful big dog, and he almost knocks you down when he plays with you. If I could find him he'd take me home." "What's the dog's name?" asked the girl. "Alexis," answered Vi, "and he----" "Oh, now I know where your aunt lives!" cried the tall girl. "I often see that big dog, and I have heard the chauffeur call him Alexis. I remember it because it's a sort of Russian name, and I like to read about Russia. Now I can take you home." "Can you--really?" asked Vi eagerly. "Surely. I know the very house where Alexis lives, and if you live there with your Aunt Jo I can take you home. It isn't far; come on. My name is Mary Turner, and my mother used to sew for a lady on the same street where your aunt lives. I know the way; come on." Taking hold of Vi's hand, the kind girl led her along the street, around a corner and down another block and then Vi cried: "Oh, now I'm all right. I know where I am now. That's Mr. North's house and I see Aunt Jo's house and here comes Daddy to meet me!" And surely enough, along came Mr. Bunker, looking up and down the street for a sight of his little girl, who had been gone so long for the loaf of bread that he knew she must be lost. "Well, if you're sure you can find your way I'll let you run along by yourself," said Mary Turner. "Oh, yes, I'm all right now," said Vi. "My father sees me, and he's waving to me. Thank you for taking care of me." "I'm glad I could help you a little," said Mary. "Does your mother sew any more?" asked Vi. "No," answered Mary, and her voice sounded sad. "She had a great shock, and she's ill in the hospital now. I have to go to work to take care of her. Well, good-bye, and don't get lost again," and Mary turned down a side street and walked on, waving her hand to Violet. "Well, little girl, what happened to you?" asked Daddy Bunker, as he walked up to his daughter. "We were getting worried about you, so I came out to see what had happened." "I got lost," Vi answered. "I went down the wrong street, but Mary Turner--she knew where Alexis lived, and she brought me to you." "Who is Mary Turner?" asked Mr. Bunker. "That's the nice girl that just went away," said Vi, pointing, for her new friend was still in sight. "Her mother used to sew for somebody on Aunt Jo's street, but she's in the hospital now--I mean her mother is; she's sick." "That's too bad," said Mr. Bunker. "Aunt Jo might do something for her. But perhaps the girl doesn't like to ask. Anyhow, I'm glad you're not lost any longer. Come along to lunch now." So that's how Vi was lost and found. And she was soon eating lunch with the other little Bunkers and telling them what had happened. "What can we do this afternoon to have fun?" asked Russ, as he got up from the table. "Let's see if we can't make a better harness for Alexis, and have him pull us in the express wagon," suggested Laddie. "I found some strong rope that we can tie on him." "All right, we'll do that," agreed Russ. "That'll be fun." "Will you give me a ride?" asked Mun Bun. "I'll help you make the harness if you will." "Yes, we'll give you a ride," said Russ, "but I guess we can make the harness ourselves. Come on, Laddie." "I'm going to play with my doll," said Margy. "My rubber doll is all dirty and I'm going to wash her." "Well, don't turn the hose on her, as Russ and Laddie did to William," laughed Aunt Jo. "Just wash your doll in a basin of water, Margy dear." "Yes, I'll do that, Aunt Jo," answered the little girl. "I'm going to make a new dress for my big best doll Sue," announced Rose. "I haven't got my little Lily to love now, so I'll make Sue look nice. You didn't find my doll that went up in the airship, did you, Daddy?" she asked. "No," answered Mr. Bunker. "And I don't believe I ever shall." "And we haven't heard who lost that pocketbook with the sixty-five dollars in it," said Mrs. Bunker. "It is very strange no one claims the money." "Yes," said Aunt Jo, "it is. But some day we may find out who owns it. Though if we don't by the time you folks are ready to go home, it will belong to Rose, for she found it." "And then I can buy a new doll," said the little girl. So, while Russ, Laddie and Mun Bun went to the garage to try to make another harness for Alexis, Rose and Margy played with their dolls. Violet said she was tired from having walked around so much when she was lost, though I think it was because she had cried, so her mother put her to bed for a short nap. Then Daddy Bunker went downtown and Aunt Jo and Mrs. Bunker sat on the porch sewing. It was about half an hour after Margy and Rose had begun to play with their dolls, Margy washing her rubber one in a basin of water, that something happened. Margy got up from the side porch where she was sitting with Rose, and said: "I'm going to dry her now." "Dry who?" asked Rose. "My rubber doll," answered Margy. "She's all wet and I'm going to take her down in the laundry where Parker is, and put my doll by the fire to dry." "All right," answered Rose, "don't burn yourself." "I won't," said Margy, as she went toward the laundry, which was in the basement of Aunt Jo's big house. A little while after this Parker, on going into the kitchen over the laundry, heard a voice crying: "Oh, I can't get out! I can't get out! I'm stuck in and I can't get out." "For land sakes! Who are you, and what has happened?" cried the frightened cook. "It's one of the six little Bunkers, I know," she went on, "but what happened?" "Oh, I went to take a ride," said Margy, "and now I can't get out! Oh, dear!" And her voice seemed to come from afar. CHAPTER XIII MUN BUN DRIVES AWAY Parker was a good cook, but she did not know much about children. She liked them though, and was kind to them. So when she heard Margy's voice calling, she could not imagine what had happened, nor did she know what to do. If it had been Mrs. Bunker, or even Daddy Bunker, they would have at once found out what the matter was. But then they were used to things happening to children. "Oh, where are you?" cried Parker, as Margy kept on screaming. "I don't know what you call it, but I'm in it," said the little girl, in that queer, faraway voice. "But where is it?" asked Parker, for, somehow, the voice seemed to come from somewhere between the laundry and the kitchen. "It's that thing you pull up and down with soap and starch and clothes on," said Margy. "I got in it to have a ride, but my leg is stuck and I can't get out and, oh, dear! I want my mother!" "Yes, and I guess I want her, too!" exclaimed Parker. "Oh, my! This is worse than having the chimney on fire. I'll go and call your mother, child," she went on, "for I can't see a blessed hair of your head. Though you must be somewhere around, and maybe hiding to fool me." "Oh, no, I'm not hiding," answered Margy, who, it seems, could hear Parker very well. "I'm in the pull-up-and-let-down-thing, and I want to get out!" But Parker did not stay to listen. She ran out to the side porch, where Aunt Jo and Mrs. Bunker were sewing, and cried: "Oh, come quick! The poor child's caught and can't get out and I can't see her!" "Where is she? What happened?" asked Aunt Jo and Mrs. Bunker. "She's somewhere between the laundry and the kitchen," said the maid. "I can't see her, though I can hear her and----" Mrs. Bunker and her sister-in-law did not stop to listen to any more. To the kitchen they hurried, and there they, too, heard the voice of Margy crying: "Take me out! Take me out! I'm in the puller-up-and-down-thing!" Aunt Jo knew right away what Margy meant. "She must be stuck in the dumbwaiter--that we pull up and down between the kitchen and the laundry," she said. "Are you there, Margy?" she asked as she opened a door in the side wall of the kitchen. And then, up the shaft, came the voice of the little girl: "Yes, I'm in here and I can't go down and I can't get up. Oh, dear!" "Now don't cry! Mother is here," said Mrs. Bunker. "And so is Aunt Jo. We'll get you up in a minute. Don't be afraid." Aunt Jo ran downstairs and looked up the dumbwaiter shaft. She could see the box-like waiter stuck halfway up, but of course she could not see Margy. A dumbwaiter is like a little elevator, except that, as a rule, no one rides in it. It is used to pull things up and down between two rooms, when a person does not want to use the stairs. "I see what's the matter," said Aunt Jo, as she looked up the shaft once more. "Margy's foot stuck out over the edge of the box, in which she climbed to have a ride, and the waiter can't slide up and down. Her foot wedges it fast." "Can we get it loose?" asked Mother Bunker. "Oh, yes, easily, I think. Get me my long-handled parasol, Parker. I'll reach that up the shaft and push Margy's foot loose. Then the dumbwaiter, with her in it, will slide down." And that is just what happened. With the end of the parasol, not pushing so hard as to hurt, Aunt Jo shoved loose Margy's foot. Then the dumbwaiter, which was a sort of open box, slid down on the rope that ran over a pulley-wheel, and Margy was lifted out. She had been crying and was frightened, but she felt all right when her mother took her in her arms and kissed her. "How did you come to do it?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "I came down to the laundry to dry my rubber doll after I'd washed her," said Margy, "and I put her by the fire. One day I saw Parker give a lot of bars of soap a ride on the go-up-and-down-thing." "Yes, I do use the dumbwaiter for that," said the cook. "Then I thought I could get a ride if the soap got a ride," went on Margy. "So, when Parker was out by the garage I went up in the kitchen, and I stood on a chair, I did, and I crawled into the go-up-and-down-thing, and it went down with me. But it didn't go all the way down. It stuck and I couldn't have a nice ride." "I should say not!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "And you mustn't do such a thing again. You might have been hurt when you got your foot caught." "It does hurt a little," said Margy, rubbing it. So that's how it happened. Margy had crawled from the chair in the kitchen into the box of the dumbwaiter. It had run down with her until her foot, sticking over the edge, wedged the waiter fast, halfway down the shaft. Then the door in the wall blew shut, and when Margy cried Parker was so "flustered," as she said afterward, that she never stopped to think where the voice came from. "But don't do it again," warned Aunt Jo. "I won't," promised Margy. From out in the yard of Aunt Jo's house came joyous shouts and laughter. Russ could be heard calling: "Oh, it works! It works all right! Now we can all have rides." "Well, whatever it is, I hope it isn't a dumbwaiter they're riding in," said Mother Bunker. She and Aunt Jo looked from the window. They saw that Russ and Laddie had finally managed to make a harness for the dog Alexis, out of stronger pieces of cord than they used at first. The dog was tied with the cords to the express wagon, and seated in it were Laddie and Mun Bun. Russ was walking alongside, guiding Alexis by strings tied around his neck. "Make him go fast!" cried Mun Bun. "I want to ride fast!" "Oh, if he runs too fast I can't keep up with him," said Russ. "Alexis can run a lot faster than I can, and if he goes too fast I'll lose hold of him." "Let me drive a little," begged Laddie. So Russ let his smaller brother take the strings that answered for reins. But Russ stayed near the head of the big dog, with his hand on his collar. For Russ was a careful boy, and did not want the dog to run away and, perhaps, spill the little boys out of the wagon. "Oh, I want a ride in that!" cried Margy, when she saw what her brothers were doing. "That's nicer than the up-and-down-thing I was in." "Yes, and a little safer," said her mother. "You may go out and Russ will give you a ride. Russ, Margy is coming out," she called. "Take care of her!" "I will," promised the largest Bunker boy. Then such fun as the six children had riding behind Alexis, for Violet awakened from her sleep and came out to enjoy the sport. Russ and Laddie had tied so many ropes on Alexis, fastening them to the cart, that William said it would take an hour to loosen the knots. But Alexis did not seem to mind. He walked along, pulling the cart, with two or three children in it, as easily as though he were dragging along a tin can tied to his tail, and much more sedately. Only nobody had ever tied a tin can to the tail of Alexis. He wasn't the kind of dog one could do that to. You might have dared try when he was a little puppy, but not after he grew up to be almost as big as a small Shetland pony. "Oh, this is lots of fun!" cried Rose, when it was her turn to have a ride. "I wish my doll Lily was here to like it." "She had a good ride in the airship," remarked Russ. "Oh! Oh!" suddenly cried Laddie. "What's the matter?" asked Russ. "Did a bee sting you?" "No. I just thought of a nice riddle. It's about the balloon airship Rose made and the dumbwaiter Margy had a ride in." "What's the riddle?" asked Vi. "It's like this," went on Laddie, thinking hard to get it just right. "What's the difference between Rose's airship and the dumbwaiter Margy rode in? What's the difference?" "A whole lot!" said Rose. "They're not alike at all." "Well, that's the riddle--what makes 'em different!" asked Laddie. "Because they both have a basket," said Russ. "Rose tied the balloons to a basket, and the clothes basket rides on the dumbwaiter." "Nope! That isn't it," said Laddie, shaking his head. "You see Rose's airship went up, and wouldn't come down, and the dumbwaiter, with Margy in it, went down and wouldn't come up." "Huh! That's pretty good," said Russ. "But I guess those balloons are down by this time." "And my doll, too," added Rose. "I wish I could find her." "Well, part of the riddle is right, anyhow," said Laddie. "Yes, it's pretty good," agreed Russ. "And now we'll have some more rides." Around Aunt Jo's house, up and down the lawn and on the paths Alexis pulled the six little Bunkers in the express wagon, with the string harness, and they had lots of fun. Even the big dog seemed to enjoy it, and he didn't get tired. It was two days after this, during which time the children had lots of fun, that something else happened. Mun Bun was the unlucky one; or lucky, whichever way you look at it. Sometimes, even in the fashionable Back Bay section of Boston, rag peddlers came to buy odds and ends from the homes of the people. The chauffeurs or the furnace men usually attended to the selling of this, being allowed to keep whatever money they got for themselves. One of the wagons, with bags and all sorts of things in it, stopped, one day, in front of Aunt Jo's house. The ragman knew William, who often sold him old newspapers or junk, and this time he had quite a few things to sell. "Rags! Rags! Bottles and rags!" cried the junkman as he went back to the garage with a bag over his shoulder. As it happened, Mun Bun was out, watching William pump air into a new tire, and when the chauffeur went into the cellar with the junkman to get the papers, Mun Bun wandered out in front to where the junkman's horse and wagon was standing. "If I could get up into that wagon now," thought Mun Bun to himself, "I could have a better ride than with Alexis. I guess I will." How he managed to climb up I don't know, but he did. The wagon was not very high, and there was a step near the front, and of course there were wheels. Somehow, Mun Bun scrambled up, and the horse, luckily for him, did not move while the boy was climbing. Right up on the seat got Mun Bun. He picked up the real reins, as he had seen Russ do with the make-believe ones on Alexis, and then Mun Bun called: "Gid-dap!" And, just as easily as you please, the horse started off as natural as anything, with Mun Bun driving. Down the street he slowly walked, much to the delight of Mun Bun. But what would happen next? CHAPTER XIV THE WHISTLING WAGON Mun Bun smiled happily. This was more fun than he had ever expected to have at Aunt Jo's house. In fact, what little thinking he did about it was to the effect that he could have had a lot more fun by staying at Grandma Bell's. Up he sat on the seat of the junkman's wagon, holding the reins as he had helped Russ or Laddie hold the reins on the big dog Alexis, who pulled the six little Bunkers in the express wagon. "This is fun!" said Mun Bun. The horse slowly walked along. Junkmen's horses hardly ever run. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, a junkman's horse goes slowly because the junkman is never in a hurry. He wants to look at the houses on each side of the street to see if any one is going to call him in to sell him paper, rags, old bottles, rubber boots or broken stoves. So, of course, a junkman wants his horse to go slowly, for then he has a chance to look at the houses on each side of the street. For nowadays the junkmen, in the cities, at least, are not allowed to ring bells and shout loudly or make much noise. They used to do that, but they can't any more. Another reason why a junkman's horse walks slowly is that the poor horse is nearly always old and thin and hungry. And I suppose it's a good thing this junkman's horse was old and thin and tired and hungry. That's what made him go slowly, so Mun Bun was not rattled off the seat. He was only a little fellow, and it would not have taken much of a jolt of the wagon to have tossed him off. But as long as the wagon went slowly he was all right. "Gid-dap!" cried Mun Bun in a jolly voice, and he pulled on the reins, thinking what fun it was really to drive, and not make-believe, as he and the others had done with Alexis. All this while the junkman was in Aunt Jo's yard, talking with William about the old rags and papers the chauffeur had to sell. The five other little Bunkers were playing at different games, Daddy Bunker was downtown, and Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker were busy at something or other, I've forgotten just what. So there was no one in particular to see what Mun Bun was doing, and he was just having the grandest time, all by himself, driving the poor, thin horse. Of course he wasn't really driving it. The horse just went along as it always did, as slowly as it could, and, very likely, it didn't know, or care, whether Mun Bun was driving it, or the junkman. "Gid-dap!" cried the little fellow again, and he pulled on the reins. And then a funny thing happened. He pulled a little harder on the left rein than on the right, and, just as the animal had been used to doing whenever this happened, the horse turned to the left, and went down a side street. Mun Bun didn't mind this. He didn't care which way the horse went as long as he was having a ride and was doing the driving. Down the side street went the junk wagon, with Mun Bun on it. He was now out of sight of any one who might be looking from Aunt Jo's yard. The little fellow was halfway down the new block when a woman, looking from the window of her house, saw the bony horse and the old rattly, rickety wagon. "Oh, there's a junkman!" she cried. "I've been looking for one a long time to take the papers out of the cellar. There's a junkman!" "No, it's a junk boy," said the woman's cook, who happened to be with her. "There's no one but a little boy on the wagon." "Well, maybe it's the junkman's little boy," said the woman. "They let them drive when they go in after the junk. Run after him, Jane, and stop him. I want to get the trash cleaned out of the cellar." So the cook ran quickly to the front door and cried: "Hey! Junk boy! Stop! We got some papers for you!" Mun Bun heard, and turned around. "I isn't the junkman," he said. "I'm just havin' a ride!" "We have some old papers for you," called the cook. Mun Bun didn't know just what it all meant, but he saw the cook waving her hand at him, and he heard her calling, though he could not make out all the words, because the wagon rattled so. But Mun Bun had an idea. "I guess maybe she wants a ride," he said. "She likes to ride same as I do. I'll give her a ride with me." He pulled on the reins, and called: "Whoa!" But either Mun Bun did not pull hard enough, or he did not call loudly enough, for the horse did not stop. Perhaps it thought that if it did stop it would be too hard work to start again, so it kept on going. "Stop! Stop!" cried the cook. "We have some papers to sell you!" "Whoa!" called Mun Bun again. But the horse did not stop. Just then a policeman came down the street. He saw Mun Bun on the seat of the wagon, and he saw the cook waving at him and calling. And the policeman needed to take only one look to make him feel sure that Mun Bun was not the junkman's little boy driving the wagon. Mun Bun was not dressed as a junkman's little boy would probably be dressed. "That's funny," said the policeman to himself. "I must see about this." He walked toward the wagon. By this time the cook had come out on the sidewalk. She knew the policeman. "Stop him!" she called, pointing to the wagon. "Stop that junkman!" "That isn't a junkman," said the officer. "Well, stop that junk boy then, Mr. Mulligan," begged the cook, smiling at the policeman. "Nor yet it isn't a junk boy," said the officer. "He doesn't belong on that wagon." "Do you mean to say he stole it?" asked the cook. "Mrs. Rynsler has some junk she wants to get out of the cellar, and----" "This boy'll never take it," said Mr. Mulligan, the policeman. "In the first place he's too little, and in the second place he isn't a junk boy. I must see about this," and, hurrying along for a little distance, then walking out to the curb, he reached out his hand and stopped the horse. It was not hard work. The bony horse was ready to stop almost any time. "Whoa!" said the policeman. "Whoa!" echoed Mun Bun, and he smiled at the officer. "Where are you going?" asked Mr. Mulligan. "I'm having a ride," said Mun Bun. "The junkman is at my Aunt Jo's house, and I got up on the seat and I'm having a ride!" "Land love us! And look at the size of him!" murmured the cook, who had followed the policeman. "He is little," said the policeman. "But you'd better get down, my little man. You might fall off." "I had a nice ride, anyhow," said Mun Bun, as the policeman lifted him down from the wagon. "But now I've got to find out where you live, and who owns this rig," went on the officer. "The idea of him drivin' off with it all alone--the likes of him!" murmured the wondering cook. "Oh, he's a smart little chap!" said the policeman, smiling at Mun Bun. "But, unless I'm mistaken, here comes the real junkman. He looks worried, too." Around the corner of the street came the man who had been talking to William in Aunt Jo's yard. He was running hard, and his hat had fallen off. "My horse! My wagon!" he cried. "Somebody ran away with them!" "No, they didn't, Ike!" said the policeman, who had seen the junk collector before. "Your horse just walked away with this boy, and it's lucky the little chap didn't fall off the seat. Get on now, and drive back where you came from. Where does this boy belong?" "How should I know?" asked the junkman. "I never saw him before." "Well, he must have got on the wagon at the last place you stopped," said the officer. "Where was that?" "Oh, sure! I know what you mean!" exclaimed the junkman. "I know the lady's house. Her automobile man often sells me old papers. I can tell you," and he did, mentioning Aunt Jo's house. "I'll just take the boy back," said the policeman. His hand in that of the big policeman, Mun Bun went back gladly enough, and just in time, too, for his mother, looking out and "counting noses" had not seen him with the other children, and, fearing he had wandered away, she was just starting out to look for him. "Where have you been?" she cried, as she saw Mun Bun with a policeman. "Oh, I had a nice ride," answered the little boy. "He was on the junk wagon," Mr. Mulligan explained. "Oh, ho! So it was you who ran with Ike's rig, was it?" asked William. "Well, well! He was frightened when he didn't see his horse out in front where he had left it. How do you like the junk business, Mun Bun?" "I like the horse, and I did drive him, I did!" said the little fellow proudly. "Well, don't do it again," sighed Mrs. Bunker. "No'm, I won't!" promised Mun Bun. The six little Bunkers always promised this whenever they did anything they ought not to have done. But the trouble was that they did something different the next time, and not the same thing they were told not to do. "I wish I'd had a ride with you," said Margy, as her little brother, after the policeman had gone, told what had happened. "Well, I don't!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. So Mun Bun got safely back home again, and the rest of the day his mother saw to it that he played in the yard and around the house with his brothers and sisters. "Did anybody ever come for the pocketbook and the sixty-five dollars?" asked Rose one day, after breakfast, when the six little Bunkers were wondering what to do to have fun. "No, we haven't yet found an owner," said her father. "But there is time enough yet." "And you didn't find my doll that the balloons took away, did you?" "Not yet, Rose. I'm afraid Lily is gone forever," answered her mother. "Some day I'll get you a new doll." "Yes; but she wouldn't be Lily," said Rose, and she felt quite bad about what had happened. Out in the yard went the children to play. Russ was making what he said was going to be a kite, and Laddie and Violet were playing in the sand. Rose was watching Parker bake a cake and Margy and Mun Bun walked up and down the porch, pulling two little rubber dolls in a thread box, which they pretended was a big automobile. Pretty soon, down the street came a two-wheeled cart, pushed by a man who had gold rings in his ears, and the cart made a cheerful whistling sound. "Oh, listen!" cried Mun Bun. "It's like a choo-choo car!" said Margy. "Let's go and look at it!" cried Mun Bun. "All right," agreed his sister. Leaving the thread-box automobile and the two little dolls on the porch, the two small children ran down to the front gate to look at the whistling wagon. CHAPTER XV LADDIE'S FUNNY RIDDLE "Doesn't it make a nice noise?" asked Mun Bun of Margy. "Terrible nice," agreed the little girl. "What makes it?" Mun Bun looked at the whistling wagon. It was, as I have said, a two-wheeled cart, and was pushed by a man who had gold rings in his ears. His face was very dark, too, but he smiled pleasantly at the children. "It's a teakettle, that's what makes it," said Mun Bun, as he looked. "See the steam coming out, just like it does out of the kettle in Parker's kitchen," and he pointed to something on one end of the cart. This something looked like a little stove, and the children could see the glow of fire in one end of it. And, as Mun Bun had said, steam was coming from what seemed to be a spout. "The steam whistles," said Mun Bun. "Yes," agreed Margy. "I like it!" The steam did make a shrill whistling sound. The wagon was out in front of Aunt Jo's house now, and suddenly Mun Bun sniffed the air. He smelled something good. "Oh, I know what it is!" he cried. "It's peanuts! The man is roasting peanuts and they whistles to tell him they're done. Don't you 'member, down at the corner by Daddy's office, home, there's a man an' he sells peanuts and they whistles." "Oh, yes!" said Margy. "I 'members! I likes peanuts, too!" "So do I!" said Mun Bun. The man with the gold rings in his ears was stopping in front of Aunt Jo's house now. He smiled at the children, while the steam from the hot peanut-roaster made a louder whistling sound, and the man yelled: "Hot peanuts, five cents a bag!" "Oh, I wish we had some!" sighed Mun Bun. "So do I," added his sister. "Have you five cents, Mun Bun?" "Nope! Has you five cents, Margy?" "No." Mun Bun thought for a few seconds while the smiling Italian man, with the whistling wagon, looked at the two little Bunkers hanging on Aunt Jo's gate. "Please go 'way!" said Mun Bun. "We hasn't got any five cents for your hot peanuts." "No gotta five cents?" asked the Italian. "No," and Mun Bun shook his head. "An' we like peanuts," added Margy. "If you've any left over you could give us some." "Hot peanuts--five a bag!" said the peddler in a sort of sing-song voice. "Please go 'way!" begged Mun Bun again. "They smells awful good, but we hasn't got any five centies!" "Maybe you go in th' house, li'l' boy, you get money," the Italian went on. Margy looked at Mun Bun and Mun Bun looked at Margy. "Oh, maybe we could!" exclaimed the little girl eagerly. "Let's go an' ask, Mun Bun!" "All right!" said he. "We will!" And they did. Into the room where Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker were sewing burst the two children, out of breath from their run up the gravel drive. "Oh, Mother!" cried Mun Bun. "He wants five cents." "An' he's got a whistlin' wagon!" added Margy. "An' they smell awful good!" went on her brother. "Come an' hear the whistle," begged the little girl. "My goodness me!" cried Aunt Jo. "What is this all about?" "It's hot peanuts--five a bag!" answered Mun Bun, in a sing-song voice almost like the Italian's. "But we haven't the five cents," added Margy. "An' we want some peanuts." "Well, I think you may have some," said Mrs. Bunker. "I'll come down to the whistling wagon with you and see about it." Margy and Mun Bun led her down to the front gate, where the peanut man, still smiling, was waiting. The hot oven on his wagon, in which he roasted the peanuts, was still whistling. Afterward Daddy Bunker told the children that the steam came out and made the whistling sound by puffing itself through a tin thing with holes in it, just as a boy blows his breath through the same kind of tin thing to make a whistle. "And the reason the Italian puts water in the top of his peanut-roaster is so that the peanuts in the bags, where he puts them to keep warm, will not burn," the father of the six little Bunkers told them. "The whistling is like the bell the old-fashioned ice-cream man used to ring. People hear it and come to buy, just as you did." Mrs. Bunker found the Italian's peanuts fresh and nicely browned and roasted, and she bought enough for all the children. "You have to thank Margy and Mun Bun for them," she said to Russ, Rose and the twins. "They first heard the whistling wagon and ran out to see what it was." The children had a sort of little play-party with the peanuts, though Laddie stuffed some of his in his pocket. "I'm going to save 'em," he said. "What for?" asked Russ, who had his kite partly finished. "Oh, maybe I'll see an elephant in a circus parade," the little boy answered. "Circus parades never come up in our Back Bay section," said Aunt Jo with a smile. "So I don't believe you'll see an elephant, Laddie." "Oh, well, then I can eat the peanuts myself," he returned. "But maybe I might see a squirrel." "Yes, we have some of them in our parks," went on Aunt Jo. "And I have seen them so tame that they would come up and take a nut from your fingers. Some day we'll go to the park and look for the little fellows. But I'm afraid you won't have any peanuts left then, Laddie." "Well, we can get some more," said the little boy with a laugh. It was a little later that same afternoon, when Rose, who was out on the porch, getting her doll dressed for supper, as she said, came running in, looking very much excited. "Well, what is it now?" asked her mother. "Has Mun Bun or any of the others, ridden off on a junk wagon?" "Oh, no," answered the little girl. "But Laddie went off down the street with his peanuts in his pocket, and now he's come back and he has a funny riddle." "A funny riddle!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. "What do you mean? Is it a riddle about the peanuts?" "I don't know," answered Rose. "But Laddie has something hid under his coat, and he asked me to guess what it was, so it must be a riddle. And it makes a funny squeaking noise." "My goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. "I must see what Laddie's riddle is this time!" CHAPTER XVI ROSE BREAKS HER SKATE Out on the porch Mrs. Bunker found her six children, for Rose had followed her mother out of the house, finally running ahead of her to see if any one had yet guessed Laddie's latest riddle. "What have you there, Sonny?" asked Laddie's mother, as she saw him standing in front of Russ, Rose and the others, with something under his coat. "He says it's a riddle," explained Russ. "It is, sort of!" declared Laddie. "Yet 'tisn't zactly a riddle. I just told 'em to guess what I had under my coat." "Where'd you get it?" asked Aunt Jo, who came out to see what the fun was about. "I got it with the peanuts I had in my pocket," the little boy answered. "Oh, then it's a squirrel!" guessed Rose. "No, it isn't a squirrel," said Laddie, shaking his head. "It's got a tail! I can see it!" cried Vi, as she stooped down and looked under her brother's coat. "I can see it sticking out. It's brown." "Yes, it's got a tail," admitted Laddie. "Is it a kite?" asked Russ, for he had not yet finished the one he was making. "Nope! 'Tisn't a kite!" Laddie answered. "It's alive, and kites aren't that way!" "They wiggle around as if they were alive, sometimes," said Rose. "Oh, I heard it squeak!" cried Mun Bun. "Is it a little kittie?" Again Laddie shook his head. "Nope," he answered, "'tisn't a kittie. But it's got fur on. Now I'll give you each one more guess for my riddle, and----" But Laddie's "riddle" seemed to think the fun had gone on long enough, and it didn't want to be guessed about any more. All at once the little boy began to wiggle and try to hold something still beneath his coat--something which seemed very much alive indeed. "Oh! Oh! Oh, dear!" cried Laddie, but he was laughing. "What's the matter?" asked his mother. "It--it's _tickling_ me!" he exclaimed. "Oh--there it is!" As he spoke a funny little wrinkled black face, followed by a little brown furry body and a long tail, scrambled out from under Laddie's buttoned coat and sat on his shoulder. "Oh, look!" cried Rose. "It's a black pussy with a long tail!" cried Violet. "No, it isn't!" Russ exclaimed. "It's a monkey! That's what it is! A monkey!" "A monkey!" repeated Mrs. Bunker. "Why, so it is. Oh, Laddie boy! where did you get a monkey?" Laddie put up his hand to stroke the funny little creature, which seemed to like it, crouching down on Laddie's shoulder and nestling close to him. The monkey was not much larger than a cat. "Where'd you get it?" repeated the children's mother. "Have they got any more? Can I get one?" cried Russ. "I'll go and find some peanuts!" "Don't let him wind his tail on me!" begged Mun Bun, hiding behind his mother's skirts. "Can he play a hand-organ?" asked Violet. The children were laughing so hard, and asking so many questions as they crowded around Laddie, that their mother exclaimed: "Oh, my dear six little Bunkers! please be quiet a minute until I can hear what Laddie has to say. Tell us where you got such a cute little riddle!" "I got him with peanuts," Laddie said. "He was up in a tree and I saw him, and I held out some peanuts in my hand and he came down and sat on my shoulder and ate 'em and then I put him under my coat and he liked it and I brought him home." "But where did you find him?" asked Aunt Jo. "In what tree?" "Oh, just down by the corner at the end of this street," answered Laddie with a wave of his hand. "Mercy," gasped Aunt Jo, "are monkeys beginning to make their homes in the trees of the Boston streets?" and she and Mother Bunker laughed. "But was he up a tree?" asked Russ. "Yes, he was," Laddie went on. "First I thought it was a cat, but when I saw him hang by his tail I knew it wasn't a cat." "Oh, we're finding lots of things!" cried Rose. "I found a pocketbook, and now Laddie finds a monkey." "And I'm going to keep it and get a hand-organ and then I'm going around and take in pennies," said the little boy, on whose shoulder the monkey was still perched, looking here and there at the other children, and wrinkling up his funny black face. "I know where it came from," said Russ, after thinking a moment. "Where?" asked Vi. "Do you mean out of a circus?" "No," answered Russ. "But it must have got away from a hand-organ man." "I think that's just what happened," said Aunt Jo. "Hand-organ men, with monkeys fast to the ends of long strings, often come up this way, and play what they call music, and they let the funny little animals go after the pennies. One of these Italians must have been around here with his music-machine, and his monkey must have run away from him and hidden up in a tree where you saw him, Laddie." "But I found him, and he's mine. I want to keep him," said the little boy. "He's awful soft and fuzzy, and he likes me." Indeed the monkey was a nice, clean little chap, and he seemed to like Laddie. And he seemed to like to have the other children pet him, also. He wore a funny little red jacket and a green cap, and every now and then he would take off his cap and hold it out, as he had been taught to do, for pennies. Mun Bun, who had been afraid the monkey would wind its long tail around him, came out from behind his mother's skirts, and even dared to pet Laddie's "riddle," as they called it. "He's awful nice!" said Mun Bun. "He'd make a lovely doll," observed Rose. "I wish I had a doll that was alive." "I'll let you play with him sometimes," promised Laddie. "I'm going to call him. 'Peanuts' 'cause he likes 'em so." "Well, that would be a nice name for a monkey," said Mrs. Bunker. "But don't get your heart set on keeping this one, Laddie." "Why not, Mother? Can't I have him?" "I'm afraid not. In the first place Aunt Jo has no place in her Boston home for a monkey, and, in the second place, Alexis, the big dog, might bark at Peanuts and scare him." Alexis was not there just then, or he would have seen the monkey, and surely would have barked, as he always did when he saw anything new or strange. "Another reason why you can't keep him," said Mother Bunker, "is that the Italian hand-organ grinder will want his monkey himself. That is how he makes his living--by having the monkey collect pennies for him." "But can I keep him until the organ man comes?" asked Laddie, as he cuddled his "riddle" in his arms. "Oh, yes, I guess you can keep him until then," said Mrs. Bunker. "We couldn't turn the poor little monkey loose, anyhow, or dogs would chase him. We'll see what your father says when he comes home." "And we can have some fun now, with Peanuts," added Russ. "We can tie a string to his collar and make-believe we have a circus." "Maybe he'll bite," said Margy. "He didn't bite me," Laddie explained, "and I carried him under my coat from down the street. He tickled me though, when he wanted to get out." Mrs. Bunker and Aunt Jo said the children could play with the monkey awhile on the side porch, fastening it by a string attached to the collar around its neck, so it could not get away. "The Italian may be along pretty soon looking for it," said William, the chauffeur, who had been called from the garage to see Laddie's new pet. "Peanuts," as the six little Bunkers called the monkey, seemed to enjoy being with them. He climbed about the porch, and came down when they held out in their hands bread, bits of crackers or cake, which the monkey liked to eat. The children were having lots of fun with their funny little pet, and they were talking over and over again their wish that they might keep him, when, from out in front, came the sound of a hand-organ. It played rather a sad and doleful tune, and, at the sound of it, the monkey seemed to prick up his ears, much as a dog might do. "Oh, dear!" sighed Rose. "Maybe that's the hand-organ man that owns this monkey." "If it is I'd better see about it," said Aunt Jo. "I want you children to have all the fun you can, but we don't want to keep a poor man's monkey, any more than we do the poor woman's purse, though she hasn't come for that yet." William, the chauffeur, who also heard the hand-organ tune, went out in front, and came back to tell Aunt Jo that the Italian had indeed lost his monkey, and was looking everywhere for it. "Tell him to come in," said Miss Bunker. And a little later, walking along and grinding out the doleful tune, the Italian came into the yard. "Is this your monkey?" asked Aunt Jo, pointing to the one that Laddie had coaxed down out of the tree with peanuts. "Oh, Petro! Petro!" cried the Italian, leaning his hand-organ up against a tree and rushing to the porch. "Ah, Petro! I have found you again, my baby!" and he held out his arms. The monkey made a jump for them, and sat up on the man's shoulder, chattering and taking off and putting on his green cap so often that, as Russ said, he looked like a moving picture. "Ah, Petro! Petro!" cried the hand-organ man, and then he began to talk to the monkey in Italian, which the little creature seemed to understand, for he chattered back, though of course he spoke monkey talk, or, maybe, jungle talk. "Is that your animal?" asked William. "Sure, he mine!" exclaimed the Italian. "His name Petro! I make-a de music down de street, an' a big dog chase after Petro! He break-a de string an' jump oop de tree. I no can find! Now I have him back! Ah, my Petro!" "Well, the children will be sorry to lose their pet," said Aunt Jo, "but I'm glad you have him back." "I glad. Vera mooch-a glad, too!" said the Italian, taking off his hat, and bowing to Aunt Jo and Mrs. Bunker. "Petro bring me in pennies. I play for you, but I no want-a pennies. No take pennies--you find my Petro." "This little boy found him," said William, pointing to Laddie. "I gave him peanuts," said Laddie. "He was up a tree." "Mooch 'bliged," said the Italian. "I make-a de music for you. Petro do tricks." Then he fastened the long cord he had in his pocket to Petro's collar, and began to grind out what he called "music." He also made the monkey do several tricks, such as turning somersaults or climbing trees and jumping from one branch to another. Then, with more thanks, and promising to come and play again for them, and not to let Petro take any pennies, the Italian went on his way with the monkey and the hand-organ. Laddie and the others were sorry to lose their pet, but, as Daddy Bunker said afterward, the monkey and Alexis might not have been good friends. "Well, I found a monkey, and somebody came for it," said Laddie that night. "But nobody has come for the pocketbook yet." "And, if they don't, I'm going to have the money," said Rose. "Anyhow, I can have some of it, daddy says. And I'm going to buy a pair of new roller skates, 'cause my old ones are 'most worn out." However, Rose could still skate on them, and speaking of them as she did, made her think of them the next day. So, when she had put her dolls to "sleep," the little girl went out roller-skating on the sidewalk in front of Aunt Jo's house. Rose had not been skating long before her mother heard her crying. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Rose was saying. "What's the matter?" asked her mother, hurrying out to the porch. "Did you fall and hurt yourself, Rose, my dear?" "No. But I struck my foot against the curbstone, and now one of my roller skates is broken, and I can't have any fun!" Rose held up one foot. The skate that had been on it was now in two pieces, and Mrs. Bunker saw that it could not easily be fixed again. It was too bad! CHAPTER XVII THE SKATE WAGON While Rose and her mother were looking at the little girl's broken roller skate, Russ came along. He had been in the yard, playing with Alexis, and his clothes were covered with grass, some of it green and some of it dried. "But I had lots of fun," said Russ, as he whistled a merry tune. "And grass doesn't hurt my old clothes." "Alexis always has on his old clothes. He doesn't have to change his to play," said Laddie, who was with Russ. Just then the two boys saw their mother and Rose looking at the broken skate. "What's the matter?" Russ wanted to know. "Oh, I bumped my foot on the curbstone," answered Rose. "And now look!" She held out the skate that was broken in two parts. "Perhaps Russ can fix it," said Mrs. Bunker with a smile. "He makes so many things that he might mend this." Russ took the pieces of the skate in his hand. Rose still had the other, the unbroken one, on her foot. "I could push myself along on one skate," said the little girl, "but it isn't much fun. Can you fix it, Russ?" Her brother shook his head. "I don't guess anybody could fix that broken skate," he said. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Rose. "But," went on Russ, "I know how to make something that you can have lots of fun with; and so can I!" "Can I, too?" asked Laddie. "We all can," said Russ. "We can take turns." "On what?" asked Rose. "A skate wagon," answered Russ. "I saw a boy downtown have one--the day we went to the movies. You take a good roller skate, and pull it apart. Then you put two of the wheels on the front end of a board, and the two other wheels on the back end." "Well, then what do you do?" asked Laddie, for Russ had come to a pause. "Well, then you nail a stick up on the front end of the board, for a handle, and you stand on it--you stand on the board, I mean--and you ride downhill on the sidewalk on the skate wagon. It's fun!" "Say, let's do it!" cried Laddie. "I'll help you, Russ! Give us that one skate that isn't busted, Rose, and we'll make a skate wagon." Laddie knelt down and began to unfasten the strap of the one good skate, which was still on Rose's left foot. "Stop! Stop it!" cried the little girl, pulling back her leg. "Hold still!" exclaimed Laddie. "I can't get your skate off if you wiggle so much." "I don't want my skate off!" insisted Rose. "Then how am I going to make a skate wagon?" asked Russ in some surprise. "I can push myself along on one foot, and skate that way," went on Rose. "If I let you boys take my skate to make a wagon of, you'll be riding all the time and I won't have any fun. I'm going to keep my own skate. So there!" "We'll give you some rides; won't we, Russ?" asked Laddie. "'Course we will! Lots of 'em!" added the older boy. "I'd let them take my skate, if I were you," said Mrs. Bunker. "One skate is not of much use to you, Rose, and if Russ can make a sort of wagon, or skatemobile, as I have heard them called, it will be fun for all of you." "All right," said Rose, after thinking over what her mother said. "But I got to have my turns." "Yes, you may all have turns," said Mother Bunker, who usually settled disputes in this gentle way. "Now, Russ and Laddie, let us see you make the funny coaster wagon." Rose let Laddie take the roller skate off her foot, and then Russ took the two front wheels from the two back ones. He had looked at a "skatemobile" a few days before, and, being a clever little chap, he remembered how it was made. "I can get the pieces of board out in the garage," said Russ. "I saw William have some, and he said I could take them." Russ did not find it quite so easy to make the coaster wagon as he had thought. To fasten the wheels of the skate to the board he used many nails, and bent most of them. Then William, who had been doing something to Aunt Jo's automobile, came out and watched Russ at work. "Ouch!" Russ suddenly exclaimed. "What's the matter?" asked the chauffeur. "I pounded my finger!" said the little boy, as he popped it into his mouth. "It hurts!" But he did not cry. "Yes, it generally does hurt when you hit your finger or thumb with a hammer," said William. "Better let me finish that for you. I can put the wheels on so they won't come off." "I wish you would then," said Russ. "We want to see how it works." William did not take long to fasten the four wheels to the long, narrow board, two wheels on each end, so that it could easily coast down the sidewalk hill in front of Aunt Jo's house. Then, to the front of the narrow board, just as Russ had explained, William nailed a handle, making it stick straight up, so it could be grasped by whoever was taking a ride. "Now your skate wagon is done," he said. "Let's go out and try it!" cried Laddie. "But I've got to have a turn," insisted Rose. "It's my skate." "You shall all have turns," put in Mother Bunker, who had come out to the garage to see how matters were going. "That is, all except Mun Bun and Margy. I'm afraid they're too little to coast. They might fall off." "I'll hold 'em on and give 'em a ride," offered Russ, who was very kind to his little brother and sister. "You can have the first ride," said Laddie to Rose, "'cause it's your roller skate." "I can't go first," answered the little girl. "I don't know how you do it. You go first, Russ." Russ was very willing to do this. So he took the skate wagon to the top of the sidewalk "hill," as the little Bunkers called it, and then he put one foot on the flat board, to which were fastened the roller-skate wheels. "You have to push yourself along with one foot, just the same as when you're skating on one skate," explained Russ. "Then when you get to going fast you put the other foot on the board and stand there, and you hold on tight and down you go." "Show me!" begged Rose, jumping up and down because she was so excited and pleased. And then Russ went riding downhill, almost as nicely as he coasted on the snow in winter. "Is it fun?" shouted Laddie, from where he stood with Rose at the top of the hill--only almost no one would have called such a slight grade a "hill." "Lots of fun!" answered Russ. Down to the bottom of the hill he rode, and then he walked up. "Now it's your turn, Rose," he said, as he handed her the skatemobile. But the little girl shook her head. "I'll watch a little more," she said. "Let Laddie go." So Laddie coasted down. Then Rose took her turn. Down the sidewalk hill she coasted on the skate wagon, and she was just turning around to wave to her mother and her brothers, who were watching her, when all of a sudden out from a gate ran a little dog. Right in front of Rose, and a little ahead of her he ran, and then he stood on the sidewalk and barked at her. "Look out, Rose! Look out!" cried her mother. "Steer to one side! Turn out for him!" yelled Russ. "Stick out your foot and stop the skate wagon, same as you stop yourself on roller skates," cried Laddie. But Rose, it seemed, could do none of these things. Straight for the little dog she coasted. What was going to happen? CHAPTER XVIII THE SPINNING TOPS Rose was not able to stop the skate wagon, on which she was coasting down the sidewalk hill in front of Aunt Jo's house. Nor did the little dog seem to want to get out of the way. He just stood in front of Rose, while she was coasting toward him, and barked and wagged his tail. And it was almost as if he said: "Well, what's all this? Are you coming to give me a ride?" "Get out of the way! Get out of the way--please!" begged Rose. "I'll bump into you, same as I bumped into the curbstone, if you don't get out of the way, little dog; and then I'll run over you! Get out of the way!" But the little dog just stayed right there. Of course, if Rose had thought about it, she might have jumped off the skate wagon, and let that go on by itself, shoving it to one side. But she was coasting down the stone sidewalk hill quite rapidly now, and she was so excited that she never once thought of getting off or even trying to turn the skate wagon aside. Straight for the barking little dog she coasted. "Oh, we must stop her!" cried Mrs. Bunker, running down the slope after the little girl. "I'll get her, Mother!" cried Russ. "I guess I can run faster than you can." But there was no chance for either of them to catch Rose before something happened. And the something that happened was that Rose ran right into the little dog. Right into him she ran with the skate wagon. "Ki-yi-yi-yip! Ki-yi! Yip! Yip!" yelled the little dog. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" sobbed Rose, for she was crying. Bang! went the skate wagon over into the gutter. The little dog--Well, I was almost going to say he laughed to see so much sport, but that little dog is in Mother Goose, if I remember rightly, and this little dog didn't laugh. He was very much frightened, and he was hurt a little, and so was Rose. So the little dog just tucked his tail in between his hind legs, and back he ran into the yard out of which he had come to see what was going on when he heard the skate wagon rattling down the sidewalk hill. By this time Russ, Laddie, and their mother had come up to Rose. "Are you much hurt?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "There now, don't cry. We'll take care of you!" "It--it's my knees!" sobbed Rose. "I scraped 'em! And is my skate wagon all busted?" "No, it's all right," said Laddie, as he picked it up from the gutter where it had rolled after Rose fell off. "It's as good as ever." "And your knees aren't hurt much--only scratched," said Mrs. Bunker, as she looked. Rose wore socks, and her legs, above her shoes, and partly above her knees were bare. "See if you can't stand up," urged Mrs. Bunker, for Rose was as limp as a rag in her arms. "Stand up and have some more rides!" exclaimed Russ. "No, I don't want any more rides on the old skate wagon!" cried his sister. "I don't like it." "Then we can have it all ourselves, Russ!" exclaimed Laddie. "No, you can't either!" said Rose, and she suddenly stopped crying. "You can't have my skate wagon. I want it myself!" "But if you can't stand up you can't ride on it----" began Mrs. Bunker. "But I can stand up, Mother!" cried Rose, and she did, showing that nothing much was the matter with her. "See, then you're not hurt," said her mother. "Now don't begin to cry again, and you can have some more rides. But perhaps you had better not coast down any more hills. Just ride along the sidewalk as you did on your roller skates. That will be best." "Yes, maybe I'll do that," said Rose. "Where's the dog that made me run into him?" The little dog was safely behind his own fence now, looking out through the pickets and barking. Perhaps he wondered what it was all about, and what had happened to him. He had been knocked about a bit, and bruised, but not much hurt. Only he was "all mussed up," as Russ said, after a look at him. "Well, I guess he won't get in the way of your roller-skate wagon again," said Mrs. Bunker. "Now you can take some more rides, Rose. Your knees are all right." And so they were, after they had been washed off with a little warm water. Then Rose and her brothers, with Violet taking a turn now and then, had fine fun on the skatemobile. They rode down the hill though, as they found they could steer better when going fast. Mun Bun and Margy came from the yard, where they had been playing in the sand pile, and they, too, wanted rides. Russ and Laddie held them on, for the smaller children were hardly old enough to coast alone, though Mun Bun did drive off in the junk cart, as I have told you. But that was different. The roller-skate wagon went faster than the junkman's horse. So the six little Bunkers had fun on the skate wagon, and as the days went on they were more and more glad they had come to Aunt Jo's house to spend a part of their vacation. It was early in August, and there was much of the summer before them. The weather was hot, but there was plenty of shade around Aunt Jo's house, so that it was almost as nice as it had been at Grandma Bell's. "Are we going to stay here until vacation is all over?" asked Russ of his father one day. "Well, I'm not sure," he said. "Cousin Tom spoke once of having us come down to see him." "Down to the seashore, do you mean?" asked Rose. "Yes, down to Seaview, New Jersey." "Oh, it would be dandy there!" cried Russ. "I could go swimming in the ocean, couldn't I?" "Well, you might go in if the water wasn't too deep," his father said with a smile. "But we'll talk about that later. Rose, where is that pocketbook you found?" he asked. "Why? Do you know who owns it?" the little girl asked. "No, but I want to look at it again. Perhaps there may be a card, or something, that will tell the address of the person who lost it and the sixty-five dollars." "But we did look," said Russ, "and we couldn't find any." "I thought perhaps the card or paper might have slipped through a hole in the lining," said Mr. Bunker, "as the real estate papers I searched for so long slipped inside the lining of the old coat I gave the lumberman. Where is the pocketbook?" "Mother has it," answered Rose. "I'll get it for you, Daddy!" She ran to her mother, and soon returned with the purse. The sixty-five dollars had been put in a safe in Aunt Jo's house, but the sad little letter was still in the wallet. Mr. Bunker read it over again, and then carefully looked through the pocketbook. It was an old one, and the lining was torn, but there was no slip of paper or card in any hole that would tell to whom the pocketbook should be returned. "I'll advertise once more," said Mr. Bunker, "and then, if no one claims it, I guess the money will belong to you, Rose." "And can I spend it?" "Oh, no indeed! Not all of it. A little, perhaps; but the rest will be put away for you, until you grow to be a young lady. Still I would rather give it to whoever owns it." "So should I," said Rose softly. "I'd like to get back my lost doll, that I sent up in the balloon airship, and I guess the pocketbook lady would like to get her money back." They all thought the pocketbook belonged to a poor woman. They got this idea from the letter--that is, the grown-up folks and the older children did. Mun Bun and Margy didn't think much about it, one way or the other. All they cared about was having fun. And the six little Bunkers certainly had fun at Aunt Jo's. They played in the yard or around the garage; they went for auto rides, on little excursions and picnics, they played with Alexis, the big dog, and they rode on the skatemobile. One day a boy named Tom Martin, who lived about half a block from Aunt Jo's house, came up in front and called: "Hi, Russ! Ho, Laddie! Come on out and play tops!" The two older Bunker boys had become acquainted with Tom, and liked to play with him. Now they heard him calling and Russ answered: "We'll be out in a minute; soon as we've had some bread and jam." "Bring Tom a piece, too," suggested Laddie, for Parker, the good-natured cook, was giving the boys a little treat. "Yes, I'll give you a slice for your friend," she said. So she spread him a nice slice of bread and jam, and Russ and Laddie, carrying their own, which they ate on the way, also took one to their new playmate. "Let's play tops," suggested Tom. "We can go down the street where the sidewalk is big and smooth, and spin 'em there." "All right," agreed Russ. "We'll have some fun." Down the street they went, to a corner, where a big apartment house stood close to the sidewalk. There the pavement was smooth, just the place for spinning tops. "There, mine's spinning first!" cried Tom, as he flung his top down, quickly pulling the string away, and thus making the top whirl around very fast. "Let's see if either of you can hit my top with yours." "I can!" said Russ, and he threw his top at Tom's with all his might. Russ didn't hit his playmate's top, but he did hit something else. Up into the air bounced Russ's top, and, the next moment, there was a crash of glass. "Oh!" cried Tom. "You've broken a window!" CHAPTER XIX FLYING A KITE That was just what had happened. When Russ threw his top down so hard, it had bounced up again from the sidewalk, and had gone sailing through the air against one of the lower windows of the apartment house which stood so close to the pavement. And the top went right through the glass. The three little boys were so surprised that they just stood there, looking at the shower of broken glass on the pavement. Then Tom cried: "Oh, we'd better run!" "What for?" asked Russ. "'Cause you broke the window. The lady or the man'll come out an' they'll get a policeman." Russ said nothing for two or three seconds. Laddie, who was just going to bounce down his top, to spin it, still held it in his hand. He didn't want to break a glass. "Come on!" cried Tom in a whisper. "Come on 'fore they catch us!" Russ shook his head. "No," he answered. "I'm not going to run. I'll stay here, and when they come out I'll tell 'em I busted it and my father will pay for it. That's what we always do; don't we, Laddie?" "Yep," answered the smaller boy. "Did you ever break windows before?" asked Tom, who had started to run away, but who came back when he saw that his two friends were not coming with him. "We broke one at Grandma Bell's," said Russ. "But she didn't make us pay for it," said Laddie. "Tom Hardy, the hired man, put a new glass in," went on Russ. "And once we broke a window back home when we were playing ball. I threw the ball, and Laddie didn't grab it, and it went through a candy-store window, but we didn't run." "What did you do?" asked Tom, to whom this seemed something new. He looked up at the place where the window had been smashed. As yet no one had thrust a head out of the window or threatened to send for a policeman. "What did you do?" asked Tom again. "Well, the lady who owned the candy store knew us," answered Russ, "and she knew our father would pay for the glass." "Did he?" "Why, of course he did!" exclaimed Laddie. "But he said we each had to save up and give him back five cents--a penny at a time," added Russ. "That was to help pay for the glass, and make us--make us more careful, I guess he called it. "Anyhow, that's what I'm going to do now. We'll wait, and when somebody comes out I'll tell 'em my father'll pay for the glass my top broke." "Here comes somebody now!" whispered Tom, and surely enough a man, wearing blue overalls and looking as though he had been cleaning out a cellar, came from the basement door of the big apartment house. "Who broke that glass?" he asked, and his voice was rather harsh. "I--I did--with my top," spoke up Russ, but his voice trembled a little. "Well, you'll have to pay for it!" went on the janitor, for such he was. "I've told you boys to keep away from here spinning your tops, and yet you will come! Now you've got to pay for it!" "I never spun my top here before," said Russ. "And I didn't either," added Laddie. "That's right, Mr. Quinn," put in Tom, who seemed to know the janitor. "I brought 'em here. It's part my fault." "Hum!" said the janitor. "This is something new, to have boys own up to it when they break windows, and not run away. Who did you say was going to pay for the glass?" he asked. "It'll cost about a dollar. Lucky for you Mr. Tanzy wasn't at home. It's in his parlor you broke the window, and he's awful cross." Russ had thought the janitor himself was cross, at first, but now he did not think so, for the dusty man smiled. "I'm going to pay for the glass--I am, and my brother," Russ went on. "I broke it." "Have you got the money with you?" asked Mr. Quinn, the janitor. "No," answered Russ. "I've only five cents. But you can have that, and my father'll give you the rest when I tell him." "Who's your father?" asked the janitor. "They're staying with their Aunt Jo," explained Tom Martin. "She lives on this street--Miss Bunker, you know." "We're two of the six little Bunkers," said Russ. "Oh, I'm glad to know that," and Mr. Quinn smiled again. "Well, as it happens, I used to be your aunt's furnace man, so I know her. If you're related to her you must be all right. I'll let you two little Bunkers go now, but your father must come and pay for the window." "He will," promised Russ, who was glad no policeman had come along, though he had made up his mind to be brave, and not be afraid if one should happen to be called in by the janitor. But none was. "I'll help pay for the window, too," said Tom. "It was part my fault, 'cause I asked Russ and Laddie to come down here to play tops." "Good-bye, boys!" the janitor called after them. "I'm sorry you had this accident, but I like the way you acted." Russ, Laddie and Tom were sorry, too, for they knew their fathers would feel bad, not so much at having to pay out fifty cents each, as because the boys had played tops in a place where they might, almost any time, break a window. Tom ought to have known better than to go down by the apartment house, for, more than once, he had been told to keep away, but Russ and Laddie had not. However, neither Mr. Martin nor Daddy Bunker scolded very much. They sent the money to the janitor, and told the boys just what Mr. Quinn had told them--to play tops on some other pavement. And this the boys did. "But we got to have _some_ fun," grumbled Russ. "Oh, there are lots of other places where you can spin your tops without going down near the apartment house," said Mr. Bunker. "Windows will get broken, once in a while, but I don't like it to happen too often." "Did you get any answers to the advertisement about the lost pocketbook?" asked Mrs. Bunker of her husband that night, for he had said he would stop at the newspaper office and inquire. "No," he replied. "I'm afraid whoever owns it does not read the papers. I wish I knew who it was." "So do I," said Rose. For, even though she would like to keep the money for herself, she knew it was better that the poor person, whose it was, should have it. But, so far, no one had come to claim the wallet and the sixty-five dollars. After dinner one day Aunt Jo said: "Who wants to go on an auto ride?" "I do!" cried Rose and Violet. "Me, too!" added Margy, and Mun Bun said something, though they could not be sure just what it was, as he was still chewing on a bit of cracker he had carried from the table with him. "I guess he means he'll go, too," said his mother. "But after this, Mun Bun, my dear, finish your eating at the table, and don't be dropping cracker crumbs all over Aunt Jo's floor." "I get Alexis, and he pick 'em up," said Mun Bun; and he started for the door to let in the big dog. "No, don't!" laughed Aunt Jo. "Alexis has just been given a bath by William, and our dog pet is wet. He'd be worse for the floor than a few crumbs are. I'll have them swept up, Mun Bun. But come, let's get ready for the auto ride." When the time to go came, Russ and Laddie said they wanted to stay at home. This was unusual. Generally they were the first to want to go. "Why aren't you coming?" asked Rose of Russ. "Maybe we might find my doll that sailed away with the balloons." "Oh, I don't guess you will," said Russ. "Anyhow, Laddie and I are going to make some things when you're gone. We've got to make 'em so we can fly 'em with Tom Martin. He's going to make one, too." "Will it fly?" asked Rose. "Oh, is it an airship?" "No, it's just a kite," said Russ. "I started to make one, but I didn't finish. Now I'm going to make a good one so it will fly away up high. And so are Laddie and Tom. That's why we don't want to go in the auto." "All right, then we'll leave you and Laddie at home with your father and William," said Aunt Jo, for she was going to run the car herself. "Be good boys," begged Mrs. Bunker. "We will!" promised Russ. "And you won't spin tops and break any more windows, will you?" inquired Aunt Jo. "Nope!" agreed Laddie. "We'll just fly kites, and they can't break windows, or do any thing else." But you just wait and see what happens. After Aunt Jo and the others had gone off in the car, Russ and Laddie got their paste, paper and string, and began making kites. Russ knew how pretty well, and he showed Laddie. They made kites with tails on them, as these are easier for small boys to build, though they are not so easy to fly as the kind without tails. The tails of kites get tangled in so many things. "Now mine's done," said Russ, as he held up his finished toy. "I wish mine was," replied Laddie. "I'll help you," offered his brother, and he did. The two boys were soon ready to go to a vacant lot not far from Aunt Jo's house, to fly their kites. "A city's no place to fly kites," said Laddie. "We ought to be in the country." "We ought to be at Grandma Bell's," agreed Russ. "That was a dandy place to fly kites--big fields and no telegraph wires to tangle the tail in." However, they managed, after some hard work, to get their kites up into the air, and then they sat in the lot, holding the strings and sending up messengers. CHAPTER XX THE JUMPING ROPE "My kite's higher than yours," said Laddie, as he looked at his plaything, away up in the air, and then at his brother's. "Well, I haven't let out all my string yet," Russ answered. "I can make mine go up a lot higher than yours when I unwind some more cord, and I'm going to." "I'm going to send up another messenger," said Laddie. "I haven't got any more string to let out, but maybe I could get some." He took a small piece of paper, put a hole in it, and then slipped through this hole the stick to which his kite cord was tied. Then the piece of paper went sailing up the kite string, twirling around and around until it was half way to the kite itself. "Look at my messenger go!" cried Laddie, as the piece of paper whirled around and around in a brisk breeze. "Why don't you send up one, and we can have a race?" "I will!" exclaimed Russ. "We'll have a race with the paper messengers, and then I'll get some more string, and send my kite higher." "So'll I," decided Laddie. "Oh, Russ, we can even have a race with the kites!" he went on. "We'll see whose kite will go highest." "Yes, we can do that," agreed the older boy. "Now I'll make a messenger." So Russ did that, and as the messenger Laddie had put on was, by this time, nearly up to his kite, he put another on the string. The boys held them from going up until both were ready, and then, just as when they sometimes had a foot race, Russ cried: "Go!" They took their hands off the paper messengers, and up the strings they shot, the wind blowing them very fast. "Look at 'em go! Look at 'em!" cried Laddie, dancing about in delight. "And you'd better look out and not let go of your kite string, or that'll go, too," said Russ. "Your kite'll fly away same as Rose's balloon airship did." "I wonder if they'd go to the same place," said Laddie. "If my kite would be sure to fly to where Rose let the balloons fly to I'd let it go." "Why would you?" asked Russ. "'Cause then I could find Rose's doll for her. I could walk along by my kite string and keep on going and going and going, and then I'd come to the place where the kite was and there would be the basket with the doll in it." "Yes, that would be nice," said Russ. "But I don't guess they'd go to the same place. You'd better hold on to your kite." "I will," agreed Laddie. "I wonder how high we could let our kites go up?" he went on, as he watched the messengers whirling around the strings. "How far would they go?" "They'd go as far as you had cord for," said Russ. "Could they go away up to the sky?" asked Laddie. "'Course they could," said Russ. "The sky's awful far," went on Laddie, looking up at the blue part, across which the white, fleecy clouds were flying. "Yes, it's far," assented Russ. "But we could get an awful lot of string, and let the kites go up." "Could we do it now?" the smaller boy wanted to know. "I'd like to see my kite go up to the sky." "Well, we could do it," Russ said. "But look! My messenger beat yours!" he suddenly cried. "It's away ahead!" "So it is," assented Laddie. "Well, anyhow, I've got more of 'em up than you have." "Now I'm going to get a lot of cord and send my kite up high," announced Russ, as he got up from the grass where he was sitting. "Are you going to take your kite down?" his brother wanted to know. Russ shook his head. "I'm going to tie my kite string to a stone," he said. "That'll keep it from blowing away while I go into the house to get more cord. You watch my kite while I'm gone." "I will," promised Laddie. "I'll tie my kite, too." Russ tied the end of his cord to a heavy stone in the vacant lot near Aunt Jo's house, in which the boys were flying their kites. Laddie sat down on the grass, and looked up at the kites, which were like two birds, high in the air. Russ was gone some little time. It was harder than he thought it would be to find the right kind of cord. But he had made up his mind to send his kite up in the air as high as it would go, and he wanted plenty of string. Suddenly Laddie, who was watching his own and his brother's kites, noticed that Russ's was acting very strangely. It bobbed and fluttered about a bit, and then began to sink down. "I've got to pull on the cord," thought Laddie. Though he was younger than Russ he knew enough for this--when a kite starts to come down, to run with it, or to wind the cord in quickly. There wasn't much room in the vacant city lot to run, so Laddie began winding in the string of Russ's kite. Then Laddie noticed that his own kite was bobbing about and coming down also. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed the little boy. "I can't wind 'em both in at once. I wish Russ would come!" But Russ was still back at Aunt Jo's house, and Laddie, much as he wanted to save his brother's kite, wanted even more to save his own. So Laddie let go of the string of his brother's kite, and began to pull in on his own. As he did so Russ's sank lower and lower, falling like a leaf, from side to side. But as Laddie pulled on his cord his kite went higher and higher into the air, until, getting to a place higher up, where the wind was blowing stronger, it was out of danger. But Russ's kite floated lower and lower, and Laddie dared not let go his own string to pull in his brother's. Just then Russ came running back with the cord he at last had found. "Where's my kite?" he cried, as he reached the lot, and did not see his kite in the air. "It started to come down, and so did mine, but I couldn't pull 'em both," said his brother. "I'm sorry, but----" "Oh, well, maybe I can pull it up," said Russ, who was not going to find fault with Laddie for what could not be helped. "I'll wind up the string as fast as I can." So he did this, and at last he saw his kite come into sight above the houses in the next street. But the wind, low down, was not strong enough to carry the kite up again, and Russ saw that it was of no use. His kite still fluttered from side to side. "I can't get it up again this way," he said to Laddie. "I've got to pull it all the way down, and then send it up again. And I'll make it go terrible high this time, 'cause I've got a lot of string." "When mine comes down I'm going to send it up higher," said Laddie. But his kite was still well up in the air. Russ pulled and pulled on his string, and finally he had his kite where he could see it. It was floating over the street near the vacant lot, and Russ was pulling it toward him, when, all of a sudden, something happened. A woman, with a large hat on, was walking along the street, right under Russ's kite. Suddenly the kite swooped down, until the dangling tail touched the woman's hat. Russ, not seeing what had taken place, kept on pulling on the string, winding it in. And, of course, you can easily guess what happened. "Stop! Stop it, little boy!" called the woman. "Stop pulling on your kite string!" "What for?" asked Russ, who had been looking at the stick on which he was winding his cord, wondering if it would be large enough to hold it all. "Because you're pulling off my hat!" And that is just what Russ was doing. The tail of the kite had become tangled in the trimming on the woman's hat, and Russ was pulling it off her head. "Oh, please stop, little boy!" she cried, and she had to run along, following the kite across the street. Then Russ stopped winding the string, and the woman, putting up her hands, took hold of the kite tail, so it did not quite pull off her hat. But it almost did. "I--I'm sorry," Russ said, as he saw what had happened. "Oh, that's all right," the woman answered with a laugh. "You couldn't help it. I have a little boy of my own, and he likes to fly his kite, but he never got it tangled in my hat, that I remember. But it's all right. No harm is done. I can pin my hat on again, but my hair is rather mussed up, I'm afraid." "You could go into my Aunt Jo's house and fix it," said Russ politely. "She has a looking-glass." "Has she? That's nice," said the lady with another laugh. "But I have a little one of my own. See!" She opened her purse and showed a tiny, round mirror fastened inside. "If you'll hold that up, so I can see myself in it, I can put my hat on again and it will be all right," she went on. This Russ did. His kite had fallen to the street, but it was not torn and was all right for putting up again. So he held the woman's mirror, which was in her pocketbook, as well as he could, while she smoothed out her hair and straightened her hat. Then, with a smile and a bow, she said: "There! Is it all right?" "It looks nice--just like my mother's," answered Russ, and the woman laughed as she took back her purse. "Did you lose a pocketbook?" asked Russ. "No," was the answer. "Why do you ask?" "'Cause my sister Rose found one, and it had some money in, but nobody ever came to get it." "Well, I hope you can fly your kite again," said the woman, as she walked away. Russ picked up his kite and went back to the vacant lot with it. He tried to fly it, but the wind had gone down, and the toy would not rise. Laddie's, too, had begun to bob about, and he said: "I guess I'll pull mine down before it falls." "Well, we had some fun, anyhow," remarked Russ. It was the next day, a fine, sunny one, that Rose and Violet, having played with their dolls until they were tired, wanted to do something else. Daddy Bunker had taken Russ and Laddie to a moving picture show, but as Rose and Violet had seen it once, they did not want to go again. Margy and Mun Bun were asleep, and the two girls didn't know what to play. "I know how to have some fun," said Rose at last. "How?" asked her sister. "We can jump rope. I know where there's a piece of clothesline that Aunt Jo'll let us take." "How can two of us jump rope?" asked Vi. "We'd both have to turn, so who could jump?" "We can tie one end to a tree, and take turns turning," said Rose. "Then one of us can jump, and whoever misses has to turn for the other." "Oh, yes, we can do it that way," assented Vi. So the two little girls ran to get the clothesline and soon they were jumping rope. "It's lots of fun," said Vi, when it was her turn to have "three slow--pepper," while Rose turned, the other end of the rope being fast to a tree. CHAPTER XXI MUN BUN IN A HOLE While Rose turned, Vi jumped, and the little girl was getting along nicely when she tripped, or the rope caught on her foot, and stopped. "Now it's my turn!" exclaimed Rose. "You missed, and you have to turn for me." "You made me trip!" exclaimed Vi. "You gave me the pepper before I was ready." "You said to give you 'three slow--pepper,' and I did," declared Rose. I suppose you girls who jump rope know what "three slow--pepper" means, but the boys probably will not, so I'll explain. The person who is turning the rope for the other to jump, turns it very slowly for three times. Then she turns it fast. Jumping fast is called jumping "pepper," and sometimes jumping slow is called "salt." And I have heard some little girls, when they were jumping rope, call for "mustard and vinegar." But that is very fast indeed--too fast for little girls, I should think. Rose and Vi never jumped faster than pepper. "Yes, I know I said 'three slow--pepper,'" admitted Vi. "But I didn't want you to give me such fast pepper." "Oh, well, try it again," said Rose, good-naturedly. "I won't go so fast the next time." So she began turning the rope again, and Vi started to jump. This time all went well, and Vi, when it came to the "pepper" part, did so well and kept it up so long that Rose at last cried, with a laugh: "Oh, my arm is tired! Let me rest, Vi!" "I will," said the little girl. "I'm tired, too. After I rest a minute I'll turn for you." They sat on the grass under the trees for a while, and then began taking turns jumping again. "Now let's try a new way," suggested Rose after a bit. "We'll see how high we can jump over the rope." So they began this game, and pretty soon some little girls from the house across the street came out to play with Rose and Vi. They were from a family that Aunt Jo knew, and had played with the little Bunkers before. The children had lots of fun, skipping rope, and seeing who could jump the highest. Rose was best at this, though Mabel Potter, one of the little girls from across the street, jumped nearly as high. "Now let's go and play with our dolls again," suggested Vi. "Can you come over to our Aunt Jo's house, and sit on her porch?" she asked Mabel, Florence and Sallie, the other little girls. They said they could, and they were just starting to get their dolls when along came a boy with a basket of groceries on his arm. He had got out of a delivery wagon down the street, and was bringing some things to Aunt Jo. The boy had often called with groceries before, and Rose and Vi knew him. His name was Henry Jones. "Hello, little girls!" called Henry, for he was older than any of them. "What you doin'?" "Seeing who can jump highest," answered Rose. "I can jump higher'n any of you!" boasted Henry. "Want to see me?" "Well, you ought to jump higher--you're bigger'n we are," said Mabel. "Well, I'll jump and keep on holding my basket," offered the grocery boy. "That'll make it harder for me. Go on! Hold the rope up real high and I'll jump over it." "Maybe you might spill the things in your basket," suggested Rose. "No, I won't. I'm a good jumper," said Henry. "Hold the rope up real high." Rose took hold of one end of the rope and Mabel the other. They held it across the sidewalk as high up as their own waists. "Higher!" ordered Henry. They raised it a little. "There! That's high enough!" said the grocery boy. "Now you watch me sail over that. I'll show you some jumpin'!" Henry, still holding his basket of groceries, stood on the sidewalk, a little way back from the rope. Then he took a run and started toward it. Up into the air he jumped, but something sad happened. Whether Henry did not spring up high enough, or whether one of the girls raised the end of the rope when she ought not to have done so, no one ever knew. But what happened was that Henry's feet became entangled in the cord, and down he fell, luckily on the grass at one side of the pavement, and not on the sidewalk stones, or he might have been hurt. He sat right down flat, and his basket bounced off his arm, and a lot of groceries spilled out of it. "Oh, did you hurt yourself?" asked Rose. Henry was too much surprised, for a moment, to speak. He looked as if he did not know what had happened. Then he slowly got up. "No, I didn't hurt myself," he answered. "But I guess I can't jump as high as I thought I could. But I'm going to try it again." "Oh, you'd better not," Mabel said. "You might break some more eggs." "I didn't break any eggs!" declared Henry. "Yes, you did! Look at that bag," said Rose, and she pointed to one that had bounced from the basket, together with other bags and bundles. From this bag something yellow was running on the grass. "Oh, dear! I guess I did bust some eggs!" exclaimed the grocery boy. "Your aunt'll be awful mad!" he went on. "I wish I hadn't jumped the rope." Henry picked up the bag of eggs and looked inside. "Only one's busted," he said, "and that's just partly cracked. I'll hurry into the house with it and she can put it in a dish and save it. 'Tisn't cracked very much." "That's good," said Rose. "Parker is going to bake a cake, I heard her say, so she'll need some eggs right away, and she can use the cracked one first." "I'm glad of that," observed Henry. Then he hurried into Aunt Jo's house with the eggs and other groceries, and when he came out--not having been scolded a bit--the girls had gone with their jumping-rope, so Henry didn't have another chance to take a tumble. On the shady porch of Aunt Jo's house Rose, Vi and their three little girl friends played with their dolls. They were having lots of fun, undressing and dressing them, sending them on "visits," one to another, and having play-parties. "Do you like it here?" asked Mabel of Rose. "Oh, yes, lots," was the answer. "We've had just the loveliest summer. First, we were at Grandma Bell's, and now we're at Aunt Jo's, and maybe we'll go to Cousin Tom's at the seashore before we go back home." "You've got lots of relations, haven't you?" asked Sallie. "Oh, that's only part of 'em," Rose went on. "We've got more," and she mentioned them. Vi was putting her doll to sleep on a bed of grass made in a corner of the porch, when a door slammed and the sound of running feet was heard. "Hush! Don't make so much noise!" exclaimed Violet in a whisper. "My doll's asleep." "It's Margy and Mun Bun," said Rose, as the two smallest Bunkers came racing around the corner of the porch. "They're my little sister and brother," Rose explained to the other girls. "They've just had a nap, so they feel like playing now." "Can we have some fun?" asked Margy. "We want lots of fun!" added Mun Bun. "Oh, dear! They'll wake up my doll!" whispered Vi. "Can't you two go away and play somewhere else?" "Here. I'll let 'em take these marbles," said Mabel. "They're my little brother's. He gave me his bag to hold when he went off to play tops with some of the boys. I'll let Margy and Mun Bun take the marbles to play with." "That'll be nice," said Rose. "Run along, Mun Bun and Margy, and play marbles." This just suited the younger children. Down off the porch they ran, and soon the others could hear them laughing and shouting. But pretty soon Margy came running back. "Come an' get Mun Bun," she said to Rose. "He's got his head in, an' he can't get it out." "Got his head in where?" asked Rose. "In a hole," answered Margy quite calmly. CHAPTER XXII OUT TO NANTASKET BEACH When Margy told Rose about Mun Bun being down in a hole, Mabel, Florence and Sallie looked much more frightened than the little girl who had come running to the porch with the news. Indeed, Margy did not seem frightened at all; but, of course, Mun Bun could not stay always with his head in a hole, so she had come to tell some one to get him out. "What kind of a hole is he in?" asked Mabel. "Can't he ever get out?" Florence inquired. "I don't know," answered Margy. "It's a funny hole. It's in the yard, and Mun Bun's head is away down in it. I can't see his head, but his legs are stickin' out." "Mother! Mother!" cried Rose, running into the house, where Mrs. Bunker was sitting in the sewing-room with Aunt Jo. "Oh, Mother! Mun Bun----" Rose had to stop, for she was out of breath. "What's he been doing now?" asked Mrs. Bunker. Then she saw Rose's face, and added: "Oh, has anything happened?" and she hurried over to Rose. "Margy says his head is in a hole in the yard, and that his legs are sticking out," went on the little girl. "Mun Bun and Margy went out to play marbles an'----" But Mrs. Bunker did not stop to hear. Followed by Aunt Jo, out she rushed to the yard, and there she saw a strange sight. In the middle of the lawn Mun Bun seemed to be kneeling down. But the funny part of it was that his head did not show. And yet it wasn't so funny either, just then, though they all laughed about it afterward. "Oh, what has happened to him?" cried Mrs. Bunker as she rushed across the grass. Aunt Jo was beside her, and Rose, Vi, Margy and the three other girls followed. "Mun Bun! Mun Bun!" called his mother, as she came closer to him. "What are you doing?" "Oh, my head's in a hole! It's in a hole, and I can't get it out!" sobbed the little fellow. And, just as Margy had said, his voice did sound strange--as if it came from the cellar. "Don't be afraid. I see what has happened," said Aunt Jo. "Mun Bun isn't hurt, and I can get him out of the hole." "And can you get his head out, too?" asked Vi. "Oh, yes, his head and--everything," said Aunt Jo. "I see what he has done. He has taken the cover off the lawn-drain, and stuck his head down in it, though why he did it I don't know." "He's trying to get some of our marbles," explained Margy, as Aunt Jo and Mother Bunker hurried to the side of Mun Bun. "The marbles rolled down the hole in the yard and Mun Bun said he could get 'em back. So he stuck down his head, and now he can't get it up." "I wonder why?" said Mother Bunker. "It's on account of his ears," said Aunt Jo, who had her hands on the head of Mun Bun now. "They stick out so they catch on the side and edges of the hole. But I'll hold them back for him." She slipped her thin fingers down into the hole, on either side of Mun Bun's head. Then she raised up his head, and out of the hole it came. Mun Bun's face was very red--standing on his head as he had been almost doing, had sent the blood there. His face was red, and it was dirty, for he had been crying. "Now you're all right!" said Aunt Jo, kissing him. "Don't cry any more!" went on Mother Bunker, as she clasped the little boy in her arms. Mun Bun soon stopped sobbing. "I see how it all happened," went on Aunt Jo. "In the middle of my lawn is a drain-pipe to let the water run off when too much of it rains down. Over the hole in the pipe is an iron grating, like a big coffee strainer. This strainer keeps the leaves, sticks and stones out of the pipe. But the holes are large enough for marbles to roll down, I suppose." "Some of my marbles rolled down the holes, and so did some of Margy's," explained Mun Bun. "That is, they wasn't our marbles, but _she_ let us take 'em," and he pointed to Mabel. "And when they rolled down in the little holes I wanted to get 'em back. So I put my head down to look and I couldn't get up again." "But if the holes were only large enough to let marbles roll through, I don't see how Mun Bun could get his head down them," said Mrs. Bunker. "Oh, but he lifted off the iron grating of the pipe, and put his head right down in the pipe itself," said Aunt Jo. "The iron grating is made to lift up, so the pipe can be cleaned. I suppose Mun Bun found it loose, lifted it up, stuck his head down, and then the edge of the strainer-holder held his ears, so he couldn't get loose. I pushed his ears in close to the sides of his head, and then he was all right." And that is just the way it happened. Mun Bun, when he saw the marbles roll down into the drain-pipe, wanted to get them back. He could easily lift up the grating, but when his head was in he could not so easily get it out again. So he yelled and cried, and Margy heard him and went for help, which was a good thing. "Well, you're all right now, but don't ever do anything like that again," said Aunt Jo. "I won't," promised Mun Bun, as his mother carried him to the house to be washed and combed. "But I wanted the marbles, and they're down the pipe yet. I couldn't get 'em." "Never mind," said Mabel. "My brother has lots more. He won't care about losing a few." And he did not, so Mun Bun had all his trouble for nothing, not even getting back the marbles. But it taught him never to put his head in a hole unless he was sure he could get it out. When Russ and Laddie came home from the moving picture show, they heard all about what had happened to their little brother. "Let's go out and look at the hole," suggested Laddie. "All right," agreed Russ. "I knew it was there, 'cause the last time it rained I saw water running into it. But I didn't know the iron grating lifted up." For several days after that the six little Bunkers had lots of fun at Aunt Jo's. They played all sorts of games, and had rides on the roller-skate wagon Russ had made, as well as in the express wagon, pulled by Alexis, the big dog. They went out to Bunker Hill monument, where they were told something about what had happened when the men of the colonies fought that these United States might become a free nation. "Daddy," asked Vi very seriously, "didn't they name this monument after you?" "How could they?" broke in Russ. "This monument was put up years and years before Daddy was born." "Well, maybe they named it after his great, great, I don't know how many great grandfathers," put in Laddie. "No, it wasn't named after any one in our family," answered Daddy Bunker. The father also took the children out to the Charlestown Navy Yard, and told them something about the navy and how our fighting men of the sea helped to keep us a great and free people. And then, one day, Russ saw his mother and father and Aunt Jo looking over some papers and small books. Russ knew what they were--time tables, to tell when trains and boats leave and arrive. He had seen them at his father's real estate office, and also at the house in Pineville just before the family started for Grandma Bell's. "Oh, are we going home?" asked Russ, his voice showing the sadness he felt at such a thing happening. "Going home? What makes you think that?" asked his father. "Indeed, I hope you're not going home for a good while yet," said Aunt Jo. "It hardly seems a week since you came." "Well, I'm glad you have enjoyed us," said Mother Bunker. "But are we going home?" persisted Russ. "No, not yet," answered his father. "You think because we are looking at time tables we are going to leave. Well, we are, but we are only going on an excursion, or picnic." "Where?" asked Russ, and once more he felt happy. "Out to Nantasket Beach," said Aunt Jo. "That's a nice trip by boat. It takes about an hour and a half from Boston, and we are looking to see what time the boats sail and come back." "Oh, are we coming back?" asked Russ. "Yes. We can only spend the day there," said his mother. "But Aunt Jo says it is very nice. It's a sort of picnic ground, with all sorts of things at which you can have fun. There are merry-go-rounds and roller-coasters. And you can have nice things to eat, and can play in the sand near the ocean." "Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Russ. "When are we going?" "To-morrow," answered Aunt Jo. Russ jumped up and down, he was so happy, and ran out to tell the other little Bunkers. And the next day they all went out to Nantasket Beach. While they were there something very strange and wonderful happened, and I'll tell you all about it. CHAPTER XXIII THE MERRY-GO-ROUND "Oh, look over here!" "See this funny boat!" "Look, Daddy! What's that man doing?" "Oh, I hear some music!" These were some of the things the six little Bunkers said and shouted as they were on the boat going to Nantasket Beach. The day was a fine, sunny one, and they had started early in the morning to have as long a time as possible at the playground, for that is what Nantasket Beach really is. Russ and Rose, Violet and Laddie, and Margy and Mun Bun ran here and there on the boat, finding different things to look at and wonder over on the vessel itself, or in the waters across which they were steaming. Mother and Daddy Bunker sat with Aunt Jo in a shady place on deck, and watched the children at their play. Russ and Laddie and the two older girls were standing near the rail, toward the front, or bow, of the boat, and they had to hold their hats on to keep them from being blown away. "I would like a kite here," Laddie said. Then he watched some boats moving back and forth in the water, big ones and little ones, and, suddenly turning to his brother, said: "I've got a new riddle." "What is it?" Russ asked. "I can guess it." "Nope! You can't!" Laddie went on. "And it's an easy one, too." "Go on and tell it!" exclaimed Russ. "I know I can guess it." "Why is this boat like a duck?" asked Laddie. "Now, you can't answer that." "I can so!" cried Russ, as he thought for a moment. "That's easy. This boat is like a duck 'cause it goes in water." "Nope!" said Laddie, shaking his head with vigor. "It is so!" cried Russ. "I'm going to ask Mother." The two boys went in search of their mother, leaving Rose and Vi up in front. "What is it now?" Mrs. Bunker wanted to know, as the two boys ran up to her. "Laddie made up a riddle about 'why this boat is like a duck,' and when I told him 'cause it goes in water like a duck, he says that isn't the answer. It is, isn't it?" "That isn't the answer I mean!" exclaimed Laddie, before his mother had a chance to speak. "Well, I suppose Laddie can pick out the one answer he wants to his own riddles, if he makes them up," said Mrs. Bunker to the two boys. "I have an answer," said Laddie, "and Russ didn't guess it right." "Give me another chance," pleaded the older boy. "I know why the boat is like a duck--'cause it _swims_ in water! That's it!" "Nope!" said Laddie again, shaking his head harder than before. "Then there isn't any answer!" declared Russ. "Yes, there is, too," insisted Laddie. "I'll tell you. This boat is like a duck because it _paddles_! See? A duck paddles its feet in water and this boat paddles its wheels in water. I saw the paddle-wheels when we came on board." "Huh!" exclaimed Russ. "I could have thought of that if you'd given me one more turn." "Isn't that a good riddle?" demanded Laddie, smiling. "Pretty good," admitted Russ. "I'm going to think up one now, and I'm sure there can't anybody answer it. You wait!" and he went off by himself to think up his riddle. Margy and Mun Bun, after running about a bit, had heard some music being played on board, and had teased their mother to take them to hear it. This Mrs. Bunker was glad to do, as it gave her a chance to sit quietly with the smaller children. Across the waters steamed the boat, and Russ finally gave up trying to think of a hard riddle, and walked here and there with Laddie, finally getting to a place where they could watch the engines. Russ did not find it as easy to think up a hard riddle as he had thought he would, but he said he was going to try after they got back to Aunt Jo's house. "'Cause," he said, "there's so much to see now that I don't want to miss any of it." It was a ride of about an hour and a half from Boston to Nantasket Beach, and that pleasure spot was reached long enough before noon for the children to play about and have fun before lunch. They had brought some things to eat with them, but Daddy Bunker said they would also have something to eat at a restaurant. It was a good thing Mrs. Bunker and Aunt Jo did provide sandwiches, for the children were hungry as soon as they left the boat and insisted on eating. And then the fun began. There was plenty to do at Nantasket Beach, smooth slides to coast down on, funny tricks that could be played, and phonographs that one could listen to by putting the ends of rubber tubes in the ears after having dropped a penny in the machine. There were moving pictures and other things to enjoy. [Illustration: BEST OF ALL THE CHILDREN LIKED THE MERRY-GO-ROUND. _Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's._--_Page 223_] Best of all the children liked the merry-go-rounds, and they had so many rides on the prancing horses, the lions, the tigers, the ostriches and the other animals and birds that Daddy Bunker said: "My! I'm afraid we'll all go to the poorhouse if I spend all my pennies." "You can take some of the sixty-five dollars I found in the pocketbook," said Rose. "No," and her father shook his head. "We mustn't touch that money yet. I haven't given up the hope of finding who owns it, though it certainly takes them a long while to find out about it. But there must be something wrong. Either they have not seen our advertisements, or they have gone far away." "Can't we ever spend any of the money?" asked Russ. "Well, maybe, some day, if we don't find the owner," said his father. The children went in bathing, and then had lunch at an open-air restaurant. And such appetites as they had! The salt air seemed to make them hungry, even if they had eaten the sandwiches brought from home. "Now I want some more rides on the merry-go-round," said Margy, after they had taken in some other amusements. "I want to ride on the rooster this time. He's bigger than the rooster at Grandma Bell's, but he's nice and red." Among the creatures in the merry-go-round machine was a big, wooden rooster, painted red, with his beak open just as if he were going to crow. Margy had ridden on a horse and on a lion, and now she wanted the rooster. "Well, you may have just one more ride," said her mother. "But don't tease for any more." "Why not?" Margy wanted to know. "Because it might make you ill, my dear," said Mrs. Bunker. "Too much riding, when you go around in a circle that way, may upset your stomach. One ride more will be enough, I think." Margy agreed to be content with one, but when that was over she had enjoyed it so much that she teased and begged for just one more. "Oh, let her have it, Mother!" suggested Rose. "We'd all like another ride. And I'll sit beside Margy in one of the seats, and then maybe it won't make her sick." Margy didn't look ill, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. "Well, this is a sort of play-day," said Daddy Bunker, "and I want you children to have a good time. I don't suppose one more ride will do any harm," he said to his wife. "And, I'll try to keep out of the poorhouse until we can use the sixty-five dollars in the pocketbook Rose found," and he laughed. "Well, if you say it's all right I suppose it is," agreed his wife. "But this is, positively, the last ride!" So the children got their tickets, and Margy and Rose took their seats in a little make-believe chariot, drawn by a green camel. The music began to play, the merry-go-round began to turn and once more the children were having a good time. In chairs near the big machine Daddy and Mother Bunker and Aunt Jo waved to the children each time they came around. The turn was almost over when Mrs. Bunker happened to see Margy leaning up against Rose. And the mother noticed that her littlest girl's face was very white. Rose, too, seemed frightened. "Oh, I'm sure Margy is ill!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "She has ridden too much! Oh, Charles! Have them stop the machine!" "It's stopping now," he said. He, too, had noticed the paleness of Margy's face. Slowly the merry-go-round came to a stop, but even before it had altogether ceased moving Daddy Bunker had jumped on and hurried to where Rose sat holding Margy. "Oh, Daddy!" exclaimed Rose, "she says she feels terribly bad." "What's the matter with Daddy's little girl?" asked Mr. Bunker, as he took Margy in his arms and started to get off the machine. "Did you become frightened?" "Oh, no! No, Daddy!" answered Margy in a weak voice. "But I feel funny right here," and she put her hand on her stomach. "And my head hurts and I feel dizzy--and--and----" Then poor little Margy's head fell back and her eyes closed. She was too ill to talk any more. CHAPTER XXIV ROSE FINDS HER DOLL "Take her out in the air," said one of the men in charge of the merry-go-round, as he saw Mr. Bunker carrying Margy across the floor. "They often feel a bit faint from riding too much, or from the motion. The air makes 'em all right. Take her right down to the beach. That would be best, I think." "I will," said Mr. Bunker. Tenderly he looked down at the little white face on his arm. Mrs. Bunker and Aunt Jo looked worried, as they hurried after Mr. Bunker, and Rose and Russ, who, with Violet, Mun Bun and Laddie had gotten off the merry-go-round, followed through the crowd. "What's the matter? What is it? Was any one hurt?" asked several persons. "No, it's only a little girl sort of fainted," a policeman said, and that was really what had happened to Margy. "The fresh air down by the beach will bring her around all right," said the man who had first spoken to Mr. Bunker. "I'll look around for a doctor, if you like." "Oh, I don't think she is as badly off as that," replied Margy's father. "As you say, the fresh air will bring her around." So the six little Bunkers, with Margy being carried by her daddy, went down near the water. The merry-go-round was not far from the bathing pavilion where they had left their clothes when they went in swimming during the morning. At the cashier's desk was a young lady, who gave out the tickets and took charge of watches, jewelry, money and other things that the bathing-folk left with her for safe-keeping. This young lady cashier saw Margy being carried by Mr. Bunker, and called to him: "Bring the little girl up here. She can lie down on a bench in the shade, and feel the fresh ocean air. That will be better than having her out in the sun." "Indeed it will," said Mrs. Bunker. "Thank you very much." With some dry bathing-suits and towels, the girl kindly made a sort of bed on a bench for Margy, and there the little girl was tenderly put to rest by her father. Then he looked carefully at her, and listened to the beating of her heart. "She'll be all right in a little while," he said. "If I could get her a glass of cold water----" "I'll get you one," offered the bathing cashier. "We have some ice water inside." "You are very kind," said Mrs. Bunker. "We went in bathing from this place not very long ago, but I did not see you here then." "No, I come only in the afternoons," said the girl. "Another girl and I take turns, as the work is pretty hard on a hot day when lots of folks go in swimming." She brought the water for Margy, and then the little girl opened her eyes and looked about her. "Take a drink," said her mother. "Do you feel better now?" "Yes," said Margy. "I'm all right. I felt awful funny," she said, and she smiled a little. Her cheeks were not so pale now, and she tried to sit up. "Better lie down a bit yet," said Daddy Bunker. "Then you'll feel a lot better. Next time you mustn't ride so much on the merry-go-round. Too many trips are not good for any one." In a short time Margy felt so much better that she could sit up. The cashier came back from her place at the window to ask how the little girl was feeling, and she seemed glad when told that Margy was better. Russ, Rose and the other children had been asked to stay outside and play in the sand, but now, having been told by Aunt Jo that Margy was nearly recovered, they came in the bathing pavilion office to look at their little sister. Just at this time there were not many people wanting bathing-suits, so the cashier who had been so kind was not very busy. As Rose and the others stood looking at Margy, and also at the cashier, Vi suddenly exclaimed: "Why, I know her!" "Who?" asked Mrs. Bunker. "Her," went on Vi. She pointed to the cashier. "She found me the day I was lost, when I went after the loaf of bread and I went down the wrong street and I couldn't find Aunt Jo's house. She found the right street for me. I know her--her name's Mary!" The cashier turned to look at Violet. "Oh, now I remember you!" she exclaimed. "Yes, I did see you crying on the street in the Back Bay section of Boston one day. I remember now. I could tell where you lived because my mother used to sew in that neighborhood, and I had seen the big dog at your aunt's house. So you got home all right, did you?" "Yes, she came just as I was starting out to look for her," said Daddy Bunker. "We often wondered who had been so kind as to show Violet the right way, but all she could tell was that it was a girl named 'Mary'. I often thought I'd like to see her, and thank her for being so kind to our little girl, but, only knowing your first name----" "My name is Mary Turner," said the girl. "I live in Boston, though not at Back Bay, but I come over here every day on the boat to work." "Do you like it?" asked Aunt Jo. "Yes, it is very pleasant, and not too hard. I like the smell of the salt water. I'd be near the ocean all the while if I could. But we can't have all we want," and she smiled. "Shall I get you some more cold water?" she asked Margy. "Yes, please," answered the little girl. "I feel a lot better now." "That's good," said Mary Turner, as she went to the water-cooler. "Wasn't it funny I should see her again?" said Violet. "She was awful nice to me when I was lost." "She seems like a very nice girl," said Mrs. Bunker, "and she is certainly very kind to us. I'm glad we met her." Mary came back with more water for Margy, who was now able to walk around, the feeling of illness having passed. "I want to go down and play in the sand," she said. "Better not go out in the hot sun right away," advised Aunt Jo. "Stay in the shade a bit, Margy." "Yes," urged Mary Turner. "Come and see my queer little office, where I sit all day and hand out tickets and take in gold watches and diamond rings and things like that." "Do you keep 'em?" asked Russ. "Oh, no! The people who go in bathing leave them with me for safety. I have to give them back when they hand me the check I give them. I keep each person's things separately in little pigeonholes, and there is a man on guard there, too,--a sort of policeman." "Are there any pigeons in the pigeonholes?" asked Vi. "Oh, no!" laughed Mary. "They just call them pigeonholes because they are like the openings that pigeons go in and out of at barns, and such places, I suppose. They are like the boxes in a post office, only larger. Come, I'll show them to you." As this would keep Margy in the shade a while longer, Mrs. Bunker said the children could go with Mary and look at her "office." "My daddy's got an office," said Rose. "It's a real estate office." "Well, mine is different from that," Mary said. They went with her to look. As it was rather soon after the dinner hour, not many persons were in bathing, and the compartments or "pigeonholes" were not all filled. In some, however, were the envelopes in which people sealed their watches, rings and other valuables. The six little Bunkers were quite pleased at seeing Mary Turner's office, and the "policeman" who was on guard so no one would come in and take the envelopes. "Did some one leave that when they went in bathing?" asked Mr. Bunker with a smile, as he pointed to something in one of the pigeonholes. "Oh, no," answered Mary with a smile. "That's mine. It's a doll, and I brought it with me to-day, thinking I would have time to make a new dress for it, and give it to a little girl I know. I don't play with dolls any more, though I used to like them very much, and I still like to make dresses for them. But I've been rather busy this morning, helping Mr. Barton, who owns the bathing pavilion, so I didn't get time to do any sewing." As she spoke she took down the doll, and held it out for Margy and the others to see. And, as Rose looked at it, she exclaimed: "Oh, look! Why--why, that's Lily! That's my doll that went up in the airship! That's Lily!" "It can't be, Rose!" said her mother. "Yes, it is!" insisted the little girl, as she took the doll from her sister's hand. "Look! Don't you 'member where there was a cut in her and her sawdust insides ran out and Aunt Jo sewed up the place with red thread?" and Rose turned the doll over and showed where, surely enough, the doll was sewed with red thread. "Is that really your doll?" asked Mary, and there was a queer look on her face. "It really is," said Rose Bunker. "I sent her up in a basket and there was a lot of balloons tied to it. I called it an airship and it got loose and Lily went away up in the sky, and I couldn't get her down." "I said she'd come down," cried Russ, "'cause I knew the balloons couldn't stay up forever. But we looked for the doll and couldn't find her." "Did she drop out of the airship?" asked Rose eagerly. "No, she came down with the 'airship,' as you call it," went on the bathing-pavilion cashier. "She was in a basket when I found her. And tied to the basket were some toy balloons. A few of them had burst, and the gas had come out of the others, so that they were all flabby and wouldn't keep the airship up any more. Then it came down, and it happened to land right in the back yard of the place where I board, in Boston. "I saw it in the morning, when I went out to feed the pet cat, and I brought the doll in. She was all wet, and her dress had come off. But I carried her into the house and I've kept her ever since. I've been intending to dress her and give her to a little girl, but I'm glad you have her back," and she smiled at Rose. "Oh, isn't it just wonderful!" cried the little girl. "To think I have my own darling Lily back after her going up in the airship!" CHAPTER XXV THE POCKETBOOK OWNER Indeed it was quite strange and wonderful, as they all agreed, that Rose's doll had been found in such a curious way. Rose, herself, was very happy, for, though the doll was not her "best" one, she liked it very much indeed, and had felt sad at losing Lily. "I'm glad the airship came down at your house," said Rose to Mary. "And I'm glad I found her for you," said the cashier. "'Cause," remarked Vi, "she might have fallen in a house where there was a puppy dog, and he'd have bitten her and torn her dress. I wonder where her dress went." "Oh, I guess the wind blew it off," said Russ. "The wind is awful strong up high in the air. Once it busted one of my kites." "I guess that's how it happened," said Daddy Bunker. "The toy balloons must have gone up very high, carrying your doll along, Rose." "No. Lily didn't have on a dress that day. I was in an awful hurry, an' I just wrapped a handkerchief around her. That blew away, I guess." By this time Margy was feeling all right again, and after a little more talk with Mary, the six little Bunkers went out to play on the sandy beach, Rose carrying her doll. "Oh, it's lovely at Nantasket Beach!" said Russ, as he and Laddie ran about and waded in the shallow water. "Thank you, Aunt Jo, for bringing us here." "Oh, I'm enjoying it as much as you children are," said Daddy's sister. But all things must come to an end, even picnics, and when the six little Bunkers had done about everything they wanted to at the pleasure resort it was time to take the boat back for Boston. On board, after the children and the grown folks were seated, Vi saw her friend Mary Turner. "There's the girl that found me when I was lost, and the one that had Rose's doll," said Vi, pointing. "Oh, so it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunker. "Don't you want to come over and sit by us?" she asked the bathing-pavilion girl. "Yes, I should like to," was the answer. "It's lonesome riding home alone." "Where do you live in Boston?" asked Mrs. Bunker, as Mary sat down near her and the children, who were too tired with their fun to romp around much. "I board down near where I can get this steamer easily," was the answer. "I have a pass on the boat, and by walking to the dock I save carfare. And these days one has to save all one can," she added. "You say you board," put in Aunt Jo. "Have you no relatives?" "Oh, yes, I have a brother and a mother, but Mother is ill in the hospital," was the answer. "That's too bad," said the ladies, who felt quite sorry for Mary. Then they talked about different things until, at dusk, the boat landed at the wharf, and the six little Bunkers and all the other passengers got off. Rose whispered something to her mother, who looked a little surprised and then spoke to Aunt Jo. "Why, yes, I'd be delighted to have her," was the low answer, for Mary was walking on ahead, with Russ and Laddie. "Rose thinks it would be nice to ask Mary to come to supper with us," said Mrs. Bunker to her husband. "Aunt Jo says that she is willing." "Of course we'll ask her!" said Mr. Bunker kindly, and when Mary was told about the plan she smiled and said she would be glad to come. So to Aunt Jo's nice home they all went, and Parker had a fine supper soon ready for them, even though she didn't expect company. After the supper, which Mary seemed to enjoy very much, saying it was much nicer than at her boarding-house, she and the six little Bunkers sat on the porch and talked. Mary told about the funny things which sometimes happened at the bathing-beach. "Well, I'm glad we went there to-day," said Rose. "If we hadn't I'd never have found my airship doll." "You were very lucky," said Laddie. "Yes," added Russ. "I wish I had such good luck as Rose. She found her doll and she found a pocketbook." "Oh, I didn't tell you about that!" exclaimed Rose to Mary. "I really did find a pocketbook in the street, about two weeks ago, and it had a lot of money in it." "Did it?" asked the bathing-beach girl, and she seemed interested more than usual. "Oh, a lot of money," went on Rose. "Please, Daddy, can't I show Mary the pocketbook I found?" she asked, for Miss Turner had told the children to call her by her first name. "I want to show her the pocketbook I picked up," went on the little girl. "All right, you may," said Mr. Bunker. "I'll get it for you," and he brought it from the house. "There it is!" cried Rose. "Wasn't I lucky to pick that up?" "Indeed you were," said Mary Turner, and then, as she caught sight of the wallet in Mr. Bunker's hand she exclaimed: "Why, there it is! There's the very one! Oh, to think that you have it!" "Do you know whose this is?" asked Mr. Bunker. "Ever since my little girl found the wallet we've been trying to find the owner, but we haven't been able to." "That's my mother's pocketbook!" cried Mary. "And it's on account of that she's in the hospital, and ill. Oh, how wonderful!" "Is this really your mother's purse?" asked Mr. Bunker. "It surely is," answered the bathing-beach girl. "She had just sixty-five dollars in it." "That's just how much was in this!" exclaimed Russ. "And besides," went on Mary, "I know the pocketbook. It has a little tear in one corner, and the clasp is bent." "That's right," said Mr. Bunker. "And," went on Mary, "besides the sixty-five dollars there was a funny Chinese coin with a square hole in the middle. Did you find that in the purse?" "Yes," exclaimed Aunt Jo, "there was a Chinese coin in the pocketbook! That proves it must be your mother's pocketbook." "I'm sure of it," said Mary. "Oh, how glad she'll be that it is found, and the money, too. That is--if we can have it back," she said softly. "Have it back? Of course you may!" cried Mr. Bunker. "If it is your mother's we want you to have it. Was there anything else in the purse when your mother lost it?" "Yes," Mary said, "there was a letter from my brother, but part of it was torn off," and she spoke of what the note had in it. Then they were all sure it was Mrs. Turner's purse. The letter, from which the lower part had been torn, was from Mary's brother John. He was a soldier in the army. His mother had written, telling him that her brother, Mary and John's "Uncle Jack," had sent the money to her, and that she was going to spend it in trying to get a rest of a month, as she was very tired from overwork. But the pocketbook had been lost by Mrs. Turner, and, as Mary said, it made her mother ill, so she had had to go to the hospital. But through the good luck of Rose everything had come out all right, for Mary felt that the news of the recovery of the money would take the worry from Mrs. Turner's mind, thus making it easier to regain her health. "You found my doll," exclaimed Rose, "and I found your pocketbook! We are both lucky!" "Indeed we are," said Mary, smiling, as she took the wallet from Mr. Bunker. "Oh, but Mother will be happy, now!" went on the girl. "Mother had been overworking, for we are poor and she had had us two children to bring up, as my father is dead. She was on her way to see about going away for a time to get a good rest, now that John and I are old enough to look out for ourselves, when she lost the purse and the sixty-five dollars. "She felt so bad about it, when she couldn't find it, that she was made ill, and had to be taken to a hospital. We did not tell my brother, as we did not want to worry him. But I know this good news will make Mother better. "I walked all around the streets near where she thought she had lost her purse, but I couldn't find it." "Didn't you read the lost and found advertisements?" asked Mr. Bunker. "We advertised the finding of the pocketbook in the papers." "No, I was so worried about Mother that I never thought to," was the answer. "And when I had her taken to the hospital, and found a boarding-place for myself, and went to work at Nantasket Beach, I thought there was no use to look. I never expected to get the money back." "But you did, and I'm glad I found it," said Rose. They were all glad. Mr. Bunker took Mary that very night to the hospital where her mother was, and the good news so cheered Mrs. Turner that the doctor said she would soon get better, and, after a while, entirely well. That is what good news sometimes does. But the good luck of the Turners did not end with the getting back of the lost pocketbook. Aunt Jo became interested in the little family, and promised to give Mrs. Turner plenty of work to do at sewing as soon as she was well. And a better place was found for Mary to work, where she would not have to take the long trip back and forth from Nantasket Beach. So many good things came about just because Rose saw the pocketbook and picked it up. And now my story is nearly done. Not that the six little Bunkers did not have more fun at Aunt Jo's, for they did, but I have not room for any more about them in this book. "But do we have to go home right away?" asked Russ, when he heard his father and mother talking of packing up a few days later. "Oh, no," was the answer. "We have a letter from another of our relatives, asking us to come to see him before we go back to Pineville, and I think we'll accept." "Where is it?" asked Rose. "Down at the seashore," answered her father. "Don't you remember?" And what next happened to the children will be told in the book after this, to be called, "Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's." It was a beautifully sunshiny day. Out on the lawn Russ and Laddie were playing with the hose. "Mother, make Russ stop!" suddenly Laddie cried. "What's he doing?" asked Mrs. Bunker, who could see that not very much was happening. "He's squirting water on me from the hose." "I am not, Mother," said Russ, laughing. "I'm only making believe Laddie is in bathing down at Cousin Tom's at the seashore, and when you go in swimming you've got to get a little wet!" "Oh, well, if you're making believe play _that_, all right," said Laddie, "wet me some more." Russ did. So, at their play, we will take leave, for a time, of the six little Bunkers, wishing them well. THE END THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES By LAURA LEE HOPE * * * * * Author of the Popular "Bobbsey Twins" Books Wrapper and text illustrations drawn by FLORENCE ENGLAND NOSWORTHY * * * * * =12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.= * * * * * This new series by the author of the "Bobbsey Twins" Books will be eagerly welcomed by the little folks from about five to ten years of age. Their eyes will fairly dance with delight at the lively doings of inquisitive little Bunny Brown and his cunning, trustful sister Sue. BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE Bunny was a lively little boy, very inquisitive. When he did anything, Sue followed his leadership. They had many adventures, some comical in the extreme. BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM How the youngsters journeyed to the farm in an auto, and what good times followed, is realistically told. BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS First the children gave a little affair, but when they obtained an old army tent the show was truly grand. BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE The family go into camp on the edge of a beautiful lake, and Bunny and his sister have more good times and some adventures. BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME The city proved a wonderful place to the little folks. They took in all the sights and helped a colored girl who had run away from home. * * * * * =GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK= THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS For Little Men and Women By LAURA LEE HOPE Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc. * * * * * =12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.= * * * * * Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that charm the hearts of the little ones, and of which they never tire. Many of the adventures are comical in the extreme, and all the accidents that ordinarily happen to youthful personages happened to these many-sided little mortals. Their haps and mishaps make decidedly entertaining reading. THE BOBBSEY TWINS THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL Telling how they go home from the seashore; went to school and were promoted, and of their many trials and tribulations. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE Telling of the winter holidays, and of the many fine times and adventures the twins had at a winter lodge in the big woods. THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT Mr. Bobbsey obtains a houseboat, and the whole family go off on a tour. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK The young folks visit the farm again and have plenty of good times and several adventures. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME The twins get into all sorts of trouble--and out again--also bring aid to a poor family. * * * * * =GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK= THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH SERIES By GERTRUDE W. MORRISON * * * * * =12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.= * * * * * Here is a series full of the spirit of high school life of to-day. The girls are real flesh-and-blood characters, and we follow them with interest in school and out. There are many contested matches on track and field, and on the water, as well as doings in the classroom and on the school stage. There is plenty of fun and excitement, all clean, pure and wholesome. THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH Or Rivals for all Honors. A stirring tale of high school life, full of fan, with a touch of mystery and a strange initiation. THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON LAKE LUNA Or The Crew That Won. Telling of water sports and fun galore, and of fine times in camp. THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH AT BASKETBALL Or The Great Gymnasium Mystery. Here we have a number of thrilling contests at basketball and in addition, the solving of a mystery which had bothered the high school authorities for a long while. THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON THE STAGE Or The Play That Took the Prize. How the girls went in for theatricals and how one of them wrote a play which afterward was made over for the professional stage and brought in some much-needed money. THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON TRACK AND FIELD Or The Girl Champions of the School League This story takes in high school athletics in their most approved and up-to-date fashion. Full of fun and excitement. THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH IN CAMP Or The Old Professor's Secret. The girls went camping on Acorn Island and had a delightful time at boating, swimming and picnic parties. * * * * * =GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK= THE OUTDOOR CHUMS SERIES By CAPTAIN QUINCY ALLEN The outdoor chums are four wide-awake lads, sons of wealthy men of a small city located on a lake. The boys love outdoor life, and are greatly interested in hunting, fishing, and picture taking. They have motor cycles, motor boats, canoes, etc., and during their vacations go everywhere and have all sorts of thrilling adventures. The stories give full directions for camping out, how to fish, how to hunt wild animals and prepare the skins for stuffing, how to manage a canoe, how to swim, etc. Full of the spirit of outdoor life. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS Or The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE LAKE Or Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS IN THE FOREST Or Laying the Ghost of Oak Ridge. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE GULF Or Rescuing the Lost Balloonists. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AFTER BIG GAME Or Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON A HOUSEBOAT Or The Rivals of the Mississippi. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS IN THE BIG WOODS Or The Rival Hunters at Lumber Run. THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AT CABIN POINT Or The Golden Cup Mystery. =12mo. Averaging 240 pages. Illustrated. Handsomely bound in Cloth.= * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 36, "ate" changed to "mate". (asked the mate) Page 69, "some some" changed to "some". (here is some sort of a paper) Page 159, "It" changed to "Is". (Is this your) Page 215, "h" changed to "his". (had all his) Page 241, "abont" changed to "about". (was told about) 
154	----	THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM by William Dean Howells JTABLE 5 27 1 I. WHEN Bartley Hubbard went to interview Silas Lapham for the "Solid Men of Boston" series, which he undertook to finish up in The Events, after he replaced their original projector on that newspaper, Lapham received him in his private office by previous appointment. "Walk right in!" he called out to the journalist, whom he caught sight of through the door of the counting-room. He did not rise from the desk at which he was writing, but he gave Bartley his left hand for welcome, and he rolled his large head in the direction of a vacant chair. "Sit down! I'll be with you in just half a minute." "Take your time," said Bartley, with the ease he instantly felt. "I'm in no hurry." He took a note-book from his pocket, laid it on his knee, and began to sharpen a pencil. "There!" Lapham pounded with his great hairy fist on the envelope he had been addressing. "William!" he called out, and he handed the letter to a boy who came to get it. "I want that to go right away. Well, sir," he continued, wheeling round in his leather-cushioned swivel-chair, and facing Bartley, seated so near that their knees almost touched, "so you want my life, death, and Christian sufferings, do you, young man?" "That's what I'm after," said Bartley. "Your money or your life." "I guess you wouldn't want my life without the money," said Lapham, as if he were willing to prolong these moments of preparation. "Take 'em both," Bartley suggested. "Don't want your money without your life, if you come to that. But you're just one million times more interesting to the public than if you hadn't a dollar; and you know that as well as I do, Mr. Lapham. There's no use beating about the bush." "No," said Lapham, somewhat absently. He put out his huge foot and pushed the ground-glass door shut between his little den and the book-keepers, in their larger den outside. "In personal appearance," wrote Bartley in the sketch for which he now studied his subject, while he waited patiently for him to continue, "Silas Lapham is a fine type of the successful American. He has a square, bold chin, only partially concealed by the short reddish-grey beard, growing to the edges of his firmly closing lips. His nose is short and straight; his forehead good, but broad rather than high; his eyes blue, and with a light in them that is kindly or sharp according to his mood. He is of medium height, and fills an average arm-chair with a solid bulk, which on the day of our interview was unpretentiously clad in a business suit of blue serge. His head droops somewhat from a short neck, which does not trouble itself to rise far from a pair of massive shoulders." "I don't know as I know just where you want me to begin," said Lapham. "Might begin with your birth; that's where most of us begin," replied Bartley. A gleam of humorous appreciation shot into Lapham's blue eyes. "I didn't know whether you wanted me to go quite so far back as that," he said. "But there's no disgrace in having been born, and I was born in the State of Vermont, pretty well up under the Canada line--so well up, in fact, that I came very near being an adoptive citizen; for I was bound to be an American of SOME sort, from the word Go! That was about--well, let me see!--pretty near sixty years ago: this is '75, and that was '20. Well, say I'm fifty-five years old; and I've LIVED 'em, too; not an hour of waste time about ME, anywheres! I was born on a farm, and----" "Worked in the fields summers and went to school winters: regulation thing?" Bartley cut in. "Regulation thing," said Lapham, accepting this irreverent version of his history somewhat dryly. "Parents poor, of course," suggested the journalist. "Any barefoot business? Early deprivations of any kind, that would encourage the youthful reader to go and do likewise? Orphan myself, you know," said Bartley, with a smile of cynical good-comradery. Lapham looked at him silently, and then said with quiet self-respect, "I guess if you see these things as a joke, my life won't interest you." "Oh yes, it will," returned Bartley, unabashed. "You'll see; it'll come out all right." And in fact it did so, in the interview which Bartley printed. "Mr. Lapham," he wrote, "passed rapidly over the story of his early life, its poverty and its hardships, sweetened, however, by the recollections of a devoted mother, and a father who, if somewhat her inferior in education, was no less ambitious for the advancement of his children. They were quiet, unpretentious people, religious, after the fashion of that time, and of sterling morality, and they taught their children the simple virtues of the Old Testament and Poor Richard's Almanac." Bartley could not deny himself this gibe; but he trusted to Lapham's unliterary habit of mind for his security in making it, and most other people would consider it sincere reporter's rhetoric. "You know," he explained to Lapham, "that we have to look at all these facts as material, and we get the habit of classifying them. Sometimes a leading question will draw out a whole line of facts that a man himself would never think of." He went on to put several queries, and it was from Lapham's answers that he generalised the history of his childhood. "Mr. Lapham, although he did not dwell on his boyish trials and struggles, spoke of them with deep feeling and an abiding sense of their reality." This was what he added in the interview, and by the time he had got Lapham past the period where risen Americans are all pathetically alike in their narrow circumstances, their sufferings, and their aspirations, he had beguiled him into forgetfulness of the check he had received, and had him talking again in perfect enjoyment of his autobiography. "Yes, sir," said Lapham, in a strain which Bartley was careful not to interrupt again, "a man never sees all that his mother has been to him till it's too late to let her know that he sees it. Why, my mother--" he stopped. "It gives me a lump in the throat," he said apologetically, with an attempt at a laugh. Then he went on: "She was a little frail thing, not bigger than a good-sized intermediate school-girl; but she did the whole work of a family of boys, and boarded the hired men besides. She cooked, swept, washed, ironed, made and mended from daylight till dark--and from dark till daylight, I was going to say; for I don't know how she got any time for sleep. But I suppose she did. She got time to go to church, and to teach us to read the Bible, and to misunderstand it in the old way. She was GOOD. But it ain't her on her knees in church that comes back to me so much like the sight of an angel as her on her knees before me at night, washing my poor, dirty little feet, that I'd run bare in all day, and making me decent for bed. There were six of us boys; it seems to me we were all of a size; and she was just so careful with all of us. I can feel her hands on my feet yet!" Bartley looked at Lapham's No. 10 boots, and softly whistled through his teeth. "We were patched all over; but we wa'n't ragged. I don't know how she got through it. She didn't seem to think it was anything; and I guess it was no more than my father expected of her. HE worked like a horse in doors and out--up at daylight, feeding the stock, and groaning round all day with his rheumatism, but not stopping." Bartley hid a yawn over his note-book, and probably, if he could have spoken his mind, he would have suggested to Lapham that he was not there for the purpose of interviewing his ancestry. But Bartley had learned to practise a patience with his victims which he did not always feel, and to feign an interest in their digressions till he could bring them up with a round turn. "I tell you," said Lapham, jabbing the point of his penknife into the writing-pad on the desk before him, "when I hear women complaining nowadays that their lives are stunted and empty, I want to tell 'em about my MOTHER'S life. I could paint it out for 'em." Bartley saw his opportunity at the word paint, and cut in. "And you say, Mr. Lapham, that you discovered this mineral paint on the old farm yourself?" Lapham acquiesced in the return to business. "I didn't discover it," he said scrupulously. "My father found it one day, in a hole made by a tree blowing down. There it was, lying loose in the pit, and sticking to the roots that had pulled up a big, cake of dirt with 'em. I don't know what give him the idea that there was money in it, but he did think so from the start. I guess, if they'd had the word in those days, they'd considered him pretty much of a crank about it. He was trying as long as he lived to get that paint introduced; but he couldn't make it go. The country was so poor they couldn't paint their houses with anything; and father hadn't any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke with us; and I guess that paint-mine did as much as any one thing to make us boys clear out as soon as we got old enough. All my brothers went West, and took up land; but I hung on to New England and I hung on to the old farm, not because the paint-mine was on it, but because the old house was--and the graves. Well," said Lapham, as if unwilling to give himself too much credit, "there wouldn't been any market for it, anyway. You can go through that part of the State and buy more farms than you can shake a stick at for less money than it cost to build the barns on 'em. Of course, it's turned out a good thing. I keep the old house up in good shape, and we spend a month or so there every summer. M' wife kind of likes it, and the girls. Pretty place; sightly all round it. I've got a force of men at work there the whole time, and I've got a man and his wife in the house. Had a family meeting there last year; the whole connection from out West. There!" Lapham rose from his seat and took down a large warped, unframed photograph from the top of his desk, passing his hand over it, and then blowing vigorously upon it, to clear it of the dust. "There we are, ALL of us." "I don't need to look twice at YOU," said Bartley, putting his finger on one of the heads. "Well, that's Bill," said Lapham, with a gratified laugh. "He's about as brainy as any of us, I guess. He's one of their leading lawyers, out Dubuque way; been judge of the Common Pleas once or twice. That's his son--just graduated at Yale--alongside of my youngest girl. Good-looking chap, ain't he?" "SHE'S a good-looking chap," said Bartley, with prompt irreverence. He hastened to add, at the frown which gathered between Lapham's eyes, "What a beautiful creature she is! What a lovely, refined, sensitive face! And she looks GOOD, too." "She is good," said the father, relenting. "And, after all, that's about the best thing in a woman," said the potential reprobate. "If my wife wasn't good enough to keep both of us straight, I don't know what would become of me." "My other daughter," said Lapham, indicating a girl with eyes that showed large, and a face of singular gravity. "Mis' Lapham," he continued, touching his wife's effigy with his little finger. "My brother Willard and his family--farm at Kankakee. Hazard Lapham and his wife--Baptist preacher in Kansas. Jim and his three girls--milling business at Minneapolis. Ben and his family--practising medicine in Fort Wayne." The figures were clustered in an irregular group in front of an old farm-house, whose original ugliness had been smartened up with a coat of Lapham's own paint, and heightened with an incongruous piazza. The photographer had not been able to conceal the fact that they were all decent, honest-looking, sensible people, with a very fair share of beauty among the young girls; some of these were extremely pretty, in fact. He had put them into awkward and constrained attitudes, of course; and they all looked as if they had the instrument of torture which photographers call a head-rest under their occiputs. Here and there an elderly lady's face was a mere blur; and some of the younger children had twitched themselves into wavering shadows, and might have passed for spirit-photographs of their own little ghosts. It was the standard family-group photograph, in which most Americans have figured at some time or other; and Lapham exhibited a just satisfaction in it. "I presume," he mused aloud, as he put it back on top of his desk, "that we sha'n't soon get together again, all of us." "And you say," suggested Bartley, "that you stayed right along on the old place, when the rest cleared out West?" "No o-o-o," said Lapham, with a long, loud drawl; "I cleared out West too, first off. Went to Texas. Texas was all the cry in those days. But I got enough of the Lone Star in about three months, and I come back with the idea that Vermont was good enough for me." "Fatted calf business?" queried Bartley, with his pencil poised above his note-book. "I presume they were glad to see me," said Lapham, with dignity. "Mother," he added gently, "died that winter, and I stayed on with father. I buried him in the spring; and then I came down to a little place called Lumberville, and picked up what jobs I could get. I worked round at the saw-mills, and I was ostler a while at the hotel--I always DID like a good horse. Well, I WA'N'T exactly a college graduate, and I went to school odd times. I got to driving the stage after while, and by and by I BOUGHT the stage and run the business myself. Then I hired the tavern-stand, and--well to make a long story short, then I got married. Yes," said Lapham, with pride, "I married the school-teacher. We did pretty well with the hotel, and my wife she was always at me to paint up. Well, I put it off, and PUT it off, as a man will, till one day I give in, and says I, 'Well, let's paint up. Why, Pert,'--m'wife's name's Persis,--'I've got a whole paint-mine out on the farm. Let's go out and look at it.' So we drove out. I'd let the place for seventy-five dollars a year to a shif'less kind of a Kanuck that had come down that way; and I'd hated to see the house with him in it; but we drove out one Saturday afternoon, and we brought back about a bushel of the stuff in the buggy-seat, and I tried it crude, and I tried it burnt; and I liked it. M'wife she liked it too. There wa'n't any painter by trade in the village, and I mixed it myself. Well, sir, that tavern's got that coat of paint on it yet, and it hain't ever had any other, and I don't know's it ever will. Well, you know, I felt as if it was a kind of harumscarum experiment, all the while; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it but I kind of liked to do it because father'd always set so much store by his paint-mine. And when I'd got the first coat on,"--Lapham called it CUT,--"I presume I must have set as much as half an hour; looking at it and thinking how he would have enjoyed it. I've had my share of luck in this world, and I ain't a-going to complain on my OWN account, but I've noticed that most things get along too late for most people. It made me feel bad, and it took all the pride out my success with the paint, thinking of father. Seemed to me I might 'a taken more interest in it when he was by to see; but we've got to live and learn. Well, I called my wife out,--I'd tried it on the back of the house, you know,--and she left her dishes,--I can remember she came out with her sleeves rolled up and set down alongside of me on the trestle,--and says I, 'What do you think, Persis?' And says she, 'Well, you hain't got a paint-mine, Silas Lapham; you've got a GOLD-mine.' She always was just so enthusiastic about things. Well, it was just after two or three boats had burnt up out West, and a lot of lives lost, and there was a great cry about non-inflammable paint, and I guess that was what was in her mind. 'Well, I guess it ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I; 'but I guess it IS a paint-mine. I'm going to have it analysed, and if it turns out what I think it is, I'm going to work it. And if father hadn't had such a long name, I should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral Paint. But, any rate, every barrel of it, and every keg, and every bottle, and every package, big or little, has got to have the initials and figures N.L.f. 1835, S.L.t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835, and I tried it in 1855.'" "'S.T.--1860--X.' business," said Bartley. "Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of Plantation Bitters then, and I hadn't seen any of the fellow's labels. I set to work and I got a man down from Boston; and I carried him out to the farm, and he analysed it--made a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours; kept the Kanuck and his family up, firing. The presence of iron in the ore showed with the magnet from the start; and when he came to test it, he found out that it contained about seventy-five per cent. of the peroxide of iron." Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with a sort of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get him to spell it. "Well, and what then?" he asked, when he had made a note of the percentage. "What then?" echoed Lapham. "Well, then, the fellow set down and told me, 'You've got a paint here,' says he, 'that's going to drive every other mineral paint out of the market. Why' says he, 'it'll drive 'em right into the Back Bay!' Of course, I didn't know what the Back Bay was then, but I begun to open my eyes; thought I'd had 'em open before, but I guess I hadn't. Says he, 'That paint has got hydraulic cement in it, and it can stand fire and water and acids;' he named over a lot of things. Says he, 'It'll mix easily with linseed oil, whether you want to use it boiled or raw; and it ain't a-going to crack nor fade any; and it ain't a-going to scale. When you've got your arrangements for burning it properly, you're going to have a paint that will stand like the everlasting hills, in every climate under the sun.' Then he went into a lot of particulars, and I begun to think he was drawing a long-bow, and meant to make his bill accordingly. So I kept pretty cool; but the fellow's bill didn't amount to anything hardly--said I might pay him after I got going; young chap, and pretty easy; but every word he said was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up my paint; I don't suppose you came here to hear me blow." "Oh yes, I did," said Bartley. "That's what I want. Tell all there is to tell, and I can boil it down afterward. A man can't make a greater mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. It may be the very thing we want to know. What we want is the whole truth; and more; we've got so much modesty of our own that we can temper almost any statement." Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this tone, and he resumed a little more quietly. "Oh, there isn't really very much more to say about the paint itself. But you can use it for almost anything where a paint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay, and it'll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint the inside of a cistern or a bath-tub with it, and water won't hurt it; and you can paint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't. You can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steamboat, and you can't do a better thing for either." "Never tried it on the human conscience, I suppose," suggested Bartley. "No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. "I guess you want to keep that as free from paint as you can, if you want much use of it. I never cared to try any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his bulk up out of his swivel-chair, and led the way out into the wareroom beyond the office partitions, where rows and ranks of casks, barrels, and kegs stretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and diffused an honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint. They were labelled and branded as containing each so many pounds of Lapham's Mineral Paint, and each bore the mystic devices, N.L.f. 1835--S.L.t. 1855. "There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest casks with the toe of his boot, "that's about our biggest package; and here," he added, laying his hand affectionately on the head of a very small keg, as if it were the head of a child, which it resembled in size, "this is the smallest. We used to put the paint on the market dry, but now we grind every ounce of it in oil--very best quality of linseed oil--and warrant it. We find it gives more satisfaction. Now, come back to the office, and I'll show you our fancy brands." It was very cool and pleasant in that dim wareroom, with the rafters showing overhead in a cloudy perspective, and darkening away into the perpetual twilight at the rear of the building; and Bartley had found an agreeable seat on the head of a half-barrel of the paint, which he was reluctant to leave. But he rose and followed the vigorous lead of Lapham back to the office, where the sun of a long summer afternoon was just beginning to glare in at the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's desk were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders, and showing, in a pattern diminishing toward the top, the same label borne by the casks and barrels in the wareroom. Lapham merely waved his hand toward these; but when Bartley, after a comprehensive glance at them, gave his whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars, where different tints of the paint showed through flawless glass, Lapham smiled, and waited in pleased expectation. "Hello!" said Bartley. "That's pretty!" "Yes," assented Lapham, "it is rather nice. It's our latest thing, and we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, taking down one of the jars, and pointing to the first line of the label. Bartley read, "THE PERSIS BRAND," and then he looked at Lapham and smiled. "After HER, of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first of it on the market her last birthday. She was pleased." "I should think she might have been," said Bartley, while he made a note of the appearance of the jars. "I don't know about your mentioning it in your interview," said Lapham dubiously. "That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham, if nothing else does. Got a wife myself, and I know just how you feel." It was in the dawn of Bartley's prosperity on the Boston Events, before his troubles with Marcia had seriously begun. "Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a smile another of the vast majority of married Americans; a few underrate their wives, but the rest think them supernal in intelligence and capability. "Well," he added, "we must see about that. Where'd you say you lived?" "We don't live; we board. Mrs. Nash, 13 Canary Place." "Well, we've all got to commence that way," suggested Lapham consolingly. "Yes; but we've about got to the end of our string. I expect to be under a roof of my own on Clover Street before long. I suppose," said Bartley, returning to business, "that you didn't let the grass grow under your feet much after you found out what was in your paint-mine?" "No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his eyes from a long stare at Bartley, in which he had been seeing himself a young man again, in the first days of his married life. "I went right back to Lumberville and sold out everything, and put all I could rake and scrape together into paint. And Mis' Lapham was with me every time. No hang back about HER. I tell you she was a WOMAN!" Bartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us marry." "No, we don't," said Lapham. "Most of us marry silly little girls grown up to LOOK like women." "Well, I guess that's about so," assented Bartley, as if upon second thought. "If it hadn't been for her," resumed Lapham, "the paint wouldn't have come to anything. I used to tell her it wa'n't the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in the ORE that made that paint go; it was the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in HER." "Good!" cried Bartley. "I'll tell Marcia that." "In less'n six months there wa'n't a board-fence, nor a bridge-girder, nor a dead wall, nor a barn, nor a face of rock in that whole region that didn't have 'Lapham's Mineral Paint--Specimen' on it in the three colours we begun by making." Bartley had taken his seat on the window-sill, and Lapham, standing before him, now put up his huge foot close to Bartley's thigh; neither of them minded that. "I've heard a good deal of talk about that S.T.--1860--X. man, and the stove-blacking man, and the kidney-cure man, because they advertised in that way; and I've read articles about it in the papers; but I don't see where the joke comes in, exactly. So long as the people that own the barns and fences don't object, I don't see what the public has got to do with it. And I never saw anything so very sacred about a big rock, along a river or in a pasture, that it wouldn't do to put mineral paint on it in three colours. I wish some of the people that talk about the landscape, and WRITE about it, had to bu'st one of them rocks OUT of the landscape with powder, or dig a hole to bury it in, as we used to have to do up on the farm; I guess they'd sing a little different tune about the profanation of scenery. There ain't any man enjoys a sightly bit of nature--a smooth piece of interval with half a dozen good-sized wine-glass elms in it--more than I do. But I ain't a-going to stand up for every big ugly rock I come across, as if we were all a set of dumn Druids. I say the landscape was made for man, and not man for the landscape." "Yes," said Bartley carelessly; "it was made for the stove-polish man and the kidney-cure man." "It was made for any man that knows how to use it," Lapham returned, insensible to Bartley's irony. "Let 'em go and live with nature in the WINTER, up there along the Canada line, and I guess they'll get enough of her for one while. Well--where was I?" "Decorating the landscape," said Bartley. "Yes, sir; I started right there at Lumberville, and it give the place a start too. You won't find it on the map now; and you won't find it in the gazetteer. I give a pretty good lump of money to build a town-hall, about five years back, and the first meeting they held in it they voted to change the name,--Lumberville WA'N'T a name,--and it's Lapham now." "Isn't it somewhere up in that region that they get the old Brandon red?" asked Bartley. "We're about ninety miles from Brandon. The Brandon's a good paint," said Lapham conscientiously. "Like to show you round up at our place some odd time, if you get off." "Thanks. I should like it first-rate. WORKS there?" "Yes; works there. Well, sir, just about the time I got started, the war broke out; and it knocked my paint higher than a kite. The thing dropped perfectly dead. I presume that if I'd had any sort of influence, I might have got it into Government hands, for gun-carriages and army wagons, and may be on board Government vessels. But I hadn't, and we had to face the music. I was about broken-hearted, but m'wife she looked at it another way. 'I guess it's a providence,' says she. 'Silas, I guess you've got a country that's worth fighting for. Any rate, you better go out and give it a chance.' Well, sir, I went. I knew she meant business. It might kill her to have me go, but it would kill her sure if I stayed. She was one of that kind. I went. Her last words was, 'I'll look after the paint, Si.' We hadn't but just one little girl then,--boy'd died,--and Mis' Lapham's mother was livin' with us; and I knew if times DID anyways come up again, m'wife'd know just what to do. So I went. I got through; and you can call me Colonel, if you want to. Feel there!" Lapham took Bartley's thumb and forefinger and put them on a bunch in his leg, just above the knee. "Anything hard?" "Ball?" Lapham nodded. "Gettysburg. That's my thermometer. If it wa'n't for that, I shouldn't know enough to come in when it rains." Bartley laughed at a joke which betrayed some evidences of wear. "And when you came back, you took hold of the paint and rushed it." "I took hold of the paint and rushed it--all I could," said Lapham, with less satisfaction than he had hitherto shown in his autobiography. "But I found that I had got back to another world. The day of small things was past, and I don't suppose it will ever come again in this country. My wife was at me all the time to take a partner--somebody with capital; but I couldn't seem to bear the idea. That paint was like my own blood to me. To have anybody else concerned in it was like--well, I don't know what. I saw it was the thing to do; but I tried to fight it off, and I tried to joke it off. I used to say, 'Why didn't you take a partner yourself, Persis, while I was away?' And she'd say, 'Well, if you hadn't come back, I should, Si.' Always DID like a joke about as well as any woman I ever saw. Well, I had to come to it. I took a partner." Lapham dropped the bold blue eyes with which he had been till now staring into Bartley's face, and the reporter knew that here was a place for asterisks in his interview, if interviews were faithful. "He had money enough," continued Lapham, with a suppressed sigh; "but he didn't know anything about paint. We hung on together for a year or two. And then we quit." "And he had the experience," suggested Bartley, with companionable ease. "I had some of the experience too," said Lapham, with a scowl; and Bartley divined, through the freemasonry of all who have sore places in their memories, that this was a point which he must not touch again. "And since that, I suppose, you've played it alone." "I've played it alone." "You must ship some of this paint of yours to foreign countries, Colonel?" suggested Bartley, putting on a professional air. "We ship it to all parts of the world. It goes to South America, lots of it. It goes to Australia, and it goes to India, and it goes to China, and it goes to the Cape of Good Hope. It'll stand any climate. Of course, we don't export these fancy brands much. They're for home use. But we're introducing them elsewhere. Here." Lapham pulled open a drawer, and showed Bartley a lot of labels in different languages--Spanish, French, German, and Italian. "We expect to do a good business in all those countries. We've got our agencies in Cadiz now, and in Paris, and in Hamburg, and in Leghorn. It's a thing that's bound to make its way. Yes, sir. Wherever a man has got a ship, or a bridge, or a lock, or a house, or a car, or a fence, or a pig-pen anywhere in God's universe to paint, that's the paint for him, and he's bound to find it out sooner or later. You pass a ton of that paint dry through a blast-furnace, and you'll get a quarter of a ton of pig-iron. I believe in my paint. I believe it's a blessing to the world. When folks come in, and kind of smell round, and ask me what I mix it with, I always say, 'Well, in the first place, I mix it with FAITH, and after that I grind it up with the best quality of boiled linseed oil that money will buy.'" Lapham took out his watch and looked at it, and Bartley perceived that his audience was drawing to a close. "'F you ever want to run down and take a look at our works, pass you over the road,"--he called it RUD--"and it sha'n't cost you a cent." "Well, may be I shall, sometime," said Bartley. "Good afternoon, Colonel." "Good afternoon. Or--hold on! My horse down there yet, William?" he called to the young man in the counting-room who had taken his letter at the beginning of the interview. "Oh! All right!" he added, in response to something the young man said. "Can't I set you down somewhere, Mr. Hubbard? I've got my horse at the door, and I can drop you on my way home. I'm going to take Mis' Lapham to look at a house I'm driving piles for, down on the New Land." "Don't care if I do," said Bartley. Lapham put on a straw hat, gathered up some papers lying on his desk, pulled down its rolling cover, turned the key in it, and gave the papers to an extremely handsome young woman at one of the desks in the outer office. She was stylishly dressed, as Bartley saw, and her smooth, yellow hair was sculpturesquely waved over a low, white forehead. "Here," said Lapham, with the same prompt gruff kindness that he had used in addressing the young man, "I want you should put these in shape, and give me a type-writer copy to-morrow." "What an uncommonly pretty girl!" said Bartley, as they descended the rough stairway and found their way out to the street, past the dangling rope of a block and tackle wandering up into the cavernous darkness overhead. "She does her work," said Lapham shortly. Bartley mounted to the left side of the open buggy standing at the curb-stone, and Lapham, gathering up the hitching-weight, slid it under the buggy-seat and mounted beside him. "No chance to speed a horse here, of course," said Lapham, while the horse with a spirited gentleness picked her way, with a high, long action, over the pavement of the street. The streets were all narrow, and most of them crooked, in that quarter of the town; but at the end of one the spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately against the cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smell pleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of oil. It was not the busy season, and they met only two or three trucks heavily straggling toward the wharf with their long string teams; but the cobble-stones of the pavement were worn with the dint of ponderous wheels, and discoloured with iron-rust from them; here and there, in wandering streaks over its surface, was the grey stain of the salt water with which the street had been sprinkled. After an interval of some minutes, which both men spent in looking round the dash-board from opposite sides to watch the stride of the horse, Bartley said, with a light sigh, "I had a colt once down in Maine that stepped just like that mare." "Well!" said Lapham, sympathetically recognising the bond that this fact created between them. "Well, now, I tell you what you do. You let me come for you 'most any afternoon, now, and take you out over the Milldam, and speed this mare a little. I'd like to show you what this mare can do. Yes, I would." "All right," answered Bartley; "I'll let you know my first day off." "Good," cried Lapham. "Kentucky?" queried Bartley. "No, sir. I don't ride behind anything but Vermont; never did. Touch of Morgan, of course; but you can't have much Morgan in a horse if you want speed. Hambletonian mostly. Where'd you say you wanted to get out?" "I guess you may put me down at the Events Office, just round the corner here. I've got to write up this interview while it's fresh." "All right," said Lapham, impersonally assenting to Bartley's use of him as material. He had not much to complain of in Bartley's treatment, unless it was the strain of extravagant compliment which it involved. But the flattery was mainly for the paint, whose virtues Lapham did not believe could be overstated, and himself and his history had been treated with as much respect as Bartley was capable of showing any one. He made a very picturesque thing of the discovery of the paint-mine. "Deep in the heart of the virgin forests of Vermont, far up toward the line of the Canadian snows, on a desolate mountain-side, where an autumnal storm had done its wild work, and the great trees, strewn hither and thither, bore witness to its violence, Nehemiah Lapham discovered, just forty years ago, the mineral which the alchemy of his son's enterprise and energy has transmuted into solid ingots of the most precious of metals. The colossal fortune of Colonel Silas Lapham lay at the bottom of a hole which an uprooted tree had dug for him, and which for many years remained a paint-mine of no more appreciable value than a soap-mine." Here Bartley had not been able to forego another grin; but he compensated for it by the high reverence with which he spoke of Colonel Lapham's record during the war of the rebellion, and of the motives which impelled him to turn aside from an enterprise in which his whole heart was engaged, and take part in the struggle. "The Colonel bears embedded in the muscle of his right leg a little memento of the period in the shape of a minie-ball, which he jocularly referred to as his thermometer, and which relieves him from the necessity of reading 'The Probabilities' in his morning paper. This saves him just so much time; and for a man who, as he said, has not a moment of waste time on him anywhere, five minutes a day are something in the course of a year. Simple, clear, bold, and straightforward in mind and action, Colonel Silas Lapham, with a prompt comprehensiveness and a never-failing business sagacity, is, in the best sense of that much-abused term, one of nature's noblemen, to the last inch of his five eleven and a half. His life affords an example of single-minded application and unwavering perseverance which our young business men would do well to emulate. There is nothing showy or meretricious about the man. He believes in mineral paint, and he puts his heart and soul into it. He makes it a religion; though we would not imply that it IS his religion. Colonel Lapham is a regular attendant at the Rev. Dr. Langworthy's church. He subscribes liberally to the Associated Charities, and no good object or worthy public enterprise fails to receive his support. He is not now actively in politics, and his paint is not partisan; but it is an open secret that he is, and always has been, a staunch Republican. Without violating the sanctities of private life, we cannot speak fully of various details which came out in the free and unembarrassed interview which Colonel Lapham accorded our representative. But we may say that the success of which he is justly proud he is also proud to attribute in great measure to the sympathy and energy of his wife--one of those women who, in whatever walk of life, seem born to honour the name of American Woman, and to redeem it from the national reproach of Daisy Millerism. Of Colonel Lapham's family, we will simply add that it consists of two young lady daughters. "The subject of this very inadequate sketch is building a house on the water side of Beacon Street, after designs by one of our leading architectural firms, which, when complete, will be one of the finest ornaments of that exclusive avenue. It will, we believe, be ready for the occupancy of the family sometime in the spring." When Bartley had finished his article, which he did with a good deal of inward derision, he went home to Marcia, still smiling over the thought of Lapham, whose burly simplicity had peculiarly amused him. "He regularly turned himself inside out to me," he said, as he sat describing his interview to Marcia. "Then I know you could make something nice out of it," said his wife; "and that will please Mr. Witherby." "Oh yes, I've done pretty well; but I couldn't let myself loose on him the way I wanted to. Confound the limitations of decency, anyway! I should like to have told just what Colonel Lapham thought of landscape advertising in Colonel Lapham's own words. I'll tell you one thing, Marsh: he had a girl there at one of the desks that you wouldn't let ME have within gunshot of MY office. Pretty? It ain't any name for it!" Marcia's eyes began to blaze, and Bartley broke out into a laugh, in which he arrested himself at sight of a formidable parcel in the corner of the room. "Hello! What's that?" "Why, I don't know what it is," replied Marcia tremulously. "A man brought it just before you came in, and I didn't like to open it." "Think it was some kind of infernal machine?" asked Bartley, getting down on his knees to examine the package. "MRS. B. Hubbard, heigh?" He cut the heavy hemp string with his penknife. "We must look into this thing. I should like to know who's sending packages to Mrs. Hubbard in my absence." He unfolded the wrappings of paper, growing softer and finer inward, and presently pulled out a handsome square glass jar, through which a crimson mass showed richly. "The Persis Brand!" he yelled. "I knew it!" "Oh, what is it, Bartley?" quavered Marcia. Then, courageously drawing a little nearer: "Is it some kind of jam?" she implored. "Jam? No!" roared Bartley. "It's PAINT! It's mineral paint--Lapham's paint!" "Paint?" echoed Marcia, as she stood over him while he stripped their wrappings from the jars which showed the dark blue, dark green, light brown, dark brown, and black, with the dark crimson, forming the gamut of colour of the Lapham paint. "Don't TELL me it's paint that I can use, Bartley!" "Well, I shouldn't advise you to use much of it--all at once," replied her husband. "But it's paint that you can use in moderation." Marcia cast her arms round his neck and kissed him. "O Bartley, I think I'm the happiest girl in the world! I was just wondering what I should do. There are places in that Clover Street house that need touching up so dreadfully. I shall be very careful. You needn't be afraid I shall overdo. But, this just saves my life. Did you BUY it, Bartley? You know we couldn't afford it, and you oughtn't to have done it! And what does the Persis Brand mean?" "Buy it?" cried Bartley. "No! The old fool's sent it to you as a present. You'd better wait for the facts before you pitch into me for extravagance, Marcia. Persis is the name of his wife; and he named it after her because it's his finest brand. You'll see it in my interview. Put it on the market her last birthday for a surprise to her." "What old fool?" faltered Marcia. "Why, Lapham--the mineral paint man." "Oh, what a good man!" sighed Marcia from the bottom of her soul. "Bartley! you WON'T make fun of him as you do of some of those people? WILL you?" "Nothing that HE'LL ever find out," said Bartley, getting up and brushing off the carpet-lint from his knees. II. AFTER dropping Bartley Hubbard at the Events building, Lapham drove on down Washington Street to Nankeen Square at the South End, where he had lived ever since the mistaken movement of society in that direction ceased. He had not built, but had bought very cheap of a terrified gentleman of good extraction who discovered too late that the South End was not the thing, and who in the eagerness of his flight to the Back Bay threw in his carpets and shades for almost nothing. Mrs. Lapham was even better satisfied with their bargain than the Colonel himself, and they had lived in Nankeen Square for twelve years. They had seen the saplings planted in the pretty oval round which the houses were built flourish up into sturdy young trees, and their two little girls in the same period had grown into young ladies; the Colonel's tough frame had expanded into the bulk which Bartley's interview indicated; and Mrs. Lapham, while keeping a more youthful outline, showed the sharp print of the crow's-foot at the corners of her motherly eyes, and certain slight creases in her wholesome cheeks. The fact that they lived in an unfashionable neighbourhood was something that they had never been made to feel to their personal disadvantage, and they had hardly known it till the summer before this story opens, when Mrs. Lapham and her daughter Irene had met some other Bostonians far from Boston, who made it memorable. They were people whom chance had brought for the time under a singular obligation to the Lapham ladies, and they were gratefully recognisant of it. They had ventured--a mother and two daughters--as far as a rather wild little Canadian watering-place on the St. Lawrence, below Quebec, and had arrived some days before their son and brother was expected to join them. Two of their trunks had gone astray, and on the night of their arrival the mother was taken violently ill. Mrs. Lapham came to their help, with her skill as nurse, and with the abundance of her own and her daughter's wardrobe, and a profuse, single-hearted kindness. When a doctor could be got at, he said that but for Mrs. Lapham's timely care, the lady would hardly have lived. He was a very effusive little Frenchman, and fancied he was saying something very pleasant to everybody. A certain intimacy inevitably followed, and when the son came he was even more grateful than the others. Mrs. Lapham could not quite understand why he should be as attentive to her as to Irene; but she compared him with other young men about the place, and thought him nicer than any of them. She had not the means of a wider comparison; for in Boston, with all her husband's prosperity, they had not had a social life. Their first years there were given to careful getting on Lapham's part, and careful saving on his wife's. Suddenly the money began to come so abundantly that she need not save; and then they did not know what to do with it. A certain amount could be spent on horses, and Lapham spent it; his wife spent on rich and rather ugly clothes and a luxury of household appointments. Lapham had not yet reached the picture-buying stage of the rich man's development, but they decorated their house with the costliest and most abominable frescoes; they went upon journeys, and lavished upon cars and hotels; they gave with both hands to their church and to all the charities it brought them acquainted with; but they did not know how to spend on society. Up to a certain period Mrs. Lapham had the ladies of her neighbourhood in to tea, as her mother had done in the country in her younger days. Lapham's idea of hospitality was still to bring a heavy-buying customer home to pot-luck; neither of them imagined dinners. Their two girls had gone to the public schools, where they had not got on as fast as some of the other girls; so that they were a year behind in graduating from the grammar-school, where Lapham thought that they had got education enough. His wife was of a different mind; she would have liked them to go to some private school for their finishing. But Irene did not care for study; she preferred house-keeping, and both the sisters were afraid of being snubbed by the other girls, who were of a different sort from the girls of the grammar-school; these were mostly from the parks and squares, like themselves. It ended in their going part of a year. But the elder had an odd taste of her own for reading, and she took some private lessons, and read books out of the circulating library; the whole family were amazed at the number she read, and rather proud of it. They were not girls who embroidered or abandoned themselves to needle-work. Irene spent her abundant leisure in shopping for herself and her mother, of whom both daughters made a kind of idol, buying her caps and laces out of their pin-money, and getting her dresses far beyond her capacity to wear. Irene dressed herself very stylishly, and spent hours on her toilet every day. Her sister had a simpler taste, and, if she had done altogether as she liked, might even have slighted dress. They all three took long naps every day, and sat hours together minutely discussing what they saw out of the window. In her self-guided search for self-improvement, the elder sister went to many church lectures on a vast variety of secular subjects, and usually came home with a comic account of them, and that made more matter of talk for the whole family. She could make fun of nearly everything; Irene complained that she scared away the young men whom they got acquainted with at the dancing-school sociables. They were, perhaps, not the wisest young men. The girls had learned to dance at Papanti's; but they had not belonged to the private classes. They did not even know of them, and a great gulf divided them from those who did. Their father did not like company, except such as came informally in their way; and their mother had remained too rustic to know how to attract it in the sophisticated city fashion. None of them had grasped the idea of European travel; but they had gone about to mountain and sea-side resorts, the mother and the two girls, where they witnessed the spectacle which such resorts present throughout New England, of multitudes of girls, lovely, accomplished, exquisitely dressed, humbly glad of the presence of any sort of young man; but the Laphams had no skill or courage to make themselves noticed, far less courted by the solitary invalid, or clergyman, or artist. They lurked helplessly about in the hotel parlours, looking on and not knowing how to put themselves forward. Perhaps they did not care a great deal to do so. They had not a conceit of themselves, but a sort of content in their own ways that one may notice in certain families. The very strength of their mutual affection was a barrier to worldly knowledge; they dressed for one another; they equipped their house for their own satisfaction; they lived richly to themselves, not because they were selfish, but because they did not know how to do otherwise. The elder daughter did not care for society, apparently. The younger, who was but three years younger, was not yet quite old enough to be ambitious of it. With all her wonderful beauty, she had an innocence almost vegetable. When her beauty, which in its immaturity was crude and harsh, suddenly ripened, she bloomed and glowed with the unconsciousness of a flower; she not merely did not feel herself admired, but hardly knew herself discovered. If she dressed well, perhaps too well, it was because she had the instinct of dress; but till she met this young man who was so nice to her at Baie St. Paul, she had scarcely lived a detached, individual life, so wholly had she depended on her mother and her sister for her opinions, almost her sensations. She took account of everything he did and said, pondering it, and trying to make out exactly what he meant, to the inflection of a syllable, the slightest movement or gesture. In this way she began for the first time to form ideas which she had not derived from her family, and they were none the less her own because they were often mistaken. Some of the things that he partly said, partly looked, she reported to her mother, and they talked them over, as they did everything relating to these new acquaintances, and wrought them into the novel point of view which they were acquiring. When Mrs. Lapham returned home, she submitted all the accumulated facts of the case, and all her own conjectures, to her husband, and canvassed them anew. At first he was disposed to regard the whole affair as of small importance, and she had to insist a little beyond her own convictions in order to counteract his indifference. "Well, I can tell you," she said, "that if you think they were not the nicest people you ever saw, you're mightily mistaken. They had about the best manners; and they had been everywhere, and knew everything. I declare it made me feel as if we had always lived in the backwoods. I don't know but the mother and the daughters would have let you feel so a little, if they'd showed out all they thought; but they never did; and the son--well, I can't express it, Silas! But that young man had about perfect ways." "Seem struck up on Irene?" asked the Colonel. "How can I tell? He seemed just about as much struck up on me. Anyway, he paid me as much attention as he did her. Perhaps it's more the way, now, to notice the mother than it used to be." Lapham ventured no conjecture, but asked, as he had asked already, who the people were. Mrs. Lapham repeated their name. Lapham nodded his head. "Do you know them? What business is he in?" "I guess he ain't in anything," said Lapham. "They were very nice," said Mrs. Lapham impartially. "Well, they'd ought to be," returned the Colonel. "Never done anything else." "They didn't seem stuck up," urged his wife. "They'd no need to--with you. I could buy him and sell him, twice over." This answer satisfied Mrs. Lapham rather with the fact than with her husband. "Well, I guess I wouldn't brag, Silas," she said. In the winter the ladies of this family, who returned to town very late, came to call on Mrs. Lapham. They were again very polite. But the mother let drop, in apology for their calling almost at nightfall, that the coachman had not known the way exactly. "Nearly all our friends are on the New Land or on the Hill." There was a barb in this that rankled after the ladies had gone; and on comparing notes with her daughter, Mrs. Lapham found that a barb had been left to rankle in her mind also. "They said they had never been in this part of the town before." Upon a strict search of her memory, Irene could not report that the fact had been stated with anything like insinuation, but it was that which gave it a more penetrating effect. "Oh, well, of course," said Lapham, to whom these facts were referred. "Those sort of people haven't got much business up our way, and they don't come. It's a fair thing all round. We don't trouble the Hill or the New Land much." "We know where they are," suggested his wife thoughtfully. "Yes," assented the Colonel. "I know where they are. I've got a lot of land over on the Back Bay." "You have?" eagerly demanded his wife. "Want me to build on it?" he asked in reply, with a quizzical smile. "I guess we can get along here for a while." This was at night. In the morning Mrs. Lapham said-- "I suppose we ought to do the best we can for the children, in every way." "I supposed we always had," replied her husband. "Yes, we have, according to our light." "Have you got some new light?" "I don't know as it's light. But if the girls are going to keep on living in Boston and marry here, I presume we ought to try to get them into society, some way; or ought to do something." "Well, who's ever done more for their children than we have?" demanded Lapham, with a pang at the thought that he could possibly have been out-done. "Don't they have everything they want? Don't they dress just as you say? Don't you go everywhere with 'em? Is there ever anything going on that's worth while that they don't see it or hear it? I don't know what you mean. Why don't you get them into society? There's money enough!" "There's got to be something besides money, I guess," said Mrs. Lapham, with a hopeless sigh. "I presume we didn't go to work just the right way about their schooling. We ought to have got them into some school where they'd have got acquainted with city girls--girls who could help them along." "Nearly everybody at Miss Smillie's was from some where else." "Well, it's pretty late to think about that now," grumbled Lapham. "And we've always gone our own way, and not looked out for the future. We ought to have gone out more, and had people come to the house. Nobody comes." "Well, is that my fault? I guess nobody ever makes people welcomer." "We ought to have invited company more." "Why don't you do it now? If it's for the girls, I don't care if you have the house full all the while." Mrs. Lapham was forced to a confession full of humiliation. "I don't know who to ask." "Well, you can't expect me to tell you." "No; we're both country people, and we've kept our country ways, and we don't, either of us, know what to do. You've had to work so hard, and your luck was so long coming, and then it came with such a rush, that we haven't had any chance to learn what to do with it. It's just the same with Irene's looks; I didn't expect she was ever going to have any, she WAS such a plain child, and, all at once, she's blazed out this way. As long as it was Pen that didn't seem to care for society, I didn't give much mind to it. But I can see it's going to be different with Irene. I don't believe but what we're in the wrong neighbourhood." "Well," said the Colonel, "there ain't a prettier lot on the Back Bay than mine. It's on the water side of Beacon, and it's twenty-eight feet wide and a hundred and fifty deep. Let's build on it." Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. "No," she said finally; "we've always got along well enough here, and I guess we better stay." At breakfast she said casually: "Girls, how would you like to have your father build on the New Land?" The girls said they did not know. It was more convenient to the horse-cars where they were. Mrs. Lapham stole a look of relief at her husband, and nothing more was said of the matter. The mother of the family who had called upon Mrs. Lapham brought her husband's cards, and when Mrs. Lapham returned the visit she was in some trouble about the proper form of acknowledging the civility. The Colonel had no card but a business card, which advertised the principal depot and the several agencies of the mineral paint; and Mrs. Lapham doubted, till she wished to goodness that she had never seen nor heard of those people, whether to ignore her husband in the transaction altogether, or to write his name on her own card. She decided finally upon this measure, and she had the relief of not finding the family at home. As far as she could judge, Irene seemed to suffer a little disappointment from the fact. For several months there was no communication between the families. Then there came to Nankeen Square a lithographed circular from the people on the Hill, signed in ink by the mother, and affording Mrs. Lapham an opportunity to subscribe for a charity of undeniable merit and acceptability. She submitted it to her husband, who promptly drew a cheque for five hundred dollars. She tore it in two. "I will take a cheque for a hundred, Silas," she said. "Why?" he asked, looking up guiltily at her. "Because a hundred is enough; and I don't want to show off before them." "Oh, I thought may be you did. Well, Pert," he added, having satisfied human nature by the preliminary thrust, "I guess you're about right. When do you want I should begin to build on Beacon Street?" He handed her the new cheque, where she stood over him, and then leaned back in his chair and looked up at her. "I don't want you should begin at all. What do you mean, Silas?" She rested against the side of his desk. "Well, I don't know as I mean anything. But shouldn't you like to build? Everybody builds, at least once in a lifetime." "Where is your lot? They say it's unhealthy, over there." Up to a certain point in their prosperity Mrs. Lapham had kept strict account of all her husband's affairs; but as they expanded, and ceased to be of the retail nature with which women successfully grapple, the intimate knowledge of them made her nervous. There was a period in which she felt that they were being ruined, but the crash had not come; and, since his great success, she had abandoned herself to a blind confidence in her husband's judgment, which she had hitherto felt needed her revision. He came and went, day by day, unquestioned. He bought and sold and got gain. She knew that he would tell her if ever things went wrong, and he knew that she would ask him whenever she was anxious. "It ain't unhealthy where I've bought," said Lapham, rather enjoying her insinuation. "I looked after that when I was trading; and I guess it's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is here, anyway. I got that lot for you, Pert; I thought you'd want to build on the Back Bay some day." "Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased inwardly, but not going to show it, as she would have said. "I guess you want to build there yourself." She insensibly got a little nearer to her husband. They liked to talk to each other in that blunt way; it is the New England way of expressing perfect confidence and tenderness. "Well, I guess I do," said Lapham, not insisting upon the unselfish view of the matter. "I always did like the water side of Beacon. There ain't a sightlier place in the world for a house. And some day there's bound to be a drive-way all along behind them houses, between them and the water, and then a lot there is going to be worth the gold that will cover it--COIN. I've had offers for that lot, Pert, twice over what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't you want to ride over there some afternoon with me and see it?" "I'm satisfied where we be, Si," said Mrs. Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in her pathos at her husband's kindness. She sighed anxiously, for she felt the trouble a woman knows in view of any great change. They had often talked of altering over the house in which they lived, but they had never come to it; and they had often talked of building, but it had always been a house in the country that they had thought of. "I wish you had sold that lot." "I hain't," said the colonel briefly. "I don't know as I feel much like changing our way of living." "Guess we could live there pretty much as we live here. There's all kinds of people on Beacon Street; you mustn't think they're all big-bugs. I know one party that lives in a house he built to sell, and his wife don't keep any girl. You can have just as much style there as you want, or just as little. I guess we live as well as most of 'em now, and set as good a table. And if you come to style, I don't know as anybody has got more of a right to put it on than what we have." "Well, I don't want to build on Beacon Street, Si," said Mrs. Lapham gently. "Just as you please, Persis. I ain't in any hurry to leave." Mrs. Lapham stood flapping the cheque which she held in her right hand against the edge of her left. The Colonel still sat looking up at her face, and watching the effect of the poison of ambition which he had artfully instilled into her mind. She sighed again--a yielding sigh. "What are you going to do this afternoon?" "I'm going to take a turn on the Brighton road," said the Colonel. "I don't believe but what I should like to go along," said his wife. "All right. You hain't ever rode behind that mare yet, Pert, and I want you should see me let her out once. They say the snow's all packed down already, and the going is A 1." At four o'clock in the afternoon, with a cold, red winter sunset before them, the Colonel and his wife were driving slowly down Beacon Street in the light, high-seated cutter, where, as he said, they were a pretty tight fit. He was holding the mare in till the time came to speed her, and the mare was springily jolting over the snow, looking intelligently from side to side, and cocking this ear and that, while from her nostrils, her head tossing easily, she blew quick, irregular whiffs of steam. "Gay, ain't she?" proudly suggested the Colonel. "She IS gay," assented his wife. They met swiftly dashing sleighs, and let them pass on either hand, down the beautiful avenue narrowing with an admirably even sky-line in the perspective. They were not in a hurry. The mare jounced easily along, and they talked of the different houses on either side of the way. They had a crude taste in architecture, and they admired the worst. There were women's faces at many of the handsome windows, and once in a while a young man on the pavement caught his hat suddenly from his head, and bowed in response to some salutation from within. "I don't think our girls would look very bad behind one of those big panes," said the Colonel. "No," said his wife dreamily. "Where's the YOUNG man? Did he come with them?" "No; he was to spend the winter with a friend of his that has a ranch in Texas. I guess he's got to do something." "Yes; gentlemaning as a profession has got to play out in a generation or two." Neither of them spoke of the lot, though Lapham knew perfectly well what his wife had come with him for, and she was aware that he knew it. The time came when he brought the mare down to a walk, and then slowed up almost to a stop, while they both turned their heads to the right and looked at the vacant lot, through which showed the frozen stretch of the Back Bay, a section of the Long Bridge, and the roofs and smoke-stacks of Charlestown. "Yes, it's sightly," said Mrs. Lapham, lifting her hand from the reins, on which she had unconsciously laid it. Lapham said nothing, but he let the mare out a little. The sleighs and cutters were thickening round them. On the Milldam it became difficult to restrict the mare to the long, slow trot into which he let her break. The beautiful landscape widened to right and left of them, with the sunset redder and redder, over the low, irregular hills before them. They crossed the Milldam into Longwood; and here, from the crest of the first upland, stretched two endless lines, in which thousands of cutters went and came. Some of the drivers were already speeding their horses, and these shot to and fro on inner lines, between the slowly moving vehicles on either side of the road. Here and there a burly mounted policeman, bulging over the pommel of his M'Clellan saddle, jolted by, silently gesturing and directing the course, and keeping it all under the eye of the law. It was what Bartley Hubbard called "a carnival of fashion and gaiety on the Brighton road," in his account of it. But most of the people in those elegant sleighs and cutters had so little the air of the great world that one knowing it at all must have wondered where they and their money came from; and the gaiety of the men, at least, was expressed, like that of Colonel Lapham, in a grim almost fierce, alertness; the women wore an air of courageous apprehension. At a certain point the Colonel said, "I'm going to let her out, Pert," and he lifted and then dropped the reins lightly on the mare's back. She understood the signal, and, as an admirer said, "she laid down to her work." Nothing in the immutable iron of Lapham's face betrayed his sense of triumph as the mare left everything behind her on the road. Mrs. Lapham, if she felt fear, was too busy holding her flying wraps about her, and shielding her face from the scud of ice flung from the mare's heels, to betray it; except for the rush of her feet, the mare was as silent as the people behind her; the muscles of her back and thighs worked more and more swiftly, like some mechanism responding to an alien force, and she shot to the end of the course, grazing a hundred encountered and rival sledges in her passage, but unmolested by the policemen, who probably saw that the mare and the Colonel knew what they were about, and, at any rate, were not the sort of men to interfere with trotting like that. At the end of the heat Lapham drew her in, and turned off on a side street into Brookline. "Tell you what, Pert," he said, as if they had been quietly jogging along, with time for uninterrupted thought since he last spoke, "I've about made up my mind to build on that lot." "All right, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham; "I suppose you know what you're about. Don't build on it for me, that's all." When she stood in the hall at home, taking off her things, she said to the girls, who were helping her, "Some day your father will get killed with that mare." "Did he speed her?" asked Penelope, the elder. She was named after her grandmother, who had in her turn inherited from another ancestress the name of the Homeric matron whose peculiar merits won her a place even among the Puritan Faiths, Hopes, Temperances, and Prudences. Penelope was the girl whose odd serious face had struck Bartley Hubbard in the photograph of the family group Lapham showed him on the day of the interview. Her large eyes, like her hair, were brown; they had the peculiar look of near-sighted eyes which is called mooning; her complexion was of a dark pallor. Her mother did not reply to a question which might be considered already answered. "He says he's going to build on that lot of his," she next remarked, unwinding the long veil which she had tied round her neck to hold her bonnet on. She put her hat and cloak on the hall table, to be carried upstairs later, and they all went in to tea: creamed oysters, birds, hot biscuit, two kinds of cake, and dishes of stewed and canned fruit and honey. The women dined alone at one, and the Colonel at the same hour down-town. But he liked a good hot meal when he got home in the evening. The house flared with gas; and the Colonel, before he sat down, went about shutting the registers, through which a welding heat came voluming up from the furnace. "I'll be the death of that darkey YET," he said, "if he don't stop making on such a fire. The only way to get any comfort out of your furnace is to take care of it yourself." "Well," answered his wife from behind the teapot, as he sat down at table with this threat, "there's nothing to prevent you, Si. And you can shovel the snow too, if you want to--till you get over to Beacon Street, anyway." "I guess I can keep my own sidewalk on Beacon Street clean, if I take the notion." "I should like to see you at it," retorted his wife. "Well, you keep a sharp lookout, and may be you will." Their taunts were really expressions of affectionate pride in each other. They liked to have it, give and take, that way, as they would have said, right along. "A man can be a man on Beacon Street as well as anywhere, I guess." "Well, I'll do the wash, as I used to in Lumberville," said Mrs. Lapham. "I presume you'll let me have set tubs, Si. You know I ain't so young any more." She passed Irene a cup of Oolong tea,--none of them had a sufficiently cultivated palate for Sou-chong,--and the girl handed it to her father. "Papa," she asked, "you don't really mean that you're going to build over there?" "Don't I? You wait and see," said the Colonel, stirring his tea. "I don't believe you do," pursued the girl. "Is that so? I presume you'd hate to have me. Your mother does." He said DOOS, of course. Penelope took the word. "I go in for it. I don't see any use in not enjoying money, if you've got it to enjoy. That's what it's for, I suppose; though you mightn't always think so." She had a slow, quaint way of talking, that seemed a pleasant personal modification of some ancestral Yankee drawl, and her voice was low and cozy, and so far from being nasal that it was a little hoarse. "I guess the ayes has it, Pen," said her father. "How would it do to let Irene and your mother stick in the old place here, and us go into the new house?" At times the Colonel's grammar failed him. The matter dropped, and the Laphams lived on as before, with joking recurrences to the house on the water side of Beacon. The Colonel seemed less in earnest than any of them about it; but that was his way, his girls said; you never could tell when he really meant a thing. III. TOWARD the end of the winter there came a newspaper, addressed to Miss Irene Lapham; it proved to be a Texas newspaper, with a complimentary account of the ranch of the Hon. Loring G. Stanton, which the representative of the journal had visited. "It must be his friend," said Mrs. Lapham, to whom her daughter brought the paper; "the one he's staying with." The girl did not say anything, but she carried the paper to her room, where she scanned every line of it for another name. She did not find it, but she cut the notice out and stuck it into the side of her mirror, where she could read it every morning when she brushed her hair, and the last thing at night when she looked at herself in the glass just before turning off the gas. Her sister often read it aloud, standing behind her and rendering it with elocutionary effects. "The first time I ever heard of a love-letter in the form of a puff to a cattle-ranch. But perhaps that's the style on the Hill." Mrs. Lapham told her husband of the arrival of the paper, treating the fact with an importance that he refused to see in it. "How do you know the fellow sent it, anyway?" he demanded. "Oh, I know he did." "I don't see why he couldn't write to 'Rene, if he really meant anything." "Well, I guess that wouldn't be their way," said Mrs. Lapham; she did not at all know what their way would be. When the spring opened Colonel Lapham showed that he had been in earnest about building on the New Land. His idea of a house was a brown-stone front, four stories high, and a French roof with an air-chamber above. Inside, there was to be a reception-room on the street and a dining-room back. The parlours were to be on the second floor, and finished in black walnut or party-coloured paint. The chambers were to be on the three floors above, front and rear, with side-rooms over the front door. Black walnut was to be used everywhere except in the attic, which was to be painted and grained to look like black walnut. The whole was to be very high-studded, and there were to be handsome cornices and elaborate centre-pieces throughout, except, again, in the attic. These ideas he had formed from the inspection of many new buildings which he had seen going up, and which he had a passion for looking into. He was confirmed in his ideas by a master builder who had put up a great many houses on the Back Bay as a speculation, and who told him that if he wanted to have a house in the style, that was the way to have it. The beginnings of the process by which Lapham escaped from the master builder and ended in the hands of an architect are so obscure that it would be almost impossible to trace them. But it all happened, and Lapham promptly developed his ideas of black walnut finish, high studding, and cornices. The architect was able to conceal the shudder which they must have sent through him. He was skilful, as nearly all architects are, in playing upon that simple instrument Man. He began to touch Colonel Lapham's stops. "Oh, certainly, have the parlours high-studded. But you've seen some of those pretty old-fashioned country-houses, haven't you, where the entrance-story is very low-studded?" "Yes," Lapham assented. "Well, don't you think something of that kind would have a very nice effect? Have the entrance-story low-studded, and your parlours on the next floor as high as you please. Put your little reception-room here beside the door, and get the whole width of your house frontage for a square hall, and an easy low-tread staircase running up three sides of it. I'm sure Mrs. Lapham would find it much pleasanter." The architect caught toward him a scrap of paper lying on the table at which they were sitting and sketched his idea. "Then have your dining-room behind the hall, looking on the water." He glanced at Mrs. Lapham, who said, "Of course," and the architect went on-- "That gets you rid of one of those long, straight, ugly staircases,"--until that moment Lapham had thought a long, straight staircase the chief ornament of a house,--"and gives you an effect of amplitude and space." "That's so!" said Mrs. Lapham. Her husband merely made a noise in his throat. "Then, were you thinking of having your parlours together, connected by folding doors?" asked the architect deferentially. "Yes, of course," said Lapham. "They're always so, ain't they?" "Well, nearly," said the architect. "I was wondering how would it do to make one large square room at the front, taking the whole breadth of the house, and, with this hall-space between, have a music-room back for the young ladies?" Lapham looked helplessly at his wife, whose quicker apprehension had followed the architect's pencil with instant sympathy. "First-rate!" she cried. The Colonel gave way. "I guess that would do. It'll be kind of odd, won't it?" "Well, I don't know," said the architect. "Not so odd, I hope, as the other thing will be a few years from now." He went on to plan the rest of the house, and he showed himself such a master in regard to all the practical details that Mrs. Lapham began to feel a motherly affection for the young man, and her husband could not deny in his heart that the fellow seemed to understand his business. He stopped walking about the room, as he had begun to do when the architect and Mrs. Lapham entered into the particulars of closets, drainage, kitchen arrangements, and all that, and came back to the table. "I presume," he said, "you'll have the drawing-room finished in black walnut?" "Well, yes," replied the architect, "if you like. But some less expensive wood can be made just as effective with paint. Of course you can paint black walnut too." "Paint it?" gasped the Colonel. "Yes," said the architect quietly. "White, or a little off white." Lapham dropped the plan he had picked up from the table. His wife made a little move toward him of consolation or support. "Of course," resumed the architect, "I know there has been a great craze for black walnut. But it's an ugly wood; and for a drawing-room there is really nothing like white paint. We should want to introduce a little gold here and there. Perhaps we might run a painted frieze round under the cornice--garlands of roses on a gold ground; it would tell wonderfully in a white room." The Colonel returned less courageously to the charge. "I presume you'll want Eastlake mantel-shelves and tiles?" He meant this for a sarcastic thrust at a prevailing foible of the profession. "Well, no," gently answered the architect. "I was thinking perhaps a white marble chimney-piece, treated in the refined Empire style, would be the thing for that room." "White marble!" exclaimed the Colonel. "I thought that had gone out long ago." "Really beautiful things can't go out. They may disappear for a little while, but they must come back. It's only the ugly things that stay out after they've had their day." Lapham could only venture very modestly, "Hard-wood floors?" "In the music-room, of course," consented the architect. "And in the drawing-room?" "Carpet. Some sort of moquette, I should say. But I should prefer to consult Mrs. Lapham's taste in that matter." "And in the other rooms?" "Oh, carpets, of course." "And what about the stairs?" "Carpet. And I should have the rail and banisters white--banisters turned or twisted." The Colonel said under his breath, "Well, I'm dumned!" but he gave no utterance to his astonishment in the architect's presence. When he went at last,--the session did not end till eleven o'clock,--Lapham said, "Well, Pert, I guess that fellow's fifty years behind, or ten years ahead. I wonder what the Ongpeer style is?" "I don't know. I hated to ask. But he seemed to understand what he was talking about. I declare, he knows what a woman wants in a house better than she does herself." "And a man's simply nowhere in comparison," said Lapham. But he respected a fellow who could beat him at every point, and have a reason ready, as this architect had; and when he recovered from the daze into which the complete upheaval of all his preconceived notions had left him, he was in a fit state to swear by the architect. It seemed to him that he had discovered the fellow (as he always called him) and owned him now, and the fellow did nothing to disturb this impression. He entered into that brief but intense intimacy with the Laphams which the sympathetic architect holds with his clients. He was privy to all their differences of opinion and all their disputes about the house. He knew just where to insist upon his own ideas, and where to yield. He was really building several other houses, but he gave the Laphams the impression that he was doing none but theirs. The work was not begun till the frost was thoroughly out of the ground, which that year was not before the end of April. Even then it did not proceed very rapidly. Lapham said they might as well take their time to it; if they got the walls up and the thing closed in before the snow flew, they could be working at it all winter. It was found necessary to dig for the kitchen; at that point the original salt-marsh lay near the surface, and before they began to put in the piles for the foundation they had to pump. The neighbourhood smelt like the hold of a ship after a three years' voyage. People who had cast their fortunes with the New Land went by professing not to notice it; people who still "hung on to the Hill" put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and told each other the old terrible stories of the material used in filling up the Back Bay. Nothing gave Lapham so much satisfaction in the whole construction of his house as the pile-driving. When this began, early in the summer, he took Mrs. Lapham every day in his buggy and drove round to look at it; stopping the mare in front of the lot, and watching the operation with even keener interest than the little loafing Irish boys who superintended it in force. It pleased him to hear the portable engine chuckle out a hundred thin whiffs of steam in carrying the big iron weight to the top of the framework above the pile, then seem to hesitate, and cough once or twice in pressing the weight against the detaching apparatus. There was a moment in which the weight had the effect of poising before it fell; then it dropped with a mighty whack on the iron-bound head of the pile, and drove it a foot into the earth. "By gracious!" he would say, "there ain't anything like that in THIS world for BUSINESS, Persis!" Mrs. Lapham suffered him to enjoy the sight twenty or thirty times before she said, "Well, now drive on, Si." By the time the foundation was in and the brick walls had begun to go up, there were so few people left in the neighbourhood that she might indulge with impunity her husband's passion for having her clamber over the floor-timbers and the skeleton stair-cases with him. Many of the householders had boarded up their front doors before the buds had begun to swell and the assessor to appear in early May; others had followed soon; and Mrs. Lapham was as safe from remark as if she had been in the depth of the country. Ordinarily she and her girls left town early in July, going to one of the hotels at Nantasket, where it was convenient for the Colonel to get to and from his business by the boat. But this summer they were all lingering a few weeks later, under the novel fascination of the new house, as they called it, as if there were no other in the world. Lapham drove there with his wife after he had set Bartley Hubbard down at the Events office, but on this day something happened that interfered with the solid pleasure they usually took in going over the house. As the Colonel turned from casting anchor at the mare's head with the hitching-weight, after helping his wife to alight, he encountered a man to whom he could not help speaking, though the man seemed to share his hesitation if not his reluctance at the necessity. He was a tallish, thin man, with a dust-coloured face, and a dead, clerical air, which somehow suggested at once feebleness and tenacity. Mrs. Lapham held out her hand to him. "Why, Mr. Rogers!" she exclaimed; and then, turning toward her husband, seemed to refer the two men to each other. They shook hands, but Lapham did not speak. "I didn't know you were in Boston," pursued Mrs. Lapham. "Is Mrs. Rogers with you?" "No," said Mr. Rogers, with a voice which had the flat, succinct sound of two pieces of wood clapped together. "Mrs. Rogers is still in Chicago." A little silence followed, and then Mrs Lapham said-- "I presume you are quite settled out there." "No; we have left Chicago. Mrs. Rogers has merely remained to finish up a little packing." "Oh, indeed! Are you coming back to Boston?" "I cannot say as yet. We sometimes think of so doing." Lapham turned away and looked up at the building. His wife pulled a little at her glove, as if embarrassed, or even pained. She tried to make a diversion. "We are building a house," she said, with a meaningless laugh. "Oh, indeed," said Mr. Rogers, looking up at it. Then no one spoke again, and she said helplessly-- "If you come to Boston, I hope I shall see Mrs. Rogers." "She will be happy to have you call," said Mr Rogers. He touched his hat-brim, and made a bow forward rather than in Mrs. Lapham's direction. She mounted the planking that led into the shelter of the bare brick walls, and her husband slowly followed. When she turned her face toward him her cheeks were burning, and tears that looked hot stood in her eyes. "You left it all to me!" she cried. "Why couldn't you speak a word?" "I hadn't anything to say to him," replied Lapham sullenly. They stood a while, without looking at the work which they had come to enjoy, and without speaking to each other. "I suppose we might as well go on," said Mrs. Lapham at last, as they returned to the buggy. The Colonel drove recklessly toward the Milldam. His wife kept her veil down and her face turned from him. After a time she put her handkerchief up under her veil and wiped her eyes, and he set his teeth and squared his jaw. "I don't see how he always manages to appear just at the moment when he seems to have gone fairly out of our lives, and blight everything," she whimpered. "I supposed he was dead," said Lapham. "Oh, don't SAY such a thing! It sounds as if you wished it." "Why do you mind it? What do you let him blight everything for?" "I can't help it, and I don't believe I ever shall. I don't know as his being dead would help it any. I can't ever see him without feeling just as I did at first." "I tell you," said Lapham, "it was a perfectly square thing. And I wish, once for all, you would quit bothering about it. My conscience is easy as far as he is concerned, and it always was." "And I can't look at him without feeling as if you'd ruined him, Silas." "Don't look at him, then," said her husband, with a scowl. "I want you should recollect in the first place, Persis, that I never wanted a partner." "If he hadn't put his money in when he did, you'd 'a' broken down." "Well, he got his money out again, and more, too," said the Colonel, with a sulky weariness. "He didn't want to take it out." "I gave him his choice: buy out or go out." "You know he couldn't buy out then. It was no choice at all." "It was a business chance." "No; you had better face the truth, Silas. It was no chance at all. You crowded him out. A man that had saved you! No, you had got greedy, Silas. You had made your paint your god, and you couldn't bear to let anybody else share in its blessings." "I tell you he was a drag and a brake on me from the word go. You say he saved me. Well, if I hadn't got him out he'd 'a' ruined me sooner or later. So it's an even thing, as far forth as that goes." "No, it ain't an even thing, and you know it, Silas. Oh, if I could only get you once to acknowledge that you did wrong about it, then I should have some hope. I don't say you meant wrong exactly, but you took an advantage. Yes, you took an advantage! You had him where he couldn't help himself, and then you wouldn't show him any mercy." "I'm sick of this," said Lapham. "If you'll 'tend to the house, I'll manage my business without your help." "You were very glad of my help once." "Well, I'm tired of it now. Don't meddle." "I WILL meddle. When I see you hardening yourself in a wrong thing, it's time for me to meddle, as you call it, and I will. I can't ever get you to own up the least bit about Rogers, and I feel as if it was hurting you all the while." "What do you want I should own up about a thing for when I don't feel wrong? I tell you Rogers hain't got anything to complain of, and that's what I told you from the start. It's a thing that's done every day. I was loaded up with a partner that didn't know anything, and couldn't do anything, and I unloaded; that's all." "You unloaded just at the time when you knew that your paint was going to be worth about twice what it ever had been; and you wanted all the advantage for yourself." "I had a right to it. I made the success." "Yes, you made it with Rogers's money; and when you'd made it you took his share of it. I guess you thought of that when you saw him, and that's why you couldn't look him in the face." At these words Lapham lost his temper. "I guess you don't want to ride with me any more to-day," he said, turning the mare abruptly round. "I'm as ready to go back as what you are," replied his wife. "And don't you ask me to go to that house with you any more. You can sell it, for all me. I sha'n't live in it. There's blood on it." IV. THE silken texture of the marriage tie bears a daily strain of wrong and insult to which no other human relation can be subjected without lesion; and sometimes the strength that knits society together might appear to the eye of faltering faith the curse of those immediately bound by it. Two people by no means reckless of each other's rights and feelings, but even tender of them for the most part, may tear at each other's heart-strings in this sacred bond with perfect impunity; though if they were any other two they would not speak or look at each other again after the outrages they exchange. It is certainly a curious spectacle, and doubtless it ought to convince an observer of the divinity of the institution. If the husband and wife are blunt, outspoken people like the Laphams, they do not weigh their words; if they are more refined, they weigh them very carefully, and know accurately just how far they will carry, and in what most sensitive spot they may be planted with most effect. Lapham was proud of his wife, and when he married her it had been a rise in life for him. For a while he stood in awe of his good fortune, but this could not last, and he simply remained supremely satisfied with it. The girl who had taught school with a clear head and a strong hand was not afraid of work; she encouraged and helped him from the first, and bore her full share of the common burden. She had health, and she did not worry his life out with peevish complaints and vagaries; she had sense and principle, and in their simple lot she did what was wise and right. Their marriage was hallowed by an early sorrow: they lost their boy, and it was years before they could look each other in the face and speak of him. No one gave up more than they when they gave up each other and Lapham went to the war. When he came back and began to work, her zeal and courage formed the spring of his enterprise. In that affair of the partnership she had tried to be his conscience, but perhaps she would have defended him if he had accused himself; it was one of those things in this life which seem destined to await justice, or at least judgment, in the next. As he said, Lapham had dealt fairly by his partner in money; he had let Rogers take more money out of the business than he put into it; he had, as he said, simply forced out of it a timid and inefficient participant in advantages which he had created. But Lapham had not created them all. He had been dependent at one time on his partner's capital. It was a moment of terrible trial. Happy is the man for ever after who can choose the ideal, the unselfish part in such an exigency! Lapham could not rise to it. He did what he could maintain to be perfectly fair. The wrong, if any, seemed to be condoned to him, except when from time to time his wife brought it up. Then all the question stung and burned anew, and had to be reasoned out and put away once more. It seemed to have an inextinguishable vitality. It slept, but it did not die. His course did not shake Mrs. Lapham's faith in him. It astonished her at first, and it always grieved her that he could not see that he was acting solely in his own interest. But she found excuses for him, which at times she made reproaches. She vaguely perceived that his paint was something more than business to him; it was a sentiment, almost a passion. He could not share its management and its profit with another without a measure of self-sacrifice far beyond that which he must make with something less personal to him. It was the poetry of that nature, otherwise so intensely prosaic; and she understood this, and for the most part forbore. She knew him good and true and blameless in all his life, except for this wrong, if it were a wrong; and it was only when her nerves tingled intolerably with some chance renewal of the pain she had suffered, that she shared her anguish with him in true wifely fashion. With those two there was never anything like an explicit reconciliation. They simply ignored a quarrel; and Mrs. Lapham had only to say a few days after at breakfast, "I guess the girls would like to go round with you this afternoon, and look at the new house," in order to make her husband grumble out as he looked down into his coffee-cup. "I guess we better all go, hadn't we?" "Well, I'll see," she said. There was not really a great deal to look at when Lapham arrived on the ground in his four-seated beach-wagon. But the walls were up, and the studding had already given skeleton shape to the interior. The floors were roughly boarded over, and the stairways were in place, with provisional treads rudely laid. They had not begun to lath and plaster yet, but the clean, fresh smell of the mortar in the walls mingling with the pungent fragrance of the pine shavings neutralised the Venetian odour that drew in over the water. It was pleasantly shady there, though for the matter of that the heat of the morning had all been washed out of the atmosphere by a tide of east wind setting in at noon, and the thrilling, delicious cool of a Boston summer afternoon bathed every nerve. The foreman went about with Mrs. Lapham, showing her where the doors were to be; but Lapham soon tired of this, and having found a pine stick of perfect grain, he abandoned himself to the pleasure of whittling it in what was to be the reception-room, where he sat looking out on the street from what was to be the bay-window. Here he was presently joined by his girls, who, after locating their own room on the water side above the music-room, had no more wish to enter into details than their father. "Come and take a seat in the bay-window, ladies," he called out to them, as they looked in at him through the ribs of the wall. He jocosely made room for them on the trestle on which he sat. They came gingerly and vaguely forward, as young ladies do when they wish not to seem to be going to do a thing they have made up their minds to do. When they had taken their places on their trestle, they could not help laughing with scorn, open and acceptable to their father; and Irene curled her chin up, in a little way she had, and said, "How ridiculous!" to her sister. "Well, I can tell you what," said the Colonel, in fond enjoyment of their young ladyishness, "your mother wa'n't ashamed to sit with me on a trestle when I called her out to look at the first coat of my paint that I ever tried on a house." "Yes; we've heard that story," said Penelope, with easy security of her father's liking what she said. "We were brought up on that story." "Well, it's a good story," said her father. At that moment a young man came suddenly in range, who began to look up at the signs of building as he approached. He dropped his eyes in coming abreast of the bay-window, where Lapham sat with his girls, and then his face lightened, and he took off his hat and bowed to Irene. She rose mechanically from the trestle, and her face lightened too. She was a very pretty figure of a girl, after our fashion of girls, round and slim and flexible, and her face was admirably regular. But her great beauty--and it was very great--was in her colouring. This was of an effect for which there is no word but delicious, as we use it of fruit or flowers. She had red hair, like her father in his earlier days, and the tints of her cheeks and temples were such as suggested May-flowers and apple-blossoms and peaches. Instead of the grey that often dulls this complexion, her eyes were of a blue at once intense and tender, and they seemed to burn on what they looked at with a soft, lambent flame. It was well understood by her sister and mother that her eyes always expressed a great deal more than Irene ever thought or felt; but this is not saying that she was not a very sensible girl and very honest. The young man faltered perceptibly, and Irene came a little forward, and then there gushed from them both a smiling exchange of greeting, of which the sum was that he supposed she was out of town, and that she had not known that he had got back. A pause ensued, and flushing again in her uncertainty as to whether she ought or ought not to do it, she said, "My father, Mr. Corey; and my sister." The young man took off his hat again, showing his shapely head, with a line of wholesome sunburn ceasing where the recently and closely clipped hair began. He was dressed in a fine summer check, with a blue white-dotted neckerchief, and he had a white hat, in which he looked very well when he put it back on his head. His whole dress seemed very fresh and new, and in fact he had cast aside his Texan habiliments only the day before. "How do you do, sir?" said the Colonel, stepping to the window, and reaching out of it the hand which the young man advanced to take. "Won't you come in? We're at home here. House I'm building." "Oh, indeed?" returned the young man; and he came promptly up the steps, and through its ribs into the reception-room. "Have a trestle?" asked the Colonel, while the girls exchanged little shocks of terror and amusement at the eyes. "Thank you," said the young man simply, and sat down. "Mrs. Lapham is upstairs interviewing the carpenter, but she'll be down in a minute." "I hope she's quite well," said Corey. "I supposed--I was afraid she might be out of town." "Well, we are off to Nantasket next week. The house kept us in town pretty late." "It must be very exciting, building a house," said Corey to the elder sister. "Yes, it is," she assented, loyally refusing in Irene's interest the opportunity of saying anything more. Corey turned to the latter. "I suppose you've all helped to plan it?" "Oh no; the architect and mamma did that." "But they allowed the rest of us to agree, when we were good," said Penelope. Corey looked at her, and saw that she was shorter than her sister, and had a dark complexion. "It's very exciting," said Irene. "Come up," said the Colonel, rising, "and look round if you'd like to." "I should like to, very much," said the young man. He helped the young ladies over crevasses of carpentry and along narrow paths of planking, on which they had made their way unassisted before. The elder sister left the younger to profit solely by these offices as much as possible. She walked between them and her father, who went before, lecturing on each apartment, and taking the credit of the whole affair more and more as he talked on. "There!" he said, "we're going to throw out a bay-window here, so as get the water all the way up and down. This is my girls' room," he added, looking proudly at them both. It seemed terribly intimate. Irene blushed deeply and turned her head away. But the young man took it all, apparently, as simply as their father. "What a lovely lookout!" he said. The Back Bay spread its glassy sheet before them, empty but for a few small boats and a large schooner, with her sails close-furled and dripping like snow from her spars, which a tug was rapidly towing toward Cambridge. The carpentry of that city, embanked and embowered in foliage, shared the picturesqueness of Charlestown in the distance. "Yes," said Lapham, "I go in for using the best rooms in your house yourself. If people come to stay with you, they can put up with the second best. Though we don't intend to have any second best. There ain't going to be an unpleasant room in the whole house, from top to bottom." "Oh, I wish papa wouldn't brag so!" breathed Irene to her sister, where they stood, a little apart, looking away together. The Colonel went on. "No, sir," he swelled out, "I have gone in for making a regular job of it. I've got the best architect in Boston, and I'm building a house to suit myself. And if money can do it, guess I'm going to be suited." "It seems very delightful," said Corey, "and very original." "Yes, sir. That fellow hadn't talked five minutes before I saw that he knew what he was about every time." "I wish mamma would come!" breathed Irene again. "I shall certainly go through the floor if papa says anything more." "They are making a great many very pretty houses nowadays," said the young man. "It's very different from the old-fashioned building." "Well," said the Colonel, with a large toleration of tone and a deep breath that expanded his ample chest, "we spend more on our houses nowadays. I started out to build a forty-thousand-dollar house. Well, sir! that fellow has got me in for more than sixty thousand already, and I doubt if I get out of it much under a hundred. You can't have a nice house for nothing. It's just like ordering a picture of a painter. You pay him enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class picture; and if you don't, he can't. That's all there is of it. Why, they tell me that A. T. Stewart gave one of those French fellows sixty thousand dollars for a little seven-by-nine picture the other day. Yes, sir, give an architect money enough, and he'll give you a nice house every time." "I've heard that they're sharp at getting money to realise their ideas," assented the young man, with a laugh. "Well, I should say so!" exclaimed the Colonel. "They come to you with an improvement that you can't resist. It has good looks and common-sense and everything in its favour, and it's like throwing money away to refuse. And they always manage to get you when your wife is around, and then you're helpless." The Colonel himself set the example of laughing at this joke, and the young man joined him less obstreperously. The girls turned, and he said, "I don't think I ever saw this view to better advantage. It's surprising how well the Memorial Hall and the Cambridge spires work up, over there. And the sunsets must be magnificent." Lapham did not wait for them to reply. "Yes, sir, it's about the sightliest view I know of. I always did like the water side of Beacon. Long before I owned property here, or ever expected to, m'wife and I used to ride down this way, and stop the buggy to get this view over the water. When people talk to me about the Hill, I can understand 'em. It's snug, and it's old-fashioned, and it's where they've always lived. But when they talk about Commonwealth Avenue, I don't know what they mean. It don't hold a candle to the water side of Beacon. You've got just as much wind over there, and you've got just as much dust, and all the view you've got is the view across the street. No, sir! when you come to the Back Bay at all, give me the water side of Beacon." "Oh, I think you're quite right," said the young man. "The view here is everything." Irene looked "I wonder what papa is going to say next!" at her sister, when their mother's voice was heard overhead, approaching the opening in the floor where the stairs were to be; and she presently appeared, with one substantial foot a long way ahead. She was followed by the carpenter, with his rule sticking out of his overalls pocket, and she was still talking to him about some measurements they had been taking, when they reached the bottom, so that Irene had to say, "Mamma, Mr. Corey," before Mrs. Lapham was aware of him. He came forward with as much grace and speed as the uncertain footing would allow, and Mrs. Lapham gave him a stout squeeze of her comfortable hand. "Why, Mr. Corey! When did you get back?" "Yesterday. It hardly seems as if I HAD got back. I didn't expect to find you in a new house." "Well, you are our first caller. I presume you won't expect I should make excuses for the state you find it in. Has the Colonel been doing the honours?" "Oh yes. And I've seen more of your house than I ever shall again, I suppose." "Well, I hope not," said Lapham. "There'll be several chances to see us in the old one yet, before we leave." He probably thought this a neat, off-hand way of making the invitation, for he looked at his woman-kind as if he might expect their admiration. "Oh yes, indeed!" said his wife. "We shall be very glad to see Mr. Corey, any time." "Thank you; I shall be glad to come." He and the Colonel went before, and helped the ladies down the difficult descent. Irene seemed less sure-footed than the others; she clung to the young man's hand an imperceptible moment longer than need be, or else he detained her. He found opportunity of saying, "It's so pleasant seeing you again," adding, "all of you." "Thank you," said the girl. "They must all be glad to have you at home again." Corey laughed. "Well, I suppose they would be, if they were at home to have me. But the fact is, there's nobody in the house but my father and myself, and I'm only on my way to Bar Harbour." "Oh! Are they there?" "Yes; it seems to be the only place where my mother can get just the combination of sea and mountain air that she wants." "We go to Nantasket--it's convenient for papa; and I don't believe we shall go anywhere else this summer, mamma's so taken up with building. We do nothing but talk house; and Pen says we eat and sleep house. She says it would be a sort of relief to go and live in tents for a while." "She seems to have a good deal of humour," the young man ventured, upon the slender evidence. The others had gone to the back of the house a moment, to look at some suggested change. Irene and Corey were left standing in the doorway. A lovely light of happiness played over her face and etherealised its delicious beauty. She had some ado to keep herself from smiling outright, and the effort deepened the dimples in her cheeks; she trembled a little, and the pendants shook in the tips of her pretty ears. The others came back directly, and they all descended the front steps together. The Colonel was about to renew his invitation, but he caught his wife's eye, and, without being able to interpret its warning exactly, was able to arrest himself, and went about gathering up the hitching-weight, while the young man handed the ladies into the phaeton. Then he lifted his hat, and the ladies all bowed, and the Laphams drove off, Irene's blue ribbons fluttering backward from her hat, as if they were her clinging thoughts. "So that's young Corey, is it?" said the Colonel, letting the stately stepping, tall coupe horse make his way homeward at will with the beach-wagon. "Well, he ain't a bad-looking fellow, and he's got a good, fair and square, honest eye. But I don't see how a fellow like that, that's had every advantage in this world, can hang round home and let his father support him. Seems to me, if I had his health and his education, I should want to strike out and do something for myself." The girls on the back seat had hold of each other's hands, and they exchanged electrical pressures at the different points their father made. "I presume," said Mrs. Lapham, "that he was down in Texas looking after something." "He's come back without finding it, I guess." "Well, if his father has the money to support him, and don't complain of the burden, I don't see why WE should." "Oh, I know it's none of my business, but I don't like the principle. I like to see a man ACT like a man. I don't like to see him taken care of like a young lady. Now, I suppose that fellow belongs to two or three clubs, and hangs around 'em all day, lookin' out the window,--I've seen 'em,--instead of tryin' to hunt up something to do for an honest livin'." "If I was a young man," Penelope struck in, "I would belong to twenty clubs, if I could find them and I would hang around them all, and look out the window till I dropped." "Oh, you would, would you?" demanded her father, delighted with her defiance, and twisting his fat head around over his shoulder to look at her. "Well, you wouldn't do it on my money, if you were a son of MINE, young lady." "Oh, you wait and see," retorted the girl. This made them all laugh. But the Colonel recurred seriously to the subject that night, as he was winding up his watch preparatory to putting it under his pillow. "I could make a man of that fellow, if I had him in the business with me. There's stuff in him. But I spoke up the way I did because I didn't choose Irene should think I would stand any kind of a loafer 'round--I don't care who he is, or how well educated or brought up. And I guess, from the way Pen spoke up, that 'Rene saw what I was driving at." The girl, apparently, was less anxious about her father's ideas and principles than about the impression which he had made upon the young man. She had talked it over and over with her sister before they went to bed, and she asked in despair, as she stood looking at Penelope brushing out her hair before the glass-- "Do you suppose he'll think papa always talks in that bragging way?" "He'll be right if he does," answered her sister. "It's the way father always does talk. You never noticed it so much, that's all. And I guess if he can't make allowance for father's bragging, he'll be a little too good. I enjoyed hearing the Colonel go on." "I know you did," returned Irene in distress. Then she sighed. "Didn't you think he looked very nice?" "Who? The Colonel?" Penelope had caught up the habit of calling her father so from her mother, and she used his title in all her jocose and perverse moods. "You know very well I don't mean papa," pouted Irene. "Oh! Mr. Corey! Why didn't you say Mr. Corey if you meant Mr. Corey? If I meant Mr. Corey, I should say Mr. Corey. It isn't swearing! Corey, Corey, Co----" Her sister clapped her hand over her mouth "Will you HUSH, you wretched thing?" she whimpered. "The whole house can hear you." "Oh yes, they can hear me all over the square. Well, I think he looked well enough for a plain youth, who hadn't taken his hair out of curl-papers for some time." "It WAS clipped pretty close," Irene admitted; and they both laughed at the drab effect of Mr. Corey's skull, as they remembered it. "Did you like his nose?" asked Irene timorously. "Ah, now you're COMING to something," said Penelope. "I don't know whether, if I had so much of a nose, I should want it all Roman." "I don't see how you can expect to have a nose part one kind and part another," argued Irene. "Oh, I do. Look at mine!" She turned aside her face, so as to get a three-quarters view of her nose in the glass, and crossing her hands, with the brush in one of them, before her, regarded it judicially. "Now, my nose started Grecian, but changed its mind before it got over the bridge, and concluded to be snub the rest of the way." "You've got a very pretty nose, Pen," said Irene, joining in the contemplation of its reflex in the glass. "Don't say that in hopes of getting me to compliment HIS, Mrs."--she stopped, and then added deliberately--"C.!" Irene also had her hair-brush in her hand, and now she sprang at her sister and beat her very softly on the shoulder with the flat of it. "You mean thing!" she cried, between her shut teeth, blushing hotly. "Well, D., then," said Penelope. "You've nothing to say against D.? Though I think C. is just as nice an initial." "Oh!" cried the younger, for all expression of unspeakable things. "I think he has very good eyes," admitted Penelope. "Oh, he HAS! And didn't you like the way his sackcoat set? So close to him, and yet free--kind of peeling away at the lapels?" "Yes, I should say he was a young man of great judgment. He knows how to choose his tailor." Irene sat down on the edge of a chair. "It was so nice of you, Pen, to come in, that way, about clubs." "Oh, I didn't mean anything by it except opposition," said Penelope. "I couldn't have father swelling on so, without saying something." "How he did swell!" sighed Irene. "Wasn't it a relief to have mamma come down, even if she did seem to be all stocking at first?" The girls broke into a wild giggle, and hid their faces in each other's necks. "I thought I SHOULD die," said Irene. "'It's just like ordering a painting,'" said Penelope, recalling her father's talk, with an effect of dreamy absent-mindedness. "'You give the painter money enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class picture. Give an architect money enough, and he'll give you a first-class house, every time.'" "Oh, wasn't it awful!" moaned her sister. "No one would ever have supposed that he had fought the very idea of an architect for weeks, before he gave in." Penelope went on. "'I always did like the water side of Beacon,--long before I owned property there. When you come to the Back Bay at all, give me the water side of Beacon.'" "Ow-w-w-w!" shrieked Irene. "DO stop!" The door of their mother's chamber opened below, and the voice of the real Colonel called, "What are you doing up there, girls? Why don't you go to bed?" This extorted nervous shrieks from both of them. The Colonel heard a sound of scurrying feet, whisking drapery, and slamming doors. Then he heard one of the doors opened again, and Penelope said, "I was only repeating something you said when you talked to Mr. Corey." "Very well, now," answered the Colonel. "You postpone the rest of it till to-morrow at breakfast, and see that you're up in time to let ME hear it." V. AT the same moment young Corey let himself in at his own door with his latch-key, and went to the library, where he found his father turning the last leaves of a story in the Revue des Deux Mondes. He was a white-moustached old gentleman, who had never been able to abandon his pince-nez for the superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy of his own library. He knocked the glasses off as his son came in and looked up at him with lazy fondness, rubbing the two red marks that they always leave on the side of the nose. "Tom," he said, "where did you get such good clothes?" "I stopped over a day in New York," replied the son, finding himself a chair. "I'm glad you like them." "Yes, I always do like your clothes, Tom," returned the father thoughtfully, swinging his glasses, "But I don't see how you can afford 'em, I can't." "Well, sir," said the son, who dropped the "sir" into his speech with his father, now and then, in an old-fashioned way that was rather charming, "you see, I have an indulgent parent." "Smoke?" suggested the father, pushing toward his son a box of cigarettes, from which he had taken one. "No, thank you," said the son. "I've dropped that." "Ah, is that so?" The father began to feel about on the table for matches, in the purblind fashion of elderly men. His son rose, lighted one, and handed it to him. "Well,--oh, thank you, Tom!--I believe some statisticians prove that if you will give up smoking you can dress very well on the money your tobacco costs, even if you haven't got an indulgent parent. But I'm too old to try. Though, I confess, I should rather like the clothes. Whom did you find at the club?" "There were a lot of fellows there," said young Corey, watching the accomplished fumigation of his father in an absent way. "It's astonishing what a hardy breed the young club-men are," observed his father. "All summer through, in weather that sends the sturdiest female flying to the sea-shore, you find the clubs filled with young men, who don't seem to mind the heat in the least." "Boston isn't a bad place, at the worst, in summer," said the son, declining to take up the matter in its ironical shape. "I dare say it isn't, compared with Texas," returned the father, smoking tranquilly on. "But I don't suppose you find many of your friends in town outside of the club." "No; you're requested to ring at the rear door, all the way down Beacon Street and up Commonwealth Avenue. It's rather a blank reception for the returning prodigal." "Ah, the prodigal must take his chance if he comes back out of season. But I'm glad to have you back, Tom, even as it is, and I hope you're not going to hurry away. You must give your energies a rest." "I'm sure you never had to reproach me with abnormal activity," suggested the son, taking his father's jokes in good part. "No, I don't know that I have," admitted the elder. "You've always shown a fair degree of moderation, after all. What do you think of taking up next? I mean after you have embraced your mother and sisters at Mount Desert. Real estate? It seems to me that it is about time for you to open out as a real-estate broker. Or did you ever think of matrimony?" "Well, not just in that way, sir," said the young man. "I shouldn't quite like to regard it as a career, you know." "No, no. I understand that. And I quite agree with you. But you know I've always contended that the affections could be made to combine pleasure and profit. I wouldn't have a man marry for money,--that would be rather bad,--but I don't see why, when it comes to falling in love, a man shouldn't fall in love with a rich girl as easily as a poor one. Some of the rich girls are very nice, and I should say that the chances of a quiet life with them were rather greater. They've always had everything, and they wouldn't be so ambitious and uneasy. Don't you think so?" "It would depend," said the son, "upon whether a girl's people had been rich long enough to have given her position before she married. If they hadn't, I don't see how she would be any better than a poor girl in that respect." "Yes, there's sense in that. But the suddenly rich are on a level with any of us nowadays. Money buys position at once. I don't say that it isn't all right. The world generally knows what it's about, and knows how to drive a bargain. I dare say it makes the new rich pay too much. But there's no doubt but money is to the fore now. It is the romance, the poetry of our age. It's the thing that chiefly strikes the imagination. The Englishmen who come here are more curious about the great new millionaires than about any one else, and they respect them more. It's all very well. I don't complain of it." "And you would like a rich daughter-in-law, quite regardless, then?" "Oh, not quite so bad as that, Tom," said his father. "A little youth, a little beauty, a little good sense and pretty behaviour--one mustn't object to those things; and they go just as often with money as without it. And I suppose I should like her people to be rather grammatical." "It seems to me that you're exacting, sir," said the son. "How can you expect people who have been strictly devoted to business to be grammatical? Isn't that rather too much?" "Perhaps it is. Perhaps you're right. But I understood your mother to say that those benefactors of hers, whom you met last summer, were very passably grammatical." "The father isn't." The elder, who had been smoking with his profile toward his son, now turned his face full upon him. "I didn't know you had seen him?" "I hadn't until to-day," said young Corey, with a little heightening of his colour. "But I was walking down street this afternoon, and happened to look round at a new house some one was putting up, and I saw the whole family in the window. It appears that Mr. Lapham is building the house." The elder Corey knocked the ash of his cigarette into the holder at his elbow. "I am more and more convinced, the longer I know you, Tom, that we are descended from Giles Corey. The gift of holding one's tongue seems to have skipped me, but you have it in full force. I can't say just how you would behave under peine forte et dure, but under ordinary pressure you are certainly able to keep your own counsel. Why didn't you mention this encounter at dinner? You weren't asked to plead to an accusation of witchcraft." "No, not exactly," said the young man. "But I didn't quite see my way to speaking of it. We had a good many other things before us." "Yes, that's true. I suppose you wouldn't have mentioned it now if I hadn't led up to it, would you?" "I don't know, sir. It was rather on my mind to do so. Perhaps it was I who led up to it." His father laughed. "Perhaps you did, Tom; perhaps you did. Your mother would have known you were leading up to something, but I'll confess that I didn't. What is it?" "Nothing very definite. But do you know that in spite of his syntax I rather liked him?" The father looked keenly at the son; but unless the boy's full confidence was offered, Corey was not the man to ask it. "Well?" was all that he said. "I suppose that in a new country one gets to looking at people a little out of our tradition; and I dare say that if I hadn't passed a winter in Texas I might have found Colonel Lapham rather too much." "You mean that there are worse things in Texas?" "Not that exactly. I mean that I saw it wouldn't be quite fair to test him by our standards." "This comes of the error which I have often deprecated," said the elder Corey. "In fact I am always saying that the Bostonian ought never to leave Boston. Then he knows--and then only--that there can BE no standard but ours. But we are constantly going away, and coming back with our convictions shaken to their foundations. One man goes to England, and returns with the conception of a grander social life; another comes home from Germany with the notion of a more searching intellectual activity; a fellow just back from Paris has the absurdest ideas of art and literature; and you revert to us from the cowboys of Texas, and tell us to our faces that we ought to try Papa Lapham by a jury of his peers. It ought to be stopped--it ought, really. The Bostonian who leaves Boston ought to be condemned to perpetual exile." The son suffered the father to reach his climax with smiling patience. When he asked finally, "What are the characteristics of Papa Lapham that place him beyond our jurisdiction?" the younger Corey crossed his long legs, and leaned forward to take one of his knees between his hands. "Well, sir, he bragged, rather." "Oh, I don't know that bragging should exempt him from the ordinary processes. I've heard other people brag in Boston." "Ah, not just in that personal way--not about money." "No, that was certainly different." "I don't mean," said the young fellow, with the scrupulosity which people could not help observing and liking in him, "that it was more than an indirect expression of satisfaction in the ability to spend." "No. I should be glad to express something of the kind myself, if the facts would justify me." The son smiled tolerantly again. "But if he was enjoying his money in that way, I didn't see why he shouldn't show his pleasure in it. It might have been vulgar, but it wasn't sordid. And I don't know that it was vulgar. Perhaps his successful strokes of business were the romance of his life----" The father interrupted with a laugh. "The girl must be uncommonly pretty. What did she seem to think of her father's brag?" "There were two of them," answered the son evasively. "Oh, two! And is the sister pretty too?" "Not pretty, but rather interesting. She is like her mother." "Then the pretty one isn't the father's pet?" "I can't say, sir. I don't believe," added the young fellow, "that I can make you see Colonel Lapham just as I did. He struck me as very simple-hearted and rather wholesome. Of course he could be tiresome; we all can; and I suppose his range of ideas is limited. But he is a force, and not a bad one. If he hasn't got over being surprised at the effect of rubbing his lamp." "Oh, one could make out a case. I suppose you know what you are about, Tom. But remember that we are Essex County people, and that in savour we are just a little beyond the salt of the earth. I will tell you plainly that I don't like the notion of a man who has rivalled the hues of nature in her wildest haunts with the tints of his mineral paint; but I don't say there are not worse men. He isn't to my taste, though he might be ever so much to my conscience." "I suppose," said the son, "that there is nothing really to be ashamed of in mineral paint. People go into all sorts of things." His father took his cigarette from his mouth and once more looked his son full in the face. "Oh, is THAT it?" "It has crossed my mind," admitted the son. "I must do something. I've wasted time and money enough. I've seen much younger men all through the West and South-west taking care of themselves. I don't think I was particularly fit for anything out there, but I am ashamed to come back and live upon you, sir." His father shook his head with an ironical sigh. "Ah, we shall never have a real aristocracy while this plebeian reluctance to live upon a parent or a wife continues the animating spirit of our youth. It strikes at the root of the whole feudal system. I really think you owe me an apology, Tom. I supposed you wished to marry the girl's money, and here you are, basely seeking to go into business with her father." Young Corey laughed again like a son who perceives that his father is a little antiquated, but keeps a filial faith in his wit. "I don't know that it's quite so bad as that; but the thing had certainly crossed my mind. I don't know how it's to be approached, and I don't know that it's at all possible. But I confess that I 'took to' Colonel Lapham from the moment I saw him. He looked as if he 'meant business,' and I mean business too." The father smoked thoughtfully. "Of course people do go into all sorts of things, as you say, and I don't know that one thing is more ignoble than another, if it's decent and large enough. In my time you would have gone into the China trade or the India trade--though I didn't; and a little later cotton would have been your manifest destiny--though it wasn't mine; but now a man may do almost anything. The real-estate business is pretty full. Yes, if you have a deep inward vocation for it, I don't see why mineral paint shouldn't do. I fancy it's easy enough approaching the matter. We will invite Papa Lapham to dinner, and talk it over with him." "Oh, I don't think that would be exactly the way, sir," said the son, smiling at his father's patrician unworldliness. "No? Why not?" "I'm afraid it would be a bad start. I don't think it would strike him as business-like." "I don't see why he should be punctilious, if we're not." "Ah, we might say that if he were making the advances." "Well, perhaps you are right, Tom. What is your idea?" "I haven't a very clear one. It seems to me I ought to get some business friend of ours, whose judgment he would respect, to speak a good word for me." "Give you a character?" "Yes. And of course I must go to Colonel Lapham. My notion would be to inquire pretty thoroughly about him, and then, if I liked the look of things, to go right down to Republic Street and let him see what he could do with me, if anything." "That sounds tremendously practical to me, Tom, though it may be just the wrong way. When are you going down to Mount Desert?" "To-morrow, I think, sir," said the young man. "I shall turn it over in my mind while I'm off." The father rose, showing something more than his son's height, with a very slight stoop, which the son's figure had not. "Well," he said, whimsically, "I admire your spirit, and I don't deny that it is justified by necessity. It's a consolation to think that while I've been spending and enjoying, I have been preparing the noblest future for you--a future of industry and self-reliance. You never could draw, but this scheme of going into the mineral-paint business shows that you have inherited something of my feeling for colour." The son laughed once more, and waiting till his father was well on his way upstairs, turned out the gas and then hurried after him and preceded him into his chamber. He glanced over it to see that everything was there, to his father's hand. Then he said, "Good night, sir," and the elder responded, "Good night, my son," and the son went to his own room. Over the mantel in the elder Corey's room hung a portrait which he had painted of his own father, and now he stood a moment and looked at this as if struck by something novel in it. The resemblance between his son and the old India merchant, who had followed the trade from Salem to Boston when the larger city drew it away from the smaller, must have been what struck him. Grandfather and grandson had both the Roman nose which appears to have flourished chiefly at the formative period of the republic, and which occurs more rarely in the descendants of the conscript fathers, though it still characterises the profiles of a good many Boston ladies. Bromfield Corey had not inherited it, and he had made his straight nose his defence when the old merchant accused him of a want of energy. He said, "What could a man do whose unnatural father had left his own nose away from him?" This amused but did not satisfy the merchant. "You must do something," he said; "and it's for you to choose. If you don't like the India trade, go into something else. Or, take up law or medicine. No Corey yet ever proposed to do nothing." "Ah, then, it's quite time one of us made a beginning," urged the man who was then young, and who was now old, looking into the somewhat fierce eyes of his father's portrait. He had inherited as little of the fierceness as of the nose, and there was nothing predatory in his son either, though the aquiline beak had come down to him in such force. Bromfield Corey liked his son Tom for the gentleness which tempered his energy. "Well let us compromise," he seemed to be saying to his father's portrait. "I will travel." "Travel? How long?" the keen eyes demanded. "Oh, indefinitely. I won't be hard with you, father." He could see the eyes soften, and the smile of yielding come over his father's face; the merchant could not resist a son who was so much like his dead mother. There was some vague understanding between them that Bromfield Corey was to come back and go into business after a time, but he never did so. He travelled about over Europe, and travelled handsomely, frequenting good society everywhere, and getting himself presented at several courts, at a period when it was a distinction to do so. He had always sketched, and with his father's leave he fixed himself at Rome, where he remained studying art and rounding the being inherited from his Yankee progenitors, till there was very little left of the ancestral angularities. After ten years he came home and painted that portrait of his father. It was very good, if a little amateurish, and he might have made himself a name as a painter of portraits if he had not had so much money. But he had plenty of money, though by this time he was married and beginning to have a family. It was absurd for him to paint portraits for pay, and ridiculous to paint them for nothing; so he did not paint them at all. He continued a dilettante, never quite abandoning his art, but working at it fitfully, and talking more about it than working at it. He had his theory of Titian's method; and now and then a Bostonian insisted upon buying a picture of him. After a while he hung it more and more inconspicuously, and said apologetically, "Oh yes! that's one of Bromfield Corey's things. It has nice qualities, but it's amateurish." In process of time the money seemed less abundant. There were shrinkages of one kind and another, and living had grown much more expensive and luxurious. For many years he talked about going back to Rome, but he never went, and his children grew up in the usual way. Before he knew it his son had him out to his class-day spread at Harvard, and then he had his son on his hands. The son made various unsuccessful provisions for himself, and still continued upon his father's hands, to their common dissatisfaction, though it was chiefly the younger who repined. He had the Roman nose and the energy without the opportunity, and at one of the reversions his father said to him, "You ought not to have that nose, Tom; then you would do very well. You would go and travel, as I did." LAPHAM and his wife continued talking after he had quelled the disturbance in his daughters' room overhead; and their talk was not altogether of the new house. "I tell you," he said, "if I had that fellow in the business with me I would make a man of him." "Well, Silas Lapham," returned his wife, "I do believe you've got mineral paint on the brain. Do you suppose a fellow like young Corey, brought up the way he's been, would touch mineral paint with a ten-foot pole?" "Why not?" haughtily asked the Colonel. "Well, if you don't know already, there's no use trying to tell you." VI. THE Coreys had always had a house at Nahant, but after letting it for a season or two they found they could get on without it, and sold it at the son's instance, who foresaw that if things went on as they were going, the family would be straitened to the point of changing their mode of life altogether. They began to be of the people of whom it was said that they stayed in town very late; and when the ladies did go away, it was for a brief summering in this place and that. The father remained at home altogether; and the son joined them in the intervals of his enterprises, which occurred only too often. At Bar Harbour, where he now went to find them, after his winter in Texas, he confessed to his mother that there seemed no very good opening there for him. He might do as well as Loring Stanton, but he doubted if Stanton was doing very well. Then he mentioned the new project which he had been thinking over. She did not deny that there was something in it, but she could not think of any young man who had gone into such a business as that, and it appeared to her that he might as well go into a patent medicine or a stove-polish. "There was one of his hideous advertisements," she said, "painted on a reef that we saw as we came down." Corey smiled. "Well, I suppose, if it was in a good state of preservation, that is proof positive of the efficacy of the paint on the hulls of vessels." "It's very distasteful to me, Tom," said his mother; and if there was something else in her mind, she did not speak more plainly of it than to add: "It's not only the kind of business, but the kind of people you would be mixed up with." "I thought you didn't find them so very bad," suggested Corey. "I hadn't seen them in Nankeen Square then." "You can see them on the water side of Beacon Street when you go back." Then he told of his encounter with the Lapham family in their new house. At the end his mother merely said, "It is getting very common down there," and she did not try to oppose anything further to his scheme. The young man went to see Colonel Lapham shortly after his return to Boston. He paid his visit at Lapham's office, and if he had studied simplicity in his summer dress he could not have presented himself in a figure more to the mind of a practical man. His hands and neck still kept the brown of the Texan suns and winds, and he looked as business-like as Lapham himself. He spoke up promptly and briskly in the outer office, and caused the pretty girl to look away from her copying at him. "Is Mr. Lapham in?" he asked; and after that moment for reflection which an array of book-keepers so addressed likes to give the inquirer, a head was lifted from a ledger and nodded toward the inner office. Lapham had recognised the voice, and he was standing, in considerable perplexity, to receive Corey, when the young man opened his painted glass door. It was a hot afternoon, and Lapham was in his shirt sleeves. Scarcely a trace of the boastful hospitality with which he had welcomed Corey to his house a few days before lingered in his present address. He looked at the young man's face, as if he expected him to despatch whatever unimaginable affair he had come upon. "Won't you sit down? How are you? You'll excuse me," he added, in brief allusion to the shirt-sleeves. "I'm about roasted." Corey laughed. "I wish you'd let me take off MY coat." "Why, TAKE it off!" cried the Colonel, with instant pleasure. There is something in human nature which causes the man in his shirt-sleeves to wish all other men to appear in the same deshabille. "I will, if you ask me after I've talked with you two minutes," said the young fellow, companionably pulling up the chair offered him toward the desk where Lapham had again seated himself. "But perhaps you haven't got two minutes to give me?" "Oh yes, I have," said the Colonel. "I was just going to knock off. I can give you twenty, and then I shall have fifteen minutes to catch the boat." "All right," said Corey. "I want you to take me into the mineral paint business." The Colonel sat dumb. He twisted his thick neck, and looked round at the door to see if it was shut. He would not have liked to have any of those fellows outside hear him, but there is no saying what sum of money he would not have given if his wife had been there to hear what Corey had just said. "I suppose," continued the young man, "I could have got several people whose names you know to back my industry and sobriety, and say a word for my business capacity. But I thought I wouldn't trouble anybody for certificates till I found whether there was a chance, or the ghost of one, of your wanting me. So I came straight to you." Lapham gathered himself together as well as he could. He had not yet forgiven Corey for Mrs. Lapham's insinuation that he would feel himself too good for the mineral paint business; and though he was dispersed by that astounding shot at first, he was not going to let any one even hypothetically despise his paint with impunity. "How do you think I am going to take you on?" They took on hands at the works; and Lapham put it as if Corey were a hand coming to him for employment. Whether he satisfied himself by this or not, he reddened a little after he had said it. Corey answered, ignorant of the offence: "I haven't a very clear idea, I'm afraid; but I've been looking a little into the matter from the outside." "I hope you hain't been paying any attention to that fellow's stuff in the Events?" Lapham interrupted. Since Bartley's interview had appeared, Lapham had regarded it with very mixed feelings. At first it gave him a glow of secret pleasure, blended with doubt as to how his wife would like the use Bartley had made of her in it. But she had not seemed to notice it much, and Lapham had experienced the gratitude of the man who escapes. Then his girls had begun to make fun of it; and though he did not mind Penelope's jokes much, he did not like to see that Irene's gentility was wounded. Business friends met him with the kind of knowing smile about it that implied their sense of the fraudulent character of its praise--the smile of men who had been there and who knew how it was themselves. Lapham had his misgivings as to how his clerks and underlings looked at it; he treated them with stately severity for a while after it came out, and he ended by feeling rather sore about it. He took it for granted that everybody had read it. "I don't know what you mean," replied Corey, "I don't see the Events regularly." "Oh, it was nothing. They sent a fellow down here to interview me, and he got everything about as twisted as he could." "I believe they always do," said Corey. "I hadn't seen it. Perhaps it came out before I got home." "Perhaps it did." "My notion of making myself useful to you was based on a hint I got from one of your own circulars." Lapham was proud of those circulars; he thought they read very well. "What was that?" "I could put a little capital into the business," said Corey, with the tentative accent of a man who chances a thing. "I've got a little money, but I didn't imagine you cared for anything of that kind." "No, sir, I don't," returned the Colonel bluntly. "I've had one partner, and one's enough." "Yes," assented the young man, who doubtless had his own ideas as to eventualities--or perhaps rather had the vague hopes of youth. "I didn't come to propose a partnership. But I see that you are introducing your paint into the foreign markets, and there I really thought I might be of use to you, and to myself too." "How?" asked the Colonel scantly. "Well, I know two or three languages pretty well. I know French, and I know German, and I've got a pretty fair sprinkling of Spanish." "You mean that you can talk them?" asked the Colonel, with the mingled awe and slight that such a man feels for such accomplishments. "Yes; and I can write an intelligible letter in either of them." Lapham rubbed his nose. "It's easy enough to get all the letters we want translated." "Well," pursued Corey, not showing his discouragement if he felt any, "I know the countries where you want to introduce this paint of yours. I've been there. I've been in Germany and France and I've been in South America and Mexico; I've been in Italy, of course. I believe I could go to any of those countries and place it to advantage." Lapham had listened with a trace of persuasion in his face, but now he shook his head. "It's placing itself as fast as there's any call for it. It wouldn't pay us to send anybody out to look after it. Your salary and expenses would eat up about all we should make on it." "Yes," returned the young man intrepidly, "if you had to pay me any salary and expenses." "You don't propose to work for nothing?" "I propose to work for a commission." The Colonel was beginning to shake his head again, but Corey hurried on. "I haven't come to you without making some inquiries about the paint, and I know how it stands with those who know best. I believe in it." Lapham lifted his head and looked at the young man, deeply moved. "It's the best paint in God's universe," he said with the solemnity of prayer. "It's the best in the market," said Corey; and he repeated, "I believe in it." "You believe in it," began the Colonel, and then he stopped. If there had really been any purchasing power in money, a year's income would have bought Mrs. Lapham's instant presence. He warmed and softened to the young man in every way, not only because he must do so to any one who believed in his paint, but because he had done this innocent person the wrong of listening to a defamation of his instinct and good sense, and had been willing to see him suffer for a purely supposititious offence. Corey rose. "You mustn't let me outstay my twenty minutes," he said, taking out his watch. "I don't expect you to give a decided answer on the spot. All that I ask is that you'll consider my proposition." "Don't hurry," said Lapham. "Sit still! I want to tell you about this paint," he added, in a voice husky with the feeling that his hearer could not divine. "I want to tell you ALL about it." "I could walk with you to the boat," suggested the young man. "Never mind the boat! I can take the next one. Look here!" The Colonel pulled open a drawer, as Corey sat down again, and took out a photograph of the locality of the mine. "Here's where we get it. This photograph don't half do the place justice," he said, as if the imperfect art had slighted the features of a beloved face. "It's one of the sightliest places in the country, and here's the very spot "--he covered it with his huge forefinger--"where my father found that paint, more than forty--years--ago. Yes, sir!" He went on, and told the story in unsparing detail, while his chance for the boat passed unheeded, and the clerks in the outer office hung up their linen office coats and put on their seersucker or flannel street coats. The young lady went too, and nobody was left but the porter, who made from time to time a noisy demonstration of fastening a distant blind, or putting something in place. At last the Colonel roused himself from the autobiographical delight of the history of his paint. "Well, sir, that's the story." "It's an interesting story," said Corey, with a long breath, as they rose together, and Lapham put on his coat. "That's what it is," said the Colonel. "Well!" he added, "I don't see but what we've got to have another talk about this thing. It's a surprise to me, and I don't see exactly how you're going to make it pay." "I'm willing to take the chances," answered Corey. "As I said, I believe in it. I should try South America first. I should try Chili." "Look here!" said Lapham, with his watch in his hand. "I like to get things over. We've just got time for the six o'clock boat. Why don't you come down with me to Nantasket? I can give you a bed as well as not. And then we can finish up." The impatience of youth in Corey responded to the impatience of temperament in his elder. "Why, I don't see why I shouldn't," he allowed himself to say. "I confess I should like to have it finished up myself, if it could be finished up in the right way." "Well, we'll see. Dennis!" Lapham called to the remote porter, and the man came. "Want to send any word home?" he asked Corey. "No; my father and I go and come as we like, without keeping account of each other. If I don't come home, he knows that I'm not there. That's all." "Well, that's convenient. You'll find you can't do that when you're married. Never mind, Dennis," said the Colonel. He had time to buy two newspapers on the wharf before he jumped on board the steam-boat with Corey. "Just made it," he said; "and that's what I like to do. I can't stand it to be aboard much more than a minute before she shoves out." He gave one of the newspapers to Corey as he spoke, and set him the example of catching up a camp-stool on their way to that point on the boat which his experience had taught him was the best. He opened his paper at once and began to run over its news, while the young man watched the spectacular recession of the city, and was vaguely conscious of the people about him, and of the gay life of the water round the boat. The air freshened; the craft thinned in number; they met larger sail, lagging slowly inward in the afternoon light; the islands of the bay waxed and waned as the steamer approached and left them behind. "I hate to see them stirring up those Southern fellows again," said the Colonel, speaking into the paper on his lap. "Seems to me it's time to let those old issues go." "Yes," said the young man. "What are they doing now?" "Oh, stirring up the Confederate brigadiers in Congress. I don't like it. Seems to me, if our party hain't got any other stock-in-trade, we better shut up shop altogether." Lapham went on, as he scanned his newspaper, to give his ideas of public questions, in a fragmentary way, while Corey listened patiently, and waited for him to come back to business. He folded up his paper at last, and stuffed it into his coat pocket. "There's one thing I always make it a rule to do," he said, "and that is to give my mind a complete rest from business while I'm going down on the boat. I like to get the fresh air all through me, soul and body. I believe a man can give his mind a rest, just the same as he can give his legs a rest, or his back. All he's got to do is to use his will-power. Why, I suppose, if I hadn't adopted some such rule, with the strain I've had on me for the last ten years, I should 'a' been a dead man long ago. That's the reason I like a horse. You've got to give your mind to the horse; you can't help it, unless you want to break your neck; but a boat's different, and there you got to use your will-power. You got to take your mind right up and put it where you want it. I make it a rule to read the paper on the boat----Hold on!" he interrupted himself to prevent Corey from paying his fare to the man who had come round for it. "I've got tickets. And when I get through the paper, I try to get somebody to talk to, or I watch the people. It's an astonishing thing to me where they all come from. I've been riding up and down on these boats for six or seven years, and I don't know but very few of the faces I see on board. Seems to be a perfectly fresh lot every time. Well, of course! Town's full of strangers in the summer season, anyway, and folks keep coming down from the country. They think it's a great thing to get down to the beach, and they've all heard of the electric light on the water, and they want to see it. But you take faces now! The astonishing thing to me is not what a face tells, but what it don't tell. When you think of what a man is, or a woman is, and what most of 'em have been through before they get to be thirty, it seems as if their experience would burn right through. But it don't. I like to watch the couples, and try to make out which are engaged, or going to be, and which are married, or better be. But half the time I can't make any sort of guess. Of course, where they're young and kittenish, you can tell; but where they're anyways on, you can't. Heigh?" "Yes, I think you're right," said Corey, not perfectly reconciled to philosophy in the place of business, but accepting it as he must. "Well," said the Colonel, "I don't suppose it was meant we should know what was in each other's minds. It would take a man out of his own hands. As long as he's in his own hands, there's some hopes of his doing something with himself; but if a fellow has been found out--even if he hasn't been found out to be so very bad--it's pretty much all up with him. No, sir. I don't want to know people through and through." The greater part of the crowd on board--and, of course, the boat was crowded--looked as if they might not only be easily but safely known. There was little style and no distinction among them; they were people who were going down to the beach for the fun or the relief of it, and were able to afford it. In face they were commonplace, with nothing but the American poetry of vivid purpose to light them up, where they did not wholly lack fire. But they were nearly all shrewd and friendly-looking, with an apparent readiness for the humorous intimacy native to us all. The women were dandified in dress, according to their means and taste, and the men differed from each other in degrees of indifference to it. To a straw-hatted population, such as ours is in summer, no sort of personal dignity is possible. We have not even the power over observers which comes from the fantasticality of an Englishman when he discards the conventional dress. In our straw hats and our serge or flannel sacks we are no more imposing than a crowd of boys. "Some day," said Lapham, rising as the boat drew near the wharf of the final landing, "there's going to be an awful accident on these boats. Just look at that jam." He meant the people thickly packed on the pier, and under strong restraint of locks and gates, to prevent them from rushing on board the boat and possessing her for the return trip before she had landed her Nantasket passengers. "Overload 'em every time," he continued, with a sort of dry, impersonal concern at the impending calamity, as if it could not possibly include him. "They take about twice as many as they ought to carry, and about ten times as many as they could save if anything happened. Yes, sir, it's bound to come. Hello! There's my girl!" He took out his folded newspaper and waved it toward a group of phaetons and barouches drawn up on the pier a little apart from the pack of people, and a lady in one of them answered with a flourish of her parasol. When he had made his way with his guest through the crowd, she began to speak to her father before she noticed Corey. "Well, Colonel, you've improved your last chance. We've been coming to every boat since four o'clock,--or Jerry has,--and I told mother that I would come myself once, and see if I couldn't fetch you; and if I failed, you could walk next time. You're getting perfectly spoiled." The Colonel enjoyed letting her scold him to the end before he said, with a twinkle of pride in his guest and satisfaction in her probably being able to hold her own against any discomfiture, "I've brought Mr. Corey down for the night with me, and I was showing him things all the way, and it took time." The young fellow was at the side of the open beach-wagon, making a quick bow, and Penelope Lapham was cozily drawling, "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Corey?" before the Colonel had finished his explanation. "Get right in there, alongside of Miss Lapham, Mr. Corey," he said, pulling himself up into the place beside the driver. "No, no," he had added quickly, at some signs of polite protest in the young man, "I don't give up the best place to anybody. Jerry, suppose you let me have hold of the leathers a minute." This was his way of taking the reins from the driver; and in half the time he specified, he had skilfully turned the vehicle on the pier, among the crooked lines and groups of foot-passengers, and was spinning up the road toward the stretch of verandaed hotels and restaurants in the sand along the shore. "Pretty gay down here," he said, indicating all this with a turn of his whip, as he left it behind him. "But I've got about sick of hotels; and this summer I made up my mind that I'd take a cottage. Well, Pen, how are the folks?" He looked half-way round for her answer, and with the eye thus brought to bear upon her he was able to give her a wink of supreme content. The Colonel, with no sort of ulterior design, and nothing but his triumph over Mrs. Lapham definitely in his mind, was feeling, as he would have said, about right. The girl smiled a daughter's amusement at her father's boyishness. "I don't think there's much change since morning. Did Irene have a headache when you left?" "No," said the Colonel. "Well, then, there's that to report." "Pshaw!" said the Colonel with vexation in his tone. "I'm sorry Miss Irene isn't well," said Corey politely. "I think she must have got it from walking too long on the beach. The air is so cool here that you forget how hot the sun is." "Yes, that's true," assented Corey. "A good night's rest will make it all right," suggested the Colonel, without looking round. "But you girls have got to look out." "If you're fond of walking," said Corey, "I suppose you find the beach a temptation." "Oh, it isn't so much that," returned the girl. "You keep walking on and on because it's so smooth and straight before you. We've been here so often that we know it all by heart--just how it looks at high tide, and how it looks at low tide, and how it looks after a storm. We're as well acquainted with the crabs and stranded jelly-fish as we are with the children digging in the sand and the people sitting under umbrellas. I think they're always the same, all of them." The Colonel left the talk to the young people. When he spoke next it was to say, "Well, here we are!" and he turned from the highway and drove up in front of a brown cottage with a vermilion roof, and a group of geraniums clutching the rock that cropped up in the loop formed by the road. It was treeless and bare all round, and the ocean, unnecessarily vast, weltered away a little more than a stone's-cast from the cottage. A hospitable smell of supper filled the air, and Mrs. Lapham was on the veranda, with that demand in her eyes for her belated husband's excuses, which she was obliged to check on her tongue at sight of Corey. VII. THE exultant Colonel swung himself lightly down from his seat. "I've brought Mr. Corey with me," he nonchalantly explained. Mrs. Lapham made their guest welcome, and the Colonel showed him to his room, briefly assuring himself that there was nothing wanting there. Then he went to wash his own hands, carelessly ignoring the eagerness with which his wife pursued him to their chamber. "What gave Irene a headache?" he asked, making himself a fine lather for his hairy paws. "Never you mind Irene," promptly retorted his wife. "How came he to come? Did you press him? If you DID, I'll never forgive you, Silas!" The Colonel laughed, and his wife shook him by the shoulder to make him laugh lower. "'Sh!" she whispered. "Do you want him to hear EVERY thing? DID you urge him?" The Colonel laughed the more. He was going to get all the good out of this. "No, I didn't urge him. Seemed to want to come." "I don't believe it. Where did you meet him?" "At the office." "What office?" "Mine." "Nonsense! What was he doing there?" "Oh, nothing much." "What did he come for?" "Come for? Oh! he SAID he wanted to go into the mineral paint business." Mrs. Lapham dropped into a chair, and watched his bulk shaken with smothered laughter. "Silas Lapham," she gasped, "if you try to get off any more of those things on me----" The Colonel applied himself to the towel. "Had a notion he could work it in South America. I don't know what he's up to." "Never mind!" cried his wife. "I'll get even with you YET." "So I told him he had better come down and talk it over," continued the Colonel, in well-affected simplicity. "I knew he wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole." "Go on!" threatened Mrs. Lapham. "Right thing to do, wa'n't it?" A tap was heard at the door, and Mrs. Lapham answered it. A maid announced supper. "Very well," she said, "come to tea now. But I'll make you pay for this, Silas." Penelope had gone to her sister's room as soon as she entered the house. "Is your head any better, 'Rene?" she asked. "Yes, a little," came a voice from the pillows. "But I shall not come to tea. I don't want anything. If I keep still, I shall be all right by morning." "Well, I'm sorry," said the elder sister. "He's come down with father." "He hasn't! Who?" cried Irene, starting up in simultaneous denial and demand. "Oh, well, if you say he hasn't, what's the use of my telling you who?" "Oh, how can you treat me so!" moaned the sufferer. "What do you mean, Pen?" "I guess I'd better not tell you," said Penelope, watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. "If you're not coming to tea, it would just excite you for nothing." The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed. "Oh, I wouldn't treat YOU so!" The cat seated herself across the room, and asked quietly-- "Well, what could you do if it WAS Mr. Corey? You couldn't come to tea, you say. But HE'LL excuse you. I've told him you had a headache. Why, of course you can't come! It would be too barefaced. But you needn't be troubled, Irene; I'll do my best to make the time pass pleasantly for him." Here the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself up with a momentary courage and self-respect. "I should think you would be ashamed to come here and tease me so." "I don't see why you shouldn't believe me," argued Penelope. "Why shouldn't he come down with father, if father asked him? and he'd be sure to if he thought of it. I don't see any p'ints about that frog that's any better than any other frog." The sense of her sister's helplessness was too much for the tease; she broke down in a fit of smothered laughter, which convinced her victim that it was nothing but an ill-timed joke. "Well, Pen, I wouldn't use you so," she whimpered. Penelope threw herself on the bed beside her. "Oh, poor Irene! He IS here. It's a solemn fact." And she caressed and soothed her sister, while she choked with laughter. "You must get up and come out. I don't know what brought him here, but here he is." "It's too late now," said Irene desolately. Then she added, with a wilder despair: "What a fool I was to take that walk!" "Well," coaxed her sister, "come out and get some tea. The tea will do you good." "No, no; I can't come. But send me a cup here." "Yes, and then perhaps you can see him later in the evening." "I shall not see him at all." An hour after Penelope came back to her sister's room and found her before her glass. "You might as well have kept still, and been well by morning, 'Rene," she said. "As soon as we were done father said, 'Well, Mr. Corey and I have got to talk over a little matter of business, and we'll excuse you, ladies.' He looked at mother in a way that I guess was pretty hard to bear. 'Rene, you ought to have heard the Colonel swelling at supper. It would have made you feel that all he said the other day was nothing." Mrs. Lapham suddenly opened the door. "Now, see here, Pen," she said, as she closed it behind her, "I've had just as much as I can stand from your father, and if you don't tell me this instant what it all means----" She left the consequences to imagination, and Penelope replied with her mock soberness-- "Well, the Colonel does seem to be on his high horse, ma'am. But you mustn't ask me what his business with Mr. Corey is, for I don't know. All that I know is that I met them at the landing, and that they conversed all the way down--on literary topics." "Nonsense! What do you think it is?" "Well, if you want my candid opinion, I think this talk about business is nothing but a blind. It seems a pity Irene shouldn't have been up to receive him," she added. Irene cast a mute look of imploring at her mother, who was too much preoccupied to afford her the protection it asked. "Your father said he wanted to go into the business with him." Irene's look changed to a stare of astonishment and mystification, but Penelope preserved her imperturbability. "Well, it's a lucrative business, I believe." "Well, I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "And so I told your father." "Did it seem to convince him?" inquired Penelope. Her mother did not reply. "I know one thing," she said. "He's got to tell me every word, or there'll be no sleep for him THIS night." "Well, ma'am," said Penelope, breaking down in one of her queer laughs, "I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you were right." "Go on and dress, Irene," ordered her mother, "and then you and Pen come out into the parlour. They can have just two hours for business, and then we must all be there to receive him. You haven't got headache enough to hurt you." "Oh, it's all gone now," said the girl. At the end of the limit she had given the Colonel, Mrs. Lapham looked into the dining-room, which she found blue with his smoke. "I think you gentlemen will find the parlour pleasanter now, and we can give it up to you." "Oh no, you needn't," said her husband. "We've got about through." Corey was already standing, and Lapham rose too. "I guess we can join the ladies now. We can leave that little point till to-morrow." Both of the young ladies were in the parlour when Corey entered with their father, and both were frankly indifferent to the few books and the many newspapers scattered about on the table where the large lamp was placed. But after Corey had greeted Irene he glanced at the novel under his eye, and said, in the dearth that sometimes befalls people at such times: "I see you're reading Middlemarch. Do you like George Eliot?" "Who?" asked the girl. Penelope interposed. "I don't believe Irene's read it yet. I've just got it out of the library; I heard so much talk about it. I wish she would let you find out a little about the people for yourself," she added. But here her father struck in-- "I can't get the time for books. It's as much as I can do to keep up with the newspapers; and when night comes, I'm tired, and I'd rather go out to the theatre, or a lecture, if they've got a good stereopticon to give you views of the places. But I guess we all like a play better than 'most anything else. I want something that'll make me laugh. I don't believe in tragedy. I think there's enough of that in real life without putting it on the stage. Seen 'Joshua Whitcomb'?" The whole family joined in the discussion, and it appeared that they all had their opinions of the plays and actors. Mrs. Lapham brought the talk back to literature. "I guess Penelope does most of our reading." "Now, mother, you're not going to put it all on me!" said the girl, in comic protest. Her mother laughed, and then added, with a sigh: "I used to like to get hold of a good book when I was a girl; but we weren't allowed to read many novels in those days. My mother called them all LIES. And I guess she wasn't so very far wrong about some of them." "They're certainly fictions," said Corey, smiling. "Well, we do buy a good many books, first and last," said the Colonel, who probably had in mind the costly volumes which they presented to one another on birthdays and holidays. "But I get about all the reading I want in the newspapers. And when the girls want a novel, I tell 'em to get it out of the library. That's what the library's for. Phew!" he panted, blowing away the whole unprofitable subject. "How close you women-folks like to keep a room! You go down to the sea-side or up to the mountains for a change of air, and then you cork yourselves into a room so tight you don't have any air at all. Here! You girls get on your bonnets, and go and show Mr. Corey the view of the hotels from the rocks." Corey said that he should be delighted. The girls exchanged looks with each other, and then with their mother. Irene curved her pretty chin in comment upon her father's incorrigibility, and Penelope made a droll mouth, but the Colonel remained serenely content with his finesse. "I got 'em out of the way," he said, as soon as they were gone, and before his wife had time to fall upon him, "because I've got through my talk with him, and now I want to talk with YOU. It's just as I said, Persis; he wants to go into the business with me." "It's lucky for you," said his wife, meaning that now he would not be made to suffer for attempting to hoax her. But she was too intensely interested to pursue that matter further. "What in the world do you suppose he means by it?" "Well, I should judge by his talk that he had been trying a good many different things since he left college, and he hain't found just the thing he likes--or the thing that likes him. It ain't so easy. And now he's got an idea that he can take hold of the paint and push it in other countries--push it in Mexico and push it in South America. He's a splendid Spanish scholar,"--this was Lapham's version of Corey's modest claim to a smattering of the language,--"and he's been among the natives enough to know their ways. And he believes in the paint," added the Colonel. "I guess he believes in something else besides the paint," said Mrs. Lapham. "What do you mean?" "Well, Silas Lapham, if you can't see NOW that he's after Irene, I don't know what ever CAN open your eyes. That's all." The Colonel pretended to give the idea silent consideration, as if it had not occurred to him before. "Well, then, all I've got to say is, that he's going a good way round. I don't say you're wrong, but if it's Irene, I don't see why he should want to go off to South America to get her. And that's what he proposes to do. I guess there's some paint about it too, Persis. He says he believes in it,"--the Colonel devoutly lowered his voice,--"and he's willing to take the agency on his own account down there, and run it for a commission on what he can sell." "Of course! He isn't going to take hold of it any way so as to feel beholden to you. He's got too much pride for that." "He ain't going to take hold of it at all, if he don't mean paint in the first place and Irene afterward. I don't object to him, as I know, either way, but the two things won't mix; and I don't propose he shall pull the wool over my eyes--or anybody else. But, as far as heard from, up to date, he means paint first, last, and all the time. At any rate, I'm going to take him on that basis. He's got some pretty good ideas about it, and he's been stirred up by this talk, just now, about getting our manufactures into the foreign markets. There's an overstock in everything, and we've got to get rid of it, or we've got to shut down till the home demand begins again. We've had two or three such flurries before now, and they didn't amount to much. They say we can't extend our commerce under the high tariff system we've got now, because there ain't any sort of reciprocity on our side,--we want to have the other fellows show all the reciprocity,--and the English have got the advantage of us every time. I don't know whether it's so or not; but I don't see why it should apply to my paint. Anyway, he wants to try it, and I've about made up my mind to let him. Of course I ain't going to let him take all the risk. I believe in the paint TOO, and I shall pay his expenses anyway." "So you want another partner after all?" Mrs. Lapham could not forbear saying. "Yes, if that's your idea of a partner. It isn't mine," returned her husband dryly. "Well, if you've made up your mind, Si, I suppose you're ready for advice," said Mrs. Lapham. The Colonel enjoyed this. "Yes, I am. What have you got to say against it?" "I don't know as I've got anything. I'm satisfied if you are." "Well?" "When is he going to start for South America?" "I shall take him into the office a while. He'll get off some time in the winter. But he's got to know the business first." "Oh, indeed! Are you going to take him to board in the family?" "What are you after, Persis?" "Oh, nothing! I presume he will feel free to visit in the family, even if he don't board with us." "I presume he will." "And if he don't use his privileges, do you think he'll be a fit person to manage your paint in South America?" The Colonel reddened consciously. "I'm not taking him on that basis." "Oh yes, you are! You may pretend you ain't to yourself, but you mustn't pretend so to me. Because I know you." The Colonel laughed. "Pshaw!" he said. Mrs. Lapham continued: "I don't see any harm in hoping that he'll take a fancy to her. But if you really think it won't do to mix the two things, I advise you not to take Mr. Corey into the business. It will do all very well if he DOES take a fancy to her; but if he don't, you know how you'll feel about it. And I know you well enough, Silas, to know that you can't do him justice if that happens. And I don't think it's right you should take this step unless you're pretty sure. I can see that you've set your heart on this thing." "I haven't set my heart on it at all," protested Lapham. "And if you can't bring it about, you're going to feel unhappy over it," pursued his wife, regardless of his protest. "Oh, very well," he said. "If you know more about what's in my mind than I do, there's no use arguing, as I can see." He got up, to carry off his consciousness, and sauntered out of the door on to his piazza. He could see the young people down on the rocks, and his heart swelled in his breast. He had always said that he did not care what a man's family was, but the presence of young Corey as an applicant to him for employment, as his guest, as the possible suitor of his daughter, was one of the sweetest flavours that he had yet tasted in his success. He knew who the Coreys were very well, and, in his simple, brutal way, he had long hated their name as a symbol of splendour which, unless he should live to see at least three generations of his descendants gilded with mineral paint, he could not hope to realise in his own. He was acquainted in a business way with the tradition of old Phillips Corey, and he had heard a great many things about the Corey who had spent his youth abroad and his father's money everywhere, and done nothing but say smart things. Lapham could not see the smartness of some of them which had been repeated to him. Once he had encountered the fellow, and it seemed to Lapham that the tall, slim, white-moustached man, with the slight stoop, was everything that was offensively aristocratic. He had bristled up aggressively at the name when his wife told how she had made the acquaintance of the fellow's family the summer before, and he had treated the notion of young Corey's caring for Irene with the contempt which such a ridiculous superstition deserved. He had made up his mind about young Corey beforehand; yet when he met him he felt an instant liking for him, which he frankly acknowledged, and he had begun to assume the burden of his wife's superstition, of which she seemed now ready to accuse him of being the inventor. Nothing had moved his thick imagination like this day's events since the girl who taught him spelling and grammar in the school at Lumberville had said she would have him for her husband. The dark figures, stationary on the rocks, began to move, and he could see that they were coming toward the house. He went indoors, so as not to appear to have been watching them. VIII. A WEEK after she had parted with her son at Bar Harbour, Mrs. Corey suddenly walked in upon her husband in their house in Boston. He was at breakfast, and he gave her the patronising welcome with which the husband who has been staying in town all summer receives his wife when she drops down upon him from the mountains or the sea-side. For a little moment she feels herself strange in the house, and suffers herself to be treated like a guest, before envy of his comfort vexes her back into possession and authority. Mrs. Corey was a lady, and she did not let her envy take the form of open reproach. "Well, Anna, you find me here in the luxury you left me to. How did you leave the girls?" "The girls were well," said Mrs. Corey, looking absently at her husband's brown velvet coat, in which he was so handsome. No man had ever grown grey more beautifully. His hair, while not remaining dark enough to form a theatrical contrast with his moustache, was yet some shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the pearly tint which that of elderly men sometimes assumes, and the lines which time had traced upon it were too delicate for the name of wrinkles. He had never had any personal vanity, and there was no consciousness in his good looks now. "I am glad of that. The boy I have with me," he returned; "that is, when he IS with me." "Why, where is he?" demanded the mother. "Probably carousing with the boon Lapham somewhere. He left me yesterday afternoon to go and offer his allegiance to the Mineral Paint King, and I haven't seen him since." "Bromfield!" cried Mrs. Corey. "Why didn't you stop him?" "Well, my dear, I'm not sure that it isn't a very good thing." "A good thing? It's horrid!" "No, I don't think so. It's decent. Tom had found out--without consulting the landscape, which I believe proclaims it everywhere----" "Hideous!" "That it's really a good thing; and he thinks that he has some ideas in regard to its dissemination in the parts beyond seas." "Why shouldn't he go into something else?" lamented the mother. "I believe he has gone into nearly everything else and come out of it. So there is a chance of his coming out of this. But as I had nothing to suggest in place of it, I thought it best not to interfere. In fact, what good would my telling him that mineral paint was nasty have done? I dare say YOU told him it was nasty." "Yes! I did." "And you see with what effect, though he values your opinion three times as much as he values mine. Perhaps you came up to tell him again that it was nasty?" "I feel very unhappy about it. He is throwing himself away. Yes, I should like to prevent it if I could!" The father shook his head. "If Lapham hasn't prevented it, I fancy it's too late. But there may be some hopes of Lapham. As for Tom's throwing himself away, I don't know. There's no question but he is one of the best fellows under the sun. He's tremendously energetic, and he has plenty of the kind of sense which we call horse; but he isn't brilliant. No, Tom is not brilliant. I don't think he would get on in a profession, and he's instinctively kept out of everything of the kind. But he has got to do something. What shall he do? He says mineral paint, and really I don't see why he shouldn't. If money is fairly and honestly earned, why should we pretend to care what it comes out of, when we don't really care? That superstition is exploded everywhere." "Oh, it isn't the paint alone," said Mrs. Corey; and then she perceptibly arrested herself, and made a diversion in continuing: "I wish he had married some one." "With money?" suggested her husband. "From time to time I have attempted Tom's corruption from that side, but I suspect Tom has a conscience against it, and I rather like him for it. I married for love myself," said Corey, looking across the table at his wife. She returned his look tolerantly, though she felt it right to say, "What nonsense!" "Besides," continued her husband, "if you come to money, there is the paint princess. She will have plenty." "Ah, that's the worst of it," sighed the mother. "I suppose I could get on with the paint----" "But not with the princess? I thought you said she was a very pretty, well-behaved girl?" "She is very pretty, and she is well-behaved; but there is nothing of her. She is insipid; she is very insipid." "But Tom seemed to like her flavour, such as it was?" "How can I tell? We were under a terrible obligation to them, and I naturally wished him to be polite to them. In fact, I asked him to be so." "And he was too polite." "I can't say that he was. But there is no doubt that the child is extremely pretty." "Tom says there are two of them. Perhaps they will neutralise each other." "Yes, there is another daughter," assented Mrs. Corey. "I don't see how you can joke about such things, Bromfield," she added. "Well, I don't either, my dear, to tell you the truth. My hardihood surprises me. Here is a son of mine whom I see reduced to making his living by a shrinkage in values. It's very odd," interjected Corey, "that some values should have this peculiarity of shrinking. You never hear of values in a picture shrinking; but rents, stocks, real estate--all those values shrink abominably. Perhaps it might be argued that one should put all his values into pictures; I've got a good many of mine there." "Tom needn't earn his living," said Mrs. Corey, refusing her husband's jest. "There's still enough for all of us." "That is what I have sometimes urged upon Tom. I have proved to him that with economy, and strict attention to business, he need do nothing as long as he lives. Of course he would be somewhat restricted, and it would cramp the rest of us; but it is a world of sacrifices and compromises. He couldn't agree with me, and he was not in the least moved by the example of persons of quality in Europe, which I alleged in support of the life of idleness. It appears that he wishes to do something--to do something for himself. I am afraid that Tom is selfish." Mrs. Corey smiled wanly. Thirty years before, she had married the rich young painter in Rome, who said so much better things than he painted--charming things, just the things to please the fancy of a girl who was disposed to take life a little too seriously and practically. She saw him in a different light when she got him home to Boston; but he had kept on saying the charming things, and he had not done much else. In fact, he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. It was a good trait in him that he was not actively but only passively extravagant. He was not adventurous with his money; his tastes were as simple as an Italian's; he had no expensive habits. In the process of time he had grown to lead a more and more secluded life. It was hard to get him out anywhere, even to dinner. His patience with their narrowing circumstances had a pathos which she felt the more the more she came into charge of their joint life. At times it seemed too bad that the children and their education and pleasures should cost so much. She knew, besides, that if it had not been for them she would have gone back to Rome with him, and lived princely there for less than it took to live respectably in Boston. "Tom hasn't consulted me," continued his father, "but he has consulted other people. And he has arrived at the conclusion that mineral paint is a good thing to go into. He has found out all about it, and about its founder or inventor. It's quite impressive to hear him talk. And if he must do something for himself, I don't see why his egotism shouldn't as well take that form as another. Combined with the paint princess, it isn't so agreeable; but that's only a remote possibility, for which your principal ground is your motherly solicitude. But even if it were probable and imminent, what could you do? The chief consolation that we American parents have in these matters is that we can do nothing. If we were Europeans, even English, we should take some cognisance of our children's love affairs, and in some measure teach their young affections how to shoot. But it is our custom to ignore them until they have shot, and then they ignore us. We are altogether too delicate to arrange the marriages of our children; and when they have arranged them we don't like to say anything, for fear we should only make bad worse. The right way is for us to school ourselves to indifference. That is what the young people have to do elsewhere, and that is the only logical result of our position here. It is absurd for us to have any feeling about what we don't interfere with." "Oh, people do interfere with their children's marriages very often," said Mrs. Corey. "Yes, but only in a half-hearted way, so as not to make it disagreeable for themselves if the marriages go on in spite of them, as they're pretty apt to do. Now, my idea is that I ought to cut Tom off with a shilling. That would be very simple, and it would be economical. But you would never consent, and Tom wouldn't mind it." "I think our whole conduct in regard to such things is wrong," said Mrs. Corey. "Oh, very likely. But our whole civilisation is based upon it. And who is going to make a beginning? To which father in our acquaintance shall I go and propose an alliance for Tom with his daughter? I should feel like an ass. And will you go to some mother, and ask her sons in marriage for our daughters? You would feel like a goose. No; the only motto for us is, Hands off altogether." "I shall certainly speak to Tom when the time comes," said Mrs. Corey. "And I shall ask leave to be absent from your discomfiture, my dear," answered her husband. The son returned that afternoon, and confessed his surprise at finding his mother in Boston. He was so frank that she had not quite the courage to confess in turn why she had come, but trumped up an excuse. "Well, mother," he said promptly, "I have made an engagement with Mr. Lapham." "Have you, Tom?" she asked faintly. "Yes. For the present I am going to have charge of his foreign correspondence, and if I see my way to the advantage I expect to find in it, I am going out to manage that side of his business in South America and Mexico. He's behaved very handsomely about it. He says that if it appears for our common interest, he shall pay me a salary as well as a commission. I've talked with Uncle Jim, and he thinks it's a good opening." "Your Uncle Jim does?" queried Mrs. Corey in amaze. "Yes; I consulted him the whole way through, and I've acted on his advice." This seemed an incomprehensible treachery on her brother's part. "Yes; I thought you would like to have me. And besides, I couldn't possibly have gone to any one so well fitted to advise me." His mother said nothing. In fact, the mineral paint business, however painful its interest, was, for the moment, superseded by a more poignant anxiety. She began to feel her way cautiously toward this. "Have you been talking about your business with Mr. Lapham all night?" "Well, pretty much," said her son, with a guiltless laugh. "I went to see him yesterday afternoon, after I had gone over the whole ground with Uncle Jim, and Mr. Lapham asked me to go down with him and finish up." "Down?" repeated Mrs. Corey. "Yes, to Nantasket. He has a cottage down there." "At Nantasket?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows a little. "What in the world can a cottage at Nantasket be like?" "Oh, very much like a 'cottage' anywhere. It has the usual allowance of red roof and veranda. There are the regulation rocks by the sea; and the big hotels on the beach about a mile off, flaring away with electric lights and roman-candles at night. We didn't have them at Nahant." "No," said his mother. "Is Mrs. Lapham well? And her daughter?" "Yes, I think so," said the young man. "The young ladies walked me down to the rocks in the usual way after dinner, and then I came back and talked paint with Mr. Lapham till midnight. We didn't settle anything till this morning coming up on the boat." "What sort of people do they seem to be at home?" "What sort? Well, I don't know that I noticed." Mrs. Corey permitted herself the first part of a sigh of relief; and her son laughed, but apparently not at her. "They're just reading Middlemarch. They say there's so much talk about it. Oh, I suppose they're very good people. They seemed to be on very good terms with each other." "I suppose it's the plain sister who's reading Middlemarch." "Plain? Is she plain?" asked the young man, as if searching his consciousness. "Yes, it's the older one who does the reading, apparently. But I don't believe that even she overdoes it. They like to talk better. They reminded me of Southern people in that." The young man smiled, as if amused by some of his impressions of the Lapham family. "The living, as the country people call it, is tremendously good. The Colonel--he's a colonel--talked of the coffee as his wife's coffee, as if she had personally made it in the kitchen, though I believe it was merely inspired by her. And there was everything in the house that money could buy. But money has its limitations." This was a fact which Mrs. Corey was beginning to realise more and more unpleasantly in her own life; but it seemed to bring her a certain comfort in its application to the Laphams. "Yes, there is a point where taste has to begin," she said. "They seemed to want to apologise to me for not having more books," said Corey. "I don't know why they should. The Colonel said they bought a good many books, first and last; but apparently they don't take them to the sea-side." "I dare say they NEVER buy a NEW book. I've met some of these moneyed people lately, and they lavish on every conceivable luxury, and then borrow books, and get them in the cheap paper editions." "I fancy that's the way with the Lapham family," said the young man, smilingly. "But they are very good people. The other daughter is humorous." "Humorous?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows in some perplexity. "Do you mean like Mrs. Sayre?" she asked, naming the lady whose name must come into every Boston mind when humour is mentioned. "Oh no; nothing like that. She never says anything that you can remember; nothing in flashes or ripples; nothing the least literary. But it's a sort of droll way of looking at things; or a droll medium through which things present themselves. I don't know. She tells what she's seen, and mimics a little." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey coldly. After a moment she asked: "And is Miss Irene as pretty as ever?" "She's a wonderful complexion," said the son unsatisfactorily. "I shall want to be by when father and Colonel Lapham meet," he added, with a smile. "Ah, yes, your father!" said the mother, in that way in which a wife at once compassionates and censures her husband to their children. "Do you think it's really going to be a trial to him?" asked the young man quickly. "No, no, I can't say it is. But I confess I wish it was some other business, Tom." "Well, mother, I don't see why. The principal thing looked at now is the amount of money; and while I would rather starve than touch a dollar that was dirty with any sort of dishonesty----" "Of course you would, my son!" interposed his mother proudly. "I shouldn't at all mind its having a little mineral paint on it. I'll use my influence with Colonel Lapham--if I ever have any--to have his paint scraped off the landscape." "I suppose you won't begin till the autumn." "Oh yes, I shall," said the son, laughing at his mother's simple ignorance of business. "I shall begin to-morrow morning." "To-morrow morning!" "Yes. I've had my desk appointed already, and I shall be down there at nine in the morning to take possession." "Tom," cried his mother, "why do you think Mr. Lapham has taken you into business so readily? I've always heard that it was so hard for young men to get in." "And do you think I found it easy with him? We had about twelve hours' solid talk." "And you don't suppose it was any sort of--personal consideration?" "Why, I don't know exactly what you mean, mother. I suppose he likes me." Mrs. Corey could not say just what she meant. She answered, ineffectually enough-- "Yes. You wouldn't like it to be a favour, would you?" "I think he's a man who may be trusted to look after his own interest. But I don't mind his beginning by liking me. It'll be my own fault if I don't make myself essential to him." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey. "Well," demanded her husband, at their first meeting after her interview with their son, "what did you say to Tom?" "Very little, if anything. I found him with his mind made up, and it would only have distressed him if I had tried to change it." "That is precisely what I said, my dear." "Besides, he had talked the matter over fully with James, and seems to have been advised by him. I can't understand James." "Oh! it's in regard to the paint, and not the princess, that he's made up his mind. Well, I think you were wise to let him alone, Anna. We represent a faded tradition. We don't really care what business a man is in, so it is large enough, and he doesn't advertise offensively; but we think it fine to affect reluctance." "Do you really feel so, Bromfield?" asked his wife seriously. "Certainly I do. There was a long time in my misguided youth when I supposed myself some sort of porcelain; but it's a relief to be of the common clay, after all, and to know it. If I get broken, I can be easily replaced." "If Tom must go into such a business," said Mrs. Corey, "I'm glad James approves of it." "I'm afraid it wouldn't matter to Tom if he didn't; and I don't know that I should care," said Corey, betraying the fact that he had perhaps had a good deal of his brother-in-law's judgment in the course of his life. "You had better consult him in regard to Tom's marrying the princess." "There is no necessity at present for that," said Mrs. Corey, with dignity. After a moment, she asked, "Should you feel quite so easy if it were a question of that, Bromfield?" "It would be a little more personal." "You feel about it as I do. Of course, we have both lived too long, and seen too much of the world, to suppose we can control such things. The child is good, I haven't the least doubt, and all those things can be managed so that they wouldn't disgrace us. But she has had a certain sort of bringing up. I should prefer Tom to marry a girl with another sort, and this business venture of his increases the chances that he won't. That's all." "''Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'twill serve.'" "I shouldn't like it." "Well, it hasn't happened yet." "Ah, you never can realise anything beforehand." "Perhaps that has saved me some suffering. But you have at least the consolation of two anxieties at once. I always find that a great advantage. You can play one off against the other." Mrs. Corey drew a long breath as if she did not experience the suggested consolation; and she arranged to quit, the following afternoon, the scene of her defeat, which she had not had the courage to make a battlefield. Her son went down to see her off on the boat, after spending his first day at his desk in Lapham's office. He was in a gay humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering till the last moment, and then stepping ashore, with as little waste of time as Lapham himself, on the gang-plank which the deck-hands had laid hold of. He touched his hat to her from the wharf to reassure her of his escape from being carried away with her, and the next moment his smiling face hid itself in the crowd. He walked on smiling up the long wharf, encumbered with trucks and hacks and piles of freight, and, taking his way through the deserted business streets beyond this bustle, made a point of passing the door of Lapham's warehouse, on the jambs of which his name and paint were lettered in black on a square ground of white. The door was still open, and Corey loitered a moment before it, tempted to go upstairs and fetch away some foreign letters which he had left on his desk, and which he thought he might finish up at home. He was in love with his work, and he felt the enthusiasm for it which nothing but the work we can do well inspires in us. He believed that he had found his place in the world, after a good deal of looking, and he had the relief, the repose, of fitting into it. Every little incident of the momentous, uneventful day was a pleasure in his mind, from his sitting down at his desk, to which Lapham's boy brought him the foreign letters, till his rising from it an hour ago. Lapham had been in view within his own office, but he had given Corey no formal reception, and had, in fact, not spoken to him till toward the end of the forenoon, when he suddenly came out of his den with some more letters in his hand, and after a brief "How d'ye do?" had spoken a few words about them, and left them with him. He was in his shirt-sleeves again, and his sanguine person seemed to radiate the heat with which he suffered. He did not go out to lunch, but had it brought to him in his office, where Corey saw him eating it before he left his own desk to go out and perch on a swinging seat before the long counter of a down-town restaurant. He observed that all the others lunched at twelve, and he resolved to anticipate his usual hour. When he returned, the pretty girl who had been clicking away at a type-writer all the morning was neatly putting out of sight the evidences of pie from the table where her machine stood, and was preparing to go on with her copying. In his office Lapham lay asleep in his arm-chair, with a newspaper over his face. Now, while Corey lingered at the entrance to the stairway, these two came down the stairs together, and he heard Lapham saying, "Well, then, you better get a divorce." He looked red and excited, and the girl's face, which she veiled at sight of Corey, showed traces of tears. She slipped round him into the street. But Lapham stopped, and said, with the show of no feeling but surprise: "Hello, Corey! Did you want to go up?" "Yes; there were some letters I hadn't quite got through with." "You'll find Dennis up there. But I guess you better let them go till to-morrow. I always make it a rule to stop work when I'm done." "Perhaps you're right," said Corey, yielding. "Come along down as far as the boat with me. There's a little matter I want to talk over with you." It was a business matter, and related to Corey's proposed connection with the house. The next day the head book-keeper, who lunched at the long counter of the same restaurant with Corey, began to talk with him about Lapham. Walker had not apparently got his place by seniority; though with his forehead, bald far up toward the crown, and his round smooth face, one might have taken him for a plump elder, if he had not looked equally like a robust infant. The thick drabbish yellow moustache was what arrested decision in either direction, and the prompt vigour of all his movements was that of a young man of thirty, which was really Walker's age. He knew, of course, who Corey was, and he had waited for a man who might look down on him socially to make the overtures toward something more than business acquaintance; but, these made, he was readily responsive, and drew freely on his philosophy of Lapham and his affairs. "I think about the only difference between people in this world is that some know what they want, and some don't. Well, now," said Walker, beating the bottom of his salt-box to make the salt come out, "the old man knows what he wants every time. And generally he gets it. Yes, sir, he generally gets it. He knows what he's about, but I'll be blessed if the rest of us do half the time. Anyway, we don't till he's ready to let us. You take my position in most business houses. It's confidential. The head book-keeper knows right along pretty much everything the house has got in hand. I'll give you my word I don't. He may open up to you a little more in your department, but, as far as the rest of us go, he don't open up any more than an oyster on a hot brick. They say he had a partner once; I guess he's dead. I wouldn't like to be the old man's partner. Well, you see, this paint of his is like his heart's blood. Better not try to joke him about it. I've seen people come in occasionally and try it. They didn't get much fun out of it." While he talked, Walker was plucking up morsels from his plate, tearing off pieces of French bread from the long loaf, and feeding them into his mouth in an impersonal way, as if he were firing up an engine. "I suppose he thinks," suggested Corey, "that if he doesn't tell, nobody else will." Walker took a draught of beer from his glass, and wiped the foam from his moustache. "Oh, but he carries it too far! It's a weakness with him. He's just so about everything. Look at the way he keeps it up about that type-writer girl of his. You'd think she was some princess travelling incognito. There isn't one of us knows who she is, or where she came from, or who she belongs to. He brought her and her machine into the office one morning, and set 'em down at a table, and that's all there is about it, as far as we're concerned. It's pretty hard on the girl, for I guess she'd like to talk; and to any one that didn't know the old man----" Walker broke off and drained his glass of what was left in it. Corey thought of the words he had overheard from Lapham to the girl. But he said, "She seems to be kept pretty busy." "Oh yes," said Walker; "there ain't much loafing round the place, in any of the departments, from the old man's down. That's just what I say. He's got to work just twice as hard, if he wants to keep everything in his own mind. But he ain't afraid of work. That's one good thing about him. And Miss Dewey has to keep step with the rest of us. But she don't look like one that would take to it naturally. Such a pretty girl as that generally thinks she does enough when she looks her prettiest." "She's a pretty girl," said Corey, non-committally. "But I suppose a great many pretty girls have to earn their living." "Don't any of 'em like to do it," returned the book-keeper. "They think it's a hardship, and I don't blame 'em. They have got a right to get married, and they ought to have the chance. And Miss Dewey's smart, too. She's as bright as a biscuit. I guess she's had trouble. I shouldn't be much more than half surprised if Miss Dewey wasn't Miss Dewey, or hadn't always been. Yes, sir," continued the book-keeper, who prolonged the talk as they walked back to Lapham's warehouse together, "I don't know exactly what it is,--it isn't any one thing in particular,--but I should say that girl had been married. I wouldn't speak so freely to any of the rest, Mr. Corey,--I want you to understand that,--and it isn't any of my business, anyway; but that's my opinion." Corey made no reply, as he walked beside the book-keeper, who continued-- "It's curious what a difference marriage makes in people. Now, I know that I don't look any more like a bachelor of my age than I do like the man in the moon, and yet I couldn't say where the difference came in, to save me. And it's just so with a woman. The minute you catch sight of her face, there's something in it that tells you whether she's married or not. What do you suppose it is?" "I'm sure I don't know," said Corey, willing to laugh away the topic. "And from what I read occasionally of some people who go about repeating their happiness, I shouldn't say that the intangible evidences were always unmistakable." "Oh, of course," admitted Walker, easily surrendering his position. "All signs fail in dry weather. Hello! What's that?" He caught Corey by the arm, and they both stopped. At a corner, half a block ahead of them, the summer noon solitude of the place was broken by a bit of drama. A man and woman issued from the intersecting street, and at the moment of coming into sight the man, who looked like a sailor, caught the woman by the arm, as if to detain her. A brief struggle ensued, the woman trying to free herself, and the man half coaxing, half scolding. The spectators could now see that he was drunk; but before they could decide whether it was a case for their interference or not, the woman suddenly set both hands against the man's breast and gave him a quick push. He lost his footing and tumbled into a heap in the gutter. The woman faltered an instant, as if to see whether he was seriously hurt, and then turned and ran. When Corey and the book-keeper re-entered the office, Miss Dewey had finished her lunch, and was putting a sheet of paper into her type-writer. She looked up at them with her eyes of turquoise blue, under her low white forehead, with the hair neatly rippled over it, and then began to beat the keys of her machine. IX. LAPHAM had the pride which comes of self-making, and he would not openly lower his crest to the young fellow he had taken into his business. He was going to be obviously master in his own place to every one; and during the hours of business he did nothing to distinguish Corey from the half-dozen other clerks and book-keepers in the outer office, but he was not silent about the fact that Bromfield Corey's son had taken a fancy to come to him. "Did you notice that fellow at the desk facing my type-writer girl? Well, sir, that's the son of Bromfield Corey--old Phillips Corey's grandson. And I'll say this for him, that there isn't a man in the office that looks after his work better. There isn't anything he's too good for. He's right here at nine every morning, before the clock gets in the word. I guess it's his grandfather coming out in him. He's got charge of the foreign correspondence. We're pushing the paint everywhere." He flattered himself that he did not lug the matter in. He had been warned against that by his wife, but he had the right to do Corey justice, and his brag took the form of illustration. "Talk about training for business--I tell you it's all in the man himself! I used to believe in what old Horace Greeley said about college graduates being the poorest kind of horned cattle; but I've changed my mind a little. You take that fellow Corey. He's been through Harvard, and he's had about every advantage that a fellow could have. Been everywhere, and talks half a dozen languages like English. I suppose he's got money enough to live without lifting a hand, any more than his father does; son of Bromfield Corey, you know. But the thing was in him. He's a natural-born business man; and I've had many a fellow with me that had come up out of the street, and worked hard all his life, without ever losing his original opposition to the thing. But Corey likes it. I believe the fellow would like to stick at that desk of his night and day. I don't know where he got it. I guess it must be his grandfather, old Phillips Corey; it often skips a generation, you know. But what I say is, a thing has got to be born in a man; and if it ain't born in him, all the privations in the world won't put it there, and if it is, all the college training won't take it out." Sometimes Lapham advanced these ideas at his own table, to a guest whom he had brought to Nantasket for the night. Then he suffered exposure and ridicule at the hands of his wife, when opportunity offered. She would not let him bring Corey down to Nantasket at all. "No, indeed!" she said. "I am not going to have them think we're running after him. If he wants to see Irene, he can find out ways of doing it for himself." "Who wants him to see Irene?" retorted the Colonel angrily. "I do," said Mrs. Lapham. "And I want him to see her without any of your connivance, Silas. I'm not going to have it said that I put my girls at anybody. Why don't you invite some of your other clerks?" "He ain't just like the other clerks. He's going to take charge of a part of the business. It's quite another thing." "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Lapham vexatiously. "Then you ARE going to take a partner." "I shall ask him down if I choose!" returned the Colonel, disdaining her insinuation. His wife laughed with the fearlessness of a woman who knows her husband. "But you won't choose when you've thought it over, Si." Then she applied an emollient to his chafed surface. "Don't you suppose I feel as you do about it? I know just how proud you are, and I'm not going to have you do anything that will make you feel meeching afterward. You just let things take their course. If he wants Irene, he's going to find out some way of seeing her; and if he don't, all the plotting and planning in the world isn't going to make him." "Who's plotting?" again retorted the Colonel, shuddering at the utterance of hopes and ambitions which a man hides with shame, but a woman talks over as freely and coolly as if they were items of a milliner's bill. "Oh, not you!" exulted his wife. "I understand what you want. You want to get this fellow, who is neither partner nor clerk, down here to talk business with him. Well, now, you just talk business with him at the office." The only social attention which Lapham succeeded in offering Corey was to take him in his buggy, now and then, for a spin out over the Mill-dam. He kept the mare in town, and on a pleasant afternoon he liked to knock off early, as he phrased it, and let the mare out a little. Corey understood something about horses, though in a passionless way, and he would have preferred to talk business when obliged to talk horse. But he deferred to his business superior with the sense of discipline which is innate in the apparently insubordinate American nature. If Corey could hardly have helped feeling the social difference between Lapham and himself, in his presence he silenced his traditions, and showed him all the respect that he could have exacted from any of his clerks. He talked horse with him, and when the Colonel wished he talked house. Besides himself and his paint Lapham had not many other topics; and if he had a choice between the mare and the edifice on the water side of Beacon Street, it was just now the latter. Sometimes, in driving in or out, he stopped at the house, and made Corey his guest there, if he might not at Nantasket; and one day it happened that the young man met Irene there again. She had come up with her mother alone, and they were in the house, interviewing the carpenter as before, when the Colonel jumped out of his buggy and cast anchor at the pavement. More exactly, Mrs. Lapham was interviewing the carpenter, and Irene was sitting in the bow-window on a trestle, and looking out at the driving. She saw him come up with her father, and bowed and blushed. Her father went on up-stairs to find her mother, and Corey pulled up another trestle which he found in the back part of the room. The first floorings had been laid throughout the house, and the partitions had been lathed so that one could realise the shape of the interior. "I suppose you will sit at this window a good deal," said the young man. "Yes, I think it will be very nice. There's so much more going on than there is in the Square." "It must be very interesting to you to see the house grow." "It is. Only it doesn't seem to grow so fast as I expected." "Why, I'm amazed at the progress your carpenter has made every time I come." The girl looked down, and then lifting her eyes she said, with a sort of timorous appeal-- "I've been reading that book since you were down at Nantasket." "Book?" repeated Corey, while she reddened with disappointment. "Oh yes. Middlemarch. Did you like it?" "I haven't got through with it yet. Pen has finished it." "What does she think of it?" "Oh, I think she likes it very well. I haven't heard her talk about it much. Do you like it?" "Yes; I liked it immensely. But it's several years since I read it." "I didn't know it was so old. It's just got into the Seaside Library," she urged, with a little sense of injury in her tone. "Oh, it hasn't been out such a very great while," said Corey politely. "It came a little before DANIEL DERONDA." The girl was again silent. She followed the curl of a shaving on the floor with the point of her parasol. "Do you like that Rosamond Vincy?" she asked, without looking up. Corey smiled in his kind way. "I didn't suppose she was expected to have any friends. I can't say I liked her. But I don't think I disliked her so much as the author does. She's pretty hard on her good-looking"--he was going to say girls, but as if that might have been rather personal, he said--"people." "Yes, that's what Pen says. She says she doesn't give her any chance to be good. She says she should have been just as bad as Rosamond if she had been in her place." The young man laughed. "Your sister is very satirical, isn't she?" "I don't know," said Irene, still intent upon the convolutions of the shaving. "She keeps us laughing. Papa thinks there's nobody that can talk like her." She gave the shaving a little toss from her, and took the parasol up across her lap. The unworldliness of the Lapham girls did not extend to their dress; Irene's costume was very stylish, and she governed her head and shoulders stylishly. "We are going to have the back room upstairs for a music-room and library," she said abruptly. "Yes?" returned Corey. "I should think that would be charming." "We expected to have book-cases, but the architect wants to build the shelves in." The fact seemed to be referred to Corey for his comment. "It seems to me that would be the best way. They'll look like part of the room then. You can make them low, and hang your pictures above them." "Yes, that's what he said." The girl looked out of the window in adding, "I presume with nice bindings it will look very well." "Oh, nothing furnishes a room like books." "No. There will have to be a good many of them." "That depends upon the size of your room and the number of your shelves." "Oh, of course! I presume," said Irene, thoughtfully, "we shall have to have Gibbon." "If you want to read him," said Corey, with a laugh of sympathy for an imaginable joke. "We had a great deal about him at school. I believe we had one of his books. Mine's lost, but Pen will remember." The young man looked at her, and then said, seriously, "You'll want Greene, of course, and Motley, and Parkman." "Yes. What kind of writers are they?" "They're historians too." "Oh yes; I remember now. That's what Gibbon was. Is it Gibbon or Gibbons?" The young man decided the point with apparently superfluous delicacy. "Gibbon, I think." "There used to be so many of them," said Irene gaily. "I used to get them mixed up with each other, and I couldn't tell them from the poets. Should you want to have poetry?" "Yes; I suppose some edition of the English poets." "We don't any of us like poetry. Do you like it?" "I'm afraid I don't very much," Corey owned. "But, of course, there was a time when Tennyson was a great deal more to me than he is now." "We had something about him at school too. I think I remember the name. I think we ought to have ALL the American poets." "Well, not all. Five or six of the best: you want Longfellow and Bryant and Whittier and Holmes and Emerson and Lowell." The girl listened attentively, as if making mental note of the names. "And Shakespeare," she added. "Don't you like Shakespeare's plays?" "Oh yes, very much." "I used to be perfectly crazy about his plays. Don't you think 'Hamlet' is splendid? We had ever so much about Shakespeare. Weren't you perfectly astonished when you found out how many other plays of his there were? I always thought there was nothing but 'Hamlet' and 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Macbeth' and 'Richard III.' and 'King Lear,' and that one that Robeson and Crane have--oh yes! 'Comedy of Errors.'" "Those are the ones they usually play," said Corey. "I presume we shall have to have Scott's works," said Irene, returning to the question of books. "Oh yes." "One of the girls used to think he was GREAT. She was always talking about Scott." Irene made a pretty little amiably contemptuous mouth. "He isn't American, though?" she suggested. "No," said Corey; "he's Scotch, I believe." Irene passed her glove over her forehead. "I always get him mixed up with Cooper. Well, papa has got to get them. If we have a library, we have got to have books in it. Pen says it's perfectly ridiculous having one. But papa thinks whatever the architect says is right. He fought him hard enough at first. I don't see how any one can keep the poets and the historians and novelists separate in their mind. Of course papa will buy them if we say so. But I don't see how I'm ever going to tell him which ones." The joyous light faded out of her face and left it pensive. "Why, if you like," said the young man, taking out his pencil, "I'll put down the names we've been talking about." He clapped himself on his breast pockets to detect some lurking scrap of paper. "Will you?" she cried delightedly. "Here! take one of my cards," and she pulled out her card-case. "The carpenter writes on a three-cornered block and puts it into his pocket, and it's so uncomfortable he can't help remembering it. Pen says she's going to adopt the three-cornered-block plan with papa." "Thank you," said Corey. "I believe I'll use your card." He crossed over to her, and after a moment sat down on the trestle beside her. She looked over the card as he wrote. "Those are the ones we mentioned, but perhaps I'd better add a few others." "Oh, thank you," she said, when he had written the card full on both sides. "He has got to get them in the nicest binding, too. I shall tell him about their helping to furnish the room, and then he can't object." She remained with the card, looking at it rather wistfully. Perhaps Corey divined her trouble of mind. "If he will take that to any bookseller, and tell him what bindings he wants, he will fill the order for him." "Oh, thank you very much," she said, and put the card back into her card-case with great apparent relief. Then she turned her lovely face toward the young man, beaming with the triumph a woman feels in any bit of successful manoeuvring, and began to talk with recovered gaiety of other things, as if, having got rid of a matter annoying out of all proportion to its importance, she was now going to indemnify herself. Corey did not return to his own trestle. She found another shaving within reach of her parasol, and began poking that with it, and trying to follow it through its folds. Corey watched her a while. "You seem to have a great passion for playing with shavings," he said. "Is it a new one?" "New what?" "Passion." "I don't know," she said, dropping her eyelids, and keeping on with her effort. She looked shyly aslant at him. "Perhaps you don't approve of playing with shavings?" "Oh yes, I do. I admire it very much. But it seems rather difficult. I've a great ambition to put my foot on the shaving's tail and hold it for you." "Well," said the girl. "Thank you," said the young man. He did so, and now she ran her parasol point easily through it. They looked at each other and laughed. "That was wonderful. Would you like to try another?" he asked. "No, I thank you," she replied. "I think one will do." They both laughed again, for whatever reason or no reason, and then the young girl became sober. To a girl everything a young man does is of significance; and if he holds a shaving down with his foot while she pokes through it with her parasol, she must ask herself what he means by it. "They seem to be having rather a long interview with the carpenter to-day," said Irene, looking vaguely toward the ceiling. She turned with polite ceremony to Corey. "I'm afraid you're letting them keep you. You mustn't." "Oh no. You're letting me stay," he returned. She bridled and bit her lip for pleasure. "I presume they will be down before a great while. Don't you like the smell of the wood and the mortar? It's so fresh." "Yes, it's delicious." He bent forward and picked up from the floor the shaving with which they had been playing, and put it to his nose. "It's like a flower. May I offer it to you?" he asked, as if it had been one. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" She took it from him and put it into her belt, and then they both laughed once more. Steps were heard descending. When the elder people reached the floor where they were sitting, Corey rose and presently took his leave. "What makes you so solemn, 'Rene?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Solemn?" echoed the girl. "I'm not a BIT solemn. What CAN you mean?" Corey dined at home that evening, and as he sat looking across the table at his father, he said, "I wonder what the average literature of non-cultivated people is." "Ah," said the elder, "I suspect the average is pretty low even with cultivated people. You don't read a great many books yourself, Tom." "No, I don't," the young man confessed. "I read more books when I was with Stanton, last winter, than I had since I was a boy. But I read them because I must--there was nothing else to do. It wasn't because I was fond of reading. Still I think I read with some sense of literature and the difference between authors. I don't suppose that people generally do that; I have met people who had read books without troubling themselves to find out even the author's name, much less trying to decide upon his quality. I suppose that's the way the vast majority of people read." "Yes. If authors were not almost necessarily recluses, and ignorant of the ignorance about them, I don't see how they could endure it. Of course they are fated to be overwhelmed by oblivion at last, poor fellows; but to see it weltering all round them while they are in the very act of achieving immortality must be tremendously discouraging. I don't suppose that we who have the habit of reading, and at least a nodding acquaintance with literature, can imagine the bestial darkness of the great mass of people--even people whose houses are rich and whose linen is purple and fine. But occasionally we get glimpses of it. I suppose you found the latest publications lying all about in Lapham cottage when you were down there?" Young Corey laughed. "It wasn't exactly cumbered with them." "No?" "To tell the truth, I don't suppose they ever buy books. The young ladies get novels that they hear talked of out of the circulating library." "Had they knowledge enough to be ashamed of their ignorance?" "Yes, in certain ways--to a certain degree." "It's a curious thing, this thing we call civilisation," said the elder musingly. "We think it is an affair of epochs and of nations. It's really an affair of individuals. One brother will be civilised and the other a barbarian. I've occasionally met young girls who were so brutally, insolently, wilfully indifferent to the arts which make civilisation that they ought to have been clothed in the skins of wild beasts and gone about barefoot with clubs over their shoulders. Yet they were of polite origin, and their parents were at least respectful of the things that these young animals despised." "I don't think that is exactly the case with the Lapham family," said the son, smiling. "The father and mother rather apologised about not getting time to read, and the young ladies by no means scorned it." "They are quite advanced!" "They are going to have a library in their Beacon Street house." "Oh, poor things! How are they ever going to get the books together?" "Well, sir," said the son, colouring a little, "I have been indirectly applied to for help." "You, Tom!" His father dropped back in his chair and laughed. "I recommended the standard authors," said the son. "Oh, I never supposed your PRUDENCE would be at fault, Tom!" "But seriously," said the young man, generously smiling in sympathy with his father's enjoyment, "they're not unintelligent people. They are very quick, and they are shrewd and sensible." "I have no doubt that some of the Sioux are so. But that is not saying that they are civilised. All civilisation comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilisation by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise. Once we were softened, if not polished, by religion; but I suspect that the pulpit counts for much less now in civilising." "They're enormous devourers of newspapers, and theatre-goers; and they go a great deal to lectures. The Colonel prefers them with the stereopticon." "They might get a something in that way," said the elder thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose one must take those things into account--especially the newspapers and the lectures. I doubt if the theatre is a factor in civilisation among us. I dare say it doesn't deprave a great deal, but from what I've seen of it I should say that it was intellectually degrading. Perhaps they might get some sort of lift from it; I don't know. Tom!" he added, after a moment's reflection. "I really think I ought to see this patron of yours. Don't you think it would be rather decent in me to make his acquaintance?" "Well, if you have the fancy, sir," said the young man. "But there's no sort of obligation. Colonel Lapham would be the last man in the world to want to give our relation any sort of social character. The meeting will come about in the natural course of things." "Ah, I didn't intend to propose anything immediate," said the father. "One can't do anything in the summer, and I should prefer your mother's superintendence. Still, I can't rid myself of the idea of a dinner. It appears to me that there ought to be a dinner." "Oh, pray don't feel that there's any necessity." "Well," said the elder, with easy resignation, "there's at least no hurry." "There is one thing I don't like," said Lapham, in the course of one of those talks which came up between his wife and himself concerning Corey, "or at least I don't understand it; and that's the way his father behaves. I don't want to force myself on any man; but it seems to me pretty queer the way he holds off. I should think he would take enough interest in his son to want to know something about his business. What is he afraid of?" demanded Lapham angrily. "Does he think I'm going to jump at a chance to get in with him, if he gives me one? He's mightily mistaken if he does. I don't want to know him." "Silas," said his wife, making a wife's free version of her husband's words, and replying to their spirit rather than their letter, "I hope you never said a word to Mr. Corey to let him know the way you feel." "I never mentioned his father to him!" roared the Colonel. "That's the way I feel about it!" "Because it would spoil everything. I wouldn't have them think we cared the least thing in the world for their acquaintance. We shouldn't be a bit better off. We don't know the same people they do, and we don't care for the same kind of things." Lapham was breathless with resentment of his wife's implication. "Don't I tell you," he gasped, "that I don't want to know them? Who began it? They're friends of yours if they're anybody's." "They're distant acquaintances of mine," returned Mrs. Lapham quietly; "and this young Corey is a clerk of yours. And I want we should hold ourselves so that when they get ready to make the advances we can meet them half-way or not, just as we choose." "That's what grinds me," cried her husband. "Why should we wait for them to make the advances? Why shouldn't we make 'em? Are they any better than we are? My note of hand would be worth ten times what Bromfield Corey's is on the street to-day. And I made MY money. I haven't loafed my life away." "Oh, it isn't what you've got, and it isn't what you've done exactly. It's what you are." "Well, then, what's the difference?" "None that really amounts to anything, or that need give you any trouble, if you don't think of it. But he's been all his life in society, and he knows just what to say and what to do, and he can talk about the things that society people like to talk about, and you--can't." Lapham gave a furious snort. "And does that make him any better?" "No. But it puts him where he can make the advances without demeaning himself, and it puts you where you can't. Now, look here, Silas Lapham! You understand this thing as well as I do. You know that I appreciate you, and that I'd sooner die than have you humble yourself to a living soul. But I'm not going to have you coming to me, and pretending that you can meet Bromfield Corey as an equal on his own ground. You can't. He's got a better education than you, and if he hasn't got more brains than you, he's got different. And he and his wife, and their fathers and grandfathers before 'em, have always had a high position, and you can't help it. If you want to know them, you've got to let them make the advances. If you don't, all well and good." "I guess," said the chafed and vanquished Colonel, after a moment for swallowing the pill, "that they'd have been in a pretty fix if you'd waited to let them make the advances last summer." "That was a different thing altogether. I didn't know who they were, or may be I should have waited. But all I say now is that if you've got young Corey into business with you, in hopes of our getting into society with his father, you better ship him at once. For I ain't going to have it on that basis." "Who wants to have it on that basis?" retorted her husband. "Nobody, if you don't," said Mrs. Lapham tranquilly. Irene had come home with the shaving in her belt, unnoticed by her father, and unquestioned by her mother. But her sister saw it at once, and asked her what she was doing with it. "Oh, nothing," said Irene, with a joyful smile of self-betrayal, taking the shaving carefully out, and laying it among the laces and ribbons in her drawer. "Hadn't you better put it in water, 'Rene? It'll be all wilted by morning," said Pen. "You mean thing!" cried the happy girl. "It isn't a flower!" "Oh, I thought it was a whole bouquet. Who gave it to you?" "I shan't tell you," said Irene saucily. "Oh, well, never mind. Did you know Mr. Corey had been down here this afternoon, walking on the beach with me?" "He wasn't--he wasn't at all! He was at the house with ME. There! I've caught you fairly." "Is that so?" drawled Penelope. "Then I never could guess who gave you that precious shaving." "No, you couldn't!" said Irene, flushing beautifully. "And you may guess, and you may guess, and you may guess!" With her lovely eyes she coaxed her sister to keep on teasing her, and Penelope continued the comedy with the patience that women have for such things. "Well, I'm not going to try, if it's no use. But I didn't know it had got to be the fashion to give shavings instead of flowers. But there's some sense in it. They can be used for kindlings when they get old, and you can't do anything with old flowers. Perhaps he'll get to sending 'em by the barrel." Irene laughed for pleasure in this tormenting. "O Pen, I want to tell you how it all happened." "Oh, he DID give it to you, then? Well, I guess I don't care to hear." "You shall, and you've got to!" Irene ran and caught her sister, who feigned to be going out of the room, and pushed her into a chair. "There, now!" She pulled up another chair, and hemmed her in with it. "He came over, and sat down on the trestle alongside of me----" "What? As close as you are to me now?" "You wretch! I will GIVE it to you! No, at a proper distance. And here was this shaving on the floor, that I'd been poking with my parasol----" "To hide your embarrassment." "Pshaw! I wasn't a bit embarrassed. I was just as much at my ease! And then he asked me to let him hold the shaving down with his foot, while I went on with my poking. And I said yes he might----" "What a bold girl! You said he might hold a shaving down for you?" "And then--and then----" continued Irene, lifting her eyes absently, and losing herself in the beatific recollection, "and then----Oh yes! Then I asked him if he didn't like the smell of pine shavings. And then he picked it up, and said it smelt like a flower. And then he asked if he might offer it to me--just for a joke, you know. And I took it, and stuck it in my belt. And we had such a laugh! We got into a regular gale. And O Pen, what do you suppose he meant by it?" She suddenly caught herself to her sister's breast, and hid her burning face on her shoulder. "Well, there used to be a book about the language of flowers. But I never knew much about the language of shavings, and I can't say exactly----" "Oh, don't--DON'T, Pen!" and here Irene gave over laughing, and began to sob in her sister's arms. "Why, 'Rene!" cried the elder girl. "You KNOW he didn't mean anything. He doesn't care a bit about me. He hates me! He despises me! Oh, what shall I do?" A trouble passed over the face of the sister as she silently comforted the child in her arms; then the drolling light came back into her eyes. "Well, 'Rene, YOU haven't got to do ANYthing. That's one advantage girls have got--if it IS an advantage. I'm not always sure." Irene's tears turned to laughing again. When she lifted her head it was to look into the mirror confronting them, where her beauty showed all the more brilliant for the shower that had passed over it. She seemed to gather courage from the sight. "It must be awful to have to DO," she said, smiling into her own face. "I don't see how they ever can." "Some of 'em can't--especially when there's such a tearing beauty around." "Oh, pshaw, Pen! you know that isn't so. You've got a real pretty mouth, Pen," she added thoughtfully, surveying the feature in the glass, and then pouting her own lips for the sake of that effect on them. "It's a useful mouth," Penelope admitted; "I don't believe I could get along without it now, I've had it so long." "It's got such a funny expression--just the mate of the look in your eyes; as if you were just going to say something ridiculous. He said, the very first time he saw you, that he knew you were humorous." "Is it possible? It must be so, if the Grand Mogul said it. Why didn't you tell me so before, and not let me keep on going round just like a common person?" Irene laughed as if she liked to have her sister take his praises in that way rather than another. "I've got such a stiff, prim kind of mouth," she said, drawing it down, and then looking anxiously at it. "I hope you didn't put on that expression when he offered you the shaving. If you did, I don't believe he'll ever give you another splinter." The severe mouth broke into a lovely laugh, and then pressed itself in a kiss against Penelope's cheek. "There! Be done, you silly thing! I'm not going to have you accepting ME before I've offered myself, ANYWAY." She freed herself from her sister's embrace, and ran from her round the room. Irene pursued her, in the need of hiding her face against her shoulder again. "O Pen! O Pen!" she cried. The next day, at the first moment of finding herself alone with her eldest daughter, Mrs. Lapham asked, as if knowing that Penelope must have already made it subject of inquiry: "What was Irene doing with that shaving in her belt yesterday?" "Oh, just some nonsense of hers with Mr. Corey. He gave it to her at the new house." Penelope did not choose to look up and meet her mother's grave glance. "What do you think he meant by it?" Penelope repeated Irene's account of the affair, and her mother listened without seeming to derive much encouragement from it. "He doesn't seem like one to flirt with her," she said at last. Then, after a thoughtful pause: "Irene is as good a girl as ever breathed, and she's a perfect beauty. But I should hate the day when a daughter of mine was married for her beauty." "You're safe as far as I'm concerned, mother." Mrs. Lapham smiled ruefully. "She isn't really equal to him, Pen. I misdoubted that from the first, and it's been borne in upon me more and more ever since. She hasn't mind enough." "I didn't know that a man fell in love with a girl's intellect," said Penelope quietly. "Oh no. He hasn't fallen in love with Irene at all. If he had, it wouldn't matter about the intellect." Penelope let the self-contradiction pass. "Perhaps he has, after all." "No," said Mrs. Lapham. "She pleases him when he sees her. But he doesn't try to see her." "He has no chance. You won't let father bring him here." "He would find excuses to come without being brought, if he wished to come," said the mother. "But she isn't in his mind enough to make him. He goes away and doesn't think anything more about her. She's a child. She's a good child, and I shall always say it; but she's nothing but a child. No, she's got to forget him." "Perhaps that won't be so easy." "No, I presume not. And now your father has got the notion in his head, and he will move heaven and earth to bring it to pass. I can see that he's always thinking about it." "The Colonel has a will of his own," observed the girl, rocking to and fro where she sat looking at her mother. "I wish we had never met them!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "I wish we had never thought of building! I wish he had kept away from your father's business!" "Well, it's too late now, mother," said the girl. "Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think." "Well, we must stand it, anyway," said Mrs. Lapham, with the grim antique Yankee submission. "Oh yes, we've got to stand it," said Penelope, with the quaint modern American fatalism. X. IT was late June, almost July, when Corey took up his life in Boston again, where the summer slips away so easily. If you go out of town early, it seems a very long summer when you come back in October; but if you stay, it passes swiftly, and, seen foreshortened in its flight, seems scarcely a month's length. It has its days of heat, when it is very hot, but for the most part it is cool, with baths of the east wind that seem to saturate the soul with delicious freshness. Then there are stretches of grey westerly weather, when the air is full of the sentiment of early autumn, and the frying, of the grasshopper in the blossomed weed of the vacant lots on the Back Bay is intershot with the carol of crickets; and the yellowing leaf on the long slope of Mt. Vernon Street smites the sauntering observer with tender melancholy. The caterpillar, gorged with the spoil of the lindens on Chestnut, and weaving his own shroud about him in his lodgment on the brick-work, records the passing of summer by mid-July; and if after that comes August, its breath is thick and short, and September is upon the sojourner before he has fairly had time to philosophise the character of the town out of season. But it must have appeared that its most characteristic feature was the absence of everybody he knew. This was one of the things that commended Boston to Bromfield Corey during the summer; and if his son had any qualms about the life he had entered upon with such vigour, it must have been a relief to him that there was scarcely a soul left to wonder or pity. By the time people got back to town the fact of his connection with the mineral paint man would be an old story, heard afar off with different degrees of surprise, and considered with different degrees of indifference. A man has not reached the age of twenty-six in any community where he was born and reared without having had his capacity pretty well ascertained; and in Boston the analysis is conducted with an unsparing thoroughness which may fitly impress the un-Bostonian mind, darkened by the popular superstition that the Bostonians blindly admire one another. A man's qualities are sifted as closely in Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or Athens; and, if final mercy was shown in those cities because a man was, with all his limitations, an Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's powers had been gauged in college, and he had not given his world reason to think very differently of him since he came out of college. He was rated as an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with the smallest amount of inspiration that can save a man from being commonplace. If he was not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him sweet--a word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable excellences. Some of the more nervous and excitable said that Tom Corey was as sweet as he could live; but this perhaps meant no more than the word alone. No man ever had a son less like him than Bromfield Corey. If Tom Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one could remember it; and yet the father had never said a witty thing to a more sympathetic listener than his own son. The clear mind which produced nothing but practical results reflected everything with charming lucidity; and it must have been this which endeared Tom Corey to every one who spoke ten words with him. In a city where people have good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not care to shine must be little short of universally acceptable without any other effort for popularity; and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey loved his son. Yet, when it came to accounting for Tom Corey, as it often did in a community where every one's generation is known to the remotest degrees of cousinship, they could not trace his sweetness to his mother, for neither Anna Bellingham nor any of her family, though they were so many blocks of Wenham ice for purity and rectangularity, had ever had any such savour; and, in fact, it was to his father, whose habit of talk wronged it in himself, that they had to turn for this quality of the son's. They traced to the mother the traits of practicality and common-sense in which he bordered upon the commonplace, and which, when they had dwelt upon them, made him seem hardly worth the close inquiry they had given him. While the summer wore away he came and went methodically about his business, as if it had been the business of his life, sharing his father's bachelor liberty and solitude, and expecting with equal patience the return of his mother and sisters in the autumn. Once or twice he found time to run down to Mt. Desert and see them; and then he heard how the Philadelphia and New York people were getting in everywhere, and was given reason to regret the house at Nahant which he had urged to be sold. He came back and applied himself to his desk with a devotion that was exemplary rather than necessary; for Lapham made no difficulty about the brief absences which he asked, and set no term to the apprenticeship that Corey was serving in the office before setting off upon that mission to South America in the early winter, for which no date had yet been fixed. The summer was a dull season for the paint as well as for everything else. Till things should brisk up, as Lapham said, in the fall, he was letting the new house take a great deal of his time. AEsthetic ideas had never been intelligibly presented to him before, and he found a delight in apprehending them that was very grateful to his imaginative architect. At the beginning, the architect had foreboded a series of mortifying defeats and disastrous victories in his encounters with his client; but he had never had a client who could be more reasonably led on from one outlay to another. It appeared that Lapham required but to understand or feel the beautiful effect intended, and he was ready to pay for it. His bull-headed pride was concerned in a thing which the architect made him see, and then he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps conceived it. In some measure the architect seemed to share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was very suggestive. Together they blocked out windows here, and bricked them up there; they changed doors and passages; pulled down cornices and replaced them with others of different design; experimented with costly devices of decoration, and went to extravagant lengths in novelties of finish. Mrs. Lapham, beginning with a woman's adventurousness in the unknown region, took fright at the reckless outlay at last, and refused to let her husband pass a certain limit. He tried to make her believe that a far-seeing economy dictated the expense; and that if he put the money into the house, he could get it out any time by selling it. She would not be persuaded. "I don't want you should sell it. And you've put more money into it now than you'll ever get out again, unless you can find as big a goose to buy it, and that isn't likely. No, sir! You just stop at a hundred thousand, and don't you let him get you a cent beyond. Why, you're perfectly bewitched with that fellow! You've lost your head, Silas Lapham, and if you don't look out you'll lose your money too." The Colonel laughed; he liked her to talk that way, and promised he would hold up a while. "But there's no call to feel anxious, Pert. It's only a question what to do with the money. I can reinvest it; but I never had so much of it to spend before." "Spend it, then," said his wife; "don't throw it away! And how came you to have so much more money than you know what to do with, Silas Lapham?" she added. "Oh, I've made a very good thing in stocks lately." "In stocks? When did you take up gambling for a living?" "Gambling? Stuff! What gambling? Who said it was gambling?" "You have; many a time." "Oh yes, buying and selling on a margin. But this was a bona fide transaction. I bought at forty-three for an investment, and I sold at a hundred and seven; and the money passed both times." "Well, you better let stocks alone," said his wife, with the conservatism of her sex. "Next time you'll buy at a hundred and seven and sell at forty three. Then where'll you be?" "Left," admitted the Colonel. "You better stick to paint a while yet." The Colonel enjoyed this too, and laughed again with the ease of a man who knows what he is about. A few days after that he came down to Nantasket with the radiant air which he wore when he had done a good thing in business and wanted his wife's sympathy. He did not say anything of what had happened till he was alone with her in their own room; but he was very gay the whole evening, and made several jokes which Penelope said nothing but very great prosperity could excuse: they all understood these moods of his. "Well, what is it, Silas?" asked his wife when the time came. "Any more big-bugs wanting to go into the mineral paint business with you?" "Something better than that." "I could think of a good many better things," said his wife, with a sigh of latent bitterness. "What's this one?" "I've had a visitor." "Who?" "Can't you guess?" "I don't want to try. Who was it?" "Rogers." Mrs. Lapham sat down with her hands in her lap, and stared at the smile on her husband's face, where he sat facing her. "I guess you wouldn't want to joke on that subject, Si," she said, a little hoarsely, "and you wouldn't grin about it unless you had some good news. I don't know what the miracle is, but if you could tell quick----" She stopped like one who can say no more. "I will, Persis," said her husband, and with that awed tone in which he rarely spoke of anything but the virtues of his paint. "He came to borrow money of me, and I lent him it. That's the short of it. The long----" "Go on," said his wife, with gentle patience. "Well, Pert, I was never so much astonished in my life as I was to see that man come into my office. You might have knocked me down with--I don't know what." "I don't wonder. Go on!" "And he was as much embarrassed as I was. There we stood, gaping at each other, and I hadn't hardly sense enough to ask him to take a chair. I don't know just how we got at it. And I don't remember just how it was that he said he came to come to me. But he had got hold of a patent right that he wanted to go into on a large scale, and there he was wanting me to supply him the funds." "Go on!" said Mrs. Lapham, with her voice further in her throat. "I never felt the way you did about Rogers, but I know how you always did feel, and I guess I surprised him with my answer. He had brought along a lot of stock as security----" "You didn't take it, Silas!" his wife flashed out. "Yes, I did, though," said Lapham. "You wait. We settled our business, and then we went into the old thing, from the very start. And we talked it all over. And when we got through we shook hands. Well, I don't know when it's done me so much good to shake hands with anybody." "And you told him--you owned up to him that you were in the wrong, Silas?" "No, I didn't," returned the Colonel promptly; "for I wasn't. And before we got through, I guess he saw it the same as I did." "Oh, no matter! so you had the chance to show how you felt." "But I never felt that way," persisted the Colonel. "I've lent him the money, and I've kept his stocks. And he got what he wanted out of me." "Give him back his stocks!" "No, I shan't. Rogers came to borrow. He didn't come to beg. You needn't be troubled about his stocks. They're going to come up in time; but just now they're so low down that no bank would take them as security, and I've got to hold them till they do rise. I hope you're satisfied now, Persis," said her husband; and he looked at her with the willingness to receive the reward of a good action which we all feel when we have performed one. "I lent him the money you kept me from spending on the house." "Truly, Si? Well, I'm satisfied," said Mrs. Lapham, with a deep tremulous breath. "The Lord has been good to you, Silas," she continued solemnly. "You may laugh if you choose, and I don't know as I believe in his interfering a great deal; but I believe he's interfered this time; and I tell you, Silas, it ain't always he gives people a chance to make it up to others in this life. I've been afraid you'd die, Silas, before you got the chance; but he's let you live to make it up to Rogers." "I'm glad to be let live," said Lapham stubbornly, "but I hadn't anything to make up to Milton K. Rogers. And if God has let me live for that----" "Oh, say what you please, Si! Say what you please, now you've done it! I shan't stop you. You've taken the one spot--the one SPECK--off you that was ever there, and I'm satisfied." "There wa'n't ever any speck there," Lapham held out, lapsing more and more into his vernacular; "and what I done I done for you, Persis." "And I thank you for your own soul's sake, Silas." "I guess my soul's all right," said Lapham. "And I want you should promise me one thing more." "Thought you said you were satisfied?" "I am. But I want you should promise me this: that you won't let anything tempt you--anything!--to ever trouble Rogers for that money you lent him. No matter what happens--no matter if you lose it all. Do you promise?" "Why, I don't ever EXPECT to press him for it. That's what I said to myself when I lent it. And of course I'm glad to have that old trouble healed up. I don't THINK I ever did Rogers any wrong, and I never did think so; but if I DID do it--IF I did--I'm willing to call it square, if I never see a cent of my money back again." "Well, that's all," said his wife. They did not celebrate his reconciliation with his old enemy--for such they had always felt him to be since he ceased to be an ally--by any show of joy or affection. It was not in their tradition, as stoical for the woman as for the man, that they should kiss or embrace each other at such a moment. She was content to have told him that he had done his duty, and he was content with her saying that. But before she slept she found words to add that she always feared the selfish part he had acted toward Rogers had weakened him, and left him less able to overcome any temptation that might beset him; and that was one reason why she could never be easy about it. Now she should never fear for him again. This time he did not explicitly deny her forgiving impeachment. "Well, it's all past and gone now, anyway; and I don't want you should think anything more about it." He was man enough to take advantage of the high favour in which he stood when he went up to town, and to abuse it by bringing Corey down to supper. His wife could not help condoning the sin of disobedience in him at such a time. Penelope said that between the admiration she felt for the Colonel's boldness and her mother's forbearance, she was hardly in a state to entertain company that evening; but she did what she could. Irene liked being talked to better than talking, and when her sister was by she was always, tacitly or explicitly, referring to her for confirmation of what she said. She was content to sit and look pretty as she looked at the young man and listened to her sister's drolling. She laughed and kept glancing at Corey to make sure that he was understanding her. When they went out on the veranda to see the moon on the water, Penelope led the way and Irene followed. They did not look at the moonlight long. The young man perched on the rail of the veranda, and Irene took one of the red-painted rocking-chairs where she could conveniently look at him and at her sister, who sat leaning forward lazily and running on, as the phrase is. That low, crooning note of hers was delicious; her face, glimpsed now and then in the moonlight as she turned it or lifted it a little, had a fascination which kept his eye. Her talk was very unliterary, and its effect seemed hardly conscious. She was far from epigram in her funning. She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the characters and looks of people who had interested her, and nothing seemed to have escaped her notice; she mimicked a little, but not much; she suggested, and then the affair represented itself as if without her agency. She did not laugh; when Corey stopped she made a soft cluck in her throat, as if she liked his being amused, and went on again. The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first time since he had come from town, made haste to take the word. "Well, Pert, I've arranged the whole thing with Rogers, and I hope you'll be satisfied to know that he owes me twenty thousand dollars, and that I've got security from him to the amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force his stocks to a sale." "How came he to come down with you?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Who? Rogers?" "Mr. Corey." "Corey? Oh!" said Lapham, affecting not to have thought she could mean Corey. "He proposed it." "Likely!" jeered his wife, but with perfect amiability. "It's so," protested the Colonel. "We got talking about a matter just before I left, and he walked down to the boat with me; and then he said if I didn't mind he guessed he'd come along down and go back on the return boat. Of course I couldn't let him do that." "It's well for you you couldn't." "And I couldn't do less than bring him here to tea." "Oh, certainly not." "But he ain't going to stay the night--unless," faltered Lapham, "you want him to." "Oh, of course, I want him to! I guess he'll stay, probably." "Well, you know how crowded that last boat always is, and he can't get any other now." Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. "I hope you'll be just as well satisfied, Si, if it turns out he doesn't want Irene after all." "Pshaw, Persis! What are you always bringing that up for?" pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell silent, and presently his rude, strong face was clouded with an unconscious frown. "There!" cried his wife, startling him from his abstraction. "I see how you'd feel; and I hope that you'll remember who you've got to blame." "I'll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of a man used to success. From the veranda the sound of Penelope's lazy tone came through the closed windows, with joyous laughter from Irene and peals from Corey. "Listen to that!" said her father within, swelling up with inexpressible satisfaction. "That girl can talk for twenty, right straight along. She's better than a circus any day. I wonder what she's up to now." "Oh, she's probably getting off some of those yarns of hers, or telling about some people. She can't step out of the house without coming back with more things to talk about than most folks would bring back from Japan. There ain't a ridiculous person she's ever seen but what she's got something from them to make you laugh at; and I don't believe we've ever had anybody in the house since the girl could talk that she hain't got some saying from, or some trick that'll paint 'em out so't you can see 'em and hear 'em. Sometimes I want to stop her; but when she gets into one of her gales there ain't any standing up against her. I guess it's lucky for Irene that she's got Pen there to help entertain her company. I can't ever feel down where Pen is." "That's so," said the Colonel. "And I guess she's got about as much culture as any of them. Don't you?" "She reads a great deal," admitted her mother. "She seems to be at it the whole while. I don't want she should injure her health, and sometimes I feel like snatchin' the books away from her. I don't know as it's good for a girl to read so much, anyway, especially novels. I don't want she should get notions." "Oh, I guess Pen'll know how to take care of herself," said Lapham. "She's got sense enough. But she ain't so practical as Irene. She's more up in the clouds--more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene's wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there's anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the oldest, nine times out of ten. It's only when they get to talking that you can see Pen's got twice as much brains." "Well," said Lapham, tacitly granting this point, and leaning back in his chair in supreme content. "Did you ever see much nicer girls anywhere?" His wife laughed at his pride. "I presume they're as much swans as anybody's geese." "No; but honestly, now!" "Oh, they'll do; but don't you be silly, if you can help it, Si." The young people came in, and Corey said it was time for his boat. Mrs. Lapham pressed him to stay, but he persisted, and he would not let the Colonel send him to the boat; he said he would rather walk. Outside, he pushed along toward the boat, which presently he could see lying at her landing in the bay, across the sandy tract to the left of the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a swifter pace. "She's charming!" he said, and he thought he had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering about in the deep sand, wide of the path; he got back to it, and reached the boat just before she started. The clerk came to take his fare, and Corey looked radiantly up at him in his lantern-light, with a smile that he must have been wearing a long time; his cheek was stiff with it. Once some people who stood near him edged suddenly and fearfully away, and then he suspected himself of having laughed outright. XI. COREY put off his set smile with the help of a frown, of which he first became aware after reaching home, when his father asked-- "Anything gone wrong with your department of the fine arts to-day, Tom?" "Oh no--no, sir," said the son, instantly relieving his brows from the strain upon them, and beaming again. "But I was thinking whether you were not perhaps right in your impression that it might be well for you to make Colonel Lapham's acquaintance before a great while." "Has he been suggesting it in any way?" asked Bromfield Corey, laying aside his book and taking his lean knee between his clasped hands. "Oh, not at all!" the young man hastened to reply. "I was merely thinking whether it might not begin to seem intentional, your not doing it." "Well, Tom, you know I have been leaving it altogether to you----" "Oh, I understand, of course, and I didn't mean to urge anything of the kind----" "You are so very much more of a Bostonian than I am, you know, that I've been waiting your motion in entire confidence that you would know just what to do, and when to do it. If I had been left quite to my own lawless impulses, I think I should have called upon your padrone at once. It seems to me that my father would have found some way of showing that he expected as much as that from people placed in the relation to him that we hold to Colonel Lapham." "Do you think so?" asked the young man. "Yes. But you know I don't pretend to be an authority in such matters. As far as they go, I am always in the hands of your mother and you children." "I'm very sorry, sir. I had no idea I was over-ruling your judgment. I only wanted to spare you a formality that didn't seem quite a necessity yet. I'm very sorry," he said again, and this time with more comprehensive regret. "I shouldn't like to have seemed remiss with a man who has been so considerate of me. They are all very good-natured." "I dare say," said Bromfield Corey, with the satisfaction which no elder can help feeling in disabling the judgment of a younger man, "that it won't be too late if I go down to your office with you to-morrow." "No, no. I didn't imagine your doing it at once, sir." "Ah, but nothing can prevent me from doing a thing when once I take the bit in my teeth," said the father, with the pleasure which men of weak will sometimes take in recognising their weakness. "How does their new house get on?" "I believe they expect to be in it before New Year." "Will they be a great addition to society?" asked Bromfield Corey, with unimpeachable seriousness. "I don't quite know what you mean," returned the son, a little uneasily. "Ah, I see that you do, Tom." "No one can help feeling that they are all people of good sense and--right ideas." "Oh, that won't do. If society took in all the people of right ideas and good sense, it would expand beyond the calling capacity of its most active members. Even your mother's social conscientiousness could not compass it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, but the airy, graceful, winning superstructure which we all know demands different qualities. Have your friends got these qualities,--which may be felt, but not defined?" The son laughed. "To tell you the truth, sir, I don't think they have the most elemental ideas of society, as we understand it. I don't believe Mrs. Lapham ever gave a dinner." "And with all that money!" sighed the father. "I don't believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that when they don't drink tea and coffee with their dinner, they drink ice-water." "Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey. "It appears to me that this defines them." "Oh yes. There are people who give dinners, and who are not cognoscible. But people who have never yet given a dinner, how is society to assimilate them?" "It digests a great many people," suggested the young man. "Yes; but they have always brought some sort of sauce piquante with them. Now, as I understand you, these friends of yours have no such sauce." "Oh, I don't know about that!" cried the son. "Oh, rude, native flavours, I dare say. But that isn't what I mean. Well, then, they must spend. There is no other way for them to win their way to general regard. We must have the Colonel elected to the Ten O'clock Club, and he must put himself down in the list of those willing to entertain. Any one can manage a large supper. Yes, I see a gleam of hope for him in that direction." In the morning Bromfield Corey asked his son whether he should find Lapham at his place as early as eleven. "I think you might find him even earlier. I've never been there before him. I doubt if the porter is there much sooner." "Well, suppose I go with you, then?" "Why, if you like, sir," said the son, with some deprecation. "Oh, the question is, will HE like?" "I think he will, sir;" and the father could see that his son was very much pleased. Lapham was rending an impatient course through the morning's news when they appeared at the door of his inner room. He looked up from the newspaper spread on the desk before him, and then he stood up, making an indifferent feint of not knowing that he knew Bromfield Corey by sight. "Good morning, Colonel Lapham," said the son, and Lapham waited for him to say further, "I wish to introduce my father." Then he answered, "Good morning," and added rather sternly for the elder Corey, "How do you do, sir? Will you take a chair?" and he pushed him one. They shook hands and sat down, and Lapham said to his subordinate, "Have a seat;" but young Corey remained standing, watching them in their observance of each other with an amusement which was a little uneasy. Lapham made his visitor speak first by waiting for him to do so. "I'm glad to make your acquaintance, Colonel Lapham, and I ought to have come sooner to do so. My father in your place would have expected it of a man in my place at once, I believe. But I can't feel myself altogether a stranger as it is. I hope Mrs. Lapham is well? And your daughter?" "Thank you," said Lapham, "they're quite well." "They were very kind to my wife----" "Oh, that was nothing!" cried Lapham. "There's nothing Mrs. Lapham likes better than a chance of that sort. Mrs. Corey and the young ladies well?" "Very well, when I heard from them. They're out of town." "Yes, so I understood," said Lapham, with a nod toward the son. "I believe Mr. Corey, here, told Mrs. Lapham." He leaned back in his chair, stiffly resolute to show that he was not incommoded by the exchange of these civilities. "Yes," said Bromfield Corey. "Tom has had the pleasure which I hope for of seeing you all. I hope you're able to make him useful to you here?" Corey looked round Lapham's room vaguely, and then out at the clerks in their railed enclosure, where his eye finally rested on an extremely pretty girl, who was operating a type-writer. "Well, sir," replied Lapham, softening for the first time with this approach to business, "I guess it will be our own fault if we don't. By the way, Corey," he added, to the younger man, as he gathered up some letters from his desk, "here's something in your line. Spanish or French, I guess." "I'll run them over," said Corey, taking them to his desk. His father made an offer to rise. "Don't go," said Lapham, gesturing him down again. "I just wanted to get him away a minute. I don't care to say it to his face,--I don't like the principle,--but since you ask me about it, I'd just as lief say that I've never had any young man take hold here equal to your son. I don't know as you care." "You make me very happy," said Bromfield Corey. "Very happy indeed. I've always had the idea that there was something in my son, if he could only find the way to work it out. And he seems to have gone into your business for the love of it." "He went to work in the right way, sir! He told me about it. He looked into it. And that paint is a thing that will bear looking into." "Oh yes. You might think he had invented it, if you heard him celebrating it." "Is that so?" demanded Lapham, pleased through and through. "Well, there ain't any other way. You've got to believe in a thing before you can put any heart in it. Why, I had a partner in this thing once, along back just after the war, and he used to be always wanting to tinker with something else. 'Why,' says I, 'you've got the best thing in God's universe now. Why ain't you satisfied?' I had to get rid of him at last. I stuck to my paint, and that fellow's drifted round pretty much all over the whole country, whittling his capital down all the while, till here the other day I had to lend him some money to start him new. No, sir, you've got to believe in a thing. And I believe in your son. And I don't mind telling you that, so far as he's gone, he's a success." "That's very kind of you." "No kindness about it. As I was saying the other day to a friend of mine, I've had many a fellow right out of the street that had to work hard all his life, and didn't begin to take hold like this son of yours." Lapham expanded with profound self-satisfaction. As he probably conceived it, he had succeeded in praising, in a perfectly casual way, the supreme excellence of his paint, and his own sagacity and benevolence; and here he was sitting face to face with Bromfield Corey, praising his son to him, and receiving his grateful acknowledgments as if he were the father of some office-boy whom Lapham had given a place half but of charity. "Yes, sir, when your son proposed to take hold here, I didn't have much faith in his ideas, that's the truth. But I had faith in him, and I saw that he meant business from the start. I could see it was born in him. Any one could." "I'm afraid he didn't inherit it directly from me," said Bromfield Corey; "but it's in the blood, on both sides." "Well, sir, we can't help those things," said Lapham compassionately. "Some of us have got it, and some of us haven't. The idea is to make the most of what we HAVE got." "Oh yes; that is the idea. By all means." "And you can't ever tell what's in you till you try. Why, when I started this thing, I didn't more than half understand my own strength. I wouldn't have said, looking back, that I could have stood the wear and tear of what I've been through. But I developed as I went along. It's just like exercising your muscles in a gymnasium. You can lift twice or three times as much after you've been in training a month as you could before. And I can see that it's going to be just so with your son. His going through college won't hurt him,--he'll soon slough all that off,--and his bringing up won't; don't be anxious about it. I noticed in the army that some of the fellows that had the most go-ahead were fellows that hadn't ever had much more to do than girls before the war broke out. Your son will get along." "Thank you," said Bromfield Corey, and smiled--whether because his spirit was safe in the humility he sometimes boasted, or because it was triply armed in pride against anything the Colonel's kindness could do. "He'll get along. He's a good business man, and he's a fine fellow. MUST you go?" asked Lapham, as Bromfield Corey now rose more resolutely. "Well, glad to see you. It was natural you should want to come and see what he was about, and I'm glad you did. I should have felt just so about it. Here is some of our stuff," he said, pointing out the various packages in his office, including the Persis Brand. "Ah, that's very nice, very nice indeed," said his visitor. "That colour through the jar--very rich--delicious. Is Persis Brand a name?" Lapham blushed. "Well, Persis is. I don't know as you saw an interview that fellow published in the Events a while back?" "What is the Events?" "Well, it's that new paper Witherby's started." "No," said Bromfield Corey, "I haven't seen it. I read The Daily," he explained; by which he meant The Daily Advertiser, the only daily there is in the old-fashioned Bostonian sense. "He put a lot of stuff in my mouth that I never said," resumed Lapham; "but that's neither here nor there, so long as you haven't seen it. Here's the department your son's in," and he showed him the foreign labels. Then he took him out into the warehouse to see the large packages. At the head of the stairs, where his guest stopped to nod to his son and say "Good-bye, Tom," Lapham insisted upon going down to the lower door with him "Well, call again," he said in hospitable dismissal. "I shall always be glad to see you. There ain't a great deal doing at this season." Bromfield Corey thanked him, and let his hand remain perforce in Lapham's lingering grasp. "If you ever like to ride after a good horse----" the Colonel began. "Oh, no, no, no; thank you! The better the horse, the more I should be scared. Tom has told me of your driving!" "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Colonel. "Well! every one to his taste. Well, good morning, sir!" and he suffered him to go. "Who is the old man blowing to this morning?" asked Walker, the book-keeper, making an errand to Corey's desk. "My father." "Oh! That your father? I thought he must be one of your Italian correspondents that you'd been showing round, or Spanish." In fact, as Bromfield Corey found his way at his leisurely pace up through the streets on which the prosperity of his native city was founded, hardly any figure could have looked more alien to its life. He glanced up and down the facades and through the crooked vistas like a stranger, and the swarthy fruiterer of whom he bought an apple, apparently for the pleasure of holding it in his hand, was not surprised that the purchase should be transacted in his own tongue. Lapham walked back through the outer office to his own room without looking at Corey, and during the day he spoke to him only of business matters. That must have been his way of letting Corey see that he was not overcome by the honour of his father's visit. But he presented himself at Nantasket with the event so perceptibly on his mind that his wife asked: "Well, Silas, has Rogers been borrowing any more money of you? I don't want you should let that thing go too far. You've done enough." "You needn't be afraid. I've seen the last of Rogers for one while." He hesitated, to give the fact an effect of no importance. "Corey's father called this morning." "Did he?" said Mrs. Lapham, willing to humour his feint of indifference. "Did HE want to borrow some money too?" "Not as I understood." Lapham was smoking at great ease, and his wife had some crocheting on the other side of the lamp from him. The girls were on the piazza looking at the moon on the water again. "There's no man in it to-night," Penelope said, and Irene laughed forlornly. "What DID he want, then?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Oh, I don't know. Seemed to be just a friendly call. Said he ought to have come before." Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. Then she said: "Well, I hope you're satisfied now." Lapham rejected the sympathy too openly offered. "I don't know about being satisfied. I wa'n't in any hurry to see him." His wife permitted him this pretence also. "What sort of a person is he, anyway?" "Well, not much like his son. There's no sort of business about him. I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so well with his son. He asked after you and Irene; and he said he couldn't feel just like a stranger. Said you had been very kind to his wife. Of course I turned it off. Yes," said Lapham thoughtfully, with his hands resting on his knees, and his cigar between the fingers of his left hand, "I guess he meant to do the right thing, every way. Don't know as I ever saw a much pleasanter man. Dunno but what he's about the pleasantest man I ever did see." He was not letting his wife see in his averted face the struggle that revealed itself there--the struggle of stalwart achievement not to feel flattered at the notice of sterile elegance, not to be sneakingly glad of its amiability, but to stand up and look at it with eyes on the same level. God, who made us so much like himself, but out of the dust, alone knows when that struggle will end. The time had been when Lapham could not have imagined any worldly splendour which his dollars could not buy if he chose to spend them for it; but his wife's half discoveries, taking form again in his ignorance of the world, filled him with helpless misgiving. A cloudy vision of something unpurchasable, where he had supposed there was nothing, had cowed him in spite of the burly resistance of his pride. "I don't see why he shouldn't be pleasant," said Mrs. Lapham. "He's never done anything else." Lapham looked up consciously, with an uneasy laugh. "Pshaw, Persis! you never forget anything?" "Oh, I've got more than that to remember. I suppose you asked him to ride after the mare?" "Well," said Lapham, reddening guiltily, "he said he was afraid of a good horse." "Then, of course, you hadn't asked him." Mrs. Lapham crocheted in silence, and her husband leaned back in his chair and smoked. At last he said, "I'm going to push that house forward. They're loafing on it. There's no reason why we shouldn't be in it by Thanksgiving. I don't believe in moving in the dead of winter." "We can wait till spring. We're very comfortable in the old place," answered his wife. Then she broke out on him: "What are you in such a hurry to get into that house for? Do you want to invite the Coreys to a house-warming?" Lapham looked at her without speaking. "Don't you suppose I can see through you I declare, Silas Lapham, if I didn't know different, I should say you were about the biggest fool! Don't you know ANYthing? Don't you know that it wouldn't do to ask those people to our house before they've asked us to theirs? They'd laugh in our faces!" "I don't believe they'd laugh in our faces. What's the difference between our asking them and their asking us?" demanded the Colonel sulkily. "Oh, well! If you don t see!" "Well, I DON'T see. But I don't want to ask them to the house. I suppose, if I want to, I can invite him down to a fish dinner at Taft's." Mrs. Lapham fell back in her chair, and let her work drop in her lap with that "Tckk!" in which her sex knows how to express utter contempt and despair. "What's the matter?" "Well, if you DO such a thing, Silas, I'll never speak to you again! It's no USE! It's NO use! I did think, after you'd behaved so well about Rogers, I might trust you a little. But I see I can't. I presume as long as you live you'll have to be nosed about like a perfect--I don't know what!" "What are you making such a fuss about?" demanded Lapham, terribly crestfallen, but trying to pluck up a spirit. "I haven't done anything yet. I can't ask your advice about anything any more without having you fly out. Confound it! I shall do as I please after this." But as if he could not endure that contemptuous atmosphere, he got up, and his wife heard him in the dining-room pouring himself out a glass of ice-water, and then heard him mount the stairs to their room, and slam its door after him. "Do you know what your father's wanting to do now?" Mrs. Lapham asked her eldest daughter, who lounged into the parlour a moment with her wrap stringing from her arm, while the younger went straight to bed. "He wants to invite Mr. Corey's father to a fish dinner at Taft's!" Penelope was yawning with her hand on her mouth; she stopped, and, with a laugh of amused expectance, sank into a chair, her shoulders shrugged forward. "Why! what in the world has put the Colonel up to that?" "Put him up to it! There's that fellow, who ought have come to see him long ago, drops into his office this morning, and talks five minutes with him, and your father is flattered out of his five senses. He's crazy to get in with those people, and I shall have a perfect battle to keep him within bounds." "Well, Persis, ma'am, you can't say but what you began it," said Penelope. "Oh yes, I began it," confessed Mrs. Lapham. "Pen," she broke out, "what do you suppose he means by it?" "Who? Mr. Corey's father? What does the Colonel think?" "Oh, the Colonel!" cried Mrs. Lapham. She added tremulously: "Perhaps he IS right. He DID seem to take a fancy to her last summer, and now if he's called in that way . . ." She left her daughter to distribute the pronouns aright, and resumed: "Of course, I should have said once that there wasn't any question about it. I should have said so last year; and I don't know what it is keeps me from saying so now. I suppose I know a little more about things than I did; and your father's being so bent on it sets me all in a twitter. He thinks his money can do everything. Well, I don't say but what it can, a good many. And 'Rene is as good a child as ever there was; and I don't see but what she's pretty-appearing enough to suit any one. She's pretty-behaved, too; and she IS the most capable girl. I presume young men don't care very much for such things nowadays; but there ain't a great many girls can go right into the kitchen, and make such a custard as she did yesterday. And look at the way she does, through the whole house! She can't seem to go into a room without the things fly right into their places. And if she had to do it to-morrow, she could make all her own dresses a great deal better than them we pay to do it. I don't say but what he's about as nice a fellow as ever stepped. But there! I'm ashamed of going on so." "Well, mother," said the girl after a pause, in which she looked as if a little weary of the subject, "why do you worry about it? If it's to be it'll be, and if it isn't----" "Yes, that's what I tell your father. But when it comes to myself, I see how hard it is for him to rest quiet. I'm afraid we shall all do something we'll repent of afterwards." "Well, ma'am," said Penelope, "I don't intend to do anything wrong; but if I do, I promise not to be sorry for it. I'll go that far. And I think I wouldn't be sorry for it beforehand, if I were in your place, mother. Let the Colonel go on! He likes to manoeuvre, and he isn't going to hurt any one. The Corey family can take care of themselves, I guess." She laughed in her throat, drawing down the corners of her mouth, and enjoying the resolution with which her mother tried to fling off the burden of her anxieties. "Pen! I believe you're right. You always do see things in such a light! There! I don't care if he brings him down every day." "Well, ma'am," said Pen, "I don't believe 'Rene would, either. She's just so indifferent!" The Colonel slept badly that night, and in the morning Mrs. Lapham came to breakfast without him. "Your father ain't well," she reported. "He's had one of his turns." "I should have thought he had two or three of them," said Penelope, "by the stamping round I heard. Isn't he coming to breakfast?" "Not just yet," said her mother. "He's asleep, and he'll be all right if he gets his nap out. I don't want you girls should make any great noise." "Oh, we'll be quiet enough," returned Penelope. "Well, I'm glad the Colonel isn't sojering. At first I thought he might be sojering." She broke into a laugh, and, struggling indolently with it, looked at her sister. "You don't think it'll be necessary for anybody to come down from the office and take orders from him while he's laid up, do you, mother?" she inquired. "Pen!" cried Irene. "He'll be well enough to go up on the ten o'clock boat," said the mother sharply. "I think papa works too hard all through the summer. Why don't you make him take a rest, mamma?" asked Irene. "Oh, take a rest! The man slaves harder every year. It used to be so that he'd take a little time off now and then; but I declare, he hardly ever seems to breathe now away from his office. And this year he says he doesn't intend to go down to Lapham, except to see after the works for a few days. I don't know what to do with the man any more! Seems as if the more money he got, the more he wanted to get. It scares me to think what would happen to him if he lost it. I know one thing," concluded Mrs. Lapham. "He shall not go back to the office to-day." "Then he won't go up on the ten o'clock boat," Pen reminded her. "No, he won't. You can just drive over to the hotel as soon as you're through, girls, and telegraph that he's not well, and won't be at the office till to-morrow. I'm not going to have them send anybody down here to bother him." "That's a blow," said Pen. "I didn't know but they might send----" she looked demurely at her sister--"Dennis!" "Mamma!" cried Irene. "Well, I declare, there's no living with this family any more," said Penelope. "There, Pen, be done!" commanded her mother. But perhaps she did not intend to forbid her teasing. It gave a pleasant sort of reality to the affair that was in her mind, and made what she wished appear not only possible but probable. Lapham got up and lounged about, fretting and rebelling as each boat departed without him, through the day; before night he became very cross, in spite of the efforts of the family to soothe him, and grumbled that he had been kept from going up to town. "I might as well have gone as not," he repeated, till his wife lost her patience. "Well, you shall go to-morrow, Silas, if you have to be carried to the boat." "I declare," said Penelope, "the Colonel don't pet worth a cent." The six o'clock boat brought Corey. The girls were sitting on the piazza, and Irene saw him first. "O Pen!" she whispered, with her heart in her face; and Penelope had no time for mockery before he was at the steps. "I hope Colonel Lapham isn't ill," he said, and they could hear their mother engaged in a moral contest with their father indoors. "Go and put on your coat! I say you shall! It don't matter HOW he sees you at the office, shirt-sleeves or not. You're in a gentleman's house now--or you ought to be--and you shan't see company in your dressing-gown." Penelope hurried in to subdue her mother's anger. "Oh, he's very much better, thank you!" said Irene, speaking up loudly to drown the noise of the controversy. "I'm glad of that," said Corey, and when she led him indoors the vanquished Colonel met his visitor in a double-breasted frock-coat, which he was still buttoning up. He could not persuade himself at once that Corey had not come upon some urgent business matter, and when he was clear that he had come out of civility, surprise mingled with his gratification that he should be the object of solicitude to the young man. In Lapham's circle of acquaintance they complained when they were sick, but they made no womanish inquiries after one another's health, and certainly paid no visits of sympathy till matters were serious. He would have enlarged upon the particulars of his indisposition if he had been allowed to do so; and after tea, which Corey took with them, he would have remained to entertain him if his wife had not sent him to bed. She followed him to see that he took some medicine she had prescribed for him, but she went first to Penelope's room, where she found the girl with a book in her hand, which she was not reading. "You better go down," said the mother. "I've got to go to your father, and Irene is all alone with Mr. Corey; and I know she'll be on pins and needles without you're there to help make it go off." "She'd better try to get along without me, mother," said Penelope soberly. "I can't always be with them." "Well," replied Mrs. Lapham, "then I must. There'll be a perfect Quaker meeting down there." "Oh, I guess 'Rene will find something to say if you leave her to herself. Or if she don't, HE must. It'll be all right for you to go down when you get ready; but I shan't go till toward the last. If he's coming here to see Irene--and I don't believe he's come on father's account--he wants to see her and not me. If she can't interest him alone, perhaps he'd as well find it out now as any time. At any rate, I guess you'd better make the experiment. You'll know whether it's a success if he comes again." "Well," said the mother, "may be you're right. I'll go down directly. It does seem as if he did mean something, after all." Mrs. Lapham did not hasten to return to her guest. In her own girlhood it was supposed that if a young man seemed to be coming to see a girl, it was only common-sense to suppose that he wished to see her alone; and her life in town had left Mrs. Lapham's simple traditions in this respect unchanged. She did with her daughter as her mother would have done with her. Where Penelope sat with her book, she heard the continuous murmur of voices below, and after a long interval she heard her mother descend. She did not read the open book that lay in her lap, though she kept her eyes fast on the print. Once she rose and almost shut the door, so that she could scarcely hear; then she opened it wide again with a self-disdainful air, and resolutely went back to her book, which again she did not read. But she remained in her room till it was nearly time for Corey to return to his boat. When they were alone again, Irene made a feint of scolding her for leaving her to entertain Mr. Corey. "Why! didn't you have a pleasant call?" asked Penelope. Irene threw her arms round her. "Oh, it was a SPLENDID call! I didn't suppose I could make it go off so well. We talked nearly the whole time about you!" "I don't think THAT was a very interesting subject." "He kept asking about you. He asked everything. You don't know how much he thinks of you, Pen. O Pen! what do you think made him come? Do you think he really did come to see how papa was?" Irene buried her face in her sister's neck. Penelope stood with her arms at her side, submitting. "Well," she said, "I don't think he did, altogether." Irene, all glowing, released her. "Don't you--don't you REALLY? O Pen! don't you think he IS nice? Don't you think he's handsome? Don't you think I behaved horridly when we first met him this evening, not thanking him for coming? I know he thinks I've no manners. But it seemed as if it would be thanking him for coming to see me. Ought I to have asked him to come again, when he said good-night? I didn't; I couldn't. Do you believe he'll think I don't want him to? You don't believe he would keep coming if he didn't--want to----" "He hasn't kept coming a great deal, yet," suggested Penelope. "No; I know he hasn't. But if he--if he should?" "Then I should think he wanted to." "Oh, would you--WOULD you? Oh, how good you always are, Pen! And you always say what you think. I wish there was some one coming to see you too. That's all that I don't like about it. Perhaps----He was telling about his friend there in Texas----" "Well," said Penelope, "his friend couldn't call often from Texas. You needn't ask Mr. Corey to trouble about me, 'Rene. I think I can manage to worry along, if you're satisfied." "Oh, I AM, Pen. When do you suppose he'll come again?" Irene pushed some of Penelope's things aside on the dressing-case, to rest her elbow and talk at ease. Penelope came up and put them back. "Well, not to-night," she said; "and if that's what you're sitting up for----" Irene caught her round the neck again, and ran out of the room. The Colonel was packed off on the eight o'clock boat the next morning; but his recovery did not prevent Corey from repeating his visit in a week. This time Irene came radiantly up to Penelope's room, where she had again withdrawn herself. "You must come down, Pen," she said. "He's asked if you're not well, and mamma says you've got to come." After that Penelope helped Irene through with her calls, and talked them over with her far into the night after Corey was gone. But when the impatient curiosity of her mother pressed her for some opinion of the affair, she said, "You know as much as I do, mother." "Don't he ever say anything to you about her--praise her up, any?" "He's never mentioned Irene to me." "He hasn't to me, either," said Mrs. Lapham, with a sigh of trouble. "Then what makes him keep coming?" "I can't tell you. One thing, he says there isn't a house open in Boston where he's acquainted. Wait till some of his friends get back, and then if he keeps coming, it'll be time to inquire." "Well!" said the mother; but as the weeks passed she was less and less able to attribute Corey's visits to his loneliness in town, and turned to her husband for comfort. "Silas, I don't know as we ought to let young Corey keep coming so. I don't quite like it, with all his family away." "He's of age," said the Colonel. "He can go where he pleases. It don't matter whether his family's here or not." "Yes, but if they don't want he should come? Should you feel just right about letting him?" "How're you going to stop him? I swear, Persis, I don't know what's got over you! What is it? You didn't use to be so. But to hear you talk, you'd think those Coreys were too good for this world, and we wa'n't fit for 'em to walk on." "I'm not going to have 'em say we took an advantage of their being away and tolled him on." "I should like to HEAR 'em say it!" cried Lapham. "Or anybody!" "Well," said his wife, relinquishing this point of anxiety, "I can't make out whether he cares anything for her or not. And Pen can't tell either; or else she won't." "Oh, I guess he cares for her, fast enough," said the Colonel. "I can't make out that he's said or done the first thing to show it." "Well, I was better than a year getting my courage up." "Oh, that was different," said Mrs. Lapham, in contemptuous dismissal of the comparison, and yet with a certain fondness. "I guess, if he cared for her, a fellow in his position wouldn't be long getting up his courage to speak to Irene." Lapham brought his fist down on the table between them. "Look here, Persis! Once for all, now, don't you ever let me hear you say anything like that again! I'm worth nigh on to a million, and I've made it every cent myself; and my girls are the equals of anybody, I don't care who it is. He ain't the fellow to take on any airs; but if he ever tries it with me, I'll send him to the right about mighty quick. I'll have a talk with him, if----" "No, no; don't do that!" implored his wife. "I didn't mean anything. I don't know as I meant ANYthing. He's just as unassuming as he can be, and I think Irene's a match for anybody. You just let things go on. It'll be all right. You never can tell how it is with young people. Perhaps SHE'S offish. Now you ain't--you ain't going to say anything?" Lapham suffered himself to be persuaded, the more easily, no doubt, because after his explosion he must have perceived that his pride itself stood in the way of what his pride had threatened. He contented himself with his wife's promise that she would never again present that offensive view of the case, and she did not remain without a certain support in his sturdy self-assertion. XII. MRS. COREY returned with her daughters in the early days of October, having passed three or four weeks at Intervale after leaving Bar Harbour. They were somewhat browner than they were when they left town in June, but they were not otherwise changed. Lily, the elder of the girls, had brought back a number of studies of kelp and toadstools, with accessory rocks and rotten logs, which she would never finish up and never show any one, knowing the slightness of their merit. Nanny, the younger, had read a great many novels with a keen sense of their inaccuracy as representations of life, and had seen a great deal of life with a sad regret for its difference from fiction. They were both nice girls, accomplished, well-dressed of course, and well enough looking; but they had met no one at the seaside or the mountains whom their taste would allow to influence their fate, and they had come home to the occupations they had left, with no hopes and no fears to distract them. In the absence of these they were fitted to take the more vivid interest in their brother's affairs, which they could see weighed upon their mother's mind after the first hours of greeting. "Oh, it seems to have been going on, and your father has never written a word about it," she said, shaking her head. "What good would it have done?" asked Nanny, who was little and fair, with rings of light hair that filled a bonnet-front very prettily; she looked best in a bonnet. "It would only have worried you. He could not have stopped Tom; you couldn't, when you came home to do it." "I dare say papa didn't know much about it," suggested Lily. She was a tall, lean, dark girl, who looked as if she were not quite warm enough, and whom you always associated with wraps of different aesthetic effect after you had once seen her. It is a serious matter always to the women of his family when a young man gives them cause to suspect that he is interested in some other woman. A son-in-law or brother-in-law does not enter the family; he need not be caressed or made anything of; but the son's or brother's wife has a claim upon his mother and sisters which they cannot deny. Some convention of their sex obliges them to show her affection, to like or to seem to like her, to take her to their intimacy, however odious she may be to them. With the Coreys it was something more than an affair of sentiment. They were by no means poor, and they were not dependent money-wise upon Tom Corey; but the mother had come, without knowing it, to rely upon his sense, his advice in everything, and the sisters, seeing him hitherto so indifferent to girls, had insensibly grown to regard him as altogether their own till he should be released, not by his marriage, but by theirs, an event which had not approached with the lapse of time. Some kinds of girls--they believed that they could readily have chosen a kind--might have taken him without taking him from them; but this generosity could not be hoped for in such a girl as Miss Lapham. "Perhaps," urged their mother, "it would not be so bad. She seemed an affectionate little thing with her mother, without a great deal of character though she was so capable about some things." "Oh, she'll be an affectionate little thing with Tom too, you may be sure," said Nanny. "And that characterless capability becomes the most in tense narrow-mindedness. She'll think we were against her from the beginning." "She has no cause for that," Lily interposed, "and we shall not give her any." "Yes, we shall," retorted Nanny. "We can't help it; and if we can't, her own ignorance would be cause enough." "I can't feel that she's altogether ignorant," said Mrs. Corey justly. "Of course she can read and write," admitted Nanny. "I can't imagine what he finds to talk about with her," said Lily. "Oh, THAT'S very simple," returned her sister. "They talk about themselves, with occasional references to each other. I have heard people 'going on' on the hotel piazzas. She's embroidering, or knitting, or tatting, or something of that kind; and he says she seems quite devoted to needlework, and she says, yes, she has a perfect passion for it, and everybody laughs at her for it; but she can't help it, she always was so from a child, and supposes she always shall be,--with remote and minute particulars. And she ends by saying that perhaps he does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider, or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does; what could make her think such a thing? but for his part he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the woods camping. Then she lets him take up one corner of her work, and perhaps touch her fingers; and that encourages him to say that he supposes nothing could induce her to drop her work long enough to go down on the rocks, or out among the huckleberry bushes; and she puts her head on one side, and says she doesn't know really. And then they go, and he lies at her feet on the rocks, or picks huckleberries and drops them in her lap, and they go on talking about themselves, and comparing notes to see how they differ from each other. And----" "That will do, Nanny," said her mother. Lily smiled autumnally. "Oh, disgusting!" "Disgusting? Not at all!" protested her sister. "It's very amusing when you see it, and when you do it----" "It's always a mystery what people see in each other," observed Mrs. Corey severely. "Yes," Nanny admitted, "but I don't know that there is much comfort for us in the application." "No, there isn't," said her mother. "The most that we can do is to hope for the best till we know the worst. Of course we shall make the best of the worst when it comes." "Yes, and perhaps it would not be so very bad. I was saying to your father when I was here in July that those things can always be managed. You must face them as if they were nothing out of the way, and try not to give any cause for bitterness among ourselves." "That's true. But I don't believe in too much resignation beforehand. It amounts to concession," said Nanny. "Of course we should oppose it in all proper ways," returned her mother. Lily had ceased to discuss the matter. In virtue of her artistic temperament, she was expected not to be very practical. It was her mother and her sister who managed, submitting to the advice and consent of Corey what they intended to do. "Your father wrote me that he had called on Colonel Lapham at his place of business," said Mrs. Corey, seizing her first chance of approaching the subject with her son. "Yes," said Corey. "A dinner was father's idea, but he came down to a call, at my suggestion." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey, in a tone of relief, as if the statement threw a new light on the fact that Corey had suggested the visit. "He said so little about it in his letter that I didn't know just how it came about." "I thought it was right they should meet," explained the son, "and so did father. I was glad that I suggested it, afterward; it was extremely gratifying to Colonel Lapham." "Oh, it was quite right in every way. I suppose you have seen something of the family during the summer." "Yes, a good deal. I've been down at Nantasket rather often." Mrs. Corey let her eyes droop. Then she asked: "Are they well?" "Yes, except Lapham himself, now and then. I went down once or twice to see him. He hasn't given himself any vacation this summer; he has such a passion for his business that I fancy he finds it hard being away from it at any time, and he's made his new house an excuse for staying." "Oh yes, his house! Is it to be something fine?" "Yes; it's a beautiful house. Seymour is doing it." "Then, of course, it will be very handsome. I suppose the young ladies are very much taken up with it; and Mrs. Lapham." "Mrs. Lapham, yes. I don't think the young ladies care so much about it." "It must be for them. Aren't they ambitious?" asked Mrs. Corey, delicately feeling her way. Her son thought a while. Then he answered with a smile-- "No, I don't really think they are. They are unambitious, I should say." Mrs. Corey permitted herself a long breath. But her son added, "It's the parents who are ambitious for them," and her respiration became shorter again. "Yes," she said. "They're very simple, nice girls," pursued Corey. "I think you'll like the elder, when you come to know her." When you come to know her. The words implied an expectation that the two families were to be better acquainted. "Then she is more intellectual than her sister?" Mrs. Corey ventured. "Intellectual?" repeated her son. "No; that isn't the word, quite. Though she certainly has more mind." "The younger seemed very sensible." "Oh, sensible, yes. And as practical as she's pretty. She can do all sorts of things, and likes to be doing them. Don't you think she's an extraordinary beauty?" "Yes--yes, she is," said Mrs. Corey, at some cost. "She's good, too," said Corey, "and perfectly innocent and transparent. I think you will like her the better the more you know her." "I thought her very nice from the beginning," said the mother heroically; and then nature asserted itself in her. "But I should be afraid that she might perhaps be a little bit tiresome at last; her range of ideas seemed so extremely limited." "Yes, that's what I was afraid of. But, as a matter of fact, she isn't. She interests you by her very limitations. You can see the working of her mind, like that of a child. She isn't at all conscious even of her beauty." "I don't believe young men can tell whether girls are conscious or not," said Mrs. Corey. "But I am not saying the Miss Laphams are not----" Her son sat musing, with an inattentive smile on his face. "What is it?" "Oh! nothing. I was thinking of Miss Lapham and something she was saying. She's very droll, you know." "The elder sister? Yes, you told me that. Can you see the workings of her mind too?" "No; she's everything that's unexpected." Corey fell into another reverie, and smiled again; but he did not offer to explain what amused him, and his mother would not ask. "I don't know what to make of his admiring the girl so frankly," she said afterward to her husband. "That couldn't come naturally till after he had spoken to her, and I feel sure that he hasn't yet." "You women haven't risen yet--it's an evidence of the backwardness of your sex--to a conception of the Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one woman, you still think he's in love with another. Do you mean that because Tom didn't praise the elder sister so much, he HAS spoken to HER?" Mrs. Corey refused the consequence, saying that it did not follow. "Besides, he did praise her." "You ought to be glad that matters are in such good shape, then. At any rate, you can do absolutely nothing." "Oh! I know it," sighed Mrs. Corey. "I wish Tom would be a little opener with me." "He's as open as it's in the nature of an American-born son to be with his parents. I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you--if he knew." "Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?" "I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town." "Do you really think so?" "I throw out the suggestion. And it strikes me that a young lady couldn't do better than stay in or near Boston during the summer. Most of the young men are here, kept by business through the week, with evenings available only on the spot, or a few miles off. What was the proportion of the sexes at the seashore and the mountains?" "Oh, twenty girls at least for even an excuse of a man. It's shameful." "You see, I am right in one part of my theory. Why shouldn't I be right in the rest?" "I wish you were. And yet I can't say that I do. Those things are very serious with girls. I shouldn't like Tom to have been going to see those people if he meant nothing by it." "And you wouldn't like it if he did. You are difficult, my dear." Her husband pulled an open newspaper toward him from the table. "I feel that it wouldn't be at all like him to do so," said Mrs. Corey, going on to entangle herself in her words, as women often do when their ideas are perfectly clear. "Don't go to reading, please, Bromfield! I am really worried about this matter I must know how much it means. I can't let it go on so. I don't see how you can rest easy without knowing." "I don't in the least know what's going to become of me when I die; and yet I sleep well," replied Bromfield Corey, putting his newspaper aside. "Ah! but this is a very different thing." "So much more serious? Well, what can you do? We had this out when you were here in the summer, and you agreed with me then that we could do nothing. The situation hasn't changed at all." "Yes, it has; it has continued the same," said Mrs. Corey, again expressing the fact by a contradiction in terms. "I think I must ask Tom outright." "You know you can't do that, my dear." "Then why doesn't he tell us?" "Ah, that's what HE can't do, if he's making love to Miss Irene--that's her name, I believe--on the American plan. He will tell us after he has told HER. That was the way I did. Don't ignore our own youth, Anna. It was a long while ago, I'll admit." "It was very different," said Mrs. Corey, a little shaken. "I don't see how. I dare say Mamma Lapham knows whether Tom is in love with her daughter or not; and no doubt Papa Lapham knows it at second hand. But we shall not know it until the girl herself does. Depend upon that. Your mother knew, and she told your father; but my poor father knew nothing about it till we were engaged; and I had been hanging about--dangling, as you call it----" "No, no; YOU called it that." "Was it I?--for a year or more." The wife could not refuse to be a little consoled by the image of her young love which the words conjured up, however little she liked its relation to her son's interest in Irene Lapham. She smiled pensively. "Then you think it hasn't come to an understanding with them yet?" "An understanding? Oh, probably." "An explanation, then?" "The only logical inference from what we've been saying is that it hasn't. But I don't ask you to accept it on that account. May I read now, my dear?" "Yes, you may read now," said Mrs. Corey, with one of those sighs which perhaps express a feminine sense of the unsatisfactoriness of husbands in general, rather than a personal discontent with her own. "Thank you, my dear; then I think I'll smoke too," said Bromfield Corey, lighting a cigar. She left him in peace, and she made no further attempt upon her son's confidence. But she was not inactive for that reason. She did not, of course, admit to herself, and far less to others, the motive with which she went to pay an early visit to the Laphams, who had now come up from Nantasket to Nankeen Square. She said to her daughters that she had always been a little ashamed of using her acquaintance with them to get money for her charity, and then seeming to drop it. Besides, it seemed to her that she ought somehow to recognise the business relation that Tom had formed with the father; they must not think that his family disapproved of what he had done. "Yes, business is business," said Nanny, with a laugh. "Do you wish us to go with you again?" "No; I will go alone this time," replied the mother with dignity. Her coupe now found its way to Nankeen Square without difficulty, and she sent up a card, which Mrs. Lapham received in the presence of her daughter Penelope. "I presume I've got to see her," she gasped. "Well, don't look so guilty, mother," joked the girl; "you haven't been doing anything so VERY wrong." "It seems as if I HAD. I don't know what's come over me. I wasn't afraid of the woman before, but now I don't seem to feel as if I could look her in the face. He's been coming here of his own accord, and I fought against his coming long enough, goodness knows. I didn't want him to come. And as far forth as that goes, we're as respectable as they are; and your father's got twice their money, any day. We've no need to go begging for their favour. I guess they were glad enough to get him in with your father." "Yes, those are all good points, mother," said the girl; "and if you keep saying them over, and count a hundred every time before you speak, I guess you'll worry through." Mrs. Lapham had been fussing distractedly with her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encounter with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long quivering breath, stared at her daughter without seeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true that when she met Mrs. Corey before she had not been awed by her; but since then she had learned at least her own ignorance of the world, and she had talked over the things she had misconceived and the things she had shrewdly guessed so much that she could not meet her on the former footing of equality. In spite of as brave a spirit and as good a conscience as woman need have, Mrs. Lapham cringed inwardly, and tremulously wondered what her visitor had come for. She turned from pale to red, and was hardly coherent in her greetings; she did not know how they got to where Mrs. Corey was saying exactly the right things about her son's interest and satisfaction in his new business, and keeping her eyes fixed on Mrs. Lapham's, reading her uneasiness there, and making her feel, in spite of her indignant innocence, that she had taken a base advantage of her in her absence to get her son away from her and marry him to Irene. Then, presently, while this was painfully revolving itself in Mrs. Lapham's mind, she was aware of Mrs. Corey's asking if she was not to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Irene. "No; she's out, just now," said Mrs. Lapham. "I don't know just when she'll be in. She went to get a book." And here she turned red again, knowing that Irene had gone to get the book because it was one that Corey had spoken of. "Oh! I'm sorry," said Mrs. Corey. "I had hoped to see her. And your other daughter, whom I never met?" "Penelope?" asked Mrs. Lapham, eased a little. "She is at home. I will go and call her." The Laphams had not yet thought of spending their superfluity on servants who could be rung for; they kept two girls and a man to look after the furnace, as they had for the last ten years. If Mrs. Lapham had rung in the parlour, her second girl would have gone to the street door to see who was there. She went upstairs for Penelope herself, and the girl, after some rebellious derision, returned with her. Mrs. Corey took account of her, as Penelope withdrew to the other side of the room after their introduction, and sat down, indolently submissive on the surface to the tests to be applied, and following Mrs. Corey's lead of the conversation in her odd drawl. "You young ladies will be glad to be getting into your new house," she said politely. "I don't know," said Penelope. "We're so used to this one." Mrs. Corey looked a little baffled, but she said sympathetically, "Of course, you will be sorry to leave your old home." Mrs. Lapham could not help putting in on behalf of her daughters: "I guess if it was left to the girls to say, we shouldn't leave it at all." "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Corey; "are they so much attached? But I can quite understand it. My children would be heart-broken too if we were to leave the old place." She turned to Penelope. "But you must think of the lovely new house, and the beautiful position." "Yes, I suppose we shall get used to them too," said Penelope, in response to this didactic consolation. "Oh, I could even imagine your getting very fond of them," pursued Mrs. Corey patronisingly. "My son has told me of the lovely outlook you're to have over the water. He thinks you have such a beautiful house. I believe he had the pleasure of meeting you all there when he first came home." "Yes, I think he was our first visitor." "He is a great admirer of your house," said Mrs. Corey, keeping her eyes very sharply, however politely, on Penelope's face, as if to surprise there the secret of any other great admiration of her son's that might helplessly show itself. "Yes," said the girl, "he's been there several times with father; and he wouldn't be allowed to overlook any of its good points." Her mother took a little more courage from her daughter's tranquillity. "The girls make such fun of their father's excitement about his building, and the way he talks it into everybody." "Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Corey, with civil misunderstanding and inquiry. Penelope flushed, and her mother went on: "I tell him he's more of a child about it than any of them." "Young people are very philosophical nowadays," remarked Mrs. Corey. "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Lapham. "I tell them they've always had everything, so that nothing's a surprise to them. It was different with us in our young days." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey, without assenting. "I mean the Colonel and myself," explained Mrs. Lapham. "Oh yes--yes!" said Mrs. Corey. "I'm sure," the former went on, rather helplessly, "we had to work hard enough for everything we got. And so we appreciated it." "So many things were not done for young people then," said Mrs. Corey, not recognising the early-hardships standpoint of Mrs. Lapham. "But I don't know that they are always the better for it now," she added vaguely, but with the satisfaction we all feel in uttering a just commonplace. "It's rather hard living up to blessings that you've always had," said Penelope. "Yes," replied Mrs. Corey distractedly, and coming back to her slowly from the virtuous distance to which she had absented herself. She looked at the girl searchingly again, as if to determine whether this were a touch of the drolling her son had spoken of. But she only added: "You will enjoy the sunsets on the Back Bay so much." "Well, not unless they're new ones," said Penelope. "I don't believe I could promise to enjoy any sunsets that I was used to, a great deal." Mrs. Corey looked at her with misgiving, hardening into dislike. "No," she breathed vaguely. "My son spoke of the fine effect of the lights about the hotel from your cottage at Nantasket," she said to Mrs. Lapham. "Yes, they're splendid!" exclaimed that lady. "I guess the girls went down every night with him to see them from the rocks." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey, a little dryly; and she permitted herself to add: "He spoke of those rocks. I suppose both you young ladies spend a great deal of your time on them when you're there. At Nahant my children were constantly on them." "Irene likes the rocks," said Penelope. "I don't care much about them,--especially at night." "Oh, indeed! I suppose you find it quite as well looking at the lights comfortably from the veranda." "No; you can't see them from the house." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey. After a perceptible pause, she turned to Mrs. Lapham. "I don't know what my son would have done for a breath of sea air this summer, if you had not allowed him to come to Nantasket. He wasn't willing to leave his business long enough to go anywhere else." "Yes, he's a born business man," responded Mrs. Lapham enthusiastically. "If it's born in you, it's bound to come out. That's what the Colonel is always saying about Mr. Corey. He says it's born in him to be a business man, and he can't help it." She recurred to Corey gladly because she felt that she had not said enough of him when his mother first spoke of his connection with the business. "I don't believe," she went on excitedly, "that Colonel Lapham has ever had anybody with him that he thought more of." "You have all been very kind to my son," said Mrs. Corey in acknowledgment, and stiffly bowing a little, "and we feel greatly indebted to you. Very much so." At these grateful expressions Mrs. Lapham reddened once more, and murmured that it had been very pleasant to them, she was sure. She glanced at her daughter for support, but Penelope was looking at Mrs. Corey, who doubtless saw her from the corner of her eyes, though she went on speaking to her mother. "I was sorry to hear from him that Mr.--Colonel?--Lapham had not been quite well this summer. I hope he's better now?" "Oh yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Lapham; "he's all right now. He's hardly ever been sick, and he don't know how to take care of himself. That's all. We don't any of us; we're all so well." "Health is a great blessing," sighed Mrs. Corey. "Yes, so it is. How is your oldest daughter?" inquired Mrs. Lapham. "Is she as delicate as ever?" "She seems to be rather better since we returned." And now Mrs. Corey, as if forced to the point, said bunglingly that the young ladies had wished to come with her, but had been detained. She based her statement upon Nanny's sarcastic demand; and, perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to get away from its fall. "But we shall hope for some--some other occasion," she said vaguely, and she put on a parting smile, and shook hands with Mrs. Lapham and Penelope, and then, after some lingering commonplaces, got herself out of the house. Penelope and her mother were still looking at each other, and trying to grapple with the effect or purport of the visit, when Irene burst in upon them from the outside. "O mamma! wasn't that Mrs. Corey's carriage just drove away?" Penelope answered with her laugh. "Yes! You've just missed the most delightful call, 'Rene. So easy and pleasant every way. Not a bit stiff! Mrs. Corey was so friendly! She didn't make one feel at all as if she'd bought me, and thought she'd given too much; and mother held up her head as if she were all wool and a yard wide, and she would just like to have anybody deny it." In a few touches of mimicry she dashed off a sketch of the scene: her mother's trepidation, and Mrs. Corey's well-bred repose and polite scrutiny of them both. She ended by showing how she herself had sat huddled up in a dark corner, mute with fear. "If she came to make us say and do the wrong thing, she must have gone away happy; and it's a pity you weren't here to help, Irene. I don't know that I aimed to make a bad impression, but I guess I succeeded--even beyond my deserts." She laughed; then suddenly she flashed out in fierce earnest. "If I missed doing anything that could make me as hateful to her as she made herself to me----" She checked herself, and began to laugh. Her laugh broke, and the tears started into her eyes; she ran out of the room, and up the stairs. "What--what does it mean?" asked Irene in a daze. Mrs. Lapham was still in the chilly torpor to which Mrs. Corey's call had reduced her. Penelope's vehemence did not rouse her. She only shook her head absently, and said, "I don't know." "Why should Pen care what impression she made? I didn't suppose it would make any difference to her whether Mrs. Corey liked her or not." "I didn't, either. But I could see that she was just as nervous as she could be, every minute of the time. I guess she didn't like Mrs. Corey any too well from the start, and she couldn't seem to act like herself." "Tell me about it, mamma," said Irene, dropping into a chair. Mrs. Corey described the interview to her husband on her return home. "Well, and what are your inferences?" he asked. "They were extremely embarrassed and excited--that is, the mother. I don't wish to do her injustice, but she certainly behaved consciously." "You made her feel so, I dare say, Anna. I can imagine how terrible you must have been in the character of an accusing spirit, too lady-like to say anything. What did you hint?" "I hinted nothing," said Mrs. Corey, descending to the weakness of defending herself. "But I saw quite enough to convince me that the girl is in love with Tom, and the mother knows it." "That was very unsatisfactory. I supposed you went to find out whether Tom was in love with the girl. Was she as pretty as ever?" "I didn't see her; she was not at home; I saw her sister." "I don't know that I follow you quite, Anna. But no matter. What was the sister like?" "A thoroughly disagreeable young woman." "What did she do?" "Nothing. She's far too sly for that. But that was the impression." "Then you didn't find her so amusing as Tom does?" "I found her pert. There's no other word for it. She says things to puzzle you and put you out." "Ah, that was worse than pert, Anna; that was criminal. Well, let us thank heaven the younger one is so pretty." Mrs. Corey did not reply directly. "Bromfield," she said, after a moment of troubled silence, "I have been thinking over your plan, and I don't see why it isn't the right thing." "What is my plan?" inquired Bromfield Corey. "A dinner." Her husband began to laugh. "Ah, you overdid the accusing-spirit business, and this is reparation." But Mrs. Corey hurried on, with combined dignity and anxiety-- "We can't ignore Tom's intimacy with them--it amounts to that; it will probably continue even if it's merely a fancy, and we must seem to know it; whatever comes of it, we can't disown it. They are very simple, unfashionable people, and unworldly; but I can't say that they are offensive, unless--unless," she added, in propitiation of her husband's smile, "unless the father--how did you find the father?" she implored. "He will be very entertaining," said Corey, "if you start him on his paint. What was the disagreeable daughter like? Shall you have her?" "She's little and dark. We must have them all," Mrs. Corey sighed. "Then you don't think a dinner would do?" "Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can't disown Tom's relation to them, whatever it is. We had much better recognise it, and make the best of the inevitable. I think a Lapham dinner would be delightful." He looked at her with delicate irony in his voice and smile, and she fetched another sigh, so deep and sore now that he laughed outright. "Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be the best way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one. He has been seeing her with the dangerous advantages which a mother knows how to give her daughter in the family circle, and with no means of comparing her with other girls. You must invite several other very pretty girls." "Do you really think so, Bromfield?" asked Mrs. Corey, taking courage a little. "That might do," But her spirits visibly sank again. "I don't know any other girl half so pretty." "Well, then, better bred." "She is very lady-like, very modest, and pleasing." "Well, more cultivated." "Tom doesn't get on with such people." "Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see." "No, no." "Then you'd better give the dinner to bring them together, to promote the affair." "You know I don't want to do that, Bromfield. But I feel that we must do something. If we don't, it has a clandestine appearance. It isn't just to them. A dinner won't leave us in any worse position, and may leave us in a better. Yes," said Mrs. Corey, after another thoughtful interval, "we must have them--have them all. It could be very simple." "Ah, you can't give a dinner under a bushel, if I take your meaning, my dear. If we do this at all, we mustn't do it as if we were ashamed of it. We must ask people to meet them." "Yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "There are not many people in town yet," she added, with relief that caused her husband another smile. "There really seems a sort of fatality about it," she concluded religiously. "Then you had better not struggle against it. Go and reconcile Lily and Nanny to it as soon as possible." Mrs. Corey blanched a little. "But don't you think it will be the best thing, Bromfield?" "I do indeed, my dear. The only thing that shakes my faith in the scheme is the fact that I first suggested it. But if you have adopted it, it must be all right, Anna. I can't say that I expected it." "No," said his wife, "it wouldn't do." XIII. HAVING distinctly given up the project of asking the Laphams to dinner, Mrs. Corey was able to carry it out with the courage of sinners who have sacrificed to virtue by frankly acknowledging its superiority to their intended transgression. She did not question but the Laphams would come; and she only doubted as to the people whom she should invite to meet them. She opened the matter with some trepidation to her daughters, but neither of them opposed her; they rather looked at the scheme from her own point of view, and agreed with her that nothing had really yet been done to wipe out the obligation to the Laphams helplessly contracted the summer before, and strengthened by that ill-advised application to Mrs. Lapham for charity. Not only the principal of their debt of gratitude remained, but the accruing interest. They said, What harm could giving the dinner possibly do them? They might ask any or all of their acquaintance without disadvantage to themselves; but it would be perfectly easy to give the dinner just the character they chose, and still flatter the ignorance of the Laphams. The trouble would be with Tom, if he were really interested in the girl; but he could not say anything if they made it a family dinner; he could not feel anything. They had each turned in her own mind, as it appeared from a comparison of ideas, to one of the most comprehensive of those cousinships which form the admiration and terror of the adventurer in Boston society. He finds himself hemmed in and left out at every turn by ramifications that forbid him all hope of safe personality in his comments on people; he is never less secure than when he hears some given Bostonian denouncing or ridiculing another. If he will be advised, he will guard himself from concurring in these criticisms, however just they appear, for the probability is that their object is a cousin of not more than one remove from the censor. When the alien hears a group of Boston ladies calling one another, and speaking of all their gentlemen friends, by the familiar abbreviations of their Christian names, he must feel keenly the exile to which he was born; but he is then, at least, in comparatively little danger; while these latent and tacit cousinships open pitfalls at every step around him, in a society where Middlesexes have married Essexes and produced Suffolks for two hundred and fifty years. These conditions, however, so perilous to the foreigner, are a source of strength and security to those native to them. An uncertain acquaintance may be so effectually involved in the meshes of such a cousinship, as never to be heard of outside of it and tremendous stories are told of people who have spent a whole winter in Boston, in a whirl of gaiety, and who, the original guests of the Suffolks, discover upon reflection that they have met no one but Essexes and Middlesexes. Mrs. Corey's brother James came first into her mind, and she thought with uncommon toleration of the easy-going, uncritical, good-nature of his wife. James Bellingham had been the adviser of her son throughout, and might be said to have actively promoted his connection with Lapham. She thought next of the widow of her cousin, Henry Bellingham, who had let her daughter marry that Western steamboat man, and was fond of her son-in-law; she might be expected at least to endure the paint-king and his family. The daughters insisted so strongly upon Mrs. Bellingham's son Charles, that Mrs. Corey put him down--if he were in town; he might be in Central America; he got on with all sorts of people. It seemed to her that she might stop at this: four Laphams, five Coreys, and four Bellinghams were enough. "That makes thirteen," said Nanny. "You can have Mr. and Mrs. Sewell." "Yes, that is a good idea," assented Mrs. Corey. "He is our minister, and it is very proper." "I don't see why you don't have Robert Chase. It is a pity he shouldn't see her--for the colour." "I don't quite like the idea of that," said Mrs. Corey; "but we can have him too, if it won't make too many." The painter had married into a poorer branch of the Coreys, and his wife was dead. "Is there any one else?" "There is Miss Kingsbury." "We have had her so much. She will begin to think we are using her." "She won't mind; she's so good-natured." "Well, then," the mother summed up, "there are four Laphams, five Coreys, four Bellinghams, one Chase, and one Kingsbury--fifteen. Oh! and two Sewells. Seventeen. Ten ladies and seven gentlemen. It doesn't balance very well, and it's too large." "Perhaps some of the ladies won't come," suggested Lily. "Oh, the ladies always come," said Nanny. Their mother reflected. "Well, I will ask them. The ladies will refuse in time to let us pick up some gentlemen somewhere; some more artists. Why! we must have Mr. Seymour, the architect; he's a bachelor, and he's building their house, Tom says." Her voice fell a little when she mentioned her son's name, and she told him of her plan, when he came home in the evening, with evident misgiving. "What are you doing it for, mother?" he asked, looking at her with his honest eyes. She dropped her own in a little confusion. "I won't do it at all, my dear," she said, "if you don't approve. But I thought--You know we have never made any proper acknowledgment of their kindness to us at Baie St. Paul. Then in the winter, I'm ashamed to say, I got money from her for a charity I was interested in; and I hate the idea of merely USING people in that way. And now your having been at their house this summer--we can't seem to disapprove of that; and your business relations to him----" "Yes, I see," said Corey. "Do you think it amounts to a dinner?" "Why, I don't know," returned his mother. "We shall have hardly any one out of our family connection." "Well," Corey assented, "it might do. I suppose what you wish is to give them a pleasure." "Why, certainly. Don't you think they'd like to come?" "Oh, they'd like to come; but whether it would be a pleasure after they were here is another thing. I should have said that if you wanted to have them, they would enjoy better being simply asked to meet our own immediate family." "That's what I thought of in the first place, but your father seemed to think it implied a social distrust of them; and we couldn't afford to have that appearance, even to ourselves." "Perhaps he was right." "And besides, it might seem a little significant." Corey seemed inattentive to this consideration. "Whom did you think of asking?" His mother repeated the names. "Yes, that would do," he said, with a vague dissatisfaction. "I won't have it at all, if you don't wish, Tom." "Oh yes, have it; perhaps you ought. Yes, I dare say it's right. What did you mean by a family dinner seeming significant?" His mother hesitated. When it came to that, she did not like to recognise in his presence the anxieties that had troubled her. But "I don't know," she said, since she must. "I shouldn't want to give that young girl, or her mother, the idea that we wished to make more of the acquaintance than--than you did, Tom." He looked at her absent-mindedly, as if he did not take her meaning. But he said, "Oh yes, of course," and Mrs. Corey, in the uncertainty in which she seemed destined to remain concerning this affair, went off and wrote her invitation to Mrs. Lapham. Later in the evening, when they again found themselves alone, her son said, "I don't think I understood you, mother, in regard to the Laphams. I think I do now. I certainly don't wish you to make more of the acquaintance than I have done. It wouldn't be right; it might be very unfortunate. Don't give the dinner!" "It's too late now, my son," said Mrs. Corey. "I sent my note to Mrs. Lapham an hour ago." Her courage rose at the trouble which showed in Corey's face. "But don't be annoyed by it, Tom. It isn't a family dinner, you know, and everything can be managed without embarrassment. If we take up the affair at this point, you will seem to have been merely acting for us; and they can't possibly understand anything more." "Well, well! Let it go! I dare say it's all right. At any rate, it can't be helped now." "I don't wish to help it, Tom," said Mrs. Corey, with a cheerfullness which the thought of the Laphams had never brought her before. "I am sure it is quite fit and proper, and we can make them have a very pleasant time. They are good, inoffensive people, and we owe it to ourselves not to be afraid to show that we have felt their kindness to us, and his appreciation of you." "Well," consented Corey. The trouble that his mother had suddenly cast off was in his tone; but she was not sorry. It was quite time that he should think seriously of his attitude toward these people if he had not thought of it before, but, according to his father's theory, had been merely dangling. It was a view of her son's character that could hardly have pleased her in different circumstances, yet it was now unquestionably a consolation if not wholly a pleasure. If she considered the Laphams at all, it was with the resignation which we feel at the evils of others, even when they have not brought them on themselves. Mrs. Lapham, for her part, had spent the hours between Mrs. Corey's visit and her husband's coming home from business in reaching the same conclusion with regard to Corey; and her spirits were at the lowest when they sat down to supper. Irene was downcast with her; Penelope was purposely gay; and the Colonel was beginning, after his first plate of the boiled ham,--which, bristling with cloves, rounded its bulk on a wide platter before him,--to take note of the surrounding mood, when the door-bell jingled peremptorily, and the girl left waiting on the table to go and answer it. She returned at once with a note for Mrs. Lapham, which she read, and then, after a helpless survey of her family, read again. "Why, what IS it, mamma?" asked Irene, while the Colonel, who had taken up his carving-knife for another attack on the ham, held it drawn half across it. "Why, I don't know what it does mean," answered Mrs. Lapham tremulously, and she let the girl take the note from her. Irene ran it over, and then turned to the name at the end with a joyful cry and a flush that burned to the top of her forehead. Then she began to read it once more. The Colonel dropped his knife and frowned impatiently, and Mrs. Lapham said, "You read it out loud, if you know what to make of it, Irene." But Irene, with a nervous scream of protest, handed it to her father, who performed the office. "DEAR MRS. LAPHAM: "Will you and General Lapham----" "I didn't know I was a general," grumbled Lapham. "I guess I shall have to be looking up my back pay. Who is it writes this, anyway?" he asked, turning the letter over for the signature. "Oh, never mind. Read it through!" cried his wife, with a kindling glance of triumph at Penelope, and he resumed-- "--and your daughters give us the pleasure of your company at dinner on Thursday, the 28th, at half-past six. "Yours sincerely, "ANNA B. COREY." The brief invitation had been spread over two pages, and the Colonel had difficulties with the signature which he did not instantly surmount. When he had made out the name and pronounced it, he looked across at his wife for an explanation. "I don't know what it all means," she said, shaking her head and speaking with a pleased flutter. "She was here this afternoon, and I should have said she had come to see how bad she could make us feel. I declare I never felt so put down in my life by anybody." "Why, what did she do? What did she say?" Lapham was ready, in his dense pride, to resent any affront to his blood, but doubtful, with the evidence of this invitation to the contrary, if any affront had been offered. Mrs. Lapham tried to tell him, but there was really nothing tangible; and when she came to put it into words, she could not make out a case. Her husband listened to her excited attempt, and then he said, with judicial superiority, "I guess nobody's been trying to make you feel bad, Persis. What would she go right home and invite you to dinner for, if she'd acted the way you say?" In this view it did seem improbable, and Mrs. Lapham was shaken. She could only say, "Penelope felt just the way I did about it." Lapham looked at the girl, who said, "Oh, I can't prove it! I begin to think it never happened. I guess it didn't." "Humph!" said her father, and he sat frowning thoughtfully a while--ignoring her mocking irony, or choosing to take her seriously. "You can't really put your finger on anything," he said to his wife, "and it ain't likely there is anything. Anyway, she's done the proper thing by you now." Mrs. Lapham faltered between her lingering resentment and the appeals of her flattered vanity. She looked from Penelope's impassive face to the eager eyes of Irene. "Well--just as you say, Silas. I don't know as she WAS so very bad. I guess may be she was embarrassed some----" "That's what I told you, mamma, from the start," interrupted Irene. "Didn't I tell you she didn't mean anything by it? It's just the way she acted at Baie St. Paul, when she got well enough to realise what you'd done for her!" Penelope broke into a laugh. "Is that her way of showing her gratitude? I'm sorry I didn't understand that before." Irene made no effort to reply. She merely looked from her mother to her father with a grieved face for their protection, and Lapham said, "When we've done supper, you answer her, Persis. Say we'll come." "With one exception," said Penelope. "What do you mean?" demanded her father, with a mouth full of ham. "Oh, nothing of importance. Merely that I'm not going." Lapham gave himself time to swallow his morsel, and his rising wrath went down with it. "I guess you'll change your mind when the time comes," he said. "Anyway, Persis, you say we'll all come, and then, if Penelope don't want to go, you can excuse her after we get there. That's the best way." None of them, apparently, saw any reason why the affair should not be left in this way, or had a sense of the awful and binding nature of a dinner engagement. If she believed that Penelope would not finally change her mind and go, no doubt Mrs. Lapham thought that Mrs. Corey would easily excuse her absence. She did not find it so simple a matter to accept the invitation. Mrs. Corey had said "Dear Mrs. Lapham," but Mrs. Lapham had her doubts whether it would not be a servile imitation to say "Dear Mrs. Corey" in return; and she was tormented as to the proper phrasing throughout and the precise temperature which she should impart to her politeness. She wrote an unpractised, uncharacteristic round hand, the same in which she used to set the children's copies at school, and she subscribed herself, after some hesitation between her husband's given name and her own, "Yours truly, Mrs. S. Lapham." Penelope had gone to her room, without waiting to be asked to advise or criticise; but Irene had decided upon the paper, and on the whole, Mrs. Lapham's note made a very decent appearance on the page. When the furnace-man came, the Colonel sent him out to post it in the box at the corner of the square. He had determined not to say anything more about the matter before the girls, not choosing to let them see that he was elated; he tried to give the effect of its being an everyday sort of thing, abruptly closing the discussion with his order to Mrs. Lapham to accept; but he had remained swelling behind his newspaper during her prolonged struggle with her note, and he could no longer hide his elation when Irene followed her sister upstairs. "Well, Pers," he demanded, "what do you say now?" Mrs. Lapham had been sobered into something of her former misgiving by her difficulties with her note. "Well, I don't know what TO say. I declare, I'm all mixed up about it, and I don't know as we've begun as we can carry out in promising to go. I presume," she sighed, "that we can all send some excuse at the last moment, if we don't want to go." "I guess we can carry out, and I guess we shan't want to send any excuse," bragged the Colonel. "If we're ever going to be anybody at all, we've got to go and see how it's done. I presume we've got to give some sort of party when we get into the new house, and this gives the chance to ask 'em back again. You can't complain now but what they've made the advances, Persis?" "No," said Mrs. Lapham lifelessly; "I wonder why they wanted to do it. Oh, I suppose it's all right," she added in deprecation of the anger with her humility which she saw rising in her husband's face; "but if it's all going to be as much trouble as that letter, I'd rather be whipped. I don't know what I'm going to wear; or the girls either. I do wonder--I've heard that people go to dinner in low-necks. Do you suppose it's the custom?" "How should I know?" demanded the Colonel. "I guess you've got clothes enough. Any rate, you needn't fret about it. You just go round to White's or Jordan & Marsh's, and ask for a dinner dress. I guess that'll settle it; they'll know. Get some of them imported dresses. I see 'em in the window every time I pass; lots of 'em." "Oh, it ain't the dress!" said Mrs. Lapham. "I don't suppose but what we could get along with that; and I want to do the best we can for the children; but I don't know what we're going to talk about to those people when we get there. We haven't got anything in common with them. Oh, I don't say they're any better," she again made haste to say in arrest of her husband's resentment. "I don't believe they are; and I don't see why they should be. And there ain't anybody has got a better right to hold up their head than you have, Silas. You've got plenty of money, and you've made every cent of it." "I guess I shouldn't amounted to much without you, Persis," interposed Lapham, moved to this justice by her praise. "Oh, don't talk about ME!" protested the wife. "Now that you've made it all right about Rogers, there ain't a thing in this world against you. But still, for all that, I can see--and I can feel it when I can't see it--that we're different from those people. They're well-meaning enough, and they'd excuse it, I presume, but we're too old to learn to be like them." "The children ain't," said Lapham shrewdly. "No, the children ain't," admitted his wife, "and that's the only thing that reconciles me to it." "You see how pleased Irene looked when I read it?" "Yes, she was pleased." "And I guess Penelope'll think better of it before the time comes." "Oh yes, we do it for them. But whether we're doing the best thing for 'em, goodness knows. I'm not saying anything against HIM. Irene'll be a lucky girl to get him, if she wants him. But there! I'd ten times rather she was going to marry such a fellow as you were, Si, that had to make every inch of his own way, and she had to help him. It's in her!" Lapham laughed aloud for pleasure in his wife's fondness; but neither of them wished that he should respond directly to it. "I guess, if it wa'n't for me, he wouldn't have a much easier time. But don't you fret! It's all coming out right. That dinner ain't a thing for you to be uneasy about. It'll pass off perfectly easy and natural." Lapham did not keep his courageous mind quite to the end of the week that followed. It was his theory not to let Corey see that he was set up about the invitation, and when the young man said politely that his mother was glad they were able to come, Lapham was very short with him. He said yes, he believed that Mrs. Lapham and the girls were going. Afterward he was afraid Corey might not understand that he was coming too; but he did not know how to approach the subject again, and Corey did not, so he let it pass. It worried him to see all the preparation that his wife and Irene were making, and he tried to laugh at them for it; and it worried him to find that Penelope was making no preparation at all for herself, but only helping the others. He asked her what should she do if she changed her mind at the last moment and concluded to go, and she said she guessed she should not change her mind, but if she did, she would go to White's with him and get him to choose her an imported dress, he seemed to like them so much. He was too proud to mention the subject again to her. Finally, all that dress-making in the house began to scare him with vague apprehensions in regard to his own dress. As soon as he had determined to go, an ideal of the figure in which he should go presented itself to his mind. He should not wear any dress-coat, because, for one thing, he considered that a man looked like a fool in a dress-coat, and, for another thing, he had none--had none on principle. He would go in a frock-coat and black pantaloons, and perhaps a white waistcoat, but a black cravat anyway. But as soon as he developed this ideal to his family, which he did in pompous disdain of their anxieties about their own dress, they said he should not go so. Irene reminded him that he was the only person without a dress-coat at a corps reunion dinner which he had taken her to some years before, and she remembered feeling awfully about it at the time. Mrs. Lapham, who would perhaps have agreed of herself, shook her head with misgiving. "I don't see but what you'll have to get you one, Si," she said. "I don't believe they ever go without 'em to a private house." He held out openly, but on his way home the next day, in a sudden panic, he cast anchor before his tailor's door and got measured for a dress-coat. After that he began to be afflicted about his waist-coat, concerning which he had hitherto been airily indifferent. He tried to get opinion out of his family, but they were not so clear about it as they were about the frock. It ended in their buying a book of etiquette, which settled the question adversely to a white waistcoat. The author, however, after being very explicit in telling them not to eat with their knives, and above all not to pick their teeth with their forks,--a thing which he said no lady or gentleman ever did,--was still far from decided as to the kind of cravat Colonel Lapham ought to wear: shaken on other points, Lapham had begun to waver also concerning the black cravat. As to the question of gloves for the Colonel, which suddenly flashed upon him one evening, it appeared never to have entered the thoughts of the etiquette man, as Lapham called him. Other authors on the same subject were equally silent, and Irene could only remember having heard, in some vague sort of way, that gentlemen did not wear gloves so much any more. Drops of perspiration gathered on Lapham's forehead in the anxiety of the debate; he groaned, and he swore a little in the compromise profanity which he used. "I declare," said Penelope, where she sat purblindly sewing on a bit of dress for Irene, "the Colonel's clothes are as much trouble as anybody's. Why don't you go to Jordan & Marsh's and order one of the imported dresses for yourself, father?" That gave them all the relief of a laugh over it, the Colonel joining in piteously. He had an awful longing to find out from Corey how he ought to go. He formulated and repeated over to himself an apparently careless question, such as, "Oh, by the way, Corey, where do you get your gloves?" This would naturally lead to some talk on the subject, which would, if properly managed, clear up the whole trouble. But Lapham found that he would rather die than ask this question, or any question that would bring up the dinner again. Corey did not recur to it, and Lapham avoided the matter with positive fierceness. He shunned talking with Corey at all, and suffered in grim silence. One night, before they fell asleep, his wife said to him, "I was reading in one of those books to-day, and I don't believe but what we've made a mistake if Pen holds out that she won't go." "Why?" demanded Lapham, in the dismay which beset him at every fresh recurrence to the subject. "The book says that it's very impolite not to answer a dinner invitation promptly. Well, we've done that all right,--at first I didn't know but what we had been a little too quick, may be,--but then it says if you're not going, that it's the height of rudeness not to let them know at once, so that they can fill your place at the table." The Colonel was silent for a while. "Well, I'm dumned," he said finally, "if there seems to be any end to this thing. If it was to do over again, I'd say no for all of us." "I've wished a hundred times they hadn't asked us; but it's too late to think about that now. The question is, what are we going to do about Penelope?" "Oh, I guess she'll go, at the last moment." "She says she won't. She took a prejudice against Mrs. Corey that day, and she can't seem to get over it." "Well, then, hadn't you better write in the morning, as soon as you're up, that she ain't coming?" Mrs. Lapham sighed helplessly. "I shouldn't know how to get it in. It's so late now; I don't see how I could have the face." "Well, then, she's got to go, that's all." "She's set she won't." "And I'm set she shall," said Lapham with the loud obstinacy of a man whose women always have their way. Mrs. Lapham was not supported by the sturdiness of his proclamation. But she did not know how to do what she knew she ought to do about Penelope, and she let matters drift. After all, the child had a right to stay at home if she did not wish to go. That was what Mrs. Lapham felt, and what she said to her husband next morning, bidding him let Penelope alone, unless she chose herself to go. She said it was too late now to do anything, and she must make the best excuse she could when she saw Mrs. Corey. She began to wish that Irene and her father would go and excuse her too. She could not help saying this, and then she and Lapham had some unpleasant words. "Look here!" he cried. "Who wanted to go in for these people in the first place? Didn't you come home full of 'em last year, and want me to sell out here and move somewheres else because it didn't seem to suit 'em? And now you want to put it all on me! I ain't going to stand it." "Hush!" said his wife. "Do you want to raise the house? I didn't put it on you, as you say. You took it on yourself. Ever since that fellow happened to come into the new house that day, you've been perfectly crazy to get in with them. And now you're so afraid you shall do something wrong before 'em, you don't hardly dare to say your life's your own. I declare, if you pester me any more about those gloves, Silas Lapham, I won't go." "Do you suppose I want to go on my own account?" he demanded furiously. "No," she admitted. "Of course I don't. I know very well that you're doing it for Irene; but, for goodness gracious' sake, don't worry our lives out, and make yourself a perfect laughing-stock before the children." With this modified concession from her, the quarrel closed in sullen silence on Lapham's part. The night before the dinner came, and the question of his gloves was still unsettled, and in a fair way to remain so. He had bought a pair, so as to be on the safe side, perspiring in company with the young lady who sold them, and who helped him try them on at the shop; his nails were still full of the powder which she had plentifully peppered into them in order to overcome the resistance of his blunt fingers. But he was uncertain whether he should wear them. They had found a book at last that said the ladies removed their gloves on sitting down at table, but it said nothing about gentlemen's gloves. He left his wife where she stood half hook-and-eyed at her glass in her new dress, and went down to his own den beyond the parlour. Before he shut his door he caught a glimpse of Irene trailing up and down before the long mirror in HER new dress, followed by the seamstress on her knees; the woman had her mouth full of pins, and from time to time she made Irene stop till she could put one of the pins into her train; Penelope sat in a corner criticising and counselling. It made Lapham sick, and he despised himself and all his brood for the trouble they were taking. But another glance gave him a sight of the young girl's face in the mirror, beautiful and radiant with happiness, and his heart melted again with paternal tenderness and pride. It was going to be a great pleasure to Irene, and Lapham felt that she was bound to cut out anything there. He was vexed with Penelope that she was not going too; he would have liked to have those people hear her talk. He held his door a little open, and listened to the things she was "getting off" there to Irene. He showed that he felt really hurt and disappointed about Penelope, and the girl's mother made her console him the next evening before they all drove away without her. "You try to look on the bright side of it, father. I guess you'll see that it's best I didn't go when you get there. Irene needn't open her lips, and they can all see how pretty she is; but they wouldn't know how smart I was unless I talked, and maybe then they wouldn't." This thrust at her father's simple vanity in her made him laugh; and then they drove away, and Penelope shut the door, and went upstairs with her lips firmly shutting in a sob. XIV. THE Coreys were one of the few old families who lingered in Bellingham Place, the handsome, quiet old street which the sympathetic observer must grieve to see abandoned to boarding-houses. The dwellings are stately and tall, and the whole place wears an air of aristocratic seclusion, which Mrs. Corey's father might well have thought assured when he left her his house there at his death. It is one of two evidently designed by the same architect who built some houses in a characteristic taste on Beacon Street opposite the Common. It has a wooden portico, with slender fluted columns, which have always been painted white, and which, with the delicate mouldings of the cornice, form the sole and sufficient decoration of the street front; nothing could be simpler, and nothing could be better. Within, the architect has again indulged his preference for the classic; the roof of the vestibule, wide and low, rests on marble columns, slim and fluted like the wooden columns without, and an ample staircase climbs in a graceful, easy curve from the tesselated pavement. Some carved Venetian scrigni stretched along the wall; a rug lay at the foot of the stairs; but otherwise the simple adequacy of the architectural intention had been respected, and the place looked bare to the eyes of the Laphams when they entered. The Coreys had once kept a man, but when young Corey began his retrenchments the man had yielded to the neat maid who showed the Colonel into the reception-room and asked the ladies to walk up two flights. He had his charges from Irene not to enter the drawing-room without her mother, and he spent five minutes in getting on his gloves, for he had desperately resolved to wear them at last. When he had them on, and let his large fists hang down on either side, they looked, in the saffron tint which the shop-girl said his gloves should be of, like canvased hams. He perspired with doubt as he climbed the stairs, and while he waited on the landing for Mrs. Lapham and Irene to come down from above before going into the drawing-room, he stood staring at his hands, now open and now shut, and breathing hard. He heard quiet talking beyond the portiere within, and presently Tom Corey came out. "Ah, Colonel Lapham! Very glad to see you." Lapham shook hands with him and gasped, "Waiting for Mis' Lapham," to account for his presence. He had not been able to button his right glove, and he now began, with as much indifference as he could assume, to pull them both off, for he saw that Corey wore none. By the time he had stuffed them into the pocket of his coat-skirt his wife and daughter descended. Corey welcomed them very cordially too, but looked a little mystified. Mrs. Lapham knew that he was silently inquiring for Penelope, and she did not know whether she ought to excuse her to him first or not. She said nothing, and after a glance toward the regions where Penelope might conjecturably be lingering, he held aside the portiere for the Laphams to pass, and entered the room with them. Mrs. Lapham had decided against low-necks on her own responsibility, and had entrenched herself in the safety of a black silk, in which she looked very handsome. Irene wore a dress of one of those shades which only a woman or an artist can decide to be green or blue, and which to other eyes looks both or neither, according to their degrees of ignorance. If it was more like a ball dress than a dinner dress, that might be excused to the exquisite effect. She trailed, a delicate splendour, across the carpet in her mother's sombre wake, and the consciousness of success brought a vivid smile to her face. Lapham, pallid with anxiety lest he should somehow disgrace himself, giving thanks to God that he should have been spared the shame of wearing gloves where no one else did, but at the same time despairing that Corey should have seen him in them, had an unwonted aspect of almost pathetic refinement. Mrs. Corey exchanged a quick glance of surprise and relief with her husband as she started across the room to meet her guests, and in her gratitude to them for being so irreproachable, she threw into her manner a warmth that people did not always find there. "General Lapham?" she said, shaking hands in quick succession with Mrs. Lapham and Irene, and now addressing herself to him. "No, ma'am, only Colonel," said the honest man, but the lady did not hear him. She was introducing her husband to Lapham's wife and daughter, and Bromfield Corey was already shaking his hand and saying he was very glad to see him again, while he kept his artistic eye on Irene, and apparently could not take it off. Lily Corey gave the Lapham ladies a greeting which was physically rather than socially cold, and Nanny stood holding Irene's hand in both of hers a moment, and taking in her beauty and her style with a generous admiration which she could afford, for she was herself faultlessly dressed in the quiet taste of her city, and looking very pretty. The interval was long enough to let every man present confide his sense of Irene's beauty to every other; and then, as the party was small, Mrs. Corey made everybody acquainted. When Lapham had not quite understood, he held the person's hand, and, leaning urbanely forward, inquired, "What name?" He did that because a great man to whom he had been presented on the platform at a public meeting had done so to him, and he knew it must be right. A little lull ensued upon the introductions, and Mrs. Corey said quietly to Mrs. Lapham, "Can I send any one to be of use to Miss Lapham?" as if Penelope must be in the dressing-room. Mrs. Lapham turned fire-red, and the graceful forms in which she had been intending to excuse her daughter's absence went out of her head. "She isn't upstairs," she said, at her bluntest, as country people are when embarrassed. "She didn't feel just like coming to-night. I don't know as she's feeling very well." Mrs. Corey emitted a very small "O!"--very small, very cold,--which began to grow larger and hotter and to burn into Mrs. Lapham's soul before Mrs. Corey could add, "I'm very sorry. It's nothing serious, I hope?" Robert Chase, the painter, had not come, and Mrs. James Bellingham was not there, so that the table really balanced better without Penelope; but Mrs. Lapham could not know this, and did not deserve to know it. Mrs. Corey glanced round the room, as if to take account of her guests, and said to her husband, "I think we are all here, then," and he came forward and gave his arm to Mrs. Lapham. She perceived then that in their determination not to be the first to come they had been the last, and must have kept the others waiting for them. Lapham had never seen people go down to dinner arm-in-arm before, but he knew that his wife was distinguished in being taken out by the host, and he waited in jealous impatience to see if Tom Corey would offer his arm to Irene. He gave it to that big girl they called Miss Kingsbury, and the handsome old fellow whom Mrs. Corey had introduced as her cousin took Irene out. Lapham was startled from the misgiving in which this left him by Mrs. Corey's passing her hand through his arm, and he made a sudden movement forward, but felt himself gently restrained. They went out the last of all; he did not know why, but he submitted, and when they sat down he saw that Irene, although she had come in with that Mr. Bellingham, was seated beside young Corey, after all. He fetched a long sigh of relief when he sank into his chair and felt himself safe from error if he kept a sharp lookout and did only what the others did. Bellingham had certain habits which he permitted himself, and one of these was tucking the corner of his napkin into his collar; he confessed himself an uncertain shot with a spoon, and defended his practice on the ground of neatness and common-sense. Lapham put his napkin into his collar too, and then, seeing that no one but Bellingham did it, became alarmed and took it out again slyly. He never had wine on his table at home, and on principle he was a prohibitionist; but now he did not know just what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate. He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had read of a well-known politician's doing at a public dinner, to show that he did not take wine; but, after twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them be, for it seemed to him that would be a little too conspicuous, and he felt that every one was looking. He let the servant fill them all, and he drank out of each, not to appear odd. Later, he observed that the young ladies were not taking wine, and he was glad to see that Irene had refused it, and that Mrs. Lapham was letting it stand untasted. He did not know but he ought to decline some of the dishes, or at least leave most of some on his plate, but he was not able to decide; he took everything and ate everything. He noticed that Mrs. Corey seemed to take no more trouble about the dinner than anybody, and Mr. Corey rather less; he was talking busily to Mrs. Lapham, and Lapham caught a word here and there that convinced him she was holding her own. He was getting on famously himself with Mrs. Corey, who had begun with him about his new house; he was telling her all about it, and giving her his ideas. Their conversation naturally included his architect across the table; Lapham had been delighted and secretly surprised to find the fellow there; and at something Seymour said the talk spread suddenly, and the pretty house he was building for Colonel Lapham became the general theme. Young Corey testified to its loveliness, and the architect said laughingly that if he had been able to make a nice thing of it, he owed it to the practical sympathy of his client. "Practical sympathy is good," said Bromfield Corey; and, slanting his head confidentially to Mrs. Lapham, he added, "Does he bleed your husband, Mrs. Lapham? He's a terrible fellow for appropriations!" Mrs. Lapham laughed, reddening consciously, and said she guessed the Colonel knew how to take care of himself. This struck Lapham, then draining his glass of sauterne, as wonderfully discreet in his wife. Bromfield Corey leaned back in his chair a moment. "Well, after all, you can't say, with all your modern fuss about it, that you do much better now than the old fellows who built such houses as this." "Ah," said the architect, "nobody can do better than well. Your house is in perfect taste; you know I've always admired it; and I don't think it's at all the worse for being old-fashioned. What we've done is largely to go back of the hideous style that raged after they forgot how to make this sort of house. But I think we may claim a better feeling for structure. We use better material, and more wisely; and by and by we shall work out something more characteristic and original." "With your chocolates and olives, and your clutter of bric-a-brac?" "All that's bad, of course, but I don't mean that. I don't wish to make you envious of Colonel Lapham, and modesty prevents my saying, that his house is prettier,--though I may have my convictions,--but it's better built. All the new houses are better built. Now, your house----" "Mrs. Corey's house," interrupted the host, with a burlesque haste in disclaiming responsibility for it that made them all laugh. "My ancestral halls are in Salem, and I'm told you couldn't drive a nail into their timbers; in fact, I don't know that you would want to do it." "I should consider it a species of sacrilege," answered Seymour, "and I shall be far from pressing the point I was going to make against a house of Mrs. Corey's." This won Seymour the easy laugh, and Lapham silently wondered that the fellow never got off any of those things to him. "Well," said Corey, "you architects and the musicians are the true and only artistic creators. All the rest of us, sculptors, painters, novelists, and tailors, deal with forms that we have before us; we try to imitate, we try to represent. But you two sorts of artists create form. If you represent, you fail. Somehow or other you do evolve the camel out of your inner consciousness." "I will not deny the soft impeachment," said the architect, with a modest air. "I dare say. And you'll own that it's very handsome of me to say this, after your unjustifiable attack on Mrs. Corey's property." Bromfield Corey addressed himself again to Mrs. Lapham, and the talk subdivided itself as before. It lapsed so entirely away from the subject just in hand, that Lapham was left with rather a good idea, as he thought it, to perish in his mind, for want of a chance to express it. The only thing like a recurrence to what they had been saying was Bromfield Corey's warning Mrs. Lapham, in some connection that Lapham lost, against Miss Kingsbury. "She's worse," he was saying, "when it comes to appropriations than Seymour himself. Depend upon it, Mrs. Lapham, she will give you no peace of your mind, now she's met you, from this out. Her tender mercies are cruel; and I leave you to supply the content from your own scriptural knowledge. Beware of her, and all her works. She calls them works of charity; but heaven knows whether they are. It don't stand to reason that she gives the poor ALL the money she gets out of people. I have my own belief"--he gave it in a whisper for the whole table to hear--"that she spends it for champagne and cigars." Lapham did not know about that kind of talking; but Miss Kingsbury seemed to enjoy the fun as much as anybody, and he laughed with the rest. "You shall be asked to the very next debauch of the committee, Mr. Corey; then you won't dare expose us," said Miss Kingsbury. "I wonder you haven't been down upon Corey to go to the Chardon Street home and talk with your indigent Italians in their native tongue," said Charles Bellingham. "I saw in the Transcript the other night that you wanted some one for the work." "We did think of Mr. Corey," replied Miss Kingsbury; "but we reflected that he probably wouldn't talk with them at all; he would make them keep still to be sketched, and forget all about their wants." Upon the theory that this was a fair return for Corey's pleasantry, the others laughed again. "There is one charity," said Corey, pretending superiority to Miss Kingsbury's point, "that is so difficult, I wonder it hasn't occurred to a lady of your courageous invention." "Yes?" said Miss Kingsbury. "What is that?" "The occupation, by deserving poor of neat habits, of all the beautiful, airy, wholesome houses that stand empty the whole summer long, while their owners are away in their lowly cots beside the sea." "Yes, that is terrible," replied Miss Kingsbury, with quick earnestness, while her eyes grew moist. "I have often thought of our great, cool houses standing useless here, and the thousands of poor creatures stifling in their holes and dens, and the little children dying for wholesome shelter. How cruelly selfish we are!" "That is a very comfortable sentiment, Miss Kingsbury," said Corey, "and must make you feel almost as if you had thrown open No. 31 to the whole North End. But I am serious about this matter. I spend my summers in town, and I occupy my own house, so that I can speak impartially and intelligently; and I tell you that in some of my walks on the Hill and down on the Back Bay, nothing but the surveillance of the local policeman prevents my offering personal violence to those long rows of close-shuttered, handsome, brutally insensible houses. If I were a poor man, with a sick child pining in some garret or cellar at the North End, I should break into one of them, and camp out on the grand piano." "Surely, Bromfield," said his wife, "you don't consider what havoc such people would make with the furniture of a nice house!" "That is true," answered Corey, with meek conviction. "I never thought of that." "And if you were a poor man with a sick child, I doubt if you'd have so much heart for burglary as you have now," said James Bellingham. "It's wonderful how patient they are," said the minister. "The spectacle of the hopeless comfort the hard-working poor man sees must be hard to bear." Lapham wanted to speak up and say that he had been there himself, and knew how such a man felt. He wanted to tell them that generally a poor man was satisfied if he could make both ends meet; that he didn't envy any one his good luck, if he had earned it, so long as he wasn't running under himself. But before he could get the courage to address the whole table, Sewell added, "I suppose he don't always think of it." "But some day he WILL think about it," said Corey. "In fact, we rather invite him to think about it, in this country." "My brother-in-law," said Charles Bellingham, with the pride a man feels in a mentionably remarkable brother-in-law, "has no end of fellows at work under him out there at Omaha, and he says it's the fellows from countries where they've been kept from thinking about it that are discontented. The Americans never make any trouble. They seem to understand that so long as we give unlimited opportunity, nobody has a right to complain." "What do you hear from Leslie?" asked Mrs. Corey, turning from these profitless abstractions to Mrs. Bellingham. "You know," said that lady in a lower tone, "that there is another baby?" "No! I hadn't heard of it!" "Yes; a boy. They have named him after his uncle." "Yes," said Charles Bellingham, joining in. "He is said to be a noble boy, and to resemble me." "All boys of that tender age are noble," said Corey, "and look like anybody you wish them to resemble. Is Leslie still home-sick for the bean-pots of her native Boston?" "She is getting over it, I fancy," replied Mrs. Bellingham. "She's very much taken up with Mr. Blake's enterprises, and leads a very exciting life. She says she's like people who have been home from Europe three years; she's past the most poignant stage of regret, and hasn't reached the second, when they feel that they must go again." Lapham leaned a little toward Mrs. Corey, and said of a picture which he saw on the wall opposite, "Picture of your daughter, I presume?" "No; my daughter's grandmother. It's a Stewart Newton; he painted a great many Salem beauties. She was a Miss Polly Burroughs. My daughter IS like her, don't you think?" They both looked at Nanny Corey and then at the portrait. "Those pretty old-fashioned dresses are coming in again. I'm not surprised you took it for her. The others"--she referred to the other portraits more or less darkling on the walls--"are my people; mostly Copleys." These names, unknown to Lapham, went to his head like the wine he was drinking; they seemed to carry light for the moment, but a film of deeper darkness followed. He heard Charles Bellingham telling funny stories to Irene and trying to amuse the girl; she was laughing, and seemed very happy. From time to time Bellingham took part in the general talk between the host and James Bellingham and Miss Kingsbury and that minister, Mr. Sewell. They talked of people mostly; it astonished Lapham to hear with what freedom they talked. They discussed these persons unsparingly; James Bellingham spoke of a man known to Lapham for his business success and great wealth as not a gentleman; his cousin Charles said he was surprised that the fellow had kept from being governor so long. When the latter turned from Irene to make one of these excursions into the general talk, young Corey talked to her; and Lapham caught some words from which it seemed that they were speaking of Penelope. It vexed him to think she had not come; she could have talked as well as any of them; she was just as bright; and Lapham was aware that Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fondness, he said to himself that it did not make any difference. He felt that he was not holding up his end of the line, however. When some one spoke to him he could only summon a few words of reply, that seemed to lead to nothing; things often came into his mind appropriate to what they were saying, but before he could get them out they were off on something else; they jumped about so, he could not keep up; but he felt, all the same, that he was not doing himself justice. At one time the talk ran off upon a subject that Lapham had never heard talked of before; but again he was vexed that Penelope was not there, to have her say; he believed that her say would have been worth hearing. Miss Kingsbury leaned forward and asked Charles Bellingham if he had read Tears, Idle Tears, the novel that was making such a sensation; and when he said no, she said she wondered at him. "It's perfectly heart-breaking, as you'll imagine from the name; but there's such a dear old-fashioned hero and heroine in it, who keep dying for each other all the way through, and making the most wildly satisfactory and unnecessary sacrifices for each other. You feel as if you'd done them yourself." "Ah, that's the secret of its success," said Bromfield Corey. "It flatters the reader by painting the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop, so that he feels himself of their supernatural proportions. You've read it, Nanny?" "Yes," said his daughter. "It ought to have been called Slop, Silly Slop." "Oh, not quite SLOP, Nanny," pleaded Miss Kingsbury. "It's astonishing," said Charles Bellingham, "how we do like the books that go for our heart-strings. And I really suppose that you can't put a more popular thing than self-sacrifice into a novel. We do like to see people suffering sublimely." "There was talk some years ago," said James Bellingham, "about novels going out." "They're just coming in!" cried Miss Kingsbury. "Yes," said Mr. Sewell, the minister. "And I don't think there ever was a time when they formed the whole intellectual experience of more people. They do greater mischief than ever." "Don't be envious, parson," said the host. "No," answered Sewell. "I should be glad of their help. But those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them--excuse me, Miss Kingsbury--are ruinous!" "Don't you feel like a moral wreck, Miss Kingsbury?" asked the host. But Sewell went on: "The novelists might be the greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion and relation, but for the most part they have been and are altogether noxious." This seemed sense to Lapham; but Bromfield Corey asked: "But what if life as it is isn't amusing? Aren't we to be amused?" "Not to our hurt," sturdily answered the minister. "And the self-sacrifice painted in most novels like this----" "Slop, Silly Slop?" suggested the proud father of the inventor of the phrase. "Yes--is nothing but psychical suicide, and is as wholly immoral as the spectacle of a man falling upon his sword." "Well, I don't know but you're right, parson," said the host; and the minister, who had apparently got upon a battle-horse of his, careered onward in spite of some tacit attempts of his wife to seize the bridle. "Right? To be sure I am right. The whole business of love, and love-making and marrying, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion to the other relations of life. Love is very sweet, very pretty----" "Oh, THANK you, Mr. Sewell," said Nanny Corey, in a way that set them all laughing. "But it's the affair, commonly, of very young people, who have not yet character and experience enough to make them interesting. In novels it's treated, not only as if it were the chief interest of life, but the sole interest of the lives of two ridiculous young persons; and it is taught that love is perpetual, that the glow of a true passion lasts for ever; and that it is sacrilege to think or act otherwise." "Well, but isn't that true, Mr. Sewell?" pleaded Miss Kingsbury. "I have known some most estimable people who had married a second time," said the minister, and then he had the applause with him. Lapham wanted to make some open recognition of his good sense, but could not. "I suppose the passion itself has been a good deal changed," said Bromfield Corey, "since the poets began to idealise it in the days of chivalry." "Yes; and it ought to be changed again," said Mr. Sewell. "What! Back?" "I don't say that. But it ought to be recognised as something natural and mortal, and divine honours, which belong to righteousness alone, ought not to be paid it." "Oh, you ask too much, parson," laughed his host, and the talk wandered away to something else. It was not an elaborate dinner; but Lapham was used to having everything on the table at once, and this succession of dishes bewildered him; he was afraid perhaps he was eating too much. He now no longer made any pretence of not drinking his wine, for he was thirsty, and there was no more water, and he hated to ask for any. The ice-cream came, and then the fruit. Suddenly Mrs. Corey rose, and said across the table to her husband, "I suppose you will want your coffee here." And he replied, "Yes; we'll join you at tea." The ladies all rose, and the gentlemen got up with them. Lapham started to follow Mrs. Corey, but the other men merely stood in their places, except young Corey, who ran and opened the door for his mother. Lapham thought with shame that it was he who ought to have done that; but no one seemed to notice, and he sat down again gladly, after kicking out one of his legs which had gone to sleep. They brought in cigars with coffee, and Bromfield Corey advised Lapham to take one that he chose for him. Lapham confessed that he liked a good cigar about as well as anybody, and Corey said: "These are new. I had an Englishman here the other day who was smoking old cigars in the superstition that tobacco improved with age, like wine." "Ah," said Lapham, "anybody who had ever lived off a tobacco country could tell him better than that." With the fuming cigar between his lips he felt more at home than he had before. He turned sidewise in his chair and, resting one arm on the back, intertwined the fingers of both hands, and smoked at large ease. James Bellingham came and sat down by him. "Colonel Lapham, weren't you with the 96th Vermont when they charged across the river in front of Pickensburg, and the rebel battery opened fire on them in the water?" Lapham slowly shut his eyes and slowly dropped his head for assent, letting out a white volume of smoke from the corner of his mouth. "I thought so," said Bellingham. "I was with the 85th Massachusetts, and I sha'n't forget that slaughter. We were all new to it still. Perhaps that's why it made such an impression." "I don't know," suggested Charles Bellingham. "Was there anything much more impressive afterward? I read of it out in Missouri, where I was stationed at the time, and I recollect the talk of some old army men about it. They said that death-rate couldn't be beaten. I don't know that it ever was." "About one in five of us got out safe," said Lapham, breaking his cigar-ash off on the edge of a plate. James Bellingham reached him a bottle of Apollinaris. He drank a glass, and then went on smoking. They all waited, as if expecting him to speak, and then Corey said: "How incredible those things seem already! You gentlemen KNOW that they happened; but are you still able to believe it?" "Ah, nobody FEELS that anything happened," said Charles Bellingham. "The past of one's experience doesn't differ a great deal from the past of one's knowledge. It isn't much more probable; it's really a great deal less vivid than some scenes in a novel that one read when a boy." "I'm not sure of that," said James Bellingham. "Well, James, neither am I," consented his cousin, helping himself from Lapham's Apollinaris bottle. "There would be very little talking at dinner if one only said the things that one was sure of." The others laughed, and Bromfield Corey remarked thoughtfully, "What astonishes the craven civilian in all these things is the abundance--the superabundance--of heroism. The cowards were the exception; the men that were ready to die, the rule." "The woods were full of them," said Lapham, without taking his cigar from his mouth. "That's a nice little touch in School," interposed Charles Bellingham, "where the girl says to the fellow who was at Inkerman, 'I should think you would be so proud of it,' and he reflects a while, and says, 'Well, the fact is, you know, there were so many of us.'" "Yes, I remember that," said James Bellingham, smiling for pleasure in it. "But I don't see why you claim the credit of being a craven civilian, Bromfield," he added, with a friendly glance at his brother-in-law, and with the willingness Boston men often show to turn one another's good points to the light in company; bred so intimately together at school and college and in society, they all know these points. "A man who was out with Garibaldi in '48," continued James Bellingham. "Oh, a little amateur red-shirting," Corey interrupted in deprecation. "But even if you choose to dispute my claim, what has become of all the heroism? Tom, how many club men do you know who would think it sweet and fitting to die for their country?" "I can't think of a great many at the moment, sir," replied the son, with the modesty of his generation. "And I couldn't in '61," said his uncle. "Nevertheless they were there." "Then your theory is that it's the occasion that is wanting," said Bromfield Corey. "But why shouldn't civil service reform, and the resumption of specie payment, and a tariff for revenue only, inspire heroes? They are all good causes." "It's the occasion that's wanting," said James Bellingham, ignoring the persiflage. "And I'm very glad of it." "So am I," said Lapham, with a depth of feeling that expressed itself in spite of the haze in which his brain seemed to float. There was a great deal of the talk that he could not follow; it was too quick for him; but here was something he was clear of. "I don't want to see any more men killed in my time." Something serious, something sombre must lurk behind these words, and they waited for Lapham to say more; but the haze closed round him again, and he remained silent, drinking Apollinaris. "We non-combatants were notoriously reluctant to give up fighting," said Mr. Sewell, the minister; "but I incline to think Colonel Lapham and Mr. Bellingham may be right. I dare say we shall have the heroism again if we have the occasion. Till it comes, we must content ourselves with the every-day generosities and sacrifices. They make up in quantity what they lack in quality, perhaps." "They're not so picturesque," said Bromfield Corey. "You can paint a man dying for his country, but you can't express on canvas a man fulfilling the duties of a good citizen." "Perhaps the novelists will get at him by and by," suggested Charles Bellingham. "If I were one of these fellows, I shouldn't propose to myself anything short of that." "What? the commonplace?" asked his cousin. "Commonplace? The commonplace is just that light, impalpable, aerial essence which they've never got into their confounded books yet. The novelist who could interpret the common feelings of commonplace people would have the answer to 'the riddle of the painful earth' on his tongue." "Oh, not so bad as that, I hope," said the host; and Lapham looked from one to the other, trying to make out what they were at. He had never been so up a tree before. "I suppose it isn't well for us to see human nature at white heat habitually," continued Bromfield Corey, after a while. "It would make us vain of our species. Many a poor fellow in that war and in many another has gone into battle simply and purely for his country's sake, not knowing whether, if he laid down his life, he should ever find it again, or whether, if he took it up hereafter, he should take it up in heaven or hell. Come, parson!" he said, turning to the minister, "what has ever been conceived of omnipotence, of omniscience, so sublime, so divine as that?" "Nothing," answered the minister quietly. "God has never been imagined at all. But if you suppose such a man as that was Authorised, I think it will help you to imagine what God must be." "There's sense in that," said Lapham. He took his cigar out of his mouth, and pulled his chair a little toward the table, on which he placed his ponderous fore-arms. "I want to tell you about a fellow I had in my own company when we first went out. We were all privates to begin with; after a while they elected me captain--I'd had the tavern stand, and most of 'em knew me. But Jim Millon never got to be anything more than corporal; corporal when he was killed." The others arrested themselves in various attitudes of attention, and remained listening to Lapham with an interest that profoundly flattered him. Now, at last, he felt that he was holding up his end of the rope. "I can't say he went into the thing from the highest motives, altogether; our motives are always pretty badly mixed, and when there's such a hurrah-boys as there was then, you can't tell which is which. I suppose Jim Millon's wife was enough to account for his going, herself. She was a pretty bad assortment," said Lapham, lowering his voice and glancing round at the door to make sure that it was shut, "and she used to lead Jim ONE kind of life. Well, sir," continued Lapham, synthetising his auditors in that form of address, "that fellow used to save every cent of his pay and send it to that woman. Used to get me to do it for him. I tried to stop him. 'Why, Jim,' said I, 'you know what she'll do with it.' 'That's so, Cap,' says he, 'but I don't know what she'll do without it.' And it did keep her straight--straight as a string--as long as Jim lasted. Seemed as if there was something mysterious about it. They had a little girl,--about as old as my oldest girl,--and Jim used to talk to me about her. Guess he done it as much for her as for the mother; and he said to me before the last action we went into, 'I should like to turn tail and run, Cap. I ain't comin' out o' this one. But I don't suppose it would do.' 'Well, not for you, Jim,' said I. 'I want to live,' he says; and he bust out crying right there in my tent. 'I want to live for poor Molly and Zerrilla'--that's what they called the little one; I dunno where they got the name. 'I ain't ever had half a chance; and now she's doing better, and I believe we should get along after this.' He set there cryin' like a baby. But he wa'n't no baby when he went into action. I hated to look at him after it was over, not so much because he'd got a ball that was meant for me by a sharpshooter--he saw the devil takin' aim, and he jumped to warn me--as because he didn't look like Jim; he looked like--fun; all desperate and savage. I guess he died hard." The story made its impression, and Lapham saw it. "Now I say," he resumed, as if he felt that he was going to do himself justice, and say something to heighten the effect his story had produced. At the same time he was aware of a certain want of clearness. He had the idea, but it floated vague, elusive, in his brain. He looked about as if for something to precipitate it in tangible shape. "Apollinaris?" asked Charles Bellingham, handing the bottle from the other side. He had drawn his chair closer than the rest to Lapham's, and was listening with great interest. When Mrs. Corey asked him to meet Lapham, he accepted gladly. "You know I go in for that sort of thing, Anna. Since Leslie's affair we're rather bound to do it. And I think we meet these practical fellows too little. There's always something original about them." He might naturally have believed that the reward of his faith was coming. "Thanks, I will take some of this wine," said Lapham, pouring himself a glass of Madeira from a black and dusty bottle caressed by a label bearing the date of the vintage. He tossed off the wine, unconscious of its preciousness, and waited for the result. That cloudiness in his brain disappeared before it, but a mere blank remained. He not only could not remember what he was going to say, but he could not recall what they had been talking about. They waited, looking at him, and he stared at them in return. After a while he heard the host saying, "Shall we join the ladies?" Lapham went, trying to think what had happened. It seemed to him a long time since he had drunk that wine. Miss Corey gave him a cup of tea, where he stood aloof from his wife, who was talking with Miss Kingsbury and Mrs. Sewell; Irene was with Miss Nanny Corey. He could not hear what they were talking about; but if Penelope had come, he knew that she would have done them all credit. He meant to let her know how he felt about her behaviour when he got home. It was a shame for her to miss such a chance. Irene was looking beautiful, as pretty as all the rest of them put together, but she was not talking, and Lapham perceived that at a dinner-party you ought to talk. He was himself conscious of having, talked very well. He now wore an air of great dignity, and, in conversing with the other gentlemen, he used a grave and weighty deliberation. Some of them wanted him to go into the library. There he gave his ideas of books. He said he had not much time for anything but the papers; but he was going to have a complete library in his new place. He made an elaborate acknowledgment to Bromfield Corey of his son's kindness in suggesting books for his library; he said that he had ordered them all, and that he meant to have pictures. He asked Mr. Corey who was about the best American painter going now. "I don't set up to be a judge of pictures, but I know what I like," he said. He lost the reserve which he had maintained earlier, and began to boast. He himself introduced the subject of his paint, in a natural transition from pictures; he said Mr. Corey must take a run up to Lapham with him some day, and see the Works; they would interest him, and he would drive him round the country; he kept most of his horses up there, and he could show Mr. Corey some of the finest Jersey grades in the country. He told about his brother William, the judge at Dubuque; and a farm he had out there that paid for itself every year in wheat. As he cast off all fear, his voice rose, and he hammered his arm-chair with the thick of his hand for emphasis. Mr. Corey seemed impressed; he sat perfectly quiet, listening, and Lapham saw the other gentlemen stop in their talk every now and then to listen. After this proof of his ability to interest them, he would have liked to have Mrs. Lapham suggest again that he was unequal to their society, or to the society of anybody else. He surprised himself by his ease among men whose names had hitherto overawed him. He got to calling Bromfield Corey by his surname alone. He did not understand why young Corey seemed so preoccupied, and he took occasion to tell the company how he had said to his wife the first time he saw that fellow that he could make a man of him if he had him in the business; and he guessed he was not mistaken. He began to tell stories of the different young men he had had in his employ. At last he had the talk altogether to himself; no one else talked, and he talked unceasingly. It was a great time; it was a triumph. He was in this successful mood when word came to him that Mrs. Lapham was going; Tom Corey seemed to have brought it, but he was not sure. Anyway, he was not going to hurry. He made cordial invitations to each of the gentlemen to drop in and see him at his office, and would not be satisfied till he had exacted a promise from each. He told Charles Bellingham that he liked him, and assured James Bellingham that it had always been his ambition to know him, and that if any one had said when he first came to Boston that in less than ten years he should be hobnobbing with Jim Bellingham, he should have told that person he lied. He would have told anybody he lied that had told him ten years ago that a son of Bromfield Corey would have come and asked him to take him into the business. Ten years ago he, Silas Lapham, had come to Boston a little worse off than nothing at all, for he was in debt for half the money that he had bought out his partner with, and here he was now worth a million, and meeting you gentlemen like one of you. And every cent of that was honest money,--no speculation,--every copper of it for value received. And here, only the other day, his old partner, who had been going to the dogs ever since he went out of the business, came and borrowed twenty thousand dollars of him! Lapham lent it because his wife wanted him to: she had always felt bad about the fellow's having to go out of the business. He took leave of Mr. Sewell with patronising affection, and bade him come to him if he ever got into a tight place with his parish work; he would let him have all the money he wanted; he had more money than he knew what to do with. "Why, when your wife sent to mine last fall," he said, turning to Mr. Corey, "I drew my cheque for five hundred dollars, but my wife wouldn't take more than one hundred; said she wasn't going to show off before Mrs. Corey. I call that a pretty good joke on Mrs. Corey. I must tell her how Mrs. Lapham done her out of a cool four hundred dollars." He started toward the door of the drawing-room to take leave of the ladies; but Tom Corey was at his elbow, saying, "I think Mrs. Lapham is waiting for you below, sir," and in obeying the direction Corey gave him toward another door he forgot all about his purpose, and came away without saying good-night to his hostess. Mrs. Lapham had not known how soon she ought to go, and had no idea that in her quality of chief guest she was keeping the others. She stayed till eleven o'clock, and was a little frightened when she found what time it was; but Mrs. Corey, without pressing her to stay longer, had said it was not at all late. She and Irene had had a perfect time. Everybody had been very polite, on the way home they celebrated the amiability of both the Miss Coreys and of Miss Kingsbury. Mrs. Lapham thought that Mrs. Bellingham was about the pleasantest person she ever saw; she had told her all about her married daughter who had married an inventor and gone to live in Omaha--a Mrs. Blake. "If it's that car-wheel Blake," said Lapham proudly, "I know all about him. I've sold him tons of the paint." "Pooh, papa! How you do smell of smoking!" cried Irene. "Pretty strong, eh?" laughed Lapham, letting down a window of the carriage. His heart was throbbing wildly in the close air, and he was glad of the rush of cold that came in, though it stopped his tongue, and he listened more and more drowsily to the rejoicings that his wife and daughter exchanged. He meant to have them wake Penelope up and tell her what she had lost; but when he reached home he was too sleepy to suggest it. He fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, full of supreme triumph. But in the morning his skull was sore with the unconscious, night-long ache; and he rose cross and taciturn. They had a silent breakfast. In the cold grey light of the morning the glories of the night before showed poorer. Here and there a painful doubt obtruded itself and marred them with its awkward shadow. Penelope sent down word that she was not well, and was not coming to breakfast, and Lapham was glad to go to his office without seeing her. He was severe and silent all day with his clerks, and peremptory with customers. Of Corey he was slyly observant, and as the day wore away he grew more restively conscious. He sent out word by his office-boy that he would like to see Mr. Corey for a few minutes after closing. The type-writer girl had lingered too, as if she wished to speak with him, and Corey stood in abeyance as she went toward Lapham's door. "Can't see you to-night, Zerrilla," he said bluffly, but not unkindly. "Perhaps I'll call at the house, if it's important." "It is," said the girl, with a spoiled air of insistence. "Well," said Lapham, and, nodding to Corey to enter, he closed the door upon her. Then he turned to the young, man and demanded: "Was I drunk last night?" XV. LAPHAM'S strenuous face was broken up with the emotions that had forced him to this question: shame, fear of the things that must have been thought of him, mixed with a faint hope that he might be mistaken, which died out at the shocked and pitying look in Corey's eyes. "Was I drunk?" he repeated. "I ask you, because I was never touched by drink in my life before, and I don't know." He stood with his huge hands trembling on the back of his chair, and his dry lips apart, as he stared at Corey. "That is what every one understood, Colonel Lapham," said the young man. "Every one saw how it was. Don't----" "Did they talk it over after I left?" asked Lapham vulgarly. "Excuse me," said Corey, blushing, "my father doesn't talk his guests over with one another." He added, with youthful superfluity, "You were among gentlemen." "I was the only one that wasn't a gentleman there!" lamented Lapham. "I disgraced you! I disgraced my family! I mortified your father before his friends!" His head dropped. "I showed that I wasn't fit to go with you. I'm not fit for any decent place. What did I say? What did I do?" he asked, suddenly lifting his head and confronting Corey. "Out with it! If you could bear to see it and hear it, I had ought to bear to know it!" "There was nothing--really nothing," said Corey. "Beyond the fact that you were not quite yourself, there was nothing whatever. My father DID speak of it to me," he confessed, "when we were alone. He said that he was afraid we had not been thoughtful of you, if you were in the habit of taking only water; I told him I had not seen wine at your table. The others said nothing about you." "Ah, but what did they think?" "Probably what we did: that it was purely a misfortune--an accident." "I wasn't fit to be there," persisted Lapham. "Do you want to leave?" he asked, with savage abruptness. "Leave?" faltered the young man. "Yes; quit the business? Cut the whole connection?" "I haven't the remotest idea of it!" cried Corey in amazement. "Why in the world should I?" "Because you're a gentleman, and I'm not, and it ain't right I should be over you. If you want to go, I know some parties that would be glad to get you. I will give you up if you want to go before anything worse happens, and I shan't blame you. I can help you to something better than I can offer you here, and I will." "There's no question of my going, unless you wish it," said Corey. "If you do----" "Will you tell your father," interrupted Lapham, "that I had a notion all the time that I was acting the drunken blackguard, and that I've suffered for it all day? Will you tell him I don't want him to notice me if we ever meet, and that I know I'm not fit to associate with gentlemen in anything but a business way, if I am that?" "Certainly I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Corey. "I can't listen to you any longer. What you say is shocking to me--shocking in a way you can't think." "Why, man!" exclaimed Lapham, with astonishment; "if I can stand it, YOU can!" "No," said Corey, with a sick look, "that doesn't follow. You may denounce yourself, if you will; but I have my reasons for refusing to hear you--my reasons why I CAN'T hear you. If you say another word I must go away." "I don't understand you," faltered Lapham, in bewilderment, which absorbed even his shame. "You exaggerate the effect of what has happened," said the young man. "It's enough, more than enough, for you to have mentioned the matter to me, and I think it's unbecoming in me to hear you." He made a movement toward the door, but Lapham stopped him with the tragic humility of his appeal. "Don't go yet! I can't let you. I've disgusted you,--I see that; but I didn't mean to. I--I take it back." "Oh, there's nothing to take back," said Corey, with a repressed shudder for the abasement which he had seen. "But let us say no more about it--think no more. There wasn't one of the gentlemen present last night who didn't understand the matter precisely as my father and I did, and that fact must end it between us two." He went out into the larger office beyond, leaving Lapham helpless to prevent his going. It had become a vital necessity with him to think the best of Lapham, but his mind was in a whirl of whatever thoughts were most injurious. He thought of him the night before in the company of those ladies and gentlemen, and he quivered in resentment of his vulgar, braggart, uncouth nature. He recognised his own allegiance to the exclusiveness to which he was born and bred, as a man perceives his duty to his country when her rights are invaded. His eye fell on the porter going about in his shirt-sleeves to make the place fast for the night, and he said to himself that Dennis was not more plebeian than his master; that the gross appetites, the blunt sense, the purblind ambition, the stupid arrogance were the same in both, and the difference was in a brute will that probably left the porter the gentler man of the two. The very innocence of Lapham's life in the direction in which he had erred wrought against him in the young man's mood: it contained the insult of clownish inexperience. Amidst the stings and flashes of his wounded pride, all the social traditions, all the habits of feeling, which he had silenced more and more by force of will during the past months, asserted their natural sway, and he rioted in his contempt of the offensive boor, who was even more offensive in his shame than in his trespass. He said to himself that he was a Corey, as if that were somewhat; yet he knew that at the bottom of his heart all the time was that which must control him at last, and which seemed sweetly to be suffering his rebellion, secure of his submission in the end. It was almost with the girl's voice that it seemed to plead with him, to undo in him, effect by effect, the work of his indignant resentment, to set all things in another and fairer light, to give him hopes, to suggest palliations, to protest against injustices. It WAS in Lapham's favour that he was so guiltless in the past, and now Corey asked himself if it were the first time he could have wished a guest at his father's table to have taken less wine; whether Lapham was not rather to be honoured for not knowing how to contain his folly where a veteran transgressor might have held his tongue. He asked himself, with a thrill of sudden remorse, whether, when Lapham humbled himself in the dust so shockingly, he had shown him the sympathy to which such ABANDON had the right; and he had to own that he had met him on the gentlemanly ground, sparing himself and asserting the superiority of his sort, and not recognising that Lapham's humiliation came from the sense of wrong, which he had helped to accumulate upon him by superfinely standing aloof and refusing to touch him. He shut his desk and hurried out into the early night, not to go anywhere, but to walk up and down, to try to find his way out of the chaos, which now seemed ruin, and now the materials out of which fine actions and a happy life might be shaped. Three hours later he stood at Lapham's door. At times what he now wished to do had seemed for ever impossible, and again it had seemed as if he could not wait a moment longer. He had not been careless, but very mindful of what he knew must be the feelings of his own family in regard to the Laphams, and he had not concealed from himself that his family had great reason and justice on their side in not wishing him to alienate himself from their common life and associations. The most that he could urge to himself was that they had not all the reason and justice; but he had hesitated and delayed because they had so much. Often he could not make it appear right that he should merely please himself in what chiefly concerned himself. He perceived how far apart in all their experiences and ideals the Lapham girls and his sisters were; how different Mrs. Lapham was from his mother; how grotesquely unlike were his father and Lapham; and the disparity had not always amused him. He had often taken it very seriously, and sometimes he said that he must forego the hope on which his heart was set. There had been many times in the past months when he had said that he must go no further, and as often as he had taken this stand he had yielded it, upon this or that excuse, which he was aware of trumping up. It was part of the complication that he should be unconscious of the injury he might be doing to some one besides his family and himself; this was the defect of his diffidence; and it had come to him in a pang for the first time when his mother said that she would not have the Laphams think she wished to make more of the acquaintance than he did; and then it had come too late. Since that he had suffered quite as much from the fear that it might not be as that it might be so; and now, in the mood, romantic and exalted, in which he found himself concerning Lapham, he was as far as might be from vain confidence. He ended the question in his own mind by affirming to himself that he was there, first of all, to see Lapham and give him an ultimate proof of his own perfect faith and unabated respect, and to offer him what reparation this involved for that want of sympathy--of humanity--which he had shown. XVI. THE Nova Scotia second-girl who answered Corey's ring said that Lapham had not come home yet. "Oh," said the young man, hesitating on the outer step. "I guess you better come in," said the girl, "I'll go and see when they're expecting him." Corey was in the mood to be swayed by any chance. He obeyed the suggestion of the second-girl's patronising friendliness, and let her shut him into the drawing-room, while she went upstairs to announce him to Penelope. "Did you tell him father wasn't at home?" "Yes. He seemed so kind of disappointed, I told him to come in, and I'd see when he WOULD be in," said the girl, with the human interest which sometimes replaces in the American domestic the servile deference of other countries. A gleam of amusement passed over Penelope's face, as she glanced at herself in the glass. "Well," she cried finally, dropping from her shoulders the light shawl in which she had been huddled over a book when Corey rang, "I will go down." "All right," said the girl, and Penelope began hastily to amend the disarray of her hair, which she tumbled into a mass on the top of her little head, setting off the pale dark of her complexion with a flash of crimson ribbon at her throat. She moved across the carpet once or twice with the quaint grace that belonged to her small figure, made a dissatisfied grimace at it in the glass, caught a handkerchief out of a drawer and slid it into her pocket, and then descended to Corey. The Lapham drawing-room in Nankeen Square was in the parti-coloured paint which the Colonel had hoped to repeat in his new house: the trim of the doors and windows was in light green and the panels in salmon; the walls were a plain tint of French grey paper, divided by gilt mouldings into broad panels with a wide stripe of red velvet paper running up the corners; the chandelier was of massive imitation bronze; the mirror over the mantel rested on a fringed mantel-cover of green reps, and heavy curtains of that stuff hung from gilt lambrequin frames at the window; the carpet was of a small pattern in crude green, which, at the time Mrs. Lapham bought it, covered half the new floors in Boston. In the panelled spaces on the walls were some stone-coloured landscapes, representing the mountains and canyons of the West, which the Colonel and his wife had visited on one of the early official railroad excursions. In front of the long windows looking into the Square were statues, kneeling figures which turned their backs upon the company within-doors, and represented allegories of Faith and Prayer to people without. A white marble group of several figures, expressing an Italian conception of Lincoln Freeing the Slaves,--a Latin negro and his wife,--with our Eagle flapping his wings in approval, at Lincoln's feet, occupied one corner, and balanced the what-not of an earlier period in another. These phantasms added their chill to that imparted by the tone of the walls, the landscapes, and the carpets, and contributed to the violence of the contrast when the chandelier was lighted up full glare, and the heat of the whole furnace welled up from the registers into the quivering atmosphere on one of the rare occasions when the Laphams invited company. Corey had not been in this room before; the family had always received him in what they called the sitting-room. Penelope looked into this first, and then she looked into the parlour, with a smile that broke into a laugh as she discovered him standing under the single burner which the second-girl had lighted for him in the chandelier. "I don't understand how you came to be put in there," she said, as she led the way to the cozier place, "unless it was because Alice thought you were only here on probation, anyway. Father hasn't got home yet, but I'm expecting him every moment; I don't know what's keeping him. Did the girl tell you that mother and Irene were out?" "No, she didn't say. It's very good of you to see me." She had not seen the exaltation which he had been feeling, he perceived with half a sigh; it must all be upon this lower level; perhaps it was best so. "There was something I wished to say to your father----I hope," he broke off, "you're better to-night." "Oh yes, thank you," said Penelope, remembering that she had not been well enough to go to dinner the night before. "We all missed you very much." "Oh, thank you! I'm afraid you wouldn't have missed me if I had been there." "Oh yes, we should," said Corey, "I assure you." They looked at each other. "I really think I believed I was saying something," said the girl. "And so did I," replied the young man. They laughed rather wildly, and then they both became rather grave. He took the chair she gave him, and looked across at her, where she sat on the other side of the hearth, in a chair lower than his, with her hands dropped in her lap, and the back of her head on her shoulders as she looked up at him. The soft-coal fire in the grate purred and flickered; the drop-light cast a mellow radiance on her face. She let her eyes fall, and then lifted them for an irrelevant glance at the clock on the mantel. "Mother and Irene have gone to the Spanish Students' concert." "Oh, have they?" asked Corey; and he put his hat, which he had been holding in his hand, on the floor beside his chair. She looked down at it for no reason, and then looked up at his face for no other, and turned a little red. Corey turned a little red himself. She who had always been so easy with him now became a little constrained. "Do you know how warm it is out-of-doors?" he asked. "No, is it warm? I haven't been out all day." "It's like a summer night." She turned her face towards the fire, and then started abruptly. "Perhaps it's too warm for you here?" "Oh no, it's very comfortable." "I suppose it's the cold of the last few days that's still in the house. I was reading with a shawl on when you came." "I interrupted you." "Oh no. I had finished the book. I was just looking over it again." "Do you like to read books over?" "Yes; books that I like at all." "That was it?" asked Corey. The girl hesitated. "It has rather a sentimental name. Did you ever read it?--Tears, Idle Tears." "Oh yes; they were talking of that last night; it's a famous book with ladies. They break their hearts over it. Did it make you cry?" "Oh, it's pretty easy to cry over a book," said Penelope, laughing; "and that one is very natural till you come to the main point. Then the naturalness of all the rest makes that seem natural too; but I guess it's rather forced." "Her giving him up to the other one?" "Yes; simply because she happened to know that the other one had cared for him first. Why should she have done it? What right had she?" "I don't know. I suppose that the self-sacrifice----" "But it WASN'T self-sacrifice--or not self-sacrifice alone. She was sacrificing him too; and for some one who couldn't appreciate him half as much as she could. I'm provoked with myself when I think how I cried over that book--for I did cry. It's silly--it's wicked for any one to do what that girl did. Why can't they let people have a chance to behave reasonably in stories?" "Perhaps they couldn't make it so attractive," suggested Corey, with a smile. "It would be novel, at any rate," said the girl. "But so it would in real life, I suppose," she added. "I don't know. Why shouldn't people in love behave sensibly?" "That's a very serious question," said Penelope gravely. "I couldn't answer it," and she left him the embarrassment of supporting an inquiry which she had certainly instigated herself. She seemed to have finally recovered her own ease in doing this. "Do you admire our autumnal display, Mr. Corey?" "Your display?" "The trees in the Square. WE think it's quite equal to an opening at Jordan & Marsh's." "Ah, I'm afraid you wouldn't let me be serious even about your maples." "Oh yes, I should--if you like to be serious." "Don't you?" "Well not about serious matters. That's the reason that book made me cry." "You make fun of everything. Miss Irene was telling me last night about you." "Then it's no use for me to deny it so soon. I must give Irene a talking to." "I hope you won't forbid her to talk about you!" She had taken up a fan from the table, and held it, now between her face and the fire, and now between her face and him. Her little visage, with that arch, lazy look in it, topped by its mass of dusky hair, and dwindling from the full cheeks to the small chin, had a Japanese effect in the subdued light, and it had the charm which comes to any woman with happiness. It would be hard to say how much of this she perceived that he felt. They talked about other things a while, and then she came back to what he had said. She glanced at him obliquely round her fan, and stopped moving it. "Does Irene talk about me?" she asked. "I think so--yes. Perhaps it's only I who talk about you. You must blame me if it's wrong," he returned. "Oh, I didn't say it was wrong," she replied. "But I hope if you said anything very bad of me you'll let me know what it was, so that I can reform----" "No, don't change, please!" cried the young man. Penelope caught her breath, but went on resolutely,--"or rebuke you for speaking evil of dignities." She looked down at the fan, now flat in her lap, and tried to govern her head, but it trembled, and she remained looking down. Again they let the talk stray, and then it was he who brought it back to themselves, as if it had not left them. "I have to talk OF you," said Corey, "because I get to talk TO you so seldom." "You mean that I do all the talking when we're--together?" She glanced sidewise at him; but she reddened after speaking the last word. "We're so seldom together," he pursued. "I don't know what you mean----" "Sometimes I've thought--I've been afraid that you avoided me." "Avoided you?" "Yes! Tried not to be alone with me." She might have told him that there was no reason why she should be alone with him, and that it was very strange he should make this complaint of her. But she did not. She kept looking down at the fan, and then she lifted her burning face and looked at the clock again. "Mother and Irene will be sorry to miss you," she gasped. He instantly rose and came towards her. She rose too, and mechanically put out her hand. He took it as if to say good-night. "I didn't mean to send you away," she besought him. "Oh, I'm not going," he answered simply. "I wanted to say--to say that it's I who make her talk about you. To say I----There is something I want to say to you; I've said it so often to myself that I feel as if you must know it." She stood quite still, letting him keep her hand, and questioning his face with a bewildered gaze. "You MUST know--she must have told you--she must have guessed----" Penelope turned white, but outwardly quelled the panic that sent the blood to her heart. "I--I didn't expect--I hoped to have seen your father--but I must speak now, whatever----I love you!" She freed her hand from both of those he had closed upon it, and went back from him across the room with a sinuous spring. "ME!" Whatever potential complicity had lurked in her heart, his words brought her only immeasurable dismay. He came towards her again. "Yes, you. Who else?" She fended him off with an imploring gesture. "I thought--I--it was----" She shut her lips tight, and stood looking at him where he remained in silent amaze. Then her words came again, shudderingly. "Oh, what have you done?" "Upon my soul," he said, with a vague smile, "I don't know. I hope no harm?" "Oh, don't laugh!" she cried, laughing hysterically herself. "Unless you want me to think you the greatest wretch in the world!" "I?" he responded. "For heaven's sake tell me what you mean!" "You know I can't tell you. Can you say--can you put your hand on your heart and say that--you--say you never meant--that you meant me--all along?" "Yes!--yes! Who else? I came here to see your father, and to tell him that I wished to tell you this--to ask him----But what does it matter? You must have known it--you must have seen--and it's for you to answer me. I've been abrupt, I know, and I've startled you; but if you love me, you can forgive that to my loving you so long before I spoke." She gazed at him with parted lips. "Oh, mercy! What shall I do? If it's true--what you say--you must go!" she said. "And you must never come any more. Do you promise that?" "Certainly not," said the young man. "Why should I promise such a thing--so abominably wrong? I could obey if you didn't love me----" "Oh, I don't! Indeed I don't! Now will you obey." "No. I don't believe you." "Oh!" He possessed himself of her hand again. "My love--my dearest! What is this trouble, that you can't tell it? It can't be anything about yourself. If it is anything about any one else, it wouldn't make the least difference in the world, no matter what it was. I would be only too glad to show by any act or deed I could that nothing could change me towards you." "Oh, you don't understand!" "No, I don't. You must tell me." "I will never do that." "Then I will stay here till your mother comes, and ask her what it is." "Ask HER?" "Yes! Do you think I will give you up till I know why I must?" "You force me to it! Will you go if I tell you, and never let any human creature know what you have said to me?" "Not unless you give me leave." "That will be never. Well, then----" She stopped, and made two or three ineffectual efforts to begin again. "No, no! I can't. You must go!" "I will not go!" "You said you--loved me. If you do, you will go." He dropped the hands he had stretched towards her, and she hid her face in her own. "There!" she said, turning it suddenly upon him. "Sit down there. And will you promise me--on your honour--not to speak--not to try to persuade me--not to--touch me? You won't touch me?" "I will obey you, Penelope." "As if you were never to see me again? As if I were dying?" "I will do what you say. But I shall see you again; and don't talk of dying. This is the beginning of life----" "No. It's the end," said the girl, resuming at last something of the hoarse drawl which the tumult of her feeling had broken into those half-articulate appeals. She sat down too, and lifted her face towards him. "It's the end of life for me, because I know now that I must have been playing false from the beginning. You don't know what I mean, and I can never tell you. It isn't my secret--it's some one else's. You--you must never come here again. I can't tell you why, and you must never try to know. Do you promise?" "You can forbid me. I must do what you say." "I do forbid you, then. And you shall not think I am cruel----" "How could I think that?" "Oh, how hard you make it!" Corey laughed for very despair. "Can I make it easier by disobeying you?" "I know I am talking crazily. But I'm not crazy." "No, no," he said, with some wild notion of comforting her; "but try to tell me this trouble! There is nothing under heaven--no calamity, no sorrow--that I wouldn't gladly share with you, or take all upon myself if I could!" "I know! But this you can't. Oh, my----" "Dearest! Wait! Think! Let me ask your mother--your father----" She gave a cry. "No! If you do that, you will make me hate you! Will you----" The rattling of a latch-key was heard in the outer door. "Promise!" cried Penelope. "Oh, I promise!" "Good-bye!" She suddenly flung her arms round his neck, and, pressing her cheek tight against his, flashed out of the room by one door as her father entered it by another. Corey turned to him in a daze. "I--I called to speak with you--about a matter----But it's so late now. I'll--I'll see you to-morrow." "No time like the present," said Lapham, with a fierceness that did not seem referable to Corey. He had his hat still on, and he glared at the young man out of his blue eyes with a fire that something else must have kindled there. "I really can't now," said Corey weakly. "It will do quite as well to-morrow. Good night, sir." "Good night," answered Lapham abruptly, following him to the door, and shutting it after him. "I think the devil must have got into pretty much everybody to-night," he muttered, coming back to the room, where he put down his hat. Then he went to the kitchen-stairs and called down, "Hello, Alice! I want something to eat!" XVII. "WHAT's the reason the girls never get down to breakfast any more?" asked Lapham, when he met his wife at the table in the morning. He had been up an hour and a half, and he spoke with the severity of a hungry man. "It seems to me they don't amount to ANYthing. Here I am, at my time of life, up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the cook at quarter-past six every morning, and the breakfast is on the table at half-past seven right along, like clockwork, but I never see anybody but you till I go to the office." "Oh yes, you do, Si," said his wife soothingly. "The girls are nearly always down. But they're young, and it tires them more than it does us to get up early." "They can rest afterwards. They don't do anything after they ARE up," grumbled Lapham. "Well, that's your fault, ain't it? You oughtn't to have made so much money, and then they'd have had to work." She laughed at Lapham's Spartan mood, and went on to excuse the young people. "Irene's been up two nights hand running, and Penelope says she ain't well. What makes you so cross about the girls? Been doing something you're ashamed of?" "I'll tell you when I've been doing anything to be ashamed of," growled Lapham. "Oh no, you won't!" said his wife jollily. "You'll only be hard on the rest of us. Come now, Si; what is it?" Lapham frowned into his coffee with sulky dignity, and said, without looking up, "I wonder what that fellow wanted here last night?" "What fellow?" "Corey. I found him here when I came home, and he said he wanted to see me; but he wouldn't stop." "Where was he?" "In the sitting-room." "Was Pen there?" "I didn't see her." Mrs. Lapham paused, with her hand on the cream-jug. "Why, what in the land did he want? Did he say he wanted you?" "That's what he said." "And then he wouldn't stay?" "Well, then, I'll tell you just what it is, Silas Lapham. He came here"--she looked about the room and lowered her voice--"to see you about Irene, and then he hadn't the courage." "I guess he's got courage enough to do pretty much what he wants to," said Lapham glumly. "All I know is, he was here. You better ask Pen about it, if she ever gets down." "I guess I shan't wait for her," said Mrs. Lapham; and, as her husband closed the front door after him, she opened that of her daughter's room and entered abruptly. The girl sat at the window, fully dressed, and as if she had been sitting there a long time. Without rising, she turned her face towards her mother. It merely showed black against the light, and revealed nothing till her mother came close to her with successive questions. "Why, how long have you been up, Pen? Why don't you come to your breakfast? Did you see Mr. Corey when he called last night? Why, what's the matter with you? What have you been crying about?" "Have I been crying?" "Yes! Your cheeks are all wet!" "I thought they were on fire. Well, I'll tell you what's happened." She rose, and then fell back in her chair. "Lock the door!" she ordered, and her mother mechanically obeyed. "I don't want Irene in here. There's nothing the matter. Only, Mr. Corey offered himself to me last night." Her mother remained looking at her, helpless, not so much with amaze, perhaps, as dismay. "Oh, I'm not a ghost! I wish I was! You had better sit down, mother. You have got to know all about it." Mrs. Lapham dropped nervelessly into the chair at the other window, and while the girl went slowly but briefly on, touching only the vital points of the story, and breaking at times into a bitter drollery, she sat as if without the power to speak or stir. "Well, that's all, mother. I should say I had dreamt, it, if I had slept any last night; but I guess it really happened." The mother glanced round at the bed, and said, glad to occupy herself delayingly with the minor care: "Why, you have been sitting up all night! You will kill yourself." "I don't know about killing myself, but I've been sitting up all night," answered the girl. Then, seeing that her mother remained blankly silent again, she demanded, "Why don't you blame me, mother? Why don't you say that I led him on, and tried to get him away from her? Don't you believe I did?" Her mother made her no answer, as if these ravings of self-accusal needed none. "Do you think," she asked simply, "that he got the idea you cared for him?" "He knew it! How could I keep it from him? I said I didn't--at first!" "It was no use," sighed the mother. "You might as well said you did. It couldn't help Irene any, if you didn't." "I always tried to help her with him, even when I----" "Yes, I know. But she never was equal to him. I saw that from the start; but I tried to blind myself to it. And when he kept coming----" "You never thought of me!" cried the girl, with a bitterness that reached her mother's heart. "I was nobody! I couldn't feel! No one could care for me!" The turmoil of despair, of triumph, of remorse and resentment, which filled her soul, tried to express itself in the words. "No," said the mother humbly. "I didn't think of you. Or I didn't think of you enough. It did come across me sometimes that may be----But it didn't seem as if----And your going on so for Irene----" "You let me go on. You made me always go and talk with him for her, and you didn't think I would talk to him for myself. Well, I didn't!" "I'm punished for it. When did you--begin to care for him!" "How do I know? What difference does it make? It's all over now, no matter when it began. He won't come here any more, unless I let him." She could not help betraying her pride in this authority of hers, but she went on anxiously enough, "What will you say to Irene? She's safe as far as I'm concerned; but if he don't care for her, what will you do?" "I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Lapham. She sat in an apathy from which she apparently could not rouse herself. "I don't see as anything can be done." Penelope laughed in a pitying derision. "Well, let things go on then. But they won't go on." "No, they won't go on," echoed her mother. "She's pretty enough, and she's capable; and your father's got the money--I don't know what I'm saying! She ain't equal to him, and she never was. I kept feeling it all the time, and yet I kept blinding myself." "If he had ever cared for her," said Penelope, "it wouldn't have mattered whether she was equal to him or not. I'M not equal to him either." Her mother went on: "I might have thought it was you; but I had got set----Well! I can see it all clear enough, now it's too late. I don't know what to do." "And what do you expect me to do?" demanded the girl. "Do you want ME to go to Irene and tell her that I've got him away from her?" "O good Lord!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "What shall I do? What do you want I should do, Pen?" "Nothing for me," said Penelope. "I've had it out with myself. Now do the best you can for Irene." "I couldn't say you had done wrong, if you was to marry him to-day." "Mother!" "No, I couldn't. I couldn't say but what you had been good and faithfull all through, and you had a perfect right to do it. There ain't any one to blame. He's behaved like a gentleman, and I can see now that he never thought of her, and that it was you all the while. Well, marry him, then! He's got the right, and so have you." "What about Irene? I don't want you to talk about me. I can take care of myself." "She's nothing but a child. It's only a fancy with her. She'll get over it. She hain't really got her heart set on him." "She's got her heart set on him, mother. She's got her whole life set on him. You know that." "Yes, that's so," said the mother, as promptly as if she had been arguing to that rather than the contrary effect. "If I could give him to her, I would. But he isn't mine to give." She added in a burst of despair, "He isn't mine to keep!" "Well," said Mrs. Lapham, "she has got to bear it. I don't know what's to come of it all. But she's got to bear her share of it." She rose and went toward the door. Penelope ran after her in a sort of terror. "You're not going to tell Irene?" she gasped, seizing her mother by either shoulder. "Yes, I am," said Mrs. Lapham. "If she's a woman grown, she can bear a woman's burden." "I can't let you tell Irene," said the girl, letting fall her face on her mother's neck. "Not Irene," she moaned. "I'm afraid to let you. How can I ever look at her again?" "Why, you haven't done anything, Pen," said her mother soothingly. "I wanted to! Yes, I must have done something. How could I help it? I did care for him from the first, and I must have tried to make him like me. Do you think I did? No, no! You mustn't tell Irene! Not-- not--yet! Mother! Yes! I did try to get him from her!" she cried, lifting her head, and suddenly looking her mother in the face with those large dim eyes of hers. "What do you think? Even last night! It was the first time I ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty and--funny. And I didn't try to make him think of her. I knew that I pleased him, and I tried to please him more. Perhaps I could have kept him from saying that he cared for me; but when I saw he did--I must have seen it--I couldn't. I had never had him to myself, and for myself before. I needn't have seen him at all, but I wanted to see him; and when I was sitting there alone with him, how do I know what I did to let him feel that I cared for him? Now, will you tell Irene? I never thought he did care for me, and never expected him to. But I liked him. Yes--I did like him! Tell her that! Or else I will." "If it was to tell her he was dead," began Mrs. Lapham absently. "How easy it would be!" cried the girl in self-mockery. "But he's worse than dead to her; and so am I. I've turned it over a million ways, mother; I've looked at it in every light you can put it in, and I can't make anything but misery out of it. You can see the misery at the first glance, and you can't see more or less if you spend your life looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hopelessness of the thing amused her. Then she flew to the extreme of self-assertion. "Well, I HAVE a right to him, and he has a right to me. If he's never done anything to make her think he cared for her,--and I know he hasn't; it's all been our doing, then he's free and I'm free. We can't make her happy whatever we do; and why shouldn't I----No, that won't do! I reached that point before!" She broke again into her desperate laugh. "You may try now, mother!" "I'd best speak to your father first----" Penelope smiled a little more forlornly than she had laughed. "Well, yes; the Colonel will have to know. It isn't a trouble that I can keep to myself exactly. It seems to belong to too many other people." Her mother took a crazy encouragement from her return to her old way of saying things. "Perhaps he can think of something." "Oh, I don't doubt but the Colonel will know just what to do!" "You mustn't be too down-hearted about it. It--it'll all come right----" "You tell Irene that, mother." Mrs. Lapham had put her hand on the door-key; she dropped it, and looked at the girl with a sort of beseeching appeal for the comfort she could not imagine herself. "Don't look at me, mother," said Penelope, shaking her head. "You know that if Irene were to die without knowing it, it wouldn't come right for me." "Pen!" "I've read of cases where a girl gives up the man that loves her so as to make some other girl happy that the man doesn't love. That might be done." "Your father would think you were a fool," said Mrs. Lapham, finding a sort of refuge in her strong disgust for the pseudo heroism. "No! If there's to be any giving up, let it be by the one that shan't make anybody but herself suffer. There's trouble and sorrow enough in the world, without MAKING it on purpose!" She unlocked the door, but Penelope slipped round and set herself against it. "Irene shall not give up!" "I will see your father about it," said the mother. "Let me out now----" "Don't let Irene come here!" "No. I will tell her that you haven't slept. Go to bed now, and try to get some rest. She isn't up herself yet. You must have some breakfast." "No; let me sleep if I can. I can get something when I wake up. I'll come down if I can't sleep. Life has got to go on. It does when there's a death in the house, and this is only a little worse." "Don't you talk nonsense!" cried Mrs. Lapham, with angry authority. "Well, a little better, then," said Penelope, with meek concession. Mrs. Lapham attempted to say something, and could not. She went out and opened Irene's door. The girl lifted her head drowsily from her pillow "Don't disturb your sister when you get up, Irene. She hasn't slept well----" "PLEASE don't talk! I'm almost DEAD with sleep!" returned Irene. "Do go, mamma! I shan't disturb her." She turned her face down in the pillow, and pulled the covering up over her ears. The mother slowly closed the door and went downstairs, feeling bewildered and baffled almost beyond the power to move. The time had been when she would have tried to find out why this judgment had been sent upon her. But now she could not feel that the innocent suffering of others was inflicted for her fault; she shrank instinctively from that cruel and egotistic misinterpretation of the mystery of pain and loss. She saw her two children, equally if differently dear to her, destined to trouble that nothing could avert, and she could not blame either of them; she could not blame the means of this misery to them; he was as innocent as they, and though her heart was sore against him in this first moment, she could still be just to him in it. She was a woman who had been used to seek the light by striving; she had hitherto literally worked to it. But it is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit. In this house, where everything had come to be done for her, she had no tasks to interpose between her and her despair. She sat down in her own room and let her hands fall in her lap,--the hands that had once been so helpful and busy,--and tried to think it all out. She had never heard of the fate that was once supposed to appoint the sorrows of men irrespective of their blamelessness or blame, before the time when it came to be believed that sorrows were penalties; but in her simple way she recognised something like that mythic power when she rose from her struggle with the problem, and said aloud to herself, "Well, the witch is in it." Turn which way she would, she saw no escape from the misery to come--the misery which had come already to Penelope and herself, and that must come to Irene and her father. She started when she definitely thought of her husband, and thought with what violence it would work in every fibre of his rude strength. She feared that, and she feared something worse--the effect which his pride and ambition might seek to give it; and it was with terror of this, as well as the natural trust with which a woman must turn to her husband in any anxiety at last, that she felt she could not wait for evening to take counsel with him. When she considered how wrongly he might take it all, it seemed as if it were already known to him, and she was impatient to prevent his error. She sent out for a messenger, whom she despatched with a note to his place of business: "Silas, I should like to ride with you this afternoon. Can't you come home early? Persis." And she was at dinner with Irene, evading her questions about Penelope, when answer came that he would be at the house with the buggy at half-past two. It is easy to put off a girl who has but one thing in her head; but though Mrs. Lapham could escape without telling anything of Penelope, she could not escape seeing how wholly Irene was engrossed with hopes now turned so vain and impossible. She was still talking of that dinner, of nothing but that dinner, and begging for flattery of herself and praise of him, which her mother had till now been so ready to give. "Seems to me you don't take very much interest, mamma!" she said, laughing and blushing at one point. "Yes,--yes, I do," protested Mrs. Lapham, and then the girl prattled on. "I guess I shall get one of those pins that Nanny Corey had in her hair. I think it would become me, don't you?" "Yes; but Irene--I don't like to have you go on so, till--unless he's said something to show--You oughtn't to give yourself up to thinking----" But at this the girl turned so white, and looked such reproach at her, that she added frantically: "Yes, get the pin. It is just the thing for you! But don't disturb Penelope. Let her alone till I get back. I'm going out to ride with your father. He'll be here in half an hour. Are you through? Ring, then. Get yourself that fan you saw the other day. Your father won't say anything; he likes to have you look well. I could see his eyes on you half the time the other night." "I should have liked to have Pen go with me," said Irene, restored to her normal state of innocent selfishness by these flatteries. "Don't you suppose she'll be up in time? What's the matter with her that she didn't sleep?" "I don't know. Better let her alone." "Well," submitted Irene. XVIII. MRS. LAPHAM went away to put on her bonnet and cloak, and she was waiting at the window when her husband drove up. She opened the door and ran down the steps. "Don't get out; I can help myself in," and she clambered to his side, while he kept the fidgeting mare still with voice and touch. "Where do you want I should go?" he asked, turning the buggy. "Oh, I don't care. Out Brookline way, I guess. I wish you hadn't brought this fool of a horse," she gave way petulantly. "I wanted to have a talk." "When I can't drive this mare and talk too, I'll sell out altogether," said Lapham. "She'll be quiet enough when she's had her spin." "Well," said his wife; and while they were making their way across the city to the Milldam she answered certain questions he asked about some points in the new house. "I should have liked to have you stop there," he began; but she answered so quickly, "Not to-day," that he gave it up and turned his horse's head westward when they struck Beacon Street. He let the mare out, and he did not pull her in till he left the Brighton road and struck off under the low boughs that met above one of the quiet streets of Brookline, where the stone cottages, with here and there a patch of determined ivy on their northern walls, did what they could to look English amid the glare of the autumnal foliage. The smooth earthen track under the mare's hoofs was scattered with flakes of the red and yellow gold that made the air luminous around them, and the perspective was gay with innumerable tints and tones. "Pretty sightly," said Lapham, with a long sigh, letting the reins lie loose in his vigilant hand, to which he seemed to relegate the whole charge of the mare. "I want to talk with you about Rogers, Persis. He's been getting in deeper and deeper with me; and last night he pestered me half to death to go in with him in one of his schemes. I ain't going to blame anybody, but I hain't got very much confidence in Rogers. And I told him so last night." "Oh, don't talk to me about Rogers!" his wife broke in. "There's something a good deal more important than Rogers in the world, and more important than your business. It seems as if you couldn't think of anything else--that and the new house. Did you suppose I wanted to ride so as to talk Rogers with you?" she demanded, yielding to the necessity a wife feels of making her husband pay for her suffering, even if he has not inflicted it. "I declare----" "Well, hold on, now!" said Lapham. "What DO you want to talk about? I'm listening." His wife began, "Why, it's just this, Silas Lapham!" and then she broke off to say, "Well, you may wait, now--starting me wrong, when it's hard enough anyway." Lapham silently turned his whip over and over in his hand and waited. "Did you suppose," she asked at last, "that that young Corey had been coming to see Irene?" "I don't know what I supposed," replied Lapham sullenly. "You always said so." He looked sharply at her under his lowering brows. "Well, he hasn't," said Mrs. Lapham; and she replied to the frown that blackened on her husband's face. "And I can tell you what, if you take it in that way I shan't speak another word." "Who's takin' it what way?" retorted Lapham savagely. "What are you drivin' at?" "I want you should promise that you'll hear me out quietly." "I'll hear you out if you'll give me a chance. I haven't said a word yet." "Well, I'm not going to have you flying into forty furies, and looking like a perfect thunder-cloud at the very start. I've had to bear it, and you've got to bear it too." "Well, let me have a chance at it, then." "It's nothing to blame anybody about, as I can see, and the only question is, what's the best thing to do about it. There's only one thing we can do; for if he don't care for the child, nobody wants to make him. If he hasn't been coming to see her, he hasn't, and that's all there is to it." "No, it ain't!" exclaimed Lapham. "There!" protested his wife. "If he hasn't been coming to see her, what HAS he been coming for?" "He's been coming to see Pen!" cried the wife. "NOW are you satisfied?" Her tone implied that he had brought it all upon them; but at the sight of the swift passions working in his face to a perfect comprehension of the whole trouble, she fell to trembling, and her broken voice lost all the spurious indignation she had put into it. "O Silas! what are we going to do about it? I'm afraid it'll kill Irene." Lapham pulled off the loose driving-glove from his right hand with the fingers of his left, in which the reins lay. He passed it over his forehead, and then flicked from it the moisture it had gathered there. He caught his breath once or twice, like a man who meditates a struggle with superior force and then remains passive in its grasp. His wife felt the need of comforting him, as she had felt the need of afflicting him. "I don't say but what it can be made to come out all right in the end. All I say is, I don't see my way clear yet." "What makes you think he likes Pen?" he asked quietly. "He told her so last night, and she told me this morning. Was he at the office to-day?" "Yes, he was there. I haven't been there much myself. He didn't say anything to me. Does Irene know?" "No; I left her getting ready to go out shopping. She wants to get a pin like the one Nanny Corey had on." "O my Lord!" groaned Lapham. "It's been Pen from the start, I guess, or almost from the start. I don't say but what he was attracted some by Irene at the very first; but I guess it's been Pen ever since he saw her; and we've taken up with a notion, and blinded ourselves with it. Time and again I've had my doubts whether he cared for Irene any; but I declare to goodness, when he kept coming, I never hardly thought of Pen, and I couldn't help believing at last he DID care for Irene. Did it ever strike you he might be after Pen?" "No. I took what you said. I supposed you knew." "Do you blame me, Silas?" she asked timidly. "No. What's the use of blaming? We don't either of us want anything but the children's good. What's it all of it for, if it ain't for that? That's what we've both slaved for all our lives." "Yes, I know. Plenty of people LOSE their children," she suggested. "Yes, but that don't comfort me any. I never was one to feel good because another man felt bad. How would you have liked it if some one had taken comfort because his boy lived when ours died? No, I can't do it. And this is worse than death, someways. That comes and it goes; but this looks as if it was one of those things that had come to stay. The way I look at it, there ain't any hope for anybody. Suppose we don't want Pen to have him; will that help Irene any, if he don't want her? Suppose we don't want to let him have either; does that help either!" "You talk," exclaimed Mrs. Lapham, "as if our say was going to settle it. Do you suppose that Penelope Lapham is a girl to take up with a fellow that her sister is in love with, and that she always thought was in love with her sister, and go off and be happy with him? Don't you believe but what it would come back to her, as long as she breathed the breath of life, how she'd teased her about him, as I've heard Pen tease Irene, and helped to make her think he was in love with her, by showing that she thought so herself? It's ridiculous!" Lapham seemed quite beaten down by this argument. His huge head hung forward over his breast; the reins lay loose in his moveless hand; the mare took her own way. At last he lifted his face and shut his heavy jaws. "Well?" quavered his wife. "Well," he answered, "if he wants her, and she wants him, I don't see what that's got to do with it." He looked straight forward, and not at his wife. She laid her hands on the reins. "Now, you stop right here, Silas Lapham! If I thought that--if I really believed you could be willing to break that poor child's heart, and let Pen disgrace herself by marrying a man that had as good as killed her sister, just because you wanted Bromfield Corey's son for a son-in-law----" Lapham turned his face now, and gave her a look. "You had better NOT believe that, Persis! Get up!" he called to the mare, without glancing at her, and she sprang forward. "I see you've got past being any use to yourself on this subject." "Hello!" shouted a voice in front of him. "Where the devil you goin' to?" "Do you want to KILL somebody!" shrieked his wife. There was a light crash, and the mare recoiled her length, and separated their wheels from those of the open buggy in front which Lapham had driven into. He made his excuses to the occupant; and the accident relieved the tension of their feelings, and left them far from the point of mutual injury which they had reached in their common trouble and their unselfish will for their children's good. It was Lapham who resumed the talk. "I'm afraid we can't either of us see this thing in the right light. We're too near to it. I wish to the Lord there was somebody to talk to about it." "Yes," said his wife; "but there ain't anybody." "Well, I dunno," suggested Lapham, after a moment; "why not talk to the minister of your church? May be he could see some way out of it." Mrs. Lapham shook her head hopelessly. "It wouldn't do. I've never taken up my connection with the church, and I don't feel as if I'd got any claim on him." "If he's anything of a man, or anything of a preacher, you HAVE got a claim on him," urged Lapham; and he spoiled his argument by adding, "I've contributed enough MONEY to his church." "Oh, that's nothing," said Mrs. Lapham. "I ain't well enough acquainted with Dr. Langworthy, or else I'm TOO well. No; if I was to ask any one, I should want to ask a total stranger. But what's the use, Si? Nobody could make us see it any different from what it is, and I don't know as I should want they should." It blotted out the tender beauty of the day, and weighed down their hearts ever more heavily within them. They ceased to talk of it a hundred times, and still came back to it. They drove on and on. It began to be late. "I guess we better go back, Si," said his wife; and as he turned without speaking, she pulled her veil down and began to cry softly behind it, with low little broken sobs. Lapham started the mare up and drove swiftly homeward. At last his wife stopped crying and began trying to find her pocket. "Here, take mine, Persis," he said kindly, offering her his handkerchief, and she took it and dried her eyes with it. "There was one of those fellows there the other night," he spoke again, when his wife leaned back against the cushions in peaceful despair, "that I liked the looks of about as well as any man I ever saw. I guess he was a pretty good man. It was that Mr. Sewell." He looked at his wife, but she did not say anything. "Persis," he resumed, "I can't bear to go back with nothing settled in our minds. I can't bear to let you." "We must, Si," returned his wife, with gentle gratitude. Lapham groaned. "Where does he live?" she asked. "On Bolingbroke Street. He gave me his number." "Well, it wouldn't do any good. What could he say to us?" "Oh, I don't know as he could say anything," said Lapham hopelessly; and neither of them said anything more till they crossed the Milldam and found themselves between the rows of city houses. "Don't drive past the new house, Si," pleaded his wife. "I couldn't bear to see it. Drive--drive up Bolingbroke Street. We might as well see where he DOES live." "Well," said Lapham. He drove along slowly. "That's the place," he said finally, stopping the mare and pointing with his whip. "It wouldn't do any good," said his wife, in a tone which he understood as well as he understood her words. He turned the mare up to the curbstone. "You take the reins a minute," he said, handing them to his wife. He got down and rang the bell, and waited till the door opened; then he came back and lifted his wife out. "He's in," he said. He got the hitching-weight from under the buggy-seat and made it fast to the mare's bit. "Do you think she'll stand with that?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "I guess so. If she don't, no matter." "Ain't you afraid she'll take cold," she persisted, trying to make delay. "Let her!" said Lapham. He took his wife's trembling hand under his arm, and drew her to the door. "He'll think we're crazy," she murmured in her broken pride. "Well, we ARE," said Lapham. "Tell him we'd like to see him alone a while," he said to the girl who was holding the door ajar for him, and she showed him into the reception-room, which had been the Protestant confessional for many burdened souls before their time, coming, as they did, with the belief that they were bowed down with the only misery like theirs in the universe; for each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world. They were as loath to touch their trouble when the minister came in as if it were their disgrace; but Lapham did so at last, and, with a simple dignity which he had wanted in his bungling and apologetic approaches, he laid the affair clearly before the minister's compassionate and reverent eye. He spared Corey's name, but he did not pretend that it was not himself and his wife and their daughters who were concerned. "I don't know as I've got any right to trouble you with this thing," he said, in the moment while Sewell sat pondering the case, "and I don't know as I've got any warrant for doing it. But, as I told my wife here, there was something about you--I don't know whether it was anything you SAID exactly--that made me feel as if you could help us. I guess I didn't say so much as that to her; but that's the way I felt. And here we are. And if it ain't all right." "Surely," said Sewell, "it's all right. I thank you for coming--for trusting your trouble to me. A time comes to every one of us when we can't help ourselves, and then we must get others to help us. If people turn to me at such a time, I feel sure that I was put into the world for something--if nothing more than to give my pity, my sympathy." The brotherly words, so plain, so sincere, had a welcome in them that these poor outcasts of sorrow could not doubt. "Yes," said Lapham huskily, and his wife began to wipe the tears again under her veil. Sewell remained silent, and they waited till he should speak. "We can be of use to one another here, because we can always be wiser for some one else than we can for ourselves. We can see another's sins and errors in a more merciful light--and that is always a fairer light--than we can our own; and we can look more sanely at others' afflictions." He had addressed these words to Lapham; now he turned to his wife. "If some one had come to you, Mrs. Lapham, in just this perplexity, what would you have thought?" "I don't know as I understand you," faltered Mrs. Lapham. Sewell repeated his words, and added, "I mean, what do you think some one else ought to do in your place?" "Was there ever any poor creatures in such a strait before?" she asked, with pathetic incredulity. "There's no new trouble under the sun," said the minister. "Oh, if it was any one else, I should say--I should say--Why, of course! I should say that their duty was to let----" She paused. "One suffer instead of three, if none is to blame?" suggested Sewell. "That's sense, and that's justice. It's the economy of pain which naturally suggests itself, and which would insist upon itself, if we were not all perverted by traditions which are the figment of the shallowest sentimentality. Tell me, Mrs. Lapham, didn't this come into your mind when you first learned how matters stood?" "Why, yes, it flashed across me. But I didn't think it could be right." "And how was it with you, Mr. Lapham?" "Why, that's what I thought, of course. But I didn't see my way----" "No," cried the minister, "we are all blinded, we are all weakened by a false ideal of self-sacrifice. It wraps us round with its meshes, and we can't fight our way out of it. Mrs. Lapham, what made you feel that it might be better for three to suffer than one?" "Why, she did herself. I know she would die sooner than take him away from her." "I supposed so!" cried the minister bitterly. "And yet she is a sensible girl, your daughter?" "She has more common-sense----" "Of course! But in such a case we somehow think it must be wrong to use our common-sense. I don't know where this false ideal comes from, unless it comes from the novels that befool and debauch almost every intelligence in some degree. It certainly doesn't come from Christianity, which instantly repudiates it when confronted with it. Your daughter believes, in spite of her common-sense, that she ought to make herself and the man who loves her unhappy, in order to assure the life-long wretchedness of her sister, whom he doesn't love, simply because her sister saw him and fancied him first! And I'm sorry to say that ninety-nine young people out of a hundred--oh, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand!--would consider that noble and beautiful and heroic; whereas you know at the bottom of your hearts that it would be foolish and cruel and revolting. You know what marriage is! And what it must be without love on both sides." The minister had grown quite heated and red in the face. "I lose all patience!" he went on vehemently. "This poor child of yours has somehow been brought to believe that it will kill her sister if her sister does not have what does not belong to her, and what it is not in the power of all the world, or any soul in the world, to give her. Her sister will suffer--yes, keenly!--in heart and in pride; but she will not die. You will suffer too, in your tenderness for her; but you must do your duty. You must help her to give up. You would be guilty if you did less. Keep clearly in mind that you are doing right, and the only possible good. And God be with you!" XIX. "HE talked sense, Persis," said Lapham gently, as he mounted to his wife's side in the buggy and drove slowly homeward through the dusk. "Yes, he talked sense," she admitted. But she added bitterly, "I guess, if he had it to DO! Oh, he's right, and it's got to be done. There ain't any other way for it. It's sense; and, yes, it's justice." They walked to their door after they left the horse at the livery stable around the corner, where Lapham kept it. "I want you should send Irene up to our room as soon as we get in, Silas." "Why, ain't you going to have any supper first?" faltered Lapham with his latch-key in the lock. "No. I can't lose a minute. If I do, I shan't do it at all." "Look here, Persis," said her husband tenderly, "let me do this thing." "Oh, YOU!" said his wife, with a woman's compassionate scorn for a man's helplessness in such a case. "Send her right up. And I shall feel----" She stopped to spare him. Then she opened the door, and ran up to her room without waiting to speak to Irene, who had come into the hall at the sound of her father's key in the door. "I guess your mother wants to see you upstairs," said Lapham, looking away. Her mother turned round and faced the girl's wondering look as Irene entered the chamber, so close upon her that she had not yet had time to lay off her bonnet; she stood with her wraps still on her arm. "Irene!" she said harshly, "there is something you have got to bear. It's a mistake we've all made. He don't care anything for you. He never did. He told Pen so last night. He cares for her." The sentences had fallen like blows. But the girl had taken them without flinching. She stood up immovable, but the delicate rose-light of her complexion went out and left her colourless. She did not offer to speak. "Why don't you say something?" cried her mother. "Do you want to kill me, Irene?" "Why should I want to hurt you, mamma?" the girl replied steadily, but in an alien voice. "There's nothing to say. I want to see Pen a minute." She turned and left the room. As she mounted the stairs that led to her own and her sister's rooms on the floor above, her mother helplessly followed. Irene went first to her own room at the front of the house, and then came out leaving the door open and the gas flaring behind her. The mother could see that she had tumbled many things out of the drawers of her bureau upon the marble top. She passed her mother, where she stood in the entry. "You can come too, if you want to, mamma," she said. She opened Penelope's door without knocking, and went in. Penelope sat at the window, as in the morning. Irene did not go to her; but she went and laid a gold hair-pin on her bureau, and said, without looking at her, "There's a pin that I got to-day, because it was like his sister's. It won't become a dark person so well, but you can have it." She stuck a scrap of paper in the side of Penelope's mirror. "There's that account of Mr. Stanton's ranch. You'll want to read it, I presume." She laid a withered boutonniere on the bureau beside the pin. "There's his button-hole bouquet. He left it by his plate, and I stole it." She had a pine-shaving fantastically tied up with a knot of ribbon, in her hand. She held it a moment; then, looking deliberately at Penelope, she went up to her, and dropped it in her lap without a word. She turned, and, advancing a few steps, tottered and seemed about to fall. Her mother sprang forward with an imploring cry, "O 'Rene, 'Rene, 'Rene!" Irene recovered herself before her mother could reach her. "Don't touch me," she said icily. "Mamma, I'm going to put on my things. I want papa to walk with me. I'm choking here." "I--I can't let you go out, Irene, child," began her mother. "You've got to," replied the girl. "Tell papa ta hurry his supper." "O poor soul! He doesn't want any supper. HE knows it too." "I don't want to talk about that. Tell him to get ready." She left them once more. Mrs. Lapham turned a hapless glance upon Penelope. "Go and tell him, mother," said the girl. "I would, if I could. If she can walk, let her. It's the only thing for her." She sat still; she did not even brush to the floor the fantastic thing that lay in her lap, and that sent up faintly the odour of the sachet powder with which Irene liked to perfume her boxes. Lapham went out with the unhappy child, and began to talk with her, crazily, incoherently, enough. She mercifully stopped him. "Don't talk, papa. I don't want any one should talk with me." He obeyed, and they walked silently on and on. In their aimless course they reached the new house on the water side of Beacon, and she made him stop, and stood looking up at it. The scaffolding which had so long defaced the front was gone, and in the light of the gas-lamp before it all the architectural beauty of the facade was suggested, and much of the finely felt detail was revealed. Seymour had pretty nearly satisfied himself in that rich facade; certainly Lapham had not stinted him of the means. "Well," said the girl, "I shall never live in it," and she began to walk on. Lapham's sore heart went down, as he lumbered heavily after her. "Oh yes, you will, Irene. You'll have lots of good times there yet." "No," she answered, and said nothing more about it. They had not talked of their trouble at all, and they did not speak of it now. Lapham understood that she was trying to walk herself weary, and he was glad to hold his peace and let her have her way. She halted him once more before the red and yellow lights of an apothecary's window. "Isn't there something they give you to make you sleep?" she asked vaguely. "I've got to sleep to-night!" Lapham trembled. "I guess you don't want anything, Irene." "Yes, I do! Get me something!" she retorted wilfully. "If you don't, I shall die. I MUST sleep." They went in, and Lapham asked for something to make a nervous person sleep. Irene stood poring over the show-case full of brushes and trinkets, while the apothecary put up the bromide, which he guessed would be about the best thing. She did not show any emotion; her face was like a stone, while her father's expressed the anguish of his sympathy. He looked as if he had not slept for a week; his fat eyelids drooped over his glassy eyes, and his cheeks and throat hung flaccid. He started as the apothecary's cat stole smoothly up and rubbed itself against his leg; and it was to him that the man said, "You want to take a table-spoonful of that, as long as you're awake. I guess it won't take a great many to fetch you." "All right," said Lapham, and paid and went out. "I don't know but I SHALL want some of it," he said, with a joyless laugh. Irene came closer up to him and took his arm. He laid his heavy paw on her gloved fingers. After a while she said, "I want you should let me go up to Lapham to-morrow." "To Lapham? Why, to-morrow's Sunday, Irene! You can't go to-morrow." "Well, Monday, then. I can live through one day here." "Well," said the father passively. He made no pretence of asking her why she wished to go, nor any attempt to dissuade her. "Give me that bottle," she said, when he opened the door at home for her, and she ran up to her own room. The next morning Irene came to breakfast with her mother; the Colonel and Penelope did not appear, and Mrs. Lapham looked sleep-broken and careworn. The girl glanced at her. "Don't you fret about me, mamma," she said. "I shall get along." She seemed herself as steady and strong as rock. "I don't like to see you keeping up so, Irene," replied her mother. "It'll be all the worse for you when you do break. Better give way a little at the start." "I shan't break, and I've given way all I'm going to. I'm going to Lapham to-morrow,--I want you should go with me, mamma,--and I guess I can keep up one day here. All about it is, I don't want you should say anything, or LOOK anything. And, whatever I do, I don't want you should try to stop me. And, the first thing, I'm going to take her breakfast up to her. Don't!" she cried, intercepting the protest on her mother's lips. "I shall not let it hurt Pen, if I can help it. She's never done a thing nor thought a thing to wrong me. I had to fly out at her last night; but that's all over now, and I know just what I've got to bear." She had her way unmolested. She carried Penelope's breakfast to her, and omitted no care or attention that could make the sacrifice complete, with an heroic pretence that she was performing no unusual service. They did not speak, beyond her saying, in a clear dry note, "Here's your breakfast, Pen," and her sister's answering, hoarsely and tremulously, "Oh, thank you, Irene." And, though two or three times they turned their faces toward each other while Irene remained in the room, mechanically putting its confusion to rights, their eyes did not meet. Then Irene descended upon the other rooms, which she set in order, and some of which she fiercely swept and dusted. She made the beds; and she sent the two servants away to church as soon as they had eaten their breakfast, telling them that she would wash their dishes. Throughout the morning her father and mother heard her about the work of getting dinner, with certain silences which represented the moments when she stopped and stood stock-still, and then, readjusting her burden, forced herself forward under it again. They sat alone in the family room, out of which their two girls seemed to have died. Lapham could not read his Sunday papers, and she had no heart to go to church, as she would have done earlier in life when in trouble. Just then she was obscurely feeling that the church was somehow to blame for that counsel of Mr. Sewell's on which they had acted. "I should like to know," she said, having brought the matter up, "whether he would have thought it was such a light matter if it had been his own children. Do you suppose he'd have been so ready to act on his own advice if it HAD been?" "He told us the right thing to do, Persis,--the only thing. We couldn't let it go on," urged her husband gently. "Well, it makes me despise Pen! Irene's showing twice the character that she is, this very minute." The mother said this so that the father might defend her daughter to her. He did not fail. "Irene's got the easiest part, the way I look at it. And you'll see that Pen'll know how to behave when the time comes." "What do you want she should do?" "I haven't got so far as that yet. What are we going to do about Irene?" "What do you want Pen should do," repeated Mrs. Lapham, "when it comes to it?" "Well, I don't want she should take him, for ONE thing," said Lapham. This seemed to satisfy Mrs. Lapham as to her husband, and she said in defence of Corey, "Why, I don't see what HE'S done. It's all been our doing." "Never mind that now. What about Irene?" "She says she's going to Lapham to-morrow. She feels that she's got to get away somewhere. It's natural she should." "Yes, and I presume it will be about the best thing FOR her. Shall you go with her?" "Yes." "Well." He comfortlessly took up a newspaper again, and she rose with a sigh, and went to her room to pack some things for the morrow's journey. After dinner, when Irene had cleared away the last trace of it in kitchen and dining-room with unsparing punctilio, she came downstairs, dressed to go out, and bade her father come to walk with her again. It was a repetition of the aimlessness of the last night's wanderings. They came back, and she got tea for them, and after that they heard her stirring about in her own room, as if she were busy about many things; but they did not dare to look in upon her, even after all the noises had ceased, and they knew she had gone to bed. "Yes; it's a thing she's got to fight out by herself," said Mrs Lapham. "I guess she'll get along," said Lapham. "But I don't want you should misjudge Pen either. She's all right too. She ain't to blame." "Yes, I know. But I can't work round to it all at once. I shan't misjudge her, but you can't expect me to get over it right away." "Mamma," said Irene, when she was hurrying their departure the next morning, "what did she tell him when he asked her?" "Tell him?" echoed the mother; and after a while she added, "She didn't tell him anything." "Did she say anything, about me?" "She said he mustn't come here any more." Irene turned and went into her sister's room. "Good-bye, Pen," she said, kissing her with an effect of not seeing or touching her. "I want you should tell him all about it. If he's half a man, he won't give up till he knows why you won't have him; and he has a right to know." "It wouldn't make any difference. I couldn't have him after----" "That's for you to say. But if you don't tell him about me, I will." "'Rene!" "Yes! You needn't say I cared for him. But you can say that you all thought he--cared for--me." "O Irene----" "Don't!" Irene escaped from the arms that tried to cast themselves about her. "You are all right, Pen. You haven't done anything. You've helped me all you could. But I can't--yet." She went out of the room and summoned Mrs. Lapham with a sharp "Now, mamma!" and went on putting the last things into her trunks. The Colonel went to the station with them, and put them on the train. He got them a little compartment to themselves in the Pullman car; and as he stood leaning with his lifted hands against the sides of the doorway, he tried to say something consoling and hopeful: "I guess you'll have an easy ride, Irene. I don't believe it'll be dusty, any, after the rain last night." "Don't you stay till the train starts, papa," returned the girl, in rigid rejection of his futilities. "Get off, now." "Well, if you want I should," he said, glad to be able to please her in anything. He remained on the platform till the cars started. He saw Irene bustling about in the compartment, making her mother comfortable for the journey; but Mrs. Lapham did not lift her head. The train moved off, and he went heavily back to his business. From time to time during the day, when he caught a glimpse of him, Corey tried to make out from his face whether he knew what had taken place between him and Penelope. When Rogers came in about time of closing, and shut himself up with Lapham in his room, the young man remained till the two came out together and parted in their salutationless fashion. Lapham showed no surprise at seeing Corey still there, and merely answered, "Well!" when the young man said that he wished to speak with him, and led the way back to his room. Corey shut the door behind them. "I only wish to speak to you in case you know of the matter already; for otherwise I'm bound by a promise." "I guess I know what you mean. It's about Penelope." "Yes, it's about Miss Lapham. I am greatly attached to her--you'll excuse my saying it; I couldn't excuse myself if I were not." "Perfectly excusable," said Lapham. "It's all right." "Oh, I'm glad to hear you say that!" cried the young fellow joyfully. "I want you to believe that this isn't a new thing or an unconsidered thing with me--though it seemed so unexpected to her." Lapham fetched a deep sigh. "It's all right as far as I'm concerned--or her mother. We've both liked you first-rate." "Yes?" "But there seems to be something in Penelope's mind--I don't know--" The Colonel consciously dropped his eyes. "She referred to something--I couldn't make out what--but I hoped--I hoped--that with your leave I might overcome it--the barrier--whatever it was. Miss Lapham--Penelope--gave me the hope--that I was--wasn't--indifferent to her----" "Yes, I guess that's so," said Lapham. He suddenly lifted his head, and confronted the young fellow's honest face with his own face, so different in its honesty. "Sure you never made up to any one else at the same time?" "NEVER! Who could imagine such a thing? If that's all, I can easily." "I don't say that's all, nor that that's it. I don't want you should go upon that idea. I just thought, may be--you hadn't thought of it." "No, I certainly hadn't thought of it! Such a thing would have been so impossible to me that I couldn't have thought of it; and it's so shocking to me now that I don't know what to say to it." "Well, don't take it too much to heart," said Lapham, alarmed at the feeling he had excited; "I don't say she thought so. I was trying to guess--trying to----" "If there is anything I can say or do to convince you----" "Oh, it ain't necessary to say anything. I'm all right." "But Miss Lapham! I may see her again? I may try to convince her that----" He stopped in distress, and Lapham afterwards told his wife that he kept seeing the face of Irene as it looked when he parted with her in the car; and whenever he was going to say yes, he could not open his lips. At the same time he could not help feeling that Penelope had a right to what was her own, and Sewell's words came back to him. Besides, they had already put Irene to the worst suffering. Lapham compromised, as he imagined. "You can come round to-night and see ME, if you want to," he said; and he bore grimly the gratitude that the young man poured out upon him. Penelope came down to supper and took her mother's place at the head of the table. Lapham sat silent in her presence as long as he could bear it. Then he asked, "How do you feel to-night, Pen?" "Oh, like a thief," said the girl. "A thief that hasn't been arrested yet." Lapham waited a while before he said, "Well, now, your mother and I want you should hold up on that a while." "It isn't for you to say. It's something I can't hold up on." "Yes, I guess you can. If I know what's happened, then what's happened is a thing that nobody is to blame for. And we want you should make the best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain't going to help Irene any for you to hurt yourself--or anybody else; and I don't want you should take up with any such crazy notion. As far as heard from, you haven't stolen anything, and whatever you've got belongs to you." "Has he been speaking to you, father?" "Your mother's been speaking to me." "Has HE been speaking to you?" "That's neither here nor there." "Then he's broken his word, and I will never speak to him again!" "If he was any such fool as to promise that he wouldn't talk to me on a subject"--Lapham drew a deep breath, and then made the plunge--"that I brought up----" "Did you bring it up?" "The same as brought up--the quicker he broke his word the better; and I want you should act upon that idea. Recollect that it's my business, and your mother's business, as well as yours, and we're going to have our say. He hain't done anything wrong, Pen, nor anything that he's going to be punished for. Understand that. He's got to have a reason, if you're not going to have him. I don't say you've got to have him; I want you should feel perfectly free about that; but I DO say you've got to give him a reason." "Is he coming here?" "I don't know as you'd call it COMING----" "Yes, you do, father!" said the girl, in forlorn amusement at his shuffling. "He's coming here to see ME----" "When's he coming?" "I don't know but he's coming to-night." "And you want I should see him?" "I don't know but you'd better." "All right. I'll see him." Lapham drew a long deep breath of suspicion inspired by this acquiescence. "What you going to do?" he asked presently. "I don't know yet," answered the girl sadly. "It depends a good deal upon what he does." "Well," said Lapham, with the hungriness of unsatisfied anxiety in his tone. When Corey's card was brought into the family-room where he and Penelope were sitting, he went into the parlour to find him. "I guess Penelope wants to see you," he said; and, indicating the family-room, he added, "She's in there," and did not go back himself. Corey made his way to the girl's presence with open trepidation, which was not allayed by her silence and languor. She sat in the chair where she had sat the other night, but she was not playing with a fan now. He came toward her, and then stood faltering. A faint smile quivered over her face at the spectacle of his subjection. "Sit down, Mr. Corey," she said. "There's no reason why we shouldn't talk it over quietly; for I know you will think I'm right." "I'm sure of that," he answered hopefully. "When I saw that your father knew of it to-day, I asked him to let me see you again. I'm afraid that I broke my promise to you--technically----" "It had to be broken." He took more courage at her words. "But I've only come to do whatever you say, and not to be an--annoyance to you----" "Yes, you have to know; but I couldn't tell you before. Now they all think I should." A tremor of anxiety passed over the young man's face, on which she kept her eyes steadily fixed. "We supposed it--it was--Irene----" He remained blank a moment, and then he said with a smile of relief, of deprecation, of protest, of amazement, of compassion-- "OH! Never! Never for an instant! How could you think such a thing? It was impossible! I never thought of her. But I see--I see! I can explain--no, there's nothing to explain! I have never knowingly done or said a thing from first to last to make you think that. I see how terrible it is!" he said; but he still smiled, as if he could not take it seriously. "I admired her beauty--who could help doing that?--and I thought her very good and sensible. Why, last winter in Texas, I told Stanton about our meeting in Canada, and we agreed--I only tell you to show you how far I always was from what you thought--that he must come North and try to see her, and--and--of course, it all sounds very silly!--and he sent her a newspaper with an account of his ranch in it----" "She thought it came from you." "Oh, good heavens! He didn't tell me till after he'd done it. But he did it for a part of our foolish joke. And when I met your sister again, I only admired her as before. I can see, now, how I must have seemed to be seeking her out; but it was to talk of you with her--I never talked of anything else if I could help it, except when I changed the subject because I was ashamed to be always talking of you. I see how distressing it is for all of you. But tell me that you believe me!" "Yes, I must. It's all been our mistake----" "It has indeed! But there's no mistake about my loving you, Penelope," he said; and the old-fashioned name, at which she had often mocked, was sweet to her from his lips. "That only makes it worse!" she answered. "Oh no!" he gently protested. "It makes it better. It makes it right. How is it worse? How is it wrong?" "Can't you see? You must understand all now! Don't you see that if she believed so too, and if she----" She could not go on. "Did she--did your sister--think that too?" gasped Corey. "She used to talk with me about you; and when you say you care for me now, it makes me feel like the vilest hypocrite in the world. That day you gave her the list of books, and she came down to Nantasket, and went on about you, I helped her to flatter herself--oh! I don't see how she can forgive me. But she knows I can never forgive myself! That's the reason she can do it. I can see now," she went on, "how I must have been trying to get you from her. I can't endure it! The only way is for me never to see you or speak to you again!" She laughed forlornly. "That would be pretty hard on you, if you cared." "I do care--all the world!" "Well, then, it would if you were going to keep on caring. You won't long, if you stop coming now." "Is this all, then? Is it the end?" "It's--whatever it is. I can't get over the thought of her. Once I thought I could, but now I see that I can't. It seems to grow worse. Sometimes I feel as if it would drive me crazy." He sat looking at her with lacklustre eyes. The light suddenly came back into them. "Do you think I could love you if you had been false to her? I know you have been true to her, and truer still to yourself. I never tried to see her, except with the hope of seeing you too. I supposed she must know that I was in love with you. From the first time I saw you there that afternoon, you filled my fancy. Do you think I was flirting with the child, or--no, you don't think that! We have not done wrong. We have not harmed any one knowingly. We have a right to each other----" "No! no! you must never speak to me of this again. If you do, I shall know that you despise me." "But how will that help her? I don't love HER." "Don't say that to me! I have said that to myself too much." "If you forbid me to love you, it won't make me love her," he persisted. She was about to speak, but she caught her breath without doing so, and merely stared at him. "I must do what you say," he continued. "But what good will it do her? You can't make her happy by making yourself unhappy." "Do you ask me to profit by a wrong?" "Not for the world. But there is no wrong!" "There is something--I don't know what. There's a wall between us. I shall dash myself against it as long as I live; but that won't break it." "Oh!" he groaned. "We have done no wrong. Why should we suffer from another's mistake as if it were our sin?" "I don't know. But we must suffer." "Well, then, I WILL not, for my part, and I will not let you. If you care for me----" "You had no right to know it." "You make it my privilege to keep you from doing wrong for the right's sake. I'm sorry, with all my heart and soul, for this error; but I can't blame myself, and I won't deny myself the happiness I haven't done anything to forfeit. I will never give you up. I will wait as long as you please for the time when you shall feel free from this mistake; but you shall be mine at last. Remember that. I might go away for months--a year, even; but that seems a cowardly and guilty thing, and I'm not afraid, and I'm not guilty, and I'm going to stay here and try to see you." She shook her head. "It won't change anything? Don't you see that there's no hope for us?" "When is she coming back?" he asked. "I don't know. Mother wants father to come and take her out West for a while." "She's up there in the country with your mother yet?" "Yes." He was silent; then he said desperately-- "Penelope, she is very young; and perhaps--perhaps she might meet----" "It would make no difference. It wouldn't change it for me." "You are cruel--cruel to yourself, if you love me, and cruel to me. Don't you remember that night--before I spoke--you were talking of that book; and you said it was foolish and wicked to do as that girl did. Why is it different with you, except that you give me nothing, and can never give me anything when you take yourself away? If it were anybody else, I am sure you would say----" "But it isn't anybody else, and that makes it impossible. Sometimes I think it might be if I would only say so to myself, and then all that I said to her about you comes up----" "I will wait. It can't always come up. I won't urge you any longer now. But you will see it differently--more clearly. Good-bye--no! Good night! I shall come again to-morrow. It will surely come right, and, whatever happens, you have done no wrong. Try to keep that in mind. I am so happy, in spite of all!" He tried to take her hand, but she put it behind her. "No, no! I can't let you--yet!" XX. AFTER a week Mrs. Lapham returned, leaving Irene alone at the old homestead in Vermont. "She's comfortable there--as comfortable as she can be anywheres, I guess," she said to her husband as they drove together from the station, where he had met her in obedience to her telegraphic summons. "She keeps herself busy helping about the house; and she goes round amongst the hands in their houses. There's sickness, and you know how helpful she is where there's sickness. She don't complain any. I don't know as I've heard a word out of her mouth since we left home; but I'm afraid it'll wear on her, Silas." "You don't look over and above well yourself, Persis," said her husband kindly. "Oh, don't talk about me. What I want to know is whether you can't get the time to run off with her somewhere. I wrote to you about Dubuque. She'll work herself down, I'm afraid; and THEN I don't know as she'll be over it. But if she could go off, and be amused--see new people----" "I could MAKE the time," said Lapham, "if I had to. But, as it happens, I've got to go out West on business,--I'll tell you about it,--and I'll take Irene along." "Good!" said his wife. "That's about the best thing I've heard yet. Where you going?" "Out Dubuque way." "Anything the matter with Bill's folks?" "No. It's business." "How's Pen?" "I guess she ain't much better than Irene." "He been about any?" "Yes. But I can't see as it helps matters much." "Tchk!" Mrs. Lapham fell back against the carriage cushions. "I declare, to see her willing to take the man that we all thought wanted her sister! I can't make it seem right." "It's right," said Lapham stoutly; "but I guess she ain't willing; I wish she was. But there don't seem to be any way out of the thing, anywhere. It's a perfect snarl. But I don't want you should be anyways ha'sh with Pen." Mrs. Lapham answered nothing; but when she met Penelope she gave the girl's wan face a sharp look, and began to whimper on her neck. Penelope's tears were all spent. "Well, mother," she said, "you come back almost as cheerful as you went away. I needn't ask if 'Rene's in good spirits. We all seem to be overflowing with them. I suppose this is one way of congratulating me. Mrs. Corey hasn't been round to do it yet." "Are you--are you engaged to him, Pen?" gasped her mother. "Judging by my feelings, I should say not. I feel as if it was a last will and testament. But you'd better ask him when he comes." "I can't bear to look at him." "I guess he's used to that. He don't seem to expect to be looked at. Well! we're all just where we started. I wonder how long it will keep up." Mrs. Lapham reported to her husband when he came home at night--he had left his business to go and meet her, and then, after a desolate dinner at the house, had returned to the office again--that Penelope was fully as bad as Irene. "And she don't know how to work it off. Irene keeps doing; but Pen just sits in her room and mopes. She don't even read. I went up this afternoon to scold her about the state the house was in--you can see that Irene's away by the perfect mess; but when I saw her through the crack of the door I hadn't the heart. She sat there with her hands in her lap, just staring. And, my goodness! she JUMPED so when she saw me; and then she fell back, and began to laugh, and said she, 'I thought it was my ghost, mother!' I felt as if I should give way." Lapham listened jadedly, and answered far from the point. "I guess I've got to start out there pretty soon, Persis." "How soon?" "Well, to-morrow morning." Mrs. Lapham sat silent. Then, "All right," she said. "I'll get you ready." "I shall run up to Lapham for Irene, and then I'll push on through Canada. I can get there about as quick." "Is it anything you can tell me about, Silas?" "Yes," said Lapham. "But it's a long story, and I guess you've got your hands pretty full as it is. I've been throwing good money after bad,--the usual way,--and now I've got to see if I can save the pieces." After a moment Mrs. Lapham asked, "Is it--Rogers?" "It's Rogers." "I didn't want you should get in any deeper with him." "No. You didn't want I should press him either; and I had to do one or the other. And so I got in deeper." "Silas," said his wife, "I'm afraid I made you!" "It's all right, Persis, as far forth as that goes. I was glad to make it up with him--I jumped at the chance. I guess Rogers saw that he had a soft thing in me, and he's worked it for all it was worth. But it'll all come out right in the end." Lapham said this as if he did not care to talk any more about it. He added casually, "Pretty near everybody but the fellows that owe ME seem to expect me to do a cash business, all of a sudden." "Do you mean that you've got payments to make, and that people are not paying YOU?" Lapham winced a little. "Something like that," he said, and he lighted a cigar. "But when I tell you it's all right, I mean it, Persis. I ain't going to let the grass grow under my feet, though,--especially while Rogers digs the ground away from the roots." "What are you going to do?" "If it has to come to that, I'm going to squeeze him." Lapham's countenance lighted up with greater joy than had yet visited it since the day they had driven out to Brookline. "Milton K. Rogers is a rascal, if you want to know; or else all the signs fail. But I guess he'll find he's got his come-uppance." Lapham shut his lips so that the short, reddish-grey beard stuck straight out on them. "What's he done?" "What's he done? Well, now, I'll tell you what he's done, Persis, since you think Rogers is such a saint, and that I used him so badly in getting him out of the business. He's been dabbling in every sort of fool thing you can lay your tongue to,--wild-cat stocks, patent-rights, land speculations, oil claims,--till he's run through about everything. But he did have a big milling property out on the line of the P. Y. & X.,--saw-mills and grist-mills and lands,--and for the last eight years he's been doing a land-office business with 'em--business that would have made anybody else rich. But you can't make Milton K. Rogers rich, any more than you can fat a hide-bound colt. It ain't in him. He'd run through Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Tom Scott rolled into one in less than six months, give him a chance, and come out and want to borrow money of you. Well, he won't borrow any more money of ME; and if he thinks I don't know as much about that milling property as he does he's mistaken. I've taken his mills, but I guess I've got the inside track; Bill's kept me posted; and now I'm going out there to see how I can unload; and I shan't mind a great deal if Rogers is under the load when it's off once." "I don't understand you, Silas." "Why, it's just this. The Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad has leased the P. Y. & X. for ninety-nine years,--bought it, practically,--and it's going to build car-works right by those mills, and it may want them. And Milton K. Rogers knew it when he turned 'em in on me." "Well, if the road wants them, don't that make the mills valuable? You can get what you ask for them!" "Can I? The P. Y. & X. is the only road that runs within fifty miles of the mills, and you can't get a foot of lumber nor a pound of flour to market any other way. As long as he had a little local road like the P. Y. & X. to deal with, Rogers could manage; but when it come to a big through line like the G. L. & P., he couldn't stand any chance at all. If such a road as that took a fancy to his mills, do you think it would pay what he asked? No, sir! He would take what the road offered, or else the road would tell him to carry his flour and lumber to market himself." "And do you suppose he knew the G. L. & P. wanted the mills when he turned them in on you?" asked Mrs. Lapham aghast, and falling helplessly into his alphabetical parlance. The Colonel laughed scoffingly. "Well, when Milton K. Rogers don't know which side his bread's buttered on! I don't understand," he added thoughtfully, "how he's always letting it fall on the buttered side. But such a man as that is sure to have a screw loose in him somewhere." Mrs. Lapham sat discomfited. All that she could say was, "Well, I want you should ask yourself whether Rogers would ever have gone wrong, or got into these ways of his, if it hadn't been for your forcing him out of the business when you did. I want you should think whether you're not responsible for everything he's done since." "You go and get that bag of mine ready," said Lapham sullenly. "I guess I can take care of myself. And Milton K. Rogers too," he added. That evening Corey spent the time after dinner in his own room, with restless excursions to the library, where his mother sat with his father and sisters, and showed no signs of leaving them. At last, in coming down, he encountered her on the stairs, going up. They both stopped consciously. "I would like to speak with you, mother. I have been waiting to see you alone." "Come to my room," she said. "I have a feeling that you know what I want to say," he began there. She looked up at him where he stood by the chimney-piece, and tried to put a cheerful note into her questioning "Yes?" "Yes; and I have a feeling that you won't like it--that you won't approve of it. I wish you did--I wish you could!" "I'm used to liking and approving everything you do, Tom. If I don't like this at once, I shall try to like it--you know that--for your sake, whatever it is." "I'd better be short," he said, with a quick sigh. "It's about Miss Lapham." He hastened to add, "I hope it isn't surprising to you. I'd have told you before, if I could." "No, it isn't surprising. I was afraid--I suspected something of the kind." They were both silent in a painful silence. "Well, mother?" he asked at last. "If it's something you've quite made up mind to----" "It is!" "And if you've already spoken to her----" "I had to do that first, of course." "There would be no use of my saying anything, even if I disliked it." "You do dislike it!" "No--no! I can't say that. Of course I should have preferred it if you had chosen some nice girl among those that you had been brought up with--some friend or associate of your sisters, whose people we had known----" "Yes, I understand that, and I can assure you that I haven't been indifferent to your feelings. I have tried to consider them from the first, and it kept me hesitating in a way that I'm ashamed to think of; for it wasn't quite right towards--others. But your feelings and my sisters' have been in my mind, and if I couldn't yield to what I supposed they must be, entirely----" Even so good a son and brother as this, when it came to his love affair, appeared to think that he had yielded much in considering the feelings of his family at all. His mother hastened to comfort him. "I know--I know. I've seen for some time that this might happen, Tom, and I have prepared myself for it. I have talked it over with your father, and we both agreed from the beginning that you were not to be hampered by our feeling. Still--it is a surprise. It must be." "I know it. I can understand your feeling. But I'm sure that it's one that will last only while you don't know her well." "Oh, I'm sure of that, Tom. I'm sure that we shall all be fond of her,--for your sake at first, even--and I hope she'll like us." "I am quite certain of that," said Corey, with that confidence which experience does not always confirm in such cases. "And your taking it as you do lifts a tremendous load off me." But he sighed so heavily, and looked so troubled, that his mother said, "Well, now, you mustn't think of that any more. We wish what is for your happiness, my son, and we will gladly reconcile ourselves to anything that might have been disagreeable. I suppose we needn't speak of the family. We must both think alike about them. They have their--drawbacks, but they are thoroughly good people, and I satisfied myself the other night that they were not to be dreaded." She rose, and put her arm round his neck. "And I wish you joy, Tom! If she's half as good as you are, you will both be very happy." She was going to kiss him, but something in his looks stopped her--an absence, a trouble, which broke out in his words. "I must tell you, mother! There's been a complication--a mistake--that's a blight on me yet, and that it sometimes seems as if we couldn't escape from. I wonder if you can help us! They all thought I meant--the other sister." "O Tom! But how COULD they?" "I don't know. It seemed so glaringly plain--I was ashamed of making it so outright from the beginning. But they did. Even she did, herself!" "But where could they have thought your eyes were--your taste? It wouldn't be surprising if any one were taken with that wonderful beauty; and I'm sure she's good too. But I'm astonished at them! To think you could prefer that little, black, odd creature, with her joking and----" "MOTHER!" cried the young man, turning a ghastly face of warning upon her. "What do you mean, Tom?" "Did you--did--did you think so too--that it was IRENE I meant?" "Why, of course!" He stared at her hopelessly. "O my son!" she said, for all comment on the situation. "Don't reproach me, mother! I couldn't stand it." "No. I didn't mean to do that. But how--HOW could it happen?" "I don't know. When she first told me that they had understood it so, I laughed--almost--it was so far from me. But now when you seem to have had the same idea--Did you all think so?" "Yes." They remained looking at each other. Then Mrs. Corey began: "It did pass through my mind once--that day I went to call upon them--that it might not be as we thought; but I knew so little of--of----" "Penelope," Corey mechanically supplied. "Is that her name?--I forgot--that I only thought of you in relation to her long enough to reject the idea; and it was natural after our seeing something of the other one last year, that I might suppose you had formed some--attachment----" "Yes; that's what they thought too. But I never thought of her as anything but a pretty child. I was civil to her because you wished it; and when I met her here again, I only tried to see her so that I could talk with her about her sister." "You needn't defend yourself to ME, Tom," said his mother, proud to say it to him in his trouble. "It's a terrible business for them, poor things," she added. "I don't know how they could get over it. But, of course, sensible people must see----" "They haven't got over it. At least she hasn't. Since it's happened, there's been nothing that hasn't made me prouder and fonder of her! At first I WAS charmed with her--my fancy was taken; she delighted me--I don't know how; but she was simply the most fascinating person I ever saw. Now I never think of that. I only think how good she is--how patient she is with me, and how unsparing she is of herself. If she were concerned alone--if I were not concerned too--it would soon end. She's never had a thought for anything but her sister's feeling and mine from the beginning. I go there,--I know that I oughtn't, but I can't help it,--and she suffers it, and tries not to let me see that she is suffering it. There never was any one like her--so brave, so true, so noble. I won't give her up--I can't. But it breaks my heart when she accuses herself of what was all MY doing. We spend our time trying to reason out of it, but we always come back to it at last, and I have to hear her morbidly blaming herself. Oh!" Doubtless Mrs. Corey imagined some reliefs to this suffering, some qualifications of this sublimity in a girl she had disliked so distinctly; but she saw none in her son's behaviour, and she gave him her further sympathy. She tried to praise Penelope, and said that it was not to be expected that she could reconcile herself at once to everything. "I shouldn't have liked it in her if she had. But time will bring it all right. And if she really cares for you----" "I extorted that from her." "Well, then, you must look at it in the best light you can. There is no blame anywhere, and the mortification and pain is something that must be lived down. That's all. And don't let what I said grieve you, Tom. You know I scarcely knew her, and I--I shall be sure to like any one you like, after all." "Yes, I know," said the young man drearily. "Will you tell father?" "If you wish." "He must know. And I couldn't stand any more of this, just yet--any more mistake." "I will tell him," said Mrs. Corey; and it was naturally the next thing for a woman who dwelt so much on decencies to propose: "We must go to call on her--your sisters and I. They have never seen her even; and she mustn't be allowed to think we're indifferent to her, especially under the circumstances." "Oh no! Don't go--not yet," cried Corey, with an instinctive perception that nothing could be worse for him. "We must wait--we must be patient. I'm afraid it would be painful to her now." He turned away without speaking further; and his mother's eyes followed him wistfully to the door. There were some questions that she would have liked to ask him; but she had to content herself with trying to answer them when her husband put them to her. There was this comfort for her always in Bromfield Corey, that he never was much surprised at anything, however shocking or painful. His standpoint in regard to most matters was that of the sympathetic humorist who would be glad to have the victim of circumstance laugh with him, but was not too much vexed when the victim could not. He laughed now when his wife, with careful preparation, got the facts of his son's predicament fully under his eye. "Really, Bromfield," she said, "I don't see how you can laugh. Do you see any way out of it?" "It seems to me that the way has been found already. Tom has told his love to the right one, and the wrong one knows it. Time will do the rest." "If I had so low an opinion of them all as that, it would make me very unhappy. It's shocking to think of it." "It is upon the theory of ladies and all young people," said her husband, with a shrug, feeling his way to the matches on the mantel, and then dropping them with a sign, as if recollecting that he must not smoke there. "I've no doubt Tom feels himself an awful sinner. But apparently he's resigned to his sin; he isn't going to give her up." "I'm glad to say, for the sake of human nature, that SHE isn't resigned--little as I like her," cried Mrs. Corey. Her husband shrugged again. "Oh, there mustn't be any indecent haste. She will instinctively observe the proprieties. But come, now, Anna! you mustn't pretend to me here, in the sanctuary of home, that practically the human affections don't reconcile themselves to any situation that the human sentiments condemn. Suppose the wrong sister had died: would the right one have had any scruple in marrying Tom, after they had both 'waited a proper time,' as the phrase is?" "Bromfield, you're shocking!" "Not more shocking than reality. You may regard this as a second marriage." He looked at her with twinkling eyes, full of the triumph the spectator of his species feels in signal exhibitions of human nature. "Depend upon it, the right sister will be reconciled; the wrong one will be consoled; and all will go merry as a marriage bell--a second marriage bell. Why, it's quite like a romance!" Here he laughed outright again. "Well," sighed the wife, "I could almost wish the right one, as you call her, would reject Tom, I dislike her so much." "Ah, now you're talking business, Anna," said her husband, with his hands spread behind the back he turned comfortably to the fire. "The whole Lapham tribe is distasteful to me. As I don't happen to have seen our daughter-in-law elect, I have still the hope--which you're disposed to forbid me--that she may not be quite so unacceptable as the others." "Do you really feel so, Bromfield?" anxiously inquired his wife. "Yes--I think I do;" and he sat down, and stretched out his long legs toward the fire. "But it's very inconsistent of you to oppose the matter now, when you've shown so much indifference up to this time. You've told me, all along, that it was of no use to oppose it." "So I have. I was convinced of that at the beginning, or my reason was. You know very well that I am equal to any trial, any sacrifice, day after to-morrow; but when it comes to-day it's another thing. As long as this crisis decently kept its distance, I could look at it with an impartial eye; but now that it seems at hand, I find that, while my reason is still acquiescent, my nerves are disposed to--excuse the phrase--kick. I ask myself, what have I done nothing for, all my life, and lived as a gentleman should, upon the earnings of somebody else, in the possession of every polite taste and feeling that adorns leisure, if I'm to come to this at last? And I find no satisfactory answer. I say to myself that I might as well have yielded to the pressure all round me, and gone to work, as Tom has." Mrs. Corey looked at him forlornly, divining the core of real repugnance that existed in his self-satire. "I assure you, my dear," he continued, "that the recollection of what I suffered from the Laphams at that dinner of yours is an anguish still. It wasn't their behaviour,--they behaved well enough--or ill enough; but their conversation was terrible. Mrs. Lapham's range was strictly domestic; and when the Colonel got me in the library, he poured mineral paint all over me, till I could have been safely warranted not to crack or scale in any climate. I suppose we shall have to see a good deal of them. They will probably come here every Sunday night to tea. It's a perspective without a vanishing-point." "It may not be so bad, after all," said his wife; and she suggested for his consolation that he knew very little about the Laphams yet. He assented to the fact. "I know very little about them, and about my other fellow-beings. I dare say that I should like the Laphams better if I knew them better. But in any case, I resign myself. And we must keep in view the fact that this is mainly Tom's affair, and if his affections have regulated it to his satisfaction, we must be content." "Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "And perhaps it won't turn out so badly. It's a great comfort to know that you feel just as I do about it." "I do," said her husband, "and more too." It was she and her daughters who would be chiefly annoyed by the Lapham connection; she knew that. But she had to begin to bear the burden by helping her husband to bear his light share of it. To see him so depressed dismayed her, and she might well have reproached him more sharply than she did for showing so much indifference, when she was so anxious, at first. But that would not have served any good end now. She even answered him patiently when he asked her, "What did you say to Tom when he told you it was the other one?" "What could I say? I could do nothing, but try to take back what I had said against her." "Yes, you had quite enough to do, I suppose. It's an awkward business. If it had been the pretty one, her beauty would have been our excuse. But the plain one--what do you suppose attracted him in her?" Mrs. Corey sighed at the futility of the question. "Perhaps I did her injustice. I only saw her a few moments. Perhaps I got a false impression. I don't think she's lacking in sense, and that's a great thing. She'll be quick to see that we don't mean unkindness, and can't, by anything we say or do, when she's Tom's wife." She pronounced the distasteful word with courage, and went on: "The pretty one might not have been able to see that. She might have got it into her head that we were looking down on her; and those insipid people are terribly stubborn. We can come to some understanding with this one; I'm sure of that." She ended by declaring that it was now their duty to help Tom out of his terrible predicament. "Oh, even the Lapham cloud has a silver lining," said Corey. "In fact, it seems really to have all turned out for the best, Anna; though it's rather curious to find you the champion of the Lapham side, at last. Confess, now, that the right girl has secretly been your choice all along, and that while you sympathise with the wrong one, you rejoice in the tenacity with which the right one is clinging to her own!" He added with final seriousness, "It's just that she should, and, so far as I understand the case, I respect her for it." "Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "It's natural, and it's right." But she added, "I suppose they're glad of him on any terms." "That is what I have been taught to believe," said her husband. "When shall we see our daughter-in-law elect? I find myself rather impatient to have that part of it over." Mrs. Corey hesitated. "Tom thinks we had better not call, just yet." "She has told him of your terrible behaviour when you called before?" "No, Bromfield! She couldn't be so vulgar as that?" "But anything short of it?" XXI. LAPHAM was gone a fortnight. He was in a sullen humour when he came back, and kept himself shut close within his own den at the office the first day. He entered it in the morning without a word to his clerks as he passed through the outer room, and he made no sign throughout the forenoon, except to strike savagely on his desk-bell from time to time, and send out to Walker for some book of accounts or a letter-file. His boy confidentially reported to Walker that the old man seemed to have got a lot of papers round; and at lunch the book-keeper said to Corey, at the little table which they had taken in a corner together, in default of seats at the counter, "Well, sir, I guess there's a cold wave coming." Corey looked up innocently, and said, "I haven't read the weather report." "Yes, sir," Walker continued, "it's coming. Areas of rain along the whole coast, and increased pressure in the region of the private office. Storm-signals up at the old man's door now." Corey perceived that he was speaking figuratively, and that his meteorology was entirely personal to Lapham. "What do you mean?" he asked, without vivid interest in the allegory, his mind being full of his own tragi-comedy. "Why, just this: I guess the old man's takin' in sail. And I guess he's got to. As I told you the first time we talked about him, there don't any one know one-quarter as much about the old man's business as the old man does himself; and I ain't betraying any confidence when I say that I guess that old partner of his has got pretty deep into his books. I guess he's over head and ears in 'em, and the old man's gone in after him, and he's got a drownin' man's grip round his neck. There seems to be a kind of a lull--kind of a dead calm, I call it--in the paint market just now; and then again a ten-hundred-thousand-dollar man don't build a hundred-thousand-dollar house without feeling the drain, unless there's a regular boom. And just now there ain't any boom at all. Oh, I don't say but what the old man's got anchors to windward; guess he HAS; but if he's GOIN' to leave me his money, I wish he'd left it six weeks ago. Yes, sir, I guess there's a cold wave comin'; but you can't generally 'most always tell, as a usual thing, where the old man's concerned, and it's ONLY a guess." Walker began to feed in his breaded chop with the same nervous excitement with which he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative excesses of his talks. Corey had listened with a miserable curiosity and compassion up to a certain moment, when a broad light of hope flashed upon him. It came from Lapham's potential ruin; and the way out of the labyrinth that had hitherto seemed so hopeless was clear enough, if another's disaster would befriend him, and give him the opportunity to prove the unselfishness of his constancy. He thought of the sum of money that was his own, and that he might offer to lend, or practically give, if the time came; and with his crude hopes and purposes formlessly exulting in his heart, he kept on listening with an unchanged countenance. Walker could not rest till he had developed the whole situation, so far as he knew it. "Look at the stock we've got on hand. There's going to be an awful shrinkage on that, now! And when everybody is shutting down, or running half-time, the works up at Lapham are going full chip, just the same as ever. Well, it's his pride. I don't say but what it's a good sort of pride, but he likes to make his brags that the fire's never been out in the works since they started, and that no man's work or wages has ever been cut down yet at Lapham, it don't matter WHAT the times are. Of course," explained Walker, "I shouldn't talk so to everybody; don't know as I should talk so to anybody but you, Mr. Corey." "Of course," assented Corey. "Little off your feed to-day," said Walker, glancing at Corey's plate. "I got up with a headache." "Well, sir, if you're like me you'll carry it round all day, then. I don't know a much meaner thing than a headache--unless it's earache, or toothache, or some other kind of ache I'm pretty hard to suit, when it comes to diseases. Notice how yellow the old man looked when he came in this morning? I don't like to see a man of his build look yellow--much." About the middle of the afternoon the dust-coloured face of Rogers, now familiar to Lapham's clerks, showed itself among them. "Has Colonel Lapham returned yet?" he asked, in his dry, wooden tones, of Lapham's boy. "Yes, he's in his office," said the boy; and as Rogers advanced, he rose and added, "I don't know as you can see him to-day. His orders are not to let anybody in." "Oh, indeed!" said Rogers; "I think he will see ME!" and he pressed forward. "Well, I'll have to ask," returned the boy; and hastily preceding Rogers, he put his head in at Lapham's door, and then withdrew it. "Please to sit down," he said; "he'll see you pretty soon;" and, with an air of some surprise, Rogers obeyed. His sere, dull-brown whiskers and the moustache closing over both lips were incongruously and illogically clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for no reason by the parchment texture of his skin; the baldness extending to the crown of his head was like a baldness made up for the stage. What his face expressed chiefly was a bland and beneficent caution. Here, you must have said to yourself, is a man of just, sober, and prudent views, fixed purposes, and the good citizenship that avoids debt and hazard of every kind. "What do you want?" asked Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair as Rogers entered his room, and pushing the door shut with his foot, without rising. Rogers took the chair that was not offered him, and sat with his hat-brim on his knees, and its crown pointed towards Lapham. "I want to know what you are going to do," he answered with sufficient self-possession. "I'll tell you, first, what I've done," said Lapham. "I've been to Dubuque, and I've found out all about that milling property you turned in on me. Did you know that the G. L. & P. had leased the P. Y. & X.?" "I some suspected that it might." "Did you know it when you turned the property in on me? Did you know that the G. L. & P. wanted to buy the mills?" "I presumed the road would give a fair price for them," said Rogers, winking his eyes in outward expression of inwardly blinking the point. "You lie," said Lapham, as quietly as if correcting him in a slight error; and Rogers took the word with equal sang froid. "You knew the road wouldn't give a fair price for the mills. You knew it would give what it chose, and that I couldn't help myself, when you let me take them. You're a thief, Milton K. Rogers, and you stole money I lent you." Rogers sat listening, as if respectfully considering the statements. "You knew how I felt about that old matter--or my wife did; and that I wanted to make it up to you, if you felt anyway badly used. And you took advantage of it. You've got money out of me, in the first place, on securities that wa'n't worth thirty-five cents on the dollar, and you've let me in for this thing, and that thing, and you've bled me every time. And all I've got to show for it is a milling property on a line of road that can squeeze me, whenever it wants to, as dry as it pleases. And you want to know what I'm going to do? I'm going to squeeze YOU. I'm going to sell these collaterals of yours,"--he touched a bundle of papers among others that littered his desk,--"and I'm going to let the mills go for what they'll fetch. I ain't going to fight the G. L. & P." Lapham wheeled about in his chair and turned his burly back on his visitor, who sat wholly unmoved. "There are some parties," he began, with a dry tranquillity ignoring Lapham's words, as if they had been an outburst against some third person, who probably merited them, but in whom he was so little interested that he had been obliged to use patience in listening to his condemnation,--"there are some English parties who have been making inquiries in regard to those mills." "I guess you're lying, Rogers," said Lapham, without looking round. "Well, all that I have to ask is that you will not act hastily." "I see you don't think I'm in earnest!" cried Lapham, facing fiercely about. "You think I'm fooling, do you?" He struck his bell, and "William," he ordered the boy who answered it, and who stood waiting while he dashed off a note to the brokers and enclosed it with the bundle of securities in a large envelope, "take these down to Gallop & Paddock's, in State Street, right away. Now go!" he said to Rogers, when the boy had closed the door after him; and he turned once more to his desk. Rogers rose from his chair, and stood with his hat in his hand. He was not merely dispassionate in his attitude and expression, he was impartial. He wore the air of a man who was ready to return to business whenever the wayward mood of his interlocutor permitted. "Then I understand," he said, "that you will take no action in regard to the mills till I have seen the parties I speak of." Lapham faced about once more, and sat looking up into the visage of Rogers in silence. "I wonder what you're up to," he said at last; "I should like to know." But as Rogers made no sign of gratifying his curiosity, and treated this last remark of Lapham's as of the irrelevance of all the rest, he said, frowning, "You bring me a party that will give me enough for those mills to clear me of you, and I'll talk to you. But don't you come here with any man of straw. And I'll give you just twenty-four hours to prove yourself a swindler again." Once more Lapham turned his back, and Rogers, after looking thoughtfully into his hat a moment, cleared his throat, and quietly withdrew, maintaining to the last his unprejudiced demeanour. Lapham was not again heard from, as Walker phrased it, during the afternoon, except when the last mail was taken in to him; then the sound of rending envelopes, mixed with that of what seemed suppressed swearing, penetrated to the outer office. Somewhat earlier than the usual hour for closing, he appeared there with his hat on and his overcoat buttoned about him. He said briefly to his boy, "William, I shan't be back again this afternoon," and then went to Miss Dewey and left a number of letters on her table to be copied, and went out. Nothing had been said, but a sense of trouble subtly diffused itself through those who saw him go out. That evening as he sat down with his wife alone at tea, he asked, "Ain't Pen coming to supper?" "No, she ain't," said his wife. "I don't know as I like the way she's going on, any too well. I'm afraid, if she keeps on, she'll be down sick. She's got deeper feelings than Irene." Lapham said nothing, but having helped himself to the abundance of his table in his usual fashion, he sat and looked at his plate with an indifference that did not escape the notice of his wife. "What's the matter with YOU?" she asked. "Nothing. I haven't got any appetite." "What's the matter?" she persisted. "Trouble's the matter; bad luck and lots of it's the matter," said Lapham. "I haven't ever hid anything from you, Persis, well you asked me, and it's too late to begin now. I'm in a fix. I'll tell you what kind of a fix, if you think it'll do you any good; but I guess you'll be satisfied to know that it's a fix." "How much of a one?" she asked with a look of grave, steady courage in her eyes. "Well, I don't know as I can tell, just yet," said Lapham, avoiding this look. "Things have been dull all the fall, but I thought they'd brisk up come winter. They haven't. There have been a lot of failures, and some of 'em owed me, and some of 'em had me on their paper; and----" Lapham stopped. "And what?" prompted his wife. He hesitated before he added, "And then--Rogers." "I'm to blame for that," said Mrs. Lapham. "I forced you to it." "No; I was as willing to go into it as what you were," answered Lapham. "I don't want to blame anybody." Mrs. Lapham had a woman's passion for fixing responsibility; she could not help saying, as soon as acquitted, "I warned you against him, Silas. I told you not to let him get in any deeper with you." "Oh yes. I had to help him to try to get my money back. I might as well poured water into a sieve. And now--" Lapham stopped. "Don't be afraid to speak out to me, Silas Lapham. If it comes to the worst, I want to know it--I've got to know it. What did I ever care for the money? I've had a happy home with you ever since we were married, and I guess I shall have as long as you live, whether we go on to the Back Bay, or go back to the old house at Lapham. I know who's to blame, and I blame myself. It was my forcing Rogers on to you." She came back to this with her helpless longing, inbred in all Puritan souls, to have some one specifically suffer for the evil in the world, even if it must be herself. "It hasn't come to the worst yet, Persis," said her husband. "But I shall have to hold up on the new house a little while, till I can see where I am." "I shouldn't care if we had to sell it," cried his wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I should be GLAD if we had to, as far as I'm concerned." "I shouldn't," said Lapham. "I know!" said his wife; and she remembered ruefully how his heart was set on it. He sat musing. "Well, I guess it's going to come out all right in the end. Or, if it ain't," he sighed, "we can't help it. May be Pen needn't worry so much about Corey, after all," he continued, with a bitter irony new to him. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. And there's a chance," he ended, with a still bitterer laugh, "that Rogers will come to time, after all." "I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Lapham, with a gleam of hope in her eyes. "What chance?" "One in ten million," said Lapham; and her face fell again. "He says there are some English parties after him to buy these mills." "Well?" "Well, I gave him twenty-four hours to prove himself a liar." "You don't believe there are any such parties?" "Not in THIS world." "But if there were?" "Well, if there were, Persis----But pshaw!" "No, no!" she pleaded eagerly. "It don't seem as if he COULD be such a villain. What would be the use of his pretending? If he brought the parties to you." "Well," said Lapham scornfully, "I'd let them have the mills at the price Rogers turned 'em in on me at. I don't want to make anything on 'em. But guess I shall hear from the G. L. & P. first. And when they make their offer, I guess I'll have to accept it, whatever it is. I don't think they'll have a great many competitors." Mrs. Lapham could not give up her hope. "If you could get your price from those English parties before they knew that the G. L. & P. wanted to buy the mills, would it let you out with Rogers?" "Just about," said Lapham. "Then I know he'll move heaven and earth to bring it about. I KNOW you won't be allowed to suffer for doing him a kindness, Silas. He CAN'T be so ungrateful! Why, why SHOULD he pretend to have any such parties in view when he hasn't? Don't you be down-hearted, Si. You'll see that he'll be round with them to-morrow." Lapham laughed, but she urged so many reasons for her belief in Rogers that Lapham began to rekindle his own faith a little. He ended by asking for a hot cup of tea; and Mrs. Lapham sent the pot out and had a fresh one steeped for him. After that he made a hearty supper in the revulsion from his entire despair; and they fell asleep that night talking hopefully of his affairs, which he laid before her fully, as he used to do when he first started in business. That brought the old times back, and he said: "If this had happened then, I shouldn't have cared much. I was young then, and I wasn't afraid of anything. But I noticed that after I passed fifty I began to get scared easier. I don't believe I could pick up, now, from a regular knock-down." "Pshaw! YOU scared, Silas Lapham?" cried his wife proudly. "I should like to see the thing that ever scared you; or the knockdown that YOU couldn't pick up from!" "Is that so, Persis?" he asked, with the joy her courage gave him. In the middle of the night she called to him, in a voice which the darkness rendered still more deeply troubled: "Are you awake, Silas?" "Yes; I'm awake." "I've been thinking about those English parties, Si----" "So've I." "And I can't make it out but what you'd be just as bad as Rogers, every bit and grain, if you were to let them have the mills----" "And not tell 'em what the chances were with the G. L. & P.? I thought of that, and you needn't be afraid." She began to bewail herself, and to sob convulsively: "O Silas! O Silas!" Heaven knows in what measure the passion of her soul was mired with pride in her husband's honesty, relief from an apprehended struggle, and pity for him. "Hush, hush, Persis!" he besought her. "You'll wake Pen if you keep on that way. Don't cry any more! You mustn't." "Oh, let me cry, Silas! It'll help me. I shall be all right in a minute. Don't you mind." She sobbed herself quiet. "It does seem too hard," she said, when she could speak again, "that you have to give up this chance when Providence had fairly raised it up for you." "I guess it wa'n't Providence raised it up," said Lapham. "Any rate, it's got to go. Most likely Rogers was lyin', and there ain't any such parties; but if there were, they couldn't have the mills from me without the whole story. Don't you be troubled, Persis. I'm going to pull through all right." "Oh, I ain't afraid. I don't suppose but what there's plenty would help you, if they knew you needed it, Si." "They would if they knew I DIDN'T need it," said Lapham sardonically. "Did you tell Bill how you stood?" "No, I couldn't bear to. I've been the rich one so long, that I couldn't bring myself to own up that I was in danger." "Yes." "Besides, it didn't look so ugly till to-day. But I guess we shan't let ugly looks scare us." "No." XXII. THE morning postman brought Mrs. Lapham a letter from Irene, which was chiefly significant because it made no reference whatever to the writer or her state of mind. It gave the news of her uncle's family; it told of their kindness to her; her cousin Will was going to take her and his sisters ice-boating on the river, when it froze. By the time this letter came, Lapham had gone to his business, and the mother carried it to Penelope to talk over. "What do you make out of it?" she asked; and without waiting to be answered she said, "I don't know as I believe in cousins marrying, a great deal; but if Irene and Will were to fix it up between 'em----" She looked vaguely at Penelope. "It wouldn't make any difference as far as I was concerned," replied the girl listlessly. Mrs. Lapham lost her patience. "Well, then, I'll tell you what, Penelope!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps it'll make a difference to you if you know that your father's in REAL trouble. He's harassed to death, and he was awake half the night, talking about it. That abominable Rogers has got a lot of money away from him; and he's lost by others that he's helped,"--Mrs. Lapham put it in this way because she had no time to be explicit,--"and I want you should come out of your room now, and try to be of some help and comfort to him when he comes home to-night. I guess Irene wouldn't mope round much, if she was here," she could not help adding. The girl lifted herself on her elbow. "What's that you say about father?" she demanded eagerly. "Is he in trouble? Is he going to lose his money? Shall we have to stay in this house?" "We may be very GLAD to stay in this house," said Mrs. Lapham, half angry with herself for having given cause for the girl's conjectures, and half with the habit of prosperity in her child, which could conceive no better of what adversity was. "And I want you should get up and show that you've got some feeling for somebody in the world besides yourself." "Oh, I'll get UP!" said the girl promptly, almost cheerfully. "I don't say it's as bad now as it looked a little while ago," said her mother, conscientiously hedging a little from the statement which she had based rather upon her feelings than her facts. "Your father thinks he'll pull through all right, and I don't know but what he will. But I want you should see if you can't do something to cheer him up and keep him from getting so perfectly down-hearted as he seems to get, under the load he's got to carry. And stop thinking about yourself a while, and behave yourself like a sensible girl." "Yes, yes," said the girl; "I will. You needn't be troubled about me any more." Before she left her room she wrote a note, and when she came down she was dressed to go out-of-doors and post it herself. The note was to Corey:-- "Do not come to see me any more till you hear from me. I have a reason which I cannot give you now; and you must not ask what it is." All day she went about in a buoyant desperation, and she came down to meet her father at supper. "Well, Persis," he said scornfully, as he sat down, "we might as well saved our good resolutions till they were wanted. I guess those English parties have gone back on Rogers." "Do you mean he didn't come?" "He hadn't come up to half-past five," said Lapham. "Tchk!" uttered his wife. "But I guess I shall pull through without Mr. Rogers," continued Lapham. "A firm that I didn't think COULD weather it is still afloat, and so far forth as the danger goes of being dragged under with it, I'm all right." Penelope came in. "Hello, Pen!" cried her father. "It ain't often I meet YOU nowadays." He put up his hand as she passed his chair, and pulled her down and kissed her. "No," she said; "but I thought I'd come down to-night and cheer you up a little. I shall not talk; the sight of me will be enough." Her father laughed out. "Mother been telling you? Well, I WAS pretty blue last night; but I guess I was more scared than hurt. How'd you like to go to the theatre to-night? Sellers at the Park. Heigh?" "Well, I don't know. Don't you think they could get along without me there?" "No; couldn't work it at all," cried the Colonel. "Let's all go. Unless," he added inquiringly, "there's somebody coming here?" "There's nobody coming," said Penelope. "Good! Then we'll go. Mother, don't you be late now." "Oh, I shan't keep you waiting," said Mrs. Lapham. She had thought of telling what a cheerful letter she had got from Irene; but upon the whole it seemed better not to speak of Irene at all just then. After they returned from the theatre, where the Colonel roared through the comedy, with continual reference of his pleasure to Penelope, to make sure that she was enjoying it too, his wife said, as if the whole affair had been for the girl's distraction rather than his, "I don't believe but what it's going to come out all right about the children;" and then she told him of the letter, and the hopes she had founded upon it. "Well, perhaps you're right, Persis," he consented. "I haven't seen Pen so much like herself since it happened. I declare, when I see the way she came out to-night, just to please you, I don't know as I want you should get over all your troubles right away." "I guess there'll be enough to keep Pen going for a while yet," said the Colonel, winding up his watch. But for a time there was a relief, which Walker noted, in the atmosphere at the office, and then came another cold wave, slighter than the first, but distinctly felt there, and succeeded by another relief. It was like the winter which was wearing on to the end of the year, with alternations of freezing weather, and mild days stretching to weeks, in which the snow and ice wholly disappeared. It was none the less winter, and none the less harassing for these fluctuations, and Lapham showed in his face and temper the effect of like fluctuations in his affairs. He grew thin and old, and both at home and at his office he was irascible to the point of offence. In these days Penelope shared with her mother the burden of their troubled home, and united with her in supporting the silence or the petulance of the gloomy, secret man who replaced the presence of jolly prosperity there. Lapham had now ceased to talk of his troubles, and savagely resented his wife's interference. "You mind your own business, Persis," he said one day, "if you've got any;" and after that she left him mainly to Penelope, who did not think of asking him questions. "It's pretty hard on you, Pen," she said. "That makes it easier for me," returned the girl, who did not otherwise refer to her own trouble. In her heart she had wondered a little at the absolute obedience of Corey, who had made no sign since receiving her note. She would have liked to ask her father if Corey was sick; she would have liked him to ask her why Corey did not come any more. Her mother went on-- "I don't believe your father knows WHERE he stands. He works away at those papers he brings home here at night, as if he didn't half know what he was about. He always did have that close streak in him, and I don't suppose but what he's been going into things he don't want anybody else to know about, and he's kept these accounts of his own." Sometimes he gave Penelope figures to work at, which he would not submit to his wife's nimbler arithmetic. Then she went to bed and left them sitting up till midnight, struggling with problems in which they were both weak. But she could see that the girl was a comfort to her father, and that his troubles were a defence and shelter to her. Some nights she could hear them going out together, and then she lay awake for their return from their long walk. When the hour or day of respite came again, the home felt it first. Lapham wanted to know what the news from Irene was; he joined his wife in all her cheerful speculations, and tried to make her amends for his sullen reticence and irritability. Irene was staying on at Dubuque. There came a letter from her, saying that her uncle's people wanted her to spend the winter there. "Well, let her," said Lapham. "It'll be the best thing for her." Lapham himself had letters from his brother at frequent intervals. His brother was watching the G. L. & P., which as yet had made no offer for the mills. Once, when one of these letters came, he submitted to his wife whether, in the absence of any positive information that the road wanted the property, he might not, with a good conscience, dispose of it to the best advantage to anybody who came along. She looked wistfully at him; it was on the rise from a season of deep depression with him. "No, Si," she said; "I don't see how you could do that." He did not assent and submit, as he had done at first, but began to rail at the unpracticality of women; and then he shut some papers he had been looking over into his desk, and flung out of the room. One of the papers had slipped through the crevice of the lid, and lay upon the floor. Mrs. Lapham kept on at her sewing, but after a while she picked the paper up to lay it on the desk. Then she glanced at it, and saw that it was a long column of dates and figures, recording successive sums, never large ones, paid regularly to "Wm. M." The dates covered a year, and the sum amounted at least to several hundreds. Mrs. Lapham laid the paper down on the desk, and then she took it up again and put it into her work-basket, meaning to give it to him. When he came in she saw him looking absent-mindedly about for something, and then going to work upon his papers, apparently without it. She thought she would wait till he missed it definitely, and then give him the scrap she had picked up. It lay in her basket, and after some days it found its way under the work in it, and she forgot it. XXIII. SINCE New Year's there had scarcely been a mild day, and the streets were full of snow, growing foul under the city feet and hoofs, and renewing its purity from the skies with repeated falls, which in turn lost their whiteness, beaten down, and beaten black and hard into a solid bed like iron. The sleighing was incomparable, and the air was full of the din of bells; but Lapham's turnout was not of those that thronged the Brighton road every afternoon; the man at the livery-stable sent him word that the mare's legs were swelling. He and Corey had little to do with each other. He did not know how Penelope had arranged it with Corey; his wife said she knew no more than he did, and he did not like to ask the girl herself, especially as Corey no longer came to the house. He saw that she was cheerfuller than she had been, and helpfuller with him and her mother. Now and then Lapham opened his troubled soul to her a little, letting his thought break into speech without preamble or conclusion. Once he said-- "Pen, I presume you know I'm in trouble." "We all seem to be there," said the girl. "Yes, but there's a difference between being there by your own fault and being there by somebody else's." "I don't call it his fault," she said. "I call it mine," said the Colonel. The girl laughed. Her thought was of her own care, and her father's wholly of his. She must come to his ground. "What have you been doing wrong?" "I don't know as you'd call it wrong. It's what people do all the time. But I wish I'd let stocks alone. It's what I always promised your mother I would do. But there's no use cryin' over spilt milk; or watered stock, either." "I don't think there's much use crying about anything. If it could have been cried straight, it would have been all right from the start," said the girl, going back to her own affair; and if Lapham had not been so deeply engrossed in his, he might have seen how little she cared for all that money could do or undo. He did not observe her enough to see how variable her moods were in those days, and how often she sank from some wild gaiety into abject melancholy; how at times she was fiercely defiant of nothing at all, and at others inexplicably humble and patient. But no doubt none of these signs had passed unnoticed by his wife, to whom Lapham said one day, when he came home, "Persis, what's the reason Pen don't marry Corey?" "You know as well as I do, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham, with an inquiring look at him for what lay behind his words. "Well, I think it's all tomfoolery, the way she's going on. There ain't any rhyme nor reason to it." He stopped, and his wife waited. "If she said the word, I could have some help from them." He hung his head, and would not meet his wife's eye. "I guess you're in a pretty bad way, Si," she said pityingly, "or you wouldn't have come to that." "I'm in a hole," said Lapham, "and I don't know where to turn. You won't let me do anything about those mills----" "Yes, I'll let you," said his wife sadly. He gave a miserable cry. "You know I can't do anything, if you do. O my Lord!" She had not seen him so low as that before. She did not know what to say. She was frightened, and could only ask, "Has it come to the worst?" "The new house has got to go," he answered evasively. She did not say anything. She knew that the work on the house had been stopped since the beginning of the year. Lapham had told the architect that he preferred to leave it unfinished till the spring, as there was no prospect of their being able to get into it that winter; and the architect had agreed with him that it would not hurt it to stand. Her heart was heavy for him, though she could not say so. They sat together at the table, where she had come to be with him at his belated meal. She saw that he did not eat, and she waited for him to speak again, without urging him to take anything. They were past that. "And I've sent orders to shut down at the Works," he added. "Shut down at the Works!" she echoed with dismay. She could not take it in. The fire at the Works had never been out before since it was first kindled. She knew how he had prided himself upon that; how he had bragged of it to every listener, and had always lugged the fact in as the last expression of his sense of success. "O Silas!" "What's the use?" he retorted. "I saw it was coming a month ago. There are some fellows out in West Virginia that have been running the paint as hard as they could. They couldn't do much; they used to put it on the market raw. But lately they got to baking it, and now they've struck a vein of natural gas right by their works, and they pay ten cents for fuel, where I pay a dollar, and they make as good a paint. Anybody can see where it's going to end. Besides, the market's over-stocked. It's glutted. There wa'n't anything to do but to shut DOWN, and I've SHUT down." "I don't know what's going to become of the hands in the middle of the winter, this way," said Mrs. Lapham, laying hold of one definite thought which she could grasp in the turmoil of ruin that whirled before her eyes. "I don't care what becomes of the hands," cried Lapham. "They've shared my luck; now let 'em share the other thing. And if you're so very sorry for the hands, I wish you'd keep a little of your pity for ME. Don't you know what shutting down the Works means?" "Yes, indeed I do, Silas," said his wife tenderly. "Well, then!" He rose, leaving his supper untasted, and went into the sitting-room, where she presently found him, with that everlasting confusion of papers before him on the desk. That made her think of the paper in her work-basket, and she decided not to make the careworn, distracted man ask her for it, after all. She brought it to him. He glanced blankly at it and then caught it from her, turning red and looking foolish. "Where'd you get that?" "You dropped it on the floor the other night, and I picked it up. Who is 'Wm. M.'?" "'Wm. M.'!" he repeated, looking confusedly at her, and then at the paper. "Oh,--it's nothing." He tore the paper into small pieces, and went and dropped them into the fire. When Mrs. Lapham came into the room in the morning, before he was down, she found a scrap of the paper, which must have fluttered to the hearth; and glancing at it she saw that the words were "Mrs. M." She wondered what dealings with a woman her husband could have, and she remembered the confusion he had shown about the paper, and which she had thought was because she had surprised one of his business secrets. She was still thinking of it when he came down to breakfast, heavy-eyed, tremulous, with deep seams and wrinkles in his face. After a silence which he did not seem inclined to break, "Silas," she asked, "who is 'Mrs. M.'?" He stared at her. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Don't you?" she returned mockingly. "When you do, you tell me. Do you want any more coffee?" "No." "Well, then, you can ring for Alice when you've finished. I've got some things to attend to." She rose abruptly, and left the room. Lapham looked after her in a dull way, and then went on with his breakfast. While he still sat at his coffee, she flung into the room again, and dashed some papers down beside his plate. "Here are some more things of yours, and I'll thank you to lock them up in your desk and not litter my room with them, if you please." Now he saw that she was angry, and it must be with him. It enraged him that in such a time of trouble she should fly out at him in that way. He left the house without trying to speak to her. That day Corey came just before closing, and, knocking at Lapham's door, asked if he could speak with him a few moments. "Yes," said Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair and kicking another towards Corey. "Sit down. I want to talk to you. I'd ought to tell you you're wasting your time here. I spoke the other day about your placin' yourself better, and I can help you to do it, yet. There ain't going to be the out-come for the paint in the foreign markets that we expected, and I guess you better give it up." "I don't wish to give it up," said the young fellow, setting his lips. "I've as much faith in it as ever; and I want to propose now what I hinted at in the first place. I want to put some money into the business." "Some money!" Lapham leaned towards him, and frowned as if he had not quite understood, while he clutched the arms of his chair. "I've got about thirty thousand dollars that I could put in, and if you don't want to consider me a partner--I remember that you objected to a partner--you can let me regard it as an investment. But I think I see the way to doing something at once in Mexico, and I should like to feel that I had something more than a drummer's interest in the venture." The men sat looking into each other's eyes. Then Lapham leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his hand hard and slowly over his face. His features were still twisted with some strong emotion when he took it away. "Your family know about this?" "My Uncle James knows." "He thinks it would be a good plan for you?" "He thought that by this time I ought to be able to trust my own judgment." "Do you suppose I could see your uncle at his office?" "I imagine he's there." "Well, I want to have a talk with him, one of these days." He sat pondering a while, and then rose, and went with Corey to his door. "I guess I shan't change my mind about taking you into the business in that way," he said coldly. "If there was any reason why I shouldn't at first, there's more now." "Very well, sir," answered the young man, and went to close his desk. The outer office was empty; but while Corey was putting his papers in order it was suddenly invaded by two women, who pushed by the protesting porter on the stairs and made their way towards Lapham's room. One of them was Miss Dewey, the type-writer girl, and the other was a woman whom she would resemble in face and figure twenty years hence, if she led a life of hard work varied by paroxysms of hard drinking. "That his room, Z'rilla?" asked this woman, pointing towards Lapham's door with a hand that had not freed itself from the fringe of dirty shawl under which it had hung. She went forward without waiting for the answer, but before she could reach it the door opened, and Lapham stood filling its space. "Look here, Colonel Lapham!" began the woman, in a high key of challenge. "I want to know if this is the way you're goin' back on me and Z'rilla?" "What do you want?" asked Lapham. "What do I want? What do you s'pose I want? I want the money to pay my month's rent; there ain't a bite to eat in the house; and I want some money to market." Lapham bent a frown on the woman, under which she shrank back a step. "You've taken the wrong way to get it. Clear out!" "I WON'T clear out!" said the woman, beginning to whimper. "Corey!" said Lapham, in the peremptory voice of a master,--he had seemed so indifferent to Corey's presence that the young man thought he must have forgotten he was there,--"Is Dennis anywhere round?" "Yissor," said Dennis, answering for himself from the head of the stairs, and appearing in the ware-room. Lapham spoke to the woman again. "Do you want I should call a hack, or do you want I should call an officer?" The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl. "I don't know what we're goin' to do." "You're going to clear out," said Lapham. "Call a hack, Dennis. If you ever come here again, I'll have you arrested. Mind that! Zerrilla, I shall want you early to-morrow morning." "Yes, sir," said the girl meekly; she and her mother shrank out after the porter. Lapham shut his door without a word. At lunch the next day Walker made himself amends for Corey's reticence by talking a great deal. He talked about Lapham, who seemed to have, more than ever since his apparent difficulties began, the fascination of an enigma for his book-keeper, and he ended by asking, "Did you see that little circus last night?" "What little circus?" asked Corey in his turn. "Those two women and the old man. Dennis told me about it. I told him if he liked his place he'd better keep his mouth shut." "That was very good advice," said Corey. "Oh, all right, if you don't want to talk. Don't know as I should in your place," returned Walker, in the easy security he had long felt that Corey had no intention of putting on airs with him. "But I'll tell you what: the old man can't expect it of everybody. If he keeps this thing up much longer, it's going to be talked about. You can't have a woman walking into your place of business, and trying to bulldoze you before your porter, without setting your porter to thinking. And the last thing you want a porter to do is to think; for when a porter thinks, he thinks wrong." "I don't see why even a porter couldn't think right about that affair," replied Corey. "I don't know who the woman was, though I believe she was Miss Dewey's mother; but I couldn't see that Colonel Lapham showed anything but a natural resentment of her coming to him in that way. I should have said she was some rather worthless person whom he'd been befriending, and that she had presumed upon his kindness." "Is that so? What do you think of his never letting Miss Dewey's name go on the books?" "That it's another proof it's a sort of charity of his. That's the only way to look at it." "Oh, I'M all right." Walker lighted a cigar and began to smoke, with his eyes closed to a fine straight line. "It won't do for a book-keeper to think wrong, any more than a porter, I suppose. But I guess you and I don't think very different about this thing." "Not if you think as I do," replied Corey steadily; "and I know you would do that if you had seen the 'circus' yourself. A man doesn't treat people who have a disgraceful hold upon him as he treated them." "It depends upon who he is," said Walker, taking his cigar from his mouth. "I never said the old man was afraid of anything." "And character," continued Corey, disdaining to touch the matter further, except in generalities, "must go for something. If it's to be the prey of mere accident and appearance, then it goes for nothing." "Accidents will happen in the best regulated families," said Walker, with vulgar, good-humoured obtuseness that filled Corey with indignation. Nothing, perhaps, removed his matter-of-fact nature further from the commonplace than a certain generosity of instinct, which I should not be ready to say was always infallible. That evening it was Miss Dewey's turn to wait for speech with Lapham after the others were gone. He opened his door at her knock, and stood looking at her with a worried air. "Well, what do you want, Zerrilla?" he asked, with a sort of rough kindness. "I want to know what I'm going to do about Hen. He's back again; and he and mother have made it up, and they both got to drinking last night after I went home, and carried on so that the neighbours came in." Lapham passed his hand over his red and heated face. "I don't know what I'm going to do. You're twice the trouble that my own family is, now. But I know what I'd do, mighty quick, if it wasn't for you, Zerrilla," he went on relentingly. "I'd shut your mother up somewheres, and if I could get that fellow off for a three years' voyage----" "I declare," said Miss Dewey, beginning to whimper, "it seems as if he came back just so often to spite me. He's never gone more than a year at the furthest, and you can't make it out habitual drunkenness, either, when it's just sprees. I'm at my wit's end." "Oh, well, you mustn't cry around here," said Lapham soothingly. "I know it," said Miss Dewey. "If I could get rid of Hen, I could manage well enough with mother. Mr. Wemmel would marry me if I could get the divorce. He's said so over and over again." "I don't know as I like that very well," said Lapham, frowning. "I don't know as I want you should get married in any hurry again. I don't know as I like your going with anybody else just yet." "Oh, you needn't be afraid but what it'll be all right. It'll be the best thing all round, if I can marry him." "Well!" said Lapham impatiently; "I can't think about it now. I suppose they've cleaned everything out again?" "Yes, they have," said Zerrilla; "there isn't a cent left." "You're a pretty expensive lot," said Lapham. "Well, here!" He took out his pocket-book and gave her a note. "I'll be round to-night and see what can be done." He shut himself into his room again, and Zerrilla dried her tears, put the note into her bosom, and went her way. Lapham kept the porter nearly an hour later. It was then six o'clock, the hour at which the Laphams usually had tea; but all custom had been broken up with him during the past months, and he did not go home now. He determined, perhaps in the extremity in which a man finds relief in combating one care with another, to keep his promise to Miss Dewey, and at the moment when he might otherwise have been sitting down at his own table he was climbing the stairs to her lodging in the old-fashioned dwelling which had been portioned off into flats. It was in a region of depots, and of the cheap hotels, and "ladies' and gents'" dining-rooms, and restaurants with bars, which abound near depots; and Lapham followed to Miss Dewey's door a waiter from one of these, who bore on a salver before him a supper covered with a napkin. Zerrilla had admitted them, and at her greeting a young fellow in the shabby shore-suit of a sailor, buttoning imperfectly over the nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did not rise, but began a shrill, defiant apology. "Well, I don't suppose but what you'll think we're livin' on the fat o' the land, right straight along, all the while. But it's just like this. When that child came in from her work, she didn't seem to have the spirit to go to cookin' anything, and I had such a bad night last night I was feelin' all broke up, and s'd I, what's the use, anyway? By the time the butcher's heaved in a lot o' bone, and made you pay for the suet he cuts away, it comes to the same thing, and why not GIT it from the rest'rant first off, and save the cost o' your fire? s'd I." "What have you got there under your apron? A bottle?" demanded Lapham, who stood with his hat on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent alike to the ineffective reception of the sailor and the chair Zerrilla had set him. "Well, yes, it's a bottle," said the woman, with an assumption of virtuous frankness. "It's whisky; I got to have something to rub my rheumatism with." "Humph!" grumbled Lapham. "You've been rubbing HIS rheumatism too, I see." He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor, now softly and rhythmically waving to and fro on his feet. "He hain't had a drop to-day in THIS house!" cried the woman. "What are you doing around here?" said Lapham, turning fiercely upon him. "You've got no business ashore. Where's your ship? Do you think I'm going to let you come here and eat your wife out of house and home, and then give money to keep the concern going?" "Just the very words I said when he first showed his face here, yist'day. Didn't I, Z'rilla?" said the woman, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late boon companion. "You got no business here, Hen, s'd I. You can't come here to live on me and Z'rilla, s'd I. You want to go back to your ship, s'd I. That's what I said." The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amiability for Lapham, something about the crew being discharged. "Yes," the woman broke in, "that's always the way with these coasters. Why don't you go off on some them long v'y'ges? s'd I. It's pretty hard when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z'rilla and provide a comfortable home for us both--I hain't got a great many years more to live, and I SHOULD like to get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be beholden and dependent all my days,--to have Hen, here, blockin' the way. I tell him there'd be more money for him in the end; but he can't seem to make up his mind to it." "Well, now, look here," said Lapham. "I don't care anything about all that. It's your own business, and I'm not going to meddle with it. But it's my business who lives off me; and so I tell you all three, I'm willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I'm willing to take care of her mother----" "I guess if it hadn't been for that child's father," the mother interpolated, "you wouldn't been here to tell the tale, Colonel Lapham." "I know all about that," said Lapham. "But I'll tell you what, Mr. Dewey, I'm not going to support YOU." "I don't see what Hen's done," said the old woman impartially. "He hasn't done anything, and I'm going to stop it. He's got to get a ship, and he's got to get out of this. And Zerrilla needn't come back to work till he does. I'm done with you all." "Well, I vow," said the mother, "if I ever heard anything like it! Didn't that child's father lay down his life for you? Hain't you said it yourself a hundred times? And don't she work for her money, and slave for it mornin', noon, and night? You talk as if we was beholden to you for the very bread in our mouths. I guess if it hadn't been for Jim, you wouldn't been here crowin' over us." "You mind what I say. I mean business this time," said Lapham, turning to the door. The woman rose and followed him, with her bottle in her hand. "Say, Colonel! what should you advise Z'rilla to do about Mr. Wemmel? I tell her there ain't any use goin' to the trouble to git a divorce without she's sure about him. Don't you think we'd ought to git him to sign a paper, or something, that he'll marry her if she gits it? I don't like to have things going at loose ends the way they are. It ain't sense. It ain't right." Lapham made no answer to the mother anxious for her child's future, and concerned for the moral questions involved. He went out and down the stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he almost struck against Rogers, who had a bag in his hand, and seemed to be hurrying towards one of the depots. He halted a little, as if to speak to Lapham; but Lapham turned his back abruptly upon him, and took the other direction. The days were going by in a monotony of adversity to him, from which he could no longer escape, even at home. He attempted once or twice to talk of his troubles to his wife, but she repulsed him sharply; she seemed to despise and hate him; but he set himself doggedly to make a confession to her, and he stopped her one night, as she came into the room where he sat--hastily upon some errand that was to take her directly away again. "Persis, there's something I've got to tell you." She stood still, as if fixed against her will, to listen. "I guess you know something about it already, and I guess it set you against me." "Oh, I guess not, Colonel Lapham. You go your way, and I go mine. That's all." She waited for him to speak, listening with a cold, hard smile on her face. "I don't say it to make favour with you, because I don't want you to spare me, and I don't ask you; but I got into it through Milton K. Rogers." "Oh!" said Mrs. Lapham contemptuously. "I always felt the way I said about it--that it wa'n't any better than gambling, and I say so now. It's like betting on the turn of a card; and I give you my word of honour, Persis, that I never was in it at all till that scoundrel began to load me up with those wild-cat securities of his. Then it seemed to me as if I ought to try to do something to get somewhere even. I know it's no excuse; but watching the market to see what the infernal things were worth from day to day, and seeing it go up, and seeing it go down, was too much for me; and, to make a long story short, I began to buy and sell on a margin--just what I told you I never would do. I seemed to make something--I did make something; and I'd have stopped, I do believe, if I could have reached the figure I'd set in my own mind to start with; but I couldn't fetch it. I began to lose, and then I began to throw good money after bad, just as I always did with everything that Rogers ever came within a mile of. Well, what's the use? I lost the money that would have carried me out of this, and I shouldn't have had to shut down the Works, or sell the house, or----" Lapham stopped. His wife, who at first had listened with mystification, and then dawning incredulity, changing into a look of relief that was almost triumph, lapsed again into severity. "Silas Lapham, if you was to die the next minute, is this what you started to tell me?" "Why, of course it is. What did you suppose I started to tell you?" "And--look me in the eyes!--you haven't got anything else on your mind now?" "No! There's trouble enough, the Lord knows; but there's nothing else to tell you. I suppose Pen gave you a hint about it. I dropped something to her. I've been feeling bad about it, Persis, a good while, but I hain't had the heart to speak of it. I can't expect you to say you like it. I've been a fool, I'll allow, and I've been something worse, if you choose to say so; but that's all. I haven't hurt anybody but myself--and you and the children." Mrs. Lapham rose and said, with her face from him, as she turned towards the door, "It's all right, Silas. I shan't ever bring it up against you." She fled out of the room, but all that evening she was very sweet with him, and seemed to wish in all tacit ways to atone for her past unkindness. She made him talk of his business, and he told her of Corey's offer, and what he had done about it. She did not seem to care for his part in it, however; at which Lapham was silently disappointed a little, for he would have liked her to praise him. "He did it on account of Pen!" "Well, he didn't insist upon it, anyway," said Lapham, who must have obscurely expected that Corey would recognise his own magnanimity by repeating his offer. If the doubt that follows a self-devoted action--the question whether it was not after all a needless folly--is mixed, as it was in Lapham's case, with the vague belief that we might have done ourselves a good turn without great risk of hurting any one else by being a little less unselfish, it becomes a regret that is hard to bear. Since Corey spoke to him, some things had happened that gave Lapham hope again. "I'm going to tell her about it," said his wife, and she showed herself impatient to make up for the time she had lost. "Why didn't you tell me before, Silas?" "I didn't know we were on speaking terms before," said Lapham sadly. "Yes, that's true," she admitted, with a conscious flush. "I hope he won't think Pen's known about it all this while." XXIV. THAT evening James Bellingham came to see Corey after dinner, and went to find him in his own room. "I've come at the instance of Colonel Lapham," said the uncle. "He was at my office to-day, and I had a long talk with him. Did you know that he was in difficulties?" "I fancied that he was in some sort of trouble. And I had the book-keeper's conjectures--he doesn't really know much about it." "Well, he thinks it time--on all accounts--that you should know how he stands, and why he declined that proposition of yours. I must say he has behaved very well--like a gentleman." "I'm not surprised." "I am. It's hard to behave like a gentleman where your interest is vitally concerned. And Lapham doesn't strike me as a man who's in the habit of acting from the best in him always." "Do any of us?" asked Corey. "Not all of us, at any rate," said Bellingham. "It must have cost him something to say no to you, for he's just in that state when he believes that this or that chance, however small, would save him." Corey was silent. "Is he really in such a bad way?" "It's hard to tell just where he stands. I suspect that a hopeful temperament and fondness for round numbers have always caused him to set his figures beyond his actual worth. I don't say that he's been dishonest about it, but he's had a loose way of estimating his assets; he's reckoned his wealth on the basis of his capital, and some of his capital is borrowed. He's lost heavily by some of the recent failures, and there's been a terrible shrinkage in his values. I don't mean merely in the stock of paint on hand, but in a kind of competition which has become very threatening. You know about that West Virginian paint?" Corey nodded. "Well, he tells me that they've struck a vein of natural gas out there which will enable them to make as good a paint as his own at a cost of manufacturing so low that they can undersell him everywhere. If this proves to be the case, it will not only drive his paint out of the market, but will reduce the value of his Works--the whole plant--at Lapham to a merely nominal figure." "I see," said Corey dejectedly. "I've understood that he had put a great deal of money into his Works." "Yes, and he estimated his mine there at a high figure. Of course it will be worth little or nothing if the West Virginia paint drives his out. Then, besides, Lapham has been into several things outside of his own business, and, like a good many other men who try outside things, he's kept account of them himself; and he's all mixed up about them. He's asked me to look into his affairs with him, and I've promised to do so. Whether he can be tided over his difficulties remains to be seen. I'm afraid it will take a good deal of money to do it--a great deal more than he thinks, at least. He believes comparatively little would do it. I think differently. I think that anything less than a great deal would be thrown away on him. If it were merely a question of a certain sum--even a large sum--to keep him going, it might be managed; but it's much more complicated. And, as I say, it must have been a trial to him to refuse your offer." This did not seem to be the way in which Bellingham had meant to conclude. But he said no more; and Corey made him no response. He remained pondering the case, now hopefully, now doubtfully, and wondering, whatever his mood was, whether Penelope knew anything of the fact with which her mother went nearly at the same moment to acquaint her. "Of course, he's done it on your account," Mrs. Lapham could not help saying. "Then he was very silly. Does he think I would let him give father money? And if father lost it for him, does he suppose it would make it any easier for me? I think father acted twice as well. It was very silly." In repeating the censure, her look was not so severe as her tone; she even smiled a little, and her mother reported to her father that she acted more like herself than she had yet since Corey's offer. "I think, if he was to repeat his offer, she would have him now," said Mrs. Lapham. "Well, I'll let her know if he does," said the Colonel. "I guess he won't do it to you!" she cried. "Who else will he do it to?" he demanded. They perceived that they had each been talking of a different offer. After Lapham went to his business in the morning the postman brought another letter from Irene, which was full of pleasant things that were happening to her; there was a great deal about her cousin Will, as she called him. At the end she had written, "Tell Pen I don't want she should be foolish." "There!" said Mrs. Lapham. "I guess it's going to come out right, all round;" and it seemed as if even the Colonel's difficulties were past. "When your father gets through this, Pen," she asked impulsively, "what shall you do?" "What have you been telling Irene about me?" "Nothing much. What should you do?" "It would be a good deal easier to say what I should do if father didn't," said the girl. "I know you think it was nice in him to make your father that offer," urged the mother. "It was nice, yes; but it was silly," said the girl. "Most nice things are silly, I suppose," she added. She went to her room and wrote a letter. It was very long, and very carefully written; and when she read it over, she tore it into small pieces. She wrote another one, short and hurried, and tore that up too. Then she went back to her mother, in the family room, and asked to see Irene's letter, and read it over to herself. "Yes, she seems to be having a good time," she sighed. "Mother, do you think I ought to let Mr. Corey know that I know about it?" "Well, I should think it would be a pleasure to him," said Mrs. Lapham judicially. "I'm not so sure of that the way I should have to tell him. I should begin by giving him a scolding. Of course, he meant well by it, but can't you see that it wasn't very flattering! How did he expect it would change me?" "I don't believe he ever thought of that." "Don't you? Why?" "Because you can see that he isn't one of that kind. He might want to please you without wanting to change you by what he did." "Yes. He must have known that nothing would change me,--at least, nothing that he could do. I thought of that. I shouldn't like him to feel that I couldn't appreciate it, even if I did think it was silly. Should you write to him?" "I don't see why not." "It would be too pointed. No, I shall just let it go. I wish he hadn't done it." "Well, he has done it." "And I've tried to write to him about it--two letters: one so humble and grateful that it couldn't stand up on its edge, and the other so pert and flippant. Mother, I wish you could have seen those two letters! I wish I had kept them to look at if I ever got to thinking I had any sense again. They would take the conceit out of me." "What's the reason he don't come here any more?" "Doesn't he come?" asked Penelope in turn, as if it were something she had not noticed particularly. "You'd ought to know." "Yes." She sat silent a while. "If he doesn't come, I suppose it's because he's offended at something I did." "What did you do?" "Nothing. I--wrote to him--a little while ago. I suppose it was very blunt, but I didn't believe he would be angry at it. But this--this that he's done shows he was angry, and that he wasn't just seizing the first chance to get out of it." "What have you done, Pen?" demanded her mother sharply. "Oh, I don't know. All the mischief in the world, I suppose. I'll tell you. When you first told me that father was in trouble with his business, I wrote to him not to come any more till I let him. I said I couldn't tell him why, and he hasn't been here since. I'm sure I don't know what it means." Her mother looked at her with angry severity. "Well, Penelope Lapham! For a sensible child, you ARE the greatest goose I ever saw. Did you think he would come here and SEE if you wouldn't let him come?" "He might have written," urged the girl. Her mother made that despairing "Tchk!" with her tongue, and fell back in her chair. "I should have DESPISED him if he had written. He's acted just exactly right, and you--you've acted--I don't know HOW you've acted. I'm ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and always say and do just the right thing, and then when it comes to herself to be such a DISGUSTING simpleton!" "I thought I ought to break with him at once, and not let him suppose that there was any hope for him or me if father was poor. It was my one chance, in this whole business, to do anything heroic, and I jumped at it. You mustn't think, because I can laugh at it now, that I wasn't in earnest, mother! I WAS--dead! But the Colonel has gone to ruin so gradually, that he's spoilt everything. I expected that he would be bankrupt the next day, and that then HE would understand what I meant. But to have it drag along for a fortnight seems to take all the heroism out of it, and leave it as flat!" She looked at her mother with a smile that shone through her tears, and a pathos that quivered round her jesting lips. "It's easy enough to be sensible for other people. But when it comes to myself, there I am! Especially, when I want to do what I oughtn't so much that it seems as if doing what I didn't want to do MUST be doing what I ought! But it's been a great success one way, mother. It's helped me to keep up before the Colonel. If it hadn't been for Mr. Corey's staying away, and my feeling so indignant with him for having been badly treated by me, I shouldn't have been worth anything at all." The tears started down her cheeks, but her mother said, "Well, now, go along, and write to him. It don't matter what you say, much; and don't be so very particular." Her third attempt at a letter pleased her scarcely better than the rest, but she sent it, though it seemed so blunt and awkward. She wrote:-- DEAR FRIEND,--I expected when I sent you that note, that you would understand, almost the next day, why I could not see you any more. You must know now, and you must not think that if anything happened to my father, I should wish you to help him. But that is no reason why I should not thank you, and I do thank you, for offering. It was like you, I will say that. Yours sincerely, PENELOPE LAPHAM. She posted her letter, and he sent his reply in the evening, by hand:-- DEAREST,--What I did was nothing, till you praised it. Everything I have and am is yours. Won't you send a line by the bearer, to say that I may come to see you? I know how you feel; but I am sure that I can make you think differently. You must consider that I loved you without a thought of your father's circumstances, and always shall. T. C. The generous words were blurred to her eyes by the tears that sprang into them. But she could only write in answer:-- "Please do not come; I have made up my mind. As long as this trouble is hanging over us, I cannot see you. And if father is unfortunate, all is over between us." She brought his letter to her mother, and told her what she had written in reply. Her mother was thoughtful a while before she said, with a sigh, "Well, I hope you've begun as you can carry out, Pen." "Oh, I shall not have to carry out at all. I shall not have to do anything. That's one comfort--the only comfort." She went away to her own room, and when Mrs. Lapham told her husband of the affair, he was silent at first, as she had been. Then he said, "I don't know as I should have wanted her to done differently; I don't know as she could. If I ever come right again, she won't have anything to feel meeching about; and if I don't, I don't want she should be beholden to anybody. And I guess that's the way she feels." The Coreys in their turn sat in judgment on the fact which their son felt bound to bring to their knowledge. "She has behaved very well," said Mrs. Corey, to whom her son had spoken. "My dear," said her husband, with his laugh, "she has behaved TOO well. If she had studied the whole situation with the most artful eye to its mastery, she could not possibly have behaved better." The process of Lapham's financial disintegration was like the course of some chronic disorder, which has fastened itself upon the constitution, but advances with continual reliefs, with apparent amelioration, and at times seems not to advance at all, when it gives hope of final recovery not only to the sufferer, but to the eye of science itself. There were moments when James Bellingham, seeing Lapham pass this crisis and that, began to fancy that he might pull through altogether; and at these moments, when his adviser could not oppose anything but experience and probability to the evidence of the fact, Lapham was buoyant with courage, and imparted his hopefulness to his household. Our theory of disaster, of sorrow, of affliction, borrowed from the poets and novelists, is that it is incessant; but every passage in our own lives and in the lives of others, so far as we have witnessed them, teaches us that this is false. The house of mourning is decorously darkened to the world, but within itself it is also the house of laughing. Bursts of gaiety, as heartfelt as its grief, relieve the gloom, and the stricken survivors have their jests together, in which the thought of the dead is tenderly involved, and a fond sense, not crazier than many others, of sympathy and enjoyment beyond the silence, justifies the sunnier mood before sorrow rushes back, deploring and despairing, and making it all up again with the conventional fitness of things. Lapham's adversity had this quality in common with bereavement. It was not always like the adversity we figure in allegory; it had its moments of being like prosperity, and if upon the whole it was continual, it was not incessant. Sometimes there was a week of repeated reverses, when he had to keep his teeth set and to hold on hard to all his hopefulness; and then days came of negative result or slight success, when he was full of his jokes at the tea-table, and wanted to go to the theatre, or to do something to cheer Penelope up. In some miraculous way, by some enormous stroke of success which should eclipse the brightest of his past prosperity, he expected to do what would reconcile all difficulties, not only in his own affairs, but in hers too. "You'll see," he said to his wife; "it's going to come out all right. Irene'll fix it up with Bill's boy, and then she'll be off Pen's mind; and if things go on as they've been going for the last two days, I'm going to be in a position to do the favours myself, and Pen can feel that SHE'S makin' a sacrifice, and then I guess may be she'll do it. If things turn out as I expect now, and times ever do get any better generally, I can show Corey that I appreciate his offer. I can offer him the partnership myself then." Even in the other moods, which came when everything had been going wrong, and there seemed no way out of the net, there were points of consolation to Lapham and his wife. They rejoiced that Irene was safe beyond the range of their anxieties, and they had a proud satisfaction that there had been no engagement between Corey and Penelope, and that it was she who had forbidden it. In the closeness of interest and sympathy in which their troubles had reunited them, they confessed to each other that nothing would have been more galling to their pride than the idea that Lapham should not have been able to do everything for his daughter that the Coreys might have expected. Whatever happened now, the Coreys could not have it to say that the Laphams had tried to bring any such thing about. Bellingham had lately suggested an assignment to Lapham, as the best way out of his difficulties. It was evident that he had not the money to meet his liabilities at present, and that he could not raise it without ruinous sacrifices, that might still end in ruin after all. If he made the assignment, Bellingham argued, he could gain time and make terms; the state of things generally would probably improve, since it could not be worse, and the market, which he had glutted with his paint, might recover and he could start again. Lapham had not agreed with him. When his reverses first began it had seemed easy for him to give up everything, to let the people he owed take all, so only they would let him go out with clean hands; and he had dramatised this feeling in his talk with his wife, when they spoke together of the mills on the G. L. & P. But ever since then it had been growing harder, and he could not consent even to seem to do it now in the proposed assignment. He had not found other men so very liberal or faithful with him; a good many of them appeared to have combined to hunt him down; a sense of enmity towards all his creditors asserted itself in him; he asked himself why they should not suffer a little too. Above all, he shrank from the publicity of the assignment. It was open confession that he had been a fool in some way; he could not bear to have his family--his brother the judge, especially, to whom he had always appeared the soul of business wisdom--think him imprudent or stupid. He would make any sacrifice before it came to that. He determined in parting with Bellingham to make the sacrifice which he had oftenest in his mind, because it was the hardest, and to sell his new house. That would cause the least comment. Most people would simply think that he had got a splendid offer, and with his usual luck had made a very good thing of it; others who knew a little more about him would say that he was hauling in his horns, but they could not blame him; a great many other men were doing the same in those hard times--the shrewdest and safest men: it might even have a good effect. He went straight from Bellingham's office to the real-estate broker in whose hands he meant to put his house, for he was not the sort of man to shilly-shally when he had once made up his mind. But he found it hard to get his voice up out of his throat, when he said he guessed he would get the broker to sell that new house of his on the water side of Beacon. The broker answered cheerfully, yes; he supposed Colonel Lapham knew it was a pretty dull time in real estate? and Lapham said yes, he knew that, but he should not sell at a sacrifice, and he did not care to have the broker name him or describe the house definitely unless parties meant business. Again the broker said yes; and he added, as a joke Lapham would appreciate, that he had half a dozen houses on the water side of Beacon, on the same terms; that nobody wanted to be named or to have his property described. It did, in fact, comfort Lapham a little to find himself in the same boat with so many others; he smiled grimly, and said in his turn, yes, he guessed that was about the size of it with a good many people. But he had not the heart to tell his wife what he had done, and he sat taciturn that whole evening, without even going over his accounts, and went early to bed, where he lay tossing half the night before he fell asleep. He slept at last only upon the promise he made himself that he would withdraw the house from the broker's hands; but he went heavily to his own business in the morning without doing so. There was no such rush, anyhow, he reflected bitterly; there would be time to do that a month later, probably. It struck him with a sort of dismay when a boy came with a note from a broker, saying that a party who had been over the house in the fall had come to him to know whether it could be bought, and was willing to pay the cost of the house up to the time he had seen it. Lapham took refuge in trying to think who the party could be; he concluded that it must have been somebody who had gone over it with the architect, and he did not like that; but he was aware that this was not an answer to the broker, and he wrote that he would give him an answer in the morning. Now that it had come to the point, it did not seem to him that he could part with the house. So much of his hope for himself and his children had gone into it that the thought of selling it made him tremulous and sick. He could not keep about his work steadily, and with his nerves shaken by want of sleep, and the shock of this sudden and unexpected question, he left his office early, and went over to look at the house and try to bring himself to some conclusion here. The long procession of lamps on the beautiful street was flaring in the clear red of the sunset towards which it marched, and Lapham, with a lump in his throat, stopped in front of his house and looked at their multitude. They were not merely a part of the landscape; they were a part of his pride and glory, his success, his triumphant life's work which was fading into failure in his helpless hands. He ground his teeth to keep down that lump, but the moisture in his eyes blurred the lamps, and the keen pale crimson against which it made them flicker. He turned and looked up, as he had so often done, at the window-spaces, neatly glazed for the winter with white linen, and recalled the night when he had stopped with Irene before the house, and she had said that she should never live there, and he had tried to coax her into courage about it. There was no such facade as that on the whole street, to his thinking. Through his long talks with the architect, he had come to feel almost as intimately and fondly as the architect himself the satisfying simplicity of the whole design and the delicacy of its detail. It appealed to him as an exquisite bit of harmony appeals to the unlearned ear, and he recognised the difference between this fine work and the obstreperous pretentiousness of the many overloaded house-fronts which Seymour had made him notice for his instruction elsewhere on the Back Bay. Now, in the depths of his gloom, he tried to think what Italian city it was where Seymour said he had first got the notion of treating brick-work in that way. He unlocked the temporary door with the key he always carried, so that he could let himself in and out whenever he liked, and entered the house, dim and very cold with the accumulated frigidity of the whole winter in it, and looking as if the arrest of work upon it had taken place a thousand years before. It smelt of the unpainted woods and the clean, hard surfaces of the plaster, where the experiments in decoration had left it untouched; and mingled with these odours was that of some rank pigments and metallic compositions which Seymour had used in trying to realise a certain daring novelty of finish, which had not proved successful. Above all, Lapham detected the peculiar odour of his own paint, with which the architect had been greatly interested one day, when Lapham showed it to him at the office. He had asked Lapham to let him try the Persis Brand in realising a little idea he had for the finish of Mrs. Lapham's room. If it succeeded they could tell her what it was, for a surprise. Lapham glanced at the bay-window in the reception-room, where he sat with his girls on the trestles when Corey first came by; and then he explored the whole house to the attic, in the light faintly admitted through the linen sashes. The floors were strewn with shavings and chips which the carpenters had left, and in the music-room these had been blown into long irregular windrows by the draughts through a wide rent in the linen sash. Lapham tried to pin it up, but failed, and stood looking out of it over the water. The ice had left the river, and the low tide lay smooth and red in the light of the sunset. The Cambridge flats showed the sad, sodden yellow of meadows stripped bare after a long sleep under snow; the hills, the naked trees, the spires and roofs had a black outline, as if they were objects in a landscape of the French school. The whim seized Lapham to test the chimney in the music-room; it had been tried in the dining-room below, and in his girls' fireplaces above, but here the hearth was still clean. He gathered some shavings and blocks together, and kindled them, and as the flame mounted gaily from them, he pulled up a nail-keg which he found there and sat down to watch it. Nothing could have been better; the chimney was a perfect success; and as Lapham glanced out of the torn linen sash he said to himself that that party, whoever he was, who had offered to buy his house might go to the devil; he would never sell it as long as he had a dollar. He said that he should pull through yet; and it suddenly came into his mind that, if he could raise the money to buy out those West Virginia fellows, he should be all right, and would have the whole game in his own hand. He slapped himself on the thigh, and wondered that he had never thought of that before; and then, lighting a cigar with a splinter from the fire, he sat down again to work the scheme out in his own mind. He did not hear the feet heavily stamping up the stairs, and coming towards the room where he sat; and the policeman to whom the feet belonged had to call out to him, smoking at his chimney-corner, with his back turned to the door, "Hello! what are you doing here?" "What's that to you?" retorted Lapham, wheeling half round on his nail-keg. "I'll show you," said the officer, advancing upon him, and then stopping short as he recognised him. "Why, Colonel Lapham! I thought it was some tramp got in here!" "Have a cigar?" said Lapham hospitably. "Sorry there ain't another nail-keg." The officer took the cigar. "I'll smoke it outside. I've just come on, and I can't stop. Tryin' your chimney?" "Yes, I thought I'd see how it would draw, in here. It seems to go first-rate." The policeman looked about him with an eye of inspection. "You want to get that linen window, there, mended up." "Yes, I'll speak to the builder about that. It can go for one night." The policeman went to the window and failed to pin the linen together where Lapham had failed before. "I can't fix it." He looked round once more, and saying, "Well, good night," went out and down the stairs. Lapham remained by the fire till he had smoked his cigar; then he rose and stamped upon the embers that still burned with his heavy boots, and went home. He was very cheerful at supper. He told his wife that he guessed he had a sure thing of it now, and in another twenty-four hours he should tell her just how. He made Penelope go to the theatre with him, and when they came out, after the play, the night was so fine that he said they must walk round by the new house and take a look at it in the starlight. He said he had been there before he came home, and tried Seymour's chimney in the music-room, and it worked like a charm. As they drew near Beacon Street they were aware of unwonted stir and tumult, and presently the still air transmitted a turmoil of sound, through which a powerful and incessant throbbing made itself felt. The sky had reddened above them, and turning the corner at the Public Garden, they saw a black mass of people obstructing the perspective of the brightly-lighted street, and out of this mass a half-dozen engines, whose strong heart-beats had already reached them, sent up volumes of fire-tinged smoke and steam from their funnels. Ladders were planted against the facade of a building, from the roof of which a mass of flame burnt smoothly upward, except where here and there it seemed to pull contemptuously away from the heavy streams of water which the firemen, clinging like great beetles to their ladders, poured in upon it. Lapham had no need to walk down through the crowd, gazing and gossiping, with shouts and cries and hysterical laughter, before the burning house, to make sure that it was his. "I guess I done it, Pen," was all he said. Among the people who were looking at it were a party who seemed to have run out from dinner in some neighbouring house; the ladies were fantastically wrapped up, as if they had flung on the first things they could seize. "Isn't it perfectly magnificent!" cried a pretty girl. "I wouldn't have missed it on any account. Thank you so much, Mr. Symington, for bringing us out!" "Ah, I thought you'd like it," said this Mr. Symington, who must have been the host; "and you can enjoy it without the least compunction, Miss Delano, for I happen to know that the house belongs to a man who could afford to burn one up for you once a year." "Oh, do you think he would, if I came again?" "I haven't the least doubt of it. We don't do things by halves in Boston." "He ought to have had a coat of his noncombustible paint on it," said another gentleman of the party. Penelope pulled her father away toward the first carriage she could reach of a number that had driven up. "Here, father! get into this." "No, no; I couldn't ride," he answered heavily, and he walked home in silence. He greeted his wife with, "Well, Persis, our house is gone! And I guess I set it on fire myself;" and while he rummaged among the papers in his desk, still with his coat and hat on, his wife got the facts as she could from Penelope. She did not reproach him. Here was a case in which his self-reproach must be sufficiently sharp without any edge from her. Besides, her mind was full of a terrible thought. "O Silas," she faltered, "they'll think you set it on fire to get the insurance!" Lapham was staring at a paper which he held in his hand. "I had a builder's risk on it, but it expired last week. It's a dead loss." "Oh, thank the merciful Lord!" cried his wife. "Merciful!" said Lapham. "Well, it's a queer way of showing it." He went to bed, and fell into the deep sleep which sometimes follows a great moral shock. It was perhaps rather a torpor than a sleep. XXV. LAPHAM awoke confused, and in a kind of remoteness from the loss of the night before, through which it loomed mistily. But before he lifted his head from the pillow, it gathered substance and weight against which it needed all his will to bear up and live. In that moment he wished that he had not wakened, that he might never have wakened; but he rose, and faced the day and its cares. The morning papers brought the report of the fire, and the conjectured loss. The reporters somehow had found out the fact that the loss fell entirely upon Lapham; they lighted up the hackneyed character of their statements with the picturesque interest OF the coincidence that the policy had expired only the week before; heaven knows how they knew it. They said that nothing remained of the building but the walls; and Lapham, on his way to business, walked up past the smoke-stained shell. The windows looked like the eye-sockets of a skull down upon the blackened and trampled snow of the street; the pavement was a sheet of ice, and the water from the engines had frozen, like streams of tears, down the face of the house, and hung in icy tags from the window-sills and copings. He gathered himself up as well as he could, and went on to his office. The chance of retrieval that had flashed upon him, as he sat smoking by that ruined hearth the evening before, stood him in such stead now as a sole hope may; and he said to himself that, having resolved not to sell his house, he was no more crippled by its loss than he would have been by letting his money lie idle in it; what he might have raised by mortgage on it could be made up in some other way; and if they would sell he could still buy out the whole business of that West Virginia company, mines, plant, stock on hand, good-will, and everything, and unite it with his own. He went early in the afternoon to see Bellingham, whose expressions of condolence for his loss he cut short with as much politeness as he knew how to throw into his impatience. Bellingham seemed at first a little dazzled with the splendid courage of his scheme; it was certainly fine in its way; but then he began to have his misgivings. "I happen to know that they haven't got much money behind them," urged Lapham. "They'll jump at an offer." Bellingham shook his head. "If they can show profit on the old manufacture, and prove they can make their paint still cheaper and better hereafter, they can have all the money they want. And it will be very difficult for you to raise it if you're threatened by them. With that competition, you know what your plant at Lapham would be worth, and what the shrinkage on your manufactured stock would be. Better sell out to them," he concluded, "if they will buy." "There ain't money enough in this country to buy out my paint," said Lapham, buttoning up his coat in a quiver of resentment. "Good afternoon, sir." Men are but grown-up boys after all. Bellingham watched this perversely proud and obstinate child fling petulantly out of his door, and felt a sympathy for him which was as truly kind as it was helpless. But Lapham was beginning to see through Bellingham, as he believed. Bellingham was, in his way, part of that conspiracy by which Lapham's creditors were trying to drive him to the wall. More than ever now he was glad that he had nothing to do with that cold-hearted, self-conceited race, and that the favours so far were all from his side. He was more than ever determined to show them, every one of them, high and low, that he and his children could get along without them, and prosper and triumph without them. He said to himself that if Penelope were engaged to Corey that very minute, he would make her break with him. He knew what he should do now, and he was going to do it without loss of time. He was going on to New York to see those West Virginia people; they had their principal office there, and he intended to get at their ideas, and then he intended to make them an offer. He managed this business better than could possibly have been expected of a man in his impassioned mood. But when it came really to business, his practical instincts, alert and wary, came to his aid against the passions that lay in wait to betray after they ceased to dominate him. He found the West Virginians full of zeal and hope, but in ten minutes he knew that they had not yet tested their strength in the money market, and had not ascertained how much or how little capital they could command. Lapham himself, if he had had so much, would not have hesitated to put a million dollars into their business. He saw, as they did not see, that they had the game in their own hands, and that if they could raise the money to extend their business, they could ruin him. It was only a question of time, and he was on the ground first. He frankly proposed a union of their interests. He admitted that they had a good thing, and that he should have to fight them hard; but he meant to fight them to the death unless they could come to some sort of terms. Now, the question was whether they had better go on and make a heavy loss for both sides by competition, or whether they had better form a partnership to run both paints and command the whole market. Lapham made them three propositions, each of which was fair and open: to sell out to them altogether; to buy them out altogether; to join facilities and forces with them, and go on in an invulnerable alliance. Let them name a figure at which they would buy, a figure at which they would sell, a figure at which they would combine,--or, in other words, the amount of capital they needed. They talked all day, going out to lunch together at the Astor House, and sitting with their knees against the counter on a row of stools before it for fifteen minutes of reflection and deglutition, with their hats on, and then returning to the basement from which they emerged. The West Virginia company's name was lettered in gilt on the wide low window, and its paint, in the form of ore, burnt, and mixed, formed a display on the window shelf Lapham examined it and praised it; from time to time they all recurred to it together; they sent out for some of Lapham's paint and compared it, the West Virginians admitting its former superiority. They were young fellows, and country persons, like Lapham, by origin, and they looked out with the same amused, undaunted provincial eyes at the myriad metropolitan legs passing on the pavement above the level of their window. He got on well with them. At last, they said what they would do. They said it was nonsense to talk of buying Lapham out, for they had not the money; and as for selling out, they would not do it, for they knew they had a big thing. But they would as soon use his capital to develop it as anybody else's, and if he could put in a certain sum for this purpose, they would go in with him. He should run the works at Lapham and manage the business in Boston, and they would run the works at Kanawha Falls and manage the business in New York. The two brothers with whom Lapham talked named their figure, subject to the approval of another brother at Kanawha Falls, to whom they would write, and who would telegraph his answer, so that Lapham could have it inside of three days. But they felt perfectly sure that he would approve; and Lapham started back on the eleven o'clock train with an elation that gradually left him as he drew near Boston, where the difficulties of raising this sum were to be over come. It seemed to him, then, that those fellows had put it up on him pretty steep, but he owned to himself that they had a sure thing, and that they were right in believing they could raise the same sum elsewhere; it would take all OF it, he admitted, to make their paint pay on the scale they had the right to expect. At their age, he would not have done differently; but when he emerged, old, sore, and sleep-broken, from the sleeping-car in the Albany depot at Boston, he wished with a pathetic self-pity that they knew how a man felt at his age. A year ago, six months ago, he would have laughed at the notion that it would be hard to raise the money. But he thought ruefully of that immense stock of paint on hand, which was now a drug in the market, of his losses by Rogers and by the failures of other men, of the fire that had licked up so many thousands in a few hours; he thought with bitterness of the tens of thousands that he had gambled away in stocks, and of the commissions that the brokers had pocketed whether he won or lost; and he could not think of any securities on which he could borrow, except his house in Nankeen Square, or the mine and works at Lapham. He set his teeth in helpless rage when he thought of that property out on the G. L. & P., that ought to be worth so much, and was worth so little if the Road chose to say so. He did not go home, but spent most of the day shining round, as he would have expressed it, and trying to see if he could raise the money. But he found that people of whom he hoped to get it were in the conspiracy which had been formed to drive him to the wall. Somehow, there seemed a sense of his embarrassments abroad. Nobody wanted to lend money on the plant at Lapham without taking time to look into the state of the business; but Lapham had no time to give, and he knew that the state of the business would not bear looking into. He could raise fifteen thousand on his Nankeen Square house, and another fifteen on his Beacon Street lot, and this was all that a man who was worth a million by rights could do! He said a million, and he said it in defiance of Bellingham, who had subjected his figures to an analysis which wounded Lapham more than he chose to show at the time, for it proved that he was not so rich and not so wise as he had seemed. His hurt vanity forbade him to go to Bellingham now for help or advice; and if he could have brought himself to ask his brothers for money, it would have been useless; they were simply well-to-do Western people, but not capitalists on the scale he required. Lapham stood in the isolation to which adversity so often seems to bring men. When its test was applied, practically or theoretically, to all those who had seemed his friends, there was none who bore it; and he thought with bitter self-contempt of the people whom he had befriended in their time of need. He said to himself that he had been a fool for that; and he scorned himself for certain acts of scrupulosity by which he had lost money in the past. Seeing the moral forces all arrayed against him, Lapham said that he would like to have the chance offered him to get even with them again; he thought he should know how to look out for himself. As he understood it, he had several days to turn about in, and he did not let one day's failure dishearten him. The morning after his return he had, in fact, a gleam of luck that gave him the greatest encouragement for the moment. A man came in to inquire about one of Rogers's wild-cat patents, as Lapham called them, and ended by buying it. He got it, of course, for less than Lapham took it for, but Lapham was glad to be rid of it for something, when he had thought it worth nothing; and when the transaction was closed, he asked the purchaser rather eagerly if he knew where Rogers was; it was Lapham's secret belief that Rogers had found there was money in the thing, and had sent the man to buy it. But it appeared that this was a mistake; the man had not come from Rogers, but had heard of the patent in another way; and Lapham was astonished in the afternoon, when his boy came to tell him that Rogers was in the outer office, and wished to speak with him. "All right," said Lapham, and he could not command at once the severity for the reception of Rogers which he would have liked to use. He found himself, in fact, so much relaxed towards him by the morning's touch of prosperity that he asked him to sit down, gruffly, of course, but distinctly; and when Rogers said in his lifeless way, and with the effect of keeping his appointment of a month before, "Those English parties are in town, and would like to talk with you in reference to the mills," Lapham did not turn him out-of-doors. He sat looking at him, and trying to make out what Rogers was after; for he did not believe that the English parties, if they existed, had any notion of buying his mills. "What if they are not for sale?" he asked. "You know that I've been expecting an offer from the G. L. & P." "I've kept watch of that. They haven't made you any offer," said Rogers quietly. "And did you think," demanded Lapham, firing up, "that I would turn them in on somebody else as you turned them in on me, when the chances are that they won't be worth ten cents on the dollar six months from now?" "I didn't know what you would do," said Rogers non-committally. "I've come here to tell you that these parties stand ready to take the mills off your hands at a fair valuation--at the value I put upon them when I turned them in." "I don't believe you!" cried Lapham brutally, but a wild predatory hope made his heart leap so that it seemed to turn over in his breast. "I don't believe there are any such parties to begin with; and in the next place, I don't believe they would buy at any such figure; unless--unless you've lied to them, as you've lied to me. Did you tell them about the G. L. & P.?" Rogers looked compassionately at him, but he answered, with unvaried dryness, "I did not think that necessary." Lapham had expected this answer, and he had expected or intended to break out in furious denunciation of Rogers when he got it; but he only found himself saying, in a sort of baffled gasp, "I wonder what your game is!" Rogers did not reply categorically, but he answered, with his impartial calm, and as if Lapham had said nothing to indicate that he differed at all with him as to disposing of the property in the way he had suggested: "If we should succeed in selling, I should be able to repay you your loans, and should have a little capital for a scheme that I think of going into." "And do you think that I am going to steal these men's money to help you plunder somebody in a new scheme?" answered Lapham. The sneer was on behalf of virtue, but it was still a sneer. "I suppose the money would be useful to you too, just now." "Why?" "Because I know that you have been trying to borrow." At this proof of wicked omniscience in Rogers, the question whether he had better not regard the affair as a fatality, and yield to his destiny, flashed upon Lapham; but he answered, "I shall want money a great deal worse than I've ever wanted it yet, before I go into such rascally business with you. Don't you know that we might as well knock these parties down on the street, and take the money out of their pockets?" "They have come on," answered Rogers, "from Portland to see you. I expected them some weeks ago, but they disappointed me. They arrived on the Circassian last night; they expected to have got in five days ago, but the passage was very stormy." "Where are they?" asked Lapham, with helpless irrelevance, and feeling himself somehow drifted from his moorings by Rogers's shipping intelligence. "They are at Young's. I told them we would call upon them after dinner this evening; they dine late." "Oh, you did, did you?" asked Lapham, trying to drop another anchor for a fresh clutch on his underlying principles. "Well, now, you go and tell them that I said I wouldn't come." "Their stay is limited," remarked Rogers. "I mentioned this evening because they were not certain they could remain over another night. But if to-morrow would suit you better----" "Tell 'em I shan't come at all," roared Lapham, as much in terror as defiance, for he felt his anchor dragging. "Tell 'em I shan't come at all! Do you understand that?" "I don't see why you should stickle as to the matter of going to them," said Rogers; "but if you think it will be better to have them approach you, I suppose I can bring them to you." "No, you can't! I shan't let you! I shan't see them! I shan't have anything to do with them. NOW do you understand?" "I inferred from our last interview," persisted Rogers, unmoved by all this violent demonstration of Lapham's, "that you wished to meet these parties. You told me that you would give me time to produce them; and I have promised them that you would meet them; I have committed myself." It was true that Lapham had defied Rogers to bring on his men, and had implied his willingness to negotiate with them. That was before he had talked the matter over with his wife, and perceived his moral responsibility in it; even she had not seen this at once. He could not enter into this explanation with Rogers; he could only say, "I said I'd give you twenty-four hours to prove yourself a liar, and you did it. I didn't say twenty-four days." "I don't see the difference," returned Rogers. "The parties are here now, and that proves that I was acting in good faith at the time. There has been no change in the posture of affairs. You don't know now any more than you knew then that the G. L. & P. is going to want the property. If there's any difference, it's in favour of the Road's having changed its mind." There was some sense in this, and Lapham felt it--felt it only too eagerly, as he recognised the next instant. Rogers went on quietly: "You're not obliged to sell to these parties when you meet them; but you've allowed me to commit myself to them by the promise that you would talk with them." "'Twan't a promise," said Lapham. "It was the same thing; they have come out from England on my guaranty that there was such and such an opening for their capital; and now what am I to say to them? It places me in a ridiculous position." Rogers urged his grievance calmly, almost impersonally, making his appeal to Lapham's sense of justice. "I CAN'T go back to those parties and tell them you won't see them. It's no answer to make. They've got a right to know why you won't see them." "Very well, then!" cried Lapham; "I'll come and TELL them why. Who shall I ask for? When shall I be there?" "At eight o'clock, please," said Rogers, rising, without apparent alarm at his threat, if it was a threat. "And ask for me; I've taken a room at the hotel for the present." "I won't keep you five minutes when I get there," said Lapham; but he did not come away till ten o'clock. It appeared to him as if the very devil was in it. The Englishmen treated his downright refusal to sell as a piece of bluff, and talked on as though it were merely the opening of the negotiation. When he became plain with them in his anger, and told them why he would not sell, they seemed to have been prepared for this as a stroke of business, and were ready to meet it. "Has this fellow," he demanded, twisting his head in the direction of Rogers, but disdaining to notice him otherwise, "been telling you that it's part of my game to say this? Well, sir, I can tell you, on my side, that there isn't a slipperier rascal unhung in America than Milton K. Rogers!" The Englishmen treated this as a piece of genuine American humour, and returned to the charge with unabated courage. They owned now, that a person interested with them had been out to look at the property, and that they were satisfied with the appearance of things. They developed further the fact that they were not acting solely, or even principally, in their own behalf, but were the agents of people in England who had projected the colonisation of a sort of community on the spot, somewhat after the plan of other English dreamers, and that they were satisfied, from a careful inspection, that the resources and facilities were those best calculated to develop the energy and enterprise of the proposed community. They were prepared to meet Mr. Lapham--Colonel, they begged his pardon, at the instance of Rogers--at any reasonable figure, and were quite willing to assume the risks he had pointed out. Something in the eyes of these men, something that lurked at an infinite depth below their speech, and was not really in their eyes when Lapham looked again, had flashed through him a sense of treachery in them. He had thought them the dupes of Rogers; but in that brief instant he had seen them--or thought he had seen them--his accomplices, ready to betray the interests of which they went on to speak with a certain comfortable jocosity, and a certain incredulous slight of his show of integrity. It was a deeper game than Lapham was used to, and he sat looking with a sort of admiration from one Englishman to the other, and then to Rogers, who maintained an exterior of modest neutrality, and whose air said, "I have brought you gentlemen together as the friend of all parties, and I now leave you to settle it among yourselves. I ask nothing, and expect nothing, except the small sum which shall accrue to me after the discharge of my obligations to Colonel Lapham." While Rogers's presence expressed this, one of the Englishmen was saying, "And if you have any scruple in allowin' us to assume this risk, Colonel Lapham, perhaps you can console yourself with the fact that the loss, if there is to be any, will fall upon people who are able to bear it--upon an association of rich and charitable people. But we're quite satisfied there will be no loss," he added savingly. "All you have to do is to name your price, and we will do our best to meet it." There was nothing in the Englishman's sophistry very shocking to Lapham. It addressed itself in him to that easy-going, not evilly intentioned, potential immorality which regards common property as common prey, and gives us the most corrupt municipal governments under the sun--which makes the poorest voter, when he has tricked into place, as unscrupulous in regard to others' money as an hereditary prince. Lapham met the Englishman's eye, and with difficulty kept himself from winking. Then he looked away, and tried to find out where he stood, or what he wanted to do. He could hardly tell. He had expected to come into that room and unmask Rogers, and have it over. But he had unmasked Rogers without any effect whatever, and the play had only begun. He had a whimsical and sarcastic sense of its being very different from the plays at the theatre. He could not get up and go away in silent contempt; he could not tell the Englishmen that he believed them a pair of scoundrels and should have nothing to do with them; he could no longer treat them as innocent dupes. He remained baffled and perplexed, and the one who had not spoken hitherto remarked-- "Of course we shan't 'aggle about a few pound, more or less. If Colonel Lapham's figure should be a little larger than ours, I've no doubt 'e'll not be too 'ard upon us in the end." Lapham appreciated all the intent of this subtle suggestion, and understood as plainly as if it had been said in so many words, that if they paid him a larger price, it was to be expected that a certain portion of the purchase-money was to return to their own hands. Still he could not move; and it seemed to him that he could not speak. "Ring that bell, Mr. Rogers," said the Englishman who had last spoken, glancing at the annunciator button in the wall near Rogers's head, "and 'ave up something 'of, can't you? I should like TO wet me w'istle, as you say 'ere, and Colonel Lapham seems to find it rather dry work." Lapham jumped to his feet, and buttoned his overcoat about him. He remembered with terror the dinner at Corey's where he had disgraced and betrayed himself, and if he went into this thing at all, he was going into it sober. "I can't stop," he said, "I must be going." "But you haven't given us an answer yet, Mr. Lapham," said the first Englishman with a successful show of dignified surprise. "The only answer I can give you now is, NO," said Lapham. "If you want another, you must let me have time to think it over." "But 'ow much time?" said the other Englishman. "We're pressed for time ourselves, and we hoped for an answer--'oped for a hanswer," he corrected himself, "at once. That was our understandin' with Mr. Rogers." "I can't let you know till morning, anyway," said Lapham, and he went out, as his custom often was, without any parting salutation. He thought Rogers might try to detain him; but Rogers had remained seated when the others got to their feet, and paid no attention to his departure. He walked out into the night air, every pulse throbbing with the strong temptation. He knew very well those men would wait, and gladly wait, till the morning, and that the whole affair was in his hands. It made him groan in spirit to think that it was. If he had hoped that some chance might take the decision from him, there was no such chance, in the present or future, that he could see. It was for him alone to commit this rascality--if it was a rascality--or not. He walked all the way home, letting one car after another pass him on the street, now so empty of other passing, and it was almost eleven o'clock when he reached home. A carriage stood before his house, and when he let himself in with his key, he heard talking in the family-room. It came into his head that Irene had got back unexpectedly, and that the sight of her was somehow going to make it harder for him; then he thought it might be Corey, come upon some desperate pretext to see Penelope; but when he opened the door he saw, with a certain absence of surprise, that it was Rogers. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, talking to Mrs. Lapham, and he had been shedding tears; dry tears they seemed, and they had left a sort of sandy, glistening trace on his cheeks. Apparently he was not ashamed of them, for the expression with which he met Lapham was that of a man making a desperate appeal in his own cause, which was identical with that of humanity, if not that of justice. "I some expected," began Rogers, "to find you here----" "No, you didn't," interrupted Lapham; "you wanted to come here and make a poor mouth to Mrs. Lapham before I got home." "I knew that Mrs. Lapham would know what was going on," said Rogers more candidly, but not more virtuously, for that he could not, "and I wished her to understand a point that I hadn't put to you at the hotel, and that I want you should consider. And I want you should consider me a little in this business too; you're not the only one that's concerned, I tell you, and I've been telling Mrs. Lapham that it's my one chance; that if you don't meet me on it, my wife and children will be reduced to beggary." "So will mine," said Lapham, "or the next thing to it." "Well, then, I want you to give me this chance to get on my feet again. You've no right to deprive me of it; it's unchristian. In our dealings with each other we should be guided by the Golden Rule, as I was saying to Mrs. Lapham before you came in. I told her that if I knew myself, I should in your place consider the circumstances of a man in mine, who had honourably endeavoured to discharge his obligations to me, and had patiently borne my undeserved suspicions. I should consider that man's family, I told Mrs. Lapham." "Did you tell her that if I went in with you and those fellows, I should be robbing the people who trusted them?" "I don't see what you've got to do with the people that sent them here. They are rich people, and could bear it if it came to the worst. But there's no likelihood, now, that it will come to the worst; you can see yourself that the Road has changed its mind about buying. And here am I without a cent in the world; and my wife is an invalid. She needs comforts, she needs little luxuries, and she hasn't even the necessaries; and you want to sacrifice her to a mere idea! You don't know in the first place that the Road will ever want to buy; and if it does, the probability is that with a colony like that planted on its line, it would make very different terms from what it would with you or me. These agents are not afraid, and their principals are rich people; and if there was any loss, it would be divided up amongst them so that they wouldn't any of them feel it." Lapham stole a troubled glance at his wife, and saw that there was no help in her. Whether she was daunted and confused in her own conscience by the outcome, so evil and disastrous, of the reparation to Rogers which she had forced her husband to make, or whether her perceptions had been blunted and darkened by the appeals which Rogers had now used, it would be difficult to say. Probably there was a mixture of both causes in the effect which her husband felt in her, and from which he turned, girding himself anew, to Rogers. "I have no wish to recur to the past," continued Rogers, with growing superiority. "You have shown a proper spirit in regard to that, and you have done what you could to wipe it out." "I should think I had," said Lapham. "I've used up about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars trying." "Some of my enterprises," Rogers admitted, "have been unfortunate, seemingly; but I have hopes that they will yet turn out well--in time. I can't understand why you should be so mindful of others now, when you showed so little regard for me then. I had come to your aid at a time when you needed help, and when you got on your feet you kicked me out of the business. I don't complain, but that is the fact; and I had to begin again, after I had supposed myself settled in life, and establish myself elsewhere." Lapham glanced again at his wife; her head had fallen; he could see that she was so rooted in her old remorse for that questionable act of his, amply and more than fully atoned for since, that she was helpless, now in the crucial moment, when he had the utmost need of her insight. He had counted upon her; he perceived now that when he had thought it was for him alone to decide, he had counted upon her just spirit to stay his own in its struggle to be just. He had not forgotten how she held out against him only a little while ago, when he asked her whether he might not rightfully sell in some such contingency as this; and it was not now that she said or even looked anything in favour of Rogers, but that she was silent against him, which dismayed Lapham. He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, the self-pity, the pity for her, the despair, and said gently, "I guess you better go to bed, Persis. It's pretty late." She turned towards the door, when Rogers said, with the obvious intention of detaining her through her curiosity-- "But I let that pass. And I don't ask now that you should sell to these men." Mrs. Lapham paused, irresolute. "What are you making this bother for, then?" demanded Lapham. "What DO you want?" "What I've been telling your wife here. I want you should sell to me. I don't say what I'm going to do with the property, and you will not have an iota of responsibility, whatever happens." Lapham was staggered, and he saw his wife's face light up with eager question. "I want that property," continued Rogers, "and I've got the money to buy it. What will you take for it? If it's the price you're standing out for----" "Persis," said Lapham, "go to bed," and he gave her a look that meant obedience for her. She went out of the door, and left him with his tempter. "If you think I'm going to help you whip the devil round the stump, you're mistaken in your man, Milton Rogers," said Lapham, lighting a cigar. "As soon as I sold to you, you would sell to that other pair of rascals. I smelt 'em out in half a minute." "They are Christian gentlemen," said Rogers. "But I don't purpose defending them; and I don't purpose telling you what I shall or shall not do with the property when it is in my hands again. The question is, Will you sell, and, if so, what is your figure? You have got nothing whatever to do with it after you've sold." It was perfectly true. Any lawyer would have told him the same. He could not help admiring Rogers for his ingenuity, and every selfish interest of his nature joined with many obvious duties to urge him to consent. He did not see why he should refuse. There was no longer a reason. He was standing out alone for nothing, any one else would say. He smoked on as if Rogers were not there, and Rogers remained before the fire as patient as the clock ticking behind his head on the mantel, and showing the gleam of its pendulum beyond his face on either side. But at last he said, "Well?" "Well," answered Lapham, "you can't expect me to give you an answer to-night, any more than before. You know that what you've said now hasn't changed the thing a bit. I wish it had. The Lord knows, I want to be rid of the property fast enough." "Then why don't you sell to me? Can't you see that you will not be responsible for what happens after you have sold?" "No, I can't see that; but if I can by morning, I'll sell." "Why do you expect to know any better by morning? You're wasting time for nothing!" cried Rogers, in his disappointment. "Why are you so particular? When you drove me out of the business you were not so very particular." Lapham winced. It was certainly ridiculous for man who had once so selfishly consulted his own interests to be stickling now about the rights of others. "I guess nothing's going to happen overnight," he answered sullenly. "Anyway, I shan't say what I shall do till morning." "What time can I see you in the morning?" "Half-past nine." Rogers buttoned his coat, and went out of the room without another word. Lapham followed him to close the street-door after him. His wife called down to him from above as he approached the room again, "Well?" "I've told him I'd let him know in the morning." "Want I should come down and talk with you?" "No," answered Lapham, in the proud bitterness which his isolation brought, "you couldn't do any good." He went in and shut the door, and by and by his wife heard him begin walking up and down; and then the rest of the night she lay awake and listened to him walking up and down. But when the first light whitened the window, the words of the Scripture came into her mind: "And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.... And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." She could not ask him anything when they met, but he raised his dull eyes after the first silence, and said, "I don't know what I'm going to say to Rogers." She could not speak; she did not know what to say, and she saw her husband when she followed him with her eyes from the window, drag heavily down toward the corner, where he was to take, the horse-car. He arrived rather later than usual at his office, and he found his letters already on his table. There was one, long and official-looking, with a printed letter-heading on the outside, and Lapham had no need to open it in order to know that it was the offer of the Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad for his mills. But he went mechanically through the verification of his prophetic fear, which was also his sole hope, and then sat looking blankly at it. Rogers came promptly at the appointed time, and Lapham handed him the letter. He must have taken it all in at a glance, and seen the impossibility of negotiating any further now, even with victims so pliant and willing as those Englishmen. "You've ruined me!" Rogers broke out. "I haven't a cent left in the world! God help my poor wife!" He went out, and Lapham remained staring at the door which closed upon him. This was his reward for standing firm for right and justice to his own destruction: to feel like a thief and a murderer. XXVI. LATER in the forenoon came the despatch from the West Virginians in New York, saying their brother assented to their agreement; and it now remained for Lapham to fulfil his part of it. He was ludicrously far from able to do this; and unless he could get some extension of time from them, he must lose this chance, his only chance, to retrieve himself. He spent the time in a desperate endeavour to raise the money, but he had not raised the half of it when the banks closed. With shame in his heart he went to Bellingham, from whom he had parted so haughtily, and laid his plan before him. He could not bring himself to ask Bellingham's help, but he told him what he proposed to do. Bellingham pointed out that the whole thing was an experiment, and that the price asked was enormous, unless a great success were morally certain. He advised delay, he advised prudence; he insisted that Lapham ought at least to go out to Kanawha Falls, and see the mines and works before he put any such sum into the development of the enterprise. "That's all well enough," cried Lapham; "but if I don't clinch this offer within twenty-four hours, they'll withdraw it, and go into the market; and then where am I?" "Go on and see them again," said Bellingham. "They can't be so peremptory as that with you. They must give you time to look at what they want to sell. If it turns out what you hope, then--I'll see what can be done. But look into it thoroughly." "Well!" cried Lapham, helplessly submitting. He took out his watch, and saw that he had forty minutes to catch the four o'clock train. He hurried back to his office, and put together some papers preparatory to going, and despatched a note by his boy to Mrs. Lapham saying that he was starting for New York, and did not know just when he should get back. The early spring day was raw and cold. As he went out through the office he saw the clerks at work with their street-coats and hats on; Miss Dewey had her jacket dragged up on her shoulders, and looked particularly comfortless as she operated her machine with her red fingers. "What's up?" asked Lapham, stopping a moment. "Seems to be something the matter with the steam," she answered, with the air of unmerited wrong habitual with so many pretty women who have to work for a living. "Well, take your writer into my room. There's a fire in the stove there," said Lapham, passing out. Half an hour later his wife came into the outer office. She had passed the day in a passion of self-reproach, gradually mounting from the mental numbness in which he had left her, and now she could wait no longer to tell him that she saw how she had forsaken him in his hour of trial and left him to bear it alone. She wondered at herself in shame and dismay; she wondered that she could have been so confused as to the real point by that old wretch of a Rogers, that she could have let him hoodwink her so, even for a moment. It astounded her that such a thing should have happened, for if there was any virtue upon which this good woman prided herself, in which she thought herself superior to her husband, it was her instant and steadfast perception of right and wrong, and the ability to choose the right to her own hurt. But she had now to confess, as each of us has had likewise to confess in his own case, that the very virtue on which she had prided herself was the thing that had played her false; that she had kept her mind so long upon that old wrong which she believed her husband had done this man that she could not detach it, but clung to the thought of reparation for it when she ought to have seen that he was proposing a piece of roguery as the means. The suffering which Lapham must inflict on him if he decided against him had been more to her apprehension than the harm he might do if he decided for him. But now she owned her limitations to herself, and above everything in the world she wished the man whom her conscience had roused and driven on whither her intelligence had not followed, to do right, to do what he felt to be right, and nothing else. She admired and revered him for going beyond her, and she wished to tell him that she did not know what he had determined to do about Rogers, but that she knew it was right, and would gladly abide the consequences with him, whatever they were. She had not been near his place of business for nearly a year, and her heart smote her tenderly as she looked about her there, and thought of the early days when she knew as much about the paint as he did; she wished that those days were back again. She saw Corey at his desk, and she could not bear to speak to him; she dropped her veil that she need not recognise him, and pushed on to Lapham's room, and opening the door without knocking, shut it behind her. Then she became aware with intolerable disappointment that her husband was not there. Instead, a very pretty girl sat at his desk, operating a typewriter. She seemed quite at home, and she paid Mrs. Lapham the scant attention which such young women often bestow upon people not personally interesting to them. It vexed the wife that any one else should seem to be helping her husband about business that she had once been so intimate with; and she did not at all like the girl's indifference to her presence. Her hat and sack hung on a nail in one corner, and Lapham's office coat, looking intensely like him to his wife's familiar eye, hung on a nail in the other corner; and Mrs. Lapham liked even less than the girl's good looks this domestication of her garments in her husband's office. She began to ask herself excitedly why he should be away from his office when she happened to come; and she had not the strength at the moment to reason herself out of her unreasonableness. "When will Colonel Lapham be in, do you suppose?" she sharply asked of the girl. "I couldn't say exactly," replied the girl, without looking round. "Has he been out long?" "I don't know as I noticed," said the girl, looking up at the clock, without looking at Mrs. Lapham. She went on working her machine. "Well, I can't wait any longer," said the wife abruptly. "When Colonel Lapham comes in, you please tell him Mrs. Lapham wants to see him." The girl started to her feet and turned toward Mrs. Lapham with a red and startled face, which she did not lift to confront her. "Yes--yes--I will," she faltered. The wife went home with a sense of defeat mixed with an irritation about this girl which she could not quell or account for. She found her husband's message, and it seemed intolerable that he should have gone to New York without seeing her; she asked herself in vain what the mysterious business could be that took him away so suddenly. She said to herself that he was neglecting her; he was leaving her out a little too much; and in demanding of herself why he had never mentioned that girl there in his office, she forgot how much she had left herself out of his business life. That was another curse of their prosperity. Well, she was glad the prosperity was going; it had never been happiness. After this she was going to know everything as she used. She tried to dismiss the whole matter till Lapham returned; and if there had been anything for her to do in that miserable house, as she called it in her thought, she might have succeeded. But again the curse was on her; there was nothing to do; and the looks of that girl kept coming back to her vacancy, her disoccupation. She tried to make herself something to do, but that beauty, which she had not liked, followed her amid the work of overhauling the summer clothing, which Irene had seen to putting away in the fall. Who was the thing, anyway? It was very strange, her being there; why did she jump up in that frightened way when Mrs. Lapham had named herself? After dark, that evening, when the question had worn away its poignancy from mere iteration, a note for Mrs. Lapham was left at the door by a messenger who said there was no answer. "A note for me?" she said, staring at the unknown, and somehow artificial-looking, handwriting of the superscription. Then she opened it and read: "Ask your husband about his lady copying-clerk. A Friend and Well-wisher," who signed the note, gave no other name. Mrs. Lapham sat helpless with it in her hand. Her brain reeled; she tried to fight the madness off; but before Lapham came back the second morning, it had become, with lessening intervals of sanity and release, a demoniacal possession. She passed the night without sleep, without rest, in the frenzy of the cruellest of the passions, which covers with shame the unhappy soul it possesses, and murderously lusts for the misery of its object. If she had known where to find her husband in New York, she would have followed him; she waited his return in an ecstasy of impatience. In the morning he came back, looking spent and haggard. She saw him drive up to the door, and she ran to let him in herself. "Who is that girl you've got in your office, Silas Lapham?" she demanded, when her husband entered. "Girl in my office?" "Yes! Who is she? What is she doing there?" "Why, what have you heard about her?" "Never you mind what I've heard. Who is she? IS IT MRS. M. THAT YOU GAVE THAT MONEY TO? I want to know who she is! I want to know what a respectable man, with grown-up girls of his own, is doing with such a looking thing as that in his office? I want to know how long she's been there? I want to know what she's there at all for?" He had mechanically pushed her before him into the long, darkened parlour, and he shut himself in there with her now, to keep the household from hearing her lifted voice. For a while he stood bewildered, and could not have answered if he would, and then he would not. He merely asked, "Have I ever accused you of anything wrong, Persis?" "You no need to!" she answered furiously, placing herself against the closed door. "Did you ever know me to do anything out of the way?" "That isn't what I asked you." "Well, I guess you may find out about that girl yourself. Get away from the door." "I won't get away from the door." She felt herself set lightly aside, and her husband opened the door and went out. "I WILL find out about her," she screamed after him. "I'll find out, and I'll disgrace you. I'll teach you how to treat me----" The air blackened round her: she reeled to the sofa and then she found herself waking from a faint. She did not know how long she had lain there, she did not care. In a moment her madness came whirling back upon her. She rushed up to his room; it was empty; the closet-doors stood ajar and the drawers were open; he must have packed a bag hastily and fled. She went out and wandered crazily up and down till she found a hack. She gave the driver her husband's business address, and told him to drive there as fast as he could; and three times she lowered the window to put her head out and ask him if he could not hurry. A thousand things thronged into her mind to support her in her evil will. She remembered how glad and proud that man had been to marry her, and how everybody said she was marrying beneath her when she took him. She remembered how good she had always been to him, how perfectly devoted, slaving early and late to advance him, and looking out for his interests in all things, and sparing herself in nothing. If it had not been for her, he might have been driving stage yet; and since their troubles had begun, the troubles which his own folly and imprudence had brought on them, her conduct had been that of a true and faithful wife. Was HE the sort of man to be allowed to play her false with impunity? She set her teeth and drew her breath sharply through them when she thought how willingly she had let him befool her, and delude her about that memorandum of payments to Mrs. M., because she loved him so much, and pitied him for his cares and anxieties. She recalled his confusion, his guilty looks. She plunged out of the carriage so hastily when she reached the office that she did not think of paying the driver; and he had to call after her when she had got half-way up the stairs. Then she went straight to Lapham's room, with outrage in her heart. There was again no one there but that type-writer girl; she jumped to her feet in a fright, as Mrs. Lapham dashed the door to behind her and flung up her veil. The two women confronted each other. "Why, the good land!" cried Mrs. Lapham, "ain't you Zerrilla Millon?" "I--I'm married," faltered the girl "My name's Dewey, now." "You're Jim Millon's daughter, anyway. How long have you been here?" "I haven't been here regularly; I've been here off and on ever since last May." "Where's your mother?" "She's here--in Boston." Mrs. Lapham kept her eyes on the girl, but she dropped, trembling, into her husband's chair, and a sort of amaze and curiosity were in her voice instead of the fury she had meant to put there. "The Colonel," continued Zerrilla, "he's been helping us, and he's got me a type-writer, so that I can help myself a little. Mother's doing pretty well now; and when Hen isn't around we can get along." "That your husband?" "I never wanted to marry him; but he promised to try to get something to do on shore; and mother was all for it, because he had a little property then, and I thought may be I'd better. But it's turned out just as I said and if he don't stay away long enough this time to let me get the divorce,--he's agreed to it, time and again,--I don't know what we're going to do." Zerrilla's voice fell, and the trouble which she could keep out of her face usually, when she was comfortably warmed and fed and prettily dressed, clouded it in the presence of a sympathetic listener. "I saw it was you, when you came in the other day," she went on; "but you didn't seem to know me. I suppose the Colonel's told you that there's a gentleman going to marry me--Mr. Wemmel's his name--as soon as I get the divorce; but sometimes I'm completely discouraged; it don't seem as if I ever could get it." Mrs. Lapham would not let her know that she was ignorant of the fact attributed to her knowledge. She remained listening to Zerrilla, and piecing out the whole history of her presence there from the facts of the past, and the traits of her husband's character. One of the things she had always had to fight him about was that idea of his that he was bound to take care of Jim Millon's worthless wife and her child because Millon had got the bullet that was meant for him. It was a perfect superstition of his; she could not beat it out of him; but she had made him promise the last time he had done anything for that woman that it should BE the last time. He had then got her a little house in one of the fishing ports, where she could take the sailors to board and wash for, and earn an honest living if she would keep straight. That was five or six years ago, and Mrs. Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs. Millon since; she had heard quite enough of her before; and had known her idle and baddish ever since she was the worst little girl at school in Lumberville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and the married days which she had made so miserable to the poor fellow who had given her his decent name and a chance to behave herself. Mrs. Lapham had no mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled often enough with her husband for befriending her. As for the child, if the mother would put Zerrilla out with some respectable family, that would be ONE thing; but as long as she kept Zerrilla with her, she was against letting her husband do anything for either of them. He had done ten times as much for them now as he had any need to, and she had made him give her his solemn word that he would do no more. She saw now that she was wrong to make him give it, and that he must have broken it again and again for the reason that he had given when she once scolded him for throwing away his money on that hussy-- "When I think of Jim Millon, I've got to; that's all." She recalled now that whenever she had brought up the subject of Mrs. Millon and her daughter, he had seemed shy of it, and had dropped it with some guess that they were getting along now. She wondered that she had not thought at once of Mrs. Millon when she saw that memorandum about Mrs. M.; but the woman had passed so entirely out of her life, that she had never dreamt of her in connection with it. Her husband had deceived her, yet her heart was no longer hot against him, but rather tenderly grateful that his deceit was in this sort, and not in that other. All cruel and shameful doubt of him went out of it. She looked at this beautiful girl, who had blossomed out of her knowledge since she saw her last, and she knew that she was only a blossomed weed, of the same worthless root as her mother, and saved, if saved, from the same evil destiny, by the good of her father in her; but so far as the girl and her mother were concerned, Mrs. Lapham knew that her husband was to blame for nothing but his wilful, wrong-headed, kind-heartedness, which her own exactions had turned into deceit. She remained a while, questioning the girl quietly about herself and her mother, and then, with a better mind towards Zerrilla, at least, than she had ever had before, she rose up and went out. There must have been some outer hint of the exhaustion in which the subsidence of her excitement had left her within, for before she had reached the head of the stairs, Corey came towards her. "Can I be of any use to you, Mrs. Lapham? The Colonel was here just before you came in, on his way to the train." "Yes,--yes. I didn't know--I thought perhaps I could catch him here. But it don't matter. I wish you would let some one go with me to get a carriage," she begged feebly. "I'll go with you myself," said the young fellow, ignoring the strangeness in her manner. He offered her his arm in the twilight of the staircase, and she was glad to put her trembling hand through it, and keep it there till he helped her into a hack which he found for her. He gave the driver her direction, and stood looking a little anxiously at her. "I thank you; I am all right now," she said, and he bade the man drive on. When she reached home she went to bed, spent with the tumult of her emotions and sick with shame and self-reproach. She understood now, as clearly as if he had told her in as many words, that if he had befriended those worthless jades--the Millons characterised themselves so, even to Mrs. Lapham's remorse--secretly and in defiance of her, it was because he dreaded her blame, which was so sharp and bitter, for what he could not help doing. It consoled her that he had defied her, deceived her; when he came back she should tell him that; and then it flashed upon her that she did not know where he was gone, or whether he would ever come again. If he never came, it would be no more than she deserved; but she sent for Penelope, and tried to give herself hopes of escape from this just penalty. Lapham had not told his daughter where he was going; she had heard him packing his bag, and had offered to help him; but he had said he could do it best, and had gone off, as he usually did, without taking leave of any one. "What were you talking about so loud, down in the parlour," she asked her mother, "just before he came up. Is there any new trouble?" "No; it was nothing." "I couldn't tell. Once I thought you were laughing." She went about, closing the curtains on account of her mother's headache, and doing awkwardly and imperfectly the things that Irene would have done so skilfully for her comfort. The day wore away to nightfall, and then Mrs. Lapham said she MUST know. Penelope said there was no one to ask; the clerks would all be gone home, and her mother said yes, there was Mr. Corey; they could send and ask him; he would know. The girl hesitated. "Very well," she said, then, scarcely above a whisper, and she presently laughed huskily. "Mr. Corey seems fated to come in, somewhere. I guess it's a Providence, mother." She sent off a note, inquiring whether he could tell her just where her father had expected to be that night; and the answer came quickly back that Corey did not know, but would look up the book-keeper and inquire. This office brought him in person, an hour later, to tell Penelope that the Colonel was to be at Lapham that night and next day. "He came in from New York, in a great hurry, and rushed off as soon as he could pack his bag," Penelope explained, "and we hadn't a chance to ask him where he was to be to-night. And mother wasn't very well, and----" "I thought she wasn't looking well when she was at the office to-day. And so I thought I would come rather than send," Corey explained in his turn. "Oh, thank you!" "If there is anything I can do--telegraph Colonel Lapham, or anything?" "Oh no, thank you; mother's better now. She merely wanted to be sure where he was." He did not offer to go, upon this conclusion of his business, but hoped he was not keeping her from her mother. She thanked him once again, and said no, that her mother was much better since she had had a cup of tea; and then they looked at each other, and without any apparent exchange of intelligence he remained, and at eleven o'clock he was still there. He was honest in saying he did not know it was so late; but he made no pretence of being sorry, and she took the blame to herself. "I oughtn't to have let you stay," she said. "But with father gone, and all that trouble hanging over us----" She was allowing him to hold her hand a moment at the door, to which she had followed him. "I'm so glad you could let me!" he said, "and I want to ask you now when I may come again. But if you need me, you'll----" A sharp pull at the door-bell outside made them start asunder, and at a sign from Penelope, who knew that the maids were abed by this time, he opened it. "Why, Irene!" shrieked the girl. Irene entered with the hackman, who had driven her unheard to the door, following with her small bags, and kissed her sister with resolute composure. "That's all," she said to the hackman. "I gave my checks to the expressman," she explained to Penelope. Corey stood helpless. Irene turned upon him, and gave him her hand. "How do you do, Mr. Corey?" she said, with a courage that sent a thrill of admiring gratitude through him. "Where's mamma, Pen? Papa gone to bed?" Penelope faltered out some reply embodying the facts, and Irene ran up the stairs to her mother's room. Mrs. Lapham started up in bed at her apparition. "Irene Lapham." "Uncle William thought he ought to tell me the trouble papa was in; and did you think I was going to stay off there junketing, while you were going through all this at home, and Pen acting so silly, too? You ought to have been ashamed to let me stay so long! I started just as soon as I could pack. Did you get my despatch? I telegraphed from Springfield. But it don't matter, now. Here I am. And I don't think I need have hurried on Pen's account," she added, with an accent prophetic of the sort of old maid she would become, if she happened not to marry. "Did you see him?" asked her mother. "It's the first time he's been here since she told him he mustn't come." "I guess it isn't the last time, by the looks," said Irene, and before she took off her bonnet she began to undo some of Penelope's mistaken arrangements of the room. At breakfast, where Corey and his mother met the next morning before his father and sisters came down, he told her, with embarrassment which told much more, that he wished now that she would go and call upon the Laphams. Mrs. Corey turned a little pale, but shut her lips tight and mourned in silence whatever hopes she had lately permitted herself. She answered with Roman fortitude: "Of course, if there's anything between you and Miss Lapham, your family ought to recognise it." "Yes," said Corey. "You were reluctant to have me call at first, but now if the affair is going on----" "It is! I hope--yes, it is!" "Then I ought to go and see her, with your sisters; and she ought to come here and--we ought all to see her and make the matter public. We can't do so too soon. It will seem as if we were ashamed if we don't." "Yes, you are quite right, mother," said the young man gratefully, "and I feel how kind and good you are. I have tried to consider you in this matter, though I don't seem to have done so; I know what your rights are, and I wish with all my heart that I were meeting even your tastes perfectly. But I know you will like her when you come to know her. It's been very hard for her every way--about her sister,--and she's made a great sacrifice for me. She's acted nobly." Mrs. Corey, whose thoughts cannot always be reported, said she was sure of it, and that all she desired was her son's happiness. "She's been very unwilling to consider it an engagement on that account, and on account of Colonel Lapham's difficulties. I should like to have you go, now, for that very reason. I don't know just how serious the trouble is; but it isn't a time when we can seem indifferent." The logic of this was not perhaps so apparent to the glasses of fifty as to the eyes of twenty-six; but Mrs. Corey, however she viewed it, could not allow herself to blench before the son whom she had taught that to want magnanimity was to be less than gentlemanly. She answered, with what composure she could, "I will take your sisters," and then she made some natural inquiries about Lapham's affairs. "Oh, I hope it will come out all right," Corey said, with a lover's vague smile, and left her. When his father came down, rubbing his long hands together, and looking aloof from all the cares of the practical world, in an artistic withdrawal, from which his eye ranged over the breakfast-table before he sat down, Mrs. Corey told him what she and their son had been saying. He laughed, with a delicate impersonal appreciation of the predicament. "Well, Anna, you can't say but if you ever were guilty of supposing yourself porcelain, this is a just punishment of your arrogance. Here you are bound by the very quality on which you've prided yourself to behave well to a bit of earthenware who is apparently in danger of losing the gilding that rendered her tolerable." "We never cared for the money," said Mrs. Corey. "You know that." "No; and now we can't seem to care for the loss of it. That would be still worse. Either horn of the dilemma gores us. Well, we still have the comfort we had in the beginning; we can't help ourselves; and we should only make bad worse by trying. Unless we can look to Tom's inamorata herself for help." Mrs. Corey shook her head so gloomily that her husband broke off with another laugh. But at the continued trouble of her face, he said, sympathetically: "My dear, I know it's a very disagreeable affair; and I don't think either of us has failed to see that it was so from the beginning. I have had my way of expressing my sense of it, and you yours, but we have always been of the same mind about it. We would both have preferred to have Tom marry in his own set; the Laphams are about the last set we could have wished him to marry into. They ARE uncultivated people, and so far as I have seen them, I'm not able to believe that poverty will improve them. Still, it may. Let us hope for the best, and let us behave as well as we know how. I'm sure YOU will behave well, and I shall try. I'm going with you to call on Miss Lapham. This is a thing that can't be done by halves!" He cut his orange in the Neapolitan manner, and ate it in quarters. XXVII. IRENE did not leave her mother in any illusion concerning her cousin Will and herself. She said they had all been as nice to her as they could be, and when Mrs. Lapham hinted at what had been in her thoughts,--or her hopes, rather,--Irene severely snubbed the notion. She said that he was as good as engaged to a girl out there, and that he had never dreamt of her. Her mother wondered at her severity; in these few months the girl had toughened and hardened; she had lost all her babyish dependence and pliability; she was like iron; and here and there she was sharpened to a cutting edge. It had been a life and death struggle with her; she had conquered, but she had also necessarily lost much. Perhaps what she had lost was not worth keeping; but at any rate she had lost it. She required from her mother a strict and accurate account of her father's affairs, so far as Mrs Lapham knew them; and she showed a business-like quickness in comprehending them that Penelope had never pretended to. With her sister she ignored the past as completely as it was possible to do; and she treated both Corey and Penelope with the justice which their innocence of voluntary offence deserved. It was a difficult part, and she kept away from them as much as she could. She had been easily excused, on a plea of fatigue from her journey, when Mr. and Mrs. Corey had called the day after her arrival, and Mrs. Lapham being still unwell, Penelope received them alone. The girl had instinctively judged best that they should know the worst at once, and she let them have the full brunt of the drawing-room, while she was screwing her courage up to come down and see them. She was afterwards--months afterwards--able to report to Corey that when she entered the room his father was sitting with his hat on his knees, a little tilted away from the Emancipation group, as if he expected the Lincoln to hit him, with that lifted hand of benediction; and that Mrs. Corey looked as if she were not sure but the Eagle pecked. But for the time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as might be by the complications of her position, and received her visitors with a piteous distraction which could not fail of touching Bromfield Corey's Italianised sympatheticism. He was very polite and tender with her at first, and ended by making a joke with her, to which Penelope responded, in her sort. He said he hoped they parted friends, if not quite acquaintances; and she said she hoped they would be able to recognise each other if they ever met again. "That is what I meant by her pertness," said Mrs Corey, when they were driving away. "Was it very pert?" he queried. "The child had to answer something." "I would much rather she had answered nothing, under the circumstances," said Mrs. Corey. "However!" she added hopelessly. "Oh, she's a merry little grig, you can see that, and there's no harm in her. I can understand a little why a formal fellow like Tom should be taken with her. She hasn't the least reverence, I suppose, and joked with the young man from the beginning. You must remember, Anna, that there was a time when you liked my joking." "It was a very different thing!" "But that drawing-room," pursued Corey; "really, I don't see how Tom stands that. Anna, a terrible thought occurs to me! Fancy Tom being married in front of that group, with a floral horse-shoe in tuberoses coming down on either side of it!" "Bromfield!" cried his wife, "you are unmerciful." "No, no, my dear," he argued; "merely imaginative. And I can even imagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, at times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn't quite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, my dear." "Your father seemed actually to like her," Mrs. Corey reported to her daughters, very much shaken in her own prejudices by the fact. If the girl were not so offensive to his fastidiousness, there might be some hope that she was not so offensive as Mrs. Corey had thought. "I wonder how she will strike YOU," she concluded, looking from one daughter to another, as if trying to decide which of them would like Penelope least. Irene's return and the visit of the Coreys formed a distraction for the Laphams in which their impending troubles seemed to hang further aloof; but it was only one of those reliefs which mark the course of adversity, and it was not one of the cheerful reliefs. At any other time, either incident would have been an anxiety and care for Mrs. Lapham which she would have found hard to bear; but now she almost welcomed them. At the end of three days Lapham returned, and his wife met him as if nothing unusual had marked their parting; she reserved her atonement for a fitter time; he would know now from the way she acted that she felt all right towards him. He took very little note of her manner, but met his family with an austere quiet that puzzled her, and a sort of pensive dignity that refined his rudeness to an effect that sometimes comes to such natures after long sickness, when the animal strength has been taxed and lowered. He sat silent with her at the table after their girls had left them alone, and seeing that he did not mean to speak, she began to explain why Irene had come home, and to praise her. "Yes, she done right," said Lapham. "It was time for her to come," he added gently. Then he was silent again, and his wife told him of Corey's having been there, and of his father's and mother's calling. "I guess Pen's concluded to make it up," she said. "Well, we'll see about that," said Lapham; and now she could no longer forbear to ask him about his affairs. "I don't know as I've got any right to know anything about it," she said humbly, with remote allusion to her treatment of him. "But I can't help wanting to know. How ARE things going, Si?" "Bad," he said, pushing his plate from him, and tilting himself back in his chair. "Or they ain't going at all. They've stopped." "What do you mean, Si?" she persisted, tenderly. "I've got to the end of my string. To-morrow I shall call a meeting of my creditors, and put myself in their hands. If there's enough left to satisfy them, I'm satisfied." His voice dropped in his throat; he swallowed once or twice, and then did not speak. "Do you mean that it's all over with you?" she asked fearfully. He bowed his big head, wrinkled and grizzled; and after awhile he said, "It's hard to realise it; but I guess there ain't any doubt about it." He drew a long breath, and then he explained to her about the West Virginia people, and how he had got an extension of the first time they had given him, and had got a man to go up to Lapham with him and look at the works,--a man that had turned up in New York, and wanted to put money in the business. His money would have enabled Lapham to close with the West Virginians. "The devil was in it, right straight along," said Lapham. "All I had to do was to keep quiet about that other company. It was Rogers and his property right over again. He liked the look of things, and he wanted to go into the business, and he had the money--plenty; it would have saved me with those West Virginia folks. But I had to tell him how I stood. I had to tell him all about it, and what I wanted to do. He began to back water in a minute, and the next morning I saw that it was up with him. He's gone back to New York. I've lost my last chance. Now all I've got to do is to save the pieces." "Will--will--everything go?" she asked. "I can't tell, yet. But they shall have a chance at everything--every dollar, every cent. I'm sorry for you, Persis--and the girls." "Oh, don't talk of US!" She was trying to realise that the simple, rude soul to which her heart clove in her youth, but which she had put to such cruel proof, with her unsparing conscience and her unsparing tongue, had been equal to its ordeals, and had come out unscathed and unstained. He was able in his talk to make so little of them; he hardly seemed to see what they were; he was apparently not proud of them, and certainly not glad; if they were victories of any sort, he bore them with the patience of defeat. His wife wished to praise him, but she did not know how; so she offered him a little reproach, in which alone she touched the cause of her behaviour at parting. "Silas," she asked, after a long gaze at him, "why didn't you tell me you had Jim Millon's girl there?" "I didn't suppose you'd like it, Persis," he answered. "I did intend to tell you at first, but then I put--I put it off. I thought you'd come round some day, and find it out for yourself." "I'm punished," said his wife, "for not taking enough interest in your business to even come near it. If we're brought back to the day of small things, I guess it's a lesson for me, Silas." "Oh, I don't know about the lesson," he said wearily. That night she showed him the anonymous scrawl which had kindled her fury against him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guess I know who it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I guess you do too, Persis." "But how--how could he----" "Mebbe he believed it," said Lapham, with patience that cut her more keenly than any reproach. "YOU did." Perhaps because the process of his ruin had been so gradual, perhaps because the excitement of preceding events had exhausted their capacity for emotion, the actual consummation of his bankruptcy brought a relief, a repose to Lapham and his family, rather than a fresh sensation of calamity. In the shadow of his disaster they returned to something like their old, united life; they were at least all together again; and it will be intelligible to those whom life has blessed with vicissitude, that Lapham should come home the evening after he had given up everything, to his creditors, and should sit down to his supper so cheerful that Penelope could joke him in the old way, and tell him that she thought from his looks they had concluded to pay him a hundred cents on every dollar he owed them. As James Bellingham had taken so much interest in his troubles from the first, Lapham thought he ought to tell him, before taking the final step, just how things stood with him, and what he meant to do. Bellingham made some futile inquiries about his negotiations with the West Virginians, and Lapham told him they had come to nothing. He spoke of the New York man, and the chance that he might have sold out half his business to him. "But, of course, I had to let him know how it was about those fellows." "Of course," said Bellingham, not seeing till afterwards the full significance of Lapham's action. Lapham said nothing about Rogers and the Englishmen. He believed that he had acted right in that matter, and he was satisfied; but he did not care to have Bellingham, or anybody, perhaps, think he had been a fool. All those who were concerned in his affairs said he behaved well, and even more than well, when it came to the worst. The prudence, the good sense, which he had shown in the first years of his success, and of which his great prosperity seemed to have bereft him, came back, and these qualities, used in his own behalf, commended him as much to his creditors as the anxiety he showed that no one should suffer by him; this even made some of them doubtful of his sincerity. They gave him time, and there would have been no trouble in his resuming on the old basis, if the ground had not been cut from under him by the competition of the West Virginia company. He saw himself that it was useless to try to go on in the old way, and he preferred to go back and begin the world anew where he had first begun it, in the hills at Lapham. He put the house at Nankeen Square, with everything else he had, into the payment of his debts, and Mrs. Lapham found it easier to leave it for the old farmstead in Vermont than it would have been to go from that home of many years to the new house on the water side of Beacon. This thing and that is embittered to us, so that we may be willing to relinquish it; the world, life itself, is embittered to most of us, so that we are glad to have done with them at last; and this home was haunted with such memories to each of those who abandoned it that to go was less exile than escape. Mrs. Lapham could not look into Irene's room without seeing the girl there before her glass, tearing the poor little keep-sakes of her hapless fancy from their hiding-places to take them and fling them in passionate renunciation upon her sister; she could not come into the sitting-room, where her little ones had grown up, without starting at the thought of her husband sitting so many weary nights at his desk there, trying to fight his way back to hope out of the ruin into which he was slipping. When she remembered that night when Rogers came, she hated the place. Irene accepted her release from the house eagerly, and was glad to go before and prepare for the family at Lapham. Penelope was always ashamed of her engagement there; it must seem better somewhere else and she was glad to go too. No one but Lapham in fact, felt the pang of parting in all its keenness. Whatever regret the others had was softened to them by the likeness of their flitting to many of those removals for the summer which they made in the late spring when they left Nankeen Square; they were going directly into the country instead of to the seaside first; but Lapham, who usually remained in town long after they had gone, knew all the difference. For his nerves there was no mechanical sense of coming back; this was as much the end of his proud, prosperous life as death itself could have been. He was returning to begin life anew, but he knew as well as he knew that he should not find his vanished youth in his native hills, that it could never again be the triumph that it had been. That was impossible, not only in his stiffened and weakened forces, but in the very nature of things. He was going back, by grace of the man whom he owed money, to make what he could out of the one chance which his successful rivals had left him. In one phase his paint had held its own against bad times and ruinous competition, and it was with the hope of doing still more with the Persis Brand that he now set himself to work. The West Virginia people confessed that they could not produce those fine grades, and they willingly left the field to him. A strange, not ignoble friendliness existed between Lapham and the three brothers; they had used him fairly; it was their facilities that had conquered him, not their ill-will; and he recognised in them without enmity the necessity to which he had yielded. If he succeeded in his efforts to develop his paint in this direction, it must be for a long time on a small scale compared with his former business, which it could never equal, and he brought to them the flagging energies of an elderly man. He was more broken than he knew by his failure; it did not kill, as it often does, but it weakened the spring once so strong and elastic. He lapsed more and more into acquiescence with his changed condition, and that bragging note of his was rarely sounded. He worked faithfully enough in his enterprise, but sometimes he failed to seize occasions that in his younger days he would have turned to golden account. His wife saw in him a daunted look that made her heart ache for him. One result of his friendly relations with the West Virginia people was that Corey went in with them, and the fact that he did so solely upon Lapham's advice, and by means of his recommendation, was perhaps the Colonel's proudest consolation. Corey knew the business thoroughly, and after half a year at Kanawha Falls and in the office at New York, he went out to Mexico and Central America, to see what could be done for them upon the ground which he had theoretically studied with Lapham. Before he went he came up to Vermont, and urged Penelope to go with him. He was to be first in the city of Mexico, and if his mission was successful he was to be kept there and in South America several years, watching the new railroad enterprises and the development of mechanical agriculture and whatever other undertakings offered an opening for the introduction of the paint. They were all young men together, and Corey, who had put his money into the company, had a proprietary interest in the success which they were eager to achieve. "There's no more reason now and no less than ever there was," mused Penelope, in counsel with her mother, "why I should say Yes, or why I should say No. Everything else changes, but this is just where it was a year ago. It don't go backward, and it don't go forward. Mother, I believe I shall take the bit in my teeth--if anybody will put it there!" "It isn't the same as it was," suggested her mother. "You can see that Irene's all over it." "That's no credit to me," said Penelope. "I ought to be just as much ashamed as ever." "You no need ever to be ashamed." "That's true, too," said the girl. "And I can sneak off to Mexico with a good conscience if I could make up my mind to it." She laughed. "Well, if I could be SENTENCED to be married, or somebody would up and forbid the banns! I don't know what to do about it." Her mother left her to carry her hesitation back to Corey, and she said now, they had better go all over it and try to reason it out. "And I hope that whatever I do, it won't be for my own sake, but for--others!" Corey said he was sure of that, and looked at her with eyes of patient tenderness. "I don't say it is wrong," she proceeded, rather aimlessly, "but I can't make it seem right. I don't know whether I can make you understand, but the idea of being happy, when everybody else is so miserable, is more than I can endure. It makes me wretched." "Then perhaps that's your share of the common suffering," suggested Corey, smiling. "Oh, you know it isn't! You know it's nothing. Oh! One of the reasons is what I told you once before, that as long as father is in trouble I can't let you think of me. Now that he's lost everything--?" She bent her eyes inquiringly upon him, as if for the effect of this argument. "I don't think that's a very good reason," he answered seriously, but smiling still. "Do you believe me when I tell you that I love you?" "Why, I suppose I must," she said, dropping her eyes. "Then why shouldn't I think all the more of you on account of your father's loss? You didn't suppose I cared for you because he was prosperous?" There was a shade of reproach, ever so delicate and gentle, in his smiling question, which she felt. "No, I couldn't think such a thing of you. I--I don't know what I meant. I meant that----" She could not go on and say that she had felt herself more worthy of him because of her father's money; it would not have been true; yet there was no other explanation. She stopped, and cast a helpless glance at him. He came to her aid. "I understand why you shouldn't wish me to suffer by your father's misfortunes." "Yes, that was it; and there is too great a difference every way. We ought to look at that again. You mustn't pretend that you don't know it, for that wouldn't be true. Your mother will never like me, and perhaps--perhaps I shall not like her." "Well," said Corey, a little daunted, "you won't have to marry my family." "Ah, that isn't the point!" "I know it," he admitted. "I won't pretend that I don't see what you mean; but I'm sure that all the differences would disappear when you came to know my family better. I'm not afraid but you and my mother will like each other--she can't help it!" he exclaimed, less judicially than he had hitherto spoken, and he went on to urge some points of doubtful tenability. "We have our ways, and you have yours; and while I don't say but what you and my mother and sisters would be a little strange together at first, it would soon wear off, on both sides. There can't be anything hopelessly different in you all, and if there were it wouldn't be any difference to me." "Do you think it would be pleasant to have you on my side against your mother?" "There won't be any sides. Tell me just what it is you're afraid of." "Afraid?" "Thinking of, then." "I don't know. It isn't anything they say or do," she explained, with her eyes intent on his. "It's what they are. I couldn't be natural with them, and if I can't be natural with people, I'm disagreeable." "Can you be natural with me?" "Oh, I'm not afraid of you. I never was. That was the trouble, from the beginning." "Well, then, that's all that's necessary. And it never was the least trouble to me!" "It made me untrue to Irene." "You mustn't say that! You were always true to her." "She cared for you first." "Well, but I never cared for her at all!" he besought her. "She thought you did." "That was nobody's fault, and I can't let you make it yours. My dear----" "Wait. We must understand each other," said Penelope, rising from her seat to prevent an advance he was making from his; "I want you to realise the whole affair. Should you want a girl who hadn't a cent in the world, and felt different in your mother's company, and had cheated and betrayed her own sister?" "I want you!" "Very well, then, you can't have me. I should always despise myself. I ought to give you up for all these reasons. Yes, I must." She looked at him intently, and there was a tentative quality in her affirmations. "Is this your answer?" he said. "I must submit. If I asked too much of you, I was wrong. And--good-bye." He held out his hand, and she put hers in it. "You think I'm capricious and fickle!" she said. "I can't help it--I don't know myself. I can't keep to one thing for half a day at a time. But it's right for us to part--yes, it must be. It must be," she repeated; "and I shall try to remember that. Good-bye! I will try to keep that in my mind, and you will too--you won't care, very soon! I didn't mean THAT--no; I know how true you are; but you will soon look at me differently; and see that even IF there hadn't been this about Irene, I was not the one for you. You do think so, don't you?" she pleaded, clinging to his hand. "I am not at all what they would like--your family; I felt that. I am little, and black, and homely, and they don't understand my way of talking, and now that we've lost everything--No, I'm not fit. Good-bye. You're quite right, not to have patience with me any longer. I've tried you enough. I ought to be willing to marry you against their wishes if you want me to, but I can't make the sacrifice--I'm too selfish for that----" All at once she flung herself on his breast. "I can't even give you up! I shall never dare look any one in the face again. Go, go! But take me with you! I tried to do without you! I gave it a fair trial, and it was a dead failure. O poor Irene! How could she give you up?" Corey went back to Boston immediately, and left Penelope, as he must, to tell her sister that they were to be married. She was spared from the first advance toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding. Irene came straight to her after Corey was gone, and demanded, "Penelope Lapham, have you been such a ninny as to send that man away on my account?" Penelope recoiled from this terrible courage; she did not answer directly, and Irene went on, "Because if you did, I'll thank you to bring him back again. I'm not going to have him thinking that I'm dying for a man that never cared for me. It's insulting, and I'm not going to stand it. Now, you just send for him!" "Oh, I will, 'Rene," gasped Penelope. And then she added, shamed out of her prevarication by Irene's haughty magnanimity, "I have. That is--he's coming back----" Irene looked at her a moment, and then, whatever thought was in her mind, said fiercely, "Well!" and left her to her dismay--her dismay and her relief, for they both knew that this was the last time they should ever speak of that again. The marriage came after so much sorrow and trouble, and the fact was received with so much misgiving for the past and future, that it brought Lapham none of the triumph in which he had once exulted at the thought of an alliance with the Coreys. Adversity had so far been his friend that it had taken from him all hope of the social success for which people crawl and truckle, and restored him, through failure and doubt and heartache, the manhood which his prosperity had so nearly stolen from him. Neither he nor his wife thought now that their daughter was marrying a Corey; they thought only that she was giving herself to the man who loved her, and their acquiescence was sobered still further by the presence of Irene. Their hearts were far more with her. Again and again Mrs. Lapham said she did not see how she could go through it. "I can't make it seem right," she said. "It IS right," steadily answered the Colonel. "Yes, I know. But it don't SEEM so." It would be easy to point out traits in Penelope's character which finally reconciled all her husband's family and endeared her to them. These things continually happen in novels; and the Coreys, as they had always promised themselves to do, made the best, and not the worst of Tom's marriage. They were people who could value Lapham's behaviour as Tom reported it to them. They were proud of him, and Bromfield Corey, who found a delicate, aesthetic pleasure in the heroism with which Lapham had withstood Rogers and his temptations--something finely dramatic and unconsciously effective,--wrote him a letter which would once have flattered the rough soul almost to ecstasy, though now he affected to slight it in showing it. "It's all right if it makes it more comfortable for Pen," he said to his wife. But the differences remained uneffaced, if not uneffaceable, between the Coreys and Tom Corey's wife. "If he had only married the Colonel!" subtly suggested Nanny Corey. There was a brief season of civility and forbearance on both sides, when he brought her home before starting for Mexico, and her father-in-law made a sympathetic feint of liking Penelope's way of talking, but it is questionable if even he found it so delightful as her husband did. Lily Corey made a little, ineffectual sketch of her, which she put by with other studies to finish up, sometime, and found her rather picturesque in some ways. Nanny got on with her better than the rest, and saw possibilities for her in the country to which she was going. "As she's quite unformed, socially," she explained to her mother, "there is a chance that she will form herself on the Spanish manner, if she stays there long enough, and that when she comes back she will have the charm of, not olives, perhaps, but tortillas, whatever they are: something strange and foreign, even if it's borrowed. I'm glad she's going to Mexico. At that distance we can--correspond." Her mother sighed, and said bravely that she was sure they all got on very pleasantly as it was, and that she was perfectly satisfied if Tom was. There was, in fact, much truth in what she said of their harmony with Penelope. Having resolved, from the beginning, to make the best of the worst, it might almost be said that they were supported and consoled in their good intentions by a higher power. This marriage had not, thanks to an over-ruling Providence, brought the succession of Lapham teas upon Bromfield Corey which he had dreaded; the Laphams were far off in their native fastnesses, and neither Lily nor Nanny Corey was obliged to sacrifice herself to the conversation of Irene; they were not even called upon to make a social demonstration for Penelope at a time when, most people being still out of town, it would have been so easy; she and Tom had both begged that there might be nothing of that kind; and though none of the Coreys learned to know her very well in the week she spent with them, they did not find it hard to get on with her. There were even moments when Nanny Corey, like her father, had glimpses of what Tom had called her humour, but it was perhaps too unlike their own to be easily recognisable. Whether Penelope, on her side, found it more difficult to harmonise, I cannot say. She had much more of the harmonising to do, since they were four to one; but then she had gone through so much greater trials before. When the door of their carriage closed and it drove off with her and her husband to the station, she fetched a long sigh. "What is it?" asked Corey, who ought to have known better. "Oh, nothing. I don't think I shall feel strange amongst the Mexicans now." He looked at her with a puzzled smile, which grew a little graver, and then he put his arm round her and drew her closer to him. This made her cry on his shoulder. "I only meant that I should have you all to myself." There is no proof that she meant more, but it is certain that our manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. The price that we pay for civilisation is the fine yet impassable differentiation of these. Perhaps we pay too much; but it will not be possible to persuade those who have the difference in their favour that this is so. They may be right; and at any rate, the blank misgiving, the recurring sense of disappointment to which the young people's departure left the Coreys is to be considered. That was the end of their son and brother for them; they felt that; and they were not mean or unamiable people. He remained three years away. Some changes took place in that time. One of these was the purchase by the Kanawha Falls Company of the mines and works at Lapham. The transfer relieved Lapham of the load of debt which he was still labouring under, and gave him an interest in the vaster enterprise of the younger men, which he had once vainly hoped to grasp all in his own hand. He began to tell of this coincidence as something very striking; and pushing on more actively the special branch of the business left to him, he bragged, quite in his old way, of its enormous extension. His son-in-law, he said, was pushing it in Mexico and Central America: an idea that they had originally had in common. Well, young blood was what was wanted in a thing of that kind. Now, those fellows out in West Virginia: all young, and a perfect team! For himself, he owned that he had made mistakes; he could see just where the mistakes were--put his finger right on them. But one thing he could say: he had been no man's enemy but his own; every dollar, every cent had gone to pay his debts; he had come out with clean hands. He said all this, and much more, to Mr. Sewell the summer after he sold out, when the minister and his wife stopped at Lapham on their way across from the White Mountains to Lake Champlain; Lapham had found them on the cars, and pressed them to stop off. There were times when Mrs. Lapham had as great pride in the clean-handedness with which Lapham had come out as he had himself, but her satisfaction was not so constant. At those times, knowing the temptations he had resisted, she thought him the noblest and grandest of men; but no woman could endure to live in the same house with a perfect hero, and there were other times when she reminded him that if he had kept his word to her about speculating in stocks, and had looked after the insurance of his property half as carefully as he had looked after a couple of worthless women who had no earthly claim on him, they would not be where they were now. He humbly admitted it all, and left her to think of Rogers herself. She did not fail to do so, and the thought did not fail to restore him to her tenderness again. I do not know how it is that clergymen and physicians keep from telling their wives the secrets confided to them; perhaps they can trust their wives to find them out for themselves whenever they wish. Sewell had laid before his wife the case of the Laphams after they came to consult with him about Corey's proposal to Penelope, for he wished to be confirmed in his belief that he had advised them soundly; but he had not given her their names, and he had not known Corey's himself. Now he had no compunctions in talking the affair over with her without the veil of ignorance which she had hitherto assumed, for she declared that as soon as she heard of Corey's engagement to Penelope, the whole thing had flashed upon her. "And that night at dinner I could have told the child that he was in love with her sister by the way he talked about her; I heard him; and if she had not been so blindly in love with him herself, she would have known it too. I must say, I can't help feeling a sort of contempt for her sister." "Oh, but you must not!" cried Sewell. "That is wrong, cruelly wrong. I'm sure that's out of your novel-reading, my dear, and not out of your heart. Come! It grieves me to hear you say such a thing as that." "Oh, I dare say this pretty thing has got over it--how much character she has got!--and I suppose she'll see somebody else." Sewell had to content himself with this partial concession. As a matter of fact, unless it was the young West Virginian who had come on to arrange the purchase of the Works, Irene had not yet seen any one, and whether there was ever anything between them is a fact that would need a separate inquiry. It is certain that at the end of five years after the disappointment which she met so bravely, she was still unmarried. But she was even then still very young, and her life at Lapham had been varied by visits to the West. It had also been varied by an invitation, made with the politest resolution by Mrs. Corey, to visit in Boston, which the girl was equal to refusing in the same spirit. Sewell was intensely interested in the moral spectacle which Lapham presented under his changed conditions. The Colonel, who was more the Colonel in those hills than he could ever have been on the Back Bay, kept him and Mrs. Sewell over night at his house; and he showed the minister minutely round the Works and drove him all over his farm. For this expedition he employed a lively colt which had not yet come of age, and an open buggy long past its prime, and was no more ashamed of his turnout than of the finest he had ever driven on the Milldam. He was rather shabby and slovenly in dress, and he had fallen unkempt, after the country fashion, as to his hair and beard and boots. The house was plain, and was furnished with the simpler moveables out of the house in Nankeen Square. There were certainly all the necessaries, but no luxuries unless the statues of Prayer and Faith might be so considered. The Laphams now burned kerosene, of course, and they had no furnace in the winter; these were the only hardships the Colonel complained of; but he said that as soon as the company got to paying dividends again,--he was evidently proud of the outlays that for the present prevented this,--he should put in steam heat and naphtha-gas. He spoke freely of his failure, and with a confidence that seemed inspired by his former trust in Sewell, whom, indeed, he treated like an intimate friend, rather than an acquaintance of two or three meetings. He went back to his first connection with Rogers, and he put before Sewell hypothetically his own conclusions in regard to the matter. "Sometimes," he said, "I get to thinking it all over, and it seems to me I done wrong about Rogers in the first place; that the whole trouble came from that. It was just like starting a row of bricks. I tried to catch up and stop 'em from going, but they all tumbled, one after another. It wa'n't in the nature of things that they could be stopped till the last brick went. I don't talk much with my wife, any more about it; but I should like to know how it strikes you." "We can trace the operation of evil in the physical world," replied the minister, "but I'm more and more puzzled about it in the moral world. There its course is often so very obscure; and often it seems to involve, so far as we can see, no penalty whatever. And in your own case, as I understand, you don't admit--you don't feel sure--that you ever actually did wrong this man----" "Well, no; I don't. That is to say----" He did not continue, and after a while Sewell said, with that subtle kindness of his, "I should be inclined to think--nothing can be thrown quite away; and it can't be that our sins only weaken us--that your fear of having possibly behaved selfishly toward this man kept you on your guard, and strengthened you when you were brought face to face with a greater"--he was going to say temptation, but he saved Lapham's pride, and said--"emergency." "Do you think so?" "I think that there may be truth in what I suggest." "Well, I don't know what it was," said Lapham; "all I know is that when it came to the point, although I could see that I'd got to go under unless I did it--that I couldn't sell out to those Englishmen, and I couldn't let that man put his money into my business without I told him just how things stood." As Sewell afterwards told his wife, he could see that the loss of his fortune had been a terrible trial to Lapham, just because his prosperity had been so gross and palpable; and he had now a burning desire to know exactly how, at the bottom of his heart, Lapham still felt. "And do you ever have any regrets?" he delicately inquired of him. "About what I done? Well, it don't always seem as if I done it," replied Lapham. "Seems sometimes as if it was a hole opened for me, and I crept out of it. I don't know," he added thoughtfully, biting the corner of his stiff moustache. "I don't know as I should always say it paid; but if I done it, and the thing was to do over again, right in the same way, I guess I should have to do it." 
18153	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18153-h.htm or 18153-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/1/5/18153/18153-h/18153-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/1/5/18153/18153-h.zip) The Aimwell Stories OSCAR: Or The Boy Who Had His Own Way. by WALTER AIMWELL, Author of "Clinton," "Boy's Own Guide," Etc. With Illustrations. [Frontispiece: Winter Scene on Boston Common.] [Title-Page: Vignette.] Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 69 Washington Street. New York: Sheldon and Company. Cincinnati: Geo. S. Blanchard. 1861. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by Gould and Lincoln, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, of the District of Massachusetts PREFACE. In the story of OSCAR is portrayed the career of a bright but somewhat headstrong boy, who was over-indulged by his parents, and who usually managed to "have his own way," by hook or by crook. The book is designed to exhibit some of the bad consequences of acquiring a wayward and lawless spirit, and of falling into indolent, untruthful, and disobedient habits. These are its main lessons, intermingled with which are a variety of others, of scarcely less importance to the young. _Winchester, Mass._ ADVERTISEMENT. "PRECEPTS MAY LEAD BUT EXAMPLES DRAW." "THE AIMWELL STORIES" are designed to portray some of the leading phases of juvenile character, and to point out their tendencies to future good and evil. This they undertake to do by describing the quiet, natural scenes and incidents of everyday life, in city and country, at home and abroad, at school and upon the play-ground, rather than by resorting to romantic adventures and startling effects. While their main object is to persuade the young to lay well the foundations of their characters, to win them to the ways of virtue, and to incite them to good deeds and noble aims, the attempt is also made to mingle amusing, curious, and useful information with the moral lessons conveyed. It is hoped that the volumes will thus be made attractive and agreeable, as well as instructive, to the youthful reader. Each volume of the "Aimwell Stories" will be complete and independent of itself, although a connecting thread will run through the whole series. The order of the volumes, so far as completed, is as follows:-- I. OSCAR; OR, THE BOY WHO HAD HIS OWN WAY. II. CLINTON; OR, BOY-LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. III. ELLA; OR, TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF. IV. WHISTLER; OR, THE MANLY BOY. V. MARCUS; OR, THE BOY-TAMER. VI. JESSIE; OR, TRYING TO BE SOMEBODY. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. A KITCHEN SCENE. Bridget and her little realm--A troop of rude intruders--An imperious demand--A flat refusal--Prying investigations--Biddy's displeasure aroused--Why Oscar could not find the pie--Another squabble, and its consequences--Studying under difficulties--Shooting peas--Ralph and George provoked--A piece of Bridget's mind--Mrs. Preston--George's complaint--Oscar rebuked--A tell-tale--Oscar's brothers and sisters--His father and mother. CHAPTER II. OSCAR IN SCHOOL. Oscar's school--The divisions and classes--Lively and pleasant sights--Playing schoolmaster--Carrying the joke too far to be agreeable--Oscar's indolence in school--Gazing at the blackboard--A release from study, and an unexpected privilege--Whiling away an hour--Doing nothing harder work than studying--A half-learned lesson--A habit of Oscar's--A ridiculous blunder--Absurd mistakes of the British government about the great lakes--Oscar less pardonable than they--Another blunder--Difference between guessing and knowing--Oscar detained after school--His recitation--Good advice--Remembering the blackboard--Willie Davenport--A pounding promised. CHAPTER III. PAYING OFF A GRUDGE. Whistler--Why Ralph liked him--Why Oscar disliked him--A caution--A sudden attack--An unexpected rescue--The stranger's advice--A brave and manly answer--Whistler refuses to expose Oscar's name--The boys separate--George's report of the scene, and Ralph's explanation--Oscar's return--His sister's rebuke--His mother's inquiries--Misrepresentations--Willie exonerated--Forgiving enemies--An unpleasant promise called to mind--Mr. Preston's action in the matter--Oscar refuses to punish himself--The chamber--A surprise--Falsehood--Exposure--The account settled--Silence--Late rising and a cold breakfast--What Mrs. Preston said--Its effect upon Oscar--Concealed emotion--Mistaken notions of manliness--Good impressions made--George's narrow escape. CHAPTER IV. THE HOTEL. Alfred Walton--His home--Hotel acquaintances--Coarse stories and jokes--Andy--His peculiarities--Tobacco--A spelling lesson--The disappointment--Anger--Bright and her family--Fun and mischief--The owner of the pups--A promise--A ride to the depôt--A walk about the building--Examining wheels--The tracks--An arrival--A swarm of passengers--Two young travellers taken in tow--Their story--Arrival at the hotel--A walk--Purchase of deadly weapons--A heavy bill--Gifts to Alfred and Oscar--A brave speech for a little fellow--Going home. CHAPTER V. THE YOUNG TRAVELLERS The Sabbath--Uneasiness--Monday morning--A pressing invitation to play truant--Hesitation--The decision--Oscar's misgivings--Manners of the two travellers--A small theft--Flight--A narrow escape--A costly cake of sugar--The bridge to Charlestown--The monument--The navy yard--Objects of interest--Incidents of Joseph's life--A slight test of his courage--Oscar's plans--Going to dinner--A grand "take in"--Alfred's disclosures--Real character of the young travellers--Their tough stories--A mutual difficulty--Confessing what cannot be concealed--Good advice and mild reproof--The teacher's leniency explained. CHAPTER VI. WORK. A command--Passing it along--Reluctant obedience--A poor excuse--A bad habit--Employment for vacation--Oscar's opposition to the plan--Frank the errand-boy--Thanksgiving week--A busy time--Oscar's experience as store-boy--Learning to sweep--Doing work well--A tempting invitation--Its acceptance--A ride--Driving horses--The errand--The return--Oscar at the store--Sent off "with a flea in his ear"--The matter brought up again--Oscar's excuse unsatisfactory--Ralph's services rewarded--Difference between the two boys. CHAPTER VII. THANKSGIVING DAY. Grandmother's arrival--Surprises--Presents--Oscar at a shooting-match--Bad company--Cruel sport--Home again--Prevarication--A remonstrance--Impudence, and a silent rebuke--The dinner--A stormy afternoon--A disappointment--Evening in the parlor--A call for stories--How the Indians punished bad boys--What Oscar thought of it--An Indian story--The hostile party--The alarm--The stratagem--The onset--The retreat--The victory--Laplot River--Widow Storey's retreat--Misfortunes of her husband--Her enterprise and industry--Fleeing from the British--The subterranean abode--Precautions to prevent discovery--Uncle James--The fellow who was caught in his own trap--Old Zigzag--His oddities--His tragic end--How the town of Barre, Vt., got its name--A well-spent evening. CHAPTER VIII. GRANDMOTHER LEE. One of her habits--Ella's complaint--Alice's reproof--Ella's rude reply to her grandmother--A mild rebuke--A sterner reproof--Shame and repentance--Popping corn--George's selfishness--A fruitless search for the corn-bag--Bad Temper--An ineffectual reproof--George's obstinacy--How he became selfish--Difficulty of breaking up a bad habit--What he lost by his selfishness--Oscar's dog--He is named "Tiger"--His portrait--His roguishness--Oscar's trick upon his grandmother--Unfortunate ending--Tiger's destructiveness--A mystery, and its probable solution--Oscar's falsehood--Tiger's banishment decreed, but not carried out--Grandmother Lee's remonstrance with Oscar--Bridget's onset--Oscar's excuse--Moral principle wanting--Mrs. Lee's departure. CHAPTER IX. WINTER SPORTS. Coasting--Oscar's sled--Borrowing and lending--A merry scene on the Common--Various sleds and characters--A collision--Damage to Ralph and the "Clipper"--Not accidental--The guilty parties called to account--No satisfaction obtained--Ralph's trouble--Oscar's anger--His revenge--A fight--His termination--Skating--Tiger on the ice--His plunge into an air-hole--His alarm and escape--Going home--Unfounded fears awakened--Tiger's shame--A talk about air-holes--What they are for, and how they are made--Skaters should be cautious--A change in Tiger's habits--A great snow-storm--Appearance of the streets--Fun for the boys--A job for Oscar--He is wiser than his father--Nullification of a command--The command repeated--Icy sidewalks--Laziness and its excuses--A wise suggestion--Duty neglected--Oscar called to account--His excuses--Unpleasant consequences of his negligence--The command repeated, with a "snapper" at the end--The dreaded task completed. CHAPTER X. APPEARANCES. A compulsory ride--Merited retribution--A sad plight for a proud boy--Laughter and ridicule--Oscar's neatness and love of dress--The patched jacket--Oscar's objections to it--Benny Wright, the boy of many patches--His character--The jacket question peremptorily settled--A significant shake of the head--A watch wanted--Why boys carry watches--Punctuality--Oscar's tardiness at school--The real cause of it--Thinking too much of outside appearances--Character of more consequence than cloth--An offer--The conditions--A hard question--How to accomplish an object--Oscar's waywardness--Boarding-school discipline--The High School--An anticipated novelty. CHAPTER XI. THE MORAL LESSON. Oscar's shrewdness--His reputation for integrity--A new want--Perplexity--A chance for speculation--A dishonest device--Its success--Secrecy--The fraud discovered--Oscar's defence--Restitution refused--Indignation--The Monday morning lesson in morals--Dishonesty--Rectifying mistakes--The principle unfolded--Restoring lost articles--A case for Oscar to decide--His reluctant decision--Taking advantage of another's ignorance--Duty of restitution--Other forms of dishonesty--Better to be cheated than to cheat--Effect of the lesson upon Oscar. CHAPTER XII. SICKNESS. Wet feet--A command disobeyed--Dabbling in the water--Playing on the ice--An unexpected adventure--Afloat on an ice-cake--A consultation--Danger and alarm--Spectators--A call for help--A critical situation--The rescue--Effects of the adventure--Feverish dreams--Strange feelings--The doctor's visit--Lung fever--The Latin prescription--Oscar's removal--He grows worse--Peevishness--Passing the crisis--Improved behavior--Getting better--General rejoicings--Further improvement--Return of a bad habit--Fretfulness and impatience--A dispute--First attempt to sit up--Its failure--First day in an easy chair--The sweets of convalescence--Danger of a relapse. CHAPTER XIII. GETTING WELL. Hunger--An evil suggestion--First visit down stairs--Midnight supper--Weakness and exhaustion--An ill turn--The doctor's visit--The mystery explained--Contents of a sick boy's stomach--The doctor's abrupt farewell--His recall--Promise of obedience--Punishment for imprudence--Directions--Effects of the relapse--Slow recovery--The menagerie procession--A wet morning--Disobedience--Exposure, and its consequences--Reading--The borrowed book--The curious letter--Puzzles, with illustrations--Guessing riddles--Oscar's treatment of Benjamin--His present feelings towards him--Ella's copy of the letter--Oscar's growing impatience--An arrival--Uncle John--The loggers--Cousins never seen--A journey decided upon--Solution of riddles, conundrums, &c. CHAPTER XIV. THE JOURNEY. Setting out--A long and wearisome ride--Portland--The hotel--Going to bed--The queer little lamp--Lonesomeness--The evening prayer--Morning--Breakfast--The railroad depôt--Oscar's partiality for stage-coaches and good horses--Eighty miles by steam--Dinner--The stage-coach--An outside seat--The team and the roads--Villages--Mail bags--Forests and rivers--End of the stage ride--Jerry--An Introduction--A ride in a wagon--Bashfulness--An invisible village--The journey's end--Mrs. Preston--More shy cousins--Supper--Evening employments--Attempting to "scrape acquaintance"--Mary tells Oscar his name--More questions--The tables turned--Getting acquainted in bed. CHAPTER XV. BROOKDALE. A dull morning--New acquaintances--Inquiries about Jerry's school-time--A long vacation--Work--Playmates--Rain--A fine sunrise--The distant pond--A call to breakfast--Preliminary operations--Jerry's uncombed head--Oscar's neatness--Jerry sent from the table--Bad manners--Bathing in the pond--An anticipated pleasure interdicted--The river--A walk--The pond--Map of Brookdale--Going to ride--The Cross-Roads--Billy's speed discussed--The variety store--All sorts of things--Oscar's purchase--Returning home--Short evenings--A nap--A queer dream--Oscar's smartness at dreaming--Making fun of a country store--Mary's question--Crying babies--Teasing--Walking backwards--A trip and a fall--A real crying baby--Mary comforted--Jerry cuffed--Mortification. CHAPTER XVI. IN THE WOODS. Forgotten medicine and renewed health--An excursion planned--A gun wanted, but denied--Setting out on a long tramp--Swamps--Upland--Brooks--How Brookdale got its name--Cutting canes--Birch and beech--How to crook the handle of a cane--The philosophy of it explained--The cigars--Fine groves--Stopping to rest--The forest described--Birds and guns--Other game--Jim Oakley's strange animal--Moose--The man who met a bear--A race--Mysterious disappearance of the bear--The probable cause of his visit--The boy who killed two bears--Oscar's courage--Prospect Rock--A fine view--The rabbit--The woodchuck's hole--Crossing a swamp--Mosquitoes--The pond--The hermit's hut--Some account of "Old Staples"--Buried treasures--Making a fire--Baking potatoes and toasting cheese--Drinking pond water--Dinner--Hunting for the hermit's money--What they meant to do with it--A bath proposed--Smoothing over the matter--Going Into water--Drying their hair--Going home--Lost In the woods--Arrival home--One kind of punishment for wrong-doing. CHAPTER XVII. CLINTON. The missing cap--Splitting wood--Jerry and Emily--A quarrel begun--The cap found--A drink of buttermilk--Oscar's opinion of it--Jerry's love for it--Another delay--Feeding the fowls--A mysterious letter--The Shanghae rooster's complaint--Curiosity excited--The suspected author--Clinton's education--Keeping dark about the letter--Who Clinton was--Where he lived--Killing caterpillars--How caterpillars breed--The young turkeys--The brood of chickens--The hen-coop--Clinton's management of the poultry--His profits--Success the result of effort, not of luck--The "rooster's letter" not alluded to--The piggery--The barn--"The horse's prayer"--A new-comer--Her name--A discovery--Relationship of Clinton to Whistler--Mrs. Davenport--Oscar conceals his dislike of Whistler--The shop--Specimens of Clinton's work--Going home. CHAPTER XVIII. THE LETTER. A forgotten duty called to mind--Letter writing--A mysterious allusion--The private room--No backing out--Making a beginning--Getting stuck--Idling away time--Prying into letters--A commotion among the swallows--Teaching the young ones how to fly--A good lesson lost--Mary and her book--Her talk about the pictures--A pretty picture--A wasted hour--Making another attempt--His success--Effects of being in earnest--A copy of Oscar's letter--Emily's inquisitiveness--A rebuke--The message she wanted to send--The meadow lot--Mulching for trees--Going to the old wood lot--Cutting birch twigs-Forgetting to be lazy--The load--A ride to the Cross-Roads--Mailing the letter--Paying the postage in advance. CHAPTER XIX. THE RECALL. Hankerings after a gun--A plan--Jim Oakley's gun--A dispute--An open rupture--The broken gun--Going home mad--A call from Clinton--The toiler--Summons home--Disappointment--Bad feeling between Oscar and Jerry--How they slept--Remarks about their appearance at the breakfast table--Borrowing trouble--Another visit proposed--Jerry's explosion of anger--His imprudence--Confinement down cellar--An unhappy day--"Making up" at night--A duty neglected--Inquiries about the gun--Starting for home--A pleasant drive--The stage-coach--The cars--Luncheon--Half an hour in Portland--The Boston train--A spark in the eye--Pain and inflammation--Boston--Ralph's surprise--Welcome home--The eye-stone--The intruder removed. CHAPTER XX. DOWNWARD PROGRESS. Oscar's dread of going to school--Unsuccessful pleas--Oscar at school--His indifference to his studies--A "talent for missing"--A reproof--Kicking a cap--Whistler's generosity--Benny Wright--Oscar's bad conduct--Regarded as incorrigible--The tobacco spittle--Oscar's denial--Betrayed by his breath--A successful search--The teacher's rebuke--The new copy--Its effect--A note for Oscar's father--What it led to--Concealment of real feelings--Bridget's complaint--The puddle on the kitchen floor--Oscar's story--Conflicting reports--A new flare-up--The truth of the matter--Bridget's departure--Examination day--The medals--The certificate for the High School--A refusal--Bitter fruits of misconduct. CHAPTER XXI. NED MIXER. Vacation--Associates--Edward Mixer--His character--Loitering around railroad depôts--An excursion into the country--The railroad bridge--Fruit--A fine garden--Getting over the fence--Looking for birds' nests--Disappearance of Edward and Alfred--A chase--Escape of the boys--Hailing each other--Edward's account of the adventure--A grand speculation--Pluck--Secrecy--Curiosity not gratified--Arrival of Oscar's uncle--The officer's interview with Mr. Preston--The real character and history of Ned--Timely warning--Oscar's astonishment--What he knew concerning Ned--A hint about forming new acquaintances--Oscar's removal from city temptations decided on--A caution and precaution--Departure--Ned's arrest and sentence--The "grand speculation" never divulged. Illustrations. WINTER SCENE ON BOSTON COMMON . . . . . . FRONTISPIECE VIGNETTE . . . . . . . . . TITLE-PAGE PLAYING SCHOOLMASTER. THE ASSAULT. BRIGHT AND HER FAMILY. THANKSGIVING MARKET SCENE. TIGER'S COUNTENANCE. THE OVERTURN. AFLOAT ON THE ICE. A QUEER NAME. THE DOUBLE FACE. THE CAT-ERECT. MAP OF BROOKDALE. THE DINNER IN THE WOODS. MARY AND THE PICTURE-BOOK. THE STAGE-COACH. HUNTING FOR BIRDS' NESTS. OSCAR. CHAPTER I. A KITCHEN SCENE. Bridget, the Irish servant girl, had finished the house-work for the day, and sat down to do a little mending with her needle. The fire in the range, which for hours had sent forth such scorching blasts, was now burning dim; for it was early in October, and the weather was mild and pleasant. The floor was swept, and the various articles belonging in the room were arranged in their proper places, for the night. The mistress of the kitchen,--for Bridget claimed this as her rank, if not her title,--was humming a queer medley of tunes known only to herself, as her clumsy fingers were trying to coax the needle to perform some dextrous feat that it did not seem inclined to do in her hands. What she was thinking about, is none of our business; but whatever it was, her revery was suddenly disturbed, and the good nature that beamed from her face dispelled, by the noisy clattering of more than one pair of little boots on the stairs. In a moment, the door opened with a jerk and a push, and in bounded three boys, with as little display of manners or propriety as so many savages might exhibit. The oldest directed his steps to the closet, singing, as he peered round among the eatables: "Eggs, cheese, butter, bread,-- Stick, stock, stone-dead." "Biddy," he continued, "I 'm hungry--give me something to eat, quick." Bridget paid no attention to this demand, but only twitched her needle with a little more energy. "I say, Biddy," continued the boy, "what did you have for supper? Come, give me some, I 'm half starved." "And why did n't ye come when the supper was ready, if ye wanted any?" said Bridget. "If ye won't ate with the rest, it's not me that will wait upon ye, Master Oscar." "Well," continued Oscar, "if you won't help me, I guess I can help myself. Ralph, what did you have for supper?" The boy addressed named over several articles, among which were cake and mince-pie, neither of which could Oscar find in the closet. "Where did you put the pie, Biddy?" he inquired. "It 's where ye won't find it," replied Bridget, "that's jist where it is." "I bet I _will_ find it, come now," said Oscar, with a determined air; and he commenced the search in earnest, prying into every covered dish, opening every drawer and bucket, and overhauling and disarranging every part of the closet. Bridget was just then in too irritable a mood to bear this provoking invasion of her realm with patience. In an angry tone, she ordered the intruder to leave the closet, but he took no notice of the command. She repeated the order, making it more emphatic by calling him a "plague" and a "torment," but he did not heed it. Then she threatened to tell his parents of his misconduct, but this had no effect. Oscar continued his search for some minutes, but without success; and he finally concluded to make his supper of bread and butter, since he could find nothing more tempting to his appetite. The fact was, Oscar was getting in the habit of being absent from his meals, and calling for food at unseasonable hours, much to the annoyance of Bridget. She had complained of this to his mother several times, without effect; and now she thought she would try a little expedient of her own. So, when she cleared away the supper-table that evening, before Oscar came home, she hid away the cake and pies with which the others had been served, and left only bread and butter in the closet. She gained her end, but the boy, in rummaging for the hidden articles, had made her half an hour's extra work, in putting things to rights again. As Oscar stepped out of the closet, after his solitary supper, he moved towards the youngest of the other boys, saying: "Here, George, open your mouth and shut your eyes, and I 'll give you something to make you wise." George declined the gift, but Oscar insisted, and tried to force it upon him. A struggle ensued, and both rolled upon the floor, the one crying and screaming with anger, and the other laughing as though he considered it good fun. George shut his teeth firmly together, but Oscar succeeded in rubbing enough of the mysterious article upon his lips to enable him to tell what it was. It proved to be a piece of pepper, a plate of which Oscar had found in the closet. This little experiment, however, did not leave George in a very pleasant frame of mind. It was some time before he got over his blubbering and pouting. Oscar called him a "cry-baby," for making such a fuss about a little bit of pepper, which epithet did not aid him much in forgetting the injury he had received. After awhile, quiet and harmony were in a measure restored. Ralph and George got their school-books, and began to look over the lessons they were to recite in the morning; but Oscar not only remained idle, himself, but seemed to try to interrupt them as much as possible, by his remarks. By-and-bye, finding they did not take much notice of his observations, he took from his jacket pocket a small tin tube, and commenced blowing peas through it, aiming them at his brothers, at Bridget, and at the lamp. Ralph, after two or three had taken effect on his face, got up in a pet, and took his book up stairs to the sitting-room. George scowled and scolded, as the annoying pellets flew around his head, but he did not mean to be driven away by such small shot. Bridget, too, soon lost her patience, as the peas rattled upon the newly-swept floor. "Git away with yer pays, Oscar," said she; "don't ye be clutterin' up the clane floor with 'em, that's a good b'y." "They aint 'pays,' they are _peas_," replied Oscar; "can't you say peas, Biddy?" "I don't care what ye call 'em," said Bridget; "only kape the things in yer pocket, and don't bother me with 'em." "Who 's bothering you?" said Oscar; "me 'pays' don't make any dirt--they 're just as clean as your floor." "Ye 're a sassy b'y, that's jist what ye are." "Well, what are you going to do about it?" "Faith, if it was me that had the doin' of it, I bet I 'd larn ye better manners, ye great, impudent good-for-nothin', if I had to bate yer tin times a day." "You would n't, though, would you?" said Oscar; and he continued the shower of peas until he had exhausted his stock, and then picked most of them up again, to serve for some future occasion. He had hardly finished this last operation, when his mother, who had been out, returned home. As soon as she entered the kitchen, George began to pour out his complaints to her. "Mother," he said, "Oscar 's been plaguing us like everything, all the evening. He got me down on the floor, and rubbed a hot pepper on my mouth, and tried to make me eat it. And he's been rummaging all round the kitchen, trying to find some pie. And then he went to shooting peas at us, and he got Bridget real mad, and Ralph had to clear out, to study his lesson. I told him--" "There, there, George, that will do," replied his mother; "I am sick of hearing these complaints. Oscar, why is it that I can't stir out of the house, when you are at home, without your making trouble with Bridget or the children? I do wish you would try to behave yourself properly. You are getting the ill-will of everybody in the house, by your bad conduct. I really believe your brothers and sisters will begin to hate you, before long, if you keep on in this way. For your own sake, if for nothing more, I should think you would try to do better. If I were in your place, I would try to keep on good terms with my brothers and sisters, if I quarrelled with everybody else." Oscar made no reply to this, and the subject was soon dropped. His mother was too much accustomed to such complaints of his misconduct, to think very seriously of them; and he was himself so used to such mild rebukes as the foregoing, that they made little impression upon his mind. The boys, who all slept in one chamber, soon retired for the night; but Oscar took no further notice of the occurrences of the evening, except to apply the nickname of "mammy's little tell-tale" to George--a title of contempt by which he often addressed his little brother. I am afraid that the title of "tell-tale" was not wholly undeserved by George. True, he often had just cause of complaint; but he was too ready to bring whining accusations against his brothers and sisters, for every trifling thing. He complained so much that his mother could not always tell when censure was deserved. It had become a habit with him, and a dozen times a day he would go to her, with the complaint that Oscar had been plaguing him, or Ella had got something that belonged to him, or Ralph would not do this or that. George, who was the youngest of the children, was at this time seven years old; Ralph was two years and half older, and Oscar, who was the oldest son, was about half way between thirteen and fourteen. They had two sisters. Alice, the oldest, was fifteen years of age, and Eleanor, or Ella, as she was commonly called, was about eleven. The father of these boys and girls was a shop-keeper in Boston. His business required so much of his attention, that he was seldom with his family, except at meal-times and nights. Even in the evening he was usually at the shop; but when it so happened that he could remain at home after tea, it was his delight to settle himself comfortably down in the big rocking chair, in the well-lighted sitting-room, and to muse and doze, while Alice sang, and played upon the piano-forte. He had so many other cares, that he did not like to be troubled with bad reports of his children's conduct, This was so well understood by all the family, that even George seldom ventured to go to him with a complaint. The management of domestic affairs was thus left almost entirely with Mrs. Preston, and she consulted her husband in regard to these matters only when grave troubles arose. I have thus briefly introduced to my readers the family, one of whose members is to form the principal subject of the following pages. CHAPTER II. OSCAR IN SCHOOL. The school which Oscar attended was held in a large and lofty brick building, a short distance from the street on which he lived. His brothers attended the same school, but his sisters did not, it being only for boys. The pupils numbered four or five hundred--a good many boys to be together in one building. But though belonging to one school, and under the control of one head master, they did not often meet together in one assembly. They were divided into eight or ten branches, of about fifty scholars each, and each branch had its own separate room and teacher. There were however, only four classes in the whole school; and a this time Oscar was a member of the first, or highest class. There was a large hall in the upper story of the building, in which the entire school assembled on exhibition days, and when they met for the practice of singing or declamation. There were lively and merry times in the vicinity of the school-house, I can assure you, for half an hour before the opening of school, and for about the same length of time after the exercises closed. Four hundred boys cannot well be brought together, without making some stir. Every morning and afternoon, as the pupils went to and from school, the streets in the neighborhood would for a few minutes seem to swarm with boys, of every imaginable size, shape, manners, dress, and appearance. Usually, they went back and forth in little knots; and with their books and slates under their arms, their bright, happy faces, their joyous laugh, and their animated movements, they presented a most pleasing sight,--"a sight for sore eyes," as a Scotchman might say. If anybody disputes this, he must be a sour and crabbed fellow. Oscar, although not the most prompt and punctual of scholars, used occasionally to go to school in season to have a little fun with his mates, before the exercises commenced. One day, entering the school-room a little before the time, he put on an old coat which his teacher wore in-doors, stuck a quill behind his ear, and made a pair of spectacles from some pasteboard, which he perched upon his nose. Arranged, in this fantastical manner, he seated himself with great dignity in the teacher's chair, and began to "play school-master," to the amusement of several other boys. It so happened that the teacher arrived earlier than usual that day, and he was not a little amused, as he suddenly entered the room, and witnessed the farce that was going on. Oscar jumped from his seat, but the master made him take it again, and remain in it just as he caught him, with his great-coat, pasteboard spectacles and quill, until all the scholars had assembled, and it was time to commence the studies of the day. This afforded fine sport to the other boys, but Oscar did not much relish the fun, and he never attempted to amuse himself in that way again. [Illustration: Playing Schoolmaster] I am sorry that this harmless piece of roguery is not the most serious charge that candor obliges me to bring against Oscar. But to tell the truth, he was not noted either for his studious habits or his correct deportment; and there was very little prospect that he would be considered a candidate for the "Franklin medals," which were to be distributed to the most deserving members of his class, when they graduated, the ensuing July. And yet Oscar was naturally a bright and intelligent boy. He was quick to learn, when he applied himself; but he was indolent, and did not like to take the trouble of studying his lessons. Whenever he could be made to take hold of a lesson in earnest, he soon mastered it; but the consciousness of this power often led him to put off his lessons to the last minute, and then perhaps something would happen to prevent his preparing himself at all. A day or two after the "kitchen scene" described in the preceding chapter, Oscar was sitting at his desk in the school-room, with an open book before him, but with his eyes idly staring at a blackboard affixed to one of the walls. The teacher watched him a moment, and then spoke to him. "Oscar," he said, "what do you find so very fascinating about that blackboard? You have been looking at it very intently for several minutes--what do you see that interests you so!" Oscar hung his head, but made no reply. "Are you ready to recite your geography lesson?" continued the master. "No, sir." "Why do you not study it, then'" "I don't feel like studying," replied Oscar. "Very well," said the teacher, quite pleasantly; "if you don't feel like it, you need n't study. You may come here." Oscar stepped out to the platform on which the teacher's desk was placed. "There," continued the master, pointing to a blackboard facing the school, "you may stand there and look at that board just as long as you please. But you must not look at anything else, and I would advise you not to let me catch your eyes turning either to the right or the left. Now mind and keep your eyes on the board, and when you feel like studying let me know." Oscar took the position pointed out to him, with his back towards the boys, and with his face so near the blackboard, that he could see nothing else without turning his head--an operation that would be sure to attract the attention of the master. At first he thought it would be good fun to stand there, and for awhile the novelty of the thing did amuse him a little. When he began to grow weary, he contrived to interest himself by tracing out the faint chalk-marks of long-forgotten problems, that had not been entirely obliterated from the blackboard. This afforded employment for his mind for a time; but by-and-bye he began to grow tired and uneasy. His eyes longed to see something else, and his legs were weary of standing so long in one position. He wondered, too, whether the boys were looking at him, and whether they smiled at his strange employment. At last, after doing penance about an hour, his exhaustion got the better of his stubbornness, and on informing the master that he thought ho could study now, he was permitted to take his seat. After returning to his desk, Oscar had but little time to finish learning his geography lesson, before the class was called out to recite. As was too often the case, he was but half prepared. The subject of the lesson was New York State. Several of the questions put to Oscar were answered wrong, either wholly or in part. When asked what great lakes bordered on New York, he replied: "Lake Erie and Lake Superior." When the question was given to another, and correctly answered, Oscar exclaimed: "That's what I meant--Erie and Ontario; but I was n't thinking what I said." This was somewhat of a habit with Oscar. When he "missed" a question, he was very apt to say, after the next boy had answered it, "I knew, only I could n't think," or, "I was just going to say so." Another question put to him was, whether the water of the great New York lakes was fresh or salt. Oscar replied that it was salt. It is but justice to add, how ever, that nothing was said in the lesson of the day, on this point, although the question had occurred in a previous lesson. Noticing that several of the boys laughed at Oscar's blunder, the teacher remarked: "That was a very foolish answer, Oscar, but you are not the first nor the wisest person that has made the same mistake. When the British went to war with us, in 1812, it is said that all their war vessels intended to navigate the lakes, were furnished with tanks and casks for carrying a full supply of freshwater; and I have been told that an apparatus is still in existence in one of the Canadian navy yards, which the English government sent over, some years ago, for distilling fresh water from Lake Erie. But an American school-boy of your age ought to know better than this, if an English lord of the admiralty does not. These great lakes are among the remarkable features of our own country, and every American child should know something about them. I should suppose," continued the teacher, "that a boy who could afford to look steadily at nothing for an hour, might take a little pains to inform himself about so common a matter as this, so as not to appear so ridiculous, when a simple question is asked him." Before the lesson was concluded, Oscar made still another mistake. There was an allusion in the lesson to the great fire of 1885, by which an immense amount of property in New York city was destroyed. When the teacher asked him how many buildings were said to have been consumed, he replied: "Three hundred and fifty--five hundred and thirty--no, three hundred and fifty." "Which number do you mean?" inquired the master. "I aint sure which it is," replied Oscar, after a moment's hesitation; "it's one or the other, I don't know which." "You are about as definite," said the teacher, "as the Irish recruit, who said his height was five feet ten or ten feet five, he was n't certain which. But are you _sure_ that the number of buildings burnt was either three hundred and fifty, or five hundred and thirty?" "Why--yes--I--believe--it was one or the other," replied Oscar, hesitatingly. "You _believe_ it was, do you? Well, I believe you know just nothing about the lesson. You may go to your seat, and study it until you can answer every question; and after school I will hear you recite it, and remember, you will not go home until you _can_ recite it." The class continued their recitation, and Oscar returned to his seat, and commenced studying the lesson anew. It was already late in the afternoon, and as he did not like the idea of stopping after school, he gave pretty close attention to his book during the rest of the session. About fifteen minutes after the school was dismissed, he told the teacher he was prepared to recite, and he succeeded in getting through the lesson with tolerable accuracy. When he had finished, the teacher talked with him very plainly about his indolent habits in school, and the consequences that would hereafter result from them. "I would advise you," he said, "to do one of two things,--either commit your lessons perfectly, hereafter, or else give up study entirely, and ask your father to take you from school and put you to some business. You can learn as fast as any boy in school, if you will only give your attention to it; but I despise this half-way system that you have fallen into. It is only wasting time to half learn a thing, as you did your geography lesson this afternoon. You studied it just enough to get a few indistinct impressions, and what little you did learn you were not sure of. It would be better for you to master but one single question a day, and then _know_ that you know it, than to fill your head with a thousand half-learned, indefinite, and uncertain ideas. I have told you all this before, but you do not seem to pay any attention to it. I am sorry that it is so, for you might easily stand at the head of the school, if you would try." Oscar _had_ received such advice before, but, as his teacher intimated, he had not profited much by it. If anything, he had grown more indolent and negligent, within a few months. On going home that night, Ralph accosted him with the inquiry: "What did you think of the blackboard, Oscar? Do you suppose you should know it again, if you should happen to see it?" "What do you mean?" he inquired, feigning ignorance. "O, you 've forgotten it a'ready, have you?" continued Ralph. "You don't remember seeing anything of a blackboard this afternoon, do you?" "But who told you about it?" inquired Oscar; for though both attended the same school, their places were in different rooms. "O, I know what's going on," said Ralph; "you need n't try to be so secret about it." "Well, I know who told you about it--'t was Bill Davenport, was n't it?" inquired Oscar. Willie and Ralph were such great cronies, that Oscar's supposition was a very natural one. Indeed, Ralph could not deny it without telling a falsehood, and so he made no reply. Oscar, perceiving he had guessed right, added, in a contemptuous tone: "The little, sneaking tell-tale--I 'll give him a good pounding for that, the first time I catch him." "You 're too bad, Oscar," interposed his brother; "Willie did n't suppose you cared anything about standing before the blackboard--he only spoke of it because he thought it was something queer." Seeing Oscar was in so unamiable a mood, Ralph said nothing more about the subject, at that time. CHAPTER III. PAYING OFF A GRUDGE. The morning after the events just related, as Ralph was on his way to school, he fell in with Willie Davenport, or "Whistler," as he was often sportively called, by his playmates, in allusion to his fondness for a species of music to which most boys are more or less addicted. And I may as well say here, that he was a very good whistler, and came honestly by the title by which he was distinguished among his fellows. His quick ear caught all the new and popular melodies of the day, before they became threadbare, which gave his whistling an air of freshness and novelty that few could rival. It was to this circumstance--the quality of his whistling, rather than the quantity--that he was chiefly indebted for the name of Whistler. Nor was he ashamed of his nickname, as he certainly had no need to be; for it was not applied to him in derision, but playfully and good-naturedly. Whistler and Ralph were good friends. There was a difference of between two and three years in their ages, Whistler being about twelve years old; but their dispositions harmonized together well, and quite a strong friendship had grown up between them. A very different feeling, however, had for some time existed between Oscar and Whistler. They were in the same class at school; but Whistler studied hard, and thus, though much younger than Oscar, he stood far before him as a scholar. This awakened some feeling of resentment in Oscar, and he never let slip any opportunity for annoying or mortifying his more industrious and successful class-mate. On their way to school, on the morning in question, Ralph told Whistler of Oscar's threat, and advised him to avoid his brother as much as possible, for a day or two, until the affair of the blackboard should pass from his mind. Whistler heeded this caution, and was careful not to put himself in the way of his enemy. He succeeded in eluding him through the day, and was on his way home from school in the afternoon, when Oscar, who he thought had gone off in another direction, suddenly appeared at his side. "You little tell-tale, you," cried Oscar, "what did you tell Ralph about the blackboard for! I 'll learn you to mind your own business, next time, you mean, sneaking meddler. Take that--and that," he continued, giving Whistler several hard blows with his fist. The latter attempted to dodge the blows, but did not return them, for this he knew would only increase the anger of Oscar, who was so much his superior in size and strength, as well as in the art of fisticuffs, that he could do just about as he pleased with him. The affray, however, was soon brought to an unexpected end, by a gentleman who happened to witness it. Seizing Oscar by the collar of his jacket, he exclaimed: "Here, here, sir! what are you doing to that little fellow? Don't you know enough, you great lubber, to take a boy of your own size, if you want to fight? Now run, my little man, and get out of his way," continued the stranger, turning to Whistler, and still holding Oscar by the collar. [Illustration: The Assault.] Whistler hesitated for a moment between the contending impulses of obedience and manliness; and then, drawing himself up to his full stature, he said, with a respectful but decided air: "No, sir, I have n't injured him, and I won't run away from him." "Well said, well said--you are a brave little fellow," continued the gentleman, somewhat surprised at the turn the affair was taking. "What is your name, sir?" "William Davenport." "And what is this boy's name?" "Oscar," replied Willie, and there he stopped, as if unwilling to expose further the name of his abuser. "Well you may go now, Oscar," said the gentleman, relinquishing his hold; "but if you lay your hands on William again, I shall complain of you." The two boys walked off in opposite directions, the gentleman keeping an eye upon Oscar until Whistler was out of his reach. A little knot of boys was drawn together by the circumstance just related, among whom was George, Oscar's youngest brother. He witnessed the attack, but knew nothing of its cause. As he went directly home, while Oscar did not, he had an opportunity to report to his mother and Ralph the scene he had just beheld. Ralph now related to his mother the incident of the preceding day, which led to the assault; for, seeing Oscar's unwillingness to have anything said about it, he had not mentioned the matter to any one at home. Ralph was a generous-hearted boy, and in this case was actuated by a regard for Oscar's feelings, rather than by fear. Oscar did not come home that night until after dark. As he entered the sitting-room, Alice, who was seated at the piano-forte, broke short off the piece she was playing, and said, looking at him as sternly as she could, "You great ugly boy!" "Why, what's the matter now?" inquired Oscar, who hardly knew whether this rough salutation was designed to be in fun or in earnest; "don't I look as well as usual?" "You looked well beating little Willie Davenport, don't you think you did?" continued his sister, with the same stern look. "I 'm perfectly ashamed of you--I declare, I did n't know you could do such a mean thing as that." "I don't care," replied Oscar, "I 'll lick him again, if he does n't mind his own business." As Oscar did not know that George witnessed the assault, he was at a loss to know how Alice heard of it. She refused to tell him, and he finally concluded that Whistler or his mother must have called there, to enter a complaint against him. Pretty soon Mrs. Preston entered the room, and sat down, to await the arrival of Oscar's father to tea. She at once introduced the topic which was uppermost in her mind, by the inquiry: "Oscar, what is the trouble between you and Willie Davenport?" "Why," replied Oscar, "he 's been telling stories about me." "Do you mean false stories?" "Yes--no--not exactly false, but it was n't true, neither." "It must have been a singular story, to have been either false nor true. And as it appears there was but one story, I should like to know what it was." "He told Ralph I had to stand up and look at a blackboard an hour." "Was that false?" "Yes," said Oscar, for in replying to his mother, of late, he had usually omitted the "ma'am" (madam) which no well-bred boy will fail to place after the yes or no addressed to a mother; "yes, it was a lie, for I need n't have stood there five minutes, if I had n't wanted to." "Did you stand before the blackboard because you wanted to, or was it intended as a punishment for not attending to your lesson!" "Why, I suppose it was meant for a punishment, but the master told me I might go to my seat, whenever I wanted to study." "Then," said Mrs. Preston, "after all your quibbling, I don't see that Willie told any falsehood. And, in fact, I don't believe he had any idea of injuring you, when he told Ralph of the affair. He only spoke of it as a little matter of news. But even if he had told a lie about you, or had related the occurrence out of ill-will towards you, would that be any excuse for your conduct, in beating him as you did this afternoon! Do you remember the subject of your last Sabbath-school lesson?" Oscar could not recall it, and shook his head in the negative. "I have not forgotten it," continued his mother; "it was on forgiving our enemies, and it is a lesson that you very much need to learn. 'If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses,'--that was one of the verses of the lesson. It is noble to forgive, but it is mean to retaliate. You must learn to conquer your resentful spirit, or you will be in trouble all the time. I shall report this matter to your father when he comes. I suppose you remember what he promised you, when you had your fight with Sam Oliver?" Oscar remembered it very distinctly. On that occasion, his father reprimanded him with much severity, and assured him that any repetition of the fault would not go unpunished. Mr. Preston soon came in, and as the family sat at the tea-table, he was informed of Oscar's misconduct. After scolding the culprit with much sharpness, for his attack upon Willie, he concluded by ordering him immediately to bed. Although it yet lacked two hours of his usual bed-time, Oscar did not consider his punishment very severe, but retired to his chamber, feeling delighted that he had got off so much easier than he anticipated. Indeed, so little did he think of his father's command, that he felt in no hurry to obey it. Instead of going to bed, he sat awhile at the window, listening to the music of a flute which some one in the neighborhood was playing upon. Presently Ralph and George, who slept in the same chamber with him, came up to keep him company. They amused themselves together for some time, and Oscar quite forgot that he had been sent to bed, until the door suddenly opened, and his father, whose attention had been attracted by the noise, stood before him. "Did n't I tell you to go to bed an hour ago, Oscar?" he inquired. "Yes, sir." "Why have n't you obeyed me, then?" "Because," said Oscar, "I 've got a lesson to get to-night, and I have n't studied it yet." "If you 've got a lesson to learn, where is your book?" inquired his father. "It 's down stairs; I was afraid to go after it, and so I was trying to coax Ralph to get it for me." "O, what a story!" cried George; "why, father, he has n't said one word about his book." This was true. Oscar, in his extremity, had hastily framed a falsehood, trusting that his assurance would enable him to carry it through. And he would probably have succeeded but for George; as Ralph, in his well-meant but very mistaken kindness for Oscar, would not have been very likely to expose him. But the lie was nailed, and Oscar's bold and wicked push had only placed him in a far worse position than he occupied before. His father, for a moment, could scarcely believe his ears; but this feeling of astonishment soon gave way to a frown, before which Oscar cowered like a sheep before a lion. Mr. Preston was a man of strong passions, but of few words. Having set forth briefly but in vivid colors the aggravated nature of Oscar's three-fold offence,--his attack upon Willie, his disobedience when ordered to bed, and the falsehood with which he attempted to cover up his disobedience,--he proceeded to inflict summary and severe chastisement upon the offender. It was very rarely that he resorted to this means of discipline, but this he deemed a case where it was imperatively demanded. Silence reigned in the boys' chamber the rest of the night. Oscar was too sullen to speak; Ralph silently pitied his brother, not less for the sins into which he had fallen than for the pain he had suffered; and George was too much taken up with thinking about the probable after-clap of this storm, to notice anything else. Oscar was fond of his bed, and was usually the last one of the family to rise, especially in cool weather. On the morning after the occurrences above related, he laid abed later than usual even with him. His father had gone to the store, and the children were out-doors at play, before he made his appearance at the breakfast-table. He sat down to the deserted table, and was helping himself to the cold remnants of the meal, when his mother entered the room. Oscar noticed that she looked unusually sad and dejected. After sitting in silence a few moments, she remarked: "You see how I look, this morning, Oscar. I did not sleep half an hour last night, and now I am not fit to be up from my bed--and all on your account. I am afraid your misconduct will be the death of me, yet. I used to love to think how much comfort I should take in you, when you should grow up into a tall, manly youth; but I have been sadly disappointed, so far. The older you grow, the worse you behave, and the more trouble you make me. Do you intend always to go on in this way?" Oscar nervously spread the slice of bread before him, but made no reply. His mother continued her reproofs, in the same sad but affectionate tone. She appealed to his sense of right, to his gratitude, and to his hopes of future success and respectability in life. She described the sad end to which these beginnings of wrong-doing would inevitably lead him, and earnestly besought him to try to do better, before his bad habits should become confirmed. Her earnest manner, and her pale, haggard cheeks, down which tears were slowly stealing, touched the feelings of Oscar. Moisture began to gather in his eyes, in spite of himself. He tried to appear very much interested in the food he was eating, and to look as though he was indifferent to what his mother was saying. And, in a measure, he did succeed in choking down those good feelings which were beginning to stir in his heart, and which, mistaken boy! he thought it would be unmanly to betray. Yes, he was mistaken--sadly mistaken. Unmanly to be touched by a mother's grief, and to be moved by a mother's tender entreaties! Unmanly to acknowledge that we have done wrong, or to express sorrow for the wrong act! Unmanly to resolve to resist temptation in the future! Where is this monstrous law of manliness to be found? If anywhere, it must be only in the code of pirates and desperadoes, who have renounced all human laws and ties. The school hour was at hand, and Oscar was obliged to start as soon as he had finished his breakfast. Had he not stifled the better promptings of his heart, and thus done violence to his nature, he would not have left his mother without assuring her that he felt sorry for his misconduct; for he _did_ feel some degree of regret, although he was too proud to acknowledge it. His mother, however, saw some tokens of feeling which he could not wholly conceal, and she left him with a sad heart, but with the hope that at least some faint impression had been made upon him. And, indeed, some impression was made upon Oscar's heart. The feeling of sullenness with which he awoke, had subsided into something resembling "low spirits." Nor was this all the effect his mother's conversation had upon him. As he lay awake in the morning, he had planned the secret destruction of a beautiful sled which had been given to George, the winter previous, and which was very precious in the eyes of the owner; but now he relinquished this mean and revengeful design. Little George thus escaped the dreaded "after-clap," but he never knew what a blow it would have been, nor how near he came to feeling its full force. CHAPTER IV. THE HOTEL. One of Oscar's most intimate companions was a boy of about his own age, named Alfred Walton, who attended the same school with him. Alfred's father was dead; but he had a step-father, whom he called father, and with whom he lived. His home was to Oscar a very attractive one; for it was a public house, and had large stables and a stage-office attached, and was usually full of company. Alfred's step-father was the landlord of the hotel, and of course he and his young friends were privileged characters about the premises. Oscar and Alfred were together a great deal of the time, when out of school, and quite a warm friendship existed between them. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and during the other play hours of the week, Oscar might generally be found about the hotel premises, or riding on the coaches with Alfred. He only regretted that he could not stay there altogether; for he thought it must be a fine thing to live in such a place, where he could do pretty much as he pleased, without anybody's interference. Such, at least, seemed to be the privilege of Alfred; for everybody, from his step-father down to the humblest servants, appeared to have too much other business on their hands to give much attention to his boyish movements. Oscar made many acquaintances at the hotel, not a few of which were anything but desirable for a boy of his age and character. He was on chatty terms with all the stage-drivers, hostlers, and servants about the premises, and also got acquainted with many strangers who stopped there for a season. He was very fond of listening to the stories of the drivers and other frequenters of the stage-office, and he would sit by the hour, inhaling the smoke of their cigars, admiring their long yarns, and laughing at the jokes they cracked. Much of this conversation was coarse and even vulgar, such as a pure mind could not listen to without suffering contamination, or at least a blunting of its delicate sensibilities. It is a serious misfortune for a youth to be exposed to such influences, but Oscar did not know it, or did not believe it. Among the hangers about the stable, was a queer fellow who went by the name of Andy. His real name was Anderson. He was weak-minded and childish, his lack of intellect taking the form of silliness rather than of stupidity. Indeed, he was bright and quick in his way, but it was a very foolish and nonsensical way. He was famous among all the boys of the neighborhood, for using strange and amusing words, and especially for a system of spelling on which he prided himself, and which is not laid down in any of the dictionaries. He afforded much sport to the boys, who would gather around him, and give him words by the dozen to spell. The readiness and ingenuity with which he would mis-spell the most simple words, was quite amusing to them. He never hesitated, nor stopped to think, but always spelt the given word in his peculiar way, just as promptly as though he did it according to a rule which he perfectly understood. One Saturday afternoon, as Oscar and Alfred were looking about the stable, Andy suddenly made his appearance, and asked them for a bit of tobacco. Both of the boys, by the way, wished to be considered tobacco-chewers, and usually carried a good-sized piece of the vile weed in their pockets, though it must be confessed that the little they consumed was rather for appearance sake, than because they liked it. They also smoked occasionally, for the same reason. "You must spell us a word or two, first," said Alfred, in reply to Andy's request. "No, I can't stop--got important business to negotiate," replied Andy. "Yes, you must," continued Alfred; "spell fun." "P-h-u-g-n," said Andy. "Spell hotel," continued Alfred. "H-o-e-t-e-l-l-e." "Spell calculate," said Oscar. "K-a-l-k-e-w-l-a-i-g-h-t--there, that 'll do," continued Andy. "No, spell one more word--spell tobacco, and you shall have it," added Alfred. "T-o-e-b-a-c-k-k-o-u-g-h--now hand over the 'baccy.'" "I have n't got any--have you, Oscar?" said Alfred Oscar fumbled in his pockets, but there was none to be found. "You mean, contemptible scalliwags!" exclaimed Andy, "why did n't you tell me that before? You catch me in that trap again, if you can!" and he walked off in a passion, amid the laughter of Oscar and Alfred. "Let's go and see the pups, Alf," said Oscar, after they had got done laughing over the joke they had played upon Andy. Alfred's step-father had a fine dog of the hound species, with a litter of cunning little pups. A bed had been made for her and the little ones in a corner of the yard, adjoining the stable, with a rough covering to shelter them from wind and storms. The pups were now several weeks old. There were five of them, and a fat and frolicksome set they were too. As the boys approached them, they were frisking and capering as usual; tumbling and rolling over one another, climbing upon the back of their mother, and pulling and barking at the straw. Their mother, whose name was Bright, sat watching their gambols with a very affectionate but sedate look. Perhaps she was wondering whether _she_ was ever so mischievous and frisky as these little fellows were. When the pups looked up and saw the boys, they stopped their fun for a time, for they were not yet much accustomed to company. Bright, however, knew both Alfred and Oscar; and as she was a dog of good education and accomplished manners, she did not allow herself to be disconcerted in the least by their presence. "You did n't know father had given all the pups but one to me, did you, Oscar?" inquired Alfred. "No,--has he, though?" asked Oscar. "Yes, he has. I knew I could make him say yes, and so I teased him till he did. He 's going to pick out one, to keep, and I 'm to have all the rest." "That's first-rate," said Oscar; "and you 'll give me one, won't you?" "Yes, you may have one," replied Alfred; "but don't tell the boys I gave it to you, for I mean to sell the others." "Then I 'll pay you for mine," continued Oscar; "I can get the money out of father, I guess." "No, you shan't pay for it, for I meant you should have one of them, if you wanted it," replied Alfred. "Thank you," said Oscar, "I should like one very much." After looking at the dogs awhile, and canvassing their respective merits, they happened to notice that one of the drivers was about starting off with his coach. "Halloo, Mack!" cried Alfred, "where are you going!" "To the depôt," replied the driver. "Let's go, Oscar," said Alfred; and both boys ran for the coach, the driver stopping until they had climbed up to his seat. A ride of five minutes brought them to the depôt, where the driver reined up, to await the arrival of a train, which was nearly due. Many other carriages, of various kinds, were standing around the depôt, for the same purpose. Oscar and Alfred rambled about the building and adjoining grounds, watching the operations that were going on; for though they had witnessed the same operations many times before, there is something quite attractive about such scenes, even to older heads than theirs. On one track, within the depôt, were six or eight cars, beneath which a man was crawling along, carefully examining the running gear, and giving each wheel two or three smart raps with a hammer, to see if it had a clear and natural ring. These cars had lately arrived from a distant city, and must undergo a careful scrutiny before they are again used. If any break or flaw is discovered, the car is sent out to the repair-shop. On another track, the men were making up the next outward train. The particular baggage and passenger cars that were to be used, had to be separated from the others, and arranged in their proper order. Another track was kept clear, for the train that was soon to arrive. Two or three locomotives, outside of the depôt, were fizzing and hissing, occasionally moving back or forward, with a loud coughing noise, or changing from one track to another. The bell of the looked-for train was at length heard. The engine, as it approached, was switched upon a side-track, but the cars, from which it had been detached, kept on their course until the brakes brought them to a stand in the depôt. The passengers now swarmed forth by hundreds--a curious and motley crowd of men, women, and children; good-looking people, and ill-looking ones; the fine lady in silk, and the rough backwoods-man in homespun; the middle-aged woman in black, with three trunks and four bandboxes, and the smooth-faced dandy, whose sole baggage was a slender cane. The cars were at length emptied of their living freight, and most of the passengers had secured their baggage. Those who wished to ride, had mostly engaged seats in the various hacks and coaches, whose drivers accosted every passenger, as he got out of the cars, with their invitations to "ride up." Alfred and Oscar now started to look after the stage-coach in which they rode to the depôt. They found it loaded with passengers and baggage, and the driver was talking with two small lads, of from twelve to thirteen years of age. "Here, Alf," said the driver, "you are just the fellow I want, but I thought you had gone. These boys want to go to the hotel, but I have n't room to take them. They say they had just as lief walk, and if you 'll let them go with you, I 'll take their trunk along." This was readily agreed to. The driver made room for the trunk on the top of the coach, and the young strangers started for the hotel, in company with Alfred and Oscar. As they walked along, they grew quite sociable. The two new-comers,--who, by the way, were quite respectable in their appearance,--stated that they belonged in one of the cities of Maine, and had never been in Boston before. They were brothers; and both their parents being dead, they said they were on their way to the west, where they had an uncle, who had sent for them to come and live with him. They had a good many questions to ask about Boston, and said they meant to look around the city some the next day, as they must resume their journey on Monday. Alfred said he would go with them, and show them the principal sights; and Oscar, too, would have gladly volunteered, were it not that his father required him to go to church and the Sabbath-school on that day, and to stay in the house when not thus engaged. The boys had now reached the hotel, where the trunk had already arrived. A room was appropriated to the young guests, and Alfred and Oscar conducted them to it, and remained awhile in conversation with them. By-and-bye, the oldest of the strangers asked Alfred if he would go and show them where they could buy some good pistols. Alfred readily agreed to this, and the four boys started off towards the shops where such articles are sold. On their way through the crowded streets, the new-comers found much to attract their attention. They seemed inclined to stop at every shop window, to admire some object, and it was nearly dark when they reached the place where they were to make their purchase. Here, amid the variety of pistols that were exhibited to them, they were for a time unable to decide which to choose. At length, however, aided by the advice of Alfred and Oscar, they picked out two that they concluded to buy. They also purchased a quantity of powder and balls, and then desired to look at some dirks, two of which they decided to take. Some fine pocket-knives next arrested their attention, which were examined, and greatly admired by all the boys. The oldest of the strangers, who did all the business, concluded to take four of these, and then settled for all the articles purchased. The bill was not very small, but his pocket-book was evidently well supplied, and he paid it with out any difficulty. After they had left the store, the oldest boy gave Oscar and Alfred, each, one of the pocket-knives, to pay them for their trouble, as he expressed it. They were much pleased with their present, and felt very well satisfied with their afternoon's adventure. They were a little surprised, however, that their new friends should think it necessary to invest so largely in weapons of defence; and on their hinting this surprise, the boy who purchased the articles said, with a careless, business-like air: "O, we 've got to travel a good many hundred miles, and there 's no knowing what rough fellows we may fall in with. But give me a good revolver and dirk, and I bet I will take care of myself, anywhere." The seriousness with which this brave language was uttered by a boy scarcely yet in his teens, would have made even Alfred and Oscar smile, but for the consciousness of the new knives in their pockets. It was now quite dark, and on coming to a street which led more directly towards his home, Oscar left the other boys, with the promise of seeing them again Monday morning. CHAPTER V. THE YOUNG TRAVELLERS. The Sabbath came, and a fine autumnal day it was. Oscar's thoughts were with Alfred, and the boys whose acquaintance he had made the afternoon previous; but there was little chance for him to join them in their walks on that day. He could not absent himself from church or the Sunday-school, without his parents' knowledge; and Mr. Preston had always decidedly objected to letting the children stroll about the streets on the Sabbath. Oscar felt so uneasy, however, that in the afternoon, a little while before meeting-time, he left the house slyly, while his father was upstairs, and walked around to Alfred's. But he saw nothing of the boys, and was in his accustomed seat in the church when the afternoon services commenced. The next morning, Oscar rose earlier than usual, and as soon as he could despatch his breakfast, he hurried over to the hotel. The travellers had concluded to defer their journey one day longer, that they might have a better opportunity to see Boston; and when Oscar approached them, they were trying to persuade Alfred to stay away from school, and accompany them in their rambles. They immediately extended the same invitation to Oscar. Both he and Alfred felt very much inclined to accede to their proposition, but they were pretty sure that it would be useless to ask their parents' consent to absent themselves from school for such a purpose. The point to be settled was, whether it would be safe to play truant for the day. Seeing that they hesitated, the oldest boy, whose name was Joseph, began to urge the matter still more earnestly. "What are you afraid of?" he said; "come along, it's no killing affair to stay away from school just for one day. You can manage so that nobody will know it; and if they should find it out, it won't make any difference a hundred years hence. Come, now, I 'll tell you what I 'll do; if you two will go around with us to-day, I 'll give you a quarter of a dollar apiece." Oscar and Alfred, after some little hesitation, yielded to their request, and the four boys started on their tramp. It was not without many misgivings, however, that Oscar decided to accompany them. With him, the chances of detection were much greater than with Alfred. No brothers of the latter attended school, to notice and report his absence. With Oscar, the case was different, and he did not see exactly how his truancy was to be concealed from his parents and teachers. But as Alfred was going with the boys, he finally concluded that he, too, would run the risk for at least half a day, and trust to luck to escape punishment. It was decided to go over to the neighboring city of Charlestown, first, and visit the Monument and Navy-Yard, both of which the young strangers were quite anxious to see. Joseph, the oldest and most forward, began to be on quite intimate terms with Oscar and Alfred. He threw off every restraint, and laughed and talked with them just as if they were old acquaintances. One thing very noticeable about him, was his profanity. Neither Alfred nor Oscar, I am sorry to say, was entirely free from this wicked and disgusting habit; but they had made so little advance in this vice, compared with their new friend, that even they were slightly shocked by the frequent and often startling oaths of Joseph. The younger lad, whose name was Stephen, appeared to be quite unlike his brother. Though sociable, he was less gay and more reserved than Joseph, but he seemed to be much interested in the novel sights that met his eye at every step. On their way, the boys came to a cellar which was occupied by a dealer in fruits and other refreshments. Around the entrance were arranged numerous boxes of oranges, apples, nuts, candy, and similar articles, to tempt the passer-by to stop and purchase. The owner was not in sight, and Joseph, as he passed along, boldly helped himself from one of the boxes, taking a good hand-full of walnuts. On looking around, a moment after, he saw a man running up the cellar steps, and concluded that he, too, had better quicken his pace. He accordingly started on a brisk run, the other boys joining in his flight. The man, who happened to witness the theft from the back part of the cellar, soon saw that pursuit would be useless, and contented himself with shaking his fist, and uttering some anathemas which were inaudible to those for whom they were intended. "That was a pretty narrow escape, was n't it?" said Joseph, after they had got a safe distance from the man. "It was so," replied Alfred; "and it was lucky for you that he did n't catch you." "Why, what do you suppose he would have done?" "He would have taken you up for stealing, I guess, for he looked mad enough to do anything," said Alfred. "Stealing? Pooh, a man must be a fool to make such a fuss about a cent's-worth of nuts," replied Joseph. "I knew a boy," said Oscar, "who stole a cake of maple sugar from one of these stands, and his father had to pay two or three dollars to get him out of the scrape." "I would n't have done it," said Joseph; "I 'd have gone to jail first--that 's just my pluck." "But the boy did n't do it--it was his father that paid the money," added Oscar. "O, then, I suppose the boy was n't to blame," said Joseph, with all seriousness; as though he really believed that somebody was to blame, not for stealing the maple sugar, but for satisfying the man who had been injured by the theft. They were now upon one of the bridges which cross Charles River, and connect the cities of Boston and Charlestown. After passing half-way over, they stopped a few minutes to gaze at the scene spread out around them. Oscar and Alfred pointed out to the strangers the various objects of interest, and they then continued their walk without interruption until they reached the Monument grounds, on Bunker Hill. After examining the noble granite shaft which commemorates the first great battle of the American Revolution, they threw themselves down upon the grass, to contemplate at their leisure the fine panorama which this hill affords on a clear day. After lingering half an hour around the Monument, they turned their steps towards the Navy-Yard. On reaching it, they found a soldier slowly pacing back and forth, in front of the gate-way; but he made no objection to their entering. Joseph and Stephen, who had never before visited an establishment of this kind, were first struck by the extent of the yard, and the air of order and neatness which seemed everywhere to prevail. They gazed with curiosity upon the long rows of iron cannons interspersed with pyramids of cannon-balls, piled up in exact order, which were spread out upon the parks. Then their wonder was excited by the dry-dock, with its smooth granite walls, its massive gates, and its capacious area, sufficient to float the largest frigate. The lofty ship-houses in which vessels are constructed, and the long stone rope-walk, with its curious machinery, also attracted their attention. So interested were they in these things, that nearly two hours elapsed before they started for home. On their way back to the hotel, Joseph entertained Alfred and Oscar with some incidents of his life. His mother, he said, died when he was quite young. His father went to sea as the captain of a ship, two years before, and had never been heard from. He had rich relatives, who wanted him to go to West Point and be a cadet, but he did not like to study, and had persuaded them to let him and Stephen go and live with their uncle at the west, who had no boys of his own, and wanted somebody to help him to manage his immense farm. Such, in brief, was Joseph's story. On their return route, the boys were careful to avoid passing by the cellar from which Joseph had stolen the nuts. With all his pluck and bravery, he did not care about meeting the man whose displeasure he had excited a few hours before. It was twelve o'clock before the boys reached the hotel. Oscar, during the latter part of the walk, had been unusually silent. He was thinking how he should manage to conceal his truancy, but he could not hit upon any satisfactory plan. The more he reflected upon the matter, the more he was troubled and perplexed about it. He might possibly hide his mis-spent forenoon from his parents, but how should he explain his absence to his teachers? He could not tell. He decided, however, to see his brothers before they should get home from school, and, if they had noticed his absence, to prevail upon them to say nothing about it. "You 'll be back again after dinner, Oscar?" said Alfred, as his friend started for home. "Yes," replied Oscar, with some hesitation; "I 'll see you before school-time." "School-time? You don't intend to go to school this afternoon, do you?" inquired Alfred. Oscar did not reply, but hastened homeward. He soon found Ralph and George, but as neither of them spoke of his absence from school, he concluded that they were ignorant of it, and he therefore made no allusion to the subject. After dinner, Oscar had about half an hour to spend with Alfred; for he felt so uneasy in his mind, that he had decided not to absent himself from school in the afternoon. He had gone but a short distance when he met his comrade, who had started in pursuit of him. "Well," said Alfred, "we 've been taken in nicely, that's a fact." "Taken in--what do you mean?" inquired Oscar. "Why, by those young scamps that we 've been showing around town." "I thought they told great stories," said Oscar; "but what have you found out about them?" "I 've found out that they are the greatest liars I ever came across--or at least that the oldest fellow is," replied Alfred; and he then went on to relate what transpired immediately after Oscar left them, on their return from Charlestown. The landlord, it seems, requested the two strange boys to step into one of the parlors; and Alfred, not understanding the order, accompanied them. They found two men seated there, the sight of whom seemed anything but pleasant to Joseph and Stephen. These men were their fathers--for the boys were not brothers, and Joseph's account of their past life and future prospects was entirely false. They had run away from home, and the money which they had so profusely spent, Joseph stole from his father. The men, who had been put to much trouble in hunting up their wayward sons, did not greet them very cordially. They looked stern and offended, but said little. Joseph was obliged to deliver up his money to his father, and they immediately made preparations for returning home by the afternoon train. "Well," said Oscar, when Alfred had concluded his story, "I did n't believe all that boy said, at the time, but I thought I would n't say so." "Nor I, neither," said Alfred. "I guess he did n't expect his father's ship would arrive so suddenly, when he tried to stuff us up so." "Did your father know you went off with them in the forenoon?" inquired Oscar. "Yes, but he did n't care much about it. He told me I must go to school this afternoon, and not stay away again without leave." The rules of the school required a written note of excuse from the parents, in case of absence. Neither of the boys was furnished with such an excuse, and after a little consultation, they concluded that their chances of escaping punishment would be greatest, if they should frankly confess how they had been duped and led astray by the young rogues whose acquaintance they had so suddenly and imprudently formed. They supposed that the peculiar circumstances of the case, coupled with a voluntary confession, might excite some degree of sympathy, rather than displeasure, towards them. To make the matter doubly sure, it was arranged that Alfred should speak to the master about the matter before school commenced. When the boys reached the school-room, they found the master already at his desk. He listened with interest to Alfred's story of the runaways, and was evidently pleased that he had so frankly confessed his fault. As the hour for commencing the afternoon session had arrived, he told Alfred and Oscar they might stop after school, and he would take their case into consideration. The afternoon passed away, without any unusual occurrence. When school was dismissed, the teacher called Alfred and Oscar to his desk, and gave them some excellent advice in regard to forming acquaintances, and yielding to the solicitations of evil associates. He told them that the deception which had been practiced upon them, should serve as a lesson to them hereafter. They should not form sudden acquaintances with strange and unknown boys, but should choose their associates from among those whom they knew to be of good habits. He also earnestly cautioned them against yielding to the enticements of those who would persuade them to do wrong. He told them that whenever they laid the blame of their faults upon others, they made a sad confession of their own moral weakness. They must often encounter temptations, and evil examples and influences, even if they took pains to avoid them; but they were not obliged to yield to these influences. They must learn to resist temptation, or they would speedily be swept away before it. Having faithfully pointed out their error and danger, the teacher dismissed the boys. They listened respectfully to his advice, and, when they were beyond his hearing, chuckled over their escape from a species of admonition that might have proved far more feeling and affecting, if not more salutary, than the kindly-meant reproof which had been administered to them. The leniency of the teacher, however, must be attributed to his not fully understanding the character of their offence; for Alfred had so artfully represented the facts of the case, as to make their truancy appear in a milder light than it deserved to be regarded. CHAPTER VI. WORK. "Oscar, go down cellar and get some coal," said Mrs. Preston one evening, when the fire was getting low. "I 'm reading--you go and get it, Ralph," said Oscar, without looking up from the newspaper in his hand. "No, I shan't," replied Ralph; "I 've done all your chores to-day, and I won't do any more." "Tell Bridget to bring it up, then," added Oscar, his eyes still fastened upon his paper. "Oscar," said Mrs. Preston, sharply, "I told you to get it, and do you obey me, this minute. Bridget has worked hard all day, and Ralph has already had to do several errands and jobs that you ought to have done, and that is the reason why I did not ask them to get the coal. You have done nothing but play, when you were out of school, since morning, and now, when I ask you to do a trifling thing, you try to shirk it upon somebody else. I do wish you would break yourself of your laziness, and have a little consideration for other people." Oscar reluctantly obeyed his mother's order. Indeed, it was seldom that he was very prompt to obey, when any kind of labor was required of him. He had a peculiar knack of getting rid of work. If he was directed to do a thing, he was almost sure to try to coax Alice, or Ella, or Ralph, or Bridget, or somebody else, to do it for him. He never taxed his own legs, or hands, or muscles, when he could make use of other people's. This lazy habit was a source of no small anxiety to his mother, and was a constant annoyance to all the family. "Well, you did make out to get it," said Mrs. Preston, in a pleasant tone, when Oscar returned with the coal. "I hope it did n't hurt you much." "I was n't afraid of its hurting me," said Oscar "but I was reading, and did n't want to stop." "I am afraid that is only an excuse," replied his mother. "It has really got to be a habit with you to call upon somebody else, whenever you are told to do a thing. We have all noticed it, a hundred times, and you alone seem to be blind to it. In a year or two, when you are old enough to leave school, and go to a place, what do you suppose you will be good for, if you keep on in this way? Why, the man who should take you into his employ, would have to hire another boy on purpose to wait upon you." "It is just as mother says, Oscar," added his eldest sister, Alice. "It was only this morning that Bridget was scolding, because you wanted to be waited upon so much. She says you make her more trouble than all the rest of us together." Oscar could not deny these charges, and so he said nothing, but appeared to be reading his newspaper very intently. Mr. Preston came in soon after, and the family sat down to tea. "Oscar," said Mr. Preston, "next week is vacation, is it not?" "Yes, sir," replied Oscar. "Well, I shall want you in the store a part of the time," continued his father. "Frank is going home to spend Thanksgiving, and as it will be a busy week with us, we must have somebody to take his place." "Why can't Henry do the errands while Frank is away?" inquired Oscar. "Because Henry will have as much other work as he can attend to," replied Mr. Preston. "I don't see why you let Frank go off at such a time," said Oscar, pettishly. "It is not necessary that you should see," replied his father. "I can manage my business without any advice from you, and I don't want you to call me to account for what I do. I have given Frank a vacation, and I shall expect assistance from you--that is all it is necessary for you to know about it." Frank was the errand-boy in Mr. Preston's shop. Henry, upon whom Oscar wished to lay the burden occasioned by Frank's absence, was a young clerk, who had formerly served as chore-boy, but was now quite useful as a salesman. It was evident, from Oscar's looks, that he did not much relish the idea of taking Frank's place for a week. His mother, noticing this, said: "Why, Oscar, I thought you and Frank were good friends, and I should suppose you would be willing to relieve him a few days. The poor boy has been away from his mother nearly a year, and it is natural that he should want to go home and spend Thanksgiving. If you were in his place, and he in yours, don't you think you should like the arrangement your father proposes?" "I suppose I should," replied Oscar; "but it's hard for me to lose my vacation, for the sake of letting him have one." "You will not lose all your vacation," said his father "If you are lively, you can do all I shall want you to do in four or five hours, and have the rest of the day to yourself." "And I 'll help you, too," said Ralph, who was always ready to offer his assistance in such a case as this. "Thanksgiving week" soon arrived, and the busy note of preparation for the approaching festival was heard throughout the house. Bridget was invested with a new dignity, in the eyes of the children, as she bustled about among the mince-meat and the pie-crust, the eggs and the milk, the fruit and the spices, that were to be compounded into all sorts of good things. The house was filled with savory odors from the oven, and long rows of pies began to fill up every vacant space in the closet. Mrs. Preston was busy, superintending the operations of the household; while Alice and Ella rendered such assistance as they could, in the chopping of pie-meat, the paring of apples, the picking of raisins, &c. The boys, for their share, had an unusual number of errands to run, to keep the busy hands inside supplied with working materials. Oscar, however, was released for the week from all home chores, in consideration of his engagements at the store. Oscar did not find his duties as temporary store-boy quite so irksome or disagreeable as he anticipated. The work was light, and the novelty of it served to offset the confinement, which he had dreaded more than anything else. With some assistance from Ralph, he managed to do all that was required of him, and still have several hours each day for play. He also had an opportunity to learn some useful lessons during the week. One morning, his father sent him up-stairs to sweep out a room which was devoted to a certain branch of the business. Happening to go into it an hour or two after, Mr. Preston observed that it was in a dirty state, and called to Oscar to get a broom and sprinkler, and come up. "I told you to sweep this room out," said he, as Oscar made his appearance; "did you forget it?" "I _have_ swept it," said Oscar, in a tone of surprise. "You have?" exclaimed Mr. Preston, with an air of incredulity; "I guess you are mistaken. You may have shaken the broom at it, but I don't think you swept it. See there--and there--and there,"--and he pointed out numerous little heaps of dirt, and scraps of paper, which had escaped Oscar's broom. "Now," he continued, "let me show you how to sweep. In the first place, always sprinkle the floor a little, to prevent the dust flying, as I told you a day or two ago. You omitted that this morning, did n't you?" "Yes, sir," replied Oscar. "Well, just remember it hereafter, for the dust injures the goods. There 's water enough, now pass me the broom, and I 'll show you how to handle it. Look, now--that 's the way to sweep--get all the dirt out from the corners and crevices, and along the edges, and under the counters. Use the broom as though you meant to do something, and were not afraid of it. There, that 's the way to sweep clean--so--and so," and Mr. Preston continued his explanations and illustrations, until he had swept the entire floor. "There, now, does n't that look better?" he added, after he had finished sweeping. "If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well--that's the true doctrine, Oscar. I hope you won't get in the habit of making half-way work with whatever you undertake. If I never expected to do anything but sweep chimneys or dig clams for a living, I would do it thoroughly and faithfully. Of all things, I despise a lazy, slovenly workman." It was a very common thing with Oscar to slight his work, when he could not get rid of it entirely. This was partly the result of a want of interest in it, and partly the result of habit. The child who performs a task reluctantly, will not be very likely to do it well. The day before Thanksgiving, as Oscar was on his way to the store, after dinner, he met Alfred Walton. "You 're just the chap I 'm after, Oscar," said Alfred; "I'm going out to Cambridge, all alone in a wagon, and I want you to go with me. Come, jump in and go, won't you?" This was a tempting invitation to Oscar, but he did not see how he could accept it. He was needed at the store more than ever, that afternoon, but it was too bad to lose such a fine chance to enjoy himself. Alfred was in a hurry, and could not stop long for him to consider the matter. So he concluded to run home, and ask his father's permission, while Alfred went and got the horse ready. But when he got home, his father had left. He found Ralph, however, who readily agreed to take his place at the store, for the afternoon; and on the strength of this arrangement, he hurried to the hotel and rode off with Alfred. It was a mild, pleasant afternoon, and the boys had a fine ride. Alfred had been among horses so much, that he understood their management pretty well, and was a very good driver. He prided himself on his ability to turn a neat corner, and to steer through the narrowest and most crooked passage-ways, such as abound in the contracted and crowded streets of a city. When they reached the broad avenues of Cambridge, he allowed Oscar to take the reins awhile, at his request. Alfred's step-father had been out to Cambridge, in the forenoon of the same day, and had purchased a horse at the cattle-market which is held weekly at that place. As he was obliged to return home by the cars, he left word that he would send out for the horse, in the afternoon. This was Alfred's errand. After several inquiries, the boys found the man who sold the horse. Having examined the new purchase, and freely expressed their opinions of the animal's "points," they hitched his halter to the wagon, and set out for home. The sun was rapidly descending, when the boys reached the hotel stable. Oscar, who felt somewhat uneasy about his absence from the store, turned his steps in that direction, soon after he alighted from the wagon. He found all hands very busy, and for a long time no one appeared to notice him. At length his father happened to come to the part of the shop where he was, and asked him where he had been all the afternoon. Oscar proceeded to explain the cause of his absence, but Mr. Preston was in too much of a hurry to listen to his long excuses, and so he cut him short, and told him, in not very pleasant tones, that Ralph had done the work, and he (Oscar) might go home again, just as soon as he pleased--a privilege of which he quickly availed himself. At the tea-table, that evening, Mr. Preston expressed his displeasure with Oscar's conduct in very pointed terms. Oscar now explained the circumstances of his going away--his attempt to get his father's consent, and the promise of Ralph to supply his place. But the explanation did not satisfy Mr. Preston. He said Oscar knew he was needed that afternoon, and he ought not to have asked to go away, or even to have thought of it. Even if Ralph was willing to do his work, he did not like his putting so much upon his younger and weaker brother. He then complimented Ralph for his industry, and his willingness to make himself useful, and held him up to Oscar as a pattern he would do well to imitate. He concluded his lecture to the latter, by drawing from his pocket a quarter of a dollar, and presenting it to Ralph, as a reward for his services. This touched Oscar's feelings rather more than his father's reproofs. He thought to himself that he had performed as much work in the store as Ralph, to say the least, and was therefore as much entitled to a reward as he. There was this difference, however, which he entirely overlooked: Oscar did his share of the work reluctantly and from compulsion; Ralph did his cheerfully and voluntarily, and solely for the purpose of making himself useful. CHAPTER VII. THANKSGIVING-DAY. Thanksgiving-Day had come. Among the multitude of good things it brought with it, not the least important, in the eyes of the children, was a visit from their grandmother, Mrs. Lee, who arrived the evening previous. She was the mother of Mrs. Preston, and lived in a distant town in Vermont. She had not visited the family for several years, and the children and their parents were all very glad to see her once more. She was much surprised to find how the young folks had grown since she last saw them. Alice had shot up into a young lady, Oscar, who she remembered as "a little bit of a fellow," was a tall boy, Ella, too, was quite a miss, and Georgie, "the baby," had long since exchanged his frock for the jacket, trowsers, and boots, of boyhood. All these changes had happened since their grandmother's last visit; and yet she was just the same pleasant, talkative old lady that she was years ago. The children could not discover that time had left so much as one new wrinkle on her well-remembered face. [Illustration: Thanksgiving Market Scene.] After breakfast, their grandmother proceeded to unpack her trunk. From its capacious depths she drew forth sundry articles,--specimens of her own handiwork,--which she distributed among the children, as gifts. They were all articles of utility, such as warm, "country-knit" mittens and socks for the boys, and tippets and stockings for the girls. A large bag filled with nuts, and another of pop-corn, were also among the contents of the trunk, and were handed to the children to be divided among them. In accordance with an agreement made the day before, Oscar soon left the house, and went in search of Alfred. Having found him, they set out for South Boston, in company with two or three boys, to witness a shooting-match got up by a man who worked about the stable. The spot selected for the sport was a retired field, where there was little danger of being interrupted. On reaching the ground, the boys found a small collection of young men and lads already engaged in the cruel amusement; for the mark was a live fowl, tied to a stake. The company assembled were of a decidedly low order, and Oscar at first felt almost ashamed to be seen among them. Smoking, swearing, betting, and quarrelling, were all going on at once, interspersed with occasional shouts of laughter at some vulgar joke, or at the fluttering and cries of a wounded fowl. Sometimes a poor chicken would receive several shots, before its misery would be terminated by a fatal one. When one fowl was killed, a fresh one was brought forth. Each man who fired at the mark, paid a trifling sum for the privilege, and was entitled to the fowl, if he killed it. Oscar and his young companions lingered around the grounds for an hour or two, familiarizing themselves with scenes of shameful cruelty, and breathing an atmosphere loaded with pollution and moral death. The repugnance which Oscar at first felt to the party and its doings was so far overcome, that before he left he himself fired one or two shots, with a rifle which was lent to him. Oscar reached home before the hour for dinner. As he entered the sitting-room, his mother, who had missed him, inquired where he had been all the forenoon. "I 've been with Alf," he replied. His mother did not notice this evasion of her question, but added: "Why do you want to be with Alfred so much? It seems to me you might find better company. I 'm afraid he is not so good a boy as he might be. I don't like his looks very much." "Why, mother," said Oscar, "Alf is n't a bad boy, and I never heard anybody say he was. I like him first-rate--he 's a real clever fellow." "He may be clever enough, but I do not think he is a very good associate for you," replied Mrs. Preston. "Who ought to know best about that, you or I?" said Oscar, with a pertness for which he was becoming a little too notorious. "I see Alf every day, but you don't know hardly anything about him. At my rate, I 'll risk his hurting me." Oscar's grandmother looked at him with astonishment, as he uttered these words. He felt the silent rebuke, and turned his head from her. "Well," added Mrs. Preston, "if Alfred is not a bad boy himself, I do not believe that the kind of people you spend so much of your time with, around the hotel-stable, will do either you or him any good. The lessons a boy learns among tavern loungers do not generally make him any better, to say the least. I wish you would keep away from such places--I should feel a good deal easier if you would." The subject was dropped, and dinner,--the event of Thanksgiving-day, in every New England home,--soon began to engross the attention of the household. It was a pleasant feast, to old and young. The children forgot all their little, fanciful troubles, and the traces of care were chased from their parents' brows for the hour. The afternoon was stormy, and the children amused themselves with in-door sports. After tea, however, Oscar asked his father for some money, to buy a ticket to an entertainment that was to take place in the evening. But both his parents thought he had better stay at home, with the rest of the family, and he reluctantly yielded to their wishes, coupled with the promise of a story or two from his grandmother, about old times. A cheerful fire was burning in the grate, when the family returned to the parlor, from the tea-table. The lamps were not yet lit, although the gray twilight was fast settling down, and the ruddy coals began to reflect themselves from the polished furniture. Mrs. Preston was about to light the lamps, when Ella exclaimed: "No, no, mother, don't light the lamps--let's sit in the dark awhile, and then grandmother's stories will seem twice as romantic. You don't want a light, do you, grandmother?" "No," said the grandmother, "I can talk just as well in the dark. But I don't know as I can tell you any very interesting stories. I can't think of anything now but what you have already heard. That's just the way when I want to tell a story. If I was all alone, I should think of lots of things to tell you." "Can't you tell us something about the Indians?--I like to hear about them," said Oscar. "You would like to know how they served naughty boys, would n't you?" inquired his grandmother; and if the room had not been quite so dark, Oscar would have seen something like a roguish twinkle in her sober gray eye, as she spoke. "O yes, grandmother," interrupted Ella, "that will suit him, I know. At any rate, it ought to interest him--so please to tell us what they did to their bad boys, and perhaps we shall learn how to serve Oscar." "And while you are about it, grandmother," said Oscar, "tell us what they did to naughty girls, too." "I don't know how they punished girls," said the old lady; "but I have heard it said that when they wished to punish a boy very severely, they made him lie down on the ground, upon his back. They then put their knees on his arms, and held his head back, while they took into their mouth some very bitter stuff, made from the roots of a certain plant, and squirted it into the boy's nose. They kept repeating the dose, till the poor fellow was almost strangled, and I suppose by that time he was cured of his fault." "Pooh, was that all?" said Oscar; "I thought something terrible was coming." "I guess you would not like to try the Indian remedy more than once," replied his mother; "but if you think it is so pleasant to take, perhaps your father will give you a taste of it, one of these days, if you do not behave better than you have done of late." "Did you ever get frightened by the Indians, grandmother?" inquired Ralph. "No," replied the old lady; "there were plenty of them around, when I was a little girl, but they had got to be quite civil, and we were not afraid of them. I wish I could remember all the stories my mother used to tell me about them--they were plenty and troublesome, too, in her day. I recollect one fight that took place in our neighborhood, when she was young. One evening, a man who was returning from another settlement, happened to discover a party of Indians, making their way very quietly up the river in their canoes, towards our little village. He watched their movements as narrowly as possible, but was careful not to let them see or hear him. When they got within about half a mile of the settlement, they pulled their canoes ashore, and concealed them among the bushes. They meant to creep along very slowly and slily, the rest of the way, and then fall suddenly upon the whites, and murder and plunder them before they could know what the matter was. But the man who discovered them hurried on to the settlement, and gave the alarm. Ten men was all he could muster, for there were but a few families in the town. These men armed themselves, and by the time they were ready for action, the Indians had already begun their work of plunder. "But the Indians were not cunning enough for the white folks, that time. The settlers formed themselves into two parties--one of seven and one of three men. The three men went down very cautiously to the Indian's landing-place, and after cutting slits in their bark canoes, they hid themselves, and awaited the result. While they were doing this, the other party made such a furious and sudden attack upon the enemy, that the Indians thought they were assailed by a force far superior to their own, and so they fled as fast as they could. When they reached the landing-place, they jumped pell-mell into their canoes, and pushed out into the stream. Now they thought they would soon be out of the reach of harm; but, to their astonishment, the canoes began to fill with water, and were entirely unmanageable. The three men in ambush now began to attack them, and pretty soon the other seven came to their aid, and in a little while the Indians were all shot or drowned, and not one of the party escaped, to inform their kindred what had befallen them. The stream on which this happened is called Laplot River. Laplot, they say, means 'the plot,' and a good many people think the river got its name from the stratagem of the settlers, but I don't know how that is." After musing awhile in silence, Ralph called for another story. "Let me see," said his grandmother; "did I ever tell you about Widow Storey's retreat, in the Revolution!" "No ma'am," said Oscar; "I've read about General Burgoyne's retreat; but I never heard of Widow Storey before: who was she?" "O, it was n't that kind of a retreat that I meant," said his grandmother; "but I will tell you who she was. She lived in Salisbury, some twenty or thirty miles from where I belong. Her husband was the first man who settled in Salisbury, but he was very unfortunate. After he had worked hard, and got a log cabin ready for his family, it took fire, and was destroyed; and he himself was killed by the fall of a tree, soon after. But his widow was a very smart woman; and though she had eight or ten small children, she moved on to the place her husband had selected; and the proprietors of the township gave her a hundred acres of land to encourage and reward her. She worked just like a man, and didn't mind chopping down trees, and cultivating the soil, with her own hands. But by-and-bye the Revolution broke out, and as there were British soldiers in the neighborhood, she was afraid they would make her a visit. She fled several times to another town, where there was less danger; but after awhile a new idea entered her head, and she proceeded to carry it out, with the aid of a man who lived near her. The idea was, to construct a hiding-place, where the British could not find them, if they should pay her a visit. They selected a spot on Otter Creek, and dug a hole right into the bank, horizontally. The hole was a little above the water, and was just large enough for a person to crawl into. It was so covered up by bushes that hung from the bank, that a stranger would not notice it. This passage led to a large lodging-room, the bottom of which was covered with straw. Good comfortable beds were prepared, and here the families found a secure retreat, until the danger was past." "That was complete," said Oscar; "but I should think the British might have tracked them to their retreat, for it's likely they had to go home pretty often, to get food, and look after things." "Yes," added his grandmother; "but they reached their retreat by a canoe, so that no footsteps could be seen leading to it; and they were careful not to go out or in during the day-time. I have heard my brother James tell about it. I believe he saw the very hole once, where they went in." "Uncle James was a famous hand for telling stories," remarked Mrs. Preston. "I shall never forget what a treat it was to me, when I was a child, to have him come to our house. I used to run out and meet him, when I saw him coming, and coax him to tell me a good lot of stories before he went off. I can remember some of them even now. He used to tell a story of a crabbed old fellow, who was very much annoyed by the boys stealing his apples. So, after awhile, he got a spring-trap, and set it under the trees, to catch the young rogues. But the boys got wind of the affair, and the first night he set it, they picked it up, and very quietly put it on his door-step, and then went back to the orchard, and began to bellow as though they were in great distress. The old man heard the uproar, and started out, in high glee at the idea of catching his tormentors; but he hardly put his foot out of the door, before he began to roar himself, and he was laid up a month with a sore leg." "That was old Zigzag," said the grandmother; "I knew him very well." "Old Zigzag!--what a funny name!" exclaimed Ralph. "That was n't his name, although he always went by it," added the old lady. "He was a very odd character, and one of his peculiarities was, that he never walked directly towards any place or object he wished to reach, but went in a 'criss-cross,' zigzag way, like a ship beating and tacking before a head-wind. He was a hard drinker, and was almost continually under the influence of liquor, and perhaps that was the cause of his singular habit. He was a terribly ugly fellow, when he was mad, and the boys used to tease him in every possible way; but wo to them if he got hold of them. He lived all alone, for he never had any wife or children; and he would not allow anybody to enter his house, on any account, but always kept the door locked. If his neighbors had business to transact with him, he would step into the yard and attend to them; but even in the severest weather, he would not let them cross his threshold. He never would speak to or look at a woman, and would always avoid meeting them, if possible. Poor fellow, he had a dreadful end. He was missing for several days, and at last some of the town's-people broke into his house, and found him dead, with his head badly burned. They supposed he was intoxicated, and fell, striking his head upon the andiron, which stunned him; and while he lay helpless, he was so badly burned that he soon died. And that was the last of poor old Zigzag." "There was another story Uncle James used to tell, about the naming of Barre, in Vermont; do you recollect it, mother?" inquired Mrs. Preston. "Yes, indeed, and I 've heard old Dr. Paddock tell it many a time. He was there, and saw it all. The people did n't like the name of their town, which was Wildersburgh, and determined to have a new one, and so they met together in town-meeting, to talk the matter over. One of the leading men came from Barre, Massachusetts, and he wanted the town to take that name. Another prominent citizen came from Holden, Massachusetts, and he insisted that the town should be called Holden. The people liked both of these names well enough, and it was finally determined that the question should be decided by a game of boxing, between these two men. So the meeting adjourned to a new barn, with a rough hemlock plank floor, and the contest commenced. After boxing awhile, one of them threw the other upon the floor, and sprang upon him at full length; but the one who was underneath dealt his blows so skilfully, that his opponent soon gave in; and rolling the Holden man out of the way, he jumped up and shouted, 'There, the name is Barre!' and Barre it hasten, to this day. The next day, the man who won this victory had to call on the doctor to extract from his back the hemlock splinters he had received while struggling on the barn floor." Thus the evening was beguiled with stories, mingled with a few songs by Alice and Ella, and a few favorite airs upon the piano-forte. Before the hour of retiring arrived, even Oscar was quite reconciled to the loss of the evening's entertainment away from home which he had promised himself. CHAPTER VIII. GRANDMOTHER LEE. Mrs. Lee, the grandmother of the Preston children, remained with the family for several weeks, after Thanksgiving. Her visit was, on the whole, a pleasant one, though there were some shadows thoughtlessly cast over it by the children. Age had somewhat impaired her sense of hearing, but yet she always wanted to understand everything that was said in her presence. Often, when the children were talking to each other in a low tone, she would ask them what they were saying. Ella did not like these interruptions, and was the first to complain of them. "O dear," said she, one day, "I do wonder what makes grandmother so inquisitive. I really believe she thinks we are talking about her all the time. I can't open my mouth, but she wants to know what I said. Don't you think she is getting childish, Alice?" "Why, Ella!" exclaimed Alice, in astonishment, "I should think you would be ashamed to speak so of your poor old grandmother. What do you think mother would say if she knew what you said!" "I can't help it," replied Ella; "I don't see why grandmother need be so curious about every little thing that's said. I mean to ask her some time when I have a good chance." "I should think you had better, Miss Impudence," said Alice; "perhaps she would like to have you give her some lessons in good behavior." Alice did not for a moment suppose that her sister meant to speak to their grandmother upon this subject. But she had miscalculated the pertness of Ella. A day or two after this, as several of the children were talking among themselves, the attention of the old lady was arrested. She could not hear distinctly what they said, but Oscar took a prominent part in the conversation; and a moment after, on his leaving the room, she asked Ella what he wanted. "O, it was n't anything that you care about, grandma'am," replied Ella. "Is that the way your mother teaches you to answer questions, Ella?" inquired Mrs. Lee, in a mild, reproachful tone. "No, no, grandmother," replied Alice, with considerable earnestness; "I shall tell mother how impudently she spoke to you. A boy has given a little dog to Oscar, and that was what he was telling us about, just before he went out." "Why, grandmother," added Ella, "I did n't mean to be impudent; but I 've noticed that you always want to hear what everybody says, even when they are not talking to you, and mother says that is n't polite." "I am much obliged to you, my dear," replied her grandmother, very meekly; "after I have taken a few more lessons from you, perhaps I shall know how to behave." The feelings of the old lady were more hurt by the rudeness of Ella, than her mild rebukes indicated. Alice felt bound to inform her mother of what had taken place; and Mrs. Preston was greatly mortified, on learning that her little daughter had spoken so impudently to her aged mother. She apologized for Ella, as well as she could, by saying that she was naturally forward and impulsive. At noon, when the children returned from school, she called Ella into a room by herself, and talked with her about her conduct. At first, Ella tried to justify herself; but after awhile her better nature triumphed, and she felt heartily ashamed of her treatment of her grandmother. To think that she, a girl eleven years old, should have attempted to teach her aged grandmother politeness, and in such an uncivil way, too! No wonder she hung her head in shame. To be candid, perhaps Ella's grandmother was a little too inquisitive to know what was going on around her. But this was one of the infirmities of old age which were slowly stealing upon her, and which the young should regard with pity and forbearance, but never with a censorious spirit. Ella was really a good-hearted girl, when her generous feelings were aroused. From that day, she treated her grandmother with marked kindness and respect; and her unfortunate attempt to rebuke the venerable woman was never alluded to again. Among the articles which Mrs. Lee brought from the country, for the children, was a small bag of corn for popping. One evening, George happened to think of this corn, which none of them had yet tried; and partly filling one of his pockets from the bag, he slipped quietly into the kitchen, and commenced popping it by Bridget's fire. There was no person in the kitchen but himself, and putting a handfull of corn in the wire popper, it soon began to snap and jump about, the hard, yellow kernels bursting forth into light and beautiful milk-white balls. But by-and-bye the savory odor of the corn found its way up stairs, and Ella and Ralph ran down to get their share of the treat. George had put the corn upon the table to cool, as fast as it was popped; but when he heard footsteps approaching, he scrambled it into his pocket as quick as possible. "Halloo, popped corn! Give me some, Georgie, won't you?" said Ralph. "And me, too," added Ella. "No I shan't, either," said George; "I popped it for myself." "You're real stingy," replied Ella; "but no matter, Ralph and I will pop some for ourselves. Where is the bag?" "You must find it for yourselves--I had to," was George's selfish reply, as he gathered the last of his popped corn into his pocket, badly burning his fingers, in his anxiety lest his brother or sister should get hold of a kernel or two. Ella and Ralph commenced searching for the bag of corn, but they could not find it. They looked in every place where they supposed it might be, but in vain. Their mother had gone to bed with a sick headache, or they would have ascertained where it was from her. At length they gave up the search, and returned to the sitting-room, in no very pleasant frame of mind. "I do declare, George," said Ella, "you are the meanest boy I ever heard of." "Why, what is the matter with George?" inquired his grandmother. "He 's been popping some of the corn you gave us," replied Ella; "and he won't give us a kernel of it, nor tell us where the bag is, so that we can pop some for ourselves." "Why, George," said Mrs. Lee, "that is too bad; I would tell them where the corn is, for I intended it as much for them as for you." "I don't care," said George; "they've called me mean and stingy, and now they may find it for themselves." "We did n't call you mean and stingy till you refused to tell us where it was," added Ella. "If I could find it, I guess you would n't get another kernel of it," said Ralph, addressing George; "I'd burn it all up first." "No, no, Ralph, that is wrong," replied his grandmother. "The corn is n't worth quarrelling about. If George wants to be selfish, and keep it all to himself, I 'll send down some more for the rest of you, when I go home. But I guess Georgie does n't mean to be selfish," she added, coaxingly; "he only wants to plague you a little, that's all. He 'll tell you where he found the corn, pretty soon." George, who was growing uneasy under this combined attack, now retreated to bed, leaving his grandmother more astonished than ever at his obstinacy. "There," said Alice, "it's of no use to try to drive or coax him out of his selfishness. Mother says he 'll outgrow it by-and-bye, but I don't see as there is any prospect of it. You know what made him so selfish, don't you, grandmother?" "I am afraid he has been humored too much," replied Mrs. Lee. "Well, he has been," added Alice; "but you know when he was little, he was very sick for a whole year, and the doctor said he must n't be crossed any more than we could help, for crying and fretting were very bad for him. So he had his own way in everything, and if we children had anything he wanted, we had to give it to him, and let him break it to pieces, for he would scream as loud as he could, if we refused him. This was the way he got to be so selfish; and now he thinks we must humor him just as we did when he was sick." "There is some little excuse for him, if he fell into the habit when he was very young and sick," observed Mrs. Lee; "but he is old enough and well enough now to know better, and ought to be broken of the fault." "Father and mother have tried to break him of it," replied Alice, "but they have not succeeded very well yet. They have talked to him a good deal about it, but it does no good." The next day, the children found the bag of corn, and their mother told George she should punish him for his selfishness by not letting him have any more of it. The corn was accordingly divided among the other children, and thus George, in trying to get more than his share, actually got less than the others did. It was about this time that Oscar came into possession of the pup which Alfred Walton had promised him two or three weeks before. He at first had some difficulty in obtaining the consent of his mother to bring it home. She thought it would be troublesome, and tried to dissuade him from taking it; but Oscar's heart was so strongly set upon the dog, that she at length reluctantly assented to its being admitted as an inmate of the family. Fastening a string to the neck of the dog, Oscar led him to his new home, where he received every attention from the younger members of the family. Quite a grave discussion at once ensued, as to what the name of the new-comer should be. Each of the children had a favorite name to propose, but Oscar rejected them all, and said the dog should be called "Tiger;" and so that became his name, but it was usually abbreviated to "Tige." [Illustration: Tiger's Countenance.] Tiger had grown very rapidly, and was now about twice as large as he was when Alfred promised Oscar one of his litter of pups. He was a handsome fellow, especially about the head, as you may see by his portrait. At times, he looked as old and grave as his mother; but for all that, he was a great rogue, and there was very little dignity or soberness about him. He was brim-full of fun, and would play with anybody or anything that would allow him to take that liberty. He would amuse himself for hours with an old shoe or rag that he had found in the street, and it seemed as if he never would get tired of shaking, and tearing, and biting it. This disposition sometimes led him into mischief, in the house; but he was always so happy, so good-natured and so affectionate, that it was difficult to blame him very hard for his misconduct. If Oscar's grandmother happened to drop her ball of yarn, when Tige was about, he would seize it in an instant, and she would have to work hard to get it away from him. She kept her work in a bag, which she usually hung upon the back of a chair; but one day, the little rogue pulled the bag down upon the floor, and had its various contents scattered all about the room, before the old lady noticed what he was doing. These mischievous pranks were very amusing to Oscar, and he set all the more by Tiger, on account of this trait in his character. The other members of the family, too, seemed to enjoy the sport he made; and it was easy to see that even old Mrs. Lee, though she pretended to be angry with the dog for his mischievousness, was in reality pleased with the attentions he bestowed upon her and her knitting-work. Oscar's grandmother usually retired to her chamber, soon after dinner, to take a short nap. One noon, after she had been scolding, with assumed gravity, about the dog's mischievousness, Oscar thought he would play a joke upon the old lady; so, on rising from the dinner-table, he carried Tiger up to her bed-room, and shut him in. He wanted to conceal himself somewhere, and witness the surprise of his grandmother, when she should open the door, and the dog should spring upon her; but it was time to go to school, and he could not wait. It so happened that Mrs. Lee did not take her nap so early as usual that day. When she did go to her chamber, Tiger, impatient of his long confinement, sprang out so quickly, that she did not observe him. But such a scene as met her gaze on entering the chamber! The first thing that caught her eye, was her best black bonnet lying upon the floor, all crumpled up and torn into shreds, looking as though it had been used for a football by a parcel of boys. She entered the room, and found a dress upon the floor, with numerous marks of rough handling upon it; while towels and other articles were scattered about in confusion. The cloth upon the dressing-table had been pulled off, and the articles that were kept upon it were lying upon the floor, including a handsome vase, which, in the fall, had been shattered to pieces. There was in the chamber a stuffed easy-chair, the covering of which was of worsted-work, wrought by Mrs. Preston when she was a young girl. This chair, which was highly valued as a relic of the past, was also badly injured. A part of the needle-work, which had cost so many hours of patient toil, was torn in every direction, and some of the hair, with which the cushion was stuffed, was pulled out, and scattered about the floor. As soon as Mrs. Lee had fully comprehended the extent of the mischief, she went to the stair-way, and called her daughter. A glance satisfied Mrs. Preston that Tiger must have been there; and she was confirmed in this belief by Bridget, who remembered that the dog came down into the kitchen, just after Mrs. Lee went up. But they could not tell how the little rogue got shut into the room. They concluded, however, that some of the children did it by accident, or that the dog slipped in unperceived when Mrs. Lee came out from the chamber before dinner. Oscar did not go directly home from school, but as soon as he entered the house, he learned what Tiger had done, from the other children. He felt sorry that what he intended as a harmless joke, should end in so serious a matter; but he determined that no one should know he had a hand in it, if he could prevent it. He regretted the destruction of property, but this feeling did not cause him so much uneasiness as his fear of losing his dog in consequence of this bad afternoon's work. His mother, as soon as she saw him, inquired if he had been to his grandmother's chamber that noon. He replied that he had not. She inquired if he let Tiger into it, and he answered in the negative. His mother questioned him still further, but he denied all knowledge of the matter. It was not very hard work for Oscar to tell a lie, now, for practice makes easy. He could do it, too, in such a plausible and seemingly innocent way, that it was difficult to believe he was deceiving you. His falsehoods, in this instance, were readily believed; and as all the other children denied having any knowledge of the affair, it was the general conclusion that Tiger must have obtained admittance to the chamber accidentally and unperceived. When Mr. Preston came home to tea, and saw what the dog had done, he was very angry with poor Tiger, and told Oscar he must sell him or give him away, for he would not have such a mischievous animal about the house another day. A day or two after, Mrs. Preston replaced the articles belonging to her mother that had been injured, and the excitement about the dog soon died away. Oscar did not try to get rid of his pet; but he was careful not to let him stay in the house much of the time especially when his father was at home. "Oscar," said his grandmother a day or two after as he came into the kitchen with Tiger, "I thought your father told you he would n't have that dog around here any more." "O, he did n't mean so," replied Oscar; "he was mad when he said that, but he 's got over it now. Besides, I don't let Tige stay in the house much." "A good dale ye cares for what yer father says," remarked Bridget, who was never backward about putting in a word, when Oscar's delinquencies were the subject of conversation. "You shut up, Bridget,--nobody spoke to you," replied Oscar. "Shet up, did ye say? Faith, if ye don't git shet up yerself where ye won't git out in a hurry, afore ye 're many years older, it 'll be because ye don't git yer desarts. Ye 're a bad b'y, that ye are, an'--" "There, there, Biddy," interrupted Mrs. Lee, "I would n't say anything more--it only aggravates him, and does no good. But, Oscar," she added, "I 'm sorry you don't pay more attention to what your father says. It's a bad habit to get into. I knew a disobedient boy, once, who came to the gallows; and I 've known several others who made very bad men." "But you don't call me disobedient, do you, grandma'am?" inquired Oscar. "I don't know what else to call it," she replied, "if your father tells you to do a thing, and you take no notice of it." "But father does n't want me to give Tige away--I don't believe he 's thought of it again since that night." "Then, if I were you," replied his grandmother, "I would ask his consent to keep the dog. If he did n't mean what he said, that night, you will be safe enough in asking him." But this was a kind of reasoning that Oscar could not appreciate. If he could carry his point just as well without his father's formal consent, he thought it was useless to ask any such favor. As long as he could keep his dog, it was all the same to him whether his father withdrew his command, or silently acquiesced in his disobedience of it. But grandmother Lee's visit was drawing to a close, and early one bright, cool morning, in the latter part of December, the coach called, to take her to the railroad depôt; and after a few kisses, and words of affectionate advice, and lingering good-byes, she departed on her homeward journey. Of those she left behind, next to her own daughter, the saddest of the group was little Ella, who, for many days, missed the pleasant face of her good old grandmother. CHAPTER IX. WINTER SPORTS. It was now mid-winter, and a few inches of snow lay upon the frozen ground, sufficient to make pretty fair sleighing for a few days, and to afford good coasting for the boys on the hill-sides. The favorite place for this amusement, among the boys in Oscar's neighborhood, was the Common. Here they always found good, long, smooth coasting-places, when there was any snow on the ground; and there was no danger of tripping up foot passengers, or getting under the heels of the horses, or being tapped on the shoulder by a policeman, which often happened to boys who coasted down the steep streets of the city,--a practice, by the way, prohibited by a city law. Oscar had a handsome new sled, which was a new year's present from his father. It was long and narrow, the two steel-shod runners projecting forward far beyond the top or seat, and ending in sharp points. It was painted light blue, and varnished. Upon the sides, in gilt letters, was its name--CLIPPER; and upon its top it bore the initial of Oscar's name, with an ornamental device. It had what a sailor would call a decidedly rakish look, and was really a fast as well as a stylish "team," to use the term by which Oscar usually spoke of it. It even eclipsed George's small but elegant sled, which, the winter previous, had been regarded as the _ne plus ultra_ of sled architecture. Ralph's sled, by the side of these, presented a very cheap and antiquated appearance, and it was seldom that he took it with him to the Common. He often borrowed Oscar's, however, when it was not in use for his elder brother, with all his faults, was not selfish boy, but was willing to lend his property to others, when he was not using it himself. One pleasant Wednesday afternoon, a portion of the week always devoted to recreation by the Boston school children, Ralph obtained leave to take the "Clipper" with him to the Common. George also went with him with his sled. The coasting is very good, and some hundreds of boys are enjoying it. Long lines of sleds, freighted with from one to three or four juveniles, are dashing down in various directions from the Beacon Street mall; and an odd collection of juveniles and sleds it is, too. There comes a chubby, red-faced lad, with his exact counterpart, on a smaller scale, clinging on behind him with one hand, and swinging his cap with the other. Their sled is called the "Post-Boy," and it seems to "carry the males" very expeditiously. Close at their heels is a pale, poetic youth, lightly skimming over the inclined plane upon a delicate craft that looks like himself, and which he calls the "Mystery." Here comes a rude, unpainted sled, with two rough but merry youngsters lying prone upon it, one over the other, and their heels working up and down in the air in a most lively manner. Anon goes by an aristocratic-looking craft, bearing upon it a sleek and well-dressed boy, whose appearance speaks of wealth, indulgence, and ease. His sled is appropriately named the "Pet;" but in gliding down the icy track it strikes a tree, and its pampered owner is sent sprawling upon his back, in a very undignified way, while his "Pet" gives him the slip and soon finds the bottom of the hill. Poor fellow! we wonder if this is an omen of what is to befall him in sliding down the hill of life. And here comes the "Clipper" itself, with our Ralph seated proudly upon it, and apparently enjoying the fleet and beautiful sled as much as though it were really his own. And there, too, comes George, with his pretty "Snow Flake;" and close behind him are the "Tempest," and the "Yankee Doodle," and the "Screamer," and the "Snow ball," and the "Nelly," and the "Racer," and a host of other craft, of every imaginable appearance, and strided by all sorts of boys. Ralph and George spent an hour or two upon the Common. Nothing occurred to mar their pleasure till just before they started for home, when Ralph met with an adventure that sadly ruffled his temper. He was descending the hill upon his sled, when another craft, having two boys upon it larger than himself, managed to run into him. The "Clipper" being lightly loaded, the other sled descended with greater impetus; and the force of the collision, together with a vigorous kick from the stout boots of one of the boys, overturned Ralph upon the steepest part of the hill. He quickly picked himself up, and, forgetful of self, his first care was to see whether Oscar's sled had sustained any damage. When he beheld the marks of the rough encounter, in the form of sundry ugly scratches upon the polished sides of the "Clipper," the tears came in his eyes; and it was some time before he noticed that he himself bore upon his hands and knees several unmistakable tokens of the collision. Ralph knew very well that the collision was not accidental. The kick of the boy who guided the sled, and the hearty laugh of both its occupants, when Ralph was overturned, satisfied him that he had been run down purposely. He did not know the names of the boys, having only met them occasionally on the Common. They soon came along again, on their way up the hill, and Ralph asked the owner of the sled why he run him down. "Because you got in our way," replied the boy. "No, I did n't," said Ralph; "there was room enough for you to go by, but you steered out of your course, and gave my sled a kick, too." "Don't you tell me I lie, you little snipper-snapper," answered the boy "or I 'll put you in my pocket, and carry you off." "See what you did," continued Ralph, pointing to the scratches on the "Clipper;" "I should n't care anything about it, but the sled is n't mine. I borrowed it of my brother, and it had n't a scratch on it when I took it." "Pooh," said the other boy, "that does n't hurt it any. I 'll be bound it will be scratched worse than that, before the winter 's over. If you get in my way with it again, I shall serve it worse than I did this time." The boys passed on their way, and Ralph and George, whose "fun" had been thus suddenly and unjustly spoiled by their insolent and domineering companions, concluded to return home. Poor Ralph dreaded to meet Oscar; but yet he hunted him up, as soon as he got home, and told him what had befallen the beautiful sled. Oscar was very angry when he heard the story, but he generously acquitted his brother of all blame in the matter, and declared that he would pay back the boy who had thus taken advantage of his weakness. He knew the offender, from Ralph's description, and from the name of his sled, which was the "Corsair." He even proposed to go directly to the Common, and settle the account at once; but Ralph, in whose heart revenge held a very small place, persuaded him out of the notion. But Oscar, unlike Ralph, was not the boy to forget or forgive an injury. A day or two after the occurrence just related, while coasting on the Common, he fell in with the boy who run into his brother. Keeping his eye upon him until he could catch him a little aside from the other boys, when the favorable moment came, he suddenly dealt him a severe blow, which nearly knocked him over, accompanying it with the remark: "There, take that for running down my little brother, when he was coasting with my sled, the other day." The other boy, without saying a word, sprang at Oscar, and, for a moment or two, blows and kicks were freely exchanged. But though they were about of a size, it was evident that Oscar was the stronger or most resolute of the two, and his antagonist soon gave up the contest, but not until he had been pretty roughly handled. Other boys soon came flocking around, to whom Oscar explained the cause of the assault; but his antagonist denied all knowledge of the affair for which Oscar had attacked him. An angry war of words ensued, but the excitement finally subsided without any further resort to blows, and Oscar returned home, well pleased with his adventure. One of Oscar's favorite winter amusements was skating. Early in winter, as soon as the little pond on the Common was frozen over, he might be seen gliding over the smooth ice; but later in the season, when there was good skating on "Back Bay," he preferred that locality, because of its greater extent. Tiger usually accompanied him in his skating excursions, and seemed to enjoy the sport as much as his master did. It was amusing to see him try to make a short turn, in running upon the ice. He would slide some distance before he could change his course. Oscar would often plague him, when he was in full chase after his master, by suddenly turning upon his skates, and taking a contrary direction, leaving Tiger to get back as he could. But an event happened, one day, that almost wholly cured Tiger of his fondness for this kind of sport. He was gaily tripping over the ice, by the side of his young master, when the latter suddenly turned about, and Tiger, in his haste to follow him, slid directly into an air-hole. This was probably the first time he had enjoyed so extensive a cold bath; and as he was not a water-dog, it is not surprising that he was terribly frightened. His piteous cries brought Oscar to his relief, who could not help laughing at the sorry plight in which he found his half-drowned canine friend. He was floundering and paddling about in the water, now lifting himself almost out, upon the edge of the ice, and now slipping off again, and plumping over-head in the uncomfortable element; his intelligent countenance, in the meantime, wearing the impress of despair. But Oscar soon helped him from his disagreeable position. Finding himself on his legs again, he did not resume his sport; but, shivering with cold, and dripping with water, almost at the freezing point, and with his head hanging downward, and his tail drooping between his legs, he started towards home--a wiser and a sadder dog. When Oscar got home, he found the family some what alarmed for his own safety. Tiger had arrived some time before, and as it was evident that he had been overboard, and as he was known to have gone off with his master, Mrs. Preston felt some anxiety, not knowing but that both Oscar and the dog had broken through the ice. But his arrival dispelled all fears, and his account of Tiger's misfortune served to amuse the children for the rest of the day. As for Tiger himself, he seemed heartily ashamed of the part he had played, and could hardly be persuaded to leave the chimney-corner for a moment, or even to look up, when the children inquired for his health. "I don't see what good air-holes do. I wonder if anybody knows what they are for," exclaimed Ralph, as the children and their mother were seated around the sitting-room table in the evening. "They are traps set to catch skaters, I suppose," said Oscar. "And dogs," added Ella. "But don't you know what they are for, Alice?" continued Ralph. "Yes," replied Alice, who had studied natural philosophy at school, "they are the breathing holes of the fishes. Fishes can't live without air, any better than we can; and a pond or river frozen over solid, without any air-holes, would be as bad for them as a room from which all fresh air was shut out would be to us. You can sometimes catch fish very easily by cutting a hole in the ice, for if they feel the need of air, they will rush right up to the opening." "But how are the air-holes made?" inquired Ralph. "I believe," replied Alice, "that they are generally made by springs that bubble up from the bottom. These springs come from the earth, and the water is so warm that it gradually thaws the ice over them. The fish often finish the process by jumping up through the ice before it has entirely melted. When the cold is very intense, and these springs have frozen up, some of the water is absorbed by the earth, which leaves a vacuum or empty space between the ice and the water; and then the ice gives way under the weight of the atmosphere, and air is admitted into the water beneath." "Well, I 'm glad air-holes are good for something," said Oscar; "they 're troublesome enough to skaters. Jim Anderson skated right into one the other day, and came pretty near getting drowned. But I always keep my eyes open for them. I never got into one yet." "You cannot be too careful when you are on the ice," remarked Mrs. Preston. "I felt so uneasy, that I was just going to send Ralph in search of you, when you got home." After that day it required considerable coaxing to induce Tiger to go upon the boys' skating-ground. He manifested a decided preference to remain upon the shore, and look on; and when he did venture to accompany his master, he kept close by his side, and travelled over the treacherous ice with a degree of circumspection, which said very plainly, "You won't catch me in that scrape again, master Oscar!" But there was nothing that the boys enjoyed more at this season of the year, than a real good snowstorm. Such a storm they were favored with during this month. It came on in the evening, and the next morning, when they arose, their basement windows were more than half buried up in snow, and the drifts, in some places, were higher than Oscar's head. The streets were deserted and almost impassable. Thick crusts of snow hung over the roofs of the long blocks of houses; while the blinds, windows, doors and balustrades were heavily trimmed with the same delicate material. The huge banks which stretched themselves along the street and sidewalk, were as yet undisturbed; for the few passers-by had been glad to pick their way through the valleys. The wind roared and piped among the chimneys and house-tops, and whisked through narrow passage-ways, and whistled through the smallest cracks and crevices, in its merriest and busiest mood. Now it would scoop up a cloud of snow from the street, and bear it up far above the house-tops, and then it would repay the debt by gathering a fleecy wreath from some neighboring roof, and sweeping it into the street beneath. The storm still continued with unabated severity, and the air was so full of snow, that one could hardly see the length of the street. After a hasty breakfast, the boys tucked the bottoms of their trowsers into their boots, and sallied forth, to explore the half-buried streets. And now the light snow-balls began to fly thick and fast, and every few moments, one and another would measure his full length in some deep drift, which for a moment almost buried him from sight. Tiger, who accompanied them, entered fully into the sport, and very good-naturedly received his share of the snowballs and snow-baths. But their exercise was too violent to be continued a great while. They soon returned home, coated with snow from head to heel, and the cheeks of the boys glowing with health and enjoyment. "After you get rested, Oscar," said Mr. Preston, who was just leaving for the store, "I want you to shovel a path in front of the house." "What is the use?" inquired Oscar. "The storm is n't over yet, and if I make a path, it will fill right up again." "No it won't," replied his father. "I don't think it will storm much longer; and the snow is so light, now, that you can shovel it easily, but if you leave it till noon, it maybe trodden down hard. You need not clean off the whole side-walk now; only make a comfortable passage-way, and perhaps I will help you finish the job at night." Oscar still thought it would be a waste of labor to shovel a path then, and he did not evince any haste in obeying his father's order. After loitering about the house a long time, he took the shovel, and worked lazily at the path for awhile. Although he only undertook to cut a narrow passage-way through the drift in front of the house, he worked with so little spirit, that when the time came for him to get ready for school, he had not half completed the task. He asked permission to stay at home and finish his path, but his mother did not think this necessary, and refused her consent. So he went to school, and in the meantime the storm died away, and the clouds dispersed. Towards noon the door-bell rang, and on Bridget going to answer it, a little printed paper was handed to her, directing the occupant of the house to have the snow removed from his sidewalk within a given number of hours. After school, Oscar thought no more of his path, but went off with Alfred Walton, and did not go home until dinner-time. He had but little time now to shovel snow; but his father told him to be sure and come home directly from school, in the afternoon, and not to play or do anything else until the sidewalk was cleared off. Oscar accordingly went home after school, and resumed his work. He found that the snow was trodden into such a solid icy mass, that an axe was necessary to cut it up in some places. He was not the boy to hurt himself with hard labor, and although he kept his shovel at work in a leisurely way, he did not accomplish much, except the removal of a little snow that had not got trodden down. Wearied at length with his feeble and fruitless efforts, he returned into the house, saying to his mother: "There, I can't get the snow off the sidewalk, and it's of no use to try. It's trodden down just as hard as ice. Besides, if I should shovel it all off, there will be an avalanche from the top of the house to-night, that will bury the sidewalk all up again. The snow is sliding off the roofs, all around here;--have n't you heard it, mother?" "Yes, I thought I heard it," replied Mrs. Preston; "but if you can't get the snow off the sidewalk, you had better speak to your father about it, when he comes home, and perhaps he will help you, or hire somebody to do it for you. It must be got off as soon as possible, for the police have notified us to attend to it." In spite of this advice, Oscar neglected to speak to his father in regard to the matter, and no one else happening to think of it, nothing was said about it. The next morning, he chopped away upon the ice a little while, but getting tired of it, he soon abandoned the job, and went to play. When Mr. Preston came home to dinner, an unusual cloud was on his brow; and as soon as Oscar came in, the cause was explained. "Oscar," he said, "why did you not shovel the snow from the sidewalk, as I told you to, yesterday morning?" "I tried to," replied Oscar; "but it was trodden down so hard, I could n't get it off." "But you should have done it before it got hardened. I told you to clear a passage-way, yesterday morning. That would have saved the rest from getting trod down, and at noon you could have finished the job. Why did you not do as I told you to?" "I did begin to make a path," replied Oscar; "but I did n't have time to finish it, and when I got home from school, the snow was all trodden down hard." "Did n't have time?" said his father; "what do you tell me such a story as that for? You could have made all the path that was necessary in fifteen or twenty minutes, if you had been disposed to do it. By neglecting to obey me, you have got me into a pretty scrape. I have had to go before the Police Court, this forenoon, and pay a fine and costs, amounting to over five dollars, for your negligence and disobedience. And now," he added, "you may try once more, and see if you can do as I tell you to. As soon at you have done dinner, take the hatchet and shovel, and go to work upon the sidewalk; and don't you leave it until the ice is all cleared off. As sure as you do, I will dust your jacket for you when I come home to-night, so that you will not forget it for one while." Oscar thought it best to obey his father this time. It being Saturday, school did not keep, in the afternoon, and he had ample time to complete the task, although it was time which he intended to spend in a different way. Ralph, however, volunteered his assistance, and before the middle of the afternoon, the task was finished. CHAPTER X. APPEARANCES. Those who impose upon the weak, sometimes get punished for their meanness in an unexpected manner. This truth was very effectually impressed upon Oscar, one March morning, as he was going to school. The streets were in a very bad condition, being several inches deep with a compound of snow, water, and mud, familiarly known as "slosh." Just before reaching the school-house, he overtook two little boys with a sled, and throwing himself upon it, he compelled them to drag him along. It was hard sledding, and the boys naturally objected to drawing such a heavy load; but Oscar kept his seat, and compelled them to go on. For a few minutes, he rode along very quietly, although his span of youngsters, who were continually muttering to themselves, did not seem to enjoy the sport as well as he did. But, by a dexterous movement, they soon balanced the debtor and creditor account. Giving the sled a sudden jerk and lurch, in one of the sloppiest places they had met with, their lazy passenger was thrown backward into the mud, and imprinted a full length picture of himself in the yielding material. The incident happened almost in front of the school-house, and as Oscar rose from the mud, he was greeted by the shouts and laughter of a hundred boys who witnessed the scene. Several men, also, who were passing at the time, joined in the laughing chorus; and one, who had observed the whole affair from the beginning, told Oscar the boys had served him just right. [Illustration: The Overturn.] Ralph came to the relief of his brother, and having wiped off as much of the mud and water from his back as he could, with a handkerchief, Oscar started for home, wet to his skin. He was keenly sensitive to any mortification of this kind, and it was a bitter pill for him to appear in the crowded streets in such a plight. He imagined everybody he met or overtook was staring at him, and laughing at the figure he cut, and he wanted to hide his face from their sight. He never went home from school so fast before; but when he had changed his dress, and washed the dirt from his hands and face, it was too late to return. In the afternoon, when he made his appearance at school, he was quite generally greeted with the significant nickname of "Stick-in-the-mud," and had to stand a most remorseless fire of wit, pleasantry, and ridicule the rest of the day, both at home and in the street. Oscar thought quite as much as was proper of outward appearances. He was commendably neat in his personal habits, and was seldom caught with dirty hands and face, or uncombed hair, or soiled and ragged dress. He loved to dress well, too, and no amount of persuasion could induce him to wear a garment, if he fancied it did not set right, or was much out of fashion, or had an old and patched-up look. In such a case, nothing but the stern arm of authority was sufficient to overcome his prejudices. "There," said his mother one evening, after spending some time over one of his jackets, which had become a little worn at the elbows; "there, that will last you a spell longer, and look almost as well as it ever did, too." Oscar examined the garment. It was neatly mended, and looked very well; but his eye rested upon a slight patch upon one of the elbows, which entirely spoilt it for him, although it had previously been a favorite garment. "It's too small for me," he said; "why can't you keep it for Ralph?" "No, you needn't keep it for Ralph," quickly replied the owner of that name; "I haven't had anything but your old clothes to wear for a year or two, and I should think it was my turn to have some of the new ones, now. Make him wear that out, mother, won't you?" "Yes, I intend he shall wear it awhile longer," replied Mrs. Preston. "It looks well enough for any body." "But see that detestable patch," said Oscar; "I don't want to wear _that_ to school; folks will think I have borrowed one of Ben. Wright's old jackets." Ben Wright was one of Oscar's schoolmates. He was the son of a poor widow, and was the most be-patched boy in Oscar's class, at the head of which he stood. As he had nothing to recommend him but fine scholarship, exemplary deportment, and a good character, in school and out, he was a boy of little consequence in the eyes of Oscar. "I wish you were _worthy_ to wear one of Benny's old jackets," replied Mrs. Preston. "If you were half as good a boy as he is, I would not complain. But you need not be afraid that anybody will mistake you for him, even if you _do_ wear a patched garment." "I believe you think Ben. Wright is a little angel," said Oscar, who never liked to hear his humble but diligent classmate praised. "I think he has some traits that you would do well to imitate," replied his mother. "I shall think I am imitating him, when I get that thing on," added Oscar, in a contemptuous manner, alluding to the jacket. "There, that will do, Oscar," replied Mrs. Preston, "You've said enough about the jacket; don't let me hear another word of complaint. I took a great deal of pains to mend it neatly, and it looks well enough for you or any other boy. You may put it on to-morrow morning, and don't you leave off wearing it till I tell you to." Oscar nodded his head in a way that seemed to say, "You 'll see how long I wear it;" but his mother did not observe the motion. He had a short and easy way of getting rid of garments that he disliked. Somehow other they were sure to waste away in a much faster manner than those he had a fancy for; or, perhaps they would be rendered suddenly useless, by some mysterious accident. But he would never admit that their period of usefulness had been purposely shortened, though suspicions of this kind were occasionally hinted. Soon after this, Mr. Preston entered the room, and took a seat by the fire He pulled out his watch to wind it up, as was his custom just before bed-time, when Oscar said: "Father, I wish you would buy me a watch. Frank King, and Bill Andrews, and Charlie Grant, and almost all the large boys that I know, have got watches, and I should think I might have one too; why can't I, father?" "What do they do with watches?" inquired Mr. Preston. "Why, what does anybody do with them? They carry them to tell the time of day, of course," replied Oscar. "And to make a display of watch-chain," added his father. "No, that isn't it," replied Oscar; "but it's convenient to have a watch with you. You don't know how I 'm plagued to tell what time it is, sometimes. It would make me a good deal more punctual, if I had one. I was late to school this morning, but it was n't my fault, for I did n't know what time it was until I got to the school-house, and found that the boys had all gone in." "When I was of your age," said Mr. Preston, "boys never thought of carrying watches, and yet they were taught to be as punctual as the clock, in their attendance at school. If I had been tardy, and tried to excuse myself by saying that I had no watch, I should have got laughed at by the whole school. But where were you this morning, that you did not know when it was school-time?" "Over to Alf. Walton's." "And couldn't find a time-piece about the premises?" "Why--no--I--forgot--" replied Oscar, somewhat embarrassed by the question. "Just as I supposed," added his father; "you got along with that boy, and forgot all about your school; and it would have been just the same, if you 'd had half a dozen watches in your pocket." "O no, father," said Oscar; "for if I 'd had a watch about me, I should have looked at it." "Well," added Mr. Preston, "if you don't care enough about punctuality to take a little trouble to ascertain what time it is, when you have an engagement, I don't think a watch would help you any in acquiring the habit. You have n't made out a very strong case." "No," remarked Mrs. Preston, "he wants a watch for show, and not punctuality,--that's plain enough. He has just been making a great fuss because I put a little bit of a patch on the elbow of his jacket. He is getting to be quite fastidious, for a gentleman of his size." "If you would think a little less of outside appearances, Oscar," continued his father, "and a little more of inward character, your judgment of men and things would not be quite so much at fault as it is now. If you judge of boys or men by the cloth and watches they wear, and select your companions accordingly, you will soon find that you have got a pretty set of friends. And so, too, if you think you can secure the good opinion and respect of the world, merely by dressing well, you are greatly mistaken. You must learn to judge people by their characters, and not by their dress or appearance. If I could see you trying to form a good character, I should care very little what sort of garments you wore. I would buy you a watch, or anything else in my power, if it would only make you behave better. In fact, I will make you a handsome offer now, if you wish." "Well, what is it?" inquired Oscar. "I will agree to give you a nice watch, in six months from this time, if you will do three things," continued his father. "What are they?" inquired Oscar; "are they things that I can do?" "Certainly," said Mr. Preston; "you can do them if you will only try. The first is, that you render prompt obedience to your parents, during these six months. Is n't that within your power?" "Yes, sir," replied Oscar, somewhat reluctantly. "The second is," continued Mr. Preston, "that you behave toward your playmates and all other people in such a way, that no serious complaint shall be made against you. Can you do that, if you try?" "Yes, sir, I guess so," replied Oscar. "And the last condition is, that you give sufficient attention to your studies to gain admission to the High School, at the end of the term. Is that in your power?" "I suppose it is," said Oscar. "You admit, then, that you _can_ keep these conditions," continued his father; "the question now is, _will_ you do it?" That was a hard question for Oscar to answer. He hesitated, and twisted about in his chair, and at length replied: "Why, I don't suppose I should make out, if I tried." "No, you certainly would not, if that is your spirit," replied his father. "You cannot accomplish anything unless you have some confidence that you can do it, and firmly resolve to try. You just admitted that you could keep these conditions, but it seems you are not willing to make the attempt. You want a watch, but you don't intend to obey your parents, or to conduct yourself properly, or to attend to your lessons, for the sake of getting it--that's what you mean to say, is it not?" Oscar remained silent. "I am sorry," continued his father, "that you will not take up with my offer; for though I do not think it important that you should get the watch, it is important that you should reform some of your habits. You are getting to be altogether too wayward and headstrong, as well as vain." "If I get into the High School next summer, may I have the watch?" inquired Oscar. "No," replied his father, "not unless you comply with the other conditions. But I want you to remember what I told you the other day, that if you don't get into the High School at that time, I shall send you to some boarding-school away from home, where you will be made to study, and to behave yourself too. If strict discipline can do anything for you, you shall have the benefit of it, you may depend upon that." Oscar was now two-thirds of the way through his last year in the school he attended. His parents were anxious that he should go through the High School course of studies, and, indeed, he had applied for admission to that school the summer previous to this, but did not pass the examination. There was still some doubt whether he would succeed any better at the next examination; and in case of his failure, his parents had decided to send him to a boarding-school in the country. But there was nothing very alarming to him in the idea of going into such an establishment, notwithstanding all his father said of the strict discipline to which he would be subjected. There would be a novelty about it, he imagined, that would make it quite pleasant. Consequently, he cared very little whether he was accepted as a High School pupil or not. CHAPTER XI. THE MORAL LESSON. Oscar had the name among his fellows of being a shrewd and sharp boy at a bargain; and, like too many men who have acquired a similar reputation, he was not over-scrupulous in his manner of conducting his business operations. If he could drive a profitable trade, it mattered little _how_ he did it; and if somebody else lost as much as he gained by the bargain, that was not his business; every one must look out for himself. So he reasoned, and so constantly did he act on this principle, that, to tell the truth, his integrity was by no means unimpeachable among his comrades. It was a very general opinion, that in many of their boyish games, such as marbles, he would cheat if he could get a chance; and the notion was equally prevalent, that in a bargain, he was pretty sure to get decidedly the best end. Oscar was very desirous that his dog Tiger should wear a brass collar, by way of ornament and distinction. All other respectable dogs bore upon their necks this badge of ownership, and he thought it highly important that Tiger should be on a good footing with his canine friends. But how to get the collar, was the question that perplexed him. He had asked his father to buy it, and met with a flat refusal. He had even called at several shops, and inquired the price of the coveted article, but it was hopelessly beyond his means. The subject lay heavily upon his mind for several days, for when he took a notion that he wanted a thing, it was hard to reason or drive him out of it. His thoughts and his dreams were of brass dog-collars, and his talk among his companions run upon the same theme. At length, while prosecuting his inquiries, he happened to learn that a little boy who attended his school, owned just such a collar as he wanted, and had no dog to wear it. Here was a chance for a speculation. Oscar lost no time in seeing this boy, and in getting his lowest price for the collar, which was fifty cents. This was much less than the price at the shops, and Oscar thought his father might be induced, by this fact, to let him have the money to purchase it; but Mr. Preston did not think Tiger needed any such appendage, and Oscar's request was again denied. Oscar now set his wits to work to devise a way of buying the collar, without his father's aid. He looked over the little collection of "goods and chattels," which he called his own, to see what there was he could exchange for the article he wanted. His eye soon fell upon a brass finger ring, and his plan was quickly formed. The ring had been tumbled about among his playthings for a year or two, and was now dull and dingy; but he remembered that he once cleaned and polished it, so that it looked very much like gold, so long as the lustre lasted. He subjected it to this process again, and it soon looked as well as the plain gold ring he wore upon his finger, which it somewhat resembled in size and color. Substituting it for the gold ring, he wore it to school that afternoon; and a little negotiation, after school was dismissed, settled the business--the coveted dog-collar was his! Indeed, so craftily did he conduct the bargain, that he made the other boy throw in a pretty ivory pocket-comb to boot! The little boy who was thus cruelly deceived, supposed he was buying the ring that Oscar usually wore; and, in truth, Oscar did give him to understand, in the course of the barter, that it was fine gold, a point on which the other boy did not appear to have much doubt. Oscar did not dare to tell any one what a good bargain he had made, for fear that the other boy would hear of it. Tiger appeared with a handsome collar around his neck the next morning; and all the explanation any one could get from his young master was, that he "traded for it." A week or two elapsed before Oscar's victim discovered the imposition that had been practiced upon him. The ring, which had been proudly worn, at length began to look dim and brassy; and on being submitted to careful inspection, it was pronounced by competent authority to be not worth one cent. The owner was of course indignant, and he went at once to Oscar, and demanded a return of the collar and comb. But Oscar laughed at the proposal. "A bargain is a bargain," said he, "and there can't be any backing out, after it's all settled. You agreed to the trade, and now you must stick to it." "But it was n't a fair bargain," said the other boy; "you told me the ring was gold, and it is nothing but brass." "No, I did n't tell you it was gold," replied Oscar. "You imagined that. And I did n't tell you it was the one I wore either,--you imagined that too. It was my other ring that I said was gold, and I told you it cost two dollars, and so it did. I never told you this ring was gold,--I recollect perfectly about it." "Well, you know I supposed it was gold, or I would n't have traded for it," replied the boy; "and besides, you made me think it was gold, whether you really said it was or not." "That was your look-out," said Oscar. "When a man sells a thing, he is n't obliged to run it down. You must look out for yourself when you make a bargain--that's what I do." "I should think you did," replied the other; "and I guess I shall remember your advice, if I ever trade with you again. There's your old ring: now give me back my collar and comb," he continued, handing the ring to Oscar. "I shan't do any such thing," said Oscar, and he refused to take the ring, and turned upon his heel, leaving the other boy in no very pleasant state of mind. "Then you 're a great cheat and a swindler," cried the victim, gathering courage as Oscar retreated. "And you 're a little greeny," replied Oscar, with a loud laugh. Oscar had prepared his mind for this explosion of indignation, and though he did not care much about it, he was glad it was over with. He regarded the transaction which led to it as a shrewd business operation, to be chuckled over, rather than repented of; and he had no idea of spoiling it all, by undoing the bargain. In Oscar's school, it was customary for the first class (of which he was a member) to devote the first half hour of every Monday morning to a lesson in morals. In these lessons, the duties which we owe to God, to ourselves, and to one another, were explained and enforced. Although a text-book was used, the teacher did not confine himself to it, in the recitations, but mingled oral instruction with that contained in the printed lessons, often taking up incidents that occurred in school, to illustrate the principle he wished to establish. It so happened that on the Monday morning after the occurrence just related, the subject of the moral lesson was dishonesty. The various forms of dishonesty,--theft, robbery, fraud, &c.,--were explained, and the distinction between them pointed out. The teacher then proceeded as follows: "A gentleman was riding in the cars, one evening, when a newsboy passed through the train, and he purchased a paper, giving the boy by mistake a gold eagle instead of a cent. The boy noticed the mistake, but said nothing about it. Albert, you may tell me what you think of that boy's conduct." "It was dishonest," replied Albert; "because he knew that the money did not belong to him, and yet he kept it." "But did not a part of the blame belong to the man who made the mistake?" inquired the teacher. Albert, after thinking a moment, replied: "He was to blame for his carelessness, but not for the boy's dishonesty." "You are right," said the teacher. "The boy was guilty of stealing, just as much as if he had picked the man's pocket, or broken into his house. But suppose, instead of the mistake being to the amount of ten dollars, it had only been a few cents,--how then?" "It would have been just the same," replied the boy. "But what if the man was very rich, and would never feel the loss, while the boy was poor, and needed the money?" "That would have made no difference," replied Albert. "Very good," continued the teacher; "when an honest man discovers a mistake in his own favor, he always hastens to rectify it. He will receive only what he is entitled to. Robert," he added, addressing an other pupil, "how is it with regard to lost articles?" "When we find anything that has been lost," replied the boy addressed, "we should try to ascertain the owner, and return the article to him." "Is there any guilt in neglecting to do this?" "Yes, sir, it is a kind of dishonesty." "You are right," added the teacher; "the courts often punish men for this very offence, for it is a species of theft. And how of borrowing articles, and neglecting to return them,--is that honest?" "It is not," replied Robert. "Oscar," continued the teacher, "you may give your opinion of this case: suppose one of your acquaintances wants a certain article belonging to you, and by way of barter, offers you a finger-ring for it. You take it for granted that the ring is gold, but a week or two after the bargain is concluded, you discover that it is of brass, and of no value what ever. The other boy knew all the while it was brass, and also knew you supposed it was gold. What should you say of such a transaction? Was it honest?" Oscar turned red, and looked confused, as this question was put to him. It was a minute or two before he made any reply, and then he said, in a hesitating manner: "If the other boy did n't _tell_ me it was gold, I don't see as he was to blame." "But we will suppose there was no need of his telling you so," added the master; "we will suppose he managed the bargain so adroitly, that you never suspected he was not dealing fairly with you. In that case, should you think he had acted honestly towards you?" "No, sir," replied Oscar, but it came out with the utmost reluctance. "Certainly not," said the teacher; "it is dishonest to take advantage of another's ignorance, or simplicity, or necessity, in a bargain. Overreaching in trade is often dignified with the name of shrewdness, but, for all that, it is contrary to the rule of honesty. And now I have one more question to ask you: After you have discovered how your comrade has imposed upon you, what should you expect of him?" Oscar made no reply. "Should you not expect him to make full restitution?" "Yes, sir," he replied, in a scarcely audible voice. "Of course you would," continued the master; "and if he refused, he would deserve double punishment." Several other forms of dishonesty were then considered, such as the following;--withholding from another his just dues; contracting debts which we know we cannot pay, or making promises we know we cannot fulfil; wasting or injuring the property of others, &c. In concluding, the teacher remarked, that it was not very pleasant to feel that we had been wronged and cheated; but there was another feeling, a thousand-fold more to be dreaded--the feeling that we have wronged and cheated others. And so ended the moral lesson for that morning. The particular bearing of this lesson upon Oscar, and the pertinency of the "case" he was called to decide upon, were not generally known to the class, though their suspicions might have been somewhat excited by his confusion, and his reluctance to answer the questions put to him. The teacher had been informed of Oscar's dishonest bargain by the boy who suffered from it, and he chose this way to impress upon him the immorality of the transaction. He concluded, however, to give him an opportunity to make a voluntary restitution, and so no further reference was made to the matter. Oscar was wise enough to heed the warning. Before night, the brass dog-collar and the ivory pocket-comb were returned to their rightful owner. CHAPTER XII. SICKNESS. "You have got a bad cold, Oscar," said Mrs. Preston one evening towards the close of winter, as Oscar came in from his play, and was seized with a coughing spell. "And no wonder," she added, on glancing at his feet; "why, do you see how wet the bottoms of your pantaloons are? I should like to know where you have been, to get so wet--it is strange that you will not keep out of the water." "I should like to know how anybody could help getting wet feet this weather, with the slosh up to your knees," said Oscar. "I could walk about the streets all day without going over my shoes," replied his mother, "and so could you, if you tried to. I believe you go through all the mud-puddles you can find, just to see how wet you can get. But it won't do for you to sit down in this condition. Take off your wet boots, and run up stairs and put on a pair of dry pantaloons and some dry stockings, and then you may sit down to the fire and warm yourself." "I don't want to change my pantaloons and stockings," said Oscar; "I 'll take off my boots and dry myself--that will do just as well." "No it won't," replied his mother; "you had better change your clothes, for you've got a real bad cold now, and I don't want you to get any more. Come, do you hear me? Run up to your chamber and put on some dry clothes." Oscar paid no attention to the command, but after removing his wet boots, sat down before the range to dry his feet and legs. Such instances of disobedience were too common in the family to attract any special notice, and Mrs. Preston said nothing more about the matter. Oscar, that afternoon, had been down to the shores of Charles River, near Cambridge Bridge, with Alfred Walton and several other boys. They had been amusing themselves upon the ice that had formed along the edge of the river, and which was now breaking up. They loosened some of the large cakes, and set them floating off upon the current towards the ocean. It was in this way that Oscar got his feet so wet. The next afternoon, when school was dismissed, Oscar, forgetting his wet feet and his cold, went again to the same place, with several of his cronies. Tiger also accompanied the party, for his master seldom went anywhere without him, except to school. The boys amused themselves, as on the previous day, with shoving off large blocks of ice into the stream, and with running rapidly over floating pieces that were not large enough to bear them up. Sometimes they narrowly escaped a ducking, so venturesome were they; and all of them got their feet pretty thoroughly soaked. It happened, after awhile, that a cake of ice upon which the boys were all standing, got disengaged from the shore, unperceived by them, and commenced floating into the river. They were all at work upon another ice-block, trying to push it off, and did not notice that they were going off themselves, until they were several feet from the shore. The distance was too great to leap, and the water was so deep that none of them dared to jump off from their precarious footing. "Well, this is a pretty joke," said one of the boys, with some appearance of alarm. "I should like to know how we are going to get out of this scrape?" "Get out of it?--who wants to get out of it?" replied Oscar. "I don't, for one--we shall have a first-rate sail down into the harbor; shan't we, Alf?" "The tide will take us right under the bridge, and I 'm going to climb up one of the piers," said Alfred, who appeared to be thinking more of a way of escape than of the pleasures of the trip. "Pooh, I shan't get off there," said Oscar. "I 'm in for a sail, and if the rest of you back out, I shan't. You 'll go too, won't you, Tom?" Before Tom could answer, they all began to notice that their ice-cake gave signs that the burden upon it was greater than it could safely bear. The swift current began to whirl it about in a rather uncomfortable manner, and it was gradually settling under water. They all began to be very much alarmed--all but Tiger, who did not quite comprehend the situation of affairs, and who looked up into the boys' faces with an expression of curiosity, as though he wanted to say: "I wonder what mischief these little rogues are up to now?" Several people who were crossing the bridge now noticed the perilous situation of the boys, and stopped to look at them. As soon as Alfred noticed them, he cried out slowly, at the top of his voice: "Halloo, there! send us a boat, will you? we 're sinking!" [Illustration: Afloat on the Ice.] There was some doubt whether the people on the bridge understood the cry, and the other boys repeated it as loud as they could, in the meantime also trying to manifest their want by signs and gestures. Some of the spectators upon the bridge, who were now quite numerous, shouted back in reply; but the boys, being to their windward, could not understand what they said. Their frail support was now moving rapidly along, and whirling about in the eddies more alarmingly than ever. It had sunk so low that they were all standing in the water, and they expected it would shortly break to pieces and precipitate them all into the river. There were four of them upon the cake, besides the dog. The two youngest boys began to cry with fright; but Oscar and Alfred, though they were as much alarmed as the others, did not manifest it in this way, but were looking anxiously towards the bridge and the shore for relief. The boys were not long kept in this dreadful state of suspense; for pretty soon they discovered a boat putting out towards them from the end of the bridge. There were two men in it, each of whom was plying an oar. They called out to the boys not to be frightened, and in a few minutes they were alongside the fugitive ice-cake, whose living freight was safely transferred to the boat. The boatmen then pulled for the wharf from which they came, and the rescued party had the pleasure of standing once more upon firm ground. They were so overjoyed at their escape that they forgot to thank the men who had taken so much trouble to rescue them. They were not ungrateful however; though it would have been better if their words as well as their looks had expressed the sentiment they felt. As soon as they reached the wharf, the men advised them to run home and dry themselves, which they proceeded to do. When Oscar reached home, he was so hoarse, from hallooing, that he could not speak aloud. When his mother heard of his exposure, and saw how wet he was, she was much concerned for him. She wished him to change his damp clothing, but he did not think it necessary, and instead of complying with her desire, he sat down to the fire and dried himself. He had but little appetite for supper; and a headache coming on in the evening, he retired to bed early. Before dong so, however, he took a dose of medicine which his mother had prepared, to "throw off" his cold. After a feverish and restless night--in which, in his troubled dreams, Oscar had floated to sea upon a small piece of ice, and, after a long agony, foundered alone in fathomless waters--he awoke in the morning feeling very strangely. Every few moments a cold chill ran through his body, that made him shiver until the bed trembled beneath him. His head ached badly, and there was also a pain in his back. He tried to raise himself up, but his arms had lost their strength, and he was barely able to support himself a moment upon his elbow. By-and-bye his brothers, who slept in the same room in another bed, got up, and Oscar informed them that he was too weak to get off the bed. They soon called in their father and mother, who, after looking at the sick boy, concluded to send for a physician. After breakfast, Ralph was despatched for the doctor, who soon arrived, and was conducted into Oscar's chamber. Seating himself upon the bedside, he took the sick boy's wrist into his hand, and began to talk with him very pleasantly, asking him various questions about his feelings, the manner in which he took cold, &c. Having ascertained all the facts and symptoms of the case, he told the family he thought Oscar was suffering from an attack of lung fever, and he then gave directions as to the manner in which the disease should be treated. He also wrote a recipe for some medicine, to be procured at the apothecary's. The terms used in it were Latin, and very much abbreviated, besides, so that they were unintelligible to Mrs. Preston; for this is a custom among physicians, that has come down from ancient times. Seeing Mrs. Preston was in some doubt about the prescription, he explained to her what the articles were that composed it, and the effect they would have upon the patient. After the doctor had gone, it was decided to remove Oscar into another chamber, in a lower story, where he would be more comfortable, and where, also, it would be more convenient to wait upon him. Wrapping him up warmly in the bed-clothes, his father took him in his arms, and carried him to the room he was to occupy for the present. In spite of his medicine, Oscar continued to grow worse, through the day. He longed for night to come, that he might go to sleep; but when it came, it did not bring with it the refreshing slumber of health. Short naps and troubled dreams alternated with long, weary hours of wakefulness; and the sun, at its next rising, found him sicker than before. The pains in his head and chest were more severe; his skin was hot and dry; his cheeks were flushed with fever; he breathed with difficulty, and his cough had become quite distressing. He felt cross and fretful, too, and nothing that was done for him seemed to give him satisfaction. He was unwilling that any one should attend upon him, except his mother, and refused to receive his food or medicine from any hand but hers. If she happened to be absent from his room more than a few moments, when he was awake, he would insist upon her being called back. But though Oscar would not allow his mother to leave him, she did not suit him much better than the other members of the family. It was with considerable difficulty that she could coax him to take the medicines the doctor had ordered. Then she was obliged to deny him all forms of nourishment, except a little gum-arabic water,--an arrangement at which he complained a good deal. Oscar's fever continued to run for more than a week, the violence of the disease increasing from day to day. Then a favorable change took place, and the doctor told him the fever had turned, and he was getting better. For a day or two before this, however, he was very ill; so ill, indeed, that he submitted to whatever the doctor ordered, without a word of complaint. He felt that there was danger, and he dare not stand in the way of the means used for his recovery. To this, perhaps, he owed the favorable turn the disease had taken; for had he refused to take his medicines, as he did at the commencement of his sickness, or even had he only engaged in a fruitless but exhausting contest with his mother, the scale might have turned the other way, and the fever ended in death. Getting better! That was the best news Oscar had heard for many a day. He almost wanted to kiss the lips that spoke those encouraging words. He always liked Dr. Liscom, but never so well as at that moment. It was good news to all the household, too, and flew quickly from one to another. In fact, the children grew so jubilant over it, that their mother had to remind them that Oscar was yet too sick to bear any noise in the house. "O dear," said George, "I 've got tired of keeping so still. How long will it be before we can make a real good noise, mother?" "And how long before I can sing, and practice my music-lessons, mother?" inquired Ella. "And how long before Oscar can go out and play?" inquired Ralph, more thoughtful for his sick brother than for himself. "I can't tell," replied their mother; "you must all keep still a few days longer, for Oscar is very weak now, and the noise disturbs him. The doctor thinks it will take several weeks for him to get fully well, but he will soon be able to sit up, I hope." The next morning, Oscar felt decidedly better, and so he continued to improve day by day. But his old impatience soon began to return. He grumbled every time the hour returned to take his drops, and he fairly rebelled against the food that was prepared for him--a little weak gruel, when his appetite was clamoring for a hearty meal of beef and potatoes! During his sickness, many little delicacies had been sent in to him by friends and neighbors, and from most of these too he was still debarred by the inexorable doctor. He teased his mother to let him have things the doctor had forbidden, and was offended with her when she refused. He thus made a great deal of unnecessary trouble and suffering for his mother, who had served him so devotedly through this sickness that her own health was giving way. A day or two after his fever turned, Oscar wished to sit up in a chair, and begged very hard to be allowed to get up from the bed. "Why, Oscar," said his mother, "you could not sit up two minutes, if I should put you in a chair. You have no idea how weak you are." "No, I aint weak," replied Oscar; "I bet you I can walk across the room just as well as you can--you don't know how strong I 've grown within a day or two. Come, mother, do let me get up, will you?" "You are crazy to talk so, my son," answered Mrs. Preston. "If you should try to stand up, you would faint away as dead as a log. It will be a week before you are strong enough to walk about." "I believe you mean to keep me sick as long as you can," was Oscar's unfeeling reply. "I am tired almost to death of laying a-bed," he added, and the tears began to gather in his eyes. His mother felt hurt by these words, but she attributed them to the weakening and irritating influence of disease, and forgave them as quickly as they were uttered. She even yielded to his wishes so far as to offer to let him sit up in bed a little while. He gladly acceded to the proposal, and putting his arms around her neck, she slowly raised him up; but he had no sooner reached an upright position than his head began to "fly round like a top," and he was very glad to be let down again to his pillow. This little experiment satisfied him for the day. It was a fine April morning when Oscar was first taken up from his sick bed, and placed in an easy chair, well lined with blankets and comforters. This was a memorable event in his life, the first time he sat up after nearly three weeks' confinement to his bed. He was dragged to the front window, from which he could see the people upon the street below. How familiar, and yet how strange, everything and everybody looked to his sick eyes! And then, to have his toast and drink set before him upon a corner of the table, where he could help himself, and eat and drink with some comfort,--was n't that "grand," to use his own expressive term! Oscar's recovery was now pretty rapid, but his mother had to watch him very sharply, to prevent him from running into excesses, to which his impatience continually prompted him. It was hard to make him realize that there was yet some danger of a relapse, and that prudence would be necessary for several weeks to come. CHAPTER XIII. GETTING WELL. Oscar had reason to remember the first time he went down stairs, after his fit of sickness. It was in the night-time. He awoke, feeling quite hungry; for he was yet kept on a spare diet, which was far from satisfying the cravings of his appetite. He was alone in his room, and all the rest of the family were asleep. A lamp was burning dimly in the fire-place of his chamber, and the door that led into his mother's room was open, that she might be ready, at the least sound of alarm. After thinking the matter over a few minutes, and satisfying himself that no one in the house was awake, he determined to go down stairs in quest of something to eat. "What is the use of starving a fellow to death, because he has been sick!" he said to himself. "I might as well die one way as another; and if there 's anything to eat in the house, I'm bound to have it. I 've lived on slops and toasted bread three weeks, and I can't stand it any longer." He accordingly got up, and taking the lamp, stole very cautiously into the entry, and down stairs, having nothing but his night-clothes upon him. The snapping of the stairs, under his tread, was the only noise that was heard, and this did not awake any of the household. He proceeded at once to the kitchen closet, and commenced helping himself with a free hand to its contents. He began upon a dish of corned beef and vegetables, from which he partook quite liberally. He then hastily swallowed a piece of mince-pie, and a slice or two of cake, when, the night air beginning to feel chilly, he hurried back to bed. This last operation was by no means so easy as he had imagined it would be. His knees were very weak and "shaky," and it seemed as though they could not support him, when he undertook to go up stairs. He was alarmed, and would have given up the attempt, and called for help, but for the dread of being caught in such a flagrant act of disobedience. So he persisted in his efforts, and finally reached his chamber, quite exhausted. After a heavy and troubled sleep, Oscar awoke in the morning, feeling quite wretchedly. As soon as his mother entered the room, her quick eye detected the unfavorable change; but he did not seem inclined to complain much of his feelings, and appeared averse to conversing about them. She ascertained, however, after awhile, that Oscar was more feverish than he had been, that he had a severe pain in his chest, and that his cough was worse. Many were the surmises thrown out, by his father and mother, as to the probable cause of this change in his symptoms; but as for himself, he seemed entirely at a loss to account for the mystery, and left them to form their own conjectures. The doctor, who now visited Oscar only two or three times a week, was sent for after breakfast. When he arrived, he questioned Mrs. Preston very closely as to the manner in which the patient had been treated, and he also addressed many inquiries to Oscar; but he learned nothing from either that could account for the renewed attack of fever. He sat a few moments, in a thoughtful mood, seemingly at a loss what to say, when Oscar, who had complained much of nausea for the last half hour, began to show symptoms of vomiting. A basin was brought, and the contents of his stomach were quickly discharged into it. The mystery was now explained. Mrs. Preston looked on in silent astonishment, while the doctor could hardly repress his anger at this exhibition of the contents of his patient's stomach. There were great pieces of unmasticated meat and potato, mixed up with a porridge of half-dissolved pie and cake, the whole forming a medley of hearty and indigestible substances, that would have taxed the strong stomach of a healthy man. "Well," said the doctor, turning to Mrs. Preston, when Oscar got through, "what does all this mean?" "I know not; you must ask him," replied Mrs. Preston. The same question, put to Oscar, brought from him a reluctant confession of the last night's folly. When he had concluded, the doctor arose, and taking his hand, said: "I will bid you good-bye. It's of no use for me to attend upon you any longer, if you abuse my confidence in this way. If you want to kill yourself I won't stand in your way. Good morning." Before Oscar recovered from his astonishment, the doctor had reached the entry. Addressing his mother who was following him, he said: "Call him back, mother--tell him I won't do so again--call him back." The doctor heard the message, and returned. "I will consent to prescribe for you only on one condition," he said; "and that is, that you will agree to do precisely as I tell you to. You must take the medicines I order, and eat only what I tell you to, or I will have nothing more to do with you. Do you agree to that?" "Yes, sir," replied Oscar. The doctor resumed his seat, and felt the patient's pulse. He had not yet got entirely over his irritation, and, turning to Mrs. Preston, he remarked: "If the patient was a little stronger, my first prescription would be a smart external application of birch or ratan; but, as it is, we shall have to omit that for the present. You need not think you will escape punishment, however," he continued, turning to Oscar. "This scrape of yours will put you back more than one week and if you are not careful you may never get your health again. You may trifle with the doctor, but you can't trifle with the lung fever." The doctor then gave directions as to Oscar's diet and medicine, and departed, but not until he had again warned him against leaving the room without his mother's consent, or eating any articles forbidden by her. Oscar found no opportunity after this to evade the commands of the doctor, had he been so disposed, for some one was always with him by day and night. Still, his recovery seemed to have been checked very much by his relapse, and the doctor's skill was taxed pretty severely to bring the fever to a favorable termination. As it was, his attempt was not fully successful; for the fever, in spite of all he could do, left behind it a cough, and a weakness of the lungs, which gave Oscar's parents no little alarm at times. For a fortnight after his midnight supper, Oscar allowed his mother and the doctor to do just as they pleased with him. He yielded to their wishes, and their orders were law to him. At the end of that time the doctor discontinued his regular visits. Oscar was now able to go out-doors a little in very pleasant weather; but his cough rendered prudence still very necessary. His confinement, however, was daily growing more irksome, and sometimes he disregarded the positive commands of his parents by going out when the weather was unsuitable. One morning, a menagerie, or collection of wild beasts, was to enter the city in grand procession. There were to be several elephants and camels on foot, besides hundreds of other animals (invisible) in carriages. There was also to be a mammoth gilt chariot, filled with musicians, and drawn by ever so many horses. The procession was to pass very near the street where Oscar lived, and he intended to go and see it; but when the morning came, there was a cold, drizzling rain, with an uncomfortable east wind, and his mother told him he must not think of going out. He did think of it, however, and not only thought of it, but went. While his mother was up stairs, he quietly slipped out, and went to the corner the procession was expected to pass. There he waited about an hour, until he became thoroughly wet and chilled, and then returned home, without seeing the sight; for the showmen had shortened their intended route on account of the storm. He entered the house, vexed by his disappointment and the uncomfortable plight he was in; and when his mother mildly reproved him for his conduct, and entreated him to be more careful of himself, he only replied that he did not wish to live, if he must be shut up in the house all the time. This act of imprudence and disobedience made him a close prisoner in the house for several days, besides causing him no little suffering. Oscar employed much of his leisure time in reading, during his confinement in-doors. His acquaintances lent him many interesting books, with which he beguiled the weary hours. One day, happening to think of a volume belonging to his classmate, Benjamin Wright, which he thought he should like to read, he sent word by Ralph that he wished to borrow it. The next morning Benjamin brought it to school, and Ralph took it home to Oscar. On removing the paper in which it was wrapped up, a letter dropped out, which Oscar found was directed to himself. He opened it, and a smile lit up his countenance as he glanced over the sheet, which was filled up with drawings and writing of an amusing character. Benjamin was quite famous among the boys for the skill and facility with which he made sketches, and in this letter he had given a curious specimen of his artistic talent. The following is a copy of this production: DEAR OSCAR: I am sorry to hear you 're in weakness and pain, And I send you a book to beguile your tired brain; I send also some puzzles, to stir up your wit, And tempt you to laugh, when you really don't feel like it one bit! [Illustration: A Queer Name.] What a queer name! What do we all do when we first get into bed? Why is swearing like an old coat? What is that which is lengthened by being cut at both ends? My first, if you do, you won't hit; My second, if you do, you will have it; My whole, if you do, you won't guess it. [Illustration: The Double Face.] Turn me over, pray. A word there is, five syllables contains; Take one away, no syllable remains. What is that which is lower with a head than without one? Who was the first whistler? What tune did he whistle? How do you swallow a door? What is that which lives in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its root upwards? If you were to tumble out of the window, what would you fall against? [Illustration: The Cat-Erect.] Why is this like the Falls of Niagara? If my puzzles are simple, and my pictures a fright, Then just laugh at me, and it will all B. WRIGHT. This letter was the prime source of attraction to all the children, the rest of the day; and its reception formed an era in Oscar's sick-day experience, not easily to be forgotten. All the family, from Mr. Preston down to little George, set themselves to work to guess out the riddles; but in some of them, they found more than their match. To Oscar, however, the letter was something more than a collection of drawings and puzzles. It was a token of interest and sympathy from a boy towards whom he had never manifested a very friendly spirit. Benjamin's high standing in the school, both for scholarship and behavior, had awakened in Oscar a secret feeling of jealousy or resentment towards him. He was a poor boy, too, and this by no means increased Oscar's respect for him. But now, Oscar began to feel ashamed of all this; and as instances of his unkind treatment of his generous classmate came up in remembrance, he wished he had the power to blot them from existence. He determined thenceforth to "stand up" for Benjamin, and began to plan some way of making a return for his manifestation of good feeling. Ella wanted to carry Benjamin's letter to school, to show to the girls, but Oscar would not allow it to go out of his hands. She then begged the privilege of copying it, to which he consented. She did the best she could, no doubt, but her drawings probably did not quite do justice to the subjects; for Oscar declared that her copy was more comical than the original. She lent it to some of her schoolmates, one of whom was roguish enough to show it to Benjamin himself! He laughed heartily at the caricature; but thinking it was getting him rather more notoriety than he wished, he put it in his pocket, and that was the end of it. In consequence of his many acts of imprudence, Oscar got along very slowly in his recovery. Yet he was daily growing more impatient of his long confinement, and the utmost vigilance of his parents was necessary to restrain him from doing himself harm. During stormy weather, which was not rare at that season of the year, he was not allowed to go out, and the time passed heavily with him. One rainy afternoon, as he was sitting listlessly at a front window, watching for some object of interest to pass, a coach stopped at the door, and his heart beat high at the thought of his dulness being dispelled by the arrival of "company." The driver opened the coach door, and out jumped a stout, brown-faced man, whom Oscar at once recognized as his uncle, John Preston, from Maine. The arrival of Uncle John was soon heralded through the house, and a warm greeting extended to him. He usually visited the city thrice a year on business, and on such occasions made his brother's house his stopping-place. He lived in the town of Brookdale, where he had a family; but he was engaged in the lumber business, and generally spent the winter months in the forests of Maine, with large gangs of loggers, who were employed to cut down trees, and convey them to the banks of the streams, where they were floated down to the mills in the spring freshets. These forests are far from any settlement, and the lumber-men live in log-huts, in a very independent and care-for-nobody sort of way. Oscar had often heard his uncle describe their manner of life, and, to him, there was something quite fascinating about it. He thought he should like the logging business very much--all but the _working_ part of it; he was afraid that would spoil the whole, for his Uncle John always represented it as being pretty hard work. Oscar had four cousins in Brookdale, the children of his Uncle John, none of whom he had ever seen. He had many questions to ask about them, in the course of which he expressed a wish that he might visit them. His uncle replied that he should like to take him home with him, and, as he was sick, he thought the journey might do him good. He afterwards talked with Oscar's parents about the matter, and they finally concluded to let him go, hoping that a few weeks in the country would improve his health. NOTE.--The following are the solutions of the puzzles, &c., in Benjamin's letter, contained in this chapter. The first puzzle is the name of Oscar Preston, enigmatically expressed. 2. Make an impression. 3. It is a bad habit. 4. A ditch. 5. Mistake. 6. Monosyllable. 7. A pillow. 8. The wind. 9. "Over the hills and far away." 10. Bolt it. 11. An icicle. 12. Against your inclination. 13. It is a cataract (cat erect). CHAPTER XIV. THE JOURNEY. Oscar's valise was well packed for his journey, and many were the injunctions given him by his mother, in regard to his conduct during his absence from home. The morning for his departure soon came, and, in company with his uncle, he proceeded to the depôt, and took the cars for Portland. It was a mild spring morning, near the close of May. Oscar secured a seat by a window, from which he could see the country they passed through; while his uncle, to whom the journey was no novelty, seated himself by his side, and was soon absorbed in his morning newspaper. The keen relish with which Oscar set out upon his long ride gradually wore off, and he began to feel weary long before the train reached its destination. It was just noon when they arrived at Portland; and as it was too late to reach Brookdale that day, Oscar's uncle concluded to stop there until the next morning. They proceeded to a hotel, where they booked their names, and were shown to a chamber. After dinner, Mr. Preston took Oscar to walk, and showed him some of the most notable places about town. But the latter felt too tired to walk about a great deal, and spent most of the afternoon in the hotel, while his uncle was off attending to some business. After supper, Mr. Preston again went out to make some calls. He invited Oscar to go with him, but he preferred to remain in the hotel. He lounged awhile in the bar-room, as it was called (though there was no bar in it), listening to the conversation of the men who had gathered there. At length, beginning to grow sleepy, he retired to his chamber, taking with him a queer little lamp the landlord gave him, which appeared to hold only about a thimblefull of oil. Oscar thought it was a stingy contrivance, and had some notion of sitting up to see how long it would burn; but his eyelids grew heavy, and he gave up the idea. Throwing off his clothing, he extinguished his diminutive lamp, and took possession of one of the beds in the room, of which there were two. As he composed himself to sleep, a slight sense of lonesomeness stole over him, when he remembered that he was alone in a strange house and a strange city, more than a hundred miles from his home; and almost unconsciously he found himself reverently repeating the little prayer he had been taught by his mother in infancy, but which of late years, in his sad waywardness, he had outgrown and almost forgotten: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take." He had occasionally repeated to himself this simple but appropriate evening petition during his late illness; but, strange to tell, for several years previous to that time, the thought of asking anything of the great Giver of all good had scarcely ever entered his mind. Oscar was soon fast asleep, and the next thing he was conscious of was the striking of a strange church-clock, that awoke him in the morning. His uncle was dressing himself, and the sun was shining in at the window. For a moment, he was puzzled to determine where he was; but his recollection returned when his uncle remarked: "Come, Oscar, it is time to get up,--we have got to be at the depôt in an hour." Oscar jumped out of bed, and was dressed and ready for the breakfast table before the bell rang. After the morning meal was despatched,--for it was literally a work of despatch, judging from the celerity with which the heaping plates of hot biscuits and beef-steak disappeared from the long table,--Mr. Preston settled with the landlord, and proceeded with Oscar to the railroad depôt. "How much further have we got to go?" inquired Oscar, after they had taken their seat in the car. "About one hundred and twenty miles," replied his uncle; "and thirty-five of it will be in a stage-coach--that is the worst of the whole journey." "I shall like that part of it first-rate, I guess," said Oscar. "If they have good horses, I know I shall." "You will find out how you like it, before night," added Mr. Preston, with a smile. The cars were soon on their way, and Oscar's eyes and attention were fully engaged in taking note of the scenery from the windows. The appearance of the country did not differ much from that through which he passed the day previous; and long before he reached the end of his eighty-miles' ride, his attention began to flag, and his eyes to grow weary. It was about eleven o'clock, when they arrived at the depôt at which they were to leave the train. Here they had an opportunity to rest an hour, and to take dinner, before resuming their journey. After dinner, the stage-coach made its appearance, and the passengers began to stow themselves away within it, Oscar mounted the outside, and took a seat with the driver, with whom he was soon on intimate terms. All things being ready, the horses started, at the familiar "Get up!" and they were on their way toward Brookdale. The horses did not prove quite so smart as Oscar hoped they would, and the coach was a heavy and hard-riding concern, compared with those he was accustomed to ride upon at home. But the road was good, though hilly, and the scenery, much of the way, was very pleasant. The driver, too, was quite talkative, and Oscar being the only outside passenger, enjoyed the full benefit of his communicativeness. Occasionally they passed through a village, with its rows of neat white houses, its tall church steeple, its bustling store, and its groups of children playing in the streets. Now and then they stopped a few moments, to leave a passenger, a package, or a mail-bag; for the strong leathern bags, with brass padlocks, which the driver had carefully packed away under his box, contained the United States' mails for the towns along his route. As they advanced on their way, the villages became less frequent, the farm houses were more scattering, and the country grew more wild. Sometimes the road extended for miles through thickly-wooded forests. Occasionally they would come in sight of a river, and, perhaps, would hear the clatter and whizzing of a saw-mill, or get a glimpse of a raft of logs floating lazily down the stream. It was about six o'clock when the stage stopped at the post-office of a small settlement, and the driver told Oscar he was going to leave him there. His seat had grown tiresome, during the last few hours, and he was by no means sorry to leave it. "Well, Jerry, here I am again," said Mr. Preston, addressing a boy who stood by. "How are all the folks at home?" "They are well," replied the boy addressed. "This way Oscar," said Mr. Preston, pointing to a horse and wagon on the opposite side of the street. "Oscar, this is your cousin Jerry," he continued, and the boys shook hands with each other, in acknowledgment of the introduction. Oscar now learned that they were yet five miles from Brookdale, and that as the stage did not pass any nearer to his uncle's, Jerry had come over with a horse to take his father home. There being but one seat to the wagon, Mr. Preston and Oscar took possession of it, while Jerry seated himself on the floor behind them. While on the way to Brookdale, Oscar addressed several remarks to his cousin; but the latter seemed shy, and they did not get acquainted with each other very fast. They passed but very few houses, and Oscar looked in vain for any signs of a village. At length, when he thought they could not be far from their journey's end, he inquired: "Where is the village, uncle John? Shan't we see any of it, going to your house?" "This is the village," replied Mr. Preston. "This a village!" exclaimed Oscar; "why, I don't see any houses." "This is all the village there is," replied his uncle; "there are hardly any two houses in sight of each other in the town." They were now approaching an old, two-story farmhouse, in the doorway of which a woman and several children were standing, looking towards them. This proved to be the end of their journey. Having driven the wagon into the large barn which stood nearly opposite the house, Mr. Preston left Jerry to put up the horse, and proceeded at once to the house with his nephew. Mrs. Preston had seen Oscar in Boston, and came out to meet him. She welcomed him very cordially, and inquired after all the other members of the family. She then introduced him to his three other cousins, Emily, Harriet, and Mary, all of whom were younger than Jerry, and quite as shy and silent as he, at the presence of a stranger. Supper was now ready, and all the family, including James, the hired man, seated themselves at the table. Mr. Preston, during the meal, talked freely of what he had seen and done since he left home; but the children maintained their gravity and silence, though Oscar tried hard to break the ice of restraint with Jerry, who sat by his side. A strange face was an unusual thing among them, and they could not get over it in a moment. After supper, Mrs. Preston and her oldest daughter cleared off the table and washed the dishes; James and Jerry went out to the barn; Mr. Preston sat down to a table to examine some papers he had in his pocket-book; while Harriet and Mary remained, to keep Oscar company. The latter now began to make advances towards his youngest cousin, who was the prettiest and most interesting of the children. A little coaxing brought her to his side. "Do you know what my name is, Sissy?" he inquired. "Yes; it's Oscar," she replied. "Oscar what?" he inquired. "Cousin Oscar," she answered, after a little hesitation. "Yes, but that is n't all of it," replied Oscar; "don't you know the other part of it--Cousin Oscar----what?" Mary looked thoughtful a moment, and then replied, in a confident tone, "Boston." Oscar could not help laughing at this amusing mistake, and Mary, feeling hurt at the liberty he took, began to move away; but he held her by the hand, saying: "No, don't go yet, Sissy--you got my name almost right, after all. Cousin Oscar Preston, from Boston,--that was what you meant to say, was n't it?" "Yes," replied Mary. "Now tell me what your name is?" continued Oscar. "Mary Preston," she replied. "And how old are you?" "I 'm going to be six next winter," she answered, with animation. "Very well,--you 're a smart little girl," replied Oscar. "How old be you?" inquired Mary, now turning the table upon her questioner. "I 'm fourteen," said Oscar. "You 're a smart little boy," added Mary, with a roguish twinkle in her eye, and she darted out of the room with a merry laugh. After that, there was no more shyness between Mary and Oscar. With the older children, however, Oscar did not get acquainted quite so easily, particularly with the girls. He made but little progress with any of them that evening, until he retired with Jerry, with whom he was to sleep during his visit. After they had got into bed, Jerry's tongue was loosed, and before they went to sleep his reserve had almost entirely vanished. CHAPTER XV. BROOKDALE. The next morning the air was extremely raw and chilly, and there were strong indications of rain. Oscar's uncle and aunt advised him so earnestly not to expose himself to the cold and damp wind, that he did not extend his rambles any further than to the barn that day. But if he did not go far, he made many new acquaintances. Having made sure of Jerry and Mary, he left his other two cousins to "surrender at discretion," and turned his attention in another direction. His first performance was to introduce himself to Billy, the horse, who was eating the breakfast James had just given him. After rubbing and talking to him awhile, he paid his respects to a pair of oxen and three or four cows, which he helped James and Jerry to drive into the pasture near the barn. He next visited the hogs, and then the hens. This completed the list of life stock on the farm. He then had a frolic with Jerry in the hay-loft, in the midst of which he suddenly stopped and inquired: "Is n't it almost time for you to go to school, Jerry?" "No," his cousin replied, with a laugh, "it wants just six months of it." "Six months!" exclaimed Oscar; "what do you mean? Don't you go to school?" "Yes, I go when there is any school; but it does n't commence till next December," replied Jerry. "That's a queer idea," said Oscar; "I should like to know how long your school keeps, after it begins." "It keeps three months," replied Jerry. "I should like that first-rate--I wish I lived here," said Oscar; "I have to go to school all the time. But why does n't your school keep more than three months?" "I don't know," replied Jerry; "I guess it's because folks are too stingy to pay for it. They 've been talking of having a summer school, but I don't believe it will amount to anything." "I should hope it would n't if I lived here," said Oscar. "What capital times you must have!--no school to bother you, and no lessons to get. But I suppose you have to work some--don't you?" "No, not much," said Jerry; "I help a little in planting and haying time, and have a few chores to do about the house,--that's all." "Do you have many boys to play with?" inquired Oscar. "There are boys enough," replied his cousin, "but they are scattered all over town,--that's the worst of it. There is only one fellow of my age that lives near here, and he's half a mile off." "If you call that near, I should like to know what you call distant," said Oscar. "I 'm afraid I should be lonesome if I lived here." "Halloo, it rains!" said Jerry, as the big drops began to sound upon the roof over their heads. "Then I 'm going in," added Oscar, and they both started for the house. It proved to be a rainy day, and Oscar was obliged to find his amusement in-doors through its remaining hours. With his four cousins to help him, this was not a very difficult matter. When he retired at night, he felt quite at home in his new quarters. The sun rose clearly the next morning, and everything looked the more beautiful for the rain. To Oscar, the fields not only seemed greener, but the hills looked higher, and the trees more majestic, than they did the day before. "Why," he exclaimed, as he stood before the chamber window, "there is a pond away off there, is n't there? I did n't know that before." "Yes, that's a pond," replied Jerry, "and we 've got a small river, too, but you can't see it from here. We 'll go over to the pond, some warm day, and go into water; it's a real good place to bathe." "Perhaps we 'll go to-day," said Oscar; "it looks as though it were going to be real warm." Mrs. Preston now called to the boys that breakfast was ready, and they hurriedly finished dressing themselves, and descended to the kitchen. Having washed his face at the sink, Oscar stepped to the door, and used his pocket-comb; but Jerry was in too great a hurry to go through this last operation, and he was about taking his seat at the table, with his hair standing up in every direction, when his father inquired: "Jerry, what have you been doing to your head?" "Nothing," replied Jerry, with a look of surprise. "Well, I think you had better do something to it, before you come here," said his father. "Oscar will think you were brought up among the wild Arabs, if you come to the table with such a mop of hair as that about your head. Don't you see how nicely he has smoothed his hair?" "He's got a comb of his own. I wish you would buy me one, father," said Jerry. "Don't stand there talking--go and comb your hair," said Mr. Preston, somewhat sharply. To tell the truth, Jerry did need a lesson in neatness; and in this respect, Oscar was a very good model for him to imitate. Having reduced his snarly locks to something like order and smoothness, Jerry took his seat at the table, much improved in appearance. "You 'll have a chance to go about some to-day, Oscar," said Mr. Preston; "it's about twenty-five degrees warmer than it was yesterday." "Father," said Jerry, "I and Oscar--" "I and Oscar--where did you learn your manners?" interrupted his mother. Jerry was for a moment in doubt whether to be offended or not at this second unexpected lesson in good-breeding; but he finally concluded to make the best of it, and went on with his story: "Oscar and I, then--were going over to the pond this forenoon, and I guess it will be warm enough for us to go into water. Should n't you think it would?" "No, indeed," replied Mr. Preston, "you mustn't think of such a thing. It's only the first of June, and you ought not to go into water for two or three weeks yet. Besides, Oscar 's an invalid, and I should n't like to have him go in, even if it was warm enough for you. I would n't walk about much, either, at first," he continued, addressing Oscar. "You 're weak, and must look out, and not overdo yourself. This afternoon, when the horse is at leisure, Jerry shall give you a ride; so you had better not go far this forenoon." The river of which Jerry spoke is a small stream that has its source in the lake Oscar saw from the chamber window. It flows in a south-westerly direction, crossing the road on which Mr. Preston lived, not far from his house. A small bridge is thrown over the river at this point. After breakfast, Jerry and Oscar walked down to this bridge, and then, leaving the road, followed the river through the fields and woods, to its fountain-head. Here they found a beautiful sheet of water, more than half a mile across, in one direction, with an irregular shore, fringed most of the way with woods. A two-masted sail-boat was riding at anchor, a little off from the shore, which Oscar regarded with wishful eye; but as it did not belong to Mr. Preston, and they could not reach it without going into the water, it was of no use to think of taking a sail. They now walked along the edge of the pond, some distance, and after wandering some time in the woods, they returned home by a circuitous route. The annexed map of Brookdale will show the location of the pond, river, &c. Jerry lived in the house numbered 2. [Illustration: Map of Brookdale.] Oscar and Jerry spent the rest of the forenoon in the barn and wood-shed, and in the fields immediately around the house. After dinner, Mr. Preston told the boys they could have the horse and wagon, and as the family wanted some groceries, they might ride over to the store and get them. They accordingly tackled up the team, and were soon on their way. The store at which Mr. Preston traded was at the village where the stage left Oscar, which goes by the name of the "Cross-Roads," from the fact that two of the principal thoroughfares of that section of country cross at this point. Though this store was about five miles distant, there was no other one nearer to Mr. Preston's. The boys had a fine ride over to the village. Oscar drove, and was quite anxious to put Billy to a test of his speed; but as his uncle told them not to hurry, because the horse had been worked some in the forenoon, he did not dare to make any experiment of this kind. Jerry assured him, however, that he once drove Billy over to the Cross-Roads in just twenty minutes, which was the quickest time he had ever been known to make. He thought this a remarkable feat; but Oscar did not seem much astonished at it, and said he knew of horses that could go a mile in three minutes, and even in less time if the road was smooth and level. After riding about three-quarters of an hour, they arrived at the Cross-Roads, and drove up to a post and chain for tying horses in front of the store. The store was kept in a large wooden building. Over the door was the sign, "J. FLETCHER, VARIETY STORE;" and the shutters were covered with columns of names of articles sold within, such as "Bacon," "Cheese," "Flour," "Grain," "Shoes," "Dry Goods," &c. Another sign in one of the windows indicated that this was also the post-office of the village. The boys went into the store, and while Jerry was ordering the articles his mother had sent for, Oscar improved the opportunity to look around the premises. It was to him a queer assortment of goods. There seemed to be a little of everything for sale. Here you could buy of one salesman articles that you could obtain in Boston only by visiting a dozen different shops. Groceries and dry goods, country produce and hardware, boots, shoes, and hats, confectionary and fancy articles, stoves and children's toys, were in most neighborly companionship. Before leaving the store, Oscar invested a few cents in candy and cigars; for his father had given him a little spare change beyond what was necessary to defray the expenses of the journey. He shared the candy with Jerry, and put the cigars in his pocket for future use. Jerry having finished his business at the store, they set out on their return, and arrived home in safety and without meeting with any remarkable adventure. The boys employed themselves the rest of the afternoon in planning excursions and amusements, and before they got through, they had laid out "fun" enough to occupy them for several days. The evenings were now quite short, and as it was the custom to retire to bed early at Mr. Preston's, it frequently happened that no lamps were lit in the house for several days in succession. As twilight came on that evening, Oscar, who began to feel pretty tired, laid down upon the sofa in the sitting-room, and in a few minutes was fast asleep. Jerry got a straw, and was about to tickle his ear, when his mother stopped him. Oscar's nap, however, was a short one, and suddenly waking up, he began to laugh. "I guess you had a pleasant dream," said his aunt. "I had a real funny one," replied Oscar. "I thought you sent me over to the store to get some things, and when I got there, I had them all jumbled together in my head, and I told the man I wanted a yard of molasses, and a pound of calico, and a gallon of shingle-nails, and I did n't know what else. And I thought the man laughed, and asked me if I would take them loose, or have them done up in a rag. Then another boy that was in the store set up a loud laugh, and that woke me up. I wonder how long I slept--do you know, aunt?" "Only two or three minutes," replied Mrs. Preston. "I was real smart, then," replied Oscar; "for you gave me my errand, and I harnessed the horse and drove away over to the Cross-Roads, and went through the scene in the store, and woke up again, all in two or three minutes. I thought I 'd been asleep half an hour." "I should think you 'd dream about the store," said Jerry; "you 've made fun enough about it, if that 's all." "Well, I 'll leave it to aunt if it is n't odd to see such a queer lot of stuff in one store; I 've heard about country stores, but I never saw one that would come up to that before. It is almost equal to going into a fair, to go in there. There was everything you could think of, from a grindstone to a pop-gun." "There is n't business enough to support more than one trader, and that is the reason why Mr. Fletcher keeps such a variety," said Mrs. Preston. "I know that," said Oscar, "and I suppose the folks are glad to have him keep all sorts of knick-knacks; but it seems queer to me, to see groceries and dry goods, and everything else, in the same shop." "Did you see any babies there?" inquired little Mary, who was amusing herself by walking around the room backwards. "What sort of babies--live ones, or rag ones, or wax ones?" inquired Oscar. "No, none of them," replied Mary; "I mean crying babies, like Annie Davenport's." "O, you mean those little dolls that make a squeaking noise when you squeeze them. No, I believe I did n't see any," said Oscar. "No, Mr. Fletcher would n't keep such silly things as them," said Jerry, who was very fond of teasing his sisters. "No, they aint silly, either, are they cousin Oscar?" said Mary. "No," replied Oscar, "seeing it's you, they aint silly." Mary was continuing her backward walk around the room, and was just at that moment passing before Jerry, when he suddenly put out his foot, and stumbling over it, she fell heavily upon the floor, striking her head against a corner of the sofa. A loud scream immediately followed this mishap, and as the author of it hastened to raise up his sister, he was himself a little frightened; but seeing no blood flowing from her head, he concluded she was "more scared than hurt," and tried to turn the affair into a joke, saying: "There, sis, you're a little crying baby yourself, now. Come, stop your noise; you 've blubbered enough about it. It didn't hurt you, did it?" "Come here, dear, what is the matter?" said Mrs. Preston, who had left the room a moment before, and hurried back on hearing Mary scream. "Jerry knocked me over," said Mary, sobbing bitterly, as her mother lifted her up into her lap. "Where did it hurt you, dear?--there? Well, let mother rub it, and it will feel better soon. Jerry is a naughty boy to do so. Why need you torment your little sister so?" Mrs. Preston added, turning to Jerry. Mr. Preston, who had been sitting upon the door-step, smoking his pipe, as was his custom in the evening, came in, on hearing the uproar; and having ascertained what the trouble was, he boxed Jerry's ears pretty severely, and sent him off to bed. Oscar soon followed him; but Jerry was so mortified at the rough handling he had received, that he scarcely spoke again that night. CHAPTER XVI. IN THE WOODS. It was soon evident that the air of Brookdale agreed with Oscar. He was fast gaining his strength, and the increased fulness and color of his countenance betokened returning health. No part of this improvement was to be attributed to the bottle of cough drops his mother packed away in the bottom of his valise, and charged him to take every morning and night; for the drops were not very palatable, and he had not opened the bottle since he left home. In fact, he had by this time quite forgotten both the medicine and his mother's injunction. So rapid was the improvement in Oscar's health, that two or three days after his trip to the Cross-Roads, Mr. Preston gave his consent to an excursion he and Jerry had planned, which was to occupy a whole day. "Old Staple's Hut," as it was called, was the place they proposed to visit. It was about four miles distant, beyond the hills in the north-east part of the town, represented in the upper corner of the map of Brookdale. They were to carry their dinner, and Mrs. Preston accordingly filled a small basket with eatables. While she was doing this, Jerry took Oscar aside and said: "There is one thing more we want, and that is father's gun. I know he won't let me have it, but I guess he would lend it to you, if you should ask him." "Yes, we must have a gun," replied Oscar; "and I should just as lief ask him for it as not." Oscar hunted up his uncle, and made known his request. Mr. Preston hesitated a moment, and then inquired: "Does your father allow you to use a gun at home?" "He never says anything about it, either way," replied Oscar. "Well, I guess you had better not take the gun," said Mr. Preston. "I 'm afraid you might get hurt,--that's all I care about. I don't allow Jerry to use firearms, and I should n't like to put anything of the kind into your hands without your father's consent." "But I 'll be very careful if you 'll let me have it," added Oscar. "I 've fired a gun several times, and know how to handle it." "No, I think you had better not carry the gun with you," replied his uncle. "If you used it, Jerry would think he must, and I know he is too careless to be trusted with it. He 'd shoot you, just as like as not, if he did n't kill himself." Mr. Preston's tone was so decided, that Oscar saw it would be useless to say anything more about the gun, and so he and Jerry were obliged to abandon the idea of taking it with them. Taking their basket of provisions, they accordingly set out on their long tramp. Leaving the road, and turning into a footpath through the fields, they passed close by the upper edge of the pond. In this part of their walk there was a good deal of swamp land, and a number of brooks to cross. Sometimes they had to pick their way along upon stones which had been placed at regular intervals in wet places, or upon old logs that served for bridges; and at times it required no little skill in balancing to avoid getting a wet foot. After they had got beyond the pond, however, the land gradually ascended, and was mostly occupied as pastures for cattle. But they still occasionally came to a brook, flowing down from the hills towards the pond. Most of them were so narrow, they could easily jump over them; but in one instance they were obliged to take off their shoes and stockings and wade across. "Now you see why this place is called Brookdale," said Jerry, after they had passed four or five of these little streams. "Is that the reason, because there are so many brooks? I never thought of that before," said Oscar. "Yes, that's it," replied Jerry. "In the spring these brooks make quite a show; but they get low in the summer, and generally dry up in August, unless it's a very wet season." "I 'm going to cut me a cane," said Oscar, taking out his knife; "I see a real straight and handsome one in there," and he pointed to a thicket they were approaching. "That's nothing but birch--that won't make a good cane," replied Jerry; "stop a minute, and I 'll find you something better." After looking about a little, Jerry found some beeches, which he said would make good canes. They accordingly cut two of the straightest and handsomest. "I mean to try an experiment with mine," said Oscar, "and see if I can't crook the top of it. Do you know how they do it, Jerry?" "No, I always thought they grew in that shape," replied Jerry. "A man told me they boiled the end of the stick and then bent it," said Oscar. "He said that was the way all the hooked canes were made. I don't know whether he knew or not, but I mean to try it some day, and see how it works." "I don't believe in that," said Jerry. "It is n't very likely you can bend such a stick as that without breaking it; just see how stiff it is." "I don't care, I'll try it, just to satisfy myself," replied Oscar. Oscar was right in regard to bending wood. The hooked-top walking-sticks are made in the way he described,--by boiling the end, and then bending it into an arch. In boiling wood, several substances which enter into its composition are dissolved, and others are softened, so that it is rendered flexible. The boys trudged slowly on their way, now aided by their canes, which, in a long walk, are of no slight service to the pedestrian. As they sauntered along, chatting, singing, and whistling, as merrily as the birds around them, Oscar remembered the cigars he bought at the store, and soon the pure atmosphere of the fields was polluted with the vile odor of bad tobacco. Oscar had been in the habit of smoking occasionally for some time; but though he considered it a manly accomplishment, he was very careful not to let his parents know that he was addicted to it. He prevailed upon his cousin to take a cigar; but Jerry was not very partial to tobacco, and a few whiffs satisfied him for that occasion. They had now reached the foot of the long, steep hills, over which they must climb. These hills were thickly wooded most of the way, forming beautiful groves, cool, dark, fragrant with resinous odors, and softly carpeted with moss and decayed leaves. Oscar and Jerry concluded to rest a few minutes before scaling the hills. Selecting a favorable spot, they stretched themselves at full length upon the ground, and looked up towards the distant tree-tops. It was a pine forest, and the trees were as straight as an arrow, and so tall that their tops almost seemed among the clouds. The moaning of the wind among the topmost branches sounded like the distant roar of the sea. Birds were skipping merrily among the "tasselled boughs," and curiously eying the young strangers who had invaded their solitude. "O, how I wish I had that gun now!" said Oscar, as a fine plump robin lit on one of the lower branches of a tree right over his head. In repay for this generous wish, Signor Robin executed one of his choicest songs in his handsomest style, and, without waiting for an encore from his audience, darted off and was quickly out of sight. But it is probable the audience thought more of the "good shot" he presented, than of the sweet strains he poured forth for their entertainment. "There's better game than that in these woods," said Jerry, after the robin had taken his departure. "Is there anything besides birds?" inquired Oscar. "Yes," replied Jerry, "there are rabbits, and woodchucks, and weasels, and skunks, and squirrels; and some folks say there are wild-cats here, but I don't know about that. Jim Oakley, a fellow who lives about a mile from our house, comes over here gunning very often; and he says he saw a real savage-looking creature here, a few weeks ago, that he took to be a wild-cat. He fired at it, but it got clear of him. He says it looked a good deal like a cat, only it was larger, and had a little short tail. I wish he 'd killed it. I should like to know what it was. I never saw a wild-cat; did you?" "No," replied Oscar. "But that was n't equal to something a man came across in the woods the other side of these hills, two or three years ago," continued Jerry. "What do you suppose it was?" "I don't know; was it a moose?" inquired Oscar. "No," replied Jerry; "moose come down into this neighborhood, once in awhile, but that was n't what I was going to tell you about. There is a road through these woods, a little beyond the hills. It is n't travelled much, except by the loggers in the fall and spring. A man was riding along this road, one afternoon in summer, when he suddenly came across a monstrous black bear. As soon as the bear saw him, he squat down on his haunches, right in the middle of the road, and began to show his teeth. The man didn't dare to drive by him, and his horse was so frightened that it was as much as he could do to hold him in. He had a loaded revolver with him, but he knew there was n't much hope of killing the bear with that. So he turned his horse about, and concluded to go back to the nearest house, and get a gun and somebody to help him kill the bear. The bear sat still, watching him, as much as to say, 'If you'll let me alone, I 'll let you alone;' but just as the man was starting up, he thought he would try his pistol, and so he blazed away at the bear. Two or three of the shot hit the bear in the shoulder. They did n't hurt him much, only enough to rouse his dander; but he sprang up as quick as lightning, and started after the team. The man whipped up his horse, and the bear 'pulled foot' after him, and did n't give up the race till he had run about a quarter of a mile. The man said if he had been afoot, the bear would have beat him at running, but he could n't keep up with the horse. "Well, the man went back three or four miles, and got another man to go with him in search of the bear. They armed themselves with guns and hunting-knives; but when they drove back to where the man met the bear, they could n't find anything of him. They traced his tracks into the woods, but after awhile they lost them, and as it was getting late, they gave up the hunt; and nobody hereabouts has seen that bear from that day to this." "Perhaps he's about here now--who knows?" said Oscar. "No, I guess he went right back to the place he came from," replied Jerry. "Somebody would have seen him, if he 'd stayed around here." "Where do you suppose he came from?" inquired Oscar. "From way back in the woods, fifty miles from here," replied Jerry. "There had been great fires in the woods that summer, and I suppose he got burned out, or frightened, and that was the reason he came down this way." "I should like to meet such a customer," said Oscar; "only I should want to have a good double-barrelled gun with me. I read in a newspaper, the other day, about a boy up in New Hampshire, who met a bear and two cubs, all alone in the woods. He had a gun with him, and killed the old one, and one of the cubs, but the other cub got off. That was doing pretty well, wasn't it?" "'Twas so," said Jerry; "but I guess you would n't have done quite so well as that." "I bet I should have tried, at any rate," said Oscar, who really was not deficient in courage, though he had hardly practiced hunting enough to justify him in believing that he could master so savage an animal as a bear. Having rested themselves, the boys resumed their journey, and after ten minutes' hard work, reached the top of the range of hills. The highest summit was a bare ledge of rock, and they concluded to climb to the top of it, for the sake of the view to be obtained. It was called "Prospect Rock," and was very appropriately named. As the boys stood upon it, the country for miles around was spread out at their feet,--houses, and cultivated fields, and forests, and roads, and narrow streams. A distant mountain was visible in the west, which Jerry said was about twenty miles off, though it seemed much nearer. After enjoying the scene a few minutes, they began to descend the hill on the other side. They kept their eyes open, for game, but they saw only a few squirrels, and one rabbit, which bounded off, and was out of sight in a moment. Jerry pointed out to Oscar a woodchuck's hole, near the foot of the hill. "I should like to see a woodchuck," said Oscar; "what do they look like?" "They 're about as big as a rabbit, and are of a brownish color," replied Jerry. "Do you suppose there's one in that hole?" inquired Oscar; "let's see if we can't scare him out." "I don't know whether there is or not," replied Jerry; "but if there was, we could n't dig him out without shovels. They burrow real deep. If we had brought a dog with us, how he would dig into that hole!" "I wish I had my Tiger here," said Oscar; "it's too bad father would n't let me bring him with me." Oscar thrust his cane into the hole, but did not reach the end of it; and if the occupant of the tenement was within, he did not think it worth while to show himself. The boys accordingly renewed their journey. After they had reached the foot of the hill, they had to cross a swamp. With its wet and miry bottom, and its dense growth of vines, bushes, and small trees, this was no easy matter; but they succeeded in getting through with no damage save wet feet, a few slight scratches, and a good many mosquito bites. This latter trouble was the most serious of all. The mosquitoes were large and ferocious. They bit right through jacket, vest, and all, and Oscar declared that their sharp stings even penetrated his boots. After the boys emerged from the swamp, they came to the road in which the man met a bear. They followed this road a short distance, till it brought them to the shore of a large and beautiful pond. Leaving the highway, they now walked along by the edge of the water, and soon came to the old hut they were in pursuit of. It was but a few rods from the pond, and was directly under the brow of a steep and rocky hill. It had a very old and decayed appearance. The roof had fallen in, the door had disappeared, and the single window was without sash or glass. It contained but one apartment, and that was very small, and so choked up with rubbish that the boys did not try to enter. "Well, that must have been a great place for a man to live in," said Oscar, after he had inspected the premises. "How long has the old fellow been dead?" "I don't know," said Jerry; "it must be fifteen years, for he died before I was born." "I wonder what he lived here for; does anybody know?" inquired Oscar. "No, he was a hermit, and that's all anybody knows about him. They say he used to have a garden, and raised everything he wanted to eat. In the summer time he used to work a good deal for two or three farmers that lived over at Cedar Hill, at the further end of the pond. He had a little skiff, and rowed back and forth in that. He never used to spend any money, and people say he must have had all of a thousand dollars, that he had earned, when he died; but nobody knew what became of it. They suppose he buried it about here somewhere, or hid it in some rock." "A thousand dollars!" said Oscar; "I 'm going to hunt for that; what will you bet I won't find it?" "Pooh!" replied Jerry, "people have searched all round here, and dug holes, and pulled up the floor of the hut, more than a hundred times; and I guess there's no danger of your finding the money now." "I 'm going to try, at any rate," said Oscar, and he get up from the stone upon which he was seated. "Stop, don't go now," said Jerry; "let's make a fire and get dinner first--I 'm just about half starved." Oscar fell in with this suggestion, and they gathered together a lot of brush and other dry wood, and soon had a good fire kindled against a large stone, which happened to be hollowed out something like a fireplace. Among the provisions they had brought with them were half a dozen potatoes, which they buried in the embers after the fire had got well under way. While these were baking, they employed themselves in gathering wood and watching the fire. They also found some slices of cheese in their basket, which they toasted by holding it before the fire upon the point of a sharp stick. When their preparations for dinner were about completed, Oscar inquired: "Where shall we find some water to drink? Is there a spring about here?" "Water, why, there's plenty of it," replied Jerry pointing to the pond. "What! you don't mean to drink pond water, do you?" said Oscar, somewhat surprised. "Yes I do," replied Jerry; "that's good water--old Staples drank it all the time he lived here." "Well, come to think of it, I suppose it is good," said Oscar; "for our Cochituate water, in Boston, is nothing but pond water. It seems queer, though, to dip it right out of the pond; but I suppose it is just as good as though we drew it from an aqueduct." There was a tin dipper in the basket, and Oscar took it, and went down to the pond, to try the water. He found it clear, and agreeable to the taste, though not very cold. Filling the dipper, he returned to the fire, where Jerry now had the dinner in readiness. They found a large flat stone, which answered for a table, and spreading their provisions upon it, they threw themselves upon the grass, and began to eat. The potatoes were nicely roasted, and, indeed, all the articles that helped to form their rural repast, tasted uncommonly well. Even the pond water, Oscar confessed, would have been equal to the Cochituate, if they had only had a little ice to put in it. [Illustration: The Dinner in the Woods.] After dinner, Oscar commenced his search for the hidden treasures, and Jerry, impelled by sympathy, joined in the hunt, though with no very sanguine expectations of finding the hermit's gold. They examined the hut, and poked over the rubbish, within and about it. They walked over the ground, around the cabin, turning over stones, looking after holes in the trunks of trees, and peering curiously into every crack and crevice they could find. They then climbed up the rocks behind the hut, and patiently continued their search, talking earnestly, the meanwhile, about what they should do with the money, if they found it. Oscar said if he found the money, he should buy the best horse he could find. He should not go to school any more, but should spend his time in riding, and going to places of amusement. If his father did not like it, he should leave home, and board at a hotel. Jerry, on the other hand, wanted to see the world. If _he_ found the money, he was going to travel all over the country. After visiting the great Atlantic cities, he should go to California, and stop a few months, just long enough to dig a few thousand dollars out of the mines--and then he should push on to China, and India, and Europe, and come home in one of the Collins steamers. It was finally agreed, however, that if either of them found the treasure, it should be equally divided between them, and with this friendly understanding, they renewed their search, with fresh zeal. "It's real hot; what do you say about going into water?" inquired Oscar, after they had ransacked the neighborhood pretty thoroughly, and worked themselves into a perspiration. "I 'll go in if you will," said Jerry. "Father did n't tell us not to go in to-day--I was afraid he would; but he did n't say anything about it." "He need n't know it, if we do go in," suggested Oscar, who knew very well that his uncle would not approve of his bathing so early in the season, and so soon after his sickness. "No, he won't know anything about it," added Jerry; "and I don't believe it can do us any hurt, for it is as warm as it is in the middle of summer. I 've been into water many a time, when it was colder than it is now." They did not debate the question long, but throwing off their clothes, they soon plunged into the clear lake. The water did not feel quite so warm to their bodies, as it tasted when they washed down their dinner with it. Still, it was not very cold; and as the place was quite convenient for bathing, having a hard, gravelly bottom, with a gradual slope, they enjoyed their dip in the water as well as they _could_ enjoy a forbidden gratification. After they had dressed themselves, they sat a little while with their caps off, that the warm sun might dry their hair, and thus remove all evidence of their stolen pleasure. This accomplished, they concluded, from the position of the sun, that it was time to start for home; and taking their basket and canes, they commenced their homeward march. They met with no incident of any moment in returning, except that they got off their course at one time; but Jerry, who was quite at home in the woods, soon found where he was, and set himself right again. The last two miles of their jaunt were the hardest of all, especially to Oscar, who was more troubled with sore feet and stiff legs than Jerry. They were both, however, as tired and hungry as need be, when they got home. No questions were asked about their going into water. This was fortunate, for it probably saved them from the additional guilt of falsehood. They experienced no punishment for their disobedience, except the consciousness that they had committed a wrong act. To some boys, that alone would have been no slight punishment; but I fear this was not the case with Oscar and Jerry. CHAPTER XVII. CLINTON. "Come, Jerry, let's go over to Clinton's this forenoon," said Oscar, the morning after their excursion to the hermit's hut. "Agreed," replied Jerry, "we 'll start right away as soon as I can find my cap. Let me see---where did I leave it, I wonder?" "Jerry," said Mrs. Preston, who overheard this conversation, "bring me in an armfull of wood before you go." "I 'll get the wood while you 're looking for your cap," said Oscar, and he started for the wood-house. Oscar almost repented of his offer when he discover ed that there was no wood split. However, he took the axe and split a few logs, and carried them into the kitchen. Jerry had not yet found his cap, though he had searched all over the house for it. He began to suspect some one had played a trick upon him by hiding his cap, and when Emily laughed at his impatience, he concluded she was the guilty one. In vain she protested that she had not seen the missing cap, and did not know where it was. He searched every part of the girls' chamber, and then, in his vexation, he pulled Emily's bonnet from off her head, and tossed it out of the window into an apple-tree, in the branches of which it lodged. It was now Emily's turn to fly into a pet, and she availed herself of the opportunity. Running to her mother, she reported what Jerry had done, setting off his foolish conduct in the worst possible light. Jerry soon made his appearance in the kitchen, and retorted upon his sister by charging her with having hid his cap. Mrs. Preston tried to settle the difficulty by directing Jerry to get Emily's bonnet out of the tree, and ordering Emily to tell Jerry where his cap was, if she knew; but Emily protested she knew nothing about the cap, and her brother did not seem inclined to obey his portion of the decree, while his sister failed to comply with hers. The quarrel was thus becoming more and more complicated, when Oscar suddenly entered the room with the lost cap in his hand. "Here's your cap, Jerry," he said; "I found it just where you left it last night, out in the barn. Don't you remember, you threw it at the cat to scare her?" "Yes, so I did, and I forgot to pick it up again," said Jerry. "There, do you believe me now?" said Emily, with an air of triumph. Jerry did not stop to reply; but, going into the garden, he climbed the apple-tree, and tossed the bonnet down to Emily. "Now I 'm ready to start, just as soon as I 've had a drink of buttermilk," said Jerry to Oscar; "come into the buttery and get some, won't you?" There was only one bowl-full of buttermilk left from the morning's churning, but Mrs. Preston told the boys they might have that. Jerry proposed that they should "go snacks," and gave the bowl to Oscar that he might drink his share first. The latter took one mouthful, but quickly spit it out, and puckered his face into all sorts of shapes. "Ugh!" he exclaimed, "you don't call that sour stuff good, do you?" and he handed the bowl back to Jerry, with a look that would have soured the buttermilk, if it had not already undergone that process. As soon as Jerry could get over laughing at his cousin's grimaces, he swallowed the contents of the bowl, and then smacking his lips, said: "There, don't you think I like it? You just drink it a few times, and then see if you don't like it, too. I could drink a quart of it now if I had it." "You may have it, for all me; I don't want any more of it," replied Oscar. "Jerry, have the hens been attended to?" inquired Mrs. Preston, as the boys were about starting from home. "I don't know--I have n't fed them," replied Jerry. "You ought to know whether they are seen to or not; it's your business to take care of them," said his mother. "Don't you go off this morning till you have fed them. You ought to have done it an hour ago." The care of the fowls had been committed to Jerry, but he did not feel much interest in them, and needed to be reminded of his duty pretty often. His negligence had been more marked than ever since Oscar's arrival, and more than once the hens had been without food and water nearly a whole day because he forgot to attend to them. Jerry now went back, in obedience to his mother, and gave the fowls their usual allowance of corn, and a vessel of fresh water. He also looked into the nests to see if there were any new-laid eggs; and he was not a little surprised to find in one of them a small billet, neatly folded up, and addressed, "_To Master Jerry_." He looked at it a moment, and tried to imagine what it could be; then he opened it, and read the following, which was neatly written with a pencil: "THE HENROOST, June 12th. "MASTER JERRY:" "I have determined to write you a few words in behalf of my dear suffering family. The sun is scorching hot, and yet we have not got a drop of water to save us from parching up. My poor biddies have been walking back and forth all day, panting for water, and calling for it as plainly as they could speak; but all in vain. We have received our food at very irregular times, too, and sometimes we have had to keep fast nearly all day. If I were the only sufferer, I would say nothing about it; but I cannot bear to see my poor flock dying by inches in this way. Do take pity on us, and see that we have plenty of corn and water hereafter. Some of my family, who pride themselves on being good layers, complain that since you have kept us shut up in such narrow quarters they cannot find anything to make their egg-shells of. Now, if you would give us some old burnt bones, pounded up fine, or a little lime, once in awhile, I do not think you would lose anything by it. And as you will not let us go out to scratch for ourselves, what is the reason that you cannot dig us a few worms occasionally? It would be a great treat to us. I hope you will heed my suggestions. If you do not, I can assure you of two things: you won't have many eggs this summer; and fat chickens will be a scarce article in this neighborhood next Thanksgiving time. But Mrs. Yellowneck has just laid an egg, and I must help her cackle over it; so I will write nothing more at present, but sign myself "Your faithful, but afflicted, "SHANGHAE ROOSTER." Before Jerry had finished reading this mysterious letter, Oscar, who wondered at his long absence, went to see what the matter was, and found his cousin deeply absorbed in the document. After Jerry had read it, he handed it to Oscar, telling him where he found it. "Well, that is queer," said Oscar, after he had read it. "Who do you suppose wrote it?" "I know where it came from well enough," said Jerry; "keep dark--don't say anything about it," he added, as he put the letter in his pocket. Then stepping to the kitchen-window, he inquired, "Mother, was Clinton over here yesterday?" "I believe he was," replied Mrs. Preston. "That accounts for it," said Jerry to Oscar; "that letter sounds just like Clinton. I knew he wrote it just as soon as I saw it." "But can he write as well as that?" inquired Oscar. "Yes, he 's a very good writer," replied Jerry. "He ought to be, for he has to get a lesson every day, just as though he went to school, and recite to his mother in the evening. I wish I knew as much as he does, but I should n't want to study so hard." They had now started on their way to Clinton's. The Shanghae letter continued to be the topic of remark for some time. It was finally concluded that they should say nothing to Clinton about it. To tell the truth, Jerry felt a little mortified at the deserved rebuke he had received, and he thought the easiest way to get over it would be, to pretend that the letter had never reached its destination. Clinton Davenport, the suspected author of this letter, lived in the nearest house to Mr. Preston's. The house is marked 1, on the map of Brookdale. He was three or four months younger than Jerry, and, like him, was an only son. They had been intimate playmates from early childhood, though their tastes and dispositions were very different. Clinton was an industrious boy. He liked to work, and took an interest in all his father's plans and labors. He was an ingenious boy, too; and, in addition to his other commendable traits, he was a good scholar. Oscar had seen Clinton once or twice, at Jerry's house, but this was his first visit to him. They soon came in the sight of the house. It was a neat, but plain cottage, situated near the foot of a hill. There were several noble oaks around it, and fruit trees in the rear. Luxuriant vines were trained around and over the front door. A large and substantial barn stood a little one side, and back from the road, with its great doors swung open. On a tall pole, behind the house, there was a complete miniature of the cottage, which appeared to be occupied by a family of birds, who were constantly flying back and forth. This pretty birdhouse Clinton had made with his own hands the previous winter. When Oscar and Jerry reached the house, they saw Clinton doing something in the orchard, behind the buildings, and walked along towards him. They found him employed in destroying caterpillars' nests, in the apple-trees. He had a light ladder, with which he ascended the trees; and having his hands protected by a pair of old gloves, he swept down the nests, and destroyed the young caterpillars by the hundred. "This is n't very pleasant work," said Clinton, "but it has got to be done. I've been all over the orchard this morning, and this is the last tree I 've got to examine. I shall be done in a few minutes, and then I 'll walk around with you." "I should like to know where all these caterpillars come from," said Oscar; "do they come up from the ground?" "No," replied Clinton. "A miller lays the eggs, the summer before, on a branch of the tree, and there they stay till about the first of June; then they hatch out, and build their nest. The nests look something like tents, don't you see they do?" "Yes, so they do," said Oscar. "That's the reason they are called tent-caterpillars. There are three or four hundred of them in every nest. In about a month from now, they would all turn into millers, if nobody disturbed them, and lay millions of eggs for next year's crop." "That 's curious--I 've learnt something new by coming here," said Oscar. "There, I believe that's all," said Clinton, as he cast his eye over the tree; "now come and see my turkeys." Jerry slyly winked at Oscar, and both thought of the Shanghae rooster's letter; but they said nothing, and followed Clinton to a tree near the barn, where there was a large, motherly hen, surrounded by her happy brood. They were young turkeys, but it was all the same to the poor simple hen. She had set four weeks upon the eggs from which they were hatched, and no wonder she honestly believed they were her own children. To confess the truth, they did look so much like chickens, that a city boy like Oscar would hardly have suspected they were turkeys, if he had not been told that they were. They were black, and of about the size of chickens of their age. They had also the sharp, piping cry of genuine chickens. But their necks were a little longer than usual, and that was almost the only badge of their turkeyhood. The hen was confined to the tree by a string, to prevent her roving off. A barrel turned upon its side, served them for a house at night. There was another hen, confined under a tree near by, which was the proud mother of a large brood of chickens. There were about twenty-five of them, but though they now constituted one brood, they were hatched by two hens. Clinton said he usually managed to set two hens together, so that one of them might bring up all the chickens, thereby saving some trouble for himself, as well as one hen's time, which was of some value to him. Hens do not seem to have much knowledge of arithmetic, and biddy was apparently unconscious of any difference between twelve and five-and-twenty. A loud and prolonged "Cock-a-doodle-do-o-o-o" now attracted Oscar to the hen-yard near by, behind the barn, where the rest of Clinton's poultry were confined. It was a large enclosure, connected with a shed, in which the fowls roosted and laid their eggs. Its occupants, and indeed all the poultry on the place were the exclusive property of Clinton, and he took the entire management of them in his own hands. He raised the corn they consumed on a patch of ground his father gave him for the purpose. He sold his eggs, chickens, and turkeys to whom he pleased, and kept a regular account in a book of all his business transactions. Of course, all the money he made was his own, and he told Oscar he had nearly seventy-five dollars in the bank, which he had earned in this way. "I don't see how you do it," said Jerry; "I could n't make anything that way if I should try. I don't believe our hens more than pay their way, if they do that." "If you should manage as I do, I guess you would make something," replied Clinton. "No, it isn't my luck," said Jerry; "if I worked ever so hard, I should n't be any better off for it." "I don't believe that," said Clinton; "there 's no luck about it. Any boy could make out just as well as I have done, if he took the same trouble. You try it, now, and see." "No, I shan't try, for I know just as well as I want to, how it would turn out," replied Jerry. "How can you know if you never tried it?" inquired Clinton. Jerry did not answer this question, and perhaps he could not. He preferred to comfort himself with the foolish plea of the lazy, that he was not one of "the lucky ones," and it was useless for him to think of succeeding in anything of that kind. Clinton did not make the most distant allusion to the Shanghae Rooster's letter, although Jerry felt sure that he knew all about it. The latter also avoided all reference to it. Oscar could hardly keep from introducing the matter, but his cousin's injunction to "keep dark" prevailed, and he was able to restrain his impatient tongue. The boys now took a look at the piggery, where they found several fat, dignified grunters, together with a family of little squealers, who seemed quite too clean and delicate to occupy such an enclosure. They then went all over the great barn, which happened to be tenantless, the cows being at pasture and the oxen and horse off at work. Oscar's attention was attracted to a scrap cut from a newspaper, which was pasted upon one of the posts of the horse's stall. It read as follows: "THE HORSE'S PRAYER. "Up hill, spare thou me; Down hill, take care of thee; On level ground, spare me not, Nor give me water when I 'm hot." Clinton said he found these lines in a newspaper about the time he began to drive alone, and he stuck them up upon the stall that he might not forget them. "Hallo, who is this?" inquired Oscar, as a little curly-haired girl of six years came tripping into the barn. The little girl to whom the inquiry was addressed turned a shy and roguish look towards the strange boy, and then edged along to Clinton, and nestled her little hand in his. "Can't you tell him who you are?" inquired Clinton. "He came all the way from Boston, where cousin Ettie and cousin Willie live. He 's Jerry's cousin, and little Mary Preston's cousin. Now you'll tell him what your name is, won't you?" "Annie Davenport--that's my name," she replied, in her artless, winning way. "Then you're Clinton's sister, are you?" inquired Oscar. "Yes, and he 's my brother," she quickly added, with a proud look that greatly amused the boys. "Did you say you have a cousin Willie in Boston, Clinton?" continued Oscar. "Yes, Willie Davenport," replied Clinton. "I know him--he's about your size, is n't he? and his father is a lawyer?" "Yes, that's him--why, I want to know if you know him?" "O yes; he goes to our school. The boys have nicknamed him Whistler, because he whistles so much; but he 's a real clever fellow, for all that. My brother Ralph is quite intimate with him. It's strange that I never knew before that he had relations down here," added Oscar. "Do you know his sister, Ettie?" inquired Clinton. "No, I never saw her," replied Oscar. "Come into the house with me,--I must tell mother we 've heard from Boston," said Clinton. They all entered the house, and Mrs. Davenport was soon informed of the pleasant discovery they had made, and had many questions to ask concerning her Boston friends. Oscar seemed to become at once an old acquaintance. The fact that he was a schoolmate of Willie gave him a direct passport to the good graces of all the family. When Oscar called to mind his peculiar relations towards Willie, this unlooked-for friendship was not particularly agreeable to him; for he was not, and never had been, on very friendly terms with Clinton's cousin. This, however, was more than he dared say to Clinton, and so he concealed his dislike of Willie as well as he could. After sitting in the house a little while, Clinton invited Oscar and Jerry into the "shop," which was a room back of the kitchen, where Mr. Davenport kept a variety of carpenter's tools. Here, in cold and stormy weather, Clinton's father mended his broken tools and implements, and performed such other jobs as were required. Clinton, too, spent many odd moments at the work-bench, and patient practice had made him quite a neat and skilful workman. He showed the boys several boxes, a pine table, and a cricket, made entirely by his own hands, which would have done no discredit to a regular carpenter. After remaining an hour or two with Clinton, Oscar and Jerry started for home, well pleased with their visit. CHAPTER XVIII. THE LETTER. "Oscar, you have n't written home since you came down here, have you?" inquired Mr. Preston one morning at the breakfast table. "No, sir," replied Oscar. "Well, you ought to write," added Mr. Preston; "your mother told you to, and I suppose she has been looking for a letter every day for a week or more. It's over a fortnight since you left home, and your folks will feel anxious about you, if they don't hear from you soon. You 'd better write a letter to them this morning, before you do anything else, and then it will be out of the way. I shall either go or send over to the post-office to-day, and the letter will start for Boston to-morrow morning, and get there the next day." "O dear, I hate to write," said Oscar. "Why can't you write to mother, aunt, and tell her how I am?" "No, no," said Mr. Preston, "that won't do. You promised your mother that you would write yourself, and she 'll expect to hear from you, and not from somebody else. Your aunt can write, if she chooses, but you must write too. I 'll give you a pen and some paper and ink after breakfast, and you can write just a much as you please." "I guess it won't be much--I don't know how to write a letter," replied Oscar. "A boy of your age not know how to write a letter--and been all your lifetime to such grand schools as they have in Boston, too! I don't believe that," said Mr. Preston, shaking his head. "I shall have to go and see the Shanghae Rooster," said Oscar, looking at Jerry very knowingly. Jerry laughed at this allusion, but the others did not appear to understand its meaning. It was evident that they were innocent of all knowledge of the mysterious letter; and as Jerry wished them to remain so, he adroitly turned the remark by replying: "No you won't--father has got plenty of steel pens." After breakfast, Mr. Preston told Oscar to follow him. They went up stairs, and Mr. P. took a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door of what was known by the name of "the private room." It was a very small apartment, and was originally designed for a closet or store-room; but Mr. Preston now used it as a sort of office. Here he kept his business papers, and here he did what little writing he had to do. There was one window in the room, which looked out upon the garden in the rear of the house. The furniture consisted of a chair, a small portable desk, placed upon a table, an old map of the State of Maine, a dictionary, almanac, and several other odd volumes and pamphlets. "There," said Mr. Preston, "you may sit right down to my desk, and write as long as you please, if you won't disturb my papers. There are paper, ink, pens, and wafers--you can use what you want. When you get done, lock the door, and give the key to your aunt." Oscar found there was no backing out from a letter this time; so he sat down, and tried to make up his mind to face the dreaded duty. He heard his uncle tell the children not to interrupt him, till he had finished his letter; and when Mr. Preston and his man James went off to work, Jerry accompanied them. Oscar was thus left to himself. After thinking about the matter a few moments, he dipped his pen in the ink-stand, and, having consulted the almanac, wrote the proper date for the letter, together with the address, "Dear Mother." Here he came suddenly to a stand. He was at a loss how to commence. He sat uneasily in his chair, now nibbling the end of the pen-holder, and now running his fingers slowly through his hair, as if to coax out the thoughts he wished to express. At length he got started, and wrote several lines without stopping. Now he thought he should go ahead without further trouble; but he soon found himself again brought to a dead halt. He began to scribble and draw rude figures upon a piece of waste paper, hoping the next sentence, in continuance of his letter, would soon pop into his head; but instead of anything popping in, his ideas began to pop out, so that he almost forgot the letter, amid the unmeaning flourishes his pen was making. Then, suddenly thinking of the scarcely-commenced task before him, he read and re-read the few lines he had written, but could not determine what to say next. Lifting up the lid of the desk, he found a variety of bills, receipts, accounts and letters scattered about. Disregarding the injunction of his uncle, and in violation of one of the plainest rules of good breeding, he concluded to open one of the letters, and see if he could not gain some hint from it, to aid him in completing his own. The letter he opened proved to be a short business message, and it was written in such a difficult hand, that he could not read half the words. He then looked into several other letters, but none of them afforded him any aid. After idling away half an hour in this manner, he resumed his letter, and began to make some progress upon it, when the lively chirping and twittering of a party of birds in an apple-tree near the window, attracted his attention. He laid down his pen, and watched their movements awhile. They were swallows; and from their actions, Oscar soon discovered that the old birds were teaching their little ones how to fly. There were several nests of these swallows, under the rafters of Mr. Preston's barn; and as they had recently had accessions to their families, Oscar concluded this must be the first appearance of the new-comers in public. The old birds fluttered back and forth, twittering and talking to the young ones all the while, and trying to entice them to commit themselves again to their wings. The little fearful things looked doubtingly, first one way and then another, as though they would gladly launch away upon their destined element, if they were only sure they should not tumble ingloriously to the ground. The clamor of the old ones increased every moment. They called and coaxed more earnestly, and fluttered more impatiently, until at length the young birds worked up their courage to the requisite point, and away the whole flock darted, towards the barn. Now that the swallows were out of his way, Oscar returned to his letter once more. Had he learned a lesson of self-confidence from the example of the little swallows, the few minutes he spent in watching their movements would have been well employed. But instead of his confidence increasing, he was now almost sick of the sight of the letter, and began to doubt whether he should ever finish it. While he was hesitating whether he had better tear it up, or try once more to go on with it, a sweet childish voice from the garden engaged his attention. He looked from the window, and saw little Mary sitting down upon the grass, in a shady spot, with a large book open before her. She was looking at the engravings in the volume, and was talking very earnestly to herself, and to the figures in the pictures. "There is Emily," she was saying, "and there is father with a shovel; and this one is me, and that is Jerry, and that's Oscar, carrying a basket. I guess they 're going to dig potatoes. O, what lots of houses over the other side of the pond; and there 's one, two, three, five, ten, eight meeting-houses, too. It must be Boston, I guess, there are so many houses there. And there's a great boat coming--O what a smoke it makes!--and it's got wheels, too. Now we'll get right into it, and go and see Uncle Henry and all the folks. Stop, stop, you boat! Now that's too bad--it goes by, and we can't go to Boston." [Illustration: Mary and the Picture-Book.] Thus little Mary continued to talk to the pictures and to herself, unconscious that any one was listening to her. She was a pretty child, and, all unknown to herself, she made almost as attractive a picture as any in her book, with her fair face, her flowing hair, and her clean dress, set off by the green grass and climbing vines around her. Oscar sat listening to her childish prattle for some time, when the striking of the kitchen clock reminded him that he had been seated at the desk an hour, and had not yet written a dozen lines. He was about to tear up the sheet of paper over which he had sat (but not labored) so long, and give up the attempt. Then he thought of his promise to write, and how ashamed he should feel to have his uncle's folks know that he had tried a whole hour, and could not write a letter to his own mother. He finally determined to make one more attempt. Finding that the sound of Mary's voice disturbed him, Oscar now shut down the window, and thus cut off all communication with the outer world, except by the eye. He soon got under way again with his letter, and, to his own surprise, he went along quite easily and with considerable rapidity. The reason of this was, he was now really in earnest, and had given his mind wholly to the letter. Before, his thoughts were flitting from one trifle to another; now they were directed to the object he wished to accomplish. Before the clock struck the next hour, the letter was finished, sealed, and directed. It was quite a respectable sort of a letter, too. When he had got through, Oscar was himself surprised to find that he could write so good an epistle. The spelling, punctuation, and penmanship might have been improved, but in other respects the letter was creditable to him. I will print it as he intended it should read, and not precisely as he wrote it: "BROOKDALE, June 15, 185--. "DEAR MOTHER: "I suppose you are looking for a letter from me, and I meant to have written before this, but somehow I have neglected it. I got here safe the next day after I left home. We stopped one night in Portland, and put up at the ---- Hotel. The next day we rode in the cars all the forenoon, and in the stage all the afternoon. The stage does not go within five miles of uncle's, but Jerry went over with a horse and wagon to get us. I like Brookdale first-rate. It is a real countryfied place, but I like it all the better for that. The nearest house to uncle's is half a mile off; and, by the way, tell Ralph that a cousin of Whistler's lives there. His name is Clinton Davenport. I have got acquainted with him, and like him very much. I like Jerry, too. We have capital times together. All the boys here are rather 'green,' as we say in Boston; and you would laugh at the ideas they have of city things; but I suppose they think I am green about country things, and so we are square. I have lots of rides, and good long walks, too. A few days ago, Jerry and I walked four or five miles through the woods and pastures, to an old hut where a hermit used to live. They say he was a miser, and buried his money there, and people have dug for it, but nobody has found it. We carried our provisions, and made a fire, and ate dinner there. There is a fine pond close by, where we got our water to drink. "There are lots of birds here. We are going to set some snares in the woods, and catch some. There are some swallows' nests in uncle's barn, just over the door. You can look right up into them, and see the birds. They are quite tame. They are just making their young ones learn how to fly. It is real amusing to see them. "Uncle has quite a large farm. I forget how many acres he told me there was, but it is a good many. They have cows, and pigs, and hens, and live in real country style. I have learned how to make butter, but I have not learned to like buttermilk yet. I can't bear it, but all the other folks think it is a great treat. The schools don't keep here but three months in the winter, so Jerry and I are together about all the time. We sleep together, too. I almost forgot to tell you that I have got quite strong and hearty again. My cough is gone, and aunt says I look a good deal better than I did when I came here. I want to hear from home, but I hope you won't send for me to go back just yet. But I am tired of writing, and must close up my letter. Excuse errors and bad writing. Give my love to all the family, including Tiger. "Your affectionate son, "OSCAR." Oscar felt quite relieved when his letter was ready for the post-office. Having locked up the little room, he carried the key to his aunt. "Have you written your letter?" inquired Mrs. Preston. "Yes, ma'am," replied Oscar. "Where is it? You 're going to let me read it, aint you?" inquired Emily. "There it is," said Oscar, taking the letter from his jacket pocket; "but I guess you won't read it, miss." "Yes, do let me read it," persisted Emily, who really had an undue proportion of inquisitiveness in her nature. "No, I can't; it's sealed up," replied Oscar. "Then tell me what you wrote, won't you?" continued Emily. "Why, you silly child, what business is it to you what he wrote?" said her mother. "Don't ask any more such foolish questions; Oscar will think you have n't got common sense if you do." "Did you write anything about me?" continued Emily, in a lower tone. "Did you hear me, Emily?" inquired Mrs. Preston, in a sharper tone. "O no, I did n't write much," said Oscar, in reply to Emily; "there's nothing in the letter that you would care about seeing." "I did n't know you were going to seal up the letter so soon. I wanted to send a message to Alice and Ella," continued Emily. "You are too late now," replied Oscar; "but I 'll give you a chance next time. What message do you want to send?" "You must n't be so inquisitive," said Emily, with a laugh; "just as though I were going to tell you, when you would n't let me read the letter!" "Well, I can tell you one thing,--I don't want to know," replied Oscar. "Aunt Eliza, do you know where Jerry is?" "He has gone with his father down to the meadow lot," replied Mrs. Preston. "I guess they will be back before a great while." Oscar set out for the "meadow lot," which was a quarter of a mile from the house, on the other side of the river. He had not gone far, however, when he met Mr. Preston and Jerry returning. "I 've written my letter, uncle, and it's all ready to go to the post-office," said Oscar; "can't Jerry and I carry it over?" "I 'll see about that this afternoon," said Mr. Preston; "I 've got something else for Jerry to do now." "I 'm going over to the old wood-lot to get a load of mulching," said Jerry to Oscar; "and you can go too, if you want to." "Mulching--what is that?" inquired Oscar. "It's stuff that they put around young trees, to keep the roots from drying up in summer," replied Jerry. "You know all those small apple and pear trees back of the barn? well, it's to put around them." Having reached the house, the boys ate some luncheon, and then proceeded to tackle Billy into the hay-cart. After Mr. Preston had given Jerry sundry cautions and directions, which the latter seemed to think quite unnecessary, the boys hopped into the cart, and drove off towards the woods. Mr. Preston owned several tracts of woodland in Brookdale. The lot to which the boys were going, was called the "old" one, because the wood had all been cut off once, and it was now covered with a young growth, not large enough for firewood. It was but a short distance from the house, and the boys soon reached the spot, and commenced operations. They were each provided with large jack-knives, and with these they proceeded to lop off the young and tender ends of the birches, which trees were quite abundant in that spot; for birches are very apt to spring up after a pine forest has been cleared away. Many of the trees were yet so small, that the boys did not have to climb up to reach the branches. Though all this was really work, it seemed so much like play to Jerry and Oscar, that they actually _forgot to be lazy_. The consequence was, the job was done before they thought of it. Gathering up the heaps of small twigs scattered around them, they threw them into the cart, and found they had quite a respectable load; respectable in bulk at least, though not a very heavy burden for Billy. Taking their seats upon the top of the mulching, which was almost as soft as a load of hay, they drove back to the barn, and alighted. Mr. Preston now appeared, and led the horse into the orchard, where, with the aid of the boys, he scattered the birch twigs around the young trees, so as to protect their roots from the fierce heat of the sun. There was not enough for all the trees, but he told them they need not get any more at that time. After dinner, Mr. Preston said he should have to go over to the Cross-Roads himself, as he wanted to see a man who lived there; but he told Oscar he might go with him, if he wished. Oscar accepted the invitation, and they were soon on their way, leaving Jerry not a little disappointed that he could not go with them. Oscar handed his letter to the postmaster, who marked it with the stamp of the office, and deposited it in the mail-bag, Mr. Preston stopped to purchase a few articles in the shop where the post-office was kept. When he was ready to start, he inquired: "Have you mailed your letter, and paid your postage, Oscar?" "I 've mailed it, but I did n't pay the postage," replied Oscar. "That was n't right," said his uncle; "when you mail a letter to a friend, you should always pay the postage. If you pay it now, in advance, it will be only three cents; but if the postage is not paid till the letter is delivered, it will be five cents." "I did n't think of that," said Oscar; "I wonder if it is too late to pay it now? I 'll go and see." On making known his request, the postmaster drew forth the letter from the bag, and imprinted another stamp upon it. Oscar paid the three cents, and departed, with his uncle. CHAPTER XIX. THE RECALL. Oscar was bent upon going a-gunning. He had allowed his mind to dwell upon the idea, until it seemed to him as though he could no longer resist the impulse to play the sportsman, without a sacrifice of his happiness. His uncle, it is true, had tried to dissuade him from it, and had positively refused to lend him his gun. But there were other guns in Brookdale, and everybody was not so particular as Mr. Preston about trusting boys with fire-arms. Why could n't he borrow a gun of somebody else? So he asked himself; and by-and-bye he put the same question to Jerry. Jerry heartily entered into the proposal. He thought Jim Oakley would lend him a gun. At any rate, he was not afraid to ask him. Jim was a famous gunner, in that region. He had several fowling-pieces; and if he would not lend them his best rifle, it was not likely that he would refuse them one of his old guns. So Jerry reasoned, and Oscar fully agreed with him. They went to see Jim, that very afternoon, and by dint of teasing, they got the gun, together with a small quantity of powder and shot. Thus armed, they set out for the woods, in quest of game. They had been in the woods but a short time, and had not yet shot anything, though they had fired several charges, when a dispute arose between them about the gun. Jerry claimed a right to it half the time, on the ground that he had borrowed it. Oscar was willing that he should use the gun occasionally, but he resisted his claim to it half the time. He contended that the gun was loaned to him, and besides, he had agreed to pay the owner for all the ammunition they used. The dispute waxed warmer and warmer. Oscar was obstinate, and Jerry grew sulky. It was the first serious difficulty that had arisen between them. Neither of them, as yet, knew the other's temper, but now they were in a fair way of finding each other out. It was the clashing of two strong wills. Oscar soon saw that their sport was at an end for that day, and throwing down the gun and powder flask upon the grass, he said, in an angry tone: "There, take the old thing, and do what you please with it; and when you carry it back, see that you pay for the powder, for I won't." So saying, he turned upon his heel and walked off. He had not gone far when Jerry, who had picked up the gun, called out: "Here! you 've broken the trigger, throwing it down so. You may carry it back yourself now, I won't." "I shan't carry it back," replied Oscar; "you say he lent it to you, and you may take care of it now." Oscar went back to his uncle's, leaving Jerry and the gun to keep each other company. Not feeling in a very pleasant mood, Oscar did not go into the house, but loitered around the barn, avoiding the family as much as he could. Pretty soon he saw Clinton driving up, and he stepped inside of the barn, as he did not care about speaking with him. Clinton stopped however, when opposite to the barn, and called to him. "What would you give for a letter from home?" said Clinton, when Oscar made his appearance. "I don't know--why, have you got one for me?" inquired Oscar, with remarkable coolness. "That's for you, I guess," said Clinton, handing him a letter. "I 've been over to the post-office, and as I happened to see a letter directed to you, I thought I would take it along with me." "That's right, I'm glad you did," said Oscar, taking the letter. "Much obliged to you for your trouble," he added, as Clinton drove off. Oscar now went into the barn, and, seating himself upon a stool, opened and read his letter. It was from his mother. She acknowledged the receipt of his letter, and expressed much gratification at hearing that he was well and enjoying himself. His father, she wrote, thought he had better return home, and resume his place at school, from which he had been absent nearly three months. The term would close in about a month, and he wanted Oscar to be prepared to enter the High School at that time. Then followed various little messages from the children, directions about his journey home, &c. In closing, she requested him to return that week, that he might be ready to go to school the following Monday. Oscar was not very much pleased with the contents of the letter. He did not expect to be recalled so suddenly. He had hoped that, at any rate, he should not be sent to school again that term. But, his plans and hopes were all overturned by this letter. He went into the house, and told the news to his aunt, who expressed regret that he was to leave so soon. By-and-bye Jerry came home, but he brought the same scowl upon his face that Oscar left with him up in the woods. Oscar, too, was as "stuffy" as ever. No words passed between the two, and each seemed bent upon giving the other a wide berth. At the supper table, something was said about Oscar's letter, and his going home; but Jerry was too obstinate to ask any questions, and so he remained in tormenting uncertainty in regard to the matter. Oscar, too, had some curiosity about the gun, but he did not intend to "speak first," if he never spoke again to his cousin. During the whole evening, Oscar and Jerry were at the opposite poles of the little family circle. When Oscar retired for the night, he found Jerry not only abed, but asleep, or pretending to be. It was a wonder that both did not tumble out of bed that night; for each slept upon the extreme edge of the mattress, as far as possible from the other. When Oscar awoke in the morning, he found himself alone, Jerry having quietly arisen and slipped out of the room, without disturbing him. They did not see each other until they met at the breakfast table. Here, their sober and quiet demeanor, so unusual with them, soon attracted notice. "See how down in the mouth Jerry is!" said Emily. "He looks as though he had lost all his friends. And Oscar does n't look much better either, poor fellow!" Both boys changed color, and looked queerly, but they said nothing. "Never mind, boys," said Mrs. Preston, "you 've got one day more to enjoy yourselves together. You 'd better make the most of that, while it lasts, and not worry about the separation till the time comes." "That's good doctrine," said Mr. Preston; "never borrow trouble, for it comes fast enough any way. Come, cheer up, Oscar, you have n't gone yet." "It's too bad to make me go home so soon--I thought I was going to stay here a month or two," said Oscar, who was very willing that his unusual demeanor should be attributed entirely to his summons home. "You must ask your father to let you come down and spend your vacation," said Mr. Preston. "I expect to go up to Boston about that time, and I guess he will let me bring you home with me." "I should like to come," said Oscar, "but I don't believe father will let me, it's so far." "O yes, he will, when he knows what good friends you and Jerry are," replied Mr. Preston. "Jerry 's crying, as true as I 'm alive!" exclaimed Emily, who had been watching the workings of her brother's face for several moments, and thought she saw moisture gathering in his eye. "No I aint, either!" replied Jerry, in such a prompt and spiteful tone, and with such a scowl upon his face, that all the others, including even Oscar, joined in a hearty laugh. "I hope you feel good-natured," said his mother; "Oscar's going off seems to have had a queer effect upon you." "I don't care, you 're all picking upon me--it's enough to make anybody cross," said Jerry, in a surly tone. "You're mistaken--nobody has picked upon you," replied his mother. "Yes, you have, too," responded Jerry. "Jerry! don't let me hear any more of that--not another word," said Mr. Preston, sternly. "Then you 'd better make Emily hold her tongue," said Jerry. "Hush! do you hear me?" said Mr. Preston, with considerable excitement. Jerry undertook to mutter something more, when his father jumped up, and, taking him by the collar, led him to the cellar-door, and told him to go down and stay until he was sent for. Then, shutting the door, and turning the button, he resumed his seat at the table, and the family finished their meal in silence. Jerry was released from his confinement soon after breakfast; but the unfortunate affair at the table continued to weigh heavily upon his mind. Throughout the rest of the day, he kept out of everybody's way, and said nothing, but looked sour, cross, and wretched. Oscar, too, felt very unpleasantly. He found it hard work to amuse himself alone. He was a boy of strong social feelings, and abhorred solitary rambles and sports. It was a long and dull day, and when he retired to bed at night, he almost felt glad that it was his last day in Brookdale. Soon after he had got into bed, Jerry, who had retired before him, called out: "Oscar!" "What?" inquired the other. There was a long pause, during which Jerry hitched and twisted about, as if hesitating how to proceed. He at length inquired: "Are you mad with me?" "No," replied Oscar, somewhat reluctantly, and in a tone that was almost equivalent to "yes." "I don't want you to go off without making up with me," added Jerry; and as he spoke, his voice trembled, and had it been light enough, Oscar might have detected something like moisture in those very eyes that had flashed in anger at Emily in the morning, for reporting the same thing of them. "I 'm ready to make up with you," replied Oscar, turning over toward Jerry. Having thus broken the ice, the constraint and reserve that had existed between them since the previous day, gradually melted away, and they were once more on sociable terms, although their intercourse was not quite so free and unembarrassed as it was before their quarrel. In fact, they did not properly heal up the difficulty between them, inasmuch as neither made any confession or apology--a duty that both should have performed, as they were about equally guilty. Oscar's first inquiries were concerning the gun. Jerry told him that he carried it home, and that the owner was quite angry, when he saw the damage it had sustained, but said nothing about making the boys pay for it. The next morning the family arose at an earlier hour than usual, as Oscar had got to be on his way soon after sunrise. It was decided that Jerry should drive him over to the Cross-Roads. Accordingly, after a hasty breakfast, he bade them all good-bye, one by one, and taking a seat in the wagon with Jerry, started for home. It was delightful, riding while the birds were yet singing their morning songs, and the grass was spangled with dew, and the cool air had not felt the hot breath of the sun; but the separation that was about to take place, and the unpleasant recollection of their recent quarrel, lessened their enjoyment of the ride very much. They reached the Cross-Roads nearly half an hour before the stage-coach came along. At length it drove up to the post-office, and Oscar, mounting to the top, took a seat behind the driver. The mail-bag was handed to the driver, and the coach started again on its way, Oscar bowing his farewell to Jerry, as they drove off. [Illustration: The Stage Coach.] Nothing of special interest occurred the forenoon's ride. The coach reached its destination about eleven o'clock and Oscar had barely time enough to brush the dust from his clothing, and to obtain a drink of cold water, when the signal was given for the cars to start, and he took his seat in the train. His thoughtful aunt had placed a liberal supply of eatables in the top of his valise, and to that he now had recourse, for his long ride had given him a sharp appetite. There were but few passengers in the train when it started, but at almost every station it received accessions. On reaching Portland, Oscar found that he had nearly half an hour to spare, before taking the Boston train; for it was his intention to "go through" in one day, which his early start enabled him to do. After treating himself to a few cakes, which he purchased at a refreshment stand in the depôt, he walked about until it was time to take his seat in the cars. The clock struck three, and the train started. One hundred and eleven miles seemed to Oscar a long distance to travel, at one stretch, especially after riding all the forenoon; and, indeed, he did begin to feel quite tired, long before he reached the end of the journey. To add to his uneasiness, a particle of cinder from the locomotive flew into his eye, and lodged there so firmly that all his efforts to remove it were in vain. In a little while, the eye became quite painful, and he was obliged to keep it closed. A kind-looking gentleman, who sat near him, noticed his trouble, and offered to assist him in removing the mote; but it was so small that he could not find it. He advised Oscar not to rub the inflamed organ, and told him he thought the moisture of the eye would soon wash out the intruder, if left to itself. Oscar tried to follow this advice, but the pain and irritation did not subside, and he closed his eyes, and resigned himself to darkness. The nine o'clock bells of Boston were ringing, as Oscar left the depôt and turned his steps homeward. He hurried along through the familiar streets, and had just turned the corner from which his home was in sight, when somebody jumped suddenly from a dark passage-way, and seized him by the hand. It was Ralph, who had been on the watch for his brother half an hour, and, concealed himself just as he saw him approaching. Each gave the other a cordial greeting, and then they hastened into the house, where Oscar found the rest of the family waiting to receive him. The general commotion that followed his arrival, aroused Tiger from the comfortable nap he was taking on a mat, and on hearing the well-remembered tones of his master's voice, he sprang toward Oscar, and nearly knocked him over with his demonstrations of welcome. So Oscar was at home again; and from the welcome he received, he learned that there is pleasure in getting back from a journey as well as in setting out upon one. His inflamed eye soon attracted the notice of his mother, and she examined it to see if she could detect the cause of the irritation; but the troublesome atom was invisible. She then said she would try the eye-stone, and, going to the drawer, she got a small, smooth, and flat stone, and told Ella to go down into the kitchen and bring up a little vinegar in a saucer. On putting the stone into the vinegar, it soon began to move about, as though it were possessed of life. When it had become sufficiently lively, Mrs. Preston wiped it dry, and put it between the lid and ball of Oscar's inflamed eye. After it had remained there a few minutes, he allowed it to drop into his hand, and on a close-examination, he found that it had brought with it the offending substance that had caused him so much pain. It was a little black speck, so small that it was barely perceptible to the unaided eye. It now being quite late, Mrs. Preston thought that further inquiries and answers concerning Oscar's visit had better be deferred till morning, and the family soon retired to their beds. CHAPTER XX. DOWNWARD PROGRESS The next day was Saturday. Oscar was off most of the day with his comrades, among whom he was quite a lion for the time. During one of the brief intervals that he was in the house, his mother said some thing about his going to school on Monday. "O dear, I don't want to go to school again this term," said Oscar. "What's the use? Why, it 's only four or five weeks before the term will be through." "I know that," replied his mother, "but your father is very anxious that you should get into the High School, and he thinks you can do it if you finish up this term." "I can't do it--I 've got all behindhand with my studies," said Oscar. "O yes, you can if you try," replied his mother. "You might have got into the High School last year if you had studied a little harder. You were almost qualified then, and I'm sure you ought to be now. If you find you are behind your class in your lessons, you must study so much the harder, and you 'll get up with them by-and-bye." "But I don't believe it will do me any good to be confined in the school-room," continued Oscar. "I don't think I'm so strong as I was before I was sick." "Well," said Mrs. Preston, "when you 're sick you need not go to school; but I guess there 's no danger of your staying at home for that reason, at present. You never looked better in your life than you do now." Oscar tried his pleas again in the evening with his father, but with quite as poor success. He saw that it was fully determined that he should resume his seat at school, and he reluctantly submitted to this decision. When Monday morning came, he proceeded to school, but found that his old desk was in possession of another boy. The head teacher in Oscar's department soon appeared, and seemed quite glad to see him once more. He appointed Oscar a new seat, and told him he hoped he would study so diligently as to make up for lost time. The hopes of Oscar's teacher and parents were doomed to disappointment. It was soon evident that he cared less about his lessons than ever. He was behind his class, and instead of redoubling his efforts to get up with them, he became discouraged and indifferent. His recitations were seldom perfect, and often they were utter failures. His teachers coaxed, and encouraged, and ridiculed, and frowned, and punished, all in vain. One day, after Oscar had blundered worse than usual, the teacher who was hearing the recitation said to him, in a despairing tone: "You remind me, Oscar, of what one of the old Roman emperors said to an archer who shot his arrows a whole day, and never once hit the mark. He told him he had a most wonderful talent for missing. So I must say of you--you 've got the greatest talent for missing of any boy I know." Seeing a smile on the faces of Oscar's classmates, he added: "But this is too sober a matter to make light of. If you could not get your lessons, it would be a different matter; but I know, and you know, that this is not the trouble. You are quick enough to learn and to understand, when you have a mind to be. If you would only try to get your lessons as hard as the other boys do, you would n't be at the foot of the class a great while. If you keep on in this way, you will see your folly as plainly as I see it now, before you are many years older." This admonition had little effect upon Oscar. When school was dismissed, a few minutes after, he rushed out with as light a step as any of his comrades, and his gay laugh was heard as soon as he reached the entry. In the general scramble for caps, one had fallen from its peg, and instead of replacing it, two or three of the boys were making a football of it. Oscar joined the sport, and gave the cap a kick that sent it part of the way down stairs. A moment after, he met Willie Davenport returning with it. "Halloo, Whistler, that is n't your cap, is it?" inquired Oscar. "No, but it's _somebody's_," said the good-hearted boy, as he brushed off the dust, and put the lining back into its place. He was about hanging it up, when Benny Wright appeared, and claimed it as his property. Had Oscar known that the cap was Benny's, he would not have made a foot-ball of it. He remembered the kind epistle he received, when sick, and the amusement it afforded him, when amusements were scarce. Since his recovery, he had treated Benny with much more consideration than before, and quite a kindly feeling had sprung up between them. Oscar's inattention to his studies was not his only fault at school. His general behavior was worse than it had ever been before. Vexed that he was compelled to return to school so near the expiration of the term, it seemed as though he was determined to make as little improvement in his studies, and as much trouble for his teachers, as he could. He not only idled away his own time, but he disturbed other boys who were disposed to study. He was repeatedly reproved and punished, but reproof and punishment did no good; on the contrary, they seemed rather to make him worse. The teachers at length gave him up as incorrigible, and consoled themselves with the thought that his connection with the school would cease in two or three weeks, at which time his class would graduate. They still aimed to keep him in check, during school hours, but they ceased spending their time and breath in trying to bring about a reformation in his conduct. One day as the scholars were engaged in writing, the master, while passing along among the boys, and inspecting their writing-books, noticed that somebody had been spitting what appeared to be tobacco juice, near Oscar's seat. This was a violation of the rules of the school, and the teacher concluded not to let it pass unnoticed. Having no doubt, from several circumstances, that Oscar was the offender, he said to him: "Oscar, what are you chewing tobacco in school for, and spitting the juice on the floor?" "I have n't chewed any tobacco this afternoon," replied Oscar. "What is it, then, that you have been spitting upon the floor?" inquired the teacher. "I have n't spit upon the floor," replied Oscar. "Who did that?" continued the teacher, pointing to the puddle upon the floor. "I don't know," said Oscar; "it was there when I took my seat." It was possible that Oscar told the truth, but the teacher had his doubts. He might perhaps, have settled the matter at once by putting a question to one or two of the boys who sat near the supposed offender but as he always avoided the system of making one boy inform against another, when he could properly do so, he took another course. He told Oscar, if he had any tobacco in his mouth, or anywhere about his person, to give it up to him. Oscar declared that he had none. "Let me look into your mouth," said the teacher. Oscar had a small piece of the weed in his mouth, which he tucked behind his upper lip with his tongue, and then opened his mouth. The teacher of course saw nothing but what belonged there. He _smelt_ something, however, that left him no longer in doubt that Oscar had told a falsehood. "I can't see your cud, but I can smell it plain enough," said the master; "and I 'll examine your pockets, if you please." Oscar was far from pleased with this proposition, and tried to prevent its being carried into effect. The master, however, easily overcame the difficulties he put in the way, and running his hand into the pocket which he seemed most anxious to defend, brought forth a piece of tobacco large enough to kill a horse! "What is that?" he inquired, holding the contraband article before Oscar. Oscar neither looked at it nor made any reply. "And you are the boy who said a moment ago that you had no tobacco about you," continued the master "I declare I don't know what to do with you. I have said and done all that I can to make a better boy of you, and now I shall report this matter to your father, and let him settle it with you. But I want you to remember one thing. When you tell me a lie, you break God's law, and not mine; and you can't settle the matter in full with me, or any other human being." The teacher then threw the piece of tobacco out of the open window, and taking Oscar's writing-book, told him he would set a new copy for him. He soon returned, with the following line written upon the top of a clean page: "_Lying lips are abomination to the Lord._" As Oscar wrote this fearful sentence over and over again, he could not fully escape the force of its meaning. It reminded him of his feelings during his recent illness, when at times the terrible thought that his sickness might possibly be unto death intruded upon his mind. But thoughts of God, and death, and a future world, were alike unpleasant to him, and he banished them as speedily as possible. During the afternoon, the principal of the school wrote a letter to Mr. Preston, informing him of Oscar's indolence and bad conduct, and referring particularly to the incident that had just occurred. By way of offset to the complaint, he spoke in very high terms of Ralph, who attended the same school, but was in another department and another room. He sent the letter by Ralph, but told him not to let Oscar know anything about it. Ralph had some suspicions of the nature of the letter, but he did his errand faithfully, going directly from school to his father's store. Mr. Preston was at first very much irritated by the teacher's complaints of Oscar's misconduct; and could he have taken the culprit in hand at the time, he would probably have handled him rather roughly. But several days elapsed before he found it convenient to talk with Oscar about the matter, and by this time his passion had subsided into anxiety and sorrow. He showed Oscar the letter, in which he, the eldest son, was severely censured, and his little brother was so highly commended. With tears in his eyes, he warned him of the dangers before him, and entreated him to change his course. Oscar had never seen his father exhibit so much emotion before. Usually, on such occasions, he was stern, if not passionate; more ready to threaten and punish than to appeal to the heart and conscience. Now, all this was changed, and sorrow seemed to have taken the place of anger. Oscar was somewhat affected by this unusual manifestation of parental anxiety. He was pretty well hardened against scoldings and threatenings, but he did not know how to meet this new form of rebuke. He tried to conceal his feelings, however, and preserved a sullen silence throughout the interview. This affair made no abiding impression upon Oscar. In a day or two it was forgotten, and the slight compunctions he felt had entirely disappeared. But the schoolmaster's complaint was soon followed by another that was quite as unpleasant. As Mrs. Preston was sitting at her sewing, one day, the door suddenly opened, and in came Bridget, the servant girl, with a face as red as rage and a hot fire could make it. "I'll be goin' off this night, ma'am--I'll pack me chist, and not stop here any longer at all," said Bridget, in a tone that betokened her anger. "Going off--what do you mean? You don't say you 're going to leave us so suddenly, Biddy?" inquired Mrs. Preston, with surprise. "Yes, that I be," replied Bridget, very decidedly; "I 'll not be after staying in the same house with that big, ugly b'y, another day." "Who, Oscar? What has he done now?" inquired Mrs. Preston. "He's did nothing but bother the life out o' me ivery day since he coom back, that's jist all he 's did," replied Biddy. "Jist now, ma'am, he slopped over a hull basin o' dirty whater right on to the clane floor, and thin laffed at me, and sassed me, and called me, all sorts o' bad names--the little sass-box! It's not the like o' Bridget Mullikin that 'll put up with his dirty impidence another day. I 'd like to live with ye, ma'am, and Mister Pristen, good, nice man that he is but I can't stop to be trated like a dog by that sassy b'y." "I 'll go and see what he has been about," said Mrs. Preston, laying down her work. When they reached the kitchen, Oscar was not to be found. There was the puddle of dirty water upon the floor, however, and so far Bridget's story was corroborated. As she proceeded to wipe it up, she continued to speak in not very complimentary terms of the "ugly b'y," as she delighted to call Oscar. It was in vain that Mrs. Preston attempted to soothe her ruffled spirits. She refused to be comforted, and insisted upon taking her departure from the house that night. Oscar did not make his appearance again until late in the afternoon. When his mother called him to account for his treatment of Bridget, he denied the greater part of her story. He said that the basin of water was standing upon the floor, and that he accidentally hit it with his foot, and upset it. He denied that he called her bad names or was impudent, but he admitted that he laughed, to see her so angry. He also complained that she was as "cross as Bedlam" to him, and "jawed" him whenever he entered the kitchen. Mrs. Preston, puzzled by these contradictory stories, brought the two contending parties face to face, in hope of either eliciting the truth or effecting a treaty of peace between them. She failed in both objects, however. Bridget not only adhered to her first statement, but boldly accused Oscar of sundry other misdeeds that had come up in recollection since the first outbreak; while Oscar, on the other hand, stoutly denied most of her charges, and insisted that she was ill-natured, and irritated him in every possible way. The contest finally waxed so warm between them that Mrs. Preston was obliged to interpose, and to withdraw with Oscar. Mrs. Preston never ascertained the real facts in the case. Candor compels me to say that Bridget's complaints were essentially true. Knowing the poor Irish girl's weak side (her quick temper), Oscar had for some time taxed his ingenuity to torment her, for the sake of hearing her "sputter," as he termed it. He was not only impudent, and applied offensive names to her, but sometimes he purposely put her to extra labor and trouble by misplacing articles, making dirt about the house, &c. These things were a sad annoyance to Bridget, and she soon came to regard Oscar as "the plague of her life," and treated him accordingly. He did very wrong to annoy her in this way; and she was foolish to take so much notice of his hectoring. The ill-will thus established between them grew day by day, until it resulted in the open rupture just described. But Mrs. Preston did not give full credit to Bridget's story. She believed the difficulty was owing quite as much to Biddy's irritable temper and ignorance as to Oscar's impudence, and consequently the latter escaped with a slight reprimand. She also prevailed upon Bridget to remain with them the week out, thinking she would by that time get over her anger. But, to the surprise of all, when Saturday night came, Bridget took her departure. She had got another "place," where she would be out of the reach of the provoking Oscar. The week for the annual examination of the public schools soon arrived. Oscar begged hard, but in vain, for permission to absent himself, on the eventful day that the grave committee and other distinguished visitors were to sit in judgment upon the condition of the school to which he belonged. But though he was present, he did not appear to much advantage among the "bright particular stars" of the day; and as one and another of the flower of his class were called out, to receive the "Franklin medals," his name was not heard, and no silken ribbon, with silver medal attached, was hung around his neck. The same day, in obedience to the orders of his father, but very much against his own inclination, Oscar applied to the head master for the certificate required of boys who present themselves for admission to the High School. The teacher seemed a little puzzled what reply to make. At length he said: "Do you know what kind of a certificate is required?" "Yes, sir," replied Oscar, who had read the advertisement in the paper that morning. "The certificate must say that you are a boy of good character, and that your teacher believes you are qualified for admission to the High School," continued the master. "Now I want to ask you if you think I can honestly say that of you?" Oscar hung his head in shame, but made no reply. It had turned out just as he feared it would. "It is very hard to refuse such a request," continued the teacher; "but, really, if I should give you the certificate, I am afraid it would do you no good, while it might do me some harm, for I don't like to have my scholars rejected. I cannot honestly say that I think you are qualified for the High School; and besides your conduct has been such of late, that I do not see how I could give you a very high recommendation. I would advise you to give up the idea of applying for admission. I am very sorry it is so, but that will not help the matter." What could Oscar say to this? He said nothing, but his looks betrayed the deep mortification he felt, and moved his teacher to pity, while he denied his request. Nor was this the end of Oscar's troubles. He had got to face his father, and to confess to him that he was found unworthy even to be a candidate for the school for which he had so long been preparing. In doing this, he smoothed over the matter as well as he could; but at best it was a bitter thing to him, and thus he began to experience some of the sad but natural effects of his own misconduct. CHAPTER XXI. NED MIXER. The long summer vacation had now commenced. Oscar wished to spend it at Brookdale, but his parents did not seem much inclined to yield to his wishes. They had not yet fully determined what to do with him; whether to send him to a private school, when the vacations were over, or to put him to work in some shop or store. Meanwhile, Oscar was idling away his time about the streets, and devoting all his energies to the pursuit of amusement. His favorite place of resort continued to be the hotel where Alfred Walton lived. Here he found congenial spirits in Alfred, and Andy the speller, and the several drivers and hostlers, with whom he was on intimate terms. Here, too, he often met with strangers who took his fancy. At this time, a boy named Edward Mixer was boarding at the hotel. He had lately come to Boston from another city, and Oscar and Alfred were soon captivated by his free and easy manners, and his sociable qualities. He was between fifteen and sixteen years old, and represented that he was travelling about, to see the world. He said he had plenty of money, and should have a great deal more, when he became of age. He was fashionably dressed, and Oscar and Alfred felt proud of his acquaintance, and were soon on terms of intimacy with him. It was not long before Oscar discovered that Edward was a very bad boy. His conversation was low and profane, and he seemed to take special delight in relating sundry "scrapes," in which he himself figured in a character that was something worse than mischievous, and bordered on the criminal. He "talked large," too, amazingly large; and Oscar and Alfred were at length forced to the reluctant conclusion that he was an unmitigated liar. But these were small faults, in their view. They considered Ned a capital fellow, and a right down good companion, in spite of these little drawbacks, and they sought his company as much as ever. Ned spent a good deal of his time around the several railroad depôts. He seemed to have quite a mania for such places. Oscar and Alfred often accompanied him to these favorite old haunts of theirs. One morning, as the three were loitering around a depôt, having nothing in particular to amuse themselves with, an excursion on foot into a neighboring town was proposed, and all readily agreed to the suggestion. They immediately set out, accompanied by Oscar's dog, Tiger. They walked along the railroad track, and crossed the river by the railroad bridge, thus saving their tolls, besides many extra steps. They passed several small sign-boards, on which was painted the warning, "_No Person allowed to cross this Bridge_;" but this did not check their progress, and as no one interfered with them, they were soon safely over the river. They still followed the track for some distance, until they had reached the open country, and then they turned off into the green fields. There were many fine orchards and gardens on every side, but ripe fruits and berries were very scarce. Strawberries and cherries had pretty much disappeared, and it was not yet time for plums, peaches, and early apples and pears. Ned appeared to regret this very much. "Just see there!" he exclaimed, as they approached a large garden, remote from any house, whose trees were loaded with green fruit. "What fine picking we should have, if it were only a few weeks later! I mean to come out here again next month, you see if I don't. We must mark this place; let me see; there's an old rough board fence--I shall remember that, I guess. Didn't you ever rob an orchard, Alf? I've robbed more than you could shake a stick at. I 'm a first-rate hand at it, I can tell you--never got caught in my life; but I've come pretty near it, though, a good many times. Hold on--I 'm going to get over the fence, and see what they 've got. Those plums over there look as if they were pretty near ripe. Come, Alf and Oscar, won't you get over?" "You two may," said Oscar, "but I 'll stay here with Tiger. He might bark if we all got over, where he could n't see us." Edward and Alfred were soon upon the other side of the fence. While they were exploring the garden, Oscar's attention was attracted to a dense thicket, from which two or three birds suddenly flew on his approach. He thought there might be a nest there, and concluded to see if he could find it. Carefully brushing aside the leaves and twigs, he began to hunt for the suspected nest, while Tiger stood looking on. Absorbed in this occupation, he lost sight of his comrades. [Illustration: Hunting for Birds' Nests.] After searching for several minutes, Oscar found a small nest, within his reach, but it was empty. He turned to inform the other boys of his success, but they were nowhere to be seen. He walked along by the fence, but could see nothing of them. He was afraid to call to them, lest the owner of the garden might hear, and take the alarm. He listened, but could not hear them. He walked along still further, and kept his eyes wide open, but they were not to be seen. He concluded they were playing a trick upon him, and had hid themselves. If that was the game he thought, he would not worry himself about it. He accordingly turned about, and was going to sit down and wait for them to make their appearance, when he happened to espy them in a distant field, running at the top of their speed, with a man in full chase after them. It was soon evident that the boys were gaining on their pursuer; but they were approaching a brook, over which there was no bridge, and the man probably supposed that would bring them to a stand. It did not, however, for they ran right through the shallow water, without stopping to think about it. The man did not think it prudent to follow their example, and he accordingly gave up the chase, and went back with dry feet. After Edward and Alfred had got rid of their pursuer, they began to look around for Oscar. The latter, putting his fingers into his mouth, gave a loud and shrill whistle, which they immediately recognized, and answered in a similar way. Oscar started towards them, and taking a wide sweep through the fields, they all came out together upon the highway. They did not think it safe to remain long in the neighborhood, and so they hurried on towards Boston. It appeared, from Edward's story, that he and Alfred knocked a few hard peaches from a tree, while in the garden, but they proved unfit to eat. They also found some ripe currants, and were leisurely helping themselves, when they heard somebody ask them what they were about. They turned, and saw a man approaching; whereupon, without stopping to answer his question, they leaped over the fence, and took to their heels, the man following closely upon them. The conclusion of the race Oscar had witnessed. As they were walking home, and talking about various matters, Edward suddenly gave the conversation a new turn, by inquiring: "Boys, do you want to go into a grand speculation with me?" "Yes, what is it?" was the response of both the others. "We should make something handsome out of it, but we should have to run some risk," continued Edward. "I've got the scheme all laid out, so that I know just how to go to work. But it's no use talking about it. I don't believe either of you have got pluck enough to go into it." "I 've got pluck--the real, genuine article; try me, and see if I have n't," said Alfred. "So have I," said Oscar; "I should like to have you show me a boy that's got more pluck than I have, when I get stirred up." "Pooh, you don't know what pluck is, neither of you," replied Edward. "What would you do if a policeman should nab you?" "I should run, just as _you_ did, when the man caught you stealing fruit," said Oscar, with a laugh. "That's a specimen of _your_ pluck, aint it?" "But what is the speculation you were telling about?" inquired Alfred. "I guess I shan't tell you about it now," replied Edward. "I 'm afraid you would n't keep it to yourselves." "Yes we will. _I_ will at any rate," said Alfred. "So will I," added Oscar. "If I let you into the secret, and you should blab it out, I would n't mind killing both of you," said Edward, with forced gravity, which he could not long maintain, it gradually relaxing into a smile. "I mean what I say," he added, "you needn't laugh at it." Both the others renewed their promise to keep the matter a secret; but Edward, after talking about his scheme a quarter of an hour longer, and exciting the curiosity of the others to the highest point, finally informed them that he could not let them into the secret then, but that he would tell them all about it in a few days, if he was sure that they would keep it to themselves. Oscar saw Edward almost every day, and often inquired about his speculation, but got no definite answer. He and Alfred both felt very curious to know what it was; but though expectation was on tiptoe, it was not gratified. Edward assured them, however, that things were nearly ready, and that in a few days he would let them into the mysterious scheme. Oscar's uncle, from Brookdale, was now in the city, and was stopping for a few days at Mr. Preston's. He no sooner arrived, than Oscar applied to his parents for permission to return with him to Maine; but they did not give much encouragement to his proposal, although his uncle said he should like to have him make his family another visit. Oscar, however, daily renewed his request, for he believed that he should yet accomplish his object by teasing. The day before Oscar's uncle was to return to his home, a gentleman called into Mr. Preston's store, and told him he wished to see him alone. Having with drawn to a private room, the stranger introduced himself as an officer of the police. "You have a son fourteen or fifteen years old?" inquired the officer. "Yes, I have," replied Mr. Preston. "Are you aware that he is getting into bad company?" continued the officer. "No, sir," said Mr. Preston. "Well," resumed the other, "I 've called to acquaint you of a few facts that have come to my knowledge, and you can act in the matter as you think best. There is a young fellow stopping at the ---- Hotel, who came to this city a few weeks ago, and who calls himself Edward Mixer. He is a little larger than your son, and is well dressed, and looks like a respectable boy; but for a week or two past we have suspected that he was a rogue. He hangs around the railroad depôts, and as several persons have had their pockets picked, when getting out of the cars, since he made his appearance, we began to watch him. We have got no evidence against him yet; but yesterday I pointed him out to a New York policeman, who happened to be here, and he says he knows him well. It seems he is a regular pickpocket by profession, and has served a term at Blackwell's Island. [1] He was liberated last month, and came on here to follow the business where he isn't known. But we keep a sharp eye on him, and as we have noticed that your son is quite intimate with him, I thought it my duty to inform you of it. I don't suppose your boy knows the real character of this fellow, or has anything to do with his roguery; but it isn't safe for him to be in such company, and I thought you ought to know what is going on." Mr. Preston thanked the officer very cordially for the information, and promised to see that Oscar was immediately put out of the way of danger from this source. When he went home at noon, he had a long private interview with his son, and informed him of the disclosures the officer had made. Oscar was not a little astonished to learn that the genteel and sociable Ned Mixer, whose company he prized so highly, was a thief by trade, and was fresh from a prison. He assured his father that he knew nothing of all this. This was true; but after all Oscar knew too much of the character of Ned to believe him to be a good boy, or a safe companion. He had heard him swear and lie. He had also heard him sneer at virtue, and boast of deeds that no well-ordered conscience would approve. And yet he courted his company, and considered him a "capital fellow"! O, foolish boy! But Oscar's plea of ignorance did not fully excuse him, even in the eye of his father, who did not know how little force that plea really had. "I don't suppose you knew his character," said Mr. Preston; "but are there not good boys enough in the neighborhood for you to associate with--boys that have always lived here and are well known--without your cultivating the acquaintance of every straggler and vagabond that comes along? I wish you would not make yourself so intimate with Tom, Dick, and Harry, before you know anything about them. I 've cautioned you against this a good many times, and now I hope that you 'll see there is some cause for it. If this intimacy had gone on a few weeks longer, it might have ruined you and disgraced your mother and me." After consultation with his wife and brother, Mr. Preston concluded to let Oscar go down to Brookdale; and remain until they could make some permanent arrangements for him elsewhere. He did not think it safe for him to remain longer exposed to the temptations of the city. He charged Oscar not to speak again to Ned, and not to inform any one of the facts he had learned about him, lest it might thwart the efforts of the police to detect his rogueries. On second thought, he concluded to take Oscar to the store with him that afternoon, to prevent the possibility of an interview between him and Ned. Oscar thus remained under the eye of his father through the day. In the evening he packed his valise for the journey, and the next morning he started for Brookdale with his uncle. A day or two after Oscar's departure, Ned was arrested in the act of picking a lady's pocket at a railroad depôt. Being unable to obtain bail, he was committed for trial. When his case came up in court, he was brought in guilty; and it appearing, from the testimony of the officers, that, though young, he was quite old in crime, he was sentenced to one year in the House of Correction. Oscar never ascertained the nature of Ned's "grand speculation," and probably it was well for him that he did not. Had he been let into the secret, and had the scheme been carried into effect at the time it was first talked of, I might have been obliged to add another and a still sadder chapter to the history of "THE BOY WHO HAD HIS OWN WAY." [1] The New York Penitentiary. 
18555	----	_A Chance Acquaintance._ BY W. D. HOWELLS. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1873. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge. A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. I. UP THE SAGUENAY. On the forward promenade of the Saguenay boat which had been advertised to leave Quebec at seven o'clock on Tuesday morning, Miss Kitty Ellison sat tranquilly expectant of the joys which its departure should bring, and tolerantly patient of its delay; for if all the Saguenay had not been in promise, she would have thought it the greatest happiness just to have that prospect of the St. Lawrence and Quebec. The sun shone with a warm yellow light on the Upper Town, with its girdle of gray wall, and on the red flag that drowsed above the citadel, and was a friendly lustre on the tinned roofs of the Lower Town; while away off to the south and east and west wandered the purple hills and the farmlit plains in such dewy shadow and effulgence as would have been enough to make the heaviest heart glad. Near at hand the river was busy with every kind of craft, and in the distance was mysterious with silvery vapors; little breaths of haze, like an ethereal colorless flame, exhaled from its surface, and it all glowed with a lovely inner radiance. In the middle distance a black ship was heaving anchor and setting sail, and the voice of the seamen came soft and sad and yet wildly hopeful to the dreamy ear of the young girl, whose soul at once went round the world before the ship, and then made haste back again to the promenade of the Saguenay boat. She sat leaning forward a little with her hands fallen into her lap, letting her unmastered thoughts play as they would in memories and hopes around the consciousness that she was the happiest girl in the world, and blest beyond desire or desert. To have left home as she had done, equipped for a single day at Niagara, and then to have come adventurously on, by grace of her cousin's wardrobe, as it were, to Montreal and Quebec; to be now going up the Saguenay, and finally to be destined to return home by way of Boston and New York;--this was more than any one human being had a right to; and, as she had written home to the girls, she felt that her privileges ought to be divided up among all the people of Eriecreek. She was very grateful to Colonel Ellison and Fanny for affording her these advantages; but they being now out of sight in pursuit of state-rooms, she was not thinking of them in relation to her pleasure in the morning scene, but was rather regretting the absence of a lady with whom they had travelled from Niagara, and to whom she imagined she would that moment like to say something in praise of the prospect. This lady was a Mrs. Basil March of Boston; and though it was her wedding journey and her husband's presence ought to have absorbed her, she and Miss Kitty had sworn a sisterhood, and were pledged to see each other before long at Mrs. March's home in Boston. In her absence, now, Kitty thought what a very charming person she was, and wondered if all Boston people were really like her, so easy and friendly and hearty. In her letter she had told the girls to tell her Uncle Jack that he had not rated Boston people a bit too high, if she were to judge from Mr. and Mrs. March, and that she was sure they would help her as far as they could to carry out his instructions when she got to Boston. These instructions were such as might seem preposterous if no more particular statement in regard to her Uncle Jack were made, but will be imaginable enough, I hope, when he is a little described. The Ellisons were a West Virginia family who had wandered up into a corner of Northwestern New York, because Dr. Ellison (unceremoniously known to Kitty as Uncle Jack) was too much an abolitionist to live in a slaveholding State with safety to himself or comfort to his neighbors. Here his family of three boys and two girls had grown up, and hither in time had come Kitty, the only child of his youngest brother, who had gone first to Illinois and thence, from the pretty constant adversity of a country editor, to Kansas, where he joined the Free State party and fell in one of the border feuds. Her mother had died soon after, find Dr. Ellison's heart bowed itself tenderly over the orphan. She was something not only dear, but sacred to him as the child of a martyr to the highest cause on earth; and the love of the whole family encompassed her. One of the boys had brought her from Kansas when she was yet very little, and she had grown up among them as their youngest sister; but the doctor, from a tender scruple against seeming to usurp the place of his brother in her childish thought, would not let her call him father, and in obedience to the rule which she soon began to give their love, they all turned and called him Uncle Jack with her. Yet the Ellisons, though they loved their little cousin, did not spoil her,--neither the doctor, nor his great grown-up sons whom she knew as the boys, nor his daughters whom she called the girls, though they were wellnigh women when she came to them. She was her uncle's pet and most intimate friend, riding with him on his professional visits till she became as familiar a feature of his equipage as the doctor's horse itself; and he educated her in those extreme ideas, tempered by humor, which formed the character of himself and his family. They loved Kitty, and played with her, and laughed at her when she needed ridiculing; they made a jest of their father on the one subject on which he never jested, and even the antislavery cause had its droll points turned to the light. They had seen danger and trouble enough at different times in its service, but no enemy ever got more amusement out of it. Their house was a principal _entrepôt_ of the underground railroad, and they were always helping anxious travellers over the line; but the boys seldom came back from an excursion to Canada without adventures to keep the family laughing for a week; and they made it a serious business to study the comic points of their beneficiaries, who severally lived in the family records by some grotesque mental or physical trait. They had an irreverent name among themselves for each of the humorless abolition lecturers who unfailingly abode with them on their rounds; and these brethren and sisters, as they called them, paid with whatever was laughable in them for the substantial favors they received. Miss Kitty, having the same natural bent, began even as a child to share in these harmless reprisals, and to look at life with the same wholesomely fantastic vision. But she remembered one abolition visitor of whom none of them made fun, but treated with a serious distinction and regard,--an old man with a high, narrow forehead, and thereon a thick upright growth of gray hair; who looked at her from under bushy brows with eyes as of blue flame, and took her on his knee one night and sang to her "Blow ye the trumpet, blow!" He and her uncle had been talking of some indefinite, far-off place that they called Boston, in terms that commended it to her childish apprehension as very little less holy than Jerusalem, and as the home of all the good and great people outside of Palestine. In fact, Boston had always been Dr. Ellison's foible. In the beginning of the great antislavery agitation, he had exchanged letters (corresponded, he used to say) with John Quincy Adams on the subject of Lovejoy's murder; and he had met several Boston men at the Free Soil Convention in Buffalo in 1848. "A little formal perhaps, a little reserved," he would say, "but excellent men; polished, and certainly of sterling principle": which would make his boys and girls laugh, as they grew older, and sometimes provoke them to highly colored dramatizations of the formality of these Bostonians in meeting their father. The years passed and the boys went West, and when the war came, they took service in Iowa and Wisconsin regiments. By and by the President's Proclamation of freedom to the slaves reached Eriecreek while Dick and Bob happened both to be home on leave. After they had allowed their sire his rapture, "Well, this is a great blow for father," said Bob; "what are you going to do now, father? Fugitive slavery and all its charms blotted out forever, at one fell swoop. Pretty rough on you, isn't it? No more men and brothers, no more soulless oligarchy. Dull lookout, father." "O no," insinuated one of the girls, "there's Boston." "Why, yes," cried Dick, "to be sure there is. The President hasn't abolished Boston. Live for Boston." And the doctor did live for an ideal Boston, thereafter, so far at least as concerned a never-relinquished, never-fulfilled purpose of some day making a journey to Boston. But in the mean time there were other things; and at present, since the Proclamation had given him a country worth living in, he was ready to honor her by studying her antiquities. In his youth, before his mind had been turned so strenuously to the consideration of slavery, he had a pretty taste for the mystery of the Mound Builders, and each of his boys now returned to camp with instructions to note any phenomena that would throw light upon this interesting subject. They would have abundant leisure for research, since the Proclamation, Dr. Ellison insisted, practically ended the war. The Mound Builders were only a starting-point for the doctor. He advanced from them to historical times in due course, and it happened that when Colonel Ellison and his wife stopped off at Eriecreek on their way East, in 1870, they found him deep in the history of the Old French War. As yet the colonel had not intended to take the Canadian route eastward, and he escaped without the charges which he must otherwise have received to look up the points of interest at Montreal and Quebec connected with that ancient struggle. He and his wife carried Kitty with them to see Niagara (which she had never seen because it was so near); but no sooner had Dr. Ellison got the despatch announcing that they would take Kitty on with them down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and bring her home by way of Boston, than he sat down and wrote her a letter of the most comprehensive character. As far as concerned Canada his mind was purely historical; but when it came to Boston it was strangely re-abolitionized, and amidst an ardor for the antiquities of the place, his old love for its humanitarian pre-eminence blazed up. He would have her visit Faneuil Hall because of its Revolutionary memories, but not less because Wendell Phillips had there made his first antislavery speech. She was to see the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and if possible certain points of ancient colonial interest which he named; but at any rate she was somehow to catch sight of the author of the "Biglow Papers," of Senator Sumner, of Mr. Whittier, of Dr. Howe, of Colonel Higginson, and of Mr. Garrison. These people were all Bostonians to the idealizing remoteness of Dr. Ellison, and he could not well conceive of them asunder. He perhaps imagined that Kitty was more likely to see them together than separately; and perhaps indeed they were less actual persons, to his admiration, than so many figures of a grand historical composition. Finally, "I want you to remember, my dear child," he wrote, "that in Boston you are not only in the birthplace of American liberty, but the yet holier scene of its resurrection. There everything that is noble and grand and liberal and enlightened in the national life has originated, and I cannot doubt that you will find the character of its people marked by every attribute of a magnanimous democracy. If I could envy you anything, my dear girl, I should envy you this privilege of seeing a city where man is valued simply and solely for what he is in himself, and where color, wealth, family, occupation, and other vulgar and meretricious distinctions are wholly lost sight of in the consideration of individual excellence." Kitty got her uncle's letter the night before starting up the Saguenay, and quite too late for compliance with his directions concerning Quebec; but she resolved that as to Boston his wishes should be fulfilled to the utmost limit of possibility. She knew that nice Mr. March must be acquainted with some of those very people. Kitty had her uncle's letter in her pocket, and she was just going to take it out and read it again, when something else attracted her notice. The boat had been advertised to leave at seven o'clock, and it was now half past. A party of English people were pacing somewhat impatiently up and down before Kitty, for it had been made known among the passengers (by that subtle process through which matters of public interest transpire in such places) that breakfast would not be served till the boat started, and these English people had the appetites which go before the admirable digestions of their nation. But they had also the good temper which does not so certainly accompany the insular good appetite. The man in his dashing Glengarry cap and his somewhat shabby gray suit took on one arm the plain, jolly woman who seemed to be his wife, and on the other, the amiable, handsome young girl who looked enough like him to be his sister, and strode rapidly back and forth, saying that they must get up an appetite for breakfast. This made the women laugh, and so he said it again, which made them laugh so much that the elder lost her balance, and in regaining it twisted off her high shoe-heel, which she briskly tossed into the river. But she sat down after that, and the three were presently intent upon the Liverpool steamer which was just arrived and was now gliding up to her dock, with her population of passengers thronging her quarter-deck. "She's from England!" said the husband, expressively. "Only fancy!" answered the wife. "Give me the glass, Jenny." Then, after a long survey of the steamer, she added, "Fancy her being from England!" They all looked and said nothing for two or three minutes, when the wife's mind turned to the delay of their own boat and of breakfast. "This thing," she said, with that air of uttering a novelty which the English cast about their commonplaces,--"this this thing doesn't start at seven, you know." "No," replied the younger woman, "she waits for the Montreal boat." "Fancy her being from England!" said the other, whose eyes and thoughts had both wandered back to the Liverpool steamer. "There's the Montreal boat now, comin' round the point," cried the husband. "Don't you see the steam?" He pointed with his glass, and then studied the white cloud in the distance. "No, by Jove! it's a saw-mill on the shore." "O Harry!" sighed both the women, reproachfully. "Why, deuce take it, you know," he retorted, "I didn't turn it into a saw-mill. It's been a saw-mill all along, I fancy." Half an hour later, when the Montreal boat came in sight, the women would have her a saw-mill till she stood in full view in mid-channel. Their own vessel paddled out into the stream as she drew near, and the two bumped and rubbed together till a gangway plank could he passed from one to the other. A very well dressed young man stood ready to get upon the Saguenay boat, with a porter beside him bearing his substantial valise. No one else apparently was coming aboard. The English people looked upon him for an instant with wrathful eyes, as they hung over the rail of the promenade. "Upon my word," said the elder of the women, "have we been waitin' all this time for one man?" "Hush, Edith," answered the younger, "it's an Englishman." And they all three mutely recognized the right of the Englishman to stop, not only the boat, but the whole solar system, if his ticket entitled him to a passage on any particular planet, while Mr. Miles Arbuton of Boston, Massachusetts, passed at his ease from one vessel to the other. He had often been mistaken for an Englishman, and the error of those spectators, if he had known it, would not have surprised him. Perhaps it might have softened his judgment of them as he sat facing them at breakfast; but he did not know it, and he thought them three very common English people with something professional, as of public singing or acting, about them. The young girl wore, instead of a travelling-suit, a vivid light blue dress; and over her sky-blue eyes and fresh cheeks a glory of corn-colored hair lay in great braids and masses. It was magnificent, but it wanted distance; so near, it was almost harsh. Mr. Arbuton's eyes fell from the face to the vivid blue dress, which was not quite fresh and not quite new, and a glimmer of cold dismissal came into them, as he gave himself entirely to the slender merits of the steamboat breakfast. He was himself, meantime, an object of interest to a young lady who sat next to the English party, and who glanced at him from time to time, out of tender gray eyes, with a furtive play of feeling upon a sensitive face. To her he was that divine possibility which every young man is to every young maiden; and, besides, he was invested with a halo of romance as the gentleman with the blond mustache, whom she had seen at Niagara the week before, on the Goat Island Bridge. To the pretty matron at her side, he was exceedingly handsome, as a young man may frankly be to a young matron, but not otherwise comparable to her husband, the full-personed good-humored looking gentleman who had just added sausage to the ham and eggs on his plate. He was handsome, too, but his full beard was reddish, whereas Mr. Arbuton's mustache was flaxen; and his dress was not worn with that scrupulosity with which the Bostonian bore his clothes; there was a touch of slovenliness in him that scarcely consorted with the alert, ex-military air of some of his movements. "Good-looking young John Bull," he thought concerning Mr. Arbuton, and then thought no more about him, being no more self-judged before the supposed Englishman than he would have been before so much Frenchman or Spaniard. Mr. Arbuton, on the other hand, if he had met an Englishman so well dressed as himself, must at once have arraigned himself, and had himself tacitly tried for his personal and national difference. He looked in his turn at these people, and thought he should have nothing to do with them, in spite of the long-lashed gray eyes. It was not that they had made the faintest advance towards acquaintance, or that the choice of knowing them or not was with Mr. Arbuton; but he had the habit of thus protecting himself from the chances of life, and a conscience against encouraging people whom he might have to drop for reasons of society. This was sometimes a sacrifice, for he was not past the age when people take a lively interest in most other human beings. When breakfast was over, and he had made the tour of the boat, and seen all his fellow-passengers, he perceived that he could have little in common with any of them, and that probably the journey would require the full exercise of that tolerant spirit in which he had undertaken a branch of summer travel in his native land. The rush of air against the steamer was very raw and chill, and the forward promenade was left almost entirely to the English professional people, who walked rapidly up and down, with jokes and laughter of their kind, while the wind blew the girl's hair in loose gold about her fresh face, and twisted her blue drapery tight about her comely shape. When they got out of breath they sat down beside a large American lady, with a great deal of gold filling in her front teeth, and presently rose again and ran races to and from the bow. Mr. Arbuton turned away in displeasure. At the stern he found a much larger company, most of whom had furnished themselves with novels and magazines from the stock on board and were drowsing over them. One gentleman was reading aloud to three ladies the newspaper account of a dreadful shipwreck; other ladies and gentlemen were coming and going forever from their state-rooms, as the wont of some is; others yet sat with closed eyes, as if having come to see the Saguenay they were resolved to see nothing of the St. Lawrence on the way thither, but would keep their vision sacred to the wonders of the former river. Yet the St. Lawrence was worthy to be seen, as even Mr. Arbuton owned, whose way was to slight American scenery, in distinction from his countrymen who boast it the finest in the world. As you leave Quebec, with its mural-crowned and castled rock, and drop down the stately river, presently the snowy fall of Montmorenci, far back in its purple hollow, leaps perpetual avalanche into the abyss, and then you are abreast of the beautiful Isle of Orleans, whose low shores, with their expanses of farmland, and their groves of pine and oak, are still as lovely as when the wild grape festooned the primitive forests and won from the easy rapture of old Cartier the name of Isle of Bacchus. For two hours farther down the river either shore is bright and populous with the continuous villages of the _habitans_, each clustering about its slim-spired church, in its shallow vale by the water's edge, or lifted in more eminent picturesqueness upon some gentle height. The banks, nowhere lofty or abrupt, are such as in a southern land some majestic river might flow between, wide, slumbrous, open to all the heaven and the long day till the very set of sun. But no starry palm glasses its crest in the clear cold green from these low brinks; the pale birch, slender and delicately fair, mirrors here the wintry whiteness of its boughs; and this is the sad great river of the awful North. Gradually, as the day wore on, the hills which had shrunk almost out of sight on one hand, and on the other were dark purple in the distance, drew near the shore, and at one point on the northern side rose almost from the water's edge. The river expanded into a lake before them, and in their lap some cottages, and half-way up the hillside, among the stunted pines, a much-galleried hotel, proclaimed a resort of fashion in the heart of what seemed otherwise a wilderness. Indian huts sheathed in birch-bark nestled at the foot of the rocks, which were rich in orange and scarlet stains; out of the tops of the huts curled the blue smoke, and at the door of one stood a squaw in a flame-red petticoat; others in bright shawls squatted about on the rocks, each with a circle of dogs and papooses. But all this warmth of color only served, like a winter sunset, to heighten the chilly and desolate sentiment of the scene. The light dresses of the ladies on the veranda struck cold upon the eye; in the faces of the sojourners who lounged idly to the steamer's landing-place, the passenger could fancy a sad resolution to repress their tears when the boat should go away and leave them. She put off two or three old peasant-women who were greeted by other such on the pier, as if returned from a long journey; and then the crew discharged the vessel of a prodigious freight of onions which formed the sole luggage these old women had brought from Quebec. Bale after bale of the pungent bulbs were borne ashore in the careful arms of the deck-hands, and counted by the owners; at last order was given to draw in the plank, when a passionate cry burst from one of the old women, who extended both hands with an imploring gesture towards the boat. A bale of onions had been left aboard; a deck-hand seized it and ran quickly ashore with it, and then back again, followed by the benedictions of the tranquillized and comforted beldam. The gay sojourners at Murray Bay controlled their grief, and as Mr. Arbuton turned from them, the boat, pushing out, left them to their fashionable desolation. She struck across to the southern shore, to land passengers for Cacouna, a watering-place greater than Murray Bay. The tide, which rises fifteen feet at Quebec, is the impulse, not the savor of the sea; but at Cacouna the water is salt, and the sea-bathing lacks nothing but the surf; and hither resort in great numbers the Canadians who fly their cities during the fierce, brief fever of the northern summer. The watering-place village and hotel is not in sight from the landing, but, as at Murray Bay, the sojourners thronged the pier, as if the arrival of the steamboat were the great event of their day. That afternoon they were in unusual force, having come on foot and by omnibus and calash; and presently there passed down through their ranks a strange procession with a band of music leading the way to the steamer. "It's an Indian wedding," Mr. Arbuton heard one of the boat's officers saying to the gentleman with the ex-military air, who stood next him beside the rail; and now, the band having drawn aside, he saw the bride and groom,--the latter a common, stolid-faced savage, and the former pretty and almost white, with a certain modesty and sweetness of mien. Before them went a young American, with a jaunty Scotch cap and a visage of supernatural gravity, as the master of ceremonies which he had probably planned; arm in arm with him walked a portly chieftain in black broadcloth, preposterously adorned on the breast with broad flat disks of silver in two rows. Behind the bridal couple came the whole village in pairs, men and women, and children of all ages, even to brown babies in arms, gay in dress and indescribably serious in demeanor. They were mated in some sort according to years and size; and the last couple were young fellows paired in an equal tipsiness. These reeled and wavered along the pier; and when the other wedding guests crowned the day's festivity by going aboard the steamer, they followed dizzily down the gangway. Midway they lurched heavily; the spectators gave a cry; but they had happily lurched in opposite directions; their grip upon each other's arms held, and a forward stagger launched them victoriously aboard in a heap. They had scarcely disappeared from sight, when, having as it were instantly satisfied their curiosity concerning the boat, the other guests began to go ashore in due order. Mr. Arbuton waited in a slight anxiety to see whether the tipsy couple could repeat their maneuver successfully on an upward incline; and they had just appeared on the gangway, when he felt a hand passed carelessly and as if unconsciously through his arm, and at the same moment a voice said, "Those are a pair of disappointed lovers, I suppose." He looked round and perceived the young lady of the party he had made up his mind to have nothing to do with resting one hand on the rail, and sustaining herself with the other passed through his arm, while she was altogether intent upon the scene below. The ex-military gentleman, the head of the party, and apparently her kinsman, had stepped aside without her knowing, and she had unwittingly taken Mr. Arbuton's arm. So much was clear to him, but what he was to do was not so plain. It did not seem quite his place to tell her of her mistake, and yet it seemed a piece of unfairness not to do so. To leave the matter alone, however, was the simplest, safest, and pleasantest; for the pressure of the pretty figure lightly thrown upon his arm had something agreeably confiding and appealing in it. So he waited till the young lady, turning to him for some response, discovered her error, and disengaged herself with a face of mingled horror and amusement. Even then he had no inspiration. To speak of the mistake in tones of compliment would have been grossly out of place; an explanation was needless; and to her murmured excuses, he could only bow silently. She flitted into the cabin, and he walked away, leaving the Indians to stagger ashore as they might. His arm seemed still to sustain that elastic weight, and a voice haunted his ear with the words, "A pair of disappointed lovers, I suppose"; and still more awkward and stupid he felt his own part in the affair to be; though at the same time he was not without some obscure resentment of the young girl's mistake as an intrusion upon him. It was late twilight when the boat reached Tadoussac, and ran into a sheltered cove under the shadow of uplands on which a quaint village perched and dispersed itself on a country road in summer cottages; above these in turn rose loftier heights of barren sand or rock, with here and there a rank of sickly pines dying along their sterility. It had been harsh and cold all day when the boat moved, for it was running full in the face of the northeast; the river had widened almost to a sea, growing more and more desolate, with a few lonely islands breaking its expanse, and the shores sinking lower and lower till, near Tadoussac, they rose a little in flat-topped bluffs thickly overgrown with stunted evergreens. Here, into the vast low-walled breadth of the St. Lawrence, a dark stream, narrowly bordered by rounded heights of rock, steals down from the north out of regions of gloomy and ever-during solitude. This is the Saguenay; and in the cold evening light under which the traveller approaches its mouth, no landscape could look more forlorn than that of Tadoussac, where early in the sixteenth century the French traders fixed their first post, and where still the oldest church north of Florida is standing. The steamer lies here five hours, and supper was no sooner over than the passengers went ashore in the gathering dusk. Mr. Arbuton, guarding his distance as usual, went too, with a feeling of surprise at his own concession to the popular impulse. He was not without a desire to see the old church, wondering in a half-compassionate way what such a bit of American antiquity would look like; and he had perceived since the little embarrassment at Cacouna that he was a discomfort to the young lady involved by it. He had caught no glimpse of her till supper, and then she had briefly supped with an air of such studied unconsciousness of his presence that it was plain she was thinking of her mistake every moment. "Well, I'll leave her the freedom of the boat while we stay," thought Mr. Arbuton as he went ashore. He had not the least notion whither the road led, but like the rest he followed it up through the village, and on among the cottages which seemed for the most part empty, and so down a gloomy ravine, in the bottom of which, far beneath the tremulous rustic bridge, he heard the mysterious crash and fall of an unseen torrent. Before him towered the shadowy hills up into the starless night; he thrilled with a sense of the loneliness and remoteness, and he had a formless wish that some one qualified by the proper associations and traditions were there to share the satisfaction he felt in the whole effect. At the same instant he was once more aware of that delicate pressure, that weight so lightly, sweetly borne upon his arm. It startled him, and again he followed the road, which with a sudden turn brought him in sight of a hotel and in sound of a bowling-alley, and therein young ladies' cackle and laughter, and he wondered a little scornfully who could be spending the summer there. A bay of the river loftily shut in by rugged hills lay before him, and on the shore, just above high-tide, stood what a wandering shadow told him was the ancient church of Tadoussac. The windows were faintly tinged with red as from a single taper burning within, and but that the elements were a little too bare and simple for one so used to the rich effects of the Old World, Mr. Arbuton might have been touched by the vigil which this poor chapel was still keeping after three hundred years in the heart of that gloomy place. While he stood at least tolerating its appeal, he heard voices of people talking in the obscurity near the church door, which they seemed to have been vainly trying for entrance. "Pity we can't see the inside, isn't it?" "Yes; but I am so glad to see any of it. Just think of its having been built in the seventeenth century!" "Uncle Jack would enjoy it, wouldn't he?" "O yes, poor Uncle Jack! I feel somehow as if I were cheating him out of it. He ought to be here in my place. But I _do_ like it; and, Dick, I don't know what I can ever say or do to you and Fanny for bringing me." "Well, Kitty, postpone the subject till you can think of the right thing. We're in no hurry." Mr. Arbuton heard a shaking of the door, as of a final attempt upon it, before retreat, and then the voices faded into inarticulate sounds in the darkness. They were the voices, he easily recognized, of the young lady who had taken his arm, and of that kinsman of hers, as she seemed to be. He blamed himself for having not only overheard them, but for desiring to hear more of their talk, and he resolved to follow them back to the boat at a discreet distance. But they loitered so at every point, or he unwittingly made such haste, that he had overtaken them as they entered the lane between the outlying cottages, and he could not help being privy to their talk again. "Well, it may be old, Kitty, but I don't think it's lively." "It _is_n't exactly a whirl of excitement, I must confess." "It's the deadliest place I ever saw. Is that a swing in front of that cottage? No, it's a gibbet. Why, they've all got 'em! I suppose they're for the summer tenants at the close of the season. What a rush there would be for them if the boat should happen to go off and leave her passengers!" Mr. Arbuton thought this rather a coarse kind of drolling, and strengthened himself anew in his resolution to avoid those people. They now came in sight of the steamer, where in the cove she lay illumined with all her lamps, and through every window and door and crevice was bursting with the ruddy light. Her brilliancy contrasted vividly with the obscurity and loneliness of the shore where a few lights glimmered in the village houses, and under the porch of the village store some desolate idlers--_habitans_ and half-breeds--had clubbed their miserable leisure. Beyond the steamer yawned the wide vacancy of the greater river, and out of this gloomed the course of the Saguenay. "O, I hate to go on board!" said the young lady. "Do you think he's got back yet? It's perfect misery to meet him." "Never mind, Kitty. He probably thinks you didn't mean anything by it. _I_ don't believe you would have taken his arm if you hadn't supposed it was mine, _any_ way." She made no answer to this, as if too much overcome by the true state of the case to be troubled by its perversion. Mr. Arbuton, following them on board, felt himself in the unpleasant character of persecutor, some one to be shunned and escaped by every maneuver possible to self-respect. He was to be the means, it appeared, of spoiling the enjoyment of the voyage for one who, he inferred, had not often the opportunity of such enjoyment. He had a willingness that she should think well and not ill of him; and then at the bottom of all was a sentiment of superiority, which, if he had given it shape, would have been _noblesse oblige_. Some action was due to himself as a gentleman. The young lady went to seek the matron of the party, and left her companion at the door of the saloon, wistfully fingering a cigar in one hand, and feeling for a match with the other. Presently he gave himself a clap on the waistcoat which he had found empty, and was turning away, when Mr. Arbuton said, offering his own lighted cigar, "May I be of use to you?" The other took it with a hearty, "O yes, thank you!" and, with many inarticulate murmurs of satisfaction, lighted his cigar, and returned Mr. Arbuton's with a brisk, half-military bow. Mr. Arbuton looked at him narrowly a moment. "I'm afraid," he said abruptly, "that I've most unluckily been the cause of annoyance to one of the ladies of your party. It isn't a thing to apologize for, and I hardly know how to say that I hope, if she's not already forgotten the matter, she'll do so." Saying this, Mr. Arbuton, by an impulse which he would have been at a loss to explain, offered his card. His action had the effect of frankness, and the other took it for cordiality. He drew near a lamp, and looked at the name and street address on the card, and then said, "Ah, of Boston! _My_ name is Ellison; I'm of Milwaukee, Wisconsin." And he laughed a free, trustful laugh of good companionship. "Why yes, my cousin's been tormenting herself about her mistake the whole afternoon; but of course it's all right, you know. Bless my heart! it was the most natural thing in the world. Have you been ashore? There's a good deal of repose about Tadoussac, now; but it must be a lively place in winter! Such a cheerful lookout from these cottages, or that hotel over yonder! We went over to see if we could get into the little old church; the purser told me there are some lead tablets there, left by Jacques Cartier's men, you know, and dug up in the neighborhood. I don't think it's likely, and I'm bearing up very well under the disappointment of not getting in. I've done my duty by the antiquities of the place; and now I don't care how soon we are off." Colonel Ellison was talking in the kindness of his heart to change the subject which the younger gentleman had introduced, in the belief, which would scarcely have pleased the other, that he was much embarrassed. His good-nature went still further; and when his cousin returned presently, with Mrs. Ellison, he presented Mr. Arbuton to the ladies, and then thoughtfully made Mrs. Ellison walk up and down the deck with him for the exercise she would not take ashore, that the others might be left to deal with their vexation alone. "I am very sorry, Miss Ellison," said Mr. Arbuton, "to have been the means of a mistake to you to-day." "And I was dreadfully ashamed to make you the victim of my blunder," answered Miss Ellison penitently; and a little silence ensued. Then as if she had suddenly been able to alienate the case, and see it apart from herself in its unmanageable absurdity, she broke into a confiding laugh, very like her cousin's, and said, "Why, it's one of the most hopeless things I ever heard of. I don't see what in the world can be done about it." "It _is_ rather a difficult matter, and I'm not prepared to say myself. Before I make up my mind I should like it to happen again." Mr. Arbuton had no sooner made this speech, which he thought neat, than he was vexed with himself for having made it, since nothing was further from his purpose than a flirtation. But the dark, vicinity, the young girl's prettiness, the apparent freshness and reliance on his sympathy from which her frankness came, were too much: he tried to congeal again, and ended in some feebleness about the scenery, which was indeed very lonely and wild, after the boat started up the Saguenay, leaving the few lights of Tadoussac to blink and fail behind her. He had an absurd sense of being alone in the world there with the young lady; and he suffered himself to enjoy the situation, which was as perfectly safe as anything could be. He and Miss Ellison had both come on from Niagara, it seemed, and they talked of that place, she consciously withholding the fact that she had noticed Mr. Arbuton there; they had both come down the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, and they had both stopped a day in Montreal. These common experiences gave them a surprising interest for each other, which was enhanced by the discovery that their experiences differed thereafter, and that whereas she had passed three days at Quebec, he, as we know, had come on directly from Montreal. "Did you enjoy Quebec very much, Miss Ellison?" "O yes, indeed! It's a beautiful old town, with everything in it that I had always read about and never expected to see. You know it's a walled city." "Yes. But I confess I had forgotten it till this morning. Did you find it all that you expected a walled city to be?" "More, if possible. There were some Boston people with us there, and they said it was exactly like Europe. They fairly sighed over it, and it seemed to remind them of pretty nearly everything they had seen abroad. They were just married." "Did that make Quebec look like Europe?" "No, but I suppose it made them willing to see it in the pleasantest light. Mrs. March--that was their name--wouldn't allow me to say that _I_ enjoyed Quebec, because if I hadn't seen Europe, I _could_n't properly enjoy it. 'You may _think_ you enjoy it,' she was always saying, 'but that's merely fancy.' Still I cling to my delusion. But I don't know whether I cared more for Quebec, or the beautiful little villages in the country all about it. The whole landscape looks just like a dream of 'Evangeline.'" "Indeed! I must certainly stop at Quebec. I should like to see an American landscape that put one in mind of anything. What can your imagination do for the present scenery?" "I don't think it needs any help from me," replied the young girl, as if the tone of her companion had patronized and piqued her. She turned as she spoke and looked up the sad, lonely river. The moon was making its veiled face seen through the gray heaven, and touching the black stream with hints of melancholy light. On either hand the uninhabitable shore rose in desolate grandeur, friendless heights of rock with a thin covering of pines seen in dim outline along their tops and deepening into the solid dark of hollows and ravines upon their sides. The cry of some wild bird struck through the silence of which the noise of the steamer had grown to be a part, and echoed away to nothing. Then from the saloon there came on a sudden the notes of a song; and Miss Ellison led the way within, where most of the other passengers were grouped about the piano. The English girl with the corn-colored hair sat, in ravishing picture, at the instrument, and the commonish man and his very plain wife were singing with heavenly sweetness together. "Isn't it beautiful!" said Miss Ellison. "How nice it must be to be able to do such things!" "Yes? do you think so? It's rather public," answered her companion. When the English people had ended, a grave, elderly Canadian gentleman sat down to give what he believed a comic song, and sent everybody disconsolate to bed. "Well, Kitty?" cried Mrs. Ellison, shutting herself inside the young lady's state-room a moment. "Well, Fanny?" "Isn't he handsome?" "He is, indeed." "Is he nice?" "I don't know." "Sweet?" "_Ice_-cream," said Kitty, and placidly let herself be kissed an enthusiastic good-night. Before Mrs. Ellison slept she wished to ask her husband one question. "What is it?" "Should you want Kitty to marry a Bostonian? They say Bostonians are so cold." "What Bostonian has been asking Kitty to marry him?" "O, how spiteful you are! I didn't say any had. But if there should?" "Then it'll be time to think about it. You've married Kitty right and left to everybody who's looked at her since we left Niagara, and I've worried myself to death investigating the character of her husbands. Now I'm not going to do it any longer,--till she has an offer." "Very well. _You_ can depreciate your own cousin, if you like. But I know what _I_ shall do. I shall let her wear all my best things. How fortunate it is, Richard, that we're exactly of a size! O, I am so glad we brought Kitty along! If she should marry and settle down in Boston--no, I hope she could get her husband to live in New York--" "Go on, go on, my dear!" cried Colonel Ellison, with a groan of despair. "Kitty has talked twenty-five minutes with this young man about the hotels and steamboats, and of course he'll be round to-morrow morning asking my consent to marry her as soon as we can get to a justice of the peace. My hair is gradually turning gray, and I shall be bald before my time; but I don't mind that if you find any pleasure in these little hallucinations of yours. _Go_ on!" II. MRS. ELLISON'S LITTLE MANEUVRE. The next morning our tourists found themselves at rest in Ha-Ha Bay, at the head of navigation for the larger steamers. The long line of sullen hills had fallen away, and the morning sun shone warm on what in a friendlier climate would have been a very lovely landscape. The bay was an irregular oval, with shores that rose in bold but not lofty heights on one side, while on the other lay a narrow plain with two villages clinging about the road that followed the crescent beach, and lifting each the slender tin-clad spire of its church to sparkle in the sun. At the head of the bay was a mountainous top, and along its waters were masses of rocks, gayly painted with lichens and stained with metallic tints of orange and scarlet. The unchanging growth of stunted pines was the only forest in sight, though Ha-Ha Bay is a famous lumbering port, and some schooners now lay there receiving cargoes of odorous pine plank. The steamboat-wharf was all astir with the liveliest toil and leisure. The boat was taking on wood, which was brought in wheelbarrows to the top of the steep, smooth gangway-planking, where the _habitant_ in charge planted his broad feet for the downward slide, and was hurled aboard more or less _en masse_ by the fierce velocity of his heavy-laden wheelbarrow. Amidst the confusion and hazard of this feat a procession of other habitans marched aboard, each one bearing under his arm a coffin-shaped wooden box. The rising fear of Colonel Ellison, that these boxes represented the loss of the whole infant population of Ha-Ha Bay, was checked by the reflection that the region could not have produced so many children, and calmed altogether by the purser, who said that they were full of huckleberries, and that Colonel Ellison could have as many as he liked for fifteen cents a bushel. This gave him a keen sense of the poverty of the land, and he bought of the boys who came aboard such abundance of wild red raspberries, in all manner of birch-bark canoes and goblets and cornucopias, that he was obliged to make presents of them to the very dealers whose stock he had exhausted, and he was in treaty with the local half-wit--very fine, with a hunchback, and a massive wen on one side of his head--to take charity in the wild fruits of his native province, when the crowd about him was gently opened by a person who advanced with a flourishing bow and a sprightly "Good morning, good morning, sir!" "How do you do?" asked Colonel Ellison; but the other, intent on business, answered, "I am the only person at Ha-Ha Bay who speaks English, and I have come to ask if you would not like to make a promenade in my horse and buggy upon the mountain before breakfast. You shall be gone as long as you will for one shilling and sixpence. I will show you all that there is to be seen about the place, and the beautiful view of the bay from the top of the mountain. But it is elegant, you know, I can assure you." The speaker was so fluent of his English, he had such an audacious, wide-branching mustache, such a twinkle in his left eye,--which wore its lid in a careless, slouching fashion,--that the heart of man naturally clove to him; and Colonel Ellison agreed on the spot to make the proposed promenade, for himself and both his ladies, of whom he went joyfully in search. He found them at the stern of the boat, admiring the wild scenery, and looking "Fresh as the morn and as the season fair." He was not a close observer, and of his wife's wardrobe he had the ignorance of a good husband, who, as soon as the pang of paying for her dresses is past, forgets whatever she has; but he could not help seeing that some gayeties of costume which he had dimly associated with his wife now enhanced the charms of his cousin's nice little face and figure. A scarf of lively hue carelessly tied about the throat to keep off the morning chill, a prettier ribbon, a more stylish jacket than Miss Ellison owned,--what do I know?--an air of preparation for battle, caught the colonel's eye, and a conscious red stole responsive into Kitty's cheek. "Kitty," said he, "don't you let yourself be made a goose of." "I hope she won't--by _you_!" retorted his wife, "and I'll thank you, Colonel Ellison, not to be a Betty, whatever you are. I don't think it's manly to be always noticing ladies' clothes." "Who said anything about clothes?" demanded the colonel, taking his stand upon the letter. "Well, don't _you_, at any rate. Yes, I'd like to ride, of all things; and we've time enough, for breakfast isn't ready till half past eight. Where's the carriage?" The only English scholar at Ha-Ha Bay had taken the light wraps of the ladies and was moving off with them. "This way, this way," he said, waving his hand towards a larger number of vehicles on the shore than could have been reasonably attributed to Ha-Ha Bay. "I hope you won't object to having another passenger with you? There's plenty of room for all. He seems a very nice, gentlemanly person," said he, with a queer, patronizing graciousness which he had no doubt caught from his English patrons. "The more the merrier," answered Colonel Ellison, and "Not in the least!" said his wife, not meaning the proverb. Her eye had swept the whole array of vehicles and had found them all empty, save one, in which she detected the blamelessly coated back of Mr. Arbuton. But I ought perhaps to explain Mrs. Ellison's motives better than they can be made to appear in her conduct. She cared nothing for Mr. Arbuton; and she had no logical wish to see Kitty in love with him. But here were two young people thrown somewhat romantically together; Mrs. Ellison was a born match-maker, and to have refrained from promoting their better acquaintance in the interest of abstract matrimony was what never could have entered into her thought or desire. Her whole being closed for the time about this purpose; her heart, always warm towards Kitty,--whom she admired with a sort of generous frenzy,--expanded with all kinds of lovely designs; in a word, every dress she had she would instantly have bestowed upon that worshipful creature who was capable of adding another marriage to the world. I hope the reader finds nothing vulgar or unbecoming in this, for I do not; it was an enthusiasm, pure and simple, a beautiful and unselfish abandon; and I am sure men ought to be sorry that they are not worthier to be favored by it. Ladies have often to lament in the midst of their finesse that, really, no man is deserving the fate they devote themselves to prepare for him, or, in other words, that women cannot marry women. I am not going to be so rash as try to depict Mrs. Ellison's arts, for then, indeed, I should make her appear the clumsy conspirator she was not, and should merely convict myself of ignorance of such matters. Whether Mr. Arbuton was ever aware of them, I am not sure: as a man he was, of course, obtuse and blind; but then, on the other hand, he had seen far more of the world than Mrs. Ellison, and she may have been clear as day to him. Probably, though, he did not detect any design; he could not have conceived of such a thing in a person with whom he had been so irregularly made acquainted, and to whom he felt himself so hopelessly superior. A film of ice such as in autumn you find casing the still pools early in the frosty mornings had gathered upon his manner over night; but it thawed under the greetings of the others, and he jumped actively out of the vehicle to offer the ladies their choice of seats. When all was arranged he found himself at Mrs. Ellison's side, for Kitty had somewhat eagerly climbed to the front seat with the colonel. In these circumstances it was pure zeal that sustained Mrs. Ellison in the flattering constancy with which she babbled on to Mr. Arbuton and refrained from openly resenting Kitty's contumacy. As the wagon began to ascend the hill, the road was so rough that the springs smote together with pitiless jolts, and the ladies uttered some irrepressible moans. "Never mind, my dear," said the colonel, turning about to his wife, "we've got all the English there is at Ha-Ha Bay, any way." Whereupon the driver gave him a wink of sudden liking and good-fellowship. At the same time his tongue was loosed, and he began to talk of himself. "You see my dog, how he leaps at the horse's nose? He is a moose-dog, and keeps himself in practice of catching the moose by the nose. You ought to come in the hunting season. I could furnish you with Indians and everything you need to hunt with. I am a dealer in wild beasts, you know, and I must keep prepared to take them." "Wild beasts?" "Yes, for Barnum and the other showmen. I deal in deer, wolf, bear, beaver, moose, cariboo, wild-cat, link--" "What?" "Link--link! You say deer for deers, and link for lynx, don't you?" "Certainly," answered the unblushing colonel. "Are there many link about here?" "Not many, and they are a very expensive animal. I have been shamefully treated in a link that I have sold to a Boston showman. It was a difficult beast to take; bit my Indian awfully; and Mr. Doolittle would not give the price he promised." "What an outrage!" "Yes, but it was not so bad as it might have been. He wanted the money back afterwards; the link died in about two weeks," said the dealer in wild animals, with a smile that curled his mustache into his ears, and a glance at Colonel Ellison. "He may have been bruised, I suppose. He may have been homesick. Perhaps he was never a very strong link. The link is a curious animal, miss," he said to Kitty, in conclusion. They had been slowly climbing the mountain road, from which, on either hand, the pasturelands fell away in long, irregular knolls and hollows. The tops were quite barren, but in the little vales, despite the stones, a short grass grew very thick and tenderly green, and groups of kine tinkled their soft bells in a sweet, desultory assonance as they cropped the herbage. Below, the bay filled the oval of the hills with its sunny expanse, and the white steamer, where she lay beside the busy wharf, and the black lumber-ships, gave their variety to the pretty scene, which was completed by the picturesque villages on the shore. It was a very simple sight, but somehow very touching, as if the soft spectacle were but a respite from desolation and solitude; as indeed it was. Mr. Arbuton must have been talking of travel elsewhere, for now he said to Mrs. Ellison, "This looks like a bit of Norway; the bay yonder might very well be a fjord of the Northern sea." Mrs. Ellison murmured her sense of obligation to the bay, the fjord, and Mr. Arbuton, for their complaisance, and Kitty remembered that he had somewhat snubbed her the night before for attributing any suggestive grace to the native scenery. "Then you've really found something in an American landscape. I suppose we ought to congratulate it," she said, in smiling enjoyment of her triumph. The colonel looked at her with eyes of humorous question; Mrs. Ellison looked blank; and Mr. Arbuton, having quite forgotten what he had said to provoke this comment now, looked puzzled and answered nothing: for he had this trait also in common with the sort of Englishman for whom he was taken, that he never helped out your conversational venture, but if he failed to respond inwardly, left you with your unaccepted remark upon your hands, as it were. In his silence, Kitty fell a prey to very evil thoughts of him, for it made her harmless sally look like a blundering attack upon him. But just then the driver came to her rescue; he said, "Gentlemen and ladies, this is the end of the mountain promenade," and, turning his horse's head, drove rapidly back to the village. At the foot of the hill they came again to the church, and his passengers wanted to get out and look into it. "O certainly," said he, "it isn't finished yet, but you can say as many prayers as you like in it." The church was decent and clean, like most Canadian churches, and at this early hour there was a good number of the villagers at their devotions. The lithographic pictures of the stations to Calvary were, of course, on its walls, and there was the ordinary tawdriness of paint and carving about the high altar. "I don't like to see these things," said Mrs. Ellison. "It really seems to savor of idolatry. Don't you think so, Mr. Arbuton?" "Well, I don't know. I doubt if they're the sort of people to be hurt by it." "They need a good stout faith in cold climates, I can tell you," said the colonel. "It helps to keep them warm. The broad church would be too full of draughts up here. They want something snug and tight. Just imagine one of these poor devils listening to a liberal sermon about birds and fruits and flowers and beautiful sentiments, and then driving home over the hills with the mercury thirty degrees below zero! He couldn't stand it." "Yes, yes, certainly," said Mr. Arbuton, and looked about him with an eye of cold, uncompassionate inspection, as if he were trying it by a standard of taste, and, on the whole, finding the poor little church vulgar. When they mounted to their places again, the talk fell entirely to the colonel, who, as his wont was, got what information he could out of the driver. It appeared, in spite of his theory, that they were not all good Catholics at Ha-Ha Bay. "This chap, for example," said the Frenchman, touching himself on the breast and using the slang he must have picked up from American travellers, "is no Catholic,--not much! He has made too many studies to care for religion. There's a large French party, sir, in Canada, that's opposed to the priests and in favor of annexation." He satisfied the colonel's utmost curiosity, discoursing, as he drove by the log-built cottages which were now and then sheathed in birch-bark, upon the local affairs, and the character and history of such of his fellow-villagers as they met. He knew the pretty girls upon the street and saluted them by name, interrupting himself with these courtesies in the lecture he was giving the colonel on life at Ha-Ha Bay. There was only one brick house (which he had built himself, but had been obliged to sell in a season unfavorable for wild beasts), and the other edifices dropped through the social scale to some picturesque barns thatched with straw. These he excused to his Americans, but added that the ungainly thatch was sometimes useful in saving the lives of the cattle toward the end of an unusually long, hard winter. "And the people," asked the colonel, "what do they do in the winter to pass the time?" "Draw the wood, smoke the pipe, court the ladies.--But wouldn't you like to see the inside of one of our poor cottages? I shall be very proud to have you look at mine, and to have you drink a glass of milk from my cows. I am sorry that I cannot offer you brandy, but there's none to be bought in the place." "Don't speak of it! For an eye-opener there is nothing like a glass of milk," gayly answered the colonel. They entered the best room of the house,--wide, low-ceiled, dimly lit by two small windows, and fortified against the winter by a huge Canada stove of cast-iron. It was rude but neat, and had an air of decent comfort. Through the window appeared a very little vegetable garden with a border of the hardiest flowers. "The large beans there," explained the host, "are for soup and coffee. My corn," he said, pointing out some rows of dwarfish maize, "has escaped the early August frosts, and so I expect to have some roasting-ears yet this summer." "Well, it isn't exactly what you'd call an inviting climate, is it?" asked the colonel. The Canadian seemed a hard little man, but he answered now with a kind of pathos, "It's cruel! I came here when it was all bush. Twenty years I have lived here, and it has not been worth while. If it was to do over again, I should rather not live anywhere. I was born in Quebec," he said, as if to explain that he was used to mild climates, and began to tell of some events of his life at Ha-Ha Bay. "I wish you were going to stay here awhile with me. You wouldn't find it so bad in the summer-time, I can assure you. There are bears in the bush, sir," he said to the colonel, "and you might easily kill one." "But then I should be helping to spoil your trade in wild beasts," replied the colonel, laughing. Mr. Arbuton looked like one who might be very tired of this. He made no sign of interest either in the early glooms and privations or the summer bears of Ha-Ha Bay. He sat in the quaint parlor, with his hat on his knee, in the decorous and patient attitude of a gentleman making a call. He had no feeling, Kitty said to herself; but that is a matter about which we can easily be wrong. It was rather to be said of Mr. Arbuton that he had always shrunk from knowledge of things outside of a very narrow world, and that he had not a ready imagination. Moreover, he had a personal dislike, as I may call it, of poverty; and he did not enjoy this poverty as she did, because it was strange and suggestive, though doubtless he would have done as much to relieve distress. "Rather too much of his autobiography," he said to Kitty, as he waited outside the door with her, while the Canadian quieted his dog, which was again keeping himself in practice of catching the moose by making vicious leaps at the horse's nose. "The egotism of that kind of people is always so aggressive. But I suppose he's in the habit of throwing himself upon the sympathy of summer visitors in this way. You can't offer a man so little as shilling and sixpence who's taken you into his confidence. Did you find enough that was novel in his place to justify him in bringing us here, Miss Ellison?" he asked with an air he had of taking you of course to be of his mind, and which equally offended you whether you were so or not. Every face that they had seen in their drive had told its pathetic story to Kitty; every cottage that they passed she had entered in thought, and dreamed out its humble drama. What their host had said gave breath and color to her fancies of the struggle of life there, and she was startled and shocked when this cold doubt was cast upon the sympathetic tints of her picture. She did not know what to say at first; she looked at Mr. Arbuton with a sudden glance of embarrassment and trouble; then she answered, "I was very much interested. I don't agree with you, I believe"; which, when she heard it, seemed a resentful little speech, and made her willing for some occasion to soften its effect. But nothing occurred to her during the brief drive back to the boat, save the fact that the morning air was delicious. "Yes, but rather cool," said Mr. Arbuton, whose feelings apparently had not needed any balm; and the talk fell again to the others. On the pier he helped her down from the wagon, for the colonel was intent on something the driver was saying, and then offered his hand to Mrs. Ellison. She sprang from her place, but stumbled slightly, and when she touched the ground, "I believe I turned my foot a little," she said with a laugh. "It's nothing, of course," and fainted in his arms. Kitty gave a cry of alarm, and the next instant the colonel had relieved Mr. Arbuton. It was a scene, and nothing could have annoyed him more than this tumult which poor Mrs. Ellison's misfortune occasioned among the bystanding habitans and deck-hands, and the passengers eagerly craning forward over the bulwarks, and running ashore to see what the matter was. Few men know just how to offer those little offices of helpfulness which such emergencies demand, and Mr. Arbuton could do nothing after he was rid of his burden; he hovered anxiously and uselessly about, while Mrs. Ellison was carried to an airy position on the bow of the boat, where in a few minutes he had the great satisfaction of seeing her open her eyes. It was not the moment for him to speak, and he walked somewhat guiltily away with the dispersing crowd. Mrs. Ellison addressed her first words to pale Kitty at her side. "You can have all my things, now," she said, as if it were a clause in her will, and perhaps it had been her last thought before unconsciousness. "Why, Fanny," cried Kitty, with an hysterical laugh, "you're not going to die! A sprained ankle isn't fatal!" "No; but I've heard that a person with a sprained ankle can't put their foot to the ground for weeks; and I shall only want a dressing-gown, you know, to lie on the sofa in." With that, Mrs. Ellison placed her hand tenderly on Kitty's head, like a mother wondering what will become of a helpless child during her disability; in fact she was mentally weighing the advantages of her wardrobe, which Kitty would now fully enjoy, against the loss of the friendly strategy which she would now lack. Helpless to decide the matter, she heaved a sigh. "But, Fanny, you won't expect to travel in a dressing-gown." "Indeed, I wish I knew whether I _could_ travel in _anything_ or not. But the next twenty-four hours will show. If it swells up, I shall have to rest awhile at Quebec; and if it doesn't, there may be something internal. I've read of accidents when the person thought they were perfectly well and comfortable, and the first thing they knew they were in a very dangerous state. That's the worst of these internal injuries: you never can tell. Not that I think there's anything of that kind the matter with me. But a few days' rest won't do any harm, whatever happens; the stores in Quebec are quite as good and a little cheaper than in Montreal; and I could go about in a carriage, you know, and put in the time as well in one place as the other. I'm sure we could get on very pleasantly there; and the colonel needn't be home for a month yet. I suppose that I could hobble into the stores on a crutch." Whilst Mrs. Ellison's monologue ran on with scarcely a break from Kitty, her husband was gone to fetch her a cup of tea and such other light refreshment as a lady may take after a swoon. When he returned she bethought herself of Mr. Arbuton, who, having once come back to see if all was going well, had vanished again. "Why, our friend Boston is bearing up under his share of the morning's work like a hero--or a lady with a sprained ankle," said the colonel as he arranged the provision. "To see the havoc he's making in the ham and eggs and chiccory is to be convinced that there is no appetizer like regret for the sufferings of others." "Why, and here's poor Kitty not had a bite yet!" cried Mrs. Ellison. "Kitty, go off at once and get your breakfast. Put on my--" "O, _don't_, Fanny, or I can't go; and I'm really very hungry." "Well, I won't then," said Mrs. Ellison, seeing the rainy cloud in Kitty's eyes. "Go just as you are, and don't mind me." And so Kitty went, gathering courage at every pace, and sitting down opposite Mr. Arbuton with a vivid color to be sure, but otherwise lion-bold. He had been upbraiding the stars that had thrust him further and further at every step into the intimacy of these people, as he called them to himself. It was just twenty-four hours, he reflected, since he had met them, and resolved to have nothing to do with them, and in that time the young lady had brought him under the necessity of apologizing for a blunder of her own; he had played the eavesdropper to her talk; he had sentimentalized the midnight hour with her; they had all taken a morning ride together; and he had ended by having Mrs. Ellison sprain her ankle and faint in his arms. It was outrageous; and what made it worse was that decency obliged him to take henceforth a regretful, deprecatory attitude towards Mrs. Ellison, whom he liked least among these people. So he sat vindictively eating an enormous breakfast, in a sort of angry abstraction, from which Kitty's coming roused him to say that he hoped Mrs. Ellison was better. "O, very much! It's just a sprain." "A sprain may be a very annoying thing," said Mr. Arbuton dismally. "Miss Ellison," he cried, "I've been nothing but an affliction to your party since I came on board this boat!" "Do you think evil genius of our party would be too harsh a term?" suggested Kitty. "Not in the least; it would be a mere euphemism,--base flattery, in fact. Call me something worse." "I can't think of anything. I must leave you to your own conscience. It was a pity to end our ride in that way; it would have been such a pleasant ride!" And Kitty took heart from his apparent mood to speak of some facts of the morning that had moved her fancy. "What a strange little nest it is up here among these half-thawed hills! and imagine the winter, the fifteen or twenty months of it, they must have every year. I could almost have shed tears over that patch of corn that had escaped the early August frosts. I suppose this is a sort of Indian summer that we are enjoying now, and that the cold weather will set in after a week or two. My cousin and I thought that Tadoussac was somewhat retired and composed last night, but I'm sure that I shall see it in its true light, as a metropolis, going back. I'm afraid that the turmoil and bustle of Eriecreek, when I get home--" "Eriecreek?--when you got home?--I thought you lived at Milwaukee." "O no! It's my cousins who live at Milwaukee. I live at Eriecreek, New York State." "Oh!" Mr. Arbuton looked blank and not altogether pleased. Milwaukee was bad enough, though he understood that it was largely peopled from New England, and had a great German element, which might account for the fact that these people were not quite barbaric. But this Eriecreek, New York State! "I don't think I've heard of it," he said. "It's a small place," observed Kitty, "and I believe it isn't noted for anything in particular; it's not even on any railroad. It's in the north-west part of the State." "Isn't it in the oil-regions?" groped Mr. Arbuton. "Why, the oil-regions are rather migratory, you know. It used to be in the oil-regions; but the oil was pumped out, and then the oil-regions gracefully withdrew and left the cheese-regions and grape-regions to come back and take possession of the old derricks and the rusty boilers. You might suppose from the appearance of the meadows, that all the boilers that ever blew up had come down in the neighborhood of Eriecreek. And every field has its derrick standing just as the last dollar or the last drop of oil left it." Mr. Arbuton brought his fancy to bear upon Eriecreek, and wholly failed to conceive of it. He did not like the notion of its being thrust within the range of his knowledge; and he resented its being the home of Miss Ellison, whom he was beginning to accept as a not quite comprehensible yet certainly agreeable fact, though he still had a disposition to cast her off as something incredible. He asked no further about Eriecreek, and presently she rose and went to join her relatives, and he went to smoke his cigar, and to ponder upon the problem presented to him in this young girl from whose locality and conjecturable experiences he was at loss how to infer her as he found her here. She had a certain self-reliance mingling with an innocent trust of others which Mrs. Isabel March had described to her husband as a charm potent to make everybody sympathetic and good-natured, but which it would not be easy to account for to Mr. Arbuton. In part it was a natural gift, and partly it came from mere ignorance of the world; it was the unsnubbed fearlessness of a heart which did not suspect a sense of social difference in others, or imagine itself misprized for anything but a fault. For such a false conception of her relations to polite society, Kitty's Uncle Jack was chiefly to blame. In the fierce democracy of his revolt from his Virginian traditions he had taught his family that a belief in any save intellectual and moral distinctions was a mean and cruel superstition; he had contrived to fix this idea so deeply in the education of his children, that it gave a coloring to their lives, and Kitty, when her turn came, had the effect of it in the character of those about her. In fact she accepted his extreme theories of equality to a degree that delighted her uncle, who, having held them many years, was growing perhaps a little languid in their tenure and was glad to have his grasp strengthened by her faith. Socially as well as politically Eriecreek was almost a perfect democracy, and there was little in Kitty's circumstances to contradict the doctor's teachings. The brief visits which she had made to Buffalo and Erie, and, since the colonel's marriage, to Milwaukee, had not sufficed to undeceive her; she had never suffered slight save from the ignorant and uncouth; she innocently expected that in people of culture she should always find community of feeling and ideas; and she had met Mr. Arbuton all the more trustfully because as a Bostonian he must be cultivated. In the secluded life which she led perforce at Eriecreek there was an abundance of leisure, which she bestowed upon books at an age when most girls are sent to school. The doctor had a good taste of an old-fashioned kind in literature, and he had a library pretty well stocked with the elderly English authors, poets and essayists and novelists, and here and there an historian, and these Kitty read childlike, liking them at the time in a certain way, and storing up in her mind things that she did not understand for the present, but whose beauty and value dawned upon her from time to time, as she grew older. But of far more use and pleasure to her than these now somewhat mouldy classics were the more modern books of her cousin Charles,--that pride and hope of his father's heart, who had died the year before she came to Eriecreek. He was named after her own father, and it was as if her Uncle Jack found both his son and his brother in her again. When her taste for reading began to show itself in force, the old man one day unlocked a certain bookcase in a little upper room, and gave her the key, saying, with a broken pride and that queer Virginian pomp which still clung to him, "This was my son's, who would one day have been a great writer; now it is yours." After that the doctor would pick up the books out of this collection which Kitty was reading and had left lying about the rooms, and look into them a little way. Sometimes he fell asleep over them; sometimes when he opened on a page pencilled with marginal notes, he would put the volume gently down and go very quickly out of the room. "Kitty, I reckon you'd better not leave poor Charley's books around where Uncle Jack can get at them," one of the girls, Virginia or Rachel, would say; "I don't believe he cares much for those writers, and the sight of the books just tries him." So Kitty kept the books, and herself for the most part with them, in the upper chamber which had been Charles Ellison's room, and where, amongst the witnesses of the dead boy's ambitious dreams, she grew dreamer herself and seemed to inherit with his earthly place his own fine and gentle spirit. The doctor, as his daughter suggested, did not care much for the modern authors in whom his son had delighted. Like many another simple and pure-hearted man, he thought that since Pope there had been no great poet but Byron, and he could make nothing out of Tennyson and Browning, or the other contemporary English poets. Amongst the Americans he had a great respect for Whittier, but he preferred Lowell to the rest because he had written The Biglow Papers, and he never would allow that the last series was half so good as the first. These and the other principal poets of our nation and language Kitty inherited from her cousin, as well as a full stock of the contemporary novelists and romancers, whom she liked better than the poets on the whole. She had also the advantage of the magazines and reviews which used to come to him, and the house over-flowed with newspapers of every kind, from the Eriecreek Courier to the New York Tribune. What with the coming and going of the eccentric visitors, and this continual reading, and her rides about the country with her Uncle Jack, Kitty's education, such as it was, went on very actively and with the effect, at least, to give her a great liveliness of mind and several decided opinions. Where it might have warped her out of natural simplicity, and made her conceited, the keen and wholesome airs which breathed continually in the Ellison household came in to restore her. There was such kindness in this discipline, that she never could remember when it wounded her; it was part of the gayety of those times when she would sit down with the girls, and they took up some work together, and rattled on in a free, wild, racy talk, with an edge of satire for whoever came near, a fantastic excess in its drollery, and just a touch of native melancholy tingeing it. The last queer guest, some neighborhood gossip, some youthful folly or pretentiousness of Kitty's, some trait of their own, some absurdity of the boys if they happened to be at home, and came lounging in, were the themes out of which they contrived such jollity as never was, save when in Uncle Jack's presence they fell upon some characteristic action or theory of his and turned it into endless ridicule. But of such people, of such life, Mr. Arbuton could have made nothing if he had known them. In many things he was an excellent person, and greatly to be respected for certain qualities. He was very sincere; his mind had a singular purity and rectitude; he was a scrupulously just person so far as he knew. He had traits that would have fitted him very well for the career he had once contemplated, and he had even made some preliminary studies for the ministry. But the very generosity of his creed perplexed him, his mislikers said; contending that he could never have got on with the mob of the redeemed. "Arbuton," said a fat young fellow, the supposed wit of the class, "thinks there _are_ persons of low extraction in heaven; but he doesn't like the idea." And Mr. Arbuton did not like the speaker very well, either, nor any of his poorer fellow-students, whose gloveless and unfashionable poverty, and meagre board and lodgings, and general hungry dependence upon pious bequests and neighborhood kindnesses, offended his instincts. "So he's given it up, has he?" moralized the same wit, upon his retirement. "If Arbuton could have been a divinely commissioned apostle to the best society, and been obliged to save none but well-connected, old-established, and cultivated souls, he might have gone into the ministry." This was a coarse construction of the truth, but it was not altogether a perversion. It was long ago that he had abandoned the thought of the ministry, and he had since travelled, and read law, and become a man of society and of clubs; but he still kept the traits that had seemed to make his vocation clear. On the other hand he kept the prejudices that were imagined to have disqualified him. He was an exclusive by training and by instinct. He gave ordinary humanity credit for a certain measure of sensibility, and it is possible that if he had known more kinds of men, he would have recognized merits and excellences which did not now exist for him; but I do not think he would have liked them. His doubt of these Western people was the most natural, if not the most justifiable thing in the world, and for Kitty, if he could have known all about her, I do not see how he could have believed in her at all. As it was, he went in search of her party, when he had smoked his cigar, and found them on the forward promenade. She had left him in quite a lenient mood, although, as she perceived with amusement, he had done nothing to merit it, except give her cousin a sprained ankle. At the moment of his reappearance, Mrs. Ellison had been telling Kitty that she thought it was beginning to swell a little, and so it could not be anything internal; and Kitty had understood that she meant her ankle as well as if she had said so, and had sorrowed and rejoiced over her, and the colonel had been inculpated for the whole affair. This made Mr. Arbuton's excuses rather needless, though they were most graciously received. III. ON THE WAY BACK TO QUEBEC. By this time the boat was moving down the river, and every one was alive to the scenery. The procession of the pine-clad, rounded heights on either shore began shortly after Ha-Ha Bay had disappeared behind a curve, and it hardly ceased, save at one point, before the boat re-entered the St. Lawrence. The shores of the stream are almost uninhabited. The hills rise from the water's edge, and if ever a narrow vale divides them, it is but to open drearier solitudes to the eye. In such a valley would stand a saw-mill, and huddled about it a few poor huts, while a friendless road, scarce discernible from the boat, wound up from the river through the valley, and led to wildernesses all the forlorner for the devastation of their forests. Now and then an island, rugged as the shores, broke the long reaches of the grim river with its massive rock and dark evergreen, and seemed in the distance to forbid escape from those dreary waters, over which no bird flew, and in which it was incredible any fish swam. Mrs. Ellison, with her foot comfortably and not ungracefully supported on a stool, was in so little pain as to be looking from time to time at one of the guide-books which the colonel had lavished upon his party, and which she was disposed to hold to very strict account for any excesses of description. "It says here that the water of the Saguenay is as black as ink. Do _you_ think it is, Richard?" "It looks so." "Well, but if you took some up in your hand?" "Perhaps it wouldn't be as black as the best Maynard and Noyes, but it would be black enough for all practical purposes." "Maybe," suggested Kitty, "the guide-book means the kind that is light blue at first, but 'becomes a deep black on exposure to the air,' as the label says." "What do you think, Mr. Arbuton?" asked Mrs. Ellison with unabated anxiety. "Well, really, I don't know," said Mr. Arbuton, who thought it a very trivial kind of talk, "I can't say, indeed. I haven't taken any of it up in my hand." "That's true," said Mrs. Ellison gravely, with an accent of reproval for the others who had not thought of so simple a solution of the problem, "very true." The colonel looked into her face with an air of well-feigned alarm. "You don't think the sprain has gone to your head, Fanny?" he asked, and walked away, leaving Mr. Arbuton to the ladies. Mrs. Ellison did not care for this or any other gibe, if she but served her own purposes; and now, having made everybody laugh and given the conversation a lively turn, she was as perfectly content as if she had not been herself an offering to the cause of cheerfulness. She was, indeed, equal to any sacrifice in the enterprise she had undertaken, and would not only have given Kitty all her worldly goods, but would have quite effaced herself to further her own designs upon Mr. Arbuton. She turned again to her guide-book, and left the young people to continue the talk in unbroken gayety. They at once became serious, as most people do after a hearty laugh, which, if you think, seems always to have something strange and sad in it. But besides, Kitty was oppressed by the coldness that seemed perpetually to hover in Mr. Arbuton's atmosphere, while she was interested by his fastidious good looks and his blameless manners and his air of a world different from any she had hitherto known. He was one of those men whose perfection makes you feel guilty of misdemeanor whenever they meet you, and whose greeting turns your honest good-day coarse and common; even Kitty's fearless ignorance and more than Western disregard of dignities were not proof against him. She had found it easy to talk with Mrs. March as she did with her cousin at home: she liked to be frank and gay in her parley, to jest and to laugh and to make harmless fun, and to sentimentalize in a half-earnest way; she liked to be with Mr. Arbuton, but now she did not see how she could take her natural tone with him. She wondered at her daring lightness at the breakfast-table; she waited for him to say something, and he said, with a glance at the gray heaven that always overhangs the Saguenay, that it was beginning to rain, and unfurled the slender silk umbrella which harmonized so perfectly with the London effect of his dress, and held it over her. Mrs. Ellison sat within the shelter of the projecting roof, and diligently perused her book with her eyes, and listened to their talk. "The great drawback to this sort of thing in America," continued Mr. Arbuton, "is that there is no human interest about the scenery, fine as it is." "Why, I don't know," said Kitty, "there was that little settlement round the saw-mill. Can't you imagine any human interest in the lives of the people there? It seems to me that one might make almost anything out of them. Suppose, for example, that the owner of that mill was a disappointed man who had come here to bury the wreck of his life in--sawdust?" "O, yes! That sort of thing; certainly. But I didn't mean that, I meant something historical. There is no past, no atmosphere, no traditions, you know." "O, but the Saguenay _has_ a tradition," said Kitty. "You know that a party of the first explorers left their comrades at Tadoussac, and came up the Saguenay three hundred years ago, and never were seen or heard of again. I think it's so in keeping with the looks of the river. The Saguenay would never tell a secret." "Um!" uttered Mr. Arbuton, as if he were not quite sure that it was the Saguenay's place to have a legend of this sort, and disposed to snub the legend because the Saguenay had it. After a little silence, he began to speak of famous rivers abroad. "I suppose," Kitty said, "the Rhine has traditions enough, hasn't it?" "Yes," he answered, "but I think the Rhine rather overdoes it. You can't help feeling, you know, that it's somewhat melodramatic and--common. Have you ever seen the Rhine?" "O, no! This is almost the first I've seen of anything. Perhaps," she added, demurely, yet with a tremor at finding herself about to make light of Mr. Arbuton, "if I had had too much of tradition on the Rhine I should want more of it on the Saguenay." "Why, you must allow there's a golden mean in everything, Miss Ellison," said her companion with a lenient laugh, not feeling it disagreeable to be made light of by her. "Yes; and I'm afraid we're going to find Cape Trinity and Cape Eternity altogether too big when we come to them. Don't you think eighteen hundred feet excessively high for a feature of river scenery?" Mr. Arbuton really did have an objection to the exaggerations of nature on this continent, and secretly thought them in bad taste, but he had never formulated his feeling. He was not sure but it was ridiculous, now that it was suggested, and yet the possibility was too novel to be entertained without suspicion. However, when after a while the rumor of their approach to the great objects of the Saguenay journey had spread among the passengers, and they began to assemble at points favorable for the enjoyment of the spectacle, he was glad to have secured the place he held with Miss Ellison, and a sympathetic thrill of excitement passed through his loath superiority. The rain ceased as they drew nearer, and the gray clouds that had hung so low upon the hills sullenly lifted from them and let their growing height he seen. The captain bade his sight-seers look at the vast Roman profile that showed itself upon the rock, and then he pointed out the wonderful Gothic arch, the reputed doorway of an unexplored cavern, under which an upright shaft of stone had stood for ages statue-like, till not many winters ago the frost heaved it from its base, and it plunged headlong down through the ice into the unfathomed depths below. The unvarying gloom of the pines was lit now by the pensive glimmer of birch-trees, and this gray tone gave an indescribable sentiment of pathos and of age to the scenery. Suddenly the boat rounded the corner of the three steps, each five hundred feet high, in which Cape Eternity climbs from the river, and crept in under the naked side of the awful cliff. It is sheer rock, springing from the black water, and stretching upward with a weary, effort-like aspect, in long impulses of stone marked by deep seams from space to space, till, fifteen hundred feet in air, its vast brow beetles forward, and frowns with a scattering fringe of pines. There are stains of weather and of oozing springs upon the front of the cliff, but it is height alone that seems to seize the eye, and one remembers afterwards these details, which are indeed so few as not properly to enter into the effect. The rock fully justifies its attributive height to the eye, which follows the upward rush of the mighty acclivity, steep after steep, till it wins the cloud-capt summit, when the measureless mass seems to swing and sway overhead, and the nerves tremble with the same terror that besets him who looks downward from the verge of a lofty precipice. It is wholly grim and stern; no touch of beauty relieves the austere majesty of that presence. At the foot of Cape Eternity the water is of unknown depth, and it spreads, a black expanse, in the rounding hollow of shores of unimaginable wildness and desolation, and issues again in its river's course around the base of Cape Trinity. This is yet loftier than the sister cliff, but it slopes gently backward from the stream, and from foot to crest it is heavily clothed with a forest of pines. The woods that hitherto have shagged the hills with a stunted and meagre growth, showing long stretches scarred by fire, now assume a stately size, and assemble themselves compactly upon the side of the mountain, setting their serried stems one rank above another, till the summit is crowned with the mass of their dark green plumes, dense and soft and beautiful; so that the spirit perturbed by the spectacle of the other cliff is calmed and assuaged by the serene grandeur of this. There have been, to be sure, some human agencies at work even under the shadow of Cape Eternity to restore the spirit to self-possession, and perhaps none turns from it wholly dismayed. Kitty, at any rate, took heart from some works of art which the cliff wall displayed near the water's edge. One of these was a lively fresco portrait of Lieutenant-General Sherman, with the insignia of his rank, and the other was an even more striking effigy of General O'Neil, of the Armies of the Irish Republic, wearing a threatening aspect, and designed in a bold conceit of his presence there as conqueror of Canada in the year 1875. Mr. Arbuton was inclined to resent these intrusions upon the sublimity of nature, and he could not conceive, without disadvantage to them, how Miss Ellison and the colonel should accept them so cheerfully as part of the pleasure of the whole. As he listened blankly to their exchange of jests he found himself awfully beset by a temptation which one of the boat's crew placed before the passengers. This was a bucket full of pebbles of inviting size; and the man said, "Now, see which can hit the cliff. It's farther than any of you can throw, though it looks so near." The passengers cast themselves upon the store of missiles, Colonel Ellison most actively among them. None struck the cliff, and suddenly Mr. Arbuton felt a blind, stupid, irresistible longing to try his chance. The spirit of his college days, of his boating and ball-playing youth, came upon him. He picked up a pebble, while Kitty opened her eyes in a stare of dumb surprise. Then he wheeled and threw it, and as it struck against the cliff with a shock that seemed to have broken all the windows on the Back Bay, he exulted in a sense of freedom the havoc caused him. It was as if for an instant he had rent away the ties of custom, thrown off the bonds of social allegiance, broken down and trampled upon the conventions which his whole life long he had held so dear and respectable. In that moment of frenzy he feared himself capable of shaking hands with the shabby Englishman in the Glengarry cap, or of asking the whole admiring company of passengers down to the bar. A cry of applause had broken from them at his achievement, and he had for the first time tasted the sweets of popular favor. Of course a revulsion must come, and it must be of a corresponding violence; and the next moment Mr. Arbuton hated them all, and most of all Colonel Ellison, who had been loudest in his praise. Him he thought for that moment everything that was aggressively and intrusively vulgar. But he could not utter these friendly impressions, nor is it so easy to withdraw from any concession, and he found it impossible to repair his broken defences. Destiny had been against him from the beginning, and now why should he not strike hands with it for the brief half-day that he was to continue in these people's society? In the morning he would part from them forever, and in the mean time why should he not try to please and be pleased? There might, to be sure, have been many reasons why he should not do this; but however the balance stood he now yielded himself passively to his fate. He was polite to Mrs. Ellison, he was attentive to Kitty, and as far as he could he entered into the fantastic spirit of her talk with the colonel. He was not a dull man; he had quite an apt wit of his own, and a neat way of saying things; but humor always seemed to him something not perfectly well bred; of course he helped to praise it in some old-established diner-out, or some woman of good fashion, whose _mots_ it was customary to repeat, and he even tolerated it in books; but he was at a loss with these people, who looked at life in so bizarre a temper, yet without airiness or pretension, nay, with a whimsical readiness to acknowledge kindred in every droll or laughable thing. The boat stopped at Tadoussac on her return, and among the spectators who came down to the landing was a certain very pretty, conscious-looking, silly, bridal-faced young woman,--imaginably the belle of the season at that forlorn watering-place,--who before coming on board stood awhile attended by a following of those elderly imperial and colonial British who heavily flutter round the fair at such resorts. She had an air of utterly satisfied vanity, in which there was no harm in the world, and when she saw that she had fixed the eyes of the shoreward-gazing passengers, it appeared as if she fell into a happy trepidation too blissful to be passively borne; she moistened her pretty red lips with her tongue, she twitched her mantle, she settled the bow at her lovely throat, she bridled and tossed her graceful head. "What should you do next, Kitty?" asked the colonel, who had been sympathetically intent upon all this. "O, I think I should pat my foot," answered Kitty; and in fact the charming simpleton on shore, having perfected her attitude, was tapping the ground nervously with the toe of her adorable slipper. After the boat started, a Canadian lady of ripe age, yet of a vivacity not to be reconciled with the notion of the married state, capered briskly about among her somewhat stolid and indifferent friends, saying, "They're going to fire it as soon as we round the point"; and presently a dull boom, as of a small piece of ordnance discharged in the neighborhood of the hotel, struck through the gathering fog, and this elderly sylph clapped her hands and exulted: "They've fired it, they've fired it! and now the captain will blow the whistle in answer." But the captain did nothing of the kind, and the lady, after some more girlish effervescence, upbraided him for an old owl and an old muff, and so sank into such a flat and spiritless calm that she was sorrowful to see. "Too bad, Mr. Arbuton, isn't it?" said the colonel; and Mr. Arbuton listened in vague doubt while Kitty built up with her cousin a touching romance for the poor lady, supposed to have spent the one brilliant and successful summer of her life at Tadoussac, where her admirers had agreed to bemoan her loss in this explosion of gunpowder. They asked him if he did not wish the captain _had_ whistled; and "Oh!" shuddered Kitty, "doesn't it all make you feel just as if you had been doing it yourself?"--a question which he hardly knew how to answer, never having, to his knowledge, done a ridiculous thing in his life, much less been guilty of such behavior as that of the disappointed lady. At Cacouna, where the boat stopped to take on the horses and carriages of some home-returning sojourners, the pier was a labyrinth of equipages of many sorts and sizes, and a herd of bright-hooded, gayly blanketed horses gave variety to the human crowd that soaked and steamed in the fine, slowly falling rain. A draught-horse was every three minutes driven into their midst with tedious iteration as he slowly drew baskets of coal up from the sloop unloading at the wharf, and each time they closed solidly upon his retreat as if they never expected to see that horse again while the world stood. They were idle ladies and gentlemen under umbrellas, Indians and habitans taking the rain stolidly erect or with shrugged shoulders, and two or three clergymen of the curate type, who might have stepped as they were out of any dull English novel. These were talking in low voices and putting their hands to their ears to catch the replies of the lady-passengers who hung upon the rail, and twaddled back as dryly as if there was no moisture in life. All the while the safety-valves hissed with the escaping steam, and the boat's crew silently toiled with the grooms of the different horses to get the equipages on board. With the carriages it was an affair of mere muscle, but the horses required to be managed with brain. No sooner had one of them placed his fore feet on the gangway plank than he protested by backing up over a mass of patient Canadians, carrying with him half a dozen grooms and deck-hands. Then his hood was drawn over his eyes, and he was blindly walked up and down the pier, and back to the gangway, which he knew as soon as he touched it. He pulled, he pranced, he shied, he did all that a bad and stubborn horse can do, till at last a groom mounted his back, a clump of deck-hands tugged at his bridle, and other grooms, tenderly embracing him at different points, pushed, and he was thus conveyed on board with mingled affection and ignominy. None of the Canadians seemed amused by this; they regarded it with serious composure as a fitting decorum, and Mr. Arbuton had no comment to make upon it. But at the first embrace bestowed upon the horse by the grooms the colonel said absently, "Ah! long-lost brother," and Kitty laughed; and as the scruples of each brute were successively overcome, she helped to give some grotesque interpretation to the various scenes of the melodrama, while Mr. Arbuton stood beside her, and sheltered her with his umbrella; and a spice of malice in her heart told her that he viewed this drolling, and especially her part in it, with grave misgiving. That gave the zest of transgression to her excess, mixed with dismay; for the tricksy spirit in her was not a domineering spirit, but was easily abashed by the moods of others. She ought not to have laughed at Dick's speeches, she soon told herself, much less helped him on. She dreadfully feared that she had done something indecorous, and she was pensive and silent over it as she moved listlessly about after supper; and she sat at last thinking in a dreary sort of perplexity on what had passed during the day, which seemed a long one. The shabby Englishman with his wife and sister were walking up and down the cabin. By and by they stopped, and sat down at the table facing Kitty; the elder woman, with a civil freedom, addressed her some commonplace, and the four were presently in lively talk; for Kitty had beamed upon the woman in return, having already longed to know something of them. The world was so fresh to her, that she could find delight in those poor singing or acting folk, though she had soon to own to herself that their talk was not very witty nor very wise, and that the best thing about them was their good-nature. The colonel sat at the end of the table with a newspaper; Mrs. Ellison had gone to bed; and Kitty was beginning to tire of her new acquaintance, and to wonder how she could get away from them, when she saw rescue in the eye of Mr. Arbuton as he came down to the cabin. She knew he was looking for her; she saw him check himself with a start of recognition; then he walked rapidly by the group, without glancing at them. "Brrrr!" said the blond girl, drawing her blue knit shawl about her shoulders, "isn't it cold?" and she and her friends laughed. "O dear!" thought Kitty, "I didn't suppose they were so rude. I'm afraid I must say good night," she added aloud, after a little, and stole away the most conscience-stricken creature on that boat. She heard those people laugh again after she left them. IV. MR. ARBUTON'S INSPIRATION. The next morning, when Mr. Arbuton awoke, he found a clear light upon the world that he had left wrapped in fog at midnight. A heavy gale was blowing, and the wide river was running in seas that made the boat stagger in her course, and now and then struck her bows with a force that sent the spray from their seething tops into the faces of the people on the promenade. The sun, out of rifts of the breaking clouds, launched broad splendors across the villages and farms of the level landscape and the crests and hollows of the waves; and a certain joy of the air penetrated to the guarded consciousness of Mr. Arbuton. Involuntarily he looked about for the people he meant to have nothing more to do with, that he might appeal to the sympathies of one of them, at least, in his sense of such an admirable morning. But a great many passengers had come on board, during the night, at Murray Bay, where the brief season was ending, and their number hid the Ellisons from him. When he went to breakfast, he found some one had taken his seat near them, and they did not notice him as he passed by in search of another chair. Kitty and the colonel were at table alone, and they both wore preoccupied faces. After breakfast he sought them out and asked for Mrs. Ellison, who had shared in most of the excitements of the day before, helping herself about with a pretty limp, and who certainly had not, as her husband phrased it, kept any of the meals waiting. "Why," said the colonel, "I'm afraid her ankle's worse this morning, and that we'll have to lie by at Quebec for a few days, at any rate." Mr. Arbuton heard this sad news with a cheerful aspect unaccountable in one who was concerned at Mrs. Ellison's misfortune. He smiled, when he ought to have looked pensive, and he laughed at the colonel's joke when the latter added, "Of course, this is a great hardship for my cousin, who hates Quebec, and wants to get home to Eriecreek as soon as possible." Kitty promised to bear her trials with firmness, and Mr. Arbuton said, not very consequently, as she thought, "I had been planning to spend a few days in Quebec, myself, and I shall have the opportunity of inquiring about Mrs. Ellison's convalescence. In fact," he added, turning to the colonel, "I hope you'll let me be of service to you in getting to a hotel." And when the boat landed, Mr. Arbuton actually busied himself in finding a carriage and putting the various Ellison wraps and bags into it. Then he helped to support Mrs. Ellison ashore, and to lift her to the best place. He raised his hat, and had good-morning on his tongue, when the astonished colonel called out, "Why, the deuce! You're going to ride up with us!" Mr. Arbuton thought he had better get another carriage; he should incommode Mrs. Ellison; but Mrs. Ellison protested that he would not at all; and, to cut the matter short, he mounted to the colonel's side. It was another stroke of fate. At the hotel they found a line of people reaching half-way down the outer steps from the inside of the office. "Hallo! what's this?" asked the colonel of the last man in the queue. "O, it's a little procession to the hotel register! We've been three quarters of an hour in passing a given point," said the man, who was plainly a fellow-citizen. "And haven't got by yet," said the colonel, taking to the speaker. "Then the house is full?" "Well, no; they haven't begun to throw them out of the window." "His humor is degenerating, Dick," said Kitty; and "Hadn't you better go inside and inquire?" asked Mrs. Ellison. It was part of the Ellison travelling joke for her thus to prompt the colonel in his duty. "I'm glad you mentioned it, Fanny. I was just going to drive off in despair." The colonel vanished within doors, and after long delay came out flushed, but not with triumph. "On the express condition that I have ladies with me, one an invalid, I am promised a room on the fifth floor some time during the day. They tell me the other hotel is crammed and it's no use to go there." Mrs. Ellison was ready to weep, and for the first time since her accident she harbored some bitterness against Mr. Arbuton. They all sat silent, and the colonel on the sidewalk silently wiped his brow. Mr. Arbuton, in the poverty of his invention, wondered if there was not some lodging-house where they could find shelter. "Of course there is," cried Mrs. Ellison, beaming upon her hero, and calling Kitty's attention to his ingenuity by a pressure with her well foot. "Richard, we must look up a boarding-house." "Do you know of any good boarding-houses?" asked the colonel of the driver, mechanically. "Plenty," answered the man. "Well, drive us to twenty or thirty first-class ones," commanded the colonel; and the search began. The colonel first asked prices and looked at rooms, and if he pronounced any apartment unsuitable, Kitty was despatched by Mrs. Ellison to view it and refute him. As often as she confirmed him, Mrs. Ellison was sure that they were both too fastidious, and they never turned away from a door but they closed the gates of paradise upon that afflicted lady. She began to believe that they should find no place whatever, when at last they stopped before a portal so unboarding-house-like in all outward signs, that she maintained it was of no use to ring, and imparted so much of her distrust to the colonel that, after ringing, he prefaced his demand for rooms with an apology for supposing that there were rooms to let there. Then, after looking at them, he returned to the carriage and reported that the whole affair was perfect, and that he should look no farther. Mrs. Ellison replied that she never could trust his judgment, he was so careless. Kitty inspected the premises, and came back in a transport that alarmed the worst fears of Mrs. Ellison. She was sure that they had better look farther, she knew there were plenty of nicer places. Even if the rooms were nice and the situation pleasant, she was certain that there must be some drawbacks which they did not know of yet. Whereupon her husband lifted her from the carriage, and bore her, without reply or comment of any kind, into the house. Throughout the search Mr. Arbuton had been making up his mind that he would part with his friends as soon as they found lodgings, give the day to Quebec, and take the evening train for Gorham, thus escaping the annoyances of a crowded hotel, and ending at once an acquaintance which he ought never to have let go so far. As long as the Ellisons were without shelter, he felt that it was due to himself not to abandon them. But even now that they were happily housed, had he done all that nobility obliged? He stood irresolute beside the carriage. "Won't you come up and see where we live?" asked Kitty, hospitably. "I shall be very glad," said Mr. Arbuton. "My dear fellow," said the colonel, in the parlor, "I didn't engage a room for you. I supposed you'd rather take your chances at the hotel." "O, I'm going away to-night." "Why, that's a pity!" "Yes, I've no fancy for a cot-bed in the hotel parlor. But I don't quite like to leave you here, after bringing this calamity upon you." "O, don't mention that! I was the only one to blame. We shall get on splendidly here." Mr. Arbuton suffered a vague disappointment. At the bottom of his heart was a formless hope that he might in some way be necessary to the Ellisons in their adversity; or if not that, then that something might entangle him further and compel his stay. But they seemed quite equal in themselves to the situation; they were in far more comfortable quarters than they could have hoped for, and plainly should want for nothing; Fortune put on a smiling face, and bade him go free of them. He fancied it a mocking smile, though, as he stood an instant silently weighing one thing against another. The colonel was patiently waiting his motion; Mrs. Ellison sat watching him from the sofa; Kitty moved about the room with averted face,--a pretty domestic presence, a household priestess ordering the temporary Penates. Mr. Arbuton opened his lips to say farewell, but a god spoke through them,--inconsequently, as the gods for the most part do, saying, "Besides, I suppose you've got all the rooms here." "O, as to that I don't know," answered the colonel, not recognizing the language of inspiration, "let's ask." Kitty knocked a photograph-book off the table, and Mrs. Ellison said, "Why, Kitty!" But nothing more was spoken till the landlady came. She had another room, but doubted if it would answer. It was in the attic, and was a back room, though it had a pleasant outlook. Mr. Arbuton had no doubt that it would do very well for the day or two he was going to stay, and took it hastily, without going to look at it. He had his valise carried up at once, and then he went to the post-office to see if he had any letters, offering to ask also for Colonel Ellison. Kitty stole off to explore the chamber given her at the rear of the house; that is to say, she opened the window looking out on what their hostess told her was the garden of the Ursuline Convent, and stood there in a mute transport. A black cross rose in the midst, and all about this wandered the paths and alleys of the garden, through clumps of lilac-bushes and among the spires of hollyhocks. The grounds were enclosed by high walls in part, and in part by the group of the convent edifices, built of gray stone, high gabled, and topped by dormer-windowed steep roofs of tin, which, under the high morning sun, lay an expanse of keenest splendor, while many a grateful shadow dappled the full-foliaged garden below. Two slim, tall poplars stood against the gable of the chapel, and shot their tops above its roof, and under a porch near them two nuns sat motionless in the sun, black-robed, with black veils falling over their shoulders, and their white faces lost in the white linen that draped them from breast to crown. Their hands lay quiet in their laps, and they seemed unconscious of the other nuns walking in the garden-paths with little children, their pupils, and answering their laughter from time to time with voices as simple and innocent as their own. Kitty looked down upon them all with a swelling heart. They were but figures in a beautiful picture of something old and poetical; but she loved them, and pitied them, and was most happy in them, the same as if they had been real. It could not be that they and she were in the same world: she must be dreaming over a book in Charley's room at Eriecreek. She shaded her eyes for a better look, when the noonday gun boomed from the citadel; the bell upon the chapel jangled harshly, and those strange maskers, those quaint black birds with white breasts and faces, flocked indoors. At the same time a small dog under her window howled dolorously at the jangling of the bell; and Kitty, with an impartial joy, turned from the pensive romance of the convent garden to the mild comedy of the scene to which his woeful note attracted her. When he had uttered his anguish, he relapsed into the quietest small French dog that ever was, and lay down near a large, tranquil cat, whom neither the bell nor he had been able to stir from her slumbers in the sun; a peasant-like old man kept on sawing wood, and a little child stood still amidst the larkspurs and marigolds of a tiny garden, while over the flower-pots on the low window-sill of the neighboring house to which it belonged, a young, motherly face gazed peacefully out. The great extent of the convent grounds had left this poor garden scarce breathing-space for its humble blooms; with the low paling fence that separated it from the adjoining house-yards it looked like a toy-garden or the background of a puppet-show, and in its way it was as quaintly unreal to the young girl as the nunnery itself. When she saw it first, the city's walls and other warlike ostentations had taken her imagination with the historic grandeur of Quebec; but the fascination deepened now that she was admitted, as it were, to the religious heart and the domestic privacy of the famous old town. She was romantic, as most good young girls are; and she had the same pleasure in the strangeness of the things about her as she would have felt in the keeping of a charming story. To Fanny's "Well, Kitty, I suppose all this just suits you," when she had returned to the little parlor where the sufferer lay, she answered with a sigh of irrepressible content, "O yes! could anything be more beautiful?" and her enraptured eye dwelt upon the low ceilings, the deep, wide chimneys eloquent of the mighty fires with which they must roar in winter, the French windows with their curious and clumsy fastenings, and every little detail that made the place alien and precious. Fanny broke into a laugh at the visionary absence in her face. "Do you think the place is good enough for your hero and heroine?" asked she, slyly; for Kitty had one of those family reputes, so hard to survive, for childish attempts of her own in the world of fiction where so great part of her life had been passed; and Mrs. Ellison, who was as unliterary a soul as ever breathed, admired her with the heartiness which unimaginative people often feel for their idealizing friends, and believed that she was always deep in the mysteries of some plot. "O, I don't know," Kitty answered with a little color, "about heroes and heroines; but, I'd like to live here, myself. Yes," she continued, rather to herself than to her listener, "I do believe this is what I was made for. I've always wanted to live amongst old things, in a stone house with dormer-windows. Why, there isn't a single dormer-window in Eriecreek, nor even a brick house, let alone a stone one. O yes, indeed! I was meant for an old country." "Well, then, Kitty, I don't see what you're to do but to marry East and live East; or else find a rich husband, and get him to take you to Europe to live." "Yes; or get him to come and live in Quebec. That's all I'd ask, and he needn't be a very rich man, for that." "Why, you poor child, what sort of husband could you get to settle down in _this_ dead old place?" "O, I suppose some kind of artist or literary man." This was not Mrs. Ellison's notion of the kind of husband who was to realize for Kitty her fancy for life in an old country; but she was content to let the matter rest for the present, and, in a serene thankfulness to the power that had brought two marriageable young creatures together beneath the same roof, and under her own observance, she composed herself among the sofa-cushions, from which she meant to conduct the campaign against Mr. Arbuton with relentless vigor. "Well," she said, "it won't be fair if you are not happy in this world, Kitty, you ask so little of it"; while Kitty turned to the window overlooking the street, and lost herself in the drama of the passing figures below. They were new, and yet oddly familiar, for she had long known them in the realm of romance. The peasant-women who went by, in hats of felt or straw, some on foot with baskets, and some in their light market-carts, were all, in their wrinkled and crooked age or their fresh-faced, strong-limbed youth, her friends since childhood in many a tale of France or Germany; and the black-robed priests, who mixed with the passers on the narrow wooden sidewalk, and now and then courteously gave way, or lifted their wide-rimmed hats in a grave, smiling salutation, were more recent acquaintances, but not less intimate. They were out of old romances about Italy and Spain, in which she was very learned; and this butcher's boy, tilting along through the crowd with a half-staggering run, was from any one of Dickens's stories, and she divined that the four-armed wooden trough on his shoulder was the butcher's tray, which figures in every novelist's description of a London street-crowd. There were many other types, as French mothers of families with market-baskets on their arms; very pretty French school-girls with books under their arms; wild-looking country boys with red raspberries in birch-bark measures; and quiet gliding nuns with white hoods and downcast faces: each of whom she unerringly relegated to an appropriate corner of her world of unreality. A young, mild-faced, spectacled Anglican curate she did not give a moment's pause, but rushed him instantly through the whole series of Anthony Trollope's novels, which dull books, I am sorry to say, she had read, and liked, every one; and then she began to find various people astray out of Thackeray. The trig corporal, with the little visorless cap worn so jauntily, the light stick carried in one hand, and the broad-sealed official document in the other, had also, in his breast-pocket, one of those brief, infrequent missives which Lieutenant Osborne used to send to poor Amelia; a tall, awkward officer did duty for Major Dobbin; and when a very pretty lady driving a pony carriage, with a footman in livery on the little perch behind her, drew rein beside the pavement, and a handsome young captain in a splendid uniform saluted her and began talking with her in a languid, affected way, it was Osborne recreant to the thought of his betrothed, one of whose tender letters he kept twirling in his fingers while he talked. Most of the people whom she saw passing had letters or papers, and, in fact, they were coming from the post-office, where the noonday mails had just been opened. So she went on turning substance into shadow,--unless, indeed, flesh and blood is the illusion,--and, as I am bound to own, catching at very slight pretexts in many cases for the exercise of her sorcery, when her eye fell upon a gentleman at a little distance. At the same moment he raised his eyes from a letter at which he had been glancing, and ran them along the row of houses opposite, till they rested on the window at which she stood. Then he smiled and lifted his hat, and, with a start, she recognized Mr. Arbuton, while a certain chill struck to her heart through the tumult she felt there. Till he saw her there had been such a cold reserve and hauteur in his bearing, that the trepidation which she had felt about him at times, the day before, and which had worn quite away under the events of the morning, was renewed again, and the aspect, in which he had been so strange that she did not know him, seemed the only one that he had ever worn. This effect lasted till Mr. Arbuton could find his way to her, and place in her eager hand a letter from the girls and Dr. Ellison. She forgot it then, and vanished till she read her letter. V. MR. ARBUTON MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE. The first care of Colonel Ellison had been to call a doctor, and to know the worst about the sprained ankle, upon which his plans had fallen lame; and the worst was that it was not a bad sprain, but Mrs. Ellison, having been careless of it the day before, had aggravated the hurt, and she must now have that perfect rest, which physicians prescribe so recklessly of other interests and duties, for a week at least, and possibly two or three. The colonel was still too much a soldier to be impatient at the doctor's order, but he was of far too active a temper to be quiet under it. He therefore proposed to himself nothing less than the capture of Quebec in an historical sense, and even before dinner he began to prepare for the campaign. He sallied forth, and descended upon the bookstores wherever he found them lurking, in whatsoever recess of the Upper or Lower Town, and returned home laden with guide-books to Quebec, and monographs upon episodes of local history, such as are produced in great quantity by the semi-clerical literary taste of out-of-the-way Catholic capitals. The colonel (who had gone actively into business, after leaving the army, at the close of the war) had always a newspaper somewhere about him, but he was not a reader of many books. Of the volumes in the doctor's library, he had never in former days willingly opened any but the plays of Shakespeare, and Don Quixote, long passages of which he knew by heart. He had sometimes attempted other books, but for the most of Kitty's favorite authors he professed as frank a contempt as for the Mound-Builders themselves. He had read one book of travel, namely, The Innocents Abroad, which he held to be so good a book that he need never read anything else about the countries of which it treated. When he brought in this extraordinary collection of pamphlets, both Kitty and Fanny knew what to expect; for the colonel was as ready to receive literature at second-hand as to avoid its original sources. He had in this way picked up a great deal of useful knowledge, and he was famous for clipping from newspapers scraps of instructive fact, all of which he relentlessly remembered. He had already a fair outline of the local history in his mind, and this had been deepened and freshened by Dr. Ellison's recent talk of his historical studies. Moreover, he had secured in the course of the present journey, from his wife's and cousin's reading of divers guide-books, a new store of names and dates, which he desired to attach to the proper localities with their help. "Light reading for leisure hours, Fanny," said Kitty, looking askance at the colonel's literature as she sat down near her cousin after dinner. "Yes; and you start fair, ladies. Start with Jacques Cartier, ancient mariner of Dieppe, in the year 1535. No favoritism in this investigation; no bringing forward of Champlain or Montcalm prematurely; no running off on subsequent conquests or other side-issues. Stick to the discovery, and the names of Jacques Cartier and Donnacona. Come, do something for an honest living." "Who was Donnacona?" demanded Mrs. Ellison, with indifference. "That is just what these fascinating little volumes will tell us. Kitty, read something to your suffering cousins about Donnacona,--he sounds uncommonly like an Irishman," answered the colonel, establishing himself in an easy-chair; and Kitty picked up a small sketch of the history of Quebec, and, opening it, fell into the trance which came upon her at the touch of a book, and read on for some pages to herself. "Well, upon my word," said the colonel, "I might as well be reading about Donnacona myself, for any comfort I get." "O Dick, I forgot. I was just looking. Now I'm really going to commence." "No, not yet," cried Mrs. Ellison, rising on her elbow. "Where is Mr. Arbuton?" "What has he to do with Donnacona, my dear?" "Everything. You know he's stayed on our account, and I never heard of anything so impolite, so inhospitable, as offering to read without him. Go and call him, Richard, do." "O, no," pleaded Kitty, "he won't care about it. Don't call him, Dick." "Why, Kitty, I'm surprised at you! When you read so beautifully! Yon needn't be ashamed, I'm sure." "I'm not ashamed; but, at the same time, I don't want to read to him." "Well, call him any way, colonel. He's in his room." "If you do," said Kitty, with superfluous dignity, "I must go away." "Very well, Kitty, just as you please. Only I want Richard to witness that I'm not to blame if Mr. Arbuton thinks us unfeeling or neglectful." "O, if he doesn't say what he thinks, it'll make no difference." "It seems to me that this is a good deal of fuss to make about one human being, a mere passing man and brother of a day, isn't it?" said the colonel. "Go on with Donnacona, do." There came a knock at the door. Kitty leaped nervously to her feet, and fled out of the room. But it was only the little French serving-maid upon some errand which she quickly despatched. "Well, _now_ what do you think?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "Why, I think you've a surprising knowledge of French for one who studied it at school. Do you suppose she understood you?" "O, nonsense! You know I mean Kitty and her very queer behavior. Richard, if you moon at me in that stupid way," she continued, "I shall certainly end in an insane asylum. Can't you see what's under your very nose?" "Yes, I can, Fanny," answered the colonel, "if anything's there. But I give you my word, I don't know any more than millions yet unborn what you're driving at." The colonel took up the book which Kitty had thrown down, and went to his room to try to read up Donnacona for himself, while his wife penitently turned to a pamphlet in French, which he had bought with the others. "After all," she thought, "men will be men"; and seemed not to find the fact wholly wanting in consolation. A few minutes after there was a murmur of voices in the entry without, at a window looking upon the convent garden, where it happened to Mr. Arbuton, descending from his attic chamber, to find Kitty standing, a pretty shape against the reflected light of the convent roofs, and amidst a little greenery of house-plants, tall geraniums, an overarching ivy, some delicate roses. She had paused there, on her way from Fanny's to her own room, and was looking into the garden, where a pair of silent nuns were pacing up and down the paths, turning now their backs with the heavy sable coiffure sweeping their black robes, and now their still, mask-like faces, set in that stiff framework of white linen. Sometimes they came so near that she could distinguish their features, and imagine an expression that she should know if she saw them again; and while she stood self-forgetfully feigning a character for each of them, Mr. Arbuton spoke to her and took his place at her side. "We're remarkably favored in having this bit of opera under our windows, Miss Ellison," he said, and smiled as Kitty answered, "O, is it really like an opera? I never saw one, but I could imagine it must be beautiful," and they both looked on in silence a moment, while the nuns moved, shadow-like, out of the garden, and left it empty. Then Mr. Arbuton said something to which Kitty answered simply, "I'll see if my cousin doesn't want me," and presently stood beside Mrs. Ellison's sofa, a little conscious in color. "Fanny, Mr. Arbuton has asked me to go and see the cathedral with him. Do you think it would be right?" Mrs. Ellison's triumphant heart rose to her lips. "Why, you dear, particular, innocent little goose," she cried, flinging her arms about Kitty, and kissing her till the young girl blushed again; "of course it would! Go! You mustn't stay mewed up in here. _I_ sha'n't be able to go about with you; and if I can judge by the colonel's _breathing_, as he calls it, from the room in there, _he_ won't, at present. But the idea of _your_ having a question of propriety!" And indeed it was the first time Kitty had ever had such a thing, and the remembrance of it put a kind of constraint upon her, as she strolled demurely beside Mr. Arbuton towards the cathedral. "You must be guide," said he, "for this is my first day in Quebec, you know, and you are an old inhabitant in comparison." "I'll show the way," she answered, "if you'll interpret the sights. I think I must be stranger to them than you, in spite of my long residence. Sometimes I'm afraid that I _do_ only fancy I enjoy these things, as Mrs. March said, for I've no European experiences to contrast them with. I know that it _seems_ very delightful, though, and quite like what I should expect in Europe." "You'd expect very little of Europe, then, in most things; though there's no disputing that it's a very pretty illusion of the Old World." A few steps had brought them into the market-square in front of the cathedral, where a little belated traffic still lingered in the few old peasant-women hovering over baskets of such fruits and vegetables as had long been out of season in the States, and the housekeepers and serving-maids cheapening these wares. A sentry moved mechanically up and down before the high portal of the Jesuit Barracks, over the arch of which were still the letters I. H. S. carved long ago upon the keystone; and the ancient edifice itself, with its yellow stucco front and its grated windows, had every right to be a monastery turned barracks in France or Italy. A row of quaint stone houses--inns and shops--formed the upper side of the Square; while the modern buildings of the Rue Fabrique on the lower side might serve very well for that show of improvement which deepens the sentiment of the neighboring antiquity and decay in Latin towns. As for the cathedral, which faced the convent from across the Square, it was as cold and torpid a bit of Renaissance as could be found in Rome itself. A red-coated soldier or two passed through the Square; three or four neat little French policemen lounged about in blue uniforms and flaring havelocks; some walnut-faced, blue-eyed old citizens and peasants sat upon the thresholds of the row of old houses, and gazed dreamily through the smoke of their pipes at the slight stir and glitter of shopping about the fine stores of the Rue Fabrique. An air of serene disoccupation pervaded the place, with which the occasional riot of the drivers of the long row of calashes and carriages in front of the cathedral did not discord. Whenever a stray American wandered into the Square, there was a wild flight of these drivers towards him, and his person was lost to sight amidst their pantomime. They did not try to underbid each other, and they were perfectly good-humored; as soon as he had made his choice, the rejected multitude returned to their places on the curbstone, pursuing the successful aspirant with inscrutable jokes as he drove off, while the horses went on munching the contents of their leathern head-bags, and tossing them into the air to shake down the lurking grains of corn. "It _is_ like Europe; your friends were right," said Mr. Arbuton as they escaped into the cathedral from one of these friendly onsets. "It's quite the atmosphere of foreign travel, and you ought to be able to realize the feelings of a tourist." A priest was saying mass at one of the side-altars, assisted by acolytes in their every-day clothes; and outside of the railing a market-woman, with a basket of choke-cherries, knelt among a few other poor people. Presently a young English couple came in, he with a dashing India scarf about his hat, and she very stylishly dressed, who also made their genuflections with the rest, and then sat down and dropped their heads in prayer. "This is like enough Europe, too," murmured Mr. Arbuton. "It's very good North Italy; or South, for the matter of that." "O, is it?" answered Kitty, joyously. "I thought it must be!" And she added, in that trustful way of hers: "It's all very familiar; but then it seems to me on this journey that I've seen a great many things that I know I've only read of before"; and so followed Mr. Arbuton in his tour of the pictures. She was as ignorant of art as any Roman or Florentine girl whose life has been passed in the midst of it; and she believed these mighty fine pictures, and was puzzled by Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards them, who was too little imaginative or too conscientious to make merit for them out of the things they suggested. He treated the poor altar-pieces of the Quebec cathedral with the same harsh indifference he would have shown to the second-rate paintings of a European gallery; doubted the Vandyck, and cared nothing for the Conception, "in the style of Le Brun," over the high-altar, though it had the historical interest of having survived that bombardment of 1759 which destroyed the church. Kitty innocently singled out the worst picture in the place as her favorite, and then was piqued, and presently frightened, at his cold reluctance about it. He made her feel that it was very bad, and that she shared its inferiority, though he said nothing to that effect. She learned the shame of not being a connoisseur in a connoisseur's company, and she perceived more painfully than ever before that a Bostonian, who had been much in Europe, might be very uncomfortable to the simple, unravelled American. Yet, she reminded herself, the Marches had been in Europe, and they were Bostonians also; and they did not go about putting everything under foot; they seemed to care for everything they saw, and to have a friendly jest, if not praises, for it. She liked that; she would have been well enough pleased to have Mr. Arbuton laugh outright at her picture, and she could have joined him in it. But the look, however flattered into an air of polite question at last, which he had bent upon her, seemed to outlaw her and condemn her taste in everything. As they passed out of the cathedral, she would rather have gone home than continued the walk as he begged her, if she were not tired, to do; but this would have been flight, and she was not a coward. So they sauntered down the Rue Fabrique, and turned into Palace Street. As they went by the door of Hôtel Musty, her pleasant friends came again into her mind, and she said, "This is where we stayed last week, with Mr. and Mrs. March." "Those Boston people?" "Yes." "Do you know where they live in Boston?" "Why, we have their address; but I can't think of it. I believe somewhere in the southern part of the city--" "The South End?" "O yes, that's it. Have you ever heard of them?" "No." "I thought perhaps you might have known Mr. March. He's in the insurance business--" "O no! No, I don't know him," said Mr. Arbuton, eagerly. Kitty wondered if there could be anything wrong with the business repute of Mr. March, but dismissed the thought as unworthy; and having perceived that her friends were snubbed, she said bravely, that they were the most delightful people she had ever seen, and she was sorry that they were not still in Quebec. He shared her regret tacitly, if at all, and they walked in silence to the gate, whence they strolled down the winding street outside the wall into the Lower Town. But it was not a pleasant ramble for Kitty: she was in a dim dread of hitherto unseen and unimagined trespasses against good taste, not only in pictures and people, but in all life, which, from having been a very smiling prospect when she set out with Mr. Arbuton, had suddenly become a narrow pathway, in which one must pick one's way with more regard to each step than any general end. All this was as obscure and uncertain as the intimations which had produced it, and which, in words, had really amounted to nothing. But she felt more and more that in her companion there was something wholly alien to the influences which had shaped her; and though she could not know how much, she was sure of enough to make her dreary in his presence. They wandered through the quaintness and noiseless bustle of the Lower Town thoroughfares, and came by and by to that old church, the oldest in Quebec, which was built near two hundred years ago, in fulfilment of a vow made at the repulse of Sir William Phipps's attack upon the city, and further famed for the prophecy of a nun, that this church should be ruined by the fire in which a successful attempt of the English was yet to involve the Lower Town. A painting, which represented the vision of the nun, perished in the conflagration which verified it, in 1759; but the walls of the ancient structure remain to witness this singular piece of history, which Kitty now glanced at furtively in one of the colonel's guide-books; since her ill-fortune with the picture in the cathedral, she had not openly cared for anything. At one side of the church there was a booth for the sale of crockery and tin ware; and there was an every-day cheerfulness of small business in the shops and tented stands about the square on which the church faced, and through which there was continual passing of heavy burdens from the port, swift calashes, and slow, country-paced market-carts. Mr. Arbuton made no motion to enter the church, and Kitty would not hint the curiosity she felt to see the interior; and while they lingered a moment, the door opened, and a peasant came out with a little coffin in his arms. His eyes were dim and his face wet with weeping, and he bore the little coffin tenderly, as if his caress might reach the dead child within. Behind him she came who must be the mother, her face deeply hidden in her veil. Beside the pavement waited a shabby calash, with a driver half asleep on his perch; and the man, still clasping his precious burden, clambered into the vehicle, and laid it upon his knees, while the woman groped, through her tears and veil, for the step. Kitty and her companion had moved reverently aside; but now Mr. Arbuton came forward, and helped the woman to her place. She gave him a hoarse, sad "_Merci!_" and spread a fold of her shawl fondly over the end of the little coffin; the drowsy driver whipped up his beast, and the calash jolted away. Kitty cast a grateful glance upon Mr. Arbuton, as they now entered the church, by a common impulse. On their way towards the high-altar they passed the rude black bier, with the tallow candles yet smoking in their black wooden candlesticks. A few worshippers were dropped here and there in the vacant seats, and at a principal side-altar knelt a poor woman praying before a wooden effigy of the dead Christ that lay in a glass case under the altar. The image was of life-size, and was painted to represent life, or rather death, with false hair and beard, and with the muslin drapery managed to expose the stigmata: it was stretched upon a bed strewn with artificial flowers; and it was dreadful. But the poor soul at her devotions there prayed to it in an ecstasy of supplication, flinging her arms asunder with imploring gesture, clasping her hands and bowing her head upon them, while her person swayed from side to side in the abandon of her prayer. Who could she be, and what was her mighty need of blessing or forgiveness? As her wont was, Kitty threw her own soul into the imagined case of the suppliant, the tragedy of her desire or sorrow. Yet, like all who suffer sympathetically, she was not without consolations unknown to the principal; and the waning afternoon, as it lit up the conventional ugliness of the old church, and the paraphernalia of its worship, relieved her emotional self-abandon with a remote sense of content, so that it may have been a jealousy for the integrity of her own revery, as well as a feeling for the poor woman, that made her tremble lest Mr. Arbuton should in some way disparage the spectacle. I suppose that her interest in it was more an aesthetic than a spiritual one; it embodied to her sight many a scene of penitence that had played before her fancy, and I do not know but she would have been willing to have the suppliant guilty of some dreadful misdeed, rather than eating meat last Friday, which was probably her sin. However it was, the ancient crone before that ghastly idol was precious to her, and it seemed too great a favor, when at last the suppliant wiped her eyes, rose trembling from her knees, and approaching Kitty, stretched towards her a shaking palm for charity. It was a touch that transfigured all, and gave even Mr. Arbuton's neutrality a light of ideal character. He bestowed the alms craved of him in turn, he did not repulse the beldame's blessing; and Kitty, who was already moved by his kindness to that poor mourner at the door, forgot that the earlier part of their walk had been so miserable, and climbed back to the Upper Town through the Prescott Gate in greater gayety than she had yet known that day in his company. I think he had not done much to make her cheerful; but it is one of the advantages of a temperament like his, that very little is expected of it, and that it can more easily than any other make the human heart glad; at the least softening in it, the soul frolics with a craven lightsomeness. For this reason Kitty was able to enjoy with novel satisfaction the picturesqueness of Mountain Street, and they both admired the huge shoulder of rock near the gate, with its poplars atop, and the battery at the brink, with the muzzles of the guns thrust forward against the sky. She could not move him to her pleasure in the grotesqueness of the circus-bills plastered half-way up the rock; but he tolerated the levity with which she commented on them, and her light sallies upon passing things, and he said nothing to prevent her reaching home in serene satisfaction. "Well, Kitty," said the tenant of the sofa, as Kitty and the colonel drew up to the table on which the tea was laid at the sofa-side, "you've had a nice walk, haven't you?" "O yes, very nice. That is, the first part of it wasn't very nice; but after a while we reached an old church in the Lower Town,--which was very interesting,--and then we appeared to cheer up and take a new start." "Well," asked the colonel, "what did you find so interesting at that old church?" "Why, there was a baby's funeral; and an old woman, perfectly crushed by some trouble or other, praying before an altar, and--" "It seems to take very little to cheer you up," said the colonel. "All you ask of your fellow-beings is a heart-breaking bereavement and a religious agony, and you are lively at once. _Some_ people might require human sacrifices, but you don't." Kitty looked at her cousin a moment with vague amaze. The grossness of the absurdity flashed upon her, and she felt as if another touch must bring the tears. She said nothing; but Mrs. Ellison, who saw only that she was cut off from her heart's desire of gossip, came to the rescue. "Don't answer a word, Kitty, not a single word; I never heard anything more insulting from one cousin to another; and I should say it, if I was brought into a court of justice." A sudden burst of laughter from Kitty, who hid her conscious face in her hands, interrupted Mrs. Ellison's defence. "Well," said Mrs. Ellison, piqued at her desertion, "I hope you understand yourselves. _I_ don't." This was Mrs. Ellison's attitude towards her husband's whole family, who on their part never had been able to account for the colonel's choice except as a joke, and sometimes questioned if he had not perhaps carried the joke too far; though they loved her too, for a kind of passionate generosity and sublime, inconsequent unselfishness about her. "What I want to know, _now_," said the colonel, as soon as Kitty would let him, "and I'll try to put it as politely as I can, is simply this: what made the first part of your walk so disagreeable? You didn't see a wedding-party, or a child rescued from a horrible death, or a man saved from drowning, or anything of that kind, did you?" But the colonel would have done better not to say anything. His wife was made peevish by his persistence, and the loss of the harmless pleasure upon which she had counted in the history of Kitty's walk with Mr. Arbuton. Kitty herself would not laugh again; in fact she grew serious and thoughtful, and presently took up a book, and after that went to her own room, where she stood awhile at her window, and looked out on the garden of the Ursulines. The moon hung full orb in the stainless heaven, and deepened the mystery of the paths and trees, and lit the silvery roofs and chimneys of the convent with tender effulgence. A wandering odor of leaf and flower stole up from the garden, but she perceived the sweetness, like the splendor, with veiled senses. She was turning over in her thought the incidents of her walk, and trying to make out if anything had really happened, first to provoke her against Mr. Arbuton, and then to reconcile her to him. Had he said or done anything about her favorite painting (which she hated now), or the Marches, to offend her? Or if it had been his tone and manner, was his after-conduct at the old church sufficient penance? What was it he had done that common humanity did not require? Was he so very superior to common humanity, that she should meekly rejoice at his kindness to the afflicted mother? Why need she have cared for his forbearance toward the rapt devotee? She became aware that she was ridiculous. "Dick was right," she confessed, "and I will _not_ let myself be made a goose of"; and when the bugle at the citadel called the soldiers to rest, and the harsh chapel-bell bade the nuns go dream of heaven, she also fell asleep, a smile on her lips and a light heart in her breast. VI. A LETTER OF KITTY'S. Quebec, August --, 1870. Dear Girls: Since the letter I wrote you a day or two after we got here, we have been going on very much as you might have expected. A whole week has passed, but we still bear our enforced leisure with fortitude; and, though Boston and New York are both fading into the improbable (as far as we are concerned), Quebec continues inexhaustible, and I don't begrudge a moment of the time we are giving it. Fanny still keeps her sofa; the first enthusiasm of her affliction has worn away, and she has nothing to sustain her now but planning our expeditions about the city. She has got the map and the history of Quebec by heart, and she holds us to the literal fulfilment of her instructions. On this account, she often has to send Dick and me out together when she would like to keep him with her, for she won't trust either of us alone, and when we come back she examines us separately to see whether we have skipped anything. This makes us faithful in the smallest things. She says she is determined that Uncle Jack shall have a full and circumstantial report from me of all that he wants to know about the celebrated places here, and I really think he will, if I go on, or am goaded on, in this way. It's pure devotion to the cause in Fanny, for you know she doesn't care for such things herself, and has no pleasure in it but carrying a point. Her chief consolation under her trial of keeping still is to see how I look in her different dresses. She sighs over me as I appear in a new garment, and says, O, if she only had the dressing of me! Then she gets up and limps and hops across the room to where I stand before the glass, and puts a pin here and a ribbon there, and gives my hair (which she has dressed herself) a little dab, to make it lie differently, and then scrambles back to her sofa, and knocks her lame ankle against something, and lies there groaning and enjoying herself like a martyr. On days when she thinks she is never going to get well, she says she doesn't know why she doesn't give me her things at once and be done with it; and on days when she thinks she is going to get well right away, she says she will have me one made something like whatever dress I have got on, as soon as she's home. Then up she'll jump again for the exact measure, and tell me the history of every stitch, and how she'll have it altered just the least grain, and differently trimmed to suit my complexion better; and ends by having promised to get me something not in the least like it. You have some idea already of what Fanny is; and all you have got to do is to multiply it by about fifty thousand. Her sprained ankle simply intensifies her whole character. Besides helping to compose Fanny's expeditionary corps, and really exerting himself in the cause of Uncle Jack, as he calls it, Dick is behaving beautifully. Every morning, after breakfast, he goes over to the hotel, and looks at the arrivals and reads the newspapers, and though we never get anything out of him afterwards, we somehow feel informed of all that is going on. He has taken to smoking a clay pipe in honor of the Canadian fashion, and he wears a gay, barbaric scarf of Indian muslin wound round his hat and flying out behind; because the Quebeckers protect themselves in that way against sunstroke when the thermometer gets up among the sixties. He has also bought a pair of snow-shoes to be prepared for the other extreme of weather, in case anything else should happen to Fanny, and detain us into the winter. When he has rested from his walk to the hotel, we usually go out together and explore, as we do also in the afternoon; and in the evening we walk on Durham Terrace,--a promenade overlooking the river, where the whole cramped and crooked city goes for exercise. It's a formal parade in the evening; but one morning I went there before breakfast, for a change, and found it the resort of careless ease; two or three idle boys were sunning themselves on the carriages of the big guns that stand on the Terrace, a little dog was barking at the chimneys of the Lower Town, and an old gentleman was walking up and down in his dressing-gown and slippers, just as if it were his own front porch. He looked something like Uncle Jack, and I wished it had been he,--to see the smoke curling softly up from the Lower Town, the bustle about the market-place, and the shipping in the river, and the haze hanging over the water a little way off, and the near hills all silver, and the distant ones blue. But if we are coming to the grand and the beautiful, why, there is no direction in which you can look about Quebec without seeing it; and it is always mixed up with something so familiar and homelike, that my heart warms to it. The Jesuit Barracks are just across the street from us in the foreground of the most magnificent landscape; the building is--think, you Eriecreekers of an hour!--two hundred years old, and it looks five hundred. The English took it away from the Jesuits in 1760, and have used it as barracks ever since; but it isn't in the least changed, so that a Jesuit missionary who visited it the other day said that it was as if his brother priests had been driven out of it the week before. Well, you might think so old and so historical a place would be putting on airs, but it takes as kindly to domestic life as a new frame-house, and I am never tired of looking over into the yard at the frowsy soldiers' wives hanging out clothes, and the unkempt children playing among the burdocks, and chickens and cats, and the soldiers themselves carrying about the officers' boots, or sawing wood and picking up chips to boil the teakettle. They are off dignity as well as off duty, then; but when they are on both, and in full dress, they make our volunteers (as I remember them) seem very shabby and slovenly. Over the belfry of the Barracks, our windows command a view of half Quebec, with its roofs and spires dropping down the slope to the Lower Town, where the masts of the ships in the river come tapering up among them, and then of the plain stretching from the river in the valley to a range of mountains against the horizon, with far-off white villages glimmering out of their purple folds. The whole plain is bright with houses and harvest-fields; and the distinctly divided farms--the owners cut them up every generation, and give each son a strip of the entire length--run back on either hand, from the straight roads bordered by poplars, while the highways near the city pass between lovely villas. But this landscape and the Jesuit Barracks, with all their merits, are nothing to the Ursuline Convent, just under our back windows, which I told you something about in my other letter. We have been reading up its history since, and we know about Madame de la Peltrie, the noble Norman lady who founded it in 1640. She was very rich and very beautiful, and a saint from the beginning, so that when her husband died, and her poor old father wanted her to marry again and not go into a nunnery, she didn't mind cheating him by a sham marriage with a devout gentleman; and she came to Canada as soon as her father was dead, with another saint, Marie de l'Incarnation, and founded this convent. The first building is standing yet, as strong as ever, though everything but the stone walls was burnt two centuries ago. Only a few years since an old ash-tree, under which the Ursulines first taught the Indian children, blew down, and now a large black cross marks its place. The modern nuns are in the garden nearly the whole morning long, and by night the ghosts of the former nuns haunt it; and in very bright moonlight I myself do a bit of Madame de la Peltrie there, and teach little Indian boys, who dwindle like those in the song, as the moon goes down. It is an enchanted place, and I wish we had it in the back yard at Eriecreek, though I don't think the neighbors would approve of the architecture. I have adopted two nuns for my own: one is tall and slender and pallid, and you can see at a glance that she broke the heart of a mortal lover, and knew it, when she became the bride of heaven; and the other is short and plain and plump, and looks as comfortable and commonplace as life-after-dinner. When the world is bright I revel in the statue-like sadness of the beautiful nun, who never laughs or plays with the little girl pupils; but when the world is dark--as the best of worlds will be at times for a minute or two--I take to the fat nun, and go in for a clumsy romp with the children; and then I fancy that I am wiser if not better than the fair slim Ursuline. But whichever I am, for the time being, I am vexed with the other; yet they always are together, as if they were counterparts. I think a nice story might be written about them. In Wolfe's siege of Quebec this Ursuline Garden of ours was everywhere torn up by the falling bombs, and the sisters were driven out into the world they had forsaken forever, as Fanny has been reading in a little French account of the events, written at the time, by a nun of the General Hospital. It was there the Ursulines took what refuge there was; going from their cloistered school-rooms and their innocent little ones to the wards of the hospital, filled with the wounded and dying of either side, and echoing with their dreadful groans. What a sad, evil, bewildering world they had a glimpse of! In the garden here, our poor Montcalm--I belong to the French side, please, in Quebec--was buried in a grave dug for him by a bursting shell. They have his skull now in the chaplain's room of the convent, where we saw it the other day. They have made it comfortable in a glass box, neatly bound with black, and covered with a white lace drapery, just as if it were a saint's. It was broken a little in taking it out of the grave; and a few years ago, some English officers borrowed it to look at, and were horrible enough to pull out some of the teeth. Tell Uncle Jack the head is very broad above the ears, but the forehead is small. The chaplain also showed us a copy of an old painting of the first convent, Indian lodges, Madame de la Peltrie's house, and Madame herself, very splendidly dressed, with an Indian chief before her, and some French cavaliers riding down an avenue towards her. Then he showed us some of the nuns' work in albums, painted and lettered in a way to give me an idea of old missals. By and by he went into the chapel with us, and it gave such a queer notion of his indoors life to have him put on an overcoat and india-rubbers to go a few rods through the open air to the chapel door: he had not been very well, he said. When he got in, he took off his hat, and put on an octagonal priest's cap, and showed us everything in the kindest way--and his manners were exquisite. There were beautiful paintings sent out from France at the time of the Revolution; and wood-carvings round the high-altar, done by Quebec artists in the beginning of the last century; for he said they had a school of arts then at St. Anne's, twenty miles below the city. Then there was an ivory crucifix, so life-like that you could scarcely bear to look at it. But what I most cared for was the tiny twinkle of a votive lamp which he pointed out to us in one corner of the nuns' chapel: it was lit a hundred and fifty years ago by two of our French officers when their sister took the veil, and has never been extinguished since, except during the siege of 1759. Of course, I think a story might be written about _this_; and the truth is, the possibilities of fiction in Quebec are overpowering; I go about in a perfect haze of romances, and meet people at every turn who have nothing to do but invite the passing novelist into their houses, and have their likenesses done at once for heroes and heroines. They needn't change a thing about them, but sit just as they are; and if this is in the present, only think how the whole past of Quebec must be crying out to be put into historical romances! I wish you could see the houses, and how substantial they are. I can only think of Eriecreek as an assemblage of huts and bark-lodges in contrast. Our boarding-house is comparatively slight, and has stone walls only a foot and a half thick, but the average is two feet and two and a half; and the other day Dick went through the Laval University,--he goes everywhere and gets acquainted with everybody,--and saw the foundation walls of the first building, which have stood all the sieges and conflagrations since the seventeenth century; and no wonder, for they are six feet thick, and form a series of low-vaulted corridors, as heavy, he says, as the casemates of a fortress. There is a beautiful old carved staircase there, of the same date; and he liked the president, a priest, ever so much; and we like the looks of all the priests we see; they are so handsome and polite, and they all speak English, with some funny little defect. The other day, we asked such a nice young priest about the way to Hare Point, where it is said the Recollet friars had their first mission on the marshy meadows: he didn't know of this bit of history, and we showed him our book. "Ah! you see, the book say 'pro-_bab_-ly the site.' If it had said _certainly_, I should have known. But pro-_bab_-ly, pro-_bab_-ly, you see!" However, he showed us the way, and down we went through the Lower Town, and out past the General Hospital to this Pointe aux Lièvres, which is famous also because somewhere near it, on the St. Charles, Jacques Cartier wintered in 1536, and kidnapped the Indian king Donnacona, whom he carried to France. And it was here Montcalm's forces tried to rally after their defeat by Wolfe. (Please read this several times to Uncle Jack, so that he can have it impressed upon him how faithful I am in my historical researches.) It makes me dreadfully angry and sad to think the French should have been robbed of Quebec, after what they did to build it. But it is still quite a French city in everything, even to sympathy with France in this Prussian war, which you would hardly think they would care about. Our landlady says the very boys in the street know about the battles, and explain, every time the French are beaten, how they were outnumbered and betrayed,--something the way we used to do in the first of our war. I suppose you will think I am crazy; but I do wish Uncle Jack would wind up his practice at Eriecreek, and sell the house, and come to live at Quebec. I have been asking prices of things, and I find that everything is very cheap, even according to the Eriecreek standard; we could get a beautiful house on the St. Louis Road for two hundred a year; beef is ten or twelve cents a pound, and everything else in proportion. Then besides that, the washing is sent out into the country to be done by the peasant-women, and there isn't a crumb of bread baked in the house, but it all comes from the bakers; and only think, girls, what a relief that would be! Do get Uncle Jack to consider it _seriously_. Since I began this letter the afternoon has worn away--the light from the sunset on the mountains would glorify our supper-table without extra charge, if we lived here--and the twilight has passed, and the moon has come up over the gables and dormer-windows of the convent, and looks into the garden so invitingly that I can't help joining her. So I will put my writing by till to-morrow. The going-to-bed bell has rung, and the red lights have vanished one by one from the windows, and the nuns are asleep, and another set of ghosts is playing in the garden with the copper-colored phantoms of the Indian children of long ago. What! not Madame de la Peltrie? Oh! how do they like those little fibs of yours up in heaven? _Sunday afternoon._--As we were at the French cathedral last Sunday, we went to the English to-day; and I could easily have imagined myself in some church of Old England, hearing the royal family prayed for, and listening to the pretty poor sermon delivered with such an English _brogue_. The people, too, had such Englishy faces and such queer little eccentricities of dress; the young lady that sang contralto in the choir wore a scarf like a man's on her hat. The cathedral isn't much, architecturally, I suppose, but it affected me very solemnly, and I couldn't help feeling that it was as much a part of British power and grandeur as the citadel itself. Over the bishop's seat drooped the flag of a Crimean regiment, tattered by time and battles, which was hung up here with great ceremonies, in 1860, when the Prince of Wales presented them with new colors; and up in the gallery was a kind of glorified pew for royal highnesses and governor-generals and so forth, to sit in when they are here. There are tablets and monumental busts about the walls; and one to the memory of the Duke of Lenox, the governor-general who died in the middle of the last century from the bite of a fox; which seemed an odd fate for a duke, and somehow made me very sorry for him. Fanny, of course, couldn't go to church with me, and Dick got out of it by lingering too late over the newspapers at the hotel, and so I trudged off with our Bostonian, who is still with us here. I didn't dwell much upon him in my last letter, and I don't believe now I can make him quite clear to you. He has been a good deal abroad, and he is Europeanized enough not to think much of America, though I can't find that he quite approves of Europe, and his experience seems not to have left him any particular country in either hemisphere. He isn't the Bostonian of Uncle Jack's imagination, and I suspect he wouldn't like to be. He is rather too young, still, to have much of an antislavery record, and even if he had lived soon enough, I think that he would not have been a John Brown man. I am afraid that he believes in "vulgar and meretricious distinctions" of all sorts, and that he hasn't an atom of "magnanimous democracy" in him. In fact, I find, to my great astonishment, that some ideas which I thought were held only in England, and which I had never seriously thought of, seem actually a part of Mr. Arbuton's nature or education. He talks about the lower classes, and tradesmen, and the best people, and good families, as I supposed nobody in _this_ country _ever_ did,--in earnest. To be sure, I have always been reading of characters who had such opinions, but I thought they were just put into novels to eke out somebody's unhappiness,--to keep the high-born daughter from marrying beneath her for love, and so on; or else to be made fun of in the person of some silly old woman or some odious snob; and I could hardly believe at first that our Bostonian was serious in talking in that way. Such things sound so differently in real life; and I laughed at them till I found that he didn't know what to make of my laughing, and then I took leave to differ with him in some of his notions; but he never disputes anything I say, and so makes it seem rude to differ with him. I always feel, though he begins it, as if I had thrust my opinions upon him. But in spite of his weaknesses and disagreeabilities, there is something really _high_ about him; he is so scrupulously true, so exactly just, that Uncle Jack himself couldn't be more so; though you can see that he respects his virtues as the peculiar result of some extraordinary system. Here at Quebec, though he goes round patronizing the landscape and the antiquities, and coldly smiling at my little enthusiasms, there is really a great deal that ought to be at least improving in him. I get to paying him the same respect that he pays himself, and imbues his very clothes with, till everything he has on appears to look like him and respect itself accordingly. I have often wondered what his hat, his honored hat, for instance, would do, if I should throw it out of the front window. It would make an earthquake, I believe. He is politely curious about us; and from time to time, in a shrinking, disgusted way, he asks some leading question about Eriecreek, which he doesn't seem able to form any idea of, as much as I explain it. He clings to his original notion, that it is in the heart of the Oil Regions, of which he has seen pictures in the illustrated papers; and when I assert myself against his opinions, he treats me very gingerly, as if I were an explosive sprite, or an inflammable naiad from a torpedoed well, and it wouldn't be quite safe to oppose me, or I would disappear with a flash and a bang. When Dick isn't able to go with me on Fanny's account, Mr. Arbuton takes his place in the expeditionary corps; and we have visited a good many points of interest together, and now and then he talks very entertainingly about his travels. But I don't think they have made him very cosmopolitan. It seems as if he went about with a little imaginary standard, and was chiefly interested in things, to see whether they fitted it or not. Trifling matters annoy him; and when he finds sublimity mixed up with absurdity, it almost makes him angry. One of the oddest and oldest-looking buildings in Quebec is a little one-story house on St. Louis Street, to which poor General Montgomery was taken after he was shot; and it is a pastry-cook's now, and the tarts and cakes in the window vexed Mr. Arbuton so much--not that he seemed to care for Montgomery--that I didn't dare to laugh. I live very little in the nineteenth century at present, and do not care much for people who do. Still I have a few grains of affection left for Uncle Jack, which I want you to give him. I suppose it will take about six stamps to pay this letter. I forgot to say that Dick goes to be barbered every day at the "Montcalm Shaving and Shampooing Saloon," so called because they say Montcalm held his last council of war there. It is a queer little steep-roofed house, with a flowering bean up the front, and a bit of garden, full of snap-dragons, before it. We shall be here a week or so yet, at any rate, and then, I think, we shall go straight home, Dick has lost so much time already. With a great deal of love, Your Kitty. VII. LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. With the two young people whose days now lapsed away together, it could not be said that Monday varied much from Tuesday, or ten o'clock from half past three; they were not always certain what day of the week it was, and sometimes they fancied that a thing which happened in the morning had taken place yesterday afternoon. But whatever it was, and however uncertain in time and character their slight adventure was to themselves, Mrs. Ellison secured all possible knowledge of it from Kitty. Since it was her misfortune that promoted it, she considered herself a martyr to Kitty's acquaintance with Mr. Arbuton, and believed that she had the best claim to any gossip that could come of it. She lounged upon her sofa, and listened with a patience superior to the maiden caprice with which her inquisition was sometimes met; for if that delayed her satisfaction it also employed her arts, and the final triumph of getting everything out of Kitty afforded her a delicate self-flattery. But commonly the young girl was ready enough to speak, for she was glad to have the light of a worldlier mind and a greater experience than her own on Mr. Arbuton's character: if Mrs. Ellison was not the wisest head, still talking him over was at least a relief from thinking him over; and then, at the end of the ends, when were ever two women averse to talk of a man? She commonly sought Fanny's sofa when she returned from her rambles through the city, and gave a sufficiently strict account of what had happened. This was done light-heartedly and with touches of burlesque and extravagance at first; but the reports grew presently to have a more serious tone, and latterly Kitty had been so absent at times that she would fall into a puzzled silence in the midst of her narration; or else she would meet a long procession of skilfully marshalled questions with a flippancy that no one but a martyr could have suffered. But Mrs. Ellison bore all and would have borne much more in that cause. Battled at one point, she turned to another, and the sum of her researches was often a clearer perception of Kitty's state of mind than the young girl herself possessed. For her, indeed, the whole affair was full of mystery and misgiving. "Our acquaintance has the charm of novelty every time we meet," she said once, when pressed hard by Mrs. Ellison. "We are growing better strangers, Mr. Arbuton and I. By and by, some morning, we shall not know each other by sight. I can barely recognize him now, though I thought I knew him pretty well once. I want you to understand that I speak as an unbiassed spectator, Fanny." "O Kitty! how can you accuse me of trying to pry into your affairs!" cries injured Mrs. Ellison, and settles herself in a more comfortable posture for listening. "I don't accuse you of anything. I'm sure you've a right to know everything about me. Only, I want you really to know." "Yes, dear," says the matron, with hypocritical meekness. "Well," resumes Kitty, "there are things that puzzle me more and more about him,--things that used to amuse me at first, because I didn't actually believe that they could be, and that I felt like defying afterwards. But now I can't bear up against them. They frighten me, and seem to deny me the right to be what I believe I am." "I don't understand you, Kitty." "Why, you've seen how it is with us at home, and how Uncle Jack has brought us up. We never had a rule for anything except to do what was right, and to be careful of the rights of others." "Well." "Well, Mr. Arbuton seems to have lived in a world where everything is regulated by some rigid law that it would be death to break. Then, you know, at home we are always talking about people, and discussing them; but we always talk of each person for what he is in himself, and I always thought a person could refine himself if he tried, and was sincere, and not conceited. But _he_ seems to judge people according to their origin and locality and calling, and to believe that all refinement must come from just such training and circumstances as his own. Without exactly saying so, he puts everything else quite out of the question. He doesn't appear to dream that there can be any different opinion. He tramples upon all that I have been taught to believe; and though I cling the closer to my idols, I can't help, now and then, trying myself by his criterions; and then I find myself wanting in every civilized trait, and my whole life coarse and poor, and all my associations hopelessly degraded. I think his ideas are hard and narrow, and I believe that even my little experience would prove them false; but then, they are his, and I can't reconcile them with what I see is good in him." Kitty spoke with half-averted face where she sat beside one of the front windows, looking absently out on the distant line of violet hills beyond Charlesbourg, and now and then lifting her glove from her lap and letting it drop again. "Kitty," said Mrs. Ellison in reply to her difficulties, "you oughtn't to sit against a light like that. It makes your profile quite black to any one back in the room." "O well, Fanny, I'm not black in reality." "Yes, but a young lady ought always to think how she is looking. Suppose some one was to come in." "Dick's the only one likely to come in just now, and he wouldn't mind it. But if you like it better, I'll come and sit by you," said Kitty, and took her place beside the sofa. Her hat was in her hand, her sack on her arm; the fatigue of a recent walk gave her a soft pallor, and languor of face and attitude. Mrs. Ellison admired her pretty looks with a generous regret that they should be wasted on herself, and then asked, "Where were you this afternoon?" "O, we went to the Hôtel Dieu, for one thing, and afterwards we looked into the court-yard of the convent; and there another of his pleasant little traits came out,--a way he has of always putting you in the wrong even when it's a matter of no consequence any way, and there needn't be any right or wrong about it. I remembered the place because Mrs. March, you know, showed us a rose that one of the nuns in the hospital gave her, and I tried to tell Mr. Arbuton about it, and he graciously took it as if poor Mrs. March had made an advance towards his acquaintance. I do wish you could see what a lovely place that court-yard is, Fanny. It's so strange that such a thing should be right there, in the heart of this crowded city; but there it was, with its peasant cottage on one side, and its long, low barns on the other, and those wide-horned Canadian cows munching at the racks of hay outside, and pigeons and chickens all about among their feet--" "Yes, yes; never mind all that, Kitty. You know I hate nature. Go on about Mr. Arbuton," said Mrs. Ellison, who did not mean a sarcasm. "It looked like a farmyard in a picture, far out in the country somewhere," resumed Kitty; "and Mr. Arbuton did it the honor to say it was just like Normandy." "Kitty!" "He did, indeed, Fanny; and the cows didn't go down on their knees out of gratitude, either. Well, off on the right were the hospital buildings climbing up, you know, with their stone walls and steep roofs, and windows dropped about over them, like our convent here; and there was an artist there, sketching it all; he had such a brown, pleasant face, with a little black mustache and imperial, and such gay black eyes that nobody could help falling in love with him; and he was talking in such a free-and-easy way with the lazy workmen and women overlooking him. He jotted down a little image of the Virgin in a niche on the wall, and one of the people called out,--Mr. Arbuton was translating,--'Look there! with one touch he's made our Blessed Lady.' 'O,' says the painter, 'that's nothing; with three touches I can make the entire Holy Family.' And they all laughed; and that little joke, you know, won my heart,--I don't hear many jokes from Mr. Arbuton;--and so I said what a blessed life a painter's must be, for it would give you a right to be a vagrant, and you could wander through the world, seeing everything that was lovely and funny, and nobody could blame you; and I wondered everybody who had the chance didn't learn to sketch. Mr. Arbuton took it seriously, and said people had to have something more than the chance to learn before they could sketch, and that most of them were an affliction with their sketchbooks, and he had seen too much of the sad effects of drawing from casts. And he put me in the wrong, as he always does. Don't you see? I didn't want to learn drawing; I wanted to be a painter, and go about sketching beautiful old convents, and sit on camp-stools on pleasant afternoons, and joke with people. Of course, he couldn't understand that. But I know the artist could. O Fanny, if it had only been the painter whose arm I took that first day on the boat, instead of Mr. Arbuton! But the worst of it is, he is making a hypocrite of me, and a cowardly, unnatural girl. I wanted to go nearer and look at the painter's sketch; but I was ashamed to say I'd never seen a real artist's sketch before, and I'm getting to be ashamed, or to seem ashamed, of a great many innocent things. He has a way of not seeming to think it possible that any one he associates with can differ from him. And I do differ from him. I differ from him as much as my whole past life differs from his; I know I'm just the kind of production that he disapproves of, and that I'm altogether irregular and unauthorized and unjustifiable; and though it's funny to have him talking to me as if I must have the sympathy of a rich girl with his ideas, it's provoking, too, and it's very bad for me. Up to the present moment, Fanny, if you want to know, that's the principal effect of Mr. Arbuton on me. I'm being gradually snubbed and scared into treasons, stratagems, and spoils." Mrs. Ellison did not find all this so very grievous, for she was one of those women who like a snub from the superior sex, if it does not involve a slight to their beauty or their power of pleasing. But she thought it best not to enter into the question, and merely said, "But surely, Kitty, there are a great many things in Mr. Arbuton that you must respect." "Respect? O, yes, indeed! But respect isn't just the thing for one who seems to consider himself sacred. Say _revere_, Fanny; say revere!" Kitty had risen from her chair, but Mrs. Ellison waved her again to her seat with an imploring gesture. "Don't go, Kitty; I'm not half done with you yet. You _must_ tell me something more. You've stirred me up so, now. I know you don't always have such disagreeable times. You've often come home quite happy. What do you generally find to talk about? Do tell me some particulars for once." "Why, little topics come up, you know. But sometimes we don't talk at all, because I don't like to say what I think or feel, for fear I should be thinking or feeling something vulgar. Mr. Arbuton is rather a blight upon conversation in that way. He makes you doubtful whether there isn't something a little common in breathing and the circulation of the blood, and whether it wouldn't be true refinement to stop them." "Stuff, Kitty! He's very cultivated, isn't he? Don't you talk about books? He's read everything, I suppose." "O yes, he's _read_ enough." "What do you mean?" "Nothing. Only sometimes it seems to me as if he hadn't read because he loved it, but because he thought it due to himself. But maybe I'm mistaken. I could imagine a delicate poem shutting up half its sweetness from his cold, cold scrutiny,--if you will excuse the floweriness of the idea." "Why, Kitty! don't you think he's refined? I'm sure, I think he's a _very_ refined person." "He's a very elaborated person. But I don't think it would make much difference to him what our opinion of him was. His own good opinion would be quite enough." "Is he--is he--always agreeable?" "I thought we were discussing his mind, Fanny. I don't know that I feel like enlarging upon his manners," said Kitty, slyly. "But surely, Kitty," said the matron, with an air of argument, "there's some connection between his mind and his manners." "Yes, I suppose so. I don't think there's much between his heart and his manners. They seem to have been put on him instead of having come out of him. He's very well trained, and nine times out of ten he's so exquisitely polite that it's wonderful; but the tenth time he may say something so rude that you can't believe it." "Then you like him nine times out of ten." "I didn't say that. But for the tenth time, it's certain, his training doesn't hold out, and he seems to have nothing natural to fall back upon. But you can believe that, if he knew he'd been disagreeable, he'd be sorry for it." "Why, then, Kitty, how can you say that there's no connection between his heart and manners? This very thing proves that they come from his heart. Don't be illogical, Kitty," said Mrs. Ellison, and her nerves added, _sotto voce_, "if you _are_ so abominably provoking!" "O," responded the young girl, with the kind of laugh that meant it was, after all, not such a laughing matter, "I didn't say he'd be sorry for _you_! Perhaps he would; but he'd be certain to be sorry for himself. It's with his politeness as it is with his reading; he seems to consider it something that's due to himself as a gentleman to treat people well; and it isn't in the least as if he cared for _them_. He wouldn't like to fail in such a point." "But, Kitty, isn't that to his credit?" "Maybe. I don't say. If I knew more about the world, perhaps I should admire it. But now, you see,"--and here Kitty's laugh grew more natural, and she gave a subtle caricature of Mr. Arbuton's air and tone as she spoke,--"I can't help feeling that it's a little--vulgar." Mrs. Ellison could not quite make out how much Kitty really meant of what she had said. She gasped once or twice for argument; then she sat up, and beat the sofa-pillows vengefully in composing herself anew, and finally, "Well, Kitty, I'm sure I don't know what to make of it all," she said with a sigh. "Why, we're not obliged to make anything of it, Fanny, there's that comfort," replied Kitty; and then there was a silence, while she brooded over the whole affair of her acquaintance with Mr. Arbuton, which this talk had failed to set in a more pleasant or hopeful light. It had begun like a romance; she had pleased her fancy, if not her heart, with the poetry of it; but at last she felt exiled and strange in his presence. She had no right to a different result, even through any deep feeling in the matter; but while she owned, with her half-sad, half-comical consciousness, that she had been tacitly claiming and expecting too much, she softly pitied herself, with a kind of impersonal compassion, as if it wore some other girl whose pretty dream had been broken. Its ruin involved the loss of another ideal; for she was aware that there had been gradually rising in her mind an image of Boston, different alike from the holy place of her childhood, the sacred city of the antislavery heroes and martyrs, and from the jesting, easy, sympathetic Boston of Mr. and Mrs. March. This new Boston with which Mr. Arbuton inspired her was a Boston of mysterious prejudices and lofty reservations; a Boston of high and difficult tastes, that found its social ideal in the Old World, and that shrank from contact with the reality of this; a Boston as alien as Europe to her simple experiences, and that seemed to be proud only of the things that were unlike other American things; a Boston that would rather perish by fire and sword than be suspected of vulgarity; a critical, fastidious, and reluctant Boston, dissatisfied with the rest of the hemisphere, and gelidly self-satisfied in so far as it was not in the least the Boston of her fond preconceptions. It was, doubtless, no more the real Boston we know and love, than either of the others: and it perplexed her more than it need, even if it had not been mere phantasm. It made her suspicious of Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards her, and observant of little things that might very well have otherwise escaped her. The bantering humor, the light-hearted trust and self-reliance with which she had once met him deserted her, and only returned fitfully when some accident called her out of herself, and made her forget the differences that she now too plainly saw in their ways of thinking and feeling. It was a greater and greater effort to place herself in sympathy with him; she relaxed into a languid self-contempt, as if she had been playing a part, when she succeeded. "Sometimes, Fanny," she said, now, after a long pause, speaking in behalf of that other girl she had been thinking of, "it seems to me as if Mr. Arbuton were all gloves and slim umbrella,--the mere husk of well dressed culture and good manners. His looks _do_ promise everything; but O dear me! I should be sorry for any one that was in love with him. Just imagine some girl meeting with such a man, and taking a fancy to him! I suppose she never would quite believe but that he must somehow be what she first thought him, and she would go down to her grave believing that she had failed to understand him. What a curious story it would make!" "Then, why don't you write it, Kitty?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "No one could do it better." Kitty flushed quickly; then she smiled: "O, I don't think I could do it at all. It wouldn't be a very easy story to work out. Perhaps he might never do anything positively disagreeable enough to make anybody condemn him. The only way you could show his character would be to have her do and say hateful things to him, when she couldn't help it, and then repent of it, while he was impassively perfect through everything. And perhaps, after all, he might be regarded by some stupid people as the injured one. Well, Mr. Arbuton has been very polite to us, I'm sure, Fanny," she said after another pause, as she rose from her chair, "and maybe I'm unjust to him. I beg his pardon of you; and I wish," she added with a dull disappointment quite her own, and a pang of surprise at words that seemed to utter themselves, "that he would go away." "Why, Kitty, I'm shocked," said Mrs. Ellison, rising from her cushions. "Yes; so am I, Fanny." "Are you really tired of him, then?" Kitty did not answer, but turned away her face a little, where she stood beside the chair in which she had been sitting. Mrs. Ellison put out her hand towards her. "Kitty, come here," she said with imperious tenderness. "No, I won't, Fanny," answered the young girl, in a trembling voice. She raised the glove that she had been nervously swinging back and forth, and bit hard upon the button of it. "I don't know whether I'm tired of _him_,--though he isn't a person to rest one a great deal,--but I'm tired of _it_. I'm perplexed and troubled the whole time, and I don't see any end to it. Yes, I wish he would go away! Yes, he _is_ tiresome. What is he staying here for? If he thinks himself so much better than all of us, I wonder he troubles himself with our company. It's quite time for him to go. No, Fanny, no," cried Kitty with a little broken laugh, still rejecting the outstretched hand, "I'll be flat in private, if you please." And dashing her hand across her eyes, she flitted out of the room. At the door she turned and said, "You needn't think it's what you think it is, Fanny." "No indeed, dear; you're just overwrought." "For I really wish he'd go." But it was on this very day that Mr. Arbuton found it harder than ever to renew his resolution of quitting Quebec, and cutting short at once his acquaintance with these people. He had been pledging himself to this in some form every day, and every morrow had melted his resolution away. Whatever was his opinion of Colonel and Mrs. Ellison, it is certain that, if he considered Kitty merely in relation to the present, he could not have said how, by being different, she could have been better than she was. He perceived a charm, that would be recognized anywhere, in her manner, though it was not of his world; her fresh pleasure in all she saw, though he did not know how to respond to it, was very winning; he respected what he thought the good sense running through her transports; he wondered at the culture she had somewhere, somehow got; and he was so good as to find that her literary enthusiasms had nothing offensive, but were as pretty and naive as a girl's love of flowers. Moreover, he approved of some personal attributes of hers: a low, gentle voice, tender long-lashed eyes; a trick of drooping shoulders, and of idle hands fallen into the lap, one in the other's palm; a serene repose of face; a light and eager laugh. There was nothing so novel in those traits, and in different combination he had seen them a thousand times; yet in her they strangely wrought upon his fancy. She had that soft, kittenish way with her which invites a caressing patronage, but, as he learned, she had also the kittenish equipment for resenting over-condescension; and she never took him half so much as when she showed the high spirit that was in her, and defied him most. For here and now, it was all well enough; but he had a future to which he owed much, and a conscience that would not leave him at rest. The fascination of meeting her so familiarly under the same roof, the sorcery of the constant sight of her, were becoming too much; it would not do on any account; for his own sake he must put an end to it. But from hour to hour he lingered upon his unenforced resolve. The passing days, that brought him doubts in which he shuddered at the great difference between himself and her and her people, brought him also moments of blissful forgetfulness in which his misgivings were lost in the sweetness of her looks, or the young grace of her motions. Passing, the days rebuked his delay in vain; a week and two weeks slipped from under his feet, and still he had waited for fate to part him and his folly. But now at last he would go and in the evening, after his cigar on Durham Terrace, he knocked at Mrs. Ellison's door to say that on the day after to-morrow he should push on to the White Mountains. He found the Ellisons talking over an expedition for the next morning, in which he was also to take part. Mrs. Ellison had already borne her full share in the preparation; for, being always at hand there in her room, and having nothing to do, she had been almost a willing victim to the colonel's passion for information at second-hand, and had probably come to know more than any other American woman of Arnold's expedition against Quebec in 1775. She know why the attack was planned, and with what prodigious hazard and heroical toil and endurance it was carried out; how the dauntless little army of riflemen cut their way through the untrodden forests of Maine and Canada, and beleaguered the gray old fortress on her rock till the red autumn faded into winter, and, on the last bitter night of the year, flung themselves against her defences, and fell back, leaving half their number captive, Montgomery dead, and Arnold wounded, but haplessly destined to survive. "Yes," said the colonel, "considering the age in which they lived, and their total lack of modern improvements, mental, moral, and physical, we must acknowledge that they did pretty well. It wasn't on a very large scale; but I don't see how they could have been braver, if every man had been multiplied by ten thousand. In fact, as it's going to be all the same thing a hundred years from now, I don't know but I'd as soon be one of the men that tried to take Quebec as one of the men that did take Atlanta. Of course, for the present, and on account of my afflicted family, Mr. Arbuton, I'm willing to be what and where I am; but just see what those fellows did." And the colonel drew from his glowing memory of Mrs. Ellison's facts a brave historical picture of Arnold's expedition. "And now we're going to-morrow morning to look up the scene of the attack on the 31st of December. Kitty, sing something." At another time Kitty might have hesitated; but that evening she was so at rest about Mr. Arbuton, so sure she cared nothing for his liking or disliking anything she did, that she sat down at the piano, and sang a number of songs, which I suppose were as unworthy the cultivated ear as any he had heard. But though they were given with an untrained voice and a touch as little skilled as might be, they pleased, or else the singer pleased. The simple-hearted courage of the performance would alone have made it charming; and Mr. Arbuton had no reason to ask himself how he should like it in Boston, if he were married, and should hear it from his wife there. Yet when a young man looks at a young girl or listens to her, a thousand vagaries possess his mind,--formless imaginations, lawless fancies. The question that presented itself remotely, like pain in a dream, dissolved in the ripple of the singer's voice, and left his revery the more luxuriously untroubled for having been. He remembered, after saying good-night, that he had forgotten something: it was to tell them he was going away. VIII. NEXT MORNING. Quebec lay shining in the tender oblique light of the northern sun when they passed next morning through the Upper Town market-place and took their way towards Hope Gate, where they were to be met by the colonel a little later. It is easy for the alert tourist to lose his course in Quebec, and they, who were neither hurried nor heedful, went easily astray. But the street into which they had wandered, if it did not lead straight to Hope Gate, had many merits, and was very characteristic of the city. Most of the houses on either hand were low structures of one story, built heavily of stone or stuccoed brick, with two dormer-windows, full of house-plants, in each roof; the doors were each painted of a livelier color than the rest of the house, and each glistened with a polished brass knob, a large brass knocker, or an intricate bell-pull of the same resplendent metal, and a plate bearing the owner's name and his professional title, which if not _avocat_ was sure to be _notaire_, so well is Quebec supplied with those ministers of the law. At the side of each house was a _porte-cochère_, and in this a smaller door. The thresholds and doorsteps were covered with the neatest and brightest oil-cloth; the wooden sidewalk was very clean, like the steep, roughly paved street itself; and at the foot of the hill down which it sloped was a breadth of the city wall, pierced for musketry, and, past the corner of one of the houses, the half-length of cannon showing. It had the charm of those ancient streets, dear to Old-World travel, in which the past and the present, decay and repair, peace and war, have made friends in an effect that not only wins the eye, but, however illogically, touches the heart; and over the top of the wall it had a stretch of such landscape as I know not what Old-World street can command: the St. Lawrence, blue and wide; a bit of the white village of Beauport on its bank; then a vast breadth of pale-green, upward-sloping meadows; then the purple heights; and the hazy heaven over them. Half-way down this happy street sat the artist whom they had seen before in the court of the Hôtel Dieu; he was sketching something, and evoking the curious life of the neighborhood. Two schoolboys in the uniform of the Seminary paused to look at him as they loitered down the pavement; a group of children encircled him; a little girl with her hair in blue ribbons talked at a window about him to some one within; a young lady opened her casement and gazed furtively at him; a door was set quietly ajar, and an old grandam peeped out, shading her eyes with her hand; a woman in deep mourning gave his sketch a glance as she passed; a calash with a fat Quebecker in it ran into a cart driven by a broad-hatted peasant-woman, so eager were both to know what he was drawing; a man lingered even at the head of the street, as if it were any use to stop there. As Kitty and Mr. Arbuton passed him, the artist glanced at her with the smile of a man who believes he knows how the case stands, and she followed his eye in its withdrawal towards the bit he was sketching: an old roof, and on top of this a balcony, shut in with green blinds; yet higher, a weather-worn, wood-colored gallery, pent-roofed and balustered, with a geranium showing through the balusters; a dormer-window with hook and tackle, beside an Oriental-shaped pavilion with a shining tin dome,--a picturesque confusion of forms which had been, apparently, added from time to time without design, and yet were full of harmony. The unreasonable succession of roofs had lifted the top far above the level of the surrounding houses, into the heart of the morning light, and some white doves circled about the pavilion, or nestled cooing upon the window-sill, where a young girl sat and sewed. "Why, it's Hilda in her tower," said Kitty, "of course! And this is just the kind of street for such a girl to look down into. It doesn't seem like a street in real life, does it? The people all look as if they had stepped out of stories, and might step back any moment; and these queer little houses: they're the very places for things to happen in!" Mr. Arbuton smiled forbearingly, as she thought, at this burst, but she did not care, and she turned, at the bottom of the street, and lingered a few moments for another look at the whole charming picture; and then he praised it, and said that the artist was making a very good sketch. "I wonder Quebec isn't infested by artists the whole summer long," he added. "They go about hungrily picking up bits of the picturesque, along our shores and country roads, when they might exchange their famine for a feast by coming here." "I suppose there's a pleasure in finding out the small graces and beauties of the poverty-stricken subjects, that they wouldn't have in better ones, isn't there?" asked Kitty. "At any rate, if I were to write a story, I should want to take the slightest sort of plot, and lay the scene in the dullest kind of place, and then bring out all their possibilities. I'll tell you a book after my own heart: '_Details_,'--just the history of a week in the life of some young people who happen together in an old New England country-house; nothing extraordinary, little, every-day things told so exquisitely, and all fading naturally away without any particular result, only the full meaning of everything brought out." "And don't you think it's rather a sad ending for all to fade away without any particular result?" asked the young man, stricken he hardly knew how or where. "Besides, I always thought that the author of that book found too much meaning in everything. He did for men, I'm sure; but I believe women are different, and see much more than we do in a little space." "'Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly,' nor a woman," mocked Kitty. "Have you read his other books?" "Yes." "Aren't they delightful?" "They're very well; and I always wondered he could write them. He doesn't look it." "O, have you ever seen him?" "He lives in Boston, you know." "Yes, yes; but--" Kitty could not go on and say that she had not supposed authors consorted with creatures of common clay; and Mr. Arbuton, who was the constant guest of people who would have thought most authors sufficiently honored in being received among them to meet such men as he, was very far from guessing what was in her mind. He waited a moment for her, and then said, "He's a very ordinary sort of man,--not what one would exactly call a gentleman, you know, in his belongings,--and yet his books have nothing of the shop, nothing professionally literary, about them. It seems as if almost any of us might have written them." Kitty glanced quickly at him to see if he were jesting; but Mr. Arbuton was not easily given to irony, and he was now very much in earnest about drawing on his light overcoat, which he had hitherto carried on his arm with that scrupulous consideration for it which was not dandyism, but part of his self-respect; apparently, as an overcoat, ho cared nothing for it; as the overcoat of a man of his condition he cared everything; and now, though the sun was so bright on the open spaces, in these narrow streets the garment was comfortable. At another time, Kitty would have enjoyed the care with which he smoothed it about his person, but this profanation of her dearest ideals made the moment serious. Her pulse quickened, and she said, "I'm afraid I can't enter into your feelings. I wasn't taught to respect the idea of a gentleman very much. I've often heard my uncle say that, at the best, it was a poor excuse for not being just honest and just brave and just kind, and a false pretence of being something more. I believe, if I were a man, I shouldn't want to be a gentleman. At any rate, I'd rather be the author of those books, which any gentleman _might_ have written, than all the gentlemen who didn't, put together." In the career of her indignation she had unconsciously hurried her companion forward so swiftly that they had reached Hope Gate as she spoke, and interrupted the revery in which Colonel Ellison, loafing up against the masonry, was contemplating the sentry in his box. "You'd better not overheat yourself so early in the day, Kitty," said her cousin, serenely, with a glance at her flushed face; "this expedition is not going to be any joke." Now that Prescott Gate, by which so many thousands of Americans have entered Quebec since Arnold's excursionists failed to do so, is demolished, there is nothing left so picturesque and characteristic as Hope Gate, and I doubt if anywhere in Europe there is a more mediæval-looking bit of military architecture. The heavy stone gateway is black with age, and the gate, which has probably never been closed in our century, is of massive frame set thick with mighty bolts and spikes. The wall here sweeps along the brow of the crag on which the city is built, and a steep street drops down, by stone-parapeted curves and angles, from the Upper to the Lower Town, where, in 1775, nothing but a narrow lane bordered the St. Lawrence. A considerable breadth of land has since been won from the river, and several streets and many piers now stretch between this alley and the water; but the old Sault au Matelot still crouches and creeps along under the shelter of the city wall and the overhanging rock, which is thickly bearded with weeds and grass, and trickles with abundant moisture. It must be an ice-pit in winter, and I should think it the last spot on the continent for the summer to find; but when the summer has at last found it, the old Sault au Matelot puts on a vagabond air of Southern leisure and abandon, not to be matched anywhere out of Italy. Looking from that jutting rock near Hope Gate, behind which the defeated Americans took refuge from the fire of their enemies, the vista is almost unique for a certain scenic squalor and gypsy luxury of color: sag-roofed barns and stables, and weak-backed, sunken-chested workshops of every sort lounge along in tumble-down succession, and lean up against the cliff in every imaginable posture of worthlessness and decrepitude; light wooden galleries cross to them from the second stories of the houses which back upon the alley; and over these galleries flutters, from a labyrinth of clothes-lines, a variety of bright-colored garments of all ages, sexes, and conditions; while the footway underneath abounds in gossiping women, smoking men, idle poultry, cats, children, and large, indolent Newfoundland dogs. "It was through this lane that Arnold's party advanced almost to the foot of Mountain Street, where they were to be joined by Montgomery's force in an attempt to surprise Prescott Gate," said the colonel, with his unerring second-hand history. "'You that will follow me to this attempt,' 'Wait till you see the whites of their eyes, and then fire low,' and so forth. By the way, do you suppose anybody did that at Bunker Hill, Mr. Arbuton? Come, you're a Boston man. My experience is that recruits chivalrously fire into the air without waiting to see the enemy at all, let alone the whites of their eyes. Why! aren't you coming?" he asked, seeing no movement to follow in Kitty or Mr. Arbuton. "It doesn't look very pleasant under foot, Dick," suggested Kitty. "Well, upon my word! Is this your uncle's niece? I shall never dare to report this panic at Eriecreek." "I can see the whole length of the alley, and there's nothing in it but chickens and domestic animals." "Very well, as Fanny says; when Uncle Jack--he's _your_ uncle--asks you about every inch of the ground that Arnold's men were demoralized over, I hope you'll know what to say." Kitty laughed and said she should try a little invention, if her Uncle Jack came down to inches. "All right, Kitty; you can go along St. Paul Street, there, and Mr. Arbuton and I will explore the Sault au Matelot, and come out upon you, covered with glory, at the other end." "I hope it'll be glory," said Kitty, with a glance at the lane, "but I think it's more likely to be feathers and chopped straw.--Good by, Mr. Arbuton." "Not in the least," answered the young man; "I'm going with you." The colonel feigned indignant surprise, and marched briskly down the Sault au Matelot alone, while the others took their way through St. Paul Street in the same direction, amidst the bustle and business of the port, past the banks and great commercial houses, with the encounter of throngs of seafaring faces of many nations, and, at the corner of St. Peter Street, a glimpse of the national flag thrown out from the American Consulate, which intensified for untravelled Kitty her sense of remoteness from her native land. At length they turned into the street now called Sault au Matelot, into which opens the lane once bearing that name, and strolled idly along in the cool shadow, silence, and solitude of the street. She was strangely released from the constraint which Mr. Arbuton usually put upon her. A certain defiant ease filled her heart; she felt and thought whatever she liked, for the first time in many days; while he went puzzling himself with the problem of a young lady who despised gentlemen, and yet remained charming to him. A mighty marine smell of oakum and salt-fish was in the air, and "O," sighed Kitty, "doesn't it make you long for distant seas? Shouldn't you like to be shipwrecked for half a day or so, Mr. Arbuton?" "Yes; yes, certainly," he replied absently, and wondered what she laughed at. The silence of the place was broken only by the noise of coopering which seemed to be going on in every other house; the solitude relieved only by the Newfoundland dogs that stretched themselves upon the thresholds of the cooper-shops. The monotony of these shops and dogs took Kitty's humor, and as they went slowly by she made a jest of them, as she used to do with things she saw. "But here's a door without a dog!" she said, presently. "This can't be a genuine cooper-shop, of course, without a dog. O, that accounts for it, perhaps!" she added, pausing before the threshold, and glancing up at a sign--"_Académie commerciale et littéraire_"--set under an upper window. "What a curious place for a seat of learning! What do you suppose is the connection between cooper-shops and an academical education, Mr. Arbuton?" She stood looking up at the sign that moved her mirth, and swinging her shut parasol idly to and fro, while a light of laughter played over her face. Suddenly a shadow seemed to dart betwixt her and the open doorway, Mr. Arbuton was hurled violently against her, and, as she struggled to keep her footing under the shock, she saw him bent over a furious dog, that hung from the breast of his overcoat, while he clutched its throat with both his hands. He met the terror of her face with a quick glance. "I beg your pardon; don't call out please," he said. But from within the shop came loud cries and maledictions, "O nom de Dieu c'est le boule-dogue du capitaine anglais!" with appalling screams for help; and a wild, uncouth little figure of a man, bareheaded, horror-eyed came flying out of the open door. He wore a cooper's apron, and he bore in one hand a red-hot iron, which, with continuous clamor, he dashed against the muzzle of the hideous brute. Without a sound the dog loosed his grip, and, dropping to the ground, fled into the obscurity of the shop as silently as he had launched himself out of it, while Kitty yet stood spell-bound, and before the crowd that the appeal of Mr. Arbuton's rescuer had summoned could see what had happened. Mr. Arbuton lifted himself, and looked angrily round upon the gaping spectators, who began, one by one, to take in their heads from their windows and to slink back to their thresholds as if they had been guilty of something much worse than a desire to succor a human being in peril. "Good heavens!" said Mr. Arbuton, "what an abominable scene!" His face was deadly pale, as he turned from these insolent intruders to his deliverer, whom he saluted, with a "Merci bien!" spoken in a cold, steady voice. Then he drew off his overcoat, which had been torn by the dog's teeth and irreparably dishonored in the encounter. He looked at it shuddering, with a countenance of intense disgust, and made a motion as if to hurl it into the street. But his eye again fell upon the cooper's squalid little figure, as he stood twisting his hands into his apron, and with voluble eagerness protesting that it was not his dog, but that of the English ship-captain, who had left it with him, and whom he had many a time besought to have the beast killed. Mr. Arbuton, who seemed not to hear what he was saying, or to be so absorbed in something else as not to consider whether he was to blame or not, broke in upon him in French: "You've done me the greatest service. I cannot repay you, but you must take this," he said, as he thrust a bank-note into the little man's grimy hand. "O, but it is too much! But it is like a monsieur so brave, so--" "Hush! It was nothing," interrupted Mr. Arbuton again. Then he threw his overcoat upon the man's shoulder. "If you will do me the pleasure to receive this also? Perhaps you can make use of it." "Monsieur heaps me with benefits;--monsieur--" began the bewildered cooper; but Mr. Arbuton turned abruptly away from him toward Kitty, who trembled at having shared the guilt of the other spectators, and seizing her hand, he placed it on his arm, where he held it close as he strode away, leaving his deliverer planted in the middle of the sidewalk and staring after him. She scarcely dared ask him if he were hurt, as she found herself doing now with a faltering voice. "No, I believe not," he said with a glance at the frock-coat, which was buttoned across his chest and was quite intact; and still he strode on, with a quick glance at every threshold which did not openly declare a Newfoundland dog. It had all happened so suddenly, and in so brief a time, that she might well have failed to understand it, even if she had seen it all. It was barely intelligible to Mr. Arbuton himself, who, as Kitty had loitered mocking and laughing before the door of the shop, chanced to see the dog crouched within, and had only time to leap forward and receive the cruel brute on his breast as it flung itself at her. He had not thought of the danger to himself in what he had done. He knew that he was unhurt, but he did not care for that; he cared only that she was safe; and as he pressed her hand tight against his heart, there passed through it a thrill of inexpressible tenderness, a quick, passionate sense of possession, a rapture as of having won her and made her his own forever, by saving her from that horrible risk. The maze in which he had but now dwelt concerning her seemed an obsolete frivolity of an alien past; all the cold doubts and hindering scruples which he had felt from the first were gone; gone all his care for his world. His world? In that supreme moment, there was no world but in the tender eyes at which he looked down with a glance which she knew not how to interpret. She thought that his pride was deeply wounded at the ignominy of his adventure,--for she was sure he would care more for that than for the danger,--and that if she spoke of it she might add to the angry pain he felt. As they hurried along she waited for him to speak, but he did not; though always, as he looked down at her with that strange look, he seemed about to speak. Presently she stopped, and, withdrawing her hand from his arm, she cried, "Why, we've forgotten my cousin!" "O--yes!" said Mr. Arbuton with a vacant smile. Looking back they saw the colonel standing on the pavement near the end of the old Sault au Matelot, with his hands in his pockets, and steadfastly staring at them. He did not relax the severity of his gaze when they returned to join him, and appeared to find little consolation in Kitty's "O Dick, I forgot all about you," given with a sudden, inexplicable laugh, interrupted and renewed as some ludicrous image seemed to come and go in her mind. "Well, this may be very flattering, Kitty, but it isn't altogether comprehensible," said he, with a keen glance at both their faces. "I don't know what you'll say to Uncle Jack. It's not forgetting me alone: it's forgetting the whole American expedition against Quebec." The colonel waited for some reply; but Kitty dared not attempt an explanation, and Mr. Arbuton was not the man to seem to boast of his share of the adventure by telling what had happened, even if he had cared at that moment to do so. Her very ignorance of what he had dared for her only confirmed his new sense of possession; and, if he could, he would not have marred the pleasure he felt by making her grateful yet, sweet as that might be in its time. Now he liked to keep his knowledge, to have had her unwitting compassion, to hear her pour out her unwitting relief in this laugh, while he superiorly permitted it. "I don't understand this thing," said the colonel, through whose dense, masculine intelligence some suspicions of love-making were beginning to pierce. But he dismissed them as absurd, and added, "However, I'm willing to forgive, and you've done the forgetting; and all that I ask now is the pleasure of your company on the spot where Montgomery fell. Fanny'll never believe I've found it unless you go with me," he appealed, finally. "O, we'll go, by all means," said Mr. Arbuton, unconsciously speaking, as by authority, for both. They came into busier streets of the Port again, and then passed through the square of the Lower Town Market, with the market-house in the midst, the shops and warehouses on either side, the long row of tented booths with every kind of peasant-wares to sell, and the wide stairway dropping to the river which brought the abundance of the neighboring country to the mart. The whole place was alive with country-folk in carts and citizens on foot. At one point a gayly painted wagon was drawn up in the midst of a group of people to whom a quackish-faced Yankee was hawking, in his own personal French, an American patent-medicine, and making his audience giggle. Because Kitty was amused at this, Mr. Arbuton found it the drollest thing imaginable, but saw something yet droller when she made the colonel look at a peasant, standing in one corner beside a basket of fowls, which a woman, coming up to buy, examined as if the provision were some natural curiosity, while a crowd at once gathered round. "It requires a considerable population to make a bargain, up here," remarked the colonel. "I suppose they turn out the garrison when they sell a beef." For both buyer and seller seemed to take advice of the bystanders, who discussed and inspected the different fowls as if nothing so novel as poultry had yet fallen in their way. At last the peasant himself took up the fowls and carefully scrutinized them. "_Those_ chickens, it seems, never happened to catch his eye before," interpreted Kitty; and Mr. Arbuton, who was usually very restive during such banter, smiled as if it were the most admirable fooling, or the most precious wisdom, in the world. He made them wait to see the bargain out, and could, apparently, have lingered there forever. But the colonel had a conscience about Montgomery, and he hurried them away, on past the Queen's Wharf, and down the Cove Road to that point where the scarped and rugged breast of the cliff bears the sign, "Here fell Montgomery," though he really fell, not half-way up the height, but at the foot of it, where stood the battery that forbade his juncture with Arnold at Prescott Gate. A certain wildness yet possesses the spot: the front of the crag, topped by the high citadel-wall, is so grim, and the few tough evergreens that cling to its clefts are torn and twisted by the winter blasts, and the houses are decrepit with age, showing here and there the scars of the frequent fires that sweep the Lower Town. It was quite useless: neither the memories of the place nor their setting were sufficient to engage the wayward thoughts of these curiously assorted pilgrims; and the colonel, after some attempts to bring the matter home to himself and the others, was obliged to abandon Mr. Arbuton to his tender reveries of Kitty, and Kitty to her puzzling over the change in Mr. Arbuton. His complaisance made her uncomfortable and shy of him, it was so strange; it gave her a little shiver, as if he were behaving undignifiedly. "Well, Kitty," said the colonel, "I reckon Uncle Jack would have made more out of this than we've done. He'd have had their geology out of these rocks, any way." IX. MR. ARBUTON'S INFATUATION. Kitty went as usual to Mrs. Ellison's room after her walk, but she lapsed into a deep abstraction as she sat down beside the sofa. "What are you smiling at?" asked Mrs. Ellison, after briefly supporting her abstraction. "Was I smiling?" asked Kitty, beginning to laugh. "I didn't know it." "What _has_ happened so very funny?" "Why, I don't know whether it's so very funny or not. I believe it isn't funny at all." "Then what makes you laugh?" "I don't know. Was I--" "Now _don't_ ask me if you were laughing, Kitty. It's a little too much. You can talk or not, as you choose; but I don't like to be turned into ridicule." "O Fanny, how can you? I was thinking about something very different. But I don't see how I can tell you, without putting Mr. Arbuton in a ludicrous light, and it isn't quite fair." "You're very careful of him, all at once," said Mrs. Ellison. "You didn't seem disposed to spare him yesterday so much. I don't understand this sudden conversion." Kitty responded with a fit of outrageous laughter. "Now I see I must tell you," she said, and rapidly recounted Mr. Arbuton's adventure. "Why, I never knew anything so cool and brave, Fanny, and I admired him more than ever I did; but then I couldn't help seeing the other side of it, you know." "What other side? I _don't_ know." "Well, you'd have had to laugh yourself, if you'd seen the lordly way he dismissed the poor people who had come running out of their houses to help him, and his stateliness in rewarding that little cooper, and his heroic parting from his cherished overcoat,--which of course he can't replace in Quebec,--and his absent-minded politeness in taking my hand under his arm, and marching off with me so magnificently. But the worst thing, Fanny,"--and she bowed herself under a tempest of long-pent mirth,--"the worst thing was, that the iron, you know, was the cooper's branding-iron, and I had a vision of the dog carrying about on his nose, as long as he lived, the monogram that marks the cooper's casks as holding a certain number of gallons--" "Kitty, don't be--sacrilegious!" cried Mrs. Ellison. "No, I'm not," she retorted, gasping and panting. "I never respected Mr. Arbuton so much, and you say yourself I haven't shown myself so careful of him before. But I never was so glad to see Dick in my life, and to have some excuse for laughing. I didn't dare to speak to Mr. Arbuton about it, for he couldn't, if he had tried, have let me laugh it out and be done with it. I trudged demurely along by his side, and neither of us mentioned the matter to Dick," she concluded breathlessly. Then, "I don't know why I should tell you now; it seems wicked and cruel," she said penitently, almost pensively. Mrs. Ellison had not been amused. She said, "Well, Kitty, in _some_ girls I should say it was quite heartless to do as you've done." "It's heartless in _me_, Fanny; and you needn't say such a thing. I'm sure I didn't utter a syllable to wound him, and just before that he'd been _very_ disagreeable, and I forgave him because I thought he was mortified. And you needn't say that I've no feeling"; and thereupon she rose, and, putting her hands into her cousin's, "Fanny," she cried, vehemently, "I _have_ been heartless. I'm afraid I haven't shown any sympathy or consideration. I'm afraid I must have seemed dreadfully callous and hard. I oughtn't to have thought of anything but the danger to him; and it seems to me now I scarcely thought of that at all. O, how rude it was of me to see anything funny in it! What _can_ I do?" "Don't go crazy, at any rate, Kitty. _He_ doesn't know that you've been laughing about him. You needn't do anything." "O yes, I need. He doesn't know that I've been laughing about him to you; but, don't you see, I laughed when we met Dick; and what can he think of that?" "He just thinks you were nervous, I suppose." "O, do you suppose he does, Fanny? O, I _wish_ I could believe that! O, I'm so horribly ashamed of myself! And here yesterday I was criticising him for being unfeeling, and now I've been a thousand times worse than he has ever been, or ever could be! O dear, dear, dear!" "Kitty! hush!" exclaimed Mrs. Ellison; "you run on like a wild thing, and you're driving me distracted, by not being like yourself." "O, it's very well for _you_ to be so calm; but if you didn't know what to do, you wouldn't." "Yes, I would; I don't, and I am." "But what shall I do?" And Kitty plucked away the hands which Fanny had been holding and wrung them. "I'll tell you what I can do," she suddenly added, while a gleam of relief dawned upon her face: "I can bear all his disagreeable ways after this, as long as he stays, and not say anything back. Yes, I'll put up with everything. I'll be as _meek_! He may patronize me and snub me and put me in the wrong as much as he pleases. And then he won't be _approaching_ my behavior. O Fanny!" Upon this, Mrs. Ellison said that she was going to give her a good scolding for her nonsense, and pulled her down and kissed her, and said that she had not done anything, and was, nevertheless, consoled at her resolve to expiate her offence by respecting thenceforward Mr. Arbuton's foibles and prejudices. It is not certain how far Kitty would have succeeded in her good purposes: these things, so easily conceived, are not of such facile execution; she passed a sleepless night of good resolutions and schemes of reparation; but, fortunately for her, Mr. Arbuton's foibles and prejudices seemed to have fallen into a strange abeyance. The change that had come upon him that day remained; he was still Mr. Arbuton, but with a difference. He could not undo his whole inherited and educated being, and perhaps no chance could deeply affect it without destroying the man. He continued hopelessly superior to Colonel and Mrs. Ellison; but it is not easy to love a woman and not seek, at least before marriage, to please those dear to her. Mr. Arbuton had contested his passion at every advance; he had firmly set his face against the fancy that, at the beginning, invested this girl with a charm; he had only done the things afterwards that mere civilization required; he had suffered torments of doubt concerning her fitness for himself and his place in society; he was not sure yet that her unknown relations were not horribly vulgar people; even yet, he was almost wholly ignorant of the circumstances and conditions of her life. But how he saw her only in the enrapturing light of his daring for her sake, of a self-devotion that had seemed to make her his own; and he behaved toward her with a lover's self-forgetfulness,--or something like it: say a perfect tolerance, a tender patience, in which it would have been hard to detect the lurking shadow of condescension. He was fairly domesticated with the family. Mrs. Ellison's hurt, in spite of her many imprudences, was decidedly better, and sometimes she made a ceremony of being helped down from her room to dinner; but she always had tea beside her sofa, and he with the others drank it there. Few hours of the day passed in which they did not meet in that easy relation which establishes itself among people sojourning in summer idleness under the same roof. In the morning he saw the young girl fresh and glad as any flower of the garden beneath her window, while the sweet abstraction of her maiden dreams yet hovered in her eyes. At night he sat with her beside the lamp whose light, illuming a little world within, shut out the great world outside, and seemed to be the soft effulgence of her presence, as she sewed, or knit, or read,--a heavenly spirit of home. Sometimes he heard her talking with her cousin, or lightly laughing after he had said good night; once, when he woke, she seemed to be looking out of her window across the moonlight in the Ursulines' Garden while she sang a fragment of song. To meet her on the stairs or in the narrow entries; or to encounter her at the doors, and make way for her to pass with a jest and blush and flutter; to sit down at table with her three times a day,--was a potent witchery. There was a rapture in her shawl flung over the back of a chair; her gloves, lying light as fallen leaves on the table, and keeping the shape of her hands, were full of winning character; and all the more unaccountably they touched his heart because they had a certain careless, sweet shabbiness about the finger-tips. He found himself hanging upon her desultory talk with Fanny about the set of things and the agreement of colors. There was always more or less of this talk going on, whatever the main topic was, for continual question arose in the minds of one or other lady concerning those adaptations of Mrs. Ellison's finery to the exigencies of Kitty's daily life. They pleased their innocent hearts with the secrecy of the affair, which, in the concealments it required, the sudden difficulties it presented, and the guiltless equivocations it inspired, had the excitement of intrigue. Nothing could have been more to the mind of Mrs. Ellison than to deck Kitty for this perpetual masquerade; and, since the things were very pretty, and Kitty was a girl in every motion of her being, I do not see how anything could have delighted her more than to wear them. Their talk effervesced with the delicious consciousness that he could not dream of what was going on, and babbled over with mysterious jests and laughter, which sometimes he feared to be at his expense, and so joined in, and made them laugh the more at his misconception. He went and came among them at will; he had but to tap at Mrs. Ellison's door, and some voice of unaffected cordiality welcomed him in; he had but to ask, and Kitty was frankly ready for any of those strolls about Quebec in which most of their waking hours were dreamed away. The gray Lady of the North cast her spell about them,--the freshness of her mornings, the still heat of her middays, the slant, pensive radiance of her afternoons, and the pale splendor of her auroral nights. Never was city so faithfully explored; never did city so abound in objects of interest; for Kitty's love of the place was boundless, and his love for her was inevitable friendship with this adoptive patriotism. "I didn't suppose you Western people cared for these things," he once said; "I thought your minds were set on things new and square." "But how could you think so?" replied Kitty, tolerantly. "It's because we have so many new and square things that we like the old crooked ones. I do believe I should enjoy Europe even better than you. There's a forsaken farm-house near Eriecreek, dropping to pieces amongst its wild-grown sweetbriers and quince-bushes, that I used to think a wonder of antiquity because it was built in 1815. Can't you imagine how I must feel in a city like this, that was founded nearly three centuries ago, and has suffered so many sieges and captures, and looks like pictures of those beautiful old towns I can never see?" "O, perhaps you will see them some day!" he said, touched by her fervor. "I don't ask it at present: Quebec's enough. I'm in love with the place. I wish I never had to leave it. There isn't a crook, or a turn, or a tin-roof, or a dormer-window, or a gray stone in it that isn't precious." Mr. Arbuton laughed. "Well, you shall be sovereign lady of Quebec for me. Shall we have the English garrison turned out?" "No; not unless you can bring back Montcalm's men to take their places." This might be as they sauntered out of one of the city gates, and strayed through the Lower Town till they should chance upon some poor, bare-interiored church, with a few humble worshippers adoring their Saint, with his lamps alight before his picture; or as they passed some high convent-wall, and caught the strange, metallic clang of the nuns' voices singing their hymns within. Sometimes they whiled away the hours on the Esplanade, breathing its pensive sentiment of neglect and incipient decay, and pacing up and down over the turf athwart the slim shadows of the poplars; or, with comfortable indifference to the local observances, sat in talk on the carriage of one of the burly, uncared-for guns, while the spider wove his web across the mortar's mouth, and the grass nodded above the tumbled pyramids of shot, and the children raced up and down, and the nursery-maids were wooed of the dapper sergeants, and the red-coated sentry loitered lazily to and fro before his box. On the days of the music, they listened to the band in the Governor's Garden, and watched the fine world of the old capital in flirtation with the blond-whiskered officers; and on pleasant nights they mingled with the citizen throng that filled the Durham Terrace, while the river shaped itself in the lights of its shipping, and the Lower Town, with its lamps, lay, like a nether firmament, two hundred feet below them, and Point Levis glittered and sparkled on the thither shore, and in the northern sky the aurora throbbed in swift pulsations of violet and crimson. They liked to climb the Break-Neck Steps at Prescott Gate, dropping from the Upper to the Lower Town, which reminded Mr. Arbuton of Naples and Trieste, and took Kitty with the unassociated picturesqueness of their odd shops and taverns, and their lofty windows green with house-plants. They would stop and look up at the geraniums and fuchsias, and fall a thinking of far different things, and the friendly, unbusy people would come to their doors and look up with them. They recognized the handsome, blond young man, and the pretty, gray-eyed girl; for people in Quebec have time to note strangers who linger there, and Kitty and Mr. Arbuton had come to be well-known figures, different from the fleeting tourists on their rounds; and, indeed, as sojourners they themselves perceived their poetic distinction from mere birds of passage. Indoors they resorted much to the little entry-window looking out on the Ursulines' Garden. Two chairs stood confronted there, and it was hard for either of the young people to pass them without sinking a moment into one of them, and this appeared always to charm another presence into the opposite chair. There they often lingered in the soft forenoons, talking in desultory phrase of things far and near, or watching, in long silences, the nuns pacing up and down in the garden below, and waiting for the pensive, slender nun, and the stout, jolly nun whom Kitty had adopted, and whom she had gayly interpreted to him as an allegory of Life in their quaint inseparableness; and they played that the influence of one or other nun was in the ascendant, according as their own talk was gay or sad. In their relation, people are not so different from children; they like the same thing over and over again; they like it the better the less it is in itself. At times Kitty would come with a book in her hand (one finger shut in to keep the place),--some latest novel, or a pirated edition of Longfellow, recreantly purchased at a Quebec bookstore; and then Mr. Arbuton must ask to see it; and he read romance or poetry to her by the hour. He showed to as much advantage as most men do in the serious follies of wooing; and an influence which he could not defy, or would not, shaped him to all the sweet, absurd demands of the affair. From time to time, recollecting himself, and trying to look consequences in the face, he gently turned the talk upon Eriecreek, and endeavored to possess himself of some intelligible image of the place, and of Kitty's home and friends. Even then, the present was so fair and full of content, that his thoughts, when they reverted to the future, no longer met the obstacles that had made him recoil from it before. Whatever her past had been, he could find some way to weaken the ties that bound her to it; a year or two of Europe would leave no trace of Eriecreek; without effort of his, her life would adapt itself to his own, and cease to be a part of the lives of those people there; again and again his amiable imaginations--they were scarcely intents--accomplished themselves in many a swift, fugitive revery, while the days went by, and the shadow of the ivy in the window at which they sat fell, in moonlight and sunlight, upon Kitty's cheeks, and the fuchsia kissed her hair with its purple and crimson blossom. X. MR. ARBUTON SPEAKS. Mrs. Ellison was almost well; she had already been shopping twice in the Rue Fabrique, and her recovery was now chiefly retarded by the dress-maker's delays in making up a silk too precious to be risked in the piece with the customs officers, at the frontier. Moreover, although the colonel was beginning to chafe, she was not loath to linger yet a few days for the sake of an affair to which her suffering had been a willing sacrifice. In return for her indefatigable self-devotion, Kitty had lately done very little. She ungratefully shrunk more and more from those confidences to which her cousin's speeches covertly invited; she openly resisted open attempts upon her knowledge of facts. If she was not prepared to confess everything to Fanny, it was perhaps because it was all so very little, or because a young girl has not, or ought not to have, a mind in certain matters, or else knows it not, till it is asked her by the one first authorized to learn it. The dream in which she lived was flattering and fair; and it wholly contented her imagination while it lulled her consciousness. It moved from phase to phase without the harshness of reality, and was apparently allied neither to the future nor to the past. She herself seemed to have no more fixity or responsibility in it than the heroine of a romance. As their last week in Quebec drew to its close, only two or three things remained for them to do, as tourists; and chief among the few unvisited shrines of sentiment was the site of the old Jesuit mission at Sillery. "It won't do not to see that, Kitty," said Mrs. Ellison, who, as usual, had arranged the details of the excursion, and now announced them. "It's one of the principal things here, and your Uncle Jack would never be satisfied if you missed it. In fact, it's a shame to have left it so long. I can't go with you, for I'm saving up my strength for our picnic at Château-Bigot to-morrow; and I want you, Kitty, to see that the colonel sees everything. I've had trouble enough, goodness knows, getting the facts together for him." This was as Kitty and Mr. Arbuton sat waiting in Mrs. Ellison's parlor for the delinquent colonel, who had just stepped round to the Hôtel St. Louis and was to be back presently. But the moment of his return passed; a quarter-hour of grace; a half-hour of grim magnanimity,--and still no colonel. Mrs. Ellison began by saying that it was perfectly abominable, and left herself, in a greater extremity, with nothing more forcible to add than that it was too provoking. "It's getting so late now," she said at last, "that it's no use waiting any longer, if you mean to go at all, to-day; and to-day's the only day you _can_ go. There, you'd better drive on without him. I can't bear to have you miss it." And, thus adjured, the younger people rose and went. When the high-born Noël Brulart de Sillery, Knight of Malta and courtier of Marie de Medicis, turned from the vanities of this world and became a priest, Canada was the fashionable mission of the day, and the noble neophyte signalized his self-renunciation by giving of his great wealth for the conversion of the Indian heathen. He supplied the Jesuits with money to maintain a religious establishment near Quebec; and the settlement of red Christians took his musical name, which the region still keeps. It became famous at once as the first residence of the Jesuits and the nuns of the Hôtel Dieu, who wrought and suffered for religion there amidst the terrors of pestilence, Iroquois, and winter. It was the scene of miracles and martyrdoms, and marvels of many kinds, and the centre of the missionary efforts among the Indians. Indeed, few events of the picturesque early history of Quebec left it untouched; and it is worthy to be seen, no less for the wild beauty of the spot than for its heroical memories. About a league from the city, where the irregular wall of rock on which Quebec is built recedes from the river, and a grassy space stretches between the tide and the foot of the woody steep, the old mission and the Indian village once stood; and to this day there yet stands the stalwart frame of the first Jesuit Residence, modernized, of course, and turned to secular uses, but firm as of old, and good for a century to come. All round is a world of lumber, and rafts of vast extent cover the face of the waters in the ample cove,--one of many that indent the shore of the St. Lawrence. A careless village straggles along the roadside and the river's margin; huge lumber-ships are loading for Europe in the stream; a town shines out of the woods on the opposite shore; nothing but a friendly climate is needed to make this one of the most charming scenes the heart could imagine. Kitty and Mr. Arbuton drove out towards Sillery by the St. Louis Road, and already the jealous foliage that hides the pretty villas and stately places of that aristocratic suburb was tinged in here and there a bough with autumnal crimson or yellow; in the meadows here and there a vine ran red along the grass; the loath choke-cherries were ripening in the fence corners; the air was full of the pensive jargoning of the crickets and grasshoppers, and all the subtle sentiment of the fading summer. Their hearts were open to every dreamy influence of the time; their driver understood hardly any English, and their talk might safely be made up of those harmless egotisms which young people exchange,--those strains of psychological autobiography which mark advancing intimacy and in which they appear to each other the most uncommon persons that ever lived, and their experiences and emotions and ideas are the more surprisingly unique because exactly alike. It seemed a very short league to Sillery when they left the St. Louis Road, and the driver turned his horses' heads towards the river, down the winding sylvan way that descended to the shore; and they had not so much desire, after all, to explore the site of the old mission. Nevertheless, they got out and visited the little space once occupied by the Jesuit chapel, where its foundations may yet be traced in the grass, and they read the inscription on the monument lately raised by the parish to the memory of the first Jesuit missionary to Canada, who died at Sillery. Then there seemed nothing more to do but admire the mighty rafts and piles of lumber; but their show of interest in the local celebrity had stirred the pride of Sillery, and a little French boy entered the chapel-yard, and gave Kitty a pamphlet history of the place, for which he would not suffer himself to be paid; and a sweet-faced young Englishwoman came out of the house across the way, and hesitatingly asked if they would not like to see the Jesuit Residence. She led them indoors, and showed them how the ancient edifice had been encased by the modern house, and bade them note, from the deep shelving window-seats, that the stone walls were three feet thick. The rooms were low-ceiled and quaintly shaped, but they borrowed a certain grandeur from this massiveness; and it was easy to figure the priests in black and the nuns in gray in those dim chambers, which now a life so different inhabited. Behind the house was a plot of grass, and thence the wooded hill rose steep. "But come up stairs," said the ardent little hostess to Kitty, when her husband came in, and had civilly welcomed the strangers, "and I'll show you my own room, that's as old as any." They left the two men below, and mounted to a large room carpeted and furnished in modern taste. "We had to take down the old staircase," she continued, "to get our bedstead up,"--a magnificent structure which she plainly thought well worth the sacrifice; and then she pointed out divers remnants of the ancient building. "It's a queer place to live in; but we're only here for the summer"; and she went on to explain, with a pretty _naïveté_, how her husband's business brought him to Sillery from Quebec in that season. They were descending the stairs, Kitty foremost, as she added, "This is my first housekeeping, you know, and of course it would be strange anywhere; but you can't think how funny it is here. I suppose," she said, shyly, but as if her confidences merited some return, while Kitty stepped from the stairway face to face with Mr. Arbuton, who was about to follow them, with the lady's husband,--"I suppose this is your wedding-journey." A quick alarm flamed through the young girl, and burned out of her glowing cheeks. This pleasant masquerade of hers must look to others like the most intentional love-making between her and Mr. Arbuton,--no dreams either of them, nor figures in a play, nor characters in a romance; nay, on one spectator, at least, it had shed the soft lustre of a honeymoon. How could it be otherwise? Here on this fatal line of wedding-travel,--so common that she remembered Mrs. March half apologized for making it her first tour after marriage,--how could it happen but that two young people together as they were should be taken for bride and bridegroom? Moreover, and worst of all, he must have heard that fatal speech! He was pale, if she was flushed, and looked grave, as she fancied; but he passed on up the stairs, and she sat down to wait for his return. "I used to notice so many couples from the States when we lived in the city," continued the hospitable mistress of the house, "but I don't think they often came out to Sillery. In fact, you're the only pair that's come this summer; and so, when you seemed interested about the mission, I thought you wouldn't mind if I spoke to you, and asked you in to see the house. Most of the Americans stay long enough to visit the citadel, and the Plains of Abraham, and the Falls at Montmorenci, and then they go away. I should think they'd be tired always doing the same things. To be sure, they're always different people." It was unfair to let her entertainer go on talking for quantity in this way; and Kitty said how glad she was to see the old Residence, and that she should always be grateful to her for asking them in. She did not disabuse her of her error; it cost less to leave it alone; and when Mr. Arbuton reappeared, she took leave of those kind people with a sort of remote enjoyment of the wife's mistakenness concerning herself. Yet, as the young matron and her husband stood beside the carriage repeating their adieux, she would fain have prolonged the parting forever, so much she dreaded to be left alone with Mr. Arbuton. But, left alone with him, her spirits violently rose; and as they drove along under the shadow of the cliff, she descanted in her liveliest strain upon the various interests of the way; she dwelt on the beauty of the wide, still river, with the ships at anchor in it; she praised the lovely sunset-light on the other shore; she commented lightly on the village, through which they passed, with the open doors and the suppers frying on the great stoves set into the partition-walls of each cleanly home; she made him look at the two great stairways that climb the cliff from the lumber-yards to the Plains of Abraham, and the army of laborers, each with his empty dinner-pail in hand, scaling the once difficult heights on their way home to the suburb of St. Roch; she did whatever she could to keep the talk to herself and yet away from herself. Part of the way the village was French and neat and pleasant, then it grovelled with Irish people, and ceased to be a tolerable theme for discourse; and so at last the silence against which she had battled fell upon them and deepened like a spell that she could not break. It would have been better for Mr. Arbuton's success just then if he had not broken it. But failure was not within his reckoning; for he had so long regarded this young girl _de haut en bas_, to say it brutally, that he could not imagine she should feel any doubt in accepting him. Moreover, a magnanimous sense of obligation mingled with his confident love, for she must have known that he had overheard that speech at the Residence. Perhaps he let this feeling color his manner, however faintly. He lacked the last fine instinct; he could not forbear; and he spoke while all her nerves and fluttering pulses cried him mercy. XI. KITTY ANSWERS. It was dimmest twilight when Kitty entered Mrs. Ellison's room and sank down on the first chair in silence. "The colonel met a friend at the St. Louis, and forgot about the expedition, Kitty," said Fanny, "and he only came in half an hour ago. But it's just as well; I know you've had a splendid time. Where's Mr. Arbuton?" Kitty burst into tears. "Why, has anything happened to him?" cried Mrs. Ellison, springing towards her. "To him? No! What should happen to _him_?" Kitty demanded with an indignant accent. "Well, then, has anything happened to _you_?" "I don't know if you can call it _happening_. But I suppose you'll be satisfied now, Fanny. He's offered himself to me." Kitty uttered the last words with a sort of violence, as if since the fact must be stated, she wished it to appear in the sharpest relief. "O dear!" said Mrs. Ellison, not so well satisfied as the successful match-maker ought to be. So long as it was a marriage in the abstract, she had never ceased to desire it; but as the actual union of Kitty and this Mr. Arbuton, of whom, really, they knew so little, and of whom, if she searched her heart, she had as little liking as knowledge, it was another affair. Mrs. Ellison trembled at her triumph, and began to think that failure would have been easier to bear. Were they in the least suited to each other? Would she like to see poor Kitty chained for life to that impassive egotist, whose very merits were repellent, and whose modesty even seemed to convict and snub you? Mrs. Ellison was not able to put the matter to herself with moderation, either way; doubtless she did Mr. Arbuton injustice now. "Did you accept him?" she whispered, feebly. "Accept him?" repeated Kitty. "No!" "O dear!" again sighed Mrs. Ellison, feeling that this was scarcely better, and not daring to ask further. "I'm dreadfully perplexed, Fanny," said Kitty, after waiting for the questions which did not come, "and I wish you'd help me think." "I will, darling. But I don't know that I'll be of much use. I begin to think I'm not very good at thinking." Kitty, who longed chiefly to get the situation more distinctly before herself, gave no heed to this confession, but went on to rehearse the whole affair. The twilight lent her its veil; and in the kindly obscurity she gathered courage to face all the facts, and even to find what was droll in them. "It was very solemn, of course, and I was frightened; but I tried to keep my wits about me, and _not_ to say yes, simply because that was the easiest thing. I told him that I didn't know,--and I don't; and that I must have time to think,--and I must. He was very ungenerous, and said he had hoped I had already had time to think; and he couldn't seem to understand, or else I couldn't very well explain, how it had been with me all along." "He might certainly say you had encouraged him," Mrs. Ellison remarked, thoughtfully. "Encouraged him, Fanny? How can you accuse me of such indelicacy?" "Encouraging isn't indelicacy. The gentlemen _have_ to be encouraged, or of course they'd never have any courage. They're so timid, naturally." "I don't think Mr. Arbuton is very timid. He seemed to think that he had only to ask as a matter of form, and I had no business to say anything. What has he ever done for me? And hasn't he often been intensely disagreeable? He oughtn't to have spoken just after overhearing what he did. It was horrid to do so. He was very obtuse, too, not to see that girls can't always be so certain of themselves as men, or, if they are, don't know they are as soon as they're asked." "Yes," interrupted Mrs. Ellison, "that's the way with girls. I do believe that most of them--when they're young like you, Kitty--never think of marriage as the end of their flirtations. They'd just like the attentions and the romance to go on forever, and never turn into anything more serious; and they're not to blame for that, though they _do_ get blamed for it." "Certainly," assented Kitty, eagerly, "that's it; that's just what I was saying; that's the very reason why girls must have time to make up their minds. _You_ had, I suppose." "Yes, two minutes. Poor Dick was going back to his regiment, and stood with his watch in his hand. I said no, and called after him to correct myself. But, Kitty, if the romance had happened to stop without his saying anything, you wouldn't have liked that either, would you?" "No," faltered Kitty, "I suppose not." "Well, then, don't you see? That's a great point in his favor. How much time did you want, or did he give you?" "I said I should answer before we left Quebec," answered Kitty, with a heavy sigh. "Don't you know what to say now?" "I can't tell. That's what I want you to help me think out." Mrs. Ellison was silent for a moment before she said, "Well, then, I suppose we shall have to go back to the very beginning." "Yes," assented Kitty, faintly. "You did have a sort of fancy for him the first time you saw him, didn't you?" asked Mrs. Ellison, coaxingly, while forcing herself to be systematic and coherent, by a mental strain of which no idea can be given. "Yes," said Kitty, yet more faintly, adding, "but I can't tell just what sort of a fancy it was. I suppose I admired him for being handsome and stylish, and for having such exquisite manners." "Go on," said Mrs. Ellison. "And after you got acquainted with him?" "Why, you know we've talked that over once already, Fanny." "Yes, but we oughtn't to skip anything now," replied Mrs. Ellison, in a tone of judicial accuracy which made Kitty smile. But she quickly became serious again, and said, "Afterwards I couldn't tell whether to like him or not, or whether he wanted me to. I think he acted very strangely for a person in--love. I used to feel so troubled and oppressed when I was with him. He seemed always to be making himself agreeable under protest." "Perhaps that was just your imagination, Kitty." "Perhaps it was; but it troubled me just the same." "Well, and then?" "Well, and then after that day of the Montgomery expedition, he seemed to change altogether, and to try always to be pleasant, and to do everything he could to make me like him. I don't know how to account for it. Ever since then he's been extremely careful of me, and behaved--of course without knowing it--as if I belonged to him already. Or maybe I've imagined that too. It's very hard to tell what has really happened the last two weeks." Kitty was silent, and Mrs. Ellison did not speak at once. Presently she asked, "Was his acting as if you belonged to him disagreeable?" "I can't tell. I think it was rather presuming. I don't know why he did it." "Do you respect him?" demanded Mrs. Ellison. "Why, Fanny, I've always told you that I did respect some things in him." Mrs. Ellison had the facts before her, and it rested upon her to sum them up, and do something with them. She rose to a sitting posture, and confronted her task. "Well, Kitty, I'll tell you: I don't really know what to think. But I can say this: if you liked him at first, and then didn't like him, and afterwards he made himself more agreeable, and you didn't mind his behaving as if you belonged to him, and you respected him, but after all didn't think him fascinating--" "He _is_ fascinating--in a kind of way. He was, from the beginning. In a story his cold, snubbing, putting-down ways would have been perfectly fascinating." "Then why didn't you take him?" "Because," answered Kitty, between laughing and crying, "it isn't a story, and I don't know whether I like him." "But do you think you might get to like him?" "I don't know. His asking brings back all the doubts I ever had of him, and that I've been forgetting the past two weeks. I can't tell whether I like him or not. If I did, shouldn't I trust him more?" "Well, whether you are in love or not, I'll tell you what you _are_, Kitty," cried Mrs. Ellison, provoked with her indecision, and yet relieved that the worst, whatever it was, was postponed thereby for a day or two. "What!" "You're--" But at this important juncture the colonel came lounging in, and Kitty glided out of the room. "Richard," said Mrs. Ellison, seriously, and in a tone implying that it was the colonel's fault, as usual, "you know what has happened, I suppose." "No, my dear, I don't; but no matter: I will presently, I dare say." "O, I wish for once you wouldn't be so flippant. Mr. Arbuton has offered himself to Kitty." Colonel Ellison gave a quick, sharp whistle of amazement, but trusted himself to nothing more articulate. "Yes," said his wife, responding to the whistle, "and it makes me perfectly wretched." "Why, I thought you liked him." "I didn't _like_ him; but I thought it would be an excellent thing for Kitty." "And won't it?" "She doesn't know." "Doesn't know?" "No." The colonel was silent, while Mrs. Ellison stated the case in full, and its pending uncertainty. Then he exclaimed vehemently, as if his amazement had been growing upon him, "This is the most astonishing thing in the world! Who would ever have dreamt of that young iceberg being in love?" "Haven't I _told_ you all along he was?" "O yes, certainly; but that might be taken either way, you know. You would discover the tender passion in the eye of a potato." "Colonel Ellison," said Fanny with sternness, "why do you suppose he's been hanging about us for the last four weeks? Why should he have stayed in Quebec? Do you think he pitied _me_, or found _you_ so very agreeable?" "Well, I thought he found us just tolerable, and was interested in the place." Mrs. Ellison made no direct reply to this pitiable speech, but looked a scorn which, happily for the colonel, the darkness hid. Presently she said that bats did not express the blindness of men, for any bat could have seen what was going on. "Why," remarked the colonel, "I did have a momentary suspicion that day of the Montgomery business; they both looked very confused, when I saw them at the end of that street, and neither of them had anything to say; but that was accounted for by what you told me afterwards about his adventure. At the time I didn't pay much attention to the matter. The idea of his being in love seemed too ridiculous." "Was it ridiculous for you to be in love with me?" "No; and yet I can't praise my condition for its wisdom, Fanny." "Yes! that's _like_ men. As soon as one of them is safely married, he thinks all the love-making in the world has been done forever, and he can't conceive of two young people taking a fancy to each other." "That's something so, Fanny. But granting--for the sake of argument merely--that Boston has been asking Kitty to marry him, and she doesn't know whether she wants him, what are we to do about it? _I_ don't like him well enough to plead his cause; do you? When does Kitty think she'll be able to make up her mind?" "She's to let him know before we leave." The colonel laughed. "And so he's to hang about here on uncertainties for two whole days! That _is_ rather rough on him. Fanny, what made you so eager for this business?" "Eager? I _wasn't_ eager." "Well, then,--reluctantly acquiescent?" "Why, she's so literary and that." "And what?" "How insulting!--Intellectual, and so on; and I thought she would be just fit to live in a place where everybody is literary and intellectual. That is, I thought that, if I thought anything." "Well," said the colonel, "you may have been right on the whole, but I don't think Kitty is showing any particular force of mind, just now, that would fit her to live in Boston. My opinion is, that it's ridiculous for her to keep him in suspense. She might as well answer him first as last. She's putting herself under a kind of obligation by her delay. I'll talk to her--" "If you do, you'll kill her. You don't know how she's wrought up about it." "O well, I'll be careful of her sensibilities. It's my duty to speak with her. I'm here in the place of a parent. Besides, don't I know Kitty? I've almost brought her up." "Maybe you're right. You're all so queer that perhaps you're right. Only, do be careful, Richard. You must approach the matter very delicately,--indirectly, you know. Girls are different, remember, from young men, and you mustn't be blunt. Do maneuver a little, for once in your life." "All right, Fanny; you needn't be afraid of my doing anything awkward or sudden. I'll go to her room pretty soon, after she is quieted down, and have a good, calm old fatherly conversation with her." The colonel was spared this errand; for Kitty had left some of her things on Fanny's table, and now came back for them with a lamp in her hand. Her averted face showed the marks of weeping; the corners of her firm-set lips were downward bent, as if some resolution which she had taken were very painful. This the anxious Fanny saw; and she made a gesture to the colonel which any woman would have understood to enjoin silence, or, at least, the utmost caution and tenderness of speech. The colonel summoned his _finesse_ and said, cheerily, "Well, Kitty, what's Boston been saying to you?" Mrs. Ellison fell back upon her sofa as if shot, and placed her hand over her face. Kitty seemed not to hear her cousin. Having gathered up her things, she bent an unmoved face and an unseeing gaze full upon him, and glided from the room without a word. "Well, upon my soul," cried the colonel, "this is a pleasant, nightmarish, sleep-walking, Lady-Macbethish little transaction. Confound it, Fanny this comes of your wanting me to maneuver. If you'd let me come straight _at_ the subject,--like a _man_--" "_Please_, Richard, don't say anything more now," pleaded Mrs. Ellison in a broken voice. "You can't help it, I know; and I must do the best I can, under the circumstances. Do go away for a little while, darling! O dear!" As for Kitty, when she had got out of the room in that phantasmal fashion, she dimly recalled, through the mists of her own trouble, the colonel's dismay at her so glooming upon him, and began to think that she had used poor Dick more tragically than she need, and so began to laugh softly to herself; but while she stood there at the entry window a moment, laughing in the moonlight, that made her lamp-flame thin, and painted her face with its pale lustre, Mr. Arbuton came down the attic stairway. He was not a man of quick fancies; but to one of even slower imagination and of calmer mood, she might very well have seemed unreal, the creature of a dream, fantastic, intangible, insensible, arch, not wholly without some touch of the malign. In his heart he groaned over her beauty as if she were lost to him forever in this elfish transfiguration. "Miss Ellison!" he scarcely more than whispered. "You ought not to speak to me now," she answered, gravely. "I know it; but I could not help it. For heaven's sake, do not let it tell against me. I wished to ask if I should not see you to-morrow; to beg that all might go on as had been planned, and as if nothing had been said to-day." "It'll be very strange," said Kitty. "My cousins know everything now. How can we meet before them!" "I'm not going away without an answer, and we can't remain here without meeting. It will be less strange if we let everything take its course." "Well." "Thanks." He looked strangely humbled, but even more bewildered than humbled. She listened while he descended the steps, unbolted the street door, and closed it behind him. Then she passed out of the moonlight into her own room, whose close-curtained space the lamp filled with its ruddy glow, and revealed her again, no malicious sprite, but a very puzzled, conscientious, anxious young girl. Of one thing, at least, she was clear. It had all come about through misunderstanding, through his taking her to be something that she was not; for she was certain that Mr. Arbuton was of too worldly a spirit to choose, if he had known, a girl of such origin and lot as she was only too proud to own. The deception must have begun with dress; and she determined that her first stroke for truth and sincerity should be most sublimely made in the return of Fanny's things, and a rigid fidelity to her own dresses. "Besides," she could not help reflecting, "my travelling-suit will be just the thing for a picnic." And here, if the cynical reader of another sex is disposed to sneer at the method of her self-devotion, I am sure that women, at least, will allow it was most natural and highly proper that in this great moment she should first think of dress, upon which so great consequences hang in matters of the heart Who--to be honest for once, O vain and conceited men!--can deny that the cut, the color, the texture, the stylish set of dresses, has not had everything to do with the rapture of love's young dream? Are not certain bits of lace and knots of ribbon as much a part of it as any smile or sidelong glance of them all? And hath not the long experience of the fair taught them that artful dress is half the virtue of their spells? Full well they know it; and when Kitty resolved to profit no longer by Fanny's wardrobe, she had won the hardest part of the battle in behalf of perfect truth towards Mr. Arbuton. She did not, indeed, stop with this, but lay awake, devising schemes by which she should disabuse him of his errors about her, and persuade him that she was no wife for him. XII. THE PICNIC AT CHATEAU-BIGOT. "Well," said Mrs. Ellison, who had slipped into Kitty's room, in the morning, to do her back hair with some advantages of light which her own chamber lacked, "it'll be no crazier than the rest of the performance; and if you and he can stand it, I'm sure that _we_'ve no reason to complain." "Why, I don't see how it's to be helped, Fanny. He's asked it; and I'm rather glad he has, for I should have hated to have the conventional headache that keeps young ladies from being seen; and at any rate I don't understand how the day could be passed more sensibly than just as we originally planned to spend it. I can make up my mind a great deal better with him than away from him. But I think there never was a more ridiculous situation: now that the high tragedy has faded out of it, and the serious part is coming, it makes me laugh. Poor Mr. Arbuton will feel all day that he is under my mercilessly critical eye, and that he mustn't do this and he mustn't say that, for fear of me; and he can't run away, for he's promised to wait patiently for my decision. It's a most inglorious position for him, but I don't think of anything to do about it. I could say no at once, but he'd rather not." "What have you got that dress on for?" asked Mrs. Ellison, abruptly. "Because I'm not going to wear your things any more, Fanny. It's a case of conscience. I feel like a guilty creature, being courted in another's clothes; and I don't know but it's for a kind of punishment of my deceit that I can't realize this affair as I ought, or my part in it. I keep feeling, the whole time, as if it were somebody else, and I have an absurd kind of other person's interest in it." Mrs. Ellison essayed some reply, but was met by Kitty's steadfast resolution, and in the end did not prevail in so much as a ribbon for her hair. It was not till well into the forenoon that the preparations for the picnic were complete and the four set off together in one carriage. In the strong need that was on each of them to make the best of the affair, the colonel's unconsciousness might have been a little overdone, but Mrs. Ellison's demeanor was sublimely successful. The situation gave full play to her peculiar genius, and you could not have said that any act of hers failed to contribute to the perfection of her design, that any tone or speech was too highly colored. Mr. Arbuton, of whom she took possession, and who knew that she knew all, felt that he had never done justice to her, and seconded her efforts with something like cordial admiration; while Kitty, with certain grateful looks and aversions of the face, paid an ardent homage to her strokes of tact, and after a few miserable moments, in which her nightlong trouble gnawed at her heart, began, in spite of herself, to enjoy the humor of the situation. It is a lovely road out to Château-Bigot. First you drive through the ancient suburbs of the Lower Town, and then you mount the smooth, hard highway, between pretty country-houses, toward the village of Charlesbourg, while Quebec shows, to your casual backward-glance, like a wondrous painted scene, with the spires and lofty roofs of the Upper Town, and the long, irregular wall wandering on the verge of the cliff; then the thronging gables and chimneys of St. Roch, and again many spires and convent walls; lastly the shipping in the St. Charles, which, in one direction, runs, a narrowing gleam, up into its valley, and in the other widens into the broad light of the St. Lawrence. Quiet, elmy spaces of meadow land stretch between the suburban mansions and the village of Charlesbourg, where the driver reassured himself as to his route from the group of idlers on the platform before the church. Then he struck off on a country road, and presently turned from this again into a lane that grew rougher and rougher, till at last it lapsed to a mere cart-track among the woods, where the rich, strong odors of the pine, and of the wild herbs bruised under the wheels, filled the air. A peasant and his black-eyed, open-mouthed boy were cutting withes to bind hay at the side of the track, and the latter consented to show the strangers to the château from a point beyond which they could not go with the carriage. There the small habitant and the driver took up the picnic-baskets, and led the way through pathless growths of underbrush to a stream, so swift that it is said never to freeze, so deeply sprung that the summer never drinks it dry. A screen of water-growths bordered it; and when this was passed, a wide open space revealed itself, with the ruin of the château in the midst. The pathos of long neglect lay upon the scene; for here were evidences of gardens and bowery aisles in other times, and now, for many a year, desolation and the slow return of the wilderness. The mountain rising behind the château grounds showed the dying flush of the deciduous leaves among the dark green of the pines that clothed it to the crest; a cry of innumerable crickets filled the ear of the dreaming noon. The ruin itself is not of impressive size, and it is a château by grace of the popular fancy rather than through any right of its own; for it was, in truth, never more than the hunting-lodge of the king's Intendant, Bigot, a man whose sins claim for him a lordly consideration in the history of Quebec, He was the last Intendant before the British conquest, and in that time of general distress he grew rich by oppression of the citizens, and by peculation from the soldiers. He built this pleasure-house here in the woods, and hither he rode out from Quebec to enjoy himself in the chase and the carouses that succeed the chase. Here, too, it is said, dwelt in secret the Huron girl who loved him, and who survives in the memory of the peasants as the murdered _sauragesse_; and, indeed, there is as much proof that she was murdered as that she ever lived. When the wicked Bigot was arrested and sent to France, where he was tried with great result of documentary record, his château fell into other hands; at last a party of Arnold's men wintered there in 1775, and it is to our own countrymen that we owe the conflagration and the ruin of Château-Bigot. It stands, as I said, in the middle of that open place, with the two gable walls and the stone partition-wall still almost entire, and that day showing very effectively against the tender northern sky. On the most weatherward gable the iron in the stone had shed a dark red stain under the lash of many winter storms, and some tough lichens had incrusted patches of the surface; but, for the rest, the walls rose in the univied nakedness of all ruins in our climate, which has no clinging evergreens wherewith to pity and soften the forlornness of decay. Out of the rubbish at the foot of the walls there sprang a wilding growth of syringas and lilacs; and the interior was choked with flourishing weeds, and with the briers of the raspberry, on which a few berries hung. The heavy beams, left where they fell a hundred years ago, proclaimed the honest solidity with which the château had been built, and there was proof in the cut stone of the hearths and chimney-places that it had once had at least the ambition of luxury. While its visitors stood amidst the ruin, a harmless garden-snake slipped out of one crevice into another; from her nest in some hidden corner overhead a silent bird flew away. For the moment,--so slight is the capacity of any mood, so deeply is the heart responsive to a little impulse,--the palace of the Cæsars could not have imparted a keener sense of loss and desolation. They eagerly sought such particulars of the ruin as agreed with the descriptions they had read of it, and were as well contented with a bit of cellar-way outside as if they had really found the secret passage to the subterranean chamber of the château, or the hoard of silver which the little habitant said was buried under it. Then they dispersed about the grounds to trace out the borders of the garden, and Mr. Arbuton won the common praise by discovering the foundations of the stable of the château. Then there was no more to do but to prepare for the picnic. They chose a grassy plot in the shadow of a half-dismantled bark-lodge,--a relic of the Indians, who resort to the place every summer. In the ashes of that sylvan hearth they kindled their fire, Mr. Arbuton gathering the sticks, and the colonel showing a peculiar genius in adapting the savage flames to the limitations of the civilized coffee-pot borrowed of Mrs. Gray. Mrs. Ellison laid the cloth, much meditating the arrangement of the viands, and reversing again and again the relative positions of the sliced tongue and the sardines that flanked the cold roast chicken, and doubting dreadfully whether to put down the cake and the canned peaches at once, or reserve them for a second course; the stuffed olives drove her to despair, being in a bottle, and refusing to be balanced by anything less monumental in shape. Some wild asters and red leaves and green and yellowing sprays of fern which Kitty arranged in a tumbler were hailed with rapture, but presently flung far away with fierce disdain because they had ants on them. Kitty witnessed this outburst with her usual complacency, and then went on making the coffee. With such blissful pain as none but lovers know, Mr. Arbuton saw her break the egg upon the edge of the coffee-pot, and let it drop therein, and then, with a charming frenzy, stir it round and round. It was a picture of domestic suggestion, a subtle insinuation of home, the unconscious appeal of inherent housewifery to inherent husbandhood. At the crash of the eggshell he trembled; the swift agitation of the coffee and the egg within the pot made him dizzy. "Sha'n't I stir that for you, Miss Ellison?" he said, awkwardly. "O dear, no!" she answered in surprise at a man's presuming to stir coffee; "but you may go get me some water at the creek, if you please." She gave him a pitcher, and he went off to the brook, which was but a minute's distance away. This minute, however, left her alone, for the first time that day, with both Dick and Fanny, and a silence fell upon all three at once. They could not help looking at one another; and then the colonel, to show that he was not thinking of anything, began to whistle, and Mrs. Ellison rebuked him for whistling. "Why not?" he asked. "It isn't a funeral, is it?" "Of course it isn't," said Mrs. Ellison; and Kitty, who had been blushing to the verge of tears, laughed instead, and then was consumed with vexation when Mr. Arbuton came up, feeling that he must suspect himself the motive of her ill-timed mirth. "The champagne ought to be cooled, I suppose," observed Mrs. Ellison, when the coffee had been finally stirred and set to boil on the coals. "I'm best acquainted with the brook," said Mr. Arbuton, "and I know just the eddy in it where the champagne will cool soonest." "Then you shall take it there," answered the governess of the feast; and Mr. Arbuton duteously set off with the bottle in his hand. The pitcher of water which he had already brought stood in the grass; by a sudden movement of the skirt, Kitty knocked it over. The colonel made a start forward; Mrs. Ellison arrested him with a touch, while she bent a look of ineffable admiration upon Kitty. "Now, I'll teach myself," said Kitty, "that I can't be so clumsy with impunity. I'll go and fill that pitcher again myself." She hurried after Mr. Arbuton; they scarcely spoke going or coming; but the constraint that Kitty felt was nothing to that she had dreaded in seeking to escape from the tacit raillery of the colonel and the championship of Fanny. Yet she trembled to realize that already her life had become so far entangled with this stranger's, that she found refuge with him from her own kindred. They could do nothing to help her in this; the trouble was solely hers and his, and they two must get out of it one way or other themselves; the case scarcely admitted even of sympathy, and if it had not been hers, it would have been one to amuse her rather than appeal to her compassion. Even as it was, she sometimes caught herself smiling at the predicament of a young girl who had passed a month in every appearance of love-making, and who, being asked her heart, was holding her lover in suspense whilst she searched it, and meantime was picnicking with him upon the terms of casual flirtation. Of all the heroines in her books, she knew none in such a strait as this. But her perplexities did not impair the appetite which she brought to the sylvan feast. In her whole simple life she had never tasted champagne before, and she said innocently, as she put the frisking fluid from her lips after the first taste, "Why, I thought you had to _learn_ to like champagne." "No," remarked the colonel, "it's like reading and writing: it comes by nature. I suppose that even one of the lower animals would like champagne. The refined instinct of young ladies makes them recognize its merits instantly. Some of the Confederate cellars," added the colonel, thoughtfully, "had very good champagne in them. Green seal was the favorite of our erring brethren. It wasn't one of their errors. I prefer it myself to our own native cider, whether made of apples or grapes. Yes, it's better even than the water from the old chain-pump in the back yard at Eriecreek, though it hasn't so fine a flavor of lubricating oil in it." The faint chill that touched Mr. Arbuton at the mention of Eriecreek and its petrolic associations was transient. He was very light of heart, since the advance that Kitty seemed to have made him; and in his temporary abandon he talked well, and promoted the pleasure of the time without critical reserves. When the colonel, with the reluctance of our soldiers to speak of their warlike experiences before civilians, had suffered himself to tell a story that his wife begged of him about his last battle, Mr. Arbuton listened with a deference that flattered poor Mrs. Ellison, and made her marvel at Kitty's doubt concerning him; and then he spoke entertainingly of some travel experiences of his own, which he politely excused as quite unworthy to come after the colonel's story. He excused them a little too much, and just gave the modest soldier a faint, uneasy fear of having boasted. But no one else felt this result of his delicacy, and the feast was merry enough. When it was ended, Mrs. Ellison, being still a little infirm of foot, remained in the shadow of the bark-lodge, and the colonel lit his cigar, and loyally stretched himself upon the grass before her. There was nothing else for Kitty and Mr. Arbuton but to stroll off together, and she preferred to do this. They sauntered up to the château in silence, and peered somewhat languidly about the ruin. On a bit of smooth surface in a sheltered place many names of former visitors were written, and Mr. Arbuton said he supposed they might as well add those of their own party. "O yes," answered Kitty, with a half-sigh, seating herself upon a fallen stone, and letting her hands fall into each other in her lap as her wont was, "you write them." A curious pensiveness passed from one to the other and possessed them both. Mr. Arbuton began to write. Suddenly, "Miss Ellison," said he, with a smile, "I've blundered in your name; I neglected to put the Miss before it; and now there isn't room on the plastering." "O, never mind," replied Kitty, "I dare say it won't be missed!" Mr. Arbuton neither perceived nor heeded the pun. He was looking in a sort of rapture at the name which his own hand had written now for the first time, and he felt an indecorous desire to kiss it. "If I could speak it as I've written it--" "I don't see what harm there would be in that," said the owner of the name, "or what object," she added more discreetly. --"I should feel that I had made a great gain." "I never told you," answered Kitty, evasively, "how much I admire _your_ first name, Mr. Arbuton." "How did you know it?" "It was on the card you gave my cousin," said Kitty, frankly, but thinking he now must know she had been keeping his card. "It's an old family name,--a sort of heirloom from the first of us who came to the country; and in every generation since, some Arbuton has had to wear it." "It's superb!" cried Kitty. "Miles! 'Miles Standish, the Puritan captain,' 'Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth.' I should be very proud of such a name." "You have only to take it," he said, gravely. "O, I didn't mean that," she said with a blush, and then added, "Yours is a very old family, then, isn't it?" "Yes, it's pretty well," answered Mr. Arbuton, "but it's not such a rare thing in the East, you know." "I suppose not. The Ellisons are _not_ an old family. If we went back of my uncle, we should only come to backwoodsmen and Indian fighters. Perhaps that's the reason we don't care much for old families. You think a great deal of them in Boston, don't you?" "We do, and we don't. It's a long story, and I'm afraid I couldn't make you understand, unless you had seen something of Boston society." "Mr. Arbuton," said Kitty, abruptly plunging to the bottom of the subject on which they had been hovering, "I'm dreadfully afraid that what you said to me--what you asked of me, yesterday--was all through a misunderstanding. I'm afraid that you've somehow mistaken me and my circumstances, and that somehow I've innocently helped on your mistake." "There is no mistake," he answered, eagerly, "about my loving you!" Kitty did not look up, nor answer this outburst, which flattered while it pained her. She said, "I've been so much mistaken myself, and I've been so long finding it out, that I should feel anxious to have you know just what kind of girl you'd asked to be your wife, before I--" "What?" "Nothing. But I should want you to know that in many things my life has been very, very different from yours. The first thing I can remember--you'll think I'm more autobiographical than our driver at Ha-Ha Bay, even, but I must tell you all this--is about Kansas, where we had moved from Illinois, and of our having hardly enough to eat or wear, and of my mother grieving over our privations. At last, when my father was killed," she said, dropping her voice, "in front of our own door--" Mr. Arbuton gave a start. "Killed?" "Yes; didn't you know? Or no: how could you? He was shot by the Missourians." Whether it was not hopelessly out of taste to have a father-in-law who had been shot by the Missourians? Whether he could persuade Kitty to suppress that part of her history? That she looked very pretty, sitting there, with her earnest eyes lifted toward his. These things flashed wilfully through Mr. Arbuton's mind. "My father was a Free-State man," continued Kitty, in a tone of pride. "He wasn't when he first went to Kansas," she added simply; while Mr. Arbuton groped among his recollections of that forgotten struggle for some association with these names, keenly feeling the squalor of it all, and thinking still how very pretty she was. "He went out there to publish a proslavery paper. But when he found out what the Border Ruffians really were, he turned against them. He used to be very bitter about my uncle's having become an Abolitionist; they had had a quarrel about it; but father wrote to him from Kansas, and they made it up; and before father died he was able to tell mother that we were to go to uncle's. But mother was sick then, and she only lived a month after father; and when my cousin came out to get us, just before she died, there was scarcely a crust of cornbread in our cabin. It seemed like heaven to get to Eriecreek; but even at Eriecreek we live in a way that I am afraid you wouldn't respect. My uncle has just enough, and we are very plain people indeed. I suppose," continued the young girl meekly, "that I haven't had at all what you'd call an education. Uncle told me what to read, at first, and after that I helped myself. It seemed to come naturally; but don't you see that it wasn't an education?" "I beg pardon," said Mr. Arbuton, with a blush; for he had just then lost the sense of what she said in the music of her voice, as it hesitated over these particulars of her history. "I mean," explained Kitty, "that I'm afraid I must be very one-sided. I'm dreadfully ignorant of a great many things. I haven't any accomplishments, only the little bit of singing and playing that you've heard; I couldn't tell a good picture from a bad one; I've never been to the opera; I don't know anything about society. Now just imagine," cried Kitty, with sublime impartiality, "such a girl as that in Boston!" Even Mr. Arbuton could not help smiling at this comic earnestness, while she resumed: "At home my cousins and I do all kinds of things that the ladies whom you know have done for them. We do our own work, for one thing," she continued, with a sudden treacherous misgiving that what she was saying might be silly and not heroic, but bravely stifling her doubt. "My cousin Virginia is housekeeper, and Rachel does the sewing, and I'm a kind of maid-of-all-work." Mr. Arbuton listened respectfully, vainly striving for some likeness of Miss Ellison in the figure of the different second-girls who, during life, had taken his card, or shown him into drawing-rooms, or waited on him at table; failing in this, he tried her in the character of daughter of that kind of farm-house where they take summer boarders and do their own work; but evidently the Ellisons were not of that sort either; and he gave it up and was silent, not knowing what to say, while Kitty, a little piqued by his silence, went on: "We're not ashamed, you understand, of our ways; there's such a thing as being proud of not being proud; and that's what we are, or what I am; for the rest are not mean enough ever to think about it, and once I wasn't, either. But that's the kind of life I'm used to; and though I've read of other kinds of life a great deal, I've not been brought up to anything different, don't you understand? And maybe--I don't know--I mightn't like or respect your kind of people any more than they did me. My uncle taught us ideas that are quite different from yours; and what if I shouldn't be able to give them up?" "There is only one thing I know or see: I love you!" he said, passionately, and drew nearer by a step; but she put out her hand and repelled him with a gesture. "Sometimes you might be ashamed of me before those you knew to be my inferiors,--really common and coarse-minded people, but regularly educated, and used to money and fashion. I should cower before them, and I never could forgive you." "I've one answer to all this: I love you!" Kitty flushed in generous admiration of his magnanimity, and said, with more of tenderness than she had yet felt towards him, "I'm sorry that I can't answer you now, as you wish, Mr. Arbuton." "But you will, to-morrow." She shook her head. "I don't know; O, I don't know! I've been thinking of something. That Mrs. March asked me to visit her in Boston; but we had given up doing so, because of the long delay here. If I asked my cousins, they'd still go home that way. It's too bad to put you off again; but you must see me in Boston, if only for a day or two, and after you've got back into your old associations there, before I answer you. I'm in great trouble. You must wait, or I must say no." "I'll wait," said Mr. Arbuton. "O, _thank_ you," sighed Kitty, grateful for this patience, and not for the chance of still winning him; "you are very forbearing, I'm sure." She again put forth her hand, but not now to repel him. He clasped it, and kept it in his, then impulsively pressed it against his lips. Colonel and Mrs. Ellison had been watching the whole pantomime, forgotten. "Well," said the colonel, "I suppose that's the end of the play, isn't it? I don't like it, Fanny; I don't like it." "Hush!" whispered Mrs. Ellison. They were both puzzled when Kitty and Mr. Arbuton came towards them with anxious faces. Kitty was painfully revolving in her mind what she had just said, and thinking she had said not so much as she meant and yet so much more, and tormenting herself with the fear that she had been at once too bold and too meek in her demand for longer delay. Did it not give him further claim upon her? Must it not have seemed a very audacious thing? What right had she to make it, and how could she now finally say no? Then the matter of her explanation to him: was it in the least what she meant to say? Must it not give him an idea of intellectual and spiritual poverty in her life which she knew had not been in it? Would he not believe, in spite of her boasts, that she was humiliated before him by a feeling of essential inferiority? O, _had_ she boasted? What she meant to do was just to make him understand clearly what she was; but, had she? Could he be made to understand this with what seemed his narrow conception of things outside of his own experience? Was it worth while to try? Did she care enough for him to make the effort desirable? Had she made it for his sake, or in the interest of truth, merely, or in self-defence? These and a thousand other like questions beset her the whole way home to Quebec, amid the frequent pauses of the talk, and underneath whatever she was saying. Half the time she answered yes or no to them, and not to what Dick, or Fanny, or Mr. Arbuton had asked her; she was distraught with their recurrence, as they teased about her like angry bees, and one now and then settled, and stung and stung. Through the whole night, too, they pursued her in dreams with pitiless iteration and fantastic change; and at dawn she was awakened by voices calling up to her from the Ursulines' Garden,--the slim, pale nun crying out, in a lamentable accent, that all men were false and there was no shelter save the convent or the grave, and the comfortable sister bemoaning herself that on meagre days Madame de la Peltrie ate nothing but choke-cherries from Château-Bigot. Kitty rose and dressed herself, and sat at the window, and watched the morning come into the garden below: first, a tremulous flush of the heavens; then a rosy light on the silvery roofs and gables; then little golden aisles among the lilacs and hollyhocks. The tiny flower-beds just under her window were left, with their snap-dragons and larkspurs, in dew and shadow; the small dog stood on the threshold, and barked uneasily when the bell rang in the Ursulines' Chapel, where the nuns were at matins. It was Sunday, and a soft tranquillity blest the cool air in which the young girl bathed her troubled spirit. A faint anticipative homesickness mingled now with her nightlong anxiety,--a pity for herself that on the morrow she must leave those pretty sights, which had become so dear to her that she could not but feel herself native among them. She must go back to Eriecreek, which was not a walled city, and had not a stone building, much less a cathedral or convent, within its borders; and though she dearly loved those under her uncle's roof there, yet she had to own that, beyond that shelter, there was little in Eriecreek to touch the heart or take the fancy; that the village was ugly, and the village people mortally dull, narrow, and uncongenial. Why was not her lot cast somewhere else? Why should she not see more of the world that she had found so fair, and which all her aspirations had fitted her to enjoy? Quebec had been to her a rapture of beautiful antiquity; but Europe, but London, Venice, Rome, those infinitely older and more storied cities of which she had lately talked so much with Mr. Arbuton,--why should she not see them? Here, for the guilty space of a heat-lightning flash, Kitty wickedly entertained the thought of marrying Mr. Arbuton for the sake of a bridal trip to Europe, and bade love and the fitness of things and the incompatibility of Boston and Eriecreek traditions take care of themselves. But then she blushed for her meanness, and tried to atone for it as she could by meditating the praise of Mr. Arbuton. She felt remorse for having, as he had proved yesterday, undervalued and misunderstood him; and she was willing now to think him even more magnanimous than his generous words and conduct showed him. It would be a base return for his patience to accept him from a worldly ambition; a man of his noble spirit merited the best that love could give. But she respected him; at last she respected him fully and entirely, and she could tell him that at any rate. The words in which he had yesterday protested his love for her repeated themselves constantly in her revery. If he should speak them again after he had seen her in Boston, in the light by which she was anxious to be tested,--she did not know what she should say. XIII. ORDEAL. They had not planned to go anywhere that day; but after church they found themselves with the loveliest afternoon of their stay at Quebec to be passed somehow, and it was a pity to pass it indoors, the colonel said at their early dinner. They canvassed the attractions of the different drives out of town, and they decided upon that to Lorette. The Ellisons had already been there, but Mr. Arbuton had not, and it was from a dim motive of politeness towards him that Mrs. Ellison chose the excursion; though this did not prevent her from wondering aloud afterward, from time to time, why she had chosen it. He was restless and absent, and answered at random when points of the debate were referred to him, but he eagerly assented to the conclusion, and was in haste to set out. The road to Lorette is through St. John's Gate, down into the outlying meadows and rye-fields, where, crossing and recrossing the swift St. Charles, it finally rises at Lorette above the level of the citadel. It is a lonelier road than that to Montmorenci, and the scattering cottages upon it have not the well-to-do prettiness, the operatic repair, of stone-built Beauport. But they are charming, nevertheless, and the people seem to be remoter from modern influences. Peasant-girls, in purple gowns and broad straw hats, and not the fashions of the year before last, now and then appeared to our acquaintance; near one ancient cottage an old man, in the true habitant's red woollen cap with a long fall, leaned over the bars of his gate and smoked a short pipe. By and by they came to Jeune-Lorette, an almost ideally pretty hamlet, bordering the road on either hand with galleried and balconied little houses, from which the people bowed to them as they passed, and piously enclosing in its midst the village church and churchyard. They soon after reached Lorette itself, which they might easily have known for an Indian town by its unkempt air, and the irregular attitudes in which the shabby cabins lounged along the lanes that wandered through it, even if the Ellisons had not known it already, or if they had not been welcomed by a pomp of Indian boys and girls of all shades of darkness. The girls had bead-wrought moccasins and work-bags to sell, and the boys bore bows and arrows and burst into loud cries of "Shoot! shoot! grand shoot! Put-up-pennies! shoot-the-pennies! Grand shoot!" When they recognized the colonel, as they did after the party had dismounted in front of the church, they renewed these cries with greater vehemence. "Now, Richard," implored his wife, "you're _not_ going to let those little pests go through all that shooting performance again?" "I must. It is expected of me whenever I come to Lorette; and I would never be the man to neglect an ancient observance of this kind." The colonel stuck a copper into the hard sand as he spoke, and a small storm of arrows hurtled around it. Presently it flew into the air, and a fair-faced, blue-eyed boy picked it up: he won most of the succeeding coins. "There's an aborigine of pure blood," remarked the colonel; "his ancestors came from Normandy two hundred years ago. That's the reason he uses the bow so much better than these coffee-colored impostors." They went into the chapel, which stands on the site of the ancient church burnt not long ago. It is small, and it is bare and rude inside, with only the commonest ornamentation about the altar, on one side of which was the painted wooden statue of a nun, on the other that of a priest,--slight enough commemoration of those who had suffered so much for the hopeless race that lingers and wastes at Lorette in incurable squalor and wildness. They are Christians after their fashion, this poor remnant of the mighty Huron nation converted by the Jesuits and crushed by the Iroquois in the far-western wilderness; but whatever they are at heart, they are still savage in countenance, and these boys had faces of wolves and foxes. They followed their visitors into the church, where there was only an old woman praying to a picture, beneath which hung a votive hand and foot, and a few young Huron suppliants with very sleek hair, whose wandering devotions seemed directed now at the strangers, and now at the wooden effigy of the House of St. Ann borne by two gilt angels above the high-altar. There was no service, and the visitors soon quitted the chapel amid the clamors of the boys outside. Some young girls, in the dress of our period, were promenading up and down the road with their arms about each other and their eyes alert for the effect upon spectators. From one of the village lanes came swaggering towards the visitors a figure of aggressive fashion,--a very buckish young fellow, with a heavy black mustache and black eyes, who wore a jaunty round hat, blue checked trousers, a white vest, and a morning-coat of blue diagonals, buttoned across his breast; in his hand he swung a light cane. "That is the son of the chief, Paul Picot," whispered the driver. "Excuse me," said the colonel, instantly; and the young gentleman nodded. "Can you tell me if we could see the chief to-day?" "O yes!" answered the notary in English, "my father is chief. You can see him"; and passed on with a somewhat supercilious air. The colonel, in his first hours at Quebec, had bought at a bazaar of Indian wares the photograph of an Indian warrior in a splendor of factitious savage panoply. It was called "The Last of the Hurons," and the colonel now avenged himself for the curtness of M. Picot by styling him "The Next to the Last of the Hurons." "Well," said Fanny, who had a wife's willingness to see her husband occasionally snubbed, "I don't know why you asked him. I'm sure nobody wants to see that old chief and his wretched bead trumpery again." "My dear," answered the colonel, "wherever Americans go, they like to be presented at court. Mr. Arbuton, here, I've no doubt has been introduced to the crowned heads of the Old World, and longs to pay his respects to the sovereign of Lorette. Besides, I always call upon the reigning prince when I come to Lorette. The coldness of the heir-apparent shall not repel me." The colonel led the way up the principal lane of the village. Some of the cabins were ineffectually whitewashed, but none of them were so uncleanly within as the outside prophesied. At the doors and windows sat women and young girls working moccasins; here and there stood a well-fed mother of a family with an infant Huron in her arms. They all showed the traces of white blood, as did the little ones who trooped after the strangers and demanded charity as clamorously as so many Italians; only a few faces were of a clear dark, as if stained by walnut-juice, and it was plain that the Hurons were fading, if not dying out. They responded with a queer mixture of French liveliness and savage stolidity to the colonel's jocose advances. Great lean dogs lounged about the thresholds; they and the women and children were alone visible; there were no men. None of the houses were fenced, save the chief's; this stood behind a neat grass plot, across which, at the moment our travellers came up, two youngish women were trailing in long morning-gowns and eye-glasses. The chief's house was a handsome cottage, papered and carpeted, with a huge stove in the parlor, where also stood a table exposing the bead trumpery of Mrs. Ellison's scorn. A full-bodied elderly man with quick, black eyes and a tranquil, dark face stood near it; he wore a half-military coat with brass buttons, and was the chief Picot. At sight of the colonel he smiled slightly and gave his hand in welcome. Then he sold such of his wares as the colonel wanted, rather discouraging than inviting purchase. He talked, upon some urgency, of his people, who, he said, numbered three hundred, and were a few of them farmers, but were mostly hunters, and, in the service of the officers of the garrison, spent the winter in the chase. He spoke fair English, but reluctantly, and he seemed glad to have his guests go, who were indeed willing enough to leave him. Mr. Arbuton especially was willing, for he had been longing to find himself alone with Kitty, of which he saw no hope while the idling about the village lasted. The colonel bought an insane watch-pocket for _une dolleur_ from a pretty little girl as they returned through the village; but he forbade the boys any more archery at his expense, with "Pas de grand shoot, _now_, mes enfans!--Friends," he added to his own party, "we have the Falls of Lorette and the better part of the afternoon still before us; how shall we employ them?" Mrs. Ellison and Kitty did not know, and Mr. Arbuton did not know, as they sauntered down past the chapel, to the stone mill that feeds its industry from the beauty of the fall. The cascade, with two or three successive leaps above the road, plunges headlong down a steep crescent-shaped slope, and hides its foamy whiteness in the dark-foliaged ravine below. It is a wonder of graceful motion, of iridescent lights and delicious shadows; a shape of loveliness that seems instinct with a conscious life. Its beauty, like that of all natural marvels on our continent, is on a generous scale; and now the spectators, after viewing it from the mill, passed for a different prospect of it to the other shore, and there the colonel and Fanny wandered a little farther down the glen, leaving Kitty with Mr. Arbuton. The affair between them was in such a puzzling phase, that there was as much reason for as against this: nobody could do anything, not even openly recognize it. Besides, it was somehow very interesting to Kitty to be there alone with him, and she thought that if all were well, and he and she were really engaged, the sense of recent betrothal could be nowhere else half so sweet as in that wild and lovely place. She began to imagine a bliss so divine, that it would have been strange if she had not begun to desire it, and it was with a half reluctant, half-acquiescent thrill that she suffered him to touch upon what was first in both their minds. "I thought you had agreed not to talk of that again for the present," she feebly protested. "No; I was not forbidden to tell you I loved you: I only consented to wait for my answer; but now I shall break my promise. I cannot wait. I think the conditions you make dishonor me," said Mr. Arbuton, with an impetuosity that fascinated her. "O, how can you say such a thing as that?" she asked, liking him for his resentment of conditions that he found humiliating, while her heart leaped remorseful to her lips for having imposed them. "You know very well why I wanted to delay; and you know that--that--if--I had done anything to wound you, I never could forgive myself." "But you doubted me, all the same," he rejoined. "Did I? I thought it was myself that I doubted." She was stricken with sudden misgiving as to what had seemed so well; her words tended rapidly she could not tell whither. "But why do you doubt yourself?" "I--I don't know." "No," he said bitterly, "for it's really me that you doubt. I can't understand what you have seen in me that makes you believe anything could change me towards you," he added with a kind of humbleness that touched her. "I could have borne to think that I was not worthy of you." "Not worthy of me! I never dreamed of such a thing." "But to have you suspect me of such meanness--" "O Mr. Arbuton!" --"As you hinted yesterday, is a disgrace that I ought not to bear. I have thought of it all night; and I must have my answer now, whatever it is." She did not speak; for every word that she had uttered had only served to close escape behind her. She did not know what to do; she looked up at him for help. He said with an accent of meekness pathetic from him, "Why must you still doubt me?" "I don't," she scarcely more than breathed. "Then you are mine, now, without waiting, and forever," he cried; and caught her to him in a swift embrace. She only said, "Oh!" in a tone of gentle reproach, yet clung to him a helpless moment as for rescue from himself. She looked at him in blank pallor, striving to realize the tender violence in which his pulses wildly exulted; then a burning flush dyed her face, and tears came into her eyes. "O, I hope you'll never be sorry," she said; and then, "Do let us go," for she had no distinct desire save for movement, for escape from that place. Her heart had been surprised, she hardly knew how; but at his kiss a novel tenderness had leaped to life in it. She suffered him to put her hand upon his arm, and then she began to feel a strange pride in his being tall and handsome, and hers. But she kept thinking as they walked, "I hope he'll never he sorry," and she said it again, half in jest. He pressed her hand against his heart, and met her look with one of protest and reassurance, that presently melted into something sweeter yet. He said, "What beautiful eyes you have! I noticed the long lashes when I saw you on the Saguenay boat, and I couldn't get away from them." "O please, don't speak of that dreadful time!" cried Kitty. "No? Why not?" "O because! I think it was such a bold kind of accident my taking your arm by mistake; and the whole next day has always been a perfect horror to me." He looked at her in questioning amaze. "I think I was very pert with you all day,--and I don't think I'm pert naturally,--taking you up about the landscape, and twitting you about the Saguenay scenery and legends, you know. But I thought you were trying to put me down,--you are rather down-putting at times,--and I admired you, and I couldn't bear it." "Oh!" said Mr. Arbuton. He dimly recollected, as if it had been in some former state of existence, that there were things he had not approved in Kitty that day, but now he met her penitence with a smile and another pressure of the hand. "Well, then," he said, "if you don't like to recall that time, let's go back of it to the day I met you on Goat Island Bridge at Niagara." "O, did you see _me_ there? I thought you didn't; but _I_ saw _you_. You had on a blue cravat," she answered; and he returned with as much the air of coherency as if really continuing the same train of thought, "You won't think it necessary to visit Boston, now, I suppose," and he smiled triumphantly upon her. "I fancy that I have now a better right to introduce you there than your South End friends." Kitty smiled, too. "I'm willing to wait. But don't you think you ought to see Eriecreek before you promise too solemnly? I can't allow that there's anything serious, till you've seen me at home." They had been going, for no reason that they knew, back to the country inn near which you purchase admittance to a certain view of the falls, and now they sat down on the piazza, somewhat apart from other people who were there, as Mr. Arbuton said, "O, I shall visit Eriecreek soon enough. But I shall not come to put myself or you to the proof. I don't ask to see you at home before claiming you forever." Kitty murmured, "Ah! you are more generous than I was." "I doubt it." "O yes, you are. But I wonder if you'll be able to find Eriecreek." "Is it on the map?" "It's on the county map; and so is Uncle Jack's lot on it, and a picture of his house, for that matter. They'll all be standing on the piazza--something like this one--when you come up. You'll know Uncle Jack by his big gray beard, and his bushy eyebrows, and his boots, which he won't have blacked, and his Leghorn hat, which we can't get him to change. The girls will be there with him,--Virginia all red and heated with having got supper for you, and Rachel with the family mending in her hand,--and they'll both come running down the walk to welcome you. How will you like it?" Mr. Arbuton suspected the gross caricature of this picture, and smiled securely at it. "I shall like it well enough," he said, "if you run down with them. Where shall you be?" "I forgot. I shall be up stairs in my room, peeping through the window-blinds, to see how you take it. Then I shall come down, and receive you with dignity in the parlor, but after supper you'll have to excuse me while I help with the dishes. Uncle Jack will talk to you. He'll talk to you about Boston. He's much fonder of Boston than you are, even." And here Kitty broke off with a laugh, thinking what a very different Boston her Uncle Jack's was from Mr. Arbuton's, and maliciously diverted with what she conceived of their mutual bewilderment in trying to get some common stand-point. He had risen from his chair, and was now standing a few paces from her, looking toward the fall, as if by looking he might delay the coming of the colonel and Fanny. She checked her merriment a moment to take note of two ladies who were coming up the path towards the porch where she was sitting. Mr. Arbuton did not see them. The ladies mounted the steps, and turned slowly and languidly to survey the company. But at sight of Mr. Arbuton, one of them advanced directly toward him, with exclamations of surprise and pleasure, and he with a stupefied face and a mechanical movement turned to meet her. She was a lady of more than middle age, dressed with certain personal audacities of color and shape, rather than overdressed, and she thrust forward, in expression of her amazement, a very small hand, wonderfully well gloved; her manner was full of the anxiety of a woman who had fought hard for a high place in society, and yet suggested a latent hatred of people who, in yielding to her, had made success bitter and humiliating. Her companion was a young and very handsome girl, exquisitely dressed, and just so far within the fashion as to show her already a mistress of style. But it was not the vivid New York stylishness. A peculiar restraint of line, an effect of lady-like concession to the ruling mode, a temperance of ornament, marked the whole array, and stamped it with the unmistakable character of Boston. Her clear tints of lip and cheek and eye were incomparable; her blond hair gave weight to the poise of her delicate head by its rich and decent masses. She had a look of independent innocence, an angelic expression of extremely nice young fellow blending with a subtle maidenly charm. She indicated her surprise at seeing Mr. Arbuton by pressing the point of her sun-umbrella somewhat nervously upon the floor, and blushing a very little. Then she gave him her hand with friendly frankness, and smiled dazzlingly upon him, while the elder hailed him with effusive assertion of familiar acquaintance, heaping him with greetings and flatteries and cries of pleasure. "O dear!" sighed Kitty, "these are old friends of his; and will I have to know them? Perhaps it's best to begin at once, though," she thought. But he made no movement toward her where she sat. The ladies began to walk up and down, and he with them. As they passed her, he did not seem to see her. The ladies said they were waiting for their carriage, which they had left at a certain point when they went to look at the fall, and had ordered to take them up at the inn. They talked about people and things that Kitty had never heard of. "Have you seen the Trailings since you left Newport?" asked the elder woman. "No," said Mr. Arbuton. "Perhaps you'll be surprised then--or perhaps you won't--to hear that we parted with them on the top of Mount Washington, Thursday. And the Mayflowers are at the Glen House. The mountains are horribly full. But what are you to do! Now the Continent"--she spoke as if the English Channel divided it from us--"is so common, you can't run over there any more." Whenever they walked towards Kitty, this woman, whose quick eye had detected Mr. Arbuton at her side as she came up to the inn, bent upon the young girl's face a stare of insolent curiosity, yet with a front of such impassive coldness that to another she might not have seemed aware of her presence. Kitty shuddered at the thought of being made acquainted with her; then she remembered, "Why, how stupid I am! Of course a gentleman can't introduce ladies; and the only thing for him to do is to excuse himself to them as soon as he can without rudeness, and come back to me." But none the less she felt helpless and deserted. Though ordinarily so brave, she was so beaten down by that look, that for a glance of not unkindly interest that the young lady gave her she was abjectly grateful. She admired her, and fancied that she could easily be friends with such a girl as that, if they met fairly. She wondered that she should be there with that other, not knowing that society cannot really make distinctions between fine and coarse, and could not have given her a reason for their association. Still the three walked up and down before Kitty, and still she made his peace with herself, thinking, "He is embarrassed; he can't come to me at once; but he will, of course." The elder of his companions talked on in her loud voice of this thing and that, of her summer, and of the people she had met, and of their places and yachts and horses, and all the splendors of their keeping,--talk which Kitty's aching sense sometimes caught by fragments, and sometimes in full. The lady used a slang of deprecation and apology for having come to such a queer resort as Quebec, and raised her brows when Mr. Arbuton reluctantly owned how long he had been there. "Ah, ah!" she said briskly, bringing the group to a stand-still while she spoke, "one doesn't stay in a slow Canadian city a whole month for love of the _place_. Come, Mr. Arbuton, is she English or French?" Kitty's heart beat thickly, and she whispered to herself, "O, now!--now surely he _must_ do something." "Or perhaps," continued his tormentor, "she's some fair fellow-wanderer in these Canadian wilds,--some pretty companion of voyage." Mr. Arbuton gave a kind of start at this, like one thrilled for an instant with a sublime impulse. He cast a quick, stealthy look at Kitty, and then as suddenly withdrew his glance. What had happened to her who was usually dressed so prettily? Alas! true to her resolution, Kitty had again refused Fanny's dresses that morning, and had faithfully put on her own travelling-suit,--the suit which Rachel had made her, and which had seemed so very well at Eriecreek that they had called Uncle Jack in to admire it when it was tried on. Now she knew that it looked countrified, and its unstylishness struck in upon her, and made her feel countrified in soul. "Yes," she owned, as she met Mr. Arbuton's glance, "I'm nothing but an awkward milkmaid beside that young lady." This was unjust to herself; but truly it was never in her present figure that he had intended to show her to his world, which he had been sincere enough in contemning for her sake while away from it. Confronted with good society in these ladies, its delegates, he doubtless felt, as never before, the vastness of his self-sacrifice, the difficulty of his enterprise, and it would not have been so strange if just then she should have appeared to him through the hard cold vision of the best people instead of that which love had illumined. She saw whatever purpose toward herself was in his eyes, flicker and die out as they fell from hers. Then she sat alone while they three walked up and down, up and down, and the skirts of the ladies brushed her garments in passing. "O, where can Dick and Fanny be?" she silently bemoaned herself, "and why don't they come and save me from these dreadful people?" She sat in a stony quiet while they talked on, she thought, forever. Their voices sounded in her ears like voices heard in a dream, their laughter had a nightmare cruelty. Yet she was resolved to be just to Mr. Arbuton, she was determined not meanly to condemn him; she confessed to herself, with a glimmer of her wonted humor, that her dress must be an ordeal of peculiar anguish to him, and she half blamed herself for her conscientiousness in wearing it. If she had conceived of any such chance as this, she would perhaps, she thought, have worn Fanny's grenadine. She glanced again at the group which was now receding from her. "Ah!" the elder of the ladies said, again halting the others midway of the piazza's length, "there's the carriage at last! But what is that stupid animal stopping for? O, I suppose he didn't understand, and expects to take us up at the bridge! Provoking! But it's no use; we may as well go to him at once; it's plain he isn't coming to us. Mr. Arbuton, will you see us on board?" "Who--I? Yes, certainly," he answered absently, and for the second time he cast a furtive look at Kitty, who had half started to her feet in expectation of his coming to her before he went,--a look of appeal, or deprecation, or reassurance, as she chose to interpret it, but after all a look only. She sank back in blank rejection of his look, and so remained motionless as he led the way from the porch with a quick and anxious step. Since those people came he had not openly recognized her presence, and now he had left her without a word. She could not believe what she could not but divine, and she was powerless to stir as the three moved down the road towards the carriage. Then she felt the tears spring to her eyes: she flung down her veil, and, swept on by a storm of grief and pride and pain, she hurried, ran towards the grounds about the falls. She thrust aside the boy who took money at the gate. "I have no money," she said fiercely; "I'm going to look for my friends: they're in here." But Dick and Fanny were not to be seen. Instead, as she fluttered wildly about in search of them, she beheld Mr. Arbuton, who had missed her on his return to the inn, coming with a frightened face to look for her. She had hoped, somehow never to see him again in the world; but since it was to be, she stood still and waited his approach in a strange composure; while he drew nearer, thinking how yesterday he had silenced her prophetic doubt of him: "I have one answer to all this; I love you." Her faltering words, verified so fatally soon, recalled themselves to him with intolerable accusation. And what should he say now? If possibly,--if by some miracle,--she might not have seen what he feared she must! One glance that he dared give her taught him better; and while she waited for him to speak, he could not lure any of the phrases, of which the air seemed full, to serve him. "I wonder you came back to me," she said after an eternal moment. "Came back?" he echoed, vacantly. "You seemed to have forgotten my existence!" Of course the whole wrong, if any wrong had been done to her, was tacit, and much might be said to prove that she felt needlessly aggrieved, and that he could not have acted otherwise than as he did; she herself had owned that it must be an embarrassing position to him. "Why, what have I done," he began, "what makes you think... For heaven's sake listen to me!" he cried; and then, while she turned a mute attentive face to him, he stood silent as before, like one who has lost his thought, and strives to recall what he was going to say. "What sense,--what use," he resumed at last, as if continuing the course of some previous argument, "would there have been in making a display of our acquaintance before them? I did not suppose at first that they saw us together."... But here he broke off, and, indeed, his explanation had but a mean effect when put into words. "I did not expect them to stay. I thought they would go away every moment; and then at last it was too late to manage the affair without seeming to force it." This was better; and he paused again, for some sign of acquiescence from Kitty, and caught her eye fixed on his face in what seemed contemptuous wonder. His own eyes fell, and ran uneasily over her dress before he lifted them and began once more, as if freshly inspired: "I could have wished you to be known to my friends with every advantage on your side," and this had such a magnanimous sound that he took courage; "and you ought to have had faith enough in me to believe that I never could have meant you a slight. If you had known more of the world,--if your social experience had been greater you would have seen.... Oh!" he cried, desperately, "is there nothing you have to say to me?" "No," said Kitty, simply, but with a languid quiet, and shrinking from speech as from an added pang. "You have been telling me that you were ashamed of me in this dress before those people. But I knew that already. What do you want me to do?" "If you give me time, I can make everything clear to you." "But now you don't deny it." "Deny what? I--" But here the whole fabric of Mr. Arbuton's defence toppled to the ground. He was a man of scrupulous truth, not accustomed to deceive himself or others. He had been ashamed of her, he could not deny it, not to keep the love that was now dearer to him than life. He saw it with paralyzing clearness; and, as an inexorable fact that confounded quite as much as it dismayed him, he perceived that throughout that ignoble scene she had been the gentle person and he the vulgar one. How could it have happened with a man like him! As he looked back upon it, he seemed to have been only the helpless sport of a sinister chance. But now he must act; it could not go so, it was too horrible a thing to let stand confessed. A hundred protests thronged to his lips, but he refused utterance to them all as worse even than silence; and so, still meaning to speak, he could not speak. He could only stand and wait while it wrung his heart to see her trembling, grieving lips. His own aspect was so lamentable, that she half pitied him, half respected him for his truth's sake. "You were right; I think it won't be necessary for me to go to Boston," she said with a dim smile. "Good by. It's all been a dreadful, dreadful mistake." It was like him, even in that humiliation, not to have thought of losing her, not to have dreamed but that he could somehow repair his error, and she would yet willingly be his. "O no, no, no," he cried, starting forward, "don't say that! It can't be, it mustn't be! You are angry now, but I know you'll see it differently. Don't be so quick with me, with yourself. I will do anything, say anything, you like." The tears stood in her eyes; but they were cruel drops. "You can't say anything that wouldn't make it worse. You can't undo what's been done, and that's only a little part of what couldn't be undone. The best way is for us to part; it's the only way." "No, there are all the ways in the world besides! Wait--think!--I implore you not to be so--precipitate." The unfortunate word incensed her the more; it intimated that she was ignorantly throwing too much away. "I am not rash now, but I was very rash half an hour ago. I shall not change my mind again. O," she cried, giving way, "it isn't what you've done, but what you _are_ and what _I_ am, that's the great trouble! I could easily forgive what's happened,--if you asked it; but I couldn't alter both our whole lives, or make myself over again, and you couldn't change yourself. Perhaps you would try, and I know that I would, but it would be a wretched failure and disappointment as long as we lived. I've learnt a great deal since I first saw those people." And in truth he felt as if the young girl whom he had been meaning to lift to a higher level than her own at his side had somehow suddenly grown beyond him; and his heart sank. "It's foolish to try to argue such a thing, but it's true; and you must let me go." "I _can't_ let you go," he said in such a way, that she longed at least to part kindly with him. "You can make it hard for me," she answered, "but the end will be the same." "I won't make it hard for you, then," he returned, after a pause, in which he grew paler and she stood with a wan face plucking the red leaves from a low bough that stretched itself towards her. He turned and walked away some steps; then he came suddenly back. "I wish to express my regret," he began formally, and with his old air of doing what was required of him as a gentleman, "that I should have unintentionally done anything to wound--" "O, better not speak of _that_," interrupted Kitty with bitterness, "it's all over now." And the final tinge of superiority in his manner made her give him a little stab of dismissal. "Good by. I see my cousins coming." She stood and watched him walk away, the sunlight playing on his figure through the mantling leaves, till he passed out of the grove. The cataract roared with a seven-fold tumult in her ears, and danced before her eyes. All things swam together, as in her blurred sight her cousins came wavering towards her. "Where is Mr. Arbuton?" asked Mrs. Ellison. Kitty threw her arms about the neck of that foolish woman, whoso loving heart she could not doubt, and clung sobbing to her. "Gone," she said; and Mrs. Ellison, wise for once, asked no more. She had the whole story that evening, without asking; and whilst she raged, she approved of Kitty, and covered her with praises and condolences. "Why, of course, Fanny, I didn't care for _knowing_ those people. What should I want to know them for? But what hurt me was that he should so postpone me to them, and ignore me before them, and leave me without a word, then, when I ought to have been everything in the world to him and first of all. I believe things came to me while I sat there, as they do to drowning people, all at once, and I saw the whole affair more distinctly than ever I did. We were too far apart in what we had been and what we believed in and respected, ever to grow really together. And if he gave me the highest position in the world, I should have only that. He never could like the people who had been good to me, and whom I loved so dearly, and he only could like me as far as he could estrange me from them. If he could coolly put me aside _now_, how would it be afterwards with the rest, and with me too? That's what flashed through me, and I don't believe that getting splendidly married is as good as being true to the love that came long before, and honestly living your own life out, without fear or trembling, whatever it is. So perhaps," said Kitty, with a fresh burst of tears, "you needn't condole with me so much, Fanny. Perhaps if you had seen him, you would have thought he was the one to be pitied. _I_ pitied him, though he _was_ so cruel. When he first turned to meet them, you'd have thought he was a man sentenced to death, or under some dreadful spell or other; and while he was walking up and down listening to that horrible comical old woman,--the young lady didn't talk much,--and trying to make straight answers to her, and to look as if I didn't exist, it was the most ridiculous thing in the world." "How queer you are, Kitty!" "Yes; but you needn't think I didn't feel it. I seemed to be like two persons sitting there, one in agony, and one just coolly watching it. But O," she broke out again while Fanny held her closer in her arms, "how could he have done it, how could he have acted so towards me; and just after I had begun to think him so generous and noble! It seems too dreadful to be true." And with this Kitty kissed her cousin and they had a little cry together over the trust so done to death; and Kitty dried her eyes, and bade Fanny a brave good-night, and went off to weep again, upon her pillow. But before that, she called Fanny to her door, and with a smile breaking through the trouble of her face, she asked, "How do you suppose he got back? I never thought of it before." "_Oh!_" cried Mrs. Ellison with profound disgust, "I hope he had to _walk_ back. But I'm afraid there were only too many chances for him to ride. I dare say he could get a calash at the hotel there." Kitty had not spoken a word of reproach to Fanny for her part in promoting this hapless affair; and when the latter, returning to her own room, found the colonel there, she told him the story and then began to discern that she was not without credit for Kitty's fortunate escape, as she called it. "Yes," said the colonel, "under exactly similar circumstances she'll know just what to expect another time, if that's any comfort." "It's a _great_ comfort," retorted Mrs. Ellison; "you can't find out what the world is, too soon, I can tell you; and if I hadn't maneuvered a little to bring them together, Kitty might have gone off with some lingering fancy for him; and think what a misfortune that would have been!" "Horrible." "And now, she'll not have a single regret for him." "I should think not," said the colonel; and he spoke in a tone of such dejection, that it went to his wife's heart more than any reproach of Kitty's could have done. "You're all right, and nobody blames you, Fanny; but if _you_ think it's well for such a girl as Kitty to find out that a man who has had the best that the world can give, and has really some fine qualities of his own, can be such a poor devil, after all, then _I_ don't. She may be the wiser for it, but you know she won't be the happier." "O _don't_, Dick, don't speak seriously! It's so dreadful from _you_. If you feel so about it, why don't you do something." "O yes, there's a fine opening. We know, because we know ever so much more, how the case really is; but the way it seems to stand is, that Kitty couldn't bear to have him show civility to his friends, and ran away, and then wouldn't give him a chance to explain. Besides, what could I do under any circumstances?" "Well, Dick, of course you're right, and I wish I could see things as clearly as you do. But I really believe Kitty's glad to be out of it." "What?" thundered the colonel. "I think Kitty's secretly relieved to have it all over. But you needn't _stun_ me." "You _do_?" The colonel paused as if to gain force enough for a reply. But after waiting, nothing whatever came to him, and he wound up his watch. "To be sure," added Mrs. Ellison thoughtfully, after a pause, "she's giving up a great deal; and she'll probably never have such another chance as long as she lives." "I hope she won't," said the colonel. "O, you needn't pretend that a high position and the social advantages he could have given her are to be despised." "No, you heartless worldling; and neither are peace of mind, and self-respect, and whole feelings, and your little joke." "O, you--you sickly sentimentalist!" "That's what they used to call us in the good old abolition days," laughed the colonel; and the two being quite alone, they made their peace with a kiss, and were as happy for the moment as if they had thereby assuaged Kitty's grief and mortification. "Besides, Fanny," continued the colonel, "though I'm not much on religion, I believe these things are ordered." "Don't be blasphemous, Colonel Ellison!" cried his wife, who represented the church if not religion in her family. "As if Providence had anything to do with love-affairs!" "Well, I won't; but I will say that if Kitty turned her back on Mr. Arbuton and the social advantages he could offer her, it's a sign she wasn't fit for them. And, poor thing, if she doesn't know how much she's lost, why she has the less to grieve over. If she thinks she couldn't be happy with a husband who would keep her snubbed and frightened after he lifted her from her lowly sphere, and would tremble whenever she met any of his own sort, of course it may be a sad mistake, but it can't be helped. She must go back to Eriecreek, and try to worry along without him. Perhaps she'll work out her destiny some other way." XIV. AFTERWARDS. Mrs. Ellison had Kitty's whole story, and so has the reader, but for a little thing that happened next day, and which is perhaps scarcely worthy of being set down. Mr. Arbuton's valise was sent for at night from the Hôtel St. Louis, and they did not see him again. When Kitty woke next morning, a fine cold rain was falling upon the drooping hollyhocks in the Ursulines' Garden, which seemed stricken through every leaf and flower with sudden autumn. All the forenoon the garden-paths remained empty, but under the porch by the poplars sat the slender nun and the stout nun side by side, and held each other's hands. They did not move, they did not appear to speak. The fine cold rain was still falling as Kitty and Fanny drove down Mountain Street toward the Railway Station, whither Dick and the baggage had preceded them, for they were going away from Quebec. Midway, their carriage was stopped by a mass of ascending vehicles, and their driver drew rein till the press was over. At the same time Kitty saw advancing up the sidewalk a figure grotesquely resembling Mr. Arbuton. It was he, but shorter, and smaller, and meaner. Then it was not he, but only a light overcoat like his covering a very common little man about whom it hung loosely,--a burlesque of Mr. Arbuton's self-respectful overcoat, or the garment itself in a state of miserable yet comical collapse. "What is that ridiculous little wretch staring at you for, Kitty?" asked Fanny. "I don't know," answered Kitty, absently. The man was now smiling and gesturing violently. Kitty remembered having seen him before, and then recognized the cooper who had released Mr. Arbuton from the dog in the Sault au Matelot, and to whom he had given his lacerated overcoat. The little creature awkwardly unbuttoned the garment, and took from the breast-pocket a few letters, which he handed to Kitty, talking eagerly in French all the time. "What _is_ he doing, Kitty?" "What is he saying, Fanny?" "Something about a ferocious dog that was going to spring upon you, and the young gentleman being brave as a lion and rushing forward, and saving your life." Mrs. Ellison was not a woman to let her translation lack color, even though the original wanted it. "Make him tell it again." When the man had done so, "Yes," sighed Kitty, "it all happened that day of the Montgomery expedition; but I never knew, before, of what he had done for me. Fanny," she cried, with a great sob, "may be I'm the one who has been cruel? But what happened yesterday makes his having saved my life seem such a very little matter." "Nothing at all!" answered Fanny, "less than nothing!" But her heart failed her. The little cooper had bowed himself away, and was climbing the hill, Mr. Arbuton's coat-skirts striking his heels as he walked. "What letters are those?" asked Fanny. "O, old letters to Mr. Arbuton, which he found in the pocket. I suppose he thought I would give them to him." "But how are you going to do it?" "I ought to send them to him," answered Kitty. Then, after a silence that lasted till they reached the boat, she handed the letters to Fanny. "Dick may send them," she said. THE END. 
19473	----	[Illustration: "I'm big enough to protect my Mother, and I'll do it." _p. 42._] NOW OR NEVER OR THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY BRIGHT _A STORY FOR YOUNG FOLKS_ OLIVER OPTIC _NEW EDITION_ NEW YORK THE MERSHON COMPANY PUBLISHERS Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WILLIAM T. ADAMS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Copyright, 1884, By WILLIAM T. ADAMS. NOW OR NEVER. To my Nephew CHARLES HENRY POPE THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED PREFACE The story contained in this volume is a record of youthful struggles, not only in the world without, but in the world within; and the success of the little hero is not merely a gathering up of wealth and honors, but a triumph over the temptations that beset the pilgrim on the plain of life. The attainment of worldly prosperity is not the truest victory; and the author has endeavored to make the interest of his story depend more on the hero's devotion to principles than on his success in business. Bobby Bright is a smart boy; perhaps the reader will think he is altogether too smart for one of his years. This is a progressive age, and anything which young America may do need not surprise any person. That little gentleman is older than his father, knows more than his mother, can talk politics, smoke cigars, and drive a 2:40 horse. He orders "one stew" with as much ease as a man of forty, and can even pronounce correctly the villanous names of sundry French and German wines and liqueurs. One would suppose, to hear him talk, that he had been intimate with Socrates and Solon, with Napoleon and Noah Webster; in short, that whatever he did not know was not worth knowing. In the face of these manifestations of exuberant genius, it would be absurd to accuse the author of making his hero do too much. All he has done is to give this genius a right direction; and for politics, cigars, 2:40 horses, and "one stew," he has substituted the duties of a rational and accountable being, regarding them as better fitted to develop the young gentleman's mind, heart, and soul. Bobby Bright is something more than a smart boy. He is a good boy, and makes a true man. His daily life is the moral of the story, and the author hopes that his devotion to principle will make a stronger impression upon the mind of the young reader, than even the most exciting incidents of his eventful career. WILLIAM T. ADAMS. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. In which Bobby goes a fishing, and catches a Horse 1 II. In which Bobby blushes several Times, and does a Sum in Arithmetic 13 III. In which the Little Black House is bought, but not paid for 26 IV. In which Bobby gets out of one Scrape, and into another 38 V. In which Bobby gives his Note for Sixty Dollars 52 VI. In which Bobby sets out on his Travels 66 VII. In which Bobby stands up for certain "Inalienable Rights" 78 VIII. In which Mr. Timmins is astonished, and Bobby dines in Chestnut Street 91 IX. In which Bobby opens various Accounts, and wins his first Victory 104 X. In which Bobby is a little too smart 117 XI. In which Bobby strikes a Balance, and returns to Riverdale 131 XII. In which Bobby astonishes sundry Persons, and pays Part of his Note 144 XIII. In which Bobby declines a Copartnership, and visits B---- again 160 XIV. In which Bobby's Air Castle is upset, and Tom Spicer takes to the Woods 177 XV. In which Bobby gets into a Scrape, and Tom Spicer turns up again 191 XVI. In which Bobby finds "it is an ill wind that blows no one any good" 205 XVII. In which Tom has a good Time, and Bobby meets with a terrible Misfortune 219 XVIII. In which Bobby takes French Leave, and camps in the Woods 235 XIX. In which Bobby has a narrow Escape, and goes to Sea with Sam Ray 248 XX. In which the Clouds blow over, and Bobby is himself again 264 XXI. In which Bobby steps off the Stage, and the Author must finish "Now or Never" 280 NOW OR NEVER OR THE ADVENTURES OF BOBBY BRIGHT CHAPTER I IN WHICH BOBBY GOES A FISHING, AND CATCHES A HORSE "By jolly! I've got a bite!" exclaimed Tom Spicer, a rough, hard-looking boy, who sat on a rock by the river's side, anxiously watching the cork float on his line. "Catch him, then," quietly responded Bobby Bright, who occupied another rock near the first speaker, as he pulled up a large pout, and, without any appearance of exultation, proceeded to unhook and place him in his basket. "You are a lucky dog, Bob," added Tom, as he glanced into the basket of his companion, which now contained six good-sized fishes. "I haven't caught one yet." "You don't fish deep enough." "I fish on the bottom." "That is too deep." "It don't make any difference how I fish; it is all luck." "Not all luck, Tom; there is something in doing it right." "I shall not catch a fish," continued Tom, in despair. "You'll catch something else, though, when you go home." "Will I?" "I'm afraid you will." "Who says I will?" "Didn't you tell me you were 'hooking jack'?" "Who is going to know anything about it?" "The master will know you are absent." "I shall tell him my mother sent me over to the village on an errand." "I never knew a fellow to 'hook jack,' yet, without getting found out." "I shall not get found out unless you blow on me; and you wouldn't be mean enough to do that;" and Tom glanced uneasily at his companion. "Suppose your mother should ask me if I had seen you." "You would tell her you have not, of course." "Of course?" "Why, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you do as much as that for a fellow?" "It would be a lie." "A lie! Humph!" "I wouldn't lie for any fellow," replied Bobby, stoutly, as he pulled in his seventh fish, and placed him in the basket. "Wouldn't you?" "No, I wouldn't." "Then let me tell you this; if you peach on me, I'll smash your head." Tom Spicer removed one hand from the fish pole and, doubling his fist, shook it with energy at his companion. "Smash away," replied Bobby, coolly. "I shall not go out of my way to tell tales; but if your mother or the master asks me the question, I shall not lie." "Won't you?" "No, I won't." "I'll bet you will;" and Tom dropped his fish pole, and was on the point of jumping over to the rock occupied by Bobby, when the float of the former disappeared beneath the surface of the water. "You've got a bite," coolly interposed Bobby, pointing to the line. Tom snatched the pole, and with a violent twitch, pulled up a big pout; but his violence jerked the hook out of the fish's mouth, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the river. "Just my luck!" muttered Tom. "Keep cool, then." "I will fix you yet." "All right; but you had better not let go your pole again, or you will lose another fish." "I'm bound to smash your head, though." "No, you won't." "Won't I?" "Two can play at that game." "Do you stump me?" "No; I don't want to fight; I won't fight if I can help it." "I'll bet you won't!" sneered Tom. "But I will defend myself." "Humph!" "I am not a liar, and the fear of a flogging shall not make me tell a lie." "Go to Sunday school--don't you?" "I do; and besides that, my mother always taught me never to tell a lie." "Come! you needn't preach to me. By and by, you will call me a liar." "No, I won't; but just now you told me you meant to lie to your mother, and to the master." "What if I did? That is none of your business." "It _is_ my business when you want me to lie for you, though; and I shall not do it." "Blow on me, and see what you will get." "I don't mean to blow on you." "Yes, you do." "I will not lie about it; that's all." "By jolly! see that horse!" exclaimed Tom, suddenly, as he pointed to the road leading to Riverdale Centre. "By gracious!" added Bobby, dropping his fish pole, as he saw the horse running at a furious rate up the road from the village. The mad animal was attached to a chaise, in which was seated a lady, whose frantic shrieks pierced the soul of our youthful hero. The course of the road was by the river's side for nearly half a mile, and crossed the stream at a wooden bridge but a few rods from the place where the boys were fishing. Bobby Bright's impulses were noble and generous; and without stopping to consider the peril to which the attempt would expose him, he boldly resolved to stop that horse, or let the animal dash him to pieces on the bridge. "Now or never!" shouted he, as he leaped from the rock, and ran with all his might to the bridge. The shrieks of the lady rang in his ears, and seemed to command him, with an authority which he could not resist, to stop the horse. There was no time for deliberation; and, indeed, Bobby did not want any deliberation. The lady was in danger; if the horse's flight was not checked, she would be dashed in pieces; and what then could excuse him for neglecting his duty? Not the fear of broken limbs, of mangled flesh, or even of a sudden and violent death. It is true Bobby did not think of any of these things; though, if he had, it would have made no difference with him. He was a boy who would not fight except in self-defence, but he had the courage to do a deed which might have made the stoutest heart tremble with terror. Grasping a broken rail as he leaped over the fence, he planted himself in the middle of the bridge, which was not more than half as wide as the road at each end of it, to await the coming of the furious animal. On he came, and the piercing shrieks of the affrighted lady nerved him to the performance of his perilous duty. The horse approached him at a mad run, and his feet struck the loose planks of the bridge. The brave boy then raised his big club, and brandished it with all his might in the air. Probably the horse did not mean anything very bad; was only frightened, and had no wicked intentions towards the lady; so that when a new danger menaced him in front, he stopped suddenly, and with so much violence as to throw the lady forward from her seat upon the dasher of the chaise. He gave a long snort, which was his way of expressing his fear. He was evidently astonished at the sudden barrier to his further progress, and commenced running back. "Save me!" screamed the lady. "I will, ma'am; don't be scared!" replied Bobby, confidently, as he dropped his club, and grasped the bridle of the horse, just as he was on the point of whirling round to escape by the way he had come. "Stop him! Do stop him!" cried the lady. "Whoa!" said Bobby, in gentle tones, as he patted the trembling horse on his neck. "Whoa, good horse! Be quiet! Whoa!" The animal, in his terror, kept running backward and forward; but Bobby persevered in his gentle treatment, and finally soothed him, so that he stood quiet enough for the lady to get out of the chaise. "What a miracle that I am alive!" exclaimed she, when she realized that she stood once more upon the firm earth. "Yes, ma'am, it is lucky he didn't break the chaise. Whoa! Good horse! Stand quiet!" "What a brave little fellow you are!" said the lady, as soon as she could recover her breath so as to express her admiration of Bobby's bold act. "O, I don't mind it," replied he, blushing like a rose in June. "Did he run away with you?" "No; my father left me in the chaise for a moment while he went into a store in the village, and a teamster who was passing by snapped his whip, which frightened Kate so that she started off at the top of her speed. I was so terrified that I screamed with all my might, which frightened her the more. The more I screamed, the faster she ran." "I dare say. Good horse! Whoa, Kate!" "She is a splendid creature; she never did such a thing before. My father will think I am killed." By this time, Kate had become quite reasonable, and seemed very much obliged to Bobby for preventing her from doing mischief to her mistress; for she looked at the lady with a glance of satisfaction, which her deliverer interpreted as a promise to behave better in future. He relaxed his grasp upon the bridle, patted her upon the neck, and said sundry pleasant things to encourage her in her assumed purpose of doing better. Kate appeared to understand Bobby's kind words, and declared as plainly as a horse could declare that she would be sober and tractable. "Now, ma'am, if you will get into the chaise again, I think Kate will let me drive her down to the village." "O, dear! I should not dare to do so." "Then, if you please, I will drive down alone, so as to let your father know that you are safe." "Do." "I am sure he must feel very bad, and I may save him a great deal of pain, for a man can suffer a great deal in a very short time." "You are a little philosopher, as well as a hero, and if you are not afraid of Kate, you may do as you wish." "She seems very gentle now;" and Bobby turned her round, and got into the chaise. "Be very careful," said the lady. "I will." Bobby took the reins, and Kate, true to the promise she had virtually made, started off at a round pace towards the village. He had not gone more than a quarter of a mile of the distance when he met a wagon containing three men, one of whom was the lady's father. The gestures which he made assured Bobby he had found the person whom he sought, and he stopped. "My daughter! Where is she?" gasped the gentleman, as he leaped from the wagon. "She is safe, sir," replied Bobby, with all the enthusiasm of his warm nature. "Thank God!" added the gentleman, devoutly, as he placed himself in the chaise by the side of Bobby. CHAPTER II IN WHICH BOBBY BLUSHES SEVERAL TIMES, AND DOES A SUM IN ARITHMETIC Mr. Bayard, the owner of the horse, and the father of the lady whom Bobby had saved from impending death, was too much agitated to say much, even to the bold youth who had rendered him such a signal service. He could scarcely believe the intelligence which the boy brought him; it seemed too good to be true. He had assured himself that Ellen--for that was the young lady's name--was killed or dreadfully injured. Kate was driven at the top of her speed, and in a few moments reached the bridge, where Ellen was awaiting his arrival. "Here I am, father, alive and unhurt!" cried Ellen, as Mr. Bayard stopped the horse. "Thank Heaven, my child!" replied the glad father, embracing his daughter. "I was sure you were killed." "No, father; thanks to this bold youth, I am uninjured." "I am under very great obligations to you, young man," continued Mr. Bayard, grasping Bobby's hand. "O, never mind, sir;" and Bobby blushed just as he had blushed when the young lady spoke to him. "We shall never forget you--shall we, father?" added Ellen. "No, my child; and I shall endeavor to repay, to some slight extent, our indebtedness to him. But you have not yet told me how you were saved." "O, I merely stopped the horse; that's all," answered Bobby, modestly. "Yes, father, but he placed himself right before Kate when she was almost flying over the ground. When I saw him, I was certain that he would lose his life, or be horribly mangled for his boldness," interposed Ellen. "It was a daring deed, young man, to place yourself before an affrighted horse in that manner," said Mr. Bayard. "I didn't mind it, sir." "And then he flourished a big club, almost as big as he is himself, in the air, which made Kate pause in her mad career, when my deliverer here grasped her by the bit and held her." "It was well and bravely done." "That it was, father; not many men would have been bold enough to do what he did," added Ellen, with enthusiasm. "Very true; and I feel that I am indebted to him for your safety. What is your name, young man?" "Robert Bright, sir." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket several pieces of gold, which he offered to Bobby. "No, I thank you, sir," replied Bobby, blushing. "What! as proud as you are bold?" "I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Bravo! You are a noble little fellow! But you must take this money, not as a reward for what you have done, but as a testimonial of my gratitude." "I would rather not, sir." "Do take it, Robert," added Ellen. "I don't like to take it. It looks mean to take money for doing one's duty." "Take it, Robert, to please me;" and the young lady smiled so sweetly that Bobby's resolution began to give way. "Only to please me, Robert." "I will, to please you; but I don't feel right about it." "You must not be too proud, Robert," said Mr. Bayard, as he put the gold pieces into his hand. "I am not proud, sir; only I don't like to be paid for doing my duty." "Not paid, my young friend. Consider that you have placed me under an obligation to you for life. This money is only an expression of my own and my daughter's feelings. It is but a small sum, but I hope you will permit me to do something more for you, when you need it. You will regard me as your friend as long as you live." "Thank you, sir." "When you want any assistance of any kind, come to me. I live in Boston; here is my business card." Mr. Bayard handed him a card, on which Bobby read, "F. Bayard & Co., Booksellers and Publishers, No. --, Washington Street, Boston." "You are very kind, sir." "I want you should come to Boston and see us, too," interposed Ellen. "I should be delighted to show you the city, to take you to the Athenæum and the Museum." "Thank you." Mr. Bayard inquired of Bobby about his parents, where he lived, and about the circumstances of his family. He then took out his memorandum book, in which he wrote the boy's name and residence. "I am sorry to leave you now, Robert, but I have over twenty miles to ride to-day. I should be glad to visit your mother, and next time I come to Riverdale, I shall certainly do so." "Thank you, sir; my mother is a very poor woman, but she will be glad to see you." "Now, good by, Robert." "Good by," repeated Ellen. "Good by." Mr. Bayard drove off, leaving Bobby standing on the bridge with the gold pieces in his hand. "Here's luck!" said Bobby, shaking the coin. "Won't mother's eyes stick out when she sees these shiners? There are no such shiners in the river as these." Bobby was astonished, and the more he gazed at the gold pieces, the more bewildered he became. He had never held so much money in his hand before. There were three large coins and one smaller one. He turned them over and over, and finally ascertained that the large coins were ten dollar pieces, and the smaller one a five dollar piece. Bobby was not a great scholar, but he knew enough of arithmetic to calculate the value of his treasure. He was so excited, however, that he did not arrive at the conclusion half so quick as most of my young readers would have done. "Thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed Bobby, when the problem was solved. "Gracious!" "Hallo, Bob!" shouted Tom Spicer, who had got tired of fishing; besides, the village clock was just striking twelve, and it was time for him to go home. Bobby made no answer, but hastily tying the gold pieces up in the corner of his handkerchief, he threw the broken rail he had used in stopping the horse where it belonged, and started for the place where he had left his fishing apparatus. "Hallo, Bob!" "Well, Tom?" "Stopped him--didn't you?" "I did." "You were a fool; he might have killed you." "So he might; but I didn't stop to think of that. The lady's life was in danger." "What of that?" "Everything, I should say." "Did he give you anything?" "Yes;" and Bobby continued his walk down to the river's side. "I say, what did he give you, Bobby?" persisted Tom, following him. "O, he gave me a good deal of money." "How much?" "I want to get my fish line now; I will tell you all about it some other time," replied Bobby, who rather suspected the intentions of his companion. "Tell me now; how much was it?" "Never mind it now." "Humph! Do you think I mean to rob you?" "No." "Ain't you going halveses?" "Why should I?" "Wasn't I with you?" "Were you?" "Wasn't I fishing with you?" "You did not do anything about stopping the horse." "I would, if I hadn't been afraid to go up to the road." "Afraid?" "Somebody might have seen me, and they would have known that I was hooking jack." "Then you ought not to share the money." "Yes, I had. When a fellow is with you, he ought to have half. It is mean not to give him half." "If you had done anything to help stop the horse, I would have shared with you. But you didn't." "What of that?" Bobby was particularly sensitive in regard to the charge of meanness. His soul was a great deal bigger than his body, and he was always generous, even to his own injury, among his companions. It was evident to him that Tom had no claim to any part of the reward; but he could not endure the thought even of being accused of meanness. "I'll tell you what I will do, if you think I ought to share with you. I will leave it out to Squire Lee; and if he thinks you ought to have half, or any part of the money, I will give it to you." "No, you don't; you want to get me into a scrape for hooking jack. I see what you are up to." "I will state the case to him without telling him who the boys are." "No, you don't! You want to be mean about it. Come, hand over half the money." "I will not," replied Bobby, who, when it became a matter of compulsion, could stand his ground at any peril. "How much have you got?" "Thirty-five dollars." "By jolly! And you mean to keep it all yourself?" "I mean to give it to my mother." "No, you won't! If you are going to be mean about it, I'll smash your head!" This was a favorite expression with Tom Spicer, who was a noted bully among the boys of Riverdale. The young ruffian now placed himself in front of Bobby, and shook his clenched fist in his face. "Hand over." "No, I won't. You have no claim to any part of the money; at least, I think you have not. If you have a mind to leave it out to Squire Lee, I will do what is right about it." "Not I; hand over, or I'll smash your head!" "Smash away," replied Bobby, placing himself on the defensive. "Do you think you can lick me?" asked Tom, not a little embarrassed by this exhibition of resolution on the part of his companion. "I don't think anything about it; but you don't bully me in that kind of style." "Won't I?" "No." But Tom did not immediately put his threat in execution, and Bobby would not be the aggressor; so he stepped one side to pass his assailant. Tom took this as an evidence of the other's desire to escape, and struck him a heavy blow on the side of the head. The next instant the bully was floundering in the soft mud of a ditch; Bobby's reply was more than Tom had bargained for, and while he was dragging himself out of the ditch, our hero ran down to the river, and got his fish pole and basket. "You'll catch it for that!" growled Tom. "I'm all ready, whenever it suits your convenience," replied Bobby. "Just come out here and take it in fair fight," continued Tom, who could not help bullying, even in the midst of his misfortune. "No, I thank you; I don't want to fight with any fellow. I will not fight if I can help it." "What did you hit me for, then?" "In self-defence." "Just come out here, and try it fair!" "No;" and Bobby hurried home, leaving the bully astonished and discomfited by the winding up of the morning's sport. CHAPTER III IN WHICH THE LITTLE BLACK HOUSE IS BOUGHT BUT NOT PAID FOR Probably my young readers have by this time come to the conclusion that Bobby Bright was a very clever fellow--one whose acquaintance they would be happy to cultivate. Perhaps by this time they have become so far interested in him as to desire to know who his parents were, what they did, and in what kind of a house he lived. I hope none of my young friends will think any less of him when I inform them that Bobby lived in an old black house which had never been painted, which had no flower garden in front of it, and which, in a word, was quite far from being a palace. A great many very nice city folks would not have considered it fit to live in, would have turned up their noses at it, and wondered that any human beings could be so degraded as to live in such a miserable house. But the widow Bright, Bobby's mother, thought it was a very comfortable house, and considered herself very fortunate in being able to get so good a dwelling. She had never lived in a fine house, knew nothing about velvet carpets, mirrors seven feet high, damask chairs and lounges, or any of the smart things which very rich and very proud city people consider absolutely necessary for their comfort. Her father had been a poor man, her husband had died a poor man, and her own life had been a struggle to keep the demons of poverty and want from invading her humble abode. Mr. Bright, her deceased husband, had been a day laborer in Riverdale. He never got more than a dollar a day, which was then considered very good wages in the country. He was a very honest, industrious man, and while he lived, his family did very well. Mrs. Bright was a careful, prudent woman, and helped him support the family. They never knew what it was to want for anything. Poor people, as well as rich, have an ambition to be something which they are not, or to have something which they have not. Every person, who has any energy of character, desires to get ahead in the world. Some merchants, who own big ships and big warehouses by the dozen, desire to be what they consider rich. But their idea of wealth is very grand. They wish to count it in millions of dollars, in whole blocks of warehouses; and they are even more discontented than the day laborer who has to earn his dinner before he can eat it. Bobby's father and mother had just such an ambition, only it was so modest that the merchant would have laughed at it. They wanted to own the little black house in which they resided, so that they could not only be sure of a home while they lived, but have the satisfaction of living in their own house. This was a very reasonable ideal, compared with that of the rich merchants I have mentioned; but it was even more difficult for them to reach it, for the wages were small, and they had many mouths to feed. Mr. Bright had saved up fifty dollars; and he thought a great deal more of this sum than many people do of a thousand dollars. He had had to work very hard and be very prudent in order to accumulate this sum, which made him value it all the more highly. With this sum of fifty dollars at his command, John Bright felt rich; and then, more than ever before, he wanted to own the little black house. He felt as grand as a lord; and as soon as the forty-nine dollars had become fifty, he waited upon Mr. Hardhand, a little crusty old man, who owned the little black house, and proposed to purchase it. The landlord was a hard man. Everybody in Riverdale said he was mean and stingy. Any generous-hearted man would have been willing to make an easy bargain with an honest, industrious, poor man, like John Bright, who wished to own the house in which he lived; but Mr. Hardhand, although he was rich, only thought how he could make more money. He asked the poor man four hundred dollars for the old house and the little lot of land on which it stood. It was a matter of great concern to John Bright. Four hundred dollars was a "mint of money," and he could not see how he should ever be able to save so much from his daily earnings. So he talked with Squire Lee about it, who told him that three hundred was all it was worth. John offered this for it, and after a month's hesitation Mr. Hardhand accepted the offer, agreeing to take fifty dollars down, and the rest in semi-annual payments of twenty-five dollars each until the whole was paid. I am thus particular in telling my readers about the bargain, because this debt which his father contracted was the means of making a man of Bobby, as will be seen in his subsequent history. John Bright paid the first fifty dollars; but before the next instalment became due, the poor man was laid in his cold and silent grave. A malignant disease carried him off, and the hopes of the Bright family seemed to be blasted. Four children were left to the widow. The youngest was only three years old, and Bobby, the oldest, was nine, when his father died. Squire Lee, who had always been a good friend of John Bright, told the widow that she had better go to the poorhouse, and not attempt to struggle along with such fearful odds against her. But the widow nobly refused to become a pauper, and to make paupers of her children, whom she loved quite as much as though she and they had been born in a ducal palace. She told the squire that she had two hands, and as long as she had her health, the town need not trouble itself about her support. Squire Lee was filled with surprise and admiration at the noble resolution of the poor woman; and when he returned to his house, he immediately sent her a cord of wood, ten bushels of potatoes, two bags of meal, and a firkin of salt pork. The widow was very grateful for these articles, and no false pride prevented her from accepting the gift of her rich and kind-hearted neighbor. Riverdale Centre was largely engaged in the manufacturing of boots and shoes, and this business gave employment to a large number of men and women. Mrs. Bright had for several years "closed" shoes--which, my readers who do not live in "shoe towns" may not know, means sewing or stitching them. To this business she applied herself with renewed energy. There was a large hotel in Riverdale Centre, where several families from Boston spent the summer. By the aid of Squire Lee, she obtained the washing of these families, which was more profitable than closing shoes. By these means she not only supported her family very comfortably, but was able to save a little money towards paying for the house. Mr. Hardhand, by the persuasions of Squire Lee, had consented to let the widow keep the house, and pay for it as she could. John Bright had been dead four years at the time we introduce Bobby to the reader. Mrs. Bright had paid another hundred dollars towards the house, with the interest; so there was now but one hundred due. Bobby had learned to "close," and helped his mother a great deal; but the confinement and the stooping posture did not agree with his health, and his mother was obliged to dispense with his assistance. But the devoted little fellow found a great many ways of helping her. He was now thirteen, and was as handy about the house as a girl. When he was not better occupied, he would often go to the river and catch a mess of fish, which was so much clear gain. The winter which had just passed had brought a great deal of sickness to the little black house. The children all had the measles, and two of them the scarlet fever, so that Mrs. Bright could not work much. Her affairs were not in a very prosperous condition when the spring opened; but the future was bright, and the widow, trusting in Providence, believed that all would end well. One thing troubled her. She had not been able to save anything for Mr. Hardhand. She could only pay her interest; but she hoped by the first of July to give him twenty-five dollars of the principal. But the first of July came, and she had only five dollars of the sum she had partly promised her creditor. She could not so easily recover from the disasters of the hard winter, and she had but just paid off the little debts she had contracted. She was nervous and uneasy as the day approached. Mr. Hardhand always abused her when she told him she could not pay him, and she dreaded his coming. It was the first of July on which Bobby caught those pouts, caught the horse, and on which Tom Spicer had "caught a Tartar." Bobby hastened home, as we said at the conclusion of the last chapter. He was as happy as a lord. He had fish enough in his basket for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning, and money enough in his pocket to make his mother as happy as a queen, if queens are always happy. The widow Bright, though she had worried and fretted night and day about the money which was to be paid to Mr. Hardhand on the first of July, had not told her son anything about it. It would only make him unhappy, she reasoned, and it was needless to make the dear boy miserable for nothing; so Bobby ran home all unconscious of the pleasure which was in store for him. When he reached the front door, as he stopped to scrape his feet on the sharp stone there, as all considerate boys who love their mothers do, before they go into the house, he heard the angry tones of Mr. Hardhand. He was scolding and abusing his mother because she could not pay him the twenty-five dollars. Bobby's blood boiled with indignation, and his first impulse was to serve him as he had served Tom Spicer, only a few moments before; but Bobby, as we have before intimated, was a peaceful boy, and not disposed to quarrel with any person; so he contented himself with muttering a few hard words. "The wretch! What business has he to talk to _my_ mother in that style?" said he to himself. "I have a great mind to kick him out of the house." But Bobby's better judgment came to his aid; and perhaps he realized that he and his mother would only get kicked out in return. He could battle with Mr. Hardhand, but not with the power which his wealth gave him; so, like a great many older persons in similar circumstances, he took counsel of prudence rather than impulse. "Bear ye one another's burdens," saith the Scripture; but Bobby was not old enough or astute enough to realize that Mr. Hardhand's burden was his wealth, his love of money; that it made him little better than a Hottentot; and he could not feel as charitably towards him as a Christian should towards his erring, weak brother. Setting his pole by the door, he entered the room where Hardhand was abusing his mother. CHAPTER IV IN WHICH BOBBY GETS OUT OF ONE SCRAPE, AND INTO ANOTHER Bobby was so indignant at the conduct of Mr. Hardhand, that he entirely forgot the adventure of the morning; and he did not even think of the gold he had in his pocket. He loved his mother; he knew how hard she had worked for him and his brother and sisters; that she had burned the "midnight oil" at her clamps; and it made him feel very bad to hear her abused as Mr. Hardhand was abusing her. It was not her fault that she had not the money to pay him. She had been obliged to spend a large portion of her time over the sick beds of her children, so that she could not earn so much money as usual; while the family expenses were necessarily much greater. Bobby knew also that Mr. Hardhand was aware of all the circumstances of his mother's position, and the more he considered the case the more brutal and inhuman was his course. As our hero entered the family room with the basket of fish on his arm, the little crusty old man fixed the glance of his evil eye upon him. "There is that boy, marm, idling away his time by the river, and eating you out of house and home," said the wretch. "Why don't you set him to work, and make him earn something?" "Bobby is a very good boy," meekly responded the widow Bright. "Humph! I should think he was. A great lazy lubber like him, living on his mother!" and Mr. Hardhand looked contemptuously at Bobby. "I am not a lazy lubber," interposed the insulted boy with spirit. "Yes, you are. Why don't you go to work?" "I do work." "No, you don't; you waste your time paddling in the river." "I don't." "You had better teach this boy manners too, marm," said the creditor, who, like all men of small souls, was willing to take advantage of the power which the widow's indebtedness gave him. "He is saucy." "I should like to know who taught _you_ manners, Mr. Hardhand," replied Bobby, whose indignation was rapidly getting the better of his discretion. "What!" growled Mr. Hardhand, aghast at this unwonted boldness. "I heard what you said before I came in; and no decent man would go to the house of a poor woman to insult her." "Humph! Mighty fine," snarled the little old man, his gray eyes twinkling with malice. "Don't, Bobby; don't be saucy to the gentleman," interposed his mother. "Saucy, marm? You ought to horsewhip him for it. If you don't, I will." "No, you won't!" replied Bobby, shaking his head significantly. "I can take care of myself." "Did any one ever hear such impudence!" gasped Mr. Hardhand. "Don't, Bobby, don't," pleaded the anxious mother. "I should like to know what right you have to come here and abuse my mother," continued Bobby, who could not restrain his anger. "Your mother owes me money, and she doesn't pay it, you young scoundrel!" answered Mr. Hardhand, foaming with rage. "That is no reason why you should insult her. You can call _me_ what you please, but you shall not insult my mother while I'm round." "Your mother is a miserable woman, and----" "Say that again, and though you are an old man, I'll hit you for it. I'm big enough to protect my mother, and I'll do it." Bobby doubled up his fists and edged up to Mr. Hardhand, fully determined to execute his threat if he repeated the offensive expression, or any other of a similar import. He was roused to the highest pitch of anger, and felt as though he had just as lief die as live in defence of his mother's good name. I am not sure that I could excuse Bobby's violence under any other circumstances. He loved his mother--as the novelists would say, he idolized her; and Mr. Hardhand had certainly applied some very offensive epithets to her--epithets which no good son could calmly hear applied to a mother. Besides, Bobby, though his heart was a large one, and was in the right place, had never been educated into those nice distinctions of moral right and wrong which control the judgment of wise and learned men. He had an idea that violence, resistance with blows, was allowable in certain extreme cases; and he could conceive of no greater provocation than an insult to his mother. "Be calm, Bobby; you are in a passion," said Mrs. Bright. "I am surprised, marm," began Mr. Hardhand, who prudently refrained from repeating the offensive language--and I have no doubt he was surprised; for he looked both astonished and alarmed. "This boy has a most ungovernable temper." "Don't you worry about my temper, Mr. Hardhand; I'll take care of myself. All I want of you is not to insult my mother. You may say what you like to me; but don't you call her hard names." Mr. Hardhand, like all mean, little men, was a coward; and he was effectually intimidated by the bold and manly conduct of the boy. He changed his tone and manner at once. "You have no money for me, marm?" said he, edging towards the door. "No, sir; I am sorry to say that I have been able to save only five dollars since I paid you last; but I hope----" "Never mind, marm, never mind; I shall not trouble myself to come here again, where I am liable to be kicked by this ill-bred cub. No, marm, I shall not come again. Let the law take its course." "O, mercy! See what you have brought upon us, Bobby," exclaimed Mrs. Bright, bursting into tears. "Yes, marm, let the law take its course." "O, Bobby! Stop a moment, Mr. Hardhand; do stop a moment." "Not a moment, marm. We'll see;" and Mr. Hardhand placed his hand upon the latch string. Bobby felt very uneasy and very unhappy at that moment. His passion had subsided, and he realized that he had done a great deal of mischief by his impetuous conduct. Then the remembrance of his morning adventure on the bridge came like a flash of sunshine to his mind, and he eagerly drew from his pocket the handkerchief in which he had deposited the precious gold,--doubly precious now, because it would enable him to retrieve the error into which he had fallen, and do something towards relieving his mother's embarrassment. With a trembling hand he untied the knot which secured the money. "Here, mother, here is thirty-five dollars;" and he placed it in her hand. "Why, Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Bright. "Pay him, mother, pay him, and I will tell you all about it by and by." "Thirty-five dollars! and all in gold! Where _did_ you get it, Bobby?" "Never mind it now, mother." Mr. Hardhand's covetous soul had already grasped the glittering gold; and removing his hand from the latch string, he approached the widow. "I shall be able to pay you forty dollars now," said Mrs. Bright, taking the five dollars she had saved from her pocket. "Yes, marm." Mr. Hardhand took the money, and seating himself at the table, indorsed the amount on the back of the note. "You owe me sixty more," said he, maliciously, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "It must be paid immediately." "You must not be hard with me now, when I have paid more than you demanded." "I don't wish to come here again. That boy's impudence has put me all out of conceit with you and your family," replied Mr. Hardhand, assuming the most benevolent look he could command. "There was a time when I was very willing to help you. I have waited a great while for my pay for this house; a great deal longer than I would have waited for anybody else." "Your interest has always been paid punctually," suggested the widow, modestly. "That's true; but very few people would have waited as long as I have for the principal. I wanted to help you----" "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, interrupting him. "Don't be saucy, my son, don't," said Mrs. Bright, fearing a repetition of the former scene. "_He_ wanted to help us!" ejaculated Bobby. It was a very absurd and hypocritical expression on the part of Mr. Hardhand; for he never wanted to help any one but himself; and during the whole period of his relations with the poor widow, he had oppressed, insulted, and abused her to the extent of his capacity, or at least as far as his interest would permit. He was a malicious and revengeful man. He did not consider the great provocation he had given Bobby for his violent conduct, but determined to be revenged, if it could be accomplished without losing any part of the sixty dollars still due him. He was a wicked man at heart, and would not scruple to turn the widow and her family out of house and home. Mrs. Bright knew this, and Bobby knew it too; and they felt very uneasy about it. The wretch still had the power to injure them, and he would use it without compunction. "Yes, young man, I wanted to help you, and you see what I get for it--contempt and insults! You will hear from me again in a day or two. Perhaps you will change your tune, you young reprobate!" "Perhaps I shall," replied Bobby, without much discretion. "And you too, marm; you uphold him in his treatment of me. You have not done your duty to him. You have been remiss, marm!" continued Mr. Hardhand, growing bolder again, as he felt the power he wielded. "That will do, sir; you can go!" said Bobby, springing from his chair, and approaching Mr. Hardhand. "Go, and do your worst!" "Humph! you stump me,--do you?" "I would rather see my mother kicked out of the house than insulted by such a dried-up old curmudgeon as you are. Go along!" "Now, don't, Bobby," pleaded his mother. "I am going; and if the money is not paid by twelve o'clock to-morrow, the law shall take its course;" and Mr. Hardhand rushed out of the house, slamming the door violently after him. "O, Bobby, what have you done?" exclaimed Mrs. Bright, when the hard-hearted creditor had departed. "I could not help it, mother; don't cry. I cannot bear to hear you insulted and abused; and I thought when I heard him do it a year ago, that I couldn't stand it again. It is too bad." "But he will turn us out of the house; and what shall we do then?" "Don't cry, mother; it will come round all right. I have friends who are rich and powerful, and who will help us." "You don't know what you say, Bobby. Sixty dollars is a great deal of money, and if we should sell all we have, it would scarcely bring that." "Leave it all to me, mother; I feel as though I could do something now. I am old enough to make money." "What can you do?" "Now or never!" replied Bobby, whose mind had wandered from the scene to the busy world, where fortunes are made and lost every day. "Now or never!" muttered he again. "But, Bobby, you have not told me where you got all that gold." "Dinner is ready, I see, and I will tell you while we eat." Bobby had been a fishing, and to be hungry is a part of the fisherman's luck; so he seated himself at the table, and gave his mother a full account of all that had occurred at the bridge. The fond mother trembled when she realized the peril her son had incurred for the sake of the young lady; but her maternal heart swelled with admiration in view of the generous deed, and she thanked God that she was the mother of such a son. She felt more confidence in him then than she had ever felt before, and she realized that he would be the stay and the staff of her declining years. Bobby finished his dinner, and seated himself on the front door step. His mind was absorbed by a new and brilliant idea; and for half an hour he kept up a most tremendous thinking. "Now or never!" said he, as he rose and walked down the road towards Riverdale Centre. CHAPTER V IN WHICH BOBBY GIVES HIS NOTE FOR SIXTY DOLLARS A great idea was born in Bobby's brain. His mother's weakness and the insecurity of her position were more apparent to him than they had ever been before. She was in the power of her creditor, who might turn her out of the little black house, sell the place at auction, and thus, perhaps, deprive her of the whole or a large part of his father's and her own hard earnings. But this was not the peculiar hardship of her situation, as her devoted son understood it. It was not the hard work alone which she was called upon to perform, not the coarseness of the fare upon which they lived, not the danger even of being turned out of doors, that distressed Bobby; it was that a wretch like Mr. Hardhand could insult and trample upon his mother. He had just heard him use language to her that made his blood boil with indignation, and he did not, on cool, sober, second thought, regret that he had taken such a decided stand against it. He cared not for himself. He could live on a crust of bread and a cup of water from the spring; he could sleep in a barn; he could wear coarse and even ragged clothes; but he could not submit to have his mother insulted, and by such a mean and contemptible person as Mr. Hardhand. Yet what could he do? He was but a boy, and the great world would look with contempt upon his puny form. But he felt that he was not altogether insignificant. He had performed an act that day, which the fair young lady, to whom he had rendered the service, had declared very few men would have undertaken. There was something in him, something that would come out, if he only put his best foot forward. It was a tower of strength within him. It told him that he could do wonders; that he could go out into the world and accomplish all that would be required to free his mother from debt, and relieve her from the severe drudgery of her life. A great many people think they can "do wonders." The vanity of some very silly people makes them think they can command armies, govern nations, and teach the world what the world never knew before and never would know but for them. But Bobby's something within him was not vanity. It was something more substantial. He was not thinking of becoming a great man, a great general, a great ruler, or a great statesman; not even of making a great fortune. Self was not the idol and the end of his calculations. He was thinking of his mother, and only of her; and the feeling within him was as pure, and holy, and beautiful as the dream of an angel. He wanted to save his mother from insult in the first place, and from a life of ceaseless drudgery in the second. A legion of angels seemed to have encamped in his soul to give him strength for the great purpose in his mind. His was a holy and a true purpose, and it was this that made him think he could "do wonders." What Bobby intended to do the reader shall know in due time. It is enough now that he meant to do something. The difficulty with a great many people is, that they never resolve to do something. They wait for "something to turn up;" and as "things" are often very obstinate, they utterly refuse to "turn up" at all. Their lives are spent in waiting for a golden opportunity which never comes. Now, Bobby Bright repudiated the Micawber philosophy. He would have nothing to do with it. He did not believe corn would grow without being planted, or that pouts would bite the bare hook. I am not going to tell my young readers now how Bobby came out in the end; but I can confidently say that, if he had waited for "something to turn up," he would have become a vagabond, a loafer, out of money, out at the elbows, and out of patience with himself and all the world. It was "now or never" with Bobby. He meant to do something; and after he had made up his mind how and where it was to be done, it was no use to stand thinking about it, like the pendulum of the "old clock which had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint." Bobby walked down the road towards the village with a rapid step. He was thinking very fast, and probably that made him step quick. But as he approached Squire Lee's house, his pace slackened, and he seemed to be very uneasy. When he reached the great gate that led up to the house, he stopped for an instant, and thrust his hands down very deep into his trousers pockets. I cannot tell what the trousers pockets had to do with what he was thinking about; but if he was searching for anything in them, he did not find it; for after an instant's hesitation he drew out his hands, struck one of them against his chest, and in an audible voice exclaimed,-- "Now or never." All this pantomime, I suppose, meant that Bobby had some misgivings as to the ultimate success of his mission at Squire Lee's, and that when he struck his breast and uttered his favorite expression, they were conquered and driven out. Marching with a bold and determined step up to the squire's back door,--Bobby's ideas of etiquette would not have answered for the meridian of fashionable society,--he gave three smart raps. Bobby's heart beat a little wildly as he awaited a response to his summons. It seemed that he still had some doubts as to the practicability of his mission; but they were not permitted to disturb him long, for the door was opened by the squire's pretty daughter Annie, a young miss of twelve. "O, Bobby, is it you? I am so glad you have come!" exclaimed the little lady. Bobby blushed--he didn't know why, unless it was that the young lady desired to see him. He stammered out a reply, and for the moment forgot the object of his visit. "I want you to go down to the village for me, and get some books the expressman was to bring up from Boston for me. Will you go?" "Certainly, Miss Annie, I shall be very glad to go for _you_," replied Bobby, with an emphasis that made the little maiden blush in her turn. "You are real good, Bobby; but I will give you something for going." "I don't want anything," said Bobby, stoutly. "You are too generous! Ah, I heard what you did this forenoon; and pa says that a great many men would not have dared to do what you did. I always thought you were as brave as a lion; now I know it." "The books are at the express office, I suppose," said Bobby, turning as red as a blood beet. "Yes, Bobby; I am so anxious to get them that I can't wait till pa goes down this evening." "I will not be gone long." "O, you needn't run, Bobby; take your time." "I will go very quick. But, Miss Annie, is your father at home?" "Not now; he has gone over to the wood lot; but he will be back by the time you return." "Will you please to tell him that I want to see him about something very particular, when he gets back?" "I will, Bobby." "Thank you, Miss Annie;" and Bobby hastened to the village to execute his commission. "I wonder what he wants to see pa so very particularly for," said the young lady to herself, as she watched his receding form. "In my opinion, something has happened at the little black house, for I could see that he looked very sober." Either Bobby had a very great regard for the young lady, and wished to relieve her impatience to behold the coveted books, or he was in a hurry to see Squire Lee; for the squire's old roan horse could hardly have gone quicker. "You should not have run, Bobby," said the little maiden, when he placed the books in her hand; "I would not have asked you to go if I had thought you would run all the way. You must be very tired." "Not at all; I didn't run, only walked very quick," replied he; but his quick breathing indicated that his words or his walk had been very much exaggerated. "Has your father returned?" "He has; he is waiting for you in the sitting room. Come in, Bobby." Bobby followed her into the room, and took the chair which Annie offered him. "How do you do, Bobby? I am glad to see you," said the squire, taking him by the hand, and bestowing a benignant smile upon him--a smile which cheered his heart more than anything else could at that moment. "I have heard of you before, to-day." "Have you?" "I have, Bobby; you are a brave little fellow." "I came over to see you, sir, about something very particular," replied Bobby, whose natural modesty induced him to change the topic. "Indeed; well, what can I do for you?" "A great deal, sir; perhaps you will think I am very bold, sir, but I can't help it." "I know you are a very bold little fellow, or you would not have done what you did this forenoon," laughed the squire. "I didn't mean that, sir," answered Bobby, blushing up to the eyes. "I know you didn't; but go on." "I only meant that you would think me presuming, or impudent, or something of that kind." "O, no, far from it. You cannot be presuming or impudent. Speak out, Bobby; anything under the heavens that I can do for you, I shall be glad to do." "Well, sir, I am going to leave Riverdale." "Leave Riverdale!" "Yes, sir; I am going to Boston, where I mean to do something to help mother." "Bravo! you are a good lad. What do you mean to do?" "I was thinking I should go into the book business." "Indeed!" and Squire Lee was much amused by the matter-of-fact manner of the young aspirant. "I was talking with a young fellow who went through the place last spring, selling books. He told me that some days he made three or four dollars, and that he averaged twelve dollars a week." "He did well; perhaps, though, only a few of them make so much." "I know I can make twelve dollars a week," replied Bobby, confidently, for that something within him made him feel capable of great things. "I dare say you can. You have energy and perseverance, and people take a liking to you." "But I wanted to see you about another matter. To speak out at once, I want to borrow sixty dollars of you;" and Bobby blushed, and seemed very much embarrassed by his own boldness. "Sixty dollars!" exclaimed the squire. "I knew you would think me impudent," replied our hero, his heart sinking within him. "But I don't, Bobby. You want the money to go into business with--to buy your stock of books?" "O, no, sir; I am going to apply to Mr. Bayard for that." "Just so; Mr. Bayard is the gentleman whose daughter you saved?" "Yes, sir. I want this money to pay off Mr. Hardhand. We owe him but sixty dollars now, and he has threatened to turn us out, if it is not paid by to-morrow noon." "The old hunks!" Bobby briefly related to the squire the events of the morning, much to the indignation and disgust of the honest, kind-hearted man. The courageous boy detailed more clearly his purpose, and doubted not he should be able to pay the loan in a few months. "Very well, Bobby, here is the money;" and the squire took it from his wallet, and gave it to him. "Thank you, sir. May Heaven bless you! I shall certainly pay you." "Don't worry about it, Bobby. Pay it when you get ready." "I will give you my note, and----" The squire laughed heartily at this, and told him that, as he was a minor, his note was not good for anything. "You shall see whether it is, or not," returned Bobby. "Let me give it to you, at least, so that we can tell how much I owe you from time to time." "You shall have your own way." Annie Lee, as much amused as her father at Bobby's big talk, got the writing materials, and the little merchant in embryo wrote and signed the note. "Good, Bobby! Now promise that you will come and see me every time you come home, and tell me how you are getting along." "I will, sir, with the greatest pleasure;" and with a light heart Bobby tripped away home. CHAPTER VI IN WHICH BOBBY SETS OUT ON HIS TRAVELS Squire Lee, though only a plain farmer, was the richest man in Riverdale. He had taken a great fancy to Bobby, and often employed him to do errands, ride the horse to plough in the cornfields, and such chores about the place as a boy could do. He liked to talk with Bobby because there was a great deal of good sense in him, for one with a small head. If there was any one thing upon which the squire particularly prided himself, it was his knowledge of human nature. He declared that he only wanted to look a man in the face to know what he was; and as for Bobby Bright, he had summered him and wintered him, and he was satisfied that he would make something in good time. He was not much astonished when Bobby opened his ambitious scheme of going into business for himself. But he had full faith in his ability to work out a useful and profitable, if not a brilliant, life. He often said that Bobby was worth his weight in gold, and that he would trust him with anything he had. Perhaps he did not suspect that the time was at hand when he would be called upon to verify his words practically; for it was only that morning, when one of the neighbors told him about Bobby's stopping the horse, that he had repeated the expression for the twentieth time. It was not an idle remark. Sixty dollars was hardly worth mentioning with a man of his wealth and liberal views, though so careful a man as he was would not have been likely to throw away that amount. But as a matter of investment,--Bobby had made the note read "with interest,"--he would as readily have let him have it, as the next richest man in the place, so much confidence had he in our hero's integrity, and so sure was he that he would soon have the means of paying him. Bobby was overjoyed at the fortunate issue of his mission, and he walked into the room where his mother was closing shoes, with a dignity worthy a banker or a great merchant. Mrs. Bright was very sad. Perhaps she felt a little grieved that her son, whom she loved so much, had so thoughtlessly plunged her into a new difficulty. "Come, cheer up, mother; it is all right," said Bobby, in his usual elastic and gay tones; and at the same time he took the sixty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. "There is the money, and you will be forever quit of Mr. Hardhand to-morrow." "What, Bobby! Why, where did you get all this money?" asked Mrs. Bright, utterly astonished. In a few words the ambitious boy told his story, and then informed his mother that he was going to Boston the next Monday morning, to commence business for himself. "Why, what can you do, Bobby?" "Do? I can do a great many things;" and he unfolded his scheme of becoming a little book merchant. "You are a courageous fellow! Who would have thought of such a thing?" "I should, and did." "But you are not old enough." "O, yes, I am." "You had better wait a while." "Now or never, mother! You see I have given my note, and my paper will be dishonored, if I am not up and doing." "Your paper!" said Mrs. Bright, with a smile. "That is what Mr. Wing, the boot manufacturer, calls it." "You needn't go away to earn this money; I can pay it myself." "This note is my affair, and I mean to pay it myself with my own earnings. No objections, mother." Like a sensible woman as she was, she did not make any objections. She was conscious of Bobby's talents; she knew that he had a strong mind of his own, and could take care of himself. It is true, she feared the influence of the great world, and especially of the great city, upon the tender mind of her son; but if he was never tempted, he would never be a conqueror over the foes that beset him. She determined to do her whole duty towards him; and she carefully pointed out to him the sins and the moral danger to which he would be exposed, and warned him always to resist temptation. She counselled him to think of her when he felt like going astray. Bobby declared that he would try to be a good boy. He did not speak contemptuously of the anticipated perils, as many boys would have done, because he knew that his mother would not make bug-bears out of things which she knew had no real existence. The next day, Mr. Hardhand came; and my young readers can judge how astonished and chagrined he was, when the widow Bright offered him the sixty dollars. The Lord was with the widow and the fatherless, and the wretch was cheated out of his revenge. The note was given up, and the mortgage cancelled. Mr. Hardhand insisted that she should pay the interest on the sixty dollars for one day, as it was then the second day of July; but when Bobby reckoned it up, and found it was less than one cent, even the wretched miser seemed ashamed of himself, and changed the subject of conversation. He did not dare to say anything saucy to the widow this time. He had lost his power over her, and there stood Bobby, who had come to look just like a young lion to him, coward and knave as he was. The business was all settled now, and Bobby spent the rest of the week in getting ready for his great enterprise. He visited all his friends, and went each day to talk with Squire Lee and Annie. The little maiden promised to buy a great many books of him, if he would bring his stock to Riverdale, for she was quite as much interested in him as her father was. Monday morning came, and Bobby was out of bed with the first streak of dawn. The excitement of the great event which was about to happen had not permitted him to sleep for the two hours preceding; yet when he got up, he could not help feeling sad. He was going to leave the little black house, going to leave his mother, going to leave the children, to depart for the great city. His mother was up before him. She was even more sad than he was, for she could see plainer than he the perils that environed him, and her maternal heart, in spite of the reasonable confidence she had in his integrity and good principles, trembled for his safety. As he ate his breakfast, his mother repeated the warnings and the good lessons she had before imparted. She particularly cautioned him to keep out of bad company. If he found that his companions would lie and swear, he might depend upon it they would steal, and he had better forsake them at once. This was excellent advice, and Bobby had occasion at a later period to call it to his sorrowing heart. "Here is three dollars, Bobby; it is all the money I have. Your fare to Boston will be one dollar, and you will have two left to pay the expenses of your first trip. It is all I have now," said Mrs. Bright. "I will not take the whole of it. You will want it yourself. One dollar is enough. When I find Mr. Bayard, I shall do very well." "Yes, Bobby, take the whole of it." "I will take just one dollar, and no more," replied Bobby, resolutely, as he handed her the other two dollars. "Do take it, Bobby." "No, mother; it will only make me lazy and indifferent." Taking a clean shirt, a pair of socks, and a handkerchief in his bundle, he was ready for a start. "Good by, mother," said he, kissing her and taking her hand. "I shall try and come home on Saturday, so as to be with you on Sunday." Then kissing the children, who had not yet got up, and to whom he had bidden adieu the night before, he left the house. He had seen the flood of tears that filled his mother's eyes, as he crossed the threshold; and he could not help crying a little himself. It is a sad thing to leave one's home, one's mother, especially, to go out into the great world; and we need not wonder that Bobby, who had hardly been out of Riverdale before, should weep. But he soon restrained the flowing tears. "Now or never!" said he, and he put his best foot forward. It was an epoch in his history, and though he was too young to realize the importance of the event, he seemed to feel that what he did now was to give character to his whole future life. It was a bright and beautiful morning--somehow it is always a bright and beautiful morning when boys leave their homes to commence the journey of life; it is typical of the season of youth and hope, and it is meet that the sky should be clear, and the sun shine brightly, when the little pilgrim sets out upon his tour. He will see clouds and storms before he has gone far--let him have a fair start. He had to walk five miles to the nearest railroad station. His road lay by the house of his friend, Squire Lee; and as he was approaching it, he met Annie. She said she had come out to take her morning walk; but Bobby knew very well that she did not usually walk till an hour later; which, with the fact that she had asked him particularly, the day before, what time he was going, made Bobby believe that she had come out to say good by, and bid him God speed on his journey. At any rate, he was very glad to see her. He said a great many pretty things to her, and talked so big about what he was going to do, that the little maiden could hardly help laughing in his face. Then at the house he shook hands with the squire and shook hands again with Annie, and resumed his journey. His heart felt lighter for having met them, or at least for having met one of them, if not both; for Annie's eyes were so full of sunshine that they seemed to gladden his heart, and make him feel truer and stronger. After a pleasant walk, for he scarcely heeded the distance, so full was he of his big thoughts, he reached the railroad station. The cars had not yet arrived, and would not for half an hour. "Why should I give them a dollar for carrying me to Boston, when I can just as well walk? If I get tired, I can sit down and rest me. If I save the dollar, I shall have to earn only fifty-nine more to pay my note. So here goes;" and he started down the track. CHAPTER VII IN WHICH BOBBY STANDS UP FOR "CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS" Whether it was wise policy, or "penny wise and pound foolish" policy for Bobby to undertake such a long walk, is certainly a debatable question; but as my young readers would probably object to an argument, we will follow him to the city, and let every one settle the point to suit himself. His cheerful heart made the road smooth beneath his feet. He had always been accustomed to an active, busy life, and had probably often walked more than twenty miles in a day. About ten o'clock, though he did not feel much fatigued, he seated himself on a rock by a brook from which he had just taken a drink, to rest himself. He had walked slowly so as to husband his strength; and he felt confident that he should be able to accomplish the journey without injury to himself. After resting for half an hour, he resumed his walk. At twelve o'clock he reached a point from which he obtained his first view of the city. His heart bounded at the sight, and his first impulse was to increase his speed so that he should the sooner gratify his curiosity; but a second thought reminded him that he had eaten nothing since breakfast; so, finding a shady tree by the road side, he seated himself on a stone to eat the luncheon which his considerate mother had placed in his bundle. Thus refreshed, he felt like a new man, and continued his journey again till he was on the very outskirts of the city, where a sign, "No passing over this bridge," interrupted his farther progress. Unlike many others, Bobby took this sign literally, and did not venture to cross the bridge. Having some doubts as to the direct road to the city, he hailed a man in a butcher's cart, who not only pointed the way, but gave him an invitation to ride with him, which Bobby was glad to accept. They crossed the Milldam, and the little pilgrim forgot the long walk he had taken--forgot Riverdale, his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie, for the time, in the absorbing interest of the exciting scene. The Common beat Riverdale Common all hollow; he had never seen anything like it before. But when the wagon reached Washington Street, the measure of his surprise was filled up. "My gracious! how thick the houses are!" exclaimed he, much to the amusement of the kind-hearted butcher. "We have high fences here," he replied. "Where are all these folks going to?" "You will have to ask them, if you want to know." But the wonder soon abated, and Bobby began to think of his great mission in the city. He got tired of gazing and wondering, and even began to smile with contempt at the silly fops as they sauntered along, and the gayly dressed ladies, that flaunted like so many idle butterflies, on the sidewalk. It was an exciting scene; but it did not look real to him. It was more like Herr Grunderslung's exhibition of the magic lantern, than anything substantial. The men and women were like so many puppets. They did not seem to be doing anything, or to be walking for any purpose. He got out of the butcher's cart at the Old South. His first impression, as he joined the busy throng, was, that he was one of the puppets. He did not seem to have any hold upon the scene, and for several minutes this sensation of vacancy chained him to the spot. "All right!" exclaimed he to himself at last. "I am here. Now's my time to make a strike. Now or never." He pulled Mr. Bayard's card from his pocket, and fixed the number of his store in his mind. Now, numbers were not a Riverdale institution, and Bobby was a little perplexed about finding the one indicated. A little study into the matter, however, set him right, and he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the bookseller's name over his store. "F. Bayard," he read; "this is the place." "Country!" shouted a little ragged boy, who dodged across the street at that moment. "Just so, my beauty!" said Bobby, a little nettled at this imputation of verdancy. "What a greeny!" shouted the little vagabond from the other side of the street. "No matter, rag-tag! We'll settle that matter some other time." But Bobby felt that there was something in his appearance which subjected him to the remarks of others, and as he entered the shop, he determined to correct it as soon as possible. A spruce young gentleman was behind the counter, who cast a mischievous glance at him as he entered. "Mr. Bayard keep here?" asked Bobby. "Well, I reckon he does. How are all the folks up country?" replied the spruce clerk, with a rude grin. "How are they?" repeated Bobby, the color flying to his cheek. "Yes, ha-ow do they dew?" "They behave themselves better than they do here." "Eh, greeny?" "Eh, sappy?" repeated Bobby, mimicking the soft, silky tones of the young city gentleman. "What do you mean by sappy?" asked the clerk indignantly. "What do you mean by greeny?" "I'll let you know what I mean!" "When you do, I'll let you know what I mean by sappy." "Good!" exclaimed one of the salesmen, who had heard part of this spirited conversation. "You will learn better by and by, Timmins, than to impose upon boys from out of town." "You seem to be a gentleman, sir," said Bobby, approaching the salesman. "I wish to see Mr. Bayard." "You can't see him!" growled Timmins. "Can't I?" "Not at this minute; he is engaged just now," added the salesman, who seemed to have a profound respect for Bobby's discrimination. "He will be at liberty in a few moments." "I will wait, then," said Bobby, seating himself on a stool by the counter. Pretty soon the civil gentleman left the store to go to dinner, and Timmins, a little timid about provoking the young lion, cast an occasional glance of hatred at him. He had evidently found that "Country" was an embryo American citizen, and that he was a firm believer in the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. Bobby bore no ill will towards the spruce clerk, ready as he had been to defend his "certain inalienable rights." "You do a big business here," suggested Bobby, in a conciliatory tone, and with a smile on his face which ought to have convinced the uncourteous clerk that he meant well. "Who told you so?" replied Timmins, gruffly. "I merely judged from appearances. You have a big store, and an immense quantity of books." "Appearances are deceitful," replied Timmins; and perhaps he had been impressed by the fact from his experience with the lad from the country. "That is true," added Bobby, with a good-natured smile, which, when interpreted, might have meant, "I took you for a civil fellow, but I have been very much mistaken." "You will find it out before you are many days older." "The book business is good just now, isn't it?" continued Bobby, without clearly comprehending the meaning of the other's last remark. "Humph! What's that to you?" "O, I intend to go into it myself." "Ha, ha, ha! Good! You do?" "I do," replied Bobby, seemingly unconcerned at the taunts of the clerk. "I suppose you want to get a place here," sneered Timmins, alarmed at the prospect. "But let me tell you, you can't do it. Bayard has all the help he wants; and if that is what you come for, you can move on as fast as you please." "I guess I will see him," added Bobby, quietly. "No use." "No harm in seeing him." As he spoke he took up a book that lay on the counter, and began to turn over the leaves. "Put that book down!" said the amiable Mr. Timmins. "I won't hurt it," replied Bobby, who had just fixed his eye upon some very pretty engravings in the volume. "Put it down!" repeated Mr. Timmins, in a loud, imperative tone. "Certainly I will, if you say so," said Bobby, who, though not much intimidated by the harsh tones of the clerk, did not know the rules of the store, and deemed it prudent not to meddle. "I _do_ say so!" added Mr. Timmins, magnificently; "and what's more, you'd better mind me, too." Bobby had minded, and probably the stately little clerk would not have been so bold if he had not. Some people like to threaten after the danger is over. Then our visitor from the country espied some little blank books lying on the counter. He had already made up his mind to have one, in which to keep his accounts; and he thought, while he was waiting, that he would purchase one. He meant to do things methodically; so when he picked up one of the blank books, it was with the intention of buying it. "Put that book down!" said Mr. Timmins, encouraged in his aggressive intentions by the previous docility of our hero. "I want to buy one." "No, you don't; put it down." "What is the price of these?" asked Bobby, resolutely. "None of your business!" "Is that the way you treat your customers?" asked Bobby, with a little sternness in his looks and tones. "I say I want to buy one." "Put it down." "But I will not; I say I want to buy it." "No, you don't!" "What is the price of it?" "Twenty-five cents," growled Timmins, which was just four times the retail price. "Twenty-five cents! That's high." "Put it down, then." "Is that your lowest price?" asked Bobby, who was as cool as a cucumber. "Yes, it is; and if you don't put it down, I'll kick you out of the store." "Will you? Then I won't put it down." Mr. Timmins took this as a "stump;" his ire was up, and he walked round from behind the counter to execute his threat. I must say I think Bobby was a little forward, and I would have my young readers a little more pliant with small men like Timmins. There are always men enough in the world who are ready and willing to quarrel on any provocation; and it is always best not to provoke them, even if they are overbearing and insolent, as Mr. Timmins certainly was. "Hold on a minute before you do it," said Bobby, with the same provoking coolness. "I want to buy this book, and I am willing to pay a fair price for it. But I happen to know that you can buy them up in Riverdale, where I came from, for six cents." "No matter," exclaimed the indignant clerk, seizing Bobby by the coat collar for the purpose of ejecting him; "you shall find your way into the street." Now Bobby, as I have before intimated, was an embryo American citizen, and the act of Mr. Timmins seemed like an invasion of his inalienable rights. No time was given him to make a formal declaration of rights in the premises; so the instinct of self-preservation was allowed to have free course. Mr. Timmins pulled and tugged at his coat collar, and Bobby hung back like a mule; and for an instant there was quite a spirited scene. "Hallo! Timmins, what does this mean?" said a voice, at which the valiant little clerk instantly let go his hold. CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH MR. TIMMINS IS ASTONISHED, AND BOBBY DINES IN CHESTNUT STREET It was Mr. Bayard. He had finished his business with the gentleman by his side, and hearing the noise of the scuffle, had come to learn the occasion of it. "This impudent young puppy wouldn't let the books alone!" began Mr. Timmins. "I threatened to turn him out if he didn't; and I meant to make good my threat. I think he meant to steal something." Bobby was astonished and shocked at this bold imputation; but he wished to have his case judged on its own merits; so he turned his face away, that Mr. Bayard might not recognize him. "I wanted to buy one of these blank books," added Bobby, picking up the one he had dropped on the floor in the struggle. "All stuff!" ejaculated Timmins. "He is an impudent, obstinate puppy! In my opinion he meant to steal that book." "I asked him the price, and told him I wanted to buy it," added Bobby, still averting his face. "Well, I told him; and he said it was too high." "He asked me twenty-five cents for it." "Is this true, Timmins?" asked Mr. Bayard, sternly. "No, _sir_! I told him fourpence," replied Timmins, boldly. "By gracious! What a whopper!" exclaimed Bobby, startled out of his propriety by this monstrous lie. "He said twenty-five cents; and I told him I could buy one up in Riverdale, where I came from, for six cents. Can you deny that?" "It's a lie!" protested Timmins. "Riverdale," said Mr. Bayard. "Are you from Riverdale, boy?" "Yes, sir, I am; and if you will look on your memorandum book you will find my name there." "Bless me! I am sure I have seen that face before," exclaimed Mr. Bayard, as he grasped the hand of Bobby, much to the astonishment and consternation of Mr. Timmins. "You are----" "Robert Bright, sir." "My brave little fellow! I am heartily glad to see you;" and the bookseller shook the hand he held with hearty good will. "I was thinking of you only a little while ago." "This fellow calls me a liar," said Bobby, pointing to the astonished Mr. Timmins, who did not know what to make of the cordial reception which "Country" was receiving from his employer. "Well, Robert, we know that _he_ is a liar; this is not the first time he has been caught in a lie. Timmins, your time is out." The spruce clerk hung his head with shame and mortification. "I hope, sir, you will----" he began, but pride or fear stopped him short. "Don't be hard with him, sir, if you please," said Bobby. "I suppose I aggravated him." Mr. Bayard looked at the gentleman who stood by his side, and a smile of approbation lighted up his face. "Generous as he is noble! Butler, this is the boy that saved Ellen." "Indeed! He is a little giant!" replied Mr. Butler, grasping Bobby's hand. Even Timmins glanced with something like admiration in his looks at the youth whom he had so lately despised. Perhaps, too, he thought of that Scripture wisdom about entertaining angels unawares. He was very much abashed, and nothing but his silly pride prevented him from acknowledging his error and begging Bobby's forgiveness. "I can't have a liar about me," said Mr. Bayard. "There may be some mistake," suggested Mr. Butler. "I think not. Robert Bright couldn't lie. So brave and noble a boy is incapable of a falsehood. Besides, I got a letter from my friend Squire Lee by this morning's mail, in which he informed me of my young friend's coming." Mr. Bayard took from his pocket a bundle of letters, and selected the squire's from among them. Opening it, he read a passage which had a direct bearing upon the case before him. "'I do not know what Bobby's faults are,'"--the letter said,--"'but this I do know: that Bobby would rather be whipped than tell a lie. He is noted through the place for his love of truth.'--That is pretty strong testimony; and you see, Bobby,--that's what the squire calls you,--your reputation has preceded you." Bobby blushed, as he always did when he was praised, and Mr. Timmins was more abashed than ever. "Did you hear that, Timmins? Who is the liar now?" said Mr. Bayard, turning to the culprit. "Forgive me, sir, this time. If you turn me off now, I cannot get another place, and my mother depends upon my wages." "You ought to have thought of this before." "He aggravated me, sir, so that I wanted to pay him off." "As to that, he commenced upon me the moment I came into the store. But don't turn him off, if you please, sir," said Bobby, who even now wished no harm to his discomfited assailant. "He will do better hereafter: won't you, Timmins?" Thus appealed to, Timmins, though he did not relish so direct an inquiry, and from such a source, was compelled to reply in the affirmative; and Mr. Bayard graciously remitted the sentence he had passed against the offending clerk. "Now, Robert, you will come over to my house and dine with me. Ellen will be delighted to see you." "Thank you, sir," replied Bobby, bashfully, "I have been to dinner"--referring to the luncheon he had eaten at Brighton. "But you must go to the house with me." "I should be very glad to do so, sir, but I came on business. I will stay here with Mr. Timmins till you come back." The truth is, he had heard something about the fine houses of the city, and how stylish the people were, and he had some misgivings about venturing into such a strange and untried scene as the parlor of a Boston merchant. "Indeed, you must come with me. Ellen would never forgive you or me, if you did not come." "I would rather rest here till you return," replied Bobby, still willing to escape the fine house and the fine folks. "I walked from Riverdale, sir, and I am rather tired." "Walked!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "Had you no money?" "Yes, sir, enough to pay my passage; but Dr. Franklin says that 'a penny saved is a penny earned,' and I thought I would try it. I shall get rested by the time you return." "But you must go with me. Timmins, go and get a carriage." Timmins obeyed, and before Mr. Bayard had finished asking Bobby how all the people in Riverdale were, the carriage was at the door. There was no backing out now, and our hero was obliged to get into the vehicle, though it seemed altogether too fine for a poor boy like him. Mr. Bayard and Mr. Butler (whom the former had invited to dine with him) seated themselves beside him, and the driver was directed to set them down at No. --, Chestnut Street, where they soon arrived. Though my readers would, no doubt, be very much amused to learn how carefully Bobby trod the velvet carpets, how he stared with wonder at the drapery curtains, at the tall mirrors, the elegant chandeliers, and the fantastically shaped chairs and tables that adorned Mr. Bayard's parlor, the length of our story does not permit us to pause over these trivial matters. When Ellen Bayard was informed that her little deliverer was in the house, she rushed into the parlor like a hoiden school girl, grasped both his hands, kissed both his rosy cheeks, and behaved just as though she had never been to a boarding school in her life. She had thought a great deal about Bobby since that eventful day, and the more she thought of him, the more she liked him. Her admiration of him was not of that silly, sentimental character which moonstruck young ladies cherish towards those immaculate young men who have saved them from drowning in a horse pond, pulled them back just as they were tumbling over a precipice two thousand five hundred feet high, or rescued them from a house seven stories high, bearing them down a ladder seventy-five odd feet long. The fact was, Bobby was a boy of thirteen and there was no chance for much sentiment; so the young lady's regard was real, earnest, and lifelike. Ellen said a great many very handsome things; but I am sure she never thought of such a thing as that he would run away with her, in case her papa was unnecessarily obstinate. She was very glad to see him, and I have no doubt she wished Bobby might be her brother, it would be so glorious to have such a noble little fellow always with her. Bobby managed the dinner much better than he had anticipated; for Mr. Bayard insisted that he should sit down with them, whether he ate anything or not. But the Rubicon passed, our hero found that he had a pretty smart appetite, and did full justice to the viands set before him. It is true the silver forks, the napkins, the finger bowls, and other articles of luxury and show, to which he had been entirely unaccustomed, bothered him not a little; but he kept perfectly cool, and carefully observed how Mr. Butler, who sat next to him, handled the "spoon fork," what he did with the napkin and the finger bowl, so that, I will venture to say, not one in ten would have suspected he had not spent his life in the parlor of a millionaire. Dinner over, the party returned to the parlor, where Bobby unfolded his plan for the future. To make his story intelligible, he was obliged to tell them all about Mr. Hardhand. "The old wretch!" exclaimed Mr. Bayard. "But, Robert, you must let me advance the sixty dollars, to pay Squire Lee." "No, sir; you have done enough in that way. I have given my note for the money." "Whew!" said Mr. Butler. "And I shall soon earn enough to pay it." "No doubt of it. You are a lad of courage and energy, and you will succeed in everything you undertake." "I shall want you to trust me for a stock of books, on the strength of old acquaintance," continued Bobby, who had now grown quite bold, and felt as much at home in the midst of the costly furniture, as he did in the "living room" of the old black house. "You shall have all the books you want." "I will pay for them as soon as I return. The truth is, Mr. Bayard, I mean to be independent. I didn't want to take that thirty-five dollars, though I don't know what Mr. Hardhand would have done to us, if I hadn't." "Ellen said I ought to have given you a hundred, and I think so myself." "I am glad you didn't. Too much money makes us fat and lazy." Mr. Bayard laughed at the easy self-possession of the lad--at his big talk; though, big as it was, it meant something. When he proposed to go to the store, he told Bobby he had better stay at the house and rest himself. "No, sir; I want to start out to-morrow, and I must get ready to-day." "You had better put it off till the next day; you will feel more like it then." "Now or never," replied Bobby. "That is my motto, sir. If we have anything to do, now is always the best time to do it. Dr. Franklin says, 'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.'" "Right, Robert! you shall have your own way. I wish my clerks would adopt some of Dr. Franklin's wise saws. I should be a great deal better off in the course of a year if they would." CHAPTER IX IN WHICH BOBBY OPENS VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, AND WINS HIS FIRST VICTORY "Now, Bobby, I understand your plan," said Mr. Bayard, when they reached the store; "but the details must be settled. Where do you intend to go?" "I hardly know, sir. I suppose I can sell books almost anywhere." "Very true; but in some places much better than in others." Mr. Bayard mentioned a large town about eighteen miles from the city, in which he thought a good trade might be carried on, and Bobby at once decided to adopt the suggestion. "You can make this place your headquarters for the week; if books do not sell well right in the village, why, you can go out a little way, for the country in the vicinity is peopled by intelligent farmers, who are well off, and who can afford to buy books." "I was thinking of that; but what shall I take with me, sir?" "There is a new book just published, called 'The Wayfarer,' which is going to have a tremendous run. It has been advertised in advance all over the country, so that you will find a ready sale for it. You will get it there before any one else, and have the market all to yourself." "'The Wayfarer'? I have heard of it myself." "You shall take fifty copies with you, and if you find that you shall want more, write, and I will send them." "But I cannot carry fifty copies." "You must take the cars to B----, and have a trunk or box to carry your books in. I have a stout trunk down cellar which you shall have." "I will pay for it, sir." "Never mind that, Bobby; and you will want a small valise or carpet bag to carry your books from house to house. I will lend you one." "You are very kind, sir; I did not mean to ask any favors of you except to trust me for the books until my return." "All right, Bobby." Mr. Bayard called the porter and ordered him to bring up the trunk, in which he directed Mr. Timmins to pack fifty "Wayfarers." "Now, how much will these books cost me apiece?" asked Bobby. "The retail price is one dollar; the wholesale price is one third off; and you shall have them at what they cost me." "Sixty-seven cents," added Bobby. "That will give me a profit of thirty-three cents on each book." "Just so." "Perhaps Mr. Timmins will sell me one of those blank books now; for I like to have things down in black and white." "I will furnish you with something much better than that;" and Mr. Bayard left the counting room. In a moment he returned with a handsome pocket memorandum book, which he presented to the little merchant. "But I don't like to take it unless you will let me pay for it," said Bobby, hesitating. "Never mind it, my young friend. Now you can sit down at my desk and open your accounts. I like to see boys methodical, and there is nothing like keeping accounts to make one accurate. Keep your books posted up, and you will know where you are at any time." "I intend to keep an account of all I spend and all I receive, if it is no more than a cent." "Right, my little man. Have you ever studied book-keeping?" "No, sir, I suppose I haven't; but there was a page of accounts in the back part of the arithmetic I studied, and I got a pretty good idea of the thing from that. All the money received goes on one side, and all the money paid out goes on the other." "Exactly so; in this book you had better open a book account first. If you wish, I will show you how." "Thank you, sir; I should be very glad to have you;" and Bobby opened the memorandum book, and seated himself at the desk. "Write 'Book Account,' at the top of the pages, one word on each. Very well. Now write 'To fifty copies of "Wayfarer," at sixty-seven cents, $33.50,' on the left-hand page, or debit side of the account." "I am not much of a writer," said Bobby, apologetically. "You will improve. Now, each day you will credit the amount of sales on the right hand page, or credit side of the account; so, when you have sold out, the balance due your debit side will be the profit on the lot. Do you understand it?" Bobby thought a moment before he could see through it; but his brain was active, and he soon managed the idea. "Now you want a personal account;" and Mr. Bayard explained to him how to make this out. He then instructed him to enter on the debit side all he spent for travel, board, freight, and other charges. The next was the "profit and loss" account, which was to show him the net profit of the business. Our hero, who had a decided taste for accounts, was very much pleased with this employment; and when the accounts were all opened, he regarded them with a great deal of satisfaction. He longed to commence his operations, if it were only for the pleasure of making the entries in this book. "One thing I forgot," said he, as he seized the pen, and under the cash account entered, "To Cash from mother, $1.00." "Now I am all right, I believe." "I think you are. Now, the cars leave at seven in the morning. Can you be ready for a start as early as that?" asked Mr. Bayard. "O, yes, sir, I hope so. I get up at half past four at home." "Very well; my small valise is at the house; but I believe everything else is ready. Now, I have some business to attend to; and if you will amuse yourself for an hour or two, we will go home then." "I shall want a lodging place when I am in the city; perhaps some of your folks can direct me to one where they won't charge too much." "As to that, Bobby, you must go to my house whenever you are in the city." "Law, sir! you live so grand, I couldn't think of going to your house. I am only a poor boy from the country, and I don't know how to behave myself among such nice folks." "You will do very well, Bobby. Ellen would never forgive me if I let you go anywhere else. So that is settled; you will go to my house. Now, you may sit here, or walk out and see the sights." "If you please, sir, if Mr. Timmins will let me look at some of the books, I shouldn't wish for anything better. I should like to look at 'The Wayfarer,' so that I shall know how to recommend it." "Mr. Timmins _will_ let you," replied Mr. Bayard, as he touched the spring of a bell on his desk. The dapper clerk came running into the counting room to attend the summons of his employer. "Mr. Timmins," continued Mr. Bayard, with a mischievous smile, "bring Mr. Bright a copy of 'The Wayfarer.'" Mr. Timmins was astonished to hear "Country" called "Mister," astonished to hear his employer call him "Mister," and Bobby was astonished to hear himself called "Mister." Nevertheless, our hero enjoyed the joke. The clerk brought the book; and Bobby proceeded to give it a thorough, critical examination. He read the preface, the table of contents, and several chapters of the work, before Mr. Bayard was ready to go home. "How do you like it, Bobby?" asked the bookseller. "First rate." "You may take that copy in your hand; you will want to finish it." "Thank you, sir; I will be careful of it." "You may keep it. Let that be the beginning of your own private library." His own private library! Bobby had not got far enough to dream of such a thing yet; but he thanked Mr. Bayard, and put the book under his arm. After tea, Ellen proposed to her father that they should all go to the Museum. Mr. Bayard acceded, and our hero was duly amazed at the drolleries perpetrated there. He had a good time; but it was so late when he went to bed, that he was a little fearful lest he should over-sleep himself in the morning. He did not, however, and was down in the parlor before any of the rest of the family were stirring. An early breakfast was prepared for him, at which Mr. Bayard, who intended to see him off, joined him. Depositing his little bundle and the copy of "The Wayfarer" in the valise provided for him, they walked to the store. The porter wheeled the trunk down to the railroad station, though Bobby insisted upon doing it himself. The bookseller saw him and his baggage safely aboard of the cars, gave him a ticket, and then bade him an affectionate adieu. In a little while Bobby was flying over the rail, and at about eight o'clock reached B----. The station master kindly permitted him to deposit his trunk in the baggage room, and to leave it there for the remainder of the week. Taking a dozen of the books from the trunk, and placing them in his valise, he sallied out upon his mission. It must be confessed that his heart was filled with a tumult of emotions. The battle of life was before him. He was on the field, sword in hand, ready to plunge into the contest. It was victory or defeat. "March on, brave youth! the field of strife With peril fraught before thee lies; March on! the battle plain of life Shall yield thee yet a glorious prize." It was of no use to shrink then, even if he had felt disposed to do so. He was prepared to be rebuffed, to be insulted, to be turned away from the doors at which he should seek admission; but he was determined to conquer. He had reached a house at which he proposed to offer "The Wayfarer" for sale. His heart went pit pat, pit pat, and he paused before the door. "Now or never!" exclaimed he, as he swung open the garden gate, and made his way up to the door. He felt some misgivings. It was so new and strange to him that he could hardly muster sufficient resolution to proceed farther. But his irresolution was of only a moment's duration. "Now or never!" and he gave a vigorous knock at the door. It was opened by an elderly lady, whose physiognomy did not promise much. "Good morning, ma'am. Can I sell you a copy of 'The Wayfarer' to-day? a new book, just published." "No; I don't want none of your books. There's more pedlers round the country now than you could shake a stick at in a month," replied the old lady, petulantly. "It is a very interesting book, ma'am; has an excellent moral." Bobby had read the preface, as I before remarked. "It will suit you, ma'am; for you look just like a lady who wants to read something with a moral." Bravo, Bobby! The lady concluded that her face had a moral expression, and she was pleased with the idea. "Let me see it;" and she asked Bobby to walk in and be seated, while she went for her spectacles. As she was looking over the book, our hero went into a more elaborate recommendation of its merits. He was sure it would interest the young and the old; it taught a good lesson; it had elegant engravings; the type was large, which would suit her eyes; it was well printed and bound; and finally, it was cheap at one dollar. "I'll take it," said the old lady. "Thank you, ma'am." Bobby's first victory was achieved. "Have you got a dollar?" asked the lady, as she handed him a two-dollar bill. "Yes, ma'am;" and he gave her his only dollar and put the two in its place, prouder than a king who has conquered an empire. "Thank you ma'am." Bidding the lady a polite good morning, he left the house, encouraged by his success to go forward in his mission with undiminished hope. CHAPTER X IN WHICH BOBBY IS A LITTLE TOO SMART The clouds were rolled back, and Bobby no longer had a doubt as to the success of his undertaking. It requires but a little sunshine to gladden the heart, and the influence of his first success scattered all the misgivings he had cherished. Two New England shillings is undoubtedly a very small sum of money; but Bobby had made two shillings, and he would not have considered himself more fortunate if some unknown relative had left him a fortune. It gave him confidence in his powers, and as he walked away from the house, he reviewed the circumstances of his first sale. The old lady had told him at first she did not wish to buy a book, and, moreover, had spoken rather contemptuously of the craft to which he had now the honor to belong. He gave himself the credit of having conquered the old lady's prejudices. He had sold her a book in spite of her evident intention not to purchase. In short, he had, as we have before said, won a glorious victory, and he congratulated himself accordingly. But it was of no use to waste time in useless self-glorification, and Bobby turned from the past to the future. There were forty-nine more books to be sold; so that the future was forty-nine times as big as the past. He saw a shoemaker's shop ahead of him, and he was debating with himself whether he should enter and offer his books for sale. It would do no harm, though he had but slight expectations of doing anything. There were three men at work in the shop--one of them a middle-aged man, the other two young men. They looked like persons of intelligence, and as soon as Bobby saw them his hopes grew stronger. "Can I sell you any books to-day?" asked the little merchant, as he crossed the threshold. "Well, I don't know; that depends upon how smart you are," replied the eldest of the men. "It takes a pretty smart fellow to sell anything in this shop." "Then I hope to sell each of you a book," added Bobby, laughing at the badinage of the shoemaker. Opening his valise he took out three copies of his book, and politely handed one to each of the men. "It isn't every book pedler that comes along who offers you such a work as that. 'The Wayfarer' is decidedly _the_ book of the season." "You don't say so!" said the oldest shoemaker, with a laugh. "Every pedler that comes along uses those words, precisely." "Do they? They steal my thunder then." "You are an old one." "Only thirteen. I was born where they don't fasten the door with a boiled carrot." "What do they fasten them with?" "They don't fasten them at all." "There are no book pedlers round there, then;" and all the shoemakers laughed heartily at this smart sally. "No; they are all shoemakers in our town." "You can take my hat, boy." "You will want it to put your head in; but I will take one dollar for that book instead." The man laughed, took out his wallet, and handed Bobby the dollar, probably quite as much because he had a high appreciation of his smartness, as from any desire to possess the book. "Won't you take one?" asked Bobby, appealing to another of the men, who was apparently not more than twenty-four years of age. "No; I can't read," replied he roguishly. "Let your wife read it to you, then." "My wife?" "Certainly; she knows how to read, I will warrant." "How do you know I have got a wife?" "O, well, a fellow as good looking and good natured as you are could not have resisted till this time." "Has you, Tom," added the oldest shoemaker. "I cave in;" and he handed over the dollar, and laid the book upon his bench. Bobby looked at the third man with some interest. He had said nothing, and scarcely heeded the fun which was passing between the little merchant and his companions. He was apparently absorbed in his examination of the book. He was a different kind of person from the others, and Bobby's instinctive knowledge of human nature assured him that he was not to be gained by flattery or by smart sayings; so he placed himself in front of him, and patiently waited in silence for him to complete his examination. "You will find that he is a hard one," put in one of the others. Bobby made no reply, and the two men who had bought books resumed their work. For five minutes our hero stood waiting for the man to finish his investigation into the merits of "The Wayfarer." Something told him not to say anything to this person; and he had some doubts about his purchasing. "I will take one," said the last shoemaker, as he handed Bobby the dollar. "I am much obliged to you, gentlemen," said Bobby, as he closed his valise. "When I come this way again I shall certainly call." "Do; you have done what no other pedler ever did in this shop." "I shall take no credit to myself. The fact is, you are men of intelligence, and you want good books." Bobby picked up his valise and left the shop, satisfied with those who occupied it, and satisfied with himself. "Eight shillings!" exclaimed he, when he got into the road. "Pretty good hour's work, I should say." Bobby trudged along till he came to a very large, elegant house, evidently dwelt in by one of the nabobs of B----. Inspired by past successes, he walked boldly up to the front door, and rang the bell. "Is Mr. Whiting in?" asked Bobby, who had read the name on the door plate. "Colonel Whiting _is_ in," replied the servant, who had opened the door. "I should like to see him for a moment, if he isn't busy." "Walk in;" and for some reason or other the servant chuckled a great deal as she admitted him. She conducted him to a large, elegantly furnished parlor, where Bobby proceeded to take out his books for the inspection of the nabob, whom the servant promised to send to the parlor. In a moment Colonel Whiting entered. He was a large, fat man, about fifty years old. He looked at the little book merchant with a frown that would have annihilated a boy less spunky than our hero. Bobby was not a little inflated by the successes of the morning, and if Julius Cæsar or Napoleon Bonaparte had stood before him then, he would not have flinched a hair--much less in the presence of no greater magnate than the nabob of B----. "Good morning, Colonel Whiting. I hope you are well this beautiful morning." Bobby began. I must confess I think this was a little too familiar for a boy of thirteen to a gentleman of fifty, whom he had never seen before in his life; but it must be remembered that Bobby had done a great deal the week before, that on the preceding night he had slept in Chestnut Street, and that he had just sold four copies of "The Wayfarer." He was inclined to be smart, and some folks hate smart boys. The nabob frowned; his cheek reddened with anger; but he did not condescend to make any reply to the smart speech. "I have taken the liberty to call upon you this morning, to see if you did not wish to purchase a copy of 'The Wayfarer'--a new book just issued from the press, which people say is to be the book of the season." My young readers need not suppose this was an impromptu speech, for Bobby had studied upon it all the time he was coming from Boston in the cars. It would be quite natural for a boy who had enjoyed no greater educational advantages than our hero to consider how he should address people into whose presence his calling would bring him; and he had prepared several little addresses of this sort, for the several different kinds of people whom he expected to encounter. The one he had just "got off" was designed for the "upper crust." When he had delivered the speech, he approached the indignant, frowning nabob, and, with a low bow, offered him a copy of "The Wayfarer." "Boy," said Colonel Whiting, raising his arm with majestic dignity, and pointing to the door,--"boy, do you see that door?" Bobby looked at the door, and, somewhat astonished, replied that he did see it, that it was a very handsome door, and he would inquire whether it was black walnut, or only painted in imitation thereof. "Do you see that door?" thundered the nabob, swelling with rage at the cool impudence of the boy. "Certainly I do, sir; my eyesight is excellent." "Then use it!" "Thank you, sir; I have no use for it. Probably it will be of more service to you than to me." "Will you clear out, or shall I kick you out?" gasped the enraged magnate of B----. "I will save you that trouble, sir; I will go, sir. I see we have both made a mistake." "Mistake? What do you mean by that, you young puppy? You are a little impudent, thieving scoundrel!" "That is your mistake, sir. I took you for a gentleman, sir; and that was my mistake." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed a sweet, musical voice, and at that moment a beautiful young lady rushed up to the angry colonel, and threw her arms around his neck. "The jade!" muttered he. "I have caught you in a passion again, uncle;" and the lady kissed the old gentleman's anger-reddened cheek, which seemed to restore him at once to himself. "It was enough to make a minister swear," said he, in apology. "No, it wasn't, uncle; the boy was a little pert, it is true; but you ought to have laughed at him, instead of getting angry. I heard the whole of it." "Pert?" said Bobby to himself. "What the deuce does she mean by that?" "Very well, you little minx; I will pay the penalty." "Come here, Master Pert," said the lady to Bobby. Bobby bowed, approached the lady, and began to feel very much embarrassed. "My uncle," she continued, "is one of the best-hearted men in the world--ain't you, uncle?" "Go on, you jade!" "I love him, as I would my own father; but he will sometimes get into a passion. Now, you provoked him." "Indeed, ma'am, I hadn't the least idea of saying anything uncivil," pleaded Bobby. "I studied to be as polite as possible." "I dare say. You were too important, too pompous, for a boy to an old gentleman like uncle, who is really one of the best men in the world. Now, if you hadn't _studied_ to be polite, you would have done very well." "Indeed, ma'am, I am a poor boy, trying to make a little money to help my mother. I am sure I meant no harm." "I know you didn't. So you are selling books to help your mother?" "Yes, ma'am." She inquired still further into the little merchant's history, and seemed to be very much interested in him. In a frolic, a few days before, Bobby learned from her, Colonel Whiting had agreed to pay any penalty she might name, the next time he got into a passion. "Now, young man, what book have you to sell?" asked the lady. "'The Wayfarer.'" "How many have you in your valise?" "Eight." "Very well; now, uncle, I decree, as the penalty of your indiscretion, that you purchase the whole stock." "I submit." "'The Wayfarer' promises to be an excellent book; and I can name at least half a dozen persons who will thank you for a copy, uncle." Colonel Whiting paid Bobby eight dollars, who left the contents of his valise on the centre table, and then departed, astounded at his good fortune, and fully resolved never to be too smart again. CHAPTER XI IN WHICH BOBBY STRIKES A BALANCE, AND RETURNS TO RIVERDALE Our hero had learned a lesson which experience alone could teach him. The consciousness of that "something within him" inclined him to be a little too familiar with his elders; but then it gave him confidence in himself, and imparted courage to go forward in the accomplishment of his mission. His interview with Colonel Whiting and the gentle but plain rebuke of his niece had set him right, and he realized that, while he was doing a man's work, he was still a boy. He had now a clearer perception of what is due to the position and dignity of those upon whom fortune has smiled. Bobby wanted to be a man, and it is not strange that he should sometimes fancy he was a man. He had an idea, too, that "all men are born free and equal;" and he could not exactly see why a nabob was entitled to any more respect and consideration than a poor man. It was a lesson he was compelled to learn, though some folks live out their lifetimes without ever finding out that. "'Tis wealth, good sir, makes honorable men." Some people think a rich man is no better than a poor man, except so far as he behaves himself better. It is strange how stupid some people are! Bobby had no notion of cringing to any man, and he felt as independent as the Declaration of Independence itself. But then the beautiful lady had told him that he was pert and forward; and when he thought it over, he was willing to believe she was right. Colonel Whiting was an old man, compared with himself; and he had some faith, at least in theory, in the Spartan virtue of respect for the aged. Probably the nabob of B---- would have objected to being treated with respect on account of his age; and Bobby would have been equally unwilling to acknowledge that he treated him with peculiar respect on account of his wealth or position. Perhaps the little merchant had an instinctive perception of expediency--that he should sell more books by being less familiar; at any rate he determined never again to use the flowery speeches he had arranged for the upper crust. He had sold a dozen books; and possibly this fact made him more willing to compromise the matter than he would otherwise have been. This was, after all, the great matter for congratulation, and with a light heart he hurried back to the railroad station to procure another supply. We cannot follow him into every house where his calling led him. He was not always as fortunate as in the instances we have mentioned. Sometimes all his arguments were unavailing, and after he had spent half an hour of valuable time in setting forth the merits of "The Wayfarer," he was compelled to retire without having effected a sale. Sometimes, too, he was rudely repulsed; hard epithets were applied to him; old men and old women, worried out by the continued calls of pedlers, sneered at him, or shut the door in his face; but Bobby was not disheartened. He persevered, and did not allow these little trials to discompose or discourage him. By one o'clock on the first day of his service he had sold eighteen books, which far exceeded even his most sanguine expectations. By this time he began to feel the want of his dinner; but there was no tavern or eating house at hand, and he could not think of leaving the harvest to return to the railroad station; so he bought a sheet of gingerbread and a piece of cheese at a store, and seating himself near a brook by the side of the road, he bolted his simple meal, as boys are very apt to do when they are excited. When he had finished, he took out his account book, and entered, "Dinner, 10 cents." Resuming his business, he disposed of the remaining six books in his valise by the middle of the afternoon, and was obliged to return for another supply. About six o'clock he entered the house of a mechanic, just as the family were sitting down to tea. He recommended his book with so much energy, that the wife of the mechanic took a fancy to him, and not only purchased one, but invited him to tea. Bobby accepted the invitation, and in the course of the meal the good lady drew from him the details of his history, which he very modestly related, for though he sometimes fancied himself a man, he was not the boy to boast of his exploits. His host was so much pleased with him, that he begged him to spend the night with them. Bobby had been thinking how and where he should spend the night, and the matter had given him no little concern. He did not wish to go to the hotel, for it looked like a very smart house, and he reasoned that he should have to pay pretty roundly for accommodations there. These high prices would eat up his profits, and he seriously deliberated whether it would not be better for him to sleep under a tree than pay fifty cents for a lodging. If I had been there I should have told him that a man loses nothing in the long run by taking good care of himself. He must eat well and sleep well, in order to do well and be well. But I suppose Bobby would have told me that it was of no use to pay a quarter extra for sleeping on a gilded bedstead, since the room would be so dark he could not see the gilt even if he wished to do so. I could not have said anything to such a powerful argument, so I am very glad the mechanic's wife set the matter at rest by offering him a bed in her house. He spent a very pleasant evening with the family, who made him feel entirely at home, they were so kind and so plain spoken. Before he went to bed, he entered under the book account, "By twenty-six 'Wayfarers,' sold this day, $26.00." He had done a big day's work, much bigger than he could hope to do again. He had sold more than one half of his whole stock, and at this rate he should be out of books the next day. At first he thought he would send for another lot; but he could not judge yet what his average daily sales would be, and finally concluded not to do so. What he had might last till Friday or Saturday. He intended to go home on the latter day, and he could bring them with him on his return without expense. This was considerable of an argument for a boy to manage; but Bobby was satisfied with it, and went to sleep, wondering what his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie were thinking of about that time. After breakfast the next morning he resumed his travels. He was as enthusiastic as ever, and pressed "The Wayfarer" with so much earnestness that he sold a book in nearly every house he visited. People seemed to be more interested in the little merchant than in his stock, and taking advantage of this kind feeling towards him, he appealed to them with so much eloquence that few could resist it. The result of the day's sales was fifteen copies, which Bobby entered in the book account with the most intense satisfaction. He had outdone the boy who had passed through Riverdale, but he had little hope that the harvest would always be so abundant. He often thought of this boy, from whom he had obtained the idea he was now carrying out. That boy had stopped over night at the little black house, and slept with him. He had asked for lodging, and offered to pay for it, as well as for his supper and breakfast. Why couldn't he do the same? He liked the suggestion, and from that time, wherever he happened to be, he asked for lodging, or the meal he required; and he always proposed to pay for what he had, but very few would take anything. On Friday noon he had sold out. Returning to the railroad station, he found that the train would not leave for the city for an hour; so he improved the time in examining and balancing his accounts. The book sales amounted to just fifty dollars, and, after his ticket to Boston was paid for, his expenses would amount to one dollar and fifty cents, leaving a balance in his favor of fifteen dollars. He was overjoyed with the result, and pictured the astonishment with which his mother, Squire Lee, and Annie would listen to the history of his excursion. After four o'clock that afternoon he entered the store of Mr. Bayard, bag and baggage. On his arrival in the city, he was considerably exercised in mind to know how he should get the trunk to his destination. He was too economical to pay a cartman a quarter; but what would have seemed mean in a man was praiseworthy in a boy laboring for a noble end. Probably a great many of my young readers in Bobby's position, thinking that sixteen dollars, which our hero had in his pocket, was a mint of money, would have been in favor of being a little magnificent,--of taking a carriage and going up-town in state. Bobby had not the least desire to "swell;" so he settled the matter by bargaining with a little ragged fellow to help him carry the trunk to Mr. Bayard's store for fourpence. "How do you do, Mr. Timmins?" said Bobby to the spruce clerk, as he deposited the trunk upon the floor, and handed the ragged boy the fourpence. "Ah, Bobby!" exclaimed Mr. Timmins. "Have you sold out?" "All clean. Is Mr. Bayard in?" "In the office. But how do you like it?" "First rate." "Well, every one to his taste; but I don't see how any one who has any regard for his dignity can stick himself into everybody's house. I couldn't do it, I know." "I don't stand for the dignity." "Ah, well, there is a difference in folks." "That's a fact," replied Bobby, as he hurried to the office of Mr. Bayard, leaving Mr. Timmins to sun himself in his own dignity. The bookseller was surprised to see him so soon, but he gave him a cordial reception. "I didn't expect you yet," said he. "Why do you come back? Have you got sick of the business?" "Sick of it! No, sir." "What have you come back for, then?" "Sold out, sir." "Sold out! You have done well!" "Better than I expected." "I had no idea of seeing you till to-morrow night; and I thought you would have books enough to begin the next week with. You have done bravely." "If I had had twenty more, I could have sold them before to-morrow night. Now, sir, if you please, I will pay you for those books--thirty-three dollars and fifty cents." "You had better keep that, Bobby. I will trust you as long as you wish." "If you please, sir, I had rather pay it;" and the little merchant, as proud as a lord, handed over the amount. "I like your way of doing business, Bobby. Nothing helps a man's credit so much as paying promptly. Now tell me some of your adventures--or we will reserve them till this evening, for I am sure Ellen will be delighted to hear them." "I think I shall go to Riverdale this afternoon. The cars leave at half past five." "Very well; you have an hour to spare." Bobby related to his kind friend the incidents of his excursion, including his interview with Colonel Whiting and his niece, which amused the bookseller very much. He volunteered some good advice, which Bobby received in the right spirit, and with a determination to profit by it. At half past five he took the cars for home, and before dark was folded in his mother's arms. The little black house seemed doubly dear to him now that he had been away from it a few days. His mother and all the children were so glad to see him that it seemed almost worth his while to go away for the pleasure of meeting them on his return. CHAPTER XII IN WHICH BOBBY ASTONISHES SUNDRY PERSONS AND PAYS PART OF HIS NOTE "Now tell me, Bobby, how you have made out," said Mrs. Bright, as the little merchant seated himself at the supper table. "You cannot have done much, for you have only been gone five days." "I have done pretty well, mother," replied Bobby, mysteriously; "pretty well, considering that I am only a boy." "I didn't expect to see you till to-morrow night." "I sold out, and had to come home." "That may be, and still you may not have done much." "I don't pretend that I have done much." "How provoking you are! Why don't you tell me, Bobby, what you have done?" "Wait a minute, mother, till I have done my supper, and then I will show you the footings in my ledger." "Your ledger!" "Yes, my ledger. I keep a ledger now." "You are a great man, Mr. Robert Bright," laughed his mother. "I suppose the people took their hats off when they saw you coming." "Not exactly, mother." "Perhaps the governor came out to meet you when he heard you were on the road." "Perhaps he did; I didn't see him, however. This apple pie tastes natural, mother. It is a great luxury to get home after one has been travelling." "Very likely." "No place like home, after all is done and said. Who was the fellow that wrote that song, mother?" "I forget; the paper said he spent a great many years in foreign parts. My sake! Bobby, one would think by your talk that you had been away from home for a year." "It seems like a year," said he, as he transferred another quarter of the famous apple pie to his plate. "I miss home very much. I don't more than half like being among strangers so much." "It is your own choice; no one wants you to go away from home." "I must pay my debts, anyhow. Don't I owe Squire Lee sixty dollars?" "But I can pay that." "It is my affair, you see." "If it is your affair, then I owe you sixty dollars." "No, you don't; I calculate to pay my board now. I am old enough and big enough to do something." "You have done something ever since you were old enough to work." "Not much; I don't wonder that miserable old hunker of a Hardhand twitted me about it. By the way, have you heard anything from him?" "Not a thing." "He has got enough of us, I reckon." "You mustn't insult him, Bobby, if you happen to see him." "Never fear me." "You know the Bible says we must love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us." "I should pray that the Old Nick might get him." "No, Bobby; I hope you haven't forgot all your Sunday school lessons." "I was wrong, mother," replied Bobby, a little moved. "I did not mean so. I shall try to think as well of him as I can; but I can't help thinking, if all the world was like him, what a desperate hard time we should have of it." "We must thank the Lord that he has given us so many good and true men." "Such as Squire Lee, for instance," added Bobby, as he rose from the table and put his chair back against the wall. "The squire is fit to be a king; and though I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn't mind seeing a crown upon his head." "He will receive his crown in due time," replied Mrs. Bright, piously. "The squire?" "The crown of rejoicing, I mean." "Just so; the squire is a nice man; and I know another just like him." "Who?" "Mr. Bayard; they are as near alike as two peas." "I am dying to know about your journey." "Wait a minute, mother, till we clear away the supper things;" and Bobby took hold, as he had been accustomed, to help remove and wash the dishes. "You needn't help now, Bobby." "Yes, I will, mother." Somehow our hero's visit to the city did not seem to produce the usual effect upon him; for a great many boys, after they had been abroad, would have scorned to wash dishes and wipe them. A week in town has made many a boy so smart that you couldn't touch him with a ten foot pole. It starches them up so stiff that sometimes they don't know their own mothers, and deem it a piece of condescension to speak a word to the patriarch in a blue frock who had the honor of supporting them in childhood. Bobby was none of this sort. We lament that he had a habit of talking big, that is, of talking about business affairs in a style a little beyond his years. But he was modest to a fault, paradoxical as it may seem. He was always blushing when anybody spoke a pretty thing about him. Probably the circumstances of his position elevated him above the sphere of the mere boy; he had spent but little time in play, and his attention had been directed at all times to the wants of his mother. He had thought a great deal about business, especially since the visit of the boy who sold books to the little black house. Some boys are born merchants, and from their earliest youth have a genius for trade. They think of little else. They "play shop" before they wear jackets, and drive a barter trade in jackknives, whistles, tops, and fishing lines long before they get into their teens. They are shrewd even then, and obtain a taste for commerce before they are old enough to know the meaning of the word. We saw a boy in school, not long since, give the value of eighteen cents for a little stunted quince; boys have a taste for raw quinces, strange as it may seem. Undoubtedly he had no talent for trade, and would make a very indifferent tin pedler. Our hero was shrewd. He always got the best end of the bargain; though, I am happy to say, his integrity was too unyielding to let him cheat his fellows. We have made this digression so that my young readers may know why Bobby was so much given to big talk. The desire to do something worthy of a good son turned his attention to matters above his sphere; and thinking of great things, he had come to talk great things. It was not a bad fault, after all. Boys need not necessarily be frivolous. Play is a good thing, an excellent thing, in its place, and is as much a part of the boy's education as his grammar and arithmetic. It not only develops his muscles, but enlarges his mental capacity; it not only fills with excitement the idle hours of the long day, but it sharpens the judgment, and helps to fit the boy for the active duties of life. It need not be supposed, because Bobby had to turn his attention to serious things, that he was not fond of fun; that he could not or did not play. At a game of round ball, he was a lucky fellow who secured him upon his side; for the same energy which made him a useful son rendered him a desirable hand in a difficult game. When the supper things were all removed, the dishes washed and put away, Bobby drew out his pocket memorandum book. It was a beautiful article, and Mrs. Bright was duly astonished at its gilded leaves and the elegant workmanship. Very likely her first impulse was to reprove her son for such a piece of reckless extravagance; but this matter was set right by Bobby's informing her how it came into his possession. "Here is my ledger, mother," he said, handing her the book. Mrs. Bright put on her spectacles, and after bestowing a careful scrutiny upon the memorandum book, turned to the accounts. "Fifty books!" she exclaimed, as she read the first entry. "Yes, mother; and I sold them all." "Fifty dollars!" "But I had to pay for the books out of that." "To be sure you had; but I suppose you made as much as ten cents apiece on them, and that would be--let me see; ten times fifty----" "But I made more than that, I hope." "How much?" The proud young merchant referred her to the profit and loss account, which exhibited a balance of fifteen dollars. "Gracious! Three dollars a day!" "Just so, mother. Now I will pay you the dollar I borrowed of you when I went away." "You didn't borrow it of me." "But I shall pay it." Mrs. Bright was astonished at this unexpected and gratifying result. If she had discovered a gold mine in the cellar of the little black house, it could not have afforded her so much satisfaction; for this money was the reward of her son's talent and energy. Her own earnings scarcely ever amounted to more than three or four dollars a week, and Bobby, a boy of thirteen, had come home with fifteen for five days' work. She could scarcely believe the evidence of her own senses, and she ceased to wonder that he talked big. It was nearly ten o'clock when the widow and her son went to bed, so deeply were they interested in discussing our hero's affairs. He had intended to call upon Squire Lee that night, but the time passed away so rapidly that he was obliged to defer it till the next day. After breakfast the following morning, he hastened to pay the intended visit. There was a tumult of strange emotions in his bosom as he knocked at the squire's door. He was proud of the success he had achieved, and even then his cheek burned under the anticipated commendations which his generous friend would bestow upon him. Besides, Annie would be glad to see him, for she had expressed such a desire when they parted on the Monday preceding. I don't think that Bobby cherished any silly ideas, but the sympathy of the little maiden fell not coldly or unwelcomely upon his warm heart. In coming from the house he had placed his copy of "The Wayfarer" under his arm, for Annie was fond of reading; and on the way over, he had pictured to himself the pleasure she would derive from reading _his_ book. Of course he received a warm welcome from the squire and his daughter. Each of them had bestowed more than a thought upon the little wanderer as he went from house to house, and more than once they had conversed together about him. "Well, Bobby, how is trade in the book line?" asked the squire, after the young pilgrim had been cordially greeted. "Pretty fair," replied Bobby, with as much indifference as he could command, though it was hard even to seem indifferent then and there. "Where have you been travelling?" "In B----." "Fine place. Books sell well there?" "Very well; in fact, I sold out all my stock by noon yesterday." "How many books did you carry?" "Fifty." "You did well." "I should think you did!" added Annie, with an enthusiasm which quite upset all Bobby's assumed indifference. "Fifty books!" "Yes, Miss Annie; and I have brought you a copy of the book I have been selling; I thought you would like to read it. It is a splendid work, and will be _the_ book of the season." "I shall be delighted to read it," replied Annie, taking the proffered volume. "It looks real good," she continued, as she turned over the leaves. "It is first rate; I have read it through." "It was very kind of you to think of me when you have so much business on your mind," added she, with a roguish smile. "I shall never have so much business on my mind that I cannot think of my friends," replied Bobby, so gallantly and so smartly that it astonished himself. "I was just thinking what I should read next; I am _so_ glad you have come." "Never mind her, Bobby; all she wanted was the book," interposed Squire Lee, laughing. "Now, pa!" "Then I shall bring her one very often." "You are too bad, pa," said Annie, who, like most young ladies just entering their teens, resented any imputation upon the immaculateness of human love, or human friendship. "I have got a little money for you, Squire Lee," continued Bobby, thinking it time the subject was changed. He took out his gilded memorandum book, whose elegant appearance rather startled the squire, and from its "treasury department" extracted the little roll of bills, representing an aggregate of ten dollars, which he had carefully reserved for his creditor. "Never mind that, Bobby," replied the squire. "You will want all your capital to do business with." "I must pay my debts before I think of anything else." "A very good plan, Bobby, but this is an exception to the general rule." "No, sir, I think not. If you please, I insist upon paying you ten dollars on my note." "O, well, if you insist, I suppose I can't help myself." "I would rather pay it, I shall feel so much better." "You want to indorse it on the note, I suppose." That was just what Bobby wanted. Indorsed on the note was the idea, and our hero had often passed that expression through his mind. There was something gratifying in the act to a man of business integrity like himself; it was discharging a sacred obligation,--he had already come to deem it a sacred duty to pay one's debts,--and as the squire wrote the indorsement across the back of the note, he felt more like a hero than ever before. "'Pay as you go' is an excellent idea; John Randolph called it the philosopher's stone," added Squire Lee, as he returned the note to his pocket book. "That is what I mean to do just as soon as I can." "You will do, Bobby." The young merchant spent nearly the whole forenoon at the squire's, and declined an invitation to dinner only on the plea that his mother would wait for him. CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH BOBBY DECLINES A COPARTNERSHIP AND VISITS B---- AGAIN After dinner Bobby performed his Saturday afternoon chores as usual. He split wood enough to last for a week, so that his mother might not miss him too much, and then, feeling a desire to visit his favorite resorts in the vicinity, he concluded to go a fishing. The day was favorable, the sky being overcast and the wind very light. After digging a little box of worms in the garden back of the house, he shouldered his fish pole; and certainly no one would have suspected that he was a distinguished travelling merchant. He was fond of fishing, and it is a remarkable coincidence that Daniel Webster, and many other famous men, have manifested a decided passion for this exciting sport. No doubt a fondness for angling is a peculiarity of genius; and if being an expert fisherman makes a great man, then our hero was a great man. He had scarcely seated himself on his favorite rock, and dropped his line into the water, before he saw Tom Spicer approaching the spot. The bully had never been a welcome companion. There was no sympathy between them. They could never agree, for their views, opinions, and tastes were always conflicting. Bobby had not seen Tom since he left him to crawl out of the ditch on the preceding week, and he had good reason to believe that he should not be regarded with much favor. Tom was malicious and revengeful, and our hero was satisfied that the blow which had prostrated him in the ditch would not be forgotten till it had been atoned for. He was prepared, therefore, for any disagreeable scene which might occur. There was another circumstance also which rendered the bully's presence decidedly unpleasant at this time,--an event that had occurred during his absence, the particulars of which he had received from his mother. Tom's father, who was a poor man, and addicted to intemperance, had lost ten dollars. He had brought it home, and, as he affirmed, placed it in one of the bureau drawers. The next day it could not be found. Spicer, for some reason, was satisfied that Tom had taken it; but the boy stoutly and persistently denied it. No money was found upon him, however, and it did not appear that he had spent any at the stores in Riverdale Centre. The affair created some excitement in the vicinity, for Spicer made no secret of his suspicions, and publicly accused Tom of the theft. He did not get much sympathy from any except his pot companions; for there was no evidence but his bare and unsupported statement to substantiate the grave accusation. Tom had been in the room when the money was placed in the drawer, and, as his father asserted, had watched him closely, while he deposited the bills under the clothing. No one else could have taken it. These were the proofs. But people generally believed that Spicer had carried no money home, especially as it was known that he was intoxicated on the night in question; and that the alleged theft was only a ruse to satisfy certain importunate creditors. Everybody knew that Tom was bad enough to steal, even from his father; from which my readers can understand that it is an excellent thing to have a good reputation. Bobby knew that he would lie and use profane language; that he spent his Sundays by the river, or in roaming through the woods; and that he played truant from school as often as the fear of the rod would permit; and the boy that would do all these things certainly would steal if he got a good chance. Our hero's judgment, therefore, of the case was not favorable to the bully, and he would have thanked him to stay away from the river while he was there. "Hallo, Bob! How are you?" shouted Tom, when he had come within hailing distance. "Very well," replied Bobby, rather coolly. "Been to Boston, they say." "Yes." "Well, how did you like it?" continued Tom, as he seated himself on the rock near our hero. "First rate." "Been to work there?" "No." "What have you been doing?" "Travelling about." "What doing?" "Selling books." "Was you, though? Did you sell any?" "Yes, a few." "How many?" "O, about fifty." "You didn't, though--did you? How much did you make?" "About fifteen dollars." "By jolly! You are a smart one, Bobby. There are not many fellows that would have done that." "Easy enough," replied Bobby, who was not a little surprised at this warm commendation from one whom he regarded as his enemy. "You had to buy the books first--didn't you?" asked Tom, who began to manifest a deep interest in the trade. "Of course; no one will give you the books." "What do you pay for them?" "I buy them so as to make a profit on them," answered Bobby, who, like a discreet merchant, was not disposed to be too communicative. "That business would suit me first rate." "It is pretty hard work." "I don't care for that. Don't you believe I could do something in this line?" "I don't know; perhaps you could." "Why not, as well as you?" This was a hard question; and, as Bobby did not wish to be uncivil, he talked about a big pout he hauled in at that moment, instead of answering it. He was politic, and deprecated the anger of the bully; so, though Tom plied him pretty hard, he did not receive much satisfaction. "You see, Tom," said he, when he found that his companion insisted upon knowing the cost of the books, "this is a publisher's secret; and I dare say they would not wish every one to know the cost of books. We sell them for a dollar apiece." "Humph! You needn't be so close about it. I'll bet I can find out." "I have no doubt you can; only, you see, I don't want to tell what I am not sure they would be willing I should tell." Tom took a slate pencil from his pocket, and commenced ciphering on the smooth rock upon which he sat. "You say you sold fifty books?" "Yes." "Well; if you made fifteen dollars out of fifty, that is thirty cents apiece." Bobby was a little mortified when he perceived that he had unwittingly exposed the momentous secret. He had not given Tom credit for so much sagacity as he had displayed in his inquiries; and as he had fairly reached his conclusion, he was willing he should have the benefit of it. "You sold them at a dollar apiece. Thirty from a hundred leaves seventy. They cost you seventy cents each--didn't they?" "Sixty-seven," replied Bobby, yielding the point. "Enough said, Bob; I am going into that business, anyhow." "I am willing." "Of course you are; suppose we go together," suggested Tom, who had not used all this conciliation without having a purpose in view. "We could do nothing together." "I should like to get out with you just once, only to see how it is done." "You can find out for yourself, as I did." "Don't be mean, Bob." "Mean? I am not mean." "I don't say you are. We have always been good friends, you know." Bobby did not know it; so he looked at the other with a smile which expressed all he meant to say. "You hit me a smart dig the other day, I know; but I don't mind that. I was in the wrong then, and I am willing to own it," continued Tom, with an appearance of humility. This was an immense concession for Tom to make, and Bobby was duly affected by it. Probably it was the first time the bully had ever owned he was in the wrong. "The fact is, Bob, I always liked you; and you know I licked Ben Dowse for you." "That was two for yourself and one for me; besides, I didn't want Ben thrashed." "But he deserved it. Didn't he tell the master you were whispering in school?" "I was whispering; so he told the truth." "It was mean to blow on a fellow, though." "The master asked him if I whispered to him; of course he ought not to lie about it. But he told of you at the same time." "I know it; but I wouldn't have licked him on my own account." "_Perhaps_ you wouldn't." "I know I wouldn't. But, I say, Bobby, where do you buy your books?" "At Mr. Bayard's, in Washington Street." "He will sell them to me at the same price--won't he?" "I don't know." "When are you going again?" "Monday." "Won't you let me go with you, Bob?" "Let you? Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business." Bobby did not like the idea of having such a copartner as Tom Spicer, and he did not like to tell him so. If he did, he would have to give his reasons for declining the proposition, and that would make Tom mad, and perhaps provoke him to quarrel. The fish bit well, and in an hour's time Bobby had a mess. As he took his basket and walked home, the young ruffian followed him. He could not get rid of him till he reached the gate in front of the little black house; and even there Tom begged him to stop a few moments. Our hero was in a hurry, and in the easiest manner possible got rid of this aspirant for mercantile honors. We have no doubt a journal of Bobby's daily life would be very interesting to our young readers; but the fact that some of his most stirring adventures are yet to be related admonishes us to hasten forward more rapidly. On Monday morning Bobby bade adieu to his mother again, and started for Boston. He fully expected to encounter Tom on the way, who, he was afraid, would persist in accompanying him on his tour. As before, he stopped at Squire Lee's to bid him and Annie good by. The little maiden had read "The Wayfarer" more than half through, and was very enthusiastic in her expression of the pleasure she derived from it. She promised to send it over to his house when she had finished it, and hoped he would bring his stock to Riverdale, so that she might again replenish her library. Bobby thought of something just then, and the thought brought forth a harvest on the following Saturday, when he returned. When he had shaken hands with the squire and was about to depart, he received a piece of news which gave him food for an hour's serious reflection. "Did you hear about Tom Spicer?" asked Squire Lee. "No, sir; what about him?" "Broken his arm." "Broken his arm! Gracious! How did it happen?" exclaimed Bobby, the more astonished because he had been thinking of Tom since he had left home. "He was out in the woods yesterday, where boys should not be on Sundays, and, in climbing a tree after a bird's nest, he fell to the ground." "I am sorry for him," replied Bobby, musing. "So am I; but if he had been at home, or at church, where he should have been, it would not have happened. If I had any boys, I would lock them up in their chambers if I could not keep them at home Sundays." "Poor Tom!" mused Bobby, recalling the conversation he had had with him on Saturday, and then wishing that he had been a little more pliant with him. "It is too bad; but I must say I am more sorry for his poor mother than I am for him," added the squire. "However, I hope it will do him good, and be a lesson he will remember as long as he lives." Bobby bade the squire and Annie adieu again, resumed his journey towards the railroad station. His thoughts were busy with Tom Spicer's case. The reason why he had not joined him, as he expected and feared he would, was now apparent. He pitied him, for he realized that he must endure a great deal of pain before he could again go out; but he finally dismissed the matter with the squire's sage reflection, that he hoped the calamity would be a good lesson to him. The young merchant did not walk to Boston this time, for he had come to the conclusion that, in the six hours it would take him to travel to the city on foot, the profit on the books he could sell would be more than enough to pay his fare, to say nothing of the fatigue and the expense of shoe leather. Before noon he was at B---- again, as busy as ever in driving his business. The experience of the former week was of great value to him. He visited people belonging to all spheres in society, and, though he was occasionally repulsed or treated with incivility, he was not conscious in a single instance of offending any person's sense of propriety. He was not as fortunate as during the previous week, and it was Saturday noon before he had sold out the sixty books he carried with him. The net profit for this week was fourteen dollars, with which he was abundantly pleased. Mr. Bayard again commended him in the warmest terms for his zeal and promptness. Mr. Timmins was even more civil than the last time, and when Bobby asked the price of Moore's Poems, he actually offered to sell it to him for thirty-three per cent less than the retail price. The little merchant was on the point of purchasing it, when Mr. Bayard inquired what he wanted. "I am going to buy this book," replied Bobby. "Moore's Poems?" "Yes, sir." Mr. Bayard took from a glass case an elegantly bound copy of the same work--morocco, full gilt--and handed it to our hero. "I shall make you a present of this. Are you an admirer of Moore?" "No, sir; not exactly--that is, I don't know much about it; but Annie Lee does, and I want to get the book for her." Bobby's cheeks reddened as he turned the leaves of the beautiful volume, putting his head down to the page to hide his confusion. "Annie Lee?" said Mr. Bayard with a quizzing smile. "I see how it is. Rather young, Bobby." "Her father has been very good to me and to my mother; and so has Annie, for that matter. Squire Lee would be a great deal more pleased if I should make Annie a present than if I made him one. I feel grateful to him, and I want to let it out somehow." "That's right, Bobby; always remember your friends. Timmins, wrap up this book." Bobby protested with all his might; but the bookseller insisted that he should give Annie this beautiful edition, and he was obliged to yield the point. That evening he was at the little black house again, and his mother examined his ledger with a great deal of pride and satisfaction. That evening, too, another ten dollars was indorsed on the note, and Annie received that elegant copy of Moore's Poems. CHAPTER XIV IN WHICH BOBBY'S AIR CASTLE IS UPSET AND TOM SPICER TAKES TO THE WOODS During the next four weeks Bobby visited various places in the vicinity of Boston; and at the end of that time he had paid the whole of the debt he owed Squire Lee. He had the note in his memorandum book, and the fact that he had achieved his first great purpose afforded him much satisfaction. Now he owed no man anything, and he felt as though he could hold up his head among the best people in the world. The little black house was paid for, and Bobby was proud that his own exertions had released his mother from her obligation to her hard creditor. Mr. Hardhand could no longer insult and abuse her. The apparent results which Bobby had accomplished, however, were as nothing compared with the real results. He had developed those energies of character which were to make him, not only a great business man, but a useful member of society. Besides, there was a moral grandeur in his humble achievements which was more worthy of consideration than the mere worldly success he had obtained. Motives determine the character of deeds. That a boy of thirteen should display so much enterprise and energy was a great thing; but that it should be displayed from pure, unselfish devotion to his mother was a vastly greater thing. Many great achievements are morally insignificant, while many of which the world never hears mark the true hero. Our hero was not satisfied with what he had done, and far from relinquishing his interesting and profitable employment, his ambition suggested new and wider fields of success. As one ideal, brilliant and glorious in its time, was reached, another more brilliant and more glorious presented itself, and demanded to be achieved. The little black house began to appear rusty and inconvenient; a coat of white paint would marvellously improve its appearance; a set of nice Paris-green blinds would make a palace of it; and a neat fence around it would positively transform the place into a paradise. Yet Bobby was audacious enough to think of these things, and even to promise himself that they should be obtained. In conversation with Mr. Bayard a few days before, that gentleman had suggested a new field of labor; and it had been arranged that Bobby should visit the State of Maine the following week. On the banks of the Kennebec were many wealthy and important towns, where the intelligence of the people created a demand for books. This time the little merchant was to take two hundred books, and be absent until they were all sold. On Monday morning he started bright and early for the railroad station. As usual, he called upon Squire Lee, and informed Annie that he should probably be absent three or four weeks. She hoped no accident would happen to him, and that his journey would be crowned with success. Without being sentimental, she was a little sad, for Bobby was a great friend of hers. That elegant copy of Moore's Poems had been gratefully received, and she was so fond of the bard's beautiful and touching melodies that she could never read any of them without thinking of the brave little fellow who had given her the volume; which no one will consider very remarkable, even in a little miss of twelve. After he had bidden her and her father adieu, he resumed his journey. Of course he was thinking with all his might; but no one need suppose he was wondering how wide the Kennebec River was, or how many books he should sell in the towns upon its banks. Nothing of the kind; though it is enough even for the inquisitive to know that he was thinking of something, and that his thoughts were very interesting, not to say romantic. "Hallo, Bob!" shouted some one from the road side. Bobby was provoked; for it is sometimes very uncomfortable to have a pleasant train of thought interrupted. The imagination is buoyant, ethereal, and elevates poor mortals up to the stars sometimes. It was so with Bobby. He was building up some kind of an air castle, and had got up in the clouds amidst the fog and moonshine, and that aggravating voice brought him down, _slap_, upon terra firma. He looked up and saw Tom Spicer seated upon the fence. In his hand he held a bundle, and had evidently been waiting some time for Bobby's coming. He had recovered from the illness caused by his broken arm, and people said it had been a good lesson for him, as the squire hoped it would be. Bobby had called upon him two or three times during his confinement to the house; and Tom, either truly repentant for his past errors, or lacking the opportunity at that time to manifest his evil propensities, had stoutly protested that he had "turned over a new leaf," and meant to keep out of the woods on Sunday, stop lying and swearing, and become a good boy. Bobby commended his good resolutions, and told him he would never want friends while he was true to himself. The right side, he declared, was always the best side. He quoted several instances of men, whose lives he had read in his Sunday school books, to show how happy a good man may be in prison, or when all the world seemed to forsake him. Tom assured him that he meant to reform and be a good boy; and Bobby told him that when any one meant to turn over a new leaf, it was "now or never." If he put it off, he would only grow worse, and the longer the good work was delayed, the more difficult it would be to do it. Tom agreed to all this, and was sure he had reformed. For these reasons Bobby had come to regard Tom with a feeling of deep interest. He considered him as, in some measure, his disciple, and he felt a personal responsibility in encouraging him to persevere in his good work. Nevertheless Bobby was not exactly pleased to have his fine air castle upset, and to be tipped out of the clouds upon the cold, uncompromising earth again; so the first greeting he gave Tom was not as cordial as it might have been. "Hallo, Tom!" he replied, rather coolly. "Been waiting for you this half hour." "Have you?" "Yes; ain't you rather late?" "No; I have plenty of time, though none to spare," answered Bobby; and this was a hint that he must not detain him too long. "Come along then." "Where are you going, Tom?" asked Bobby, a little surprised at these words. "To Boston." "Are you?" "I am; that's a fact. You know I spoke to you about going into the book business." "Not lately." "But I have been thinking about it all the time." "What do your father and mother say?" "O, they are all right." "Have you asked them?" "Certainly I have; they are willing I should go with _you_." "Why didn't you speak of it then?" "I thought I wouldn't say anything till the time came. You know you fought shy when I spoke about it before." And Bobby, notwithstanding the interest he felt in his companion, was a little disposed to "fight shy" now. Tom had reformed, or had pretended to do so; but he was still a raw recruit, and our hero was somewhat fearful that he would run at the first fire. To the good and true man life is a constant battle. Temptation assails him at almost every point; perils and snares beset him at every step of his mortal pilgrimage, so that every day he is called upon to gird on his armor and fight the good fight. Bobby was no poet; but he had a good idea of this every-day strife with the foes of error and sin that crossed his path. It was a practical conception, but it was truly expressed under the similitude of a battle. There was to be resistance, and he could comprehend that, for his bump of combativeness took cognizance of the suggestion. He was to fight; and that was an idea that stood him in better stead than a whole library of ethical subtilties. Judging Tom by his own standard, he was afraid he would run--that he wouldn't "stand fire." He had not been drilled. Heretofore, when temptation beset him, he had yielded without even a struggle, and fled from the field without firing a gun. To go out into the great world was a trying event for the raw recruit. He lacked, too, that prestige of success which is worth more than numbers on the field of battle. Tom had chosen for himself, and he could not send him back. He had taken up the line of march, let it lead him where it might. "March on! in legions death and sin Impatient wait thy conquering hand; The foe without, the foe within-- Thy youthful arm must both withstand." Bobby had great hopes of him. He felt that he could not well get rid of him, and he saw that it was policy for him to make the best of it. "Well, Tom, where are you going?" asked Bobby, after he had made up his mind not to object to the companionship of the other. "I don't know. You have been a good friend to me lately, and I had an idea that you would give me a lift in this business." "I should be very willing to do so; but what can I do for you?" "Just show me how the business is done; that's all I want." "Your father and mother were willing you should come--were they not?" Bobby had some doubts about this point, and with good reason too. He had called at Tom's house the day before, and they had gone to church together; but neither he nor his parents had said a word about his going to Boston. "When did they agree to it?" "Last night," replied Tom, after a moment's hesitation. "All right then; but I cannot promise you that Mr. Bayard will let you have the books." "I can fix that, I reckon," replied Tom, confidently. "I will speak a good word for you, at any rate." "That's right, Bob." "I am going down into the State of Maine this time, and shall be gone three or four weeks." "So much the better; I always wanted to go down that way." Tom asked a great many questions about the business and the method of travelling, which Bobby's superior intelligence and more extensive experience enabled him to answer to the entire satisfaction of the other. When they were within half a mile of the railroad station, they heard a carriage driven at a rapid rate approaching them from the direction of Riverdale. Tom seemed to be uneasy, and cast frequent glances behind him. In a moment the vehicle was within a short distance of them, and he stopped short in the road to scrutinize the persons in it. "By jolly!" exclaimed Tom; "my father!" "What of it?" asked Bobby, surprised by the strange behavior of his companion. Tom did not wait to reply, but springing over the fence fled like a deer towards some woods a short distance from the road. Was it possible? Tom had run away from home. His father had not consented to his going to Boston, and Bobby was mortified to find that his hopeful disciple had been lying to him ever since they left Riverdale. But he was glad the cheat had been exposed. "That was Tom with you--wasn't it?" asked Mr. Spicer, as he stopped the foaming horse. "Yes, sir; but he told me you had consented that he should go with me," replied Bobby, a little disturbed by the angry glance of Mr. Spicer's fiery eyes. "He lied! the young villain! He will catch it for this." "I would not have let him come with me only for that. I asked him twice over if you were willing, and he said you were." "You ought to have known better than to believe him," interposed the man who was with Mr. Spicer. Bobby had some reason for believing him. The fact that Tom had reformed ought to have entitled him to some consideration, and our hero gave him the full benefit of the declaration. To have explained this would have taken more time than he could spare; besides, it was "a great moral question," whose importance Mr. Spicer and his companion would not be likely to apprehend; so he made a short story of it, and resumed his walk, thankful that he had got rid of Tom. Mr. Spicer and his friend, after fastening the horse to the fence, went to the woods in search of Tom. Bobby reached the station just in time to take the cars, and in a moment was on his way to the city. CHAPTER XV IN WHICH BOBBY GETS INTO A SCRAPE, AND TOM SPICER TURNS UP AGAIN Bobby had a poorer opinion of human nature than ever before. It seemed almost incredible to him that words so fairly spoken as those of Tom Spicer could be false. He had just risen from a sick bed, where he had had an opportunity for long and serious reflection. Tom had promised fairly, and Bobby had every reason to suppose he intended to be a good boy. But his promises had been lies. He had never intended to reform, at least not since he had got off his bed of pain. He was mortified and disheartened at the failure of this attempt to restore him to himself. Like a great many older and wiser persons than himself, he was prone to judge the whole human family by a single individual. He did not come to believe that every man was a rascal, but, in more general terms, that there is a great deal more rascality in this world than one would be willing to believe. With this sage reflection, he dismissed Tom from his mind, which very naturally turned again to the air castle which had been so ruthlessly upset. Then his opinion of "the rest of mankind" was reversed; and he reflected that if the world were only peopled by angels like Annie Lee, what a pleasant place it would be to live in. She could not tell a lie, she could not use bad language, she could not steal, or do anything else that was bad; and the prospect was decidedly pleasant. It was very agreeable to turn from Tom to Annie, and in a moment his air castle was built again, and throned on clouds of gold and purple. I do not know what impossible things he imagined, or how far up in the clouds he would have gone, if the arrival of the train at the city had not interrupted his thoughts, and pitched him down upon the earth again. Bobby was not one of that impracticable class of persons who do nothing but dream; for he felt that he had a mission to perform which dreaming could not accomplish. However pleasant it may be to think of the great and brilliant things which one _will_ do, to one of Bobby's practical character it was even more pleasant to perform them. We all dream great things, imagine great things; but he who stops there does not amount to much, and the world can well spare him, for he is nothing but a drone in the hive. Bobby's fine imaginings were pretty sure to bring out a "now or never," which was the pledge of action, and the work was as good as done when he had said it. Therefore, when the train arrived, Bobby did not stop to dream any longer. He forgot his beautiful air castle, and even let Annie Lee slip from his mind for the time being. Those towns upon the Kennebec, the two hundred books he was to sell, loomed up before him, for it was with them he had to do. Grasping the little valise he carried with him, he was hastening out of the station house when a hand was placed upon his shoulder. "Got off slick--didn't I?" said Tom Spicer, placing himself by Bobby's side. "You here, Tom!" exclaimed our hero, gazing with astonishment at his late companion. It was not an agreeable encounter, and from the bottom of his heart Bobby wished him anywhere but where he was. He foresaw that he could not easily get rid of him. "I am here," replied Tom. "I ran through the woods to the depot, and got aboard the cars just as they were starting. The old man couldn't come it over me quite so slick as that." "But you ran away from home." "Well, what of it?" "A good deal, I should say." "If you had been in my place, you would have done the same." "I don't know about that; obedience to parents is one of our first duties." "I know that; and if I had had any sort of fair play, I wouldn't have run away." "What do you mean by that?" asked Bobby, somewhat surprised, though he had a faint idea of the meaning of the other. "I will tell you all about it by and by. I give you my word of honor that I will make everything satisfactory to you." "But you lied to me on the road this morning." Tom winced; under ordinary circumstances he would have resented such a remark by "clearing away" for a fight. But he had a purpose to accomplish, and he knew the character of him with whom he had to deal. "I'm sorry I did, now," answered Tom, with every manifestation of penitence for his fault. "I didn't want to lie to you; and it went against my conscience to do so. But I was afraid, if I told you my father refused, up and down, to let me go, that you wouldn't be willing I should come with you." "I shall not be any more willing now I know all about it," added Bobby, in an uncompromising tone. "Wait till you have heard my story, and then you won't blame me." "Of course you can go where you please; it is none of my business; but let me tell you, Tom, in the beginning, that I won't go with a fellow who has run away from his father and mother." "Pooh! What's the use of talking in that way?" Tom was evidently disconcerted by this decided stand of his companion. He knew that his bump of firmness was well developed, and whatever he said he meant. "You had better return home, Tom. Boys that run away from home don't often amount to much. Take my advice, and go home," added Bobby. "To such a home as mine!" said Tom, gloomily. "If I had such a home as yours, I would not have left it." Bobby got a further idea from this remark of the true state of the case, and the consideration moved him. Tom's father was a notoriously intemperate man, and the boy had nothing to hope for from his precept or his example. He was the child of a drunkard, and as much to be pitied as blamed for his vices. His home was not pleasant. He who presided over it, and who should have made a paradise of it, was its evil genius, a demon of wickedness, who blasted its flowers as fast as they bloomed. Tom had seemed truly penitent both during his illness and since his recovery. His one great desire now was to get away from home, for home to him was a place of torment. Bobby suspected all this, and in his great heart he pitied his companion. He did not know what to do. "I am sorry for you, Tom," said he, after he had considered the matter in this new light; "but I don't see what I can do for you. I doubt whether it would be right for me to help you run away from your parents." "I don't want you to help me run away. I have done that already." "But if I let you go with me, it will be just the same thing. Besides, since you told me those lies this morning, I haven't much confidence in you." "I couldn't help that." "Yes, you could. Couldn't help lying?" "What could I do? You would have gone right back and told my father." "Well, we will go up to Mr. Bayard's store, and then we will see what can be done." "I couldn't stay at home, sure," continued Tom, as they walked along together. "My father even talked of binding me out to a trade." "Did he?" Bobby stopped short in the street; for it was evident that, as this would remove him from his unhappy home, and thus effect all he professed to desire, he had some other purpose in view. "What are you stopping for, Bob?" "I think you had better go back, Tom." "Not I; I won't do that, whatever happens." "If your father will put you to a trade, what more do you want?" "I won't go to a trade, anyhow." Bobby said no more, but determined to consult with Mr. Bayard about the matter; and Tom was soon too busily engaged in observing the strange sights and sounds of the city to think of anything else. When they reached the store, Bobby went into Mr. Bayard's private office and told him all about the affair. The bookseller decided that Tom had run away more to avoid being bound to a trade than because his home was unpleasant; and this decision seemed to Bobby all the more just because he knew that Tom's mother, though a drunkard's wife, was a very good woman. Mr. Bayard further decided that Bobby ought not to permit the runaway to be the companion of his journey. He also considered it his duty to write to Mr. Spicer, informing him of his son's arrival in the city, and clearing Bobby from any agency in his escape. While Mr. Bayard was writing the letter, Bobby went out to give Tom the result of the consultation. The runaway received it with a great show of emotion, and begged and pleaded to have the decision reversed. But Bobby, though he would gladly have done anything for him which was consistent with his duty, was firm as a rock, and positively refused to have anything to do with him until he obtained his father's consent; or, if there was any such trouble as he asserted, his mother's consent. Tom left the store, apparently "more in sorrow than in anger." His bullying nature seemed to be cast out, and Bobby could not but feel sorry for him. Duty was imperative, as it always is, and it must be done "now or never." During the day the little merchant attended to the packing of his stock, and to such other preparations as were required for his journey. He must take the steamer that evening for Bath, and when the time for his departure arrived, he was attended to the wharf by Mr. Bayard and Ellen, with whom he had passed the afternoon. The bookseller assisted him in procuring his ticket and berth, and gave him such instructions as his inexperience demanded. The last bell rang, the fasts were cast off, and the great wheels of the steamer began to turn. Our hero, who had never been on the water in a steamboat, or indeed anything bigger than a punt on the river at home, was much interested and excited by his novel position. He seated himself on the promenade deck, and watched with wonder the boiling, surging waters astern of the steamer. How powerful is man, the author of that mighty machine that bore him so swiftly over the deep blue waters! Bobby was a little philosopher, as we have before had occasion to remark, and he was decidedly of the opinion that the steamboat was a great institution. When he had in some measure conquered his amazement, and the first ideas of sublimity which the steamer and the sea were calculated to excite in a poetical imagination, he walked forward to take a closer survey of the machinery. After all, there was something rather comical in the affair. The steam hissed and sputtered, and the great walking beam kept flying up and down; and the sum total of Bobby's philosophy was, that it was funny these things should make the boat go so like a race horse over the water. Then he took a look into the pilot house, and it seemed more funny that turning that big wheel should steer the boat. But the wind blew rather fresh at the forward part of the boat, and as Bobby's philosophy was not proof against it, he returned to the promenade deck, which was sheltered from the severity of the blast. He had got reconciled to the whole thing, and ceased to bother his head about the big wheel, the sputtering steam, and the walking beam; so he seated himself, and began to wonder what all the people in Riverdale were about. "All them as hasn't paid their fare, please walk up to the cap'n's office and s-e-t-t-l-e!" shouted a colored boy, presenting himself just then, and furiously ringing a large hand bell. "I have just settled," said Bobby, alluding to his comfortable seat. But the allusion was so indefinite to the colored boy that he thought himself insulted. He did not appear to be a very amiable boy, for his fist was doubled up, and with sundry big oaths, he threatened to annihilate the little merchant for his insolence. "I didn't say anything that need offend you," replied Bobby. "I meant nothing." "You lie! You did!" He was on the point of administering a blow with his fist, when a third party appeared on the ground, and without waiting to hear the merits of the case, struck the negro a blow which had nearly floored him. Some of the passengers now interfered, and the colored boy was prevented from executing vengeance on the assailant. "Strike that fellow and you strike me!" said he who had struck the blow. "Tom Spicer!" exclaimed Bobby, astonished and chagrined at the presence of the runaway. CHAPTER XVI IN WHICH BOBBY FINDS "IT IS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD" A gentleman, who was sitting near Bobby when he made the remark which the colored boy had misunderstood, interfered to free him from blame, and probably all unpleasant feelings might have been saved, if Tom's zeal had been properly directed. As it was, the waiter retired with his bell, vowing vengeance upon his assailant. "How came you here, Tom?" asked Bobby, when the excitement had subsided. "You don't get rid of me so easily," replied Tom, laughing. Bobby called to mind the old adage that "a bad penny is sure to return;" and, if it had not been a very uncivil remark, he would have said it. "I didn't expect to see you again at present," he observed, hardly knowing what to say or do. "I suppose not; but as I didn't mean you should expect me, I kept out of sight. Only for that darkey you wouldn't have found me out so soon. I like you, Bob, in spite of all you have done to get rid of me, and I wasn't a going to let the darkey thrash you." "You only made matters worse." "That is all the thanks I get for hitting him for you." "I am sorry you hit him; at the same time I suppose you meant to do me a service, and I thank you, not for the blow you struck the black boy, but for your good intentions." "That sounds better. I meant well, Bob." "I dare say you did. But how came you here?" "Why, you see, I was bound to go with you anyhow or at least to keep within hail of you. You told me, you know, that you were going in the steamboat; and after I left the shop, what should I see but a big picture of a steamboat on a wall. It said. 'Bath, Gardiner, and Hallowell,' on the bill; and I knew that was where you meant to go. So this afternoon I hunts round and finds the steamboat. I thought I never should have found it; but here I am." "What are you going to do?" "Going into the book business," replied Tom, with a smile. "Where are your books?" "Down stairs, in the cellar of the steamboat, or whatever you call it." "Where did you get them?" "Bought 'em, of course." "Did you? Where?" "Well, I don't remember the name of the street now. I could go right there if I was in the city, though." "Would they trust you?" Tom hesitated. The lies he had told that morning had done him no good--had rather injured his cause; and, though he had no principle that forbade lying, he questioned its policy in the present instance. "I paid part down, and they trusted me part." "How many books you got?" "Twenty dollars' worth. I paid eight dollars down." "You did? Where did you get the eight dollars?" Bobby remembered the money Tom's father had lost several weeks before, and immediately connected that circumstance with his present ability to pay so large a sum. Tom hesitated again, but he was never at a loss for an answer. "My mother gave it to me." "Your mother?" "Yes, _sir_!" replied Tom, boldly, and in that peculiarly bluff manner which is almost always good evidence that the boy is lying. "But you ran away from home." "That's so; but my mother knew I was coming." "Did she?" "To be sure she did." "You didn't say so before." "I can't tell all I know in a minute." "If I thought your mother consented to your coming, I wouldn't say another word." "Well, she did; you may bet your life on that." "And your mother gave you ten dollars?" "Who said she gave me _ten_ dollars?" asked Tom, a little sharply. That was just the sum his father had lost, and Bobby had unwittingly hinted his suspicion. "You must have had as much as that if you paid eight on your books. Your fare to Boston and your steamboat fare must be two dollars more." "I know that; but look here, Bob;" and Tom took from his pocket five half dollars and exhibited them to his companion. "She gave me thirteen dollars." Notwithstanding this argument, Bobby felt almost sure that the lost ten dollars was a part of his capital. "I will tell you my story now, Bob, if you like. You condemned me without a hearing, as Jim Guthrie said when they sent him to the House of Correction for getting drunk." "Go ahead." The substance of Tom's story was, that his father drank so hard, and was such a tyrant in the house, that he could endure it no longer. His father and mother did not agree, as any one might have suspected. His mother, encouraged by the success of Bobby, thought that Tom might do something of the kind, and she had provided him the money to buy his stock of books. Bobby had not much confidence in this story. He had been deceived once; besides, it was not consistent with his previous narrative, and he had not before hinted that he had obtained his mother's consent. But Tom was eloquent, and protested that he had reformed, and meant to do well. He declared, by all that was good and great, Bobby should never have reason to be ashamed of him. Our little merchant was troubled. He could not now get rid of Tom without actually quarrelling with him, or running away from him. He did not wish to do the former, and it was not an easy matter to do the latter. Besides, there was hope that the runaway would do well; and if he did, when he carried the profits of his trade home, his father would forgive him. One thing was certain; if he returned to Riverdale he would be what he had been before. For these reasons Bobby finally, but very reluctantly, consented that Tom should remain with him, resolving, however, that, if he did not behave himself, he would leave him at once. Before morning he had another reason. When the steamer got out into the open bay, Bobby was seasick. He retired to his berth with a dreadful headache; as he described it afterwards, it seemed just as though that great walking beam was smashing up and down right in the midst of his brains. He had never felt so ill before in his life, and was very sure, in his inexperience, that something worse than mere seasickness ailed him. He told Tom, who was not in the least affected, how he felt; whereupon the runaway blustered round, got the steward and the captain into the cabin, and was very sure that Bobby would die before morning, if we may judge by the fuss he made. The captain was angry at being called from the pilot house for nothing, and threatened to throw Tom overboard if he didn't stop his noise. The steward, however, was a kind-hearted man, and assured Bobby that passengers were often a great deal sicker than he was; but he promised to do something for his relief, and Tom went with him to his state room for the desired remedy. The potion was nothing more nor less than a table spoonful of brandy, which Bobby, who had conscientious scruples about drinking ardent spirits, at first refused to take. Then Tom argued the point, and the sick boy yielded. The dose made him sicker yet, and nature came to his relief, and in a little while he felt better. Tom behaved like a good nurse; he staid by his friend till he went to sleep, and then "turned in" upon a settee beneath his berth. The boat pitched and tumbled about so in the heavy sea that Bobby did not sleep long, and when he woke he found Tom ready to assist him. But our hero felt better, and entreated Tom to go to sleep again. He made the best of his unpleasant situation. Sleep was not to be wooed, and he tried to pass away the dreary hours in thinking of Riverdale and the dear ones there. His mother was asleep, and Annie was asleep; that was about all the excitement he could get up even on the home question. He could not build castles in the air, for seasickness and castle building do not agree. The gold and purple clouds would be black in spite of him, and the aerial structure he essayed to build would pitch and tumble about, for all the world, just like a steamboat in a heavy sea. As often as he got fairly into it, he was violently rolled out, and in a twinkling found himself in his narrow berth, awfully seasick. He went to sleep again at last, and the long night passed away. When he woke in the morning, he felt tolerably well, and was thankful that he had got out of that scrape. But before he could dress himself, he heard a terrible racket on deck. The steam whistle was shrieking, the bell was banging, and he heard the hoarse bellowing of the captain. It was certain that something had happened, or was about to happen. Then the boat stopped, rolling heavily in the sea. Tom was not there; he had gone on deck. Bobby was beginning to consider what a dreadful thing a wreck was, when Tom appeared. "What's the matter?" asked Bobby, with some appearance of alarm. "Fog," replied Tom. "It is so thick you can cut it with a hatchet." "Is that all?" "That's enough." "Where are we?" "That is just what the pilot would like to know. They can't see ahead a bit, and don't know where we are." Bobby went on deck. The ocean rolled beneath them, but there was nothing but fog to be seen above and around them. The lead was heaved every few moments, and the steamer crept slowly along till it was found the water shoaled rapidly, when the captain ordered the men to let go the anchor. There they were; the fog was as obstinate as a mule, and would not "lift." Hour after hour they waited, for the captain was a prudent man, and would not risk the life of those on board to save a few hours' time. After breakfast, the passengers began to display their uneasiness, and some of them called the captain very hard names, because he would not go on. Almost everybody grumbled, and made themselves miserable. "Nothing to do and nothing to read," growled a nicely-dressed gentleman, as he yawned and stretched himself to manifest his sensation of _ennui_. "Nothing to read, eh?" thought Bobby. "We will soon supply that want." Calling Tom, they went down to the main deck where the baggage had been placed. "Now's our time," said he, as he proceeded to unlock one of the trunks that contained his books. "Now or never." "I am with you," replied Tom, catching the idea. The books of the latter were in a box, and he was obliged to get a hammer to open it; but with Bobby's assistance he soon got at them. "Buy 'The Wayfarer,'" said Bobby, when he returned to the saloon, and placed a volume in the hands of the yawning gentleman. "Best book of the season; only one dollar." "That I will, and glad of the chance," replied the gentleman. "I would give five dollars for anything, if it were only the 'Comic Almanac.'" Others were of the same mind. There was no present prospect that the fog would lift, and before dinner time our merchant had sold fifty copies of "The Wayfarer." Tom, whose books were of an inferior description, and who was inexperienced as a salesman, disposed of twenty, which was more than half of his stock. The fog was a godsend to both of them, and they reaped a rich harvest from the occasion, for almost all the passengers seemed willing to spend their money freely for the means of occupying the heavy hours and driving away that dreadful _ennui_ which reigns supreme in a fog-bound steamer. About the middle of the afternoon, the fog blew over, and the boat proceeded on her voyage, and before sunset our young merchants were safely landed at Bath. CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH TOM HAS A GOOD TIME, AND BOBBY MEETS WITH A TERRIBLE MISFORTUNE Bath afforded our young merchants an excellent market for their wares, and they remained there the rest of the week. They then proceeded to Brunswick, where their success was equally flattering. Thus far Tom had done very well, though Bobby had frequent occasion to remind him of the pledges he had given to conduct himself in a proper manner. He would swear now and then, from the force of habit; but invariably, when Bobby checked him, he promised to do better. At Brunswick Tom sold the last of his books, and was in possession of about thirty dollars, twelve of which he owed the publisher who had furnished his stock. This money seemed to burn in his pocket. He had the means of having a good time, and it went hard with him to plod along as Bobby did, careful to save every penny he could. "Come, Bob, let's get a horse and chaise and have a ride--what do you say?" proposed Tom, on the day he finished selling his books. "I can't spare the time or the money," replied Bobby, decidedly. "What is the use of having money if we can't spend it? It is a first rate day, and we should have a good time." "I can't afford it. I have a great many books to sell." "About a hundred; you can sell them fast enough." "I don't spend my money foolishly." "It wouldn't be foolishly. I have sold out, and I am bound to have a little fun now." "You never will succeed if you do business in that way." "Why not?" "You will spend your money as fast as you get it." "Pooh! we can get a horse and chaise for the afternoon for two dollars. That is not much." "Considerable, I should say. But if you begin, there is no knowing where to leave off. I make it a rule not to spend a single cent foolishly, and if I don't begin, I shall never do it." "I don't mean to spend all I get; only a little now and then," persisted Tom. "Don't spend the first dollar for nonsense, and then you won't spend the second. Besides, when I have any money to spare, I mean to buy books with it for my library." "Humbug! Your library!" "Yes, my library; I mean to have a library one of these days." "I don't want any library, and I mean to spend some of my money in having a good time; and if you won't go with me, I shall go alone--that's all." "You can do as you please, of course; but I advise you to keep your money. You will want it to buy another stock of books." "I shall have enough for that. What do you say? will you go with me or not?" "No, I will not." "Enough said; then I shall go alone, or get some fellow to go with me." "Consider well before you go," pleaded Bobby, who had sense enough to see that Tom's proposed "good time" would put back, if not entirely prevent, the reform he was working out. He then proceeded to reason with him in a very earnest and feeling manner, telling him he would not only spend all his money, but completely unfit himself for business. What he proposed to do was nothing more nor less than extravagance, and it would lead him to dissipation and ruin. "To-day I am going to send one hundred dollars to Mr. Bayard," continued Bobby; "for I am afraid to have so much money with me. I advise you to send your money to your employer." "Humph! Catch me doing that! I am bound to have a good time, anyhow." "At least, send the money you owe him." "I'll bet I won't." "Well, do as you please; I have said all I have to say." "You are a fool, Bob!" exclaimed Tom, who had evidently used Bobby as much as he wished, and no longer cared to speak soft words to him. "Perhaps I am; but I know better than to spend my money upon fast horses. If you will go, I can't help it. I am sorry you are going astray." "What do you mean by that, you young monkey?" said Tom, angrily. This was Tom Spicer, the bully. It sounded like him; and with a feeling of sorrow Bobby resigned the hopes he had cherished of making a good boy of him. "We had better part now," added our hero, sadly. "I'm willing." "I shall leave Brunswick this afternoon for the towns up the river. I hope no harm will befall you. Good by, Tom." "Go it! I have heard your preaching about long enough, and I am more glad to get rid of you than you are to get rid of me." Bobby walked away towards the house where he had left the trunk containing his books, while Tom made his way towards a livery stable. The boys had been in the place for several days, and had made some acquaintances; so Tom had no difficulty in procuring a companion for his proposed ride. Our hero wrote a letter that afternoon to Mr. Bayard, in which he narrated all the particulars of his journey, his relations with Tom Spicer, and the success that had attended his labors. At the bank he procured a hundred dollar note for his small bills, and enclosed it in the letter. He felt sad about Tom. The runaway had done so well, had been so industrious, and shown such a tractable spirit, that he had been very much encouraged about him. But if he meant to be wild again,--for it was plain that the ride was only "the beginning of sorrows,"--it was well that they should part. By the afternoon stage our hero proceeded to Gardiner, passing through several smaller towns, which did not promise a very abundant harvest. His usual success attended him; for wherever he went, people seemed to be pleased with him, as Squire Lee had declared they would be. His pleasant, honest face was a capital recommendation, and his eloquence seldom failed to achieve the result which eloquence has ever achieved from Demosthenes down to the present day. Our limits do not permit us to follow him in all his peregrinations from town to town, and from house to house; so we pass over the next fortnight, at the end of which time we find him at Augusta. He had sold all his books but twenty, and had that day remitted eighty dollars more to Mr. Bayard. It was Wednesday, and he hoped to sell out so as to be able to take the next steamer for Boston, which was advertised to sail on the following day. He had heard nothing from Tom since their parting, and had given up all expectation of meeting him again; but that bad penny maxim proved true once more, for, as he was walking through one of the streets of Augusta, he had the misfortune to meet him--and this time it was indeed a misfortune. "Hallo, Bobby!" shouted the runaway, as familiarly as though nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of their relations. "Ah, Tom, I didn't expect to see you again," replied Bobby, not very much rejoiced to meet his late companion. "I suppose not; but here I am, as good as new. Have you sold out?" "No, not quite." "How many have you left?" "About twenty; but I thought, Tom, you would have returned to Boston before this time." "No;" and Tom did not seem to be in very good spirits. "Where are you going now?" "I don't know. I ought to have taken your advice, Bobby." This was a concession, and our hero began to feel some sympathy for his companion--as who does not when the erring confess their faults? "I am sorry you did not." "I got in with some pretty hard fellows down there to Brunswick," continued Tom, rather sheepishly. "And spent all your money," added Bobby, who could readily understand the reason why Tom had put on his humility again. "Not all." "How much have you left?" "Not much," replied he, evasively. "I don't know what I shall do. I am in a strange place, and have no friends." Bobby's sympathies were aroused, and without reflection, he promised to be a friend in his extremity. "I will stick by you this time, Bob, come what will. I will do just as you say, now." Our merchant was a little flattered by this unreserved display of confidence. He did not give weight enough to the fact that it was adversity alone which made Tom so humble. He was in trouble, and gave him all the guarantee he could ask for his future good behavior. He could not desert him now he was in difficulty. "You shall help me sell my books, and then we will return to Boston together. Have you money enough left to pay your employer?" Tom hesitated; something evidently hung heavily upon his mind. "I don't know how it will be after I have paid my expenses to Boston," he replied, averting his face. Bobby was perplexed by this evasive answer; but as Tom seemed so reluctant to go into details, he reserved his inquiries for a more convenient season. "Now, Tom, you take the houses on that side of the street, and I will take those upon this side. You shall have the profits on all you sell." "You are a first rate fellow, Bob; and I only wish I had done as you wanted me to do." "Can't be helped now, and we will do the next best thing," replied Bobby, as he left his companion to enter a house. Tom did very well, and by the middle of the afternoon they had sold all the books but four. "The Wayfarer" had been liberally advertised in that vicinity, and the work was in great demand. Bobby's heart grew lighter as the volumes disappeared from his valise, and already he had begun to picture the scene which would ensue upon his return to the little black house. How glad his mother would be to see him, and, he dared believe, how happy Annie would be as she listened to the account of his journey in the State of Maine! Wouldn't she be astonished when he told her about the steamboat, about the fog, and about the wild region at the mouth of the beautiful Kennebec! Poor Bobby! the brightest dream often ends in sadness; and a greater trial than any he had been called upon to endure was yet in store for him. As he walked along, thinking of Riverdale and its loved ones, Tom came out of a grocery store where he had just sold a book. "Here, Bob, is a ten dollar bill. I believe I have sold ten books for you," said Tom, after they had walked some distance. "You had better keep the money now; and while I think of it, you had better take what I have left of my former sales;" and Tom handed him another ten dollar bill. Bobby noticed that Tom seemed very much confused and embarrassed; but he did not observe that the two bills he had handed him were on the same bank. "Then you had ten dollars left after your frolic," he remarked, as he took the last bill. "About that;" and Tom glanced uneasily behind him. "What is the matter with you, Tom?" asked Bobby, who did not know what to make of his companion's embarrassment. "Nothing, Bob; let us walk a little faster. We had better turn up this street," continued Tom, as, with a quick pace, he took the direction indicated. Bobby began to fear that Tom had been doing something wrong; and the suspicion was confirmed by seeing two men running with all their might towards them. Tom perceived them at the same moment. "Run!" he shouted, and suiting the action to the word, he took to his heels, and fled up the street into which he had proposed to turn. Bobby did not run, but stopped short where he was till the men came up to him. "Grab him," said one of them, "and I will catch the other." The man collared Bobby, and in spite of all the resistance he could make, dragged him down the street to the grocery store in which Tom had sold his last book. "What do you mean by this?" asked Bobby, his blood boiling with indignation at the harsh treatment to which he had been subjected. "We have got you, my hearty," replied the man, releasing his hold. No sooner was the grasp of the man removed, than Bobby, who determined on this as on former occasions to stand upon his inalienable rights, bolted for the door, and ran away with all his speed. But his captor was too fleet for him, and he was immediately retaken. To make him sure this time, his arms were tied behind him, and he was secured to the counter of the shop. In a few moments the other man returned, dragging Tom in triumph after him. By this time quite a crowd had collected, which nearly filled the store. Bobby was confounded at the sudden change that had come over his fortunes; but seeing that resistance would be vain, he resolved to submit with the best grace he could. "I should like to know what all this means?" he inquired, indignantly. The crowd laughed in derision. "This is the chap that stole the wallet, I will be bound," said one, pointing to Tom, who stood in surly silence awaiting his fate. "He is the one who came into the store," replied the shopkeeper. "_I_ haven't stole any wallet," protested Bobby, who now understood the whole affair. The names of the two boys were taken, and warrants procured for their detention. They were searched, and upon Tom was found the lost wallet, and upon Bobby two ten dollar bills, which the loser was willing to swear had been in the wallet. The evidence therefore was conclusive, and they were both sent to jail. Poor Bobby! the inmate of a prison! The law took its course, and in due time both of them were sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the State Reform School. Bobby was innocent, but he could not make his innocence appear. He had been the companion of Tom, the real thief, and part of the money had been found upon his person. Tom was too mean to exonerate him, and even had the hardihood to exult over his misfortune. At the end of three days they reached the town in which the Reform School is located, and were duly committed for their long term. Poor Bobby! CHAPTER XVIII IN WHICH BOBBY TAKES FRENCH LEAVE, AND CAMPS IN THE WOODS The intelligence of Bobby's misfortune reached Mr. Bayard, in Boston, by means of the newspapers. To the country press an item is a matter of considerable importance, and the alleged offence against the peace and dignity of the State of Maine was duly heralded to the inquiring public as a "daring robbery." The reporter who furnished the facts in the case for publication was not entirely devoid of that essential qualification of the country item writer, a lively imagination, and was obliged to dress up the particulars a little, in order to produce the necessary amount of wonder and indignation. It was stated that one of the two young men had been prowling about the place for several days, ostensibly for the purpose of selling books, but really with the intention of stealing whatever he could lay his hands upon. It was suggested that the boys were in league with an organized band of robbers, whose nefarious purposes would be defeated by the timely arrest of these young villains. The paper hinted that further depredations would probably be discovered, and warned people to beware of ruffians strolling about the country in the guise of pedlers. The writer of this thrilling paragraph must have had reason to believe that he had discharged his whole duty to the public, and that our hero was duly branded as a desperate fellow. No doubt he believed Bobby was an awful monster; for at the conclusion of his remarks he introduced some severe strictures on the lenity of the magistrate, because he had made the sentence two years, instead of five, which the writer thought the atrocious crime deserved. But, then, the justice differed from him in politics, which may account for the severity of the article. Mr. Bayard read this precious paragraph with mingled grief and indignation. He understood the case at a glance. Tom Spicer had joined him, and the little merchant had been involved in his crime. He was sure that Bobby had had no part in stealing the money. One so noble and true as he had been could not steal, he reasoned. It was contrary to experience, contrary to common sense. He was very much disturbed. This intelligence would be a severe blow to the poor boy's mother, and he had not the courage to destroy all her bright hopes by writing her the terrible truth. He was confident that Bobby was innocent, and that his being in the company of Tom Spicer had brought the imputation upon him; so he could not let the matter take its course. He was determined to do something to procure his liberty and restore his reputation. Squire Lee was in the city that day, and had left his store only half an hour before he discovered the paragraph. He immediately sent to his hotel for him, and together they devised means to effect Bobby's liberation. The squire was even more confident than Mr. Bayard that our hero was innocent of the crime charged upon him. They agreed to proceed immediately to the State of Maine, and use their influence in obtaining his pardon. The bookseller was a man of influence in the community, and was as well known in Maine as in Massachusetts; but to make their application the surer, he procured letters of introduction from some of the most distinguished men in Boston to the governor and other official persons in Maine. We will leave them now to do the work they had so generously undertaken, and return to the Reform School, where Bobby and Tom were confined. The latter took the matter very coolly. He seemed to feel that he deserved his sentence, but he took a malicious delight in seeing Bobby the companion of his captivity. He even had the hardihood to remind him of the blow he had struck him more than two months before, telling him that he had vowed vengeance then, and now the time had come. He was satisfied. "You know I didn't steal the money, or have anything to do with it," said Bobby. "Some of it was found upon you, though," sneered Tom, maliciously. "You know how it came there, if no one else does." "Of course I do; but I like your company too well to get rid of you so easy." "The Lord is with the innocent," replied Bobby; "and something tells me that I shall not stay in this place a great while." "Going to run away?" asked Tom, with interest, and suddenly dropping his malicious look. "I know I am innocent of any crime; and I know that the Lord will not let me stay here a great while." "What do you mean to do, Bob?" Bobby made no reply; he felt that he had had more confidence in Tom than he deserved, and he determined to keep his own counsel in future. He had a purpose in view. His innocence gave him courage; and perhaps he did not feel that sense of necessity for submission to the laws of the land which age and experience give. He prayed earnestly for deliverance from the place in which he was confined. He felt that he did not deserve to be there; and though it was a very comfortable place, and the boys fared as well as he wished to fare, still it seemed to him like a prison. He was unjustly detained; and he not only prayed to be delivered, but he resolved to work out his own deliverance at the first opportunity. Knowing that whatever he had would be taken from him, he resolved by some means to keep possession of the twenty dollars he had about him. He had always kept his money in a secret place in his jacket to guard against accident, and the officers who had searched him had not discovered it. But now his clothes would be changed. He thought of these things before his arrival; so, when he reached the entrance, and got out of the wagon, to open the gate, by order of the officer, he slipped his twenty dollars into a hole in the wall. It so happened that there was not a suit of clothes in the store room of the institution which would fit him; and he was permitted to wear his own dress till another should be made. After his name and description had been entered, and the superintendent had read him a lecture upon his future duties, he was permitted to join the other boys, who were at work on the farm. He was sent with half a dozen others to pick up stones in a neighboring field. No officer was with them, and Bobby was struck with the apparent freedom of the institution, and he so expressed himself to his companions. "Not so much freedom as you think for," said one, in reply. "I should think the fellows would clear out." "Not so easy a matter. There is a standing reward of five dollars to any one who brings back a runaway." "They must catch him first." "No fellow ever got away yet. They always caught him before he got ten miles from the place." This was an important suggestion to Bobby, who already had a definite purpose in his mind. Like a skilful general, he had surveyed the ground on his arrival, and was at once prepared to execute his design. In his conversation with the boys, he obtained the history of several who had attempted to escape, and found that even those who got a fair start were taken on some public road. He perceived that they were not good generals, and he determined to profit by their mistake. A short distance from the institution was what appeared to be a very extensive wood. Beyond this, many miles distant, he could see the ocean glittering like a sheet of ice under the setting sun. He carefully observed the hills, and obtained the bearings of various prominent objects in the vicinity which would aid him in his flight. The boys gave him all the information in their power about the localities of the country. They seemed to feel that he was possessed of a superior spirit, and that he would not long remain among them; but, whatever they thought, they kept their own counsel. Bobby behaved well, and was so intelligent and prompt that he obtained the confidence of the superintendent, who began to employ him about the house, and in his own family. He was sent of errands in the neighborhood, and conducted himself so much to the satisfaction of his guardians that he was not required to work in the field after the second day of his residence on the farm. One afternoon he was told that his clothes were ready, and that he might put them on the next morning. This was a disagreeable announcement; for Bobby saw that, with the uniform of the institution upon his back, his chance of escape would be very slight. But about sunset, he was sent by the superintendent's lady to deliver a note at a house in the vicinity. "Now or never!" said Bobby to himself, after he had left the house. "Now's my time." As he passed the gate, he secured his money, and placed it in the secret receptacle of his jacket. After he had delivered the letter, he took the road and hastened off in the direction of the wood. His heart beat wildly at the prospect of once more meeting his mother, after nearly four weeks' absence. Annie Lee would welcome him; she would not believe that he was a thief. He had been four days an inmate of the Reform School, and nothing but the hope of soon attaining his liberty had kept his spirits from drooping. He had not for a moment despaired of getting away. He reached the entrance to the wood, and taking a cart path, began to penetrate its hidden depths. The night darkened upon him; he heard the owl screech his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will chant his cheery song. A certain sense of security now pervaded his mind, for the darkness concealed him from the world, and he had placed six good miles between him and the prison, as he considered it. He walked on, however, till he came to what seemed to be the end of the wood, and he hoped to reach the blue ocean he had seen in the distance before morning. Leaving the forest, he emerged into the open country. There was here and there a house before him; but the aspect of the country seemed strangely familiar to him. He could not understand it. He had never been in this part of the country before; yet there was a great house with two barns by the side of it, which he was positive he had seen before. He walked across the field a little farther, when, to his astonishment and dismay, he beheld the lofty turrets of the State Reform School. He had been walking in a circle, and had come out of the forest near the place where he had entered it. Bobby, as the reader has found out by this time, was a philosopher as well as a hero; and instead of despairing or wasting his precious time in vain regrets at his mistake, he laughed a little to himself at the blunder, and turned back into the woods again. "Now or never!" muttered he. "It will never do to give it up so." For an hour he walked on, with his eyes fixed on a great bright star in the sky. Then he found that the cart path crooked round, and he discovered where he had made his blunder. Leaving the road, he made his way in a straight line, still guided by the star, till he came to a large sheet of water. The sheet of water was an effectual barrier to his farther progress; indeed, he was so tired he did not feel able to walk any more. He deemed himself safe from immediate pursuit in this secluded place. He needed rest, and he foresaw that the next few days would be burdened with fatigue and hardship which he must be prepared to meet. Bobby was not nice about trifles, and his habits were such that he had no fear of taking cold. His comfortable bed in the little black house was preferable to the cold ground, even with the primeval forest for a chamber; but circumstances alter cases, and he did not waste any vain regrets about the necessity of his position. After finding a secluded spot in the wood, he raked the dry leaves together for a bed, and offering his simple but fervent prayer to the Great Guardian above, he lay down to rest. The owl screamed his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will still repeated his monotonous song; but they were good company in the solitude of the dark forest. He could not go to sleep for a time, so strange and exciting were the circumstances of his position. He thought of a thousand things, but he could not _think_ himself to sleep, as he was wont to do. At last nature, worn out by fatigue and anxiety, conquered the circumstances, and he slept. CHAPTER XIX IN WHICH BOBBY HAS A NARROW ESCAPE, AND GOES TO SEA WITH SAM RAY Nature was kind to the little pilgrim in his extremity, and kept his senses sealed in grateful slumber till the birds had sung their matin song, and the sun had risen high in the heavens. Bobby woke with a start, and sprang to his feet. For a moment he did not realize where he was, or remember the exciting incidents of the previous evening. He felt refreshed by his deep slumber, and came out of it as vigorous as though he had slept in his bed at home. Rubbing his eyes, he stared about him at the tall pines whose foliage canopied his bed, and his identity was soon restored to him. He was Bobby Bright--but Bobby Bright in trouble. He was not the little merchant, but the little fugitive fleeing from the prison to which he had been doomed. It did not take him long to make his toilet, which was the only advantage of his primitive style of lodging. His first object was to examine his position, and ascertain in what direction he should continue his flight. He could not go ahead, as he had intended, for the sheet of water was an impassable barrier. Leaving the dense forest, he came to a marsh, beyond which was the wide creek he had seen in the night. It was salt water, and he reasoned that it could not extend a great way inland. His only course was to follow it till he found means of crossing it. Following the direction of the creek he kept near the margin of the wood till he came to a public road. He had some doubts about trusting himself out of the forest, even for a single moment; so he seated himself upon a rock to argue the point. If any one should happen to come along, he was almost sure of furnishing a clew to his future movements, if not of being immediately captured. This was a very strong argument, but there was a stronger one upon the other side. He had eaten nothing since dinner on the preceding day, and he began to feel faint for the want of food. On the other side of the creek he saw a pasture which looked as though it might afford him a few berries; and he was on the point of taking to the road, when he heard the rumbling of a wagon in the distance. His heart beat with apprehension. Perhaps it was some officer of the institution in search of him. At any rate it was some one who had come from the vicinity of the Reform School, and who had probably heard of his escape. As it came nearer, he heard the jingling of bells; it was the baker. How he longed for a loaf of his bread, or some of the precious gingerbread he carried in his cart! Hunger tempted him to run the risk of exposure. He had money; he could buy cakes and bread; and perhaps the baker had a kind heart, and would befriend him in his distress. The wagon was close at hand. "Now or never," thought he; but this time it was not _now_. The risk was too great. If he failed now, two years of captivity were before him; and as for the hunger, he could grin and bear it for a while. "Now or never;" but this time it was escape now or never; and he permitted the baker to pass without hailing him. He waited half an hour, and then determined to take the road till he had crossed the creek. The danger was great, but the pangs of hunger urged him on. He was sure there were berries in the pasture, and with a timid step, carefully watching before and behind to insure himself against surprise, he crossed the bridge. But then a new difficulty presented itself. There was a house within ten rods of the bridge, which he must pass, and to do so would expose him to the most imminent peril. He was on the point of retreating, when a man came out of the house, and approached him. What should he do? It was a trying moment. If he ran, the act would expose him to suspicion. If he went forward, the man might have already received a description of him, and arrest him. He chose the latter course. The instinct of his being was to do everything in a straightforward manner, and this probably prompted his decision. "Good morning, sir," said he boldly to the man. "Good morning. Where are you travelling?" This was a hard question. He did not know where he was travelling; besides, even in his present difficult position, he could not readily resort to a lie. "Down here a piece," he replied. "Travelled far to-day?" "Not far. Good morning, sir;" and Bobby resumed his walk. "I say, boy, suppose you tell me where you are going;" and the man came close to him, and deliberately surveyed him from head to foot. "I can hardly tell you," replied Bobby, summoning courage for the occasion. "Well, I suppose not," added the man, with a meaning smile. Bobby felt his strength desert him as he realized that he was suspected of being a runaway from the Reform School. That smile on the man's face was the knell of hope; and for a moment he felt a flood of misery roll over his soul. But the natural elasticity of his spirits soon came to his relief, and he resolved not to give up the ship, even if he had to fight for it. "I am in a hurry, so I shall have to leave you." "Not just yet, young man. Perhaps, as you don't know where you are going, you may remember what your name is," continued the man, good naturedly. There was a temptation to give a false name; but as it was so strongly beaten into our hero that the truth is better than a falsehood, he held his peace. "Excuse me, sir, but I can't stop to talk now." "In a hurry? Well, I dare say you are. I suppose there is no doubt but you are Master Robert Bright." "Not the least, sir; I haven't denied it yet, and I am not ashamed of my name," replied Bobby, with a good deal of spirit. "That's honest; I like that." "'Honesty is the best policy,'" added Bobby. "That's cool for a rogue, anyhow. You ought to thought of that afore." "I did." "And stole the money?" "I didn't. I never stole a penny in my life." "Come, I like that." "It is the truth." "But they won't believe it over to the Reform School," laughed the man. "They will one of these days, perhaps." "You are a smart youngster; but I don't know as I can make five dollars any easier than by taking you back where you come from." "Yes, you can," replied Bobby, promptly. "Can I?" "Yes." "How?" "By letting me go." "Eh; you talk flush. I suppose you mean to give me your note, payable when the Kennebec dries up." "Cash on the nail," replied Bobby. "You look like a man with a heart in your bosom,"--Bobby stole this passage from "The Wayfarer." "I reckon I have. The time hasn't come yet when Sam Ray could see a fellow-creature in distress and not help him out. But to help a thief off----" "We will argue that matter," interposed Bobby. "I can prove to you beyond a doubt that I am innocent of the crime charged upon me." "You don't look like a bad boy, I must say." "But, Mr. Ray, I'm hungry; I haven't eaten a mouthful since yesterday noon." "Thunder! You don't say so!" exclaimed Sam Ray. "I never could bear to see a man hungry, much more a boy; so come along to my house and get something to eat, and we will talk about the other matter afterwards." Sam Ray took Bobby to the little old house in which he dwelt; and in a short time his wife, who expressed her sympathy for the little fugitive in the warmest terms, had placed an abundant repast upon the table. Our hero did ample justice to it, and when he had finished he felt like a new creature. "Now, Mr. Ray, let me tell you my story," said Bobby. "I don't know as it's any use. Now you have eat my bread and butter, I don't feel like being mean to you. If anybody else wants to carry you back, they may; I won't." "But you shall hear me;" and Bobby proceeded to deliver his "plain, unvarnished tale." When he had progressed but a little way in the narrative, the noise of an approaching vehicle was heard. Sam looked out of the window, as almost everybody does in the country when a carriage passes. "By thunder! It's the Reform School wagon!" exclaimed he. "This way, boy!" and the good-hearted man thrust him into his chamber, bidding him get under the bed. The carriage stopped at the house; but Sam evaded a direct reply, and the superintendent--for it was he--proceeded on his search. "Heaven bless you, Mr. Ray!" exclaimed Bobby, when he came out of the chamber, as the tears of gratitude coursed down his cheeks. "O, you will find Sam Ray all right," said he, warmly pressing Bobby's proffered hand. "I ain't quite a heathen, though some folks around here think so." "You are an angel!" "Not exactly," laughed Sam. Our hero finished his story, and confirmed it by exhibiting his account book and some other papers which he had retained. Sam Ray was satisfied, and vowed that if ever he saw Tom Spicer he would certainly "lick" him for his sake. "Now, sonny, I like you; I will be sworn you are a good fellow; and I mean to help you off. So just come along with me. I make my living by browsing round, hunting and fishing a little, and doing an odd job now and then. You see, I have got a good boat down the creek, and I shall just put you aboard and take you anywhere you have a mind to go." "May Heaven reward you!" cried Bobby, almost overcome by this sudden and unexpected kindness. "O, I don't want no reward; only when you get to be a great man--and I am dead sure you will be a great man--just think now and then of Sam Ray, and it's all right." "I shall remember you with gratitude as long as I live." Sam Ray took his gun on his shoulder, and Bobby the box of provisions which Mrs. Ray had put up, and they left the house. At the bridge they got into a little skiff, and Sam took the oars. After they had passed a bend in the creek which concealed them from the road, Bobby felt secure from further molestation. Sam pulled about two miles down the creek, where it widened into a broad bay, near the head of which was anchored a small schooner. "Now, my hearty, nothing short of Uncle Sam's whole navy can get you away from me," said Sam, as he pulled alongside the schooner. "You have been very kind to me." "All right, sonny. Now tumble aboard." Bobby jumped upon the deck of the little craft and Sam followed him, after making fast the skiff to the schooner's moorings. In a few minutes the little vessel was standing down the bay with "a fresh wind and a flowing sheet." Bobby, who had never been in a sail boat before, was delighted, and in no measured terms expressed his admiration of the working of the trim little craft. "Now, sonny, where shall we go?" asked Sam, as they emerged from the bay into the broad ocean. "I don't know," replied Bobby. "I want to get back to Boston." "Perhaps I can put you aboard of some coaster bound there." "That will do nicely." "I will head towards Boston, and if I don't overhaul anything, I will take you there myself." "Is this boat big enough to go so far?" "She'll stand anything short of a West India hurricane. You ain't afeard, are you?" "O, no; I like it." The big waves now tossed the little vessel up and down like a feather, and the huge seas broke upon the bow, deluging her deck with floods of water. Bobby had unlimited confidence in Sam Ray, and felt as much at home as though he had been "cradled upon the briny deep." There was an excitement in the scene which accorded with his nature, and the perils which he had so painfully pictured on the preceding night were all born into the most lively joys. They ate their dinners from the provision box; Sam lighted his pipe, and many a tale he told of adventure by sea and land. Bobby felt happy, and almost dreaded the idea of parting with his rough but good-hearted friend. They were now far out at sea, and the night was coming on. "Now, sonny, you had better turn in and take a snooze; you didn't rest much last night." "I am not sleepy; but there is one thing I will do;" and Bobby drew from his secret receptacle his roll of bills. "Put them up, sonny," said Sam. "I want to make you a present of ten dollars." "You can't do it." "Nay, but to please me." "No, sir!" "Well, then, let me send it to your good wife." "You can't do that, nuther," replied Sam, gazing earnestly at a lumber-laden schooner ahead of him. "You must; your good heart made you lose five dollars, and I insist upon making it up to you." "You can't do it." "I shall feel bad if you don't take it. You see I have twenty dollars here, and I would like to give you the whole of it." "Not a cent, sonny. I ain't a heathen. That schooner ahead is bound for Boston, I reckon." "I shall be sorry to part with you, Mr. Ray." "Just my sentiment. I hain't seen a youngster afore for many a day that I took a fancy to, and I hate to let you go." "We shall meet again." "I hope so." "Please to take this money." "No;" and Sam shook his head so resolutely that Bobby gave up the point. As Sam had conjectured, the lumber schooner was bound to Boston. Her captain readily agreed to take our hero on board, and he sadly bade adieu to his kind friend. "Good by, Mr. Ray," said Bobby, as the schooner filled away. "Take this to remember me by." It was his jackknife; but Sam did not discover the ten dollar bill, which was shut beneath the blade, till it was too late to return it. Bobby did not cease to wave his hat to Sam till his little craft disappeared in the darkness. CHAPTER XX IN WHICH THE CLOUDS BLOW OVER, AND BOBBY IS HIMSELF AGAIN Fortunately for Bobby, the wind began to blow very heavily soon after he went on board of the lumber schooner, so that the captain was too much engaged in working his vessel to ask many questions. He was short handed, and though our hero was not much of a sailor he made himself useful to the best of his ability. Though the wind was heavy, it was not fair; and it was not till the third morning after his parting with Sam Ray that the schooner arrived off Boston Light. The captain then informed him that, as the tide did not favor him, he might not get up to the city for twenty-four hours; and, if he was in a hurry, he would put him on board a pilot boat which he saw standing up the channel. "Thank you, captain; you are very kind, but it would give you a great deal of trouble," said Bobby. "None at all. We must wait here till the tide turns; so we have nothing better to do." "I should be very glad to get up this morning." "You shall, then;" and the captain ordered two men to get out the jolly boat. "I will pay my passage now, if you please." "That is paid." "Paid?" "I should say you had worked your passage. You have done very well, and I shall not charge you anything." "I expected to pay my passage, captain; but if you think I have done enough to pay it, why I have nothing to say, only that I am very much obliged to you." "You ought to be a sailor, young man; you were cut out for one." "I like the sea, though I never saw it till a few weeks since. But I suppose my mother would not let me go to sea." "I suppose not; mothers are always afraid of salt water." By this time the jolly boat was alongside; and bidding the captain adieu, he jumped into it, and the men pulled him to the pilot boat, which had come up into the wind at the captain's hail. Bobby was kindly received on board, and in a couple of hours landed at the wharf in Boston. With a beating heart he made his way up into Washington Street. He felt strangely; his cheeks seemed to tingle, for he was aware that the imputation of dishonesty was fastened upon him. He could not doubt but that the story of his alleged crime had reached the city, and perhaps gone to his friends in Riverdale. How his poor mother must have wept to think her son was a thief! No; she never could have thought that. _She_ knew he would not steal, if no one else did. And Annie Lee--would she ever smile upon him again? Would she welcome him to her father's house so gladly as she had done in the past? He could bring nothing to establish his innocence but his previous character. Would not Mr. Bayard frown upon him? Would not even Ellen be tempted to forget the service he had rendered her? Bobby had thought of all these things before--on his cold, damp bed in the forest, in the watches of the tempestuous night on board the schooner. But now, when he was almost in the presence of those he loved and respected, they had more force, and they nearly overwhelmed him. "I am innocent," he repeated to himself, "and why need I fear? My good Father in heaven will not let me be wronged." Yet he could not overcome his anxiety; and when he reached the store of Mr. Bayard, he passed by, dreading to face the friend who had been so kind to him. He could not bear even to be suspected of a crime by him. "Now or never," said he, as he turned round. "I will know my fate at once, and then make the best of it." Mustering all his courage, he entered the store. Mr. Timmins was not there; so he was spared the infliction of any ill-natured remark from him. "Hallo, Bobby!" exclaimed the gentlemanly salesman, whose acquaintance he had made on his first visit. "Good morning, Mr. Bigelow," replied Bobby with as much boldness as he could command. "I didn't know as I should ever see you again. You have been gone a long while." "Longer than usual," answered Bobby, with a blush; for he considered the remark of the salesman as an allusion to his imprisonment. "Is Mr. Bayard in?" "He is--in his office." Bobby's feet would hardly obey the mandate of his will, and with a faltering step he entered the private room of the bookseller. Mr. Bayard was absorbed in the perusal of the morning paper, and did not observe his entrance. With his heart up in his throat, and almost choking him, he stood for several minutes upon the threshold. He almost feared to speak, dreading the severe frown with which he expected to be received. Suspense, however, was more painful than condemnation, and he brought his resolution up to the point. "Mr. Bayard," said he, in faltering tones. "Bobby!" exclaimed the bookseller, dropping his paper upon the floor, and jumping upon his feet as though an electric current had passed through his frame. Grasping our hero's hand, he shook it with so much energy that, under any other circumstances, Bobby would have thought it hurt him. He did not think so now. "My poor Bobby! I am delighted to see you!" continued Mr. Bayard. Bobby burst into tears, and sobbed like a child, as he was. The unexpected kindness of this reception completely overwhelmed him. "Don't cry, Bobby; I know all about it;" and the tender-hearted bookseller wiped away his tears. "It was a stroke of misfortune; but it is all right now." But Bobby could not help crying, and the more Mr. Bayard attempted to console him, the more he wept. "I am innocent, Mr. Bayard," he sobbed. "I know you are, Bobby; and all the world knows you are." "I am ruined now; I shall never dare to hold my head up again." "Nonsense, Bobby; you will hold your head the higher. You have behaved like a hero." "I ran away from the State Reform School, sir. I was innocent, and I would rather have died than stayed there." "I know all about it, my young friend. Now dry your tears, and we will talk it all over." Bobby blew and sputtered a little more; but finally he composed himself, and took a chair by Mr. Bayard's side. The bookseller then drew from his pocket a ponderous document, with a big official seal upon it, and exhibited it to our hero. "Do you see this, Bobby? It is your free and unconditional pardon." "Sir! Why----" "It will all end well, you may depend." Bobby was amazed. His pardon? But it would not restore his former good name. He felt that he was branded as a felon. It was not mercy, but justice, that he wanted. "Truth is mighty, and will prevail," continued Mr. Bayard; "and this document restores your reputation." "I can hardly believe that." "Can't you? Hear my story then. When I read in one of the Maine papers the account of your misfortune, I felt that you had been grossly wronged. You were coupled with that Tom Spicer, who is the most consummate little villain I ever saw, and I understood your situation. Ah, Bobby, your only mistake was in having anything to do with that fellow." "I left him at Brunswick because he began to behave badly; but he joined me again at Augusta. He had spent nearly all his money, and did not know what to do. I pitied him, and meant to do something to help him out of the scrape." "Generous as ever! I have heard all about this before." "Indeed; who told you?" "Tom Spicer himself." "Tom?" asked Bobby, completely mystified. "Yes, Tom; you see, when I heard about your trouble, Squire Lee and myself----" "Squire Lee? Does he know about it?" "He does; and you may depend upon it, he thinks more highly of you than ever before. He and I immediately went down to Augusta to inquire into the matter. We called upon the governor of the state, who said that he had seen you, and bought a book of you." "Of me!" exclaimed Bobby, startled to think he had sold a book to a governor. "Yes; you called at his house; probably you did not know that he was the chief magistrate of the state. At any rate, he was very much pleased with you, and sorry to hear of your misfortune. Well, we followed your route to Brunswick, where we ascertained how Tom had conducted. In a week he established a very bad reputation there; but nothing could be found to implicate you. The squire testified to your uniform good behavior, and especially to your devotion to your mother. In short, we procured your pardon, and hastened with it to the State Reform School. "On our arrival, we learned, to our surprise and regret, that you had escaped from the institution on the preceding evening. Every effort was made to retake you, but without success. Ah, Bobby, you managed that well." "They didn't look in the right place," replied Bobby, with a smile, for he began to feel happy again. "By the permission of the superintendent, Squire Lee and myself examined Tom Spicer. He is a great rascal. Perhaps he thought we would get him out; so he made a clean breast of it, and confessed that you had no hand in the robbery, and that you knew nothing about it. He gave you the two bills on purpose to implicate you in the crime. We wrote down his statement, and had it sworn to before a justice of the peace. You shall read it by and by." "May Heaven reward you for your kindness to a poor boy!" exclaimed Bobby, the tears flowing down his cheeks again. "I did not deserve so much from you, Mr. Bayard." "Yes, you did, and a thousand times more. I was very sorry you had left the institution, and I waited in the vicinity till they said there was no probability that you would be captured. The most extraordinary efforts were used to find you; but there was not a person to be found who had seen or heard of you. I was very much alarmed about you, and offered a hundred dollars for any information concerning you." "I am sorry you had so much trouble. I wish I had known you were there." "How did you get off?" Bobby briefly related the story of his escape, and Mr. Bayard pronounced his skill worthy of his genius. "Sam Ray is a good fellow; we will remember him," added the bookseller, when he had finished. "I shall remember him; and only that I shall be afraid to go into the State of Maine after what has happened, I should pay him a visit one of these days." "There you are wrong. Those who know your story would sooner think of giving you a public reception, than of saying or doing anything to injure your feelings. Those who have suffered unjustly are always lionized." "But no one will know my story, only that I was sent to prison for stealing." "There you are mistaken again. We put articles in all the principal papers, stating the facts in the case, and establishing your innocence beyond a peradventure. Go to Augusta now, Bobby, and you will be a lion." "I am sure I had no idea of getting out of the scrape so easily as this." "Innocence shall triumph, my young friend." "What does mother say?" asked Bobby, his countenance growing sad. "I do not know. We returned from Maine only yesterday; but Squire Lee will satisfy her. All that can worry her, as it has worried me, will be her fears for your safety when she hears of your escape." "I will soon set her mind at ease upon that point. I will take the noon train home." "A word about business before you go. I discharged Timmins about a week ago, and I have kept his place for you." "By gracious!" exclaimed Bobby, thrown completely out of his propriety by this announcement. "I think you will do better, in the long run, than you would to travel about the country. I was talking with Ellen about it, and she says it shall be so. Timmins's salary was five hundred dollars a year, and you shall have the same." "Five hundred dollars a year!" ejaculated Bobby, amazed at the vastness of the sum. "Very well for a boy of thirteen, Bobby." "I was fourteen last Sunday, sir." "I would not give any other boy so much; but you are worth it, and you shall have it." Probably Mr. Bayard's gratitude had something to do with this munificent offer; but he knew that our hero possessed abilities and energy far beyond his years. He further informed Bobby that he should have a room at his house, and that Ellen was delighted with the arrangement he proposed. The gloomy, threatening clouds were all rolled back, and floods of sunshine streamed in upon the soul of the little merchant; but in the midst of his rejoicing he remembered that his own integrity had carried him safely through the night of sorrow and doubt. He had been true to himself, and now, in the hour of his great triumph, he realized that, if he had been faithless to the light within him, his laurel would have been a crown of thorns. He was happy--very happy. What made him so? Not his dawning prosperity; not the favor of Mr. Bayard; not the handsome salary he was to receive; for all these things would have been but dross if he had sacrificed his integrity, his love of truth and uprightness. He had been true to himself, and unseen angels had held him up. He had been faithful, and the consciousness of his fidelity to principle made a heaven within his heart. It was arranged that he should enter upon the duties of his new situation on the following week. After settling with Mr. Bayard, he found he had nearly seventy dollars in his possession; so that in a pecuniary point of view, if in no other, his eastern excursion was perfectly satisfactory. By the noon train he departed for Riverdale, and in two hours more he was folded to his mother's heart. Mrs. Bright wept for joy now, as she had before wept in misery when she heard of her son's misfortune. It took him all the afternoon to tell his exciting story to her, and she was almost beside herself when Bobby told her about his new situation. After tea he hastened over to Squire Lee's; and my young readers can imagine what a warm reception he had from father and daughter. For the third time that day he narrated his adventures in the east; and Annie declared they were better than any novel she had ever read. Perhaps it was because Bobby was the hero. It was nearly ten o'clock before he finished his story; and when he left, the squire made him promise to come over the next day. CHAPTER XXI IN WHICH BOBBY STEPS OFF THE STAGE, AND THE AUTHOR MUST FINISH "NOW OR NEVER" The few days which Bobby remained at home before entering upon the duties of his new situation were agreeably filled up in calling upon his many friends, and in visiting those pleasant spots in the woods and by the river, which years of association had rendered dear to him. His plans for the future, too, occupied some of his time, though, inasmuch as his path of duty was already marked out, these plans were but little more than a series of fond imaginings; in short, little more than day dreams. I have before hinted that Bobby was addicted to castle building, and I should pity the man or boy who was not--who had no bright dream of future achievements, of future usefulness. "As a man thinketh, so is he," the Psalmist tells us, and it was the pen of inspiration which wrote it. What a man pictures as his ideal of that which is desirable in this world and the world to come, he will endeavor to attain. Even if it be no higher aim than the possession of wealth or fame, it is good and worthy as far as it goes. It fires his brain, it nerves his arm. It stimulates him to action, and action is the soul of progress. We must all work; and this world were cold and dull if it had no bright dreams to be realized. What Napoleon dreamed, he labored to accomplish, and the monarchs of Europe trembled before him. What Howard wished to be, he labored to be; his ideal was beautiful and true, and he raised a throne which will endure through eternity. Bobby dreamed great things. That bright picture of the little black house transformed into a white cottage, with green blinds, and surrounded by a pretty fence, was the nearest object; and before Mrs. Bright was aware that he was in earnest, the carpenters and the painters were upon the spot. "Now or never," replied Bobby to his mother's remonstrance. "This is your home, and it shall be the pleasantest spot upon earth, if I can make it so." Then he had to dream about his business in Boston and I am not sure but that he fancied himself a rich merchant, like Mr. Bayard, living in an elegant house in Chestnut Street, and having clerks and porters to do as he bade them. A great many young men dream such things, and though they seem a little silly when spoken out loud, they are what wood and water are to the steam engine--they are the mainspring of action. Some are stupid enough to dream about these things, and spend their time in idleness and dissipation, waiting for "the good time coming." It will never come to them. They are more likely to die in the almshouse or the state prison, than to ride in their carriages; for constant exertion is the price of success. Bobby enjoyed himself to the utmost of his capacity during these few days of respite from labor. He spent a liberal share of his time at Squire Lee's, where he was almost as much at home as in his mother's house. Annie read Moore's Poems to him, till he began to have quite a taste for poetry himself. In connection with Tom Spicer's continued absence, which had to be explained, Bobby's trials in the eastern country leaked out, and the consequence was, that he became a lion in Riverdale. The minister invited him to tea, as well as other prominent persons, for the sake of hearing his story; but Bobby declined the polite invitations from sheer bashfulness. He had not brass enough to make himself a hero; besides, the remembrance of his journey was anything but pleasant to him. On Monday morning he took the early train for Boston, and assumed the duties of his situation in Mr. Bayard's store. But as I have carried my hero through the eventful period of his life, I cannot dwell upon his subsequent career. He applied himself with all the energy of his nature to the discharge of his duties. Early in the morning and late in the evening he was at his post. Mr. Bigelow was his friend from the first, and gave him all the instruction he required. His intelligence and quick perception soon enabled him to master the details of the business, and by the time he was fifteen, he was competent to perform any service required of him. By the advice of Mr. Bayard, he attended an evening school for six months in the year, to acquire a knowledge of book keeping, and to compensate for the opportunities of which he had been necessarily deprived in his earlier youth. He took Dr. Franklin for his model, and used all his spare time in reading good books, and in obtaining such information and such mental culture as would fit him to be, not only a good merchant, but a good and true man. Every Saturday night he went home to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath with his mother. The little black house no longer existed, for it had become the little paradise of which he had dreamed, only that the house seemed whiter, the blinds greener, and the fence more attractive than his fancy had pictured them. His mother, after a couple of years, at Bobby's earnest pleadings, ceased to close shoes and take in washing; but she had enough and to spare, for her son's salary was now six hundred dollars. His kind employer boarded him for nothing (much against Bobby's will, I must say), so that every month he carried to his mother thirty dollars, which more than paid her expenses. * * * * * Eight years have passed by since Bobby--we beg his pardon, he is now Mr. Robert Bright--entered the store of Mr. Bayard. He has passed from the boy to the man. Over the street door a new sign has taken the place of the old one, and the passer-by reads,-- BAYARD & BRIGHT, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS. The senior partner resorts to his counting room every morning from the force of habit; but he takes no active part in the business. Mr. Bright has frequent occasion to ask his advice, though everything is directly managed by him; and the junior is accounted one of the ablest, but at the same time one of the most honest, business men in the city. His integrity has never been sacrificed, even to the emergencies of trade. The man is what the boy was; and we can best sum up the results of his life by saying that he has been true to himself, true to his friends, and true to his God. Mrs. Bright is still living at the little white cottage, happy in herself and happy in her children. Bobby--we mean Mr. Bright--has hardly missed going to Riverdale on a Saturday night since he left home, eight years before. He has the same partiality for those famous apple pies, and his mother would as soon think of being without bread as being without apple pies when he comes home. Of course Squire Lee and Annie were always glad to see him when he came to Riverdale; and for two years it had been common talk in Riverdale that our hero did not go home on Sunday evening when the clock struck nine. But as this is a forbidden topic, we will ask the reader to go with us to Mr. Bayard's house in Chestnut Street. What! Annie Lee here? No; but as you are here, allow me to introduce Mrs. Robert Bright. They were married a few months before, and Mr. Bayard insisted that the happy couple should make their home at his house. But where is Ellen Bayard? O, she is Mrs. Bigelow now, and her husband is at the head of a large book establishment in New York. Bobby's dream had been realized, and he was the happiest man in the world--at least he thought so, which is just the same thing. He had been successful in business; his wife--the friend and companion of his youth, the brightest filament of the bright vision his fancy had woven--had been won, and the future glowed with brilliant promises. He had been successful; but neither nor all of the things we have mentioned constituted his highest and truest success--not his business prosperity, not the bright promise of wealth in store for him, not his good name among men, not even the beautiful and loving wife who had cast her lot with his to the end of time. These were successes, great and worthy, but not the highest success. He had made himself a man,--this was his real success,--a true, a Christian man. He had lived a noble life. He had reared the lofty structure of his manhood upon a solid foundation--principle. It is the rock which the winds of temptation and the rains of selfishness cannot move. Robert Bright is happy because he is good. Tom Spicer, now in the state prison, is unhappy,--not _because_ he is in the state prison, but because the evil passions of his nature are at war with the peace of his soul. He has fed the good that was within him upon straw and husks, and starved it out. He is a body only; the soul is dead in trespasses and sin. He loves no one, and no one loves him. During the past summer, Mr. Bright and his lady took a journey "down east." Annie insisted upon visiting the State Reform School; and her husband drove through the forest by which he had made his escape on that eventful night. Afterwards they called upon Sam Ray, who had been "dead sure that Bobby would one day be a great man." He was about the same person, and was astonished and delighted when our hero introduced himself. They spent a couple of hours in talking over the past, and at his departure, Mr. Bright made him a handsome present in such a delicate manner that he could not help accepting it. Squire Lee is still as hale and hearty as ever, and is never so happy as when Annie and her husband come to Riverdale to spend the Sabbath. He is fully of the opinion that Mr. Bright is the greatest man on the western continent, and he would not be in the least surprised if he should be elected President of the United States one of these days. The little merchant is a great merchant now. But more than this, he is a good man. He has formed his character, and he will probably die as he has lived. Reader, if you have any good work to do, do it now; for with you it may be "NOW OR NEVER." 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19718	----	THE BOSTONIANS A NOVEL BY HENRY JAMES IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1921 _First published in 1886_ BOOK SECOND (_Continued_) XXIV A little more than an hour after this he stood in the parlour of Doctor Tarrant's suburban residence, in Monadnoc Place. He had induced a juvenile maid-servant, by an appeal somewhat impassioned, to let the ladies know that he was there; and she had returned, after a long absence, to say that Miss Tarrant would come down to him in a little while. He possessed himself, according to his wont, of the nearest book (it lay on the table, with an old magazine and a little japanned tray containing Tarrant's professional cards--his denomination as a mesmeric healer), and spent ten minutes in turning it over. It was a biography of Mrs. Ada T. P. Foat, the celebrated trance-lecturer, and was embellished by a portrait representing the lady with a surprised expression and innumerable ringlets. Ransom said to himself, after reading a few pages, that much ridicule had been cast upon Southern literature; but if that was a fair specimen of Northern!--and he threw it back upon the table with a gesture almost as contemptuous as if he had not known perfectly, after so long a residence in the North, that it was not, while he wondered whether this was the sort of thing Miss Tarrant had been brought up on. There was no other book to be seen, and he remembered to have read the magazine; so there was finally nothing for him, as the occupants of the house failed still to appear, but to stare before him, into the bright, bare, common little room, which was so hot that he wished to open a window, and of which an ugly, undraped cross-light seemed to have taken upon itself to reveal the poverty. Ransom, as I have mentioned, had not a high standard of comfort and noticed little, usually, how people's houses were furnished--it was only when they were very pretty that he observed; but what he saw while he waited at Doctor Tarrant's made him say to himself that it was no wonder Verena liked better to live with Olive Chancellor. He even began to wonder whether it were for the sake of that superior softness she had cultivated Miss Chancellor's favour, and whether Mrs. Luna had been right about her being mercenary and insincere. So many minutes elapsed before she appeared that he had time to remember he really knew nothing to the contrary, as well as to consider the oddity (so great when one did consider it) of his coming out to Cambridge to see her, when he had only a few hours in Boston to spare, a year and a half after she had given him her very casual invitation. She had not refused to receive him, at any rate; she was free to, if it didn't please her. And not only this, but she was apparently making herself fine in his honour, inasmuch as he heard a rapid footstep move to and fro above his head, and even, through the slightness which in Monadnoc Place did service for an upper floor, the sound of drawers and presses opened and closed. Some one was "flying round," as they said in Mississippi. At last the stairs creaked under a light tread, and the next moment a brilliant person came into the room. His reminiscence of her had been very pretty; but now that she had developed and matured, the little prophetess was prettier still. Her splendid hair seemed to shine; her cheek and chin had a curve which struck him by its fineness; her eyes and lips were full of smiles and greetings. She had appeared to him before as a creature of brightness, but now she lighted up the place, she irradiated, she made everything that surrounded her of no consequence; dropping upon the shabby sofa with an effect as charming as if she had been a nymph sinking on a leopard-skin, and with the native sweetness of her voice forcing him to listen till she spoke again. It was not long before he perceived that this added lustre was simply success; she was young and tender still, but the sound of a great applauding audience had been in her ears; it formed an element in which she felt buoyant and floated. Still, however, her glance was as pure as it was direct, and that fantastic fairness hung about her which had made an impression on him of old, and which reminded him of unworldly places--he didn't know where--convent-cloisters or vales of Arcady. At that other time she had been parti-coloured and bedizened, and she had always an air of costume, only now her costume was richer and more chastened. It was her line, her condition, part of her expression. If at Miss Birdseye's, and afterwards in Charles Street, she might have been a rope-dancer, to-day she made a "scene" of the mean little room in Monadnoc Place, such a scene as a prima donna makes of daubed canvas and dusty boards. She addressed Basil Ransom as if she had seen him the other week and his merits were fresh to her, though she let him, while she sat smiling at him, explain in his own rather ceremonious way why it was he had presumed to call upon her on so slight an acquaintance--on an invitation which she herself had had more than time to forget. His explanation, as a finished and satisfactory thing, quite broke down; there was no more impressive reason than that he had simply wished to see her. He became aware that this motive loomed large, and that her listening smile, innocent as it was, in the Arcadian manner, of mockery, seemed to accuse him of not having the courage of his inclination. He had alluded especially to their meeting at Miss Chancellor's; there it was that she had told him she should be glad to see him in her home. "Oh yes, I remember perfectly, and I remember quite as well seeing you at Miss Birdseye's the night before. I made a speech--don't you remember? That was delightful." "It was delightful indeed," said Basil Ransom. "I don't mean my speech; I mean the whole thing. It was then I made Miss Chancellor's acquaintance. I don't know whether you know how we work together. She has done so much for me." "Do you still make speeches?" Ransom asked, conscious, as soon as he had uttered it, that the question was below the mark. "Still? Why, I should hope so; it's all I'm good for! It's my life--or it's going to be. And it's Miss Chancellor's too. We are determined to do something." "And does she make speeches too?" "Well, she makes mine--or the best part of them. She tells me what to say--the real things, the strong things. It's Miss Chancellor as much as me!" said the singular girl, with a generous complacency which was yet half ludicrous. "I should like to hear you again," Basil Ransom rejoined. "Well, you must come some night. You will have plenty of chances. We are going on from triumph to triumph." Her brightness, her self-possession, her air of being a public character, her mixture of the girlish and the comprehensive, startled and confounded her visitor, who felt that if he had come to gratify his curiosity he should be in danger of going away still more curious than satiated. She added in her gay, friendly, trustful tone--the tone of facile intercourse, the tone in which happy, flower-crowned maidens may have talked to sunburnt young men in the golden age--"I am very familiar with your name; Miss Chancellor has told me all about you." "All about me?" Ransom raised his black eyebrows. "How could she do that? She doesn't know anything about me!" "Well, she told me you are a great enemy to our movement. Isn't that true? I think you expressed some unfavourable idea that day I met you at her house." "If you regard me as an enemy, it's very kind of you to receive me." "Oh, a great many gentlemen call," Verena said, calmly and brightly. "Some call simply to inquire. Some call because they have heard of me, or been present on some occasion when I have moved them. Every one is so interested." "And you have been in Europe," Ransom remarked, in a moment. "Oh yes, we went over to see if they were in advance. We had a magnificent time--we saw all the leaders." "The leaders?" Ransom repeated. "Of the emancipation of our sex. There are gentlemen there, as well as ladies. Olive had splendid introductions in all countries, and we conversed with all the earnest people. We heard much that was suggestive. And as for Europe!"--and the young lady paused, smiling at him and ending in a happy sigh, as if there were more to say on the subject than she could attempt on such short notice. "I suppose it's very attractive," said Ransom encouragingly. "It's just a dream!" "And did you find that they were in advance?" "Well, Miss Chancellor thought they were. She was surprised at some things we observed, and concluded that perhaps she hadn't done the Europeans justice--she has got such an open mind, it's as wide as the sea!--while I incline to the opinion that on the whole _we_ make the better show. The state of the movement there reflects their general culture, and their general culture is higher than ours (I mean taking the term in its broadest sense). On the other hand, the _special_ condition--moral, social, personal--of our sex seems to me to be superior in this country; I mean regarded in relation--in proportion as it were--to the social phase at large. I must add that we did see some noble specimens over there. In England we met some lovely women, highly cultivated, and of immense organising power. In France we saw some wonderful, contagious types; we passed a delightful evening with the celebrated Marie Verneuil; she was released from prison, you know, only a few weeks before. Our total impression was that it is only a question of time--the future is ours. But everywhere we heard one cry--'How long, O Lord, how long?'" Basil Ransom listened to this considerable statement with a feeling which, as the current of Miss Tarrant's facile utterance flowed on, took the form of an hilarity charmed into stillness by the fear of losing something. There was indeed a sweet comicality in seeing this pretty girl sit there and, in answer to a casual, civil inquiry, drop into oratory as a natural thing. Had she forgotten where she was, and did she take him for a full house? She had the same turns and cadences, almost the same gestures, as if she had been on the platform; and the great queerness of it was that, with such a manner, she should escape being odious. She was not odious, she was delightful; she was not dogmatic, she was genial. No wonder she was a success, if she speechified as a bird sings! Ransom could see, too, from her easy lapse, how the lecture-tone was the thing in the world with which, by education, by association, she was most familiar. He didn't know what to make of her; she was an astounding young phenomenon. The other time came back to him afresh, and how she had stood up at Miss Birdseye's; it occurred to him that an element, here, had been wanting. Several moments after she had ceased speaking he became conscious that the expression of his face presented a perceptible analogy to a broad grin. He changed his posture, saying the first thing that came into his head. "I presume you do without your father now." "Without my father?" "To set you going, as he did that time I heard you." "Oh, I see; you thought I had begun a lecture!" And she laughed, in perfect good humour. "They tell me I speak as I talk, so I suppose I talk as I speak. But you mustn't put me on what I saw and heard in Europe. That's to be the title of an address I am now preparing, by the way. Yes, I don't depend on father any more," she went on, while Ransom's sense of having said too sarcastic a thing was deepened by her perfect indifference to it. "He finds his patients draw off about enough, any way. But I owe him everything; if it hadn't been for him, no one would ever have known I had a gift--not even myself. He started me so, once for all, that I now go alone." "You go beautifully," said Ransom, wanting to say something agreeable, and even respectfully tender, to her, but troubled by the fact that there was nothing he could say that didn't sound rather like chaff. There was no resentment in her, however, for in a moment she said to him, as quickly as it occurred to her, in the manner of a person repairing an accidental omission, "It was very good of you to come so far." This was a sort of speech it was never safe to make to Ransom; there was no telling what retribution it might entail. "Do you suppose any journey is too great, too wearisome, when it's a question of so great a pleasure?" On this occasion it was not worse than that. "Well, people _have_ come from other cities," Verena answered, not with pretended humility, but with pretended pride. "Do you know Cambridge?" "This is the first time I have ever been here." "Well, I suppose you have heard of the university; it's so celebrated." "Yes--even in Mississippi. I suppose it's very fine." "I presume it is," said Verena; "but you can't expect me to speak with much admiration of an institution of which the doors are closed to our sex." "Do you then advocate a system of education in common?" "I advocate equal rights, equal opportunities, equal privileges. So does Miss Chancellor," Verena added, with just a perceptible air of feeling that her declaration needed support. "Oh, I thought what she wanted was simply a different inequality--simply to turn out the men altogether," Ransom said. "Well, she thinks we have great arrears to make up. I do tell her, sometimes, that what she desires is not only justice but vengeance. I think she admits that," Verena continued, with a certain solemnity. The subject, however, held her but an instant, and before Ransom had time to make any comment, she went on, in a different tone: "You don't mean to say you live in Mississippi _now_? Miss Chancellor told me when you were in Boston before, that you had located in New York." She persevered in this reference to himself, for when he had assented to her remark about New York, she asked him whether he had quite given up the South. "Given it up--the poor, dear, desolate old South? Heaven forbid!" Basil Ransom exclaimed. She looked at him for a moment with an added softness. "I presume it is natural you should love your home. But I am afraid you think I don't love mine much; I have been here--for so long--so little. Miss Chancellor _has_ absorbed me--there is no doubt about that. But it's a pity I wasn't with her to-day." Ransom made no answer to this; he was incapable of telling Miss Tarrant that if she had been he would not have called upon her. It was not, indeed, that he was not incapable of hypocrisy, for when she had asked him if he had seen his cousin the night before, and he had replied that he hadn't seen her at all, and she had exclaimed with a candour which the next minute made her blush, "Ah, you don't mean to say you haven't forgiven her!"--after this he put on a look of innocence sufficient to carry off the inquiry, "Forgiven her for what?" Verena coloured at the sound of her own words. "Well, I could see how much she felt, that time at her house." "What did she feel?" Basil Ransom asked, with the natural provokingness of a man. I know not whether Verena was provoked, but she answered with more spirit than sequence: "Well, you know you _did_ pour contempt on us, ever so much; I could see how it worked Olive up. Are you not going to see her at all?" "Well, I shall think about that; I am here only for three or four days," said Ransom, smiling as men smile when they are perfectly unsatisfactory. It is very possible that Verena was provoked, inaccessible as she was, in a general way, to irritation; for she rejoined in a moment, with a little deliberate air: "Well, perhaps it's as well you shouldn't go, if you haven't changed at all." "I haven't changed at all," said the young man, smiling still, with his elbows on the arms of his chair, his shoulders pushed up a little, and his thin brown hands interlocked in front of him. "Well, I have had visitors who were quite opposed!" Verena announced, as if such news could not possibly alarm her. Then she added, "How then did you know I was out here?" "Miss Birdseye told me." "Oh, I am so glad you went to see _her_!" the girl cried, speaking again with the impetuosity of a moment before. "I didn't go to see her. I met her in the street, just as she was leaving Miss Chancellor's door. I spoke to her, and accompanied her some distance. I passed that way because I knew it was the direct way to Cambridge--from the Common--and I was coming out to see you any way--on the chance." "On the chance?" Verena repeated. "Yes; Mrs. Luna, in New York, told me you were sometimes here, and I wanted, at any rate, to make the attempt to find you." It may be communicated to the reader that it was very agreeable to Verena to learn that her visitor had made this arduous pilgrimage (for she knew well enough how people in Boston regarded a winter journey to the academic suburb) with only half the prospect of a reward; but her pleasure was mixed with other feelings, or at least with the consciousness that the whole situation was rather less simple than the elements of her life had been hitherto. There was the germ of disorder in this invidious distinction which Mr. Ransom had suddenly made between Olive Chancellor, who was related to him by blood, and herself, who had never been related to him in any way whatever. She knew Olive by this time well enough to wish not to reveal it to her, and yet it would be something quite new for her to undertake to conceal such an incident as her having spent an hour with Mr. Ransom during a flying visit he had made to Boston. She had spent hours with other gentlemen, whom Olive didn't see; but that was different, because her friend knew about her doing it and didn't care, in regard to the persons--didn't care, that is, as she would care in this case. It was vivid to Verena's mind that now Olive _would_ care. She had talked about Mr. Burrage, and Mr. Pardon, and even about some gentlemen in Europe, and she had not (after the first few days, a year and a half before) talked about Mr. Ransom. Nevertheless there were reasons, clear to Verena's view, for wishing either that he would go and see Olive or would keep away from _her_; and the responsibility of treating the fact that he had not so kept away as a secret seemed the greater, perhaps, in the light of this other fact, that so far as simply seeing Mr. Ransom went--why, she quite liked it. She had remembered him perfectly after their two former meetings, superficial as their contact then had been; she had thought of him at moments and wondered whether she should like him if she were to know him better. Now, at the end of twenty minutes, she did know him better, and found that he had rather a curious, but still a pleasant way. There he was, at any rate, and she didn't wish his call to be spoiled by any uncomfortable implication of consequences. So she glanced off, at the touch of Mrs. Luna's name; it seemed to afford relief. "Oh yes, Mrs. Luna--isn't she fascinating?" Ransom hesitated a little. "Well, no, I don't think she is." "You ought to like her--she hates our movement!" And Verena asked, further, numerous questions about the brilliant Adeline; whether he saw her often, whether she went out much, whether she was admired in New York, whether he thought her very handsome. He answered to the best of his ability, but soon made the reflexion that he had not come out to Monadnoc Place to talk about Mrs. Luna; in consequence of which, to change the subject (as well as to acquit himself of a social duty), he began to speak of Verena's parents, to express regret that Mrs. Tarrant had been sick, and fear that he was not to have the pleasure of seeing her. "She is a great deal better," Verena said; "but she's lying down; she lies down a great deal when she has got nothing else to do. Mother's very peculiar," she added in a moment; "she lies down when she feels well and happy, and when she's sick she walks about--she roams all round the house. If you hear her on the stairs a good deal, you can be pretty sure she's very bad. She'll be very much interested to hear about you after you have left." Ransom glanced at his watch. "I hope I am not staying too long--that I am not taking you away from her." "Oh no; she likes visitors, even when she can't see them. If it didn't take her so long to rise, she would have been down here by this time. I suppose you think she has missed me, since I have been so absorbed. Well, so she has, but she knows it's for my good. She would make any sacrifice for affection." The fancy suddenly struck Ransom of asking, in response to this, "And you? would you make any?" Verena gave him a bright natural stare. "Any sacrifice for affection?" She thought a moment, and then she said: "I don't think I have a right to say, because I have never been asked. I don't remember ever to have had to make a sacrifice--not an important one." "Lord! you must have had a happy life!" "I have been very fortunate, I know that. I don't know what to do when I think how some women--how most women--suffer. But I must not speak of that," she went on, with her smile coming back to her. "If you oppose our movement, you won't want to hear of the suffering of women!" "The suffering of women is the suffering of all humanity," Ransom returned. "Do you think any movement is going to stop that--or all the lectures from now to doomsday? We are born to suffer--and to bear it, like decent people." "Oh, I adore heroism!" Verena interposed. "And as for women," Ransom went on, "they have one source of happiness that is closed to us--the consciousness that their presence here below lifts half the load of _our_ suffering." Verena thought this very graceful, but she was not sure it was not rather sophistical; she would have liked to have Olive's judgement upon it. As that was not possible for the present, she abandoned the question (since learning that Mr. Ransom had passed over Olive, to come to her, she had become rather fidgety), and inquired of the young man, irrelevantly, whether he knew any one else in Cambridge. "Not a creature; as I tell you, I have never been here before. Your image alone attracted me; this charming interview will be henceforth my only association with the place." "It's a pity you couldn't have a few more," said Verena musingly. "A few more interviews? I should be unspeakably delighted!" "A few more associations. Did you see the colleges as you came?" "I had a glimpse of a large enclosure, with some big buildings. Perhaps I can look at them better as I go back to Boston." "Oh yes, you ought to see them--they have improved so much of late. The inner life, of course, is the greatest interest, but there is some fine architecture, if you are not familiar with Europe." She paused a moment, looking at him with an eye that seemed to brighten, and continued quickly, like a person who had collected herself for a little jump, "If you would like to walk round a little, I shall be very glad to show you." "To walk round--with you to show me?" Ransom repeated. "My dear Miss Tarrant, it would be the greatest privilege--the greatest happiness--of my life. What a delightful idea--what an ideal guide!" Verena got up; she would go and put on her hat; he must wait a little. Her offer had a frankness and friendliness which gave him a new sensation, and he could not know that as soon as she had made it (though she had hesitated too, with a moment of intense reflexion), she seemed to herself strangely reckless. An impulse pushed her; she obeyed it with her eyes open. She felt as a girl feels when she commits her first conscious indiscretion. She had done many things before which many people would have called indiscreet, but that quality had not even faintly belonged to them in her own mind; she had done them in perfect good faith and with a remarkable absence of palpitation. This superficially ingenuous proposal to walk around the colleges with Mr. Ransom had really another colour; it deepened the ambiguity of her position, by reason of a prevision which I shall presently mention. If Olive was not to know that she had seen him, this extension of their interview would double her secret. And yet, while she saw it grow--this monstrous little mystery--she couldn't feel sorry that she was going out with Olive's cousin. As I have already said, she had become nervous. She went to put on her hat, but at the door of the room she stopped, turned round, and presented herself to her visitor with a small spot in either cheek, which had appeared there within the instant. "I have suggested this, because it seems to me I ought to do something for you--in return," she said. "It's nothing, simply sitting there with me. And we haven't got anything else. This is our only hospitality. And the day seems so splendid." The modesty, the sweetness, of this little explanation, with a kind of intimated desire, constituting almost an appeal, for rightness, which seemed to pervade it, left a fragrance in the air after she had vanished. Ransom walked up and down the room, with his hands in his pockets, under the influence of it, without taking up even once the book about Mrs. Foat. He occupied the time in asking himself by what perversity of fate or of inclination such a charming creature was ranting upon platforms and living in Olive Chancellor's pocket, or how a ranter and sycophant could possibly be so engaging. And she was so disturbingly beautiful, too. This last fact was not less evident when she came down arranged for their walk. They left the house, and as they proceeded he remembered that he had asked himself earlier how he could do honour to such a combination of leisure and ethereal mildness as he had waked up to that morning--a mildness that seemed the very breath of his own latitude. This question was answered now; to do exactly what he was doing at that moment was an observance sufficiently festive. XXV They passed through two or three small, short streets, which, with their little wooden houses, with still more wooden door-yards, looked as if they had been constructed by the nearest carpenter and his boy--a sightless, soundless, interspaced, embryonic region--and entered a long avenue which, fringed on either side with fresh villas, offering themselves trustfully to the public, had the distinction of a wide pavement of neat red brick. The new paint on the square detached houses shone afar off in the transparent air: they had, on top, little cupolas and belvederes, in front a pillared piazza, made bare by the indoor life of winter, on either side a bow-window or two, and everywhere an embellishment of scallops, brackets, cornices, wooden flourishes. They stood, for the most part, on small eminences, lifted above the impertinence of hedge or paling, well up before the world, with all the good conscience which in many cases came, as Ransom saw (and he had noticed the same ornament when he traversed with Olive the quarter of Boston inhabited by Miss Birdseye), from a silvered number, affixed to the glass above the door, in figures huge enough to be read by the people who, in the periodic horse-cars, travelled along the middle of the avenue. It was to these glittering badges that many of the houses on either side owed their principal identity. One of the horse-cars now advanced in the straight, spacious distance; it was almost the only object that animated the prospect, which, in its large cleanness, its implication of strict business-habits on the part of all the people who were not there, Ransom thought very impressive. As he went on with Verena he asked her about the Women's Convention, the year before; whether it had accomplished much work and she had enjoyed it. "What do you care about the work it accomplished?" said the girl. "You don't take any interest in that." "You mistake my attitude. I don't like it, but I greatly fear it." In answer to this Verena gave a free laugh. "I don't believe you fear much!" "The bravest men have been afraid of women. Won't you even tell me whether you enjoyed it? I am told you made an immense sensation there--that you leaped into fame." Verena never waved off an allusion to her ability, her eloquence; she took it seriously, without any flutter or protest, and had no more manner about it than if it concerned the goddess Minerva. "I believe I attracted considerable attention; of course, that's what Olive wants--it paves the way for future work. I have no doubt I reached many that wouldn't have been reached otherwise. They think that's my great use--to take hold of the outsiders, as it were; of those who are prejudiced or thoughtless, or who don't care about anything unless it's amusing. I wake up the attention." "That's the class to which I belong," Ransom said. "Am I not an outsider? I wonder whether you would have reached me--or waked up my attention!" Verena was silent awhile, as they walked; he heard the light click of her boots on the smooth bricks. Then--"I think I _have_ waked it up a little," she replied, looking straight before her. "Most assuredly! You have made me wish tremendously to contradict you." "Well, that's a good sign." "I suppose it was very exciting--your convention," Ransom went on, in a moment; "the sort of thing you would miss very much if you were to return to the ancient fold." "The ancient fold, you say very well, where women were slaughtered like sheep! Oh, last June, for a week, we just quivered! There were delegates from every State and every city; we lived in a crowd of people and of ideas; the heat was intense, the weather magnificent, and great thoughts and brilliant sayings flew round like darting fireflies. Olive had six celebrated, high-minded women staying in her house--two in a room; and in the summer evenings we sat in the open windows, in her parlour, looking out on the bay, with the lights gleaming in the water, and talked over the doings of the morning, the speeches, the incidents, the fresh contributions to the cause. We had some tremendously earnest discussions, which it would have been a benefit to you to hear, or any man who doesn't think that we can rise to the highest point. Then we had some refreshment--we consumed quantities of ice-cream!" said Verena, in whom the note of gaiety alternated with that of earnestness, almost of exaltation, in a manner which seemed to Basil Ransom absolutely and fascinatingly original. "Those were great nights!" she added, between a laugh and a sigh. Her description of the convention put the scene before him vividly; he seemed to see the crowded, overheated hall, which he was sure was filled with carpet-baggers, to hear flushed women, with loosened bonnet-strings, forcing thin voices into ineffectual shrillness. It made him angry, and all the more angry, that he hadn't a reason, to think of the charming creature at his side being mixed up with such elements, pushed and elbowed by them, conjoined with them in emulation, in unsightly strainings and clappings and shoutings, in wordy, windy iteration of inanities. Worst of all was the idea that she should have expressed such a congregation to itself so acceptably, have been acclaimed and applauded by hoarse throats, have been lifted up, to all the vulgar multitude, as the queen of the occasion. He made the reflexion, afterwards, that he was singularly ill-grounded in his wrath, inasmuch as it was none of his business what use Miss Tarrant chose to make of her energies, and, in addition to this, nothing else was to have been expected of her. But that reflexion was absent now, and in its absence he saw only the fact that his companion had been odiously perverted. "Well, Miss Tarrant," he said, with a deeper seriousness than showed in his voice, "I am forced to the painful conclusion that you are simply ruined." "Ruined? Ruined yourself!" "Oh, I know the kind of women that Miss Chancellor had at her house, and what a group you must have made when you looked out at the Back Bay! It depresses me very much to think of it." "We made a lovely, interesting group, and if we had had a spare minute we would have been photographed," Verena said. This led him to ask her if she had ever subjected herself to the process; and she answered that a photographer had been after her as soon as she got back from Europe, and that she had sat for him, and that there were certain shops in Boston where her portrait could be obtained. She gave him this information very simply, without pretence of vagueness of knowledge, spoke of the matter rather respectfully, indeed, as if it might be of some importance; and when he said that he should go and buy one of the little pictures as soon as he returned to town, contented herself with replying, "Well, be sure you pick out a good one!" He had not been altogether without a hope that she would offer to give him one, with her name written beneath, which was a mode of acquisition he would greatly have preferred; but this, evidently, had not occurred to her, and now, as they went further, her thought was following a different train. That was proved by her remarking, at the end of a silence, inconsequently, "Well, it showed I have a great use!" As he stared, wondering what she meant, she explained that she referred to the brilliancy of her success at the convention. "It proved I have a great use," she repeated, "and that is all I care for!" "The use of a truly amiable woman is to make some honest man happy," Ransom said, with a sententiousness of which he was perfectly aware. It was so marked that it caused her to stop short in the middle of the broad walk, while she looked at him with shining eyes. "See here, Mr. Ransom, do you know what strikes me?" she exclaimed. "The interest you take in me isn't really controversial--a bit. It's quite personal!" She was the most extraordinary girl; she could speak such words as those without the smallest look of added consciousness coming into her face, without the least supposable intention of coquetry, or any visible purpose of challenging the young man to say more. "My interest in you--my interest in you," he began. Then hesitating, he broke off suddenly. "It is certain your discovery doesn't make it any less!" "Well, that's better," she went on; "for we needn't dispute." He laughed at the way she arranged it, and they presently reached the irregular group of heterogeneous buildings--chapels, dormitories, libraries, halls--which, scattered among slender trees, over a space reserved by means of a low rustic fence, rather than enclosed (for Harvard knows nothing either of the jealousy or the dignity of high walls and guarded gateways), constitutes the great university of Massachusetts. The yard, or college-precinct, is traversed by a number of straight little paths, over which, at certain hours of the day, a thousand undergraduates, with books under their arm and youth in their step, flit from one school to another. Verena Tarrant knew her way round, as she said to her companion; it was not the first time she had taken an admiring visitor to see the local monuments. Basil Ransom, walking with her from point to point, admired them all, and thought several of them exceedingly quaint and venerable. The rectangular structures of old red brick especially gratified his eye; the afternoon sun was yellow on their homely faces; their windows showed a peep of flower-pots and bright-coloured curtains; they wore an expression of scholastic quietude, and exhaled for the young Mississippian a tradition, an antiquity. "This is the place where I ought to have been," he said to his charming guide. "I should have had a good time if I had been able to study here." "Yes; I presume you feel yourself drawn to any place where ancient prejudices are garnered up," she answered, not without archness. "I know by the stand you take about our cause that you share the superstitions of the old bookmen. You ought to have been at one of those really mediæval universities that we saw on the other side, at Oxford, or Göttingen, or Padua. You would have been in perfect sympathy with their spirit." "Well, I don't know much about those old haunts," Ransom rejoined. "I reckon this is good enough for me. And then it would have had the advantage that your residence isn't far, you know." "Oh, I guess we shouldn't have seen you much at my residence! As you live in New York, you come, but here you wouldn't; that is always the way." With this light philosophy Verena beguiled the transit to the library, into which she introduced her companion with the air of a person familiar with the sanctified spot. This edifice, a diminished copy of the chapel of King's College, at the greater Cambridge, is a rich and impressive institution; and as he stood there, in the bright, heated stillness, which seemed suffused with the odour of old print and old bindings, and looked up into the high, light vaults that hung over quiet book-laden galleries, alcoves and tables, and glazed cases where rarer treasures gleamed more vaguely, over busts of benefactors and portraits of worthies, bowed heads of working students and the gentle creak of passing messengers--as he took possession, in a comprehensive glance, of the wealth and wisdom of the place, he felt more than ever the soreness of an opportunity missed; but he abstained from expressing it (it was too deep for that), and in a moment Verena had introduced him to a young lady, a friend of hers, who, as she explained, was working on the catalogue, and whom she had asked for on entering the library, at a desk where another young lady was occupied. Miss Catching, the first-mentioned young lady, presented herself with promptness, offered Verena a low-toned but appreciative greeting, and, after a little, undertook to explain to Ransom the mysteries of the catalogue, which consisted of a myriad little cards, disposed alphabetically in immense chests of drawers. Ransom was deeply interested, and as, with Verena, he followed Miss Catching about (she was so good as to show them the establishment in all its ramifications), he considered with attention the young lady's fair ringlets and refined, anxious expression, saying to himself that this was in the highest degree a New England type. Verena found an opportunity to mention to him that she was wrapped up in the cause, and there was a moment during which he was afraid that his companion would expose him to her as one of its traducers; but there was that in Miss Catching's manner (and in the influence of the lofty halls) which deprecated loud pleasantry, and seemed to say, moreover, that if she were treated to such a revelation she should not know under what letter to range it. "Now there is one place where perhaps it would be indelicate to take a Mississippian," Verena said, after this episode. "I mean the great place that towers above the others--that big building with the beautiful pinnacles, which you see from every point." But Basil Ransom had heard of the great Memorial Hall; he knew what memories it enshrined, and the worst that he should have to suffer there; and the ornate, overtopping structure, which was the finest piece of architecture he had ever seen, had moreover solicited his enlarged curiosity for the last half-hour. He thought there was rather too much brick about it, but it was buttressed, cloistered, turreted, dedicated, superscribed, as he had never seen anything; though it didn't look old, it looked significant; it covered a large area, and it sprang majestic into the winter air. It was detached from the rest of the collegiate group, and stood in a grassy triangle of its own. As he approached it with Verena she suddenly stopped, to decline responsibility. "Now mind, if you don't like what's inside, it isn't my fault." He looked at her an instant, smiling. "Is there anything against Mississippi?" "Well, no, I don't think she is mentioned. But there is great praise of our young men in the war." "It says they were brave, I suppose." "Yes, it says so in Latin." "Well, so they were--I know something about that," Basil Ransom said. "I must be brave enough to face them--it isn't the first time." And they went up the low steps and passed into the tall doors. The Memorial Hall of Harvard consists of three main divisions: one of them a theatre, for academic ceremonies; another a vast refectory, covered with a timbered roof, hung about with portraits and lighted by stained windows, like the halls of the colleges of Oxford; and the third, the most interesting, a chamber high, dim, and severe, consecrated to the sons of the university who fell in the long Civil War. Ransom and his companion wandered from one part of the building to another, and stayed their steps at several impressive points; but they lingered longest in the presence of the white, ranged tablets, each of which, in its proud, sad clearness, is inscribed with the name of a student-soldier. The effect of the place is singularly noble and solemn, and it is impossible to feel it without a lifting of the heart. It stands there for duty and honour, it speaks of sacrifice and example, seems a kind of temple to youth, manhood, generosity. Most of them were young, all were in their prime, and all of them had fallen; this simple idea hovers before the visitor and makes him read with tenderness each name and place--names often without other history, and forgotten Southern battles. For Ransom these things were not a challenge nor a taunt; they touched him with respect, with the sentiment of beauty. He was capable of being a generous foeman, and he forgot, now, the whole question of sides and parties; the simple emotion of the old fighting-time came back to him, and the monument around him seemed an embodiment of that memory; it arched over friends as well as enemies, the victims of defeat as well as the sons of triumph. "It is very beautiful--but I think it is very dreadful!" This remark, from Verena, called him back to the present. "It's a real sin to put up such a building, just to glorify a lot of bloodshed. If it wasn't so majestic, I would have it pulled down." "That is delightful feminine logic!" Ransom answered. "If, when women have the conduct of affairs, they fight as well as they reason, surely for them too we shall have to set up memorials." Verena retorted that they would reason so well they would have no need to fight--they would usher in the reign of peace. "But this is very peaceful too," she added, looking about her; and she sat down on a low stone ledge, as if to enjoy the influence of the scene. Ransom left her alone for ten minutes; he wished to take another look at the inscribed tablets, and read again the names of the various engagements, at several of which he had been present. When he came back to her she greeted him abruptly, with a question which had no reference to the solemnity of the spot. "If Miss Birdseye knew you were coming out to see me, can't _she_ easily tell Olive? Then won't Olive make her reflexions about your neglect of herself?" "I don't care for her reflexions. At any rate, I asked Miss Birdseye, as a favour, not to mention to her that she had met me," Ransom added. Verena was silent a moment. "Your logic is most as good as a woman's. Do change your mind and go to see her now," she went on. "She will probably be at home by the time you get to Charles Street. If she was a little strange, a little stiff with you before (I know just how she must have been), all that will be different to-day." "Why will it be different?" "Oh, she will be easier, more genial, much softer." "I don't believe it," said Ransom; and his scepticism seemed none the less complete because it was light and smiling. "She is much happier now--she can afford not to mind you." "Not to mind me? That's a nice inducement for a gentleman to go and see a lady!" "Well, she will be more gracious, because she feels now that she is more successful." "You mean because she has brought you out? Oh, I have no doubt that has cleared the air for her immensely, and you have improved her very much. But I have got a charming impression out here, and I have no wish to put another--which won't be charming, anyhow you arrange it--on top of it." "Well, she will be sure to know you have been round here, at any rate," Verena rejoined. "How will she know, unless you tell her?" "I tell her everything," said the girl; and now as soon as she had spoken, she blushed. He stood before her, tracing a figure on the mosaic pavement with his cane, conscious that in a moment they had become more intimate. They were discussing their affairs, which had nothing to do with the heroic symbols that surrounded them; but their affairs had suddenly grown so serious that there was no want of decency in their lingering there for the purpose. The implication that his visit might remain as a secret between them made them both feel it differently. To ask her to keep it so would have been, as it seemed to Ransom, a liberty, and, moreover, he didn't care so much as that; but if she were to prefer to do so such a preference would only make him consider the more that his expedition had been a success. "Oh, then, you can tell her this!" he said in a moment. "If I shouldn't, it would be the first----" And Verena checked herself. "You must arrange that with your conscience," Ransom went on, laughing. They came out of the hall, passed down the steps, and emerged from the Delta, as that portion of the college precinct is called. The afternoon had begun to wane, but the air was filled with a pink brightness, and there was a cool, pure smell, a vague breath of spring. "Well, if I don't tell Olive, then you must leave me here," said Verena, stopping in the path and putting out a hand of farewell. "I don't understand. What has that to do with it? Besides I thought you said you _must_ tell," Ransom added. In playing with the subject this way, in enjoying her visible hesitation, he was slightly conscious of a man's brutality--of being pushed by an impulse to test her good-nature, which seemed to have no limit. It showed no sign of perturbation as she answered: "Well, I want to be free--to do as I think best. And, if there is a chance of my keeping it back, there mustn't be anything more--there must not, Mr. Ransom, really." "Anything more? Why, what are you afraid there will be--if I should simply walk home with you?" "I must go alone, I must hurry back to mother," she said, for all reply. And she again put out her hand, which he had not taken before. Of course he took it now, and even held it a moment; he didn't like being dismissed, and was thinking of pretexts to linger. "Miss Birdseye said you would convert me, but you haven't yet," it came into his head to say. "You can't tell yet; wait a little. My influence is peculiar; it sometimes comes out a long time afterwards!" This speech, on Verena's part, was evidently perfunctory, and the grandeur of her self-reference jocular; she was much more serious when she went on quickly, "Do you mean to say Miss Birdseye promised you that?" "Oh yes. Talk about influence! you should have seen the influence I obtained over her." "Well, what good will it do, if I'm going to tell Olive about your visit?" "Well, you see, I think she hopes you won't. She believes you are going to convert me privately--so that I shall blaze forth, suddenly, out of the darkness of Mississippi, as a first-class proselyte: very effective and dramatic." Verena struck Basil Ransom as constantly simple, but there were moments when her candour seemed to him preternatural. "If I thought that would be the effect, I might make an exception," she remarked, speaking as if such a result were, after all, possible. "Oh, Miss Tarrant, you will convert me enough, any way," said the young man. "Enough? What do you mean by enough?" "Enough to make me terribly unhappy." She looked at him a moment, evidently not understanding; but she tossed him a retort at a venture, turned away, and took her course homeward. The retort was that if he should be unhappy it would serve him right--a form of words that committed her to nothing. As he returned to Boston he saw how curious he should be to learn whether she had betrayed him, as it were, to Miss Chancellor. He might learn through Mrs. Luna; that would almost reconcile him to going to see her again. Olive would mention it in writing to her sister, and Adeline would repeat the complaint. Perhaps she herself would even make him a scene about it; that would be, for him, part of the unhappiness he had foretold to Verena Tarrant. XXVI "Mrs. Henry Burrage, at home Wednesday evening, March 26th, at half-past nine o'clock." It was in consequence of having received a card with these words inscribed upon it that Basil Ransom presented himself, on the evening she had designated, at the house of a lady he had never heard of before. The account of the relation of effect to cause is not complete, however, unless I mention that the card bore, furthermore, in the left-hand lower corner, the words: "An Address from Miss Verena Tarrant." He had an idea (it came mainly from the look and even the odour of the engraved pasteboard) that Mrs. Burrage was a member of the fashionable world, and it was with considerable surprise that he found himself in such an element. He wondered what had induced a denizen of that fine air to send him an invitation; then he said to himself that, obviously, Verena Tarrant had simply requested that this should be done. Mrs. Henry Burrage, whoever she might be, had asked her if she shouldn't like some of her own friends to be present, and she had said, Oh yes, and mentioned him in the happy group. She had been able to give Mrs. Burrage his address, for had it not been contained in the short letter he despatched to Monadnoc Place soon after his return from Boston, in which he thanked Miss Tarrant afresh for the charming hour she had enabled him to spend at Cambridge? She had not answered his letter at the time, but Mrs. Burrage's card was a very good answer. Such a missive deserved a rejoinder, and it was by way of rejoinder that he entered the street car which, on the evening of March 26th, was to deposit him at a corner adjacent to Mrs. Burrage's dwelling. He almost never went to evening parties (he knew scarcely any one who gave them, though Mrs. Luna had broken him in a little), and he was sure this occasion was of festive intention, would have nothing in common with the nocturnal "exercises" at Miss Birdseye's; but he would have exposed himself to almost any social discomfort in order to see Verena Tarrant on the platform. The platform it evidently was to be--private if not public--since one was admitted by a ticket given away if not sold. He took his in his pocket, quite ready to present it at the door. It would take some time for me to explain the contradiction to the reader; but Basil Ransom's desire to be present at one of Verena's regular performances was not diminished by the fact that he detested her views and thought the whole business a poor perversity. He understood her now very well (since his visit to Cambridge); he saw she was honest and natural; she had queer, bad lecture-blood in her veins, and a comically false idea of the aptitude of little girls for conducting movements; but her enthusiasm was of the purest, her illusions had a fragrance, and so far as the mania for producing herself personally was concerned, it had been distilled into her by people who worked her for ends which to Basil Ransom could only appear insane. She was a touching, ingenuous victim, unconscious of the pernicious forces which were hurrying her to her ruin. With this idea of ruin there had already associated itself in the young man's mind, the idea--a good deal more dim and incomplete--of rescue; and it was the disposition to confirm himself in the view that her charm was her own, and her fallacies, her absurdity, a mere reflexion of unlucky circumstance, that led him to make an effort to behold her in the position in which he could least bear to think of her. Such a glimpse was all that was wanted to prove to him that she was a person for whom he might open an unlimited credit of tender compassion. He expected to suffer--to suffer deliciously. By the time he had crossed Mrs. Burrage's threshold there was no doubt whatever in his mind that he was in the fashionable world. It was embodied strikingly in the stout, elderly, ugly lady, dressed in a brilliant colour, with a twinkle of jewels and a bosom much uncovered, who stood near the door of the first room, and with whom the people passing in before him were shaking hands. Ransom made her a Mississipian bow, and she said she was delighted to see him, while people behind him pressed him forward. He yielded to the impulsion, and found himself in a great saloon, amid lights and flowers, where the company was dense, and there were more twinkling, smiling ladies, with uncovered bosoms. It was certainly the fashionable world, for there was no one there whom he had ever seen before. The walls of the room were covered with pictures--the very ceiling was painted and framed. The people pushed each other a little, edged about, advanced and retreated, looking at each other with differing faces--sometimes blandly, unperceivingly, sometimes with a harshness of contemplation, a kind of cruelty, Ransom thought; sometimes with sudden nods and grimaces, inarticulate murmurs, followed by a quick reaction, a sort of gloom. He was now absolutely certain that he was in the best society. He was carried further and further forward, and saw that another room stretched beyond the one he had entered, in which there was a sort of little stage, covered with a red cloth, and an immense collection of chairs, arranged in rows. He became aware that people looked at him, as well as at each other, rather more, indeed, than at each other, and he wondered whether it were very visible in his appearance that his being there was a kind of exception. He didn't know how much his head looked over the heads of others, or that his brown complexion, fuliginous eye, and straight black hair, the leonine fall of which I mentioned in the first pages of this narrative, gave him that relief which, in the best society, has the great advantage of suggesting a topic. But there were other topics besides, as was proved by a fragment of conversation, between two ladies, which reached his ear while he stood rather wistfully wondering where Verena Tarrant might be. "Are you a member?" one of the ladies said to the other. "I didn't know you had joined." "Oh, I haven't; nothing would induce me." "That's not fair; you have all the fun and none of the responsibility." "Oh, the--the fun!" exclaimed the second lady. "You needn't abuse us, or I will never invite you," said the first. "Well, I thought it was meant to be improving; that's all I mean; very good for the mind. Now, this woman to-night; isn't she from Boston?" "Yes, I believe they have brought her on, just for this." "Well, you must be pretty desperate when you have got to go to Boston for your entertainment." "Well, there's a similar society there, and I never heard of their sending to New York." "Of course not, they think they have got everything. But doesn't it make your life a burden thinking what you can possibly have?" "Oh dear, no. I am going to have Professor Gougenheim--all about the Talmud. You must come." "Well, I'll come," said the second lady; "but nothing would induce me to be a regular member." Whatever the mystic circle might be, Ransom agreed with the second lady that regular membership must have terrors, and he admired her independence in such an artificial world. A considerable part of the company had now directed itself to the further apartment--people had begun to occupy the chairs, to confront the empty platform. He reached the wide doors, and saw that the place was a spacious music-room, decorated in white and gold, with a polished floor and marble busts of composers, on brackets attached to the delicate panels. He forbore to enter, however, being shy about taking a seat, and seeing that the ladies were arranging themselves first. He turned back into the first room, to wait till the audience had massed itself, conscious that even if he were behind every one he should be able to make a long neck; and here, suddenly, in a corner, his eyes rested upon Olive Chancellor. She was seated a little apart, in an angle of the room, and she was looking straight at him; but as soon as she perceived that he saw her she dropped her eyes, giving no sign of recognition. Ransom hesitated a moment, but the next he went straight over to her. It had been in his mind that if Verena Tarrant was there, _she_ would be there; an instinct told him that Miss Chancellor would not allow her dear friend to come to New York without her. It was very possible she meant to "cut" him--especially if she knew of his having cut her, the other week, in Boston; but it was his duty to take for granted she would speak to him, until the contrary should be definitely proved. Though he had seen her only twice he remembered well how acutely shy she was capable of being, and he thought it possible one of these spasms had seized her at the present time. When he stood before her he found his conjecture perfectly just; she was white with the intensity of her self-consciousness; she was altogether in a very uncomfortable state. She made no response to his offer to shake hands with her, and he saw that she would never go through that ceremony again. She looked up at him when he spoke to her, and her lips moved; but her face was intensely grave and her eye had almost a feverish light. She had evidently got into her corner to be out of the way; he recognised in her the air of an interloper, as he had felt it in himself. The small sofa on which she had placed herself had the form to which the French give the name of _causeuse_; there was room on it for just another person, and Ransom asked her, with a cheerful accent, if he might sit down beside her. She turned towards him when he had done so, turned everything but her eyes, and opened and shut her fan while she waited for her fit of diffidence to pass away. Ransom himself did not wait; he took a jocular tone about their encounter, asking her if she had come to New York to rouse the people. She glanced round the room; the backs of Mrs. Burrage's guests, mainly, were presented to them, and their position was partly masked by a pyramid of flowers which rose from a pedestal close to Olive's end of the sofa and diffused a fragrance in the air. "Do you call these 'the people'?" she asked. "I haven't the least idea. I don't know who any of them are, not even who Mrs. Henry Burrage is, I simply received an invitation." Miss Chancellor gave him no information on the point he had mentioned; she only said, in a moment: "Do you go wherever you are invited?" "Why, I go if I think I may find you there," the young man replied gallantly. "My card mentioned that Miss Tarrant would give an address, and I knew that wherever she is you are not far off. I have heard you are inseparable, from Mrs. Luna." "Yes, we are inseparable. That is exactly why I am here." "It's the fashionable world, then, you are going to stir up." Olive remained for some time with her eyes fastened to the floor; then she flashed them up at her interlocutor. "It's a part of our life to go anywhere--to carry our work where it seems most needed. We have taught ourselves to stifle repulsion, distaste." "Oh, I think this is very amusing," said Ransom. "It's a beautiful house, and there are some very pretty faces. We haven't anything so brilliant in Mississippi." To everything he said Olive offered at first a momentary silence, but the worst of her shyness was apparently leaving her. "Are you successful in New York? do you like it?" she presently asked, uttering the inquiry in a tone of infinite melancholy, as if the eternal sense of duty forced it from her lips. "Oh, successful! I am not successful as you and Miss Tarrant are; for (to my barbaric eyes) it is a great sign of prosperity to be the heroines of an occasion like this." "Do I look like the heroine of an occasion?" asked Olive Chancellor, without an intention of humour, but with an effect that was almost comical. "You would if you didn't hide yourself away. Are you not going into the other room to hear the speech? Everything is prepared." "I am going when I am notified--when I am invited." There was considerable majesty in her tone, and Ransom saw that something was wrong, that she felt neglected. To see that she was as ticklish with others as she had been with him made him feel forgiving, and there was in his manner a perfect disposition to forget their differences as he said, "Oh, there is plenty of time; the place isn't half full yet." She made no direct rejoinder to this, but she asked him about his mother and sisters, what news he received from the South. "Have they any happiness?" she inquired, rather as if she warned him to take care not to pretend they had. He neglected her warning to the point of saying that there was one happiness they always had--that of having learned not to think about it too much, and to make the best of their circumstances. She listened to this with an air of great reserve, and apparently thought he had wished to give her a lesson; for she suddenly broke out, "You mean that you have traced a certain line for them, and that that's all you know about it!" Ransom stared at her, surprised; he felt, now, that she would always surprise him. "Ah, don't be rough with me," he said, in his soft Southern voice; "don't you remember how you knocked me about when I called on you in Boston?" "You hold us in chains, and then, when we writhe in our agony, you say we don't behave prettily!" These words, which did not lessen Ransom's wonderment, were the young lady's answer to his deprecatory speech. She saw that he was honestly bewildered and that in a moment more he would laugh at her, as he had done a year and a half before (she remembered it as if it had been yesterday); and to stop that off, at any cost, she went on hurriedly--"If you listen to Miss Tarrant, you will know what I mean." "Oh, Miss Tarrant--Miss Tarrant!" And Basil Ransom's laughter came. She had not escaped that mockery, after all, and she looked at him sharply now, her embarrassment having quite cleared up. "What do you know about her? What observation have you had?" Ransom met her eye, and for a moment they scrutinised each other. Did she know of his interview with Verena a month before, and was her reserve simply the wish to place on him the burden of declaring that he had been to Boston since they last met, and yet had not called in Charles Street? He thought there was suspicion in her face; but in regard to Verena she would always be suspicious. If he had done at that moment just what would gratify him he would have said to her that he knew a great deal about Miss Tarrant, having lately had a long walk and talk with her; but he checked himself, with the reflexion that if Verena had not betrayed him it would be very wrong in him to betray her. The sweetness of the idea that she should have thought the episode of his visit to Monadnoc Place worth placing under the rose, was quenched for the moment in his regret at not being able to let his disagreeable cousin know that he had passed _her_ over. "Don't you remember my hearing her speak that night at Miss Birdseye's?" he said presently. "And I met her the next day at your house, you know." "She has developed greatly since then," Olive remarked dryly; and Ransom felt sure that Verena had held her tongue. At this moment a gentleman made his way through the clusters of Mrs. Burrage's guests and presented himself to Olive. "If you will do me the honour to take my arm I will find a good seat for you in the other room. It's getting to be time for Miss Tarrant to reveal herself. I have been taking her into the picture-room; there were some things she wanted to see. She is with my mother now," he added, as if Miss Chancellor's grave face constituted a sort of demand for an explanation of her friend's absence. "She said she was a little nervous; so I thought we would just move about." "It's the first time I have ever heard of that!" said Olive Chancellor, preparing to surrender herself to the young man's guidance. He told her that he had reserved the best seat for her; it was evidently his desire to conciliate her, to treat her as a person of importance. Before leading her away, he shook hands with Ransom and remarked that he was very glad to see him; and Ransom saw that he must be the master of the house, though he could scarcely be the son of the stout lady in the doorway. He was a fresh, pleasant, handsome young man, with a bright friendly manner; he recommended Ransom to take a seat in the other room, without delay; if he had never heard Miss Tarrant he would have one of the greatest pleasures of his life. "Oh, Mr. Ransom only comes to ventilate his prejudices," Miss Chancellor said, as she turned her back to her kinsman. He shrank from pushing into the front of the company, which was now rapidly filling the music-room, and contented himself with lingering in the doorway, where several gentlemen were stationed. The seats were all occupied; all, that is, save one, towards which he saw Miss Chancellor and her companion direct themselves, squeezing and edging past the people who were standing up against the walls. This was quite in front, close to the little platform; every one noticed Olive as she went, and Ransom heard a gentleman near him say to another--"I guess she's one of the same kind." He looked for Verena, but she was apparently keeping out of sight. Suddenly he felt himself smartly tapped on the back, and, turning round, perceived Mrs. Luna, who had been prodding him with her fan. XXVII "You won't speak to me in my own house--that I have almost grown used to; but if you are going to pass me over in public I think you might give me warning first." This was only her archness, and he knew what to make of that now; she was dressed in yellow and looked very plump and gay. He wondered at the unerring instinct by which she had discovered his exposed quarter. The outer room was completely empty; she had come in at the further door and found the field free for her operations. He offered to find her a place where she could see and hear Miss Tarrant, to get her a chair to stand on, even, if she wished to look over the heads of the gentlemen in the doorway; a proposal which she greeted with the inquiry--"Do you suppose I came here for the sake of that chatterbox? haven't I told you what I think of her?" "Well, you certainly did not come here for my sake," said Ransom, anticipating this insinuation; "for you couldn't possibly have known I was coming." "I guessed it--a presentiment told me!" Mrs. Luna declared; and she looked up at him with searching, accusing eyes. "I know what you have come for," she cried in a moment. "You never mentioned to me that you knew Mrs. Burrage!" "I don't--I never had heard of her till she asked me." "Then why in the world _did_ she ask you?" Ransom had spoken a trifle rashly; it came over him, quickly, that there were reasons why he had better not have said that. But almost as quickly he covered up his mistake. "I suppose your sister was so good as to ask for a card for me." "My sister? My grandmother! I know how Olive loves you. Mr. Ransom, you are very deep." She had drawn him well into the room, out of earshot of the group in the doorway, and he felt that if she should be able to compass her wish she would organise a little entertainment for herself, in the outer drawing-room, in opposition to Miss Tarrant's address. "Please come and sit down here a moment; we shall be quite undisturbed. I have something very particular to say to you." She led the way to the little sofa in the corner, where he had been talking with Olive a few minutes before, and he accompanied her, with extreme reluctance, grudging the moments that he should be obliged to give to her. He had quite forgotten that he once had a vision of spending his life in her society, and he looked at his watch as he made the observation: "I haven't the least idea of losing any of the sport in there, you know." He felt, the next instant, that he oughtn't to have said that either; but he was irritated, disconcerted, and he couldn't help it. It was in the nature of a gallant Mississippian to do everything a lady asked him, and he had never, remarkable as it may appear, been in the position of finding such a request so incompatible with his own desires as now. It was a new predicament, for Mrs. Luna evidently meant to keep him if she could. She looked round the room, more and more pleased at their having it to themselves, and for the moment said nothing more about the singularity of his being there. On the contrary, she became freshly jocular, remarked that now they had got hold of him they wouldn't easily let him go, they would make him entertain them, induce him to give a lecture--on the "Lights and Shadows of Southern Life," or the "Social Peculiarities of Mississippi"--before the Wednesday Club. "And what in the world is the Wednesday Club? I suppose it's what those ladies were talking about," Ransom said. "I don't know your ladies, but the Wednesday Club is this thing. I don't mean you and me here together, but all those deluded beings in the other room. It is New York trying to be like Boston. It is the culture, the good form, of the metropolis. You might not think it, but it is. It's the 'quiet set'; they _are_ quiet enough; you might hear a pin drop, in there. Is some one going to offer up a prayer? How happy Olive must be, to be taken so seriously! They form an association for meeting at each other's houses, every week, and having some performance, or some paper read, or some subject explained. The more dreary it is and the more fearful the subject, the more they think it is what it ought to be. They have an idea this is the way to make New York society intellectual. There's a sumptuary law--isn't that what you call it?--about suppers, and they restrict themselves to a kind of Spartan broth. When it's made by their French cooks it isn't bad. Mrs. Burrage is one of the principal members--one of the founders, I believe; and when her turn has come round, formerly--it comes only once in the winter for each--I am told she has usually had very good music. But that is thought rather a base evasion, a begging of the question; the vulgar set can easily keep up with them on music. So Mrs. Burrage conceived the extraordinary idea"--and it was wonderful to hear how Mrs. Luna pronounced that adjective--"of sending on to Boston for that girl. It was her son, of course, who put it into her head; he has been at Cambridge for some years--that's where Verena lived, you know--and he was as thick with her as you please out there. Now that he is no longer there it suits him very well to have her here. She is coming on a visit to his mother when Olive goes. I asked them to stay with me, but Olive declined, majestically; she said they wished to be in some place where they would be free to receive 'sympathising friends.' So they are staying at some extraordinary kind of New Jerusalem boarding-house, in Tenth Street; Olive thinks it's her duty to go to such places. I was greatly surprised that she should let Verena be drawn into such a worldly crowd as this; but she told me they had made up their minds not to let _any_ occasion slip, that they could sow the seed of truth in drawing-rooms as well as in workshops, and that if a single person was brought round to their ideas they should have been justified in coming on. That's what they are doing in there--sowing the seed; but you shall not be the one that's brought round, I shall take care of that. Have you seen my delightful sister yet? The way she _does_ arrange herself when she wants to protest against frills! She looks as if she thought it pretty barren ground round here, now she has come to see it. I don't think she thinks you can be saved in a French dress, anyhow. I must say I call it a _very_ base evasion of Mrs. Burrage's, producing Verena Tarrant; it's worse than the meretricious music. Why didn't she honestly send for a _ballerina_ from Niblo's--if she wanted a young woman capering about on a platform? They don't care a fig about poor Olive's ideas; it's only because Verena has strange hair, and shiny eyes, and gets herself up like a prestidigitator's assistant. I have never understood how Olive can reconcile herself to Verena's really low style of dress. I suppose it's only because her clothes are so fearfully made. You look as if you didn't believe me--but I assure you that the cut is revolutionary; and that's a salve to Olive's conscience." Ransom was surprised to hear that he looked as if he didn't believe her, for he had found himself, after his first uneasiness, listening with considerable interest to her account of the circumstances under which Miss Tarrant was visiting New York. After a moment, as the result of some private reflexion, he propounded this question: "Is the son of the lady of the house a handsome young man, very polite, in a white vest?" "I don't know the colour of his vest--but he has a kind of fawning manner. Verena judges from that that he is in love with her." "Perhaps he is," said Ransom. "You say it was his idea to get her to come on." "Oh, he likes to flirt; that is highly probable." "Perhaps she has brought him round." "Not to where she wants, I think. The property is very large; he will have it all one of these days." "Do you mean she wishes to impose on him the yoke of matrimony?" Ransom asked, with Southern languor. "I believe she thinks matrimony an exploded superstition; but there is here and there a case in which it is still the best thing; when the gentleman's name happens to be Burrage and the young lady's Tarrant. I don't admire 'Burrage' so much myself. But I think she would have captured this present scion if it hadn't been for Olive. Olive stands between them--she wants to keep her in the single sisterhood; to keep her, above all, for herself. Of course she won't listen to her marrying, and she has put a spoke in the wheel. She has brought her to New York; that may seem against what I say; but the girl pulls hard, she has to humour her, to give her her head sometimes, to throw something overboard, in short, to save the rest. You may say, as regards Mr. Burrage, that it's a queer taste in a gentleman; but there is no arguing about that. It's queer taste in a lady, too; for she is a lady, poor Olive. You can see that to-night. She is dressed like a book-agent, but she is more distinguished than any one here. Verena, beside her, looks like a walking advertisement." When Mrs. Luna paused, Basil Ransom became aware that, in the other room, Verena's address had begun; the sound of her clear, bright, ringing voice, an admirable voice for public uses, came to them from the distance. His eagerness to stand where he could hear her better, and see her into the bargain, made him start in his place, and this movement produced an outgush of mocking laughter on the part of his companion. But she didn't say--"Go, go, deluded man, I take pity on you!" she only remarked, with light impertinence, that he surely wouldn't be so wanting in gallantry as to leave a lady absolutely alone in a public place--it was so Mrs. Luna was pleased to qualify Mrs. Burrage's drawing-room--in the face of her entreaty that he would remain with her. She had the better of poor Ransom, thanks to the superstitions of Mississippi. It was in his simple code a gross rudeness to withdraw from conversation with a lady at a party before another gentleman should have come to take one's place; it was to inflict on the lady a kind of outrage. The other gentlemen, at Mrs. Burrage's, were all too well occupied; there was not the smallest chance of one of them coming to his rescue. He couldn't leave Mrs. Luna, and yet he couldn't stay with her and lose the only thing he had come so much out of his way for. "Let me at least find you a place over there, in the doorway. You can stand upon a chair--you can lean on me." "Thank you very much; I would much rather lean on this sofa. And I am much too tired to stand on chairs. Besides, I wouldn't for the world that either Verena or Olive should see me craning over the heads of the crowd--as if I attached the smallest importance to their perorations!" "It isn't time for the peroration yet," Ransom said, with savage dryness; and he sat forward, with his elbow on his knees, his eyes on the ground, a flush in his sallow cheek. "It's never time to say such things as those," Mrs. Luna remarked, arranging her laces. "How do you know what she is saying?" "I can tell by the way her voice goes up and down. It sounds so silly." Ransom sat there five minutes longer--minutes which, he felt, the recording angel ought to write down to his credit--and asked himself how Mrs. Luna could be such a goose as not to see that she was making him hate her. But she was goose enough for anything. He tried to appear indifferent, and it occurred to him to doubt whether the Mississippi system could be right, after all. It certainly hadn't foreseen such a case as this. "It's as plain as day that Mr. Burrage intends to marry her--if he can," he said in a minute; that remark being better calculated than any other he could think of to dissimulate his real state of mind. It drew no rejoinder from his companion, and after an instant he turned his head a little and glanced at her. The result of something that silently passed between them was to make her say, abruptly: "Mr. Ransom, my sister never sent you an invitation to this place. Didn't it come from Verena Tarrant?" "I haven't the least idea." "As you hadn't the least acquaintance with Mrs. Burrage, who else could it have come from?" "If it came from Miss Tarrant, I ought at least to recognise her courtesy by listening to her." "If you rise from this sofa I will tell Olive what I suspect. She will be perfectly capable of carrying Verena off to China--or anywhere out of your reach." "And pray what is it you suspect?" "That you two have been in correspondence." "Tell her whatever you like, Mrs. Luna," said the young man, with the grimness of resignation. "You are quite unable to deny it, I see." "I never contradict a lady." "We shall see if I can't make you tell a fib. Haven't you been seeing Miss Tarrant, too?" "Where should I have seen her? I can't see all the way to Boston, as you said the other day." "Haven't you been there--on secret visits?" Ransom started just perceptibly; but to conceal it, the next instant, he stood up. "They wouldn't be secret if I were to tell you." Looking down at her he saw that her words were a happy hit, not the result of definite knowledge. But she appeared to him vain, egotistical, grasping, odious. "Well, I shall give the alarm," she went on; "that is, I will if you leave me. Is that the way a Southern gentleman treats a lady? Do as I wish, and I will let you off!" "You won't let me off from staying with you." "Is it such a _corvée_? I never heard of such rudeness!" Mrs. Luna cried. "All the same, I am determined to keep you if I can!" Ransom felt that she must be in the wrong, and yet superficially she seemed (and it was quite intolerable) to have right on her side. All this while Verena's golden voice, with her words indistinct, solicited, tantalised his ear. The question had evidently got on Mrs. Luna's nerves; she had reached that point of feminine embroilment when a woman is perverse for the sake of perversity, and even with a clear vision of bad consequences. "You have lost your head," he relieved himself by saying, as he looked down at her. "I wish you would go and get me some tea." "You say that only to embarrass me." He had hardly spoken when a great sound of applause, the clapping of many hands, and the cry from fifty throats of "Brava, brava!" floated in and died away. All Ransom's pulses throbbed, he flung his scruples to the winds, and after remarking to Mrs. Luna--still with all due ceremony--that he feared he must resign himself to forfeiting her good opinion, turned his back upon her and strode away to the open door of the music-room. "Well, I have never been so insulted!" he heard her exclaim, with exceeding sharpness, as he left her; and, glancing back at her, as he took up his position, he saw her still seated on her sofa--alone in the lamp-lit desert--with her eyes making, across the empty space, little vindictive points. Well, she could come where he was, if she wanted him so much; he would support her on an ottoman, and make it easy for her to see. But Mrs. Luna was uncompromising; he became aware, after a minute, that she had withdrawn, majestically, from the place, and he did not see her again that evening. XXVIII He could command the music-room very well from where he stood, behind a thick outer fringe of intently listening men. Verena Tarrant was erect on her little platform, dressed in white, with flowers in her bosom. The red cloth beneath her feet looked rich in the light of lamps placed on high pedestals on either side of the stage; it gave her figure a setting of colour which made it more pure and salient. She moved freely in her exposed isolation, yet with great sobriety of gesture; there was no table in front of her, and she had no notes in her hand, but stood there like an actress before the footlights, or a singer spinning vocal sounds to a silver thread. There was such a risk that a slim provincial girl, pretending to fascinate a couple of hundred _blasé_ New Yorkers by simply giving them her ideas, would fail of her effect, that at the end of a few moments Basil Ransom became aware that he was watching her in very much the same excited way as if she had been performing, high above his head, on the trapeze. Yet, as one listened, it was impossible not to perceive that she was in perfect possession of her faculties, her subject, her audience; and he remembered the other time at Miss Birdseye's well enough to be able to measure the ground she had travelled since then. This exhibition was much more complete, her manner much more assured; she seemed to speak and survey the whole place from a much greater height. Her voice, too, had developed; he had forgotten how beautiful it could be when she raised it to its full capacity. Such a tone as that, so pure and rich, and yet so young, so natural, constituted in itself a talent; he didn't wonder that they had made a fuss about her at the Female Convention, if she filled their hideous hall with such a music. He had read, of old, of the _improvisatrice_ of Italy, and this was a chastened, modern, American version of the type, a New England Corinna, with a mission instead of a lyre. The most graceful part of her was her earnestness, the way her delightful eyes, wandering over the "fashionable audience" (before which she was so perfectly unabashed), as if she wished to resolve it into a single sentient personality, seemed to say that the only thing in life she cared for was to put the truth into a form that would render conviction irresistible. She was as simple as she was charming, and there was not a glance or motion that did not seem part of the pure, still-burning passion that animated her. She had indeed--it was manifest--reduced the company to unanimity; their attention was anything but languid; they smiled back at her when she smiled; they were noiseless, motionless when she was solemn; and it was evident that the entertainment which Mrs. Burrage had had the happy thought of offering to her friends would be memorable in the annals of the Wednesday Club. It was agreeable to Basil Ransom to think that Verena noticed him in his corner; her eyes played over her listeners so freely that you couldn't say they rested in one place more than another; nevertheless, a single rapid ray, which, however, didn't in the least strike him as a deviation from her ridiculous, fantastic, delightful argument, let him now that he had been missed and now was particularly spoken to. This glance was a sufficient assurance that his invitation had come to him by the girl's request. He took for granted the matter of her speech was ridiculous; how could it help being, and what did it signify if it was? She was none the less charming for that, and the moonshine she had been plied with was none the less moonshine for her being charming. After he had stood there a quarter of an hour he became conscious that he should not be able to repeat a word she had said; he had not definitely heeded it, and yet he had not lost a vibration of her voice. He had discovered Olive Chancellor by this time; she was in the front row of chairs, at the end, on the left; her back was turned to him, but he could see half her sharp profile, bent down a little and absolutely motionless. Even across the wide interval her attitude expressed to him a kind of rapturous stillness, the concentration of triumph. There were several irrepressible effusions of applause, instantly self-checked, but Olive never looked up, at the loudest, and such a calmness as that could only be the result of passionate volition. Success was in the air, and she was tasting it; she tasted it, as she did everything, in a way of her own. Success for Verena was success for her, and Ransom was sure that the only thing wanting to her triumph was that he should have been placed in the line of her vision, so that she might enjoy his embarrassment and confusion, might say to him, in one of her dumb, cold flashes--"_Now_ do you think our movement is not a force--_now_ do you think that women are meant to be slaves?" Honestly, he was not conscious of any confusion; it subverted none of his heresies to perceive that Verena Tarrant had even more power to fix his attention than he had hitherto supposed. It was fixed in a way it had not been yet, however, by his at last understanding her speech, feeling it reach his inner sense through the impediment of mere dazzled vision. Certain phrases took on a meaning for him--an appeal she was making to those who still resisted the beneficent influence of the truth. They appeared to be mocking, cynical men, mainly; many of whom were such triflers and idlers, so heartless and brainless that it didn't matter much what they thought on any subject; if the old tyranny needed to be propped up by _them_ it showed it was in a pretty bad way. But there were others whose prejudice was stronger and more cultivated, pretended to rest upon study and argument. To those she wished particularly to address herself; she wanted to waylay them, to say, "Look here, you're all wrong; you'll be so much happier when I have convinced you. Just give me five minutes," she should like to say; "just sit down here and let me ask a simple question. Do you think any state of society can come to good that is based upon an organised wrong?" That was the simple question that Verena desired to propound, and Basil smiled across the room at her with an amused tenderness as he gathered that she conceived it to be a poser. He didn't think it would frighten him much if she were to ask him that, and he would sit down with her for as many minutes as she liked. He, of course, was one of the systematic scoffers, one of those to whom she said--"Do you know how you strike me? You strike me as men who are starving to death while they have a cupboard at home, all full of bread and meat and wine; or as blind, demented beings who let themselves be cast into a debtor's prison, while in their pocket they have the key of vaults and treasure-chests heaped up with gold and silver. The meat and wine, the gold and silver," Verena went on, "are simply the suppressed and wasted force, the precious sovereign remedy, of which society insanely deprives itself--the genius, the intelligence, the inspiration of women. It is dying, inch by inch, in the midst of old superstitions which it invokes in vain, and yet it has the elixir of life in its hands. Let it drink but a draught, and it will bloom once more; it will be refreshed, radiant; it will find its youth again. The heart, the heart is cold, and nothing but the touch of woman can warm it, make it act. We _are_ the Heart of humanity, and let us have the courage to insist on it! The public life of the world will move in the same barren, mechanical, vicious circle--the circle of egotism, cruelty, ferocity, jealousy, greed, of blind striving to do things only for _some_, at the cost of others, instead of trying to do everything for all. All, all? Who dares to say 'all' when we are not there? We are an equal, a splendid, an inestimable part. Try us and you'll see--you will wonder how, without us, society has ever dragged itself even this distance--so wretchedly small compared with what it might have been--on its painful earthly pilgrimage. That is what I should like above all to pour into the ears of those who still hold out, who stiffen their necks and repeat hard, empty formulas, which are as dry as a broken gourd that has been flung away in the desert. I would take them by their selfishness, their indolence, their interest. I am not here to recriminate, nor to deepen the gulf that already yawns between the sexes, and I don't accept the doctrine that they are natural enemies, since my plea is for a union far more intimate--provided it be equal--than any that the sages and philosophers of former times have ever dreamed of. Therefore I shall not touch upon the subject of men's being most easily influenced by considerations of what is most agreeable and profitable for _them_; I shall simply assume that they _are_ so influenced, and I shall say to them that our cause would long ago have been gained if their vision were not so dim, so veiled, even in matters in which their own interests are concerned. If they had the same quick sight as women, if they had the intelligence of the heart, the world would be very different now; and I assure you that half the bitterness of our lot is to see so clearly and not to be able to do! Good gentlemen all, if I could make you believe how much brighter and fairer and sweeter the garden of life would be for you, if you would only let us help you to keep it in order! You would like so much better to walk there, and you would find grass and trees and flowers that would make you think you were in Eden. That is what I should like to press home to each of you, personally, individually--to give him the vision of the world as it hangs perpetually before me, redeemed, transfigured, by a new moral tone. There would be generosity, tenderness, sympathy, where there is now only brute force and sordid rivalry. But you really do strike me as stupid even about your own welfare! Some of you say that we have already all the influence we can possibly require, and talk as if we ought to be grateful that we are allowed even to breathe. Pray, who shall judge what we require if not we ourselves? We require simply freedom; we require the lid to be taken off the box in which we have been kept for centuries. You say it's a very comfortable, cozy, convenient box, with nice glass sides, so that we can see out, and that all that's wanted is to give another quiet turn to the key. That is very easily answered. Good gentlemen, you have never been in the box, and you haven't the least idea how it feels!" The historian who has gathered these documents together does not deem it necessary to give a larger specimen of Verena's eloquence, especially as Basil Ransom, through whose ears we are listening to it, arrived, at this point, at a definite conclusion. He had taken her measure as a public speaker, judged her importance in the field of discussion, the cause of reform. Her speech, in itself, had about the value of a pretty essay, committed to memory and delivered by a bright girl at an "academy"; it was vague, thin, rambling, a tissue of generalities that glittered agreeably enough in Mrs. Burrage's veiled lamplight. From any serious point of view it was neither worth answering nor worth considering, and Basil Ransom made his reflexions on the crazy character of the age in which such a performance as that was treated as an intellectual effort, a contribution to a question. He asked himself what either he or any one else would think of it if Miss Chancellor--or even Mrs. Luna--had been on the platform instead of the actual declaimer. Nevertheless, its importance was high, and consisted precisely, in part, of the fact that the voice was not the voice of Olive or of Adeline. Its importance was that Verena was unspeakably attractive, and this was all the greater for him in the light of the fact, which quietly dawned upon him as he stood there, that he was falling in love with her. It had tapped at his heart for recognition, and before he could hesitate or challenge, the door had sprung open and the mansion was illuminated. He gave no outward sign; he stood gazing as at a picture; but the room wavered before his eyes, even Verena's figure danced a little. This did not make the sequel of her discourse more clear to him; her meaning faded again into the agreeable vague, and he simply felt her presence, tasted her voice. Yet the act of reflexion was not suspended; he found himself rejoicing that she was so weak in argument, so inevitably verbose. The idea that she was brilliant, that she counted as a factor only because the public mind was in a muddle, was not an humiliation but a delight to him; it was a proof that her apostleship was all nonsense, the most passing of fashions, the veriest of delusions, and that she was meant for something divinely different--for privacy, for him, for love. He took no measure of the duration of her talk; he only knew, when it was over and succeeded by a clapping of hands, an immense buzz of voices and shuffling of chairs, that it had been capitally bad, and that her personal success, wrapping it about with a glamour like the silver mist that surrounds a fountain, was such as to prevent its badness from being a cause of mortification to her lover. The company--such of it as did not immediately close together around Verena--filed away into the other rooms, bore him in its current into the neighbourhood of a table spread for supper, where he looked for signs of the sumptuary law mentioned to him by Mrs. Luna. It appeared to be embodied mainly in the glitter of crystal and silver, and the fresh tints of mysterious viands and jellies, which looked desirable in the soft circle projected by lace-fringed lamps. He heard the popping of corks, he felt a pressure of elbows, a thickening of the crowd, perceived that he was glowered at, squeezed against the table, by contending gentlemen who observed that he usurped space, was neither feeding himself nor helping others to feed. He had lost sight of Verena; she had been borne away in clouds of compliment; but he found himself thinking--almost paternally--that she must be hungry after so much chatter, and he hoped some one was getting her something to eat. After a moment, just as he was edging away, for his own opportunity to sup much better than usual was not what was uppermost in his mind, this little vision was suddenly embodied--embodied by the appearance of Miss Tarrant, who faced him, in the press, attached to the arm of a young man now recognisable to him as the son of the house--the smiling, fragrant youth who an hour before had interrupted his colloquy with Olive. He was leading her to the table, while people made way for them, covering Verena with gratulations of word and look. Ransom could see that, according to a phrase which came back to him just then, oddly, out of some novel or poem he had read of old, she was the cynosure of every eye. She looked beautiful, and they were a beautiful couple. As soon as she saw him, she put out her left hand to him--the other was in Mr. Burrage's arm--and said: "Well, don't you think it's all true?" "No, not a word of it!" Ransom answered, with a kind of joyous sincerity. "But it doesn't make any difference." "Oh, it makes a great deal of difference to me!" Verena cried. "I mean to me. I don't care in the least whether I agree with you," Ransom said, looking askance at young Mr. Burrage, who had detached himself and was getting something for Verena to eat. "Ah, well, if you are so indifferent!" "It's not because I'm indifferent!" His eyes came back to her own, the expression of which had changed before they quitted them. She began to complain to her companion, who brought her something very dainty on a plate, that Mr. Ransom was "standing out," that he was about the hardest subject she had encountered yet. Henry Burrage smiled upon Ransom in a way that was meant to show he remembered having already spoken to him, while the Mississippian said to himself that there was nothing on the face of it to make it strange there should be between these fair, successful young persons some such question of love or marriage as Mrs. Luna had tattled about. Mr. Burrage was successful, he could see that in the turn of an eye; not perhaps as having a commanding intellect or a very strong character, but as being rich, polite, handsome, happy, amiable, and as wearing a splendid camellia in his buttonhole. And that _he_, at any rate, thought Verena had succeeded was proved by the casual, civil tone, and the contented distraction of eye, with which he exclaimed, "You don't mean to say you were not moved by that! It's my opinion that Miss Tarrant will carry everything before her." He was so pleased himself, and so safe in his conviction, that it didn't matter to him what any one else thought; which was, after all, just Basil Ransom's own state of mind. "Oh! I didn't say I wasn't moved," the Mississippian remarked. "Moved the wrong way!" said Verena. "Never mind; you'll be left behind." "If I am, you will come back to console me." "_Back?_ I shall never come back!" the girl replied gaily. "You'll be the very first!" Ransom went on, feeling himself now, and as if by a sudden clearing up of his spiritual atmosphere, no longer in the vein for making the concessions of chivalry, and yet conscious that his words were an expression of homage. "Oh, I call that presumptuous!" Mr. Burrage exclaimed, turning away to get a glass of water for Verena, who had refused to accept champagne, mentioning that she had never drunk any in her life and that she associated a kind of iniquity with it. Olive had no wine in her house (not that Verena gave this explanation) but her father's old madeira and a little claret; of the former of which liquors Basil Ransom had highly approved the day he dined with her. "Does he believe in all those lunacies?" he inquired, knowing perfectly what to think about the charge of presumption brought by Mr. Burrage. "Why, he's crazy about our movement," Verena responded. "He's one of my most gratifying converts." "And don't you despise him for it?" "Despise him? Why, you seem to think I swing round pretty often!" "Well, I have an idea that I shall see you swing round yet," Ransom remarked, in a tone in which it would have appeared to Henry Burrage, had he heard these words, that presumption was pushed to fatuity. On Verena, however, they produced no impression that prevented her from saying simply, without the least rancour, "Well, if you expect to draw me back five hundred years, I hope you won't tell Miss Birdseye." And as Ransom did not seize immediately the reason of her allusion, she went on, "You know she is convinced it will be just the other way. I went to see her after you had been at Cambridge--almost immediately." "Darling old lady--I hope she's well," the young man said. "Well, she's tremendously interested." "She's always interested in something, isn't she?" "Well, this time it's in our relations, yours and mine," Verena replied, in a tone in which only Verena could say a thing like that. "You ought to see how she throws herself into them. She is sure it will all work round for your good." "All what, Miss Tarrant?" Ransom asked. "Well, what I told her. She is sure you are going to become one of our leaders, that you are very gifted for treating great questions and acting on masses of people, that you will become quite enthusiastic about our uprising, and that when you go up to the top as one of our champions it will all have been through me." Ransom stood there, smiling at her; the dusky glow in his eyes expressed a softness representing no prevision of such laurels, but which testified none the less to Verena's influence. "And what you want is that I shouldn't undeceive her?" "Well, I don't want you to be hypocritical--if you shouldn't take our side; but I do think that it would be sweet if the dear old thing could just cling to her illusion. She won't live so very long, probably; she told me the other day she was ready for her final rest; so it wouldn't interfere much with your freedom. She feels quite romantic about it--your being a Southerner and all, and not naturally in sympathy with Boston ideas, and your meeting her that way in the street and making yourself known to her. She won't believe but what I shall move you." "Don't fear, Miss Tarrant, she shall be satisfied," Ransom said, with a laugh which he could see she but partially understood. He was prevented from making his meaning more clear by the return of Mr. Burrage, bringing not only Verena's glass of water but a smooth-faced, rosy, smiling old gentleman, who had a velvet waistcoat, and thin white hair, brushed effectively, and whom he introduced to Verena under a name which Ransom recognised as that of a rich and venerable citizen, conspicuous for his public spirit and his large almsgiving. Ransom had lived long enough in New York to know that a request from this ancient worthy to be made known to Miss Tarrant would mark her for the approval of the respectable, stamp her as a success of no vulgar sort; and as he turned away, a faint, inaudible sigh passed his lips, dictated by the sense that he himself belonged to a terribly small and obscure minority. He turned away because, as we know, he had been taught that a gentleman talking to a lady must always do that when a new gentleman is presented; though he observed, looking back, after a minute, that young Mr. Burrage evidently had no intention of abdicating in favour of the eminent philanthropist. He thought he had better go home; he didn't know what might happen at such a party as that, nor when the proceedings might be supposed to terminate; but after considering it a minute he dismissed the idea that there was a chance of Verena's speaking again. If he was a little vague about this, however, there was no doubt in his mind as to the obligation he was under to take leave first of Mrs. Burrage. He wished he knew where Verena was staying; he wanted to see her alone, not in a supper-room crowded with millionaires. As he looked about for the hostess it occurred to him that she would know, and that if he were able to quench a certain shyness sufficiently to ask her, she would tell him. Having satisfied himself presently that she was not in the supper-room, he made his way back to the parlours, where the company now was much diminished. He looked again into the music-room, tenanted only by half-a-dozen couples, who were cultivating privacy among the empty chairs, and here he perceived Mrs. Burrage sitting in conversation with Olive Chancellor (the latter, apparently, had not moved from her place), before the deserted scene of Verena's triumph. His search had been so little for Olive that at the sight of her he faltered a moment; then he pulled himself together, advancing with a consciousness of the Mississippi manner. He felt Olive's eyes receiving him; she looked at him as if it was just the hope that she shouldn't meet him again that had made her remain where she was. Mrs. Burrage got up, as he bade her good-night, and Olive followed her example. "So glad you were able to come. Wonderful creature, isn't she? She can do anything she wants." These words from the elder lady Ransom received at first with a reserve which, as he trusted, suggested extreme respect; and it was a fact that his silence had a kind of Southern solemnity in it. Then he said, in a tone equally expressive of great deliberation: "Yes, madam, I think I never was present at an exhibition, an entertainment of any kind, which held me more completely under the charm." "Delighted you liked it. I didn't know what in the world to have, and this has proved an inspiration--for me as well as for Miss Tarrant. Miss Chancellor has been telling me how they have worked together; it's really quite beautiful. Miss Chancellor is Miss Tarrant's great friend and colleague. Miss Tarrant assures me that she couldn't do anything without her." After which explanation, turning to Olive, Mrs. Burrage murmured: "Let me introduce Mr. ---- introduce Mr. ----" But she had forgotten poor Ransom's name, forgotten who had asked her for a card for him; and, perceiving it, he came to her rescue with the observation that he was a kind of cousin of Miss Olive's, if she didn't repudiate him, and that he knew what a tremendous partnership existed between the two young ladies. "When I applauded I was applauding the firm--that is, you too," he said, smiling, to his kinswoman. "Your applause? I confess I don't understand it," Olive replied, with much promptitude. "Well, to tell the truth, I didn't myself!" "Oh yes, of course, I know; that's why--that's why----" And this further speech of Mrs. Burrage's, in reference to the relationship between the young man and her companion, faded also into vagueness. She had been on the point of saying it was the reason why he was in her house; but she had bethought herself in time that this ought to pass as a matter of course. Basil Ransom could see she was a woman who could carry off an awkwardness like that, and he considered her with a sense of her importance. She had a brisk, familiar, slightly impatient way, and if she had not spoken so fast, and had more of the softness of the Southern matron, she would have reminded him of a certain type of woman he had seen of old, before the changes in his own part of the world--the clever, capable, hospitable proprietress, widowed or unmarried, of a big plantation carried on by herself. "If you are her cousin, do take Miss Chancellor to have some supper--instead of going away," she went on, with her infelicitous readiness. At this Olive instantly seated herself again. "I am much obliged to you; I never touch supper. I shall not leave this room--I like it." "Then let me send you something--or let Mr. ----, your cousin, remain with you." Olive looked at Mrs. Burrage with a strange beseechingness, "I am very tired, I must rest. These occasions leave me exhausted." "Ah yes, I can imagine that. Well, then, you shall be quite quiet--I shall come back to you." And with a smile of farewell for Basil Ransom, Mrs. Burrage moved away. Basil lingered a moment, though he saw that Olive wished to get rid of him. "I won't disturb you further than to ask you a single question," he said. "Where are you staying? I want to come and see Miss Tarrant. I don't say I want to come and see you, because I have an idea that it would give you no pleasure." It had occurred to him that he might obtain their address from Mrs. Luna--he only knew vaguely it was Tenth Street; much as he had displeased her she couldn't refuse him that; but suddenly the greater simplicity and frankness of applying directly to Olive, even at the risk of appearing to brave her, recommended itself. He couldn't, of course, call upon Verena without her knowing it, and she might as well make her protest (since he proposed to pay no heed to it) sooner as later. He had seen nothing, personally, of their life together, but it had come over him that what Miss Chancellor most disliked in him (had she not, on the very threshold of their acquaintance, had a sort of mystical foreboding of it?) was the possibility that he would interfere. It was quite on the cards that he might; yet it was decent, all the same, to ask her rather than any one else. It was better that his interference should be accompanied with all the forms of chivalry. Olive took no notice of his remark as to how she herself might be affected by his visit; but she asked in a moment why he should think it necessary to call on Miss Tarrant. "You know you are not in sympathy," she added, in a tone which contained a really touching element of entreaty that he would not even pretend to prove he was. I know not whether Basil was touched, but he said, with every appearance of a conciliatory purpose--"I wish to thank her for all the interesting information she has given me this evening." "If you think it generous to come and scoff at her, of course she has no defence; you will be glad to know that." "Dear Miss Chancellor, if you are not a defence--a battery of many guns!" Ransom exclaimed. "Well, she at least is not mine!" Olive returned, springing to her feet. She looked round her as if she were really pressed too hard, panting like a hunted creature. "Your defence is your certain immunity from attack. Perhaps if you won't tell me where you are staying, you will kindly ask Miss Tarrant herself to do so. Would she send me a word on a card?" "We are in West Tenth Street," Olive said; and she gave the number. "Of course you are free to come." "Of course I am! Why shouldn't I be? But I am greatly obliged to you for the information. I will ask her to come out, so that you won't see us." And he turned away, with the sense that it was really insufferable, her attempt always to give him the air of being in the wrong. If that was the kind of spirit in which women were going to act when they had more power! XXIX Mrs. Luna was early in the field the next day, and her sister wondered to what she owed the honour of a visit from her at eleven o'clock in the morning. She very soon saw, when Adeline asked her whether it had been she who procured for Basil Ransom an invitation to Mrs. Burrage's. "Me--why in the world should it have been me?" Olive asked, feeling something of a pang at the implication that it had not been Adeline, as she supposed. "I didn't know--but you took him up so." "Why, Adeline Luna, when did I ever----?" Miss Chancellor exclaimed, staring and intensely grave. "You don't mean to say you have forgotten how you brought him on to see you, a year and a half ago!" "I didn't bring him on--I said if he happened to be there." "Yes, I remember how it was: he did happen, and then you happened to hate him, and tried to get out of it." Miss Chancellor saw, I say, why Adeline had come to her at the hour she knew she was always writing letters, after having given her all the attention that was necessary the day before; she had come simply to make herself disagreeable, as Olive knew, of old, the spirit sometimes moved her irresistibly to do. It seemed to her that Adeline had been disagreeable enough in not having beguiled Basil Ransom into a marriage, according to that memorable calculation of probabilities in which she indulged (with a licence that she scarcely liked definitely to recall) when the pair made acquaintance under her eyes in Charles Street, and Mrs. Luna seemed to take to him as much as she herself did little. She would gladly have accepted him as a brother-in-law, for the harm such a relation could do one was limited and definite; whereas in his general capacity of being at large in her life the ability of the young Mississippian to injure her seemed somehow immense. "I wrote to him--that time--for a perfectly definite reason," she said. "I thought mother would have liked us to know him. But it was a mistake." "How do you know it was a mistake? Mother would have liked him, I daresay." "I mean my acting as I did; it was a theory of duty which I allowed to press me too much. I always do. Duty should be obvious; one shouldn't hunt round for it." "Was it very obvious when it brought you on here?" asked Mrs. Luna, who was distinctly out of humour. Olive looked for a moment at the toe of her shoe. "I had an idea that you would have married him by this time," she presently remarked. "Marry him yourself, my dear! What put such an idea into your head?" "You wrote to me at first so much about him. You told me he was tremendously attentive, and that you liked him." "His state of mind is one thing and mine is another. How can I marry every man that hangs about me--that dogs my footsteps? I might as well become a Mormon at once!" Mrs. Luna delivered herself of this argument with a certain charitable air, as if her sister could not be expected to understand such a situation by her own light. Olive waived the discussion, and simply said: "I took for granted _you_ had got him the invitation." "I, my dear? That would be quite at variance with my attitude of discouragement." "Then she simply sent it herself." "Whom do you mean by 'she'?" "Mrs. Burrage, of course." "I thought that you might mean Verena," said Mrs. Luna casually. "Verena--to him? Why in the world----?" And Olive gave the cold glare with which her sister was familiar. "Why in the world not--since she knows him?" "She had seen him twice in her life before last night, when she met him for the third time and spoke to him." "Did she tell you that?" "She tells me everything." "Are you very sure?" "Adeline Luna, what _do_ you mean?" Miss Chancellor murmured. "Are you very sure that last night was only the third time?" Mrs. Luna went on. Olive threw back her head and swept her sister from her bonnet to her lowest flounce. "You have no right to hint at such a thing as that unless you know!" "Oh, I know--I know, at any rate, more than you do!" And then Mrs. Luna, sitting with her sister, much withdrawn, in one of the windows of the big, hot, faded parlour of the boarding-house in Tenth Street, where there was a rug before the chimney representing a Newfoundland dog saving a child from drowning, and a row of chromo-lithographs on the walls, imparted to her the impression she had received the evening before--the impression of Basil Ransom's keen curiosity about Verena Tarrant. Verena must have asked Mrs. Burrage to send him a card, and asked it without mentioning the fact to Olive--for wouldn't Olive certainly have remembered it? It was no use her saying that Mrs. Burrage might have sent it of her own movement, because she wasn't aware of his existence, and why should she be? Basil Ransom himself had told her he didn't know Mrs. Burrage. Mrs. Luna knew whom he knew and whom he didn't, or at least the sort of people, and they were not the sort that belonged to the Wednesday Club. That was one reason why she didn't care about him for any intimate relation--that he didn't seem to have any taste for making nice friends. Olive would know what _her_ taste was in this respect, though it wasn't that young woman's own any more than his. It was positive that the suggestion about the card could only have come from Verena. At any rate Olive could easily ask, or if she was afraid of her telling a fib she could ask Mrs. Burrage. It was true Mrs. Burrage might have been put on her guard by Verena, and would perhaps invent some other account of the matter; therefore Olive had better just believe what _she_ believed, that Verena had secured his presence at the party and had had private reasons for doing so. It is to be feared that Ransom's remark to Mrs. Luna the night before about her having lost her head was near to the mark; for if she had not been blinded by her rancour she would have guessed the horror with which she inspired her sister when she spoke in that offhand way of Verena's lying and Mrs. Burrage's lying. Did people lie like that in Mrs. Luna's set? It was Olive's plan of life not to lie, and attributing a similar disposition to people she liked, it was impossible for her to believe that Verena had had the intention of deceiving her. Mrs. Luna, in a calmer hour, might also have divined that Olive would make her private comments on the strange story of Basil Ransom's having made up to Verena out of pique at Adeline's rebuff; for this was the account of the matter that she now offered to Miss Chancellor. Olive did two things: she listened intently and eagerly, judging there was distinct danger in the air (which, however, she had not wanted Mrs. Luna to tell her, having perceived it for herself the night before); and she saw that poor Adeline was fabricating fearfully, that the "rebuff" was altogether an invention. Mr. Ransom was evidently preoccupied with Verena, but he had not needed Mrs. Luna's cruelty to make him so. So Olive maintained an attitude of great reserve; she did not take upon herself to announce that her own version was that Adeline, for reasons absolutely imperceptible to others, had tried to catch Basil Ransom, had failed in her attempt, and, furious at seeing Verena preferred to a person of her importance (Olive remembered the _spretae injuria formae_), now wished to do both him and the girl an ill turn. This would be accomplished if she could induce Olive to interfere. Miss Chancellor was conscious of an abundant readiness to interfere, but it was not because she cared for Adeline's mortification. I am not sure, even, that she did not think her _fiasco_ but another illustration of her sister's general uselessness, and rather despise her for it; being perfectly able at once to hold that nothing is baser than the effort to entrap a man, and to think it very ignoble to have to renounce it because you can't. Olive kept these reflexions to herself, but she went so far as to say to her sister that she didn't see where the "pique" came in. How could it hurt Adeline that he should turn his attention to Verena? What was Verena to her? "Why, Olive Chancellor, how can you ask?" Mrs. Luna boldly responded. "Isn't Verena everything to you, and aren't you everything to me, and wouldn't an attempt--a successful one--to take Verena away from you knock you up fearfully, and shouldn't I suffer, as you know I suffer, by sympathy?" I have said that it was Miss Chancellor's plan of life not to lie, but such a plan was compatible with a kind of consideration for the truth which led her to shrink from producing it on poor occasions. So she didn't say, "Dear me, Adeline, what humbug! you know you hate Verena and would be very glad if she were drowned!" She only said, "Well, I see; but it's very roundabout." What she did see was that Mrs. Luna was eager to help her to stop off Basil Ransom from "making head," as the phrase was; and the fact that her motive was spite, and not tenderness for the Bostonians, would not make her assistance less welcome if the danger were real. She herself had a nervous dread, but she had that about everything; still, Adeline had perhaps seen something, and what in the world did she mean by her reference to Verena's having had secret meetings? When pressed on this point, Mrs. Luna could only say that she didn't pretend to give definite information, and she wasn't a spy anyway, but that the night before he had positively flaunted in her face his admiration for the girl, his enthusiasm for her way of standing up there. Of course he hated her ideas, but he was quite conceited enough to think she would give them up. Perhaps it was all directed at _her_--as if she cared! It would depend a good deal on the girl herself; certainly, if there was any likelihood of Verena's being affected, she should advise Olive to look out. She knew best what to do; it was only Adeline's duty to give her the benefit of her own impression, whether she was thanked for it or not. She only wished to put her on her guard, and it was just like Olive to receive such information so coldly; she was the most disappointing woman she knew. Miss Chancellor's coldness was not diminished by this rebuke; for it had come over her that, after all, she had never opened herself at that rate to Adeline, had never let her see the real intensity of her desire to keep the sort of danger there was now a question of away from Verena, had given her no warrant for regarding her as her friend's keeper; so that she was taken aback by the flatness of Mrs. Luna's assumption that she was ready to enter into a conspiracy to circumvent and frustrate the girl. Olive put on all her majesty to dispel this impression, and if she could not help being aware that she made Mrs. Luna still angrier, on the whole, than at first, she felt that she would much rather disappoint her than give herself away to her--especially as she was intensely eager to profit by her warning! XXX Mrs. Luna would have been still less satisfied with the manner in which Olive received her proffered assistance had she known how many confidences that reticent young woman might have made her in return. Olive's whole life now was a matter for whispered communications; she felt this herself, as she sought the privacy of her own apartment after her interview with her sister. She had for the moment time to think; Verena having gone out with Mr. Burrage, who had made an appointment the night before to call for her to drive at that early hour. They had other engagements in the afternoon--the principal of which was to meet a group of earnest people at the house of one of the great local promoters. Olive would whisk Verena off to these appointments directly after lunch; she flattered herself that she could arrange matters so that there would not be half an hour in the day during which Basil Ransom, complacently calling, would find the Bostonians in the house. She had had this well in mind when, at Mrs. Burrage's, she was driven to give him their address; and she had had it also in mind that she would ask Verena, as a special favour, to accompany her back to Boston on the next day but one, which was the morning of the morrow. There had been considerable talk of her staying a few days with Mrs. Burrage--staying on after her own departure; but Verena backed out of it spontaneously, seeing how the idea worried her friend. Olive had accepted the sacrifice, and their visit to New York was now cut down, in intention, to four days, one of which, the moment she perceived whither Basil Ransom was tending, Miss Chancellor promised herself also to suppress. She had not mentioned that to Verena yet; she hesitated a little, having a slightly bad conscience about the concessions she had already obtained from her friend. Verena made such concessions with a generosity which caused one's heart to ache for admiration, even while one asked for them; and never once had Olive known her to demand the smallest credit for any virtue she showed in this way, or to bargain for an instant about any effort she made to oblige. She had been delighted with the idea of spending a week under Mrs. Burrage's roof; she had said, too, that she believed her mother would die happy (not that there was the least prospect of Mrs. Tarrant's dying) if she could hear of her having such an experience as that; and yet, perceiving how solemn Olive looked about it, how she blanched and brooded at the prospect, she had offered to give it up, with a smile sweeter, if possible, than any that had ever sat in her eyes. Olive knew what that meant for her, knew what a power of enjoyment she still had, in spite of the tension of their common purpose, their vital work, which had now, as they equally felt, passed into the stage of realisation, of fruition; and that is why her conscience rather pricked her for consenting to this further act of renunciation, especially as their position seemed really so secure, on the part of one who had already given herself away so sublimely. Secure as their position might be, Olive called herself a blind idiot for having, in spite of all her first shrinkings, agreed to bring Verena to New York. Verena had jumped at the invitation, the very unexpectedness of which on Mrs. Burrage's part--it was such an odd idea to have come to a mere worldling--carried a kind of persuasion with it. Olive's immediate sentiment had been an instinctive general fear; but, later, she had dismissed that as unworthy; she had decided (and such a decision was nothing new) that where their mission was concerned they ought to face everything. Such an opportunity would contribute too much to Verena's reputation and authority to justify a refusal at the bidding of apprehensions which were after all only vague. Olive's specific terrors and dangers had by this time very much blown over; Basil Ransom had given no sign of life for ages, and Henry Burrage had certainly got his quietus before they went to Europe. If it had occurred to his mother that she might convert Verena into the animating principle of a big soiree, she was at least acting in good faith, for it could be no more her wish to-day that he should marry Selah Tarrant's daughter than it was her wish a year before. And then they should do some good to the benighted, the most benighted, the fashionable benighted; they should perhaps make them furious--there was always some good in that. Lastly, Olive was conscious of a personal temptation in the matter; she was not insensible to the pleasure of appearing in a distinguished New York circle as a representative woman, an important Bostonian, the prompter, colleague, associate of one of the most original girls of the time. Basil Ransom was the person she had least expected to meet at Mrs. Burrage's; it had been her belief that they might easily spend four days in a city of more than a million of inhabitants without that disagreeable accident. But it had occurred; nothing was wanting to make it seem serious; and, setting her teeth, she shook herself, morally, hard, for having fallen into the trap of fate. Well, she would scramble out, with only a scare, probably. Henry Burrage was very attentive, but somehow she didn't fear him now; and it was only natural he should feel that he couldn't be polite enough, after they had consented to be exploited in that worldly way by his mother. The other danger was the worst; the palpitation of her strange dread, the night of Miss Birdseye's party, came back to her. Mr. Burrage seemed, indeed, a protection; she reflected, with relief, that it had been arranged that after taking Verena to drive in the Park and see the Museum of Art in the morning, they should in the evening dine with him at Delmonico's (he was to invite another gentleman), and go afterwards to the German opera. Olive had kept all this to herself, as I have said; revealing to her sister neither the vividness of her prevision that Basil Ransom would look blank when he came down to Tenth Street and learned they had flitted, nor the eagerness of her desire just to find herself once more in the Boston train. It had been only this prevision that sustained her when she gave Mr. Ransom their number. Verena came to her room shortly before luncheon, to let her know she had returned; and while they sat there, waiting to stop their ears when the gong announcing the repast was beaten, at the foot of the stairs, by a negro in a white jacket, she narrated to her friend her adventures with Mr. Burrage--expatiated on the beauty of the park, the splendour and interest of the Museum, the wonder of the young man's acquaintance with everything it contained, the swiftness of his horses, the softness of his English cart, the pleasure of rolling at that pace over roads as firm as marble, the entertainment he promised them for the evening. Olive listened in serious silence; she saw Verena was quite carried away; of course she hadn't gone so far with her without knowing that phase. "Did Mr. Burrage try to make love to you?" Miss Chancellor inquired at last, without a smile. Verena had taken off her hat to arrange her feather, and as she placed it on her head again, her uplifted arms making a frame for her face, she said: "Yes, I suppose it was meant for love." Olive waited for her to tell more, to tell how she had treated him, kept him in his place, made him feel that that question was over long ago; but as Verena gave her no further information she did not insist, conscious as she always was that in such a relation as theirs there should be a great respect on either side for the liberty of each. She had never yet infringed on Verena's, and of course she wouldn't begin now. Moreover, with the request that she meant presently to make of her she felt that she must be discreet. She wondered whether Henry Burrage were really going to begin again; whether his mother had only been acting in his interest in getting them to come on. Certainly, the bright spot in such a prospect was that if she listened to him she couldn't listen to Basil Ransom; and he _had_ told Olive herself last night, when he put them into their carriage, that he hoped to prove to her yet that he had come round to her gospel. But the old sickness stole upon her again, the faintness of discouragement, as she asked herself why in the name of pity Verena should listen to any one at all but Olive Chancellor. Again it came over her, when she saw the brightness, the happy look, the girl brought back, as it had done in the earlier months, that the great trouble was that weak spot of Verena's, that sole infirmity and subtle flaw, which she had expressed to her very soon after they began to live together, in saying (she remembered it through the ineffaceable impression made by her friend's avowal), "I'll tell you what is the matter with you--you don't dislike men as a class!" Verena had replied on this occasion, "Well, no, I don't dislike them when they are pleasant!" As if organised atrociousness could ever be pleasant! Olive disliked them most when they were least unpleasant. After a little, at present, she remarked, referring to Henry Burrage: "It is not right of him, not decent, after your making him feel how, while he was at Cambridge, he wearied you, tormented you." "Oh, I didn't show anything," said Verena gaily. "I am learning to dissimulate," she added in a moment. "I suppose you have to as you go along. I pretend not to notice." At this moment the gong sounded for luncheon, and the two young women covered up their ears, face to face, Verena with her quick smile, Olive with her pale patience. When they could hear themselves speak, the latter said abruptly: "How did Mrs. Burrage come to invite Mr. Ransom to her party? He told Adeline he had never seen her before." "Oh, I asked her to send him an invitation--after she had written to me, to thank me, when it was definitely settled we should come on. She asked me in her letter if there were any friends of mine in the city to whom I should like her to send cards, and I mentioned Mr. Ransom." Verena spoke without a single instant's hesitation, and the only sign of embarrassment she gave was that she got up from her chair, passing in this manner a little out of Olive's scrutiny. It was easy for her not to falter, because she was glad of the chance. She wanted to be very simple in all her relations with her friend, and of course it was not simple so soon as she began to keep things back. She could at any rate keep back as little as possible, and she felt as if she were making up for a dereliction when she answered Olive's inquiry so promptly. "You never told me of that," Miss Chancellor remarked, in a low tone. "I didn't want to. I know you don't like him, and I thought it would give you pain. Yet I wanted him to be there--I wanted him to hear." "What does it matter--why should you care about him?" "Well, because he is so awfully opposed!" "How do you know that, Verena?" At this point Verena began to hesitate. It was not, after all, so easy to keep back only a little; it appeared rather as if one must either tell everything or hide everything. The former course had already presented itself to her as unduly harsh; it was because it seemed so that she had ended by keeping the incident of Basil Ransom's visit to Monadnoc Place buried in unspoken, in unspeakable, considerations, the only secret she had in the world--the only thing that was all her own. She was so glad to say what she could without betraying herself that it was only after she had spoken that she perceived there was a danger of Olive's pushing the inquiry to the point where, to defend herself as it were, she should be obliged to practise a positive deception; and she was conscious at the same time that the moment her secret was threatened it became dearer to her. She began to pray silently that Olive might not push; for it would be odious, it would be impossible, to defend herself by a lie. Meanwhile, however, she had to answer, and the way she answered was by exclaiming, much more quickly than the reflexions I note might have appeared to permit, "Well, if you can't tell from his appearance! He's the type of the reactionary." Verena went to the toilet-glass to see that she had put on her hat properly, and Olive slowly got up, in the manner of a person not in the least eager for food. "Let him react as he likes--for heaven's sake don't mind him!" That was Miss Chancellor's rejoinder, and Verena felt that it didn't say all that was in her mind. She wished she would come down to luncheon, for she, at least, was honestly hungry. She even suspected Olive had an idea she was afraid to express, such distress it would bring with it. "Well, you know, Verena, this isn't our _real_ life--it isn't our work," Olive went on. "Well, no, it isn't, certainly," said Verena, not pretending at first that she did not know what Olive meant. In a moment, however, she added, "Do you refer to this social intercourse with Mr. Burrage?" "Not to that only." Then Olive asked abruptly, looking at her, "How did you know his address?" "His address?" "Mr. Ransom's--to enable Mrs. Burrage to invite him?" They stood for a moment interchanging a gaze. "It was in a letter I got from him." At these words there came into Olive's face an expression which made her companion cross over to her directly and take her by the hand. But the tone was different from what Verena expected, when she said, with cold surprise: "Oh, you are in correspondence!" It showed an immense effort of self-control. "He wrote to me once--I never told you," Verena rejoined, smiling. She felt that her friend's strange, uneasy eyes searched very far; a little more and they would go to the very bottom. Well, they might go if they would; she didn't, after all, care so much about her secret as that. For the moment, however, Verena did not learn what Olive had discovered, inasmuch as she only remarked presently that it was really time to go down. As they descended the staircase she put her arm into Miss Chancellor's and perceived that she was trembling. Of course there were plenty of people in New York interested in the uprising, and Olive had made appointments, in advance, which filled the whole afternoon. Everybody wanted to meet them, and wanted everybody else to do so, and Verena saw they could easily have quite a vogue, if they only chose to stay and work that vein. Very likely, as Olive said, it wasn't their real life, and people didn't seem to have such a grip of the movement as they had in Boston; but there was something in the air that carried one along, and a sense of vastness and variety, of the infinite possibilities of a great city, which--Verena hardly knew whether she ought to confess it to herself--might in the end make up for the want of the Boston earnestness. Certainly, the people seemed very much alive, and there was no other place where so many cheering reports could flow in, owing to the number of electric feelers that stretched away everywhere. The principal centre appeared to be Mrs. Croucher's, on Fifty-sixth Street, where there was an informal gathering of sympathisers who didn't seem as if they could forgive her when they learned that she had been speaking the night before in a circle in which none of them were acquainted. Certainly, they were very different from the group she had addressed at Mrs. Burrage's, and Verena heaved a thin, private sigh, expressive of some helplessness, as she thought what a big, complicated world it was, and how it evidently contained a little of everything. There was a general demand that she should repeat her address in a more congenial atmosphere; to which she replied that Olive made her engagements for her, and that as the address had been intended just to lead people on, perhaps she would think Mrs. Croucher's friends had reached a higher point. She was as cautious as this because she saw that Olive was now just straining to get out of the city; she didn't want to say anything that would tie them. When she felt her trembling that way before luncheon it made her quite sick to realise how much her friend was wrapped up in her--how terribly she would suffer from the least deviation. After they had started for their round of engagements the very first thing Verena spoke of in the carriage (Olive had taken one, in her liberal way, for the whole time) was the fact that her correspondence with Mr. Ransom, as her friend had called it, had consisted on his part of only one letter. It was a very short one, too; it had come to her a little more than a month before. Olive knew she got letters from gentlemen; she didn't see why she should attach such importance to this one. Miss Chancellor was leaning back in the carriage, very still, very grave, with her head against the cushioned surface, only turning her eyes towards the girl. "You attach importance yourself; otherwise you would have told me." "I knew you wouldn't like it--because you don't like _him_." "I don't think of him," said Olive; "he's nothing to me." Then she added, suddenly, "Have you noticed that I am afraid to face what I don't like?" Verena could not say that she had, and yet it was not just on Olive's part to speak as if she were an easy person to tell such a thing to: the way she lay there, white and weak, like a wounded creature, sufficiently proved the contrary. "You have such a fearful power of suffering," she replied in a moment. To this at first Miss Chancellor made no rejoinder; but after a little she said, in the same attitude, "Yes, _you_ could make me." Verena took her hand and held it awhile. "I never will, till I have been through everything myself." "_You_ were not made to suffer--you were made to enjoy," Olive said, in very much the same tone in which she had told her that what was the matter with her was that she didn't dislike men as a class--a tone which implied that the contrary would have been much more natural and perhaps rather higher. Perhaps it would; but Verena was unable to rebut the charge; she felt this, as she looked out of the window of the carriage at the bright, amusing city, where the elements seemed so numerous, the animation so immense, the shops so brilliant, the women so strikingly dressed, and knew that these things quickened her curiosity, all her pulses. "Well, I suppose I mustn't presume on it," she remarked, glancing back at Olive with her natural sweetness, her uncontradicting grace. That young lady lifted her hand to her lips--held it there a moment; the movement seemed to say, "When you are so divinely docile, how can I help the dread of losing you?" This idea, however, was unspoken, and Olive Chancellor's uttered words, as the carriage rolled on, were different. "Verena, I don't understand why he wrote to you." "He wrote to me because he likes me. Perhaps you'll say you don't understand why he likes me," the girl continued, laughing. "He liked me the first time he saw me." "Oh, that time!" Olive murmured. "And still more the second." "Did he tell you that in his letter?" Miss Chancellor inquired. "Yes, my dear, he told me that. Only he expressed it more gracefully." Verena was very happy to say that; a written phrase of Basil Ransom's sufficiently justified her. "It was my intuition--it was my foreboding!" Olive exclaimed, closing her eyes. "I thought you said you didn't dislike him." "It isn't dislike--it's simple dread. Is that all there is between you?" "Why, Olive Chancellor, what do you think?" Verena asked, feeling now distinctly like a coward. Five minutes afterwards she said to Olive that if it would give her pleasure they would leave New York on the morrow, without taking a fourth day; and as soon as she had done so she felt better, especially when she saw how gratefully Olive looked at her for the concession, how eagerly she rose to the offer in saying, "Well, if you _do_ feel that it isn't our own life--our very own!" It was with these words, and others besides, and with an unusually weak, indefinite kiss, as if she wished to protest that, after all, a single day didn't matter, and yet accepted the sacrifice and was a little ashamed of it--it was in this manner that the agreement as to an immediate retreat was sealed. Verena could not shut her eyes to the fact that for a month she had been less frank, and if she wished to do penance this abbreviation of their pleasure in New York, even if it made her almost completely miss Basil Ransom, was easier than to tell Olive just now that the letter was _not_ all, that there had been a long visit, a talk, and a walk besides, which she had been covering up for ever so many weeks. And of what consequence, anyway, was the missing? Was it such a pleasure to converse with a gentleman who only wanted to let you know--and why he should want it so much Verena couldn't guess--that he thought you quite preposterous? Olive took her from place to place, and she ended by forgetting everything but the present hour, and the bigness and variety of New York, and the entertainment of rolling about in a carriage with silk cushions, and meeting new faces, new expressions of curiosity and sympathy, assurances that one was watched and followed. Mingled with this was a bright consciousness, sufficient for the moment, that one was moreover to dine at Delmonico's and go to the German opera. There was enough of the epicurean in Verena's composition to make it easy for her in certain conditions to live only for the hour. XXXI When she returned with her companion to the establishment in Tenth Street she saw two notes lying on the table in the hall; one of which she perceived to be addressed to Miss Chancellor, the other to herself. The hand was different, but she recognised both. Olive was behind her on the steps, talking to the coachman about sending another carriage for them in half an hour (they had left themselves but just time to dress); so that she simply possessed herself of her own note and ascended to her room. As she did so she felt that all the while she had known it would be there, and was conscious of a kind of treachery, an unfriendly wilfulness, in not being more prepared for it. If she could roll about New York the whole afternoon and forget that there might be difficulties ahead, that didn't alter the fact that there _were_ difficulties, and that they might even become considerable--might not be settled by her simply going back to Boston. Half an hour later, as she drove up the Fifth Avenue with Olive (there seemed to be so much crowded into that one day), smoothing her light gloves, wishing her fan were a little nicer, and proving by the answering, familiar brightness with which she looked out on the lamp-lighted streets that, whatever theory might be entertained as to the genesis of her talent and her personal nature, the blood of the lecture-going, night-walking Tarrants did distinctly flow in her veins; as the pair proceeded, I say, to the celebrated restaurant, at the door of which Mr. Burrage had promised to be in vigilant expectancy of their carriage, Verena found a sufficiently gay and natural tone of voice for remarking to her friend that Mr. Ransom had called upon her while they were out, and had left a note in which there were many compliments for Miss Chancellor. "That's wholly your own affair, my dear," Olive replied, with a melancholy sigh, gazing down the vista of Fourteenth Street (which they happened just then to be traversing, with much agitation), toward the queer barrier of the elevated railway. It was nothing new to Verena that if the great striving of Olive's life was for justice she yet sometimes failed to arrive at it in particular cases; and she reflected that it was rather late for her to say, like that, that Basil Ransom's letters were only his correspondent's business. Had not his kinswoman quite made the subject her own during their drive that afternoon? Verena determined now that her companion should hear all there was to be heard about the letter; asking herself whether, if she told her at present more than she cared to know, it wouldn't make up for her hitherto having told her less. "He brought it with him, written, in case I should be out. He wants to see me to-morrow--he says he has ever so much to say to me. He proposes an hour--says he hopes it won't be inconvenient for me to see him about eleven in the morning; thinks I may have no other engagement so early as that. Of course our return to Boston settles it," Verena added, with serenity. Miss Chancellor said nothing for a moment; then she replied, "Yes, unless you invite him to come on with you in the train." "Why, Olive, how bitter you are!" Verena exclaimed, in genuine surprise. Olive could not justify her bitterness by saying that her companion had spoken as if she were disappointed, because Verena had not. So she simply remarked, "I don't see what he can have to say to you--that would be worth your hearing." "Well, of course, it's the other side. He has got it on the brain!" said Verena, with a laugh which seemed to relegate the whole matter to the category of the unimportant. "If we should stay, would you see him--at eleven o'clock?" Olive inquired. "Why do you ask that--when I have given it up?" "Do you consider it such a tremendous sacrifice?" "No," said Verena good-naturedly; "but I confess I am curious." "Curious--how do you mean?" "Well, to hear the other side." "Oh heaven!" Olive Chancellor murmured, turning her face upon her. "You must remember I have never heard it." And Verena smiled into her friend's wan gaze. "Do you want to hear all the infamy that is in the world?" "No, it isn't that; but the more he should talk the better chance he would give me. I guess I can meet him." "Life is too short. Leave him as he is." "Well," Verena went on, "there are many I haven't cared to move at all, whom I might have been more interested in than in him. But to make him give in just at two or three points--that I should like better than anything I have done." "You have no business to enter upon a contest that isn't equal; and it wouldn't be, with Mr. Ransom." "The inequality would be that I have right on my side." "What is that--for a man? For what was their brutality given them, but to make that up?" "I don't think he's brutal; I should like to see," said Verena gaily. Olive's eyes lingered a little on her own; then they turned away, vaguely, blindly, out of the carriage-window, and Verena made the reflexion that she looked strangely little like a person who was going to dine at Delmonico's. How terribly she worried about everything, and how tragical was her nature; how anxious, suspicious, exposed to subtle influences! In their long intimacy Verena had come to revere most of her friend's peculiarities; they were a proof of her depth and devotion, and were so bound up with what was noble in her that she was rarely provoked to criticise them separately. But at present, suddenly, Olive's earnestness began to appear as inharmonious with the scheme of the universe as if it had been a broken saw; and she was positively glad she had not told her about Basil Ransom's appearance in Monadnoc Place. If she worried so about what she knew, how much would she not have worried about the rest! Verena had by this time made up her mind that her acquaintance with Mr. Ransom was the most episodical, most superficial, most unimportant of all possible relations. Olive Chancellor watched Henry Burrage very closely that evening; she had a special reason for doing so, and her entertainment, during the successive hours, was derived much less from the delicate little feast over which this insinuating proselyte presided, in the brilliant public room of the establishment, where French waiters flitted about on deep carpets and parties at neighbouring tables excited curiosity and conjecture, or even from the magnificent music of _Lohengrin_, than from a secret process of comparison and verification, which shall presently be explained to the reader. As some discredit has possibly been thrown upon her impartiality it is a pleasure to be able to say that on her return from the opera she took a step dictated by an earnest consideration of justice--of the promptness with which Verena had told her of the note left by Basil Ransom in the afternoon. She drew Verena into her room with her. The girl, on the way back to Tenth Street, had spoken only of Wagner's music, of the singers, the orchestra, the immensity of the house, her tremendous pleasure. Olive could see how fond she might become of New York, where that kind of pleasure was so much more in the air. "Well, Mr. Burrage was certainly very kind to us--no one could have been more thoughtful," Olive said; and she coloured a little at the look with which Verena greeted this tribute of appreciation from Miss Chancellor to a single gentleman. "I am so glad you were struck with that, because I do think we have been a little rough to him." Verena's _we_ was angelic. "He was particularly attentive to you, my dear; he has got over me. He looked at you so sweetly. Dearest Olive, if you marry him----!" And Miss Tarrant, who was in high spirits, embraced her companion, to check her own silliness. "He wants you to stay there, all the same. They haven't given _that_ up," Olive remarked, turning to a drawer, out of which she took a letter. "Did he tell you that, pray? He said nothing more about it to me." "When we came in this afternoon I found this note from Mrs. Burrage. You had better read it." And she presented the document, open, to Verena. The purpose of it was to say that Mrs. Burrage could really not reconcile herself to the loss of Verena's visit, on which both she and her son had counted so much. She was sure they would be able to make it as interesting to Miss Tarrant as it would be to themselves. She, Mrs. Burrage, moreover, felt as if she hadn't heard half she wanted about Miss Tarrant's views, and there were so many more who were present at the address, who had come to her that afternoon (losing not a minute, as Miss Chancellor could see) to ask how in the world they too could learn more--how they could get at the fair speaker and question her about certain details. She hoped so much, therefore, that even if the young ladies should be unable to alter their decision about the visit they might at least see their way to staying over long enough to allow her to arrange an informal meeting for some of these poor thirsty souls. Might she not at least talk over the question with Miss Chancellor? She gave her notice that she would attack her on the subject of the visit too. Might she not see her on the morrow, and might she ask of her the very great favour that the interview should be at Mrs. Burrage's own house? She had something very particular to say to her, as regards which perfect privacy was a great consideration, and Miss Chancellor would doubtless recognise that this would be best secured under Mrs. Burrage's roof. She would therefore send her carriage for Miss Chancellor at any hour that would be convenient to the latter. She really thought much good might come from their having a satisfactory talk. Verena read this epistle with much deliberation; it seemed to her mysterious, and confirmed the idea she had received the night before--the idea that she had not got quite a correct impression of this clever, worldly, curious woman on the occasion of her visit to Cambridge, when they met her at her son's rooms. As she gave the letter back to Olive she said, "That's why he didn't seem to believe we are really leaving to-morrow. He knows she had written that, and he thinks it will keep us." "Well, if I were to say it may--should you think me too miserably changeful?" Verena stared, with all her candour, and it was so very queer that Olive should now wish to linger that the sense of it, for the moment, almost covered the sense of its being pleasant. But that came out after an instant, and she said, with great honesty, "You needn't drag me away for consistency's sake. It would be absurd for me to pretend that I don't like being here." "I think perhaps I ought to see her." Olive was very thoughtful. "How lovely it must be to have a secret with Mrs. Burrage!" Verena exclaimed. "It won't be a secret from you." "Dearest, you needn't tell me unless you want," Verena went on, thinking of her own unimparted knowledge. "I thought it was our plan to divide everything. It was certainly mine." "Ah, don't talk about plans!" Verena exclaimed, rather ruefully. "You see, if we _are_ going to stay to-morrow, how foolish it was to have any. There is more in her letter than is expressed," she added, as Olive appeared to be studying in her face the reasons for and against making this concession to Mrs. Burrage, and that was rather embarrassing. "I thought it over all the evening--so that if now you will consent we will stay." "Darling--what a spirit you have got! All through all those dear little dishes--all through _Lohengrin_! As I haven't thought it over at all, you must settle it. You know I am not difficult." "And would you go and stay with Mrs. Burrage, after all, if she should say anything to me that seems to make it desirable?" Verena broke into a laugh. "You know it's not our real life!" Olive said nothing for a moment; then she replied: "Don't think _I_ can forget that. If I suggest a deviation, it's only because it sometimes seems to me that perhaps, after all, almost anything is better than the form reality _may_ take with us." This was slightly obscure, as well as very melancholy, and Verena was relieved when her companion remarked, in a moment, "You must think me strangely inconsequent"; for this gave her a chance to reply, soothingly: "Why, you don't suppose I expect you to keep always screwed up! I will stay a week with Mrs. Burrage, or a fortnight, or a month, or anything you like," she pursued; "anything it may seem to you best to tell her after you have seen her." "Do you leave it all to me? You don't give me much help," Olive said. "Help to what?" "Help to help _you_." "I don't want any help; I am quite strong enough!" Verena cried gaily. The next moment she inquired, in an appeal half comical, half touching, "My dear colleague, why do you make me say such conceited things?" "And if you do stay--just even to-morrow--shall you be--very much of the time--with Mr. Ransom?" As Verena for the moment appeared ironically-minded, she might have found a fresh subject for hilarity in the tremulous, tentative tone in which Olive made this inquiry. But it had not that effect; it produced the first manifestation of impatience--the first, literally, and the first note of reproach--that had occurred in the course of their remarkable intimacy. The colour rose to Verena's cheek, and her eye for an instant looked moist. "I don't know what you always think, Olive, nor why you don't seem able to trust me. You didn't, from the first, with gentlemen. Perhaps you were right then--I don't say; but surely it is very different now. I don't think I ought to be suspected so much. Why have you a manner as if I had to be watched, as if I wanted to run away with every man that speaks to me? I should think I had proved how little I care. I thought you had discovered by this time that I am serious; that I have dedicated my life; that there is something unspeakably dear to me. But you begin again, every time--you don't do me justice. I must take everything that comes. I mustn't be afraid. I thought we had agreed that we were to do our work in the midst of the world, facing everything, keeping straight on, always taking hold. And now that it all opens out so magnificently, and victory is really sitting on our banners, it is strange of you to doubt of me, to suppose I am not more wedded to all our old dreams than ever. I told you the first time I saw you that I could renounce, and knowing better to-day, perhaps, what that means, I am ready to say it again. That I can, that I will! Why, Olive Chancellor," Verena cried, panting, a moment, with her eloquence, and with the rush of a culminating idea, "haven't you discovered by this time that I _have_ renounced?" The habit of public speaking, the training, the practice, in which she had been immersed, enabled Verena to unroll a coil of propositions dedicated even to a private interest with the most touching, most cumulative effect. Olive was completely aware of this, and she stilled herself, while the girl uttered one soft, pleading sentence after another, into the same rapt attention she was in the habit of sending up from the benches of an auditorium. She looked at Verena fixedly, felt that she was stirred to her depths, that she was exquisitely passionate and sincere, that she was a quivering, spotless, consecrated maiden, that she really had renounced, that they were both safe, and that her own injustice and indelicacy had been great. She came to her slowly, took her in her arms and held her long--giving her a silent kiss. From which Verena knew that she believed her. XXXII The hour that Olive proposed to Mrs. Burrage, in a note sent early the next morning, for the interview to which she consented to lend herself, was the stroke of noon; this period of the day being chosen in consequence of a prevision of many subsequent calls upon her time. She remarked in her note that she did not wish any carriage to be sent for her, and she surged and swayed up the Fifth Avenue on one of the convulsive, clattering omnibuses which circulate in that thoroughfare. One of her reasons for mentioning twelve o'clock had been that she knew Basil Ransom was to call at Tenth Street at eleven, and (as she supposed he didn't intend to stay all day) this would give her time to see him come and go. It had been tacitly agreed between them, the night before, that Verena was quite firm enough in her faith to submit to his visit, and that such a course would be much more dignified than dodging it. This understanding passed from one to the other during that dumb embrace which I have described as taking place before they separated for the night. Shortly before noon, Olive, passing out of the house, looked into the big, sunny double parlour, where, in the morning, with all the husbands absent for the day and all the wives and spinsters launched upon the town, a young man desiring to hold a debate with a young lady might enjoy every advantage in the way of a clear field. Basil Ransom was still there; he and Verena, with the place to themselves, were standing in the recess of a window, their backs presented to the door. If he had got up, perhaps he was going, and Olive, softly closing the door again, waited a little in the hall, ready to pass into the back part of the house if she should hear him coming out. No sound, however, reached her ear; apparently he did mean to stay all day, and she should find him there on her return. She left the house, knowing they were looking at her from the window as she descended the steps, but feeling she could not bear to see Basil Ransom's face. As she walked, averting her own, towards the Fifth Avenue, on the sunny side, she was barely conscious of the loveliness of the day, the perfect weather, all suffused and tinted with spring, which sometimes descends upon New York when the winds of March have been stilled; she was given up only to the remembrance of that moment when she herself had stood at a window (the second time he came to see her in Boston), and watched Basil Ransom pass out with Adeline--with Adeline who had seemed capable then of getting such a hold on him but had proved as ineffectual in this respect as she was in every other. She recalled the vision she had allowed to dance before her as she saw the pair cross the street together, laughing and talking, and how it seemed to interpose itself against the fears which already then--so strangely--haunted her. Now that she saw it so fruitless--and that Verena, moreover, had turned out really so great--she was rather ashamed of it; she felt associated, however remotely, in the reasons which had made Mrs. Luna tell her so many fibs the day before, and there could be nothing elevating in that. As for the other reasons why her fidgety sister had failed and Mr. Ransom had held his own course, naturally Miss Chancellor didn't like to think of them. If she had wondered what Mrs. Burrage wished so particularly to talk about, she waited some time for the clearing-up of the mystery. During this interval she sat in a remarkably pretty boudoir, where there were flowers and faiences and little French pictures, and watched her hostess revolve round the subject in circles the vagueness of which she tried to dissimulate. Olive believed she was a person who never could enjoy asking a favour, especially of a votary of the new ideas; and that was evidently what was coming. She had asked one already, but that had been handsomely paid for; the note from Mrs. Burrage which Verena found awaiting her in Tenth Street, on her arrival, contained the largest cheque this young woman had ever received for an address. The request that hung fire had reference to Verena too, of course; and Olive needed no prompting to feel that her friend's being a young person who took money could not make Mrs. Burrage's present effort more agreeable. To this taking of money (for when it came to Verena it was as if it came to her as well) she herself was now completely inured; money was a tremendous force, and when one wanted to assault the wrong with every engine one was happy not to lack the sinews of war. She liked her hostess better this morning than she had liked her before; she had more than ever the air of taking all sorts of sentiments and views for granted between them; which could only be flattering to Olive so long as it was really Mrs. Burrage who made each advance, while her visitor sat watchful and motionless. She had a light, clever, familiar way of traversing an immense distance with a very few words, as when she remarked, "Well, then, it is settled that she will come, and will stay till she is tired." Nothing of the kind had been settled, but Olive helped Mrs. Burrage (this time) more than she knew by saying, "Why do you want her to visit you, Mrs. Burrage? why do you want her socially? Are you not aware that your son, a year ago, desired to marry her?" "My dear Miss Chancellor, that is just what I wish to talk to you about. I am aware of everything; I don't believe you ever met any one who is aware of more things than I." And Olive had to believe this, as Mrs. Burrage held up, smiling, her intelligent, proud, good-natured, successful head. "I knew a year ago that my son was in love with your friend, I know that he has been so ever since, and that in consequence he would like to marry her to-day. I daresay you don't like the idea of her marrying at all; it would break up a friendship which is so full of interest" (Olive wondered for a moment whether she had been going to say "so full of profit") "for you. This is why I hesitated; but since you are willing to talk about it, that is just what I want." "I don't see what good it will do," Olive said. "How can we tell till we try? I never give a thing up till I have turned it over in every sense." It was Mrs. Burrage, however, who did most of the talking; Olive only inserted from time to time an inquiry, a protest, a correction, an ejaculation tinged with irony. None of these things checked or diverted her hostess; Olive saw more and more that she wished to please her, to win her over, to smooth matters down, to place them in a new and original light. She was very clever and (little by little Olive said to herself) absolutely unscrupulous, but she didn't think she was clever enough for what she had undertaken. This was neither more nor less, in the first place, than to persuade Miss Chancellor that she and her son were consumed with sympathy for the movement to which Miss Chancellor had dedicated her life. But how could Olive believe that, when she saw the type to which Mrs. Burrage belonged--a type into which nature herself had inserted a face turned in the very opposite way from all earnest and improving things? People like Mrs. Burrage lived and fattened on abuses, prejudices, privileges, on the petrified, cruel fashions of the past. It must be added, however, that if her hostess was a humbug, Olive had never met one who provoked her less; she was such a brilliant, genial, artistic one, with such a recklessness of perfidy, such a willingness to bribe you if she couldn't deceive you. She seemed to be offering Olive all the kingdoms of the earth if she would only exert herself to bring about a state of feeling on Verena Tarrant's part which would lead the girl to accept Henry Burrage. "We know it's you--the whole business; that you can do what you please. You could decide it to-morrow with a word." She had hesitated at first, and spoken of her hesitation, and it might have appeared that she would need all her courage to say to Olive, that way, face to face, that Verena was in such subjection to her. But she didn't look afraid; she only looked as if it were an infinite pity Miss Chancellor couldn't understand what immense advantages and rewards there would be for her in striking an alliance with the house of Burrage. Olive was so impressed with this, so occupied, even, in wondering what these mystic benefits might be, and whether after all there might not be a protection in them (from something worse), a fund of some sort that she and Verena might convert to a large use, setting aside the mother and son when once they had got what they had to give--she was so arrested with the vague daze of this vision, the sense of Mrs. Burrage's full hands, her eagerness, her thinking it worth while to flatter and conciliate, whatever her pretexts and pretensions might be, that she was almost insensible, for the time, to the strangeness of such a woman's coming round to a positive desire for a connexion with the Tarrants. Mrs. Burrage had indeed explained this partly by saying that her son's condition was wearing her out, and that she would enter into anything that would make him happier, make him better. She was fonder of him than of the whole world beside, and it was an anguish to her to see him yearning for Miss Tarrant only to lose her. She made that charge about Olive's power in the matter in such a way that it seemed at the same time a tribute to her force of character. "I don't know on what terms you suppose me to be with my friend," Olive returned, with considerable majesty. "She will do exactly as she likes, in such a case as the one you allude to. She is absolutely free; you speak as if I were her keeper!" Then Mrs. Burrage explained that of course she didn't mean that Miss Chancellor exercised a conscious tyranny; but only that Verena had a boundless admiration for her, saw through her eyes, took the impress of all her opinions, preferences. She was sure that if Olive would only take a favourable view of her son Miss Tarrant would instantly throw herself into it. "It's very true that you may ask me," added Mrs. Burrage, smiling, "how you can take a favourable view of a young man who wants to marry the very person in the world you want most to keep unmarried!" This description of Verena was of course perfectly correct; but it was not agreeable to Olive to have the fact in question so clearly perceived, even by a person who expressed it with an air intimating that there was nothing in the world _she_ couldn't understand. "Did your son know that you were going to speak to me about this?" Olive asked, rather coldly, waiving the question of her influence on Verena and the state in which she wished her to remain. "Oh yes, poor dear boy; we had a long talk yesterday, and I told him I would do what I could for him. Do you remember the little visit I paid to Cambridge last spring, when I saw you at his rooms? Then it was I began to perceive how the wind was setting; but yesterday we had a real _éclaircissement_. I didn't like it at all, at first; I don't mind telling you that, now--now that I am really enthusiastic about it. When a girl is as charming, as original, as Miss Tarrant, it doesn't in the least matter who she is; she makes herself the standard by which you measure her; she makes her own position. And then Miss Tarrant has such a future!" Mrs. Burrage added, quickly, as if that were the last thing to be overlooked. "The whole question has come up again--the feeling that Henry tried to think dead, or at least dying, has revived, through the--I hardly know what to call it, but I really may say the unexpectedly great effect of her appearance here. She was really wonderful on Wednesday evening; prejudice, conventionality, every presumption there might be against her, had to fall to the ground. I expected a success, but I didn't expect what you gave us," Mrs. Burrage went on, smiling, while Olive noted her "you." "In short, my poor boy flamed up again; and now I see that he will never again care for any girl as he cares for that one. My dear Miss Chancellor, _j'en ai pris mon parti_, and perhaps you know my way of doing that sort of thing. I am not at all good at resigning myself, but I am excellent at taking up a craze. I haven't renounced, I have only changed sides. For or against, I must be a partisan. Don't you know that kind of nature? Henry has put the affair into my hands, and you see I put it into yours. Do help me; let us work together." This was a long, explicit speech for Mrs. Burrage, who dealt, usually, in the cursory and allusive; and she may very well have expected that Miss Chancellor would recognise its importance. What Olive did, in fact, was simply to inquire, by way of rejoinder: "Why did you ask us to come on?" If Mrs. Burrage hesitated now, it was only for twenty seconds. "Simply because we are so interested in your work." "That surprises me," said Olive thoughtfully. "I daresay you don't believe it; but such a judgement is superficial. I am sure we give proof in the offer we make," Mrs. Burrage remarked, with a good deal of point. "There are plenty of girls--without any views at all--who would be delighted to marry my son. He is very clever, and he has a large fortune. Add to that that he's an angel!" That was very true, and Olive felt all the more that the attitude of these fortunate people, for whom the world was so well arranged just as it was, was very curious. But as she sat there it came over her that the human spirit has many variations, that the influence of the truth is great, and that there are such things in life as happy surprises, quite as well as disagreeable ones. Nothing, certainly, forced such people to fix their affections on the daughter of a "healer"; it would be very clumsy to pick her out of her generation only for the purpose of frustrating her. Moreover, her observation of their young host at Delmonico's and in the spacious box at the Academy of Music, where they had privacy and ease, and murmured words could pass without making neighbours more given up to the stage turn their heads--her consideration of Henry Burrage's manner, suggested to her that she had measured him rather scantily the year before, that he was as much in love as the feebler passions of the age permitted (for though Miss Chancellor believed in the amelioration of humanity, she thought there was too much water in the blood of all of us), that he prized Verena for her rarity, which was her genius, her gift, and would therefore have an interest in promoting it, and that he was of so soft and fine a paste that his wife might do what she liked with him. Of course there would be the mother-in-law to count with; but unless she was perjuring herself shamelessly Mrs. Burrage really had the wish to project herself into the new atmosphere, or at least to be generous personally; so that, oddly enough, the fear that most glanced before Olive was not that this high, free matron, slightly irritable with cleverness and at the same time good-natured with prosperity, would bully her son's bride, but rather that she might take too fond a possession of her. It was a fear which may be described as a presentiment of jealousy. It occurred, accordingly, to Miss Chancellor's quick conscience that, possibly, the proposal which presented itself in circumstances so complicated and anomalous was simply a magnificent chance, an improvement on the very best, even, that she had dreamed of for Verena. It meant a large command of money--much larger than her own; the association of a couple of clever people who simulated conviction very well, whether they felt it or not, and who had a hundred useful worldly ramifications, and a kind of social pedestal from which she might really shine afar. The conscience I have spoken of grew positively sick as it thought of having such a problem as that to consider, such an ordeal to traverse. In the presence of such a contingency the poor girl felt grim and helpless; she could only vaguely wonder whether she were called upon in the name of duty to lend a hand to the torture of her own spirit. "And if she should marry him, how could I be sure that--afterwards--you would care so much about the question which has all our thoughts, hers and mine?" This inquiry evolved itself from Olive's rapid meditation; but even to herself it seemed a little rough. Mrs. Burrage took it admirably. "You think we are feigning an interest, only to get hold of her? That's not very nice of you, Miss Chancellor; but of course you have to be tremendously careful. I assure you my son tells me he firmly believes your movement is the great question of the immediate future, that it has entered into a new phase; into what does he call it? the domain of practical politics. As for me, you don't suppose I don't want everything we poor women can get, or that I would refuse any privilege or advantage that's offered me? I don't rant or rave about anything, but I have--as I told you just now--my own quiet way of being zealous. If you had no worse partisan than I, you would do very well. My son has talked to me immensely about your ideas; and even if I should enter into them only because he does, I should do so quite enough. You may say you don't see Henry dangling about after a wife who gives public addresses; but I am convinced that a great many things are coming to pass--very soon, too--that we don't see in advance. Henry is a gentleman to his finger-tips, and there is not a situation in which he will not conduct himself with tact." Olive could see that they really wanted Verena immensely, and it was impossible for her to believe that if they were to get her they would not treat her well. It came to her that they would even overindulge her, flatter her, spoil her; she was perfectly capable, for the moment, of assuming that Verena was susceptible of deterioration and that her own treatment of her had been discriminatingly severe. She had a hundred protests, objections, replies; her only embarrassment could be as to which she should use first. "I think you have never seen Doctor Tarrant and his wife," she remarked, with a calmness which she felt to be very pregnant. "You mean they are absolutely fearful? My son has told me they are quite impossible, and I am quite prepared for that. Do you ask how we should get on with them? My dear young lady, we should get on as you do!" If Olive had answers, so had Mrs. Burrage; she had still an answer when her visitor, taking up the supposition that it was in her power to dispose in any manner whatsoever of Verena, declared that she didn't know why Mrs. Burrage addressed herself to _her_, that Miss Tarrant was free as air, that her future was in her own hands, that such a matter as this was a kind of thing with which it could never occur to one to interfere. "Dear Miss Chancellor, we don't ask you to interfere. The only thing we ask of you is simply _not_ to interfere." "And have you sent for me only for that?" "For that, and for what I hinted at in my note; that you would really exercise your influence with Miss Tarrant to induce her to come to us now for a week or two. That is really, after all, the main thing I ask. Lend her to us, here, for a little while, and we will take care of the rest. That sounds conceited--but she _would_ have a good time." "She doesn't live for that," said Olive. "What I mean is that she should deliver an address every night!" Mrs. Burrage returned, smiling. "I think you try to prove too much. You do believe--though you pretend you don't--that I control her actions, and as far as possible her desires, and that I am jealous of any other relations she may possibly form. I can imagine that we may perhaps have that air, though it only proves how little such an association as ours is understood, and how superficial is still"--Olive felt that her "still" was really historical--"the interpretation of many of the elements in the activity of women, how much the public conscience with regard to them needs to be educated. Your conviction with respect to my attitude being what I believe it to be," Miss Chancellor went on, "I am surprised at your not perceiving how little it is in my interest to deliver my--my victim up to you." If we were at this moment to take, in a single glance, an inside view of Mrs. Burrage (a liberty we have not yet ventured on), I suspect we should find that she was considerably exasperated at her visitor's superior tone, at seeing herself regarded by this dry, shy, obstinate, provincial young woman as superficial. If she liked Verena very nearly as much as she tried to convince Miss Chancellor, she was conscious of disliking Miss Chancellor more than she should probably ever be able to reveal to Verena. It was doubtless partly her irritation that found a voice as she said, after a self-administered pinch of caution not to say too much, "Of course it would be absurd in us to assume that Miss Tarrant would find my son irresistible, especially as she has already refused him. But even if she should remain obdurate, should you consider yourself quite safe as regards others?" The manner in which Miss Chancellor rose from her chair on hearing these words showed her hostess that if she had wished to take a little revenge by frightening her, the experiment was successful. "What others do you mean?" Olive asked, standing very straight, and turning down her eyes as from a great height. Mrs. Burrage--since we have begun to look into her mind we may continue the process--had not meant any one in particular; but a train of association was suddenly kindled in her thought by the flash of the girl's resentment. She remembered the gentleman who had come up to her in the music-room, after Miss Tarrant's address, while she was talking with Olive, and to whom that young lady had given so cold a welcome. "I don't mean any one in particular; but, for instance, there is the young man to whom she asked me to send an invitation to my party, and who looked to me like a possible admirer." Mrs. Burrage also got up; then she stood a moment, closer to her visitor. "Don't you think it's a good deal to expect that, young, pretty, attractive, clever, charming as she is, you should be able to keep her always, to exclude other affections, to cut off a whole side of life, to defend her against dangers--if you call them dangers--to which every young woman who is not positively repulsive is exposed? My dear young lady, I wonder if I might give you three words of advice?" Mrs. Burrage did not wait till Olive had answered this inquiry; she went on quickly, with her air of knowing exactly what she wanted to say and feeling at the same time that, good as it might be, the manner of saying it, like the manner of saying most other things, was not worth troubling much about. "Don't attempt the impossible. You have got hold of a good thing; don't spoil it by trying to stretch it too far. If you don't take the better, perhaps you will have to take the worse; if it's safety you want I should think she was much safer with my son--for with us you know the worst--than as a possible prey to adventurers, to exploiters, or to people who, once they had got hold of her, would shut her up altogether." Olive dropped her eyes; she couldn't endure Mrs. Burrage's horrible expression of being near the mark, her look of worldly cleverness, of a confidence born of much experience. She felt that nothing would be spared her, that she should have to go to the end, that this ordeal also must be faced, and that, in particular, there was a detestable wisdom in her hostess's advice. She was conscious, however, of no obligation to recognise it then and there; she wanted to get off, and even to carry Mrs. Burrage's sapient words along with her--to hurry to some place where she might be alone and think. "I don't know why you have thought it right to send for me only to say this. I take no interest whatever in your son--in his settling in life." And she gathered her mantle more closely about her, turning away. "It is exceedingly kind of you to have come," said Mrs. Burrage imperturbably. "Think of what I have said; I am sure you won't feel that you have wasted your hour." "I have a great many things to think of!" Olive exclaimed insincerely; for she knew that Mrs. Burrage's ideas would haunt her. "And tell her that if she will make us the little visit, all New York shall sit at her feet!" That was what Olive wanted, and yet it seemed a mockery to hear Mrs. Burrage say it. Miss Chancellor retreated, making no response even when her hostess declared again that she was under great obligations to her for coming. When she reached the street she found she was deeply agitated, but not with a sense of weakness; she hurried along, excited and dismayed, feeling that her insufferable conscience was bristling like some irritated animal, that a magnificent offer had really been made to Verena, and that there was no way for her to persuade herself she might be silent about it. Of course, if Verena should be tempted by the idea of being made so much of by the Burrages, the danger of Basil Ransom getting any kind of hold on her would cease to be pressing. That was what was present to Olive as she walked along, and that was what made her nervous, conscious only of this problem that had suddenly turned the bright day to greyness, heedless of the sophisticated-looking people who passed her on the wide Fifth Avenue pavement. It had risen in her mind the day before, planted first by Mrs. Burrage's note; and then, as we know, she had vaguely entertained the conception, asking Verena whether she would make the visit if it were again to be pressed upon them. It had been pressed, certainly, and the terms of the problem were now so much sharper that they seemed cruel. What had been in her own mind was that if Verena should appear to lend herself to the Burrages Basil Ransom might be discouraged--might think that, shabby and poor, there was no chance for him as against people with every advantage of fortune and position. She didn't see him relax his purpose so easily; she knew she didn't believe he was of that pusillanimous fibre. Still, it was a chance, and any chance that might help her had been worth considering. At present she saw it was a question not of Verena's lending herself, but of a positive gift, or at least of a bargain in which the terms would be immensely liberal. It would be impossible to use the Burrages as a shelter on the assumption that they were not dangerous, for they became dangerous from the moment they set up as sympathisers, took the ground that what they offered the girl was simply a boundless opportunity. It came back to Olive, again and again, that this was, and could only be, fantastic and false; but it was always possible that Verena might not think it so, might trust them all the way. When Miss Chancellor had a pair of alternatives to consider, a question of duty to study, she put a kind of passion into it--felt, above all, that the matter must be settled that very hour, before anything in life could go on. It seemed to her at present that she couldn't re-enter the house in Tenth Street without having decided first whether she might trust the Burrages or not. By "trust" them, she meant trust them to fail in winning Verena over, while at the same time they put Basil Ransom on a false scent. Olive was able to say to herself that he probably wouldn't have the hardihood to push after her into those gilded saloons, which, in any event, would be closed to him as soon as the mother and son should discover what he wanted. She even asked herself whether Verena would not be still better defended from the young Southerner in New York, amid complicated hospitalities, than in Boston with a cousin of the enemy. She continued to walk down the Fifth Avenue, without noticing the cross-streets, and after a while became conscious that she was approaching Washington Square. By this time she had also definitely reasoned it out that Basil Ransom and Henry Burrage could not both capture Miss Tarrant, that therefore there could not be two dangers, but only one; that this was a good deal gained, and that it behoved her to determine which peril had most reality, in order that she might deal with that one only. She held her way to the Square, which, as all the world knows, is of great extent and open to the encircling street. The trees and grass-plats had begun to bud and sprout, the fountains plashed in the sunshine, the children of the quarter, both the dingier types from the south side, who played games that required much chalking of the paved walks, and much sprawling and crouching there, under the feet of passers, and the little curled and feathered people who drove their hoops under the eyes of French nursemaids--all the infant population filled the vernal air with small sounds which had a crude, tender quality, like the leaves and the thin herbage. Olive wandered through the place, and ended by sitting down on one of the continuous benches. It was a long time since she had done anything so vague, so wasteful. There were a dozen things which, as she was staying over in New York, she ought to do; but she forgot them, or, if she thought of them, felt that they were now of no moment. She remained in her place an hour, brooding, tremulous, turning over and over certain thoughts. It seemed to her that she was face to face with a crisis of her destiny, and that she must not shrink from seeing it exactly as it was. Before she rose to return to Tenth Street she had made up her mind that there was no menace so great as the menace of Basil Ransom; she had accepted in thought any arrangement which would deliver her from that. If the Burrages were to take Verena they would take her from Olive immeasurably less than he would do; it was from him, from him they would take her most. She walked back to her boarding-house, and the servant who admitted her said, in answer to her inquiry as to whether Verena were at home, that Miss Tarrant had gone out with the gentleman who called in the morning, and had not yet come in. Olive stood staring; the clock in the hall marked three. XXXIII "Come out with me, Miss Tarrant; come out with me. _Do_ come out with me." That was what Basil Ransom had been saying to Verena when they stood where Olive perceived them, in the embrasure of the window. It had of course taken considerable talk to lead up to this; for the tone, even more than the words, indicated a large increase of intimacy. Verena was mindful of this when he spoke; and it frightened her a little, made her uneasy, which was one of the reasons why she got up from her chair and went to the window--an inconsequent movement, inasmuch as her wish was to impress upon him that it was impossible she should comply with his request. It would have served this end much better for her to sit, very firmly, in her place. He made her nervous and restless; she was beginning to perceive that he produced a peculiar effect upon her. Certainly, she had been out with him at home the very first time he called upon her; but it seemed to her to make an important difference that she herself should then have proposed the walk--simply because it was the easiest thing to do when a person came to see you in Monadnoc Place. They had gone out that time because she wanted to, not because he did. And then it was one thing for her to stroll with him round Cambridge, where she knew every step and had the confidence and freedom which came from being on her own ground, and the pretext, which was perfectly natural, of wanting to show him the colleges, and quite another thing to go wandering with him through the streets of this great strange city, which, attractive, delightful as it was, had not the suitableness even of being his home, not his real one. He wanted to show her something, he wanted to show her everything; but she was not sure now--after an hour's talk--that she particularly wanted to see anything more that he could show her. He had shown her a great deal while he sat there, especially what balderdash he thought it--the whole idea of women's being equal to men. He seemed to have come only for that, for he was all the while revolving round it; she couldn't speak of anything but what he brought it back to the question of some new truth like that. He didn't say so in so many words; on the contrary, he was tremendously insinuating and satirical, and pretended to think she had proved all and a great deal more than she wanted to prove; but his exaggeration, and the way he rung all the changes on two or three of the points she had made at Mrs. Burrage's, were just the sign that he was a scoffer of scoffers. He wouldn't do anything but laugh; he seemed to think that he might laugh at her all day without her taking offence. Well, he might if it amused him; but she didn't see why she should ramble round New York with him to give him his opportunity. She had told him, and she had told Olive, that she was determined to produce some effect on him; but now, suddenly, she felt differently about that--she ceased to care whether she produced any effect or not. She didn't see why she should take him so seriously, when he wouldn't take her so; that is, wouldn't take her ideas. She had guessed before that he didn't want to discuss them; this had been in her mind when she said to him at Cambridge that his interest in her was personal, not controversial. Then she had simply meant that, as an inquiring young Southerner, he had wanted to see what a bright New England girl was like; but since then it had become a little more clear to her--her short talk with Ransom at Mrs. Burrage's threw some light upon the question--what the personal interest of a young Southerner (however inquiring merely) might amount to. Did he too want to make love to her? This idea made Verena rather impatient, weary in advance. The thing she desired least in the world was to be put into the wrong with Olive; for she had certainly given her ground to believe (not only in their scene the night before, which was a simple repetition, but all along, from the very first) that she really had an interest which would transcend any attraction coming from such a source as that. If yesterday it seemed to her that she should like to struggle with Mr. Ransom, to refute and convince him, she had this morning gone into the parlour to receive him with the idea that, now they were alone together in a quiet, favourable place, he would perhaps take up the different points of her address one by one, as several gentlemen had done after hearing her on other occasions. There was nothing she liked so well as that, and Olive never had anything to say against it. But he hadn't taken up anything; he had simply laughed and chaffed, and unrolled a string of queer fancies about the delightful way women would fix things when, as she said in her address, they should get out of their box. He kept talking about the box; he seemed as if he wouldn't let go that simile. He said that he had come to look at her through the glass sides, and if he wasn't afraid of hurting her he would smash them in. He was determined to find the key that would open it, if he had to look for it all over the world; it was tantalising only to be able to talk to her through the keyhole. If he didn't want to take up the subject, he at least wanted to take _her_ up--to keep his hand upon her as long as he could. Verena had had no such sensation since the first day she went in to see Olive Chancellor, when she felt herself plucked from the earth and borne aloft. "It's the most lovely day, and I should like so much to show you New York, as you showed me your beautiful Harvard," Basil Ransom went on, pressing her to accede to his proposal. "You said that was the only thing you could do for me then, and so this is the only thing I can do for you here. It would be odious to see you go away, giving me nothing but this stiff little talk in a boarding-house parlour." "Mercy, if you call this stiff!" Verena exclaimed, laughing, while at that moment Olive passed out of the house and descended the steps before her eyes. "My poor cousin's stiff; she won't turn her head a hair's breadth to look at us," said the young man. Olive's figure, as she went by, was, for Verena, full of a queer, touching, tragic expression, saying ever so many things, both familiar and strange; and Basil Ransom's companion privately remarked how little men knew about women, or indeed about what was really delicate, that he, without any cruel intention, should attach an idea of ridicule to such an incarnation of the pathetic, should speak rough, derisive words about it. Ransom, in truth, to-day, was not disposed to be very scrupulous, and he only wanted to get rid of Olive Chancellor, whose image, at last, decidedly bothered and bored him. He was glad to see her go out; but that was not sufficient, she would come back quick enough; the place itself contained her, expressed her. For to-day he wanted to take possession of Verena, to carry her to a distance, to reproduce a little the happy conditions they had enjoyed the day of his visit to Cambridge. And the fact that in the nature of things it could only be for to-day made his desire more keen, more full of purpose. He had thought over the whole question in the last forty-eight hours, and it was his belief that he saw things in their absolute reality. He took a greater interest in her than he had taken in any one yet, but he proposed, after to-day, not to let that accident make any difference. This was precisely what gave its high value to the present limited occasion. He was too shamefully poor, too shabbily and meagrely equipped, to have the right to talk of marriage to a girl in Verena's very peculiar position. He understood now how good that position was, from a worldly point of view; her address at Mrs. Burrage's gave him something definite to go upon, showed him what she could do, that people would flock in thousands to an exhibition so charming (and small blame to them); that she might easily have a big career, like that of a distinguished actress or singer, and that she would make money in quantities only slightly smaller than performers of that kind. Who wouldn't pay half a dollar for such an hour as he had passed at Mrs. Burrage's? The sort of thing she was able to do, to say, was an article for which there was more and more demand--fluent, pretty, third-rate palaver, conscious or unconscious perfected humbug; the stupid, gregarious, gullible public, the enlightened democracy of his native land, could swallow unlimited draughts of it. He was sure she could go, like that, for several years, with her portrait in the druggists' windows and her posters on the fences, and during that time would make a fortune sufficient to keep her in affluence for evermore. I shall perhaps expose our young man to the contempt of superior minds if I say that all this seemed to him an insuperable impediment to his making up to Verena. His scruples were doubtless begotten of a false pride, a sentiment in which there was a thread of moral tinsel, as there was in the Southern idea of chivalry; but he felt ashamed of his own poverty, the positive flatness of his situation, when he thought of the gilded nimbus that surrounded the protégée of Mrs. Burrage. This shame was possible to him even while he was conscious of what a mean business it was to practise upon human imbecility, how much better it was even to be seedy and obscure, discouraged about one's self. He had been born to the prospect of a fortune, and in spite of the years of misery that followed the war had never rid himself of the belief that a gentleman who desired to unite himself to a charming girl couldn't yet ask her to come and live with him in sordid conditions. On the other hand it was no possible basis of matrimony that Verena should continue for his advantage the exercise of her remunerative profession; if he should become her husband he should know a way to strike her dumb. In the midst of this an irrepressible desire urged him on to taste, for once, deeply, all that he was condemned to lose, or at any rate forbidden to attempt to gain. To spend a day with her and not to see her again--that presented itself to him at once as the least and the most that was possible. He did not need even to remind himself that young Mr. Burrage was able to offer her everything _he_ lacked, including the most amiable adhesion to her views. "It will be charming in the Park to-day. Why not take a stroll with me there as I did with you in the little park at Harvard?" he asked, when Olive had disappeared. "Oh, I have seen it, very well, in every corner. A friend of mine kindly took me to drive there yesterday," Verena said. "A friend?--do you mean Mr. Burrage?" And Ransom stood looking at her with his extraordinary eyes. "Of course, I haven't a vehicle to drive you in; but we can sit on a bench and talk." She didn't say it was Mr. Burrage, but she was unable to say it was not, and something in her face showed him that he had guessed. So he went on: "Is it only with him you can go out? Won't he like it, and may you only do what he likes? Mrs. Luna told me he wants to marry you, and I saw at his mother's how he stuck to you. If you are going to marry him, you can drive with him every day in the year, and that's just a reason for your giving me an hour or two now, before it becomes impossible." He didn't mind much what he said--it had been his plan not to mind much to-day--and so long as he made her do what he wanted he didn't care much how he did it. But he saw that his words brought the colour to her face; she stared, surprised at his freedom and familiarity. He went on, dropping the hardness, the irony of which he was conscious, out of his tone. "I know it's no business of mine whom you marry, or even whom you drive with, and I beg your pardon if I seem indiscreet and obtrusive; but I would give anything just to detach you a little from your ties, your belongings, and feel for an hour or two, as if--as if----" And he paused. "As if what?" she asked, very seriously. "As if there were no such person as Mr. Burrage--as Miss Chancellor--in the whole place." This had not been what he was going to say; he used different words. "I don't know what you mean, why you speak of other persons. I can do as I like, perfectly. But I don't know why you should take so for granted that _that_ would be it!" Verena spoke these words not out of coquetry, or to make him beg her more for a favour, but because she was thinking, and she wanted to gain a moment. His allusion to Henry Burrage touched her, his belief that she had been in the Park under circumstances more agreeable than those he proposed. They were not; somehow, she wanted him to know that. To wander there with a companion, slowly stopping, lounging, looking at the animals as she had seen the people do the day before; to sit down in some out-of-the-way part where there were distant views, which she had noticed from her high perch beside Henry Burrage--she had to look down so, it made her feel unduly fine: that was much more to her taste, much more her idea of true enjoyment. It came over her that Mr. Ransom had given up his work to come to her at such an hour; people of his kind, in the morning, were always getting their living, and it was only for Mr. Burrage that it didn't matter, inasmuch as he had no profession. Mr. Ransom simply wanted to give up his whole day. That pressed upon her; she was, as the most good-natured girl in the world, too entirely tender not to feel any sacrifice that was made for her; she had always done everything that people asked. Then, if Olive should make that strange arrangement for her to go to Mrs. Burrage's he would take it as a proof that there was something serious between her and the gentleman of the house, in spite of anything she might say to the contrary; moreover, if she should go she wouldn't be able to receive Mr. Ransom there. Olive would trust her not to, and she must certainly, in future, not disappoint Olive nor keep anything back from her, whatever she might have done in the past. Besides, she didn't want to do that; she thought it much better not. It was this idea of the episode which was possibly in store for her in New York, and from which her present companion would be so completely excluded, that worked upon her now with a rapid transition, urging her to grant him what he asked, so that in advance she should have made up for what she might not do for him later. But most of all she disliked his thinking she was engaged to some one. She didn't know, it is true, why she should mind it; and indeed, at this moment, our young lady's feelings were not in any way clear to her. She did not see what was the use of letting her acquaintance with Mr. Ransom become much closer (since his interest did really seem personal); and yet she presently asked him why he wanted her to go out with him, and whether there was anything particular he wanted to say to her (there was no one like Verena for making speeches apparently flirtatious, with the best faith and the most innocent intention in the world); as if that would not be precisely a reason to make it well she should get rid of him altogether. "Of course I have something particular to say to you--I have a tremendous lot to say to you!" the young man exclaimed. "Far more than I can say in this stuck-up, confined room, which is public, too, so that any one may come in from one moment to another. Besides," he added sophistically, "it isn't proper for me to pay a visit of three hours." Verena did not take up the sophistry, nor ask him whether it would be more proper for her to ramble about the city with him for an equal period; she only said, "Is it something that I shall care to hear, or that will do me any good?" "Well, I hope it will do you good; but I don't suppose you will care much to hear it." Basil Ransom hesitated a moment, smiling at her; then he went on: "It's to tell you, once for all, how much I really do differ from you!" He said this at a venture, but it was a happy inspiration. If it was only that, Verena thought she might go, for that was not personal. "Well, I'm glad you care so much," she answered musingly. But she had another scruple still, and she expressed it in saying that she should like Olive very much to find her when she came in. "That's all very well," Ransom returned; "but does she think that she only has a right to go out? Does she expect you to keep the house because she's abroad? If she stays out long enough, she will find you when she comes in." "Her going out that way--it proves that she trusts me," Verena said, with a candour which alarmed her as soon as she had spoken. Her alarm was just, for Basil Ransom instantly caught up her words, with a great mocking amazement. "Trusts you? and why shouldn't she trust you? Are you a little girl of ten and she your governess? Haven't you any liberty at all, and is she always watching you and holding you to an account? Have you such vagabond instincts that you are only thought safe when you are between four walls?" Ransom was going on to speak, in the same tone, of her having felt it necessary to keep Olive in ignorance of his visit to Cambridge--a fact they had touched on, by implication, in their short talk at Mrs. Burrage's; but in a moment he saw that he had said enough. As for Verena, she had said more than she meant, and the simplest way to unsay it was to go and get her bonnet and jacket and let him take her where he liked. Five minutes later he was walking up and down the parlour, waiting while she prepared herself to go out. They went up to the Central Park by the elevated railway, and Verena reflected, as they proceeded, that anyway Olive was probably disposing of her somehow at Mrs. Burrage's, and that therefore there wasn't much harm in her just taking this little run on her own responsibility, especially as she should only be out an hour--which would be just the duration of Olive's absence. The beauty of the "elevated" was that it took you up to the Park and brought you back in a few minutes, and you had all the rest of the hour to walk about and see the place. It was so pleasant now that one was glad to see it twice over. The long, narrow enclosure, across which the houses in the streets that border it look at each other with their glittering windows, bristled with the raw delicacy of April, and, in spite of its rockwork grottoes and tunnels, its pavilions and statues, its too numerous paths and pavements, lakes too big for the landscape and bridges too big for the lakes, expressed all the fragrance and freshness of the most charming moment of the year. Once Verena was fairly launched the spirit of the day took possession of her; she was glad to have come, she forgot about Olive, enjoyed the sense of wandering in the great city with a remarkable young man who would take beautiful care of her, while no one else in the world knew where she was. It was very different from her drive yesterday with Mr. Burrage, but it was more free, more intense, more full of amusing incident and opportunity. She could stop and look at everything now, and indulge all her curiosities, even the most childish; she could feel as if she were out for the day, though she was not really--as she had not done since she was a little girl, when in the country, once or twice, when her father and mother had drifted into summer quarters, gone out of town like people of fashion, she had, with a chance companion, strayed far from home, spent hours in the woods and fields, looking for raspberries and playing she was a gipsy. Basil Ransom had begun with proposing, strenuously, that she should come somewhere and have luncheon; he had brought her out half an hour before that meal was served in West Tenth Street, and he maintained that he owed her the compensation of seeing that she was properly fed; he knew a very quiet, luxurious French restaurant, near the top of the Fifth Avenue: he didn't tell her that he knew it through having once lunched there in company with Mrs. Luna. Verena for the present declined his hospitality--said she was going to be out so short a time that it wasn't worth the trouble; she should not be hungry, luncheon to her was nothing, she would eat when she went home. When he pressed her she said she would see later, perhaps, if she should find she wanted something. She would have liked immensely to go with him to an eating-house, and yet, with this, she was afraid, just as she was rather afraid, at bottom, and in the intervals of her quick pulsations of amusement, of the whole expedition, not knowing why she had come, though it made her happy, and reflecting that there was really nothing Mr. Ransom could have to say to her that would concern her closely enough. He knew what he intended about her sharing the noon-day repast with him somehow; it had been part of his plan that she should sit opposite him at a little table, taking her napkin out of its curious folds--sit there smiling back at him while he said to her certain things that hummed, like memories of tunes, in his fancy, and they waited till something extremely good, and a little vague, chosen out of a French _carte_, was brought them. That was not at all compatible with her going home at the end of half an hour, as she seemed to expect to. They visited the animals in the little zoological garden which forms one of the attractions of the Central Park; they observed the swans in the ornamental water, and they even considered the question of taking a boat for half an hour, Ransom saying that they needed this to make their visit complete. Verena replied that she didn't see why it should be complete, and after having threaded the devious ways of the Ramble, lost themselves in the Maze, and admired all the statues and busts of great men with which the grounds are decorated, they contented themselves with resting on a sequestered bench, where, however, there was a pretty glimpse of the distance and an occasional stroller creaked by on the asphalt walk. They had had by this time a great deal of talk, none of which, nevertheless, had been serious to Verena's view. Mr. Ransom continued to joke about everything, including the emancipation of women; Verena, who had always lived with people who took the world very earnestly, had never encountered such a power of disparagement or heard so much sarcasm levelled at the institutions of her country and the tendencies of the age. At first she replied to him, contradicted, showed a high spirit of retort, turning his irreverence against himself; she was too quick and ingenious not to be able to think of something to oppose--talking in a fanciful strain--to almost everything he said. But little by little she grew weary and rather sad; brought up, as she had been, to admire new ideas, to criticise the social arrangements that one met almost everywhere, and to disapprove of a great many things, she had yet never dreamed of such a wholesale arraignment as Mr. Ransom's, so much bitterness as she saw lurking beneath his exaggerations, his misrepresentations. She knew he was an intense conservative, but she didn't know that being a conservative could make a person so aggressive and unmerciful. She thought conservatives were only smug and stubborn and self-complacent, satisfied with what actually existed; but Mr. Ransom didn't seem any more satisfied with what existed than with what she wanted to exist, and he was ready to say worse things about some of those whom she would have supposed to be on his own side than she thought it right to say about almost any one. She ceased after a while to care to argue with him, and wondered what could have happened to him to make him so perverse. Probably something had gone wrong in his life--he had had some misfortune that coloured his whole view of the world. He was a cynic; she had often heard about that state of mind, though she had never encountered it, for all the people she had seen only cared, if possible, too much. Of Basil Ransom's personal history she knew only what Olive had told her, and that was but a general outline, which left plenty of room for private dramas, secret disappointments and sufferings. As she sat there beside him she thought of some of these things, asked herself whether they were what he was thinking of when he said, for instance, that he was sick of all the modern cant about freedom and had no sympathy with those who wanted an extension of it. What was needed for the good of the world was that people should make a better use of the liberty they possessed. Such declarations as this took Verena's breath away; she didn't suppose you could hear any one say such a thing as that in the nineteenth century, even the least advanced. It was of a piece with his denouncing the spread of education; he thought the spread of education a gigantic farce--people stuffing their heads with a lot of empty catchwords that prevented them from doing their work quietly and honestly. You had a right to an education only if you had an intelligence, and if you looked at the matter with any desire to see things as they are you soon perceived that an intelligence was a very rare luxury, the attribute of one person in a hundred. He seemed to take a pretty low view of humanity, anyway. Verena hoped that something really bad had happened to him--not by way of gratifying any resentment he aroused in her nature, but to help herself to forgive him for so much contempt and brutality. She wanted to forgive him, for after they had sat on their bench half an hour and his jesting mood had abated a little, so that he talked with more consideration (as it seemed) and more sincerity, a strange feeling came over her, a perfect willingness not to keep insisting on her own side and a desire not to part from him with a mere accentuation of their differences. Strange I call the nature of her reflexions, for they softly battled with each other as she listened, in the warm, still air, touched with the far-away hum of the immense city, to his deep, sweet, distinct voice, expressing monstrous opinions with exotic cadences and mild, familiar laughs, which, as he leaned towards her, almost tickled her cheek and ear. It seemed to her strangely harsh, almost cruel, to have brought her out only to say to her things which, after all, free as she was to contradict them and tolerant as she always tried to be, could only give her pain; yet there was a spell upon her as she listened; it was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborne. She could be silent when people insisted, and silent without acrimony. Her whole relation to Olive was a kind of tacit, tender assent to passionate insistence, and if this had ended by being easy and agreeable to her (and indeed had never been anything else), it may be supposed that the struggle of yielding to a will which she felt to be stronger even than Olive's was not of long duration. Ransom's will had the effect of making her linger even while she knew the afternoon was going on, that Olive would have come back and found her still absent, and would have been submerged again in the bitter waves of anxiety. She saw her, in fact, as she must be at that moment, posted at the window of her room in Tenth Street, watching for some sign of her return, listening for her step on the staircase, her voice in the hall. Verena looked at this image as at a painted picture, perceived all it represented, every detail. If it didn't move her more, make her start to her feet, dart away from Basil Ransom and hurry back to her friend, this was because the very torment to which she was conscious of subjecting that friend made her say to herself that it must be the very last. This was the last time she could ever sit by Mr. Ransom and hear him express himself in a manner that interfered so with her life; the ordeal had been so personal and so complete that she forgot, for the moment, it was also the first time it had occurred. It might have been going on for months. She was perfectly aware that it could bring them to nothing, for one must lead one's own life; it was impossible to lead the life of another, especially when that other was so different, so arbitrary and unscrupulous. XXXIV "I presume you are the only person in this country who feels as you do," she observed at last. "Not the only person who feels so, but very possibly the only person who thinks so. I have an idea that my convictions exist in a vague, unformulated state in the minds of a great many of my fellow-citizens. If I should succeed some day in giving them adequate expression I should simply put into shape the slumbering instincts of an important minority." "I am glad you admit it's a minority!" Verena exclaimed. "That's fortunate for us poor creatures. And what do you call adequate expression? I presume you would like to be President of the United States?" "And breathe forth my views in glowing messages to a palpitating Senate? That is exactly what I should like to be; you read my aspirations wonderfully well." "Well, do you consider that you have advanced far in that direction, as yet?" Verena asked. This question, with the tone in which it happened to be uttered, seemed to the young man to project rather an ironical light upon his present beggarly condition, so that for a moment he said nothing; a moment during which if his neighbour had glanced round at his face she would have seen it ornamented by an incipient blush. Her words had for him the effect of a sudden, though, on the part of a young woman who had of course every right to defend herself, a perfectly legitimate taunt. They appeared only to repeat in another form (so at least his exaggerated Southern pride, his hot sensibility, interpreted the matter) the idea that a gentleman so dreadfully backward in the path of fortune had no right to take up the time of a brilliant, successful girl, even for the purpose of satisfying himself that he renounced her. But the reminder only sharpened his wish to make her feel that if he had renounced, it was simply on account of that same ugly, accidental, outside backwardness; and if he had not, he went so far as to flatter himself, he might triumph over the whole accumulation of her prejudices--over all the bribes of her notoriety. The deepest feeling in Ransom's bosom in relation to her was the conviction that she was made for love, as he had said to himself while he listened to her at Mrs. Burrage's. She was profoundly unconscious of it, and another ideal, crude and thin and artificial, had interposed itself; but in the presence of a man she should really care for, this false, flimsy structure would rattle to her feet, and the emancipation of Olive Chancellor's sex (what sex was it, great heaven? he used profanely to ask himself) would be relegated to the land of vapours, of dead phrases. The reader may imagine whether such an impression as this made it any more agreeable to Basil to have to believe it would be indelicate in him to try to woo her. He would have resented immensely the imputation that he had done anything of that sort yet. "Ah, Miss Tarrant, my success in life is one thing--my ambition is another!" he exclaimed presently, in answer to her inquiry. "Nothing is more possible than that I may be poor and unheard of all my days; and in that case no one but myself will know the visions of greatness I have stifled and buried." "Why do you talk of being poor and unheard of? Aren't you getting on quite well in this city?" This question of Verena's left him no time, or at least no coolness, to remember that to Mrs. Luna and to Olive he had put a fine face on his prospects, and that any impression the girl might have about them was but the natural echo of what these ladies believed. It had to his ear such a subtly mocking, defiant, unconsciously injurious quality, that the only answer he could make to it seemed to him for the moment to be an outstretched arm, which, passing round her waist, should draw her so close to him as to enable him to give her a concise account of his situation in the form of a deliberate kiss. If the moment I speak of had lasted a few seconds longer I know not what monstrous proceeding of this kind it would have been my difficult duty to describe; it was fortunately arrested by the arrival of a nursery-maid pushing a perambulator and accompanied by an infant who toddled in her wake. Both the nurse and her companion gazed fixedly, and it seemed to Ransom even sternly, at the striking couple on the bench; and meanwhile Verena, looking with a quickened eye at the children (she adored children), went on-- "It sounds too flat for you to talk about your remaining unheard of. Of course you are ambitious; any one can see that, to look at you. And once your ambition is excited in any particular direction, people had better look out. With your will!" she added, with a curious mocking candour. "What do you know about my will?" he asked, laughing a little awkwardly, as if he had really attempted to kiss her--in the course of the second independent interview he had ever had with her--and been rebuffed. "I know it's stronger than mine. It made me come out, when I thought I had much better not, and it keeps me sitting here long after I should have started for home." "Give me the day, dear Miss Tarrant, give me the day," Basil Ransom murmured; and as she turned her face upon him, moved by the expression of his voice, he added--"Come and dine with me, since you wouldn't lunch. Are you really not faint and weak?" "I am faint and weak at all the horrible things you have said; I have lunched on abominations. And now you want me to dine with you? Thank you; I think you're cool!" Verena cried, with a laugh which her chronicler knows to have been expressive of some embarrassment, though Basil Ransom did not. "You must remember that I have, on two different occasions, listened to you for an hour, in speechless, submissive attention, and that I shall probably do it a great many times more." "Why should you ever listen to me again, when you loathe my ideas?" "I don't listen to your ideas; I listen to your voice." "Ah, I told Olive!" said Verena, quickly, as if his words had confirmed an old fear; which was general, however, and did not relate particularly to him. Ransom still had an impression that he was not making love to her, especially when he could observe, with all the superiority of a man--"I wonder whether you have understood ten words I have said to you?" "I should think you had made it clear enough--you had rubbed it in!" "What have you understood, then?" "Why, that you want to put us back further than we have been at any period." "I have been joking; I have been piling it up," Ransom said, making that concession unexpectedly to the girl. Every now and then he had an air of relaxing himself, becoming absent, ceasing to care to discuss. She was capable of noticing this, and in a moment she asked--"Why don't you write out your ideas?" This touched again upon the matter of his failure; it was curious how she couldn't keep off it, hit it every time. "Do you mean for the public? I have written many things, but I can't get them printed." "Then it would seem that there are not so many people--so many as you said just now--who agree with you." "Well," said Basil Ransom, "editors are a mean, timorous lot, always saying they want something original, but deadly afraid of it when it comes." "Is it for papers, magazines?" As it sank into Verena's mind more deeply that the contributions of this remarkable young man had been rejected--contributions in which, apparently, everything she held dear was riddled with scorn--she felt a strange pity and sadness, a sense of injustice. "I am very sorry you can't get published," she said, so simply that he looked up at her, from the figure he was scratching on the asphalt with his stick, to see whether such a tone as that, in relation to such a fact, were not "put on." But it was evidently genuine, and Verena added that she supposed getting published was very difficult always; she remembered, though she didn't mention, how little success her father had when he tried. She hoped Mr. Ransom would keep on; he would be sure to succeed at last. Then she continued, smiling, with more irony: "You may denounce me by name if you like. Only please don't say anything about Olive Chancellor." "How little you understand what I want to achieve!" Basil Ransom exclaimed. "There you are--you women--all over; always meaning, yourselves, something personal, and always thinking it is meant by others!" "Yes, that's the charge they make," said Verena gaily. "I don't want to touch you, or Miss Chancellor, or Mrs. Farrinder, or Miss Birdseye, or the shade of Eliza P. Moseley, or any other gifted and celebrated being on earth--or in heaven." "Oh, I suppose you want to destroy us by neglect, by silence!" Verena exclaimed, with the same brightness. "No, I don't want to destroy you, any more than I want to save you. There has been far too much talk about you, and I want to leave you alone altogether. My interest is in my own sex; yours evidently can look after itself. That's what I want to save." Verena saw that he was more serious now than he had been before, that he was not piling it up satirically, but saying really and a trifle wearily, as if suddenly he were tired of much talk, what he meant. "To save it from what?" she asked. "From the most damnable feminisation! I am so far from thinking, as you set forth the other night, that there is not enough women in our general life, that it has long been pressed home to me that there is a great deal too much. The whole generation is womanised; the masculine tone is passing out of the world; it's a feminine, a nervous, hysterical, chattering, canting age, an age of hollow phrases and false delicacy and exaggerated solicitudes and coddled sensibilities, which, if we don't soon look out, will usher in the reign of mediocrity, of the feeblest and flattest and the most pretentious that has ever been. The masculine character, the ability to dare and endure, to know and yet not fear reality, to look the world in the face and take it for what it is--a very queer and partly very base mixture--that is what I want to preserve, or rather, as I may say, to recover; and I must tell you that I don't in the least care what becomes of you ladies while I make the attempt!" The poor fellow delivered himself of these narrow notions (the rejection of which by leading periodicals was certainly not a matter for surprise) with low, soft earnestness, bending towards her so as to give out his whole idea, yet apparently forgetting for the moment how offensive it must be to her now that it was articulated in that calm, severe way, in which no allowance was to be made for hyperbole. Verena did not remind herself of this; she was too much impressed by his manner and by the novelty of a man taking that sort of religious tone about such a cause. It told her on the spot, from one minute to the other and once for all, that the man who could give her that impression would never come round. She felt cold, slightly sick, though she replied that now he summed up his creed in such a distinct, lucid way, it was much more comfortable--one knew with what one was dealing; a declaration much at variance with the fact, for Verena had never felt less gratified in her life. The ugliness of her companion's profession of faith made her shiver; it would have been difficult to her to imagine anything more crudely profane. She was determined, however, not to betray any shudder that could suggest weakness, and the best way she could think of to disguise her emotion was to remark in a tone which, although not assumed for that purpose, was really the most effective revenge, inasmuch as it always produced on Ransom's part (it was not peculiar, among women, to Verena) an angry helplessness--"Mr. Ransom, I assure you this is an age of conscience." "That's a part of your cant. It's an age of unspeakable shams, as Carlyle says." "Well," returned Verena, "it's all very comfortable for you to say that you wish to leave us alone. But you can't leave us alone. We are here, and we have got to be disposed of. You have got to put us somewhere. It's a remarkable social system that has no place for _us_!" the girl went on, with her most charming laugh. "No place in public. My plan is to keep you at home and have a better time with you there than ever." "I'm glad it's to be better; there's room for it. Woe to American womanhood when you start a movement for being more--what you like to be--at home!" "Lord, how you're perverted; you, the very genius!" Basil Ransom murmured, looking at her with the kindest eyes. She paid no attention to this, she went on, "And those who have got no home (there are millions, you know), what are you going to do with _them_? You must remember that women marry--are given in marriage--less and less; that isn't their career, as a matter of course, any more. You can't tell them to go and mind their husband and children, when they have no husband and children to mind." "Oh," said Ransom, "that's a detail! And for myself, I confess, I have such a boundless appreciation of your sex in private life that I am perfectly ready to advocate a man's having a half-a-dozen wives." "The civilisation of the Turks, then, strikes you as the highest?" "The Turks have a second-rate religion; they are fatalists, and that keeps them down. Besides, their women are not nearly so charming as ours--or as ours would be if this modern pestilence were eradicated. Think what a confession you make when you say that women are less and less sought in marriage; what a testimony that is to the pernicious effect on their manners, their person, their nature, of this fatuous agitation." "That's very complimentary to me!" Verena broke in, lightly. But Ransom was carried over her interruption by the current of his argument. "There are a thousand ways in which any woman, all women, married or single, may find occupation. They may find it in making society agreeable." "Agreeable to men, of course." "To whom else, pray? Dear Miss Tarrant, what is most agreeable to women is to be agreeable to men! That is a truth as old as the human race, and don't let Olive Chancellor persuade you that she and Mrs. Farrinder have invented any that can take its place, or that is more profound, more durable." Verena waived this point of the discussion; she only said: "Well, I am glad to hear you are prepared to see the place all choked up with old maids!" "I don't object to the _old_ old maids; they were delightful; they had always plenty to do, and didn't wander about the world crying out for a vocation. It is the new old maid that you have invented from whom I pray to be delivered." He didn't say he meant Olive Chancellor, but Verena looked at him as if she suspected him of doing so; and to put her off that scent he went on, taking up what she had said a moment before: "As for its not being complimentary to you, my remark about the effect on the women themselves of this pernicious craze, my dear Miss Tarrant, you may be quite at your ease. You stand apart, you are unique, extraordinary; you constitute a category by yourself. In you the elements have been mixed in a manner so felicitous that I regard you as quite incorruptible. I don't know where you come from nor how you come to be what you are, but you are outside and above all vulgarising influences. Besides, you ought to know," the young man proceeded, in the same cool, mild, deliberate tone, as if he were demonstrating a mathematical solution, "you ought to know that your connexion with all these rantings and ravings is the most unreal, accidental, illusory thing in the world. You think you care about them, but you don't at all. They were imposed upon you by circumstances, by unfortunate associations, and you accepted them as you would have accepted any other burden, on account of the sweetness of your nature. You always want to please some one, and now you go lecturing about the country, and trying to provoke demonstrations, in order to please Miss Chancellor, just as you did it before to please your father and mother. It isn't _you_, the least in the world, but an inflated little figure (very remarkable in its way too) whom you have invented and set on its feet, pulling strings, behind it, to make it move and speak, while you try to conceal and efface yourself there. Ah, Miss Tarrant, if it's a question of pleasing, how much you might please some one else by tipping your preposterous puppet over and standing forth in your freedom as well as in your loveliness!" While Basil Ransom spoke--and he had not spoken just that way yet--Verena sat there deeply attentive, with her eyes on the ground; but as soon as he ceased she sprang to her feet--something made her feel that their association had already lasted quite too long. She turned away from him as if she wished to leave him, and indeed were about to attempt to do so. She didn't desire to look at him now, or even to have much more conversation with him. "Something," I say, made her feel so, but it was partly his curious manner--so serene and explicit, as if he knew the whole thing to an absolute certainty--which partly scared her and partly made her feel angry. She began to move along the path to one of the gates, as if it were settled that they should immediately leave the place. He laid it all out so clearly; if he had had a revelation he couldn't speak otherwise. That description of herself as something different from what she was trying to be, the charge of want of reality, made her heart beat with pain; she was sure, at any rate, it was her real self that was there with him now, where she oughtn't to be. In a moment he was at her side again, going with her; and as they walked it came over her that some of the things he had said to her were far beyond what Olive could have imagined as the very worst possible. What would be her state now, poor forsaken friend, if some of them had been borne to her in the voices of the air? Verena had been affected by her companion's speech (his manner had changed so; it seemed to express something quite different) in a way that pushed her to throw up the discussion and determine that as soon as they should get out of the park she would go off by herself; but she still had her wits about her sufficiently to think it important she should give no sign of discomposure, of confessing that she was driven from the field. She appeared to herself to notice and reply to his extraordinary observations enough, without taking them up too much, when she said, tossing the words over her shoulder at Ransom, while she moved quickly: "I presume, from what you say, that you don't think I have much ability." He hesitated before answering, while his long legs easily kept pace with her rapid step--her charming, touching, hurrying step, which expressed all the trepidation she was anxious to conceal. "Immense ability, but not in the line in which you most try to have it. In a very different line, Miss Tarrant! Ability is no word for it; it's genius!" She felt his eyes on her face--ever so close and fixed there--after he had chosen to reply to her question that way. She was beginning to blush; if he had kept them longer, and on the part of any one else, she would have called such a stare impertinent. Verena had been commended of old by Olive for her serenity "while exposed to the gaze of hundreds"; but a change had taken place, and she was now unable to endure the contemplation of an individual. She wished to detach him, to lead him off again into the general; and for this purpose, at the end of a moment, she made another inquiry: "I am to understand, then, as your last word that you regard us as quite inferior?" "For public, civic uses, absolutely--perfectly weak and second-rate. I know nothing more indicative of the muddled sentiment of the time than that any number of men should be found to pretend that they regard you in any other light. But privately, personally, it's another affair. In the realm of family life and the domestic affections----" At this Verena broke in, with a nervous laugh, "Don't say that; it's only a phrase!" "Well, it's a better one than any of yours," said Basil Ransom, turning with her out of one of the smaller gates--the first they had come to. They emerged into the species of _plaza_ formed by the numbered street which constitutes the southern extremity of the park and the termination of the Sixth Avenue. The glow of the splendid afternoon was over everything, and the day seemed to Ransom still in its youth. The bowers and boskages stretched behind them, the artificial lakes and cockneyfied landscapes, making all the region bright with the sense of air and space, and raw natural tints, and vegetation too diminutive to overshadow. The chocolate-coloured houses, in tall, new rows, surveyed the expanse; the street cars rattled in the foreground, changing horses while the horses steamed, and absorbing and emitting passengers; and the beer-saloons, with exposed shoulders and sides, which in New York do a good deal towards representing the picturesque, the "bit" appreciated by painters, announced themselves in signs of large lettering to the sky. Groups of the unemployed, the children of disappointment from beyond the seas, propped themselves against the low, sunny wall of the park; and on the other side the commercial vista of the Sixth Avenue stretched away with a remarkable absence of aerial perspective. "I must go home; good-bye," Verena said, abruptly, to her companion. "Go home? You won't come and dine, then?" Verena knew people who dined at midday and others who dined in the evening, and others still who never dined at all; but she knew no one who dined at half-past three. Ransom's attachment to this idea therefore struck her as queer and infelicitous, and she supposed it betrayed the habits of Mississippi. But that couldn't make it any more acceptable to her, in spite of his looking so disappointed--with his dimly-glowing eyes--that he was heedless for the moment that the main fact connected with her return to Tenth Street was that she wished to go alone. "I must leave you, right away," she said. "Please don't ask me to stay; you wouldn't if you knew how little I want to!" Her manner was different now, and her face as well, and though she smiled more than ever she had never seemed to him more serious. "Alone, do you mean? Really I can't let you do that," Ransom replied, extremely shocked at this sacrifice being asked of him. "I have brought you this immense distance, I am responsible for you, and I must place you where I found you." "Mr. Ransom, I must, I will!" she exclaimed, in a tone he had not yet heard her use; so that, a good deal amazed, puzzled and pained, he saw that he should make a mistake if he were to insist. He had known that their expedition must end in a separation which could not be sweet, but he had counted on making some of the terms of it himself. When he expressed the hope that she would at least allow him to put her into a car, she replied that she wished no car; she wanted to walk. This image of her "streaking off" by herself, as he figured it, did not mend the matter; but in the presence of her sudden nervous impatience he felt that here was a feminine mystery which must be allowed to take its course. "It costs me more than you probably suspect, but I submit. Heaven guard you and bless you, Miss Tarrant!" She turned her face away from him as if she were straining at a leash; then she rejoined, in the most unexpected manner: "I hope very much you _will_ get printed." "Get my articles published?" He stared, and broke out: "Oh, you delightful being!" "Good-bye," she repeated; and now she gave him her hand. As he held it a moment, and asked her if she were really leaving the city so soon that she mightn't see him again, she answered: "If I stay it will be at a place to which you mustn't come. They wouldn't let you see me." He had not intended to put that question to her; he had set himself a limit. But the limit had suddenly moved on. "Do you mean at that house where I heard you speak?" "I may go there for a few days." "If it's forbidden to me to go and see you there, why did you send me a card?" "Because I wanted to convert you then." "And now you give me up?" "No, no; I want you to remain as you are!" She looked strange, with her more mechanical smile, as she said this, and he didn't know what idea was in her head. She had already left him, but he called after her, "If you do stay, I will come!" She neither turned nor made an answer, and all that was left to him was to watch her till she passed out of sight. Her back, with its charming young form, seemed to repeat that last puzzle, which was almost a challenge. For this, however, Verena Tarrant had not meant it. She wanted, in spite of the greater delay and the way Olive would wonder, to walk home, because it gave her time to think, and think again, how glad she was (really, positively, _now_) that Mr. Ransom was on the wrong side. If he had been on the right----! She did not finish this proposition. She found Olive waiting for her in exactly the manner she had foreseen; she turned to her, as she came in, a face sufficiently terrible. Verena instantly explained herself, related exactly what she had been doing; then went on, without giving her friend time for question or comment: "And you--you paid your visit to Mrs. Burrage?" "Yes, I went through that." "And did she press the question of my coming there?" "Very much indeed." "And what did you say?" "I said very little, but she gave me such assurances----" "That you thought I ought to go?" Olive was silent a moment; then she said: "She declares they are devoted to the cause, and that New York will be at your feet." Verena took Miss Chancellor's shoulders in each of her hands, and gave her back, for an instant, her gaze, her silence. Then she broke out, with a kind of passion: "I don't care for her assurances--I don't care for New York! I won't go to them--I won't--do you understand?" Suddenly her voice changed, she passed her arms round her friend and buried her face in her neck. "Olive Chancellor, take me away, take me away!" she went on. In a moment Olive felt that she was sobbing and that the question was settled, the question she herself had debated in anguish a couple of hours before. BOOK THIRD XXXV The August night had gathered by the time Basil Ransom, having finished his supper, stepped out upon the piazza of the little hotel. It was a very little hotel and of a very slight and loose construction; the tread of a tall Mississippian made the staircase groan and the windows rattle in their frames. He was very hungry when he arrived, having not had a moment, in Boston, on his way through, to eat even the frugal morsel with which he was accustomed to sustain nature between a breakfast that consisted of a cup of coffee and a dinner that consisted of a cup of tea. He had had his cup of tea now, and very bad it was, brought him by a pale, round-backed young lady, with auburn ringlets, a fancy belt, and an expression of limited tolerance for a gentleman who could not choose quickly between fried fish, fried steak, and baked beans. The train for Marmion left Boston at four o'clock in the afternoon, and rambled fitfully toward the southern cape, while the shadows grew long in the stony pastures and the slanting light gilded the straggling, shabby woods, and painted the ponds and marshes with yellow gleams. The ripeness of summer lay upon the land, and yet there was nothing in the country Basil Ransom traversed that seemed susceptible of maturity; nothing but the apples in the little tough, dense orchards, which gave a suggestion of sour fruition here and there, and the tall, bright goldenrod at the bottom of the bare stone dykes. There were no fields of yellow grain; only here and there a crop of brown hay. But there was a kind of soft scrubbiness in the landscape, and a sweetness begotten of low horizons, of mild air, with a possibility of summer haze, of unregarded inlets where on August mornings the water must be brightly blue. Ransom had heard that the Cape was the Italy, so to speak, of Massachusetts; it had been described to him as the drowsy Cape, the languid Cape, the Cape not of storms, but of eternal peace. He knew that the Bostonians had been drawn thither, for the hot weeks, by its sedative influence, by the conviction that its toneless air would minister to perfect rest. In a career in which there was so much nervous excitement as in theirs they had no wish to be wound up when they went out of town; they were sufficiently wound up at all times by the sense of all their sex had been through. They wanted to live idly, to unbend and lie in hammocks, and also to keep out of the crowd, the rush of the watering-place. Ransom could see there was no crowd at Marmion, as soon as he got there, though indeed there was a rush, which directed itself to the only vehicle in waiting outside of the small, lonely, hut-like station, so distant from the village that, as far as one looked along the sandy, sketchy road which was supposed to lead to it, one saw only an empty land on either side. Six or eight men in "dusters," carrying parcels and handbags, projected themselves upon the solitary, rickety carry-all, so that Ransom could read his own fate, while the ruminating conductor of the vehicle, a lean, shambling citizen, with a long neck and a tuft on his chin, guessed that if he wanted to get to the hotel before dusk he would have to strike out. His valise was attached in a precarious manner to the rear of the carry-all. "Well, I'll chance it," the driver remarked sadly, when Ransom protested against its insecure position. He recognised the southern quality of that picturesque fatalism--judged that Miss Chancellor and Verena Tarrant must be pretty thoroughly relaxed if they had given themselves up to the genius of the place. This was what he hoped for and counted on, as he took his way, the sole pedestrian in the group that had quitted the train, in the wake of the overladen carry-all. It helped him to enjoy the first country walk he had had for many months, for more than months, for years, that the reflexion was forced upon him as he went (the mild, vague scenery, just beginning to be dim with twilight, suggested it at every step) that the two young women who constituted, at Marmion, his whole prefigurement of a social circle, must, in such a locality as that, be taking a regular holiday. The sense of all the wrongs they had still to redress must be lighter there than it was in Boston; the ardent young man had, for the hour, an ingenuous hope that they had left their opinions in the city. He liked the very smell of the soil as he wandered along; cool, soft whiffs of evening met him at bends of the road which disclosed very little more--unless it might be a band of straight-stemmed woodland, keeping, a little, the red glow from the west, or (as he went further) an old house, shingled all over, grey and slightly collapsing, which looked down at him from a steep bank, at the top of wooden steps. He was already refreshed; he had tasted the breath of nature, measured his long grind in New York, without a vacation, with the repetition of the daily movement up and down the long, straight, maddening city, like a bucket in a well or a shuttle in a loom. He lit his cigar in the office of the hotel--a small room on the right of the door, where a "register," meagrely inscribed, led a terribly public life on the little bare desk, and got its pages dogs'-eared before they were covered. Local worthies, of a vague identity, used to lounge there, as Ransom perceived the next day, by the hour. They tipped back their chairs against the wall, seldom spoke, and might have been supposed, with their converging vision, to be watching something out of the window, if there had been anything at Marmion to watch. Sometimes one of them got up and went to the desk, on which he leaned his elbows, hunching a pair of sloping shoulders to an uncollared neck. For the fiftieth time he perused the fly-blown page of the recording volume, where the names followed each other with such jumps of date. The others watched him while he did so--or contemplated in silence some "guest" of the hostelry, when such a personage entered the place with an air of appealing from the general irresponsibility of the establishment and found no one but the village-philosophers to address himself to. It was an establishment conducted by invisible, elusive agencies; they had a kind of stronghold in the dining-room, which was kept locked at all but sacramental hours. There was a tradition that a "boy" exercised some tutelary function as regards the crumpled register; but when he was inquired about, it was usually elicited from the impartial circle in the office either that he was somewhere round or that he had gone a-fishing. Except the haughty waitress who has just been mentioned as giving Ransom his supper, and who only emerged at meal-times from her mystic seclusion, this impalpable youth was the single person on the premises who represented domestic service. Anxious lady-boarders, wrapped in shawls, were seen waiting for him, as if he had been the doctor, on horse-hair rocking-chairs, in the little public parlour; others peered vaguely out of back doors and windows, thinking that if he were somewhere round they might see him. Sometimes people went to the door of the dining-room and tried it, shaking it a little, timidly, to see if it would yield; then, finding it fast, came away, looking, if they had been observed, shy and snubbed, at their fellows. Some of them went so far as to say that they didn't think it was a very good hotel. Ransom, however, didn't much care whether it were good or not; he hadn't come to Marmion for the love of the hotel. Now that he had got there, however, he didn't know exactly what to do; his course seemed rather less easy than it had done when, suddenly, the night before, tired, sick of the city-air, and hungry for a holiday, he decided to take the next morning's train to Boston, and there take another to the shores of Buzzard's Bay. The hotel itself offered few resources; the inmates were not numerous; they moved about a little outside, on the small piazza and in the rough yard which interposed between the house and the road, and then they dropped off into the unmitigated dusk. This element, touched only in two or three places by a far-away dim glimmer, presented itself to Ransom as his sole entertainment. Though it was pervaded by that curious, pure, earthy smell which in New England, in summer, hangs in the nocturnal air, Ransom bethought himself that the place might be a little dull for persons who had not come to it, as he had, to take possession of Verena Tarrant. The unfriendly inn, which suggested dreadfully to Ransom (he despised the practice) an early bed-time, seemed to have no relation to anything, not even to itself; but a fellow-tenant of whom he made an inquiry told him the village was sprinkled round. Basil presently walked along the road in search of it, under the stars, smoking one of the good cigars which constituted his only tribute to luxury. He reflected that it would hardly do to begin his attack that night; he ought to give the Bostonians a certain amount of notice of his appearance on the scene. He thought it very possible, indeed, that they might be addicted to the vile habit of "retiring" with the cocks and hens. He was sure that was one of the things Olive Chancellor would do so long as he should stay--on purpose to spite him; she would make Verena Tarrant go to bed at unnatural hours, just to deprive him of his evenings. He walked some distance without encountering a creature or discerning an habitation; but he enjoyed the splendid starlight, the stillness, the shrill melancholy of the crickets, which seemed to make all the vague forms of the country pulsate around him; the whole impression was a bath of freshness after the long strain of the preceding two years and his recent sweltering weeks in New York. At the end of ten minutes (his stroll had been slow) a figure drew near him, at first indistinct, but presently defining itself as that of a woman. She was walking apparently without purpose, like himself, or without other purpose than that of looking at the stars, which she paused for an instant, throwing back her head, to contemplate, as he drew nearer to her. In a moment he was very close; he saw her look at him, through the clear gloom, as they passed each other. She was small and slim; he made out her head and face, saw that her hair was cropped; had an impression of having seen her before. He noticed that as she went by she turned as well as himself, and that there was a sort of recognition in her movement. Then he felt sure that he had seen her elsewhere, and before she had added to the distance that separated them he stopped short, looking after her. She noticed his halt, paused equally, and for a moment they stood there face to face, at a certain interval, in the darkness. "I beg your pardon--is it Doctor Prance?" he found himself demanding. For a minute there was no answer; then came the voice of the little lady: "Yes, sir; I am Doctor Prance. Any one sick at the hotel?" "I hope not; I don't know," Ransom said, laughing. Then he took a few steps, mentioned his name, recalled his having met her at Miss Birdseye's, ever so long before (nearly two years), and expressed the hope that she had not forgotten that. She thought it over a little--she was evidently addicted neither to empty phrases nor to unconsidered assertions. "I presume you mean that night Miss Tarrant launched out so." "That very night. We had a very interesting conversation." "Well, I remember I lost a good deal," said Doctor Prance. "Well, I don't know; I have an idea you made it up in other ways," Ransom returned, laughing still. He saw her bright little eyes engage with his own. Staying, apparently, in the village, she had come out, bare-headed, for an evening walk, and if it had been possible to imagine Doctor Prance bored and in want of recreation, the way she lingered there as if she were quite willing to have another talk might have suggested to Basil Ransom this condition. "Why, don't you consider her career very remarkable?" "Oh yes; everything is remarkable nowadays; we live in an age of wonders!" the young man replied, much amused to find himself discussing the object of his adoration in this casual way, in the dark, on a lonely country-road, with a short-haired female physician. It was astonishing how quickly Doctor Prance and he had made friends again. "I suppose, by the way, you know Miss Tarrant and Miss Chancellor are staying down here?" he went on. "Well, yes, I suppose I know it. I am visiting Miss Chancellor," the dry little woman added. "Oh indeed? I am delighted to hear it!" Ransom exclaimed, feeling that he might have a friend in the camp. "Then you can inform me where those ladies have their house." "Yes, I guess I can tell it in the dark. I will show you round now, if you like." "I shall be glad to see it, though I am not sure I shall go in immediately. I must reconnoitre a little first. That makes me so very happy to have met you. I think it's very wonderful--your knowing me." Doctor Prance did not repudiate this compliment, but she presently observed: "You didn't pass out of my mind entirely, because I have heard about you since, from Miss Birdseye." "Ah yes, I saw her in the spring. I hope she is in health and happiness." "She is always in happiness, but she can't be said to be in health. She is very weak; she is failing." "I am very sorry for that." "She is also visiting Miss Chancellor," Doctor Prance observed, after a pause which was an illustration of an appearance she had of thinking that certain things didn't at all imply some others. "Why, my cousin has got all the distinguished women!" Basil Ransom exclaimed. "Is Miss Chancellor your cousin? There isn't much family resemblance. Miss Birdseye came down for the benefit of the country air, and I came down to see if I could help her to get some good from it. She wouldn't much, if she were left to herself. Miss Birdseye has a very fine character, but she hasn't much idea of hygiene." Doctor Prance was evidently more and more disposed to be chatty. Ransom appreciated this fact, and said he hoped she, too, was getting some good from the country-air--he was afraid she was very much confined to her profession, in Boston; to which she replied--"Well, I was just taking a little exercise along the road. I presume you don't realise what it is to be one of four ladies grouped together in a small frame-house." Ransom remembered how he had liked her before, and he felt that, as the phrase was, he was going to like her again. He wanted to express his good-will to her, and would greatly have enjoyed being at liberty to offer her a cigar. He didn't know what to offer her or what to do, unless he should invite her to sit with him on a fence. He did realise perfectly what the situation in the small frame-house must be, and entered with instant sympathy into the feelings which had led Doctor Prance to detach herself from the circle and wander forth under the constellations, all of which he was sure she knew. He asked her permission to accompany her on her walk, but she said she was not going much further in that direction; she was going to turn round. He turned round with her, and they went back together to the village, in which he at last began to discover a certain consistency, signs of habitation, houses disposed with a rough resemblance to a plan. The road wandered among them with a kind of accommodating sinuosity, and there were even cross-streets, and an oil-lamp on a corner, and here and there the small sign of a closed shop, with an indistinctly countrified lettering. There were lights now in the windows of some of the houses, and Doctor Prance mentioned to her companion several of the inhabitants of the little town, who appeared all to rejoice in the prefix of captain. They were retired shipmasters; there was quite a little nest of these worthies, two or three of whom might be seen lingering in their dim doorways, as if they were conscious of a want of encouragement to sit up, and yet remembered the nights in far-away waters when they would not have thought of turning in at all. Marmion called itself a town, but it was a good deal shrunken since the decline in the shipbuilding interest; it turned out a good many vessels every year, in the palmy days, before the war. There were shipyards still, where you could almost pick up the old shavings, the old nails and rivets, but they were grass-grown now, and the water lapped them without anything to interfere. There was a kind of arm of the sea put in; it went up some way, it wasn't the real sea, but very quiet, like a river; that was more attractive to some. Doctor Prance didn't say the place was picturesque, or quaint, or weird; but he could see that was what she meant when she said it was mouldering away. Even under the mantle of night he himself gathered the impression that it had had a larger life, seen better days. Doctor Prance made no remark designed to elicit from him an account of his motives in coming to Marmion; she asked him neither when he had arrived nor how long he intended to stay. His allusion to his cousinship with Miss Chancellor might have served to her mind as a reason; yet, on the other hand, it would have been open to her to wonder why, if he had come to see the young ladies from Charles Street, he was not in more of a hurry to present himself. It was plain Doctor Prance didn't go into that kind of analysis. If Ransom had complained to her of a sore throat she would have inquired with precision about his symptoms; but she was incapable of asking him any question with a social bearing. Sociably enough, however, they continued to wander through the principal street of the little town, darkened in places by immense old elms, which made a blackness overhead. There was a salt smell in the air, as if they were nearer the water; Doctor Prance said that Olive's house was at the other end. "I shall take it as a kindness if, for this evening, you don't mention that you have happened to meet me," Ransom remarked, after a little. He had changed his mind about giving notice. "Well, I wouldn't," his companion replied; as if she didn't need any caution in regard to making vain statements. "I want to keep my arrival a little surprise for to-morrow. It will be a great pleasure to me to see Miss Birdseye," he went on, rather hypocritically, as if that at bottom had been to his mind the main attraction of Marmion. Doctor Prance did not reveal her private comment, whatever it was, on this intimation; she only said, after some hesitation--"Well, I presume the old lady will take quite an interest in your being here." "I have no doubt she is capable even of that degree of philanthropy." "Well, she has charity for all, but she does--even she--prefer her own side. She regards you as quite an acquisition." Ransom could not but feel flattered at the idea that he had been a subject of conversation--as this implied--in the little circle at Miss Chancellor's; but he was at a loss, for the moment, to perceive what he had done up to this time to gratify the senior member of the group. "I hope she will find me an acquisition after I have been here a few days," he said, laughing. "Well, she thinks you are one of the most important converts yet," Doctor Prance replied, in a colourless way, as if she would not have pretended to explain why. "A convert--me? Do you mean of Miss Tarrant's?" It had come over him that Miss Birdseye, in fact, when he was parting with her after their meeting in Boston, had assented to his request for secrecy (which at first had struck her as somewhat unholy) on the ground that Verena would bring him into the fold. He wondered whether that young lady had been telling her old friend that she had succeeded with him. He thought this improbable; but it didn't matter, and he said, gaily, "Well, I can easily let her suppose so!" It was evident that it would be no easier for Doctor Prance to subscribe to a deception than it had been for her venerable patient; but she went so far as to reply, "Well, I hope you won't let her suppose you are where you were that time I conversed with you. I could see where you were then!" "It was in about the same place you were, wasn't it?" "Well," said Doctor Prance, with a small sigh, "I am afraid I have moved back, if anything!" Her sigh told him a good deal; it seemed a thin, self-controlled protest against the tone of Miss Chancellor's interior, of which it was her present fortune to form a part: and the way she hovered round, indistinct in the gloom, as if she were rather loath to resume her place there, completed his impression that the little doctress had a line of her own. "That, at least, must distress Miss Birdseye," he said reproachfully. "Not much, because I am not of importance. They think women the equals of men; but they are a great deal more pleased when a man joins than when a woman does." Ransom complimented Doctor Prance on the lucidity of her mind, and then he said: "Is Miss Birdseye really sick? Is her condition very precarious?" "Well, she is very old, and very--very gentle," Doctor Prance answered, hesitating a moment for her adjective. "Under those circumstances a person may flicker out." "We must trim the lamp," said Ransom; "I will take my turn, with pleasure, in watching the sacred flame." "It will be a pity if she doesn't live to hear Miss Tarrant's great effort," his companion went on. "Miss Tarrant's? What's that?" "Well, it's the principal interest, in there." And Doctor Prance now vaguely indicated, with a movement of her head, a small white house, much detached from its neighbours, which stood on their left, with its back to the water, at a little distance from the road. It exhibited more signs of animation than any of its fellows; several windows, notably those of the ground floor, were open to the warm evening, and a large shaft of light was projected upon the grassy wayside in front of it. Ransom, in his determination to be discreet, checked the advance of his companion, who added presently, with a short, suppressed laugh--"You can see it is, from that!" He listened, to ascertain what she meant, and after an instant a sound came to his ear--a sound he knew already well, which carried the accents of Verena Tarrant, in ample periods and cadences, out into the stillness of the August night. "Murder, what a lovely voice!" he exclaimed involuntarily. Doctor Prance's eye gleamed towards him a moment, and she observed, humorously (she was relaxing immensely), "Perhaps Miss Birdseye is right!" Then, as he made no rejoinder, only listening to the vocal inflexions that floated out of the house, she went on--"She's practising her speech." "Her speech? Is she going to deliver one here?" "No, as soon as they go back to town--at the Music Hall." Ransom's attention was now transferred to his companion. "Is that why you call it her great effort?" "Well, so they think it, I believe. She practises that way every night; she reads portions of it aloud to Miss Chancellor and Miss Birdseye." "And that's the time you choose for your walk?" Ransom said, smiling. "Well, it's the time my old lady has least need of me; she's too absorbed." Doctor Prance dealt in facts; Ransom had already discovered that; and some of her facts were very interesting. "The Music Hall--isn't that your great building?" he asked. "Well, it's the biggest we've got; it's pretty big, but it isn't so big as Miss Chancellor's ideas," added Doctor Prance. "She has taken it to bring out Miss Tarrant before the general public--she has never appeared that way in Boston--on a great scale. She expects her to make a big sensation. It will be a great night, and they are preparing for it. They consider it her real beginning." "And this is the preparation?" Basil Ransom said. "Yes; as I say, it's their principal interest." Ransom listened, and while he listened he meditated. He had thought it possible Verena's principles might have been shaken by the profession of faith to which he treated her in New York; but this hardly looked like it. For some moments Doctor Prance and he stood together in silence. "You don't hear the words," the doctor remarked, with a smile which, in the dark, looked Mephistophelean. "Oh, I know the words!" the young man exclaimed, with rather a groan, as he offered her his hand for good-night. XXXVI A certain prudence had determined him to put off his visit till the morning; he thought it more probable that at that time he should be able to see Verena alone, whereas in the evening the two young women would be sure to be sitting together. When the morrow dawned, however, Basil Ransom felt none of the trepidation of the procrastinator; he knew nothing of the reception that awaited him, but he took his way to the cottage designated to him over-night by Doctor Prance, with the step of a man much more conscious of his own purpose than of possible obstacles. He made the reflexion, as he went, that to see a place for the first time at night is like reading a foreign author in a translation. At the present hour--it was getting towards eleven o'clock--he felt that he was dealing with the original. The little straggling, loosely-clustered town lay along the edge of a blue inlet, on the other side of which was a low, wooded shore, with a gleam of white sand where it touched the water. The narrow bay carried the vision outward to a picture that seemed at once bright and dim--a shining, slumbering summer sea, and a far-off, circling line of coast, which, under the August sun, was hazy and delicate. Ransom regarded the place as a town because Doctor Prance had called it one; but it was a town where you smelt the breath of the hay in the streets and you might gather blackberries in the principal square. The houses looked at each other across the grass--low, rusty, crooked, distended houses, with dry, cracked faces and the dim eyes of small-paned, stiffly-sliding windows. Their little door-yards bristled with rank, old-fashioned flowers, mostly yellow; and on the quarter that stood back from the sea the fields sloped upward, and the woods in which they presently lost themselves looked down over the roofs. Bolts and bars were not a part of the domestic machinery of Marmion, and the responsive menial, receiving the visitor on the threshold, was a creature rather desired than definitely possessed; so that Basil Ransom found Miss Chancellor's house-door gaping wide (as he had seen it the night before), and destitute even of a knocker or a bell-handle. From where he stood in the porch he could see the whole of the little sitting-room on the left of the hall--see that it stretched straight through to the back windows; that it was garnished with photographs of foreign works of art, pinned upon the walls, and enriched with a piano and other little extemporised embellishments, such as ingenious women lavish upon the houses they hire for a few weeks. Verena told him afterwards that Olive had taken her cottage furnished, but that the paucity of chairs and tables and bedsteads was such that their little party used almost to sit down, to lie down, in turn. On the other hand they had all George Eliot's writings, and two photographs of the Sistine Madonna. Ransom rapped with his stick on the lintel of the door, but no one came to receive him; so he made his way into the parlour, where he observed that his cousin Olive had as many German books as ever lying about. He dipped into this literature, momentarily, according to his wont, and then remembered that this was not what he had come for and that as he waited at the door he had seen, through another door, opening at the opposite end of the hall, signs of a small verandah attached to the other face of the house. Thinking the ladies might be assembled there in the shade, he pushed aside the muslin curtain of the back window, and saw that the advantages of Miss Chancellor's summer residence were in this quarter. There was a verandah, in fact, to which a wide, horizontal trellis, covered with an ancient vine, formed a kind of extension. Beyond the trellis was a small, lonely garden; beyond the garden was a large, vague, woody space, where a few piles of old timber were disposed, and which he afterwards learned to be a relic of the shipbuilding era described to him by Doctor Prance; and still beyond this again was the charming lake-like estuary he had already admired. His eyes did not rest upon the distance; they were attracted by a figure seated under the trellis, where the chequers of sun, in the interstices of the vine leaves, fell upon a bright-coloured rug spread out on the ground. The floor of the roughly-constructed verandah was so low that there was virtually no difference in the level. It took Ransom only a moment to recognise Miss Birdseye, though her back was turned to the house. She was alone; she sat there motionless (she had a newspaper in her lap, but her attitude was not that of a reader), looking at the shimmering bay. She might be asleep; that was why Ransom moderated the process of his long legs as he came round through the house to join her. This precaution represented his only scruple. He stepped across the verandah and stood close to her, but she did not appear to notice him. Visibly, she was dozing, or presumably, rather, for her head was enveloped in an old faded straw hat, which concealed the upper part of her face. There were two or three other chairs near her, and a table on which were half-a-dozen books and periodicals, together with a glass containing a colourless liquid, on the top of which a spoon was laid. Ransom desired only to respect her repose, so he sat down in one of the chairs and waited till she should become aware of his presence. He thought Miss Chancellor's back-garden a delightful spot, and his jaded senses tasted the breeze--the idle, wandering summer wind--that stirred the vine leaves over his head. The hazy shores on the other side of the water, which had tints more delicate than the street vistas of New York (they seemed powdered with silver, a sort of midsummer light), suggested to him a land of dreams, a country in a picture. Basil Ransom had seen very few pictures, there were none in Mississippi; but he had a vision at times of something that would be more refined than the real world, and the situation in which he now found himself pleased him almost as much as if it had been a striking work of art. He was unable to see, as I have said, whether Miss Birdseye were taking in the prospect through open or only, imagination aiding (she had plenty of that), through closed, tired, dazzled eyes. She appeared to him, as the minutes elapsed and he sat beside her, the incarnation of well-earned rest, of patient, submissive superannuation. At the end of her long day's work she might have been placed there to enjoy this dim prevision of the peaceful river, the gleaming shores, of the paradise her unselfish life had certainly qualified her to enter, and which, apparently, would so soon be opened to her. After a while she said, placidly, without turning: "I suppose it's about time I should take my remedy again. It does seem as if she had found the right thing; don't you think so?" "Do you mean the contents of that tumbler? I shall be delighted to give it to you, and you must tell me how much you take." And Basil Ransom, getting up, possessed himself of the glass on the table. At the sound of his voice Miss Birdseye pushed back her straw hat by a movement that was familiar to her, and twisting about her muffled figure a little (even in August she felt the cold, and had to be much covered up to sit out), directed at him a speculative, unastonished gaze. "One spoonful--two?" Ransom asked, stirring the dose and smiling. "Well, I guess I'll take two this time." "Certainly, Doctor Prance couldn't help finding the right thing," Ransom said, as he administered the medicine; while the movement with which she extended her face to take it made her seem doubly childlike. He put down the glass, and she relapsed into her position; she seemed to be considering. "It's homeopathic," she remarked, in a moment. "Oh, I have no doubt of that; I presume you wouldn't take anything else." "Well, it's generally admitted now to be the true system." Ransom moved closer to her, placed himself where she could see him better. "It's a great thing to have the true system," he said, bending towards her in a friendly way; "I'm sure you have it in everything." He was not often hypocritical; but when he was he went all lengths. "Well, I don't know that any one has a right to say that. I thought you were Verena," she added in a moment, taking him in again with her mild, deliberate vision. "I have been waiting for you to recognise me; of course you didn't know I was here--I only arrived last night." "Well, I'm glad you have come to see Olive now." "You remember that I wouldn't do that when I met you last?" "You asked me not to mention to her that I had met you; that's what I principally recall." "And don't you remember what I told you I wanted to do? I wanted to go out to Cambridge and see Miss Tarrant. Thanks to the information that you were so good as to give me, I was able to do so." "Yes, she gave me quite a little description of your visit," said Miss Birdseye, with a smile and a vague sound in her throat--a sort of pensive, private reference to the idea of laughter--of which Ransom never learned the exact significance, though he retained for a long time afterwards a kindly memory of the old lady's manner at the moment. "I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but it was an immense pleasure to me; so great a one that, as you see, I have come to call upon her again." "Then, I presume, she _has_ shaken you?" "She has shaken me tremendously!" said Ransom, laughing. "Well, you'll be a great addition," Miss Birdseye returned. "And this time your visit is also for Miss Chancellor?" "That depends on whether she will receive me." "Well, if she knows you are shaken, that will go a great way," said Miss Birdseye, a little musingly, as if even to her unsophisticated mind it had been manifested that one's relations with Miss Chancellor might be ticklish. "But she can't receive you now--can she?--because she's out. She has gone to the post office for the Boston letters, and they get so many every day that she had to take Verena with her to help her carry them home. One of them wanted to stay with me, because Doctor Prance has gone fishing, but I said I presumed I could be left alone for about seven minutes. I know how they love to be together; it seems as if one _couldn't_ go out without the other. That's what they came down here for, because it's quiet, and it didn't look as if there was any one else they would be much drawn to. So it would be a pity for me to come down after them just to spoil it!" "I am afraid I shall spoil it, Miss Birdseye." "Oh, well, a gentleman," murmured the ancient woman. "Yes, what can you expect of a gentleman? I certainly shall spoil it if I can." "You had better go fishing with Doctor Prance," said Miss Birdseye, with a serenity which showed that she was far from measuring the sinister quality of the announcement he had just made. "I shan't object to that at all. The days here must be very long--very full of hours. Have you got the doctor with you?" Ransom inquired, as if he knew nothing at all about her. "Yes, Miss Chancellor invited us both; she is very thoughtful. She is not merely a theoretic philanthropist--she goes into details," said Miss Birdseye, presenting her large person, in her chair, as if she herself were only an item. "It seems as if we were not so much wanted in Boston, just in August." "And here you sit and enjoy the breeze, and admire the view," the young man remarked, wondering when the two messengers, whose seven minutes must long since have expired, would return from the post office. "Yes, I enjoy everything in this little old-world place; I didn't suppose I should be satisfied to be so passive. It's a great contrast to my former exertions. But somehow it doesn't seem as if there were any trouble, or any wrong round here; and if there should be, there are Miss Chancellor and Miss Tarrant to look after it. They seem to think I had better fold my hands. Besides, when helpful, generous minds begin to flock in from _your_ part of the country," Miss Birdseye continued, looking at him from under the distorted and discoloured canopy of her hat with a benignity which completed the idea in any cheerful sense he chose. He felt by this time that he was committed to rather a dishonest part; he was pledged not to give a shock to her optimism. This might cost him, in the coming days, a good deal of dissimulation, but he was now saved from any further expenditure of ingenuity by certain warning sounds which admonished him that he must keep his wits about him for a purpose more urgent. There were voices in the hall of the house, voices he knew, which came nearer, quickly; so that before he had time to rise one of the speakers had come out with the exclamation--"Dear Miss Birdseye, here are seven letters for you!" The words fell to the ground, indeed, before they were fairly spoken, and when Ransom got up, turning, he saw Olive Chancellor standing there, with the parcel from the post office in her hand. She stared at him in sudden horror; for the moment her self-possession completely deserted her. There was so little of any greeting in her face save the greeting of dismay, that he felt there was nothing for him to say to her, nothing that could mitigate the odious fact of his being there. He could only let her take it in, let her divine that, this time, he was not to be got rid of. In an instant--to ease off the situation--he held out his hand for Miss Birdseye's letters, and it was a proof of Olive's having turned rather faint and weak that she gave them up to him. He delivered the packet to the old lady, and now Verena had appeared in the doorway of the house. As soon as she saw him, she blushed crimson; but she did not, like Olive, stand voiceless. "Why, Mr. Ransom," she cried out, "where in the world were _you_ washed ashore?" Miss Birdseye, meanwhile, taking her letters, had no appearance of observing that the encounter between Olive and her visitor was a kind of concussion. It was Verena who eased off the situation; her gay challenge rose to her lips as promptly as if she had had no cause for embarrassment. She was not confused even when she blushed, and her alertness may perhaps be explained by the habit of public speaking. Ransom smiled at her while she came forward, but he spoke first to Olive, who had already turned her eyes away from him and gazed at the blue sea-view as if she were wondering what was going to happen to her at last. "Of course you are very much surprised to see me; but I hope to be able to induce you to regard me not absolutely in the light of an intruder. I found your door open, and I walked in, and Miss Birdseye seemed to think I might stay. Miss Birdseye, I put myself under your protection; I invoke you; I appeal to you," the young man went on. "Adopt me, answer for me, cover me with the mantle of your charity!" Miss Birdseye looked up from her letters, as if at first she had only faintly heard his appeal. She turned her eyes from Olive to Verena; then she said, "Doesn't it seem as if we had room for all? When I remember what I have seen in the South, Mr. Ransom's being here strikes me as a great triumph." Olive evidently failed to understand, and Verena broke in with eagerness, "It was by my letter, of course, that you knew we were here. The one I wrote just before we came, Olive," she went on. "Don't you remember I showed it to you?" At the mention of this act of submission on her friend's part Olive started, flashing her a strange look; then she said to Basil that she didn't see why he should explain so much about his coming; every one had a right to come. It was a very charming place; it ought to do any one good. "But it will have one defect for you," she added; "three-quarters of the summer residents are women!" This attempted pleasantry on Miss Chancellor's part, so unexpected, so incongruous, uttered with white lips and cold eyes, struck Ransom to that degree by its oddity that he could not resist exchanging a glance of wonder with Verena, who, if she had had the opportunity, could probably have explained to him the phenomenon. Olive had recovered herself, reminded herself that she was safe, that her companion in New York had repudiated, denounced her pursuer; and, as a proof to her own sense of her security, as well as a touching mark to Verena that now, after what had passed, she had no fear, she felt that a certain light mockery would be effective. "Ah, Miss Olive, don't pretend to think I love your sex so little, when you know that what you really object to in me is that I love it too much!" Ransom was not brazen, he was not impudent, he was really a very modest man; but he was aware that whatever he said or did he was condemned to seem impudent now, and he argued within himself that if he was to have the dishonour of being thought brazen he might as well have the comfort. He didn't care a straw, in truth, how he was judged or how he might offend; he had a purpose which swallowed up such inanities as that, and he was so full of it that it kept him firm, balanced him, gave him an assurance that might easily have been confounded with a cold detachment. "This place will do me good," he pursued; "I haven't had a holiday for more than two years, I couldn't have gone another day; I was finished. I would have written to you beforehand that I was coming, but I only started at a few hours' notice. It occurred to me that this would be just what I wanted; I remembered what Miss Tarrant had said in her note, that it was a place where people could lie on the ground and wear their old clothes. I delight to lie on the ground, and all my clothes are old. I hope to be able to stay three or four weeks." Olive listened till he had done speaking; she stood a single moment longer, and then, without a word, a glance, she rushed into the house. Ransom saw that Miss Birdseye was immersed in her letters; so he went straight to Verena and stood before her, looking far into her eyes. He was not smiling now, as he had been in speaking to Olive. "Will you come somewhere apart, where I can speak to you alone?" "Why have you done this? It was not right in you to come!" Verena looked still as if she were blushing, but Ransom perceived he must allow for her having been delicately scorched by the sun. "I have come because it is necessary--because I have something very important to say to you. A great number of things." "The same things you said in New York? I don't want to hear them again--they were horrible!" "No, not the same--different ones. I want you to come out with me, away from here." "You always want me to come out! We can't go out here; we _are_ out, as much as we can be!" Verena laughed. She tried to turn it off--feeling that something really impended. "Come down into the garden, and out beyond there--to the water, where we can speak. It's what I have come for; it was not for what I told Miss Olive!" He had lowered his voice, as if Miss Olive might still hear them, and there was something strangely grave--altogether solemn, indeed--in its tone. Verena looked around her, at the splendid summer day, at the much-swathed, formless figure of Miss Birdseye, holding her letter inside her hat. "Mr. Ransom!" she articulated then, simply; and as her eyes met his again they showed him a couple of tears. "It's not to make you suffer, I honestly believe. I don't want to say anything that will hurt you. How can I possibly hurt you, when I feel to you as I do?" he went on, with suppressed force. She said no more, but all her face entreated him to let her off, to spare her; and as this look deepened, a quick sense of elation and success began to throb in his heart, for it told him exactly what he wanted to know. It told him that she was afraid of him, that she had ceased to trust herself, that the way he had read her nature was the right way (she was tremendously open to attack, she was meant for love, she was meant for him), and that his arriving at the point at which he wished to arrive was only a question of time. This happy consciousness made him extraordinarily tender to her; he couldn't put enough reassurance into his smile, his low murmur, as he said: "Only give me ten minutes; don't receive me by turning me away. It's my holiday--my poor little holiday; don't spoil it." Three minutes later Miss Birdseye, looking up from her letter, saw them move together through the bristling garden and traverse a gap in the old fence which enclosed the further side of it. They passed into the ancient shipyard which lay beyond, and which was now a mere vague, grass-grown approach to the waterside, bestrewn with a few remnants of supererogatory timber. She saw them stroll forward to the edge of the bay and stand there, taking the soft breeze in their faces. She watched them a little, and it warmed her heart to see the stiff-necked young Southerner led captive by a daughter of New England trained in the right school, who would impose her opinions in their integrity. Considering how prejudiced he must have been he was certainly behaving very well; even at that distance Miss Birdseye dimly made out that there was something positively humble in the way he invited Verena Tarrant to seat herself on a low pile of weather-blackened planks, which constituted the principal furniture of the place, and something, perhaps, just a trifle too expressive of righteous triumph in the manner in which the girl put the suggestion by and stood where she liked, a little proudly, turning a good deal away from him. Miss Birdseye could see as much as this, but she couldn't hear, so that she didn't know what it was that made Verena turn suddenly back to him, at something he said. If she had known, perhaps his observation would have struck her as less singular--under the circumstances in which these two young persons met--than it may appear to the reader. "They have accepted one of my articles; I think it's the best." These were the first words that passed Basil Ransom's lips after the pair had withdrawn as far as it was possible to withdraw (in that direction) from the house. "Oh, is it printed--when does it appear?" Verena asked that question instantly; it sprang from her lips in a manner that completely belied the air of keeping herself at a distance from him which she had worn a few moments before. He didn't tell her again this time, as he had told her when, on the occasion of their walk together in New York, she expressed an inconsequent hope that his fortune as a rejected contributor would take a turn--he didn't remark to her once more that she was a delightful being; he only went on (as if her revulsion were a matter of course) to explain everything he could, so that she might as soon as possible know him better and see how completely she could trust him. "That was, at bottom, the reason I came here. The essay in question is the most important thing I have done in the way of a literary attempt, and I determined to give up the game or to persist, according as I should be able to bring it to the light or not. The other day I got a letter from the editor of the _Rational Review_, telling me that he should be very happy to print it, that he thought it very remarkable, and that he should be glad to hear from me again. He shall hear from me again--he needn't be afraid! It contained a good many of the opinions I have expressed to you, and a good many more besides. I really believe it will attract some attention. At any rate, the simple fact that it is to be published makes an era in my life. This will seem pitiful to you, no doubt, who publish yourself, have been before the world these several years, and are flushed with every kind of triumph; but to me it's simply a tremendous affair. It makes me believe I may do something; it has changed the whole way I look at my future. I have been building castles in the air, and I have put you in the biggest and fairest of them. That's a great change, and, as I say, it's really why I came on." Verena lost not a word of this gentle, conciliatory, explicit statement; it was full of surprises for her, and as soon as Ransom had stopped speaking she inquired: "Why, didn't you feel satisfied about your future before?" Her tone made him feel how little she had suspected he could have the weakness of a discouragement, how little of a question it must have seemed to her that he would one day triumph on his own erratic line. It was the sweetest tribute he had yet received to the idea that he might have ability; the letter of the editor of the _Rational Review_ was nothing to it. "No, I felt very blue; it didn't seem to me at all clear that there was a place for me in the world." "Gracious!" said Verena Tarrant. A quarter of an hour later Miss Birdseye, who had returned to her letters (she had a correspondent at Framingham who usually wrote fifteen pages), became aware that Verena, who was now alone, was re-entering the house. She stopped her on her way, and said she hoped she hadn't pushed Mr. Ransom overboard. "Oh no; he has gone off--round the other way." "Well, I hope he is going to speak for us soon." Verena hesitated a moment. "He speaks with the pen. He has written a very fine article--for the _Rational Review_." Miss Birdseye gazed at her young friend complacently; the sheets of her interminable letter fluttered in the breeze. "Well, it's delightful to see the way it goes on, isn't it?" Verena scarcely knew what to say; then, remembering that Doctor Prance had told her that they might lose their dear old companion any day, and confronting it with something Basil Ransom had just said--that the _Rational Review_ was a quarterly and the editor had notified him that his article would appear only in the number after the next--she reflected that perhaps Miss Birdseye wouldn't be there, so many months later, to see how it was her supposed consort had spoken. She might, therefore, be left to believe what she liked to believe, without fear of a day of reckoning. Verena committed herself to nothing more confirmatory than a kiss, however, which the old lady's displaced head-gear enabled her to imprint upon her forehead and which caused Miss Birdseye to exclaim, "Why, Verena Tarrant, how cold your lips are!" It was not surprising to Verena to hear that her lips were cold; a mortal chill had crept over her, for she knew that this time she should have a tremendous scene with Olive. She found her in her room, to which she had fled on quitting Mr. Ransom's presence; she sat in the window, having evidently sunk into a chair the moment she came in, a position from which she must have seen Verena walk through the garden and down to the water with the intruder. She remained as she had collapsed, quite prostrate; her attitude was the same as that other time Verena had found her waiting, in New York. What Olive was likely to say to her first the girl scarcely knew; her mind, at any rate, was full of an intention of her own. She went straight to her and fell on her knees before her, taking hold of the hands which were clasped together, with nervous intensity, in Miss Chancellor's lap. Verena remained a moment, looking up at her, and then said: "There is something I want to tell you now, without a moment's delay; something I didn't tell you at the time it happened, nor afterwards. Mr. Ransom came out to see me once, at Cambridge, a little while before we went to New York. He spent a couple of hours with me; we took a walk together and saw the colleges. It was after that that he wrote to me--when I answered his letter, as I told you in New York. I didn't tell you then of his visit. We had a great deal of talk about him, and I kept that back. I did so on purpose; I can't explain why, except that I didn't like to tell you, and that I thought it better. But now I want you to know everything; when you know that, you _will_ know everything. It was only one visit--about two hours. I enjoyed it very much--he seemed so much interested. One reason I didn't tell you was that I didn't want you to know that he had come on to Boston, and called on me in Cambridge, without going to see you. I thought it might affect you disagreeably. I suppose you will think I deceived you; certainly I left you with a wrong impression. But now I want you to know all--all!" Verena spoke with breathless haste and eagerness; there was a kind of passion in the way she tried to expiate her former want of candour. Olive listened, staring; at first she seemed scarcely to understand. But Verena perceived that she understood sufficiently when she broke out: "You deceived me--you deceived me! Well, I must say I like your deceit better than such dreadful revelations! And what does anything matter when he has come after you now? What does he want--what has he come for?" "He has come to ask me to be his wife." Verena said this with the same eagerness, with as determined an air of not incurring any reproach this time. But as soon as she had spoken she buried her head in Olive's lap. Olive made no attempt to raise it again, and returned none of the pressure of her hands; she only sat silent for a time, during which Verena wondered that the idea of the episode at Cambridge, laid bare only after so many months, should not have struck her more deeply. Presently she saw it was because the horror of what had just happened drew her off from it. At last Olive asked: "Is that what he told you, off there by the water?" "Yes"--and Verena looked up--"he wanted me to know it right away. He says it's only fair to you that he should give notice of his intentions. He wants to try and make me like him--so he says. He wants to see more of me, and he wants me to know him better." Olive lay back in her chair, with dilated eyes and parted lips. "Verena Tarrant, what _is_ there between you? what _can_ I hold on to, what _can_ I believe? Two hours, in Cambridge, before we went to New York?" The sense that Verena had been perfidious there--perfidious in her reticence--now began to roll over her. "Mercy of heaven, how you did act!" "Olive, it was to spare you." "To spare me? If you really wished to spare me he wouldn't be here now!" Miss Chancellor flashed this out with a sudden violence, a spasm which threw Verena off and made her rise to her feet. For an instant the two young women stood confronted, and a person who had seen them at that moment might have taken them for enemies rather than friends. But any such opposition could last but a few seconds. Verena replied, with a tremor in her voice which was not that of passion, but of charity: "Do you mean that I expected him, that I brought him? I never in my life was more surprised at anything than when I saw him there." "Hasn't he the delicacy of one of his own slave-drivers? Doesn't he know you loathe him?" Verena looked at her friend with a degree of majesty which, with her, was rare. "I don't loathe him--I only dislike his opinions." "Dislike! Oh, misery!" And Olive turned away to the open window, leaning her forehead against the lifted sash. Verena hesitated, then went to her, passing her arm round her. "Don't scold me! help me--help me!" she murmured. Olive gave her a sidelong look; then, catching her up and facing her again--"Will you come away, now, by the next train?" "Flee from him again, as I did in New York? No, no, Olive Chancellor, that's not the way," Verena went on, reasoningly, as if all the wisdom of the ages were seated on her lips. "Then how can we leave Miss Birdseye, in her state? We must stay here--we must fight it out here." "Why not be honest, if you have been false--really honest, not only half so? Why not tell him plainly that you love him?" "Love him, Olive? why, I scarcely know him." "You'll have a chance, if he stays a month!" "I don't dislike him, certainly, as you do. But how can I love him when he tells me he wants me to give up everything, all our work, our faith, our future, never to give another address, to open my lips in public? How can I consent to that?" Verena went on, smiling strangely. "He asks you that, just that way?" "No; it's not that way. It's very kindly." "Kindly? Heaven help you, don't grovel! Doesn't he know it's my house?" Olive added, in a moment. "Of course he won't come into it, if you forbid him." "So that you may meet him in other places--on the shore, in the country?" "I certainly shan't avoid him, hide away from him," said Verena proudly. "I thought I made you believe, in New York, that I really cared for our aspirations. The way for me then is to meet him, feeling conscious of my strength. What if I do like him? what does it matter? I like my work in the world, I like everything I believe in, better." Olive listened to this, and the memory of how, in the house in Tenth Street, Verena had rebuked her doubts, professed her own faith anew, came back to her with a force which made the present situation appear slightly less terrific. Nevertheless, she gave no assent to the girl's logic; she only replied: "But you didn't meet him there; you hurried away from New York, after I was willing you should stay. He affected you very much there; you were not so calm when you came back to me from your expedition to the park as you pretend to be now. To get away from him you gave up all the rest." "I know I wasn't so calm. But now I have had three months to think about it--about the way he affected me there. I take it very quietly." "No, you don't; you are not calm now!" Verena was silent a moment, while Olive's eyes continued to search her, accuse her, condemn her. "It's all the more reason you shouldn't give me stab after stab," she replied, with a gentleness which was infinitely touching. It had an instant effect upon Olive; she burst into tears, threw herself on her friend's bosom. "Oh, don't desert me--don't desert me, or you'll kill me in torture," she moaned, shuddering. "You must help me--you must help me!" cried Verena, imploringly too. XXXVII Basil Ransom spent nearly a month at Marmion; in announcing this fact I am very conscious of its extraordinary character. Poor Olive may well have been thrown back into her alarms by his presenting himself there; for after her return from New York she took to her soul the conviction that she had really done with him. Not only did the impulse of revulsion under which Verena had demanded that their departure from Tenth Street should be immediate appear to her a proof that it had been sufficient for her young friend to touch Mr. Ransom's moral texture with her finger, as it were, in order to draw back for ever; but what she had learned from her companion of his own manifestations, his apparent disposition to throw up the game, added to her feeling of security. He had spoken to Verena of their little excursion as his last opportunity, let her know that he regarded it not as the beginning of a more intimate acquaintance but as the end even of such relations as already existed between them. He gave her up, for reasons best known to himself; if he wanted to frighten Olive he judged that he had frightened her enough: his Southern chivalry suggested to him perhaps that he ought to let her off before he had worried her to death. Doubtless, too, he had perceived how vain it was to hope to make Verena abjure a faith so solidly founded; and though he admired her enough to wish to possess her on his own terms, he shrank from the mortification which the future would have in keeping for him--that of finding that, after six months of courting and in spite of all her sympathy, her desire to do what people expected of her, she despised his opinions as much as the first day. Olive Chancellor was able to a certain extent to believe what she wished to believe, and that was one reason why she had twisted Verena's flight from New York, just after she let her friend see how much she should like to drink deeper of the cup, into a warrant for living in a fool's paradise. If she had been less afraid, she would have read things more clearly; she would have seen that we don't run away from people unless we fear them and that we don't fear them unless we know that we are unarmed. Verena feared Basil Ransom now (though this time she declined to run); but now she had taken up her weapons, she had told Olive she was exposed, she had asked _her_ to be her defence. Poor Olive was stricken as she had never been before, but the extremity of her danger gave her a desperate energy. The only comfort in her situation was that this time Verena had confessed her peril, had thrown herself into her hands. "I like him--I can't help it--I do like him. I don't want to marry him, I don't want to embrace his ideas, which are unspeakably false and horrible; but I like him better than any gentleman I have seen." So much as this the girl announced to her friend as soon as the conversation of which I have just given a sketch was resumed, as it was very soon, you may be sure, and very often, in the course of the next few days. That was her way of saying that a great crisis had arrived in her life, and the statement needed very little amplification to stand as a shy avowal that she too had succumbed to the universal passion. Olive had had her suspicions, her terrors, before; but she perceived now how idle and foolish they had been, and that this was a different affair from any of the "phases" of which she had hitherto anxiously watched the development. As I say, she felt it to be a considerable mercy that Verena's attitude was frank, for it gave her something to take hold of; she could no longer be put off with sophistries about receiving visits from handsome and unscrupulous young men for the sake of the opportunities it gave one to convert them. She took hold, accordingly, with passion, with fury; after the shock of Ransom's arrival had passed away she determined that he should not find her chilled into dumb submission. Verena had told her that she wanted her to hold her tight, to rescue her; and there was no fear that, for an instant, she should sleep at her post. "I like him--I like him; but I want to hate----" "You want to hate him!" Olive broke in. "No, I want to hate my liking. I want you to keep before me all the reasons why I should--many of them so fearfully important. Don't let me lose sight of anything! Don't be afraid I shall not be grateful when you remind me." That was one of the singular speeches that Verena made in the course of their constant discussion of the terrible question, and it must be confessed that she made a great many. The strangest of all was when she protested, as she did again and again to Olive, against the idea of their seeking safety in retreat. She said there was a want of dignity in it--that she had been ashamed, afterwards, of what she had done in rushing away from New York. This care for her moral appearance was, on Verena's part, something new; inasmuch as, though she had struck that note on previous occasions--had insisted on its being her duty to face the accidents and alarms of life--she had never erected such a standard in the face of a disaster so sharply possible. It was not her habit either to talk or to think about her dignity, and when Olive found her taking that tone she felt more than ever that the dreadful, ominous, fatal part of the situation was simply that now, for the first time in all the history of their sacred friendship, Verena was not sincere. She was not sincere when she told her that she wanted to be helped against Mr. Ransom--when she exhorted her, that way, to keep everything that was salutary and fortifying before her eyes. Olive did not go so far as to believe that she was playing a part and putting her off with words which, glossing over her treachery, only made it more cruel; she would have admitted that that treachery was as yet unwitting, that Verena deceived herself first of all, thinking she really wished to be saved. Her phrases about her dignity were insincere, as well as her pretext that they must stay to look after Miss Birdseye: as if Doctor Prance were not abundantly able to discharge that function and would not be enchanted to get them out of the house! Olive had perfectly divined by this time that Doctor Prance had no sympathy with their movement, no general ideas; that she was simply shut up to petty questions of physiological science and of her own professional activity. She would never have invited her down if she had realised this in advance so much as the doctor's dry detachment from all their discussions, their readings and practisings, her constant expeditions to fish and botanise, subsequently enabled her to do. She was very narrow, but it did seem as if she knew more about Miss Birdseye's peculiar physical conditions--they were _very_ peculiar--than any one else, and this was a comfort at a time when that admirable woman seemed to be suffering a loss of vitality. "The great point is that it must be met some time, and it will be a tremendous relief to have it over. He is determined to have it out with me, and if the battle doesn't come off to-day we shall have to fight it to-morrow. I don't see why this isn't as good a time as any other. My lecture for the Music Hall is as good as finished, and I haven't got anything else to do; so I can give all my attention to our personal struggle. It requires a good deal, you would admit, if you knew how wonderfully he can talk. If we should leave this place to-morrow he would come after us to the very next one. He would follow us everywhere. A little while ago we could have escaped him, because he says that then he had no money. He hasn't got much now, but he has got enough to pay his way. He is so encouraged by the reception of his article by the editor of the _Rational Review_, that he is sure that in future his pen will be a resource." These remarks were uttered by Verena after Basil Ransom had been three days at Marmion, and when she reached this point her companion interrupted her with the inquiry, "Is that what he proposes to support you with--his pen?" "Oh yes; of course he admits we should be terribly poor." "And this vision of a literary career is based entirely upon an article that hasn't yet seen the light? I don't see how a man of any refinement can approach a woman with so beggarly an account of his position in life." "He says he wouldn't--he would have been ashamed--three months ago; that was why, when we were in New York, and he felt, even then--well (so he says) all he feels now, he made up his mind not to persist, to let me go. But just lately a change has taken place; his state of mind altered completely, in the course of a week, in consequence of the letter that editor wrote him about his contribution, and his paying for it right off. It was a remarkably flattering letter. He says he believes in his future now; he has before him a vision of distinction, of influence, and of fortune, not great, perhaps, but sufficient to make life tolerable. He doesn't think life is very delightful, in the nature of things; but one of the best things a man can do with it is to get hold of some woman (of course, she must please him very much, to make it worth while) whom he may draw close to him." "And couldn't he get hold of any one but you--among all the exposed millions of our sex?" poor Olive groaned. "Why must he pick you out, when everything he knew about you showed you to be, exactly, the very last?" "That's just what I have asked him, and he only remarks that there is no reasoning about such things. He fell in love with me that first evening, at Miss Birdseye's. So you see there was some ground for that mystic apprehension of yours. It seems as if I pleased him more than any one." Olive flung herself over on the couch, burying her face in the cushions, which she tumbled in her despair, and moaning out that he didn't love Verena, he never had loved her, it was only his hatred of their cause that made him pretend it; he wanted to do that an injury, to do it the worst he could think of. He didn't love her, he hated her, he only wanted to smother her, to crush her, to kill her--as she would infallibly see that he would if she listened to him. It was because he knew that her voice had magic in it, and from the moment he caught its first note he had determined to destroy it. It was not tenderness that moved him--it was devilish malignity; tenderness would be incapable of requiring the horrible sacrifice that he was not ashamed to ask, of requiring her to commit perjury and blasphemy, to desert a work, an interest, with which her very heart-strings were interlaced, to give the lie to her whole young past, to her purest, holiest ambitions. Olive put forward no claim of her own, breathed, at first, at least, not a word of remonstrance in the name of her personal loss, of their blighted union; she only dwelt upon the unspeakable tragedy of a defection from their standard, of a failure on Verena's part to carry out what she had undertaken, of the horror of seeing her bright career blotted out with darkness and tears, of the joy and elation that would fill the breast of all their adversaries at this illustrious, consummate proof of the fickleness, the futility, the predestined servility, of women. A man had only to whistle for her, and she who had pretended most was delighted to come and kneel at his feet. Olive's most passionate protest was summed up in her saying that if Verena were to forsake them it would put back the emancipation of women a hundred years. She did not, during these dreadful days, talk continuously; she had long periods of pale, intensely anxious, watchful silence, interrupted by outbreaks of passionate argument, entreaty, invocation. It was Verena who talked incessantly, Verena who was in a state entirely new to her, and, as any one could see, in an attitude entirely unnatural and overdone. If she was deceiving herself, as Olive said, there was something very affecting in her effort, her ingenuity. If she tried to appear to Olive impartial, coldly judicious, in her attitude with regard to Basil Ransom, and only anxious to see, for the moral satisfaction of the thing, how good a case, as a lover, he might make out for himself and how much he might touch her susceptibilities, she endeavoured, still more earnestly, to practise this fraud upon her own imagination. She abounded in every proof that she should be in despair if she should be overborne, and she thought of arguments even more convincing, if possible, than Olive's, why she should hold on to her old faith, why she should resist even at the cost of acute temporary suffering. She was voluble, fluent, feverish; she was perpetually bringing up the subject, as if to encourage her friend, to show how she kept possession of her judgement, how independent she remained. No stranger situation can be imagined than that of these extraordinary young women at this juncture; it was so singular on Verena's part, in particular, that I despair of presenting it to the reader with the air of reality. To understand it, one must bear in mind her peculiar frankness, natural and acquired, her habit of discussing questions, sentiments, moralities, her education, in the atmosphere of lecture-rooms, of _séances_, her familiarity with the vocabulary of emotion, the mysteries of "the spiritual life." She had learned to breathe and move in a rarefied air, as she would have learned to speak Chinese if her success in life had depended upon it; but this dazzling trick, and all her artlessly artful facilities, were not a part of her essence, an expression of her innermost preferences. What _was_ a part of her essence was the extraordinary generosity with which she could expose herself, give herself away, turn herself inside out, for the satisfaction of a person who made demands of her. Olive, as we know, had made the reflexion that no one was naturally less preoccupied with the idea of her dignity, and though Verena put it forward as an excuse for remaining where they were, it must be admitted that in reality she was very deficient in the desire to be consistent with herself. Olive had contributed with all her zeal to the development of Verena's gift; but I scarcely venture to think now, what she may have said to herself, in the secrecy of deep meditation, about the consequences of cultivating an abundant eloquence. Did she say that Verena was attempting to smother her now in her own phrases? did she view with dismay the fatal effect of trying to have an answer for everything? From Olive's condition during these lamentable weeks there is a certain propriety--a delicacy enjoined by the respect for misfortune--in averting our head. She neither ate nor slept; she could scarcely speak without bursting into tears; she felt so implacably, insidiously baffled. She remembered the magnanimity with which she had declined (the winter before the last) to receive the vow of eternal maidenhood which she had at first demanded and then put by as too crude a test, but which Verena, for a precious hour, for ever flown, would _then_ have been willing to take. She repented of it with bitterness and rage; and then she asked herself, more desperately still, whether even if she held that pledge she should be brave enough to enforce it in the face of actual complications. She believed that if it were in her power to say, "No, I won't let you off; I have your solemn word, and I won't!" Verena would bow to that decree and remain with her; but the magic would have passed out of her spirit for ever, the sweetness out of their friendship, the efficacy out of their work. She said to her again and again that she had utterly changed since that hour she came to her, in New York, after her morning with Mr. Ransom, and sobbed out that they must hurry away. Then she had been wounded, outraged, sickened, and in the interval nothing had happened, nothing but that one exchange of letters, which she knew about, to bring her round to a shameless tolerance. Shameless Verena admitted it to be; she assented over and over to this proposition, and explained, as eagerly each time as if it were the first, what it was that had come to pass, what it was that had brought her round. It had simply come over her that she liked him, that this was the true point of view, the only one from which one could consider the situation in a way that would lead to what she called a _real_ solution--a permanent rest. On this particular point Verena never responded, in the liberal way I have mentioned, without asseverating at the same time that what she desired most in the world was to prove (the picture Olive had held up from the first) that a woman _could_ live on persistently, clinging to a great, vivifying, redemptory idea, without the help of a man. To testify to the end against the stale superstition--mother of every misery--that those gentry were as indispensable as they had proclaimed themselves on the house-tops--that, she passionately protested, was as inspiring a thought in the present poignant crisis as it had ever been. The one grain of comfort that Olive extracted from the terrors that pressed upon her was that now she knew the worst; she knew it since Verena had told her, after so long and so ominous a reticence, of the detestable episode at Cambridge. That seemed to her the worst, because it had been thunder in a clear sky; the incident had sprung from a quarter from which, months before, all symptoms appeared to have vanished. Though Verena had now done all she could to make up for her perfidious silence by repeating everything that passed between them as she sat with Mr. Ransom in Monadnoc Place or strolled with him through the colleges, it imposed itself upon Olive that that occasion was the key of all that had happened since, that he had then obtained an irremediable hold upon her. If Verena had spoken at the time, she would never have let her go to New York; the sole compensation for that hideous mistake was that the girl, recognising it to the full, evidently deemed now that she couldn't be communicative enough. There were certain afternoons in August, long, beautiful and terrible, when one felt that the summer was rounding its curve, and the rustle of the full-leaved trees in the slanting golden light, in the breeze that ought to be delicious, seemed the voice of the coming autumn, of the warnings and dangers of life--portentous, insufferable hours when, as she sat under the softly swaying vine-leaves of the trellis with Miss Birdseye and tried, in order to still her nerves, to read something aloud to her guest, the sound of her own quavering voice made her think more of that baleful day at Cambridge than even of the fact that at that very moment Verena was "off" with Mr. Ransom--had gone to take the little daily walk with him to which it had been arranged that their enjoyment of each other's society should be reduced. Arranged, I say; but that is not exactly the word to describe the compromise arrived at by a kind of tacit exchange of tearful entreaty and tightened grasp, after Ransom had made it definite to Verena that he was indeed going to stay a month and she had promised that she would not resort to base evasions, to flight (which would avail her nothing, he notified her), but would give him a chance, would listen to him a few minutes every day. He had insisted that the few minutes should be an hour, and the way to spend it was obvious. They wandered along the waterside to a rocky, shrub-covered point, which made a walk of just the right duration. Here all the homely languor of the region, the mild, fragrant Cape-quality, the sweetness of white sands, quiet waters, low promontories where there were paths among the barberries and tidal pools gleamed in the sunset--here all the spirit of a ripe summer afternoon seemed to hang in the air. There were wood-walks too; they sometimes followed bosky uplands, where accident had grouped the trees with odd effects of "style," and where in grassy intervals and fragrant nooks of rest they came out upon sudden patches of Arcady. In such places Verena listened to her companion with her watch in her hand, and she wondered, very sincerely, how he could care for a girl who made the conditions of courtship so odious. He had recognised, of course, at the very first, that he could not inflict himself again upon Miss Chancellor, and after that awkward morning-call I have described he did not again, for the first three weeks of his stay at Marmion, penetrate into the cottage whose back windows overlooked the deserted shipyard. Olive, as may be imagined, made, on this occasion, no protest for the sake of being ladylike or of preventing him from putting her apparently in the wrong. The situation between them was too grim; it was war to the knife, it was a question of which should pull hardest. So Verena took a tryst with the young man as if she had been a maid-servant and Basil Ransom a "follower." They met a little way from the house; beyond it, outside the village. XXXVIII Olive thought she knew the worst, as we have perceived; but the worst was really something she could not know, inasmuch as up to this time Verena chose as little to confide to her on that one point as she was careful to expatiate with her on every other. The change that had taken place in the object of Basil Ransom's merciless devotion since the episode in New York was, briefly, just this change--that the words he had spoken to her there about her genuine vocation, as distinguished from the hollow and factitious ideal with which her family and her association with Olive Chancellor had saddled her--these words, the most effective and penetrating he had uttered, had sunk into her soul and worked and fermented there. She had come at last to believe them, and that was the alteration, the transformation. They had kindled a light in which she saw herself afresh and, strange to say, liked herself better than in the old exaggerated glamour of the lecture-lamps. She could not tell Olive this yet, for it struck at the root of everything, and the dreadful, delightful sensation filled her with a kind of awe at all that it implied and portended. She was to burn everything she had adored; she was to adore everything she had burned. The extraordinary part of it was that though she felt the situation to be, as I say, tremendously serious, she was not ashamed of the treachery which she--yes, decidedly, by this time she must admit it to herself--she meditated. It was simply that the truth had changed sides; that radiant image began to look at her from Basil Ransom's expressive eyes. She loved, she was in love--she felt it in every throb of her being. Instead of being constituted by nature for entertaining that sentiment in an exceptionally small degree (which had been the implication of her whole crusade, the warrant for her offer of old to Olive to renounce), she was framed, apparently, to allow it the largest range, the highest intensity. It was always passion, in fact; but now the object was other. Formerly she had been convinced that the fire of her spirit was a kind of double flame, one half of which was responsive friendship for a most extraordinary person, and the other pity for the sufferings of women in general. Verena gazed aghast at the colourless dust into which, in three short months (counting from the episode in New York), such a conviction as that could crumble; she felt it must be a magical touch that could bring about such a cataclysm. Why Basil Ransom had been deputed by fate to exercise this spell was more than she could say--poor Verena, who up to so lately had flattered herself that she had a wizard's wand in her own pocket. When she saw him a little way off, about five o'clock--the hour she usually went out to meet him--waiting for her at a bend of the road which lost itself, after a winding, straggling mile or two, in the indented, insulated "point," where the wandering bee droned through the hot hours with a vague, misguided flight, she felt that his tall, watching figure, with the low horizon behind, represented well the importance, the towering eminence he had in her mind--the fact that he was just now, to her vision, the most definite and upright, the most incomparable, object in the world. If he had not been at his post when she expected him she would have had to stop and lean against something, for weakness; her whole being would have throbbed more painfully than it throbbed at present, though finding him there made her nervous enough. And who was he, what was he? she asked herself. What did he offer her besides a chance (in which there was no compensation of brilliancy or fashion) to falsify, in a conspicuous manner, every hope and pledge she had hitherto given? He allowed her, certainly, no illusion on the subject of the fate she should meet as his wife; he flung over it no rosiness of promised ease; he let her know that she should be poor, withdrawn from view, a partner of his struggle, of his severe, hard, unique stoicism. When he spoke of such things as these, and bent his eyes on her, she could not keep the tears from her own; she felt that to throw herself into his life (bare and arid as for the time it was) was the condition of happiness for her, and yet that the obstacles were terrible, cruel. It must not be thought that the revolution which was taking place in her was unaccompanied with suffering. She suffered less than Olive certainly, for her bent was not, like her friend's, in that direction; but as the wheel of her experience went round she had the sensation of being ground very small indeed. With her light, bright texture, her complacent responsiveness, her genial, graceful, ornamental cast, her desire to keep on pleasing others at the time when a force she had never felt before was pushing her to please herself, poor Verena lived in these days in a state of moral tension--with a sense of being strained and aching--which she didn't betray more only because it was absolutely not in her power to look desperate. An immense pity for Olive sat in her heart, and she asked herself how far it was necessary to go in the path of self-sacrifice. Nothing was wanting to make the wrong she should do her complete; she had deceived her up to the very last; only three months earlier she had reasserted her vows, given her word, with every show of fidelity and enthusiasm. There were hours when it seemed to Verena that she must really push her inquiry no further, but content herself with the conclusion that she loved as deeply as a woman could love and that it didn't make any difference. She felt Olive's grasp too clinching, too terrible. She said to herself that she should never dare, that she might as well give up early as late; that the scene, at the end, would be something she couldn't face; that she had no right to blast the poor creature's whole future. She had a vision of those dreadful years; she knew that Olive would never get over the disappointment. It would touch her in the point where she felt everything most keenly; she would be incurably lonely and eternally humiliated. It was a very peculiar thing, their friendship; it had elements which made it probably as complete as any (between women) that had ever existed. Of course it had been more on Olive's side than on hers, she had always known that; but that, again, didn't make any difference. It was of no use for her to tell herself that Olive had begun it entirely and she had only responded out of a kind of charmed politeness, at first, to a tremendous appeal. She had lent herself, given herself, utterly, and she ought to have known better if she didn't mean to abide by it. At the end of three weeks she felt that her inquiry was complete, but that after all nothing was gained except an immense interest in Basil Ransom's views and the prospect of an eternal heartache. He had told her he wanted her to know him, and now she knew him pretty thoroughly. She knew him and she adored him, but it didn't make any difference. To give him up or to give Olive up--this effort would be the greater of the two. If Basil Ransom had the advantage, as far back as that day in New York, of having struck a note which was to reverberate, it may easily be imagined that he did not fail to follow it up. If he had projected a new light into Verena's mind, and made the idea of giving herself to a man more agreeable to her than that of giving herself to a movement, he found means to deepen this illumination, to drag her former standard in the dust. He was in a very odd situation indeed, carrying on his siege with his hands tied. As he had to do everything in an hour a day, he perceived that he must confine himself to the essential. The essential was to show her how much he loved her, and then to press, to press, always to press. His hovering about Miss Chancellor's habitation without going in was a strange regimen to be subjected to, and he was sorry not to see more of Miss Birdseye, besides often not knowing what to do with himself in the mornings and evenings. Fortunately he had brought plenty of books (volumes of rusty aspect, picked up at New York bookstalls), and in such an affair as this he could take the less when the more was forbidden him. For the mornings, sometimes, he had the resource of Doctor Prance, with whom he made a great many excursions on the water. She was devoted to boating and an ardent fisherwoman, and they used to pull out into the bay together, cast their lines, and talk a prodigious amount of heresy. She met him, as Verena met him, "in the environs," but in a different spirit. He was immensely amused at her attitude, and saw that nothing in the world could, as he expressed it, make her wink. She would never blench nor show surprise; she had an air of taking everything abnormal for granted; betrayed no consciousness of the oddity of Ransom's situation; said nothing to indicate she had noticed that Miss Chancellor was in a frenzy or that Verena had a daily appointment. You might have supposed from her manner that it was as natural for Ransom to sit on a fence half a mile off as in one of the red rocking-chairs, of the so-called "Shaker" species, which adorned Miss Chancellor's back verandah. The only thing our young man didn't like about Doctor Prance was the impression she gave him (out of the crevices of her reticence he hardly knew how it leaked) that she thought Verena rather slim. She took an ironical view of almost any kind of courtship, and he could see she didn't wonder women were such featherheads, so long as, whatever brittle follies they cultivated, they could get men to come and sit on fences for them. Doctor Prance told him Miss Birdseye noticed nothing; she had sunk, within a few days, into a kind of transfigured torpor; she didn't seem to know whether Mr. Ransom were anywhere round or not. She guessed she thought he had just come down for a day and gone off again; she probably supposed he just wanted to get toned up a little by Miss Tarrant. Sometimes, out in the boat, when she looked at him in vague, sociable silence, while she waited for a bite (she delighted in a bite), she had an expression of diabolical shrewdness. When Ransom was not scorching there beside her (he didn't mind the sun of Massachusetts), he lounged about in the pastoral land which hung (at a very moderate elevation) above the shore. He always had a book in his pocket, and he lay under whispering trees and kicked his heels and made up his mind on what side he should take Verena the next time. At the end of a fortnight he had succeeded (so he believed, at least) far better than he had hoped, in this sense, that the girl had now the air of making much more light of her "gift." He was indeed quite appalled at the facility with which she threw it over, gave up the idea that it was useful and precious. That had been what he wanted her to do, and the fact of the sacrifice (once she had fairly looked at it) costing her so little only proved his contention, only made it clear that it was not necessary to her happiness to spend half her life ranting (no matter how prettily) in public. All the same he said to himself that, to make up for the loss of whatever was sweet in the reputation of the thing, he should have to be tremendously nice to her in all the coming years. During the first week he was at Marmion she made of him an inquiry which touched on this point. "Well, if it's all a mere delusion, why should this facility have been given me--why should I have been saddled with a superfluous talent? I don't care much about it--I don't mind telling you that; but I confess I should like to know what is to become of all that part of me, if I retire into private life, and live, as you say, simply to be charming for you. I shall be like a singer with a beautiful voice (you have told me yourself my voice is beautiful) who has accepted some decree of never raising a note. Isn't that a great waste, a great violation of nature? Were not our talents given us to use, and have we any right to smother them and deprive our fellow-creatures of such pleasure as they may confer? In the arrangement you propose" (that was Verena's way of speaking of the question of their marriage) "I don't see what provision is made for the poor faithful, dismissed servant. It is all very well to be charming to you, but there are people who have told me that once I get on a platform I am charming to all the world. There is no harm in my speaking of that, because you have told me so yourself. Perhaps you intend to have a platform erected in our front parlour, where I can address you every evening, and put you to sleep after your work. I say our _front_ parlour, as if it were certain we should have two! It doesn't look as if our means would permit that--and we must have some place to dine, if there is to be a platform in our sitting-room." "My dear young woman, it will be easy to solve the difficulty: the dining-table itself shall be our platform, and you shall mount on top of that." This was Basil Ransom's sportive reply to his companion's very natural appeal for light, and the reader will remark that if it led her to push her investigation no further, she was very easily satisfied. There was more reason, however, as well as more appreciation of a very considerable mystery, in what he went on to say. "Charming to me, charming to all the world? What will become of your charm?--is that what you want to know? It will be about five thousand times greater than it is now; that's what will become of it. We shall find plenty of room for your facility; it will lubricate our whole existence. Believe me, Miss Tarrant, these things will take care of themselves. You won't sing in the Music Hall, but you will sing to me; you will sing to every one who knows you and approaches you. Your gift is indestructible; don't talk as if I either wanted to wipe it out or should be able to make it a particle less divine. I want to give it another direction, certainly; but I don't want to stop your activity. Your gift is the gift of expression, and there is nothing I can do for you that will make you less expressive. It won't gush out at a fixed hour and on a fixed day, but it will irrigate, it will fertilise, it will brilliantly adorn your conversation. Think how delightful it will be when your influence becomes really social. Your facility, as you call it, will simply make you, in conversation, the most charming woman in America." It is to be feared, indeed, that Verena was easily satisfied (convinced, I mean, not that she ought to succumb to him, but that there were lovely, neglected, almost unsuspected truths on his side); and there is further evidence on the same head in the fact that after the first once or twice she found nothing to say to him (much as she was always saying to herself) about the cruel effect her apostasy would have upon Olive. She forbore to plead that reason after she had seen how angry it made him, and with how almost savage a contempt he denounced so flimsy a pretext. He wanted to know since when it was more becoming to take up with a morbid old maid than with an honourable young man; and when Verena pronounced the sacred name of friendship he inquired what fanatical sophistry excluded him from a similar privilege. She had told him, in a moment of expansion (Verena believed she was immensely on her guard, but her guard was very apt to be lowered), that his visits to Marmion cast in Olive's view a remarkable light upon his chivalry; she chose to regard his resolute pursuit of Verena as a covert persecution of herself. Verena repented, as soon as she had spoken, of having given further currency to this taunt; but she perceived the next moment no harm was done, Basil Ransom taking in perfectly good part Miss Chancellor's reflexions on his delicacy, and making them the subject of much free laughter. She could not know, for in the midst of his hilarity the young man did not compose himself to tell her, that he had made up his mind on this question before he left New York--as long ago as when he wrote her the note (subsequent to her departure from that city) to which allusion has already been made, and which was simply the fellow of the letter addressed to her after his visit to Cambridge: a friendly, respectful, yet rather pregnant sign that, decidedly, on second thoughts, separation didn't imply for him the intention of silence. We know a little about his second thoughts, as much as is essential, and especially how the occasion of their springing up had been the windfall of an editor's encouragement. The importance of that encouragement, to Basil's imagination, was doubtless much augmented by his desire for an excuse to take up again a line of behaviour which he had forsworn (small as had, as yet, been his opportunity to indulge in it) very much less than he supposed; still, it worked an appreciable revolution in his view of his case, and made him ask himself what amount of consideration he should (from the most refined Southern point of view) owe Miss Chancellor in the event of his deciding to go after Verena Tarrant in earnest. He was not slow to decide that he owed her none. Chivalry had to do with one's relations with people one hated, not with those one loved. He didn't hate poor Miss Olive, though she might make him yet; and even if he did, any chivalry was all moonshine which should require him to give up the girl he adored in order that his third cousin should see he could be gallant. Chivalry was forbearance and generosity with regard to the weak; and there was nothing weak about Miss Olive, she was a fighting woman, and she would fight him to the death, giving him not an inch of odds. He felt that she was fighting there all day long, in her cottage fortress; her resistance was in the air he breathed, and Verena came out to him sometimes quite limp and pale from the tussle. It was in the same jocose spirit with which he regarded Olive's view of the sort of standard a Mississippian should live up to that he talked to Verena about the lecture she was preparing for her great exhibition at the Music Hall. He learned from her that she was to take the field in the manner of Mrs. Farrinder, for a winter campaign, carrying with her a tremendous big gun. Her engagements were all made, her route was marked out; she expected to repeat her lecture in about fifty different places. It was to be called "A Woman's Reason," and both Olive and Miss Birdseye thought it, so far as they could tell in advance, her most promising effort. She wasn't going to trust to inspiration this time; she didn't want to meet a big Boston audience without knowing where she was. Inspiration, moreover, seemed rather to have faded away; in consequence of Olive's influence she had read and studied so much that it seemed now as if everything must take form beforehand. Olive was a splendid critic, whether he liked her or not, and she had made her go over every word of her lecture twenty times. There wasn't an intonation she hadn't made her practise; it was very different from the old system, when her father had worked her up. If Basil considered women superficial, it was a pity he couldn't see what Olive's standard of preparation was, or be present at their rehearsals, in the evening, in their little parlour. Ransom's state of mind in regard to the affair at the Music Hall was simply this--that he was determined to circumvent it if he could. He covered it with ridicule, in talking of it to Verena, and the shafts he levelled at it went so far that he could see she thought he exaggerated his dislike to it. In point of fact he could not have overstated that; so odious did the idea seem to him that she was soon to be launched in a more infatuated career. He vowed to himself that she should never take that fresh start which would commit her irretrievably if she should succeed (and she would succeed--he had not the slightest doubt of her power to produce a sensation in the Music Hall), to the acclamations of the newspapers. He didn't care for her engagements, her campaigns, or all the expectancy of her friends; to "squelch" all that, at a stroke, was the dearest wish of his heart. It would represent to him his own success, it would symbolise his victory. It became a fixed idea with him, and he warned her again and again. When she laughed and said she didn't see how he could stop her unless he kidnapped her, he really pitied her for not perceiving, beneath his ominous pleasantries, the firmness of his resolution. He felt almost capable of kidnapping her. It was palpably in the air that she would become "widely popular," and that idea simply sickened him. He felt as differently as possible about it from Mr. Matthias Pardon. One afternoon, as he returned with Verena from a walk which had been accomplished completely within the prescribed conditions, he saw, from a distance, Doctor Prance, who had emerged bare-headed from the cottage, and, shading her eyes from the red, declining sun, was looking up and down the road. It was part of the regulation that Ransom should separate from Verena before reaching the house, and they had just paused to exchange their last words (which every day promoted the situation more than any others), when Doctor Prance began to beckon to them with much animation. They hurried forward, Verena pressing her hand to her heart, for she had instantly guessed that something terrible had happened to Olive--she had given out, fainted away, perhaps fallen dead, with the cruelty of the strain. Doctor Prance watched them come, with a curious look in her face; it was not a smile, but a kind of exaggerated intimation that she noticed nothing. In an instant she had told them what was the matter. Miss Birdseye had had a sudden weakness; she had remarked abruptly that she was dying, and her pulse, sure enough, had fallen to nothing. She was down on the piazza with Miss Chancellor and herself, and they had tried to get her up to bed. But she wouldn't let them move her; she was passing away, and she wanted to pass away just there, in such a pleasant place, in her customary chair, looking at the sunset. She asked for Miss Tarrant, and Miss Chancellor told her she was out--walking with Mr. Ransom. Then she wanted to know if Mr. Ransom was still there--she supposed he had gone. (Basil knew, by Verena, apart from this, that his name had not been mentioned to the old lady since the morning he saw her.) She expressed a wish to see him--she had something to say to him; and Miss Chancellor told her that he would be back soon, with Verena, and that they would bring him in. Miss Birdseye said she hoped they wouldn't be long, because she was sinking; and Doctor Prance now added, like a person who knew what she was talking about, that it was, in fact, the end. She had darted out two or three times to look for them, and they must step right in. Verena had scarcely given her time to tell her story; she had already rushed into the house. Ransom followed with Doctor Prance, conscious that for him the occasion was doubly solemn; inasmuch as if he was to see poor Miss Birdseye yield up her philanthropic soul, he was on the other hand doubtless to receive from Miss Chancellor a reminder that _she_ had no intention of quitting the game. By the time he had made this reflexion he stood in the presence of his kinswoman and her venerable guest, who was sitting just as he had seen her before, muffled and bonneted, on the back piazza of the cottage. Olive Chancellor was on one side of her holding one of her hands, and on the other was Verena, who had dropped on her knees, close to her, bending over those of the old lady. "Did you ask for me--did you want me?" the girl said tenderly. "I will never leave you again." "Oh, I won't keep you long. I only wanted to see you once more." Miss Birdseye's voice was very low, like that of a person breathing with difficulty; but it had no painful nor querulous note--it expressed only the cheerful weariness which had marked all this last period of her life, and which seemed to make it now as blissful as it was suitable that she should pass away. Her head was thrown back against the top of the chair, the ribbon which confined her ancient hat hung loose, and the late afternoon light covered her octogenarian face and gave it a kind of fairness, a double placidity. There was, to Ransom, something almost august in the trustful renunciation of her countenance; something in it seemed to say that she had been ready long before, but as the time was not ripe she had waited, with her usual faith that all was for the best; only, at present, since the right conditions met, she couldn't help feeling that it was quite a luxury, the greatest she had ever tasted. Ransom knew why it was that Verena had tears in her eyes as she looked up at her patient old friend; she had spoken to him, often, during the last three weeks, of the stories Miss Birdseye had told her of the great work of her life, her mission, repeated year after year, among the Southern blacks. She had gone among them with every precaution, to teach them to read and write; she had carried them Bibles and told them of the friends they had in the North who prayed for their deliverance. Ransom knew that Verena didn't reproduce these legends with a view to making him ashamed of his Southern origin, his connexion with people who, in a past not yet remote, had made that kind of apostleship necessary; he knew this because she had heard what he thought of all that chapter himself; he had given her a kind of historical summary of the slavery question which left her no room to say that he was more tender to that particular example of human imbecility than he was to any other. But she had told him that this was what _she_ would have liked to do--to wander, alone, with her life in her hand, on an errand of mercy, through a country in which society was arrayed against her; she would have liked it much better than simply talking about the right from the gas-lighted vantage of the New England platform. Ransom had replied simply "Balderdash!" it being his theory, as we have perceived, that he knew much more about Verena's native bent than the young lady herself. This did not, however, as he was perfectly aware, prevent her feeling that she had come too late for the heroic age of New England life, and regarding Miss Birdseye as a battered, immemorial monument of it. Ransom could share such an admiration as that, especially at this moment; he had said to Verena, more than once, that he wished he might have met the old lady in Carolina or Georgia before the war--shown her round among the negroes and talked over New England ideas with her; there were a good many he didn't care much about now, but at that time they would have been tremendously refreshing. Miss Birdseye had given herself away so lavishly all her life that it was rather odd there was anything left of her for the supreme surrender. When he looked at Olive he saw that she meant to ignore him; and during the few minutes he remained on the spot his kinswoman never met his eye. She turned away, indeed, as soon as Doctor Prance said, leaning over Miss Birdseye, "I have brought Mr. Ransom to you. Don't you remember you asked for him?" "I am very glad to see you again," Ransom remarked. "It was very good of you to think of me." At the sound of his voice Olive rose and left her place; she sank into a chair at the other end of the piazza, turning round to rest her arms on the back and bury her head in them. Miss Birdseye looked at the young man still more dimly than she had ever done before. "I thought you were gone. You never came back." "He spends all his time in long walks; he enjoys the country so much," Verena said. "Well, it's very beautiful, what I see from here. I haven't been strong enough to move round since the first days. But I am going to move now." She smiled when Ransom made a gesture as if to help her, and added: "Oh, I don't mean I am going to move out of my chair." "Mr. Ransom has been out in a boat with me several times. I have been showing him how to cast a line," said Doctor Prance, who appeared to deprecate a sentimental tendency. "Oh, well, then, you have been one of our party; there seems to be every reason why you should feel that you belong to us." Miss Birdseye looked at the visitor with a sort of misty earnestness, as if she wished to communicate with him further; then her glance turned slightly aside; she tried to see what had become of Olive. She perceived that Miss Chancellor had withdrawn herself, and, closing her eyes, she mused, ineffectually, on the mystery she had not grasped, the peculiarity of Basil Ransom's relations with her hostess. She was visibly too weak to concern herself with it very actively; she only felt, now that she seemed really to be going, a desire to reconcile and harmonise. But she presently exhaled a low, soft sigh--a kind of confession that it was too mixed, that she gave it up. Ransom had feared for a moment that she was about to indulge in some appeal to Olive, some attempt to make him join hands with that young lady, as a supreme satisfaction to herself. But he saw that her strength failed her, and that, besides, things were getting less clear to her; to his considerable relief, inasmuch as, though he would not have objected to joining hands, the expression of Miss Chancellor's figure and her averted face, with their desperate collapse, showed him well enough how _she_ would have met such a proposal. What Miss Birdseye clung to, with benignant perversity, was the idea that, in spite of his exclusion from the house, which was perhaps only the result of a certain high-strung jealousy on Olive's part of her friend's other personal ties, Verena had drawn him in, had made him sympathise with the great reform and desire to work for it. Ransom saw no reason why such an illusion should be dear to Miss Birdseye; his contact with her in the past had been so momentary that he could not account for her taking an interest in his views, in his throwing his weight into the right scale. It was part of the general desire for justice that fermented within her, the passion for progress; and it was also in some degree her interest in Verena--a suspicion, innocent and idyllic, as any such suspicion on Miss Birdseye's part must be, that there was something between them, that the closest of all unions (as Miss Birdseye at least supposed it was) was preparing itself. Then his being a Southerner gave a point to the whole thing; to bring round a Southerner would be a real encouragement for one who had seen, even at a time when she was already an old woman, what was the tone of opinion in the cotton States. Ransom had no wish to discourage her, and he bore well in mind the caution Doctor Prance had given him about destroying her last theory. He only bowed his head very humbly, not knowing what he had done to earn the honour of being the subject of it. His eyes met Verena's as she looked up at him from her place at Miss Birdseye's feet, and he saw she was following his thought, throwing herself into it, and trying to communicate to him a wish. The wish touched him immensely; she was dreadfully afraid he would betray her to Miss Birdseye--let her know how she had cooled off. Verena was ashamed of that now, and trembled at the danger of exposure; her eyes adjured him to be careful of what he said. Her tremor made him glow a little in return, for it seemed to him the fullest confession of his influence she had yet made. "We have been a very happy little party," she said to the old lady. "It is delightful that you should have been able to be with us all these weeks." "It has been a great rest. I am very tired. I can't speak much. It has been a lovely time. I have done so much--so many things." "I guess I wouldn't talk much, Miss Birdseye," said Doctor Prance, who had now knelt down on the other side of her. "We know how much you have done. Don't you suppose every one knows _your_ life?" "It isn't much--only I tried to take hold. When I look back from here, from where we've sat, I can measure the progress. That's what I wanted to say to you and Mr. Ransom--because I'm going fast. Hold on to me, that's right; but you can't keep me. I don't want to stay now; I presume I shall join some of the others that we lost long ago. Their faces come back to me now, quite fresh. It seems as if they might be waiting; as if they were all there; as if they wanted to hear. You mustn't think there's no progress because you don't see it all right off; that's what I wanted to say. It isn't till you have gone a long way that you can feel what's been done. That's what I see when I look back from here; I see that the community wasn't half waked up when I was young." "It is you that have waked it up more than any one else, and it's for that we honour you, Miss Birdseye!" Verena cried, with a sudden violence of emotion. "If you were to live for a thousand years, you would think only of others--you would think only of helping on humanity. You are our heroine, you are our saint, and there has never been any one like you!" Verena had no glance for Ransom now, and there was neither deprecation nor entreaty in her face. A wave of contrition, of shame, had swept over her--a quick desire to atone for her secret swerving by a renewed recognition of the nobleness of such a life as Miss Birdseye's. "Oh, I haven't effected very much; I have only cared and hoped. You will do more than I have ever done--you and Olive Chancellor, because you are young and bright, brighter than I ever was; and besides, everything has got started." "Well, you've got started, Miss Birdseye," Doctor Prance remarked, with raised eyebrows, protesting dryly but kindly, and putting forward, with an air as if, after all, it didn't matter much, an authority that had been superseded. The manner in which this competent little woman indulged her patient showed sufficiently that the good lady was sinking fast. "We will think of you always, and your name will be sacred to us, and that will teach us singleness and devotion," Verena went on, in the same tone, still not meeting Ransom's eyes again, and speaking as if she were trying now to stop herself, to tie herself by a vow. "Well, it's the thing you and Olive have given your lives to that has absorbed me most, of late years. I did want to see justice done--to us. I haven't seen it, but you will. And Olive will. Where is she--why isn't she near me, to bid me farewell? And Mr. Ransom will--and he will be proud to have helped." "Oh, mercy, mercy!" cried Verena, burying her head in Miss Birdseye's lap. "You are not mistaken if you think I desire above all things that your weakness, your generosity, should be protected," Ransom said, rather ambiguously, but with pointed respectfulness. "I shall remember you as an example of what women are capable of," he added; and he had no subsequent compunctions for the speech, for he thought poor Miss Birdseye, for all her absence of profile, essentially feminine. A kind of frantic moan from Olive Chancellor responded to these words, which had evidently struck her as an insolent sarcasm; and at the same moment Doctor Prance sent Ransom a glance which was an adjuration to depart. "Good-bye, Olive Chancellor," Miss Birdseye murmured. "I don't want to stay, though I should like to see what you will see." "I shall see nothing but shame and ruin!" Olive shrieked, rushing across to her old friend, while Ransom discreetly quitted the scene. XXXIX He met Doctor Prance in the village the next morning, and as soon as he looked at her he saw that the event which had been impending at Miss Chancellor's had taken place. It was not that her aspect was funereal; but it contained, somehow, an announcement that she had, for the present, no more thought to give to casting a line. Miss Birdseye had quietly passed away, in the evening, an hour or two after Ransom's visit. They had wheeled her chair into the house; there had been nothing to do but wait for complete extinction. Miss Chancellor and Miss Tarrant had sat by her there, without moving, each of her hands in theirs, and she had just melted away, towards eight o'clock. It was a lovely death; Doctor Prance intimated that she had never seen any that she thought more seasonable. She added that she was a good woman--one of the old sort; and that was the only funeral oration that Basil Ransom was destined to hear pronounced upon Miss Birdseye. The impression of the simplicity and humility of her end remained with him, and he reflected more than once, during the days that followed, that the absence of pomp and circumstance which had marked her career marked also the consecration of her memory. She had been almost celebrated, she had been active, earnest, ubiquitous beyond any one else, she had given herself utterly to charities and creeds and causes; and yet the only persons, apparently, to whom her death made a real difference were three young women in a small "frame-house" on Cape Cod. Ransom learned from Doctor Prance that her mortal remains were to be committed to their rest in the little cemetery at Marmion, in sight of the pretty sea-view she loved to gaze at, among old mossy headstones of mariners and fisher-folk. She had seen the place when she first came down, when she was able to drive out a little, and she had said she thought it must be pleasant to lie there. It was not an injunction, a definite request; it had not occurred to Miss Birdseye, at the end of her days, to take an exacting line or to make, for the first time in eighty years, a personal claim. But Olive Chancellor and Verena had put their construction on her appreciation of the quietest corner of the striving, suffering world so weary a pilgrim of philanthropy had ever beheld. In the course of the day Ransom received a note of five lines from Verena, the purport of which was to tell him that he must not expect to see her again for the present; she wished to be very quiet and think things over. She added the recommendation that he should leave the neighbourhood for three or four days; there were plenty of strange old places to see in that part of the country. Ransom meditated deeply on this missive, and perceived that he should be guilty of very bad taste in not immediately absenting himself. He knew that to Olive Chancellor's vision his conduct already wore that stain, and it was useless, therefore, for him to consider how he could displease her either less or more. But he wished to convey to Verena the impression that he would do anything in the wide world to gratify _her_ except give her up, and as he packed his valise he had an idea that he was both behaving beautifully and showing the finest diplomatic sense. To go away proved to himself how secure he felt, what a conviction he had that however she might turn and twist in his grasp he held her fast. The emotion she had expressed as he stood there before poor Miss Birdseye was only one of her instinctive contortions; he had taken due note of that--said to himself that a good many more would probably occur before she would be quiet. A woman that listens is lost, the old proverb says; and what had Verena done for the last three weeks but listen?--not very long each day, but with a degree of attention of which her not withdrawing from Marmion was the measure. She had not told him that Olive wanted to whisk her away, but he had not needed this confidence to know that if she stayed on the field it was because she preferred to. She probably had an idea she was fighting, but if she should fight no harder than she had fought up to now he should continue to take the same view of his success. She meant her request that he should go away for a few days as something combative; but, decidedly, he scarcely felt the blow. He liked to think that he had great tact with women, and he was sure Verena would be struck with this quality in reading, in the note he presently addressed her in reply to her own, that he had determined to take a little run to Provincetown. As there was no one under the rather ineffectual roof which sheltered him to whose hand he could entrust the billet--at the Marmion hotel one had to be one's own messenger--he walked to the village post-office to request that his note should be put into Miss Chancellor's box. Here he met Doctor Prance, for a second time that day; she had come to deposit the letters by which Olive notified a few of Miss Birdseye's friends of the time and place of her obsequies. This young lady was shut up with Verena, and Doctor Prance was transacting all their business for them. Ransom felt that he made no admission that would impugn his estimate of the sex to which she in a manner belonged, in reflecting that she would acquit herself of these delegated duties with the greatest rapidity and accuracy. He told her he was going to absent himself for a few days, and expressed a friendly hope that he should find her at Marmion on his return. Her keen eye gauged him a moment, to see if he were joking; then she said, "Well, I presume you think I can do as I like. But I can't." "You mean you have got to go back to work?" "Well, yes; my place is empty in the city." "So is every other place. You had better remain till the end of the season." "It's all one season to me. I want to see my office-slate. I wouldn't have stayed so long for any one but her." "Well, then, good-bye," Ransom said. "I shall always remember our little expeditions. And I wish you every professional distinction." "That's why I want to go back," Doctor Prance replied, with her flat, limited manner. He kept her a moment; he wanted to ask her about Verena. While he was hesitating how to form his question she remarked, evidently wishing to leave him a little memento of her sympathy, "Well, I hope you will be able to follow up your views." "My views, Miss Prance? I am sure I have never mentioned them to you!" Then Ransom added, "How is Miss Tarrant to-day? is she more calm?" "Oh no, she isn't calm at all," Doctor Prance answered, very definitely. "Do you mean she's excited, emotional?" "Well, she doesn't talk, she's perfectly still, and so is Miss Chancellor. They're as still as two watchers--they don't speak. But you can hear the silence vibrate." "Vibrate?" "Well, they are very nervous." Ransom was confident, as I say, yet the effort that he made to extract a good omen from this characterisation of the two ladies at the cottage was not altogether successful. He would have liked to ask Doctor Prance whether she didn't think he might count on Verena in the end; but he was too shy for this, the subject of his relations with Miss Tarrant never yet having been touched upon between them; and, besides, he didn't care to hear himself put a question which was more or less an implication of a doubt. So he compromised, with a sort of oblique and general inquiry about Olive; that might draw some light. "What do you think of Miss Chancellor--how does she strike you?" Doctor Prance reflected a little, with an apparent consciousness that he meant more than he asked. "Well, she's losing flesh," she presently replied; and Ransom turned away, not encouraged, and feeling that, no doubt, the little doctress had better go back to her office-slate. He did the thing handsomely, remained at Provincetown a week, inhaling the delicious air, smoking innumerable cigars, and lounging among the ancient wharves, where the grass grew thick and the impression of fallen greatness was still stronger than at Marmion. Like his friends the Bostonians he was very nervous; there were days when he felt he must rush back to the margin of that mild inlet; the voices of the air whispered to him that in his absence he was being outwitted. Nevertheless he stayed the time he had determined to stay; quieting himself with the reflexion that there was nothing they could do to elude him unless, perhaps, they should start again for Europe, which they were not likely to do. If Miss Olive tried to hide Verena away in the United States he would undertake to find her--though he was obliged to confess that a flight to Europe would baffle him, owing to his want of cash for pursuit. Nothing, however, was less probable than that they would cross the Atlantic on the eve of Verena's projected _début_ at the Music Hall. Before he went back to Marmion he wrote to this young lady, to announce his reappearance there and let her know that he expected she would come out to meet him the morning after. This conveyed the assurance that he intended to take as much of the day as he could get; he had had enough of the system of dragging through all the hours till a mere fraction of time was left before night, and he couldn't wait so long, at any rate, the day after his return. It was the afternoon train that had brought him back from Provincetown, and in the evening he ascertained that the Bostonians had not deserted the field. There were lights in the windows of the house under the elms, and he stood where he had stood that evening with Doctor Prance and listened to the waves of Verena's voice, as she rehearsed her lecture. There were no waves this time, no sounds, and no sign of life but the lamps; the place had apparently not ceased to be given over to the conscious silence described by Doctor Prance. Ransom felt that he gave an immense proof of chivalry in not calling upon Verena to grant him an interview on the spot. She had not answered his last note, but the next day she kept the tryst, at the hour he had proposed; he saw her advance along the road, in a white dress, under a big parasol, and again he found himself liking immensely the way she walked. He was dismayed, however, at her face and what it portended; pale, with red eyes, graver than she had ever been before, she appeared to have spent the period of his absence in violent weeping. Yet that it was not for him she had been crying was proved by the very first word she spoke. "I only came out to tell you definitely it's impossible! I have thought over everything, taking plenty of time--over and over; and that is my answer, finally, positively. You must take it--you shall have no other." Basil Ransom gazed, frowning fearfully. "And why not, pray?" "Because I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't!" she repeated passionately, with her altered, distorted face. "Damnation!" murmured the young man. He seized her hand, drew it into his arm, forcing her to walk with him along the road. That afternoon Olive Chancellor came out of her house and wandered for a long time upon the shore. She looked up and down the bay, at the sails that gleamed on the blue water, shifting in the breeze and the light; they were a source of interest to her that they had never been before. It was a day she was destined never to forget; she felt it to be the saddest, the most wounding of her life. Unrest and haunting fear had not possession of her now, as they had held her in New York when Basil Ransom carried off Verena, to mark her for his own, in the park. But an immeasurable load of misery seemed to sit upon her soul; she ached with the bitterness of her melancholy, she was dumb and cold with despair. She had spent the violence of her terror, the eagerness of her grief, and now she was too weary to struggle with fate. She appeared to herself almost to have accepted it, as she wandered forth in the beautiful afternoon with the knowledge that the "ten minutes" which Verena had told her she meant to devote to Mr. Ransom that morning had developed suddenly into an embarkation for the day. They had gone out in a boat together; one of the village worthies, from whom small craft were to be hired, had, at Verena's request, sent his little son to Miss Chancellor's cottage with that information. She had not understood whether they had taken the boatman with them. Even when the information came (and it came at a moment of considerable reassurance), Olive's nerves were not ploughed up by it as they had been, for instance, by the other expedition, in New York; and she could measure the distance she had traversed since then. It had not driven her away on the instant to pace the shore in frenzy, to challenge every boat that passed, and beg that the young lady who was sailing somewhere in the bay with a dark gentleman with long hair should be entreated immediately to return. On the contrary, after the first quiver of pain inflicted by the news she had been able to occupy herself, to look after her house, to write her morning's letters, to go into her accounts, which she had had some time on her mind. She had wanted to put off thinking, for she knew to what hideous recognitions that would bring her round again. These were summed up in the fact that Verena was now not to be trusted for an hour. She had sworn to her the night before, with a face like a lacerated angel's, that her choice was made, that their union and their work were more to her than any other life could ever be, and that she deeply believed that should she forswear these holy things she would simply waste away, in the end, with remorse and shame. She would see Mr. Ransom just once more, for ten minutes, to utter one or two supreme truths to him, and then they would take up their old, happy, active, fruitful days again, would throw themselves more than ever into their splendid effort. Olive had seen how Verena was moved by Miss Birdseye's death, how at the sight of that unique woman's majestically simple withdrawal from a scene in which she had held every vulgar aspiration, every worldly standard and lure, so cheap, the girl had been touched again with the spirit of their most confident hours, had flamed up with the faith that no narrow personal joy could compare in sweetness with the idea of doing something for those who had always suffered and who waited still. This helped Olive to believe that she might begin to count upon her again, conscious as she was at the same time that Verena had been strangely weakened and strained by her odious ordeal. Oh, Olive knew that she loved him--knew what the passion was with which the wretched girl had to struggle; and she did her the justice to believe that her professions were sincere, her effort was real. Harassed and embittered as she was, Olive Chancellor still proposed to herself to be rigidly just, and that is why she pitied Verena now with an unspeakable pity, regarded her as the victim of an atrocious spell, and reserved all her execration and contempt for the author of their common misery. If Verena had stepped into a boat with him half an hour after declaring that she would give him his dismissal in twenty words, that was because he had ways, known to himself and other men, of creating situations without an issue, of forcing her to do things she could do only with sharp repugnance, under the menace of pain that would be sharper still. But all the same, what actually stared her in the face was that Verena was not to be trusted, even after rallying again as passionately as she had done during the days that followed Miss Birdseye's death. Olive would have liked to know the pang of penance that _she_ would have been afraid, in her place, to incur; to see the locked door which _she_ would not have managed to force open! This inexpressibly mournful sense that, after all, Verena, in her exquisite delicacy and generosity, was appointed only to show how women had from the beginning of time been the sport of men's selfishness and avidity, this dismal conviction accompanied Olive on her walk, which lasted all the afternoon, and in which she found a kind of tragic relief. She went very far, keeping in the lonely places, unveiling her face to the splendid light, which seemed to make a mock of the darkness and bitterness of her spirit. There were little sandy coves, where the rocks were clean, where she made long stations, sinking down in them as if she hoped she should never rise again. It was the first time she had been out since Miss Birdseye's death, except the hour when, with the dozen sympathisers who came from Boston, she stood by the tired old woman's grave. Since then, for three days, she had been writing letters, narrating, describing to those who hadn't come; there were some, she thought, who might have managed to do so, instead of despatching her pages of diffuse reminiscence and asking her for all particulars in return. Selah Tarrant and his wife had come, obtrusively, as she thought, for they never had had very much intercourse with Miss Birdseye; and if it was for Verena's sake, Verena was there to pay every tribute herself. Mrs. Tarrant had evidently hoped Miss Chancellor would ask her to stay on at Marmion, but Olive felt how little she was in a state for such heroics of hospitality. It was precisely in order that she should not have to do that sort of thing that she had given Selah such considerable sums, on two occasions, at a year's interval. If the Tarrants wanted a change of air they could travel all over the country--their present means permitted it; they could go to Saratoga or Newport if they liked. Their appearance showed that they could put their hands into their pockets (or into hers); at least Mrs. Tarrant's did. Selah still sported (on a hot day in August) his immemorial waterproof; but his wife rustled over the low tombstones at Marmion in garments of which (little as she was versed in such inquiries) Olive could see that the cost had been large. Besides, after Doctor Prance had gone (when all was over), she felt what a relief it was that Verena and she could be just together--together with the monstrous wedge of a question that had come up between them. That was company enough, great heaven! and she had not got rid of such an inmate as Doctor Prance only to put Mrs. Tarrant in her place. Did Verena's strange aberration, on this particular day, suggest to Olive that it was no use striving, that the world was all a great trap or trick, of which women were ever the punctual dupes, so that it was the worst of the curse that rested upon them that they must most humiliate those who had most their cause at heart? Did she say to herself that their weakness was not only lamentable but hideous--hideous their predestined subjection to man's larger and grosser insistence? Did she ask herself why she should give up her life to save a sex which, after all, didn't wish to be saved, and which rejected the truth even after it had bathed them with its auroral light and they had pretended to be fed and fortified? These are mysteries into which I shall not attempt to enter, speculations with which I have no concern; it is sufficient for us to know that all human effort had never seemed to her so barren and thankless as on that fatal afternoon. Her eyes rested on the boats she saw in the distance, and she wondered if in one of them Verena were floating to her fate; but so far from straining forward to beckon her home she almost wished that she might glide away for ever, that _she_ might never see her again, never undergo the horrible details of a more deliberate separation. Olive lived over, in her miserable musings, her life for the last two years; she knew, again, how noble and beautiful her scheme had been, but how it had all rested on an illusion of which the very thought made her feel faint and sick. What was before her now was the reality, with the beautiful, indifferent sky pouring down its complacent rays upon it. The reality was simply that Verena had been more to her than she ever was to Verena, and that, with her exquisite natural art, the girl had cared for their cause only because, for the time, no interest, no fascination, was greater. Her talent, the talent which was to achieve such wonders, was nothing to her; it was too easy, she could leave it alone, as she might close her piano, for months; it was only to Olive that it was everything. Verena had submitted, she had responded, she had lent herself to Olive's incitement and exhortation, because she was sympathetic and young and abundant and fanciful; but it had been a kind of hothouse loyalty, the mere contagion of example, and a sentiment springing up from within had easily breathed a chill upon it. Did Olive ask herself whether, for so many months, her companion had been only the most unconscious and most successful of humbugs? Here again I must plead a certain incompetence to give an answer. Positive it is that she spared herself none of the inductions of a reverie that seemed to dry up the mists and ambiguities of life. These hours of backward clearness come to all men and women, once at least, when they read the past in the light of the present, with the reasons of things, like unobserved finger-posts, protruding where they never saw them before. The journey behind them is mapped out and figured, with its false steps, its wrong observations, all its infatuated, deluded geography. They understand as Olive understood, but it is probable that they rarely suffer as she suffered. The sense of regret for her baffled calculations burned within her like a fire, and the splendour of the vision over which the curtain of mourning now was dropped brought to her eyes slow, still tears, tears that came one by one, neither easing her nerves nor lightening her load of pain. She thought of her innumerable talks with Verena, of the pledges they had exchanged, of their earnest studies, their faithful work, their certain reward, the winter nights under the lamp, when they thrilled with previsions as just and a passion as high as had ever found shelter in a pair of human hearts. The pity of it, the misery of such a fall after such a flight, could express itself only, as the poor girl prolonged the vague pauses of her unnoticed ramble, in a low, inarticulate murmur of anguish. The afternoon waned, bringing with it the slight chill which, at the summer's end, begins to mark the shortening days. She turned her face homeward, and by this time became conscious that if Verena's companion had not yet brought her back there might be ground for uneasiness as to what had happened to them. It seemed to her that no sail-boat could have put into the town without passing more or less before her eyes and showing her whom it carried; she had seen a dozen, freighted only with the figures of men. An accident was perfectly possible (what could Ransom, with his plantation habits, know about the management of a sail?), and once that danger loomed before her--the signal loveliness of the weather had prevented its striking her before--Olive's imagination hurried, with a bound, to the worst. She saw the boat overturned and drifting out to sea, and (after a week of nameless horror) the body of an unknown young woman, defaced beyond recognition, but with long auburn hair and in a white dress, washed up in some far-away cove. An hour before, her mind had rested with a sort of relief on the idea that Verena should sink for ever beneath the horizon, so that their tremendous trouble might never be; but now, with the lateness of the hour, a sharp, immediate anxiety took the place of that intended resignation; and she quickened her step, with a heart that galloped too as she went. Then it was, above all, that she felt how _she_ had understood friendship, and how never again to see the face of the creature she had taken to her soul would be for her as the stroke of blindness. The twilight had become thick by the time she reached Marmion and paused for an instant in front of her house, over which the elms that stood on the grassy wayside appeared to her to hang a blacker curtain than ever before. There was no candle in any window, and when she pushed in and stood in the hall, listening a moment, her step awakened no answering sound. Her heart failed her; Verena's staying out in a boat from ten o'clock in the morning till nightfall was too unnatural, and she gave a cry, as she rushed into the low, dim parlour (darkened on one side, at that hour, by the wide-armed foliage, and on the other by the veranda and trellis), which expressed only a wild personal passion, a desire to take her friend in her arms again on any terms, even the most cruel to herself. The next moment she started back, with another and a different exclamation, for Verena was in the room, motionless, in a corner--the first place in which she had seated herself on re-entering the house--looking at her with a silent face which seemed strange, unnatural, in the dusk. Olive stopped short, and for a minute the two women remained as they were, gazing at each other in the dimness. After that, too, Olive still said nothing; she only went to Verena and sat down beside her. She didn't know what to make of her manner; she had never been like that before. She was unwilling to speak; she seemed crushed and humbled. This was almost the worst--if anything could be worse than what had gone before; and Olive took her hand with an irresistible impulse of compassion and assurance. From the way it lay in her own she guessed her whole feeling--saw it was a kind of shame, shame for her weakness, her swift surrender, her insane gyration, in the morning. Verena expressed it by no protest and no explanation; she appeared not even to wish to hear the sound of her own voice. Her silence itself was an appeal--an appeal to Olive to ask no questions (she could trust her to inflict no spoken reproach); only to wait till she could lift up her head again. Olive understood, or thought she understood, and the woefulness of it all only seemed the deeper. She would just sit there and hold her hand; that was all she could do; they were beyond each other's help in any other way now. Verena leaned her head back and closed her eyes, and for an hour, as nightfall settled in the room, neither of the young women spoke. Distinctly, it was a kind of shame. After a while the parlour-maid, very casual, in the manner of the servants at Marmion, appeared on the threshold with a lamp; but Olive motioned her frantically away. She wished to keep the darkness. It was a kind of shame. The next morning Basil Ransom rapped loudly with his walking-stick on the lintel of Miss Chancellor's house-door, which, as usual on fine days, stood open. There was no need he should wait till the servant had answered his summons; for Olive, who had reason to believe he would come, and who had been lurking in the sitting-room for a purpose of her own, stepped forth into the little hall. "I am sorry to disturb you; I had the hope that--for a moment--I might see Miss Tarrant." That was the speech with which (and a measured salutation) he greeted his advancing kinswoman. She faced him an instant, and her strange green eyes caught the light. "It's impossible. You may believe that when I say it." "Why is it impossible?" he asked, smiling in spite of an inward displeasure. And as Olive gave him no answer, only gazing at him with a cold audacity which he had not hitherto observed in her, he added a little explanation. "It is simply to have seen her before I go--to have said five words to her. I want her to know that I have made up my mind--since yesterday--to leave this place; I shall take the train at noon." It was not to gratify Olive Chancellor that he had determined to go away, or even that he told her this; yet he was surprised that his words brought no expression of pleasure to her face. "I don't think it is of much importance whether you go away or not. Miss Tarrant herself has gone away." "Miss Tarrant--gone away?" This announcement was so much at variance with Verena's apparent intentions the night before that his ejaculation expressed chagrin as well as surprise, and in doing so it gave Olive a momentary advantage. It was the only one she had ever had, and the poor girl may be excused for having enjoyed it--so far as enjoyment was possible to her. Basil Ransom's visible discomfiture was more agreeable to her than anything had been for a long time. "I went with her myself to the early train; and I saw it leave the station." And Olive kept her eyes unaverted, for the satisfaction of seeing how he took it. It must be confessed that he took it rather ill. He had decided it was best he should retire, but Verena's retiring was another matter. "And where is she gone?" he asked, with a frown. "I don't think I am obliged to tell you." "Of course not! Excuse my asking. It is much better that I should find it out for myself, because if I owed the information to you I should perhaps feel a certain delicacy as regards profiting by it." "Gracious heaven!" cried Miss Chancellor, at the idea of Ransom's delicacy. Then she added more deliberately: "You will not find out for yourself." "You think not?" "I am sure of it!" And her enjoyment of the situation becoming acute, there broke from her lips a shrill, unfamiliar, troubled sound, which performed the office of a laugh, a laugh of triumph, but which, at a distance, might have passed almost as well for a wail of despair. It rang in Ransom's ears as he quickly turned away. XL It was Mrs. Luna who received him, as she had received him on the occasion of his first visit to Charles Street; by which I do not mean quite in the same way. She had known very little about him then, but she knew too much for her happiness to-day, and she had with him now a little invidious, contemptuous manner, as if everything he should say or do could be a proof only of abominable duplicity and perversity. She had a theory that he had treated her shamefully; and he knew it--I do not mean the fact, but the theory: which led him to reflect that her resentments were as shallow as her opinions, inasmuch as if she really believed in her grievance, or if it had had any dignity, she would not have consented to see him. He had not presented himself at Miss Chancellor's door without a very good reason, and having done so he could not turn away so long as there was any one in the house of whom he might have speech. He had sent up his name to Mrs. Luna, after being told that she was staying there, on the mere chance that she would see him; for he thought a refusal a very possible sequel to the letters she had written him during the past four or five months--letters he had scarcely read, full of allusions of the most cutting sort to proceedings of his, in the past, of which he had no recollection whatever. They bored him, for he had quite other matters in his mind. "I don't wonder you have the bad taste, the crudity," she said, as soon as he came into the room, looking at him more sternly than he would have believed possible to her. He saw that this was an allusion to his not having been to see her since the period of her sister's visit to New York; he having conceived for her, the evening of Mrs. Burrage's party, a sentiment of aversion which put an end to such attentions. He didn't laugh, he was too worried and preoccupied; but he replied, in a tone which apparently annoyed her as much as any indecent mirth: "I thought it very possible you wouldn't see me." "Why shouldn't I see you, if I should take it into my head? Do you suppose I care whether I see you or not?" "I supposed you wanted to, from your letters." "Then why did you think I would refuse?" "Because that's the sort of thing women do." "Women--women! You know much about them!" "I am learning something every day." "You haven't learned yet, apparently, to answer their letters. It's rather a surprise to me that you don't pretend not to have received mine." Ransom could smile now; the opportunity to vent the exasperation that had been consuming him almost restored his good humour. "What could I say? You overwhelmed me. Besides, I did answer one of them." "One of them? You speak as if I had written you a dozen!" Mrs. Luna cried. "I thought that was your contention--that you had done me the honour to address me so many. They were crushing, and when a man's crushed, it's all over." "Yes, you look as if you were in very small pieces! I am glad that I shall never see you again." "I can see now why you received me--to tell me that," Ransom said. "It is a kind of pleasure. I am going back to Europe." "Really? for Newton's education?" "Ah, I wonder you can have the face to speak of that--after the way you deserted him!" "Let us abandon the subject, then, and I will tell you what I want." "I don't in the least care what you want," Mrs. Luna remarked. "And you haven't even the grace to ask me where I am going--over there." "What difference does that make to me--once you leave these shores?" Mrs. Luna rose to her feet. "Ah, chivalry, chivalry!" she exclaimed. And she walked away to the window--one of the windows from which Ransom had first enjoyed, at Olive's solicitation, the view of the Back Bay. Mrs. Luna looked forth at it with little of the air of a person who was sorry to be about to lose it. "I am determined you shall know where I am going," she said in a moment. "I am going to Florence." "Don't be afraid!" he replied. "I shall go to Rome." "And you'll carry there more impertinence than has been seen there since the old emperors." "Were the emperors impertinent, in addition to their other vices? I am determined, on my side, that you shall know what I have come for," Ransom said. "I wouldn't ask you if I could ask any one else; but I am very hard pressed, and I don't know who can help me." Mrs. Luna turned on him a face of the frankest derision. "Help you? Do you remember the last time I asked you to help me?" "That evening at Mrs. Burrage's? Surely I wasn't wanting then; I remember urging on your acceptance a chair, so that you might stand on it, to see and to hear." "To see and to hear what, please? Your disgusting infatuation!" "It's just about that I want to speak to you," Ransom pursued. "As you already know all about it, you have no new shock to receive, and I therefore venture to ask you----" "Where tickets for her lecture to-night can be obtained? Is it possible she hasn't sent you one?" "I assure you I didn't come to Boston to hear it," said Ransom, with a sadness which Mrs. Luna evidently regarded as a refinement of outrage. "What I should like to ascertain is where Miss Tarrant may be found at the present moment." "And do you think that's a delicate inquiry to make of _me_?" "I don't see why it shouldn't be, but I know you don't think it is, and that is why, as I say, I mention the matter to you only because I can imagine absolutely no one else who is in a position to assist me. I have been to the house of Miss Tarrant's parents, in Cambridge, but it is closed and empty, destitute of any sign of life. I went there first, on arriving this morning, and rang at this door only when my journey to Monadnoc Place had proved fruitless. Your sister's servant told me that Miss Tarrant was not staying here, but she added that Mrs. Luna was. No doubt you won't be pleased at having been spoken of as a sort of equivalent; and I didn't say to myself--or to the servant--that you would do as well; I only reflected that I could at least try you. I didn't even ask for Miss Chancellor, as I am sure she would give me no information whatever." Mrs. Luna listened to this candid account of the young man's proceedings with her head turned a little over her shoulder at him, and her eyes fixed as unsympathetically as possible upon his own. "What you propose, then, as I understand it," she said in a moment, "is that I should betray my sister to you." "Worse than that; I propose that you should betray Miss Tarrant herself." "What do I care about Miss Tarrant? I don't know what you are talking about." "Haven't you really any idea where she is living? Haven't you seen her here? Are Miss Olive and she not constantly together?" Mrs. Luna, at this, turned full round upon him, and, with folded arms and her head tossed back, exclaimed: "Look here, Basil Ransom, I never thought you were a fool, but it strikes me that since we last met you have lost your wits!" "There is no doubt of that," Ransom answered, smiling. "Do you mean to tell me you don't know everything about Miss Tarrant that can be known?" "I have neither seen her nor heard of her for the last ten weeks; Miss Chancellor has hidden her away." "Hidden her away, with all the walls and fences of Boston flaming to-day with her name?" "Oh yes, I have noticed that, and I have no doubt that by waiting till this evening I shall be able to see her. But I don't want to wait till this evening; I want to see her now, and not in public--in private." "Do you indeed?--how interesting!" cried Mrs. Luna, with rippling laughter. "And pray what do you want to do with her?" Ransom hesitated a little. "I think I would rather not tell you." "Your charming frankness, then, has its limits! My poor cousin, you are really too _naïf_. Do you suppose it matters a straw to me?" Ransom made no answer to this appeal, but after an instant he broke out: "Honestly, Mrs. Luna, can you give me no clue?" "Lord, what terrible eyes you make, and what terrible words you use! 'Honestly,' quoth he! Do you think I am so fond of the creature that I want to keep her all to myself?" "I don't know; I don't understand," said Ransom, slowly and softly, but still with his terrible eyes. "And do you think I understand any better? You are not a very edifying young man," Mrs. Luna went on; "but I really think you have deserved a better fate than to be jilted and thrown over by a girl of that class." "I haven't been jilted. I like her very much, but she never encouraged me." At this Mrs. Luna broke again into articulate scoffing. "It is very odd that at your age you should be so little a man of the world!" Ransom made her no other answer than to remark, thoughtfully and rather absently: "Your sister is really very clever." "By which you mean, I suppose, that I am not!" Mrs. Luna suddenly changed her tone, and said, with the greatest sweetness and humility: "God knows, I have never pretended to be!" Ransom looked at her a moment, and guessed the meaning of this altered note. It had suddenly come over her that with her portrait in half the shop-fronts, her advertisement on all the fences, and the great occasion on which she was to reveal herself to the country at large close at hand, Verena had become so conscious of high destinies that her dear friend's Southern kinsman really appeared to her very small game, and she might therefore be regarded as having cast him off. If this were the case, it would perhaps be well for Mrs. Luna still to hold on. Basil's induction was very rapid, but it gave him time to decide that the best thing to say to his interlocutress was: "On what day do you sail for Europe?" "Perhaps I shall not sail at all," Mrs. Luna replied, looking out of the window. "And in that case--poor Newton's education?" "I should try to content myself with a country which has given you yours." "Don't you want him, then, to be a man of the world?" "Ah, the world, the world!" she murmured, while she watched, in the deepening dusk, the lights of the town begin to reflect themselves in the Back Bay. "Has it been such a source of happiness to me that I belong to it?" "Perhaps, after all, I shall be able to go to Florence!" said Ransom, laughing. She faced him once more, this time slowly, and declared that she had never known anything so strange as his state of mind--she would be so glad to have an explanation of it. With the opinions he professed (it was for them she had liked him--she didn't like his character), why on earth should he be running after a little fifth-rate _poseuse_, and in such a frenzy to get hold of her? He might say it was none of her business, and of course she would have no answer to that; therefore she admitted that she asked simply out of intellectual curiosity, and because one always was tormented at the sight of a painful contradiction. With the things she had heard him say about his convictions and theories, his view of life and the great questions of the future, she should have thought he would find Miss Tarrant's attitudinising absolutely nauseous. Were not her views the same as Olive's and hadn't Olive and he signally failed to hit it off together? Mrs. Luna only asked because she was really quite puzzled. "Don't you know that some minds, when they see a mystery, can't rest till they clear it up?" "You can't be more puzzled than I am," said Ransom. "Apparently the explanation is to be found in a sort of reversal of the formula you were so good, just now, as to apply to me. You like my opinions, but you entertain a different sentiment for my character. I deplore Miss Tarrant's opinions, but her character--well, her character pleases me." Mrs. Luna stared, as if she were waiting, the explanation surely not being complete. "But as much as that?" she inquired. "As much as what?" said Ransom, smiling. Then he added, "Your sister has beaten me." "I thought she had beaten some one of late; she has seemed so gay and happy. I didn't suppose it was _all_ because I was going away." "Has she seemed very gay?" Ransom inquired, with a sinking of the heart. He wore such a long face, as he asked this question, that Mrs. Luna was again moved to audible mirth, after which she explained: "Of course I mean gay for her. Everything is relative. With her impatience for this lecture of her friend's to-night, she's in an unspeakable state! She can't sit still for three minutes, she goes out fifteen times a day, and there has been enough arranging and interviewing, and discussing and telegraphing and advertising, enough wire-pulling and rushing about, to put an army in the field. What is it they are always doing to the armies in Europe?--mobilising them? Well, Verena has been mobilised, and this has been headquarters." "And shall you go to the Music Hall to-night?" "For what do you take me? I have no desire to be shrieked at for an hour." "No doubt, no doubt, Miss Olive must be in a state," Ransom went on, rather absently. Then he said, with abruptness, in a different tone: "If this house has been, as you say, headquarters, how comes it you haven't seen her?" "Seen Olive? I have seen nothing else!" "I mean Miss Tarrant. She must be somewhere--in the place--if she's to speak to-night." "Should you like me to go out and look for her? _Il ne manquerait plus que cela!_" cried Mrs. Luna. "What's the matter with you, Basil Ransom, and what are you after?" she demanded, with considerable sharpness. She had tried haughtiness and she had tried humility, but they brought her equally face to face with a competitor whom she couldn't take seriously, yet who was none the less objectionable for all that. I know not whether Ransom would have attempted to answer her question had an obstacle not presented itself; at any rate, at the moment she spoke, the curtain in the doorway was pushed aside, and a visitor crossed the threshold. "Mercy! how provoking!" Mrs. Luna exclaimed, audibly enough; and without moving from her place she bent an uncharitable eye upon the invader, a gentleman whom Ransom had the sense of having met before. He was a young man with a fresh face and abundant locks, prematurely white; he stood smiling at Mrs. Luna, quite undaunted by the absence of any demonstration in his favour. She looked as if she didn't know him, while Ransom prepared to depart, leaving them to settle it together. "I'm afraid you don't remember me, though I have seen you before," said the young man, very amiably. "I was here a week ago, and Miss Chancellor presented me to you." "Oh yes; she's not at home now," Mrs. Luna returned vaguely. "So I was told--but I didn't let that prevent me." And the young man included Basil Ransom in the smile with which he made himself more welcome than Mrs. Luna appeared disposed to make him, and by which he seemed to call attention to his superiority. "There is a matter on which I want very much to obtain some information, and I have no doubt you will be so good as to give it to me." "It comes back to me--you have something to do with the newspapers," said Mrs. Luna; and Ransom too, by this time, had placed the young man among his reminiscences. He had been at Miss Birdseye's famous party, and Doctor Prance had there described him as a brilliant journalist. It was quite with the air of such a personage that he accepted Mrs. Luna's definition, and he continued to radiate towards Ransom (as if, in return, he remembered _his_ face), while he dropped, confidentially, the word that expressed everything--"The _Vesper_, don't you know?" Then he went on: "Now, Mrs. Luna, I don't care, I'm not going to let you off! We want the last news about Miss Verena, and it has got to come out of this house." "Oh murder!" Ransom muttered, beneath his breath, taking up his hat. "Miss Chancellor has hidden her away; I have been scouring the city in search of her, and her own father hasn't seen her for a week. We have got his ideas; they are very easy to get, but that isn't what we want." "And what do you want?" Ransom was now impelled to inquire, as Mr. Pardon (even the name at present came back to him) appeared sufficiently to have introduced himself. "We want to know how she feels about to-night; what report she makes of her nerves, her anticipations; how she looked, what she had on, up to six o'clock. Gracious! if I could see her I should know what I wanted, and so would she, I guess!" Mr. Pardon exclaimed. "You must know something, Mrs. Luna; it isn't natural you shouldn't. I won't inquire any further where she is, because that might seem a little pushing, if she does wish to withdraw herself--though I am bound to say I think she makes a mistake; we could work up these last hours for her! But can't you tell me any little personal items--the sort of thing the people like? What is she going to have for supper? or is she going to speak--a--without previous nourishment?" "Really, sir, I don't know, and I don't in the least care; I have nothing to do with the business!" Mrs. Luna cried angrily. The reporter stared; then, eagerly, "You have nothing to do with it--you take an unfavourable view, you protest?" And he was already feeling in a side-pocket for his notebook. "Mercy on us! are you going to put _that_ in the paper?" Mrs. Luna exclaimed; and in spite of the sense, detestable to him, that everything he wished most to avert was fast closing over the girl, Ransom broke into cynical laughter. "Ah, but do protest, madam; let us at least have that fragment!" Mr. Pardon went on. "A protest from this house would be a charming note. We _must_ have it--we've got nothing else! The public are almost as much interested in your sister as they are in Miss Verena; they know to what extent she has backed her: and I should be so delighted (I see the heading, from here, so attractive!) just to take down 'What Miss Chancellor's Family Think about It!'" Mrs. Luna sank into the nearest chair, with a groan, covering her face with her hands. "Heaven help me, I am glad I am going to Europe!" "That is another little item--everything counts," said Matthias Pardon, making a rapid entry in his tablets. "May I inquire whether you are going to Europe in consequence of your disapproval of your sister's views?" Mrs. Luna sprang up again, almost snatching the memoranda out of his hand. "If you have the impertinence to publish a word about me, or to mention my name in print, I will come to your office and make such a scene!" "Dearest lady, that would be a godsend!" Mr. Pardon cried enthusiastically; but he put his notebook back into his pocket. "Have you made an exhaustive search for Miss Tarrant?" Basil Ransom asked of him. Mr. Pardon, at this inquiry, eyed him with a sudden, familiar archness, expressive of the idea of competition; so that Ransom added: "You needn't be afraid, I'm not a reporter." "I didn't know but what you had come on from New York." "So I have--but not as the representative of a newspaper." "Fancy his taking you----" Mrs. Luna murmured, with indignation. "Well, I have been everywhere I could think of," Mr. Pardon remarked. "I have been hunting round after your sister's agent, but I haven't been able to catch up with him; I suppose he has been hunting on his side. Miss Chancellor told me--Mrs. Luna may remember it--that she shouldn't be here at all during the week, and that she preferred not to tell me either where or how she was to spend her time until the momentous evening. Of course I let her know that I should find out if I could, and you may remember," he said to Mrs. Luna, "the conversation we had on the subject. I remarked, candidly, that if they didn't look out they would overdo the quietness. Doctor Tarrant has felt very low about it. However, I have done what I could with the material at my command, and the _Vesper_ has let the public know that her whereabouts was the biggest mystery of the season. It's difficult to get round the _Vesper_." "I am almost afraid to open my lips in your presence," Mrs. Luna broke in, "but I must say that I think my sister was strangely communicative. She told you ever so much that I wouldn't have breathed." "I should like to try you with something you know!" Matthias Pardon returned imperturbably. "This isn't a fair trial, because you don't know. Miss Chancellor came round--came round considerably, there's no doubt of that; because a year or two ago she was terribly unapproachable. If I have mollified her, madam, why shouldn't I mollify you? She realises that I can help her now, and as I ain't rancorous I am willing to help her all she'll let me. The trouble is, she won't let me enough, yet; it seems as if she couldn't believe it of me. At any rate," he pursued, addressing himself more particularly to Ransom, "half an hour ago, at the Hall, they knew nothing whatever about Miss Tarrant, beyond the fact that about a month ago she came there, with Miss Chancellor, to try her voice, which rang all over the place, like silver, and that Miss Chancellor guaranteed her absolute punctuality to-night." "Well, that's all that is required," said Ransom, at hazard; and he put out his hand, in farewell, to Mrs. Luna. "Do you desert me already?" she demanded, giving him a glance which would have embarrassed any spectator but a reporter of the _Vesper_. "I have fifty things to do; you must excuse me." He was nervous, restless, his heart was beating much faster than usual; he couldn't stand still, and he had no compunction whatever about leaving her to get rid, by herself, of Mr. Pardon. This gentleman continued to mix in the conversation, possibly from the hope that if he should linger either Miss Tarrant or Miss Chancellor would make her appearance. "Every seat in the Hall is sold; the crowd is expected to be immense. When our Boston public _does_ take an idea!" Mr. Pardon exclaimed. Ransom only wanted to get away, and in order to facilitate his release by implying that in such a case he should see her again, he said to Mrs. Luna, rather hypocritically, from the threshold, "You had really better come to-night." "I am not like the Boston public--I don't take an idea!" she replied. "Do you mean to say you are not going?" cried Mr. Pardon, with widely open eyes, clapping his hand again to his pocket. "Don't you regard her as a wonderful genius?" Mrs. Luna was sorely tried, and the vexation of seeing Ransom slip away from her with his thoughts visibly on Verena, leaving her face to face with the odious newspaper man, whose presence made passionate protest impossible--the annoyance of seeing everything and every one mock at her and fail to compensate her was such that she lost her head, while rashness leaped to her lips and jerked out the answer--"No indeed; I think her a vulgar idiot!" "Ah, madam, I should never permit myself to print that!" Ransom heard Mr. Pardon rejoin reproachfully, as he dropped the _portière_ of the drawing-room. XLI He walked about for the next two hours, walked all over Boston, heedless of his course, and conscious only of an unwillingness to return to his hotel and an inability to eat his dinner or rest his weary legs. He had been roaming in very much the same desperate fashion, at once eager and purposeless, for many days before he left New York, and he knew that his agitation and suspense must wear themselves out. At present they pressed him more than ever; they had become tremendously acute. The early dusk of the last half of November had gathered thick, but the evening was fine and the lighted streets had the animation and variety of a winter that had begun with brilliancy. The shop-fronts glowed through frosty panes, the passers bustled on the pavement, the bells of the street-cars jangled in the cold air, the newsboys hawked the evening papers, the vestibules of the theatres, illuminated and flanked with coloured posters and the photographs of actresses, exhibited seductively their swinging doors of red leather or baize, spotted with little brass nails. Behind great plates of glass the interior of the hotels became visible, with marble-paved lobbies, white with electric lamps, and columns, and Westerners on divans stretching their legs, while behind a counter, set apart and covered with an array of periodicals and novels in paper covers, little boys, with the faces of old men, showing plans of the play-houses and offering librettos, sold orchestra-chairs at a premium. When from time to time Ransom paused at a corner, hesitating which way to drift, he looked up and saw the stars, sharp and near, scintillating over the town. Boston seemed to him big and full of nocturnal life, very much awake and preparing for an evening of pleasure. He passed and repassed the Music Hall, saw Verena immensely advertised, gazed down the vista, the approach for pedestrians, which leads out of School Street, and thought it looked expectant and ominous. People had not begun to enter yet, but the place was ready, lighted and open, and the interval would be only too short. So it appeared to Ransom, while at the same time he wished immensely the crisis were over. Everything that surrounded him referred itself to the idea with which his mind was palpitating, the question whether he might not still intervene as against the girl's jump into the abyss. He believed that all Boston was going to hear her, or that at least every one was whom he saw in the streets; and there was a kind of incentive and inspiration in this thought. The vision of wresting her from the mighty multitude set him off again, to stride through the population that would fight for her. It was not too late, for he felt strong; it would not be too late even if she should already stand there before thousands of converging eyes. He had had his ticket since the morning, and now the time was going on. He went back to his hotel at last for ten minutes, and refreshed himself by dressing a little and by drinking a glass of wine. Then he took his way once more to the Music Hall, and saw that people were beginning to go in--the first drops of the great stream, among whom there were many women. Since seven o'clock the minutes had moved fast--before that they had dragged--and now there was only half an hour. Ransom passed in with the others; he knew just where his seat was; he had chosen it, on reaching Boston, from the few that were left, with what he believed to be care. But now, as he stood beneath the far-away panelled roof, stretching above the line of little tongues of flame which marked its junction with the walls, he felt that this didn't matter much, since he certainly was not going to subside into his place. He was not one of the audience; he was apart, unique, and had come on a business altogether special. It wouldn't have mattered if, in advance, he had got no place at all and had just left himself to pay for standing-room at the last. The people came pouring in, and in a very short time there would only be standing-room left. Ransom had no definite plan; he had mainly wanted to get inside of the building, so that, on a view of the field, he might make up his mind. He had never been in the Music Hall before, and its lofty vaults and rows of overhanging balconies made it to his imagination immense and impressive. There were two or three moments during which he felt as he could imagine a young man to feel who, waiting in a public place, has made up his mind, for reasons of his own, to discharge a pistol at the king or the president. The place struck him with a kind of Roman vastness; the doors which opened out of the upper balconies, high aloft, and which were constantly swinging to and fro with the passage of spectators and ushers, reminded him of the _vomitoria_ that he had read about in descriptions of the Colosseum. The huge organ, the background of the stage--a stage occupied with tiers of seats for choruses and civic worthies--lifted to the dome its shining pipes and sculptured pinnacles, and some genius of music or oratory erected himself in monumental bronze at the base. The hall was so capacious and serious, and the audience increased so rapidly without filling it, giving Ransom a sense of the numbers it would contain when it was packed, that the courage of the two young women, face to face with so tremendous an ordeal, hovered before him as really sublime, especially the conscious tension of poor Olive, who would have been spared none of the anxieties and tremors, none of the previsions of accident or calculations of failure. In the front of the stage was a slim, high desk, like a music-stand, with a cover of red velvet, and near it was a light ornamental chair, on which he was sure Verena would not seat herself, though he could fancy her leaning at moments on the back. Behind this was a kind of semicircle of a dozen arm-chairs, which had evidently been arranged for the friends of the speaker, her sponsors and patrons. The hall was more and more full of premonitory sounds; people making a noise as they unfolded, on hinges, their seats, and itinerant boys, whose voices as they cried out "Photographs of Miss Tarrant--sketch of her life!" or "Portraits of the Speaker--story of her career!" sounded small and piping in the general immensity. Before Ransom was aware of it several of the arm-chairs, in the row behind the lecturer's desk, were occupied, with gaps, and in a moment he recognised, even across the interval, three of the persons who had appeared. The straight-featured woman with bands of glossy hair and eyebrows that told at a distance, could only be Mrs. Farrinder, just as the gentleman beside her, in a white overcoat, with an umbrella and a vague face, was probably her husband Amariah. At the opposite end of the row were another pair, whom Ransom, unacquainted with certain chapters of Verena's history, perceived without surprise to be Mrs. Burrage and her insinuating son. Apparently their interest in Miss Tarrant was more than a momentary fad, since--like himself--they had made the journey from New York to hear her. There were other figures, unknown to our young man, here and there, in the semicircle; but several places were still empty (one of which was of course reserved for Olive), and it occurred to Ransom, even in his preoccupation, that one of them ought to remain so--ought to be left to symbolise the presence, in the spirit, of Miss Birdseye. He bought one of the photographs of Verena, and thought it shockingly bad, and bought also the sketch of her life, which many people seemed to be reading, but crumpled it up in his pocket for future consideration. Verena was not in the least present to him in connexion with this exhibition of enterprise and puffery; what he saw was Olive, struggling and yielding, making every sacrifice of taste for the sake of the largest hearing, and conforming herself to a great popular system. Whether she had struggled or not, there was a catch-penny effect about the whole thing which added to the fever in his cheek and made him wish he had money to buy up the stock of the vociferous little boys. Suddenly the notes of the organ rolled out into the hall, and he became aware that the overture or prelude had begun. This, too, seemed to him a piece of claptrap, but he didn't wait to think of it; he instantly edged out of his place, which he had chosen near the end of a row, and reached one of the numerous doors. If he had had no definite plan he now had at least an irresistible impulse, and he felt the prick of shame at having faltered for a moment. It had been his tacit calculation that Verena, still enshrined in mystery by her companion, would not have reached the scene of her performance till within a few minutes of the time at which she was to come forth; so that he had lost nothing by waiting, up to this moment, before the platform. But now he must overtake his opportunity. Before passing out of the hall into the lobby he paused, and with his back to the stage, gave a look at the gathered auditory. It had become densely numerous, and, suffused with the evenly distributed gaslight, which fell from a great elevation, and the thick atmosphere that hangs for ever in such places, it appeared to pile itself high and to look dimly expectant and formidable. He had a throb of uneasiness at his private purpose of balking it of its entertainment, its victim--a glimpse of the ferocity that lurks in a disappointed mob. But the thought of that danger only made him pass more quickly through the ugly corridors; he felt that his plan was definite enough now, and he found that he had no need even of asking the way to a certain small door (one or more of them), which he meant to push open. In taking his place in the morning he had assured himself as to the side of the house on which (with its approach to the platform) the withdrawing room of singers and speakers was situated; he had chosen his seat in that quarter, and he now had not far to go before he reached it. No one heeded or challenged him; Miss Tarrant's auditors were still pouring in (the occasion was evidently to have been an unprecedented success of curiosity), and had all the attention of the ushers. Ransom opened a door at the end of the passage, and it admitted him into a sort of vestibule, quite bare save that at a second door, opposite to him, stood a figure at the sight of which he paused for a moment in his advance. The figure was simply that of a robust policeman, in his helmet and brass buttons--a policeman who was expecting him--Ransom could see that in a twinkling. He judged in the same space of time that Olive Chancellor had heard of his having arrived and had applied for the protection of this functionary, who was now simply guarding the ingress and was prepared to defend it against all comers. There was a slight element of surprise in this, as he had reasoned that his nervous kinswoman was absent from her house for the day--had been spending it all in Verena's retreat, wherever that was. The surprise was not great enough, however, to interrupt his course for more than an instant, and he crossed the room and stood before the belted sentinel. For a moment neither spoke; they looked at each other very hard in the eyes, and Ransom heard the organ, beyond partitions, launching its waves of sound through the hall. They seemed to be very near it, and the whole place vibrated. The policeman was a tall, lean-faced, sallow man, with a stoop of the shoulders, a small, steady eye, and something in his mouth which made a protuberance in his cheek. Ransom could see that he was very strong, but he believed that he himself was not materially less so. However, he had not come there to show physical fight--a public tussle about Verena was not an attractive idea, except perhaps, after all, if he should get the worst of it, from the point of view of Olive's new system of advertising; and, moreover, it would not be in the least necessary. Still he said nothing, and still the policeman remained dumb, and there was something in the way the moments elapsed and in our young man's consciousness that Verena was separated from him only by a couple of thin planks, which made him feel that she too expected him, but in another sense; that she had nothing to do with this parade of resistance, that she would know in a moment, by quick intuition, that he was there, and that she was only praying to be rescued, to be saved. Face to face with Olive she hadn't the courage, but she would have it with her hand in his. It came to him that there was no one in the world less sure of her business just at that moment than Olive Chancellor; it was as if he could see, through the door, the terrible way her eyes were fixed on Verena while she held her watch in her hand and Verena looked away from her. Olive would have been so thankful that she should begin before the hour, but of course that was impossible. Ransom asked no questions--that seemed a waste of time; he only said, after a minute, to the policeman: "I should like very much to see Miss Tarrant, if you will be so good as to take in my card." The guardian of order, well planted just between him and the handle of the door, took from Ransom the morsel of pasteboard which he held out to him, read slowly the name inscribed on it, turned it over and looked at the back, then returned it to his interlocutor. "Well, I guess it ain't much use," he remarked. "How can you know that? You have no business to decline my request." "Well, I guess I have about as much business as you have to make it." Then he added, "You are just the very man she wants to keep out." "I don't think Miss Tarrant wants to keep me out," Ransom returned. "I don't know much about her, she hasn't hired the hall. It's the other one--Miss Chancellor; it's her that runs this lecture." "And she has asked you to keep me out? How absurd!" exclaimed Ransom ingeniously. "She tells me you're none too fit to be round alone; you have got this thing on the brain. I guess you'd better be quiet," said the policeman. "Quiet? Is it possible to be more quiet than I am?" "Well, I've seen crazy folks that were a good deal like you. If you want to see the speaker why don't you go and set round in the hall, with the rest of the public?" And the policeman waited, in an immovable, ruminating, reasonable manner, for an answer to this inquiry. Ransom had one, on the instant, at his service. "Because I don't want simply to see her; I want also to speak to her--in private." "Yes--it's always intensely private," said the policeman. "Now I wouldn't lose the lecture if I was you. I guess it will do you good." "The lecture?" Ransom repeated, laughing. "It won't take place." "Yes it will--as quick as the organ stops." Then the policeman added, as to himself, "Why the devil don't it?" "Because Miss Tarrant has sent up to the organist to tell him to keep on." "Who has she sent, do you s'pose?" And Ransom's new acquaintance entered into his humour. "I guess Miss Chancellor isn't her nigger." "She has sent her father, or perhaps even her mother. They are in there too." "How do you know that?" asked the policeman consideringly. "Oh, I know everything," Ransom answered, smiling. "Well, I guess they didn't come here to listen to that organ. We'll hear something else before long, if he doesn't stop." "You will hear a good deal, very soon," Ransom remarked. The serenity of his self-confidence appeared at last to make an impression on his antagonist, who lowered his head a little, like some butting animal, and looked at the young man from beneath bushy eyebrows. "Well, I _have_ heard a good deal, since I've been in Boston." "Oh, Boston's a great place," Ransom rejoined inattentively. He was not listening to the policeman or to the organ now, for the sound of voices had reached him from the other side of the door. The policeman took no further notice of it than to lean back against the panels, with folded arms; and there was another pause, between them, during which the playing of the organ ceased. "I will just wait here, with your permission," said Ransom, "and presently I shall be called." "Who do you s'pose will call you?" "Well, Miss Tarrant, I hope." "She'll have to square the other one first." Ransom took out his watch, which he had adapted, on purpose, several hours before, to Boston time, and saw that the minutes had sped with increasing velocity during this interview, and that it now marked five minutes past eight. "Miss Chancellor will have to square the public," he said in a moment; and the words were far from being an empty profession of security, for the conviction already in possession of him, that a drama in which he, though cut off, was an actor, had been going on for some time in the apartment he was prevented from entering, that the situation was extraordinarily strained there, and that it could not come to an end without an appeal to him--this transcendental assumption acquired an infinitely greater force the instant he perceived that Verena was even now keeping her audience waiting. Why didn't she go on? Why, except that she knew he was there, and was gaining time? "Well, I guess she has shown herself," said the door-keeper, whose discussion with Ransom now appeared to have passed, on his own part, and without the slightest prejudice to his firmness, into a sociable, gossiping phase. "If she had shown herself, we should hear the reception, the applause." "Well, there they air; they are going to give it to her," the policeman announced. He had an odious appearance of being in the right, for there indeed they seemed to be--they were giving it to her. A general hubbub rose from the floor and the galleries of the hall--the sound of several thousand people stamping with their feet and rapping with their umbrellas and sticks. Ransom felt faint, and for a little while he stood with his gaze interlocked with that of the policeman. Then suddenly a wave of coolness seemed to break over him, and he exclaimed: "My dear fellow, that isn't applause--it's impatience. It isn't a reception, it's a call!" The policeman neither assented to this proposition nor denied it; he only transferred the protuberance in his cheek to the other side, and observed: "I guess she's sick." "Oh, I hope not!" said Ransom, very gently. The stamping and rapping swelled and swelled for a minute, and then it subsided; but before it had done so Ransom's definition of it had plainly become the true one. The tone of the manifestation was good-humoured, but it was not gratulatory. He looked at his watch again, and saw that five minutes more had elapsed, and he remembered what the newspaperman in Charles Street had said about Olive's guaranteeing Verena's punctuality. Oddly enough, at the moment the image of this gentleman recurred to him, the gentleman himself burst through the other door, in a state of the liveliest agitation. "Why in the name of goodness don't she go on? If she wants to make them call her, they've done it about enough!" Mr. Pardon turned, pressingly, from Ransom to the policeman and back again, and in his preoccupation gave no sign of having met the Mississippian before. "I guess she's sick," said the policeman. "The public'll be sick!" cried the distressed reporter. "If she's sick, why doesn't she send for a doctor? All Boston is packed into this house, and she has got to talk to it. I want to go in and see." "You can't go in," said the policeman drily. "Why can't I go in, I should like to know? I want to go in for the _Vesper_"! "You can't go in for anything. I'm keeping this man out, too," the policeman added genially, as if to make Mr. Pardon's exclusion appear less invidious. "Why, they'd ought to let _you_ in," said Matthias, staring a moment at Ransom. "May be they'd ought, but they won't," the policeman remarked. "Gracious me!" panted Mr. Pardon; "I knew from the first Miss Chancellor would make a mess of it! Where's Mr. Filer?" he went on eagerly, addressing himself apparently to either of the others, or to both. "I guess he's at the door, counting the money," said the policeman. "Well, he'll have to give it back if he don't look out!" "Maybe he will. I'll let _him_ in if he comes, but he's the only one. She is on now," the policeman added, without emotion. His ear had caught the first faint murmur of another explosion of sound. This time, unmistakably, it was applause--the clapping of multitudinous hands, mingled with the noise of many throats. The demonstration, however, though considerable, was not what might have been expected, and it died away quickly. Mr. Pardon stood listening, with an expression of some alarm. "Merciful fathers! can't they give her more than that?" he cried. "I'll just fly round and see!" When he had hurried away again, Ransom said to the policeman--"Who is Mr. Filer?" "Oh, he's an old friend of mine. He's the man that runs Miss Chancellor." "That runs her?" "Just the same as she runs Miss Tarrant. He runs the pair, as you might say. He's in the lecture-business." "Then he had better talk to the public himself." "Oh, _he_ can't talk; he can only boss!" The opposite door at this moment was pushed open again, and a large, heated-looking man, with a little stiff beard on the end of his chin and his overcoat flying behind him, strode forward with an imprecation. "What the h---- are they doing in the parlour? This sort of thing's about played out!" "Ain't she up there now?" the policeman asked. "It's not Miss Tarrant," Ransom said, as if he knew all about it. He perceived in a moment that this was Mr. Filer, Olive Chancellor's agent; an inference instantly followed by the reflexion that such a personage would have been warned against him by his kinswoman and would doubtless attempt to hold him, or his influence, accountable for Verena's unexpected delay. Mr. Filer only glanced at him, however, and to Ransom's surprise appeared to have no theory of his identity; a fact implying that Miss Chancellor had considered that the greater discretion was (except to the policeman) to hold her tongue about him altogether. "Up there? It's her jackass of a father that's up there!" cried Mr. Filer, with his hand on the latch of the door, which the policeman had allowed him to approach. "Is he asking for a doctor?" the latter inquired dispassionately. "You're the sort of doctor he'll want, if he doesn't produce the girl! You don't mean to say they've locked themselves in? What the plague are they after?" "They've got the key on that side," said the policeman, while Mr. Filer discharged at the door a volley of sharp knocks, at the same time violently shaking the handle. "If the door was locked, what was the good of your standing before it?" Ransom inquired. "So as you couldn't do that"; and the policeman nodded at Mr. Filer. "You see your interference has done very little good." "I dunno; she has got to come out yet." Mr. Filer meanwhile had continued to thump and shake, demanding instant admission and inquiring if they were going to let the audience pull the house down. Another round of applause had broken out, directed perceptibly to some apology, some solemn circumlocution, of Selah Tarrant's; this covered the sound of the agent's voice, as well as that of a confused and divided response, proceeding from the parlour. For a minute nothing definite was audible; the door remained closed, and Matthias Pardon reappeared in the vestibule. "He says she's just a little faint--from nervousness. She'll be all ready in about three minutes." This announcement was Mr. Pardon's contribution to the crisis; and he added that the crowd was a lovely crowd, it was a real Boston crowd, it was perfectly good-humoured. "There's a lovely crowd, and a real Boston one too, I guess, in here!" cried Mr. Filer, now banging very hard. "I've handled prima donnas, and I've handled natural curiosities, but I've never seen anything up to this. Mind what I say, ladies; if you don't let me in, I'll smash down the door!" "Don't seem as if _you_ could make it much worse, does it?" the policeman observed to Ransom, strolling aside a little, with the air of being superseded. XLII Ransom made no reply; he was watching the door, which at that moment gave way from within. Verena stood there--it was she, evidently, who had opened it--and her eyes went straight to his. She was dressed in white, and her face was whiter than her garment; above it her hair seemed to shine like fire. She took a step forward; but before she could take another he had come down to her, on the threshold of the room. Her face was full of suffering, and he did not attempt--before all those eyes--to take her hand; he only said in a low tone, "I have been waiting for you--a long time!" "I know it--I saw you in your seat--I want to speak to you." "Well, Miss Tarrant, don't you think you'd better be on the platform?" cried Mr. Filer, making with both his arms a movement as if to sweep her before him, through the waiting-room, up into the presence of the public. "In a moment I shall be ready. My father is making that all right." And, to Ransom's surprise, she smiled, with all her sweetness, at the irrepressible agent; appeared to wish genuinely to reassure him. The three had moved together into the waiting-room, and there at the farther end of it, beyond the vulgar, perfunctory chairs and tables, under the flaring gas, he saw Mrs. Tarrant sitting upright on a sofa, with immense rigidity, and a large flushed visage, full of suppressed distortion, and beside her prostrate, fallen over, her head buried in the lap of Verena's mother, the tragic figure of Olive Chancellor. Ransom could scarcely know how much Olive's having flung herself upon Mrs. Tarrant's bosom testified to the convulsive scene that had just taken place behind the locked door. He closed it again, sharply, in the face of the reporter and the policeman, and at the same moment Selah Tarrant descended, through the aperture leading to the platform, from his brief communion with the public. On seeing Ransom he stopped short, and, gathering his waterproof about him, measured the young man from head to foot. "Well, sir, perhaps _you_ would like to go and explain our hitch," he remarked, indulging in a smile so comprehensive that the corners of his mouth seemed almost to meet behind. "I presume that you, better than any one else, can give them an insight into our difficulties!" "Father, be still; father, it will come out all right in a moment!" cried Verena, below her breath, panting like an emergent diver. "There's one thing I want to know: are we going to spend half an hour talking over our domestic affairs?" Mr. Filer demanded, wiping his indignant countenance. "Is Miss Tarrant going to lecture, or ain't she going to lecture? If she ain't, she'll please to show cause why. Is she aware that every quarter of a second, at the present instant, is worth about five hundred dollars?" "I know that--I know that, Mr. Filer; I will begin in a moment!" Verena went on. "I only want to speak to Mr. Ransom--just three words. They are perfectly quiet--don't you see how quiet they are? They trust me, they trust me, don't they, father? I only want to speak to Mr. Ransom." "Who the devil is Mr. Ransom?" cried the exasperated, bewildered Filer. Verena spoke to the others, but she looked at her lover, and the expression of her eyes was ineffably touching and beseeching. She trembled with nervous passion, there were sobs and supplications in her voice, and Ransom felt himself flushing with pure pity for her pain--her inevitable agony. But at the same moment he had another perception, which brushed aside remorse; he saw that he could do what he wanted, that she begged him, with all her being, to spare her, but that so long as he should protest she was submissive, helpless. What he wanted, in this light, flamed before him and challenged all his manhood, tossing his determination to a height from which not only Doctor Tarrant, and Mr. Filer, and Olive, over there, in her sightless, soundless shame, but the great expectant hall as well, and the mighty multitude, in suspense, keeping quiet from minute to minute and holding the breath of its anger--from which all these things looked small, surmountable, and of the moment only. He didn't quite understand, as yet, however; he saw that Verena had not refused, but temporised, that the spell upon her--thanks to which he should still be able to rescue her--had been the knowledge that he was near. "Come away, come away," he murmured quickly, putting out his two hands to her. She took one of them, as if to plead, not to consent. "Oh, let me off, let me off--for _her_, for the others! It's too terrible, it's impossible!" "What I want to know is why Mr. Ransom isn't in the hands of the police!" wailed Mrs. Tarrant, from her sofa. "I have been, madam, for the last quarter of an hour." Ransom felt more and more that he could manage it, if he only kept cool. He bent over Verena with a tenderness in which he was careless, now, of observation. "Dearest, I told you, I warned you. I left you alone for ten weeks; but could that make you doubt it was coming? Not for worlds, not for millions, shall you give yourself to that roaring crowd. Don't ask me to care for them, or for any one! What do they care for you but to gape and grin and babble? You are mine, you are not theirs." "What under the sun is the man talking about? With the most magnificent audience ever brought together! The city of Boston is under this roof!" Mr. Filer gaspingly interposed. "The city of Boston be damned!" said Ransom. "Mr. Ransom is very much interested in my daughter. He doesn't approve of our views," Selah Tarrant explained. "It's the most horrible, wicked, immoral selfishness I ever heard in my life!" roared Mrs. Tarrant. "Selfishness! Mrs. Tarrant, do you suppose I pretend not to be selfish?" "Do you want us all murdered by the mob, then?" "They can have their money--can't you give them back their money?" cried Verena, turning frantically round the circle. "Verena Tarrant, you don't mean to say you are going to back down?" her mother shrieked. "Good God! that I should make her suffer like this!" said Ransom to himself; and to put an end to the odious scene he would have seized Verena in his arms and broken away into the outer world, if Olive, who at Mrs. Tarrant's last loud challenge had sprung to her feet, had not at the same time thrown herself between them with a force which made the girl relinquish her grasp of Ransom's hand. To his astonishment, the eyes that looked at him out of her scared, haggard face were, like Verena's, eyes of tremendous entreaty. There was a moment during which she would have been ready to go down on her knees to him, in order that the lecture should go on. "If you don't agree with her, take her up on the platform, and have it out there; the public would like that, first-rate!" Mr. Filer said to Ransom, as if he thought this suggestion practical. "She had prepared a lovely address!" Selah remarked mournfully, as if to the company in general. No one appeared to heed the observation, but his wife broke out again. "Verena Tarrant, I should like to slap you! Do you call such a man as that a gentleman? I don't know where your father's spirit is, to let him stay!" Olive, meanwhile, was literally praying to her kinsman. "Let her appear this once, just this once: not to ruin, not to shame! Haven't you any pity; do you want me to be hooted? It's only for an hour. Haven't you any soul?" Her face and voice were terrible to Ransom; she had flung herself upon Verena and was holding her close, and he could see that her friend's suffering was faint in comparison to her own. "Why for an hour, when it's all false and damnable? An hour is as bad as ten years! She's mine or she isn't, and if she's mine, she's all mine!" "Yours! Yours! Verena, think, think what you're doing!" Olive moaned, bending over her. Mr. Filer was now pouring forth his nature in objurgations and oaths, and brandishing before the culprits--Verena and Ransom--the extreme penalty of the law. Mrs. Tarrant had burst into violent hysterics, while Selah revolved vaguely about the room and declared that it seemed as if the better day was going to be put off for quite a while. "Don't you see how good, how sweet they are--giving us all this time? Don't you think that when they behave like that--without a sound, for five minutes--they ought to be rewarded?" Verena asked, smiling divinely, at Ransom. Nothing could have been more tender, more exquisite, than the way she put her appeal upon the ground of simple charity, kindness to the great good-natured, childish public. "Miss Chancellor may reward them in any way she likes. Give them back their money and a little present to each." "Money and presents? I should like to shoot you, sir!" yelled Mr. Filer. The audience had really been very patient, and up to this point deserved Verena's praise; but it was now long past eight o'clock, and symptoms of irritation--cries and groans and hisses--began again to proceed from the hall. Mr. Filer launched himself into the passage leading to the stage, and Selah rushed after him. Mrs. Tarrant extended herself, sobbing, on the sofa, and Olive, quivering in the storm, inquired of Ransom what he wanted her to do, what humiliation, what degradation, what sacrifice he imposed. "I'll do anything--I'll be abject--I'll be vile--I'll go down in the dust!" "I ask nothing of you, and I have nothing to do with you," Ransom said. "That is, I ask, at the most, that you shouldn't expect that, wishing to make Verena my wife, I should say to her, 'Oh yes, you can take an hour or two out of it!' Verena," he went on, "all this is out of it--dreadfully, odiously--and it's a great deal too much! Come, come as far away from here as possible, and we'll settle the rest!" The combined effort of Mr. Filer and Selah Tarrant to pacify the public had not, apparently, the success it deserved; the house continued in uproar and the volume of sound increased. "Leave us alone, leave us alone for a single minute!" cried Verena; "just let me speak to him, and it will be all right!" She rushed over to her mother, drew her, dragged her from the sofa, led her to the door of the room. Mrs. Tarrant, on the way, reunited herself with Olive (the horror of the situation had at least that compensation for her), and, clinging and staggering together, the distracted women, pushed by Verena, passed into the vestibule, now, as Ransom saw, deserted by the policeman and the reporter, who had rushed round to where the battle was thickest. "Oh, why did you come--why, why?" And Verena, turning back, threw herself upon him with a protest which was all, and more than all, a surrender. She had never yet given herself to him so much as in that movement of reproach. "Didn't you expect me, and weren't you sure?" he asked, smiling at her and standing there till she arrived. "I didn't know--it was terrible--it's awful! I saw you in your place, in the house, when you came. As soon as we got here I went out to those steps that go up to the stage and I looked out, with my father--from behind him--and saw you in a minute. Then I felt too nervous to speak! I could never, never, if you were there! My father didn't know you, and I said nothing, but Olive guessed as soon as I came back. She rushed at me, and she looked at me--oh, how she looked! and she guessed. She didn't need to go out to see for herself, and when she saw how I was trembling she began to tremble herself, to believe, as I believed, we were lost. Listen to them, listen to them, in the house! Now I want you to go away--I will see you to-morrow, as long as you wish. That's all I want now; if you will only go away it's not too late, and everything will be all right!" Preoccupied as Ransom was with the simple purpose of getting her bodily out of the place, he could yet notice her strange, touching tone, and her air of believing that she might really persuade him. She had evidently given up everything now--every pretence of a different conviction and of loyalty to her cause; all this had fallen from her as soon as she felt him near, and she asked him to go away just as any plighted maiden might have asked any favour of her lover. But it was the poor girl's misfortune that whatever she did or said, or left unsaid, only had the effect of making her dearer to him and making the people who were clamouring for her seem more and more a raving rabble. He indulged not in the smallest recognition of her request, and simply said, "Surely Olive must have believed, must have known, I would come." "She would have been sure if you hadn't become so unexpectedly quiet after I left Marmion. You seemed to concur, to be willing to wait." "So I was, for a few weeks. But they ended yesterday. I was furious that morning, when I learned your flight, and during the week that followed I made two or three attempts to find you. Then I stopped--I thought it better. I saw you were very well hidden; I determined not even to write. I felt I _could_ wait--with that last day at Marmion to think of. Besides, to leave you with her awhile, for the last, seemed more decent. Perhaps you'll tell me now where you were." "I was with father and mother. She sent me to them that morning, with a letter. I don't know what was in it. Perhaps there was money," said Verena, who evidently now would tell him everything. "And where did they take you?" "I don't know--to places. I was in Boston once, for a day; but only in a carriage. They were as frightened as Olive; they were bound to save me!" "They shouldn't have brought you here to-night then. How could you possibly doubt of my coming?" "I don't know what I thought, and I didn't know, till I saw you, that all the strength I had hoped for would leave me in a flash, and that if I attempted to speak--with you sitting there--I should make the most shameful failure. We had a sickening scene here--I begged for delay, for time to recover. We waited and waited, and when I heard you at the door talking to the policeman, it seemed to me everything was gone. But it will still come back, if you will leave me. They are quiet again--father must be interesting them." "I hope he is!" Ransom exclaimed. "If Miss Chancellor ordered the policeman, she must have expected me." "That was only after she knew you were in the house. She flew out into the lobby with father, and they seized him and posted him there. She locked the door; she seemed to think they would break it down. I didn't wait for that, but from the moment I knew you were on the other side of it I couldn't go on--I was paralysed. It has made me feel better to talk to you--and now I could appear," Verena added. "My darling child, haven't you a shawl or a mantle?" Ransom returned, for all answer, looking about him. He perceived, tossed upon a chair, a long, furred cloak, which he caught up and, before she could resist, threw over her. She even let him arrange it, and, standing there, draped from head to foot in it, contented herself with saying, after a moment: "I don't understand--where shall we go? Where will you take me?" "We shall catch the night-train for New York, and the first thing in the morning we shall be married." Verena remained gazing at him, with swimming eyes. "And what will the people do? Listen, listen!" "Your father is ceasing to interest them. They'll howl and thump, according to their nature." "Ah, their nature's fine!" Verena pleaded. "Dearest, that's one of the fallacies I shall have to woo you from. Hear them, the senseless brutes!" The storm was now raging in the hall, and it deepened, to such a point that Verena turned to him in a supreme appeal. "I could soothe them with a word!" "Keep your soothing words for me--you will have need of them all, in our coming time," Ransom said, laughing. He pulled open the door again, which led into the lobby, but he was driven back, with Verena, by a furious onset from Mrs. Tarrant. Seeing her daughter fairly arrayed for departure, she hurled herself upon her, half in indignation, half in a blind impulse to cling, and with an outpouring of tears, reproaches, prayers, strange scraps of argument and iterations of farewell, closed her about with an embrace which was partly a supreme caress, partly the salutary castigation she had, three minutes before, expressed the wish to administer, and altogether for the moment a check upon the girl's flight. "Mother, dearest, it's all for the best, I can't help it, I love you just the same; let me go, let me go!" Verena stammered, kissing her again, struggling to free herself, and holding out her hand to Ransom. He saw now that she only wanted to get away, to leave everything behind her. Olive was close at hand, on the threshold of the room, and as soon as Ransom looked at her he became aware that the weakness she had just shown had passed away. She had straightened herself again, and she was upright in her desolation. The expression of her face was a thing to remain with him for ever; it was impossible to imagine a more vivid presentment of blighted hope and wounded pride. Dry, desperate, rigid, she yet wavered and seemed uncertain; her pale, glittering eyes straining forward, as if they were looking for death. Ransom had a vision, even at that crowded moment, that if she could have met it there and then, bristling with steel or lurid with fire, she would have rushed on it without a tremor, like the heroine that she was. All this while the great agitation in the hall rose and fell, in waves and surges, as if Selah Tarrant and the agent were talking to the multitude, trying to calm them, succeeding for the moment, and then letting them loose again. Whirled down by one of the fitful gusts, a lady and a gentleman issued from the passage, and Ransom, glancing at them, recognised Mrs. Farrinder and her husband. "Well, Miss Chancellor," said that more successful woman, with considerable asperity, "if this is the way you're going to reinstate our sex!" She passed rapidly through the room, followed by Amariah, who remarked in his transit that it seemed as if there had been a want of organisation, and the two retreated expeditiously, without the lady's having taken the smallest notice of Verena, whose conflict with her mother prolonged itself. Ransom, striving, with all needful consideration for Mrs. Tarrant, to separate these two, addressed not a word to Olive; it was the last of her, for him, and he neither saw how her livid face suddenly glowed, as if Mrs. Farrinder's words had been a lash, nor how, as if with a sudden inspiration, she rushed to the approach to the platform. If he had observed her, it might have seemed to him that she hoped to find the fierce expiation she sought for in exposure to the thousands she had disappointed and deceived, in offering herself to be trampled to death and torn to pieces. She might have suggested to him some feminine firebrand of Paris revolutions, erect on a barricade, or even the sacrificial figure of Hypatia, whirled through the furious mob of Alexandria. She was arrested an instant by the arrival of Mrs. Burrage and her son, who had quitted the stage on observing the withdrawal of the Farrinders, and who swept into the room in the manner of people seeking shelter from a thunderstorm. The mother's face expressed the well-bred surprise of a person who should have been asked out to dinner and seen the cloth pulled off the table; the young man, who supported her on his arm, instantly lost himself in the spectacle of Verena disengaging herself from Mrs. Tarrant, only to be again overwhelmed, and in the unexpected presence of the Mississippian. His handsome blue eyes turned from one to the other, and he looked infinitely annoyed and bewildered. It even seemed to occur to him that he might, perhaps, interpose with effect, and he evidently would have liked to say that, without really bragging, _he_ would at least have kept the affair from turning into a row. But Verena, muffled and escaping, was deaf to him, and Ransom didn't look the right person to address such a remark as that to. Mrs. Burrage and Olive, as the latter shot past, exchanged a glance which represented quick irony on one side and indiscriminating defiance on the other. "Oh, are _you_ going to speak?" the lady from New York inquired, with her cursory laugh. Olive had already disappeared; but Ransom heard her answer flung behind her into the room. "I am going to be hissed and hooted and insulted!" "Olive, Olive!" Verena suddenly shrieked; and her piercing cry might have reached the front. But Ransom had already, by muscular force, wrenched her away, and was hurrying her out, leaving Mrs. Tarrant to heave herself into the arms of Mrs. Burrage, who, he was sure, would, within a minute, loom upon her attractively through her tears, and supply her with a reminiscence, destined to be valuable, of aristocratic support and clever composure. In the outer labyrinth hasty groups, a little scared, were leaving the hall, giving up the game. Ransom, as he went, thrust the hood of Verena's long cloak over her head, to conceal her face and her identity. It quite prevented recognition, and as they mingled in the issuing crowd he perceived the quick, complete, tremendous silence which, in the hall, had greeted Olive Chancellor's rush to the front. Every sound instantly dropped, the hush was respectful, the great public waited, and whatever she should say to them (and he thought she might indeed be rather embarrassed) it was not apparent that they were likely to hurl the benches at her. Ransom, palpitating with his victory, felt now a little sorry for her, and was relieved to know that, even when exasperated, a Boston audience is not ungenerous. "Ah, now I am glad!" said Verena, when they reached the street. But though she was glad, he presently discovered that, beneath her hood, she was in tears. It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into which she was about to enter, these were not the last she was destined to shed. THE END 
19717	----	THE BOSTONIANS A NOVEL BY HENRY JAMES IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1921 _First Published in_ 1886 BOOK FIRST I "Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that. About ten; that is exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn't tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn't know whether she is or not, and she wouldn't for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don't know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at any rate." These words were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was already absorbed in a book. The gentleman had not even needed to sit down to become interested: apparently he had taken up the volume from a table as soon as he came in, and, standing there, after a single glance round the apartment, had lost himself in its pages. He threw it down at the approach of Mrs. Luna, laughed, shook hands with her, and said in answer to her last remark, "You imply that you do tell fibs. Perhaps that is one." "Oh no; there is nothing wonderful in my being glad to see you," Mrs. Luna rejoined, "when I tell you that I have been three long weeks in this unprevaricating city." "That has an unflattering sound for me," said the young man. "I pretend not to prevaricate." "Dear me, what's the good of being a Southerner?" the lady asked. "Olive told me to tell you she hoped you will stay to dinner. And if she said it, she does really hope it. She is willing to risk that." "Just as I am?" the visitor inquired, presenting himself with rather a work-a-day aspect. Mrs. Luna glanced at him from head to foot, and gave a little smiling sigh, as if he had been a long sum in addition. And, indeed, he was very long, Basil Ransom, and he even looked a little hard and discouraging, like a column of figures, in spite of the friendly face which he bent upon his hostess's deputy, and which, in its thinness, had a deep dry line, a sort of premature wrinkle, on either side of the mouth. He was tall and lean, and dressed throughout in black; his shirt-collar was low and wide, and the triangle of linen, a little crumpled, exhibited by the opening of his waistcoat, was adorned by a pin containing a small red stone. In spite of this decoration the young man looked poor--as poor as a young man could look who had such a fine head and such magnificent eyes. Those of Basil Ransom were dark, deep, and glowing; his head had a character of elevation which fairly added to his stature; it was a head to be seen above the level of a crowd, on some judicial bench or political platform, or even on a bronze medal. His forehead was high and broad, and his thick black hair, perfectly straight and glossy, and without any division, rolled back from it in a leonine manner. These things, the eyes especially, with their smouldering fire, might have indicated that he was to be a great American statesman; or, on the other hand, they might simply have proved that he came from Carolina or Alabama. He came, in fact, from Mississippi, and he spoke very perceptibly with the accent of that country. It is not in my power to reproduce by any combination of characters this charming dialect; but the initiated reader will have no difficulty in evoking the sound, which is to be associated in the present instance with nothing vulgar or vain. This lean, pale, sallow, shabby, striking young man, with his superior head, his sedentary shoulders, his expression of bright grimness and hard enthusiasm, his provincial, distinguished appearance, is, as a representative of his sex, the most important personage in my narrative; he played a very active part in the events I have undertaken in some degree to set forth. And yet the reader who likes a complete image, who desires to read with the senses as well as with the reason, is entreated not to forget that he prolonged his consonants and swallowed his vowels, that he was guilty of elisions and interpolations which were equally unexpected, and that his discourse was pervaded by something sultry and vast, something almost African in its rich, basking tone, something that suggested the teeming expanse of the cotton-field. Mrs. Luna looked up at all this, but saw only a part of it; otherwise she would not have replied in a bantering manner, in answer to his inquiry: "Are you ever different from this?" Mrs. Luna was familiar--intolerably familiar. Basil Ransom coloured a little. Then he said: "Oh yes; when I dine out I usually carry a six-shooter and a bowie-knife." And he took up his hat vaguely--a soft black hat with a low crown and an immense straight brim. Mrs. Luna wanted to know what he was doing. She made him sit down; she assured him that her sister quite expected him, would feel as sorry as she could ever feel for anything--for she was a kind of fatalist, anyhow--if he didn't stay to dinner. It was an immense pity--she herself was going out; in Boston you must jump at invitations. Olive, too, was going somewhere after dinner, but he mustn't mind that; perhaps he would like to go with her. It wasn't a party--Olive didn't go to parties; it was one of those weird meetings she was so fond of. "What kind of meetings do you refer to? You speak as if it were a rendezvous of witches on the Brocken." "Well, so it is; they are all witches and wizards, mediums, and spirit-rappers, and roaring radicals." Basil Ransom stared; the yellow light in his brown eyes deepened. "Do you mean to say your sister's a roaring radical?" "A radical? She's a female Jacobin--she's a nihilist. Whatever is, is wrong, and all that sort of thing. If you are going to dine with her, you had better know it." "Oh, murder!" murmured the young man vaguely, sinking back in his chair with his arms folded. He looked at Mrs. Luna with intelligent incredulity. She was sufficiently pretty; her hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack with her vivacity; and from beneath the stiff little plaits of her petticoat a small fat foot protruded, resting upon a stilted heel. She was attractive and impertinent, especially the latter. He seemed to think it was a great pity, what she had told him; but he lost himself in this consideration, or, at any rate, said nothing for some time, while his eyes wandered over Mrs. Luna, and he probably wondered what body of doctrine _she_ represented, little as she might partake of the nature of her sister. Many things were strange to Basil Ransom; Boston especially was strewn with surprises, and he was a man who liked to understand. Mrs. Luna was drawing on her gloves; Ransom had never seen any that were so long; they reminded him of stockings, and he wondered how she managed without garters above the elbow. "Well, I suppose I might have known that," he continued, at last. "You might have known what?" "Well, that Miss Chancellor would be all that you say. She was brought up in the city of reform." "Oh, it isn't the city; it's just Olive Chancellor. She would reform the solar system if she could get hold of it. She'll reform you, if you don't look out. That's the way I found her when I returned from Europe." "Have you been in Europe?" Ransom asked. "Mercy, yes! Haven't you?" "No, I haven't been anywhere. Has your sister?" "Yes; but she stayed only an hour or two. She hates it; she would like to abolish it. Didn't you know I had been to Europe?" Mrs. Luna went on, in the slightly aggrieved tone of a woman who discovers the limits of her reputation. Ransom reflected he might answer her that until five minutes ago he didn't know she existed; but he remembered that this was not the way in which a Southern gentleman spoke to ladies, and he contented himself with saying that he must condone his Boeotian ignorance (he was fond of an elegant phrase); that he lived in a part of the country where they didn't think much about Europe, and that he had always supposed she was domiciled in New York. This last remark he made at a venture, for he had, naturally, not devoted any supposition whatever to Mrs. Luna. His dishonesty, however, only exposed him the more. "If you thought I lived in New York, why in the world didn't you come and see me?" the lady inquired. "Well, you see, I don't go out much, except to the courts." "Do you mean the law-courts? Every one has got some profession over here! Are you very ambitious? You look as if you were." "Yes, very," Basil Ransom replied, with a smile, and the curious feminine softness with which Southern gentlemen enunciate that adverb. Mrs. Luna explained that she had been living in Europe for several years--ever since her husband died--but had come home a month before, come home with her little boy, the only thing she had in the world, and was paying a visit to her sister, who, of course, was the nearest thing after the child. "But it isn't the same," she said. "Olive and I disagree so much." "While you and your little boy don't," the young man remarked. "Oh no, I never differ from Newton!" And Mrs. Luna added that now she was back she didn't know what she should do. That was the worst of coming back; it was like being born again, at one's age--one had to begin life afresh. One didn't even know what one had come back for. There were people who wanted one to spend the winter in Boston; but she couldn't stand that--she knew, at least, what she had not come back for. Perhaps she should take a house in Washington; did he ever hear of that little place? They had invented it while she was away. Besides, Olive didn't want her in Boston, and didn't go through the form of saying so. That was one comfort with Olive; she never went through any forms. Basil Ransom had got up just as Mrs. Luna made this last declaration; for a young lady had glided into the room, who stopped short as it fell upon her ears. She stood there looking, consciously and rather seriously, at Mr. Ransom; a smile of exceeding faintness played about her lips--it was just perceptible enough to light up the native gravity of her face. It might have been likened to a thin ray of moonlight resting upon the wall of a prison. "If that were true," she said, "I shouldn't tell you that I am very sorry to have kept you waiting." Her voice was low and agreeable--a cultivated voice--and she extended a slender white hand to her visitor, who remarked with some solemnity (he felt a certain guilt of participation in Mrs. Luna's indiscretion) that he was intensely happy to make her acquaintance. He observed that Miss Chancellor's hand was at once cold and limp; she merely placed it in his, without exerting the smallest pressure. Mrs. Luna explained to her sister that her freedom of speech was caused by his being a relation--though, indeed, he didn't seem to know much about them. She didn't believe he had ever heard of her, Mrs. Luna, though he pretended, with his Southern chivalry, that he had. She must be off to her dinner now, she saw the carriage was there, and in her absence Olive might give any version of her she chose. "I have told him you are a radical, and you may tell him, if you like, that I am a painted Jezebel. Try to reform him; a person from Mississippi is sure to be all wrong. I shall be back very late; we are going to a theatre-party; that's why we dine so early. Good-bye, Mr. Ransom," Mrs. Luna continued, gathering up the feathery white shawl which added to the volume of her fairness. "I hope you are going to stay a little, so that you may judge us for yourself. I should like you to see Newton, too; he is a noble little nature, and I want some advice about him. You only stay to-morrow? Why, what's the use of that? Well, mind you come and see me in New York; I shall be sure to be part of the winter there. I shall send you a card; I won't let you off. Don't come out; my sister has the first claim. Olive, why don't you take him to your female convention?" Mrs. Luna's familiarity extended even to her sister; she remarked to Miss Chancellor that she looked as if she were got up for a sea-voyage. "I am glad I haven't opinions that prevent my dressing in the evening!" she declared from the doorway. "The amount of thought they give to their clothing, the people who are afraid of looking frivolous!" II Whether much or little consideration had been directed to the result, Miss Chancellor certainly would not have incurred this reproach. She was habited in a plain dark dress, without any ornaments, and her smooth, colourless hair was confined as carefully as that of her sister was encouraged to stray. She had instantly seated herself, and while Mrs. Luna talked she kept her eyes on the ground, glancing even less toward Basil Ransom than toward that woman of many words. The young man was therefore free to look at her; a contemplation which showed him that she was agitated and trying to conceal it. He wondered why she was agitated, not foreseeing that he was destined to discover, later, that her nature was like a skiff in a stormy sea. Even after her sister had passed out of the room she sat there with her eyes turned away, as if there had been a spell upon her which forbade her to raise them. Miss Olive Chancellor, it may be confided to the reader, to whom in the course of our history I shall be under the necessity of imparting much occult information, was subject to fits of tragic shyness, during which she was unable to meet even her own eyes in the mirror. One of these fits had suddenly seized her now, without any obvious cause, though, indeed, Mrs. Luna had made it worse by becoming instantly so personal. There was nothing in the world so personal as Mrs. Luna; her sister could have hated her for it if she had not forbidden herself this emotion as directed to individuals. Basil Ransom was a young man of first-rate intelligence, but conscious of the narrow range, as yet, of his experience. He was on his guard against generalisations which might be hasty; but he had arrived at two or three that were of value to a gentleman lately admitted to the New York bar and looking out for clients. One of them was to the effect that the simplest division it is possible to make of the human race is into the people who take things hard and the people who take them easy. He perceived very quickly that Miss Chancellor belonged to the former class. This was written so intensely in her delicate face that he felt an unformulated pity for her before they had exchanged twenty words. He himself, by nature, took things easy; if he had put on the screw of late, it was after reflexion, and because circumstances pressed him close. But this pale girl, with her light-green eyes, her pointed features and nervous manner, was visibly morbid; it was as plain as day that she was morbid. Poor Ransom announced this fact to himself as if he had made a great discovery; but in reality he had never been so "Boeotian" as at that moment. It proved nothing of any importance, with regard to Miss Chancellor, to say that she was morbid; any sufficient account of her would lie very much to the rear of that. Why was she morbid, and why was her morbidness typical? Ransom might have exulted if he had gone back far enough to explain that mystery. The women he had hitherto known had been mainly of his own soft clime, and it was not often they exhibited the tendency he detected (and cursorily deplored) in Mrs. Luna's sister. That was the way he liked them--not to think too much, not to feel any responsibility for the government of the world, such as he was sure Miss Chancellor felt. If they would only be private and passive, and have no feeling but for that, and leave publicity to the sex of tougher hide! Ransom was pleased with the vision of that remedy; it must be repeated that he was very provincial. These considerations were not present to him as definitely as I have written them here; they were summed up in the vague compassion which his cousin's figure excited in his mind, and which was yet accompanied with a sensible reluctance to know her better, obvious as it was that with such a face as that she must be remarkable. He was sorry for her, but he saw in a flash that no one could help her: that was what made her tragic. He had not, seeking his fortune, come away from the blighted South, which weighed upon his heart, to look out for tragedies; at least he didn't want them outside of his office in Pine Street. He broke the silence ensuing upon Mrs. Luna's departure by one of the courteous speeches to which blighted regions may still encourage a tendency, and presently found himself talking comfortably enough with his hostess. Though he had said to himself that no one could help her, the effect of his tone was to dispel her shyness; it was her great advantage (for the career she had proposed to herself) that in certain conditions she was liable suddenly to become bold. She was reassured at finding that her visitor was peculiar; the way he spoke told her that it was no wonder he had fought on the Southern side. She had never yet encountered a personage so exotic, and she always felt more at her ease in the presence of anything strange. It was the usual things of life that filled her with silent rage; which was natural enough, inasmuch as, to her vision, almost everything that was usual was iniquitous. She had no difficulty in asking him now whether he would not stay to dinner--she hoped Adeline had given him her message. It had been when she was upstairs with Adeline, as his card was brought up, a sudden and very abnormal inspiration to offer him this (for her) really ultimate favour; nothing could be further from her common habit than to entertain alone, at any repast, a gentleman she had never seen. It was the same sort of impulse that had moved her to write to Basil Ransom, in the spring, after hearing accidentally that he had come to the North and intended, in New York, to practise his profession. It was her nature to look out for duties, to appeal to her conscience for tasks. This attentive organ, earnestly consulted, had represented to her that he was an offshoot of the old slave-holding oligarchy which, within her own vivid remembrance, had plunged the country into blood and tears, and that, as associated with such abominations, he was not a worthy object of patronage for a person whose two brothers--her only ones--had given up life for the Northern cause. It reminded her, however, on the other hand, that he too had been much bereaved, and, moreover, that he had fought and offered his own life, even if it had not been taken. She could not defend herself against a rich admiration--a kind of tenderness of envy--of any one who had been so happy as to have that opportunity. The most secret, the most sacred hope of her nature was that she might some day have such a chance, that she might be a martyr and die for something. Basil Ransom had lived, but she knew he had lived to see bitter hours. His family was ruined; they had lost their slaves, their property, their friends and relations, their home; had tasted of all the cruelty of defeat. He had tried for a while to carry on the plantation himself, but he had a millstone of debt round his neck, and he longed for some work which would transport him to the haunts of men. The State of Mississippi seemed to him the state of despair; so he surrendered the remnants of his patrimony to his mother and sisters, and, at nearly thirty years of age, alighted for the first time in New York, in the costume of his province, with fifty dollars in his pocket and a gnawing hunger in his heart. That this incident had revealed to the young man his ignorance of many things--only, however, to make him say to himself, after the first angry blush, that here he would enter the game and here he would win it--so much Olive Chancellor could not know; what was sufficient for her was that he had rallied, as the French say, had accepted the accomplished fact, had admitted that North and South were a single, indivisible political organism. Their cousinship--that of Chancellors and Ransoms--was not very close; it was the kind of thing that one might take up or leave alone, as one pleased. It was "in the female line," as Basil Ransom had written, in answering her letter with a good deal of form and flourish; he spoke as if they had been royal houses. Her mother had wished to take it up; it was only the fear of seeming patronising to people in misfortune that had prevented her from writing to Mississippi. If it had been possible to send Mrs. Ransom money, or even clothes, she would have liked that; but she had no means of ascertaining how such an offering would be taken. By the time Basil came to the North--making advances, as it were--Mrs. Chancellor had passed away; so it was for Olive, left alone in the little house in Charles Street (Adeline being in Europe), to decide. She knew what her mother would have done, and that helped her decision; for her mother always chose the positive course. Olive had a fear of everything, but her greatest fear was of being afraid. She wished immensely to be generous, and how could one be generous unless one ran a risk? She had erected it into a sort of rule of conduct that whenever she saw a risk she was to take it; and she had frequent humiliations at finding herself safe after all. She was perfectly safe after writing to Basil Ransom; and, indeed, it was difficult to see what he could have done to her except thank her (he was only exceptionally superlative) for her letter, and assure her that he would come and see her the first time his business (he was beginning to get a little) should take him to Boston. He had now come, in redemption of his grateful vow, and even this did not make Miss Chancellor feel that she had courted danger. She saw (when once she had looked at him) that he would not put those worldly interpretations on things which, with her, it was both an impulse and a principle to defy. He was too simple--too Mississippian--for that; she was almost disappointed. She certainly had not hoped that she might have struck him as making unwomanly overtures (Miss Chancellor hated this epithet almost as much as she hated its opposite); but she had a presentiment that he would be too good-natured, primitive to that degree. Of all things in the world, contention was most sweet to her (though why it is hard to imagine, for it always cost her tears, headaches, a day or two in bed, acute emotion), and it was very possible Basil Ransom would not care to contend. Nothing could be more displeasing than this indifference when people didn't agree with you. That he should agree she did not in the least expect of him; how could a Mississippian agree? If she had supposed he would agree, she would not have written to him. III When he had told her that if she would take him as he was he should be very happy to dine with her, she excused herself a moment and went to give an order in the dining-room. The young man, left alone, looked about the parlour--the two parlours which, in their prolonged, adjacent narrowness, formed evidently one apartment--and wandered to the windows at the back, where there was a view of the water; Miss Chancellor having the good fortune to dwell on that side of Charles Street toward which, in the rear, the afternoon sun slants redly, from an horizon indented at empty intervals with wooden spires, the masts of lonely boats, the chimneys of dirty "works," over a brackish expanse of anomalous character, which is too big for a river and too small for a bay. The view seemed to him very picturesque, though in the gathered dusk little was left of it save a cold yellow streak in the west, a gleam of brown water, and the reflexion of the lights that had begun to show themselves in a row of houses, impressive to Ransom in their extreme modernness, which overlooked the same lagoon from a long embankment on the left, constructed of stones roughly piled. He thought this prospect, from a city-house, almost romantic; and he turned from it back to the interior illuminated now by a lamp which the parlour-maid had placed on a table while he stood at the window as to something still more genial and interesting. The artistic sense in Basil Ransom had not been highly cultivated; neither (though he had passed his early years as the son of a rich man) was his conception of material comfort very definite; it consisted mainly of the vision of plenty of cigars and brandy and water and newspapers, and a cane-bottomed arm-chair of the right inclination, from which he could stretch his legs. Nevertheless it seemed to him he had never seen an interior that was so much an interior as this queer corridor-shaped drawing-room of his new-found kinswoman; he had never felt himself in the presence of so much organised privacy or of so many objects that spoke of habits and tastes. Most of the people he had hitherto known had no tastes; they had a few habits, but these were not of a sort that required much upholstery. He had not as yet been in many houses in New York, and he had never before seen so many accessories. The general character of the place struck him as Bostonian; this was, in fact, very much what he had supposed Boston to be. He had always heard Boston was a city of culture, and now there was culture in Miss Chancellor's tables and sofas, in the books that were everywhere, on little shelves like brackets (as if a book were a statuette), in the photographs and watercolours that covered the walls, in the curtains that were festooned rather stiffly in the doorways. He looked at some of the books and saw that his cousin read German; and his impression of the importance of this (as a symptom of superiority) was not diminished by the fact that he himself had mastered the tongue (knowing it contained a large literature of jurisprudence) during a long, empty, deadly summer on the plantation. It is a curious proof of a certain crude modesty inherent in Basil Ransom that the main effect of his observing his cousin's German books was to give him an idea of the natural energy of Northerners. He had noticed it often before; he had already told himself that he must count with it. It was only after much experience he made the discovery that few Northerners were, in their secret soul, so energetic as he. Many other persons had made it before that. He knew very little about Miss Chancellor; he had come to see her only because she wrote to him; he would never have thought of looking her up, and since then there had been no one in New York he might ask about her. Therefore he could only guess that she was a rich young woman; such a house, inhabited in such a way by a quiet spinster, implied a considerable income. How much? he asked himself; five thousand, ten thousand, fifteen thousand a year? There was richness to our panting young man in the smallest of these figures. He was not of a mercenary spirit, but he had an immense desire for success, and he had more than once reflected that a moderate capital was an aid to achievement. He had seen in his younger years one of the biggest failures that history commemorates, an immense national _fiasco_, and it had implanted in his mind a deep aversion to the ineffectual. It came over him, while he waited for his hostess to reappear, that she was unmarried as well as rich, that she was sociable (her letter answered for that) as well as single; and he had for a moment a whimsical vision of becoming a partner in so flourishing a firm. He ground his teeth a little as he thought of the contrasts of the human lot; this cushioned feminine nest made him feel unhoused and underfed. Such a mood, however, could only be momentary, for he was conscious at bottom of a bigger stomach than all the culture of Charles Street could fill. Afterwards, when his cousin had come back and they had gone down to dinner together, where he sat facing her at a little table decorated in the middle with flowers, a position from which he had another view, through a window where the curtain remained undrawn by her direction (she called his attention to this--it was for his benefit), of the dusky, empty river, spotted with points of light--at this period, I say, it was very easy for him to remark to himself that nothing would induce him to make love to such a type as that. Several months later, in New York, in conversation with Mrs. Luna, of whom he was destined to see a good deal, he alluded by chance to this repast, to the way her sister had placed him at table, and to the remark with which she had pointed out the advantage of his seat. "That's what they call in Boston being very 'thoughtful,'" Mrs. Luna said, "giving you the Back Bay (don't you hate the name?) to look at, and then taking credit for it." This, however, was in the future; what Basil Ransom actually perceived was that Miss Chancellor was a signal old maid. That was her quality, her destiny; nothing could be more distinctly written. There are women who are unmarried by accident, and others who are unmarried by option; but Olive Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being. She was a spinster as Shelley was a lyric poet, or as the month of August is sultry. She was so essentially a celibate that Ransom found himself thinking of her as old, though when he came to look at her (as he said to himself) it was apparent that her years were fewer than his own. He did not dislike her, she had been so friendly; but, little by little, she gave him an uneasy feeling--the sense that you could never be safe with a person who took things so hard. It came over him that it was because she took things hard she had sought his acquaintance; it had been because she was strenuous, not because she was genial; she had had in her eye--and what an extraordinary eye it was!--not a pleasure, but a duty. She would expect him to be strenuous in return; but he couldn't--in private life, he couldn't; privacy for Basil Ransom consisted entirely in what he called "laying off." She was not so plain on further acquaintance as she had seemed to him at first; even the young Mississippian had culture enough to see that she was refined. Her white skin had a singular look of being drawn tightly across her face; but her features, though sharp and irregular, were delicate in a fashion that suggested good breeding. Their line was perverse, but it was not poor. The curious tint of her eyes was a living colour; when she turned it upon you, you thought vaguely of the glitter of green ice. She had absolutely no figure, and presented a certain appearance of feeling cold. With all this, there was something very modern and highly developed in her aspect; she had the advantages as well as the drawbacks of a nervous organisation. She smiled constantly at her guest, but from the beginning to the end of dinner, though he made several remarks that he thought might prove amusing, she never once laughed. Later, he saw that she was a woman without laughter; exhilaration, if it ever visited her, was dumb. Once only, in the course of his subsequent acquaintance with her, did it find a voice; and then the sound remained in Ransom's ear as one of the strangest he had heard. She asked him a great many questions, and made no comment on his answers, which only served to suggest to her fresh inquiries. Her shyness had quite left her, it did not come back; she had confidence enough to wish him to see that she took a great interest in him. Why should she? he wondered, He couldn't believe he was one of _her_ kind; he was conscious of much Bohemianism--he drank beer, in New York, in cellars, knew no ladies, and was familiar with a "variety" actress. Certainly, as she knew him better, she would disapprove of him, though, of course, he would never mention the actress, nor even, if necessary, the beer. Ransom's conception of vice was purely as a series of special cases, of explicable accidents. Not that he cared; if it were a part of the Boston character to be inquiring, he would be to the last a courteous Mississippian. He would tell her about Mississippi as much as she liked; he didn't care how much he told her that the old ideas in the South were played out. She would not understand him any the better for that; she would not know how little his own views could be gathered from such a limited admission. What her sister imparted to him about her mania for "reform" had left in his mouth a kind of unpleasant aftertaste; he felt, at any rate, that if she had the religion of humanity--Basil Ransom had read Comte, he had read everything--she would never understand him. He, too, had a private vision of reform, but the first principle of it was to reform the reformers. As they drew to the close of a meal which, in spite of all latent incompatibilities, had gone off brilliantly, she said to him that she should have to leave him after dinner, unless perhaps he should be inclined to accompany her. She was going to a small gathering at the house of a friend who had asked a few people, "interested in new ideas," to meet Mrs. Farrinder. "Oh, thank you," said Basil Ransom. "Is it a party? I haven't been to a party since Mississippi seceded." "No; Miss Birdseye doesn't give parties. She's an ascetic." "Oh, well, we have had our dinner," Ransom rejoined, laughing. His hostess sat silent a moment, with her eyes on the ground; she looked at such times as if she were hesitating greatly between several things she might say, all so important that it was difficult to choose. "I think it might interest you," she remarked presently. "You will hear some discussion, if you are fond of that. Perhaps you wouldn't agree," she added, resting her strange eyes on him. "Perhaps I shouldn't--I don't agree with everything," he said, smiling and stroking his leg. "Don't you care for human progress?" Miss Chancellor went on. "I don't know--I never saw any. Are you going to show me some?" "I can show you an earnest effort towards it. That's the most one can be sure of. But I am not sure you are worthy." "Is it something very Bostonian? I should like to see that," said Basil Ransom. "There are movements in other cities. Mrs. Farrinder goes everywhere; she may speak to-night." "Mrs. Farrinder, the celebrated----?" "Yes, the celebrated; the great apostle of the emancipation of women. She is a great friend of Miss Birdseye." "And who is Miss Birdseye?" "She is one of our celebrities. She is the woman in the world, I suppose, who has laboured most for every wise reform. I think I ought to tell you," Miss Chancellor went on in a moment, "she was one of the earliest, one of the most passionate, of the old Abolitionists." She had thought, indeed, she ought to tell him that, and it threw her into a little tremor of excitement to do so. Yet, if she had been afraid he would show some irritation at this news, she was disappointed at the geniality with which he exclaimed: "Why, poor old lady--she must be quite mature!" It was therefore with some severity that she rejoined: "She will never be old. She is the youngest spirit I know. But if you are not in sympathy, perhaps you had better not come," she went on. "In sympathy with what, dear madam?" Basil Ransom asked, failing still, to her perception, to catch the tone of real seriousness. "If, as you say, there is to be a discussion, there will be different sides, and of course one can't sympathise with both." "Yes, but every one will, in his way--or in her way--plead the cause of the new truths. If you don't care for them, you won't go with us." "I tell you I haven't the least idea what they are! I have never yet encountered in the world any but old truths--as old as the sun and moon. How can I know? But _do_ take me; it's such a chance to see Boston." "It isn't Boston--it's humanity!" Miss Chancellor, as she made this remark, rose from her chair, and her movement seemed to say that she consented. But before she quitted her kinsman to get ready, she observed to him that she was sure he knew what she meant; he was only pretending he didn't. "Well, perhaps, after all, I have a general idea," he confessed; "but don't you see how this little reunion will give me a chance to fix it?" She lingered an instant, with her anxious face. "Mrs. Farrinder will fix it!" she said; and she went to prepare herself. It was in this poor young lady's nature to be anxious, to have scruple within scruple and to forecast the consequences of things. She returned in ten minutes, in her bonnet, which she had apparently assumed in recognition of Miss Birdseye's asceticism. As she stood there drawing on her gloves--her visitor had fortified himself against Mrs. Farrinder by another glass of wine--she declared to him that she quite repented of having proposed to him to go; something told her that he would be an unfavourable element. "Why, is it going to be a spiritual _séance_?" Basil Ransom asked. "Well, I have heard at Miss Birdseye's some inspirational speaking." Olive Chancellor was determined to look him straight in the face as she said this; her sense of the way it might strike him operated as a cogent, not as a deterrent, reason. "Why, Miss Olive, it's just got up on purpose for me!" cried the young Mississippian, radiant, and clasping his hands. She thought him very handsome as he said this, but reflected that unfortunately men didn't care for the truth, especially the new kinds, in proportion as they were good-looking. She had, however, a moral resource that she could always fall back upon; it had already been a comfort to her, on occasions of acute feeling, that she hated men, as a class, anyway. "And I want so much to see an old Abolitionist; I have never laid eyes on one," Basil Ransom added. "Of course you couldn't see one in the South; you were too afraid of them to let them come there!" She was now trying to think of something she might say that would be sufficiently disagreeable to make him cease to insist on accompanying her; for, strange to record--if anything, in a person of that intense sensibility, be stranger than any other--her second thought with regard to having asked him had deepened with the elapsing moments into an unreasoned terror of the effect of his presence. "Perhaps Miss Birdseye won't like you," she went on, as they waited for the carriage. "I don't know; I reckon she will," said Basil Ransom good-humouredly. He evidently had no intention of giving up his opportunity. From the window of the dining-room, at that moment, they heard the carriage drive up. Miss Birdseye lived at the South End; the distance was considerable, and Miss Chancellor had ordered a hackney-coach, it being one of the advantages of living in Charles Street that stables were near. The logic of her conduct was none of the clearest; for if she had been alone she would have proceeded to her destination by the aid of the street-car; not from economy (for she had the good fortune not to be obliged to consult it to that degree), and not from any love of wandering about Boston at night (a kind of exposure she greatly disliked), but by reason of a theory she devotedly nursed, a theory which bade her put off invidious differences and mingle in the common life. She would have gone on foot to Boylston Street, and there she would have taken the public conveyance (in her heart she loathed it) to the South End. Boston was full of poor girls who had to walk about at night and to squeeze into horse-cars in which every sense was displeased; and why should she hold herself superior to these? Olive Chancellor regulated her conduct on lofty principles, and this is why, having to-night the advantage of a gentleman's protection, she sent for a carriage to obliterate that patronage. If they had gone together in the common way she would have seemed to owe it to him that she should be so daring, and he belonged to a sex to which she wished to be under no obligations. Months before, when she wrote to him, it had been with the sense, rather, of putting _him_ in debt. As they rolled toward the South End, side by side, in a good deal of silence, bouncing and bumping over the railway-tracks very little less, after all, than if their wheels had been fitted to them, and looking out on either side at rows of red houses, dusky in the lamp-light, with protuberant fronts, approached by ladders of stone; as they proceeded, with these contemplative undulations, Miss Chancellor said to her companion, with a concentrated desire to defy him, as a punishment for having thrown her (she couldn't tell why) into such a tremor: "Don't you believe, then, in the coming of a better day--in its being possible to do something for the human race?" Poor Ransom perceived the defiance, and he felt rather bewildered; he wondered what type, after all, he _had_ got hold of, and what game was being played with him. Why had she made advances, if she wanted to pinch him this way? However, he was good for any game--that one as well as another--and he saw that he was "in" for something of which he had long desired to have a nearer view. "Well, Miss Olive," he answered, putting on again his big hat, which he had been holding in his lap, "what strikes me most is that the human race has got to bear its troubles." "That's what men say to women, to make them patient in the position they have made for them." "Oh, the position of women!" Basil Ransom exclaimed. "The position of women is to make fools of men. I would change my position for yours any day," he went on. "That's what I said to myself as I sat there in your elegant home." He could not see, in the dimness of the carriage, that she had flushed quickly, and he did not know that she disliked to be reminded of certain things which, for her, were mitigations of the hard feminine lot. But the passionate quaver with which, a moment later, she answered him sufficiently assured him that he had touched her at a tender point. "Do you make it a reproach to me that I happen to have a little money? The dearest wish of my heart is to do something with it for others--for the miserable." Basil Ransom might have greeted this last declaration with the sympathy it deserved, might have commended the noble aspirations of his kinswoman. But what struck him, rather, was the oddity of so sudden a sharpness of pitch in an intercourse which, an hour or two before, had begun in perfect amity, and he burst once more into an irrepressible laugh. This made his companion feel, with intensity, how little she was joking. "I don't know why I should care what you think," she said. "Don't care--don't care. What does it matter? It is not of the slightest importance." He might say that, but it was not true; she felt that there were reasons why she should care. She had brought him into her life, and she should have to pay for it. But she wished to know the worst at once. "Are you against our emancipation?" she asked, turning a white face on him in the momentary radiance of a street-lamp. "Do you mean your voting and preaching and all that sort of thing?" He made this inquiry, but seeing how seriously she would take his answer, he was almost frightened, and hung fire. "I will tell you when I have heard Mrs. Farrinder." They had arrived at the address given by Miss Chancellor to the coachman, and their vehicle stopped with a lurch. Basil Ransom got out; he stood at the door with an extended hand, to assist the young lady. But she seemed to hesitate; she sat there with her spectral face. "You hate it!" she exclaimed, in a low tone. "Miss Birdseye will convert me," said Ransom, with intention; for he had grown very curious, and he was afraid that now, at the last, Miss Chancellor would prevent his entering the house. She alighted without his help, and behind her he ascended the high steps of Miss Birdseye's residence. He had grown very curious, and among the things he wanted to know was why in the world this ticklish spinster had written to him. IV She had told him before they started that they should be early; she wished to see Miss Birdseye alone, before the arrival of any one else. This was just for the pleasure of seeing her--it was an opportunity; she was always so taken up with others. She received Miss Chancellor in the hall of the mansion, which had a salient front, an enormous and very high number--756--painted in gilt on the glass light above the door, a tin sign bearing the name of a doctress (Mary J. Prance) suspended from one of the windows of the basement, and a peculiar look of being both new and faded--a kind of modern fatigue--like certain articles of commerce which are sold at a reduction as shop-worn. The hall was very narrow; a considerable part of it was occupied by a large hat-tree, from which several coats and shawls already depended; the rest offered space for certain lateral demonstrations on Miss Birdseye's part. She sidled about her visitors, and at last went round to open for them a door of further admission, which happened to be locked inside. She was a little old lady, with an enormous head; that was the first thing Ransom noticed--the vast, fair, protuberant, candid, ungarnished brow, surmounting a pair of weak, kind, tired-looking eyes, and ineffectually balanced in the rear by a cap which had the air of falling backward, and which Miss Birdseye suddenly felt for while she talked, with unsuccessful irrelevant movements. She had a sad, soft, pale face, which (and it was the effect of her whole head) looked as if it had been soaked, blurred, and made vague by exposure to some slow dissolvent. The long practice of philanthropy had not given accent to her features; it had rubbed out their transitions, their meanings. The waves of sympathy, of enthusiasm, had wrought upon them in the same way in which the waves of time finally modify the surface of old marble busts, gradually washing away their sharpness, their details. In her large countenance her dim little smile scarcely showed. It was a mere sketch of a smile, a kind of instalment, or payment on account; it seemed to say that she would smile more if she had time, but that you could see, without this, that she was gentle and easy to beguile. She always dressed in the same way: she wore a loose black jacket, with deep pockets, which were stuffed with papers, memoranda of a voluminous correspondence; and from beneath her jacket depended a short stuff dress. The brevity of this simple garment was the one device by which Miss Birdseye managed to suggest that she was a woman of business, that she wished to be free for action. She belonged to the Short-Skirts League, as a matter of course; for she belonged to any and every league that had been founded for almost any purpose whatever. This did not prevent her being a confused, entangled, inconsequent, discursive old woman, whose charity began at home and ended nowhere, whose credulity kept pace with it, and who knew less about her fellow-creatures, if possible, after fifty years of humanitary zeal, than on the day she had gone into the field to testify against the iniquity of most arrangements. Basil Ransom knew very little about such a life as hers, but she seemed to him a revelation of a class, and a multitude of socialistic figures, of names and episodes that he had heard of, grouped themselves behind her. She looked as if she had spent her life on platforms, in audiences, in conventions, in phalansteries, in _séances_; in her faded face there was a kind of reflexion of ugly lecture-lamps; with its habit of an upward angle, it seemed turned toward a public speaker, with an effort of respiration in the thick air in which social reforms are usually discussed. She talked continually, in a voice of which the spring seemed broken, like that of an over-worked bell-wire; and when Miss Chancellor explained that she had brought Mr. Ransom because he was so anxious to meet Mrs. Farrinder, she gave the young man a delicate, dirty, democratic little hand, looking at him kindly, as she could not help doing, but without the smallest discrimination as against others who might not have the good fortune (which involved, possibly, an injustice) to be present on such an interesting occasion. She struck him as very poor, but it was only afterward that he learned she had never had a penny in her life. No one had an idea how she lived; whenever money was given her she gave it away to a negro or a refugee. No woman could be less invidious, but on the whole she preferred these two classes of the human race. Since the Civil War much of her occupation was gone; for before that her best hours had been spent in fancying that she was helping some Southern slave to escape. It would have been a nice question whether, in her heart of hearts, for the sake of this excitement, she did not sometimes wish the blacks back in bondage. She had suffered in the same way by the relaxation of many European despotisms, for in former years much of the romance of her life had been in smoothing the pillow of exile for banished conspirators. Her refugees had been very precious to her; she was always trying to raise money for some cadaverous Pole, to obtain lessons for some shirtless Italian. There was a legend that an Hungarian had once possessed himself of her affections, and had disappeared after robbing her of everything she possessed. This, however, was very apocryphal, for she had never possessed anything, and it was open to grave doubt that she could have entertained a sentiment so personal. She was in love, even in those days, only with causes, and she languished only for emancipations. But they had been the happiest days, for when causes were embodied in foreigners (what else were the Africans?), they were certainly more appealing. She had just come down to see Doctor Prance--to see whether she wouldn't like to come up. But she wasn't in her room, and Miss Birdseye guessed she had gone out to her supper; she got her supper at a boarding-table about two blocks off. Miss Birdseye expressed the hope that Miss Chancellor had had hers; she would have had plenty of time to take it, for no one had come in yet; she didn't know what made them all so late. Ransom perceived that the garments suspended to the hat-rack were not a sign that Miss Birdseye's friends had assembled; if he had gone a little further still he would have recognised the house as one of those in which mysterious articles of clothing are always hooked to something in the hall. Miss Birdseye's visitors, those of Doctor Prance, and of other tenants--for Number 756 was the common residence of several persons, among whom there prevailed much vagueness of boundary--used to leave things to be called for; many of them went about with satchels and reticules, for which they were always looking for places of deposit. What completed the character of this interior was Miss Birdseye's own apartment, into which her guests presently made their way, and where they were joined by various other members of the good lady's circle. Indeed, it completed Miss Birdseye herself, if anything could be said to render that office to this essentially formless old woman, who had no more outline than a bundle of hay. But the bareness of her long, loose, empty parlour (it was shaped exactly like Miss Chancellor's) told that she had never had any needs but moral needs, and that all her history had been that of her sympathies. The place was lighted by a small hot glare of gas, which made it look white and featureless. It struck even Basil Ransom with its flatness, and he said to himself that his cousin must have a very big bee in her bonnet to make her like such a house. He did not know then, and he never knew, that she mortally disliked it, and that in a career in which she was constantly exposing herself to offence and laceration, her most poignant suffering came from the injury of her taste. She had tried to kill that nerve, to persuade herself that taste was only frivolity in the disguise of knowledge; but her susceptibility was constantly blooming afresh and making her wonder whether an absence of nice arrangements were a necessary part of the enthusiasm of humanity. Miss Birdseye was always trying to obtain employment, lessons in drawing, orders for portraits, for poor foreign artists, as to the greatness of whose talent she pledged herself without reserve; but in point of fact she had not the faintest sense of the scenic or plastic side of life. Toward nine o'clock the light of her hissing burners smote the majestic person of Mrs. Farrinder, who might have contributed to answer that question of Miss Chancellor's in the negative. She was a copious, handsome woman, in whom angularity had been corrected by the air of success; she had a rustling dress (it was evident what _she_ thought about taste), abundant hair of a glossy blackness, a pair of folded arms, the expression of which seemed to say that rest, in such a career as hers, was as sweet as it was brief, and a terrible regularity of feature. I apply that adjective to her fine placid mask because she seemed to face you with a question of which the answer was preordained, to ask you how a countenance could fail to be noble of which the measurements were so correct. You could contest neither the measurements nor the nobleness, and had to feel that Mrs. Farrinder imposed herself. There was a lithographic smoothness about her, and a mixture of the American matron and the public character. There was something public in her eye, which was large, cold, and quiet; it had acquired a sort of exposed reticence from the habit of looking down from a lecture-desk, over a sea of heads, while its distinguished owner was eulogised by a leading citizen. Mrs. Farrinder, at almost any time, had the air of being introduced by a few remarks. She talked with great slowness and distinctness, and evidently a high sense of responsibility; she pronounced every syllable of every word and insisted on being explicit. If, in conversation with her, you attempted to take anything for granted, or to jump two or three steps at a time, she paused, looking at you with a cold patience, as if she knew that trick, and then went on at her own measured pace. She lectured on temperance and the rights of women; the ends she laboured for were to give the ballot to every woman in the country and to take the flowing bowl from every man. She was held to have a very fine manner, and to embody the domestic virtues and the graces of the drawing-room; to be a shining proof, in short, that the forum, for ladies, is not necessarily hostile to the fireside. She had a husband, and his name was Amariah. Doctor Prance had come back from supper and made her appearance in response to an invitation that Miss Birdseye's relaxed voice had tinkled down to her from the hall over the banisters, with much repetition, to secure attention. She was a plain, spare young woman, with short hair and an eye-glass; she looked about her with a kind of near-sighted deprecation, and seemed to hope that she should not be expected to generalise in any way, or supposed to have come up for any purpose more social than to see what Miss Birdseye wanted this time. By nine o'clock twenty other persons had arrived, and had placed themselves in the chairs that were ranged along the sides of the long, bald room, in which they ended by producing the similitude of an enormous street-car. The apartment contained little else but these chairs, many of which had a borrowed aspect, an implication of bare bedrooms in the upper regions; a table or two with a discoloured marble top, a few books, and a collection of newspapers piled up in corners. Ransom could see for himself that the occasion was not crudely festive; there was a want of convivial movement, and, among most of the visitors, even of mutual recognition. They sat there as if they were waiting for something; they looked obliquely and silently at Mrs. Farrinder, and were plainly under the impression that, fortunately, they were not there to amuse themselves. The ladies, who were much the more numerous, wore their bonnets, like Miss Chancellor; the men were in the garb of toil, many of them in weary-looking overcoats. Two or three had retained their overshoes, and as you approached them the odour of the india-rubber was perceptible. It was not, however, that Miss Birdseye ever noticed anything of that sort; she neither knew what she smelled nor tasted what she ate. Most of her friends had an anxious, haggard look, though there were sundry exceptions--half-a-dozen placid, florid faces. Basil Ransom wondered who they all were; he had a general idea they were mediums, communists, vegetarians. It was not, either, that Miss Birdseye failed to wander about among them with repetitions of inquiry and friendly absences of attention; she sat down near most of them in turn, saying "Yes, yes," vaguely and kindly, to remarks they made to her, feeling for the papers in the pockets of her loosened bodice, recovering her cap and sacrificing her spectacles, wondering most of all what had been her idea in convoking these people. Then she remembered that it had been connected in some way with Mrs. Farrinder; that this eloquent woman had promised to favour the company with a few reminiscences of her last campaign; to sketch even, perhaps, the lines on which she intended to operate during the coming winter. This was what Olive Chancellor had come to hear; this would be the attraction for the dark-eyed young man (he looked like a genius) she had brought with her. Miss Birdseye made her way back to the great lecturess, who was bending an indulgent attention on Miss Chancellor; the latter compressed into a small space, to be near her, and sitting with clasped hands and a concentration of inquiry which by contrast made Mrs. Farrinder's manner seem large and free. In her transit, however, the hostess was checked by the arrival of fresh pilgrims; she had no idea she had mentioned the occasion to so many people--she only remembered, as it were, those she had forgotten--and it was certainly a proof of the interest felt in Mrs. Farrinder's work. The people who had just come in were Doctor and Mrs. Tarrant and their daughter Verena; he was a mesmeric healer and she was of old Abolitionist stock. Miss Birdseye rested her dim, dry smile upon the daughter, who was new to her, and it floated before her that she would probably be remarkable as a genius; her parentage was an implication of that. There was a genius for Miss Birdseye in every bush. Selah Tarrant had effected wonderful cures; she knew so many people--if they would only try him. His wife was a daughter of Abraham Greenstreet; she had kept a runaway slave in her house for thirty days. That was years before, when this girl must have been a child; but hadn't it thrown a kind of rainbow over her cradle, and wouldn't she naturally have some gift? The girl was very pretty, though she had red hair. V Mrs. Farrinder, meanwhile, was not eager to address the assembly. She confessed as much to Olive Chancellor, with a smile which asked that a temporary lapse of promptness might not be too harshly judged. She had addressed so many assemblies, and she wanted to hear what other people had to say. Miss Chancellor herself had thought so much on the vital subject; would not she make a few remarks and give them some of her experiences? How did the ladies on Beacon Street feel about the ballot? Perhaps she could speak for _them_ more than for some others. That was a branch of the question on which, it might be, the leaders had not information enough; but they wanted to take in everything, and why shouldn't Miss Chancellor just make that field her own? Mrs. Farrinder spoke in the tone of one who took views so wide that they might easily, at first, before you could see how she worked round, look almost meretricious; she was conscious of a scope that exceeded the first flight of your imagination. She urged upon her companion the idea of labouring in the world of fashion, appeared to attribute to her familiar relations with that mysterious realm, and wanted to know why she shouldn't stir up some of her friends down there on the Mill-dam? Olive Chancellor received this appeal with peculiar feelings. With her immense sympathy for reform, she found herself so often wishing that reformers were a little different. There was something grand about Mrs. Farrinder; it lifted one up to be with her: but there was a false note when she spoke to her young friend about the ladies in Beacon Street. Olive hated to hear that fine avenue talked about as if it were such a remarkable place, and to live there were a proof of worldly glory. All sorts of inferior people lived there, and so brilliant a woman as Mrs. Farrinder, who lived at Roxbury, ought not to mix things up. It was, of course, very wretched to be irritated by such mistakes; but this was not the first time Miss Chancellor had observed that the possession of nerves was not by itself a reason for embracing the new truths. She knew her place in the Boston hierarchy, and it was not what Mrs. Farrinder supposed; so that there was a want of perspective in talking to her as if she had been a representative of the aristocracy. Nothing could be weaker, she knew very well, than (in the United States) to apply that term too literally; nevertheless, it would represent a reality if one were to say that, by distinction, the Chancellors belonged to the _bourgeoisie_--the oldest and best. They might care for such a position or not (as it happened, they were very proud of it), but there they were, and it made Mrs. Farrinder seem provincial (there was something provincial, after all, in the way she did her hair too) not to understand. When Miss Birdseye spoke as if one were a "leader of society," Olive could forgive her even that odious expression, because, of course, one never pretended that she, poor dear, had the smallest sense of the real. She was heroic, she was sublime, the whole moral history of Boston was reflected in her displaced spectacles; but it was a part of her originality, as it were, that she was deliciously provincial. Olive Chancellor seemed to herself to have privileges enough without being affiliated to the exclusive set and having invitations to the smaller parties, which were the real test; it was a mercy for her that she had not that added immorality on her conscience. The ladies Mrs. Farrinder meant (it was to be supposed she meant some particular ones) might speak for themselves. She wished to work in another field; she had long been preoccupied with the romance of the people. She had an immense desire to know intimately some _very_ poor girl. This might seem one of the most accessible of pleasures; but, in point of fact, she had not found it so. There were two or three pale shop-maidens whose acquaintance she had sought; but they had seemed afraid of her, and the attempt had come to nothing. She took them more tragically then they took themselves; they couldn't make out what she wanted them to do, and they always ended by being odiously mixed up with Charlie. Charlie was a young man in a white overcoat and a paper collar; it was for him, in the last analysis, that they cared much the most. They cared far more about Charlie than about the ballot. Olive Chancellor wondered how Mrs. Farrinder would treat that branch of the question. In her researches among her young townswomen she had always found this obtrusive swain planted in her path, and she grew at last to dislike him extremely. It filled her with exasperation to think that he should be necessary to the happiness of his victims (she had learned that whatever they might talk about with her, it was of him and him only that they discoursed among themselves), and one of the main recommendations of the evening club for her fatigued, underpaid sisters, which it had long been her dream to establish, was that it would in some degree undermine his position--distinct as her prevision might be that he would be in waiting at the door. She hardly knew what to say to Mrs. Farrinder when this momentarily misdirected woman, still preoccupied with the Mill-dam, returned to the charge. "We want labourers in that field, though I know two or three lovely women--sweet _home-women_--moving in circles that are for the most part closed to every new voice, who are doing their best to help on the fight. I have several names that might surprise you, names well known on State Street. But we can't have too many recruits, especially among those whose refinement is generally acknowledged. If it be necessary, we are prepared to take certain steps to conciliate the shrinking. Our movement is for all--it appeals to the most delicate ladies. Raise the standard among them, and bring me a thousand names. I know several that I should like to have. I look after the details as well as the big currents," Mrs. Farrinder added, in a tone as explanatory as could be expected of such a woman, and with a smile of which the sweetness was thrilling to her listener. "I can't talk to those people, I can't!" said Olive Chancellor, with a face which seemed to plead for a remission of responsibility. "I want to give myself up to others; I want to know everything that lies beneath and out of sight, don't you know? I want to enter into the lives of women who are lonely, who are piteous. I want to be near to them--to help them. I want to do something--oh, I should like so to speak!" "We should be glad to have you make a few remarks at present," Mrs. Farrinder declared, with a punctuality which revealed the faculty of presiding. "Oh dear, no, I can't speak; I have none of that sort of talent. I have no self-possession, no eloquence; I can't put three words together. But I do want to contribute." "What _have_ you got?" Mrs. Farrinder inquired, looking at her interlocutress, up and down, with the eye of business, in which there was a certain chill. "Have you got money?" Olive was so agitated for the moment with the hope that this great woman would approve of her on the financial side that she took no time to reflect that some other quality might, in courtesy, have been suggested. But she confessed to possessing a certain capital, and the tone seemed rich and deep in which Mrs. Farrinder said to her, "Then contribute that!" She was so good as to develop this idea, and her picture of the part Miss Chancellor might play by making liberal donations to a fund for the diffusion among the women of America of a more adequate conception of their public and private rights--a fund her adviser had herself lately inaugurated--this bold, rapid sketch had the vividness which characterised the speaker's most successful public efforts. It placed Olive under the spell; it made her feel almost inspired. If her life struck others in that way--especially a woman like Mrs. Farrinder, whose horizon was so full--then there must be something for her to do. It was one thing to choose for herself, but now the great representative of the enfranchisement of their sex (from every form of bondage) had chosen for her. The barren, gas-lighted room grew richer and richer to her earnest eyes; it seemed to expand, to open itself to the great life of humanity. The serious, tired people, in their bonnets and overcoats, began to glow like a company of heroes. Yes, she would do something, Olive Chancellor said to herself; she would do something to brighten the darkness of that dreadful image that was always before her, and against which it seemed to her at times that she had been born to lead a crusade--the image of the unhappiness of women. The unhappiness of women! The voice of their silent suffering was always in her ears, the ocean of tears that they had shed from the beginning of time seemed to pour through her own eyes. Ages of oppression had rolled over them; uncounted millions had lived only to be tortured, to be crucified. They were her sisters, they were her own, and the day of their delivery had dawned. This was the only sacred cause; this was the great, the just revolution. It must triumph, it must sweep everything before it; it must exact from the other, the brutal, blood-stained, ravening race, the last particle of expiation! It would be the greatest change the world had seen; it would be a new era for the human family, and the names of those who had helped to show the way and lead the squadrons would be the brightest in the tables of fame. They would be names of women weak, insulted, persecuted, but devoted in every pulse of their being to the cause, and asking no better fate than to die for it. It was not clear to this interesting girl in what manner such a sacrifice (as this last) would be required of her, but she saw the matter through a kind of sunrise-mist of emotion which made danger as rosy as success. When Miss Birdseye approached, it transfigured her familiar, her comical shape, and made the poor little humanitary hack seem already a martyr. Olive Chancellor looked at her with love, remembered that she had never, in her long, unrewarded, weary life, had a thought or an impulse for herself. She had been consumed by the passion of sympathy; it had crumpled her into as many creases as an old glazed, distended glove. She had been laughed at, but she never knew it; she was treated as a bore, but she never cared. She had nothing in the world but the clothes on her back, and when she should go down into the grave she would leave nothing behind her but her grotesque, undistinguished, pathetic little name. And yet people said that women were vain, that they were personal, that they were interested! While Miss Birdseye stood there, asking Mrs. Farrinder if she wouldn't say something, Olive Chancellor tenderly fastened a small battered brooch which confined her collar and which had half detached itself. VI "Oh, thank you," said Miss Birdseye, "I shouldn't like to lose it; it was given me by Mirandola!" He had been one of her refugees in the old time, when two or three of her friends, acquainted with the limits of his resources, wondered how he had come into possession of the trinket. She had been diverted again, after her greeting with Doctor and Mrs. Tarrant, by stopping to introduce the tall, dark young man whom Miss Chancellor had brought with her to Doctor Prance. She had become conscious of his somewhat sombre figure, uplifted against the wall, near the door; he was leaning there in solitude, unacquainted with opportunities which Miss Birdseye felt to be, collectively, of value, and which were really, of course, what strangers came to Boston for. It did not occur to her to ask herself why Miss Chancellor didn't talk to him, since she had brought him; Miss Birdseye was incapable of a speculation of this kind. Olive, in fact, had remained vividly conscious of her kinsman's isolation until the moment when Mrs. Farrinder lifted her, with a word, to a higher plane. She watched him across the room; she saw that he might be bored. But she proposed to herself not to mind that; she had asked him, after all, not to come. Then he was no worse off than others; he was only waiting, like the rest; and before they left she would introduce him to Mrs. Farrinder. She might tell that lady who he was first; it was not every one that would care to know a person who had borne such a part in the Southern disloyalty. It came over our young lady that when she sought the acquaintance of her distant kinsman she had indeed done a more complicated thing than she suspected. The sudden uneasiness that he flung over her in the carriage had not left her, though she felt it less now she was with others, and especially that she was close to Mrs. Farrinder, who was such a fountain of strength. At any rate, if he was bored, he could speak to some one; there were excellent people near him, even if they _were_ ardent reformers. He could speak to that pretty girl who had just come in--the one with red hair--if he liked; Southerners were supposed to be so chivalrous! Miss Birdseye reasoned much less, and did not offer to introduce him to Verena Tarrant, who was apparently being presented by her parents to a group of friends at the other end of the room. It came back to Miss Birdseye, in this connexion, that, sure enough, Verena had been away for a long time--for nearly a year; had been on a visit to friends in the West, and would therefore naturally be a stranger to most of the Boston circle. Doctor Prance was looking at her--at Miss Birdseye--with little, sharp, fixed pupils; and the good lady wondered whether she were angry at having been induced to come up. She had a general impression that when genius was original its temper was high, and all this would be the case with Doctor Prance. She wanted to say to her that she could go down again if she liked; but even to Miss Birdseye's unsophisticated mind this scarcely appeared, as regards a guest, an adequate formula of dismissal. She tried to bring the young Southerner out; she said to him that she presumed they would have some entertainment soon--Mrs. Farrinder could be interesting when she tried! And then she bethought herself to introduce him to Doctor Prance; it might serve as a reason for having brought her up. Moreover, it would do her good to break up her work now and then; she pursued her medical studies far into the night, and Miss Birdseye, who was nothing of a sleeper (Mary Prance, precisely, had wanted to treat her for it), had heard her, in the stillness of the small hours, with her open windows (she had fresh air on the brain), sharpening instruments (it was Miss Birdseye's mild belief that she dissected), in a little physiological laboratory which she had set up in her back room, the room which, if she hadn't been a doctor, might have been her "chamber," and perhaps was, even with the dissecting, Miss Birdseye didn't know! She explained her young friends to each other, a trifle incoherently, perhaps, and then went to stir up Mrs. Farrinder. Basil Ransom had already noticed Doctor Prance; he had not been at all bored, and had observed every one in the room, arriving at all sorts of ingenious inductions. The little medical lady struck him as a perfect example of the "Yankee female"--the figure which, in the unregenerate imagination of the children of the cotton-States, was produced by the New England school-system, the Puritan code, the ungenial climate, the absence of chivalry. Spare, dry, hard, without a curve, an inflexion or a grace, she seemed to ask no odds in the battle of life and to be prepared to give none. But Ransom could see that she was not an enthusiast, and after his contact with his cousin's enthusiasm this was rather a relief to him. She looked like a boy, and not even like a good boy. It was evident that if she had been a boy, she would have "cut" school, to try private experiments in mechanics or to make researches in natural history. It was true that if she had been a boy she would have borne some relation to a girl, whereas Doctor Prance appeared to bear none whatever. Except her intelligent eye, she had no features to speak of. Ransom asked her if she were acquainted with the lioness, and on her staring at him, without response, explained that he meant the renowned Mrs. Farrinder. "Well, I don't know as I ought to say that I'm acquainted with her; but I've heard her on the platform. I have paid my half-dollar," the doctor added, with a certain grimness. "Well, did she convince you?" Ransom inquired. "Convince me of what, sir?" "That women are so superior to men." "Oh, deary me!" said Doctor Prance, with a little impatient sigh; "I guess I know more about women than she does." "And that isn't your opinion, I hope," said Ransom, laughing. "Men and women are all the same to me," Doctor Prance remarked. "I don't see any difference. There is room for improvement in both sexes. Neither of them is up to the standard." And on Ransom's asking her what the standard appeared to her to be, she said, "Well, they ought to live better; that's what they ought to do." And she went on to declare, further, that she thought they all talked too much. This had so long been Ransom's conviction that his heart quite warmed to Doctor Prance, and he paid homage to her wisdom in the manner of Mississippi--with a richness of compliment that made her turn her acute, suspicious eye upon him. This checked him; she was capable of thinking that _he_ talked too much--she herself having, apparently, no general conversation. It was german to the matter, at any rate, for him to observe that he believed they were to have a lecture from Mrs. Farrinder--he didn't know why she didn't begin. "Yes," said Doctor Prance, rather dryly, "I suppose that's what Miss Birdseye called me up for. She seemed to think I wouldn't want to miss that." "Whereas, I infer, you could console yourself for the loss of the oration," Ransom suggested. "Well, I've got some work. I don't want any one to teach me what a woman can do!" Doctor Prance declared. "She can find out some things, if she tries. Besides, I am familiar with Mrs. Farrinder's system; I know all she has got to say." "Well, what is it, then, since she continues to remain silent?" "Well, what it amounts to is just that women want to have a better time. That's what it comes to in the end. I am aware of that, without her telling me." "And don't you sympathise with such an aspiration?" "Well, I don't know as I cultivate the sentimental side," said Doctor Prance. "There's plenty of sympathy without mine. If they want to have a better time, I suppose it's natural; so do men too, I suppose. But I don't know as it appeals to me--to make sacrifices for it; it ain't such a wonderful time--the best you _can_ have!" This little lady was tough and technical; she evidently didn't care for great movements; she became more and more interesting to Basil Ransom, who, it is to be feared, had a fund of cynicism. He asked her if she knew his cousin, Miss Chancellor, whom he indicated, beside Mrs. Farrinder; _she_ believed, on the contrary, in wonderful times (she thought they were coming); she had plenty of sympathy, and he was sure she was willing to make sacrifices. Doctor Prance looked at her across the room for a moment; then she said she didn't know her, but she guessed she knew others like her--she went to see them when they were sick. "She's having a private lecture to herself," Ransom remarked; whereupon Doctor Prance rejoined, "Well, I guess she'll have to pay for it!" She appeared to regret her own half-dollar, and to be vaguely impatient of the behaviour of her sex. Ransom became so sensible of this that he felt it was indelicate to allude further to the cause of woman, and, for a change, endeavoured to elicit from his companion some information about the gentlemen present. He had given her a chance, vainly, to start some topic herself; but he could see that she had no interests beyond the researches from which, this evening, she had been torn, and was incapable of asking him a personal question. She knew two or three of the gentlemen; she had seen them before at Miss Birdseye's. Of course she knew principally ladies; the time hadn't come when a lady-doctor was sent for by a gentleman, and she hoped it never would, though some people seemed to think that this was what lady-doctors were working for. She knew Mr. Pardon; that was the young man with the "side-whiskers" and the white hair; he was a kind of editor, and he wrote, too, "over his signature"--perhaps Basil had read some of his works; he was under thirty, in spite of his white hair. He was a great deal thought of in magazine circles. She believed he was very bright--but she hadn't read anything. She didn't read much--not for amusement; only the _Transcript_. She believed Mr. Pardon sometimes wrote in the _Transcript_; well, she supposed he _was_ very bright. The other that she knew--only she didn't know him (she supposed Basil would think that queer)--was the tall, pale gentleman, with the black moustache and the eye-glass. She knew him because she had met him in society; but she didn't know him--well, because she didn't want to. If he should come and speak to her--and he looked as if he were going to work round that way--she should just say to him, "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," very coldly. She couldn't help it if he did think her dry; if _he_ were a little more dry, it might be better for him. What was the matter with him? Oh, she thought she had mentioned that; he was a mesmeric healer, he made miraculous cures. She didn't believe in his system or disbelieve in it, one way or the other; she only knew that she had been called to see ladies he had worked on, and she found that he had made them lose a lot of valuable time. He talked to them--well, as if he didn't know what he was saying. She guessed he was quite ignorant of physiology, and she didn't think he ought to go round taking responsibilities. She didn't want to be narrow, but she thought a person ought to know something. She supposed Basil would think her very uplifted; but he had put the question to her, as she might say. All she could say was she didn't want him to be laying his hands on any of _her_ folks; it was all done with the hands--what wasn't done with the tongue! Basil could see that Doctor Prance was irritated; that this extreme candour of allusion to her neighbour was probably not habitual to her, as a member of a society in which the casual expression of strong opinion generally produced waves of silence. But he blessed her irritation, for him it was so illuminating; and to draw further profit from it he asked her who the young lady was with the red hair--the pretty one, whom he had only noticed during the last ten minutes. She was Miss Tarrant, the daughter of the healer; hadn't she mentioned his name? Selah Tarrant; if he wanted to send for him. Doctor Prance wasn't acquainted with her, beyond knowing that she was the mesmerist's only child, and having heard something about her having some gift--she couldn't remember which it was. Oh, if she was his child, she would be sure to have some gift--if it was only the gift of the g----well, she didn't mean to say that; but a talent for conversation. Perhaps she could die and come to life again; perhaps she would show them her gift, as no one seemed inclined to do anything. Yes, she was pretty-appearing, but there was a certain indication of anæmia, and Doctor Prance would be surprised if she didn't eat too much candy. Basil thought she had an engaging exterior; it was his private reflexion, coloured doubtless by "sectional" prejudice, that she was the first pretty girl he had seen in Boston. She was talking with some ladies at the other end of the room; and she had a large red fan, which she kept constantly in movement. She was not a quiet girl; she fidgeted, was restless, while she talked, and had the air of a person who, whatever she might be doing, would wish to be doing something else. If people watched her a good deal, she also returned their contemplation, and her charming eyes had several times encountered those of Basil Ransom. But they wandered mainly in the direction of Mrs. Farrinder--they lingered upon the serene solidity of the great oratress. It was easy to see that the girl admired this beneficent woman, and felt it a privilege to be near her. It was apparent, indeed, that she was excited by the company in which she found herself; a fact to be explained by a reference to that recent period of exile in the West, of which we have had a hint, and in consequence of which the present occasion may have seemed to her a return to intellectual life. Ransom secretly wished that his cousin--since fate was to reserve for him a cousin in Boston--had been more like that. By this time a certain agitation was perceptible; several ladies, impatient of vain delay, had left their places, to appeal personally to Mrs. Farrinder, who was presently surrounded with sympathetic remonstrants. Miss Birdseye had given her up; it had been enough for Miss Birdseye that she should have said, when pressed (so far as her hostess, muffled in laxity, could press) on the subject of the general expectation, that she could only deliver her message to an audience which she felt to be partially hostile. There was no hostility there; they were all only too much in sympathy. "I don't require sympathy," she said, with a tranquil smile, to Olive Chancellor; "I am only myself, I only rise to the occasion, when I see prejudice, when I see bigotry, when I see injustice, when I see conservatism, massed before me like an army. Then I feel--I feel as I imagine Napoleon Bonaparte to have felt on the eve of one of his great victories. I _must_ have unfriendly elements--I like to win them over." Olive thought of Basil Ransom, and wondered whether he would do for an unfriendly element. She mentioned him to Mrs. Farrinder, who expressed an earnest hope that if he were opposed to the principles which were so dear to the rest of them, he might be induced to take the floor and testify on his own account. "I should be so happy to answer him," said Mrs. Farrinder, with supreme softness. "I should be so glad, at any rate, to exchange ideas with him." Olive felt a deep alarm at the idea of a public dispute between these two vigorous people (she had a perception that Ransom would be vigorous), not because she doubted of the happy issue, but because she herself would be in a false position, as having brought the offensive young man, and she had a horror of false positions. Miss Birdseye was incapable of resentment; she had invited forty people to hear Mrs. Farrinder speak, and now Mrs. Farrinder wouldn't speak. But she had such a beautiful reason for it! There was something martial and heroic in her pretext, and, besides, it was so characteristic, so free, that Miss Birdseye was quite consoled, and wandered away, looking at her other guests vaguely, as if she didn't know them from each other, while she mentioned to them, at a venture, the excuse for their disappointment, confident, evidently, that they would agree with her it was very fine. "But we can't pretend to be on the other side, just to start her up, can we?" she asked of Mr. Tarrant, who sat there beside his wife with a rather conscious but by no means complacent air of isolation from the rest of the company. "Well, I don't know--I guess we are all solid here," this gentleman replied, looking round him with a slow, deliberate smile, which made his mouth enormous, developed two wrinkles, as long as the wings of a bat, on either side of it, and showed a set of big, even, carnivorous teeth. "Selah," said his wife, laying her hand on the sleeve of his waterproof, "I wonder whether Miss Birdseye would be interested to hear Verena." "Well, if you mean she sings, it's a shame I haven't got a piano," Miss Birdseye took upon herself to respond. It came back to her that the girl had a gift. "She doesn't want a piano--she doesn't want anything," Selah remarked, giving no apparent attention to his wife. It was a part of his attitude in life never to appear to be indebted to another person for a suggestion, never to be surprised or unprepared. "Well, I don't know that the interest in singing is so general," said Miss Birdseye, quite unconscious of any slackness in preparing a substitute for the entertainment that had failed her. "It isn't singing, you'll see," Mrs. Tarrant declared. "What is it, then?" Mr. Tarrant unfurled his wrinkles, showed his back teeth. "It's inspirational." Miss Birdseye gave a small, vague, unsceptical laugh. "Well, if you can guarantee that----" "I think it would be acceptable," said Mrs. Tarrant; and putting up a half-gloved, familiar hand, she drew Miss Birdseye down to her, and the pair explained in alternation what it was their child could do. Meanwhile, Basil Ransom confessed to Doctor Prance that he was, after all, rather disappointed. He had expected more of a programme; he wanted to hear some of the new truths. Mrs. Farrinder, as he said, remained within her tent, and he had hoped not only to see these distinguished people but also to listen to them. "Well, _I_ ain't disappointed," the sturdy little doctress replied. "If any question had been opened, I suppose I should have had to stay." "But I presume you don't propose to retire." "Well, I've got to pursue my studies some time. I don't want the gentlemen-doctors to get ahead of me." "Oh, no one will ever get ahead of you, I'm very sure. And there is that pretty young lady going over to speak to Mrs. Farrinder. She's going to beg her for a speech--Mrs. Farrinder can't resist that." "Well, then, I'll just trickle out before she begins. Good-night, sir," said Doctor Prance, who by this time had begun to appear to Ransom more susceptible of domestication, as if she had been a small forest-creature, a catamount or a ruffled doe, that had learned to stand still while you stroked it, or even to extend a paw. She ministered to health, and she was healthy herself; if his cousin could have been even of this type Basil would have felt himself more fortunate. "Good-night, Doctor," he replied. "You haven't told me, after all, your opinion of the capacity of the ladies." "Capacity for what?" said Doctor Prance. "They've got a capacity for making people waste time. All I know is that I don't want any one to tell _me_ what a lady can do!" And she edged away from him softly, as if she had been traversing a hospital-ward, and presently he saw her reach the door, which, with the arrival of the later comers, had remained open. She stood there an instant, turning over the whole assembly a glance like the flash of a watchman's bull's-eye, and then quickly passed out. Ransom could see that she was impatient of the general question and bored with being reminded, even for the sake of her rights, that she was a woman--a detail that she was in the habit of forgetting, having as many rights as she had time for. It was certain that whatever might become of the movement at large, Doctor Prance's own little revolution was a success. VII She had no sooner left him than Olive Chancellor came towards him with eyes that seemed to say, "I don't care whether you are here now or not--I'm all right!" But what her lips said was much more gracious; she asked him if she mightn't have the pleasure of introducing him to Mrs. Farrinder. Ransom consented, with a little of his Southern flourish, and in a moment the lady got up to receive him from the midst of the circle that now surrounded her. It was an occasion for her to justify her reputation of an elegant manner, and it must be impartially related that she struck Ransom as having a dignity in conversation and a command of the noble style which could not have been surpassed by a daughter--one of the most accomplished, most far-descended daughters--of his own latitude. It was as if she had known that he was not eager for the changes she advocated, and wished to show him that, especially to a Southerner who had bitten the dust, her sex could be magnanimous. This knowledge of his secret heresy seemed to him to be also in the faces of the other ladies, whose circumspect glances, however (for he had not been introduced), treated it as a pity rather than as a shame. He was conscious of all these middle-aged feminine eyes, conscious of curls, rather limp, that depended from dusky bonnets, of heads poked forward, as if with a waiting, listening, familiar habit, of no one being very bright or gay--no one, at least, but that girl he had noticed before, who had a brilliant head, and who now hovered on the edge of the conclave. He met her eye again; she was watching him too. It had been in his thought that Mrs. Farrinder, to whom his cousin might have betrayed or misrepresented him, would perhaps defy him to combat, and he wondered whether he could pull himself together (he was extremely embarrassed) sufficiently to do honour to such a challenge. If she would fling down the glove on the temperance question, it seemed to him that it would be in him to pick it up; for the idea of a meddling legislation on this subject filled him with rage; the taste of liquor being good to him, and his conviction strong that civilisation itself would be in danger if it should fall into the power of a herd of vociferating women (I am but the reporter of his angry _formulae_) to prevent a gentleman from taking his glass. Mrs. Farrinder proved to him that she had not the eagerness of insecurity; she asked him if he wouldn't like to give the company some account of the social and political condition of the South. He begged to be excused, expressing at the same time a high sense of the honour done him by such a request, while he smiled to himself at the idea of his extemporising a lecture. He smiled even while he suspected the meaning of the look Miss Chancellor gave him: "Well, you are not of much account after all!" To talk to those people about the South--if they could have guessed how little he cared to do it! He had a passionate tenderness for his own country, and a sense of intimate connexion with it which would have made it as impossible for him to take a roomful of Northern fanatics into his confidence as to read aloud his mother's or his mistress's letters. To be quiet about the Southern land, not to touch her with vulgar hands, to leave her alone with her wounds and her memories, not prating in the market-place either of her troubles or her hopes, but waiting as a man should wait, for the slow process, the sensible beneficence, of time--this was the desire of Ransom's heart, and he was aware of how little it could minister to the entertainment of Miss Birdseye's guests. "We know so little about the women of the South; they are very voiceless," Mrs. Farrinder remarked. "How much can we count upon them? in what numbers would they flock to our standard? I have been recommended not to lecture in the Southern cities." "Ah, madam, that was very cruel advice--for us!" Basil Ransom exclaimed, with gallantry. "_I_ had a magnificent audience last spring in St. Louis," a fresh young voice announced, over the heads of the gathered group--a voice which, on Basil's turning, like every one else, for an explanation, appeared to have proceeded from the pretty girl with red hair. She had coloured a little with the effort of making this declaration, and she stood there smiling at her listeners. Mrs. Farrinder bent a benignant brow upon her, in spite of her being, evidently, rather a surprise. "Oh, indeed; and your subject, my dear young lady?" "The past history, the present condition, and the future prospects of our sex." "Oh, well, St. Louis--that's scarcely the South," said one of the ladies. "I'm sure the young lady would have had equal success at Charleston or New Orleans," Basil Ransom interposed. "Well, I wanted to go farther," the girl continued, "but I had no friends. I have friends in St. Louis." "You oughtn't to want for them anywhere," said Mrs. Farrinder, in a manner which, by this time, had quite explained her reputation. "I am acquainted with the loyalty of St. Louis." "Well, after that, you must let me introduce Miss Tarrant; she's perfectly dying to know you, Mrs. Farrinder." These words emanated from one of the gentlemen, the young man with white hair, who had been mentioned to Ransom by Doctor Prance as a celebrated magazinist. He, too, up to this moment, had hovered in the background, but he now gently clove the assembly (several of the ladies made way for him), leading in the daughter of the mesmerist. She laughed and continued to blush--her blush was the faintest pink; she looked very young and slim and fair as Mrs. Farrinder made way for her on the sofa which Olive Chancellor had quitted. "I _have_ wanted to know you; I admire you so much; I hoped so you would speak to-night. It's too lovely to see you, Mrs. Farrinder." So she expressed herself, while the company watched the encounter with a look of refreshed inanition. "You don't know who I am, of course; I'm just a girl who wants to thank you for all you have done for us. For you have spoken for us girls, just as much as--just as much as----" She hesitated now, looking about with enthusiastic eyes at the rest of the group, and meeting once more the gaze of Basil Ransom. "Just as much as for the old women," said Mrs. Farrinder genially. "You seem very well able to speak for yourself." "She speaks so beautifully--if she would only make a little address," the young man who had introduced her remarked. "It's a new style, quite original," he added. He stood there with folded arms, looking down at his work, the conjunction of the two ladies, with a smile; and Basil Ransom, remembering what Miss Prance had told him, and enlightened by his observation in New York of some of the sources from which newspapers are fed, was immediately touched by the conviction that he perceived in it the material of a paragraph. "My dear child, if you'll take the floor, I'll call the meeting to order," said Mrs. Farrinder. The girl looked at her with extraordinary candour and confidence. "If I could only hear you first--just to give me an atmosphere." "I've got no atmosphere; there's very little of the Indian summer about _me_! I deal with facts--hard facts," Mrs. Farrinder replied. "Have you ever heard me? If so, you know how crisp I am." "Heard you? I've lived on you! It's so much to me to see you. Ask mother if it ain't!" She had expressed herself, from the first word she uttered, with a promptness and assurance which gave almost the impression of a lesson rehearsed in advance. And yet there was a strange spontaneity in her manner, and an air of artless enthusiasm, of personal purity. If she was theatrical, she was naturally theatrical. She looked up at Mrs. Farrinder with all her emotion in her smiling eyes. This lady had been the object of many ovations; it was familiar to her that the collective heart of her sex had gone forth to her; but, visibly, she was puzzled by this unforeseen embodiment of gratitude and fluency, and her eyes wandered over the girl with a certain reserve, while, within the depth of her eminently public manner, she asked herself whether Miss Tarrant were a remarkable young woman or only a forward minx. She found a response which committed her to neither view; she only said, "We want the young--of course we want the young!" "Who is that charming creature?" Basil Ransom heard his cousin ask, in a grave, lowered tone, of Matthias Pardon, the young man who had brought Miss Tarrant forward. He didn't know whether Miss Chancellor knew him, or whether her curiosity had pushed her to boldness. Ransom was near the pair, and had the benefit of Mr. Pardon's answer. "The daughter of Doctor Tarrant, the mesmeric healer--Miss Verena. She's a high-class speaker." "What do you mean?" Olive asked. "Does she give public addresses?" "Oh yes, she has had quite a career in the West. I heard her last spring at Topeka. They call it inspirational. I don't know what it is--only it's exquisite; so fresh and poetical. She has to have her father to start her up. It seems to pass into her." And Mr. Pardon indulged in a gesture intended to signify the passage. Olive Chancellor made no rejoinder save a low, impatient sigh; she transferred her attention to the girl, who now held Mrs. Farrinder's hand in both her own, and was pleading with her just to prelude a little. "I want a starting-point--I want to know where I am," she said. "Just two or three of your grand old thoughts." Basil stepped nearer to his cousin; he remarked to her that Miss Verena was very pretty. She turned an instant, glanced at him, and then said, "Do you think so?" An instant later she added, "How you must hate this place!" "Oh, not now, we are going to have some fun," Ransom replied good-humouredly, if a trifle coarsely; and the declaration had a point, for Miss Birdseye at this moment reappeared, followed by the mesmeric healer and his wife. "Ah, well, I see you are drawing her out," said Miss Birdseye to Mrs. Farrinder; and at the idea that this process had been necessary Basil Ransom broke into a smothered hilarity, a spasm which indicated that, for him, the fun had already begun, and procured him another grave glance from Miss Chancellor. Miss Verena seemed to him as far "out" as a young woman could be. "Here's her father, Doctor Tarrant--he has a wonderful gift--and her mother--she was a daughter of Abraham Greenstreet." Miss Birdseye presented her companion; she was sure Mrs. Farrinder would be interested; she wouldn't want to lose an opportunity, even if for herself the conditions were not favourable. And then Miss Birdseye addressed herself to the company more at large, widening the circle so as to take in the most scattered guests, and evidently feeling that after all it was a relief that one happened to have an obscurely inspired maiden on the premises when greater celebrities had betrayed the whimsicality of genius. It was a part of this whimsicality that Mrs. Farrinder--the reader may find it difficult to keep pace with her variations--appeared now to have decided to utter a few of her thoughts, so that her hostess could elicit a general response to the remark that it would be delightful to have both the old school and the new. "Well, perhaps you'll be disappointed in Verena," said Mrs. Tarrant, with an air of dolorous resignation to any event, and seating herself, with her gathered mantle, on the edge of a chair, as if she, at least, were ready, whoever else might keep on talking. "It isn't _me_, mother," Verena rejoined, with soft gravity, rather detached now from Mrs. Farrinder, and sitting with her eyes fixed thoughtfully on the ground. With deference to Mrs. Tarrant, a little more talk was necessary, for the young lady had as yet been insufficiently explained. Miss Birdseye felt this, but she was rather helpless about it, and delivered herself, with her universal familiarity, which embraced every one and everything, of a wandering, amiable tale, in which Abraham Greenstreet kept reappearing, in which Doctor Tarrant's miraculous cures were specified, with all the facts wanting, and in which Verena's successes in the West were related, not with emphasis or hyperbole, in which Miss Birdseye never indulged, but as accepted and recognised wonders, natural in an age of new revelations. She had heard of these things in detail only ten minutes before, from the girl's parents, but her hospitable soul had needed but a moment to swallow and assimilate them. If her account of them was not very lucid, it should be said in excuse for her that it was impossible to have any idea of Verena Tarrant unless one had heard her, and therefore still more impossible to give an idea to others. Mrs. Farrinder was perceptibly irritated; she appeared to have made up her mind, after her first hesitation, that the Tarrant family were fantastical and compromising. She had bent an eye of coldness on Selah and his wife--she might have regarded them all as a company of mountebanks. "Stand up and tell us what you have to say," she remarked, with some sternness, to Verena, who only raised her eyes to her, silently now, with the same sweetness, and then rested them on her father. This gentleman seemed to respond to an irresistible appeal; he looked round at the company with all his teeth, and said that these flattering allusions were not so embarrassing as they might otherwise be, inasmuch as any success that he and his daughter might have had was so thoroughly impersonal: he insisted on that word. They had just heard her say, "It is not _me_, mother," and he and Mrs. Tarrant and the girl herself were all equally aware it was not she. It was some power outside--it seemed to flow through her; he couldn't pretend to say why his daughter should be called, more than any one else. But it seemed as if she _was_ called. When he just calmed her down by laying his hand on her a few moments, it seemed to come. It so happened that in the West it had taken the form of a considerable eloquence. She had certainly spoken with great facility to cultivated and high-minded audiences. She had long followed with sympathy the movement for the liberation of her sex from every sort of bondage; it had been her principal interest even as a child (he might mention that at the age of nine she had christened her favourite doll Eliza P. Moseley, in memory of a great precursor whom they all reverenced), and now the inspiration, if he might call it so, seemed just to flow in that channel. The voice that spoke from her lips seemed to want to take that form. It didn't seem as if it _could_ take any other. She let it come out just as it would--she didn't pretend to have any control. They could judge for themselves whether the whole thing was not quite unique. That was why he was willing to talk about his own child that way, before a gathering of ladies and gentlemen; it was because they took no credit--they felt it was a power outside. If Verena felt she was going to be stimulated that evening, he was pretty sure they would be interested. Only he should have to request a few moments' silence, while she listened for the voice. Several of the ladies declared that they should be delighted--they hoped that Miss Tarrant was in good trim; whereupon they were corrected by others, who reminded them that it wasn't _her_--she had nothing to do with it--so her trim didn't matter; and a gentleman added that he guessed there were many present who had conversed with Eliza P. Moseley. Meanwhile Verena, more and more withdrawn into herself, but perfectly undisturbed by the public discussion of her mystic faculty, turned yet again, very prettily, to Mrs. Farrinder, and asked her if she wouldn't strike out--just to give her courage. By this time Mrs. Farrinder was in a condition of overhanging gloom; she greeted the charming suppliant with the frown of Juno. She disapproved completely of Doctor Tarrant's little speech, and she had less and less disposition to be associated with a miracle-monger. Abraham Greenstreet was very well, but Abraham Greenstreet was in his grave; and Eliza P. Moseley, after all, had been very tepid. Basil Ransom wondered whether it were effrontery or innocence that enabled Miss Tarrant to meet with such complacency the aloofness of the elder lady. At this moment he heard Olive Chancellor, at his elbow, with the tremor of excitement in her tone, suddenly exclaim: "Please begin, please begin! A voice, a human voice, is what we want." "I'll speak after you, and if you're a humbug, I'll expose you!" Mrs. Farrinder said. She was more majestic than facetious. "I'm sure we are all solid, as Doctor Tarrant says. I suppose we want to be quiet," Miss Birdseye remarked. VIII Verena Tarrant got up and went to her father in the middle of the room; Olive Chancellor crossed and resumed her place beside Mrs. Farrinder on the sofa the girl had quitted; and Miss Birdseye's visitors, for the rest, settled themselves attentively in chairs or leaned against the bare sides of the parlour. Verena took her father's hands, held them for a moment, while she stood before him, not looking at him, with her eyes towards the company; then, after an instant, her mother, rising, pushed forward, with an interesting sigh, the chair on which she had been sitting. Mrs. Tarrant was provided with another seat, and Verena, relinquishing her father's grasp, placed herself in the chair, which Tarrant put in position for her. She sat there with closed eyes, and her father now rested his long, lean hands upon her head. Basil Ransom watched these proceedings with much interest, for the girl amused and pleased him. She had far more colour than any one there, for whatever brightness was to be found in Miss Birdseye's rather faded and dingy human collection had gathered itself into this attractive but ambiguous young person. There was nothing ambiguous, by the way, about her confederate; Ransom simply loathed him, from the moment he opened his mouth; he was intensely familiar--that is, his type was; he was simply the detested carpet-bagger. He was false, cunning, vulgar, ignoble; the cheapest kind of human product. That he should be the father of a delicate, pretty girl, who was apparently clever too, whether she had a gift or no, this was an annoying, disconcerting fact. The white, puffy mother, with the high forehead, in the corner there, looked more like a lady; but if she were one, it was all the more shame to her to have mated with such a varlet, Ransom said to himself, making use, as he did generally, of terms of opprobrium extracted from the older English literature. He had seen Tarrant, or his equivalent, often before; he had "whipped" him, as he believed, controversially, again and again, at political meetings in blighted Southern towns, during the horrible period of reconstruction. If Mrs. Farrinder had looked at Verena Tarrant as if she were a mountebank, there was some excuse for it, inasmuch as the girl made much the same impression on Basil Ransom. He had never seen such an odd mixture of elements; she had the sweetest, most unworldly face, and yet, with it, an air of being on exhibition, of belonging to a troupe, of living in the gaslight, which pervaded even the details of her dress, fashioned evidently with an attempt at the histrionic. If she had produced a pair of castanets or a tambourine, he felt that such accessories would have been quite in keeping. Little Doctor Prance, with her hard good sense, had noted that she was anæmic, and had intimated that she was a deceiver. The value of her performance was yet to be proved, but she was certainly very pale, white as women are who have that shade of red hair; they look as if their blood had gone into it. There was, however, something rich in the fairness of this young lady; she was strong and supple, there was colour in her lips and eyes, and her tresses, gathered into a complicated coil, seemed to glow with the brightness of her nature. She had curious, radiant, liquid eyes (their smile was a sort of reflexion, like the glisten of a gem), and though she was not tall, she appeared to spring up, and carried her head as if it reached rather high. Ransom would have thought she looked like an Oriental, if it were not that Orientals are dark; and if she had only had a goat she would have resembled Esmeralda, though he had but a vague recollection of who Esmeralda had been. She wore a light-brown dress, of a shape that struck him as fantastic, a yellow petticoat, and a large crimson sash fastened at the side; while round her neck, and falling low upon her flat young chest, she had a double chain of amber beads. It must be added that, in spite of her melodramatic appearance, there was no symptom that her performance, whatever it was, would be of a melodramatic character. She was very quiet now, at least (she had folded her big fan), and her father continued the mysterious process of calming her down. Ransom wondered whether he wouldn't put her to sleep; for some minutes her eyes had remained closed; he heard a lady near him, apparently familiar with phenomena of this class, remark that she was going off. As yet the exhibition was not exciting, though it was certainly pleasant to have such a pretty girl placed there before one, like a moving statue. Doctor Tarrant looked at no one as he stroked and soothed his daughter; his eyes wandered round the cornice of the room, and he grinned upward, as if at an imaginary gallery. "Quietly--quietly," he murmured from time to time. "It will come, my good child, it will come. Just let it work--just let it gather. The spirit, you know; you've got to let the spirit come out when it will." He threw up his arms at moments, to rid himself of the wings of his long waterproof, which fell forward over his hands. Basil Ransom noticed all these things, and noticed also, opposite, the waiting face of his cousin, fixed, from her sofa, upon the closed eyes of the young prophetess. He grew more impatient at last, not of the delay of the edifying voice (though some time had elapsed), but of Tarrant's grotesque manipulations, which he resented as much as if he himself had felt their touch, and which seemed a dishonour to the passive maiden. They made him nervous, they made him angry, and it was only afterwards that he asked himself wherein they concerned him, and whether even a carpet-bagger hadn't a right to do what he pleased with his daughter. It was a relief to him when Verena got up from her chair, with a movement which made Tarrant drop into the background as if his part were now over. She stood there with a quiet face, serious and sightless; then, after a short further delay, she began to speak. She began incoherently, almost inaudibly, as if she were talking in a dream. Ransom could not understand her; he thought it very queer, and wondered what Doctor Prance would have said. "She's just arranging her ideas, and trying to get in report; she'll come out all right." This remark he heard dropped in a low tone by the mesmeric healer; "in report" was apparently Tarrant's version of _en rapport_. His prophecy was verified, and Verena did come out, after a little; she came out with a great deal of sweetness--with a very quaint and peculiar effect. She proceeded slowly, cautiously, as if she were listening for the prompter, catching, one by one, certain phrases that were whispered to her a great distance off, behind the scenes of the world. Then memory, or inspiration, returned to her, and presently she was in possession of her part. She played it with extraordinary simplicity and grace; at the end of ten minutes Ransom became aware that the whole audience--Mrs. Farrinder, Miss Chancellor, and the tough subject from Mississippi--were under the charm. I speak of ten minutes, but to tell the truth the young man lost all sense of time. He wondered afterwards how long she had spoken; then he counted that her strange, sweet, crude, absurd, enchanting improvisation must have lasted half an hour. It was not what she said; he didn't care for that, he scarcely understood it; he could only see that it was all about the gentleness and goodness of women, and how, during the long ages of history, they had been trampled under the iron heel of man. It was about their equality--perhaps even (he was not definitely conscious) about their superiority. It was about their day having come at last, about the universal sisterhood, about their duty to themselves and to each other. It was about such matters as these, and Basil Ransom was delighted to observe that such matters as these didn't spoil it. The effect was not in what she said, though she said some such pretty things, but in the picture and figure of the half-bedizened damsel (playing, now again, with her red fan), the visible freshness and purity of the little effort. When she had gained confidence she opened her eyes, and their shining softness was half the effect of her discourse. It was full of school-girl phrases, of patches of remembered eloquence, of childish lapses of logic, of flights of fancy which might indeed have had success at Topeka; but Ransom thought that if it had been much worse it would have been quite as good, for the argument, the doctrine, had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was simply an intensely personal exhibition, and the person making it happened to be fascinating. She might have offended the taste of certain people--Ransom could imagine that there were other Boston circles in which she would be thought pert; but for himself all he could feel was that to _his_ starved senses she irresistibly appealed. He was the stiffest of conservatives, and his mind was steeled against the inanities she uttered--the rights and wrongs of women, the equality of the sexes, the hysterics of conventions, the further stultification of the suffrage, the prospect of conscript mothers in the national Senate. It made no difference; she didn't mean it, she didn't know what she meant, she had been stuffed with this trash by her father, and she was neither more nor less willing to say it than to say anything else; for the necessity of her nature was not to make converts to a ridiculous cause, but to emit those charming notes of her voice, to stand in those free young attitudes, to shake her braided locks like a naiad rising from the waves, to please every one who came near her, and to be happy that she pleased. I know not whether Ransom was aware of the bearings of this interpretation, which attributed to Miss Tarrant a singular hollowness of character; he contented himself with believing that she was as innocent as she was lovely, and with regarding her as a vocalist of exquisite faculty, condemned to sing bad music. How prettily, indeed, she made some of it sound! "Of course I only speak to women--to my own dear sisters; I don't speak to men, for I don't expect them to like what I say. They pretend to admire us very much, but I should like them to admire us a little less and to trust us a little more. I don't know what we have ever done to them that they should keep us out of everything. We have trusted _them_ too much, and I think the time has come now for us to judge them, and say that by keeping us out we don't think they have done so well. When I look around me at the world, and at the state that men have brought it to, I confess I say to myself, "Well, if women had fixed it this way I should like to know what they would think of it!" When I see the dreadful misery of mankind and think of the suffering of which at any hour, at any moment, the world is full, I say that if this is the best they can do by themselves, they had better let us come in a little and see what _we_ can do. We couldn't possibly make it worse, could we? If we had done only this, we shouldn't boast of it. Poverty, and ignorance, and crime; disease, and wickedness, and wars! Wars, always more wars, and always more and more. Blood, blood--the world is drenched with blood! To kill each other, with all sorts of expensive and perfected instruments, that is the most brilliant thing they have been able to invent. It seems to me that we might stop it, we might invent something better. The cruelty--the cruelty; there is so much, so much! Why shouldn't tenderness come in? Why should our woman's hearts be so full of it, and all so wasted and withered, while armies and prisons and helpless miseries grow greater all the while? I am only a girl, a simple American girl, and of course I haven't seen much, and there is a great deal of life that I don't know anything about. But there are some things I feel--it seems to me as if I had been born to feel them; they are in my ears in the stillness of the night and before my face in the visions of the darkness. It is what the great sisterhood of women might do if they should all join hands, and lift up their voices above the brutal uproar of the world, in which it is so hard for the plea of mercy or of justice, the moan of weakness and suffering, to be heard. We should quench it, we should make it still, and the sound of our lips would become the voice of universal peace! For this we must trust one another, we must be true and gentle and kind. We must remember that the world is ours too, ours--little as we have ever had to say about anything!--and that the question is _not_ yet definitely settled whether it shall be a place of injustice or a place of love!" It was with this that the young lady finished her harangue, which was not followed by her sinking exhausted into her chair or by any of the traces of a laboured climax. She only turned away slowly towards her mother, smiling over her shoulder at the whole room, as if it had been a single person, without a flush in her whiteness, or the need of drawing a longer breath. The performance had evidently been very easy to her, and there might have been a kind of impertinence in her air of not having suffered from an exertion which had wrought so powerfully on every one else. Ransom broke into a genial laugh, which he instantly swallowed again, at the sweet grotesqueness of this virginal creature's standing up before a company of middle-aged people to talk to them about "love," the note on which she had closed her harangue. It was the most charming touch in the whole thing, and the most vivid proof of her innocence. She had had immense success, and Mrs. Tarrant, as she took her into her arms and kissed her, was certainly able to feel that the audience was not disappointed. They were exceedingly affected; they broke into exclamations and murmurs. Selah Tarrant went on conversing ostentatiously with his neighbours, slowly twirling his long thumbs and looking up at the cornice again, as if there could be nothing in the brilliant manner in which his daughter had acquitted herself to surprise _him_, who had heard her when she was still more remarkable, and who, moreover, remembered that the affair was so impersonal. Miss Birdseye looked round at the company with dim exultation; her large mild cheeks were shining with unwiped tears. Young Mr. Pardon remarked, in Ransom's hearing, that he knew parties who, if they had been present, would want to engage Miss Verena at a high figure for the winter campaign. And Ransom heard him add in a lower tone: "There's money for some one in that girl; you see if she don't have quite a run!" As for our Mississippian he kept his agreeable sensation for himself, only wondering whether he might not ask Miss Birdseye to present him to the heroine of the evening. Not immediately, of course, for the young man mingled with his Southern pride a shyness which often served all the purpose of humility. He was aware how much he was an outsider in such a house as that, and he was ready to wait for his coveted satisfaction till the others, who all hung together, should have given her the assurance of an approval which she would value, naturally, more than anything he could say to her. This episode had imparted animation to the assembly; a certain gaiety, even, expressed in a higher pitch of conversation, seemed to float in the heated air. People circulated more freely, and Verena Tarrant was presently hidden from Ransom's sight by the close-pressed ranks of the new friends she had made. "Well, I never heard it put _that_ way!" Ransom heard one of the ladies exclaim; to which another replied that she wondered one of their bright women hadn't thought of it before. "Well, it _is_ a gift, and no mistake," and "Well, they may call it what they please, it's a pleasure to listen to it"--these genial tributes fell from the lips of a pair of ruminating gentlemen. It was affirmed within Ransom's hearing that if they had a few more like that the matter would soon be fixed; and it was rejoined that they couldn't expect to have a great many--the style was so peculiar. It was generally admitted that the style was peculiar, but Miss Tarrant's peculiarity was the explanation of her success. IX Ransom approached Mrs. Farrinder again, who had remained on her sofa with Olive Chancellor; and as she turned her face to him he saw that she had felt the universal contagion. Her keen eye sparkled, there was a flush on her matronly cheek, and she had evidently made up her mind what line to take. Olive Chancellor sat motionless; her eyes were fixed on the floor with the rigid, alarmed expression of her moments of nervous diffidence; she gave no sign of observing her kinsman's approach. He said something to Mrs. Farrinder, something that imperfectly represented his admiration of Verena; and this lady replied with dignity that it was no wonder the girl spoke so well--she spoke in such a good cause. "She is very graceful, has a fine command of language; her father says it's a natural gift." Ransom saw that he should not in the least discover Mrs. Farrinder's real opinion, and her dissimulation added to his impression that she was a woman with a policy. It was none of his business whether in her heart she thought Verena a parrot or a genius; it was perceptible to him that she saw she would be effective, would help the cause. He stood almost appalled for a moment, as he said to himself that she would take her up and the girl would be ruined, would force her note and become a screamer. But he quickly dodged this vision, taking refuge in a mechanical appeal to his cousin, of whom he inquired how she liked Miss Verena. Olive made no answer; her head remained averted, she bored the carpet with her conscious eyes. Mrs. Farrinder glanced at her askance, and then said to Ransom serenely: "You praise the grace of your Southern ladies, but you have had to come North to see a human gazelle. Miss Tarrant is of the best New England stock--what _I_ call the best!" "I'm sure from what I have seen of the Boston ladies, no manifestation of grace can excite my surprise," Ransom rejoined, looking, with his smile, at his cousin. "She has been powerfully affected," Mrs. Farrinder explained, very slightly dropping her voice, as Olive, apparently, still remained deaf. Miss Birdseye drew near at this moment; she wanted to know if Mrs. Farrinder didn't want to express some acknowledgment, on the part of the company at large, for the real stimulus Miss Tarrant had given them. Mrs. Farrinder said: Oh yes, she would speak now with pleasure; only she must have a glass of water first. Miss Birdseye replied that there was some coming in a moment; one of the ladies had asked for it, and Mr. Pardon had just stepped down to draw some. Basil took advantage of this intermission to ask Miss Birdseye if she would give him the great privilege of an introduction to Miss Verena. "Mrs. Farrinder will thank her for the company," he said, laughing, "but she won't thank her for me." Miss Birdseye manifested the greatest disposition to oblige him; she was so glad he had been impressed. She was proceeding to lead him toward Miss Tarrant when Olive Chancellor rose abruptly from her chair and laid her hand, with an arresting movement, on the arm of her hostess. She explained to her that she must go, that she was not very well, that her carriage was there; also that she hoped Miss Birdseye, if it was not asking too much, would accompany her to the door. "Well, you are impressed too," said Miss Birdseye, looking at her philosophically. "It seems as if no one had escaped." Ransom was disappointed; he saw he was going to be taken away, and, before he could suppress it, an exclamation burst from his lips--the first exclamation he could think of that would perhaps check his cousin's retreat: "Ah, Miss Olive, are you going to give up Mrs. Farrinder?" At this Miss Olive looked at him, showed him an extraordinary face, a face he scarcely understood or even recognised. It was portentously grave, the eyes were enlarged, there was a red spot in each of the cheeks, and as directed to him, a quick, piercing question, a kind of leaping challenge, in the whole expression. He could only answer this sudden gleam with a stare, and wonder afresh what trick his Northern kinswoman was destined to play him. Impressed too? He should think he had been! Mrs. Farrinder, who was decidedly a woman of the world, came to his assistance, or to Miss Chancellor's, and said she hoped very much Olive wouldn't stay--she felt these things too much. "If you stay, I won't speak," she added; "I should upset you altogether." And then she continued, tenderly, for so preponderantly intellectual a nature: "When women feel as you do, how can I doubt that we shall come out all right?" "Oh, we shall come out all right, I guess," murmured Miss Birdseye. "But you must remember Beacon Street," Mrs. Farrinder subjoined. "You must take advantage of your position--you must wake up the Back Bay!" "I'm sick of the Back Bay!" said Olive fiercely; and she passed to the door with Miss Birdseye, bidding good-bye to no one. She was so agitated that, evidently, she could not trust herself, and there was nothing for Ransom but to follow. At the door of the room, however, he was checked by a sudden pause on the part of the two ladies: Olive stopped and stood there hesitating. She looked round the room and spied out Verena, where she sat with her mother, the centre of a gratified group; then, throwing back her head with an air of decision, she crossed over to her. Ransom said to himself that now, perhaps, was his chance, and he quickly accompanied Miss Chancellor. The little knot of reformers watched her as she arrived; their faces expressed a suspicion of her social importance, mingled with conscientious scruples as to whether it were right to recognise it. Verena Tarrant saw that she was the object of this manifestation, and she got up to meet the lady whose approach was so full of point. Ransom perceived, however, or thought he perceived, that she recognised nothing; she had no suspicions of social importance. Yet she smiled with all her radiance, as she looked from Miss Chancellor to him; smiled because she liked to smile, to please, to feel her success--or was it because she was a perfect little actress, and this was part of her training? She took the hand that Olive put out to her; the others, rather solemnly, sat looking up from their chairs. "You don't know me, but I want to know you," Olive said. "I can thank you now. Will you come and see me?" "Oh yes; where do you live?" Verena answered, in the tone of a girl for whom an invitation (she hadn't so many) was always an invitation. Miss Chancellor syllabled her address, and Mrs. Tarrant came forward, smiling. "I know about you, Miss Chancellor. I guess your father knew my father--Mr. Greenstreet. Verena will be very glad to visit you. We shall be very happy to see you in _our_ home." Basil Ransom, while the mother spoke, wanted to say something to the daughter, who stood there so near him, but he could think of nothing that would do; certain words that came to him, his Mississippi phrases, seemed patronising and ponderous. Besides, he didn't wish to assent to what she had said; he wished simply to tell her she was delightful, and it was difficult to mark that difference. So he only smiled at her in silence, and she smiled back at him--a smile that seemed to him quite for himself. "Where do you live?" Olive asked; and Mrs. Tarrant replied that they lived at Cambridge, and that the horse-cars passed just near their door. Whereupon Olive insisted "Will you come very soon?" and Verena said, Oh yes, she would come very soon, and repeated the number in Charles Street, to show that she had taken heed of it. This was done with childlike good faith. Ransom saw that she would come and see any one who would ask her like that, and he regretted for a minute that he was not a Boston lady, so that he might extend to her such an invitation. Olive Chancellor held her hand a moment longer, looked at her in farewell, and then, saying, "Come, Mr. Ransom," drew him out of the room. In the hall they met Mr. Pardon, coming up from the lower regions with a jug of water and a tumbler. Miss Chancellor's hackney-coach was there, and when Basil had put her into it she said to him that she wouldn't trouble him to drive with her--his hotel was not near Charles Street. He had so little desire to sit by her side--he wanted to smoke--that it was only after the vehicle had rolled off that he reflected upon her coolness, and asked himself why the deuce she had brought him away. She _was_ a very odd cousin, was this Boston cousin of his. He stood there a moment, looking at the light in Miss Birdseye's windows and greatly minded to re-enter the house, now he might speak to the girl. But he contented himself with the memory of her smile, and turned away with a sense of relief, after all, at having got out of such wild company, as well as with (in a different order) a vulgar consciousness of being very thirsty. X Verena Tarrant came in the very next day from Cambridge to Charles Street; that quarter of Boston is in direct communication with the academic suburb. It hardly seemed direct to poor Verena, perhaps, who, in the crowded street-car which deposited her finally at Miss Chancellor's door, had to stand up all the way, half suspended by a leathern strap from the glazed roof of the stifling vehicle, like some blooming cluster dangling in a hothouse. She was used, however, to these perpendicular journeys, and though, as we have seen, she was not inclined to accept without question the social arrangements of her time, it never would have occurred to her to criticise the railways of her native land. The promptness of her visit to Olive Chancellor had been an idea of her mother's, and Verena listened open-eyed while this lady, in the seclusion of the little house in Cambridge, while Selah Tarrant was "off," as they said, with his patients, sketched out a line of conduct for her. The girl was both submissive and unworldly, and she listened to her mother's enumeration of the possible advantages of an intimacy with Miss Chancellor as she would have listened to any other fairy-tale. It was still a part of the fairy-tale when this zealous parent put on with her own hands Verena's smart hat and feather, buttoned her little jacket (the buttons were immense and gilt), and presented her with twenty cents to pay her car-fare. There was never any knowing in advance how Mrs. Tarrant would take a thing, and even Verena, who, filially, was much less argumentative than in her civic and, as it were, public capacity, had a perception that her mother was queer. She was queer, indeed--a flaccid, relaxed, unhealthy, whimsical woman, who still had a capacity to cling. What she clung to was "society," and a position in the world which a secret whisper told her she had never had and a voice more audible reminded her she was in danger of losing. To keep it, to recover it, to reconsecrate it, was the ambition of her heart; this was one of the many reasons why Providence had judged her worthy of having so wonderful a child. Verena was born not only to lead their common sex out of bondage, but to remodel a visiting-list which bulged and contracted in the wrong places, like a country-made garment. As the daughter of Abraham Greenstreet, Mrs. Tarrant had passed her youth in the first Abolitionist circles, and she was aware how much such a prospect was clouded by her union with a young man who had begun life as an itinerant vendor of lead-pencils (he had called at Mr. Greenstreet's door in the exercise of this function), had afterwards been for a while a member of the celebrated Cayuga community, where there were no wives, or no husbands, or something of that sort (Mrs. Tarrant could never remember), and had still later (though before the development of the healing faculty) achieved distinction in the spiritualistic world. (He was an extraordinarily favoured medium, only he had had to stop for reasons of which Mrs. Tarrant possessed her version.) Even in a society much occupied with the effacement of prejudice there had been certain dim presumptions against this versatile being, who naturally had not wanted arts to ingratiate himself with Miss Greenstreet, her eyes, like his own, being fixed exclusively on the future. The young couple (he was considerably her elder) had gazed on the future together until they found that the past had completely forsaken them and that the present offered but a slender foothold. Mrs. Tarrant, in other words, incurred the displeasure of her family, who gave her husband to understand that, much as they desired to remove the shackles from the slave, there were kinds of behaviour which struck them as too unfettered. These had prevailed, to their thinking, at Cayuga, and they naturally felt it was no use for him to say that his residence there had been (for him--the community still existed) but a momentary episode, inasmuch as there was little more to be urged for the spiritual picnics and vegetarian camp-meetings in which the discountenanced pair now sought consolation. Such were the narrow views of people hitherto supposed capable of opening their hearts to all salutary novelties, but now put to a genuine test, as Mrs. Tarrant felt. Her husband's tastes rubbed off on her soft, moist moral surface, and the couple lived in an atmosphere of novelty, in which, occasionally, the accommodating wife encountered the fresh sensation of being in want of her dinner. Her father died, leaving, after all, very little money; he had spent his modest fortune upon the blacks. Selah Tarrant and his companion had strange adventures; she found herself completely enrolled in the great irregular army of nostrum-mongers, domiciled in humanitary Bohemia. It absorbed her like a social swamp; she sank into it a little more every day, without measuring the inches of her descent. Now she stood there up to her chin; it may probably be said of her that she had touched bottom. When she went to Miss Birdseye's it seemed to her that she re-entered society. The door that admitted her was not the door that admitted some of the others (she should never forget the tipped-up nose of Mrs. Farrinder), and the superior portal remained ajar, disclosing possible vistas. She had lived with long-haired men and short-haired women, she had contributed a flexible faith and an irremediable want of funds to a dozen social experiments, she had partaken of the comfort of a hundred religions, had followed innumerable dietary reforms, chiefly of the negative order, and had gone of an evening to a _séance_ or a lecture as regularly as she had eaten her supper. Her husband always had tickets for lectures; in moments of irritation at the want of a certain sequence in their career, she had remarked to him that it was the only thing he did have. The memory of all the winter nights they had tramped through the slush (the tickets, alas! were not car-tickets) to hear Mrs. Ada T. P. Foat discourse on the "Summer-land," came back to her with bitterness. Selah was quite enthusiastic at one time about Mrs. Foat, and it was his wife's belief that he had been "associated" with her (that was Selah's expression in referring to such episodes) at Cayuga. The poor woman, matrimonially, had a great deal to put up with; it took, at moments, all her belief in his genius to sustain her. She knew that he was very magnetic (that, in fact, was his genius), and she felt that it was his magnetism that held her to him. He had carried her through things where she really didn't know what to think; there were moments when she suspected that she had lost the strong moral sense for which the Greenstreets were always so celebrated. Of course a woman who had had the bad taste to marry Selah Tarrant would not have been likely under any circumstances to possess a very straight judgement; but there is no doubt that this poor lady had grown dreadfully limp. She had blinked and compromised and shuffled; she asked herself whether, after all, it was any more than natural that she should have wanted to help her husband, in those exciting days of his mediumship, when the table, sometimes, wouldn't rise from the ground, the sofa wouldn't float through the air, and the soft hand of a lost loved one was not so alert as it might have been to visit the circle. Mrs. Tarrant's hand was soft enough for the most supernatural effect, and she consoled her conscience on such occasions by reflecting that she ministered to a belief in immortality. She was glad, somehow, for Verena's sake, that they had emerged from the phase of spirit-intercourse; her ambition for her daughter took another form than desiring that she, too, should minister to a belief in immortality. Yet among Mrs. Tarrant's multifarious memories these reminiscences of the darkened room, the waiting circle, the little taps on table and wall, the little touches on cheek and foot, the music in the air, the rain of flowers, the sense of something mysteriously flitting, were most tenderly cherished. She hated her husband for having magnetised her so that she consented to certain things, and even did them, the thought of which to-day would suddenly make her face burn; hated him for the manner in which, somehow, as she felt, he had lowered her social tone; yet at the same time she admired him for an impudence so consummate that it had ended (in the face of mortifications, exposures, failures, all the misery of a hand-to-mouth existence) by imposing itself on her as a kind of infallibility. She knew he was an awful humbug, and yet her knowledge had this imperfection, that he had never confessed it--a fact that was really grand when one thought of his opportunities for doing so. He had never allowed that he wasn't straight; the pair had so often been in the position of the two augurs behind the altar, and yet he had never given her a glance that the whole circle mightn't have observed. Even in the privacy of domestic intercourse he had phrases, excuses, explanations, ways of putting things, which, as she felt, were too sublime for just herself; they were pitched, as Selah's nature was pitched, altogether in the key of public life. So it had come to pass, in her distended and demoralised conscience, that with all the things she despised in her life and all the things she rather liked, between being worn out with her husband's inability to earn a living and a kind of terror of his consistency (he had a theory that they lived delightfully), it happened, I say, that the only very definite criticism she made of him to-day was that he didn't know how to speak. That was where the shoe pinched--that was where Selah was slim. He couldn't hold the attention of an audience, he was not acceptable as a lecturer. He had plenty of thoughts, but it seemed as if he couldn't fit them into each other. Public speaking had been a Greenstreet tradition, and if Mrs. Tarrant had been asked whether in her younger years she had ever supposed she should marry a mesmeric healer, she would have replied: "Well, I never thought I should marry a gentleman who would be silent on the platform!" This was her most general humiliation; it included and exceeded every other, and it was a poor consolation that Selah possessed as a substitute--his career as a healer, to speak of none other, was there to prove it--the eloquence of the hand. The Greenstreets had never set much store on manual activity; they believed in the influence of the lips. It may be imagined, therefore, with what exultation, as time went on, Mrs. Tarrant found herself the mother of an inspired maiden, a young lady from whose lips eloquence flowed in streams. The Greenstreet tradition would not perish, and the dry places of her life would, perhaps, be plentifully watered. It must be added that, of late, this sandy surface had been irrigated, in moderation, from another source. Since Selah had addicted himself to the mesmeric mystery, their home had been a little more what the home of a Greenstreet should be. He had "considerable many" patients, he got about two dollars a sitting, and he had effected some most gratifying cures. A lady in Cambridge had been so much indebted to him that she had recently persuaded them to take a house near her, in order that Doctor Tarrant might drop in at any time. He availed himself of this convenience--they had taken so many houses that another, more or less, didn't matter--and Mrs. Tarrant began to feel as if they really had "struck" something. Even to Verena, as we know, she was confused and confusing; the girl had not yet had an opportunity to ascertain the principles on which her mother's limpness was liable suddenly to become rigid. This phenomenon occurred when the vapours of social ambition mounted to her brain, when she extended an arm from which a crumpled dressing-gown fluttered back to seize the passing occasion. Then she surprised her daughter by a volubility of exhortation as to the duty of making acquaintances, and by the apparent wealth of her knowledge of the mysteries of good society. She had, in particular, a way of explaining confidentially--and in her desire to be graphic she often made up the oddest faces--the interpretation that you must sometimes give to the manners of the best people, and the delicate dignity with which you should meet them, which made Verena wonder what secret sources of information she possessed. Verena took life, as yet, very simply; she was not conscious of so many differences of social complexion. She knew that some people were rich and others poor, and that her father's house had never been visited by such abundance as might make one ask one's self whether it were right, in a world so full of the disinherited, to roll in luxury. But except when her mother made her slightly dizzy by a resentment of some slight that she herself had never perceived, or a flutter over some opportunity that appeared already to have passed (while Mrs. Tarrant was looking for something to "put on"), Verena had no vivid sense that she was not as good as any one else, for no authority appealing really to her imagination had fixed the place of mesmeric healers in the scale of fashion. It was impossible to know in advance how Mrs. Tarrant would take things. Sometimes she was abjectly indifferent; at others she thought that every one who looked at her wished to insult her. At moments she was full of suspicion of the ladies (they were mainly ladies) whom Selah mesmerised; then again she appeared to have given up everything but her slippers and the evening-paper (from this publication she derived inscrutable solace), so that if Mrs. Foat in person had returned from the summer-land (to which she had some time since taken her flight), she would not have disturbed Mrs. Tarrant's almost cynical equanimity. It was, however, in her social subtleties that she was most beyond her daughter; it was when she discovered extraordinary though latent longings on the part of people they met to make their acquaintance, that the girl became conscious of how much she herself had still to learn. All her desire was to learn, and it must be added that she regarded her mother, in perfect good faith, as a wonderful teacher. She was perplexed sometimes by her worldliness; that, somehow, was not a part of the higher life which every one in such a house as theirs must wish above all things to lead; and it was not involved in the reign of justice, which they were all trying to bring about, that such a strict account should be kept of every little snub. Her father seemed to Verena to move more consecutively on the high plane; though his indifference to old-fashioned standards, his perpetual invocation of the brighter day, had not yet led her to ask herself whether, after all, men are more disinterested than women. Was it interest that prompted her mother to respond so warmly to Miss Chancellor, to say to Verena, with an air of knowingness, that the thing to do was to go in and see her _immediately_? No italics can represent the earnestness of Mrs. Tarrant's emphasis. Why hadn't she said, as she had done in former cases, that if people wanted to see them they could come out to their home; that she was not so low down in the world as not to know there was such a ceremony as leaving cards? When Mrs. Tarrant began on the question of ceremonies she was apt to go far; but she had waived it in this case; it suited her more to hold that Miss Chancellor had been very gracious, that she was a most desirable friend, that she had been more affected than any one by Verena's beautiful outpouring; that she would open to her the best saloons in Boston; that when she said "Come soon" she meant the very next day, that this was the way to take it, anyhow (one must know when to go forward gracefully); and that in short she, Mrs. Tarrant, knew what she was talking about. Verena accepted all this, for she was young enough to enjoy any journey in a horse-car, and she was ever-curious about the world; she only wondered a little how her mother knew so much about Miss Chancellor just from looking at her once. What Verena had mainly observed in the young lady who came up to her that way the night before was that she was rather dolefully dressed, that she looked as if she had been crying (Verena recognised that look quickly, she had seen it so much), and that she was in a hurry to get away. However, if she was as remarkable as her mother said, one would very soon see it; and meanwhile there was nothing in the girl's feeling about herself, in her sense of her importance, to make it a painful effort for her to run the risk of a mistake. She had no particular feeling about herself; she only cared, as yet, for outside things. Even the development of her "gift" had not made her think herself too precious for mere experiments; she had neither a particle of diffidence nor a particle of vanity. Though it would have seemed to you eminently natural that a daughter of Selah Tarrant and his wife should be an inspirational speaker, yet, as you knew Verena better, you would have wondered immensely how she came to issue from such a pair. Her ideas of enjoyment were very simple; she enjoyed putting on her new hat, with its redundancy of feather, and twenty cents appeared to her a very large sum. XI "I was certain you would come--I have felt it all day--something told me!" It was with these words that Olive Chancellor greeted her young visitor, coming to her quickly from the window, where she might have been waiting for her arrival. Some weeks later she explained to Verena how definite this prevision had been, how it had filled her all day with a nervous agitation so violent as to be painful. She told her that such forebodings were a peculiarity of her organisation, that she didn't know what to make of them, that she had to accept them; and she mentioned, as another example, the sudden dread that had come to her the evening before in the carriage, after proposing to Mr. Ransom to go with her to Miss Birdseye's. This had been as strange as it had been instinctive, and the strangeness, of course, was what must have struck Mr. Ransom; for the idea that he might come had been hers, and yet she suddenly veered round. She couldn't help it; her heart had begun to throb with the conviction that if he crossed that threshold some harm would come of of it for her. She hadn't prevented him, and now she didn't care, for now, as she intimated, she had the interest of Verena, and that made her indifferent to every danger, to every ordinary pleasure. By this time Verena had learned how peculiarly her friend was constituted, how nervous and serious she was, how personal, how exclusive, what a force of will she had, what a concentration of purpose. Olive had taken her up, in the literal sense of the phrase, like a bird of the air, had spread an extraordinary pair of wings, and carried her through the dizzying void of space. Verena liked it, for the most part; liked to shoot upward without an effort of her own and look down upon all creation, upon all history, from such a height. From this first interview she felt that she was seized, and she gave herself up, only shutting her eyes a little, as we do whenever a person in whom we have perfect confidence proposes, with our assent, to subject us to some sensation. "I want to know you," Olive said, on this occasion; "I felt that I must last night, as soon as I heard you speak. You seem to me very wonderful. I don't know what to make of you. I think we ought to be friends; so I just asked you to come to me straight off, without preliminaries, and I believed you would come. It is so _right_ that you have come, and it proves how right I was." These remarks fell from Miss Chancellor's lips one by one, as she caught her breath, with the tremor that was always in her voice, even when she was the least excited, while she made Verena sit down near her on the sofa, and looked at her all over in a manner that caused the girl to rejoice at having put on the jacket with the gilt buttons. It was this glance that was the beginning; it was with this quick survey, omitting nothing, that Olive took possession of her. "You are very remarkable; I wonder if you know how remarkable!" she went on, murmuring the words as if she were losing herself, becoming inadvertent in admiration. Verena sat there smiling, without a blush, but with a pure, bright look which, for her, would always make protests unnecessary. "Oh, it isn't me, you know; it's something outside!" She tossed this off lightly, as if she were in the habit of saying it, and Olive wondered whether it were a sincere disclaimer or only a phrase of the lips. The question was not a criticism, for she might have been satisfied that the girl was a mass of fluent catch-words and yet scarcely have liked her the less. It was just as she was that she liked her; she was so strange, so different from the girls one usually met, seemed to belong to some queer gipsy-land or transcendental Bohemia. With her bright, vulgar clothes, her salient appearance, she might have been a rope-dancer or a fortune-teller; and this had the immense merit, for Olive, that it appeared to make her belong to the "people," threw her into the social dusk of that mysterious democracy which Miss Chancellor held that the fortunate classes know so little about, and with which (in a future possibly very near) they will have to count. Moreover, the girl had moved her as she had never been moved, and the power to do that, from whatever source it came, was a force that one must admire. Her emotion was still acute, however much she might speak to her visitor as if everything that had happened seemed to her natural; and what kept it, above all, from subsiding was her sense that she found here what she had been looking for so long--a friend of her own sex with whom she might have a union of soul. It took a double consent to make a friendship, but it was not possible that this intensely sympathetic girl would refuse. Olive had the penetration to discover in a moment that she was a creature of unlimited generosity. I know not what may have been the reality of Miss Chancellor's other premonitions, but there is no doubt that in this respect she took Verena's measure on the spot. This was what she wanted; after that the rest didn't matter; Miss Tarrant might wear gilt buttons from head to foot, her soul could not be vulgar. "Mother told me I had better come right in," said Verena, looking now about the room, very glad to find herself in so pleasant a place, and noticing a great many things that she should like to see in detail. "Your mother saw that I meant what I said; it isn't everybody that does me the honour to perceive that. She saw that I was shaken from head to foot. I could only say three words--I couldn't have spoken more! What a power--what a power, Miss Tarrant!" "Yes, I suppose it is a power. If it wasn't a power, it couldn't do much with me!" "You are so simple--so much like a child," Olive Chancellor said. That was the truth, and she wanted to say it because, quickly, without forms or circumlocutions, it made them familiar. She wished to arrive at this; her impatience was such that before the girl had been five minutes in the room she jumped to her point--inquired of her, interrupting herself, interrupting everything: "Will you be my friend, my friend of friends, beyond every one, everything, for ever and for ever?" Her face was full of eagerness and tenderness. Verena gave a laugh of clear amusement, without a shade of embarrassment or confusion. "Perhaps you like me too much." "Of course I like you too much! When I like, I like too much. But of course it's another thing, your liking me," Olive Chancellor added. "We must wait--we must wait. When I care for anything, I can be patient." She put out her hand to Verena, and the movement was at once so appealing and so confident that the girl instinctively placed her own in it. So, hand in hand, for some moments, these two young women sat looking at each other. "There is so much I want to ask you," said Olive. "Well, I can't say much except when father has worked on me," Verena answered with an ingenuousness beside which humility would have seemed pretentious. "I don't care anything about your father," Olive Chancellor rejoined very gravely, with a great air of security. "He is very good," Verena said simply. "And he's wonderfully magnetic." "It isn't your father, and it isn't your mother; I don't think of them, and it's not them I want. It's only you--just as you are." Verena dropped her eyes over the front of her dress. "Just as she was" seemed to her indeed very well. "Do you want me to give up----?" she demanded, smiling. Olive Chancellor drew in her breath for an instant, like a creature in pain; then, with her quavering voice, touched with a vibration of anguish, she said; "Oh, how can I ask you to give up? _I_ will give up--I will give up everything!" Filled with the impression of her hostess's agreeable interior, and of what her mother had told her about Miss Chancellor's wealth, her position in Boston society, Verena, in her fresh, diverted scrutiny of the surrounding objects, wondered what could be the need of this scheme of renunciation. Oh no, indeed, she hoped she wouldn't give up--at least not before she, Verena, had had a chance to see. She felt, however, that for the present there would be no answer for her save in the mere pressure of Miss Chancellor's eager nature, that intensity of emotion which made her suddenly exclaim, as if in a nervous ecstasy of anticipation, "But we must wait! Why do we talk of this? We must wait! All will be right," she added more calmly, with great sweetness. Verena wondered afterward why she had not been more afraid of her--why, indeed, she had not turned and saved herself by darting out of the room. But it was not in this young woman's nature to be either timid or cautious; she had as yet to make acquaintance with the sentiment of fear. She knew too little of the world to have learned to mistrust sudden enthusiasms, and if she had had a suspicion it would have been (in accordance with common worldly knowledge) the wrong one--the suspicion that such a whimsical liking would burn itself out. She could not have that one, for there was a light in Miss Chancellor's magnified face which seemed to say that a sentiment, with her, might consume its object, might consume Miss Chancellor, but would never consume itself. Verena, as yet, had no sense of being scorched; she was only agreeably warmed. She also had dreamed of a friendship, though it was not what she had dreamed of most, and it came over her that this was the one which fortune might have been keeping. She never held back. "Do you live here all alone?" she asked of Olive. "I shouldn't if you would come and live with me!" Even this really passionate rejoinder failed to make Verena shrink; she thought it so possible that in the wealthy class people made each other such easy proposals. It was a part of the romance, the luxury, of wealth; it belonged to the world of invitations, in which she had had so little share. But it seemed almost a mockery when she thought of the little house in Cambridge, where the boards were loose in the steps of the porch. "I must stay with my father and mother," she said. "And then I have my work, you know. That's the way I must live now." "Your work?" Olive repeated, not quite understanding. "My gift," said Verena, smiling. "Oh yes, you must use it. That's what I mean; you must move the world with it; it's divine." It was so much what she meant that she had lain awake all night thinking of it, and the substance of her thought was that if she could only rescue the girl from the danger of vulgar exploitation, could only constitute herself her protectress and devotee, the two, between them, might achieve the great result. Verena's genius was a mystery, and it might remain a mystery; it was impossible to see how this charming, blooming, simple creature, all youth and grace and innocence, got her extraordinary powers of reflexion. When her gift was not in exercise she appeared anything but reflective, and as she sat there now, for instance, you would never have dreamed that she had had a vivid revelation. Olive had to content herself, provisionally, with saying that her precious faculty had come to her just as her beauty and distinction (to Olive she was full of that quality) had come; it had dropped straight from heaven, without filtering through her parents, whom Miss Chancellor decidedly did not fancy. Even among reformers she discriminated; she thought all wise people wanted great changes, but the votaries of change were not necessarily wise. She remained silent a little, after her last remark, and then she repeated again, as if it were the solution of everything, as if it represented with absolute certainty some immense happiness in the future--"We must wait, we must wait!" Verena was perfectly willing to wait, though she did not exactly know what they were to wait for, and the aspiring frankness of her assent shone out of her face, and seemed to pacify their mutual gaze. Olive asked her innumerable questions; she wanted to enter into her life. It was one of those talks which people remember afterwards, in which every word has been given and taken, and in which they see the signs of a beginning that was to be justified. The more Olive learnt of her visitor's life the more she wanted to enter into it, the more it took her out of herself. Such strange lives are led in America, she always knew that; but this was queerer than anything she had dreamed of, and the queerest part was that the girl herself didn't appear to think it queer. She had been nursed in darkened rooms, and suckled in the midst of manifestations; she had begun to "attend lectures," as she said, when she was quite an infant, because her mother had no one to leave her with at home. She had sat on the knees of somnambulists, and had been passed from hand to hand by trance-speakers; she was familiar with every kind of "cure," and had grown up among lady-editors of newspapers advocating new religions, and people who disapproved of the marriage-tie. Verena talked of the marriage-tie as she would have talked of the last novel--as if she had heard it as frequently discussed; and at certain times, listening to the answers she made to her questions, Olive Chancellor closed her eyes in the manner of a person waiting till giddiness passed. Her young friend's revelations actually gave her a vertigo; they made her perceive everything from which she should have rescued her. Verena was perfectly uncontaminated, and she would never be touched by evil; but though Olive had no views about the marriage-tie except that she should hate it for herself--that particular reform she did not propose to consider--she didn't like the "atmosphere" of circles in which such institutions were called into question. She had no wish now to enter into an examination of that particular one; nevertheless, to make sure, she would just ask Verena whether she disapproved of it. "Well, I must say," said Miss Tarrant, "I prefer free unions." Olive held her breath an instant; such an idea was so disagreeable to her. Then, for all answer, she murmured, irresolutely, "I wish you would let me help you!" Yet it seemed, at the same time, that Verena needed little help, for it was more and more clear that her eloquence, when she stood up that way before a roomful of people, was literally inspiration. She answered all her friend's questions with a good-nature which evidently took no pains to make things plausible, an effort to oblige, not to please; but, after all, she could give very little account of herself. This was very visible when Olive asked her where she had got her "intense realisation" of the suffering of women; for her address at Miss Birdseye's showed that she, too (like Olive herself), had had that vision in the watches of the night. Verena thought a moment, as if to understand what her companion referred to, and then she inquired, always smiling, where Joan of Arc had got her idea of the suffering of France. This was so prettily said that Olive could scarcely keep from kissing her; she looked at the moment as if, like Joan, she might have had visits from the saints. Olive, of course, remembered afterwards that it had not literally answered the question; and she also reflected on something that made an answer seem more difficult--the fact that the girl had grown up among lady-doctors, lady-mediums, lady-editors, lady-preachers, lady-healers, women who, having rescued themselves from a passive existence, could illustrate only partially the misery of the sex at large. It was true that they might have illustrated it by their talk, by all they had "been through" and all they could tell a younger sister; but Olive was sure that Verena's prophetic impulse had not been stirred by the chatter of women (Miss Chancellor knew that sound as well as any one); it had proceeded rather out of their silence. She said to her visitor that whether or no the angels came down to her in glittering armour, she struck her as the only person she had yet encountered who had exactly the same tenderness, the same pity, for women that she herself had. Miss Birdseye had something of it, but Miss Birdseye wanted passion, wanted keenness, was capable of the weakest concessions. Mrs. Farrinder was not weak, of course, and she brought a great intellect to the matter; but she was not personal enough--she was too abstract. Verena was not abstract; she seemed to have lived in imagination through all the ages. Verena said she _did_ think she had a certain amount of imagination; she supposed she couldn't be so effective on the platform if she hadn't a rich fancy. Then Olive said to her, taking her hand again, that she wanted her to assure her of this--that it was the only thing in all the world she cared for, the redemption of women, the thing she hoped under Providence to give her life to. Verena flushed a little at this appeal, and the deeper glow of her eyes was the first sign of exaltation she had offered. "Oh yes--I want to give my life!" she exclaimed, with a vibrating voice; and then she added gravely, "I want to do something great!" "You will, you will, we both will!" Olive Chancellor cried, in rapture. But after a little she went on: "I wonder if you know what it means, young and lovely as you are--giving your life!" Verena looked down for a moment in meditation. "Well," she replied, "I guess I have thought more than I appear." "Do you understand German? Do you know 'Faust'?" said Olive. "'_Entsagen sollst du, sollst entsagen!_'" "I don't know German; I should like so to study it; I want to know everything." "We will work at it together--we will study everything." Olive almost panted; and while she spoke the peaceful picture hung before her of still winter evenings under the lamp, with falling snow outside, and tea on a little table, and successful renderings, with a chosen companion, of Goethe, almost the only foreign author she cared about; for she hated the writing of the French, in spite of the importance they have given to women. Such a vision as this was the highest indulgence she could offer herself; she had it only at considerable intervals. It seemed as if Verena caught a glimpse of it too, for her face kindled still more, and she said she should like that ever so much. At the same time she asked the meaning of the German words. "'Thou shalt renounce, refrain, abstain!' That's the way Bayard Taylor has translated them," Olive answered. "Oh, well, I guess I can abstain!" Verena exclaimed, with a laugh. And she got up rather quickly, as if by taking leave she might give a proof of what she meant. Olive put out her hands to hold her, and at this moment one of the _portières_ of the room was pushed aside, while a gentleman was ushered in by Miss Chancellor's little parlour-maid. XII Verena recognised him; she had seen him the night before at Miss Birdseye's, and she said to her hostess, "Now I must go--you have got another caller!" It was Verena's belief that in the fashionable world (like Mrs. Farrinder, she thought Miss Chancellor belonged to it--thought that, in standing there, she herself was in it)--in the highest social walks it was the custom of a prior guest to depart when another friend arrived. She had been told at people's doors that she could not be received because the lady of the house had a visitor, and she had retired on these occasions with a feeling of awe much more than a sense of injury. They had not been the portals of fashion, but in this respect, she deemed, they had emulated such bulwarks. Olive Chancellor offered Basil Ransom a greeting which she believed to be consummately lady-like, and which the young man, narrating the scene several months later to Mrs. Luna, whose susceptibilities he did not feel himself obliged to consider (she considered his so little), described by saying that she glared at him. Olive had thought it very possible he would come that day if he was to leave Boston; though she was perfectly mindful that she had given him no encouragement at the moment they separated. If he should not come she should be annoyed, and if he should come she should be furious; she was also sufficiently mindful of that. But she had a foreboding that, of the two grievances, fortune would confer upon her only the less; the only one she had as yet was that he had responded to her letter--a complaint rather wanting in richness. If he came, at any rate, he would be likely to come shortly before dinner, at the same hour as yesterday. He had now anticipated this period considerably, and it seemed to Miss Chancellor that he had taken a base advantage of her, stolen a march upon her privacy. She was startled, disconcerted, but as I have said, she was rigorously lady-like. She was determined not again to be fantastic, as she had been about his coming to Miss Birdseye's. The strange dread associating itself with that was something which, she devoutly trusted, she had felt once for all. She didn't know what he could do to her; he hadn't prevented, on the spot though he was, one of the happiest things that had befallen her for so long--this quick, confident visit of Verena Tarrant. It was only just at the last that he had come in, and Verena must go now; Olive's detaining hand immediately relaxed itself. It is to be feared there was no disguise of Ransom's satisfaction at finding himself once more face to face with the charming creature with whom he had exchanged that final speechless smile the evening before. He was more glad to see her than if she had been an old friend, for it seemed to him that she had suddenly become a new one. "The delightful girl," he said to himself; "she smiles at me as if she liked me!" He could not know that this was fatuous, that she smiled so at every one; the first time she saw people she treated them as if she recognised them. Moreover, she did not seat herself again in his honour; she let it be seen that she was still going. The three stood there together in the middle of the long, characteristic room, and, for the first time in her life, Olive Chancellor chose not to introduce two persons who met under her roof. She hated Europe, but she could be European if it were necessary. Neither of her companions had an idea that in leaving them simply planted face to face (the terror of the American heart) she had so high a warrant; and presently Basil Ransom felt that he didn't care whether he were introduced or not, for the greatness of an evil didn't matter if the remedy were equally great. "Miss Tarrant won't be surprised if I recognise her--if I take the liberty to speak to her. She is a public character; she must pay the penalty of her distinction." These words he boldly addressed to the girl, with his most gallant Southern manner, saying to himself meanwhile that she was prettier still by daylight. "Oh, a great many gentlemen have spoken to me," Verena said. "There were quite a number at Topeka----" And her phrase lost itself in her look at Olive, as if she were wondering what was the matter with her. "Now, I am afraid you are going the very moment I appear," Ransom went on. "Do you know that's very cruel to me? I know what your ideas are--you expressed them last night in such beautiful language; of course you convinced me. I am ashamed of being a man; but I am, and I can't help it, and I'll do penance any way you may prescribe. _Must_ she go, Miss Olive?" he asked of his cousin. "Do you flee before the individual male?" And he turned to Verena. This young lady gave a laugh that resembled speech in liquid fusion. "Oh no; I like the individual!" As an incarnation of a "movement," Ransom thought her more and more singular, and he wondered how she came to be closeted so soon with his kinswoman, to whom, only a few hours before, she had been a complete stranger. These, however, were doubtless the normal proceedings of women. He begged her to sit down again; he was sure Miss Chancellor would be sorry to part with her. Verena, looking at her friend, not for permission, but for sympathy, dropped again into a chair, and Ransom waited to see Miss Chancellor do the same. She gratified him after a moment, because she could not refuse without appearing to put a hurt upon Verena; but it went hard with her, and she was altogether discomposed. She had never seen any one so free in her own drawing-room as this loud Southerner, to whom she had so rashly offered a footing; he extended invitations to her guests under her nose. That Verena should do as he asked her was a signal sign of the absence of that "home-culture" (it was so that Miss Chancellor expressed the missing quality) which she never supposed the girl possessed: fortunately, as it would be supplied to her in abundance in Charles Street. (Olive of course held that home-culture was perfectly compatible with the widest emancipation.) It was with a perfectly good conscience that Verena complied with Basil Ransom's request; but it took her quick sensibility only a moment to discover that her friend was not pleased. She scarcely knew what had ruffled her, but at the same instant there passed before her the vision of the anxieties (of this sudden, unexplained sort, for instance, and much worse) which intimate relations with Miss Chancellor might entail. "Now, I want you to tell me this," Basil Ransom said, leaning forward towards Verena, with his hands on his knees, and completely oblivious to his hostess. "Do you really believe all that pretty moonshine you talked last night? I could have listened to you for another hour; but I never heard such monstrous sentiments, I must protest--I must, as a calumniated, misrepresented man. Confess you meant it as a kind of _reductio ad absurdum_--a satire on Mrs. Farrinder?" He spoke in a tone of the freest pleasantry, with his familiar, friendly Southern cadence. Verena looked at him with eyes that grew large. "Why, you don't mean to say you don't believe in our cause?" "Oh, it won't do--it won't do!" Ransom went on, laughing. "You are on the wrong tack altogether. Do you really take the ground that your sex has been without influence? Influence? Why, you have led us all by the nose to where we are now! Wherever we are, it's all you. You are at the bottom of everything." "Oh yes, and we want to be at the top," said Verena. "Ah, the bottom is a better place, depend on it, when from there you move the whole mass! Besides, you are on the top as well; you are everywhere, you are everything. I am of the opinion of that historical character--wasn't he some king?--who thought there was a lady behind everything. Whatever it was, he held, you have only to look for her; she is the explanation. Well, I always look for her, and I always find her; of course, I am always delighted to do so; but it proves she is the universal cause. Now, you don't mean to deny that power, the power of setting men in motion. You are at the bottom of all the wars." "Well, I am like Mrs. Farrinder; I like opposition," Verena exclaimed, with a happy smile. "That proves, as I say, how in spite of your expressions of horror you delight in the shock of battle. What do you say to Helen of Troy and the fearful carnage she excited? It is well known that the Empress of France was at the bottom of the last war in that country. And as for our four fearful years of slaughter, of course, you won't deny that there the ladies were the great motive power. The Abolitionists brought it on, and were not the Abolitionists principally females? Who was that celebrity that was mentioned last night?--Eliza P. Moseley. I regard Eliza as the cause of the biggest war of which history preserves the record." Basil Ransom enjoyed his humour the more because Verena appeared to enjoy it; and the look with which she replied to him, at the end of this little tirade, "Why, sir, you ought to take the platform too; we might go round together as poison and antidote!"--this made him feel that he had convinced her, for the moment, quite as much as it was important he should. In Verena's face, however, it lasted but an instant--an instant after she had glanced at Olive Chancellor, who, with her eyes fixed intently on the ground (a look she was to learn to know so well), had a strange expression. The girl slowly got up; she felt that she must go. She guessed Miss Chancellor didn't like this handsome joker (it was so that Basil Ransom struck her); and it was impressed upon her ("in time," as she thought) that her new friend would be more serious even than she about the woman-question, serious as she had hitherto believed herself to be. "I should like so much to have the pleasure of seeing you again," Ransom continued. "I think I should be able to interpret history for you by a new light." "Well, I should be very happy to see you in my home." These words had barely fallen from Verena's lips (her mother told her they were, in general, the proper thing to say when people expressed such a desire as that; she must not let it be assumed that she would come first to them)--she had hardly uttered this hospitable speech when she felt the hand of her hostess upon her arm and became aware that a passionate appeal sat in Olive's eyes. "You will just catch the Charles Street car," that young woman murmured, with muffled sweetness. Verena did not understand further than to see that she ought already to have departed; and the simplest response was to kiss Miss Chancellor, an act which she briefly performed. Basil Ransom understood still less, and it was a melancholy commentary on his contention that men are not inferior, that this meeting could not come, however rapidly, to a close without his plunging into a blunder which necessarily aggravated those he had already made. He had been invited by the little prophetess, and yet he had not been invited; but he did not take that up, because he must absolutely leave Boston on the morrow, and, besides, Miss Chancellor appeared to have something to say to it. But he put out his hand to Verena and said, "Good-bye, Miss Tarrant; are we not to have the pleasure of hearing you in New York? I am afraid we are sadly sunk." "Certainly, I should like to raise my voice in the biggest city," the girl replied. "Well, try to come on. I won't refute you. It would be a very stupid world, after all, if we always knew what women were going to say." Verena was conscious of the approach of the Charles Street car, as well as of the fact that Miss Chancellor was in pain; but she lingered long enough to remark that she could see he had the old-fashioned ideas--he regarded woman as the toy of man. "Don't say the toy--say the joy!" Ransom exclaimed. "There is one statement I will venture to advance; I am quite as fond of you as you are of each other!" "Much he knows about that!" said Verena, with a side-long smile at Olive Chancellor. For Olive, it made her more beautiful than ever; still, there was no trace of this mere personal elation in the splendid sententiousness with which, turning to Mr. Ransom, she remarked: "What women may be, or may not be, to each other, I won't attempt just now to say; but what _the truth_ may be to a human soul, I think perhaps even a woman may faintly suspect!" "The truth? My dear cousin, your truth is a most vain thing!" "Gracious me!" cried Verena Tarrant; and the gay vibration of her voice as she uttered this simple ejaculation was the last that Ransom heard of her. Miss Chancellor swept her out of the room, leaving the young man to extract a relish from the ineffable irony with which she uttered the words "even a woman." It was to be supposed, on general grounds, that she would reappear, but there was nothing in the glance she gave him, as she turned her back, that was an earnest of this. He stood there a moment, wondering; then his wonder spent itself on the page of a book which, according to his habit at such times, he had mechanically taken up, and in which he speedily became interested. He read it for five minutes in an uncomfortable-looking attitude, and quite forgot that he had been forsaken. He was recalled to this fact by the entrance of Mrs. Luna, arrayed as if for the street, and putting on her gloves again--she seemed always to be putting on her gloves. She wanted to know what in the world he was doing there alone--whether her sister had not been notified. "Oh yes," said Ransom, "she has just been with me, but she has gone downstairs with Miss Tarrant." "And who in the world is Miss Tarrant?" Ransom was surprised that Mrs. Luna should not know of the intimacy of the two young ladies, in spite of the brevity of their acquaintance, being already so great. But, apparently, Miss Olive had not mentioned her new friend. "Well, she is an inspirational speaker--the most charming creature in the world!" Mrs. Luna paused in her manipulations, gave an amazed, amused stare, then caused the room to ring with her laughter. "You don't mean to say you are converted--already?" "Converted to Miss Tarrant, decidedly." "You are not to belong to any Miss Tarrant; you are to belong to me," Mrs. Luna said, having thought over her Southern kinsman during the twenty-four hours, and made up her mind that he would be a good man for a lone woman to know. Then she added: "Did you come here to meet her--the inspirational speaker?" "No; I came to bid your sister good-bye." "Are you really going? I haven't made you promise half the things I want yet. But we will settle that in New York. How do you get on with Olive Chancellor?" Mrs. Luna continued, making her points, as she always did, with eagerness, though her roundness and her dimples had hitherto prevented her from being accused of that vice. It was her practice to speak of her sister by her whole name, and you would have supposed, from her usual manner of alluding to her, that Olive was much the older, instead of having been born ten years later than Adeline. She had as many ways as possible of marking the gulf that divided them; but she bridged it over lightly now by saying to Basil Ransom; "Isn't she a dear old thing?" This bridge, he saw, would not bear his weight, and her question seemed to him to have more audacity than sense. Why should she be so insincere? She might know that a man couldn't recognise Miss Chancellor in such a description as that. She was not old--she was sharply young; and it was inconceivable to him, though he had just seen the little prophetess kiss her, that she should ever become any one's "dear." Least of all was she a "thing"; she was intensely, fearfully, a person. He hesitated a moment, and then he replied: "She's a very remarkable woman." "Take care--don't be reckless!" cried Mrs. Luna. "Do you think she is very dreadful?" "Don't say anything against my cousin," Basil answered; and at that moment Miss Chancellor re-entered the room. She murmured some request that he would excuse her absence, but her sister interrupted her with an inquiry about Miss Tarrant. "Mr. Ransom thinks her wonderfully charming. Why didn't you show her to me? Do you want to keep her all to yourself?" Olive rested her eyes for some moments upon Mrs. Luna, without speaking. Then she said: "Your veil is not put on straight, Adeline." "I look like a monster--that, evidently, is what you mean!" Adeline exclaimed, going to the mirror to rearrange the peccant tissue. Miss Chancellor did not again ask Ransom to be seated; she appeared to take it for granted that he would leave her now. But instead of this he returned to the subject of Verena; he asked her whether she supposed the girl would come out in public--would go about like Mrs. Farrinder? "Come out in public!" Olive repeated; "in public? Why, you don't imagine that pure voice is to be hushed?" "Oh, hushed, no! it's too sweet for that. But not raised to a scream; not forced and cracked and ruined. She oughtn't to become like the others. She ought to remain apart." "Apart--_apart_?" said Miss Chancellor; "when we shall all be looking to her, gathering about her, praying for her!" There was an exceeding scorn in her voice. "If _I_ can help her, she shall be an immense power for good." "An immense power for quackery, my dear Miss Olive!" This broke from Basil's lips in spite of a vow he had just taken not to say anything that should "aggravate" his hostess, who was in a state of tension it was not difficult to detect. But he had lowered his tone to friendly pleading, and the offensive word was mitigated by his smile. She moved away from him, backwards, as if he had given her a push. "Ah, well, now you are reckless," Mrs. Luna remarked, drawing out her ribbons before the mirror. "I don't think you would interfere if you knew how little you understand us," Miss Chancellor said to Ransom. "Whom do you mean by 'us'--your whole delightful sex? I don't understand _you_, Miss Olive." "Come away with me, and I'll explain her as we go," Mrs. Luna went on, having finished her toilet. Ransom offered his hand in farewell to his hostess; but Olive found it impossible to do anything but ignore the gesture. She could not have let him touch her. "Well, then, if you must exhibit her to the multitude, bring her on to New York," he said, with the same attempt at a light treatment. "You'll have _me_ in New York--you don't want any one else!" Mrs. Luna ejaculated, coquettishly. "I have made up my mind to winter there now." Olive Chancellor looked from one to the other of her two relatives, one near and the other distant, but each so little in sympathy with her, and it came over her that there might be a kind of protection for her in binding them together, entangling them with each other. She had never had an idea of that kind in her life before, and that this sudden subtlety should have gleamed upon her as a momentary talisman gives the measure of her present nervousness. "If I could take her to New York, I would take her farther," she remarked, hoping she was enigmatical. "You talk about 'taking' her, as if you were a lecture-agent. Are you going into that business?" Mrs. Luna asked. Ransom could not help noticing that Miss Chancellor would not shake hands with him, and he felt, on the whole, rather injured. He paused a moment before leaving the room--standing there with his hand on the knob of the door. "Look here, Miss Olive, what did you write to me to come and see you for?" He made this inquiry with a countenance not destitute of gaiety, but his eyes showed something of that yellow light--just momentarily lurid--of which mention has been made. Mrs. Luna was on her way downstairs, and her companions remained face to face. "Ask my sister--I think she will tell you," said Olive, turning away from him and going to the window. She remained there, looking out; she heard the door of the house close, and saw the two cross the street together. As they passed out of sight her fingers played, softly, a little air upon the pane; it seemed to her that she had had an inspiration. Basil Ransom, meanwhile, put the question to Mrs. Luna. "If she was not going to like me, why in the world did she write to me?" "Because she wanted you to know me--she thought _I_ would like you!" And apparently she had not been wrong; for Mrs. Luna, when they reached Beacon Street, would not hear of his leaving her to go her way alone, would not in the least admit his plea that he had only an hour or two more in Boston (he was to travel, economically, by the boat) and must devote the time to his business. She appealed to his Southern chivalry, and not in vain; practically, at least, he admitted the rights of women. XIII Mrs. Tarrant was delighted, as may be imagined, with her daughter's account of Miss Chancellor's interior, and the reception the girl had found there; and Verena, for the next month, took her way very often to Charles Street. "Just you be as nice to her as you know how," Mrs. Tarrant had said to her; and she reflected with some complacency that her daughter did know--she knew how to do everything of that sort. It was not that Verena had been taught; that branch of the education of young ladies which is known as "manners and deportment" had not figured, as a definite head, in Miss Tarrant's curriculum. She had been told, indeed, that she must not lie nor steal; but she had been told very little else about behaviour; her only great advantage, in short, had been the parental example. But her mother liked to think that she was quick and graceful, and she questioned her exhaustively as to the progress of this interesting episode; she didn't see why, as she said, it shouldn't be a permanent "stand-by" for Verena. In Mrs. Tarrant's meditations upon the girl's future she had never thought of a fine marriage as a reward of effort; she would have deemed herself very immoral if she had endeavoured to capture for her child a rich husband. She had not, in fact, a very vivid sense of the existence of such agents of fate; all the rich men she had seen already had wives, and the unmarried men, who were generally very young, were distinguished from each other not so much by the figure of their income, which came little into question, as by the degree of their interest in regenerating ideas. She supposed Verena would marry some one, some day, and she hoped the personage would be connected with public life--which meant, for Mrs. Tarrant, that his name would be visible, in the lamp-light, on a coloured poster, in the doorway of Tremont Temple. But she was not eager about this vision, for the implications of matrimony were for the most part wanting in brightness--consisted of a tired woman holding a baby over a furnace-register that emitted lukewarm air. A real lovely friendship with a young woman who had, as Mrs. Tarrant expressed it, "prop'ty," would occupy agreeably such an interval as might occur before Verena should meet her sterner fate; it would be a great thing for her to have a place to run into when she wanted a change, and there was no knowing but what it might end in her having two homes. For the idea of the home, like most American women of her quality, Mrs. Tarrant had an extreme reverence; and it was her candid faith that in all the vicissitudes of the past twenty years she had preserved the spirit of this institution. If it should exist in duplicate for Verena, the girl would be favoured indeed. All this was as nothing, however, compared with the fact that Miss Chancellor seemed to think her young friend's gift _was_ inspirational, or at any rate, as Selah had so often said, quite unique. She couldn't make out very exactly, by Verena, what she thought; but if the way Miss Chancellor had taken hold of her didn't show that she believed she could rouse the people, Mrs. Tarrant didn't know what it showed. It was a satisfaction to her that Verena evidently responded freely; she didn't think anything of what she spent in car-tickets, and indeed she had told her that Miss Chancellor wanted to stuff her pockets with them. At first she went in because her mother liked to have her; but now, evidently, she went because she was so much drawn. She expressed the highest admiration of her new friend; she said it took her a little while to see into her, but now that she did, well, she was perfectly splendid. When Verena wanted to admire she went ahead of every one, and it was delightful to see how she was stimulated by the young lady in Charles Street. They thought everything of each other--that was very plain; you could scarcely tell which thought most. Each thought the other so noble, and Mrs. Tarrant had a faith that between them they _would_ rouse the people. What Verena wanted was some one who would know how to handle her (her father hadn't handled anything except the healing, up to this time, with real success), and perhaps Miss Chancellor would take hold better than some that made more of a profession. "It's beautiful, the way she draws you out," Verena had said to her mother; "there's something so searching that the first time I visited her it quite realised my idea of the Day of Judgement. But she seems to show all that's in herself at the same time, and then you see how lovely it is. She's just as pure as she can live; you see if she is not, when you know her. She's so noble herself that she makes you feel as if you wouldn't want to be less so. She doesn't care for anything but the elevation of our sex; if she can work a little toward that, it's all she asks. I can tell you, she kindles me; she does, mother, really. She doesn't care a speck what she wears--only to have an elegant parlour. Well, she _has_ got that; it's a regular dream-like place to sit. She's going to have a tree in, next week; she says she wants to see me sitting under a tree. I believe it's some oriental idea; it has lately been introduced in Paris. She doesn't like French ideas as a general thing; but she says this has more nature than most. She has got so many of her own that I shouldn't think she would require to borrow any. I'd sit in a forest to hear her bring some of them out," Verena went on, with characteristic raciness. "She just quivers when she describes what our sex has been through. It's so interesting to me to hear what I have always felt. If she wasn't afraid of facing the public, she would go far ahead of me. But she doesn't want to speak herself; she only wants to call me out. Mother, if she doesn't attract attention to me there isn't any attention to be attracted. She says I have got the gift of expression--it doesn't matter where it comes from. She says it's a great advantage to a movement to be personified in a bright young figure. Well, of course I'm young, and I feel bright enough when once I get started. She says my serenity while exposed to the gaze of hundreds is in itself a qualification; in fact, she seems to think my serenity is quite God-given. She hasn't got much of it herself; she's the most emotional woman I have met, up to now. She wants to know how I can speak the way I do unless I feel; and of course I tell her I do feel, so far as I realise. She seems to be realising all the time; I never saw any one that took so little rest. She says I ought to do something great, and she makes me feel as if I should. She says I ought to have a wide influence, if I can obtain the ear of the public; and I say to her that if I do it will be all her influence." Selah Tarrant looked at all this from a higher standpoint than his wife; at least such an attitude on his part was to be inferred from his increased solemnity. He committed himself to no precipitate elation at the idea of his daughter's being taken up by a patroness of movements who happened to have money; he looked at his child only from the point of view of the service she might render to humanity. To keep her ideal pointing in the right direction, to guide and animate her moral life--this was a duty more imperative for a parent so closely identified with revelations and panaceas than seeing that she formed profitable worldly connexions. He was "off," moreover, so much of the time that he could keep little account of her comings and goings, and he had an air of being but vaguely aware of whom Miss Chancellor, the object now of his wife's perpetual reference, might be. Verena's initial appearance in Boston, as he called her performance at Miss Birdseye's, had been a great success; and this reflexion added, as I say, to his habitually sacerdotal expression. He looked like the priest of a religion that was passing through the stage of miracles; he carried his responsibility in the general elongation of his person, of his gestures (his hands were now always in the air, as if he were being photographed in postures), of his words and sentences, as well as in his smile, as noiseless as a patent hinge, and in the folds of his eternal waterproof. He was incapable of giving an off-hand answer or opinion on the simplest occasion, and his tone of high deliberation increased in proportion as the subject was trivial or domestic. If his wife asked him at dinner if the potatoes were good, he replied that they were strikingly fine (he used to speak of the newspaper as "fine"--he applied this term to objects the most dissimilar), and embarked on a parallel worthy of Plutarch, in which he compared them with other specimens of the same vegetable. He produced, or would have liked to produce, the impression of looking above and beyond everything, of not caring for the immediate, of reckoning only with the long run. In reality he had one all-absorbing solicitude--the desire to get paragraphs put into the newspapers, paragraphs of which he had hitherto been the subject, but of which he was now to divide the glory with his daughter. The newspapers were his world, the richest expression, in his eyes, of human life; and, for him, if a diviner day was to come upon earth, it would be brought about by copious advertisement in the daily prints. He looked with longing for the moment when Verena should be advertised among the "personals," and to his mind the supremely happy people were those (and there were a good many of them) of whom there was some journalistic mention every day in the year. Nothing less than this would really have satisfied Selah Tarrant; his ideal of bliss was to be as regularly and indispensably a component part of the newspaper as the title and date, or the list of fires, or the column of Western jokes. The vision of that publicity haunted his dreams, and he would gladly have sacrificed to it the innermost sanctities of home. Human existence to him, indeed, was a huge publicity, in which the only fault was that it was sometimes not sufficiently effective. There had been a Spiritualist paper of old which he used to pervade; but he could not persuade himself that through this medium his personality had attracted general attention; and, moreover, the sheet, as he said, was played out anyway. Success was not success so long as his daughter's _physique_, the rumour of her engagement, were not included in the "Jottings" with the certainty of being extensively copied. The account of her exploits in the West had not made their way to the seaboard with the promptitude that he had looked for; the reason of this being, he supposed, that the few addresses she had made had not been lectures, announced in advance, to which tickets had been sold, but incidents, of abrupt occurrence, of certain multitudinous meetings, where there had been other performers better known to fame. They had brought in no money; they had been delivered only for the good of the cause. If it could only be known that she spoke for nothing, that might deepen the reverberation; the only trouble was that her speaking for nothing was not the way to remind him that he had a remunerative daughter. It was not the way to stand out so very much either, Selah Tarrant felt; for there were plenty of others that knew how to make as little money as she would. To speak--that was the one thing that most people were willing to do for nothing; it was not a line in which it was easy to appear conspicuously disinterested. Disinterestedness, too, was incompatible with receipts; and receipts were what Selah Tarrant was, in his own parlance, after. He wished to bring about the day when they would flow in freely; the reader perhaps sees the gesture with which, in his colloquies with himself, he accompanied this mental image. It seemed to him at present that the fruitful time was not far off; it had been brought appreciably nearer by that fortunate evening at Miss Birdseye's. If Mrs. Farrinder could be induced to write an "open letter" about Verena, that would do more than anything else. Selah was not remarkable for delicacy of perception, but he knew the world he lived in well enough to be aware that Mrs. Farrinder was liable to rear up, as they used to say down in Pennsylvania, where he lived before he began to peddle lead-pencils. She wouldn't always take things as you might expect, and if it didn't meet her views to pay a public tribute to Verena, there wasn't any way known to Tarrant's ingenious mind of getting round her. If it was a question of a favour from Mrs. Farrinder, you just had to wait for it, as you would for a rise in the thermometer. He had told Miss Birdseye what he would like, and she seemed to think, from the way their celebrated friend had been affected, that the idea might take her some day of just letting the public know all she had felt. She was off somewhere now (since that evening), but Miss Birdseye had an idea that when she was back in Roxbury she would send for Verena and give her a few points. Meanwhile, at any rate, Selah was sure he had a card; he felt there was money in the air. It might already be said there were receipts from Charles Street; that rich, peculiar young woman seemed to want to lavish herself. He pretended, as I have intimated, not to notice this; but he never saw so much as when he had his eyes fixed on the cornice. He had no doubt that if he should make up his mind to take a hall some night, she would tell him where the bill might be sent. That was what he was thinking of now, whether he had better take a hall right away, so that Verena might leap at a bound into renown, or wait till she had made a few more appearances in private, so that curiosity might be worked up. These meditations accompanied him in his multifarious wanderings through the streets and the suburbs of the New England capital. As I have also mentioned, he was absent for hours--long periods during which Mrs. Tarrant, sustaining nature with a hard-boiled egg and a doughnut, wondered how in the world he stayed his stomach. He never wanted anything but a piece of pie when he came in; the only thing about which he was particular was that it should be served up hot. She had a private conviction that he partook, at the houses of his lady patients, of little lunches; she applied this term to any episodical repast, at any hour of the twenty-four. It is but fair to add that once, when she betrayed her suspicion, Selah remarked that the only refreshment _he_ ever wanted was the sense that he was doing some good. This effort with him had many forms; it involved, among other things, a perpetual perambulation of the streets, a haunting of horse-cars, railway-stations, shops that were "selling off." But the places that knew him best were the offices of the newspapers and the vestibules of the hotels--the big marble-paved chambers of informal reunion which offer to the streets, through high glass plates, the sight of the American citizen suspended by his heels. Here, amid the piled-up luggage, the convenient spittoons, the elbowing loungers, the disconsolate "guests," the truculent Irish porters, the rows of shaggy-backed men in strange hats, writing letters at a table inlaid with advertisements, Selah Tarrant made innumerable contemplative stations. He could not have told you, at any particular moment, what he was doing; he only had a general sense that such places were national nerve-centres, and that the more one looked in, the more one was "on the spot." The _penetralia_ of the daily press were, however, still more fascinating, and the fact that they were less accessible, that here he found barriers in his path, only added to the zest of forcing an entrance. He abounded in pretexts; he even sometimes brought contributions; he was persistent and penetrating, he was known as the irrepressible Tarrant. He hung about, sat too long, took up the time of busy people, edged into the printing-rooms when he had been eliminated from the office, talked with the compositors till they set up his remarks by mistake, and to the newsboys when the compositors had turned their backs. He was always trying to find out what was "going in"; he would have liked to go in himself, bodily, and, failing in this, he hoped to get advertisements inserted gratis. The wish of his soul was that he might be interviewed; that made him hover at the editorial elbow. Once he thought he had been, and the headings, five or six deep, danced for days before his eyes; but the report never appeared. He expected his revenge for this the day after Verena should have burst forth; he saw the attitude in which he should receive the emissaries who would come after his daughter. XIV "We ought to have some one to meet her," Mrs. Tarrant said; "I presume she wouldn't care to come out just to see us." "She," between the mother and the daughter, at this period, could refer only to Olive Chancellor, who was discussed in the little house at Cambridge at all hours and from every possible point of view. It was never Verena now who began, for she had grown rather weary of the topic; she had her own ways of thinking of it, which were not her mother's, and if she lent herself to this lady's extensive considerations it was because that was the best way of keeping her thoughts to herself. Mrs. Tarrant had an idea that she (Mrs. Tarrant) liked to study people, and that she was now engaged in an analysis of Miss Chancellor. It carried her far, and she came out at unexpected times with her results. It was still her purpose to interpret the world to the ingenious mind of her daughter, and she translated Miss Chancellor with a confidence which made little account of the fact that she had seen her but once, while Verena had this advantage nearly every day. Verena felt that by this time she knew Olive very well, and her mother's most complicated versions of motive and temperament (Mrs. Tarrant, with the most imperfect idea of the meaning of the term, was always talking about people's temperament) rendered small justice to the phenomena it was now her privilege to observe in Charles Street. Olive was much more remarkable than Mrs. Tarrant suspected, remarkable as Mrs. Tarrant believed her to be. She had opened Verena's eyes to extraordinary pictures, made the girl believe that she had a heavenly mission, given her, as we have seen, quite a new measure of the interest of life. These were larger consequences than the possibility of meeting the leaders of society at Olive's house. She had met no one, as yet, but Mrs. Luna; her new friend seemed to wish to keep her quite for herself. This was the only reproach that Mrs. Tarrant directed to the new friend as yet; she was disappointed that Verena had not obtained more insight into the world of fashion. It was one of the prime articles of her faith that the world of fashion was wicked and hollow, and, moreover, Verena told her that Miss Chancellor loathed and despised it. She could not have informed you wherein it would profit her daughter (for the way those ladies shrank from any new gospel was notorious); nevertheless she was vexed that Verena shouldn't come back to her with a little more of the fragrance of Beacon Street. The girl herself would have been the most interested person in the world if she had not been the most resigned; she took all that was given her and was grateful, and missed nothing that was withheld; she was the most extraordinary mixture of eagerness and docility. Mrs. Tarrant theorised about temperaments and she loved her daughter; but she was only vaguely aware of the fact that she had at her side the sweetest flower of character (as one might say) that had ever bloomed on earth. She was proud of Verena's brightness, and of her special talent; but the commonness of her own surface was a non-conductor of the girl's quality. Therefore she thought that it would add to her success in life to know a few high-flyers, if only to put them to shame; as if anything could add to Verena's success, as if it were not supreme success simply to have been made as she was made. Mrs. Tarrant had gone into town to call upon Miss Chancellor; she carried out this resolve, on which she had bestowed infinite consideration, independently of Verena. She had decided that she had a pretext; her dignity required one, for she felt that at present the antique pride of the Greenstreets was terribly at the mercy of her curiosity. She wished to see Miss Chancellor again, and to see her among her charming appurtenances, which Verena had described to her with great minuteness. The pretext that she would have valued most was wanting--that of Olive's having come out to Cambridge to pay the visit that had been solicited from the first; so she had to take the next best--she had to say to herself that it was her duty to see what she should think of a place where her daughter spent so much time. To Miss Chancellor she would appear to have come to thank her for her hospitality; she knew, in advance, just the air she should take (or she fancied she knew it--Mrs. Tarrant's were not always what she supposed), just the _nuance_ (she had also an impression she knew a little French) of her tone. Olive, after the lapse of weeks, still showed no symptoms of presenting herself, and Mrs. Tarrant rebuked Verena with some sternness for not having made her feel that this attention was due to the mother of her friend. Verena could scarcely say to her she guessed Miss Chancellor didn't think much of that personage, true as it was that the girl had discerned this angular fact, which she attributed to Olive's extraordinary comprehensiveness of view. Verena herself did not suppose that her mother occupied a very important place in the universe; and Miss Chancellor never looked at anything smaller than that. Nor was she free to report (she was certainly now less frank at home, and, moreover, the suspicion was only just becoming distinct to her) that Olive would like to detach her from her parents altogether, and was therefore not interested in appearing to cultivate relations with them. Mrs. Tarrant, I may mention, had a further motive: she was consumed with the desire to behold Mrs. Luna. This circumstance may operate as a proof that the aridity of her life was great, and if it should have that effect I shall not be able to gainsay it. She had seen all the people who went to lectures, but there were hours when she desired, for a change, to see some who didn't go; and Mrs. Luna, from Verena's description of her, summed up the characteristics of this eccentric class. Verena had given great attention to Olive's brilliant sister; she had told her friend everything now--everything but one little secret, namely, that if she could have chosen at the beginning she would have liked to resemble Mrs. Luna. This lady fascinated her, carried off her imagination to strange lands; she should enjoy so much a long evening with her alone, when she might ask her ten thousand questions. But she never saw her alone, never saw her at all but in glimpses. Adeline flitted in and out, dressed for dinners and concerts, always saying something worldly to the young woman from Cambridge, and something to Olive that had a freedom which she herself would probably never arrive at (a failure of foresight on Verena's part). But Miss Chancellor never detained her, never gave Verena a chance to see her, never appeared to imagine that she could have the least interest in such a person; only took up the subject again after Adeline had left them--the subject, of course, which was always the same, the subject of what they should do together for their suffering sex. It was not that Verena was not interested in that--gracious, no; it opened up before her, in those wonderful colloquies with Olive, in the most inspiring way; but her fancy would make a dart to right or left when other game crossed their path, and her companion led her, intellectually, a dance in which her feet--that is, her head--failed her at times for weariness. Mrs. Tarrant found Miss Chancellor at home, but she was not gratified by even the most transient glimpse of Mrs. Luna; a fact which, in her heart, Verena regarded as fortunate, inasmuch as (she said to herself) if her mother, returning from Charles Street, began to explain Miss Chancellor to her with fresh energy, and as if she (Verena) had never seen her, and up to this time they had had nothing to say about her, to what developments (of the same sort) would not an encounter with Adeline have given rise? When Verena at last said to her friend that she thought she ought to come out to Cambridge--she didn't understand why she didn't--Olive expressed her reasons very frankly, admitted that she was jealous, that she didn't wish to think of the girl's belonging to any one but herself. Mr. and Mrs. Tarrant would have authority, opposed claims, and she didn't wish to see them, to remember that they existed. This was true, so far as it went; but Olive could not tell Verena everything--could not tell her that she hated that dreadful pair at Cambridge. As we know, she had forbidden herself this emotion as regards individuals; and she flattered herself that she considered the Tarrants as a type, a deplorable one, a class that, with the public at large, discredited the cause of the new truths. She had talked them over with Miss Birdseye (Olive was always looking after her now and giving her things--the good lady appeared at this period in wonderful caps and shawls--for she felt she couldn't thank her enough), and even Doctor Prance's fellow-lodger, whose animosity to flourishing evils lived in the happiest (though the most illicit) union with the mania for finding excuses, even Miss Birdseye was obliged to confess that if you came to examine his record, poor Selah didn't amount to so very much. How little he amounted to Olive perceived after she had made Verena talk, as the girl did immensely, about her father and mother--quite unconscious, meanwhile, of the conclusions she suggested to Miss Chancellor. Tarrant was a moralist without moral sense--that was very clear to Olive as she listened to the history of his daughter's childhood and youth, which Verena related with an extraordinary artless vividness. This narrative, tremendously fascinating to Miss Chancellor, made her feel in all sorts of ways--prompted her to ask herself whether the girl was also destitute of the perception of right and wrong. No, she was only supremely innocent; she didn't understand, she didn't interpret nor see the _portée_ of what she described; she had no idea whatever of judging her parents. Olive had wished to "realise" the conditions in which her wonderful young friend (she thought her more wonderful every day) had developed, and to this end, as I have related, she prompted her to infinite discourse. But now she was satisfied, the realisation was complete, and what she would have liked to impose on the girl was an effectual rupture with her past. That past she by no means absolutely deplored, for it had the merit of having initiated Verena (and her patroness, through her agency) into the miseries and mysteries of the People. It was her theory that Verena (in spite of the blood of the Greenstreets, and, after all, who were they?) was a flower of the great Democracy, and that it was impossible to have had an origin less distinguished than Tarrant himself. His birth, in some unheard-of place in Pennsylvania, was quite inexpressibly low, and Olive would have been much disappointed if it had been wanting in this defect. She liked to think that Verena, in her childhood, had known almost the extremity of poverty, and there was a kind of ferocity in the joy with which she reflected that there had been moments when this delicate creature came near (if the pinch had only lasted a little longer) to literally going without food. These things added to her value for Olive; they made that young lady feel that their common undertaking would, in consequence, be so much more serious. It is always supposed that revolutionists have been goaded, and the goading would have been rather deficient here were it not for such happy accidents in Verena's past. When she conveyed from her mother a summons to Cambridge for a particular occasion, Olive perceived that the great effort must now be made. Great efforts were nothing new to her--it was a great effort to live at all--but this one appeared to her exceptionally cruel. She determined, however, to make it, promising herself that her first visit to Mrs. Tarrant should also be her last. Her only consolation was that she expected to suffer intensely; for the prospect of suffering was always, spiritually speaking, so much cash in her pocket. It was arranged that Olive should come to tea (the repast that Selah designated as his supper), when Mrs. Tarrant, as we have seen, desired to do her honour by inviting another guest. This guest, after much deliberation between that lady and Verena, was selected, and the first person Olive saw on entering the little parlour in Cambridge was a young man with hair prematurely, or, as one felt that one should say, precociously white, whom she had a vague impression she had encountered before, and who was introduced to her as Mr. Matthias Pardon. She suffered less than she had hoped--she was so taken up with the consideration of Verena's interior. It was as bad as she could have desired; desired in order to feel that (to take her out of such a _milieu_ as that) she should have a right to draw her altogether to herself. Olive wished more and more to extract some definite pledge from her; she could hardly say what it had best be as yet; she only felt that it must be something that would have an absolute sanctity for Verena and would bind them together for life. On this occasion it seemed to shape itself in her mind; she began to see what it ought to be, though she also saw that she would perhaps have to wait awhile. Mrs. Tarrant, too, in her own house, became now a complete figure; there was no manner of doubt left as to her being vulgar. Olive Chancellor despised vulgarity, had a scent for it which she followed up in her own family, so that often, with a rising flush, she detected the taint even in Adeline. There were times, indeed, when every one seemed to have it, every one but Miss Birdseye (who had nothing to do with it--she was an antique) and the poorest, humblest people. The toilers and spinners, the very obscure, these were the only persons who were safe from it. Miss Chancellor would have been much happier if the movements she was interested in could have been carried on only by the people she liked, and if revolutions, somehow, didn't always have to begin with one's self--with internal convulsions, sacrifices, executions. A common end, unfortunately, however fine as regards a special result, does not make community impersonal. Mrs. Tarrant, with her soft corpulence, looked to her guest very bleached and tumid; her complexion had a kind of withered glaze; her hair, very scanty, was drawn off her forehead _à la Chinoise_; she had no eyebrows, and her eyes seemed to stare, like those of a figure of wax. When she talked and wished to insist, and she was always insisting, she puckered and distorted her face, with an effort to express the inexpressible, which turned out, after all, to be nothing. She had a kind of doleful elegance, tried to be confidential, lowered her voice and looked as if she wished to establish a secret understanding, in order to ask her visitor if she would venture on an apple-fritter. She wore a flowing mantle, which resembled her husband's waterproof--a garment which, when she turned to her daughter or talked about her, might have passed for the robe of a sort of priestess of maternity. She endeavoured to keep the conversation in a channel which would enable her to ask sudden incoherent questions of Olive, mainly as to whether she knew the principal ladies (the expression was Mrs. Tarrant's), not only in Boston, but in the other cities which, in her nomadic course, she herself had visited. Olive knew some of them, and of some of them had never heard; but she was irritated, and pretended a universal ignorance (she was conscious that she had never told so many fibs), by which her hostess was much disconcerted, although her questions had apparently been questions pure and simple, leading nowhither and without bearings on any new truth. XV Tarrant, however, kept an eye in that direction; he was solemnly civil to Miss Chancellor, handed her the dishes at table over and over again, and ventured to intimate that the apple-fritters were very fine; but, save for this, alluded to nothing more trivial than the regeneration of humanity and the strong hope he felt that Miss Birdseye would again have one of her delightful gatherings. With regard to this latter point he explained that it was not in order that he might again present his daughter to the company, but simply because on such occasions there was a valuable interchange of hopeful thought, a contact of mind with mind. If Verena had anything suggestive to contribute to the social problem, the opportunity would come--that was part of their faith. They couldn't reach out for it and try and push their way; if they were wanted, their hour would strike; if they were not, they would just keep still and let others press forward who seemed to be called. If they were called, they would know it; and if they weren't, they could just hold on to each other as they had always done. Tarrant was very fond of alternatives, and he mentioned several others; it was never his fault if his listeners failed to think him impartial. They hadn't much, as Miss Chancellor could see; she could tell by their manner of life that they hadn't raked in the dollars; but they had faith that, whether one raised one's voice or simply worked on in silence, the principal difficulties would straighten themselves out; and they had also a considerable experience of great questions. Tarrant spoke as if, as a family, they were prepared to take charge of them on moderate terms. He always said "ma'am" in speaking to Olive, to whom, moreover, the air had never been so filled with the sound of her own name. It was always in her ear, save when Mrs. Tarrant and Verena conversed in prolonged and ingenuous asides; this was still for her benefit, but the pronoun sufficed them. She had wished to judge Doctor Tarrant (not that she believed he had come honestly by his title), to make up her mind. She had done these things now, and she expressed to herself the kind of man she believed him to be in reflecting that if she should offer him ten thousand dollars to renounce all claim to Verena, keeping--he and his wife--clear of her for the rest of time, he would probably say, with his fearful smile, "Make it twenty, money down, and I'll do it." Some image of this transaction, as one of the possibilities of the future, outlined itself for Olive among the moral incisions of that evening. It seemed implied in the very place, the bald bareness of Tarrant's temporary lair, a wooden cottage, with a rough front yard, a little naked piazza, which seemed rather to expose than to protect, facing upon an unpaved road, in which the footway was overlaid with a strip of planks. These planks were embedded in ice or in liquid thaw, according to the momentary mood of the weather, and the advancing pedestrian traversed them in the attitude, and with a good deal of the suspense, of a rope-dancer. There was nothing in the house to speak of; nothing, to Olive's sense, but a smell of kerosene; though she had a consciousness of sitting down somewhere--the object creaked and rocked beneath her--and of the table at tea being covered with a cloth stamped in bright colours. As regards the pecuniary transaction with Selah, it was strange how she should have seen it through the conviction that Verena would never give up her parents. Olive was sure that she would never turn her back upon them, would always share with them. She would have despised her had she thought her capable of another course; yet it baffled her to understand why, when parents were so trashy, this natural law should not be suspended. Such a question brought her back, however, to her perpetual enigma, the mystery she had already turned over in her mind for hours together--the wonder of such people being Verena's progenitors at all. She had explained it, as we explain all exceptional things, by making the part, as the French say, of the miraculous. She had come to consider the girl as a wonder of wonders, to hold that no human origin, however congruous it might superficially appear, would sufficiently account for her; that her springing up between Selah and his wife was an exquisite whim of the creative force; and that in such a case a few shades more or less of the inexplicable didn't matter. It was notorious that great beauties, great geniuses, great characters, take their own times and places for coming into the world, leaving the gaping spectators to make them "fit in," and holding from far-off ancestors, or even, perhaps, straight from the divine generosity, much more than from their ugly or stupid progenitors. They were incalculable phenomena, anyway, as Selah would have said. Verena, for Olive, was the very type and model of the "gifted being"; her qualities had not been bought and paid for; they were like some brilliant birthday-present, left at the door by an unknown messenger, to be delightful for ever as an inexhaustible legacy, and amusing for ever from the obscurity of its source. They were superabundantly crude as yet--happily for Olive, who promised herself, as we know, to train and polish them--but they were as genuine as fruit and flowers, as the glow of the fire or the plash of water. For her scrutinising friend Verena had the disposition of the artist, the spirit to which all charming forms come easily and naturally. It required an effort at first to imagine an artist so untaught, so mistaught, so poor in experience; but then it required an effort also to imagine people like the old Tarrants, or a life so full as her life had been of ugly things. Only an exquisite creature could have resisted such associations, only a girl who had some natural light, some divine spark of taste. There were people like that, fresh from the hand of Omnipotence; they were far from common, but their existence was as incontestable as it was beneficent. Tarrant's talk about his daughter, her prospects, her enthusiasm, was terribly painful to Olive; it brought back to her what she had suffered already from the idea that he laid his hands upon her to make her speak. That he should be mixed up in any way with this exercise of her genius was a great injury to the cause, and Olive had already determined that in future Verena should dispense with his co-operation. The girl had virtually confessed that she lent herself to it only because it gave him pleasure, and that anything else would do as well, anything that would make her quiet a little before she began to "give out." Olive took upon herself to believe that _she_ could make her quiet, though, certainly, she had never had that effect upon any one; she would mount the platform with Verena if necessary, and lay her hands upon her head. Why in the world had a perverse fate decreed that Tarrant should take an interest in the affairs of Woman--as if she wanted _his_ aid to arrive at her goal; a charlatan of the poor, lean, shabby sort, without the humour, brilliancy, prestige, which sometimes throw a drapery over shallowness? Mr. Pardon evidently took an interest as well, and there was something in his appearance that seemed to say that his sympathy would not be dangerous. He was much at his ease, plainly, beneath the roof of the Tarrants, and Olive reflected that though Verena had told her much about him, she had not given her the idea that he was as intimate as that. What she had mainly said was that he sometimes took her to the theatre. Olive could enter, to a certain extent, into that; she herself had had a phase (some time after her father's death--her mother's had preceded his--when she bought the little house in Charles Street and began to live alone), during which she accompanied gentlemen to respectable places of amusement. She was accordingly not shocked at the idea of such adventures on Verena's part; than which, indeed, judging from her own experience, nothing could well have been less adventurous. Her recollections of these expeditions were as of something solemn and edifying--of the earnest interest in her welfare exhibited by her companion (there were few occasions on which the young Bostonian appeared to more advantage), of the comfort of other friends sitting near, who were sure to know whom she was with, of serious discussion between the acts in regard to the behaviour of the characters in the piece, and of the speech at the end with which, as the young man quitted her at her door, she rewarded his civility--"I must thank you for a very pleasant evening." She always felt that she made that too prim; her lips stiffened themselves as she spoke. But the whole affair had always a primness; this was discernible even to Olive's very limited sense of humour. It was not so religious as going to evening-service at King's Chapel; but it was the next thing to it. Of course all girls didn't do it; there were families that viewed such a custom with disfavour. But this was where the girls were of the romping sort; there had to be some things they were known not to do. As a general thing, moreover, the practice was confined to the decorous; it was a sign of culture and quiet tastes. All this made it innocent for Verena, whose life had exposed her to much worse dangers; but the thing referred itself in Olive's mind to a danger which cast a perpetual shadow there--the possibility of the girl's embarking with some ingenuous youth on an expedition that would last much longer than an evening. She was haunted, in a word, with the fear that Verena would marry, a fate to which she was altogether unprepared to surrender her; and this made her look with suspicion upon all male acquaintance. Mr. Pardon was not the only one she knew; she had an example of the rest in the persons of two young Harvard law-students, who presented themselves after tea on this same occasion. As they sat there Olive wondered whether Verena had kept something from her, whether she were, after all (like so many other girls in Cambridge), a college-"belle," an object of frequentation to undergraduates. It was natural that at the seat of a big university there should be girls like that, with students dangling after them, but she didn't want Verena to be one of them. There were some that received the Seniors and Juniors; others that were accessible to Sophomores and Freshmen. Certain young ladies distinguished the professional students; there was a group, even, that was on the best terms with the young men who were studying for the Unitarian ministry in that queer little barrack at the end of Divinity Avenue. The advent of the new visitors made Mrs. Tarrant bustle immensely; but after she had caused every one to change places two or three times with every one else the company subsided into a circle which was occasionally broken by wandering movements on the part of her husband, who, in the absence of anything to say on any subject whatever, placed himself at different points in listening attitudes, shaking his head slowly up and down, and gazing at the carpet with an air of supernatural attention. Mrs. Tarrant asked the young men from the Law School about their studies, and whether they meant to follow them up seriously; said she thought some of the laws were very unjust, and she hoped they meant to try and improve them. She had suffered by the laws herself, at the time her father died; she hadn't got half the prop'ty she should have got if they had been different. She thought they should be for public matters, not for people's private affairs; the idea always seemed to her to keep you down if you _were_ down, and to hedge you in with difficulties. Sometimes she thought it was a wonder how she had developed in the face of so many; but it was a proof that freedom was everywhere, if you only knew how to look for it. The two young men were in the best humour; they greeted these sallies with a merriment of which, though it was courteous in form, Olive was by no means unable to define the spirit. They talked naturally more with Verena than with her mother; and while they were so engaged Mrs. Tarrant explained to her who they were, and how one of them, the smaller, who was not quite so spruce, had brought the other, his particular friend, to introduce him. This friend, Mr. Burrage, was from New York; he was very fashionable, he went out a great deal in Boston ("I have no doubt you know some of the places," said Mrs. Tarrant); his "fam'ly" was very rich. "Well, he knows plenty of that sort," Mrs. Tarrant went on, "but he felt unsatisfied; he didn't know any one like _us_. He told Mr. Gracie (that's the little one) that he felt as if he _must_; it seemed as if he couldn't hold out. So we told Mr. Gracie, of course, to bring him right round. Well, I hope he'll get something from us, I'm sure. He has been reported to be engaged to Miss Winkworth; I have no doubt you know who I mean. But Mr. Gracie says he hasn't looked at her more than twice. That's the way rumours fly round in that set, I presume. Well, I am glad we are not in it, wherever we are! Mr. Gracie is very different; he is intensely plain, but I believe he is very learned. You don't think him plain? Oh, you don't know? Well, I suppose you don't care, you must see so many. But I must say, when a young man looks like that, I call him painfully plain. I heard Doctor Tarrant make the remark the last time he was here. I don't say but what the plainest are the best. Well, I had no idea we were going to have a party when I asked you. I wonder whether Verena hadn't better hand the cake; we generally find the students enjoy it so much." This office was ultimately delegated to Selah, who, after a considerable absence, reappeared with a dish of dainties, which he presented successively to each member of the company. Olive saw Verena lavish her smiles on Mr. Gracie and Mr. Burrage; the liveliest relation had established itself, and the latter gentleman in especial abounded in appreciative laughter. It might have been fancied, just from looking at the group, that Verena's vocation was to smile and talk with young men who bent towards her; might have been fancied, that is, by a person less sure of the contrary than Olive, who had reason to know that a "gifted being" is sent into the world for a very different purpose, and that making the time pass pleasantly for conceited young men is the last duty you are bound to think of if you happen to have a talent for embodying a cause. Olive tried to be glad that her friend had the richness of nature that makes a woman gracious without latent purposes; she reflected that Verena was not in the smallest degree a flirt, that she was only enchantingly and universally genial, that nature had given her a beautiful smile, which fell impartially on every one, man and woman, alike. Olive may have been right, but it shall be confided to the reader that in reality she never knew, by any sense of her own, whether Verena were a flirt or not. This young lady could not possibly have told her (even if she herself knew, which she didn't), and Olive, destitute of the quality, had no means of taking the measure in another of the subtle feminine desire to please. She could see the difference between Mr. Gracie and Mr. Burrage; her being bored by Mrs. Tarrant's attempting to point it out is perhaps a proof of that. It was a curious incident of her zeal for the regeneration of her sex that manly things were, perhaps on the whole, what she understood best. Mr. Burrage was rather a handsome youth, with a laughing, clever face, a certain sumptuosity of apparel, an air of belonging to the "fast set"--a precocious, good-natured man of the world, curious of new sensations and containing, perhaps, the making of a _dilettante_. Being, doubtless, a little ambitious, and liking to flatter himself that he appreciated worth in lowly forms, he had associated himself with the ruder but at the same time acuter personality of a genuine son of New England, who had a harder head than his own and a humour in reality more cynical, and who, having earlier knowledge of the Tarrants, had undertaken to show him something indigenous and curious, possibly even fascinating. Mr. Gracie was short, with a big head; he wore eye-glasses, looked unkempt, almost rustic, and said good things with his ugly lips. Verena had replies for a good many of them, and a pretty colour came into her face as she talked. Olive could see that she produced herself quite as well as one of these gentlemen had foretold the other that she would. Miss Chancellor knew what had passed between them as well as if she had heard it; Mr. Gracie had promised that he would lead her on, that she should justify his description and prove the raciest of her class. They would laugh about her as they went away, lighting their cigars, and for many days afterwards their discourse would be enlivened with quotations from the "women's rights girl." It was amazing how many ways men had of being antipathetic; these two were very different from Basil Ransom, and different from each other, and yet the manner of each conveyed an insult to one's womanhood. The worst of the case was that Verena would be sure not to perceive this outrage--not to dislike them in consequence. There were so many things that she hadn't yet learned to dislike, in spite of her friend's earnest efforts to teach her. She had the idea vividly (that was the marvel) of the cruelty of man, of his immemorial injustice; but it remained abstract, platonic; she didn't detest him in consequence. What was the use of her having that sharp, inspired vision of the history of the sex (it was, as she had said herself, exactly like Joan of Arc's absolutely supernatural apprehension of the state of France) if she wasn't going to carry it out, if she was going to behave as the ordinary pusillanimous, conventional young lady? It was all very well for her to have said that first day that she would renounce: did she look, at such a moment as this, like a young woman who had renounced? Suppose this glittering, laughing Burrage youth, with his chains and rings and shining shoes, should fall in love with her and try to bribe her, with his great possessions, to practise renunciations of another kind--to give up her holy work and to go with him to New York, there to live as his wife, partly bullied, partly pampered, in the accustomed Burrage manner? There was as little comfort for Olive as there had been on the whole alarm in the recollection of that off-hand speech of Verena's about her preference for "free unions." This had been mere maiden flippancy; she had not known the meaning of what she said. Though she had grown up among people who took for granted all sorts of queer laxities, she had kept the consummate innocence of the American girl, that innocence which was the greatest of all, for it had survived the abolition of walls and locks; and of the various remarks that had dropped from Verena expressing this quality that startling observation certainly expressed it most. It implied, at any rate, that unions of some kind or other had her approval, and did not exclude the dangers that might arise from encounters with young men in search of sensations. XVI Mr. Pardon, as Olive observed, was a little out of this combination; but he was not a person to allow himself to droop. He came and seated himself by Miss Chancellor and broached a literary subject; he asked her if she were following any of the current "serials" in the magazines. On her telling him that she never followed anything of that sort, he undertook a defence of the serial system, which she presently reminded him that she had not attacked. He was not discouraged by this retort, but glided gracefully off to the question of Mount Desert; conversation on some subject or other being evidently a necessity of his nature. He talked very quickly and softly, with words, and even sentences, imperfectly formed; there was a certain amiable flatness in his tone, and he abounded in exclamations--"Goodness gracious!" and "Mercy on us!"--not much in use among the sex whose profanity is apt to be coarse. He had small, fair features, remarkably neat, and pretty eyes, and a moustache that he caressed, and an air of juvenility much at variance with his grizzled locks, and the free familiar reference in which he was apt to indulge to his career as a journalist. His friends knew that in spite of his delicacy and his prattle he was what they called a live man; his appearance was perfectly reconcilable with a large degree of literary enterprise. It should be explained that for the most part they attached to this idea the same meaning as Selah Tarrant--a state of intimacy with the newspapers, the cultivation of the great arts of publicity. For this ingenuous son of his age all distinction between the person and the artist had ceased to exist; the writer was personal, the person food for newsboys, and everything and every one were every one's business. All things, with him, referred themselves to print, and print meant simply infinite reporting, a promptitude of announcement, abusive when necessary, or even when not, about his fellow-citizens. He poured contumely on their private life, on their personal appearance, with the best conscience in the world. His faith, again, was the faith of Selah Tarrant--that being in the newspapers is a condition of bliss, and that it would be fastidious to question the terms of the privilege. He was an _enfant de la balle_, as the French say; he had begun his career, at the age of fourteen, by going the rounds of the hotels, to cull flowers from the big, greasy registers which lie on the marble counters; and he might flatter himself that he had contributed in his measure, and on behalf of a vigilant public opinion, the pride of a democratic State, to the great end of preventing the American citizen from attempting clandestine journeys. Since then he had ascended other steps of the same ladder; he was the most brilliant young interviewer on the Boston press. He was particularly successful in drawing out the ladies; he had condensed into shorthand many of the most celebrated women of his time--some of these daughters of fame were very voluminous--and he was supposed to have a remarkably insinuating way of waiting upon _prime donne_ and actresses the morning after their arrival, or sometimes the very evening, while their luggage was being brought up. He was only twenty-eight years old, and, with his hoary head, was a thoroughly modern young man; he had no idea of not taking advantage of all the modern conveniences. He regarded the mission of mankind upon earth as a perpetual evolution of telegrams; everything to him was very much the same, he had no sense of proportion or quality; but the newest thing was what came nearest exciting in his mind the sentiment of respect. He was an object of extreme admiration to Selah Tarrant, who believed that he had mastered all the secrets of success, and who, when Mrs. Tarrant remarked (as she had done more than once) that it looked as if Mr. Pardon was really coming after Verena, declared that if he was, he was one of the few young men he should want to see in that connexion, one of the few he should be willing to allow to handle her. It was Tarrant's conviction that if Matthias Pardon should seek Verena in marriage, it would be with a view to producing her in public; and the advantage for the girl of having a husband who was at the same time reporter, interviewer, manager, agent, who had the command of the principal "dailies," would write her up and work her, as it were, scientifically--the attraction of all this was too obvious to be insisted on. Matthias had a mean opinion of Tarrant, thought him quite second-rate, a votary of played-out causes. It was his impression that he himself was in love with Verena, but his passion was not a jealous one, and included a remarkable disposition to share the object of his affection with the American people. He talked some time to Olive about Mount Desert, told her that in his letters he had described the company at the different hotels. He remarked, however, that a correspondent suffered a good deal to-day from the competition of the "lady-writers"; the sort of article they produced was sometimes more acceptable to the papers. He supposed she would be glad to hear that--he knew she was so interested in woman's having a free field. They certainly made lovely correspondents; they picked up something bright before you could turn round; there wasn't much you could keep away from them; you had to be lively if you wanted to get there first. Of course, they were naturally more chatty, and that was the style of literature that seemed to take most to-day; only they didn't write much but what ladies would want to read. Of course, he knew there were millions of lady-readers, but he intimated that _he_ didn't address himself exclusively to the gynecæum; he tried to put in something that would interest all parties. If you read a lady's letter you knew pretty well in advance what you would find. Now, what he tried for was that you shouldn't have the least idea; he always tried to have something that would make you jump. Mr. Pardon was not conceited more, at least, than is proper when youth and success go hand in hand, and it was natural he should not know in what spirit Miss Chancellor listened to him. Being aware that she was a woman of culture his desire was simply to supply her with the pabulum that she would expect. She thought him very inferior; she had heard he was intensely bright, but there was probably some mistake; there couldn't be any danger for Verena from a mind that took merely a gossip's view of great tendencies. Besides, he wasn't half educated, and it was her belief, or at least her hope, that an educative process was now going on for Verena (under her own direction) which would enable her to make such a discovery for herself. Olive had a standing quarrel with the levity, the good-nature, of the judgements of the day; many of them seemed to her weak to imbecility, losing sight of all measures and standards, lavishing superlatives, delighted to be fooled. The age seemed to her relaxed and demoralised, and I believe she looked to the influx of the great feminine element to make it feel and speak more sharply. "Well, it's a privilege to hear you two talk together," Mrs. Tarrant said to her; "it's what I call real conversation. It isn't often we have anything so fresh; it makes me feel as if I wanted to join in. I scarcely know whom to listen to most; Verena seems to be having such a time with those gentlemen. First I catch one thing and then another; it seems as if I couldn't take it all in. Perhaps I ought to pay more attention to Mr. Burrage; I don't want him to think we are not so cordial as they are in New York." She decided to draw nearer to the trio on the other side of the room, for she had perceived (as she devoutly hoped Miss Chancellor had not) that Verena was endeavouring to persuade either of her companions to go and talk to her dear friend, and that these unscrupulous young men, after a glance over their shoulder, appeared to plead for remission, to intimate that this was not what they had come round for. Selah wandered out of the room again with his collection of cakes, and Mr. Pardon began to talk to Olive about Verena, to say that he felt as if he couldn't say all he did feel with regard to the interest she had shown in her. Olive could not imagine why he was called upon to say or to feel anything, and she gave him short answers; while the poor young man, unconscious of his doom, remarked that he hoped she wasn't going to exercise any influence that would prevent Miss Tarrant from taking the rank that belonged to her. He thought there was too much hanging back; he wanted to see her in a front seat; he wanted to see her name in the biggest kind of bills and her portrait in the windows of the stores. She had genius, there was no doubt of that, and she would take a new line altogether. She had charm, and there was a great demand for that nowadays in connexion with new ideas. There were so many that seemed to have fallen dead for want of it. She ought to be carried straight ahead; she ought to walk right up to the top. There was a want of bold action; he didn't see what they were waiting for. He didn't suppose they were waiting till she was fifty years old; there were old ones enough in the field. He knew that Miss Chancellor appreciated the advantage of her girlhood, because Miss Verena had told him so. Her father was dreadfully slack, and the winter was ebbing away. Mr. Pardon went so far as to say that if Dr. Tarrant didn't see his way to do something, he should feel as if he should want to take hold himself. He expressed a hope at the same time that Olive had not any views that would lead her to bring her influence to bear to make Miss Verena hold back; also that she wouldn't consider that he pressed in too much. He knew that was a charge that people brought against newspaper-men--that they were rather apt to cross the line. He only worried because he thought those who were no doubt nearer to Miss Verena than he could hope to be were not sufficiently alive. He knew that she had appeared in two or three parlours since that evening at Miss Birdseye's, and he had heard of the delightful occasion at Miss Chancellor's own house, where so many of the first families had been invited to meet her. (This was an allusion to a small luncheon-party that Olive had given, when Verena discoursed to a dozen matrons and spinsters, selected by her hostess with infinite consideration and many spiritual scruples; a report of the affair, presumably from the hand of the young Matthias, who naturally had not been present, appeared with extraordinary promptness in an evening-paper.) That was very well so far as it went, but he wanted something on another scale, something so big that people would have to go round if they wanted to get past. Then lowering his voice a little, he mentioned what it was: a lecture in the Music Hall, at fifty cents a ticket, without her father, right there on her own basis. He lowered his voice still more and revealed to Miss Chancellor his innermost thought, having first assured himself that Selah was still absent and that Mrs. Tarrant was inquiring of Mr. Burrage whether he visited much on the new land. The truth was, Miss Verena wanted to "shed" her father altogether; she didn't want him pawing round her that way before she began; it didn't add in the least to the attraction. Mr. Pardon expressed the conviction that Miss Chancellor agreed with him in this, and it required a great effort of mind on Olive's part, so small was her desire to act in concert with Mr. Pardon, to admit to herself that she did. She asked him, with a certain lofty coldness--he didn't make her shy, now, a bit--whether he took a great interest in the improvement of the position of women. The question appeared to strike the young man as abrupt and irrelevant, to come down on him from a height with which he was not accustomed to hold intercourse. He was used to quick operations, however, and he had only a moment of bright blankness before replying: "Oh, there is nothing I wouldn't do for the ladies; just give me a chance and you'll see." Olive was silent a moment. "What I mean is--is your sympathy a sympathy with our sex, or a particular interest in Miss Tarrant?" "Well, sympathy is just sympathy--that's all I can say. It takes in Miss Verena and it takes in all others--except the lady-correspondents," the young man added, with a jocosity which, as he perceived even at the moment, was lost on Verena's friend. He was not more successful when he went on: "It takes in even you, Miss Chancellor!" Olive rose to her feet, hesitating; she wanted to go away, and yet she couldn't bear to leave Verena to be exploited, as she felt that she would be after her departure, that indeed she had already been, by those offensive young men. She had a strange sense, too, that her friend had neglected her for the last half-hour, had not been occupied with her, had placed a barrier between them--a barrier of broad male backs, of laughter that verged upon coarseness, of glancing smiles directed across the room, directed to Olive, which seemed rather to disconnect her with what was going forward on that side than to invite her to take part in it. If Verena recognised that Miss Chancellor was not in report, as her father said, when jocose young men ruled the scene, the discovery implied no great penetration; but the poor girl might have reflected further that to see it taken for granted that she was unadapted for such company could scarcely be more agreeable to Olive than to be dragged into it. This young lady's worst apprehensions were now justified by Mrs. Tarrant's crying to her that she must not go, as Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie were trying to persuade Verena to give them a little specimen of inspirational speaking, and she was sure her daughter would comply in a moment if Miss Chancellor would just tell her to compose herself. They had got to own up to it, Miss Chancellor could do more with her than any one else; but Mr. Gracie and Mr. Burrage had excited her so that she was afraid it would be rather an unsuccessful effort. The whole group had got up, and Verena came to Olive with her hands outstretched and no signs of a bad conscience in her bright face. "I know you like me to speak so much--I'll try to say something if you want me to. But I'm afraid there are not enough people; I can't do much with a small audience." "I wish we had brought some of our friends--they would have been delighted to come if we had given them a chance," said Mr. Burrage. "There is an immense desire throughout the University to hear you, and there is no such sympathetic audience as an audience of Harvard men. Gracie and I are only two, but Gracie is a host in himself, and I am sure he will say as much of me." The young man spoke these words freely and lightly, smiling at Verena, and even a little at Olive, with the air of one to whom a mastery of clever "chaff" was commonly attributed. "Mr. Burrage listens even better than he talks," his companion declared. "We have the habit of attention at lectures, you know. To be lectured by you would be an advantage indeed. We are sunk in ignorance and prejudice." "Ah, my prejudices," Burrage went on; "if you could see them--I assure you they are something monstrous!" "Give them a regular ducking and make them gasp," Matthias Pardon cried. "If you want an opportunity to act on Harvard College, now's your chance. These gentlemen will carry the news; it will be the narrow end of the wedge." "I can't tell what you like," Verena said, still looking into Olive's eyes. "I'm sure Miss Chancellor likes everything here," Mrs. Tarrant remarked, with a noble confidence. Selah had reappeared by this time; his lofty, contemplative person was framed by the doorway. "Want to try a little inspiration?" he inquired, looking round on the circle with an encouraging inflexion. "I'll do it alone, if you prefer," Verena said soothingly to her friend. "It might be a good chance to try without father." "You don't mean to say you ain't going to be supported?" Mrs. Tarrant exclaimed, with dismay. "Ah, I beseech you, give us the whole programme--don't omit any leading feature!" Mr. Burrage was heard to plead. "My only interest is to draw her out," said Selah, defending his integrity. "I will drop right out if I don't seem to vitalise. I have no desire to draw attention to my own poor gifts." This declaration appeared to be addressed to Miss Chancellor. "Well, there will be more inspiration if you don't touch her," Matthias Pardon said to him. "It will seem to come right down from--well, wherever it does come from." "Yes, we don't pretend to say that," Mrs. Tarrant murmured. This little discussion had brought the blood to Olive's face; she felt that every one present was looking at her--Verena most of all--and that here was a chance to take a more complete possession of the girl. Such chances were agitating; moreover, she didn't like, on any occasion, to be so prominent. But everything that had been said was benighted and vulgar; the place seemed thick with the very atmosphere out of which she wished to lift Verena. They were treating her as a show, as a social resource, and the two young men from the College were laughing at her shamelessly. She was not meant for that, and Olive would save her. Verena was so simple, she couldn't see herself; she was the only pure spirit in the odious group. "I want you to address audiences that are worth addressing--to convince people who are serious and sincere." Olive herself, as she spoke, heard the great shake in her voice. "Your mission is not to exhibit yourself as a pastime for individuals, but to touch the heart of communities, of nations." "Dear madam, I'm sure Miss Tarrant will touch my heart!" Mr. Burrage objected, gallantly. "Well, I don't know but she judges you young men fairly," said Mrs. Tarrant, with a sigh. Verena, diverted a moment from her communion with her friend, considered Mr. Burrage with a smile. "I don't believe you have got any heart, and I shouldn't care much if you had!" "You have no idea how much the way you say that increases my desire to hear you speak." "Do as you please, my dear," said Olive, almost inaudibly. "My carriage must be there--I must leave you, in any case." "I can see you don't want it," said Verena, wondering. "You would stay if you liked it, wouldn't you?" "I don't know what I should do. Come out with me!" Olive spoke almost with fierceness. "Well, you'll send them away no better than they came," said Matthias Pardon. "I guess you had better come round some other night," Selah suggested pacifically, but with a significance which fell upon Olive's ear. Mr. Gracie seemed inclined to make the sturdiest protest. "Look here, Miss Tarrant; do you want to save Harvard College, or do you not?" he demanded, with a humorous frown. "I didn't know _you_ were Harvard College!" Verena returned as humorously. "I am afraid you are rather disappointed in your evening if you expected to obtain some insight into our ideas," said Mrs. Tarrant, with an air of impotent sympathy, to Mr. Gracie. "Well, good-night, Miss Chancellor," she went on; "I hope you've got a warm wrap. I suppose you'll think we go a good deal by what you say in this house. Well, most people don't object to that. There's a little hole right there in the porch; it seems as if Doctor Tarrant couldn't remember to go for the man to fix it. I am afraid you'll think we're too much taken up with all these new hopes. Well, we _have_ enjoyed seeing you in our home; it quite raises my appetite for social intercourse. Did you come out on wheels? I can't stand a sleigh myself; it makes me sick." This was her hostess's response to Miss Chancellor's very summary farewell, uttered as the three ladies proceeded together to the door of the house. Olive had got herself out of the little parlour with a sort of blind, defiant dash; she had taken no perceptible leave of the rest of the company. When she was calm she had very good manners, but when she was agitated she was guilty of lapses, every one of which came back to her, magnified, in the watches of the night. Sometimes they excited remorse, and sometimes triumph; in the latter case she felt that she could not have been so justly vindictive in cold blood. Tarrant wished to guide her down the steps, out of the little yard, to her carriage; he reminded her that they had had ashes sprinkled on the planks on purpose. But she begged him to let her alone, she almost pushed him back; she drew Verena out into the dark freshness, closing the door of the house behind her. There was a splendid sky, all blue-black and silver--a sparkling wintry vault, where the stars were like a myriad points of ice. The air was silent and sharp, and the vague snow looked cruel. Olive knew now very definitely what the promise was that she wanted Verena to make; but it was too cold, she could keep her there bareheaded but an instant. Mrs. Tarrant, meanwhile, in the parlour, remarked that it seemed as if she couldn't trust Verena with her own parents; and Selah intimated that, with a proper invitation, his daughter would be very happy to address Harvard College at large. Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie said they would invite her on the spot, in the name of the University; and Matthias Pardon reflected (and asserted) with glee that this would be the newest thing yet. But he added that they would have a high time with Miss Chancellor first, and this was evidently the conviction of the company. "I can see you are angry at something," Verena said to Olive, as the two stood there in the starlight. "I hope it isn't me. What have I done?" "I am not angry--I am anxious. I am so afraid I shall lose you. Verena, don't fail me--don't fail me!" Olive spoke low, with a kind of passion. "Fail you? How can I fail?" "You can't, of course you can't. Your star is above you. But don't listen to _them_." "To whom do you mean, Olive? To my parents?" "Oh no, not your parents," Miss Chancellor replied, with some sharpness. She paused a moment, and then she said: "I don't care for your parents. I have told you that before; but now that I have seen them--as they wished, as you wished, and I didn't--I don't care for them; I must repeat it, Verena. I should be dishonest if I let you think I did." "Why, Olive Chancellor!" Verena murmured, as if she were trying, in spite of the sadness produced by this declaration, to do justice to her friend's impartiality. "Yes, I am hard; perhaps I am cruel; but we must be hard if we wish to triumph. Don't listen to young men when they try to mock and muddle you. They don't care for you; they don't care for _us_. They care only for their pleasure, for what they believe to be the right of the stronger. The stronger? I am not so sure!" "Some of them care so much--are supposed to care too much--for us," Verena said, with a smile that looked dim in the darkness. "Yes, if we will give up everything. I have asked you before--are you prepared to give up?" "Do you mean, to give _you_ up?" "No, all our wretched sisters--all our hopes and purposes--all that we think Sacred and worth living for!" "Oh, they don't want that, Olive." Verena's smile became more distinct, and she added: "They don't want so much as that!" "Well, then, go in and speak for them--and sing for them--and dance for them!" "Olive, you are cruel!" "Yes, I am. But promise me one thing, and I shall be--oh, so tender!" "What a strange place for promises," said Verena, with a shiver, looking about her into the night. "Yes, I am dreadful; I know it. But promise." And Olive drew the girl nearer to her, flinging over her with one hand the fold of a cloak that hung ample upon her own meagre person, and holding her there with the other, while she looked at her, suppliant but half hesitating. "Promise!" she repeated. "Is it something terrible?" "Never to listen to one of them, never to be bribed----" At this moment the house-door was opened again, and the light of the hall projected itself across the little piazza. Matthias Pardon stood in the aperture, and Tarrant and his wife, with the two other visitors, appeared to have come forward as well, to see what detained Verena. "You seem to have started a kind of lecture out here," Mr. Pardon said. "You ladies had better look out, or you'll freeze together!" Verena was reminded by her mother that she would catch her death, but she had already heard sharply, low as they were spoken, five last words from Olive, who now abruptly released her and passed swiftly over the path from the porch to her waiting carriage. Tarrant creaked along, in pursuit, to assist Miss Chancellor; the others drew Verena into the house. "Promise me not to marry!"--that was what echoed in her startled mind, and repeated itself there when Mr. Burrage returned to the charge, asking her if she wouldn't at least appoint some evening when they might listen to her. She knew that Olive's injunction ought not to have surprised her; she had already felt it in the air; she would have said at any time, if she had been asked, that she didn't suppose Miss Chancellor would want her to marry. But the idea, uttered as her friend had uttered it, had a new solemnity, and the effect of that quick, violent colloquy was to make her nervous and impatient, as if she had had a sudden glimpse of futurity. That was rather awful, even if it represented the fate one would like. When the two young men from the College pressed their petition, she asked, with a laugh that surprised them, whether they wished to "mock and muddle" her. They went away, assenting to Mrs. Tarrant's last remark: "I am afraid you'll feel that you don't quite understand us yet." Matthias Pardon remained; her father and mother, expressing their perfect confidence that he would excuse them, went to bed and left him sitting there. He stayed a good while longer, nearly an hour, and said things that made Verena think that _he_, perhaps, would like to marry her. But while she listened to him, more abstractedly than her custom was, she remarked to herself that there could be no difficulty in promising Olive so far as he was concerned. He was very pleasant, and he knew an immense deal about everything, or, rather, about every one, and he would take her right into the midst of life. But she didn't wish to marry him, all the same, and after he had gone she reflected that, once she came to think of it, she didn't want to marry any one. So it would be easy, after all, to make Olive that promise, and it would give her so much pleasure! XVII The next time Verena saw Olive she said to her that she was ready to make the promise she had asked the other night; but, to her great surprise, this young woman answered her by a question intended to check such rashness. Miss Chancellor raised a warning finger; she had an air of dissuasion almost as solemn as her former pressure; her passionate impatience appeared to have given way to other considerations, to be replaced by the resignation that comes with deeper reflexion. It was tinged in this case, indeed, by such bitterness as might be permitted to a young lady who cultivated the brightness of a great faith. "Don't you want any promise at present?" Verena asked. "Why, Olive, how you change!" "My dear child, you are so young--so strangely young. I am a thousand years old; I have lived through generations--through centuries. I know what I know by experience; you know it by imagination. That is consistent with your being the fresh, bright creature that you are. I am constantly forgetting the difference between us--that you are a mere child as yet, though a child destined for great things. I forgot it the other night, but I have remembered it since. You must pass through a certain phase, and it would be very wrong in me to pretend to suppress it. That is all clear to me now; I see it was my jealousy that spoke--my restless, hungry jealousy. I have far too much of that; I oughtn't to give any one the right to say that it's a woman's quality. I don't want your signature; I only want your confidence--only what springs from that. I hope with all my soul that you won't marry; but if you don't it must not be because you have promised me. You know what I think--that there is something noble done when one makes a sacrifice for a great good. Priests--when they were real priests--never married, and what you and I dream of doing demands of us a kind of priesthood. It seems to me very poor, when friendship and faith and charity and the most interesting occupation in the world--when such a combination as this doesn't seem, by itself, enough to live for. No man that I have ever seen cares a straw in his heart for what we are trying to accomplish. They hate it; they scorn it; they will try to stamp it out whenever they can. Oh yes, I know there are men who pretend to care for it; but they are not really men, and I wouldn't be sure even of them! Any man that one would look at--with him, as a matter of course, it is war upon us to the knife. I don't mean to say there are not some male beings who are willing to patronise us a little; to pat us on the back and recommend a few moderate concessions; to say that there _are_ two or three little points in which society has not been quite just to us. But any man who pretends to accept our programme _in toto_, as you and I understand it, of his own free will, before he is forced to--such a person simply schemes to betray us. There are gentlemen in plenty who would be glad to stop your mouth by kissing you! If you become dangerous some day to their selfishness, to their vested interests, to their immorality--as I pray heaven every day, my dear friend, that you may!--it will be a grand thing for one of them if he can persuade you that he loves you. Then you will see what he will do with you, and how far his love will take him! It would be a sad day for you and for me and for all of us if you were to believe something of that kind. You see I am very calm now; I have thought it all out." Verena had listened with earnest eyes. "Why, Olive, you are quite a speaker yourself!" she exclaimed. "You would far surpass me if you would let yourself go." Miss Chancellor shook her head with a melancholy that was not devoid of sweetness. "I can speak to _you_; but that is no proof. The very stones of the street--all the dumb things of nature--might find a voice to talk to you. I have no facility; I am awkward and embarrassed and dry." When this young lady, after a struggle with the winds and waves of emotion, emerged into the quiet stream of a certain high reasonableness, she presented her most graceful aspect; she had a tone of softness and sympathy, a gentle dignity, a serenity of wisdom, which sealed the appreciation of those who knew her well enough to like her, and which always impressed Verena as something almost august. Such moods, however, were not often revealed to the public at large; they belonged to Miss Chancellor's very private life. One of them had possession of her at present, and she went on to explain the inconsequence which had puzzled her friend with the same quiet clearness, the detachment from error, of a woman whose self-scrutiny has been as sharp as her deflexion. "Don't think me capricious if I say I would rather trust you without a pledge. I owe you, I owe every one, an apology for my rudeness and fierceness at your mother's. It came over me--just seeing those young men--how exposed you are; and the idea made me (for the moment) frantic. I see your danger still, but I see other things too, and I have recovered my balance. You must be safe, Verena--you must be saved; but your safety must not come from your having tied your hands. It must come from the growth of your perception; from your seeing things, of yourself, sincerely and with conviction, in the light in which I see them; from your feeling that for your work your freedom is essential, and that there is no freedom for you and me save in religiously _not_ doing what you will often be asked to do--and I never!" Miss Chancellor brought out these last words with a proud jerk which was not without its pathos. "Don't promise, don't promise!" she went on. "I would far rather you didn't. But don't fail me--don't fail me, or I shall die!" Her manner of repairing her inconsistency was altogether feminine: she wished to extract a certainty at the same time that she wished to deprecate a pledge, and she would have been delighted to put Verena into the enjoyment of that freedom which was so important for her by preventing her exercising it in a particular direction. The girl was now completely under her influence; she had latent curiosities and distractions--left to herself, she was not always thinking of the unhappiness of women; but the touch of Olive's tone worked a spell, and she found something to which at least a portion of her nature turned with eagerness in her companion's wider knowledge, her elevation of view. Miss Chancellor was historic and philosophic; or, at any rate, she appeared so to Verena, who felt that through such an association one might at last intellectually command all life. And there was a simpler impulse; Verena wished to please her if only because she had such a dread of displeasing her. Olive's displeasures, disappointments, disapprovals were tragic, truly memorable; she grew white under them, not shedding many tears, as a general thing, like inferior women (she cried when she was angry, not when she was hurt), but limping and panting, morally, as if she had received a wound that she would carry for life. On the other hand, her commendations, her satisfactions were as soft as a west wind; and she had this sign, the rarest of all, of generosity, that she liked obligations of gratitude when they were not laid upon her by men. Then, indeed, she scarcely recognised them. She considered men in general as so much in the debt of the opposite sex that any individual woman had an unlimited credit with them; she could not possibly overdraw the general feminine account. The unexpected temperance of her speech on this subject of Verena's accessibility to matrimonial error seemed to the girl to have an antique beauty, a wisdom purged of worldly elements; it reminded her of qualities that she believed to have been proper to Electra or Antigone. This made her wish the more to do something that would gratify Olive; and in spite of her friend's dissuasion she declared that she should like to promise. "I will promise, at any rate, not to marry any of those gentlemen that were at the house," she said. "Those seemed to be the ones you were principally afraid of." "You will promise not to marry any one you don't like," said Olive. "That would be a great comfort!" "But I do like Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie." "And Mr. Matthias Pardon? What a name!" "Well, he knows how to make himself agreeable. He can tell you everything you want to know." "You mean everything you don't! Well, if you like every one, I haven't the least objection. It would only be preferences that I should find alarming. I am not the least afraid of your marrying a repulsive man; your danger would come from an attractive one." "I'm glad to hear you admit that some _are_ attractive!" Verena exclaimed, with the light laugh which her reverence for Miss Chancellor had not yet quenched. "It sometimes seems as if there weren't any you could like!" "I can imagine a man I should like very much," Olive replied, after a moment. "But I don't like those I see. They seem to me poor creatures." And, indeed, her uppermost feeling in regard to them was a kind of cold scorn; she thought most of them palterers and bullies. The end of the colloquy was that Verena, having assented, with her usual docility, to her companion's optimistic contention that it was a "phase," this taste for evening-calls from collegians and newspaper-men, and would consequently pass away with the growth of her mind, remarked that the injustice of men might be an accident or might be a part of their nature, but at any rate she should have to change a good deal before she should want to marry. About the middle of December Miss Chancellor received a visit from Matthias Pardon, who had come to ask her what she meant to do about Verena. She had never invited him to call upon her, and the appearance of a gentleman whose desire to see her was so irrepressible as to dispense with such a preliminary was not in her career an accident frequent enough to have taught her equanimity. She thought Mr. Pardon's visit a liberty; but, if she expected to convey this idea to him by withholding any suggestion that he should sit down, she was greatly mistaken, inasmuch as he cut the ground from under her feet by himself offering her a chair. His manner represented hospitality enough for both of them, and she was obliged to listen, on the edge of her sofa (she could at least seat herself where she liked), to his extraordinary inquiry. Of course she was not obliged to answer it, and indeed she scarcely understood it. He explained that it was prompted by the intense interest he felt in Miss Verena; but that scarcely made it more comprehensible, such a sentiment (on his part) being such a curious mixture. He had a sort of enamel of good humour which showed that his indelicacy was his profession; and he asked for revelations of the _vie intime_ of his victims with the bland confidence of a fashionable physician inquiring about symptoms. He wanted to know what Miss Chancellor meant to do, because if she didn't mean to do anything, he had an idea--which he wouldn't conceal from her--of going into the enterprise himself. "You see, what I should like to know is this: do you consider that she belongs to you, or that she belongs to the people? If she belongs to you, why don't you bring her out?" He had no purpose and no consciousness of being impertinent; he only wished to talk over the matter sociably with Miss Chancellor. He knew, of course, that there was a presumption she would not be sociable, but no presumption had yet deterred him from presenting a surface which he believed to be polished till it shone; there was always a larger one in favour of his power to penetrate and of the majesty of the "great dailies." Indeed, he took so many things for granted that Olive remained dumb while she regarded them; and he availed himself of what he considered as a fortunate opening to be really very frank. He reminded her that he had known Miss Verena a good deal longer than she; he had travelled out to Cambridge the other winter (when he could get an off-night), with the thermometer at ten below zero. He had always thought her attractive, but it wasn't till this season that his eyes had been fully opened. Her talent had matured, and now he had no hesitation in calling her brilliant. Miss Chancellor could imagine whether, as an old friend, he could watch such a beautiful unfolding with indifference. She would fascinate the people, just as she had fascinated her (Miss Chancellor), and, he might be permitted to add, himself. The fact was, she was a great card, and some one ought to play it. There never had been a more attractive female speaker before the American public; she would walk right past Mrs. Farrinder, and Mrs. Farrinder knew it. There was room for both, no doubt, they had such a different style; anyhow, what he wanted to show was that there was room for Miss Verena. She didn't want any more tuning-up, she wanted to break right out. Moreover, he felt that any gentleman who should lead her to success would win her esteem; he might even attract her more powerfully--who could tell? If Miss Chancellor wanted to attach her permanently, she ought to push her right forward. He gathered from what Miss Verena had told him that she wanted to make her study up the subject a while longer--follow some kind of course. Well, now, he could assure her that there was no preparation so good as just seeing a couple of thousand people down there before you who have paid their money to have you tell them something. Miss Verena was a natural genius, and he hoped very much she wasn't going to take the nature out of her. She could study up as she went along; she had got the great thing that you couldn't learn, a kind of divine afflatus, as the ancients used to say, and she had better just begin on that. He wouldn't deny what was the matter with _him_; he was quite under the spell, and his admiration made him want to see her where she belonged. He shouldn't care so much how she got there, but it would certainly add to his pleasure if he could show her up to her place. Therefore, would Miss Chancellor just tell him this: How long did she expect to hold her back; how long did she expect a humble admirer to wait? Of course he hadn't come there to cross-question her; there was one thing he trusted he always kept clear of; when he was indiscreet he wanted to know it. He had come with a proposal of his own, and he hoped it would seem a sufficient warrant for his visit. Would Miss Chancellor be willing to divide a--the--well, he might call it the responsibilities? Couldn't they run Miss Verena together? In this case every one would be satisfied. She could travel round with her as her companion, and he would see that the American people walked up. If Miss Chancellor would just let her go a little, he would look after the rest. He wanted no odds; he only wanted her for about an hour and a half three or four evenings a week. Olive had time, in the course of this appeal, to make her faculties converge, to ask herself what she could say to this prodigious young man that would make him feel as how base a thing she held his proposal that they should constitute themselves into a company for drawing profit from Verena. Unfortunately, the most sarcastic inquiry that could occur to her as a response was also the most obvious one, so that he hesitated but a moment with his rejoinder after she had asked him how many thousands of dollars he expected to make. "For Miss Verena? It depends upon the time. She'd run for ten years, at least. I can't figure it up till all the States have been heard from," he said, smiling. "I don't mean for Miss Tarrant, I mean for you," Olive returned, with the impression that she was looking him straight in the eye. "Oh, as many as you'll leave me!" Matthias Pardon answered, with a laugh that contained all, and more than all, the jocularity of the American press. "To speak seriously," he added, "I don't want to make money out of it." "What do you want to make then?" "Well, I want to make history! I want to help the ladies." "The ladies?" Olive murmured. "What do you know about ladies?" she was on the point of adding, when his promptness checked her. "All over the world. I want to work for their emancipation. I regard it as the great modern question." Miss Chancellor got up now; this was rather too strong. Whether, eventually, she was successful in what she attempted, the reader of her history will judge; but at this moment she had not that promise of success which resides in a willingness to make use of every aid that offers. Such is the penalty of being of a fastidious, exclusive, uncompromising nature; of seeing things not simply and sharply, but in perverse relations, in intertwisted strands. It seemed to our young lady that nothing could be less attractive than to owe her emancipation to such a one as Matthias Pardon; and it is curious that those qualities which he had in common with Verena, and which in her seemed to Olive romantic and touching--her having sprung from the "people," had an acquaintance with poverty, a hand-to-mouth development, and an experience of the seamy side of life--availed in no degree to conciliate Miss Chancellor. I suppose it was because he was a man. She told him that she was much obliged to him for his offer, but that he evidently didn't understand Verena and herself. No, not even Miss Tarrant, in spite of his long acquaintance with her. They had no desire to be notorious; they only wanted to be useful. They had no wish to make money; there would always be plenty of money for Miss Tarrant. Certainly, she should come before the public, and the world would acclaim her and hang upon her words; but crude, precipitate action was what both of them least desired. The change in the dreadful position of women was not a question for to-day simply, or for to-morrow, but for many years to come; and there would be a great deal to think of, to map out. One thing they were determined upon--that men shouldn't taunt them with being superficial. When Verena should appear it would be armed at all points, like Joan of Arc (this analogy had lodged itself in Olive's imagination); she should have facts and figures; she should meet men on their own ground. "What we mean to do, we mean to do well," Miss Chancellor said to her visitor, with considerable sternness; leaving him to make such an application to himself as his fancy might suggest. This announcement had little comfort for him; he felt baffled and disheartened--indeed, quite sick. Was it not sickening to hear her talk of this dreary process of preparation?--as if any one cared about that, and would know whether Verena were prepared or not! Had Miss Chancellor no faith in her girlhood? didn't she know what a card that would be? This was the last inquiry Olive allowed him the opportunity of making. She remarked to him that they might talk for ever without coming to an agreement--their points of view were so far apart. Besides, it was a woman's question; what they wanted was for women, and it should be by women. It had happened to the young Matthias more than once to be shown the way to the door, but the path of retreat had never yet seemed to him so unpleasant. He was naturally amiable, but it had not hitherto befallen him to be made to feel that he was not--and could not be--a factor in contemporary history: here was a rapacious woman who proposed to keep that favourable setting for herself. He let her know that she was right-down selfish, and that if she chose to sacrifice a beautiful nature to her antediluvian theories and love of power, a vigilant daily press--whose business it was to expose wrong-doing--would demand an account from her. She replied that, if the newspapers chose to insult her, that was their own affair; one outrage the more to the sex in her person was of little account. And after he had left her she seemed to see the glow of dawning success; the battle had begun, and something of the ecstasy of the martyr. XVIII Verena told her, a week after this, that Mr. Pardon wanted so much she should say she would marry him; and she added, with evident pleasure at being able to give her so agreeable a piece of news, that she had declined to say anything of the sort. She thought that now, at least, Olive must believe in her; for the proposal was more attractive than Miss Chancellor seemed able to understand. "He does place things in a very seductive light," Verena said; "he says that if I become his wife I shall be carried straight along by a force of excitement of which at present I have no idea. I shall wake up famous, if I marry him; I have only got to give out my feelings, and he will take care of the rest. He says every hour of my youth is precious to me, and that we should have a lovely time travelling round the country. I think you ought to allow that all that is rather dazzling--for I am not naturally concentrated, like you!" "He promises you success. What do you call success?" Olive inquired, looking at her friend with a kind of salutary coldness--a suspension of sympathy--with which Verena was now familiar (though she liked it no better than at first), and which made approbation more gracious when approbation came. Verena reflected a moment, and then answered, smiling, but with confidence: "Producing a pressure that shall be irresistible. Causing certain laws to be repealed by Congress and by the State legislatures, and others to be enacted." She repeated the words as if they had been part of a catechism committed to memory, while Olive saw that this mechanical tone was in the nature of a joke that she could not deny herself; they had had that definition so often before, and Miss Chancellor had had occasion so often to remind her what success _really_ was. Of course it was easy to prove to her now that Mr. Pardon's glittering bait was a very different thing; was a mere trap and lure, a bribe to vanity and impatience, a device for making her give herself away--let alone fill his pockets while she did so. Olive was conscious enough of the girl's want of continuity; she had seen before how she could be passionately serious at times, and then perversely, even if innocently, trivial--as just now, when she seemed to wish to convert one of their most sacred formulas into a pleasantry. She had already quite recognised, however, that it was not of importance that Verena should be just like herself; she was all of one piece, and Verena was of many pieces, which had, where they fitted together, little capricious chinks, through which mocking inner lights seemed sometimes to gleam. It was a part of Verena's being unlike her that she should feel Mr. Pardon's promise of eternal excitement to be a brilliant thing, should indeed consider Mr. Pardon with any tolerance at all. But Olive tried afresh to allow for such aberrations, as a phase of youth and suburban culture; the more so that, even when she tried most, Verena reproached her--so far as Verena's incurable softness could reproach--with not allowing enough. Olive didn't appear to understand that, while Matthias Pardon drew that picture and tried to hold her hand (this image was unfortunate), she had given one long, fixed, wistful look, through the door he opened, at the bright tumult of the world, and then had turned away, solely for her friend's sake, to an austerer probation and a purer effort; solely for her friend's, that is, and that of the whole enslaved sisterhood. The fact remained, at any rate, that Verena had made a sacrifice; and this thought, after a while, gave Olive a greater sense of security. It seemed almost to seal the future; for Olive knew that the young interviewer would not easily be shaken off, and yet she was sure that Verena would never yield to him. It was true that at present Mr. Burrage came a great deal to the little house at Cambridge; Verena told her about that, told her so much that it was almost as good as if she had told her all. He came without Mr. Gracie now; he could find his way alone, and he seemed to wish that there should be no one else. He had made himself so pleasant to her mother that she almost always went out of the room; that was the highest proof Mrs. Tarrant could give of her appreciation of a "gentleman-caller." They knew everything about him by this time; that his father was dead, his mother very fashionable and prominent, and he himself in possession of a handsome patrimony. They thought ever so much of him in New York. He collected beautiful things, pictures and antiques and objects that he sent for to Europe on purpose, many of which were arranged in his rooms at Cambridge. He had intaglios and Spanish altar-cloths and drawings by the old masters. He was different from most others; he seemed to want so much to enjoy life, and to think you easily could if you would only let yourself go. Of course--judging by what _he_ had--he appeared to think you required a great many things to keep you up. And then Verena told Olive--she could see it was after a little delay--that he wanted her to come round to his place and see his treasures. He wanted to show them to her, he was so sure she would admire them. Verena was sure also, but she wouldn't go alone, and she wanted Olive to go with her. They would have tea, and there would be other ladies, and Olive would tell her what she thought of a life that was so crowded with beauty. Miss Chancellor made her reflexions on all this, and the first of them was that it was happy for her that she had determined for the present to accept these accidents, for otherwise might she not now have had a deeper alarm? She wished to heaven that conceited young men with time on their hands would leave Verena alone; but evidently they wouldn't, and her best safety was in seeing as many as should turn up. If the type should become frequent, she would very soon judge it. If Olive had not been so grim, she would have had a smile to spare for the frankness with which the girl herself adopted this theory. She was eager to explain that Mr. Burrage didn't seem at all to want what poor Mr. Pardon had wanted; he made her talk about her views far more than that gentleman, but gave no sign of offering himself either as a husband or as a lecture-agent. The furthest he had gone as yet was to tell her that he liked her for the same reason that he liked old enamels and old embroideries; and when she said that she didn't see how she resembled such things, he had replied that it was because she was so peculiar and so delicate. She might be peculiar, but she had protested against the idea that she was delicate; it was the last thing that she wanted to be thought; and Olive could see from this how far she was from falling in with everything he said. When Miss Chancellor asked if she respected Mr. Burrage (and how solemn Olive could make that word she by this time knew), she answered, with her sweet, vain laugh, but apparently with perfect good faith, that it didn't matter whether she did or not, for what was the whole thing but simply a phase--the very one they had talked about? The sooner she got through it the better, was it not?--and she seemed to think that her transit would be materially quickened by a visit to Mr. Burrage's rooms. As I say, Verena was pleased to regard the phase as quite inevitable, and she had said more than once to Olive that if their struggle was to be with men, the more they knew about them the better. Miss Chancellor asked her why her mother should not go with her to see the curiosities, since she mentioned that their possessor had not neglected to invite Mrs. Tarrant; and Verena said that this, of course, would be very simple--only her mother wouldn't be able to tell her so well as Olive whether she ought to respect Mr. Burrage. This decision as to whether Mr. Burrage should be respected assumed in the life of these two remarkable young women, pitched in so high a moral key, the proportions of a momentous event. Olive shrank at first from facing it--not, indeed, the decision--for we know that her own mind had long since been made up in regard to the quantity of esteem due to almost any member of the other sex--but the incident itself, which, if Mr. Burrage should exasperate her further, might expose her to the danger of appearing to Verena to be unfair to him. It was her belief that he was playing a deeper game than the young Matthias, and she was very willing to watch him; but she thought it prudent not to attempt to cut short the phase (she adopted that classification) prematurely--an imputation she should incur if, without more delay, she were to "shut down," as Verena said, on the young connoisseur. It was settled, therefore, that Mrs. Tarrant should, with her daughter, accept Mr. Burrage's invitation; and in a few days these ladies paid a visit to his apartments. Verena subsequently, of course, had much to say about it, but she dilated even more upon her mother's impressions than upon her own. Mrs. Tarrant had carried away a supply which would last her all winter; there had been some New York ladies present who were "on" at that moment, and with whom her intercourse was rich in emotions. She had told them all that she should be happy to see them in her home, but they had not yet picked their way along the little planks of the front yard. Mr. Burrage, at all events, had been quite lovely, and had talked about his collections, which were wonderful, in the most interesting manner. Verena inclined to think he was to be respected. He admitted that he was not really studying law at all; he had only come to Cambridge for the form; but she didn't see why it wasn't enough when you made yourself as pleasant as that. She went so far as to ask Olive whether taste and art were not something, and her friend could see that she was certainly very much involved in the phase. Miss Chancellor, of course, had her answer ready. Taste and art were good when they enlarged the mind, not when they narrowed it. Verena assented to this, and said it remained to be seen what effect they had had upon Mr. Burrage--a remark which led Olive to fear that at such a rate much would remain, especially when Verena told her, later, that another visit to the young man's rooms was projected, and that this time she must come, he having expressed the greatest desire for the honour, and her own wish being greater still that they should look at some of his beautiful things together. A day or two after this, Mr. Henry Burrage left a card at Miss Chancellor's door, with a note in which he expressed the hope that she would take tea with him on a certain day on which he expected the company of his mother. Olive responded to this invitation, in conjunction with Verena; but in doing so she was in the position, singular for her, of not quite understanding what she was about. It seemed to her strange that Verena should urge her to take such a step when she was free to go without her, and it proved two things: first, that she was much interested in Mr. Henry Burrage, and second, that her nature was extraordinarily beautiful. Could anything, in effect, be less underhand than such an indifference to what she supposed to be the best opportunities for carrying on a flirtation? Verena wanted to know the truth, and it was clear that by this time she believed Olive Chancellor to have it, for the most part, in her keeping. Her insistence, therefore, proved, above all, that she cared more for her friend's opinion of Henry Burrage than for her own--a reminder, certainly, of the responsibility that Olive had incurred in undertaking to form this generous young mind, and of the exalted place that she now occupied in it. Such revelations ought to have been satisfactory; if they failed to be completely so, it was only on account of the elder girl's regret that the subject as to which her judgement was wanted should be a young man destitute of the worst vices. Henry Burrage had contributed to throw Miss Chancellor into a "state," as these young ladies called it, the night she met him at Mrs. Tarrant's; but it had none the less been conveyed to Olive by the voices of the air that he was a gentleman and a good fellow. This was painfully obvious when the visit to his rooms took place; he was so good-humoured, so amusing, so friendly and considerate, so attentive to Miss Chancellor, he did the honours of his bachelor-nest with so easy a grace, that Olive, part of the time, sat dumbly shaking her conscience, like a watch that wouldn't go, to make it tell her some better reason why she shouldn't like him. She saw that there would be no difficulty in disliking his mother; but that, unfortunately, would not serve her purpose nearly so well. Mrs. Burrage had come to spend a few days near her son; she was staying at an hotel in Boston. It presented itself to Olive that after this entertainment it would be an act of courtesy to call upon her; but here, at least, was the comfort that she could cover herself with the general absolution extended to the Boston temperament and leave her alone. It was slightly provoking, indeed, that Mrs. Burrage should have so much the air of a New Yorker who didn't particularly notice whether a Bostonian called or not; but there is ever an imperfection, I suppose, in even the sweetest revenge. She was a woman of society, large and voluminous, fair (in complexion) and regularly ugly, looking as if she ought to be slow and rather heavy, but disappointing this expectation by a quick, amused utterance, a short, bright, summary laugh, with which she appeared to dispose of the joke (whatever it was) for ever, and an air of recognising on the instant everything she saw and heard. She was evidently accustomed to talk, and even to listen, if not kept waiting too long for details and parentheses; she was not continuous, but frequent, as it were, and you could see that she hated explanations, though it was not to be supposed that she had anything to fear from them. Her favours were general, not particular; she was civil enough to every one, but not in any case endearing, and perfectly genial without being confiding, as people were in Boston when (in moments of exaltation) they wished to mark that they were not suspicious. There was something in her whole manner which seemed to say to Olive that she belonged to a larger world than hers; and our young lady was vexed at not hearing that she had lived for a good many years in Europe, as this would have made it easy to classify her as one of the corrupt. She learned, almost with a sense of injury, that neither the mother nor the son had been longer beyond the seas than she herself; and if they were to be judged as triflers they must be dealt with individually. Was it an aid to such a judgement to see that Mrs. Burrage was very much pleased with Boston, with Harvard College, with her son's interior, with her cup of tea (it was old Sèvres), which was not half so bad as she had expected, with the company he had asked to meet her (there were three or four gentlemen, one of whom was Mr. Gracie), and, last, not least, with Verena Tarrant, whom she addressed as a celebrity, kindly, cleverly, but without maternal tenderness or anything to mark the difference in their age? She spoke to her as if they were equals in that respect, as if Verena's genius and fame would make up the disparity, and the girl had no need of encouragement and patronage. She made no direct allusion, however, to her particular views, and asked her no question about her "gift"--an omission which Verena thought strange, and, with the most speculative candour, spoke of to Olive afterwards. Mrs. Burrage seemed to imply that every one present had some distinction and some talent, that they were all good company together. There was nothing in her manner to indicate that she was afraid of Verena on her son's account; she didn't resemble a person who would like him to marry the daughter of a mesmeric healer, and yet she appeared to think it charming that he should have such a young woman there to give gusto to her hour at Cambridge. Poor Olive was, in the nature of things, entangled in contradictions; she had a horror of the idea of Verena's marrying Mr. Burrage, and yet she was angry when his mother demeaned herself as if the little girl with red hair, whose freshness she enjoyed, could not be a serious danger. She saw all this through the blur of her shyness, the conscious, anxious silence to which she was so much of the time condemned. It may therefore be imagined how sharp her vision would have been could she only have taken the situation more simply; for she was intelligent enough not to have needed to be morbid, even for purposes of self-defence. I must add, however, that there was a moment when she came near being happy--or, at any rate, reflected that it was a pity she could not be so. Mrs. Burrage asked her son to play "some little thing," and he sat down to his piano and revealed a talent that might well have gratified that lady's pride. Olive was extremely susceptible to music, and it was impossible to her not to be soothed and beguiled by the young man's charming art. One "little thing" succeeded another; his selections were all very happy. His guests sat scattered in the red firelight, listening, silent, in comfortable attitudes; there was a faint fragrance from the burning logs, which mingled with the perfume of Schubert and Mendelssohn; the covered lamps made a glow here and there, and the cabinets and brackets produced brown shadows, out of which some precious object gleamed--some ivory carving or cinque-cento cup. It was given to Olive, under these circumstances, for half an hour, to surrender herself, to enjoy the music, to admit that Mr. Burrage played with exquisite taste, to feel as if the situation were a kind of truce. Her nerves were calmed, her problems--for the time--subsided. Civilisation, under such an influence, in such a setting, appeared to have done its work; harmony ruled the scene; human life ceased to be a battle. She went so far as to ask herself why one should have a quarrel with it; the relations of men and women, in that picturesque grouping, had not the air of being internecine. In short, she had an interval of unexpected rest, during which she kept her eyes mainly on Verena, who sat near Mrs. Burrage, letting herself go, evidently, more completely than Olive. To her, too, music was a delight, and her listening face turned itself to different parts of the room, unconsciously, while her eyes vaguely rested on the _bibelots_ that emerged into the firelight. At moments Mrs. Burrage bent her countenance upon her and smiled, at random, kindly; and then Verena smiled back, while her expression seemed to say that, oh yes, she was giving up everything, all principles, all projects. Even before it was time to go, Olive felt that they were both (Verena and she) quite demoralised, and she only summoned energy to take her companion away when she heard Mrs. Burrage propose to her to come and spend a fortnight in New York. Then Olive exclaimed to herself, "Is it a plot? Why in the world can't they let her alone?" and prepared to throw a fold of her mantle, as she had done before, over her young friend. Verena answered, somewhat impetuously, that she should be delighted to visit Mrs. Burrage; then checked her impetuosity, after a glance from Olive, by adding that perhaps this lady wouldn't ask her if she knew what strong ground she took on the emancipation of women. Mrs. Burrage looked at her son and laughed; she said she was perfectly aware of Verena's views, and that it was impossible to be more in sympathy with them than she herself. She took the greatest interest in the emancipation of women; she thought there was so much to be done. These were the only remarks that passed in reference to the great subject; and nothing more was said to Verena, either by Henry Burrage or by his friend Gracie, about her addressing the Harvard students. Verena had told her father that Olive had put her veto upon that, and Tarrant had said to the young men that it seemed as if Miss Chancellor was going to put the thing through in her own way. We know that he thought this way very circuitous; but Miss Chancellor made him feel that she was in earnest, and that idea frightened the resistance out of him--it had such terrible associations. The people he had ever seen who were most in earnest were a committee of gentlemen who had investigated the phenomena of the "materialisation" of spirits, some ten years before, and had bent the fierce light of the scientific method upon him. To Olive it appeared that Mr. Burrage and Mr. Gracie had ceased to be jocular; but that did not make them any less cynical. Henry Burrage said to Verena, as she was going, that he hoped she would think seriously of his mother's invitation; and she replied that she didn't know whether she should have much time in the future to give to people who already approved of her views: she expected to have her hands full with the others, who didn't. "Does your scheme of work exclude all distraction, all recreation, then?" the young man inquired; and his look expressed real suspense. Verena referred the matter, as usual, with her air of bright, ungrudging deference, to her companion. "Does it, should you say--our scheme of work?" "I am afraid the distraction we have had this afternoon must last us for a long time," Olive said, without harshness, but with considerable majesty. "Well, now, _is_ he to be respected?" Verena demanded, as the two young women took their way through the early darkness, pacing quietly side by side, in their winter-robes, like women consecrated to some holy office. Olive turned it over a moment. "Yes, very much--as a pianist!" Verena went into town with her in the horse-car--she was staying in Charles Street for a few days--and that evening she startled Olive by breaking out into a reflexion very similar to the whimsical falterings of which she herself had been conscious while they sat in Mr. Burrage's pretty rooms, but against which she had now violently reacted. "It would be very nice to do that always--just to take men as they are, and not to have to think about their badness. It would be very nice not to have so many questions, but to think they were all comfortably answered, so that one could sit there on an old Spanish leather chair, with the curtains drawn and keeping out the cold, the darkness, all the big, terrible, cruel world--sit there and listen for ever to Schubert and Mendelssohn. _They_ didn't care anything about female suffrage! And I didn't feel the want of a vote to-day at all, did you?" Verena inquired, ending, as she always ended in these few speculations, with an appeal to Olive. This young lady thought it necessary to give her a very firm answer. "I always feel it--everywhere--night and day. I feel it _here_"; and Olive laid her hand solemnly on her heart. "I feel it as a deep, unforgettable wrong; I feel it as one feels a stain that is on one's honour." Verena gave a clear laugh, and after that a soft sigh, and then said, "Do you know, Olive, I sometimes wonder whether, if it wasn't for you, I should feel it so very much!" "My own friend," Olive replied, "you have never yet said anything to me which expressed so clearly the closeness and sanctity of our union." "You do keep me up," Verena went on. "You are my conscience." "I should like to be able to say that you are my form--my envelope. But you are too beautiful for that!" So Olive returned her friend's compliment; and later she said that, of course, it would be far easier to give up everything and draw the curtains to and pass one's life in an artificial atmosphere, with rose-coloured lamps. It would be far easier to abandon the struggle, to leave all the unhappy women of the world to their immemorial misery, to lay down one's burden, close one's eyes to the whole dark picture, and, in short, simply expire. To this Verena objected that it would not be easy for her to expire at all; that such an idea was darker than anything the world contained; that she had not done with life yet, and that she didn't mean to allow her responsibilities to crush her. And then the two young women concluded, as they had concluded before, by finding themselves completely, inspiringly in agreement, full of the purpose to live indeed, and with high success; to become great, in order not to be obscure, and powerful, in order not to be useless. Olive had often declared before that her conception of life was as something sublime or as nothing at all. The world was full of evil, but she was glad to have been born before it had been swept away, while it was still there to face, to give one a task and a reward. When the great reforms should be consummated, when the day of justice should have dawned, would not life perhaps be rather poor and pale? She had never pretended to deny that the hope of fame, of the very highest distinction, was one of her strongest incitements; and she held that the most effective way of protesting against the state of bondage of women was for an individual member of the sex to become illustrious. A person who might have overheard some of the talk of this possibly infatuated pair would have been touched by their extreme familiarity with the idea of earthly glory. Verena had not invented it, but she had taken it eagerly from her friend, and she returned it with interest. To Olive it appeared that just this partnership of their two minds--each of them, by itself, lacking an important group of facets--made an organic whole which, for the work in hand, could not fail to be brilliantly effective. Verena was often far more irresponsive than she liked to see her; but the happy thing in her composition was that, after a short contact with the divine idea--Olive was always trying to flash it at her, like a jewel in an uncovered case--she kindled, flamed up, took the words from her friend's less persuasive lips, resolved herself into a magical voice, became again the pure young sibyl. Then Olive perceived how fatally, without Verena's tender notes, her crusade would lack sweetness, what the Catholics call unction; and, on the other hand, how weak Verena would be on the statistical and logical side if she herself should not bring up the rear. Together, in short, they would be complete, they would have everything, and together they would triumph. XIX This idea of their triumph, a triumph as yet ultimate and remote, but preceded by the solemn vista of an effort so religious as never to be wanting in ecstasy, became tremendously familiar to the two friends, but especially to Olive, during the winter of 187-, a season which ushered in the most momentous period of Miss Chancellor's life. About Christmas a step was taken which advanced her affairs immensely, and put them, to her apprehension, on a regular footing. This consisted in Verena's coming in to Charles Street to stay with her, in pursuance of an arrangement on Olive's part with Selah Tarrant and his wife that she should remain for many months. The coast was now perfectly clear. Mrs. Farrinder had started on her annual grand tour; she was rousing the people, from Maine to Texas; Matthias Pardon (it was to be supposed) had received, temporarily at least, his quietus; and Mrs. Luna was established in New York, where she had taken a house for a year, and whence she wrote to her sister that she was going to engage Basil Ransom (with whom she was in communication for this purpose) to do her law-business. Olive wondered what law-business Adeline could have, and hoped she would get into a pickle with her landlord or her milliner, so that repeated interviews with Mr. Ransom might become necessary. Mrs. Luna let her know very soon that these interviews had begun; the young Mississippian had come to dine with her; he hadn't got started much, by what she could make out, and she was even afraid that he didn't dine every day. But he wore a tall hat now, like a Northern gentleman, and Adeline intimated that she found him really attractive. He had been very nice to Newton, told him all about the war (quite the Southern version, of course, but Mrs. Luna didn't care anything about American politics, and she wanted her son to know all sides), and Newton did nothing but talk about him, calling him "Rannie," and imitating his pronunciation of certain words. Adeline subsequently wrote that she had made up her mind to put her affairs into his hands (Olive sighed, not unmagnanimously, as she thought of her sister's "affairs"), and later still she mentioned that she was thinking strongly of taking him to be Newton's tutor. She wished this interesting child to be privately educated, and it would be more agreeable to have in that relation a person who was already, as it were, a member of the family. Mrs. Luna wrote as if he were prepared to give up his profession to take charge of her son, and Olive was pretty sure that this was only a part of her grandeur, of the habit she had contracted, especially since living in Europe, of speaking as if in every case she required special arrangements. In spite of the difference in their age, Olive had long since judged her, and made up her mind that Adeline lacked every quality that a person needed to be interesting in her eyes. She was rich (or sufficiently so), she was conventional and timid, very fond of attentions from men (with whom indeed she was reputed bold, but Olive scorned such boldness as that), given up to a merely personal, egotistical, instinctive life, and as unconscious of the tendencies of the age, the revenges of the future, the new truths and the great social questions, as if she had been a mere bundle of dress-trimmings, which she very nearly was. It was perfectly observable that she had no conscience, and it irritated Olive deeply to see how much trouble a woman was spared when she was constructed on that system. Adeline's "affairs," as I have intimated, her social relations, her views of Newton's education, her practice and her theory (for she had plenty of that, such as it was, heaven save the mark!), her spasmodic disposition to marry again, and her still sillier retreats in the presence of danger (for she had not even the courage of her frivolity), these things had been a subject of tragic consideration to Olive ever since the return of the elder sister to America. The tragedy was not in any particular harm that Mrs. Luna could do her (for she did her good, rather, that is, she did her honour by laughing at her), but in the spectacle itself, the drama, guided by the hand of fate, of which the small, ignoble scenes unrolled themselves so logically. The _dénouement_ would of course be in keeping, and would consist simply of the spiritual death of Mrs. Luna, who would end by understanding no common speech of Olive's at all, and would sink into mere worldly plumpness, into the last complacency, the supreme imbecility, of petty, genteel conservatism. As for Newton, he would be more utterly odious, if possible, as he grew up, than he was already; in fact, he would not grow up at all, but only grow down, if his mother should continue her infatuated system with him. He was insufferably forward and selfish; under the pretext of keeping him, at any cost, refined, Adeline had coddled and caressed him, having him always in her petticoats, remitting his lessons when he pretended he had an earache, drawing him into the conversation, letting him answer her back, with an impertinence beyond his years, when she administered the smallest check. The place for him, in Olive's eyes, was one of the public schools, where the children of the people would teach him his small importance, teach it, if necessary, by the aid of an occasional drubbing; and the two ladies had a grand discussion on this point before Mrs. Luna left Boston--a scene which ended in Adeline's clutching the irrepressible Newton to her bosom (he came in at the moment), and demanding of him a vow that he would live and die in the principles of his mother. Mrs. Luna declared that if she must be trampled upon--and very likely it was her fate!--she would rather be trampled upon by men than by women, and that if Olive and her friends should get possession of the government they would be worse despots than those who were celebrated in history. Newton took an infant oath that he would never be a destructive, impious radical, and Olive felt that after this she needn't trouble herself any more about her sister, whom she simply committed to her fate. That fate might very properly be to marry an enemy of her country, a man who, no doubt, desired to treat women with the lash and manacles, as he and his people had formerly treated the wretched coloured race. If she was so fond of the fine old institutions of the past, he would supply them to her in abundance; and if she wanted so much to be a conservative, she could try first how she liked being a conservative's wife. If Olive troubled herself little about Adeline, she troubled herself more about Basil Ransom; she said to herself that since he hated women who respected themselves (and each other), destiny would use him rightly in hanging a person like Adeline round his neck. That would be the way poetic justice ought to work, for him--and the law that our prejudices, when they act themselves out, punish us in doing so. Olive considered all this, as it was her effort to consider everything, from a very high point of view, and ended by feeling sure it was not for the sake of any nervous personal security that she desired to see her two relations in New York get mixed up together. If such an event as their marriage would gratify her sense of fitness, it would be simply as an illustration of certain laws. Olive, thanks to the philosophic cast of her mind, was exceedingly fond of illustrations of laws. I hardly know, however, what illumination it was that sprang from her consciousness (now a source of considerable comfort) that Mrs. Farrinder was carrying the war into distant territories, and would return to Boston only in time to preside at a grand Female Convention, already advertised to take place in Boston in the month of June. It was agreeable to her that this imperial woman should be away; it made the field more free, the air more light; it suggested an exemption from official criticism. I have not taken space to mention certain episodes of the more recent intercourse of these ladies, and must content myself with tracing them, lightly, in their consequences. These may be summed up in the remark, which will doubtless startle no one by its freshness, that two imperial women are scarcely more likely to hit it off together, as the phrase is, than two imperial men. Since that party at Miss Birdseye's, so important in its results for Olive, she had had occasion to approach Mrs. Farrinder more nearly, and those overtures brought forth the knowledge that the great leader of the feminine revolution was the one person (in that part of the world) more concentrated, more determined, than herself. Miss Chancellor's aspirations, of late, had been immensely quickened; she had begun to believe in herself to a livelier tune than she had ever listened to before; and she now perceived that when spirit meets spirit there must either be mutual absorption or a sharp concussion. It had long been familiar to her that she should have to count with the obstinacy of the world at large, but she now discovered that she should have to count also with certain elements in the feminine camp. This complicated the problem, and such a complication, naturally, could not make Mrs. Farrinder appear more easy to assimilate. If Olive's was a high nature and so was hers, the fault was in neither; it was only an admonition that they were not needed as landmarks in the same part of the field. If such perceptions are delicate as between men, the reader need not be reminded of the exquisite form they may assume in natures more refined. So it was that Olive passed, in three months, from the stage of veneration to that of competition; and the process had been accelerated by the introduction of Verena into the fold. Mrs. Farrinder had behaved in the strangest way about Verena. First she had been struck with her, and then she hadn't; first she had seemed to want to take her in, then she had shied at her unmistakably--intimating to Olive that there were enough of that kind already. Of "that kind" indeed!--the phrase reverberated in Miss Chancellor's resentful soul. Was it possible she didn't know the kind Verena was of, and with what vulgar aspirants to notoriety did she confound her? It had been Olive's original desire to obtain Mrs. Farrinder's stamp for her _protégée_; she wished her to hold a commission from the commander-in-chief. With this view the two young women had made more than one pilgrimage to Roxbury, and on one of these occasions the sibylline mood (in its most charming form) had descended upon Verena. She had fallen into it, naturally and gracefully, in the course of talk, and poured out a stream of eloquence even more touching than her regular discourse at Miss Birdseye's. Mrs. Farrinder had taken it rather dryly, and certainly it didn't resemble her own style of oratory, remarkable and cogent as this was. There had been considerable question of her writing a letter to the New York _Tribune_, the effect of which should be to launch Miss Tarrant into renown; but this beneficent epistle never appeared, and now Olive saw that there was no favour to come from the prophetess of Roxbury. There had been primnesses, pruderies, small reserves, which ended by staying her pen. If Olive didn't say at once that she was jealous of Verena's more attractive manner, it was only because such a declaration was destined to produce more effect a little later. What she did say was that evidently Mrs. Farrinder wanted to keep the movement in her own hands--viewed with suspicion certain romantic, esthetic elements which Olive and Verena seemed to be trying to introduce into it. They insisted so much, for instance, on the historic unhappiness of women; but Mrs. Farrinder didn't appear to care anything for that, or indeed to know much about history at all. She seemed to begin just to-day, and she demanded their rights for them whether they were unhappy or not. The upshot of this was that Olive threw herself on Verena's neck with a movement which was half indignation, half rapture; she exclaimed that they would have to fight the battle without human help, but, after all, it was better so. If they were all in all to each other, what more could they want? They would be isolated, but they would be free; and this view of the situation brought with it a feeling that they had almost already begun to be a force. It was not, indeed, that Olive's resentment faded quite away; for not only had she the sense, doubtless very presumptuous, that Mrs. Farrinder was the only person thereabouts of a stature to judge her (a sufficient cause of antagonism in itself, for if we like to be praised by our betters we prefer that censure should come from the other sort), but the kind of opinion she had unexpectedly betrayed, after implying such esteem in the earlier phase of their intercourse, made Olive's cheeks occasionally flush. She prayed heaven that _she_ might never become so personal, so narrow. She was frivolous, worldly, an amateur, a trifler, a frequenter of Beacon Street; her taking up Verena Tarrant was only a kind of elderly, ridiculous doll-dressing: this was the light in which Miss Chancellor had reason to believe that it now suited Mrs. Farrinder to regard her! It was fortunate, perhaps, that the misrepresentation was so gross; yet, none the less, tears of wrath rose more than once to Olive's eyes when she reflected that this particular wrong had been put upon her. Frivolous, worldly, Beacon Street! She appealed to Verena to share in her pledge that the world should know in due time how much of that sort of thing there was about her. As I have already hinted, Verena at such moments quite rose to the occasion; she had private pangs at committing herself to give the cold shoulder to Beacon Street for ever; but she was now so completely in Olive's hands that there was no sacrifice to which she would not have consented in order to prove that her benefactress was not frivolous. The matter of her coming to stay for so long in Charles Street was arranged during a visit that Selah Tarrant paid there at Miss Chancellor's request. This interview, which had some curious features, would be worth describing but I am forbidden to do more than mention the most striking of these. Olive wished to have an understanding with him; wished the situation to be clear, so that, disagreeable as it would be to her to receive him, she sent him a summons for a certain hour--an hour at which she had planned that Verena should be out of the house. She withheld this incident from the girl's knowledge, reflecting with some solemnity that it was the first deception (for Olive her silence was a deception) that she had yet practised on her friend, and wondering whether she should have to practise others in the future. She then and there made up her mind that she would not shrink from others should they be necessary. She notified Tarrant that she should keep Verena a long time, and Tarrant remarked that it was certainly very pleasant to see her so happily located. But he also intimated that he should like to know what Miss Chancellor laid out to do with her; and the tone of this suggestion made Olive feel how right she had been to foresee that their interview would have the stamp of business. It assumed that complexion very definitely when she crossed over to her desk and wrote Mr. Tarrant a cheque for a very considerable amount. "Leave us alone--entirely alone--for a year, and then I will write you another": it was with these words she handed him the little strip of paper that meant so much, feeling, as she did so, that surely Mrs. Farrinder herself could not be less amateurish than that. Selah looked at the cheque, at Miss Chancellor, at the cheque again, at the ceiling, at the floor, at the clock, and once more at his hostess; then the document disappeared beneath the folds of his waterproof, and she saw that he was putting it into some queer place on his queer person. "Well, if I didn't believe you were going to help her to develop," he remarked; and he stopped, while his hands continued to fumble, out of sight, and he treated Olive to his large joyless smile. She assured him that he need have no fear on that score; Verena's development was the thing in the world in which she took most interest; she should have every opportunity for a free expansion. "Yes, that's the great thing," Selah said; "it's more important than attracting a crowd. That's all we shall ask of you; let her act out her nature. Don't all the trouble of humanity come from our being pressed back? Don't shut down the cover, Miss Chancellor; just let her overflow!" And again Tarrant illuminated his inquiry, his metaphor, by the strange and silent lateral movement of his jaws. He added, presently, that he supposed he should have to fix it with Mis' Tarrant; but Olive made no answer to that; she only looked at him with a face in which she intended to express that there was nothing that need detain him longer. She knew it had been fixed with Mrs. Tarrant; she had been over all that with Verena, who had told her that her mother was willing to sacrifice her for her highest good. She had reason to know (not through Verena, of course) that Mrs. Tarrant had embraced, tenderly, the idea of a pecuniary compensation, and there was no fear of her making a scene when Tarrant should come back with a cheque in his pocket. "Well, I trust she _may_ develop, richly, and that you may accomplish what you desire; it seems as if we had only a little way to go further," that worthy observed, as he erected himself for departure. "It's not a little way; it's a very long way," Olive replied, rather sternly. Tarrant was on the threshold; he lingered a little, embarrassed by her grimness, for he himself had always inclined to rose-coloured views of progress, of the march of truth. He had never met any one so much in earnest as this definite, literal young woman, who had taken such an unhoped-for fancy to his daughter; whose longing for the new day had such perversities of pessimism, and who, in the midst of something that appeared to be terribly searching in her honesty, was willing to corrupt him, as a father, with the most extravagant orders on her bank. He hardly knew in what language to speak to her; it seemed as if there was nothing soothing enough, when a lady adopted that tone about a movement which was thought by some of the brightest to be so promising. "Oh, well, I guess there's some kind of mysterious law...." he murmured, almost timidly; and so he passed from Miss Chancellor's sight. XX She hoped she should not soon see him again, and there appeared to be no reason she should, if their intercourse was to be conducted by means of cheques. The understanding with Verena was, of course, complete; she had promised to stay with her friend as long as her friend should require it. She had said at first that she couldn't give up her mother, but she had been made to feel that there was no question of giving up. She should be as free as air, to go and come; she could spend hours and days with her mother, whenever Mrs. Tarrant required her attention; all that Olive asked of her was that, for the time, she should regard Charles Street as her home. There was no struggle about this, for the simple reason that by the time the question came to the front Verena was completely under the charm. The idea of Olive's charm will perhaps make the reader smile; but I use the word not in its derived, but in its literal sense. The fine web of authority, of dependence, that her strenuous companion had woven about her, was now as dense as a suit of golden mail; and Verena was thoroughly interested in their great undertaking; she saw it in the light of an active, enthusiastic faith. The benefit that her father desired for her was now assured; she expanded, developed, on the most liberal scale. Olive saw the difference, and you may imagine how she rejoiced in it; she had never known a greater pleasure. Verena's former attitude had been girlish submission, grateful, curious sympathy. She had given herself, in her young, amused surprise, because Olive's stronger will and the incisive proceedings with which she pointed her purpose drew her on. Besides, she was held by hospitality, the vision of new social horizons, the sense of novelty, and the love of change. But now the girl was disinterestedly attached to the precious things they were to do together; she cared about them for themselves, believed in them ardently, had them constantly in mind. Her share in the union of the two young women was no longer passive, purely appreciative; it was passionate, too, and it put forth a beautiful energy. If Olive desired to get Verena into training, she could flatter herself that the process had already begun, and that her colleague enjoyed it almost as much as she. Therefore she could say to herself, without the imputation of heartlessness, that when she left her mother it was for a noble, a sacred use. In point of fact, she left her very little, and she spent hours in jingling, aching, jostled journeys between Charles Street and the stale suburban cottage. Mrs. Tarrant sighed and grimaced, wrapped herself more than ever in her mantle, said she didn't know as she was fit to struggle alone, and that, half the time, if Verena was away, she wouldn't have the nerve to answer the door-bell; she was incapable, of course, of neglecting such an opportunity to posture as one who paid with her heart's blood for leading the van of human progress. But Verena had an inner sense (she judged her mother now, a little, for the first time) that she would be sorry to be taken at her word, and that she felt safe enough in trusting to her daughter's generosity. She could not divest herself of the faith--even now that Mrs. Luna was gone, leaving no trace, and the grey walls of a sedentary winter were apparently closing about the two young women--she could not renounce the theory that a residence in Charles Street must at least produce some contact with the brilliant classes. She was vexed at her daughter's resignation to not going to parties and to Miss Chancellor's not giving them; but it was nothing new for her to have to practise patience, and she could feel, at least, that it was just as handy for Mr. Burrage to call on the child in town, where he spent half his time, sleeping constantly at Parker's. It was a fact that this fortunate youth called very often, and Verena saw him with Olive's full concurrence whenever she was at home. It had now been quite agreed between them that no artificial limits should be set to the famous phase; and Olive had, while it lasted, a sense of real heroism in steeling herself against uneasiness. It seemed to her, moreover, only justice that she should make some concession; if Verena made a great sacrifice of filial duty in coming to live with her (this, of course, should be permanent--she would buy off the Tarrants from year to year), she must not incur the imputation (the world would judge her, in that case, ferociously) of keeping her from forming common social ties. The friendship of a young man and a young woman was, according to the pure code of New England, a common social tie; and as the weeks elapsed Miss Chancellor saw no reason to repent of her temerity. Verena was not falling in love; she felt that she should know it, should guess it on the spot. Verena was fond of human intercourse; she was essentially a sociable creature; she liked to shine and smile and talk and listen; and so far as Henry Burrage was concerned he introduced an element of easy and convenient relaxation into a life now a good deal stiffened (Olive was perfectly willing to own it) by great civic purposes. But the girl was being saved, without interference, by the simple operation of her interest in those very designs. From this time there was no need of putting pressure on her; her own springs were working; the fire with which she glowed came from within. Sacredly, brightly single she would remain; her only espousals would be at the altar of a great cause. Olive always absented herself when Mr. Burrage was announced; and when Verena afterwards attempted to give some account of his conversation she checked her, said she would rather know nothing about it--all with a very solemn mildness; this made her feel very superior, truly noble. She knew by this time (I scarcely can tell how, since Verena could give her no report) exactly what sort of a youth Mr. Burrage was: he was weakly pretentious, softly original, cultivated eccentricity, patronised progress, liked to have mysteries, sudden appointments to keep, anonymous persons to visit, the air of leading a double life, of being devoted to a girl whom people didn't know, or at least didn't meet. Of course he liked to make an impression on Verena; but what he mainly liked was to play her off upon the other girls, the daughters of fashion, with whom he danced at Papanti's. Such were the images that proceeded from Olive's rich moral consciousness. "Well, he _is_ greatly interested in our movement": so much Verena once managed to announce; but the words rather irritated Miss Chancellor, who, as we know, did not care to allow for accidental exceptions in the great masculine conspiracy. In the month of March Verena told her that Mr. Burrage was offering matrimony--offering it with much insistence, begging that she would at least wait and think of it before giving him a final answer. Verena was evidently very glad to be able to say to Olive that she had assured him she couldn't think of it, and that if he expected this he had better not come any more. He continued to come, and it was therefore to be supposed that he had ceased to count on such a concession; it was now Olive's opinion that he really didn't desire it. She had a theory that he proposed to almost any girl who was not likely to accept him--did it because he was making a collection of such episodes--a mental album of declarations, blushes, hesitations, refusals that just missed imposing themselves as acceptances, quite as he collected enamels and Cremona violins. He would be very sorry indeed to ally himself to the house of Tarrant; but such a fear didn't prevent him from holding it becoming in a man of taste to give that encouragement to low-born girls who were pretty, for one looked out for the special cases in which, for reasons (even the lowest might have reasons), they wouldn't "rise." "I told you I wouldn't marry him, and I won't," Verena said, delightedly, to her friend; her tone suggested that a certain credit belonged to her for the way she carried out her assurance. "I never thought you would, if you didn't want to," Olive replied to this; and Verena could have no rejoinder but the good-humour that sat in her eyes, unable as she was to say that she had wanted to. They had a little discussion, however, when she intimated that she pitied him for his discomfiture, Olive's contention being that, selfish, conceited, pampered and insincere, he might properly be left now to digest his affront. Miss Chancellor felt none of the remorse now that she would have felt six months before at standing in the way of such a chance for Verena, and she would have been very angry if any one had asked her if she were not afraid of taking too much upon herself. She would have said, moreover, that she stood in no one's way, and that even if she were not there Verena would never think seriously of a frivolous little man who fiddled while Rome was burning. This did not prevent Olive from making up her mind that they had better go to Europe in the spring; a year's residence in that quarter of the globe would be highly agreeable to Verena, and might even contribute to the evolution of her genius. It cost Miss Chancellor an effort to admit that any virtue still lingered in the elder world, and that it could have any important lesson for two such good Americans as her friend and herself; but it suited her just then to make this assumption, which was not altogether sincere. It was recommended by the idea that it would get her companion out of the way--out of the way of officious fellow-citizens--till she should be absolutely firm on her feet, and would also give greater intensity to their own long conversation. On that continent of strangers they would cleave more closely still to each other. This, of course, would be to fly before the inevitable "phase," much more than to face it; but Olive decided that if they should reach unscathed the term of their delay (the first of July) she should have faced it as much as either justice or generosity demanded. I may as well say at once that she traversed most of this period without further serious alarms and with a great many little thrills of bliss and hope. Nothing happened to dissipate the good omens with which her partnership with Verena Tarrant was at present surrounded. They threw themselves into study; they had innumerable big books from the Athenæum, and consumed the midnight oil. Henry Burrage, after Verena had shaken her head at him so sweetly and sadly, returned to New York, giving no sign; they only heard that he had taken refuge under the ruffled maternal wing. (Olive, at least, took for granted the wing was ruffled; she could fancy how Mrs. Burrage would be affected by the knowledge that her son had been refused by the daughter of a mesmeric healer. She would be almost as angry as if she had learnt that he had been accepted.) Matthias Pardon had not yet taken his revenge in the newspapers; he was perhaps nursing his thunderbolts; at any rate, now that the operatic season had begun, he was much occupied in interviewing the principal singers, one of whom he described in one of the leading journals (Olive, at least, was sure it was only he who could write like that) as "a dear little woman with baby dimples and kittenish movements." The Tarrants were apparently given up to a measure of sensual ease with which they had not hitherto been familiar, thanks to the increase of income that they drew from their eccentric protectress. Mrs. Tarrant now enjoyed the ministrations of a "girl"; it was partly her pride (at any rate, she chose to give it this turn) that her house had for many years been conducted without the element--so debasing on both sides--of servile, mercenary labour. She wrote to Olive (she was perpetually writing to her now, but Olive never answered) that she was conscious of having fallen to a lower plane, but she admitted that it was a prop to her wasted spirit to have some one to converse with when Selah was off. Verena, of course, perceived the difference, which was inadequately explained by the theory of a sudden increase of her father's practice (nothing of her father's had ever increased like that), and ended by guessing the cause of it--a discovery which did not in the least disturb her equanimity. She accepted the idea that her parents should receive a pecuniary tribute from the extraordinary friend whom she had encountered on the threshold of womanhood, just as she herself accepted that friend's irresistible hospitality. She had no worldly pride, no traditions of independence, no ideas of what was done and what was not done; but there was only one thing that equalled this perfectly gentle and natural insensibility to favours--namely, the inveteracy of her habit of not asking them. Olive had had an apprehension that she would flush a little at learning the terms on which they should now be able to pursue their career together; but Verena never changed colour; it was either not new or not disagreeable to her that the authors of her being should be bought off, silenced by money, treated as the troublesome of the lower orders are treated when they are not locked up; so that her friend had a perception, after this, that it would probably be impossible in any way ever to offend her. She was too rancourless, too detached from conventional standards, too free from private self-reference. It was too much to say of her that she forgave injuries, since she was not conscious of them; there was in forgiveness a certain arrogance of which she was incapable, and her bright mildness glided over the many traps that life sets for our consistency. Olive had always held that pride was necessary to character, but there was no peculiarity of Verena's that could make her spirit seem less pure. The added luxuries in the little house at Cambridge, which even with their help was still such a penal settlement, made her feel afresh that before she came to the rescue the daughter of that house had traversed a desert of sordid misery. She had cooked and washed and swept and stitched; she had worked harder than any of Miss Chancellor's servants. These things had left no trace upon her person or her mind; everything fresh and fair renewed itself in her with extraordinary facility, everything ugly and tiresome evaporated as soon as it touched her; but Olive deemed that, being what she was, she had a right to immense compensations. In the future she should have exceeding luxury and ease, and Miss Chancellor had no difficulty in persuading herself that persons doing the high intellectual and moral work to which the two young ladies in Charles Street were now committed owed it to themselves, owed it to the groaning sisterhood, to cultivate the best material conditions. She herself was nothing of a sybarite, and she had proved, visiting the alleys and slums of Boston in the service of the Associated Charities, that there was no foulness of disease or misery she feared to look in the face; but her house had always been thoroughly well regulated, she was passionately clean, and she was an excellent woman of business. Now, however, she elevated daintiness to a religion; her interior shone with superfluous friction, with punctuality, with winter roses. Among these soft influences Verena herself bloomed like the flower that attains such perfection in Boston. Olive had always rated high the native refinement of her country-women, their latent "adaptability," their talent for accommodating themselves at a glance to changed conditions; but the way her companion rose with the level of the civilisation that surrounded her, the way she assimilated all delicacies and absorbed all traditions, left this friendly theory halting behind. The winter days were still, indoors, in Charles Street, and the winter nights secure from interruption. Our two young women had plenty of duties, but Olive had never favoured the custom of running in and out. Much conference on social and reformatory topics went forward under her roof, and she received her colleagues--she belonged to twenty associations and committees--only at pre-appointed hours, which she expected them to observe rigidly. Verena's share in these proceedings was not active; she hovered over them, smiling, listening, dropping occasionally a fanciful though never an idle word, like some gently animated image placed there for good omen. It was understood that her part was before the scenes, not behind; that she was not a prompter, but (potentially, at least) a "popular favourite," and that the work over which Miss Chancellor presided so efficiently was a general preparation of the platform on which, later, her companion would execute the most striking steps. The western windows of Olive's drawing-room, looking over the water, took in the red sunsets of winter; the long, low bridge that crawled, on its staggering posts, across the Charles; the casual patches of ice and snow; the desolate suburban horizons, peeled and made bald by the rigour of the season; the general hard, cold void of the prospect; the extrusion, at Charlestown, at Cambridge, of a few chimneys and steeples, straight, sordid tubes of factories and engine-shops, or spare, heavenward finger of the New England meeting-house. There was something inexorable in the poverty of the scene, shameful in the meanness of its details, which gave a collective impression of boards and tin and frozen earth, sheds and rotting piles, railway-lines striding flat across a thoroughfare of puddles, and tracks of the humbler, the universal horse-car, traversing obliquely this path of danger; loose fences, vacant lots, mounds of refuse, yards bestrewn with iron pipes, telegraph poles, and bare wooden backs of places. Verena thought such a view lovely, and she was by no means without excuse when, as the afternoon closed, the ugly picture was tinted with a clear, cold rosiness. The air, in its windless chill, seemed to tinkle like a crystal, the faintest gradations of tone were perceptible in the sky, the west became deep and delicate, everything grew doubly distinct before taking on the dimness of evening. There were pink flushes on snow, "tender" reflexions in patches of stiffened marsh, sounds of car-bells, no longer vulgar, but almost silvery, on the long bridge, lonely outlines of distant dusky undulations against the fading glow. These agreeable effects used to light up that end of the drawing-room, and Olive often sat at the window with her companion before it was time for the lamp. They admired the sunsets, they rejoiced in the ruddy spots projected upon the parlour-wall, they followed the darkening perspective in fanciful excursions. They watched the stellar points come out at last in a colder heaven, and then, shuddering a little, arm in arm, they turned away, with a sense that the winter night was even more cruel than the tyranny of men--turned back to drawn curtains and a brighter fire and a glittering tea-tray and more and more talk about the long martyrdom of women, a subject as to which Olive was inexhaustible and really most interesting. There were some nights of deep snowfall, when Charles Street was white and muffled and the door-bell foredoomed to silence, which seemed little islands of lamp-light, of enlarged and intensified vision. They read a great deal of history together, and read it ever with the same thought--that of finding confirmation in it for this idea that their sex had suffered inexpressibly, and that at any moment in the course of human affairs the state of the world would have been so much less horrible (history seemed to them in every way horrible) if women had been able to press down the scale. Verena was full of suggestions which stimulated discussions; it was she, oftenest, who kept in view the fact that a good many women in the past had been entrusted with power and had not always used it amiably, who brought up the wicked queens, the profligate mistresses of kings. These ladies were easily disposed of between the two, and the public crimes of Bloody Mary, the private misdemeanours of Faustina, wife of the pure Marcus Aurelius, were very satisfactorily classified. If the influence of women in the past accounted for every act of virtue that men had happened to achieve, it only made the matter balance properly that the influence of men should explain the casual irregularities of the other sex. Olive could see how few books had passed through Verena's hands, and how little the home of the Tarrants had been a house of reading; but the girl now traversed the fields of literature with her characteristic lightness of step. Everything she turned to or took up became an illustration of the facility, the "giftedness," which Olive, who had so little of it, never ceased to wonder at and prize. Nothing frightened her; she always smiled at it, she could do anything she tried. As she knew how to do other things, she knew how to study; she read quickly and remembered infallibly; could repeat, days afterward, passages that she appeared only to have glanced at. Olive, of course, was more and more happy to think that their cause should have the services of an organisation so rare. All this doubtless sounds rather dry, and I hasten to add that our friends were not always shut up in Miss Chancellor's strenuous parlour. In spite of Olive's desire to keep her precious inmate to herself and to bend her attention upon their common studies, in spite of her constantly reminding Verena that this winter was to be purely educative and that the platitudes of the satisfied and unregenerate would have little to teach her, in spite, in short, of the severe and constant duality of our young women, it must not be supposed that their life had not many personal confluents and tributaries. Individual and original as Miss Chancellor was universally acknowledged to be, she was yet a typical Bostonian, and as a typical Bostonian she could not fail to belong in some degree to a "set." It had been said of her that she was in it but not of it; but she was of it enough to go occasionally into other houses and to receive their occupants in her own. It was her belief that she filled her tea-pot with the spoon of hospitality, and made a good many select spirits feel that they were welcome under her roof at convenient hours. She had a preference for what she called _real_ people, and there were several whose reality she had tested by arts known to herself. This little society was rather suburban and miscellaneous; it was prolific in ladies who trotted about, early and late, with books from the Athenæum nursed behind their muff, or little nosegays of exquisite flowers that they were carrying as presents to each other. Verena, who, when Olive was not with her, indulged in a good deal of desultory contemplation at the window, saw them pass the house in Charles Street, always apparently straining a little, as if they might be too late for something. At almost any time, for she envied their preoccupation, she would have taken the chance with them. Very often, when she described them to her mother, Mrs. Tarrant didn't know who they were; there were even days (she had so many discouragements) when it seemed as if she didn't want to know. So long as they were not some one else, it seemed to be no use that they were themselves; whoever they were, they were sure to have that defect. Even after all her mother's disquisitions Verena had but vague ideas as to whom she would have liked them to be; and it was only when the girl talked of the concerts, to all of which Olive subscribed and conducted her inseparable friend, that Mrs. Tarrant appeared to feel in any degree that her daughter was living up to the standard formed for her in their Cambridge home. As all the world knows, the opportunities in Boston for hearing good music are numerous and excellent, and it had long been Miss Chancellor's practice to cultivate the best. She went in, as the phrase is, for the superior programmes, and that high, dim, dignified Music Hall, which has echoed in its time to so much eloquence and so much melody, and of which the very proportions and colour seem to teach respect and attention, shed the protection of its illuminated cornice, this winter, upon no faces more intelligently upturned than those of the young women for whom Bach and Beethoven only repeated, in a myriad forms, the idea that was always with them. Symphonies and fugues only stimulated their convictions, excited their revolutionary passion, led their imagination further in the direction in which it was always pressing. It lifted them to immeasurable heights; and as they sat looking at the great florid, sombre organ, overhanging the bronze statue of Beethoven, they felt that this was the only temple in which the votaries of their creed could worship. And yet their music was not their greatest joy, for they had two others which they cultivated at least as zealously. One of these was simply the society of old Miss Birdseye, of whom Olive saw more this winter than she had ever seen before. It had become apparent that her long and beautiful career was drawing to a close, her earnest, unremitting work was over, her old-fashioned weapons were broken and dull. Olive would have liked to hang them up as venerable relics of a patient fight, and this was what she seemed to do when she made the poor lady relate her battles--never glorious and brilliant, but obscure and wastefully heroic--call back the figures of her companions in arms, exhibit her medals and scars. Miss Birdseye knew that her uses were ended; she might pretend still to go about the business of unpopular causes, might fumble for papers in her immemorial satchel and think she had important appointments, might sign petitions, attend conventions, say to Doctor Prance that if she would only make her sleep she should live to see a great many improvements yet; she ached and was weary, growing almost as glad to look back (a great anomaly for Miss Birdseye) as to look forward. She let herself be coddled now by her friends of the new generation; there were days when she seemed to want nothing better than to sit by Olive's fire and ramble on about the old struggles, with a vague, comfortable sense--no physical rapture of Miss Birdseye's could be very acute--of immunity from wet feet, from the draughts that prevail at thin meetings, of independence of street-cars that would probably arrive overflowing; and also a pleased perception, not that she was an example to these fresh lives which began with more advantages than hers, but that she was in some degree an encouragement, as she helped them to measure the way the new truths had advanced--being able to tell them of such a different state of things when she was a young lady, the daughter of a very talented teacher (indeed her mother had been a teacher too), down in Connecticut. She had always had for Olive a kind of aroma of martyrdom, and her battered, unremunerated, un-pensioned old age brought angry tears, springing from depths of outraged theory, into Miss Chancellor's eyes. For Verena, too, she was a picturesque humanitary figure. Verena had been in the habit of meeting martyrs from her childhood up, but she had seen none with so many reminiscences as Miss Birdseye, or who had been so nearly scorched by penal fires. She had had escapes, in the early days of abolitionism, which it was a marvel she could tell with so little implication that she had shown courage. She had roamed through certain parts of the South, carrying the Bible to the slave; and more than one of her companions, in the course of these expeditions, had been tarred and feathered. She herself, at one season, had spent a month in a Georgian jail. She had preached temperance in Irish circles where the doctrine was received with missiles; she had interfered between wives and husbands mad with drink; she had taken filthy children, picked up in the street, to her own poor rooms, and had removed their pestilent rags and washed their sore bodies with slippery little hands. In her own person she appeared to Olive and Verena a representative of suffering humanity; the pity they felt for her was part of their pity for all who were weakest and most hardly used; and it struck Miss Chancellor (more especially) that this frumpy little missionary was the last link in a tradition, and that when she should be called away the heroic age of New England life--the age of plain living and high thinking, of pure ideals and earnest effort, of moral passion and noble experiment--would effectually be closed. It was the perennial freshness of Miss Birdseye's faith that had had such a contagion for these modern maidens, the unquenched flame of her transcendentalism, the simplicity of her vision, the way in which, in spite of mistakes, deceptions, the changing fashions of reform, which make the remedies of a previous generation look as ridiculous as their bonnets, the only thing that was still actual for her was the elevation of the species by the reading of Emerson and the frequentation of Tremont Temple. Olive had been active enough, for years, in the city-missions; she too had scoured dirty children, and, in squalid lodging-houses, had gone into rooms where the domestic situation was strained and the noises made the neighbours turn pale. But she reflected that after such exertions she had the refreshment of a pretty house, a drawing-room full of flowers, a crackling hearth, where she threw in pine-cones and made them snap, an imported tea-service, a Chickering piano, and the _Deutsche Rundschau_; whereas Miss Birdseye had only a bare, vulgar room, with a hideous flowered carpet (it looked like a dentist's), a cold furnace, the evening paper, and Doctor Prance. Olive and Verena were present at another of her gatherings before the winter ended; it resembled the occasion that we described at the beginning of this history, with the difference that Mrs. Farrinder was not there to oppress the company with her greatness, and that Verena made a speech without the co-operation of her father. This young lady had delivered herself with even finer effect than before, and Olive could see how much she had gained, in confidence and range of allusion, since the educative process in Charles Street began. Her _motif_ was now a kind of unprepared tribute to Miss Birdseye, the fruit of the occasion and of the unanimous tenderness of the younger members of the circle, which made her a willing mouthpiece. She pictured her laborious career, her early associates (Eliza P. Moseley was not neglected as Verena passed), her difficulties and dangers and triumphs, her humanising effect upon so many, her serene and honoured old age--expressed, in short, as one of the ladies said, just the very way they all felt about her. Verena's face brightened and grew triumphant as she spoke, but she brought tears into the eyes of most of the others. It was Olive's opinion that nothing could be more graceful and touching, and she saw that the impression made was now deeper than on the former evening. Miss Birdseye went about with her eighty years of innocence, her undiscriminating spectacles, asking her friends if it wasn't perfectly splendid; she took none of it to herself, she regarded it only as a brilliant expression of Verena's gift. Olive thought, afterwards, that if a collection could only be taken up on the spot, the good lady would be made easy for the rest of her days; then she remembered that most of her guests were as impecunious as herself. I have intimated that our young friends had a source of fortifying emotion which was distinct from the hours they spent with Beethoven and Bach, or in hearing Miss Birdseye describe Concord as it used to be. This consisted in the wonderful insight they had obtained into the history of feminine anguish. They perused that chapter perpetually and zealously, and they derived from it the purest part of their mission. Olive had pored over it so long, so earnestly, that she was now in complete possession of the subject; it was the one thing in life which she felt she had really mastered. She was able to exhibit it to Verena with the greatest authority and accuracy, to lead her up and down, in and out, through all the darkest and most tortuous passages. We know that she was without belief in her own eloquence, but she was very eloquent when she reminded Verena how the exquisite weakness of women had never been their defence, but had only exposed them to sufferings more acute than masculine grossness can conceive. Their odious partner had trampled upon them from the beginning of time, and their tenderness, their abnegation, had been his opportunity. All the bullied wives, the stricken mothers, the dishonoured, deserted maidens who have lived on the earth and longed to leave it, passed and repassed before her eyes, and the interminable dim procession seemed to stretch out a myriad hands to her. She sat with them at their trembling vigils, listened for the tread, the voice, at which they grew pale and sick, walked with them by the dark waters that offered to wash away misery and shame, took with them, even, when the vision grew intense, the last shuddering leap. She had analysed to an extraordinary fineness their susceptibility, their softness; she knew (or she thought she knew) all the possible tortures of anxiety, of suspense and dread; and she had made up her mind that it was women, in the end, who had paid for everything. In the last resort the whole burden of the human lot came upon them; it pressed upon them far more than on the others, the intolerable load of fate. It was they who sat cramped and chained to receive it; it was they who had done all the waiting and taken all the wounds. The sacrifices, the blood, the tears, the terrors were theirs. Their organism was in itself a challenge to suffering, and men had practised upon it with an impudence that knew no bounds. As they were the weakest most had been wrung from them, and as they were the most generous they had been most deceived. Olive Chancellor would have rested her case, had it been necessary, on those general facts; and her simple and comprehensive contention was that the peculiar wretchedness which had been the very essence of the feminine lot was a monstrous artificial imposition, crying aloud for redress. She was willing to admit that women, too, could be bad; that there were many about the world who were false, immoral, vile. But their errors were as nothing to their sufferings; they had expiated, in advance, an eternity, if need be, of misconduct. Olive poured forth these views to her listening and responsive friend; she presented them again and again, and there was no light in which they did not seem to palpitate with truth. Verena was immensely wrought upon; a subtle fire passed into her; she was not so hungry for revenge as Olive, but at the last, before they went to Europe (I shall take no place to describe the manner in which she threw herself into that project), she quite agreed with her companion that after so many ages of wrong (it would also be after the European journey) men must take _their_ turn, men must pay! BOOK SECOND XXI Basil Ransom lived in New York, rather far to the eastward, and in the upper reaches of the town; he occupied two small shabby rooms in a somewhat decayed mansion which stood next to the corner of the Second Avenue. The corner itself was formed by a considerable grocer's shop, the near neighbourhood of which was fatal to any pretensions Ransom and his fellow-lodgers might have had in regard to gentility of situation. The house had a red, rusty face, and faded green shutters, of which the slats were limp and at variance with each other. In one of the lower windows was suspended a fly-blown card, with the words "Table Board" affixed in letters cut (not very neatly) out of coloured paper, of graduated tints, and surrounded with a small band of stamped gilt. The two sides of the shop were protected by an immense pent-house shed, which projected over a greasy pavement and was supported by wooden posts fixed in the curbstone. Beneath it, on the dislocated flags, barrels and baskets were freely and picturesquely grouped; an open cellarway yawned beneath the feet of those who might pause to gaze too fondly on the savoury wares displayed in the window; a strong odour of smoked fish, combined with a fragrance of molasses, hung about the spot; the pavement, toward the gutters, was fringed with dirty panniers, heaped with potatoes, carrots, and onions; and a smart, bright waggon, with the horse detached from the shafts, drawn up on the edge of the abominable road (it contained holes and ruts a foot deep, and immemorial accumulations of stagnant mud), imparted an idle, rural, pastoral air to a scene otherwise perhaps expressive of a rank civilisation. The establishment was of the kind known to New Yorkers as a Dutch grocery; and red-faced, yellow-haired, bare-armed vendors might have been observed to lounge in the doorway. I mention it not on account of any particular influence it may have had on the life or the thoughts of Basil Ransom, but for old acquaintance sake and that of local colour; besides which, a figure is nothing without a setting, and our young man came and went every day, with rather an indifferent, unperceiving step, it is true, among the objects I have briefly designated. One of his rooms was directly above the street-door of the house; such a dormitory, when it is so exiguous, is called in the nomenclature of New York a "hall bedroom." The sitting-room, beside it, was slightly larger, and they both commanded a row of tenements no less degenerate than Ransom's own habitation--houses built forty years before, and already sere and superannuated. These were also painted red, and the bricks were accentuated by a white line; they were garnished, on the first floor, with balconies covered with small tin roofs, striped in different colours, and with an elaborate iron lattice-work, which gave them a repressive, cage-like appearance, and caused them slightly to resemble the little boxes for peeping unseen into the street, which are a feature of oriental towns. Such posts of observation commanded a view of the grocery on the corner, of the relaxed and disjointed roadway, enlivened at the curbstone with an occasional ash-barrel or with gas-lamps drooping from the perpendicular, and westward, at the end of the truncated vista, of the fantastic skeleton of the Elevated Railway, overhanging the transverse longitudinal street, which it darkened and smothered with the immeasurable spinal column and myriad clutching paws of an antediluvian monster. If the opportunity were not denied me here, I should like to give some account of Basil Ransom's interior, of certain curious persons of both sexes, for the most part not favourites of fortune, who had found an obscure asylum there; some picture of the crumpled little _table d'hôte_, at two dollars and a half a week, where everything felt sticky, which went forward in the low-ceiled basement, under the conduct of a couple of shuffling negresses, who mingled in the conversation and indulged in low, mysterious chuckles when it took a facetious turn. But we need, in strictness, concern ourselves with it no further than to gather the implication that the young Mississippian, even a year and a half after that momentous visit of his to Boston, had not made his profession very lucrative. He had been diligent, he had been ambitious, but he had not yet been successful. During the few weeks preceding the moment at which we meet him again, he had even begun to lose faith altogether in his earthly destiny. It became much of a question with him whether success in any form was written there; whether for a hungry young Mississippian, without means, without friends, wanting, too, in the highest energy, the wisdom of the serpent, personal arts and national prestige, the game of life was to be won in New York. He had been on the point of giving it up and returning to the home of his ancestors, where, as he heard from his mother, there was still just a sufficient supply of hot corn-cake to support existence. He had never believed much in his luck, but during the last year it had been guilty of aberrations surprising even to a constant, an imperturbable, victim of fate. Not only had he not extended his connexion, but he had lost most of the little business which was an object of complacency to him a twelvemonth before. He had had none but small jobs, and he had made a mess of more than one of them. Such accidents had not had a happy effect upon his reputation; he had been able to perceive that this fair flower may be nipped when it is so tender a bud as scarcely to be palpable. He had formed a partnership with a person who seemed likely to repair some of his deficiencies--a young man from Rhode Island, acquainted, according to his own expression, with the inside track. But this gentleman himself, as it turned out, would have been better for a good deal of remodelling, and Ransom's principal deficiency, which was, after all, that of cash, was not less apparent to him after his colleague, prior to a sudden and unexplained departure for Europe, had drawn the slender accumulations of the firm out of the bank. Ransom sat for hours in his office, waiting for clients who either did not come, or, if they did come, did not seem to find him encouraging, as they usually left him with the remark that they would think what they would do. They thought to little purpose, and seldom reappeared, so that at last he began to wonder whether there were not a prejudice against his Southern complexion. Perhaps they didn't like the way he spoke. If they could show him a better way, he was willing to adopt it; but the manner of New York could not be acquired by precept, and example, somehow, was not in this case contagious. He wondered whether he were stupid and unskilled, and he was finally obliged to confess to himself that he was unpractical. This confession was in itself a proof of the fact, for nothing could be less fruitful than such a speculation, terminating in such a way. He was perfectly aware that he cared a great deal for the theory, and so his visitors must have thought when they found him, with one of his long legs twisted round the other, reading a volume of De Tocqueville. That was the land of reading he liked; he had thought a great deal about social and economical questions, forms of government and the happiness of peoples. The convictions he had arrived at were not such as mix gracefully with the time-honoured verities a young lawyer looking out for business is in the habit of taking for granted; but he had to reflect that these doctrines would probably not contribute any more to his prosperity in Mississippi than in New York. Indeed, he scarcely could think of the country where they would be a particular advantage to him. It came home to him that his opinions were stiff, whereas in comparison his effort was lax; and he accordingly began to wonder whether he might not make a living by his opinions. He had always had a desire for public life; to cause one's ideas to be embodied in national conduct appeared to him the highest form of human enjoyment. But there was little enough that was public in his solitary studies, and he asked himself what was the use of his having an office at all, and why he might not as well carry on his profession at the Astor Library, where, in his spare hours and on chance holidays, he did an immense deal of suggestive reading. He took copious notes and memoranda, and these things sometimes shaped themselves in a way that might possibly commend them to the editors of periodicals. Readers perhaps would come, if clients didn't; so he produced, with a great deal of labour, half-a-dozen articles, from which, when they were finished, it seemed to him that he had omitted all the points he wished most to make, and addressed them to the powers that preside over weekly and monthly publications. They were all declined with thanks, and he would have been forced to believe that the accent of his languid clime brought him luck as little under the pen as on the lips, had not another explanation been suggested by one of the more explicit of his oracles, in relation to a paper on the rights of minorities. This gentleman pointed out that his doctrines were about three hundred years behind the age; doubtless some magazine of the sixteenth century would have been very happy to print them. This threw light on his own suspicion that he was attached to causes that could only, in the nature of things, be unpopular. The disagreeable editor was right about his being out of date, only he had got the time wrong. He had come centuries too soon; he was not too old, but too new. Such an impression, however, would not have prevented him from going into politics, if there had been any other way to represent constituencies than by being elected. People might be found eccentric enough to vote for him in Mississippi, but meanwhile where should he find the twenty-dollar greenbacks which it was his ambition to transmit from time to time to his female relations, confined so constantly to a farinaceous diet? It came over him with some force that his opinions would not yield interest, and the evaporation of this pleasing hypothesis made him feel like a man in an open boat, at sea, who should just have parted with his last rag of canvas. I shall not attempt a complete description of Ransom's ill-starred views, being convinced that the reader will guess them as he goes, for they had a frolicsome, ingenious way of peeping out of the young man's conversation. I shall do them sufficient justice in saying that he was by natural disposition a good deal of a stoic, and that, as the result of a considerable intellectual experience, he was, in social and political matters, a reactionary. I suppose he was very conceited, for he was much addicted to judging his age. He thought it talkative, querulous, hysterical, maudlin, full of false ideas, of unhealthy germs, of extravagant, dissipated habits, for which a great reckoning was in store. He was an immense admirer of the late Thomas Carlyle, and was very suspicious of the encroachments of modern democracy. I know not exactly how these queer heresies had planted themselves, but he had a longish pedigree (it had flowered at one time with English royalists and cavaliers), and he seemed at moments to be inhabited by some transmitted spirit of a robust but narrow ancestor, some broad-faced wig-wearer or sword-bearer, with a more primitive conception of manhood than our modern temperament appears to require, and a programme of human felicity much less varied. He liked his pedigree, he revered his forefathers, and he rather pitied those who might come after him. In saying so, however, I betray him a little, for he never mentioned such feelings as these. Though he thought the age too talkative, as I have hinted, he liked to talk as well as any one; but he could hold his tongue, if that were more expressive, and he usually did so when his perplexities were greatest. He had been sitting for several evenings in a beer-cellar, smoking his pipe with a profundity of reticence. This attitude was so unbroken that it marked a crisis--the complete, the acute consciousness of his personal situation. It was the cheapest way he knew of spending an evening. At this particular establishment the _Schoppen_ were very tall and the beer was very good; and as the host and most of the guests were German, and their colloquial tongue was unknown to him, he was not drawn into any undue expenditure of speech. He watched his smoke and he thought, thought so hard that at last he appeared to himself to have exhausted the thinkable. When this moment of combined relief and dismay arrived (on the last of the evenings that we are concerned with), he took his way down Third Avenue and reached his humble dwelling. Till within a short time there had been a resource for him at such an hour and in such a mood; a little variety-actress, who lived in the house, and with whom he had established the most cordial relations, was often having her supper (she took it somewhere, every night, after the theatre) in the dim, close dining-room, and he used to drop in and talk to her. But she had lately married, to his great amusement, and her husband had taken her on a wedding-tour, which was to be at the same time professional. On this occasion he mounted, with rather a heavy tread, to his rooms, where (on the rickety writing-table in the parlour) he found a note from Mrs. Luna. I need not reproduce it _in extenso_; a pale reflexion of it will serve. She reproached him with neglecting her, wanted to know what had become of him, whether he had grown too fashionable for a person who cared only for serious society. She accused him of having changed, and inquired as to the reason of his coldness. Was it too much to ask whether he could tell her at least in what manner she had offended him? She used to think they were so much in sympathy--he expressed her own ideas about everything so vividly. She liked intellectual companionship, and she had none now. She hoped very much he would come and see her--as he used to do six months before--the following evening; and however much she might have sinned or he might have altered, she was at least always his affectionate cousin Adeline. "What the deuce does she want of me now?" It was with this somewhat ungracious exclamation that he tossed away his cousin Adeline's missive. The gesture might have indicated that he meant to take no notice of her; nevertheless, after a day had elapsed, he presented himself before her. He knew what she wanted of old--that is, a year ago; she had wanted him to look after her property and to be tutor to her son. He had lent himself, good-naturedly, to this desire--he was touched by so much confidence--but the experiment had speedily collapsed. Mrs. Luna's affairs were in the hands of trustees, who had complete care of them, and Ransom instantly perceived that his function would be simply to meddle in things that didn't concern him. The levity with which she had exposed him to the derision of the lawful guardians of her fortune opened his eyes to some of the dangers of cousinship; nevertheless he said to himself that he might turn an honest penny by giving an hour or two every day to the education of her little boy. But this, too, proved a brief illusion. Ransom had to find his time in the afternoon; he left his business at five o'clock and remained with his young kinsman till the hour of dinner. At the end of a few weeks he thought himself lucky in retiring without broken shins. That Newton's little nature was remarkable had often been insisted on by his mother; but it was remarkable, Ransom saw, for the absence of any of the qualities which attach a teacher to a pupil. He was in truth an insufferable child, entertaining for the Latin language a personal, physical hostility, which expressed itself in convulsions of rage. During these paroxysms he kicked furiously at every one and everything--at poor "Rannie," at his mother, at Messrs. Andrews and Stoddard, at the illustrious men of Rome, at the universe in general, to which, as he lay on his back on the carpet, he presented a pair of singularly active little heels. Mrs. Luna had a way of being present at his lessons, and when they passed, as sooner or later they were sure to, into the stage I have described, she interceded for her overwrought darling, reminded Ransom that these were the signs of an exquisite sensibility, begged that the child might be allowed to rest a little, and spent the remainder of the time in conversation with the preceptor. It came to seem to him, very soon, that he was not earning his fee; besides which, it was disagreeable to him to have pecuniary relations with a lady who had not the art of concealing from him that she liked to place him under obligations. He resigned his tutorship, and drew a long breath, having a vague feeling that he had escaped a danger. He could not have told you exactly what it was, and he had a certain sentimental, provincial respect for women which even prevented him from attempting to give a name to it in his own thoughts. He was addicted with the ladies to the old forms of address and of gallantry; he held that they were delicate, agreeable creatures, whom Providence had placed under the protection of the bearded sex; and it was not merely a humorous idea with him that whatever might be the defects of Southern gentlemen, they were at any rate remarkable for their chivalry. He was a man who still, in a slangy age, could pronounce that word with a perfectly serious face. This boldness did not prevent him from thinking that women were essentially inferior to men, and infinitely tiresome when they declined to accept the lot which men had made for them. He had the most definite notions about their place in nature, in society, and was perfectly easy in his mind as to whether it excluded them from any proper homage. The chivalrous man paid that tax with alacrity. He admitted their rights; these consisted in a standing claim to the generosity and tenderness of the stronger race. The exercise of such feelings was full of advantage for both sexes, and they flowed most freely, of course, when women were gracious and grateful. It may be said that he had a higher conception of politeness than most of the persons who desired the advent of female law-makers. When I have added that he hated to see women eager and argumentative, and thought that their softness and docility were the inspiration, the opportunity (the highest) of man, I shall have sketched a state of mind which will doubtless strike many readers as painfully crude. It had prevented Basil Ransom, at any rate, from putting the dots on his _i_'s, as the French say, in this gradual discovery that Mrs. Luna was making love to him. The process went on a long time before he became aware of it. He had perceived very soon that she was a tremendously familiar little woman--that she took, more rapidly than he had ever known, a high degree of intimacy for granted. But as she had seemed to him neither very fresh nor very beautiful, so he could not easily have represented to himself why she should take it into her head to marry (it would never have occurred to him to doubt that she wanted marriage) an obscure and penniless Mississippian, with womenkind of his own to provide for. He could not guess that he answered to a certain secret ideal of Mrs. Luna's, who loved the landed gentry even when landless, who adored a Southerner under any circumstances, who thought her kinsman a fine, manly, melancholy, disinterested type, and who was sure that her views of public matters, the questions of the age, the vulgar character of modern life, would meet with a perfect response in his mind. She could see by the way he talked that he was a conservative, and this was the motto inscribed upon her own silken banner. She took this unpopular line both by temperament and by reaction from her sister's "extreme" views, the sight of the dreadful people that they brought about her. In reality, Olive was distinguished and discriminating, and Adeline was the dupe of confusions in which the worse was apt to be mistaken for the better. She talked to Ransom about the inferiority of republics, the distressing persons she had met abroad in the legations of the United States, the bad manners of servants and shopkeepers in that country, the hope she entertained that "the good old families" would make a stand; but he never suspected that she cultivated these topics (her treatment of them struck him as highly comical) for the purpose of leading him to the altar, of beguiling the way. Least of all could he suppose that she would be indifferent to his want of income--a point in which he failed to do her justice; for, thinking the fact that he had remained poor a proof of delicacy in that shopkeeping age, it gave her much pleasure to reflect that, as Newton's little property was settled on him (with safeguards which showed how long-headed poor Mr. Luna had been, and large-hearted, too, since to what he left _her_ no disagreeable conditions, such as eternal mourning, for instance, were attached)--that as Newton, I say, enjoyed the pecuniary independence which befitted his character, her own income was ample even for two, and she might give herself the luxury of taking a husband who should owe her something. Basil Ransom did not divine all this, but he divined that it was not for nothing that Mrs. Luna wrote him little notes every other day, that she proposed to drive him in the Park at unnatural hours, and that when he said he had his business to attend to, she replied: "Oh, a plague on your business! I am sick of that word--one hears of nothing else in America. There are ways of getting on without business, if you would only take them!" He seldom answered her notes, and he disliked extremely the way in which, in spite of her love of form and order, she attempted to clamber in at the window of one's house when one had locked the door; so that he began to interspace his visits considerably, and at last made them very rare. When I reflect on his habits of almost superstitious politeness to women, it comes over me that some very strong motive must have operated to make him give his friendly--his only too friendly--cousin the cold shoulder. Nevertheless, when he received her reproachful letter (after it had had time to work a little), he said to himself that he had perhaps been unjust and even brutal, and as he was easily touched by remorse of this kind, he took up the broken thread. XXII As he sat with Mrs. Luna, in her little back drawing-room, under the lamp, he felt rather more tolerant than before of the pressure she could not help putting upon him. Several months had elapsed, and he was no nearer to the sort of success he had hoped for. It stole over him gently that there was another sort, pretty visibly open to him, not so elevated nor so manly, it is true, but on which he should after all, perhaps, be able to reconcile it with his honour to fall back. Mrs. Luna had had an inspiration; for once in her life she had held her tongue. She had not made him a scene, there had been no question of an explanation; she had received him as if he had been there the day before, with the addition of a spice of mysterious melancholy. She might have made up her mind that she had lost him as what she had hoped, but that it was better than desolation to try and keep him as a friend. It was as if she wished him to see now how she tried. She was subdued and consolatory, she waited upon him, moved away a screen that intercepted the fire, remarked that he looked very tired, and rang for some tea. She made no inquiry about his affairs, never asked if he had been busy and prosperous; and this reticence struck him as unexpectedly delicate and discreet; it was as if she had guessed, by a subtle feminine faculty, that his professional career was nothing to boast of. There was a simplicity in him which permitted him to wonder whether she had not improved. The lamp-light was soft, the fire crackled pleasantly, everything that surrounded him betrayed a woman's taste and touch; the place was decorated and cushioned in perfection, delightfully private and personal, the picture of a well-appointed home. Mrs. Luna had complained of the difficulties of installing one's self in America, but Ransom remembered that he had received an impression similar to this in her sister's house in Boston, and reflected that these ladies had, as a family-trait, the art of making themselves comfortable. It was better for a winter's evening than the German beer-cellar (Mrs. Luna's tea was excellent), and his hostess herself appeared to-night almost as amiable as the variety-actress. At the end of an hour he felt, I will not say almost marriageable, but almost married. Images of leisure played before him, leisure in which he saw himself covering foolscap paper with his views on several subjects, and with favourable illustrations of Southern eloquence. It became tolerably vivid to him that if editors wouldn't print one's lucubrations, it would be a comfort to feel that one was able to publish them at one's own expense. He had a moment of almost complete illusion. Mrs. Luna had taken up her bit of crochet; she was sitting opposite to him, on the other side of the fire. Her white hands moved with little jerks as she took her stitches, and her rings flashed and twinkled in the light of the hearth. Her head fell a little to one side, exhibiting the plumpness of her chin and neck, and her dropped eyes (it gave her a little modest air) rested quietly on her work. A silence of a few moments had fallen upon their talk, and Adeline--who decidedly _had_ improved--appeared also to feel the charm of it, not to wish to break it. Basil Ransom was conscious of all this, and at the same time he was vaguely engaged in a speculation. If it gave one time, if it gave one leisure, was not that in itself a high motive? Thorough study of the question he cared for most--was not the chance for _that_ an infinitely desirable good? He seemed to see himself, to feel himself, in that very chair, in the evenings of the future, reading some indispensable book in the still lamp-light--Mrs. Luna knew where to get such pretty mellowing shades. Should he not be able to act in that way upon the public opinion of his time, to check certain tendencies, to point out certain dangers, to indulge in much salutary criticism? Was it not one's duty to put one's self in the best conditions for such action? And as the silence continued he almost fell to musing on his duty, almost persuaded himself that the moral law commanded him to marry Mrs. Luna. She looked up presently from her work, their eyes met, and she smiled. He might have believed she had guessed what he was thinking of. This idea startled him, alarmed him a little, so that when Mrs. Luna said, with her sociable manner, "There is nothing I like so much, of a winter's night, as a cosy _tête-à-tête_ by the fire. It's quite like Darby and Joan; what a pity the kettle has ceased singing!"--when she uttered these insinuating words he gave himself a little imperceptible shake, which was, however, enough to break the spell, and made no response more direct than to ask her, in a moment, in a tone of cold, mild curiosity, whether she had lately heard from her sister, and how long Miss Chancellor intended to remain in Europe. "Well, you _have_ been living in your hole!" Mrs. Luna exclaimed. "Olive came home six weeks ago. How long did you expect her to endure it?" "I am sure I don't know; I have never been there," Ransom replied. "Yes, that's what I like you for," Mrs. Luna remarked sweetly. "If a man is nice without it, it's such a pleasant change." The young man started, then gave a natural laugh. "Lord, how few reasons there must be!" "Oh, I mention that one because I can tell it. I shouldn't care to tell the others." "I am glad you have some to fall back upon, the day I should go," Ransom went on. "I thought you thought so much of Europe." "So I do; but it isn't everything," said Mrs. Luna philosophically. "You had better go there with me," she added, with a certain inconsequence. "One would go to the end of the world with so irresistible a lady!" Ransom exclaimed, falling into the tone which Mrs. Luna always found so unsatisfactory. It was a part of his Southern gallantry--his accent always came out strongly when he said anything of that sort--and it committed him to nothing in particular. She had had occasion to wish, more than once, that he wouldn't be so beastly polite, as she used to hear people say in England. She answered that she didn't care about ends, she cared about beginnings; but he didn't take up the declaration; he returned to the subject of Olive, wanted to know what she had done over there, whether she had worked them up much. "Oh, of course, she fascinated every one," said Mrs. Luna. "With her grace and beauty, her general style, how could she help that?" "But did she bring them round, did she swell the host that is prepared to march under her banner?" "I suppose she saw plenty of the strong-minded, plenty of vicious old maids, and fanatics, and frumps. But I haven't the least idea what she accomplished--what they call 'wonders,' I suppose." "Didn't you see her when she returned?" Basil Ransom asked. "How could I see her? I can see pretty far, but I can't see all the way to Boston." And then, in explaining that it was at this port that her sister had disembarked, Mrs. Luna further inquired whether he could imagine Olive doing anything in a first-rate way, as long as there were inferior ones. "Of course she likes bad ships--Boston steamers--just as she likes common people, and red-haired hoydens, and preposterous doctrines." Ransom was silent a moment. "Do you mean the--a--rather striking young lady whom I met in Boston a year ago last October? What was her name?--Miss Tarrant? Does Miss Chancellor like her as much as ever?" "Mercy! don't you know she took her to Europe? It was to form _her_ mind she went. Didn't I tell you that last summer? You used to come to see me then." "Oh yes, I remember," Ransom said, rather musingly. "And did she bring her back?" "Gracious, you don't suppose she would leave her! Olive thinks she's born to regenerate the world." "I remember you telling me that, too. It comes back to me. Well, is her mind formed?" "As I haven't seen it, I cannot tell you." "Aren't you going on there to see----" "To see whether Miss Tarrant's mind is formed?" Mrs. Luna broke in. "I will go if you would like me to. I remember your being immensely excited about her that time you met her. Don't you recollect that?" Ransom hesitated an instant. "I can't say I do. It is too long ago." "Yes, I have no doubt that's the way you change, about women! Poor Miss Tarrant, if she thinks she made an impression on you!" "She won't think about such things as that, if her mind has been formed by your sister," Ransom said. "It does come back to me now, what you told me about the growth of their intimacy. And do they mean to go on living together for ever?" "I suppose so--unless some one should take it into his head to marry Verena." "Verena--is that her name?" Ransom asked. Mrs. Luna looked at him with a suspended needle. "Well! have you forgotten that too? You told me yourself you thought it so pretty, that time in Boston, when you walked me up the hill." Ransom declared that he remembered that walk, but didn't remember everything he had said to her; and she suggested, very satirically, that perhaps he would like to marry Verena himself--he seemed so interested in her. Ransom shook his head sadly, and said he was afraid he was not in a position to marry; whereupon Mrs. Luna asked him what he meant--did he mean (after a moment's hesitation) that he was too poor? "Never in the world--I am very rich; I make an enormous income!" the young man exclaimed; so that, remarking his tone, and the slight flush of annoyance that rose to his face, Mrs. Luna was quick enough to judge that she had overstepped the mark. She remembered (she ought to have remembered before) that he had never taken her in the least into his confidence about his affairs. That was not the Southern way, and he was at least as proud as he was poor. In this surmise she was just; Basil Ransom would have despised himself if he had been capable of confessing to a woman that he couldn't make a living. Such questions were none of their business (their business was simply to be provided for, practise the domestic virtues, and be charmingly grateful), and there was, to his sense, something almost indecent in talking about them. Mrs. Luna felt doubly sorry for him as she perceived that he denied himself the luxury of sympathy (that is, of hers), and the vague but comprehensive sigh that passed her lips as she took up her crochet again was unusually expressive of helplessness. She said that of course she knew how great his talents were--he could do anything he wanted; and Basil Ransom wondered for a moment whether, if she were to ask him point-blank to marry her, it would be consistent with the high courtesy of a Southern gentleman to refuse. After she should be his wife he might of course confess to her that he was too poor to marry, for in that relation even a Southern gentleman of the highest tone must sometimes unbend. But he didn't in the least long for this arrangement, and was conscious that the most pertinent sequel to her conjecture would be for him to take up his hat and walk away. Within five minutes, however, he had come to desire to do this almost as little as to marry Mrs. Luna. He wanted to hear more about the girl who lived with Olive Chancellor. Something had revived in him--an old curiosity, an image half effaced--when he learned that she had come back to America. He had taken a wrong impression from what Mrs. Luna said, nearly a year before, about her sister's visit to Europe; he had supposed it was to be a long absence, that Miss Chancellor wanted perhaps to get the little prophetess away from her parents, possibly even away from some amorous entanglement. Then, no doubt, they wanted to study up the woman-question with the facilities that Europe would offer; he didn't know much about Europe, but he had an idea that it was a great place for facilities. His knowledge of Miss Chancellor's departure, accompanied by her young companion, had checked at the time, on Ransom's part, a certain habit of idle but none the less entertaining retrospect. His life, on the whole, had not been rich in episode, and that little chapter of his visit to his queer, clever, capricious cousin, with his evening at Miss Birdseye's, and his glimpse, repeated on the morrow, of the strange, beautiful, ridiculous, red-haired young _improvisatrice_, unrolled itself in his memory like a page of interesting fiction. The page seemed to fade, however, when he heard that the two girls had gone, for an indefinite time, to unknown lands; this carried them out of his range, spoiled the perspective, diminished their actuality; so that for several months past, with his increase of anxiety about his own affairs, and the low pitch of his spirits, he had not thought at all about Verena Tarrant. The fact that she was once more in Boston, with a certain contiguity that it seemed to imply between Boston and New York, presented itself now as important and agreeable. He was conscious that this was rather an anomaly, and his consciousness made him, had already made him, dissimulate slightly. He did not pick up his hat to go; he sat in his chair taking his chance of the tax which Mrs. Luna might lay upon his urbanity. He remembered that he had not made, as yet, any very eager inquiry about Newton, who at this late hour had succumbed to the only influence that tames the untamable and was sleeping the sleep of childhood, if not of innocence. Ransom repaired his neglect in a manner which elicited the most copious response from his hostess. The boy had had a good many tutors since Ransom gave him up, and it could not be said that his education languished. Mrs. Luna spoke with pride of the manner in which he went through them; if he did not master his lessons, he mastered his teachers, and she had the happy conviction that she gave him every advantage. Ransom's delay was diplomatic, but at the end of ten minutes he returned to the young ladies in Boston; he asked why, with their aggressive programme, one hadn't begun to feel their onset, why the echoes of Miss Tarrant's eloquence hadn't reached his ears. Hadn't she come out yet in public? was she not coming to stir them up in New York? He hoped she hadn't broken down. "She didn't seem to break down last summer, at the Female Convention," Mrs. Luna replied. "Have you forgotten that too? Didn't I tell you of the sensation she produced there, and of what I heard from Boston about it? Do you mean to say I didn't give you that "Transcript," with the report of her great speech? It was just before they sailed for Europe; she went off with flying colours, in a blaze of fireworks." Ransom protested that he had not heard this affair mentioned till that moment, and then, when they compared dates, they found it had taken place just after his last visit to Mrs. Luna. This, of course, gave her a chance to say that he had treated her even worse than she supposed; it had been her impression, at any rate, that they had talked together about Verena's sudden bound into fame. Apparently she confounded him with some one else, that was very possible; he was not to suppose that he occupied such a distinct place in her mind, especially when she might die twenty deaths before he came near her. Ransom demurred to the implication that Miss Tarrant was famous; if she were famous, wouldn't she be in the New York papers? He hadn't seen her there, and he had no recollection of having encountered any mention at the time (last June, was it?) of her exploits at the Female Convention. A local reputation doubtless she had, but that had been the case a year and a half before, and what was expected of her then was to become a first-class national glory. He was willing to believe that she had created some excitement in Boston, but he shouldn't attach much importance to that till one began to see her photograph in the stores. Of course, one must give her time, but he had supposed Miss Chancellor was going to put her through faster. If he had taken a contradictious tone on purpose to draw Mrs. Luna out, he could not have elicited more of the information he desired. It was perfectly true that he had seen no reference to Verena's performances in the preceding June; there were periods when the newspapers seemed to him so idiotic that for weeks he never looked at one. He learned from Mrs. Luna that it was not Olive who had sent her the "Transcript" and in letters had added some private account of the doings at the convention to the testimony of that amiable sheet; she had been indebted for this service to a "gentleman-friend," who wrote her everything that happened in Boston, and what every one had every day for dinner. Not that it was necessary for her happiness to know; but the gentleman she spoke of didn't know what to invent to please her. A Bostonian couldn't imagine that one didn't want to know, and that was their idea of ingratiating themselves, or, at any rate, it was his, poor man. Olive would never have gone into particulars about Verena; she regarded her sister as quite too much one of the profane, and knew Adeline couldn't understand why, when she took to herself a bosom-friend, she should have been at such pains to select her in just the most dreadful class in the community. Verena was a perfect little adventuress, and quite third-rate into the bargain; but, of course, she was a pretty girl enough, if one cared for hair of the colour of cochineal. As for her people, they were too absolutely awful; it was exactly as if she, Mrs. Luna, had struck up an intimacy with the daughter of her chiropodist. It took Olive to invent such monstrosities, and to think she was doing something great for humanity when she did so; though, in spite of her wanting to turn everything over, and put the lowest highest, she could be just as contemptuous and invidious, when it came to really mixing, as if she were some grand old duchess. She must do her the justice to say that she hated the Tarrants, the father and mother; but, all the same, she let Verena run to and fro between Charles Street and the horrible hole they lived in, and Adeline knew from that gentleman who wrote so copiously that the girl now and then spent a week at a time at Cambridge. Her mother, who had been ill for some weeks, wanted her to sleep there. Mrs. Luna knew further, by her correspondent, that Verena had--or had had the winter before--a great deal of attention from gentlemen. She didn't know how she worked that into the idea that the female sex was sufficient to itself; but she had grounds for saying that this was one reason why Olive had taken her abroad. She was afraid Verena would give in to some man, and she wanted to make a break. Of course, any such giving in would be very awkward for a young woman who shrieked out on platforms that old maids were the highest type. Adeline guessed Olive had perfect control of her now, unless indeed she used the expeditions to Cambridge as a cover for meeting gentlemen. She was an artful little minx, and cared as much for the rights of women as she did for the Panama Canal; the only right of a woman she wanted was to climb up on top of something, where the men could look at her. She would stay with Olive as long as it served her purpose, because Olive, with her great respectability, could push her, and counteract the effect of her low relations, to say nothing of paying all her expenses and taking her the tour of Europe. "But, mark my words," said Mrs. Luna, "she will give Olive the greatest cut she has ever had in her life. She will run off with some lion-tamer; she will marry a circus-man!" And Mrs. Luna added that it would serve Olive Chancellor right. But she would take it hard; look out for tantrums then! Basil Ransom's emotions were peculiar while his hostess delivered herself, in a manner at once casual and emphatic, of these rather insidious remarks. He took them all in, for they represented to him certain very interesting facts; but he perceived at the same time that Mrs. Luna didn't know what she was talking about. He had seen Verena Tarrant only twice in his life, but it was no use telling him that she was an adventuress--though, certainly, it _was_ very likely she would end by giving Miss Chancellor a cut. He chuckled, with a certain grimness, as this image passed before him; it was not unpleasing, the idea that he should be avenged (for it would avenge him to know it) upon the wanton young woman who had invited him to come and see her in order simply to slap his face. But he had an odd sense of having lost something in not knowing of the other girl's appearance at the Women's Convention--a vague feeling that he had been cheated and trifled with. The complaint was idle, inasmuch as it was not probable he could have gone to Boston to listen to her; but it represented to him that he had not shared, even dimly and remotely, in an event which concerned her very closely. Why should he share, and what was more natural than that the things which concerned her closely should not concern him at all? This question came to him only as he walked home that evening; for the moment it remained quite in abeyance: therefore he was free to feel also that his imagination had been rather starved by his ignorance of the fact that she was near him again (comparatively), that she was in the dimness of the horizon (no longer beyond the curve of the globe), and yet he had not perceived it. This sense of personal loss, as I have called it, made him feel, further, that he had something to make up, to recover. He could scarcely have told you how he would go about it; but the idea, formless though it was, led him in a direction very different from the one he had been following a quarter of an hour before. As he watched it dance before him he fell into another silence, in the midst of which Mrs. Luna gave him another mystic smile. The effect of it was to make him rise to his feet; the whole landscape of his mind had suddenly been illuminated. Decidedly, it was _not_ his duty to marry Mrs. Luna, in order to have means to pursue his studies; he jerked himself back, as if he had been on the point of it. "You don't mean to say you are going already? I haven't said half I wanted to!" she exclaimed. He glanced at the clock, saw it was not yet late, took a turn about the room, then sat down again in a different place, while she followed him with her eyes, wondering what was the matter with him. Ransom took good care not to ask her what it was she had still to say, and perhaps it was to prevent her telling him that he now began to talk, freely, quickly, in quite a new tone. He stayed half an hour longer, and made himself very agreeable. It seemed to Mrs. Luna now that he had every distinction (she had known he had most), that he was really a charming man. He abounded in conversation, till at last he took up his hat in earnest; he talked about the state of the South, its social peculiarities, the ruin wrought by the war, the dilapidated gentry, the queer types of superannuated fire-eaters, ragged and unreconciled, all the pathos and all the comedy of it, making her laugh at one moment, almost cry at another, and say to herself throughout that when he took it into his head there was no one who could make a lady's evening pass so pleasantly. It was only afterwards that she asked herself why he had not taken it into his head till the last, so quickly. She delighted in the dilapidated gentry; her taste was completely different from her sister's, who took an interest only in the lower class, as it struggled to rise; what Adeline cared for was the fallen aristocracy (it seemed to be falling everywhere very much; was not Basil Ransom an example of it? was he not like a French _gentilhomme de province_ after the Revolution? or an old monarchical _émigré_ from the Languedoc?), the despoiled patriciate, I say, whose attitude was noble and touching, and toward whom one might exercise a charity as discreet as their pride was sensitive. In all Mrs. Luna's visions of herself, her discretion was the leading feature. "Are you going to let ten years elapse again before you come?" she asked, as Basil Ransom bade her good-night. "You must let me know, because between this and your next visit I shall have time to go to Europe and come back. I shall take care to arrive the day before." Instead of answering this sally, Ransom said, "Are you not going one of these days to Boston? Are you not going to pay your sister another visit?" Mrs. Luna stared. "What good will that do _you_? Excuse my stupidity," she added; "of course, it gets me away. Thank you very much!" "I don't want you to go away; but I want to hear more about Miss Olive." "Why in the world? You know you loathe her!" Here, before Ransom could reply, Mrs. Luna again overtook herself. "I verily believe that by Miss Olive you mean Miss Verena!" Her eyes charged him a moment with this perverse intention; then she exclaimed, "Basil Ransom, _are_ you in love with that creature?" He gave a perfectly natural laugh, not pleading guilty, in order to practise on Mrs. Luna, but expressing the simple state of the case. "How should I be? I have seen her but twice in my life." "If you had seen her more, I shouldn't be afraid! Fancy your wanting to pack me off to Boston!" his hostess went on. "I am in no hurry to stay with Olive again; besides, that girl takes up the whole house. You had better go there yourself." "I should like nothing better," said Ransom. "Perhaps you would like me to ask Verena to spend a month with me--it might be a way of attracting you to the house," Adeline went on, in the tone of exuberant provocation. Ransom was on the point of replying that it would be a better way than any other, but he checked himself in time; he had never yet, even in joke, made so crude, so rude a speech to a lady. You only knew when he was joking with women by his super-added civility. "I beg you to believe there is nothing I would do for any woman in the world that I wouldn't do for you," he said, bending, for the last time, over Mrs. Luna's plump hand. "I shall remember that and keep you up to it!" she cried after him, as he went. But even with this rather lively exchange of vows he felt that he had got off rather easily. He walked slowly up Fifth Avenue, into which, out of Adeline's cross-street, he had turned, by the light of a fine winter moon; and at every corner he stopped a minute, lingered in meditation, while he exhaled a soft, vague sigh. This was an unconscious, involuntary expression of relief, such as a man might utter who had seen himself on the point of being run over and yet felt that he was whole. He didn't trouble himself much to ask what had saved him; whatever it was it had produced a reaction, so that he felt rather ashamed of having found his look-out of late so blank. By the time he reached his lodgings, his ambition, his resolution, had rekindled; he had remembered that he formerly supposed he was a man of ability, that nothing particular had occurred to make him doubt it (the evidence was only negative, not positive), and that at any rate he was young enough to have another try. He whistled that night as he went to bed. XXIII Three weeks afterward he stood in front of Olive Chancellor's house, looking up and down the street and hesitating. He had told Mrs. Luna that he should like nothing better than to make another journey to Boston; and it was not simply because he liked it that he had come. I was on the point of saying that a happy chance had favoured him, but it occurs to me that one is under no obligation to call chances by nattering epithets when they have been waited for so long. At any rate, the darkest hour is before the dawn; and a few days after that melancholy evening I have described, which Ransom spent in his German beer-cellar, before a single glass, soon emptied, staring at his future with an unremunerated eye, he found that the world appeared to have need of him yet. The "party," as he would have said (I cannot pretend that his speech was too heroic for that), for whom he had transacted business in Boston so many months before, and who had expressed at the time but a limited appreciation of his services (there had been between the lawyer and his client a divergence of judgement), observing, apparently, that they proved more fruitful than he expected, had reopened the affair and presently requested Ransom to transport himself again to the sister city. His errand demanded more time than before, and for three days he gave it his constant attention. On the fourth he found he was still detained; he should have to wait till the evening--some important papers were to be prepared. He determined to treat the interval as a holiday, and he wondered what one could do in Boston to give one's morning a festive complexion. The weather was brilliant enough to minister to any illusion, and he strolled along the streets, taking it in. In front of the Music Hall and of Tremont Temple he stopped, looking at the posters in the doorway; for was it not possible that Miss Chancellor's little friend might be just then addressing her fellow-citizens? Her name was absent, however, and this resource seemed to mock him. He knew no one in the place but Olive Chancellor, so there was no question of a visit to pay. He was perfectly resolved that he would never go near _her_ again; she was doubtless a very superior being, but she had been too rough with him to tempt him further. Politeness, even a largely-interpreted "chivalry", required nothing more than he had already done; he had quitted her, the other year, without telling her that she was a vixen, and that reticence was chivalrous enough. There was also Verena Tarrant, of course; he saw no reason to dissemble when he spoke of her to himself, and he allowed himself the entertainment of feeling that he should like very much to see her again. Very likely she wouldn't seem to him the same; the impression she had made upon him was due to some accident of mood or circumstance; and, at any rate, any charm she might have exhibited then had probably been obliterated by the coarsening effect of publicity and the tonic influence of his kinswoman. It will be observed that in this reasoning of Basil Ransom's the impression was freely recognised, and recognised as a phenomenon still present. The attraction might have vanished, as he said to himself, but the mental picture of it was yet vivid. The greater the pity that he couldn't call upon Verena (he called her by her name in his thoughts, it was so pretty) without calling upon Olive, and that Olive was so disagreeable as to place that effort beyond his strength. There was another consideration, with Ransom, which eminently belonged to the man; he believed that Miss Chancellor had conceived, in the course of those few hours, and in a manner that formed so absurd a sequel to her having gone out of her way to make his acquaintance, such a dislike to him that it would be odious to her to see him again within her doors; and he would have felt indelicate in taking warrant from her original invitation (before she had seen him) to inflict on her a presence which he had no reason to suppose the lapse of time had made less offensive. She had given him no sign of pardon or penitence in any of the little ways that are familiar to women--by sending him a message through her sister, or even a book, a photograph, a Christmas card, or a newspaper, by the post. He felt, in a word, not at liberty to ring at her door; he didn't know what kind of a fit the sight of his long Mississippian person would give her, and it was characteristic of him that he should wish so to spare the sensibilities of a young lady whom he had not found tender; being ever as willing to let women off easily in the particular case as he was fixed in the belief that the sex in general requires watching. Nevertheless, he found himself, at the end of half an hour, standing on the only spot in Charles Street which had any significance for him. It had occurred to him that if he couldn't call upon Verena without calling upon Olive, he should be exempt from that condition if he called upon Mrs. Tarrant. It was not her mother, truly, who had asked him, it was the girl herself; and he was conscious, as a candid young American, that a mother is always less accessible, more guarded by social prejudice, than a daughter. But he was at a pass in which it was permissible to strain a point, and he took his way in the direction in which he knew that Cambridge lay, remembering that Miss Tarrant's invitation had reference to that quarter and that Mrs. Luna had given him further evidence. Had she not said that Verena often went back there for visits of several days--that her mother had been ill and she gave her much care? There was nothing inconceivable in her being engaged at that hour (it was getting to be one o'clock) in one of those expeditions--nothing impossible in the chance that he might find her in Cambridge. The chance, at any rate, was worth taking; Cambridge, moreover, was worth seeing, and it was as good a way as another of keeping his holiday. It occurred to him, indeed, that Cambridge was a big place, and that he had no particular address. This reflexion overtook him just as he reached Olive's house, which, oddly enough, he was obliged to pass on his way to the mysterious suburb. That is partly why he paused there; he asked himself for a moment why he shouldn't ring the bell and obtain his needed information from the servant, who would be sure to be able to give it to him. He had just dismissed this method, as of questionable taste, when he heard the door of the house open, within the deep embrasure in which, in Charles Street, the main portals are set, and which are partly occupied by a flight of steps protected at the bottom by a second door, whose upper half, in either wing, consists of a sheet of glass. It was a minute before he could see who had come out, and in that minute he had time to turn away and then to turn back again, and to wonder which of the two inmates would appear to him, or whether he should behold neither or both. The person who had issued from the house descended the steps very slowly, as if on purpose to give him time to escape; and when at last the glass doors were divided they disclosed a little old lady. Ransom was disappointed; such an apparition was so scantily to his purpose. But the next minute his spirits rose again, for he was sure that he had seen the little old lady before. She stopped on the side-walk, and looked vaguely about her, in the manner of a person waiting for an omnibus or a street-car; she had a dingy, loosely-habited air, as if she had worn her clothes for many years and yet was even now imperfectly acquainted with them; a large, benignant face, caged in by the glass of her spectacles, which seemed to cover it almost equally everywhere, and a fat, rusty satchel, which hung low at her side, as if it wearied her to carry it. This gave Ransom time to recognise her; he knew in Boston no such figure as that save Miss Birdseye. Her party, her person, the exalted account Miss Chancellor gave of her, had kept a very distinct place in his mind; and while she stood there in dim circumspection she came back to him as a friend of yesterday. His necessity gave a point to the reminiscences she evoked; it took him only a moment to reflect that she would be able to tell him where Verena Tarrant was at that particular time, and where, if need be, her parents lived. Her eyes rested on him, and as she saw that he was looking at her she didn't go through the ceremony (she had broken so completely with all conventions) of removing them; he evidently represented nothing to her but a sentient fellow-citizen in the enjoyment of his rights, which included that of staring. Miss Birdseye's modesty had never pretended that it was not to be publicly challenged; there were so many bright new motives and ideas in the world that there might even be reasons for looking at her. When Ransom approached her and, raising his hat with a smile, said, "Shall I stop this car for you, Miss Birdseye?" she only looked at him more vaguely, in her complete failure to seize the idea that this might be simply Fame. She had trudged about the streets of Boston for fifty years, and at no period had she received that amount of attention from dark-eyed young men. She glanced, in an unprejudiced way, at the big parti-coloured human van which now jingled, toward them from out of the Cambridge road. "Well, I should like to get into it, if it will take me home," she answered. "Is this a South End car?" The vehicle had been stopped by the conductor, on his perceiving Miss Birdseye; he evidently recognised her as a frequent passenger. He went, however, through none of the forms of reassurance beyond remarking, "You want to get right in here--quick," but stood with his hand raised, in a threatening way, to the cord of his signal-bell. "You must allow me the honour of taking you home, madam; I will tell you who I am," Basil Ransom said, in obedience to a rapid reflexion. He helped her into the car, the conductor pressed a fraternal hand upon her back, and in a moment the young man was seated beside her, and the jingling had recommenced. At that hour of the day the car was almost empty, and they had it virtually to themselves. "Well, I know you are some one; I don't think you belong round here," Miss Birdseye declared, as they proceeded. "I was once at your house--on a very interesting occasion. Do you remember a party you gave, a year ago last October, to which Miss Chancellor came, and another young lady, who made a wonderful speech?" "Oh yes! when Verena Tarrant moved us all so! There were a good many there; I don't remember all." "I was one of them," Basil Ransom said; "I came with Miss Chancellor, who is a kind of relation of mine, and you were very good to me." "What did I do?" asked Miss Birdseye candidly. Then, before he could answer her, she recognised him. "I remember you now, and Olive bringing you! You're a Southern gentleman--she told me about you afterwards. You don't approve of our great struggle--you want us to be kept down." The old lady spoke with perfect mildness, as if she had long ago done with passion and resentment. Then she added, "Well, I presume we can't have the sympathy of all." "Doesn't it look as if you had my sympathy, when I get into a car on purpose to see you home--one of the principal agitators?" Ransom inquired, laughing. "Did you get in on purpose?" "Quite on purpose. I am not so bad as Miss Chancellor thinks me." "Oh, I presume you have your ideas," said Miss Birdseye. "Of course, Southerners have peculiar views. I suppose they retain more than one might think. I hope you won't ride too far--I know my way round Boston." "Don't object to me, or think me officious," Ransom replied. "I want to ask you something." Miss Birdseye looked at him again. "Oh yes, I place you now; you conversed some with Doctor Prance." "To my great edification!" Ransom exclaimed. "And I hope Doctor Prance is well." "She looks after every one's health but her own," said Miss Birdseye, smiling. "When I tell her that, she says she hasn't got any to look after. She says she's the only woman in Boston that hasn't got a doctor. She was determined she wouldn't be a patient, and it seemed as if the only way not to be one was to be a doctor. She is trying to make me sleep; that's her principal occupation." "Is it possible you don't sleep yet?" Ransom asked, almost tenderly. "Well, just a little. But by the time I get to sleep I have to get up. I can't sleep when I want to live." "You ought to come down South," the young man suggested. "In that languid air you would doze deliciously!" "Well, I don't want to be languid," said Miss Birdseye. "Besides, I have been down South, in the old times, and I can't say they let me sleep very much; they were always round after me!" "Do you mean on account of the negroes?" "Yes, I couldn't think of anything else then. I carried them the Bible." Ransom was silent a moment; then he said, in a tone which evidently was carefully considerate, "I should like to hear all about that!" "Well, fortunately, we are not required now; we are required for something else." And Miss Birdseye looked at him with a wandering, tentative humour, as if he would know what she meant. "You mean for the other slaves!" he exclaimed, with a laugh. "You can carry them all the Bibles you want." "I want to carry them the Statute-book; that must be our Bible now." Ransom found himself liking Miss Birdseye very much, and it was quite without hypocrisy or a tinge too much of the local quality in his speech that he said: "Wherever you go, madam, it will matter little what you carry. You will always carry your goodness." For a minute she made no response. Then she murmured: "That's the way Olive Chancellor told me you talked." "I am afraid she has told you little good of me." "Well, I am sure she thinks she is right." "Thinks it?" said Ransom. "Why, she knows it, with supreme certainty! By the way, I hope she is well." Miss Birdseye stared again. "Haven't you seen her? Are you not visiting?" "Oh no, I am not visiting! I was literally passing her house when I met you." "Perhaps you live here now," said Miss Birdseye. And when he had corrected this impression, she added, in a tone which showed with what positive confidence he had now inspired her, "Hadn't you better drop in?" "It would give Miss Chancellor no pleasure," Basil Ransom rejoined. "She regards me as an enemy in the camp." "Well, she is very brave." "Precisely. And I am very timid." "Didn't you fight once?" "Yes; but it was in such a good cause!" Ransom meant this allusion to the great Secession and, by comparison, to the attitude of the resisting male (laudable even as that might be), to be decently jocular; but Miss Birdseye took it very seriously, and sat there for a good while as speechless as if she meant to convey that she had been going on too long now to be able to discuss the propriety of the late rebellion. The young man felt that he had silenced her, and he was very sorry; for, with all deference to the disinterested Southern attitude toward the unprotected female, what he had got into the car with her for was precisely to make her talk. He had wished for general, as well as for particular, news of Verena Tarrant; it was a topic on which he had proposed to draw Miss Birdseye out. He preferred not to broach it himself, and he waited awhile for another opening. At last, when he was on the point of exposing himself by a direct inquiry (he reflected that the exposure would in any case not be long averted), she anticipated him by saying, in a manner which showed that her thoughts had continued in the same train, "I wonder very much that Miss Tarrant didn't affect you that evening!" "Ah, but she did!" Ransom said, with alacrity. "I thought her very charming!" "Didn't you think her very reasonable?" "God forbid, madam! I consider women have no business to be reasonable." His companion turned upon him, slowly and mildly, and each of her glasses, in her aspect of reproach, had the glitter of an enormous tear. "Do you regard us, then, simply as lovely baubles?" The effect of this question, as coming from Miss Birdseye, and referring in some degree to her own venerable identity, was such as to move him to irresistible laughter. But he controlled himself quickly enough to say, with genuine expression, "I regard you as the dearest thing in life, the only thing which makes it worth living!" "Worth living for--you! But for us?" suggested Miss Birdseye. "It's worth any woman's while to be admired as I admire you. Miss Tarrant, of whom we were speaking, affected me, as you say, in this way--that I think more highly still, if possible, of the sex which produced such a delightful young lady." "Well, we think everything of her here," said Miss Birdseye. "It seems as if it were a real gift." "Does she speak often--is there any chance of my hearing her now?" "She raises her voice a good deal in the places round--like Framingham and Billerica. It seems as if she were gathering strength, just to break over Boston like a wave. In fact she did break, last summer. She is a growing power since her great success at the convention." "Ah! her success at the convention was very great?" Ransom inquired, putting discretion into his voice. Miss Birdseye hesitated a moment, in order to measure her response by the bounds of righteousness. "Well," she said, with the tenderness of a long retrospect, "I have seen nothing like it since I last listened to Eliza P. Moseley." "What a pity she isn't speaking somewhere to-night!" Ransom exclaimed. "Oh, to-night she's out in Cambridge. Olive Chancellor mentioned that." "Is she making a speech there?" "No; she's visiting her home." "I thought her home was in Charles Street?" "Well, no; that's her residence--her principal one--since she became so united to your cousin. Isn't Miss Chancellor your cousin?" "We don't insist on the relationship," said Ransom, smiling. "Are they very much united, the two young ladies?" "You would say so if you were to see Miss Chancellor when Verena rises to eloquence. It's as if the chords were strung across her own heart; she seems to vibrate, to echo with every word. It's a very close and very beautiful tie, and we think everything of it here. They will work together for a great good!" "I hope so," Ransom remarked. "But in spite of it Miss Tarrant spends a part of her time with her father and mother." "Yes, she seems to have something for every one. If you were to see her at home, you would think she was all the daughter. She leads a lovely life!" said Miss Birdseye. "See her at home? That's exactly what I want!" Ransom rejoined, feeling that if he was to come to this he needn't have had scruples at first. "I haven't forgotten that she invited me, when I met her." "Oh, of course she attracts many visitors," said Miss Birdseye, limiting her encouragement to this statement. "Yes; she must be used to admirers. And where, in Cambridge, do her family live?" "Oh, it's on one of those little streets that don't seem to have very much of a name. But they do call it--they do call it----" she meditated audibly. This process was interrupted by an abrupt allocution from the conductor. "I guess you change here for _your_ place. You want one of them blue cars." The good lady returned to a sense of the situation, and Ransom helped her out of the vehicle, with the aid, as before, of a certain amount of propulsion from the conductor. Her road branched off to the right, and she had to wait on the corner of a street, there being as yet no blue car within hail. The corner was quiet and the day favourable to patience--a day of relaxed rigour and intense brilliancy. It was as if the touch of the air itself were gloved, and the street-colouring had the richness of a superficial thaw. Ransom, of course, waited with his philanthropic companion, though she now protested more vigorously against the idea that a gentleman from the South should pretend to teach an old abolitionist the mysteries of Boston. He promised to leave her when he should have consigned her to the blue car; and meanwhile they stood in the sun, with their backs against an apothecary's window, and she tried again, at his suggestion, to remember the name of Doctor Tarrant's street. "I guess if you ask for Doctor Tarrant, any one can tell you," she said; and then suddenly the address came to her--the residence of the mesmeric healer was in Monadnoc Place. "But you'll have to ask for that, so it comes to the same," she went on. After this she added, with a friendliness more personal, "Ain't you going to see your cousin too?" "Not if I can help it!" Miss Birdseye gave a little ineffectual sigh. "Well, I suppose every one must act out their ideal. That's what Olive Chancellor does. She's a very noble character." "Oh yes, a glorious nature." "You know their opinions are just the same--hers and Verena's," Miss Birdseye placidly continued. "So why should you make a distinction?" "My dear madam," said Ransom, "does a woman consist of nothing but her opinions? I like Miss Tarrant's lovely face better, to begin with." "Well, she _is_ pretty-looking." And Miss Birdseye gave another sigh, as if she had had a theory submitted to her--that one about a lady's opinions--which, with all that was unfamiliar and peculiar lying behind it, she was really too old to look into much. It might have been the first time she really felt her age. "There's a blue car," she said, in a tone of mild relief. "It will be some moments before it gets here. Moreover, I don't believe that at bottom they _are_ Miss Tarrant's opinions," Ransom added. "You mustn't think she hasn't a strong hold of them," his companion exclaimed, more briskly. "If you think she is not sincere, you are very much mistaken. Those views are just her life." "Well, _she_ may bring me round to them," said Ransom, smiling. Miss Birdseye had been watching her blue car, the advance of which was temporarily obstructed. At this, she transferred her eyes to him, gazing at him solemnly out of the pervasive window of her spectacles. "Well, I shouldn't wonder if she did! Yes, that will be a good thing. I don't see how you can help being a good deal shaken by her. She has acted on so many." "I see: no doubt she will act on me." Then it occurred to Ransom to add: "By the way, Miss Birdseye, perhaps you will be so kind as not to mention this meeting of ours to my cousin, in case of your seeing her again. I have a perfectly good conscience in not calling upon her, but I shouldn't like her to think that I announced my slighting intention all over the town. I don't want to offend her, and she had better not know that I have been in Boston. If you don't tell her, no one else will." "Do you wish me to conceal----?" murmured Miss Birdseye, panting a little. "No, I don't want you to conceal anything. I only want you to let this incident pass--to say nothing." "Well, I never did anything of that kind." "Of what kind?" Ransom was half vexed, half touched by her inability to enter into his point of view, and her resistance made him hold to his idea the more. "It is very simple, what I ask of you. You are under no obligation to tell Miss Chancellor everything that happens to you, are you?" His request seemed still something of a shock to the poor old lady's candour. "Well, I see her very often, and we talk a great deal. And then--won't Verena tell her?" "I have thought of that--but I hope not." "She tells her most everything. Their union is so close." "She won't want her to be wounded," Ransom said ingeniously. "Well, you _are_ considerate." And Miss Birdseye continued to gaze at him. "It's a pity you can't sympathise." "As I tell you, perhaps Miss Tarrant will bring me round. You have before you a possible convert," Ransom went on, without, I fear, putting up the least little prayer to heaven that his dishonesty might be forgiven. "I should be very happy to think that--after I have told you her address in this secret way." A smile of infinite mildness glimmered in Miss Birdseye's face, and she added: "Well, I guess that will be your fate. She _has_ affected so many. I would keep very quiet if I thought that. Yes, she will bring you round." "I will let you know as soon as she does," Basil Ransom said. "Here is your car at last." "Well, I believe in the victory of the truth. I won't say anything." And she suffered the young man to lead her to the car, which had now stopped at their corner. "I hope very much I shall see you again," he remarked, as they went. "Well, I am always round the streets, in Boston." And while, lifting and pushing, he was helping again to insert her into the oblong receptacle, she turned a little and repeated, "She _will_ affect you! If that's to be your secret, I will keep it," Ransom heard her subjoin. He raised his hat and waved her a farewell, but she didn't see him; she was squeezing further into the car and making the discovery that this time it was full and there was no seat for her. Surely, however, he said to himself, every man in the place would offer his own to such an innocent old dear. END OF VOL. I 
20025	----	http://www.archive.org/details/priategold00stimrich The author consistently used a convention in which a long dash, used to indicate trailed off speech, follows the closing speech mark, rather than being enclosed within the speech mark. This convention has been retained throughout. PIRATE GOLD by F. J. STIMSON (J. S. of Dale) Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1896 Copyright, 1895 and 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Copyright, 1896, by F. J. Stimson. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. CONTENTS. PAGE PART ONE: DISCOVERY 1 PART TWO: ROBBERY 75 PART THREE: RECOVERY 137 PIRATE GOLD PART ONE: DISCOVERY. I. It consisted of a few hundred new American eagles and a few times as many Spanish doubloons; for pirates like good broad pieces, fit to skim flat-spun across the waves, or play pitch-and-toss with for men's lives or women's loves; they give five-dollar pieces or thin British guineas to the boy who brings them drink, and silver to their bootblacks, priests, or beggars. It was contained--the gold--in an old canvas bag, a little rotten and very brown and mouldy, but tied at the neck by a piece of stout and tarnished braid of gold. It had no name or card upon it nor letters on its side, and it lay for nearly thirty years high on a shelf, in an old chest, behind three tiers of tins of papers, in the deepest corner of the vault of the old building of the Old Colony Bank. Yet this money was passed to no one's credit on the bank's books, nor was it carried as part of the bank's reserve. When the old concern took out its national charter, in 1863, it did not venture or did not remember to claim this specie as part of the reality behind its greenback circulation. It was never merged in other funds, nor converted, nor put at interest. The bag lay there intact, with one brown stain of blood upon it, where Romolo de Soto had grasped it while a cutlass gash was fresh across his hand. And so it was carried, in specie, in its original package: "Four hundred and twenty-three American eagles, and fifteen hundred and fifty-six Spanish doubloons; deposited by ---- De Soto, June twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine; _for the benefit of whom it may concern_." And it concerned very much two people with whom our narration has to do,--one, James McMurtagh, our hero; the other, Mr. James Bowdoin, then called Mr. James, member of the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons. For De Soto, having escaped with his neck, took good pains never to call for his money. II. A very real pirate was De Soto. None of your Captain Kidds, who make one voyage or so before they are hanged, and even then find time to bury kegs of gold in every marshy and uncomfortable spot from Maine to Florida. No, no. De Soto had better uses for his gold than that. Commonly he traveled with it; and thus he even brought it to Boston with him on that unlucky voyage in 1829, when Mr. James Bowdoin was kind enough to take charge of it for him. One wonders what he meant to do with a bag of gold in Boston in 1829. This happened on Thursday, the 24th of June. It was the day after Mr. James Bowdoin's (or Mr. James's, as Jamie McMurtagh and others in the bank always called him; it was his father who was properly Mr. James Bowdoin, and his grandfather who was Mr. Bowdoin)--after Mr. James's Commencement Day; and it was the day after Mr. James's engagement as junior clerk in the counting-room; and it was the day after Mr. James's engagement to be married; and it was the day but one after Mr. James's class's supper at Mr. Porter's tavern in North Cambridge. Ah, they did things quickly in those days; _ils savoient vivre_. They had made him a Bachelor of Arts, and a Master of Arts he had made himself by paying for that dignity, and all this while the class punch was fresher in his memory than Latin quantities; for these parchment honors were a bit overwhelming to one who had gone through his college course _non clam, sed vi et precario_, as his tutor courteously phrased it. And then he had gotten out of his college gown into a beautiful blue frock coat and white duck trousers, and driven into town and sought for other favors, more of flesh and blood, carried his other degree with a rush--and Miss Abigail Dowse off to drive with him. And that evening Mr. James Bowdoin had said to him, "James!" "Yes, sir," said Mr. James. "Now you've had your four years at college, and I think it's time you should be learning something." "Yes, sir," said Mr. James. "So I wish you to come down to the counting-room at nine o'clock and sort the letters." "Yes, sir," said Mr. James. Mr. James Bowdoin looked at him suspiciously over his spectacles. "At eight o'clock; do you hear?" "I hear, sir," said Mr. James. Mr. James Bowdoin lost his temper at once. "Oh, you do, do you?" said he. "You don't want to go to Paris, to Rome,--to make the grand tour like a gentleman, in short, as I did long before I was your age?" "No, sir," said Mr. James. "Then, sir, by gad," said Mr. James Bowdoin, "you may come down at half past seven--and--and--sweep out the office!" III. So it happened that Mr. James was in the counting-room that day; but that he happened also to be alone requires further explanation. Two glasses of the old Governor Bowdoin white port had been left untasted on the dinner-table the night before,--the one, that meant for Mr. James Bowdoin, who had himself swept out of the room as he made that last remark about sweeping out the office; the other, that of his son, Mr. James, who had instantly gone out by the other door, and betaken himself for sympathy to the home of Miss Abigail Dowse, which stood on Fort Hill, close by, where the sea breezes blew fresh through the white June roses, and Mr. James found her walking in the garden path. "You must tell him," said Miss Dowse, when Mr. James had recounted his late conversation to her, after such preliminary ceremonies as were proper--under the circumstances. So Mr. James walked down to the head of India Wharf the next morning, determined to make a clean breast of his engagement. The ocean air came straight in from the clear, blue bay, spice-laden as it swept along the great rows of warehouses, and a big white ship, topgallant sails still set, came bulging up the harbor, not sixty minutes from deep water. Mr. James found McMurtagh already in the office and the mail well sorted, but he insisted on McMurtagh finding him a broom, and, wielding that implement on the second pair of stairs (for the counting-room of James Bowdoin's Sons was really a loft, two flights up in the old granite building), was discovered there shortly after by Mr. James Bowdoin. The staircase had not been swept in some years, and the young man's father made his way up through a cloud of aromatic dust that Mr. James had raised. He could with difficulty see the door of his counting-room. This slammed behind him as he entered; and a few seconds after, Mr. James received a summons through McMurtagh that Mr. James Bowdoin wished to see him. "An' don't ye mind if Mr. James Bowdoin is a bit sharp-set the morn," said Jamie McMurtagh. Mr. James nodded; then he went in to his father. "So, sir, it was you kicking up that devil of a dust outside there, was it?" "Yes, sir," says Mr. James. (I have this story from McMurtagh.) "You told me to sweep out the counting-room." "Precisely so, sir. I am glad your memory is better than your intelligence. I told you to sweep _it out_, and not all outdoors in." Mr. James bowed, and wondered how he was to speak of Miss Dowse at this moment. The old gentleman chuckled for some minutes; then he said, "And now, James, it's time you got married." Mr. James started. "I--I only graduated yesterday, sir," says he. "Well, sir," answers the old gentleman testily, "you may consider yourself devilish lucky that you weren't married before! I have got a house for you"-- "Perhaps, sir, you have even got me a wife?" "Of course I have; and a devilish fine girl she is, too, I can tell you!" "But, sir," says Mr. James, "I--I have made other arrangements." "The devil you have! Then damme, sir, not a house shall you have from me,--not a house, sir, not a shingle,--nor the girl, either, by gad! I'll--I'll"-- "Perhaps, sir," says Mr. James, "you'll wait and marry her yourself?" "Perhaps I will, sir; and if I do, what of it? Older men than I have married, I take it! Insolent young dog!" "May I tell my mother, sir?" Now, Mrs. James Bowdoin was an august person; and here McMurtagh's anxiety led him to interfere at any cost. An ill-favored, slight man was he, stooping of habit; and he came in rubbing his hands and looking anxiously, one eye on the father, the other on the son, as his oddly protuberant eyes almost enabled him to do. "There is a ship coming up the harbor, sir, full-laden, and I think she flies the signal of James Bowdoin's Sons." "Damn James Bowdoin's Sons, sir!" says Mr. James Bowdoin. "And as for you, sir, not a stick or shingle shall you have"-- "If you'll only take the girl, you're welcome to the house, sir," says Mr. James. "Oh, I am, am I? Then, by gad, sir, I'll take both houses, and Sam Dowse's daughter'll live in one, and your mother and I in the other!" "Sam Dowse's daughter?" "Yes, sir, Miss Abby Dowse. Have you any objections?" "Why, she--she's the other arrangement," says Mr. James. "Oh, she is, is she?" Mr. James Bowdoin hesitated a moment, as if in search of some withering reply, but failed to find it. "Humph! I thought it was time you came to your senses. Now, here's the keys, d'ye see? And the house was old Judge Allerton's; it's too large for his daughter, and, now that you'll marry the girl I've got for you, I'll let you have it." "I shall marry what girl I like," says Mr. James; "and as for the house, damme if I'll take it,--not a stick, sir, not a shingle!" Mr. James Bowdoin looked at his son for one moment, speechless; then he slammed out of the room. Mr. James put his foot on the desk and whistled. McMurtagh rubbed his hands. IV. The office in which Mr. James found himself was a small, square, sunny corner room with four windows, in the third story of the upper angle of the long block of granite warehouses that lined the wharf. Below him was the then principal commercial street of the city, full of bustle, noisy with drays; at the side was the slip of the dock itself, with its warm, green, swaying water, upon which a jostled crowd of various craft was rocking sleepily in the summer morning. The floor of the room was bare. Between the windows, on one side, was an open, empty stove; on the other were two high desks, with stools. An eight-day clock ticked comfortably upon the wall, and on either side of it were two pictures, wood-cuts, eked out with rude splashes of red and blue by some primitive process of lithography: the one represented the "Take of a Right Whale in Behring's Sea by the Good Adventure Barque out of New Bedford;" the other, the "Landing of H. M. Troops in Boston, His Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1766." In the latter picture, the vanes on the town steeples and the ships in the bay were represented very big, and the town itself very small; and the dull black and white of the wood-cut was relieved by one long stream of red, which was H. M. troops landing and marching up the Long Wharf, and by several splotches of the same, where the troops were standing, drawn up in line, upon each frigate, and waiting to be ferried. A quiet little place the office would have seemed to us; and yet there was not a sea on earth, probably, that did not bear its bounding ship sent out from that small office. And if it was still, in there, it had a cosmopolitan, aromatic smell; for every strange letter or foreign sample with which the place was littered bespoke the business of the bright, blue world outside. From the street below came noise enough, and loud voices of sailors and shipmen in many a foreign tongue. For in those days we had freedom of the sea and dealings with the world, and had not yet been taught to cabin all our energies within the spindle-rooms of cotton-mills. As Mr. James looked out of the window he saw a full-rigged ship, whose generous lines and clipper rig bespoke the long-voyage liner, warping slowly up toward the dock, her fair white lower sails, still wet from the sea, hanging at the yards, the stiff salt sparkling in the sunlight. Mr. James Bowdoin was already standing at the pier-head (for it was indeed their ship of which McMurtagh had been speaking), and Mr. James made bold to turn the key upon the counting-room and go to join his father. Here he was standing, side by side with him, swaying his body, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pocket, in some unconscious imitation of ownership, when his father caught sight of him and ordered him sharply back. "Yes, sir," said Mr. James, and moved to the other angle of the wharf, for he had caught the word "pirates;" and now, for some reason, the ship had cast her anchor, a hundred yards outside the dock, while to it from her side a double-manned yawl was rowing. And amid the blue jackets, above a dark mass of men that seemed to be bound together by an iron chain, was some strange rippling of long yellow hair, that the young man had been first to see. Yet not quite the first, for Jamie McMurtagh was beside him. Then word was passed rapidly down the pier how this ship of pirates had been captured, red-handed, her own captain still on board,--the good ship Alarm having seen a redness in the sky, and heard some firing in the night before; and how Captain How had put it to his crew, Would they fight or not? And they had fought, rushing in before the pirate's long-range guns could get to work, in the early dawn, and boarding; so now there was talk of prize money. Young James Bowdoin and McMurtagh were all eyes. The boat rowed up to the slippery wharf steps; in the bow were the two ringleaders and the ship's captain, in the waist of the boat the rowers, and in the stern the rank and file of the pirates, some eight or ten ill-looking fellows chained together. (The rest of them, the captain remarked casually, had been shot or lost in the battle; and not much was said about it.) The boat was made fast, and the two leaders got up, with Captain How. The pirate captain, as Mr. James remarked, was a splendid-looking fellow. Captain How said something to him as the boat stopped, and he looked up and caught Mr. James's eye; and Bowdoin had time to remark that it was blue and very keen to look upon. Young Bowdoin and McMurtagh were standing on the very verge of the wharf, and the crowd around had made a little space for them, as the owners of the ship; Mr. James Bowdoin was standing farther back with the captain of a file of soldiers. But the second of the pirates was a swarthy Spaniard, with as evil-flashing eyes as you would care to see. And it was he who held in his arms a little girl, almost a baby, whose long yellow hair had made that note of color in the boat. They were marched up the steps matted with seaweed; for it was low tide, and only the barnacles made footing for them. And as the pirate captain passed young Bowdoin he said, in very good English, "You look like a gentleman," and rapidly drew from his breast, and placed in Bowdoin's hands, the bag of gold. So quickly was this done that the captain had passed and was closely surrounded by the file of soldiers before Bowdoin could reply; nor had he sought to do so, for, on looking to McMurtagh for advice, he saw him holding, and in awkward yet tender manner trying to caress and soothe, the little lady with the yellow hair. The second pirate had sought to hand her, too, to Bowdoin, but some caprice had made the little maiden shy, and she had run and buried her face in the arms of the young-old clerk. V. While young Bowdoin's father, with the file of soldiers, marched up State Street to a magistrate's office, Mr. James and clerk McMurtagh retired with their spoils to the counting-room. Here these novel consignments to the old house of James Bowdoin's Sons were safely deposited on the floor; and the clerk and the young master, eased of their burdens, but not disembarrassed, looked at one another. The old clock ticked with unruffled composure; the bag of gold lay gaping on the wooden floor, where young Bowdoin had untied its mouth to see; and the little maid had climbed upon McMurtagh's stool, and was playing with the leaves of the big ledger familiarly, as if pirates' maids and pirates' treasure were entered on the debit side of every page. "What shall I do with the money?" asked Bowdoin. "Count it," said McMurtagh, with a gasp, as if the words were wrung from him by force of habit. "And when counted?" "Enter it in the ledger, Mr. James," said McMurtagh, with another gasp. "To whose account?" "For account--of whom it may concern." Bowdoin began to count it, and the clock went on ticking; one piece for each tick of the clock. He did not know many of the pieces; and McMurtagh, as they were held up to him, broke the silence only to answer arithmetically, "Doubloon,--value eight dollars two shillings, New England;" or, "Pistole,--value the half, free of agio." When they were all counted, McMurtagh opened a new page in the ledger, and a new account for the house: "June 24, 1829. To credit of Pirates, or Whom it may concern, sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven dollars." "Pirates!" he muttered; "it's a new account for us to carry. I'll not be sorry the day we write it off." Bowdoin, in the frivolity of youth, laughed. "And now," said McMurtagh, "you must tie up the bag again and seal it, and I must take it up and put it in the vault of the bank." "And the little girl?" asked Bowdoin. "We can hardly carry her upon the books." "For the benefit of whom it may concern," said the clerk absently. Bowdoin laughed again. McMurtagh looked at her and gasped, but this time silently. She had clambered down from the stool, and was gazing with delight at the old pictures of the ships; but, as if she understood that she was being talked about, she turned around and looked at them with large round eyes. "What is your name?" said he; and then, "Como se llama V.?" (for we all knew a little Spanish in those days.) "Mercedes," said the child. "I suppose," ventured Bowdoin, "there is some asylum"-- McMurtagh looked dubious; and the little maid, divining that the discussion of her was unfavorable, fell to tears, and then ran up and dried them on McMurtagh's business waistcoat. "You take the gold," said he dryly; "I'll carry the child myself." "Where?" inquired young Bowdoin, astonished. "Home," said McMurtagh sharply. McMurtagh was known to have an old mother and a bedridden father (a retired drayman, run over in the service of the firm), whom he lived with, and with some difficulty supported. Yet little could be said against the plan, as a temporary arrangement, if they were willing to assume the burden. At all events, before Mr. James could find speech for objection, McMurtagh was off with the child in his arms, seeking to soothe her with uncouth words of endearment as he bore her carefully down the narrow stairs. James Bowdoin laughed a little, and then grew silent. Finally, his glance falling on the yellow piles still lying on the floor, he shoveled them into the bag again and shouldered it up to the bank. There the deposit of specie was duly made, the money put in the old chest and sealed, and he learned that the pirates had been committed to stand their trial. And he and his father talked it over, and decided that the child might as well stay with McMurtagh, for the present at any rate. But that "present" was long in passing; for the pirates were duly tried, and all but one of them found guilty, sentenced to be hanged, and duly executed on an island in the harbor. There were no sentimentalists about in those days; and their gibbets were erected in the sand of that harbor island, and their bodies swung for many days (as these same sentimentalists might now put it) near the sea they had loved so well; being a due encouragement to other pirates to leave Boston ships alone. Pity the town has not kept up those tactics with its railways! All the common seamen were executed, that is, and Manuel Silva, the second in command, who had left the little girl with McMurtagh. The captain, it was proved, had been polite to his two lady captives: the men safely disposed of, he had placed the best cabin at their command, and had even gone so far out of his way as to head the ship toward Boston, on their behalf; promising to place them on board some fishing-smack, not too far out. Silva had not agreed to this, and it had led to something like a mutiny on the part of the crew. It was owing to this, doubtless, that they were captured. De Soto, it was known, was a married man; moreover, he was new in command, and not used to pirate ways. However, this conduct was deemed courteous by the administration at Washington, and, feminine influence being always potent with Andrew Jackson, De Soto's sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life; and shortly after, being taken to a quiet little country prison, he made interest with the jailer and escaped. It was reported that he shipped upon an African trader; and, going down the harbor past the figure of Manuel Silva elegantly outlined against the sky, he bowed sardonically to the swaying _schema_ of his ancient messmate. It excited some little comment on the African trader at the time; but the usual professional _esprit de corps_ keeps sailors from asking too many questions about the intimate professional conduct of their messmates in earlier voyages. But that is why De Soto made no draft upon the credit side of his account at the Old Colony Bank; and James Bowdoin's Sons continued to carry the deposit on their books "for the benefit of whom it may concern." And so McMurtagh, who had taken little Mercedes Silva home that day, continued to make a home for her there, his old mother and his father aiding and abetting him in the task; and he carried her young life, in addition to his other burdens, "for the benefit of whom it may concern." "Whom it may concern" is too old a story, in such cases, ever to be thought of by the actors in them. VI. James McMurtagh was one of that vast majority of men who live, function, work, in their appointed way, and are never heard from, like a good digestion. This is the grand division which separates them from those who, be it for good or evil, or weakness even, will be protagonists. Countless multitudes of such men as Jamie must there be, to hold the fabric together and make possible the daring spins of you, my lords Lovelace, and you, Launcelots and Tristrams, and Miss Vivien here; who weave your paradoxical cross-purposes of tinsel evil in the sober woof of good. No one knew, or if he knew remembered, what was Jamie's age. When he was first taken in by the house, he described himself as a "lad;" but others had not so described him, or else had taken the word as the Scotch, not for English youth, but for male humanity,--wide enough to include a sober under-clerk of doubtful age. Jamie's father had been a drayman, in the employ of the house, as we have said, until his middle was bisected by that three-inch tire weighted with six puncheons of Jamaica rum. Jamie had been brought over from Scotland when veritably young,--some months or so; had then been finished in the new-fangled American free schools, and had come up in the counting-room, the day of the accident, equipped to feed his broken-backed father, with knowledge enough to be a bookkeeper, and little enough pride to be a messenger. Only, he had no spirit of adventure to fit him for a supercargo,--even that brushed too close upon the protagonist for him; and so he stayed upon his office stool. While other clerks went away promoted, he ticked off his life in alternation from the counting-room to the bank; trustworthy on that well-taught street with any forms of other people's fortunes, only not to make his own, and even trustworthy, as we have seen it go unquestioned, with this little Spanish girl. Jamie took her home to his parents, and for his sake they fell down and worshiped; with them she lived. The father had had too much rum upon him to care much for the things remaining in this life; after such excessive external application, who could blame him for using it internally more than most? The mother's marital affection, naturally, was moderated by long practice of mixing him hot tumblers with two lumps of sugar, and of seeing the thing administered more dear to her spouse than the ministering angel. But the mother worshiped Jamie, and Jamie worshiped the little girl; and the years went by. It was pretty to see Jamie and his mother and the little girl walking to church of a Sunday, and funny to hear Jamie's excuses for it afterward. "'Tis the women bodies need it," said he to Mr. James Bowdoin, who rallied him thereupon. "But surely, Jamie," said Mr. James, "you, who have read Hume until you've half convinced us all to be free-thinkers,--you'd have your daughter as well educated as yourself?" "Hersel'," said Jamie, meaning _himself_,--"hersel' may go to ta deevil if he wull; ta little lassie sall be a lady." (Jamie's Scotch always grew more Gaelic as he got excited.) It was evident that he regarded religion as a sort of ornament of superior breeding, that Mercedes must have, though he could do without it. And Mr. James Bowdoin looked in Jamie's eye, and held his peace. In those days deference was rigidly exacted in the divers relations of life: a disrespectful word would have caused McMurtagh's quick dismissal, and the Bowdoins, father and son, would have been made miserable thereby. "The lad must have his way with the little girl," said Mr. Bowdoin (now promoted to that title by his father's recent death). "It seems so," said Mr. James Bowdoin (our Mr. James), who by this time had his own little girls to look after. "Bring the poor child down to Nahant next time you come to spend the day, and give her a chance to play with the children." VII. James McMurtagh, with "the old man" and "the mother," lived in a curious little house on Salem Street, at the North End. Probably they liked it because it might have been a little house in some provincial town at home. To its growing defects of neighborhood they were oblivious. It was a square two-story brick box: on the right of the entry, the parlor, never used before, but now set apart for Mercedes; behind, a larger square room, which was dining-room and kitchen combined, and where the McMurtaghs, father and son, were wont to sit in their shirt-sleeves after supper and smoke their pipes; above were four tiny bedrooms. Within the parlor the little lady, as Jamie already called her, was given undisputed sway; and a strange transmogrification there she made. The pink shells were collected from the mantel, and piled, with others she had got, to represent a grotto, in one corner of the room; the worked samplers were thought ugly, and banished upstairs. In another corner was a sort of bower, made of bright-colored pieces of stuff the child had begged from the neighbors, and called by her the "Witch's Cave;" here little Mercedes loved to sit and tell the fortunes of her friends. These were mostly Jamie's horny-handed friends; the women neighbors took no part in all these doings, and gave it out loudly that the child was being spoiled. She went, with other boys and girls, to a small dame-school on the other side of Bowdoin Square; for Jamie would not hear of a public school. Here she learned quickly to read, write, and do a little embroidering, and gained much knowledge of human nature. One thing that they would not allow the child was her outlandish name: Mercy she was called,--Mercy McMurtagh. Perhaps we may venture still to call her Mercedes. The child's hair and eyes were getting darker, but it was easy to see she would be a _blonde d'Espagne_. Jamie secretly believed she had a strain of noble blood, though openly he would not have granted such a thing's existence. We, with our wider racial knowledge, might have recognized points that came from Gothic Spain,--the deep eyes of starlight blue, so near to black, and hair that was a brown with dust of gold. But her feet and hands were all of Andalusia. Jamie had hardly spoken to a woman in his life,--he used to think of himself as deformed. And now this little girl was all his own! So for a year or two the child was happy. Then came that day, never to be forgotten by her, of the visit to old Mr. Bowdoin at Nahant. They went down in a steamboat together,--two little Bowdoin girls, younger than Mercedes, a boy, Harley, and a cousin, who was Dorothea Dowse. At first Mercedes did not think much of the Bowdoin children; they wore plain dresses, alike in color, while our heroine had on every ribbon that was hers. They went down under care of Jamie McMurtagh, dismissed at the wharf by Mr. James Bowdoin, who had a stick of candy for each. Business was doing even then; but old Mr. Bowdoin was not too busy to spend a summer's day at home with the children. His favorite son, James, had married to his mind; and money came so easy in those times! Miss Dowse was fifteen, and she called her uncle's clerk Jamie; so she elevated her look when she came to our Mercedes. She wore gloves, and satin slippers with ribbons crossed at the ankle, and silk stockings. Mercedes had no silk stockings and no gloves. Miss Dowse had rejected the proffered stick of candy, and Mercedes sought a chance to give hers away, one end unsucked. There was this boy in the party,--Harleston Bowdoin,--so she made a favor of it and gave it to him. They were playing on the rail of the steamboat, and Jamie was sitting respectfully apart inside. The little Bowdoin girls were sucking at their candy contentedly; Mercedes was climbing with the Bowdoin boy upon the rail, and he called his cousin Dolly to join them. "I can't; the sun would make my hands so brown if I took off my gloves," said that young lady. "Besides, it's so common, playing with the passengers." There was a double sting in this; for Mercedes was not just "a passenger," but of their party. She walked into the cabin with what dignity she could maintain, and then burst out weeping angrily in Jamie's arms. That is, he sought to comfort her; but she pressed him aside rudely. "Oh, Jamie," she sobbed (she was suffered to call him Jamie), "why didn't you give me gloves?" Poor Jamie scratched his head. He had not thought of them; and that was all. He tried to caress the child, with a clumsy tenderness, but she stamped her little foot. Outside, they heard the voices of the other children. Miss Dowse was talking to Master Bowdoin of sights in the harbor; but--how early is a boy sensible to a child's prettiness!--he was asking after Mercedes. It was now Miss Dolly's turn to bite her lip. "She's in the cabin, crying because she has no gloves." Jamie felt Mercedes quiver; her sobs stopped, panting; in a moment she put her hand to her hair and went to the deck unconcernedly. But no one ever made Mercedes cry again. Poor Jamie went to a window where he could hear them talking. He took off his white straw hat, and rubbed his eyes with a red silk handkerchief; the tears were almost in them, too. He had wild thoughts of trying to buy gloves at Nahant. He listened to hear if his child was merry again. She was laughing loudly, and pointing out the white column of Boston Light. "That is the way to sea!" she cried. "I came in that way from sea." The other children had crept about her, interested. Even Miss Dowse had come over, and was standing with them. "Did your father take you to sea?" "I was at sea in my father's ship," said Mercedes proudly. "Ah, I didn't know Jamie McMurtagh owned a ship," said Miss Dolly. Jamie leaned closer to the window. "Jamie McMurtagh is not my father," said Mercedes. She said it almost scornfully, and McMurtagh slunk back into the cabin. Perhaps it was the first time he had ever cried himself.... He felt so sorry that he had not thought of gloves! VIII. When they came to the wharf, several carriages were waiting. Some were handsome equipages with silver-mounted harnesses (for nabobs then were in Nahant); others were the familiar New England carryalls. Mercedes looked for Mr. Bowdoin, hoping he had come to meet her in one of the former, but was disappointed, for that gentleman was seen running down the hill as if too late, his blue dress-coat tails streaming in the wind, his Panama hat in one hand, and a large brown-paper bag, bursting with oranges, in the other. By accident or design, as he neared the wharf, the bag did burst, and all the oranges went rolling down the road. "Pick 'em up, children, pick 'em up!" gasped Mr. Bowdoin. "Findings keepings, you know." And he broke into a chuckle as the two smaller girls precipitated themselves upon the rolling orange-spheres as if they were footballs, and Master Harley, in his anxiety to stop one that was rolling over the wharf, tripped upon the hawser, and was grabbed by a friendly sailor just as he himself was rolling after it into the sea. "You don't seem to care for oranges, Miss Dolly," said Mr. Bowdoin, as Miss Dowse stood haughtily aloof; and he looked then at Mercedes, who was left quite alone, yet followed Miss Dowse's example of dignity; Jamie standing behind, not beside her, hat in hand. "Ah, Ja-- Mr. McMurtagh," said Mr. Bowdoin, doffing his own. "And so this is our Miss Mercy again? Why don't you chase the oranges, my dear?" Mercedes looked at the old gentleman a moment, then ran after the oranges. Dolly still made excuses. "It is so hot, and I have clean gloves on." Mr. Bowdoin cast a quick glance at the envied gloves, and then at Mercedes' brown hands. "Here, Dolly, chuck those gloves in the carriage there: they're not allowed down here. McMurtagh, I'm glad to see your Mercy has more sense. Can't stay to luncheon? Well, remember me to Mr. James!" Ah, the marvelous power of kindliness that will give even an old merchant the perception of a woman, the tact of a diplomat! McMurtagh went back with a light heart, and Mercedes jumped with delight into the very finest of the carriages, and was given a seat ("as the greatest stranger") behind with Mr. Bowdoin, while the other three girls filled the seat in front, and Harley held the reins upon the box, a process Mr. Bowdoin affected not to see. They drove through the little village in the train of other carriages; and Mercedes sat erect and answered artlessly to Mr. Bowdoin's questions. He asked her whether she was happy in her home, and she said she was. (In his kindness the simple-hearted old gentleman still knew no other way to make a woman tell the truth than by asking her questions!) Jamie was very good to her, she said, and grandpa most of all; grandma was cross sometimes. ("Jamie"! "grandpa"! Old Mr. Bowdoin made a mental note.) But she was very lonely: she had no children to play with. Mr. Bowdoin's heart warmed at once. "You must come down here often, my dear!" he cried; thus again laying up a wigging from his auguster spouse. But "Jamie"! "Why don't you call your kind friend father, since you call old McMurtagh grandpa?" The child shook her head. "He has never asked me to," she said. "Besides, he is not my father. My father wore gold trimmings and a sword." This sounded more like De Soto than Silva. "Do you remember him?" "Not much, sir." "What was his name?" The child shook her head again. "I do not know, sir. He only called me Mercedes." Mr. Bowdoin was fain to rummage in his pocket, either for a handkerchief or for a lump of Salem "Gibraltars:" both came out together in a state of happy union. Mercedes took hers simply. Only Miss Dolly was too proud to eat candy in the carriage. The Salem Gibraltar is a hard and mouth-filling dainty; and by its administration little Ann and Jane, who had been chattering in front, were suddenly reduced to silence. By this time they had come through to the outer cliff, and were driving on a turf road high above the sea. The old gentleman was watching the breakers far below, and Mercedes had a chance to look about her at the houses. They passed by a great hotel, and she saw many gayly dressed people on the piazza; she hoped they were going to stop there, but they drove on to a smallish house upon the very farthest point. It was not a pretentious place; but Mercedes was pleased with a fine stone terrace that was built into the very last reef of the sea, and with the pretty little lawn and the flowers. As the children rushed into the hall, Ann and Jane struggling to keep on Mr. Bowdoin's shoulders, they were stopped by a maid, who told them Mrs. Bowdoin was taking a nap and must not be disturbed. So they were carried through to the back veranda, where Mr. Bowdoin dumped the little girls over the railing upon a steep grass slope, down which they rolled with shrieks of laughter that must have been most damaging to Mrs. Bowdoin's nerves. Dolly and Mercedes followed after; and the old gentleman settled himself on a roomy cane chair, his feet on the rail of the back piazza, a huge spy-glass at his side, and the "Boston Daily Advertiser" in his hand. At the foot of the lawn was the cliff; and below, a lovely little pebble beach covered with the most wonderful shells. Never were such shells as abounded upon that beach!--tropical, exotic varieties, such as were found nowhere else. And then--most ideal place of all for a child--there was a fascinating rocky island in the sea, connected by a neck of twenty yards of pebble covered hardly at high water; and on one side of this pebble isthmus was the full surf of the sea, and on the other the quiet ripple of the waters of the bay. But such an island! All their own to colonize and govern, and separated from home by just a breadth of danger. All good children have some pirate blood; and I doubt if Mercedes enjoyed it more than Ann and Jane and even haughty Dolly did. And to the right was the wide Massachusetts Bay, and beyond it far blue mountains, hazy in the southern sun. Then there were bath-houses, and little swimming-suits ready for each, into which the other children quickly got, Mercedes following their example; and they waded on the quiet side; Mercedes rather timidly, the other children, who could swim a little, boldly. Old Mr. Bowdoin (who was looking on from above) shouted to them to know "if they had captured the island." "Grapes grow on the island," said Ann and Jane. Dolly was silent; Mercedes would have believed any fairy tale by now. And they started for it, Harley leading; but the tide was too high, and at the farther end of the little pebble isthmus the higher breakers actually came across and poured their foam into the clear stillness. Ann and Jane were afraid; even Dolly hesitated; as for Harley, he was stopped by discovering a beautiful new peg-top which had been cast up by the sea and was rolling around upon the outer beach. "Discoverers must be brave!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin from above. And Mercedes shut her eyes and made a dash through the yard of deeper water as the breaker on the other side receded. She grasped the rock by the seaweed and pulled herself up to where it was hot in the sun, and sat to look about her. There were numerous lovely little pink shells; and in the crevices above, some beautiful rock crystals, pink or white. Mercedes touched one, and found it came off easily. She put it to her lips. "Why, it's rock candy!" she exclaimed. There was an explosive chuckle from the old gentleman across the chasm, and the others swarmed across like Cabot and Pizarro after Columbus. "Remember, children, she's queen of the island to-day,--she got there first!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin, and went back to his spy-glass and his armchair. So that day Mercedes was queen; and her realm a real island, bounded by the real Atlantic, and Harley, at least, was her faithful subject. At the water's edge was great kelp, and barnacles, and jellyfish, all pink and purple; and on the summit was a little grove of juniper and savin bushes, with some wild flowers; and on the cedar branches grew most beautiful bunches of hothouse grapes. To be sure, they were tied on by a string. "'Tis grandpa's put them there," said Dolly, of superior knowledge already in the world's ways. "Sh! how mean to tell!" cried Harley. "And he puts rare shells upon the beach, and tops!" But Mercedes only thought how nice it was to have such a gentleman for grandfather; and when she got back to the little house on Salem Street she acted out all the play to an admiring audience. Jamie met her at the wharf and walked home with her. It was hot and stuffy in the city streets, but the flush of pleasure lasted well after she got home. And she told what soft linen they had had at dinner, and pink bowls to rinse their hands, and a man in a red waistcoat to wait upon them. "Isn't she wonderful! Just like a lady born," said Jamie. John Hughson, a neighbor, took his pipe from his mouth and nodded open-mouth assent. "And she talks a little Spanish, and can dance!" "It's time such little tots were in bed," said Mrs. Hughson, a large Yankee person, mother to John. "Just one dance first, Mercy; show the lady," said old Mrs. McMurtagh. But Mercedes was offended at being called a little tot, and pouted her lip. "Come here, dearie," said Jamie. She went to him; and while he held her with his left hand awkwardly, he pulled a tiny pair of gloves from his pocket. Mercedes seized them quickly, and kissed him for it. "Well, I never! Jamie, ye'll spoil the lassie," said his mother. But Jamie heeded not. "Now, dearie, dance that little Spanish dance for me, and you can wear the gloves next Sunday." But Mercedes looked up at Mrs. Hughson sullenly; then broke away from Jamie's arms and ran upstairs. And the laugh was at poor Jamie's expense. IX. Perhaps of all divisions of humanity the most fundamental would be that into the class which demands and the class which serves. The English-speaking race, despite all its desire to "better its condition," seems able to bear enlightenment as to all this world may give its fortunate ones, and yet continue contentedly to serve. Upon the Latin races such training acts like heady wine: loath to acquire new ideas, supine in intellectual inquiry, yet give them once the virus of knowledge and no distance blocks their immediate demand. Mercedes, who was thus given a high-school education and some few of the lonely luxuries of life, passed quickly beyond the circulating libraries in her demands for more. Given through her intellect the knowledge, her nature was quick to grasp. For kingdoms may be overthrown, declarations of independence be declared, legislatures legislate equality, and still--up to this time, at least--the children of democracy be educated, in free common schools, upon much the same plan that had been adopted by some Hannah More in bygone centuries for the only class that then was educated, daughters of the gentry, young ladies who aspired to be countesses, and to do it gracefully. Mercedes learned with her writing and reading, which are but edged tools, little of the art of using them. She was taught some figuring, which she never used in life; some English history, of which she assimilated but the meaning of titles and coronets; some mental philosophy, which her common sense rejected as inanely inapposite to the life at hand; some moral philosophy, which her very soul spewed forth; a little embroidery, music, and dancing; and a competent knowledge of reading French. When we consider what education and training her life required, the White Knight in Wonderland's collection of curiosities at his saddle-bow becomes by comparison a practical equipment. For guides in the practical conduct of life, she had been told to read two novels, "Mansfield Park" and "Clarissa." Then there were Mrs. Susannah Rawson's tales, Miss Catherine Sedgwick's, and "The Coquette." She had further privately endeavored to read the "Nouvelle Héloise" in French; but this bored her, and--one regrets to say--the unambitious though immoral heroine impressed her as an idiot. As a more up-to-date romance, she had acquired from a corner bookstore a lavishly pictured novel in octavo, entitled "The Ballet Girl's Revenge." She could not sew, nor wash, nor cook, nor keep house or even accounts. Not one faint notion had she of supporting herself. Domestic service she thought degrading, and she looked with a lofty scorn upon shop-girls. There were some dreadful women in a house close by; if Mercedes was conscious of their existence, it was as of women who were failures in that they played the right cards badly. She held her own pretty head the higher. For she soon discarded the ballet girl's biography. By the time she was fourteen, had made another visit to Nahant, and had once been asked to a Christmas party at the Boston house, she saw that aristocratic life could offer better things. She had an intense appreciation of the advantages so imperfectly exploited by these rich Bowdoins, her high acquaintance. And was it perhaps a justification of her way of education, after all, that little Harleston Bowdoin, like every male creature that she met, was fascinated, first by her face, then more by her manners, and most of all by what she said? Miss Mercy was sent to the girls' high school, and brought up in all ways after the manner of New England. Her looks were not of New England, however; and her dresses would show an edge of trimming or a ribbon that had a Spanish color, despite all Jamie's mother's Presbyterian repression. Then, a few years after, the old drayman died; and a beautiful piano appeared in the McMurtaghs' modest lodging. Mr. James discovered that the expensive Signor Rotoli, who was instructor to his own daughters, went afterwards to give lessons to Miss Mercy. Father and son wagged their heads together at the wisdom of this step; and Mr. James was deputed a committee of one to suggest the subject to Jamie McMurtagh. Old Mr. Bowdoin had ideas of his own about educating young women above their station, but he was considerably more afraid of Jamie than was Mr. James. The latter deemed it most politic to put the question on a basis of expense; but this was met by Jamie's allegation of a considerable saving in the family budget caused by old McMurtagh's decease and consequent total abstinence. Mr. James was mildly incredulous that the old drayman could have drunk enough to pay for a grand piano, and Jamie grew rusty. "Your father's stipeend is leeberal, young man, and I trust ye've deescovered nothing wrong in my accounts." Mr. James fled: had the familiar address been overheard by the old gentleman, Jamie's discharge had followed instantly. McMurtagh mopped his reddened face, and tried to enjoy his victory; but the ill-natured thrust about the accuracy of the accounts embittered many a sleepless night of his in after-years. X. Jamie McMurtagh still continued his rather sidelong gait as he walked twice daily up State Street to the Old Colony Bank, bearing in a rusty leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window. There were certain pensioners, mostly undeserving, who knew old Mr. Bowdoin's hours better than he did himself. It was funny to see old McMurtagh elbow these aside as he sidelonged up the street. There was an old drunken longshoreman; and a wood-chopper who never chopped wood; and a retired choreman discharged for cause by Mr. Bowdoin's wife; and another shady party, suspected by Mr. James, not without cause, of keeping in his more prosperous moments a modest farobank,--all of whom were sure enough of their shilling could they catch old Mr. Bowdoin in the office alone. If they waylaid him in the street, it annoyed him a little, and he would give them only ninepence. It was currently believed by Mr. James and Jamie that there was a combination among these gentry not to give away the source whence they derived this modest but assured income. Once there had been Homeric strife and outcry on the dusty wooden stairs; and Mr. James had rushed out only in time to see the longshoreman, in a moment of sober strength, ejecting with some violence a newcomer of appearance more needy than himself. It was suggested to Jamie by this that a similar but mutual exclusion might be effected, at least against the weaker couple of the primal four; but there was an honorable sense of property among these beggars, and they refused to fail in respect for each other's vested rights. But Jamie was most impatient of them, and would sometimes attempt to hold the counting-room by fraudulent devices, even after the old gentleman would get down town. It was after an attempt of this sort, ending in something like a row between Jamie and his master, that the two Bowdoins, father and son, stood now watching the clerk's progress up the street. A touch of sulkiness, left by his late down-putting, affected his gait, which was more crablike than usual. "An invaluable fellow, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin; "a very Caleb." "How Dickensy he is!" answered Mr. James, more familiar with the recent light literature just appearing. "A perfect bookkeeper! Not an error in twenty years!" "Do you notice he's rather looking younger?" "'Tis that little child he's adopted," said the old gentleman. "The poor fellow's got something to love. All men need that--and even a few women," he chuckled. Mr. Bowdoin was addicted to portentous cynicism against the sex, which he wholly disbelieved in. "The little child--yes," said Mr. James, more thoughtfully. "Do you know what he wants?" "He wants?" "She wants, I mean. Old Jamie came halting up to me yesterday, and ventured to suggest his Mercy might be invited to the dancing-class Mrs. Bowdoin is having for the children." "Whew!" said Mr. Bowdoin. "The old lady'll never stand it." "Never in the world," said Mr. James. "Upon my word, I don't know why not, though!" "I'm afraid she does, though!" "I'll ask her, anyhow. And, James, if I don't get to the office to-morrow, I'll write you her answer." "And have me tell poor Jamie," laughed Mr. James. "Well," said Mr. Bowdoin hastily, "you can say it's my letter--I'm late at the bank"-- The old gentleman hurried off; but his prediction proved well founded. Whether Mrs. Bowdoin had noticed the effect of pretty Mercedes upon young Harley, her grandson, or whether the claims of the pirate's daughter to social equality with the descendants of Salem privateersmen were to be negatived, she promptly replied that questions of social consideration rested with her alone. Mr. Bowdoin accepted the decision with no surprise; what pretty Miss Mercy said is unknown; but Jamie actually treated his employers for some weeks with an exaggerated deference in which there was almost a touch of sarcasm. "Poor old Jamie!" said Mr. James to his father. "How he adores the child!" McMurtagh was not five years older than himself,--he may have been forty at this period; but his little rosy face was prematurely wrinkled, and his gait was always so odd, and he had no young friends about town, nor seemed ever to have had any youth. Meantime Miss Mercy went on with her piano. She was graduated from the high school the next year, and then had nothing else to do. The same year, Master Harley went to college. And there occurred a thing which gave rise to much secret consultation among the Bowdoins. For every morning, upon the appearance of Mr. James, or more usually upon the later advent of Mr. Bowdoin, old Jamie would get off his high stool, where for many minutes he had made no entries upon the books (indeed, the entries already were growing fewer every year), and come with visible determination into the main office. There, upon being asked by Mr. Bowdoin what he wanted, he would portentously clear his throat; then, on being asked a second time, he would suddenly fall to poking the fire, and finally respond with some business question, an obvious and laborious invention of the moment. "It's either Mercy or his accounts," said Mr. James to his father. "His accounts--are sure to be all right," said the old gentleman. "Try him on the little lady." So the next day, to Jamie, Mr. James, just as his mouth was open about the last shipment from Bordeaux:-- "Well, what is it, Jamie? Something about Miss Mercedes?" "It's na aboot the lassie, but I'm thinkin' young Master Harleston is aye coming to tha hoose abune his needs," said Jamie, taken off his guard, in broadest Scotch. And he mopped his face; the conflict between love and loyalty had been exhausting. "Harley Bowdoin? Dear me!" cried Mr. James. "How far has it gone?" "It canna go too far for the gude o' the young man," said Jamie testily. "But I was bound to tell ye, and I ha' done so." "Does he go to your house,--Salem Street?" Jamie nodded. "He's aye there tha Fridays." "Dancing-class nights," muttered Mr. James. Then he remembered that Abby, his wife, had spoken of their nephew's absence. He was studying so hard, it had been said. "Thank you, Jamie. I'll see to it. Thank you very much, Jamie." Jamie turned to go. "Has Miss Mercy--has Miss McMurtagh encouraged him?" Jamie turned back angrily. "She'll forbid the lad tha hoose, an ye say so." Mr. James seized his hat and fled precipitately, leaving Jamie glowering at the grate. On his way up the street he met his father, and took him into the old Ship tavern to have a glass of flip; and then he told the story. Mr. Bowdoin took his hat off to rub his forehead with his old bandanna, thereby setting fluttering a pair of twenty-thousand-dollar notes he had just discounted. "Dear me! I'll tell Harley not to go there any more. Poor old Jamie!" "Better ship the rascal to Bordeaux," said Mr. James, picking up the notes. "And have him lose his course in college?" "What good did that do us? We were rusticated most of the time, as he has just been"-- "Speak for yourself, young man!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Haven't I a copy of the verses you addressed to Miss Sally White when you were rusticated under Parson White at Clapboardtrees?" An allusion to Miss White always tickled the old gentleman; and father and son parted in high good humor. Only, Mr. James thought wise to inform Mrs. Harleston Bowdoin of what had happened. And some days after, Mr. James, coming to the office, found fair Miss Mercedes in full possession. The old gentleman was visibly embarrassed. The lady was quite at her ease. "I've been telling this young lady she must not take to breaking hearts so soon," he explained. "Haven't I, my dear?" "Yes, sir," said Miss Mercedes demurely. "And he doesn't know his own mind--and he hasn't been to see her for--how long was it, Mercy?" "A week, sir." "For a week. And she'll not see him again--not until"-- "Not at all, if it's displeasing to you, sir." "Displeasing to me? Dear me! you're a nice girl, I'm sure. Wasn't it fair and square in the child to come down here? I wonder you weren't afraid!" "I'm not afraid of anything, Mr. Bowdoin!" "Dear me! not afraid of anything!" Mr. Bowdoin chuckled. "Now I'm afraid of Mrs. Harleston Bowdoin! Do you mean to say you'd walk into--into a bank all alone?" "Yes, sir, if I had business there." "Business! here's business for you!" and the old gentleman, still chuckling, scratched off a check. "Here, take this up to the Old Colony Bank,--you know, where your father goes every day,--and if you'll dare go in and present it for the money, it is yours! You've got some music or fal-lals to buy, I'll be bound. Does old Jamie give you an allowance? He ought to make a big allowance for your eyes! Now get off, my dear, before he sees you here." And Mercedes escaped, with one quick glance at Mr. James, who sank into a chair and looked at his father quizzically. "Upon my word," said the old gentleman, rubbing his spectacles nervously, "she's a nice, well-mannered girl. I don't know why it wouldn't do." "I guess Mrs. Harleston does," laughed Mr. James. "We were all journeymen or countrymen a hundred years ago." But when Mr. Harleston's mamma heard of these revolutionary sentiments she put her foot down. And Master Harley (who had conveniently been dropped a year from Harvard) was sent to learn French bookkeeping in the simpler civilization of Bordeaux. XI. There were friends about Miss Mercy none too sorry to witness the discomfiture of this lofty aspirant. Poor Jamie, I fear, got some cross looks for his share in the matter; and tears, which were harder still to bear. John Hughson, who was a prosperous young teamster, began to come in again, and take his pipe of an evening with Jamie. He no longer sat in his shirt-sleeves, and was in other ways much improved. Mercedes was gracious to him evenings; indeed, it was her nature to be gracious to all men. She had a way of looking straight at them with kind eyes, her lips slightly parted, her smile just showing the edges of both upper and under teeth; so that you knew not whether it was sweeter to look at her eyes or her lips, and were lost in the effort to decide. So one day Hughson felt emboldened to ask if he might bear her company to church on Sunday. And Miss Sadie,--as now they called her, for she objected to the name of Mercy, and nothing but Sadie could her friends make out of Mercedes,--Sadie, to please McMurtagh, consented. But when the Sunday came, poor Hughson, who looked well enough in week-day clothes, became, to her quick eye, impossible in black. "You see, Sadie, I am bright and early, to be your beau." There is a fine directness about courtship in Hughson's class,--it puts the dots upon the _i_'s; but Sadie must have preferred them dotless, for she said, "My name is not Sadie." "Mercy." "Nor Mercy." "Mer--Mercedes, then." "Nor Mercedes alone." "Well, Miss McMurtagh, though I've known you from a child." A shrug of Mercedes' pretty shoulders implied that this might be the last passport to her acquaintance as a woman. "Mr. McMurtagh is not my father. My name is Silva." "Oho! all the Italian fruit-dealers are named Silva!" "If you're rude, I'll not go to church with you," said Miss Silva demurely. Hughson was clumsily repentant. But the young lady would not go to the King's Chapel (where she had lately affected an interest; it was the Bowdoins' church), but led him to still older Christ Church, at the northern end of the town. Here, in those ante-Episcopalian days, were scarce a dozen worshipers; and you might have a square, dock-like pew all to yourself, turn your back upon the minister, and gaze upon the painted angels blowing gilded trumpets in the gallery. It must be confessed that Hughson had little conversation; and as they walked back, through Hanover Street, among crowds of young women, none so neatly dressed as she, and men less respectable than honest Hughson, Mercedes was conscious of a void within her life. In the afternoon she shut herself in her room and had a crying spell; at least so Jamie feared, as he tiptoed by her door, in apprehension of her sobs. Her piano had grown silent of late. What use was a piano among such as Hughson? So Jamie and the rising teamster sat in the kitchen and discussed the situation over pipes. "The poor child ought to have some company," said Jamie. Hughson felt this a reflection upon him, and answered but with harder puffs. "What she wants," said he at last, "is society. A good nice dancing-party, now?" Jamie shook his head. "We've no acquaintance among gay people." "Gay people?" Hughson elevated his brow. The phrase, with him, was synonymous with impropriety. "No; but there's my training-company ball, now; it's given in Union Street hall; gentlemen a dollar, ladies fifty cents. Each gentleman can bring two ladies. Why not let me take her there?" "I'm sure it's very kind of you, John," said Jamie. He felt a pang that he, too, could not take Mercedes to balls. "It's not like one o' them Tremont Street balls, you know," said Hughson proudly. Secretly he thought it a very fine affair. The governor was to be there, and his aides-de-camp, in gold lace. Mercedes went to the ball when the night came, but only stayed an hour. She knew very few of the other girls. Her dress was a yellow muslin, modestly open at the throat, and she could see them eying it. None of the other women wore low-necked gowns, but they wore more pretentious dresses, with more of ornament, and Mercedes felt they did not even know in how much better taste was she. But John Hughson was in a most impossible blue swallow-tail with brass buttons,--the sort of thing, indeed, that Webster had worn a few years before, only Hughson was not fitted for it. She suspected he had hired it for the evening, in the hope of pleasing her, for she saw that he had to bear some chaff about it from his friends. One of the colonels of the staff, with plumed hat and a sword, came and was introduced to her. In a sense she made a conquest of him, for he tried clumsily to pay his court to her, but not seriously. Nothing that yet had happened in her little life had enraged Miss Mercedes as did this. She inly vowed that some day she would remember the man, to cut him. And so she had Hughson take her home. Poor Hughson felt that his evening had been a failure, and rashly ventured on some chances of rebuff from her as the two walked home,--chances of which Miss Mercedes was cruel enough to avail herself to the full. The honest fellow was puzzled by it, for even he knew that Mercedes' only desire in going to the ball was to be admired, and admiration she had had. John was too simple to make fine discriminations in male deference, but he judged more rightly the feminine opinion of her looks and manners than did Miss Mercedes herself. They had thought her too fine for them--as she had wished. After all her democratic education, social consideration was the one ambition that had formed in pretty Mercedes' mind. Her desire for this was as real in the form it took with men as in the form it took with other women; as clear the outcome of the books and reading given her as of the training given any upper servant in a London suburb, patterned on a lady mistress. Mercedes had no affections; she was as careless of religion as a Yankee boy; this desire alone she had of self-esteem above her fellow-creatures, especially those of her own sex and age. Her education had not gone to the point of giving her higher enjoyment,--poetry, art, happiness of thought. Even her piano-playing was but an adornment. She never played for her own pleasure; and what was the use of practicing now? This New World life has got reduced to about three motives, like the three primary colors; one is rather surprised that so few can blend in so many shades of people. Money-getting, love of self, love,--is not that quite all? Yet poor Jamie and Mercedes, who was nearest to him, did not happen in the same division. Hughson, perhaps, made even the third. Yet a woman who holds herself too fine for her world will get recognition, commonly, from it. To honest Hughson, lying unwontedly awake and thinking of the evening's chances and mischances, now in a hot fit, now in a cold fit, of something like to love, such a creature as Mercedes, as she lightly hung upon his arm that evening, had never yet appeared. She was an angel, a being apart, a fairy,--any crude simile that occurs to honest plodding men of such young girls. John took the _distrait_ look for dreamy thought; her irresponsiveness for ethereal purity; her moodiness for superiority of soul. She imposed herself on him now, as she had done before on Jamie, as deserving a higher life than he could give her. This is what a man terms being in love, and then would wish, _quand même_, to drag his own life into hers! One day, some weeks after this, Mr. James Bowdoin, on coming down to the little office on the wharf rather later than usual, went up the stairs, more than ever choky with that spicy dust that was the mummy-like odor of departed trade, and divined that the cause thereof was in the counting-room itself, whence issued sounds of much bumping and falling, as if a dozen children were playing leap-frog on the floor. Jamie McMurtagh was seated on the stool in the outer den that was called the bookkeeper's, biting his pen, with even a sourer face than usual. "Good-morning, Jamie," said he cheerily. "Good-morning, Mr. James." Jamie always greeted glumly, but there was a touch of tragedy in him this morning that was more than manner. James Bowdoin looked at him sharply. "Can I--has anything"--He was interrupted by a series of tremendous poundings that issued from the counting-room within. The entrance door was closed. Young Mr. Bowdoin cocked his thumb at it. "How many children has the governor got in there to-day?" "One, sir," grunted Jamie. "One child? Great heavens! who makes all that noise?" "Mr. Bowdoin do the most of it, sir," said Jamie solemnly. "I have been waiting, sir, to see him mysel' since"--Jamie looked gravely at his watch--"since the half after twal'. But he does not suffer being interrupted." James Bowdoin threw himself on a chair and laughed. "Who is it?" "It'll be your Miss Abby, I'm thinkin'." "The imp! I stopped her week's money for losing her hat this morning, and she's got ahead of me and come down to get it of the governor." There was a sudden and mysterious silence in the inner room. James Bowdoin looked at Jamie, and noted again his expression. "What's the matter, Jamie? Have you anything to tell me?" "It's for Mr. Bowdoin's private ear, Mr. James," said Jamie testily. "Oh, ah! in that case I'll go in and see." James threw the door open. Old Mr. Bowdoin was standing, still puffing, in front of the fire, evidently quite breathless. In the corner by the window, too rapt to notice her father's entrance, sat Miss Abby, intently gazing into a round glass crystal that, with a carved ebony frame, formed one of the Oriental ornaments of the counting-room. "I trust we are not disturbing important business, sir?" said Mr. James the younger dryly. "Sh, sh! Abby, my dear, don't take your eyes out of it for twenty minutes, and you'll see the soldiers." And the old gentleman winked at James and Jamie, and became still purpler with laughter that was struggling to be heard. "As for that child of mine"-- "Psst! h'sh!" and Mr. Bowdoin snapped his fingers in desperation at his uncomprehending son. "Never mind them, dear!" he cried to the child. "Only look steady; don't take your eyes out of it for twenty minutes, and you're sure to see the armies fighting! The most marvelous idea, and all my own," he said, as he slammed the door behind him. "Crystal-gazing, for keeping children quiet,--nothing beats it!" "I thought, sir, you were both in need of it. But Jamie here has something to say to you." "What is it--Jamie? No more trouble about that ship Maine Lady? D--n the British collier tramps! and she as fine a clipper as ever left Bath Bay. Well, send her back in ballast; chessmen and India shawls, I suppose, as usual"-- "It's about Mercedes, sir." "Oh, ah!" Mr. Bowdoin's brow grew grave. "She will not marry John Hughson, sir." "Now, Jamie, how the devil am I to make her?" XII. John Hughson took his rejection rather sullenly, and Mercedes was more than ever alone in the old house. She never had had intimate companions among the young women of the neighborhood, and now they put the stigma of exclusion upon her. They envied her rejection of a serious suitor such as John. It was rumored the latter was taking to liquor, and she was blamed for it. Women often like to have others say yes to the first man who comes, and not leave old love affairs to cumber the ground. And girls, however loving to their friends, have but a cold sympathy for their sex in general. One person profited by it, and that was old Jamie. He urged Mercedes nearly every day to alter her decision, and she seemed to like him for it. Always, now, one saw her walking with him; he became her ally against a disapproving world. The next thing that happened was, Jamie's mother fell very ill. He had to sit with her of nights; and she would look at him fondly (she was too old and weak to speak much), as if he had been any handsome heir. Mercedes would sit with them sometimes, and then go into her parlor, where she would try to play a little, and then, as they supposed, would read. But books, before these realities of life, failed her. What she really did I hardly know. She wrote one letter to young Harleston Bowdoin, and he answered it; and then a second, which was still unanswered. One night "the mother" spoke to Jamie of the girl: "'Tis a comely lass. I suppose you're proud you were adopting her?" Old Jamie's face was always red as a winter apple, but his eyes blushed. "Anybody'd 'a' done that, mither,--such a lady as she is!" "What'll ye be doin' of her after I'm gone? The pirate father'll come a-claimin' of her." Jamie looked as if the pirate captain then might meet his match. "Jamie, my son--have ye never thought o' marryin' her your own sel'? I'd like to see you with a wife before I go." There was no doubt that Jamie was blushing now. "Do ye no love the lass enough?" "I"--Jamie stopped himself. "I am too old, mither, and--and too queer." "Too old! too queer! There's not a better son than my Jamie in all the town. I'd like to see a better, braver boy make claim! And if you seem old, it's through tending of your old forbears. Whatever would the lassie want, indeed!" "Good heavens! I've never asked her, mither," said Jamie. The old woman looked fondly at her boy. "Ask her, then, Jamie; ask her, and give her the chance. She's a daft creature, but bonny; and you love her, I see." Jamie pinched up his rosy features and squirmed upon his chair. "Can I do anything for ye, mither? Then I think I'll go out and take a bit o' pipe in the streets with John Hughson." "John Hughson, indeed!" snorted the old woman, and set her face to the wall. But Jamie did not go near John Hughson. He rambled alone about the city streets, and it was late at night before he came back. Late as it was, there was a light behind Mercedes' window-shade, and he walked across the street and watched it, until a policeman, coming by, stopped and asked him who he was.--But the virus took possession of him and spread. The Bowdoins, father and son, noted that their old clerk's dress was sprucer. He was more than ever seen with Miss Mercedes, and she seemed to like him better than before. Women who are to all men fascinating must have a subtle instinct for perceiving it, a half-conscious liking for it. Else why do not they stop it sooner? But Jamie had never admitted it to himself. Perhaps because he loved her better than himself. He judged his own pretensions solely from her interest. Marriages were fewer did all men so. Still a year went by, and no other man seemed near Mercedes. Then the old mother died. To Mercedes, life seemed always going into mourning for elderly people. They went on living, she and Jamie, as before. He had got to be so completely accepted as her adoptive father that to no one, not even the Bowdoins, had the situation raised a question; to Mercedes least of all. With such natures as hers, there also goes instinctive knowledge of how far male natures, most widely different, may be trusted. But Jamie had thought it over many times. Until one morning, James Bowdoin and his father, coming to the counting-room, found Jamie with a face of circumstance. He had on his newest clothes; his boots were polished; and his hair, already somewhat gray, was carefully brushed. "What is it, Jamie? Have you come for a vacation?" said Mr. Bowdoin. "Vacation!" sniffed Jamie. Once, many years before, he had been given a week off, and had gone to Nantasket; but his principal diversion had been to take the morning steamboat thence to the city, and gaze into the office windows from the wharf. "It is something about pretty Miss Sadie, I'll be bound." "You are always right, sir," said Jamie quietly. His eyes were very bright; he was almost young-looking; and his manner had a certain dignity. "And I beg you, sir, for leave to ask your judgment." Mr. Bowdoin motioned Jamie to a chair. And it marked his curious sense that he was treating as man to man that for the first and only time within that office Jamie took it. "Mercedes." Jamie lingered lovingly over the name. "I have tried my best, sir. I have made her--nay, she was one--like a lady. You would not let her marry Master Harley." "I never"--the old gentleman interrupted. Jamie waved his hand. "They would not, I mean, sir. She will not marry John Hughson. You are a gentleman, sir, and could tell me if I--would be taking an unfair advantage--if I asked her--to marry--me. I am sure--I love her enough." Jamie dropped his voice quickly on the last words, so that they were inaudible to Mr. James Bowdoin, who had suddenly laughed. Old Mr. Bowdoin turned angrily upon his son. But Jamie's face had turned to white. He rose respectfully. "Don't say anything, sir. I have had my answer." "Forgive me, Mr. McMurtagh," said James Bowdoin the younger. "I'm sure she could not have a kinder husband. But"-- "Don't explain, Mr. James." "But--after all, why not ask her?" "Nay, nay," said Jamie, "I'll not ask the child. I would not have her make a mistake, as I see it would be." "But, Jamie," said Mr. James kindly, "what will you do? She can hardly go on living in your home." "Not in my home? Where else has the child a home?" There are certain male natures that fight crying. An enemy who looks straight at you with tears in his eyes is not to be contended with. And Jamie stood there, blushing fiery red, with flashing eyes, and tears streaming down his cheeks. "James Bowdoin, you're a d----d fool!" sputtered his irate sire. "You talk as your wife might talk. This is an affair of men. Jamie," he added very gently, "you are quite right. My boy's an ass." He put his hand on Jamie's shoulder. "You'll find some fine young fellow to marry her yet, and she'll bring you--grandchildren." "I may--I need hardly ask you to forget this?" said Jamie timidly, and making hastily for the door. "Of course; and she shall stay in her old home where she was bred from a child, and, d----n 'em, my grandchildren shall go to see her there"--But the door had closed. "James Bowdoin, if my son, with his d----d snicker, were one half so good a gentleman as that old clerk, I'd trust him with--with an earl's daughter," said the old gentleman inconsequently, and violently rubbing a tingling nose. "I think you're right, governor," said James Bowdoin. "Did you notice how spruced up and young the poor fellow was? I wish to goodness I hadn't laughed, though. He might have married the girl. Why not? How old is he?" "Why not? Ask her. He may be forty, more or less." "What a strange thing to have come into the old fellow's life! And we thought it would give him something to care for! I never fancied he loved her that way." "I don't believe now he loves her so much _that_ way--as--as he loves her," said old Mr. Bowdoin, as if vaguely. "She isn't worth him." "She's really quite beautiful. I never saw a Spanish girl before with hair of gold." "Pirate gold," said old Mr. Bowdoin. PART TWO: ROBBERY. I. No plummet ever sank so deep as Jamie sank the thoughts of those few months. No oblivion more vast than where he buried it. No human will so strong as that he bent upon it, bound it down with. No sin absolved was ever so forgotten. One wonders if Jamie, at the day of judgment even, will remember it. Perhaps 'twill then be no more the sin he thought it. For Jamie's nature, like that of spiny plants, was sensitive, delicate within, as his outer side was bent and rough; and he fancied it, first, a selfishness; then, as his lonely fancy got to brooding on it, an actual sin. James Bowdoin's unlucky laugh had taught him how it seemed to others; and was not inordinate affection, to the manifest injury of the object loved, a sin? Jamie felt it so; and he had the Prayer Book's authority therefor. "Inordinate and sinful affections,"--that is the phrase; both are condemned. But he kept it all the closer from Mercedes. It did not grow less; he had no heart to cease loving. Manlike, he was willing to face his God with the sin, but not her. He sought to change the nature of his love; perhaps, in time, succeeded. But all love has a mystic triple root; you cannot unravel the web, on earth at least. Religious, sexual, spiritual,--all are intertwined. Jamie and Mercedes lived on in the little brick house, as he had promised. Only one thing the Bowdoins noticed: he now dressed and talked and acted like a man grown very old. His coats were different again; his manner was more eccentric than ever. His hair helped him a little, for it really grew quite white. He asked Mercedes now to call him father. "Jamie is posing as a patriarch," said Mr. Bowdoin; he smiled, and then he sighed. Old Mr. Bowdoin did not forget his promise to have his granddaughters call upon Mercedes. Now and then they sent her tickets for church fairs. But it takes more love than most women have for each other to give the tact, the self-abnegation, that such unequal relations, to be permanent, require. The momentary gush of sympathy that the Bowdoin girls felt, upon their grandfather's account of Sadie's loneliness, was chilled at the first haughty word Mercedes gave them. It takes an older nature, more humbled by living than is an American young lady's, to meet the poor in money without patronizing, and the proud at heart without seeming rude. So this attempted intimacy faded. Jamie gave his life to her. His manner at the office altered: he became proud and reserved. More wonderful still, he shortened his time of attendance; not that he was inattentive while there, but he no longer observed unnecessary hours, as he had been wont to do, after the bank closed; as soon as Mr. James Bowdoin left, he would lock up the office and go himself. His life was but waiting upon Mercedes. When he was in the office he would sit twiddling his thumbs. The pretense at bookkeeping, unreal bookkeeping, he abandoned. The last old ship, the Maine Lady, had served him in good stead for many years; he had double-entered, ledgered, and balanced her simple debits and credits like a stage procession. But now he made no fiction about the vanished business. It was characteristic of Jamie that still he did not hanker for more money. He recognized his adopted daughter's need for sympathy, for emotions, even for love, if you will; but yet it did not occur to him that he might earn more money. His salary was ample, and out of it he had made some savings. And Mercedes had that impatience of details, that _ennui_ of money matters, that even worldly women show, who care for results, not processes. It had always been the custom of the McMurtagh family to pass the summers, like the winters, in the little house on Salem Street; but this year Jamie rented a cottage at Nantasket. He told the Bowdoins nothing of this move until they asked him about it, observing that he regularly took the boat. To Jamie it was the next thing to Nahant, which was of course out of the question. But the queer old clerk was not fitted to shine in any society, and Mercedes found it hard to make her way alone. They wandered about the beach, and occasionally to the great hotel when there was a hop, of evenings, and listened to the bands; but Mercedes' beauty was too striking and her manners were too independent to inspire quick confidence in the Nantasket matrons; while Jamie missed his pipe and shirt-sleeves after supper. He had asked, and been forbidden, to invite John Hughson down to stay. Still less would Sadie have her girl acquaintances; and all Salem Street's kindliest feelings were soured in consequence. There was an invitation from Nahant that summer, but it seemed, to Mercedes' quick sense, formal, and she would not go. She had had her piano moved down "to the beach," at much expense; and for a week she played in the afternoons. But even this accomplishment brought her no notice. People would look at her in passing, and then, more curiously, at her foster-father: that was all. Mercedes, in her youth, could not realize how social confidence is a plant of slow growth. The young girls of the place were content with saying she "was not in their set;" the young men who desired her acquaintance must seek it surreptitiously, and this Mercedes would not have. The people of the great hotel were a more mixed set, and among them our couple was much discussed. Something got to be known of Jamie,--that he was confidential clerk to the well-known firm of Boston's older ship-owners, and that she was his adopted daughter. Soon the rumor grew that he was miserly and rich. Poor Jamie! He thought more of all these things than Mercedes ever supposed. What could he do to give her friends of her own age? What could he do to find her lovers, a husband? McMurtagh slept not nights for thinking on these things. John Hughson he now saw to be impossible; Harley Bowdoin was out of the question; but were there not still genteel youths, clerks like himself, but younger, some class of life for his petted little lady? Jamie had half-thoughts of training some nice lad to be fit for her,--Jamie earned money amply; of training him, too, to take his place and earn his salary. Every discontented look in Mercedes' lovely face went to Jamie's heartstrings. One day, going home by the usual boat, he saw his dear girl waiting for him on the wharf. It always lightened Jamie's heart when she did this, and he hurried down to the gangplank, to be among the first ashore and save her waiting. But as he stepped upon it he saw that she was talking to a gentleman. There was a little heightened color in her cheeks; she was not watching the passengers in the boat. Jamie turned aside through the crowd to walk up the road alone. He looked over his shoulder, and saw that they were following. When nearly at their cottage, he turned about irresolutely and met them. Mercedes, with a word of reproach for walking home alone (at which Jamie's old eyes opened), introduced him: "Mr. David St. Clair--my father." "I made Miss McMurtagh's acquaintance at the Rockland House last night,--she plays so beautifully." Then Jamie remembered that he had gone out to smoke his pipe upon the piazza. He looked at the newcomer. St. Clair was dressed expensively, in what Jamie thought the highest fashion. He wore kid gloves and a high silk hat; he had a white waistcoat and a very black mustache. Mercedes had blushed again when she presented him, and suddenly there was a burst of envy in poor Jamie's heart. II. No girl, before she came to love, ever scrutinized a suitor so closely as old Jamie did St. Clair. The little old Scotch clerk was quicker far to see the first blossoms of love in her heart than Mercedes herself, than any mother could have been, for each one bore a pang for him; and he, who had renounced, and then set his heart to share each feeling with her, who had wanted but her confidence, wanted but to share with her as some girl might her heart histories, now found himself far outstripping her in conscious knowledge. He did not realize the impossibility of the sympathy he dreamed. He had fondly thought his man's love a justification for that intimacy from which, in natures like Mercedes', even a mother's love is excluded. All Jamie's judgment was against the man, and yet his heart was in touch with hers to feel its stirring for him. The one told him he was not respectable; the other that he was romantic. His career was shadowy, like his hair. In those days still a mustache bore with it some audacity, and gave a man who frankly lived outside the reputable callings something of the buccaneer. St. Clair called himself a gentleman, but did not pretend to be a clerk, and frankly avowed that he was not in trade. Jamie could not make him out at all. He hoped, indeed, he was a gentleman. Had he been in the old country, he could have credited it better; but gentlemen without visible means of support were, in those days, unusual in Boston. Poor Jamie watched his daughter like any dowager, that summer. But the consciousness of his own sin (for so now he always thought of it) troubled him terribly. How could he urge his lady to repel the advances of this man without being open to the charge of selfishness, of jealousy? Jamie forgot that the girl had never known he loved her. He made feeble attempts to egg on Hughson. The honest teamster was but a lukewarm lover. His point of view was that the girl looked down upon him, and this chilled his passion. He had come to own his teams now. He never drove them. He was a capitalist, an employer of labor; and, at Jamie's request, he came down one night, in black broadcloth and red-handed, to pass the night. But it did not work. When Mr. St. Clair called in the evening, he adopted a tone of treating both Jamie and Hughson as elderly pals, so that the latter lost his temper, and, as Mercedes claimed, insulted his elegant rival. Then Jamie bade Hughson to come no more, for his love for Mercedes was so true that he felt in his heart why St. Clair appealed more to hers. But the summer was a long and anxious one, and he was glad when it was over and they were back in Salem Street. They had made no other acquaintance at Nantasket. "Society" to Jamie remained a sealed book. Clever Mercedes was not clever enough to see he knew she blamed him for it. St. Clair only laughed. "These people are nobody," said he; and he talked of fashionable and equipaged friends he had known in other places. Where? Jamie suspected, race-courses; his stories of them bore usually an equine flavor. But he was not a horse-dealer; his hands were too white for that. Poor old Mr. Bowdoin had had a hangdog feeling with old Jamie ever since that day his son had laughed. He had dared criticise nothing he noticed at the office, and Jamie grew more crusty and eccentric every day. James Bowdoin was less indulgent, and soon saw that something new was in the wind. But the last thing that both expected was a demand on Jamie's part for an increased salary. Jamie made it respectfully, with his hat off, twirling in his hand, and the Bowdoins eyed him. "It isna that I'm discontented with the place or the salary in the past," said Jamie, "but our expenses are increasing. I have rented a house in Worcester Square." "In Worcester Square? And the one in Salem Street?" "'Tis too small for me family needs," said Jamie. "I have sold it." "Too small?" "Me daughter is about to be married," said Jamie reluctantly. "Dear me!" exclaimed the Bowdoins in a breath. "May we congratulate her?" "Ye may do as ye like," said Jamie. "'Tis one Mr. David St. Clair,--a gentleman, as he tells me." "Is he to live with you, then?" "Yes, sir. He wants work--that is"--Jamie hesitated. "He has no occupation?" Jamie was visibly irritated. "If I bring the gentleman down, ye may ask him your ain sel'." "No, no," said Mr. James. "That is, we should, of course, be glad to meet the gentleman at any time. What is his name?" "David St. Clair." "David Sinclair," repeated the old gentleman. "Mercedes Silva," said Mr. James musingly. "McMurtagh, if you please," said Jamie. "Jamie," said old Mr. Bowdoin, "our business is going away. The steamers will ruin it. For a long time there has not been enough to occupy a man of your talents. And the old bookkeeper at the bank--the Old Colony Bank--has got to resign. I've already asked the place for you. The salary is--more than we here can afford to pay you. In fact, we may close the counting-room." Jamie rubbed his nose and shifted his feet. "Ta business is a goot business, and t' firm is a fine old firm." It was evident he was in the throes of unexpressed affection. In all his life he had never learned to express it. "Ye'll na be closing the old counting-room?" "I may come down here every day or so, just to keep my trusts up. I'll use it for a writing-room; it's near the bank"-- "An' I'll come down an' keep the books for you, sir," said Jamie; and the "sir" from his lips was like a caress from another man. III. Jamie took his place on the high stool behind the great ledgers of the Old Colony Bank, and the house on Worcester Square was even bought, with his savings and the price of the house on Salem Street. Only one thing Jamie flatly refused, and that was to permit Mercedes' marriage until St. Clair had some visible means of support. She pouted at this and was cruel; but for once the old clerk was inflexible, even to her. Mercedes would perhaps have married against his will, but Mr. St. Clair had his reason for submitting. And that gentleman was particular in his choice of occupation, and Mercedes yet more particular for him. The class of which St. Clair came is a peculiar one, hardly known to the respectable world, less known then than now; and yet it has often money, kindliness, reputability even, among its members: they marry and have children among their own class; they are not church-going, but yet they are not criminal. As actor families maintain themselves for many generations (not the stars, but the ordinary histrionic families; you will find most of the names on the playbills to-day that were there in the last century, neither above nor below their old position), so there are sporting families who live in a queer, not unprosperous world of their own, marry and bring up children, and leave money and friends behind them when they die. And Sinclair came of people such as these. "St. Clair" was his own invention. Of course Jamie did not know it, nor did Mercedes; and in fact he was honestly in love with her, to the point of changing his way of life to one of routine and drudgery. But no place could be found (save, indeed, a retail grocer's clerkship), and Mercedes began to grow worried, and occasionally to cry. St. Clair spent his evenings at the house; and at such times Jamie would wander helplessly about the streets. St. Clair's one idea was to be employed about the bank, to become a banker. Had he been competent to keep the books, I doubt not Jamie would have given them up to him. Great is the power of persuasion backed by love, even in a bent old Scotchman. Will it be believed, Jamie teased and schemed and promoted until he made a vacancy of the place of messenger, and got it for his son-in-law. Perhaps old Mr. Bowdoin had ever had a slight feeling of remorse since he had seen nipped in the bud that affair with young Harleston. He did not approve of the present match. Yet he fancied the bridegroom might be a safer spouse with a regular occupation and a coat more threadbare than he habitually wore. Nothing now stood in the way of the marriage; and it took place with some _éclat_,--in King's Chapel, indeed, with all the Bowdoins, even to Mrs. Abby. Jamie gave the bride away. Hughson (to Mercedes' relief) took it a bit rusty and would not come. Then the pair went on a wedding journey to Niagara and Trenton Falls; and old Jamie, the day after the ceremony, came down looking happier than he had seemed for years. There was a light in his lonely old face; it comes rarely to us on earth, but, by one who sees it, it is not forgotten. Old Mr. Bowdoin saw it; and, remembering that interview scarce two years gone by, his nose tingled. It is rare that natures with such happy lives as his are so "dowered with the love of love." But when old Jamie looked at him, he but asked some business question; and Jamie marveled that the old gentleman blew his nose so hard and damned the weather so vigorously. When the St. Clairs came back, Jamie moved to an upper back room, and gave them the rest of the new house. Mercedes was devotedly in love with her husband. She would have liked to meet people, if but to show him to them. But she knew no one worthy save the Bowdoins, and they did not get on with him. His own social acquaintance, of which he had boasted somewhat, appeared to be in other cities. And _ennui_ (which causes more harm in the world than many a more evil passion) began imperceptibly to take possession of him. However, they continued to live on together. St. Clair was fairly regular at his work; and all went well for more than a year. IV. No year, probably, of James McMurtagh's life had he been so happy. It delighted him to let St. Clair away early from the bank; and to sit alone over the ledgers, imagining St. Clair's hurrying home, and the greeting kiss, and the walk they got along the shells of the beach before supper, with the setting sun slanting to them over the wide bay from the Brookline hills. When they took the meal alone, it delighted Jamie to sit at Mercy's right and have her David help him; or, when they had "company," it pleased the old man almost as much to stay away and think proudly of them. Such times he would sit alone on the Common and smoke his pipe, and come home late and let himself in with his latch-key, and steal up quickly to his own bedroom at the top of the house. Now that he was so happy, and had left his old friends the Bowdoins, a wave of unconscious affection for them spread over his soul. Under pretext of keeping their accounts straight--which now hardly needed balancing even once a month--old Jamie would edge down to the counting-room upon the wharf, after hours, or even for a few minutes at noontime (perhaps sacrificing his lunch therefor), to catch old Mr. Bowdoin at his desk and chat with him (under plea of some omitted entry needing explanation), and tell him how well David was doing, and Mercedes so happy, and what company they had had to tea the night before. So that one day Mr. Bowdoin even ventured to give him a golden bracelet young Harleston Bowdoin had sent, soon after the wedding, from France; and Jamie took it without a murmur. "Ah, 'tis a pity, sir, ye din't keep the old house up, for the sake of the young gentlemen, if nothing more," said he; and "Ah, Jamie," was Mr. Bowdoin's reply, "it's all dirty coal-barges now; the old house would not know its way about in steamers. We'll have to take to banking, like yourself and Sinclair there." Jamie laughed with pleasure, and father and son went each to a window to watch him as he sidled up the street. "Caroline never would have stood it," said the old man. "Neither would Abby," said the younger one. "Yet you made me marry her;" and they both chuckled. It was the habit of the Bowdoin males to marry them to women without a sense of humor, and then to take a mutual delight in the consequences. "You only married her to get a house," said the old man. (This was the inexhaustible joke they shared against Mrs. Abby that in nearly twenty years had never failed to rouse her serious indignation.) "I saw her coming out of that abolitionist meeting yesterday." "That's cousin Wendell Phillips got her into that," said Mr. James. "Old Jamie was there, too." "Old Jamie has got so much love to spare that it spills around," said Mr. Bowdoin, "even on comfortable niggers just decently clothed. That's not your wife's trouble." To which the son had no other repartee than "James!" drawled in the solemn bass of amazed indignation that his mother's voice assumed when goaded into speech by his father's sallies. It was his boast that "Abby" never yet had ventured to address him thus. And so this precious pair separated; the father going home to his grandchildren, and the son to the club for his afternoon rubber of whist. They still took life easy in the forties. Why was it that old Jamie, who should by rights have had his heart broken, was happier than fortunate David? Both loved the same woman; and no tenor hero ever loved so deeply as old Jamie, and he had lost her. But he came of the humble millions that build the structure of human happiness silently, by countless, uncounted little acts. David was of the ephemera, the pleasure-loving insects. Now these will settle for a time; but race will tell, and they are not the race of quiet labor. One almost wonders, in these futureless times, that so many of the former still remain. For the profession of pleasure is so easy, so remunerative; even of money it often has no lack. St. Clair came of a family that, from horse-racing, bar-keeping, betting, had found money easier to get than ever had Jamie's people, and (when they had chosen to invest it) had invested it in less reputable but more productive ways. One fears the spelling-books mislead in their promise of instant, adequate reward and punishment. The gods do not keep a dame-school for us here on earth, and their ways are less obvious than that. One hazards the suggestion, it is fortunate if our multitudes (in these socialistic, traditionless times) do not yet discover how comfortable, for hedonistic ends, their sons and daughters still may be without respectability and reputability. St. Clair lived before them, and his mind was never analytic. The word "bore" had not yet been imported, nor the word "ennui" naturalized in a civilization whence two hundred years of Puritans had sought to banish it. But although Adam set the example of falling to the primal woman, it may be doubted whether Eve, at least, had not a foretaste of the modern evil. And more souls go now to the devil (if they could hope there were one!) for the being bored than any other cause. David did not know what ailed him. He loved his wife (not too exclusively: that was not in his shallow nature); he had a fine house and the handling of money. To his friends he was a banker. They were at first envious of his reputability, and that pleased him while it lasted. But it annoyed him that it had not dawned on their untutored minds that handling money was not synonymous with possession. A banker! At least he had the control of money; could lend it; might lend it to his friends. There was, in those days, an outpost of Satan--overrated perhaps in importance by the college authorities, with proportionate overawing effect upon the students--on the riverside, over against Cambridge. Here "trials of speed," trotting speed, were held; bar-rooms existed; it was rumored pools were sold. Hither the four hundred, the liberal four hundred, of Boston's then existent vice, were wont to repair and witness contests for "purses." It was worth, in those days, a bank clerk's position or an undergraduate's degree ever to be seen there. It may be imagined with what terror--a terror even transmuting itself to pity dictating a refusal on Mercedes' part--old Jamie heard of a proposition, one holiday, that David should take his wife there. Mercedes would not go; and St. Clair laughed at her, in private, and went alone. She was forced to be the accomplice of his going. The fact is, St. Clair, from the tip of his mustache to his patent-leather shoes, was bored with regular hours, respectability, and the assurance of an income adequate to his ordinary spending. Something must be done for joy of life. He gave a champagne supper to his old cronies, at a tavern by the wayside, and bore their chaff. Then he bet. Then he stayed away from home a day or two. A butterfly cares but for sunshine. His love for Mercedes was quite animal; he cared nothing for her mind; all poor Jamie's expensive schooling was wasted, more unappreciated by him than it would have been by John Hughson. So, one day, St. Clair came home to find her crying; and his love for her then ended. V. Mercedes, remember, lived in the earlier half of this strange century, now so soon to go to judgment. In these last years, when women seek men's rights in exchange for woman's reason, reactionary males have criticised them as children swapping old lamps for new, fine instruments for coarser toys. As a poet has put it, why does "a woman Dowered by God with power of life or death Now cry for coarser tools," and seek to exchange the ballot for Prospero's wand? Like other savages, she would exchange fine gold for guns and hatchets. (Beads, trinkets, the men might pardon them!) A woman of power once said she had rather reign than govern. But reigns, with male St. Clairs, so soon are over! Mercedes' dynasty had ended. She knew it before St. Clair was conscious of it, and poor Jamie knew it when she did. It was his custom to stay late at the bank, after hours. It closed at two o'clock; and in those days all merchants then went home to their dinner. Jamie, unknown to the cashier, would assume what he could of St. Clair's work, to get him home the sooner to Mercedes. It is to be hoped he always went there. As one looks back on the days of great events, one wonders that the morning of them was not consciously brightened or shadowed by the happening to come. For, after many years, that morning,--of the meeting, or the news, or whatever it was,--dull and gray as in fact it was, seems now all glorified in memory, illumined with the radiance it bore among its hours. Jamie never could remember what he did that morning or that day. It was close to half past four by the clock; the cashier, the other clerks, had gone; the charwoman was sweeping. He was mechanically counting over the cash in the cash drawer (it had been counted over before by the teller, so Jamie's count was but excess of caution); he was separating the gold and silver and Massachusetts bills from the bills that came from banks of other States. (These never were credited until collected, and so not counted yet as cash, but credited to the collection account; in Jamie's eyes, bank-bills of other States were not so honest as Massachusetts issues, any more than their merchants were like James Bowdoin's Sons). He was thinking, with a sadness not admitted to himself, of Mercedes; trying to believe his judgment a fancy; trying to see, in his mind's eye, David's arrival home (he had sent him off the half an hour before), hoping even for kisses by him for Mercedes (for he grudged him not her love, but wished his the greater). And now, with half his mind, he was adding up the long five columns of figures, as he could do almost unconsciously, thinking of other things. He had carried down the third figure, when suddenly there came that warm stirring at the roots of the hair that presages, to the slower brain, the heart's grasp of a coming disaster. The figure was a 4 he carried down. His count of the cash had made it a 2. Nonsense. He passed his hand to his quickened heart and made an effort to slow his breath. It was his mistake; he had been thinking of other things, of Mercedes. He leaned back against the high desk and rested. Besides, what foolish fear to jump at fault for error, at fault of David St. Clair! He had not been near the cash drawer. It was the teller's mistake. And this time poor Jamie added up like a schoolboy, totting each figure. No thought of his Mercedes now. Fourteen thousand _four_ hundred and twelve, sixty-four cents. The teller's addition was right. Jamie looked at the cash again. There were two piles of bank-bills, one of gold and silver. Among the former was one packet of hundred-dollar bills in a belt, marked "$5000." This wrapper he had not (as he now remembered) verified when he had made his count. His heart stood still; prompting the head to remember that it was a package collected by the bank's messenger on a discount, by David St. Clair. Poor Jamie tore off the band. He sat down, and counted the bills again with a shaking hand. There were only forty-eight of them. VI. The packet was two hundred dollars short. And David had brought it in. Two hundred dollars! Only two hundred dollars! In God's name, why did he not borrow it, ask me for it? thought poor Jamie. He must have known it would be at once discovered. And mixed curiously with Jamie's dismay was a business man's contempt for the childishness of the theft. And yet they called such men sharpers! For never from that moment, from that time on, did poor Jamie doubt the sort of man Mercedes had married. Never for one moment did the idea occur to him that the robbery might be overlooked, the man reformed. Jamie's heart was as a little child's, but his head was hard enough. He had seen too much of human nature, of business methods and ways, to doubt what this thing meant or what it led to. He had been trying to look through Mercedes' eyes. He had known him for a gambler all along; and now it appeared that he was a man not to be trusted even with money. And he had given him Mercedes! There had been Harley Bowdoin. She had liked him first; and but for them, his employers--But no; old Jamie could not blame his benefactor, even through his wife. It was not that. No one was at fault but he himself. If he had even loved her less, it had been better for her: 'twas his fault, again his fault. Sobbing, he went through the easy form of making good the theft; this with no thought of condoning the offense, but for his little girl's name. It was simple enough: it was but the drawing a check of his own to cover the loss. Oh, the fool the scoundrel had been! Jamie drew the check, and canceled it, and added it to the teller's slip. Then he closed the heavy books, put the cash drawer back in the safe, closed the heavy iron doors, gave a turn of his wrist and a pull to the handle, said a word to the night-watchman, and went out into the street. It was the soft, broad sunlight of a May afternoon; by the clock at the head of the street he saw that it was not yet six o'clock. But for once Jamie went straight home. Mr. St. Clair had not come in, said the servant. (They now kept one servant.) Mrs. St. Clair was lying down. Jamie went into the parlor, contrary to his wont, and sat down awkwardly. It was furnished quite with elegance: Mercedes had been so proud of it! His little girl! And now he had married her to a thief! People might come to scorn her, his Mercedes. They had tea alone together; and Jamie was very tender to her, so that she became frightened at his manner, and asked if anything was wrong with David. "No," said Jamie. "Has he not been home? Do you not know where he is?" "No," sighed the wife. "He has always told me before this." Jamie touched her hand shyly. "Do you still love him, dear?" But she flung away from him angrily, and went upstairs. And old Jamie waited. He dared not smoke his pipe in the parlor, nor even on the doorstep (which was a pleasant place; there was a little park, with trees, in front), for Mercedes thought it ungenteel. The present incongruity of this regard for appearances never struck Jamie, and he waited there. After eleven o'clock he fancied he might venture; the neighbors were not likely to be up to notice it. So he lit his pipe and listened. There was still a light in her window; but David St. Clair did not come. Her window stood open, and Jamie listened hard to hear if she were crying. Shortly after midnight the birds in the square began to twitter, as if it were nearly dawn. Then they went to sleep again, but Jamie went on smoking. It was daylight when St. Clair appeared, in a carriage. He had the look of one who has been up all night, and started nervously as he saw Jamie on the doorstep. Then he pulled himself together, buttoning his coat, and, giving the driver a bill, he turned to face the old clerk. "Taking an early pipe, Mr. McMurtagh?" "I know what ye ha' done," said Jamie simply. "I ha' made it guid; but ye must go." St. Clair's bravado collapsed before Jamie's directness. "Made what good?" he blustered. "The two hundred dollars ye took," said Jamie. "Two hundred dollars? I took? Old man, you're crazy." "I tell ye I ha' made it guid," said Jamie. "Made it good? I could do that myself, if--if"-- "Perhaps ye'll be having the money about ye now?" said Jamie. "Can ye give it me?" St. Clair abandoned pretense. Perhaps curiosity overcame him, or his morning nerves were not so good as Jamie's. "Of course I'll get the money. I lent it to a friend. But how did you ever know the d----d business was short?" Jamie looked at him sadly. This was the man he had hoped to make a man of business. "Mon, why didn't ye ask me for it? Do ye suppose they didna count their money the nicht?" "You're so d----d mean!" swore St. Clair. "Have you told my wife?" "Ye'll not be telling Mercy?" gasped Jamie, unmindful of the result. "I have told no one." "I'll make it all right with the teller, then," said the other. "Ye'll na be going back to the bank!" cried Jamie. "Not go back? Do you suppose I can't be trusted with a matter of two hundred dollars?" "Ye'll not be going back to the bank!" said Jamie firmly. "Ye'll be taking Mr. Bowdoin's money next." "If it weren't for the teller--He's not a gentleman, and last week I was fool enough to tell him so. Did the teller find it out?" "I found it out my own sel'." "Then no one else knows it?" "Ye canna go back." "Then I'll tell Sadie it's all your fault," said David. Poor Jamie knocked his pipe against the doorstep and sighed. The other went upstairs. VII. It was some days after this that old Mr. Bowdoin came down town, one morning, in a particularly good humor. To begin with, he had effected with unusual success a practical joke on his auguster spouse. Then, he had gone home the night before with a bad cold; but (having given a family dinner in celebration of his wife's birthday and the return to Boston of his grandson Harley, and confined himself religiously to dry champagne) he had arisen quite cured. But at the counting-room he was met by son James with a face as long as the parting glass of whiskey and water he had sent him home with at eleven the previous evening. "James Bowdoin, at your time of life you should not take Scotch whiskey after madeira," said he. "You seem fresh as a May morning," said Mr. James. "Did the old lady find out about the bronze Venus?" Son and father chuckled. The old gentleman had purchased in his wife's name a nearly life-size Venus of Milo in bronze, and ordered it sent to the house, with the bill unreceipted, just before the dinner; so the entire family had used their efforts to the persuading old Mrs. Bowdoin that she had acquired the article herself, while shopping, and then forgotten all about it. "'Mrs. J. Bowdoin, Dr. To one Bronze Venus. One Thousand Dollars. Rec'd Paym't'--blank!" roared Mr. Bowdoin. "I told her she must pay it out of her separate estate,--I couldn't afford such luxuries." "'Why, James!'" mimicked the younger. "'I never went near the store,'" mimicked the older. "And when we told her it was all a sell, she was madder than ever." "Your mother never could see a joke," sighed Mr. Bowdoin. "She says the statue's improper, and she's trying to get it exchanged for chandeliers. She wouldn't speak to me when I went to bed; and I told her I'd a bad cold on my lungs, and she'd repent it when I was gone. But to-day she's madder yet." Mr. James Bowdoin looked at his father inquiringly. Mr. Bowdoin laughed aloud. "She hadn't a good night, she says." "Dear me," said the younger man, "I'm sorry." "Yes. I'd a bad cold, and I spoke very hoarsely when I went to bed. And in the night she woke up and heard a croupy sound. It was this," and Mr. Bowdoin produced a compressible rubber ball with a squeak in it. "'James,' said she--you know how she says 'James'?" Mr. James Bowdoin admitted he had heard the intonation described. "'James,' says she, 'is that you?' I only squeaked the ball, which I had under the bedclothes. 'James, are you ill?' 'It's my chest,' I squeaked faintly, and squeezed the ball again. 'I think I'm going to die,' said I, and I squeaked it every time I breathed." And Mr. Bowdoin gave audible demonstration of the squeak of his rubber toy. "Well, she was very remorseful, and she got up to send for the doctor; and faith, I had to get up and go downstairs after her and speak in my natural voice before she'd believe I wasn't in the last gasp of a croup. But she won't speak herself this morning," added the old gentleman rather ruefully. "What's the matter here?" "Jamie has been down, and he says his son-in-law has decided to leave the bank." "Dear me! dear me!" The old gentleman's face grew grave again. "Nothing wrong in his accounts, I hope?" "He says that he has decided to go to New York to live." "Go to New York! What'll become of the new house?" "He has friends there. They are to sell the house." "What'll become of Jamie?" "Jamie's going back to Salem Street." The old gentleman gave a low whistle. "I must see him," and he took his hat again and started up the street. But from Jamie he learned nothing. The old man gave no reason, save that his son-in-law "was going to New York, where he had friends." It cost much to the old clerk to withhold from Mr. Bowdoin anything that concerned his own affairs, particularly when the old gentleman urged that he be permitted to use his influence to reinstate David at the bank. Jamie grew churlish, as was the poor fellow's manner when he could not be kind, and tried even to carry it off jauntily, as if St. Clair were bettering himself. Old Mr. Bowdoin's penetration went behind that, or he might have gone off in a huff. As it was, he half suspected the truth, and forbore to question Jamie further. But it was harder still for the poor old clerk when he went home to Mercedes. For it was St. Clair who had sulked and refused to stay in Boston. He had hinted to his wife that it was due to Jamie's jealousy that he had lost his place at the bank. Mercedes did not believe this; but she had thought that Jamie, with his influence, might have kept him there. More, she had herself, and secretly, gone to the counting-room to see old Mr. Bowdoin, as she had done once before when a child, and asked that St. Clair might be taken back. "Do you know why he lost the place?" She did not. Perhaps he had been irregular in his attendance; she knew, too, that he had been going to some horse-races. "Jamie has not asked me to have him taken back," said Mr. Bowdoin. And she had returned, angry as only a loving woman can be, to reproach poor Jamie. But he would never tell her of her husband's theft. St. Clair was sharp enough to see this. Jamie had settled the Worcester Square house on Mercedes when they were married; and now St. Clair got her to urge Jamie to sell it and let him invest the money in a business opening he had found in New York with some friends; stock-brokerage he said it was. This poor Jamie refused to do, and Mercedes forgave him not. But St. Clair insisted still on going. Perhaps he boasted to his New York friends of his banking experience; it was true that he had got some sort of an opening, with two young men of sporting tastes whom he had met. Preparations for departure were made. The furniture was being taken out, and stored or sold; and each piece, as it was carried down the stairs, brought a pang to Jamie's heart. The house was offered for sale; Jamie drew up the advertisement in tears. He did not venture to sit with them now of evenings; it was Jamie, of the three, who had the guilty feeling. The evening before their going came. St. Clair was out at a farewell dinner, "tendered him," as he proudly announced, by his friends. Jamie, as he passed her door, heard Mercedes crying. He could not bear it; he went in. "My darling, do not cry," the old man whispered. "Is it because you are going away? All I can do for you--all I have shall be yours!" "What has David done? I know he has done something"-- "Nothing--nothing is wrong, dear; I assure you"-- "Then why are you so hard to him? Why will you not put the money in the business?" Jamie was holding her hand. "My little Mercy," said he, "my little lady. Forgive me--do you forgive me?" Mercedes looked at him, coldly perhaps. "For the love of God, do not look like that! In the world or out of it, there's none I care for but just you, dear." Then Mercedes began to cry again, and kissed him. "And as for the money, dear, he'll have it as soon as I find the business is a decent one." VIII. Of course they had the money, and in some months the people at the bank began to hear fine accounts of St. Clair's doings in New York. Not so much, perhaps, from Jamie as from one or two other clerks to whom St. Clair had taken the trouble to write a letter or two. As for Jamie, he went back to live in the little house on Salem Street. All the same, he grew thin and older-looking. He did not pretend to take the same interest in his work. Many and grave were the talks the two Bowdoins, father and son, had about him. The first few weeks after the departure of the St. Clairs, they feared actually for his life. He seemed to waste away. Then, one week, he went on to New York himself, and after that grew better. This was when he carried on to St. Clair the money coming from the sale of the house. Up to that time he had had no letter from Mercedes, though he wrote her every week. He took care to place the money in Mercedes' name as special capital. But the other two men seemed to be active, progressive fellows. They reposed confidence in St. Clair, and they had always known him. After all, the old man tried to think, the qualities required to keep moneys separate were not those that went best to make it, and stock-broking was suited to a gambler as a business. For Jamie shared intensely the respectable prejudices against stock-broking of the elders of that day. After this, he occasionally got letters from his Mercedes. They came addressed to the bank (as if she never liked to recognize that he was back in Salem Street), and it grew to be quite a joke among the other clerks to watch for them; for they had noticed their effect on Jamie, and they soon learned to identify the handwriting which made him beam so that half the wrinkles went, and the old healthy apple-color came back to his cheeks. Sometimes when the letter came they would place it under his blotter, and if it was a Tuesday (and she generally wrote for Tuesday's arrival) old Jamie's face would lengthen as he turned his mail over, or fall if he saw his desk empty. Woe to the clerk who asked a favor in those moments! Then the clerk next him would slyly turn the blotting-paper over, and Jamie would grasp the letter and crowd it into his pocket, and his face would gleam again. He never knew they suspected it, but on such occasions the whole bank would combine to invent a pretext for getting Jamie out of the room, that he might read his letter undisturbed. Otherwise he let it go till lunch-time, and then, they felt sure, took no lunch; for he would never read her letters when any one was looking on. They all knew who she was. It was the joke of years at the Old Colony Bank. They called Mercedes "old Jamie's foreign mail." She never wrote regularly, however; and if she missed, poor McMurtagh would invent most elaborate schemes, extra presents (he always made her an allowance), for extorting letters from her. The sight of her handwriting at any time would make his heart beat. Harley Bowdoin had by this time been taken into the counting-room. He was studying law as a profession (there being little left of the business), and Jamie appeared to be strangely fond of him. Often, by the ancient custom, he would call Harleston "Mr. James," Mr. James Bowdoin having no sons. Mr. James himself spoke of this intimacy once to his father. "Don't you see it's because the boy fell in love with his Mercedes?" said the old gentleman. Certain it is, the two were inseparable. One fancies Harleston heard more of Mrs. St. Clair than either of Jamie's older friends. For Jamie, in her absence, grew to love all whom she had ever known, all who had ever seen her; how much more, then, this young fellow who had shown the grace to love her, too! Jamie was fond of walking to the places she had known, and he even took to going to church himself, to King's Chapel, where she had been so often. When his vacation came, the next summer, he went on to New York, and stayed at a cheap hotel on Fourth Avenue, and would go to see her; not too often, or when other people were there, for he was still modest, and only dared hope she might not hate him. It was all his fault, and perhaps he had been hard with her husband. But she suffered him now, and Jamie returned looking ten years younger. St. Clair seemed prosperous, and Jamie even mentioned his son-in-law to the other clerks, which was like a boast for Jamie. Perhaps at no time had the two Bowdoins thought of him so much. He lived now as if he were very poor, and they suspected him of sending all his salary to Mercedes. "It makes no difference raising it; 'twould all go just the same," said Mr. Bowdoin. "Man alive, why didn't you let him take the money, that day down the wharf, and take the girl yourself? You used to be keen enough about girls before you got so bald," added the old gentleman, with a chuckle. He was rather proud of his own shock of soft white hair. "That's why you were in such a haste to marry me, I suppose," growled Mr. James. "You had no trouble of that kind yourself." "Trouble? It's only your mother protects me. I was going down town in a 'bus to-day, and there I saw your mother coming out of one of those Abolition meetings of her cousin, Wendell Phillips,--I told her he'd be hanged some day,--and there opposite sat an old gentleman, older than I, sir, and he said to me, 'Married, sir? So am I, sir. Married again only last week. Been married fifty years, but this one's a great improvement on the first one, sir, I can assure you. _She brushes my hair!_' That's more than you can get a wife to do for you, James!" The father and son chirruped in unison. "Did you tell my mother of your resolve to try again, sir?" "I did, I did, and that my next choice was no incendiary Abolitionist, either. I told her I'd asked her already, to keep her disengaged,--old Miss Virginia Pyncheon, you know; and, egad! if your mother didn't cut her to-day in the street! But what do you think of old Jamie?" "I don't know what to think. He certainly seems very ill." "Ah, James," said the old man, "why did you laugh that day? If only the fairy stories about changing old clerks to fairy princes came true! She could not have married any one to love her like old Jamie." IX. Jamie had had no letter for many weeks. The clerks talked about it. Day by day he would go through the pile of letters on his desk in regular order, but with trembling fingers; day by day he would lay them all aside, with notes for their answers. Then he would go for a moment into the great dark vault of the bank, where the bonds and stocks were kept, and come out rubbing his spectacles. The clerks would have forged a letter for him had they deemed it possible. There was talk even of sending a round-robin to Mrs. St. Clair. It was a shorter walk from Salem Street than it had been from his daughter's mansion, and poor Jamie had not so much time each day to calculate the chances of a letter being there. Alas! a glance of the eye sufficed. Her notes were always on squarish white note-paper sealed in the middle (they still used no envelopes in those days), and were easy to see behind the pile of business letters and telegrams. And the five minutes of hope between breakfast and the bank were all old Jamie had to carry him through the day, for her letters never arrived in the afternoon. But this foggy day Jamie came down conscious of a certain tremor of anticipation. It has been said that he had no religion, but he had ventured to pray the night before,--to pray that he might get a letter. He was wondering if it were not wrong to invoke the Deity for such selfish things. For the Deity (if there were one, indeed) seemed very far off and awful to Jamie. That there was anything trivial or foolish in the prayer did not occur to Jamie; it probably would have occurred to Mercedes. But he got to the office at the usual time. The clerks were not looking at him (had he known it, a bad sign), and he cast his eye hastily over the pile. Then his face grew fixed once more. No letter from her was there, and he began to go through them all in routine order, the telegrams first. The next thing that happened, the nearest clerk heard a sound and looked up, his finger on the column of figures and "carrying" 31 in his head. Old Jamie spoke to him. "I--I--must go out for an hour or two," he said. "I have a train to meet." His face was radiant, and all the clerks were looking up by this time. No one spoke, and Jamie went away. "Did you see, he was positively blushing," said the teller. There was a momentary cessation of all business at the bank. When old Mr. Bowdoin came in, on his way down to the wharf, he was struck at once with the atmosphere of the place. "What's the matter?" he asked. "You look like you'd all had your salaries raised." "Old Jamie's got his foreign mail," said the cashier. But Jamie went out into the street to think of it undisturbed. It was a telegram:-- "Am coming on to-morrow. Meet me at five, Worcester depot. MERCEDES." She did not say anything about St. Clair, and Jamie felt sure he was not coming. The fog had cleared away by this time, and he went mechanically down to the old counting-room on the wharf. Harleston Bowdoin was there alone, and Jamie found himself facing the young man before he realized where his legs had carried him. "What is it, Jamie?" said Harley. "She's coming on to make me a visit," said Jamie simply. "Mercedes--Mrs. St. Clair, I mean." Then he wandered out, passing Mr. Bowdoin on the stairs. He did not tell him the news, and the old gentleman nearly choked in his desire to speak of it. As he entered the office, "Has he told you?" cried Harleston. "Has he told _you_?" echoed the old gentleman. Harley told. Then Mr. Bowdoin turned and bolted up the street after Jamie. "Old fellow, why don't you have a vacation,--just a few days? The bank can spare you, and you need rest." His hand was on the old clerk's shoulder. "Master Harley wull ha' told ye? But I'm na one to neglect me affairs," said Jamie. "Nonsense, nonsense. When is she coming?" Jamie told him. "Why don't you take the one-forty and meet her at Worcester? She may have to go back to-morrow." Jamie started. It was clear he had not thought of this. As they entered the bank, Mr. Bowdoin cried out to Stanchion, the cashier, "I want to borrow McMurtagh for the day, on business of my own." "Certainly, sir," said Mr. Stanchion. Jamie went. * * * * * There is no happiness so great as happiness to come, for then it has not begun to go. If the streets of the celestial city are as bright to Jamie as those of Boston were that day, he should have hope of heaven. It was yet two hours before his train went, but he had no thought of food. He passed a florist's; then turned and went in, blushing, to buy a bunch of roses. He was not anxious for the time to come, such pleasure lay in waiting. When at last the train started, the distance to Worcester never seemed so short. He was to come back over it with her! In the car he got some water for his roses, but dared not smell of them lest their fragrance should be diminished. After reaching Worcester, he had half an hour to wait; then the New York train came trundling in. As the cars rolled by he strained his old eyes to each window; the day was hot, and at an opened one Jamie saw the face of his Mercedes. X. The next morning, old Mr. James Bowdoin got up even earlier than usual, with an undefined sense of pleasure. As was his wont, he walked across the street to sit half an hour before breakfast in the Common. The old crossing-sweeper was already there, to receive his penny; and the orange-woman, expectant, sold her apex orange to him for a silver thripenny bit as his before-breakfast while awaiting the more dignified cunctation of his auguster spouse. The old gentleman's mind was running on McMurtagh; and a robuster grin than usual encouraged even others than his chartered pensioners to come up to him for largess. Mr. Bowdoin's eyes wandered from the orange-woman to the telescope-man, and thence to an old elm with one gaunt dead limb that stretched out over the dawn. It was very pleasant that summer morning, and he felt no hurry to go in to breakfast. Love was the best thing in the world; then why did it make the misery of it? How irradiated old Jamie's face had been the day before! Yet Jamie would never have gone to meet her at Worcester, had he not given him the hint. Dear, dear, what could be done for St. Clair, as he called himself? Mr. Bowdoin half suspected there had been trouble at the bank. Mercedes such a pretty creature, too! Only, Abby really never would do for her what she might have done. Why were women so impatient of each other? Old Mr. Bowdoin felt vaguely that it was they who were responsible for the social platform; and he looked at his watch. Heavens! five minutes past eight! Mr. Bowdoin got up hurriedly, and, nodding to the orange-woman, shuffled into his house. But it was too late; Mrs. Bowdoin sat rigid behind the coffee-urn. Harley looked up with a twinkle in his eye. "James, I should think, at your time of life, you'd stop rambling over the Common before breakfast,--in carpet slippers, too,--when you know I've been up so late the night before at a meeting in behalf of"-- A sudden twinkle flashed over the old gentleman's rosy face; then he became solemn, preternaturally solemn. Harley caught the expression and listened intently. Mrs. Bowdoin, pouring out cream as if it were coals of fire on his head, was not looking at him. "There!" gasped old Mr. Bowdoin, dropping heavily into a chair. "Always said it would happen. I feel faint!" "James?" said Mrs. Bowdoin. "Always said it would happen--and there's your cousin, Wendell Phillips, out on the Common, hanging stark on the limb of an elm-tree." "_James!_" "Always said it would come to this. Perhaps you'd go out in carpet slippers if you saw your wife's cousin hanged before your eyes"-- "JAMES!" cried Mrs. Bowdoin. But the old lady was equal to the occasion; she rose (--"and no one there to cut him down!" interpolated the old gentleman feebly) and went to the door. The two men got up and ran to the window. There was something of a crowd around the old elm-tree; and, pressing their noses against the pane, they could see the old lady crossing the street. "I think, sir," said Mr. Harley to his grandfather, "it's about time to get down town." And they took their straw hats and sallied forth. But as they walked down the shady side of the street, old Mr. Bowdoin's progress became subject to impediments of laughter, which were less successfully suppressed as they got farther away, and in which the young man finally joined. "Though it's really too bad," he added, by way of protest, now laughing harder than his grandfather. "I'm going to get her that carriage to-day," said the elder deprecatingly. Then, as if to change the subject, "Did you see old Jamie after he left, yesterday?" "I think I caught him in a florist's, buying flowers," answered Harley. "Buying flowers!" The old gentleman burst into such a roar that the passers in the crowded street stopped there to look at him, and went down town the merrier for it. "At a florist's! But what were you doing?" he closed, with sudden gravity. "All right, governor, quite all right. I was buying them for grandma's birthday. _That_'s all over. Though I'm sorry for her, just the same. How does the man live, now?" "Jamie says he's doing well," answered the other hurriedly. "By the way, stop at the bank and tell them to give old Jamie a holiday to-day. He'd never take it of himself." "Aren't you coming down?" Harley spoke as he turned in by Court Square,--a poor neighborhood then, and surrounded by the police lodging-houses and doubtful hotels. "Not that way," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I hate to see the faces one meets about there, poor things. Hope the flowers will get up to your grandmother, Harley; she'll need 'em!" And the old man went off with a final chuckle. "Hanging on a tree! Well, 'twould be a good thing for the country if he were." Of such mental inconsistencies were benevolent old gentlemen then capable. But when Harley reached the bank, though it was late, Jamie had not yet arrived. Harley thought he knew the reason of this; but when old Mr. Bowdoin came, at noon, the clerk was still away; and the old gentleman, who had been merry all day, looked suddenly grave and waited. At one Jamie came in, hurrying. "I hoped you would have taken a holiday to-day," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I have come down to close the books," replied Jamie, not sharply. Mr. Bowdoin looked at him. "Mr. Stanchion could have done that. Stanchion!" "The books are nearly done, sir," said that gentleman, hurrying to the window. "I prefer to stay, sir, and close the books myself, if Mr. Stanchion will forgive me." He spoke calmly; he gave both men a sudden sense of sorrow. Mr. Bowdoin accompanied him behind the rail. "Come, Jamie, you need the rest, and Mercedes"-- "She has gone back, sir--and I--have business in New York. I must ask for three days off, beginning to-morrow." "You shall have it, Jamie, you shall have it. But why did you not go back with Mercedes?" Jamie made no reply but to bury his face in the ledger, and the old gentleman went away. The bank closed at two o'clock; by that time Jamie had not half finished his figuring. The cashier went, and the teller, each with a "good-night," to which Jamie hardly responded. The messenger went, first asking, "Can I help you with the safe?" to which Jamie gave a gruff "I am not ready." The day-watchman went, and the night-watchman came, each with his greeting. Jamie nodded. "You are late to-day." "I had to be." Last of all, Harley Bowdoin came in (one suspects, at his grandfather's request), on his way home from the old counting-room on the wharves. "Still working, Jamie?" "I must work until I finish, Mr. Harley." "It's late for me," said Harley, "but a ship came in." "A ship!" "Oh, only the Maine Lady. Well, good-night, Jamie." "Good-night, Mr. Harley." Jamie had never used the "Mr." to Harley before, of all the Bowdoins; and now it seemed emphasized, even. The young man stopped. "Tell me, Jamie, can I help you in anything?" "No!" cried old Jamie; and Harley fled. Left alone, Jamie laid down his pen. It seemed his figuring was done. But he continued to sit, motionless, upon his high stool. For Mercedes had told him, between Worcester and Boston, that her David would be in prison, perhaps for life, unless he could get him seventeen thousand dollars within forty-eight hours. She had pleaded with him all the way to Boston, all the way in the carriage down to the little house. His roses had been forgotten in the car. In vain he told her that he had no money. She could not see that St. Clair had done anything wrong; it was a persecution of his partners, she said; the stock of a customer had been pledged for his own debt. Jamie understood the offense well enough. And then, in the evening, he had known that she was soon to have a child. But with this money all would be forgiven; and David would go back to New Orleans, where his friends urged him to return, "in his old profession." Could not Jamie borrow it, even? said Mercedes. It was not then, but at the dawn, after a sleepless night, that Jamie had come to his decision. After all, what was his life, or his future, yes, or his honor, worth to any one? His memory, when he died, what mattered it to any one but Mercedes herself? And she would not remember him long. Was it not a species of selfishness--like his presumption in loving her--to care so for his own good name? So he had told Mercedes that he "would arrange it." After her burst of tears and gratitude, she became anxious about David; she feared he might destroy himself. So Jamie had put her on the morning train, and promised to follow that night. The clock struck six, and the watchman passed by on his rounds. "Still there?" "I'm nearly done," said Jamie. The cash drawer lay beside him; at a glance he saw the bills were there, sufficient for his purpose. He took up four rolls, each one having the amount of its contents marked on the paper band. Then he laid them on the desk again. He opened the day-book to make the necessary false entry. Which account was least likely to be drawn upon? Jamie turned the leaves rapidly. "James Bowdoin's Sons." Not that. "The Maine Lady." He took up the pen, started to make the entry; then dashed it to the floor, burying his face in his hands. He _could_ not do it. The old bookkeeper's whole life cried out against a sin like that. To falsify the books! Closing the ledger, he took up the cash drawer and started for the safe. The watchman came in again. "Done?" said he. "Done," said Jamie. The watchman went out, and Jamie entered the roomy old safe. He put the ledgers and the cash drawer in their places; but the sudden darkness blinded his eyes. In it he saw the face of his Mercedes, still sad but comforted, as he had left her at the train that morning. He wiped the tears away and tried to think. He looked around the old vault, where so much money, idle money, money of dead people, lay mouldering away; and not one dollar of it to save his little girl. Then his eye fell on the old box on the upper shelf. A hanged pirate's money! He drew the box down; the key still was on his bunch; he opened the chest. There the gold pieces lay in their canvas bag; no one had thought of them for almost twenty years. Now, as a thought struck him, he took down some old ledgers, ledgers of the old firm of James Bowdoin's Sons, that had been placed there for safe-keeping. He opened one after another hurriedly; then, getting the right one, he came out into the light, and, finding the index, turned to the page containing this entry:-- _Dr. Pirates._ June 24, 1829: To account of whom it may concern (eagles, pistoles & doubloons) $16,897.00 He dipped his pen in ink, and with a firm hand wrote opposite:-- _Cr._ June 22, 1848. By money stolen by James McMurtagh, to be accounted for $16,897.00 Then the old clerk drew a line across the account, returned the ledger to its place in the safe, and locked the heavy iron doors. The canvas bag was in his hands; the chest he had put back, empty. PART THREE: RECOVERY. I. The customer of St. Clair's firm was paid off, the partnership was dissolved without scandal, and the St. Clairs went to live in New Orleans. Jamie occupied one room in the attic of the old house in Salem Street. He wrote no more letters to Mercedes: he did not feel that he was worthy now to write to her. And a year or two after her arrival in New Orleans her letters ceased. She had thanked Jamie sorrowfully when he had paid over the money in New York, and kissed him with her pale lips (though his face was still paler), and upon the memory of this he had lived. But he had fancied her lips wore a new line; their curves had gone; and her eyes had certainly new depth. When Mercedes ceased to write, Jamie did not complain. He knew well what the trouble was, and that her husband wished her to write to him for more money. But he could do no more for her. And after this his hope was tired, and Jamie hardly had the wish to write. The only link between them now was his prayer at night. The dry old Scotchman had come to prayer at last, for her if not for himself. And the office lost their interest in him. Only the Bowdoins were true. For the "foreign mail" no longer came; and Jamie was no longer seen writing private letters on his ledger page. His dress grew so shabby that old Mr. Bowdoin had to speak to him about it. He had no long absences at lunch-time, but took a sandwich on the street. In fact, Jamie had grown to be a miser. Great things were happening in those days, but Jamie took no heed of them. Human liberty was in the air; love of man and love of law were at odds, and clashed with each other in the streets; Jamie took no heed of them. They jostled on the pavement, but Jamie walked to his task in the morning, and back at night, between them; seeing mankind but as trees, walking; bowed down with the love of one. And he who had never before thought of self could think now only of his own dishonor. As a punishment, he tried not to think of her, except only at night, when his prayers permitted it; but he thought of her always. His crime made him ashamed to write to her; his single-heartedness made him avoid all other men. Only one man, in all those years, did Jamie seem willing to talk to, at the office, and that man was Harleston Bowdoin. Had he not loved her? Jamie never spoke of her; but Harleston had a happy impulse, and would talk to the old man about Mercedes. Away from business, Jamie would walk in all the places where her feet had trod. He would go to King's Chapel Sundays; and he looked up John Hughson again, and would sit with him, wondering. John had married a stout wife, and had sturdy children. Hughson petted the old man, and gave him pipes of tobacco; for McMurtagh was too poor to buy tobacco, those days. The children on Salem Street feared him, as a miser; which was hard, for Jamie was very fond of little children. How does a man live whose heart rules his soul, and is broken; whose conscience rules his head, and is dishonored? For men so heavy laden, heaven was, and has been lost. But Jamie never thought his soul immortal until his love for Mercedes came into it; perhaps not consciously now. Such thoughts would have seemed to him childish. How, then, did Jamie live? For no man can live quite without hope, as we believe,--hope of some event, some end of suffering, at least of some worthier act. With Jamie it was the hope of restitution. He wished to leave behind him, as the score of his life, that he had been true to his employer and had loved his little ward. And if the time could ever come when he could do more for her, it would not be until his theft was made good, and his hands were free, as his heart, to serve her again. For the one thing that Jamie stood for was integrity; that was all the little story of his life. His salary was eighteen hundred dollars; at the end of the first year after his theft he had spent a hundred and fifty. Then he asked for two days' leave of absence, and went to New York, where he exchanged sixteen hundred and forty dollars for Spanish gold pieces. A less old-fashioned man would have invested the money at six per cent, but Jamie could not forego the satisfaction of restoring the actual gold. Coming back, he opened the old chest, now empty, one day, after hours, and put the pieces in the box. The naked gold made a shining roll in its blackness, just reaching across the lower end; and poor Jamie felt the first thrill of--not happiness, but something that was not sorrow nor shame. And then he pulled down the old ledger, and made the first entry on the Dr. side: "Restored by James McMurtagh, June 9, 1849, $1640." The other ten dollars had gone for his journey to New York. And that night, as he went home, he looked about him. He bowed (in his queer way) to one or two acquaintances who passed him, unconscious that he had been cutting them for a year. Before supper he went in to see John Hughson, carrying his pipe, and, without waiting to be offered it, asked to borrow a pinch of tobacco against the morrow, when he should buy some. The good Hughson was delighted, pressed a slab of "plug" upon him, and begged him to stay and have something liquid with his pipe. But Jamie would not; he was anxious to be alone. His little bedroom gave upon the roof of the adjoining house in the rear; and here his neighbor kept a few red geraniums in boxes, and it was Jamie's privilege to smoke his pipe among them. So this evening, after a hasty meal, he hurried up there. Beyond the roofs of the higher houses was a radiant golden sky, and in it the point of a crescent moon, and even as Jamie was lighting his pipe one star came. Old Jamie breathed hard and sighed, and the sigh meant rest. He took a pleasure in the tobacco, in the look of the sky again. And with this throb of returning life, in one great pulsation, his love rushed back to his heart, and he thought of Mercedes.... He sat up nearly all the night, and with the first light of dawn he wrote to her. II. But Jamie got no answer to his letter, and he wrote again. Again he got no answer; and he wrote a third time, this time by registered mail; so that he got back a card, with her name signed to the receipt. Jamie's manner, unconsciously to himself, had changed since that first row of gold coins had gone into the black tin box; the tellers and the bookkeepers had observed it, and they began to watch his mail again. What was their glee to see among Jamie's papers, one morning, a letter in the familiar feminine hand! "Jamie's foreign mail has come!" the word went round. "I thought it must be on its way," said the second bookkeeper; "haven't you noticed his looks lately?" "The letter is postmarked New Orleans," said the messenger boy, turning it over. But it was felt this went beyond friendly sympathy. "Mr. O'Neill," said Mr. Stanchion sternly, "if I see you again interfering with McMurtagh's mail, you may go. What business is that of ours?" Poor O'Neill hung his head, abashed. But all eyes were on Jamie as he opened his desk. He put the letter in his pocket. The clerks looked at one another. The suspense became unendurable. When old Mr. Bowdoin came in, the cashier told him what had happened. "Jamie's foreign mail has come again. But he will never read it here, sir, and we can't send him out till lunch-time: the chief bookkeeper"-- The old gentleman's eyes twinkled. "McMurtagh!" he cried (Mr. Bowdoin had always called Jamie so since he came into the bank), "will you kindly step down to my counting-room? I will meet you there in a few minutes, and there are some accounts I want you to straighten out for me." As Jamie hurried down to the Long Wharf, he pressed his coat tight against him. The letter lay in his pocket, and he felt it warm against his breast. Neither Mr. James Bowdoin nor Harley was in the little room (it was just as Jamie remembered it when he first had entered it, no pretense of business was made there now), and he tore the letter open. Thus it ran:-- NEW ORLEANS, _August 30, 1849_. MY DEAR, DEAR JAMIE,--If I have not written to you it was only because I did not want to bring more trouble on you. But things have gone from bad to worse with us. I feel that I should be almost too unhappy to live, only that David is with me now. [Jamie sobbed a little at this.] I wanted never to ask you for money again. But we are very, very poor. I will not give it to him. But if you could send me a little money, a hundred dollars would last me a long time. Your loving M. ST. CLAIR. Jamie laid his head upon the old desk, and his tears fell on the letter. What could he do? His conscience told him, nothing. All his earnings belonged to the employers he had robbed. After a minute he took a sheet of paper and tried to write the answer, no. And Mr. Bowdoin came in, and caught him crying. The old gentleman knocked over a coal-scuttle, and turned to pick it up. By the time he had done so Jamie had rubbed the tears from his eyes, and stood there like a soldier at "Attention." "Jamie," said Mr. Bowdoin, "I should like to make a little present to your ward, to Mercedes. Could you send it for me? I hope she is well?" And before Jamie could answer Mr. Bowdoin had written out a check for a hundred dollars. "Give her my love when you write. I must go to a directors meeting." And he scurried away hurriedly. Jamie sat down again and wrote his letter, and told her that the money was from Mr. Bowdoin. "But, dear heart," it ended, "even if I cannot help you, always write." And, going home that night, Jamie began to fancy that some omniscient power had put it into the old gentleman's heart just then to do this thing. III. Old Mr. Bowdoin, one morning, some time after this, stood at his window before breakfast, drumming on the pane. The gesture has commonly been understood to indicate discontent with one's surroundings. Mrs. Bowdoin had not yet come down to breakfast. Outside, her worthy spouse could see the very tree upon which cousin Wendell Phillips had not been hanged; and his mouth relaxed as he saw his grandson Harley coming across the Common, and heard the portentous creaking that attended Mrs. Bowdoin's progress down the stairs,--the butler supporting her arm, and her maid behind attending her with shawl and smelling-salts. The old lady was in a rude state of health, but had not walked a step alone for several years. As she entered, Harley behind her, old Mr. Bowdoin gravely and ostentatiously pulled out a silver dollar and put it into the hand of the surprised young man. "Pass it to the account," said he. Harley took the coin, and, detecting a wink, checked his expression of surprise. "It all goes into the fund, my dear, to be given to your favorite charity the first time you are down in time for breakfast. It amounts to several thousand dollars already." Mrs. Bowdoin snorted, but, with a too visible effort, only asked Harley whether he would take coffee or tea. "With accumulations, my dear,--with accumulations. But you should not address me from your carriage in that yellow shawl, when I am talking to a stranger on the Common. At least, I thought it was Tom Pinckney, of the Providence Bank, but it turned out to be a stranger. He took me for a bunco-steerer." "James!" "He did indeed, and you for my confederate," chuckled the old gentleman. "'Mr. Pinckney, of Providence, I believe?' said I. 'No, you don't,' said he; and he put his finger on his nose, like that." "James!" said Mrs. Bowdoin. "_I_ didn't mind--don't know when I've been so flattered--must look like a pretty sharp old boy, after all, though I have been married to you for fifty years." "James, it's hardly forty." "Well, I thought it was fifty. The last time I did meet Tom Pinckney, he asked if I'd married again. I said you'd give me no chance. 'Better take it when you can,' said he. 'That will I, Tom,' says I. 'I've got one in my mind.'" "Really, grandpa," remonstrated young Harley. "Don't you talk, young man. Didn't I hear of you at another Abolition meeting yesterday? And women spoke, too,--short-haired women and long-haired men. Why can't you leave them both where a wise Providence placed them? Destroy the only free republic the world has ever known for a parcel of well-fed niggers that'll relapse into Voodoo barbarism the moment they're freed!" "James, the country knows that the best sentiment of Boston is with us." "The country doesn't know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with hell! I hope I'll live to see him hanged some day." "Wendell Phillips is a martyr indeed." "Martyr! Humbug! He couldn't get any clients, so he took up a cause. Why, they say at the club that he"-- "They said at the meeting last night, sir," interrupted Harley, "that they'd march up to the club and make you fellows fly the American flag." "It's Phillips wants to pull it down," said the old gentleman. Mrs. Bowdoin rattled the tea things. "Don't mind your grandma, Harley, if she is out of temper. She's got a headache this morning. She went to bed with the hot-water bottle under her pillow and the brandy at her feet, and feels a little mixed." "James! I never took a brandy bottle upstairs with me in my life. And Harleston knows"-- "Do you suppose he knows as well as I do, who have lived with you for fifty years?" "And I'll not stay with you to hear my cousin insulted!" Majestic, she rose. "It's too much of one girl," chuckled Mr. Bowdoin. "No wonder men keep a separate establishment." "_James!_" Mrs. Bowdoin swept from the room. "Don't run upstairs alone; consider the butler's feelings!" called her unfeeling spouse after her. "You're too bad, sir," said Harley. "I'm trying to develop her sense of humor; it's the one thing I always said I'd have in a wife. Remember it, when you get married. Why the devil don't you?" "I have too much sense of humor, sir," said Harley gravely. "What is that?" For a noise of much shouting was heard from the Common. Both men rushed to the windows, and saw, surrounded by a maddened crowd, a small company of federal soldiers marching north. "What are they saying?" cried Mr. Bowdoin. Every minute the crowd increased: men and women, well dressed, sober-looking, crying, "Shame! shame!" and topping by a head the little squad of undersized soldiers (for the regular army was then recruited almost entirely from foreigners) who marched hurriedly forward, with eyes cast straight before and downward, and dressed in that shabby blue that ten years later was to pour southward in serried column, all American then, to free those slaves whom now they hunted down. "To the Court House! To the Court House!" cried the mob. "It's that fellow Simms," said Mr. Bowdoin, but was interrupted by sounds as of a portly person running downstairs; and they saw the front door fly open and Mrs. Bowdoin run across the street, her cap-strings streaming in the air. "By Jove, if Abolitionism can make your grandma run, I'll forgive it a lot!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Do you know the facts, sir?" suggested Harley. "No, nor don't want to," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I know that we are jeopardizing the grandest experiment in free government the world has ever seen for a few African darkies that we didn't bring here, and have already made Christians of, and a d----d sight more comfortable than they ever were at home. But come, let's go over, or I believe your grandma will be attacking the United States army all by herself!" But the rescue was made unnecessary by the return of that lady, panting. "Now, sir," gasped Mrs. Bowdoin, "I hope you're satisfied, that foreign Hessians control the laws of Massachusetts!" "I am always glad to see the flag of my country sustained," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly; "though we don't fly it from our club." "I think you misunderstand, sir," ventured Harley. "This Simms is arrested by the Boston sheriff for stabbing a man; and the Southerners have got the federal commissioner to refuse to give him up to justice." "If he stabbed a man, it's cheaper to let them sell him as a slave than keep him five years in our state prison." "The poor man seems to prefer it though," said Harley gently. "Have you seen him?" "No; what should I see the fellow for?" cried Mr. Bowdoin irritably. "I understand the State Court House is held like a fort by federal soldiers, and thugs who call themselves deputy marshals." Mr. Bowdoin growled something that sounded like, "What if it is?" The two started to walk down town. Tremont Street was crowded with running men, and School Street packed close; and as they came in sight of the Court House they saw that it was surrounded by a line of blue soldiers. "Let's go to the Court House," said Harley. The old gentleman's curiosity made feeble resistance. "I had a case to see about this morning. Why, there's Judge Wells, the very man I want to see." The judge had a body-guard of policemen, and our two friends joined him as they were slowly forcing a passage through the crowd. When they came before the old gray stone Court House, they saw two cannon posted at the corners, and all the windows full of armed troops; and around the base of the building, barring every door, a heavy iron cable, and behind this a line of soldiers. "What the devil is the cable for?" said Mr. Bowdoin. The crowd, which had opened to let the well-known judge go by, were now crying, "Let the judge in! Let the judge in!" and then, "Give him up! Give Simms up! Give him to the sheriff!" and then, "Kidnapped! Kidnapped!" Just ahead of them our party saw another judge stopped rudely before the door by a soldier dropping a bayonet across his breast. "Can't get in here,--can't get in here." "I tell you I'm a judge of the Supreme Court of this Commonwealth," they heard him say. "Go around, then, and get under the chain. But the court can't sit to-day." Mr. Bowdoin bubbled with indignation as he saw the old man take off his high hat, and, stooping low, bow his white hairs to get beneath the chain. "If I do, I'm damned," said Mr. Bowdoin quietly. "And if I do, I'm--Drop it down, sir, and let me pass: Judge Wells, of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts." "And I'm James Bowdoin, of James Bowdoin's Sons, and a good Democrat, and defendant in a confounded lawsuit before his honor." "Courts can't sit to-day. Keep back." "They can't?" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Since when do the courts of Massachusetts ask permission of a pack of slave-hunters whether they shall sit or not?" Harley was chuckling with suppressed delight. "If only grandma were here!" thought he. "Let them in! Let Judge Wells in!" shouted the crowd. The soldier called his corporal, and a hasty consultation followed; as a result of which the chain dropped at one end, and the three men walked over it in triumph. "Three cheers for Judge Wells! Three cheers for Mr. Bowdoin!" cried the crowd, recognizing him. When they got into the dark, cool corridor of the old stone fort, "That I should ever come to be cheered by a mob of Abolitionists!" gasped Mr. Bowdoin, mopping his face. "Upon my word, I think I lost my temper." "Oh no, sir," said Harley Bowdoin gravely. "But where is the court-room?" "Follow the line of soldiers," replied the judge, and hurried to his lobby. Up the stone stairs went our friends, three flights in all; soldiers upon every landing, and, leaning over the banisters and carelessly spitting tobacco juice on the crowd below, a row of "deputy" United States marshals, with no uniform, but with drawn swords. Mr. Bowdoin started. "Harley," said he, stopping by one of them, "I know that fellow. His name's Huxford, and he keeps a gambling-house; I had him turned out of one of my houses." "Very likely," said Harley. "Move on there, move on," said the man surlily, pretending not to recognize Mr. Bowdoin. "What are you doing here, sir?" said that gentleman. "Don't you know I swore out a warrant against you?" "Who the h----l are you?" "James Bowdoin, confound you!" answered that peppery person, and swung his fist right and left with such vigor that Huxford went down on one side, and another deputy on the other. Then Harley hurried the old gentleman through the breach into the upper court-room, where they were under the protection of the county sheriff in his swallow-tailed blue coat, cocked hat, gold lace, and sword, and a friendly judge. "Hang it, sir, they'll be arresting you, next," said Harley. "By Heaven, I should like to see them do it!" cried our old friend in a loud whisper, if the term can be used. "Sheriff Clark, do you know those fellows are all miserable loafers?" "They are federal officers, sir; I can do nothing," whispered back that gorgeous official. "Humph!" returned Mr. Bowdoin. "How about state rights? Do we live in the sovereign State of Massachusetts, or do we not, I should like to know?" "How about the Union, sir?" whispered Harley slyly. "Hang the Union! Hang the Union, if it employ a parcel of thugs to do its work!" said Mr. Bowdoin, so loud that there was a ripple of laughter in the court-room; and the judge looked up from the bench and smiled, for had not he dined with old Mr. Bowdoin in their college club once a month for forty years? But a low-browed fellow who was sitting behind the counsel at the table was heard to mutter "Treason." Beside him in the prisoner's dock sat the slave; not cowed nor abject, though in chains and handcuffs, but looking straight before him at the low-browed man who was his master, as a bird might look at a snake. "Which of those two is the slave?" asked Mr. Bowdoin in an audible voice. Again the room laughed. The clerk rapped order. The low-browed man looked up angrily, and spoke to a deputy marshal whose face had been turned away from Mr. Bowdoin before. He rose and started toward them. "By Heaven," cried Mr. Bowdoin, "it is David St. Clair!" IV. But old Jamie knew naught of this, and the Bowdoins never told him. They consulted much what they should do; but they never told him. And Jamie went on, piling up his money. Three rolls were in the old chest now, and all of Spanish gold. Doubloons and pistoles were growing rarer, and the price was getting higher. But the old clerk was not content with replacing the present value to the credit of "Pirates" on the books; the actual pieces must be returned; so that if any earringed, whiskered buccaneer turned up to demand his money from James Bowdoin's Sons, he might have it back in specie, in the very pieces themselves, that the honor of the firm might be maintained. Until then, he felt sure, there was little chance the box would ever be looked into. Practically, he was safe; it was only his conscience, not his fears, that troubled him. Since he had sent her that hundred dollars, he had heard nothing from Mercedes. The Bowdoins did not tell him how her husband had sunk to be a slave-catcher; for they knew how miserly old Jamie had become, and supposed that his salary all went to her. While Jamie could take care of her, it mattered little what the worthless husband did, save the pain of Jamie's knowing it. And of course they did not know that Jamie could no longer take care of her, and why. But one day, in the spring of 185-, a New York correspondent of the bank came on to Boston, and Mr. Bowdoin gave a dinner for him at the house. The dinner was at three o'clock; but old lady Bowdoin wore her best gown of tea-colored satin, and James Bowdoin and his wife were there. After dinner, the three gentlemen sat discussing old madeira, and old and new methods of banking, and the difference between Boston and New York, which was already beginning to assume a metropolitan preëminence. "By the way, speaking of old-fashioned ways," said the New Yorker suddenly, "that's a queer old clerk of yours,--Mr. McMurtagh, I mean." "Looks as if he might have stepped out of one of Dickens's novels, does he not?" said Mr. Bowdoin, always delighted to have Jamie's peculiarities appreciatively mentioned. "But how did you come to know him?" asked Mr. James. "Why, I see him once a year or so. Don't you send him occasionally to New York?" "He used to go, some years ago," said Mr. Bowdoin. "He buys his Spanish gold of us," added the New Yorker. "Queer fancy you have of buying up doubloons. Gold is gold, though, in these times." "Spanish doubloons?" said Mr. James. "We have a use for them at the bank," remarked the old gentleman sharply. "Shall we join the ladies?" "You have to pay a pretty premium for them," added the money-dealer, as he stopped to wipe his lips. "Wonderful madeira, this." Old Mr. Bowdoin took no squeaking toy to bed with him that night; but at breakfast his worthy spouse vowed he must take another room if he would be so wakeful. For once the old gentleman had no repartee, but hurried down to the bank. Early as he was, he found his son James there before him. And with all his soul he seized upon the chance to lose his temper. "Well, sir, and what are you spying about for? You're not a director in the bank!" Mr. James looked up, astonished. "Got a headache, I suppose, from drinking with that New York tyke they sent us yesterday!" "Well, sir, when it comes to old madeira"-- "I earned it, I bought it, and I can drink it, too. And as for your Wall Street whippersnappers that haven't pedigree enough to get a taste for wine, and drink champagne, and don't know an honest man when they see one--it's so seldom"-- "Seriously, what do you suppose he wanted with the gold?" "I don't know, sir, and I don't care. But since you're spying round, come in!" and Mr. Bowdoin led his son into the vault. "There, sir, there's the confounded box," tapping with his cane the old chest that lay on the top shelf. "I see, sir," said Mr. James, taking his cue. "And as for its contents, the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose in there?" "Oh no, sir," said Mr. James. And that chest was never opened by James Bowdoin or James Bowdoin's Sons. "When the pirate wants it, he can have it,--in hell or elsewhere," ended Mr. Bowdoin profanely. But coming out, and after Mr. James had gone away, the old gentleman went to Jamie McMurtagh's desk. Poor Jamie had seen them enter the vault, and his heart stood still. But all Mr. Bowdoin said was to ask him if his salary was sufficient. For once in his life the poor old man had failed to meet his benefactor's eye. "It is quite enough, sir. I--I deserve no more." But Mr. Bowdoin was not satisfied. "Jamie," he said, "if you should ever need more money,--a good deal of money, I mean,--you will come to me, won't you? You could secure it by a policy on your life, you know." Jamie's voice broke. "I have no need of money, sir." "And Mercedes? How is she?" "It is some time since I heard, sir; the last was, she had gone with her husband to Havana." "Havana!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin; and before Jamie could explain he had crushed his beaver on his head and rushed from the bank. Jamie's head sank over the desk, and the tears came. If only this cup could pass from him! If Heaven would pardon this one deceit in all his darkened, upright life, and let him restore the one trust he had broken, before he died! And then he dried his eyes, and took to figuring,--figuring over again, as he had so often done before, the time needed, at the present rate, to make good his theft. Ten years more--a little less--would do it. But old Mr. Bowdoin ran to the counting-room, where he found his son and Harley in that gloomy silence that ends an unsatisfactory communication. "Say what you will, you'll never make me believe old Jamie is a thief," said Harley. "Thief! you low-toned rascal!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Thief yourself! He's just told me Mercedes is in Havana. Of course he wants Spanish gold!" "Of course he does!" cried Harley. "Of course he does!" cried James. Their faces brightened, and each one inwardly congratulated himself that the others had not thought how much easier it would have been for Jamie to send her bills of exchange. V. Meantime, Jamie, all unconscious of his patrons' anxiety, went on, from spring to fall and fall to spring, working without hope of her, to make his honor good to men. If there was one day in the year that could be said to bring him near enjoyment, it was that day when, his yearly salary saved, he went to New York to buy doubloons. One might almost say he enjoyed this. He enjoyed the night voyage upon the Sound; the waking in the noisy city by busy ships that had come, perhaps, from New Orleans or Havana; the crowded streets, with crowds of which she had once been one, crowds so great that it seemed they must include her still. The broker of whom he bought his gold would always ask to see him, and offer him a glass of wine, which, taken by Jamie with a trembling hand, would bring an unwonted glow to his wrinkled cheeks as he hastened away grasping tight his canvas bag of coin. The miser! Can you make a story of such a life? It had its interest for the recording angel. But it was two years more to the next event we men must notice. May the twenty-seventh, eighteen fifty-four. Old Jamie (old he had been called for thirty years, and now was old indeed) had finished his work rather early and locked up the books. All day there had been noise and tramping of soldiers and murmurs of the people out on the street before the door, but Jamie had not noticed it. Old Mr. Bowdoin had rushed in and out, red in the face as a cherry, sputtering irascibility, but Jamie had not known it. And now he had come from counting his coin, a pleasure to him, so nearly the old chest lay as full as it had been that day a quarter century before. He had been gloating over it with a candle in the dark vault; but a few rows more, and his work was done, and he might go--to die, or find Mercedes. As he came out into the street, blinking in the sudden sunlight, he found it crowded close with quiet people. So thick they stood, he could not press his way along the sidewalk. It was not a mob, for there was no shouting or disorder; yet, intermittently, there rose a great murmur, such as the waves make or the leaves, the muttering of a multitude. Jamie turned his face homeward, and edged along by the wall, where there was most room. And now the mutter rose and swelled, and above it he heard the noise of fife and drum and the tread of soldiers. He came to the first cross-street, and found it cleared and patrolled by cavalry militia. The man on a horse in front called him by name, and waved his sword at him to pass. Jamie looked up, and saw it was John Hughson. He would not have known him in his scarlet coat. "What is it, John?" said Jamie. "What is it? The whole militia of the State is out, by G--! to see them catch and take one nigger South. Look there!" And Jamie looked from the open side street up the main street. There, beneath the lion and the unicorn of the old State House, through that historic street, cleared now as for a triumph, marched a company of federal troops. Behind them, in a hollow square, followed a body of rough-appearing men, each with a short Roman sword and a revolver; and in the open centre, alone and handcuffed, one trembling negro. The fife had stopped, and they marched now in a hushed silence to the tap of a solitary drum; and behind came the naval marines with cannon. The street was hung across with flags, union down or draped in black, but the crowd was still. And all along the street, as far down as the wharf, where the free sea shone blue in the May sunshine, stood, on either side, a close rank of Massachusetts militia, with bayonets fixed, four thousand strong, restraining, behind, the fifty thousand men who muttered angrily, but stood still. Thus much it took to hold the old Bay State to the Union in 1854, and carry one slave from it to bondage. Down the old street it was South Carolina that walked that day beneath the national flag, and Massachusetts that did homage, biding her time till her sister State should turn her arms upon the emblem. "Shame! shame!" the people were crying. But they kept the peace of the republic. Old Jamie understood nothing of this. He only saw and wondered; saw the soldiery, saw old Mr. Bowdoin leaning from a window as a young man on the sidewalk tried to drag down a flag that hung from it, with a black coffin stitched to the blue field.[1] "Young man," cried the old gentleman, "leave that flag alone; it's my property!" "I am an American," cried the youth, "and I'll not suffer the flag of my country to be so disgraced!" "I too am an American, and damme, sir, 'tis the flag in the street there that's disgraced!" The fellow slunk away, but Jamie had ceased to listen, for the negro was now in front of him, and there, among the rough band of slave-catchers, his desperate appearance hid by no uniform, a rough felt hat upon his dissolute face, a bowie-knife slung by his waist, there, doing this work in the world, old Jamie saw and recognized the husband of his little girl,--St. Clair. FOOTNOTE: [1] A fact, but the man who thus assaulted the flag lived to command a company in the Union army. VI. McMurtagh ran out into the street toward him, but was stopped by an officer. He still pressed his way, and when the end of the procession went by they suffered him to go, and he fell in behind the trailing cannon. There he found some others, following out of sympathy for the slave. Some of them he knew, and they took Jamie for an Abolitionist, but Jamie hardly knew what it was all about. "When Simms was taken," said one, a doctor, "I vowed that he should be the last slave sent back from Massachusetts." "Did you hear," said another, a young lawyer, "how they have treated him? His master had him whipped, when he got home, for defending his case before our courts." Jamie tried to find his way through the artillery company, but failed. It was only when they got down to the Long Wharf that the artillery divided, sending two guns to either side of the street, and Jamie and the others hurried to the end. Here was a United States revenue cutter, armed with marines, to take this poor bondsman back to his master. No crowned head ever left a country with more pomp of escort and retinue of flag and cannon. But Jamie's business was with the slave-catcher, not the slave. He found St. Clair standing by the gangway, and called him by name. The fellow started like a criminal; then recognizing the poor clerk, "Oh, it's you, is it?" "How is Mercedes?" stammered Jamie. "How the h----l should I know? And what is that to you?" "But you will tell me where she is?" pleaded the poor old man. "She will not answer my letters. Does she get them? I know she does not get them," he added, as the thought struck him suddenly. "She gets any that have got money in," retorted St. Clair grimly. "However, I married her, and I suppose I've got to support her. Get out of the way, there!" The men were already casting off the ropes. Poor Jamie felt in his pocket, but of course he had no money; he never carried money now. The cordon of soldiers drew across the wharf and presented arms as their commanding officer came ashore, and the stars and stripes rose at the stern of the vessel, and she forged out toward the blue rim of the sea that is visible, even from the wharves, in Boston harbor. But not a gun was fired. Silently the armed ship left, with its freight of one negro, its company of marines and squad of marshals. Among them St. Clair stood on the lower deck and looked at Jamie. The poor clerk hung his head as if he were the guilty one. And in the silence was heard the voice of a minister in prayer. The little group of citizens gathered around him with bared heads. He prayed for the poor slave and for the recreant republic, for peace, and that no slave-hunter should again tread quietly the soil of Massachusetts. But Jamie heard him not. He was thinking over again the old trouble: how he could not take his salary--that was needed for restitution; how he could not ask the Bowdoins, or they would wonder where his salary had gone. As he turned his steps backward to the city, he wondered if St. Clair was still living with her. But yes, he must be, or she would surely have come back to him. A hand was laid upon his shoulder; he looked up; it was the minister who had been upon the wharf. "Be not cast down, old man. 'In his service is perfect freedom,'" quoted the minister. He fancied he was one of the Abolitionist group that had followed Anthony Burns to the last. But Jamie only looked up blankly. He was thinking that in four years more he might go to bring back Mercedes. VII. Year followed year. This was the twelfth year since Jamie had begun to make up his theft from his own salary; but it had been slower work than he had hoped, for he now had to pay almost a collector's price to get the Spanish gold. He had hurried home one night eagerly, to count his money; for he made his annual purchase and payment in June. Sixteen hundred dollars in bills he had (it was curious that he kept it now in money, and had no longer a deposit in the bank), and he congratulated himself that he had not had the money at the wharf that day: he might have given it to St. Clair, to learn Mercedes' whereabouts; and it would not have reached her, and St. Clair would have lied to him; while the taking of a dollar more than was rightfully the bank's--for so Jamie regarded his salary--would really make him a defaulter. For the old chest was getting so full now that the clerk could almost hold his head up among men. The next year, but three rows of gold coin remained to fill. The smaller coins had all been purchased long ago. And Jamie (who had only thought to do this, and die, at the first) now began, timidly, to let his imagination go beyond the restitution; to think of Mercedes, of seeing her, of making her happy yet. For she was still a young girl, to him. The thirteenth year came. Jamie had begun to take notice of the world. He took regularly a New Orleans newspaper. The balance against him in the account was now so small! He looked wistfully at the page. However small the deficit, his labors were not complete till he could tear the whole page out. And he could not do that yet: the transaction must be shown upon the books; he might die. Die! Suddenly his heart beat at the thought. Die! He had never thought of this, to fear it; but now if he should die before the gold was all returned, and all his sacrifice go for naught, even his sacrifice of Mercedes-- The other clerks had lost their interest in poor Jamie by this time; some of them were new, and to these he was merely an old miser, and they made fun of him, he grew so careful about his health. Life had not brought much to poor Jamie to make him so fond of it; but both the Bowdoins noticed it, and remarked to one another, it was curious, after all, how men clung to life as they grew older. In 1859 a rumor had reached them all that St. Clair had gone on some filibustering expedition to Cuba. Old Mr. Bowdoin mentioned it to McMurtagh; but he said nothing of sending for the wife. In 1861 the war broke out, and the poor clerk saw the one sober crown of his life put off still a year. He was yet more than a thousand dollars short. He was coming back on a Sound steamer, thinking of this, wondering how he could bear this last delay,--his scanty bag of high-priced gold crowded into a pocket,--reading his New Orleans paper carelessly (save only the births and deaths), when his eye caught a name. Jamie knew there was a war; and the article was all about some fighting of blockade-runners with a federal cruiser near Mobile. But his quick eye traveled to the centre of it, where he read, "Before the vessel was taken, a round shot killed several of the crew, ... among them ... and David St. Clair, well known in this city." VIII. Jamie could not go to bed that night, but sat on deck watching the stars. The next day he went through his avocations in the bank like one in a dream. And in the night ensuing that dream became a vision; and he saw Mercedes alone in a distant city, without money or friends, her soft eyes looking wistfully at him in wonder that he did not come. The next morning Jamie went to old Mr. Bowdoin's office, at an hour when he knew he should find him alone. For the old gentleman called early at the little counting-room, as in the days when he might hope to find some ship of his own, fresh from the Orient, warping into the dock. Jamie's lips were dry, and his voice came huskily. He gave up the effort to speak of St. Clair's death, but asked briefly that Mr. Bowdoin would get him three months' leave. "Three months!" cried the old man. "Why, Jamie, you've not taken a vacation for fifteen years!" "That's why I make bold to ask it, sir," said Jamie humbly. "Take six months, man, six months,--not a week less! And your salary shall be paid in advance"--Mr. Bowdoin noted a sudden kindling in Jamie's eye that gave him his cue. "Two quarters! you have well deserved it. And now that the bank is to change its charter, there'll be a lot of fuss and worry; it'll be a good time to go away." "Change its charter?" "Ay, Jamie; we've got to give up being a state bank, and go in under the new national law to issue shinplasters to pay for beating the rebels! But come with me to the bank,--the board are meeting now for discounts," and the old gentleman grabbed his hat, and dragged Jamie out of the counting-room. I doubt if ever the old clerk was rushed so rapidly up the street. And coming into the bank, Mr. Bowdoin shoved him into an anteroom. "Wait you there!" said he, and plunged into the board-room. There had been a light spring snow that night, and Jamie had not had time to wipe his boots. He cleaned them now, and then went back and sat upon a sofa near the sacred precincts of the directors' room. Suddenly he felt a closing of the heart; he wondered if he were going to be taken into custody--after so many years--and now, just now, when he must go to rescue Mercedes. Then he remembered that he had been brought there by Mr. Bowdoin, and Jamie knew better than to think this. In a minute more the door opened, and that gentleman came out. Behind him peered the faces of the directors; in his hand was a crisp new bank-note. "McMurtagh," said Mr. Bowdoin, "the directors have voted to give you a six months' vacation; and as some further slight recognition of your twenty years of service, this," and he thrust a thousand-dollar note into his hand. Jamie's labors were light that day. To begin with, every clerk and teller and errand-boy had to shake him by the hand and hear all about it. And it was not for the money's sake. Old Mr. Bowdoin had been shrewd enough to guess what only thing could make the clerk want so much liberty; and the news had leaked down to the others,--"that Jamie was going for his foreign mail." "I hear you are going away," said one. "To Europe?" said another. "Blockade-running!" suggested a third. "For cotton." "I--I am going to the tropics," stammered Jamie. He had but a clouded notion how far south New Orleans might be. "I told you so," laughed the teller. "Bring us all a bale or two." Jamie laughed; to the amazement of the bank, Jamie laughed. When the cashier went to lunch, Jamie stole a chance to get into the vault alone. And there, out of every pocket, with trembling fingers, he pulled a little roll of Spanish gold. Then the delight of sorting and arranging them in the old chest! He had one side for pistoles, and this now was full; and even the doubloon side showed less than the empty space of one roll, across the little chest, needed to fill the count, after he had put the new coins in. The old clerk sat in a sort of ecstasy; reminding himself still that what he gazed at was not the greatest joy he had that day; when all these sordid things were over, he was to start, on the morrow, for Mercedes. He heard the voice of the cashier returning, and went out. "Well, McMurtagh," said he, "you're lucky to escape this miserable reorganization. July 1st we start as a national bank, you know." "Yes," said Jamie absently. "Every stick and stone in this old place has got to be counted over again, the first of the month, by the examiners of Uncle Sam, and every book verified. By the way," the cashier ended carelessly, as witless messengers of fate alone can say such things, "you'd better leave me the key of that old chest we carry in special account for the Bowdoins. They'll want to look at everything, you know. The examination may come next year, or it may come any time." IX. A few minutes more of Jamie's life were added to the forty years he had spent over his desk. He even went through a few columns of figures. Then he closed the desk, leaving his papers in it as usual, and went out into the street. So it was all gone for naught,--all his labors, all his self-denial, all his denial of help to Mercedes. If he left to seek her, his theft would be discovered in his absence. He would be thought to have run away, to have absconded, knowing his detection was at hand. If he stayed, he could not make it good in time. What did it matter? She was first. Jamie took his way up the familiar street, through the muddy snow; it had been a day of foul weather, and now through the murky low-lying clouds a lurid saffron glow foretold a clearing in the west. It was spring, after all; and the light reminded Jamie of the South. She was there, and alone. He had tried to save his own good name, and it was all in vain. He might at least do what he could for her. He did not go home, but wandered on, walking. Unconsciously his steps followed the southwest, toward the light (we always walk to the west in the afternoon), and he found himself by the long beach of the Back Bay, the railroad behind him. The tide was high, and the west wind blew the waves in froth at his feet. The clearing morrow sent its courier of cold wind; and the old clerk shivered, but did not know he shivered of cold. He sat upon an old spar to think. The train bound southward rattled behind him; he was sitting on the very bank of the track, so close that the engineer blew his whistle; but Jamie did not hear. So this was the end. He might as well have saved her long before. He might have stolen more. To-morrow he would surely go. The night came on. Then Jamie thought of getting his ticket. He remembered vaguely that the railroad behind him ran southward; and he rose, and walked along the track to the depot. There he asked if they sold tickets to New Orleans. The clerk laughed. New Orleans was within the rebel lines. Besides, they sold no tickets beyond New York or Washington. The clerk did not seem sure the way to New Orleans was through Washington. A ticket to the latter city was twenty dollars. Jamie pulled out his wallet. He had only a few dollars in it; but loose in his pocket he found that thousand-dollar bill. "I--I think I will put off buying the ticket until to-morrow," he said. For a new notion flashed upon him. He had not thought of this money before. With what he could earn,--the bookkeeper had said the investigation might be put off a year,--this bill might be enough to cover the remaining deficit. He hugged it in his hands. How could he have forgotten it? He turned out into the night again to walk home; he felt very faint and cold, and remembered he had had no supper. Well, old Mrs. Hughson would get him something. She had taken the little house on Salem Street, which had been Jamie's home for so many years. John and his growing family still lived in their house, near by. But Mrs. Hughson was out. He stumbled up the high stairs in the dark, and lit a lamp with numbed fingers. He had not been often so late away; probably she had gone to search for him. He must go out after her. She was doubtless at John's. But first McMurtagh went to his writing-desk and unlocked the drawer that he had not visited for years; and from its dust, beneath a pile of letters, he drew out his only picture of Mercedes. He had vowed never to look at it again until he could go to help her; and now-- And now he was not going to help her. He had left her alone all those years; and now he was still to leave her, widowed, in a hostile city, perhaps to starve. Old Jamie strained his eyes to the picture with hard tearless sorrow. It was a daguerreotype of the beautiful young girl that Mercedes had been in 1845. Was there no way? The thousand dollars he would need if he went after her. Should he borrow of Mr. Bowdoin? But how could he do so, now that he had this present from him? Jamie sat down and pressed his fingers to his temples. Then he forgot himself a moment. He was out in the street again in the cold. He had the idea that he would go to John Hughson's; and sure enough, he found the old lady there. She and John cried out as he came in, and would know where he had been. He could not tell. "Why, you are cold," said the old lady, feeling his hand. And they would have him eat something. In the street again, returning: it was pleasanter in the dark; one could think. One could think of her; he dared not when people were looking, lest they should know. He would go to her. Suppose he told old Mr. Bowdoin, frankly, the debt was nearly made up: he would gladly lend him. Nay, but it was a theft, not a debt. How could he tell--now--when so nearly saved? In the room, Mrs. Hughson was bustling about getting a hot drink. So nearly! Why, even if David might have lived a year more! And he had been a slave-catcher. Perhaps he had left her money? Perhaps she might get on for a year--if he wrote? Ah, here was the hot drink. He would take it; yes, if only to get rid of Mrs. Hughson. She looked old and queer, and smiled at him. But he did not know Mercedes' address; he could not write. Yes, he felt warmer now; he was well enough, thank you. Ah, by Heaven, he would go! He must sleep first. Would not Mrs. Hughson put out the light? He liked it better so. Good-night. Just this rest, and then the palm-trees, and such a sunny, idle sky, where Mercedes was walking with him. The account had been nearly made up; the balance might rest. X. No letter came back from Jamie, and Mr. Bowdoin rather wondered at it. But openly he pooh-poohed the idea. His wife had lost twenty years of her age in presiding over Sanitary Commissions, and getting up classes where little girls picked lint for Union soldiers; and Mr. Bowdoin himself was full of the war news in the papers. For he was a war Democrat (that fine old name!), and had he had his way, every son and grandson would have been in the Union army. Most of them were, among them Harley, though the family blood had made him choose the naval branch. Commander Harleston Bowdoin was back on a furlough won him by a gunshot wound: and it was he who asked about old Jamie most anxiously. "You feel sure that he was going to Havana?" said he over the family breakfast table. Old lady Bowdoin had left them; long since she had established her claim to the donation fund by arriving always first at breakfast, and had devoted it, triumphantly, to a fund for free negroes,--"contrabands," as they were just then called. But Mrs. Bowdoin never had taken much interest in Mercedes. "Sure, they were last heard of there. He was on some filibustering expedition in Cuba. Perhaps he was hanged. But no, I don't think so. Poor Jamie used to send them so much money!" "He might have written before he sailed," said Harley, nursing his wounded arm. "If he wrote, I guess he wrote to her," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly. "Why should he write to me?" "I don't like it," said Harley. Mr. Bowdoin did not like it; and not being willing to admit this to himself, it made him very cross. So he rose, and, crowding his hat over his eyes, strode out into the April morning, and down the street to the wharf, and down the wharf to the office, where he silenced his trio of pensioners for the time being by telling them all to go to the devil; _he_ would not be bothered. And these, hardly surprised, and not at all offended, hobbled around to the southern side of the building, where they lent each other quarters against the morrow, when they knew the peppery old gentleman would relent. Mr. Bowdoin stamped up the two flights of narrow stairs to the counting-room, where his first action was to take off a large piece of cannel coal just put on the fire by Mr. James Bowdoin, and damn his son and heir for his extravagance. As the coal put back in the hod was rapidly filling the room with its smoke, James the younger fled incontinently; and the elder contemplated the situation. It was true Jamie had not written; but he had not thought much about it. Harley entered. "I was thinking, sir, of going down to Mr. McMurtagh's lodgings and asking if they had heard from him." "Haven't you been there yet? I should think any fool would have gone there first!" "That's why I didn't, sir," said Harley respectfully. Old Mr. Bowdoin chuckled grimly, and his grandson took his leave. "Come back and tell me at the bank!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. But hardly had Harley got down the stairs before the old gentleman had another visitor. And this time it was a sheriff with brass buttons; and he held a large document in his hands. Now Mr. Bowdoin was not over-fond of officers of the law; he detested lawsuits, and he had a horror of legal documents. Therefore he groaned at the sight, and, throwing open a window, fingered his watch-chain nervously, as one who is about to flee. "What do _you_ want, sir?" said he. "Is this the office of James Bowdoin's Sons?" "What if it were, sir?" The officer brandished his document. "Is there a clerk here,--one James McMurtagh?" "No, sir." Mr. Bowdoin spoke decidedly. "Has he a son-in-law, David St. Clair?" The old gentleman breathed a sigh of relief. "He has, sir." "Where is McMurtagh?" "I don't know, sir." "Where is St. Clair?" "Have you a citation for him?" The officer winked. "Can you tell me where to find him?" Mr. Bowdoin saw his chance. "Yes, sir; I can, sir. The last I heard of him, he had gone to Cuba on a filibustering expedition with one General Walker, who has since been hanged; and if you find him, you'll find him in Havana, Cuba, and can serve the citation on him there; though I'm bound to tell you," ended the old gentleman in a louder voice, "my opinion is, he won't care a d----n for you or your citation either!" And Mr. Bowdoin bolted down the stairs. XI. So Mr. Bowdoin hurried up the street to the bank, half chuckling, half angry, still. Then (having found that there was a special and very important directors' meeting called at once) he scurried out again upon the street, his papers in his hat, and did the business of the day on 'change. And then he went back to the bank, and asked if Mr. Harleston Bowdoin had got there yet. Mr. Stanchion told him no. By that time it was after eleven. But Mr. Bowdoin made a rapid calculation of the distance (it never would have occurred to him to take a hack; carriages, in his view, were meant for women, funerals, and disreputable merrymakers), and hastened down to Salem Street. Old Mrs. Hughson met him at the door, grateful and tearful. Yes, young Mr. Harley (she remembered him well in the old days, and had been jealous of him as a rival of her son) was upstairs. She feared poor McMurtagh was very ill. He had been out of his head for days and days. To Mr. Bowdoin's peppery query why the devil she had not sent for him, Mrs. Hughson had nothing to say. It had never occurred to her, perhaps, that the well-being of such a quaint, dried-up old chap as Jamie could be a matter of moment to his wealthy employers whom she had never known. "Can I see him?" asked Mr. Bowdoin. But as he spoke, Harley came down the stairs. "It's heart-breaking," he said. "He thinks he's in the South with her. He was going to meet her, it seems; and the poor old fellow does not know he has not gone." "Let me see him," said the elder. "Have they no nurse?" "I nurse him off and on, nigh about all he needs," answered Mrs. Hughson. "And then there's John." But Mr. Bowdoin had hurried up the stairs. Jamie was lying with his eyes wide open, moving restlessly. It seemed a low fever; for his face was pale; only the old ruddiness showed unnaturally, like the mark of his old-country lineage, left from bygone years of youth and sunlight on his paling life. And Jamie's eyes met Mr. Bowdoin's; he had been murmuring rapidly, and there was a smile in them; but this now he lost, though the eyes had in them no look of recognition. He became silent as his look touched Mr. Bowdoin's face and glanced from it quickly, as do the looks of delirious persons and young children. And then, as the old gentleman bent over him and touched his hand, "A thousand dollars yet! a thousand dollars yet!" many times repeating this in a low cry; and all his raving now was of money and rows of money, rows and rows of gold. Mr. Bowdoin stood by him. Harley came to the door, and motioned to him to step outside. Jamie went on: "A year more! another year more!" Then, as Mr. Bowdoin again touched his hand, he stared, and Mr. Bowdoin started at the mention of his own name. "See, Mr. Bowdoin! but one row more to fill! But one year more, but one year more!" Mr. Bowdoin dropped his hand, and went hastily to the door, which he closed behind him. "Harley, my boy, we mustn't listen to the old man's ravings--and I must go back to the bank." "He has never talked that way to me, sir: it's all about Mercedes, and his going to her," and Harley opened the door, and both went in. And sure enough, the old man's raving changed. "I must go to her. I must go to her. I must go to her. I cannot help it, I must go to her." "Sometimes he thinks he has gone," whispered Harley. "Then he is quieter." "What are these?" said Mr. Bowdoin, kicking over a pile of newspapers on the floor. "Why does he have New Orleans newspapers?" The two men looked, and found one paper folded more carefully, on the table; in this they read the item telling of St. Clair's death. They looked at one another. "That is it, then," said Harley. "I wonder if he left her poor?" "So she is not in Havana, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin. And old Jamie, who had been speaking meaningless sentences, suddenly broke into his old refrain: "_A thousand dollars more!_" "I must get to the bank," said the old gentleman, "and stop that meeting." "And _I_ must go to _her_!" cried Harleston Bowdoin. The other grasped his hand. But Jamie's spirit was far away, and thought that all these things were done. XII. Old Mr. Bowdoin went back to his bank meeting, which he peremptorily postponed, bidding James his son to vote that way, and he would give him reasons afterward. Going home he linked his arm in his, and told him why he would not have that meeting, and the new bank formed, and all its assets and trusts counted, until James McMurtagh was well again, or not in this world to know. And that same night, Commander Harleston, still on sick leave, started by rail for New Orleans, with orders that would take him through the lines. They had doctors and a nurse now for poor old Jamie; but Mr. Bowdoin was convinced no drug could save his life and reason,--only Mercedes. He lay still in a fever, out of his mind; and the doctors dreaded that his heart might stop when his mind came to. That, at least, was the English of it; the doctors spoke in words of Greek and Latin. James Bowdoin suggested to his father that they should open the chest, thereby exciting a most unwonted burst of ire. "I pry into poor Jamie's accounts while he's lost his mind of grief about that girl!" (For also to him Mercedes, now nigh to forty, was still a girl.) "I would not stoop to doubt him, sir." Yet, on the other hand, Mr. Bowdoin would probably have never condoned a theft, once discovered; and James Bowdoin wasted his time in hinting they might make it good. "Confound it, sir," said the father, "it's the making it good to Jamie, not the making it good to us, that counts,--don't you see?" "You do suspect him, then?" "Not a bit,--not one whit, sir!" cried the father. "I know him better. And I hate a low, suspicious habit of mind, sir, with all my heart!" "You once said, sir, years ago (do you remember?), that but one thing--love--could make a man like Jamie go wrong." "I said a lot of d----d fool things, sir, when I was bringing you up, and the consequences are evident." And Mr. Bowdoin slammed out of the breakfast-room where this conversation took place. But no word came from Harleston, and the old gentleman's temper grew more execrable every day. Again the bank directors met, and again at his request--this time avowedly on account of McMurtagh's illness--the reorganization and examination were postponed. And at last, the very day before the next meeting, there came a telegram from Harley in New York. It said this only:-- "Landed to-day. Arrive to-morrow morning. Found." * * * * * "Now why the deuce can't he say what he's found and who's with him?" complained old Mr. Bowdoin to his wife and son for the twentieth time, that next morning. Breakfast was over, and they were waiting for Harley to arrive. Mrs. Bowdoin went on with her work in silence. "And why the devil is the train so late? I must be at the bank at eleven. Do you suppose she's with him?" "How is Jamie?" said Mrs. Bowdoin only in reply. "Much the same. Do you think--do you think"-- "I am afraid so, James," said the old lady. "Harley would have said"-- "There he comes!" cried Mr. Bowdoin from the window. Father and son ran to the door, in the early spring morning, and saw a carriage stop, and Harley step out of it, and then--a little girl. XIII. The image of Mercedes she was; and the old gentleman caught her up and kissed her. He had a way with all children; and James thought this little maid was just as he remembered her mother, that day, now so long gone, on the old Long Wharf, when the sailing-vessel came in from the harbor,--the day he was engaged to marry his Abby. Old Mrs. Bowdoin stood beside, rubbing her spectacles; and then the old man set the child upon his lap, and told her soon she should see her grandfather. And the child began to prattle to him in a good English that had yet a color of something French or Spanish; and she wore a black dress. "But perhaps you have never heard of your old grandfather?" The child said that "mamma" had often talked about him, and had said that some day she should go to Boston to see him. "Grandfather Jamie," the child called him. "That was before mamma went away." Mr. Bowdoin looked at the black dress, and then at Harleston; and Harleston nodded his head sadly. "Well, Mercedes, we will go very soon. Isn't your name Mercedes?" said the old gentleman, seeing the little maid look surprised. "My name is Sarah, but mamma called me Sadie," lisped the child. Mr. Bowdoin and Harleston looked each at the other, and had the same thought. It was as if the mother, who had so darkened (or shall we, after all, say lightened?) Jamie's life, had given up her strange Spanish name in giving him back this child, and remembered but the homely "Sadie" he once had called her by. But by this time old lady Bowdoin had the little maid upon her lap, and James was dragging Harley away to tell his story. And old Mr. Bowdoin even broke his rule by taking an after-breakfast cigar, and puffed it furiously. "I got to New Orleans by rail and river, as you know. There I inquired after St. Clair, and had no difficulty in finding out about him. He had been a sort of captain of marines in an armed blockade-runner, and he was well known in New Orleans as a gambler, a slave-dealer"-- Mr. Bowdoin grunted. --"almost what they call a thug. But he had not been killed instantly; he died in a city hospital." "There is no doubt about his being dead?" queried Mr. Bowdoin anxiously. "Not the slightest. I saw his grave. But, unhappily, Mercedes is dead, too." "All is for the best," said Mr. Bowdoin philosophically. "Perhaps you'd have married her." "Perhaps I should," said Commander Harley simply. "Well, I found her at the hospital where he had died, and she died too. This little girl was all she had left. I brought her back. As you see, she is like her mother, only gentler, and her mother brought her up to reverence old Jamie above all things on earth." "It was time," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly. "She told me St. Clair had got into trouble in New York; and old Jamie had sent them some large sum,--over twenty thousand dollars." Mr. Bowdoin started. "The child told you this?" "No, the mother. I saw her before she died." "Oh," said his grandfather. "You did not tell me that." "I saw her before she died," said Harley firmly. "You must not think hardly of her; she was very changed." The tears were in Commander Harleston's eyes. "I will not," said Mr. Bowdoin. "Over twenty thousand dollars,--dear me, dear me! And we have our directors' meeting to-day. Well, well. I am glad, at least, poor Jamie has his little girl again," and Mr. Bowdoin took his hat and prepared to go. "I only hope I'm too late. James, go on ahead. Harley, my boy, I'm afraid we know it all." "Stop a minute," said Harley. "There was some one else at the hospital." "Everybody seems to have been at the hospital," growled old Mr. Bowdoin petulantly. But he sat down wearily, wondering what he should do; for he felt almost sure now of what poor Jamie had done. "The captain of the blockade-runner was there, too. He was mortally wounded; and it was from him that I learned most about St. Clair and how he ended. He seemed to be a Spaniard by birth, though he wore as a brooch a small miniature of Andrew Jackson." "Hang Andrew Jackson!" cried the old gentleman. "What do I care about Andrew Jackson?" "That's what I asked him. And do you know what he said? 'Why, he saved me from hanging.'" Mr. Bowdoin started. "Before he died he told me of his life. He had even been on a pirate, in old days. Once he was captured, and tried in Boston; and, for some kindness he had shown, old President Jackson reprieved him. Then he ran away, and never dared come back. But he left some money at a bank here, and a little girl, his daughter." "What was his name? Hang it, what was his name?" shouted old Mr. Bowdoin, putting on his hat. "Soto,--Romolo Soto." Mr. Bowdoin sank back in his chair again. "Why, that was the captain. Mercedes was the mate's child." "No. The money was Soto's, and the child too. He told me he had only lately sent a detective here to try and trace the child." "The sheriff's officer, by Jove!" said Mr. Bowdoin. "But can you prove it? can you prove it?" he cried. "Mercedes had yellow hair, so had Soto. And he knew your name. And before he died he gave me papers." Mr. Bowdoin jumped up, took the papers, and bolted into the street. XIV. His son James was sitting in the chair, with the other directors around him, when old Mr. Bowdoin reached the bank. There was a silence when he entered, and a sense of past discussion in the air. James Bowdoin rose. "Keep the chair, James, keep the chair. I have a little business with the board." "They were discussing, sir," replied James, "the necessity of completing our work for the new organization. Is McMurtagh yet well enough to work?" "No," said the father. "What is your objection to proceeding without him?" asked Mr. Pinckney rather shortly. "None whatever," coolly answered Mr. Bowdoin. "None whatever? Why, you said you would not proceed while Mr. McMurtagh was ill." "McMurtagh will never come back to the bank," said old Mr. Bowdoin gravely. "Dear me, I hope he is not dead?" "No, but he will retire; on a pension, of course. Then his granddaughter has quite a little fortune." "His granddaughter--a fortune?" "Certainly--Miss Sarah--McMurtagh," gasped Mr. Bowdoin. He could not say "St. Clair," and so her name was changed. "Something over twenty thousand dollars. I have come for it now." The other directors looked at old Mr. Bowdoin for visual evidence of a failing mind. "It's in the safe there, in a box. Mr. Stanchion, please get down the old tin box marked 'James Bowdoin's Sons;' there are the papers. The child's other grandfather, one Romolo Soto, gave it me himself, in 1829. I myself had it put in this bank the next day. Here is the receipt: 'James Bowdoin's Sons, one chest said to contain Spanish gold. Amount not specified.' I'll take it, if you please." "The amount must be specified somewhere." "The amount was duly entered on the books of James Bowdoin's Sons, Tom Pinckney; and their books are no business of yours, unless you doubt our credit. Would you like a written statement?" and Mr. Bowdoin puffed himself up and glared at his old friend. "Here is the chest, sir," said Mr. Stanchion suavely. "Have you the key?" "No, sir; Mr. McMurtagh has the key," and Mr. Bowdoin stalked from the office. XV. Then old Mr. Bowdoin, with the box under his arm, hurried down to Salem Street. Jamie still lay there, unconscious of earthly things. For many weeks, his spirit, like a tired bird, had hovered between this world and the next, uncertain where to alight. For many weeks he had been, as we call it, out of his head. Harley had had time to go to New Orleans and return, Mercedes and Soto to die, and all these meetings about less important things to happen at the bank; and still old Jamie's body lay in the little house in Salem Street, his mind far wandering. But in all his sixty years of gray life, up to then, I doubt if his soul had been so happy. Dare we even say it was less real? Old Mr. Bowdoin laid the chest beside the door, and listened. For Jamie was wandering with Mercedes under sunny skies; and now, for many days, his ravings had not been of money or of this world's duty, but only of her. It had been so from about the time she must have died; dare one suppose he knew it? So his mind was still with her. The doctors, though, were very anxious for his mind, still wandering. If his body returned to life, they feared that his mind would not. But the Bowdoins and little Sarah sat and watched there. It came that morning,--it was late in May; so calmly that for some moments they did not notice it,--old Mr. Bowdoin and the little girl. Jamie opened his eyes to look out on this world again so naturally that they did not see that he had waked; only he lay there, looking out of the window, and puzzling at a blossom that was on a tree below; for he remembered, when he had gone to sleep the night before, it was March weather, and the snow lay on the ground. The snow lay thick upon the ground as he was walking to the station. How could spring have come in a night? Where was--What world was this? For his eyes traveled down the room to where, sitting at the foot of his bed to be the first to be seen by him, Jamie saw his little girl as he remembered her. Mr. Bowdoin started as the look of seeing came back to Jamie's eyes. But the little girl, as she had been told to do, ran forward and took the old clerk's hand. It was very quiet in the room. Old Mr. Bowdoin dared not speak; he sat there rubbing his spectacles. But old Jamie had looked up to her, and said only, "Mercedes!" XVI. Jamie did come back to the bank--once. It was on a day some weeks after this, when he was well. He had been well enough even for one more journey to New York; the Bowdoins did not thwart him. And Mercedes--Sadie--was at his home; so now he came to get possession of his ward's little fortune, to be duly invested in his name as trustee, in the stock of the Old Colony Bank. He came in one morning, and all the bookkeepers greeted him; and then he went into the safe, where he found the box as usual; for Mr. Bowdoin, knowing that he would come, had taken it back. When he came out, the chest was under his arm; and he went to old Mr. Bowdoin, alone in his private room. "Here is the chest, sir, I must ask you to count it." And before Mr. Bowdoin could answer he had turned the lock, so the lid sprang open. There, almost filling the box, were rows of coin, shining rows of gold. Old Mr. Bowdoin's eyes glistened. "Jamie, why should I count it?" he said gently. "It is yours now, and you alone can receipt for it, as Sarah's legal guardian." "I would have ye ken, sir, that the firm o' James Bowdoin's Sons ha' duly performed their trust." And old Mr. Bowdoin said no more, but counted the coins, one by one, to the full number the ledger showed. He did not look at the other page. But Jamie was not one to tear a leaf from a ledger. No one ever looked at the old book again; but the honest entries stand there still upon the page. Only now there is another: "Restored in full, June 26, 1862." * * * * * STANDARD AND POPULAR BOOKS OF FICTION PUBLISHED BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. Thomas Bailey Aldrich. The Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.25. Marjorie Daw and Other People. Short Stories. With Frontispiece. 12mo, $1.50. Marjorie Daw and Other Stories. In Riverside Aldine Series. 16mo, $1.00. 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20765	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 20765-h.htm or 20765-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/7/6/20765/20765-h/20765-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/7/6/20765/20765-h.zip) Transcriber's Note: Spelling, punctuation and capitalization are as in the original. This includes the writer's various spellings of her own name. Ordinals such as "1st", "2d", "4th" were consistently written in superscript. They are shown here as unmarked text. Other superscript abbreviations are shown with caret as M^rs, Hon^d. The printed book included a facsimile image of a typical diary page. A transcription of this passage appears immediately before the diary proper. DIARY OF ANNA GREEN WINSLOW A Boston School Girl of 1771 Edited by ALICE MORSE EARLE [Illustration: ANNA GREEN WINSLOW] [Publisher's Device: Tout bien ou rien] Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1895 Copyright, 1894, By Alice Morse Earle. All rights reserved. Third Edition. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. This Book _Is Dedicated_ _To_ _The Kinsfolk Of_ _ANNA GREEN WINSLOW_ _FOREWORD._ _In the year 1770, a bright little girl ten years of age, Anna Green Winslow, was sent from her far away home in Nova Scotia to Boston, the birthplace of her parents, to be "finished" at Boston schools by Boston teachers. She wrote, with evident eagerness and loving care, for the edification of her parents and her own practice in penmanship, this interesting and quaint diary, which forms a most sprightly record, not only of the life of a young girl at that time, but of the prim and narrow round of daily occurrences in provincial Boston. It thus assumes a positive value as an historical picture of the domestic life of that day; a value of which the little girl who wrote it, or her kinsfolk who affectionately preserved it to our own day, never could have dreamed. To many New England families it is specially interesting as a complete rendering, a perfect presentment, of the childish life of their great grandmothers, her companions._ _It is an even chance which ruling thought in the clever little writer, a love of religion or a love of dress, shows most plainly its influence on this diary. On the whole, I think that youthful vanity, albeit of a very natural and innocent sort, is more pervasive of the pages. And it is fortunate that this is the case; for, from the frankly frivolous though far from self-conscious entries we gain a very exact notion, a very valuable picture, of the dress of a young girl at that day. We know all the details of her toilet, from the "pompedore" shoes and the shifts (which she had never worn till she lived in Boston), to the absurd and top-heavy head-decoration of "black feathers, my past comb & all my past garnet marquasett and jet pins, together with my silver plume." If this fantastic assemblage of ornament were set upon the "Heddus roll," so graphically described, it is easy to understand the denunciations of the time upon women's headgear. In no contemporary record or account, no matter who the writer, can be found such a vivacious and witty description of the modish hairdressing of that day as in the pages of this diary._ _But there are many entries in the journal of this vain little Puritan devotee to show an almost equal attention to religion; records of sermons which she had heard, and of religious conversations in which she had taken a self-possessed part; and her frequent use of Biblical expressions and comparisons shows that she also remembered fully what she read. Her ambitious theological sermon-notes were evidently somewhat curtailed by the sensible advice of the aunt with whom she resided, who thereby checked also the consequent injudicious praise of her pastor, the Old South minister. For Anna and her kinsfolk were of the congregation of the Old South church; and this diary is in effect a record of the life of Old South church attendants. Many were what Anna terms "sisters of the Old South," and nine tenths of the names of her companions and friends may be found on the baptismal and membership records of that church._ _Anna was an industrious little wight, active in all housewifely labors and domestic accomplishments, and attentive to her lessons. She could make "pyes," and fine network; she could knit lace, and spin linen thread and woolen yarn; she could make purses, and embroider pocket-books, and weave watch strings, and piece patchwork. She learned "dansing, or danceing I should say," from one Master Turner; she attended a sewing school, to become a neat and deft little sempstress, and above all, she attended a writing school to learn that most indispensable and most appreciated of eighteenth century accomplishments--fine writing. Her handwriting, of which a fac-simile is here shown, was far better than that of most girls of twelve to-day; with truth and justice could Anna say, "Aunt says I can write pretily." Her orthography was quite equal to that of grown persons of her time, and her English as good as that of Mercy Warren, her older contemporary writer._ _And let me speak also of the condition of her diary. It covers seventy-two pages of paper about eight inches long by six and a half inches wide. The writing is uniform in size, every letter is perfectly formed; it is as legible as print, and in the entire diary but three blots can be seen, and these are very small. A few pages were ruled by the writer, the others are unruled. The old paper, though heavy and good, is yellow with age, and the water marks C.F.R. and the crown stand out distinctly. The sheets are sewed in a little book, on which a marbled paper cover has been placed, probably by a later hand than Anna's. Altogether it is a remarkably creditable production for a girl of twelve._ _It is well also to compare her constant diligence and industry displayed to us through her records of a day's work--and at another time, of a week's work--with that of any girl of her age in a corresponding station of life nowadays. We learn that physical pain or disability were no excuse for slothfulness; Anna was not always well--had heavy colds, and was feverish; but well or ill was always employed. Even with painful local afflictions such as a "whitloe," she still was industrious, "improving it to perfect myself in learning to spin flax." She read much--the Bible constantly--and also found amusement in reading "a variety of composures."_ _She was a friendly little soul, eager to be loved; resenting deeply that her Aunt Storer let "either one of her chaises, her chariot or babyhutt," pass the door every day, without sending for her; going cheerfully tea-drinking from house to house of her friends; delighting even in the catechising and the sober Thursday Lecture. She had few amusements and holidays compared with the manifold pleasures that children have nowadays, though she had one holiday which the Revolution struck from our calendar--the King's Coronation Day. She saw the Artillery Company drill, and she visited brides and babies and old folks, and attended some funerals. When she was twelve years old she "came out"--became a "miss in her teens"--and went to a succession of prim little routs or parties, which she called "constitutions." To these decorous assemblies girls only were invited,--no rough Boston boys. She has left to us more than one clear, perfect picture of these formal little routs in the great low-raftered chamber, softly alight with candles on mantel-tree and in sconces; with Lucinda, the black maid, "shrilly piping;" and rows of demure little girls of Boston Brahmin blood, in high rolls and feathers, discreetly partaking of hot and cold punch, and soberly walking and curtsying through the minuet; fantastic in costume, but proper and seemly in demeanor, models of correct deportment as were their elegant mammas._ _But Anna was not solemn; she was always happy, and often merry--full of life and wit. She jested about getting a "fresh seasoning with Globe salt," and wrote some labored jokes and some unconscious ones home to her mother. She was subject to "egregious fits of laughterre," and fully proved the statement, "Aunt says I am a whimsical child." She was not beautiful. Her miniature is now owned by Miss Elizabeth C. Trott of Niagara Falls, the great grand-daughter of General John Winslow, and a copy is shown in the frontispiece. It displays a gentle, winning little face, delicate in outline, as is also the figure, and showing some hint also of delicacy of constitution. It may be imagination to think that it is plainly the face of one who could never live to be old--a face typical of youth._ _Let us glance at the stock from whence sprung this tender and engaging little blossom. When the weary Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod before they made their memorable landing at Plymouth, a sprightly young girl jumped on shore, and was the first English woman to set foot on the soil of New England. Her name was Mary Chilton. She married John Winslow, the brother of Governor Edward Winslow. Anna Green Winslow was Mary Chilton's direct descendant in the sixth generation._ _Anna's grandfather, John Winslow the fourth, was born in Boston. His son Joshua wrote thus in the Winslow Family Bible: "Jno Winslow my Honor'd Father was born ye 31 Dec. at 6 o'c. in the morning on the Lords Day, 1693, and was baptized by Mr. Willard the next day & dyed att sea Octo. 13, 1731 aged 38 years." A curious attitude was assumed by certain Puritan ministers, of reluctance and even decided objection and refusal to baptize children who were unlucky enough to be born on the Lord's Day; but Samuel Willard, the pastor of the "South Church" evidently did not concur in that extraordinary notion, for on the day following "Jno's" birth--on New Year's Day--he was baptized. He was married on September 21, 1721, to Sarah Pierce, and in their ten years of married life they had three children._ _Joshua Winslow, Anna's father, was the second child. He was born January 23, 1727, and was baptized at the Old South. He was "published" with his cousin Anna Green on December 7, 1758, and married to her four weeks later, January 3, 1759. An old piece of embroidered tapestry herein shown gives a good portrayal of a Boston wedding-party at that date; the costumes, coach, and cut of the horses' mane and tail are very curious and interesting to note. Mrs. Winslow's mother was Anna Pierce (sister of Sarah), and her father was Joseph Green, the fourth generation from Percival Green, whose descendants have been enumerated by Dr. Samuel Abbott Green, the president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in his book entitled "Account of Percival and Ellen Green and some of their descendants."_ _Mrs. Joshua Winslow was the oldest of twelve Green children, hence the vast array of uncles and aunts and cousins in little Anna's diary._ _Joseph Green, Anna's maternal grandfather, was born December 12, 1703, and was baptised on the same day. He died July 11, 1765. He was a wealthy man for his time, being able to pay Governor Belcher £3,600 for a tract of land on Hanover Street. His firm name was Green & Walker. A fine portrait of him by Copley still exists._ _Thus Anna came of good stock in all lines of descent. The Pierces were of the New Hampshire provincial gentry, to which the Wentworths and Langdons also belonged._ _Before Joshua Winslow was married, when he was but eighteen years of age, he began his soldierly career. He was a Lieutenant in Captain Light's company in the regiment of Colonel Moore at the taking of Louisburg in 1745. He was then appointed Commissary-General of the British forces in Nova Scotia, and an account-book of his daily movements there still exists. Upon his return to New England he went to live at Marshfield, Massachusetts, in the house afterwards occupied by Daniel Webster. But troublous times were now approaching for the faithful servants of the King. Strange notions of liberty filled the heads of many Massachusetts men and women; and soon the Revolution became more than a dream. Joshua Winslow in that crisis, with many of his Marshfield friends and neighbors, sided with his King._ _He was in Marshfield certainly in June, 1775, for I have a letter before me written to him there by Mrs. Deming at that date. One clause of this letter is so amusing that I cannot resist quoting it. We must remember that it was written in Connecticut, whence Mrs. Deming had fled in fright and dismay at the siege of Boston; and that she had lost her home and all her possessions. She writes in answer to her brother's urgent invitation to return to Marshfield._ _"We have no household stuff. Neither could I live in the terror of constant alarms and the din of war. Besides I know not how to look you in the face, unless I could restore to you your family Expositer, which together with my Henry on the Bible & Harveys Meditations which are your daughter's (the gift of her grandmother) I pack'd in a Trunk that exactly held them, some days before I made my escape, and did my utmost to git to you, but which I am told are still in Boston. It is not, nor ever will be in my power to make you Satisfaction for this Error--I should not have coveted to keep 'em so long--I am heartily sorry now that I had more than one book at a time; in that case I might have thot to have bro't it away with me, tho' I forgot my own Bible & almost every other necessary. But who can tell whether you may not git your Valuable Books. I should feel comparatively easy if you had these your Valuable property."_ _Her painful solicitude over the loss of a borrowed book is indeed refreshing, as well as her surprising covetousness of the Family Expositor and Harvey's Meditations. And I wish to add to the posthumous rehabilitation of the damaged credit of this conscientious aunt, that Anna's book--Harvey's Meditations--was recovered and restored to the owner, and was lost at sea in 1840 by another Winslow._ _Joshua Winslow, when exiled, went to England, and thence to Quebec, where he retained throughout his life his office as Royal Paymaster. He was separated many years from his wife and daughter, and doubtless Anna died while her father was far from her; for in a letter dated Quebec, December 26, 1783, and written to his wife, he says,_ _"The Visiting Season is come on, a great practice here about Christmas and the New Year; on the return of which I congratulate my Dearest Anna and Friends with you, it being the fifth and I hope the last I shall be obliged to see the return of in a Separation from each other while we may continue upon the same Globe."_ _She shortly after joined him in Quebec. His letters show careful preparations for her comfort on the voyage. They then were childless; Anna's brothers, George Scott and John Henry, died in early youth. It is interesting to note that Joshua Winslow was the first of the Winslows to give his children more than one baptismal name._ _Joshua Winslow was a man of much dignity and of handsome person, if we can trust the Copley portrait and miniature of him which still exist. The portrait is owned by Mr. James F. Trott of Niagara Falls, New York, the miniature by Mrs. J. F. Lindsey of Yorkville, South Carolina, both grandchildren of General John Winslow. His letters display much intelligence. His spelling is unusually correct; his penmanship elegant--as was that of all the Winslows; his forms of expression scholarly and careful. He sometimes could joke a little, as when he began his letters to his wife Anna thus--2. N. A.--though it is possible that the "Obstructions to a free Correspondence, and the Circumspection we are obliged to practice in our Converse with each other" arising from his exiled condition, may have made him thus use a rebus in the address of his letter._ _He died in Quebec in 1801. His wife returned to New England and died in Medford in 1810. Her funeral was at General John Winslow's house on Purchase Street, Fort Hill, Boston; she was buried in the Winslow tomb in King's Chapel burial ground._ _We know little of the last years of Anna Green Winslow's life. A journal written by her mother in 1773 during their life in Marshfield is now owned by Miss Sarah Thomas of Marshfield, Mass. It is filled chiefly with pious sermon notes and religious thoughts, and sad and anxious reflections over absent loved ones, one of whom (in the sentimental fashion of the times) she calls "my Myron"--her husband._ _Through this journal we see "Nanny Green's" simple and monotonous daily life; her little tea-drinkings; her spinning and reeling and knitting; her frequent catechisings, her country walks. We find her mother's testimony to the "appearance of reason that is in my children and for the readiness with which they seem to learn what is taught them." And though she repeatedly thanks God for living in a warm house, she notes that "my bason of water froze on the hearth with as good a fire as we could make in the chimney." This rigor of climate and discomfort of residence, and Anna's evident delicacy shown through the records of her fainting, account for her failing health. The last definite glimpse which we have of our gentle little Nanny is in the shape of a letter written to her by "Aunt Deming." It is dated Boston, April 21, 1779, and is so characteristic of the day and so amusing also that I quote it in full._ _Dear Neice_, _I receivd your favor of 6th instant by nephew Jack, who with the Col. his trav'ling companion, perform'd an easy journey from you to us, and arriv'd before sunset. I thank you for the beads, the wire, and the beugles, I fancy I shall never execute the plan of the head dress to which you allude--if I should, some of your largest corn stalks, dril'd of the pith and painted might be more proportionable. I rejoice that your cloths came off so much better than my fears--a troublesome journey, I expected you would have; and very much did I fear for your bones. I was always unhappy in anticipating trouble--it is my constitution, I believe--and when matters have been better than my fears--I have never been so dutifully thankful as my bountiful Benefactor had a right to expect. This, also, I believe, is the constitution of all my fellow race._ _Mr. Deming had a Letter from your Papa yesterday; he mention'd your Mama & you as indispos'd & Flavia as sick in bed. I'm at too great a distance to render you the least service, and were I near, too much out of health to--some part of the time--even speak to you. I am seiz'd with exceeding weakness at the very seat of life, and to a greater degree than I ever before knew. Could I ride, it might help me, but that is an exercise my income will not permit. I walk out whenever I can. The day will surely come, when I must quit this frail tabernacle, and it may be soon--I certainly know, I am not of importance eno' in this world, for any one to wish my stay--rather am I, and so I consider myself as a cumberground. However I shall abide my appointed time & I desire to be found waiting for my change._ _Our family are well--had I time and spirits I could acquaint you of an expedition two sisters made to Dorchester, a walk begun at sunrise last thursday morning--dress'd in their dammasks, padusoy, gauze, ribbins, flapets, flowers, new white hats, white shades, and black leather shoes, (Pudingtons make) and finished journey, & garments, orniments, and all quite finish'd on Saturday, before noon, (mud over shoes) never did I behold such destruction in so short a space--bottom of padusoy coat fring'd quite round, besides places worn entire to floss, & besides frays, dammask, from shoulders to bottom, not lightly soil'd, but as if every part had rub'd tables and chairs that had long been us'd to wax mingl'd with grease. I could have cry'd, for I really pitied 'em--nothing left fit to be seen--They had leave to go, but it never entered any ones tho'ts but their own to be dressd in all (even to loading) of their best--their all, as you know. What signifies it to worry ones selves about beings that are, and will be, just so? I can, and do pity and advise, but I shall git no credit by such like. The eldest talks much of learning dancing, musick (the spinet & guitar), embroidry, dresden, the French tongue &c &c. The younger with an air of her own, advis'd the elder when she first mention'd French, to learn first to read English, and was answered "law, so I can well eno' a'ready." You've heard her do what she calls reading, I believe. Poor creature! Well! we have a time of it!_ _If any one at Marshfield speaks of me remember me to them. Nobody knows I'm writing, each being gone their different ways, & all from home except the little one who is above stairs. Farewell my dear, I've wrote eno' I find for this siting._ _Yr affect_ _Sarah Deming._ _It does not need great acuteness to read between the lines of this letter an affectionate desire to amuse a delicate girl whom the writer loved. The tradition in the Winslow family is that Anna Green Winslow died of consumption at Marshfield in the fall of 1779. There is no town or church record of her death, no known grave or headstone to mark her last resting-place. And to us she is not dead, but lives and speaks--always a loving, endearing little child; not so passionate and gifted and rare a creature as that star among children--Marjorie Fleming--but a natural and homely little flower of New England life; fated never to grow old or feeble or dull or sad, but to live forever and laugh in the glamour of eternal happy youth through the few pages of her time-stained diary._ _Alice Morse Earle._ _Brooklyn Heights, September, 1894._ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE ANNA GREEN WINSLOW. From miniature now owned by Miss Elizabeth C. Trott, Niagara Falls, N.Y. _Frontispiece._ FACSIMILE OF WRITING OF ANNA GREEN WINSLOW. From original diary 1 WEDDING PARTY IN BOSTON IN 1756. From tapestry now owned by American Antiquarian Society 20 GENERAL JOSHUA WINSLOW. From miniature painted by Copley, 1755, and now owned by Mrs. John F. Lindsey, Yorkville, S.C. 34 EBENEZER STORER. From portrait painted by Copley, now owned by Mrs. Lewis C. Popham, Scarsdale, N.Y. 45 HANNAH GREEN STORER. From portrait painted by Copley, now owned by Mrs. Lewis C. Popham, Scarsdale, N.Y. 65 CUT-PAPER PICTURE. Cut by Mrs. Sarah Winslow Deming, now owned by James F. Trott, Esq., Niagara Falls, N.Y. 74 [Transcriber's Note: In this transcription of Anna Green Winslow's handwriting, line breaks follow the original. The postscript ("N.B.") is in smaller writing, almost surrounding the signature.] [Handwriting:] I hope aunt wont let me wear the black hatt with the red Dominie--for the people will ask me what I have got to sell as I go along street if I do. or, how the folk at Newgui nie do? Dear mamma, you dont know the fation here--I beg to look like other folk. You dont kno what a stir would be made in Sudbury Street were I to make my appearance there in my red Domi nie & black Hatt. But the old cloak & bonnett together will make me a decent Bonnet for common ocation (I like that) aunt says, its a pitty some of the ribbin you sent wont do for the Bonnet--I must now close up this Journal. With Duty, Love & Compli ments as due, perticularly to my Dear little brother, (I long to see him) & M.^rs Law, I will write to her soon I am, Hon.^d Papa & mama, Y.^r ever Dutiful Daughter Anna Green Winslow. N.B. my aunt Deming dont approve of my English. & has not the fear that you will think her concernd in the Diction DIARY OF ANNA GREEN WINSLOW. 1771-1773. . . . . . Lady, by which means I had a bit of the wedding cake. I guess I shall have but little time for journalising till after thanksgiving. My aunt Deming[1] says I shall make one pye myself at least. I hope somebody beside myself will like to eat a bit of my Boston pye thou' my papa and you did not (I remember) chuse to partake of my Cumberland[2] performance. I think I have been writing my own Praises this morning. Poor Job was forced to praise himself when no _man_ would do him that justice. I am not as he was. I have made two shirts for unkle since I finish'd mamma's shifts. Nov^r 18th, 1771.--Mr. Beacons[3] text yesterday was Psalm cxlix. 4. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people; he will beautify the meek with salvation. His Doctrine was something like this, viz: That the Salvation of Gods people mainly consists in Holiness. The name _Jesus_ signifies _a Savior_. Jesus saves his people _from their Sins_. He renews them in the spirit of their minds--writes his Law in their hearts. Mr. Beacon ask'd a question. What is beauty--or, wherein does true beauty consist? He answer'd, in holiness--and said a great deal about it that I can't remember, & as aunt says she hant leisure now to help me any further--so I may just tell you a little that I remember without her assistance, and that I repeated to her yesterday at Tea--He said he would lastly address himself to the young people: My dear young friends, you are pleased with beauty, & like to be tho't beautifull--but let me tell ye, you'l never be truly beautifull till you are like the King's daughter, all glorious within, all the orniments you can put on while your souls are unholy make you the more like white sepulchres garnish'd without, but full of deformyty within. You think me very unpolite no doubt to address you in this manner, but I must go a little further and tell you, how cource soever it may sound to your delicacy, that while you are without holiness, your beauty is deformity--you are all over black & defil'd, ugly and loathsome to all holy beings, the wrath of th' great God lie's upon you, & if you die in this condition, you will be turn'd into hell, with ugly devils, to eternity. Nov. 27th.--We are very glad to see Mr. Gannett, because of him "we hear of your affairs & how you do"--as the apostle Paul once wrote. My unkle & aunt however, say they are sorry he is to be absent, so long as this whole winter, I _think_. I long now to have you come up--I want to see papa, mama, & brother, all most, for I cannot make any distinction which most--I should like to see Harry too. Mr. Gannett tells me he keeps a journal--I do want to see that--especially as Mr. Gannett has given me some specimens, as I may say of his "I and Aunt &c." I am glad Miss Jane is with you, I will write to her soon--Last monday I went with my aunt to visit Mrs. Beacon. I was exceedingly pleased with the visit, & so I _ought_ to be, my aunt says, for there was much notice taken of me, particylarly by Mr. Beacon. I think I like him better every time I see him. I suppose he takes the kinder notice of me, because last thursday evening he was here, & when I was out of the room, aunt told him that I minded his preaching & could repeat what he said--I might have told you that notwithstanding the stir about the Proclamatien, we had an agreable Thanksgiven. Mr. Hunt's[4] text was Psa. xcvii. 1. The LORD reigneth,--let the earth rejoice. Mr. Beacon's text P M Psa. xxiv. 1. The earth is the LORD's & the fulness thereof. My unkle & aunt Winslow[5] of Boston, their son & daughter, Master Daniel Mason (Aunt Winslows nephew from Newport, Rhode Island) & Miss Soley[6] spent the evening with us. We young folk had a room with a fire in it to ourselves. Mr Beacon gave us his company for one hour. I spent Fryday with my friends in Sudbury Street. I saw Mrs. Whitwell[7] very well yesterday, she was very glad of your Letter. Nov. 28th.--I have your favor Hon^d Mamma, by Mr. Gannett, & heartily thank you for the broad cloath, bags, ribbin & hat. The cloath & bags are both at work upon, & my aunt has bought a beautifull ermin trimming for my cloak. AC stands for Abigail Church. PF for Polly Frazior. I have presented one piece of ribbin to my aunt as you directed. She gives her love to you, & thanks you for it. I intend to send Nancy Mackky a pair of lace mittens, & the fag end of Harry's watch string. I hope Carolus (as papa us'd to call him) will think his daughter very smart with them. I am glad Hon^d madam, that you think my writing is better than it us'd to be--you see it is mended just here. I dont know what you mean by _terrible margins vaze_. I will endeavor to make my letters even for the future. Has Mary brought me any Lozong Mamma? I want to know whether I may give my old black quilt to Mrs Kuhn, for aunt sais, it is never worth while to take the pains to mend it again. Papa has wrote me a longer letter this time than you have Mad^m. November the 29th.--My aunt Deming gives her love to you and says it is this morning 12 years since she had the pleasure of congratulating papa and you on the birth of your scribling daughter. She hopes if I live 12 years longer that I shall write and do everything better than can be expected in the _past_ 12. I should be obliged to you, you will dismiss me for company. 30th Nov.--My company yesterday were Miss Polly Deming,[8] Miss Polly Glover,[9] Miss Peggy Draper, Miss Bessy Winslow,[10] Miss Nancy Glover,[11] Miss Sally Winslow[12] Miss Polly Atwood, Miss Han^h Soley. Miss Attwood as well as Miss Winslow are of this family. And Miss N. Glover did me honor by her presence, for she is older than cousin Sally and of her acquaintance. We made four couple at country dansing; danceing I mean. In the evening young Mr. Waters[13] hearing of my assembly, put his flute in his pocket and played several minuets and other tunes, to which we danced mighty cleverly. But Lucinda[14] was our principal piper. Miss Church and Miss Chaloner would have been here if sickness,--and the Miss Sheafs,[15] if the death of their father had not prevented. The black Hatt I gratefully receive as your present, but if Captain Jarvise had arrived here with it about the time he sail'd from this place for Cumberland it would have been of more service to me, for I have been oblig'd to borrow. I wore Miss Griswold's[16] Bonnet on my journey to Portsmouth, & my cousin Sallys Hatt ever since I came home, & now I am to leave off my black ribbins tomorrow, & am to put on my red cloak & black hatt--I hope aunt wont let me wear the black hatt with the red Dominie--for the people will ask me what I have got to sell as I go along street if I do, or, how the folk at New guinie do? Dear mamma, you dont know the fation here--I beg to look like other folk. You dont know what a stir would be made in sudbury street, were I to make my appearance there in my red Dominie & black Hatt. But the old cloak & bonnett together will make me a decent bonnett for common ocation (I like that) aunt says, its a pitty some of the ribbins you sent wont do for the Bonnet.--I must now close up this Journal. With Duty, Love, & Compliments as due, perticularly to my Dear little brother (I long to see him) & Mrs. Law, I will write to her soon. I am Hon^d Papa & mama, Yr ever Dutiful Daughter ANNE GREEN WINSLOW. N.B. My aunt Deming dont approve of my English & has not the fear that you will think her concernd in the Diction. Dec^br. 6th.--Yesterday I was prevented dining at unkle Joshua's[17] by a snow storm which lasted till 12 o'clock today, I spent some part of yesterday afternoon and evening at Mr. Glovers. When I came home, the snow being so deep I was bro't home in arms. My aunt got Mr. Soley's Charlstown to fetch me. The snow is up to the peoples wast in some places in the street. Dec 14th.--The weather and walking have been very winter like since the above hotch-potch, pothooks & trammels. I went to Mrs. Whitwell's last wednessday--you taught me to spell the 4 day of the week, but my aunt says that it should be spelt wednesday. My aunt also says, that till I come out of an egregious fit of laughterre that is apt to sieze me & the violence of which I am at this present under, neither English sense, nor anything rational may be expected of me. I ment to say, that, I went to Mrs. Whitwell's to see Mad^m Storers[18] funeral, the walking was very bad except on the sides of the street which was the reason I did not make a part of the procession. I should have dined with Mrs. Whitwell on thursday if a grand storm had not prevented, As she invited me. I saw Miss Caty Vans[19] at lecture last evening. I had a visit this morning from Mrs Dixon of Horton & Miss Polly Huston. Mrs Dixon is dissipointed at not finding her sister here. Dec^r 24th.--Elder Whitwell told my aunt, that this winter began as did the Winter of 1740. How that was I dont remember but this I know, that to-day is by far the coldest we have had since I have been in New England. (N.B. All run that are abroad.) Last sabbath being rainy I went to & from meeting in Mr. Soley's chaise. I dined at unkle Winslow's, the walking being so bad I rode there & back to meeting. Every drop that fell froze, so that from yesterday morning to this time the appearance has been similar to the discription I sent you last winter. The walking is so slippery & the air so cold, that aunt chuses to have me for her scoller these two days. And as tomorrow will be a holiday, so the pope and his associates have ordained,[20] my aunt thinks not to trouble Mrs Smith with me this week. I began a shift at home yesterday for myself, it is pretty forward. Last Saturday was seven-night my aunt Suky[21] was delivered of a pretty little son, who was baptiz'd by Dr. Cooper[22] the next day by the name of Charles. I knew nothing of it till noonday, when I went there a visiting. Last Thursday I din'd & spent the afternoon at unkle Joshua's I should have gone to lecture with my aunt & heard our Mr Hunt preach, but she would not wait till I came from writing school. Miss Atwood, the last of our boarders, went off the same day. Miss Griswold & Miss Meriam, having departed some time agone, I forget whether I mention'd the recept of Nancy's present. I am oblig'd to her for it. The Dolphin is still whole. And like to remain so. Dec^r 27th.--This day, the extremity of the cold is somewhat abated. I keept Christmas at home this year, & did a very good day's work, aunt says so. How notable I have been this week I shall tell you by & by. I spent the most part of Tuesday evening with my favorite, Miss Soley, & as she is confined by a cold & the weather still so severe that I cannot git farther, I am to visit her again before I sleep, & consult with her (or rather she with me) upon a perticular matter, which you shall know in its place. How _strangely industrious_ I have been this week, I will inform you with my own hand--at present, I am so dilligent, that I am oblig'd to use the hand & pen of my old friend, who being _near by_ is better than a brother _far off_. I dont forgit dear little John Henry so pray mamma, dont mistake me. Dec^r 28th.--Last evening a little after 5 o'clock I finished my shift. I spent the evening at Mr. Soley's. I began my shift at 12 o'clock last monday, have read my bible every day this week & wrote every day save one. Dec^r 30th.--I return'd to my sewing school after a weeks absence, I have also paid my compliments to Master Holbrook.[23] Yesterday between meetings my aunt was call'd to Mrs. Water's[13] & about 8 in the evening Dr. Lloyd[24] brought little master to town (N.B. As a memorandum for myself. My aunt stuck a white sattan pincushin[25] for Mrs Waters.[13] On one side, is a planthorn with flowers, on the reverse, just under the border are, on one side stuck these words, Josiah Waters, then follows on the end, Dec^r 1771, on the next side & end are the words, Welcome little Stranger.) Unkle has just come in & bro't one from me. I mean, unkle is just come in with a letter from Papa in his hand (& none for me) by way of Newbury. I am glad to hear that all was well the 26 Nov^r ult. I am told my Papa has not mention'd me in this Letter. Out of sight, out of mind. My aunt gives her love to papa, & says that she will make the necessary enquieries for my brother and send you via. Halifax what directions and wormseed she can collect. 1st Jan^y 1772.--I wish my Papa, Mama, brother John Henry, & cousin Avery & all the rest of my acquaintance at Cumberland, Fortlaurence, Barronsfield, Greenland, Amherst &c. a Happy New Year, I have bestow'd no new year's gift,[26] as yet. But have received one very handsome one, viz. the History of Joseph Andrews abreviated. In nice Guilt and flowers covers. This afternoon being a holiday I am going to pay my compliments in Sudbury Street. Jan^y 4th 1772--I was dress'd in my yellow coat, my black bib & apron, my pompedore[27] shoes, the cap my aunt Storer[28] sometime since presented me with (blue ribbins on it) & a very handsome loket in the shape of a hart she gave me--the past pin my Hon^d Papa presented me with in my cap, My new cloak & bonnet on, my pompedore gloves, &c, &c. And I would tell you, that _for the first time, they all lik'd my dress very much_. My cloak & bonnett are really very handsome, & so they had need be. For they cost an amasing sight of money, not quite £45[29] tho' Aunt Suky said, that she suppos'd Aunt Deming would be frighted out of her Wits at the money it cost. I have got _one_ covering, by the cost, that is genteel, & I like it much myself. On thursday I attended my aunt to Lecture & heard Dr Chauncey[30] preach a third sermon from Acts ii. 42. They continued stedfastly--in breaking of bread. I din'd & spent the afternoon at Mr. Whitwell's. Miss Caty Vans was one of our company. Dr. Pemberton[31] & Dr Cooper had on gowns, In the form of the Episcopal cassock we hear, the Doct^s design to distinguish themselves from the inferior clergy by these strange habits [at a time too when the good people of N.E. are threaten'd with & dreading the comeing of an episcopal bishop][32] N.B. I dont know whether one sleeve would make a full trimm'd negligee[33] as the fashion is at present, tho' I cant say but it might make one of the frugal sort, with but scant triming. Unkle says, they all have popes in their bellys. Contrary to I. Peter v. 2. 3. Aunt says, when she saw Dr P. roll up the pulpit stairs, the figure of Parson Trulliber, recorded by Mr Fielding occur'd to her mind & she was really sorry a congregational divine, should, by any instance whatever, give her so unpleasing an idea. Jan^y 11th.--I have attended my schools every day this week except wednesday afternoon. When I made a setting up visit to aunt Suky, & was dress'd just as I was to go to the ball. It cost me a pistoreen[34] to nurse Eaton for tow cakes, which I took care to eat before I paid for them.[35] I heard Mr Thacher preach our Lecture last evening Heb. 11. 3. I remember a great deal of the sermon, but a'nt time to put it down. It is one year last Sep^r since he was ordain'd & he will be 20 years of age next May if he lives so long. I forgot that the weather want fit for me to go to school last thursday. I work'd at home. Jan^y 17th.--I told you the 27th Ult that I was going to a constitation with miss Soley. I have now the pleasure to give you the result, viz. a very genteel well regulated assembly which we had at Mr Soley's last evening, miss Soley being mistress of the ceremony. Mrs Soley desired me to assist Miss Hannah in making out a list of guests which I did some time since, I wrote all the invitation cards. There was a large company assembled in a handsome, large, upper room in the new end of the house. We had two fiddles, & I had the honor to open the diversion of the evening in a minuet with miss Soley.--Here follows a list of the company as we form'd for country dancing. Miss Soley & Miss Anna Greene Winslow Miss Calif Miss Scott Miss Williams Miss McCarthy Miss Codman Miss Winslow Miss Ives Miss Coffin Miss Scolley[36] Miss Bella Coffin[37] Miss Waldow Miss Quinsy[38] Miss Glover Miss Draper Miss Hubbard Miss Cregur (usually pronounced Kicker) & two Miss Sheafs were invited but were sick or sorry & beg'd to be excus'd. There was a little Miss Russell & the little ones of the family present who could not dance. As spectators, there were Mr & Mrs Deming, Mr. & Mrs Sweetser Mr & Mrs Soley, Mr & Miss Cary, Mrs Draper, Miss Oriac, Miss Hannah--our treat was nuts, rasins, Cakes, Wine, punch,[39] hot & cold, all in great plenty. We had a very agreeable evening from 5 to 10 o'clock. For variety we woo'd a widow, hunted the whistle, threaded the needle, & while the company was collecting, we diverted ourselves with playing of pawns, no rudeness Mamma I assure you. Aunt Deming desires you would _perticulary observe_, that the elderly part of the company were _spectators only_, they mix'd not in either of the above describ'd scenes. I was dress'd in my yellow coat, black bib & apron, black feathers on my head, my past comb, & all my past[40] garnet marquesett[41] & jet pins, together with my silver plume--my loket, rings, black collar round my neck, black mitts & 2 or 3 yards of blue ribbin, (black & blue is high tast) striped tucker and ruffels (not my best) & my silk shoes compleated my dress. Jan^y 18th.--Yesterday I had an invitation to celebrate Miss Caty's birth-day with her. She gave it me the night before. Miss is 10 years old. The best dancer in Mr Turners[42] school, she has been his scoller these 3 years. My aunt thought it proper (as our family had a invitation) that I should attend a neighbor's funeral yesterday P.M. I went directly from it to Miss Caty's Rout & arriv'd ex . . . . . . BOSTON January 25 1772. Hon^'d Mamma, My Hon^'d Papa has never signified to me his approbation of my journals, from whence I infer, that he either never reads them, or does not give himself the trouble to remember any of their contents, tho' some part has been address'd to him, so, for the future, I shall trouble only you with this part of my scribble--Last thursday I din'd at Unkle Storer's & spent the afternoon in that neighborhood. I met with some adventures in my way viz. As I was going, I was overtaken by a lady who was quite a stranger to me. She accosted me with "how do you do miss?" I answer'd her, but told her I had not the pleasure of knowing her. She then ask'd "what is your name miss? I believe you think 'tis a very strange questian to ask, but have a mind to know." Nanny Green--She interrupted me with "not Mrs. Winslow of Cumberland's daughter." Yes madam I am. When did you hear from your Mamma? how do's she do? When shall you write to her? When you do, tell her that you was overtaken in the street by her old friend Mrs Login, give my love to her & tell her she must come up soon & live on Jamaca plain. we have got a nice meeting-house, & a charming minister, & all so cleaver. She told me she had ask'd Unkle Harry to bring me to see her, & he said he would. Her minister is Mr Gordon. I have heard him preach several times at the O. South. In the course of my peregrination, as aunt calls it, I happen'd in to a house where D---- was attending the Lady of the family. How long she was at his opperation, I know not. I saw him twist & tug & pick & cut off whole locks of grey hair at a slice (the lady telling him she would have no hair to dress next time) for the space of a hour & a half, when I left them, he seeming not to be near done. This lady is not a grandmother tho' she is both old enough & grey enough to be one. Jan^y 31--I spent yesterday with Aunt Storer, except a little while I was at Aunt Sukey's with Mrs Barrett dress'd in a white brocade, & cousin Betsey dress'd in a red lutestring, both adorn'd with past, perls marquesett &c. They were after tea escorted by Mr. Newton & Mr Barrett to ye assembly at Concert Hall. This is a snowy day, & I am prevented going to school. [Illustration: WEDDING PARTY IN BOSTON IN 1756] Feb. 9th.--My honored Mamma will be so good as to excuse my useing the pen of my old friend just here, because I am disabled by a whitloe on my fourth finger & something like one on my middle finger, from using my own pen; but altho' my right hand is in bondage, my left is free; & my aunt says, it will be a nice oppertunity if I do but improve it, to perfect myself in learning to spin flax. I am pleased with the proposal & am at this present, exerting myself for this purpose. I hope, when two, or at most three months are past, to give you occular demonstration of my proficiency in _this art_, as well as several others. My fingers are not the only part of me that has suffer'd with sores within this fortnight, for I have had an ugly great boil upon my right hip & about a dozen small ones--I am at present swath'd hip & thigh, as Samson smote the Philistines, but my soreness is near over. My aunt thought it highly proper to give me some cooling physick, so last tuesday I took 1-2 oz Globe Salt (a disagreeable potion) & kept chamber. Since which, there has been no new erruption, & a great alteration for the better in those I had before. I have read my bible to my aunt this morning (as is the daily custom) & sometimes I read other books to her. So you may perceive, I _have the use of my tongue_ & I tell her it is a good thing to have the use of my tongue. Unkle Ned[43] called here just now--all well--by the way he is come to live in Boston again, & till he can be better accomodated, is at housekeeping where Mad^m Storer lately lived, he is looking for a less house. I tell my Aunt I feel a disposician to be a good girl, & she pleases herself that she shall have much comfort of me to-day, which as cousin Sally is ironing we expect to have to ourselves. Feb. 10th.--This day I paid my respects to Master Holbrook, after a week's absence, my finger is still in limbo as you may see by the writeing. I have not paid my compliments to Madam Smith,[44] for, altho' I can drive the goos quill a bit, I cannot so well manage the needle. So I will lay my hand to the distaff, as the virtuous woman did of old--Yesterday was very bad weather, neither aunt, nor niece at publick worship. Feb. 12th.--Yesterday afternoon I spent at unkle Joshuas. Aunt Green gave me a plaister for my fingure that has near cur'd it, but I have a new boil, which is under poultice, & tomorrow I am to undergo another seasoning with globe Salt. The following lines Aunt Deming found in grandmama Sargent's[45] pocket-book & gives me leave to copy 'em here.-- Dim eyes, deaf ears, cold stomach shew, My dissolution is in view The shuttle's thrown, my race is run, My sun is set, my work is done; My span is out, my tale is told, My flower's decay'd, & stock grows old, The dream is past, the shadows fled, My soul now longs for Christ my head, I've lived to seventy six or nigh, GOD calls at last, & now I'll die.[46] My honor'd Grandma departed this vale of tears 1-4 before 4 o'clock wednesday morning August 21, 1771. Aged 74 years, 2 months & ten days. Feb. 13th.--Everybody says that this is a bitter cold day, but I know nothing about it but hearsay for I am in aunt's chamber (which is very warm always) with a nice fire, a stove, sitting in Aunt's easy chair, with a tall three leav'd screen at my back, & I am very comfortable. I took my second (& I hope last) potion of Globe salts this morning. I went to see Aunt Storer yesterday afternoon, & by the way Unkle Storer is so ill that he keeps chamber. As I went down I call'd at Mrs Whitwell's & must tell you Mr & Mrs Whitwell are both ill. Mrs. Whitwell with the rheumatism. I saw Mad^m Harris, Mrs Mason and Miss Polly Vans[47] there, they all give their love to you--Last evening I went to catechizing with Aunt. Our ministers have agreed during the long evenings to discourse upon the questions or some of 'em in the assembly's shorter catechism, taking 'em in their order at the house of Mrs Rogers in School Street, every wednesday evening. Mr. Hunt began with the first question and shew'd what it is to glorify GOD. Mr Bacon then took the second, what rule &c. which he has spent three evenings upon, & now finished. Mr Hunt having taken his turn to show what the Scriptures principly teach, & what is GOD. I remember he said that there was nothing properly done without a rule, & he said that the rule God had given us to glorify him by was the bible. How miraculously (said he) has God preserv'd this blessed book. It was once in the reign of a heathen emperor condemn'd to be burnt, at which time it was death to have a bible & conceal it, but God's providence was wonderful in preserving it when so much human policy had been exerted to bury it in Oblivion--but for all that, here we have it as pure & uncorrupted as ever--many books of human composure have had much pains taken to preserve 'em, notwithstanding they are buried in Oblivion. He considered who was the author of the bible, he prov'd that GOD was the author, for no _good_ man could be the author, because such a one would not be guilty of imposition, & an evil man could not unless we suppose a house divided against itself. he said a great deal more to prove the bible is certainly the word of God from the matter it contains &c, but the best evidence of the truth of divine revelation, every true believer has in his own heart. This he said, the natural man had no idea of. I did not understand all he said about the external and internal evidence, but this I can say, that I understand him better than any body else that I hear preach. Aunt has been down stairs all the time I have been recolecting & writeing this. Therefore, all this of own head, of consequence. Valentine day.[48]--My cousin Sally reeled off a 10 knot skane of yarn today. My valentine was an old country plow-joger. The yarn was of my spinning. Aunt says it will do for filling. Aunt also says niece is a whimsical child. Feb. 17.--Since Wednesday evening, I have not been abroad since yesterday afternoon. I went to meeting & back in Mr. Soley's chaise. Mr. Hunt preached. He said that human nature is as opposite to God as darkness to light. That our sin is only bounded by the narrowness of our capacity. His text was Isa. xli. 14. 18. The mountains &c. He said were unbelief, pride, covetousness, enmity, &c. &c. &c. This morning I took a walk for Aunt as far as Mr. Soley's. I called at Mrs Whitwell's & found the good man & lady both better than when I saw them last. On my return I found Mr. Hunt on a visit to aunt. After the usual salutations & when did you hear from your papa &c. I ask'd him if the blessing pronounced by the minister before the congregation is dismissed, is not a part of the publick worship? "Yes." "Why then, do you Sir, say, let us conclude the publick worship by singing?" "Because singing is the last act in which the whole congregation is unanimously to join. The minister in Gods name blesses his i.e. Gods people agreeable to the practice of the apostles, who generally close the epistles with a benediction in the name of the Trinity, to which, Amen is subjoined, which, tho' pronounc'd by the minister, is, or ought to be the sentiment & prayer of the whole assembly, the meaning whereof is, So be it." Feb. 18th.--Another ten knot skane of my yarn was reel'd off today. Aunt says it is very good. My boils & whitloes are growing well apace, so that I can knit a little in the evening. Transcribed from the Boston Evening Post: Sep. 18, 1771. Under the head of London news, you may find that last Thursday was married at Worcester the Widow Biddle of Wellsburn in the county of Warwick, to her grandson John Biddle of the same place, aged twenty three years. It is very remarkable. the widdow had one son & one daughter; 18 grandchildren & 5 great grandchildren; her present husband has one daughter, who was her great granddaughter but is now become her daughter; her other great grandchildren are become her cousins; her grandchildren her brothers & sisters; her son & daughter her father & mother. I think! tis the most extraordinary account I ever read in a News-Paper. It will serve to puzzel Harry Dering with. [Transcriber's Note: "I think! tis" may be a typographical error for "I think 'tis".] Monday Feb. 18th--Bitter cold. I am just come from writing school. Last Wednesday P.M. while I was at school Aunt Storer called in to see Aunt Deming in her way to Mr Inches's. She walk'd all that long way. Thursday last I din'd & spent the afternoon with Aunt Sukey. I attended both my schools in the morning of that day. I cal'd at unkle Joshua's as I went along, as I generally do, when I go in town, it being all in my way. Saterday I din'd at Unkle Storer's, drank tea at Cousin Barrel's, was entertain'd in the afternoon with scating. Unkle Henry was there. Yesterday by the help of neighbor Soley's Chaise, I was at meeting all day, tho' it snow'd in the afternoon. I might have say'd I was at Unkle Winslow's last Thursday Eve^g & when I inform you that my needle work at school, & knitting at home, went on _as usual_, I think I have laid before you a pretty full account of the last week. You see how I improve in my writing, but I drive on as fast as I can. Feb. 21, Thursday.--This day Jack Frost bites very hard, so hard aunt won't let me go to any school. I have this morning made part of a coppy with the very pen I have now in my hand, writting this with. Yesterday was so cold there was a very thick vapor upon the water, but I attended my schools all day. My unkle says yesterday was 10 degrees colder than any day we have had before this winter. And my aunt says she believes this day is 10 degrees colder than it was yesterday; & moreover, that she would not put a dog out of doors. The sun gives forth his rays through a vapor like that which was upon the water yesterday. But Aunt bids me give her love to pappa & all the family & tell them that she should be glad of their company in her warm parlour, indeed there is not one room in this house but is very warm when there is a good fire in them. As there is in this at present. Yesterday I got leave (by my aunt's desire) to go from school at 4 o'clock to see my unkle Ned who has had the misfortune to break his leg. I call'd in to warm myself at unkle Joshua's. Aunt Hannah told me I had better not go any further for she could tell me all about him, so I say'd as it is so cold I believe aunt won't be angry so I will stay, I therefore took off my things, aunt gave me leave to call at Unkle Joshua's & was very glad I went no further. Aunt Hannah told me he was as well as could be expected for one that has a broken bone. He was coming from Watertown in a chaise the horse fell down on the Hill, this side Mr Brindley's. he was afraid if he fell out, the wheel would run over him, he therefore gave a start & fell out & broke his leg, the horse strugled to get up, but could not. unkle Ned was affraid if he did get up the chaise wheels would run over him, so he went on his two hands and his other foot drawing his lame leg after him & got behind the chaise, (so he was safe) & there lay in the snow for some time, nobody being near. at last 2 genteelmen came, they tho't the horse was dead when they first saw him at a distance, but hearing somebody hollow, went up to it. By this time there was a countraman come along, the person that hollow'd was unkle Ned. They got a slay and put him in it with some hay and a blanket, wrapt him up well as they could & brought him to Deacon Smith's in town. Now Papa & Mamma, this hill is in Brookline. And now again, I have been better inform'd for the hill is in Roxbury & poor Unkle Ned was alone in the chaise. Both bones of his leg are broke, but they did not come thro' the skin, which is a happy circumstance. It is his right leg that is broke. My Grandmamma sent Miss Deming, Miss Winslow & I one eight^th of a Dollar a piece for a New Years gift. My Aunt Deming & Miss Deming had letters from Grandmamma. She was pretty well, she wrote aunt that Mrs Marting was brought to bed with a son Joshua about a month since, & is with her son very well. Grandmamma was very well last week. I have made the purchase I told you of a few pages agone, that is, last Thursday I purchas'd with my aunt Deming's leave, a very beautiful white feather hat, that is, the out side, which is a bit of white hollond with the feathers sew'd on in a most curious manner white & unsullyed as the falling snow, this hat I have long been saving my money to procure for which I have let your kind allowance, Papa, lay in my aunt's hands till this hat which I spoke for was brought home. As I am (as we say) a daughter of liberty[49] I chuse to wear as much of our own manufactory as pocible. But my aunt says, I have wrote this account very badly. I will go on to save my money for a chip & a lineing &c. Papa I rec'd your letter dated Jan. 11, for which I thank you, Sir, & thank you greatly for the money I received therewith. I am very glad to hear that Brother John papa & mamma & cousin are well. I'll answer your letter papa and yours mamma and cousin Harry's too. I am very glad mamma your eyes are better. I hope by the time I have the pleasure of hearing from Cumberland again your eyes will be so well that you will favor me with one from you. Feb. 22d.--Since about the middle of December, ult. we have had till this week, a series of cold and stormy weather--every snow storm (of which we have had abundance) except the first, ended with rain, by which means the snow was so hardened that strong gales at NW soon turned it, & all above ground to ice, which this day seven-night was from one to three, four & they say, in some places, five feet thick, in the streets of this town. Last saturday morning we had a snow storm come on, which continued till four o'clock P.M. when it turned to rain, since which we have had a warm air, with many showers of rain, one this morning a little before day attended with thunder. The streets have been very wet, the water running like rivers all this week, so that I could not possibly go to school, neither have I yet got the bandage off my fingure. Since I have been writing now, the wind suddenly sprung up at NW and blew with violence so that we may get to meeting to-morrow, perhaps on dry ground. Unkle Ned was here just now & has fairly or unfairly carried off aunt's cut paper pictures,[50] tho' she told him she had given them to papa some years ago. It has been a very sickly time here, not one person that I know of but has been under heavy colds--(all laid up at unkle Storer's) in general got abroad again. Aunt Suky had not been down stairs since her lying in, when I last saw her, but I hear she is got down. She has had a broken breast. I have spun 30 knots of linning yarn, and (partly) new footed a pair of stockings for Lucinda, read a part of the pilgrim's progress, coppied part of my text journal (that if I live a few years longer, I may be able to understand it, for aunt sais, that to her, the contents as I first mark'd them, were an impenetrable secret) play'd some, tuck'd a great deal (Aunt Deming says it is very true) laugh'd enough, & I tell aunt it is all human _nature_, if not human reason. And now, I wish my honored mamma a very good night. Saturday noon Feb. 23d--Dear Pappa, do's the winter continue as pleasant at Cumberland as when you wrote to me last? We had but very little winter here, till February came in, but we have little else since. The cold still continues tho' not so extreme as it was last Thursday. I have attended my schools all this week except one day, and am going as soon as I have din'd to see how Unkle Ned does. I was thinking, Sir, to lay up a piece of money you sent me, but as you sent it to me to lay out I have a mind to buy a chip & linning for my feather hatt. But my aunt says she will think of it. My aunt says if I behave myself very well indeed, not else, she will give me a garland of flowers to orniment it, tho' she has layd aside the biziness of flower making.[51] [Illustration: GENERAL JOSHUA WINSLOW] Feb. 25th.--This is a very stormy day of snow, hail & rain, so that I cannot get to Master Holbrook's, therefore I will here copy something I lately transcribed on a loose paper from Dr. Owen's sermon on Hab. iii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. "I have heard that a full wind behind the ship drives her not so fast forward, as a side wind, that seems almost as much against her as with her; & the reason they say is, because a full wind fills but some of her sails. Wednesday.--Very cold, but this morning I was at sewing and writing school, this afternoon all sewing, for Master Holbrook does not in the winter keep school of afternoons. Unkle Henrys feet are so much better that he wears shoos now. Monday noon Feb. 25th. I have been to writing school this morning and Sewing. The day being very pleasant, very little wind stirring. Jemima called to see me last evening. She lives at Master Jimmy Lovel's.[52] Dear mamma, I suppose that you would be glad to hear that Betty Smith who has given you so much trouble, is well & behaves herself well & I should be glad if I could write you so. But the truth is, no sooner was the 29th Regiment encamp'd upon the common but miss Betty took herself among them (as the Irish say) & there she stay'd with Bill Pinchion & awhile. The next news of her was, that she was got into gaol for stealing: from whence she was taken to the publick whipping post.[53] The next adventure was to the Castle, after the soldier's were remov'd there, for the murder of the 5th March last.[54] When they turn'd her away from there, she came up to town again, and soon got into the workhouse for new misdemeanours, she soon ran away from there and sit up her old trade of pilfering again, for which she was put a second time into gaol, there she still remains. About two months agone (as well as I can remember) she & a number of her wretched companions set the gaol on fire, in order to get out, but the fire was timely discovered & extinguished, & there, as I said she still remains till this day, in order to be tried for her crimes. I heard somebody say that as she has some connections with the army no doubt but she would be cleared, and perhaps, have a pension into the bargain. Mr. Henry says the way of sin is down hill, when persons get into that way they are not easily stopped. Feb. 27.--This day being too stormy for me to go to any school, and nothing as yet having happen'd that is worth your notice, my aunt gives me leave to communicate to you something that much pleas'd her when she heard of it, & which I hope will please you my Papa and Mamma. I believe I may have inform'd you that since I have been in Boston, Dr. Byles[55] has pretty frequently preached & sometimes administer'd the sacrament, when our Candidates have preached to the O.S. Church, because they are not tho't qualified to administer Gospel Ordinance, till they be settled Pastours. About two months ago a brother of the church sent Dr Byles a Card which contain'd after the usual introduction, the following words, Mr W---- dont set up for an Expositor of Scripture, yet ventures to send Dr. Byles a short comment on 1 Cor. ix. 11. which he thinks agreeable to the genuine import of the text, & hopes the Dr will not disapprove it. The comment was a dozen pounds of Chocolate &c.--To which the D^r return'd the following very pretty answer. D^r Byles returns respects to Mr W & most heartily thanks him for his judicious practical Familie Expositor, which is in Tast. My aunt Deming gives her love to you mamma, and bids me tell you, as a matter you will be very glad to know, that D^r Byles & his lady & family, have enjoy'd a good share of health & perfect harmony for several years past. Mr Beacon is come home. My unkle Neddy is very comfortable, has very little pain, & know fever with his broken bone. My Unkle Harry[56] was here yesterday & is very well. Poor Mrs Inches is dangerously ill of a fever. We have not heard how she does today. March 4th.--Poor Mrs Inches is dead. Gone from a world of trouble, as she has left this to her poor mother. Aunt says she heartyly pities Mrs Jackson. Mr Nat. Bethune died this morning, Mrs Inches last night. We had the greatest fall of snow yesterday we have had this winter. Yet cousin Sally, miss Polly, & I rode to & from meeting in Mr Soley's chaise both forenoon & afternoon, & with a stove[57] was very comfortable there. If brother John is as well and hearty as cousin Frank, he is a clever boy. Unkle Neddy continues very comfortable. I saw him last saturday. I have just now been writing four lines in my Book almost as well as the copy. But all the intreaties in the world will not prevail upon me to do always as well as I can, which is not the least trouble to me, tho' its a great grief to aunt Deming. And she says by writing so frightfully above. March 6.--I think the appearance this morning is as winterish as any I can remember, earth, houses, trees, all covered with snow, which began to fall yesterday morning & continued falling all last night. The Sun now shines very bright, the N.W. wind blows very fresh. Mr Gannett din'd here yesterday, from him, my unkle, aunt & cousin Sally, I had an account of yesterday's publick performances,[58] & exhibitions, but aunt says I need not write about 'em because, no doubt there will be printed accounts. I should have been glad if I could have seen & heard for myselfe. My face is better, but I have got a heavy cold yet. March 9th.--After being confined a week, I rode yesterday afternoon to & from meeting in Mr Soley's chaise. I got no cold and am pretty well today. This has been a very snowy day today. Any body that sees this may see that I have wrote nonsense but Aunt says, I have been a very good girl to day about my work however--I think this day's work may be called a piece meal for in the first place I sew'd on the bosom of unkle's shirt, mended two pair of gloves, mended for the wash two handkerchiefs, (one cambrick) sewed on half a border of a lawn apron of aunts, read part of the xxi^st chapter of Exodous, & a story in the Mother's gift. Now, Hon^d Mamma, I must tell you of something that happened to me to-day, that has not happen'd before this great while, viz My Unkle & Aunt both told me, I was a very good girl. Mr Gannett gave us the favour of his company a little while this morning (our head). I have been writing all the above gibberish while aunt has been looking after her family--now she is out of the room--now she is in--& takes up my pen in _my_ absence to observe, I am a little simpleton for informing my mamma, that it is _a great while_ since I was prais'd because she will conclude that it is _a great while_ since I deserv'd to be prais'd. I will henceforth try to observe their praise & yours too. I mean deserve. It's now tea time--as soon as that is over, I shall spend the rest of the evening in reading to my aunt. It is near candle lighting. March 10, 5 o'clock P.M.--I have finish'd my stent of sewing work for this day & wrote a billet to Miss Caty Vans, a copy of which I shall write on the next page. To-morrow if the weather is fit I am to visit. I have again been told I was a good girl. My Billet to Miss Vans was in the following words. Miss Green gives her compliments to Miss Vans, and informs her that her aunt Deming quite misunderstood the matter about the queen's night-Cap.[59] Mrs. Deming thou't that it was a black skull cap linn'd with red that Miss Vans ment which she thou't would not be becoming to Miss Green's light complexion. Miss Green now takes the liberty to send the materials for the Cap Miss Vans was so kind as to say she would make for her, which, when done, she engages to take special care of for Miss Vans' sake. Mrs. Deming joins her compliments with Miss Green's--they both wish for the pleasure of a visit from Miss Vans. Miss Soley is just come in to visit me & 'tis near dark. March 11.--Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Thus king Solomon, inspired by the Holy Ghost, cautions, Pro. xxvii. 1. My aunt says, this is a most necessary lesson to be learn'd & laid up in the heart. I am quite of her mind. I have met with a disappointment to day, & aunt says, I may look for them every day--we live in a changing world--in scripture call'd a vale of tears. Uncle said yesterday that there had not been so much snow on the ground this winter as there was then--it has been vastly added to since then, & is now 7 feet deep in some places round this house; it is above the fence in the coart & thick snow began to fall and condtinu'd till about 5 o'clock P.M. (it is about 1-4 past 8 o'clock) since which there has been a steady rain--so no visiting as I hoped this day, & this is the disappointment I mentioned on t'other page. Last saturday I sent my cousin Betsy Storer a Billet of which the following is a copy. Miss Green gives her love to Miss Storer & informs her that she is very _sensible_ of the effects of a bad cold, not only in the pain she has had in her throat, neck and face, which have been much swell'd & which she is not quite clear of, but that she has also been by the same depriv'd of the pleasure of seeing Miss Storer & her other friends in Sudbury Street. She begs, her Duty, Love & Compliments, may be presented as due & that she may be inform'd if they be in health. To this I have receiv'd no answer. I suppose she don't think I am worth an answer. But I have finished my stent, and wrote all under this date, & now I have just daylight eno' to add, my love and duty to dear friends at _Cumberland_. [Illustration: EBENEZER STORER] March 14.--Mr. Stephen March, at whose house I was treated so kindly last fall, departed this life last week, after languishing several months under a complication of disorders--we have not had perticulars, therefore cannot inform you, whether he engag'd the King of terrors with Christian fortitude, or otherwise. "Stoop down my Thoughts, that use to rise, Converse a while with Death; Think how a gasping Mortal lies, And pants away his Breath." Last Thursday I din'd with unkle Storer, & family at aunt Sukey's--all well except Charles Storer who was not so ill but what, _that_ I mean, he din'd with us. Aunt Suky's Charles is a pretty little boy & grows nicely. We were diverted in the afternoon with an account of a queer Feast that had been made that day in a certain Court of this town for the Entertainment of a number of Tories--perhaps seventeen. One contain'd three calves heads (skin off) with their appurtinencies anciently call'd pluck--Their other dish (for they had but two) contain'd a number of roast fowls--half a dozen, we suppose,[A] & all roosters at this season no doubt. Yesterday, soon after I came from writing school we had another snow storm begun, which continued till after I went to bed. This morning the sun shines clear (so it did yesterday morning till 10 o'clock.) It is now bitter cold, & such a quantity of snow upon the ground, as the Old people don't remember ever to have seen before at this time of the year. My aunt Deming says, when she first look'd abroad this morning she felt anxious for her brother, & his family at Cumberland, fearing lest they were covered up in snow. It is now 1-2 after 12 o'clock noon. The sun has been shineing in his full strength for full 6 hours, & the snow not melted enough anywhere in sight of this house, to cause one drop of water. [Footnote A: There was six as I have since heard.] March 17.--Yesterday, I went to see aunt Polly, & finding her going out, I spent the afternoon with aunt Hannah. While I was out, a snow storm overtook me. This being a fine sun shine (tho' cold) day I have been to writing school, & wrote two pieces, one I presented to aunt Deming, and the other I design for my Honor'd Papa, I hope he will approve of it. I sent a piece of my writing to you Hon'd Mamma last fall, which I hope you receiv'd. When my aunt Deming was a little girl my Grandmamma Sargent told her the following story viz. One Mr. Calf who had three times enjoy'd the Mayorality of the city of London, had after his decease, a monoment erected to his memory with the following inscription on it. Here lies buried the body of Sir Richard Calf, Thrice Lord Mayor of London. Honor, Honor, Honor. A drol gentleman passing by with a bit of chalk in his hand underwrote thus-- O cruel death! more subtle than a Fox That would not let this Calf become an Ox, That he might browze among the briers & thorns And with his brethren wear, Horns. Horns. Horns. My aunt told me the foregoing some time since & today I ask'd her leave to insert it in my journal. My aunt gives her love to you & directs me to tell you that she tho't my piece of linnin would have made me a dozen of shifts but she could cut no more than ten out of it. There is some left, but not enough for another. Nine of them are finish'd wash'd & iron'd; & the other would have been long since done if my fingers had not been sore. My cousin Sally made three of them for me, but then I made two shirts & part of another for unkle to help her. I believe unless something remarkable should happen, such as a _warm day_, my mamma will consent that I dedicate a few of my next essays to papa. I think the second thing I said to aunt this morning was, that I intended to be _very good all day_. To make this out, "Next unto _God_, dear Parents I address Myself to you in humble Thankfulness, For all your Care & Charge on me bestow'd; The means of Learning unto me allow'd, Go on I pray, & let me still pursue Those Golden ARTS the Vulgar never knew." Yr Dutifull Daughter ANNA GREEN WINSLOW. The poetry I transcrib'd from my Copy Book. March 19.--Thursday last I spent at home, except a quarter of an hour between sunset and dark, I stepped over the way to Mr. Glover's with aunt. Yesterday I spent at Unkle Neddy's & stitched wristbands for aunt Polly. By the way, I must inform you, (pray dont let papa see this) that yesterday I put on No 1 of my new shifts, & indeed it is very comfortable. It is _long_ since I had a shift to my _back_. I dont know if I ever had till now--It seem'd so strange too, to have any linen below my waist--I am going to dine at Mrs. Whitwell's to day, by invitation. I spent last evening at Mrs Rogers. Mr Hunt discoursed upon the doctrine of the Trinity--it was the second time that he spoke upon the subject at that place. I did not hear him the first time. His business last eve^g was to prove the divinity of the Son, & holy Ghost, & their equality with the Father. My aunt Deming says, it is a grief to her, that I don't always write as well as I can, _I can write pretily_. March 21.--I din'd & spent the afternoon of Thursday last, at Mrs Whitwell's. Mrs Lathrop, & Mrs Carpenter din'd there also. The latter said she was formerly acquainted with mamma, ask'd how she did, & when I heard from her,--said, I look'd much like her. Madam Harris & Miss P. Vans were also of the company. While I was abroad the snow melted to such a degree, that my aunt was oblig'd to get Mr Soley's chaise to bring me home. Yesterday, we had by far the gratest storm of wind & snow that there has been this winter. It began to fall yesterday morning & continued falling till after our family were in bed. (P.M.) Mr. Hunt call'd in to visit us just after we rose from diner; he ask'd me, whether I had heard from my papa & mamma, since I wrote 'em. He was answer'd, no sir, it would be strange if I had, because I had been writing to 'em today, & indeed so I did every day. Aunt told him that _his name_ went frequently into my journals together with broken & some times whole sentences of his sermons, conversations &c. He laugh'd & call'd me Newsmonger, & said I was a daily advertiser. He added, that he did not doubt but my journals afforded much entertainment & would be a future benefit &c. Here is a fine compliment for me mamma. March 26.--Yesterday at 6 o'clock, I went to Unkle Winslow's, their neighbor Greenleaf was their. She said she knew Mamma, & that I look like her. Speaking about papa & you occation'd Unkle Winslow to tell me that he had kiss'd you long before papa knew you. From thence we went to Miss Rogers's where, to a full assembly Mr Bacon read his 3d sermon on R. iv. 6, I can remember he said, that, before we all sinned in Adam our father, Christ loved us. He said the Son of God always did as his father gave him commandment, & to prove this, he said, that above 17 hundred years ago he left the bosom of the Father, & came & took up his abode with men, & bore all the scourgings & buffetings which the vile Jews inflicted on him, & then was hung upon the accursed tree--he died, was buried, & in three days rose again--ascended up to heaven & there took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high from whence he will come to be the supream and impartial judge of quick & dead--and when his poor Mother & her poor husband went to Jerusalem to keep the passover & he went with them, he disputed among the doctors, & when his Mother ask'd him about it he said "wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business,"--all this he said was a part of that wrighteousness for the sake of which a sinner is justafied--Aunt has been up stairs all the time I have been writeing & recollecting this--so no help from her. She is come down now & I have been reading this over to her. She sais, she is glad I remember so much, but I have not done the subject justice. She sais I have blended things somewhat improperly--an interuption by company. March 28.--Unkle Harry was here last evening & inform'd us that by a vessel from Halifax which arriv'd yesterday, Mr H Newton, inform'd his brother Mr J Newton of the sudden death of their brother Hibbert in your family 21 January ult. (Just five months to a day since Grandmamma Sargent's death.) With all the circumstances relating to it. My aunt Deming gives her love to Mamma & wishes her a sanctified improvement of all God's dealings with her, & that it would please him to bring her & all the family safe to Boston. Jarvis is put up for Cumberland, we hope he will be there by or before Mayday. This minute I have receiv'd my queen's night cap from Miss Caty Vans--we like it. Aunt says, that if the materials it is made of were more substantial than gauze, it might serve occationally to hold any thing mesur'd by an 1-2 peck, but it is just as it should be, & very decent, & she wishes my writing was _as_ decent. But I got into one of my frolicks, upon sight of the Cap. April 1st.--Will you be offended mamma, if I ask you, if you remember the flock of wild Geese that papa call'd you to see flying over the Blacksmith's shop this day three years? I hope not; I only mean to divert you. The snow is near gone in the street before us, & mud supplys the place thereof; After a week's absence, I this day attended Master Holbrook with some difficulty, what was last week a pond is to-day a quag, thro' which I got safe however, & if aunt[A] had known it was so bad, she sais she would not have sent me, but I neither wet my feet, nor drabled my clothes, indeed I have but one garment that I could contrive to drabble. N.B. It is 1 April. [Footnote A: Miss Green tells her aunt, that the word refer'd to begins with a dipthong.] April 3.--Yesterday was the annual Fast, & I was at meeting all day. Mr Hunt preach'd A.M. from Zac. vii. 4, 5, 6, 7. He said, that if we did not mean as we said in pray's it was only a compliment put upon God, which was a high affront to his divine Majesty. Mr Bacon, P.M. from James v. 17. He said, "pray's, effectual & fervent, might be, where there were no words, but there might be elegant words where there is no prayr's. The essence of pray's consists in offering up holy desires to God agreeable to his will,--it is the flowing out of gracious affections--what then are the pray'rs of an unrenewed heart that is full of enmity to God? doubtless they are an abomination to him. What then, must not unregenerate men pray? I answer, it is their duty to breathe out holy desires to God in pray's. Prayer is a natural duty. Hannah pour'd out her soul before the Lord, yet her voice was not heard, only her lips moved. Some grieve and complain that their pray's are not answered, but if _thy will be done is_, as it ought to be, in every prayer; their prayers are answer'd." The wind was high at N.E. all day yesterday, but nothing fell from the dark clouds that overspread the heavens, till 8 o'clock last evening, when a snow began which has continued falling ever since. The bell being now ringing for 1 o'clock P.M. & no sign of abatement. My aunt Deming says, that if my memory had been equal to the memory of some of my ancestors, I might have done better justice to Mr. Bacon's good sermon, & that if hers had been better than mine she would have helped me. Mr Bacon _did_ say what is here recorded, but in other method. April 6.--I made a shift to walk to meeting yesterday morning. But there was so much water in the streets when I came home from meeting that I got a seat in Mr Waleses chaise. My aunt walk'd home & she sais thro' more difaculty than ever she did in her life before. Indeed had the stream get up from our meeting house as it did down, we might have taken boat as we have talk'd some times of doing to cross the street to our oposite neighbor _Soley's_ chaise. I remember some of Mr Hunts sermon, how much will appear in my text journal. April 7.--I visited yesterday P.M. with my aunt at Mr Waldron's. This afternoon I am going with my aunt to visit Mrs Salisbury who is Dr Sewall's granddaughter, I expect Miss Patty Waldow will meet me there. It is but a little way & we can now thro' favour cross the street without the help of a boat. I saw Miss Polly Vans this morning. She gives her love to you. As she always does whenever I see her. Aunt Deming is this minute come into the room, & from what her niece has wrote last, takes the liberty to remind you, that Miss Vans is a sister of the Old South Church, a society remarkable for Love. Aunt Deming is sorry she has spoil'd the look of this page by her carelessness & hopes her niece will mend its appearance in what follows. She wishes my English had been better, but has not time to correct more than one word. April 9.--We made the visit refer'd to above. The company was old Mrs Salisbury,[60] Mrs Hill, (Mrs Salisbury's sister she was Miss Hannah Sewall & is married to young Mr James Hill that us'd to live in this house) Miss Sally Hill, Miss Polly Belcher Lyde, Miss Caty Sewall, My Aunt & myself. Yesterday afternoon I visited Miss Polly Deming & took her with me to Mr Rogers' in the evening where Mr Hunt discours'd upon the 7th question of the catechism viz what are the decrees of God? I remember a good many of his observations, which I have got set down on a loose paper. But my aunt says that a Miss of 12 year's old cant possibly do justice to the nicest subject in Divinity, & therefore had better not attempt a repetition of perticulars, that she finds lie (as may be easily concluded) somewhat confused in my young mind. She also says, that in her poor judgment, Mr Hunt discours'd soundly as well as ingeniously upon the subject, & very much to her instruction & satisfaction. My Papa inform'd me in his last letter that he had done me the honor to read my journals & that he approv'd of some part of them, I suppose he means that he likes some parts better than other, indeed it would be wonderful, as aunt says, if a gentleman of papa's understanding & judgment cou'd be highly entertain'd with _every little_ saying or observation that came from a girl of my years & that I ought to esteem it a great favour that he notices any of my simple matter with his _approbation_. April 13th.--Yesterday I walk'd to meeting all day, the ground very dry, & when I came home from meeting in the afternoon the Dust blew so that it almost put my eyes out. What a difference in the space of a week. I was just going out to writing school, but a slight rain prevented so aunt says I must make up by writing well at home. Since I have been writing the rain is turn'd to snow, which is now falling in a thick shower. I have now before me, hon^d. Mamma, your favor dated January 3. I am glad you alter'd your mind when you at first thought not to write to me. I am glad my brother made an essay for a Post Script to your Letter. I must get him to read it to me, when he comes up, for two reasons, the one is because I may have the pleasure of hearing his voice, the other because I don't understand his characters. I observe that he is mamma's "Ducky Darling." I never again shall believe that Mrs Huston will come up to Boston till I see her here. I shall be very glad to see Mrs Law here & I have some hopes of it. Mr Gannett and the things you sent by him we safely receiv'd before I got your Letter--you say "you see I am still a great housekeeper," I think more so than when I was with you. Truly I answer'd Mr Law's letter as soon as I found opportunity therefor. I shall be very glad to see Miss Jenny here & I wish she could live with me. I hope you will answer this "viva vosa" as you say you intend to. Pray mamma who larnt you lattan? It now rains fast, but the sun shines, & I am glad to see it, because if it continues I am going abroad with aunt this afternoon. April 14th.--I went a visiting yesterday to Col. Gridley's with my aunt. After tea Miss Becky Gridley sung a minuet. Miss Polly Deming & I danced to her musick, which when perform'd was approv'd of by Mrs Gridley, Mrs Deming, Mrs Thompson, Mrs Avery,[61] Miss Sally Hill, Miss Becky Gridley, Miss Polly Gridley & Miss Sally Winslow. Col^n Gridley was out o' the room. Col^n brought in the talk of Whigs & Tories & taught me the difference between them. I spent last evening at home. I should have gone a visiting to day in sudbury street, but Unkle Harry told me last night that they would be full of company. I had the pleasure of hearing by him, that they were all well. I believe I shall go somewhere this afternoon for I have acquaintances enough that would be very glad to see me, as well as my sudbury street friends. April 15th.--Yesterday I din'd at Mrs. Whitwell's & she being going abroad, I spent the afternoon at Mad^m Harris's & the evening at home, Unkle Harry gave us his company some part of it. I am going to Aunt Storer's as soon as writing school is done. I shall dine with her, if she is not engaged. It is a long time since I was there, & indeed it is a long time since I have been able to get there. For tho' the walking has been pretty tolerable at the South End, it has been intolerable down in town. And indeed till yesterday, it has been such bad walking, that I could not get there on my feet. If she had wanted much to have seen me, she might have sent either one of her chaises, her chariot, or her babyhutt,[62] one of which I see going by the door almost every day. April 16th.--I dined with Aunt Storer yesterday & spent the afternoon very agreeably at Aunt Suky's. Aunt Storer is not very well, but she drank tea with us, & went down to Mr Stillman's lecture in the evening. I spent the evening with Unkle & Aunt at Mrs Rogers's. Mr Bacon preach'd his fourth sermon from Romans iv. 6. My cousin Charles Storer lent me Gulliver's Travels abreviated, which aunt says I may read for the sake of perfecting myself in reading a variety of composures. she sais farther that the piece was desin'd as a burlesque upon the times in which it was wrote,--& Martimas Scriblensis & Pope Dunciad were wrote with the same design & as parts of the same work, tho' wrote by three several hands. April 17th.--You see, Mamma, I comply with your orders (or at least have done father's some time past) of writing in my journal every day tho' my matters are of little importance & I have nothing at present to communicate except that I spent yesterday afternoon & evening at Mr Soley's. The day was very rainy. I hope I shall at least learn to spell the word _yesterday_, it having occur'd so frequently in these pages! (The bell is ringing for good friday.) Last evening aunt had a letter from Unkle Pierce, he informs her, that last Lords day morning Mrs Martin was deliver'd of a daughter. She had been siezed the Monday before with a violent pluritick fever, which continued when my Unkle's letter was dated 13th instant. My Aunt Deming is affraid that poor Mrs Martin is no more. She hopes she is reconcil'd to her father--but is affraid whether that was so--She had try'd what was to be done that way on her late visits to Portsmouth, & found my unkle was placably dispos'd, poor Mrs Martin, she could not then be brought to make any acknowledgements as she ought to have done. April 18th.--Some time since I exchang'd a piece of patchwork, which had been wrought in my leisure intervals, with Miss Peggy Phillips,[63] my schoolmate, for a pair of curious lace mitts with blue flaps which I shall send, with a yard of white ribbin edg'd with green to Miss Nancy Macky for a present. I had intended that the patchwork should have grown large enough to have cover'd a bed when that same live stock which you wrote me about some time since, should be increas'd to that portion you intend to bestow upon me, should a certain event take place. I have just now finish'd my Letter to Papa. I had wrote to my other correspondents at Cumberland, some time ago, all which with this I wish safe to your & their hand. I have been carefull not to repeat in my journal any thing that I had wrote in a Letter either to papa, you, &c. Else I should have inform'd you of some of Bet Smith's abominations with the deserv'd punishment she is soon to meet with. But I have wrote it to papa, so need not repeat. I guess when this reaches you, you will be too much engag'd in preparing to quit your present habitation, & will have too much upon your head & hands, to pay much attention to this scrowl. But it may be an amusement to you on your voyage--therefore I send it. Pray mamma, be so kind as to bring up all my journal with you. My Papa has promised me, he will bring up my baby house with him. I shall send you a droll figure of a young lady,[64] in or under, which you please, a tasty head Dress. It was taken from a print that came over in one of the last ships from London. After you have sufficiently amused yourself with it I am willing . . . Boston April 20, 1772.--Last Saterday I seal'd up 45 pages of Journal for Cumberland. This is a very stormy day--no going to school. I am learning to knit lace. April 21.--Visited at uncle Joshua Green's. I saw three funerals from their window, poor Cap^n Turner's was one. April 22d.--I spent this evening at Miss Rogers as usual. Mr. Hunt continued his discourse upon the 7th question of the catechism & finish'd what he had to say upon it. April 23d.--This morn^g early our Mr Bacon set out upon a tour to Maryland, he proposed to be absent 8 weeks. He told the Church that brother Hunt would supply the pulpit till his return. I made a visit this afternoon with cousin Sally at Dr. Phillip's. April 24th.--I drank tea at Aunt Suky's. Aunt Storer was there, she seemed to be in charming good health & spirits. My cousin Charles Green seems to grow a little fat pritty boy but he is very light. My aunt Storer lent me 3 of cousin Charles' books to read, viz.--The puzzeling cap, the female Oraters & the history of Gaffer too-shoes.[65] April 25th.--I learn't three stitches upon net work to-day. April 27th.--I din'd at Aunt Storer's & spent the P.M. at aunt Suky's. April 28th.--This P.M. I am visited by Miss Glover, Miss Draper & Miss Soley. My aunt abroad. April 29th.--Tomorrow, if the weather be good, I am to set out for Marshfield. [Illustration: MRS. EBENEZER STORER] May 11.--The morning after I wrote above, I sat out for Marshfield. I had the pleasure of drinking tea with aunt Thomas the same day, the family all well, but Mr G who seems to be near the end of the journey of life. I visited General Winslow[66] & his son, the Dr., spent 8 days very agreeably with my friends at Marshfield, & returned on saterday last in good health & gay spirits which I still enjoy. The 2 first days I was at Marshfield, the heat was extream & uncommon for the season. It ended on saterday evening with a great thunder storm. The air has been very cool ever since. My aunt Deming observ'd a great deal of lightning in the south, but there was neither thunder, rain nor clouds in Boston. May 16.--Last Wednesday Bet Smith was set upon the gallows. She behav'd with great impudence. Thursday I danc'd a minuet & country dances at school, after which I drank tea with aunt Storer. To day I am somewhat out of sorts, a little sick at my stomach. 23d.--I followed my schools every day this week, thursday I din'd at aunt Storer's & spent the P.M. there. 25.--I was not at meeting yesterday, Unkle & Aunt say they had very good Fish at the O.S. I have got very sore eyes. June 1st.--All last week till saterday was very cold & rainy. Aunt Deming kept me within doors, there were no schools on account of the Election of Councellers,[67] & other public doings; with one eye (for t'other was bound up) I saw the governer & his train of life guard &c. ride by in state to Cambridge. I form'd Letters last week to suit cousin Sally & aunt Thomas, but my eyes were so bad aunt would not let me coppy but one of them. Monday being Artillery Election[68] I went to see the hall, din'd at aunt Storer's, took a walk in the P.M. Unkle laid down the commission he took up last year. Mr Handcock invited the whole company into his house in the afternoon & treated them very genteelly & generously, with cake, wine, &c. There were 10 corn baskets of the feast (at the Hall) sent to the prison & almshouse. 4th.--From June 1 when I wrote last there has nothing extraordinary happen'd till today the whole regiment muster'd upon the common. Mr Gannett, aunt & myself went up into the common, & there saw Cap^t Water's, Cap^t Paddock's, Cap^t Peirce's, Cap^t Eliot's, Cap^t Barret's, Cap^t Gay's, Cap^t May's, Cap^t Borington's & Cap^t Stimpson's company's exercise. From there, we went into King street to Col Marshal's[69] where we saw all of them prettily exercise & fire. Mr. Gannett din'd with us. On Sabbath-day evening 7 June My Hon^d Papa, Mamma, little Brother, cousin H. D. Thomas, Miss Jenny Allen, & Mrs Huston arriv'd here from Cumberland, all in good health, to the great joy of all their friends, myself in particular--they sail'd from Cumberland the 1st instant, in the evening. Aug. 18.--Many avocations have prevented my keeping my journal so exactly as heretofore, by which means a pleasant visit to the peacock, my Papa's & mamma's journey to Marshfield &c. have been omitted. The 6 instant Mr Sam^l Jarvis was married to Miss Suky Peirce, & on the 13th I made her a visit in company with mamma & many others. The bride was dress'd in a white satin night gound.[70] 27.--Yesterday I heard an account of a cat of 17 years old, that has just recovered of the meazels. This same cat it is said had the small pox 8 years ago! 28.--I spent the P.M. & eve at aunt Suky's very agreeably with aunt Pierce's young ladies viz. Miss Johnson, Miss Walker, Miss Polly & Miss Betsey Warton, (of Newport) Miss Betsey is just a fortnight wanting 1 day older than I am, who I became acquainted with that P.M. Papa, Mamma, Unkle & aunt Storer, Aunt Pierce & Mr & Mrs Jarvis was there. There were 18 at supper besides a great many did not eat any. Mrs Jarvis sang after supper. My brother Johny has got over the measels. Sept. 1.--Last evening after meeting, Mrs Bacon was brought to bed of a fine daughter. But was very ill. She had fits. September 7.--Yesterday afternoon Mr Bacon baptiz'd his daughter by the name of Elizabeth Lewis. It is a pretty looking child. Mrs Whitwell is like to loose her Henry Harris. He is very ill. 8.--I visited with mamma at cousin Rogers'. There was a good many. 14.--Very busy all day, went into the common in the afternoon to see training. It was very prettyly perform'd. 18.--My Papa, aunt Deming, cousin Rogers, & Miss Betsey Gould set out for Portsmouth. I went over to Charlestown with them, after they were gone, I came back, & rode up from the ferry in Mrs Rogers' chaise; it drop'd me at Unkle Storer's gate, where I spent the day. My brother was very sick. Sep^r 17. 18.--Spent the days at aunt Storer's, the nights at home. 19.--Went down in the morn^g & spent the day & night there. My brother better than he was. 20.--Sabbath day. I went to hear Mr Stilman[71] all day, I like him very much. I don't wonder so many go to hear him. 21st.--Mr. Sawyer, Mr Parks, & Mrs Chatbourn, din'd at aunt Storer's. I went to dancing in the afternoon. Miss Winslow & Miss Allen visited there. 22d.--The king's coronation day. In the evening I went with mamma to Col^n Marshal's in King Street to see the fireworks. 23d.--I din'd at aunt Suky's with Mr & Mrs Hooper[72] of Marblehead. In the afternoon I went over to see Miss Betsy Winslow. When I came back I had the pleasure to meet papa. I came home in the evening to see aunt Deming. Unkle Winslow sup'd here. 24.--Papa cal'd here in the morn^g. Nothing else worth noticeing. 25.--Very pleasant. Unkle Ned cal'd here. Little Henry Harris was buried this afternoon. 26. 27.--Nothing extraordinary yesterday & to day. 28.--My papa & unkle Winslow spent the evening here. 29. 30.--Very stormy. Miss Winslow & I read out the Generous Inconstant, & have begun Sir Charles Grandison. . . . May 25.--Nothing remarkable since the preceding date. Whenever I have omited a school my aunt has directed me to sit it down here, so when you dont see a memorandum of that kind, you may conclude that I have paid my compliments to mess^rs Holbrook & Turner (to the former you see to very little purpose) & mrs Smith as usual. The Miss Waldow's I mentioned in a former are Mr. Danl Waldo's daughters (very pretty misses) their mamma was Miss Becca Salisbury.[73] After making a short visit with my Aunt at Mrs Green's, over the way, yesterday towards evening, I took a walk with cousin Sally to see the good folks in Sudbury Street, & found them all well. I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less, Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made _wholly_ of a red _Cow Tail_, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. But D---- made it (our head) all carded together and twisted up. When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then took up her apron & mesur'd me, & from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I mesur'd above an inch longer than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable than virtue & modesty without the help of fals hair, red _Cow tail_, or D---- (the barber).[74] Now all this mamma, I have just been reading over to my aunt. She is pleas'd with my whimsical description & grave (half grave) improvement, & hopes a little fals English will not spoil the whole with Mamma. Rome was not built in a day. 31st May.--Monday last I was at the factory to see a piece of cloth cousin Sally spun for a summer coat for unkle. After viewing the work we recollected the room we sat down in was Libberty Assembly Hall, otherwise called factory hall, so Miss Gridley & I did ourselves the Honour of dancing a minuet in it. On tuesday I made Mrs Smith my morning & p.m. visits as usual, neither Mr. Holbrook nor Turner have any school this week, nor till tuesday next. I spent yesterday with my friends in sudbury St. Cousin Frank has got a fever, aunt Storer took an emmetick while I was there, cousin Betsy had violent pains almost all the forenoon. Last tuesday Miss Ursula Griswold, daughter of the right Hon. Matthew Griswold Esq governer of one of his Majesty's provinces, was made one of our family, & I have the honor of being her chambermade. I have just been reading over what I wrote to the company present, & have got myself laughed at for my ignorance. It seems I should have said the daughter of the Hon Lieu^t. Governor of Connecticutt. Mrs Dixon lodg'd at Capn Mitchell's. She is gone to Connecticutt long since. 31 May.--I spent the afternoon at unkle Joshua's. yesterday, after tea I went to see how aunt Storer did. I found her well at Unkle Frank's. Mr Gerrish & wife of Halifax I had the pleasure to meet there, the latter sends love to you. Indeed Mamma, till I receiv'd your last favour, I never heard a word about the little basket &c. which I sent to brother Johny last fall. I suppose Harry had so much to write about cotton, that he forgot what was of more consequence. Dear Mamma, what name has Mr Bent given his Son? something like Nehemiah, or Jehoshaphat, I suppose, it must be an odd name (our head indeed, Mamma.) Aunt says she hopes it a'nt Baal Gad, & she also says that I am a little simpleton for making my note within the brackets above, because, when I omit to do it, Mamma will think I have the help of somebody else's head but, N.B. for herself she utterly disclames having either her head or hand concern'd in this curious journal, except where the writing makes it manifest. So much for this matter. [Illustration: CUT-PAPER PICTURE] NOTES. NOTE 1. Aunt Deming was Sarah, the oldest child of John Winslow and Sarah Peirce, and therefore sister of Joshua Winslow, Anna Green Winslow's father. She was born August 2, 1722, died March 10, 1788. She married John West, and after his death married, on February 27, 1752, John Deming. He was a respectable and intelligent Boston citizen, but not a wealthy man. He was an ensign in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1771, and a deacon of the Old South Church in 1769, both of which offices were patents of nobility in provincial Boston. They lived in Central Court, leading out of Washington Street, just south of Summer Street. Aunt Deming eked out a limited income in a manner dear to Boston gentlewomen in those and in later days; she took young ladies to board while they attended Boston schools. Advertisements in colonial newspapers of "Board and half-board for young ladies" were not rare, and many good old New England names are seen in these advertisements. Aunt Deming was a woman of much judgment, as is shown in the pages of this diary; of much power of graphic description, as is proved by a short journal written for her niece, Sally Coverly, and letters of hers which are still preserved. She died childless. NOTE 2. Cumberland was the home in Nova Scotia of Anna Green Winslow's parents, where her father held the position of commissary to the British regiments stationed there. George Green, Anna's uncle, writing to Joseph Green, at Paramaribo, on July 23, 1770, said: "Mr. Winslow & wife still remain at Cumberland, have one son & one daughter, the last now at Boston for schooling, &c." So, at the date of the first entry in the diary, Anna had been in Boston probably about a year and a half. NOTE 3. Anna Green Winslow had doubtless heard much talk about this Rev. John Bacon, the new minister at the Old South Church, for much had been said about him in the weekly press: whether he should have an ordination dinner or not, and he did not; accounts of his ordination; and then notice of the sale of his sermons in the _Boston Gazette_. All Mr. Bacon's parishioners did not share Anna's liking for him; he found himself at the Old South in sorely troubled waters. He made a most unpropitious and trying entrance at best, through succeeding the beloved Joseph Sewall, who had preached to Old South listeners for fifty-six years. He came to town a stranger. When, a month later, Governor Hutchinson issued his annual Thanksgiving Proclamation, there was placed therein an "exceptionable clause" that was very offensive to Boston patriots, relating to the continuance of civil and religious liberties. It had always been the custom to have the Proclamation read by the ministers in the Boston churches for the two Sundays previous to Thanksgiving Day, but the ruling governor very cannily managed to get two Boston clergymen to read his proclamation the third Sunday before the appointed day, when all the church members, being unsuspectingly present, had to listen to the unwelcome words. One of these clerical instruments of gubernatorial diplomacy and craft was John Bacon. Samuel Adams wrote bitterly of him, saying, "He performed this servile task a week before the time, when the people were not aware of it." The _Boston Gazette_ of November 11 commented severely on Mr. Bacon's action, and many of his congregation were disgusted with him, and remained after the service to talk the Proclamation and their unfortunate new minister over. It might have been offered, one might think, as some excuse, that he had so recently come from Maryland, and was probably unacquainted with the intenseness of Massachusetts politics; and that he had also been a somewhat busy and preoccupied man during his six weeks' presence in Boston, for he had been marrying a wife,--or rather a widow. In the _Boston Evening Post_ of November 11, 1771, I read this notice: "Married, the Rev'd John Bacon to Mrs. Elizabeth Cummings, daughter of Ezekiel Goldthwait, Esq." He retained his pastorate, however, in spite of his early mistake, through anxious tea-party excitement and forlorn war-threatened days, till 1775, with but scant popularity and slight happiness, with bitter differences of opinion with his people over atonement and imputation, and that ever-present stumbling-block to New England divines,--baptism under the Half Covenant,--till he was asked to resign. Nor did he get on over smoothly with his fellow minister, John Hunt. In a curious poem of the day, called "Boston Ministers" (which is reprinted in the _New England Historical and Genealogical Register_ of April, 1859), these verses appear:-- At Old South there's a jarring pair, If I am not mistaken, One may descry with half an eye That Hunt is far from Bacon. Wise Hunt can trace out means of grace As leading to conversion, But Hopkins scheme is Bacons theme, And strange is his assertion. It mattered little, however, that Parson Bacon had to leave the Old South, for that was soon no longer a church, but a riding school for the British troops. Mr. Bacon retired, after his dismissal, to Canterbury, Conn., his birthplace. His friendly intimacy with Mrs. Deming proved of value to her, for when she left Boston, in April, 1775, at the time of the closing of the city gates, she met Mr. Bacon in Providence. She says in her journal:-- "Towards evening Mr & M^rs Bacon, with their daughter, came into town. M^r Bacon came to see me. Enquir'd into my designs, &c. I told him truely I did not know what to do. That I had thot of giting farther into the country. Of trying to place Sally in some family where she might earn her board, & to do something like it for Lucinda, or put her out upon wages. That when I left the plain I had some faint hope I might hear from Mr Deming while I continued at Providence, but that I had little of that hope remaining. M^r Bacon advised me to go into Connecticutt, the very thing I was desirous of. Mr Bacon sd that he would advise me for the present to go to Canterbury, his native place. That he would give me a Letter to his Sister, who would receive me kindly & treat me tenderly, & that he would follow me there in a few days." This advice Mrs. Deming took, and made Canterbury her temporary home. Mr. Bacon did not again take charge of a parish. After the Revolution he became a magistrate, went to the legislature, became judge of the court of common pleas, and a member of congress. He did not wholly give up his disputatious ways, if we can judge from the books written by and to him, one of the latter being, "A Droll, a Deist, and a John Bacon, Master of Arts, Gently Reprimanded." His wife, who was born in 1733, and died in Stockbridge in 1821, was the daughter of Ezekiel Goldthwait, a Tory citizen of Boston, a register of deeds, and a wealthy merchant. A portrait of Mrs. Bacon, painted by Copley, is remarkable for its brilliant eyes and beautiful hands and arms. NOTE 4. Rev. John Hunt was born in Northampton, November 20, 1744. He was a Harvard graduate in the class of 1764, a classmate of Caleb Strong and John Scollay. He was installed colleague-pastor of the Old South Church with John Bacon in 1771. He found it a most trying position. He was of an amiable and gentle disposition, and the poem on "Boston Ministers" asserted that he "most friends with sisters made." Another Boston rhymester called him "puny John from Northampton, a meek-mouth moderate man." When the gates of Boston were closed in 1775, after the battle of Lexington, he returned to Northampton, and died there of consumption, December 20, 1775. A full account of his life is given in _Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit_. See also Note 3. NOTE 5. "Unkle and Aunt Winslow" were Mr. and Mrs. John Winslow. He was the brother of Joshua Winslow, was born March, 1725-26, died September 29, 1773, in Boston. He was married, on March 12, 1752, to Elizabeth Mason (born September, 1723, died January, 1780). They had five children: I. Gen. John Winslow, born September 26, 1753, married Ann Gardner, May 21, 1782, died November 29, 1819. II. Sarah, born April 12, 1755, married Deacon Samuel Coverly, of Boston, on November 27, 1787, died April 3, 1804. See Note 13. III. Henry, born January 11, 1757, died October 13, 1766. IV. Elizabeth, born November 28, 1759, died September 8, 1760. V. Elizabeth, born September 14, 1760, married John Holland, died November 21, 1795. Gen. John Winslow was the favorite nephew of Joshua Winslow and of his wife, and largely inherited their property. He remained in Boston through the siege, and preserved the communion plate of the Old South Church by burying it in his uncle Mason's cellar. He was an ardent patriot, and it is said that his uncle Joshua threatened to hang him if he caught him during the Revolutionary War. The nephew answered, "No catchee--no hangee, Uncle;" but did have the contrary fortune of capturing the uncle, whom he released on parole. He was the sixth signer and first treasurer of the Society of the Cincinnati. General Winslow's daughter, Mary Ann Winslow, born in 1790, lived till 1882, and from her were obtained many of the facts given in these notes. NOTE 6. Miss Soley was Hannah Soley, daughter of John Soley and Hannah Carey, who were married October 11, 1759. Hannah Soley was born June 5, 1762, and married W. G. McCarty. NOTE 7. William and Samuel Whitwell and their families were members of the Old South Church, and all were friends of the Winslows and Demings. William Whitwell was born September 3, 1714, died April 10, 1795. He was a prosperous merchant, an estimable and useful citizen, and church member. His first wife was Rebecca Keayne, his second Elizabeth Scott (or Swett), who died May 13, 1771; his third, the widow of Royal Tyler. The Mrs. Whitwell here referred to must have been Mrs. Samuel Whitwell, for William Whitwell just at that interval was a widower. Samuel Whitwell was born December 17, O.S. 1717, died June 8, 1801. His first wife was Elizabeth Kelsey; his second, Sarah Wood; his third, Mary Smith. NOTE 8. Polly Deming was a niece of John Deming. NOTE 9. Miss Polly Glover was Mary Glover, born in Boston, October 12, 1758, baptized at the Old South Church, married to Deacon James Morrell, of the Old South, on April 23, 1778, and died April 3, 1842. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Glover (who was born May 16, 1704, in Dorchester; died December, 1773), and his wife, Anne Simpson. They were married in 1750. Nathaniel Glover was a graduate of Harvard, and a wealthy man; partner first of Thomas Hancock, and then of John Hancock. NOTE 10. Miss Bessy Winslow was Elizabeth, Anna's cousin, who was then about ten years old. See Note 5. NOTE 11. Miss Nancy or Anne Glover was Mary Glover's sister. See Note 9. She was born in Boston, March 28, 1753, baptized in the Old South Church, died in Roxbury, August, 1797. She married Samuel Whitwell, Jr., son of Samuel Whitwell, a prominent Boston merchant. See Note 7. NOTE 12. Miss Sally Winslow was Sarah, daughter of John Winslow (see Note 5), and was, therefore, Anna's cousin. She was born April 12, 1755, died April 3, 1804. She married, November 27, 1787, Samuel Coverly, deacon of the Old South Church. She was the Sally Coverly for whom Mrs. Deming's journal was written. Several of Sally Coverly's letters still exist, and are models of elegant penmanship and correct spelling, and redound to the credit of her writing teacher, Master Holbrook. All the d's and y's and t's end with elaborately twisted little curls. A careful margin of an inch is left on every side. The letters speak so plainly of the formal honor and respect paid by all well-bred persons of the day to their elders, even though familiar kinsfolk, that I quote one, which contains much family news:-- BOSTON, Feb. 17th, 1780. I thank you my dear Aunt for your kind Epistles of April 9th & Nov'r 10th, the kind interestedness you yet continue to take in my concerns merits the warmest returns of Gratitude. The Particular circumstances you wish to know I shall with pleasure inform you of--Mr. Coverly is the youngest son of a Worthy Citizen late of this town but his Parents are now no more. His age is thirty-five. His Occupation a Shopkeeper who imports his own goods. And if you should wish to know who of your acquaintance he resembles, Madam, I would answer He has been taken for our Minister Mr Eckley, by whom we were married in my Aunt Demings sick chamber the 27th of Nov'r last twelve months since. He has two Brothers who both reside in town. I have been remarkably favor'd the last year as to my health & we are blest likewise with a fine little Daughter between 4 & 5 months old, very healthy, which we have named Elizabeth for its Grandmamas and an Aunt of each side. My Brother call'd today & inform'd me that M^r Powell intended setting out tomorrow for Quebeck & left a Letter for you which I shall send with this. He is almost if not quite as big as my uncle was last time I saw him--he was well & his family, he has three sons, the youngest about eleven months old, he has buried one. In your last you mention both my Uncle & yourself as not enjoying so great a share of health. I hope by this time you have each regain'd that blessing more perfectly. Be pleased with him My Dear Aunt to accept My Duty in which Mr Coverly joins me. My Sister was very well last week & her son John who is a fine child about 3 months old. Capt. Holland has purchas'd a house near fort hill which has remov'd her to a greater distance from me. She is now gone to the West-indies, she is connected in a family that are all very fond of her. We expect soon to remove. M^r Coverly has taken a lease of a house for some years belonging to M^r John Amory, you will please to direct your next for us in Cornhill N^o 10, I shall have the pleasure of your friend M^rs Whitwell for my next neighbor there. I had not the pleasure of seeing M^r Freeman whiles here altho' I expected it, as his brother promis'd to wait on him here. In one of your kind Epistles, Madam, you mention'd some of your Movables which you would wish me to take possession of which were at my Uncle Demings. The Memorandum you did not send me & my Uncle Deming has none nor knows of any thing but a great wheel. He is now maried to the Widow Sebry who is very much lik'd and appears to be a Gentlewoman, they were very well today. My Aunt Mason was to see me a few weeks since with M^rs Coburn M^rs Scolly & Miss Becky Scolly from Middleborough. M^rs Scolly has since married her youngest daughter to M^r Prentice, Minister of Medfield. Please to give my Love to Cousin Sally Deming if she is yet with you I hope she has regain'd her usual health. I should be very glad to be inform'd how her Mamma is & where & her family. Be pleased to continue your Indulgence, as your Epistles My Dear Aunt will at all times be most gratefully receiv'd by Y^r Oblidg'd Niece Sarah Coverly. NOTE 13. Josiah Waters, Jr., was the son of Josiah and Abigail Dawes Waters. The latter lived to be ninety-five years old. Josiah Sr. was a captain in the Artillery Company in 1769, and Josiah Jr. in 1791. The latter married, on March 14, 1771, Mary, daughter of William and Elizabeth Whitwell. See Note 7. Their child, Josiah Waters, tertius, born December 29, 1771, lived till August 4, 1818. He was a Latin School boy, and in the class with Josiah Quincy at Harvard. NOTE 14. The life of this slave-girl Lucinda was a fair example of the gentle form of slavery which existed till this century in our New England States. From an old paper written by a daughter of Gen. John Winslow, I quote her description of this girl:-- "Lucinda was born in Africa and purchased by M^rs Deming when she was about seven years of age. She was cherished with care and affection by the family, and at Mrs. Demings death was 'given her freedom.' From that time she chose to make her home with 'Master John' (the late Gen. John Winslow, of Boston), a nephew of M^rs Demings--at his house she died after some years. The friends of the Winslow family attended her funeral; her pastor the Rev D^r Eckley of the Old South and Gen. W. walking next the hearse as chief mourners. A few articles belonging to her are preserved in the family as memorials of one who was a beloved member of the household in the olden time." Lucinda figures in Mrs. Deming's account of her escape from besieged Boston in 1775, and was treated with as much consideration as was Sally, the niece; for her mistress remained behind for a time at Wrentham; rather than to allow Lucinda to ride outside the coach in the rain. In a letter written by Sally Coverly, August 6, 1795, to Mrs. Joshua Winslow, at Quebec, she says: "You enquire about Lucinda, she is very much gratified by it. She has lived with my Brother this ten years and is very good help in their family." NOTE 15. The "Miss Sheafs" were Nancy and Mary Sheaffe, youngest daughters of William Sheaffe, who had recently died, leaving a family of four sons and six daughters. He had been deputy collector of customs under Joseph Harrison, the last royal collector of the port. He left his family penniless, and a small shop was stocked by friends for Mrs Sheaffe. I have often seen her advertisements in Boston newspapers. Mrs. Sheaffe was Susanna Child, daughter of Thomas Child, an Englishman, one of the founders of Trinity Church. She lived till 1811. The ten children grew up to fill dignified positions in life. One son was Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe. Susanna, at the age of fifteen, made a most romantic runaway match with an English officer, Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth. Margaret married John R. Livingstone; she was a great beauty. Lafayette, on his return to France, sent her a satin cardinal lined with ermine, and an elegant gown. Helen married James Lovell. (See Note 52.) Nancy, or Anne Sheaffe, married, in September, 1786, John Erving, Jr., a nephew of Governor Shirley, and died young, leaving three children,--Maria, Frances, and Major John Erving. Mary married Benj. Cutler, high sheriff of Boston, and died December 8, 1784, leaving no children. These Sheaffes were nearly all buried in the Child tomb in Trinity Church. NOTE 16. Governor Matthew Griswold was born March 25, 1714, died April 28, 1799. He married, on Nov. 10, 1743, his second cousin, Ursula Wolcott, daughter of Gov. Roger Wolcott. A very amusing story is told of their courtship. Governor Griswold in early life wished to marry a young lady in Durham, Conn. She was in love with a physician, whom she hoped would propose to her, and in the mean time was unwilling to give up her hold upon her assured lover. At last the governor, tired of being held in an uncertainty, pressed her for a definite answer. She pleaded that she wished for more time, when he rose with dignity and answered her, "I will give you a lifetime." This experience made him extremely shy, and when thrown with his cousin Ursula he made no advance towards love-making. At last when she was nineteen and he ten years older she began asking him on every occasion, "What did you say, Cousin Matthew?" and he would answer her quietly, "Nothing." At last she asked him impatiently, "What did you say, Cousin Matthew?" and when he answered again "Nothing," she replied sharply, "Well, it's time you did,"--and _he did_. Their daughter Ursula, the visitor at Mrs. Deming's, was born April 13, 1754, and was a great beauty. She married, in November 22, 1777, her third cousin, Lynde McCurdy, of Norwich, Conn. NOTE 17. "Unkle Joshua" was Joshua Green, born in Boston, May 17, 1731, "Monday 1/2 past 9 oclock in the morn^g" and died in Wendell, Mass., on September 2, 1811. He attended the Boston Latin School in 1738, and was in the class of 1749 at Harvard. He married, as did his brother and sister, a Storer--Hannah, daughter of Ebenezer and Mary Edwards Storer--on October 7, 1762. After his marriage he lived in Court Street, the third house south of Hanover Street. His wife Hannah was for many years before and after her marriage--as was her mother--the intimate friend and correspondent of Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams. Some of their letters may be found in the _Account of Percival and Ellen Green and Some of their Descendants_, written by Hon. Samuel Abbott Green, who is a great-grandson of Joshua and Hannah Green. NOTE 18. Madam Storer was Mary Edwards Storer, the widow of Ebenezer Storer, a Boston merchant. She was the mother of Anna's uncle Ebenezer Storer, of her aunt Hannah Storer Green, and of her aunt Mary Storer Green. See Notes 19, 32, 59. NOTE 19. Miss Caty Vans was the granddaughter of Hugh Vans, a merchant of Boston, who became a member of the Old South Church in 1728. He was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1699. He married Mary Pemberton, daughter of Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, and died in Boston in 1763. They had four sons, John, Ebenezer, Samuel, and William. One of the first three was the father of Caty Vans, who was born January 18, 1770. There are frequent references to her throughout the diary, but I know nothing of her life. William Vans married Mary Clarke, of Salem, and had one son, William, and one daughter, Rebecca, who married Captain Jonathan Carnes. The Vans family Bible is in the library of the Essex Institute. NOTE 20. In the cordial hatred of the Puritans for Christmas Anna heartily joined. It was not till this century that in New England cheerful merriment and the universal exchange of gifts marked the day as a real holiday. NOTE 21. "Aunt Sukey" was Susanna Green, born July 26, 1744, died November 10, 1775. She married, on October 18, 1769, her cousin, Francis Green. The little child Charles, of whom Anna writes, proved to be a deaf-mute, and was drowned near Halifax in 1787. Francis Green had two deaf-mute children by a second wife, and became prominent afterwards in Massachusetts for his interest in and promotion of methods in instructing the deaf. In a letter of George Green's, dated Boston, July 23, 1770, we read: "Frank Green was married to Sukey in October last and they live next house to Mrs Storers." From another, dated December 5, 1770: "Frank keeps a ship going between here & London, but I believe understands little of the matter, having never been bred to business wch was one great objection with my father to his courting Sukey." I think he must have developed into a capable business man, for I have frequently seen his business advertisements in Boston newspapers of his day. Anna's mother bequeathed seven hundred and fifty dollars to Francis Green in her will. He was a man universally esteemed in the community. NOTE 22. Dr. Samuel Cooper was born March 28, 1725; died December 29, 1783. He graduated at Harvard in 1743, and became pastor of the Brattle Street Congregational Church, of Boston. He was a brilliant preacher, an ardent patriot, the intimate friend of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, and a very handsome man. NOTE 23. Master Holbrook was Samuel Holbrook, Anna's writing-master, one of a highly honored family of Boston writing teachers. Perhaps the best known of this family was Abiah Holbrook. In the _Boston Gazette_ of January 30, 1769, I find this notice:-- "Last Friday morning died Mr Abiah Holbrook in the 51st year of his Age, Master of the South Writing School in this Town. He was looked upon by the Best Judges as the Greatest Master of the Pen we have ever had among us, of which he has left a most beautiful Demonstration. He was indefatigable in his labours, successful in his Instructions, an Honour to the Town and to crown all an Ornament to the Religion of Jesus. His Funeral is to be Attended Tomorrow Afternoon at Four Oclock." The "beautiful Demonstration" of his penmanship which he left behind him was a most intricate piece of what was known as "fine knotting" or "knot work." It was written in "all the known hands of Great Britain." This work occupied every moment of what Abiah Holbrook called his "spare time" for seven years. It was valued at £100. It was bequeathed to Harvard College, unless his wife should need the money which could be obtained from selling it. If this were so, she was to offer it first for purchase to John Hancock. Abiah was a stanch patriot. Samuel Holbrook was a brother of Abiah. He began teaching in 1745, when about eighteen years old. A petition of Abiah, dated March 10, 1745-46, sets forth that his school had two hundred and twenty scholars (Well may his funeral notice say that he was indefatigable in his labors!), that finding it impossible to properly instruct such a great number, he had appointed his brother to teach part of them and had paid his board for seven months, else some of the scholars must have been turned off without any instruction. He therefore prayed the town to grant him assistance. Think of one master for such a great school! In 1750 Samuel Holbrook's salary as usher of the South Writing School was fifty pounds per annum. After serving as writing-master of the school in Queen Street, and also keeping a private school, he was chosen master of the South Writing School in March, 1769, to supply the place of his brother Abiah deceased. His salary was one hundred pounds. In 1776, and again in 1777, he received eighty pounds in addition to his salary. He also was a patriot. He was one of the "Sons of Liberty" who dined at the Liberty Tree, Dorchester, on August 14, 1769; and he was a member of Captain John Haskin's company in 1773. He was a member of the Old South Church, and he died July 24, 1784. In his later years he kept a school at West Street, where afterwards was Amos Lawrence's garden. Abiah and Samuel left behind them better demonstrations of their capacity than pieces of "knot-work"--in the handwriting of their scholars. They taught what Jonathan Snelling described as "Boston Style of Wri^ting," and loudly do the elegant letters and signatures of their scholars, Boston patriots, clergy, and statesmen, redound to the credit of the Masters Holbrook. Other Holbrooks taught in Boston. From the Selectmen's Minutes of that little town, we find that on November 10, 1773,-- "Mr Holbrook, Master of the Writing School in the Common, and Mr Carter the Master Elect of the school in Queen St having recommended Mr Abiah Holbrook, a young man near of age, as a suitable person to be usher at Mr Carters school--the Selectmen sent for him, and upon discoursing with the young man thought proper to appoint him usher of said school." And from the _Boston Gazette_, of April 17, 1769, we learn that Mr. Joseph Ward "Opened an English Grammar School in King St where Mr Joseph Holbrook hath for many years kept a Writing School." These entries of Anna's relating to her attending Master Holbrook's school have an additional value in that they prove that both boys and girls attended these public writing schools,--a fact which has been disputed. NOTE 24. Dr. James Lloyd, born March 14, 1728, died March 14, 1810. He began his medical practice in 1752. He was appointed surgeon of the garrison at Boston, and was a close friend of Sir William Howe and Earl Percy, who for a time lived in his house. He was an Episcopalian, and one of the indignant protesters against the alteration of the liturgy at King's Chapel. Though a warm Tory and Loyalist, he was never molested by the American government. He was one of Boston's most skilful and popular physicians for many years. While other city doctors got but a shilling and sixpence for their regular fee, he charged and received the exorbitant sum of half a dollar a visit; and for "bringing little master to town," in which function he was a specialist, he charged a guinea. NOTE 25. A pincushion was for many years, and indeed is still, in some parts of New England, a highly conventional gift to a mother with a young babe. Mrs. Deming must have made many of these cushions. One of her manufacture still exists. It is about five inches long and three inches wide; one side is of white silk stuck around the edge with old-fashioned clumsy pins, with the words, "John Winslow March 1783. Welcome Little Stranger." The other side is of gray satin with green spots, with a cluster of pins in the centre, and other pins winding around in a vine and forming a row round the edge. NOTE 26. Though the exchange of Christmas gifts was rare in New England, a certain observance of New Year's Day by gifts seems to have obtained. And we find in Judge Sewall's diary that he was greeted on New Year's morn with a levet, or blast of trumpets, under his window; and he celebrated the opening of the eighteenth century with a very poor poem of his own composition, which he caused to be recited through Boston streets by the town-crier. NOTE 27. The word "pompedore" or Pompadour was in constant use in that day. We read of pompedore shoes, laces, capes, aprons, sacques, stockings, and head-dresses. NOTE 28. Aunt Storer was Mrs. Ebenezer Storer. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Green. She was a sister of Mrs. Joshua Winslow. She was born October 12, 1734, died December 8, 1774; was married July 17, 1751, to Ebenezer Storer, who was born January 27, 1729-30, died January 6, 1807. He was a Harvard graduate, and was for many years treasurer of that college. He was one of Boston's most intellectual and respected citizens. His library was large. His name constantly appears on the lists of subscribers to new books. After his death his astronomical instruments became the property of Harvard College, and as late as 1843 his comet-finder was used there. As Anna Green Winslow spent so much of her time in her "Aunt Storers" home in Sudbury Street, it is interesting to know that a very correct picture of this elegant Boston home of colonial days has been preserved through the account given in the _Memoir of Eliza Susan Morton Quincy_,--though many persons still living remember the house:-- "The mansion of Ebenezer Storer, an extensive edifice of wood three stories in height, was erected in 1700. It was situated on Sudbury Street between two trees of great size and antiquity. An old English elm of uncommon height and circumference grew in the sidewalk of the street before the mansion, and behind it was a sycamore tree of almost equal age and dimensions. It fronted to the south with one end toward the street. From the gate a broad walk of red sandstone separated it from a grass-plot which formed the courtyard, and passed the front door to the office of Mr. Storer. The vestibule of the house, from which a staircase ascended, opened on either side into the dining and drawing rooms. Both had windows towards the courtyard and also opened by glazed doors into a garden behind the house. They were long low apartments; the walls wainscoted and panelled; the furniture of carved mahogany. The ceilings were traversed through the length of the rooms by a large beam cased and finished like the walls; and from the centre of each depended a glass globe which reflected as in a convex mirror all surrounding objects. There was a rich Persian carpet in the drawing-room, the colors crimson and green. The curtains and the cushions of the window-seat were of green damask; and oval mirrors and girandoles and a teaset of rich china completed the furniture of that apartment. The wide chimney-place in the dining room was lined and ornamented with Dutch tiles; and on each side stood capacious armchairs cushioned and covered with green damask, for the master and mistress of the family. On the walls were portraits in crayon by Copley, and valuable engravings representing Franklin with his lightning rod, Washington, and other eminent men of the last century. Between the windows hung a long mirror in a mahogany frame; and opposite the fireplace was a buffet ornamented with porcelain statuettes and a set of rich china. A large apartment in the second story was devoted to a valuable library, a philosophical apparatus, a collection of engravings, a solar microscope, a camera, etc." As I read this description I seem to see the figure of our happy little diary-writer reflected in the great glass globes that hung from the summer-trees, while she danced on the Persian carpet, or sat curled up reading on the cushioned window-seat. NOTE 29. As this was in the time of depreciated currency, £45 was not so large a sum to spend for a young girl's outfit as would at first sight appear. NOTE 30. Dr. Charles Chauncey was born January 1, 1705; died February 10, 1787. He graduated at Harvard in 1721, and soon became pastor of the First Church in Boston. He was an equally active opponent of Whitefield and of Episcopacy. He was an ardent and romantic patriot, yet so plain in his ways and views that he wished _Paradise Lost_ might be turned into prose that he might understand it. NOTE 31. Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton was pastor of the New Brick Church. He had a congregation of stanch Whigs; but unluckily, the Tory Governor Hutchinson also attended his church. Dr. Pemberton was the other minister of the two who sprung the Governor's hated Thanksgiving proclamation of 1771 on their parishes a week ahead of time, as told in Note 3, and the astounded and disgusted New Brick hearers, more violent than the Old South attendants, walked out of meeting while it was being read. Dr. Pemberton's troubled and unhappy pastorate came to an end by the closing of his church in war times in 1775. He was of the 1721 class of Harvard College. He died September 9, 1777. NOTE 32. We find frequent references in the writings and newspapers of the times to this truly Puritanical dread of bishops. To the descendants of the Pilgrims the very name smacked of incense, stole, and monkish jargon. A writer, signing himself "America," gives in the _Boston Evening Post_, of October 14, 1771, a communication thoroughly characteristic of the spirit of the community against the establishment of bishops, the persistent determination to "beate down every sprout of episcopacie." NOTE 33. A negligée was a loose gown or sacque open in front, to be worn over a handsome petticoat; and in spite of its name, was not only in high fashion for many years, but was worn for full dress. Abigail Adams, writing to Mrs. Storer, on January 20, 1785, says: "Trimming is reserved for full dress only, when very large hoops and negligées with trains three yards long are worn." I find advertised in the _Boston Evening Post_, as early as November, 1755: "Horse-hair Quilted Coats to wear with Negligees." A poem printed in New York in 1756 has these lines:-- "Put on her a Shepherdee A Short Sack or Negligee Ruffled high to keep her warm Eight or ten about an arm." NOTE 34. A pistareen was a Spanish coin worth about seventeen cents. NOTE 35. There exists in New England a tradition of "groaning cake," made and baked in honor of a mother and babe. These cakes which Anna bought of the nurse may have been "groaning cakes." It was always customary at that time to give "vails" to the nurse when visiting a new-born child; sometimes gifts of money, often of trinkets and articles of clothing. NOTE 36. Miss "Scolley" was Mary Scollay, youngest of the thirteen children of John Scollay (who was born in 1712, died October, 1799), and his wife Mary. Mary was born in 1759. She married Rev. Thomas Prentiss on February 9, 1798, had nine children, and lived to be eighty-two years old--dying in 1841. Her sister Mercy was engaged to be married to General Warren, but he fell at Bunker Hill: and his betrothed devoted herself afterwards to the care and education of his orphaned children whom he had by his first wife. NOTE 37. Miss Bella Coffin was probably Isabella, daughter of John Coffin and Isabella Child, who were married in 1750. She married Major MacMurde, and their sons were officers in India. NOTE 38. This Miss "Quinsey" was Ann Quincy, the daughter of Col. Josiah Quincy (who was born 1710, died 1784), and his third wife, Ann Marsh. Ann was born December 8, 1763, and thus would have been in her ninth year at the time of the little rout. She married the Rev. Asa Packard, of Marlborough, Mass., in 1790. NOTE 39. In the universal use of wines and strong liquors in New England at that date children took unrestrainedly their proportionate part. It seems strange to think of this girl assembly of little Bostonians drinking wine and hot or cold punch as part of their "treat," yet no doubt they were well accustomed to such fare. I know of a little girl of still tenderer years who was sent at that same time from the Barbadoes to her grandmother's house in Boston to be "finished" in Boston schools, as was Anna, and who left her relative's abode in high dudgeon because she was not permitted to have wine at her meals; and her parents upheld her, saying Missy must be treated like a lady and have all the wine she wished. Cobbett, who thought liquor drinking the national disease of America, said that "at all hours of the day little boys at or under twelve years of age go into stores and tip off their drams." Thus it does not seem strange for little maids also to drink at a party. The temperance awakening of this century came none too soon. NOTE 40. Paste ornaments were universally worn by both men and women, as well as by little girls, and formed the decoration of much of the headgear of fashionable dames. Many advertisements appear in New England newspapers, which show how large and varied was the importation of hair ornaments at that date. We find advertised in the _Boston Evening Post_, of 1768: "Double and single row knotted Paste Combs, Paste Hair Sprigs & Pins all prices. Marcasite and Pearl Hair Sprigs, Garnet & Pearl Hair Sprigs." In the _Salem Gazette_ and various Boston papers I read of "black & coloured plumes & feathers." Other hair ornaments advertised in the _Boston News Letter_, of December, 1768, were "Long and small Tail Garnets, Mock Garland of all sorts and Ladies Poll Combs." Steel plumes, pompons, aigrettes, and rosettes all were worn on the head, and artificial flowers, wreaths of gauze, and silk ribbons. NOTE 41. Marcasite, spelled also marcassite, marchasite, marquesett, or marquaset, was a mineral, the crystallized form of iron pyrites. It was largely used in the eighteenth century for various ornamental purposes, chiefly in the decoration of the person. It took a good polish, and when cut in facets like a rose-diamond, formed a pretty material for shoe and knee-buckles, earrings, rings, pins, and hair ornaments. Scarce a single advertisement of wares of milliner or mantua maker can he found in eighteenth century newspapers that does not contain in some form of spelling the word marcasite, and scarce a rich gown or headdress was seen without some ornament of marcasite. NOTE 42. Master Turner was William Turner, a fashionable dancing master of Boston, who afterward resided in Salem, and married Judith, daughter of Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, of Salem, who died in 1829, aged one hundred and one years. It was recalled by an old lady that the scholars in the school of her youth marched through Boston streets, to the music of the fiddle played by "Black Henry," to Concert Hall, corner Tremont and Bromfield streets, to practice dancing; and that Mr. Turner walked at the head of the school. His advertisements may be seen in Boston and Salem papers, thus:-- "Mr. Turner informs the Ladies and Gentlemen in Town and Country that he has reduced his price for teaching from Six Dollars Entrance to One Guinea, and from Four Dollars per month to Three. Those ladies and Gentlemen who propose sending their children to be taught will notice no books will be kept as Mr. T. has suffered much by Booking. The pupils must pay monthly if they are desirous the School should continue." NOTE 43. "Unkle Ned" was Edward Green, born September 18, 1733; died July 29, 1790. He married, on April 14, 1757, Mary Storer (sister of Ebenezer Storer and of Hannah Storer Green). They had no children. He was, in 1780, one of the enlisting officers for Suffolk County. In a letter of George Green's, written July 25, 1770, we read: "Ned still lives gentleman-like at Southwacks Court without doing any business tho' obliged to haul in his horns;" and from another of December 5, 1770: "Ned after having shown off as long as he you'd with his yell^o damask window curtains &c is (the last month) retired into the country and lives w^th his wife at Parson Storers at Watertown. How long that will hold I cant say." NOTE 44. Madam Smith was evidently Anna's teacher in sewing. The duties pertaining to a sewing school were, in those days, no light matter. From an advertisement of one I learn that there were taught at these schools:-- "All kinds of Needleworks viz: point, Brussels, Dresden Gold, Silver, and silk Embroidery of every kind. Tambour Feather, India & Darning, Spriggings with a Variety of Open-work to each. Tapestry plain, lined, and drawn. Catgut, black & white, with a number of beautiful Stitches. Diaper and Plain Darnings. French Quiltings, Knitting, Various Sorts of marking with the Embellishments of Royal cross, Plain cross, Queen, Irish, and Tent Stitches." Can any nineteenth century woman read this list of feminine accomplishments without looking abashed upon her idle hands, and ceasing to wonder at the delicate heirlooms of lace and embroidery that have come down to us! NOTE 45. Grandmamma Sargent was Joshua Winslow's mother. Her maiden name was Sarah Pierce. She was born April 30, 1697, died August 2, 1771. She married on September 21, 1721, John Winslow, who lived to be thirty-eight years old. After his death she married Dr. Nathaniel Sargent in 1749. NOTE 46. These lines were a part of the epitaph said to be composed by Governor Thomas Dudley, who died at Andover, Mass., in 1653. They were found after his death and preserved in Morton's _New England's Memorial_. They run thus:-- Dim eyes, deaf ears, cold stomach show My dissolution is in view; Eleven times seven near lived have I, And now God calls, I willing die; My shuttle's shot, my race is run, My sun is set, my deed is done; My span is measur'd, tale is told, My flower is faded and grown old, My dream is vanish'd, shadow's fled, My soul with Christ, my body dead; Farewell dear wife, children and friends, Hate heresy, make blessed ends; Bear poverty, live with good men, So shall we meet with joy again. Let men of God in courts and churches watch O'er such as do a toleration hatch; Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice, To prison all with heresy and vice. If men be left, and other wise combine My epitaph's, I dy'd no libertine. NOTE 47. Miss Polly Vans was Mary Vans, daughter of Hugh and Mary Pemberton Vans, and aunt of Caty Vans. She was born in 1733. We have some scattered glimpses of her life. She joined the Old South in 1755. In the _Boston Gazette_, of April 9, 1770, we read, "Fan Mounts mounted by Mary Vans at the house of Deacon Williams, in Cornhill." We hear of her at Attleborough with Samuel Whitwell's wife when the gates of Boston were closed, and we know she married Deacon Jonathan Mason on Sunday evening, December 20, 1778. She was his second wife. His first wife was Miriam Clark, and was probably the Mrs. Mason who was present at Mrs. Whitwell's, and died June 5, 1774. Mary Vans Mason lived till 1820, having witnessed the termination of eight of the pastorates of the Old South Church. Well might Anna term her "a Sister of the Old South." She was in 1817 the President of the Old South Charity School, and is described as a "disinterested friend, a judicious adviser, an affectionate counsellor, a mild but faithful reprover, a humble, self-denying, fervent, active, cheerful Christian." Jonathan Mason was not only a deacon, but a prosperous merchant and citizen. He helped to found the first bank in New England. His son was United States Senator. Two other daughters of Hugh Vans were a Mrs. Langdon, of Wiscasset, Maine, and Mrs. John Coburn. NOTE 48. St. Valentine's Day was one of the few English holidays observed in New England. We find even Governor Winthrop writing to his wife about "challenging a valentine." In England at that date, and for a century previous, the first person of the opposite sex seen in the morning was the observer's valentine. We find Madam Pepys lying in bed for a long time one St. Valentine's morning with eyes tightly closed, lest she see one of the painters who was gilding her new mantelpiece, and be forced to have him for her valentine. Anna means, doubtless, that the first person she chanced to see that morning was "an old country plow-joger." NOTE 49. Boston was at that date pervaded by the spirit of Liberty. Sons of Liberty held meetings every day and every night. Daughters of Liberty held spinning and weaving bees, and gathered in bands pledging themselves to drink no tea till the obnoxious revenue act was repealed. Young unmarried girls joined in an association with the proud declaration, "We, the daughters of those Patriots who have appeared for the public interest, do now with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea." Even the children felt the thrill of revolt and joined in patriotic demonstrations--and a year or two later the entire graduating class at Harvard, to encourage home manufactures, took their degrees in homespun. NOTE 50. The cut-paper pictures referred to are the ones which are reproduced in this book, and which are still preserved. Anna's father finally received them. Mrs. Deming and other members of the Winslow family seem to have excelled in this art, and are remembered as usually bringing paper and scissors when at a tea-drinking, and assiduously cutting these pictures with great skill and swiftness and with apparently but slight attention to the work. This form of decorative art was very fashionable in colonial days, and was taught under the ambitious title of Papyrotamia. NOTE 51. The "biziness of making flowers" was a thriving one in Boston. We read frequently in newspapers of the day such notices as that of Anne Dacray, of Pudding Lane, in the _Boston Evening Post_, of 1769, who advertises that she "makes and sells Head-flowers: Ladies may be supplied with single buds for trimming Stomachers or sticking in the Hair." Advertisements of teachers in the art of flower-making also are frequent. I note one from the _Boston Gazette_, of October 19, 1767:-- "To the young Ladies of Boston. Elizabeth Courtney as several Ladies has signified of having a desire to learn that most ingenious art of Painting on Gauze & Catgut, proposes to open a School, and that her business may be a public good, designs to teach the making of all sorts of French Trimmings, Flowers, and Feather Muffs and Tippets. And as these Arts above mentioned (the Flowers excepted) are entirely unknown on the Continent, she flatters herself to meet with all due encouragement; and more so, as every Lady may have a power of serving herself of what she is now obliged to send to England for, as the whole process is attended with little or no expence. The Conditions are Five Dollars at entrance; to be confin'd to no particular hours or time: And if they apply Constant may be Compleat in six weeks. And when she has fifty subscribers school will be opened, &c, &c." NOTE 52. This was James Lovell, the famous Boston schoolmaster, orator, and patriot. He was born in Boston October 31, 1737. He graduated at Harvard in 1756, then became a Latin School usher. He married Miss Helen Sheaffe, older sister of the "two Miss Sheafs" named herein; and their daughter married Henry Loring, of Brookline. He was a famous patriot: he delivered the oration in 1771 commemorative of the Boston Massacre. He was imprisoned by the British as a spy on the evidence of letters found on General Warren's dead body after the battle of Bunker Hill. He died in Windham, Maine, July 14, 1814. A full account of his life and writings is given in Loring's _Hundred Boston Orators_. NOTE 53. Nothing seems more revolting to our modern notions of decency than the inhuman custom of punishing criminals in the open streets. From the earliest days of the colonies the greatest publicity was given to the crime, to its punishment, and to the criminal. Anna shows, in her acquaintance with the vices of Bet Smith, a painful familiarity with evil unknown in any well-bred child of to-day. Samuel Breck wrote thus of the Boston of 1771:-- "The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street directly under the windows of a great writing school which I frequented, and from them the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. Here women were taken in a huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed among the screams of the culprit and the uproar of the mob. A little further in the street was to be seen the pillory with three or four fellows fastened by the head and hands, and standing for an hour in that helpless posture, exposed to gross and cruel jeers from the multitude, who pelted them incessantly with rotten eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected." There was a pillory in State Street in Boston as late as 1803, and men stood in it for the crime of sinking a vessel at sea and defrauding the underwriters. In 1771 the pillory was in constant use in Newport. NOTE 54. In 1770 British troops were quartered in Boston, to the intense annoyance and indignation of Boston inhabitants. Disturbances between citizens and soldiers were frequent, and many quarrels arose. On the night of March 5 in that year the disturbance became so great that the troops, at that time under command of Captain Preston, fired upon the unarmed citizens in King (now State) street, causing the death of Crispus Attucks, a colored man, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who died on the spot, and mortally wounding Patrick Carr and Samuel Maverick. At the burial of these slaughtered men the greatest concourse ever known in the colonies flocked to the grave in the Granary Burying Ground. All traffic ceased. The stores and manufactories were closed. The bells were tolled in all the neighboring towns. Daniel Webster said, that from the moment the blood of these men stained the pavements of Boston streets, we may date the severance of the colony from the British empire. The citizens demanded the removal of the troops, and the request was complied with. For many years the anniversary of this day was a solemn holiday in Boston, and religious and patriotic services were publicly held. NOTE 55. Mather Byles was born March 15, 1707; died July 5, 1788. He was ordained pastor of the Hollis Street Congregational Church, of Boston, in 1733. He was a staunch Loyalist till the end of his days, as were his daughters, who lived till 1837. His chief fame does not rest on his name as a clergyman or an author, but as an inveterate and unmerciful jester. NOTE 56. Henry Green, the brother of Anna's mother, was born June 2, 1738. He was a Latin School boy, was in business in Nova Scotia, and died in 1774. NOTE 57. This stove was a foot-stove,--a small metal box, usually of sheet tin or iron, enclosed in a wooden frame or standing on little legs, and with a handle or bail for comfortable carriage. In it were placed hot coals from a glowing wood fire, and from it came a welcome warmth to make endurable the freezing floors of the otherwise unwarmed meeting-house. Foot-stoves were much used in the Old South. In the records of the church, under date of January 16, 1771, may be read:-- "Whereas, danger is apprehended from the stoves that are frequently left in the meeting-house after the publick worship is over; Voted that the Saxton make diligent search on the Lords Day evening and in the evening after a Lecture, to see if any stoves are left in the house, and that if he find any there he take them to his house; and it is expected that the owners of such stoves make reasonable satisfaction to the Saxton for his trouble before they take them away." The Old South did not have a stove set in the church for heating till 1783. NOTE 58. The first anniversary of the Boston Massacre was celebrated throughout the city, and a mass-meeting was held at the Old South Church, where James Lovell made a stirring address. See Notes 52 and 54. NOTE 59. The Queen's night-cap was a very large full cap with plaited ruffles, which is made familiar to us through the portraits of Martha Washington. NOTE 60. "Old Mrs. Sallisbury" was Mrs. Nicholas Salisbury, who was married in 1729, and was mother of Rebecca Salisbury, who became Mrs. Daniel Waldo, and of Samuel Salisbury, who married Elizabeth Sewall. See Note 73. NOTE 61. Mrs. John Avery. Her husband was Secretary of the Commonwealth and nephew of John Deming, who in his will left his house to John Avery, Jr. NOTE 62. A baby hutt was a booby-hutch, a clumsy, ill-contrived covered carriage. The word is still used in some parts of England, and a curious survival of it in New England is the word booby-hut applied to a hooded sleigh; and booby to the body of a hackney coach set on runners. Mr. Howells uses the word booby in the latter signification, and it may be heard frequently in eastern Massachusetts, particularly in Boston. NOTE 63. Peggy Phillips was Margaret Phillips, daughter of William and Margaret Wendell Phillips. She was born May 26, 1762, married Judge Samuel Cooper, and died February 19, 1844. She was aunt of Wendell Phillips. NOTE 64. This "droll figure" may have been a drawing, or a dressed doll, or "baby," as such were called--a doll that displayed in careful miniature the reigning modes of the English court. In the _New England Weekly Journal_, of July 2, 1733, appears this notice:-- "To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teatts Mantua Maker at the Head of Summer Street Boston a Baby drest after the Newest Fashion of Mantuas and Night Gowns & everything belonging to a dress. Latily arrived on Capt. White from London, any Ladies that desire it may either come or send, she will be ready to wait on 'em if they come to the House it is Five Shilling, & if she waits on 'em it is Seven Shilling." These models of fashion were employed until this century. NOTE 65. We can have a very exact notion of the books imported and printed for and read by children at that time, from the advertisements in the papers. In the _Boston Gazette and Country Journal_, of January 20, 1772, the booksellers, Cox and Berry, have this notice:-- The following Little Books for the Instruction & Amusement of all good Boys and Girls. The Brother Gift or the Naughty Girl Reformed. The Sister Gift, or the Naughty Boy Reformed. Hobby Horse or Christian Companion. Robin Good-Fellow, A Fairy Tale. Puzzling Cap, A Collection of Riddles. The Cries of London as exhibited in the Streets. Royal Guide or Early Introduction to Reading English. Mr Winloves Collection of Stories. " " Moral Lectures. History of Tom Jones abridg'd from the works of " " Joseph Andrews H. Fielding. " " Pamela abridg'd from the works of " " Grandison S. Richardson, Esq. " " Clarissa NOTE 66. General John Winslow was but a distant kinsman of Anna's, for he was descended from Edward Winslow. He was born May 27, 1702; died April 17, 1774. He was a soldier and jurist, but his most prominent position (though now of painful notoriety) was as commander of that tragic disgrace in American history, the expedition against the Acadians. It is told in extenuation of his action that before the annihilation and dispersion of that unfortunate community he addressed them, saying that his duty was "very disagreeable to his natural make and temper as it must be grievous to them," but that he must obey orders,--and of course what he said was true. NOTE 67. The exercises attending this election of counsellors must indeed have been an impressive sight. The Governor, attended by a troop of horse, rode from the Province House to Cambridge, where religious services were held. An Election Sermon was preached. Volleys and salutes were fired at the Battery and Castle. A protest was made in the public press, as on the previous year, against holding this election in Cambridge instead of in the "Town House in Boston, the accustomed Ancient Place," and also directly to the Governor, which was answered by him in the newspapers; and at this election a most significant event occurred--John Hancock declined to accept a seat among the counsellors, to which he had been elected. The newspapers--the _Massachusetts Spy_ and the _Boston Gazette and Country Journal_--commented on his action thus:-- "Mr Hancocks declining a seat in the Council Board is very satisfactory to the Friends of Liberty among his constituents. This Gentleman has stood five years successively and as often Negativ'd. Whatever may have been the Motive of his being approbated at last his own Determination now shows that he had rather be a Representative of the People since he has had so repeatedly their Election and Confidence." NOTE 68. Boston had two election days. On Artillery Election the Ancient and Honorable Artillery had a dress parade on the Common. The new officers were chosen and received their new commissions from the new Governor. No negroes were then allowed on the Common. The other day was called "Nigger Lection," because the blacks were permitted to throng the Common and buy gingerbread and drink beer, as did their betters at Artillery Election. NOTE 69. Col. Thomas Marshall was a Revolutionary officer. He commanded the Tenth Massachusetts Regiment at Valley Forge. He was Captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery from 1763 to 1767, and at one time commanded Castle Island, now Fort Independence. He was one of the Selectmen of Boston at the time when the town was invested by troops under Washington. He died at Weston, Mass., on November 18, 1800. NOTE 70. A night gown was not in those days a garment for wear when sleeping, but resembled what we now call a tea-gown. The night attire was called a rail. Both men and women wore in public loose robes which they called night gowns. Men often wore these gowns in their offices. NOTE 71. Many Boston people agreed with Anna in her estimate of Rev. Samuel Stillman. He was called to the First Baptist Church in 1765, and soon became one of Boston's most popular and sensational preachers. Crowds thronged his obscure little church at the North End, and he took an active part in Revolutionary politics. Many were pleased with his patriotism who did not agree with him in doctrine. In the curious poem on Boston Ministers, already quoted, we read:-- Last in my list is a Baptist, A real saint, I wot. Though named Stillman much noise he can Make when in pulpit got. The multitude, both grave and rude, As drove by wind and tide, After him hie, when he doth try To gain them to his side. NOTE 72. Mr. and Mrs. Hooper were "King" Hooper and his wife of Marblehead. He was so called on account of his magnificent style of living. He was one of the Harvard Class of 1763; was a refugee in 1775, and died insolvent in 1790. The beautiful mansion which he built at Danvers, Mass., is still standing in perfect condition, and is the home of Francis Peabody, Esq. It is one of the finest examples of eighteenth century architecture in New England. NOTE 73. This "Miss Becca" was Rebecca Salisbury, born April 7, 1731, died September 25, 1811. She was a fine, high-spirited young woman, and upon being taunted by a rejected lover with, "The proverb old--you know it well, That women dying maids, lead apes in hell," (a belief referred to in _Taming of the Shrew_, Act II. Scene 1), she made this clever rhyming answer:-- "Lead apes in hell--tis no such thing; The story's told to fool us. But better there to hold a string, Than here let monkeys lead us." She married Daniel Waldo May 3, 1757. The "very pretty Misses" were their daughters; Elizabeth, born November 24, 1765, died unmarried in Worcester, August 28, 1845; and Martha (who in this diary is called Patty), born September 14, 1761, died November 25, 1828. She married Levi Lincoln, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, and became the mother of Levi Lincoln, Governor of Massachusetts, Enoch Lincoln, Governor of Maine, and Col. John Lincoln. NOTE 74. The fashion of the roll was of much importance in those days. A roll frequently weighed fourteen ounces. We can well believe such a heavy mass made poor Anna's head "ach and itch like anything." That same year the _Boston Gazette_ had a laughable account of an accident to a young woman on Boston streets. She was knocked down by a runaway, and her headdress received the most serious damage. The outer covering of hair was thrust aside, and cotton, tow, and false hair were disgorged to the delight of jeering boys, who kicked the various stuffings around the street. A Salem hair-dresser advertised that he would "attend to the polite construction of rolls to raise ladies heads to any pitch desired." The Abbé Robin, traveling through Boston a few years later, found the hair of ladies' heads "raised and supported upon rolls to an extravagant height." 
35337	----	Miss Theodora A West End Story BY Helen Leah Reed [Illustration: Logo] BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. 1898 [Illustration: Frontispiece] Copyright, 1898, by Richard G. Badger & Co. _All Rights Reserved_ The frontispiece and chapter headings are from drawings by Florence Pearl England, the latter being after photographs. [Illustration] I. The tourist, with his day or two at a down town hotel, calls Boston a city of narrow streets and ancient graveyards; the dweller in one of the newer avenues is enthusiastic about the modern architecture and regular streets of the Back Bay region. Yet neither of these knows the real Boston, the old West End, with its quaint tree-lined streets sloping from the top of Beacon Hill toward the river. Near the close of any bright afternoon, walk from the State House down the hill, pause half-way, and, glancing back, note the perfect Gothic arch formed by the trees that line both sides of Mount Vernon Street. Admire those old houses which have taken on the rich, deep tones that age so kindly imparts to brick. Then look across the river to the sun just setting behind the Brookline hills,--and admit that even in a crowded city we may catch glimpses of the picturesque. Half-way down one of the quiet, hilly West End streets is the house of Miss Theodora--no, I will not tell you her true name. If I should, you would recognize it at once as that of a great New England jurist. This jurist was descended from a long line of scholars, whose devotion to letters had not prevented their accumulating a fair amount of wealth. Much of this wealth had fallen to the jurist, Miss Theodora's father, with whom at first everything went well, and then everything badly. It was not entirely the great man's extravagance that wrought the mischief, although many stories were long told of his too liberal hospitality and lavish expenditure. He came, however, of a generous race; it was a cousin of his who divided a small fortune between Harvard College and the Provident Association, and for more than a century back the family name might be found on every list of contributions to a good cause. Yet it was not extravagance, but blind faith in the financial wisdom of others, as well as an undue readiness to lend money to every man who wished to borrow from him, which brought to Miss Theodora's father the trouble that probably hastened him to his grave. When he died, it was found that he had lost all but a fraction of a former fortune. His widow survived him only a few years, and before her death the family had to leave their roomy mansion on the hill, with its pleasant garden, for a smaller house farther down the street. Here Miss Theodora tried to make a pleasant home for John, her brother. He had just begun to practise law, and, with his talents, would undoubtedly do well, especially if he married as he should. Thus, with a woman's worldliness in things matrimonial, reasoned Miss Theodora, sometimes even going so far as to commend to John this girl or that among the family connections. But one day John put an end to all her innocent scheming by announcing his betrothal to the orphan daughter of a Plymouth minister, "a girl barely pretty, and certainly poor." It was only a half consolation to reflect that Dorothy had a pedigree going back to John Alden and Priscilla. Ernest, John's boy, was just a month old when Sumter surrendered; yet John would go to the war, leaving Dorothy and the baby to the care of his sister. Eagerly the two women followed his regiment through each campaign, thankful for the bright and cheerful letters he sent them. They bore bravely that awful silence after Antietam, until at length they knew that John would never come home again. It was simply of a broken heart that Dorothy died, said every one, for little Ernest was scarcely three years old when he was left with no one to care for him but Miss Theodora. How she saved and scrimped to give him what he needed, I will not say; but gradually her attire took on a quaintness that would have been thought impossible for her even to favor in the days of her girlhood, when she had been a critic of dress. She never bought a new gown now; every cent beyond what was required for living expenses must be saved for Ernest. Before the boy knew his letters, Miss Theodora was planning for his career at Harvard. He should be graduated at the head of his class. With such a father, with such a grandfather, Ernest certainly must be a great man. The family glory would be renewed in him. Little by little Miss Theodora withdrew from the world. She had not cared for gayety in her younger days; she hardly missed it now; yet she was not neglected by her relatives and old friends--even the most fashionable called on her once a year. These distant cousins and formal acquaintances had little personal interest in Miss Theodora. Their cards were left from respect to the memory of the distinguished jurist rather than from any desire to brighten the life of his daughter. If Miss Theodora's invitations grew fewer and fewer, she herself was to blame, for she seldom accepted an invitation, even to luncheon, nor confided to any one that pride forbade her to accept hospitalities which circumstances prevented her returning. [Illustration] II. Although Miss Theodora disliked visiting, every summer she and Ernest spent a month at Nahant with her cousin, Sarah Somerset. She herself would have preferred the quiet independence of a New Hampshire country farm, but she thought it her duty to give Ernest this yearly opportunity of seeing his relatives in the intimacy possible only at their summer homes. This was before the days of Beverly's popularity, when almost every one at Nahant was cousin to every one else. Even the people at the boarding houses belonged to the little group held to have an almost inherent right to the rocky peninsula. Both the little boy, therefore, and Miss Theodora were made much of by their kinsfolk; and the child thought these summer days the happiest of the year. In other ways Miss Theodora was occasionally remembered by her relatives. Once she was asked to spend a whole year in Europe as chaperone to two or three girls, her distant cousins. Even if she could have made up her mind to leave Ernest, I doubt whether she would have accepted the invitation. She had almost determined never to go abroad again, preferring to hold sacred the journey that she and her parents and John had made two or three years before their troubles began. For the most part, then, Miss Theodora repelled all attempts at intimacy made by her relatives. Unreasonable though she knew herself to be, she believed that she could never care so much for her cousins since they had all in such curious fashion--like swallows in winter--begun to migrate southward to the Back Bay. At first she felt as bitter as was possible for a person of her amiable disposition, when she saw people whom no necessity impelled leaving their spacious dwellings on the Hill for the more contracted houses on the flat land beyond the Public Garden. Yet if Miss Theodora pitied her degenerate kin, how much more did they pity her! "Poor Theodora," some of them would say. "I don't see how she manages to get along at all. If she sold that house, with the interest of the money she and Ernest could board comfortably somewhere. Even as it is, she might let a room or two; but no--I suppose that would hardly do. Well, she must be dreadfully pinched." Notwithstanding these well meant fears, Miss Theodora got along very well. The greatest sacrifice of pride that she had to make came when she found that she must send Ernest to a public school. Yet even this hardship might have been worse. "It isn't as if he were a girl, you know," she said half apologetically to Sarah Somerset. "Although he may make a few undesirable acquaintances, he will have nothing to do with them when he goes to Harvard." For Miss Theodora's plans for Ernest reached far into the future, even beyond his college days, and she must save all that was possible out of her meagre income. Public or private school was all the same to Ernest; or perhaps his preference, if he had been asked to express it, would have been decidedly for the big brick schoolhouse, with its hosts of boys. What matter if many of these boys were rough and unkempt. Among them all he could always find some suitable companions. His refined nature chose the best; and if the best in this case did not mean rich boys or those of well-known names, it meant boys of a refinement not so very unlike that possessed by Ernest himself. One day he came home from school later than usual, with his eye black and blue, and one of the pockets of his little jacket hanging ripped and torn. "Why, what is the matter, Ernest?" cried his aunt; "have you been fighting?" "Well, not exactly fighting, but kind of fighting," he replied, and "kind of fighting" became one of the joking phrases between aunt and nephew whenever the latter professed uncertainty as to his attitude on any particular question. "You see, it was this way," and he began to explain the black eye and the torn pocket. "There were two big mickies--Irish you know--bothering two little niggers--oh, excuse me! black boys--at the corner of our school; so I just pitched in and gave it to them right and left. But they were bigger than me, and maybe I'd have got whipped if it hadn't been for Ben Bruce. He just ran down the school steps like a streak of lightning, and you should have seen those bullies slink away. They muttered something about doing Ben up some other day; but I guess they'll never dare touch him." Now, Ben Bruce, two or three classes ahead of Ernest in school, was a hero in the eyes of the younger boy. Ben was famous as an athlete, and Ernest, in schoolboy fashion, could never have hoped for an intimacy with one so greatly his superior in years and strength had not this chance encounter thrown them together. Ben appreciated the younger boy's manliness, and the two walked together down the hill, as a rearguard to the little negroes. The latter, too much amazed at the whole encounter even to speak, soon ran down a side street to their homes, and Ben and Ernest, if they did not say a great deal to each other at that time, felt that a real friendship had begun between them. Miss Theodora heard Ernest's account of the affair with mixed feelings. She was glad that her boy had shown himself true to the principles of an Abolition family; yet she wished that circumstances had made a contact with rough boys impossible for him. She was not altogether certain that she approved the intimacy with Ben, whose family belonged to an outside circle of West Enders with which she had hardly come into contact herself. An expression of her misgivings drew forth a remonstrance from Miss Chatterwits: "Why, you know Ben Bruce's father's grandfather was on General Washington's staff; they've got his sword and a painting in their front parlor." As Miss Chatterwits was an authority as to the biography of the meanest as well as the most important resident on the Hill, her approbation of the Bruces may have inclined Miss Theodora toward Ben. Yet, had he had no other recommendation, the boy's own good manners would have gone far to impress Miss Theodora in his favor. Ernest never knew just how meagre his aunt's income was. He thought it chiefly lack of taste that led her to wear those queer, scant gowns. Year after year she drew upon an apparently inexhaustible store of changeable silks and queer plaided stuffs. Then she wore little tippets and small, flat hats, and in summer long black lace mitts, "like nobody else wears," sighed poor little Ernest one day, as he asked his aunt why she never bought anything new. Yet even Miss Theodora's limited purse might occasionally have afforded her a new gown, had she not been well content with what she already had. She could not wish more, she reasoned, than to have her old-fashioned garments remodeled from year to year by good Miss Chatterwits. Miss Chatterwits, who had sewed in the family from the days of Miss Theodora's childhood, lived in one of those curious short lanes off Revere street. It was a great comfort to Miss Theodora to have her come for a day's sewing with her queer green workbag dangling from her arm, with her funny little corkscrew curls bobbing at every motion of her funny little head. While she sewed, Miss Chatterwits kept her nimble tongue at work, lamenting the changes that had come to the old West End. She knew the region well, and understood the difference between the old residents and those newer people who were crowding in. "It's shameful that the Somersets should think so little of themselves as to move from Chestnut to Beacon Street; and their new house isn't even opposite the Public Garden, but away up there beyond Berkeley Street. How aping the names of those Back Bay streets are,--Berkeley and Clarendon and Dartmouth,--as though American names wouldn't have done better than those English imitations! Well, Miss Theodora, we have Pinckney and Revere named after good American men, and Spruce and Cedar for good American trees. I wouldn't live on one of those new-fangled streets, not if they'd give it to me." Then Miss Theodora, almost driven to apologize for her misguided relatives, little as she sympathized with them herself, would reply in words that she must have seen in some of the newspapers: "Well, I suppose the growth of the city's population makes it necessary for--" "Fudge!" Miss Chatterwits would interrupt, "the West End seems to have room enough for lodging and boarding house keepers; and I guess it's big enough for true Boston folks. It just makes me furious to see "Rooms to Let," "Table Board, $3.50 per week," stuck up in every window on some streets. Goodness knows, I hope the Somersets like their neighbors out there on the Back Bay. I hear anybody with money enough can buy a house there." And a tear seemed ready to fall from her eyes. [Illustration] III. Ernest, himself, grew up without any social prejudices. His aunt often wondered at this, yet, like many sensible people, she did not try to impress him with her own views. As one by one the dwelling houses on Charles Street were changed into shops, he only rejoiced that Miss Theodora wouldn't have to send so far for her groceries and provisions. But Miss Theodora drew the line here. She had always been able to go to the market every day, and no thrifty housewife needs a provision shop under her very nose, she said. Her one exception in favor of neighborhood shopping was made for the little thread and needle shop on the corner below her house. Even a person who doesn't have many new gowns occasionally needs tapes and needles, and may find it convenient to buy them near at hand. This shop was a delight to Ernest, and in the days when his chin hardly reached the level of the counter, he loved to stand and gaze at the rows of jars filled with variegated sticks of candy, jaw-breakers and pickled limes; for the two maiden ladies who kept the shop sold many things besides needles and thread. In the little glass show-case, in addition to mittens and scissors and an occasional beautiful fan, and heaps of gay marbles, was a pile of highly-colored story books, "The Tale of Goody Two Shoes" and others of that ilk, and mysterious looking sheets of paper, which needed only the manipulation of skilful scissors to change them into life-like paper dolls with elaborate wardrobes. Ernest, of course, took little interest in the paper dolls,--he bought chiefly marbles; but his cousin, Kate Digby, whenever she was permitted to spend a day at the West End, was a devoted patron of the little shop, and saved all her pennies to increase her household of dolls. Indeed, she confided to Ernest that when she grew up she was going to have a shop just like the one kept by the Misses Bascom. If Mrs. Stuart Digby had heard her say this, she would have wondered where in the world her daughter had acquired a taste for anything so ordinary as trade. A block or two away from the thread and needle shop was a shop that Miss Theodora abhorred. Within they sold every kind of thing calculated to draw the stray pennies from the pockets of the school children who passed it daily. Its windows, with their display of gaudy and vulgar illustrated papers, gave her positive pain. A generation ago ladies had not acquired the habit of rushing into print with every matter of reform; otherwise Miss Theodora might have sent a letter to the newspaper, signed "Prudentia," or something of that kind, deploring the fact that a shop like this should be allowed to exist near a school, drawing pennies from the pockets of the school children, at the same time that it vitiated their artistic sense. Ernest, as I have said, grew up without marked local or social prejudices. Many of his spare pennies went into the money drawer of the corner shop, and much of his spare time he spent with the workmen at the cabinet-makers' near by. For little workshops were beginning to appear in the neighborhood of lower Charles Street, and some of their proprietors had cut away the front of an old house, in order to build a window to display their wares. Ernest loved to gaze in at the shining faucets in the plumber's window, and horrified his aunt by announcing one day that when he was a man he meant to be either a plumber or a cabinet-maker. Among them all he preferred the cabinet-maker's. Everything going on there interested him, and the workmen, glad to answer his questions, showed him ways of doing things which he put into practice at home. For Miss Theodora had given Ernest a basement room to work in, stipulating only that he should not bring more than three boys at a time into the house to share his labors. His joy was unbounded one Christmas when his cousin, Richard Somerset, sent him a turning lathe. Almost the first use to which he put it was to make a footstool, with delicately tapering legs, for his aunt's birthday. He tied it up in brown paper himself, and wound a great string about it with many knots. "Law!" said Diantha, who stood by as Miss Theodora slowly untied the bulky package, "what's them boys been up to now? I believe it's some mischief." "Now, old Di, you're mean," cried Ernest, dancing around in excitement in the narrow hall-way outside the bedroom door. But Miss Theodora, as she bent over the package, tugging at the strings, caught sight of some sprawling letters that resolved themselves into "A birthday Present from your LOVEING nephew;" so, shaking her head at Diantha, she responded, loudly enough for Ernest to hear, and with no comment on the bad spelling, "Oh, no, it's a beautiful present from Ernest." And then Ernest ran in and undid the rest of the knots, and, setting the footstool triumphantly on its four legs on the floor, said: "Now, you'll always use it, won't you, Aunt Teddy?" Of course Miss Theodora, as she kissed him, promised to use, and kept her promise, in spite of the fact that the little footstool--less comfortable than her well-worn carpet hassock--wasn't exactly steady on its feet. But although she so thoroughly appreciated Ernest's thoughtfulness, Miss Theodora did not regard the footstool with absolute pleasure. She was by no means sure that she approved of Ernest's skill in handicrafts. She wondered sometimes whether she ought to permit a probable lawyer to spend so much energy in work which could hardly go toward helping him in his profession. Yet, after all, she hadn't the heart to interfere with Ernest's mechanical tastes, when she saw that gratifying them gave him so much pleasure. She never forgot her fright one day on the Nahant boat, when Ernest, barely seven years old, was missing, and she found him only after a long search at the door of the engine room. "You'd ought to be an engineer when you're grown up," she heard a gruff voice say, while Ernest meekly replied: "Well, I'd like to, but I've got to be a lawyer." She did not scold Ernest as she took his hand to lead him up stairs, and she even lingered while he tried to put her in possession of all his own knowledge. "This gentleman," he said apologetically, "has been explaining his engine to me," and the "gentleman," rubbing a light streak across his sooty face, turned to her with a sincere, "That there boy of yours has a big head, ma'am, for machinery, and, begging your pardon, if I was you I'd put him out to a machinist when he's a little bigger." The plainness of Miss Theodora's dress may have placed her in this man's eye on the plane of those people who regularly sent their children to learn trades. Although in her mind she resented the suggestion, she listened attentively to Ernest as he tried, with glowing cheek and rapid tongue, to explain the various parts of the engine. If Miss Theodora never perhaps had more than a vague idea of the functions of piston and valve and the wonders of the governor, over which Ernest grew so eloquent, she was at least a sympathetic listener in this as in all other things that he cared for. [Illustration] IV. When it came to machinery, Ernest found his aunt much more sympathetic than his usual confidante, Kate Digby. As years went on, the childish companionship between the children deepened into friendship. They began to confide to each other their dreams for the future. Kate modelled herself somewhat on the accounts handed down of a certain ancestress of hers whose portrait hung in the stairway of her father's house. The portrait was a copy of one thinly painted and flat looking, done by an obscure seventeenth century artist. It showed a very young girl dressed in gray, with a white kerchief folded around her slim neck, and with her thin little wrists meekly crossed in front. Whether her hair was abundant or not no one could tell, for an old-womanish cap with narrow ruffle so covered her head that only a faint blonde aureole could be seen beneath it. Colorless though this portrait seemed at first sight, longer study brought out a depth in the clear gray eye, a firmness in the small pink mouth, which consorted well with the stories told of this little Puritan's bravery. One of the youngest of the children entering Massachusetts Bay on Winthrop's fleet, the little Mercy had been the pet of a Puritan household. Marrying early, she had gone from her father's comfortable house in Boston to live in the country forty miles away, a region remote and almost on the borders of civilization in those days. Not mere rumor but veritable records have told the story of the fierce attack of the savages on that secluded dwelling, of the murder of husband and man servant, of the flight of the wife and little children, and of their final rescue at the very moment when the Indians had overtaken them,--a rescue, however, not accomplished until one of the children had been killed by an arrow, while the mother pierced through the arm, was forced to drop the gun with which she held off her assailants. "Just think of her being so brave and shooting like that!" Kate would say to Ernest. "I admire her more than any of my great-great-great-grandmothers--whichever of the 'greats' she was. And then she brought up all her children so beautifully, with almost nothing to live on, so that every one of them became somebody. I'm always delighted when people tell me I look like her." "Well, you don't look like her," said Ernest, truthfully. "If you looked as flat and fady as that you wouldn't look like much. Besides, I don't like a woman's shooting and picking off the red-skins the way she did. Of course," in response to Kate's look of surprise, "it was all right; she had to save herself and the children; but some way it don't seem the kind of thing for a woman to do! Now, I like her because she wouldn't let her oldest son go back to England and have a title. You see, her husband's father had cast him off for being a Puritan." "Oh, yes, I know," responded Kate. "But I wish she had let him take the title. I'd like to be related to a lord." Kate and Ernest were no longer little children when this particular conversation took place; but its substance had come up between them many a time before. Yet Ernest always held to the more democratic position; and as years went by his acquaintance with Ben Bruce intensified his democratic feeling. No one recognized more clearly than Miss Theodora this tendency of Ernest's, and she questioned long whether she was doing what John would have approved in sending him to a school where he must mingle with his social inferiors. In John's day public schools had been different. An unguarded expression of these feelings of hers one evening at the Digbys' led to an offer from Stuart Digby to share his son's tutor with Ernest, that the two boys might prepare for Harvard together. Now, the idea of a tutor was almost as unpleasant to Miss Theodora as the thought of the undesirable acquaintances that Ernest might make at a public school. In the choice between unrepublican aristocracy and simple democracy she almost inclined to the latter; but Stuart Digby, her second cousin, had been John's bosom friend, and she could not bring herself to refuse the well-meant offer. It was Ernest who rebelled. "I don't want to go to college at all. I hate Latin; I won't waste time on Greek. I detest that namby-pamby Ralph. All he cares for is to walk down Beacon Street with the girls. He don't know a force pump from a steam engine!" But Miss Theodora, though tearful--for she hated to oppose him--was firm; and for three years the boy went down the Hill and across the Garden to recite his lessons with Ralph. Out of school he saw as little as he could of Ralph. His time was spent chiefly with Ben Bruce. Ben's father kept a small retail shop somewhere down near Court Street, and his family lived in a little house at the top of the hill,--a little house that never had been meant for any but people of limited means. Yet from the roof of the house there was a view such as no one at the Back Bay ever dreamed of; for past the sloping streets near by one could gaze on the river bounded like a lake by marshy low lands and the high sea walls, which, with the distant hills, the nearer factory chimneys, even the gray walls of the neighboring County Jail, on a dark day or bright day, formed a beautiful scene. There in that little room of Ben's Ernest often opened his heart to his friend more freely than to his aunt. Ben, considerably Ernest's senior, had entered the Institute of Technology--in boys' language, "Tech"--soon after Ernest himself had begun to study with Ralph's tutor, and Ernest frankly envied his friend's opportunity for studying science. [Illustration] V. In his boyish way Ernest enjoyed life. The Somersets, the Digbys and the rest made much of him, and at the Friday evening dancing class he was a favorite. Had he been a few years older the mothers might have objected to his popularity. A penniless boy attending the Friday evening dancing class is not old enough to be regarded as a dangerous detrimental, and he may receive the adoration, expressive though silent, of half a dozen little maids in white frocks and pink sashes, without encountering rebuffs from their mammas when he steps up to ask them to dance. In this respect fifteen has a great advantage over twenty, emphasized, too, by the fact that fifteen has not yet learned his own deficiency, while twenty is apt to be all too conscious of it. Children's parties had been within Ernest's reach even before the doors of Papanti's opened to him. They were a friendly people on the Hill and no birthday party was counted a success without the presence of Ernest. Simple enough these affairs were, the entertainment, round games like "Hunt the Button," and "Going to Jerusalem," and "London's Burning," the refreshment, a light supper of bread and butter and home-made cakes, with raspberry vinegar and lemonade as an extra treat. Miss Theodora herself did not take part in the social festivities of the neighborhood, although her silver spoons and even pieces of her best china were occasionally lent to add to the splendor of some one's tea table. Mrs. Fetchum was always anxious to make a good impression on the neighbors whom she sometimes asked to tea. Especially desirous was she to have her table glitter with silver and glass when Miss Chatterwits was one of her guests. Since Miss Chatterwits knew only too well Mrs. Fetchum's humble origin as the daughter of a petty West End shoe-seller, the latter could never, like the little seamstress, talk of bygone better days and loss of position. She could only aspire to get even with her by offering her occasionally a plethoric hospitality, in which a superabundance of food and a dazzling array of silver and china were the chief elements. Miss Chatterwits had long suspected that much of this silver was borrowed; but she had never dared hint her suspicions to Mrs. Fetchum, and the latter held up her head with a pride that could not have been surpassed had she been dowered with a modern bride's stock of wedding presents. A day or two after a tea party at which she had been unusually condescending to Miss Chatterwits, she ran across the street to return the borrowed spoons to Miss Theodora. It was dusk as she entered the little doorway, and she hastily thrust the package into the hands of some one standing in the narrow hall, Miss Theodora as she thought, whispering loudly as she did so: "Don't tell Miss Chatterwits I borrowed the spoons." For she knew that the seamstress had been sewing for Miss Theodora that day, and she wasn't quite sure that the latter realized that the borrowing must be kept secret. "It gave me quite a turn," she said as she told Mr. Fetchum about it. "It gave me quite a turn when I found that it was Miss Chatterwits; but I never let on I knew it was her, and I turned about as quick as I could. Only the next time I set foot out of this house I'll be sure I have my glasses." It was hard to tell which of the two had the best of this chance encounter. Mrs. Fetchum consoled herself for the carelessness by reflecting on the presence of mind that had kept her from acknowledging her humiliation; and Miss Chatterwits gloated over the fact that she had caught Mrs. Fetchum in a peccadillo she had long suspected--borrowing Miss Theodora's silver. In his early years Ernest had been a neighborly little fellow, and, alone or with his aunt, would lift his hat to a woman, old or young, easily winning for himself the name of "little gentleman." He wore out his shoes in astonishingly quick time playing hopscotch on the hilly sidewalks with the boys and girls who lived near, while Kate, to whom this sport was forbidden, sitting on the doorsteps, looked enviously on. Willingly would she have exchanged her soft kid shoes for the coarse copper-toed boots of Tommy Fetchum, had it only been permitted her to hop across on one foot and kick the stone from one big square to another chalked out so invitingly on the uneven bricks. But Mrs. Stuart Digby, although willing enough to let Kate visit Miss Theodora, made it a rule--and no one dared break a rule of hers--that Kate was never to play on the street with the children of the neighborhood. Yet as she sat sadly in her corner, Kate, often referred to for her opinion on disputed points, at last came to have a forlorn pride in her position as umpire. At length there came a time when Ernest's interests in the street games waned. His former playmates saw little of him. He neglected the boys and girls with whom he had once played tag and hopscotch, and some of the neighbors, especially Mrs. Fetchum, said that he was growing "stuck up." Miss Theodora hardly knew her neighbors by sight; for it was one of the evidences of the decadence of the region that the houses changed tenants frequently, and furniture vans were often standing in front of some of the houses near Miss Theodora's. Mrs. Fetchum was a permanent neighbor. She had lived in the street longer even than Miss Theodora. She always called on new comers, and never failed to impress on them a sense of the greatness of the jurist's daughter, with the result that Miss Theodora's comings and goings were always a matter of general neighborhood interest. Sometimes Miss Theodora invited the children hanging about her doorstep to come inside the house, where she regaled them with gingerbread, or let them look through the folio of engravings in the library. In spite of the lady's kindness they all stood in awe of her, as the daughter of a Great Man, whose orations were printed in their school readers beside those of Webster and Clay. Miss Theodora, with her quiet manner and high forehead, in a day when all other women wore more elaborate coiffures, seemed to the children like a person in a book, and their answers to her questions were always the merest monosyllables. It was not worldliness altogether which took Ernest away from his former playmates. After his mornings with Ralph and their tutor, he had to study pretty hard in the afternoon. His evenings were generally devoted to Miss Theodora; either he read aloud while she sewed, or they played chess with that curious set of carved chessmen given her father by a grateful Salem client years before. In little ways, Miss Theodora, though not a sharp observer, sometimes thought that she detected a growing worldliness in Ernest. "Why don't we get some new carpets?" he asked one day. It was the very spring before he entered college. "I never could tell, Aunt Teddy, what those flowers were meant to be. When I was a little chap, I used to wonder whether they were bunches of roses or dahlias; but now you'd hardly know they were meant to be flowers at all." This was true enough, for the carpet, with its huge pattern, designed for the drawing room of their old house, had been trodden upon by so many feet that now hardly the faint outline of its former roses remained. The furniture, too, was growing shabby; the heavy green rep of the easy chairs had faded in spots, the gilded picture frames were tarnished, and the window draperies, with their imposing lambrequins, were sadly out of fashion. Yet from Miss Theodora's evasive reply the boy did not realize that poverty prevented her refurnishing the rooms in modern fashion. He had everything he needed; but the circle of relatives all continued to say, "It's wonderful that Theodora manages as well as she does." [Illustration] VI. "Come along! Hurry up!" called Ernest to Ben, one winter's day, kicking his heels into the little hillocks of frozen snow on the sidewalk; and even as he spoke Ben, with a "Here I am," rushed from the house with his skates slung over his shoulder. Ernest carried in a green bag, on which his aunt had worked his initials in shaded brown, a pair of the famous "Climax" club skates, a present from his cousin, Richard Somerset. Reaching the Common, after a brisk run, they began to put on their skates. The cold day had apparently kept many of the younger boys and girls away, and although there was room enough for all the skaters, not a few of them were objectionably rough and boisterous. Near the spot where Ernest and Ben were, among a small group of well-dressed lads, swinging stick or playing hockey, Ernest was sorry to recognize Ralph Digby. "I wouldn't have come if I'd known Ralph would be here," he said regretfully to Ben. "No matter, we needn't have anything to do with him," said Ben cheerfully. It was no secret to Ben that Ralph and Ernest, out of school hours, had little to do with each other. "Well, I hate to go near Ralph," responded Ernest. "He always tries to make me feel small," and for the moment Ernest became uncomfortably conscious that the sleeves of his overcoat were a trifle too short, and that it had, on the whole, an outgrown look, for this was the second winter he had worn it. "Don't take any notice of him, except to speak to him as you pass," said Ben. "I know that's all I need do, but Ralph always seems to me to be saying to himself, 'Oh, you're nothing but a poor relation.'" "Well, any way, he's a poorer skater," laughed Ben, and the two boys glided off, passing Ralph in his fur-trimmed coat, surrounded by half a dozen lads of his own kind. It was this very superiority of Ernest's in skating, in his studies, in manners, that bred the ill-feeling in Ralph's heart towards him. Ralph was indolent in his studies and heavy on his feet. He looked on enviously as Ernest wheeled past him time and time again, and said to his friends that he didn't care to skate any longer. "There was too much riffraff on the pond." He was irritated, not only by Ernest's skill and grace in skating, but by the fact that his poorer cousin wore the famous "Climax" club skates. For a long time Ralph himself had been the only boy in his little set who possessed skates of this kind. They were a novelty and expensive, and the average boy wore the old-fashioned strap skates. No one knew that he begrudged Ernest his glistening skates. Regardless of the sneering words wafted to them as they skated past Ralph and his friends, Ernest and Ben, with glowing cheeks and tingling blood, wheeled and curvetted until they were well-nigh breathless. At last, as the reddening western sky marked the end of the brief afternoon, Ernest, unfastening his skates, laid them on the stony margin of the pond, as he hastened to one of the Garden paths to help a little girl who had fallen down. "Where are my skates?" he shouted to Ben, who was still curvetting about. "I haven't seen them. Where did you leave them?" he called back, and in a moment was at Ernest's side. The green bag hung limp on Ernest's arm; he could hardly believe that the skates were not there. "Well, at any rate we can ask about them," said Ben, and the two boys, Ernest somewhat forlornly, went about among the few skaters still left on the pond, asking if any one could help them find the skates. A few of the boys answered pleasantly that they knew nothing about them, the majority--and these the rougher--professed to be insulted at the question, adding, "I'll knock you down if you think I took your skates," and even Ralph was disagreeable in his reply. "Perhaps some of your friends could tell you something about them; you always are chumming with such queer fellows--you never can expect much from canaille." Ralph always had a French word ready. As he spoke he looked at Ben in a way that made Ernest cry: "For shame, Ralph!" Ben's eye flashed. He lifted his arm, seized Ralph by the coat collar, shook him with some violence, and then turned on his heel without a word. "That was right," said Ernest, approvingly. "I often wonder how you stand so much from Ralph. He tries to make himself so disagreeable." "He doesn't have to try very hard," answered Ben; "he's disagreeable enough without trying," for Ralph never neglected to show that he thought Ben infinitely beneath him. A curt nod when they happened to meet was almost more irritating than a direct cut. Sorrowfully enough Ernest went homewards. His skating for the season, he knew, was over unless he should recover the skates. Generally, he did not look on the dark side of things, but this day he was disconsolate. In spite of Ben's assurance that the lost skates would be found, he was confident that they were gone forever. Two days later Ben came to him with more excitement in his manner than was his wont. "Would your aunt let you go over to the school with me this afternoon? I think we've spotted them." Ernest rushed for his cap and mittens. "Of course she would! She's out now, but I can go without asking." No explanation was needed to tell him that the "them" meant his missing skates. "You see, I had my suspicions from the first moment," said Ben, "but I didn't dare say anything till I was sure. You know, there's one thing we never agree about, but I won't say anything until you hear for yourself." Ernest was soon following Ben up the broad wooden stairs to the Principal's room. The master himself looked up with some interest as the boys came in. "Yes, yes, I'll send for him at once," he said, after he had briefly welcomed them, "or, no, I'll take you to the room where he is," and before he realized where he was going Ernest found himself following Ben and the Principal into the large schoolroom, where fifty pairs of curious eyes were turned toward them. "Brown, come here," called the master. An undersized boy, freckled, with small eyes near together, shuffled forward. "Did you tell Jim Grey that you had found a pair of skates the day before yesterday?--answer--'yes' or 'no.'" Not a word came from the boy, who held his head down sulkily. "Answer--quickly--or home you go at once. Did you or did you not find a pair of skates?" "No, I didn't," at last came from the reluctant lips. "That's enough, sir!" thundered the Principal. "Now, Bruce, tell your story." Then Ben, leaving the room for a moment, came back, accompanied by a man who carried a package under his arm. "Yes, sir, that's the boy, sir," said the man with the package, pointing to Brown. "He came to my shop yesterday with these skates, sir," and he held up before the astonished eyes of Ernest his beloved skates. "He said as how they'd been given to him, and as he didn't have no time for skating, would I buy them, which I did, sir, for a dollar." "A dollar," said Ernest to himself, pitying the boy who knew so little the value of a good thing as to let it go for next to nothing. "What have you to say to this, Brown?" "Yes, they were given to me," said the boy, doggedly. "Who gave them to you?" "A chap in a fur coat, I dunno his name. I was standing by the pond, and says I, 'Wot beauties,' when I see them laying there, and says he, 'Take them quick, they're mine, but I don't want to skate no more,' and he poked them over to me with his stick, and says he, 'Hurry off, or I may change my mind,' and they wouldn't fit me, sir, and so I sold them." "A likely story," said the Principal. But two or three boys were found to corroborate this statement of Brown, one of whom was above suspicion as regarded truthfulness--the other two were somewhat doubtful. "Are these your skates?" asked the Principal of Ernest, who, stepping up, showed his name engraved on the sides. "Go to my room, Brown," said the Principal. "I will settle with you--and you, young gentleman," handing Ernest his property, "take better care of your possessions in the future." Then turning to Ben, "Thank you, Bruce, for looking into this matter. Brown has given me a great deal of trouble in many ways, and now I guess the best thing is to suspend him." For, although at the head of a Boston school, the Principal still clung to the colloquial "guess." Ben and Ernest withdrew from the room under the fire of as many approving as disapproving eyes. There were, of course, not a few boys who sympathized with Brown, some from a class feeling, and others because they felt themselves to be kindred spirits of the culprit. "How did you manage to find out about it at all, Ben? You're awfully clever," said Ernest, and then the elder boy explained that he had remembered seeing Brown just before Ernest left the ice talking earnestly with Ralph, and that when he came across the skates in a shop he made inquiries, which resulted in his suspecting collusion between the two. Though Ernest did not speak to him about it, Ralph felt that his cousin despised his meanness, and Ernest knew that Ralph disliked him all the more for his knowledge. While his regard for Ralph constantly diminished, Ernest's fondness for Kate as constantly increased. "She doesn't seem a bit like Ralph's sister," he would say confidentially to Ben; and Ben would echo a hearty "Indeed she doesn't." Kate was never happier than when she had permission to spend the day with Miss Theodora. Paying little attention to the charges of Marie, her French maid, to "Walk quietly like a little lady," she would hop and skip along the Garden mall and up the hill to Miss Theodora's house. What joy, when Marie had been dismissed and sent home, to sit beside Miss Theodora and learn some fancy stitch in crochet, or perhaps go to the kitchen to help Diantha make cookies. "Our cook won't even let me go down the back stairs, and I've only been in our kitchen once in my life; and I just love Diantha for giving me that dear little rolling-pin, and showing me how to make cookies." Kate was almost as fond of Miss Chatterwits as of Diantha. One of her chief childish delights was the privilege sometimes accorded her of spending an afternoon in the little suite of rooms occupied by the seamstress and her sisters. Besides the old claw-foot bureau and high-back chairs in her bedroom, the heavy fur tippet and faded cashmere shawl--either of which she donned (according to the season) on especially great occasions--Miss Chatterwits had a few treasures, relics of a more opulent past. These she always showed to Kate and Ernest when they visited her, as a reward for previous good behavior. Ernest was usually less interested in these treasures than Kate. He liked better to talk to the green parrot that blinked and swung in its narrow cage in the room where lay the little seamstress's bedridden sister. But for Kate, the top drawer of Miss Chatterwits' bureau contained infinite wealth. The curious Scotch pebble pin, the silver bracelets, the long, thin gold chain, the old hair brooches, and, best of all, that curious spherical watch, without hands, without works, seemed to Kate more beautiful and valuable than all the jewelry in the velvet-lined receptacles of her mother's jewel casket. More attractive still was a shelf in the closet off Miss Chatterwits' bedroom. On this shelf was a row of pasteboard boxes, uniform in size, wherein were stored scraps of velvet, silk and ribbon, gingham, cloth and muslins--fragments, indeed, of all the dresses worn by Miss Chatterwits since her sixteenth year. As materials had not been bought by Miss Chatterwits since her father's death had left her penniless, a good thirty years before Kate knew her, the pieces in the boxes were genuine curiosities. "Why didn't you ever get married, Miss Chatterwits?" asked Ernest one day when he and Kate were paying her a visit. "Oh, I don't know;" and the old lady simpered with the same self-consciousness that prompts the girl of eighteen to blush when pointed questions are put to her; and when Ernest, who always wanted a definite answer to every question, persisted, she added with a sigh, "Well, I suppose I was hard to suit." Then, as if in amplification of this reply, she began to sing to herself the words of an old-fashioned song, which the children had heard her sing before:-- When I was a girl of eighteen years old, I was as handsome as handsome could be; I was taught to expect wit, wisdom and gold, And nothing else would do for me--for me. And nothing else would do for me. The first was a youth any girl might adore, And as ardent as lovers should be; But mamma having heard the young man was quite poor, Why, he wouldn't do for me--for me, Why, he wouldn't do for me. None of the many verses describing the various lovers of the scornful young lady made so deep an impression on the children as the opening lines, in which she was said to be "as handsome as handsome could be;" and Ernest, who was a literal little fellow, said to Kate, when they were out of Miss Chatterwits' hearing: "Now, do you think that homely people were ever handsome once upon a time?" Now, Kate could never be made to call Miss Chatterwits homely. Indeed, one day, in a burst of gratitude, when the latter had lent the child her watch to wear for an hour or two, the little girl exclaimed: "Oh, Miss Chatterwits, you are very handsome!" "Nobody ever told me that before, Kate," said the old woman. Then, with the frankness that in later years often caused her to nullify the good impression made by some pretty speech, the child added: "I mean very handsome all but your face." What could be a clearer case of "handsome is what handsome does." [Illustration] VII. Mrs. Stuart Digby scarcely approved Kate's fondness for Miss Theodora and her friends. Stuart Digby had married two or three years before John, and was living in Paris when the Civil War broke out. His own impulse was to return at once and fight; but as his wife would not consent to this, they remained abroad until Ralph was ten years old and Kate four years younger. Both children at this time spoke French better than English, and Ralph for a long time disliked everything American--like his mother, who, not Boston born, professed little interest in things Bostonian. But in Kate Stuart Digby saw the enthusiasm which had marked his own youth, and he encouraged her in having ideals, only wishing that he had been true to his own. "Perhaps if I hadn't married so early," he would think--then, with a sigh, would wonder if, left to himself, he might possibly have amounted to something. For Stuart Digby was not nearly as self-satisfied as the chance observer supposed. When he and John were at school he had intended to study medicine, for his scientific tastes were as decided as John's bent for the law. But he had yielded all too weakly to his love for the prettiest girl in his set, and an heiress, too. By the death of his father and mother he had already come into possession of his own large fortune. When these two independent and rich young people were married, therefore, a month after he was graduated from Harvard, it was hardly strange that Stuart put aside his medical course until he should have made the tour of Europe. Then, when once domiciled in their own hotel in Paris, what wonder that they let all thoughts of Boston disappear in the background? Just before the war what could the United States offer pleasure-seekers comparable with the delights of Paris under the Second Empire? They stayed in Europe until the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war, and managed to leave Paris just before the siege. Not only the upsetting of things in France, but a crisis in Stuart Digby's business affairs, hastened him home at last. Besides, he felt a little remorse about his children. He did not wish them to grow up thorough Parisians; already, young as they were, they began to show symptoms of regarding France as their country rather than America. Disregarding, therefore, his wife's remonstrances, he broke up their Paris establishment, despatched his foreign furniture and bric-a-brac to Boston, and, following soon afterward with his family, bought a house in the new part of Beacon Street, a region which, when he went to Europe, had been submerged in water. Though some people fancied that Stuart Digby could afford whatever he wished, he himself thought otherwise. After his return to Boston he found that there had been a shrinkage both in his own and his wife's income. There was little danger that they or their children should ever want, and yet the fact that they had a few thousands a year less than they had expected bred in them an unwonted spirit of economy. This spirit of economy showed itself chiefly in their dealings with other people. Stuart, for example, had always intended to settle a sum of money on Miss Theodora and Ernest, but now he decided to wait. He would help the boy somewhat in his education, and he would remember him in his will. Faultless though he was in his address, elegant though he was in his personal appearance, Stuart Digby was by no means satisfied with the reflection that his mirror showed him. He had never expected at forty-five to find himself so portly, so rubicund. Idleness, easy living, and a steady, if moderate, indulgence in ruddy drinks will increase the girth and deepen the complexion of any man, no matter toward how lofty a goal the thoughts of his youth may have tended. In youth he had professed scorn for his own prospective wealth. He, as well as John, should carve out a career for himself. His money he would use in certain philanthropic schemes. But falling in love had been fatal to this single-mindedness,--and now, at forty-five, what wonder that he was dissatisfied. To saunter down Beacon Street to the club, to play a game of whist with a trio as idle as himself, to drive, never in those days to ride, to sit near uncongenial people at a tedious, if fashionable, dinner, to dance attendance on his wife or some other woman in the brilliant crushes imposed on all who would be thought on intimate terms with society--this, he knew, was not the life he had once planned. To be sure, his footsteps sometimes carried him beyond the club to a little downtown office where he was supposed to have business--business so slight that it only irritated him to pretend to follow it. To sign papers, to approve plans which his lawyer and his agent had already carefully thought out, this, he reasoned, was almost beneath his notice; and so after a time he gave up even going to the office, and papers were sent to his house instead for his signature. He might, of course, have rid himself, at least partially, of his ennui, by engaging in some definite philanthropic schemes; but philanthropy as a profession by itself wasn't the vogue among rich men in Boston two decades ago. Even had it been the fashion, Stuart Digby could with difficulty have adjusted himself to the condition which this work imposed. His long residence abroad made it impossible for him to regard impartially his American fellow-citizens, whether looked at as an object of political or philanthropic interest. Yet if Stuart Digby fell far short of his own ideal, there was at least one person in the world who believed him to be perfect; not his wife, not his son, but his daughter Kate, who was never so happy as when, clinging to his hand, she could coax him to take a long walk with her over the Mill-dam toward the Brookline boundary. Moreover, it may be said without sarcasm that his many years' residence in Europe had made Stuart Digby of much more value to his friends in general than he himself perhaps realized. He had what might be called a refined and thorough geographical taste; this is to say, he was a connoisseur of places. He could tell intending travellers just what climate, what cuisine, even what company they would be likely to find at Nice, at Gastein, at Torquay, at certain seasons. He had many a picturesque and hitherto unheard of nook to recommend, and when the great capitals, especially Paris, were under discussion, he could pronounce discriminatingly upon the hotels and shops most worthy the patronage of a man of culture. [Illustration] VIII. "Yes, it was a pleasant funeral," said Miss Chatterwits, as she sat sewing one morning at Miss Theodora's. Kate, who was present, laughed at the speech, although she understood Miss Chatterwits' idiosyncracies in the matter of funerals. To the latter, funerals were sources of real delight, and few at the West End were ungraced by her presence. In her best gown of shining black silk, with its rows and rows of bias ruffles, she seemed as necessary to the proper conduct of the ceremony as the undertaker himself. With her wide acquaintance among the people of the neighborhood, she could decide exactly the proper place for each mourner; she knew just who belonged in the back and who in the front parlor, and the grave demeanor with which she assigned each one his seat hardly hid her air of bustling satisfaction. Miss Theodora and Kate were therefore not shocked when she repeated, "Yes, it was a pleasant funeral," continuing: "I declare, I don't think there was a soul there I didn't know. I was able to be real useful showing them where to sit. You should have seen the flowers. It took us the best part of a day to fix them. The family, of course, felt too bad to take much notice of the flowers, but I guess they enjoyed the choir singing. Mary Timpkins herself would have been pleased to see how well everything went off, for she always was so fussy about things." Then, as no one interrupted her, she continued: "It's just a shame, Miss Theodora, that you did not go yourself. Mr. Blunt made the most edifying remarks you ever heard. Why, I almost cried, though you know I've had a great deal of experience in such occasions; and if you'd heard him I'm sure you'd have been miserable for the rest of the day." Kate smiled at the thought of the pleasure her cousin had missed in escaping this misery, but Miss Theodora, not noticing Miss Chatterwits' humor, responded merely: "Ah! the death of so young a person is always sad." "Especially under such painful circumstances," added Miss Chatterwits. "What circumstances?" asked Kate, now interested. "Love!" answered Miss Chatterwits, solemnly. "She died of love." "Love!" echoed Kate. "Shakespeare says nobody ever died of love." Then, with an afterthought: "Perhaps he was thinking only of men. But why do you think Miss Timpkins died of love? She didn't look as foolish as that." "Well,"--and Miss Chatterwits shook her head in joyful significance, for it always pleased her to have news of this kind to tell,--"I guess if Hiram Bradstreet hadn't gone and left her she'd be alive to-day." "What nonsense!" said Kate. "Oh, you can smile, but I've sewed at her house by the week running, and he'd come sometimes two afternoons together to ask her to go to walk somewhere; and even if she was in the middle of trying on she'd drop everything and run, looking as pleased as could be." "Any one would look pleased to escape a trying on." "Oh, you can make light of it. But once when I said I guessed I'd be fitting a wedding dress soon, she colored right up, and said she, 'Oh, we're only friends.'" "That's nothing." "Perhaps it was nothing when Mary Timpkins began to fade the very minute she heard Hiram Bradstreet was engaged to a girl he met on the steamer last summer. Why did he go to Europe anyway?" "Probably because Mary Timpkins wouldn't marry him; for truly, Miss Chatterwits, I'm going to agree with Dr. Jones that she died of typhoid fever." "Maybe,--after she'd run herself down worrying about Hiram Bradstreet." "Oh, no. Hiram Bradstreet, worrying about her, fled to Europe in despair, and let his heart be caught in the rebound by that girl on the steamer." This sensible conclusion, though at the time uttered half in fun, was characteristic of Kate. She was loath to believe that a well balanced girl could die of love. Love in the abstract troubled her as little as love in the concrete. She seldom indulged in sentimental thoughts, much less in sentimental conversation. In their distaste for sentimentality, Ernest and Kate met on common ground; and even Mrs. Digby, though at one time disposed to discountenance their intimacy, at length decided there was no danger of her somewhat self-willed daughter's falling in love with her penniless cousin. In time, however, as Ernest boy-like, found his pleasure more and more in things outside the house, Miss Theodora and Kate drew nearer together. The elder woman had always had a certain pleasure in acting as friend and helper to a little circle of poor people, of whom there were so many on the narrow streets descending toward the north. These were not the poor whites to whom Miss Theodora's mother had been a Lady Bountiful, but "darkies," as Diantha called them, of mysterious origin and of still more mysterious habits. They were crowded together in queer-smelling houses, in narrow lanes and alleys, or in the upper stories over shops in the squalid main thoroughfares of the district which some people still call "Nigger Hill." "It doesn't seem a bit like Boston," Kate would say, clinging to Miss Theodora's arm while they went in and out of the rickety dwellings, where stout black women, with heads swathed in bandannas, or shoeless children in ragged clothes saluted them respectfully. Although Miss Theodora knew nothing of modern scientific charities, she tried to make reform and reward go hand in hand. "I feel," she said occasionally, "as if I oughtn't to help Beverly Brown's family when I know the man is drinking; but I can't bear to see those children without shoes, or let Araminta suffer for food with that baby to care for." "Of course you can't," Kate would answer, emphatically: "and Moses and Aaron Brown are the very cunningest twins any one could imagine, even if they are bow-legged." And then Kate, opening her little silk bag, would display within a collection of oranges, sticks of candy, and even painted wooden toys which she had bought on her way through Charles Street. "Come, Cousin Theodora," she would cry, "put on your hat and coat, and let us go down and see the twins, and let me carry this basket." Or again: "There isn't any harm in my just getting some of this bright calico for aprons for Araminta, and you don't care if I buy mittens for the twins," she would say entreatingly; for Miss Theodora, always careful of money herself, often had to restrain her young cousin's expenditures, at least in the matter of clothes. As regarded food, it was different. When Kate, stopping in front of one of the little provision shops, with their fly-specked windows, through which was dimly seen an array of wilted vegetables and doubtful-looking meats, decided to order a dinner for this one or that of her proteges, Miss Theodora had not the heart to hinder. But I will do her the credit to say that she never encouraged the giving of dinners to those whose need was caused by vice. In the future of the dark-skinned boys and girls Miss Theodora took a great interest. She realized that in the public schools they had their opportunity; and she saw with regret that not all who were educated made the best use of their education. Restless, unwilling to take the kind of work which alone was likely to fall to their lot, some of the young girls, educated or uneducated, drifted into ways which the older women of their race spoke of with the strongest disapprobation. "They's a wuthless lot, the hull of them, and I wouldn't try to do nothing for them if I was you," Diantha often exclaimed, when Miss Theodora admitted how sorely the problem of these dusky people pressed upon her. Yet Diantha herself was almost certain to call her mistress' attention to the next case of need on which she herself stumbled in her wanderings among her people. Or, as likely as not, when Miss Theodora was sought out by some poor creature in real or pretended misery, the present emergency would overthrow all theories. In one of the hill streets there was a home for colored old women, holding not a large number of inmates, but still holding, as Kate expressed it, "a very contented crowd"--much more contented, indeed, than many of the dwellers in the "Old Ladies' Home," the refuge for white women who had seen better days. "I went to see old Mrs. Smith," said Kate one day, speaking of an inmate of the latter institution. "She was sitting with her blind drawn, looking as glum as could be. 'Why don't you raise the curtain?' I asked. 'You have such a beautiful view of the river.' 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'beautiful for anybody who likes rivers.' Do you know she'd rather sit moping in a corner all day than try to get some pleasure out of the lovely view across the river from her window! She enjoys being miserable now, just because she has seen 'better days.'" "There are a great many people like her in the world," smiled Miss Theodora. "Well, I prefer old Auntie Jane up in the colored women's home. She says that she never was as well off as she has been since she came to the home. She has a little window box with a small geranium and some white elysium in blossom; and she says that it reminds her of the old plantation where she grew up. She can see nothing from her window but houses across the narrow street; but she is a great deal happier than Mrs. Smith with all her view." [Illustration] IX. When Kate accompanied her on her round of visits, Miss Theodora did not penetrate far into the little lanes that zigzagged off from Phillips Street. She kept more to the main road, and seldom took the young girl upstairs, or down into the dingy basements. For in her mind's eye a large place was occupied by Mrs. Stuart Digby, who at any time might end Kate's visiting among the poor. Kate, therefore, had to content herself with restricted vistas of fascinating alleys with wooden houses sloping toward each other at a curious angle, with little balconies of strangely southern appearance; and she sighed that she could not wander within them. She looked longingly, too, at the little church whenever they passed it; for Ben, who, rather for entertainment than edification, went there occasionally to the evening prayer meetings, had repeated many amusing speeches made by the colored brothers. Still, if she could not do all that she wished to, she made the most of what came in her way. She loved to notice the difference between the kinds of things sold in Phillips Street shops and in those of the more pretentious thoroughfare to the north, through which the horse-cars ran to Cambridge. In the former case, eatables of all kinds were conspicuous,--not only meat and vegetables, and especially sausages, but corn for popping and molasses candy and spruce gum, all heterogeneously displayed in the small window of one little shop. On Cambridge Street, oyster saloons and bar-rooms and pawn-shops, before which hung a great variety of old garments on hooks, jostled against each other, strangely contrasting with numerous cake-shops, which offered to the passer-by a great variety of unwholesome comestibles. From the little windows of the dwelling rooms above the shops, frowsy and unkempt women looked down on the street below, and Miss Theodora usually drew Kate quickly along, as occasionally they traversed it for a short distance on their way to the hospital. In the same neighborhood was a short street of unsavory reputation, partly on account of a murder committed within its limits many years before, and partly because it held the city morgue. Hardly realizing where she was, Miss Theodora one day was picking her way along the slippery sidewalk, with Kate closely following, when something dark crossed their path. They stopped to make way for it. It was a grim, indefinite something, which two men had lifted from a wagon to carry into a neighboring building--a something whose resemblance to a human body was not concealed by the dark green cloth covering it. Then they knew that they were near the morgue; and while the elder woman was regretting that she had brought Kate with her, she heard a voice speak her name, and, turning, saw Ben Bruce but a few steps behind. "Isn't it late for you ladies to be in this part of the city?" he exclaimed as he overtook them, and they realized that it was almost dusk. "We are not timid," smiled Miss Theodora; "but we shall be glad of your company, Ben. We stayed longer than we meant to stay at the hospital, and I know that I ought not to have kept Kate so late." "I wasn't thinking so much of the time as the place," said Ben. "Some way I do not like to have you and Miss Kate wandering about in these dirty streets--at least alone." "I suppose you think that we would be better off with any slip of a boy. But truly we do not need a protector, although we shall be very glad of your company home." "I do not mean safety exactly," answered Ben; "but it does not seem to me--well, appropriate for you and Miss Kate to go around into all kinds of dirty houses," and he glanced at Kate's pretty gown and fur-trimmed coat. "Oh, it does not hurt my clothes at all," Kate answered, as he glanced at her dress. "I have only my oldest clothes on to-day, and I've been in a very clean place, too. I'm sure nothing could be cleaner than the hospital." "Well, you can turn it into fun, but you know what I mean," said Ben. For like many another young man, he felt that tenderly bred women should be kept ignorant of the unsightly parts of a city. Thus as they went up the hill Ben and Kate kept up their merry banter, until they reached Miss Theodora's door. "Come in to tea with us. Ernest will be glad to see you," said the elder woman. But Ben shook his head. "Thank you very much, but they expect me home." Nevertheless, he went inside for a little while, and sat before the open fire in the little sitting-room,--Miss Theodora allowed herself this one extravagance,--and heard Kate humorously relate the adventures of the afternoon. "I have brought," she said, "a bottle of old Mrs. Slawson's bitters. I feel guilty in not having any of the many diseases they are warranted to cure, but I shall give the bottle to our cook, who is always complaining, and keeps a dozen bottles sitting on the kitchen mantelpiece. You know about Mrs. Slawson, don't you, Ben?" "Oh, she's the old person who made so much money out of a patent medicine." "Yes, and then married a 'light-skinned darky,' as she called him, who ran away with it all. It is great fun to hear her tell of the large number of people she has cured. Why, the greatest ladies in Boston, she says, used to drive up in their carriages to patronize her." "Why doesn't she keep up her business now?" "Well, she is too old to continue it herself, and she does not wish any one else to have her formulas. She has just enough money to live on, and once in a while she has a few bottles put up to give away to her friends. My visits to her are purely social, not charitable, and this is my reward"--and Kate displayed a clumsy package in yellow wrappings. Then Ernest came in--now a tall lad looking younger than Kate, though a year older--and welcomed Ben, and begged him to spend the evening. But Ben, resolute, though reluctant to leave the pleasant group clustered around Miss Theodora's fire, hurried off just as the clock struck six. [Illustration] X. His father opened the door for him when he reached home,--his father in his shirt sleeves, encircled with an odor of tobacco. With an eye keener than usual, the boy noted particularly, as if seen for the first time, things to which he had been accustomed all his life--the well-worn oil-cloth on the hall, the kerosene lamp flaring dismally in its bracket. How different it all was from the refinement of Miss Theodora's home,--for although Miss Theodora's carpets were worn and even threadbare, and, except in the hall, she was as sparing of gas as Mr. Bruce himself, the odor of cooking never escaped from Diantha's domain. The indefinable between comfort and discomfort made the Bruce's economy very unlike that practised by Miss Theodora. "You are late," said Mrs. Bruce querulously as Ben entered the dining-room. "Am I? I met Miss Theodora and walked home with them." "Yes, and went into the house with them, I dare say!" interrupted Mr. Bruce. "Why not?" asked Ben. "You always seem taken up with those people. I don't see how you can be, all so patronizing as they are." "Patronizing!" repeated Ben to himself. "Miss Theodora patronizing!" How far from the truth this seemed! "You do not mean Miss Theodora?" "Why not Miss Theodora? She walks along the street, never looking to the right or left, as if she were quite too good to speak to ordinary people." "But she is terribly near-sighted. She does not see people unless they are right in front of her." "I guess she could see well enough if she tried. I've noticed her cross the street almost on a run to speak to some little black boy. She's ready enough to take up with people like that; and she's able to see you. Ben,--but--" Ben flushed a little. He did not like being put on a level with Miss Theodora's black proteges. Nor was this all. Mr. Bruce, taking up his wife's words, continued: "Yes, it's just as your mother says; all those people think themselves a great way above the rest of us that are just as good as they are. I don't blame Miss Theodora so much, for her father really was a great man. But those Digbys! Who are they? Why, Mrs. Stuart Digby's grandfather, they say, was a tailor in New York when my grandfather was one of General Washington's staff officers. We didn't have to buy that sword in our parlor second-hand in a Cornhill shop, where some people get their family relics." "Not the Digbys or Miss Theodora." "About the Digbys I'm not so sure. Miss Theodora ought to have some good things, if they didn't sell off everything when they went into that little house." As a matter of fact, the kin of Mr. Bruce were so few that Ben could not understand how he could generalize about them. Yet, "my family" could not have figured more largely in his conversation, had he been chieftain of a Scottish clan. So rapid was Mr. Bruce's flow of language, that Ben and his mother usually kept quiet when he was well launched on any subject. Often, indeed, Ben let his thoughts wander far away until recalled to himself by some direct question. It was Kate, Kate alone, whom his father's words touched. For the moment he felt that he might be perfectly happy could he see with the bodily eye as small a gulf between the Digby family and his own as his father presented to his mental vision. Seated before Miss Theodora's hospitable fire, watching the color deepen on Kate's sensitive cheeks as the light flickered across them, he forgot everything but her. In Ralph's presence, however, he realized that his world and the Digbys' were very far apart, and that his own awkwardness and roughness must be felt all too strongly by Kate. Then for weeks he would avoid Miss Theodora's house when Kate was there, or would run in for only a moment with Ernest to inspect some wonderful invention by the latter then in process of development in the basement workroom. Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Digby he seldom thought of. But how to bridge the gulf between himself and Kate! The story of his own good ancestry began to have new interest for him. He looked more closely at his little sisters. They had the delicacy of feature which their mother still retained. They had the wax-like color which she had long ago lost. He glanced around the shabby room and felt rebellious. Should they be restricted to the same narrow life as their mother's? Was poverty to keep them down as it kept down so many of their neighbors? No, no! he would devote himself to building up a fortune, and then--even here Kate began to be curiously mixed up with his musings, and then he was called back to earth by his mother's voice. The claim of his ancestors had never made a very strong impression on Ben. He had classed them with certain other harmless pretences of his mother's, like making a rug in the parlor cover an unmendable hole in the carpet, or putting lace curtains in the front windows of an upper room which in other respects was meagerly furnished. But now his point of view had begun to change, and he could even imagine himself in time bowing to the fetich of family. "What's the matter, Polly?" he said one afternoon to his youngest sister, whom he found sitting on the doorstep by herself with the traces of tears on her face. "Oh, Ada Green says that my new winter dress is only an old one because it's made out of an old one of mother's; and," incoherently, "she had ice-cream for dinner--and why can't we?" "Who, mother?" laughed Ben. "No, you know who I mean, Ada--they have ice-cream every Saturday, and she always comes out and tells me, and asks me what day we have ice-cream, and I have to say 'Never.'" Ben, though he saw the ludicrous side of the little girl's grief, kissed her as he had many a time before when she had been disturbed by similar things. "Cheer up," he said; "it won't be so very long before I can give you ice-cream every day, and new dresses not made out of mother's old ones. Then you can walk up and down the sidewalk and tell Ada Green; or you can offer her some of your ice-cream,--heap coals of ice on her head." He added more of this nonsense until the child's face brightened as she entered the house, clinging to his arm, and mounted the attic stairs to sit near him while he studied. Ben's plans for the future were definite, and his hopes were not the mere self-confidence of youth. Fortunate in securing one of the state scholarships at the Institute, he had been told by his teachers that a high place in his profession, that of civil engineer, might be his ultimately. But "ultimately" meant a long time yet, and his sister was perhaps right in sighing that before he could give her ice-cream and similar delights, she would be too "grown up" to enjoy them. When, therefore, he looked at his little sisters and thought of the probable narrowness of their lives unless he should interpose, he put aside any idle balancing of merits of his family as compared with that of Stuart Digby. [Illustration] XI. Ernest stood leaning against the mantelpiece in his aunt's bedroom. Never enthusiastic about college, he was growing even less so under the shadow of the impending examinations, now but a month away. His preliminaries had given him a hint that only by hard work could he enter college without conditions. Greek was the great stumbling-block, and he dreaded the final test more than he cared to admit. "Do change your mind, Aunt Teddy," he began imploringly. His aunt, in a low, straight-backed chair, looked up from her sewing. "Change my mind about what?" "Oh, you know--going to Harvard. Why must I go?" Miss Theodora sighed. Had she waited and saved, pleased by the hope of a distinguished college career for Ernest, only to find college with him a question not of "will" but of "must"? Ernest caught her look of disappointment. "Of course I am perfectly willing to go to Harvard to please you, but--I wish I could study the things Ben studies." Miss Theodora's voice had an unwonted note of sternness in it. "You are going to Harvard, Ernest, not because I wish it, but because your father wished it; because your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, five generations, all were graduates. You will be the sixth of our family in direct line to graduate with honor." "Perhaps it won't be with honor in my case, Aunt Teddy. Remember my Greek." Miss Theodora smiled. "I have tried to forget it." Then as Ernest leaned down to kiss her, "No, no. I can't be coaxed into saying what I don't think. Of course you will go to Harvard and be an honor to your family." He loved his aunt; he wished to please her; but, oh, if he could only beg off from college! If he could only follow Ben to his scientific school! Ben, no one could deny it, would be a great man, and Ben had not gone to Harvard. Ben and Ralph in contrast presented themselves to Ernest's mind as his aunt spoke of the "honor of the family." Changing his lounging position, he stood in an attitude of direct interrogation before Miss Theodora. "Now, Aunt Teddy, which is going to be a great man, Ben or Ralph?" "I am no prophet, Ernest." "Oh, well, you know what I mean. Would you rather have me grow up like Ben or like Ralph?" "I am fond of Ben." "Yes, and you don't like Ralph a bit better than I do. He can write Greek exercises that are nearly perfect,--and Ben don't know Alpha from Omega." "You seem to believe that Ben's good qualities result from his ignorance of Greek, and Ralph's from his knowledge of the classics." "I am not so silly as that, Aunt Teddy. But Ralph won't be a great honor to the family even if he should go through Harvard twenty times, and I wouldn't be a disgrace to you even if I didn't know Greek, or law, or any of those things." As Ernest seldom spoke so bitterly on this subject, Miss Theodora wisely avoided further discussion by turning to her writing-table. "I have a letter to finish now, Ernest; why do you not go down to your workroom? Kate is anxious for the table you promised her." Ernest went off to his work, while Miss Theodora, still sitting before the fire thinking lovingly of the boy, pictured him in the not remote future a worthy wearer of the legal honor of the family. When Miss Theodora said "family," she thought most often of a long line of Massachusetts ancestors of dignified demeanor and studious expression, all resembling in general features the portrait of her grandfather hanging on the library wall. This portrait her own father had had enlarged from a poorly executed miniature. Perhaps it was the painter's fault that the nose had an air of intellectuality--even more exaggerated than that of the high forehead. Ernest as a little boy was so frightened by this portrait that he did not like to be left alone in the room with it. As he grew older, it over-awed him like the rows of sheepskin-covered volumes in the bookcases under the painting. Miss Theodora, loving the books as she loved the portrait, occasionally would unlock the glass door with its faded red silk curtains to show Ernest the volumes that his grandfather and his great-great-grandfather had studied. As he grew older, she solemnly intrusted the key to his care, hoping that he would find the books as pleasant reading as she had found them in her girlhood. But the clumsy type and the old-fashioned style were so forbidding to the boy, that his aunt saw with sorrow that he made no effort to acquire a love for eighteenth-century literature. He managed, to be sure, to read the few "Spectator" and "Tatler" essays which she selected, and he discovered for himself the amusing qualities of Addison's "Rosamond." His "Robinson Crusoe" in modern dress counted of course as a book of to-day rather than as a work of the Age of Anne. Had it been among its sheepskin covered contemporaries, more than half its charm would have vanished. The Coke, the Blackstone, the Kent, which had been part of his grandfather's professional library, the boy regarded with even less interest than the other books. Miss Theodora had told Ernest that many would be as useful to him as they had been to his grandfather, not realizing that the mere thought of mastering their musty contents increased his distaste for the law. Strangely enough, too, Ernest found little glamour in the name "Harvard." As a child he had been curious about the meaning of Class Day, when he heard caterers' carts rumbling through Charles Street on their way to Cambridge, or saw gayly dressed girls with deferential escorts walking toward the horse-cars or driving over the bridge. When he grew older the name of Harvard was associated with boat races and ball games, and it pleased him to think that he might some time count himself among the wearers of the victorious crimson. But the dreaded examinations and a truer knowledge of what the study of law meant had at last made the name of Harvard a bugbear. While Miss Theodora, therefore, mused before the fire, Ernest in his basement workshop let his thoughts wander far afield from Harvard and the musty law. He wondered if he could make a dynamo according to the directions laid down in a new book of physics he had lately read. He wondered if he should ever have a chance to go West to the silver mines--for this was about the time when all eyes were turned toward the splendors of Leadville. He wondered if he should ever invent anything like that marvellous telephone of which the world was beginning to talk so much. He knew a fellow whose uncle had been present at a private exhibition of the new invention, and the uncle had been sure that in a short time people a mile apart would be able to exchange actual words over the wire. As to the dynamo, Ernest felt pretty sure that he would make one; as to the mines of the West he was equally confident that he would see them some day; hadn't he always promised when he was a man to take his aunt on a long journey? But as to rivalling the inventor of the telephone, ah, no! what chance would he have to invent anything, when four years, four long years, must be spent at college, and at least two years more in preparing for the bar? "Alas, Harvard!" sighed Ernest in the basement, while "fair Harvard" formed the burden of Miss Theodora's thoughts as she sat by the fire upstairs. [Illustration] XII. After all, Ernest entered Harvard creditably. To work off two or three conditions would be a very small matter,--so he thought optimistically at the beginning of the year. On the whole, college had an unexpected charm for him, and he showed a temper in November quite different from that of the spring. Perhaps the summer's tour in Europe, which he had made with Ralph and Ralph's tutor, had changed his point of view. Miss Theodora could not feel grateful enough to Stuart Digby for sending Ernest to Europe. Though she had herself set aside a little sum for this purpose, she was only too glad to accept her cousin's offer. When the boys came home, their friends noted a change in Ernest. Mrs. Fetchum thought that it was largely in the matter of clothes. "You couldn't expect but what such stylish clothes would make a difference, at least in appearance; not but what Ernest himself is just the same as he used to be." Justice drove Mrs. Fetchum to this admission; for when Ernest, walking up the hill a few days after his home coming, caught sight of her as she stood within her half-open door, not only had he stopped to speak to her, but he had run up the steps to shake hands; this, too--for it was Sunday--in sight of several neighbors who were passing, and under the very eyes of certain inquisitive faces looking from windows near by,--a most gratifying remembrance to Mrs. Fetchum. "Ernest looks some different," said Mrs. Fetchum, describing the interview to Mr. Fetchum, "but his heart's in the right place. He said he ain't seen a place he liked better than Boston in all the course of his travels." Miss Chatterwits, who never agreed with any opinion of her neighbors, declared that Ernest was changed. "But it isn't his clothes. If I do make dresses, I don't think that clothes is everything. It's his manners. You can see it, Miss Theodora,--just a little more polish. It's perfectly natural, you know, since he's come in contact, so to speak, with foreign courts. Didn't he say that he saw the royal family riding in a procession in London, and didn't he and Ralph go to dinner at the American minister's at The Hague? Those things of course count." Miss Chatterwits, like many others who take pride in their republicanism, dearly loved to hear about royalty. Ernest, therefore, when he found that she was somewhat disappointed that he could not tell her more about kings and queens, gave her elaborate accounts of the palaces he had visited. Thus did he half solace her for the fact that he had had no personal interviews with princes and other potentates. Yet, although Miss Chatterwits would not ascribe any change in Ernest to his clothes, she by no means overlooked the extent and variety of the wardrobe which he had brought back with him from the other side. In this respect Stuart Digby had been as generous as in everything else connected with Ernest's foreign journey. His orders that Ernest should have an outfit of London clothes in no way inferior to Ralph's had been literally carried out. The result was startling, not only in the matter of coats, waistcoats and other necessities, but in the matter of walking sticks, umbrellas, and similar luxuries. For almost a week Ernest kept the neighborhood astir counting his various new suits. Boy-like, he mischievously wore them one by one on successive days for the mere sake of giving Mrs. Fetchum and the others something to talk about. To Miss Chatterwits he gladly lent his cloth travelling cap, when she expressed her wish to take a pattern of it, and he let her carefully inspect a certain overcoat. "It's quite at your service, Miss Chatterwits, although I more than half believe you are going to cut one just like it for little Tommie Grigsby. Just think of it, the latest London fashions for a six-year old." Nor did Miss Chatterwits deny the implication. For in those days, when you could not buy ready-made clothes in every shop, the costume of many a little West End boy was cut over from his father's garments by the hands of the old seamstress. Miss Theodora did not find Ernest changed. "Improved, perhaps, but not changed by his summer abroad," she said to herself, seeing in this no real contradiction. He was still the same Ernest--respectful, kind, yielding to her will, even in the many details connected with the furnishing of his rooms at Cambridge--the same Ernest who years ago had clung to her hand dark evenings as they walked home from Stuart Digby's. All the interested relatives--"all," yet few--wondered that Miss Theodora could afford to fit up Ernest's college rooms so handsomely. But was it not for this that she had saved ever since John's death? So Ernest, in Hollis, had the counterpart of John's old room; and his aunt, looking from the broad window-seat across the leafy quadrangle, unchanged in aspect through a quarter of a century, felt herself carried back to those early days. Until John's death she had not realized that all her hopes were centred in him. Now she knew only too well that life without Ernest would mean little enough to her. Ernest, appreciating his aunt's devotion, tried to repay it by thorough work--tried, yet failed. For, after all, study is not the only absorbing interest at Cambridge. Sports in the field, practice on the river, these stir the blood and take a young man's time. A good-looking lad with a well-known name, connected with various families of reputed wealth and high position, has every chance for popularity at Harvard. But a popular man with limited means has to pay a price for popularity. Ernest spent his fairly liberal allowance to the last cent. He had to entertain, had to do things that were, though he knew it not, a great strain on his aunt's purse. Though he had entered college without the social advantages of a preparation at one of the private schools, he soon had many friends. Miss Theodora was pleased with her nephew's success. John had been popular, and it would have been strange indeed had the son not followed in the father's footsteps. She could not conceal from herself, however, a definite uneasiness that Ernest, unlike his father, showed little interest in his studies. He grumbled not a little at the course laid out for him, complained that he would have hardly a wider choice of studies in his sophomore year, and ascribed all his shortcomings in examinations to the fact that he was rigorously held down to uncongenial work. Nor was he altogether wrong, for many a Harvard student in those days longed for freedom from the fetters of prescribed studies. [Illustration] XIII. One Sunday afternoon in the early May of his freshman year, after the service at Trinity, Ernest took his way toward the Digbys' house. Since midwinter many things had tended to make him regard life less hopefully than before. Just as his own shortcomings at college were growing so evident that he could not conceal them either from himself or his aunt, the death of Stuart Digby cast a cloud over him which made other shadows dwindle. For he had been very fond of his cousin, and he sympathized to the full with Kate in her grief. "Cut off in his prime!" said all the friends of Stuart Digby. "So much to live for!" "His life hardly half finished!" But, after all, death is as inscrutable a mystery as life itself. Stuart Digby had had his chance. He knew long before he died that his life, even if rounded out to the full three score and ten, could never be full and complete. He knew, as nobody else could, how far short he fell of the standard which he had once set for himself. He knew, with a knowledge that cut him to the quick, that, poor slave of habit that he had become, no length of life would place him again in the ranks of those whose faces ever look upward. He had had his chance. Why had he let it slip away from him? His life, so far as life means progress, was finished long before. He had not even accomplished the few definite tasks which he had set for himself. Among these was the making of some provision for Ernest. He had meant to give the boy a few thousands to smooth his path after graduating, or to leave him something by will. But death came so suddenly that this, like many other good intentions, was unfulfilled. Ernest, knowing nothing of these unfulfilled intentions, felt only a deep sense of personal loss in the death of his cousin. A decorator had lately done over in the latest French style the room where Kate received Ernest. The high white wainscoting, the satiny sheen of the large-patterned yellow paper, the slender-legged gilded chairs, with here and there a lounging chair covered in pale green brocade, harmonized well with the sunshine that streamed in. Kate, in her black gown, seated at the old-fashioned inlaid desk in the bay window, but for her fair hair and glowing color, would have been the one discordant note in the room. The solemn man-servant had hardly announced Ernest when Kate rushed forward to meet him. "Why, Ernest, I am delighted to see you. We were speaking of you to-day. Mamma was saying that it seemed a long time since you had been here. She is out now, and will be sorry to miss you." "Well, it is longer than I meant to be; but you know that I've really been very busy, especially since the mid-year. I've been trying to decide several difficult questions." "Oh, yes, I know. How times have changed, Ernest, since you used to play hop-scotch with the Fetchum children, while I sat, a mournful umpire, at Cousin Theodora's door! You used to say that I was the best possible judge; and I thought that you were always going to let me help you decide difficult questions." "It's just the same now, Kate. I'd be only too glad to have you help me out of a good many things, if----" "If what?" Now, however, Ernest dropped his serious tone. "If we were younger. Tell me, Kate, can you remember how you felt when you first realized that you weren't a child any more? I was thinking about myself the other day, and wondering why I feel so much older now than I did a year or two ago." "Oh, it's going into college that is chiefly to answer for it. But I do think it's strange sometimes all in an instant we realize that we are older or different from what we were before. I really can't account for it." "Yes,--I understand what you mean. You know those stone buildings that we pass on our way to the Nahant boat. Well, they used to seem to me mountain high, not only when I looked up at them, but when I thought about them. But one summer, years ago, I looked up and saw that they were not very high, nor very imposing. They were small buildings, compared with a good many up town; and then I felt that I must have changed." Kate smiled. "Yes, I've been through just such things myself." And the conversation of the two cousins drifted on for a time, with reminiscences of the past. "Ernest," at length said Kate somewhat abruptly to the young man, "after all you are more or less of a disappointment to me." So far as appearances went, it was hard to see wherein Ernest fell short of the ideal of even so rigid a critic as Kate. Yet this well-formed, muscular youth, with his clear gray eye, seemed at this particular moment a little restless and uneasy as he fingered an ivory paper-knife. "How do I disappoint you, Kate?" he asked. "Oh, in many ways. I used to think that you would be an inventor, or--something. But now--" "I am nothing but a Harvard freshman," he broke in laughing. "Yes, that is just it. You don't seem to be ambitious; you aren't trying to work off your entrance conditions; and you didn't do well at the mid-years. You spend very little time with Cousin Theodora. I'm sure I ought to feel complimented that you've come here to-day." As Ernest did not reply, she continued: "Your aunt has always made such sacrifices for you that you ought to try to do your best. Cousin Richard says--" There she stopped. "Well, what does Cousin Richard say?" asked Ernest impatiently. But Kate, remembering that Richard Somerset might object to being quoted, was silent. "Go to him yourself," she said at length. "He will tell you." Then their conversation passed to less personal things, until it was time for Ernest to go. Ernest, taking what Kate had said in good part, pondered over it as he walked homeward. The afternoon was drawing to a close. Long afterward he recalled that walk among the flower-beds, glowing with tulips and hyacinths, with the last rays of the sun reflected from the little fountain, while the chimes from the church on the corner above rang out "Old Hundred." As he left the Garden and entered Charles Street all this cheerfulness was at an end. The houses cast shadows so heavy in the narrow street that he felt as if in another world. Somewhat depressed, he went up the hill to his aunt's house. From the parlor came the unwonted sound of music. Some one was playing on the old piano. There sat Miss Theodora. He saw her through a half-opened door, playing with a fervor that he could not have believed possible had he not seen it for himself. For a moment he watched her, and although he was not a learned young man, he thought at once of St. Cecilia. There was, indeed, more than a mere suggestion of saintliness in Miss Theodora, with her pale face, with her black hair smoothly brushed away and gathered in a coil behind, and her patient expression. "Why, Aunt Teddy," at length exclaimed Ernest, entering the room, "I didn't know that you were such a performer. I knew you could play, but I didn't know you could play like that." "Thank you, Ernest," replied his aunt. "I don't play well now, but when your grandfather was living I had the very best instruction; but my style is so old-fashioned that I never play to any one now." In truth, Miss Theodora had played well in her day, and it was one of the sorrows of her later life that she could not profit by the fine teachers and the concerts of music-loving Boston. Diantha, whose thirty years' devotion to the family gave her privileges, would sometimes come to her as she sat alone by the front window, in the twilight, and say: "Why don't you never play no music now, Miss Theodora? I ain't forgot how you used to practice all the time; and Mr. John and Mr. William would come into the parlor in the evenings and listen to you, and you used to look so pretty sitting at that very piano that you won't never touch now." Yet Ernest, although he had often heard Diantha thus remonstrate with his aunt, now first realized perhaps that there was undue self-denial in his aunt's life. What Kate had said about "sacrifices" became significant to him. With as little delay as possible he would talk with Richard Somerset. [Illustration] XIV. "Now, Ernest, I don't know what Theodora would do if she knew that I had told you, but since you insist I will say that your father left you nothing, absolutely nothing. He invested his small share of your grandfather's property badly, and when we came to settle things there wasn't a cent for you." So said Richard Somerset in the interview which Ernest soon sought. "So all that I have is just that much less for Aunt Teddy?" "Yes,--if you put it that way. But she has told me many a time that whatever she has is yours. Just you do your best at college, and become a clever lawyer like your father and your grandfather, and she'll be satisfied. You see, you are all she has in the world. Of course, if she had married,--" but here the good man grew silent, and Ernest never heard from him the story of Miss Theodora's one love affair. It was just as well that he stopped where he did, for, with an indiscretion worthy a younger man, he had already gone far beyond Miss Theodora's instructions. He knew that it was her one desire that Ernest should not learn that he had no money of his own. When Ernest had heard the truth, much that previously he had not quite understood in his aunt's management of affairs was explained. "It's all very well to talk about being a lawyer," he cried. "It's all very well to talk; but I have found out that I cannot possibly be one. It's been worrying me lately. Of course, I might go through college in a sort of way; but after what you tell me I can't see the sense in wasting time or money." Richard Somerset looked aghast. Was this the effect of his words? What would Miss Theodora say? "Why--why, you wouldn't disappoint your aunt like that, would you? What in the world would you do if you left college?" "Well, I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure that I'd take a course like Ben Bruce has had at the Technology. Then I'd go West and make some money. One thing I've found out since I went to College,--and that is that I don't want to be poor the rest of my life." "Everybody who goes West doesn't make money." "Maybe not, but I met a man crossing on the Altruria this summer, who told me that mining engineers have the best possible chance now. He's a large stockholder in the 'Wampum and Etna,' and he said if only my profession were something in his line he could do a lot for me." "Rather presuming for a stranger," said Richard Somerset, with the true Boston manner. "He didn't seem like a stranger. He used to know my father, I believe. But he said it wasn't worth while to mention him to Aunt Theodora, as she probably wouldn't remember him." "What was his name?" "Easton--William Easton. I have his card and address somewhere. He used to be an army officer, captain of engineers, then he resigned and went into mining. He worked like everything until he made a lucky find. He was his own engineer for a time, but now he's given up active work. He and his wife go abroad every summer." "No, it wasn't worth while to mention him to your aunt," said Richard Somerset, as Ernest left him. The older man gazed abstractedly after the boy, while his heart went out in sympathy with Miss Theodora. Between Miss Theodora and William Easton there had once been an engagement, known only to their most intimate friends. John's classmate and comrade in the war, he had never concealed his admiration for John's sister. It was just after Dorothy's death, when Ernest demanded all Miss Theodora's time, that William Easton was ordered to the western frontier. With the reorganization of the army he had gone into the Engineers, and now there was no chance, had he wished, to evade the duty to which he was assigned. He might stay at his new post four or five years, he said, and Theodora must marry him and go too. Always imperative, he tried hard enough to carry his point. But for Ernest's claims Miss Theodora would have yielded. "Ernest will come, too, of course," he said,--and failed, obstinately perhaps, to see the weight of Miss Theodora's objections. The locality to which he was bound was notoriously unhealthy. The surroundings would be in other respects unfavorable to the little boy,--and what chance would he have for an education in that remote and half-civilized region? Nor would Miss Theodora leave the child behind, even had there been any one with whom she could leave him. Surely she and William could wait. But William Easton, always impatient, went off to his distant post angry that Theodora should prefer a little child to him. Both were heart-sore at first, but time works wonders, and years after this parting, when Miss Theodora heard that he had married the daughter of a Colorado rancher, she hoped, yes, she really hoped, that he was happy. Ernest did not recognize as William Easton, his steamboat acquaintance, the young officer who stood beside his father in the little faded photograph on his aunt's dressing table. "What queer, loose-fitting uniforms they had! We'd smile if men wore their hair so long as that now." This was all the boy had thought, as he looked at the picture. But for Miss Theodora these two faded figures symbolized her heart's whole history. To keep Ernest from thinking much about money matters, Miss Theodora had discouraged intimacies with her richer distant relatives--excepting only the Digbys. This one exception in the case of the Digbys needed no justification in her mind. Had not Stuart been John's best friend? Thus Ernest, growing up in the simple West End neighborhood, had little opportunity to make uncomfortable contrasts between his aunt's way of living and that of richer people. Had Ralph and Ernest been more congenial, Ernest might have been drawn into Ralph's set, made up of the boys of his own age with the largest claims on the so-called society of Boston. As it had been, Ralph and his friends formed a little world apart from Ernest and his interests. With Ben as full confidant and adviser, Ernest was naturally well content with his own lot. For Ben, with so much less than Ernest had of the things that money gives, was always happy--apparently happy and absorbed in his studies. Ernest knew of course that he himself must be economical,--his aunt had often said so; but sometimes he thought that this economy was only one of her fancies,--she was so unlike other people in many ways. Especially probable did this seem when she gave him a liberal allowance for Harvard. He did not know, until Richard Somerset told him, that a bank failure a few years before had taken five thousand dollars of Miss Theodora's small capital, and that a mortgage of almost the same amount had been put on the house to enable her to carry out her plans for Ernest. But Ernest's happy ignorance was now at an end. If his summer in Europe, his year in college, had done nothing else for him, these things had given him a desire for a larger life than he had had. Unless they take form in action desires of this kind may end in mere discontent, to eat into the heart of their possessor. Rightly directed, they will carry him along a path at the end of which, even if unsuccessful, he will at least have pleasure in remembering that he tried to reach a definite goal. Thus Ernest, disturbed by the fact that his college course was less satisfactory to him than he had expected it to be, confronted by the knowledge that money, or lack of money, plays a large part in every-day affairs, overwhelmed by his discovery of the meagreness of his aunt's possessions, still hesitated a little as to his own duty. [Illustration] XV. Ernest's final decision was closely interwoven with a ride from Cambridge in an open horse-car one warm spring evening. Though his mind during this ride was constantly going over the subject that now lay near his heart, it afterward seemed to him as if he could recall every step of the way, so curiously sometimes does the external world weave itself into our mental processes. Long afterward he remembered that at first in the dim light he had noticed people, young and old, children or girls in light dresses, sitting on the piazzas or moving about the wide lawns of the houses near the Square. Next he saw the business blocks with their shops, in front of which groups of young men were lounging. Over-dressed girls and other young men promenaded the sidewalks in front of the shops, and he caught the occasional note of a loud laugh or a flippant remark. Farther on, rows of unpretentious dwellings, ending at last in unmistakable tenement houses, stamped themselves on his mind, with half-tidy women, men in their shirt sleeves, and little children crowding the doorways. Across the muddy flats and the broad river they might see, as he saw, the pretty hilly country beyond. Were they gossiping and scolding, much as they would gossip and scold in their narrow room? Perhaps for the time, like Ernest himself, they knew the peaceful influence of the perfect evening. The indescribable May softness had, he felt sure, more than a little to do with his own exultation. His way opened perfectly clear before him. The arguments that he should use with his aunt stood out plainly defined. Go on longer as he had been doing!--he shivered at the thought. Finding Miss Theodora alone in the twilight, he realized as never before the pathos of her lonely life. In saying what he was going to say he knew that he must shatter one of her cherished idols. "In time, of course, she'll know that I have been right," he said to himself. Yet it required more than a little courage to speak, to argue with her against things that he knew she held so dear. Though he hardly knew how it came about, the discussion ended, to Ernest's own surprise, with the advantage on his side. His skilful fashion of handling statistics told strongly in his favor, perhaps; for he proved to his aunt's satisfaction that it would be many, many years before he could probably support himself on a lawyer's income. He had figures and facts to show what he was certain to earn as soon as he began to practise engineering. "But, Ernest," said Miss Theodora, "if you do not want to be a lawyer after you are graduated, there are many other things you might do without sacrificing your position in life." For although Miss Theodora knew well enough that mining engineers were not the same as the engineers whom she had seen on locomotives and steamboats, yet she felt that engineers in general, by reason of grimy hands and faces, were forever cut off from good society. "What else can I find to do?" he insisted, "that would be as interesting and pay as well?" "Well, I think that you could get into the treasurer's office of the Nashawapag Mills. Richard Somerset has great influence there." "Now, Aunt Teddy, you wouldn't want me to be a book-keeper the rest of my life,--for that is all I'd be; and as for salary, unless I stayed there thirty or forty years, until those at the top died, I suppose that I could make a little more than a bare living, but it wouldn't be much more." Then Miss Theodora, who could think of very few occupations outside of the learned professions in which a young man of good family might properly engage, at last surrendered to Ernest's arguments. "We have so very little money," said Ernest, after he had let her know that Richard Somerset had told him how slight their resources were; "we are so poor, that in a few years I know that I would have to beg or borrow, and I'm sure you would not wish me to do one any more than the other." "No, indeed," exclaimed his aunt. "You see," he went on, "I am acquiring very extravagant tastes at Cambridge. There's no place like it for making you want money, if you once begin to contrast yourself with fellows who have plenty." "But I thought you were independent," sighed poor Miss Theodora. "Oh, I should be if I were really interested in my work," replied Ernest; "but, you see, I can't throw myself into my studies as I ought to." It is to be feared that Ernest was worse than a little artful in thus painting himself as black as he could. He did not tell his aunt, what really was the truth, that it was harder for him to give up Harvard now than it would have been six months before. He had begun to have his own group of special friends; he had begun to enjoy many phases of college life. Despite certain distasteful studies, he might have gone through college without special discredit. He might have taken his degree, as many of his classmates would, with considerable culture and very little practical knowledge clinging to him. He trembled when he saw that he could take so kindly to dawdling ways. But his Puritan conscience interposed. When he knew how really poor they were, his love for his aunt and his pride all imparted to him a firmness at which he himself marvelled. [Illustration] XVI. Miss Theodora gave in, partly because she herself had begun to see that she might wrong Ernest by insisting on his carrying out her ideas. His poor rank in the classics showed a mind unlike that of his father or his grandfather. When she saw his brow darken at mention of the work he must do to get off his condition in Greek, she remembered how cheerful he had once been whistling over his work in his basement room. She longed to see him again engaged in congenial work or studies. Therefore, without vigorous defence, the castle in Spain which she had founded on Ernest's professional career fell under Ernest's direct assault. But she was disappointed, and although she did not go out of her way to look for sympathy, she accepted all that Miss Chatterwits and Diantha offered her. The former really believed that Harvard was the only institution in the United States in which a young man could get the higher education. "I don't know," she said, "as I ever heard of a great man--that is, a scholar, for I don't forget some of the Presidents--that hadn't graduated at Harvard. Not but what a man might be great, I suppose, that wasn't what you would call a scholar; but I did think that Ernest would follow right after his grandfather, not to speak of his father. And all the books you've saved for him, too, Miss Theodora!--it does seem too bad." "Oh, I still expect Ernest to be a great man," said Miss Theodora, a trifle dubiously. "I am sure that he has shown considerable talent already for inventing things." "Ye-es," was Miss Chatterwits' doubtful response. "Ye-es,--but it seems as if most of the things has been invented that's at all likely to give a man a great reputation,--the telegraphs and steamboats and steam engines, not to mention sewing machines, which I must say has made a great difference in my work." "Oh, well, sometimes men benefit the world by inventing some little thing, or making an improvement--well, in steam engines or something of that kind." "I dare say,--I haven't any doubt but Ernest'll be smarter than any boy in the school where he's going. But it always did seem to me that studies of that kind were well enough for Ben Bruce--and such; but Ernest,--he seems to belong out at Harvard." This was unkind--for Miss Chatterwits really liked Ben Bruce very much. But lately she had had one or two rather wordy encounters with Mrs. Bruce when they had met by chance at a neighbor's house. The little dressmaker was fond of "drawing the line," as she said, and relegating people, in conversation, at least, to their proper places. Mrs. Bruce had similar proclivities; but with less accurate data on which to base her classification of her neighbors, she sometimes made mistakes on which Miss Chatterwits was bound to frown. "If I went about sewing from house to house," said Mrs. Bruce, "I suppose I might know more about people than I do; but being in private life, it isn't to be supposed I know much but what has been handed down to me in my own family." "Well, if you went about sewing from house to house," said Miss Chatterwits, "you'd be more use to your family than you are now." With which last word Miss Chatterwits had flounced away, and for a time spoke somewhat depreciatingly of the Bruces, although in her heart she envied them their Revolutionary ancestor. Miss Theodora had no petty pride. She liked Ben; she knew that he was a good friend for Ernest, and the one thing that reconciled her to the change in Ernest's career was the fact that, for a year at least, he would be able to have much help and advice from Ben. After the latter should get his scientific degree, he would probably leave Boston; but for the present she knew that his friendship would mean much to Ernest. Ernest spent six weeks of the summer after his decision about college at a quiet seashore village with Ben. Ben tutored Ernest in various branches in which he was deficient, and proved an even better friend to him than Miss Theodora had hoped. Sometimes, as they sat in a little cove at the edge of the water, letting their books fall from their hands, gazing at the crescent-shaped Plymouth shore, they would talk of many things outside of their work. Ben was an enthusiast about the early history of New England. He loved to theorize over the country's possibilities, and to trace its present greatness from the principles planted by the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies. Once as they sat there talking, Ernest exclaimed: "Those men were workers, Ben! Sometimes I think that we are all wrong today,--we attach so much importance to books. Now, I believe that I should have been much better off now and happier if I could have gone at once to work two or three years ago, instead of undertaking--" But Ben interrupted him. "Oh, no! you are wrong. You do not realize your privileges. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I envied you your chance of going to Harvard. It would have been my choice to go there if I could. But the Institute was more practical, and I dare say was the best for me. Only--don't make too little account of your advantages, Ernest." What Ben said was true enough. His own mind was essentially that of the scholar. He could have gone on forever acquiring knowledge. He had no desire to put it at once to the practical use to which necessity compelled him. Yet, understanding Ernest's temperament, he had not discouraged him from leaving college, and he stood ready to help him to the utmost in his scientific work. Many a time, however, with no envious mind, he had wished that it had been his to change places with Ernest. What delightful hours, he thought, he could have passed within the gray walls of the college library! He would have been no more inclined than Ernest, perhaps, to follow Miss Theodora's plans for a lawyer's career. No; he would have aimed rather to be a Harvard professor. Had fortune favored him, he would have spent a long time in post-graduate study, not only at Cambridge, but at some foreign university. "What folly!" he would then suddenly cry; "life is practical." But while doing the duty that lay nearest, he knew well enough that Harvard would have meant infinitely more to him than his chosen course. During two years only of Ernest's Technology course were he and Ben together. When the latter was graduated he went West at once to begin his contest for the honors and the wealth which were to work that wonderful change in the affairs of his family. But Ernest had started well, and even without his friend's guidance he kept on in the path he had marked out. To give an account of the four years of his work would be to tell a rather monotonous story. This was not because he allowed his life to be a mere routine--far from this. While he worked energetically during the winter, he managed to find time for recreation. Society, so-called, did not interest him. But he had a group of friends, of fixed purpose like his own, who were still sufficiently boyish to enjoy life. With them he took long walks in search of geological specimens, inviting them home on winter evenings to share Miss Theodora's simple tea. From some of these Western friends of Ernest's, with a point of view so unlike her own, Miss Theodora gained an entirely different outlook on life. Ernest had impressed on her the fact that the West was to be his home, at least, until he had made a lot of money. She began, therefore, to take an interest, not only in these Westerners, with their broad pronunciation, but in the Western country itself. She re-read "The Oregon Trail"; she read one or two other books of Western travel. She studied the topography of Colorado and Nevada in her old atlas, and she always noted in the newspapers chance scraps of information about that distant region. Nahant knew Ernest no more in summer. His long vacation was always spent elsewhere in practical field work. He almost dropped out of the lives of those who had known him so well as a little boy. At the same time, he had enough social diversion. In the new set of which he now formed one there was always more or less going on. The sisters of some of his friends invited him to their dances. He seemed so heartily to enjoy his new popularity that Kate realized, with a certain pain, that he was drawing away from her; that he was departing far from that pleasant old West End life. There was an irony of fate in remembering that by using her influence in the direction of the new work which Ernest had undertaken, she had helped to send him farther away. [Illustration] XVII. When the die was finally cast, Miss Theodora wisely kept to herself her disappointment at Ernest's change of plan. Her life thus far had accustomed her to disappointments. What a pang she had felt, for example, some years after leaving it, when she heard that the old family house on the hill had become a boarding house! How disturbed she had been, walking up Beacon Street one day, to see workmen tearing down one of the most dignified of the old purple-windowed houses, once the home of intimate friends of hers, to make way for an uglier if more ornate structure! What an intrusion she felt the car tracks to be which run through Charles Street across Beacon Street, connecting the South and the West Ends of the city! Miss Theodora's Boston was not so large but that it could be traversed by any healthy person on foot; and she agreed with Miss Chatterwits when she exclaimed, "What in the world has the West End to do with Roxbury Neck?" Real trials, like Ernest's change of plan, Miss Theodora was able to bear with surprising equanimity. She had not even quailed when she made that discovery, hardest of all even for a sensible woman, that she was growing old. The first rude shock had come one day in a horse-car, when she heard an over-dressed young mother say to her little son in a loud whisper: "Give the old lady a seat." Before this Miss Theodora had certainly not thought of herself as old; but looking in the glass on her return home, she saw that the youth had vanished from her face. For though the over-dressed young mother might have said "oldish" more truly than "old," yet Miss Theodora realized that the change had come. What it was she could scarcely define, save that there were now long lines on her cheek where once there had been curves, that her eyes were perhaps less bright, that gray hairs had begun to appear, and that certainly she had less color than formerly. All these changes had not come in a day, and yet in a day, in an hour, Miss Theodora realized them. As she looked in the mirror and saw that her gray hairs were still few enough to count, she glanced below the glass to the little faded photograph on the table. John had passed into the land of perpetual youth, and William, that other, had he begun to show the marks of age? Thus she wondered as she gazed at the young man with the longish, thick hair, at which Ernest had sometimes laughed. But she seldom let her mind wander in this direction, and she turned it now toward other friends of her girlhood, of whom some occasionally flitted across her vision. The most of those who had been her contemporaries the winter she came out were now married. Of these, she could not recall one who had not "married well," as the phrase is. Were they growing old more gracefully than she? Would she change places with any one of those portly matrons, absorbed now in family or social interests? The sphere of the unmarried few was unattractive to her. The causes, whether literary or philanthropic, into which the majority threw themselves had certainly no charm for her. She could not have worked for the Indians after the manner of her cousin Sarah Somerset. To her the Indian race seemed too cruel for the enthusiasm lavished on it by a certain group of Boston women. When her father had verged toward Transcendentalism she had lagged behind, and more modern "isms" were even farther out of her reach. She listened dubiously to rhapsodies by one of her cousins on the immense spiritual value of the Vedas. Woman suffrage! Well, she had only one friend who waxed eloquent over this, and Miss Theodora, although on the whole liberal-minded, was repelled from a study of the question by the peculiarities of dress and manner affected by some of its devotees. Even Culture itself, with a capital letter, and all that this implies could never have been a fad of hers. The books people talked about now were so different from those that she had been accustomed to; she knew nothing about modern French literature, and her friends cared nothing for Miss Ferrier or Crabbe. After all, Miss Theodora would not have changed places with one of these friends of her youth, married or unmarried, with their tablets covered with social engagements or note-books crammed with appointments for meetings or lectures. She found her own life sufficiently full. That she was growing old brought her little worry, coming as it did at the same time with the change in Ernest's plans. Although she would have been very slow to admit it, Kate's thorough approval of Ernest's new career modified Miss Theodora's own view of it. Unconsciously she had begun to dream of a united fortune for Kate and Ernest; for in her eyes the two were perfectly adapted to each other. "There's a prospect of your amounting to something now," she heard Kate say to Ernest one day. "You haven't been at all like yourself this winter, and I just believe that college would have ruined you," she continued frankly. It was Kate who pointed out to Miss Theodora the perils that surrounded a young man who was not very much interested in his work at Cambridge. "Well, of course you ought to know, for you have a brother in college." "Oh, dear me, Ernest and Ralph aren't a bit alike. Ernest would always be different from Ralph, I should hope." For Kate and Ralph, since their childhood, had gone on very different paths. "No, I'm not afraid of Ernest's growing like Ralph; but I know that Ernest is more easily influenced than you think, and it's a good thing that he's going to have studies that will interest him." All of which seemed to Miss Theodora to augur well for the plans which she had formed for these two young people. To Ernest Kate spoke even more frankly than to his aunt. "I knew that you'd do it," she said, "and I feel almost sure that you'll make a great man, and really you will be able to help your aunt much sooner than if you began to study law. As soon as possible I want Cousin Theodora to have lots of money. She won't accept anything from me, and you have no idea how many things there are that she needs money for." So Ernest, encouraged by the good opinion of the young woman he cared most for, made less than he might have made of the older woman's disappointment. He made less of it, perhaps, because, with the confidence of youth, he believed the time near when she would admit that he had done the very best thing for them both. [Illustration] XVIII. Mrs. Fetchum pressed her face close to the window pane to watch Miss Theodora enter her door. "It seems to me Miss Theodora ain't quite as firm on her feet as she used to be. Don't you think she stoops some?" she said to her husband. "Miss Theodora's getting along," was the answer. "She's not as young as she was." "She isn't older than Mrs. Stuart Digby, but she's had a sight more care. Well, speaking of angels, there she is now,"--and the good woman's voice trembled with excitement as Mrs. Digby's victoria drew up before Miss Theodora's door. From time to time Mrs. Digby's horses scornfully pawed the pavement in front of Miss Theodora's house, while the owner waited for her cousin to get ready for the drive. Miss Theodora never greatly enjoyed these drives, for a certain condescension in Mrs. Digby's manner always disturbed her. She knew, too, that she was seldom invited unless the latter had some object of her own to serve. On the present occasion they were hardly seated in the carriage before the special purpose of this drive was revealed. "Kate is a great trial to me, Theodora. Would you believe, I can't get her to take the least interest in society? Why, I couldn't make her go to the cotillions this winter. With her bright manner she would be very popular; and it's too provoking to think, after all the advantages she's had, she fairly throws herself away on old ladies and colored children,--and I do wish that you'd help me." Miss Theodora trembled as if guilty herself of some misdeed. "What can I do?" she asked faintly, knowing well enough that it was she who had interested Kate in the Old Ladies' Home and the colored children. Mrs. Digby seemed to read her thoughts. "Of course, I don't want her to give up her reading to the old ladies altogether. But I do wish you could make her realize her obligations to society. I can't myself. Why, she refuses all invitations, and hardly ever goes even to her sewing circle. The next thing she'll be taking vows at St. Margaret's or doing something equally absurd." Miss Theodora, though aware of the hopelessness of so doing, promised to use her influence with Kate. Mrs. Digby herself was born for society, and it was a trial even greater than she had represented to Miss Theodora that her daughter should be so indifferent to the great world. "Kate has style," she said to her cousin, "and manner, and if she only would exert herself to please my friends to the extent that she exerts herself to please nobodies, I should have little to complain of. Poor Stuart's death was very unfortunate, happening just the winter Kate was ready to come out. It put an end, of course, to all the plans I had made for her among the younger set. She didn't mind missing balls and parties herself, for she never cared for that kind of thing; but I do think, now that she is out of mourning, that she might take a little interest in society, and at least accept some of the dinner invitations she has." "But she does go out a good deal, doesn't she?" began Miss Theodora, remembering some of Kate's humorous accounts of amusing episodes connected with various little dinner parties she had attended. "Oh, yes; I often insist on her going with me; and once in a while there is some invitation she really wishes to accept. But it is the duty of a girl of her age to be seen more in society; and I do wish that she could be made to understand that she owes something to her position and to her family." "Well, I will speak to her," said Miss Theodora, "but I doubt if I can influence her to any great extent." "Indeed you can," responded Mrs. Digby. "You know how I feel, I am sure. I don't want Kate to be an old maid, and she's older now than I was when I married. Thus far, she has not had the slightest interest in any young man, although she has plenty of admirers. Perhaps I ought to be thankful for this, for it would be just in line with her general perversity for her to fall in love with some thoroughly unsuitable person." Possibly Miss Theodora, with Ernest ever in mind, was unusually sensitive in detecting undue emphasis in Mrs. Digby's pronunciation of "any" when she said that Kate had not the "slightest interest in any young man." Or perhaps Mrs. Digby, too, had Ernest in mind when she made this sweeping statement. Two people could hardly be more unlike than Kate and her mother. Mrs. Digby was of dark complexion, of commanding figure, though not over tall, and she lived for society. Kate was blond, with a half-timid, though straightforward air, and she was as anxious to keep far from the whirl of things as her mother was to be active in her little set. Mrs. Digby had worn heavy mourning for her husband the exact length of time demanded by strict propriety. But just as soon as she could, she laid aside her veil and, indeed, crepe in every form, and gave outer shape to her grief by clothing herself in becoming black relieved by abundant trimmings of dull jet. "I could wish Mrs. Digby no worse punishment," said one of her intimate enemies, "than to be condemned to attend a round of dinners in a high-necked gown." From which it might truly be inferred that Mrs. Digby herself was thought to have no mean opinion of Mrs. Digby arrayed in conventional dinner attire. Yet her most becoming low-necked gown Mrs. Digby could have given up almost more readily than the dinners which she had to sacrifice in her year of mourning. She had been fond of her husband, no one could deny that. But, after all, she missed him less than the outside world thought she missed him. He and she had led decidedly separate lives for many years before his death, and, indeed, in the early years the stress of feeling had been more on his side than on hers. She was not long, therefore, in returning to a round of gayety, somewhat subdued, to be sure, but still "something to take me away from myself and my grief," she occasionally said half-apologetically to those who, like Miss Theodora, she knew must be surprised at her return to the world. On this particular occasion, after making her request for Miss Theodora's influence with Kate, she continued: "If it were not for Ralph I do not know what I should do. He goes everywhere with me, and is perfectly devoted to society. Now, in his case, I almost hope he won't marry. I should hate to give him up to any one else. But he is so fastidious that I know it will be some time before he settles upon any one,--although I must say that he is a great favorite." This was the early autumn after Ralph's graduation. He had gone through Harvard very creditably, and had even had honorable mention in history and modern languages. Mrs. Digby, however, with all her pride in her son, felt that the large income which he drew went for other than legitimate college expenses. As a woman of the world, she said that Ralph could not be so very unlike the men who were his associates, and she knew that certain rumors about them and their doings could not be wholly false. Nevertheless, she seldom reproved her son, and she even took pride in his self-possessed and ultra-worldly manner. Surely that kind of thing was infinitely better form than Kate's self-consciousness and Puritan frankness. Mrs. Digby graced a victoria even more truly than she graced a low-necked gown. Indeed, to the many who, never having had the good fortune to see her in a drawing-room, knew her only by name and sight as she rolled through the streets, she and the victoria seemed inseparable, a kind of modernized centaur. It was impossible for such people to think of her in any other attitude than that of haughty semi-erectness on the ample cushions of her carriage. On this particular day, as Mrs. Digby drove down Beacon Street, and thence by the river over the Milldam, she met many friends and bowed to them. "Who in the world has Mrs. Digby got with her today?" some of them would ask their companions, in the easy colloquialism of every-day life. "I haven't the faintest idea, but she's a rather out-of-date-looking old person," was the usual reply, although occasionally some one would identify Miss Theodora, usually adding: "I knew her when she was a girl, but she's certainly very much changed. Well, that's what comes of living out of the world." These drives with Mrs. Digby always made Miss Theodora feel her own loneliness. In this city--this Boston--which had always been her own home and the home of her family, she had few friends. She could hardly have known fewer people if living in a foreign city. It was therefore with a start of relief that she heard Mrs. Digby exclaim: "Why, there's Ernest, isn't it?" Miss Theodora glanced ahead. Nearsighted though she was, she had no trouble in recognizing her nephew's broad shoulders and swinging gait. But the young man was not alone. He was walking rather slowly, and bending toward a girl in a close-fitting tailor-made suit. It was the end of October, too early for furs, yet the girl was anticipating the winter fashions. One end of a long fuzzy boa flaunted itself over her shoulder, stirred, like the heavy ostrich plumes in her hat, by the afternoon breeze. "It isn't Kate, is it?" said Miss Theodora, dubiously, as the carriage drew near the pair. "No, indeed, not Kate," quickly answered Mrs. Digby. "I wonder who it can be," continued Miss Theodora, for she could not help observing Ernest's tender air toward the girl. "Oh, I'm sure I can't say, Theodora. It's certainly no one I know; but Kate--or perhaps it was Ralph--has been saying something about a flirtation of Ernest's with some girl he met somewhere last year." Then seeing that Miss Theodora looked downcast: "Oh, it isn't likely it's anything serious, Theodora; it's only what you must expect at his age, and of course his interests are all so different now from what you had expected, that it isn't surprising to find him flirting or falling in love with girls whom you and I know nothing about." By this time the carriage had passed the two young people, and Ernest was so absorbed in his companion that he did not even see it rolling by. [Illustration] XIX. Poor Miss Theodora! One walk on a public thoroughfare with a girl heretofore unknown to one's relatives need not imply the surrender of a young man's affections; but Ernest, so his aunt thought, was not like other young men. He would be sincere in a matter of this kind. If his interest in any girl had been so marked as to be a subject of comment for Ralph and Kate, it must be known to many other people. Yet why had Kate not spoken to her, as well as to her mother; or why had not Ernest himself suggested the direction in which his fancy was wandering? Many questions like these crowded Miss Theodora's mind, for which she had no satisfactory answer. Strangest of all,--and she could hardly account for her own reticence,--she said not a word to Kate nor to Ernest of all this that lay so near her heart. If Ben had been at home, she might have talked freely to him. He could have told whether or not Mrs. Digby's surmises were correct. But Ben had been in the West for a year and a half. If he had been at home, she thought, perhaps this would never have happened. Yet, after all, what was the "this" which so disturbed Miss Theodora's usually calm mind? What were the signs by which she recognized that Ernest had secrets which he did not confide to her? The signs, though few, to her were positive. Ernest had begun to take more interest in society. While studying diligently, he also found time for more or less gayety. In the left-hand corner of his top bureau drawer there was a heap of dance programmes and progressive euchre tally-cards. Kate had seen them one day when helping Miss Theodora put Ernest's room in order. She had given a scornful "No" when the former asked her if she had been at a dance whose date was indicated on a certain programme. "Of course, I know you seldom go to dances, but still I thought perhaps--" "Oh, Cousin Theodora, I haven't been at a dance this winter; and as to these parties that Ernest has been going to--there was a set of them, wasn't there? I really don't recognize the names of any of the managers." Now this reply was not reassuring to Miss Theodora, who had a vague hope that Kate and Ernest met occasionally in society. Then Kate continued: "Ernest is really growing very giddy. Just look at that heap of neckties. I should say some of them had not been worn twice, and then he has flung them down as if he didn't intend to wear them again." Now in the midst of her railing, Kate stopped. In the back of the drawer, behind the neckties, she had caught sight of a photograph,--it was the face of a girl she had seen before,--and she closed the drawer with a snap that made Miss Theodora look up quickly from her task of dusting the books on Ernest's study table. Just then Diantha passed the door. "I've been telling Miss Theodora," she cried, with the familiarity of an old servant, "I've been telling Miss Theodora that I believe Mast' Ernest's in love. He don't spend much time with us now, and I reckon 'tain't study that takes him out every evening. I shouldn't wonder if you knows more about it than we do,"--and Diantha rolled her large eyes significantly at Kate. But Kate was silent, and Miss Theodora was silent, and Diantha, with a toss of the head and arms akimbo, passed on to her little attic room. Nor when she was gone did the two ladies speak to each other of the thing which lay so near their hearts. Now, Miss Theodora, until driven thereto by Mrs. Digby, had never contemplated the possibility of Ernest's taking a tender interest in any one not approved by her. She had never resented Sarah Fetchum's addressing him by his first name, even after he had entered college and Sarah herself was almost through the Normal School. She could invite Sarah and her intimate friend, Estelle Tibbits, to take tea with her without any fear that Ernest would fall in love with either of them. Unaware, apparently, of his aunt's solicitude, Ernest continued to mix a little play with the hard work of his last year of study. Miss Theodora, at least, had no reason to complain of neglect from him. He went with her to the Old West Church on Sunday morning as willingly as ever he had gone in the days of his childhood. Indeed, as a little boy she had often had to urge him unduly to go with her, and sometimes he would try to beg off with the well-worn plea that he "hated sermons." Later, as they sat in the high-backed pew which they shared with the Somersets, Miss Theodora would notice the boy's fair head moving restlessly from side to side. As years passed on Ernest grew as fond as his aunt of the old church, with its plain white ceiling and gallery, supported by simple columns, and its tablets in honor of men of a bygone age. If sometimes on Sunday afternoons he went to Trinity Church, contented to stand for an hour in the crowded aisle to hear the uplifting words of the great preacher, he never made this later service an excuse for neglecting his aunt's church. In this, as in almost all other matters in which she had marked preferences, Ernest gave Miss Theodora little ground for complaint. Toward the end of his Technology course Ernest made all his other interests bend to study. No longer had he any evening engagements to worry his aunt. He read late into the night. His thesis occupied most of his day, for it involved an immense amount of practical work in a factory out of town. As Miss Theodora observed his zeal, as she heard reports of his good standing in his class, she could but contrast this state of affairs with his unsatisfactory year at Harvard. [Illustration] XX. "Isn't it perfectly splendid?" cried Kate, who, in spite of a general precision of speech, was not above using an occasional superlative. Miss Theodora had been less than human had she contradicted her young cousin, whose words referred to Ernest's thesis. For, although it bristled with scientific terms which they understood hardly as well as the majority of his auditors, Miss Theodora and Kate listened eagerly to every word. "Of course, you're proud of him; now you can't say you're not;"--and the young girl gave her cousin's hand a squeeze which the elder woman returned with interest. That his relatives were not partial was proved by the newspapers the next morning, for they made especial mention of Ernest, and said that he seemed likely to add new honors to the distinguished name he bore. Though Miss Theodora would have preferred to see Ernest in flowing gown on the Sanders Theatre platform, with the Governor and his staff and distinguished professors and noted alumni in the background, she did not express her regrets to Kate. A Harvard Commencement is unlike any other, and Kate, who realized this as strongly almost as Miss Theodora did, whispered, "Please don't think you're sorry that it isn't a Harvard A. B." How could any one who loved him be otherwise than happy to see Ernest in so cheerful a mood, smiling at his aunt and Kate, bowing to Miss Chatterwits, who had a good seat near the front? If only he had not rushed up in one of the intermissions to speak to that piquant-looking girl in the large white hat, whom Kate from a distance regarded with an air of interest mixed with disdain. After the excitement of this last day, Ernest, contrary to his usual habit, was moody and restless. Miss Theodora watched him narrowly. She had hoped when the pressure of work was removed that he would settle down into calm ways, and put off as long as possible the inevitable decision about his future career. Must he, she wondered, must he really go to that great indefinite West, which years before had seemed the grave of a large share of her happiness? Ernest himself soon put an end to her wondering. "Come, Aunt Teddy," he said one morning, drawing her beside him on the massive sofa that faced the bookcase, with its rows of neglected law books; "let us talk over my future. How soon can I go? I am lounging about here too long." "Go?" she queried. "Go where?"--though in her heart she knew very well. "Now don't equivocate; it isn't natural for you, Aunt Theodora; you are generally so straightforward. Don't you remember that I told you that I might have a good offer to go to Colorado? Well, it has come." Whereupon Ernest proceeded to read a letter offering him a definite position and a stated salary with a certain mining company, and the letter was signed "William Easton." "Isn't it fine to have such a chance?" said the young man, looking up, and noting a surprising change in his aunt's face. She had grown extremely pale, and he saw that she was trembling. "William Easton," she said, without answering his question; "how strange!" Then there flashed across Ernest's mind his cousin Richard's warning against mentioning Mr. Easton to his aunt. Of course, the time for silence on this point had now passed,--and he continued: "Yes; perhaps I may not have mentioned Mr. Easton's name before; but I didn't know that you would recall it. You've heard me speak of him, of course, the president of the Wampum and Etna, whom I met on the Altruria. He's as good as his word, and though I haven't heard from him for two years, here's this letter offering me the very chance he said he would give me--all on account of my father, I suppose. They must have been greater friends than I thought,"--looking questioningly toward Miss Theodora. "Yes, they were great friends," answered she, "and I knew him very well too, but I would almost rather not have you accept his offer." "Just because I shall have to go so far away, I suppose. Now, what else would you have me do?" "Surely there are other chances in Boston. You can find something to do here." "If I could, I wouldn't," replied the young man. "Now, what would be the sense in staying here? Of course, I could get something to do, there's no doubt of that; but it would be wicked to refuse an offer like this." "Why not begin here and gradually work up? We don't need so very much money, Ernest--" "Oh, Aunt Teddy, I do. What would you say if I told you I thought of getting married?" "You--you--get married!" and Miss Theodora actually blushed. Then recollecting herself, "I am delighted," she said. "Kate is a dear girl. Not a bit like her mother." "Kate! It isn't Kate," stammered the young man; and Miss Theodora, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, recalled many things that she had almost forgotten. Much that she had not understood was now explained. There was somebody, after all, whom Ernest cared for--and it wasn't Kate. "Who is the young lady?" she asked with some dignity. "Why, Eugenie. Haven't you heard me speak of Eugenie Kurtz?" Miss Theodora shook her head. "Of course," he said, "it isn't an engagement, or I would have told you all about it or asked your advice, but it's all so uncertain. Her father--" "Who is her father?" asked Miss Theodora. "The name sounds familiar." "Of course--you've seen it on his wagons, and I daresay you've been in his shop, too. He's really the chief man in the firm, for, although his partner's name stands first, Mr. Kurtz has really bought Brown out, all but a small share." Then Miss Theodora remembered one of the best known retail shops in the city, whose growth from small beginnings was often quoted as a striking example of American energy. She remembered, too, that one partner--perhaps both--had been referred to as of humble origin. This remembrance came to her in a flash, and she took up Ernest's last words: "Her father--" "Yes, her father," repeated the young man, "won't consent to an engagement at present. I've got to show what I can do in the world, and so I must go West, where I can have room enough to move around." And then Ernest digressed into praise of Eugenie, her charms of person and manner, her taste in dress, her ability in housekeeping, in which she had had much experience since her mother's death. "You will call on her, won't you?" he pleaded. But Miss Theodora would say neither yes nor no, as he named the street where Eugenie lived. She knew this street very well. She had passed through it several times in the evenings with Ernest. She had never liked it, this long, new street, with its blocks of handsome bay-windowed houses. How seldom were the curtains in these bay-windows drawn close! She could not think well of people who left their rooms thus immodestly exposed to the gaze of passers-by. Brought up as she had been to regard lamp-light as a signal for the closing of blinds and curtains, she always turned her head away from the windows revealing beyond the daintily shaded lamp a glimpse of rooms furnished much more gorgeously than any to which she was accustomed. These unshaded windows had always seemed to her typical of the lives, of the minds, of the dwellers in the bay-windowed houses--no retirement, no privacy, all show. To think that Ernest's interests should have begun to mingle with those of people whom she could never, never care to know! Miss Theodora sighed. Perhaps it was the best thing after all for Ernest to go West. Absence might make him forget Eugenie. "At his age," thought Miss Theodora, "it is ridiculous for him to imagine himself in love." Yet Ernest, though Miss Theodora knew it not, had been deeply in love more than once before. There was that beautiful creature with the reddish-brown hair--several years older than he, to be sure--whom he had met on his passage back from Europe. What a joy it had been to walk the deck with her, while she confided all her past and present sorrows to him! He did not tell her his feelings then--she might have laughed at him. Later, how his heart had palpitated as he crossed the little square, past the diminutive statues of Columbus and Aristides, to call on her at the home of the sisterhood where she thought of taking vows! How well she looked in the severe garb of the order! so saintly, indeed, did she appear as she swept into the bare room, that he made only a short call, recrossing the square more in love than ever, though in a sombre mood. A few months after, when he heard of the would-be devotee's marriage to old Abram Tinker, that crabbed millionaire, he was surprised to find himself so little disturbed. His happy disposition gave cynicism no place even for a foothold, and soon he barely remembered this little episode in his life. Eugenie, indeed, seemed to him the only woman he had ever cared for. He longed to talk about her to Kate, but something prevented his opening his heart to the latter. Nor was his aunt ready to listen to him. He was amazed to find her so unsympathetic. Her opposition to his going to the West had, however, disappeared. She even hastened his preparations, and bade him good-bye at the last with unexpected cheerfulness. [Illustration] XXI. Ernest, travelling West, had plenty of time to wonder if, after all, the present satisfied him. His answer on the whole was "yes." He had little to regret in the past; he was hopeful, he was positive about the future. A classmate travelled with him as far as Chicago, and this part of the journey, broken by a few hours' stay at Niagara, seemed short enough. Chicago itself, with its general air of business bustle and activity, opened a new world to him. At the head office of the Wampum and Etna, where letters awaited him from Mr. Easton, he found himself at once a man of consequence--no longer the student, little more than schoolboy, that he had been so lately in the eyes of most persons. Here the clerks in the office bowed deferentially; the agent consulted him; evidently Mr. Easton intended to give him much responsibility. In his day or two in the great city he drove or walked in the parks, through the boulevards, and along the lake front. He grasped, as well as he could in so short a time, the city's vastness, measured not alone by extent of territory, by height of buildings, but by resources, the amount of which he gathered from the fragments of talk that came to him in his hurried interviews with various business men. Boston, looked at with their eyes, through the large end of the telescope, was almost lost in a dwindling perspective. The West End,--how trivial all its interests! Miss Theodora, Kate, Miss Chatterwits, Diantha,--well, these loomed up a little larger than the city itself; and Eugenie--ah! she filled the field of the telescope, until Ernest could see little else. After he had crossed the fertile fields of Illinois, and had watched the green farms of Nebraska fade away into the dull brown, uncultivated plains, he grew lonely, realizing how far he was from all that was dearest to him. Would not Miss Theodora's heart have ached with a pain deeper than that caused by this separation, could she have known that all her years of devotion were obscured by the glamor of that one bright year in which Ernest had felt sure of Eugenie's love. As he looked from the car window across the wide stretch of open country, where the only objects between his eye and the distant horizon were a canvas-covered wagon or a solitary horseman, Ernest had more than enough time for reflection. Would Eugenie be true to him? Of course; surely that was not a doubt tugging at his heart-strings. Would her father be more reasonable? His brow darkened a little as he thought of his last interview with Mr. Kurtz. "No," the latter had said decidedly; "it is not worth while to talk of an engagement. Time enough for that when you have shown what you can do. As I understand it, you have no special prospects at present. At least, it's to be proved whether you'll succeed in the West. I've known a good many people to fail out there. I can't have Eugenie bound by an indefinite engagement. I've worked hard for her, and she's used to everything. What could you give her? If Eugenie married tomorrow, she'd want just as much as she has to-day. She isn't the kind of a girl to live on nothing but love. I've talked with her, and know how she feels." This last sentence had made Ernest shiver, and now, as it recurred to him, he again wondered if, after all, Eugenie was less in earnest than he. He recalled the dignity with which Mr. Kurtz had drawn himself up as he said: "Besides, I'm not going to have Eugenie go into a family likely to look down on her." Then, paying no attention to Ernest's protests, "Oh, yes, I know what I'm talking about. I haven't done business in Boston for nothing these forty years without knowing what they call the difference between people. It isn't much more than skin deep, but they feel it, all your people. I'm a self-made man, and I'm not ashamed of it. I don't ask any favors of any one, and I don't want any--and I'm not anxious to have my daughter go among people who will look down on her." "But my people are so few," poor Ernest had said. "My aunt--" "Oh, your aunt--yes--people respect her, and she's very good to the poor; but she was born in Boston, and she don't believe in marrying out of her set any more than if she was a Hindoo--unless she's made different from most Boston men and women. I know that I'm made of the same flesh and blood as the rest of them. But then I wasn't born in Boston, and perhaps my eyesight is clearer on that account. At any rate, I'm going to do my duty by Eugenie." Then Ernest, reflecting on this conversation, from which he had gleaned so little comfort, fell asleep, and when he awoke in the morning they were not so very far from Denver. Far, far ahead, across the great plateau, an irregular dark line showed clear against the morning sky. "The Rockies," some one cried, and then he felt half like crying, half like turning back. His new life had almost begun, and he was hardly ready for it. Could Ernest have known Mr. Kurtz's true state of mind, he would have had less reason for downheartedness. Eugenie's father saw in the young man more promise than he cared to express. He liked Ernest's frankness in speaking of his prospects; and he knew that he was no fortune hunter. By her friends Eugenie was called the most "stylish" girl of her set. Always sure to be the leader's partner at the numerous Germans which were then so in vogue, she was certainly popular. With no wish ungratified by her father, she might have been more selfish than she was. It is true that she always had her own way, but then, as she said, when her father complained of this, "My own way is just as apt to benefit other people as myself." Without planning any beneficences, she did many little kindnesses to her friends. She had to have a companion when she went to Europe, and so, although a chaperone had been already provided, Mr. Kurtz cheerfully paid the expenses of a girl friend of hers, who otherwise would have been unable to go; and many other similar things added to her popularity. After a year at a finishing school in New York, she had returned home, to find out that popularity in a small set is not everything. Some persons said that a desire to climb had led her to single out Ernest for especial favor. His name would be an open sesame to a great many Boston doors. The little circles of rich, self-made men, self-satisfied women in which she moved did not touch that one in which she knew Ernest rightfully belonged. When, innocently enough, Ernest would speak of some invitation he had received, or would mention familiarly some one whose name for her had a kind of sacredness, all this was like a drop from Tantalus' cup for poor Eugenie. But Ernest, measuring himself by his lack rather than by his possessions, never associated worldliness with Eugenie. He was captivated by her beauty, by her vivacity, by her brilliancy in repartee--Miss Theodora would have called the last "pertness." She spoke to him of his aunt, whom she knew by sight, wished that she might know her, and asked more about Kate Digby, who, Ernest said, was just like a sister to him. "I should like to meet her," said Eugenie; and Ernest, before he left the city, had asked Kate to call on her. A curious expression, which he could not quite read, came over Kate's face as she replied, "Really, I don't believe I can, Ernest; I haven't time enough now to call on half the girls I know. There are a dozen sewing circle calls that I've owed for a year, and it wouldn't be worth while to begin with any new people." Nor, with all his attempts at persuasion, could Ernest get Miss Theodora to take the least interest in Eugenie. "You know what I think about the whole matter," she said. "I won't dwell on my disappointment, but it will be time enough for me to know her when you are really engaged." What wonder that Ernest, nearing Denver, felt disheartened, oppressed by his aunt's opposition, and the indefiniteness of his relations with Eugenie. [Illustration] XXII. Miss Theodora watered the morning-glories in the little yard behind the house with sighs, if not with tears. It was a poor little garden, this spot of greenery in the desert of back yards on which her windows looked. The flowers which she cultivated were neither many nor rare. Nasturtiums, sweet peas and morning-glories were dexterously trained to hide the ugliness of the bare brown fence. She had a number of hardy geraniums and a few low-growing things between the geraniums and the border of mignonette which edged the long, narrow garden bed. In one corner of the yard there was the dead trunk of a pear tree, whose crookedness Miss Theodora had tried to hide by trying to make a quick-growing vine climb over it. Curiously enough, all these attempts had been unsuccessful, and Ernest, commenting thereon, had said, laughingly: "Why, yes, Aunt Theodora, that stump is so ugly that not even the kitten will climb over it." Nevertheless, there had been a time when the tree was full of leaves, and Miss Theodora, glancing at it now, a month after her nephew's departure, sighed, as she recalled how Ernest and Kate had loved to sit in its shade. Sometimes they had played shop there, when Ernest was always the clerk and Kate the buyer; but more often they had sat quietly on warm spring afternoons, while Ernest read and Kate cut out paper dolls from the fashion plates of an old magazine. Indeed, there were few things in the house or out of it that did not remind Miss Theodora of these two young people. How could she bear it, then, that their paths were to lie entirely apart? Did Kate feel aggrieved at Ernest's attachment to "that girl," as Miss Theodora always characterized Eugenie? She wondered if she herself had been too stern in her attitude toward Ernest's love affair. She had not been severe with Ernest,--she deserved credit for that, she said to herself,--yet she recalled with a pang his expression of dismay when she had said, "Really, Ernest, you cannot expect me to call on Miss--Miss Kurtz; at least, not at present." She had excused herself by reflecting that he was not old enough to decide in a matter of this kind. It was very different from letting him choose his own profession,--though she was beginning to think that even in this matter she had made a mistake. If he had stayed at Cambridge he might never have met Eugenie Kurtz. She had yielded to Ernest in the former case largely from a belief, founded on many years' observation, that half the unhappiness of middle life comes from the wrong choice of a career. She had seen men of the student temperament ground down to business, and regretting the early days when they might have started on a different path. She had noticed lawyers and clergymen who were better fitted to sell goods over a counter, and she had begun to think that medicine was the only profession which put the right man in the right place. This had influenced her in letting Ernest choose his own career. But now, surely the time had come for her to be firm. Marriage--other mistakes might be rectified, but you could never undo the mischief caused by an ill-considered marriage. Oh, how happy she might have been, if only Ernest and Kate were to be married. Well, it was not too late yet, and it seemed more than probable that her own stern attitude might help to bring about the desired result--a breaking off of his attachment to "that girl." The more she thought about Ernest and Kate the more confused grew poor Miss Theodora. She trained up some wandering tendrils of morning-glory, and with relief heard Diantha saying, respectfully: "Mr. Somerset's in the house, ma'am. He's been waiting some time." She set her watering-pot down hastily on the ground beside her. Here was some one whose advice she could safely ask. She had not seen Richard Somerset since Ernest went away in June,--not, indeed, since he had made the important announcement. "I think myself," said her cousin, after they had talked for some time about Ernest's professional prospects, and had begun to touch on the other matter, "I think myself that you make a mistake in not calling on the girl--no matter how the affair turns out. It would please Ernest, and it couldn't do much harm. I've come to think that the more you fall in with a young man's ideas at such a time, the more likely he is to come around in the end to your way of thinking. For all Ernest is so gentle, he's pretty determined--just like John. You know he never could be made to give up a thing when once he'd set his mind on it." "Yes, I know," responded Miss Theodora mildly. "Well," continued her cousin, "I'm not sure but that you are making a mistake in this case. Now, really, I don't believe that the girl or her people are half bad. It's surprising occasionally to find some of these people one don't know not so very different from those we have been brought up with. I remember when I was on one of those committees for saving the Old South, a man on the committee who lived up there at the South End invited us to meet at his house. Now, he gave us a supper that couldn't have been surpassed anywhere. The silver and china were of the best, and everything in the house was in perfectly good form,--fine library, good pictures, and all,--and positively the most of us had never heard of the fellow until we met him on that committee. Well, I dare say it's a good deal the same way with this Kurtz." Almost unconsciously Miss Theodora raised her hand in deprecation. "Yes," he went on, "naturally you don't want to think about it at present; but he's made a lot of money, and the East India trade that set up some of our grandfathers wasn't so very different from his business. Besides, Mr. Kurtz has some standing. I see he's treasurer for the Home for Elderly and Indigent Invalids,--and that means something. Think it over, Theodora, and don't let any girl come between you and Ernest." Much more to the same purpose said Richard Somerset, thereby astonishing his cousin. To her he had always seemed conservatism embodied. But he had not lived in the midst of a rapidly growing city without feeling the pulse of the time. While his own life was not likely to be affected by the new ideas which he had begun to absorb, he was not afraid to give occasional expression to them. Richard Somerset was several years older than Miss Theodora. In early life he had had the prospect of inheriting great wealth. With no desire for a profession, he let his taste turn in the direction of literary work. He had large intentions, which he was in no haste to carry out. With letters to several eminent men in England, France and Germany, he, as soon as he was graduated, started on a European tour. He studied in a desultory way at one or two great universities, enjoyed foreign social life of the quiet and professional kind, and acquired colloquial ease in two or three modern languages. Then his tour, which had lasted nearly three years, was cut short by his father's death. For several years afterward, with large business interests to look after, he had scant time for literary work. He managed, however, to bring out one historical monograph--a study of certain phases of Puritan life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Thereafter, no other book came from his pen, though he contributed occasional brief articles to a well-known historical magazine, and over the signature of "Idem" sent many communications of local interest to a certain evening paper of exclusive circulation. Finally Richard Somerset found himself so immersed in business that he ceased even to aspire to literary renown. But he continued to read voraciously, and at length, when the great fire swept away the two large buildings which he and his sister owned, he was less disturbed than he ought to have been. His sister, however, took this loss to heart. She had married when not very young a man with no money, and had found herself not so very long afterwards a widow with two daughters to educate according to the station--as she said--in which Providence had placed them. To make up, to an extent at least, for her loss, her brother surrendered a good share of the income remaining to him. He did this with a secret satisfaction not entirely due to the fact that he was helping his sister. He felt that he was paying a kind of premium for the freedom from care which the burning up of his property had brought him. He paid the premium cheerfully, betook himself to a sunny room in a house not far from the Athenaeum, and thereafter devoted himself to his books. His day was regularly divided; a certain amount of time to eating, sleeping, exercise, and to society, including the Club, for he was no hater of his fellow men and women--and a certain amount of time to the Athenaeum. At first he had intended to resume his historical research. But the periodical room of the Athenaeum at length claimed the most of his time. He read English newspapers, French reviews and American magazines, and this in itself was an occupation. Yet sometimes as he sat near one of the windowed alcoves, and looked out over the old graveyard, his conscience smote him. When he saw the sunshine filtering through the overhanging boughs of the old trees upon the gray gravestones, his thoughts were often carried back to that historic past, in which he had once had so much interest. Then, as he glanced past the pyramidal Franklin monument, noting the busy rush of life in the great thoroughfare on the other side of the high iron fence, he would ponder a little over the contrasts between the Boston of today and the Boston of the past. His reflections if put on paper would have been valuable. As it was, he did no more than give occasional expression to his views when among his intimate friends. He realized, nevertheless, that from them he received but scant sympathy. Like most persons with original ideas, he was thought to be just a little peculiar. "Queer, you know; never sees things just as we do; but still awfully sensible," some of the club men would say, without observing the contradiction implied in this speech. Yet in spite of an occasional criticism of this kind Richard Somerset was admittedly a popular man, constantly consulted in matters where real judgment was the chief requisite. In emergencies, when special committees were formed to attend to things philanthropic or literary, he was always the first man thought of as a suitable member. Miss Theodora often wondered what she should have done without him; but reflecting long over this his latest advice about her attitude toward Eugenie, she felt not wholly satisfied. [Illustration] XXIII. Ben was again in Boston. A position on the staff of a great railroad had been offered him, and Boston for some time would be his headquarters. He was not sorry to be at home. His mother and father seemed to him to be growing less capable. His sisters needed him, and his salary was large enough to enable him to do for them the many little things that add so much to young girls' pleasure. To Miss Theodora his return was almost as great a boon as to his own family. At least once a day he called to see what he could do for her, and usually he went within the house to have a little chat with her. It was not strange that they talked chiefly of Ernest. Ben's nature was strongly sympathetic, and he knew what subject lay nearest Miss Theodora's heart. Yet he disturbed her by telling her plainly that he really thought that she ought to take some notice of Eugenie. "But they're not engaged," apologized Miss Theodora, who discerned in Ben a feeling that she was unjust to Ernest. "I know they're not," he replied; "but it's much the same thing as if they were. Ernest won't change, and her father will soon give his consent." Yet Miss Theodora could not get herself into a relenting mood, though Ben, like Richard Somerset, added to her confusion. Sometimes when Ben called at Miss Theodora's he found Kate there. In her presence little was said about Ernest, and nothing about Eugenie. He had thought himself almost disloyal to Kate when he had asked Miss Theodora to recognize Eugenie. His only defence was his friendship for Ernest, and he was pleased enough that Ernest had never sought his advice in this love affair of his. How could he have counselled Ernest to be more appreciative of Kate without disclosing his view of her feelings, and how could he have encouraged Ernest in his love for Eugenie without being disloyal to Kate? But what was Ernest made of, he queried, to pass Kate by for a girl like Eugenie, well enough in her way, perhaps, but oh! so different from Kate? Then, as he glanced at the latter, he could but wonder if certain changes which he noticed in her--a quietness of expression, an unwonted slowness of response, so unlike her former habit of repartee--were induced by regret at this new turn in Ernest's affairs. It was a matter about which he himself could say nothing. His own feeling for her was now too strong. He wondered if any one would even suspect how much he had cared for Kate. Kate of course must never know. He would not run the risk of destroying their friendship by rash expressions of a regard warmer than she had dreamed of. Surely he was not presumptuous in believing that Kate valued this friendship. Certainly there was no one else to whom he could open his own heart as freely as to her; and he flattered himself that she confided not a little in him. This autumn she had come to town in advance of her mother, and was spending a month with Miss Theodora. He saw her often, therefore, sometimes when he called at Miss Theodora's, sometimes in one of the neighboring side streets, on her way, as he usually thought, to visit some of her colored beneficiaries. Ben knew that Kate, since she had come of age, had spent no small share of her income in furthering schemes for the improvement of various poor people. Some of these schemes he fully approved; others seemed to him of doubtful value. Yet his disapproval, though he might not have admitted it to himself, was based on no firmer ground than his wish that Kate, as far as possible, should be spared the sight and knowledge of disagreeable things. Meeting her one day, "It seems to me that you are always running away from Miss Theodora's," he had said in a tone of mock reproof. "Oh, well, only when I go to my cooking class. You see, it's such fascinating work, and the new teacher doesn't get on with those children half as well as I do. She's a good teacher, but it's the human nature, the black human nature, that she does not exactly understand. When things are running smoothly I don't expect to see her more than once or twice a week." "Once or twice a week," echoed Ben, "about twice as often as you ought to inhale the odors of Phillips Street." "Oh, nonsense, you should see our room, as clean and bright as fresh paint and paper can make it, with its perfectly ideal arrangements in the shape of stove and dishes." Ben smiled, though not exactly in approval. Yet more and more he realized her power in the neighborhood. "See that new machine," said Miss Chatterwits, when he called on her one day, and she pointed proudly to a new combination of polished wood and shining metal. "Well, Kate bought me that. She gives me a good deal of fine sewing to do, and thought this machine would be handier than my old one, which I'd had--well, I won't say how long, but almost ever since they were first made. It had grown kind of rickety, and hadn't any modern improvements." "This one looks as if it could do almost everything," said Ben, glancing at it a second time. "Well, I do get a sight of comfort with it. Kate, or p'r'aps I ought to say Miss Digby, allows me so much a week, and expects to have all my time. She has me do white stitching for her,--which I always do by hand,--and make garments of various kinds for her poor people, which I do on the machine." Miss Chatterwits said "poor people" in a very dignified tone. She was never quite sure that she enjoyed sewing for these dependents. "You must be kept pretty busy, then," responded Ben. "Well, not so busy as I might be," she answered. "Some weeks there's very little for me to do. But I get my money just the same," she added quickly. "To tell you the truth, I guess Kate wanted to keep me out of the Old Ladies' Home, where I certainly should be living this very minute if she hadn't planned things out for me. Of course you wouldn't mention this to any one else;"--and she looked at Ben earnestly, for she suddenly remembered that the outside world did not know of this little arrangement. "Of course I won't mention it," said the young man; "but it's just like Kate, isn't it?" "Yes, it is; you see, she found out just how I was situated after my sisters died. There wasn't a cent of our savings left, and people began to get so dressy that they thought they had to have their things made out of the house, or employ young women. Not that I couldn't have done as well as anybody, with the help of paper patterns, but people didn't think so, and I was at my wits' end. What to do I didn't know--" "There was Miss Theodora," began Ben. "Yes, she was ready enough, and she kept me along with the little work she had. But Kate herself kind of interfered with that. She said Miss Theodora had worn old clothes long enough, and she some way persuaded her to get that dress for Ernest's graduating exercises made down town. Well, it seems a pity, when Miss Theodora's got almost a whole trunk of things to be cut over, that she shouldn't use them up. However, just when I was at my wits' end, Kate came along, and says she: 'How much ought you to earn every week to live comfortably? I'll add a third to that if you'll save all your time for me; I see that I'll have to have lots of sewing done the next year or two;'--and though I knew it was me she was thinking of more than herself, I was glad enough to say 'yes' to her offer." After this Miss Chatterwits wondered how she had happened to open her heart so to Ben. A third person would have accounted for it by the fact that Ben and Miss Chatterwits were both deeply interested in the same object. [Illustration] XXIV. Henceforth, after his conversation with Miss Chatterwits, Ben was more attentive to her than he had ever been before. When he met her he always accompanied her to the door, and if she had been at the grocer's or the baker's, he insisted on carrying her parcels. "I used to think it was very shiftless to buy bakers' bread," she said one day, apologizing for the large loaf which Ben had transferred under his own arm. "But it ain't shiftless when you're only one. It wouldn't pay me to have a regular baking. The bread would get stale before I could eat it all,"--to which Ben assented. "Ben always was a good boy," she confided to a neighbor, "which it isn't to be wondered at when you remember who his great-grandfather was. It isn't every young man, especially with as good a position as he's got, would walk up the street with an old woman like me." She appreciated his kindness the more because the rising generation of the neighborhood paid very little attention to her. They beheld only a little old woman, somewhat bent in the back, with sparse, gray curls, queer clothes, and an affected walk, instead of the dignified person, as she pictured herself to be, whose acquaintance with better days gave her an elegance of aspect which the boys ought at least to respect. Ben, therefore, realizing that the little woman was always glad to see him, made her frequent, if brief, calls. Sometimes he carried her a book, or some fruit, or at least a breath of news from the outside world--which she liked to hear about, even while professing to despise it. Perhaps Ben was not altogether single-minded in this matter--who of us is absolutely single-minded about anything? Perhaps he visited Miss Chatterwits as much to hear her talk about Kate as to give pleasure to the old lady herself. Perhaps Miss Chatterwits, reading his mind better than he did himself, often talked purposely of the subject that lay so very near his heart. It was certainly no accident when she turned nervously to Ben one day with the words: "There's something I feel's if I ought to tell you;"--and the young man rose from the little wooden rocker in which he had vainly tried to look comfortable, saying cheerfully: "Is there? Well, do tell me." Then Miss Chatterwits bridled a little, and blushed, and said: "Well, of course, there's some people that think an old maid hasn't any real knowledge of matters relating to the affections"--she did not exactly like to come out broadly with "love affairs"--"but, so far as I'm concerned myself, I know pretty well what's going on around me and how people feel about most things--though I don't always tell what I know." Then Ben felt himself growing a little uncomfortable, while the blood rushed to his face. It was leap year, but surely Miss Chatterwits was not going to wax sentimental toward him. She did not leave him long in doubt. "As I tell Kate," she continued, "people don't always know the exact state of their own feelings. She thinks she'll be an old maid, but she's making a mistake if she thinks she'd be happier,--not that I haven't got along well enough myself. But Kate isn't calculated to live alone. Someway she and her mother ain't very congenial, and I guess Ralph's rather domineering. I know he's tried to stop some of her cooking classes--and--" Here Miss Chatterwits stopped--and then began to talk again. "Ben, you know that photograph that you and Ernest had taken in a group--Ernest on his bicycle, and you standing alongside?" "Oh, a little tintype." "Yes, so it was. I guess it's six or seven years since it was taken." "Yes, it must be." "Well, one day I'd been fitting on something for Kate, and she left her watch behind. There was a little locket hanging to the end of it, and I went to pick the watch up; it caught on the handle of a drawer, and as I pulled it it accidentally jerked open, and there, inside that locket, was that picture." "Oh, my dear Miss Chatterwits, it was too large to go inside any locket." "Oh, I don't mean the whole picture, but the head--your head--it had been cut clear off. There was your head in Kate's locket." Ben looked annoyed. He felt that something had been told him which he had no right to hear. He did not know what to say. "I'm losing my own head," he murmured; but to Miss Chatterwits--putting on a bold face--he said: "Oh, you must have seen Ernest's picture; you know we look alike;"--and he laughed, for no two faces could be more unlike. But Miss Chatterwits shook her head. "Oh, no; I'm not blind. There's many other things I could tell you, too; but I speak for your own good, for I'm most as fond of you as I am of Kate." With these mysterious words, she opened the door for Ben, who seemed in haste to go, to ponder perhaps what she had said, or to put it out of his mind,--which, Miss Chatterwits wondered as he left her. In suggesting to Ben what she believed to be Kate's feeling toward him, Miss Chatterwits was governed by various motives. Chief, probably, was her belief that her interference was really for Kate's good. "I wish that somebody had ever interfered for me," she said to herself, thinking of the one young man who had ever interested her, who she really believed had been prevented only by bashfulness from reciprocating her feelings. "I believe it's the duty of older people to try to bring things about," she thought. "At any rate, I don't believe Kate could be offended at what I said. I know when people are just fitted for each other. Miss Theodora don't understand about those things. She's all wrong about it's being Ernest and Kate. She isn't observing. Mrs. Stuart Digby would a sight rather it had been Ernest than Ben, little as she cared for Ernest; and I'd be glad enough to help on things, just for the sake of bothering Mrs. Digby. She never looks my way when she meets me, and I did hear that she told Kate she wished she wouldn't come to see me so much. Well, it's easier to look behind you than ahead, and I'll not say another word to Ben or Kate, but I'll wait and see." Ben tried to attach no importance to what Miss Chatterwits had said. "Suppose Kate does wear my picture in her locket--we're very old friends, and that does not signify anything." The next day he chanced to meet Kate at the crowded Winter Street crossing, after she had been shopping. Even as he piloted her across the street, threading his way under the very feet of the car and carriage horses, his eye fell on the old-fashioned locket dangling from her fob. "Whose picture have you in that locket? Whose picture have you in that locket?" echoed itself in a dangerous refrain in his mind, until he feared that he should utter the words aloud. It was a clear, crisp afternoon; the few autumn leaves that had fallen cracked under their feet; the afternoon sun shone on the State House dome until it looked itself like a second sun. "Did you ever know so delightful a day?" said Kate. "Never," said Ben positively. They took the longest way home, skirting the edge of the Frog Pond; and then--what would Mrs. Digby have said?--they sat down on a settee. Except for some small boys on the opposite shore sailing a refractory toy boat, they were almost alone, though in the very heart of the city. Kate gazed abstractedly at the clear reflection of the tall trees in the mirror before them. She dared not look at Ben, for she felt his eyes upon her, and this knowledge made her heart beat uncomfortably. She fingered nervously the little package that she had brought from down town, and tried to think of something to say to break the spell. Ben saw that she avoided his eyes, and after waiting vainly for a glance from her, he could bear the strain no longer. Speak he must, and would. For what reason could Kate have for treasuring that memento of himself, if it were not that?-- "Kate," he cried, leaning toward her, while the refrain in his brain found vent at last in words, "whose picture have you in that locket?" Kate started violently, grasping the locket, as if detected in some crime. "Why do you ask?" she said, facing him resolutely, her cheeks crimson, her eyes bright. But her voice trembled, and Ben, with a lover's perception, taking courage from these signs, laid his hand gently on hers and drew the tell-tale locket from her unresisting grasp. "Shall I open it, Kate?" he said slowly. "Remember, it will be my answer." She looked into his eyes at last, and--well--what the answer was he read there you or I need not inquire. It is enough to know that half an hour later Ben and Kate walked homeward, apparently unconscious of everything but each other's existence. They even passed by one or two acquaintances without bowing, although without great effort they really could have seen them perfectly well. When they reached Miss Theodora's door they stood for a minute looking down the hill. "How blue the water is!" said Kate, gazing at the river, "and what an exquisite tint in the sky! Did you ever see anything so lovely?" "Yes, I see something far lovelier now," said Ben, regarding Kate herself intently. Her face seemed to reflect the ruddy tint she admired. "I meant the sunset," she said firmly. "I should call it sunrise," smiled Ben,--and thus they entered the house. [Illustration] XXV. Poor Miss Theodora! She could never have imagined herself so indifferent to anything that concerned Kate as she was at first to the news of her engagement. But at length, after she had several times seen Kate and Ben together, she wondered that she had not long before realized their fitness for each other. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in believing that Kate and Ernest could have been happy together. Certainly, she had been very blind in her estimate of Kate's feelings. She never knew, for pride forbade the young girl to dwell on the rather painful subject, how difficult it was for Kate and Ben to gain Mrs. Digby's consent to their engagement. It could hardly be said, indeed, that she gave her consent. She simply submitted to the inevitable. Kate was of age, and had her own money, an independence, if not a fortune; and Mrs. Digby, after using every argument, decided to make the best of what she could not help. Ralph, at least, would commit no social folly like this of his sister's--Ralph, that model of discretion and mirror of good form. She did not even, as Miss Theodora had dreaded, reprove her cousin for allowing this love affair to develop unchecked by her. Whatever she may have thought of Miss Theodora's blindness, she decided to make Kate's engagement a family affair--an affair of her own small family, in which, apparently, she intended not to include her cousin. Then Miss Theodora, feeling her heart soften as she watched Kate and Ben, wondered if she had not been too hard with Ernest. Ought she not to show some interest in Eugenie? Though this query never shaped itself in words spoken to Kate or any one else, it pressed itself upon her constantly. A sentence from Ernest's last letter haunted her: "I cannot be perfectly happy until I know that you and Eugenie have met. She has not written to me for some time, and I am almost sure this is because she is so much hurt at the coldness of my relatives. I did expect something different from you and Kate." This letter touched Miss Theodora more than a little; but Kate made no response when her cousin read it to her. Though she could not tell exactly why, Kate's silence annoyed her. She even began to wonder what she should wear when she made the first call, and she recalled all Ernest had said about Eugenie's critical taste in dress. She was glad that Kate had insisted on her having an autumn street gown made at a fairly fashionable dressmaker's. Miss Chatterwits happened to be sewing at Miss Theodora's on the day when the latter made her decision about Eugenie. In spite of the new dressmaker, Miss Theodora still had some work for the old seamstress. Her method of working always afforded Kate great amusement. For, as she talked, the points of a dozen pins projected from between her teeth, where she held them for convenience. She still wore close to her side the self-same little brown velvet cushion, or it looked like the same one, which had always astonished Ernest by its capacity. Though it was hardly an inch thick, Miss Chatterwits had a habit of running into its smooth surface long darning needles and shawl pins, as well as fine needles and pins. What became of them was always a matter of deep conjecture to Ernest, for they were sometimes embedded until neither head nor eyes could be seen. It seemed as if they must have pierced Miss Chatterwits' bony waist. Could she possibly be so thin as not to have any flesh to feel the pricks? Bones, of course, have no feeling, used to think Ernest, watching with a kind of fascination each motion of Miss Chatterwits' hand, as she thrust half a dozen long pins into the unresisting cushion. On this important day when Miss Theodora began to feel a change of heart toward Eugenie, she sat down to help Miss Chatterwits with her work. "There's a morning paper," said the seamstress. "Tom Fetchum handed it to me on his way down town; said he had read it all but the deaths and marriages, which he knew I'd like to see. I ain't had time to look at it yet, so you might read them to me, Miss Theodora." Miss Theodora, putting on her glasses, turned to the appointed place. "Not a soul I know among those deaths! I'm disappointed," said Miss Chatterwits, after Miss Theodora had read the list. "Why, what is it?" she added; for Ernest's aunt was looking up with a curiously dazed expression, as she handed the paper to Miss Chatterwits, and pointed to a brief notice: "KURTZ--DIGBY.--At Troy, N. Y., on the 24th inst., by Rev. John Brown, Eugenie, daughter of Simon Kurtz of Boston, to Ralph, son of the late Stuart Digby of the same city." "Well, I never!" said Miss Chatterwits. "An elopement, I do believe! I'm glad I'm most through this skirt, so's I can run over to Mrs. Fetchum's and tell her. I guess she didn't read the paper very carefully this morning. If she'd seen it she'd 'a' been over here to find out how we took it. It's always safe to read the papers. "Well, how do you feel, Miss Theodora?" she asked at last. But Miss Theodora never told any one exactly how she felt when she heard of the strange ending of Ernest's love affair. To Ernest, of course, she gave a full measure of sympathy; and she was almost sorry that, as things had turned out, he would never know that she had made up her mind to make Eugenie's acquaintance. Since she had, though for only a brief time, almost changed her point of view, she felt herself to be hypocritical in receiving his praise for her acumen: "You knew better than I what she was like." Kate was indignant at her brother's treachery. "I shall never forgive him for deceiving Ernest so. But I can't say that I'm surprised. I knew that she and Ralph had had a great flirtation even before she met Ernest. It was that which made me so unwilling to call on her. But I never thought that Ralph would marry her. Mamma, I believe, is going to receive her as if everything had been perfectly above board. But I know it's only pride that leads her to take this stand. She really feels the whole thing very keenly." Ben, when he heard of the elopement, could not help recalling the episode of the stolen skates, and he wondered if Ralph had made love to Eugenie from the mischievous motives by which he had so often in their boyhood allowed himself to be influenced against Ernest. If so, he was likely to be the meter out of his own punishment. For a bride stolen merely to annoy another person is likely to make more trouble than any other stolen possession. Strangely enough, Ernest himself recovered most quickly from the mortification of the whole affair. There was at first the shock to his pride, mingled with contempt for the deceit practised on him by Ralph and Eugenie. But he was so young as to recover quickly, and the element of contempt helped him to brush the whole matter aside. You, perhaps, may think less well of Ernest for finding consolation so readily, but you must remember that he never was a sentimentalist. Moreover, neither you nor I may know exactly what the workings of his mind may have been. Doubtless there was many a sleepless night, and many a bitter tear, before he was ready to show a stern front to the world. In Boston it might have been a much harder thing for him to bear the blow which fate had leveled at him. After all, Massachusetts and Colorado are far apart; and if propinquity is fate bearing, distance and separation are more destructive of sentimental illusions than the average sentimentalist admits. In Ernest's case, hard work was absorbing, and even Grace Easton, William Easton's pretty young daughter, was a long time in winning the place which she afterward held in his heart. [Illustration] XXVI. You who look at the simple events which I have been relating (from the outside and at a distance) may have other criticisms to make of Ernest. You may think it impossible that a youth so well placed, as he was at Harvard, should have turned his back upon its paths of pleasantness for the narrower way that meant so much hard work. Yet Ernest had not allowed himself to be led or governed by an illusion. In the whole world the serious student, the man who has his own way to make, can find no better opportunity than at Harvard. No one could realize this better than Ernest himself, in that time of storm and stress when he had felt that the chart of his life must be mapped out by his own hand. But his, he saw, was a special case, and the surest way to free himself from all entanglements and to place himself at the command of duty, was, he thought, to start out on an entirely new course. It was his Puritan inheritance, this devotion to duty when once duty had shown clearly her kindly but resolute visage. Yet my story has been ill told if it has seemed to be more the story of Ernest than of Miss Theodora. For very few of us does life hold any marked surprises, any startling events. A whole life is often merely the summary of many very commonplace happenings. Its real events are more likely to be those moral crises when the soul must put itself in harmony with all those external happenings which it has no power to control. Nor is it one of the least of life's lessons that it would be indeed a fatal gift, if it were ours--this longed for power to turn the tide of events. Take, for example, the case of Miss Theodora; what a feeble figure she had been in her efforts to turn the current of affairs that made up her life. How helpless her will to accomplish her desires! If John had not married Dorothy--if Ernest had been willing to take his grandfather's profession--if he had never met Eugenie--if he and Kate had never cared for each other,--with all these "ifs" turned into verities, how different, Miss Theodora thought, had been her outlook on life. But we, who regard these things from the point of view of the impartial onlooker, know that the fulfilling of her desires would not have made her happiness, nor for the happiness of her nephew. If in trying to show you this I have seemed to dwell too long on the ordinary happenings in a simple life, remember that these, after all, were not the things which I count of chief importance. To me the great events in Miss Theodora's life were those three occasions when she had to summon her strength to great decisions. These soul crises counted for more than any other happenings in her life. First, there was that struggle when she had to choose between her lover and her nephew; then, almost as severe, though different in kind, the battle in which at last she had given in to Ernest in his choice of a profession; and last, although it had had no outward result, her merging of her own prejudice against Eugenie in a readiness to do what would probably make Ernest happier. Hardly less bitter than these three struggles was the one which Miss Theodora waged to decide whether or not it was her duty to join Ernest in the West. At last she yielded in this more quickly though with greater pain than in the two cases when she had given in to Ernest about Harvard and about Eugenie. She left Boston with the less reluctance, perhaps, because of certain changes--some persons called them "improvements"--that had begun to appear in her well-loved West End. The tall apartment houses which had begun to creep in even before she left the city, the electric cars now dashing through Charles street, were innovations that cut her to the heart. The breaking up of her modest little home soon followed. "You will spend half of every year with us," said Kate, now pleasantly situated in a house whose western windows overlooked the river. She had already begun to make life pleasant for Ben's sisters, one of whom was always staying with her. "That will depend upon Ernest," Miss Theodora had answered, smiling. As a matter of fact, she did not return to Boston, even for a visit, until after Ernest's marriage; and so with her removal to Colorado, her story--as a West End story--may be said to end. But if I should tell you more about Miss Theodora, I would describe the delightful New England home which, with Diantha's help, she made for Ernest in Denver. Nor would I be able to omit telling of the romance which came into her own life. At first she tried to avoid meeting William Easton, now a widower; but efforts of this kind, of course, were useless. They met calmly enough; and as they talked together, the years that had passed seemed as nothing. "So you have come West, after all, Theodora--and for Ernest's sake, too, though it was for his sake you refused to come so long ago." "Yes," she said, "for Ernest's sake it seems, though when I see how much he owes to you, I realize that you are more than kind--almost cruelly kind--" Then William Easton, smiling somewhat sadly, said nothing in reply, though indeed there was no need of words. We all know how a story of this kind ends in books; and even in real life old lovers sometimes renew the pledges of youth. (The End.) 
28267	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 28267-h.htm or 28267-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/8/2/6/28267/28267-h/28267-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/8/2/6/28267/28267-h.zip) VENUS IN BOSTON; A Romance of City Life. "Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways! While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape The fascination of thy magic gaze? A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste, thy dear, delusive shape." BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD {First published 1849} CONTENTS VENUS IN BOSTON; A Romance of City Life INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER I. _The blind Basket-maker and his family._ 3 CHAPTER II. _Innocence in the Grip of Lust._ 7 CHAPTER III. _The Rescue._ 17 CHAPTER IV. _A night in Ann street._ 20 CHAPTER V. _The Chevalier and the Duchess._ 52 CHAPTER VI. _The Stolen Package._ 75 CHAPTER VII. _Showing the operations of Jew Mike._ 90 CHAPTER VIII. _The Chambers of Love._ 98 [Illustration: Frontispiece to _Venus in Boston_, 1850 edition. By courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library.] INTRODUCTION I conceive it to be a prominent fault of most of the tales of fiction that are written and published at the present day, that they are not sufficiently _natural_--their style is too much exaggerated--and in aiming to produce startling effects, they depart too widely from the range of probability to engage the undivided interest of the enlightened and judicious reader. Believing as I do that the romance of reality--the details of common, everyday life--the secret history of things hidden from the public gaze, but of the existence of which there can be no manner of doubt--are endowed with a more powerful and absorbing interest than any extravagant flight of imagination can be, it shall be my aim in the following pages to adhere as closely as possible to truth and reality; and to depict scenes and adventures which have actually occurred, and which have come to my knowledge in the course of an experience no means limited--an experience replete with facilities for acquiring a perfect insight into human nature, and a knowledge of the many secret springs of human action. The most favorable reception which my former humble productions have met with, at the hands of a kind and indulgent public, will, I trust, justify the hope that the present Tale may meet with similar encouragement. It certainly shall not prove inferior to any of its predecessors in the variety of its incidents or the interest of its details; and as a _romance of city life_, it will amply repay the perusal of all country readers, as well as those who reside in cities. With these remarks, preliminary and explanatory, I proceed at once to draw the curtain, and unfold the opening scene of my drama. CHAPTER I _The blind Basket-maker and his family._ It was a winter's day, and piercing cold; very few pedestrians were to be seen in Boston, and those few were carefully enveloped in warm cloak and great coats, for the weather was of that intense kind that chills the blood and penetrates to the very bone. Even Washington street--that great avenue of wealth and promenade of fashion, usually thronged with the pleasure-seeking denizens of the metropolis--was comparatively deserted, save by a few shivering mortals, who hurried on their way with rapid footsteps, anxious to escape from the relentless and iron grasp of hoary winter. And yet on that day, and in that street, there stood upon the pavement directly opposite the "Old South Church," a young girl of about the age of fourteen years, holding in her hand a small basket of fruit, which she offered to every passer-by. Now there was nothing very extraordinary in this, neither was there anything very unusual in the meek and pleading look of the little fruit girl, as she timidly raised her large blue eyes to the face of every one who passed her--for such humble callings, and such mute but eloquent appeals, are the common inheritance of many, very many of God's poor in large cities, and do not generally attract any great degree of notice from the careless (and too often unfeeling) children of prosperity;--but there was something in the appearance of the pale, sad girl, as, in her scant attire she shivered in the biting wind, not often met with in the humble disciples of poverty--a certain subdued, gentle air, partaking of much unconscious grace, that whispered of better days gone by. At length the clock in the steeple of the "Old South" pronounced that the dinner hour had arrived--and despite the intense cold, the street soon became alive with people hurrying to and fro; for what weather can induce a hungry man to neglect that important era in the events of the day--his _dinner_? This perfumed exquisite hurried by to fulfil an appointment and dine at Parker's; the more sober and economical citizen hastened on his way to "feed" at some establishment of less pretensions and more moderate prices; while the mass of the diners-out repaired to appease their hunger at the numerous cheap refectories that abound in the neighborhood. But the poor, forlorn little fruit girl stood unnoticed by the passing throng, which like the curtain of a river hurried by, leaving her upon its margin, a neglected, drooping flower. "Ah," she murmured--"why will they not buy my fruit? I have not taken a single penny to-day, and how can I return home to poor grandfather and my little brother, without food? Good people, could you but see them, your hearts would be softened--." And the tears rolled down her cheeks. While thus soliloquizing, she had not noticed the approach of a little old man, in a faded, threadbare suit, and with a care-worn, wrinkled countenance. He stopped short when he saw that she was weeping, and in an abrupt, yet not unkind manner, inquired-- "My child, why do you weep?" The girl looked up through her tears at the stranger, and in a few artless words related her simple story. She was an orphan, and with her little brother, lived with her grandfather. They were very poor, and were wholly dependent upon a small pittance which the grandfather (who was blind) daily earned by basket making, together with the very small profits which she realized by the sale of fruit in the streets. Her grandfather was very ill, and unable to work, and the poor family had not tasted food that day. "Poor thing!" exclaimed the little old man when she had concluded her affecting narrative. He straightaway began fumbling in his pockets, and it seemed with no very satisfactory result, for he muttered--"The devil! I have no money--not a copper; bah! I can give you nothing. But hold! where do you live, my child?" The girl stated her place of residence, which was in an obscure but respectable section of the city. The little old man produced a greasy memorandum book, and a stump of a pencil, with which he noted down the direction; then, uttering a grunt of satisfaction, but without saying a single word, he resumed his walk, and was soon lost in the crowd. Evening came, and with it a furious snow-storm. Madly the wind careered through the streets--now fiercely dashing the snow into the faces of such unfortunate travellers as chanced to be abroad in that wild weather--now shaking the roofs of crazy old houses--and now tearing away in the distance with a howl of triumph at its power. The storm fiend was abroad--the elements were at war, and yet in the midst of that furious tumult, the poor fruit girl was toiling on her way towards her humble home. She reached it at last. It was a poor and lowly place, the abode of humble but decent poverty; yet the angel of peace had spread her wings there, and contentment had sat with them at their frugal board. True, it was but a garret; yet that little family, with hearts united by holy love, felt that to them it was a _home_. And then its little window commanded a distant view of a shining river, and green, pleasant fields beyond; and all day long, in fine weather, the cheerful sunshine looked in upon them, casting a gleam of gladness upon their hearts. It had been a happy home to the blind basket-maker and his grandchildren; but alas! sickness had laid its heavy hand upon the aged man, and want and wretchedness had become their portion. The girl entered with a sad heart, for she brought no relief to the hungering and sorrowing inmates of that lowly dwelling. Without saying a word she seated herself at the bed-side of her grandfather, and taking his hand in hers, bedewed it with her tears. The old man turned towards her, and said-- "Thou art weeping, Fanny--what distresses thee? Tears are for the aged and the sorrowing--not for the young. Thou hast not brought us food?--well, well; the will of Heaven be done! I shall soon be in the grave, and then thou and Charley--" "No, no, grandfather, pray don't say so," cried the poor girl, sobbing as if her heart would break--"what should we do without you? Heaven may spare you many happy years. I can work for you, and--" "So can I, too," rejoined her brother Charley, a lad eight or nine years of age--"and only to-day I got a promise from Mr. Scott the tailor, that I might, when a little older, run of errands for him, and my wages will be a dollar and a half a week--only think how much money I shall earn!" "Thou art a brave little man," said the grandfather--"but, my children, let us put our trust in God, and if it is His will that my earthly pilgrimage should end, be it so! Thank Heaven, I owe nothing, and can die at peace with all the world." It had long been Fanny's custom to occupy an hour or so every evening, in reading to her grandfather. But that evening she did not, as usual, draw up the little table, and open the pages of some well-thumbed, ancient volume, to read, for perhaps the twentieth time, of the valorous deeds of some famed knight of the olden time, or mayhap, of the triumphant death of some famed martyr for religion's sake. For alas! the frugal but wholesome meal which had always preceded the reading of those ancient chronicles, was now wanting; and the little family sat listening to the raging of the pitiless storm without and counting the weary moments as they passed. The bell in a neighboring steeple had just told the hour of nine, when, as the echo of that last stroke died away in the distance, a heavy step was heard ascending the stairs that led to their humble apartment. As the sound approached nearer, Fanny heard a voice occasionally giving utterance to expressions of extreme irritation and impatience, accompanied by certain sounds indicating that the person, whoever it might be, often stumbled upon the dark, narrow and somewhat dilapidated stair-case. "Blood and bomb-shells!" exclaimed a voice--"I shall never reach the top, and my shins are broken. The devil! there I go again. Corporal Grimsby, thou art an ass, and these stairs are the devil's trap!" And here the luckless unknown paused a moment to breathe, rub his shins, and refresh himself with an emphatic imprecation upon all dark and broken stair-cases in general, but upon _that_ one in particular. At this moment, Fanny made her appearance at the landing with a light, and was astonished to behold her new acquaintance of that afternoon, the little old man who had inquired her residence. A most rueful expression sat upon his visage, and he carried upon one arm a huge basket. The friendly light enabled him soon to reach the end of his journey; he entered the little room without ceremony, and depositing his burden upon the table, exclaimed-- "Hark'ee, child, I am an old soldier, am not apt to grumble at trifles, [_illegible word_] and blunderbusses! I never before got into such a snarl.--Mounting the ramparts of the enemy was mere child's play to it!" Here he began to take out the contents of the basket, meanwhile keeping up a running commentary, during which his countenance wore an expression of the most intense ill-humor, in strange contrast with the evident benevolence of his character and intentions. He found fault with everything which he had brought, although, in truth, the articles were all of excellent quality. "Here," said he, with a growl of dissatisfaction--"is a pair of chickens--starved, skinny imps, for which I paid double their value to that knave of a poultry merchant--bah! And here are some French rolls, that I'll be sworn are as hard as the French cannon balls that were thrown at Austerlitz. These vegetables are well enough, and this pastry hath a savory smell, but pistols and cutlasses! this wine _looks_ as sour as General Grouty's face on a grand parade. Let me draw the cork and taste--no, by the nose of Napoleon! it is excellent--fit for the great Frederick himself. Here, child, haste and spread a cloth, for I am hungrier than a Cossack. Powder and shot! we shall have a supper fit for a Field Marshal!" By this time the eccentric but kind old man had placed upon the table all the materials of an excellent and substantial repast. This done, he turned to the grandfather of Fanny, who had listened to his speech with much astonishment, and exclaimed-- "Cheer thee up, old friend, cheer thee up, and pick a bone with us; here, wash the cobwebs from thy throat by a hearty draught from this flask. I am an old soldier, and love all men; I stand on no ceremony; so fall to, fall to!" Saying this, he seated himself at the table, and having seen that all were duly supplied with a liberal portion of the edibles, commenced the attack with [_illegible word_] truly surprising. Nor were the others at all backward in emulating so good an example. The grandfather, whose illness had mainly been produced by a lack of those little luxuries so essential to the debilities and infirmities of advanced age, after partaking sparingly of what was set before him, felt himself much bettered and refreshed thereby; and Fanny, who had dried her tears, and satisfied the cravings of hunger, smiled her gratitude upon the kind provider. Little Charley had already become much attached to "good Corporal Grimsby," who had given him such a nice supper--while the latter gentleman, having finished his meal, drew forth an antiquated pipe, having a Turk's head for the bowl and a coiled serpent for the stem, which having lighted, he proceeded to smoke with much gravity and thoughtfulness. Not a word did he utter, but smoked away in silence, until the clock struck ten; then pocketing his pipe, and depositing the now empty flask and dishes in the basket, he announced his intention of departing. The grandfather was cut short in a grateful acknowledgment of the stranger's kindness, by the abrupt exit of that singular personage, who bolted down stairs with a precipitancy that was truly alarming, scarce waiting for Fanny to light him down. This singular visit was of course the subject of much surprise and conjecture in the little family of the blind basket-maker; but when Fanny related how the stranger had accosted her in the street, and inquired her residence, they concluded that he was some eccentric but benevolent person, who had taken that method of contributing to the relief of their wants. And who was this queer little old man, so shabby and threadbare--so "full of strange oaths,"--so odd in his manner, so kind in his heart--calling himself Corporal Grimsby--who had come forward at that opportune moment to supply a starving family with food? Time will show. CHAPTER II _Innocence in the Grip of Lust._ The day which succeeded the stormy night described in the last chapter, was an unusually fine one. The sun shone clear and bright, and many people were abroad to enjoy the fine bracing air, and indemnify themselves for having been kept within doors on the preceding day. The streets were covered with an ample garment of snow, and the merry music of the sleigh-bells was heard in every direction. At an early hour, Fanny Aubrey (for that was the name of our little heroine,) issued from her dwelling, and taking the sunny side of the streets, resumed her accustomed perambulations, with her basket on her arm. Fanny was small for her age, but exceedingly pretty; her eyes were of a dark blue--her hair a rich auburn--her features radiant with the inexpressible charm of youth and innocence. I have said that her air was superior to her condition; in truth, every motion of hers had in it a certain winning grace, and her step was light as a fawn's, although her figure was not without a certain degree of plumpness, which gave ample promise of a speedy voluptuous development. Though plumpness in the female figure is considered to be incompatible with perfect grace, I agree with those who regard it as decidedly preferable to an excessive thinness, though the latter be accompanied with the lightness of a zephyr, and the grace of a sylph. Dress is sometimes acknowledged to be a sign of character--and the dress of Fanny Aubrey certainly indicated the native refinement of her mind--for though poor in material and faded by long use, it was well put on and scrupulously neat--indeed, there was something almost coquettish in the style of her bonnet and the arrangement of her scanty shawl--too scanty, alas! to shield her adequately from the inclemency of the weather. As she passed along the street, her beauty and prepossessing appearance attracted the attention of many gay loiterers, who regard her with various feelings of admiration, pity and surprise that one so lovely should pursue so humble an occupation; nor were there wanting many well-dressed libertines, young and old, who gazed with eyes of lustful desire upon the fair young creature, evidently so unprotected and so poor. Reader, pardon us if for one brief moment we pause to contemplate the black and hideous character of THE SEDUCER. Should the teeming hosts of hell's dominions meet in grand convention, amid the mysterious darkness and lurid flames of their eternal abode--should that infernal conclave of murderers, robbers, monsters of iniquity, perpetrators of damning crimes; possessors of black hearts and polluted souls on earth, whose mighty sins had sunk them in that burning pit--should all those lost spirits select from among their number, _one fiend_, the worst of them all, to represent them _all_ on earth--unite within his being _all_ the crimes of which they had collectively been guilty--to show mankind how vast and stupendous have been _all_ the sins perpetrated since the creation of the globe--_that fiend_ could not cast a blacker shadow upon human nature than doth the seducer of female innocence. Oh! if there be one wretch living who deserves to be cast forth from the society of his fellow men--if there be one who deserves to be trod on as a venomous insect, and crushed as the vilest reptile that crawls--it is he who calmly and deliberately sets himself about the hellish task of accomplishing the ruin of a weak, confiding woman--and then, having sipped the sweets and inhaled the fragrance of the flower, tramples it beneath his feet. Will not the thunderbolts of Omnipotent wrath shatter the perjured soul of such a villain? But to resume. Fanny Aubrey pursued her walk, and was so fortunate as to escape the insults (except such as were conveyed in glances,) of the many libertines who are ever ready to take advantage of a female in a situation like hers. As she was passing a magnificent mansion in a quarter of the city mainly occupied by the residences of the aristocracy, a beautiful young lady alighted from a splendid sleigh, and observing the little fruit girl, beckoned her to approach. Fanny modestly complied, and the young lady, with one of the sweetest smiles imaginable selected an orange from her basket, and taking out a purse, presented her with a bright gold coin. "I have no change, Miss," said Fanny, in some confusion. "Keep the money, my poor girl," rejoined the young lady, with a look of deep compassion, as a tear of pity dimmed her bright eyes--"I am sure you need it; you are much too pretty for such an employment. If you will try and pass this way to-morrow at about this time, you may see me again." Amid Fanny's heartfelt thanks, the young lady entered the mansion, and the door was closed. Poor Fanny! she resumed her journey with a light heart. She never before had possessed so much money. Five dollars! the sum seemed inexhaustible, and she began to devise a thousand plans to expend it to advantage--and the fact that she herself was not included in any of those plans, was a beautiful illustration of the unselfishness of her character. Not for a moment did she dream of appropriating it to the purchase of a good warm shawl or dress for herself, although, poor girl! she so much needed both. She would buy a nice comfortable rocking-chair for her grandfather; or a thick great-coat for little Charley--she couldn't make up her mind which, she loved them both so much--yet when she thought of the poor, sick, blind old man, a holy pity triumphed over sisterly affection, and she resolved upon the rocking-chair. Then she determined to hasten homewards to communicate her good fortune to her friends; and on her way she could not help thinking of the beautiful young lady who had given her the money, of her sweet smile, and the kind words she had spoken; and wondered if she should really see her again the next day. These thoughts, and the hope of seeing her benefactress again, made her feel very happy; and she was hastening towards her home with a glad heart, when her footsteps were arrested by a crowd of those dissolute young females, who pervade every section of the city, and are universally known as "apple girls." These girls are usually from ten to fifteen years of age, and are proverbial for their vicious propensities and dishonesty. Under pretence of selling their fruit, they are accustomed to penetrate into the business portions of the city particularly; and in doing this they have two objects in view. In the first place, if on entering an office or place of business, they find nobody in, an opportunity is afforded them for plunder; and it is needless to say they are ever ready to steal and carry off whatever they can lay their hands on. Secondly, these girls have been brought up in vice from their infancy; they are, for the most part, neither more nor less than common prostitutes, and will freely yield their persons to whoever will pay for the same.--Should the merchant, or lawyer, or man of business, into whose office one of these "apple girls" may chance to intrude, solicit her favors (and there are many miscreants, _respectable_ ones, too, who do this, as we shall show,) and offer her a small pecuniary reward, he has only to lock his door and draw his curtains, to accomplish his object without the slightest difficulty. Thus, their ostensible employment of selling fruit is nothing but a cloak for their real trade of prostitution and thieving. The profanity and obscenity of their conversation alone, is a sufficient evidence of their true character. The girls whom we have mentioned as having encountered Fanny on her return home, were a squalid and dirty set, though several of them were not destitute of good looks, as far as form and features were concerned. They surrounded her with many a fierce oath and ribald jest, and it was easy to see that they were jealous of her superior cleanliness of person and respectability of character. "Ha, ha!" cried one, a dirty-faced wench of thirteen, clutching Fanny fiercely by the arm, while the poor girl stood afraid and trembling in the midst of that elfish crew--"ha, ha! here is my fine lady, with her smooth face and clean gown, who disdains to keep company with us, and do as we do! Let us tear off her clothes, and roll her in the mire!" They were proceeding to act upon this suggestion, when Fanny, bewildered and speechless with terror, dropped her gold coin, which she held in her hand, upon the ground. It was instantly snatched up by one of the gang, who was immediately attacked by the others, and a fierce struggle ensued, for the possession of the coin, the young wretches tearing, scratching and biting each other like so many wild cats. During this conflict, Fanny made off as fast as she could run, but was followed and overtaken by one of the gang, a large girl of fifteen, who was known among her companions by the pleasing title of "Sow Nance." She was a thief and prostitute of the most desperate and abandoned character, hideously ugly in person, and of a disposition the most ferocious and deceitful.--Laying her brawny hand upon Fanny's shoulder, she said, in a hoarse and croaking voice-- "See here, Miss What's-yer-name, I wants to speak to you, if you please. You needn't be afraid of me, for I won't hurt you. Them thieving hussies has got your money, and you must make up your loss the best way you can. Look at my basket--you see it's empty, don't yer? I've sold all my fruit already, and if you'll go with me, I'll show you a nice gentleman who will buy all the fruit in your little basket, and pay you well, too. It's not far--will you go with me?" The prospect of effecting a speedy sale of her stock in trade, was too tempting to be resisted by poor Fanny, especially in view of the severe loss she had just sustained, in being robbed of the money which the kind young lady had given her. She therefore gladly consented to accompany Sow Nance to the nice gentleman who would pay her so well for the contents of her basket. Poor, innocent, unsuspecting Fanny! she little thought that the abandoned creature at her side was leading her into a snare, imminently dangerous to her peace of mind and future happiness! "I will save up money enough to buy grandfather a rocking-chair, after all," thought she, as she gaily trudged onward, while ever and anon Sow Nance would glare savagely at her from the corners of her snake-like eyes. It is one of the worst qualities peculiar to corrupt human nature, the hatred with which the wicked and abandoned regard the innocent and pure. Fanny had never in the slightest degree injured the wretch who was plotting her ruin;--and Sow Nance had no other reason for hating her, than because she herself was a guilty and polluted being, while Fanny she knew to be without stain or blemish. In about a quarter of an hour they reached a handsome brick house in South street. "This is the place," said Sow Nance, as she rang the door bell; the summons was immediately answered by an old negro woman, who, exchanging a significant look with Nance, admitted them, and ushered them into a large parlor. The apartment was handsomely furnished, the walls adorned with many pictures, and the floor covered with a very rich carpet. "Sit down, young ladies, and I will call Mr. Tickels down," said the old negro woman, as she left the room; in a few moments, a gentleman entered, and regarded Fanny with a gaze so piercing, that the poor girl was covered with confusion. The gentleman was, to all appearances, full sixty years of age; he was a large, portly man, with very gray hair and a very red face: he was attired in a dressing-gown and slippers, and wore a magnificent diamond pin in his shirt frill. This man was one of those wealthy beasts whose lusts run riot on the innocence of young females--whose crimes outnumbered the gray hairs upon his head, and whose riches were devoted to no other purpose than the procurement of victims for his appetite, and the gratification of his abominable passions. A vague, strange fear stole over Fanny, while this gentleman thus viewed her so closely--a fear which she could not define, yet which rendered her excessively uneasy. Apparently the survey was satisfactory to the gentleman--for he smiled, and in doing so displayed two rows of teeth not unlike the fangs of a wolf. Then he beckoned Sow Nance to follow him from the room, and held a whispered conversation with her in the passage. "Who is she, Nance?" asked the gentleman. "Not _one of us_," was the reply, "she sells fruit, and is poor, but her folks are respectable;--you must pay me well for bringing her here, for she's handsome." "True; but are you sure she has never--" "_Sure!_" replied Nance, almost fiercely--"I'll take my oath on it; hasn't she always kept away from us, and ain't all the girls hating her like h----l, 'cause she's virtuous? Don't you suppose _I_ know?" "Good," said the gentleman; and taking a gold coin from his pocket, he gave it to Nance, who, stooping down, secreted it in her stocking; then she noiselessly opened the front door and left the house, singing in a hoarse voice, as she sped on her way towards Ann street, (where she lived,) these barbarous words:-- "The lamb to the wolf is sold, sold, sold; No more she'll return to her fold, fold, fold-- And Sow Nance will dare another to snare, And the wolf shall have her for gold, gold, gold!" The gentleman (I use the word _ironically_, reader,) re-entered the parlor, advanced to where Fanny was seated, and laying his heavy hand upon the young girl's shoulder, glued his polluted lips to her pure cheek. She sprang from his profaning grasp with a cry of terror, and fled towards the door--it was _locked_! The gentleman laughed, and said-- "No, no, my pretty bird, you cannot escape from your cage so easily; and why should you wish to? Your cage shall have golden wires, and you shall be fed on delicacies, my little flutterer--so smooth the feathers of your bright wings, my dear, and sing your sweetest notes!" Fanny burst into tears, and fell on her knees before the old libertine.--Young and innocent as she was, a dark suspicion of his purpose came like a shadow over her soul, and she cried in piteous accents-- "Pray, good sir, let me go home to my poor grandfather and my little brother--they will be expecting me, and will feel worried at my absence. Surely, sir, you will not have the heart to harm me--I am but a poor fruit girl, without father or mother. Pray let me go, sir." That appeal, made touching by the youth and innocence of the speaker, and by her profound distress, might have melted a heart of iron--but it moved not the stony heart of the old villain, and he looked upon her with his cold, hard eyes, and his disgusting smile, as he said-- "Your tears make you doubly interesting, my sweet child. I am afraid that your poor grandfather and your little brother, as you call them, will be obliged to wait a long while for your return, let them worry ever so much at your absence. You say truly that I have not the heart to harm you, a poor fruit girl,--no, I will make a lady of you; and as you have, you say, neither father nor mother, I will supply their place, my pretty dear, and be your _lover_ into the bargain. Those coarse garments shall be changed for silks and satins,--that shining hair shall be made radiant with gems,--jewels shall sparkle on that fair neck, and on those taper fingers,--you shall ride in a carriage, and have servants to wait on you,--and you shall sleep on a downy bed, and live in a grand house, like this. Say, will not all these fine things be better than selling fruit in the cold streets?" But the sobbing girl implored him to let her go home. The gentleman ground his teeth with rage. "Well, well," said he, after a brief pause, and speaking in an assumed tone of kindness, "you _shall_ go home, since you wish it." He rang a bell, and the old negro woman appeared, to whom he whispered for a few moments, and then left the room. "Come, Miss," said the old wench, addressing Fanny, with a grin that was anything but encouraging or expressive of a friendly feeling--"come with me up stairs, and wash the tears from your pretty face; then you shall go home--ha, ha, ha!" It was a demon's laugh, full of malice and hatred; yet Fanny smiled through her tears, for she saw not the old wretch's malignity, and only thought of her escape from the danger which had menaced her, and anticipated the happiness she should feel when once more in safety beneath her own humble roof, in the society of all she held dear on earth. Joyfully did she follow the old wench up stairs and into an apartment still more handsomely furnished than the one below; but what was her astonishment and affright, when her sable conductress gave her a violent push which threw her violently to the floor, and then quickly left the room and locked the door! A presentiment that she was imprisoned, and for the worst of purposes, flashed through her mind, and she made the apartment resound with her shrieks. But, alas! no help was near--no friendly hand was there to burst open the door of her prison, and rescue her from a house, within whose walls she was threatened with the worst fate that can befall a helpless maiden--the loss of her honor. Her loud shrieks penetrated not beyond the precincts of that massive building--her calls for help were answered only by the taunting laugh of the black hag outside, who loaded her with alternate abuse, threats, and curses. At last, exhausted and despairing, poor Fanny threw herself upon the carpet, and prayed--oh, how earnestly!--that no harm might happen to her, which could call the blush of shame to her cheek, or make her poor grandfather think of her as a lost, polluted thing. Somewhat relieved by this, (and who shall say that a holy whisper breathed not into her pure heart the assurance that she should pass unscathed through the fiery furnace?) she arose with a calmer spirit, and began to survey the apartment in which she was confined. It was a large room, very elegantly furnished, containing a piano, and a profusion of paintings. On examining one of these, Fanny turned away with a burning cheek--for it was one of those immodest productions of the French school, which show how art and talent can be perverted to the basest uses. She looked at no more of the pictures, but went to a window and looked out. The view from thence was not extensive, but merely included a garden of moderate size, surrounded by a high wall; the prospect was not a pleasant one, for instead of blooming flowers, the appropriate divinities of such a place, nothing was to be seen but a smooth surface of snow, relieved here and there by gaunt trees, whose leafless branches waved mournfully in the breeze, seeming to sing a requiem for the departed summer. Fanny turned sadly away from this gloomy prospect, and seating herself upon a luxurious sofa, abandoned herself to the melancholy reflections engendered by her situation. Soon the fortitude which she had summoned to her aid, deserted her, and as the increasing darkness of the room betokened the approach of night, a thousand fears chilled her heart. She was alone in that strange house--no friends were near--the treatment she had received from the gentleman and his negro menial, indicated that neither of them would hesitate to do her mischief, if they were so inclined--what if they should murder her--or, dreadful thought! first outrage, and then despatch her! While employed in such terrible meditations as these, the darkness increased; grim shadows hovered around, and dim but terrific shapes seemed to glide towards the trembling girl. She groped her way towards the window, and looked out--there was no moon, and not a star glimmered in the firmament. Soon the darkness grew so intense, that had she held her hand close to her eyes, she could not have seen it. Every moment augmented her fears; and sinking down in one corner, she pressed her hands to her aching eyes, as if to shut out some hideous spectacle. Not long had she been thus, when a mortal terror, to which all her other fears were as nothing, seized her; she shivered with horror, and cold perspiration started from every pore of her skin--for her sense of hearing, painfully acute, detected the presence of a _moving object_ in the room--she heard the rustle of garments--a footstep--the sound of breathing; she strained her eyes through the intense darkness, but could distinguish nothing. The moving object approaching her, nearer and nearer--it seemed to be groping in search of her--and her blood froze with horror when at last a cold hand touched her cheek, and she beheld a pair of eyes glaring at her through the gloom. A low, mocking laugh--a whispered curse--and the object glided away; then Fanny lost all consciousness. When she recovered from the swoon into which she had fallen, daylight was shining through the windows. Hours passed away, and no one came to invade the girl's solitude. At about noon, the door was unlocked, and the old negro woman appeared, bearing a plate of provisions and a basket full of clothing. Placing the food before Fanny, the hag bade her eat, a request readily complied with, as she had fasted since the preceding day. While she was eating, the old negress regarded her with a hideous grin, and eyes expressing all the malignity of a serpent; and at the conclusion of the repast, asked her-- "Well, Miss, how did you pass the night?" Fanny related the fearful visitation she had experienced, and implored to be released from her confinement; the black woman laughed disdainfully. "No, no, Miss," said she, "my master will never let you go until of your own free will, you become his own little lady, and take him for a lover. Listen to me, girl: I am going to speak for your own good. My master is very fond of young ladies such as you, and goes to every expense to get them into the house; but he never likes to _force_ them to his wishes, his delight being to have them _willing_ to receive him as a lover--do you understand? But those silly girls who are _not_ willing, he shuts up in this room, which is haunted by a fearful spectre, who every night visits the obstinate girl, and sometimes punishes her dreadfully, until she consents to my master's wishes." Fanny shuddered--and the old black woman continued, in a gentler tone-- "Now won't you, to avoid this fearful spectre, consent to become my master's little lady? I am sure you will, my dear. See--I have brought you some fine clothes to wear, so that you may be fit to receive Mr. Tickels this afternoon, as he intends to visit you. Now, don't fail to be very good and kind to him, for he loves you very much, and will make a fine lady of you. Come, let us take off those old clothes, and put on this beautiful silk dress that has been bought on purpose for you." We have so far depicted Fanny as a very timid, gentle girl; but she was not destitute of a becoming spirit.--When, therefore, she heard that old wretch so calmly and deliberately talk of her surrendering herself to dishonor and shame, the flush of indignation mantled her cheek; she arose, and boldly confronting her tormentor, said, with spirit and determination-- "I _will not_ wear your fine clothes, nor become the slave of your master's will! He is a villain for keeping me here--and you are a wretch, a wicked wretch, for trying to tempt me to do wrong. I am not afraid of the spectre you speak of, for God will protect me, and keep me from harm. You may kill me, if you like, but I will not--_will not_ be guilty of the wickedness you wish me to commit; and if ever I get free from this bad place, you and your master shall be made to suffer for treating me so. Remember this, you nasty old black devil--remember this!" The negress quailed before the young girl, whose singular beauty was enhanced ten-fold by the glow of indignation on her cheek and the sparkle of anger in her eye. Then, without saying a word, she left the room, locking the door after her. Half an hour elapsed, and the wench again made her appearance; in her hand she carried a short, stout piece of rope. With the fury of a tigress, and a countenance (black as she was) livid with rage, she flew at the young girl, tore every shred of clothing from her person, and then beat her cruelly with the rope, until her fair skin was covered in various places with black and blue marks. In vain poor Fanny implored for mercy; the black savage continued to beat her until obliged to desist by sheer exhaustion. Throwing herself breathless into a chair, she said, with a fierce oath-- "So, Miss--I'm a nasty old black devil, am I? You impudent hussy, how dare you use such language to me? But I'll learn you better. You shall be more civil, and do as my master wishes, and obey me in everything, or I'll not leave a whole bone in your skin. Now put on these new clothes instantly, or I solemnly swear I'll not leave off beating you, until you lie at my feet, a corpse!" Poor Fanny was obliged to obey--for, apart from the black woman's threat, she had no alternative but to put on the costly garments which had been procured for her, her own clothes being torn to pieces; and of course she did not wish to remain in a state of nudity. She therefore dressed herself--and in truth, the garments were well selected, and fitted her to a charm. Even when attired in her old clothes, she had looked exceedingly pretty; but now, dressed in an elegant costume which displayed her fine shape and budding charms to the best advantage, she was positively beautiful. Even the old black woman could not help smiling with satisfaction at her improved appearance. "She is a choice tit-bit for my master's appetite," thought she, chuckling to herself; and then she brought water, and made Fanny wash the traces of tears from her face, and arrange her rich auburn hair neatly and tastefully. This done, the negress departed, after telling the young girl to prepare to receive Mr. Tickels in the course of the afternoon. What must have been the reflections of that poor young creature, while dreading the entrance of the hoary villain who sought her ruin? We can but imagine them: doubtless she thought with agony of her poor grandfather and little Charley, both of whom she knew would suffer all the anguish of uncertainty and fear, with reference to her fate. Then, perhaps, her mind reverted to the happiness she used to enjoy within the hallowed precincts of her humble home--which, humble as it was, and devoid of every luxury, and many comforts, was nevertheless endeared to her by a thousand tender associations, and had been to her as an ark of safety from the storms of life. Her thoughts next dwelt upon the kind young lady, who had given her the gold coin, and whose sweet smile and pitying words still lingered in her heart. And should she ever see those dear relatives or that kind friend again? Or if she did, would she be able to look them in the face as a pure and stainless girl, or would she blush in their presence with a consciousness of degradation? But she was interrupted in these painful meditations by the sound of the key turning in the lock; and a moment afterwards Mr. Tickels entered the room, and advanced towards her. On observing her improved appearance, a smile of intense satisfaction overspread his bloated face and sensual features--and his eyes rested admiringly upon her form, which, though not ripened, was beginning to assume a voluptuous fullness that betokened approaching womanhood. Taking her hand, he drew her to a sofa and seated her by his side. How tumultuously her heart beat with apprehension and fear!--and the old _gentleman's_ first words were by no means calculated to allay her alarm. "My charming little girl," said he, raising her hand to his lips--"how beautiful you look! A _fruit girl_!--by heavens, you are fit to be a duchess! Such sweet blue eyes--such luxuriant hair--such pure Grecian features--such a complexion, the rose blending with the lily--such a snowy breast, expanding into the two "apples of love!" And that little foot, peeping so coquettishly from beneath the skirts of your dress, should ever be encased in a satin slipper, and press naught but rich and downy carpets in the magnificent saloons of aristocratic wealth! Nay, nay, my little trembler, be not afraid, but listen to me: I love you more than words can express--you are the star of my life, and your lustre shall light me on my way to more than celestial felicity. Hear me still further: the world bows the knee to me because I am rich--thus do I kneel to you, my angel, for you are beautiful. You shall dwell with me in a mansion, to which, in point of splendor, this is nothing. I will have a _boudoir_ prepared expressly for your use; it shall be lined with pink satin, and in summer the windows will overlook a beautiful garden, full of choice fruits and rare flowers; a sparkling fountain shall play in its centre, and your ears will be ravished with the melody of birds. You shall wander in that garden as much as you choose, and when you are tired, you shall repose in a shady arbor, and dream of love and its thousand blisses. In the winter season, like this, the opera, the ballroom, the theatre, shall minister to your pleasure; and in those places, none shall surpass you in splendor of dress or magnificence of jewels. Say, _belissima_, will you give me your love in exchange for all these things?" While uttering the above wild rhapsody, (which is given at length in order to show the temptations with which the old libertine sought to allure his intended victim,) he had kneeled at her feet, and, despite her resistance, encircled her waist with his arm. And did that poor girl--the daughter of poverty--the child of want--whose home was a garret, and who was familiar with the chills of winter and the cravings of hunger,--did she, while listening to the splendid promises of the rich man who knelt at her feet, for a moment waver in her pride of virtue, or even dream of accepting his brilliant offers? No! for even had she no other scruples, a host of holy memories encircled her heart, as a shield of power against the tempter's wiles,--the memory of home, of the two loved beings she had left there, of former happiness in a more elevated sphere; and of a gentle mother, whose beauty and virtues she had inherited, whose counsels she remembered, and who was sleeping in the churchyard. Disengaging herself from the libertine's embrace, and thoroughly aroused to a sense of her danger, and the necessity of making all the resistance she was capable of, to preserve her chastity and honor, the young girl, losing all sense of fear, poured forth a torrent of indignant eloquence that for the time completely abashed and overcame the hoary and lecherous villain. "No, sir--I will not, cannot love you; I hate and despise you, old wretch that you are, seeking to tempt a poor child like me to her ruin. Oh! you are rich, and have the manners of a gentleman before the world,--and yet you are more base, mean and cowardly than the commonest ruffian that ever stole a purse or cut a throat! Let me go hence, I command you; you dare not refuse me, for I know there is a law to protect _me_, as well as the richest and the highest, and I will go to those who execute the law, and have you dragged to the bar of justice to answer for this outrage. Do you hear, sir?--let me go from this accursed place, or dread the power of the law and the vengeance of Almighty God!" The libertine quailed before the flashing eyes and proud scorn of his intended victim; his discomfiture, however, lasted but for a moment. His red face grew black with the passions of rage and lust combined; he muttered a fierce curse, and springing forward, seized her in his vice-like grasp, and forced her towards the sofa, exclaiming-- "Curses on you, little hell-bird, since neither persuasions nor promises will make you mine, it shall be done by force. Nay, if you scream so, by the powers of darkness I'll strangle you!" In all human probability he would have been as good as his word, for Fanny continued to scream louder and louder; when suddenly Mr. Tickels received a blow on the head that brought him to the ground, and a voice cried out-- "Broad-swords and bomb-shells! I am just in time!" While the libertine lay sprawling upon the carpet, Fanny turned to thank her deliverer; and what was her astonishment and joy when she beheld the wrinkled, care-worn face, and odd, shabby garments of--Corporal Grimsby. CHAPTER III _The Rescue._ "By the nose of Napoleon!" cried the worthy Corporal, clasping Fanny in his arms,--"this is fortunate. Attacked the enemy in the rear--drove him from his position,--completely routed him, and left him wounded on the field; and you, my dear child, are the spoils of war!" Mr. Tickels arose with difficulty from his prostrate position, rubbing his forehead, which was decorated with a token of the Corporal's vigor, in the shape of a huge bump not included in the science of phrenology. Turning fiercely to the latter gentleman, and quivering with rage, he demanded-- "Death and fury, sir! how dare you intrude into this room,--into this house? Who are you, and what in the devil's name brings you here? Speak, you villain, or--" "Hold!" cried the Corporal, his face crimsoning with anger, for he was a choleric little old gentleman, was the Corporal, and as quick to become enraged as to do a good action; "hold! No man shall call me villain with impunity; I shot two rascally Dons at Madrid for the same word, and by God, sir, if _you_ repeat it, I'll cane you within an inch of your life!" Mr. Tickels was as great a coward as a scoundrel; and though he was a much more powerful man than the Corporal, he deemed it prudent not to enrage the fierce little old gentleman more than necessary. He therefore adopted a milder tone, and asked,-- "Well, sir, what is your business here?" "To convey this poor child to her home and friends," replied the Corporal, sternly. "It matters not how I ascertained her whereabouts; 'tis enough to know that I arrived here in time to rescue her from your brutality. You shall pay dearly for this outrage, damn you!" added the Corporal, again getting into a passion, and turning very red in the face. "But come, my child, let us leave the den of this old hyena, and go to your poor grandfather and little Charley." Mr. Tickels closed the door, and placed his back against it with a determined air. "You are mistaken, sir," said he, calmly,--"if you suppose that you can thus force yourself into my house, and into my private apartments, and without explanation kidnap or carry off a young person whose presence here is no affair of yours. Do you know me, sir? I am the Honorable Timothy Tickels, ex-member of Congress, men are not in the habit of questioning my motives or interfering with my actions. I am rich, and my influence is unbounded, and, were I so disposed, I could have you severely punished for the assault which you have committed on me. Your dress and appearance indicate poverty, although your language evinces that you have enjoyed more elevated fortunes; I am disposed to be not only merciful, but generous. Come, sir--leave this young person with me, unmolested; depart from this house quietly, and say nothing about what you have seen, and here is a fifty dollar bill for you. When you need more, come to me, and you shall have it." The Honorable Mr. Tickels drew from his well-filled wallet a bank-note for the amount named, and handed it to the Corporal, who regarded it with a curious smile, and twirled it in his fingers. His smile may have been one of gratification at receiving the money--but it looked very much like a sneer of contempt for the donor and his bribe. "Now is it not strange," quoth the Corporal, soliloquizing,--"that this dirty little bit of paper--its intrinsic value not one cent, its representative value fifty dollars,--is it not strange, I say, that this flimsy trifle, that an instant's application to the sickly flame of a penny candle would destroy, can procure food for the starving, clothing for the naked, shelter for the homeless? Great is thy power, money!--thou art the key to many of earth's pleasures,--the magic wand, which can summon a host of delights to gild the existence of thy votaries; thou cans't buy roses to strew life's rugged pathway--but thou cans't not, O great deity at whose shrine all men kneel, thou cans't not cleanse the polluted soul, still the troubled conscience, or dim the pure surface of unsullied honor. Nor cans't thou purchase _me_, thou sordid dross. Guns and grappling-irons!" abruptly added the Corporal, abandoning his philosophical strain, and getting into a towering passion,--"would you bribe me to desert my post as a guardian of innocence, and turn traitor to every principle of honor in my heart?--Bah!" and crumpling the bill in his hand, he threw it into the face of the Honorable Mr. Tickels, much to that individual's amazement. "What do you mean, sir?" he demanded, "do you scorn my gift?" "Yes!" thundered the little Corporal, "you and your gift may go to the devil together; and hark'ee, sir, perhaps 'tis well that you should know who _I_ am, as you have so formally introduced yourself to me; I am--" The remainder of the sentence was whispered in the ear of his listener, but the effect was magical. The Honorable Mr. Tickels started, and rapidly surveyed the person and countenance of the Corporal; then he reddened with confusion, and began to murmur a broken apology for his conduct, in which he was interrupted rather abruptly. "Not a word, sir, not a word," said the little old gentleman, "all your apologies cannot remove from my mind the impression created by your treatment of this poor child; and, sir," (here the Corporal again lost his temper) "you cannot destroy my conviction that you are the d----dest scoundrel that ever went unhung! Consider yourself fortunate if you are not held legally responsible for your forcible detention of the young girl in your house, and for your attempted outrage on her person,--damn you! Come, my child, this gentleman will no longer oppose our exit from his mansion." The Corporal was right; the Honorable Mr. Tickels offered not the slightest objection to their departure, but on the contrary ushered them down stairs with great politeness, and held open the street door for them to pass out. When Fanny found herself once more in the open street, out of the power of her persecutor, and on the way to her home and friends, her gratitude to her deliverer knew no bounds; she thanked the good Corporal a thousand times, and spoke of the approaching meeting with her grandfather and brother with rapture. Soon they reached their place of destination; once more the young girl stood in the humble apartment wherein all her affections were centered;--once more her aged grandfather clasped her in his arms, and again did she receive the fond kiss of fraternal love from the lips of her brother. As soon as they had left the residence of the Honorable Mr. Tickels, in South street, the gentleman locked himself up in his study, threw himself into a chair, and actually began tearing his hair with rage and vexation. "Hell and furies!" cried he--"to be thus fooled and baffled at the very moment when my object was about to be accomplished--to have that luscious morsel snatched from my grasp, when I was just about to taste its sweets. The thought is madness! And, in the name of wonder, how came HE to know that she was here, and why does _he_ interest himself in her at all? I dare not trifle with _him_! Were some poor, poverty-stricken devil to constitute himself her champion, I might crush him at once; but _he_ is above my reach. No matter; she shall yet be mine--I swear it, by all the powers of hell! I care not whether by open violence, or secret abduction, or subtle stratagem; I shall gain possession of her person, and once in my power, not all the angels in heaven, or men on earth, or fiends in hell, shall tear her from my grasp.--Ah, by Beelzebub, well tho't of!--I know the mistress of a house of prostitution (of which house I am the _owner_,) beneath whose den, as she has often told me, there is a secret cellar, which she has had privately constructed, and to which there is no access except through a panel in her chamber--which panel and the method of opening it, are known only to her, and a few persons in whom she can place implicit confidence.--This brothel-keeper told me, too, that she had the cellar made as a safe depository for young females who had been abducted from their homes,--a place of security from the search of friends, and the police. In that subterranean retreat, (which she informed me, is luxuriantly furnished, although the light of day never penetrates there,) these stolen girls are compelled to receive the visits of their lovers; and there, amid the gloom and silence of that underground prison they are initiated in all the mysteries of prostitution. By heaven 'tis the very place for my little fruit girl; she shall be abducted and conveyed there--and once safely lodged in these secret "Chambers of Love," HE who spoiled by sport to-day, shall in vain search for her. Let him come, bringing with him the myrmidons of the law; and let them search my house--then let them, if they choose, go to the brothel, beneath the foundation of which the girl is hidden, and search _that_ house, too,--ha, ha, ha! They will search for her in vain. But _how_ to abduct her--there's the rub! Tush! when did my ingenuity ever fail me, when appetite was to be fed or revenge gratified? Courage, Timothy Tickels, courage! Thy star, though dim at present, shall soon be in the ascendant!" Such were the reflections of the old libertine, as he sat in his study after the departure of the Corporal and Fanny; and he was so delighted at the thought of a safe asylum for the latter, that, with restored good humor he applied himself to the discussion of a bottle of wine, and then, stretching himself comfortably on a sofa, fell asleep and dreamed of the subterranean "Chamber of Love," and the little fruit girl. CHAPTER IV _A night in Ann street._ We proceed now to show how the Corporal discovered the fact that Fanny Aubrey was confined in the mansion of the Honorable Mr. Tickels, in South street. Great was the consternation and alarm of the blind basket-maker and little Charley, as the day passed away and evening came on, without the return of Fanny. They were agitated with a thousand fears for her safety, for both their lives were bound up in hers, and they doted on her with an affection rendered doubly ardent by their poverty and almost complete isolation from the world. In the midst of their distress, Corporal Grimsby entered, bringing, as on the evening before, a basket of provisions. To him they communicated the intelligence that Fanny had not returned; and the eccentric old man, without waiting to hear the recital of their fears, threw the basket on the table, bolted precipitately down stairs, and walked away towards Ann street with a rapidity that betokened the existence of some fixed purpose in his mind. Meanwhile, his reflections ran somewhat in the following strain, and were half muttered aloud, as he trudged quickly onward, now nearly upsetting a foot passenger and receiving a malediction on his awkwardness, and then bruising his unlucky shins against lampposts and other street fixtures. "By the nose of Napoleon! what can have become of the little minx? lost or stolen?--most probably the latter, for in this infernal city a pretty girl like her, so unprotected and so poor, can no more traverse the streets with safety, than can a fine fat goose waddle into the den of a wolf unharmed. Curses on these lampposts, I am always breaking my neck against them--bah! Well, to consider: but why the devil do I interest myself in this little girl at all? Is it because I am a lonely, solitary old codger, with neither chick nor child to bless me with their love, and whom I may love in return? Bah! no--that can't be; and yet, somehow, there is a vacant corner in my old heart, and the image of that little girl seems to fill it exactly. I am an old fool, and yet--damn you, sir, what d'ye mean by running against me, eh!--and yet, it did me more good to see that hungry family last night, eat the food that I had provided for them, than it did when I, Gregory Grimsby, was promoted to the elevated rank of Corporal. Now about this little girl--I'll bet my three-cornered cock'd hat against a pinch of Scotch snuff that she has been abducted--entrapped into the power of some scoundrel for the worst of purposes. That's the most natural supposition that I can get at. Now display thy logic, Corporal: thy supposed scoundrel must be rich, for poor men can seldom afford such expensive luxuries as mistresses; being rich implies that he is _respectable_--so the world says and thinks--bah! Being respectable, he would not compromise his character by engaging personally in such a low business as entrapping a girl; no--he would employ an _agent_; and such an agent must necessarily be a very low person, whether male or female--if a male, he is a ruffian--if a female, she is a strumpet--and where do ruffians and strumpets, of the _lower orders_ (for even in crime there is an aristocracy)[A] where do they usually reside? why, in a congenial atmosphere--in the lowest section of the city; and what is the lowest section of this city? why, _Ann street_, to be sure. Truly, Corporal Grimsby, thou art an admirable logician! So now I am on my way to Ann street, to explore its dens, in the hope (a vain one, I fear) of finding the supposed agent who was employed by the supposed rich scoundrel to abduct, kidnap, or entrap my little Fanny. Should I be so fortunate as to find that agent, money will readily induce him or her to divulge the place where the girl is hid; for the principle of "honor among thieves" has, I believe, but an imaginary existence." [A] The honest Corporal was right; the well-dressed, gentlemanly, speculating, wholesale swindler would scorn to associate with the needy wretch who protracts a miserable existence by small pilferings--and the fashionable courtezan who promenades Washington street and "sees company" at a splendidly furnished brothel, can perceive not the slightest resemblance between her position in society and that of the wretched troll who practises indiscriminate prostitution in some low "crib" in Ann street. And yet philosophy and common sense both level all moral distinction between the two conditions.--A noble murderer once protested against being hung on the same gallows with a chimney-sweep--there was aristocracy with a vengeance! We opine that the lofty and arrogant pretensions of some of our "nabobs," who are often of obscure and sometimes of ignominious birth, are scarcely less ridiculous than the aristocratic notions of a gentlemanly rascal who robs _a la mode_ and picks a pocket with gentility and grace! Leaving the Corporal to explore the intricate labyrinths of Ann street, (in the hope of obtaining some clew to the fate of Fanny Aubry,) thou wilt have the kindness, gentle reader, to accompany us into one of the squalid dens of that great sewer of vice and crime. But first we pause to read and admire the sign which decorates the exterior of a "crib" opposite Keith's Alley, and which, with a peculiarity of orthography truly amusing, notifies you that it is a "_Vittlin Sollor._" (This sign remains there to this day.) Passing on, we cannot fail to be impressed with the "mixed" nature of the society of the place; colored ladies and gentlemen (by far the most decent portion of the population) are every where to be seen, thronging the side-walks, indulging in boisterous laughter; loafers of every description are lounging about, whose tattered garments indicate the languishing condition of their wardrobes; great, ruffianly fellows stare at you with eyes expressive of the villainy that prompts to robbery and murder;--miserable men, ghastly women, and dirty children obstruct the pathway, and annoy you with their oaths and ribald jests. Let us descend this steep flight of steps, and enter this cellar. Be not too fastidious in regard to the odor of the place, for _eau de cologne_ and otto of rose are not exactly the commodities disposed of here, the place being devoted to the sale of that beverage classically termed "rot-gut," and eatables which, unlike wine, are by no means improved in flavor by age. There is the "bar," and the red-nosed gentleman behind it seems to be one of its best patrons. A wooden bench extends around the apartment, and upon it are seated about twenty persons of both sexes. A brief sketch of a few of the "ladies" of this goodly company may prove interesting, from the fact that the names are real, and belong to prostitutes who even now inhabit the regions of Ann street. That handsome, finely-formed female, with dark eyes and hair in ringlets, and who is also very neatly dressed, is "Kitty Cling-cling," who has been termed the "belle of Ann street." That lady in a red dress, with hair uncommonly short, (she having only recently dispensed with a wig,) is Joannah Westman, of Fleet street, and Liverpool Jane from the same _respectable_ neighborhood. This renowned "Lady" of the town was (and is) distinguished by a huge scar on her left cheek, which seems to be the exact impression of a gin bottle, probably thrown in some brawl in Liverpool, her native place. Then there is Lize Whittaker, from Lowell, who "ties up" at the corner of Fleet and Ann streets. Then we notice two ladies who rejoice in the mellifluous names of "Bald-head" and "Cockroach," and who are both worthy representatives from Keith's Alley. These, with a small sprinkling of ebony lasses and their attendant cavaliers, make up the very respectable assemblage. And now everybody brightens up, as a couple of colored gentlemen enter the cellar, and seating themselves upon a raised platform termed by courtesy "the orchestra," commence tuning a fiddle and base viol, preparatory to a dance by "all the characters."--Away the musicians glide into the harmonious measures of a gay quadrille--and to say the truth, the music is excellent, for Picayune and Joe are very skillful performers on their respective instruments; and are well qualified to play for a much more select and fashionable auditory. And now the voluptuous Kitty Cling-cling is led to the centre of the festive hall by a sable mariner, and begins to foot it merrily to the dulcet strains; while Bald-head and Cockroach find partners in two African geniuses, whose dress and general appearance would most decidedly exclude them from admission into a fancy ball at Brigham's. Away they go, through all the intricate mazes of the giddy dance. But see--a crowd of well-dressed but dissipated young men enter the cellar, their wild looks and disordered attire plainly indicating that they are on a regular "time." Those young men have been imbibing freely at some fashionable saloon in Court or Hanover street, and have come to consummate the evening's "fun" by having a dance with the fallen goddesses of Ann street. With a facetious perversity, they select as partners the most hideous of the negro women, and "mix in" the dance with a relish that could not be surpassed if their partners were each a Venus, and the cellar a magnificent hall of Terpsichore. The dance concluded, they throw down a handful of silver upon the counter, and invite "all hands to take a drink," but very rarely drink themselves in such a place, well knowing the liquor to be unworthy the palate of men accustomed to the superior beverages of the aristocratic establishments. At the completion of this ceremony, they take their departure, to visit some other "crib," and repeat the same performances. But let us (supposing ourselves to be invisible) pass from the dance hall and enter the adjoining apartment, which is smaller. Seated around a rough deal table are about thirty men and women, engaged in smoking and drinking. The room is dimly lighted by a couple of tallow candles, stuck in bottles; the walls are black with dust and smoke, and the aforesaid table and a few benches constitute the entire furniture of the room. The general frequenters of the cellar are not admitted to this place, it being especially reserved for the use of those ladies and gentlemen who gain their living on the principle of an equal division of property--or in other words, _thieves_. In this room, secure from being overheard by the uninitiated and vulgar crowd, they could "ply the lush," and "blow a cloud," while they talked over their exploits and planned new depredations. The room was called the "Pig Pen," and the society who resorted there classed themselves under the expressive tide of "Grabbers." Although not a regularly organized association, it had a sort of leader or captain whose authority was generally recognized. This gentleman was called "Jew Mike," from the fact of his belonging to the Hebrew persuasion; he was a gigantic, swarthy ruffian, with a long, black and most repulsive features, and was dressed in a style decidedly "flash," his coat garnished with huge brass buttons, and his fingers profusely adorned with jewelry of the same material. He had recently graduated from the State Prison, where he had served a term of ten years for manslaughter, as the jury termed it; although it was universally regarded as one of the most cold-blooded and atrocious murders ever committed. To sum up the character of this man in a few words, he was a most desperate and blood-thirsty villain, capable of perpetrating the most enormous crimes; and dark hints were sometimes thrown out by his associates in reference to his former career; some said that he was an escaped murderer from the South; others that he had been a pirate; while all united in bearing unqualified testimony as to the villainy of his character and the number and blackness of his crimes. He could not plead _ignorance_ in extenuation of his manifold enormities, for he possessed an education that would have qualified him to move in a respectable sphere of society, had he been so disposed. Upon his right was seated no less a personage that "Sow Nance," the hideous girl who had that day entrapped poor Fanny Aubry into the power of Mr. Tickels; she was much intoxicated, and by the maudlin fondness which she displayed for Jew Mike, it was easy to surmise the nature of the relation existing between her and him. Included in the company were several other "apple girls," whose proficiency as thieves entitled them to the distinction of being considered as competent "Grabbers;" each one of these wretched young creatures had her lover, of "fancy man," who was generally some low, petty thief--although, among the male portion of the assembly, there were several expert and daring robbers, the most distinguished of whom was Jew Mike himself, whose skill as a burglar had elevated him to the highly honorable position of captain of the "Grabbers." The "lush" was freely handed round, and the company soon grew "half seas over;" then came wildly exaggerated narratives of exploits in robbery, thieving, and almost every species of crime, interspersed with smutty anecdotes and obscene songs, in which the females of the company were not a whit behind the males. At length Jew Mike himself was vociferously called on for either a song or a story; and not being a vocalist, the gentleman preferred entertaining his friends with the latter; so, clearing his throat by an enormous draught of brandy, he began as follows: JEW MIKE'S STORY "You see, lads and lasses, a year or two before I came to this accursed country to be _jugged for a ten spot_, for manslaughter, (it was a clear murder, though, and a good piece of work, too,) I was a nobleman's butler in the great city of London. Ah, _that_ was the place for a man to get a living in! No decent "Grabber," would stoop to petty stealing there; beautiful burglaries, yielding hundreds of pounds in silver plate; elegant highway robberies, producing piles of guineas and heaps of diamond watches,--that was the business followed by lads of the cross at that time in England. Well, there's no use in crying over spilt milk, any how; I was obliged to step out of England when the country got too hot to hold me, and if I returned there, by G----! my life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase. And now to go on with my story. I was a nobleman's butler, and glorious times I had of it--little to do, plenty of pickings and stealings, free access to the pantry and wine-cellar, and enjoying terms of easy intimacy with the prettiest chambermaid in London. The only drawback upon my happiness was Lord Hawley's _valet_, a Frenchman, named Lagrange, who had been in his lordship's service many years, and was regarded as a remarkably honest and faithful man,--and so he was; but those qualities which rendered him valuable to his lordship, of course rendered him devilish obnoxious to me,--for he suspected my real character, and was continually playing the spy upon me, and informing my master of all my little peccadilloes. For instance, his lordship would send for me in his library, and say, sternly,--'Simpson, my valet Lagrange informs me that you are improperly intimate with one of the female domestics; you must stop it, or quit my service.' And perhaps the next day he would again summon me before him, and, with that cursed valet grinning maliciously at me from behind his chair, say to me,--'Simpson, I hear that you make too free with my wine, and are frequently intoxicated; stop it, or I shall dismiss you.' In short, Lagrange was the bane of my existence, and I secretly swore to be terribly revenged upon him for his tattling propensities. You'll soon see how well I kept my oath. "My Lady Hawley was a very gay, dissipated and beautiful woman, and I had long been aware that during my master's absence she was in the habit of receiving the clandestine visits of a handsome young officer of dragoons. To tell the truth, I used to admit him to the house, and see that no one was in the way to observe him enter her ladyship's chamber, for which services I received very liberal rewards from both her ladyship, and Captain St. Clair. Lord Hawley doted upon his wife, who was many years younger than himself; and often have I laughed in my sleeve when I thought what a cuckold she made of him. But he suspected nothing of the kind; I was the only person, besides the parties, who knew of the intrigue; even Lagrange, artful spy as he was, did not discover it. My master, who was addicted to gambling, was absent until a late hour every night, at Crockford's; and thus her ladyship had every opportunity to enjoy frequent interviews with her lover. As I knew of her frailty, I had her completely in my power; and often I was tempted to threaten her with exposure, unless she would "come down" handsomely with a thousand pounds or so, and grant me _any other favor_ that I might choose to demand, as the price of my silence,--for, as I said before, she was a beautiful woman, and a butler has feelings as ardent as those of a captain of dragoons. "Well, matters continued very quiet and agreeable, until late one night, after I had gone to bed, I heard a low but hurried knock at the door of my room. I arose, hastily threw on a few garments, and opened the door, when to my astonishment in rushed Lady Hawley, in her night-dress, and threw herself into a chair, breathless with agitation. Almost instantly the thought flashed through my mind that her intrigue had been discovered; cautiously closing the door, I advanced towards her ladyship, and in a respectful manner inquired why she had honored me with a visit so unexpected, and what might be the cause of her evident agitation, at the same time assuring her of my assistance, should she require it. She fixed her proud, beautiful eyes upon my face, and said, in a voice trembling with emotion,-- "'Good heavens, Simpson, only think of it, my foolish affair with Captain St. Clair is discovered!' "'Is it possible, your ladyship?' I cried, 'and may I ask who--' "'His lordship's valet, Lagrange, saw me, half an hour ago, conducting the Captain to the private stair-case which leads to the garden,' replied her ladyship, shuddering, and shading her face with her hands. "'And might not your ladyship purchase his silence?' I asked. She replied,-- "'I have just come from his room; you know how obstinate he is,--how entirely devoted to his lordship,--how blindly honest and faithful he has ever been,--how singularly averse to receiving presents from any source whatever, fearing it might have the appearance of bribery. I went to his room, and offered him a hundred guineas if he would solemnly swear never to reveal what he had seen. In a tone of cold indifference he said, 'I must do my duty to his lordship, to whom I am bound by the strongest ties of gratitude, even at the sacrifice of your ladyship's honor.' I entreated him, almost on my knees, to give the required promise; I offered to double, nay, treble the sum that I had named, but no; he turned from me, almost with disdain, (the low-born menial!) and requested me to retire, as I must be aware of the impropriety of such a visit, at such an hour. Perceiving the uselessness of attempting to bribe him to secrecy, I left him, cursing him for his obstinacy, and came direct to you. Heavens!' added her ladyship, drawing her robe over her partially denuded bosom, 'how desperate the fear of exposure has made me, that in this indecent attire I go at midnight to the chambers of male servants!--Simpson, can you help me in this dreadful emergency? You have heretofore proved faithful to me,--do not desert me now. _Lagrange must be silenced!_--do you understand me? At any cost,--at any risk,--his babbling tongue must be hushed, _by you_, for you are the only person whom I can trust in the affair. Yes, he must never speak the word that will proclaim my dishonor to the world!' "'_At any cost_, your ladyship?' rejoined I, fixing my eyes steadily upon hers, for her despair rendered me bold, and I was not one to suffer an opportunity to slip by unimproved. "'I understand you, fellow!' she replied, with a hysterical laugh and a glance of scorn,--'and much as I despise you, I answer yes! at any cost. But, gracious Heavens, what do I say? _you_, a menial, a base-born servitor! But no matter; even _that_ is far preferable to exposure. Good God! to think of being cast off by his lordship with loathing and contempt, despised and hated by my relatives,--an eternal blot upon my name,--forever excluded from the sphere of society of which I am the star and centre,--no, that shall never, never be. Silence Lagrange--silence him forever,--then ask of me any favor, and it shall not be denied.' "I approached her ladyship; she was pale as marble, but how superbly beautiful! Her glossy hair, all disordered, hung in rich masses upon her uncovered shoulders; her seductive night-dress but imperfectly concealed the glories of her divine form,--her heaving bosom, so voluptuous and fair, was more than half disclosed to my gaze. With a palpitating heart I laid my trembling hand upon one of her plump, white shoulders. Never shall I forget the majestic rage and scorn of her look, as she started to her feet, and stood before me in all the pride of her imperial beauty. "'Fellow,' she said, with desperate calmness, 'you are bold; but perhaps I ought to have expected this. I perceive that you are disposed to take every advantage of my situation. Be it so, then; but not until you have _earned the reward_, can you claim it. Remember this. Fortunately, his lordship is out of town, and will not return until the day after to-morrow; but oh! how unfortunate that his accursed valet did not accompany him! Lagrange pretended to be ill, and was left behind, and my lord was attended by another servant. No matter,--you will have an opportunity to dispose of this French spy ere the return of his master. I care not what method you take to silence his tongue,--but be secret and sure; and when the work is done, you shall have your reward--not before.' "Having thus spoken, her ladyship swept out of the room with the air of a queen, leaving me to devise the best method of silencing Lagrange forever. I could not mistake her ladyship's meaning; she wished me to _murder_ the man. Now, the fact is, ladies and gentlemen, murder's a devilish ticklish business, any how; not that I ever had any false delicacy in relation to the wickedness of the thing--pshaw! nothing of the kind,--you'll all believe me when I assure you that I'd as soon cut a human throat, as wring the neck of a chicken, for that matter; but then the consequences of a discovery are so ducedly unpleasant, and although I am confident in my own mind that I am destined to terminate my existence ornamented with a hempen cravat, I have never had any desire to hasten that consummation. So I didn't altogether relish the job which her ladyship had given me; but when I thought of her surpassing beauty, my hesitation vanished like mists before the rising sun, and I resolved to do it. "Several times the next day I tried to provoke Lagrange into a quarrel, but the wily rascal, as if divining my intentions, only shrugged his shoulders and smiled in the cold and sarcastic manner peculiar to him. This enraged me greatly, and after applying the most abusive epithets to him, I finally struck him. But all availed nothing; unlike the majority of his countrymen, the fellow was cold and passionless, even under insults and blows. I had provided myself with a sharp butcher's knife, which I carried in my sleeve, ready to plunge into his heart, had he offered to attack me in return; and thus I hoped to make it appear that I had slain him in self-defence. But his admirable coolness and self-possession defeated that scheme,--and I saw that I would be obliged to slay him deliberately at the first opportunity. "That opportunity was not long wanting. "During the afternoon he had occasion to visit the wine vault, of which I alone had the key; I accompanied him thither, and while he was engaged in selecting some malt liquor for the servants' table, I said to him,-- "'Monsieur Lagrange, you are acquainted with a secret that intimately concerns her ladyship; what use do you intend to make of this knowledge?' "The Frenchman very coolly intimated that it was none of my business, and continued his employment. His back was towards me; I approached nearer to him, and said, in a low tone-- "'You infernal, backbiting, sneaking scoundrel, you have often betrayed me to my master, and would now betray her ladyship. You shall not live to do it--die like a dog, as you are!' "While thus addressing him, I had drawn forth my knife; and as I uttered the last words, I plunged it with all my force into his left side, up to the very handle. The blade passed directly through his heart, and without a groan he fell dead at my feet. "No remorse--no sorrow for the bloody deed I had committed, found entrance to my soul; on the contrary, I gazed at the corpse with savage exultation. 'That babbling tongue is now forever hushed,' thought I; and then, as a sudden strange thought struck me, I added--'and that tongue shall be my passport to a bliss more exquisite than the joys of Paradise.' With an untrembling hand I cut off the dead man's tongue, secured it about me, and having hid the body behind a row of wine casks, left the cellar, securely locked the door, and then went about my usual avocations, resolving to dispose of the corpse that night in some manner that should avert suspicion from me, for I had every confidence in my own ingenuity. "Towards evening, I sought and obtained an interview with her ladyship, in private. She advanced to meet me with a hurried step and sparkling eyes. "'Simpson, _is it done_?' she asked, in a tone of extreme agitation, and laying her delicate hand on my arm. "'It is, your ladyship,' was my reply, producing and holding before her the bloody evidence of the deed--'and here is the tongue of Lagrange,--the tongue that would have proclaimed your shame and effected your ruin, had its owner lived; but he now lies a cold corpse, and this once mischievous member is now as powerless as a piece of carrion beneath a butcher's shamble.' "'And the body--how will you dispose of that?' she asked, shuddering, and turning from the sickening spectacle with disgust. "'To-night it shall be sunk deep in the waters of the Thames,' I replied; and then, in a more familiar manner than I had as yet ventured to assume, I reminded her ladyship of the _reward_ she had promised me, as soon as the job should be completed. Again she shuddered;--and turned deadly pale; and with a bitter smile, which seemed to me to be expressive of hatred and contempt combined, she answered-- "'You are right, Simpson; you have obeyed my wishes, and merit your reward,--but not now, not now! Come to my chamber at midnight; I shall expect you,--you understand. Go now--leave me; remove all traces of your crime. I shall take care to have a quantity of plate removed from the house to-night, and destroyed, and when his lordship returns to-morrow, he will imagine that Lagrange, despite his supposed faithfulness and integrity, has absconded and stolen the plate,--that will account to him for the valet's sudden disappearance. Leave me.' "'Remember, at midnight, your ladyship,' said I, and left her; but when I had closed the door of the apartment, I imagined that I heard her give utterance to a scornful laugh. However, I attributed it to her gratification at the death of Lagrange, and descending to the wine cellar, I busied myself in washing away the stains of blood from the floor. How impatiently I longed for the arrival of midnight! the hour that was to bring with it the reward of my crime! "During the evening, I paid a visit to a noted "_boozing ken_" in St. Giles', which bore the very suitable appellation of the "Jolly Thieves." Here I engaged two desperate fellows of my acquaintance--(for I went on a _crack_, now and then, myself, just to keep my hand in,)--to make away with the body of Lagrange; they were to come to the rear of my master's house, an hour after midnight, provided with a sack and some means of conveyance; and, for a liberal reward, they promised to carry off the corpse, and, having attached a heavy weight to it, sink it in the Thames,--although I felt assured in my own mind, that, instead of giving it to the fishes, they would make a more profitable disposition of it, by selling it to some surgeon for dissection;--body-snatching being a part of their profession, as well as burglary and murder. Having made this important arrangement, and paid them a good round sum in advance, (for I was well provided with money,) I returned to my master's house, which I reached about eleven o'clock. "At length the welcome midnight hour arrived, and with a beating heart I repaired to the chamber of her ladyship. It was a large apartment, furnished with exquisite taste and elegance,--in fact, a perfect bower of the graces; and, to my somewhat voluptuous mind, not the least attractive feature of it, was a magnificent and luxurious _bed_, mysteriously hidden beneath a profuse cloud of snowy drapery, heavily laden with costly lace. I had already pictured to myself the delights of an amorous dalliance within that bower of Venus, with one whose glorious beauty could not have been surpassed by that of the ardent goddess herself--but how grievously was I doomed to be disappointed, at the very moment when I fancied my triumph certain! But I must not anticipate my story. "In answer to my respectful, and I must own, somewhat timid, knock at the chamber door, I heard the musical but subdued voice of her ladyship bidding me to 'come in.' I entered, and having softly closed the door, noiselessly turned the key in the lock, and advanced to where she was seated by a table, upon which there stood wine, and materials of a _recherche_ supper. Drawing a chair close to her ladyship, I seated myself, and gazed at her long and ardently, while she, apparently unconscious of my presence, seemed to be deeply engaged in perusing a splendid volume of Byron's poems. "Surprised and not perfectly at ease, in consequence of her silence and abstraction (for she had not even glanced at me,) I at length ventured to observe-- "'Your ladyship sees that I am punctual; as of course I could not neglect to keep so delightful an appointment.' "Still she answered nothing, nor even raised her eyes from the book! During the silence of some minutes that ensued, I had an excellent opportunity to feast my eyes upon the seraphic loveliness of her face, and the admirable proportions of her queen-like form. She was dressed with studied simplicity, and in a style half _neglige_, infinitely more fascinating than the most elaborate full dress. A robe of snowy whiteness, made so as to display her plump, soft arms, and fine, sloping shoulders, and entirely without ornament, constituted her attire; and a single white rose alone relieved the jet darkness of her clustering hair. She was seated in a manner that enabled me to view her profile to the best advantage; I was never more forcibly struck with its purely classical and Grecian outlines; and I observed that a soft expression of melancholy was blended with the usual _hauteur_ that sat enthroned upon her angelic features. "As I gazed admiringly upon the beautiful woman, whom I could almost imagine to be a being from a celestial world, I could not help saying to myself-- "'After all, she is an adulteress and a murderess; and is now about to sacrifice her person to me, the instrument of her murderous wishes. Why, what a devil is here, in the form of a lovely woman, whose beauty would seem to proclaim her a tenant of the skies, while the black depravity of her heart fits her only for the companionship of the fiends below! Why do I hesitate and tremble in her presence? She is in my power--my _slave_! Yet, by heavens, what a superb creature! A thousand passionate devils are dancing in her brilliant eyes--her lips are moist with the honey of love--and her form seems to glow with ardent but hidden fires! Come, let me delay no longer, but speak to her in the language befitting a master to his slave!' "'Lady,' said I, in a tone familiar, yet not disrespectful--'why this reserve and silence? You know for what purpose I come thus at midnight to your chamber--it is by your own appointment, and to receive the reward of a difficult and dangerous service which I have performed for you. Nay, I see that you have anticipated my coming, by preparing this delicate and acceptable feast for our entertainment. Is it not so, my charmer? And you have dressed yourself in this bewitching style of chaste simplicity, solely to please me--am I right? But come; though you have not yet spoken or looked at me, sweet coquette that you are, I read in your bright eyes the confirmation of my hopes. Let us first banquet upon the delights of love, and then sip the ruby contents of the sparkling wine-cup, which I'll swear are not one half so sweet as the nectar of your lips, which now I taste.' "I clasped her in my arms as I spoke, and attempted to imprint a kiss upon her lips; but she hurled me from her with disdain, and said, with an air of lofty dignity-- "'Dog, how dare you thus intrude into the sanctity of my chamber? and how dared you for a moment presume to think that I intended to keep the promise which, in my eagerness to have Lagrange silenced, I gave you? Know that, sooner than submit to your base and loathsome embraces, I'd brave exposure and even death itself! If _money_ will satisfy you, name your sum, and be it ever so great, it shall be paid to you; but presume not to think that Lady Adelaide Hawley can ever so far forget her birth and rank, as to debase herself with such as you.' "'_Money_, your ladyship, was not what I bargained for,' I boldly replied; for the scorn and contempt with which she treated me, stung me to the quick, and enraged me beyond all measure. 'If your ladyship refuses to perform, honorably and fairly, your part of the contract, you must take the consequences; you shall be proclaimed as an adulteress, and as an accessory to the crime of murder.' "'Fool!' she cried--yet her countenance indicated the fear she really felt, notwithstanding the boldness of her words--'fool! expose me at your peril! You dare not, for your own neck would be stretched in payment for your treachery, while your charges against me, low, miserable menial that you are, would never be believed--never! Such accusations against me, a peeress of the realm, and a lady whose reputation has never been assailed, would but add to the general belief in your own guilt, and the certainty of your fate; such charges would be regarded as a paltry subterfuge, and no one would credit them. Go, fellow--the bat cannot consort with the eagle, nor can such as you aspire to even the most distant familiarity with persons of my rank. Depart, instantly; and to-morrow you shall receive a pecuniary reward that will amply compensate you for the disappointment you now feel.' "With these words she turned away from me, waving her hand in token that the conference was closed; but I was enraged and desperate, as much by the scorn of her manner as by the disappointment I felt. A hell of passion was burning in my heart; and I said to her, in a low, deep tone-- "'Woman, you shall be mine, even if I am obliged to commit another murder--I swear it! I hesitated not at perpetrating a deed of blood; nor will I hesitate now to obtain, by violence and even bloodshed, the reward you promised me for that deed! Lady, be wise; we are alone at this silent hour--I am powerful and you are helpless. Consent, then, or--' "She interrupted me with a scornful laugh, that rendered me almost frantic with fury. Reason forsook me; I lost all self-control, and rushed upon her with the ferocity of a madman, determined to strangle her. "Ere I could lay my grasp upon her, I was seized with a force that nearly stunned me. I arose with difficulty, and to my astonishment beheld the handsome countenance and glittering uniform of her ladyship's favored lover, Captain St. Clair! "'Villain,' said he, in his usual cold and haughty manner, (he was of noble blood, and as proud as Lucifer,) 'you little imagined that I was a witness of the entire scene in which you have played so praiseworthy a part! Upon my honor, you are the most ambitious of butlers! Cooks and chambermaids are not sufficiently delicate for your fastidious taste, forsooth!--but you must aspire to ladies of noble birth! Faith, I should not be surprised to hear of your attempting an intrigue with her gracious Majesty, the Queen! Hark'ee, fellow, begone! and thank my moderation that I do not punish you upon the spot, for your infernal presumption! Yet I would scorn to tarnish the lustre of my good sword with the blood of such a thing as thou!' "'Captain,' said I, boldly, (for I am no coward, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know,) 'as you have seen fit to play the spy, it is fair to presume that you are acquainted with the circumstances upon which my claim to the favor of this lady is based. At her instigation, and prompted by her promises of reward, I have murdered Lord Hawley's valet, Lagrange, in order to prevent his revealing to his master, the criminal intimacy existing between you and her ladyship. Now, Captain, I submit it to you as a man of honor--having committed such a deed, and exposed myself to such a fearful risk, am I not entitled to the reward promised by her ladyship? without the hope of which reward, I never would have bedewed my hands in the blood of my fellow servant. And can I justly be blamed for claiming that reward, and even for attempting to obtain it by force, since I have faithfully earned it?' "The Captain laughed, half in good nature, half in scorn, and said-- "'Faith, you are a well-spoken knave, and appeal to my honor as if you were my equal; and I am half inclined to pardon your presumption on account of your wit. Now listen, my good fellow;--her ladyship, as a measure of policy, wished to have a certain person removed, who was possessed of a dangerous secret; now you were the only available agent she could employ to effect that removal. But you demanded a certain favor, (which shall be nameless,) as the price of your services, and would accept of no other remuneration. The danger was imminent; what could her ladyship do? The man must be disposed of, even at the sacrifice of truth; her ladyship gave the required promise (_intending never to keep it_,) you performed the service, and very properly, I own, come to receive your reward. Of course, you perceive the impossibility of a compliance with your wishes. No intrigue can exist between the patrician and the plebeian--you are low-born, she of the noblest blood of the kingdom. Are you so blind, man, that you cannot see--or are you so stupid that you cannot comprehend--the repugnance which her ladyship must naturally feel at the very idea of an amorous intimacy existing between a high-born lady and--good heavens!--a _butler_? Here, my good fellow, is a purse, containing fifty guineas--I will double the sum to-morrow. Now go; and remember that you have everything to expect from our generosity, in a pecuniary point of view; but a repetition of your demand for her ladyship's favors, will most assuredly result to your lasting disadvantage.' "Seeing the folly of attempting to press my claim further, I sneaked out of the room, with very much the air of a disconcerted cur with his tail between his legs, to use a simile more expressive than elegant. The moment I had entered my own chamber, the clock in a neighboring steeple proclaimed the hour of two, and then for the first time I remembered the appointment which I had made with my two particular friends, from the "Jolly Thieves," in reference to the disposal of Lagrange's body. The hour appointed for meeting them, was passed; and suddenly a thought struck me--a strange thought--which had no sooner flashed through my mind, than I resolved to act upon its suggestion. 'Twas a glorious plan of revenge, and one which could only have emanated from my fertile imagination. "'The corpse of the Frenchman shall become the instrument of my vengeance,' thought I, chuckling with glee. 'I shall not need the assistance of those two fellows now--and, if they are still lurking about the house, I will reward them for their trouble and send them away. Ah, lucky thought--lucky thought!' "I found my two friends in waiting for me; they grumbled much at my want of punctuality, but their murmurings were hushed when I paid them liberally, and dismissed them, saying that I had discovered a much safer and more convenient method of disposing of the body, than the plan originally proposed, and therefore should not require their assistance.--They departed, rejoicing at their good fortune in being freed from a difficult and dangerous task, and congratulating themselves on having received as much money as they had been promised for its performance. "Taking with me a dark lantern, I descended noiselessly into the wine vault, and having secured the massive iron door, proceeded to execute my plan of vengeance. Comrades, can you guess what that plan was? No, I'll swear you cannot. But listen, and you shall hear. "Placing my light in a convenient position, I dragged the dead body of Lagrange from its place of concealment; then I bent over it, and examined the ghastly countenance. The features were pale and rigid, the teeth firmly set, and the glassy eyes wide open and staring. The awful expression of those dead orbs seemed, bold as I was, to freeze my very soul as with the power of a basilisk. For a single moment I repented the deed; but that feeling soon passed, and I rejoiced at it. "It occurred to me to search the pockets of my victim; I did so, and found a small sum of money, and a sealed letter, addressed to Lord Hawley. The valet had probably intended to despatch that letter to his master that afternoon--which design was frustrated by his sudden death by my hand. Eagerly I broke the seal, and read as follows:-- "'LONDON. "'My lord.--Should your lordship have possibly designed extending your visit to Berkshire beyond the time originally allotted to the same, I entreat your lordship to set aside every consideration--every engagement, however pressing or important its nature may be, and to return immediately to town. Something has occurred, in the conduct of her ladyship, intimately affecting your lordship's honor. To relieve your lordship from any painful uncertainty that may be occasioned by this indefinite announcement, you will pardon me for stating plainly, that I myself saw her ladyship and Captain St. Clair, under circumstances that admitted of but one opinion in reference to the nature of the intimacy existing between them. Simpson, the butler, whom I am persuaded is in the confidence of her ladyship and the Captain, this afternoon questioned me in regard to my knowledge of the affair, and the use I intended to make of that knowledge; and he, not deeming my replies satisfactory, abused and struck me. My duty to your lordship prevented any retaliation on my part; and that duty, (the offspring of humble gratitude for your lordship's many acts of generous kindness to me, both in this country and in France,) now impels me to communicate these unpleasant facts--which I do, with sincere sorrow for her ladyship's indiscretion, and every desire for the preservation of your lordship's honor. "'From your lordship's humble servant, "'LOUIS LAGRANGE.' "This letter, so characteristic of the polished, wily and educated Frenchman, was written in the French language, with which I was well acquainted, I therefore easily translated it. After a careful perusal, I placed it in my pocket-book--for I was well aware that it might one day prove a valuable auxiliary to me, should I feel disposed to inform my master of his wife's infidelity, and his lordship then could not doubt the truth of his own favorite and faithful servant, in whom he had the most unbounded confidence. "'Oh, scornful Lady Hawley and sarcastic Captain St. Clair!' I could not forbear exclaiming--'ye shall both be caught in a net of your own making, when ye least expect it! My lady will be turned out of doors as an adulteress; and my gentleman will perhaps be shot through the head by the husband he has wronged! Patience, patience, good Simpson; thou shalt yet riot in the very satiety of thy vengeance. But now to put in operation my first method--an ingenious one it is, too--of avenging my wrongs!' "Among the various wines with which the extensive cellar was abundantly stocked, was a large cask containing a particular kind, of a very rich and peculiar flavor; and of this wine I knew Lady Hawley, who was a luxurious woman, very fastidious in her taste, to be especially fond. Captain St. Clair, too, preferred it above all other kinds; and at the midnight suppers which he so often enjoyed with her ladyship, the ruby contents of this particular cask was most frequently called into requisition, as I well know, for I had been accustomed to carry it from the cellar to the door of the bed-chamber wherein the amorous pair indulged in the joys both of Venus and of Bacchus. The wine had been imported by his lordship, who was a _bon vivant_, from Bordeaux and was particularly valued for its rich color, solid body, and substantial yet delicate flavor, rivalling in these qualities, perhaps, that classic beverage, the famed Greek wine. "'I will add to the exquisite flavor of this wine,' said I--'her ladyship and her lover shall banquet on human blood; the corruption of a putrifying corpse shall be mingled with the sparkling fluid that nourishes their unholy passions.' "With but little difficulty, and less noise, (for I well understood such matters,) I removed the head of the cask, which I found to be about half full. How luxurious was the odor that arose from the dark liquid, fragrant with spices! Taking a small vessel, I drank a bumper--then another. My blood instantly became charged with a thousand fires; my heart seemed to swell with mighty exultation; my brain seemed to swim in a sea of delight. I laughed with mad glee to think of the superb vengeance I was about to wreak on my enemies; then I raised the corpse of Lagrange with Herculean strength, thrust it into the cask, and pressed it into the smallest possible compass; but found to my inexpressible chagrin, that it would be absolutely impossible to re-adjust the head of the cask, unless the body was in some manner made smaller. After a few moments' reflection, a happy thought struck me. I hesitated not a moment, but drew a sharp clasp knife from my pocket, deliberately severed the head from the body, and thrust it into the cask. Then, without the least difficulty, I replaced the top of the cask, and my work was accomplished. "I repaired to my chamber but slept not, as you may suppose; the events of that day and night had been of a nature too singularly exciting to admit of repose. Shortly after I had retired, I heard Lady Hawley conduct her lover to the back stair-case; there was a sound of kissing, and a whispered appointment made for another meeting, on a night when his lordship would probably be absent. 'Yes, and at that interview, my amorous pair,' thought I, 'shall you taste of the wine which I have improved by an addition which you little suspect, but with which you shall one day be made acquainted.' And then I laughed till the tears rolled down my cheeks. "Lord Hawley returned at the expected time, and immediately inquired for his valet, Lagrange. The gentleman was, of course, among the missing; and I overheard her ladyship announcing to her husband that the Frenchman had absconded, carrying off plate and jewelry to a considerable amount. Lord Hawley was extremely shocked and grieved on receiving this (false) intelligence; and I heard him mutter, as he retired in great perturbation of mind to his study,--'What, can it be possible?--Lagrange, whom I esteemed to be the most honest and faithful fellow in the world--of whose fidelity I have had so many evidences,--whom I have often benefitted,--can it be that _he_ has deserted and robbed me? Then indeed do I believe all mankind to be false as hell!' "A week passed, and nothing occurred in Hawley House worthy of mention. At the expiration of that time, his lordship went on a short journey, (connected with some political object,) which would occasion him a fortnight's absence from home. Then was her ladyship and the captain in clover! and then was afforded me an opportunity to set before them the wine which I had enriched by my famous _addition_! "Not deeming it necessary to adopt the usual precautions, my lady feasted, toyed and dallied with her handsome lover in her own private apartments, fearing no detection, as she was certain that her husband would not return before the specified time, and as I was the only person aware of the captain's presence in the house; she feared not, thinking that I dared not betray her, as she imagined that I was completely in her power on account of the murder I had committed. Pretty fool! she little thought of the plan I had formed for her destruction, and that of her haughty and hated paramour. "I waited on them at table in my humblest and most respectful manner; and I could perceive that they inwardly congratulated themselves on having, as they thought, completely subdued me, and bribed me to eternal silence with regard to their amours. "At their very first banquet, (for the splendor of their repasts merited that high-sounding title,) I was requested to bring from the cellar a decanter of their _favorite_ wine. You may be sure I did not mistake the cask, comrades. I drew from the cask which contained the corpse of Lagrange, a quantity of the wine, and holding it to the light, observed with intense satisfaction that it had assumed a darker tinge--it looked just like blood. For a moment I was tempted to _taste_ it; but damn me! bad and blood-thirsty as I was, I could not do _that_. The corpse had been soaking in the wine a full week; I was convinced that the liquid was pretty thoroughly impregnated with the flavor of my scientific improvement; and even my stomach revolted at the idea of drinking wine tainted and reeking with the dead flesh and blood of the man I had murdered. "I placed the wine on the table before my lady and the Captain; and I am free to confess that I trembled somewhat, in view of the possibility of their detecting, at the first taste, the trick which I had played them. Very nervous was I, when the Captain slowly poured out a wine glass full, and raised it to his lips; but how delighted was I, when he drained every drop of it with evident satisfaction, smacked his lips, and said to the lady-- "'By my faith, Adelaide, 'tis a drink for the gods! How that wine improves by age! Never before has it tasted so rich, so fruity, so delicious! Observe what a firm body it has--what deep, rich color--a fitting hue for a soldier's beverage, for 'tis red as blood. Allow me to fill your ladyship's glass, that you may judge of its improved and wonderful merits.' "Her ladyship drank, and pronounced it excellent. I was in silent extacies. 'Drink the blood and essence of the murdered dead, ye fools, and call it sweet as honey to your taste!' I mentally said--'ere many days your souls shall be made sick with the knowledge of _what_ ye have drank!' "The guilty pair were not in the slightest degree reserved in my presence; on the contrary they jested, they talked, they indulged in familiarities before my face, in a manner that astonished me not a little. Comrades, none of you have seen much of fashionable life, I take it; for although you all belong to the very best society in Ann street, you can't reasonably be supposed to have much of an idea of society as 'tis seen in the mansion of an English nobleman. Therefore, if you don't think my yarn already too tedious, (it's as true as gospel, every word of it, upon the unsullied honor of a gentleman!) and if you'd like to know something of the capers of rich and fashionable people in high life, I'll tell you, in as few words as possible, some of the sayings and doings of my lady Hawley and her handsome lover, Captain St. Clair, as witnessed by me, at the time of which I have been speaking, in London." Jew Mike paused to take breath and "wet his whistle;" while all his listeners eagerly requested him to "go on" with his yarn. During the progress of the narrative, an old, comical looking man, not over well dressed, had entered the room, unnoticed; and seating himself in one corner, he pulled a pipe from his pocket, lighted it, and began to smoke, at the same time taking a keen and intelligent survey of the motley assembly. Jew Mike, having quenched his thirst, resumed his story. [The reader will be good enough to observe, that while we give the substance of this worthy gentleman's narrative, we pretend not to give his precise words. It is highly probable that he adapted his language to the humble capacities of his low and illiterate auditors; and we have taken the liberty to clothe his ideas in words better suited to the more intelligent and refined understandings of our readers.] "Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Jew Mike--"as I was saying, Lady Hawley and Captain St. Clair got so bad that they never minded my presence a bit, but talked and acted before me with as much freedom as if I were both deaf and blind. My lady would dress herself in the Captain's uniform, which fitted her to a charm, for she was a large, magnificent woman, while he was of no great stature for a man, although exceedingly well-made and handsome. Not was that all: the Captain would attire himself in her splendid garments, and, but for his moustache and imperial, might have passed for a very handsome woman. And, to carry out the idea still further, my lady would pretend to take very wild and improper liberties with her lover, which he would affect to resent with all the indignation proper to his assumed sex. Then they would roll and tumble upon the soft carpet until they were quite spent and breathless; after which the Captain would run into the chamber, and conceal himself beneath, behind, or _in_ the bed; she would follow in pursuit, close the chamber door, and--I would apply my eye to the key-hole; but as I am a polite man, and as there are ladies present, (ahem!) you'll excuse me for not entering into particulars. "So much for their actions, now for their words. I was attending them at supper one night, and to say the truth they were both of them highly elevated in consequence of having too profusely imbibed their favorite wine, seasoned with the _essence of Lagrange,_ the name which I had privately given it. The Captain was very slightly attired, and my lady had on nothing but a very _intimate_ garment, which revealed rather more than it concealed--for they had just before been playing the very interesting game of "hide and seek," and had not yet resumed all their appropriate garments. I had formerly regarded lady Hawley as the very _beau ideal_ of all that was dignified, haughty and majestic; but that night she looked lewd and sensual, in an eminent degree, and appeared utterly reckless of all decency. She exposed her person in a manner that astonished me, and seemed to abandon herself without reserve, to all the promptings of her voluptuous nature. Her appearance, conversation and actions were not without their influence on me, you may be sure; and if ever I envied mortal man, it was that young officer, who could revel at will in the arms of the beautiful wanton at his side. "The Captain, reclining his head upon her fair bosom, said-- "'And so Adelaide, in a few days your odious husband will return, and terminate these rapturous blisses. Why in the devil's name don't the accursed old man die of apoplexy, or break his neck, or get shot in a duel, or do something to relieve us of his hated interference with our stolen joys?' "'Ah, St. Clair,' answered the lady, with a glance of passion--'would that the old man were dead! Since I have tasted the sweets of your society--since I first listened to the music of your voice, and since first this heart beat tumultuously against yours, my whole nature is changed--my blood is turned to fire; my religion is my love for you; my deity is your image, and my heaven--is in your arms. Oh,' she suddenly exclaimed, as the rich blood mantled on her face and neck--'how terrible it is for a young and passionate woman to be linked in marriage to an old, impotent, cold, passionless being, who claims the name of _man_, but is not entitled to it! And then if she solaces herself with a lover--as she must, or die--she is continually agitated with fears of her husband's jealousy, and the dread of discovery. Like the thirsty traveller in a barren waste, her soul yearns for an ocean of delights--and pants and longs in vain. Husband--would that there was no such word, no such relation as it implies--'tis slavery, 'tis madness, to be chained for life to but one source of love, when a thousand streams would not satiate or overflow. Yet the world--the world--disgraces and condemns such as I am, if discovered; it points to my withered husband, and says--'there is your only _lawful_ love.' Heavens! the very thought of him sickens and disgusts me; _he_ a lover! He is no more to be compared to thee, my St. Clair, than is the withered leaf of autumn to the ripe peach or juicy pomegranate!' "'By all the gods of war,' exclaimed the Captain, fired with admiration at her beauty and the fervor of her passion for him, and straining her to his breast in a perfect phrenzy of transport--'thy husband shall be no longer a stumbling-block between us, angel of my soul; I will insult him--he will challenge me--we will fight--I am the best shot in Europe, and he will be shot through the heart, if the cold dotard have one. Yet stay--damn it, why not have him disposed of after the manner of the valet? Ha, ha! a good thought! Simpson, what say you? Will you do it for a couple of hundred guineas, and without laying claim to the favors of her ladyship?' "The last sentence was uttered with a very palpable sneer; it enraged me, for by it I was reminded of the manner in which I had been swindled out of the reward promised for my other murder. Besides, the man's cool villainy, and the woman's shameless lechery, disgusted me, bad as I was; for they belonged to that class which professes all the gentility, refinement and virtue in the world; and to hear the one glorying in adultery, and the other deliberately proposing murder, afforded such a damnable instance of the sublime hypocrisy peculiar to the "upper ten" of society, that I became desperately angry, and answered the Captain in a manner that astonished him.--You will remember, comrades, that as great a villain as I am, I am no hypocrite, and was never accused of being one. And yet hypocrisy prevails in every department of life. Look," continued Jew Mike, getting into a philosophical strain, and stroking his enormous beard with an air of profound complacency--"Look at that venerable looking old gentleman, who every Sabbath stands in his pulpit to declaim against wickedness and fleshy lusts. Mark his libidinous eye, as he follows that painted strumpet to her filthy den. There's hypocrisy. Then turn your eyes toward a sister city, and mark that grey-headed, sanctimonious editor, who every week solemnly prates of honesty, sobriety, and their kindred virtues. 'What an excellent man he is,' exclaim the whole tribe of fat, tea-drinking old women in mob-caps, raising their pious eyes and snuffy noses to heaven.--Ha, ha, ha! Why, ladies and gentlemen, that editor is so cursedly dishonest and so im--_mensely_ mean, that his hair wouldn't stay black, but turned to a dirty white before its time--so mean, his food won't digest easy--his shirt won't dry when washed--his clothes won't fit him--the cholera won't have him--musquitoes won't bite him--and if, after his lean carcass is huddled under the turf, his cunning little soul should attempt to crawl through the key-hole of hell's gate, the devil, whose lacky he has ever been, would kick him with as much disgust as this _fraction_ once displayed in kicking a poor wretch whom he had beggared, starved and ruined! "But I see, comrades, that you begin to grow impatient at this moralizing--and well you may, for 'tis always distasteful to look at such reptiles as we have been contemplating. Well, to take up the thread of my yarn, which I shall bring to a close as speedily as possible, for 'tis getting late.--When the Captain proposed that I should murder Lord Hawley, his and her ladyship's hypocrisy enraged me to such an extent, that I boldly looked him in the face, and said to him-- "'Say, who is the greater villain, you or I? You, who prate of your birth, rank and position in life, and propose a murder, or I, making no pretensions whatever, I that have committed a murder at the instigation of one of your class, in the hope of reward? Look you, Captain; neither you nor your noble strumpet at your side shall bribe me to commit further crime. Wretches that you both are, false in honor and in truth, know that I am already fearfully revenged upon you--and your exposure is at hand. Another murder, indeed!--_have you not both drank blood enough?_' "This last sentence I uttered with such significance that the Captain started and turned pale. 'What mean you, scoundrel?' he demanded. "'Follow me, both of you, to the wine cellar!' I exclaimed in answer, fully determined to reveal the awful truth to them at once. Astonished and subdued by the impressiveness of my manner and the singularity of my words, they obeyed. Having seized a light from the table, I led the way to the cellar, and advanced to the cask wherein rotted the remains of the murdered Lagrange. "The scene must have been a striking one, comrades. There was the vast vault, dimly lighted by a single wax taper; around were many black and mouldering casks containing the juice of the grape, some of which was of a great age. Before one of those casks, much larger than the others, stood I, brandishing aloft the implement with which I was about to break open that strange tomb, and disclose its awful secret. Beside me, dressed in the slight garments I have already described, their pale countenances expressive of mingled curiosity and fear, stood Lady Hawley and Captain St. Clair, whom I thus addressed-- "'This cask, may it please your ladyship and the Captain, contains the wine which you both are so extremely fond of. You have observed, with some surprise, that its flavor has of late much improved. I shall now, with your permission, show you the cause of that improvement, for which--ha, ha, ha!--you are solely indebted to me. The opening of this cask will disclose a mystery that you have never dreamed of. Look!' "They both strained forward in eager expectation. A few blows sufficed to remove the head of the cask. Horror! a sickening stench arose, and there became visible the headless trunk of a human being. That portion of the body which was not immersed in the wine, was putrid. 'Look here!' cried I, in mad triumph, plunging my arm into the cask, and drawing forth the ghastly head of Lagrange. I held aloft the horrid trophy of my vengeance; there were the dull, staring eyes, the distorted features, and drops of wine oozed from between the set teeth. With a long, loud shriek, her ladyship fell to the ground insensible; muttering fierce curses on me, the Captain turned to raise her, and profiting by the opportunity, I escaped from the cellar and fled from the house. Making the best of my way to the 'Jolly Thieves,' in St. Giles, I sought safety and concealment there, where I had ample leisure to mature my future plans. "In a day or two I saw it announced in one of the newspapers that a cask had been found floating in the river Thames, which on opening was found to contain the body and head of a man, and a quantity of wine. The circumstance gave rise to the supposition that the body had been procured by some surgeon for dissection, and for some reason had been abandoned and thrown overboard. The cask and its contents had, of course, been thrown into the river through the agency of the Captain; and the affair gave rise to neither excitement nor investigation. "Meanwhile, Lord Hawley had returned to town. No sooner was I apprised of the fact, than I sent him the following blunt and somewhat rude epistle--for I felt too keen a thirst for vengeance on my enemies to admit of my being very choice or respectful in my language, even to a nobleman:-- "'My lord,--you are a cuckold. Do you doubt it? I can prove it, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Captain Eugene St. Clair is your lady's lover--she is his mistress. For a long time past, she has, during your absence, received him into her chamber. You are laughed at by the pretty pair, as a withered, impotent old dotard. You know the handwriting of your late valet, Lagrange. Accompanying this is a letter written by him, to you; before he had an opportunity of sending it to you, he was _made away with_, through the instrumentality of your amiable wife, who had every reason to suppose that he would betray her. The tale trumped up by the noble harlot about the Frenchman's having stolen your property and fled, is a lie. My lord, I think you have reason to be grateful to me for exposing the guilty parties; if so, any pecuniary reward which you may see fit to send me, by one of your servants, (I am at the _Jolly Thieves_, in St. Giles,) will be gratefully accepted by MICHAEL SIMPSON.' "I thus freely disclosed my place of concealment to his lordship, because I apprehended no danger to myself, knowing that the nobleman was a man of honor, who would not injure the person who had rendered him such an important service as to put him on the track to avenge his wrongs. And I also anticipated receiving a liberal reward for my information; nor was I disappointed,--for that very evening a servant in the Hawley livery called at the _Jolly Thieves_, and presented me with a small package, which on opening I found to contain bank notes to the amount of five hundred pounds, and the following note, which though in his lordship's handwriting, bore neither address nor signature:-- "'Here is the reward of your information. Accept, also, my thanks. The proof you have furnished of the truth of your statement, admits of no doubt. I know how to punish the w**e and her blackguard paramour. You had better leave the country, for I can surmise what agency _you_ had in the affair of Lagrange's disappearance; but as you were the tool of others, I stoop not to molest you. Should the event, however, gain notoriety, _the law_ of course, will not prove equally considerate.' "I was overjoyed! Five hundred pounds, and the certainty of having ruined my enemies! That night I gave a sumptuous supper to all the frequenters of the _Jolly Thieves_; and a jolly time we had of it, I'll assure you, comrades. The most respectable men in London were present at the feast; there were nine cracksmen, five highwaymen, twelve pickpockets, two murderers, three gentlemen who had escaped from transportation, and a smart sprinkling of small workmen, in the way of _fogle hunters_, (handkerchief thieves,) and _body snatchers_, (grave robbers). Full forty of us sat down to a smoking supper of stewed tripe and onions,--ah, how my mouth waters to think of it now! And then the _lush_!--gallons of ale, rivers of porter, and oceans of grog! Every gentleman present volunteered a song; and when it came to be my turn, I gave the following, which, (being something of a poet,) I had myself composed, expressly for the occasion, to the air of the _Brave Old Oak_:-- SONG OF THE JOLLY THIEF. "A song to the thief, the jolly, jolly thief, Who has plied his trade so long;-- May he ne'er come down to the judge's frown, Or the cells of Newgate strong. 'Tis a noble trade, where a living's made By an art so bold and free; May he never be snug in a cold, stone jug, Or swing from a two-trunk'd tree! CHORUS Then here's to the thief, the jolly thief Who plies his trade so bold-- May he never see a turnkey's key, Or sleep in a prison cold! "This song was received with the most uproarious applause by the jovial crew; and we separated at a late hour, after giving three groans for the new police. "A few days passed away. I never neglected each morning to carefully peruse all the newspapers; and just as I was beginning to despair of ever seeing any announcement calculated to assure me that my enemies were overthrown, I had the intense satisfaction of reading the following paragraph in the _Times_:-- "'AN AFFAIR OF HONOR. Yesterday morning, his lordship Viscount Hawley and the Honorable Captain Eugene St. Clair had a hostile meeting in the suburbs of London. Circumstances of a delicate nature, of which we are not at liberty to speak at present, are reported to have led to the difficulty between the noble gentlemen. At the first fire Captain St. Clair fell, and upon examination it was found that he had been shot through the heart. He died instantly. His lordship was uninjured, and immediately departed for the Continent unaccompanied by her ladyship.' "I danced with delight when I read this paragraph. 'My vengeance is already half accomplished,' thought I. But what had become of Lady Hawley? The newspapers, from day to day and from week to week, were silent with respect to her fate. At length I began to fear that her ladyship, after all, was destined to escape uninjured by my endeavors to effect her ruin. Was I right? You shall see. "Nearly two years passed away, during which time, with the aid of my five hundred pounds, I had set up a first-rate public house in a populous and respectable neighborhood, and was making money. I have little doubt but that the sign of '_The Red Cask_' is still remembered in that vicinity--for that was the name which, actuated by a strange whim, I had given to my tavern; and the same was illustrated by a huge swinging sign in front, on which was painted the representation of a large cask overflowing with blood--which, I need scarcely tell you, was a sly and humorous allusion to the affair of Lagrange's murder.--Well, one cold, stormy winter's night, when the wind was howling like ten thousand devils around the house, I was seated in my comfortable tap-room, making myself extremely happy over a reeking jarum of hot rum punch. I was alone, for the hour was late, and all my guests had departed; when suddenly, during a pause in the clatter of the elements, I heard a low, timid knock at my outer door, which faced on the street.--Supposing it to be either some thirsty policeman, or a belated traveller anxious to escape from the fury of the storm, I arose and unbarred the door; as I opened it, a fierce gust of wind rushed in, so piercing cold, that it seemed to chill me to the very marrow of my bones; and at the same moment I beheld a human form crouching down under the narrow archway over the door, as if vainly endeavoring to shield herself from the fury of the tempest. I knew it was a woman, for I caught a glimpse at an old bonnet and tattered shawl. She shivered with the cold, which even made my teeth chatter, stout and rugged as I was. 'What do you want?' I demanded roughly--for I was impatient at having been thus unseasonably interrupted while paying my devotions to the mug of hot rum punch, in front of a rousing fire. As she made no immediate reply, I was about to bid her begone and shut the door, when she said, in a faint, yet earnest tone--'Oh, sir, for God's sake, as you hope for mercy yourself hereafter, let me come in for a moment--only a moment--that I may warm my benumbed and freezing limbs!' I paused a moment; I am not naturally hard-hearted, unless there is something to be gained by it; and besides, I felt a kind of curiosity to see what sort of a creature it was who wandered the streets that awful night, destitute and houseless; so I bade her come in, and with difficulty she followed me into the tap-room; placing a seat for her near the fire, I resumed my own, and while leisurely sipping my punch, a good opportunity was afforded me to examine her narrowly. She was probably about twenty years of age, but much suffering had made her look older. Though her features were worn and wasted, and though her cheeks were hollow by the pinchings of want, she was beautiful; her eyes were large, lustrous and eminently expressive, and two or three stray curls of luxuriant hair peeped from beneath her old, weather stained bonnet. Her form was tall, and graceful in its outlines; but what particularly struck me was the singular whiteness and delicacy of her hands, which plainly indicated that she had never been accustomed to labor of any kind. Her dress was wretched in the extreme, and was scarce sufficient to cover her nakedness, much less shield her from the inclemency of the weather,--nay, my inquisitive researches soon convinced me that the miserable gown she wore was, excepting an old shawl, her _only garment_--no under clothing, not even stockings,--and her feet (I noticed that they were small and symmetrical,) were only separated from the cold sidewalk by thin and worn-out shoes.--Yet, notwithstanding all her poverty and wretchedness, there was about her a look of subdued pride, which, though in strange contrast with her garb, well became her general air, and regular handsome features. Everything about her, excepting her dress, convinced me that she had fallen from better days, and, somehow, that look of pride struck me as being strangely familiar; yet I racked my brain in vain to recall from the dreamy past some image that I could identify with the female before me, who sat in front of my blazing fire and warmed her chilled limbs with every appearance of the most intense satisfaction. "Her superior air commanded my involuntary respect. 'Madam,' said I, 'are you hungry?' She eagerly answered in the affirmative; I placed provisions before her, and she ate with an appetite almost ravenous. I then gave her some mulled wine, which seemed to revive her greatly; and she returned me her thanks in a manner so lady-like and refined (a manner, however, which insensibly partook of a peculiar and indirect kind of _hauteur_, as remarkable in her tone as in the expression of her features,) that I was more than ever satisfied that she had descended to her present wretched situation, certainly from a respectable, if not from a very superior, order of society. "'You have benefitted me greatly, sir, and I thank you,' said she, inclining her head towards me with an air almost condescending. 'I assure you, you have not bestowed your _assistance_ (she didn't say _charity_, observe!) upon a habitual mendicant or common person. I am by birth a lady; you will pardon me for declining to state the causes of my present condition. Again I thank you.' "The devil, comrades! here was a starving, freezing beggar woman whom I had picked out of the street, and warmed and fed, playing the condescending, reserved lady, forsooth! and abashing and humbling me by her d----d lofty, proud looks! Ha, ha, ha! and yet I liked it, mightily; the joke was too good; and so I continued to 'madam' her, until at last I actually detected her on the very point of calling me 'fellow;' but fortunately for her, she checked herself in time to escape being turned into the street forthwith. "And yet the superiority of her air and the haughtiness of her manner had for me an indescribable charm, no less than her beauty; and I resolved, if possible, to make her my mistress, for I doubted not that when she should become nourished and strengthened by proper food and rest, she would make a very desirable companion for a man of my amorous temperament. However, I did not broach the subject at that time, but contented myself with seeing that she was comfortably provided for that night, under the charge of one of the females of the house, to whom I gave money with which to provide the strange lady with proper and respectable clothing in the morning. The next day I had occasion to go away at an early hour, and did not return until late in the afternoon, and on entering my little parlor, I was surprised at beholding a lady, handsomely dressed, who advanced towards me with an air of dignified politeness. Her rich hair was most tastefully arranged; her neat dress closely fitted a slender but elegant shape, and I was struck with the dazzling fairness and purity of her complexion, and the patrician cast of her features. A second glance told me it was the female whom I had relieved the previous night; and I became aware of the fact that the strange lady was no other than Lady Adelaide Hawley! "She did not recognize me, for I was much changed, in consequence of having removed the huge beard which I had worn, while in her husband's service. You may imagine my triumph at finding the proud lady an inmate of my house and a dependent on my bounty, under circumstances so humiliating to her and so gratifying to me; and you may well believe that I lost no time in giving her to understand the nature of the reward I expected in return for my hospitality. Would you believe it? She actually repulsed me with scorn, and began to talk of her birth, and the superiority of her rank to mine! Her confounded pride had now become altogether ridiculous; and somewhat enraged, I told her who I was. She started, regarded me for a moment with a scrutinizing look, and burst into tears, saying--'It is so, indeed! My punishment is just; I am humbled and degraded before the very menial I despised. Take, me, Simpson; do with me as you will; crime levels all ranks. Yet stay; I am still feeble; delay the consummation of your triumph for one week. During that period I shall regain the strength I have lost, and the beauty that has faded; then shall I be a fitting partner for your bed.' I consented; two or three days passed, and I was rejoiced to perceive that she daily grew in strength and beauty, and was fast regaining that voluptuousness of person which had formerly distinguished her. She related to me, at my request, the particulars of her downfall. She had been cast off by her husband and rejected by her relations with scorn and curses, when the fact of her adultery with St. Clair was discovered.--Entirely friendless and without resources, she was compelled to place herself under the protection of a gentleman of fashion and pleasure, who rioted on her luxuriant charms for a brief season, until possession and excess produced satiety, the sure forerunner of disgust--she was then thrown aside as a worthless toy, to make room for some fresh favorite. Rendered desperate by her situation, she became an _aristocratic courtezan_, freely sacrificing her person to every nobleman and gentleman of rank who chose to pay liberally for her favors. In this manner she subsisted for a time in luxury--but at last, her patrons (as is always the case) grew tired of her; she had become "Like a thrice-told tale, Vexing the dull ears of a drowsy man," and was again thrown upon the world without resources. Her indomitable pride still clung to her, through all her misfortunes; and though she plainly saw that her amours with the aristocracy were at an end forever, she disdained to seek meaner lovers among the humbler classes. Every offer made to her by men of medium rank, was spurned by the proud harlot with supreme contempt. 'I am a companion for nobility--not for the grovelling masses,' she would reply, in answer to all such offers; nor did the pinchings of want and hunger even for a moment shake her resolution, or disarm her prejudices. She might, had she been disposed, have still lived in comfort and even splendor, by becoming an inmate of some fashionable brothel; but as in such an establishment she would be required to bestow her favors indiscriminately on men of all ranks, who could pay for the same, she recoiled from the idea with disgust. Thus did the pride of this singular woman triumph over her wants and poverty; when on the very verge of starvation, with the means of relief within her grasp, the thought--'I am of noble birth,' would sustain her, and enable her to resist successfully the longings of hunger and the sufferings incidental to a homeless life. No scrupulous delicacy prevented her from accepting any assistance, pecuniary or otherwise, that might be offered to her; she even did not hesitate to ask for charity, in tones of _affected_ humility; but the all-pervading principle, PRIDE OF BIRTH, implanted within her breast, imperiously restrained her from bestowing the favors of her patrician person upon 'vulgar plebeians;' and, in consequence, she had sunk lower and lower in want, destitution and misery, until driven, on that terrible winter's night, to supplicate for a slight and temporary relief at the door of one whom she had formerly so much despised, but on whom she was now so dependent. "It was a cold evening, and her ladyship and myself were seated before a comfortable fire. An abundance of wholesome food, and every comfort which it was in my power to procure for her, had improved her appearance greatly. Her form had regained much of its natural roundness, and her countenance had recovered all its original beauty. She was gazing pensively into the fire; while I regarded _her_ with an eye of admiration, and a heart full of amorous longings. At length I broke the silence. 'To-morrow night, madam,' said I, 'the week for which you stipulated, will have expired.' She sighed deeply, and murmured, in an almost inaudible tone, 'It is so, indeed.' Noticing the sigh which accompanied her words, a frown of displeasure gathered on my brow; but it was almost instantly dispelled, in the delight I felt at my approaching happiness. 'Yes,' I continued, 'to-morrow night I shall be the happiest of men; but madam, why delay until to-morrow night that felicity which may as well be enjoyed to-night? You can never be more beautiful or more voluptuous than you are at this moment.' During the utterance of these words, I had drawn my chair close to hers, and encircled her enchanting waist with my arm; I felt her heart throbbing wildly beneath my hand, which had invaded the snowy regions of her swelling charms--and I took it to be the wild throbbing of passion. We were alone--not a soul was stirring in the house; propitious moment! How longingly I gazed upon her dewy lips, which reminded me of the lines in Moore's _Anacreon_--which, I suppose, is all Latin and Greek to you, comrades:-- "Her lips, so rich in blisses, Sweet petitioners for kisses! Pouting nest of bland persuasion, Ripely suing Love's invasion." And they did not long sue in vain; for such vigorous salute as I gave them would have put even Captain St. Clair to the blush. While thus tasting the honey of the sweetest and most luscious pair of lips in the three kingdoms, I fancied that I felt her trembling with delight in my arms; but too soon did I become aware that she was only shuddering with disgust; for by a vigorous effort she struggled from my embrace, and, breathless and panting, said--'Not now, Simpson, not now, I entreat, I implore you! To-morrow night, the week's exemption which I craved, will be completed,--then--then--at this hour--you may--you will find me in my chamber; _then_, so help me God! I will offer no resistance; but now, not now!' I surveyed her ladyship with some surprise; her eyes sparkled like diamonds, and her face, neck and bosom were suffused with a ruddy, glowing hue. 'As you please, madam,' I coldly rejoined, for I was provoked at her violent and unexpected resistance--'as you please; but remember, I am no longer to be trifled with. To-morrow night be it, then; and see that you do not repeat this obstinacy of conduct, for I will then accomplish my object, even if I have to resort to force and violence!' '_I will not then resist you_, I swear it!' said she, with much solemnity of manner, and then added--'one favor I will ask of you: permit me to remain all day to-morrow in my chamber, and do not even attempt to see me, until twelve o'clock to-morrow night, at which hour you will find me waiting for your appearance.' I agreed to this request; and she bade me good-night in a tone almost cheerful, as she left the room to seek her chamber. "The next day and the next evening passed;--the midnight hour arrived. I closed my house, and repaired to the chamber which had been assigned to the use of my lady guest. Finding the door unlocked, I softly entered the apartment; it was a spacious room, tolerably well furnished, and the bed was shrouded by muslin curtains; a lighted candle stood upon the table; glancing around I saw nobody. 'She is in bed,' thought I, and every nerve in my body thrilled with delight at the thought. I approached the bed, and drew aside the curtain. There she lay--but how very still! 'She sleeps,' thought I, somewhat surprised; and bending over in the dim light of the unsnuffed candle, I kissed her lips--heavens! what made them so very cold--and why was the hand which I had lasciviously laid upon her bosom, dampened with a warm liquid? I rushed to the table, seized the candle, and returned to the bed-side. There she lay--DEAD! The life-blood was welling from an awful gash in her left breast; her right hand grasped a dagger--the instrument of her death; the bed on which she lay was literally soaked with her blood, and my hand was stained with it. Then I comprehended her words--'_I will not then resist you!_' I staggered back, horror-stricken; the shadow of remorse for the first time darkened my soul; I would have wrested the dagger from her lifeless hand, and plunged it into my own heart, but in the agonies of death she had clutched it too firmly to admit of my easily tearing it from her grasp. I turned from the bed, and again placed the candle upon the table; I sat down by it, with the cold perspiration starting from every pore. Ha! what is this? a letter, and addressed to me? I had not observed it before. Eagerly I tore it open, and instantly recognized the elegant handwriting of her ladyship--not a blot, not a misformed letter marred the beautiful chirography of the missive; it was written with the same grace and precision that had in former days characterized her ladyship's notes of invitation to her splendid parties. As near as I can remember, it read as follows:-- "'Death is preferable to the dishonor of your vile embraces. Were you a man of birth, gladly would I accept the protection of your arms; but Lady Adelaide Hawley can never become the mistress of a menial. I welcome death, as it will preserve me from staining the purity of my noble blood by cohabitation with such as _thou_ art. May heaven pity and forgive me!' "After I had read this characteristic note, I reflected deeply upon the tragic event--her suicide. Innocent as I was of her death, might I not be arrested as her murderer?[B] Circumstances were strong against me; how could I prove my innocence? Many men have been hung on circumstantial evidence less strong. Though I had escaped detection on a murder which I had actually committed, I now feared that I should suffer for a deed of which I was not guilty. The gallows arose before my excited fancy, in all its terrors; my throat seemed encircled by the fatal rope.--I determined to fly the country; instantly acting upon this impulse, I left the chamber, and hastily collected together all my money (which was considerable) and valuables. Then I left the house, and seeking a safe asylum in an obscure party of the city, remained there until an opportunity was afforded me to take ship to America. I arrived here--soon spent all my money--was hauled up for a murder--was convicted of manslaughter only, and did the State service for a period of ten years in the stone institution at Charlestown; served out my time--and here I am. Now, comrades, you have heard my story; that it has been a long one, and a dry one, I grant--at all events, the narration of it has made _me_ confoundedly dry. Here's a health to jolly thieves all the world over, and confusion to honesty, the law, and the police!" [B] Acute and sagacious as Jew Mike was, it did not occur to him, in his trepidation and alarm, that the note which he had just read, and which was in Lady Hawley's own handwriting, would clearly exonerate him from all suspicion of his having murdered her. But guilt is sometimes singularly short-sighted, and Mike, as cunning a villain as he was, threw aside or perhaps destroyed the only evidence he could have possibly produced to substantiate his innocence. Jew Mike did honor to his own toast in a bumper of brandy; nor were the others backward in following his example. Sow Nance, who had just awoke from a sound sleep, swore it was the most capital story she had ever heard in her life, which opinion she enforced by many oaths that we need not repeat. 'Charcoal Bill' and 'Indian Marth' were loud in their expressions of delight; and Jew Mike had the satisfaction of perceiving that he had pleased his audience, and made himself the hero of the night. A general conversation followed, which lasted until the Jew, as chairman of the meeting and Captain of the _Grabbers_, called the assembly to order, and announced that Sow Nance had the floor;--whereupon silence was restored, and that lady gave utterance to the following words, in a hoarse voice.--Her remarks were copiously interspersed with oaths, which, out of respect for the reader's feelings and our own credit, we omit:-- "Well, gals and fellers, being as how my Mike here has been a blowin' off his gas, I might as well blow mine. You all know how I first came to be se-duced, don't yer? It was a rich State street lawyer wot first did it, when I was 'leven years old. Ha, ha, ha! a jolly old cock he was, with a bald head and a face all over red pimples--he used to be mighty fond of us girls, I tell yer. Maybe I didn't use to suck the money out of him, by threatenin' to _blow_ on him--well, I did! Yer all know how I had a young-'un, and how--ha, ha, ha!--the brat was found, the next day after it was born, dead in the _Black Sea_; it never died no nat'ral death that young-'un didn't, yer can bet yer life; the old Cor'ner wasn't far out of the way when he said in his werdict that the child had been strangled! The State street lawyer was its father, I believe, tho' I can't say for certain, I had so many partick'lar friends; for if I _ain't_ werry good-looking, I've got winnin' ways. I came from a first-rate family, I did; my father was hung for killing my mother--one of my brothers has also danced a horn pipe in the air, and another is under sentence of death, off South, for beating a woman's brains out with a fire shovel, and choking her five children with a dishcloth. He's one of the true breed, he is. I ain't no dishonor to my family, either; for besides that strangling business, (mind, I didn't say _I_ did it!) I once pitched a drunken sailor down stairs, which accidentally broke his neck, after I had lightened his pockets of what small change he had about him.--To tell the honest truth, I'm rather too ugly to make much money by doing business myself; so I've gone into the business of picking up young, good-looking gals, coaxing them off, and getting them into the houses of my regular customers, who pay me well, at so much a head. My best customer is the rich Mr. Tickels, who lives in South street; many's the young gal I've carried to him, and many's the dollar I've earned by it. Look here--do you see this five dollar gold piece? I earned it this morning by coaxing a gal to go with me to Mr. Tickel's house; she was a little beauty, I tell yer, and I'll bet she won't come out of that house the same as she went in, no how. She was a fruit gal, but she wasn't one of us; her name, I believe was Fanny--" "Blood and battering-rams!" This singular exclamation was made by the comical looking old man, who had entered the "Pig Pen" unperceived, and had been seated in the corner unnoticed by any of the company. He had arisen from his seat, and stood in an attitude which betokened profound interest and great astonishment. For a moment the whole gang, male and female, regarded him with surprise and suspicion; then Jew Mike sprang forward, seized him by the throat, shook him strongly, and in a rough, fierce voice, demanded:-- "Death and the devil, old scoundrel, how came you here? Who are you?--are you a police spy--one of Marshal Threekey's gang? Speak, d----n you, before I break every bone in your accursed old carcass!" It was a singular contrast, between the great, powerful ruffian, and the little old man--nevertheless, the latter individual (who, the reader need scarcely be told, was no other than our eccentric friend, the Corporal,) did not tamely submit to such rough treatment; extricating himself, with much agility, from the grasp of the Jew, he dealt that worthy such a quick and stinging blow in the region of his left ear, that it laid him sprawling on the floor, at the same moment exclaiming-- "Skulls and skeletons! do you take me for a child? Nay, come on again, if you are so disposed, and by the nose of Napoleon! I'll beat you to a jelly!" It is difficult to say what might have been the fate of the gallant Corporal, had a second encounter taken place, for the Jew arose from the floor with a howl of rage, his dark face livid with passion. But, fortunately for our friend, at this crisis there stepped forward a big, brawny, double-jointed Irishman, with a fist like a shoulder of mutton; this gentleman gloried in the title of 'Cod-mouth Pat,' in humorous allusion to the peculiar formation of his 'potato trap,' an aperture in his head which might have been likened either to a cellar door or a coal scuttle. "Och, be the powers, Misther Jew Mike," said Pat, placing himself between the Corporal and his gigantic antagonist--"be asy, and lave the owld gintlman alone; he's a brave little man intirely, and it's myself that'll fight for him. Whoop! show me the man that 'od harm my friend, and be the holy poker, and that's a good oath, I'll raise a lump on his head as big as the hill of Howth, and that's no small one!" The good-hearted Irishman's interference saved the Corporal from a severe beating, if not from being killed outright--for the Jew dared not engage in a personal conflict with a man of Pat's resolution and strength. Yet any ordinary observer could not have failed to notice the look of deadly vengeance that gleamed in his eyes, indicating that he would not soon forget or forgive the blow he had received. At that moment, a loud noise resembling the crash of decanters and glasses, mingled with loud oaths and yells of defiance, which sounds proceeded from the adjoining dance cellar, plainly indicated that one of those "bloody rows" for which Ann street is famous, had commenced. Such a scene was too much the element of Cod-mouth Pat for him to remain tranquil during its progress; with an unearthly yell he grasped a short, thick cudgel which he always carried, and leaving the "Pig Pen," plunged into the thickest of the fight. Many a black eye and broken head attested the vigor of his arm; but the glory of his achievements did not screen him from being borne to the watchhouse, nor did his valor prevent the magistrate in the morning from inflicting upon him a very decent fine, which drew from him the indignant remark that--"'Tis a great country, any how, where a man can't have a ginteel bit of a fight without paying for it!" The Corporal's case again looked desperate, when Pat left the "Pig Pen," for he was then without a protector from the vengeance of Jew Mike. But the Jew did not appear inclined to assail the old man personally, though his ferocious eyes still gleamed with rage. Standing apart, he held a whispered conversation with Sow Nance, during which the Corporal could occasionally overhear the words--'spy,' 'danger,' 'police,' 'murder,' and the like. At last they seemed to arrive at some definite conclusion; for the Jew came forward, and said-- "Old fellow, whoever you are, you have heard too much of our private discourse, for our safety.--We must confine you, until such time as you may succeed in convincing us that you meant no foul play in thus intruding into our secret rendezvous." The Corporal began to speak, but the Jew fiercely commanded him to be silent. Meanwhile, Sow Nance had procured a rope, and ere the old man was aware of her intention, she had seized and pinioned his arms with great dexterity. "Into the _Black Hole_ with him!" shouted the Jew. The poor Corporal was hurried from the room, through a low, narrow door, along a dark, winding passage, and soon found himself in a spacious cellar, crowded with negroes, who were drinking "blue ruin" and smoking vile cigars. This resort of the "colored society" was a place of the most degraded and vicious kind, frequented by the lowest of the black population of Ann street. At that period, respectable public houses for the exclusive accommodation of the colored aristocracy, were very rare; and it is only recently that the enterprise and public spirit of Mr. William E. Ambush has established a _recherche_ and elegant Saloon in Belknap street, bearing the poetical cognomen of "_The Gazelle_." We allude to this latter place for the purpose of showing that however degraded may be the colored denizens of Ann street, and however low their resorts, there are nevertheless those of the same complexion who are elevated in their notions of propriety, and strictly exclusive in their associations. "Hallo, here--where's Pete York?" demanded the Jew, looking around upon the sable assembly with an air of authority. A small, very black and hideous looking negro stepped forward in answer to the name, with a grin that would not have disgraced the very devil himself. "Dat's me, master," said he. (It may be as well to remark here, that this negro was soon afterwards sentenced to be hung for an atrocious murder, in Ann street. His sentence was, however, commuted by the Governor to imprisonment for life. He is now comfortably located in the Charlestown State Prison.) "Well, then, you black scorpion, I wish you to take charge of this old fellow, and let him not escape, as you value your life. Keep him here safely for a day or two, and I'll reward you well for your trouble. Sooner than let him escape, _kill him_--do you hear?" The negro _did_ hear, and perfectly comprehended, also. He replied not in words, but in expressive pantomime. Drawing a knife from his belt, he passed his finger approvingly along its glittering edge--then he drew it lightly across his own throat, in the immediate vicinity of his windpipe; by which actions he meant to intimate that should the old gentleman, with whose guardianship he had the honor to be entrusted, manifest the least inclination to "give him the slip," he, Mr. Peter York, would, in the most scientific manner, merely cut his throat from ear to ear, as a particular token of his warm personal regard. Jew Mike appeared perfectly satisfied with the assurance thus eloquently conveyed, and, accompanied by Sow Nance, left the cellar, leaving the Corporal to the tender mercies of as desperate a band of villains and cut-throats as ever prowled about in the dark alleys and underground dens of Ann street. "Now, my good fellow," said the old gentleman, addressing the negro whose prisoner he now was--"you had better instantly unbind me, and suffer me to take my departure from this infernal trap. Give me my liberty, and I will pay you ten times the sum that your Jew friend can afford to give you for detaining me here. What say you?" "Oh, you shut up!" responded Pete York--"you s'pose I'm going to b'lieve any such gas as dat? You look like paying more money than Jew Mike, and not a decent coat on your back! Hush up your mouf, or you'll get this knife a-twixt your ribs in less than no time." The black ruffian, in order to convince his prisoner that he meant what he said, pressed the sharp point of his knife so closely to the Corporal's breast, that it penetrated the skin. Mr. York, having thus practically admonished his victim to preserve silence, (which the Corporal thought it best to do, under the circumstances,) called to another negro, who was indulging in deep potations at the bar, in company with his "ladye love," a wench whose personal attractions consisted of a knotty head, flat nose, and mouth of immoderate dimensions--and that she _was_ attractive to her lover, was afterwards manifested by the fact that in a fit of jealousy he murdered a rival in her affections; for which amusement he was hung in the yard of the Leverett street jail on the 25th day of May, 1849, in the presence of a very jovial party, who were highly delighted with the exhibition. "Wash Goode," cried Mr. Peter York, addressing that gentleman with a familiar abbreviation of his patriotic Christian name--"look yeah, a moment, will you nigger?" Mr. Washington Goode crossed the cellar, and desired to know in what way he could be serviceable to his particular friend and boon companion, Mr. Peter York. The latter gentleman explained himself in a few words. "Jew Mike has put this old white man under my charge," said he, "for a few days, and I don't know where the h----l to keep him. What shall I do with the old son of a----?" "Why, put him in de coal-hole, to be sure," replied the other, with a boisterous laugh at his own ingenious suggestion. Mr. York signified his approval of this plan, and dragging the poor Corporal into the dark passage which he had traversed in going to the cellar, he seized a large iron ring, opened a trap door, and violently pushed his victim into the dark and yawning chasm. Then he shut down the trap door, securely fastened it and departed. The unfortunate Corporal fell a distance of about eight feet, and landed upon a soft, damp bed of earth, with but little personal injury. It will be recollected that his arms had been pinioned by Sow Nance; but, by a desperate effort, the old man succeeded in freeing himself from his bonds. He then essayed to examine and explore the dismal pit into which he had been thrown--which, in the intense darkness that prevailed, was a task of no little danger. However, he cautiously began to grope about, and soon became satisfied that the place was of considerable extent. It will readily be inferred that our friend Corporal Grimsby was a man of dauntless courage; but, notwithstanding this, a thrill of terror nearly paralysed his limbs, when, while exploring the dungeon into which he had been thrown, his feet came in contact with an object, which, on examination, he discovered to be a human skeleton. The dread of being left to starve and perish in that dismal den, in such awful company, well nigh overcame both his philosophy and courage; and seating himself upon the damp earth, he abandoned himself to those feelings of despondency naturally engendered by his situation. A man placed in such circumstances, in the midst of intense darkness, can "take no note of time." An hour of horror will sometimes seem an age, while a week of unalloyed pleasure will often glide by seemingly with the same rapidity as a few fleeting moments. It may have been one hour--it may have been ten--that the Corporal sat on the floor of his dungeon; when suddenly he was startled by the noise of the trap-door above his head being opened, and looking up, he beheld Sow Nance gazing down upon him, holding in her hand a lantern. After regarding him intently for a few moments, she thus addressed him:-- "Say, old chap, what'll yer give me if I help yer to 'scape from this hole? Yer don't look as if yer had any money--but if yer have, pay me well, and I'll get you out." "Lower down a ladder or a rope, and raise me from this infernal trap, and you shall have this purse--see, 'tis full of gold!" replied the Corporal, at the same time producing from his pocket a purse which was evidently well lined with the "needful." Nance uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, and then disappeared; in a few minutes she returned and lowered a ladder into the pit; the Corporal rapidly ascended, and soon stood at the side of his deliverer, whom he could not avoid thanking warmly, as he gave her the purse. Bidding him follow her, she conducted him through the dark passage; they entered the "Pig Pen," which was empty--passed through the dance cellar without attracting any attention, and to the intense joy of the Corporal, he found himself standing in the open air, with the sun shining brightly, and no one to hinder his departure from those corrupt regions of sin and horror. He distinctly remembered that Sow Nance had boasted of having enticed a young girl to the abode of Mr. Tickels in South street. Now this latter individual was known to him as a libertine and a villain; and inwardly praying that he might not be too late to rescue his fair young friend (for he doubted not it was Fanny Aubrey,) from the power of such a monster, in season to preserve her virtue undefiled, he made the best of his way to South street. The reader knows how he rushed into the room just as Tickels was preparing to consummate the outrage, and how he laid the villain sprawling upon the floor, exclaiming-- "Broad-swords and bomb-shells! I am just in time!" We have now seen the manner in which Corporal Grimsby discovered the whereabouts of Fanny Aubrey: and the mystery of his having arrived at a moment so very opportune, is explained. CHAPTER V _The Chevalier and the Duchess._ A period of six months elapsed, and it was now the month of June--voluptuous June, clad in the gorgeous livery of summer. A great change had taken place in the circumstances of several of the most prominent characters of our narrative. The grandfather of Fanny--the blind old basket-maker--had been "gathered to his fathers," and was sleeping in a humble but honorable grave. The excellent old Corporal, having seen the remains of his aged friend consigned to its kindred dust, had procured a comfortable and delightful asylum for the two orphans in the family of a valued friend of his--an elderly gentleman whom we shall call Mr. Goldworthy; he was a retired merchant, possessing an ample fortune, and was a widower, having an only daughter, with whom he resided in a splendid mansion in Howard street. Miss Alice Goldworthy, (then in her eighteenth year,) was one of those rare creatures who seldom bless this grovelling earth with their bright presence. She was truly an admirable combination of excellent personal and mental qualities, and possessed in an eminent degree that beautiful art (so seldom attained) of making all who came within the sphere of her genial influence, _perfectly happy_. But her most amiable characteristic was her good heart, which prompted her to entirely overlook every consideration of self, in her desire to benefit others. We have now, in our mind's eye, the exquisite original from whom we imperfectly draw this beautiful character; her pure soul looks gently forth from the azure depths of her soft eyes; lovely in her smile, for it is the glad sunshine of a happy heart--but has that heart ne'er known affliction or grief? Ah, yes; the harsh world hath, in former times, bruised that gentle sanctuary of all womanly virtue, by its rude contact; but an o'er-ruling Providence would not suffer the blighting storms of life to crush the sweet flower that bent resignedly to the blast--for the angels in heaven are not more pure and holy than she. Peace be with her, now and forever! and should her eyes e'er encounter these humble lines, she will pardon their unknown author for having ventured to gild his pages with her beautiful character--for he has gazed upon her as upon a star, shipping with a serene and softened lustre from the blue vault of heaven. Her domestic accomplishments were not inferior to her social virtues. In the charming (because truthful) words of an unpretending but excellent poet-- "She had read Her father's well-filled library with profit, And could talk charmingly; then she could sing And play, too, passably, and dance with spirit; Yet she was knowing in all needle-work, And shone in dairy and kitchen, too As in the parlor." When Fanny Aubrey was ushered into the presence of this amiable young lady, she started with surprise and pleasure--for she instantly recognized in her the kind young lady who had presented her with the gold coin on the memorable day when she was entrapped by Sow Nance into the house of Mr. Tickels. The recognition was mutual; Miss Alice instantly remembered the pretty fruit girl whose appearance had so much interested her; and warmly did she welcome both the young orphans, as future inmates of her family. Fanny had never before lived in such a grand house, surrounded by every appliance of luxurious wealth; yet the unbounded kindness of Miss Alice and her worthy father soon placed her perfectly at her ease. Excellent teachers were provided for her and her brother Charles--and, under the fostering care of their generous patrons, they promised to become ornaments to the elevated sphere of society in which they were probably destined to move. Time passed on, and nothing occurred to interrupt the smooth current of Fanny's existence, until it was deemed advisable to engage a person properly qualified to give her instructions on that indispensable fixture to a fashionable parlor--the piano-forte. A teacher of some reputed talent was employed for this purpose; he was a Mr. Price, of Charlestown--and has since rendered himself somewhat famous for his amours in the above city with a married lady whom we shall call Mrs. Stout; he had for some time been giving her lessons on the piano--but the husband suspected that he was in the habit of imparting to her secrets more profound than those of music; he accordingly placed himself in a position to observe the operations of the parties--and soon detected them under circumstances of a very unequivocal character. Rushing in, he severely castigated the gay Lothario, who, laboring under the great disadvantage of having his costume seriously disarranged, could only implore for mercy, while he assumed the abject posture so faithfully depicted by a talented artist, in the engraving which accompanies this chapter. Long previous to this humorous event, Mr. Price was, as we have stated, engaged to instruct the pretty Fanny Aubrey in the science and mystery of the noble instrument of which he was a well-known professor; but he soon began to indulge in such alarming familiarities with his fair pupil, that she acquainted her friends with his conduct, and the consequence was that Mr. Price received a very dishonorable dismissal from the house. Nature has been very miserly of her favors to this amorous music teacher: his countenance resembles that of an unwashed charcoal merchant, while his manners are utterly devoid of anything like gentlemanly refinement.--We are no great critic of the art of piano teaching; but we opine that it is rather unnecessary, in the first stages of the instruction, to clasp a lady's waist, or even to bring one's mouth in too close proximity to her rosy lips. It leads a sensitive female, or a fastidious gentleman to suspect the existence of a strong desire to enjoy a more familiar intimacy with a feminine pupil, and is apt to result in the teacher's ignominious ejection from the house and family which he attempts to dishonor. With the exception of Mr. Price's insults, (from which she easily escaped by appealing to her kind patrons for protection,) Fanny's life passed on happily and quietly for some time; until one evening, on entering the parlor, she was startled by seeing no less a person than the Hon. Timothy Tickels, of South street, in familiar and friendly conversation with Mr. Goldworthy and Miss Alice. Mr. Tickels himself started and turned pale on beholding the maid whom he had attempted to dishonor under circumstances of such peculiar atrocity; however, he quickly recovered himself, and bowed low as Mr. Goldworthy presented her to him, saying-- "Mr. Tickels, this is Miss Aubrey, the young lady whom I spoke to you about, as having recently come to reside with me. Fanny, this is an old and much esteemed friend of mine, who has expressed a great desire to see you, and whom, I am sure, you will love and respect for his piety and moral excellence!" Fanny coldly returned the salutations of the lecherous old hypocrite, whom she had such a good reason to hate and despise; it was evident to her that he had imposed on her worthy patrons, who really believed him to be a man of unblemished moral and religious character. During the evening, other company came in, and Tickels, having placed himself at Fanny's side, whispered in her ear-- "My dear young lady, I see you recognize me; I also knew you instantly; for God's sake do not expose me! I am sincerely sorry for the wrong I meditated against you--I have since repented in sackcloth and ashes. Promise me, I entreat you, that you will not whisper a word in regard to that infamous affair to Miss Alice or her father--or, indeed, to any one else; promise me, angel that you are--will you not?" Fanny reflected a few moments, during which she asked herself--"What is the right course for me to pursue in this matter? It will be very wrong for me to ruin this man by exposing him, if he has sincerely repented. The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies--ought I not to forgive him? Yes, I will; my heart and conscience tell me it will be right to do so. Mr. Tickels," she added, aloud--"I forgive you for having tried to injure me, and, if you have truly repented, I will never say anything about the affair which you wish to have kept secret." How artlessly and ingenuously she pronounced those words of forgiveness, to a man who had tried to inflict upon her the greatest injury that can befall woman--a man who, even at that moment, in the black hypocrisy of his heart, gloated upon her youthful charms as the wolf doth feast his savage eyes upon the innocent lamb! Yes, and even at that moment, too, his polluted soul was hatching an infernal plan to get her again in his power, in a place where no aid was ever likely to wrest her from his grasp--a place established for purposes of lust and outrage, to which he had alluded, (in his soliloquy after the rescue of Fanny by the Corporal,) as the "Chambers of Love." "Ah, my young paragon of virtue," said the old hypocrite to himself--"it is all very well for you to prate of forgiveness; but I'll have you in the 'Chambers' in less than a month--then see if you can again escape me! In that luxurious underground retreat, from whose mysterious recess no cry can reach the ears of prying mortals above--there, amid the sumptuousness of an Oriental palace, will I riot on those charms of thine, which now I dare but gaze upon! I'll make thee a slave to every extravagant caprice of my passion; I'll become a god of pleasure, and thou, my beautiful blonde, shall be my ministering angel; for me shalt thou fill the glittering wine-cup with the sparkling gem of the grape; for me shalt thou sing at the banquet, and preside as Venus at the rosy couch of love." Such were the thoughts that passed through the mind of the disgusting old voluptuary, while his lying tongue gave utterance to words like the following:-- "A thousand thanks, my kind young lady, for that promise! Ah, if you only knew how beautiful you are, you would not so much blame me for my folly--my wickedness. But I'll say no more, as such language seems to pain you. I have, by long fasting and sincere prayer, succeeded in cleansing my heart from every impure desire--I can now view you with the holy feelings--the passionless regard, of a father for his daughter. My dear child, forget not your promise to refrain from exposing an erring fellow mortal; and may Heaven bless you!" Poor, unsuspecting Fanny!--could she have seen the black heart of the smooth villain who addressed her with such pious humility, how well she might have exclaimed, with Byron-- "Thy love is lust, thy friendship all cheat, Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit." Mr. Tickels continued to visit the Goldworthys frequently; and they, far from suspecting his real character, always received him with the familiarity of an old friend. They noticed that Fanny treated him with marked coolness and reserve; this they thought but little of, however, merely regarding it as an excess of diffidence. It is now necessary that we introduce a new character on the stage. This was a gentleman who bore the rather aristocratic title of the "Chevalier Duvall," and was supposed to be a foreigner of distinguished birth; and if noble lineage ever indicated itself by splendid personal or mental gifts, then was the Chevalier entitled to the fullest belief when he declared himself to have descended from one of the noblest families of France--for a man of more superb and commanding beauty never won the heart of a fair lady. We confess ourselves rather opposed to the prevailing tastes of authors, who make all their heroes and heroines perfect paragons of personal beauty--but, in the present instance, we are dealing, not with an imaginary creation, but with an actual character. The Chevalier, then, was a man of a thousand; elegant in his carriage, superbly graceful in every movement, possessing a form of perfect symmetry, and a countenance faultlessly handsome, no wonder that he captivated the hearts of many lovely damsels, and made no unfavorable impression upon the mind of the fair Alice Goldworthy, whom he had casually met in polished society, and whose admiration he had enlisted, as much by the charms of inimitable wit as by the graces of his matchless person. What wonder that the gentle girl, all unskilled as she was in the ways of the world, should receive his frequent visits with pleasure; and when her kind father intimated to her that her lover was a man possessing no visible resources, and was besides very unwilling to allude to his former history, which was involved in much obscurity, what wonder that she made herself his champion, and assured her father that he (the Chevalier) was everything that the most fastidious could desire. And the good old man, never very inquisitive or meddlesome in what he considered the affairs of others, and satisfied that his daughter's views of her lover must be correct, forbore to pain her further by any insinuations derogatory to the Chevalier's character, and made no objections to his oft-repeated visits. Delicious was that dream of love to the pure-hearted maiden! Her lover was to her the _beau ideal_ of manhood; so delicate in his attentions, so uniformly respectful in his behavior. What if mystery _did_ exist in reference to his history and resources?--when did Love ever stop to make inquiries relative to descent or dollars? As long as she believed Duvall to be an honorable and good man, she would have deserted her luxurious home and shared poverty and exile with him, if necessary. Ah, how often does Love, in the best and purest natures, triumph over filial affection and every consideration of worldly or pecuniary advantage. "My Alice," said Duvall, as they were seated in Mr. Goldworthy's luxurious parlor, at that most delightful period of the day--twilight--bewitching season, when day softly melts into the embrace of night!--"_My_ Alice, there is much connected with my name and fortunes that must be to you a profound mystery; but, believe me, my name is untainted with dishonor, and my fortunes are free from disgrace. A solemn vow prevents me from explaining myself further, until the blissful moment when I can call you wife; then, idol of my soul, shall you know all. Behold this right hand; it has never committed an action that could make this cheek blush with shame. And now, fairest among women, when shall I claim this soft hand as my own lawful prize?" The day was named, and the happy Alice was for the first time clasped to the bosom of her lover. * * * * * At the hour of noon, on the next day, a gentleman might have been standing on the steps of the Tremont House, gazing with an eye of abstraction upon the passing throng. The age of this gentleman might have been a matter of dubious inquiry; he was not young, you'd swear at the first glance, and yet, after you had gazed two minutes into his superb countenance, you would be as ready to swear that he was not over thirty, or thirty-five at most. In truth, he was one of those singular persons whose external appearance defies you to form any opinion as to their age, with any hope of coming within twenty years of the truth. Not a single gray hair could be seen among the glossy curls that fell over his noble forehead--not a wrinkle disfigured the smooth surface of his dark, beautiful skin--and yet there was _something_ that we cannot define or describe, in the expression of his eyes, which now flashed with all the fire of youth, and then grew almost dim as with the shadows of advancing age--a something that indicated to any acute observer that the elegant stranger had passed the prime of manhood. He was dressed with tasteful simplicity. A splendid black suit set off his fine form to advantage; yet his attire was utterly devoid of ornament. Many were the bright eyes that glanced admiringly at his handsome person; yet he seemed unconscious of the admiration he excited, and gazed upon the passing crowd with all the calm complacency of a philosopher. This gentleman was the Chevalier Duvall. Not long had he been standing upon the steps of the Tremont House, when he was accosted by an elderly gentleman of a portly appearance, whom he cordially greeted with every token of familiar friendship. The portly old gentleman was the Honorable Timothy Tickels; he and the Chevalier had long been intimate friends, having frequently met at the house of Mr. Goldworthy. After the usual compliments, Mr. Tickels remarked to his friend-- "By the way, my dear Chevalier, you remember that you long since promised to introduce me to a sister of yours, whose charms you highly extolled. I am anxious to see if she really merits your somewhat extravagant praise. I have a few hours of leisure to-day, and if you will present me to her, I shall be delighted." "Certainly, my good sir, certainly," rejoined the Chevalier--"the distance is but trifling, and if you will do me the honor to accompany me, to my humble abode, you shall be made acquainted with the most beautiful woman in Boston. My sister is called the _Duchess_, and as mystery is the peculiar characteristic of myself and family, you will have the kindness to address her by that title." Mr. Tickels expressed his thanks; and the two gentlemen proceeded to Somerset street, wherein stood the residence of the Chevalier. It was a house of modest exterior, very plain but respectable in appearance; yet the interior was furnished very handsomely. On entering the house, Duvall directed a servant to inform the Duchess that he had brought a gentleman to be introduced to her; and in about a quarter of an hour the lady sent word that she was prepared to receive her brother and his friend in her _boudoir_. Accordingly, the gentlemen ascended to that apartment; and on entering, Mr. Tickels stood for a few moments rooted to the floor with astonishment. It was a small chamber, but furnished with every indication of the most exquisite taste. Fresh flowers, smiling from beautiful vases, scented the air with their delicious perfume; classic statuary adorned every corner, and gorgeous drapery at the windows excluded the glare of day, producing a kind of soft twilight. Voluptuous paintings, with frames superbly carved and gilded, ornamented the walls; and the footsteps fell noiseless on the rich and yielding Turkish carpet. A splendid harp and piano evinced the musical taste of the tenant of that elegant retreat. But it was not the fragrance of flowers, or the beauties of sculpture, or the divine skill of the painter, that enthralled the senses of Mr. Tickels, and caused him to pause as if spell-bound in the centre of the room. No--his gaze was riveted upon a female form that reclined upon a sofa; and now we are almost inclined to throw down our pen in despair, for we are conscious of our inability to describe such a glorious perfection of womanly beauty as met the enraptured gaze of a man, whose sensual nature amply qualified him to appreciate such charms as she possessed. She was not what the world calls a _young_ woman; yet thirty years--thirty summers--had not dim'd the lustre of her beauty. Truly, she was the VENUS OF BOSTON! A brow, expansive and intellectual--hair of silken texture, that fell in massive luxuriance from beneath a jewelled head-dress which resembled the coronet of a duchess--cheeks that glowed with the rosy hue of health and a thousand fiery passions--eyes that sparkled with that peculiar expression so often seen in women of an ardent, impetuous nature, now languishing, melting with tender desires, now darting forth arrows of hate and rage--these were the characteristics of the Duchess! There she lay, the very personification of voluptuousness--large in stature, full in form, and exquisitely beautiful in feature! Her limbs (once the model of a renowned sculptor at Athens,) would have crazed Canova, and made Powers break his "Greek Slave" into a thousand fragments; and those limbs--how visible they were beneath the light, transparent gauze which but partially covered them! Her leg, with its exquisite ankle and swelling calf,--faultless in symmetry,--was terminated by a tiny foot which coquettishly played with a satin slipper on the carpet,--a slipper that would have driven Cinderella to the commission of suicide. Her ample waist had never been compressed by the wearing of corsets, or any other barbarous tyranny of fashion; yet it was graceful, and did not in the least degree approach an unseemly obesity; and how magnificently did it expand into a glorious bust, whereon two "hillocks of snow" projected their rose-tinted peaks, in sportive rivalry--revealed, with bewildering distinctness, by the absence of any concealing drapery! When she smiled, her lips, like "wet coral," parted, and displayed teeth of dazzling whiteness, and when she laughed, she did so _musically_. Her hand would have put Lord Byron in extacies, and her taper fingers glittered with costly gems. Such was the glorious creature who entranced the senses of the Honorable Timothy Tickels on entering her luxurious _boudoir_. She greeted her brother the Chevalier with a smile, and his friend with a graceful inclination of her head; but she did not arise, for which she apologized by stating that she was afflicted with a slight lameness caused by a recent fall. Then she glided into a discourse so witty, so fascinating, that Mr. Tickels was charmed beyond expression. "I must really chide you, Chevalier," said she, turning to her brother--"for not having afforded me the gratification of an earlier introduction to your friend; for I now have the honor of making his acquaintance under extremely unfavorable circumstances;--almost an invalid, and arrayed in this slovenly _dishabille_. My dear Mr. Tickels," she added, "you must not look at me, for I am really ashamed of having been caught in this deplorable plight." Admirable stroke of art!--to apologize to an accomplished libertine, for liberally displaying to his amorous gaze charms that would have moved a marble statue! "Magnificent Duchess," quoth Mr. Tickels, drawing nearer to her, and eagerly surveying the exposed charms of her splendid person--"offer no apology for feasting my eyes on beauty such as yours. I am no fulsome flatterer when I declare to you, that you are the queen and star of all the beautiful women it has ever been my lot to behold! You are not offended at my familiarity?" The Duchess only said "fie!" and pouted for a moment, so as to display her ripe lips to advantage; and then her face became radiant with a smile that made Mr. Tickels' susceptible heart beat against his ribs like the hammer on a blacksmith's anvil. The Chevalier rose. "You must excuse me, both of you," said he, as he took up his hat--"I have got an engagement which will oblige me to deprive myself of the pleasure of your agreeable company for the present. So _au revoir_--make yourself perfectly at home, my dear Mr. Tickels; and it will be your own fault if you do not ripen the intimacy which has this day commenced between yourself and the Duchess." The Chevalier departed, and Mr. Tickels was alone with the magnificent Duchess. The old libertine spoke truly when he declared that he had never before seen such a beautiful woman. Accustomed as he was to the society of ladies, in whose company he always assumed a degree of familiarity that was almost offensive, he was nevertheless so awed and intoxicated by the divine loveliness of the Duchess, that, when he found himself alone with her, he completely lost his usual self-possession, and could only declare his admiration by his glances--not by words. For a few minutes she coquettishly toyed with her fan--then she carelessly passed her jewelled hand over her queenly brow to remove the clustering hair; and finally, with an arch glance, she complimented Mr. Tickels on his taciturnity, and laughingly enquired if he was always thus silent in the society of ladies? "Madam," replied Mr. Tickels--"I am struck dumb by your unsurpassable beauty. Forgive me, but my tongue is mute in the presence of such a divinity." "Fie, sir! I must scold you if you flatter me," responded the Duchess, as her cheeks were suffused with a charming blush--"and yet I find it very hard to be angry with you, for your compliments are clothed in language so elegant, that they are far from being odious. Here is my hand, in token of my forgiveness." She gave him her hand--a hand so white, so soft, so exquisitely delicate, that its touch thrilled through the entire frame of Mr. Tickels. Involuntarily he raised it to his lips, and knelt down before her;--then suddenly recollecting himself, he arose, murmuring a confused apology for his rudeness. Her brilliant eyes were turned upon his, with a soft expression, like that of languishing desire; and partly rising from the sofa, she made room for Mr. Tickels to seat himself at her side. This action she accompanied by a gesture of invitation; and eagerly did the old gentleman sink down upon the soft and yielding sofa. At first he sat at a respectful distance from her; but gradually he edged closer and closer, until their persons touched. Still she manifested not the slightest displeasure; and at last, maddened by his close proximity to such matchless charms--for lust very often triumphs over prudence--he ventured to steal his arm around her voluptuous waist. To his inexpressible delight, she did not repulse him; and then how wildly palpitated his heart, as he gazed down into those swelling regions of snow, within whose mysterious depths a score of little Cupids might have nested! Bolder and bolder grew the excited old voluptuary, as he found that she did not resist his amorous advances; her fragrant breath fanned his cheek, and the glances of her lustrous eyes dazzled his senses. Her ripe lips were provokingly near to his--why not taste their nectar? He pressed her closer to him, and she turned her charming face full towards him, and seemed, with an arch smile, to challenge him to bear off the prize. One little inch alone intervened between her rosy mouth and his own _watering_ one; in a moment 'twas done! He had stolen a kiss, and received in return a playful tap with her fan. Who, that has once ravished a kiss from the divine lips of a lovely woman, does not feel inclined to repeat the offence? Again and again he kissed her; and finally, almost beside himself with rapture, he glued his hot lips to her neck, her shoulders, her bosom. Then Mr. Tickels became sensible that he had gone too far--for she disengaged herself from his embrace, and said, with an air of offended dignity-- "You seem to forget yourself, sir; my foolish complacency to the friend of my brother has, I fear, led me to permit liberties, which have engendered in your breast desires injurious to my honor. I confess that I was, for a moment, overcome by certain feelings which I possess, in common with all others of the human family; nay, I will even admit that I am of a nature peculiarly ardent and susceptible; and your refined gallantry, and my close contact with your really very agreeable person, aroused my passions, and caused me to forget my prudence until your liberties became so intimate that I feared for the safety of my honor. I must not forget my position as a lady of character and birth; and I trust that you will remember your pretensions to the title of a gentleman." "Forgive me, beautiful Duchess," cried Tickels, in tones the most abject--"on my bended knees I implore your pardon. What man, possessing heart and soul, could view such heavenly charms as thine, without being betrayed into an indiscretion? But forgive me, and I will ask no greater favor than to be allowed to kiss that beauteous hand." "I am not angry with you," said the Duchess, giving him her hand, which he raised reverently to his lips, "for I can fully appreciate the feelings which prompted your conduct; therefore, I willingly forgive,--and now that we are good friends again, you may come and sit by my side, provided you will promise to be very good, and neither kiss me or clasp my waist with your arm. So, sir, that is very well--but why do you gaze so intently at my pretty shoulders and--but, good heavens! until this moment I was unconscious of my almost naked condition; if you will persist in looking at me, I must positively cover myself with a shawl." "Charming Duchess, that would be worse sacrilege than to cover a costly jewel with tow-cloth," rejoined Tickels; and the lady smiled at his gallantry, as she remarked-- "Nevertheless, naughty man, you must not take advantage of my negligent and slight attire to devour my person with your eyes. Besides, I am too _em bon point_ for either grace or beauty, and am naturally anxious to conceal that defect." "Defect!" exclaimed Tickels,--"if there is one single defect in your glorious person, then is Venus herself a pattern of ugliness. The voluptuous fullness of your form is your most delightful attribute." A silence of some minutes ensued, during which the old libertine continued his longing gaze, while the lady took up and fondly caressed a beautiful little lap-dog, whose snowy fleece was prettily set off by a silver collar, musical with bells. How Tickels envied the little animal, when its mistress placed it in her bosom, and bestowed upon it every epithet of tender endearment! "Poor Fido!" at length said the lady, with a soft sigh,--"thou art the sole companion of my solitude. You would scarcely believe, Mr. Tickels, how devotedly I am attached to this little creature, and how much he loves me in return. He will only take his food from my hand, and I feed him on the most delicate custards. Every morning I wash him carefully in rose water, and he is my constant bed-fellow at night. ('Lucky dog!' sighed Tickels.) I have only his society to dispel the _ennui_ of my solitude;--but, now I think of it, I have other sources of amusement: for there are my books, my music, my flowers. By the way, are you fond of music? Yes, I know you are; for you are a gentleman of too much elegant refinement of mind, not to love the divine harmony of sweet sounds. And now I shall put your gallantry to the test by requesting you to bring my harp hither; and to reward you for your trouble, you shall hear a song." The instrument was placed before her, and she sang, with exquisite feeling and pathos, the beautiful song commencing with-- "'Twere vain to tell thee all I feel, Or say for thee I sigh." Tickels, to do him justice, was a true connoisseur in music; and warmly did he express his gratification at the performance, particularly as the Duchess accompanied the words by glances expressive of every tender emotion. "Heigho! what can have become of the Chevalier? Devoted as he is to the erratic pursuits of a man of fashion, he is seldom at home, and consequently I see but little of him." Thus spoke the Duchess, after a long pause which had begun to be embarrassing. "Do you long for his return?" asked Tickels--"will not my society compensate for his absence?" "Oh, yes!" laughingly replied the lady--"you are gallant and agreeable; whereas my brother is often moody and abstracted. Besides, you know, a _brother_ cannot of course be such a pleasant companion to a lady, as--as--I had almost said a _lover_. In truth, I am willing to confess that you are a dear, delightful old gentleman, and I am half in love with you already. Nay, don't squeeze my hand so, or I shall repent having made the declaration." "You are a sweet creature," rejoined Tickels--"and very cruel for having afforded me a glimpse of heaven, and then shut out the prospect from my longing gaze. But tell me, how is it that you and your brother are so completely isolated in society? Certainly you must have relatives and many friends; yet you complain of solitude. If my question is not impertinent, will you tell me?--for a woman of your extraordinary beauty and accomplishments never finds it difficult to surround herself with a circle of admirers, and loneliness is an evil with which she never need be afflicted. To say merely that I feel interested in you, would fail to express the degree of admiration with which I regard you; and it would afford me an unspeakable pleasure to hear the history of your life, from those rosy lips." "Alas!" exclaimed the Duchess, as a tear dim'd for a moment the lustre of her fine eyes--"my story is but a short and sad one. Such as it is, however, you shall have it. I was born beneath the fair skies of sunny France; my parents were noble and rich--my father, the Duke D'Alvear, could even boast of royal blood in his veins, while my mother was closely allied to several of the most aristocratic families in the kingdom. Reared in the lap of luxury, my childhood passed like a pleasant dream, with nothing to disturb its quiet, until I had reached my fifteenth year, at which period I lost both my parents by a catastrophe so sudden, so dreadful, that when you hear its particulars, you will not blame me for weeping as I do now." Here the lady's voice was broken by many sobs--but she soon recovered her composure, and continued her narrative. "My mother was beautiful but frail--which was in her case peculiarly unfortunate, for my father was the most jealous of men. He had reason to suppose that a handsome young Count was too intimate with her; keeping his suspicions profoundly secret, he made preparations for a long journey, and having announced his intention of remaining abroad several months, he departed from Paris. That very night, at midnight, he abruptly returned, proceeded directly to my mother's chamber, and found the Count St. Cyr in her arms. The guilty pair were taken too much by surprise to attempt resistance or escape, and both were slain on the spot by my father, who had provided himself with weapons for that purpose. The Duke then went to his own chamber--the report of a pistol was heard soon afterwards, and the unfortunate man was found dead, with his brains scattered over the carpet. Thus in one fatal night were my only brother and myself made orphans--nor was this our only misfortune, for the notary who had the charge of our joint patrimony, absconded, and left us penniless. Why need I dwell on the painful details of our poverty and its attendant miseries? Suffice it to say that I resisted a hundred offers from men of rank and wealth, who would have maintained me in luxury had I consented to part with the priceless gem of my virtue. Yes--I resisted each tempting proposal, for poverty itself was sweeter to me than dishonor. We came to America, and finally to Boston; the Chevalier, by giving private lessons in the sword exercise, supports us both in a style of quiet comfort--but I charge you, sir, never let that fact be known, for the gossiping world must never learn that the son of France's proudest noble has so degenerated as to _labor_ for his support. Of course, with our modest means, we can mix but little in the gay and fashionable world--as for myself, I prefer to remain at home, and see but few persons except my brother and such of his intimate friends as he occasionally brings home with him. My retired habits have preserved me from the matrimonial speculations of gentlemen, of which I am very glad, for I do not think I shall ever marry; and the seclusion of my life has also saved me from the dishonorable proposals of amorous gentlemen, who are ever ready to insult a good-looking woman provided she is poor, and they are wealthy. Unfortunately for me, I have a constant craving for male society; and when thrown into the company of an agreeable man, be he young or old, passions which have never been gratified will assert their supremacy in my breast, and I often tremble lest, in a moment of delirium, I surrender my person unresisting to the arms of a too fascinating seducer. This weakness of my ardent nature has already several times nearly brought me to ruin; and when your arms just now encircled me, and your lips were pressed to mine, the dizzy delight which I experienced would, in a few moments, have made me your victim, had I not, by a powerful effort, overcome that intoxication of my senses which was fast subduing me; I escaped from your arms, and thank heaven! my honor is preserved. Now, sir, I have frankly told you all; you certainly will not censure me for my misfortunes--and I trust you will not blame me for those propensities of nature to which we are all subject, and which are so peculiarly strong in me as to render their subjection an act of heroic self-denial." Thus ended the narrative of the Duchess; and it may well be imagined that her words inflamed the passions of her listener more than ever. To have that splendid creature sit by his side, and candidly confess to him that the ardor of her soul yearned for enjoyments which cold prudence would not permit her to indulge in,--what could have been more provoking to his already excited feelings? Mr. Tickels gazed earnestly at her for a few minutes, and his mind was decided; he resolved, if possible, to _reason_ her into a compliance with his wishes. "Madam," said he, assuming a tone of profound respect--"you are an educated and accomplished lady; your mind is of the most elevated and superior order. You can reflect, and reason, and view things precisely as they are, without any exaggeration. Look abroad upon the world, and you will see all mankind engaged exactly alike--each man and woman is pursuing that course which he or she deems best calculated to promote his or her happiness; and happiness is the essence of _pleasure_. Your miser hoards gold--that is _his_ source of pleasure; your vain woman seeks pomp, and display, and adorns her person with many jewels--from all of which she derives _her_ pleasure; and as the child is pleased with its rattle, so is the musty antiquarian with his antique models--so is the traveller with his journeyings and explorations--so is the soldier with glory--and so is the lady of warm impulses with her secret amours. All seek to extract pleasure from the pursuit of some darling object most congenial with their passions, their tastes, their preferences. Why, then, should any one seek to set aside the order of things universal--the routine of nature? As consistently might we disturb the harmonious operation of some complex machinery, as to act in opposition to the great fundamental law of human nature--viz: _that every created being, endowed with a ruling passion, should seek its legitimate gratification_. By legitimate gratification, I mean, that indulgence which interferes not with the enjoyments or interests of others. The miser should not accumulate his gold at the expense of another; the libertine should not revel in beauty's arms, by force; the lady must make a willing sacrifice--thus nobody is injured--and thus the pleasure is _legitimate_; though bigoted churchmen and canting hypocrites may declaim on the sin of carnal indulgences unsanctioned by the priest and his empty ceremonies. Fools! NATURE, and her laws, and her promptings, and her desires, spurn the trammels of form and custom, and reign triumphant over the hollow mummery of the parson and his pious foolery. "Now, dear madam," continued the artful logician, (whose words belied his own sentiments, and his own belief,) "supposing that you admit all these premises; what do we next arrive at? Let me be plain, since you have been so candid with me. You have admitted that the prevailing and all-absorbing passion of your nature is--an intense desire to enjoy that delicious communion which had its origin in the garden of Eden. Why deprive yourself of the gratification you long for? Why do you hunger for the fruit which is within your reach? Why disregard the promptings of nature? Why obstinately turn aside from a bliss which is the rightful inheritance of every man and woman on the face of the earth? And, lastly, why are you so cruel to me, whom you have been pleased to pronounce agreeable? Answer me, charming Duchess, and answer me as your own generous heart and good sense shall dictate." The Duchess was silent for a short time, and appeared to reflect profoundly; then she said, in a tone and manner singularly earnest-- "Listen to me, my friend--for that you are such, I am very sure. I do not deprive myself of the pleasures of which you speak, in consequence of any scruples, moral or religious. I have no respect for the institution of matrimony, or its obligations; I laugh at the doctrines of those who speak of the crime of an indulgence in Love's pleasures, without the sanction of the church. I agree with you that we all have derived from nature the _right_ to feed our diversified passions according to their several cravings; but while we are authorized, by the very laws of our being, to seek those delights of sense for which we yearn, a perverted and ridiculous PUBLIC OPINION prohibits such indulgences, unless under certain restrictions, and accompanied by certain forms. Now, though this public opinion undoubtedly _is_ ridiculous and perverted, it must nevertheless be respected, particularly by a lady; otherwise the world, (which is public opinion,) calls her a harlot--points at her the finger of scorn--excludes her from all decent society, and she is forever disgraced and ruined. I must preserve my reputation and position as a lady, no matter at what cost, or what sacrifice; ardently as I long for the delights of love, I shall never, to enjoy them, surrender my personal freedom by marriage, or my character by yielding to the solicitations of a lover,--unless, in the latter case, I should unfortunately, while in the intoxication of excited passion, grant the favors which he asks; which I pray heaven may never happen to me! It is all very well, sir," continued the Duchess, assuming a tone of arch vivacity--"it is all very well for you _men_ to be in such continual readiness to indulge in the joys of Venus, whenever opportunity presents itself; for this odious public opinion is very lenient with you, gay deceivers that you are, and kindly pardons and even smiles at your amorous frailties; but we poor women, good heavens! must not swerve six inches from the straight path of rectitude marked out for us, under pain of eternal condemnation and disgrace; and thus we are either driven into matrimony, or are obliged to deprive ourselves of a bliss (to use your own language) which is the rightful inheritance of every man and woman on the face of the earth. Well," added the Duchess, in a tone of mock melancholy which was irresistibly charming,--"poor _I_ must submit to the stern decree, as well as the rest of those unfortunate mortals called women;--unfortunate because they _are_ women, and because they are even more ardent in their passions than those who have the happiness to be men. Let me congratulate you, sir, on your felicity in belonging to a sex which possesses the exclusive privilege of unrestricted amative enjoyment; and I am sure you will not refuse to sympathize with me on my misfortune, in having been born one of those wretched beings who are doomed to be forever shut out from a Paradise for which they long,--a Paradise whose bright portals are guarded by the savage monster, Public Opinion, which ruthlessly denies the admission within its flowery precincts, of every poor daughter of Eve." Mr. Tickels had listened with breathless attention to the words of the Duchess; he plainly saw that she was not to be subdued by _argument_. "Her only vulnerable point lies though the avenue of the passions," thought he--"for according to her own confession, she was intoxicated with rapture when encircled by my arms, and when receiving my ardent kisses; and only escaped the entire surrender of her person to me, by a powerful effort. My course, then, is plain--I must delicately and gradually venture on familiarities which are best calculated to arouse her sensibilities, without incurring her suspicions as to my ultimate object. I must--I shall succeed; for, by heaven! if I should fail to make this exquisite creature mine, I'll eat my own heart with vexatious disappointment!" "My dear madam," said he, taking the unresisting hand of the Duchess in both of his, and gently pawing it in a manner that would have been disgusting to a spectator--"what can I say, after your candid avowal? Simply, that you are the most ingenuous, the most delightful creature in the world. I love you to distraction; and yet I will not urge you to depart from the course which you seem determined to pursue, though by adhering to that course you deprive me, as well as yourself, of the most exquisite delights this world can afford. Nevertheless, let us be friends, if we cannot be lovers. See, my hair is gray; I am old enough to be your father; will you not confer upon me a daughter's love? Ah, that bewitching smile is a token of assent. Thanks, sweet one; now, you know, a father should be the recipient of all his daughter's little joys and sorrows--he should be made acquainted with all her pretty plans and all her naughty wishes; is it not so, my charming daughter?[C] Again your soft smile answers, yes. And when the daughter thus bestows her confidence upon her father, she leans her head upon his bosom, and his protecting arm embraces her lovely waist--thus, as I now do yours. He places his venerated hand in her fair breast--thus--and feels the pulsations of her pure heart; ah! methinks this little heart of thine, sweet one, beats more violently than comports with its proper freedom from fond and gentle longings; thy father must reprove thee, thou delightful offender--yet he forgives thee with this loving kiss--nay, start not, for 'tis a father's privilege. How dewy are thy lips, my daughter, and thy breath is fragrant with the odor of a thousand flowers--'tis thy father tells thee so! Pretty flutterer, why dost thou tremble? I will not harm thee. Ah, is it so?--dost thou tremble with the bliss of being held in a father's arms, and pressed to his heart? Why doth this bosom heave--why do thine eyes sparkle as if with fire, and thy cheeks glow with the rosy hue of a ripe peach? What meaneth that longing, languishing, earnest, voluptuous look? Doth my daughter yearn after the soft joys of Venus?--Confess it, and I'll forgive thee; for thou art a passionate darling, and such desires as now swell within my breast become thee well, for they are nature's promptings, and enhance thy beauty. Ah, ha! that blush, glowing like a cloud at sunset, assures me that I am not mistaken. Yes, hide thy radiant face in my bosom, and let me gather thee closer to my heart--my life--my treasure! Let me no longer play the father; let me be thy lover--thy all--thy own Timothy--thy chosen Tickels! Ah, my bird, have I caught thee at last?--thou art mine--mine--mine--" Every circumstance of position and the lady's compliance seemed about to confer upon Mr. Tickels the boon which he so eagerly desired, when at that critical moment the Duchess uttered a piercing scream, and pointed frantically upward to a large mirror that hung directly over the sofa upon which they were partially reclining; the old libertine glanced hurriedly up at the mirror, and to his horror he saw there reflected the figure of the Chevalier Duvall, standing in the centre of the room. He had entered abruptly and noiselessly, and was contemplating the scene before him with every appearance of astonishment and rage. [C] As an apology for the insertion of this silly, sickening rhapsody of the old libertine, the author begs to state that he introduced it, (as well as other speeches of a like character,) for the purpose of painting, in strong colors, the disgusting lechery of a man, whose primal passions had degraded him to the level of a brute. He would also assure the reader that the character of old Tickels is drawn from a living original, whose real name sounds very much like the curious cognomen that has been assigned him. It will readily be observed that during the entire scene between him and the Duchess, the latter makes him her complete tool--encouraging him to take the very liberties which she affects to resent, and even while declaring her firm intention of remaining virtuous, using language most calculated to inspire him with the thought of being able to enjoy her charms in the end. Her object in all this will be shown towards the conclusion of the chapter. It has been the author's design to portray, in the character of the Duchess, an accomplished, artful, fascinating and totally depraved woman, possessing the beauty of an angel, and the heart of a devil--precisely such a one as could not fail to enslave and victimize such a sensual old wretch as Mr. Tickels; how far this design has been successful, the intelligent and discerning reader is left to judge. In the Chevalier Duvall will be recognized one of those splendid villains, whose superb rascality is cloaked beneath the mantle of a fine person, elegant address, and the assumption of every quality likely to interest and please the credulous people whom he _honors_ with his patronising friendship. The Duchess hid her face in her hands, and sobbed violently, as if overcome with shame and affright; while old Tickels, pale and trembling with fear, (for he was a most detestable coward,) fell upon his knees, and gazed upon the Chevalier with an expression of countenance that plainly indicated the terror which froze his blood, and rendered him speechless--for the position in which he and the Duchess had been detected, would, he well knew, admit of no explanation--no equivocation. "God of heaven!" said Duvall, in a voice whose calmness rendered it doubly impressive and terrible--"am I the sport of some delusion--some conjuror's trick? Do I dream--or do these eyes actually behold that which appalls my soul? Speak, Duchess--for sister I will not call you--and you, white-faced craven--what is the meaning of this scene?" But neither the Duchess nor Mr. Tickels could utter one word in reply. "Damnation!" exclaimed the Chevalier, drawing a pistol from his pocket, and cocking it--"answer me, one of you, and that quickly, or there will be blood spilled here!" This brought Mr. Tickels to his senses; he arose from his knees and stammered forth-- "My dear sir--don't shoot, for God's sake--put up that pistol, and I'll explain all. I--that is--you know, my dear Chevalier--as a man of the world--beautiful woman--strong temptation--" "Hold, sir!" cried the Chevalier--"say no more, in that strain, or you die upon the instant. Duchess, tell me the meaning of all this." The lady raised her tearful eyes imploringly to the stern face of her brother, and said, in a voice rendered indistinct by her sobs-- "Oh, brother! pardon your erring sister, who, in a moment of weakness, forgot her proud and unsullied name! You know the fire and passion of my nature; and you know the resolution with which I have heretofore struggled against it. I am inexperienced--unused to the ways of the world--unaccustomed to the artifices of wicked men. Debarred as I am from male society, what wonder that, in the company of a male, I should be overcome by the weakness of a woman's nature? Forgive me, Chevalier, I implore you--indeed, my honor is preserved; your timely intervention prevented the consummation of my ruin." "Sister," rejoined Duvall, gazing at her with a softened aspect--"I _do_ forgive you, your honor being still undefiled; I know the power of your passions, notwithstanding your many excellent qualities; and I can scarcely wonder at your momentary weakness, when an accomplished villain tempts you to ruin. Hereafter, dear sister, govern those unruly passions with a rod of iron; remember the grandeur of our ancestral house and name, and let that remembrance be your safeguard.--As for you, sir," continued the Chevalier, turning savagely towards Mr. Tickels, while his magnificent features grew dark with terrible rage--"as for you, sir, you have betrayed my confidence and abused my hospitality; I introduced you into this house, supposing you to be a man of honor and a friend. You have attempted the seduction of my sister; you have basely tried to take advantage of the weakness of an inexperienced and unsuspecting woman; but more than all this, sir--and my blood boils with fury at the thought!--you would have tarnished the unstained name and honor of a kingly race! Look you, sir, these wrongs demand instant reparation--one or both of us must die. Here are two pistols; take your choice; place yourself at the distance of six paces from me, and let impartial Fate decide the issue!" "But, my dear sir," cried the old villain, almost beside himself with terror--"I can't--I don't want to be killed--my God, sir, I never fired a pistol in all my life. Can't we settle this matter in some other way? Will not _money_--" "Money!" exclaimed me Chevalier, scornfully--"fool, can money heal a wounded honor, or wipe away the odium of your insults? Choose your weapon, sir!" "Mercy--mercy!" cried the dastard, falling on his knees before his stern antagonist--"I am rich, let me depart in safety, and I'll give you a cheque for a hundred--" The Chevalier cocked a pistol. "Five hundred--," groaned Tickels. The pistol was raised, and pointed at his head. "A thousand dollars!" yelled the victim, his face streaming with a cold perspiration, his hair bristling, and his teeth chattering with fright. The Chevalier paused, and said, after a few moments' reflection-- "After all, to make such men as you disgorge a portion of their wealth, is a punishment as severe as any that I can inflict upon you. You are a coward and dare not fight; I wish not to murder you in cold blood. I will content myself with exposing your infamous conduct to the world--publishing your rascality in every newspaper, and you will be kicked like a dog from all decent society; this will I do, unless you immediately fill me out a cheque for the sum of five thousand dollars." "Five thousand devils!" growled Tickels, gaining courage as he believed his life to be in no imminent danger--"what! five thousand dollars for only having kissed and toyed a little with a pretty woman, without having reaped any substantial benefit? No, no, my friend--you can't come it; you are, to use a vulgar phrase, cutting it rather fat; I'm not so precious green as you think. I don't mind giving you a couple of hundred, or so, for what fun I've had, but five thousand--whew! rather a high price for the amusement, considering what a remarkably free-and-easy lady your sister is!" "No more of this!" thundered the Chevalier, in a tone that made Mr. Tickels leap two feet into the air--"instantly give me a cheque for the sum that I demand, or by my royal grandfather's beard, (an oath I dare not break,) I'll blow your head into fragments!--Look at that clock; it now lacks one minute of the hour; that minute I give you to decide; if, at the expiration of that period, you do not consent to do as I request, you die!" The muzzle of the pistol was placed in very close proximity to the victim's head; there was no alternative--life was exceedingly sweet to Mr. Tickels, although the wickedness of half a century rested heavily on his soul; in a few seconds more, unless he consented to give up a portion of his basely acquired wealth, he had every reason to fear that soul would be ushered into a dark and unfathomable eternity. No wonder, then, that he tremulously said-- "Put up your weapon; I will do as you require." Writing materials were soon brought, and in a few minutes the Chevalier was the possessor of a cheque on a State street bank, bearing the substantial autograph of Timothy Tickels. "Now, sir," said Duvall, depositing the valuable document in his pocket-book--"you are at liberty to depart. I am confident that you will, for your own sake, keep this affair a profound secret; and so far as myself and much-injured sister are concerned, you may rest assured that nothing shall ever be said calculated to compromise your reputation. I cannot avoid expressing my regret that a man of your advanced age, and high standing in society, should descend so low as to manifest such base and grovelling sensuality--such unprincipled libertinism--especially towards a lady who has heretofore regarded you as a friend. Go, sir, and seek some other victim, if you will--but confine your amours to your own class, and do not again aspire to the favors of a lady in whose veins flows the noblest blood of France!" Mr. Tickels took his leave of the indignant brother and his much-injured sister, with a very ill grace; and bent his steps towards his own house, grinding his teeth with impotent rage. The loss of his money, and the mortifying disappointment he had experienced, rendered him furious, and he muttered as he strode thro' the streets with hasty and irregular steps-- "Eternal curse on my ill fortune! Five thousand dollars gone at one fell swoop--but hah! the money's nothing, when I think of my being cheated out of the enjoyment of such celestial charms as those possessed by that splendid enchantress!--At the very critical moment--when she lay panting and unresisting in my arms--with all her glorious beauties spread out before me, like the delicious materials of a dainty feast--just as the cup of joy was raised to my eager lips, and I was about to quaff its bewildering contents, to be balked by the unexpected entrance of that accused Chevalier. Confusion!--I shall go mad with vexation. **** Well, 'tis of no use to grumble about what can't be helped; let me rather turn my attention to future joys, concerning which there can be no disappointment. My plans are all arranged; in a few days my pretty Fanny Aubrey will be an inmate of the luxurious "Chambers of Love." Ha, ha! _that_ thought almost reconciles me to the loss of the Duchess--though, egad! _she_ is a luscious piece, all fire, all sentiment, all enthusiasm! But oh! five thousand dollars, five thousand dollars! *** But let me see: where is the infernal trap of that scoundrel, _Jew Mike_, whom Sow Nance recommended as a fellow well qualified to abduct my pretty Fanny, and convey her to the "Chambers?" Ah, good; his address is in my memorandum book: _'Inquire for the Pig Pen, No.--Ann street, any night after midnight._' Ugh! I don't like this venturing among cut-throats and thieves, at such untimely hours; but nothing risk, nothing have; and anything for love!" The reader's attention is now summoned to the scene which transpired between the Chevalier and the Duchess, immediately after the departure of Mr. Tickels from the house. The Duchess, who had been sitting upon the sofa, bathed in tears and sobbing as if her heart would break, jumped up, bounded across the carpet in a series of graceful pirouettes, and then, throwing herself upon the floor, indulged in a peal of silvery laughter that made the room fairly echo, exclaiming-- "What a d----d old fool that man is! Oh, I shall die--I shall positively suffocate with mirth!" The Chevalier, throwing aside every appearance of indignation and dignity, placed himself in that humorous and rather vulgar position, sometimes adopted by jocose youths, who wish to intimate to their friends the fact that any individual has been most egregiously "sucked in." Fearing that the uninitiated may not readily comprehend this pantomimic witticism, we may as well state, for their enlightenment, that it is accomplished by applying the thumb to the tip of the nose, and executing a series of gyrations with the open hand; the whole affair being a very playful and ingenious invention, much practised by newsboys, cabmen, second-hand clothes dealers, and sporting gentlemen. "A cool five thousand!" shouted the Chevalier, abandoning this comic picture, and "squaring off" at his reflection in the mirror, in the most approved style of the pugilistic art--as if he were about to give himself a "punch in the head," for being such a funny, clever dog; "bravo! I'll go and get the cheque cashed at once; and then hurrah for a brilliant season of glorious dissipation! But, my Duchess, how the devil did you mange to get the old fool so infatuated--so crazy with passion? for I stood over ten minutes looking at both of you through the key-hole, before I entered the room, and I never before saw a man act so extravagantly ludicrous; it was only with extreme difficulty that I could keep myself from laughing outright. And you, witch that you are, looked as if you were panting and dying with amorous desires. By my soul, 'twas admirably done!" The Duchess smiled with gratification at the praise; and arising from the carpet, on which she had been literally _rolling_ in the excess of her mirth, threw herself upon the sofa in an attitude of voluptuous abandonment; and while complacently viewing her matchless leg, she said-- "For your especial entertainment, my Chevalier, I will relate all that transpired between me and the old goat, after your departure. At first, he assailed me with a profusion of silly, sickening compliments on my beauty; I blushed, (you know how well I _can_ blush, when I try,) and assured him that his praises were divine--so eloquent, so elegantly conveyed--and yet I thought them intolerably stupid. Then I gave him my hand to kiss; and its contact with his lips made him as amorous as I could possibly desire. He knelt at my feet; then arose, apologizing for his rudeness. I threw all my powers of fascination into my looks, and permitted him to take a seat by my side, on the sofa. At first, he sat apart from me; but at last, gaining courage, he moved close to me, and gently placed his arm around my waist; of course, I did not repulse him. With secret joy I observed the eagerness with which he regarded such parts of my person as were exposed--and I took good care to reveal it liberally; how the odious old wretch gloated upon this bust, which you, my Chevalier, pronounce so charming! At last, he kissed me--ugh! how horribly the old creature's breath smelt! But I pretended to be more pleased than angry; and from my lips his nauseous mouth wandered to my neck, my shoulders, my bosom. I fairly shuddered as he besmeared me with his disgusting kisses; and thinking that he had gone far enough, for that time, I burst from his embrace, and reproached him (but not too severely,) for his rude behavior--taking good care, however, to fan his passions into a still fiercer flame, by telling him that my reason for particularly dreading such familiarities, was, that they had a tendency to excite my own desires to a degree that was dangerous to my honor. As I foresaw, this artful assurance was received by him with ill-concealed delight. He begged my pardon; it is needless to say, I forgave him, and suffered him to resume his seat at my side, on condition that he would take no further liberties, knowing very well that he could not long keep his promise. Then came more compliments; I sang and played for him, and he was beyond measure delighted. After a short conversation on the secluded manner in which I lived, and the loneliness which I felt, I confessed to him that I was half in love with him; while at the same time I thought him the most disgusting old brute in existence. In return for my pleasing lie, he pressed my hand fervently, and requested me to relate to him the story of my life, from "my own rosy lips," as he said. My Chevalier, you know what splendid powers of imagination, and what a rich, prolific fancy I possess; and well I may--for am I not a leading contributor to a fashionable ladies' magazine, besides being the authoress of "Confessions of a Voluptuous Young Lady of High Rank," and also the editress of the last edition of the "Memoirs of Miss Frances Hill?" Well, I entertained my aged admirer with a pretty little impromptu "romance," "got up expressly for the occasion," as the playbills have it; and he religiously believed every word of it--though, of course, it contained not one single word of truth in it. I told him that _my brother_ and myself--ha, ha!--were the children of some Duke Thingumby, (whose name I have forgotten already,) who was one of the greatest nobles in France; yes, faith--our venerable papa had royal blood in his veins, while our mamma, bless her dear soul, was 'closely allied to several of the most aristocratic families in the kingdom.' Then I trumped up a cock-and-bull story about papa killing mamma in a fit of jealousy, having caught her in a naughty fix with the young Count Somebody-or-other, whom he also slew, and then, to wind up the fun, went to his own chamber and shot himself--great booby as he was! Next, the notary who had charge of our princely fortune, "stepped out," as they say, and left us, poor orphans, without the price of a penny roll. I was intensely virtuous, of course, resisted a hundred tempting offers to become the kept mistress of men of wealth and rank--we came to America, and settled in Boston, where you now obtain for us a comfortable subsistence by privately teaching the use of the small sword. Ah, my Chevalier, wasn't that brought in well? Then I went on to lament that my passions were so fiery that I could not enjoy the society of an agreeable man without danger to my honor; and concluded my story by hinting to Mr. Tickels that my virtue had never been in such peril, as when his arms had embraced me--for, said I, my senses were fast becoming intoxicated; and in a few moments more I should have been your victim, had I not, by a powerful effort, escaped from the sweet delirium which was stealing over my soul. Thus you will see, Chevalier, that my story and its accompanying remarks were both judicious and appropriate; my victim manifested the most intense interest during the recital, and I could plainly perceive the exciting effect which the concluding words of my narrative had upon him. "My story being done, He gave me for my pains a world of sighs." "After the completion of my delightful little romance," continued the Duchess, "the venerable goat attempted to subdue me by the force of _argument_; and, to do him justice, I must say that his philosophy, if not very rational, was at least very profound. He went over the entire field of moral subtleties, and proved himself an excellent sophist. He argued that as nature had given me passions, I was justified in gratifying them, despite the opinions of the world and the prohibitions of decent society. Much more he said that I have forgotten; but the drift of his remarks was, that as I had admitted him to be the most charming and agreeable person in the world, I could not do a better thing than to throw myself into his arms, and enjoy with him, as he said, 'the rightful inheritance of every man and every woman on the face of the earth.'" "In reply to his specious reasoning, I assured him that I couldn't think of complying with his wishes, as I should thereby lose my reputation and position in society, as a lady--which was, I added, the only consideration that restrained me from testing those joys which he had so eloquently depicted; for as to any scruples, moral or religious, I had none whatever. Then I congratulated him on his happiness in belonging to a sex having the privilege of amative delights, with almost perfect impunity; and deplored my own hard fate--'for', said I, 'am I not a woman, and are not women sternly prohibited from tasting the joys of love unsanctioned by the empty forms of matrimony, under pain of having their names and characters forever blasted and disgraced?' "Well, my Chevalier, the old wretch, seeing that he was not likely to accomplish his object by argument, adopted a new plan. Instantly, he dropped the lover, and became the fond and doting father, in which sacred capacity he proceeded to take liberties to which his former familiarities were as nothing. He began by reminding me of his gray hair and advanced age; then he asked permission to regard me as a daughter, to which I made no objection, as I wished to see how far he would operate during the personation of that character--though I shrewdly suspected that his actions would be anything but fatherly. Therefore, when he again clasped my waist, and made me lean against him, I did not repulse him, for his conduct was in furtherance of _our_ plans; and I also permitted him, (though with extreme disgust on my part,) to toy with my breasts, and kiss me again and again, all of which he did under cover of his holy privileges as a father! The moment had then arrived for _me_ to play _my_ part; and though the old rascal's conduct and person were loathsome to me in the extreme, I affected all the languor, flutter, and ardor of passionate longings; which he perceived with the most extravagant demonstrations of delight--" "I know all the rest," interrupted the Chevalier, almost suffocated with laughter, in which the merry Duchess joined him--"I applied my eye to the key-hole just at that moment, and saw the old goat, as you properly term him, hugging you with the ferocity of a bear; I heard him say--'Let me no longer play the father; let me be thy lover--thy all--thy own Timothy--thy chosen Tickels!' Ha, ha, ha! was anything so richly ludicrous. And, by Jove, how admirably you acted, my Duchess! You appeared absolutely dying with rapture--your eyes seemed to express a thousand soft wishes--your face glowed as if with the heat of languishing desire; how wildly you seemed to abandon your person to his lascivious embraces! and yet I know the disgust which you must have felt towards him, at that very moment; for he was anything but a comely object, with his gray hair disordered, his bloated countenance red as fire, and his dress indecently disarranged. At that moment I noiselessly stole into the room; and just at the very instant when the old fool thought himself sure of his prey, you screamed, and pointed to my reflection in the mirror. The result was precisely as I expected; too cowardly to fight, afraid of his life, and anxious to preserve his reputation, he preferred giving me the handsome sum of five thousand dollars--which money we very much needed, and which will last us a long time, provided we exercise a reasonable degree of economy. That last five hundred, which we extracted from the parson, lasted us but little over a month; let us be more discreet hereafter, my Duchess--we may live splendidly, but not extravagantly; for old age will come on us by-and-by, and your beauty will fade--then what is to become of us, unless we have a snug competency in reserve? And really, my dear, you must curtail your personal expenditures; you recollect but a week ago you gave two hundred dollars for that diamond coronet you have on--and you are constantly purchasing costly dresses and superb shawls. Do you not observe the plainness of my attire? Believe me, an elegant simplicity of dress is far more attractive to men of taste, than gaudy apparel can possibly be." "Have you done sermonizing?" cried the Duchess, good-humoredly--"really, you would make an admirable parson; and a far better one, I am sure, than the reverend gentleman whom we wheedled out of the five hundred dollars. But go at once and get the cheque cashed; you shall give me exactly one half, and we both shall have the privilege of expending our several portions as we choose." "Agreed," said the Chevalier,--"but I have a little business to transact in my _workshop_, before I go to the bank. What are you laughing at?" "Oh," answered the Duchess--"I cannot help thinking of that amusing old goat, Mr. Tickels. The recollection of that man will certainly kill me! The idea of your passing me off as your sister was so rich; he little suspected that for years we have been tender lovers and co-partners in the business of fleecing amorous gentlemen out of their money. And then to represent myself as the daughter of a French nobleman!--Why, my father gained a very pretty living by going around the streets with a hand-organ, on which he played with exquisite skill, and was accompanied in his perambulations by a darling little monkey named Jacko--poor Jacko! he came to his death by being choked with a roasted potato. My mother, rest her soul! was an excellent washerwoman, but her unfortunate fondness for strong drink resulted in her being provided with bed and board in the alms house, in which excellent institution she died, having first conferred upon the world the benefit of bringing me into existence; therefore, instead of having first seen the light within the marble walls of a French palace, I drew my first breath in the sick ward of a pauper's home. At ten years of age I was a _ballet girl_ at the theatre; at fourteen, my Chevalier, it was my good fortune to meet you; you initiated me, not only into the mysteries of love, but into the art of making money with far greater facility than as a _figurante_ in the opera. You christened me 'Duchess,'--took the title of 'Chevalier,' and together we have led a life of profit, of pleasure, and of charming variety." "And I," rejoined the Chevalier, "can boast of a parentage as distinguished as your own. My father was an English thief and pickpocket; he took pains to teach me the science of his profession, and I will venture to affirm that I can remove a gentleman's watch or pocket-book as gracefully as could my venerated sire himself, whose career was rather abruptly terminated one fine morning in consequence of a temporary valet having tied his neckcloth too tightly: he was hung in front of Newgate jail, for a highway robbery, in which he acquired but little glory and less profit,--for he only shot an old woman's poodle dog, and stole a leather purse full of halfpence. My mother was a very pretty waiting woman at an ordinary tavern; one night she abruptly stepped out and sailed for America, carrying with her my unfinished self, and the silver spoons. I saw you--admired you--made you my mistress, and partner in business, the profitable nature of which is proved by our being now possessed of the very pretty sum of five thousand dollars, the result of three hours' operation." "You have yet one grand stroke of art to accomplish, which will place us both on the very pinnacle of fortune," said the Duchess. "I allude, of course, to your approaching marriage with Miss Alice Goldworthy." The Chevalier's brow darkened, and his handsome features assumed an expression of uneasiness. "That," said he, "is the only business in which I ever faltered. Poor young lady! she is so good, so pure, so confidingly affectionate, that my heart sinks within me when I think of the ruin which her marriage with me will bring upon her. When I gaze into her lovely countenance, and hear the tones of her gentle voice, remorse for the wrong that I contemplate towards her, strikes me to the soul, and I feel that I am a wretch indeed." "Pooh!" exclaimed the Duchess, her lips curling with disdain--"you grow very sentimental indeed! Perhaps you really _love_ this girl?" "No, Duchess, no--but I pity her; a devil cannot love an angel. There was a time when my soul was unstained with guilt or crime--then might I have aspired to the bliss of loving such a divine creature as Alice; but now--villain as I am there can be no sympathy between my heart and hers. Well, well--the die is cast; I will wed her, for I covet the splendid fortune which she will inherit on the death of her father. You know that the wedding day will soon arrive; but how I dread its approach! for I fear that ere I can embrace my bride within the sacred nuptial couch, she will discover that which I can never remove or entirely conceal--that _fatal mark_, the brand of crime, which I carry upon my person. She loves me; but her love would be changed to hate, were she to see that horrid emblem of guilt." "You must conceal it from her view," rejoined the Duchess, shuddering--"or it will spoil all. The marriage would be annulled by the discovery of that detestable mark." "Let us trust to fortune," said the Chevalier.--"I must leave you now, and shut myself up for an hour or so in my _workshop_. Afterwards, I shall go and convert the cheque into substantial cash." Duvall left the room, and ascended to the highest story in the building. Here he entered a small apartment, which contained many curious and remarkable things. A small printing press stood in one corner; in another was a pile of paper, and other materials; tools of almost every description lay scattered about, among which were the necessary implements for robbery and burglary. An experienced police officer would have instantly pronounced the place a secret den for the printing of counterfeit bank-notes--and so it was. The gallant Chevalier was the most expert and dangerous counterfeiter in the country. Seating himself at a trunk, on which stood writing materials, he drew forth the cheque which Mr. Tickels had given him. Having examined it long and narrowly, he took a pen and paper, and wrote an exact copy of it; this he did so admirably, that Mr. Tickels himself would have been puzzled to point out the original and genuine cheque which he had written. "This will do," said the Chevalier, communing with himself--"to-day I will draw five thousand dollars; and within a week I will _send_ and draw five thousand more; and it shall be done so adroitly, that I will never be suspected. Hurrah! Chevalier Duvall, thy star is on the ascendant!" That afternoon the gentleman presented the cheque at the bank; it was promptly paid, and he returned to the Duchess, with whom he celebrated the brilliant success of the operation, by a magnificent supper. CHAPTER VI _The Stolen Package.--The Midnight Outrage.--The Marriage, and Awful Discovery._ A very merry party were assembled in the elegant parlor of Mr. Goldworthy's superb mansion in Howard street about two weeks after the events described in the last chapter. There was Fanny Aubrey herself, looking prettier than ever, with her splendid hair tastefully braided, her graceful, _petite_ form set off to advantage by an elegant dress, and her lovely countenance radiant with the hues of health and happiness. Then there was her friend and benefactress, Miss Alice, looking very beautiful, her face constantly changing from smiles to blushes--for the next day was to witness her marriage with the Chevalier Duvall. At her side was seated her lover and affianced husband, his dark, handsome features lighted up with an expression of proud triumph, almost amounting to scorn. Then there was Corporal Grimsby, very shabby, very sarcastic, and very droll; near him sat the Honorable Timothy Tickels, wearing upon his sensual countenance a look of uneasiness, and occasionally betraying a degree of nervous agitation that indicated a mind ill at ease. At intervals he would glance suspiciously and stealthily at the Chevalier--for that was their first meeting since his scandalous adventure with the Duchess, and he was not without a fear that he might be exposed, in the presence of that very respectable company, in which case his reputation would be forever ruined; but his fears were groundless--the Chevalier had not the remotest idea of exposing him, having his own reasons for keeping the affair profoundly secret; and he saluted and conversed with Mr. Tickels with as much composure and politeness as though nothing had ever happened to disturb the harmony of their friendship. Mr. Goldworthy himself was present, and also a nephew of his--a handsome youth of nineteen, named Clarence Argyle; he was studying the profession of medicine at a Southern University, and was on a visit at his uncle's house. It was evident, by the assiduity of his attentions to Fanny Aubrey, that the mental and personal charms of the fair maid were not without their effect upon him; and it was equally evident by the pleased smile with which she listened to his entertaining conversation--addressed to _her_ ear alone--that the agreeable young stranger had impressed her mind by no means unfavorably. Fanny's brother, Charles, completed the party. It will be necessary to explain here, that the old Corporal had never exposed the rascally conduct of Mr. Tickels towards Fanny, in consequence of the young lady's having earnestly entreated him not to do so. He had never before met the old libertine at the house of Mr. Goldworthy; and (until informed of the fact by Fanny,) was ignorant that he (Tickels) was in the habit of visiting there, as a friend of the family. He treated him with coldness and reserve; but otherwise gave no indication of the contempt which he felt for the unprincipled old wretch. As Mr. Goldworthy surveyed, with a smiling aspect, the sociable group which surrounded him, little did he suspect that the man who on the morrow was to become his son-in-law--who was to lead to the altar his only child, that pure and gentle girl--little, we say, did he suspect that the Chevalier Duvall was in reality a branded villain of the blackest dye--a man whose soul was stained by the commission of almost every crime on the dark catalogue of guilt. And as little did he think that his warm political and personal friend, the Honorable Timothy Tickels--the man of ample wealth, of unbounded influence, of exalted reputation--was at heart an abandoned and licentious scoundrel, who had basely tried to accomplish the ruin of a poor orphan girl, and was even at that very moment gloating over an infernal plan which he had formed, for getting her completely in his power, where no human aid was likely to reach her. "To-morrow, my Alice," whispered the Chevalier in the ear of the blushing object of his villainous designs--"to-morrow, thou are mine! Oh, the devotion of a life-time shall atone to you for the sacrifice you make, in wedding an unknown stranger, whose birth and fortunes are shrouded in a veil of mystery." "Thy birth and fortunes are nothing to me," responded Alice, softly, as a tear of happiness trembled in her eyes--"so long as thy heart is faithful and true." What wonder that the Chevalier's false heart grew cold in his breast, at the simple words of the confiding, gentle, unsuspecting creature whom he designed to ruin? But still he hesitated not; "her father's gold is the glittering prize which I shall gain by this marriage," thought he; and the vile, sordid thought stimulated him on, despite the remonstrances of his better nature. "When I return to the University, we will write to each other often, will we not?" said Clarence Argyle to Fanny, in a tone that could not be overheard by the others of the party; and the fair girl yielded a blushing consent to the proposal, so congenial to her own inclination. The whisper and the blush were both observed by old Tickels, who said to himself-- "Humph! 'tis easy to see that those two unfledged Cupids are already over head and ears in love with each other. Have a care, Master Argyle--thy pretty mistress may be lost to thee to-morrow; go back to thy books and thy studies--for she is not for thee. Ah, the devil! I like not the look which that impertinent old fellow, who calls himself Corporal Grimsby, fastens upon me--it seems as if he read the secret thoughts of my soul! He has once already snatched from my grasp my destined prey; let him beware how he interferes a second time, for Jew Mike is in my employ, and his knife is sharp and his aim sure!" "That d----d scoundrel, Tickels, meditates mischief, I am convinced," thought the Corporal, whose keen and penetrating gaze had been for some time riveted upon the old libertine--"and I feel convinced that my pretty Fanny is the object of his secret machinations. Beware, old Judas Iscariot!--you'll not get off so easy the next time I catch you at your tricks." "And so, my dear Mr. Tickels, you are again a candidate for Congress," remarked Mr. Goldworthy, during a pause in the conversation. "I again have that distinguished honor," was the pompous reply. "My party stands in great need of my services and influence in the House at the present crisis." "No doubt," dryly observed the Corporal--"I would suggest that your first public act be the introduction of a bill for the punishment of seduction, and the protection of poor orphan girls." Mr. Tickels writhed beneath the sarcasm, and turned deadly pale, although he and his tormentor were the only persons present who comprehended the secret meaning of the words--for Fanny was too much engrossed in conversation with Argyle, to heed the remark. "And, my good sir," rejoined the Chevalier, who was resolved to improve so good an opportunity to wound the old reprobate to the quick, (although he was ignorant of the application of the Corporal's words,)--"do not, I beseech you, neglect to insert a clause in your bill, providing also for the punishment of those respectable old wretches who bring ruin and disgrace upon families, by the seduction of wives--of daughters--or of _sisters_! I confess myself interested in the passage of such an act, in consequence of a wealthy old scoundrel having once dared to insult grievously a near female relative of mine. The name of this old wretch--" Tickels cast an imploring look at the Chevalier, and the latter was silent--but upon his lips remained an expression of withering scorn; for villain as he himself was, he detested the other for his consummate hypocrisy. The vicious frequently hate others for possessing the same evil qualities that characterise themselves. The character of the Chevalier was doubtless hypocritical in its nature; but _his_ hypocrisy was, in our opinion, far less contemptible than that of Tickels; the former was a hypocrite for pecuniary gain; the latter, for the gratification of the basest and most grovelling propensities that can disgrace humanity. "Gentlemen--gentlemen!" cried Mr. Goldworthy, amazed at the turn which the conversation had taken, and comprehending neither of the allusions--"I beg you to remember that there are ladies present." "Blood and bayonets!" exclaimed the Corporal--"you are right: I forgot the ladies, my worthy host, and crave your pardon and theirs, for my indiscreet (though I must say, _devilish appropriate_) remarks!" The Chevalier also apologized, though with less circumlocution than the worthy Corporal; and nothing further occurred to disturb either the harmony of the company, or the equanimity of Mr. Tickels, until Mr. Goldworthy, with a countenance full of astonishment and alarm, announced to his guests that he had, during the evening, lost from his pocket a package of bank-notes and valuable papers, amounting to some thousands of dollars, which he had procured for investment the following day in an extensive mercantile speculation--for although retired from active business, he still frequently ventured large sums in operations which were generally successful. For half an hour previous to making his fearful discovery, he had been in private and earnest conversation with the Chevalier, concerning some arrangements relative to the approaching marriage. "It is indeed astonishing--what can have become of it?" cried the old gentleman, searching every pocket in vain for the missing package. "I am certain that 'twas safely in my possession scarce one hour ago," continued he; and summoning a couple of servants, he commanded a diligent search to be made in every part of the room--but still in vain; no package was to be found. Everybody present, with but one exception, expressed their concern and astonishment; that exception was Fanny Aubrey; she was much agitated, and pale as death. It was suggested by the Chevalier and several others, that he must have dropped the package in the street, as it could not be found in the house. In reply to this, Mr. Goldworthy said-- "No, no, my friend--I will swear that I lost it in this very room, within an hour. Plague on it! what particularly vexes me, is, that it comprised all my present available capital--and to have it disappear in such a d----d unaccountable, mysterious manner! Why, curse it," cried the old gentleman, getting more and more angry--"if I didn't know the thing to be impossible, I should suspect that there was an accomplished pickpocket in the room!" "So should I," dryly observed the Corporal; and so said the Hon. Mr. Tickels, also. The Chevalier arose, and said, with calm dignity-- "Gentlemen, I conceive that an insinuation has been made, derogatory to our honor. Mr. Goldworthy, your words indirectly imply a suspicion; I must request you, sir, to explain your words, and to state distinctly whether or no you suppose that any person present has robbed you. I also suggest that all here be carefully searched." "Good heavens, my dear Chevalier!" cried Mr. Goldworthy, much excited--"can you think for a moment that I suspect you or these gentlemen, of an act so base and contemptible? Pardon my hasty words; vexation at my great loss (a serious one, I assure you,) for a moment overcame my temper. Let the package go to the devil, sooner than its loss should occasion the least uneasiness to any of us. Come, my dear friends, let's say no more about it." Harmony was once more restored; but still Fanny Aubrey looked so pale and agitated, that Miss Alice, crossing over to where she sat, anxiously inquired if she were unwell? The poor girl essayed to reply, but could not; it was evident to her friend, that she was struggling with feelings of the most painful nature. She pressed Alice's hand, burst into tears, and abruptly left the room. "The poor girl is either very unwell, or very much troubled about something," whispered Alice to her cousin Clarence--"I will go and comfort her;" and having made her excuses to the company, she left the room, and followed Fanny to her chamber. Her departure was the signal for the guests to take their leave of their worthy host. Mr. Goldworthy warmly pressed the Chevalier's hand at parting, and said to him-- "To-morrow, my dear sir, you will be my son-in-law. Be kind to my Alice, she is a good girl, and worthy of you. God bless you both! I did intend to advance you a sum of money, sufficient to enable you to begin housekeeping in handsome style; but the loss of that large sum of money to-night will, I fear, place it out of my power to assist you much, at present. However, I shall endeavor to raise a respectable sum for you, in the course of a few days. Meantime, you and Alice must be my guests; and I am not sure but that I shall insist upon your continually residing beneath my roof--for I am a lonely old man, and so accustomed to the kind attentions and sweet society of my only daughter, that to part with her would deprive me of half my earthly joys. Farewell--may you and her be happy together!" Tears stood in the eyes of the good old man, as he uttered these words; and again the conscience of the Chevalier upbraided him for his contemplated villainy--but still he paused not nor faltered in carrying out his diabolical schemes. Meanwhile, the following scene occurred in Fanny's chamber, to which Alice had repaired for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of the young girl's agitation and tears. "What is the matter, my dear sister? For such I will call you," said Alice, clasping her arms around the weeping girl, who had thrown herself upon the bed without undressing. "Oh, my friend, my benefactress!" cried Fanny--"how can I help feeling so distressed, when I know that your happiness is about to be destroyed forever?" "My happiness destroyed!" cried Alice, surprised and alarmed--"what mean you! Do you allude to my marriage to-morrow with the Chevalier Duvall? Yes, I see you do. Silly girl, that marriage will render me the happiest of women; what reason have you for supposing otherwise? The Chevalier loves me, and I sincerely reciprocate his affection; so dry your tears, for you know you are to be bridesmaid, and smiles better become you than tears." These words were spoken in the kindest and gentlest tone; but Fanny exclaimed-- "Miss Alice, you are cruelly deceived in that man." "Deceived!" cried the young lady--"what mystery is hidden in your words? Oh, if you love me, Fanny--and you have often told me that you did--instantly explain the meaning of your dreadful declaration." "Listen to me, Miss Alice," said Fanny, with a calmness that strangely contrasted with her previous agitation--"and I will tell you plainly what I have seen, and what I think. To you I owe everything: the comforts of a home, the kindness of a friend, and the benefits of a superior education, now enjoyed by my brother and myself--two poor orphans, who, but for your benevolence, would be dependent upon the world's cold charity. My gratitude I can never express; my heart alone can feel it--but oh! believe me, I would gladly lay down my life to promote your happiness. How, then, can I see future years of misery awaiting you, without tears of anguish--without feeling an intense anxiety to preserve you from a fate ten times worse than death?" "Do not interrupt me, I pray you," continued Fanny, seeing that Alice was about to speak--"To-morrow you are engaged to be married to the man calling himself the Chevalier Duvall. When I first saw him, I was struck with his beauty and accomplishments--his brilliant wit, and graceful manners; and when, in sisterly confidence, you informed me that he was your affianced husband, you know how warmly I congratulated you on having won the affections of a man who, as I then believed, was in every way calculated to make you happy. "Alice, I tell you that man is a villain!" cried Fanny, with startling emphasis--"I saw him pick your father's pocket of the money that was lost; yes, I alone saw him do it; _that_ was the cause of my agitation and tears. Do not marry him, for he is a robber and a scoundrel!" "Say no more, Miss Aubrey," said Alice, rising with an air of cold dignity, which plainly indicated her entire disbelief of the statement she had just heard--"Say no more: you have mistaken your position, when you seek to prejudice me against a gentleman whom I am so soon to call my husband. Nay, not a word more--I will not listen to you. The Chevalier Duvall is the very soul of honor; and to accuse _him_--how can I say it?--of the crime of _theft_, is so preposterous that it would be ludicrous under any other circumstances. Fanny, I can scarcely believe that you have been actuated by _jealousy_ in telling this dreadful story; I will try to think that your eyes deceived you, and that you really _thought_ that you saw the Chevalier do as you have said. But oh! how mistaken you are, unhappy girl! when you impute such a crime to one of the noblest and best of men." "But, Miss Alice," cried Fanny, almost angrily--for she was certain of the truth of her statement--"I tell you that I am not mistaken; I saw--" "Silence, I entreat--I command you!" cried the young lady, now thoroughly indignant at the disgraceful accusation which had been brought against her lover--"speak not another word to me on this odious subject, or you forfeit my friendship forever. Good night; learn in future to be more discreet." So saying, Alice left the unhappy young girl to her bitter tears. Soon wearied nature asserted her rights, and she sobbed herself to sleep. But her slumbers were disturbed by hideous dreams: in fancy she again saw the magnificent Chevalier dexterously abstract the package of money from Mr. Goldworthy's pocket--then she thought that the brilliant stranger stood over her, and surveyed her with an expression of fearful menace. The scene again changed; she was alone, in a vast and splendid apartment, reclining upon a sumptuous couch; delicious music, from invisible minstrels, soothed her soul into a sort of dreamy and voluptuous trance; an unearthly happiness filled her heart--her senses were intoxicated with delight. Suddenly, in the dim distance, she saw a Hideous Object, and the blood went tingling through her veins with terror; it had the form of a gigantic reptile; slowly it crawled towards the couch on which she lay; dim grew the light from the sparkling chandeliers--heavy grew the air with noxious odors; the Hideous Object crouched beneath the bed; she heard its deep breathing--its heavy sighs; then it reared its awful form above her, and then approached its ghastly head to hers; she felt its foul breath upon her cheek--its green dragon-like eyes penetrated her soul, and made her brain dizzy--it fanned her by the flapping of its mighty wings. It breathed into her ear vile whispers, tempting her to crime. It placed its huge vulture's claw upon her heart, as if to tear it from her breast. She awoke. Gracious heavens! there--there--at her bed-side, stood a human form, its countenance dark and threatening--the savage features almost totally concealed by masses of black and shaggy hair. A rough, hard hand rested upon her breast, and a pair of fierce, cruel eyes struck terror to her soul. She uttered one piercing scream, and fainted. The report of a pistol was heard; then hasty footsteps descended the stair-case; the hall was rapidly traversed--the street door was opened and shut with a loud noise--and all was still. In a few minutes the affrightened inmates of the mansion, half dressed, were hastening to the scene of the late tumult; Mr. Goldworthy and his daughter Alice were among them. What was the astonishment and dismay of the startled group, on discovering that Fanny Aubrey was nowhere to be found, while at her chamber door, wounded and bleeding, lay the insensible form of Clarence Argyle! They raised the young gentleman, and placed him upon the bed; a physician, who fortunately resided next door, and was almost instantly upon the spot, pronounced the wound severe, but not dangerous. He had been shot in the breast; the ball was with some difficulty extracted, and the patient rendered as comfortable as possible. But where was the clue to all this fearful mystery? What had become of Fanny Aubrey? Who had dared to enter that house at midnight, and after nearly murdering one of the inmates, carry off a young lady? What was the _object_ of the perpetrator of the outrage? These were the questions uttered by everybody present; but no one could answer them. Both Mr. Goldworthy and Alice watched over the sufferer during that night. Towards morning, he revived sufficiently to tell them all he knew of the dreadful occurrence which had taken place. His chamber adjoined that of Fanny; he had been aroused from his slumbers by her piercing scream; instantly leaping from his bed, he rushed into the young lady's apartment, and saw a tall, black-visaged ruffian standing over her apparently insensible form, in the act of dragging her from the couch. The villain turned suddenly, drew a pistol upon the young gentleman, and fired. Clarence fell, severely wounded, and remained unconscious of everything, until he found himself stretched upon a bed of pain, with his uncle and cousin watching him with affectionate solicitude. On learning that poor Fanny had disappeared--undoubtedly carried off by the ruffian whom he had seen in her chamber--the grief and rage of Clarence knew no bounds. Regardless of his wound and sufferings, he would have arisen from his bed and gone in pursuit of the ravisher, had he not been restrained by his more considerate relatives, who represented to him the folly and danger of his undertaking such a hopeless task, in his precarious state of health. Overcome by their united persuasions, as well as by a consciousness of his own bodily weakness, he contented himself with his uncle's assurance that every effort would immediately be made to discover the whereabouts of poor Fanny, and restore her to her friends. Early the next morning, Corporal Grimsby, as being the friend and guardian of the missing girl, was apprised of the fact of her abduction. It is needless for us to repeat all the singular oaths with which the eccentric, good old man expressed his honest indignation, when he received the alarming intelligence; suffice it to say, he swore by the nose of Napoleon, and by his own whiskers, (an oath which he used only on very solemn occasions,) never to rest until he had discovered Fanny, his darling _protege_, and severely punished her rascally kidnapper. A dark suspicion crossed his mind that the villain Tickels was at the bottom of the business; acting upon the first impulse of the moment, he instantly proceeded to the residence of the old libertine, forced his way into his presence, and boldly accused him of the deed. Mr. Tickels was perfectly on his guard, for he had expected such a visit; with cool politeness he assured the Corporal that until that moment he knew nothing of the matter; he was sorry that his _friend_ should suspect him of any participation in such a piece of rascality; he had long since cleansed and purified himself of the wicked and silly passion which he at one time felt for Miss Aubrey; he sincerely hoped that nothing unpleasant would befall her; he'd do all in his power to seek her out; and concluded by coolly inviting the Corporal to breakfast with him. "Breakfast with the devil!" cried the old man, indignantly--"sooner would I sit down to table in social companionship with--with _Jew Mike_ himself!" and as he uttered these words, he gazed keenly into the other's countenance. Tickels started, and turned deadly pale; the Corporal, with a sarcastic smile, bowed with mock politeness, and withdrew. "Swords and carving-knives! I thought so," he muttered, after he had left the house--"a masterly stroke, that; a masterly stroke! This villain Jew Mike is the _cher amie_ of Sow Nance, as she is called; and Nance is in the confidence of Tickels; what wonder that the dirty slut recommended her _pal_ and paramour to the old libertine, as a fit agent to abduct my poor Fanny--and what wonder that he was employed to accomplish that object? But first, I'll hasten to Mr. Goldworthy's house, and question the young man who was wounded; if his description of the villain corresponds with the appearance of Jew Mike, then there can be no further doubt on the subject, and I shall know what course to pursue. Egad! how old Tickels changed color when I mentioned Jew Mike! His confusion alone indicated his guilt. 'Sdeath; I have no time to lose; may heaven preserve and guard that poor, persecuted orphan girl!" On reaching Mr. Goldworthy's house, he requested to be conducted immediately to Clarence's chamber. In answer to his inquiries, the young man stated that the villain who had wounded him was a tall, powerfully built person, his face almost entirely concealed by a profusion of black hair. The Corporal rubbed his hands with glee. "Jew Mike, by the bones of the great Mogul!" he exclaimed--"and now that I am on the right scent, I shall soon ferret out the ravenous wolves that have carried my poor lamb to their infernal den. Ah, Corporal Grimsby, thou art a cunning dog!" So saying, he departed on his benevolent errand of endeavoring to rescue Fanny Aubrey from the power of her enemies. * * * * * That evening, from every window of Mr. Goldworthy's princely mansion in Howard street, shone brilliant lights. It was the eve appointed for the marriage of Alice and the Chevalier Duvall. In consequence of the melancholy and startling events which took place in the house on the preceding night--the severe wounding of Clarence, and the abduction of Fanny--it had been suggested by both Alice and her father, that it would be proper to defer the performance of the ceremony for a short time, or until the fate of the missing girl could be ascertained; the Chevalier, however, strongly opposed this proposition, and assuming the authority of an accepted suitor, delicately but firmly insisted that the marriage should take place that evening, as had been previously arranged "for," said he, "to defer the consummation of our happiness will not assist in the recovery of Miss Aubrey. When I become your husband, my Alice, I can with far more propriety aid in seeking the lost one, for were we to remain unmarried, my interest in the poor young lady might be imputed to improper or even dishonorable motives." This reasoning had the desired effect; it was decided that the marriage ceremony should not be postponed. Alice had not communicated to the Chevalier the story which Fanny had told her, concerning the affair of the lost package of money--for as she utterly disbelieved the tale, (imputing it to the effects of an excited imagination,) she had no desire to wound the feelings of her lover by acquainting him with the absurd charge (as she thought) which had been brought against him. How blind is love to the imperfections, the faults, and even the crimes of the object of its adoration! We believe it is Shakespeare who says: "Love looks not with the eye, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind." The folding doors which separated the two spacious parlors in Mr. Goldworthy's house were thrown open, forming a vast hall, brilliantly illuminated by superb chandeliers, and decorated with every appliance of modern elegance and taste. About a dozen relatives and friends of the family had assembled to witness the ceremony; among them were several of the wealthiest members of the Boston aristocracy. There was the gray-headed millionaire, who has made his name famous by the magnificence of his donations to public institutions which are already wealthy enough; but then such liberal gifts are heralded in the newspapers, and his name is blazoned forth as the great philanthropist; and--it really is so troublesome to give to the suffering poor; besides, the world seldom hears of deeds of unostentatious charity. Now, we are one of those plain people who like to look at things in the light of common reason, without regard to high-sounding titles, or lofty associations; and it is our unpretending opinion that the God of charity and mercy looks down with much greater approbation upon the act of feeding a starving family, or comfortably clothing a few of His naked little ones, than upon the bestowal of twenty or thirty thousand dollars on this or that University, for the purpose of endowing a Professor of Humbugonomy, that he may initiate a class of learned blockheads into the mysteries of star-gazing, patient-killing, legal fleecing, or cheating the devil by turning parson. Besides the gray-headed millionaire, to whom we have thus particularly alluded, there was the young lady who boasts of being heiress to hundreds of thousands of dollars; consequently, of course, she is unanimously voted to be "charming--divine--perfection!" Her beauty is pronounced angelic; her accomplishments are the theme of universal admiration. "Oh, she is an unsurpassable creature!" exclaim the whole tribe of contemptible, sycophantic, brainless calves in broadcloth, who are ever ready to fall down and worship the golden emblem of themselves. And yet she is pug-nosed, freckle-faced, and red-headed; insolent to her equals, coarsely familiar with her inferiors; her vulgarity is without wit, her affectation is devoid of elegance or grace; ignorant and stupid, the meanest kitchen wench would suffer by a comparison with her. In striking contrast with this ludicrous specimen of degraded aristocracy, there were several young ladies present who were really lovely and accomplished women. These were the personal friends of Alice; they had come to witness her nuptials with the magnificent Chevalier. Precisely as the clock struck eight, Duvall entered the apartment, and saluted the company with that exquisite and gentlemanly grace for which he was distinguished. With difficulty could the assembled guests refrain from expressing their admiration aloud; for his appearance was singularly grand and imposing. In his dress, not the slightest approach to foppery could be detected; all was faultless elegance. In his dark eyes and on his proud features an observer could read the lofty triumph which he felt; for was not he, an unknown and perhaps penniless adventurer, about to wed the beautiful and accomplished daughter of one of Boston's "merchant princes"? Soon the clergyman arrived, and Alice was summoned to take her part in the solemn ceremony which was about to be performed. She was dressed in simple white, her only ornaments consisting of a few natural flowers among the rich clusters of her shining hair. She was very beautiful; the flush of happiness suffused her cheeks--her eyes sparkled with ineffable joy. Oh, terrible sacrifice! The ceremony proceeds; the solemn words are spoken. 'Tis all over--friends crowd around with their congratulations--there are smiles, and blushes, and tears; but a deep sense of happiness pervades every heart. Alice is the wife of Duvall, by the sacred rites of the church, in the sight of Heaven, and before men. The Chevalier pressed her madly to his heart, while "Unto the ground she cast her modest eye, And, ever and anon, with rosy red, The bashful blush her snowy cheeks did dye." Then came music, and the merry dance--and finally, a repast, that rivalled in luxury the banquet of an emperor. In the midst of the supper, in obedience to the secret signal of one of her bridesmaids, Alice stole away, and was conducted by a charming _coterie_ of her female friends, to Hymen's sacred retreat, the nuptial chamber--which nothing should induce us to invade, gentle reader, were it not necessary to do so in order to develop a scene in our narrative, which cannot possibly be omitted. It was an apartment of but moderate size; yet it was a gem of luxurious comfort. Everything was in the most perfect taste; and it was evident by a certain refined delicacy in all the arrangements, that the fair Alice herself had superintended the preparations. Happy the man who should bestow the first chaste kiss of wedded love, upon the pure lips of a lovely bride, within that soft bower of voluptuousness! She is disrobed; from her virgin limbs are removed the snowy garments; she is coquettishly arrayed in the seductive costume of bewitching night! She blushes, and is almost painfully embarrassed; for never before have her glowing charms been contemplated thus, even by female eyes. She finds herself at last reclining within the luxurious folds of the magnificent nuptial couch; then her kind friends kiss her--bid her a smiling good-night--and leave her to await the coming of her husband. For the first time, her bosom heaves tumultuously with emotions which she acknowledges to be delightful, though she cannot comprehend them. But where, meanwhile, is the happy bridegroom? He is at the head of the splendid board, responding to the many toasts which are proposed in his honor, and that of his lovely and expectant bride. Again and again he fills the goblet, and quaffs the foaming champagne. He fascinates everybody by his rare eloquence--his inimitable wit; Mr. Goldworthy congratulates himself on his good fortune in having secured so charming--so talented a son-in-law. The dark eyes of the Chevalier sparkle almost fearfully; his superb countenance is flushed with wine and passion. This rosy god of the grape has nearly conquered him; he is more than half intoxicated. Losing his habitual caution, he launches forth into the recital of the most brilliant and daring adventures in intrigue, fraud and robbery, he relates these events with a gusto that would seem to indicate his having taken a leading part in them himself. The guests are startled, and view him with an admiration mixed with fear. The Chevalier drinks deeper and deeper. Wilder and more exciting grow his narratives; he tells strange tales of the Italian banditti--of pirates upon the Spanish main--of dashing French pickpockets--of bold English highwaymen--of desperate American burglars, and of expert counterfeiters. Mr. Goldworthy, at last, begins to regard him with a feeling akin to suspicion. "Who can this man be," he mentally asks himself--"that talks so familiarly of every species of crime and villainy? Is he a fitting husband for my pure and gentle daughter? Can he have been a participant in those lawless adventures which he so eloquently describes? I like not the dark frown upon his brow, nor the fierce glances of his eyes. But tush! of what am I thinking? I must not harbor unjust suspicions against the husband of my child; he is merely somewhat excited by the generous wine, and probably derived his knowledge of these matters from the romances of the day. 'Tis best that he should drink no more at present; I will therefore hint to him that it is high time for a loyal bridegroom to retire to the arms of his expectant bride. He surely will not disregard so tempting a suggestion, for my Alice is very like her mother, and egad! on _my_ wedding night, twenty years ago, I needed no second hint to induce me to fly eagerly to _her_ arms. Ah, I was young then, and old age plays sad havoc with us!" The worthy old gentleman whispered a few moments in the ear of the Chevalier. The latter arose with a flushed cheek and a flashing eye. "Thanks for the hint, good father-in-law," he cried, draining another goblet of wine--"I have paid my devoirs to Bacchus; now will I worship at the shrine of Venus!" With rather an unsteady gait he left the apartment, and, under the guidance of two lovely, blushing, tittering damsels, sought the nuptial chamber. At the door of that sacred retreat, his fair guides left him. He entered--and the black-hearted villain, stained with a thousand crimes, stood in the presence of angel purity. And now, fain would we draw a curtain over what followed--but if we did so, our task would be incomplete. We therefore pass over the delicate details with as much rapidity as the nature of the case will admit. The Chevalier advanced to the couch, and viewed his bride; evading his ardent gaze, she turned away, her maiden cheek glowing with blushes. Upon the snowy pillow, in rich masses, lay her luxuriant hair; her modestly veiled bosom, whose voluptuousness of outline no drapery could entirely conceal, heaved tumultuously with gushing joy, and holy happiness, and pure passion, and maidenly fear. Her small, exquisite hand, on whose taper fore-finger glittered a magnificent diamond ring, (her husband's gift,) rested upon the gorgeous counterpane, like a snow-flake upon a cluster of roses. Still the Chevalier profanes not that pure form with his unhallowed touch; perchance some unseen power, the guardian of spotless innocence, restrains him. Placing himself before the splendid mirror, he begins to remove his superb garments with a deliberation and a composure that astonishes even himself. As each article of dress is successively thrown aside, the magnificent symmetry of that man's unrivalled form becomes more and more apparent. Though of a build unusually powerful, his limbs possess all the grace and suppleness of the Apollo Belvedere. He is one of those rare combinations of strength and beauty, so often represented by classic statuary, yet so seldom seen in a living model. His task is at length completed; he is in the primeval costume of nature. Complacently he surveys his reflection in the mirror; for he is fully conscious of his great personal advantages, and, in the vanity of his heart, he wishes to display them to the enraptured gaze of his bride. And she--who will say that she does not stealthily contemplate his symmetrical proportions with secret satisfaction--for what woman could, under such peculiar circumstances, be indifferent to the physical advantages possessed by the man of her choice? Alas! how suddenly did poor Alice's golden dream of happiness vanish forever! For there--upon her husband's naked breast--in black characters of damning distinctness--is _branded_ the ghastly, hideous words--"CONVICTED FELON!!" Alice uttered one piercing scream, and fainted. The marriage guests below had not yet departed. They heard that awful cry, which seemed to be the very concentration of all human anguish. Mr. Goldworthy started to his feet, and his cheeks grew ashy pale. "My friends," said he, in a low tone--"there is something wrong with my child. Remain here, and I will ascertain the cause of this strange outcry." Having armed himself with a pistol, he repaired to his daughter's chamber, which he entered without ceremony; for when does a father stand on ceremony, when he believes the safety of his only child to be in danger? There, in the centre of the room, confused and abashed, stood the nude form of the Chevalier; and there, upon his breast, did Mr. Goldworthy behold the accursed brand of crime which had horrified his daughter, and elicited her piercing scream. "_Convicted felon!_" gasped the old gentleman, almost disbelieving the evidence of his own senses. "Good God! am I dreaming, or do I actually behold that awful badge of infamy branded upon the flesh of the husband of my child! Almighty heaven, thy judgments are inscrutable, but this blow is too much--too much!" He buried his face in his hands, and wept bitterly. The Chevalier, by a powerful effort, recovered his accustomed assurance and presence of mind. "Come, my good sir," said he--"don't get in such a bad way about a few insignificant letters which are stamped upon me. I pledge you my honor 'twas merely done in jest, in a thoughtless moment. Pray retire, and leave me to console my bride for her silly fright." "Liar and villain!" cried the old man--"would'st thou, with a red-hot iron, brand such words as _those_ upon thee, in jest? Thou are a convicted scoundrel--an impostor--a murderer, for aught I know. Thou hast no claim upon my poor girl, who now lies there, insensible; the marriage is null and void!" "Pooh--nonsense!" said the Chevalier, very coolly--"you make a devil of a fuss about a very small matter. This brand is but the consequence of a youthful folly--crime, if you will--of which I have long since repented, I assure you. A ruffled shirt will always conceal it from the world's prying gaze; your daughter and yourself are the only persons who will ever know of its existence; why, then, should it interfere with our matrimonial arrangements?" "Dare you parley with me, villain?" cried Mr. Goldworthy, growing more and more indignant at the other's impudent assurance. "Hark'ee, sir," he continued, "the mystery which has always surrounded you, has been anything but favorable to your reputation, for _honest_ men are seldom reluctant to disclose all that concerns their past career and present pursuits. But your damnable effrontery, and the accursed fascination of your manners, overcame all our suspicions relative to you; you were regarded as an honorable man, and a gentleman. Unfortunately, my Alice loved you, and in an evil moment I consented to your union. This evening, at the wine table, when you discoursed so learnedly and eloquently upon the exploits of daring villains, the thought struck me that you must have derived your knowledge of them from personal intimacy; but I instantly discarded the suspicion as unworthy of myself and unjust to you. But now--now your guilt can no longer be questioned, for its history is written there, upon your breast! Scoundrel, I might hand you over to the iron grasp of the law, but I will not; resume your garments, and leave this chamber--for your vile presence contaminates the very atmosphere, and 'tis no place for you!" "No, you will not hand me over to the law, neither will you expose me," said the Chevalier, his lip curling with proud disdain. "Listen to me, old man: you are right--I _am_ a villain--nay, more; I glory in the title. Am I not candid with you?--and yet you, yourself, will be as anxious as I can be, to keep the world ignorant of the fact that I am a villain,--for will the aristocratic Mr. Goldworthy consent that the public shall know that his beautiful daughter Alice is married to a branded criminal? Being perfectly safe, what need is there of concealment on my part? Know, then, that I am an escaped convict from Botany Bay, to which colony I was transported from England, for an atrocious crime. This brand upon my breast was placed there as a punishment for having attempted to murder one of my guards. I have been a pirate, a robber, a highwayman, a burglar, and (but let me whisper this word in your ear,) a _murderer_! Ha, ha, ha! how do you like your son-in-law now?" "Monster, out of my sight!" cried the old man, shuddering. "Softly, softly," said the Chevalier, with imperturbable calmness--"you have not heard all yet; of my skill as a pickpocket, you yourself have had ample proof, for 'twas I who relieved you of the valuable package last night; yet you dare not prosecute me--for am I not your son-in-law? But curses on my own indiscretion, in allowing wine to overcome my habitual prudence! For had I not been partially intoxicated, think you this mark of guilt would have been so easily discovered? No, believe me--" "Silence, villain!" thundered Mr. Goldworthy, no longer able to contain his indignation at the cool effrontery of the Chevalier--"I have bandied words with you too long already; you see this pistol?--you are unarmed; I give you five minutes to dress yourself and leave the house; if you are not gone at the end of that time, I swear by the living God to shoot you through the head." These last words were pronounced with a calmness that left no doubt of their sincerity on the mind of the Chevalier. Villain as he was, he was brave even to desperation; yet he had no particular wish to be hurried into eternity so unceremoniously. He therefore commenced dressing himself, while Mr. Goldworthy stood with the pistol cocked and pointed at his head with a deadly aim. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Alice recovered from her swoon. Starting up in bed, she cast a hurried glance at her father and the discomfited Chevalier. That glance was sufficient to reveal to her the true state of affairs; and covering her face with her hands, she wept bitterly. Who can comprehend the depth and devotedness of woman's love? Could it be possible that there still lingered in her crushed heart a single atom of affection for that branded villain, who had so cruelly deceived her? Philosophy may condemn her--human reason itself may scoff at her--but from her pure heart could not utterly be obliterated the sincere and holy love which she had conceived for that unworthy object. To her might have been applied the beautiful words of the poet Campbell: "Let the eagle change his plume, The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom, But ties around that heart were spun Which would not, could not be undone." Before the expiration of the prescribed five minutes, the Chevalier was dressed, and ready to depart. Turning towards Alice, he regarded her with a look which was eloquently expressive of grief, remorse and sorrow. His breast heaved convulsively; he was evidently struggling with the most powerful emotions. A single tear rolled down his cheek--he hastily wiped it away--murmured, "Farewell, Alice, forever!"--and reminded by an imperious gesture from her father that the scene could continue no longer, he turned calmly and walked out of the room. Mr. Goldworthy followed him to the street door, and saw him depart from the house; then, with a deep-drawn sigh, he returned to his guests, who were naturally eager to know the nature of the difficulty. In answer to their inquiries, the old gentleman said-- "My dear friends, do not, I entreat you, press me for an explanation of this most melancholy affair. Suffice it for me to say, the Chevalier Duvall has proved himself to be utterly unworthy of my daughter. The marriage which has taken place, though not legally void, is _morally_ so. I beg of everyone present to respect my feelings as a father and as a man, so far as to preserve a strict silence in reference to this painful matter. The Chevalier Duvall has departed from the house, and will never see my daughter more." The required promise was given, and the guests took their leave, experiencing feelings of a far different nature from those which had animated them at the commencement of the evening. They had come in the happy anticipation of witnessing the consummation of a beloved friend's felicity; they went away oppressed by a painful uncertainty as to the nature of the difficulty which had arisen in reference to the husband, and chilled by a fear that the earthly happiness of poor Alice was destroyed forever. The Chevalier returned to the Duchess, to apprise her of the total ruin of his matrimonial schemes, in consequence of the _fatal brand_ upon his person having been discovered; and we return to Fanny Aubrey, who had been conveyed by Jew Mike to the "_Chambers of Love_," in obedience to the directions given him by the Hon. Timothy Tickels. CHAPTER VII _Showing the operations of Jew Mike and his coadjutors.--The necessity of young ladies looking beneath their beds, before retiring to rest._ We have seen in what manner Jew Mike escaped from the house of Mr. Goldworthy, bearing off the insensible form of Fanny Aubrey; but as the reader may be curious to learn how the ruffian gained entrance to the house, and to the chamber of the young lady, we shall briefly explain. In the first place, it is perhaps understood that old Tickels applied to Sow Nance for assistance in the business of abducting Fanny, and conveying her to that den of iniquity called the "Chambers of Love,"--which place will be hereafter described. Nance, on being applied to, informed her employer that she had a "_love cull_," (paramour,) who was exactly suited to the business, and who would, for a proper compensation, engage to do the job. Tickels was delighted with the proposal, and eagerly desired to have an early interview with her accommodating lover. But there was a difficulty; Jew Mike had an invincible repugnance to going abroad under any circumstances, inasmuch as he had recently been engaged in a heavy burglary, and the pleasure of his company was earnestly sought after by police officer Storkfeather and other indefatigables. He was safely housed in the "Pig Pen," and regarded it as decidedly unsafe to venture out, even to execute a piece of work as profitable as the one which Mr. Tickels wished him to perform. It was finally arranged that the latter gentleman would call on Mike at the "Pen," on a certain evening. This was done; and the result of that interview was, that Mike, for and in consideration of receiving the sum of one hundred dollars, agreed to carry off Fanny Aubrey, and deposit her safely in the "Chambers of Love." To obviate the possibility of Mike's being overhauled by his old friends the police officers, it was arranged that a cab should be at his entire disposal; the same vehicle would serve to convey the young lady with secrecy and rapidity to the place destined for her imprisonment. Tickels engaged to have Mike privately introduced into the house of Mr. Goldworthy, and it was effected in this manner. On the night previous to the abduction, at about the hour of nine, a cab was driven through Ann street, and halted in front of the dance cellar which communicated with the "Pig Pen." The driver of this vehicle was a sable individual, who has since attained some notoriety under the cognomen of "Jonas." He is intimately acquainted with the location and condition of every house of prostitution in Boston, and enjoys the familiar acquaintance of many white courtezans of beauty and fashion, not a few of whom (so 'tis said,) testify their appreciation of his valuable services in bringing them profitable custom, by freely granting him those delightful privileges which are usually extended to white patrons only, who can pay well for the same. Jonas has lately become the editor and proprietor of that valuable periodical known as the "Key to the Chambers of Love," which is a _card_ containing a list of almost every bower of pleasure in Boston, with the names of their keepers. It is a document which is extensively patronized by the sporting bloods. This fortunate darkey it was, then, who was employed in the delicate matter, the progress of which we are now describing. He had no sooner halted his cab, as we have stated, than there cautiously issued from the cellar an individual carefully concealed from observation by a huge slouched hat and cloak. This, it is almost needless to say, was Jew Mike himself. Having greeted Jonas with the assurance of "all right," he quickly entered the cab, and the sable driver started his horse towards Howard street at a slapping pace. In the neighborhood of the Athenaeum, the cab paused, and Mike got out. He was instantly joined by the Hon. Mr. Tickels, who said to Jonas-- "Drive away, and be on this spot again, with your horse and cab, precisely at twelve o'clock. Remain here until one; if by that time Mike does not make his appearance, you will know that the job can't be done to-night, and you need wait no longer. To-morrow night, be on this spot again, at twelve, and remain until one--and don't fail to repeat this every night until Mike appears with the young woman he is to carry off. For every night that you come here, you shall be paid five dollars. Do you understand?" "Yes, indeed, ole hoss," replied the delighted Jonas, displaying his mouthful of dominoes--"dat five dollars ebery night will 'nable dis colored person to shine at de balls of de colored society dis winter; perhaps be de manager--yah, yah, yah!" When giving utterance to his peculiar laugh, Jonas makes a noise as if he were undergoing the process of being choked to death by a fat sausage. Having thus given vent to his satisfaction, he mounted his cab and drove off. When he had departed, Tickels drew Mike within the dark shadow of a building, and, in whispered tones, thus addressed him:-- "I have, as you are aware, succeeded in bribing one of Goldworthy's servants to admit you into the house, and conceal you until the favorable moment arrives for you to bear off the prize. Whether you do it to-night, or to-morrow night, or the next, you must be sure to do it only between the hours of twelve and one, for only during that interval of time will Jonas and his cab be in waiting for you. When the time for action arrives, you must satisfy yourself that all is still in the house--that all have retired. I have ascertained that Goldworthy and his household almost invariably retire to rest at ten o'clock; therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that they are all asleep by twelve. At that hour, if you think the coast is clear, steal cautiously forth from your place of concealment, and noiselessly enter the young lady's chamber; this you will have no difficulty in doing, for I have taken the pains to ascertain that she never takes the precaution to lock the door." "But," interrupted Jew Mike--"in that large mansion, containing so many apartments, how shall I know for certainty which particular room the young woman sleeps in?" "I have anticipated and provided for that difficulty," rejoined Tickels--"although the servant whom I have bribed, could doubtless direct you to the chamber. Here, on this sheet of paper, I have drawn a diagram of the entire building; by studying it for a few minutes, you will readily be enabled to find your way to any part of the house.--To resume: you will enter the chamber, and assure yourself that the young lady is sleeping; this is an important point, because, if she should chance to be awake, and observe you, she would naturally scream with affright, which would ruin everything. Well, having satisfied yourself, beyond a doubt, that she is fast asleep, you will softly approach the bed, and, in the twinkling of an eye, _bind and gag her!_ so that she will be utterly incapable of voice or motion. Then take her in your arms, steal noiselessly down stairs, and make your exit by the front door, which will be left unlocked for that purpose. Having reached the street, leap with your precious burden into the cab, and Jonas will drive you with all speed to the 'Chambers.' Take off your shoes when in the house, and your footsteps will be less liable to be heard. Now, Mike, I have one request to make: I know the laxity of your principles with respect to the virtue of honesty, and admire your system of appropriation--but steal nothing, not even the merest trifle, in the house. I will tell you why I require this of you; when the young lady is missed, if property is also missed, they will naturally suppose that both she and the valuables have been carried off by some marauder; for they could never believe _her_ to be guilty of theft; and their affection for her would prompt them to make every effort for her recovery. If, on the contrary, no property disappears with her, they may possibly think that she has voluntarily eloped, and will be apt to trouble themselves very little about her, for her supposed ingratitude will arouse their indignation. Do you not perceive and acknowledge the force of my argument?" Jew Mike replied that he certainly did, and assured his worthy employer that he would, for the first time in his life, refrain from stealing, even where he had an excellent opportunity. "This heroic self-denial on your part is worthy of the highest commendation," said Mr. Tickels. "I have but one more observation to make, and then I will detain you no longer. If it should unfortunately happen that you are detected in this business, for God's sake don't bring my name in connection with it. Tell them that your design was to rob the house; they will send you to jail, and no matter how many charges may be brought against you, I have money and influence sufficient to procure your liberation. Now, my good fellow, do you consent to this?" Mike answered affirmatively; and the two proceeded towards Mr. Goldworthy's house. Fortunately for their operations, there was no moon, and the night was intensely dark; therefore, they were by no means likely to be observed by any prying individual or inquisitive Charley--besides, the gentlemen who belong to the latter class, prefer rather to indulge in a comfortable doze on some door-step, than to go prowling about, impertinently interfering with the business of enterprising burglars and others, who "prefer darkness rather than light." The Hon. Mr. Tickels and Jew Mike, having reached Mr. Goldworthy's house, stationed themselves in front of the door, and after a short pause, to assure themselves that all was right, the former worthy gave utterance to three distinct coughs, which were, however, rendered in a very low tone. The signal was answered almost immediately; the door was softly opened, and a man made his appearance; this was the unfaithful servant who had been bribed to admit a villain into his master's house. "Is everything all right, Cushing?" asked Tickels, in a whisper. "Yes, sir," replied the fellow, in the same tone--"there's no one stirring in the house except myself, as Mr. Goldworthy and the ladies have gone to the theatre, and have not yet returned; and as to the other servants, they have all gone to bed." "That's well," remarked Tickels--"now, Mike, this man will conceal you in some safe place. If the business can be done to-night, do it; if not, defer it until a favorable opportunity presents itself. You know all the arrangements; therefore I need not repeat them. Fulfil your contract, and come to me for your reward. Good night." He departed. Cushing desired Jew Mike to follow him into the house; the latter obeyed, and was conducted into a small room, which the servant gave him to understand was his sleeping chamber. "Is this to be my place of concealment?" demanded Jew Mike, glancing around with a growl of dissatisfaction--"damn it, you couldn't hide a mouse here without its being discovered." "That's true enough," rejoined Cushing--"you can't hide here, that's certain. I confess I am at a loss where to put you. There's no time to be lost, for I expect my master and the ladies to return every instant. Hell and furies, there's the carriage now! they have come!" It was true; a carriage stopped at the door, and they could hear the voices and footsteps of people entering the house. "We are lost!" cried Cushing, pale with fear--"yet stay; there is but one way of escaping immediate detection. Have you the courage to hide in--in--" "Courage!" exclaimed Mike, in great rage--"show me a place of concealment, and I'll stow myself in it, if it be hell itself! Our enterprise must not fail by my being discovered here." "Quick, then--this way--follow me--softly, softly," whispered the other, conducting Mike up a flight of stairs, and into a handsomely furnished bed-chamber. "This," said Cushing--"is the room in which Miss Fanny Aubrey sleeps; the young lady whom you are to carry off. It is the best place in the world for you to conceal yourself in, for your victim will be almost within your grasp. Quick--stow yourself _under the bed_, in the farthest corner. She will not discover you, if you keep perfectly quiet, for you will be screened from view by the thick curtains of the bed. If you cannot do the job to-night, you must remain in your hiding-place all day to-morrow--and indeed, you must not think of stirring forth, until the moment arrives for you to carry off Miss Fanny. I will contrive to supply you with food and drink. Hark!--by God, somebody is coming up-stairs. I must be off--under the bed with you--quick, quick!" In a twinkling was Jew Mike snugly ensconced beneath the bed, while Cushing hastily left the chamber, and repaired to his own room. Within the space of one minute afterwards, Fanny Aubrey entered her chamber, accompanied by a maid-servant bearing a light. "You may set down the candle, Matilda, if you please, dear," said Fanny, in her sweet, gentle voice--"and leave me, for I shall not need your assistance to undress me." "Indeed, Miss, axing your pardon, I shall do no such thing," responded Matilda, who was a buxom, good-humored, and rather good-looking young woman; and with a kind of respectful familiarity, she began to perform upon her young mistress the delicate and graceful duties of a _femme de chambre_. "You are very silly, Matilda, thus to insist on waiting on _me_; I, that am as poor as yourself, and was brought up as nothing but a fruit girl." "Lor, Miss!" cried Matilda, holding up her hands with a sort of pious horror--"how can you compare yourself with the likes of me? You were born to be a lady, and I am so happy to be your servant--your own ladies' maid! You will have a fine husband one of these days, Miss. Now, if I might make so bold, there is that pretty young gentleman, Miss Alice's cousin, Master Clarence--" "Hush, Matilda," interrupted Fanny, blushing deeply--"what has Master Clarence to do with me? you are a silly creature. Make haste and undress me, since you will do it, for I am so tired and sleepy!" Matilda did as she was desired, but being, like all other ladies' maids, very talkative, kept up a 'running commentary' on the charms of her young mistress, as ladies' maids are very apt to do. "What beautiful hair!" quoth the abigail, in an under tone, as if she were merely holding a sociable chat with herself--"for all the world like skeins of golden thread; and what a fair skin! just like a heap of snow, or a newly washed sheet spread out to bleach. Patience alive! this pretty arm beats Mrs. Swelby's wax-work all hollow; and these beautiful--" "You vex me to death with your nonsense, Matilda," cried Fanny--"how tiresome you are! Pray be silent." Thus rebuked, the ladies' maid continued her task in silence. When the young lady was disrobed, and about to retire to bed, she was startled by a sudden exclamation of Matilda's-- "Bless me, Miss! what noise was that? It sounded as if somebody was hid somewhere in this very chamber." They both paused and listened; all was again still. Fanny, as well as her maid had certainly heard a slight noise, which seemed to have been produced by a slow and cautious movement, and sounded like the rustling of a curtain. "Twas nothing but the noise of the night-breeze agitating the window curtains," remarked Fanny, at length, with a smile. Ah! neither she, nor her maid, saw the two fearful eyes that were glaring at them from among the intricate folds of the curtain, beneath the bed!--Neither saw they the dark and hideous countenance of the ruffian that lay concealed there. "Well, Miss," said Matilda, not over half re-assured by the words of her mistress--"it may be nothing, as you say; but, for my part, I never go to bed a single night in the year, without first _looking under the bed_ to see that nobody is hid away there. And I advise you to do the same, Miss; and I am sure you would, if you only knew what happened to my cousin Bridget." "And what was that, pray?" asked Fanny, as she got into bed, and settled herself comfortably, in order to listen to what happened to cousin Bridget--all her fears in regard to the noise which she had heard, having vanished. "Why, you see, miss," said Matilda, seating herself at the bed-side,--"cousin Bridget was cook in a gentleman's family in this city, and a very nice body she was, and is to this day. In the same family there lived a young man as was a coachman, very good-looking, and very attentive to Biddy, as we call her for shortness, miss. But, though he was desperate in love with my cousin, she would give him no encouragement, and the poor fellow pined away, and neglected his wittles, and grew thin in flesh, until, from being called Fat Tom, he got to be nicknamed the 'Natomy, which means a skeleton. It was in vain, miss, that poor 'Natomy threatened to take to hard drinking, or pizen himself with Prooshy acid, unless she took pity on him--not a smile, or a kiss, or a hope could he get from cousin Biddy. Now, between ourselves, I really think she had a sort of a sneaking notion after him; you know, miss, that we women folks like to tease the men, by making them think that we hate 'em, when all the time we are dead in love with 'em. Well, matters and things went on pretty much as I have said, for some times; until something happened that made a great change in the feelings of cousin Biddy towards Tom the coachman. Biddy slept in a nice little bed-room in the attic--all by herself; and Tom slept in another nice little bed-room in the attic--all by _himself_, too. Well, miss, one night Biddy went to a fancy ball in Ann street, given in honor of her brother's wife's second cousin, Mrs. MacFiggins, having been blessed with three twins at a birth; she danced very late, and drank a great deal of hot toddy, which made her so nervous that she had to go home in a hackney-coach. She went to bed, but the toddy made her feel so very uncomfortable, that she had to get up again, during the night; and she happened, by accident, to reach her hand under the bed--and what do you think, miss? her hand caught hold of something--she pulled it towards her, out from under the bed--and oh, my gracious! what must have been the feelings of the poor body, when she found that she had taken hold of a man's--_nose!_ and, what was worse than all, that nose belonged to Tom, the coachman! My poor cousin Biddy, on making this awful discovery, gave a low scream, and fainted; and then--and then, miss--in about half an hour, when she came to her senses, on finding that nobody, except Tom, had heard her scream, she felt so kind of _put out_ about the whole matter, that she agreed to marry Tom, if he would promise never to say nothing about it. He agreed, and in a few weeks afterwards they were man and wife. I heard this story, miss, from Biddy's own lips, and it's as true as gospel. So that is the reason why I look under my bed every night, to see if anybody is hid away there; because the very idea of having a man _under_ a body's bed, is so awful! But bless me, miss--you are fast asleep already, and I dare say you haven't heard half of my story." Matilda was right; Fanny had fallen asleep at the most interesting point of the foregoing narrative, and she was therefore in blissful ignorance of the catastrophe by which cousin Biddy became the wife of Tom the coachman. The ladies' maid, muttering her indignation at the very little interest manifested in her story, by her young mistress, left the chamber, and took herself off to bed, leaving the candle burning upon the table. Half an hour passed; all throughout the house was profoundly still. The deep and regular breathing of Fanny indicated that she slept soundly. A small clock in the chamber proclaimed the hour of midnight. Scarce had the tiny sounds died away in silence, when the hideous head of Jew Mike cautiously emerged from beneath the bed. The ruffian noiselessly crept forth from his place of concealment, and stood over the fair sleeper. Having satisfied himself of the soundness of her slumbers, he drew from his pocket the handkerchief and cord with which he intended to gag and bind her. At that moment, Fanny stirred, and partially awoke; quick as lightning, Jew Mike crouched down upon the carpet, and crawled beneath the bed. To his inexpressible mortification and rage, the young lady arose from the couch, advanced to the table, and having snuffed the candle, and thrown a shawl over her shoulders, seated herself, and taking up a book, began to read. The truth is, she felt herself rather restless and unwell, and determined to while away an hour or so by perusing a few chapters in the work of a favorite author. The clock struck one, and then Jew Mike knew that his villainous plans could not be carried out that night. A few minutes afterwards, the negro Jones, who had, since twelve o'clock, been waiting with his horse and cab near Mr. Goldworthy's house in Howard street, drove off--the sable genius muttering, as he urged his 'fast crab' onward-- "Five dollars for to-night, and five dollars more for to-morrow night--dat I'm sure of, any how; gorry, dis nigger's in luck." After the lapse of fifteen or twenty minutes, Fanny Aubrey closed her book, and again retired to bed. Again she slept; and for that night, she was safe. Mike knew that the cab had departed, and was obliged to defer the execution of his scheme until the next night, or even for a longer period, if a favorable opportunity did not then occur. Poor Fanny! during the remainder of that night her slumbers were attended by peaceful and pleasant dreams. What if she had known that beneath her couch there lurked a desperate and bloody ruffian, impatiently awaiting the hour when he could bear her off to a fate worse than death! Slowly wore the night away; and at length the cheerful rays of the morning sun, shining upon the beautiful countenance of the fair sleeper, awoke her from her slumbers. She arose--gracefully as a young fawn did she spring from the chaste embraces of her luxurious couch, and caroling forth a gay air--the gushing gladness of her happy heart--she proceeded to perform the duties of her toilet. Now, like a naiad at a fountain, does she lave that charming face and those ductile limbs in the limpid and rose-scented waters of a portable bath, sculptured in marble and supported by four little Cupids with gilded wings; then, like the fabled mermaid, does she arrange her shining hair in that style of beautiful simplicity which is so becoming, and so seldom successfully accomplished, even by women of undoubted taste. The amorous mirror glowingly reflects her young and budding charms, as she coquettishly admires the loveliness of her delicious little person, half-blushing at the sight of her own voluptuous nudity. Little does she suspect that the savage eyes of a concealed ruffian are gloating with lecherous delight upon her exposed form! In happy unconsciousness of this hideous scrutiny, the young lady having completed the preliminary arrangements of her toilet, proceeded to array herself in a charming and delicate morning costume. Although it could not be said that "Her snowy breast was bare to ready spoil Of hungry eyes," yet these lines from _Thomson's Seasons_ might be applied to her, with peculiar force:-- "Her polished limbs Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire, Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most." She was scarcely dressed, when the breakfast bell sounded its welcome peal; and she hastened below to take her place at the hospitable family table. During the whole of that day, Jew Mike did not venture to stir once from his retreat. In the forenoon, a female domestic came and arranged the bed, without discovering him; after a while, Fanny came into the chamber, to dress for dinner, which being done, she withdrew without suspecting the presence of the villainous Jew Mike, who again had an opportunity of feasting his eyes on her denuded charms. Late in the afternoon, much to the joy of the ruffian, who was half starved, Cushing stole into the chamber, bringing with him some provisions and a bottle of wine; those he hastily passed under the bed, and abruptly retired, for he was apprehensive of being detected in the room, which would have ruined all. Night came on. Mike was a witness of the scene which took place between Alice Goldworthy and Fanny, wherein the latter charged the Chevalier with having stolen the packet of money. The reader knows how Fanny was afterwards awakened from her sleep by a horrid dream, and how she discovered the form of a man bending over her--that man was, of course, Jew Mike. It will be recollected that the young girl screamed and fainted; that Clarence Argyle rushed into the chamber, and was instantly shot down by Mike--and that the ruffian made his escape from the house, bearing off the unfortunate girl in his arms. Jonas was waiting at a short distance from the house; Mike hastily entered the cab with his burden, and the negro drove rapidly towards Warren street, wherein was located the "Chambers of Love." The vehicle halted before a house of decent exterior; Jew Mike came out, bearing the still insensible girl; the door of the house opened, and he entered; then the door closed, and all was still. With a low chuckle of satisfaction, Jonas whipped his horse into a gallop, and away he rattled through the silent and deserted streets. CHAPTER VIII _The Chambers of Love.--Conclusion._ On entering the house in Warren street with his burden, Jew Mike passed through a dark passage, and entered a large, well-lighted and well-furnished room. Here he was received by a rather stout and extremely good-looking female, the landlady of the house, who rejoiced in the peculiar title of Madame Hearthstone. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, several courtezans of the ordinary class were lounging about, or indolently conversing with a few intimate male friends, who were probably their private lovers, or _pimps_. "Well," said Madame Hearthstone, with a smile of satisfaction--"you have caught the bird at last, I see; but she must not remain here, for when she recovers from her swoon, she may take it into her head to scream, or make a disturbance, which might be heard in the street. We will carry her below to the _Chambers_, and there she may make as much noise as she pleases--there's no possibility of her ever being overheard by people above ground!" In obedience to her directions, Jew Mike again took the young girl in his arms, and followed Madame out of the room, while she bore a light. She led the way into a bed-chamber on the second floor, which apartment was furnished with that luxury so invariably found in the bowers of land-ladies of pleasure, who care but little for the comfort of their _boarders_, so long as they themselves are "in clover."' The walls of Madame's chamber were beautifully adorned with fancy paper, representing panels in gilded frames, decorated with wreaths of flowers. The lady advanced towards one of these panels, and kneeling down upon the floor, touched a secret spring; instantly a door, which had previously been invisible, sprang open, revealing an aperture large enough to admit a person standing upright. The reader must not be surprised that the landlady should thus expose to Jew Mike the means of entering her private rendezvous; for Mike was perfectly in her confidence, having often before been employed to convey victims to that den, and being already well acquainted with the mystery of the secret panel. They entered the aperture--the landlady bearing the light, and the ruffian carrying the unconscious form of Fanny Aubrey. Having carefully closed the panel behind them, they began to descend a long flight of steps, so steep and narrow, that extreme care was necessary to enable them to preserve their footing. Down, down they went, seemingly far into the bowels of the earth. At length they arrived at the bottom, and a stout oaken door intercepted their further progress. The landlady produced a key, and the door swung back upon its massive hinges; they entered a vast apartment, fitted up in a style of splendor almost equal to the fabled magnificence of a fairy palace. The hall was of circular shape, surmounted by a dome, from which hung a superb chandelier, which shed a brilliant light over the gilded ornaments and voluptuous paintings that adorned the walls. In the centre stood a table, laden with fruits and wines, around which were seated half a dozen young females, all very beautiful, and several of them nearly half naked. Two of these girls, who were more modestly dressed than the others, seemed sad and dispirited; their four companions, however, appeared vicious and reckless in the extreme. "Girls," said the landlady, addressing them--"I have brought you a new sister; she has come to learn the delightful mysteries of Venus. Give her all the instruction in your power, and learn her the arts and ways of a finished courtezan." Jew Mike laid Fanny upon a sofa; the girls crowded around her, and regarded her with looks of interest and joy. "She is very pretty," said one of them, a bold, wanton looking young creature, of rare beauty, her seductive form wholly revealed beneath a single light gauze garment, such as are worn by ballet girls--"I will become her teacher; I will show her how to turn the brains of men crazy with passion, and bring the proudest of them grovelling at her feet. Oh,'tis delightful to humble the lords of creation, as they call themselves, and make them whine for our favors like so many sick spaniels!" "You are a girl of spirit, Julia," said the landlady, regarding her with a look of admiration--"and will make a splendid courtezan." "But," cried Julia, with sparkling eyes and a heaving breast--"when _shall_ I become a courtezan? How long must I remain here, pining for the embraces of fifty men, and enduring the impotent caresses of but one, and _he_, bah! a fellow of no more fire or animation, of _power_, than a lump of ice!" "Have patience, my love," rejoined the landlady--"Mr. Lawyer may be a poor lover, but he is a profitable patron; so long as he pays liberally for your exclusive favors in these 'Chambers,' you must receive him, for you will share the profits, when you 'turn out.' And now see what you can do in the way of restoring this new comer, for her _owner_ will be here soon, to see her. Carry her into the _Satin Chamber_, which is to be her room, and when she revives, make her partake of some refreshments." The landlady and Jew Mike left the hall; the massive door was relocked, and ascended to the upper regions of the house, leaving Fanny Aubrey to the care of the inmates of the luxurious Chambers below. The Satin Chamber was an apartment of moderate dimensions, which adjoined the principal hall. It was completely lined throughout with white satin, which produced an effect so voluptuous as to defy description. Into this gorgeous bower of lust the girls carried Fanny, and laid her down upon a soft and yielding couch. Restoratives were applied, and she was speedily brought to a state of consciousness. Her wonder and astonishment may easily be imagined, when, on starting up, she found herself in that strange place, surrounded by a group of showily dressed females, some of them indecently nude. Without answering her eager inquiries, as to where she was, and how she came there, they brought her wine and other refreshments, of which they compelled her to partake. "You are in a place of safety, and among friends," said one of them, a beautiful brunette of sixteen, whose glossy hair fell in rich masses upon her naked shoulders and bosom.--This abandoned young creature was a Jewess, named Rachel; her own wild, lascivious passions had been the cause of her being brought to the 'Chambers,' rather than the arts of the man who was at that time enjoying her delectable favors. "Yes, dear," chimed in the voluptuous Julia--"we are your sisters, and it will be our task to teach you the delights of love, while you remain among us.--But come, girls; let us leave our sister to repose; she is a little Venus, and will dream of Cupid's pleasures, and when she awakes from her soft slumbers, she may find herself in the arms of an impetuous lover.--Happy girl! I envy her the bliss which she is soon to experience, because it is to her, as yet, a bliss _untasted_." Each of the embryo Cyprians kissed the intended victim; some did it almost passionately, as if their libidinous natures derived a gratification even in kissing one of their own sex; some did it laughingly, with whispered words of encouragement and congratulation; but one of them, less hardened than the rest, dropped a tear of pity on her cheek, and in a gentle, yet faltering voice, murmured--"Poor girl, I am sorry for you!" They departed, and Fanny was left alone--alone with her tears, her troubled thoughts, and a thousand fears; for she remembered having seen the ruffian at her bed-side, and although she recollected nothing of what had subsequently occurred, still she doubted not that she had been carried to the place where she found herself, for some terrible purpose. The six 'daughters of Venus' returned to the principal hall, and had scarcely resumed their places at the table, when the door was opened, and an old gentleman entered. He was a very tall, erect, slim personage, dressed in blue broadcloth, his neck neatly enveloped in a white cravat, garnished with a shirt collar of uncommon magnitude. Judging from appearances, he might formerly have been an individual of rather comely presence; but, strange to say, he was almost entirely destitute of a _nose_--the place formerly occupied by that important feature, being now supplied by a stump of flesh little larger than an ordinary pimple. This deformity gave his face an aspect extremely ludicrous, if not positively disgusting; and was the result of an indiscreet amour in former times, which not only communicated the fiery brand of destruction to his nasal organ, but also effectually disqualified him from any further direct indulgence in the amorous gambols of Venus. Thus painfully afflicted, 'Tom Lawyer,' as he has always been familiarly called, was obliged to content himself with such enjoyments as lay within the limited range of his physical powers--enjoyments which, though rather unsatisfactory, were nevertheless expensive; yet his immense wealth enabled him to command them. To explain: he would maintain in luxury some beautiful young female, with whom he would pass a portion of his leisure time in harmless dalliance--therefore was he the _patron_ of the voluptuous Julia, whom he kept strictly secluded in the 'Chambers,' fearing that her unsatisfied passions would seek their 'legitimate gratification,' were an opportunity afforded her to do so. As he entered, Julia affected the utmost delight at seeing him, and rushing into his arms, almost devoured him with kisses; and then she followed him into an adjoining chamber, her beautiful countenance wearing an expression of ill-concealed disgust.--They entered--the door was closed, and--we dare not describe what followed. * * * * * At an early hour, on the morning succeeding these events, Jew Mike called on the Hon. Mr. Tickels, for the purpose of receiving the one hundred dollars, which had been promised him as the reward of his villainy in abducting Fanny Aubrey. On learning that the infamous project had been crowned with complete success, the old libertine was overjoyed beyond measure; but when Mike demanded the one hundred dollars, his face lengthened--for he was avaricious as well as villainous, and his recent loss of five thousand dollars, in favor of the Chevalier and the Duchess, made him exceedingly loth to part with a cool hundred so easily.--Not exactly knowing the sort of a man he had to deal with, he assumed a stern tone and aspect, and said-- "One hundred dollars, for two nights' work! Do you take me for a fool? Here, fellow, is twenty dollars for you, and I consider you are well paid for your trouble." "But sir," remarked Mike--"you know you promised--" "Pooh!--promises are nothing; when a man wants to get possession of a pretty girl, he'll promise anything; when she is once in his power, he is not so liberal. Here, take your twenty dollars, and be off!" "And this is my reward and thanks for the risk I have run!" demanded Jew Mike, bitterly. "I've no time to waste words with you," rejoined Tickels, haughtily--"I know you; you're an old offender, and I could send you to prison, if I chose, without paying you a cent.--Once more, take the money, or leave it." "Then you would break your contract with me? Be it so--keep your money; but, by God! I'll drink your heart's blood for this! My name is Jew Mike, and I have said it. Farewell, till we meet again!" He rushed from the house, leaving Tickels divided by joy at having saved a hundred dollars, and fear, in consequence of the ruffian's savage threat. Five minutes after Mike's departure, Corporal Grimsby entered, announced the abduction of Fanny Aubrey from the house of her friends, on the preceding night, and boldly accused Tickels of having been the cause of that outrage. The details of this interview are related in the sixth chapter of this narrative; it is consequently unnecessary to repeat them. Satisfied in his own mind that old Tickels was at the bottom of the business, and that Jew Mike was the agent employed, the Corporal made the best of his way to Ann street, resolved to find the Jew, and prevail upon him, by bribes, to disclose the place where Fanny had been carried. During the whole of that day, he searched in vain; Mike was nowhere to be found;--towards evening, however, as the old gentleman was about to abandon the search in despair, he was informed by 'Cod-mouth Pat,' whom he had enlisted in his service, that Mike had just been seen to enter the 'Pig Pen.' With some difficulty, our friend contrived to gain an entrance to that 'crib,' where he had the satisfaction to find the object of his anxious search brooding over a half pint of gin. The ruffian instantly recognised in the Corporal, the person who had escaped from the 'Coal Hole,' some time previously, but every hostile feeling vanished, when the old man announced the object of his visit to be the discovery of Fanny Aubrey, and the punishment of the villain Tickels. Without entering into details which might prove tedious, suffice it to say that Jew Mike agreed to conduct the Corporal to the place where Fanny was confined, on condition that the punishment of old Tickels should be left entirely to him, (Mike). This was assented to, and the pair instantly set out, in a cab, for the 'Chambers of Love,' in Warren street--the Corporal, eager to rescue poor Fanny from the power of her persecutors, and the Jew thirsting to revenge himself upon his employer, for having refused to give him the stipulated reward. * * * * * That same evening, at about the hour of seven, the Hon. Timothy Tickels issued from his residence in South street, and proceeded towards Warren street, which having reached, he entered the mansion of Madame Hearthstone. That lady, with a significant smile, conducted him to her chamber, and opened the secret panel; they descended the steps, and Mr. Tickels was ushered in the grand hall of the 'Chambers of Love.' The landlady pointed to the door of the apartment to which Fanny Aubrey had been conveyed; the old libertine opened the door, and entered. In a few moments a piercing scream is heard--then another; but alas! those sounds could not be heard above, from the depths of that voluptuous tomb. But hark!--there is a noise without--nearer and nearer comes the tumult--the great door is burst open with a tremendous crash, and Jew Mike rushes in, followed by Corporal Grimsby. "This way!" shouts the Jew--"Forward!" responds the gallant Corporal. They reach the door of the _Satin Chamber_--they open it. "Brick-bats and paving-stones! just in time again!" There, upon a satin couch, her dress disordered and torn, her face flushed, her hair in wild disorder, her bosom naked and bleeding, lay Fanny Aubrey, panting, writhing, fiercely struggling in the ruffian grasp of the villain Tickels, who savagely turned and confronted the intruders. In an instant, he was stunned by a powerful blow from the gigantic fist of Jew Mike, and Fanny was folded in the arms of her preserver, the brave old Corporal. They left that underground hell--the Corporal, bearing the now overjoyed Fanny in his arms, and Jew Mike, half carrying, half dragging the insensible form of old Tickels. They reached the chamber above, and emerged from the secret panel; the affrightened inmates of the house offered no resistance; they entered the cab which was in waiting, and were driven to the residence of the Corporal, who, with his fair young _protege_, alighted, and entered the house; then Jew Mike and his victim were driven to Ann street, and the vehicle halted before the cellar which led to the 'Pig Pen.' The night was very dark, and no one observed the Jew, as, issuing from the cab, he descended into the cellar, bearing in his powerful arms the unconscious form of Tickels. Fortunately for him, he passed through the cellar and 'Pig Pen,' without exciting much notice, as the hour was too early for the usual revellers of the place to assemble, and those who saw him, merely supposed that he was carrying some drunken friend to a place of safety from the police--a sight common enough in that region. Mike needed no light to guide his footsteps, he traversed the dark passage, he seized the iron ring, and drew up the trap door of the 'Coal Hole,' from which the Corporal so providentially escaped. Then, with a deep curse, he cast the old libertine into the dark abyss, closed the entrance, and departed. When Tickels revived, and found himself in that loathsome place, he rent the air with his cries and supplications; but no aid came to the crime-polluted wretch, and in a few days he sank beneath the combined effects of despair, starvation, and the foetid atmosphere, and miserably perished. CONCLUSION The Conclusion of a Tale is like the end of a journey: the Author throws aside his pen and foolscap as the tired traveller does the dusty garments of the road, and stretching himself at ease, looks back upon the various companions of his erratic ramblings. The curiosity of the reader is doubtless highly excited to know who "Corporal Grimsby" is. Circumstances, we regret to say, will not permit us to state definitely--but should a guess be made that the worthy old Corporal, and a certain Capt. S----, commander of a Revenue Cutter, were one and the same person, we will venture to say that the conjecture would not be far removed from the actual truth. The "Chevalier Duvall" and the "Duchess" still continue in their brilliant career of crime, in Boston. We regret that the limits of the present work have not permitted us to record more fully their extraordinary operations in voluptuous intrigue and stupendous fraud. Fanny Aubrey is again a happy inmate of the family of Mr. Goldworthy. Poor Alice, although a shade has been cast over her pure life by the dark villainy of the Chevalier, has been restored to a state of comparative felicity by the constant kindness and sympathy of her relatives and friends. "Jew Mike" has gone on a professional tour to the South and West. "Sow Nance" has become the most abandoned prostitute in Ann street. Dear reader, thanking thee for the patience with which thou hast accompanied us in our devious wanderings, and hoping that thou hast not always found us to be a dull companion, we bid thee farewell. 
34944	----	Brenda, Her School and Her Club BY HELEN LEAH REED AUTHOR OF "MISS THEODORA," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1900 _Copyright, 1900_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. _All rights reserved._ [Illustration: "THE CHILD HIMSELF, SURROUNDED BY A GROUP OF CURIOUS GIRLS, CLUNG TO NORA'S HAND"] CONTENTS I. FOUR FRIENDS II. JULIA'S ARRIVAL III. THE RESCUE IV. A CLUB MEETING V. MISS CRAWDON'S SCHOOL VI. MISUNDERSTANDINGS VII. VISITING MANUEL VIII. PLANNING THE BAZAAR IX. A MYSTERIOUS MANSION X. A SOPHOMORE XI. THE COOKING CLASS XII. CONCERNING JULIA XIII. GREAT EXPECTATIONS XIV. THE FOOTBALL GAME XV. A POET AT HOME XVI. AN HISTORIC RAMBLE XVII. THE ROSAS AT HOME XVIII. MERRY CHRISTMAS XIX. NORA'S THOUGHTLESSNESS XX. FIDESSA AND HER MISTRESS XXI. MISS SOUTH AND JULIA XXII. BRENDA'S SECRET XXIII. ALMOST READY XXIV. AN EVENING'S FUN XXV. THE BAZAAR XXVI. GREAT EXCITEMENT XXVII. A MISTAKE XXVIII. EXPLANATIONS XXIX. AFTER VACATION XXX. BRENDA'S FOLLY XXXI. THE SHILOH PICNIC LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "THE CHILD HIMSELF, SURROUNDED BY A GROUP OF CURIOUS GIRLS, CLUNG TO NORA'S HAND" "'OH, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, GIRLS,--LET US WORK FOR--MANUEL!'" "SHE WAS ABLE TO RUSH ON AND PICK THEM UP AS THEY WERE DASHED AGAINST A LAMP-POST" "NOW AS JULIA SAT THERE DRINKING TEA FROM THE QUAINTEST OF OLD-FASHIONED CHINA CUPS" "'WHY, BRENDA BARLOW, WHY ARE YOU LYING IN THIS DOWNCAST POSITION?'" BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB I FOUR FRIENDS "What do suppose she'll be like?" "How can I tell?" "Well, Brenda Barlow, I should think you'd have _some_ idea--your own cousin." "Oh, that doesn't make any difference. I've hardly thought about her." "But aren't you just a little curious?" continued the questioner, a pretty girl with dark hair. "No, Nora, I'm not. She's sixteen and a half--almost a year older than we are. She's never lived in a big city, and that's enough." "Oh, a country girl?" "I don't know that she's a country girl exactly, but I just wish she wasn't coming. She'll spoil all our fun." "How?" asked a third girl, seated on the bottom step. "Why, who ever heard of _five_ girls going about together? If three's a crowd, five's a perfect regiment. I agree with Brenda that it's too bad to have her come. Now when there's four of us we can pair off and have a good time." The last speaker had a long thin face with a determined mouth and large china blue eyes. She was the only one of the four whom the average observer would not call pretty. Yet in her little circle she had her own way more often even than Brenda, who was not only somewhat of a tyrant, but a beauty as well. "Brenda and Belle They carry a spell," the other girls were in the habit of singing, when the two _Bs_ had accomplished something on which they had set their hearts. Edith, the third of the group, in spite of her auburn hair, was the most amiable of the four. I say "in spite" out of respect merely to the popular prejudice. Nobody has ever proved that auburn hair really indicates worse temper than hair of any other color. Edith almost always agreed with any of the plans made by the others, and very often with their opinions. Dark-haired Nora was the only one of the group who ever ventured to dissent from the two _Bs_. Now she spoke up briskly, "I know that I shall like your cousin." "Why?" the other three exclaimed in a chorus. "I can't tell you _why_, only that I know I shall." "You're welcome to," said Brenda, tossing her head, "but I guess if you had just begun to have your own house to yourself you wouldn't like somebody else coming that you'd have to treat exactly like a sister." "Why, Brenda!" said Nora, with a look of surprise, and then the others remembered that Nora had had a little sister near her own age whose death was a great sorrow to her. "Why, Brenda!" repeated Nora, "I wish that I had a sister." Now Brenda Barlow was not nearly as heartless as her words implied. She had two sisters whom she loved very dearly. But they were both much older than Brenda, and by petting and spoiling her they had to a large extent helped to make her selfish. One of them had now been married for four years, and had gone to California to live and the other was in Paris completing her art studies. When Janet married, Brenda had not realized the change in the family. But when Agnes went to Paris, Brenda was older, and she fully felt her own importance as "Miss Barlow." "It's the same as being 'Miss Barlow,'" she said to her friends, "the servants call me so, and I've moved my things down into Janet's room. I can invite any one I want to luncheon without asking whether Agnes has any plans,--and I shouldn't wonder if I could have a dinner-party once in a while--of course, not a _very_ late one, but with raw oysters to begin with--sure--" and the other girls laughed, for they knew that Brenda had been practising on raw oysters for a long time, and that she felt proud of her present prowess in swallowing them without winking or making a face. Mr. Barlow was generally absorbed in business affairs, and Mrs. Barlow had so many social engagements that Brenda did as she wished in most respects. She ordered the servants about when her mother was out, and they were as ready to obey her as her friends were to follow her lead, for when Brenda wanted her own way she never seemed ill-natured. She simply insisted with a very winning smile--and nobody could refuse her. She had found it very pleasant to rule her little world. It was even pleasanter than being the spoiled and petted child that she had been when her sisters were at home. Her father and mother had never seen how fond she was growing of her own way until they announced the coming of her cousin Julia. "She is older than you, Brenda, and I hear that she is far advanced in her studies. I dare say that she will be able to help you sometimes." "Oh, papa! I _hate_ to have any one help me. She'll be an awful bore, I suppose, if she thinks she knows more than me----" "Grammar, Brenda," said her mother with a smile. "Well, then, more than _I_," repeated Brenda. "I'm sure she won't be a bore, Brenda, but her life has been very different from yours. She has led a quiet life, for you know she was her father's constant companion until he died." Here Mrs. Barlow sighed. Julia's mother was Mrs. Barlow's sister, and had died when the little Julia was hardly five years old. "Uncle Richard was always delicate?" ventured Brenda. "Yes, dear, and he spent his life trying to find a place where he could gain perfect health. Boston was too bleak for him, and that is why you have not seen Julia since she was very little. Your uncle did not care to undergo the fatigue of traveling East even in the summer, and he could not bear to be parted from Julia. But she was always a sweet little thing." "I hope you won't be disappointed in her," cried Brenda, half in a temper. "I believe you are going to care for her more than you do for me." "Nonsense, Brenda," exclaimed her mother in surprise. "Well, you can't expect me to feel the same about her,--a strange girl--who knows more than I, and is just enough older to make every one expect me to look up to her. Oh, dear!" Since Brenda had not concealed her feelings from her mother, it was hardly to be expected that she would be less frank with her three most intimate friends. After Nora and Edith had bade Brenda good-bye that afternoon when they had talked about the unknown cousin, they walked rather slowly up the street. "Do you suppose Brenda's jealous?" said Nora, in a half whisper. "Oh, hush," answered Edith, to whom the word jealousy meant something dreadful. "Of course not." "Well, don't you think it's strange for her not to feel more pleased at the prospect of having her cousin with her. I should think it would be great fun to have another girl in the house." "Oh, well, Brenda can always have one of us. Her mother is so good about letting her invite people--and of course she can't tell how she'll get along with her cousin. No, I really shouldn't like it myself." As Nora and Edith walked away, Brenda turned to Belle, in whom she always found a ready sympathizer. "You know how I feel, Belle." "Yes, indeed; I think it's too bad. I'm sure it will spoil half our fun. It's horrid anyway to have some one older than yourself ordering you round." "Oh, I don't suppose she'll do that exactly." "Well, it's just the same thing. If she's such a model, as your mother says, she'll make you feel uncomfortable all the time. Then if she's wearing mourning, she can't do the things that you do, and you'll have to stay at home and be polite to her. Yes, I'm really sorry for you, Brenda." With sympathy like this, Brenda began to regard herself as almost a martyr. "Oh, dear," she sighed, "why couldn't she have waited until next winter? Come, Belle," she continued, "you'll stay to dinner, won't you?" Belle hesitated for a moment. "I suppose I _ought_ to go home." "Oh, why?" Belle was silent. She knew that certain unfinished lessons awaited her, and that her grandmother objected to her dining away from home, unless she had first asked permission. She fortified herself, however, by saying to herself, "Oh, well, mother won't care." For her mother was what is commonly known as easy-going, and seldom interfered with her daughter's goings and comings. Belle always enjoyed dining with Brenda. The dining-room was so attractive with its great blazing fire, its heavy draperies and cheerful oil-paintings on the wall. At home she sat down in a large, severely furnished room, with her solemn grandmother wrapped in a white knitted shawl at one end of the long table, her half-deaf uncle James at the other end, and her brother Jack on the side opposite her. Her delicate mother often dined upstairs. Uncle James usually had some story to tell of misdeeds that he had heard some one ascribe to Jack ("and how a deaf person can hear I don't see," Jack would say crossly to Brenda). Her grandmother generally read Belle herself a lecture on paying proper respect to one's elders, or some similar subject, while Belle and Jack exchanged glances of mischievous intelligence, which often drew strong reproofs from their grandmother, and sometimes from her mother when she was present. No wonder, then, that Brenda's invitation was a strong temptation to Belle. "Come, silence gives consent," laughed Brenda. Dragging Belle by the arm, she touched the door-bell, and in a moment the two girls were inside the house. "What room is Julia going to have?" asked Belle, as they ran up the front stairs. "Well, you _will_ be surprised; that's one of the things that makes me so cross. Just _think_ of it, Agnes's rooms in the L--that sweet little studio that I wanted mamma to let me have--it's all fitted up for Julia. Don't you call that mean?" Belle pressed her friend's hand. "You poor thing!" "Yes, it seems Agnes is sure not to come home for two years, and so mamma thought the studio would be a good place for Julia to practice in, and so there's a piano and--well--let's come and see. We've got time before dinner." Pushing open a door on the second floor and going down a step or two, Brenda and Belle found themselves inside a little reception-room. The walls were a deep red, there was a cashmere rug on the polished floor, a clock and two bronze figures on the mantelpiece. An open bookcase in one recess, a short lounge in the other, a low wicker tea-table, and two or three small chairs made up the furnishing. "This is just the same as it was," said Brenda, "and so is the bedchamber," pointing to a door on the left of the reception-room, "but see here!" and she turned to the right. Belle followed, and they found themselves in a long, narrow room, with a bay window at one end and a skylight overhead. On the walls were several large unframed sketches in black and white, together with water colors and a number of fine photographs and engravings in gilt or ebony frames. Against the wall near the bay window stood a small upright piano with an elephant's cloth scarf over the top. The groundwork of the scarf was of a deep yellow, harmonizing with the tint of the painted walls. There were two or three comfortable chairs covered in yellow-flowered chintz, and in the centre an inlaid library table with a baize top and an assortment of writing utensils. There were several rugs of a prevailing yellow tint on the polished yellow floor, and one side of the room was occupied by rows of low open book-shelves which held, however, only a few books. "I believe Julia's going to have her father's library brought here," said Brenda, in explanation of the empty shelves. "Don't you _hate_ book-worms?" "Yes," responded Belle, "but how _lovely_ this room is! What a _shame_ that you couldn't have it yourself! Why, I thought your mother said that they were going to leave the studio just as it was until Agnes came home." "Well, so they were, but she won't be home for two years, and then she'll probably have a studio down town, and so they've put most of her things away and fitted up this room just for Julia. _She_ has to have everything." "I know just how you feel," and Belle pressed Brenda's hand sympathetically. "But then, your own room is lovely." "Oh, yes, of course; but it isn't the same thing as a studio. A studio is so--so artistic." The girls were standing in the bay window, bathed in a flood of sunshine from the setting sun. They glanced across the broad river toward the roofs and spires of Cambridge. A tug-boat went puffing along the stream towing a schooner loaded with lumber. "Oh, my, it must be late! the sun is just dropping behind those Brookline Hills. Come up to my room." The room on the floor above the studio which had formerly been Janet's, also overlooked the river. It was in the main house and its windows looked down on the roof of the L containing the studio. In fact, the studio to a slight extent impeded the view of the river which was obtainable from this upper room. But the room itself was large and cheerful, with a carpet and paper of bluish tint, a large brass bedstead canopied with blue, comfortable lounging chairs, a dainty little sofa, dressing-table, desk, and all kinds of pretty ornaments. A half-open door showed the adjoining dressing-room with its long pier-glass, and a coal fire blazed in the open grate. "Make yourself comfortable," said Brenda hospitably, "for if you don't mind, I'm going to write a note that I want to send out by Thomas before dinner. It won't take me ten minutes." Brenda sat down at her little desk, while Belle sank in the depths of an easy chair near the fire. Just as Brenda finished her note, a white-capped maid came into the room. "Oh, Jane, just give this note to Thomas, please. I want him to take it to Mrs. Grey's and bring back my new coat. I can't go to school to-morrow without it." "I don't hardly think Thomas can go, Miss Brenda." "Why not?" "Well, he's got to go to the station for your cousin." "My cousin?" "Yes, miss. A telegram came this afternoon that she'd be here at six-thirty, and your mother left word when she went out that they wouldn't be much later than that getting back from the train." "Well, I never! The idea of her coming without any one's expecting her. Why didn't she write?" "I don't know, miss. I heard something about a letter that got lost, but anyway your mother's gone to meet Miss Julia, and she left word she thought you'd better give up going to the tableaux this evening, for she wouldn't like you to leave your cousin alone." "There, Belle, that's the way it's always going to be. Everything for 'Miss Julia.' I don't care, I'm going out just the same. The idea of losing those tableaux." "But, Brenda," began Belle. "No, it isn't any good arguing with me. I never _could_ bear to be interfered with, and mamma knows perfectly well that I want to see 'The Succession of the Seasons.'" "But it's to be repeated to-morrow evening. You know I'm going then." "I don't care. I hate to go the second night to anything." Belle did not reply, though as Jane left the room, she turned to Brenda. "I'd better not stay to dinner to-night." "Oh, do. I don't want to sit alone with Julia. I shan't know what to say to her. No, really you can't go home." Then running to the stairs and calling after Jane, Brenda cried, "See that there's an extra place at the table for Belle." After this she began to open the drawers of her bureau, tossing their contents about, and she ran in and out of her closet to bring out one gown after another for Belle's inspection. "Which would you wear if you wanted to make a good impression on a new cousin? I want to look as old as I can, and I believe I'll do up my hair." "Oh, Brenda!" "Yes, I will. Now see, if I put a string on the band of this skirt it will almost touch the floor. There, help me." When the skirt was lengthened, Brenda regarded her reflection in the pier-glass with great satisfaction. Brushing her waving brown hair to the top of her head, she gathered it in a soft knot, and thrust a long gold pin through it. "Tell me the truth, Belle, wouldn't you think me sixteen years old--if you didn't know," she cried to her friend, who could hardly conceal her mirth at Brenda's changed aspect. "I don't--why, yes, of course," as she saw a frown stealing across Brenda's face. Brenda strode around the room with all the dignity she could command, her pretty face somewhat flushed by her exertions in giving her hair just the right touch. As a matter of fact she looked rather odd, but Belle did not dare tell her that her skirt hung unevenly, and that two or three short locks of her hair stood out almost straight behind. "Hark, I believe they've come," Brenda exclaimed. Certainly there was a noise in the hall below. "Where's Brenda?" she heard her mother call. "Well, I suppose we'll have to go down," she said reluctantly to Belle, and the two girls slowly descended the stairs. II JULIA'S ARRIVAL As the two girls went downstairs, Brenda politely urged Belle to go ahead of her. She, herself, lingered a moment to look over the balusters, and thus, when they reached the broad hall at the foot of the stairs, she was several steps behind her friend. Belle, with a quick eye, before she reached the bottom of the stairs, noticed a little group near the fireplace,--an elderly woman with a shawl over her arm, who looked like a maid; Mrs. Barlow, holding the hand of a slight girl in black, and last but not least, a large Irish setter which lay at the young girl's feet. All this Belle had hardly time to notice when the young girl rushed forward and throwing her arm around her neck, cried, "Oh, Cousin Brenda, I'm so glad to see you." Belle for a moment looked disconcerted, and Mrs. Barlow, without showing any surprise at Belle's presence, relieved the latter by saying: "This isn't Brenda, Julia, but one of her friends." Julia, still with her hand in Belle's, smiled pleasantly. "I'm glad to see you," she said, and just at that moment Brenda came in sight. Julia was hastening forward to greet her cousin as she had greeted her friend, but something in Brenda's face forbade her. Brenda could not, perhaps, have explained why she felt so annoyed at Julia's mistake. She was not unduly vain, yet it annoyed her that her cousin had mistaken Belle for her. For well as she liked Belle, she knew that all the other girls considered her not especially good-looking. Though she could not, probably would not, have put it into words, the thought flashed through her brain that Julia was stupid to have made such a mistake. The thought took form in a rather repelling glance as her eye met her cousin's. "Come, Brenda, you should not make Julia go more than half-way to meet you," called her mother from her place near the fire. "No'm," replied Brenda, hardly knowing what she said, for really she felt a little shy about the new cousin, who was more than a year her senior. "With her hand outstretched, she stepped toward Julia, moving with the dignity that her lengthened skirt demanded. "Dear me! What can it be?" she thought, as she felt something hindering her progress. It could not be that the skirt was _too_ long. She stooped a little to raise it from beneath her feet, and then, how mortifying! she felt a string snap. She clutched wildly at her skirt with both hands. But it was too late, and making the best of the situation, she stood before her cousin in her short ruffled petticoat, instead of her long, grown-up gown. "There, Brenda," cried her mother, comprehending the situation at a glance, for this was not the first time that Brenda had tried to lengthen her skirts. "There, Brenda, I hope you won't be as foolish as this again. Speak to your cousin, and then go up and put on your skirt properly." Poor Brenda! What a loss of dignity! She hardly knew what she said to Julia, or what Julia said to her. She resented Belle's offer of help, for had she not heard a decided giggle from her friend at the moment of the catastrophe? So rushing to her room, she locked the door and did not leave it until called to dinner. Now Brenda, though by no means perfect, was not ill-natured, and she seated herself at the table with the intention of making herself agreeable to Julia. But there are times when nothing seems to go exactly right, and this evening was one of them. In the first place it disturbed Brenda to see her father's glance of amusement as his eye fell on her new style of hair-dressing. "Which is it now?" he laughed, "Marie Antoinette or Queen Elizabeth? Dear me, Brenda, it's a long time since we've seen you masquerading in this fashion." Brenda reddened. In spite of the mishap to her dress, she wished her cousin to believe that she always wore her hair on the top of her head. Vague hopes were floating through her mind that she could persuade her mother to let her give up her childish pigtail altogether. "Why does papa always say things like that?" and she reddened still more as Julia's eyes fell on her. She remembered, however, her duties as assistant hostess. "Did you have a pleasant journey?" she asked politely. "Yes, indeed," answered Julia. "That is, I was just a little tired, but it was so delightful to look out of the car window and know that I was really in Massachusetts. It seemed too good to be true." Mr. Barlow looked pleased. "Ah, Julia, it gratifies me very much to have you say this. Sometimes when people have traveled they lose their love for their early home." "Yes, Uncle Robert, I've always loved to think of Boston as my real home. Although it's so long since we lived here." "Why, what do you really remember of Boston?" asked Mr. Barlow. "Well, the State-House, Uncle Robert, and the Common--of course--and--and Brenda." "Oh, you can't remember Brenda?" "Yes, indeed I can. She was the dearest little thing! You see when I was five years old, Brenda seemed almost a baby--a year and a half between two girls makes a good deal of difference,--when they're little." But even this last saving clause did not prevent Brenda's heart from giving a sudden thump, especially as she caught a sympathetic glance from Belle which seemed to say, "Ah, she's reminding you how much older she is than you." Brenda straightened herself up. She tried to think of something to say that would show that though younger, she at least had some knowledge of the world. "Can you eat raw oysters, Julia?" were the rather strange words that came to her lips. Julia, unable naturally to follow the train of thought leading to this question, answered brightly, "I've never tried. You see we don't have very good oysters in the West, and some way I've never thought I'd like them raw." "Oh, if you want to seem really grown-up you'll have to eat oysters off the shell," said Mrs. Barlow. "I believe Brenda has practised so that she can eat them without wincing." Then Belle, who prided herself on her tact, hastened to change what she knew might become a sore subject with Brenda. "Were there many people you knew on the train, Miss----" "Oh, please say Julia," broke in the young girl. "Every one always does. No, there wasn't any one I knew in the cars between here and Chicago. If I had not had Eliza I should have been very lonely." Brenda had subsided into an unwonted silence. She was wondering how she could excuse herself to her cousin--whether her mother would really make her give up the tableaux for that evening. She heard, without really listening, an animated conversation between her father and Belle on the best way of learning history. Belle believed that more could be learned by general reading than by studying a text-book. "Belle always has so many theories," Brenda was in the habit of saying. "I wish Jane would hurry with the coffee," she cried. "Why, Brenda," and her mother looked surprised. "You are not going to have coffee." "Of course, you know you always let me have a little cup when I'm going out." "But you are not going anywhere to-night. Didn't you get my message?" Brenda understood well enough that her mother did not wish to discuss the question of her leaving her cousin when Julia herself was present, yet she persisted. "But, mamma----" Mrs. Barlow shook her head. "There is nothing to be said. You know, Brenda, when I mean a thing I mean it." Julia looked a trifle embarrassed, realizing that in some way she was a hindrance to a full discussion between her aunt and cousin. Brenda's face was twisted into a curious scowl. She was forgetting her duty to her cousin. "Oh, mamma, I've made up my mind to go." "No, Brenda, it is impossible. Let us hear no more about it." "What is it, Brenda, that you wish to do?" asked Mr. Barlow, who while talking with Belle had only half heard the conversation between Brenda and her mother. Mrs. Barlow shook her head. She did not care to enter into a discussion before Julia likely to make the young girl feel that her arrival had interfered with any plan of Brenda's. Then Belle, who realized that she was not always in favor with Mrs. Barlow, saw her opportunity. "If Brenda will change with me, she can have my ticket for to-morrow evening." "Why, that is very kind in you, Belle, but have you time to get ready?" "Oh, yes, if you'll excuse me now," and before Brenda could remonstrate, she saw Belle receive the tickets from Mrs. Barlow's hands and heard her hasty words of good-bye as she started home under the escort of Thomas. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Barlow took any notice of the cloud on Brenda's face. Fortunately they could not read her reflections on the duplicity of Belle, who after pitying her so in the afternoon, had now begun to side against her. This at least was the form which Brenda's thoughts took. Rightly or wrongly she considered herself an ill-used young person. Just then the maid entered with a letter on a salver. Mrs. Barlow glanced at it and then laughed. "This explains the mystery, Julia, you wrote 'New York' instead of 'Boston,' and so your letter has been two days longer than it should have been in reaching us." "Oh, did I, Aunt Anna? How stupid! Well, you have treated me much better than my carelessness deserved." "Well, I'm only glad that I happened to be at home when your telegram came. It would have been a little cheerless for you had you happened to arrive when we were all out. But come, you must be tired." "Oh, not very." Then, as they left the room, Julia threw her arm around Brenda. "I know that we shall be great friends." Already Brenda had begun to return to herself. She hoped that Julia had not noticed her ill-temper. Perhaps after all she should like this new cousin better than she had expected. "If I were you, Brenda, I'd take Julia to her room now," said Mrs. Barlow. "How lovely!" exclaimed Julia, as they entered the pretty bedroom near the studio. "Am I to have this all to myself?" "Yes," replied Brenda. "I never saw so pretty a room! How I _shall_ enjoy it! Whose used it to be?" "Oh, it was Agnes's room. She had it decorated to suit her ideas. You know she's an artist." "Oh, yes. How delightful to be an artist. I wish that I had some special talent." "I thought you had. Some one, mamma I think, said that you were musical." "So I am in a way. I've given more time to music than to anything else. But that was chiefly to please papa." Here Julia sighed, while Brenda hardly knew what to say. "You must miss him very much," she ventured. "Oh, don't speak of it, Brenda. I can't bear to think that he is really gone." And Julia's tears began to fall. "What shall I say?" thought Brenda, and as her words of sympathy were beginning to take shape, her mother entered the room. Wisely enough, she made no comment on Julia's tears, believing that they would flow less freely if she seemed to take no notice of them. "I have come to see if you are perfectly comfortable. To-night Eliza will sleep on the lounge in your room, and after this we will arrange a bed for her in the room across the hall. In either case you will not feel lonely." When Julia had thanked her aunt for her kindness, Mrs. Barlow drew Brenda one side. "Now, Brenda, we must bid your cousin good-night," and then, with a final word or two of advice to Julia, Mrs. Barlow with Brenda left the room. "I'm going to bed now, mamma," said Brenda, as they reached the hall. "Very well, I haven't time myself to tell you that I think you have behaved very foolishly this evening. I hope you will be more sensible to-morrow." "Good-night," cried Brenda, without making any promises. When she was within her own room she flung herself down on her bed. "I know just how it will be," she said to herself. "I can never do what I want to. It will always be 'Julia, Julia.' She isn't so bad herself, but it's the way every one will treat me that I hate." With these confused words on her lips she began to get ready for bed. III THE RESCUE Brenda started for school a little later than usual the morning after Julia's arrival. As she walked up Beacon Street she saw Edith and Nora ahead of her, half-way up the slope on the sidewalk next the Common. "Oh, dear, they might look back," she said to herself. But they neither looked back nor paused on their way, and Brenda was prevented from hurrying by a line of wagons and street cars which blocked Charles Street. She was kept standing for two or three minutes at the street crossing, and when she continued her way Edith and Nora had turned into the side street leading to the school. When Brenda reached the school door, Belle was the centre of a group of girls seated on the steps. "Why didn't you call for me, Belle?" cried Brenda petulantly. "Oh, I had to do some errands on the way, and I thought, too, that you would stay home with your cousin." "Well! I should say not. I shall see enough of her." "Tell us about her, Brenda," cried Nora who came out from the house for a moment. "Belle says she has come. What _is_ she like?" "Like? Why, like any girl. There's nothing special about her. She wears black and I think she feels kind of superior. It's going to be awfully hard for me." "Yes, Brenda," said a thin-faced girl in the group back by Belle. "You don't think any one could be superior to you, do you?" Brenda, with her back to the sidewalk, was ready with a sharp reply, when a warning look from one of the girls closed her lips. "Why, girls," said a cheerful voice behind her, "ought you not to go inside now? You should be in your seats by twenty minutes past nine. I have said many times that you were not to wait for me." The girls all respected Miss Crawdon, and they were just a little afraid of her. Her authority was not always agreeable, when she chose to make them feel it. Miss Crawdon was tall and blonde, with eyes some one said "that saw everything." These were the right kind of eyes for the principal of a girls' school. She had a pleasant voice with a tone of decision in it that no one dared dispute. At her words the girls seated on the steps slowly arose, and in a very short time they were at their desks, getting out books and preparing for the day's work. Brenda and Belle occupied adjacent seats. Edith and Nora were in the same room, though a little nearer the window. They with about ten other girls formed what might be called the middle class of a school of forty. There were about fifteen older girls who would stay in school one or two years longer, while Brenda and her friends had three years before them. At least they would not "come out" for three years. The older girls naturally kept much to themselves. They "did up" their hair, wore skirts almost touching the ground, and were in every way envied by their juniors. The youngest girls of all concerned themselves very slightly about the oldest of all. But the girls of Brenda's age imitated in many ways the doings of these older girls, and when, as occasionally happened, one of the graduating class invited a younger girl to walk with her at recess, the latter for a day or two after was treated with great deference by her companions. These oldest girls were not ahead of their schoolmates in all their studies. In Latin and mathematics some of them recited with the younger girls, or it might be fairer to say that some of the brighter young girls were in the classes with the elder. Edith, for example, was ahead of Brenda in mathematics, and her class almost through geometry, was planning to go into trigonometry. The discipline of the school was not unduly strict, yet after the opening, girls were not expected to speak to one another without special permission. In this matter they were put rather on their honor, for no special punishment was inflicted for disobedience. A word of disapprobation was usually the most severe reproof, although, in rare cases, girls had been kept after school. Nora, whose intentions were always good, was, of the four friends whom we have been observing, the most likely to break some of the unwritten laws of the school. She always saw the funny side of things, and it was very hard for her to keep still when she wished to share her fun with somebody else. Belle was no more scrupulous than Nora about observing rules, but she could whisper to her neighbor in a quiet way without attracting attention. Edith was really a conscientious, painstaking girl. On this account some of those who did not know her well called her a "bore." Brenda was good or bad by fits and starts. Sometimes for a week she devoted herself to her lessons. She would then put her finger to her lips when Nora, in passing her desk, bent over her to tell her some bit of news. She would pretend not to understand when Belle laid a small piece of folded paper on her desk, and she would keep her eyes fixed on her books when any other girl tried to distract her attention. To-day, however, it was different. In the first place she did not know her lesson very well and did not feel like studying. In the half-hour in which she was supposed to be doing her Latin exercise her mind constantly wandered, and she could not help seeing that Belle was anxious to tell her something. At length the little wad of paper fell on her desk. "The tableaux were perfectly splendid! You ought to have been there." Brenda nodded sadly. Surely this was not kind of Belle, who knew that only stern necessity had kept her at home. "I suppose the tableaux will be as good to-night," and a second note fell on Brenda's desk, "but there won't be half as many people you know. Everybody was there last night. Shall you take Julia?" Again Brenda nodded, but by this time she was growing impatient. Leaning forward toward Belle's desk, "Keep still, can't you, Belle," she exclaimed in a voice intended to be a whisper. Unfortunately her voice was louder than she thought, and she was recalled to herself by Miss Crawdon's voice, "Be careful, Brenda," and Brenda applied herself to her books until the hour arrived for the Latin lesson. At recess Belle, pretending not to see Brenda, joined two of the older girls and walked with them for the half hour, while Brenda and Nora and Edith sat on the steps. "Why didn't you know your Latin lesson?" asked Brenda of Edith. "I never knew you to stumble so, and you couldn't give a single rule." "Well, you know I didn't study yesterday afternoon. I meant to, but it was too lovely to go in the house, and then last evening I went to the tableaux. It seemed hard to have to stay home to study though I suppose I should have. You didn't know your own lesson very well, Brenda, although you stayed home all the evening." "But, you see, I had company----" "You'll find it hard to do your lessons if you make company of Julia. Isn't she coming to school too?" "Oh, I guess so. Won't it be hateful to have her in the class above us?" "Perhaps she won't be. Didn't you say she hadn't been at school much?" "Oh, girls who have studied at home always think they know more than any one else. Oh, there, there!" and Brenda paused in her speech as a little child playing on the opposite sidewalk ran out into the street in front of the very wheels of a passing wagon. For a moment all held their breath, then Nora with a leap and a run was down the steps and in the street. Before the child realized its own danger she had snatched it from in front of the horses, and had dragged it to the sidewalk. The teamster, a rather stupid-looking man, had dismounted from his place. "Waal, now, the child ain't hurt, I guess," he said to the girl, "I pulled up as soon as I heard you holler, but it was such a little mite of a thing that I couldn't hardly see it." "Oh, it wasn't your fault," Brenda and Edith exclaimed. "It ran out so quickly, but if you hadn't stopped your horses, it might have been killed." After assuring himself that the child was not really hurt, the teamster went on, the child himself, surrounded by a group of curious girls, clung closely to Nora's hand--a forlorn little thing--with bare feet and a torn pinafore. The mud spattered over his face did not show very distinctly on his dark skin. One small hand he had thrust into his eye, and behind it the tears were slowly trickling down. Nora held the other hand, and the child clung to her as if never intending to let go. "What's your name, little boy?" cried one of the girls. The child only sobbed. "Here, Amy, give him a piece of your banana. He looks like an Italian fruit-seller's child. He'll eat a banana." But the little boy was not to be tempted. Just then the noon bell sounded from the schoolroom. "There, Nora, let him go, he'll find his way home," suggested one of the girls. "Oh, no, I'm sure he's hurt. Where do you live, little boy?" Still no reply. The other girls went back into school, while Nora walked irresolutely toward the door, holding the child's hand. As she stood at the foot of the steps wondering what to do, Miss Crawdon appeared at the door with Brenda and Edith who had hurried to tell her about the child. "Is the little fellow hurt?" she asked with interest. "Not really hurt, perhaps, but awfully frightened, and I'm sure he doesn't live anywhere around here. I don't want to leave him when I go into school, what _shall_ I do?" "Don't look so distressed, Nora," said Miss Crawdon smiling. "I'm not sure myself what is best." Then, after a moment's reflection, "You may send him down to the basement with the janitor, and later I will see what can be done." So Nora, saying all the reassuring things that she could to the child, left him with the janitor, Mr. Brown, although this separation was accompanied with loud cries and shrieks on the part of the little boy. It was very hard for Nora and the others to remain perfectly quiet during the hour and a half that remained of school. They were anxious to exchange questions about the child, to speculate about his home, and I am sure that the little boy was more in the thoughts of Brenda, Edith, and Nora than their lessons. Belle had missed the excitement of the morning, for at the moment of the accident she and the two older girls whom she had joined, were out of sight of the school walking in another street. She had returned to the schoolroom hardly half a minute before the end of recess, when there was really no time to ask a question. She did not dare to ask a question of Brenda, who still wore an unamiable expression. When half-past one came, however, Brenda and Belle forgot their little disagreement, and hastened after Nora to learn what she was going to do with her protégé. "Now, I'll tell you girls, just what I'm going to do. Miss Crawdon says it will be all right. Brenda and I are going with Mrs. Brown to see where Manuel lives--we have found out that his name is Manuel. We can get some luncheon here, and please, please, stop at my house, Belle, and tell my mother, and you, Edith, at Brenda's." "Why don't you let Mrs. Brown go alone?" "Oh, it will be so much more fun to go too." "You can't find his house." "Oh, yes; it will be somewhere down Hanover Street. Mrs. Brown knows. If we take him there, he'll lead us on. Oh, it will be great fun." "I don't believe your mother would like you to go without letting her know." "Well, I just have to go. I'm sure she won't care." Though Nora was so confident, Brenda had some misgivings. She knew that she really ought to be at home, but the temptation to go with Nora was too strong to resist. So, soon after two o'clock the strange procession began its march toward Hanover Street, Manuel walking between Nora and Brenda, while Mrs. Brown brought up the rear. Manuel was still silent. "If he were a girl he'd talk more," said Nora. Manuel showed very little interest in the whole proceeding. In fact he seemed so tired that Mrs. Brown would have carried him had he not resisted her efforts to take him in her arms. IV A CLUB MEETING The strange procession had not gone very far when Nora heard some one behind calling her name. It was Miss Crawdon, who, as Nora turned around, signalled her to stop. "Oh, Brenda, Miss Crawdon wishes to speak to us." In a moment their teacher had overtaken them. "I must reconsider my promise to you, or at least, Nora, you partly misunderstood what I said. It will not do at all for you to go home with this little boy. Your mother would blame me very much." "Oh, Miss Crawdon," pouted Brenda. Nora, too, showed her disappointment. "Now, Brenda, consider what it means. In the first place it is uncertain whether or not you could find his home. In the second place you might have to go into some dirty street or alley. With your mother's consent I should have nothing to say, but as it is----" "Well, can't we go as far as Scollay Square? We could get a car there and go straight home." Miss Crawdon hesitated a moment. "As it happens," she replied, "I have to go in that direction myself. We will walk together, and I will see you safely on your car. Mrs. Brown and Manuel may lead the way." "Isn't he cunning!" exclaimed Brenda, as the little boy looked over his shoulder at the girls, with one little hand doubled up against his eye, and his other clutching Mrs. Brown's skirt. "I wish he would talk to us," responded Nora. "Where do you live, little boy?" Manuel smiled knowingly. "There," he said, waving his hand indefinitely toward the Square, across which the electric cars were whizzing. "Oh, no," cried Nora, "nobody lives there; there are shops and a hotel, and----" "Birdies, birdies, there," cried Manuel. Even Miss Crawdon smiled as Manuel ran up to a shop window, and pounded the glass, somewhat to the dismay of the parrots exhibited there in their cages. "Well, he seems to know this shop," said Mrs. Brown. "We might wait here for a minute." At the other side of the shop around the corner was a doorway in which sat a woman with a basket of fruit for sale. Manuel himself was the first to catch sight of her, and rushing forward with a flying leap, he almost knocked her basket over. The little boy had found his tongue, and chattering like a magpie, he pointed toward the ladies. The woman, rising from the step on which she had been sitting, came toward the little group. In broken English she explained that Manuel was her youngest boy, and that sometimes she let him go with her on her round of fruit-selling. Lately she had had her stand near this bird store, and in some way on this particular day, Manuel had wandered away from her. "You must have been worried," said Nora. "Oh, no," she answered philosophically; "me thought him gone home." Then Brenda, who had hitherto kept silent, broke in with a graphic account of the fate Manuel had escaped through Nora's bravery. The mother probably only half comprehending the young girl's rapid flow of words, smiled and showed her white teeth. "T'ank you, t'ank you," she said. "You come and see him some day," she added, in a general invitation to the group. "Come, girls, we must hasten," said Miss Crawdon. "Mrs. Brown will take down Manuel's address. Then, if your mothers are willing, you may go to see him some day." Rather reluctantly Nora and Brenda bade good-bye to black-eyed Manuel and his mother. They gave Mrs. Brown many injunctions to make no mistake about his house and street. On Saturday they both hoped to be able to go to see him. To them the whole thing presented the aspect of an adventure. "I never spoke to a foreigner before in Boston, did you?" said Nora, "I mean except French teachers," she added. "No, not a poor foreigner," responded Brenda. "Wasn't that woman picturesque, with her shawl over her head?" As they drew near home both girls began to feel a little doubtful as to the wisdom of what they had done. "Well, your mother never scolds," said Brenda, as she bade good-bye to Nora at the door of the latter. "Why, yours doesn't either," exclaimed Nora. "Oh, you don't know," and Brenda shook her head. "There's Julia now----" "Nonsense," laughed Nora, running up the steps. "Good-bye, now. I'm coming to see Julia this afternoon. You know I expect to like her." "Your lunch is waiting, Miss Brenda," said the maid as Brenda started up the front stairs toward her room. "Oh, I've had my luncheon," replied Brenda. "You don't think I'd wait until this time." "Brenda," called her mother from the library, "it's half-past three. Where have you been since school?" "Oh, dear!" grumbled Brenda to herself. "I don't see why I have to give an account of every step I take. I'll be down in a minute," she called out, as she continued her way upstairs. When she descended to the library, she hastened forward with a polite "Good-afternoon" to Julia, who was seated before the fire with a book in her lap. "Julia has been reading to me," said her mother. "We have had a very pleasant hour," added Julia. "But tell me where you have been," said Brenda's mother. "You know that it is a rule that you should come directly home----" Brenda tossed her head. "Oh, I asked Belle to come and tell you." "She may have left word that you were not coming, I think that Thomas gave me some message, but let us hear where you have been." Mrs. Barlow spoke pleasantly, for she knew by the cloud on Brenda's face that there might be a storm if for the present she said too much about her absence from luncheon. "Yes," added Julia, "do tell us where you have been. I have an idea that you have had an adventure." "How could you guess?" exclaimed Brenda, and then, with the ice broken by these words of Julia's, she gave her mother an animated account of Nora's bravery, Manuel's beauty and the fruit-woman's picturesqueness. Mrs. Barlow and Julia were interested. Brenda had a graphic way of telling a story, and the events of the morning lost nothing by her telling. But Mrs. Barlow shook her head when Brenda spoke of visiting Manuel in his home. "It might not be at all a proper place," she said, "and besides, Manuel's mother may not care to have strangers visit her. Poor people sometimes are very sensitive about such things." Before Brenda had time to argue this point with her mother, the portière was pushed aside and Belle and Edith came into the room. Julia rose to shake hands with Belle, while Edith with a very sweet smile, stepping toward her, said: "I am glad to see you. I am one of 'the Four.' Brenda's told you about us. I am Edith." Julia felt strongly drawn to the pleasant-faced girl. She liked her better than Belle, although on the two occasions of their meeting the latter had been markedly polite to her. "Yes, we're all here now except Nora. We ought to be ready to give her a serenade, or something like that when she comes. She's really a kind of a heroine, isn't she?" "Oh, nonsense, Edith," said Belle. "She did not actually do so very much. Those horses were not running away, and a little paddy like that child has as many lives as a cat." "He _isn't_ a paddy," interrupted Brenda, "but a Portuguese,--a dear little Portuguese--and Nora was very brave. It's just like you, Belle, to think that a thing isn't of any account unless you have had something to do with it." Belle was silent. In the presence of a stranger she never forgot her good manners, and Julia was still sufficiently a stranger to act as a check on the sharp reply which otherwise might have risen to her lips. Edith now came in as a peacemaker. "Well, it was great fun to have anything out of the ordinary happen at school. You can't imagine," turning to Julia, "how stupid it is to have things go on in the same way day after day. Last week there was a fire alarm about two blocks away, and just think, the engines passed scarcely five minutes after recess was over, and Miss Crawdon wouldn't let us run out to see where the fire was." "Naturally not," said Mrs. Barlow, as she left the room, adding, as she passed out, "By the time you are ready, Julia, the carriage will be here." "Yes, Aunt Anna," answered Julia, and she, too, after a few pleasant words with Edith, excused herself with the explanation that her aunt had promised to accompany her to do some important errands down town. "Come upstairs with me," said Brenda, with an air of relief, as Julia left. "There's Nora, now, I know her ring of the bell." Nora soon joined the other three in Brenda's pretty bedroom. "Here we are, all four together again," exclaimed Brenda, as she threw herself down on the chintz-covered sofa. "It's so much pleasanter not to have any strangers about." "Do you call your cousin a stranger?" asked Nora. "Why, yes, any one can see that she's terribly serious, and that she won't take a bit of interest in the things we do." "Aren't you going to ask her to join the Four Club?" "Well, then it wouldn't be a Four Club. Besides five is a horrid number. You never can plan things together when there are five." "But you can't leave her out." "I don't see why not. She'll have other things to do in the afternoon--like to-day. We needn't tell her about the Club at all, need we?" Edith and Nora, to whom Brenda seemed to appeal, said nothing. Belle was looking out of the window, and though she usually would have agreed with Brenda, they had lately had so many little disagreements, that she would not gratify her friend by assenting to her words. Brenda, however, perceiving that her views were not shared by the other three girls, decided to avoid discussing Julia any further. "Let us come to order like a club," she exclaimed, "and decide what we shall work for this winter." In the preceding spring the four friends had decided that it would be very interesting to give their occasional meetings a club form. Instead of passing their afternoons in mere idle talk, they would have some object. They would all do fancy work, and perhaps have a sale in the spring for some charity. Each of the girls had already spent all her spare pocket-money on materials for needlework, although as yet they had made but little headway in their work. Nor had they decided for what object the sale should be held. "It's a good deal like counting your chickens before they are hatched," Mrs. Barlow had said when Brenda consulted her on the subject. "It would be better to wait until you have enough work for a sale, before deciding what to do with your money." In her heart Mrs. Barlow doubted that the girls would make enough money to be worth giving to any institution. She doubted even that they would persevere in their work, and have a sale. Brenda, herself, was too apt to begin with enthusiasm some undertaking which after a while she would let languish until it came to nothing. In this case Brenda was indignant at her mother's want of faith. "Now you know that I'm older than I used to be, and I'm perfectly in earnest about wanting an object to work for." "Very well, Brenda," said Mrs. Barlow smiling, "I certainly will not interfere, only you must give me time to think of a beneficiary for your money." Now if the girls had started with a definite object to work for, their club meetings would have lost much of their interest. As it was, more than half their time was spent in earnest discussions of the merit of different institutions. Edith thought that a hospital was the noblest object of charity, although the others objected that the City or the State usually looked after hospitals. Nora hoped their money would be given to some orphan asylum, or a home for old persons, Belle believed that there was nothing so worthy as the Institution for the Blind, and Brenda changed her point of view from week to week. "What are we to work for _this_ week, Brenda?" asked Belle, somewhat derisively, as she opened her sewing-bag. "Oh, I don't know. We're not working for anything in particular." Then, as her eye met Nora's, a new idea came. "Oh, I'll tell you what, girls,--let us work for--Manuel!" [Illustration: "'OH, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, GIRLS,--LET US WORK FOR--MANUEL!'"] V MISS CRAWDON'S SCHOOL A girl's first day at a new school is very trying to her. The scrutiny which two or three dozen pairs of sharp young eyes give her is hard to bear. This ordeal is often more dreaded by a girl than many of the important events of her later years. Now Julia, although she was to go to school in her cousin Brenda's company, looked forward to her first day with considerable anxiety. In the first place she was naturally shy, and in the second place she had never regularly attended school. For the most part her lessons had been given her by her father. But at times when they had stayed long enough in some place to make this possible, she had had special instruction from private teachers. Her father had been very fond of books and had bought many expressly for Julia's benefit. She was, therefore, much better read than most girls of her age. Her education, too, was ahead of that of the average girl of sixteen. Of this fact Julia herself was unaware. She fancied that because she had gone to school so little, she would be found far behind her cousin Brenda and Brenda's friends. Before going to school she had had an informal talk with Miss Crawdon, in which she had revealed more to the keen mind of the latter than she had suspected. For Miss Crawdon never wasted words, and she did not tell the young girl that in some studies she was far ahead of many of her pupils of the same age. The teacher's questions had been far-reaching, and she felt pleased at the prospect of having among her pupils one evidently so fond of books as Julia. The young girl, on the contrary, on the way to school with her cousin, expressed to the latter her fear at the prospect before her. "Oh, you needn't worry," said Brenda, more patronizingly than she really intended, "Miss Crawdon won't be hard with you, she knows you haven't been at school much, and even if you have to start in one of the lower classes, you'll probably be able to push on rather quickly." But even this did not reassure Julia. She was thinking less of her standing in the classes than of the reception she should meet from the girls. It was by no means comforting to feel the many strange eyes that followed her as she walked up the stairs with Brenda to enter the main schoolroom. Miss Crawdon was busy in another room, and Brenda who always had a great many things on her mind, rushed off to speak to one of the girls, leaving Julia alone near the door. There were perhaps a dozen girls standing about in little groups of three or four. They did not mean to be unkind, but when they saw Julia, they not only glanced curiously toward her, but for the time ceased their conversation. When they began to talk again it was not in the loud tone they had used before, and Julia would have been less than human if she had not received the impression that they were talking about her. Every one knows how uncomfortable it is for a girl to feel that she is in the presence of people who are making comments upon her. As a matter of fact what they said to one another was almost harmless. "Is she Brenda Barlow's cousin?" "What is she in mourning for?" "How old is she?" "Do you suppose she is coming here to school?" This was the kind of question exchanged by the girls, with here and there a less good-natured comment. "I don't call her so very pretty." "She doesn't look like Brenda." "Wouldn't you say that dress was made in the year one. I never saw such sleeves." Unluckily the girl who made this last remark was standing rather nearer Julia than she had realized. It happened that Julia herself, who usually cared little for fashion, was sensitive about these very sleeves. They had been made a little smaller than the prevailing mode required by a dressmaker whom Julia had employed in a spirit of kindness without regard to her skill. She had not remembered when dressing that this was to be her first day at school. When she did recall this fact she had not thought it worth while to change her gown. She flushed a little when she overheard the criticism, and walked farther away from the groups toward Miss Crawdon's desk. As she stood there looking more serious than usual, she was more than pleased to hear Nora's well-known voice exclaiming, "Why, Julia, are you here all alone? Where's Brenda? Dear me, is this really your first day of school?" Julia smiled. "I can't answer all your questions at once, but I _don't_ know where Brenda is, and this _is_ to be my first day of school." "Is that why you look so mournful? Now we're not such a bad lot. Come, let me introduce you to some of your companions in misery." Then before Julia could object, she found herself receiving introductions to most of the girls in the room, even to the very one whose criticism had annoyed her. She was a thin girl with light hair and eyes and eyelashes. Her chin was long and her face was somewhat freckled. "This is Brenda Barlow's cousin Julia," said Nora, pleasantly. "Yes, I thought you were Brenda's cousin," said the light-haired girl turning toward Julia. "Brenda's been dreading your coming to school." Julia flushed as any girl might at a remark of this kind, even while she realized the unkindness of the speech. "Nonsense, Frances," said quick-witted Nora, "I'm sure you never heard Brenda say anything so disagreeable." But the light-haired girl had turned away. She was in the habit of making thoughtless remarks without caring whom they hit. Nora gave Julia's hand a gentle squeeze. "Brenda's just as glad as I am that you're coming to school," she whispered to Julia. But Julia shook her head, half sadly. She had already begun to see some of her cousin's peculiarities. By this time many girls were rushing in from the dressing-rooms laughing and chattering as if they must say as much as possible before school began. A few curious eyes were turned toward Julia, but most of the girls were so absorbed in their own affairs that they took no notice of the tall slender stranger in her black dress. When Miss Crawdon returned to the room she welcomed Julia very cordially. "I have arranged a seat for you here at the side near me," she said. "I had to have an extra desk brought in as there was no vacant place. But I dare say that you will not mind being by yourself here." The seat to which Miss Crawdon pointed was in a little alcove at one side of her desk. It was so placed that it commanded a view of all the other desks in the room, yet it was not as conspicuous from the other desks as it seemed to poor Julia. When she took her seat she felt as if every one was looking at her. Whereas, in fact, only the girls in the very front rows could see her plainly. Between Miss Crawdon's desk and the front seat there was a row of settees where those girls who formed Miss Crawdon's special classes, sat during recitation. There were other class-rooms in various parts of the house, but the more advanced girls recited either to Miss Crawdon or to teachers in the small adjoining room. Although Julia was less conspicuous than she imagined, it was not long before the whole school realized that a new girl had arrived. Most of them were too polite to show any surprise, but as each class filed through the room on its way to the recitation-room, many curious glances were thrown in her direction. Miss Crawdon had told Julia that she would require no regular work from her that day. "Perhaps you would like to look over this history," she had added, giving her a book, "and after recess, you may like to join the class. By listening to the other classes this morning you will get an idea of the kind of work I expect." So Julia divided the two hours before recess between listening to the recitations and glancing over the history. It happened to be a history of France, and the special chapter was one dealing with the reign of Louis XIV. Julia paid much less attention to the book than she did to the girls who were reciting. It was all so new to her, for it was really true that she had never been in a school before. She admired the skill with which Miss Crawdon asked questions, and she wondered if she would ever be able to give replies herself, as clear as those of some of the girls. Yet not all the girls, she observed, knew their lesson, and some of them showed great cleverness in concealing--or trying to conceal this ignorance from Miss Crawdon. The latter was unusually proficient in reading girls, and she generally recognized the evasive answer that was intended to conceal lack of knowledge. The second class of the morning was one in English history, the period, the beginning of the reign of Mary. Julia had been engaged with her own book, but she looked up to hear Miss Crawdon saying, "So Mary succeeded one of the Princes murdered in the tower, at least I understood you to say Edward V." "Yes," answered a voice which Julia recognized as that of Brenda's friend Belle, "yes, she succeeded her brother, the murdered prince, who had been beheaded by Katharine of Arragon." Miss Crawdon did not smile, and Belle could not see the look of surprise on the faces of some of her classmates. But unfortunately she could see Julia's face and the involuntary smile on the latter's lips. She turned very red, and while Miss Crawdon proceeded to set her right, she registered a vow of dislike against that "prig of a Julia" who evidently knew more history than she did. Julia, too, caught the disagreeable look that flashed from Belle's eyes, and she greatly regretted that smile. Belle was one of those girls who seldom study a lesson thoroughly. She always had vague general ideas of the topic under consideration, gained by a rapid survey of the pages assigned for a lesson. When she could do so unobserved, sometimes during recitation she would look between the covers of her book to refresh her lagging memory. Nora and Edith and Brenda were also in the class with her, and sometimes one or the other of them would prompt her to save her from disgrace. Nora occasionally had pangs of conscience, and announced that she considered looking in a book or prompting, dishonorable. But sometimes she yielded to Belle's signals for help over a hard place. Belle did not often signal, for she relied as a general thing on her own fluency of language to conceal her lack of knowledge. Miss Crawdon, however, had what Belle called an aggravating way of making her repeat her words until her mistakes were displayed in all their nakedness to the rest of the class. "It's bad enough," she said to a group surrounding her at recess. "It's bad enough to have Miss Crawdon always down on one, but really I can't stand it if Julia is to sit where she can watch everything I do when I'm reciting to Miss Crawdon. I shouldn't think that you girls would like it either," she concluded. "Oh, we're not afraid; we generally know our lessons," answered Frances Pounder, the girl whose careless remark had hurt Julia's feelings earlier in the day. "Well, it doesn't matter whether you know your lessons or not, you can see for yourself that it's very funny for Miss Crawdon to put any girl in so conspicuous a place, right beside her, almost. I hate favoritism." "Why, how you talk, Belle. This cousin of Brenda's hasn't been in school a day yet, and you talk of favoritism." "Well, why shouldn't she have been in the history class with us? She told me she was going to have French history with the older girls. Just think of it, she's only a little older than we, and she's going to recite with girls nearly eighteen." "She isn't so very pretty, is she?" said another girl, and so a conversation went on which luckily Julia could not hear. She spent the recess walking up and down with Nora, who was rapidly becoming her most intimate friend. VI MISUNDERSTANDINGS Little by little Julia accustomed herself to the routine of school. At first it was much harder for her than any one suspected. Even after she had become fairly well acquainted with the girls in her classes, she dreaded each recitation. It was no easy task to put her knowledge into the definite form needed in answering questions. She had much more general information than many of her classmates, but nearly all were better skilled in reciting lessons. Although in history, Latin and literature she was two classes ahead of Brenda and the three other inseparables, she was with all but Edith in mathematics, and, rather to Brenda's delight, a class below them in French. Julia's father had been much less interested in modern than in ancient languages, and Julia had had limited opportunities for learning French. Belle, on the contrary, was a really fine French scholar. She was fonder, indeed, of introducing French words and phrases into her conversation than should have been the case with a girl who really understood the French language. Edith excelled in mathematics, Nora, strange to say, Nora, who was so careless about most of her lessons, had a real gift for English composition. Brenda did well in all her studies "by fits and starts," as the girls said. She had fine powers, her teachers often told her, which she seldom exerted to the utmost. But Brenda and her friends formed only a small part of the school, and Julia soon found that in every class she had one or two competitors whose proficiency spurred her on. To be perfectly frank, however, it must be said that the majority of Miss Crawdon's girls were not hard workers. Miss Crawdon, herself, often felt greatly discouraged that girls with the opportunities of most of her pupils, should appreciate these opportunities so little. With most of them attending school was a mere duty, a way in which several months of each year must be spent until they should "come out." Miss Crawdon tried in vain to arouse in most of them something more like a passing interest in their work. Occasionally she found a spark of earnestness in one of her pupils which she was able to fan into ambition. But more often she had to give up the attempt to induce a bright girl to become a genuine student. There were too many distractions out of school, and parents were apt to be slow in seconding her efforts. Miss Crawdon was pleased, therefore, to find in Julia a girl who loved study and who was inclined to persevere. One day Brenda came home from school in a state of considerable excitement. "What do you think, mamma, Julia is going to study Greek! Did you ever hear of such a thing?" "Why shouldn't Julia study Greek?" said her mother. "Why are you so excited about it?" "Oh, it's so foolish. No girl at Miss Crawdon's ever studied Greek before. Julia says she's going to college, _is she_? Oh, dear, I think it's horrid." "Why, Brenda, really----" "Well, it makes me so conspicuous." "How can that be?" "Why every one will point me out and say, 'Oh it's her cousin who studies Greek.' It sounds so strong-minded to talk of going to college. The next thing she'll want to be a teacher." "It seems to me you are very unreasonable, Brenda. You ought to be glad that your cousin is so ambitious. I only wish that you were half as fond of study." "There, that's it. I knew there'd be comparisons. Oh, dear! It never was so before Julia came." "Daughter," said Mr. Barlow from behind his paper. Brenda trembled, for her father's "Daughter" was generally the introduction to a lecture. "Daughter, I fear that you are jealous." Brenda shook her head. "Oh, papa!" "Yes, Brenda, I have noticed in several ways that you are less kind to Julia than you should be. How does it happen that you and she never start off to school together?" "Brenda is never ready when Julia is," said Mrs. Barlow. "Ah, Brenda, your habit of tardiness is a very bad one." "I'm hardly ever late at school. Belle and I get there a full minute before the bell rings." "That may be, but it would be better if you and Julia started together." "She does not have to go alone. Nora is generally with her." "Ah, Brenda, the point I am trying to make is this; you do not spend nearly as much time with your cousin as I had hoped you would, and you are too ready to find fault with what she does!" "You always blame me, and you never find any fault with Julia. Why didn't she tell me that she was going to study Greek? The girls all asked me to-day if I knew about it, and I had to say that I hadn't heard a word." "You and Belle have been very much occupied with your own affairs this week. Julia consulted us about her plans and----" "Well, _is_ she going to college?" interrupted Brenda. "I cannot say positively," smiled Mrs. Barlow. "It rests with Julia herself." "I never saw anything like it," pouted Brenda. "Julia isn't two years older than I, and you let her do whatever she wants to. Oh, dear!" And Brenda pushed aside the portière and left the room. "That is just what I feared for Brenda," said Mr. Barlow. "Julia's coming makes her even a little more suspicious than she was before. She constantly has the idea that something of importance has been concealed from her which she ought to know." "Yes," replied Mrs. Barlow, "I am afraid that Brenda is hopelessly spoiled. We did not realize the danger when she was little. The other two girls were so different." "It would not surprise me," responded Mr. Barlow, "if after all some change should come to Brenda's point of view from having to consider her cousin more or less." "If only she _would_ consider her," sighed Mrs. Barlow. If Julia felt at all slighted by Brenda, she did not say so. Indeed she was too well occupied with her lessons and her music to be disturbed by trivial things. What her object was in studying Greek she did not disclose fully to any one, but she studied diligently the difficult declensions and conjugations. The serious looking man with eyeglasses who came to the school three times a week, was an object of much interest to most of the girls. "Doesn't he look learned? Oh, Julia, I should think that you would be frightened to death," said Edith. But Julia smiled. "I wish myself that Greek were just a little easier. I've got to the verbs and it seems to me I never shall know them." "I don't wonder," responded Edith. "I don't see how you ever learn it,--all those queer letters and marks and things. Well, I should feel just as though I were standing on my head if I tried to study Greek." Edith had no vanity about herself, at least in the matter of lessons. Her special talent was for drawing and mathematics but although she was conscientious about her school work, she rarely distinguished herself in her recitations. Like Nora, she had begun to have a great admiration for Julia. The latter shook her head when Edith spoke of the difficulty she had in learning Greek. "It's like everything else," she said, "you can learn it if you make up your mind to try hard enough." "I wish that had been the way with my German, for I really did try. Papa is disappointed, because he wanted me to speak by the time we go to Europe again." "Then why don't you persevere? It would please him and it would do you good. If I were you I would take it up now." "Well, perhaps I will after Christmas. Miss Crawdon won't let us make any changes until then." As Edith watched Julia's diligence and perseverance she really became ashamed of her own rather indolent way of treating her lessons. When Nora or Brenda came for her to go to walk early on some bright October afternoon she was very apt to say, "Oh, I cannot go now, I must finish studying." "Well, Edith, I never knew anything so funny," Brenda exclaimed one day when she and Belle had vainly tried to persuade Edith to walk with them over the mill-dam. "You never used to make such excuses and I consider it a perfect waste of time myself to spend such a lovely afternoon studying. I should think your mother'd want you to have some exercise." "Oh, I shall have plenty this afternoon. I am going to the gymnasium for an hour with Julia, and that will answer for to-day. We took a walk before school this morning." "You and Nora are too provoking, Edith," exclaimed Brenda rather pettishly. "Ever since Julia came you seem to prefer spending your time with her. You never used to be such a book-worm." "Well, I'm trying to make up for lost time. I wish that I could accomplish as much as Julia." "Oh--Julia, Julia, I'm sick and tired of the name," exclaimed Belle. "Why in the world does she study so much, Brenda?" "I'm sure I don't know." "You ought to--you're her cousin. I believe myself that she's going to be a teacher." "Belle, it is not nice in you to say that," interposed Edith. "Why isn't it nice to be a teacher. I thought that you liked them more than anything else. I am sure that Julia does." "I dare say she does, but it doesn't follow that she's going to be a teacher herself." "Oh, anybody can tell that she's a poor relation--isn't she, Brenda? Just see how plainly she dresses, and working so to get into college. I think that your mother and father are very good to give her a home." Now all this was very presumptuous on Belle's part, but she spoke so pleasantly and smiled so sweetly at Brenda as she talked that the latter, though a little irritated, never thought of taking offence at her. But Belle's words had sunk deeper even than she had intended. Brenda had a certain kind of pride which was easily touched. She felt that in some way it was a source of discredit to her to have a cousin who might be a teacher. For in what other way could she interpret Julia's intention of studying Greek. Julia, unconscious of Brenda's feeling, went on quietly without heeding the disagreeable little remarks that sometimes were made in her hearing by Brenda. Belle was as polite and agreeable toward Julia as to others whom she liked better. For it was a kind of unspoken policy of Belle's to be apparently friendly with all girls of whom she was likely to see much. If accused of this failing she would not have admitted that she was two-faced. She merely liked to be popular, and if she sometimes made ill-natured remarks about a third person, she trusted to the discretion of those to whom she talked. She did not realize that in time she might come to be regarded as thoroughly insincere. She had not measured the relative advantages of "To Be" and "To Seem." VII VISITING MANUEL Two or three weeks after their adventure with Manuel passed before Brenda and Nora were able to visit him. They talked several times of going, but something always interfered. Sometimes it was the weather, sometimes it was another engagement, more often they could not go because they had no one to accompany them. For it was evident that two young girls could not go alone to the North End. At length one morning one of the under teachers in the school offered to go with them that very afternoon. She had overheard them at recess expressing their sorrow that they could not go alone. "Really," pouted Brenda, "I think that mamma is very mean. We could go as well as not by ourselves, and why we should have to wait for her or some older person to go with us I cannot see." "Don't call your mother mean," Miss South said laughingly in passing, and then as Brenda explained the cause of her rather undutiful expression, she had added, "Your mother is perfectly right. It would never do for you to go alone. But I have an errand down near Prince Street this very day. If you get Mrs. Barlow's permission I shall be happy to have you go with me." So it happened that one warm, sunny day in early November, the girls and Miss South exchanged their Back Bay car at Scollay Square for a Hanover Street electric car. It whizzed swiftly down a street which neither Brenda nor Nora had ever seen before, filled with gay shops whose windows were bright with millinery or jewelry--or, I am sorry to say it--bottles of liquor, amber and red. There was more display here than in the streets up town. "Sometimes," said Miss South, "I call this the Bowery of Boston. It is the chief shopping street of the North End, and on Saturday nights the poor people do most of their buying. I came here one evening with my brother. It was really very amusing." They had been in the car but a few minutes when Miss South gave the signal for the car to stop. "It will interest you," she said, "to see this quaint old street. It has an old-time name, too--'Salem Street.'" Brenda and Nora glanced around them in surprise. It was a narrow street, winding along almost in a curve. Though most of the houses were brick, a number were of wood. Some of them had gable-roofs, and nearly all of them looked old. Shops occupied the lower part of most of these houses, and many of them were pawn-shops. As they entered the street it seemed as if they could hardly pass through. Hooks and poles laden with old clothes projected from many of these shops, and the sidewalks themselves held numerous loungers and children. Nora looked interested, Brenda, a trifle disgusted, as they saw a woman chattering with a hand-cart man who sold fish. "Ugh, I wouldn't want to eat it," said the latter. "Oh, it's probably perfectly good fish," responded Miss South with a smile. "Only it does not look quite as inviting as it would if shown on a marble slab in an up-town fish market." "Are these people _dreadfully_ poor?" asked Nora. "No," replied Miss South. "This is the Jewish section, and most of the men here make a pretty good living. They are peddlers, and go out into the country selling tins or fruit, or they have little shops." "But these children look so poor!" "If you will notice more carefully you will see that their clothes are dingy rather than poor. Nearly all wear good shoes, and there are not many rags. Many of these Russian and Polish Jews when they first come to Boston have very little money, and are supported by their friends. But they soon find a chance to earn their living, and a man coming here without a cent, in five years sometimes owns a house. I speak of this, girls, because I have known people to think that dirt and dinginess mean great poverty." Nora and Brenda made many exclamations of surprise as they looked down some of the narrow lanes leading from Salem Street. "It's just like pictures of Europe, isn't it?" cried Nora; "and then these people--and the queer signs--Oh! really I think it's _too_ interesting for anything." The signboards of which Nora spoke certainly did look strange. Some of them had Russian names, others were in odd Hebrew characters. Those which were English were peculiarly worded. The owner of a tiny shop with one little window described himself as a "Wholesale and retail dealer in dry goods," a corner groceryman called himself an "importer." The English spelling was not always correct, and the names of the shop-people were long and odd. Miss South's errand took her to a large building occupied as an industrial school. On their way upstairs they saw some boys at work at a printing press, and Miss South told the girls a little about the boys' and girls' clubs, which met in this building certain evenings in the week. Miss South wished to speak to the kindergarten teacher whose school was on the top floor. Most of the little children had gone home for the day, and only a few remained whose mothers were out working and had no one with whom to leave the children. Nora and Brenda exclaimed with delight at sight of five or six little boys and girls seated in small chairs around a low table. Nearly all had dark hair and eyes, although there was one little blonde girl with long, light curls. They looked at the visitors with small wonder, for they were used to seeing strangers. Nora at once began to play with the light-haired girl, but Brenda, after a glance or two, preferred to look out of the window. Unlike Nora, she was not very fond of children. They did not remain long in the building, and were soon in the street again. "Just one block below," said Miss South, "is Prince Street, but before we go there let us look at Christ Church. Do you realize that you are under the very shadow of the spire where Paul Revere hung his lantern?" The girls fairly jumped with surprise. "Of course I knew it was somewhere down here, but I hadn't an idea it was so near," said Brenda, while Nora began to recite, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." They had turned the corner again into Salem Street, and following Miss South, had crossed the street. There before them loomed the gray front of the old church with its tall spire on which they could read the inscription: "The signal lanterns of Paul Revere displayed in the steeple of this church April 18, 1775, warned the country of the march of the British troops to Concord and Lexington." "This is the oldest church building in the city," said Miss South, "and some Sunday you would find it worth while to come down here to a service, for the interior has been restored to look just as it did in its earliest days." "Oh, how Julia would enjoy that!" exclaimed Nora. "You know that she just loves old things." "Yes," continued Miss South, "you must take her, too, to see Copp's Hill Burying Ground, up this street. We haven't time to go to-day, but if you do not make other arrangements I shall be very glad to come with you some Sunday." "You're awfully good, Miss South," said Brenda. "I don't care so much for old things myself, but still I'd like to come again." "I know, Brenda, you like new things--Manuel for instance. Well, you shall see him in less than five minutes--that is, if he is at home." They had reached the corner of Prince Street. Like Salem Street this too, was narrow with quaint old houses. One wooden house which looked as if it might fall down at any minute bore a placard which warned passers-by of possible danger. The placard stated that it had been built in 1723. "In the time of George II.,--just think of it!" exclaimed Brenda, who when she wished, could remember dates. "Rear of No. 11," said Miss South, and they turned down a short alley. They had not to ask the way, however, for there, in front of the second house, stood Manuel himself. He looked at them at first without recognizing them, but when Nora called his name, he took his finger from his mouth, and in a moment began to smile very broadly. But instead of running to the girls he turned toward the house. "Come, come," he said, and almost at the same moment Mrs. Rosa appeared at the door. She looked very pale and thin and she had an old black shawl drawn over her head. Nora and Brenda now found that they had lost their tongues. They really did not know what to say, and they were very glad that Miss South had come with them. The alley, too, was so dirty, so different from any place they had ever seen, that they willingly followed Mrs. Rosa into the house when she asked them to do so. Mrs. Rosa talked very poor English, but Miss South was able to gather from what she said that she had been ill for two or three weeks. She had not been able to go to her fruit stand. Her eldest daughter had been attending to it for her, a girl twelve years old. "But why isn't Manuel at school?" asked Miss South. "Him home for company," smiled Mrs. Rosa, showing both rows of white teeth. Miss South shook her head. "He ought to go every day to the kindergarten." "His shoes so bad," apologized Mrs. Rosa, and as they all looked at the little boy they saw a red toe peeping out from one shoe. Nora nudged Brenda--Brenda smiled assent. The nudge and the smile meant that in Manuel they were surely going to have a field for their charitable efforts. The little room in which they sat looked very poor and bare. It had no carpet, and the table and the two or three chairs were of unpainted wood. The most important piece of furniture was the large cook-stove. On the mantelpiece were various dishes, several of which were broken, and there were the remains of a meal on the table. Altogether the room did not look very neat. Although it was not a cold day there was a large fire burning in the stove where something rather savory was boiling in a pot. While Miss South was talking the two girls realized that they had come rather aimlessly to Mrs. Rosa's. They managed to ask her if Manuel had run away again, and she smiled as she answered, "Every day," and shook her head at the little boy. "Well, he must be careful not to run under the horses' feet," said Nora. "He won't find some one ready to pull him back every day," chimed in Brenda, while Manuel and his mother both smiled, though I am sure that the little boy hardly understood a word of what was said. "Oh, them 'lectrics," said Mrs. Rosa, "they're awful bad. I whip Manuel all the time so he won't run in front of them 'lectrics." "Aren't you afraid whipping will make him run away more often?" asked Miss South. But Mrs. Rosa looked as if she did not quite understand the meaning of this question, and after a few more inquiries about the other children who were still in school, Miss South said it was time to return home. Before going, Nora gave Manuel a picture-book, and Brenda gave him a top which they had bought for him. "Come again," called Mrs. Rosa, waving an end of her shawl at them, and "Come again" shouted Manuel as they turned from the narrow alley into the broader street. "Isn't it perfectly dreadful," exclaimed Nora, "for people to be so poor." Miss South was silent for a moment. Then she responded, "There are different kinds of poverty. Mrs. Rosa seems very poor to you, and it is true that she has not much money, but if you were to ask her I dare say that she would tell you that she is better off than when she lived in the Azores," and then, as she saw that the girls were interested, Miss South continued, "in Boston she can send her children to good schools, knowing that when they are old enough, they will find a way to earn a living. When she herself is out of work, or ill, she is not likely to suffer, for there are many people and institutions in Boston looking out for the poor." "But they look so awfully poor now," said Brenda. Miss South smiled. "I would not try to make you less sympathetic, Brenda, but you must remember that a plain uncarpeted room when properly warmed is not so uncomfortable as it looks. The worst thing about Mrs. Rosa's way of living is the fact that she and her children are crowded into two small rooms. At night they bring a mattress from the little bedroom and spread on the kitchen floor. Three of the children sleep there, while Mrs. Rosa and the others sleep in the bedroom." "How can they possibly live that way!" said Nora, who, as a doctor's daughter, had pretty definite ideas on the subject of ventilation and hygiene. "It is indeed a very bad way of doing," said Miss South. "The best way to help Mrs. Rosa would be to persuade her to take her family to some country town where they could have plenty of light and air." VIII PLANNING THE BAZAAR Brenda at the dinner-table that evening had much to say about the expedition of the afternoon. Or rather, she had much to tell about Manuel and his cunning little ways, about his mother and the poverty of the family and what she intended to do for them. Her mother smiled, her father looked interested and said, "Well, I'm glad that you have found a use for your pocket money. I won't begrudge it to you as long as it does not all go into Schuyler's candy." Julia cried, "Oh, Brenda, how I should love to have gone with you," when Brenda spoke of the old church and the old streets. "Do tell just what the church was like." But Brenda's ideas were less definite on these points. She wasn't exactly sure what Paul Revere had done--for history was not her strong point--and she was a little annoyed at Julia's surprise at her lack of interest. Julia did not mean to show any surprise, but it did seem strange to hear Brenda say rather impatiently in answer to a question about the church, "Oh, well, it was a brown church,--no, I think it was gray, with a steeple, but I didn't notice much. Nora quoted some poetry, but I was in a hurry to go on to see Manuel, and I think that it's very tiresome to have to dig up history and things like that out of school." Mr. Barlow frowned at this. "Before you go to the North End again I hope you will have your history and your Longfellow fresh in mind. It is rather a shame for a Boston girl to be ignorant of historic places in her own city." "Julia must go with you next time," said Mrs. Barlow, wishing to divert the conversation from Brenda's shortcomings. "You'll let me know, won't you," interposed Julia pleasantly, and Brenda gave a careless "Yes" as she turned to her father and said, "Oh, papa, I wish that you would let me buy a carpet and a lot of things for Manuel's mother. You have no idea how poor they seem. Do give me the money, that's a dear. You never will miss it in the world." "How much, Brenda, does your modesty lead you to think you need?" asked Mr. Barlow. "Oh, I don't know," answered Brenda, whose ideas of the value of money were very vague indeed. "You might let me buy the things and have them charged." "Dear me! that would be worse than giving you the money--worse for my pocket. I suppose you'd want to do your shopping in some really fashionable Boylston Street establishment?" "Now, papa, you're laughing at me!" "Perhaps I am," replied her father. "But really, Brenda, I don't believe that Manuel's mother would thank you for a carpet. Didn't you say they all lived in one room? A bare floor is easier to keep clean." "Oh, well, I must buy them something, and my pocket money won't go far. Besides, I've spent all you gave me this month." "Well, Manuel and his mother and all those brothers and sisters have lived in Boston very comfortably for several years without any help from you. If you should give them a carpet they might grow discontented. The next thing they would want might be a piano, and from what you say I hardly think that room would hold a piano as well as the whole family and the cook-stove." "Oh, papa, I believe that you are making fun of me." "No, indeed, I am not, but I wish you to be reasonable." "If there's anything in the world I hate it's that word reasonable. It always means that I'm not to have what I want." "There you are _un_-reasonable," answered Mr. Barlow. "We will talk no more about it now, but some day perhaps your mother will go down with you to see Manuel, and then you can both tell me whether the Rosas ought to have a piano as well as a carpet." With this Brenda had to be content, but the next afternoon when the Four Club had its regular weekly meeting she and Nora grew excited as they described the poverty of the Rosas to the other two. "At any rate we can do a lot of fancy-work this winter," said Brenda, "and I shouldn't wonder if we were to have a very successful Fair." "Oh, don't call it a 'Fair,'" said Belle, "that sounds so awfully common. Bazaar, or Sale--no, Bazaar is best. Let's always speak of it as a Bazaar." The others assented, for really they hardly ever dared dissent from Belle when she laid down the law in this way. "Well, what else shall we call it, The Busy Bees' Bazaar?" asked Nora. "Oh, no, that would be dreadful! We needn't decide about the rest of the name just yet." "No, I think that it would be better to wait until we have something ready," said Edith, at which the other three looked up somewhat surprised. They had never heard Edith make a remark that sounded so nearly sarcastic. "Now, Edith, you know very well that we shall have plenty to sell. Just think how much we'll do if we meet every week ourselves. Then every girl in school ought to make at least one thing, and we can get any amount from older people. Really it's the duty of older people to help us all they can. I should think we might have four large tables just loaded with fancy-work, besides refreshments and flowers--and--oh, dear me--I feel quite dizzy when I think of it," cried the sanguine Brenda. "Aren't you going to ask Julia to join the Four Club?" queried Edith, turning to Brenda. "How silly," said the latter. "Of course not. It wouldn't be a Four Club then." "But don't you think it must seem a little strange to Julia. We run upstairs past her room every Thursday, and no one asks her to come." "Oh, she doesn't care," interposed Belle. "I don't believe that she cares for anything but study and music." "Yes," added Brenda, "it drives me half crazy to hear her piano going half the time." "Ah, _that's_ what drives you crazy," said Nora, mischievously. "I thought you had seemed a little queer lately." Brenda tossed her head, but before she had time to answer this, Edith returned to the question of Julia. "Really and honestly, Brenda, I feel very uncomfortable about Julia. We ought at least to invite her to join us. I dare say she wouldn't come every week, but I _do_ think that she ought to be asked. It doesn't seem to me polite to leave her out--or kind." Again Belle spoke for Brenda. "Really, Edith, you're awfully Puritanic; that's what everybody says: you're always thinking about the wrong and right of things." "Well, why shouldn't I? I'm sure we all intend to do what is right." "Yes, of course, in a way. But you don't have to keep thinking about it always. People have to enjoy themselves sometimes, and if we can't enjoy ourselves in this Four Club we might as well give it up at once." "Do you mean that Julia would prevent our enjoying ourselves if she came?" Nora's voice sounded ominously severe. "I didn't say that, but--well what's the good of talking?" cried Belle, who saw that she was getting into deep water. "Yes," chimed in Brenda, "that's what I say too." But Edith continued in a rather grave voice, "Of course it's your house, Brenda, and you and Belle started the Club, and no one can compel you to invite any one you don't want. But I'm sure if I had my way Julia should be here this minute, and I'm not sure that I'll stay in the Club if she isn't asked." "Do you mean you won't work for the Bazaar?" exclaimed Nora in surprise, thinking of Manuel, and of the dainty needlework at which Edith was so skilful. "I haven't said exactly what I'll do," replied the quiet Edith, with more spirit than she generally displayed. "Only I can tell you that I'm not going to see Julia left out of things the way she has been." "Oh, Julia's all right," said Brenda scornfully. "She doesn't know how to do fancy-work, and she'd just feel bored if she came to the Club. If you want a 'cause' Edith, you'd better adopt a smaller orphan than Julia." "Like Manuel," said Edith, with a bright smile, for, determined though she was when she had made up her mind about a thing, she was also a peacemaker. Even when Brenda and Belle most annoyed her, she hesitated to say sharp things to them, remembering that "A soft answer turneth away wrath." "Yes, like Manuel," said Nora, taking up Edith's words. "I won't give Manuel up to you, for you know that I mean to adopt him myself, but he has a sister, or two of them for that matter, and I shouldn't wonder if either of them would give you enough to do." "Oh, yes," said Brenda, "they both looked as if they needed lots of clothes. But they have the _sweetest_ black eyes." "Well, then, why shouldn't we make dresses or aprons or something like that, before we get started on our work for the Bazaar?" asked Edith. "Oh, how can you?" cried Belle. "Horrid calico dresses and things like that--I should just hate them." "There, don't get excited," said Nora. "I've thought of that myself. But my mother says there are plenty of Societies and Sewing Circles we can get clothes from, if the Rosas really need clothes. She says it would be bad to begin giving them things." "Well, then, what are we going to have a Bazaar for?" asked Brenda. "For fun," responded Belle, so promptly that Nora looked at her a little suspiciously. "No," replied Nora, "not for fun, but we've got to have an object in a Club of this kind, and besides there'll probably be other things we can do for the Rosas." "Send them to the country in the summer, perhaps," said Edith. "There are the Country Week people," cried Belle. "They always do things like that." "Let's wait until we get the money," said Brenda, grandly. "Perhaps we'll have enough to buy them a house--or----" "Or a horse and carriage," laughed Edith. "Oh, Brenda, you _are_ so unpractical." "There, there," said Nora, who saw another cloud rising over the horizon of the Four Club. "Let's talk of something sensible." "What are you working at, Belle?" Belle held up a pretty piece of blue denim on which she had begun to outline a pattern in white silk. "This is to be a sofa cushion," she said in answer to Nora's question. "People always like to buy them, and this shade of blue goes with almost anything." "Oh, it's too sweet for anything," said Nora, enthusiastically. "Yes, indeed," added Edith, with perfect sincerity. "You do such perfect needlework that I really envy you." Both Nora and Edith were glad to praise Belle's skill, for although they knew that they themselves had been in the right, they realized that Belle would not feel very kindly toward them for not siding with her in the matter of Julia. Nora, like Edith, was a peacemaker, and both wished the afternoon to end as pleasantly as possible. Belle was by no means indifferent to the praise of her friends. She really could do very fine embroidery and she took considerable pride in her work. "I never _could_ have patience to do anything like that," said Nora, whose specialty was crocheting. "I like to do something that I needn't look at all the time. I could crochet an afghan almost in the dark." "Yes, but an afghan is such an endless piece of work." "Well, I don't suppose I'll make _many_ of them for the Bazaar." "I should say not," said Edith. "What are you going to do first, Brenda? You haven't had a needle in your hand this afternoon." "I know it, I know it," cried Brenda, the heedless. "But I can't think what to begin first," and she opened the bottom drawer of her bureau, where were displayed a tangled heap of linen and floss and gold thread and silk plush and other materials for fancy work which she had bought at different times. There were cushion covers and doilies in which a few stitches had been taken, only to be thrown aside for something else, and some of them were in so soiled a condition that they were not likely to be good for anything. "Oh, what a wicked waste of money, Brenda Barlow," exclaimed Nora, as she looked at the contents of the drawer. "Well, at any rate it shows that I have had good intentions," said Brenda. IX A MYSTERIOUS MANSION At the corner nearly opposite Miss Crawdon's school stood a large, old-fashioned mansion of brick painted light brown. It was a detached house almost surrounded by a high wall. In the wall was a pillared gateway, and each pillar was surmounted by two large balls that looked as if they had dropped from the mouth of a great cannon. Behind the fence and close to the house were two little garden beds, and there were three or four trees in the yard back of the house. It was said that the mansion had once been surrounded with extensive grounds that sloped down hill almost to the river. But new streets and houses had gradually encroached on these grounds until hardly a trace of them remained. There was never a sign of life seen about the old house. Windows and doors were always closed. Even the blinds were seldom drawn up, though once in a while at an upper window, some of the schoolgirls said that they had seen a woman's figure seated behind the lace curtains. Occasionally, too, on sunny days they had noticed a large, old-fashioned carriage drive up under the porte-cochère, while an old lady very much wrapped up, and attended evidently by a maid, entered it. In taking their walks at recess the girls always passed this house, and, as schoolgirls, they naturally felt much curiosity about the lady who occupied it, since she seemed to be surrounded by an air of mystery. They knew, of course, her name--Madame du Launy--and some of the girls had heard more about her from their parents. "My mother," said Frances Pounder, "says that my grandmother told her that Mme. du Launy was a very beautiful girl. She married a Frenchman whom her family despised, and she stayed in Europe until after her father's death." "Was the Frenchman rich?" asked Edith, in rather an awe-stricken voice, for the story sounded very romantic. The girls at this moment happened to be seated on the steps leading to the school, and Frances was in her element when she had an interested group hanging on her words. "Oh, dear, no, he wasn't rich at all. He was a cook, or a hair-dresser, or something like that, only very good looking. But when Mme. du Launy's father died, she had three little children, and her father was so proud--he was a Holtom--he couldn't bear to think of her coming to want, so he left her all his fortune just the same as if she hadn't married beneath her." "That was right," said Nora approvingly. "I think it's ridiculous for fathers to cut their children off with a penny, the way they used to." "Well," responded Frances, "I think it's a great deal more ridiculous for people to marry beneath them." "Of course you'd think that, Frances," interposed Belle. "There, there, don't begin to quarrel, children," said Nora. "Go on with the story, Frances. What did Mme. du Launy do when she got her money?" "Oh, she brought her Frenchman and her children to Boston, and she lived at a hotel while she began to build this house. Some people went to see her, but the Frenchman was a terribly ill-mannered little thing, and nobody liked him because he was so familiar. Mme. du Launy and he were hardly ever invited anywhere, and they spent most of their time driving about in a great carriage which held the whole family, and a maid and governess." "I should think they would have stopped building the house." "Oh, no," said Edith, "they kept on, and after a while they went to Europe to buy things for it. They had more than a ship-load, and they say that everything was perfectly beautiful,--foreign rugs, and tapestry, and glass, and gilt furniture." "Dear me, I should love to have seen it." "Well, it's all there in the house now, but you'd have to be a good deal smarter than any one I know to see it." "Why Frances, do you mean that no one ever goes there?" asked Julia. "Yes, that's just what I mean. I don't suppose any one in Boston except the doctor, and two or three very old people, have ever been inside that door." "Yes, that's true," added Edith. "I've heard my mother speak of it. Mme. du Launy is terribly peculiar." "I should think she'd be lonely," said Julia. "I dare say she is," replied Frances, "but it's awfully selfish to shut up a great house like that." "Why does she do it?" "Oh, I believe, when she came back from Europe the second time she set out to give a great ball. She sent invitations to every one, no matter whether people had called on her or not. Of course very few people went, only her relations and a few others. This made her so angry that she vowed she'd have nothing more to do with people in Boston. Not long afterward her husband died, then her children died or turned out badly, and she has just lived alone ever since." "It sounds rather sad," said Julia, when Frances had finished. "Nonsense, Julia," said Brenda, "you're so sentimental." "No, she isn't at all," cried Edith, "it is really sad. I wonder what became of the children." Here Belle spoke up. "I've heard that the boys all died. One of them ran away to sea and was drowned. But I believe the girl married some one her mother didn't like, and so she disinherited her. She may be living somewhere, but she must be an old woman herself, for my grandmother says that Mme. du Launy is about eighty." As the girls looked toward the house they saw a figure standing behind the curtains of the window over the front door. "There she is now," the girls cried. "Wouldn't you like to go inside?" said Nora to Edith. "I don't know that I'm really anxious to," replied the latter. "Oh, I am," said Nora, and a moment later she cried out to Frances, "Frances, you are rather clever, can't you suggest some way by which I can find my way inside that house? Wouldn't one of your great aunts give me an introduction to Mme. du Launy? I'm just dying to see what is inside those brick walls." "No," responded Frances, rather scornfully; "if they could they wouldn't, but I'm sure they haven't kept up any acquaintance with Mme. du Launy." "Well," replied Nora, "I'll find a way. Mark my words, before the present crescent moon is old I shall have at least a speaking acquaintance with Mme. du Launy. Poor thing, she must be very lonely." "I don't believe she'd appreciate your society particularly, Nora, for one thing you're pretty young," said Edith. "No matter, I'm going to know her. Come, Brenda, I'll confide in you." So Brenda and Nora walked down the street, leaving the other girls to wonder what they were planning. This was by no means the first time that the girls at Miss Crawdon's school had discussed Mme. du Launy and her affairs. Indeed, each set of girls had wondered about her and her beautiful furniture, and her music box that played a hundred airs, and all her foreign treasures, and her possessions lost nothing in splendor as the girls told what they had heard about them. Of the four friends, Belle and Edith were most indifferent to the house across the way. But a number of others among the schoolgirls seemed inclined to join Nora and Brenda in whatever they were planning. One day as they walked about at recess they saw the old lady leave the house and enter her carriage. They were too polite to stand and gaze at her, but some of them could not resist the temptation of staring at the carriage as it rolled by. The next day Nora and Brenda were seen to be very much interested in playing ball. They tossed it from one to the other, and occasionally as they passed the brick mansion they let it roll within the gateway on the gravelled walks. There were half a dozen girls walking in front of the old house and tossing the ball. As they played, the ball rose higher and higher. Nora and Brenda were standing almost inside the gateway, when suddenly the ball seemed to fling itself against one of the windows, and the crash of breaking glass was heard. Some of the girls looked frightened and hurried across the street toward the school. Brenda too, started to go, but Nora took her by the hand. "Remember your promise," she said, so loudly that two of the other girls who were crossing the street, turned about and joined them. Just at that moment the school-bell rang, and rather reluctantly the girls turned back to school. Nora and Brenda paid very little attention to their lessons the rest of the morning. Some of their friends who had witnessed the mischief done by the ball were also excited. They all more than half expected to see Mme. du Launy's aged servant-man make his appearance to complain of the injury done to the window. As it drew near two o'clock and nothing of the kind had happened, they were really disappointed. "We're not going home with you," cried Nora, as she and Brenda and the two other conspirators walked down the steps of the school. "Why not?" asked Edith from the dressing-room. "Oh, we have something to attend to," replied Nora. "Well," said Edith, "luncheon is the most important thing that I have to attend to just now." "What shall I say to your mother?" asked Julia, as she saw Brenda preparing to turn in the opposite direction from home. "Don't say anything, Julia. I'm not a baby to need looking after." Julia had no answer for this inconsiderate speech, for indeed she had become only too well accustomed to Brenda's little rudenesses. "Let's wait and see what they are going to do," suggested Edith, looking toward Nora and Brenda and the two or three others who had joined them. "I must go on," answered Julia. "I ought to be at----" "I'll wait," spoke up Belle. "Come, you can stay, Edith." So the two friends waited near the school while Brenda and Nora and the others crossed the street to Mme. du Launy's mansion. They were surprised to see them ring the bell, and after a moment, when the door was opened, to see them step inside. Not many minutes later they saw the door reopen, as the girls, looking somewhat crestfallen, turned away from the house. "What in the world were you up to?" called Belle, rather excitedly as they turned homeward. "Wait till we get out of sight of the house," said Nora, "and I'll tell you. It was this way, I had just made up my mind that I'd see the inside of that house. Frances Pounder seemed so sure I couldn't. So I thought and thought, and to-day when we were playing ball you see we broke the window." "On purpose! I do believe. Why, Nora, I should think you'd be ashamed!" "Well, I had the money in my pocket to pay for it. That was what we went for after school. But that queer old butler,--really I almost laughed in his face. However, I managed to say, 'I'm extremely sorry, but I broke a pane of glass in the window over the front door when I was playing ball this morning.' 'We hadn't discovered it, miss,' he said, as solemn as could be. 'Then you might go and look,' I replied, 'and if you will please tell Mme. du Launy that I'd like to pay for it, I'll be greatly obliged.' I thought that while he was looking at the glass and talking to the old lady, he'd at least ask us into the reception-room, or drawing-room. But not a bit of it. There's a little vestibule just beyond the front door, and there he left us. He asked us to sit down, and we did sit down on the edge of two great black settles there in the marble vestibule. When he came back I felt sure he was going to take us straight up to Mme. du Launy. Instead of that he merely said: 'Mme. du Launy presents her compliments, and is greatly obliged to you for telling her about the window. She couldn't think of letting you pay for it, as an apology is quite enough.'" "And you didn't see anything in the house?" "No, not a thing; though as he opened the door into the hall we caught a glimpse of a big gilded table and an enormous piece of tapestry over the stairs. Wasn't it mean, after all our efforts?" "Who has won the bet, you or Frances?" asked Belle. "I'm not sure. I have been in the house and I haven't," replied Nora. "I should think you'd have been frightened to death. What would you have done if you had seen the old lady?" "I don't know, I'm sure. There were so many of us we shouldn't have been frightened," and Nora looked at Brenda and the other girl who were vehemently describing the adventure. X A SOPHOMORE When Edith's brother Philip came in from College to spend Saturday and Sunday, Edith's house was apt to be a rendezvous for the other girls. Not that Philip was likely to waste much time with mere girls. Not he! He was a Harvard sophomore, and realized his own importance quite as much as the girls did. But still there was always the chance that he would come into the room just for a minute, and tell them some of the latest Cambridge news. He would have scorned to call it gossip. If there was any one thing in the world he hated--so he said--it was girls' talk, this jabbering about nothing. For his part he wouldn't waste his time _that_ way. Yet, when he had an appreciative audience,--and girls generally appreciated what Philip said,--he would often spend as much as half an hour talking about the fellows--how beastly it was Jim Dashaway couldn't row on the crew, and he would grow almost enthusiastic when describing the tussle between Ned Brown and Stanley Hooper over the respective merits of Boston and New York in which Hooper, the New Yorker, was terribly beaten. "And upon my word," he concluded, "I wasn't sorry, for the New York set is getting just unbearable. I wouldn't so much mind fighting Stanley Hooper myself about New York and Boston. I guess I'd show him that New York isn't the whole world." "I should say not," exclaimed Nora; but Belle, who had some New York cousins, was silent. Brenda, however, noticing Belle's expression, and not feeling disposed to side completely with Nora, said, "You're terribly narrow, Nora, to think that nobody's any good unless he comes from Boston." "I didn't say so," replied Nora. "No, but that's what you mean, and I'm surprised, Philip Blair, that a boy should be so awfully one-sided." "Well, you'd better talk, Brenda Barlow," broke in Nora again. "Just see the way you treat Julia. If she'd been born in Boston----" "I don't treat her," interrupted Brenda. "No, that's just it, you don't treat her decently." "Oh, I say," said Philip, from his place in front of the mantelpiece, "how queer girls are; do you always fight like this when you're together?" "We don't fight like you boys," answered Edith, good-humoredly. "We don't knock each other down and run the risk of breaking one another's noses." Philip looked over his shoulder in the glass. There was nothing the matter with his own shapely nose, and I doubt that he would have run any such risk as Edith suggested. Perhaps this was the reason why Philip was not a fighter. There was one good thing about the little disputes in which Brenda and Belle indulged. They very seldom lasted long. In the present instance the girls were ashamed of having shown temper before Philip. The latter, however, did not dwell on their weakness. "Oh, say, did you hear about the time Will Hardon had with the Dicky, last week?" he asked. Nora nodded. She, too, had a brother in College. "What was it?" asked Edith. "You haven't told _me_, Philip." "How funny you are, Edith," said Belle. "You never hear anything. Hasn't anyone told you how the other fellows made him run blindfolded in his shirt sleeves down Beacon Street?" "No, really?" "Of course, really!" "And then they led him up the steps into Mrs. Oxford's when she was giving an afternoon tea, and when they took the bandage off his eyes there he was in his shirt sleeves, without his hat, and his hair all tumbled, and everybody looking at him." "Oh," said one girl, and "Ah," said another; and "How silly!" they all cried together. "If girls amused themselves like that what fun you'd make of us!" said the practical Nora. "I shouldn't think there'd be much fun in making anybody uncomfortable." "Oh, it gives a fellow a chance to show what kind of stuff he's made of," explained Philip, "whether he has good manners, and whether he's clever--and all that." "There must be better ways of showing bravery," said the practical Edith. "I don't believe you know a bit more about Will Hardon's bravery than you did before." "We knew something about his manners." "What?" "Why, when he saw where he was, he didn't run away, or flunk out. He only looked a little sheepish, the other fellows said, but he just bowed to the ladies, and saying politely that he was sorry to have disturbed them, he walked off as nice as you please." "Wasn't he mad at the two fellows for taking him there?" "Of course not; that's a part of the thing. Why, there are fellows in Cambridge who would go through fire and water, or stand on their heads in front of a pulpit for the sake of getting into the Dicky. I tell you we make some of them suffer." Philip said "we" with a rather important air, although he had belonged to the illustrious organization a very short time. "Well, I think you're perfectly horrid," cried Brenda, "I mean the Dicky. I've heard about the way you make people suffer, branding them with hot cigars, and making them run barefoot winter nights, and doing all sorts of useless things." "If you went to College you'd see more use in them." "I'm glad girls don't go to College." "Oh, some do!" "Not girls we know." "I'm sure I can't tell," said Philip rather crossly, "there are a lot of girls studying in Cambridge now at the Annex, and the fellows don't like it at all." "Well, I declare," exclaimed Nora, "I'd like to know what difference it makes to them." "Oh, they hate to see these girls going about with books, and trying to get into Harvard." "Yes, trying to break down the walls," said Nora, sarcastically. "Oh, see here, it would just spoil everything to have women in the classes with us." "Are you afraid they'd get ahead of you?" asked Edith, gently. "Now, look here, Edith, I don't want you to talk that way," responded Philip with brotherly authority. "There isn't any danger of girls getting ahead of us." "Why, I heard," said Nora, "that one of the professors----" "Oh, yes, I've heard it too," interrupted Philip. "I've heard that some professors say that their Annex classes do better work than ours,--but anybody can tell that that's all rot." "I believe it's all perfectly true," said Nora. "Well, I wish myself that our English instructor hadn't such a fondness for reading themes to us that the girls have written. He makes out that they are better than ours, but I can't say that I see it myself." "Who gets the best marks?" "I'm sure I can't say. He gives us such beastly marks that I dare say he makes it up with the girls. But I wouldn't let a sister of mine go to College," he concluded inconsequently. "It's a good thing Edith doesn't wish to go," said Nora; adding mischievously, "but Brenda Barlow's cousin Julia is going." Brenda blushed, for Julia's intention of going to College was still a sore point with her. "Does Julia wear glasses, or look green? I beg your pardon, Brenda----" "No, she doesn't," said Nora shortly. "She's about the nicest girl I know." "Oh, she is lovely," added Edith. "A matter of opinion," murmured Belle under her breath. "You don't mean to say you haven't seen her," cried Brenda in surprise. "No, I haven't happened to," answered Philip. "She's invited to my cooking party next week," said Nora. "You know that you've accepted too, so you'll see her." "Oh, yes, by the way," said Philip, "what evening is it?" "Friday, of course," replied Nora, "so we can sit up late without thinking about school the next day." "Well, you'll see me sure," said Philip. "But see here, it's five o'clock now and I have an engagement down town." Philip hurried off, bowing in a very grown-up way to the group of girls. For whatever criticisms any one might make about Philip's indolence and disinclination to study, no one could deny that he had very good manners. Though only about four years their senior, he seemed much older than Brenda and her friends. Years before they had all been playmates together, but his two years in College had taken him away from them, and it was not often that he condescended to spend as long a time in their presence as had been the case this afternoon. "Do you think that Philip looks very well, Edith," asked Belle when he had left the room. "Why, of course, don't you?" replied Philip's sister. "It seemed to me he was just a little pale." "He is always pale," said Edith. "Do you suppose he sits up too late?" asked Brenda. "I'll warrant he doesn't study too much," said Belle. "How can you?" cried Nora. "How can you criticise Edith's brother? Don't let her do it, Edith." "It doesn't trouble me," answered the placid Edith. "I know all about Philip, and he's good enough for me." "That's right," said Nora. "Always stand up for your brother. But I do think he might have better friends. He really isn't very particular." "Why, what do you mean?" "Oh, I don't know exactly, but I heard my brother talking the other day. He says there are two or three fellows just sponging off of Philip all the time, and Philip is too good-natured to say anything." "I wonder how he'll like Julia," said Edith. "Oh, he won't like that kind of a girl," hastily interposed Belle. "Boys never like a girl who studies; especially one who is going to College." "Well, Julia is just the nicest girl _I_ know," said Nora, repeating the words she had used to Philip. "And Philip is one of the nicest young men I know," said Brenda, politely, turning to Edith. "But don't tell him I said so," she added with a blush. "Oh, no, of course not," laughed Edith, as the girls separated for the afternoon. XI THE COOKING CLASS Nora's cooking party was not altogether a pleasure affair. It was the result of her father's desire that she should have some knowledge of domestic matters before she left school. Dr. Gostar was a busy man, having little time to spend with his children. His practice was large, but as he gave his services as willingly to poor as to rich people, he had not accumulated much money. Nora's home, however, was a very pleasant one. The numerous members of the family used all the rooms with the greatest freedom. As the four other members of the household besides Dr. and Mrs. Gostar and Nora were boys, the furnishings of the house had a well-worn, comfortable look. No one was kept out of any particular room. The boys had a large play and workroom in the attic, but when they wished to sit in the library (which other people might have called a "drawing-room") they were not forbidden. Mrs. Gostar, though fond of society, was never too busy to hear what her children had to say, to read to them or hear them tell about their school, or to sympathize with them in any way. She had agreed with Dr. Gostar when he had expressed a wish to have Nora learn cooking. "I am anxious," he had said, "that my little daughter shall know how to cook. I have been so often in houses where wives and mothers have been quite helpless when a cook left, that I should be very sorry to have Nora grow up as ignorant as they. I know that a great deal of sickness comes from eating badly prepared food." Nora herself had been rather pleased at the prospect of learning to cook. But Belle thought it very vulgar, and for a time was not sure whether or not she would join the cooking-class. During the first winter the girls had had lessons once a week. But through this season of Julia's arrival in Boston, they had met to practice cooking only once a month. The lessons always were given at Nora's house, because, as Edith said, her cook wasn't too fashionable to let them fuss around in the kitchen. The first winter they had had a teacher, but this year they were supposed to know enough to concoct certain dishes themselves. The cooking party took place on the third Friday of the month, and from six to eight the girls were busy cooking. At eight o'clock any guests whom they had invited arrived, and at nine o'clock they had a little supper. They were not permitted to have too elaborate a bill of fare. Even as it was, Belle's grandmother protested against what she called an indigestible supper served at this hour. As a matter of fact it was not apt to be indigestible. Dr. Gostar himself usually made out the list of eatables. Light salads, simple cakes, bouillon, ices, blanc-manges, jellies, oysters or eggs cooked in various styles, and chocolate prepared with whipped cream, were conspicuous on the list from which he made his selection. But the girls on any given evening were restricted to one sweet, one solid and two kinds of cake. With the assistance of a maid each girl in turn set the table, and sometimes, besides their young friends, their parents were present to see what their skill and taste had accomplished. "There, there, Edith, I'm sure your cake is burning," cried Nora on the Friday evening after their talk with Philip. "Oh, dear, I can't do anything about it now; I've cut my fingers," and Edith held up her hands rather plaintively. "Here, take my handkerchief," said Brenda; and before Edith could stop her she was binding up the wound with a delicate lace-trimmed handkerchief. It was Agnes's birthday present to her, sent from Paris, and intended only for full dress occasion. "Why, Brenda, that lovely handkerchief!" exclaimed Belle, who was looking on. "Oh, it won't hurt it. How does your finger feel, Edith?" "It feels all right, for it wasn't a deep cut, but with my right hand tied up I don't believe I can lift that cake out of the oven," and Edith looked about helplessly, for she was not used to battling with difficulties. Over her dress each girl wore a long-sleeved blue-checked apron--each of them at least except Julia. This was her first appearance at the cooking-club, and as Brenda had forgotten to tell her about the aprons, she was unprepared. She had on a small white apron, borrowed from Nora, and when Edith spoke about the cake, she seized a holder, and opening the oven door, lifted the pan out. As Edith feared, the cake was burned, though not the whole top, but black spots here and there gave it a very unsightly appearance, and Edith felt very much disturbed as she looked at it. "How provoking! That was the only cake we were to have to-night, and there isn't time to make another." "Oh, we can do something," cried Julia. "Let me help you." "I don't see what we can do," half moaned Edith. "I'll show you," cried Julia hopefully. "You have plenty of sugar and eggs--and----" "But really there isn't time to make anything not to speak of baking it, and, oh, dear, I am so unlucky!" sighed poor Edith. "Nonsense," said Julia. "You haven't any idea what I can do. I shall just have to show you," and she began to break the eggs into a bowl, beating them and stirring into them a liberal amount of sugar. "Run, Brenda," she cried, "and bring me a sheet of that brown wrapping paper." Brenda obeyed, and after buttering the paper, Julia dropped her mixture of sugar and eggs, a spoonful at a time, here and there, on the paper. "Oh, I know," cried Brenda. "Kisses, but I never would have thought of it myself." "Well," responded Julia, "there is nothing you can bake so quickly, and almost every one likes them. There, this first batch must be ready now," and she opened the oven door to remove the pan with its sheet of kisses, delicately browned and of the size and shape that a confectioner could not surpass. Two or three other lots were baked before there were enough. By the time they were finished Edith's finger had ceased to pain her, and she was helping place the other eatables on the dumb-waiter. From the floor above there came the sound of laughter, and the voices of the boys could be heard mingled with those of the girls as they called to the three kitchen maidens. At last, with the help of Hannah, the maid, who had come down from the floor above, all the kitchen work was declared at an end. "That's all," shouted Brenda, as Belle and Philip gave a final pull on the cords of the dumb-waiter. A moment later Edith and Julia and Brenda entered the dining-room, with faces perhaps a little flushed, but otherwise looking very unlike the three cooks they had been a few minutes before. Under Nora's direction the dining-table had been exquisitely arranged. There was a great glass bowl of pink roses in the centre, and the plates and cups were of china with a wild rose border. The candles in the silver candelabra at each end of the table had pink shades. "There, you go, Philip, and tell the others that supper is ready," said Nora, glancing at the table and giving a final touch to one or two dishes. With Philip leading, the guests trooped into the dining-room. "Trooped" is perhaps too boisterous a word to apply to the procession of young people who came into the room two at a time with a fair amount of dignity. To Julia, in fact, they appeared to a certain extent to be imitating the demeanor of their elders. She could not help thinking that the manner with which Belle let herself be led to a chair was entirely too coquettish, and only Nora seemed to be her real self in the presence of the guests. But Julia was not a harsh critic, and before very long she forgot that she had not always known these merry young people. She laughed at the jokes made by the boys, although she did not always see the point of them. Most of these jokes turned on something connected with college. For every one of them was in Harvard, although some were only Freshmen. The stories that they thought the funniest dealt with the queer things that some of their friends had had to do when undergoing initiation into one of the College Societies, and many of their doings seemed really inane. Before they had been long in the dining-room Mrs. Gostar joined them, and later Dr. Gostar himself appeared. The presence of these elder people lessened the laughter only a very little, for all the young people knew that Dr. Gostar enjoyed fun as well as they. "What was the catastrophe to-night?" he asked Nora, for it was a favorite joke of his that at each meeting of the cooking-class some dish suffered. When he had heard about the disaster to Edith's cake he praised Julia so heartily for having come to the rescue that she blushed deeply. Even without this success in cooking, Julia would have been voted a great addition to the cooking-class. There was something very pleasing in her gentle manners, and Belle, to her surprise, found herself growing a little jealous of Brenda's cousin. Before this she had not thought her sufficiently important to arouse jealousy. XII CONCERNING JULIA In the meantime the Four Club held regular meetings, and every Thursday afternoon Julia heard Edith and Nora and Belle rushing up past her door to Brenda's room on the floor above. Of course in a general way she knew what was going on, for the affairs of the Four Club were no secret. Yet although from time to time Brenda and her friends dropped a word or two regarding their doings, they never talked very freely about the club. Nora and Edith were silent because they were sorry that they could not persuade Brenda to let them invite Julia to the meetings. Brenda said little about the club, because possibly she was ashamed of her own indifference. As to Belle, she never had had much to say to Julia, and in this case although she felt pleased that her influence chiefly had kept Brenda from counting her cousin in the club group, she hardly ventured to express this feeling in words. There might as well have been five girls as four in the group working for the Bazaar and no one knew this better than Brenda and Belle themselves. Although Julia had a pretty correct idea of what was going on, she tried to show no feeling in the matter. Her studies, her music, and her exercise occupied almost all her afternoons, and she reasoned with herself that even if she had been invited, it would have been only a waste of time for her to spend hours at fancy-work, which might otherwise have been more profitably employed. But after a while, when through the half-open door she heard her friends running upstairs, she sometimes felt a thrill of disappointment that they did not care enough for her to stop on their way to ask her to join them. Now Julia meant always to be fair in her thoughts, as well as in her actions towards others. So at first when she found that she was left out of the plans of her cousin and her friends, she reasoned with herself somewhat in this fashion. "Now, Julia, you know that you are a newcomer, and you cannot expect that you will be taken in all at once, just wait." But after she had waited a good while, she began to feel a little hurt, although she did her best to conceal her feeling from Nora and Edith. In the meantime the latter two girls argued warmly with Brenda, and tried to make her see that it was mean to keep Julia out of the Four Club. "Nonsense," said Belle, who happened to overhear them, "Julia herself would say that it was awfully stupid to sit for a whole afternoon, sewing." "Well, if she did not work harder than--well than Brenda does, she would not be very much bored; besides she could look out of the window part of the time, the view there is perfectly fine," responded the lively Nora. Brenda had tried to speak when Nora had made this very unflattering allusion to her own lack of industry, and when Nora finished she said, holding up a square of linen on which a wreath of yellow flowers was half embroidered, "There, I've done all this this month." "That's very good for you," said Belle, patronizingly, "but I'd be willing to bet----" "Don't say 'bet,'" murmured Edith. "I'd be willing to bet anything," continued Belle, "that you'll never finish it." "Why, Belle," continued the others. "No, you won't," repeated Belle, "you never could, you'll get tired of the pattern or of the color, or you will spoil it in some way, and throw it into the fire, or worse into that bottom drawer of yours with all those other specimens." Brenda, instead of growing angry at this, only laughed. "Well if I don't wish to finish it, I certainly won't," she replied. "But it happens that I have made up my mind to finish it this Autumn, before Christmas, in fact, so you can make your bet as large as you please, and pay the money into the fund for Manuel's benefit, for I shall win." The girls were all a little surprised at Brenda's reply. She was more ready usually to answer pettishly any criticism made by Belle. "Very well," said Belle, "Edith and Nora are my witnesses, and we shall watch to see when you finish that centrepiece." "Yes, indeed, Brenda," laughed Nora, "indeed we shall follow the career of this wreath with great interest, and now since you seem to be in an amiable frame of mind, let us go back to Julia. It seems terribly mean not to ask her to join us." The pleasant expression on Brenda's face changed to a frown. "I've told you often that Julia would not enjoy working with us, and it would just spoil everything to have her come." "Of course it's your house, Brenda, and you started the club, and Julia is your cousin, so Edith and I have not the same right to say anything, but it seems to me very unkind to leave her out." "There, I don't want to hear anything more about it," cried Brenda, "haven't Belle and I both said that Julia would not enjoy herself, sewing with us, and it would not be a 'four club,' and I don't want to hear anything more about it." By this time Brenda's voice was positively snappish, and Edith looked up in alarm. But Nora was undismayed. "Nonsense, Brenda," she cried, "Belle said that Julia would not enjoy the cooking class, though I'm perfectly sure that no one there had a better time, and the boys thought that she was splendid, didn't they, Edith?" "Yes," returned Edith, "Philip was surprised; he said she was fine, he always supposed that she was a kind of blue-stocking with glasses, and----" Here Brenda interrupted, "Well, I'm sure that I never said anything like that to him, and I shouldn't think that you would, Edith." "Of course, I didn't," responded Edith, indignantly, "it was something Frances Pounder said, and well--Belle----" "Now, Belle, I do wish that you would not say things about my cousin," broke in Brenda. "Oh," cried Belle, "you wish to have the privilege of saying everything yourself; but you might as well let other people have a chance." "Philip did not mean that anybody said anything particularly disagreeable about Julia, only he had a sort of an idea that she did not like people, and that she would not join much in any fun that we might plan." "Oh, what nonsense, Edith!" exclaimed Nora, "she likes fun as well as any of us, only she is just a little quiet herself. She wants somebody else to start the fun for her." "Well, she does not dance," said Belle, "and a girl can't have much fun if she does not dance." "I know that she does not care for round dances, at least her father would not let her learn, but I'm sure that she does the Virginia Reel as well as anybody, and the Portland Fancy. Why she was as graceful as, as anything the other evening," concluded Nora. But all the conversation at the meetings of the Four Club did not concern Julia and her absence from the club. The girls had many other things to discuss, and their tongues were often more active than their needles. Sometimes as their merry voices floated down to Julia, the young girl sighed. It is never pleasant for any one to think that she is not wanted in any gathering of her friends, although in this special case Julia had no great desire to devote even one of her afternoons to needlework. Nevertheless she could not repress a sigh that she was of so little consequence to Brenda and her friends. Before Thanksgiving came, the club really seemed in a fair way of realizing its plans for a sale. Edith had finished two or three dainty sets of doilies, for she worked out of club hours. Nora's afghan was at least a quarter made, a great accomplishment for Nora. Belle had several articles to show, and even Brenda had persevered with her centrepiece until hardly more than a quarter of the embroidery remained unfinished. Moreover several of the girls at school had promised to help, on condition that nothing should be expected of them until after Christmas. "That will be time enough," the Four always answered, "for we shall not have the sale until Easter week." The girls at school were especially interested when they heard that the Bazaar was to be for the benefit of Manuel, not that any one of them had a clear idea of his needs. But they felt an interest in him because they believed that his life had been saved by one of their number. There were, to be sure, one or two sceptics, like Frances Pounder, who said that of course the child had been in no great danger, for in his own part of the city children are in the habit of playing most of the time under the very feet of the horses passing that way. "And who," the wise Frances had added, "ever heard of a child like that having so much as a leg broken?" But Frances was not infallible, and many of the girls had heard of accidents to poor children. If they had not, the fact remained, which Nora and Brenda and half a dozen others were ready to testify to that Manuel had been in great danger on the memorable day of his rescue. With his danger granted, it was plain enough that caring for him became a duty imposed on his rescuers. With little opportunity to show it, Julia had as much interest in Manuel as the other girls. Strange though it may seem, he was the first very poor person with whom she had been brought in contact. For in the secluded life which she had led with her father, she had not seen a great variety of people. It is true that in traveling she had often come across miserable looking and ill-clad women and children, and she knew very well that there were many like them in the world. With her own allowance she subscribed to a number of charities, but her father had not encouraged her greatly in this kind of thing. His own ill health had had the rather unusual effect of making him unsympathetic towards forms of misery unlike the kind which had been sent to him. He thought, too, that young people should be as closely sheltered as possible from the knowledge of the dark side of life. He gave liberally to hospitals, but poverty in itself did not appeal to him. On that account Julia was not permitted to hear or to see much of actual poverty. But Julia, on the other hand, had always had the greatest desire to help the less fortunate, and to know more about the conditions of their lives. She was therefore greatly pleased when one day in a book-shop she found a copy of "How The Other Half Lives." It was very suggestive to her, and buying it she had read it at home eagerly from cover to cover. Now she knew that in Boston she was not likely to see any cases of misery as extreme as those described in that famous book, and yet in the midst of the luxury of her uncle's house she often wished that she could do something to help the poor. But Julia, in spite of her self-reliance in practical matters, was rather shy, and whenever she thought of speaking to her aunt on the subject, she hesitated in fear lest she should be thought presumptuous. Manuel and his wants, when Brenda and Nora came home full of what they had seen at the North End, seemed to her an opportunity. She hoped, indeed she almost expected that she would be invited to go with them on a second visit. Her disappointment in this matter was even greater than that which came from being left out of the "Four Club." There were things she knew that she could have done for Manuel and his mother, and even if Brenda and her friends were able to provide for all his wants, there must be others in the same neighborhood as poor as he. Yet week after week passed away, and no chance seemed to open for her to tell Brenda what she would like to do. At school Julia was left much to herself. The girls near her own age were so absorbed in their own affairs that they seldom had a thought for the lonely stranger. They had so many things to talk about in which Julia had no part,--the dancing class, the bowling club--and a thousand and one harmless bits of gossip harmless for the most part, though sometimes carrying with them a little sting. When Julia sat or walked with one of these chattering groups she felt that she was only tolerated, and she could seldom join intelligently in what was said, and often a dropping of the voice, or an only half-intentional glance of significance made her feel herself in the way. To be sure there were Edith and Nora, of the set a little younger than the girls with whom she recited. They were undeniably her friends, and yet Brenda and Belle had a fashion of dragging them off at recess without giving Julia an invitation to follow, and the latter had too much sense to care to bring herself too often within the reach of Belle's sharp tongue. So though she sat or walked by herself, the older girls who noticed her excused themselves with "Oh, if she cared to go with any one she would walk with Brenda and Nora and the others of the 'Four,'" for in school, as in the club the "Four" had come to have a special meaning. On the other hand Brenda and Belle would usually say to the remonstrating Edith and Nora: "What is the use of talking, Julia is in the classes with the older girls, and she ought to make friends with them. She really doesn't belong with us, and there is not the least reason why we should have her on our minds all the time." Now there is hardly any classification of persons more definite and rigid than that which separates the girls of one age at school from those who are a year or two older, or a year or two younger. Nor did Julia generally repine at her own situation. She thought it perfectly natural that the other girls should be slow in admitting her to intimacy. If she had any feeling it was regret that her own cousin seemed so indifferent to her. XIII GREAT EXPECTATIONS For a week before Thanksgiving there was great excitement among the schoolgirls on account of the approaching football game. The "Four" were as excited as the others, although not so many of their own particular friends were in the Harvard team. It was to be a game with Princeton, one of the great University matches, and for special reasons there was the deepest interest in the match. Those girls who had brothers in college, or even cousins or friends, held themselves with more dignity than any of the others, and those who had relatives in the team "were too proud for anything," as Brenda said. The game was to be played in Holmes' Field, and tickets were not easy to get, because the seats were far less numerous than now on the great Soldiers' Field. The girls were making up little groups to go to the game with youths of their acquaintance as escorts, under the chaperonage of older people. A few who had received no invitation were especially miserable, and took no trouble to disguise their feelings. Edith at this time became unusually popular, because it was known that her mother had given her permission to arrange a large party to accompany her to the game, and every girl was hoping for an invitation--every girl, at least who had not been invited elsewhere to go in some other party. Now Edith was of a generally generous disposition, and not inclined to limit her favors, of whatever nature, to any particular set of girls. For this reason she had to bear many a reproof from Belle, and even occasionally from Brenda, both of whom were inclined to be more exclusive. So it happened that the general harmony of "The Four" was somewhat disturbed when Nora one day at recess exclaimed, "Who do you suppose is going with us to the game?" For of course in the minds of the others there could be but one "game," and that the one to which they all wished to go. "Why, who is it?" cried Brenda, and "Who is it?" echoed Belle. "I know that you can't guess." "Oh, don't be silly, Nora, it wouldn't be worth while to guess about something you'll know all about so soon, except that you speak as if it were some one we might not care to have, and if that's the case, I declare it's too bad," said Belle. "If it's anything like that," broke in Brenda, rather snappishly, "I will just tell Edith what I think." "_It_--_that_," cried Nora, "didn't I say that it was a person, a girl, if I must be more definite, Ruth Roberts, if I must tell just who it is." "Oh," cried Belle, and "Ah," echoed Brenda. "You need not look so surprised," rejoined Nora, "and if you take my advice, you will not say anything to Edith; she ought to have her own way in arranging her own party, and you know when she makes up her mind it is of no use to talk to her about it." "Well, I don't care," rejoined Brenda, "it's hard enough to have Julia tagging about everywhere, but why in the world we should have Ruth Roberts, when we never see her anywhere except at school, I really cannot understand, and I don't see how you and Nora can like it either." "Why Ruth Roberts is as pleasant a girl as there is in school, and yet she would have a terribly lonely time, if it were not for Edith and Julia; nobody else ever thinks of speaking to her." "Well, why should we, she lives out in Roxbury or some other outlandish place, and she doesn't even go to our dancing school or know people that we know. There isn't a bit of sense in knowing people that we'll never see when we're in society," responded Belle, while Brenda echoed, "Yes, that's what I think, too." Nora smiled pleasantly, and her eyes looked brighter than ever under the rim of her brown felt hat, with its trimmings of lighter brown. Nora's temper was not easily ruffled. Then Belle added a final word. "Oh, it's clear that this is all Julia's doings; ever since Ruth went into her Latin class they have been awfully intimate. But I don't see," turning rather snappishly towards Brenda, "why the rest of us have got to take up Ruth Roberts just because your Cousin Julia is so devoted to her." Now this was a little too much, even for Brenda, who generally did not contradict Belle, and she answered with vigor, "Really you are growing perfectly ridiculous, Belle; I haven't anything to do with it, but I must say that I think that Julia has a right to choose her own friends. Ruth Roberts is all right, and anyway I'm thankful to have Julia take a fancy to anybody, it leaves us a great deal freer to do as we like. I should think that you would see that yourself." "Oh, well," said Nora laughing, "the whole thing is not worth quarreling about. I'm glad to hear you talk so sensibly, Brenda. If you hadn't, I was going to tell Belle that it seems to me that Edith has a right to ask any one she wishes. She is always very good to us all, and just think how many tickets her father has bought for this game!" "Yes, I know, but still----" "The least said, the soonest mended," said Nora, though to tell you the truth, the quotation did not sound especially appropriate. "The least said, the soonest mended, and let us all go to the game with a crimson flag in each hand to wave for the winners." "Crimson," cried Belle, "I am going to carry an orange scarf, and perhaps an orange flag." "What for? why I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed Nora. "Nor I!" cried Brenda, "at a Harvard game!" "Isn't it a Princeton game, too," asked Belle, "two or three of the boys I used to know in New York are in that team, one of them is a kind of cousin of mine." "Oh," said Nora, "I didn't know that you thought that people had to be so very devoted to cousins." Even Belle herself could not help smiling at this, which was very appropriate, following so closely, as it did, her own remarks about Julia. "You can see yourself that this is different," she answered. "I should call it very impolite if there were no orange flags shown at the game." "Well, you have the most ridiculous ideas, hasn't she, Brenda?" Brenda nodded assent, and Nora continued, "I never knew that people had to think that about politeness in college games; why it's a duty to do everything you can to help your own side----" "I never said that Harvard was my side," interrupted Belle, "didn't I tell you that I have a cousin on the Princeton team." "You'd better not say anything of that kind to Philip, or to Edith, either, they are both perfectly devoted to Harvard, and they expect their party to give great encouragement to the Harvard team. Why, Belle, I cannot imagine your doing anything else." "I'm not a child," responded Belle very crossly, walking away from Nora and Brenda, "I do not need to be told what to do." What Nora or Brenda might have answered, I cannot say, for hardly had Belle disappeared within the house, when Edith herself appeared, with Julia and Ruth. Ruth was a pretty and amiable girl, about Julia's age, and therefore a little older than "The Four." She had been in the school for two years before the coming of Julia, but in all that time she had had only a speaking acquaintance with the other girls. Many of them would probably have been surprised had any one told them that they were very selfish in leaving their schoolmate so entirely to herself. It was not because they did not like her. They were merely so very much wrapped up in their own affairs, that they hardly noticed that she was often left to herself. Ruth lived in the suburbs, and as Belle had said, outside of school the other girls seldom saw her. At recess each little group had so many personal things to talk about that an outsider would have been decidedly in the way, and would, perhaps, have been a little uncomfortable in joining them. No one gets a great deal of enjoyment from reading a single chapter in the middle of a book, and so it is often hard to be a mere listener when the tongues of half a dozen girls are vigorously discussing people and events of which the listener has not the slightest knowledge. Ruth herself was very independent, and as she was more interested in her studies than many of the girls at Miss Crawdon's she had acquired the habit of studying during recess. Since after school she spent more time than most girls of her age in outdoor sports, it did her no great harm to pass the half-hour of recess in this way. Ruth, as well as Julia, had undertaken to prepare for college, and it had been a great delight to her to have the latter placed with her in one or two special classes. Julia's liking for her had made Edith take a little more interest in her than would otherwise have been the case, but the ball game was the first important event in which she was included with the others of Julia's set. She naturally was pleased at the prospect of going with the others, for like Julia, she had never seen a great football game. No one who saw the hearty way in which Nora and Brenda greeted Ruth, as she came up with Edith and Julia, could for a moment have imagined that she had been under discussion. The mercurial Brenda for the moment was so annoyed by Belle's proposed championship of Princeton, that she was unexpectedly cordial to Ruth, and almost to her own surprise found herself urging Ruth to come to town early on the Saturday of the game, to take luncheon with her and Julia. The latter expressed her thanks in a glance towards her cousin, as Ruth accepted very gracefully, and Nora exclaimed, "What fun we are going to have; you know we are all invited to dine at Edith's that evening. Oh dear! I can hardly wait for Saturday." "I know it," replied Brenda, "it's less than a week, too, but it seems an awfully long time." Then they gossiped a moment in a very harmless fashion about the prospects of Harvard, and Edith quoted one or two things that Philip had said, and Nora told them that her father was perfectly sure that the crimson would win, and as they trooped into the dressing-room when the bell rang, Belle was surprised to see Brenda leaning on Ruth's arm. XIV THE FOOTBALL GAME At last the wished-for Saturday arrived. It was one of those clear, bracing days that always put every one in good-humor. Though cool, it was not too cool for the comfort of the girls and older women who were to sit for two or three hours in the open air. Every car running to Cambridge carried a double load, with men and boys crowding the platform in dangerous fashion. Carriages of every description were rushing over the long bridge between Boston and the University City and not only were red or orange flags to be seen waving on every side--small flags that could be easily folded up, but occasionally some group of youths would break out into the college cry. Edith and her guests drove out to Cambridge in carriages, although they all thought that the cars would have been much more amusing. Edith, however, had had to yield to her mother's wishes, for Mrs. Blair had a strong objection to street cars, and Edith was forbidden to ride in any except those of the blue line in Marlborough street. But if less entertaining, the carriage ride was probably more comfortable than a journey by car would have been on that day of excitement. Edith and Julia and Ruth and Nora rode in one carriage, while Brenda, Belle, Frances Pounder and Mrs. Blair were in the other. As Frances was a distant cousin of Edith's, her mother usually included her in her invitations, although in general disposition the two girls were very unlike. Belle and Frances were more congenial, and had the same habit of talking superciliously about other people. Brenda and Frances were sometimes on very good terms, and sometimes they hardly spoke to each other for weeks. For Frances had an irritating habit of "stepping on people's feelings" as Nora said, whether with intent or from sheer carelessness, no one felt exactly sure. She was the least companionable of all the girls of their acquaintance, but on account of her relationship to Edith she often had to be with them when "The Four" or rather three of the four would have preferred some other girl. When the carriages with Edith and her party reached Cambridge they drew up before Memorial Hall as Mrs. Blair had arranged with Philip. "We thought," she said, "that it would be both easier and pleasanter to leave the carriages here, and walk to the field." And the girls agreed with her. They felt more "grown up" walking along with their escorts, than if seated in the carriage under the eye of Mrs. Blair. Philip, of course, was on the spot, to meet them, and one of his friends was with him. "I couldn't get any more fellows," he said in an aside to his mother, "to promise to sit with us, they'd rather be off by themselves with the rest of the men. It really is more fun, you know." "Hush," whispered his mother, fearing lest some of her friends might hear this rather ungallant speech. "O, of course I don't mind it much," he continued in answer to his mother's look of reproach, "I'm willing to please Edith this once, but I wouldn't want to have to look after a lot of girls very often." Then he turned around to let himself be presented to Ruth, whom he had not met before, and Mrs. Blair introduced his friend Will Hardon to all the others,--except of course Edith who knew him. Belle looked a little disturbed when she saw that there were to be but two students to escort them, and she forgot for the time being, that girls of less than sixteen can hardly expect to be considered young ladies by college undergraduates, who at the sophomore stage of existence are more inclined to the society of women a few years their senior. Belle knew, however, that she had the manners of an older person, and she kept herself fairly well informed on college matters--that is on their lighter aspect, and could talk of the sports, and of the "Dicky," with greater ease than many girls of eighteen or twenty. Therefore as she walked along beside Will Hardon, her tongue rushed on at a great rate, bewildering the youth so that he had hardly a word to reply. Brenda, walking on Will's other side listened in admiration to Belle's fluency. Try her best Brenda never could have imitated it herself, but it was one secret of Belle's influence over her, this ability to talk and act like a real young lady instead of a schoolgirl. Philip attached himself to Ruth and Julia, Edith and Nora walked together, and Mrs. Blair and Frances Pounder brought up the rear, "Just where I can keep my eye on you," Mrs. Blair had said laughingly to them as they started. Julia was the only one of the group who had never been on the field--or even in Cambridge before. She was astonished when she reached the field to see the great crowd of spectators. It was a scene that she had never imagined. Tier above tier at one side were the benches filled with men and women, with bright flags fluttering, or rather little banners and handkerchiefs, all eagerly looking towards the centre. Then there was the great throng of students massed by themselves, and the crowds of older men, all intent on the coming game. What cheers as the rival elevens came upon the field! For an instant the volume of sound seemed almost as strong for Princeton as for Harvard. From the very first moment when Princeton lined up for the kick-off Julia's eyes eagerly followed the ball. At the beginning Princeton seemed to lead, but when Harvard gained ten yards on two rushes by her full-back, and her left half-back had the ball on Princeton's thirty-yard line, the crimson scarfs fluttered very prettily. "Say, isn't that a fine play for Roth," cried Philip, as the Harvard fall-back tore through Princeton's centre for four yards planting the ball on the thirty-yard line, and then a little later after some good play on both sides, he yelled wildly as he saw that Princeton was really driven to the last ditch, with Harvard only one yard to gain. Both made the try, and scored a touch-down in exactly fifteen minutes' play. Then when Hall, on the Harvard side, a great stalwart fellow brought the ball out, and held it for Hutton to kick on the try for goal, even Frances Pounder lost her air of indifference, and as the ball struck the goal post, and bounded back, she watched to see whether this was a time for applause, and finally condescended to clap her hands. The score now stood Harvard 4, Princeton 0, and Philip and Will excusing themselves for a few minutes leaped down to talk matters over with their classmates standing below at the end of the benches. As the game continued Roth distinguished himself still further. He scored another touch-down for Harvard from which a goal was kicked, making the score 10 to 0. "It's almost too one-sided," said Julia, "and I can't exactly understand it, for the Princeton men seem to be playing well, and really if you look at them, they are larger than most of the Harvard players,--_that_ ought to count in a game like this." "Well the game isn't over yet, and there may be some surprises before it is through." But just here Philip and his friend returned, and when Belle asked what the other men thought of the Princeton prospects, "Oh, they haven't a leg to stand on," said Philip, "at least that's what every one says, and you can see for yourself now, they can't hold out against our men." "I'm thankful for one thing," said Mrs. Blair, leaning towards her son, "there haven't been any serious accidents yet, although I am always expecting something dreadful to happen." Hardly had she spoken, when two or three ladies in the neighborhood screamed. Princeton had just secured the ball, when one of her men who had fallen with half a dozen others on top of him, seemed unable to rise. He had in fact to be carried from the field, and though the girls afterward learned that he had only broken his collar bone, like so many other spectators, for the time being they were decidedly alarmed at his condition. After this Princeton had a little better luck. Harvard tried for a goal from the thirty-five-yard line, but missed. Then the ball was Princeton's on her twenty-five-yard line, and after several rushes with small gains, the ball was passed back to Princeton's full-back for a kick. The ball went high in the air, and the Princeton's ends got down the field in beautiful shape. A Harvard half-back muffed the ball, and it was Princeton's on Harvard's twenty-yard line. Just here, Belle, emboldened by the turn of events managed to take a large orange and black scarf from her pocket. As yet she had not dared to wave it, though if you stop to think, had she been truly sympathetic, she ought to have had courage to show her colors even when her chosen side was losing ground. Now in spite of the improvement in Princeton's play, the score had not changed, though Princeton had the ball on Harvard's ten-yard line when two minutes later the first half ended. In the second half of the game there was more excitement than in the first. Roth, who had been the hero of the afternoon in Harvard eyes, was carried off, and two or three Princeton men were disabled. Harvard, contrary to what had been expected was apparently playing the fiercer game. The yell of the Harvard sympathizers grew louder and louder. In two downs Princeton had gained four yards. Then when the ball was passed to Dinsmore the noted Princeton half-back, Douglass, the popular Harvard quarter-back tore through the centre, and downed Dinsmore with the loss of five yards, making it Harvard's ball on Princeton's twenty-two yard line. The wildest hurrahing--a perfect pandemonium--now arose from the Harvard bleachers. For the crimson was within striking distance of a touch-down, and the orange had begun to droop. The girls in Edith's party, even those not wholly familiar with the game in its finer points, were thoroughly worked up. Some of the rough play worried Edith, and she buried her face in her hands with a shudder when Jefferson, the Harvard centre was carried from the field apparently senseless. "Don't be a goose, Edith," whispered Nora, "you know that it can't be anything very dreadful, or they wouldn't go on playing." "Oh, yes, they would," murmured Edith. "They'd do anything in a football game, they haven't a bit of feeling." But she lifted her head, and was repaid by seeing Hutton kick a goal from the field thus sending the score up to fifteen. This especially pleased her, because Hutton's little sister, who had a high opinion of her brother's prowess, was a great pet of hers. "Don't you feel much as the Roman women used to feel at the Coliseum games?" Julia contrived to say to Ruth in one of the intervals of play. "It's almost as savage a sport as some of those gladiator affairs," replied Ruth, "but I don't believe that the gladiators were more uncivilized-looking than these players. Did you ever see such hair?" The next moment the girls were all attention. For although the Harvard score never went beyond that fifteen, the game was an absorbing one for the followers of both colors. Princeton's battering-ram proved effective more than once, and every one could see that in the matter of strength her men were ahead of the Harvard team. But in activity Harvard was undeniably the superior, and at last when the game was called, the score still stood 16 to 0 in favor of the crimson. Then what a scene! Men almost fell on one another's necks in their delight. The team was surrounded by a dense throng, and the 'rah, 'rah, 'rah was fairly deafening. The friends of the vanquished hurried away from the field, and only a few of the younger and more enthusiastic lingered about in little knots to argue the situation, and prophesy a victory for their own men at the next intercollegiate match. "Oh, don't let's go off right away," cried Brenda, as she saw Edith turning in the direction of the exit from the field. "No, we might as well wait until Philip comes back; he and Will couldn't resist going over there on the field to talk things over with some of their friends," said Mrs. Blair, "and I told them that I felt sure that you would excuse them." "Why, of course," added Julia, and Ruth followed with a polite, "Yes, indeed." But Belle, looking a little discontented, said nothing. "What is the good," she was saying to herself, "of having two young men in your party, if they never stay with you, when so many of the other girls are at the game with only their fathers, or elderly relatives." If she had thought carefully, she would have realized that the two boys had really sacrificed not a little fun to act as escorts to "a parcel of girls," as some of their student friends put it. Really they had been very polite, they had hardly laughed at the mistakes made by the girls in the use of terms during the game, and they had been more than willing to explain the fine points of the play. When they were with the girls, it was not Belle whom they thought the most about, but on Philip's part, it was Julia, and on Will's, Ruth with her bright face, and vivacious manner. "Did you see papa?" cried Nora, "he was tossing his hat in the air, like a boy. I tried to make him look at us, but he would not do so. I suppose it was harder for him to recognize us than for me to distinguish him." "No, I didn't see your father," replied Edith, "but I did see your brother Clifford. He, however, never looked our way for a second. He had his hat on the back of his head, and he and two or three other men seemed beside themselves." "Oh, yes, I suppose he and his friends are dreadfully pleased. You know that Jefferson is a great friend of theirs." "But he was hurt." "Oh, that's nothing! As long as he wasn't killed it's all the more glory for him. He and Clifford are room-mates, and they are devoted to each other." Then as the crowds from the benches swept past the girls, they saw many friends and acquaintances, and Belle's injured pride was salved by the return of Philip and Will just as two or three girls whom she especially disliked walked past escorted only by an uncle. How pleasant the walk back to the Square through the college grounds was, with a few minutes in Philip's room, not long enough for the cup of tea which he wished to offer, but long enough to make them all enthusiastic to accept his invitation to come out to Cambridge some other afternoon and examine his trophies. Really there seemed to be few ornaments on the walls that were not connected in some way with college sports--flags, medals, certificates of membership in this society or that, photographs of the crew, of the teams,--but some time you may hear more about the room, and so I will leave my description of it until then. To Julia the whole day had been more than delightful, she enjoyed every moment of it, and she began to feel so at home with Edith's friends, that not even Belle could rival her in quickness of repartee. Frances Pounder looked at her in astonishment, when some of her own little snubbing remarks fell one side without any effect. Ruth Roberts, too, proved herself a great acquisition to the party, especially at the dinner at Edith's. For Mrs. Blair gave an elaborate dinner to the group that had attended the game, increased by the addition of two friends of Philip's; and even if, as the worldly wise Frances Pounder suggested, the whole affair had been arranged to prevent Philip and his friends from joining the boisterous crowd of students in their Cambridge celebration of the victory, Philip certainly had occasion to congratulate himself on possessing a mother who would take so much trouble for her children. So Brenda ate raw oysters, and Belle entertained Will Hardon with an account of her last visit to New York, and Nora endeavored to eat and talk at the same time, and Edith smiled placidly on her friends while trying to remove the sting from some of Frances Pounder's sharp remarks, and Julia forgot her shyness, and Ruth Roberts impressed Mrs. Blair as a particularly intelligent girl, and all the boys, as well as the girls, said that they had never had a pleasanter afternoon. So who can say that the game had not proved itself a great success in more ways than one? XV A POET AT HOME One day Julia had an adventure--not "a wildly exciting one," as some of the girls liked to describe what had happened to them, but one that she was always to remember with pleasure. It was a windy day in early January, and there was a fine glaze on the ground from a storm of the day before. As she was slipping along down Beacon street, on her way home from school, it was all that she could do to hold her footing. One hand was kept in constant use holding down the brim of her hat which seemed inclined to blow away. Luckily she had no books to carry, and so when suddenly she saw some sheets of letter paper whirling past her, she was able to rush on and pick them up as they were dashed against a lamp-post. Another moment, and they would have been driven by another gust of wind down a short street leading to the river. [Illustration: "SHE WAS ABLE TO RUSH ON AND PICK THEM UP AS THEY WERE DASHED AGAINST A LAMP-POST"] When she had the papers safely in her possession, Julia naturally looked around to see to whom they belonged. The owner was not far away, for just a few steps behind her was an old gentleman, not very tall, dressed all in black with a high silk hat. Under his arm he carried a book, and as he held out his hand towards her Julia had no doubt that he was the owner of the wandering manuscript. "Thank you, my child," he said, as she held the sheets towards him. "Another gust, and I should have had to compose a new poem to take the place of the one that was so ready to--go to press against that lamp-post. "There, that was not a very brilliant pun, was it?" he asked, for Julia now was walking along by his side. "Why, sir," she had begun to say, looking up in his face. Then suddenly she gave a start. Surely she had seen that face before! But where? Yet almost in a shorter time than I have taken to tell it, she recognized the owner of the papers. He was certainly no other than Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the famous Autocrat of the Breakfast table, several of whose poems she knew almost by heart. All her old shyness came back to her, she did not exactly dare to say that she recognized him, and all she could think of was another question in relation to the manuscript. "Were--were they some of your own poems?" she managed to stammer, "it would have been dreadful if they had been lost." "Not half as dreadful," he replied smiling, "as if they had been written by some one else. As a matter of fact these were sent me by an unfledged poet who wished me to tell him whether he would stand a chance of getting them into a publisher's hands. He told me to take great care of them as he had no copy. I read his note at my publisher's just now, and I felt bound to carry the manuscript home. But I'm not sure that it would not have been a good thing to lose a sheet or two to teach him a lesson. He should not send a thing to a stranger without making a copy." The poet of course did not speak to Julia in precisely these words, but this was the drift of what he said, and it was in about this form that she repeated it to her aunt and Brenda at the luncheon table. "What else did he say?" her aunt had asked, with great interest. "Oh, he thanked me again for picking up the papers, complimented me for being so sure-footed on such a slippery sidewalk, and what do you think, Aunt Anna, when he heard that I had not long been in Boston, he asked me to call some afternoon to see him. He is always at home after four. I walked along until he reached his door step. Do you know that he lives very near here. I was _so_ surprised to find it out. Have you ever been there, Brenda?" "No," said Brenda, shaking her head, "I did not exactly notice whom you were talking about." "Why, Dr. Holmes," replied Julia. "Oh," said Brenda, with a stare that seemed to imply that this name did not mean much to her. "Why, you know, Brenda, Oliver Wendell Holmes?" prompted her mother, and still Brenda looked rather blank. "Brenda," said Mrs. Barlow, "I am surprised. Surely you remember how pleased you were with 'The Last Leaf' when I had you learn it last summer, and you _must_ remember that I told you that the poet who wrote it lives in Boston." "I dare say," answered Brenda carelessly, "but I had forgotten. I don't see why Julia should be so excited about meeting a poet. There must be ever so many of them everywhere." "Ah! Brenda," responded her mother, "I do wish that you would take more interest in the affairs of your own city. Here is Julia who has been in Boston but a short time, and I am sure that she knows more about our famous men and women than you who have lived here all your life." For a wonder Brenda did not laugh at what her mother said, nor take offence. "I never shall be a book-worm," she said very good-naturedly. "I am willing to leave all that to Julia." So when Julia asked her one afternoon, if she would not like to go with her to call on Dr. Holmes, she declined with thanks, and left Julia free to invite Edith. As the two friends walked up the short flight of stone steps to the front door, their hearts sank a little. To make a call on a poet was really a rather formidable thing, and they pressed each other's hands as they heard the maid opening the door to admit them. "Just wait here for a moment," said the maid, after they had enquired for the master of the house, and she showed them into a small room at the left of the entrance. It seemed to be merely a reception-room, but it was very pretty with its white woodwork and large-flowered yellow paper. There was a carved table in the centre with writing materials and ink-stand, and little other furniture besides a few handsome chairs. Tall bookcases matching the woodwork occupied the recesses, and they were filled with books in substantial bindings. In a moment the maid had returned and asked them to follow her. At the head of the broad stairs they saw the poet himself standing to meet them with outstretched hand. When Julia mentioned Edith's name, "Ah," he said, "that is a good old Boston name, and if I mistake not, I used to know your grandfather," and then when Edith had satisfied him on this point he turned to Julia, and in a bantering way spoke of the service she had done him that windy day. Then he made them sit down beside him, one on each side, while he occupied a large leather armchair drawn up before his open fire, and asked them one or two questions about their studies and their taste in literature. As he talked, Julia's eyes wandered to the bronze figure of Father Time on the mantelpiece, and then to the little revolving bookcase on which she could not help noticing a number of volumes of Dr. Holmes' own works. The old gentleman following her glance, said: "They make a pretty fair showing for one man, but my publishers are getting ready to bring out a complete edition of my works, and that, well that makes me realize my age." After a moment, as if reflecting, he asked quickly, "Does either of you write poetry?" "Oh, no, sir," answered Edith quickly, "we couldn't." "Why, it isn't so very hard," he said, "at least I should judge not by the numbers of copies of verses that are sent to me to examine. Poetry deals with common human emotion, and almost any one with a fair vocabulary thinks that he can express himself in verse. But nearly everything worth saying has been said. Words and expressions seem very felicitous to the writer, but he cannot expect other persons to see his work as he sees it." "It depends, I suppose," said Edith shyly, "on whose work it is." "I am afraid," replied the poet, "that there is no absolute standard for verse-makers. It has always seemed to me that the writer of verse is almost in the position of a man who makes a mold for a plaster cast or something of that kind. Whatever liquid mixture he puts into that mold will surely fit it. So the verse is the mold into which the poet puts his thought, and from his point of view it is sure to fit." Though Edith may not have grasped the full force of the poet's meaning, Julia was sure that she understood him. "Do you really have a great deal of poetry sent you to read?" she asked. "Every mail," he answered, "brings me letters from strangers,--from every corner of the globe. Some contain poems in my honor, as specimens of what the poet can do. Others are accompanied by long manuscripts on which my opinion is asked. I am chary now about expressing any opinion, for publishers have a way of quoting very unfairly in their advertisements. If I write 'your book would be very charming were it not so carelessly written,' the publisher quotes merely 'very charming,' and prints this in large type." Both girls smiled at the expression of droll sorrow that came over the poet's face as he spoke. "And I am so very unfortunate myself," he added, "when I try to get an autograph of any consequence. Now I sent Gladstone a copy of a work on trees in which I thought he would be interested. He returned the compliment with a copy of one of his books. But--" here he paused, "he wrote his thanks on a postcard!" Again the girls laughed. "Dear me!" he concluded, "this cannot interest young creatures like you; do you care for poetry?" "Oh, yes indeed we do," cried Julia, "and we just love your poetry." "Well, well," said the poet, with a twinkle in his eye, "perhaps you would like to hear me read something?" The beaming faces that met his glance were a sufficient answer, and taking a volume from the table, he began in a voice that was a trifle husky, though full of expression, "This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,-- The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its venturous wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea maids raise to sun their streaming hair." When he had finished the stanza, he looked up enquiringly. "The Chambered Nautilus," murmured Julia. "Ah, you know it then?" said the poet. "Oh, yes, I love it," she answered. Then with a smile of appreciation, adjusting his glasses, Dr. Holmes read to the end of the poem in his wonderfully musical voice. When it was finished, the girls would have liked to ask for more, but the poet rose to replace the volume. "Come," he said, "you have listened to the poem which of all I have written I like the best, now I wish to show you my favorite view." Following him to the deep bay-window, they looked out across the river. It was much the same view to which Julia was accustomed in her uncle's house, and yet it was looking at the river with new eyes to have the poet pointing out all the towns, seven or eight in number which he could see from that window. Somerville, Medford, Belmont, Arlington, Charlestown, Brookline, and one or two others, perhaps, besides Cambridge with its spires and chimneys. "In winter," said Dr. Holmes, "there is not much to see besides the tug-boats and the gulls. But in the early spring it is a delight to me to watch the crews rowing by, and an occasional pleasure-boat, ah! I remember"--but what it was he did not say, for as Edith turned her eyes toward an oil painting on the wall near by he said, "Of course you know who that is; of course you recognize the famous Dorothy Q. Now look at the portrait closely, and tell me what you think of that cheek. Could you imagine any one so cruel as to have struck a sword into it? Yet there, if your eyes are sharp enough, you will see where a British soldier of the Revolution thrust this rapier." When both girls admitted that they could not see the scar, "That only shows," he said, "how clever the man was who made the repairs." Before they turned from the window he made them notice the tall factory chimneys on the other side of the river which he called his thermometers, because according to the direction in which the smoke curled upwards, he was able to tell how the wind blew, and decide in what direction he should walk. "Remember," he said, "when you reach my age always to walk with your back to the wind," and at this the girls smiled, they feeling that it would be many years before they should need to follow this advice. Yet during their call how many things they had to see and to remember! He let each of them hold for a moment the gold pen with which he had written Elsie Venner and the Autocrat papers, and Julia turned over the leaves of the large Bible and the Concordance on the top of his writing table. Dr. Holmes called their attention to the beautiful landscape hanging on one wall done in fine needlework by the hands of his accomplished daughter-in-law, and he told them a story or two connected with another picture in the room. Julia, as she looked about, thought that she had seldom seen a prettier room than this with its cheerful rugs, massive furniture, and fine pictures, all so simple and yet so dignified. When the poet pointed out the great pile of letters lying on his desk, he told them that this was about the number that he received every day. "But you don't answer them all," exclaimed Edith almost breathlessly. "No, indeed," and he laughed, "my secretary goes through them every morning, and decides which ought to be given me to read, and then--well if it is anything very personal I try to answer it myself. Often, however, I let her write the answer, while I simply add the signature." Edith gave Julia a little nudge; they were both at the age when the possession of an autograph of a famous man is something to be ardently desired. But neither of them had quite dared to ask Doctor Holmes for his. It is possible that he saw the little nudge, or perhaps he read the eager expression on their faces, for almost before they realized it he had placed in the hand of each of them a small volume in a white cover, and bidding them open their books he said, "Well, I must put something on that bare fly-leaf." So seating himself at his table with a quill pen in his hand, he wrote slowly and evidently with some effort, the name of each of them, followed by the words "With the regards of Oliver Wendell Holmes," and then the year, and the day of the month. As he handed them the books, he opened the door, and with a word or two more of half bantering thanks to Julia for her assistance on that windy day, he bowed them down the stairs. So impressed were they by the visit that they had little to say until they reached home, where they found Mrs. Barlow a very sympathetic listener. Brenda, who happened to be at home looked with interest at the little volumes of selections from Doctor Holmes' writings with their valuable autographs, and said, "Well, you might have taken me, too." "Why, Brenda, I am sure that I asked you," said Julia, "but you declared that you would not speak to a poet for anything in the world." They all laughed at this, a proceeding which this time did not annoy Brenda. Mrs. Barlow admired the little books. "But I hope that you did not stay too long," she said gently, "for I have been told that Doctor Holmes has a way of sending off a guest who tires him, by bringing out one of these little gift books." "Oh, I don't think we tired him," said Julia; "at any rate he was too polite to show it, but I'm glad that we have the books." XVI AN HISTORIC RAMBLE On a bright, sunny morning just before the beginning of the Christmas holidays, Miss South asked Julia if she would care to go within a day or two to visit some of the historic spots at the North End. "It is not quite as good a season," the teacher had added, "as in the early autumn or spring, but I have learned that it is never well to put off indefinitely what can be as well done at once. Something may happen to prevent our going later, and so if you can go with me this week I shall be very glad." "Oh, thank you, Miss South," replied Julia, "I should love to go, and any day this week would do." "And I may go, too, mayn't I?" cried Nora, who happened to be standing by. "Why, certainly," replied Miss South, "the more, the better; I should be pleased to have all 'The Four' go." As it happened, however, on the afternoon selected for the excursion, only Julia and Nora really cared to go. Brenda and Belle had some special appointment which nothing would induce them to break, and Edith expressed decided objections against going again into that dirty part of the town. Even a Boston December can offer many a balmy day, and one could not wish a pleasanter afternoon than that which Julia and Nora had for their visit to the North End under the guidance of Miss South. She made Faneuil Hall the beginning of the trip, and if I had time I should like to repeat what she told them about this famous building and its donor, old Peter Faneuil, the descendant of the Huguenots. Nora was very much impressed by hearing that the first public meeting in the building which Peter Faneuil had given to his native town was that which assembled to hear Master Lovejoy of the Latin School pronounce a funeral eulogy over the donor of the hall. For his death happened less than six months after the town had formally accepted his gift in 1742. "You must remember," said Miss South, "that fire, and other causes have led to many changes in the old building, both inside and out, and yet it may still be considered the most interesting building in the country historically, or at least of equal interest with Independence Hall in Philadelphia." As they walked about and looked at the portraits of Washington, and Hancock, and Adams, and Warren and the other great men considered worth a place in this famous hall, Miss South told them of a political meeting which she had once attended there, and how interesting it had been to look down from the galleries upon the mass of men standing on the floor below. For no seats are ever placed in this part of the hall, and with an exciting cause, or a noted speaker to attract, the sight of this crowd of men close pressed together is well worth seeing. "There is one time in particular," said Julia, "when I should have loved to look in on the people in the hall." "When was that?" asked Miss South. "Why, during the Siege of Boston," she answered, "when the British turned it into a play-house, and all the British officers in town were attending 'The Blockade of Boston.'" "Why, how can you remember?" exclaimed Nora. "I don't know," said Julia; "I've always remembered it since I read it in some history that just in the midst of the play the audience rose in great excitement at the report 'The Yankees are attacking our works at Charlestown.'" "Yes, that was the beginning of the end for the British in Boston," said Miss South. "We are going to see other things to remind us of them this afternoon. But now we must hasten on, for the afternoon will hardly be long enough for all that we wish to see." Then after a short walk, she said, "I am taking you a little out of your way to show you one or two spots that you might overlook yourself. Now just here at this corner of Washington and Union streets, where we stand, Benjamin Franklin passed much of his boyhood. Some persons believe that his birthplace was here. But I am more inclined to accept the Milk street location than this. Yet, here, almost where we stand, his father hung out the Blue Ball sign for his tallow candle business, and here, too, he lived with his wife and thirteen children. "Not far away," she continued as they walked along, "was the Green Dragon Tavern where John Adams, and Revere, and Otis and the other Sons of Liberty used to hold their meetings, and this--let us stand here for a moment--is the site of the home of Joseph Warren. Here, where this hotel stands in Hanover street, he lived and practised his profession of physician, and in this old house I suppose, the news was brought to his children of his death at Bunker Hill." To save their strength Miss South now signalled a passing street car, and in a very few minutes they were taken to the corner of Prince street. On the way Miss South had said that she wished to show them North Square, and when they left the car, one turn from the main thoroughfare brought them within sight of this noted locality. The little corner shops, of which there were many in sight had signs worded in Italian, and some of the shop windows displayed all kinds of foreign-looking pastry and confections--less tempting, however, in appearance than the fresh green vegetables shown in the windows and doorways of other shops. The dark-browed men and women who passed spoke to each other in Italian, and some of the women wore short skirts and bright kerchiefs which made their whole costume seem thoroughly foreign. "Down this Garden Court street," said Miss South, just before they reached the square, "used to stand the house of Sir Harry Frankland." "Oh, yes," cried Nora, "there's _one_ thing that I remember, the story of Agnes Surriage. I've read the novel." "Well, Agnes used to live here," said Miss South, "at least in this neighborhood. No trace of the old mansion remains, although when built it was the finest house in town, three stories high, with inlaid floor, carved mantels, and other decorations that even to-day we should probably admire. Many other houses in this neighborhood are old, and I have a friend who can tell almost their precise age by studying the style of the bricks and mortar, but the only one of great historic interest is that little old wooden house," and she pointed to one on the western side of the square. "It does not look so very old," said Julia. "No, because it has been clapboarded after the modern fashion. Aside from that, however, you can see that its overhanging upper story makes it unlike any house built in modern times. Here Paul Revere lived for many years, and his birthplace is near-by. I hope that in time it may be bought by some patriotic person, to be preserved as long as it will stand. At present it is a tenement house, and liable to destruction by fire at any moment through the carelessness of its occupants. Now we must hurry on, but I wish that you could come to the square some time on a holiday, when it is a centre for all the picturesque Italians of whom there are so many now in this part of the city." As they turned about under Miss South's guidance, she pointed out other old houses--(one with the date 1724 above it) almost tumbling down,--and she told them a little about the habits of the people living in the narrow streets and alleys which they passed. "On the whole these people are much better off than ever they were in their own country. They have political liberty, and their children have the chance of acquiring a good education. In that school over there they are taught to speak English, and they do learn it in a very thorough manner. The older people are slow in learning our language, and even slower in acquiring our habits. They are so anxious to make money that they live crowded together in a very unwholesome fashion. Sometimes a whole family and one or two boarders will live in the same small room, and the children will go without proper food or clothes while the father is saving money enough to invest in a house or shop which he wishes to own." "Cannot this be prevented?" asked Julia. "Only by teaching young and old better habits. That is the effort which all the charity workers in this neighborhood make. The kindergartens, and industrial schools, and all the other organizations are gradually accomplishing this. But it is hard work. I should like to tell you more about their difficulties, but now I suppose we must pay more attention to history." While Miss South had been talking she had led them up a narrow street which in snowy weather must have lived up to its name "Snowhill street." At the top of the hill after a turn or two they came upon an old burying-ground. "Copp's Hill," said Julia. "Why of course," responded Nora. "I brought you here to-day," said Miss South, "because I knew that the gates would be open. One cannot always get in during the winter months except by special arrangement. But in summer the old graveyard is like a park, and the little children from all parts of the North End come here to play, and mothers with their babies are thankful enough for a seat under the trees where they can feel the cool breeze from the harbor." "How quaint it is!" said Julia, looking down the narrow street, just as they entered the gate. "Why there is Christ Church, isn't it?" "How did you know it?" asked Nora, "I thought that you had never been here before." "Well, I haven't, but there are ever so many photographs, showing just this view. What is that queer little house, Miss South?" "I am glad that you asked, although I should not have forgotten to point it out. That is a real Revolutionary relic, General Gage's headquarters during part of the British occupation; it is one of the most interesting houses left standing." Now turning their steps away from the quaint, hilly street, they were within the enclosure of the graveyard. It would take long to tell all that they saw. There was the old gravestone which the British had made a target, and marked with their bullets. There were some stones with nothing but the name and date, and neither very legible, others with rough carvings of cherubs' heads, or the angel of death, while some of the vaults at the side had heraldic carvings, the arms of old Tory families. Miss South told them of the days when this graveyard had been neglected, and when the gravestones had toppled over, and had been carried off by any one who wished them. Some had been found by the present custodian of the ground in use as covers for drains, others as chimney tops, and some in old cellars and basements. There were famous names on some of the stones, and strange verses on others. Julia copied an inscription or two, such as, "A sister of Sarah Lucas lyeth here, Whom I did love most dear; And now her soul hath took its flight, And bid her spightful foes good-night." and this "Death with his dart hath pierced my heart, While I was in my prime; When this you see grieve not for me 'Twas God's appointed time." She had heard before of the Mather tomb, and looked with great interest on the brown slab enclosed with an iron railing, under which rested the noted Puritan preacher. Yet while Julia took interest in the stones and inscriptions, Nora was better pleased with the lovely view of the water to be seen from the summit. "It was there in the channel," said Miss South, "that the men-of-war lay when Paul Revere started out on that wonderful ride, and not so far from the spot where the receiving ship 'Wabash' now lies at the Navy Yard, the British landed in Charlestown on their way to Bunker Hill." "Oh, yes," said Julia, who had put aside her pencil and notebook, "I can understand now what a fine view the people of Boston must have had of the battle when they crowded to the graveyard and the roofs." "Yes, there was almost a clear view then," said Miss South, "and it must have been a very exciting day for the watchers on the Boston side of the water." "They were making for the steeple,--the old sexton and his people; The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair, Just across the narrow river--oh so close it made us shiver! Stood a fortress on the hilltop that but yesterday was bare. "Not slow our eyes to find it--well we knew who stood behind it, Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were dumb. Here were sister, wife and mother, looking wild upon each other, And their lips were white with terror, as they said 'The Hour is Come!'" "Bravo!" cried the others as Nora finished this quotation from Holmes' well-known poem. "If there were time," added Miss South, "we might ask Nora, or perhaps you Julia, to cap these stanzas with some other historical poem. "The North End would be well worth another visit," continued Miss South, as they turned away. "I hope that some time you will both come to a service in the old church, and if you choose the first Sunday of the month, you will be able to see the fine communion service presented by George the Second, and you will find the high backed pews and the frescoes on the wall the same as they were a hundred and twenty-five years ago." "What lots of little children there are playing about," cried Nora; "I should think that they would be run over a dozen times a day, for there are certainly more in the middle of the street than on the sidewalks. Why see there, why just look, it really is----" "Manuel," broke in Julia, as Nora rushed forward and took the little fellow by the hand--"why how are you, Manuel?" "My mother sick," he replied, smiling at Nora whom evidently he remembered very well. "Oh, couldn't we just go to see him, I mean his mother," cried Nora. "But if she is sick--" replied Miss South with hesitation. "Let us wait here at the corner--this is the very corner," pleaded Nora, "and you can see whether there would be any harm in our going there; Julia wants to see the house, and perhaps Mrs. Rosa only has a cold." As this seemed to be a sensible suggestion, Miss South with Manuel by the hand went down the little street where the Rosas were living. XVII THE ROSAS AT HOME In a few moments Miss South returned. "I do not think," she said, "that there would be the least harm in your going with me to the house. I know, Nora, that your mother would not object, and Julia, you can use your own judgment. I am sure that there is no contagious disease in the neighborhood, and----" "Oh," interrupted Julia, "do let me go back with you. I have never been in a tenement house and I am so anxious to see one. My aunt would not have the least objection, and you know that Brenda has been there." So in less time than it takes me to tell of it they were actually at the door of the house where the Rosas lived. Fortunately their rooms were now on the first floor, and as the door was open as well as the window, there was good ventilation. Had this not been the case they must have been half suffocated by the heat from the stove which was glowing hot. Mrs. Rosa was seated in a high backed wooden rocking-chair, but she rose to her feet as she saw Miss South and the two girls approaching. To do this was evidently a great effort for her, and after she had said a word or two of welcome in broken English, she sank back half exhausted. She had strength, however, to speak to her elder daughter, who had not turned when they entered, and at her bidding Angelina had looked up from the depths of the mysterious mixture which she was stirring in an iron kettle, and coming forward offered her hand to the three newcomers. Two younger girls in rather untidy dresses, with half the buttons off their shoes looked on a little timidly, and no one but Manuel seemed perfectly at ease. "It's rather hard, isn't it," said Miss South pleasantly, "to take care of so many children, Mrs. Rosa?" "Oh, yes, Miss South," she replied, "they gets hungry every day, and always wants so much to eat." Even the lively Nora did not smile at this, although she afterwards said that she wondered if their mother expected the children to want only one meal a week. "But you're not able to work now; you can't go out to your fruit stand, can you?" continued Miss South. "Oh, no indeed, no indeed," shaking her head. "I'm awful weak." "Then how have you been paying your rent?" "Well, the good minister, he help me; he pay it just now, and John he have a license for papers, and he sell quite a good many every day after school--and, oh well, we get along." Mrs. Rosa had a very pleasant expression, and as she talked she looked almost handsome. Her black stuff dress, worn without a collar, made her pale face seem more haggard than usual, yet it beamed with gratitude as she told how kind one and another had been since her illness had become so serious. "Where does she sleep?" asked Julia in a half whisper to Nora. "Why, in that little room where you see the door open. I remember they told us when we were here before, that she and the girls sleep there, while the boys have a mattress to themselves on the kitchen floor. They bring it out every night." "How dreadful!" was all that Julia had time to say, for she saw Angelina's sharp eyes turned towards her, and feared that already she had been impolite in talking thus in an aside to Nora. The latter, while Miss South was talking with Mrs. Rosa about her recent symptoms, tried to draw Manuel into conversation, but, as before, only a word or two at a time could be drawn from him, although his expression was still as seraphic as ever, even when Nora was half teasing him. Yet, after all, they had been in the dingy room but a very short time when Miss South reminded them that it was growing dark, and that Mrs. Gostar and Mrs. Barlow would both disapprove their being out much later. As they rode up Hanover street in the car both girls noticed that Miss South was unusually quiet. At last Julia broke the silence. "I'm sure that you are thinking about Mrs. Rosa," she said softly. "Yes," answered Miss South, "I see that something must be done to help her, but I am not sure just what it should be. Possibly she cannot recover, or perhaps if she had a good doctor he might advise--but still, she is almost too poor to take advantage of any advice." "Yes," said Nora, "suppose a doctor should advise her to go to Colorado, or California; why he might as well talk about the moon." "I know it," murmured Julia, "and yet people are sometimes very kind to the poor." "Yes, at Christmas especially," rejoined Nora with a laugh. "Did you hear one of the little girls when I asked her what she had Thanksgiving say, 'Two turkeys, one Baptist and one 'Piscopal.'" Julia looked a little shocked at this, but Miss South only smiled. "I am afraid that loaves and fishes count for a great deal with these people when they come to select a church. They have discovered that they can get more from the Protestants than from their own church, and if they have some little disagreement with a priest, they take advantage of this to put themselves under the wing of the Bethel, or of Christ Church. Both have a great many Portuguese in attendance, and I ought not to be too censorious, for some of them undoubtedly are perfectly sincere." "How does it happen, Miss South, that you know so much about these poor North End people?" asked Julia. "There, I did not mean to be inquisitive, but it seems wonderful that you should understand them so well." "To tell you the reason fully," replied she, "would be a long story, but just now it may be enough to say that I have had a little mission class down there but a block or two from Mrs. Rosa's for several years. In this way, spending one evening among them, as well as Sunday afternoon, I have come to understand the characteristics of these foreigners." "Have you known Mrs. Rosa all this time?" asked Nora. "Oh, no indeed, I never had seen her until after you rescued Manuel. But since then I have called at the house two or three times and I have grown to like Mrs. Rosa very well. She has more influence over her children than many other foreign mothers of my acquaintance. But here we are at Scollay Square, and as it is only five o'clock, would not you enjoy walking down over Beacon Hill instead of taking another car?" "Yes, indeed," both girls exclaimed, and pleased enough they were with their choice. For as they wound in and out through some of the picturesque streets of the West End, Miss South almost made the old streets alive again with the people of the past. As they passed the head of Hancock street back of the State House, "Down there," she said, "was the Sumner homestead, where Charles Sumner lived for many years." Then as they continued down Mt. Vernon street, toward Louisbourg Square, she told them that here was once the estate of Rev. William Blackstone. "Historians," she added, "believe that the spring of fresh water whose discovery by Blackstone led Winthrop's party to prefer Boston to Charlestown, was probably not far from the centre of the grassplot in the square. But we must walk quickly," she concluded, as they turned to a side street that led them to the familiar Beacon street. "I have come over here to call your attention to this curved front of cream white at the middle of the slope. You have passed it hundreds of times, Nora, but I wonder if you have ever realized that it was for many years the home of William Hickling Prescott, the historian, and that here he wrote many of his finest works." Nora was ashamed to admit that she hardly remembered what Prescott had written. But Julia, whose historical reading had been unusually deep for one of her years, was delighted to see the home of the author of "Ferdinand and Isabella." If there had been no old landmarks to look at they all would have enjoyed the walk to the utmost. Few streets in the world are more beautiful than Beacon street, at dusk or after the lamps are lighted. Those who walk westward at this time of day have the Common and the Garden on one side, the dignified old houses on the other, and winding far in front of them the long street with its long lines of lamps, while far off in the west the heights of Brookline whose brightly lit houses and twinkling street lamps suggest a huge castle as the end of the journey. Home for Julia and Nora, however, lay far this side of Brookline, and it was not long before they had to bid Miss South good-bye, with many thanks for her kindness. Nora at dinner that evening was full of the experiences of the afternoon, and her mother and father and the younger boys were not only interested, but had various suggestions to make as to the most helpful things to do for the Rosas. I won't say that the boys were always practical, for with their minds full of the approaching Christmas they could think of little that was really worth while doing except giving the family an elaborately decorated Christmas tree. Dr. Gostar promised to find out whether Mrs. Rosa was having the proper kind of medical treatment, and Mrs. Gostar said that she would try to talk with Miss South and learn whether there was any special thing that she could do. "The Christmas tree is not a very bad suggestion," said their mother consolingly to the boys when she saw that they were disappointed that their father treated this as a matter of slight importance. "Why I think that it would be just lovely to give them a tree," added Nora, "if, if, that is, you know that we must not forget Brenda." "Of course not," replied her mother, "but Brenda does not own the Rosas, in fact I should be inclined to think that she had forgotten them lately." "Oh, she has made up her mind that she is going to accomplish something wonderful for them by means of the Easter Bazaar, and----" "In the meantime she would leave them to starve." "Oh, papa, you are laughing at me; Miss South says that there is no danger of any one's starving in Boston." "All the same you cannot expect me to encourage a dog-in-the-manger disposition in Brenda, and you have so good an adviser in Miss South that I am willing to help you to carry out any plans which she starts." Dr. Gostar was so far right in his estimate of Brenda that he would have felt more than justified in what he had said to Nora had he looked in at the Barlows at dinner-time. For he might then have seen that Brenda was very much disturbed, and from her lips he would have heard some very cross words. "Really, Julia, I think that it was awfully unkind in you and Nora to go to see the Rosas without me; you know that I wanted to see them, and you never gave me the least idea that you were going." "But I am sure that Miss South invited you to go to the North End with us." "Well, you never said a word about the Rosas, and you know that I do not care at all about old streets and houses, and besides, I could not have gone this afternoon, so that you might have waited." "How unreasonable you are, Brenda, and inconsiderate towards Julia," interposed her mother. "Really I had begun to hope that you were improving, and here you are, crosser than ever." "Yes, Brenda, don't let me hear you talk in that way again," added her father. "Well, I don't think it's fair for Julia and Miss South and Nora to keep making plans for the Rosas when I was the one who first wanted to do something for them; you remember, papa, that I asked you to buy a carpet for them, and I have been thinking so much about that Bazaar, but now it won't be a bit of good if everything is going to be done for them at Christmas." "Nonsense, Brenda, you can have a share in Julia's Christmas tree, and I cannot feel that your interest in them has continued very strong. It seems to me that you have been more interested in the Bazaar than in the Rosas, and that now you should be willing to let others make plans for them." During all the discussion Julia had had little to say, but she resolved at the earliest opportunity to ask Miss South to tell Brenda the exact condition of the Rosas. XVIII MERRY CHRISTMAS When Miss South heard of Brenda's feeling on the subject of the Rosas she hastened to invite her to assist in the Christmas tree enterprise "not so much with money, Brenda," she said, "as with your taste. I know that you and Belle can make several of the decorations for the tree. Money to spend for the things has been given me by a friend, and we shall have more than enough." With this suggestion Brenda was not at all displeased, for she had spent more than double her liberal allowance of Christmas money on gifts for her friends. A foolish habit of exchanging presents had grown up at school, and each girl tried to return the presents of the season before with something handsomer than the giver had bestowed on her. In this way those who had to consider money were called mean if they did not give a handsome present to all those whom they knew, that is those girls with whom they had anything more than a speaking acquaintance. The ever extravagant Brenda had reached almost the end of the list of those whom she wished to remember with Christmas gifts, and had had to go to her father for more money, which he gave her only on condition that she should deduct it from her allowance of the next two months. It was probably this knowledge that she could do little for the Christmas tree for the Rosas which had led her at first to express herself rather ill-naturedly to Julia on the subject. Mr. Barlow always protested a little against Brenda's present-giving habit. He said that it was very foolish to give a silver pin-tray to a girl who perhaps already had a half-dozen similar articles, which she would probably return with a silver scent bottle, of which Brenda already had more than she could use in a lifetime. "It would be much more sensible if each of you would go out and buy the thing which you wish the most for yourself and let others do the same. I have an idea that your wants would be less numerous and less costly if you felt that you were spending your own money for yourself." "Oh! papa." "Yes, I mean it. If you were in the habit of buying more books, it would not be so bad, there would be little danger of your having too many, and one book, if a duplicate, could be properly exchanged for another. But you buy such foolish things for one another, and the chief aim of each girl seems to be to outdo every other girl." "Oh, papa, I'm sure we all make out lists of what we want the most, and we always try to please one another, indeed we always do, and one can't be mean; I'm sure you wouldn't want any one to call me mean." "Now, Brenda, of course not; but there are different kinds of meanness, and I wonder how many of you girls at Miss Crawdon's ever stop to think how many little comforts your Christmas presents would buy for the needy men and women who have so little to brighten their lives. No, Brenda, I do not begrudge you the money that I give you, but I often do object to your way of spending it--sometimes," he hastened to add, as he saw the frown gathering on Brenda's face. But, after all, it would take too long to tell you how thoroughly in earnest Julia and the others were in their efforts to make the Christmas tree a success. The tree, to be sure, was the least part of it. For Mrs. Rosa's small kitchen was not adapted to a very large one, and Miss South decided that it would be rather foolish to put too much money into a thing of that kind. The decorations were inexpensive, or homemade, and the presents were useful rather than ornamental. Of course there were toys and colored picture-books for Manuel and the smaller girls, and bags of candy and oranges for each of the family, and candles enough on the tree to make a cheerful illumination for five or ten minutes while Miss South and Philip stood near by with pails of water ready to use in case a spark of fire should fall where it was not expected. But after all, things went off very well, and when the Four, or rather the Five--for Julia, of course, was included--drove down to see the distribution of the presents, they had hardly standing-room in the little kitchen. Julia and Miss South had done the most of the purchasing, and the things that they had thought of were innumerable. I need not tell you what they all were, but there was a new rug to go in front of the stove, and there were two wadded quilts for each of the family beds, there was a new gown for Mrs. Rosa, and mittens and shoes for all the children, and--but it is better for you to imagine it all, only remembering that when a family is absolutely destitute, a great deal of money may be spent without making a great show. The Christmas dinner had been sent by the Baptist Church, and on Christmas evening the children were to go to a festival at the Episcopal Church where they expected to receive some other presents. For even Miss South had not yet had enough influence to get the Rosas to devote themselves to one church. They still continued to think that to attend two Protestant churches showed a praiseworthy excess of virtue. But whatever the trouble and expense had been, the beaming faces of Mrs. Rosa and the children were sufficient compensation for Miss South and her pupils. Even Belle had no fault to find with the tree, or the Rosas or with anything connected with the celebration. But for Julia one of the pleasantest results of the Christmas tree was the intimacy which grew up between her and Miss South, a rather unusual friendship to have arisen between a girl of sixteen and a woman ten years older. Mr. and Mrs. Barlow were pleased with the animation which Julia had shown in this work for the Christmas tree, and they had no objection to the intimacy with Miss South, since Miss Crawdon had assured them that they knew her to be a young woman of unusually fine character. Just after Christmas Miss South went up to the country for a week or two of perfect rest, and Julia for the first time since she came to Boston found herself entering into a round of gaiety. Dancing parties were given almost every evening by some one of the schoolgirls, and no one thought of inviting Brenda without asking Julia, too. It is true that Julia did not care very much for round dances, but she had come to see that it was almost a duty to enter more heartily into the amusements of her schoolmates. So, putting aside--so far as she could--her natural diffidence--she almost always accompanied Brenda, and though she could not take part in round dances, she seldom had to sit alone. There was always some other girl who did not dance, or who had not been asked for the dance, and not infrequently some awkward boy who preferred sitting it out to dancing. On some occasions, even when there had been but two or three square dances in which Julia could take part, she had reported to her uncle and aunt at breakfast the next morning that she had enjoyed herself very much. "A contented mind is a continual feast," said Belle, sarcastically, when she heard Julia telling some one how much she had enjoyed a certain evening. "Why, I do not think that Julia was on the floor twice. Whenever I saw her she was talking to wall flowers, or small boys who ought to have been at home or in bed." By "small boy," Belle meant any one who was not yet in college, for she herself was hardly polite to any one younger than a sophomore, and she wondered that any hostess to whose house she was invited should think of having any one there younger than this. But the best-intentioned hostess sometimes had young cousins or nephews whom she wished to invite, and the two or three years' difference in age between a sophomore and a boy still in the preparatory school did not count for much in her eyes, however it may have been regarded by some of the girls of Belle's age. Yet in spite of Belle's unfavorable criticisms, Julia was gradually winning her way to considerable popularity, and this without any effort on her own part. She was especially polite to elderly ladies, not from any motive, but because this seemed the proper thing, and her natural kindliness of heart led her to look after any other girl who seemed neglected or lonely. As to the boys--well, while no one could tell exactly how it was, she had a way of drawing them out and making even those who hated parties, admit to her that if more girls were like her they wouldn't mind going out. "But most girls, you know, just order us boys about so, and we have to dance whether we want to or not, or they call us all kinds of things behind our backs," one of them said to Julia one evening. "Why, how do you know?" she had asked. "Oh, our sisters tell us; why haven't you any brothers yourself?" "No," said Julia, laughing at his earnestness, "nor any sisters either." "Oh, well, you know lots of girls, and you must have heard them talk. I can tell you after I have heard my sisters and their friends talking people over, I think that I will never go to a party again." "Then why do you?" "Oh, you have to; some way, the other fellows all kind of make fun of you if you don't, and then your family all get at you, and it's all an awful bore. But when I find a girl like you who don't mind sitting still and talking, I don't have quite so bad a time." Then remembering that a little more politeness was due even to a girl who didn't pretend to be fond of dancing, he added, "Wouldn't you like to try this Portland Fancy? I can generally get through that all right, and I don't mind dancing with you," and though the compliment in the last part of his speech was a little dubious, Julia accepted, to the amazement of some of the other girls, who would have felt themselves very much lowered if obliged to dance with a schoolboy. After all the gaiety of Christmas week it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for the girls to settle down to work at school. There were so many things to talk over, there was so much to think about. Christmas day itself had been very pleasant for Julia, though it had been kept by her uncle and aunt strictly as a family festival. She and Brenda were the youngest of the group gathered at the table, for Brenda's elder sister was still in Europe, and the other cousins invited to the dinner were all older than Julia and Brenda. The presents were given unostentatiously at breakfast before the arrival of any outside of the household, and Julia was touched to find that she had been remembered not only by the relatives whom she had seen, but by the absent cousins in Europe who had known her only when she was a very little girl. Brenda in her turn was extremely surprised by the handsome gifts which Julia gave to her and to her father and mother. There was the beautiful bracelet which she had been longing for as she had seen it in a Winter street window, with the tiny watch set near the clasp, while for her father and mother was a large paper edition of Thackeray, finely illustrated and elegantly bound. Brenda was too heedless of money herself to stop to count the cost of these gifts, and yet she realized that they must be expensive, and while thanking Julia with the greatest warmth, she wondered how in the world she had been able to afford them. Her father had laughed as usual at what he called her "silverware," and had asked her again as he had always asked her since she had acquired the habit of present exchanging, as he called it. "Now, wouldn't it really be more fun to have all your own money again, Brenda, so that you could start out, and buy for yourself the things that you like the most instead of all these odds and ends." "Oh, papa," Brenda had replied, as she always did, "I just love these things, and I have more presents than almost any girl I know; they say that I really am the most popular." "Yes," he rejoined, "because you make the most presents. However," as he saw a cloud settling on her face, "I will not say anything if you are happy. Only remember that you won't have any allowance again until the first of March." But an empty pocketbook did not seem the worst thing in the world to Brenda with her happy-go-lucky disposition, and on the Monday after New Year's, when they were all back in school she was the merriest of the crowd. XIX NORA'S THOUGHTLESSNESS It is never the easiest thing in the world to settle down to work after the holidays, and even Julia for a day or two found herself a little dreamy, with her thoughts constantly going back to the many pleasant things of that Christmas week. But it was not as hard for her as for her cousins to resume the regular routine. She had a more definite aim than they, with the prospect of college examinations not so very far away. Brenda had not yet made up her mind to give her approval to her cousin's studying Greek, and she did not take the trouble to contradict Belle and Frances Pounder when they said that it must be a very disagreeable thing to have a cousin who intended to be a teacher. It is true that neither Belle nor Frances was thoroughly informed as to Julia's intentions, but they never needed very definite facts on which to base their theories. Consequently when they were at a loss for a subject of conversation, they were in the habit of discussing Julia's peculiarities. Other persons did not find Julia peculiar. To older people she seemed an especially well-mannered girl, with a delightful vein of thoughtfulness that was not too often met in young girls. She had become also a decided favorite with the brothers of her school friends to an extent that sometimes seemed surprising. For Julia was not an extremely pretty girl, and she was not half so well informed on sports and games as were the girls who had lived all their lives in Boston. But she had a way of listening attentively to whatever any boy happened to be saying to her, and the questions that she asked always showed an unusual degree of attention--an attention that any one could see was not a mere pretence. Philip Blair had already begun to confide to her a larger share of his college woes than he would have confided to his placid sister Edith. For Edith had an uncomfortable habit of forgetting just what was to be kept secret, and though Philip had no very dark secrets, there were still little things that he preferred not to have told. Julia was also very ready to help Nora's younger brothers in their lessons, and as Harry Gostar said, "There isn't another girl Nora knows that could help a fellow with his Greek exercises, and even if she hasn't studied Greek any longer than I have, she has learned more than enough to show me where I make mistakes in these beastly old conjugations." There was probably some jealousy in the feeling of Frances and Belle toward Julia, but jealousy was not a strong motive with Brenda. In her case there had been little more than pettishness in her first attitude towards her cousin--the pettishness of a spoiled child. Yet this pettishness, which left to itself would have seemed of little account,--hardly worth noticing, when fanned by Belle and Frances took on the aspect of jealousy. In consequence of this feeling Julia had been made at times very uncomfortable, though no one had ever known her to say a word to Brenda in resentment. Sometimes she found it very hard not to say a word when she heard the Four rushing upstairs on the afternoons of the club meetings. Strange though it may seem, no invitation had yet been given her to assist in the work for the Bazaar, even although all the other girls realized that the success of the Rosas' Christmas tree had been largely due to her. Perhaps it was just as well that Julia had no opportunity to inspect the things that were preparing for the Bazaar. For even after these many weeks of work there was hardly a single finished article. Belle's centrepiece was so elaborate that a whole afternoon showed hardly more than a single finished leaf, or one exquisitely wrought blossom. "If any one would pay you for your time, Belle," Nora said mischievously one day, "we should have money enough to send one of the Rosa children to Europe." "You'd better talk, Nora," Belle replied, "your afghan isn't half done either, and an afghan does not begin to be as fussy as a centrepiece, and it isn't even artistic, or----" "Oh, well," Nora replied, "this is not the only thing that I have done; I keep it to work on here, but I have finished a small shawl at home, and a pair of baby's shoes, and I am going to do any number of things besides." "Ah," said Belle, tossing her head, "you won't find me working myself to death over a Bazaar. I think one afternoon a week is a great deal to give to any poor family, for that is what it amounts to, and you know that I don't care much about those Rosas, anyway." "Oh, Belle!" cried Edith, looking shocked. "No, indeed, I don't, and I am sure that Brenda does not care half as much as she pretends. Why, Edith, as for that you yourself never go down to the North End to see them." "I can't; my mother won't let me go into dirty streets or into tenement houses." "Oh! if you cared very much, you'd find some way to go there occasionally. You could drive." Edith looked so uncomfortable at this suggestion, that Nora, on whom usually fell the duty of taking up the cudgels, exclaimed, "You know that Edith was very generous at Christmas, and that she is ready to do ever so much more for the Rosas, and it isn't a bit fair to speak in that way." Belle discreetly said nothing further, for she had learned that when Nora assumed this positive tone, Brenda was apt to go over on her side, and then Belle herself would be so in the minority as to be obliged to seem an unpopular person, and if there was one thing in the world that she dreaded, it was to be considered unpopular. So trimming her sails she said, "Why, how silly you are, Nora, you know that I was only in fun. Of course we all are interested in the Rosas, and I only wish that I could do two or three centrepieces for the Bazaar. But I am always so busy at this season----" "You busy, Belle," cried Nora. "Who ever heard of such a thing. You are just the idlest person I know." "Indeed I am not," was the answer. "I have to do all the errands for the family, and half my clothes are made in the house, and we always have such stupid seamstresses, that----" "I should say so, Belle; I do think that you have had some of the ugliest clothes, lately, that I have seen this winter," interrupted Nora, rather unceremoniously. Belle reddened very deeply at this speech, for as a matter of fact she was extremely sensitive on the subject of her clothes. Unlike Brenda or Edith, she never had the privilege of going to a fine costumer; nor could she even employ the dressmaker who made some of the gowns worn by others of her set of friends. The circumstances in her family were such that she could not gratify her taste in dress. She must wear this thing or that thing that her grandmother had selected, or must have something of her mother's altered to the present fashion for girls. However skilful the alterations, she felt as if she were in some way disgraced. Now to tell the truth Belle herself had so much natural taste that only a very severe critic could see anything to criticise in her dress, and a sensible person watching the two girls would have said that it was much better for a young girl to be brought up with the somewhat economical habits that had to be Belle's than to have the rather too elegant clothes, and the many changes of costume which Mrs. Blair seemed to prefer for Edith. But girls will be girls, and Belle's great grievance was that when fawn brown for example, was the fashionable spring shade, she had to wear a gown of stone grey, because somewhere in the cedar chests in her grandmother's attic there was a stone grey thibet, ample enough to cut over into a spring gown for her. As to hats, neither her mother nor her grandmother approved of her having her hats trimmed at a milliner's. In consequence, after her mother had put on a hat a simple trimming such as she approved herself, Belle would spend her first spare afternoon in ripping it all off, in order to retrim it. Indeed she usually spent not one afternoon but several in this operation, and even ventured to lay out her own pocket money in little ornaments or in ribbons that she thought would add to the appearance of the hat. In the same way she was able too to make slight alterations in the appearance of her gowns, and sometimes the changes were improvements. At other times what she had considered a genuine addition to the style of her garment or hat to other eyes seemed only queer, or in schoolgirl parlance "weird." When therefore Nora said that she had considered Belle's clothes of the present winter the ugliest she had seen, she touched a tender cord. In the first place Belle had had a strong dislike for the coat and hat which her mother and grandmother had selected for her, and in the second place she thought that she had improved the appearance of her costume as a whole by entirely altering the style of her winter hat. For she had twisted the front to the back, had added a deep blue bow to the trimming, and she believed that altogether she had accomplished wonders. At Nora's speech the tears came to her eyes, and the heedless Brenda, who was not herself always careful of the feelings broke forth indignantly, "I do think, Nora, that you might be careful what you say; you know that Belle dresses as well as she can, and I think that she always looks well. I wish that I could trim hats." "Oh, Brenda, it is a good thing that you can't, for if you could you never would have a thing to wear; you can do fancy work, but you haven't a thing finished yet for the Bazaar." While Nora was talking Belle had been folding up her work, and in a moment more she was putting on her hat and coat. "You are not going now?" cried Brenda. "Oh, don't go; you're not mad at Nora, are you?" "Oh, no," answered Belle with the air of injured innocence. "Oh, no, but I think that I ought to be going. I did not mean to stay the whole afternoon." "Oh, don't go," urged Edith; "if you'll wait half an hour I will go with you, but I must finish this piece of drawn work." But Belle continued to put on her outer wraps, and in a few minutes had bidden the others good-bye. As a matter of fact Belle was deeply offended, and she knew that if she had stayed much longer with her friends she would have been driven to express herself strongly. Now a general quarrel was a thing to be dreaded, and she knew that it would be unwise to risk it. Belle was certainly a sensible girl, and what she now did was really the best thing under the circumstances. Left to themselves the three other girls let their tongues move very freely. It was something new for the rather loquacious Belle to go off without a word, as if in some way she had been vanquished. It was the very best thing that she could have done for herself. "Really, Nora, I don't see how you could speak in that way to Belle. I am sure that she feels very badly," began Edith. "Well, she is awfully conceited about her clothes, and sometimes she does look so queer." "But you shouldn't say so to her face----" "Better to her face than behind her back." "I don't know," rejoined Edith, "there are some things that it is just as well not to say at all. Belle has a right to wear whatever kind of hats she likes." "Oh, Edith," responded Nora, "you are altogether too fair. I am tired of having Belle find fault with every one else as if she were just perfect herself. For my own part, I----" "Well, Nora," said Brenda, "you ought not to say anything to Belle when she is in my house. I happen to know that she is very sensitive about her clothes. In the first place her mother will never let her have what she wants----" "No, it's her grandmother," interrupted Edith. "She really does have a hard time, and it isn't fair to criticise her." "No," added Brenda, "it is not." "Well, Brenda," said Nora, "you ought not to say anything. You make Belle awfully mad sometimes by what you say. I heard you telling her the other day that you should think that she'd just hate that winter coat that she has been wearing, the fur is so very unbecoming, and you asked her why she didn't have a chinchilla collar and muff. She won't quarrel with you, because there are so many little things that you can do for her." "There, there," cried Edith who saw that neither Brenda nor Nora was in an amiable frame of mind. "Don't let us bicker. Any one would think that we were all enemies instead of the inseparable four." "Oh, Edith, we can't all be as amiable as you," responded Nora. "But really I am a little sorry that I offended Belle, for I know that she has a rather hard time at home, but I do wish that she would not put on such superior airs, and I do wish that she would not wear her hats hind side before. Sometimes I almost hate to go out with her." "Why, Nora, I never heard of such a thing. I did not know that you attached the least importance to appearances. Besides I thought that you always wanted to make every one comfortable in her feelings. It seems strange that you should have been so awfully thoughtless towards Belle." "I dare say that you are perfectly correct," responded Nora; "you usually are, Edith Blair. And I haven't a doubt that I shall go down on my knees to-morrow at recess, and apologize to Belle and to every one else whom I have ever offended. But I say that we have had enough of this exchange of compliments for to-day. Let us put up our work, and talk about something else. Why, see here, Belle has left her centrepiece behind her." "Oh, give it to me," cried Brenda; "I will put it away," and she took it from Nora's hands. "We shouldn't have had this fuss, should we," said Edith, "if Julia had been working with us?" "You don't call this a fuss," rejoined Nora, "only a slight misunderstanding." Now in spite of her outspokenness Nora was really a very fair minded young person, or perhaps I ought to say because of it. Those who express themselves very plainly often hurt the feelings of their friends, and not all of them have the courage to admit that they have been wrong. It does require some courage to go to a girl who is in the habit of justifying all her own words and deeds to tell her that you yourself have been wrong. Yet this was just what Nora did a day or two later when she began to reflect on the criticisms she had made in the matter of Belle's clothes. She was surprised herself at the graciousness with which Belle received her apology. But this was one of the cases--rather exceptional to be sure,--in which Nora was decidedly in the wrong. Belle, therefore, could afford to be magnanimous. After this Nora was much more careful about criticising any one, for it was her general aim in life to follow as closely as she could the Golden Rule. XX FIDESSA AND HER MISTRESS On the very afternoon when Nora and Belle had their falling out, Julia, after finishing her practising, had gone for a walk. It was a bright, clear day, and she wished that she had some other girl to walk with her. For when by herself she never ventured beyond the entrance to the park, although if her cousin or one of her school friends could go with her, her aunt had no objection to her walking in the park itself. One of the disadvantages of her friendship with Ruth Roberts lay in the fact that they could seldom be together in the afternoons. Their homes were too far apart. Sometimes on Saturday Julia would go to Roxbury to spend the half day with Ruth, and on other Saturdays Ruth would come in town to stay with Julia. It was hard to tell which was the pleasanter thing to do. At Roxbury, there were Ruth's ponies to drive, and in snowy weather a chance to coast down a quiet side street. Out of town there are many more chances for fun for girls past sixteen than can possibly be found in town or the city. When Ruth visited Julia the two usually went to a concert accompanied by Mrs. Barlow, or when she could not go, by one of their teachers. Of late Julia had been in the habit of inviting Miss South to go with them. Brenda never went to these concerts. She was not fond of music, and she did not pretend to be. The only matinee that she cared for was the theatre, and as her parent were decidedly opposed to her going often to the play, she could not indulge herself half as much as she wished. On this particular afternoon Julia felt especially lonely. Doubtless no small part of her loneliness came from the fact that she was perfectly well aware of the presence of the "Four" in the house, and though she had tried not even to say to herself that she felt slighted, she would have been less than human not to feel that her cousin had slighted her in not asking her to the club. "To look up and not down, to look out and not in," had been one of the lessons which her father had been most careful to teach her. It was therefore not very often that she let her thoughts dwell too long on her own affairs. But on this particular day she felt a little low-spirited and inclined to regard herself as rather ill-used. Without realizing it she had walked some distance into the park, and pausing to admire a bit of distant view that she was able to get from a slightly elevated point, she lingered a moment or two longer to decide whether it was an animal or a child that she heard crying behind a small clump of bushes near by. When she found that there was no other way of satisfying herself, she walked up to the bushes, and there, standing forlornly on three legs, was a tiny Italian greyhound. "Why, you poor little thing!" she cried, "what is the matter?" and as she spoke she took the little creature in her arms. "Is your leg broken, or sprained, or what?" she continued, though of course she did not expect any reply from the dog. The greyhound showed great joy at the sound of a friendly voice, and looked up in Julia's face with an expression of confidence and gratitude. "Come, I am going to put you down on the ground for a minute to see whether you are hurt, or only pretending." So, suiting the action to the word, she stood the little dog on its feet. As if understanding her purpose, the little creature limped in front of her for a few steps, but the limp was so slight as to assure Julia that no serious accident had befallen the leg, which the dog still seemed inclined to hold off the ground. "Now let me see if your collar tells who your owner is," added Julia, and she bent down towards the dog. There to her surprise, she read in clear letters, "Fidessa, Madame du Launy." Now immediately Julia decided that the owner of the dog must be the mistress of the large house near the school, about which her friends were so curious. In an instant, too, she remembered that she had seen this little animal, or one very like it, taking its exercise in front of the great, mysterious house. Julia had always been fond of dogs, and the little trembling creature appealed strongly to her. For a moment she almost wished that there were no name on the collar, so that she might have kept it with her for a day or two while finding the owner. "O, if only it had no owner, what joy!" she thought, as she gazed into its dark eyes, "to keep it for myself!" As things were, however, she felt that she ought to try to return it as soon as possible, and taking the little Fidessa in her arms, she retraced her steps to the other side of the city where Madame du Launy lived. As she stood in front of the house which Nora and Brenda had tried so unsuccessfully to enter a few weeks before, the old timidity which at one time had been the trial of her life returned to her. Nevertheless, she rang the bell bravely, and was welcomed almost with open arms by the serious-faced servant who opened the door. He had seen Fidessa instantly, and if he had not, the little creature would have made herself quickly known. When Julia released her, she jumped about in the greatest excitement, whirling around in a circle and then rushing ahead up the stairs. All trace of the lameness seemed to be gone, greatly to Julia's surprise. While Fidessa was running ahead, the man, asking Julia to follow him, had shown her into a large room, rather dimly lighted. At first she thought that she was alone, but far at the other end of the apartment she saw a slight figure arise from the depths of a large armchair, as the man said solemnly, "Madame du Launy, here is a young lady who has found Fidessa." At that moment the truant dog bounded into the room, and leaping up towards the old lady almost knocked her over. At the same moment a plain, elderly woman entered behind Fidessa, and Julia could see as she stood in the doorway that her eyes were rather red around the edges as if she had been weeping. "Draw up a blind, or two, James," said Madame du Launy, querulously, "we are not at a funeral. Come nearer, my dear, I am sure that I am very much obliged to you for your trouble. Where did you find my poor little dog?" By this time, the "poor little dog" was seated calmly on a cushion with its slender front legs crossed as if it had never given any one a moment's uneasiness. As Julia looked at the lady who had addressed her, she saw that she was, or had been tall. Her figure, though somewhat bent, gave the impression of stateliness. This aspect was increased by the large towering structure which she wore on her head, whether to be called cap, or turban, it was hard to tell with its folds of black silk, its border of white lace and with two or three jeweled pins sticking in it. In answer to Madame du Launy's question, Julia described finding the little dog in the park, and her fear at first lest it had hurt its leg. "That is an old trick of Fidessa," said her mistress smiling, "when she is at all unhappy she limps about on three legs as if really lame. She does not know her way about the city, and she is never supposed to go anywhere without her leash. As nearly as I can understand from Jane, Fidessa went out for a drive to-day under her care. When Jane left the carriage to call on a friend of hers, who lives near the park, she forgot all about my dog. Fidessa probably jumped out of the carriage to take a walk herself. But I must say that it seems most extraordinary that no one saw her, neither the coachman, the footman nor Jane. When the carriage started home none of them took the trouble to look under the rugs to see if she was there." Here Jane began to sniffle a little. "Well," continued Madame du Launy, "it is a great wonder that she was not stolen or run over, poor little thing! It's no thanks to you, Jane," and she looked daggers at the unfortunate maid. "It is a wonder, too, that none of you could find Fidessa. For I don't believe that the little thing was actually hiding, and you all three have come back with the report that it was impossible to find her." While Madame du Launy was speaking Julia said to herself that she would be very sorry to bring on herself a scolding from so sharp-voiced an old lady, and she could not help feeling sorry for Jane, even though the latter had probably been careless. But now, with a sudden change of manner, Madame du Launy turned toward the young girl. "There is no reason, however, why you should suffer for Jane's misdeeds. "Jane, ring the bell," she cried, and then in what seemed an incredibly short time, a man entered with a butler's tray, which he placed on a table in front of Madame du Launy, while the latter invited Julia to come nearer and take a cup of tea. Now as Julia sat there drinking tea from the quaintest of old-fashioned china cups, and eating slices of thin bread and butter, and cakes that almost melted in her mouth, she could not help wondering what her friends and her cousin would say to see her actually seated in the house which most of them considered absolutely impossible to enter. In spite of the fact that the curtains at one or two windows had been raised a little the room was still rather dark, and as she glanced about, Julia could see the pictures and furniture rather indistinctly. She noticed, however, that one wall was quite covered with large pieces of tapestry representing medieval battle scenes, and that on the opposite wall on either side of a long mirror there hung a number of family portraits. One of these in a heavily gilded oval frame represented a young girl of perhaps eighteen years, whose features, for some reason or other, seemed strangely familiar; in fact there was something in the bright and earnest face that drew Julia's eyes so constantly towards it that she began to fear lest Madame du Launy would think it strange that she should pay such close attention to it. [Illustration: "NOW AS JULIA SAT THERE DRINKING TEA FROM THE QUAINTEST OF OLD-FASHIONED CHINA CUPS"] It seemed a remarkable thing to Julia that she should find herself drinking tea under the roof of the mysterious house about which the schoolgirls had shown so much curiosity. It seemed even stranger that Madame du Launy should prove to be altogether less of an ogre than she had been represented. Although a trembling hand and a rather weak voice betrayed her age, she talked brightly of various things, asking Julia about her school, and her studies, and drawing the young girl out to talk about the western country in which she had spent so much time. On one subject, however, the old lady was silent. She said nothing in praise of Boston, either ancient or modern. She never alluded to a single individual as "my friend" or "my neighbor." She spoke only of things, and for the most part of things that had no connection with New England. Her questions about the school were evidently prompted by politeness in accordance with the general rule that one should show an interest in whatever probably interests the one with whom she is talking. Jane who stood not far from her mistress' chair, and James who kept his post near the drawing-room door, looked in amazement on Madame du Launy and her young guest. In all their remembrance,--and both had lived in the house more than twenty-five years--they had never seen a young girl in conversation with their mistress. Indeed, they had seen very few guests in that gloomy old drawing-room, and certainly they had never known any one else to be asked to drink tea. It was as pleasant as it was novel to Madame du Launy to have Julia sitting with her, and as for Fidessa, she altogether forgot the strict discipline under which she had been reared, and instead of sitting calmly on her cushion, she jumped up in Julia's lap, and from time to time planted a cold, moist little kiss on her cheek. When at last Julia rose to go she had made a much longer visit than she should have made in view of the fact that the end of the afternoon was near at hand, and that she had some distance to go to reach her uncle's house. When, however, she rose to go, Madame du Launy begged her to wait a moment. "I have ordered my carriage," she added, "for it is altogether too late for you to go home alone. Let me thank you very much for your kindness to my little Fidessa, for it would have been a very serious loss for me, had she fallen into the wrong hands." Then when she saw James returning to announce that the carriage was ready, she added, "and if you will come again some afternoon, and spare an hour or so for me, you will add more than you can imagine to relieve my very monotonous life." Thus Julia as she bade the old lady good-bye felt that she had made a new friend, and in a very unexpected way. The carriage in which she rode home, though old-fashioned in shape, was delightfully comfortable, and when she descended from it at her uncle's door, still another surprise awaited her. The footman placed in her hand a little box "with Madame du Launy's compliments," he said. This when she opened proved to contain a delicately chased little envelope opener, shaped like a tiny scimitar. "Really," she thought, "I have had a most exciting adventure. Better than I deserve, for it was only this afternoon that I was feeling so cross and so disheartened because the Four would not include me in the club. But if I had been with them this afternoon I could not have had this adventure." "Well, I certainly _should_ call it an adventure," said Mr. Barlow that evening, when she told him her experience with Mme. du Launy. "Why, even I, in all my years of residence here, have never had a glimpse of the old lady. I have sometimes thought it a pity that she should lead so solitary a life, but it's her own choice. They say she has a regular hermit disposition. How did it strike you, Julia?" "Not that way, uncle, at all, not at all, though she seemed very sad." "Perhaps she's repenting for the way she has neglected her grandchildren," interposed Brenda. "Are you sure that there are any grandchildren?" enquired Mrs. Barlow. "Why, yes, of course, at least I suppose so," answered Brenda. Mr. Barlow laughed, "I am afraid that you cannot make out a very strong case of cruelty to children unless you can prove the existence of the children." "Oh, well," interposed Mrs. Barlow, to prevent that ruffling of Brenda's feelings which was sure to follow when she felt that some one was laughing at her, "There is not much doubt that there are one or two grandchildren for whom Madame du Launy ought to do something. I forget what I have heard about it myself, but I could make enquiries." "Oh, Julia will soon be able to tell us more about Madame du Launy and her grandchildren than anybody else ever dreamed of," said Brenda, a little spitefully, as she left the room. "Poor Brenda," murmured Mr. Barlow, "will she ever overcome that spirit of jealousy?" XXI MISS SOUTH AND JULIA "You can say what you like," said Belle to Brenda when the latter told her of Julia's adventure with the dog, "but I think that it was downright mean in her to go to Madame du Launy's in that sneaking kind of way." "Why, Belle, it wasn't sneaking. What was she to do with the little dog? She couldn't leave it on the street." "Well, she knew how anxious we all were to see the inside of that house, and the least that she could do was to invite some of us to go with her." "Oh, Belle, if you are not the most unreasonable girl in the world," exclaimed Nora, who had heard the latter part of this speech. "You couldn't expect her to invite one of us Four, when at that very moment we were having our meeting; and it's you who won't let the rest of us invite her to sew with us. For my part, I am glad that Julia has got ahead of us." Here Brenda spoke up in a tone rather more judicial than she was accustomed to employ. "I think that you are wrong, too, Belle; I don't believe that Julia had ever given Madame du Launy a thought before, and I'm almost sure that she didn't expect to be invited into the house when she took the little dog home." "Oh, she knew what she was doing," replied Belle; "you can't make me believe anything else, and I only hope she'll invite you to go there with her some day. You must be sure to let me know if she does." "Oh, of course," responded Brenda carelessly, "but then I am not so anxious myself to see Madame du Launy, I never did care so very much for old ladies." "It isn't Madame du Launy," interposed Belle, "it's the house. Didn't Julia tell you that it was perfectly beautiful?" "I don't know that she said so very much about it. She hasn't said much to me. You'd better ask her yourself, if you wish to know all about it," said Brenda in reply, while Nora added a little mischievously, "Yes, here she comes, with Edith and Ruth." But Belle with a scornful "No thank you," passed on into the house. As a matter of fact Brenda was just a little envious of what to her seemed Julia's good fortune in this particular instance; but her cousin's charm of disposition and manner had already begun to have an effect on her, and she was also weary of hearing Belle so constantly find fault with her. After all blood is thicker than water, and Brenda had a little more than her share of true family pride. By noon, however, her annoyance with Belle had disappeared, and she listened eagerly to some plans which Belle was arranging for the afternoon. It happened that very day that Miss South and Julia were to make one of their journeys to the North End, and on the way Julia very naturally told her teacher of her visit to Madame du Launy. The latter listened with great interest, but made rather less comment than Julia had expected. Yet she asked one or two questions that surprised Julia. "Did you like the picture of the young girl over the drawing-room mantelpiece?" "Why, is there one there, did I speak of it?" said Julia. Miss South, Julia could not help noticing it, really blushed as she replied, "Well, you may not have mentioned it, but I had heard----" "Oh, yes," interrupted Julia, without waiting for her to finish. "Oh, yes, I do remember; a young girl with long, fair curls. I sat just where my eye fell on it, and I could not help thinking that it was rather a sad picture, at least the girl had a sad expression, and it seemed too, as if I had seen some one who looked very much like her. Why, have you ever seen that portrait, Miss South?" "Oh, no," answered Miss South. "Oh, no, but I have heard of it, and--" but she did not finish the sentence, and altogether she seemed to be in a rather silent mood, although she encouraged Julia to talk freely about Madame du Launy. "Madame du Launy must be dreadfully lonely," said Julia, "living alone in that great house. I believe it is true as the girls at school say that no one ever goes to see her." "Not to see a great many people does not always mean loneliness," replied Miss South. "You know that I have not a great many acquaintances in Boston, but still I am never lonely. Of course," she continued, "I have you girls, but that is not the same thing as having friends of my own age to exchange visits with me." "Yes," responded Julia sympathetically, "and since I have known so much about you I have often thought that it must be very hard to be alone this way in a large city. Of course you have your brother to think about--but he is so far away, out there on the railroad in Texas,--why you are worse off than I am, for I have my uncle and aunt--and Brenda--" she ended with a smile. "As I have said, Julia," continued Miss South, "I am not so very lonely, although I have not a single relation in Boston, at least not one to whom I can turn; yes, I might as well say, not one." "How did you ever happen to come here, then?" asked Julia. "Oh, I had just finished my normal course in New York, when I met Miss Crawdon one summer. She needed an assistant, and made me a very good offer. Besides I had always wished to come to Boston, and as long as Louis and I had to be separated, it seemed to me that I might as well be here as anywhere else. I should have liked to go to Texas with Louis, but his work keeps him so much on the railroad that we should not have been much good to each other. Of course when he is a railway president we shall live together--but he is only twenty-two now, and it is foolish to think of that at present." For the first time since the beginning of her acquaintance with Miss South, Julia felt decidedly anxious to ask questions about her early life. Perhaps Miss South had an insight into her mind. At any rate she said, in a half tone of apology, "Since you are interested, Julia, I will tell you a little about myself. When my brother was ten years old, and I fourteen, our father died. Our mother had died several years before. The little bit of money which our father left was hardly enough to support us until we were educated. Fortunately he had a friend, a lawyer, who looked after it very carefully, and although he had to spend most of the capital for us as well as the interest, we were both able to live comfortably, though in a very economical way, until I was eighteen. At this time we had but a few hundred dollars left, and Louis was glad enough to take a situation in a railroad office offered to him by the efforts of the same kind friend. He was soon earning his board, and every year he has had an increase of salary, with a steady promotion. I went first to the State University in the state where I had grown up and was able to afford myself a good normal course. Since I came to Boston I have been able to save a little from my salary. You can see, then, that I am not very badly off--only I do wish sometimes that I had a few relations." "Haven't you any, really?" asked Julia. "None--at least practically none near enough to take any interest in me. You see my mother was an only child, at least her brother and sister died young, and so was my father. Besides he was an Englishman, and what distant cousins of his there are, live in England." Julia would have liked to ask more, but just at that moment a little figure darted into view, and flung himself upon her. It was Manuel, in all the glory of a new pair of trousers, new at least to him, though even an eye inexperienced in tailoring could see that they had been cut down from garments originally made for a much larger person. But to him they were absolutely the finest pair of trousers that he had ever seen, because they were the first that he had ever worn. After this there was no danger that any one could imagine that he was his own little sister, a mortifying mistake that strangers were in the habit of making. Miss South and Julia followed him down the crooked street, which their several visits had made very familiar to them, and stood behind him as he pushed open the narrow door. At the very first glance into the room, Miss South, who was ahead, felt a little disheartened. Everything was in disorder, although she had been making such efforts this winter to get Mrs. Rosa to see the necessity for cleanliness and neatness. But when she and Julia went inside she felt that perhaps she had been a little too severe in her judgment. Mrs. Rosa lay back in her chair looking sicker and weaker than they had ever seen her, and though she put out her hand in greeting, she seemed unable to rise. "How is this?" exclaimed Miss South. "Oh, miss, I believe I'm real sick," was the reply; "I haven't eaten nothing for such a long time. I can't eat nothing, and I can't hardly raise my voice to the children. Here you, Manuel, don't eat that bread and molasses before the ladies." Then Mrs. Rosa lay back in her chair in a fit of violent coughing brought on by her efforts to be polite and parental at the same time. "Aren't you almost ready to go to the hospital, now, Mrs. Rosa?" enquired Miss South, sympathetically. "I think that it is altogether too hard for you to try to stay here to manage these children and take care of yourself." Mrs. Rosa shook her head. "Not the hospital, miss; I should die, I'm sure, if I should go there." "But you can't stay here, if you grow worse, and indeed, I am sure that you cannot get any better, if you stay here. Then your children would be much worse off than they would be if you should be parted from them for a little while. The doctors at the hospital might make you perfectly well." Mrs. Rosa shook her head feebly, and Miss South felt decidedly discouraged. Even when Julia added her voice in a gentle persuasive way, Mrs. Rosa refused to be convinced. No, she would stay where she was for a while. By and by perhaps she would go somewhere, but she could not tell; she couldn't leave the children, and the nurse had told her that she could not take them with her to the hospital. "Well, wouldn't you go to the country if we could find a place for you there?" asked Julia gently; "perhaps we could find a house where you and the children all could go, for you can't get well if you stay here." At this suggestion, Mrs. Rosa's face brightened a trifle, but from her reply it was hard to tell whether she would be perfectly willing to leave her own unwholesome abode, even for the country. "You ought to make Angelina keep this room cleaner," said Miss South. "Oh, I can't make Angelina do nothing," she answered; "Angelina is so lazy I don't know what to do with her. She just reads library books all the time." Again Mrs. Rosa leaned back in a fit of coughing, and Miss South and Julia, after leaving one or two little delicacies that they had brought her, went away less cheerful than they had been. "It's rather dreadful, isn't it?" said Julia. "Yes," replied Miss South, "especially as it would not require a great deal of effort or money to make that family perfectly comfortable." "How much?" asked Julia. Miss South laughed. "You are very practical," she said. "Perhaps I ought to have said that it is effort in the right direction that is needed rather than money." "Nobody can do very much, I am afraid," said Julia, "while Mrs. Rosa is so obstinate. It seems as if some one ought to have the right to oblige her to move." "Well, personal liberty is one of the privileges that foreigners living in this country appreciate the most. Yet Mrs. Rosa ought not to feel that she can do just as she likes, since she is living on charity altogether now." "I was wondering--" began Julia. "Yes," continued Miss South, "her church pays half her rent, and provides her coal; the Provident Association supplies her with groceries. Some of her Portuguese neighbors help her with food from their own table, and one or two charitable people give shoes and old clothes to the children. The dispensary doctor treats her without charge, and she has the occasional services of a district nurse. If Angelina would only follow out some of the directions left by the nurse, the whole family would be much more comfortable." "I had no idea," said Julia, "that so much would be done for one poor family; and you haven't spoken of what you do yourself, Miss South." "Oh, my part is very small; I just keep a general oversight, and by calling on Mrs. Rosa once or twice a week, I try to see that things run smoothly." "There isn't so very much, then, for Brenda and the other girls to do. You know that they are working for a sale from which they hope to raise a lot of money for Manuel and his family." "Yes, I have heard about it," replied Miss South, "and I should be the last one to discourage them in their efforts; but I am sure that if Mrs. Rosa had been depending on their help she would have suffered this winter. They are too spasmodic." "What do you think then that there will be for them to do with the money they raise at the Bazaar, for I am sure that they have large expectations?" "Oh, there are many practical things. This matter of moving the family to the country, for example. To accomplish this will take more money than you might think, and I do not myself know any charitable agency with money to expend in this way." "But do you think that you can move them?" "Why not? It may be hard, but if Mrs. Rosa should find it impossible to get help from the people who have been helping her, she may be glad to fall in with our plan." "Well, it's all very interesting," said Julia, "and it may be that I can help you in some way. Of course I do not wish to interfere with Brenda's plans, and I shall have to find out what she intends to do. If I were going to have anything to do with the Bazaar directly, it would be different." "Haven't you been admitted yet into the sacred circle of 'The Four'?" said Miss South, smiling. "I thought that you would have been before this." "No," replied Julia a little sadly. "No, I suppose that they think that I should not have so very much time for fancy work, and I dare say it is better that I should spend what spare hours I have in some other way, but still----" "But still," said Miss South, finishing out her sentence, "but still it isn't altogether agreeable to be left out." "No," answered Julia, "it isn't." While they were talking they had been riding up Hanover street, and leaving the car in Washington street, they did two or three errands in one of the large shops. "Shall we walk home now, or ride?" enquired Miss South. "Oh, I would much rather walk," answered Julia, "if it is all the same to you;" and so they walked on through Winter street, intending to cross the Common. Leading off Winter street there is a side street on which is the back entrance of the music hall. Now just as they reached the corner of this street, they saw two girls near the theatre door, walking in their direction. "Why, how much that looks--why it is Brenda," exclaimed Julia, "and that is Belle with her," she continued in surprise; "I wonder what they are doing down here." Even as she spoke, the two figures at which she had been looking a moment before disappeared within a doorway. "Would you like to meet them and ask them to walk home with us?" enquired Miss South. "Why, I don't know," replied Julia. "I am afraid that they may not wish to come with us; it almost seems as if they are hiding from us. You saw them, didn't you, that first time, Miss South?" "Yes, indeed, I recognized them both, but isn't it unusual for them to be down town alone?" "It's against the rules for Brenda, I know, at least I have heard my aunt say that she did not care to have her go down town without her. I imagine that probably they have some one with them. Brenda is rather careful about disobeying, as a general thing." "Oh, then it's probably all right," said Miss South, "and we might as well go on." XXII BRENDA'S SECRET Julia had not been long in the house after her walk with Miss South, when she heard her aunt at her door. In reply to her "Are you here, Julia?" the young girl ran forward, with a "Yes, indeed, auntie, come right in." "Why, how pretty your room looks," exclaimed Mrs. Barlow; "I had almost forgotten that it could be so pleasant." "That sounds as if you had not been up here for some time, and indeed I was thinking myself only this morning that you had rather neglected me lately--at least in the matter of visiting me." "I know it, dear child, but you know that I have been very busy this winter. There are many things to occupy me, and the Boston season is so short. We haven't had one of our pleasant chats here for several weeks. But I hope that you are perfectly comfortable. I am sure that you would tell me if you should need anything that I had overlooked." "Nothing has ever been overlooked, Aunt Anna, that could add in any way to my comfort." "Then you are perfectly contented. Sometimes I fancy that I see an expression on your face that seems to indicate--well, not discontent, but something of the kind, as if you were a little unhappy." "Oh, no indeed, Aunt Anna. You are all too kind, and I enjoy every moment in Boston. Of course I miss poor papa, but he had expected to leave me for so long a time, that I was prepared, and he himself always said that he wished me to think of him as only gone away for a time, yet of course I miss him. But then you and Uncle Thomas have been everything to me, and so thoughtful. I can't imagine a more delightful room than this with the view of the river, and these dainty, artistic things about me, and my own piano and books. You have no idea how I have enjoyed it." "Well, I am glad that it all pleases you, for perhaps we could not have done as well for you if Agnes had been at home. You know that this was her studio, and no other room in the house is so large and cheerful. Now it has always seemed hard that you could not have kept Eliza with you this winter; she had been a part of your old life, and you would have been much happier with some one to talk with about it." "Of course I should have been glad to have had her with me, but I couldn't insist on her staying when her brother needed her so much after the death of his wife. I had such an amusing letter from one of her little nieces the other day, thanking me for lending them their Aunt Eliza, and saying that they did not know when they could return her." "Then she can't come to spend the summer at Stormbridge?" "I do not exactly know, for Eliza has not written to me herself; but I half believe that it is better for me to do without a maid; I feel ever so much more independent, although naturally I _do_ miss Eliza." Mrs. Barlow smiled at the philosophic tone which Julia had assumed, for she had quietly made her own observations on the state of Julia's mind when at the very beginning of her stay in Boston Eliza had been called away. "Another year you may need somebody, even if you cannot have Eliza. The older a girl grows the more stitches there are to be taken for her, and next season you will have less time than at present to do things for yourself." "But I like this feeling of independence, or rather I like to feel that I have to depend almost entirely on myself; I am just so much more of a person than I should be if I had Eliza to wait on me constantly, as I used to." "A certain amount of independence in a young girl is a good thing," replied Mrs. Barlow, "and I am glad that yours takes a somewhat different form from Brenda's. I wonder, for example, where she is this afternoon. She had an appointment at her dressmaker's, but when I went there to make a suggestion or two about her new coat, they told me that she had not been there, and here it is near dinner-time with no sign of Brenda. Probably she is with Belle or some of the girls, but still I do not like her going off in this way." While Mrs. Barlow was speaking Julia hoped that she would not ask her if she had seen Brenda, and fortunately she did not do so. To be sure, Julia had nothing special to tell, and indeed had not her aunt spoken of the broken appointment at the dressmaker's, she might have mentioned the glimpse of Brenda that she had had down town, but now she began to suspect that something was wrong, at least it was strange that Brenda should have deceived her mother about the dressmaking appointment. The dressmaker's rooms were not down town, so that it was not this appointment that had taken her to the neighborhood of Winter street. "But where have you been, yourself, this afternoon, Julia?" asked Mrs. Barlow; and Julia told her of her visit to the Rosas, and of the plans that Miss South had suggested for raising them out of their present trouble. "I am afraid that Brenda won't agree with her," she said, "for she has the idea that the one thing needful is to give Mrs. Rosa a large sum of money to spend just as she likes." "Brenda isn't very practical," replied Mrs. Barlow. "I only wish that she had your common sense; or if she were more like Agnes, it would be better, for although Agnes is an artist, she is decidedly practical." "Oh, Brenda is so much younger," said Julia apologetically. "Yes, I know it, that is undoubtedly one reason for her heedlessness, but it sometimes seems as if her wilfulness increases every day. I am afraid, too, that she has not always been considerate of you; I have been wishing to speak of this for a long time, though it is not an easy thing to do. It would pain me very much to have you feel that any of us--even Brenda had been inhospitable." "Oh, no indeed, Aunt Anna, I am not likely to think anything of that kind. I make allowances for Brenda, and I honestly think that she is getting to like me better." "There ought not to be any question of that kind. If it were not for Belle, Brenda would be inclined to throw herself more upon you, but I am sure that Belle keeps her stirred up all the time. But there--I ought not to talk so much about this, at least to you, only I have thought that I ought to tell you that your uncle and I have feared that you have had several experiences this winter that were not altogether pleasant, and I should fail in my duty if I did not express our appreciation of your patience." Then rising from her chair, Mrs. Barlow leaned over Julia, and kissed her on the forehead, saying as she turned to leave the room, "We have barely time now to get ready for dinner." Just as Julia opened her door to go down to the library where she usually talked with her uncle for a few minutes before dinner, she saw Brenda rushing upstairs to the floor above. "Where's Brenda?" asked Mr. Barlow, as they took their places at the table. There was a note of severity in his voice, that Mrs. Barlow and Julia detected at once. "Why, she has been out all the afternoon," replied the former; "but I have sent word for her to hasten downstairs." At this moment the delinquent entered the dining-room, and took her place at the table. Although she had changed her street dress, she had apparently dressed in a great hurry, and her hair looked almost disheveled, as she had evidently not had time to rearrange it. Hardly responding to the greetings of her parents and cousin, Brenda began to talk very rapidly about--well about the subject to which many of us turn when we are embarrassed,--the weather. "Yes," said her father, in a kind of general response to her very vague remarks. "Yes, I will admit that it has been a fine day, almost the first really springlike day that we have had, that it is a delightful day to have been out in the open air, but all this does not prevent my asking you why you should be so late to dinner; you know my rule, and that I shall have to punish you in some very decided way if this happens again." "For once Brenda has no excuse ready," added Mrs. Barlow; "now _I_ am anxious to know where you have been this afternoon?" Brenda turned very red before replying, "Oh, Belle and I have been together." "I dare say," said Mr. Barlow, "but that does not tell us where you have been?" "Any one would think," cried Brenda, almost in tears, "that I was a girl of ten years of age. I do not know any one who has to account for everything she does; there is not a girl at school who is watched in this way." "Sometimes I think that it would be better if you were under closer guardianship. Some one has been telling me that you need it." Brenda flashed a glance at Julia as if she might be the informant, and Julia rejoiced that she had not even mentioned having seen Brenda down town. "You were not at the dressmaker's this afternoon," said Mrs. Barlow reproachfully. "I hope that you were not on the bridge, looking at the crews," said Mr. Barlow. "No," said Brenda quickly, "I was not. Why did you think of that?" "Because some one has been telling me that a number of foolish girls are in the habit of going where the Harvard Bridge is building on fine afternoons, just as the class crews are out exercising, and that some of these girls always wave their handkerchiefs, and even cheer, as their favorites come near--and more than this some one has told me that you are often to be seen among these girls; now, Brenda, I tell you frankly that this won't do." "Oh, papa, you are so particular; a great many girls think that it is perfectly proper to go there, and no one ever says a word about it. I wonder who told you; some old maid, I am certain of that." "No, indeed, no old maid, but a young man, and a student, too. He felt very sorry that you should be seen there; he says that there is always a great mixture of people in the crowds on the bridge, and that it must be far from an agreeable place for a young lady, besides not being a proper one." "Well I only wish that I could tell who that young man is," cried Brenda. "I should call him a perfect goose." "He is far from that," responded Mr. Barlow; "and I ought to say that I agree with him thoroughly. I only wish that I had heard about this before, and now I hope that you will understand, Brenda, that you are forbidden to go near the Harvard Bridge in the afternoon." "Not to the bridge at all!" cried Brenda, in a most doleful voice. "Why, I can't see the harm." "Well, I can, and that is enough." "You can go to the races themselves, Brenda, when they actually come off," interposed Mrs. Barlow, "but if you think it over, you will see good reasons for not hanging about the bridge, as a boy might, merely to see the crews pass." Brenda made no attempt at further argument, and one result of the little discussion that there had been about the bridge and the crews was to divert her father and mother from asking further questions about the way in which she had spent this particular afternoon. She was rather relieved when the evening passed without Julia's referring to having seen her down town. She was almost sure that Julia and Miss South had recognized her, and Belle and she were in dread lest in this way her father and mother should learn that she and her rather mischievous friend had gone alone to a matinee. For this was now Brenda's secret,--she had not only gone down town alone, but she had gone to the Music Hall without an older person accompanying her. With parents as indulgent as hers there seemed no need for her to try to secure forbidden pleasures. Nor would she probably have done this but for Belle. It had been the study of Belle's life to get what she wished in a clandestine way. Her stern old grandmother was constantly forbidding her to do this thing or that, and her commands were often really unreasonable. No one was quicker to detect this than Belle herself, and it was on this ground that she often excused her own disobedience. "Why even mamma does not expect me to mind everything that grandmamma says," and as her mother was rather timid, as well as half-ill all the time, she gave her self-possessed daughter very few commands of her own. "I don't believe that I should be so ready to disobey mamma," Belle would say to Brenda when the latter on occasions remonstrated with her, "but with grandmamma it is different, for I do not consider that she has any right to lay down the law as she does." Nevertheless when Brenda and Belle sat in the front row in the large Music Hall--for Brenda had bought expensive seats--both girls felt that old Mrs. Gregg was pretty nearly right in saying that places of amusement were not proper for a young girl. They had both been at similar performances before, but always some older person had selected the entertainment. This one, which they themselves had chosen from the glaring posters decorating the bill-boards of the city, and from the conversation of the Harvard freshman of their acquaintance was altogether different from anything that they had seen. It was advertised as an exhibition of ventriloquists, but it had a general air of vulgarity that was extremely displeasing to them. Brenda wished more than once that she had not joined Belle in this adventure. She did not like the loud jokes, and the scant costumes of the performers, and she hoped that there was no one in the audience who would recognize her. Of course there were times when she laughed at the funny things on the stage--for who could help it--but many of the jokes and the incidents at which the rest of the audience laughed the loudest fell rather flat on the ears of the two young girls. This was as it should be, for neither of the two was anything worse than heedless and a little too fond of having her own way. In Belle this wilfulness took the form of a willingness to use subterfuge, both in word or deed to gain her own way. Brenda did not follow her very closely in this direction, although there was danger that her conscience would be dulled, before she realized it, under Belle's influence. Brenda indeed felt so uncomfortable during the performance, that if she could have done so without observation, she would have left the hall. But she did not quite dare to go out in the face of the great audience, and besides when she made the suggestion to Belle, the latter would not hear of her going. "No, indeed," she had said, "why should we go. You are a regular baby, Brenda; it isn't so very bad, only a little vulgar, and just see what crowds of people there are here, and some of them seem just as good as we are, and you know I read you that newspaper clipping that said that this was one of the successes of the year. You and I are not used to this kind of thing, but dear me! we can't expect to stay children all our lives." So Brenda sat there with an uneasy conscience, wondering what her mother would say, or her father--or Julia who never by any chance did anything that she ought not to do. Stolen sweets are apt to taste a little bitter, and when the performance was over, Brenda and Belle went out with the crowd. On the way out rough people, or people whom Belle called "rough," pushed against them, while one or two rude boys made saucy remarks to the young girls who seemed conscious of being in the wrong place. It wasn't at all an agreeable experience, especially as they were both wondering if any of their friends were likely to see them. Then there was that chance glimpse of Julia and Miss South, and the rather silly action on the part of Brenda and Belle of hiding in the doorway. Really they needed all the consolation they could get from their visit to the confectioner's around the corner. There they drank great glasses of chocolate, sipping the whipped cream at the top, as if they were young ladies of twenty loitering in the shops after the symphony. As they stirred the chocolate with their long spoons, and lingered on the settee at the end of the shop to watch the lively young men and women who were constantly coming in and out to buy bonbons, or to get refreshment, they forgot all that had been disagreeable at the music hall, and for the time being imagined that they were young ladies themselves. Yet when Brenda reached home with hardly time to dress for dinner, conscience began to prick again. XXIII ALMOST READY Now however slowly time appears to pass, the end of any period of waiting is sure to come, and its last days or hours generally seem to melt away. Thus, when The Four realized that less than two weeks lay between a certain April afternoon when they met to sew, and the day appointed for the opening of the Bazaar, they began to feel a little nervous. "I wish that we hadn't set any particular day," exclaimed Brenda, "we might just have waited until we were all ready, and then we----" "Oh, Brenda, how unpractical you are," cried Edith, "that would have been perfectly ridiculous. You know that we have to advertise a little, and engage music and people to help us, and make all kinds of arrangements." "Oh, I dare say," responded the unpractical Brenda, "but still it takes all the fun out of it to think that we must be ready by a particular day; I feel exactly as if some one were driving me on, and you know that is not pleasant." "Oh, nonsense," interposed Nora, with a smile. "Just think how long we were working without any special object. I am sure that we had all the time we wished, and we had hardly a thing to show for it. For my own part I shall be awfully glad to have the Bazaar over with. The weather is altogether too fine to waste indoors on fancy work, but until we have that money for Manuel I suppose that none of us will feel free to do as she likes in the afternoons. There are so many things to attend to that I don't see how we are ever to get ready even in two weeks." Now the plans for the Bazaar had received much attention from the older persons in the families of the young workers, and the encouragement that they had had from their elders was now their chief incentive. Edith's mother had offered them the use of a large drawing-room in her house which was just adapted to an affair of this kind. It was a long room with hard wood floor, intended really for dancing. Its walls, paneled with mirrors, would reflect the tables of fancy work in such a way, as to make it seem "as if we had twice as much as we really have," said Brenda. As to other things there was a great deal to be decided. Brenda and Belle wished a small orchestra engaged to play during the evening of the Bazaar, and furnish music for dancing at the close of the sale. Edith and Nora were afraid that this would eat up too much of their profits, but Brenda was very decided in her views. "You can't expect that we are not to have any fun out of it ourselves, after all the trouble we've had, and I know that there is going to be plenty of money for the Rosas. We shall make lots out of the flower table; we have quantities of plants and cut flowers promised us from the greenhouses of our friends--just quantities, and then the refreshment table, and--well you know yourselves that we shall have more than we can sell." "What good will that do?" enquired the practical Nora. "We can't make much out of things that we can't sell." "Oh, I mean sell in the regular way; of course we'll have an auction, and get ever so much in that way. I shouldn't wonder if we should have more than $500 to give to Mrs. Rosa." "Don't count your chickens too soon, Brenda," said Belle; "suppose it should rain on the day of the sale, or suppose,----" "Oh, how tiresome you are!" cried the sanguine Brenda, "you are just as bad as the others, and it's quite as much your Bazaar as mine, and if it doesn't succeed, you'll be just as much to blame." The fretful note in Brenda's voice warned her friends that she was taking things too deeply to heart. "Why, Brenda, no one is probably going to be to blame, for the Bazaar will be a great success," interposed the peace-loving Edith. "All we have to do now is to try our very best to make it go off as well as possible." Now the Bazaar was to be the Wednesday of the week following Easter, and this year Easter fell almost in the middle of April. During the last days of school preceding the Easter vacation the four did much canvassing among their friends to see whether all the articles promised were finished. Of course there were several disappointments. Some girls who had promised special things either had not finished them or had forgotten all about them. On the other hand, there were some who had not only done much more than they had promised themselves, but had collected many pretty, and even valuable articles from their friends. All the school girls near the age of the four were invited to assist at the tables. The four resolved themselves into an executive committee, adding to their number Julia, and Frances and one or two others. Each of these girls was to have special charge of a table or department, and she in turn was to call on others to assist her. Julia had invited Ruth Roberts as her chief assistant, rather to the distaste of Frances, who thought that this was going too far out of their set. "What do we know about Ruth Roberts?" she had said in a contemptuous way; "nobody ever heard of her, I am sure, until she came here to school." "We have nothing to do with that," replied Nora, to whom the remark happened to be made. "I dare say that there are a great many good people in the world of whom we have never heard; I know all that I need to about Ruth Roberts, that she has good manners and a pleasant disposition, and an agreeable family. I know, for I have visited them----" Then, throwing a little emphasis into her voice, she concluded, "Really, Frances, you are growing very tiresome, and if I were you I should try to be less narrow-minded. Any one to hear you talk, would think that no one in the world is worth considering who does not happen to live in certain streets in your neighborhood." "Perhaps that is what I do think," answered Frances. "We can't make intimate friends of every one in the world, and we might as well have nothing to do with those who are not in our own set. I hate these people who are always trying to push in." "If you mean Ruth, you are entirely wrong. She is the last girl in the world likely to try to push in. She thinks quite as well of herself as you do of yourself, and I dare say that she had some ancestors, even if they were not governors of Massachusetts." Now despite the fact that this speech, when quoted, sounds rather acrimonious, Frances took no offence at it. She could not afford to quarrel with so popular a girl as Nora, and besides she knew that the Gostars had a good claim to the same kind of pride of descent that she had herself. So, although both girls turned away from each other with an annoyed expression on their faces, their next meeting was perfectly amicable. When Nora repeated this conversation to her mother, Mrs. Gostar smiled. "If I were you, Nora, I would not take anything that Frances says too seriously. She has been brought up rather unfortunately." "But it is so tiresome to have her going around most of the time with her head in the air, saying, 'Oh, I cannot do this, or I cannot do that, because I am a Pounder.'" Mrs. Gostar laughed at this speech, and the gesture and tossing back of the head with which Nora emphasized it. "Frances hardly says that, does she?" she enquired. "Yes, she does, she really does--sometimes," replied Nora, "and I am sure that she feels like saying it all the time. Of course we all know that there have been two governors, and one or two generals, and other people like that in her family somewhere in the dim past. I am sure that we have heard enough about it. But there is nothing very great about Frances' own family so far as I have ever heard, and some one told me that her father could not even get his degree at college. If they hadn't so much money----" "There, there," interrupted her mother, "aren't you growing uncharitable yourself? It is really true that Frances had ancestors who were of great service to the country, and her family has had position for a long time, and all the advantages of education. But among your schoolmates and hers there are probably other girls of good descent, who have had advantages hardly inferior to those that Frances has enjoyed. They may have names that are not so well known, and yet their ancestors may have been almost as useful in building up this country as those of Frances." "Well," said Nora, "I don't value people for their ancestors, but for what they are themselves." "That is the right spirit, and yet neither you nor I should blame Frances for having pride in what her ancestors have done. It is well to remember such things, if remembering them makes one more ambitious or more helpful to those around him. But when this pride in his own people leads one to belittle all others whose part in making history may have been almost as important, if less conspicuous--then I would rather see a girl or a boy without family pride. In connection with this, let me tell you a story. Years ago a murder was committed by a member of a good, old family, and sometime afterwards a lady who bore the same name, though she was not closely related to the murderer, was out shopping. It seemed to her a certain clerk was not sufficiently deferential, and so to reprove him, she said, in a rather haughty tone, 'Perhaps you do not know who I am.' 'No, madame, I do not,' was his reply. 'I am a _Blenkinsop_,' she responded, thinking probably that this would overwhelm him. 'Indeed,' he answered, 'you surprise me. I thought that all the Blenkinsops had been hanged.' So you see that it does not always do to boast of one's family name. Of course this does not apply to Frances, and I should be sorry if either she or you should forget all the good things which her ancestors did for the commonwealth. Yet it would be a great deal better to forget it than to have the remembrance of the distinction of your ancestors so elate you as to make you contemptuous of your schoolmates." "I know that, mother dear," replied Nora, "and I believe that some day I may be able to have a little talk with Frances, and perhaps I can get her to see things as I do." "You might tell her," responded Mrs. Gostar, with a smile, "about the Virginia lady of whom I was reading the other day. Her little niece was remarking with pride that her grandfather had been the son of a baronet, and that in consequence she had a right to feel superior to many of her neighbors. 'Yes,' responded the aunt, 'he was the son of a baronet, who was the son of a manufacturer, who was the son of an apothecary's apprentice.' 'Oh, dear,' sighed the niece, 'is it really true? Am I descended from an apothecary's apprentice? I thought that all my ancestors were gentlemen.' "'I haven't finished,' returned the aunt. 'The apprentice was the grandson of a baronet, who in turn was said to trace his descent from a king of England.' The aunt smiled at the expression of relief on her niece's face on hearing this, as she said, 'I always knew that we were of good family.' My own moral," concluded Mrs. Gostar, "would be the same as that which the aunt tried to impress on her niece. We all can trace our descent through a variety of families, and while we can often find ancestors to boast of, as often we find others who are what Frances might call 'very plain people.'" Nora realized that she was fortunate in having a mother who was always ready to advise her in the small matters that seem so important to schoolgirls, as well as in those larger things that really are of consequence. Without encouraging anything approaching gossip or tale-bearing Mrs. Gostar always permitted Nora to talk very freely on all the subjects that interested her, and the confidence between mother and daughter was almost ideal. Mrs. Blair and Mrs. Barlow were also ready to advise their daughters, although they both were a little more occupied with society than Mrs. Gostar and had less time at home. The wilful Brenda, too, was more apt to seek her mother's advice after she had done a certain thing than to ask it in advance. Yet although her doings were sometimes a little annoying to others, she always admitted to herself that she could depend on her mother's sympathy. Edith, with a rather phlegmatic disposition, seldom did anything wrong. She had been brought up rather strictly in accordance with prescribed rules, and she was always confident that whatever her mother had arranged or advised was exactly right. Belle alone, of the Four, was unfortunate in her home surroundings. Her mother, a nervous invalid, had permitted Belle's grandmother to rule the household with a rod of iron, and knowing that the old lady was often unjust the former did not reprove Belle sufficiently when she broke some of her grandmother's rules. Belle in this way came to be a law to herself. She obeyed her grandmother when there was no escape for it, but oftener she took the chance of disregarding her authority, saying to herself,--or even to others--"If mamma could do as she liked, she would let me do this." It was not always a legitimate excuse, although the conditions in her family enabled many of her acquaintances to make excuses for Belle. As to Frances, those who knew her best, realized that her family pride had been nurtured at home, and that her unfortunate way of looking at things was not wholly her own fault. Yet that Nora had been able to influence her somewhat was proved by a slight change in Frances' demeanor towards others. The latter was even known one day to offer to go out to Ruth Roberts' house to help her finish a piece of work for the Bazaar. In those last days, too, before the Easter vacation there seemed to be an unusual unity among the schoolgirls. Even those in the older classes, who seldom interested themselves in the "small fry," as they called the Four and their contemporaries, came forward with many contributions for the Bazaar. "Dear me!" moaned Brenda one day, "I am afraid that we won't have people enough to sell all these things to, and a while ago I was afraid that we shouldn't have things enough to sell to all those who might come to our Bazaar." "That shows," said Miss South, who had come up behind Brenda while she was talking, "that it is never worth while to borrow trouble about anything." "That is true," interposed the placid Edith, to whom Brenda had been talking. "For my own part, I am never surprised or disappointed about anything, for I never expect too much beforehand. I find that I can always put up with things when they come." "Then you are really a philosopher, Edith," said Miss South, "some persons take almost a lifetime to learn this simple lesson, and indeed some persons never learn it at all." As the preparations for the Bazaar advanced it was very pleasant for Julia to find herself counted in among the band of workers. It is true that she often had to take a sharp word from Brenda, or a cold glance from Belle, but these things did not disturb her. She had become accustomed to her cousin's little ways, and she realized that her "bark was worse than her bite," as Nora was in the habit of saying. There was one thing about which Brenda was very decided, and that was that no older person, that is no parent or teacher, was to have any part in managing the Bazaar. "We want all the credit ourselves, and I think it will be a fine thing to show how much we can do all by ourselves." If she could have had her own way, I believe that she would have refused the offer of Edith's mother to provide a room for the Bazaar, and she would have been quite willing to pay for a hotel drawing-room from her own allowance--although to do so would have run her several months in debt. But this was evidently so unwise a plan, that she contented herself with simply broaching it to her friends. "The idea!" had been their criticism, "of throwing money away like that when we can have such a beautiful room for nothing." "It certainly would be foolish," said Belle, "and besides my mother would not think a hotel a proper place for girls like us to hold a bazaar; it would be different if we were in society, or if some older women were managing it." "Oh, I suppose you are right," Brenda acknowledged with a sigh, "but I should be ever so much better pleased with a hotel. It would seem so much more as if we were grown up. I hope that this won't seem like a children's party. You know that Edith always had her birthday parties in that room." "Yes, but she'll have her coming out party, there, too, I heard her mother say so the other day, and really I think that it is very, very kind in her to offer the room, because there will be strangers coming and going all day long through the house." So Brenda had to profess herself grateful for the room, and was obliged to turn in other directions for an outlet for the energy which she was anxious to show in managing the Bazaar. XXIV AN EVENING'S FUN Mrs. Blair had said that all the preparations for the Bazaar must be completed on Tuesday, the day before it was to open. She knew the ways of girls too well to think that it would be safe to have anything left for Wednesday morning. The flower table, of course had to be arranged on that day, and some things for the refreshment table. But so definite had she been in expressing her wishes, that the girls felt that it was due her for lending her house to pay all deference to what she said. On the Monday therefore after Easter they went to work with a will to gather in the promised contributions. There were naturally some disappointments, but on the whole the fancy articles bestowed upon them were numerous and beautiful, and many were the "ohs and ahs" from the Four and their assistants, when on Tuesday they fell to the task of opening the parcels and arranging their contents on the tables. Tuesday was rainy, and at dusk gave little promise of a bright sky for the following day. Brenda was in a tremor of excitement. "Oh, dear, how dreadful if to-morrow should be stormy! I am sure it will be, and what _shall_ we do?" with great emphasis on the "shall." "Full many a cloudy morning turns out a sunny day," sang Nora, while Edith patted Brenda on the back and said, "Well, we can't do anything to change the weather, and we might as well hope for the best. I know that a lot of people will come even if it rains, and perhaps they'll be good and buy three times as much as they would in fine weather." Just then Julia came in with the evening paper in her hand. "See, or rather hear the news. Old Probability says, 'clear and fair Wednesday.' Mrs. Blair sent this paper up from the library to cheer you. There was a large patch of blue in the west when the sun went down----" "The sun!" exclaimed the others derisively. "In the place where the sun should have gone down," she responded with a smile. "Why, how well the rooms look! there won't be a thing for the boys to do this evening." For Philip and Will Hardon and one or two others were to come in the evening to see what they could do to help, and in view of their coming Mrs. Blair had invited the girls to stay to dinner. "Oh, no, there really isn't a thing for them to do, but perhaps when they see how hard we have worked they will make up their minds to spend any amount of money to-morrow. I think it's a rather good idea to have them come to-night, so that they can make a lot of other boys come to-morrow." "Boys are not so fond of spending money at fairs, I can tell you that," said Nora, rather decidedly, "and besides most of them are so much in debt that they haven't anything to spend." "Oh, well, Philip's friends are not like that," said Belle, rather sharply. "I know several who have more money than they know what to do with. Some juniors that I know--New York fellows, are coming to-morrow and they will spend a lot of money." "Gracious!" exclaimed Brenda, "I hope that we have things that will suit them. It seems to me that most of these things are for girls to use." "Oh, they can buy things for their sisters and cousins; besides, boys like pincushions and picture frames and sofa pillows. Oh, I am sure that we shall have no trouble getting them to buy all that they can afford," replied Belle positively. As a matter of fact when the boys after dinner were ushered into the pretty little ballroom, where the tables laden with fancy goods stood, they expressed great interest in all that they saw, and began to make bids for the things which seemed to them best worth having. "Look out," cried Nora, "or we may take you at your word, Will Hardon, and make you pay one hundred dollars for that crimson pillow that you admire so." "Well, why not?" he enquired, "as long as it is to be in a good cause." "Oh, no," interrupted the practical Edith, "that would not really be fair. Besides, I am sure that we ought not to sell anything until to-morrow; everybody ought to have an equal chance at the beginning." "Oh, how silly you are, Edith," broke in Brenda; "as if all the people who come to the Bazaar could be here at the same minute. If any one wants to bid on anything to-night I say that it is perfectly fair." After much discussion, it was at last decided that any one who had a great preference for any special thing might write his name on a piece of paper and have it pinned to the object with the limit of price that he was willing to pay. "Then you must be willing," said Brenda, "to let us sell the things you have chosen, if some fussy old person comes along and wishes any of these reserved things, and refuses to be contented with anything else." "But in that case what are _we_ to do?" cried two or three of the boys in chorus. "Oh, there will be plenty of things that will suit you just as well, if you only make up your minds to it." "Perhaps you'll want me to buy a blue sofa pillow or some other Yale thing," sighed Will Hardon. "Perhaps I shall be driven to take this," moaned Philip, holding up a large doll dressed in the long embroidered robes of a baby. All the girls laughed except Edith, who seldom saw the funny side of things as quickly as the others. "Well, you can see yourselves, boys," she said, in a determined tone, "that you ought to be glad to buy whatever is left over,--for you probably won't get in until toward evening. You can always find some one to give the things to that you buy." "This doll?" asked Philip, holding it rather clumsily on his arm. "Why, of course," said Edith, "we know several children who would be delighted with it at Christmas." "No, thank you, sister Edith," responded Philip, "I'm not going to spend my hard earned allowance in presents for children; if you make me buy this doll, out it goes to a certain room in one of the college buildings to become a cherished decoration, and," waving the doll dramatically in the air, "I shall defy any proctor or college authority to tear it away from me." "Then I hope he may get it," murmured Will Hardon to Ruth Roberts; "I can't imagine anything that would amuse the fellows more; we'd have to hold open house for a week or two--a regular reception. But you know I'm in earnest about that pillow," he added, for he knew, and Ruth knew that he knew that the down pillow with its rich crimson cover embroidered with a large "H." was the work of her skilful fingers. Ruth and Will had met several times since the ball game, and although the Four had not yet discovered it, these two young persons had begun to take considerable interest in each other. "You wouldn't pay a hundred dollars for it?" queried Ruth. "If I couldn't get it in any other way, of course I would, and besides it would be worth much more to me." This was not entirely an idle boast, this readiness to spend a large sum of money for a small thing--on the part of Will, as Philip and some of his classmates might have testified. Although very quiet in his way of living, and in his general conversation, he had a larger income than many in his set. His own tastes were simple, and though he naturally spent more than the average undergraduate, in accordance with the habit of the set to which he belonged, he still had enough to spend on others, and more than one of his less fortunate classmates had reason to thank him for what he had done for him. No one knew of his liberality except those whom he helped, for he had not the least wish to pose as a benefactor. Now Ruth, while pleased at his wish for the cushion had no idea that he would, if necessary, pay a hundred dollars for it. "If you really wish to have it, I'll try to secure it for you," she said. "I am sure there won't be any trouble, although I suppose that it can't be laid aside to-night, as long as Edith feels as she does." "Very well," answered Will, "I'll trust to you, for I really do want it very much." "Come," cried Brenda, rushing up to them, "you are not doing a thing, you two." "Well, the rest of you seemed so busy that we thought we should only be in the way," said Will with the glibness that is almost second nature with youths of his age, "but we're ready to work now," and they went across the room to the surprise table where half a dozen of their friends were busy. The "surprise table" had been an idea of Belle's, and was a rather agreeable change from the usual grab-bag. All kinds of little things--toys, novelties, like those used as German favors, small books and photographs, were neatly done up in bright tissue paper wrappings, and tied with silk ribbons. They were heaped on a large table, and purchasers were permitted to buy each little package at their own price, provided at least, according to a sign placed above the table, that no bid should be for less than fifteen cents. Nora was to have charge of this table, and she expected to have a great deal of fun out of the misfits between the purchasers and the parcels. Altogether the preparations for the Bazaar had moved along much more smoothly than any one had expected. It is true that the various mothers of the girls comprising "The Four" had said that they would be glad enough when it was all over, because for a fortnight it had been impossible to get the girls to think of anything else. Yet each of these mothers saw a compensation for the excitement of this last week or two in the fact that her daughter had shown more perseverance than she had given her credit for. Mrs. Barlow was especially pleased with the good spirit that her niece Julia had shown, for it would have been so easy and natural for her at the last to display a little pettishness in the way of a refusal to have anything to do with the Bazaar in view of the fact that she had not been invited to join "The Four" at their weekly meetings for work. But Julia was not one to show this kind of resentment, and since she had become interested in Manuel she was only too glad to help the Bazaar that was to benefit him. At her aunt's suggestion she had made it her special duty to collect flowers and plants for the flower table, and armed with notes of introduction from Mrs. Barlow she had gone to many a supposedly close person to ask for some small contribution to the flower table. Her success had been altogether remarkable, and in addition to the cut flowers that were to arrive on Wednesday, a great many beautiful potted plants and vines had been sent in from various conservatories for general decorations. The only real work for the boys who had come to assist, consisted in moving some of these heavy plants about to places between the mirrors, or near the flower table where they would be most effective. The work did not, of course, proceed very rapidly, for every one in the group of fifteen or more had to give an opinion on everything, and a unanimous opinion as to what looked best in any particular case was naturally impossible. The large room was so handsome as to require comparatively little decoration. The long mirrors with which every side was paneled formed a complete decoration in themselves, and added to the general effectiveness, as Brenda said by making the tables "look double." Now if the boys did not find a great deal of work to do they were very outspoken in their admiration for all that had been accomplished by the girls. "Well, if other people will only be as much impressed as you are, and will open their purses accordingly, we shall have nothing to complain of," said Nora, "and I hope that you will all come back and buy everything that is left over by to-morrow evening." "Can't we have first choice of anything?" queried Tom Hurst, a mischief loving friend of Philip's whom some of the girls distrusted a little. "No," answered Nora, sternly, "you must not be so selfish. There may be old ladies who will want----" "Do you suppose that any old lady will want that tobacco pouch?" asked Tom, with a most innocent expression on his face. "She might," answered Nora, with a very dignified manner. "She might if she had a son who was fond of smoking, at any rate she ought to have first choice." "Well, then," replied Tom, "I don't believe that I shall return, for I am not sure that I ought to patronize an institution that encourages old ladies to buy tobacco pouches." "They're more harmless for old ladies than for Harvard undergraduates," said another of the girls seriously, whereat two or three of the boys pulled cigarette cases out of their pockets, and said, "Wouldn't you rather have us use tobacco pouches than smoke these unwholesome cigarettes?" "You shouldn't use tobacco at all," cried Edith in a plaintive tone, "at your age, Philip, you know how mamma feels about it." "Don't be a goose, Edith," retorted Philip, "unless you want us to stay away to-morrow. Anyway it's time we started for Cambridge, we're not used to late hours." At this the rest of the boys laughed rather more loudly than the occasion seemed to warrant, but with a return of good manners they bade the girls good-bye, and promised Mrs. Blair, who had returned to the room that they would certainly drop in some time on Wednesday. "Don't forget your promise to me," said Will Hardon in an undertone as he shook hands with Ruth, and Ruth promised not to forget. Ruth and one other girl were to spend the night with Julia and Brenda, so as to be ready early in the morning, and the rest of the assistants started off in a large group attended by one of Mrs. Blair's servants, for none of them had very far to walk. "It certainly does look as if it might clear up," said Belle to Nora, as they walked along. "Yes, indeed," answered Nora, "there are as many as twenty stars to be seen, and that is almost a sure sign. Some people believe that it will be fine the next day if you can count nine stars the night before." XXV THE BAZAAR The sun, after all, did shine on Wednesday morning, and The Four and their assistants arrived bright and early at Mrs. Blair's. By ten o'clock everything was in order for patrons, and really the arrangement of the tables reflected great credit on the young girls. The table of fancy handiwork was loaded with beautiful articles. There was Nora's afghan with its rich, warm stripes, there was Belle's fine embroidery,--centre piece, doilies, and other dainty bits chiefly for the dining-room. I cannot truly say that Brenda, though giving liberally, had contributed very much that was made by her own hands, and I have an idea that if the bottom drawer of her bureau had been examined, it would have been found to contain the majority of the unfinished things over which at one time or another she had been so enthusiastic. Not even her zeal for the Bazaar had enabled her to disentangle that confusion of odds and ends. Some of the older girls at school had contributed beautiful things. One had copied an old French miniature and had had it framed in gilt. Another had painted a set of tiny chocolate cups. There were some exquisite picture frames covered in old brocade brought over from Europe by another girl, and still a third had sent some wood carvings done in a peculiar style which she had learned at Venice. An uncle of Edith's who was a publisher, had sent a number of finely bound books. Then there were many smaller and less expensive things, so that it seemed as if every taste must be suited. "Oh, how lovely," exclaimed Ruth as she stood for a moment beside the flower table which Edith, Julia and Ruth had spent an hour or more in decorating. "Where did you get those beautiful orchids?" asked Edith. "Why Edith Blair," answered Julia, "I should think that you ought to recognize your own possessions. Your mother sent these in from your greenhouse in Brookline." Edith laughed good-humoredly. "I thought that they had a kind of familiar look, but then other people have orchids, too." "Well other people _have_ been generous, as well as your mother. I have quantities of violets besides these on the tables, and the most beautiful roses, and see this dozen of maiden hair fern in little pots. Almost every plant has been engaged by some of the girls at the tables. They are to be left with me until evening." "What will you do with things that are left over?" "Oh, I have been told to do with them as I like, and probably they will be sent to the Children's Hospital. Shouldn't you think that a good idea, Edith?" "Oh, yes, the very best in the world; it would be fun to go up on the same day and see what the children say to them." "Yes, provided we really do have anything left over. Of course it would be better if we could sell everything in the room." "Yes, of course, when you can leave do come over to my table for a minute; I want to ask your opinion about arranging something. It's awfully hard to combine the colors, and in some way Frances and I never agree exactly about things, though I try to see things as she does," and Edith walked off, sighing a little over her weight of responsibility, for she had complete charge of the fancy-work table with Frances Pounder as chief assistant. Other girls from their group of friends were to relieve them at intervals during the day, but the responsibility of seeing that there were always two attendants at the table fell entirely on Edith. Belle had complete charge of the refreshment room, which was a small room off the dancing hall where the other tables were set. Brenda and she had chosen this department, but the latter had declined any responsibility. "I wish to be free to move anywhere; I just hate having to stay in one spot, so ask as many others as you wish, Belle." Thus Belle had surrounded herself with half a dozen of the younger girls, and she was able to assume an air of authority over them that would have been impossible with the girls of her own age. There were three or four little round tables in this room beside the larger one covered with boxes and baskets of bonbons. At the little tables the girls were to serve ices to all who wished them. "Dear me," fretted Belle as she and Brenda stood surveying the room. "Dear me! I wish that we had a larger room. This is going to be awfully crowded if we have many people, and there will surely be a crowd before evening. I don't see what we shall do." "Can't they take turns?" asked one of the younger girls, who happened to be standing near. "We could not have more than a dozen at a time, I should think." "Oh, you don't know anything about it, Annie Bell," exclaimed Belle in a tone that brought tears to the eyes of the younger girl. "Of course I don't expect that every one who comes to the Bazaar will rush in here the first thing, but we ought to have had a larger room. I'm almost sorry that I said that I would take charge of this part of the Bazaar. It's going to be a great deal more fun outside." "Ah, well!" replied Brenda, consolingly, "you won't have to stay in here all the time, the girls can look after things, and besides I am not going to be away all the time." "Oh, no," said Belle, "if I undertake a thing I always calculate to carry it through. Some one has to be here at the money table all the time, or else things will get dreadfully mixed up." "Well, I'm sorry that you feel so," said Brenda. "But as long as there is no one here now I will go off for a while and see how Nora is getting on at the surprise table." As Brenda went off, Belle sat down at the little table which answered for cashier's desk. She had already taken in two dollars for bonbons, although as yet the Bazaar had had but a few patrons. Toward noon about forty altogether had visited the Bazaar. Among these were several elderly ladies and gentlemen, and a number of nurses with children who patronized chiefly the surprise table and the refreshment room, and Belle had her hands full making change, and correcting the errors of her young assistants with whom arithmetic was evidently not a strong point. At about one o'clock the attendants at the Bazaar began to go down to the dining-room where Mrs. Blair had had a luncheon spread for them. "How's business?" asked Belle of Nora, as they sat there over their salad and cocoa. "Oh, fine," replied the latter, expressively, if inelegantly. "I've taken nearly twenty dollars, and the table looks as if hardly a thing had been touched. Julia and Ruth have done a great deal better, of course, and I wouldn't dare say how much Edith and Frances have made. They sold that set of chocolate cups for twenty dollars to old Mrs. Bean." "That was more than they were worth," interrupted Belle. "Oh, I don't know, they _were_ LOVELY, there was ever so much work on them." "Well, I suppose at a Bazaar, a thing is worth what any one is willing to pay for it, but still, even if I could afford it, I would not pay twenty dollars for those cups. I didn't like the shape." "You're too fussy, Belle, about little things; I've heard ever so many other persons admiring those cups, and Mrs. Bean thought that they were beautiful." "Well, what else have they sold?" "I can hardly tell, I've been so busy myself, but the table begins to look just a little bare, at least in spots, and I know that even Frances thinks that they have done very well. You know it's a great deal for her to be contented with anything." "Well, I wish I could get some one to change with me this afternoon, I'm awfully tired of that little refreshment room. It will be more fun in the evening, but----" "You ought to make Brenda take charge for an hour or two." "Who in the world could ever make Brenda do anything?" "I know she's a kind of a will-o'-the-wisp, and she feels as if she were managing everything and everybody here, but then that does not hurt us and it pleases her." Here Belle remembered that it was always her custom to stand up for Brenda, and in the fashion which is always rather annoying to the person who has not intended any offence, she said, "Why of course we all understand Brenda, and for my part I think that she is exactly right. Of course, she was the one who planned this whole thing, and except for her no one would have tried to do a thing for the Rosas." Nora did not think it worth while to reply that she had not been the one to make any criticism of Brenda. Instead she contented herself with saying, mischievously, "Well, you know that it was I who discovered Manuel, and if we had not had an object we should not have had a Bazaar." Belle had nothing to say to this, and indeed there was no chance, for two or three of the younger girls came down with a rush, thus reminding Nora and Belle that they ought to go upstairs again to their duties. By the middle of the afternoon the Bazaar was a scene of the greatest activity, every one was there, young and old, and the fancy-work table had really begun to look bare. One of Nora's brothers had to be sent down town for a fresh supply of novelties for the surprise table, as not only the children but their parents found great amusement in opening those bright-colored packages. Belle and some of the older girls regretted that there was nothing to raffle. "Don't you honestly think that it is much more exciting to get a thing in that way than to buy it just as you would in a shop?" asked Edith, who had been influenced by Belle to try to coax Mrs. Blair to change her opinion in the matter of raffles. But Mrs. Blair was firm, and she gave her reasons so clearly that not only her daughter, but all the others interested in the Bazaar, except Belle, seemed convinced. "I haven't said," she had been careful in explaining, "that raffles are wrong, only very often they lead to things that are not exactly right. It is hard to make the average person see why it is perfectly right to buy shares in a handsome doll-house, and wrong to invest in a lottery ticket." "Oh, every one understands about lottery tickets." "Well, that may be true, lotteries are against the law in this part of the country, and yet a raffle at a bazaar or other charitable affair is to my mind always objectionable. Some persons take their disappointment very much to heart, and----" "But, mamma, do you not call people very silly who take a little thing like that to heart?" "I may call them silly and yet I cannot justify myself in causing them this discomfort, if a raffle should be held in my house. Without going into all the principles involved, Edith, I am sure that you can see that I have good reasons for feeling unwilling to have any raffles at the Bazaar." So Edith and the others had acquiesced, with only a slight feeling of rebellion when one or two particularly handsome things were contributed to the Bazaar, which seemed almost too expensive to sell to a single purchaser. A strong reason given by Mrs. Blair against raffles had been her objection to having people urged to buy shares, and she had cautioned the girls to be careful not to try to influence their friends when looking at things on the tables to buy against their will. On the whole did any action of this kind seem necessary, since almost every one who attended the Bazaar came as a purchaser, and as there was only one fancy-goods table, there was no rivalry among the sellers. Some of the larger and more expensive things did not sell very readily, and Brenda was in a twitter--at least that was what Nora called it--about the fate of these things. There was one especially valuable thing, or valuable from the point of view of The Four, a water color contributed by an artist friend of Mrs. Barlow's. He was a well-known artist, and his work was in demand, and down town the picture would have brought a large price. The girls in making the price of articles for the sale, had been uncertain what to do about this, and after long consultation with the older persons interested, had decided on one hundred dollars. The artist himself had acquiesced in this, for they had thought it polite to refer the matter finally to him. Every one had prophesied that the picture would sell at once, yet for some reason or other, by the middle of the afternoon it was still unsold. By four o'clock it seemed as if all Miss Crawdon's school had emptied itself into the pretty hall, and about this time Brenda began to yield to a little temptation. "What are you and Belle so mysterious about?" asked Nora, as she saw the two busily talking in a corner, and evidently rather afraid of being interrupted. "Oh, nothing, only a little business," Brenda had replied, and then she and Belle had resumed their conversation which seemed to partake of the nature of calculation, with frequent references to a little notebook. After this Nora could not help noticing that Brenda devoted her attention to the older schoolgirls, and the college boys who in the latter part of the afternoon had begun to arrive in considerable numbers. "What in the world are you doing?" she asked again and again, as Belle darted by as if searching for some special person, or Brenda stalked up and down studying her notebook. Toward four o'clock there was considerable bustle at the entrance to the room, and Mrs. Blair's waitress, who had been standing in the hall, came forward with a message for Julia. At least she went up to the flower booth, and after speaking to Julia the latter hurried forward to the door where stood an old lady leaning on the arm of a tall serving man. "Who is it?" "Isn't she fine looking?" "Oh, no, I think her rather queer; who ever saw a turban like that?" were a few of the remarks that flew around the room, as Julia and the old lady with her attendant walked over toward the group of easy-chairs which Mrs. Blair had thoughtfully provided in one corner. "Why, it's Madame Du Launy," cried Nora, who was really the first to recognize the occupant of the mysterious house near the school, and soon the news spread, until there was hardly a person in the room who had not heard it. Every one, naturally enough, was too polite to show her curiosity, although it must be admitted that a few of the bolder wandered nearer to the seated group than was actually necessary in order to get a good view of the old lady, or to overhear a part of what she and Julia had to say to each other. At Julia's request the waitress had found Mrs. Blair, and after making the necessary introduction, Julia had led Madame Du Launy, accompanied by Mrs. Blair, to the flower table. No one who had ever heard Madame Du Launy called miserly, could have believed this true while watching her progress from table to table at the Bazaar. Though every one knew that she had her own little conservatory, she bought plants and cut flowers with great liberality, and while she always asked the price of each thing, she never demurred at the stated sum. When Madame Du Launy and her little party approached the fancy-work table, Frances fairly bristled with importance, and displayed her goods, as if conferring the greatest favor. In spite of this rather forbidding manner on the part of the young saleswoman, Madame Du Launy proved a good patron. She bought one set of Edith's doilies, as well as several smaller things, and then her eye fell on the water color, which, to display it the better, had been hung on the wall back of the table. "Is that for sale?" she asked rather abruptly. "Why, no, or rather, yes," replied Frances with a certain hesitation. "At least it has been for sale," she added. "Is it sold?" asked Mrs. Blair in some surprise; "a short time ago, I understood that you had not found a purchaser." Frances reddened a little under Mrs. Blair's rather searching glance, and reddened still more deeply as Mrs. Blair continued, "Has any one bought it within the last half hour?" "Why, no," said Frances, "not exactly, although--" During this conversation, an expression of annoyance had come over Madame Du Launy's face. Apparently she was accustomed to having whatever she expressed a desire to buy, and this reluctance on the part of Frances was far from agreeable to her. It was hardly less distasteful to Mrs. Blair. "I should think, Frances, that as valuable a thing as this would either be for sale, or if sold would have had a purchaser, whom you could mention." "I wish that Belle were here," murmured Frances rather helplessly. "Why I thought that you and Edith had complete charge here," remarked Mrs. Blair. "Well, so we had, but Edith is resting now, and----" "It is of no consequence, Mrs. Blair, there are other pictures elsewhere that will probably suit me as well, only I imagined that the young ladies wished to sell this one," interposed Madame Du Launy haughtily, and holding her head rather high, she started in the direction of the surprise table. Now just at this moment Miss South, who had been amusing herself with some of Nora's funny little surprise packages, turned away from this table to meet Julia who was walking a step or two behind Madame Du Launy and Mrs. Blair. She had removed her hat, and her wavy, brown hair, was dressed rather low on each side of her forehead, somewhat as we have seen it in the portraits of a generation or two ago. She smiled brightly as her eye met Julia's, and then she looked toward Mrs. Blair and Madame Du Launy, whom evidently she had not noticed before. For as her eye fell on the latter she gave a start of surprise. At the same time the latter, with a gasp, leaned heavily on the arm of her attendant, and would have fallen had he not led her quickly to a chair. XXVI GREAT EXCITEMENT For several moments all was confusion. While trying not to show an inconsiderate curiosity, the girls behind the tables could not help leaving their places, though they stood at a fair distance from the spot where Julia and Miss South and two or three older women were trying to do what they could to revive Madame Du Launy. Although she had not actually fainted, she was certainly not herself, and for several minutes she leaned back in her chair with her eyes half-closed. Yet although she looked pale and almost pitiful with the lines of age clearly showing in her face, she would not accept help from any one, not even the glass of water which they offered her. At last, after a time that seemed longer than it really was to those who stood by, she opened her eyes, and without a word to those standing near, motioned to her man. "My carriage, at once," was all she said, then motioning to him again she took his arm, as she rose from her seat. Turning for a moment toward Julia who had extended her hand, "Good-bye, dear," she murmured as she started to walk with stately step across the room. The whole thing had been so strange--Madame Du Launy's fainting-spell, and her peculiar manner on coming to herself, that those who stood near instead of making any comments only gazed after the old lady in surprise. In the midst of the excitement Miss South, too, had slipped away, and on making enquiries about her Julia was told that she had gone home. Yet although at the very moment of this strange occurrence no one had had much to say, when the girls gathered in little groups aside, their tongues swung back and forward with great energy. "What in the world could have caused it?" was asked on every hand, and many were the guesses and speculations as to what had caused the little scene. "Oh, old ladies ought not to try to go to festive places like this," said one of the girls glancing around the long room with its walls paneled with mirrors, its decorations of vines, and plants, and bright streamers. "Especially old ladies who have hardly set foot in the house of any one else for fifty years, more or less," added another. "Well, even then I don't see what made her faint," said Nora, who happened to have heard the last remark. "There wasn't anything particularly exciting going on here." "Oh," replied Belle, "it had something to do with Miss South. I stood where I could see Madame Du Launy's face, and when she fainted she had just met Miss South's eye, and didn't you notice, Miss South looked as if she would like to faint herself!" "How ridiculous!" said a girl who had newly joined the group, "you always see more than any one else does, Belle." "What if I do? I am just as often right, and you can see for yourself that Miss South is not here now. I noticed that she hurried away as soon as she could." "What if she did?" cried Nora; "I do think, Belle, that you are sometimes perfectly ridiculous. Any number of people are not here now, who were in the room half an hour ago." "Oh, you know what I mean, Nora; mark my words there is something queer about the whole thing." "How in the world, I wonder, did Madame Du Launy happen to know about the Bazaar?" asked Frances Pounder. "Why, Frances Pounder, where have you been?" cried Nora. "Why, yes, Frances Pounder, where have you been?" echoed Belle. "Haven't you heard of the tremendous intimacy that has sprung up between Julia and Madame Du Launy since she rescued her little Fidessa from the park police? It really is a wonderful story, and we all expect Julia to be the old lady's heir." "Come, come," interrupted Nora, "we can't afford to waste our time gossiping; we should be thankful that Madame Du Launy ventured to come here at all, for she bought any number of things, and paid good prices, and now if we do not return to our tables, we may lose all the patronage of the other old ladies who are wandering about." So two by two the little crowd dispersed. Some of the girls went behind the tables, while others hovered about, picking and choosing what they should buy according to their purses or their taste. But to tell all the happenings of that afternoon and evening would take a longer time than can be spared to it now. In the evening not only the fathers and uncles of many of the girls came upon the scene, but Philip and his friends appeared to form a small army of purchasers. The latter were not on the whole inclined to buy very expensive things, though they patronized the refreshment table so steadily that Belle had to beg one of the New York boys to become assistant cashier. They also almost swept the flower booth clean of cut flowers and plants, to the loss of the little patients in the children's hospital, who might otherwise have been benefited, had any flowers been left over. Yet although I say that they did not buy a great deal I must not be misunderstood. They did carry off all kinds of little things that they thought would raise a laugh in their college rooms. Philip, for example, bought a work-basket, lined with pink and white silk, grumbling as he did so that this was the nearest approach he could find to crimson. Besides that he paid a good price for the doll which he had admired, and which Nora had mischievously reserved for him by pinning to it a card bearing his name. He also bought a small hammock of twisted ribbons, in which he said he intended to suspend the doll in a conspicuous place over his mantelpiece. Tom Hurst had to buy two or three tobacco pouches, and in addition he chose a rattle, the covering of which Nora had knitted and decorated with bells. "Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw," quoted Nora, as he carried away his purchase, at the same time presenting him with a wisp of straws from a broom, which she had tied together with a piece of crimson ribbon. "To be forever cherished," responded Tom, as he walked off with his trophies, in a tone that made the usually unsentimental Nora blush. As to Will Hardon, he lost no time in going to the table over which Frances and Edith presided to enquire for a sofa pillow which had been reserved for him. "Reserved!" cried Edith in a tone of surprise, for Ruth had taken her into the secret. "I thought it was understood that nothing could be reserved here----" Will's face fell, for he was very much in earnest. "Oh, now Miss Blair," he said, "you surely were not in earnest last evening; you know that I had made up my mind to that pillow." "Wouldn't something else do just as well?" she asked, "this centrepiece for example, _I_ worked this," with an emphasis on the pronoun. "Why, it's very pretty," said poor Will, "only I shouldn't know what to do with it, but I'd like it very much, really I would," he hastened to add, as Edith looked a little serious. "Well, I'm sorry," she responded, "that you fix your affection on such impossible things; now this centrepiece is also disposed of. Mrs. Barlow has bought it, and will take it home this evening." "Also," exclaimed Will, "you said 'also,' do you mean that the sofa pillow is really gone?" Edith could not help smiling at his expression of disappointment. "Here comes Ruth," she said, "ask her;" and Ruth, with her hands full of flowers which she was carrying across the room to Mrs. Pounder, paused for a moment. "Why, you look as if you were quarreling," she said to Edith, "you and--Mr. Hardon; can't I be umpire?" "Why, yes," replied Will, "that was just what we wish, for you are the only one who really understands the merits of the case. You remember that cushion?" Ruth looked sufficiently conscious to make further reply unnecessary. "Of course you _do_ remember it," continued Will, "and you know that you more than half promised to save it for me. Now nobody here at this table seems able to tell me about it, at least Miss Blair isn't, and she ought to, if any one could, tell me just where it is." "I am not sure," responded Edith, "that you have really put the question to me. At any rate I am positive that I have not made any statement about it." "But you told me to refer to Miss Roberts, and I thought that that meant that you knew nothing about it." "Well, honestly, I can't tell you about the cushion," said Ruth; "if any one offered more than one hundred dollars, which I think was your limit, I suppose that it has been sold." "You think that I did not mean what I said," cried Will. "Oh, no, indeed, but if any one offered more----" All this time Edith had been standing with one hand behind her back, and at the last minute she raised her arm, and disclosed the cushion, which a minute before she had brought from its hiding-place beneath the table. "There, that is mine," exclaimed the young man, "let me have it." "Well, I declare!" cried Edith, as in surprise, "this card really does bear your name, and so I suppose that I must give you the cushion." Will leaned forward eagerly. "Yes, it is mine, but," as he glanced at the card, "the price is not right. It is only one-tenth what I expected to pay." "Why! would you really have paid one hundred dollars for it?" asked Ruth. "Why not?" he asked. "Oh, it is so much more than it is worth," she replied. "Even for the Rosas we could not have permitted it." "Well," he answered, as he handed out the crisp ten dollar bill, which paid the price marked on the pillow, "well, I must make it up to the Rosas in some other way." Then turning toward Edith, "thank you, Miss Blair, for waiting on me, although you did give me a bad quarter of a minute, when you made me believe that I might have missed the purchase which I came expressly to make." So with a pleasant smile, carrying the pretty cushion on one arm, he walked across the room with Ruth. Belle, as she watched them, could not help thinking how well they looked together, even though for the moment she felt a little jealousy of Ruth's growing popularity. Neither the evening before, nor during the whole progress of the Bazaar, had Belle received any special attention from even one of "the boys" as Philip and his friends were called collectively. Ruth, to be sure, was nearly a year and a half older than "The Four," and it was more natural that she should receive a little more attention of the kind that young ladies receive. But Belle thought that she herself felt as old as she should ever feel, and now since she wore her hair done up, and had skirts that almost touched, she did not see why she should not be treated just as if she were "grown up." To suit her ideas, therefore, of the deportment of a young lady, she had begun to assume a very coquettish manner. But this, instead of producing the desired effect--that of gaining for her great admiration, only amused the boys, and led them to make fun of her when by themselves. Edith through Philip, and Nora through her brother, had some knowledge of this fact. But Brenda regarded Belle with more or less awe, and considered her an exceedingly worldly-wise person. When, therefore, Belle proposed to her that instead of selling the water-color painting of which I have spoken, at a fixed price, they should vote it to the most popular young man of their acquaintance, Brenda acquiesced. "You see it will be this way," said Belle, "we can get people to vote by taking shares." "How much will the shares be?" "Oh, a dollar, and we can easily sell a hundred and fifty dollars worth. I am sure that is a great deal better than letting the picture go for one hundred dollars." "But isn't that the same as a raffle?" "No, stupid, of course not." "For you know that Mrs. Blair has forbidden us to have any raffles." "Yes, I know about that rule, and a very silly rule it is, too," replied Belle, "but this isn't at all the same thing as a raffle. People just pay for the privilege of voting, and don't expect any gain for themselves, as they would in a lottery or raffle. It's a good thing, too, for the person they vote for, it's doing him good, and no one can disapprove of a plan to help other people," said Belle with an unselfishness of sentiment that could not have been looked for in her. "Oh, no," said Brenda, hesitatingly, "I suppose not." "All the same," Belle had continued, "I think that we had better not say anything to Edith and Nora about it, they might interfere in some way, and besides I am sure that they both have enough to do looking after their own tables." "Well, but how can we get any votes if we do not say anything to anybody?" enquired Brenda. "Oh, of course we must take Frances into our confidence. She is at the table where the picture is. There won't be much danger of its selling at once for one hundred dollars, and we can trust Frances to head any one off who pretends to wish to buy it." So it was as a result of this plan of Belle's that Frances had prevented a sale of the picture to Madame du Launy. For at that time Brenda and Belle had a number of names on their books, enough in fact to represent one half the valuation of the picture. Each girl who voted was bound to secrecy, for Belle realized (though she had put it in a different light to Brenda) that she was violating the spirit, if not the letter of Mrs. Blair's command. Nevertheless the very fact that the carrying out of this plan involved a certain amount of mystery, gave the whole thing more zest than it would otherwise have had for the two. Strangely enough, however, after the first fifty votes had been cast, with a great scattering as to the most popular youth, the two girls found it hard to get more names. The evening, indeed, was half over before the list had increased to sixty votes. About this time an awkward thing happened. Running upstairs from the dining-room, Belle had dropped the neat little book in which she kept record of her votes, and when one of the maids handed it to Mrs. Blair, great was her surprise to find on the fly-leaf the sentence "voting contest for the picture." "Whose handwriting is this?" she asked Edith, "and what does this all mean; surely none of you is carrying on a raffle." "It's Belle's writing," answered Edith a little reluctantly, for she saw that her mother was angry. "But I do not know what it means." Well after this, of course Belle was summoned to talk with Mrs. Blair, and though she reiterated that she had only desired to make as much money as she could for the Bazaar, Mrs. Blair insisted that Belle should give her all that she had already received to return to those who had subscribed or voted. Brenda, too, came in for a good share of reproof, and the whole thing was very humiliating to the two girls, who found themselves so clearly in the wrong. Beyond obliging them to conform, however, to her views of what was proper, Mrs. Blair had no intention of making them unduly uncomfortable. "Think no more about it," she said, "only remember that you have prevented the sale of the picture, for I saw to-day that Madame Du Launy was very anxious to buy it." After hearing this Brenda and Belle, although mortified, decided to make the best of the rest of the evening. They merely explained to some of the voters who asked them, that it had been decided to give up this plan for disposing of the picture, and that the money would be returned. The episode of Madame Du Launy in the afternoon, and this little unpleasant incident of the evening were the only things to make this Bazaar seem very different from other Bazaars. You know what they are all like, and that each fair or sale or Bazaar depends for its charm on the unity with which the workers carry things on, and the extent to which their friends patronize it, and I will say for "The Four" that they were much more in harmony through this whole affair than often they had been in the past, and that their friends--especially their young friends--did even more than had been expected of them to help swell the fund for the Rosas. Brenda had been anxious to have one or two of this interesting family on the spot to work on the sympathies of the patrons of the Bazaar. She had thought that it would be delightful to have Angelina wait on the refreshment table, and she did not see why Manuel might not have been present all the time. "In some kind of fancy costume, of course, for I know that his own clothes would not be exactly clean and whole." But Mrs. Blair had objected to the presence of the Rosas whether in fancy dress, or in their usual garb, and Mrs. Barlow had succeeded in making Brenda see that it would not be the best thing in the world for the Rosa children to be introduced to what must seem to them a scene of great luxury in a Back Bay house, even though it might be explained to them that part of the gorgeousness was due to a desire to help them--the special gorgeousness, I mean, of the Bazaar. "Who in the world is to take care of all the money?" asked Nora, as she looked at the large tin box almost running over with silver and bills taken in as receipts at the various tables. "Oh, Mrs. Blair is to put it in her safe to-night, and to-morrow it will be exchanged at the bank for large bills!" answered Brenda. "And then----?" "And then we must have a committee meeting to decide what is to be done with it. When it was last counted there were nearly three hundred dollars, and there has been something added to it since." "Why, how perfectly splendid!" cried Nora; "why we should be able to do almost anything we wish to do for the Rosas; why, it is a regular fortune!" for Nora had ideas almost as vague as Brenda of the value of money. "Oh, yes, we've done very well, but I am glad that it is all over; the Bazaar has been fun, but it is kind of a relief not to have it on my mind any more." "Oh, Brenda, it hasn't worried you much, you took things very easy until the last day or two." "Well, that's just it; I've felt so busy to-day, that I would like to rest for a week." "But you haven't been half as busy as Julia, she has hardly left her post all day, and I think that she looks pretty tired." "Dear me," said Brenda crossly, "if she had not wished to serve at the flower booth, we could have found some other girl to do it. Oh, Julia," she cried as her cousin drew near her, "are you coming home in the carriage with me?" "Why, yes, if you wish it." "Well, it has just taken papa and mamma home, and when it comes back, I shall be ready." The pretty dancing-hall now presented a thoroughly disordered appearance. It was strewn with wrapping papers that had been pushed from behind the tables, or had been thrown there by careless persons who had tossed down the coverings of their surprise packages. There were also a number of faded flowers lying about, and the tables themselves were in confused heaps. For, of course, not everything had sold, and the "remains" as one of the boys called what was left, had to stay on the tables until the morning. When Brenda and Julia were finally ready to go home, they were almost the last to leave. Even the Cambridge boys had said "good-bye" and Ruth and Frances had started for home. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Blair, for letting us come here," said Brenda, as they left the room. For Brenda seldom forgot her good manners where older people were concerned, even though she was sometimes inclined to be pettish toward her younger friends. "Why, what is that?" she enquired, as Julia had a large package lifted into the carriage. "It's that water-color that was on Edith's table." "Why, what are you taking it home for?" "I have bought it," replied Julia quietly, "and I am going to give it to Aunt Anna." Brenda was almost too much surprised to speak, for this was the picture which she and Belle had tried to raffle. "But you did not pay one hundred dollars for it?" "Why not?" said Julia with a smile, as they reached their door. XXVII A MISTAKE Brenda, herself, was too sleepy that night when she reached home, to express her surprise at Julia's having bought the picture. Yet she certainly wondered that the cousin whom she had hitherto regarded as bound down to economy, should have been able to spend so large a sum for a single purchase. Julia on her part was not surprised at her cousin's indifference, for Brenda had a way of seeming curious or especially interested only in relation to things that immediately concerned her. When they had separated, and Julia was alone in her own room, she had opportunity for the first time since the morning for thinking over all the events of the day. Her place at the Bazaar had been a very pleasant one, and while she had not had much to do with any of the girls except Ruth, her attention had been constantly occupied in disposing of her flowers. Philip and his friends had been especially good patrons, and the former had taken the chances that came to him of going up to the table and talking to Julia on one thing and another, not always connected with the Bazaar or with the Rosas. In spite of a certain amount of conceit--and what young sophomore is without this quality--Philip was really a very agreeable fellow, and in Julia he had some one ready to listen to him more attentively than was Edith's habit, or indeed that of the other girls. For Belle, for example, although she liked what she called "attention" from the boys of her set, wished to have the conversation turn entirely upon herself and her own affairs, and she always showed impatience when the person with whom she was talking turned to any other subject. Now Philip--though in this he was not so very different from other young men--liked to have some one to talk to who would listen sympathetically to his tales of college triumphs, or grievances, and occasionally give him a word of advice. In Julia he found not only an attentive listener, but an intelligent adviser. So although the Bazaar was not just the place for confidences, he had been able to have several pleasant little snatches of conversation with Julia. She had enjoyed these little fragmentary talks as much as Philip had, and they both had had much amusement from his rather clumsy attempts to help her in arranging bouquets for her customers. Julia, therefore, had many pleasant things to recall connected with the Bazaar, and not the least pleasant was the fact that she had been able to contribute a good deal toward helping the Rosas. The one strange feature of the whole affair had been the sudden departure of Madame Du Launy. "And why," mused Julia, "did Miss South go away without bidding me good-bye? I know that she meant to stay until evening. Well, perhaps it will all be explained. Though certainly now I cannot understand it all. Perhaps to-morrow--" and here Julia fell asleep with the question still unsettled. Early the next morning--as soon at least as she had had her breakfast, Julia started off to find Miss South, but the maid at her boarding-house said that she had gone out and probably would not be back before evening; with this she had to be content, although in addition to general enquiries about the strange event of the day before, she wished to talk over with Miss South some of the plans which they had been discussing for the assistance of the Rosa family. They had been finally successful in getting Mrs. Rosa to promise to go to the country for the summer, if for no longer a time. They had found a house in Shiloh, a small village with elevated land not so very far from Boston, and they were sure that a residence there would benefit the sick woman. A man whom Miss South knew, who had been at one time given up by the doctors as in hopeless consumption, had moved to this village, and after a year had been pronounced almost well. He had opened a little shop there, his children had found employment for their spare hours, and the family had at last started on the high road to prosperity. This was a great change for them, for during their father's illness in town, they had often had to have charitable relief. Miss South's plan for Mrs. Rosa included a certain amount of work for the family. A farmer had been found who promised to employ the oldest boy, and a woman who took summer boarders said that she could pay Angelina two dollars a week, to help in her kitchen, if she could sleep at home. The house which they had selected had a small piece of land where it was hoped that Mrs. Rosa could raise some vegetables. To accomplish what they wished, considerable money was needed, and they had enlisted Brenda's interest to so great an extent that she professed herself perfectly willing to have the money raised at the Bazaar used to rent and equip the house, and pay the many little expenses that would be caused by the enterprise. "As Brenda really has been interested in Manuel, it would be hardly fair to leave her out of this plan, although," said Julia, "although we might get on without her help." "Oh, dear, no," Miss South had said, "it would never in the world do to overlook Brenda. She is an impulsive little thing, and although Mrs. Rosa and the children might have fared badly this winter, had they had no one but Brenda to depend on, still it is a great advance for Brenda to be interested in some one besides herself, and it is excellent discipline for her to have a certain share in carrying out this plan. It is not altogether a matter of money." Now, Brenda, of course, in deciding to favor the plan proposed by Miss South was not acting entirely for herself. Edith, Nora, and Belle were as much concerned as she, and Nora in fact, as the rescuer of Manuel, was more interested than any of the others. Belle, the only one who might have been expected to oppose Miss South's plan, really had no objection to it. Her one thought in the whole matter had been to get as much pleasure and glory as possible out of the Bazaar itself. Edith, while practical about some things,--needlework for example, and lessons,--seldom put her mind on money matters, and Nora was as heedless about this as about other things. Brenda was almost as heedless, and yet The Four had thought it perfectly proper that she should be treasurer of their little fund. So it happened that on the very morning when Julia was trying to find Miss South, Brenda had received from Mrs. Blair's hands four crisp one hundred dollar notes. This was a little more than had been taken at the Bazaar. But in getting the loose bills and cheques changed into more compact form, Mrs. Blair had added enough to make the sum an even four hundred dollars. The other three girls were with Brenda as she received the money from Mrs. Blair, and immediately they sat down to count up the expenses that must be paid from their receipts. Rather to Mrs. Blair's surprise these expenses mounted up to more than one hundred dollars, and she scolded The Four a little for having engaged an expensive orchestra for the music of the preceding evening, when music was not really needed at all. The ices and other things furnished the refreshment room made another large item in the bills, although there had been some profit from this department. "I will take one of your one hundred dollar bills, and with it pay the expenses," said Mrs. Blair, "and I would advise you to take care of the three hundred dollars, for after all it is not a large sum to be used toward the support of a sick woman and five children." "Of course we'll take care of it, at least Brenda will," cried Nora, as Brenda folded the money away carefully in her purse, and placed the purse in a small leather bag. Then they went home with Brenda, and they saw her lock the bag into her top bureau drawer. After this they sat for a while as girls will, idly talking about the affairs of the day, while Mrs. Barlow's French maid bustled about, laying away some new waists and skirts of Brenda's that had just come home from the dressmaker's. "Look," at last cried Brenda, jumping up from her seat impetuously, "look, Marie, did you ever see so much money," and opening the drawer and the purse she brandished the three hundred dollar bills before the eyes of the young Frenchwoman. "Oh, my! Mees," cried Marie, "three dollars, that is not so very much!" "Three dollars!" shouted Brenda, "three hundred dollars, what you call twelve hundred francs." "Oh, my!" exclaimed Marie, her eyes almost jumping out of her head, "oh, my! I never did see so much money, let me look." So they let her touch the bills, and they laughed at the comments she made, and especially when she cried, "Louis would marry me if that money was mine." "I thought he was going to anyway," said Belle, "you have always said that you were engaged." "Oh, yes," she replied. "Oh, yes, sometime, perhaps, but it takes much money to get married. If I have to wait too long, perhaps Louis will find another girl with more money. But no matter." And she went out of the room looking much less cheerful than before she had seen the money. "How mercenary!" said Belle as she disappeared, for Belle always had a word large enough to fit every happening. "Well, it must be hard not to have any money but just what you earn every week," interposed Edith sympathetically. "Oh it's better not to have much money than to have a man think only of that in marrying you," responded Belle in her most worldly-wise voice. "Come, I think that we are talking of things that we know nothing about," said Nora, "but if I were you, Brenda, I would not let every one in the house know where that money is." "Nonsense, I always carry the key with me, and anyway it won't be here long," answered Brenda. "No matter, if I were you I would give it to Mr. Barlow to take down town." "Yes, you ought to," added Edith. "Oh, what fusses you are!" cried Brenda, "any one would think that I was a two-year-old baby." Just then there was a tap at the door. "May I come in?" said a voice, which they at once recognized as Julia's. "Yes, indeed," cried Nora and Edith, and the former flung the door wide open and greeted Julia with a kiss. "Where have you been, but of course you have been to see Miss South. It was so funny that she did not stay last evening. What was the reason?" "Well I did not find her; she was not expected home to-day," answered Julia. "How queer!" "Why, to tell you the truth, I was a little surprised myself, for we had an appointment together this morning, although if we had not had one, I should have gone up there to find out if she was ill yesterday." "Oh, tell me," enquired Edith, "have you heard anything about Madame Du Launy? Mamma said that she would send there to enquire this morning, but I have not been home since she sent." "Yes," said Julia, "I did make enquiries at the house, and was told that she was feeling pretty well to-day, but that she could not see anybody." "Not even you!" exclaimed Belle, a little sarcastically. "Not even me," replied Julia pleasantly. "I suppose for one thing that the Bazaar yesterday tired her. They tell me that it is the first time in twenty years that she has been inside of any house in Boston besides her own." "I wonder if that is true," said Edith, reflectively. "Yes, I believe that it is," answered Julia. "Madame Du Launy said almost as much to me, although I must admit that she never talks very much about that kind of thing. As often as I have seen her this spring, she has never said a word to me on the subject of Boston people and their attitude to her,--or her attitude to them--" she hastened to add. "You talk like a book, Julia," said Brenda, who had complained once or twice that Julia talked too precisely, "like a school-teacher," she generally said, when she spoke on the subject to Belle. Julia laughed good-naturedly. Brenda's little arrows did less harm now than in the earlier part of the season. "So long as I make myself clear, it is all right, isn't it?" she asked. "Oh, of course," answered Brenda, "but you and Belle always do use such alarmingly correct expressions." "Brenda," called Mrs. Barlow from the floor below. The girls exchanged glances. There was something ominous in the tone, and even the dilatory Brenda decided that it would be best to respond as quickly as possible to the summons. Thereupon the other girls rose to go. In fact, the morning was almost over, and during the two or three hours which The Four had spent together they had talked about everything connected with the Bazaar until there was little more for them to say. The late hours which they had been keeping were telling upon them all, and if any one of them had been asked to tell what she felt the most need of at that particular moment, she would probably have said, "A good nap." Julia, however, was the only one to say frankly that she felt sleepy, and she excused herself as the others went downstairs, while they bade her good-bye at the door of her own room. She had been there but a few minutes seated in a wicker easy-chair before the long window which afforded a beautiful view of the river, when the door was hastily flung open, and in a second Brenda stood before her. "I think that you are just as mean as you can be, Julia Bourne," she cried angrily. "It does seem as if I ought not to have spies in my own house watching everything that I do and carrying tales just as if I were a baby." "Why, what do you mean, Brenda?" asked Julia in genuine astonishment. "You know very well what I mean. You and Miss South, you saw me with Belle the other afternoon; oh, it wasn't so long ago that you could forget it, you saw us down there by the Music Hall and you told mamma that we had been there. Anyway, I do not see whose business it is. We are old enough to go about by ourselves, but I think that you are just as mean as you can be," and with this final outburst Brenda flung herself from the room without giving Julia time to reply. The latter for a moment sat in her chair completely puzzled. Then she remembered the day on which she and Miss South returning from the North End had seen Belle and Brenda in Winter Street. The two girls had disappeared so quickly that she did not suppose at the time that they had seen her. Now, however, it seemed that they had been merely in hiding. But of one thing she was sure, she had never spoken of the encounter to her aunt, and all this torrent of anger on Brenda's part was wholly uncalled for. It did seem too bad that Brenda should have taken this tone just as she had begun to hope that she and her cousin were to understand each other. On the other hand the case was not very serious, since to Brenda in a calmer mood it would be very easy to give an explanation. Yet if it were not for her uncle and aunt, who were always considerate, Julia now felt that it would be hard for her to continue under the same roof with Brenda. Julia herself, had always been closely observant of the golden rule. Nor was her piety of the kind that was displayed only on occasions. She had been most regular in her attendance at Sabbath-school, and she and Nora and Edith never thought of letting rain, or heat, or any other thing prevent their attendance at the morning service as well. But besides these outward observances she kept the spirit of the teachings of her Church, or tried to keep them in her daily life. Neither Brenda, therefore, nor any one else could accuse her of hypocrisy. She believed strongly in the soft answer that turneth away wrath, and yet no one could say that behind any one else's back she indulged in harsh criticism. At luncheon Brenda did not come to the table, and a question or two from Mrs. Barlow brought out the fact that Brenda had vented on her cousin part of the annoyance that she had felt at her mother's reproof. "Of course I shall make it clear to Brenda that I did not get my information from you. Indeed I do not see how she could have thought so. I certainly intimated that I had had my information from some one who had seen her in the hall. In going there with Belle, Brenda broke two well-understood rules of mine. In the first place she is not allowed to go down town except with some older person. It the second place I disapprove of young girls going to matinees of any kind, and the performance they went to see was not at all a proper one for them. I know that I had previously declined to take them. Brenda knew my opinion of this particular performance, and two friends of mine who saw her and Belle there were exceedingly surprised that I had permitted them to go alone. They spoke of the matter incidentally to me, and in that way I learned of Brenda's disobedience. But I am sorry that Brenda should have troubled you about the affair, for I know that when she is angry she can say very disagreeable things." "It is not of very much consequence, Aunt Anna," replied Julia, "as long as it is a thing that can be straightened out. If I really had seen Brenda at the Hall, I might have mentioned the fact without realizing that it could make her so angry, but when she understands about this I am sure that we shall be as good friends as ever." "I hope so," responded Mrs. Barlow. XXVIII EXPLANATIONS Now it happened that on Thursday afternoon Julia went to Nora's and stayed all night. The next morning the two went out to Roxbury to fulfil a promise to Ruth to pass a day and night with her. Thus it happened that Julia and Brenda did not see each other until Saturday evening. They then met in the presence of an elderly friend of Mrs. Barlow's who had come to stay over Sunday with the family, and so Brenda had no opportunity of making an apology--if she intended to make one for her language of the subject of the matinee. For Mrs. Barlow, of course, had explained her error to Brenda, and though the latter had not expressed great contrition, her mother knew that in the end she would do what was right. Luckily Julia herself was not one to feel resentment, for Sunday passed without her hearing a word on the subject from Brenda. After the second service on Sunday, Miss South joined Julia just outside the church door. "I am very glad to see you," she said, "for I was greatly disappointed in missing you the other day. I have many things to tell you, if you will walk with me for half an hour." This Julia was pleased to do, for it was a beautiful afternoon, and moreover, she was anxious to hear why Miss South had gone away so suddenly from Edith's, on the afternoon of the Bazaar. "I must begin at the beginning, Julia," said Miss South, "for you are old enough to hear a rather romantic story at first hand, which otherwise you might hear in an incorrect form." "I won't say that I have been curious, Miss South," replied Julia, "although I have thought that in some mysterious way your going off had some connection with Madame Du Launy." "That is true logic on your part," responded Miss South, "and you will be interested to hear that I have spent several hours since Wednesday with Madame Du Launy. Before I forget it I must tell you that she was very sorry that she could not see you when you called. She told me to say this to you as a special message from her." "Thank you," answered Julia, "but I am very anxious to hear what you have to say. I feel sure that it is something very interesting." Miss South smiled. "Then I must begin at the very beginning. You may have noticed that rather striking portrait of a young girl in the room where Madame Du Launy usually receives her visitors. Well, that young girl was my mother." Julia naturally gave a start of surprise, and for a moment her mind occupied itself in reproducing an image of this portrait. Then Miss South resumed her story. "Yes, my mother was the only one of Madame Du Launy's children who married, and she married against her mother's will. My father was a very independent man, and when his wife's mother said that she would never forgive her for having married a poor man without family or position, he accepted this as final. He would not let my mother make any attempt at reconciliation, yet had she made such efforts I am sure that they would have been unsuccessful. He took her to Ohio first, and after a time they moved further west. We lived from the earliest time that I can remember, very simply and economically, but we had the advantage of good schools,--we two children, I mean--and when I showed a desire to go to college I was sent to the State University of the State where we had grown up. My brother, as I told you, was several years younger than I, and was only preparing for college when my father died. Our mother had died when we were little children, and in accordance with our father's wishes we had heard little about our grandmother besides her name. Once he had told us that she was an embittered old woman, and that she had not shown any regard for him, or my mother after her marriage. We knew that Boston had been our mother's home for a time, although most of her youth had been spent in wandering around Europe with her parents. After our father's death I thought once or twice of trying to find out whether or not our grandmother was alive. But my brother always dissuaded me, so keen was his resentment for the way she had treated our father. My telling him that this had been mere prejudice on her part--for she never had met my father--did not make him change his mind. He made me believe that it would be disrespect to both our parents if I should seek my grandmother. When I came to Boston, and heard about this peculiar Madame Du Launy, who lived opposite the school, I felt that she must be my grandmother, and some letters and a picture--a small water-color of the house--made it perfectly clear that in this surmise I was correct. Before the Bazaar I had decided in the course of the spring, to make myself known to Madame Du Launy, and I ought to tell you that it was your account of her gentler side that led me to think seriously of doing this." "How very interesting!" cried Julia. "Why, I never heard anything like it. But why did not Madame Du Launy ever try to find you?" "For the very good reason that she did not know of my existence. You see my mother never wrote to her after the first months of her marriage when my grandmother returned all her letters unopened. Yet Madame Du Launy--I find it very hard to say 'Grandmother' had heard that my mother had had one or two children, but she had also been told that they had died. All that she heard, however, was mere rumor, for she was too proud to write to my father after her daughter's death. But of late years, she says, she has been very unhappy, and has thought much about my mother. It was my close resemblance to her portrait that caused her to faint the other day. I have a photograph made from that portrait, and occasionally I dress my hair in the same style, those old fashions are somewhat in vogue now, and I can do so with propriety. My grandmother says that I am wonderfully like my mother." "Dear me!" said Julia, "it is more interesting than a novel. I suppose that now you will go to live with Madame Du Launy, and we shall lose you at school." Miss South smiled. "I shall certainly finish out my present year of teaching, although it is probable that I may go to live with Madame Du Launy." Then after a pause, "There is one thing that I ought to say, Julia, because I know that already it is reported that I am to be a great heiress. Madame Du Launy has a good income, but it comes from an annuity, and when she dies it will die with her. She seemed to think that she ought to explain this to me before asking me to live with her. The house is hers outright, and she has said that she will give it to me and my brother. I would not speak of this if it were not that I should be placed in a false position otherwise. In fact I am the more ready to go to live with my grandmother, because she is not the enormously rich woman that she has been represented to be. But now I have talked enough about myself, so let us turn to the Rosas." "Why, yes," responded Julia, "I have been wondering whether or not you had seen them since the Bazaar." "Yes, I was able to go down yesterday, and I found Mrs. Rosa quite ready to go to the country. I did not feel at liberty to tell her of the success of the efforts of 'The Four,' but I told her that money was certain to be furnished for the expense of removing her, and setting her up in the little home that we have planned for her." "Wasn't she perfectly delighted?" "Well, she did not show a great deal of emotion. She is almost too weak for that, but I am sure that she is pleased, although she has a certain amount of regret at leaving the city." "She ought to be perfectly thankful to leave that wretched place." "It does not look quite as wretched and dirty to her as it does to us, and after all home is home, and the North End has been her home for many years." "I won't ask what the children think of the change, for I shall see them myself in a day or two, and I suppose that I ought to be going home now. But I do wish to tell you how delighted I am about your good fortune in finding your grandmother. You know that I have grown quite fond of Madame Du Launy myself, and I have been so sorry for her loneliness that I am very glad indeed that she is to have you to live with her. Now, here I suppose that I ought to leave you at this corner, so good-bye until to-morrow." "Wait a moment, Julia, I have been so wrapped up in myself that I have not given you a message from Madame Du Launy. At least she wished me to tell you that your kindness in running in to see her this spring had been greatly appreciated, and that she has been made very happy by the glimpses of fresh, young life that you have given her. In the future she hopes to see much more of you and of some of your young friends. Poor grandmother! It is her own fault that she has been so shut out from people and interesting things here in Boston. But in her youth she was a very sharped tongued and overbearing woman,--she says this herself--and she so resented the criticisms which people made on her marriage that she was only too glad to give up their society, and in return for their criticisms she said so many sharp things that even if she had wished it, there was small chance of her having pleasant associations with most of the families of her acquaintance. Oh! before we part there is one thing that I must tell you about Mrs. Rosa. It seems that she has been greatly annoyed lately by a young man, the son of an old friend of hers, who for several years was in the habit of lending her small sums of money. The friend had given her to understand that these sums were gifts in repayment of kindnesses that Mrs. Rosa had done her friend in her youth. In fact the young man's mother had borrowed from the Rosas in their prosperous days. Lately, however, this friend has died, and her son has a little book in which the money lent Mrs. Rosa amounts with interest to two hundred dollars. He claims that it is a debt due him, and though he cannot collect anything from a person who has nothing, he annoys Mrs. Rosa very much by coming to her house and telling her that she ought to get some of her rich friends to help her pay the debt. He is very well off himself, for a Portuguese, and his behavior is a kind of persecution." "Well," said Julia, "I must tell the girls, for if they should let Mrs. Rosa have even a little of the money----" "He would certainly wheedle it from her, and you ought to give them a word of warning." As they parted Julia felt that she had many things to think about--many more things than she had had to consider for a long time. When she reached home she found the family all discussing some of the rumors that had come to them about Madame Du Launy and Miss South, and she was glad that she had had her information at first hand, and that she could contradict some rather absurd rumors that were in circulation. "The worst thing about it," said Mrs. Barlow, "appears to be the fact that by this turn of Fortune's wheel, Miss Crawdon's school is likely to lose one of its best teachers." "I am not so sure of that," responded Julia; "I have an idea that Miss South may continue to teach; she is very fond of her work----" "But her grandmother will certainly wish her to give all her time to her, and her first duty will be with her." "Whatever her duty is, I am sure that she will do it," replied Julia; "she is the most conscientious person I have ever known; just think of her going down to see Mrs. Rosa this very week, when she must have had so much to interest her in at her grandmother's." "By the way," asked Mr. Barlow, "are Miss South and Madame Du Launy sure that they are correct in their surmises about the relationship? They must have some stronger proof than personal resemblance, and the possession of one or two old pictures." "Oh, yes," interposed Mrs. Barlow, "I believe that Miss South has many other proofs to show in the way of letters, certificates, and some other things that belonged to her mother." "Then her name, too,--you know she is called Lydia from a sister of Madame Du Launy's who died young, and--why how foolish we are, of course Madame Du Launy always knew that the name of the man whom her daughter married was George South, the name of your teacher's father. One of her objections to him was his plebeian name," said Mrs. Barlow's cousin who had remained over Sunday. Brenda had had less comment to make on these exciting events than had Julia, and even Mr. and Mrs. Barlow had seemed to take more interest in this romance of Madame Du Launy and Miss South. If the truth must be told Brenda was really half worn out. Her vacation had been anything but restful. The Bazaar by itself need not have tired her had she not in the latter part of the week spent almost every hour in some kind of vigorous exercise in search of what she and Belle called "fun." There had been two long bicycle rides, one dancing party, a three hours' walk to Brookline and back one day, and other things that really had told on her strength. Moreover her conscience was pricking her. For on the preceding afternoon, moved by an impulse which she now regretted, she had persuaded Nora to go with her to the North End to visit Mrs. Rosa. This was not long after Miss South had left the sick woman, and they found Mrs. Rosa somewhat depressed, first at the thought that she was really going to leave the city, second by the fact that her persistent creditor had just been in and had told her that he might "take the law on her"--so she quoted him, if she did not pay the money which he found written against her name in his mother's little book. Now Mrs. Rosa ought to have rested herself on Miss South's assurance that the young man could not make good his claim in law, but she was only a rather ignorant foreigner to whom the power of the law meant that she might be dragged off to the nearest police station by the brass-buttoned officers. She did not tell the young girls about her creditor, but when they pitied her for looking so ill, she sighed so sadly that they felt very sorry indeed for her. Marie, who had accompanied them to the North End had left them for a quarter of an hour to see a friend of hers living in the neighborhood, and then Brenda had no one but Nora to remonstrate with her for any folly she might wish to commit. When, therefore, out of a small bag which she carried, she took her purse,--her best purse with the silver monogram,--and when from the purse she extracted the three hundred-dollar notes, the proceeds of the Bazaar, even Nora gave a little gasp. "Why, Brenda, how did you ever dare to bring that money down to this part of the city?" "Why shouldn't I, you goose! I am sure that it will do Mrs. Rosa more good to see this money than anything else possibly could. See! Mrs. Rosa" she continued, "this is all yours, this three hundred dollars that we made at the Bazaar that we have been telling you about----" For Nora and she had expatiated on the charms of the occasion--the flowers, the music, and the many pretty articles that had been displayed on the tables. In fact they had brought several simple little things as presents for Mrs. Rosa and the children, and while the former probably did not understand all that they said to her, she did realize that some one had been at a great deal of trouble for her, and that this money was the result. "All for me, oh tank you," she said, reaching her hand out towards the bills. Nora hastily jerked Brenda's arm. "You mustn't give them to her." Now up to this moment, Brenda had had no intention of doing this. "Why, Nora, really I think that I understand things as well as you do." Nora for the moment forgot the effect which opposition usually had on Brenda. Mrs. Rosa glanced questioningly from one girl to the other. "Why, yes, you may look at them close too, you may hold them," said Brenda, laying the bills on Mrs. Rosa's transparent hand. The expression on the poor woman's face brightened. "The money means a great deal to her," said Nora, sympathetically. "Yes," answered Brenda, "you see that I was right in giving it to her, I mean in letting her see it. She has a little color in her cheeks already. She knows what that money can do for her and her children." It was hard enough for Mrs. Rosa to understand English when spoken in a full voice, and she made no effort to comprehend the undertone in which the two girls were speaking. "Are they for me to keep?" she asked eagerly. "Not now," responded Brenda, "but by and by, next week, perhaps you shall have a little money to spend, and some of it we may spend for you to take you to the country, you know." "Come, Brenda," said Nora, "we must not stay too long, if the children are not to be back until five o'clock, we cannot wait to see them. We ought to be watching for Marie now." "I know, I know," retorted Brenda, impatiently, "I shall be ready when you are." "If I could just have this money in the house for a little while," said Mrs. Rosa, with her quaint accent, "I should be so happy. I think it would make me sleep. I haven't slept for _so_ long," and she sighed and looked paler than ever. "Poor thing," said Brenda, "I wish that I could give it to you now. Indeed I do not know why I should not, it is certainly yours, and I do not care for the responsibility myself,"--this speciously, for Brenda knew perfectly well that her father stood ready to take care of the money. "Nora," she called rather sharply, "I think that we ought to let Mrs. Rosa have this money until we are ready to spend it. It is really hers now, people would not have come to the Bazaar, except to help the Rosas." "Now, Brenda," cried Nora, "don't be foolish. I cannot imagine your doing so crazy a thing. It was bad enough for you to have brought the money down here. It was an awful risk, for suppose you had lost the purse,--oh, my," with a change of tone, "why there is Manuel. I must run out and speak to him," and in her usual heedless way Nora left the room with little thought for the subject which she and Brenda had the moment before been discussing. Left alone with Mrs. Rosa, Brenda felt an increase of pity for the poor, pale woman, who looked as if she had very little more time to live. As she handled the bills with feverish fingers, Brenda made a quick resolve. "Why should I not give her a pleasure that will cost me so little, and I am sure that no reasonable person can object. "Mrs. Rosa," she said, leaning forward, "if I should let you keep that money for a few days, would you promise not to let the children see it. You must keep it right in this purse, and never let it out of your sight. I mean when any one is here you must keep it under your pillow, though of course when you are alone you can look at it." Mrs. Rosa smiled gratefully, and Brenda taking the bills began to put them back in her portemonnaie. "I think," she said reflectively, "that I will keep one of these bills in case there are special things that Miss South or Julia may have planned for you." She could afford to be liberal in her feelings now that she was getting ready to do something that in the bottom of her heart she knew that the others who were interested in Mrs. Rosa would not approve. So she tied up the one hundred dollar bill, that she intended to keep, in a corner of her handkerchief, and placed it carefully in the bottom of her bag. "Remember," she said, as she handed the little purse to Mrs. Rosa, "remember that you are not to spend this." "O, I remember, I promise, miss," responded Mrs. Rosa, and just at this moment Nora reopened the door. "Come, Brenda," she said, "Marie is outside waiting, and we ought to start for home at once. Good-bye, Mrs. Rosa, I suppose we shall hardly see you again in this uncomfortable room. Come on, Brenda, how long it takes you to put your gloves on!" Brenda, of course was greatly relieved that Nora asked not another word about the money. But all the same her conscience had begun to trouble her, and after she reached home could she have thought of any way to do it, without betraying herself, she would have sent down to Mrs. Rosa's for the purse and its contents. On Sunday, at least in the morning, she had felt reassured. "What possibility," she thought, "is there that anything could happen to the money. There might be a fire at the North End, but so there might be at the Back Bay. Perhaps she ought to have let her father put it in the bank. Well on Monday morning she would go down, perhaps before school if she could wake early enough. But on Sunday it was out of the question." So she had reasoned until Sunday afternoon. Then as she heard Julia tell what Miss South had said to her, she became very nervous. "Oh, dear," she thought. "Oh, dear, what _shall_ I do if anything has happened to that money?" XXIX AFTER VACATION On Monday morning as might have been expected, Brenda did not awake very early, and though she had a few uneasy minutes as she thought of Mrs. Rosa, on the whole she was too much absorbed by her preparations for school to worry over what had now become a very unpleasant subject to her. At school all was bustle and excitement for the quarter hour preceding the opening. Some of the girls had been in New York, or even as far as Washington during the vacation, and they had much to tell of their doings. Even those girls who had remained in Boston had had very exciting experiences, or at least this seemed to have been the case judging by the eager tones in which they talked, and the effort of each girl to make herself heard above all the others. If there had been nothing else eventful among the girls of the set to which The Four belonged, the Bazaar would have afforded abundant food for discussion. Even the older girls were interested in this affair, and felt proud of the success of their schoolmates. This morning, too, was an exciting one at the school, because it marked the beginning of the spring term--the last term of regular school for several of Miss Crawdon's pupils, who next year were to take their place in society. Already in their spring gowns, modeled after the styles of their elders, they looked like young women, and their sweeping skirts and elaborate hats seemed to put a gulf between them and their younger companions. Among the girls of intermediate age there was also a special reason for dreading the spring term, for during the few remaining weeks, two or three of them besides Ruth and Julia were to concentrate all their energy on preparation for the preliminary college examinations. Not all of these girls were likely to go to college, but Miss Crawdon had encouraged them to prepare for the examinations, hoping that their success in passing them might lead them eventually to take the college course. Even these girls, the less frivolous in the school, were chattering,--or perhaps I should say talking--as eagerly as the others. They had many little points to talk over regarding the requirements for college, the special tutoring they might need, and similar things. Julia, although she had been conscientious in her work during the winter, really did dread the coming ordeal. Examinations of any kind were new to her, for until the past winter her studies had always been carried on in an individual way. It was still a sore point with Brenda that Julia should think of going to college. She felt certain that teaching was her cousin's ultimate aim, and she did not like the idea at all. A few years before this Brenda had been remarkably free from anything resembling snobbishness. This may have been partly on account of her youth, although a more probable reason was that she had not in her earliest days so many snobbish friends to influence her. For in spite of her intimacy with Nora and Edith, Brenda permitted herself to be too greatly influenced by Belle. Frances Pounder, too, was only one of a group of girls much less simple-minded than Brenda, whom the latter had come to associate with rather closely. Any one of them would have indignantly denied a special regard for money. They would have been pained had you said that they made wealth a consideration in choosing their friends. Yet this was what it amounted to,--their way of cavilling at those who did not belong to their set. They said that family was the only consideration with them. But I doubt that a very poor girl, however good her family, would have been considered by them as welcome as a richer girl of poorer family. There was Julia, for example, who had in every way as strong a claim to consideration as Brenda--for were not the two cousins? Yet Frances invariably had some little supercilious thing to say about Julia--except in the presence of Nora and Edith--and the superciliousness came largely from the fact that she regarded Julia as a poor relation of the Barlows. "She can never be of any great use," Frances had reasoned, "to us;" including in the latter term all the girls with whom she was intimate, "and therefore what is the good in pretending to be fond of a strong-minded girl who may in a few years be a teacher in a public school? I honestly think that she would just as soon as not teach in a public school, Brenda, for I heard her praising public schools to the sky the other day. I'm sure I wonder that she does not go to a public school instead of to Miss Crawdon's. It would save your father and mother a lot of money," concluded Frances, forgetting that how Mr. and Mrs. Barlow spent their money was really no concern of hers. At times Frances laid aside her good manners. Brenda never knew just how to respond to speeches of this kind, and their chief effect was a little feeling of irritation that a cousin of hers should have put herself in this position of being classed with mere wage-earners. Brenda was no longer jealous of Julia in the ordinary sense. She had begun to lose the childish pettishness of her earlier years. Observation was teaching her that even in the one household there could be room for two girls near the same age, and that any privileges or affection accorded Julia did not interfere with her own rights. Indeed had she been perfectly honest with herself she would have admitted that Julia's companionship during the past winter had really been of great value to her. If any one were to tell her that Julia was not to be in the house with her another year, she would have admitted that she would be lonely. In spite of the childishness which Brenda sometimes showed towards her cousin, the two girls saw a great deal of each other, and Brenda had lately acquired the habit of slipping into her cousin's room on her way up and downstairs to talk over little happenings of one kind or another. But at school on this bright spring morning, Brenda felt some irritation at the sight of Julia and Ruth in close consultation with the Greek teacher. "He has such sharp eyes," whispered Frances, as she and Brenda passed him in the hallway. "Don't you feel as if he were always looking right through you, and saying, 'you're a little ignoramus; every one is who does not study Greek with me.'" "Oh, how tiresome you are, Frances," responded Brenda crossly; "I dare say Miss Crawdon will say that, too, in the English class at the close of the next hour unless you have a better composition than I have." "Why, Brenda Barlow, I had forgotten all about it, and we were expected to have it ready this morning. Have you written yours?" "No," replied Brenda, "I forgot mine, too. There were so many other things to think of last week." It happened, naturally enough, that Brenda and Frances and several other girls who had neglected their compositions in the same way received a reprimand from Miss Crawdon, who thereupon said, "Since so little English written work has been handed in to-day, I will submit a composition of my own to you for criticism. It is very simple, and consists merely of a brief description of an evening party, supposed to be the work of a girl of about your age. "Now listen, 'I have seldom had so nice a time as at Clara Gordon's party. In the first place the house is a particularly nice one, and the room where we danced has the nicest floor for waltzing that I ever saw. Then there were so many nice people there, all the girls and young men whom I know especially well, and some others from out of town. The orchestra played divinely. I never heard nicer music, and John Brent, my partner in the German, was just as nice to me as he could be. I wish that I could describe the nice supper that we had at nice little tables in the dining-room. There was every imaginable kind of nice thing, ices, salads, and cakes. The sherbet was so nice that some persons who sat down late could not get any. It was all gone. I got along very nicely, for John Brent looked out for me. I have not told you about the dresses, but they were all so nice that it is hard to say which was the nicest. I danced until I could hardly stand, for I was determined not to miss a single dance, but when my aunt tried to urge me to go home before twelve o'clock so that I wouldn't be tired to death, I wouldn't give in for a moment, but told her that I felt quite nicely.' "There," said Miss Crawdon, "this is a longer composition than many of you have prepared to-day, and mine is voluntary, while many of you have failed to carry out what was really a command laid upon you. What do you think of my composition?" While she was reading, some of the girls had rubbed their eyes in amazement. It did not take even the duller very long however to see that Miss Crawdon had been playing a practical joke upon them. She had always had a great deal to say to them on the necessity of a wide vocabulary, and she had been particularly severe towards those girls who made the adjective "nice" take the place of more expressive words. "You noticed, perhaps," continued Miss Crawdon, "that I have not been extravagant in the matter of adjectives, at least I have been extravagant in the use of only one, for I have been able to make 'nice' serve in almost every instance where an adjective was needed, and in none of these instances was it used in its own proper sense." Those girls who had not previously seen the joke, now glanced at one another in amazement. Yes, it really was a practical joke, this little composition by Miss Crawdon, and they had only begun to find it out. Then Miss Crawdon spoke again. "I will not pretend that my composition has cost me much effort. Indeed, I only wrote it here in school in the few minutes at my disposal before the opening hour. I need not say also that it is the result of a few hastily jotted notes, based on scraps of conversation which came to me as I passed various groups of my pupils, at recess or before school. But, seriously," and all eyes were fixed on her, "I do wish that you would avoid the word 'nice' altogether for the present, unless you can resist the temptation to make it do duty on all occasions. Now, hoping that you will take this lesson to heart, I will leave you to Miss South, who will talk to you for a quarter of an hour on the subject of letter writing." Thereupon Miss South took Miss Crawdon's place, and the girls had no opportunity to exchange opinions regarding Miss Crawdon's humorous, if brief, essay. Miss Crawdon and Miss South were joint teachers of this class in English. Miss South had charge of it oftener than Miss Crawdon. But the latter had general supervision of it, and as the first hour of certain mornings was given to it, occasionally Miss South was permitted to arrive at school a little late, while Miss Crawdon took her place. When Miss South was late it was not on account of any dilatoriness of her own; it was usually business of Miss Crawdon's that detained her--for she was Miss Crawdon's trusted friend--and she often had to go to the bank, or to hold an interview with an anxious parent, or to do some other thing by which Miss Crawdon might be spared care or unnecessary steps. On this special Monday morning, however, Miss South was not only late, but she looked a little worried. Many of the girls had heard of the newly discovered relationship between her and Madame Du Launy, and in the quarter hour before school, the story of the discovery, with a few slight variations from accuracy, had been talked over very freely. When Miss South did not appear to take charge of the English class, most of her pupils assumed that she was no longer to be a teacher at Miss Crawdon's. They were therefore astonished when she entered the room, as ready to assume her school duties as if she had had no change of fortune. Yet, as I have said, Miss South looked a little worried, and her glance wandered two or three times in the direction of Brenda in a way that caused Brenda's conscience to reassert itself. "Oh, dear," she thought, "what shall I do if Miss South has heard about that money? Of course it is no concern of hers, but still, but still----" Now Brenda did not know exactly what she dreaded, for her idea of the value of money was very vague. She only knew that she had not done right in leaving the two hundred dollars with Mrs. Rosa. Yet she consoled herself with the reflection, "At any rate I have a third of that money safe at home, and that is a great deal to have saved, if anything has happened to the rest." Nora, too, had come late to school, though Brenda had been too much carried away by the excitement of seeing the other girls again to notice this. Later in the morning Nora slipped into her accustomed place, and her face, too, though Brenda had not observed it, looked a little more serious than usual. It was not until the end of school that the storm burst. At recess Nora, contrary to her usual custom, had remained at her desk studying. But after school she ran up to Brenda, with an "Oh, how _could_ you, Brenda? We have lost almost the whole advantage from the Bazaar! Miss South and I were down at the Rosas this morning--I promised not to say anything to you, until after school--and, well, Miss South will tell you. I can't bear to talk about it." "Brenda," said Miss South, drawing near, "I suppose that you would like me to tell you about Mrs. Rosa's money, yet I do not feel that it is a matter with which I ought to meddle. I had nothing to do with raising the money, only I have been interested in the plan by means of which you all wished to help the poor woman." "We all think that you have been very kind," interposed Nora, politely. "Ah, I have been. I am very much interested in Mrs. Rosa and her family--and so I know is Brenda," for she saw a cloud settling on the young girl's face. "But you were not exactly wise, Brenda, in leaving that money with Mrs. Rosa." "Has it been stolen?" gasped Brenda. "Well, not exactly stolen, although Mrs. Rosa no longer has it." "Brenda," interrupted Nora, "I certainly begged you not to leave it there. Though I never imagined that you would do so." "Well, Brenda," continued Miss South, "Nora received a letter this morning from Angelina, written apparently in great haste last night. What she said was very vague, but she spoke of the loss of two hundred dollars in such a way as to recall to Nora your suggestion that you might leave the money with Mrs. Rosa. Nora was so excited that she left her breakfast--so she tells me--almost untasted. She gave her mother a hasty account of what Angelina had told her, and her mother advised her to see me. The upshot was that we went at once to Mrs. Rosa's, and there we found that the young man who has been troubling her lately to pay a debt which he claimed that she owed his mother had called to see her soon after you and Nora were at the house. He caught sight of the purse that you had left with Mrs. Rosa, and when her head was turned, pulled it from under the pillow and began to examine its contents. Naturally he was astonished to find that it contained two hundred dollars, and when Mrs. Rosa saw him with the purse in his hand he refused to give it up to her. The poor woman was alone and very weak, and so completely in his power that she could not refuse when he compelled her to tell him how the money had come into her possession. When he learned that it had been raised for her at a Bazaar, and that it was to be used for her benefit he seemed very much pleased. 'It is really your own,' he said, 'or else the young ladies would not have left it with you. If it is to do you any good you had better give it to me to keep you out of prison, for that is where I shall send you for not paying your debts, unless you give me this money.' So by continued threats he finally made her sign a paper saying that she paid the money willingly to rid herself of a debt owed to his mother. He even made her think that he had done her a great favor in not trying to get the fifty dollars--the balance of the debt which he claimed." Brenda had listened with an almost dazed expression while Miss South told this strange story. "But he did not really take it, did he?" she murmured. "He not only took it," said Miss South, "but we have reason to think that he has left the country with it. His friends say that he had been getting ready for weeks to go to South America, and that he expected to sail from New York this morning." "Can't he be stopped?" asked Brenda. Her voice sounded very weak, and her face was not at all the face of the usually cheerful young girl. "He cannot be stopped now, Brenda, and I doubt if in any case we could recover the money. He was very clever in getting Mrs. Rosa to sign that paper. If he were in Boston we might recover the money on the ground that it did not belong to Mrs. Rosa, and that therefore she had no right to give it away. But we can hardly make that a ground for any action now. Besides, I know that she thought that the money belonged to her, in some way you gave her that impression, and any testimony of hers would not help us very much if you had a case in court against young Silva." "But she knew," moaned poor Brenda, "that the money was only to help her to go to the country. I am sure that I said so to her." "You cannot expect a woman of her limited intelligence, a foreigner, too, who only half understands English, to grasp the meaning of all that is said to her. The fact was clear to her that you had brought her some money, and when her creditor claimed it, she believed that he had a right to it, and that to use it in this way would benefit her more than to spend it in going to the country." "Well, it seems to me that she just deceived me," cried Brenda, angrily. "No," responded Nora, "you must be fair. Miss South and I both believe that she didn't mean to do anything with the money when she took it from you, but she thought that you had given it to her----" "And she never has been as anxious to move from the city as we have been to have her," continued Miss South, "yet it is so much the best thing, and our plans are all carefully made, that I hope we can carry them out." "I have one hundred dollars at home," said Brenda, "but, oh, dear, I do not like to think about it; how angry Belle and Edith will be. Do they know yet?" "No," said Miss South, "I thought it better to tell you first. Nora and I are the only persons except Mrs. Rosa and her friends who know anything about the money. But of course you must tell the other girls as well as your father and mother. It might be worth while for them to consult a lawyer, at least they might feel better satisfied. For my own part, I am confident that the money cannot be recovered." "Come, come, Brenda, now do cheer up," cried Nora. "It's no use crying about spilled milk, and perhaps we can think of some way to straighten things out." "I might sell my watch," said Brenda, as they walked away from the school, "and give up my allowance for the rest of the year, for it is just as if I had thrown that money away--and we all worked so hard for it." "Well, we all had a good time out of the Bazaar," replied the optimistic Nora, "and perhaps the money has done some good in going to Mrs. Rosa's creditor. I shouldn't wonder if we could get a subscription for all that we need to help the Rosas," and so Nora chattered on, in her efforts to cheer Brenda. For the latter, always at one extreme or the other, was now very low-spirited. XXX BRENDA'S FOLLY It would make a long story to tell what every one said on the subject of Brenda's folly. For this was the name given it, and by this name it was long remembered, much to Brenda's discomfiture, when the subject of Mrs. Rosa and her money was brought up. There were so many persons who had a right to express an opinion, that poor Brenda felt that simply to listen to what they said was punishment enough. There were all the girls who had worked for the Bazaar, and all their parents, and all the girls at school who hadn't worked for the Bazaar, but had done their share of buying. There were the boys from Harvard, whose criticism took the form of mild chaffing, and there were--but the list, it seemed to Brenda, included every one whom she had ever known, and some with whom she was sure that she had no acquaintance. Mr. and Mrs. Barlow were especially severe, and told her that she must gradually reimburse The Four from her allowance. "For the money," said Mr. Barlow, "did not belong to you, you held it in trust for Edith, and Belle, and Nora, and indeed I wonder how they ever came to entrust it entirely to you. You are too heedless a girl to have any real responsibility, and I only hope that your thoughtlessness is not going to deprive Mrs. Rosa of the country home that Miss South and the others have planned for her." Poor Brenda! Before that fatal Saturday two hundred dollars had seemed to her very little, but now it seemed an almost infinite amount. Her father, of course, could easily have given her the sum at once, but he preferred to make her realize her heedlessness. Indeed the lesson had already begun to benefit her; for the first time in her life Brenda realized the value of money. How in the world could she herself ever save the required sum from her allowance. Why, if she should not spend a cent upon her own little wants it would take her more than two years to get together two hundred dollars. For her allowance it should be explained, was large enough only to provide little extra things that she needed, or thought that she needed. She had not to use any of it for clothes, or other useful purposes. Yet when Brenda began to count the things that she must give up for two years, or longer, it seemed as if she could hardly bear the sacrifice. But her sense of justice prevailed, and at last she admitted that she deserved this punishment. "Poor Brenda!" said Mr. Barlow to Mrs. Barlow, as Brenda walked away after this interview with her head bent as if in reflection. "Poor Brenda! This lesson will be a hard one, but if we are ready to help her out of every difficulty, she will never be able to stand alone. I, at least, could not feel justified in coming to the rescue just now." After this conversation with her father, Brenda walked upstairs sadly, at least her head drooped a little, and any one who had followed her to her room would have found that the first thing she did was to fling herself, face downward on that broad chintz-covered lounge of hers. While she lay there, she did not hear a gentle knock at the door, nor the soft footstep of some one entering the room. "Why, Brenda Barlow," cried a pleasant voice. "Why, Brenda Barlow, why are you lying in this downcast position?" [Illustration: "'WHY, BRENDA BARLOW, WHY ARE YOU LYING IN THIS DOWNCAST POSITION?'"] At first there was no reply from the prostrate figure. Then Julia--for it was she who had entered the room--ventured a little nearer, and repeated her question in a somewhat different form. Thereupon Brenda sprang to her feet, and though she attempted to smile at Julia, there were very evident traces of tears on her cheek. "Brenda," said Julia, "you know that I am very apt to go straight to the point, if I wish to say anything, and so I will not apologize for what I am going to say. I am sure that you won't be offended if I tell you that you are thinking too much about the loss of Mrs. Rosa's money. I have been noticing you for several days." (It was now about a week since Miss South had made the discovery of the loss.) As Brenda made no reply, Julia continued, this time a little timidly, "Nora and Edith feel sorry that you will not take an interest in the plans for moving Mrs. Rosa to Shiloh. You know we have been out to see the cottage, and we missed you dreadfully. Belle wasn't there either, but since the Bazaar she hasn't been as much interested in the Rosas. But we thought that you really had some interest." "Why, yes, I have," replied Brenda. She did not resent Julia's "we" in speaking of the efforts now making for the Rosas, although not so very long before Brenda herself had opposed having Julia considered one of "The Four." "Why, yes, I have an interest in Mrs. Rosa," repeated Brenda, then with a return of her old light-heartedness. "Two hundred dollars' worth of interest, and what bothers me is to know how to turn it into capital." (You see from this that Brenda had not altogether forgotten her arithmetic.) "There, Brenda, that is just what I have been wishing to speak about to you. I have been afraid that you have been worrying over this. For Uncle Thomas has told me that he has decided not to help you to pay it." Again the girl to whom she was speaking seemed unlike the old Brenda, for she did not resent the fact that Julia had apparently been taken into Mr. Barlow's confidence to so great an extent. "Now, Brenda," continued Julia, "as I have said before, I always prefer to come straight to the point, and so I must tell you that the two hundred dollars has been paid to Miss South--the other girls have voted to make her the treasurer--for Mrs. Rosa's benefit." "Where in the world,--" began Brenda, in a most astonished tone. Then with a glance at Julia's face, over which an expression of self-consciousness was spreading, "Why, Julia Bourne, had you anything, did you, why I really believe that you had something to do with it. Did you get some one to give you the money?" "No," replied Julia, with a look of relief, "oh, no, no, I made no effort to collect money." Brenda's wits were now well at work. "There, Julia, I begin to see; it seemed funny when you paid one hundred dollars for that picture, at least I thought very little about it then, but to-day when I was going over everything connected with the Rosas in my mind, it occurred to me that one hundred dollars was a rather large amount for you to pay, and I meant to ask you how it happened--" then stammering a little, as she realized that this was not a very polite way of putting things, "at least, I know that I should never have so much money saved up from _my_ allowance for any one thing. But you are more sensible than I, and of course you can make money go a great deal farther." Julia smiled pleasantly, for she understood in spite of a certain confusion of statement, pretty well what her cousin meant. But still she did not answer immediately, and Brenda, who was now thoroughly herself, exclaimed, "Do tell me, Julia, did you give that two hundred dollars to Mrs. Rosa, that is, was it a present from you?" For a moment Julia was silent, then she replied with some hesitation, "Yes, yes, although I had not meant to tell you, it is my little contribution to the plan you all have made for helping the Rosas. I have been wishing to do something, and it seemed better to give this now, when the money was so much needed, rather than to wait until later, as at one time I had thought of doing. Though I am sure," she continued modestly, "that there would have been little trouble in raising the money, only I thought that it was better for me to make my contribution promptly now, while you were----" "Then it was just to help me; so that there would not be so much fault finding with me. Why you are a perfect angel, Julia," cried Brenda. "Hardly," said Julia, laughing. "Hardly an angel, though if this makes you feel more comfortable, I shall be very happy." Brenda was on the point of asking her cousin how she happened to have all this money, for the more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Before she could ask a question, Julia however had bidden her good-bye, saying that she had an engagement with Edith, and Brenda was forced to wait an opportunity for getting the information she wished from her mother. After all, the explanation was fairly simple. Brenda and Belle without good grounds had decided at the first that Julia was entirely dependent on Mr. Barlow. Instead of this Julia had a good income of her own, which when she came of age would be largely increased. The girls had wrongly assumed that Julia was studying and working diligently simply because she expected at some time to be obliged to earn her living, whereas the real motive behind all her efforts was her genuine love of study. Had circumstances made it necessary Julia would have enjoyed the teacher's profession, as a means of earning her living. In fact sometimes when she thought about her future she found herself regretting that she could not adopt this profession. But she knew that the ranks were already fairly crowded, and she felt that she would have no right to enter a profession that could barely support those who needed it as a means of livelihood. Brenda and Belle had made many mistakes not only in their estimation of her fortune but in the reading of her character. Brenda was beginning to find out her own mistakes, and when once she was convinced of a fault she was seldom slow to acknowledge it. In the end she would have been fair to Julia even if her cousin had not established a certain claim upon her by her generosity towards the Rosas. For really by giving the money so promptly she had saved Brenda from a continuation of annoying criticism. Two hundred dollars was not an extremely large sum for a rich girl to give to a good cause, but Julia's delicacy and thoughtfulness made Brenda her firm friend. Belle, naturally enough, was not so ready to change her point of view. When she did permit herself to show greater cordiality towards Julia, it was rather because she had a full appreciation of what it would mean to her to have a girl of Julia's wealth her friend. It was hard for Belle to take an impersonal view of anything, and this, perhaps, was largely the reason why she became of less consequence in the little set which had been called "The Four Club." As the others of the quartette grew older, Belle's selfishness became more and more disagreeable to them. Although there was still a quartette of friends, Julia began to have the fourth place, while Belle gradually withdrew to the more congenial society of Frances Pounder. But in saying this I am anticipating a little, for Belle retained her interest in the Rosas long enough to be one of those who helped move the little family to the little house which had been chosen for them in Shiloh. XXXI THE SHILOH PICNIC Miss South and Julia were the leaders in the work of removing the Rosas from the city. Julia showed remarkable ability, and the more she had to do the better she seemed to do it. Nor did her lessons suffer because of this outside interest. The day of removal was continually changing. It was put off from week to week with one feeble excuse or another on the part of Mrs. Rosa. Miss South was more patient with the poor woman than were her young helpers. She realized that the poor woman could not be expected to appreciate all the advantages to result from the change, and she sympathized with Mrs. Rosa's reluctance to leave her old neighbors to go among strangers. Indeed it was the end of May before they were really off. On the Saturday before their departure The Four, and two or three of the other girls who had been especially interested, went out to Shiloh to see the little cottage which had been fitted up for the Rosas. It had only six rooms, and these were not very large, but what fun the girls had in exploring every nook and corner! Floors and walls had all been newly painted,--some in rather bright colors. There were small mats in front of each bed, and one in the centre of the room intended for dining-room, but besides these, there were no floor coverings. The bedsteads were iron, painted brown, and all the other furniture was of the simplest possible style. "I am afraid," said Julia, "that Angelina will be disappointed in not finding a piano; she has an idea that we are considering her education as much as her mother's health in making this change, and as she happens to be very anxious to take music lessons she will expect some kind of a musical instrument if not a piano." "What nonsense!" cried Belle. "Angelina ought to be thankful that she has not been sent away as a servant. She is certainly old enough to live out." "If it were not for her mother's being so weak, undoubtedly we should make some effort to put her at service. But with all those younger children, for the present Angelina will have sufficient practice in house-work, and she is to work every day for a boarding-house keeper; if the family stays out here I have a plan that will be of great value not only to Angelina, but to the rest of them. In fact," concluded Miss South, "Angelina, if she takes kindly to the scheme, may serve as a model for a number of other girls at the North End, who stand sadly in need of such training as she will be able to get in this comfortable house." "Oh, do tell us about it now," begged Nora, "I know that you have some plan to carry out--Domestic Science--isn't that what you call it,--but I haven't the least idea what you really intend to do." Miss South smiled at the eagerness which Nora displayed, smiled indulgently, but in reply, said merely, "I am afraid that there will hardly be time now, but in the early autumn, if there is no opportunity before you go away, I am going to have a special meeting to which you will all be invited, at which I will tell you of a scheme which with your coöperation as well as that of some other interested persons I hope to carry out next season. There really is not time to say much about it now, for Philip and his friends will soon be here and we must all go to work to prepare our tea." Then the girls set to work with a will, and in addition to the delicious things sent out in hampers, they prepared several dainty dishes. Many of these delicacies were the result of the practice they had had in the cooking class of the past two seasons. Julia set the table with the new dishes that filled Mrs. Rosa's corner closet,--the closet, that is, that was to be Mrs. Rosa's. No one criticised the thickness of the cups, nor the crudeness of the colors with which the cups and plates were decorated, for by the time the boys came they were all so hungry that they could have eaten and drunk from plates and cups of tin. It was rather a picnic supper on the whole, as the table was not large enough for the group of merry young people who wished to gather around it. Some of them, therefore, sat out on the steps, and on the tiny little piazza at the corner, and laughed and talked in at the top of their voices in the intervals between courses. Though each course consisted of little more than a sandwich, or a stuffed egg, or a salad, those who in turn took the part of waiters and waitresses served them with all the pomp that might have had its proper place at a great feast. It was all in fun, and the fun was of the heartiest kind. Then when the supper was over, boys and girls--the dignified Philip, the serious Will, as well as fun loving Brenda and Nora, set to work with energy, and washed and wiped dishes, and put things in order, so that the little house showed not the slightest trace of "invasion of the Goths and Vandals," as Brenda said, with an unusual correctness of historical allusion. There was a delightful drive, to wind up the evening, around the borders of the lake which forms one of the attractions of Shiloh, and when just at dark they stepped aboard the train they all declared that it was the pleasantest expedition that they had known for--well for a long, long time. "If Mrs. Rosa were to take summer boarders, I am sure that I should love to come out here for a month," said Ruth, "I mean if she only hadn't so many children to fill up the house, so completely." "If you were to come," said Will, in an undertone, "I am sure that I should wish to spend the summer in Shiloh, too. I made friends with the owner of the omnibus that brought us up, and I rather think that I could get him to take me in." Ruth blushed as Will made this speech, for even she could not help noticing the decided preference that he showed for her society. It had been his actions rather than his words that had attracted the attention of the others, for he seemed in no way afraid of having his preference known. Ruth was neither foolish, nor vain, but she had to admit to herself that Will's little attentive ways were rather gratifying. In the cars on the way home, Philip and Julia happened to sit together. Philip was still somewhat conscious in his manner, for he could not forget that he was a sophomore. Yet with Julia he always got on capitally, and they had really become very good friends. "Do you see much of Madame Du Launy now?" he asked. "I hear that you and she were great friends for a time." "Oh, we are now," answered Julia, "only naturally since she and Miss South have discovered their relationship, I do not go there as often as I did earlier in the spring." "Then this story about Miss South is really true, she actually _is_ the old lady's granddaughter!" said Philip. "I heard a lot about it just after the Bazaar, but in some way I thought that it would prove to be a mistake. You know that things like that do not often happen out of books." "Oh, this is perfectly true," answered Julia, "and the whole thing is just as interesting as it can be. It seems very sad that Madame Du Launy should have lived a lonely life for so long when here was a granddaughter close at hand, and a grandson not so very far away. She could have been such a help to them, and they to her." "It shows that an old lady can't afford not to know who her grandchildren are, and where they live," responded Philip, "especially if one of them is as pretty and clever as Miss South." "Oh, well, there were special reasons in this case," answered Julia. "Then doesn't it seem queer," continued Philip, "that you yourself should have had the credit all winter of being a poor dependent--isn't that what they say in novels? How do you feel now when you know that every one knows that you are an heiress?" he concluded, mischievously. "Oh, pretty well, I thank you," answered Julia, adopting his tone. "You see I never imagined for a moment that people attached any importance to my having or not having money. Indeed, to be perfectly fair, I cannot see any change in any one since the discovery was made." "Whew!" whistled Philip, "not even in Belle?" After a moment of silence, Julia replied, "I do not suppose that under any circumstances Belle and I could ever have been great friends. Our tastes are so unlike. In the early winter many little things troubled me. I often felt neglected when The Four left me out of their plans, especially while they were working for the Bazaar. But at length I decided that I ought not to expect Brenda to treat me at once like an intimate friend. I knew that in time she would understand me better, and this is what has really happened. But Nora and Edith were always so kind to me that I had a delightful winter." "Then pity," said Philip, with a smile, "would be utterly wasted on Brenda's cousin?" "It would be utterly wasted on her," replied Julia, cheerfully, "especially since she has been permitted to make a fifth in Brenda's Four Club." THE END RECENT BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG FIFE AND DRUM AT LOUISBOURG. By J. Macdonald Oxley. Illustrated by Clyde O. De Land. No true American boy with lively blood in his veins can read "Fife and Drum at Louisbourg" without wishing to read it again and again. The book is filled to the brim with historical information.--_Denver Republican._ THE BOYS OF MARMITON PRAIRIE. By Gertrude Smith, author of "Ten Little Comedies," etc. Illustrated by Bertha C. Day. One of the best boys' stories in current literature.--_Boston Journal._ It is full of the free, wild life of the frontier, and of the adventures which befall healthy, strong boys.--_Pittsburg Times._ THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE. By Harriet Morgan. Illustrated by Katharine Pyle. What Frank Stockton has done for older people, Harriet Morgan does for boys and girls.--_Commercial Advertiser._ MADAM MARY OF THE ZOO. By Lily F. Wessel-hoeft, author of "Sparrow the Tramp," "Torpeanuts the Tomboy," etc. With pictures by L. J. Bridgman, and from photographs. A delightful story of animals in and outside of the Zoo, and of a little girl who is their friend.--_The Outlook._ The amusing way in which the elephant and the other big animals, as well as the little ones, are brought in is sure to charm the childish mind.--_Denver Times._ THE IRON STAR, AND WHAT IT SAW IN ITS JOURNEY THROUGH THE AGES FROM MYTH TO HISTORY. A Wonder Story for Girls and Boys. By John Preston True. Illustrated by Lilian Crawford True. A capital idea, worked out in the best possible manner. "The Iron Star" does not fall far short of being a work of genius.--_Church Standard_, Philadelphia. A FLOWER OF THE WILDERNESS. By A. G. Plympton, author of "Dear Daughter Dorothy," etc. Illustrated by the author. A most delightful story.--_Denver Times._ Merits nothing but praise.--_Springfield Republican._ THE YOUNG PURITANS IN CAPTIVITY. By Mary P. Wells Smith. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. The reader will be for the nonce a Puritan, and will follow the adventures of the children taken captive by the Indians, feeling that he is a participant in the scenes so well portrayed. He will sleep in the Indians' wigwam and breathe the odor of the pines.--_Sacramento Bee._ THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF BRANTHAM. By Evelyn Raymond, author of "The Little Lady of the Horse," "Among the Lindens," etc. Illus. A very bright and interesting story of life at a military academy in which it has been decided to admit girls for co-education. There is a healthy, stirring atmosphere about the entire book.--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ ROB AND KIT. By the author of "Miss Toosey's Mission." With illustrations. 'TWIXT YOU AND ME. A Story for Girls. By Grace Le Baron. With pictures by Ellen B. Thompson, and floral decorations by Katharine Pyle. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES. By Madame D'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, etc. With more than 200 illustrations. OLD FRENCH FAIRY TALES. By Charles Perrault, Madame D'Aulnoy, etc. With more than 200 illustrations. PLISH AND PLUM _and_ MAX AND MAURICE. By Wilhelm Busch. New editions. Translated by Charles T. Brooks. With humorous illustrations. JOEL, A BOY OF GALILEE. By Annie Fellows Johnston. New edition. Illustrated. 
33	----	*********************************************************************** THERE IS AN IMPROVED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY BE VIEWED AT EBOOK (#25344) WHICH CONTAINS AN ILLUSTRATED HTML FILE *********************************************************************** THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne EDITOR'S NOTE Nathaniel Hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when "The Scarlet Letter" appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his "Twice-Told Tales" and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. Even his college days at Bowdoin did not quite break through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all, his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost uncanny prescience and subtlety. "The Scarlet Letter," which explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be gathered from reading his highest single achievement, yet needs to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its last effect. In the year that saw it published, he began "The House of the Seven Gables," a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-American community as he had himself known it-- defrauded of art and the joy of life, "starving for symbols" as Emerson has it. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864. The following is the table of his romances, stories, and other works: Fanshawe, published anonymously, 1826; Twice-Told Tales, 1st Series, 1837; 2nd Series, 1842; Grandfather's Chair, a history for youth, 1845: Famous Old People (Grandfather's Chair), 1841 Liberty Tree: with the last words of Grandfather's Chair, 1842; Biographical Stories for Children, 1842; Mosses from an Old Manse, 1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850; The House of the Seven Gables, 1851: True Stories from History and Biography (the whole History of Grandfather's Chair), 1851 A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, 1851; The Snow Image and other Tales, 1851: The Blithedale Romance, 1852; Life of Franklin Pierce, 1852; Tanglewood Tales (2nd Series of the Wonder Book), 1853; A Rill from the Town-Pump, with remarks, by Telba, 1857; The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni (4 EDITOR'S NOTE) (published in England under the title of "Transformation"), 1860, Our Old Home, 1863; Dolliver Romance (1st Part in "Atlantic Monthly"), 1864; in 3 Parts, 1876; Pansie, a fragment, Hawthorne' last literary effort, 1864; American Note-Books, 1868; English Note Books, edited by Sophia Hawthorne, 1870; French and Italian Note Books, 1871; Septimius Felton; or, the Elixir of Life (from the "Atlantic Monthly"), 1872; Doctor Grimshawe's Secret, with Preface and Notes by Julian Hawthorne, 1882. Tales of the White Hills, Legends of New England, Legends of the Province House, 1877, contain tales which had already been printed in book form in "Twice-Told Tales" and the "Mosses" "Sketched and Studies," 1883. Hawthorne's contributions to magazines were numerous, and most of his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in "The Token," 1831-1838, "New England Magazine," 1834,1835; "Knickerbocker," 1837-1839; "Democratic Review," 1838-1846; "Atlantic Monthly," 1860-1872 (scenes from the Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, and passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books). Works: in 24 volumes, 1879; in 12 volumes, with introductory notes by Lathrop, Riverside Edition, 1883. Biography, etc.; A. H. Japp (pseud. H. A. Page), Memoir of N. Hawthorne, 1872; J. T. Field's "Yesterdays with Authors," 1873 G. P. Lathrop, "A Study of Hawthorne," 1876; Henry James English Men of Letters, 1879; Julian Hawthorne, "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife," 1885; Moncure D. Conway, Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1891; Analytical Index of Hawthorne's Works, by E. M. O'Connor 1882. CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY. THE CUSTOM-HOUSE CHAPTER I. THE PRISON-DOOR CHAPTER II. THE MARKET-PLACE CHAPTER III. THE RECOGNITION CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEW CHAPTER V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE CHAPTER VI. PEARL CHAPTER VII. THE GOVERNOR'S HALL CHAPTER VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER CHAPTER IX. THE LEECH CHAPTER X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT CHAPTER XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART CHAPTER XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER CHAPTER XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN CHAPTER XV. HESTER AND PEARL CHAPTER XVI. A FOREST WALK CHAPTER XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER CHAPTER XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE CHAPTER XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE CHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY CHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSION CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION THE CUSTOM-HOUSE INTRODUCTORY TO "THE SCARLET LETTER" It is a little remarkable, that--though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends--an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the reader--inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine--with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now--because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion--I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P., Clerk of this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or his own. It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. This, in fact--a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume--this, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. In accomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author happened to make one. In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf--but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood--at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass--here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military, post of Uncle Sam's government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later--oftener soon than late--is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows. The pavement round about the above-described edifice--which we may as well name at once as the Custom-House of the port--has grass enough growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year, however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that period, before the last war with England, when Salem was a port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin while their ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three or four vessels happen to have arrived at once usually from Africa or South America--or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet passing briskly up and down the granite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet the sea-flushed ship-master, just in port, with his vessel's papers under his arm in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes his owner, cheerful, sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk of incommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. Here, likewise--the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchant--we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master's ships, when he had better be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. Another figure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. Nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from the British provinces; a rough-looking set of tarpaulins, without the alertness of the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight importance to our decaying trade. Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the time being, it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More frequently, however, on ascending the steps, you would discern-- in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms if wintry or inclement weathers--a row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions. These old gentlemen--seated, like Matthew at the receipt of custom, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands--were Custom-House officers. Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and--not to forget the library--on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six months ago--pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down the columns of the morning newspaper--you might have recognised, honoured reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the willow branches on the western side of the Old Manse. But now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments. This old town of Salem--my native place, though I have dwelt much away from it both in boyhood and maturer years--possesses, or did possess, a hold on my affection, the force of which I have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beauty--its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame--its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at the other--such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. And yet, though invariably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for Old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call affection. The sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has stuck into the soil. It is now nearly two centuries and a quarter since the original Briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his appearance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement which has since become a city. And here his descendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets. In part, therefore, the attachment which I speak of is the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. Few of my countrymen can know what it is; nor, as frequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock, need they consider it desirable to know. But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned progenitor--who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace--a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the Charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them in another state of being. At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them--as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist--may be now and henceforth removed. Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim that I have ever cherished would they recognise as laudable; no success of mine--if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success--would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. "What is he?" murmurs one grey shadow of my forefathers to the other. "A writer of story books! What kind of business in life--what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation--may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!" Such are the compliments bandied between my great grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine. Planted deep, in the town's earliest infancy and childhood, by these two earnest and energetic men, the race has ever since subsisted here; always, too, in respectability; never, so far as I have known, disgraced by a single unworthy member; but seldom or never, on the other hand, after the first two generations, performing any memorable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public notice. Gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight; as old houses, here and there about the streets, get covered half-way to the eaves by the accumulation of new soil. From father to son, for above a hundred years, they followed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. The boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. This long connexion of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love but instinct. The new inhabitant--who came himself from a foreign land, or whose father or grandfather came--has little claim to be called a Salemite; he has no conception of the oyster-like tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his third century is creeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations have been embedded. It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres;--all these, and whatever faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to the purpose. The spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home; so that the mould of features and cast of character which had all along been familiar here--ever, as one representative of the race lay down in the grave, another assuming, as it were, his sentry-march along the main street--might still in my little day be seen and recognised in the old town. Nevertheless, this very sentiment is an evidence that the connexion, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be severed. Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and re-planted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birth-places, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly this strange, indolent, unjoyous attachment for my native town that brought me to fill a place in Uncle Sam's brick edifice, when I might as well, or better, have gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the first time, nor the second, that I had gone away--as it seemed, permanently--but yet returned, like the bad halfpenny, or as if Salem were for me the inevitable centre of the universe. So, one fine morning I ascended the flight of granite steps, with the President's commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the corps of gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility as chief executive officer of the Custom-House. I doubt greatly--or, rather, I do not doubt at all--whether any public functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once settled when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independent position of the Collector had kept the Salem Custom-House out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier--New England's most distinguished soldier--he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake. General Miller was radically conservative; a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence; attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change, even when change might have brought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on taking charge of my department, I found few but aged men. They were ancient sea-captains, for the most part, who, after being tossed on every sea, and standing up sturdily against life's tempestuous blast, had finally drifted into this quiet nook, where, with little to disturb them, except the periodical terrors of a Presidential election, they one and all acquired a new lease of existence. Though by no means less liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently some talisman or other that kept death at bay. Two or three of their number, as I was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden, never dreamed of making their appearance at the Custom-House during a large part of the year; but, after a torpid winter, would creep out into the warm sunshine of May or June, go lazily about what they termed duty, and, at their own leisure and convenience, betake themselves to bed again. I must plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the official breath of more than one of these venerable servants of the republic. They were allowed, on my representation, to rest from their arduous labours, and soon afterwards--as if their sole principle of life had been zeal for their country's service--as I verily believe it was--withdrew to a better world. It is a pious consolation to me that, through my interference, a sufficient space was allowed them for repentance of the evil and corrupt practices into which, as a matter of course, every Custom-House officer must be supposed to fall. Neither the front nor the back entrance of the Custom-House opens on the road to Paradise. The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was well for their venerable brotherhood that the new Surveyor was not a politician, and though a faithful Democrat in principle, neither received nor held his office with any reference to political services. Had it been otherwise--had an active politician been put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of making head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmities withheld him from the personal administration of his office--hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn the breath of official life within a month after the exterminating angel had come up the Custom-House steps. According to the received code in such matters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in a politician, to bring every one of those white heads under the axe of the guillotine. It was plain enough to discern that the old fellows dreaded some such discourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at the same time amused me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individual as myself; to detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days, had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten Boreas himself to silence. They knew, these excellent old persons, that, by all established rule--and, as regarded some of them, weighed by their own lack of efficiency for business--they ought to have given place to younger men, more orthodox in politics, and altogether fitter than themselves to serve our common Uncle. I knew it, too, but could never quite find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much and deservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the Custom-House steps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the walls; awaking, however, once or twice in the forenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandth repetition of old sea-stories and mouldy jokes, that had grown to be passwords and countersigns among them. The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the new Surveyor had no great harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts and the happy consciousness of being usefully employed--in their own behalf at least, if not for our beloved country--these good old gentlemen went through the various formalities of office. Sagaciously under their spectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels. Mighty was their fuss about little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers Whenever such a mischance occurred--when a waggon-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsuspicious noses--nothing could exceed the vigilance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel. Instead of a reprimand for their previous negligence, the case seemed rather to require an eulogium on their praiseworthy caution after the mischief had happened; a grateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal the moment that there was no longer any remedy. Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them. The better part of my companion's character, if it have a better part, is that which usually comes uppermost in my regard, and forms the type whereby I recognise the man. As most of these old Custom-House officers had good traits, and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, was favourable to the growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to like them all. It was pleasant in the summer forenoons--when the fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest of the human family, merely communicated a genial warmth to their half torpid systems--it was pleasant to hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all tipped against the wall, as usual; while the frozen witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and came bubbling with laughter from their lips. Externally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humour, has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch and grey, mouldering trunk. In one case, however, it is real sunshine; in the other, it more resembles the phosphorescent glow of decaying wood. It would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, to represent all my excellent old friends as in their dotage. In the first place, my coadjutors were not invariably old; there were men among them in their strength and prime, of marked ability and energy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and dependent mode of life on which their evil stars had cast them. Then, moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair. But, as respects the majority of my corps of veterans, there will be no wrong done if I characterize them generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied experience of life. They seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memory with the husks. They spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, to-day's, or tomorrow's dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonders which they had witnessed with their youthful eyes. The father of the Custom-House--the patriarch, not only of this little squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the respectable body of tide-waiters all over the United States--was a certain permanent Inspector. He might truly be termed a legitimate son of the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or rather born in the purple; since his sire, a Revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ages which few living men can now remember. This Inspector, when I first knew him, was a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-green that you would be likely to discover in a lifetime's search. With his florid cheek, his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed--not young, indeed--but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal--and there was very little else to look at--he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extreme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at or conceived of. The careless security of his life in the Custom-House, on a regular income, and with but slight and infrequent apprehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly over him. The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities: nothing, in short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper which grew inevitably out of his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart. He had been the husband of three wives, all long since dead; the father of twenty children, most of whom, at every age of childhood or maturity, had likewise returned to dust. Here, one would suppose, might have been sorrow enough to imbue the sunniest disposition through and through with a sable tinge. Not so with our old Inspector. One brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences. The next moment he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant: far readier than the Collector's junior clerk, who at nineteen years was much the elder and graver man of the two. I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I think, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there presented to my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one point of view; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable such an absolute nonentity, in every other. My conclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as I have already said, but instincts; and yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his character been put together that there was no painful perception of deficiency, but, on my part, an entire contentment with what I found in him. It might be difficult--and it was so--to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem; but surely his existence here, admitting that it was to terminate with his last breath, had been not unkindly given; with no higher moral responsibilities than the beasts of the field, but with a larger scope of enjoyment than theirs, and with all their blessed immunity from the dreariness and duskiness of age. One point in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed brethren was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. His gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. His reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savour of pig or turkey under one's very nostrils. There were flavours on his palate that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been food for worms. It was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising up before him--not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and seeking to reduplicate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual: a tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder Adams, would be remembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race, and all the events that brightened or darkened his individual career, had gone over him with as little permanent effect as the passing breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man's life, so far as I could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago: a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table, proved so inveterately tough, that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcase, and it could only be divided with an axe and handsaw. But it is time to quit this sketch; on which, however, I should be glad to dwell at considerably more length, because of all men whom I have ever known, this individual was fittest to be a Custom-House officer. Most persons, owing to causes which I may not have space to hint at, suffer moral detriment from this peculiar mode of life. The old Inspector was incapable of it; and, were he to continue in office to the end of time, would be just as good as he was then, and sit down to dinner with just as good an appetite. There is one likeness, without which my gallery of Custom-House portraits would be strangely incomplete, but which my comparatively few opportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in the merest outline. It is that of the Collector, our gallant old General, who, after his brilliant military service, subsequently to which he had ruled over a wild Western territory, had come hither, twenty years before, to spend the decline of his varied and honourable life. The brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or quite, his three-score years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of his earthly march, burdened with infirmities which even the martial music of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do little towards lightening. The step was palsied now, that had been foremost in the charge. It was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the Custom-House steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace. There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the figures that came and went, amid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casual talk of the office; all which sounds and circumstances seemed but indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make their way into his inner sphere of contemplation. His countenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. If his notice was sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features, proving that there was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intellectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. The closer you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it appeared. When no longer called upon to speak or listen--either of which operations cost him an evident effort--his face would briefly subside into its former not uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to behold this look; for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age. The framework of his nature, originally strong and massive, was not yet crumpled into ruin. To observe and define his character, however, under such disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace out and build up anew, in imagination, an old fortress, like Ticonderoga, from a view of its grey and broken ruins. Here and there, perchance, the walls may remain almost complete; but elsewhere may be only a shapeless mound, cumbrous with its very strength, and overgrown, through long years of peace and neglect, with grass and alien weeds. Nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affection--for, slight as was the communication between us, my feeling towards him, like that of all bipeds and quadrupeds who knew him, might not improperly be termed so,--I could discern the main points of his portrait. It was marked with the noble and heroic qualities which showed it to be not a mere accident, but of good right, that he had won a distinguished name. His spirit could never, I conceive, have been characterized by an uneasy activity; it must, at any period of his life, have required an impulse to set him in motion; but once stirred up, with obstacles to overcome, and an adequate object to be attained, it was not in the man to give out or fail. The heat that had formerly pervaded his nature, and which was not yet extinct, was never of the kind that flashes and flickers in a blaze; but rather a deep red glow, as of iron in a furnace. Weight, solidity, firmness--this was the expression of his repose, even in such decay as had crept untimely over him at the period of which I speak. But I could imagine, even then, that, under some excitement which should go deeply into his consciousness--roused by a trumpet's peal, loud enough to awaken all of his energies that were not dead, but only slumbering--he was yet capable of flinging off his infirmities like a sick man's gown, dropping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and starting up once more a warrior. And, in so intense a moment his demeanour would have still been calm. Such an exhibition, however, was but to be pictured in fancy; not to be anticipated, nor desired. What I saw in him--as evidently as the indestructible ramparts of Old Ticonderoga, already cited as the most appropriate simile--was the features of stubborn and ponderous endurance, which might well have amounted to obstinacy in his earlier days; of integrity, that, like most of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was just as unmalleable or unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and of benevolence which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at Chippewa or Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates any or all the polemical philanthropists of the age. He had slain men with his own hand, for aught I know--certainly, they had fallen like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe before the charge to which his spirit imparted its triumphant energy--but, be that as it might, there was never in his heart so much cruelty as would have brushed the down off a butterfly's wing. I have not known the man to whose innate kindliness I would more confidently make an appeal. Many characteristics--and those, too, which contribute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch--must have vanished, or been obscured, before I met the General. All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent; nor does nature adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new beauty, that have their roots and proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga. Still, even in respect of grace and beauty, there were points well worth noting. A ray of humour, now and then, would make its way through the veil of dim obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. A trait of native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine character after childhood or early youth, was shown in the General's fondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers. An old soldier might be supposed to prize only the bloody laurel on his brow; but here was one who seemed to have a young girl's appreciation of the floral tribe. There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to sit; while the Surveyor--though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation--was fond of standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance. He seemed away from us, although we saw him but a few yards off; remote, though we passed close beside his chair; unattainable, though we might have stretched forth our hands and touched his own. It might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts than amid the unappropriate environment of the Collector's office. The evolutions of the parade; the tumult of the battle; the flourish of old heroic music, heard thirty years before--such scenes and sounds, perhaps, were all alive before his intellectual sense. Meanwhile, the merchants and ship-masters, the spruce clerks and uncouth sailors, entered and departed; the bustle of his commercial and Custom-House life kept up its little murmur round about him; and neither with the men nor their affairs did the General appear to sustain the most distant relation. He was as much out of place as an old sword--now rusty, but which had flashed once in the battle's front, and showed still a bright gleam along its blade--would have been among the inkstands, paper-folders, and mahogany rulers on the Deputy Collector's desk. There was one thing that much aided me in renewing and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the Niagara frontier--the man of true and simple energy. It was the recollection of those memorable words of his--"I'll try, Sir"--spoken on the very verge of a desperate and heroic enterprise, and breathing the soul and spirit of New England hardihood, comprehending all perils, and encountering all. If, in our country, valour were rewarded by heraldic honour, this phrase--which it seems so easy to speak, but which only he, with such a task of danger and glory before him, has ever spoken--would be the best and fittest of all mottoes for the General's shield of arms. It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. The accidents of my life have often afforded me this advantage, but never with more fulness and variety than during my continuance in office. There was one man, especially, the observation of whose character gave me a new idea of talent. His gifts were emphatically those of a man of business; prompt, acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made them vanish as by the waving of an enchanter's wand. Bred up from boyhood in the Custom-House, it was his proper field of activity; and the many intricacies of business, so harassing to the interloper, presented themselves before him with the regularity of a perfectly comprehended system. In my contemplation, he stood as the ideal of his class. He was, indeed, the Custom-House in himself; or, at all events, the mainspring that kept its variously revolving wheels in motion; for, in an institution like this, where its officers are appointed to subserve their own profit and convenience, and seldom with a leading reference to their fitness for the duty to be performed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dexterity which is not in them. Thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so did our man of business draw to himself the difficulties which everybody met with. With an easy condescension, and kind forbearance towards our stupidity--which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little short of crime--would he forth-with, by the merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear as daylight. The merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric friends. His integrity was perfect; it was a law of nature with him, rather than a choice or a principle; nor can it be otherwise than the main condition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate as his to be honest and regular in the administration of affairs. A stain on his conscience, as to anything that came within the range of his vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same way, though to a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of an account, or an ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record. Here, in a word--and it is a rare instance in my life--I had met with a person thoroughly adapted to the situation which he held. Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson's; after those wild, free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard's culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow's hearthstone--it was time, at length, that I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change. Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little moment in my regard. I cared not at this period for books; they were apart from me. Nature--except it were human nature--the nature that is developed in earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me; and all the imaginative delight wherewith it had been spiritualized passed away out of my mind. A gift, a faculty, if it had not been departed, was suspended and inanimate within me. There would have been something sad, unutterably dreary, in all this, had I not been conscious that it lay at my own option to recall whatever was valuable in the past. It might be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not, with impunity, be lived too long; else, it might make me permanently other than I had been, without transforming me into any shape which it would be worth my while to take. But I never considered it as other than a transitory life. There was always a prophetic instinct, a low whisper in my ear, that within no long period, and whenever a new change of custom should be essential to my good, change would come. Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue and, so far as I have been able to understand, as good a Surveyor as need be. A man of thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor's proportion of those qualities), may, at any time, be a man of affairs, if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. My fellow-officers, and the merchants and sea-captains with whom my official duties brought me into any manner of connection, viewed me in no other light, and probably knew me in no other character. None of them, I presume, had ever read a page of my inditing, or would have cared a fig the more for me if they had read them all; nor would it have mended the matter, in the least, had those same unprofitable pages been written with a pen like that of Burns or of Chaucer, each of whom was a Custom-House officer in his day, as well as I. It is a good lesson--though it may often be a hard one--for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world's dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. I know not that I especially needed the lesson, either in the way of warning or rebuke; but at any rate, I learned it thoroughly: nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it came home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to be thrown off in a sigh. In the way of literary talk, it is true, the Naval Officer--an excellent fellow, who came into the office with me, and went out only a little later--would often engage me in a discussion about one or the other of his favourite topics, Napoleon or Shakespeare. The Collector's junior clerk, too a young gentleman who, it was whispered occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle Sam's letter paper with what (at the distance of a few yards) looked very much like poetry--used now and then to speak to me of books, as matters with which I might possibly be conversant. This was my all of lettered intercourse; and it was quite sufficient for my necessities. No longer seeking nor caring that my name should be blasoned abroad on title-pages, I smiled to think that it had now another kind of vogue. The Custom-House marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I hope, will never go again. But the past was not dead. Once in a great while, the thoughts that had seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest so quietly, revived again. One of the most remarkable occasions, when the habit of bygone days awoke in me, was that which brings it within the law of literary propriety to offer the public the sketch which I am now writing. In the second storey of the Custom-House there is a large room, in which the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered with panelling and plaster. The edifice--originally projected on a scale adapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be realized--contains far more space than its occupants know what to do with. This airy hall, therefore, over the Collector's apartments, remains unfinished to this day, and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky beams, appears still to await the labour of the carpenter and mason. At one end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels piled one upon another, containing bundles of official documents. Large quantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful to think how many days, and weeks, and months, and years of toil had been wasted on these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at by human eyes. But then, what reams of other manuscripts--filled, not with the dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts--had gone equally to oblivion; and that, moreover, without serving a purpose in their day, as these heaped-up papers had, and--saddest of all--without purchasing for their writers the comfortable livelihood which the clerks of the Custom-House had gained by these worthless scratchings of the pen. Yet not altogether worthless, perhaps, as materials of local history. Here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerce of Salem might be discovered, and memorials of her princely merchants--old King Derby--old Billy Gray--old Simon Forrester--and many another magnate in his day, whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb before his mountain pile of wealth began to dwindle. The founders of the greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of Salem might here be traced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at periods generally much posterior to the Revolution, upward to what their children look upon as long-established rank. Prior to the Revolution there is a dearth of records; the earlier documents and archives of the Custom-House having, probably, been carried off to Halifax, when all the king's officials accompanied the British army in its flight from Boston. It has often been a matter of regret with me; for, going back, perhaps, to the days of the Protectorate, those papers must have contained many references to forgotten or remembered men, and to antique customs, which would have affected me with the same pleasure as when I used to pick up Indian arrow-heads in the field near the Old Manse. But, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of some little interest. Poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner, unfolding one and another document, and reading the names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants never heard of now on 'Change, nor very readily decipherable on their mossy tombstones; glancing at such matters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which we bestow on the corpse of dead activity--and exerting my fancy, sluggish with little use, to raise up from these dry bones an image of the old town's brighter aspect, when India was a new region, and only Salem knew the way thither--I chanced to lay my hand on a small package, carefully done up in a piece of ancient yellow parchment. This envelope had the air of an official record of some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials than at present. There was something about it that quickened an instinctive curiosity, and made me undo the faded red tape that tied up the package, with the sense that a treasure would here be brought to light. Unbending the rigid folds of the parchment cover, I found it to be a commission, under the hand and seal of Governor Shirley, in favour of one Jonathan Pue, as Surveyor of His Majesty's Customs for the Port of Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. I remembered to have read (probably in Felt's "Annals") a notice of the decease of Mr. Surveyor Pue, about fourscore years ago; and likewise, in a newspaper of recent times, an account of the digging up of his remains in the little graveyard of St. Peter's Church, during the renewal of that edifice. Nothing, if I rightly call to mind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an imperfect skeleton, and some fragments of apparel, and a wig of majestic frizzle, which, unlike the head that it once adorned, was in very satisfactory preservation. But, on examining the papers which the parchment commission served to envelop, I found more traces of Mr. Pue's mental part, and the internal operations of his head, than the frizzled wig had contained of the venerable skull itself. They were documents, in short, not official, but of a private nature, or, at least, written in his private capacity, and apparently with his own hand. I could account for their being included in the heap of Custom-House lumber only by the fact that Mr. Pue's death had happened suddenly, and that these papers, which he probably kept in his official desk, had never come to the knowledge of his heirs, or were supposed to relate to the business of the revenue. On the transfer of the archives to Halifax, this package, proving to be of no public concern, was left behind, and had remained ever since unopened. The ancient Surveyor--being little molested, I suppose, at that early day with business pertaining to his office--seems to have devoted some of his many leisure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and other inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied material for petty activity to a mind that would otherwise have been eaten up with rust. A portion of his facts, by-the-by, did me good service in the preparation of the article entitled "MAIN STREET," included in the present volume. The remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes equally valuable hereafter, or not impossibly may be worked up, so far as they go, into a regular history of Salem, should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task. Meanwhile, they shall be at the command of any gentleman, inclined and competent, to take the unprofitable labour off my hands. As a final disposition I contemplate depositing them with the Essex Historical Society. But the object that most drew my attention to the mysterious package was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded, There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and defaced, so that none, or very little, of the glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be discovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth--for time, and wear, and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag--on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length. It had been intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamental article of dress; but how it was to be worn, or what rank, honour, and dignity, in by-past times, were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are the fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little hope of solving. And yet it strangely interested me. My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly there was some deep meaning in it most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my mind. When thus perplexed--and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to contrive in order to take the eyes of Indians--I happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to me--the reader may smile, but must not doubt my word--it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat, and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor. In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets, containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during the period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. It had been her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind of voluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking upon herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters, especially those of the heart, by which means--as a person of such propensities inevitably must--she gained from many people the reverence due to an angel, but, I should imagine, was looked upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. Prying further into the manuscript, I found the record of other doings and sufferings of this singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story entitled "THE SCARLET LETTER"; and it should be borne carefully in mind that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself--a most curious relic--are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them. I must not be understood affirming that, in the dressing up of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old Surveyor's half-a-dozen sheets of foolscap. On the contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly, or altogether, as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own invention. What I contend for is the authenticity of the outline. This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track. There seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. It impressed me as if the ancient Surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortal wig--which was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave--had met me in the deserted chamber of the Custom-House. In his port was the dignity of one who had borne His Majesty's commission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendour that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike alas the hangdog look of a republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him--who might reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor--to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. "Do this," said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig; "do this, and the profit shall be all your own. You will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine, when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due" And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue--"I will". On Hester Prynne's story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundredfold repetition, the long extent from the front door of the Custom-House to the side entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and annoyance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning footsteps. Remembering their own former habits, they used to say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They probably fancied that my sole object--and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever put himself into voluntary motion--was to get an appetite for dinner. And, to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere of a Custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye. My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which I did my best to people it. The characters of the narrative would not be warmed and rendered malleable by any heat that I could kindle at my intellectual forge. They would take neither the glow of passion nor the tenderness of sentiment, but retained all the rigidity of dead corpses, and stared me in the face with a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. "What have you to do with us?" that expression seemed to say. "The little power you might have once possessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone! You have bartered it for a pittance of the public gold. Go then, and earn your wages!" In short, the almost torpid creatures of my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, and not without fair occasion. It was not merely during the three hours and a half which Uncle Sam claimed as his share of my daily life that this wretched numbness held possession of me. It went with me on my sea-shore walks and rambles into the country, whenever--which was seldom and reluctantly--I bestirred myself to seek that invigorating charm of Nature which used to give me such freshness and activity of thought, the moment that I stepped across the threshold of the Old Manse. The same torpor, as regarded the capacity for intellectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon me in the chamber which I most absurdly termed my study. Nor did it quit me when, late at night, I sat in the deserted parlour, lighted only by the glimmering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the brightening page in many-hued description. If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly--making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility--is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the book-case; the picture on the wall--all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby. A child's shoe; the doll, seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse--whatever, in a word, has been used or played with during the day is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. Ghosts might enter here without affrighting us. It would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form, beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moonshine, with an aspect that would make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never once stirred from our fireside. The somewhat dim coal fire has an essential Influence in producing the effect which I would describe. It throws its unobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflected gleam upon the polish of the furniture. This warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moon-beams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilities of human tenderness to the forms which fancy summons up. It converts them from snow-images into men and women. Glancing at the looking-glass, we behold--deep within its haunted verge--the smouldering glow of the half-extinguished anthracite, the white moon-beams on the floor, and a repetition of all the gleam and shadow of the picture, with one remove further from the actual, and nearer to the imaginative. Then, at such an hour, and with this scene before him, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances. But, for myself, during the whole of my Custom-House experience, moonlight and sunshine, and the glow of firelight, were just alike in my regard; and neither of them was of one whit more avail than the twinkle of a tallow-candle. An entire class of susceptibilities, and a gift connected with them--of no great richness or value, but the best I had--was gone from me. It is my belief, however, that had I attempted a different order of composition, my faculties would not have been found so pointless and inefficacious. I might, for instance, have contented myself with writing out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of the Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention, since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and admiration by his marvelous gifts as a story-teller. Could I have preserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humourous colouring which nature taught him how to throw over his descriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would have been something new in literature. Or I might readily have found a more serious task. It was a folly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to fling myself back into another age, or to insist on creating the semblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at every moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance. The wiser effort would have been to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque substance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiritualise the burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, and ordinary characters with which I was now conversant. The fault was mine. The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace only because I had not fathomed its deeper import. A better book than I shall ever write was there; leaf after leaf presenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the reality of the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only because my brain wanted the insight, and my hand the cunning, to transcribe it. At some future day, it may be, I shall remember a few scattered fragments and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and find the letters turn to gold upon the page. These perceptions had come too late. At the Instant, I was only conscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopeless toil. There was no occasion to make much moan about this state of affairs. I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good Surveyor of the Customs. That was all. But, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away, or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact there could be no doubt and, examining myself and others, I was led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favourable to the mode of life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it here to say that a Custom-House officer of long continuance can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which--though, I trust, an honest one--is of such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind. An effect--which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position--is, that while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. If he possesses an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected officer--fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle amid a struggling world--may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. But this seldom happens. He usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult footpath of life as he best may. Conscious of his own infirmity--that his tempered steel and elasticity are lost--he for ever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. His pervading and continual hope--a hallucination, which, in the face of all discouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death--is, that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his Uncle will raise and support him? Why should he work for his living here, or go to dig gold in California, when he is so soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with a little pile of glittering coin out of his Uncle's pocket? It is sadly curious to observe how slight a taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singular disease. Uncle Sam's gold--meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman--has, in this respect, a quality of enchantment like that of the devil's wages. Whoever touches it should look well to himself, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involving, if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy, its truth, its self-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to manly character. Here was a fine prospect in the distance. Not that the Surveyor brought the lesson home to himself, or admitted that he could be so utterly undone, either by continuance in office or ejectment. Yet my reflections were not the most comfortable. I began to grow melancholy and restless; continually prying into my mind, to discover which of its poor properties were gone, and what degree of detriment had already accrued to the remainder. I endeavoured to calculate how much longer I could stay in the Custom-House, and yet go forth a man. To confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension--as it would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet an individual as myself; and it being hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign--it was my chief trouble, therefore, that I was likely to grow grey and decrepit in the Surveyorship, and become much such another animal as the old Inspector. Might it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that lay before me, finally be with me as it was with this venerable friend--to make the dinner-hour the nucleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dog spends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade? A dreary look-forward, this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition of happiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties and sensibilities. But, all this while, I was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. Providence had meditated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself. A remarkable event of the third year of my Surveyorship--to adopt the tone of "P. P. "--was the election of General Taylor to the Presidency. It is essential, in order to form a complete estimate of the advantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the in-coming of a hostile administration. His position is then one of the most singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that a wretched mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative of good on either hand, although what presents itself to him as the worst event may very probably be the best. But it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him, and by whom, since one or the other must needs happen, he would rather be injured than obliged. Strange, too, for one who has kept his calmness throughout the contest, to observe the bloodthirstiness that is developed in the hour of triumph, and to be conscious that he is himself among its objects! There are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency--which I now witnessed in men no worse than their neighbours--to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of inflicting harm. If the guillotine, as applied to office-holders, were a literal fact, instead of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief that the active members of the victorious party were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our heads, and have thanked Heaven for the opportunity! It appears to me--who have been a calm and curious observer, as well in victory as defeat--that this fierce and bitter spirit of malice and revenge has never distinguished the many triumphs of my own party as it now did that of the Whigs. The Democrats take the offices, as a general rule, because they need them, and because the practice of many years has made it the law of political warfare, which unless a different system be proclaimed, it was weakness and cowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has made them generous. They know how to spare when they see occasion; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will; nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which they have just struck off. In short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, I saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side rather than the triumphant one. If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of partisans I began now, at this season of peril and adversity, to be pretty acutely sensible with which party my predilections lay; nor was it without something like regret and shame that, according to a reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my own prospect of retaining office to be better than those of my democratic brethren. But who can see an inch into futurity beyond his nose? My own head was the first that fell. The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him. In my particular case the consolatory topics were close at hand, and, indeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a considerable time before it was requisite to use them. In view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and although beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered. In the Custom-House, as before in the Old Manse, I had spent three years--a term long enough to rest a weary brain: long enough to break off old intellectual habits, and make room for new ones: long enough, and too long, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what was really of no advantage nor delight to any human being, and withholding myself from toil that would, at least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me. Then, moreover, as regarded his unceremonious ejectment, the late Surveyor was not altogether ill-pleased to be recognised by the Whigs as an enemy; since his inactivity in political affairs--his tendency to roam, at will, in that broad and quiet field where all mankind may meet, rather than confine himself to those narrow paths where brethren of the same household must diverge from one another--had sometimes made it questionable with his brother Democrats whether he was a friend. Now, after he had won the crown of martyrdom (though with no longer a head to wear it on), the point might be looked upon as settled. Finally, little heroic as he was, it seemed more decorous to be overthrown in the downfall of the party with which he had been content to stand than to remain a forlorn survivor, when so many worthier men were falling: and at last, after subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostile administration, to be compelled then to define his position anew, and claim the yet more humiliating mercy of a friendly one. Meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a week or two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving's Headless Horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a political dead man ought. So much for my figurative self. The real human being all this time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man. Now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, Mr. Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty through long idleness, some little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery could be brought to work upon the tale with an effect in any degree satisfactory. Even yet, though my thoughts were ultimately much absorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a stern and sombre aspect: too much ungladdened by genial sunshine; too little relieved by the tender and familiar influences which soften almost every scene of nature and real life, and undoubtedly should soften every picture of them. This uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly accomplished revolution, and still seething turmoil, in which the story shaped itself. It is no indication, however, of a lack of cheerfulness in the writer's mind: for he was happier while straying through the gloom of these sunless fantasies than at any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Some of the briefer articles, which contribute to make up the volume, have likewise been written since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and honours of public life, and the remainder are gleaned from annuals and magazines, of such antique date, that they have gone round the circle, and come back to novelty again. Keeping up the metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be considered as the POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR: and the sketch which I am now bringing to a close, if too autobiographical for a modest person to publish in his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gentleman who writes from beyond the grave. Peace be with all the world! My blessing on my friends! My forgiveness to my enemies! For I am in the realm of quiet! The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind me. The old Inspector--who, by-the-bye, I regret to say, was overthrown and killed by a horse some time ago, else he would certainly have lived for ever--he, and all those other venerable personages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my view: white-headed and wrinkled images, which my fancy used to sport with, and has now flung aside for ever. The merchants--Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Upton, Kimball, Bertram, Hunt--these and many other names, which had such classic familiarity for my ear six months ago,--these men of traffic, who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world--how little time has it required to disconnect me from them all, not merely in act, but recollection! It is with an effort that I recall the figures and appellations of these few. Soon, likewise, my old native town will loom upon me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over and around it; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in cloud-land, with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden houses and walk its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its main street. Henceforth it ceases to be a reality of my life; I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good townspeople will not much regret me, for--though it has been as dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of some importance in their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in this abode and burial-place of so many of my forefathers--there has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary man requires in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. I shall do better amongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do just as well without me. It may be, however--oh, transporting and triumphant thought--that the great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindly of the scribbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to come, among the sites memorable in the town's history, shall point out the locality of THE TOWN PUMP. THE SCARLET LETTER I. THE PRISON DOOR A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the Vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King's Chapel. Certain it is that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-pern, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow. II. THE MARKET-PLACE The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle or vagrant Indian, whom the white man's firewater had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself. It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less force and solidity than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone. "Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not." "People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation." "The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch--that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she--the naughty baggage--little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!" "Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart." "What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray." "Mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself." The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison. When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer, there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. "She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it? Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?" "It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, "if we stripped Madame Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter which she hath stitched so curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel to make a fitter one!" "Oh, peace, neighbours--peace!" whispered their youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter but she has felt it in her heart." The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. "Make way, good people--make way, in the King's name!" cried he. "Open a passage; and I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel from this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madame Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!" A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there. In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature--whatever be the delinquencies of the individual--no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street. Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town, all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty, or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude--each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts--Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once. Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the western wilderness: other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality. Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her paternal home: a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father's face, with its bold brow, and reverend white beard that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her in memory's picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a continental city; where new life had awaited her, still in connexion with the misshapen scholar: a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne--yes, at herself--who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom. Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes these were her realities--all else had vanished! III. THE RECOGNITION From this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. An Indian in his native garb was standing there; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements that one of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne at such a time; much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. By the Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume. He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which as yet could hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. But the mother did not seem to hear it. At his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips. Then touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near to him, he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner: "I pray you, good Sir," said he, "who is this woman?--and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?" "You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, "else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you, in godly Master Dimmesdale's church." "You say truly," replied the other; "I am a stranger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk to the southward; and am now brought hither by this Indian to be redeemed out of my captivity. Will it please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne's--have I her name rightly?--of this woman's offences, and what has brought her to yonder scaffold?" "Truly, friend; and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman, "to find yourself at length in a land where iniquity is searched out and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly New England. Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was the wife of a certain learned man, English by birth, but who had long ago dwelt in Amsterdam, whence some good time agone he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To this purpose he sent his wife before him, remaining himself to look after some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentleman, Master Prynne; and his young wife, look you, being left to her own misguidance--" "Ah!--aha!--I conceive you," said the stranger with a bitter smile. "So learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too in his books. And who, by your favour, Sir, may be the father of yonder babe--it is some three or four months old, I should judge--which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms?" "Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman. "Madame Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him." "The learned man," observed the stranger with another smile, "should come himself to look into the mystery." "It behoves him well if he be still in life," responded the townsman. "Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy, bethinking themselves that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall, and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of the sea, they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But in their great mercy and tenderness of heart they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom." "A wise sentence," remarked the stranger, gravely, bowing his head. "Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known--he will be known!--he will be known!" He bowed courteously to the communicative townsman, and whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both made their way through the crowd. While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger--so fixed a gaze that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face--they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude. "Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!" said the voice. It has already been noticed that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honour. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath--a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters by whom the chief ruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of Divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale, and trembled. The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish. "Hester Prynne," said the clergyman, "I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the Word you have been privileged to sit"--here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him--"I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me--with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years--that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner's soul?" There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed: "Good Master Dimmesdale," said he, "the responsibility of this woman's soul lies greatly with you. It behoves you; therefore, to exhort her to repentance and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof." The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale--young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister--an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look--as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel. Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous. "Speak to the woman, my brother," said Mr. Wilson. "It is of moment to her soul, and, therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!" The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward. "Hester Prynne," said he, leaning over the balcony and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labour. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!" The young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby at Hester's bosom was affected by the same influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name, or else that the guilty one himself in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. Hester shook her head. "Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven's mercy!" cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. "That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast." "Never," replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony as well as mine!" "Speak, woman!" said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold, "Speak; and give your child a father!" "I will not speak!" answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognised. "And my child must seek a heavenly father; she shall never know an earthly one!" "She will not speak!" murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back with a long respiration. "Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!" Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. She had borne that morning all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathise with its trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was whispered by those who peered after her that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior. IV. THE INTERVIEW After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement, that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. He described him as a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and likewise familiar with whatever the savage people could teach in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest. To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child--who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day. Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment, appeared that individual, of singular aspect whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. He was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any offence, but as the most convenient and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the magistrates should have conferred with the Indian sagamores respecting his ransom. His name was announced as Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed his entrance; for Hester Prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the child continued to moan. "Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient," said the practitioner. "Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house; and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be more amenable to just authority than you may have found her heretofore." "Nay, if your worship can accomplish that," answered Master Brackett, "I shall own you for a man of skill, indeed! Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little that I should take in hand, to drive Satan out of her with stripes." The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging. Nor did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of the prison keeper left him face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and her. His first care was given to the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water. "My old studies in alchemy," observed he, "and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree. Here, woman! The child is yours--she is none of mine--neither will she recognise my voice or aspect as a father's. Administer this draught, therefore, with thine own hand." Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face. "Wouldst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe?" whispered she. "Foolish woman!" responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. "What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good, and were it my child--yea, mine own, as well as thine! I could do no better for it." As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and in a few moments, as is the custom of young children after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. The physician, as he had a fair right to be termed, next bestowed his attention on the mother. With calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes--a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so strange and cold--and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught. "I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe," remarked he; "but I have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them--a recipe that an Indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as old as Paracelsus. Drink it! It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee. But it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea." He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full of doubt and questioning as to what his purposes might be. She looked also at her slumbering child. "I have thought of death," said she--"have wished for it--would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! it is even now at my lips." "Drink, then," replied he, still with the same cold composure. "Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live--than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life--so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?" As he spoke, he laid his long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. "Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women--in the eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband--in the eyes of yonder child! And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught." Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed, where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that--having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do for the relief of physical suffering--he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured. "Hester," said he, "I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I--a man of thought--the book-worm of great libraries--a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge--what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own? Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl's fantasy? Men call me wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!" "Thou knowest," said Hester--for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame--"thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any." "True," replied he. "It was my folly! I have said it. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream--old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was--that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!" "I have greatly wronged thee," murmured Hester. "We have wronged each other," answered he. "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?" "Ask me not!" replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. "That thou shalt never know!" "Never, sayest thou?" rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence. "Never know him! Believe me, Hester, there are few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought--few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude. Thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, as for me, I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books: as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine." The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that Hester Prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at once. "Thou wilt not reveal his name? Not the less he is mine," resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. "He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I shall read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him! Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven's own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide himself in outward honour, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!" "Thy acts are like mercy," said Hester, bewildered and appalled; "but thy words interpret thee as a terror!" "One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee," continued the scholar. "Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate: no matter whether of right or wrong! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art and where he is. But betray me not!" "Wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?" "It may be," he replied, "because I will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons. Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life will be in my hands. Beware!" "I will keep thy secret, as I have his," said Hester. "Swear it!" rejoined he. And she took the oath. "And now, Mistress Prynne," said old Roger Chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, "I leave thee alone: alone with thy infant and the scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep? Art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?" "Why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?" "Not thy soul," he answered, with another smile. "No, not thine!" V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE Hester Prynne's term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. The very law that condemned her--a giant of stern features but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm--had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison door, began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief. Tomorrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next: each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast--at her, the child of honourable parents--at her, the mother of a babe that would hereafter be a woman--at her, who had once been innocent--as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument. It may seem marvellous that, with the world before her--kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure--free to return to her birth-place, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being--and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her--it may seem marvellous that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes of earth--even that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like garments put off long ago--were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken. It might be, too--doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole--it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt, there trode, the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. What she compelled herself to believe--what, finally, she reasoned upon as her motive for continuing a resident of New England--was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here, she said to herself had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost: more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom. Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. On the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west. A clump of scrubby trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the licence of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needle at the cottage-window, or standing in the doorway, or labouring in her little garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward, and, discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a strange contagious fear. Lonely as was Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art, then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp--of needle-work. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sable simplicity that generally characterised the Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispense with. Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order. In the array of funerals, too--whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors--there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen--for babies then wore robes of state--afforded still another possibility of toil and emolument. By degrees, not very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion. Whether from commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things; or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain; or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. Her needle-work was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band; it decked the baby's little cap; it was shut up, to be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which society frowned upon her sin. Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue, with only that one ornament--the scarlet letter--which it was her doom to wear. The child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter. Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic--a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath. In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. With her native energy of character and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. Hester had schooled herself long and well; and she never responded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again subsided into the depths of her bosom. She was patient--a martyr, indeed--but she forebore to pray for enemies, lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves into a curse. Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal. Clergymen paused in the streets, to address words of exhortation, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse. She grew to have a dread of children; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman gliding silently through the town, with never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterances of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. It seemed to argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of it; it could have caused her no deeper pang had the leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves--had the summer breeze murmured about it--had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud! Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter--and none ever failed to do so--they branded it afresh in Hester's soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture. But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye--a human eye--upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. (Had Hester sinned alone?) Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester--if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted--she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? Or, must she receive those intimations--so obscure, yet so distinct--as truth? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. "What evil thing is at hand?" would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! Again a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's--what had the two in common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning--"Behold Hester, here is a companion!" and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere?--such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself. The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit. VI. PEARL We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl--for so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of great price--purchased with all she had--her mother's only treasure! How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension. She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be good. Day after day she looked fearfully into the child's expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being. Certainly there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden: worthy to have been left there to be the plaything of the angels after the world's first parents were driven out. The child had a native grace which does not invariably co-exist with faultless beauty; its attire, however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became it best. But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the public eye. So magnificent was the small figure when thus arrayed, and such was the splendour of Pearl's own proper beauty, shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her on the darksome cottage floor. And yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect. Pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety; in this one child there were many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess. Throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost; and if in any of her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be herself--it would have been no longer Pearl! This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else Hester's fears deceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only account for the child's character--and even then most vaguely and imperfectly--by recalling what she herself had been during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind. The discipline of the family in those days was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade or plead. It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning at such moments whether Pearl was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility: it was as if she were hovering in the air, and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child--to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began--to snatch her to her bosom with a close pressure and earnest kisses--not so much from overflowing love as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful than before. Heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell, that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps--for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her--Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or--but this more rarely happened--she would be convulsed with rage of grief and sob out her love for her mother in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart by breaking it. Yet Hester was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness: it passed as suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicious happiness; until--perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneath her opening lids--little Pearl awoke! How soon--with what strange rapidity, indeed--did Pearl arrive at an age that was capable of social intercourse beyond the mother's ever-ready smile and nonsense-words! And then what a happiness would it have been could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children. But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circle round about her: the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in respect to other children. Never since her release from prison had Hester met the public gaze without her. In all her walks about the town, Pearl, too, was there: first as the babe in arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester's. She saw the children of the settlement on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashions as the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church, perchance, or at scourging Quakers; or taking scalps in a sham fight with the Indians, or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft. Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue. The truth was, that the little Puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt the sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom. These outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of value, and even comfort for the mother; because there was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead of the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child's manifestations. It appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester's heart. Mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from human society; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne before Pearl's birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity. At home, within and around her mother's cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The unlikeliest materials--a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower--were the puppets of Pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude of imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine-trees, aged, black, and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure as Puritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, whom Pearl smote down and uprooted most unmercifully. It was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preternatural activity--soon sinking down, as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life--and succeeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be a little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. The singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded all these offsprings of her own heart and mind. She never created a friend, but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth, whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sad--then what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause--to observe, in one so young, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energies that were to make good her cause in the contest that must ensue. Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself betwixt speech and a groan--"O Father in Heaven--if Thou art still my Father--what is this being which I have brought into the world?" And Pearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware through some more subtile channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play. One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told. The very first thing which she had noticed in her life, was--what?--not the mother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond discussion whether it were indeed a smile. By no means! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware was--shall we say it?--the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom! One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and putting up her little hand she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath, did Hester Prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctively endeavouring to tear it away, so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl's baby-hand. Again, as if her mother's agonised gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile. From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety: not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile and odd expression of the eyes. Once this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and suddenly--for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions--she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion. In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. But whether from pride or resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, the child stood still and gazed at Hester, with that little laughing image of a fiend peeping out--or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it--from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes. "Child, what art thou?" cried the mother. "Oh, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child. But while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down with the humoursome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney. "Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester. Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was Pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself. "Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics. "Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering. "Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?" "Tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell me!" "Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!" answered Hester Prynne. But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger and touched the scarlet letter. "He did not send me!" cried she, positively. "I have no Heavenly Father!" "Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the mother, suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into the world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more thee! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?" "Tell me! Tell me!" repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing and capering about the floor. "It is thou that must tell me!" But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. She remembered--betwixt a smile and a shudder--the talk of the neighbouring townspeople, who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring: such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose. Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed; nor was Pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned among the New England Puritans. VII. THE GOVERNOR'S HALL Hester Prynne went one day to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy. Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves, impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of the settlement. It had reached her ears that there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her child. On the supposition that Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne's. Among those who promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which in later days would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the select men of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the legislature. Full of concern, therefore--but so conscious of her own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other--Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cottage. Little Pearl, of course, was her companion. She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly in motion from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms; but was soon as imperious to be let down again, and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble. We have spoken of Pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty--a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints, a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There was fire in her and throughout her: she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. Her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. So much strength of colouring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth. But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! The mother herself--as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form--had carefully wrought out the similitude, lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy between the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in truth, Pearl was the one as well as the other; and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance. As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the Puritans looked up from their play,--or what passed for play with those sombre little urchins--and spoke gravely one to another. "Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!" But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence--the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment--whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. The victory accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face. Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor Bellingham. This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our older towns now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened and passed away within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect, the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have be fitted Aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age which had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the admiration of after times. Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with. "No, my little Pearl!" said her mother; "thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee!" They approached the door, which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, the wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the Governor's bond servant--a free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. The serf wore the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls of England. "Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within?" inquired Hester. "Yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. "Yea, his honourable worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. Ye may not see his worship now." "Nevertheless, I will enter," answered Hester Prynne; and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition. So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance. With many variations, suggested by the nature of his building materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode of social life, Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre table, to be turned over by the casual guest. The furniture of the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise a table in the same taste, the whole being of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred hither from the Governor's paternal home. On the table--in token that the sentiment of old English hospitality had not been left behind--stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had Hester or Pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught of ale. On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers of the Bellingham lineage, some with armour on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All were characterised by the sternness and severity which old portraits so invariably put on, as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men. At about the centre of the oaken panels that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch, as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler. Little Pearl, who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armour as she had been with the glittering frontispiece of the house, spent some time looking into the polished mirror of the breastplate. "Mother," cried she, "I see you here. Look! Look!" Hester looked by way of humouring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. Pearl pointed upwards also, at a similar picture in the head-piece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into Pearl's shape. "Come along, Pearl," said she, drawing her away, "Come and look into this fair garden. It may be we shall see flowers there; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods." Pearl accordingly ran to the bow-window, at the further end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden walk, carpeted with closely-shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil, and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening. Cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin-vine, rooted at some distance, had run across the intervening space, and deposited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the hall window, as if to warn the Governor that this great lump of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as New England earth would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, however, and a number of apple-trees, probably the descendants of those planted by the Reverend Mr. Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula; that half mythological personage who rides through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull. Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified. "Hush, child--hush!" said her mother, earnestly. "Do not cry, dear little Pearl! I hear voices in the garden. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him." In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue, a number of persons were seen approaching towards the house. Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent, not from any notion of obedience, but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition was excited by the appearance of those new personages. VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap--such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in their domestic privacy--walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his grey beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James's reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is an error to suppose that our great forefathers--though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty--made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerable pastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen over Governor Bellingham's shoulders, while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalised in the New England climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be compelled to flourish against the sunny garden-wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the English Church, had a long established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things, and however stern he might show himself in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of Hester Prynne, still, the genial benevolence of his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries. Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guests--one, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember as having taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of Hester Prynne's disgrace; and, in close companionship with him, old Roger Chillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who for two or three years past had been settled in the town. It was understood that this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young minister, whose health had severely suffered of late by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labours and duties of the pastoral relation. The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall window, found himself close to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne, and partially concealed her. "What have we here?" said Governor Bellingham, looking with surprise at the scarlet little figure before him. "I profess, I have never seen the like since my days of vanity, in old King James's time, when I was wont to esteem it a high favour to be admitted to a court mask! There used to be a swarm of these small apparitions in holiday time, and we called them children of the Lord of Misrule. But how gat such a guest into my hall?" "Ay, indeed!" cried good old Mr. Wilson. "What little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christian child--ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?" "I am mother's child," answered the scarlet vision, "and my name is Pearl!" "Pearl?--Ruby, rather--or Coral!--or Red Rose, at the very least, judging from thy hue!" responded the old minister, putting forth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little Pearl on the cheek. "But where is this mother of thine? Ah! I see," he added; and, turning to Governor Bellingham, whispered, "This is the selfsame child of whom we have held speech together; and behold here the unhappy woman, Hester Prynne, her mother!" "Sayest thou so?" cried the Governor. "Nay, we might have judged that such a child's mother must needs be a scarlet woman, and a worthy type of her of Babylon! But she comes at a good time, and we will look into this matter forthwith." Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall, followed by his three guests. "Hester Prynne," said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, "there hath been much question concerning thee of late. The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen amid the pitfalls of this world. Speak thou, the child's own mother! Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? What canst thou do for the child in this kind?" "I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!" answered Hester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token. "Woman, it is thy badge of shame!" replied the stern magistrate. "It is because of the stain which that letter indicates that we would transfer thy child to other hands." "Nevertheless," said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale, "this badge hath taught me--it daily teaches me--it is teaching me at this moment--lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself." "We will judge warily," said Bellingham, "and look well what we are about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray you, examine this Pearl--since that is her name--and see whether she hath had such Christian nurture as befits a child of her age." The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair and made an effort to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child, unaccustomed to the touch or familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window, and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little astonished at this outbreak--for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage, and usually a vast favourite with children--essayed, however, to proceed with the examination. "Pearl," said he, with great solemnity, "thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?" Now Pearl knew well enough who made her, for Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. Pearl, therefore--so large were the attainments of her three years' lifetime--could have borne a fair examination in the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity, which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door. This phantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window, together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming hither. Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features--how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen--since the days when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward. "This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further." Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death. "God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave her in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness--she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!" "My poor woman," said the not unkind old minister, "the child shall be well cared for--far better than thou canst do for it." "God gave her into my keeping!" repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. "I will not give her up!" And here by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes. "Speak thou for me!" cried she. "Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me! Thou knowest--for thou hast sympathies which these men lack--thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it!" At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that Hester Prynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation. He looked now more careworn and emaciated than as we described him at the scene of Hester's public ignominy; and whether it were his failing health, or whatever the cause might be, his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth. "There is truth in what she says," began the minister, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoed and the hollow armour rang with it--"truth in what Hester says, and in the feeling which inspires her! God gave her the child, and gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements--both seemingly so peculiar--which no other mortal being can possess. And, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and this child?" "Ay--how is that, good Master Dimmesdale?" interrupted the Governor. "Make that plain, I pray you!" "It must be even so," resumed the minister. "For, if we deem it otherwise, do we not thereby say that the Heavenly Father, the creator of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deed of sin, and made of no account the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? This child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame has come from the hand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly and with such bitterness of spirit the right to keep her. It was meant for a blessing--for the one blessing of her life! It was meant, doubtless, the mother herself hath told us, for a retribution, too; a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment; a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony, in the midst of a troubled joy! Hath she not expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child, so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears her bosom?" "Well said again!" cried good Mr. Wilson. "I feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child!" "Oh, not so!--not so!" continued Mr. Dimmesdale. "She recognises, believe me, the solemn miracle which God hath wrought in the existence of that child. And may she feel, too--what, methinks, is the very truth--that this boon was meant, above all things else, to keep the mother's soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her! Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman, that she hath an infant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care--to be trained up by her to righteousness, to remind her, at every moment, of her fall, but yet to teach her, as if it were by the Creator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parents thither! Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father. For Hester Prynne's sake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, let us leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them!" "You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him. "And there is a weighty import in what my young brother hath spoken," added the Rev. Mr. Wilson. "What say you, worshipful Master Bellingham? Hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?" "Indeed hath he," answered the magistrate; "and hath adduced such arguments, that we will even leave the matter as it now stands; so long, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman. Care must be had nevertheless, to put the child to due and stated examination in the catechism, at thy hands or Master Dimmesdale's. Moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-men must take heed that she go both to school and to meeting." The young minister, on ceasing to speak had withdrawn a few steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed in the heavy folds of the window-curtain; while the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself--"Is that my Pearl?" Yet she knew that there was love in the child's heart, although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twice in her lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. The minister--for, save the long-sought regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than these marks of childish preference, accorded spontaneously by a spiritual instinct, and therefore seeming to imply in us something truly worthy to be loved--the minister looked round, laid his hand on the child's head, hesitated an instant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl's unwonted mood of sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed, and went capering down the hall so airily, that old Mr. Wilson raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the floor. "The little baggage hath witchcraft in her, I profess," said he to Mr. Dimmesdale. "She needs no old woman's broomstick to fly withal!" "A strange child!" remarked old Roger Chillingworth. "It is easy to see the mother's part in her. Would it be beyond a philosopher's research, think ye, gentlemen, to analyse that child's nature, and, from it make a mould, to give a shrewd guess at the father?" "Nay; it would be sinful, in such a question, to follow the clue of profane philosophy," said Mr. Wilson. "Better to fast and pray upon it; and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless Providence reveal it of its own accord. Thereby, every good Christian man hath a title to show a father's kindness towards the poor, deserted babe." The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne, with Pearl, departed from the house. As they descended the steps, it is averred that the lattice of a chamber-window was thrown open, and forth into the sunny day was thrust the face of Mistress Hibbins, Governor Bellingham's bitter-tempered sister, and the same who, a few years later, was executed as a witch. "Hist, hist!" said she, while her ill-omened physiognomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. "Wilt thou go with us to-night? There will be a merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one." "Make my excuse to him, so please you!" answered Hester, with a triumphant smile. "I must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little Pearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man's book too, and that with mine own blood!" "We shall have thee there anon!" said the witch-lady, frowning, as she drew back her head. But here--if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable--was already an illustration of the young minister's argument against sundering the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. Even thus early had the child saved her from Satan's snare. IX. THE LEECH Under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the reader will remember, was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolved should never more be spoken. It has been related, how, in the crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne's ignominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of sin before the people. Her matronly fame was trodden under all men's feet. Infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place. For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship. Then why--since the choice was with himself--should the individual, whose connexion with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interest, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumour had long ago consigned him. This purpose once effected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose; dark, it is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties. In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the Puritan town as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than the learning and intelligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. As his studies, at a previous period of his life, had made him extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day, it was as a physician that he presented himself and as such was cordially received. Skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human frame, it may be that the higher and more subtle faculties of such men were materialised, and that they lost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism, which seemed to involve art enough to comprise all of life within itself. At all events, the health of the good town of Boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favour than any that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon was one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with the daily and habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body Roger Chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested his familiarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physic; in which every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the proposed result had been the Elixir of Life. In his Indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from his patients that these simple medicines, Nature's boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the European Pharmacopoeia, which so many learned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating. This learned stranger was exemplary as regarded at least the outward forms of a religious life; and early after his arrival, had chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The young divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was considered by his more fervent admirers as little less than a heavenly ordained apostle, destined, should he live and labour for the ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds, for the now feeble New England Church, as the early Fathers had achieved for the infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. By those best acquainted with his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty, and more than all, to the fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some declared, that if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain. Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when Roger Chillingworth made his advent to the town. His first entry on the scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down as it were out of the sky or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby and other famous men--whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural--as having been his correspondents or associates. Why, with such rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What, could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? In answer to this query, a rumour gained ground--and however absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people--that Heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic from a German university bodily through the air and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study! Individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so opportune arrival. This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the physician ever manifested in the young clergyman; he attached himself to him as a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility. He expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health, but was anxious to attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken, seemed not despondent of a favourable result. The elders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens of Mr. Dimmesdale's flock, were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill. Mr. Dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties. "I need no medicine," said he. But how could the young minister say so, when, with every successive Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous than before--when it had now become a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture, to press his hand over his heart? Was he weary of his labours? Did he wish to die? These questions were solemnly propounded to Mr. Dimmesdale by the elder ministers of Boston, and the deacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him," on the sin of rejecting the aid which Providence so manifestly held out. He listened in silence, and finally promised to confer with the physician. "Were it God's will," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, when, in fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old Roger Chillingworth's professional advice, "I could be well content that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my behalf." "Ah," replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness, which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily! And saintly men, who walk with God on earth, would fain be away, to walk with him on the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem." "Nay," rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, "were I worthier to walk there, I could be better content to toil here." "Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly," said the physician. In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these two men, so different in age, came gradually to spend much time together. For the sake of the minister's health, and to enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest; mingling various walks with the splash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem among the tree-tops. Often, likewise, one was the guest of the other in his place of study and retirement. There was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science, in whom he recognised an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope; together with a range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members of his own profession. In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. Not the less, however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. It was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books. But the air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed with comfort. So the minister, and the physician with him, withdrew again within the limits of what their Church defined as orthodox. Thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinised his patient carefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in the range of thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown amidst other moral scenery, the novelty of which might call out something new to the surface of his character. He deemed it essential, it would seem, to know the man, before attempting to do him good. Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these. In Arthur Dimmesdale, thought and imagination were so active, and sensibility so intense, that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its groundwork there. So Roger Chillingworth--the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician--strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. Few secrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and licence to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow it up. A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. If the latter possess native sagacity, and a nameless something more,--let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeable prominent characteristics of his own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations be received without tumult, and acknowledged not so often by an uttered sympathy as by silence, an inarticulate breath, and here and there a word to indicate that all is understood; if to these qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his recognised character as a physician;--then, at some inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow forth in a dark but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries into the daylight. Roger Chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the attributes above enumerated. Nevertheless, time went on; a kind of intimacy, as we have said, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a field as the whole sphere of human thought and study to meet upon; they discussed every topic of ethics and religion, of public affairs, and private character; they talked much, on both sides, of matters that seemed personal to themselves; and yet no secret, such as the physician fancied must exist there, ever stole out of the minister's consciousness into his companion's ear. The latter had his suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale's bodily disease had never fairly been revealed to him. It was a strange reserve! After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. There was much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable object was attained. It was held to be the best possible measure for the young clergyman's welfare; unless, indeed, as often urged by such as felt authorised to do so, he had selected some one of the many blooming damsels, spiritually devoted to him, to become his devoted wife. This latter step, however, there was no present prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all suggestions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his articles of Church discipline. Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavoury morsel always at another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed that this sagacious, experienced, benevolent old physician, with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, to be constantly within reach of his voice. The new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the site on which the venerable structure of King's Chapel has since been built. It had the graveyard, originally Isaac Johnson's home-field, on one side, and so was well adapted to call up serious reflections, suited to their respective employments, in both minister and man of physic. The motherly care of the good widow assigned to Mr. Dimmesdale a front apartment, with a sunny exposure, and heavy window-curtains, to create a noontide shadow when desirable. The walls were hung round with tapestry, said to be from the Gobelin looms, and, at all events, representing the Scriptural story of David and Bathsheba, and Nathan the Prophet, in colours still unfaded, but which made the fair woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesque as the woe-denouncing seer. Here the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich with parchment-bound folios of the Fathers, and the lore of Rabbis, and monkish erudition, of which the Protestant divines, even while they vilified and decried that class of writers, were yet constrained often to avail themselves. On the other side of the house, old Roger Chillingworth arranged his study and laboratory: not such as a modern man of science would reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling apparatus and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which the practised alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose. With such commodiousness of situation, these two learned persons sat themselves down, each in his own domain, yet familiarly passing from one apartment to the other, and bestowing a mutual and not incurious inspection into one another's business. And the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's best discerning friends, as we have intimated, very reasonably imagined that the hand of Providence had done all this for the purpose--besought in so many public and domestic and secret prayers--of restoring the young minister to health. But, it must now be said, another portion of the community had latterly begun to take its own view of the relation betwixt Mr. Dimmesdale and the mysterious old physician. When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. When, however, it forms its judgment, as it usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm heart, the conclusions thus attained are often so profound and so unerring as to possess the character of truth supernaturally revealed. The people, in the case of which we speak, could justify its prejudice against Roger Chillingworth by no fact or argument worthy of serious refutation. There was an aged handicraftsman, it is true, who had been a citizen of London at the period of Sir Thomas Overbury's murder, now some thirty years agone; he testified to having seen the physician, under some other name, which the narrator of the story had now forgotten, in company with Dr. Forman, the famous old conjurer, who was implicated in the affair of Overbury. Two or three individuals hinted that the man of skill, during his Indian captivity, had enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the savage priests, who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their skill in the black art. A large number--and many of these were persons of such sober sense and practical observation that their opinions would have been valuable in other matters--affirmed that Roger Chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with Mr. Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him. According to the vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as might be expected, his visage was getting sooty with the smoke. To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion that the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of special sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself or Satan's emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul. No sensible man, it was confessed, could doubt on which side the victory would turn. The people looked, with an unshaken hope, to see the minister come forth out of the conflict transfigured with the glory which he would unquestionably win. Meanwhile, nevertheless, it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony through which he must struggle towards his triumph. Alas! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depth of the poor minister's eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory anything but secure. X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man. He had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even as if the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and wrongs inflicted on himself. But, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity, seized the old man within its gripe, and never set him free again until he had done all its bidding. He now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption. Alas, for his own soul, if these were what he sought! Sometimes a light glimmered out of the physician's eyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly fire that darted from Bunyan's awful doorway in the hillside, and quivered on the pilgrim's face. The soil where this dark miner was working had perchance shown indications that encouraged him. "This man," said he, at one such moment, to himself, "pure as they deem him--all spiritual as he seems--hath inherited a strong animal nature from his father or his mother. Let us dig a little further in the direction of this vein!" Then after long search into the minister's dim interior, and turning over many precious materials, in the shape of high aspirations for the welfare of his race, warm love of souls, pure sentiments, natural piety, strengthened by thought and study, and illuminated by revelation--all of which invaluable gold was perhaps no better than rubbish to the seeker--he would turn back, discouraged, and begin his quest towards another point. He groped along as stealthily, with as cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep--or, it may be, broad awake--with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, would become vaguely aware that something inimical to his peace had thrust itself into relation with him. But Old Roger Chillingworth, too, had perceptions that were almost intuitive; and when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him, there the physician sat; his kind, watchful, sympathising, but never intrusive friend. Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared. He therefore still kept up a familiar intercourse with him, daily receiving the old physician in his study, or visiting the laboratory, and, for recreation's sake, watching the processes by which weeds were converted into drugs of potency. One day, leaning his forehead on his hand, and his elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked towards the grave-yard, he talked with Roger Chillingworth, while the old man was examining a bundle of unsightly plants. "Where," asked he, with a look askance at them--for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, now-a-days, looked straight forth at any object, whether human or inanimate, "where, my kind doctor, did you gather those herbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?" "Even in the graveyard here at hand," answered the physician, continuing his employment. "They are new to me. I found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, no other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime." "Perchance," said Mr. Dimmesdale, "he earnestly desired it, but could not." "And wherefore?" rejoined the physician. "Wherefore not; since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest, an outspoken crime?" "That, good sir, is but a phantasy of yours," replied the minister. "There can be, if I forbode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried in the human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. Nor have I so read or interpreted Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No; these revelations, unless I greatly err, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem. And, I conceive moreover, that the hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of, will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable." "Then why not reveal it here?" asked Roger Chillingworth, glancing quietly aside at the minister. "Why should not the guilty ones sooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace?" "They mostly do," said the clergyman, griping hard at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. "Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in reputation. And ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a relief have I witnessed in those sinful brethren! even as in one who at last draws free air, after a long stifling with his own polluted breath. How can it be otherwise? Why should a wretched man--guilty, we will say, of murder--prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!" "Yet some men bury their secrets thus," observed the calm physician. "True; there are such men," answered Mr. Dimmesdale. "But not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature. Or--can we not suppose it?--guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves." "These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service--these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better--can be more for God's glory, or man' welfare--than God's own truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!" "It may be so," said the young clergyman, indifferently, as waiving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or unseasonable. He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament.--"But, now, I would ask of my well-skilled physician, whether, in good sooth, he deems me to have profited by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?" Before Roger Chillingworth could answer, they heard the clear, wild laughter of a young child's voice, proceeding from the adjacent burial-ground. Looking instinctively from the open window--for it was summer-time--the minister beheld Hester Prynne and little Pearl passing along the footpath that traversed the enclosure. Pearl looked as beautiful as the day, but was in one of those moods of perverse merriment which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human contact. She now skipped irreverently from one grave to another; until coming to the broad, flat, armorial tombstone of a departed worthy--perhaps of Isaac Johnson himself--she began to dance upon it. In reply to her mother's command and entreaty that she would behave more decorously, little Pearl paused to gather the prickly burrs from a tall burdock which grew beside the tomb. Taking a handful of these, she arranged them along the lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal bosom, to which the burrs, as their nature was, tenaciously adhered. Hester did not pluck them off. Roger Chillingworth had by this time approached the window and smiled grimly down. "There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's composition," remarked he, as much to himself as to his companion. "I saw her, the other day, bespatter the Governor himself with water at the cattle-trough in Spring Lane. What, in heaven's name, is she? Is the imp altogether evil? Hath she affections? Hath she any discoverable principle of being?" "None, save the freedom of a broken law," answered Mr. Dimmesdale, in a quiet way, as if he had been discussing the point within himself, "Whether capable of good, I know not." The child probably overheard their voices, for, looking up to the window with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive clergyman shrank, with nervous dread, from the light missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapped her little hands in the most extravagant ecstacy. Hester Prynne, likewise, had involuntarily looked up, and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence, till the child laughed aloud, and shouted--"Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old black man will catch you! He hath got hold of the minister already. Come away, mother or he will catch you! But he cannot catch little Pearl!" So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking fantastically among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned herself akin to it. It was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life, and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime. "There goes a woman," resumed Roger Chillingworth, after a pause, "who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. Is Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet letter on her breast?" "I do verily believe it," answered the clergyman. "Nevertheless, I cannot answer for her. There was a look of pain in her face which I would gladly have been spared the sight of. But still, methinks, it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it up in his heart." There was another pause, and the physician began anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered. "You inquired of me, a little time agone," said he, at length, "my judgment as touching your health." "I did," answered the clergyman, "and would gladly learn it. Speak frankly, I pray you, be it for life or death." "Freely then, and plainly," said the physician, still busy with his plants, but keeping a wary eye on Mr. Dimmesdale, "the disorder is a strange one; not so much in itself nor as outwardly manifested,--in so far, at least as the symptoms have been laid open to my observation. Looking daily at you, my good sir, and watching the tokens of your aspect now for months gone by, I should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you. But I know not what to say, the disease is what I seem to know, yet know it not." "You speak in riddles, learned sir," said the pale minister, glancing aside out of the window. "Then, to speak more plainly," continued the physician, "and I crave pardon, sir, should it seem to require pardon, for this needful plainness of my speech. Let me ask as your friend, as one having charge, under Providence, of your life and physical well being, hath all the operations of this disorder been fairly laid open and recounted to me?" "How can you question it?" asked the minister. "Surely it were child's play to call in a physician and then hide the sore!" "You would tell me, then, that I know all?" said Roger Chillingworth, deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and concentrated intelligence, on the minister's face. "Be it so! But again! He to whom only the outward and physical evil is laid open, knoweth, oftentimes, but half the evil which he is called upon to cure. A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. Your pardon once again, good sir, if my speech give the shadow of offence. You, sir, of all men whom I have known, are he whose body is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument." "Then I need ask no further," said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. "You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul!" "Thus, a sickness," continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,--"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?" "No, not to thee! not to an earthly physician!" cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. "Not to thee! But, if it be the soul's disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with His good pleasure, can cure, or he can kill. Let Him do with me as, in His justice and wisdom, He shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter? that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God?" With a frantic gesture he rushed out of the room. "It is as well to have made this step," said Roger Chillingworth to himself, looking after the minister, with a grave smile. "There is nothing lost. We shall be friends again anon. But see, now, how passion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! As with one passion so with another. He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart." It proved not difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate. He marvelled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man, when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty to bestow, and which the minister himself had expressly sought. With these remorseful feelings, he lost no time in making the amplest apologies, and besought his friend still to continue the care which, if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour. Roger Chillingworth readily assented, and went on with his medical supervision of the minister; doing his best for him, in all good faith, but always quitting the patient's apartment, at the close of the professional interview, with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips. This expression was invisible in Mr. Dimmesdale's presence, but grew strongly evident as the physician crossed the threshold. "A rare case," he muttered. "I must needs look deeper into it. A strange sympathy betwixt soul and body! Were it only for the art's sake, I must search this matter to the bottom." It came to pass, not long after the scene above recorded, that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, noon-day, and entirely unawares, fell into a deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume open before him on the table. It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. The profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those persons whose sleep ordinarily is as light as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. To such an unwonted remoteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn into itself that he stirred not in his chair when old Roger Chillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. The physician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside the vestment, that hitherto had always covered it even from the professional eye. Then, indeed, Mr. Dimmesdale shuddered, and slightly stirred. After a brief pause, the physician turned away. But with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! With what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure, and making itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the floor! Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom. But what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from Satan's was the trait of wonder in it! XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART After the incident last described, the intercourse between the clergyman and the physician, though externally the same, was really of another character than it had previously been. The intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread. Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. To make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelled in vain! All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless--to him, the Unforgiving! All that dark treasure to be lavished on the very man, to whom nothing else could so adequately pay the debt of vengeance! The clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. Roger Chillingworth, however, was inclined to be hardly, if at all, less satisfied with the aspect of affairs, which Providence--using the avenger and his victim for its own purposes, and, perchance, pardoning, where it seemed most to punish--had substituted for his black devices. A revelation, he could almost say, had been granted to him. It mattered little for his object, whether celestial or from what other region. By its aid, in all the subsequent relations betwixt him and Mr. Dimmesdale, not merely the external presence, but the very inmost soul of the latter, seemed to be brought out before his eyes, so that he could see and comprehend its every movement. He became, thenceforth, not a spectator only, but a chief actor in the poor minister's interior world. He could play upon him as he chose. Would he arouse him with a throb of agony? The victim was for ever on the rack; it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine: and the physician knew it well. Would he startle him with sudden fear? As at the waving of a magician's wand, up rose a grisly phantom--up rose a thousand phantoms--in many shapes, of death, or more awful shame, all flocking round about the clergyman, and pointing with their fingers at his breast! All this was accomplished with a subtlety so perfect, that the minister, though he had constantly a dim perception of some evil influence watching over him, could never gain a knowledge of its actual nature. True, he looked doubtfully, fearfully--even, at times, with horror and the bitterness of hatred--at the deformed figure of the old physician. His gestures, his gait, his grizzled beard, his slightest and most indifferent acts, the very fashion of his garments, were odious in the clergyman's sight; a token implicitly to be relied on of a deeper antipathy in the breast of the latter than he was willing to acknowledge to himself. For, as it was impossible to assign a reason for such distrust and abhorrence, so Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart's entire substance, attributed all his presentiments to no other cause. He took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to Roger Chillingworth, disregarded the lesson that he should have drawn from them, and did his best to root them out. Unable to accomplish this, he nevertheless, as a matter of principle, continued his habits of social familiarity with the old man, and thus gave him constant opportunities for perfecting the purpose to which--poor forlorn creature that he was, and more wretched than his victim--the avenger had devoted himself. While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office. He won it indeed, in great part, by his sorrows. His intellectual gifts, his moral perceptions, his power of experiencing and communicating emotion, were kept in a state of preternatural activity by the prick and anguish of his daily life. His fame, though still on its upward slope, already overshadowed the soberer reputations of his fellow-clergymen, eminent as several of them were. There are scholars among them, who had spent more years in acquiring abstruse lore, connected with the divine profession, than Mr. Dimmesdale had lived; and who might well, therefore, be more profoundly versed in such solid and valuable attainments than their youthful brother. There were men, too, of a sturdier texture of mind than his, and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd, hard iron, or granite understanding; which, duly mingled with a fair proportion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly respectable, efficacious, and unamiable variety of the clerical species. There were others again, true saintly fathers, whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among their books, and by patient thought, and etherealised, moreover, by spiritual communications with the better world, into which their purity of life had almost introduced these holy personages, with their garments of mortality still clinging to them. All that they lacked was, the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolising, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language. These fathers, otherwise so apostolic, lacked Heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office, the Tongue of Flame. They would have vainly sought--had they ever dreamed of seeking--to express the highest truths through the humblest medium of familiar words and images. Their voices came down, afar and indistinctly, from the upper heights where they habitually dwelt. Not improbably, it was to this latter class of men that Mr. Dimmesdale, by many of his traits of character, naturally belonged. To the high mountain peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his doom to totter. It kept him down on a level with the lowest; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might else have listened to and answered! But this very burden it was that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs, and received their pain into itself and sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts, in gushes of sad, persuasive eloquence. Oftenest persuasive, but sometimes terrible! The people knew not the power that moved them thus. They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. They fancied him the mouth-piece of Heaven's messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was sanctified. The virgins of his church grew pale around him, victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment, that they imagined it to be all religion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar. The aged members of his flock, beholding Mr. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble, while they were themselves so rugged in their infirmity, believed that he would go heavenward before them, and enjoined it upon their children that their old bones should be buried close to their young pastor's holy grave. And all this time, perchance, when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried! It is inconceivable, the agony with which this public veneration tortured him. It was his genuine impulse to adore the truth, and to reckon all things shadow-like, and utterly devoid of weight or value, that had not its divine essence as the life within their life. Then what was he?--a substance?--or the dimmest of all shadows? He longed to speak out from his own pulpit at the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he was. "I, whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood--I, who ascend the sacred desk, and turn my pale face heavenward, taking upon myself to hold communion in your behalf with the Most High Omniscience--I, in whose daily life you discern the sanctity of Enoch--I, whose footsteps, as you suppose, leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the Pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blest--I, who have laid the hand of baptism upon your children--I, who have breathed the parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the Amen sounded faintly from a world which they had quitted--I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!" More than once, Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit, with a purpose never to come down its steps until he should have spoken words like the above. More than once he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul. More than once--nay, more than a hundred times--he had actually spoken! Spoken! But how? He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity, and that the only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shrivelled up before their eyes by the burning wrath of the Almighty! Could there be plainer speech than this? Would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled? Not so, indeed! They heard it all, and did but reverence him the more. They little guessed what deadly purport lurked in those self-condemning words. "The godly youth!" said they among themselves. "The saint on earth! Alas! if he discern such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine!" The minister well knew--subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was!--the light in which his vague confession would be viewed. He had striven to put a cheat upon himself by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledged shame, without the momentary relief of being self-deceived. He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood. And yet, by the constitution of his nature, he loved the truth, and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self! His inward trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh. It was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast--not however, like them, in order to purify the body, and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination--but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. He kept vigils, likewise, night after night, sometimes in utter darkness, sometimes with a glimmering lamp, and sometimes, viewing his own face in a looking-glass, by the most powerful light which he could throw upon it. He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify himself. In these lengthened vigils, his brain often reeled, and visions seemed to flit before him; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a faint light of their own, in the remote dimness of the chamber, or more vividly and close beside him, within the looking-glass. Now it was a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister, and beckoned him away with them; now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow-laden, but grew more ethereal as they rose. Now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white-bearded father, with a saint-like frown, and his mother turning her face away as she passed by. Ghost of a mother--thinnest fantasy of a mother--methinks she might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son! And now, through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so ghastly, glided Hester Prynne leading along little Pearl, in her scarlet garb, and pointing her forefinger, first at the scarlet letter on her bosom, and then at the clergyman's own breast. None of these visions ever quite deluded him. At any moment, by an effort of his will, he could discern substances through their misty lack of substance, and convince himself that they were not solid in their nature, like yonder table of carved oak, or that big, square, leather-bound and brazen-clasped volume of divinity. But, for all that, they were, in one sense, the truest and most substantial things which the poor minister now dealt with. It is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us, and which were meant by Heaven to be the spirit's joy and nutriment. To the untrue man, the whole universe is false--it is impalpable--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist. The only truth that continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul, and the undissembled expression of it in his aspect. Had he once found power to smile, and wear a face of gaiety, there would have been no such man! On one of those ugly nights, which we have faintly hinted at, but forborne to picture forth, the minister started from his chair. A new thought had struck him. There might be a moment's peace in it. Attiring himself with as much care as if it had been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner, he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued forth. XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps. It was an obscure night in early May. An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark grey of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and sermon. No eye could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced with jeering laughter! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance. And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud: an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro. "It is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands. "The whole town will awake and hurry forth, and find me here!" But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed. The town did not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches, whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air. The clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered his eyes and looked about him. At one of the chamber-windows of Governor Bellingham's mansion, which stood at some distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the appearance of the old magistrate himself with a lamp in his hand a white night-cap on his head, and a long white gown enveloping his figure. He looked like a ghost evoked unseasonably from the grave. The cry had evidently startled him. At another window of the same house, moreover appeared old Mistress Hibbins, the Governor's sister, also with a lamp, which even thus far off revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. She thrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this venerable witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoes and reverberations, as the clamour of the fiends and night-hags, with whom she was well known to make excursions in the forest. Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham's lamp, the old lady quickly extinguished her own, and vanished. Possibly, she went up among the clouds. The minister saw nothing further of her motions. The magistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness--into which, nevertheless, he could see but little further than he might into a mill-stone--retired from the window. The minister grew comparatively calm. His eyes, however, were soon greeted by a little glimmering light, which, at first a long way off was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition, on here a post, and there a garden fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here again an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the door-step. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him in a few moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. As the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brother clergyman--or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, as well as highly valued friend--the Reverend Mr. Wilson, who, as Mr. Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. And so he had. The good old minister came freshly from the death-chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour. And now surrounded, like the saint-like personage of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin--as if the departed Governor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himself the distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates--now, in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled--nay, almost laughed at them--and then wondered if he was going mad. As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold, closely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from speaking-- "A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson. Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!" Good Heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken? For one instant he believed that these words had passed his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform. When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety, although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness. Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold. Morning would break and find him there. The neighbourhood would begin to rouse itself. The earliest riser, coming forth in the dim twilight, would perceive a vaguely-defined figure aloft on the place of shame; and half-crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity, would go knocking from door to door, summoning all the people to behold the ghost--as he needs must think it--of some defunct transgressor. A dusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another. Then--the morning light still waxing stronger--old patriarchs would rise up in great haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, without pausing to put off their night-gear. The whole tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would start into public view with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth, with his King James' ruff fastened askew, and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good Father Wilson too, after spending half the night at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out of his dreams about the glorified saints. Hither, likewise, would come the elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmesdale's church, and the young virgins who so idolized their minister, and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms, which now, by-the-bye, in their hurry and confusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs. All people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up their amazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold. Whom would they discern there, with the red eastern light upon his brow? Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half-frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had stood! Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart--but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute--he recognised the tones of little Pearl. "Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he, after a moment's pause; then, suppressing his voice--"Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?" "Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the side-walk, along which she had been passing. "It is I, and my little Pearl." "Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you hither?" "I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne "at Governor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling." "Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together." She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain. "Minister!" whispered little Pearl. "What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale. "Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?" inquired Pearl. "Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a strange joy, nevertheless--he now found himself--"not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow." Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast. "A moment longer, my child!" said he. "But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide?" "Not then, Pearl," said the minister; "but another time." "And what other time?" persisted the child. "At the great judgment day," whispered the minister; and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so. "Then, and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!" Pearl laughed again. But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. The wooden houses, with their jutting storeys and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly-turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and even in the market-place margined with green on either side--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes; and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish. She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. But he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith. Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows seen in the midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell New England, from its settlement down to revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of its nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the coloured, magnifying, and distorted medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expensive for Providence to write a people's doom upon. The belief was a favourite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record. In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate. We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter--the letter A--marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud, but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it, or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. There was a singular circumstance that characterised Mr. Dimmesdale's psychological state at this moment. All the time that he gazed upward to the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little Pearl was pointing her finger towards old Roger Chillingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. The minister appeared to see him, with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. To his feature as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression; or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own. So vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. "Who is that man, Hester?" gasped Mr. Dimmesdale, overcome with terror. "I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? I hate him, Hester!" She remembered her oath, and was silent. "I tell thee, my soul shivers at him!" muttered the minister again. "Who is he? Who is he? Canst thou do nothing for me? I have a nameless horror of the man!" "Minister," said little Pearl, "I can tell thee who he is!" "Quickly, then, child!" said the minister, bending his ear close to her lips. "Quickly, and as low as thou canst whisper." Pearl mumbled something into his ear that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with by the hour together. At all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. The elvish child then laughed aloud. "Dost thou mock me now?" said the minister. "Thou wast not bold!--thou wast not true!" answered the child. "Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noon-tide!" "Worthy sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform--"pious Master Dimmesdale! can this be you? Well, well, indeed! We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straitly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. Come, good sir, and my dear friend, I pray you let me lead you home!" "How knewest thou that I was here?" asked the minister, fearfully. "Verily, and in good faith," answered Roger Chillingworth, "I knew nothing of the matter. I had spent the better part of the night at the bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give him ease. He, going home to a better world, I, likewise, was on my way homeward, when this light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, Reverend sir, else you will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty to-morrow. Aha! see now how they trouble the brain--these books!--these books! You should study less, good sir, and take a little pastime, or these night whimsies will grow upon you." "I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale. With a chill despondency, like one awakening, all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away. The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the most replete with heavenly influences, that had ever proceeded from his lips. Souls, it is said, more souls than one, were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude towards Mr. Dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter. But as he came down the pulpit steps, the grey-bearded sexton met him, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognised as his own. "It was found," said the Sexton, "this morning on the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. But, indeed, he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand needs no glove to cover it!" "Thank you, my good friend," said the minister, gravely, but startled at heart; for so confused was his remembrance, that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. "Yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed!" "And, since Satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence must needs handle him without gloves henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. "But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night? a great red letter in the sky--the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!" "No," answered the minister; "I had not heard of it." XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER In her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. His moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them. With her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well-being and repose. Knowing what this poor fallen man had once been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering terror with which he had appealed to her--the outcast woman--for support against his instinctively discovered enemy. She decided, moreover, that he had a right to her utmost aid. Little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure her ideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself, Hester saw--or seemed to see--that there lay a responsibility upon her in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to no other, nor to the whole world besides. The links that united her to the rest of humankind--links of flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the material--had all been broken. Here was the iron link of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break. Like all other ties, it brought along with it its obligations. Hester Prynne did not now occupy precisely the same position in which we beheld her during the earlier periods of her ignominy. Years had come and gone. Pearl was now seven years old. Her mother, with the scarlet letter on her breast, glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople. As is apt to be the case when a person stands out in any prominence before the community, and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor individual interests and convenience, a species of general regard had ultimately grown up in reference to Hester Prynne. It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. In this matter of Hester Prynne there was neither irritation nor irksomeness. She never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favour. With nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poor wanderer to its paths. It was perceived, too, that while Hester never put forward even the humblest title to share in the world's privileges--further than to breathe the common air and earn daily bread for little Pearl and herself by the faithful labour of her hands--she was quick to acknowledge her sisterhood with the race of man whenever benefits were to be conferred. None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty, even though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a monarch's robe. None so self-devoted as Hester when pestilence stalked through the town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble, as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creature. There glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick chamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's hard extremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him where to set his foot, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reach him. In such emergencies Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich--a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy, or, we may rather say, the world's heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her--so much power to do, and power to sympathise--that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able, so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength. It was only the darkened house that could contain her. When sunshine came again, she was not there. Her shadow had faded across the threshold. The helpful inmate had departed, without one backward glance to gather up the meed of gratitude, if any were in the hearts of those whom she had served so zealously. Meeting them in the street, she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter, and passed on. This might be pride, but was so like humility, that it produced all the softening influence of the latter quality on the public mind. The public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying common justice when too strenuously demanded as a right; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity. Interpreting Hester Prynne's deportment as an appeal of this nature, society was inclined to show its former victim a more benign countenance than she cared to be favoured with, or, perchance, than she deserved. The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester's good qualities than the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. Day by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles were relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might grow to be an expression of almost benevolence. Thus it was with the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the guardianship of the public morals. Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to strangers. "It is our Hester--the town's own Hester--who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe. It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struck it, and fell harmless to the ground. The effect of the symbol--or rather, of the position in respect to society that was indicated by it--on the mind of Hester Prynne herself was powerful and peculiar. All the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed friends or companions to be repelled by it. Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. It might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. It was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester's form, though majestic and statue like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester's bosom to make it ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or--and the outward semblance is the same--crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched and so transfigured. Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought. Standing alone in the world--alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected--alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable--she cast away the fragment of a broken chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged--not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode--the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatised by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by the seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door. It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed to be with Hester. Yet, had little Pearl never come to her from the spiritual world, it might have been far otherwise. Then she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in one of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and not improbably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunals of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations of the Puritan establishment. But, in the education of her child, the mother's enthusiasm of thought had something to wreak itself upon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, had assigned to Hester's charge, the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and developed amid a host of difficulties. Everything was against her. The world was hostile. The child's own nature had something wrong in it which continually betokened that she had been born amiss--the effluence of her mother's lawless passion--and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little creature had been born at all. Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep women quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down and built up anew. Then the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms until she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change, in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus Hester Prynne, whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind; now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting back from a deep chasm. There was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere. At times a fearful doubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not better to send Pearl at once to Heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should provide. The scarlet letter had not done its office. Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle. She saw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. It was impossible to doubt that, whatever painful efficacy there might be in the secret sting of remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by the hand that proffered relief. A secret enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of a friend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of Mr. Dimmesdale's nature. Hester could not but ask herself whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was to be foreboded and nothing auspicious to be hoped. Her only justification lay in the fact that she had been able to discern no method of rescuing him from a blacker ruin than had overwhelmed herself except by acquiescing in Roger Chillingworth's scheme of disguise. Under that impulse she had made her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared, the more wretched alternative of the two. She determined to redeem her error so far as it might yet be possible. Strengthened by years of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so inadequate to cope with Roger Chillingworth as on that night, abased by sin and half-maddened by the ignominy that was still new, when they had talked together in the prison-chamber. She had climbed her way since then to a higher point. The old man, on the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or, perhaps, below it, by the revenge which he had stooped for. In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former husband, and do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on whom he had so evidently set his gripe. The occasion was not long to seek. One afternoon, walking with Pearl in a retired part of the peninsula, she beheld the old physician with a basket on one arm and a staff in the other hand, stooping along the ground in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his medicine withal. XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the child flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with her. But the visionary little maid on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say--"This is a better place; come thou into the pool." And Pearl, stepping in mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water. Meanwhile her mother had accosted the physician. "I would speak a word with you," said she--"a word that concerns us much." "Aha! and is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger Chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping posture. "With all my heart! Why, mistress, I hear good tidings of you on all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs, Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the council. It was debated whether or no, with safety to the commonweal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. On my life, Hester, I made my intreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done forthwith." "It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off the badge," calmly replied Hester. "Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport." "Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," rejoined he, "A woman must needs follow her own fancy touching the adornment of her person. The letter is gaily embroidered, and shows right bravely on your bosom!" All this while Hester had been looking steadily at the old man, and was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change had been wrought upon him within the past seven years. It was not so much that he had grown older; for though the traces of advancing life were visible he bore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. It seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this expression with a smile, but the latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could see his blackness all the better for it. Ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red light out of his eyes, as if the old man's soul were on fire and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown into a momentary flame. This he repressed as speedily as possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind had happened. In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analysed and gloated over. The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her. "What see you in my face," asked the physician, "that you look at it so earnestly?" "Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitter enough for it," answered she. "But let it pass! It is of yonder miserable man that I would speak." "And what of him?" cried Roger Chillingworth, eagerly, as if he loved the topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it with the only person of whom he could make a confidant. "Not to hide the truth, Mistress Hester, my thoughts happen just now to be busy with the gentleman. So speak freely and I will make answer." "When we last spake together," said Hester, "now seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy as touching the former relation betwixt yourself and me. As the life and good fame of yonder man were in your hands there seemed no choice to me, save to be silent in accordance with your behest. Yet it was not without heavy misgivings that I thus bound myself, for, having cast off all duty towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards him, and something whispered me that I was betraying it in pledging myself to keep your counsel. Since that day no man is so near to him as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death, and still he knows you not. In permitting this I have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true!" "What choice had you?" asked Roger Chillingworth. "My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, thence, peradventure, to the gallows!" "It had been better so!" said Hester Prynne. "What evil have I done the man?" asked Roger Chillingworth again. "I tell thee, Hester Prynne, the richest fee that ever physician earned from monarch could not have bought such care as I have wasted on this miserable priest! But for my aid his life would have burned away in torments within the first two years after the perpetration of his crime and thine. For, Hester, his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter. Oh, I could reveal a goodly secret! But enough. What art can do, I have exhausted on him. That he now breathes and creeps about on earth is owing all to me!" "Better he had died at once!" said Hester Prynne. "Yea, woman, thou sayest truly!" cried old Roger Chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. "Better had he died at once! Never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy! He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense--for the Creator never made another being so sensitive as this--he knew that no friendly hand was pulling at his heartstrings, and that an eye was looking curiously into him, which sought only evil, and found it. But he knew not that the eye and hand were mine! With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse and despair of pardon, as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow of my presence, the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged, and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! Yea, indeed, he did not err, there was a fiend at his elbow! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment." The unfortunate physician, while uttering these words, lifted his hands with a look of horror, as if he had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not recognise, usurping the place of his own image in a glass. It was one of those moments--which sometimes occur only at the interval of years--when a man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably he had never before viewed himself as he did now. "Hast thou not tortured him enough?" said Hester, noticing the old man's look. "Has he not paid thee all?" "No, no! He has but increased the debt!" answered the physician, and as he proceeded, his manner lost its fiercer characteristics, and subsided into gloom. "Dost thou remember me, Hester, as I was nine years agone? Even then I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the increase of mine own knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was but casual to the other--faithfully for the advancement of human welfare. No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives so rich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was I not, though you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others, craving little for himself--kind, true, just and of constant, if not warm affections? Was I not all this?" "All this, and more," said Hester. "And what am I now?" demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. "I have already told thee what I am--a fiend! Who made me so?" "It was myself," cried Hester, shuddering. "It was I, not less than he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me?" "I have left thee to the scarlet letter," replied Roger Chillingworth. "If that has not avenged me, I can do no more!" He laid his finger on it with a smile. "It has avenged thee," answered Hester Prynne. "I judged no less," said the physician. "And now what wouldst thou with me touching this man?" "I must reveal the secret," answered Hester, firmly. "He must discern thee in thy true character. What may be the result I know not. But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid. So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in my hands. Nor do I--whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron entering into the soul--nor do I perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy mercy. Do with him as thou wilt! There is no good for him, no good for me, no good for thee. There is no good for little Pearl. There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze." "Woman, I could well-nigh pity thee," said Roger Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too, for there was a quality almost majestic in the despair which she expressed. "Thou hadst great elements. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy nature." "And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, "for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly for thine own! Forgive, and leave his further retribution to the Power that claims it! I said, but now, that there could be no good event for him, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomy maze of evil, and stumbling at every step over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path. It is not so! There might be good for thee, and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged and hast it at thy will to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only privilege? Wilt thou reject that priceless benefit?" "Peace, Hester--peace!" replied the old man, with gloomy sternness--"it is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as thou tellest me of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all that we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry, thou didst plant the germ of evil; but since that moment it has all been a dark necessity. Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend's office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may! Now, go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man." He waved his hand, and betook himself again to his employment of gathering herbs. XV. HESTER AND PEARL So Roger Chillingworth--a deformed old figure with a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked--took leave of Hester Prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and there a herb, or grubbed up a root and put it into the basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched the ground as he crept onward. Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. She wondered what sort of herbs they were which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers? Or might it suffice him that every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious and malignant at his touch? Did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him? Or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity whichever way he turned himself? And whither was he now going? Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? Or would he spread bat's wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier the higher he rose towards heaven? "Be it sin or no," said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as still she gazed after him, "I hate the man!" She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study and sit down in the firelight of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. Such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances. She marvelled how such scenes could have been! She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured and reciprocated the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side. "Yes, I hate him!" repeated Hester more bitterly than before. "He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!" Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. But Hester ought long ago to have done with this injustice. What did it betoken? Had seven long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, inflicted so much of misery and wrought out no repentance? The emotion of that brief space, while she stood gazing after the crooked figure of old Roger Chillingworth, threw a dark light on Hester's state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise have acknowledged to herself. He being gone, she summoned back her child. "Pearl! Little Pearl! Where are you?" Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and--as it declined to venture--seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snailshells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in New England; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore. She seized a live horse-shoe by the tail, and made prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. Then she took up the white foam that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it with winged footsteps to catch the great snowflakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little gray bird, with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure had been hit by a pebble, and fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport, because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself. Her final employment was to gather seaweed of various kinds, and make herself a scarf or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother's gift for devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid's garb, Pearl took some eel-grass and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. A letter--the letter A--but freshly green instead of scarlet. The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest, even as if the one only thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import. "I wonder if mother will ask me what it means?" thought Pearl. Just then she heard her mother's voice, and, flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before Hester Prynne dancing, laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament upon her bosom. "My little Pearl," said Hester, after a moment's silence, "the green letter, and on thy childish bosom, has no purport. But dost thou know, my child, what this letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear?" "Yes, mother," said the child. "It is the great letter A. Thou hast taught me in the horn-book." Hester looked steadily into her little face; but though there was that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether Pearl really attached any meaning to the symbol. She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point. "Dost thou know, child, wherefore thy mother wears this letter?" "Truly do I!" answered Pearl, looking brightly into her mother's face. "It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!" "And what reason is that?" asked Hester, half smiling at the absurd incongruity of the child's observation; but on second thoughts turning pale. "What has the letter to do with any heart save mine?" "Nay, mother, I have told all I know," said Pearl, more seriously than she was wont to speak. "Ask yonder old man whom thou hast been talking with,--it may be he can tell. But in good earnest now, mother dear, what does this scarlet letter mean?--and why dost thou wear it on thy bosom?--and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" She took her mother's hand in both her own, and gazed into her eyes with an earnestness that was seldom seen in her wild and capricious character. The thought occurred to Hester, that the child might really be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to establish a meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl in an unwonted aspect. Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze, which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanours it will sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then be gone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your heart. And this, moreover, was a mother's estimate of the child's disposition. Any other observer might have seen few but unamiable traits, and have given them a far darker colouring. But now the idea came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could have been made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent or the child. In the little chaos of Pearl's character there might be seen emerging and could have been from the very first--the steadfast principles of an unflinching courage--an uncontrollable will--sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect--and a bitter scorn of many things which, when examined, might be found to have the taint of falsehood in them. She possessed affections, too, though hitherto acrid and disagreeable, as are the richest flavours of unripe fruit. With all these sterling attributes, thought Hester, the evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a noble woman do not grow out of this elfish child. Pearl's inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her being. From the earliest epoch of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission. Hester had often fancied that Providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked propensity; but never, until now, had she bethought herself to ask, whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence. If little Pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less than an earthly child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb?--and to help her to overcome the passion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only imprisoned within the same tomb-like heart? Such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in Hester's mind, with as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whispered into her ear. And there was little Pearl, all this while, holding her mother's hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, while she put these searching questions, once and again, and still a third time. "What does the letter mean, mother? and why dost thou wear it? and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" "What shall I say?" thought Hester to herself. "No! if this be the price of the child's sympathy, I cannot pay it." Then she spoke aloud-- "Silly Pearl," said she, "what questions are these? There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about. What know I of the minister's heart? And as for the scarlet letter, I wear it for the sake of its gold thread." In all the seven bygone years, Hester Prynne had never before been false to the symbol on her bosom. It may be that it was the talisman of a stern and severe, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her; as recognising that, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some new evil had crept into it, or some old one had never been expelled. As for little Pearl, the earnestness soon passed out of her face. But the child did not see fit to let the matter drop. Two or three times, as her mother and she went homeward, and as often at supper-time, and while Hester was putting her to bed, and once after she seemed to be fairly asleep, Pearl looked up, with mischief gleaming in her black eyes. "Mother," said she, "what does the scarlet letter mean?" And the next morning, the first indication the child gave of being awake was by popping up her head from the pillow, and making that other enquiry, which she had so unaccountably connected with her investigations about the scarlet letter-- "Mother!--Mother!--Why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" "Hold thy tongue, naughty child!" answered her mother, with an asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. "Do not tease me; else I shall put thee into the dark closet!" XVI. A FOREST WALK Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to make known to Mr. Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior consequences, the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy. For several days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity of addressing him in some of the meditative walks which she knew him to be in the habit of taking along the shores of the Peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighbouring country. There would have been no scandal, indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame, had she visited him in his own study, where many a penitent, ere now, had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened by the scarlet letter. But, partly that she dreaded the secret or undisguised interference of old Roger Chillingworth, and partly that her conscious heart imparted suspicion where none could have been felt, and partly that both the minister and she would need the whole wide world to breathe in, while they talked together--for all these reasons Hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacy than beneath the open sky. At last, while attending a sick chamber, whither the Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he had gone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indian converts. He would probably return by a certain hour in the afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the next day, Hester took little Pearl--who was necessarily the companion of all her mother's expeditions, however inconvenient her presence--and set forth. The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the Peninsula to the mainland, was no other than a foot-path. It straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering. The day was chill and sombre. Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the further extremity of some long vista through the forest. The sportive sunlight--feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene--withdrew itself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier, because they had hoped to find them bright. "Mother," said little Pearl, "the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. Now, see! There it is, playing a good way off. Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee from me--for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!" "Nor ever will, my child, I hope," said Hester. "And why not, mother?" asked Pearl, stopping short, just at the beginning of her race. "Will not it come of its own accord when I am a woman grown?" "Run away, child," answered her mother, "and catch the sunshine. It will soon be gone." Pearl set forth at a great pace, and as Hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendour, and scintillating with the vivacity excited by rapid motion. The light lingered about the lonely child, as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too. "It will go now," said Pearl, shaking her head. "See!" answered Hester, smiling; "now I can stretch out my hand and grasp some of it." As she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished; or, to judge from the bright expression that was dancing on Pearl's features, her mother could have fancied that the child had absorbed it into herself, and would give it forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they should plunge into some gloomier shade. There was no other attribute that so much impressed her with a sense of new and untransmitted vigour in Pearl's nature, as this never failing vivacity of spirits: she had not the disease of sadness, which almost all children, in these latter days, inherit, with the scrofula, from the troubles of their ancestors. Perhaps this, too, was a disease, and but the reflex of the wild energy with which Hester had fought against her sorrows before Pearl's birth. It was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre to the child's character. She wanted--what some people want throughout life--a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanise and make her capable of sympathy. But there was time enough yet for little Pearl. "Come, my child!" said Hester, looking about her from the spot where Pearl had stood still in the sunshine--"we will sit down a little way within the wood, and rest ourselves." "I am not aweary, mother," replied the little girl. "But you may sit down, if you will tell me a story meanwhile." "A story, child!" said Hester. "And about what?" "Oh, a story about the Black Man," answered Pearl, taking hold of her mother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously, into her face. "How he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him a big, heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly Black Man offers his book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among the trees; and they are to write their names with their own blood; and then he sets his mark on their bosoms. Didst thou ever meet the Black Man, mother?" "And who told you this story, Pearl," asked her mother, recognising a common superstition of the period. "It was the old dame in the chimney corner, at the house where you watched last night," said the child. "But she fancied me asleep while she was talking of it. She said that a thousand and a thousand people had met him here, and had written in his book, and have his mark on them. And that ugly tempered lady, old Mistress Hibbins, was one. And, mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letter was the Black Man's mark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetest him at midnight, here in the dark wood. Is it true, mother? And dost thou go to meet him in the nighttime?" "Didst thou ever awake and find thy mother gone?" asked Hester. "Not that I remember," said the child. "If thou fearest to leave me in our cottage, thou mightest take me along with thee. I would very gladly go! But, mother, tell me now! Is there such a Black Man? And didst thou ever meet him? And is this his mark?" "Wilt thou let me be at peace, if I once tell thee?" asked her mother. "Yes, if thou tellest me all," answered Pearl. "Once in my life I met the Black Man!" said her mother. "This scarlet letter is his mark!" Thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest track. Here they sat down on a luxuriant heap of moss; which at some epoch of the preceding century, had been a gigantic pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome shade, and its head aloft in the upper atmosphere. It was a little dell where they had seated themselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen and drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down great branches from time to time, which choked up the current, and compelled it to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in its swifter and livelier passages there appeared a channel-way of pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water, at some short distance within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilderment of tree-trunks and underbrush, and here and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens. All these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the course of this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on the smooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance and events of sombre hue. "Oh, brook! Oh, foolish and tiresome little brook!" cried Pearl, after listening awhile to its talk, "Why art thou so sad? Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring!" But the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the forest trees, had gone through so solemn an experience that it could not help talking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say. Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course. "What does this sad little brook say, mother?" inquired she. "If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of it," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine. But now, Pearl, I hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting aside the branches. I would have thee betake thyself to play, and leave me to speak with him that comes yonder." "Is it the Black Man?" asked Pearl. "Wilt thou go and play, child?" repeated her mother, "But do not stray far into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call." "Yes, mother," answered Pearl, "But if it be the Black Man, wilt thou not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under his arm?" "Go, silly child!" said her mother impatiently. "It is no Black Man! Thou canst see him now, through the trees. It is the minister!" "And so it is!" said the child. "And, mother, he has his hand over his heart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother?" "Go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt another time," cried Hester Prynne. "But do not stray far. Keep where thou canst hear the babble of the brook." The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook, and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy voice. But the little stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened--or making a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen--within the verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl, who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off all acquaintance with this repining brook. She set herself, therefore, to gathering violets and wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbines that she found growing in the crevice of a high rock. When her elf-child had departed, Hester Prynne made a step or two towards the track that led through the forest, but still remained under the deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the minister advancing along the path entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had cut by the wayside. He looked haggard and feeble, and betrayed a nerveless despondency in his air, which had never so remarkably characterised him in his walks about the settlement, nor in any other situation where he deemed himself liable to notice. Here it was wofully visible, in this intense seclusion of the forest, which of itself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. There was a listlessness in his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore. The leaves might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no. Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided. To Hester's eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale exhibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his heart. XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER Slowly as the minister walked, he had almost gone by before Hester Prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. At length she succeeded. "Arthur Dimmesdale!" she said, faintly at first, then louder, but hoarsely--"Arthur Dimmesdale!" "Who speaks?" answered the minister. Gathering himself quickly up, he stood more erect, like a man taken by surprise in a mood to which he was reluctant to have witnesses. Throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of the voice, he indistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments so sombre, and so little relieved from the gray twilight into which the clouded sky and the heavy foliage had darkened the noontide, that he knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow. It may be that his pathway through life was haunted thus by a spectre that had stolen out from among his thoughts. He made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet letter. "Hester! Hester Prynne!", said he; "is it thou? Art thou in life?" "Even so." she answered. "In such life as has been mine these seven years past! And thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost thou yet live?" It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely did they meet in the dim wood that it was like the first encounter in the world beyond the grave of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost. They were awe-stricken likewise at themselves, because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, and revealed to each heart its history and experience, as life never does, except at such breathless epochs. The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. It was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariest in the interview. They now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the same sphere. Without a word more spoken--neither he nor she assuming the guidance, but with an unexpressed consent--they glided back into the shadow of the woods whence Hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of moss where she and Pearl had before been sitting. When they found voice to speak, it was at first only to utter remarks and inquiries such as any two acquaintances might have made, about the gloomy sky, the threatening storm, and, next, the health of each. Thus they went onward, not boldly, but step by step, into the themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. So long estranged by fate and circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts might be led across the threshold. After awhile, the minister fixed his eyes on Hester Prynne's. "Hester," said he, "hast thou found peace?" She smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom. "Hast thou?" she asked. "None--nothing but despair!" he answered. "What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist--a man devoid of conscience--a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts--I might have found peace long ere now. Nay, I never should have lost it. But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester, I am most miserable!" "The people reverence thee," said Hester. "And surely thou workest good among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort?" "More misery, Hester!--Only the more misery!" answered the clergyman with a bitter smile. "As concerns the good which I may appear to do, I have no faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruined soul like mine effect towards the redemption of other souls?--or a polluted soul towards their purification? And as for the people's reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred! Canst thou deem it, Hester, a consolation that I must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it!--must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking!--and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolise? I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am! And Satan laughs at it!" "You wrong yourself in this," said Hester gently. "You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sin is left behind you in the days long past. Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people's eyes. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works? And wherefore should it not bring you peace?" "No, Hester--no!" replied the clergyman. "There is no substance in it! It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penance, I have had enough! Of penitence, there has been none! Else, I should long ago have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognises me for what I am! Had I one friend--or were it my worst enemy!--to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would save me! But now, it is all falsehood!--all emptiness!--all death!" Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. Yet, uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, his words here offered her the very point of circumstances in which to interpose what she came to say. She conquered her fears, and spoke: "Such a friend as thou hast even now wished for," said she, "with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it!" Again she hesitated, but brought out the words with an effort.--"Thou hast long had such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof!" The minister started to his feet, gasping for breath, and clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom. "Ha! What sayest thou?" cried he. "An enemy! And under mine own roof! What mean you?" Hester Prynne was now fully sensible of the deep injury for which she was responsible to this unhappy man, in permitting him to lie for so many years, or, indeed, for a single moment, at the mercy of one whose purposes could not be other than malevolent. The very contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dimmesdale. There had been a period when Hester was less alive to this consideration; or, perhaps, in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she left the minister to bear what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable doom. But of late, since the night of his vigil, all her sympathies towards him had been both softened and invigorated. She now read his heart more accurately. She doubted not that the continual presence of Roger Chillingworth--the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air about him--and his authorised interference, as a physician, with the minister's physical and spiritual infirmities--that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose. By means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being. Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity, and hereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good and True, of which madness is perhaps the earthly type. Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once--nay, why should we not speak it?--still so passionately loved! Hester felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, as she had already told Roger Chillingworth, would have been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose. And now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have laid down on the forest leaves, and died there, at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet. "Oh, Arthur!" cried she, "forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be true! Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good--thy life--thy fame--were put in question! Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man!--the physician!--he whom they call Roger Chillingworth!--he was my husband!" The minister looked at her for an instant, with all that violence of passion, which--intermixed in more shapes than one with his higher, purer, softer qualities--was, in fact, the portion of him which the devil claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. Never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than Hester now encountered. For the brief space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. But his character had been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. He sank down on the ground, and buried his face in his hands. "I might have known it," murmured he--"I did know it! Was not the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart at the first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since? Why did I not understand? Oh, Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this!--I cannot forgive thee!" "Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!" With sudden and desperate tenderness she threw her arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom, little caring though his cheek rested on the scarlet letter. He would have released himself, but strove in vain to do so. Hester would not set him free, lest he should look her sternly in the face. All the world had frowned on her--for seven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman--and still she bore it all, nor ever once turned away her firm, sad eyes. Heaven, likewise, had frowned upon her, and she had not died. But the frown of this pale, weak, sinful, and sorrow-stricken man was what Hester could not bear, and live! "Wilt thou yet forgive me?" she repeated, over and over again. "Wilt thou not frown? Wilt thou forgive?" "I do forgive you, Hester," replied the minister at length, with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness, but no anger. "I freely forgive you now. May God forgive us both. We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!" "Never, never!" whispered she. "What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to each other. Hast thou forgotten it?" "Hush, Hester!" said Arthur Dimmesdale, rising from the ground. "No; I have not forgotten!" They sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of the fallen tree. Life had never brought them a gloomier hour; it was the point whither their pathway had so long been tending, and darkening ever, as it stole along--and yet it unclosed a charm that made them linger upon it, and claim another, and another, and, after all, another moment. The forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it. The boughs were tossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forbode evil to come. And yet they lingered. How dreary looked the forest-track that led backward to the settlement, where Hester Prynne must take up again the burden of her ignominy and the minister the hollow mockery of his good name! So they lingered an instant longer. No golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest. Here seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not burn into the bosom of the fallen woman! Here seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale, false to God and man, might be, for one moment true! He started at a thought that suddenly occurred to him. "Hester!" cried he, "here is a new horror! Roger Chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true character. Will he continue, then, to keep our secret? What will now be the course of his revenge?" "There is a strange secrecy in his nature," replied Hester, thoughtfully; "and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices of his revenge. I deem it not likely that he will betray the secret. He will doubtless seek other means of satiating his dark passion." "And I!--how am I to live longer, breathing the same air with this deadly enemy?" exclaimed Arthur Dimmesdale, shrinking within himself, and pressing his hand nervously against his heart--a gesture that had grown involuntary with him. "Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong. Resolve for me!" "Thou must dwell no longer with this man," said Hester, slowly and firmly. "Thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye!" "It were far worse than death!" replied the minister. "But how to avoid it? What choice remains to me? Shall I lie down again on these withered leaves, where I cast myself when thou didst tell me what he was? Must I sink down there, and die at once?" "Alas! what a ruin has befallen thee!" said Hester, with the tears gushing into her eyes. "Wilt thou die for very weakness? There is no other cause!" "The judgment of God is on me," answered the conscience-stricken priest. "It is too mighty for me to struggle with!" "Heaven would show mercy," rejoined Hester, "hadst thou but the strength to take advantage of it." "Be thou strong for me!" answered he. "Advise me what to do." "Is the world, then, so narrow?" exclaimed Hester Prynne, fixing her deep eyes on the minister's, and instinctively exercising a magnetic power over a spirit so shattered and subdued that it could hardly hold itself erect. "Doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn desert, as lonely as this around us? Whither leads yonder forest-track? Backward to the settlement, thou sayest! Yes; but, onward, too! Deeper it goes, and deeper into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step; until some few miles hence the yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man's tread. There thou art free! So brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy! Is there not shade enough in all this boundless forest to hide thy heart from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth?" "Yes, Hester; but only under the fallen leaves!" replied the minister, with a sad smile. "Then there is the broad pathway of the sea!" continued Hester. "It brought thee hither. If thou so choose, it will bear thee back again. In our native land, whether in some remote rural village, or in vast London--or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy--thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge! And what hast thou to do with all these iron men, and their opinions? They have kept thy better part in bondage too long already!" "It cannot be!" answered the minister, listening as if he were called upon to realise a dream. "I am powerless to go. Wretched and sinful as I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly existence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me. Lost as my own soul is, I would still do what I may for other human souls! I dare not quit my post, though an unfaithful sentinel, whose sure reward is death and dishonour, when his dreary watch shall come to an end!" "Thou art crushed under this seven years' weight of misery," replied Hester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy. "But thou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path: neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened. Meddle no more with it! Begin all anew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? Not so! The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit summon thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or, as is more thy nature, be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most renowned of the cultivated world. Preach! Write! Act! Do anything, save to lie down and die! Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life? that have made thee feeble to will and to do? that will leave thee powerless even to repent? Up, and away!" "Oh, Hester!" cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light, kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, "thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! I must die here! There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world alone!" It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach. He repeated the word--"Alone, Hester!" "Thou shall not go alone!" answered she, in a deep whisper. Then, all was spoken! XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE Arthur Dimmesdale gazed into Hester's face with a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak. But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness, as vast, as intricate, and shadowy as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. For years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church. The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers--stern and wild ones--and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. The minister, on the other hand, had never gone through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the scope of generally received laws; although, in a single instance, he had so fearfully transgressed one of the most sacred of them. But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose. Since that wretched epoch, he had watched with morbid zeal and minuteness, not his acts--for those it was easy to arrange--but each breath of emotion, and his every thought. At the head of the social system, as the clergymen of that day stood, he was only the more trammelled by its regulations, its principles, and even its prejudices. As a priest, the framework of his order inevitably hemmed him in. As a man who had once sinned, but who kept his conscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting of an unhealed wound, he might have been supposed safer within the line of virtue than if he had never sinned at all. Thus we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour. But Arthur Dimmesdale! Were such a man once more to fall, what plea could be urged in extenuation of his crime? None; unless it avail him somewhat that he was broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. It may be watched and guarded, so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and near it the stealthy tread of the foe that would win over again his unforgotten triumph. The struggle, if there were one, need not be described. Let it suffice that the clergyman resolved to flee, and not alone. "If in all these past seven years," thought he, "I could recall one instant of peace or hope, I would yet endure, for the sake of that earnest of Heaven's mercy. But now--since I am irrevocably doomed--wherefore should I not snatch the solace allowed to the condemned culprit before his execution? Or, if this be the path to a better life, as Hester would persuade me, I surely give up no fairer prospect by pursuing it! Neither can I any longer live without her companionship; so powerful is she to sustain--so tender to soothe! O Thou to whom I dare not lift mine eyes, wilt Thou yet pardon me?" "Thou wilt go!" said Hester calmly, as he met her glance. The decision once made, a glow of strange enjoyment threw its flickering brightness over the trouble of his breast. It was the exhilarating effect--upon a prisoner just escaped from the dungeon of his own heart--of breathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, unchristianised, lawless region. His spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky, than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth. Of a deeply religious temperament, there was inevitably a tinge of the devotional in his mood. "Do I feel joy again?" cried he, wondering at himself. "Methought the germ of it was dead in me! Oh, Hester, thou art my better angel! I seem to have flung myself--sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened--down upon these forest leaves, and to have risen up all made anew, and with new powers to glorify Him that hath been merciful! This is already the better life! Why did we not find it sooner?" "Let us not look back," answered Hester Prynne. "The past is gone! Wherefore should we linger upon it now? See! With this symbol I undo it all, and make it as if it had never been!" So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves. The mystic token alighted on the hither verge of the stream. With a hand's-breadth further flight, it would have fallen into the water, and have given the little brook another woe to carry onward, besides the unintelligible tale which it still kept murmuring about. But there lay the embroidered letter, glittering like a lost jewel, which some ill-fated wanderer might pick up, and thenceforth be haunted by strange phantoms of guilt, sinkings of the heart, and unaccountable misfortune. The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom! By another impulse, she took off the formal cap that confined her hair, and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and imparting the charm of softness to her features. There played around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes, a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of womanhood. A crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale. Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered themselves with her maiden hope, and a happiness before unknown, within the magic circle of this hour. And, as if the gloom of the earth and sky had been but the effluence of these two mortal hearts, it vanished with their sorrow. All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy. Such was the sympathy of Nature--that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth--with the bliss of these two spirits! Love, whether newly-born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. Had the forest still kept its gloom, it would have been bright in Hester's eyes, and bright in Arthur Dimmesdale's! Hester looked at him with a thrill of another joy. "Thou must know Pearl!" said she. "Our little Pearl! Thou hast seen her--yes, I know it!--but thou wilt see her now with other eyes. She is a strange child! I hardly comprehend her! But thou wilt love her dearly, as I do, and wilt advise me how to deal with her!" "Dost thou think the child will be glad to know me?" asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. "I have long shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust--a backwardness to be familiar with me. I have even been afraid of little Pearl!" "Ah, that was sad!" answered the mother. "But she will love thee dearly, and thou her. She is not far off. I will call her. Pearl! Pearl!" "I see the child," observed the minister. "Yonder she is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the other side of the brook. So thou thinkest the child will love me?" Hester smiled, and again called to Pearl, who was visible at some distance, as the minister had described her, like a bright-apparelled vision in a sunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. The ray quivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct--now like a real child, now like a child's spirit--as the splendour went and came again. She heard her mother's voice, and approached slowly through the forest. Pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomely while her mother sat talking with the clergyman. The great black forest--stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its bosom--became the playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how. Sombre as it was, it put on the kindest of its moods to welcome her. It offered her the partridge-berries, the growth of the preceding autumn, but ripening only in the spring, and now red as drops of blood upon the withered leaves. These Pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavour. The small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her path. A partridge, indeed, with a brood of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, but soon repented of her fierceness, and clucked to her young ones not to be afraid. A pigeon, alone on a low branch, allowed Pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound as much of greeting as alarm. A squirrel, from the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment--for the squirrel is such a choleric and humorous little personage, that it is hard to distinguish between his moods--so he chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her head. It was a last year's nut, and already gnawed by his sharp tooth. A fox, startled from his sleep by her light footstep on the leaves, looked inquisitively at Pearl, as doubting whether it were better to steal off, or renew his nap on the same spot. A wolf, it is said--but here the tale has surely lapsed into the improbable--came up and smelt of Pearl's robe, and offered his savage head to be patted by her hand. The truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recognised a kindred wilderness in the human child. And she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother's cottage. The Bowers appeared to know it, and one and another whispered as she passed, "Adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adorn thyself with me!"--and, to please them, Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair and her young waist, and became a nymph child, or an infant dryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood. In such guise had Pearl adorned herself, when she heard her mother's voice, and came slowly back. Slowly--for she saw the clergyman! XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOKSIDE "Thou wilt love her dearly," repeated Hester Prynne, as she and the minister sat watching little Pearl. "Dost thou not think her beautiful? And see with what natural skill she has made those simple flowers adorn her! Had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and rubies in the wood, they could not have become her better! She is a splendid child! But I know whose brow she has!" "Dost thou know, Hester," said Arthur Dimmesdale, with an unquiet smile, "that this dear child, tripping about always at thy side, hath caused me many an alarm? Methought--oh, Hester, what a thought is that, and how terrible to dread it!--that my own features were partly repeated in her face, and so strikingly that the world might see them! But she is mostly thine!" "No, no! Not mostly!" answered the mother, with a tender smile. "A little longer, and thou needest not to be afraid to trace whose child she is. But how strangely beautiful she looks with those wild flowers in her hair! It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in dear old England, had decked her out to meet us." It was with a feeling which neither of them had ever before experienced, that they sat and watched Pearl's slow advance. In her was visible the tie that united them. She had been offered to the world, these seven past years, as the living hieroglyphic, in which was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide--all written in this symbol--all plainly manifest--had there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the character of flame! And Pearl was the oneness of their being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how could they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined when they beheld at once the material union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally together; thoughts like these--and perhaps other thoughts, which they did not acknowledge or define--threw an awe about the child as she came onward. "Let her see nothing strange--no passion or eagerness--in thy way of accosting her," whispered Hester. "Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf sometimes. Especially she is generally intolerant of emotion, when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But the child hath strong affections! She loves me, and will love thee!" "Thou canst not think," said the minister, glancing aside at Hester Prynne, "how my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it! But, in truth, as I already told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar with me. They will not climb my knee, nor prattle in my ear, nor answer to my smile, but stand apart, and eye me strangely. Even little babes, when I take them in my arms, weep bitterly. Yet Pearl, twice in her little lifetime, hath been kind to me! The first time--thou knowest it well! The last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house of yonder stern old Governor." "And thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf and mine!" answered the mother. "I remember it; and so shall little Pearl. Fear nothing. She may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee!" By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on the further side, gazing silently at Hester and the clergyman, who still sat together on the mossy tree-trunk waiting to receive her. Just where she had paused, the brook chanced to form a pool so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with all the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed foliage, but more refined and spiritualized than the reality. This image, so nearly identical with the living Pearl, seemed to communicate somewhat of its own shadowy and intangible quality to the child herself. It was strange, the way in which Pearl stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forest gloom, herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a certain sympathy. In the brook beneath stood another child--another and the same--with likewise its ray of golden light. Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl, as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it. There were both truth and error in the impression; the child and mother were estranged, but through Hester's fault, not Pearl's. Since the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother's feelings, and so modified the aspect of them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was. "I have a strange fancy," observed the sensitive minister, "that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again. Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream? Pray hasten her, for this delay has already imparted a tremor to my nerves." "Come, dearest child!" said Hester encouragingly, and stretching out both her arms. "How slow thou art! When hast thou been so sluggish before now? Here is a friend of mine, who must be thy friend also. Thou wilt have twice as much love henceforward as thy mother alone could give thee! Leap across the brook and come to us. Thou canst leap like a young deer!" Pearl, without responding in any manner to these honey-sweet expressions, remained on the other side of the brook. Now she fixed her bright wild eyes on her mother, now on the minister, and now included them both in the same glance, as if to detect and explain to herself the relation which they bore to one another. For some unaccountable reason, as Arthur Dimmesdale felt the child's eyes upon himself, his hand--with that gesture so habitual as to have become involuntary--stole over his heart. At length, assuming a singular air of authority, Pearl stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger extended, and pointing evidently towards her mother's breast. And beneath, in the mirror of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and sunny image of little Pearl, pointing her small forefinger too. "Thou strange child! why dost thou not come to me?" exclaimed Hester. Pearl still pointed with her forefinger, and a frown gathered on her brow--the more impressive from the childish, the almost baby-like aspect of the features that conveyed it. As her mother still kept beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of unaccustomed smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more imperious look and gesture. In the brook, again, was the fantastic beauty of the image, with its reflected frown, its pointed finger, and imperious gesture, giving emphasis to the aspect of little Pearl. "Hasten, Pearl, or I shall be angry with thee!" cried Hester Prynne, who, however, inured to such behaviour on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. "Leap across the brook, naughty child, and run hither! Else I must come to thee!" But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother's threats any more than mollified by her entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak with piercing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on all sides, so that, alone as she was in her childish and unreasonable wrath, it seemed as if a hidden multitude were lending her their sympathy and encouragement. Seen in the brook once more was the shadowy wrath of Pearl's image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping its foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, still pointing its small forefinger at Hester's bosom. "I see what ails the child," whispered Hester to the clergyman, and turning pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and annoyance, "Children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed aspect of things that are daily before their eyes. Pearl misses something that she has always seen me wear!" "I pray you," answered the minister, "if thou hast any means of pacifying the child, do it forthwith! Save it were the cankered wrath of an old witch like Mistress Hibbins," added he, attempting to smile, "I know nothing that I would not sooner encounter than this passion in a child. In Pearl's young beauty, as in the wrinkled witch, it has a preternatural effect. Pacify her if thou lovest me!" Hester turned again towards Pearl with a crimson blush upon her cheek, a conscious glance aside clergyman, and then a heavy sigh, while, even before she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a deadly pallor. "Pearl," said she sadly, "look down at thy feet! There!--before thee!--on the hither side of the brook!" The child turned her eyes to the point indicated, and there lay the scarlet letter so close upon the margin of the stream that the gold embroidery was reflected in it. "Bring it hither!" said Hester. "Come thou and take it up!" answered Pearl. "Was ever such a child!" observed Hester aside to the minister. "Oh, I have much to tell thee about her! But, in very truth, she is right as regards this hateful token. I must bear its torture yet a little longer--only a few days longer--until we shall have left this region, and look back hither as to a land which we have dreamed of. The forest cannot hide it! The mid-ocean shall take it from my hand, and swallow it up for ever!" With these words she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom. Hopefully, but a moment ago, as Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. She had flung it into infinite space! she had drawn an hour's free breath! and here again was the scarlet misery glittering on the old spot! So it ever is, whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her. When the dreary change was wrought, she extended her hand to Pearl. "Dost thou know thy mother now, child?", asked she, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone. "Wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has her shame upon her--now that she is sad?" "Yes; now I will!" answered the child, bounding across the brook, and clasping Hester in her arms "Now thou art my mother indeed! and I am thy little Pearl!" In a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, she drew down her mother's head, and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. But then--by a kind of necessity that always impelled this child to alloy whatever comfort she might chance to give with a throb of anguish--Pearl put up her mouth and kissed the scarlet letter, too. "That was not kind!" said Hester. "When thou hast shown me a little love, thou mockest me!" "Why doth the minister sit yonder?" asked Pearl. "He waits to welcome thee," replied her mother. "Come thou, and entreat his blessing! He loves thee, my little Pearl, and loves thy mother, too. Wilt thou not love him? Come he longs to greet thee!" "Doth he love us?" said Pearl, looking up with acute intelligence into her mother's face. "Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?" "Not now, my child," answered Hester. "But in days to come he will walk hand in hand with us. We will have a home and fireside of our own; and thou shalt sit upon his knee; and he will teach thee many things, and love thee dearly. Thou wilt love him--wilt thou not?" "And will he always keep his hand over his heart?" inquired Pearl. "Foolish child, what a question is that!" exclaimed her mother. "Come, and ask his blessing!" But, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with every petted child towards a dangerous rival, or from whatever caprice of her freakish nature, Pearl would show no favour to the clergyman. It was only by an exertion of force that her mother brought her up to him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces; of which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of different aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. The minister--painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child's kindlier regards--bent forward, and impressed one on her brow. Hereupon, Pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water. She then remained apart, silently watching Hester and the clergyman; while they talked together and made such arrangements as were suggested by their new position and the purposes soon to be fulfilled. And now this fateful interview had come to a close. The dell was to be left in solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no mortal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore. XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE As the minister departed, in advance of Hester Prynne and little Pearl, he threw a backward glance, half expecting that he should discover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So great a vicissitude in his life could not at once be received as real. But there was Hester, clad in her gray robe, still standing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burden on them, might there sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace. And there was Pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook--now that the intrusive third person was gone--and taking her old place by her mother's side. So the minister had not fallen asleep and dreamed! In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and himself had sketched for their departure. It had been determined between them that the Old World, with its crowds and cities, offered them a more eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of New England or all America, with its alternatives of an Indian wigwam, or the few settlements of Europeans scattered thinly along the sea-board. Not to speak of the clergyman's health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire development would secure him a home only in the midst of civilization and refinement; the higher the state the more delicately adapted to it the man. In furtherance of this choice, it so happened that a ship lay in the harbour; one of those unquestionable cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character. This vessel had recently arrived from the Spanish Main, and within three days' time would sail for Bristol. Hester Prynne--whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of Charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain and crew--could take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a child with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable. The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. It would probably be on the fourth day from the present. "This is most fortunate!" he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate we hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless--to hold nothing back from the reader--it was because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election Sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable epoch in the life of a New England Clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career. "At least, they shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that I leave no public duty unperformed or ill-performed!" Sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister's should be so miserably deceived! We have had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease that had long since begun to eat into the real substance of his character. No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale's feelings as he returned from his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural obstacles, and less trodden by the foot of man, than he remembered it on his outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track, with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath he had toiled over the same ground, only two days before. As he drew near the town, he took an impression of change from the series of familiar objects that presented themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not one, not two, but many days, or even years ago, since he had quitted them. There, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he remembered it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due multitude of gable-peaks, and a weather-cock at every point where his memory suggested one. Not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive sense of change. The same was true as regarded the acquaintances whom he met, and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the little town. They looked neither older nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was impossible to describe in what respect they differed from the individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance; and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him of their mutability. A similar impression struck him most remarkably as he passed under the walls of his own church. The edifice had so very strange, and yet so familiar an aspect, that Mr. Dimmesdale's mind vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a dream hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming about it now. This phenomenon, in the various shapes which it assumed, indicated no external change, but so sudden and important a change in the spectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of years. The minister's own will, and Hester's will, and the fate that grew between them, had wrought this transformation. It was the same town as heretofore, but the same minister returned not from the forest. He might have said to the friends who greeted him--"I am not the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell, by a mossy tree trunk, and near a melancholy brook! Go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow, be not flung down there, like a cast-off garment!" His friends, no doubt, would still have insisted with him--"Thou art thyself the man!" but the error would have been their own, not his. Before Mr. Dimmesdale reached home, his inner man gave him other evidences of a revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling. In truth, nothing short of a total change of dynasty and moral code, in that interior kingdom, was adequate to account for the impulses now communicated to the unfortunate and startled minister. At every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with a sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional, in spite of himself, yet growing out of a profounder self than that which opposed the impulse. For instance, he met one of his own deacons. The good old man addressed him with the paternal affection and patriarchal privilege which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and his station in the church, entitled him to use and, conjoined with this, the deep, almost worshipping respect, which the minister's professional and private claims alike demanded. Never was there a more beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom may comport with the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a lower social rank, and inferior order of endowment, towards a higher. Now, during a conversation of some two or three moments between the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale and this excellent and hoary-bearded deacon, it was only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion-supper. He absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself in utterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without his having fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal deacon would have been petrified by his minister's impiety. Again, another incident of the same nature. Hurrying along the street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered the eldest female member of his church, a most pious and exemplary old dame, poor, widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied gravestones. Yet all this, which would else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths of Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than thirty years. And since Mr. Dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the good grandam's chief earthly comfort--which, unless it had been likewise a heavenly comfort, could have been none at all--was to meet her pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be refreshed with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing Gospel truth, from his beloved lips, into her dulled, but rapturously attentive ear. But, on this occasion, up to the moment of putting his lips to the old woman's ear, Mr. Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls would have it, could recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul. The instilment thereof into her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to drop down dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous infusion. What he really did whisper, the minister could never afterwards recollect. There was, perhaps, a fortunate disorder in his utterance, which failed to impart any distinct idea to the good widows comprehension, or which Providence interpreted after a method of its own. Assuredly, as the minister looked back, he beheld an expression of divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemed like the shine of the celestial city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy pale. Again, a third instance. After parting from the old church member, he met the youngest sister of them all. It was a maiden newly-won--and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale's own sermon, on the Sabbath after his vigil--to barter the transitory pleasures of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume brighter substance as life grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with final glory. She was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in Paradise. The minister knew well that he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity of her heart, which hung its snowy curtains about his image, imparting to religion the warmth of love, and to love a religious purity. Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl away from her mother's side, and thrown her into the pathway of this sorely tempted, or--shall we not rather say?--this lost and desperate man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to condense into small compass, and drop into her tender bosom a germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of power over this virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt potent to blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all its opposite with but a word. So--with a mightier struggle than he had yet sustained--he held his Geneva cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of recognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. She ransacked her conscience--which was full of harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag--and took herself to task, poor thing! for a thousand imaginary faults, and went about her household duties with swollen eyelids the next morning. Before the minister had time to celebrate his victory over this last temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more ludicrous, and almost as horrible. It was--we blush to tell it--it was to stop short in the road, and teach some very wicked words to a knot of little Puritan children who were playing there, and had but just begun to talk. Denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he met a drunken seaman, one of the ship's crew from the Spanish Main. And here, since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor Mr. Dimmesdale longed at least to shake hands with the tarry black-guard, and recreate himself with a few improper jests, such as dissolute sailors so abound with, and a volley of good, round, solid, satisfactory, and heaven-defying oaths! It was not so much a better principle, as partly his natural good taste, and still more his buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him safely through the latter crisis. "What is it that haunts and tempts me thus?" cried the minister to himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his hand against his forehead. "Am I mad? or am I given over utterly to the fiend? Did I make a contract with him in the forest, and sign it with my blood? And does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive?" At the moment when the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale thus communed with himself, and struck his forehead with his hand, old Mistress Hibbins, the reputed witch-lady, is said to have been passing by. She made a very grand appearance, having on a high head-dress, a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch, of which Anne Turner, her especial friend, had taught her the secret, before this last good lady had been hanged for Sir Thomas Overbury's murder. Whether the witch had read the minister's thoughts or no, she came to a full stop, looked shrewdly into his face, smiled craftily, and--though little given to converse with clergymen--began a conversation. "So, reverend sir, you have made a visit into the forest," observed the witch-lady, nodding her high head-dress at him. "The next time I pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and I shall be proud to bear you company. Without taking overmuch upon myself my good word will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair reception from yonder potentate you wot of." "I profess, madam," answered the clergyman, with a grave obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good breeding made imperative--"I profess, on my conscience and character, that I am utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your words! I went not into the forest to seek a potentate, neither do I, at any future time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the favour of such personage. My one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!" "Ha, ha, ha!" cackled the old witch-lady, still nodding her high head-dress at the minister. "Well, well! we must needs talk thus in the daytime! You carry it off like an old hand! But at midnight, and in the forest, we shall have other talk together!" She passed on with her aged stateliness, but often turning back her head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognise a secret intimacy of connexion. "Have I then sold myself," thought the minister, "to the fiend whom, if men say true, this yellow-starched and velveted old hag has chosen for her prince and master?" The wretched minister! He had made a bargain very like it! Tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin. And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke to tempt, even while they frightened him. And his encounter with old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show its sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals, and the world of perverted spirits. He had by this time reached his dwelling on the edge of the burial ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study. The minister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first betraying himself to the world by any of those strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while passing through the streets. He entered the accustomed room, and looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the forest dell into the town and thitherward. Here he had studied and written; here gone through fast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray; here borne a hundred thousand agonies! There was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets speaking to him, and God's voice through all. There on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page two days before. He knew that it was himself, the thin and white-cheeked minister, who had done and suffered these things, and written thus far into the Election Sermon! But he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self with scornful pitying, but half-envious curiosity. That self was gone. Another man had returned out of the forest--a wiser one--with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that! While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of the study, and the minister said, "Come in!"--not wholly devoid of an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. And so he did! It was old Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood white and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other spread upon his breast. "Welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician "And how found you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir, you look pale, as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength to preach your Election Sermon?" "Nay, I think not so," rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "My journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free air which I have breathed have done me good, after so long confinement in my study. I think to need no more of your drugs, my kind physician, good though they be, and administered by a friendly hand." All this time Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient. But, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician knew then that in the minister's regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy. So much being known, it would appear natural that a part of it should be expressed. It is singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it. Thus the minister felt no apprehension that Roger Chillingworth would touch, in express words, upon the real position which they sustained towards one another. Yet did the physician, in his dark way, creep frightfully near the secret. "Were it not better," said he, "that you use my poor skill tonight? Verily, dear sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorous for this occasion of the Election discourse. The people look for great things from you, apprehending that another year may come about and find their pastor gone." "Yes, to another world," replied the minister with pious resignation. "Heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, I hardly think to tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of another year! But touching your medicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body I need it not." "I joy to hear it," answered the physician. "It may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect. Happy man were I, and well deserving of New England's gratitude, could I achieve this cure!" "I thank you from my heart, most watchful friend," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale with a solemn smile. "I thank you, and can but requite your good deeds with my prayers." "A good man's prayers are golden recompense!" rejoined old Roger Chillingworth, as he took his leave. "Yea, they are the current gold coin of the New Jerusalem, with the King's own mint mark on them!" Left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the house, and requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous appetite. Then flinging the already written pages of the Election Sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote with such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied himself inspired; and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to transmit the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul an organ pipe as he. However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward with earnest haste and ecstasy. Thus the night fled away, as if it were a winged steed, and he careering on it; morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the curtains; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study, and laid it right across the minister's bedazzled eyes. There he was, with the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of written space behind him! XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY Betimes in the morning of the day on which the new Governor was to receive his office at the hands of the people, Hester Prynne and little Pearl came into the market-place. It was already thronged with the craftsmen and other plebeian inhabitants of the town, in considerable numbers, among whom, likewise, were many rough figures, whose attire of deer-skins marked them as belonging to some of the forest settlements, which surrounded the little metropolis of the colony. On this public holiday, as on all other occasions for seven years past, Hester was clad in a garment of coarse gray cloth. Not more by its hue than by some indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect of making her fade personally out of sight and outline; while again the scarlet letter brought her back from this twilight indistinctness, and revealed her under the moral aspect of its own illumination. Her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there. It was like a mask; or, rather like the frozen calmness of a dead woman's features; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that Hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the world with which she still seemed to mingle. It might be, on this one day, that there was an expression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to be detected now; unless some preternaturally gifted observer should have first read the heart, and have afterwards sought a corresponding development in the countenance and mien. Such a spiritual seer might have conceived, that, after sustaining the gaze of the multitude through several miserable years as a necessity, a penance, and something which it was a stern religion to endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered it freely and voluntarily, in order to convert what had so long been agony into a kind of triumph. "Look your last on the scarlet letter and its wearer!"--the people's victim and lifelong bond-slave, as they fancied her, might say to them. "Yet a little while, and she will be beyond your reach! A few hours longer and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbol which ye have caused to burn on her bosom!" Nor were it an inconsistency too improbable to be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of regret in Hester's mind, at the moment when she was about to win her freedom from the pain which had been thus deeply incorporated with her being. Might there not be an irresistible desire to quaff a last, long, breathless draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood had been perpetually flavoured. The wine of life, henceforth to be presented to her lips, must be indeed rich, delicious, and exhilarating, in its chased and golden beaker, or else leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of bitterness wherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency. Pearl was decked out with airy gaiety. It would have been impossible to guess that this bright and sunny apparition owed its existence to the shape of gloomy gray; or that a fancy, at once so gorgeous and so delicate as must have been requisite to contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved a task perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a peculiarity to Hester's simple robe. The dress, so proper was it to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable development and outward manifestation of her character, no more to be separated from her than the many-hued brilliancy from a butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf of a bright flower. As with these, so with the child; her garb was all of one idea with her nature. On this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular inquietude and excitement in her mood, resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbings of the breast on which it is displayed. Children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them: always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester's brow. This effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement, rather than walk by her mother's side. She broke continually into shouts of a wild, inarticulate, and sometimes piercing music. When they reached the market-place, she became still more restless, on perceiving the stir and bustle that enlivened the spot; for it was usually more like the broad and lonesome green before a village meeting-house, than the centre of a town's business. "Why, what is this, mother?" cried she. "Wherefore have all the people left their work to-day? Is it a play-day for the whole world? See, there is the blacksmith! He has washed his sooty face, and put on his Sabbath-day clothes, and looks as if he would gladly be merry, if any kind body would only teach him how! And there is Master Brackett, the old jailer, nodding and smiling at me. Why does he do so, mother?" "He remembers thee a little babe, my child," answered Hester. "He should not nod and smile at me, for all that--the black, grim, ugly-eyed old man!" said Pearl. "He may nod at thee, if he will; for thou art clad in gray, and wearest the scarlet letter. But see, mother, how many faces of strange people, and Indians among them, and sailors! What have they all come to do, here in the market-place?" "They wait to see the procession pass," said Hester. "For the Governor and the magistrates are to go by, and the ministers, and all the great people and good people, with the music and the soldiers marching before them." "And will the minister be there?" asked Pearl. "And will he hold out both his hands to me, as when thou ledst me to him from the brook-side?" "He will be there, child," answered her mother, "but he will not greet thee to-day, nor must thou greet him." "What a strange, sad man is he!" said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. "In the dark nighttime he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But, here, in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over his heart!" "Be quiet, Pearl--thou understandest not these things," said her mother. "Think not now of the minister, but look about thee, and see how cheery is everybody's face to-day. The children have come from their schools, and the grown people from their workshops and their fields, on purpose to be happy, for, to-day, a new man is beginning to rule over them; and so--as has been the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first gathered--they make merry and rejoice: as if a good and golden year were at length to pass over the poor old world!" It was as Hester said, in regard to the unwonted jollity that brightened the faces of the people. Into this festal season of the year--as it already was, and continued to be during the greater part of two centuries--the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction. But we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sable tinge, which undoubtedly characterized the mood and manners of the age. The persons now in the market-place of Boston had not been born to an inheritance of Puritanic gloom. They were native Englishmen, whose fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the Elizabethan epoch; a time when the life of England, viewed as one great mass, would appear to have been as stately, magnificent, and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed. Had they followed their hereditary taste, the New England settlers would have illustrated all events of public importance by bonfires, banquets, pageantries, and processions. Nor would it have been impracticable, in the observance of majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state, which a nation, at such festivals, puts on. There was some shadow of an attempt of this kind in the mode of celebrating the day on which the political year of the colony commenced. The dim reflection of a remembered splendour, a colourless and manifold diluted repetition of what they had beheld in proud old London--we will not say at a royal coronation, but at a Lord Mayor's show--might be traced in the customs which our forefathers instituted, with reference to the annual installation of magistrates. The fathers and founders of the commonwealth--the statesman, the priest, and the soldier--seemed it a duty then to assume the outward state and majesty, which, in accordance with antique style, was looked upon as the proper garb of public and social eminence. All came forth to move in procession before the people's eye, and thus impart a needed dignity to the simple framework of a government so newly constructed. Then, too, the people were countenanced, if not encouraged, in relaxing the severe and close application to their various modes of rugged industry, which at all other times, seemed of the same piece and material with their religion. Here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth's time, or that of James--no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleeman with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps a hundred years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy. All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which give law its vitality. Not the less, however, the great, honest face of the people smiled--grimly, perhaps, but widely too. Nor were sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and shared in, long ago, at the country fairs and on the village-greens of England; and which it was thought well to keep alive on this new soil, for the sake of the courage and manliness that were essential in them. Wrestling matches, in the different fashions of Cornwall and Devonshire, were seen here and there about the market-place; in one corner, there was a friendly bout at quarterstaff; and--what attracted most interest of all--on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. But, much to the disappointment of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, who had no idea of permitting the majesty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of one of its consecrated places. It may not be too much to affirm, on the whole, (the people being then in the first stages of joyless deportment, and the offspring of sires who had known how to be merry, in their day), that they would compare favourably, in point of holiday keeping, with their descendants, even at so long an interval as ourselves. Their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up. We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gaiety. The picture of human life in the market-place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians--in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deerskin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear--stood apart with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature of the scene. This distinction could more justly be claimed by some mariners--a part of the crew of the vessel from the Spanish Main--who had come ashore to see the humours of Election Day. They were rough-looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard; their wide short trousers were confined about the waist by belts, often clasped with a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf, gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. They transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding on all others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitae from pocket flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. It remarkably characterised the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a licence was allowed the seafaring class, not merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more desperate deeds on their proper element. The sailor of that day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate in our own. There could be little doubt, for instance, that this very ship's crew, though no unfavourable specimens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it, of depredations on the Spanish commerce, such as would have perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice. But the sea in those old times heaved, swelled, and foamed very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling and become at once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic or casually associate. Thus the Puritan elders in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamour and rude deportment of these jolly seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion when so reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter the market-place in close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel. The latter was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to display than hide. A landsman could hardly have worn this garb and shown this face, and worn and shown them both with such a galliard air, without undergoing stern question before a magistrate, and probably incurring a fine or imprisonment, or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks. As regarded the shipmaster, however, all was looked upon as pertaining to the character, as to a fish his glistening scales. After parting from the physician, the commander of the Bristol ship strolled idly through the market-place; until happening to approach the spot where Hester Prynne was standing, he appeared to recognise, and did not hesitate to address her. As was usually the case wherever Hester stood, a small vacant area--a sort of magic circle--had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing one another at a little distance, none ventured or felt disposed to intrude. It was a forcible type of the moral solitude in which the scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer; partly by her own reserve, and partly by the instinctive, though no longer so unkindly, withdrawal of her fellow-creatures. Now, if never before, it answered a good purpose by enabling Hester and the seaman to speak together without risk of being overheard; and so changed was Hester Prynne's repute before the public, that the matron in town, most eminent for rigid morality, could not have held such intercourse with less result of scandal than herself. "So, mistress," said the mariner, "I must bid the steward make ready one more berth than you bargained for! No fear of scurvy or ship fever this voyage. What with the ship's surgeon and this other doctor, our only danger will be from drug or pill; more by token, as there is a lot of apothecary's stuff aboard, which I traded for with a Spanish vessel." "What mean you?" inquired Hester, startled more than she permitted to appear. "Have you another passenger?" "Why, know you not," cried the shipmaster, "that this physician here--Chillingworth he calls himself--is minded to try my cabin-fare with you? Ay, ay, you must have known it; for he tells me he is of your party, and a close friend to the gentleman you spoke of--he that is in peril from these sour old Puritan rulers." "They know each other well, indeed," replied Hester, with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost consternation. "They have long dwelt together." Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hester Prynne. But at that instant she beheld old Roger Chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest corner of the market-place and smiling on her; a smile which--across the wide and bustling square, and through all the talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and interests of the crowd--conveyed secret and fearful meaning. XXII. THE PROCESSION Before Hester Prynne could call together her thoughts, and consider what was practicable to be done in this new and startling aspect of affairs, the sound of military music was heard approaching along a contiguous street. It denoted the advance of the procession of magistrates and citizens on its way towards the meeting-house: where, in compliance with a custom thus early established, and ever since observed, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was to deliver an Election Sermon. Soon the head of the procession showed itself, with a slow and stately march, turning a corner, and making its way across the market-place. First came the music. It comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapted to one another, and played with no great skill; but yet attaining the great object for which the harmony of drum and clarion addresses itself to the multitude--that of imparting a higher and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes before the eye. Little Pearl at first clapped her hands, but then lost for an instant the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescence throughout the morning; she gazed silently, and seemed to be borne upward like a floating sea-bird on the long heaves and swells of sound. But she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sunshine on the weapons and bright armour of the military company, which followed after the music, and formed the honorary escort of the procession. This body of soldiery--which still sustains a corporate existence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient and honourable fame--was composed of no mercenary materials. Its ranks were filled with gentlemen who felt the stirrings of martial impulse, and sought to establish a kind of College of Arms, where, as in an association of Knights Templars, they might learn the science, and, so far as peaceful exercise would teach them, the practices of war. The high estimation then placed upon the military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of the company. Some of them, indeed, by their services in the Low Countries and on other fields of European warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name and pomp of soldiership. The entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspire to equal. And yet the men of civil eminence, who came immediately behind the military escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye. Even in outward demeanour they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughty stride look vulgar, if not absurd. It was an age when what we call talent had far less consideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of character a great deal more. The people possessed by hereditary right the quality of reverence, which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force in the selection and estimate of public men. The change may be for good or ill, and is partly, perhaps, for both. In that old day the English settler on these rude shores--having left king, nobles, and all degrees of awful rank behind, while still the faculty and necessity of reverence was strong in him--bestowed it on the white hair and venerable brow of age--on long-tried integrity--on solid wisdom and sad-coloured experience--on endowments of that grave and weighty order which gave the idea of permanence, and comes under the general definition of respectability. These primitive statesmen, therefore--Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers--who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and self-reliance, and in time of difficulty or peril stood up for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide. The traits of character here indicated were well represented in the square cast of countenance and large physical development of the new colonial magistrates. So far as a demeanour of natural authority was concerned, the mother country need not have been ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual democracy adopted into the House of Peers, or make the Privy Council of the Sovereign. Next in order to the magistrates came the young and eminently distinguished divine, from whose lips the religious discourse of the anniversary was expected. His was the profession at that era in which intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political life; for--leaving a higher motive out of the question it offered inducements powerful enough in the almost worshipping respect of the community, to win the most aspiring ambition into its service. Even political power--as in the case of Increase Mather--was within the grasp of a successful priest. It was the observation of those who beheld him now, that never, since Mr. Dimmesdale first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the procession. There was no feebleness of step as at other times; his frame was not bent, nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. Yet, if the clergyman were rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the body. It might be spiritual and imparted to him by angelical ministrations. It might be the exhilaration of that potent cordial which is distilled only in the furnace-glow of earnest and long-continued thought. Or perchance his sensitive temperament was invigorated by the loud and piercing music that swelled heaven-ward, and uplifted him on its ascending wave. Nevertheless, so abstracted was his look, it might be questioned whether Mr. Dimmesdale even heard the music. There was his body, moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force. But where was his mind? Far and deep in its own region, busying itself, with preternatural activity, to marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing of what was around him; but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame and carried it along, unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like itself. Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days and then are lifeless for as many more. Hester Prynne, gazing steadfastly at the clergyman, felt a dreary influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not, unless that he seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach. One glance of recognition she had imagined must needs pass between them. She thought of the dim forest, with its little dell of solitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand-in-hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholy murmur of the brook. How deeply had they known each other then! And was this the man? She hardly knew him now! He, moving proudly past, enveloped as it were, in the rich music, with the procession of majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unattainable in his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his unsympathizing thoughts, through which she now beheld him! Her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly as she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was there in Hester, that she could scarcely forgive him--least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer!--for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world--while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not. Pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feelings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister. While the procession passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, like a bird on the point of taking flight. When the whole had gone by, she looked up into Hester's face-- "Mother," said she, "was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?" "Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!" whispered her mother. "We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest." "I could not be sure that it was he--so strange he looked," continued the child. "Else I would have run to him, and bid him kiss me now, before all the people, even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. What would the minister have said, mother? Would he have clapped his hand over his heart, and scowled on me, and bid me begone?" "What should he say, Pearl," answered Hester, "save that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be given in the market-place? Well for thee, foolish child, that thou didst not speak to him!" Another shade of the same sentiment, in reference to Mr. Dimmesdale, was expressed by a person whose eccentricities--insanity, as we should term it--led her to do what few of the townspeople would have ventured on--to begin a conversation with the wearer of the scarlet letter in public. It was Mistress Hibbins, who, arrayed in great magnificence, with a triple ruff, a broidered stomacher, a gown of rich velvet, and a gold-headed cane, had come forth to see the procession. As this ancient lady had the renown (which subsequently cost her no less a price than her life) of being a principal actor in all the works of necromancy that were continually going forward, the crowd gave way before her, and seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried the plague among its gorgeous folds. Seen in conjunction with Hester Prynne--kindly as so many now felt towards the latter--the dread inspired by Mistress Hibbins had doubled, and caused a general movement from that part of the market-place in which the two women stood. "Now, what mortal imagination could conceive it?" whispered the old lady confidentially to Hester. "Yonder divine man! That saint on earth, as the people uphold him to be, and as--I must needs say--he really looks! Who, now, that saw him pass in the procession, would think how little while it is since he went forth out of his study--chewing a Hebrew text of Scripture in his mouth, I warrant--to take an airing in the forest! Aha! we know what that means, Hester Prynne! But truly, forsooth, I find it hard to believe him the same man. Many a church member saw I, walking behind the music, that has danced in the same measure with me, when Somebody was fiddler, and, it might be, an Indian powwow or a Lapland wizard changing hands with us! That is but a trifle, when a woman knows the world. But this minister. Couldst thou surely tell, Hester, whether he was the same man that encountered thee on the forest path?" "Madam, I know not of what you speak," answered Hester Prynne, feeling Mistress Hibbins to be of infirm mind; yet strangely startled and awe-stricken by the confidence with which she affirmed a personal connexion between so many persons (herself among them) and the Evil One. "It is not for me to talk lightly of a learned and pious minister of the Word, like the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale." "Fie, woman--fie!" cried the old lady, shaking her finger at Hester. "Dost thou think I have been to the forest so many times, and have yet no skill to judge who else has been there? Yea, though no leaf of the wild garlands which they wore while they danced be left in their hair! I know thee, Hester, for I behold the token. We may all see it in the sunshine! and it glows like a red flame in the dark. Thou wearest it openly, so there need be no question about that. But this minister! Let me tell thee in thine ear! When the Black Man sees one of his own servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters so that the mark shall be disclosed, in open daylight, to the eyes of all the world! What is that the minister seeks to hide, with his hand always over his heart? Ha, Hester Prynne?" "What is it, good Mistress Hibbins?" eagerly asked little Pearl. "Hast thou seen it?" "No matter, darling!" responded Mistress Hibbins, making Pearl a profound reverence. "Thou thyself wilt see it, one time or another. They say, child, thou art of the lineage of the Prince of Air! Wilt thou ride with me some fine night to see thy father? Then thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his hand over his heart!" Laughing so shrilly that all the market-place could hear her, the weird old gentlewoman took her departure. By this time the preliminary prayer had been offered in the meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale were heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling kept Hester near the spot. As the sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the pillory. It was in sufficient proximity to bring the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of an indistinct but varied murmur and flow of the minister's very peculiar voice. This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment, insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by its passage through the church walls, Hester Prynne listened with such intenseness, and sympathized so intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its indistinguishable words. These, perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been only a grosser medium, and have clogged the spiritual sense. Now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness. A loud or low expression of anguish--the whisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, that touched a sensibility in every bosom! At times this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, and scarcely heard sighing amid a desolate silence. But even when the minister's voice grew high and commanding--when it gushed irrepressibly upward--when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid walls, and diffuse itself in the open air--still, if the auditor listened intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same cry of pain. What was it? The complaint of a human heart, sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind; beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness,--at every moment,--in each accent,--and never in vain! It was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman his most appropriate power. During all this time, Hester stood, statue-like, at the foot of the scaffold. If the minister's voice had not kept her there, there would, nevertheless, have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hour of her life of ignominy. There was a sense within her--too ill-defined to be made a thought, but weighing heavily on her mind--that her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity. Little Pearl, meanwhile, had quitted her mother's side, and was playing at her own will about the market-place. She made the sombre crowd cheerful by her erratic and glistening ray, even as a bird of bright plumage illuminates a whole tree of dusky foliage by darting to and fro, half seen and half concealed amid the twilight of the clustering leaves. She had an undulating, but oftentimes a sharp and irregular movement. It indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day was doubly indefatigable in its tip-toe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother's disquietude. Whenever Pearl saw anything to excite her ever active and wandering curiosity, she flew thitherward, and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as her own property, so far as she desired it, but without yielding the minutest degree of control over her motions in requital. The Puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less inclined to pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty and eccentricity that shone through her little figure, and sparkled with its activity. She ran and looked the wild Indian in the face, and he grew conscious of a nature wilder than his own. Thence, with native audacity, but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land; and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time. One of these seafaring men the shipmaster, indeed, who had spoken to Hester Prynne was so smitten with Pearl's aspect, that he attempted to lay hands upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss. Finding it as impossible to touch her as to catch a humming-bird in the air, he took from his hat the gold chain that was twisted about it, and threw it to the child. Pearl immediately twined it around her neck and waist with such happy skill, that, once seen there, it became a part of her, and it was difficult to imagine her without it. "Thy mother is yonder woman with the scarlet letter," said the seaman, "Wilt thou carry her a message from me?" "If the message pleases me, I will," answered Pearl. "Then tell her," rejoined he, "that I spake again with the black-a-visaged, hump shouldered old doctor, and he engages to bring his friend, the gentleman she wots of, aboard with him. So let thy mother take no thought, save for herself and thee. Wilt thou tell her this, thou witch-baby?" "Mistress Hibbins says my father is the Prince of the Air!" cried Pearl, with a naughty smile. "If thou callest me that ill-name, I shall tell him of thee, and he will chase thy ship with a tempest!" Pursuing a zigzag course across the marketplace, the child returned to her mother, and communicated what the mariner had said. Hester's strong, calm steadfastly-enduring spirit almost sank, at last, on beholding this dark and grim countenance of an inevitable doom, which at the moment when a passage seemed to open for the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of misery--showed itself with an unrelenting smile, right in the midst of their path. With her mind harassed by the terrible perplexity in which the shipmaster's intelligence involved her, she was also subjected to another trial. There were many people present from the country round about, who had often heard of the scarlet letter, and to whom it had been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated rumours, but who had never beheld it with their own bodily eyes. These, after exhausting other modes of amusement, now thronged about Hester Prynne with rude and boorish intrusiveness. Unscrupulous as it was, however, it could not bring them nearer than a circuit of several yards. At that distance they accordingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of the repugnance which the mystic symbol inspired. The whole gang of sailors, likewise, observing the press of spectators, and learning the purport of the scarlet letter, came and thrust their sunburnt and desperado-looking faces into the ring. Even the Indians were affected by a sort of cold shadow of the white man's curiosity and, gliding through the crowd, fastened their snake-like black eyes on Hester's bosom, conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer of this brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity among her people. Lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this worn-out subject languidly reviving itself, by sympathy with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same quarter, and tormented Hester Prynne, perhaps more than all the rest, with their cool, well-acquainted gaze at her familiar shame. Hester saw and recognized the selfsame faces of that group of matrons, who had awaited her forthcoming from the prison-door seven years ago; all save one, the youngest and only compassionate among them, whose burial-robe she had since made. At the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burning letter, it had strangely become the centre of more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear her breast more painfully, than at any time since the first day she put it on. While Hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her for ever, the admirable preacher was looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control. The sainted minister in the church! The woman of the scarlet letter in the marketplace! What imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both! XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER The eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listening audience had been borne aloft as on the swelling waves of the sea, at length came to a pause. There was a momentary silence, profound as what should follow the utterance of oracles. Then ensued a murmur and half-hushed tumult, as if the auditors, released from the high spell that had transported them into the region of another's mind, were returning into themselves, with all their awe and wonder still heavy on them. In a moment more the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church. Now that there was an end, they needed more breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed, than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame, and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought. In the open air their rapture broke into speech. The street and the market-place absolutely babbled, from side to side, with applauses of the minister. His hearers could not rest until they had told one another of what each knew better than he could tell or hear. According to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day; nor had inspiration ever breathed through mortal lips more evidently than it did through his. Its influence could be seen, as it were, descending upon him, and possessing him, and continually lifting him out of the written discourse that lay before him, and filling him with ideas that must have been as marvellous to himself as to his audience. His subject, it appeared, had been the relation between the Deity and the communities of mankind, with a special reference to the New England which they were here planting in the wilderness. And, as he drew towards the close, a spirit as of prophecy had come upon him, constraining him to its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of Israel were constrained, only with this difference, that, whereas the Jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it was his mission to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the Lord. But, throughout it all, and through the whole discourse, there had been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could not be interpreted otherwise than as the natural regret of one soon to pass away. Yes; their minister whom they so loved--and who so loved them all, that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh--had the foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon leave them in their tears. This idea of his transitory stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the effect which the preacher had produced; it was as if an angel, in his passage to the skies, had shaken his bright wings over the people for an instant--at once a shadow and a splendour--and had shed down a shower of golden truths upon them. Thus, there had come to the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale--as to most men, in their various spheres, though seldom recognised until they see it far behind them--an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph than any previous one, or than any which could hereafter be. He stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminence of superiority, to which the gifts or intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a reputation of whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergyman in New England's earliest days, when the professional character was of itself a lofty pedestal. Such was the position which the minister occupied, as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit at the close of his Election Sermon. Meanwhile Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast! Now was heard again the clamour of the music, and the measured tramp of the military escort issuing from the church door. The procession was to be marshalled thence to the town hall, where a solemn banquet would complete the ceremonies of the day. Once more, therefore, the train of venerable and majestic fathers were seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, as the Governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them. When they were fairly in the marketplace, their presence was greeted by a shout. This--though doubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the child-like loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers--was felt to be an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors by that high strain of eloquence which was yet reverberating in their ears. Each felt the impulse in himself, and in the same breath, caught it from his neighbour. Within the church, it had hardly been kept down; beneath the sky it pealed upward to the zenith. There were human beings enough, and enough of highly wrought and symphonious feeling to produce that more impressive sound than the organ tones of the blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the sea; even that mighty swell of many voices, blended into one great voice by the universal impulse which makes likewise one vast heart out of the many. Never, from the soil of New England had gone up such a shout! Never, on New England soil had stood the man so honoured by his mortal brethren as the preacher! How fared it with him, then? Were there not the brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head? So etherealised by spirit as he was, and so apotheosised by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the procession, really tread upon the dust of earth? As the ranks of military men and civil fathers moved onward, all eyes were turned towards the point where the minister was seen to approach among them. The shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd after another obtained a glimpse of him. How feeble and pale he looked, amid all his triumph! The energy--or say, rather, the inspiration which had held him up, until he should have delivered the sacred message that had brought its own strength along with it from heaven--was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its office. The glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late decaying embers. It seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a death-like hue: it was hardly a man with life in him, that tottered on his path so nervously, yet tottered, and did not fall! One of his clerical brethren--it was the venerable John Wilson--observing the state in which Mr. Dimmesdale was left by the retiring wave of intellect and sensibility, stepped forward hastily to offer his support. The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man's arm. He still walked onward, if that movement could be so described, which rather resembled the wavering effort of an infant, with its mother's arms in view, outstretched to tempt him forward. And now, almost imperceptible as were the latter steps of his progress, he had come opposite the well-remembered and weather-darkened scaffold, where, long since, with all that dreary lapse of time between, Hester Prynne had encountered the world's ignominious stare. There stood Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand! And there was the scarlet letter on her breast! The minister here made a pause; although the music still played the stately and rejoicing march to which the procession moved. It summoned him onward--inward to the festival!--but here he made a pause. Bellingham, for the last few moments, had kept an anxious eye upon him. He now left his own place in the procession, and advanced to give assistance judging, from Mr. Dimmesdale's aspect that he must otherwise inevitably fall. But there was something in the latter's expression that warned back the magistrate, although a man not readily obeying the vague intimations that pass from one spirit to another. The crowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder. This earthly faintness, was, in their view, only another phase of the minister's celestial strength; nor would it have seemed a miracle too high to be wrought for one so holy, had he ascended before their eyes, waxing dimmer and brighter, and fading at last into the light of heaven! He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms. "Hester," said he, "come hither! Come, my little Pearl!" It was a ghastly look with which he regarded them; but there was something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. The child, with the bird-like motion, which was one of her characteristics, flew to him, and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne--slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest will--likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this instant old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd--or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look, he rose up out of some nether region--to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do! Be that as it might, the old man rushed forward, and caught the minister by the arm. "Madman, hold! what is your purpose?" whispered he. "Wave back that woman! Cast off this child! All shall be well! Do not blacken your fame, and perish in dishonour! I can yet save you! Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?" "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!" answered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. "Thy power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee now!" He again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter. "Hester Prynne," cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what--for my own heavy sin and miserable agony--I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!--with all his own might, and the fiend's! Come, Hester--come! Support me up yonder scaffold." The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw--unable to receive the explanation which most readily presented itself, or to imagine any other--that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgement which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore to be present at its closing scene. "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret--no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me--save on this very scaffold!" "Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!" answered the minister. Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester, with an expression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was a feeble smile upon his lips. "Is not this better," murmured he, "than what we dreamed of in the forest?" "I know not! I know not!" she hurriedly replied. "Better? Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us!" "For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order," said the minister; "and God is merciful! Let me now do the will which He hath made plain before my sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste to take my shame upon me!" Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and holding one hand of little Pearl's, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the dignified and venerable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the people, whose great heart was thoroughly appalled yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep life-matter--which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise--was now to be laid open to them. The sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of Eternal Justice. "People of New England!" cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic--yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe--"ye, that have loved me!--ye, that have deemed me holy!--behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last--at last!--I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood, here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been--wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose--it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!" It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness--and, still more, the faintness of heart--that was striving for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the children. "It was on him!" he continued, with a kind of fierceness; so determined was he to speak out the whole. "God's eye beheld it! The angels were for ever pointing at it! (The Devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger!) But he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!--and sad, because he missed his heavenly kindred! Now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you! He bids you look again at Hester's scarlet letter! He tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart! Stand any here that question God's judgment on a sinner! Behold! Behold, a dreadful witness of it!" With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to describe that revelation. For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentrated on the ghastly miracle; while the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then, down he sank upon the scaffold! Hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have departed. "Thou hast escaped me!" he repeated more than once. "Thou hast escaped me!" "May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" He withdrew his dying eyes from the old man, and fixed them on the woman and the child. "My little Pearl," said he, feebly and there was a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay, now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with the child--"dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt?" Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled. "Hester," said the clergyman, "farewell!" "Shall we not meet again?" whispered she, bending her face down close to his. "Shall we not spend our immortal life together? Surely, surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe! Thou lookest far into eternity, with those bright dying eyes! Then tell me what thou seest!" "Hush, Hester--hush!" said he, with tremulous solemnity. "The law we broke!--the sin here awfully revealed!--let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our God--when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul--it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost for ever! Praised be His name! His will be done! Farewell!" That final word came forth with the minister's expiring breath. The multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit. XXIV. CONCLUSION After many days, when time sufficed for the people to arrange their thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there was more than one account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold. Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a SCARLET LETTER--the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne--imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin there were various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance--which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out--by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. Others, again and those best able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of his spirit upon the body--whispered their belief, that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. The reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness. It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on a new-born infant's. Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any--the slightest--connexion on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so long worn the scarlet letter. According to these highly-respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying--conscious, also, that the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels--had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own righteousness. After exhausting life in his efforts for mankind's spiritual good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of Infinite Purity, we are sinners all alike. It was to teach them, that the holiest amongst us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the Mercy which looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would look aspiringly upward. Without disputing a truth so momentous, we must be allowed to consider this version of Mr. Dimmesdale's story as only an instance of that stubborn fidelity with which a man's friends--and especially a clergyman's--will sometimes uphold his character, when proofs, clear as the mid-day sunshine on the scarlet letter, establish him a false and sin-stained creature of the dust. The authority which we have chiefly followed--a manuscript of old date, drawn up from the verbal testimony of individuals, some of whom had known Hester Prynne, while others had heard the tale from contemporary witnesses fully confirms the view taken in the foregoing pages. Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience, we put only this into a sentence:--"Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!" Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in the appearance and demeanour of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy--all his vital and intellectual force--seemed at once to desert him, insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun. This unhappy man had made the very principle of his life to consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise of revenge; and when, by its completest triumph consummation that evil principle was left with no further material to support it--when, in short, there was no more Devil's work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanised mortal to betake himself whither his master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his wages duly. But, to all these shadowy beings, so long our near acquaintances--as well Roger Chillingworth as his companions we would fain be merciful. It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister--mutual victims as they have been--may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love. Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to communicate to the reader. At old Roger Chillingworth's decease, (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr. Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in England to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne. So Pearl--the elf child--the demon offspring, as some people up to that epoch persisted in considering her--became the richest heiress of her day in the New World. Not improbably this circumstance wrought a very material change in the public estimation; and had the mother and child remained here, little Pearl at a marriageable period of life might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among them all. But, in no long time after the physician's death, the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl along with her. For many years, though a vague report would now and then find its way across the sea--like a shapeless piece of driftwood tossed ashore with the initials of a name upon it--yet no tidings of them unquestionably authentic were received. The story of the scarlet letter grew into a legend. Its spell, however, was still potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the sea-shore where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near this latter spot, one afternoon some children were at play, when they beheld a tall woman in a gray robe approach the cottage-door. In all those years it had never once been opened; but either she unlocked it or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow-like through these impediments--and, at all events, went in. On the threshold she paused--turned partly round--for perchance the idea of entering alone and all so changed, the home of so intense a former life, was more dreary and desolate than even she could bear. But her hesitation was only for an instant, though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast. And Hester Prynne had returned, and taken up her long-forsaken shame! But where was little Pearl? If still alive she must now have been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood. None knew--nor ever learned with the fulness of perfect certainty--whether the elf-child had gone thus untimely to a maiden grave; or whether her wild, rich nature had been softened and subdued and made capable of a woman's gentle happiness. But through the remainder of Hester's life there were indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of another land. Letters came, with armorial seals upon them, though of bearings unknown to English heraldry. In the cottage there were articles of comfort and luxury such as Hester never cared to use, but which only wealth could have purchased and affection have imagined for her. There were trifles too, little ornaments, beautiful tokens of a continual remembrance, that must have been wrought by delicate fingers at the impulse of a fond heart. And once Hester was seen embroidering a baby-garment with such a lavish richness of golden fancy as would have raised a public tumult had any infant thus apparelled, been shown to our sober-hued community. In fine, the gossips of that day believed--and Mr. Surveyor Pue, who made investigations a century later, believed--and one of his recent successors in office, moreover, faithfully believes--that Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside. But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne, here, in New England, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed--of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it--resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit her bosom. But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester's life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too. And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially--in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion--or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognised the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow. The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful, and wise; moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end. So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb-stone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate--as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport--there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:-- "ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES" 
23786	----	A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BOSTON By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY. SALLIE BUFFUM: To you, who have been a little girl in later Boston, I inscribe this story of another little girl who lived almost a hundred years ago, and found life busy and pleasant and full of affection, as I hope it will prove to you. AMANDA M. DOUGLAS. NEWARK, N. J., 1898. CONTENTS. I. DORIS II. IN A NEW HOME III. AUNT PRISCILLA IV. OUT TO TEA V. A MORNING AT SCHOOL VI. A BIRTHDAY PARTY VII. ABOUT A GOWN VIII. SINFUL OR NOT? IX. WHAT WINTER BROUGHT X. CONCERNING MANY THINGS XI. A LITTLE CHRISTMAS XII. A CHILDREN'S PARTY XIII. VARIOUS OPINIONS OF LITTLE GIRLS XIV. IN THE SPRING XV. A FREEDOM SUIT XVI. A SUMMER IN BOSTON XVII. ANOTHER GIRL XVIII. WINTER AND SORROW XIX. THE HIGH RESOLVE OF YOUTH XX. A VISITOR FOR DORIS XXI. ELIZABETH AND--PEACE XXII. CARY ADAMS XXIII. THE COST OF WOMANHOOD XXIV. THE BLOOM OF LIFE--LOVE A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BOSTON CHAPTER I DORIS "I do suppose she is a Papist! The French generally are," said Aunt Priscilla, drawing her brows in a delicate sort of frown, and sipping her tea with a spoon that had the London crown mark, and had been buried early in revolutionary times. "Why, there were all the Huguenots who emigrated from France for the sake of worshiping God in their own way rather than that of the Pope. We Puritans did not take all the free-will," declared Betty spiritedly. "You are too flippant, Betty," returned Aunt Priscilla severely. "And I doubt if her father's people had much experimental religion. Then, she has been living in a very hot-bed of superstition!" "The cold, dreary Lincolnshire coast! I think it would take a good deal of zeal to warm me, even if it was superstition." "And she was in a convent after her mother died! Yes, she is pretty sure to be a Papist. It seems rather queer that second-cousin Charles should have remembered her in his will." "But Charles was his namesake and nephew, the child of his favorite sister," interposed Mrs. Leverett, glancing deprecatingly at Betty, pleading with the most beseeching eyes that she should not ruffle Aunt Priscilla up the wrong way. "But what is that old ma'shland good for, anyway?" asked Aunt Priscilla. "Why they are filling in and building docks," said Betty the irrepressible. "Father thinks by the time she is grown it will be a handsome fortune." Aunt Priscilla gave a queer sound that was not a sniff, but had a downward tendency, as if it was formed of inharmonious consonants. It expressed both doubt and disapproval. "But think of the expense and the taxes! You can't put a bit of improvement on anything but the taxes eat it up. I want my hall door painted, and the cornishes,"--Aunt Priscilla always would pronounce it that way,--"but I mean to wait until the assessor has been round. It's the best time to paint in cool weather, too. I can't afford to pay a man for painting and then pay the city for the privilege." No one controverted Mrs. Perkins. She broke off her bread in bits and sipped her tea. "Why didn't they give her some kind of a Christian name?" she began suddenly. "Don't you suppose it is French for the plain, old-fashioned, sensible name of Dorothy?" Betty laughed. "Oh, Aunt Priscilla, it's pure Greek. Doris and Phyllis and Chloe----" "Phyllis and Chloe are regular nigger names," with the utmost disdain. "But Greek, all the same. Ask Uncle Winthrop." "Well, I shall call her Dorothy. I'm neither Greek nor Latin nor a college professor. There's no law against my being sensible, fursisee"--which really meant "far as I see." "And the idea of appointing Winthrop Adams her guardian! I did think second-cousin Charles had more sense. Winthrop thinks of nothing but books and going back to the Creation of the World, just as if the Lord couldn't have made things straight in the beginning without his help. I dare say he will find out what language they talked before the dispersion of Babel. People are growing so wise nowadays, turning the Bible inside out!" and she gave her characteristic sniff. "I'll have another cup of tea, Elizabeth. Now that we're through with the war, and settled solid-like with a President at the helm, we can look forward to something permanent, and comfort ourselves that it was worth trying for. Still, I've often thought of that awful waste of tea in Boston harbor. Seems as though they might have done something else with it. Tea will keep a good long while. And all that wretched stuff we used to drink and call it Liberty tea!" "I don't know as we regret many of the sacrifices, though it came harder on the older people. We have a good deal to be proud of," said Mrs. Leverett. "And a grandfather who was at Bunker Hill," appended Betty. Aunt Priscilla never quite knew where she belonged. She had come over with the Puritans, at least her ancestors had, but then there had been a title in the English branch; and though she scoffed a little, she had great respect for royalty, and secretly regretted they had not called the head of the government by a more dignified appellation than President. Her mother had been a Church of England member, but rather austere Mr. Adams believed that wives were to submit themselves to their husbands in matters of belief as well as aught else. Then Priscilla Adams, at the age of nineteen, had wedded the man of her father's choice, Hatfield Perkins, who was a stanch upholder of the Puritan faith. Priscilla would have enjoyed a little foolish love-making, and she had a carnal hankering for fine gowns; and, oh, how she did long to dance in her youth, when she was slim and light-footed! In spite of all, she had been a true Puritan outwardly, and had a little misgiving that the prayers of the Church were vain repetitions, the organ wickedly frivolous, and the ringing of bells suggestive of popery. There had been no children, and a bad fall had lamed her husband so that volunteering for a soldier was out of the question, but he had assisted with his means; and some twelve years before this left his widow in comfortable circumstances for the times. She kept to her plain dress, although it was rich; and her housemaid was an elderly black woman who had been a slave in her childhood. She devoted a good deal of thought as to who should inherit her property when she was done with it. For those she held in the highest esteem were elderly like herself, and the young people were flighty and extravagant and despised the good old ways of prudence and thrift. They were having early tea at Mrs. Leverett's. Aunt Priscilla's mother had been half-sister to Mrs. Leverett's mother. In the old days of large families nearly everyone came to be related. It was always very cozy in Sudbury Street, and Foster Leverett was in the ship chandlery trade. Aunt Priscilla _did_ love a good cup of tea. Whether the quality was finer, or there was some peculiar art in brewing it, she could never quite decide; or whether the social cream of gentle Elizabeth Leverett, and the spice of Betty, added to the taste and heightened the flavor beyond her solitary cup. Early October had already brought chilling airs when evening set in. A century or so ago autumn had the sharpness of coming winter in the early morning and after sundown. There was a cheerful wood fire on the hearth, and its blaze lighted the room sufficiently, as the red light of the sunset poured through a large double window. The house had a wide hall through the center that was really the keeping-room. The chimney stood about halfway down, a great stone affair built out in the room, tiled about with Scriptural scenes, with two tiers of shelves above, whereon were ranged the family heirlooms--so high, indeed, that a stool had to be used to stand on when they were dusted. Just below this began a winding staircase with carved spindles and a mahogany rail and newel, considered quite an extravagance in that day. This lower end was the living part. In one of the corners was built the buffet, while a door opposite led into the wide kitchen. Across the back was a porch where shutters were hung in the winter to keep out the cold. The great dining table was pushed up against the wall. The round tea table was set out and the three ladies were having their tea, quite a common custom when there was a visitor, as the men folk were late coming in and a little uncertain. On one side the hall opened in two large, well-appointed rooms. On the other were the kitchen and "mother's room," where, when the children were little, there had been a cradle and a trundle bed. But one son and two daughters were married; one son was in his father's warehouse, and was now about twenty; the next baby boy had died; and Betty, the youngest, was sixteen, pretty, and a little spoiled, of course. Yet Aunt Priscilla had a curious fondness for her, which she insisted to herself was very reprehensible, since Betty was such a feather-brained girl. "It is to be hoped the ship did get in to-day," Aunt Priscilla began presently. "If there's anything I hate, it's being on tenterhooks." "She was spoken this morning. There's always more or less delay with pilots and tides and what not," replied Mrs. Leverett. "The idea of sending a child like that alone! The weather has been fine, but we don't know how it was on the ocean." "Captain Grier is a friend of Uncle Win's, you know," appended Betty. "Betty, do try and call your relatives by their proper names. An elderly man, too! It does sound so disrespectful! Young folks of to-day seem to have no regard for what is due other people. Oh----" There was a kind of stamping and shuffling on the porch, and the door was flung open, letting in a gust of autumnal air full of spicy odors from the trees and vines outside. Betty sprang up, while her mother followed more slowly. There were her father and her brother Warren, and the latter had by the hand the little girl who had crossed the ocean to come to the famous city of the New World, Boston. Almost two hundred years before an ancestor had crossed from old Boston, in the ship _Arabella_, and settled here, taking his share of pilgrim hardships. Doris' father, when a boy, had been sent back to England to be adopted as the heir of a long line. But the old relative married and had two sons of his own, though he did well by the boy, who went to France and married a pretty French girl. After seven years of unbroken happiness the sweet young wife had died. Then little Doris, six years of age, had spent two years in a convent. From there her father had taken her to Lincolnshire and placed her with two elderly relatives, while he was planning and arranging his affairs to come back to America with his little daughter. But one night, being out with a sailing party, a sudden storm had caught them and swept them out of life in an instant. Second-cousin Charles Adams had been in correspondence with him, and advised him to return. Being in feeble health, he had included him and his heirs in his will, appointing his nephew Winthrop Adams executor, and died before the news of the death of his distant relative had reached him. The Lincolnshire ladies were too old to have the care and rearing of a child, so Mr. Winthrop Adams had sent by Captain Grier to bring over the little girl. Her father's estate, not very large, was in money and easily managed. And now little Doris was nearing ten. "Oh!" cried Betty, hugging the slim figure in the red camlet cloak, and peering into the queer big hat tied down over her ears with broad ribbons that, what with the big bow and the wide rim, almost hid her face; but she saw two soft lovely eyes and cherry-red lips that she kissed at once, though kissing had not come in fashion to any great extent, and was still considered by many people rather dubious if not positively sinful. "Oh, little Doris, welcome to Boston and the United Colonies and the whole of America! Let me see how you look," and she untied the wide strings. The head that emerged was covered with fair curling hair; the complexion was clear, but a little wind-burned from her long trip; the eyes were very dark, but of the deepest, softest blue, that suggested twilight. There was a dimple in the dainty chin, and the mouth had a half-frightened, half-wistful smile. "Captain Grier will send up her boxes to-morrow. They got aground and were delayed. I began to think they would have to stay out all night. The captain will bring up a lot of papers for Winthrop, and everything," explained Mr. Leverett. "Are you cold, little one?" Doris gave a great shiver as her cloak was taken off, but it was more nervousness than cold, and the glances of the strange faces. Then she walked straight to the fireplace. "Oh, what a beautiful fire!" she exclaimed. "No, I am not cold"--and the wistful expression wandered from one to the other. "This is my daughter Betty, and this is--why, you may as well begin by saying Aunt Elizabeth at once. How are you, Aunt Priscilla? This is our little French-English girl, but I hope she will turn into a stanch Boston girl. Now, mother, let's have a good supper. I'm hungry as a wolf." Doris caught Betty's hand again and pressed it to her cheek. The smiling face won her at once. "Did you have a pleasant voyage?" asked Mrs. Leverett, as she was piling up the cups and saucers, and paused to smile at the little stranger. "There were some storms, and I was afraid then. It made me think of papa. But there was a good deal of sunshine. And I was quite ill at first, but the captain was very nice, and Mrs. Jewett had two little girls, so after a while we played together. And then I think we forgot all about being at sea--it was so like a house, except there were no gardens or fields and trees." Mrs. Leverett went out to the kitchen, and soon there was the savory smell of frying sausage. Betty placed Doris in a chair by the chimney corner and began to rearrange the table. Warren went out to the kitchen and, as by the farthest window there was a sort of high bench with a tin basin, a pail of water, and a long roller towel, he began to wash his face and hands, telling his mother meanwhile the occurrences of the last two or three hours. Aunt Priscilla drew up her chair and surveyed the little traveler with some curiosity. She was rather shocked that the child was not dressed in mourning, and now she discovered, that her little gown was of brocaded silk and much furbelowed, at which she frowned severely. True, her father had been dead more than a year; but her being an orphan made it seem as if she should still be in the depths of woe. And she had earrings and a brooch in the lace tucker. She gave her sniff--it was very wintry and contemptuous. "I suppose that's the latest French fashion," she said sharply. "If I lived in England I should just despise French clothes." "Oh," said Doris, "do you mean my gown? Miss Arabella made it for me. When she was a young lady she went up to London to see the king crowned, and they had a grand ball, and this was one of the gowns she had--not the ball dress, for that was white satin with roses sprinkled over it. She's very old now, and she gave that to her cousin for a wedding dress. And she made this over for me. I got some tar on my blue stuff gown yesterday, and the others were so thin Mrs. Jewett thought I had better put on this, but it is my very best gown." The artless sincerity and the soft sweet voice quite nonplused Aunt Priscilla. Then Warren returned and dropped on a three-cornered stool standing there, and almost tilted over. "Now, if I had gone into the fire, like any other green log, how I should have sizzled!" he said laughingly. "Oh, I am so glad you didn't!" exclaimed Doris in affright. Then she smiled softly. "Does it seem queer to be on land again?" "Yes. I want to rock to and fro." She made a pretty movement with her slender body, and nodded her head. "Are you very tired?" "Oh, no." "You were out five weeks." "Is that a long while? I was homesick at first. I wanted to see Miss Arabella and Barby. Miss Henrietta is--is--not right in her mind, if you can understand. And she is very old. She just sits in her chair all day and mumbles. She was named for a queen--Henrietta Maria." Aunt Priscilla gave a disapproving sniff. "Supper's ready," said Mr. Leverett. "Come." Warren took the small stranger by the hand, and she made a little courtesy, quite as if she were a grown lady. "What an airy little piece of vanity!" thought Aunt Priscilla. "And whatever will Winthrop Adams do with her, and no woman about the house to train her!" Betty came and poured tea for her father and Warren. Mr. Leverett piled up her plate, but, although the viands had an appetizing fragrance, Doris was not hungry. Everything was so new and strange, and she could not get the motion of the ship out of her head. But the pumpkin pie was delicious. She had never tasted anything like it. "You'll soon be a genuine Yankee girl," declared Warren. "Pumpkin pie is the test." Mr. Leverett and his son did full justice to the supper. Then he had to go out to a meeting. There were some clouds drifting over the skies of the new country, and many discussions as to future policy. "So, Aunt Priscilla, I'll beau you home," said he; "unless you have a mind to stay all night, or want a young fellow like Warren." "You're plenty old enough to be sensible, Foster Leverett," she returned sharply. She would have enjoyed a longer stay and was curious about the newcomer, but when Betty brought her hat and shawl she said a stiff good-night to everybody and went out with her escort. Betty cleared away the tea things, wiped the dishes for her mother and then took a place beside Warren, who was very much interested in hearing the little girl talk. There was a good deal of going back and forth to England although the journey seemed so long, but it was startling to have a child sitting by the fireside, here in his father's house, who had lived in both France and England. She had an odd little accent, too, but it gave her an added daintiness. She remembered her convent life very well, and her stay in Paris with her father. It seemed strange to him that she could talk so tranquilly about her parents, but there had been so many changes in her short life, and her father had been away from her so much! "It always seemed to me as if he must come back again," she said with a serious little sigh, "as if he was over in France or down in London. It is so strange to have anyone go away forever that I think you can't take it in somehow. And Miss Arabella was always so good. She said if she had been younger she should never have agreed to my coming. And all papa's relatives were here, and someone who wrote to her and settled about the journey." She glanced up inquiringly. "Yes. That's Uncle Winthrop Adams. He isn't an own uncle, but it seems somehow more respectful to call him uncle. Mr. Adams would sound queer. And he will be your guardian." "A--guardian?" "Well, he has the care of the property left to your father. There is a house that is rented, and a great plot of ground. Cousin Charles owned so much land, and he never was married, so it had to go round to the cousins. He was very fond of your father as a little boy. And Uncle Winthrop seems the proper person to take charge of you." Doris sighed. She seemed always being handed from one to another. She was sitting on the stool now, and when Betty slipped into the vacant chair she put her arm over the child's shoulder in a caressing manner. "Do you mean--that I would have to go and live with him?" she asked slowly. Warren laughed. "I declare I don't know what Uncle Win would do with a little girl! Miss Recompense Gardiner keeps the house, and she's as prim as the crimped edge of an apple pie. And there is only Cary." "Cary is at Harvard--at college," explained Betty. "And, then, he is going to Europe for a tour. Uncle Win teaches some classes, and is a great Greek and Latin scholar, and translates from the poets, and reads and studies--is a regular bookworm. His wife has been dead ever since Cary was a baby." "I wish I could stay here," said Doris, and, reaching up, she clasped her arms around Betty's neck. "I like your father, and your mother has such a sweet voice, and you--and him," nodding her head over to Warren. "And since that--the other lady--doesn't live here----" "Aunt Priscilla," laughed Betty. "I think she improves on acquaintance. Her bark is worse than her bite. When I was a little girl I thought her just awful, and never wanted to go there. Now I quite like it. I spend whole days with her. But I shouldn't spend a night in praying that Providence would send her to live with us. I'd fifty times rather have you, you dear little midget. And, when everything is settled, I am of the opinion you will live with us, for a while at least." "I shall be so glad," in a joyous, relieved tone. "Then if Uncle Win should ask you, don't be afraid of anybody, but just say you want to stay here. That will settle it unless he thinks you ought to go to school. But there are nice enough schools in Boston. And I am glad you want to stay. I've wished a great many times that I had a little sister. I have two, married. One lives over at Salem and one ever so far away at Hartford. And I am Aunt Betty. I have five nephews and four nieces. And you never can have any, you solitary little girl!" "I think I don't mind if I can have you." "This is love at first sight. I've never been in love before, though I have some girl friends. And being in love means living with someone and wanting them all the time, and a lot of sweet, foolish stuff. What a silly girl I am! Well--you are to be my little sister." Oh, how sweet it was to find home and affection and welcome! Doris had not thought much about it, but now she was suddenly, unreasonably glad. She laid her head down on Betty's knee and looked at the dancing flames, the purples and misty grays, the scarlets and blues and greens, all mingling, then sending long arrowy darts that ran back and hid behind the logs before you could think. Mrs. Leverett kneaded her bread and stirred up her griddle cakes for morning. It was early in the season to start with them, but with the first cold whiff Mr. Leverett began to beg for them. Then she fixed her fire, turned down her sleeves, took off the big apron that covered all her skirt, and rejoined the three by the fireside. "That child has gone fast asleep," she exclaimed, looking at her. "Poor thing, I dare say she is all tired out! And, man-like, your father never thought of her nightgown or anything to put on in the morning, and that silk is nothing for a child to wear. I saw that it shocked Aunt Priscilla." "And she told the story of it so prettily. It is a lovely thing--and to think it has been to London to see the king!" "You must take her in your bed, Betty." "Oh, of course. Mother, don't you suppose Uncle Win will consent to her staying here? I want her." "It would be a good thing for you to have someone to look after, Betty. It would help steady you and give you some sense of responsibility. The youngest child always gets spoiled. Your father was speaking of it. I can't imagine a child in Uncle Winthrop's household." Betty laughed. "Nor in Aunt Priscilla's," she appended. "Poor little thing! How pretty she is. And what a long journey to take--and to come among strangers! Yes, she must go to bed at once." "I'll carry her upstairs," said Warren. "Nonsense!" protested his mother. But he did for all that, and when he laid her on Betty's cold bed she roused and smiled, and suffered herself to be made ready for slumber. Then she slipped down on her knees, and said "Our Father in Heaven" in soft, sleepy French. Her mother had taught her that. And in English she repeated: "Now I lay me down to sleep," in remembrance of her father, and kissed Betty. But she had hardly touched the pillow when she was asleep again in her new home, Boston. CHAPTER II IN A NEW HOME The sun was shining when Doris opened her eyes, and she rubbed them to make sure she was not dreaming. There was no motion, and her bed was so soft and wide. She sat up straight, half-startled, and she seemed in a well of fluffy feathers. There were two white curtained windows and a straight splint chair at each one, with a queer little knob on the top of the post that suggested a sprite from some of the old legends she had been used to hearing. What enchantment had transported her thither? Oh, yes--she had been brought to Cousin Leverett's, she remembered now; and, oh, how sleepy she had been last night as she sat by the warm, crackling fire! "Well, little Doris!" exclaimed a fresh, wholesome voice, with a laughing sound back of it. "Oh, you are Betty! It is like a dream. I could not think where I was at first. And this bed is so high. It's like Miss Arabella's with the curtains around it. And at home I had a little pallet--just a low, straight bed almost like a bench, with no curtains. You slept here with me?" "Yes. It is my bed and my room. And it was delightful to have you last night. I think you never stirred. My niece Elizabeth was here in the summer from Salem, and after two nights I turned her out--she kicked unmercifully, and I couldn't endure it. Now, do you want to get up?" "Oh, yes. Must I jump out or just slip." "Here is a stool." But Doris had slipped and come down on a rug of woven rags almost as soft as Persian pile. Her nightdress fell about her in a train; it was Betty's, and she looked like a slim white wraith. "Now I will help you dress. Here is a gown of mine that I outgrew when I was a little girl, and it was so nice mother said it should be saved for Elizabeth. We call her that because my other sister Electa has a daughter she calls Bessy. They are both named after mother. And so am I, but I have always been called Betty. So many of one name are confusing. But yours is so pretty and odd. I never knew a girl called Doris." "I am glad you like it," said Doris simply. "It was papa's choice. My mother's name was Jacqueline." "That is very French." "And that is my name, too. But Doris is easier to say." Betty had been helping her dress. The blue woolen gown was not any too long, but, oh, it was worlds too wide! They both laughed. "_I_ wasn't such a slim little thing. See here, I will pin a plait over in front, and that will help it. Now that does nicely. And you must be choice of that beautiful brocade. What a pity that you will outgrow it! It would make such a splendid gown when you go to parties. I've never had a silk gown," and Betty sighed. They went downstairs. It would seem queer enough now to attend to one's toilet in the corner of the kitchen, but it was quite customary then. In Mrs. Leverett's room there were a washing stand with a white cloth, and a china bowl and ewer in dark blue flowers on a white ground, picked out with gilt edges. The bowl had scallops around the edge, and the ewer was tall and slim. There were a soap dish and a small pitcher, and they looked beautiful on the thick white cloth, that was fringed all around. It had been brought over from England by Mrs. Leverett's grandmother, and was esteemed very highly, and had been promised to Betty for her name. But Mrs. Leverett would have considered it sacrilege to use it. It is true, many houses now began to have wash rooms, which were very nice in summer, but of small account in winter, when the water froze so easily, unless you could have a fire. When people sigh for the good old times they forget the hardships and the inconveniences. Doris brushed out her hair and curled it in a twinkling; then she had some breakfast. Mrs. Leverett was baking bread and making pies and a large cake full of raisins that Betty had seeded, which went by the name of election cake. The kitchen was a great cheery place with some sunny windows and a big oven built at one side, a capacious working table, a dresser, some wooden chairs, and a yellow-painted floor. The kitchen opened into mother's room as well as the hall. Doris sat and watched both busy women. At Miss Arabella's they had an old serving maid and the kitchen was not a place of tidiness and beauty. It had a hard dirt floor, and Barby sat out of doors in the sunshine to do whatever work she could take out there, and often washed and dried her dishes when the weather was pleasant. But here the houses were close enough to smile at each other. After the great spaces these yards seemed small, but there were trees and vines, and Mrs. Leverett had quite a garden spot, where she raised all manner of sweet herbs and some vegetables. Mr. Leverett had a shop over on Ann Street, and attended steadily to his business, early and late, as men did at that time. The dining table was set out at noon, and soon after twelve o'clock the two men made their appearance. "Let me look at you," said Mr. Leverett, taking both of Doris' small hands. "I hardly saw you yesterday. You were buried in that big hat, and it was getting so dark. You have not much Adams about you, neither do you look French." "Miss Arabella always said I looked like papa. There is a picture of him in my box. He had dark-blue eyes." "Well, yours would pass for black. Do they snap when you get out of temper?" Doris colored and cast them down. "Don't tease her," interposed Mrs. Leverett. "She is not going to get angry. It is a bad thing for little girls." "I don't remember much of anything about your father. Both of your aunts are dead. You have one cousin somewhere--Margaret's husband married and went South--to Virginia, didn't he? Well, there is no end of Adams connection even if some of them have different names. Captain Grier dropped into the warehouse with a tin box of papers, and your things are to be sent this afternoon. He is coming up this evening, and I've sent for Uncle Win to come over to supper. Then I suppose the child's fate will be settled, and she'll be a regular Boston girl." "I do wonder if Uncle Win will let her stay here? Mother and I have decided that it is the best place." "Do _you_ think it a good place?" He turned so suddenly to Doris that her face was scarlet with embarrassment. "It's splendid," she said when she caught her breath. "I should like to stay. And Aunt Elizabeth will teach me to make pies." "Well, pies are pretty good things, according to my way of thinking. There's lots for little girls to learn, though I dare say Uncle Win will think it can all come out of a book." "Some of it might come out of a cookbook," said Betty demurely. "Your mother's the best cookbook I know about--good enough for anyone." "But we can't send mother all round the world." "We just don't want to," said Warren. Mrs. Leverett smiled. She was proud of her ability in the culinary line. Mr. Leverett looked at Doris presently. "Come, come," he began good-naturedly, "this will never do! You are not eating enough to keep a bird alive. No wonder you are so thin!" "But I ate a great deal of breakfast," explained Doris with naïve honesty. "And you are not homesick?" Doris thought a moment. "I don't want to go away, if that is what you mean." "Yes, that's about it," nodding humorously. Warren thought her the quaintest, prettiest child he had ever seen, but he hardly knew what to say to her. When the men had eaten and gone, the dishes were soon washed up, and then mother and daughter brought their sewing. Mrs. Leverett was mending Warren's coat. Betty darned a small pile of stockings, and then she took out some needlework. She had begun her next summer's white gown, and she meant to do it by odd spells, especially when Aunt Priscilla, who would lecture her on so much vanity, was not around. Mrs. Leverett gently questioned Doris--she was not an aggressive woman, nor unduly curious. No, Doris had not sewed much. Barby always darned the stockings, and Miss Easter had come to make whatever clothes she needed. She used to go to Father Langhorne and recite, and Mrs. Leverett wondered whether she and the father both were Roman Catholics. What did she study? Oh, French and a little Latin, and she was reading history and "Paradise Lost," but she didn't like sums, and she could make pillow lace. Miss Arabella made beautiful pillow lace, and sometimes the grand ladies came in carriages and paid her ever so much money for it. And presently dusk began to mingle with the golden touches of sunset, and Mrs. Leverett went to make biscuit and fry some chicken, and Uncle Winthrop came at the same moment that a man on a dray brought an old-fashioned chest and carried it upstairs to Betty's room. But Betty had already attired Doris in her silk gown. Doris liked Uncle Winthrop at once, although he was so different from Uncle Leverett, who wore all around his face a brownish-red beard that seemed to grow out of his neck, and had tumbled hair and a somewhat weather-beaten face. Mr. Winthrop Adams was two good inches taller and stood up very straight in spite of his being a bookworm. His complexion was fair and rather pale, his features were of the long, slender type, which his beard, worn in the Vandyke style, intensified. His hair was light and his eyes were a grayish blue, and he had a refined and gentle expression. "So this is our little traveler," he said. "Your father was somewhat older, perhaps, when we bade him good-by, but I have often thought of him. We corresponded a little off and on. And I am glad to be able to do all that I can for his child." Doris glanced up, feeling rather shy, and wondering what she ought to say, but in the next breath Betty had said it all, even to declaring laughingly that as Doris had come to them they meant to keep her. "Doris," he said softly. "Doris. You have a poetical name. And you are poetical-looking." She wondered what the comparison meant. "Paradise Lost" was so grand it tired her. Oh, there was the old volume of Percy's "Reliques." Did he mean like some of the sweet little things in that? Miss Arabella had said it wasn't quite the thing for a child to read, and had taken it away until she grew older. Uncle Winthrop took her hand again--a small, slim hand; and his was slender as well. No real physical work had hardened it. He dropped into the high-backed chair beside the fireplace, and, putting his arm about her, drew her near to his side. Uncle Leverett would have taken her on his knee if he had been moved by an impulse like that, but he was used to children and grandchildren, and the bookish man was not. "It is a great change to you," he said in his low tone, which had a fascination for her. "Was Miss Arabella--were there any young people in the old Lincolnshire house?" "Oh, no. Miss Henrietta was very, very old, but then she had lost her mind and forgotten everybody. And Miss Arabella had snowy white hair and a sweet wrinkled face." "Did you go to school?" "There wasn't any school except a dame's school for very little children. I used to go twice a week to Father Langhorne and read and write and do sums." "Then we will have to educate you. Do you think you would like to go to school?" "I don't know." She hung her head a little, and it gave her a still more winsome expression. There was an indescribable charm about her. "What did you read with this father?" "We read 'Paradise Lost' and some French. And I had begun Latin." Winthrop Adams gave a soft, surprised whistle. By the firelight he looked her over critically. Prodigies were not to his taste, and a girl prodigy would be an abhorrence. But her face had a sweet unconcern that reassured him. "And did you like it--'Paradise Lost'?" "I think I did--not," returned Doris with hesitating frankness. "I liked the verses in Percy's 'Reliques' better. I like verses that rhyme, that you can sing to yourself." "Ah! And how about the sums?" "I didn't like them at all. But Miss Arabella said the right things were often hard, and the easy things----" "Well, what is the fault of the easy things that we all like, and ought not to like?" "They were not so good for anyone--though I don't see why. They are often very pleasant." He laughed then, but some intuition told her he liked pleasant things as well. "What do you do in such a case?" "I did the sums. It was the right thing to do. And I studied Latin, though Miss Arabella said it was of no use to a girl." "And the French?" "Oh, I learned French when I was very little and had mamma, and when I was in the convent, too. But papa talked English, so I had them both. Isn't it strange that afterward you have to learn so much about them, and how to make right sentences, and why they are right. It seems as if there were a great many things in the world to learn. Betty doesn't know half of them, and she's as sweet as----Oh, I think the wisest person in the world couldn't be any sweeter." Winthrop Adams smiled at the eager reasoning. Betty was a bright, gay girl. What occult quality was sweetness? And Doris had been in a convent. That startled him the first moment. The old strict bitterness and narrowness of Puritanism had been softened and refined away. The people who had banished Quakers had for a long while tolerated Roman Catholics. He had known Father Matignon, and enjoyed the scholarly and well-trained John Cheverus, who had lately been consecrated bishop. The Protestants had even been generous to their brethren of another faith when they were building their church. As for himself he was a rather stiff Church of England man, if he could be called stiff about anything. "And--did you like the convent?" he asked, after a pause, in which he generously made up his mind he would not interfere with her religious belief. "It's so long ago"--with a half-sigh. "I was very sad at first, and missed mamma. Papa had to go away somewhere and couldn't take me. Yes, I liked sister Thérèse very much. Mamma was a Huguenot, you know." "You see, I really do not know anything about her, and have known very little about your father since he was a small boy." "A small boy! How queer that seems," and she gave a tender, rippling laugh. "Then you can tell me about him. He used to come to the convent once in a while, and when he was ready to go to England he took me. Yes, I was sorry to leave Sister Thérèse and Sister Clare. There were some little girls, too. And then we went to Lincolnshire. Miss Arabella was very nice, and Barby was so queer and funny--at first I could hardly understand her. And then we went to a pretty little church where they didn't count beads nor pray to the Virgin nor Saints. But it was a good deal like. It was the Church of England. I suppose it had to be different from the Church of France." "Yes." He drew her a little closer. That was a bond of sympathy between them. And just then Uncle Leverett and Warren came in, and there was a shaking of hands, and Uncle Leverett said: "Well, I declare! The sight of you, Win, is good for sore eyes--well ones, too." "I am rather remiss in a social way, I must confess. I'll try to do better. The years fly around so, I have always felt sorry that I saw so little of Cousin Charles until that last sad year." "It takes womenkind to keep up sociability. Charles and you might as well have been a couple of old bachelors." Uncle Win gave his soft half-smile, which was really more of an indication than a smile. "Come to supper now," said Mrs. Leverett. Doris kept hold of Uncle Win's hand until she reached her place. He went around to the other side of the table. She decided she liked him very much. She liked almost everybody: the captain had been so friendly, and Mrs. Jewett and some of the ladies on board the vessel so kind. But Betty and Uncle Win went to the very first place with her. The elders had all the conversation, and it seemed about some coming trouble to the country that she did not understand. She knew there had been war in France and various other European countries. Little girls were not very well up in geography in those days, but they did learn a good deal listening to their elders. They were hardly through supper when Captain Grier came with the very japanned box papa had brought over from France and placed in Miss Arabella's care. His name was on it--"Charles Winthrop Adams." Oh, and that was Uncle Win's name, too! Surely, they _were_ relations! Doris experienced a sense of gladness. Betty brought out a table standing against the wainscot. You touched a spring underneath, and the circular side came up and made a flat top. The captain took a small key out of a curious long leathern purse, and Uncle Win unlocked the box and spread out the papers. There was the marriage certificate of Jacqueline Marie de la Maur and Charles Winthrop Adams, and the birth and baptismal record of Doris Jacqueline de la Maur Adams, and ever so many other records and letters. Mr. Winthrop Adams gave the captain a receipt for them, and thanked him cordially for all his care and attention to his little niece. "She was a pretty fair sailor after the first week," said the captain with a twinkle in his eye. He was very much wrinkled and weather-beaten, but jolly and good-humored. "And now, sissy, I'm glad you're safe with your folks, and I hope you'll grow up into a nice clever woman. 'Taint no use wishin' you good looks, for you're purty as a pink now--one of them rather palish kind. But you'll soon have red cheeks." Doris had very red cheeks for a moment. Betty leaned over to her brother, and whispered: "What a splendid opportunity lost! Aunt Priscilla ought to be here to say, 'Handsome is as handsome does.'" Then Captain Grier shook hands all round and took his departure. Afterward the two men discussed business about the little girl. There must be another trustee, and papers must be taken out for guardianship. They would go to the court-house, say at eleven to-morrow, and put everything in train. Betty took out some knitting. It was a stocking of fine linen thread, and along the instep it had a pretty openwork pattern that was like lace work. "That is to wear with slippers," she explained to Doris. "But it's a sight of work. 'Lecty had six pairs when she was married. That's my second sister, Mrs. King. She lives in Hartford. I want to go and make her a visit this winter." Mrs. Leverett's stocking was of the more useful kind, blue-gray yarn, thick and warm, for her husband's winter wear. She did not have to count stitches and make throws, and take up two here and three there. "Warren," said his mother, when he had poked the fire until she was on 'pins and needles,'--they didn't call it nervous then,--"Warren, I am 'most out of corn. I wish you'd go shell some." "The hens do eat an awful lot, seems to me. Why, I shelled only a few nights ago." "I touched bottom when I gave them the last feed this afternoon. By spring we won't have so many," nodding in a half-humorous fashion. "Don't you want to come out and see me? You don't have any Indian corn growing in England, I've heard." "Did it belong to the Indians?" asked Doris. "I rather guess it did, in the first instance. But now we plant it for ourselves. _We_ don't, because father sold the two-acre lot, and they're bringing a street through. So now we have only the meadow." Doris looked at the uncles, but she couldn't understand a word they were saying. "Come!" Warren held out his hand. "Put the big kitchen apron round her, Warren," said Betty, thinking of her silk gown. He tied the apron round her neck and brought back the strings round her waist, so she was all covered. Then he found her a low chair, and poked the kitchen fire, putting on a pine log to make a nice blaze. He brought out from the shed a tub and a basket of ears of corn. Across the tub he laid the blade of an old saw and then sat on the end to keep it firm. "Now you'll see business. Maybe you've never seen any corn before?" She looked over in the basket, and then took up an ear with a mysterious expression. "It won't bite you," he said laughingly. "But how queer and hard, with all these little points," pinching them with her dainty fingers. "Grains," he explained. "And a husk grows on the outside to keep it warm. When the winter is going to be very cold the husk is very thick." "Will this winter be cold?" "Land alive! yes. Winters always _are_ cold." Warren settled himself and drew the ear across the blade. A shower of corn rattled down on the bottom of the tub. "Oh! is that the way you peel it off?" He threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, you Englisher! We _shell_ it off." "Well, it peels too. You peel a potato and an apple with a knife blade. Oh, what a pretty white core!" "Cob. We Americans are adding new words to the language. A core has seeds in it. There, see how soft it is." Doris took it in her hand and then laid her cheek against it. "Oh, how soft and fuzzy it is!" she cried. "And what do you do with it?" "We don't plant that part of it. That core has no seeds. You have to plant a grain like this. The little clear point we call a heart, and that sprouts and grows. This is a good use for the cob." He had finished another, which he tossed into the fire. A bright blaze seemed to run over it all at once and die down. Then the small end flamed out and the fire crept along in a doubtful manner until it was all covered again. "They're splendid to kindle the fire with. And pine cones. America has lots of useful things." "But they burn cones in France. I like the spicy smell. It's queer though," wrinkling her forehead. "Did the Indians know about corn the first?" "That is the general impression unless America was settled before the Indians. Uncle Win has his head full of these things and is writing a book. And there is tobacco that Sir Walter Raleigh carried home from Virginia." "Oh, I know about Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth." "He was a splendid hero. I think people are growing tame now; there are no wars except Indian skirmishes." "Why, Napoleon is fighting all the time." "Oh, that doesn't count," declared the young man with a lofty air. "We had some magnificent heroes in the Revolution. There are lots of places for you to see. Bunker Hill and Lexington and Concord and the headquarters of Washington and Lafayette. The French were real good to us, though we have had some scrimmages with them. And now that you are to be a Boston girl----" "But I was in Old Boston before," and she laughed. "Very old Boston, that is so far back no one can remember, and it was called Ikanhoe, which means Boston. There is the old church and the abbey that St. Botolph founded. They came over somewhere in six hundred, and were missionaries from France--St. Botolph and his brother." "Whew!" ejaculated Warren with a long whistle, looking up at the little girl as if she were hundreds of years old. Betty opened the door. "Uncle Win is going," she announced. "Come and say good-by to him." He was standing up with the box of papers in his hand, and saying: "I must have you all over to tea some night, and Doris must come and see my old house. And I have a big boy like Warren. Yes, we must be a little more friendly, for life is short at the best. And you are to stay here a while with good Cousin Elizabeth, and I hope you will be content and happy." She pressed the hand Uncle Win held out in both of hers. In all the changes she had learned to be content, and she had a certain adaptiveness that kept her from being unhappy. She was very glad she was going to stay with Betty, and glanced up with a bright smile. They all said good-night to Cousin Adams. Mr. Leverett turned the great key in the hall door, and it gave a shriek. "I must oil that lock to-morrow. It groans enough to raise the dead," said Mrs. Leverett. CHAPTER III AUNT PRISCILLA There was quite a discussion about a school. Uncle Win had an idea Doris ought to begin high up in the scale. For really she was very well born on both sides. Her father had left considerable money, and in a few years second-cousin Charles' bequest might be quite valuable, if Aunt Priscilla did sniff over it. There was Mrs. Rawson's. "But that is mostly for young ladies, a kind of finishing school. And in some things Doris is quite behind, while in others far advanced. There will be time enough for accomplishments. And Mrs. Webb's is near by, which will be an object this cold winter." "I shouldn't like her to forget her French. And perhaps it would be as well to go on with Latin," Cousin Adams said. Mrs. Leverett was a very sensible woman, but she really did not see the need of Latin for a girl. There was a kind of sentiment about French; it had been her mother's native tongue, and one did now and then go to France. There had been a good deal of objection to even the medium education of women among certain classes. The three "R's" had been considered all that was necessary. And when the system of public education had been first inaugurated it was thought quite sufficient for girls to go from April to October. Good wives and good mothers was the ideal held up to girls. But people were beginning to understand that ignorance was not always goodness. Mrs. Rawson had done a great deal toward the enlightenment of this subject. The pioneer days were past, unless one was seized with a mania for the new countries. Mrs. Leverett was secretly proud of her two married daughters. Mrs. King's husband had gone to the State legislature, and was considered quite a rising politician. Mrs. Manning was a farmer's wife and held in high esteem for the management of her family. Betty was being inducted now into all household accomplishments with the hope that she would marry quite as well as her sisters. She was a good reader and speller; she had a really fine manuscript arithmetic, in which she had written the rules and copied the sums herself. She had a book of "elegant extracts"; she also wrote down the text of the Sunday morning sermon and what she could remember of it. She knew the difference between the Puritans and the Pilgrims; she also knew how the thirteen States were settled and by whom; she could answer almost any question about the French, the Indian, and the Revolutionary wars. She could do fine needlework and the fancy stitches of the day. She was extremely "handy" with her needle. Mrs. Leverett called her a very well-educated girl, and the Leveretts considered themselves some of the best old stock in Boston, if they were not much given to show. It might be different with Doris. But a good husband was the best thing a girl could have, in Mrs. Leverett's estimation, and knowing how to make a good home her greatest accomplishment. They looked over Doris' chest and found some simple gowns, mostly summer ones, pairs of fine stockings that had been cut down and made over by Miss Arabella's dainty fingers, and underclothes of a delicate quality. There were the miniatures of her parents--that of her mother very girlish indeed--and a few trinkets and books. "She must have two good woolen frocks for winter, and a coat," said Mrs. Leverett. "Cousin Winthrop said I should buy whatever was suitable." "And a little Puritan cap trimmed about with fur. I am sure I can make that. And a strip of fur on her coat. She would blow away in that big hat if a high wind took her," declared Betty. "And all the little girls wear them in winter. Still, I suppose Old Boston must have been cold and bleak in winter." "It was not so nearly an island." There was a good deal of work to do on Friday, so shopping was put off to the first of the week. Doris proved eagerly helpful and dusted very well. In the afternoon Aunt Priscilla came over for her cup of tea. "Dear me," she began with a great sigh, "I wish I had some nice young girl that I could train, and who would take an interest in things. Polly _is_ too old. And I don't like to send her away, for she was good enough when she had any sense. There's no place for her but the poorhouse, and I can't find it in my conscience to send her there. But I'm monstrous tired of her, and I do think I'd feel better with a cheerful young person around. You're just fortunate, 'Lizabeth, that you and Betty can do for yourselves." "It answers, now that the family is small. But last year I found it quite trying. And Betty must have her two or three years' training at housekeeping." "Oh, of course. I'm glad you're so sensible, 'Lizabeth. Girls are very flighty, nowadays, and are in the street half the time, and dancing and frolicking round at night. I really don't know what the young generation will be good for!" Mrs. Leverett smiled. She remembered she had heard some such comments when she was young, though the lines were more strictly drawn then. "Has Winthrop been over to see his charge? How does he feel about it? Now, if she had been a boy----" "He was up to tea last night, and he and Foster have been arranging the business this morning. Foster is to be joint trustee, but Winthrop will be her guardian." "What will he do with a girl! Why, she'll set Recompense crazy." "She is not going to live there. For the present she will stay here. She will go to Mrs. Webb's school this winter. He has an idea of sending her to boarding school later on." "Is she that rich?" asked Aunt Priscilla with a little sarcasm. "She will have a small income from what her father left. Then there is the rent of the house in School Street, and some stock. Winthrop thinks she ought to be well educated. And if she should ever have to depend on herself, teaching seems quite a good thing. Even Mrs. Webb makes a very comfortable living." "But we're going to educate the community for nothing, and tax the people who have no children to pay for it." "Well," said Mrs. Leverett with a smile, "that evens up matters. But the others, at least property owners, have to pay their share. I tell Foster that we ought not grudge our part, though we have no children to send." "How did people get along before?" "I went to school until I was fifteen." "And when I was twelve I was doing my day's work spinning. There's talk that we shall have to come back to it. Jonas Field is in a terrible taking. According to him war's bound to come. And this embargo is just ruining everything. It is to be hoped we will have a new President before everything goes." "Yes, it is making times hard. But we are learning to do a great deal more for ourselves." "It behooves us not to waste our money. But Winthrop Adams hasn't much real calculation. So long as he has money to buy books, I suppose he thinks the world will go on all right. It's to be hoped Foster will look out for the girl's interest a little. But you'll be foolish to take the brunt of the thing. Now it would be just like you 'Lizabeth Leverett, to take care of this child, without a penny, just as if she was some charity object thrown on your hands." Mrs. Leverett did give her soft laugh then. "You have just hit it, Aunt Priscilla," she said. "Winthrop wanted to pay her board, but Foster just wouldn't hear to it, this year at least. We have all taken a great liking to her, and she is to be our visitor from now until summer, when some other plans are to be made." "Well--if you have money to throw away----" gasped Aunt Priscilla. "She won't eat more than a chicken, and she'll sleep in Betty's bed. It will help steady Betty and be an interest to all of us. I really couldn't think of charging. It's like having one of the grandchildren here. And she needs a mother's care. Think of the poor little girl with not a near relative! Aunt Priscilla, there's a good many things money can't buy." Aunt Priscilla sniffed. "Take off your bonnet and have a cup of tea," Mrs. Leverett had asked her when she first came in. "It's such a long walk back to King Street on an empty stomach. The children are making cookies, but Betty shall brew a cup of tea at once, unless you'll wait till the men folks come in." Aunt Priscilla sat severe and undecided for a moment. The laughing voices in the other room piqued and vexed and interested her all in a breath. She had come over to hear about Doris. There was so little interest in her methodical old life. Mrs. Leverett sincerely pitied women who had no children and no grandchildren. "They're quite as queer as old maids without the real excuse," she said to her husband. "They've missed the best things out of their lives without really knowing they were the best." And perhaps at this era more respect was paid to age. There were certain trials and duties to life that men and women accepted and did not try to evade. A modern happy woman would have been bored at the call of a dissatisfied old woman every few days. But since the death of Mehitable Doule, Priscilla's own cousin, who had been married from her house, she had clung more to the Leveretts. Foster was too easy-going, otherwise she had not much fault to find with him. He had prospered and was forehanded, and his married son and daughters had been fairly successful. "Well, I don't care if I do," said Aunt Priscilla, with a half-reluctance. "Though I hadn't decided to when I came away, and Polly'll make a great hole in that cold roast pork, for I never said a word as to what she should have for supper. She's come to have no more sense than a child, and some things are bad to eat at night. But if she makes herself sick she'll have to suffer." "I'll have some tea made----" "No, 'Lizabeth, don't fuss. I shan't be in any hurry, if I do stay, and the men will be in before long. So Winthrop wasn't real put out when he saw the girl?" "I think he liked her. He's not much hand to make a fuss, you know. He feels she must be well brought up. Her mother, it seems, was quite quality." "Queer the mother's folks didn't look after her." "Her mother was an only child. Winthrop has the records back several generations. And when _she_ died the father was alive, you know." "Winthrop is a great stickler for such things. It's good to have folks you're not ashamed of, to be sure, but family isn't everything. Behaving counts." Aunt Priscilla took off her bonnet and shawl, and hung them in the "best" closet, where the Sunday coats and cloaks were kept. "You might just hand me that knitting, 'Lizabeth. I guess I knit a little tighter'n you do, on account of my hand being out. I've more than enough stockings to last my time out and some coarse ones for Polly. They spin yarn so much finer now. Footing many stockings this fall?" "No. I knit Foster new ones late in the spring. He's easy, too. Warren's the one to gnaw out heels, though young people are so much on the go." Aunt Priscilla took up the stocking and pinned the sheath on her side. How gay the voices sounded in the kitchen! Then the door opened. "Just look, Aunt Elizabeth! Aren't they lovely! Betty let me cut them out and put them in the pans. Oh----" Doris stood quite abashed, with a dish of tempting brown cookies in one hand. Her cheeks were like roses now, and Betty's kitchen apron made another frock over hers of gay chintz, that had been exhumed from the chest. "Good-afternoon," recovering herself. "The cookies look delightful. I must taste one," Mrs. Leverett said smilingly. She handed the plate to Aunt Priscilla. "It'll just spoil my supper if I eat one. But you may do up some in a paper, and I'll take them home. I'm glad to see you at something useful. Did you help about the house over there in England?" "Oh, no. We had Barby," answered the child simply. "Well, there's a deal for you to learn. I made bread just after I had turned ten years old. Girls in old times learned to work. It wasn't all cooky-making, by a long shot!" Doris made a little courtesy and disappeared. "I'd do something to that tousled hair, 'Lizabeth. Have her put it up or cut it off. It's good to cut a girl's hair; makes it thick and strong. And curls do look so flighty and frivolous." "The new fashion is a wig with all the front in little curls. It's so much less trouble if it is made of natural curly hair." "Are you going to set up for fashion in these hard times?" asked the visitor disdainfully. "Not quite. But Betty Pickering is to be married in great state next month, and we have been invited already. I suppose I ought to consider her in some sort a namesake." "I'm glad I haven't any fine relatives to be married," and the sniff was made to do duty. Mrs. Leverett put down her sewing. She had drawn the threads and basted the wristbands and gussets for Betty to stitch, as they had come to shirt-making. The new ones of thick cotton cloth would be good for winter wear. One had always to think ahead in this world if one wanted things to come out even. Then she went out to the kitchen, and there was a gay chattering, as if a colony of chimney swallows had met on a May morning. Aunt Priscilla pushed up nearer the window. She had good eyesight still, and only wore glasses when she read or was doing some extra-fine work. Betty came in and rolled out the table as she greeted her relative. Aunt Priscilla had a curiously lost feeling, as if somehow she had gone astray. No one ever would know about it, to be sure. There were times when it seemed as if there must be a third power, between God and the Evil One. There were things neither good nor bad. If they were good the Lord brought them to pass,--or ought to,--and if they were bad your conscience was troubled. Aunt Priscilla had been elated over her idea all day yesterday. It looked really generous to her. Of course Cousin Winthrop couldn't be bothered with this little foreign girl, and the Leveretts had a lot of grandchildren. She might take this Dorothy Adams, and bring her up in a virtuous, useful fashion. She would go to school, of course, but there would be nights and mornings and Saturdays. In two years, at the latest, she would be able to take a good deal of charge of the house. All this time her own little fortune could be augmenting, interest on interest. And if she turned out fair, she would do the handsome thing by her--leave her at least half of what she, Mrs. Perkins, possessed. And yet it was not achieved without a sort of mental wrestle. She was not quite sure it was spiritual enough to pray over; in fact, nothing just like this had come into her life before. She was not the kind of stuff out of which missionaries were made, and this wasn't just charitable work. She would expect the girl to do something for her board, but Polly would be good for a year or two more. Time did hang heavy on her hands, and this would be interest and employment, and a good turn. When matters were settled a little she would broach the subject to Elizabeth. If Winthrop Adams meant to make a great lady out of her--why, that was all there was to it! Times were hard and there might be war. Winthrop had a son of his own, and perhaps not so much money as people thought. And it did seem folly to waste the child's means. If she had so much--enough to go to boarding school--she oughtn't be living on the Leveretts. Foster was having pretty tight squeezing to get along. They all wondered what made Aunt Priscilla so unaggressive at supper time. She watched Doris furtively. All the household had a smile for her. Foster Leverett patted her soft hair, and Warren pinched her cheek in play. Betty gave her half a dozen hugs between times, and Mrs. Leverett smiled when Doris glanced her way. The quarter-moon was coming up when Priscilla Perkins opened the closet door for her things. "I'll walk over with Aunt Priscilla," said Warren. "It's my night for practice." "Oh, yes." His father nodded. Warren had lately joined the band, but his mother thought she couldn't stand the cornet round the house. "I aint a mite afraid in the moonlight. I come so often I ought not put anyone out." "Now that the evenings are cool it seems lonesomer," said Mr. Leverett, settling in his armchair by the fire, really glad his son could be attentive without any special sacrifice. Doris brought the queer little stool and sat down beside him. She looked as if she had always lived there. "You'll all spoil that child," Aunt Priscilla said to Warren when they had stepped off the stoop. "I don't believe there's any spoil to her," said Warren heartily. "She's the sweetest little thing I ever saw; so wise in some ways and so honestly ignorant in others. I never saw Uncle Win so taken--he never seems to quite know what to do with children. And he's asked us all over to tea some night next week. I was clear struck." Mrs. Perkins made no reply. About once a year he invited her over to tea with some of the old cousins, and he called on her New Year's Day, which was not specially kept in any fashionable way. Mrs. Perkins always said King Street, though in a burst of patriotism the name had been changed after the Revolution. It had dropped down very much and was being given over to business. There was a narrow hall floor set in a little distance, with a few steps, and the shop front with the plain sign of "Jonas Field, Flour, Grain, and Feed." The stairway led to an upper hall and a very comfortable suite of rooms, where Mrs. Perkins had come as a young wife, and where she meant to end her days. It was plenty good enough inside, and she "didn't live in the street." The best room occupied the whole front and had three windows. Priscilla had been barely nineteen when she was married, and Hatfield Perkins quite a bachelor. And, as no children had come to disturb their orderly habits, they had settled more securely in them year after year. Next to the parlor was the sleeping chamber. Now, it was the spare room, though no one came to stay all night who was fine enough to put in it. The smaller one adjoining she had used since her husband's death. There was a little tea room, and a big kitchen at the back. Downstairs the store part had been built out, and on the roof of this the clothes were dried. Polly always sat out here in pleasant weather, to prepare vegetables and do various chores. The lot was deep, and at the back were some fruit trees, and the patch of herbs every woman thought she must have, and a square of grass for bleaching. A lighted lamp stood at the head of the stairs. Polly was dozing in the kitchen. Mrs. Perkins sent her to bed in short order. There were two rooms and a storage closet upstairs in the gables. One was Polly's. The other was the guest chamber that was good enough "for the common run of folks." The moon was shining in the back windows. Priscilla snuffed out the candle; there was no use wasting candle light. She sat down in a low rocker, the only one she owned; and several list seats had been worn out in it besides the original one of rushes. She had never been really lonely in the sixty-five years of her life for she had kept busy, and was replete with old-fashioned methods that made work. She was very particular. Everything was scrubbed and scoured and swept and dusted and aired. The dishes were polished until they were lustrous. The knives and forks and spoons were speckless. There were napery and bedding that had been laid by for her marriage outfit, and not all worn out yet, though in the early years she had kept replenishing for possible children. There was plenty for twenty years to come, and though her people had been strong and healthy, they never went much over seventy. She was the youngest, and all the rest were gone. Her few real nieces and nephews were scattered about; she had made up her mind long ago she shouldn't ever have anyone hanging on her. No one wanted to. No one even leaned on her. Yet somehow the life had never seemed real solitary until now. She had comforted her years with the thought that children were a great deal of trouble and did not always turn out well. She could see the picture the little foreign girl made as she folded her arms on Foster Leverett's knee. She wouldn't have that mop of frowzly hair flying about, and she would like to fat her up a little--she was rather peaked. She had imagined her going about in this old place, sewing, learning to work properly, reading and studying, and going to church every Sabbath. She had really meant to do something for a human being day after day, not in a spasmodic fashion. And this was the end of it. She sprang up suddenly, lighted the candle again, went out to the kitchen to see that everything was right and there was no danger of fire. She opened the outside door and glanced around. There was an autumnal chill in the air, but there were no mysterious shadows creeping about in the yard below that might presage burglars. Then she bolted the door with a snap, and stood a moment in the middle of the floor. "You are an old fool, Priscilla Perkins! The idea of all Boston being turned upside down for the sake of one little girl! People have come over from England before, big and little, and there's been a war and there may be another, and no end of things to happen. To be sure, I'd done my duty by her if I'd had her; and if the others spoil her--I aint to blame, the Lord knows!" CHAPTER IV OUT TO TEA "There! Does it look like Old Boston?" They were winding around Copp's Hill. Warren had been given part of a day off, and the use of the chaise and Jack, to show the little cousin something of Boston before they went to Uncle Winthrop's to tea. Doris had her new coat, which was a sort of fawn color, and the close Puritan cap to keep her neck and ears warm. For earache was quite a common complaint among children, and people were careful through the long cold winter. A strip of beaver fur edged the front, and went around the little cape at the back. Its soft grayish-brown framed in her fair face like a picture, and her eyes were almost the tint of the deep, unclouded blue sky. They had a fine view of Old Boston, but they could hardly dream of the Boston that was to be. There were still the three elevations of Beacon Hill, lowered somewhat, to be sure, but not taken away entirely. And there was Fort Hill in the distance. "Why, it looks like a chain of islands, and instead of a great sea the water runs round and round. At home the Witham comes down to the winding cove called The Wash. Boston is sort of set between two rivers, but it is fast of the mainland, and doesn't look so much like floating off. You can go over to the Norfolk shore, and you look out on the great North Sea. But it isn't as big as the Atlantic Ocean." "Well, I should say not!" with disdain. "Why, you can look over to Holland!" "You can't see Holland, but it's there, and Denmark." "And we shall have to be something like the Dutch, if ever we mean to have a grand city. We shall have to dike and fill in and bridge. I have a great regard for those sturdy old Dutchmen and the way they fought the Spanish as well as the sea." Doris didn't know much about Holland, even if she could make pillow lace and read French verses with a charming accent. "That's the Mill Pond. And all that is the back part of the bay. And over there a grand battle was fought--but you were not born before the Revolutionary War." "I guess you were not born yourself, Warren Leverett," said Betty, with unnecessary vigor. "Well, I am rather glad I wasn't; I shall have the longer to live. But grandfather and ever so many relatives were, and father knows all about it. I am proud, too, of having been named for General Warren." "And down there near the bay is Fort Hill. Boston wasn't built on seven hills like Rome, and though there are acres and acres of low ground, we are not likely to be overflowed, unless the Atlantic Ocean should rise and sweep us out of existence. And there is the old burying ground, full of queer names and curious epitaphs." The long peninsula stretched out in a sort of irregular pear-shape, and then was connected to another portion by a narrow neck. The little villages about had a rural aspect, and some of them were joined to the mainland by bridges. And cows were still pastured on the commons and in several tracts of meadow land in the city. Many people had their own milk and made butter. There were large gardens at the sides of the houses, many of them standing with the gable end to the street, and built mostly of wood. But nearly all the leaves had fallen now, and though the sun shone with a mellow softness, it was quite evident the reign of summer was ended. They drove slowly about, Warren rehearsing stories of this and that place, and wishing there was more time so they might go over to Charlestown. "But Doris is to stay, and there will be time enough next summer. It is confusing to see so many places at once. And mother said we must be at Uncle Win's about four," declared Betty. It _was_ rather confusing to Doris, who had heard so little of American history in her quiet home. War seemed a dreadful thing to her, and she could not take Warren's pride in battle and conquest. So they turned and went down through the winding streets. "Do you know why they are so crooked?" Warren asked. "No; why?" asked Doris innocently. "Well, William Blackstone's cows made the paths. He came here first of all and had an allotment. Then when people began to come over from Charlestown he sold out for thirty pounds English money. Grandfather used to go over to the old orchard for apples. But think of Boston being bought for thirty pounds!" "It wasn't _this_ Boston with the houses and churches and everything. Come, do get along, or else let me drive," said Betty. There was quite a descent as they came down. Streets seemed to stop suddenly, and you had to make a curve to get into the next one. From Main they turned into Fish Street, and here the wind from the harbor swept across to the Mill Pond. "That's Long Wharf, and it has lots of famous stories connected with it. And just down there is father's. And now we could cut across and go over home." "As if we meant to do any such foolish thing?" ejaculated Betty. "I said we _could_. There are a great many things possible that are not advisable," returned the oracular young man. "And I have heard the longest way round was the surest way home. We shall reach there about nine o'clock to-night." "Like the old woman and her pig. I should laugh if we found mother already at Uncle Win's." "She's going to wait for father, and something always happens to him." They crossed Market Square, and passed Faneuil Hall, that was to grow more famous as the years went on; then they took Cornhill and went over to Marlborough Street. "That's Fort Hill. It's lovely in summer, when the wind doesn't blow you to shreds. Now we will take Marlborough, and to-night you will be surprised to see how straight it is to Sudbury Street." They drove rapidly down, and made one turn. It was like a beautiful country road, over to Common Street, and there was the great tract of ground that would grow more beautiful with every decade. Tall, overarching trees; ways that were grassy a month ago, but now turning brown. "Here we are," and they turned up a driveway at the side of the long porch upheld with round columns. Betty sprang out on the stepping block and half-lifted Doris, while Warren drove up to the barn. Uncle Winthrop came out to welcome them, and smiled down into the little girl's face. "But where is your mother?" he asked. "Oh, she had some shopping to do and then she was to meet father. We have been driving up around Copp's Hill and giving Doris a peep at the country." "The wind begins to blow up sharply, though it was very pleasant. I am glad to see you, little Doris, and I hope you have not grown homesick sighing for Old Boston. For if you should reach the threescore-and-ten, things will have changed so much that this will be old Boston; and, Betty, you will be telling-your grandchildren what it was like." Betty laughed gayly. There was the same wide hall as at home, but it wasn't the keeping-room here. It had a great fireplace, and at one side a big square sofa. The floor was inlaid with different-colored woods, following geometric designs, much like those of to-day. Before the fire was a rug of generous dimensions, and a high-backed chair stood on each of the nearest corners. There was a bookcase with some busts ranged on the top; there were some portraits of ancestors in military attire, and women with enormous head-dresses; there was one in a Puritan cap, wide collar, and a long-sleeved gown, that quite spoiled the effect of her pretty hands. Over the mantel was a pair of very large deer's antlers. Down at one corner there were two swords crossed and some other firearms. Just under them was a cabinet with glass doors that contained many curiosities. A tall, thin woman entered from a door at the lower end of the hall and greeted Betty with a quiet dignity that would have seemed cold, if it had not been the usual manner of Recompense Gardiner, who could never have been effusive, and who took it for granted that anyone Mr. Winthrop Adams invited to the house was welcome. Her forehead was high and rather narrow, her brown hair was combed straight back and twisted in a little knot high on her head, in which in the afternoon, or on company occasions, she wore a large shell comb. Her features were rather long and spare, and she wore plain little gold hoops in her ears because her eyes had been weak in youth and it was believed this strengthened them. Anyhow, she could see well enough at five-and-forty to detect a bit of dust or dirt, or lint left on a plate from the towel, or a chair that was a trifle out of its rightful place. She was an excellent housekeeper, and suited her master exactly. "This is the little English girl I was telling you about, Recompense--Cousin Charles' grandniece, and my ward," announced Mr. Adams. "How do you do, child! Let me take off your hood and cloak. Why, she isn't very stout or rosy. She might have been born here in the east wind. And she is an Adams through and through." "Do you think so?" with an expression of pleasure, as Recompense held her off and looked her over. "Are her eyes black?" rather disapprovingly. "No, the very darkest blue you can imagine," said Mr. Adams. "Betty, run upstairs with these things. Your feet are younger than mine, and haven't done so much trotting round. Lay them on my bed. Why, where's your mother?" in a tone of surprise. Betty made the proper explanation and skipped lightly upstairs. Mr. Adams took one of the large chairs, drawing it closer to the fire. Recompense brought out a stool for the little girl. It was covered with thick crimson brocade, a good deal faded, but it had a warm, inviting aspect. Children were not expected to sit in chairs then, or to run about and ask what everything was for. There had been children, little girls of different relatives, sitting at the fireside before. His own small boy had dozed in the fascinating warmth of the fire and hated to go to bed, and he had weakly indulged him, as there had been no mother to exercise authority. But Doris was different. She was alone in the world, and had been sent to him by a mysterious providence. He knew the responsibility of a girl must be greater. He couldn't send her to the Latin school and then to Harvard, and he really wondered how much education a girl ought to have to fit her for the position Doris would be able to take. She was like a quaint picture sitting there. Betty had tied a cluster of curls high on her head with a blue ribbon, and just a few were left to cling about her neck over the lace tucker. Her slim hands lay in her lap. He glanced at his own--yes, they were Adams hands, and looked little like hard work. He was rather proud that Recompense should discern a family likeness. Betty came flying down the oaken staircase, and Warren entered from the back door. For a few moments there was quite a confusion of tongues, and Recompense wondered how mothers stood it all the time. "How queer not to have anyone know about Boston," began Warren with a teasing glance over at Doris. "We have been looking at it from Copp's Hill, and going through the odd places." "And I wondered if people came to be fed in White Bread Alley," exclaimed Doris quickly. "And I dare say Warren didn't know." "Why, yes--a woman baked bread there." "Women have baked bread in a great many places," returned Uncle Win, with a quizzical smile. "Oh, I didn't mean just that." "It was John Tudor's mother," appended Betty. "Mrs. Tudor made the first penny rolls offered for sale in Boston, and little John, as he was then, took them around for sale." "And Mr. Benjamin Franklin didn't make them famous either," laughed Warren. "And Salutation Alley with its queer sign--its two old men with cocked hats and small clothes, bowing to each other," said Betty. "It always suggests a couplet I found in an old book: "'O mortal man who lives by bread, What is it makes your nose so red? O mortal man with cheeks so pale, 'Tis drinking Levi Puncheon's ale!'" "It is said the resolutions for the destruction of the tea were drawn up in the old tavern. It was famous for being the rendezvous of the patriots." "It would be nice to drive all around Boston shore." "Let it be summer time, then," rejoined Betty. "Or, like the Hollanders, we might do it on skates. Of course you do not know how to skate, Doris?" Doris admitted with winsome frankness that she did not. But she could ride a pony, and she could row a little. "There are some delightful summer parties when we do go out rowing. At least, the boys row mostly, because "'Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do!'" and Betty laughed. "And the girls always take their knitting," appended Warren. "There's never any mischief for them to get into." "I suppose it doesn't look much like Old Boston," inquired Miss Recompense. "And what do the little girls do there, my dear?" Warren opened his eyes wide. The idea of Miss Recompense saying "my dear" to a child. It had slipped out in a curiously unpremeditated fashion. There was something about the little girl--perhaps it was the fact of her having come so far, and being an orphan--that moved Recompense Gardiner. "I didn't know any real little girls," answered Doris modestly, "except the farmer's children. They worked out of doors in the summer in the fields." "And I was the youngest of five sisters," said Miss Recompense. "There were three boys." "It would be so nice to have a sister of one's very own. There were Sallie and Helen Jewett on the vessel." "I think I like the sisters to be older," said Betty archly. "There are the weddings and the nieces and nephews. And they are always begging you to visit them." "And I had no sisters," said Uncle Win, as if he would fain console Doris for her loneliness. She glanced up with sympathetic sweetness. He was a little puzzled at the intuitive process. "Fix up the fire, Warren. Your mother and father will be cold when they get in." Warren gave the burned log a poke, and it fell in two ends, neither dropping over the andirons. Then he pushed them a little nearer and a shower of sparks flew about. "Oh, how beautiful!" and Doris leaned over intently. Warren placed a large log back of them, then he piled on some smaller split pieces. They began to blaze shortly. He picked up the turkey's wing and brushed around the stone hearth. "That was very well done," remarked Miss Recompense approvingly. "Warren knows how to make a fire," said his uncle, "and it is quite an art." "That is a sign he will make a good husband," commented Betty. "And I shall get a bad one, for my fires go out half the time." "You are too heedless," said Miss Recompense. "Now, we ought to tell some ghost stories," suggested Warren. "Or we could wait until it gets a little darker. The sun is going down, and the fire is coming up, and just see how they are fighting at the Spanish Armada. Uncle Win, when you break up housekeeping you can leave me that picture." They all turned to look at the picture in the cross light, with one of the wonderful fleet ablaze from the broadside of her enemy. It was a vigorous if somewhat crude painting by a Dutch artist. "Oh, Uncle Win," cried Betty; "do you really think there will be war when we have a new President?" "I sincerely hope not." "We ought to have an Armada. Well, I don't know either," continued Warren dubiously. "If it should go to pieces like that one," nodding his head over to the scene, growing more vivid by the reflection of the red light in the west. "Doris, do you know what happened to the Spanish Armada?" "Indeed I do," returned Doris spiritedly. "I may not know so much about America, except that you fought England, and were called rebels and--and----" "That we were the upper dog in the fight, and now we are citizens of a great and free Republic and rebels no longer." "But the Spanish did not conquer England. Some of the ships were destroyed by English men-of-war, and then a terrific storm wrecked them, and there were only a few to return to Spain." "Pretty good," said Uncle Win smilingly. "And now, Warren, maybe you can tell about the French Armada that was going to destroy Boston." "Why, the French--came and helped us. Oh, there was the French and English war, but did they have a real Armada?" "Why, after Louisburg was taken by the colonists--we were only Colonies in 1745. The French resolved to destroy all the towns the colonists had planted on the coast. You surely can't have forgotten?" "The Revolution seems so much greater to this generation," said Miss Recompense. "That is almost seventy years ago. My father was called out for the defense of Boston. Governor Shirley knew it would be the first town attacked." "And a real Armada!" said Warren, big-eyed. "They didn't call it that exactly. Perhaps they thought the name unlucky. But there were twenty transports and thirty-four frigates and eleven ships of the line. Quite a formidable array, you must admit. The Duc d'Anville left Brest with five battalions of veterans." "And then what happened? Warren, we do not know the history of our own city, after all. But surely they did not take it?" "No, it is safely anchored to a bit of mainland yet," said Uncle Win dryly. "Off Cape Sable they encountered a violent storm. The Duc succeeded in reaching the rendezvous, but in such a damaged condition that he felt a victory would be impossible. Conflans with several partly disabled ships returned to France, and some steered for friendly ports in the West Indies. The Duc died in less than a week, of poison it was said, unwilling to endure the misfortune. The Governor General of Canada ordered the Vice Admiral to proceed and strike one blow at least. But he saw so many difficulties in the way, that he worried himself ill with a fever and put himself to death with his own sword. Boston was so well prepared for them by this time, the fleet decided to attack Annapolis, but encountering another furious storm they returned to France with the remnant. So Armadas do not seem to meet with brilliant success." "Why, that is quite a romance, Uncle Win, and I must hunt it up. Curious that both should have shared so nearly the same fate." "That was a special interposition of Providence," said Miss Recompense. People believed quite strongly in such things then, and it certainly looked like it, since the storm was of no human agency. Miss Recompense began to light the candles, and the steps of the tardy ones were heard on the porch. Betty sprang up and opened the door. "I began to think I never should get here," exclaimed Mrs. Leverett. "I waited and waited for your father, and I thought something had surely happened." "And so it had. Captain Conklin is going to start for China in a few days, and there was so much to talk about I couldn't get away." "If I had been real sure he would have come on I would have started. It has blown off cold. Didn't you have a breezy ride? Were you warm enough, Doris?" "It was splendid," replied Doris, her eyes shining. "And I have seen so many things." "Now get good and warm and come out to supper." "If you call this cold I don't know what you will do at midwinter." "Well, it is chilly, and we are not used to it. But we must have our Indian summer yet." Betty had been carrying away her mother's hat and shawl, and now Uncle Win led the way to the dining room. The table was bountifully spread; it was a sort of high tea, and in those days people ate with a hearty relish and had not yet discovered the thousand dangers lurking in food. If it was good and well cooked no one asked any farther questions. At least, men did not. Women took recipes of this and that, and invented new ways of preparing some dish with as much elation as some of the greater discoveries have given. The men talked politics and the possibilities of war. There was an uneasy feeling all along the border, where Indian troubles were being fomented. There were some unsettled questions between us and England. Abroad, Napoleon was making such strides that it seemed as if he might conquer all Europe. Mrs. Leverett and Miss Recompense compared their successes in pickling and preserving, and discussed the high prices of dry goods and the newer scant skirts that would take so much less cloth and the improvement in home-made goods. Carpets of the higher grades were beginning to be manufactured in Philadelphia. Warren, with the appetite of a healthy young fellow, thought everything tasted uncommonly good, and really had nothing to say. Doris watched one and another, with soft dark eyes, and wondered if it would be right to like Uncle Win any better than she did Uncle Leverett, and why she had any desire to do so, which troubled her a little. Uncle Win _was_ the handsomest. She liked the something about him that she came to know afterward was culture and refinement. But she was a very loyal little girl, and Uncle Leverett had welcomed her so warmly, even on board the vessel. After supper they went into Uncle Winthrop's study a while. There were more bookcases, and such a quantity of books and pamphlets and papers. There were busts of some of the old Roman orators and emperors, and more paintings. There was a beautiful young woman with a head full of soft curls and two bands passed through them in Greek fashion. A scarf was loosely wound around her shoulders, showing her white, shapely throat, and her short sleeves displayed almost perfect arms that looked like sculpture. Later Doris came to know this was Uncle Winthrop's sweet young wife, who died when her little boy was scarcely a year old. There were many curiosities. The walls were wainscoted in panels, with moldings about them that looked like another frame for the pictures. The chimney piece was of wood, and exquisitely carved. There was an old escritoire that was both carved and gilded, and in the center of the room a large round table strewn with books and writing materials. At the windows were heavy red damask curtains, lined with yellow brocade. They were always put up the first of October and taken down punctually the first day of April. Uncle Win had a luxurious side to his nature, and there was a soft imported rug in the room as well. Carpets were not in general use. Many floors were polished, some in the finer houses inlaid. Rag carpets were used for warmth in winter, and some were beautifully made. Weaving them was quite a business, and numbers of women were experts at it. Sometimes it was in a hit-or-miss style, the rags sewed just as one happened to pick them up. Then they were made of the ribbon pattern, a broad stripe of black or dark, with narrower and wider colors alternating. The rags were often colored to get pretty effects. It was a long walk home, but in those days, when there were neither cars nor cabs, people were used to walking, and the two men would not mind it. Betty could drive Jack by night or day, as he was a sure-footed, steady-going animal, and for a distance the road was straight up Beacon Street. "Some day I will come up and take you out to see a little more of your new home," said Uncle Winthrop to Doris. "When does she go to school, Elizabeth?" "Why, I thought it would be as well for her to begin next week. From eight to twelve. And she is so young there is no real need of her beginning other things. Betty can teach her to sew and do embroidery." "There is her French. It would be a pity to drop that." "She might teach me French for the sake of the exercise," returned Betty laughingly when Uncle Win looked so perplexed. "To be sure. We will get it all settled presently." He felt rather helpless where a girl was concerned, yet when he glanced down into her soft, wistful eyes he wished somehow that she was living here. But it would be lonely for a child. Warren brought Jack around and helped in the womenkind when they had said all their good-nights, and Uncle Wrin added that he would be over some evening next week to supper. It was a clear night, but there was no moon. Jack tossed up his head and trotted along, with the common on one side of him. Boston had been improving very much in the last decade, and stretching herself out a little. But it was quite country-like where Uncle Win lived. He liked the quiet and the old house, the great trees and his garden that gave him all kinds of vegetables and some choice fruit, though he never did anything more arduous than to superintend it and enjoy the fruits of Jonas Starr's labor. CHAPTER V A MORNING AT SCHOOL Our ancestors for some occult reason held early rising in high esteem. Why burning fire and candle light in the morning, when everything was cold and dreary, should look so much more virtuous and heroic than sitting up awhile at night when the house was warm and everything pleasant, is one of the mysteries to be solved only by the firm belief that the easy, comfortable moments were the seasons especially susceptible to temptation, and that sacrifice and austerity were the guide-posts on the narrow way to right living. Mr. and Mrs. Leverett had been reared in that manner. They had softened in many ways, and Betty was often told, "I had no such indulgences when I was a girl." But, mother-like, Mrs. Leverett "eased up" many things for Betty. Electa King half envied them, and yet she confessed in her secret heart that she had enjoyed her girlhood and her lover very much. She and Matthias King had been neighbors and played as children, went to church and to singing school together, and on visitors' night at the debating society she was sure to be the visitor. Girls did not have just that kind of boy friends now, she thought. The softening of religious prejudices was softening character as well. Yet the intensity of Puritanism had kindled a force of living that had done a needed work. People really discussed religious problems nowadays, while even twenty years before it was simply belief or disbelief, and the latter "was not to be suffered among you." Mrs. Leverett kept to her habit of early rising. True, dark and stormy mornings Mr. Leverett allowed himself a little latitude, for very few people came to buy his wares early in the morning. But breakfast was a little after six, except on Sunday morning, when it dropped down to seven. And Mrs. Webb's school began at eight from the first day of February to the first day of November. The intervening three months it was half-past eight and continued to half-past twelve. Doris came home quite sober. "Well," began Uncle Leverett, "how did school go?" "I didn't like it very much," she answered slowly. "What did you do?" "I read first. Four little girls and two boys read. We all stood in a row." "What then?" "We spelled. But I did not know where the lesson was, and I think Mrs. Webb gave me easy words." "And you did not enjoy that?" Uncle Leverett gave a short laugh. "I was glad not to miss," she replied gravely. "Mrs. Webb uses Dilworth's speller," said Mrs. Leverett, "and so I gave her Betty's. But she has a different reader. She thought Doris read uncommon well." "And what came next?" "They said tables all together. Why do they call them tables?" "Because a system of calculation would be too long a name," he answered dryly. Doris looked perplexed. "Then there was geography. What a large place America is!" and she sighed. "Yes, the world is a good-sized planet, when you come to consider. And America is only one side of it." "I don't see how it keeps going round." "That must be viewed with the eye of faith," commented Betty. "All that does very well. I am sorry you did not like it." "I did like all that," returned Doris slowly. "But the sums troubled me." "She's very backward in figures," said Mrs. Leverett. "Betty, you must take her in hand." "I must study all the afternoon," said Doris. "Oh, you'll soon get into the traces," said Uncle Leverett consolingly. It was Monday and wash-day in every well-ordered family. Mrs. Leverett and Betty had the washing out early, but it was not a brisk drying day, so no ironing could be done in the afternoon. Betty changed her gown and brought out her sewing, and Doris studied her lessons with great earnestness. "I wish I was sure I knew the spelling," she said wistfully. "Well, let me hear you." Betty laid the book on the wide window sill and gave out the words between the stitches, and Doris spelled every one rightly but "perceive." "Those i's and e's used to bother me," said Betty. "I made a list of them once and used to go over them until I could spell them in the dark." "Is it harder to spell in the dark?" "Oh, you innocent!" laughed Betty. "That means you could spell them anywhere." Spelling had been rather a mysterious art, but Mr. Dilworth, and now Mr. Noah Webster, had been regulating it according to a system. "Now you might go over some tables. You can add and multiply so much faster when you know them. Suppose we try them together." That was very entertaining and, Doris began to think, not as difficult as she had imagined in the morning. "Betty," said her mother, when there was a little lull, "what do you suppose has become of Aunt Priscilla? I do hope she did not come over the day we were at Cousin Winthrop's. But she never was here once last week." "There were two rainy days." "And she may be ill. I think you had better go down and see." "Yes. Don't you want to go, Doris? The walk will be quite fun." Doris could not resist the coaxing eyes, though she felt she ought to stay and study. But Betty promised to go over lessons with her when they came back. So in a few moments they were ready for the change. Mrs. Leverett sent a piece of cake and some fresh eggs, quite a rarity now. The houses and shops seemed so close together, Doris thought. And they met so many people. Doris had not lived directly in Old Boston town, but quite in the outskirts. And King Street was getting to be quite full of business. Black Polly came to the door. "Yes, missus was in but she had an awful cold, and been all stopped up so that she could hardly get the breath of life." Aunt Priscilla had a strip of red flannel pinned around her forehead, holding in place a piece of brown paper, moistened with vinegar, her unfailing remedy for headache. Another band was around her throat, and she had a well-worn old shawl about her shoulders, while her feet rested on a box on which was placed a warm brick. "Is it possible you have come? Why, one might be dead and buried and no one the wiser. I crawled out to church on Sunday, and took more cold, though I have heard people say you wouldn't catch cold going to church. Religion ought to keep one warm, I s'pose." "I'm sorry. Mother was afraid you were ill." "And I have all the visiting to do. It does seem as if once in an age some of you might come over. You went to Cousin Winthrop's!" in an aggrieved tone. "But mother had not been there since last summer, when 'Lecty was on making her visit. And we took all the family along, just as you can," in a merry tone. "But if you like to have mother come and spend the day, I'll keep house. You see, there's always meals to get for father and Warren." "Yes, I kept house before you were born, Betty Leverett, and had a man who needed three stout meals a day. But he want a mite of trouble. I never see a man easier to suit than Hatfield Perkins. And I didn't neglect him because he could be put off and find no fault. There are men in the world that it would take the grace of a saint to cook for, only in heaven among the saints if there aint any marryin' you can quite make up your mind there isn't any cooking either. Well--can't you get a chair? There's that little low one for Dorothy." "If you please," began Doris, with quiet dignity, "my name is not Dorothy." "Well, you ought to hear yourself called by a Christian name once in a while." "Still it isn't a Scriptural name," interposed Betty. "I looked over the list to see. And here are some nice fresh eggs. Mother has had several splendid layers this fall." "I'm obliged, I'm sure. I do wish I could keep a few hens. But Jonas Field wants so much room, and there's my garden herbs. I've just been dosing on sage tea and honey, and it has about broke up my cough. I generally do take one cold in autumn, and then I go to March before I get another. Well, I s'pose Recompense Gardiner stays at your uncle's? There was some talk I heard about some old fellow hanging round. After I'd lived so long single, I'd stay as I was." "I can't imagine Miss Recompense getting her wedding gown ready. What would it be, I wonder?" Betty laughed heartily. "She could buy the best in the market if she chose," said Aunt Priscilla sharply. "She must have a good bit of money laid by. Cousin Winthrop would be lost without her. Not but what there are as good housekeepers in the world as Recompense Gardiner." Then Aunt Priscilla had to stop and cough. Polly came in with some posset. "I'll have one of those eggs beaten up in some mulled cider, Polly," she said. Doris glanced curiously at the old colored woman. She was tall and still very straight, and, though kept in strict subjection all her life, had an air and bearing of dignity, as if she might have come from some royal race. Her hair was snowy white, and the little braided tails hung below her turban, which was of gay Madras, and the small shoulder shawl she wore was of red and black. "You're too old a woman to be fussed up in such gay things," Aunt Priscilla would exclaim severely every time she brought them home, for she purchased Polly's attire. "But you've always worn them, and I really don't know as you'd look natural in suitable colors." "I like cheerful goin' things, that make you feel as if the Lord had just let out a summer day stead'er November. An', missus, you don't like a gray fire burned half to ashes, nuther." Truth to tell, Aunt Priscilla did hanker after a bit of gayety, though she frowned on it to preserve a just balance with conscience. And no one knew the parcels done up in an old oaken chest in the storeroom, that had been indulged in at reprehensible moments. Just then there was a curious diversion to Doris. A beautiful sleek tiger cat entered the room, and, walking up to the fire, turned and looked at the child, waving his long tail majestically back and forth. He came nearer with his sleepy, translucent eyes studying her. "May I--touch him?" she asked hesitatingly. "Land, yes! That's Polly's Solomon. She talks to him till she's made him most a witch, and she thinks he knows everything." Solomon settled the question by putting two snowy white paws on Doris' knee, and stretching up indefinitely with a dainty sniffing movement of the whiskers, as if he wanted to understand whether advances would be favorably received. There was a cat at the Leveretts', but it haunted the cellar, the shed, and the stable, and was hustled out of the kitchen with no ceremony. Aunt Elizabeth was not fond of cats, and cat hairs were her abomination. Doris had uttered an ejaculation of delight when she saw it one morning, a big black fellow with white feet and a white choker. "Don't touch him--he'll scratch you like as not!" exclaimed Mrs. Leverett in a quick tone. "Get out, Tom! We don't allow him in the house. He's a good mouser, but it spoils cats to nurse them. And I never could abide a cat around under my feet." Doris had made one other attempt to win Tom's favor as she was walking about the garden. But Tom eyed her askance and discreetly declined her overture. There had always been cats at Miss Arabella's, and two great dogs as well as her pony, and birds so tame they would fly down for crumbs. "Oh, kitty!" She touched him with her dainty fingers. "Solomon. What a funny name! Oh, you beautiful great big cat!" Solomon rubbed his head on her arm and began to purr. He was sure of a welcome. "You can't get in her lap, for it isn't big enough," said Aunt Priscilla. "Polly's got him spoiled out of all reason, though I s'pose a cat's company when there's no one else." "If you would let me--sit on the rug," ventured Doris timidly. She had been rather precise of late in her new home. "Well, I declare! Sit on the floor if you want to. The floor was plenty good enough to sit on when I was a child. Me and my sisters had a corner of our own, and we'd sit there and sew." Betty had been about to interpose, but at Aunt Priscilla's concession Doris had slidden down and taken Solomon in her arms, and rubbed her soft cheek against his head. Polly came in with the egg and cider. "Why, little missy, you just done charm him! He's mighty afeared of the boys around, and there aint no little gals. Do just see him, Mis' Perkins. He acts as if he was rollin' in a bed of sweet catnip." "One is about as wise as the other," declared Aunt Priscilla, nodding her head. She was rather glad there was something in her house to be a rival to Cousin Winthrop and the Leveretts, since Doris Adams was to be held up on a high plane and spoiled with indulgence. She had not yet made up her mind whether she would like the child or not. "Yes, she had started at Mrs. Webb's school. Uncle Win was going to make some arrangement about her French and her writing when he came over. They'd had a letter from 'Lecty, and as the legislature was to meet in Hartford there would be quite gay times, and she did so hope she could go. Mary wasn't very well, and wanted mother to come on for a week or two presently," and Betty made big eyes at Aunt Priscilla, while that lady nodded as well as her bundled up head would admit, to signify that she understood. "I'm sure you ought to know enough to keep house for your father and Warren," was the comment. Then Betty said they must go, and Aunt Priscilla tartly rejoined that they might look in and see whether she was dead or alive. "Can I come and see Solomon again?" asked Doris. "Of course, since Solomon is head of the house." "Thank you," returned Doris simply, not understanding the sarcasm. "Wonderful how Solomon liked little missy," said Polly, straightening the chairs and restoring order. "My head aches with all the talking," said Aunt Priscilla. "I want to be alone." But she felt a little conscience-smitten as Polly stepped about in the kitchen getting supper and sang in a thick, soft, but rather quivering voice, her favorite hymn: "'Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound, Mine ears, attend the cry.'" Yes, Polly was a faithful old creature, only she had grown forgetful, and she was losing her strength, and black people gave out suddenly. But there, what was the use of borrowing trouble, and the idea of having a child around to train and stew over, and no doubt she would be getting married just the time when she, Mrs. Perkins, would need her the most. The Lord hadn't seen fit to give her any children to comfort her old age; after all, would she want a delicate little thing like this child with a heathenish name! It was quite chilly now, and Doris, holding Betty's hand tight, skipped along merrily, her heart strangely warm and gay. "She's very queer, and her voice sounds as if she couldn't get the scold out of it, doesn't it? And I felt afraid of the black woman first. I never saw any until we were on the ship. But the beautiful cat!" with a lingering emphasis on the adjective. "Well--cats are cats," replied Betty sagely. "I don't care much about them myself, though we should be overrun with rats and mice if it wasn't for them. I like a fine, big dog." "Oh, Betty!" and a girl caught her by the shoulder, turning her round and laughing heartily at her surprise. "Why, Jane! How you startled me." "And is this your little foreign girl--French or something?" "English, if you please, and her father was born here in Boston. And isn't it queer that she should have lived in another Boston? And her name is Doris Adams." "I'm sure the Adams are sown thickly enough about, but Doris sounds like verses. And, oh, Betty, I've been crazy to see you for two days. I am to have a real party next week. I shall be seventeen, and there will be just that number invited. The girls are to come in the afternoon and bring their sewing. There will be nine. And eight young men," laughing--"boys that we know and have gone sledding with. They are to come to tea at seven sharp. Cousin Morris is to bring his black fiddler Joe, and we are going to dance, and play forfeits, and have just a grand time." "But I don't know how to dance--much." Betty's highest accomplishments were in the three R's. Her manuscript arithmetic was the pride of the family, but of grammar she candidly confessed she couldn't make beginning nor end. "I'm going to coax hard to go to dancing school this winter. Sam is going, and he says all the girls are learning to dance. Mother's coming round to-morrow. We want to be sure about the nine girls. Good-by, it's getting late." "Now, let's hurry home," exclaimed Betty. The table was laid, and Mrs. Leverett said: "Why didn't you stay all night?" "Aunt Priscilla has her autumn cold. She was quite cross at first. She was sick last week, and went to church yesterday, and is worse to-day. But she was glad about the eggs." "There comes your father. Be spry now." After supper Warren went out to look after Jack. Mr. Leverett took his chair in the corner of the wide chimney and pushed out the stool for the little girl. She smiled as she sat down and laid her hands on his knee. "So you didn't like the school," he began, after a long silence. "Yes--I liked--most of it," rather reluctantly. "What was it you didn't like--sitting still?" "No--not that." "The lessons? Were they too hard?" "She said I needn't mind this morning." "But the figuring bothered you." "Of course I didn't know," she said candidly. "You will get into it pretty soon. Betty'll train you. She's a master hand at figures, smarter than Warren." Doris made no comment, but there was an unconfessed puzzle in her large eyes. "Well, what is it?" The interest he took in her surprised himself. "She whipped a boy on his hands with a ruler very hard because he couldn't remember his lesson." "That's a good aid to memory. I've seen it tried when I was a boy." "But if I had tried and tried and studied I should have thought it very cruel." "I guess he didn't try or study. What did Miss Arabella do to you when you were careless and forgot things? Or were you never bad?" Doris hung her head, while a faint color mounted to her brow. "When I was naughty I couldn't go out on the pony nor take him a lump of sugar. And he loved sugar so. And sometimes I had to study a psalm." "And weren't children ever whipped in your country?" "The common people beat their children and their wives and their horses and dogs. But Miss Arabella was a lady. She couldn't have beaten a cat." There was a switch on the top of the closet in the kitchen that beat Tom out of doors when he ventured in. Doris' tender heart rather resented this. Foster Leverett smiled at this distinction. "I do suppose people might get along, but boys are often very trying." "Don't grown-up people ever do anything wrong? And when they scold dreadfully aren't they out of temper? Miss Arabella thought it very unladylike to get out of temper. And what is done to grown people?" Uncle Leverett laughed and squeezed the soft little hands on his knee. Yes, men and women flew into a rage every day. Their strict training had not given them control of their tempers. It had not made them all honest and truthful. Yet it might have been the best training for the times, for the heroic duties laid upon them. "She was very cross once, and her forehead all wrinkled up, and her eyes were so--so hard; and when she is pleasant she has beautiful brown eyes. I like beautiful people." "We can't all be beautiful or good-tempered." "But Miss Arabella said we could, and that beauty meant sweetness and grace and truth and kindliness, and that"--she lowered her voice mysteriously--"where one really tried to be good God gave them grace to help. I don't quite know about the grace, I'm so little. But I want to be good." Was there a beautiful side to goodness? Foster Leverett had been for some time weakening in the old faith. "Now I'm ready," exclaimed Betty briskly. "We can say tables without any book." Uncle Leverett laughed and squeezed the soft little stranger at his hearth. But affection was not demonstrative in those days, and it looked rather weak in a man. They had grand fun saying addition and multiplication tables. They went up to the fives, and Doris found that here was a wonderful bridge. "You could add clear up to a hundred without any trouble," the child declared gleefully. "But you couldn't multiply." "Why, yes," said Betty. "I had not exactly thought of it before. Five times thirteen would be sixty-five, and so on. Five times twenty would be a hundred. Why, we do it in a great many things, but I suppose they--whoever invented tables thought that was far enough to go." "Who did invent them?" "I really don't know. Doris, we will ask Uncle Win when he comes over. He knows about everything." "It would take a great many years to learn everything," said the child with a sigh. "But the knowledge goes round," said Betty with arch gayety. "One has a little and the other a little and they exchange, and then women don't have to know as much as men." "I'd like to see the man that knew enough to keep house," declared Mrs. Leverett. "And didn't Mrs. Abigail Adams farm and bring up her children and pay off debts while her husband was at congress and war and abroad? It isn't so much book learning as good common sense. Just think what the old Revolutionary women did! And now it is high time Doris went to bed. Come, child, you're so sleepy in the morning." Doris had her dress unbuttoned and untied her shoes to make sure there were no knots to pick out. Knots in shoe-strings were very perplexing at this period when no one had dreamed of button boots. I doubt, indeed, if anyone would have worn them. The shoes were made straight and changed every morning, so as to wear evenly and not get walked over at the side. And people had pretty feet then, with arched insteps, and walked with an air of dignity. Some of the gouty old men had to be measured for a tender place here or a protuberance there, or allowance made for bad corn. Doris said good-night and went upstairs. Miss Arabella had always kissed her. Betty did sometimes, and said "What a sweet little thing you are!" or "What a queer little thing you are!" She said her prayers, hung her clothes over a chair, put her little shoes just right for morning, and stepping on the chair round vaulted over to her side of the bed. What a long, long day it had been! The most beautiful thing in it was the big cat Solomon, and if she could nurse him she shouldn't be very much afraid of Aunt Priscilla. Oh, how soft his fur was, and how he purred, just as if he was glad she had come! Perhaps he sometimes tired of Aunt Priscilla and black Polly, and longed for a little girl who didn't mind sitting on the floor, and who knew how to play. Then there was the spelling, and she tried to think over the hard words, and the tables, and her small brain kept up such a riot that she was not a bit sleepy. Betty brought out her work after lighting another candle. Mr. Leverett sat and dozed and thought. When Warren had finished up the chores he went around to the other side of Betty's table, and was soon lost in a history of the French War. When the tall old clock struck nine it was time to prepare for bed. Betty was putting up some wisps of hair in tea leads, when Doris sat up. "Oh, you midget! Are you not asleep yet?" she exclaimed. "No. I've been thinking of everything. And, Betty, can you go to the party? I went to the May party when I was home, but that was out of doors, and we danced round the May pole." "The party----" "Yes, did you ask Aunt Elizabeth?" eagerly. "Oh, no. I wasn't going to be caught that way. She would have had time to think up ever so many excellent reasons why I shouldn't go. And now Mrs. Morse will take her by surprise, and she will not have any good excuse ready and so she will give in." "But wouldn't she want you to go?" Doris was rather confused by the reasoning. "I suppose she thinks I am young to begin with parties. But it isn't a regular grown-up affair. And I am just crazy to go. I'm so glad you did not blurt it out, Doris. I'll give you a dozen kisses for being so sensible. Now lie down and go to sleep this minute." The child gave a soft little laugh, and a moment later Betty was "cuddling" her in her arms. The result of Foster Leverett's cogitation over the fire led him to say the next morning to his son: "Warren, you run on. I have a little errand to do." He turned in another direction and went down two squares. There was Mrs. Webb sweeping off her front porch and plank path. "Good-morning," stopping and leaning on her broom as he halted. "I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Webb. I suppose the little girl wasn't much trouble yesterday. She's never been to school before." "Trouble! Bless you, no. If they were all as good as that I should feel frightened, I really should, thinking they wouldn't live long. She's a bit timid----" "She's backward in some things--figures, for instance. And a little strange, I suppose. So if you would be kind of easy-going with her until she gets settled to the work----" "Oh, you needn't be a mite afraid, Mr. Leverett. She's smart in some things, but, you see, she's been run on different lines, and we'll get straight presently. She's a nice obedient little thing, and I do like to see children mind at the first bidding." "Your school is so near we thought we would try it this winter. Yes, I think all will go right. Good-morning," and his heart lightened at the thought of smoothing the way for Doris. CHAPTER VI A BIRTHDAY PARTY Doris sat in the corner studying. Betty had gone over to Mme. Sheafe's to make sure she had her lace stitch just right. They had been ironing and baking all the morning, and now Mrs. Leverett had attacked her pile of shirts, when Mrs. Morse came in. She had her work as well. Everybody took work, for neighborly calls were an hour or two long. Doris had been presented first, a kind of attention paid to her because she was from across the ocean. Everybody's health had been inquired about. "I came over on a real errand," began Mrs. Morse presently. "And you mustn't make excuses. My Jane is going to have a little company week from Thursday night. She will be seventeen, and we are going to have seventeen young people. The girls will come in the afternoon, and the young men at seven to tea. Then they will have a little merrymaking. And we want Warren and Betty. We are going to ask those we want the most first, and if so happen anything serious stands in the way, we'll take the next row." "You're very kind, I'm sure. Warren does go out among young people, but I don't know about Betty. She's so young." "Well, she will have to start sometime. My mother was married at sixteen, but that is too young to begin life, though she never regretted it, and she had a baker's dozen of children." "I'm not in any hurry about Betty. She is the last girl home. And the others were past nineteen when they were married." "We feel there is no hurry about Jane. But I've had a happy life, and all six of us girls were married. Not an old maid among us." "Old maids do come in handy oftentimes," subjoined Mrs. Leverett. Yet in those days every mother secretly, often openly, counted on her girls being married. The single woman had no such meed of respect paid her as the "bachelor maids" of to-day. She often went out as housekeeper in a widower's family, and took him and his children for the sake of having a home of her own. Still, there were some fine unmarried women. "Yes, they're handy in sickness and times when work presses, but they do get queer and opinionated from having their own way, I suppose." Alas! what would the single woman, snubbed on every side, have said to that! Then they branched into a chatty discussion about some neighbors, and as neither was an ill-natured woman, it was simply gossip and not scandal. Mrs. Morse had a new recipe for making soap that rendered it clearer and lighter than the old one and made better soap, she thought. And to-morrow she was going at her best candles, so as to be sure they would be hard and nice for the company. "But you haven't said about Betty?" "I'll have to think it over," was the rather cautious reply. "Elizabeth Leverett! I feel real hurt that you should hesitate, when our children have grown up together!" exclaimed Mrs. Morse rather aggrieved. "It's only about putting Betty forward so much. Why, you know I don't mind her running in and out. She's at your house twice as often as Jane is here. And when girls begin to go to parties there's no telling just where to draw the line. It's very good of you to ask her. Yes, I do suppose she ought to go. The girls have been such friends." "Jane would feel dreadfully disappointed. She said: 'Now, mother, you run over to the Leveretts' first of all, because I want to be sure of Betty.'" "Well--I'll have to say yes. Next Thursday. There's nothing to prevent that I know of. I suppose it isn't to be a grand dress affair, for I hadn't counted on making Betty any real party gown this winter? I don't believe she's done growing. Who else did you have in your mind, if it isn't a secret?" "I'd trust it to you, anyhow. The two Stephens girls and Letty Rowe, Sally Prentiss and Agnes Green. That makes six, with Betty. We haven't quite decided on the others. I dare say some of the girls will be mad as hornets at being left out, but there can be only nine. Of course we do not count Jane." These were all very nice girls of well-to-do families. Mrs. Leverett did feel a little proud that Betty should head the list. "They are all to bring their sewing. I had half a mind to put on a quilt, but I knew there'd be a talk right away about Jane marrying, and she has no steady company. I tell her she can't have until she is eighteen." "That's plenty young enough. I don't suppose there will be any dancing?" "They've decided on proverbs and forfeits. Cousin Morris is coming round to help the boys plan it out. Are you real set against dancing, Elizabeth?" "Well--I'm afraid we are going on rather fast, and will get to be too trifling. I can't seem to make up my mind just what is right. Foster thinks we have been too strait-laced." "I danced when I was young, and I don't see as it hurt me any. And some of the best young people here-about are going to a dancing class this winter. Joseph has promised to join it, and his father said he was old enough to decide for himself." Mrs. Morse had finished her sewing and folded it, quilting her needle back and forth, putting her thimble and spool of cotton inside and slipping it in her work bag. Then she rose and wrapped her shawl about her and tied on her hood. "Then we may count on Warren and Betty? Give them my love and Jane's, and say we shall be happy to see them a week from Thursday, Betty at three and Warren at seven. Come over soon, do." When she had closed the door on her friend Mrs. Leverett glanced over to the corner where Doris sat with her book. She had half a mind to ask her not to mention the call to Betty, then she shrank from anything so small. Doris studied and she sewed. Then Betty came in flushed and pretty. "I didn't have the stitch quite right," she said to her mother. "And I have been telling her about Doris. She wants me to bring her over some afternoon. She is a little curious to see what kind of lace Doris makes. She has a pillow--I should call it a cushion." "Doris ought to learn plain sewing----" "Poor little mite! How your cares will increase. Can I take her over to Mme. Sheafe's some day?" "If there is ever any time," with a sigh. "Do you know your spelling?" She flew over to Doris and asked a question with her eyes, and Doris answered in the same fashion, though she had a fancy that she ought not. Betty took her book and found that Doris knew all but two words. "If I could only do sums as easily," she said, with a plaintive sound in her voice. "Oh, you will learn. You can't do everything in a moment, or your education would soon be finished." "What is Mme. Sheafe like?" she asked with some curiosity, thinking of Aunt Priscilla. "She is a very splendid, tall old lady. She ought to be a queen. And she was quite rich at one time, but she isn't now, and she lives in a little one-story cottage that is just like--well, full of curious and costly things. And now she gives lessons in embroidery and lace work, and hemstitching and fine sewing, and she wears the most beautiful gowns and laces and rings." "Your tongue runs like a mill race, Betty." "I think everybody in Boston is tall," said Doris with quaint consideration that made both mother and daughter laugh. "You see, there is plenty of room in the country to grow," explained Betty. "Can I do some sums?" "Oh, yes." Plainly, figures were a delusion and a snare to little Doris Adams. They went astray so easily, they would not add up in the right amounts. Mrs. Webb did not like the children to count their fingers, though some of them were very expert about it. When the child got in among the sevens, eights, and nines she was wild with helplessness. Supper time came. This was Warren's evening for the debating society, which even then was a great entertainment for the young men. There would be plenty of time to give them the invitation. Mrs. Leverett was sorry she had consented to Betty's going, but it would have made ill friends. The next day Mrs. Hollis Leverett, the eldest son's wife, came up to spend the day, with her two younger children. Doris was not much used to babies, but she liked the little girl. The husband came up after supper and took them home in a carryall. Doris was tired and sleepy, and couldn't stop to do any sums. Betty was folding up her work, and Warren yawning over his book, when Mrs. Leverett began in a rather jerky manner: "Mrs. Morse was in and invited you both to Jane's birthday party next Thursday night." "Yes, I saw Joe in the street to-day, and he told me," replied Warren. "I said I'd see about you, Betty. You are quite too young to begin party-going." "Why, I suppose it's just a girl's frolic," said her father, wincing suddenly. "They can't help having birthdays. Betty will be begging for a party next." "She won't get it this year," subjoined her mother dryly. "And, by the looks of things, we have no money to throw away." Betty looked a little startled. She had wanted so to really question Doris, but it did not seem quite the thing to do. And perhaps she was not to go, after all. She would coax her father and Warren, she would do almost anything. Warren settled it as they were going up to bed. His mother was in the kitchen, mixing pancakes for breakfast, and he caught Betty's hand. "Of course you are to go," he said. "Mother doesn't believe in dealing out all her good things at once. I wish you had something pretty to wear. It's going to be quite fine." "Oh, dear," sighed Betty. "Jane has such pretty gowns. But of course I have only been a little school-girl until this year, and somehow it is very hard for the mothers to think their girls are grown-up in any respect except that of work." Warren sighed as well, and secretly wished he had a regular salary, and could do what he liked with a little money. His father was training him to take charge of his own business later on. He gave him his board and clothing and half a dollar a week for spending money. When he was twenty-one there would be a new basis, of course. There was not much call for money unless one was rich enough to be self-indulgent. One couldn't spend five cents for a trolley ride, even if there was a downpour of rain. And as Mr. Leverett had never smoked, he had routed the first indications of any such indulgence on the part of his son. The amusements were still rather simple, neighborly affairs. The boys and girls "spent an evening" with each other and had hickory nuts, cider, and crullers that had found their way from Holland to Boston as well as New York. And when winter set in fairly there was sledding and skating and no end of jest and laughter. Many a decorous love affair sprang into shy existence, taking a year or two for the young man to be brave enough to "keep company," if there were no objections on either side. And this often happened to be a walk home from church and an hour's sitting by the family fireside taking part in the general conversation. To be sure, there was the theater. Since 1798, when the Federal Street Theater had burned down and been rebuilt and opened with a rather celebrated actress of that period, Mrs. Jones, theater-going was quite the stylish amusement of the quality. Mr. Leverett and his wife had gone to the old establishment, as it was beginning to be called, to see the tragedy of "Gustavus Vasa," that had set Boston in a furore. They were never quite settled on the point of the sinfulness of the pleasure. Indeed, Mr. Leverett evinced symptoms of straying away from the old landmarks of faith. He had even gone to the preaching of that reprehensible young man, Mr. Hosea Ballou, who had opened new worlds of thought for his consideration. "It's a beautiful belief," Mrs. Leverett admitted, "but whether you can quite square it with Bible truth----" "I'm not so sure you can square the Westminster Catechism either." "If you must doubt, Foster, do be careful before the children. I'm not sure but the old-fashioned religion is best. It made good men and women." "Maybe if you had been brought up a Quaker you wouldn't have seen the real goodness of it. Isn't belief largely a matter of habit and education? Mind, I don't say religion. That is really the man's life, his daily endeavor." "Well, we won't argue." She felt that she could not, and was ashamed that she was not more strongly fortified. "And do be careful before the children." Her husband was a good, honest, upright man--a steady churchgoer and zealous worker in many ways. The intangible change to liberalness puzzled her. If you gave up one point, would there not be a good reason for giving up another? Neither could she quite explain why she should feel more anxious about Betty than she had felt about the girlhood of the two elder daughters. Of course Warren accepted the invitations for himself and his sister. If her new white frock was only done! She had outgrown her last summer's gowns. There was a pretty embroidered India muslin that her sister Electa had given her. If she might put a ruffle around the bottom of the skirt. Aunt Priscilla came over and had her cup of tea so she could get back before dark. She was still afraid of the damp night air. Aunt Priscilla had a trunk full of pretty things she had worn in her early married life. If she, Betty, could be allowed to "rummage" through it! Saturday was magnificent with a summer softness in the air, and the doors could be left open. There were sweeping and scrubbing and scouring and baking. Doris was very anxious to help, and was allowed to seed some raisins. It wasn't hard, but "putterin'" work, and took a good deal of time. But after dinner Uncle Winthrop came in his chaise with his pretty spirited black mare Juno. It was such a nice day, and he had to go up to the North End on some business. There wouldn't be many such days, and Doris might like a ride. There was a flash of delight in the child's eyes. Betty went to help her get ready. "You had better put on her coat, for it's cooler riding," said Mrs. Leverett. "And by night it may turn off cold. A fall day like this is hardly to be trusted." "But it is good while it lasts," said Uncle Win, with his soft half-smile. "Elizabeth, don't pattern after Aunt Priscilla, who can't enjoy to-day because there may be a storm to-morrow." "I don't know but we are too ready to cross bridges before we come to them," she admitted. "A beautiful day goes to my inmost heart. I want to enjoy every moment of it." Doris came in with her eager eyes aglow, and Betty followed her to the chaise, and said: "Don't run away with her, Uncle Win; I can't spare her." That made Doris look up and laugh, she was so happy. They drove around into Hanover Street and then through Wing's Lane. There were some very nice lanes and alleys then that felt quite as dignified as the streets, and were oftentimes prettier. He was going to Dock Square to get a little business errand off his mind. "You won't be afraid to sit here alone? I will fasten Juno securely." "Oh, no," she replied, and she amused herself glancing about. People were mostly through with their business Saturday afternoon. It had a strange aspect to her, however--it was so different from the town across the seas. Some of the streets were so narrow she wondered how the horses and wagons made their way, and was amazed that they did not run over the pedestrians, who seemed to choose the middle of the street as well. Many of the houses had a second story overhanging the first, which made the streets look still narrower. "Now we will go around and see the queer old things," exclaimed Uncle Win, as he jumped into the chaise. "For we have some interesting points of view. A hundred years seems a good while to us new people. And already streets are changing, houses are being torn down. There are some curious things you will like to remember. Did Warren tell you about Paul Revere?" "Oh, yes. How he hung the lantern out of the church steeple." "And this was where he started from. More than thirty years ago that was, and I was a young fellow just arrived at man's estate. Still it was a splendid time to live through. We will have some talks about it in the years to come." "Did you fight, Uncle Win?" "I am not much of a war hero, though we were used for the defense of Boston. You are too young to understand all the struggle." Doris studied the old house. It was three stories, the upper windows seeming just under the roof. On the ground floor there was a store, with two large windows, where Paul Revere had carried on his trade of silver-smith and engraver on copper. There was a broken wire netting before one window, and quite an elaborate hallway for the private entrance, as many people lived over their shops. Long afterward Doris Adams was to be interested in a poet who told the story of Paul Revere's ride in such vivid, thrilling words that he was placed in the list of heroes that the world can never forget. But it had not seemed such a great deed then. Old North Square had many curious memories. It had been a very desirable place of residence, though it was dropping down even now. There were quaint warehouses and oddly constructed shops, taverns with queer names almost washed out of the signs by the storms of many winters. There were the "Red Lion" and the "King's Arms" and other names that smacked of London and had not been overturned in the Revolution. Here had stood the old Second Church that General Howe had caused to be pulled down for firewood during the siege of Boston, the spot rendered sacred by the sermon of many a celebrated Mather. And here had resided Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who would have been sacrificed to the fury of the mob for his Tory proclivities during the Stamp Act riot but for his brother-in-law, the Rev. Samuel Mather, who faced the mob and told them "he should protect the Governor with his life, even if their sentiments were totally dissimilar." And when he came to open court the next morning he had neither gown nor wig, very important articles in that day. For the wigs had long curling hair, and those who wore them had their hair cropped close, like malefactors. And here was the still stately Frankland House, whose romance was to interest Doris deeply a few years hence and to be a theme for poet and novelist. But now she was a good deal amused when her uncle told her of a Captain Kemble in the days of Puritan rule who, after a long sea voyage, was hurrying up the Square, when his wife, who had heard the vessel was sighted, started to go to the landing. As they met the captain took her in his arms and kissed her, and was punished for breaking the Sabbath day by being put in the stocks. "But did they think it so very wrong?" Her face grew suddenly grave. "I suppose they did. They had some queer ideas in those days. They thought all exhibitions of affection out of place." Doris looked thoughtfully out to the harbor. Perhaps that was the reason no one but Betty kissed her. Then they drove around to the Green Dragon. This had been a famous inn, where, in the early days, the patriots came to plan and confer and lay their far-reaching schemes. It was said they went from here to the famous Tea Party. Uncle Winthrop repeated an amusing rhyme: "'Rally, Mohocks, bring out your axes, And tell King George we'll pay no taxes On his foreign tea. His threats are vain, he need not think To force our wives and girls to drink, His vile Bohea.'" "I shouldn't like to be forced to drink it," said Doris, with a touch of repugnance in her small face. "It does better when people get old and queer," said Uncle Winthrop. "Then they want some comfort. They smoke--at least, the men do--and drink tea. Now you can see the veritable Green Dragon." The house was low, with small, old-time dormer windows. The dragon hung out over the doorway. He was made of copper painted green, his two hind feet resting on a bar that swung out of the house, his wings spread out as well as his front feet, and he looked as if he really could fly. Out of his mouth darted a red tongue. "He is dreadful!" exclaimed Doris. "Oh, he doesn't look as fierce now as I have seen him. A coat of paint inspires him with new courage." "Then I am glad they have not painted him up lately. Uncle Win, is there any such thing as a real dragon? Of course I've read about St. George and the dragon," and she raised her eyes with a perplexed light in them. "I think we shall have to relegate dragons to the mythical period, or the early ages. I have never seen one any nearer than that old fellow, or with any more life in him. There are many queer signs about, and queer corners, but I think now we will go over to Salem Street and look at some of the pretty old houses, and then along the Mill Pond. Warren took you up Copp's Hill?" "Oh, yes." "You see, you must know all about Boston. It will take a long while. Next summer we will have drives around here and there." "Oh, that will be delightful!" and she smiled with such a sweet grace that he began to count on it himself. The sun was going over westward in a soft haze that wrapped every leafless tree and seemed to caress the swaying vines into new life. The honeysuckles had not dropped all their leaves, and the evergreens were taking on their winter tint. On some of the wide lawns groups of children were playing, and their voices rang out full of mirth and merriment. Doris half wished she were with them. If Betty was only twelve instead of sixteen! The Mill Pond seemed like a great bay. The placid water (there was no wind to ruffle it) threw up marvelous reflections and glints of colors from the sky above, and the sun beyond that was now a globe of softened flame, raying out lance-like shapes of greater distinctness and then melting away to assume some new form or color. Doris glanced up at Uncle Winthrop. It was as if she felt it all too deeply for any words. He liked the silence and the wordless enjoyment in her face. "We won't go home just yet," he said. They were crossing Cold Lane and could have gone down Sudbury Street. "It is early and we will go along Green Lane and then down to Cambridge Street. You are not tired?" "Oh, no. I think I never should be tired with you, Uncle Winthrop," she returned with grave sweetness, quite unconscious of the delicate compliment implied. What was there about this little girl that went so to his heart? "Uncle Winthrop," she began presently, while a soft pink flush crept up to the edge of her hair, "I heard you and Uncle Leverett talking about some money the first night you were over--wasn't it _my_ money?" "Yes, I think so," with a little dryness in his tone. What made her think about money just now, and with that almost ethereal face! "Is it any that I could have--just a little of it?" hesitatingly. "Why? Haven't you all the things you want?" "I? Oh, yes. I shouldn't know what to wish for unless it was someone to talk French with," and there was a sweet sort of wistfulness in her tone. "I think I can supply that want. Why we might have been talking French half the afternoon. Do you want some French books? Is that it?" "No, sir." There was a lingering inflection in her tone that missed satisfaction. "Are you not happy at Cousin Leverett's?" "Happy? Oh, yes." She glanced up in a little surprise. "But the money would be to make someone else happy." "Ah!" He nodded encouragingly. "Betty is going to a party." "And she has been teasing her mother for some finery?" "She hasn't any pretty gown. I thought this all up myself, Uncle Win. Miss Arabella has such quantities of pretty clothes, and they are being saved up for me. If she was here I should ask her, but I couldn't get it, you know, by Thursday." She gave a soft laugh at the impossibility, as if it was quite ridiculous. "And you want it for her?" "She's so good to me, Uncle Win. For although I know some things quite well, there are others in which I am very stupid. A little girl in school said yesterday that I was 'dreadful dumb, dumber than a goose.' Aunt Elizabeth said a goose was so dumb that if it came in the garden through a hole in the fence it never could find it again to get out." "That is about the truth," laughed Uncle Win. "I couldn't get along in arithmetic if it wasn't for Betty. She's so kind and tells me over and over again. And I can't do anything for Aunt Elizabeth, because I don't know how, and it takes most of my time to study. But if I could give Betty a gown--Miss Arabella went to so many parties when she was young. If I was there I know she would consent to give Betty _one_ gown." Uncle Winthrop thought of a trunk full of pretty gowns that had been lying away many a long year. He couldn't offer any of those to Betty. And that wouldn't be a gift from Doris. "I wonder what would be nice? An old fellow like me would not know about a party gown." "Warren would. He and Betty talked a little about it last night. And that made me think--but it didn't come into my mind until a few moments ago that maybe there would be enough of my own money to buy one." Doris glanced at him with such wistful entreaty that he felt he could not have denied her a much greater thing. He remembered, too, that Elizabeth Leverett had refused to take any compensation for Doris, this winter at least, and he had been thinking how to make some return. "Yes, I will see Warren. And we will surprise Betty. But perhaps her mother would be a better judge." "I think Aunt Elizabeth doesn't quite want Betty to go, although she told Mrs. Morse she should." "Oh, it's at the Morses'? Well, they are very nice people. And young folks do go to parties. Yes, we will see about the gown." "Uncle Winthrop, you are like the uncles in fairy stories. I had such a beautiful fairy book at home, but it must have been mislaid." She put her white-mittened hand over his driving glove, but he felt the soft pressure with a curious thrill. They went through Cambridge Street and Hilier's Lane and there they were at home. "It has been lovely," she said with a happy sigh as he lifted her out. Then she reached up from the stepping-stone and kissed him. "It isn't Sunday," she said naïvely, "and it is because you are so good to me. And this isn't North Square." He laughed and gave her a squeeze. Cousin Elizabeth came out and wished him a pleasant good-night as he drove away. What a charming little child she was, so quaintly sensible, and with a simplicity and innocence that went to one's heart. How would Recompense Gardiner regard a little girl like that? He would have her over sometime for a day and they would chatter in French. Perhaps he had better brush up his French a little. Then he smiled, remembering she had called herself stupid, and he was indignant that anyone should pronounce her dumb. CHAPTER VII ABOUT A GOWN Saturday evening was already quiet at the Leveretts'. Elizabeth had been brought up to regard it as the beginning of the Sabbath instead of the end of the week. People were rather shocked then when you said Sunday, and quite forgot the beautiful significance of the Lord's Day. Aunt Priscilla still believed in the words of the Creation: that the evening and the morning were the first day. In Elizabeth's early married life she had kept it rigorously. All secular employments had been put by, and the children had studied and recited the catechism. But as they changed into men and women other things came between. Then Mr. Leverett grew "lax" and strayed off--after other gods, she thought at first. He softened noticeably. He had a pitiful side for the poor and all those in trouble. Elizabeth declared he used no judgment or discrimination. He opened the old Bible and put his finger on a verse: "While we have time let us do good unto all men; and especially unto them that are of the household of faith." "You see," he said gravely, "the household of faith isn't put first, it is 'all men.'" She was reading the Bible, not as a duty but a delight, skipping about for the sweetness of it. And she found many things that her duty reading had overlooked. The children did not repeat the catechism any more. She had been considering whether it was best to set Doris at it; but Doris knew her own catechism, and Cousin Winthrop was a Churchman, so perhaps it wasn't wise to meddle. She took Doris to church with her. Now, on Saturday evening work was put away. Warren was trying to read "Paradise Lost." He had parsed out of it at school. Now and then he dropped into the very heart of things, but he had not a poetical temperament. His father enjoyed it very much, and was quite a reader of Milton's prose works. Betty had strayed off into history. Doris sat beside Uncle Leverett with her arms on his knee, and looked into the fire. What were they doing back in Old Boston? Aunt Elizabeth had already condemned the fairy stories as untrue, and therefore falsehoods, so Doris never mentioned them. The child, with her many changes and gentle nature, had developed a certain tact or adaptiveness, and loved pleasantness. She was just a little afraid of Aunt Elizabeth's sharpness. It was like a biting wind. She always made comparisons in her mind, and saw things in pictured significance. It ran over many things now. The old house that had been patched and patched, and had one corner propped up from outside. The barn that was propped up all around and had a thatched roof that suggested an immense haystack. Old Barby crooning songs by the kitchen fire, sweet old Miss Arabella with her great high cap and her snowy little curls. Why did Aunt Priscilla think curls wrong? She had a feeling Aunt Elizabeth did not quite approve of hers, but Betty said the Lord curled them in the beginning. How sweet Miss Arabella must have been in her youth--yes, she must surely have been young--when she wore the pretty frocks and went to the king's palace! She always thought of her when she came to the verses in the Psalms about the king's daughters and their beautiful attire. If Betty could have had one of those! Her heart beat with unwonted joy as she remembered how readily Uncle Winthrop had consented to her wish. Oh, if the frock would be pretty! And if Betty would like it! She stole a glance or two at her. How queer to have a secret from Betty that concerned her so much. Of course people did not talk about clothes on Sunday, so there would be no temptation to tell, even if she had a desire, which she should not have. Monday morning everything would be in a hurry, for it was wash-day, and she would have to go over her lessons. Uncle Win said the gown would be at the house Monday noon. "What are you thinking of, little one?" Uncle Leverett put his hand over the small one and looked down at the face, which grew scarlet--or was it the warmth of the fire? She laughed with a sudden embarrassment. "I've been to Old Boston," she said, "and to new Boston. And I have seen such sights of things." "You had better go to bed. And you have almost burned up your face sitting so close by the fire. It is bad for the eyes, too," said Aunt Elizabeth. She rose with ready obedience. "I think I'll go too," said Betty with a yawn. The history of the Reformation was dull and prosy. When Doris had said her prayers, and was climbing into bed, Betty kissed her good-night. "I'm awfully afraid Uncle Win will want you some day," she said. "And I just couldn't let you go. I wish you were my little sister." There was a service in the morning and the afternoon on Sunday. Uncle Leverett accompanied them in the morning. He generally went out in the evening, and often some neighbor came in. It was quite a social time. When Doris came home from school Monday noon Aunt Elizabeth handed her a package addressed to "Miss Doris Adams, from Mr. Winthrop Adams." "It is a new frock, I know," cried Betty laughingly. "And it is very choice. I can tell by the way it is wrapped. Open it quick! I'm on pins and needles." "It is a nice cord; don't cut it," interposed Aunt Elizabeth. Betty picked out the knot. There was another wrapper inside, and this had on it "Miss Betty Leverett. From her little cousin, Doris Adams." Mr. Leverett came at Betty's exclamation and looked over her shoulder. "Are you sure it is for me? Here is a note from Uncle Win that is for you. Oh! oh! Doris, was this what you did Saturday?" A soft shimmering China silk slipped out of its folds and trailed on the floor. It was a lovely rather dullish blue, such as you see in old china, and sprays of flowers were outlined in white. Betty stood transfixed, and just glanced from one to the other. "Oh, do you like it?" cried Warren, impatient for the verdict. "Uncle Win asked me to go out and do an errand with him. I was clear amazed. But it's Doris' gift, and bought out of her own money. We looked over ever so many things. He said you wanted something young, not a grandmother gown. And we both settled upon this." Betty let it fall and clasped Doris in her arms. "Down on the dirty floor as if it was nothing worth while!" began Mrs. Leverett, while her husband picked up the slippery stuff and let it fall again until she took it out of his hands. "And do come to dinner! There's a potpie made of the cold meat, and it will all be cold together, for I took it up ever so long ago. And, Betty, you haven't put on any pickles. And get that quince sauce." "I don't know what to say." There were tears in Betty's eyes as she glanced at Doris. "Well, you can have all winter to say it in," rejoined her mother tartly. "And your father won't want to spend all winter waiting for his dinner." They had finished their washing early. By a little after ten everything was on the line, and now the mornings had grown shorter, although you could piece them out with candlelight. Betty had suggested the cold meat should be made into a potpie, and now Mrs. Leverett half wished she had kept to the usual wash-day dinner--cold meat and warmed-over vegetables. She felt undeniably cross. She had not cordially acquiesced in Betty's going to the party. The best gown she had to wear was her gray cloth, new in the spring. It had been let down in the skirt and trimmed with some wine-colored bands Aunt Priscilla had brought her. It would be a good discipline for Betty to wear it. When she saw the other young girls in gayer attire, she would be mortified if she had any pride. Just where proper pride began and improper pride ended she was not quite clear. Anyhow, it would check Betty's party-going this winter. And now all the nice-laid plans had come to grief. Doris stood still, feeling there was something not quite harmonious in the atmosphere. "You were just royal to think of it," said Warren, clasping both arms around Doris. "Uncle Win told me about it. And I hope you like our choice. Betty had a blue and white cambric, I think they called it, last summer, and she looked so nice in it, but it didn't wash well. Silk doesn't have to be washed. Oh, you haven't read your letter." Uncle Leverett had been folding and rolling the silk and laid it on a chair. The dinner came in just as Doris had read two or three lines of her note. "Aunt Elizabeth,"--when there was a little lull,--"Uncle Winthrop says he will come up to supper to-night." "He seems very devoted, suddenly." "Well, why shouldn't he be devoted to the little stranger in his charge, if she isn't exactly within his gates? She is in ours." A flush crept up in Elizabeth Leverett's face. She did not look at Doris, but she felt the child's eyes were upon her--wondering eyes, asking the meaning of this unusual mood. It was unreasonable as well. Elizabeth had a kindly heart, and she knew she was doing not only herself but Doris an injustice. She checked her rising displeasure. "I should have enjoyed seeing you and Uncle Win shopping," she said rather jocosely to Warren. Betty glanced up at that. The sky was clearing and the storm blowing over. But, oh, she had her pretty gown, come what might! "I don't believe but what I would have been a better judge than either of them," said Uncle Leverett. "Uncle Win wasn't really any judge at all," rejoined Warren laughingly. "He would have chosen the very best there was, fine enough for a wedding gown. But I knew Betty liked blue, and that girls wanted something soft and delicate." "You couldn't have suited me any better," acknowledged Betty, giving the chair that held her treasure an admiring glance. "I shall have to study all the afternoon to know what to say to Uncle Win. As for Doris----" Doris was smiling now. If they were all pleased, that was enough. "I hope Uncle Win won't let you spend your money this way very often," said Uncle Leverett, "or you will have nothing left to buy silk gowns for yourself when you are a young woman." "Maybe no one will ever ask me to a party," said Doris simply. "I will give one in your honor," declared Warren. "Let me see--in seven years you will be sixteen. I will save up a little money every year after I get my freedom suit." "Your freedom suit?" in a perplexed manner. "Yes--when I am twenty-one. That will be next July." "You will have to buy her a silk gown as well," said his father with a twinkle of humor in his eye. "Then I shall strike for higher wages." "We shall have a new President and we will see what that brings about. The present method is simply ruinous." The dinner was uncommonly good, if it had been made of cooked-over meat. And the pie was delicious. Any woman who could make a pie like that, and have the custard a perfect cream, ought to be the happiest woman alive. Mr. Leverett followed his wife out in the kitchen, and gave the door a push with his foot. But the three young people were so enthusiastic about the new gown, now that the restraint was removed, that they could not have listened. "Mother," he began, "don't spoil the little girl's good time and her pleasure in the gift." "Betty did not need a silk gown. The other girls didn't have one until they were married. If I had considered it proper, I should have bought it myself." "But Winthrop hadn't the heart to refuse Doris." "If he means to indulge every whim and fancy she'll spend everything she has before she is fairly grown. She's too young to understand and she has been brought up so far in an irresponsible fashion. Generosity is sometimes foolishness." "You wouldn't catch Hollis' little boy spending his money on anyone," and Sam's grandfather laughed. Sam was bright and shrewd, smart at his books and good at a barter. He had a little money out at interest already. Mr. Leverett had put it in the business, and every six months Sam collected his interest on the mark. "Winthrop isn't as slack as you sometimes think. He could calculate compound interest to a fraction." "I'm glad someone has a little forethought," was the rather tart reply. "Winthrop isn't as slack as you sometimes think. He doesn't like business, but he has a good head for it. And he will look out for Doris. He is mightily interested in her too. But if you must scold anyone, save it for him to-night, and let Doris be happy in her gift." "Am I such a scold?" "You are my dear helpmeet." He put his arm over her shoulder and kissed her. People were not very demonstrative in those days, and their affection spoke oftener in deeds than words. In fact, they thought the words betrayed a strand of weakness. "There, I must be off," he added. "Come, Warren," opening the door. "Meade will think we have had a turkey dinner and stayed to polish the bones." Betty had been trying the effect of trailing silk and enjoying her brother's admiration. Now she folded it again decorously, and began to pile up the cups and plates, half afraid to venture into the kitchen lest her dream of delight should be overshadowed by a cloud. Mrs. Leverett was doing a sober bit of thinking. How much happiness ought one to allow one's self in this vale of tears? Something she had read last night recurred to her--"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these----" Done what? Fed bodies and warmed and clothed them. And what of the hungry longing soul? All her life she had had a good tender husband. And now, when he had strayed from the faith a little, he seemed dearer and nearer than ever before. God had given her a great deal to be thankful for. Five fine children who had never strayed out of the paths of rectitude. Of course, she had always given the credit to their "bringing up." And here was a little girl reared quite differently, sweet, wholesome, generous, painstaking, and grateful for every little favor. Astute Betty sent Doris in as an advance guard. "You may take the dish of spoons, and I'll follow with the cups and saucers." Aunt Elizabeth looked up and half smiled. "You and Uncle Win have been very foolish," she began, but her tone was soft, as if she did not wholly believe what she was saying. "I shall save my scolding for him, and I think Betty will have to train you in figures all winter long to half repay for such a beautiful gift." "Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, I _thought_ of it, you know," she cried in sweet eagerness, "and if there is anything wrong----" "There isn't anything wrong, dear." Mrs. Leverett stooped and kissed her. "I don't know as Betty needed a silk gown, for many a girl doesn't have one until she is married. I shall have to keep a sharp eye on you and Uncle Win hereafter." Betty went back and forth. The dishes were washed and the kitchen set to rights, while the bits of talk flowed pleasantly. "I think I will iron this afternoon," announced Betty. "I see some of the clothes are dry. Didn't you mean to go and see about the carpet, mother?" "I had thought of it. I want to have my warp dyed blue and orange, and some of the rags colored. Mrs. Jett does it so well, and she's so needy I thought I would give her all the work. Your father said I had better. And she might dip over that brown frock of yours. The piece of new can go with it so it will all be alike." Betty wanted to lift up her heart in thanksgiving. The dyeing tub was her utter abomination--it took so long for the stain to wear out of your hands. "Well--if you like." This referred to the ironing. "I don't know how you'll get your gown done." "I might run over and get some patterns from Jane, if I get through in time," suggested Betty. For a horrible fear had entered her mind that her mother's acceptance of the fact foreboded some delay in the making. "Don't go until I get back." "Oh, no." Betty took down the clothes and folded them. They were just right to iron. She arranged her table, and Doris brought her books and sat at one end. "It would be so much nicer to talk about the party," she said gravely, "but the lessons are so hard. Oh, Betty, do you think I shall ever be smart like other girls? I feel ashamed sometimes. My figures are just dreadful. Robert Lane said this morning they looked like hen tracks. His are beautiful. And he is only seven years old. Oh, dear!" "Robbie has been at school three years. Wait until you have been a year!" "And writing. Oh, Betty, when will I be able to write a letter to Miss Arabella? Now, if you could talk across the ocean!" "The idea! One would have to scream pretty loud, and then it wouldn't go a mile." Betty threw her head back and laughed. But Doris was to live long enough to talk across the ocean, though no one really dreamed of it then; indeed, at first it was quite ridiculed. "It is a nice thing to know a good deal, but it is awful hard to learn," said the little girl presently. "Now, it seems to me I never could learn French. And when you rattle it off in the way you do, I am dumb-founded." "What is that, Betty?" Betty flushed and laughed. "Surprised or anything like that," she returned. "But, you see, I learned to talk and read just as you do English. And then papa being English, why I had both languages. It was very easy." "Patience and perseverance will make this easy." "And I can't knit a stocking nor make a shirt. And I haven't pieced a bedspread nor worked a sampler. Mary Green has a beautiful one, with a border of strawberries around the edge and forget-me-nots in the corner. Her father is going to have it framed." "Oh, you must not chatter so much. Begin and say some tables." "I know 'three times' skipping all about. But when you get good and used one way you have to fly around some other way. I can say 'four times' straight, but I have to think a little." "Now begin," said Betty. They seemed to run races, until Doris' cheeks were like roses and she was all out of breath. At last she accomplished the baleful four, skipping about. "Mrs. Webb said I must learn four and five this week. And five is easy enough. Now, will you hear me do some sums in addition?" She added aloud, and did quite well, Betty thought. "When I can make nice figures and do sums that are worth while, I am to have a book to put them in, Mrs. Webb says. What is worth while, Betty?" "Why it's--it's--a thing that is really worth doing well. I don't know everything," with a half-laughing sigh. Betty had all her pieces ironed before the lessons were learned. Doris thought ironing was easier. It finished up of itself, and there was nothing to come after. "Well--there is mending," suggested Betty. "I know how to darn. I shall not have to learn that." "And you darn beautifully." While Mrs. Leverett was out she thought she would run down to Aunt Priscilla's a few moments, so it was rather late when she returned. But Betty had a pan of biscuits rising in the warmth of the fire. Then she was allowed to go over to the Morses' and tell Jane the wonderful news. Uncle Winthrop walked up, so there would be no trouble about the horse; then, he had been writing all day, and needed some exercise. "And how did the silk suit?" he asked as he took both of the child's hands in his. "It was just beautiful. Betty was delighted, and so surprised! Uncle Winthrop, isn't it a joyful thing to make people happy!" "Why--I suppose it is," with a curious hesitation in his voice, as he glanced down into the shining eyes. He had not thought much of making anyone happy latterly. Indeed, he believed he had laid all the real joys of life in his wife's grave. He was proud of his son, of course, and he did everything for his advancement. But a simple thing like this! "We have been studying all the afternoon, Betty and I. She is so good to me. And to think, Uncle Win, she had read the Bible all through when she was eight years old, and made a shirt. All the little girls make one for their father. And he gave her a silver half-dollar with a hole in it, and she put a blue ribbon through it and means to keep it always. But I haven't any father. And I began to read the Bible on Sunday. It will take me two years," with a long sigh. "I used to read the Psalms to Miss Arabella, and there was a portion for every day. They are just a month long, when the month has thirty days." Her chatter was so pleasant. Several times through the day her soft voice had haunted him. Aunt Elizabeth came in with her big kitchen apron tied over her best afternoon gown. She didn't scold very hard, but she thought Uncle Win might better be careful of the small fortune coming to Doris, since she had neither father nor brother to augment it. And they would make Betty as vain as a peacock in all her finery. Betty returned laden with patterns and her eyes as bright as stars. Jane Morse had promised to come over in the morning and help her cut her gown. Jane was a very "handy" girl, and prided herself on knowing enough about "mantua making" to get her living if she had need. At that period nearly every family did the sewing of all kinds except the outside wear for men. And fashions were as eagerly sought for and discussed among the younger people as in more modern times. The old Puritan attire was still in vogue. Not so many years before the Revolution the Royalists' fashions, both English and French, had been adopted. But the cocked hats and scarlet coats, the flowing wigs and embroidered waistcoats, had been swept away by the Continental style. For women, high heels and high caps had run riot, and hoops and flowing trains of brocades and velvets and glistening silks. And now the wife of the First Consul of France was the Empress Josephine, and the Empire style had swept away the pompadour and everything else. It had the advantage of being more simple, though quite as costly. Uncle Win and Uncle Leverett talked politics after supper, one sitting one side of the chimney and one the other. Doris had gone over to Uncle Winthrop's side, and she wished she could be two little girls just for the evening. She was trying very hard to understand what they meant by the Embargo and the Non-Intercourse Act, and she learned they were going to have a new President in March. She did not think politics very interesting--she liked better to hear about the war that had begun more than thirty years ago. Uncle Leverett was quite sure there would be another war before they were done with it; that all the old questions had not been fought out, and there could be no lasting peace until they were. Did men like war so much, she wondered? Betty stole around to Uncle Win's side before he went away and thanked him again for the interest he had taken in Doris' desire. Yes, she was a pretty girl; and how much cheer there seemed around the Leverett fireside! Warren was a fine young fellow, too, older by two years than his own son. He missed a certain cordial living that would have cheered his own life. When his boy came home he would have it different. And by that time he would have decided about Doris. Betty and Jane had plenty of discussions the next morning. Waists were short and full, and with a square neck and a flat band, over which there was a fall of lace, and short, puffed sleeves for evening wear. "But she isn't likely to go to another party this winter, and she will want it for a best dress all next summer," said Mrs. Leverett. "Oh, I should have long sleeves, as well, and just baste them in. And there's so much silk I should make a fichu to tie round in the back with two long ends. You can make that any time. And a scant ruffle not more than an inch wide when it is finished. A ruffle round the skirt about two inches when that is done. Letty Rowe has three ruffles around her changeable taffeta. 'Twas made for her cousin's wedding, and it is just elegant." "It is a shame to waste stuff that way," declared Mrs. Leverett. "But the frills are scant, and skirts are never more than two and a half yards round. Why, last summer mother said I might have that fine sprigged muslin of hers to make over, and I'm sure I have enough for another gown. Mrs. Leverett, it doesn't take half as much to make a gown for us as it did for our mothers," said Jane with arch humor. "She had better save the piece for a new waist and sleeves," declared the careful mother. "Well, maybe fichus and capes will go out before another summer. I would save the piece now, at any rate," agreed Jane. Jane was extremely clever. The girls had many amusing asides, for Mrs. Leverett was ironing in the kitchen. There was nothing harmful about them, but they were full of gay promise. Jane cut and basted and fitted. There were the bodice and the sleeves. "You can easily slip out the long ones," she whispered, "and there was the skirt with the lining all basted, and the ruffles cut and sewed together." "You'll have a nice job hemming them. I should do it over a cord. It makes them set out so much better. And if you get in the drag I'll come over to-morrow. I'm to help mother with the nut cake this afternoon. It cuts better to be a day or two old. We made the fruit cake a fortnight ago." "How good you are! I don't know what I should have done without you!" "And I don't know how Betty will ever repay you," said Mrs. Leverett. "I know," returned Jane laughingly. "I have planned to get every stitch out of her. I am going to quilt my 'Young Man's Ramble' this winter, and mother's said I might ask in two or three of the best quilters I know--Betty quilts so beautifully!" The "Young Man's Ramble" was patchwork of a most intricate design, in which it seemed that one might ramble about fruitlessly. "I am glad there is some way of your getting even," said the mother with a little pride. Jane took dinner with them and then ran off home. Warren went a short distance with her, as their way lay together. "I hope you didn't say anything about the dancing," he remarked. "Mother is rather set against it. But Sister Electa gives dancing parties, and Betty's going to Hartford this winter. She ought to know how to dance." "Trust me for not letting the cat out of the bag!" Betty sewed and sewed. She could hardly attend to Doris' lessons and sums. She hemmed the ruffle in the evening, and hurried with her work the next morning. Everything went smoothly, and Mrs. Leverett was more interested than she would have believed. And she was quite ready to take up the cudgel for her daughter's silken gown when Aunt Priscilla made her appearance. Of course she would find fault. But it is the unexpected that happens. Aunt Priscilla was in an extraordinary mood. Some money had been paid to her that morning that she had considered lost beyond a peradventure. And she said, "It was a great piece of foolishness, and Winthrop Adams at his time of life ought to have had more sense, but what could you expect of a man always browsing over books! And if she had thought Betty was dying for a silk frock, she had two laid away that would come in handy some time. She hadn't ever quite decided who should fall heir to them, but so many of the girls had grown up and had husbands to buy fine things for them, she supposed it would be Betty." "What is going round the neck and sleeves?" she asked presently. "Mother has promised to lend me some lace," answered Betty. "The other girls had a borrowed wear out of it." "I'll look round a bit. I never had much real finery, but husband always wanted me to dress well when we were first married. We went out a good deal for a while, before he was hurt. I'll see what I have." And the next morning old Polly brought over a box with "Missus' best compliments." There was some beautiful English thread lace about four inches wide, just as it had lain away for years, wrapped in soft white paper, with a cake of white wax to keep it from turning unduly yellow. "Betty, you are in wonderful luck," said her mother. "Something has stirred up Aunt Priscilla." Just at noon that eventful Thursday Mr. Manning came in from Salem for his mother-in-law. Mrs. Manning's little daughter had been born at eight that morning, and Mary wanted her mother at once. She had promised to go, but hardly expected the call so soon. There were so many charges to give Betty, who was to keep house for the next week. Nothing was quite ready. Mother fashion, she had counted on doing this and that before she went; and if Betty couldn't get along she must ask Aunt Priscilla to come, just as if Betty had not kept house a whole week last summer. There was advice to father and to Warren, and he was to try to bring Betty home by nine o'clock that evening. What Doris would do in the afternoon, she couldn't see. "Go off with an easy heart, mother," said Mr. Leverett; "I will come home early this afternoon." CHAPTER VIII SINFUL OR NOT? "You should have seen me when Jane tied a white sash about my waist. Then I was just complete." "But you looked beautiful before--like a--well, a queen couldn't have looked prettier. Or the Empress Josephine." Betty laughed and kissed the little girl whose eyes were still full of admiration. She had not come home until ten, and found her father waiting at the fireside, but Doris was snuggled up in bed and soundly asleep. She had risen at her father's call, made the breakfast, and sent the men off in time; then heard the lesson Doris wasn't quite sure of, and sent her to school; and now the dinner was cleared away and they were sitting by the fire. The Empress Josephine was in her glory then, one of the notables of Europe. "And Mrs. Morse said such lace as that would be ten dollars a yard now. Think of that! Thirty dollars! But didn't you get lonesome waiting for father?" "He came just half an hour afterward. And, oh, we had such a grand, funny time getting supper. It was as good as a party. I poured the tea. And he called me Miss Adams, like a grown lady. And, then, what do you think? We played fox and geese! And do you know I thought the geese were dumb to let the fox get them all. And then he took the geese and soon penned my fox in a corner. Then he told me about the fox and the goose and the measure of corn and the man crossing the stream. It was just delightful. I wanted to stay up until you came home, but I did get so sleepy. And was the party splendid? I don't think anyone could have been prettier than you!" "Sally Prentiss had a pink silk frock, and the ruffles were fringed out, which made them fluffy. It was beautiful! Oh, I should have felt just awful in my gray cloth or my blue winter frock. And I owe most of the delight to you, little Doris. I've been thinking--sometime I will work you a beautiful white frock, fine India muslin." "And what did they do?" "We didn't sew much," Betty laughed. "We talked and talked. I knew all but one girl, and we were soon acquainted. Jane didn't have a thing to do, of course. Then the gentlemen came and we went out to supper. The table was like a picture. There was cold turkey and cold ham and cold baked pork. They were all delicious. And bread and biscuits and puffy little cakes quite new. Mrs. Morse's cousin brought the recipe, and she has promised it to mother. And there were jams and jellies and ever so many things, and then all the plates and meats were sent away, and the birthday cake with seventeen tiny candles was lighted up. And cake of every kind, and whipped cream and nuts and candies. Then we went back to the parlor and played "proverbs" and "What is my thought like?" and then black Joe came with his fiddle. First they danced the minuet. It was beautiful. And then they had what is called cotillions. I believe that is the new fashionable dance. It takes eight people, but you can have two or three at the same time. They dance in figures. And, oh, it is just delightful! I _do_ wonder if it is wrong?" "What would make it wrong?" asked Doris gravely. "That's what puzzles me. A great many people think it right and send their children to dancing-school. On all great occasions there seems to be dancing. It is stepping and floating around gracefully. You think of swallows flying and flowers swinging and grass waving in the summer sun." "But if there is so much of it in the world, and if God made the world gay and glad and rejoicing and full of butterflies and birds and ever so many things that don't do any real work but just have a lovely time----" Doris' wide-open eyes questioned her companion. "They haven't any souls. I don't know." Betty shook her head. "Let's ask father about it to-night. When you are little you play tag and puss-in-the-corner and other things, and run about full of fun. Dancing is more orderly and refined. And there's the delicious music! All the young men were so nice and polite,--so kind of elegant,--and it makes you feel of greater consequence. I don't mean vain, only as if it was worth while to behave prettily. It's like the parlor and the kitchen. You don't take your washing and scrubbing and scouring in the parlor, though that work is all necessary. So there are two sides to life. And my side just now is getting supper, while your side is studying tables. Oh, I do wonder if you will ever get to know them!" Doris sighed. She would so much rather talk about the party. "And your frock was--pretty?" she ventured timidly. "All the girls thought it lovely. And I told them it was a gift from my little cousin, who came from old Boston--and they were so interested in you. They thought Doris a beautiful name, but Sally said the family name ought to be grander to go with it. But Adams is a fine old name, too--the first name that was ever given. There was only one man then, and when there came to be such hosts of them they tacked the 's' on to make it a noun of multitude." "Did they really? Some of the children are learning about nouns. Oh, dear, how much there is to learn!" said the little girl with a sigh. Betty went at her supper. People ate three good stout meals in those days. It made a deal of cooking. It made a stout race of people as well, and one heard very little about nerves and indigestion. Betty was getting to be quite a practiced cook. Mr. Leverett took a good deal of interest hearing about the party. Warren had enjoyed it mightily. And then they besieged him for an opinion on the question of dancing. Warren presented his petition that he might be allowed to join a class of young men that was being formed. There were only a few vacancies. "I do not think I have a very decided opinion about it," he returned slowly. "Times have changed a good deal since I was young, and amusements have changed with them. A hundred or so years ago life was very strenuous, and prejudices of people very strong. Yet the young people skated and had out-of-door games, and indoor plays that we consider very rough now. And you remember that our ancestors were opposed to nearly everything their oppressors did. Their own lives were too serious to indulge in much pleasuring. The pioneers of a nation rarely do. But we have come to an era of more leisure as to social life. Whether it will make us as strong as a nation remains to be seen." "That doesn't answer my question," said Warren respectfully. "I am going to ask you to wait until you are of age, mostly for your mother's sake. I think she dreads leaving the old ways. And then Betty will have no excuse," with a shrewd little smile. Warren looked disappointed. "But I danced last night," said Betty. "And we used to dance last winter at school. Two or three of the girls were good enough to show us the new steps. And one of the amusing things was a draw cotillion. The girls drew out a slip of paper that had a young man's name on it, and then she had to pass it over to him, and he danced with her. And who do you think I had?" triumphantly. "I do not know the young men who were there," said her father. "I hope it was the very nicest and best," exclaimed Doris. "It just was! Jane's cousin, Morris Winslow. And he was quite the leader in everything, almost as if it was his party. And he is one of the real quality, you know. I was almost afraid to dance with him, but he was so nice and told me what to do every time, so I did not make any serious blunders. But it is a pleasure to feel that you know just how." "There will be years for you to learn," said her father. "Meanwhile the ghost of old Miles Standish may come back." "What would he do?" asked Doris, big-eyed. Warren laughed. "What he did in the flesh was this: The Royalists--you see, they were not all Puritans that came over--were going to keep an old-time festival at a place called Merry Mount. They erected a May pole and were going to dance around it." "That is what they do at home. And they have a merry time. Miss Arabella took me. And didn't Miles Standish like it?" "I guess not. He sent a force of men to tear it down, and marched Morton and his party into Plymouth, where they were severely reprimanded--fined as well, some people say." "We do not rule our neighbors quite as strictly now. But one must admire those stanch old fellows, after all." "I am glad the world has grown wider," said Warren. But he wished its wideness had taken in his mother, who had a great fear of the evils lying in wait for unwary youth. Still he would not go against her wishes while he was yet under age. Young people were considered children in their subjection to their parents until this period. And girls who stayed at home were often in subjection all their lives. There were men who ruled their families with a sort of iron sway, but Mr. Leverett had always been considered rather easy. Doris begged to come out and dry the dishes, but they said tables instead of talking of the seductive party. Mr. Leverett had to go out for an hour. Betty sat down and took up her knitting. She felt rather tired and sleepy, for she had gone on with the party the night before, after she was in bed. A modern girl would be just getting ready to go to her party at ten. But then she would not have to get up at half-past five the next morning, make a fire, and cook breakfast. Suddenly Betty found herself nodding. "Put up your book, Doris. I'll mix the cakes and we will go to bed. You can dream on the lessons." The party had demoralized Doris as well. Among the real quality young men came to inquire after the welfare of the ladies the next morning, or evening at the latest. But people in the middle classes were occupied with their employments, which were the main things of their lives. And though the lines were strongly drawn and the "quality" were aristocratic, there were pleasant gradations, marked by a fine breeding on the one side and a sense of fitness on the other, that met when there was occasion, and mingled and fused agreeably, then returned each to his proper sphere. The Morses were well connected and had some quite high-up relatives. For that matter, so were the Leveretts, but Foster Leverett was not ambitions for wealth or social distinction, and Mrs. Leverett clung to the safety of the good old ways. Jane ran over in the morning with a basket of some of the choicer kinds of cake, and some nuts, raisins, and mottoes for the little girl. There were so many nice things she was dying to tell Betty,--compliments,--and some from Cousin Morris. And didn't she think everything went off nicely? "It was splendid, all through," cried Betty enthusiastically. "I would like to go to a party--well, I suppose every week would be too often, but at least twice a month." "The Chauncey Winslows are going to have a party Thanksgiving night. They are Morris' cousins and not mine, but I've been there; and Morris said last night I should have an invitation. It will be just splendid, I know." "But you are seventeen. And mother thinks I am only a little girl," returned Betty. "Oh, yes; I didn't go scarcely anywhere last winter. Being grown up is ever so much nicer. But it will come for you." "Electa wants me to visit her this winter. The assembly is to meet, you know, and she has plenty of good times, although she has three children. I _do_ hope I can go! And I have that lovely frock." "That would be delightful. I wish I had a sister married and living away somewhere--New York, for instance. They have such fine times. Oh, dear! how do you get along alone?" "It keeps me pretty busy." Jane had come out in the kitchen, so Betty could go on with her dinner preparations. "Mother thinks of keeping Cousin Nabby all winter. She likes Boston so, and it's lonely up in New Hampshire on the farm. That will ease me up wonderfully." "If I go away mother will have to get someone." "Although they do not think we young people are of much account," laughed Jane. "Give your little girl a good big chunk of party cake and run over when you can." "But I can't now." "Then I will have to do the visiting." Dinner was ready on the mark, and Mr. Leverett praised it. Doris came home in high feather. She had not missed a word, and she had done all her sums. "I think I am growing smarter," she announced with a kind of grave exultation. "Don't you think Aunt Elizabeth will teach me how to knit when she comes back?" Not to have knit a pair of stockings was considered rather disgraceful for a little girl. Aunt Priscilla came over early Saturday afternoon. She found the house in very good order, and she glanced sharply about, too. They had not heard from Mary yet, but the elder lady said no news was good news. Then she insisted on looking over the clothes for the Monday's wash and mending up the rents. Tuesday she would come in and darn the stockings. When she was nine years old it was her business to do all the family darning, looking askance at Doris. "Now, if you had been an only child, Aunt Priscilla, and had no parents, what a small amount of darning would have fallen to your share!" said Betty. "Well, I suppose I would have been put out somewhere and trained to make myself useful. And if I'd had any money that would have been on interest, so that I could have some security against want in my old age. Anyway, it isn't likely I should have been allowed to fritter away my time." Betty wondered how Aunt Priscilla could content herself with doing such a very little now! Not but what she had earned a rest. And Foster Leverett, who managed some of her business, said _sub rosa_ that she was not spending all her income. "You can't come up to your mother making tea," she said at the supper table. "Your mother makes the best cup of tea I ever tasted." Taking it altogether they did get on passably well without Mrs. Leverett during the ten days. She brought little James, six years of age, who couldn't go the long distance to school in cold weather with the two older children, and so was treated to a visit at grandmother's. Mary was doing well and had a sweet little girl, as good as a kitten. Mr. Manning's Aunt Comfort had come to stay a spell through the winter. And now there was getting ready for Thanksgiving. There was no time to make mince pies, but then Mrs. Leverett didn't care so much for them early in the season. Hollis' family would come up, they would ask Aunt Priscilla, and maybe Cousin Winthrop would join them. So they were busy as possible. Little James took a great liking to his shy cousin Doris, and helped her say tables and spell. He had been at school all summer and was very bright and quick. "But, Uncle Foster," she declared, "the children in America are much smarter than English children. They understand everything so easily." Then came the first big snowstorm of the season. There had been two or three little dashes and squalls. It began at noon and snowed all night. The sky was so white in the early morning you could hardly tell where the snow line ended and where it began; but by and by there came a bluish, silvery streak that parted it like a band, and presently a pale sun ventured forth, hanging on the edge of yellowish clouds and growing stronger, until about noon it flooded everything with gold, and the heavens were one broad sheet of blue magnificence. Doris did not go to school in the morning. There were no broken paths, and boys and men were busy shoveling out or tracking down. "It is a heavy snow for so early in the season," declared Uncle Leverett. "We are not likely to see bare ground in a long while." Doris thought it wonderful. And when Uncle Winthrop came the next day and took them out in a big sleigh with a span of horses, her heart beat with unwonted enjoyment. But the familiarity little James evinced with it quite startled her. Thanksgiving Day was a great festival even then, and had been for a long while. Christmas was held of little account. New Year's Day had a greater social aspect. Commencement, election, and training days were in high favor, and every good housewife baked election cake, and every voter felt entitled to a half-holiday at least. Then there was an annual fast day, with church-going and solemnity quite different from its modern successor. The Hollis Leveretts, two grown people and four children, came up early. Sam, or little Sam as he was often called to distinguish him from his two uncles, was a nice well-grown and well-looking boy of about ten. Mrs. Hollis had lost her next child, a boy also, and Bessy was just beyond six. Charles and the baby completed the group. Uncle Leverett made a fire in the best room early in the morning. Doris was a little curious to see it with the shutters open. It was a large room, with a "boughten" ingrain carpet, stiff chairs, two great square ottomans, a big sofa, and some curious old paintings, besides a number of framed silhouettes of different members of the family. The most splendid thing of all was the great roaring fire in the wide chimney. The high shelf was adorned with two pitchers in curious glittering bronze, with odd designs in blue and white raised from the surface. The children brought their stools and sat around the fire. Adjoining this was the spare room, the guest chamber _par excellence_. Sometimes the old house had been full, when there were young people coming and going, and relatives from distant places visiting. Electa and Mary had both married young, though in the early years of her married life Electa had made long visits home. But her husband had prospered in business and gone into public life, and she entertained a good deal, and the journey home was long and tedious. Mary was much nearer, but she had a little family and many cares. Sam took the leadership of the children. He had seen Doris for a few minutes on several occasions and had not a very exalted opinion of a girl who could only cipher in addition, while he was over in interest and tare and tret. To be sure he could neither read nor talk French. This year he had gone to the Latin school. He hadn't a very high opinion of Latin, and he did not want to go to college. He was going to be a shipping merchant, and own vessels to go all over the world and bring cargoes back to Boston. He meant to be a rich man and own a fine big house like the Hancock House. Doris thought it would be very wonderful for a little boy to get rich. "And you might be lord mayor of Boston," she said, thinking of the renowned Whittington. "We don't have _lord_ mayors nor lord anything now, except occasionally a French or English nobleman. And we don't care much for them," said the uncompromising young republican. "I should like to be Governor or perhaps President, but I shouldn't want to waste my time on anything else." Grandfather Leverett smiled over these boyish ambitions, but he wished Sam's heart was not quite so set on making money. There were so few grown people that by bringing in one of the kitchen tables and placing it alongside they could make room for all. Betty was to be at the end, flanked on both sides by the children; Mrs. Hollis at the other end. There was a savory fragrance of turkey, sauces, and vegetables, and the table seemed literally piled up with good things. Just as they were about to sit down Uncle Winthrop came in for a moment to express his regrets again at not being able to make one of the family circle. Doris thought he looked very handsome in his best clothes, his elegant brocaded waistcoat, and fine double-ruffled shirt-front. He wore his hair brushed back and tied in a queue and slightly powdered. He was to go to a grand dinner with some of the city officials, a gathering that was not exactly to his taste, but one he could not well decline. And when Doris glanced up with such eager admiration and approval, his heart warmed tenderly toward her, as it recalled other appreciative eyes that had long ago closed for the last time. What a dinner it was! Sam studied hard and played hard in the brief while he could devote to play, and he ate accordingly. Doris was filled with amazement. No wonder he was round and rosy. "Doesn't that child ever eat any more?" asked Mrs. Hollis. "No wonder she is so slim and peaked. I'd give her some gentian, mother, or anything that would start her up a little." Doris turned scarlet. "She's always well," answered Mrs. Leverett. "She hasn't had a sick day since she came here. I think she hasn't much color naturally, and her skin is very fair." "I do hope she will stay well. I've had such excellent luck with my children, who certainly do give their keeping credit. I think she's been housed too much. I'm afraid she won't stand the cold winter very well." "You can't always go by looks," commented Aunt Priscilla. After the dinner was cleared away and the dishes washed (all the grown people helped and made short work of it), the kitchen was straightened, the chairs being put over in the corner, and the children who were large enough allowed a game of blindman's buff, Uncle Leverett watching to see that no untoward accidents happened, and presently allowing himself to be caught. And, oh, what a scattering and laughing there was then! His arms were so large that it seemed as if he must sweep everybody into them, but, strange to relate, no one was caught so easily. They dodged and tiptoed about and gave little half-giggles and thrilled with success. He did catch Sam presently, and the boy did not enjoy it a bit. Not that he minded being blindfolded, but he should have liked to boast that grandfather could not catch him. Sam could see under the blinder just the least bit. Doris had on red morocco boots, and they were barely up to her slim ankles. They were getting small, so Aunt Elizabeth thought she might take a little good out of them, as they were by far too light for school wear. Sam was sure he could tell by them, and he resolved to capture her. But every time he came near grandfather rushed before her, and he didn't want to catch back right away, neither did he want Bessy, whose half-shriek betrayed her whereabouts. Mrs. Leverett opened the door. "I think you have made noise enough," she said. People believed in the old adage then that children should "be seen and not heard," and that indoors was no place for a racket. "Aunt Priscilla thinks she must go, but she wants you to sing a little." This was for Mr. Leverett, but Sam had a very nice boy's voice and felt proud enough when he lifted it up in church. "I'll come, grandmother," he said with some elation, as if he alone had been asked. And as he tore off the blinder he put his head down close to Doris, and whispered: "It was mean of you to hide behind grandfather every time, and he didn't play fair a bit." But having a peep at the red shoes as they went dancing round was fair enough! Hollis Leverett sang in the choir. They had come to this innovation, though they drew the line at instrumental music. He had a really fine tenor voice. Mr. Leverett sang in a sort of natural, untrained tone, very sweet. Mrs. Hollis couldn't sing at all, but she was very proud to have the children take after their father. There were times when Aunt Priscilla sang for herself, but her voice had grown rather quivering and uncertain. So Betty and her mother had to do their best to keep from being drowned out. But the old hymns were touching, with here and there a line of rare sweetness. Hollis Leverett was going to take Aunt Priscilla home and then return for the others. Sam insisted upon going with them, so grandfather roasted some corn for Bessy and Doris. They had not the high art of popping it then and turning it inside out, although now and then a grain achieved such a success all by itself. Bessy thought Doris rather queer and not very smart. The two little ones were bundled up and made ready, and the sleigh came back with a jingle for warning. Mrs. Hollis took her baby in her arms, grandfather carried out little Foster, and they were all packed in snugly and covered up almost head and ears with the great fur robes, while little Sam shouted out the last good-night. Mrs. Leverett straightened things in the best room until all the company air had gone out of it. Doris felt the difference and was glad to come out to her own chimney corner. Then Betty spread the table and they had a light supper, for, what with dinner being a little late and very hearty, no one was hungry. But they sipped their tea and talked over the children and how finely Sam was getting along in his studies, and Mrs. Leverett brought up the Manning children, for much as she loved Hollis, her daughter Mary's children came in for a share of grandmotherly affection. And in her heart she felt that little James was quite as good as anybody. Warren had promised to spend the evening with some young friends. Betty wished she were a year older and could have the privilege of inviting in schoolmates and their brothers, and that she might have fire in the parlor on special occasions. But, to compensate, some of the neighbors dropped in. Doris and James played fox and geese until they were sleepy. James had a little cot in the corner of grandmother's room. CHAPTER IX WHAT WINTER BROUGHT Oh, what a lovely white world it was! The low, sedgy places were frozen over and covered with snow; the edges of the bay, Charles River, and Mystic River were assuming their winter garments as well. And when, just a week after, another snowstorm came, there seemed a multitude of white peaks out in the harbor, and the hills were transformed into veritable snow-capped mountains. Winter had set in with a rigor unknown to-day. But people did not seem to mind it. Even the children had a good time sledding and snowballing and building snow forts and fighting battles. There were mighty struggles between the North Enders and the South Enders. Louisburg was retaken, 1775 was re-enacted, and Paul Revere again swung his lantern and roused his party to arms, and snowballs whitened instead of darkening the air with the smoke of firearms. Deeds of mighty prowess were done on both sides. But the boys had the best of it surely. The girls had too much to do. They were soon too large for romping and playing. There were stockings to knit and to darn. There were long overseams in sheets; there was no end of shirt-making for the men. They put the hems in their own frocks and aprons, they stitched gussets and bands and seams. People were still spinning and weaving, though the mills that were to lead the revolution in industries had come in. The Embargo was taxing the ingenuity of brains as well as hands, and as more of everything was needed for the increase of population, new methods were invented to shorten processes that were to make New England the manufacturing center of the new world. When the children had nothing else to do there was always a bag of carpet rags handy. There were braided rugs that were quite marvels of taste, and even the hit-or-miss ones were not bad. Still they were allowed out after supper on moonlight nights for an hour or so, and then they had grand good times. The father or elder brothers went along to see that no harm happened. Fort Hill was one of the favorite coasting places, and parties of a larger growth thronged here. But Beacon Hill had not been shorn of all its glory. Uncle Winthrop came over one day and took the children and Betty to see the battle at Fort Hill. The British had intrenched themselves with forts and breastworks and had their colors flying. It really had been hard work to enlist men or boys in this army. No one likes to go into a fight with the foregone conclusion that he is to be beaten. But they were to do their best, and they did it. The elders went out to see the fun. The rebels directed all their energies to the capture of one fort instead of opening fire all along the line, and by dusk they had succeeded in demolishing that, when the troops on both sides were summoned home to supper and to comfortable beds, an innovation not laid down in the rules of warfare. Little James had been fired with military ardor. Cousin Sam was the leader of one detachment of the rebel forces. Catch him anywhere but on the winning side! Doris had been much interested as well, and that evening Uncle Leverett told them stories about Boston thirty years before. He was a young man of three-and-twenty when Paul Revere swung his lantern to give the alarm. He could only touch lightly upon what had been such solemn earnest to the men of that time, the women as well. "I'm going to be a soldier," declared James, with all the fervor of his youthful years. "But you can't ever be, Doris." "No," answered Doris softly, squeezing Uncle Leverett's hand in both of hers. "But there isn't any war." "Yes there is--over in France and England, and ever so many places. My father was reading about it. And if there wasn't any war here, couldn't we go and fight for some other country?" "I hope there will never be war in your time, Jimmie, boy," said his grandmother. "And it is bedtime for little people." "Why does it come bedtime so soon?" in a deeply aggrieved tone. "When I am a big man I am going to sit up clear till morning. And I'll tell my grandchildren all night long how I fought in the wars." "That is looking a long way ahead," returned grandfather. Besides the lessons, Doris was writing a letter to Miss Arabella. That lady would have warmly welcomed any little scrawl in Doris' own hand. Uncle Winthrop had acknowledged her safe arrival in good health, and enlarged somewhat on the pleasant home she had found with her relatives. Betty had overlooked the little girl's letter and made numerous corrections, and she had copied and thought of some new things and copied it over again. She had added a little French verse also. "Dear me!" exclaimed Aunt Elizabeth, "when will the child ever learn anything useful! There doesn't seem any time. The idea of a girl of ten years old never having knit a stocking! And she will be full that and more!" "But everybody doesn't knit," said Betty. "Oh, yes, you can buy those flimsy French things that do not give you any wear. And presently we may not be able to buy either French or English. She is not going to be so rich either. It's nonsense to think of that marshy land ever being valuable. Whatever possessed anyone to buy it, I can't see! And if Doris was to be a queen I think she ought to know something useful." "I do not suppose I shall ever need to spin," Betty said rather archly. Mrs. Leverett had insisted that all her girls should learn to spin both wool and flax. Betty had rebelled a little two years ago, but she had learned nevertheless. "And there was a time when a premium was paid to the most skillful spinner. Your grandmother, Betty, was among those who spun on the Common. The women used to go out there with their wheels. And there were spinning schools. The better class had to pay, but a certain number of poor women were taught on condition that they would teach their children at home. And it is not a hundred years ago either. There was no cloth to be had, and Manufactory House was established." Betty had heard the story of spinning on the Commons, for her own grandmother had told it. But she had an idea that the world would go on rather than retrograde. For now they were turning out cotton cloth and printing calico and making canvas and duck, and it was the boast of the famous _Constitution_ that everything besides her armament was made in Massachusetts. Uncle Winthrop thought Doris' letter was quite a masterpiece for a little girl. At least, that was what he said. I think he was a good deal more interested in that than in the sampler she had begun. And he agreed privately with Betty that "useless" sometimes was misspelled into "useful." Another letter created quite a consternation. This was from Hartford. Mrs. King wrote that a friend, a Mr. Eastman, was going from Springfield to Boston on some business, and on his return he would bring Betty home with him. His wife was going on to Hartford a few days later and would be very pleased to have Betty's company. She did not know when another chance would offer, for not many people were journeying about in the winter. Betty was to bring her nicest gowns, and she needed a good thick pelisse and heavy woolen frock for outside wear. The new hats were very large, and young girls were wearing white or cream beaver. Some very handsome ones had come from New York recently. There was a big bow on the top, and two feathers if you could afford it, and ribbon of the same width tied under the chin. She was to bring her slippers and clocked stockings, her newest white frock, and if she had to buy a new one of any kind it need not be made until she came to Hartford. "I never heard of such a thing!" declared Mrs. Leverett, aghast. "She must think your father is made of money. And when 'Lecty and Matthias were married they went to housekeeping in three rooms in old Mrs. Morton's house, and 'Lecty was happy as a queen, and had to save at every turn. She wasn't talking then about white hats and wide ribbons and feathers and gewgaws. The idea!" "Of course I can't have the hat," returned Betty resignedly. "But my brown one will do. And, oh, isn't it lucky my silk is made and trimmed with that beautiful lace! If I only had my white skirt worked! And that India muslin might do with a little fixing up. If I had a lace ruffle to put around the bottom!" "I don't know how I can spare you, Betty. I can't put Doris to doing anything. When any of my girls were ten years old they could do quite a bit of housekeeping. If she wasn't so behind in her studies!" Betty had twenty plans in a moment, but she knew her mother would object to every one. She would be very discreet until she could talk the matter over with her father. "Everything about the journey is so nicely arranged," she began; "and, you see, Electa says it will not cost anything to Springfield. There may not be a chance again this whole winter." "The summer will be a good deal pleasanter." "But the Capital won't be nearly so"--"gay," she was about to say, but changed it to "interesting." "Betty, I do wish you were more serious-minded. To think you're sixteen, almost a woman, and in some things you're just a companion for Doris!" Betty thought it was rather hard to be between everything. She was not old enough for society, she was not a young lady, but she was too old to indulge in the frolics of girlhood. She couldn't be wise and sedate--at least, she did not want to be. And were the fun and the good times really wicked? She was on the lookout for her father that evening. Warren was going to the house of a friend to supper, as the debating society met there, and it saved him a long walk. "Father, Electa's letter has come," in a hurried whisper. "She's planned out my visit, but mother thinks--oh, do try and persuade her, and make it possible! I want to go so much." But Betty began to think the subject never would be mentioned. Supper was cleared away, Doris and James studied, and she sat and worked diligently on her white gown. Then she knew her mother did not mean to say a word before her and presently she went to bed. Mrs. Leverett handed the letter over to her husband. "From 'Lecty," she said briefly. He read it and re-read it, while she knit on her stocking. "Yes"--slowly. "Well--Betty might as well go. She has been promised the visit so long." "I can't spare her. Even if I sent James home, there's Doris. And I am not as spry as I was ten years ago. The work is heavy." "Oh, you must have someone. John Grant was in from Roxbury to-day. He has two girls quite anxious to go out this winter. I think the oldest means to marry next spring or summer, and wants to earn a little money." "We can't take in everyone who wants to earn a little money." "No," humorously. "It would bankrupt us these hard times. The keep would be the same as for Betty, and a few dollars wages wouldn't signify." "But Betty'll want no end of things. It does seem as if 'Lecty had turned into a fine lady. Whether it would be a good influence on Betty! She's never been serious yet." "And Electa joined the church at fourteen. I think you can trust Betty with her. To be sure, Mat's prospered beyond everything." Prosperity and every good gift came from the Lord, Mrs. Leverett fully believed. And yet David had seen the "ungodly in great prosperity." She had a mother's pride in Mr. and Mrs. King, but they were rather gay with dinner parties and everything. "She will have to take Betty just as she is. Her clothes are good enough." Mr. Leverett re-read the letter. He wasn't much judge of white hats and wide ribbons, and, since the time was short, perhaps Electa could help her to spend the money to better advantage, and there would be no worry. He would just slip a bill or two in Betty's hand toward the last. "Betty's a nice-looking girl," said her father. "I should be sorry to have her niceness all come out in looks," said Betty's mother. There was no reply to this. "I really do not think she ought to go. There will be other winters." "Well--we will sleep on the matter. We can't tell about next winter." Warren thought she ought to go. Aunt Priscilla came over a day or two after in Jonas Field's sleigh. He was out collecting, and would call for her at half-past five, though she still insisted she was pretty sure-footed in walking. Mr. Perkins in a moment of annoyance had once said to his wife: "Priscilla, you have one virtue, at least. One can always tell just where to find you. You are sure to be on the opposition side." She had a faculty of always seeing how the other side looked. She had a curious sympathy with it as well. And though she was not an irresolute woman, she did sometimes have a longing to go over to the enemy when it was very attractive. She listened now--and nodded at Mrs. Leverett's reasoning, adding the pungency of her sniff. Betty's heart dropped like lead. True, she had not really counted on Aunt Priscilla's influence. "I just do suppose if 'Lecty was ill and alone, and wanted Betty, there'd be no difficulty. It's the question between work and play. There wan't much time to play when I was young, and now I wish I had some of the work, since I'm too old to play. I do believe the thing ought to be evened up." This was rather non-committal, but the girl's heart rose a little. "Oh, if 'Lecty was ill--but you know, Aunt Priscilla, they keep a man beside the girl, and it seems to me she is always having a nurse when the children are ailing, or a woman in to sew, or some extra help. She doesn't _need_ Betty, and it seems as if I did." "Now, if that little young one was good for anything!" "She's at her lessons all the time, and she must learn to sew. I should have been ashamed of my girls if they had not known how to make one single garment by the time they were ten year old." "But Doris isn't ten," interposed Betty. "And here is Electa's letter, Aunt Priscilla." "No, I don't see how I can spare Betty," said Mrs. Leverett decisively. Aunt Priscilla took out her glasses and polished them and then adjusted them to her rather high nose. "Well, 'Lecty's got to be quite quality, hasn't she? And Matthias, too. I suppose it's proper to give folks their whole name when they're getting up in the world and going to legislatures. But land! I remember Mat King when he was a patched-up, barefooted little boy. He was always hanging after 'Lecty, and your uncle thought she might have done better. 'Lecty was real good-looking. And now they're top of the heap with menservants and maidservants, and goodness knows what all." "Yes, they have prospered remarkably." "The Kings were a nice family. My, how Mis' King did keep them children, five of them, when their father died, and not a black sheep among them! Theron's a big sea captain, and Zenas in Washington building up the Capitol, and I dare say Mat is thinking of being sent to Congress. Joe is in the Army, and the young one keeps his mother a lady in New York, I've heard say. Mis' King deserves some reward." Betty glanced up in surprise. It was seldom Aunt Priscilla praised in this wholesale fashion. "And this about the hat is just queer, Betty. You should have seen old Madam Clarissa Bowdoin, who came to call yesterday, with a fine sleigh and driver and footman. She just holds on to this world's good things, I tell you, and she's past seventy. My, how she was trigged out in a black satin pelisse lined with fur! And she had a black beaver bonnet or hat, whatever you call it, with a big bow on top, and two black feathers flying. I should hate to have my feathers whip all out in such a windy day." "Oh, yes, that is the first style," said Betty. "Hartford can't keep it all." "Hartford can't hold a candle to Boston, even if Mat King is there. Stands to reason we can get fashions just as soon here, if theirs do come from New York. Madam was mighty fine. You see, I do have some grand friends, Betty. Your uncle was a man well thought of." "Madam Bowdoin holds her age wonderfully," said Mrs. Leverett. "Yes. But she's never done a day's work in her life, and I don't remember when I didn't work. Let me see--I've most forgot the thread of my discourse. Oh, you never would believe, Betty, that twenty year ago there was just such a fashion. I had a white beaver--what possessed me to get it I don't know. Everything was awful high. I had an idea that white would be rather plain, but when it had that great bow on top, and strings a full finger wide--well, I didn't even dare show it to your uncle! So I packed it away with white wax and in a linen towel, and when she'd gone yesterday I went and looked at it. 'Taint white now, but it's just the color of rich cream when it's stood twenty-four hours or so. Fursisee, they were just as much alike as two peas except as to color and the feathers. I declare I _was_ beat! Now, if you were going to be married, Betty, it might do for a wedding hat." "But I'm not going to be married," with a sigh. "I should hope not," said her mother--"at sixteen." "My sister Patty was married when she was sixteen, and Submit when she was seventeen. The oldest girls went off in a hurry, so the others had to fill their places. Well--it just amazes me reading about this bonnet. And whatever I'll do with mine except to give it away, I don't know. I did think once of having it dyed. But the bow on top was so handsome, and I've kept paper wadded up inside, and it hasn't flatted down a mite. Now, Elizabeth, she has that silk we all thought so foolish, and her brown frock and pelisse will be just the thing to travel in. And maybe I could find something else. The things will be scattered when I am dead and gone, and I might as well have the good of giving them away. Most of the girls are married off and have husbands to provide for them. I used to think I'd take some orphan body to train and sort of fill Polly's place, for she grows more unreliable every day. Yet I do suppose it's Christian charity to keep her. And young folks are so trifling." "Go make a cup of tea, Betty," said Mrs. Leverett. "Now, Elizabeth," when Betty had shut the door, "I don't see why you mightn't as well let Betty go as not. 'Tisn't as if it was among strangers. And there's really no telling what may happen next year. We haven't any promise of that." Mrs. Leverett looked up in surprise. "Tisn't every day such a chance comes to hand. She couldn't go alone on a journey like that. And 'Lecty seems quite lotting on it." "But Betty's just started in at housekeeping, and she would forget so much." "Betty started in full six months ago. And the world swings round so fast I dare say what she learns will be as old-fashioned as the hills in a few years. I didn't do the way my mother taught me--husband used to laugh me out of it. She'll have time enough to learn." The tea, a biscuit, and a piece of pie came in in tempting array. Aunt Priscilla was at her second cup when Jonas Field arrived, good ten minutes before the time. "You come over to-morrow, Betty," said Aunt Priscilla. "You and Dorothy just take a run; it'll do you good. That child will turn into a book next. She's got some of the Adams streaks in her. And girls don't need so much book learning. Solomon's wise, and he don't even know his letters." That made Doris laugh. She was getting quite used to Aunt Priscilla. She rose and made a pretty courtesy, and said she would like to come. Polly had forgotten to light the lamp. She had been nursing Solomon, and the fire had burned low. Aunt Priscilla scolded, to be sure. Polly was getting rather deaf as well. "It's warm out in the kitchen," said Polly. "I want it warm here. I aint going to begin to save on firing at my time of life! I have enough to last me out, and I don't suppose anybody will thank me for the rest. Bring in some logs." Aunt Priscilla sat with a shawl around her until the cheerful warmth began to diffuse itself and the blaze lightened up the room. Polly out in the kitchen was rehearsing her woes to Solomon. "It's my 'pinion if missus lives much longer she'll be queerer'n Dick's hatband. That just wouldn't lay anyhow, I've heerd tell, though I don't know who Dick was and what he'd been doing, but he was mighty queer. 'Pears to me he must a-lived before the war when General Washington licked the English. And there's no suitin' missus. First it's too hot and you're 'stravagant, then it's too cold and she wants to burn up all the wood in creation!" Aunt Priscilla watched the flame of the dancing scarlet, blue, and leaping white-capped arrows that shot up, and out of the side of one eye she saw a picture on the end of the braided rug--a little girl with a cloud of light curls sitting there with a great gray cat in her lap. The room was so much less lonely then. Perhaps she was getting old, real old, with a weakness for human kind. Was that a sign? She did enjoy the runs over to the Leveretts'. What would happen if she should not be able to go out! She gave a little shudder over that. Of all the large family of sisters and brothers there was no one living very near or dear to her. She was next to the youngest. They had all married, some had died, one brother had gone to the Carolinas and found the climate so agreeable he had settled there. One sister had gone back to England. There were some nieces and nephews, but in the early part of her married life Mr. Perkins _had_ objected to any of them making a home at his house. "We have no children of our own," he said, "and I take it as a sign that if the Lord had meant us to care for any, he would have sent them direct to us, and not had us taking them in at second-hand." They had both grown selfish and only considered their own wants and comforts. But the years of solitude looked less and less inviting to the woman, who had been born with a large social side that had met with a pinch here, been lopped off there, and crowded in another person's measure. If the person had not been upright, scrupulously just in his dealings, and a good provider, that would have altered her respect for him. And wives were to obey their husbands, just as children were trained to obey their parents. But children were having ideas of their own now. Well, when she was sixteen she went to Marblehead and spent a summer with her sister Esther, who was having hard times then with her flock of little children, and who a few years after had given up the struggle. Mr. Green had married again and gone out to the lake countries and started a sawmill, where there were forests to his hand. But this long-ago summer had been an epoch in her life. She had baked and brewed, swept and scrubbed, cooked and put in her spare time spinning, while poor Esther sewed and took care of a very cross pair of twins and crawled about a little. There had been some merrymaking that would hardly have been allowed at home, and a young man who had sat on the doorstep and talked, who had taken her driving, and with whom she had wickedly and frivolously danced one afternoon when a party of young people had a merrymaking after the hay was in. It was the only time in her life she had ever danced, and it was a glimpse of fairy delight to her. But she was frightened half to death when she came home, and began to have two sides to her life, and she had never gotten rid of the other side. She had a vague idea that next summer she would go again. Meanwhile Mr. Perkins began to come. There was an older sister, and no one surmised it was Priscilla, until in March, when he spoke to Priscilla's father. "I declare I was clear beat," said the worthy parent. "Seems to me Martha would be more suitable, but his heart's set on Priscilla. He's a good, steady man, forehanded and all that, and will make her a good husband, and she'll keep growing older. There is nothing to say against it." The idea that Priscilla would say anything was not entertained for a moment. Mr. Perkins began to walk home from church with her and come to tea on Sunday evening, and it was soon noised about that they were keeping steady company. Martha went to Marblehead that summer and one of the twins died. In the fall Priscilla was married and went to housekeeping in King Street, over her husband's place of business. She was engrossed with her life, but she dreamed sometimes of the other side and the young man who had remarked upon the gowns she wore and put roses in her hair, and she had ideas of lace and ribbons and the vanities of the world in that early married period. Her attire was rich but severely plain; she was not stinted in anything. She was even allowed to "lay by" on her own account, which meant saving up a little money. She made a good, careful wife. And some months before he died, touched by her attentive care, her husband said: "Silla, I don't see but you might as well have all I'm worth, as to divide it round in the family. They will be disappointed, I suppose, but they haven't earned nor saved. You have been a good wife, and you just take your comfort on it when I'm gone. Then if you should feel minded to give back some of it--why, that's your affair." The Perkins family had _not_ liked it very well. They knew Aunt Priscilla would marry again, and all that money go to a second husband. But she had not married, though there had been opportunities. Later on she almost wished she had. She had entertained plans of taking a girl to bring up, and had considered this little orphaned Adams girl,--who she had imagined in a vague way would be glad of a good home with a prospect of some money,--if she behaved herself rightly. She had pictured a stout, red-cheeked girl who needed training, and not a fine little lady like Doris Adams. But she was glad Doris had sat there on the rug with the cat in her lap. And she was glad there had been the summer at Marblehead, and the young man who had said more with his eyes than with his lips. He had never married, and had been among the earliest to lay down his life for his country. She always felt that in a way he belonged to her. And if in youth she had had one good time, why shouldn't Betty? Perhaps Betty might marry in some sensible way that would be for the best, and this visit at Hartford would illume all her life. There were things about it she had never confessed. When her conscience upbraided her mightily she called them sins and prayed over them. There were other matters--the white bonnet had been one. She had purchased it of a friend who was going in mourning, who had made her try it on, and said: "Just look at yourself in the glass, Priscilla Perkins. You never had anything half so becoming. You look five years younger!" She did look in the glass. She could have pirouetted around the room in delight. She was in love with her pretty youthful face. So she bought the hat--at a bargain, of course. She put it away when it came home, and visited it surreptitiously, but somehow never had the courage to confess, or to propose wearing it, though other women of her age indulged in as much and more gayety. In the spring she bought a new silk gown, a gray with a kind of lilac tint, and cut off the breadths to make sure of it. Mr. Perkins viewed it critically. "I'm not quite certain, Priscilla, that it is appropriate. And a brown would give you so much more good wear. It looks too--too youthful." He never remembered there were fifteen years between himself and Priscilla. "I--I think I would change it." "Oh," with the best accent of regret she could assume, "I have cut off the breadths and begun to sew them up. It's the spring color. And summer is coming." "Uu--um----" with a reluctant nod. She wore it to a christening and a wedding, but the real delight in it had to be smothered. And when her husband proposed she should have it dyed she laid it away. There were other foolish indulgences. Bows and artificial flowers that she had put on bonnets and worn in her own room with locked doors, then pulled them off and laid them away. She was so fond of pretty things, gay things, the pleasures of life--and she was always relegated to the prose! Other people wore finery with a serene calmness, and went about their daily duties, to church, on missions of mercy, and were well thought of. Where was the sin? Her clothes cost quite as much. Mr. Perkins was a close manager but not stingy with his wife. She used to think she would confess to her mother about the dancing, but she never had. She ought to bring out these "sins of the eye" and lay them before her husband, but she never found the right moment and the courage. She had meant to deal them out to the Leverett girls, especially Electa--but Electa seemed to prosper so amazingly! She _must_ do something with them, and clear up her life, sweep, and garnish before the summons came. She was getting to be old now, and if she went off suddenly someone would come in and take possession and scatter her treasures. Likely as not it would be the Perkinses, for she hadn't made any will. Why shouldn't Betty have some of them and go off on her good time. It wouldn't be housekeeping and spinning and looking after fractious children. But those evenings out on the stoop, and the timid invitations to take a walk, the pressure of the hand, the smile out of the eyes--oh, why---- All her life she had been asking "Why?"--taking the hard and distasteful because she thought there was a virtue in it, not because she had been trained to believe goodness must have a severe side and that really pleasant things were wicked. The "Whys" had never been answered, much as she had prayed about them. She would never take the girl to bring up now. As for Doris Adams--Cousin Winthrop would be thinking presently that the ground wasn't good enough for her to walk on. So there was only Betty, unless she took up some of the Perkins girls. Abby was rather nice. But, after all, her father was only a half-brother to Aunt Priscilla's husband. And she must make that will. "Missus, aint you goin' to come to supper? I told you 'twas ready full five minutes ago," said an aggrieved voice. Aunt Priscilla sprang up and gave herself a kind of mental shaking. She stepped around to avoid the little girl on the rug with the cat in her lap. Polly went on grumbling. The toast was cold, the tea had drawn too long, and for once the mistress never said a word in dispraise. "She's goin' off," thought Polly. "That's a bad sign, though she does sit over the fire a good deal, and you can't tell by that. Land alive! I hope she'll live my time out, or I'll sure have to go to the poorhouse!" Aunt Priscilla went back to her fire and the vision of the little girl who had made a curious impression on her by a kind of sweetness quite new in her experience. It had disturbed her greatly. Nothing about the child had been as she supposed. Everybody went down to her, which meant that she had some subtle, indescribable charm, but Aunt Priscilla would have said she had no dictionary words to explain it, though there had been a speller and definer in her day. The little girl had come to "seven times" in the tables. She had studied an hour, when Betty said they had better go and get back by dark. Jamie boy gave a little "snicker" as she shut her book. The disdain of her young compeer was quite hard to bear, but she meekly accepted the fact that she "wasn't smart." If she had known how he longed to go with them, she would have felt quite even, but he kept that to himself. All Boston was still hooded in snow, for every few days there came a new fall. Oh, how beautiful it was! Everybody walked in the middle of the street,--it was so hard and smooth,--though you had to keep turning out for vehicles, but one didn't meet them very often. Boots were not made high for girls and women then, but everybody had a pair of thick woolen stockings, some of them with a leather sole on the outside, which was more durable. The children pulled them well up over their knees and kept good and warm. Some people had leather leggings, but rubber boots had not been invented. Boys were out snowballing--girls, too, for that matter. Someone sent a ball that flew all over Doris, but she only laughed. She snowballed with little James now and then. So they were bright and merry when they reached the sign of "Jonas Field," and Doris gave her pretty, rather formal greeting. She was never quite sure of Aunt Priscilla. "I suppose _you_ came to see Solomon!" exclaimed that lady. "Not altogether," replied Doris. "Well, he is out in the kitchen. And, Betty, what is the prospect to-day?" "Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I almost think I'll get off. Father is on my side, and mother did really promise 'Lecty last summer. Mother couldn't get along alone, you know, and Jimmie boy is doing so well at school that she would like to keep him all winter. Father knows of a girl who would be very glad to come in and work for three dollars a month, though he says everybody gives four or more. But Mr. Eastman will be here so soon. Father said I might get some things in Hartford." "We'll see what Boston has first," returned Aunt Priscilla with a little snort. "I've been hunting over _my_ things." People in those days thought it a great favor to have clothes left to them, as you will see by old wills. And occasionally the grandmothers brought out garments beforehand, and did not wait until they were dead and gone. "I have a silk gown that I never wore above half a dozen times. I could have it dyed, I suppose, but they're so apt to get stringy afterward. Maybe you wouldn't like it because it's a kind of gray. You're free to leave it alone. I shan't be a mite put out." The old spirit of holding on reasserted itself. Of course, if Betty didn't like it, _her_ duty would be done. "Oh, Aunt Priscilla! It looks like moonlight over the harbor. It's beautiful." The elder woman had shaken it out and made ripples with it, and Betty stood in admiring wonderment. It looked to her like a wedding gown, but she knew Aunt Priscilla's had been Canton crape, dyed brown first and then black and then worn out. There was an old adage to the effect that one never could get rich until one's wedding clothes were worn out. "It's spotted some, I find--just a faint kind of yellow, but that may cut out. I never had any good of it," and she sighed. "It isn't what you might call gay; but, land alive! I might as well have bought bright red! There's plenty of it to make over. They weren't wearing such skimping skirts then, and I had an extra breadth put in so that it would all fade alike. Well----" And she gave a half-reluctant sigh. "Why, I feel as if it ought to be saved for a wedding gown," declared Betty, her eyes alight with pleasure. "It's the most beautiful thing. Oh, Aunt Priscilla!" A modern girl would have thrown her arms around Aunt Priscilla's neck and kissed her, if one could imagine a modern girl being grateful for a gown a quarter of a century old, except for masquerading purposes. People who could remember the great Jonathan Edwards awakening still classed all outward demonstrations of regard as carnal affections to be subdued. The poor old life hungered now for a little human love without understanding what its want really was, just as it had hungered for more than half a century. "Well, child, maybe 'Lecty can plan to make something out of it. You better just take it to her. And here's a box of ribbons, things I've had no use for this many a year. You see I had a way of saving up--I didn't have much call for wearing such." Aunt Priscilla felt that she was renouncing idols. How many times she had fingered these things with exquisite love and longing and a desire to wear them! Madam Bowdoin, almost ten years older, wore her fine ribbons and laces and her own snowy white hair in little rings about her forehead. No one accused her of aping youth. Aunt Priscilla had worn a false front under her cap for many a year that was now a rusty, faded brown. Her own white hair was cut off close. "Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I think my ship has come in from the Indies. I never can thank you enough. I'm so glad you saved them. You see, times _are_ hard, and if father had to pay a girl for taking my place at home, he wouldn't feel that he could afford me much finery. And the journey, too. But I have only to pay from Springfield to Boston, for Mr. Eastman has his own conveyance--a nice big covered sleigh. And now all these beautiful things! I feel as rich as a queen." Doris had been standing there big-eyed and never once asked for Solomon. Aunt Priscilla began to fold the gown. It still had a crackle and rustle delightful to hear. And there was a roll of new pieces. "Why, next summer I could have a lovely drawn bonnet--only it _does_ cost so much to have one made. I wish I knew how," said Betty. "I suppose--you don't want to see my old thing?" rather contemptuously. "The hat, do you mean? Oh, I just should! I've thought so much about it, and how queer it is that old-fashioned articles should come round." "Every seven years, people say; but I don't believe it's quite as often as that." From the careful way it was pinned up, one would never imagine it had been out that very morning. The bows were filled with paper to keep them up, and bits of paper crumpled up around, so they could not be crushed. Its days of whiteness were over, but it was the loveliest, softest cream tint, and looked as if it had just come over from France. The beaver was almost like plush, and the puffed satin lining inside was as fresh as if its reverse plaits had just been laid in place. "Oh, do put it on!" cried Doris eagerly. Betty held the strings together under her fair round chin. "You look like a queen!" said the child admiringly. "Why it _is_ just as they are wearing them now, the tip-top style. 'Lecty couldn't have described this hat any better if she had seen it. And if I can have it, Aunt Priscilla, I shall not care a bit about feathers. It's beautiful enough without." "Yes, yes, take them all and have a good time with them. Now you see if you can pack it up--you'll have to learn." Aunt Priscilla dropped into her chair. She had cast out her life's temptations, and it had been a great struggle. "Not that way--make the bow stand up. The bandbox is large enough. And give the strings a loose fold, so. Now put that white paper over. It's like making a gambrel roof. Then bring up the ends of the towel and pin them. Polly shall go along and carry it home for you." "I'm a thousand times obliged. I wish I knew what to do in return." "Have a good time, but don't forget that a good time is not all to life. Child--why do you look at me so?" for Doris had come close to Aunt Priscilla and seemed studying her. "Were you ever a little girl, and what was your good time like?" Doris' wondering eyes were soft and seemed more pitying than curious. "No, I never was a little girl. There were no little girls in my time." She jerked the words out in a spasmodic way, and put her hand to her heart as if there was a pain or pressure. "When I was three year old I had to take care of my little brother. I stood up on a bench to wash dishes when I was four, and scoured milk-pans and the pewter plates we used then. And at six I was spinning on the little wheel and knitting stockings. I went to school part of every year, and at thirteen I was doing a woman's work. No, I never was a little girl." Doris put her soft hand over the one that had been strained and made coarse and large in the joints, and roughened as to skin while yet it was in its tender youth. And all the pay there had been from her father's estate had been three hundred dollars to each girl, the remainder being divided evenly among the boys. She felt suddenly grateful to Hatfield Perkins for the easier times of her married life. "Now, both of you go out in the kitchen and get a piece of Polly's fresh gingerbread. She hasn't lost her art in that yet. Then you must run off home, for it will soon be dark, and Betty will be needed about the supper." The gingerbread was splendid. Doris broke off little crumbs and fed them to Solomon, and told him sometime she would come and spend the afternoon with him. She should be so lonesome when Betty went away. Polly carried the bandbox and bundle for them, and Betty took the box of ribbons. Aunt Priscilla brought out the light-stand and set her candle on it and turned over the leaves of her old Bible to read about the daughters of Zion with their tinkling feet and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets and the bonnets, the earrings, the mantles, the wimples and the crisping pins, the fine linen and the hoods and the veils--and all these were to be done away with! To be sure she did not really know what they all were, but her few had been snares and a source of secret idolatry for years and years. She had nothing to do now but to consider the end of all things and prepare for it. But there was the dreaded will yet to make. If only there was someone who really cared about her! CHAPTER X CONCERNING MANY THINGS When Providence overruled, in the early part of the century, people generally gave in. The stronger tide was called Providence. Perhaps there was a small degree of fatalism in it. So Mrs. Leverett acquiesced, and recalled the fact that she had promised Electa that Betty should come. Aunt Priscilla's generosity was astonishing. The silken gown would not be made over until Betty reached Hartford. She worked industriously on her white one, but her mother found so many things for her to do. Then Martha Grant came--a stout, hearty, pink-cheeked country girl who knew how to "take hold," and was glad of an opportunity to earn something toward a wedding gown. Doris was so interested that she hardly remembered how much she should miss Betty, though Warren promised to help her with her lessons. So the trunk was packed. Luckily the bandbox could go in it, for it was quite small. Most of the bandboxes were immense affairs in which you could stow a good many things besides the bonnet. Then they had a calico cover with a stout cord run through the hem. Mr. Eastman looked rather askance at the trunk--he had so many budgets of his own, and for his wife. However, they strapped it on the back securely, and the good-bys were uttered for a whole month. Doris had said hers in the morning. She could not divest herself of a vague presentiment that something would happen to keep Betty until to-morrow. But Martha was to sit in her place at the table. Now that the reign of slavery was over, the farmers' girls from the country often came in for a while. They were generally taken in as one of the family--indeed, few of them would have come to be put down to the level of a common servant. Many had their old slaves still living with them, and numbers of the quality preferred colored servants. Jamie boy went out to snowball after dinner. Doris worked a line across her sampler. She was going to begin the alphabet next. There were three kinds of letters. Ordinary capitals like printing, small letters, and writing capitals. These were very difficult, little girls thought. She put up her work presently, studied her spelling, and went over "nine times." She could say the ten and eleven perfectly, but that very day she had missed on "nine times," and Mrs. Webb told her she had better study it a little more. "I do wonder if you will ever get through with the multiplication tables!" said Aunt Elizabeth. Doris sighed. It was hard to be so slow at learning. "'Nine times' floored me pretty well, I remember," confessed Martha Grant. "There's great difference in children. Some have heads for figures and some don't. My sister Catharine could go all round me. But she's that dumb about sewing--I don't believe you ever saw the beat! She just hates it. She'd like to teach school!" Doris was very glad to hear that someone else had been slow. Betty had been out to tea occasionally, and Doris tried to make believe it was so now. They would have missed her more but Martha was a great talker. There were seven children at the Grants', and one son married. They had a big farm and a good deal of stock. Martha's lover had bought a farm also, with a small old house of two rooms. _He_ had to build a new barn, so they would wait for their house. She had a nice cow she had raised, a flock of twelve geese, and her father had promised her the old mare and another cow. She wanted to be married by planting time. She had a nice feather bed and two pairs of pillows and five quilts, beside two wool blankets. Mrs. Leverett was a good deal interested in all this. It took her back to her own early life. City girls _did_ come to have different ideas. There was something refreshing in this very homeliness. Martha knit and sewed as fast as she talked. Mrs. Leverett said "she didn't let the grass grow under her feet," and Doris wondered if she would tread it out in the summer. Of course, it couldn't grow in the winter. "Aunt Elizabeth," she said presently, in a sad little voice, "am I to sleep all alone?" "Oh dear, no. You would freeze to an icicle. Martha will take Betty's place." They wrapped up a piece of brick heated pretty well when Doris went to bed. For it was desperately cold. But the soft feathers came up all around one, and in a little while she was as warm as toast. She did not even wake when Martha came to bed. Sometimes Betty cuddled the dear little human ball, and only half awake Doris would return the hug and find a place to kiss, whether it was cheek or chin. "Aunt Elizabeth," when she came in from school one day, "do you know that Christmas will be here soon--next Tuesday?" "Well, yes," deliberately, "it is supposed to be Christmas." "But it really is," with child-like eagerness. "The day on which Christ was born." "The day that is kept in commemoration of the birth of Christ. But some people try to remember every day that Christ cams to redeem the world. So that one day is not any better than another." Doris looked puzzled. "At home we always kept it," she said slowly. "Miss Arabella made a Christmas cake and ever so many little ones. The boys came around to sing Noël, and they were given a cake and a penny, and we went to church." "Yes; it is quite an English fashion. When you are a larger girl and more used to our ways you will understand why we do not keep it." "Don't you really keep it?" in surprise. "No, my dear." The tone was kind, but not encouraging to further enlightenment. Doris experienced a great sense of disappointment. For a little while she was very homesick for Betty. To have her away a whole month! And a curious thing was that no one seemed really to miss her and wish her back. Mrs. Leverett scanned the weather and the almanac and hoped they would get safely to Springfield without a storm. Mr. Leverett counted up the time. It had not stormed yet. No Christmas and no Betty. Not even a wise old cat like Solomon, or a playful, amusing little kitten. The school children stared when she talked about Christmas. Two big tears fell on her book. She was frightened, for she had not meant to cry. And now a sense of desolation rushed over her. Oh, what could she do without Betty! Then a sleigh stopped at the door. She ran to the window, and when she saw that it was Uncle Winthrop she was out of the door like a flash. "Well, little one?" he said in pleasant inquiry, which seemed to comprehend a great deal. "How do you get along without Betty? Come in out of the cold. I've just been wondering if you would like to come over and keep Christmas with me. I believe they do not have any Christmas here." "No, they do not. Oh, Uncle Win, I should be so glad to come, if I wouldn't trouble you!" The eyes were full of entreating light. "I have been thinking about it a day or two. And Recompense is quite willing. The trouble really would be hers, you know." "I would try and not make any trouble." "Oh, it was where we should put you to sleep this cold weather. You would be lost in the great guest chamber. But Recompense arranged it all. She has put up a little cot in the corner of her room. I insisted last winter that she should keep a fire; she is a little troubled with rheumatism. And now she enjoys the warmth very much." "Oh, how good you are!" She was smiling now and dancing around on one foot. He smiled too. "Where's Aunt Elizabeth?" said Uncle Winthrop. Doris ran to the kitchen and, not seeing her, made the same inquiry. "She's gone up to the storeroom to find a lot of woolen patches for me, and I'm going to start another quilt. She said she'd never use them in the days of creation, and they wan't but six. She'll be down in a minute," said Martha. "Uncle Winthrop," going back to him beside the fire, and wrinkling up her brow a little, "is not Christmas truly Christmas? Has anyone made a mistake about it?" "My child, everybody does not keep it in the same manner. Sometime you will learn about the brave heroes who came over and settled in a strange land, fought Indians and wild beasts, and then fought again for liberty, and why they differed from their brethren. But I always keep it; and I thought now that Betty was gone you might like to come and go to church with me." "Oh, I shall be glad to!" with a joyful smile. Aunt Elizabeth entered. Cousin Winthrop presented his petition that he should take Doris over this afternoon and bring her back on Wednesday, unless there was to be no school all the week. "I'm afraid she will bother Recompense. You're so little used to children. I keep my hand in with grandchildren," smilingly. "No word from Betty yet? About Doris now--oh, you need not be afraid; I think Recompense is quite in the notion." "Well, if you think best. Doris isn't a mite of trouble, I will say that. No, we can't hear from Betty before to-morrow. Mr. Eastman thought likely he'd find someone coming right back from Springfield, and I charged Betty to send if she could. I'm glad there has been no snow so far." "Very fair winter weather. How is Foster and business?" "Desperately dull, both of them," and Mrs. Leverett gave a piquant nod that would have done Betty credit. "Go get your other clothes, Doris, and Martha will see to you. And two white aprons. Recompense keeps her house as clean as a pink, and you couldn't get soiled if you rolled round the floor. But dirt doesn't stick to Doris. There, run along, child." Martha scrubbed her rigorously, and then helped her dress. She came back bright as a new pin, with her two high-necked aprons in her hand, and her nightgown, which Aunt Elizabeth put in her big black camlet bag. "I wish you'd see that she studies a little, Winthrop. She is so behind in some things." He nodded. Then Doris put on her hood and cloak and said good-by to Martha, while she kissed Aunt Elizabeth and left a message for the rest. "It's early, so we will take a little ride around," he said, wrapping her up snug and warm. The plan had been in his mind for several days. The evening before he had broached it to Recompense. Not but what he was master in his own house, but he hardly knew how to plan for a child. "If Doris was a boy I could put him on the big sofa in my room. Still, Cato can look after a fire in the guest chamber. It would be too cruel to put a child alone in that great cold barn." There was a very obstinate impression that it was healthy to sleep in cold rooms, so people shut themselves up pretty close, and sometimes drew the bedclothes over their heads. But Winthrop Adams had a rather luxurious side to his nature; he called it a premonition of old age. He kept a fire in his dressing room, where he often sat and read a while at night. His sleeping room adjoined it. "Why, we might bring a cot in my room," she said. "I remember how the child delights in a fire. She's such a delicate-looking little thing." "She is standing our winter very well and goes to school every day. I'm afraid she might disturb you?" "Not if she has a bed by herself. And there is the corner jog; the cot will just fit into it." When they put it there in the morning it looked as if it must have taken root long ago. Then Recompense arranged a nice dressing table with a white cover and a pretty bowl and ewer, and a low chair beside it covered with chintz cushions. Her own high-post bedstead had curtains all around it of English damask, and the curiously carved high-back chairs had cushions tied in of the same material. There was no carpet on the painted floor, but a rug beside the bed and one at the stand, and a great braided square before the fire. It was a well-furnished room for the times, though that of Mr. Adams was rather more luxurious. He was very glad that Recompense had assented so readily, for he was beginning to feel that he ought to take a deeper interest in his little ward. There were numberless sleighs out on some of the favorite thoroughfares. For even now, in spite of the complaints of hard times, there was a good deal of real wealth in Boston, fine equipages with colored coachmen and footmen. There were handsome houses with lawns and gardens, some of them having orchards besides. There were rich furnishings as well, from France and England and from the East. There were china and plate and glass proud of their age, having come through several generations. And though there were shades and degrees of social position, there was a fine breeding among the richer people and a kind of pride among the poorer ones. There were occasions when they mingled with an agreeable courtesy, yet each side kept its proper and distinctive relations; real worth was respected and dignified living held in esteem. From a printer's boy, Benjamin Franklin had stood before kings and added luster to his country. From a farm at Braintree had come one of the famous Adamses and his not less notable wife, who had admirably filled the position of the first lady of the land. Yet the odd, narrow, crooked streets of a hundred years before were running everywhere, occasionally broadened and straightened. There were still wide spaces and pasture fields, declivities where the barberry bush and locust and May flower grew undisturbed. There were quaint nooks with legends, made famous since by eloquent pens; there were curious old shops designated by queer sign and symbols. But even the pleasures were taken in a leisurely, dignified way. There was no wild rush to stand at the head or to outdo a neighbor, or astonish those who might be looking on and could not participate. Doris enjoyed it wonderfully. She had a sudden accession of subtle pride when some fine old gentleman bowed to Uncle Win, or a sleigh full of elegantly attired ladies smiled and nodded. There were large hats framing in pretty faces, and bows and nodding plumes on the top such as Mrs. King had written about. Oh, how lovely Betty would look in hers! What was Hartford like; and New Haven, with its college; then, farther on, New York; and Washington, where the Presidents lived while they held office? She was learning so many things about this new home. Over here on the Common the boys were drawn up in two lines and snowballing as if it was all in dead earnest. And this was the rambling old house with its big porch and stepping block, and its delightful welcome. "Are you not most frozen?" asked Miss Recompense. "Here is the fire you like so much. Take off your cloak and hood. We are very glad to have you come and make us a visit." "Oh, are you?" Doris' face was a gleam of delight. "And I am glad to come. I was beginning to feel dreadfully lonesome without Betty. I ought not when there were so many left," and a bright color suffused her face. "Then there is little James." "And we have no small people." "I never had any over home, you know. And so many people here have such numbers of brothers and sisters. It must be delightful." "But they are not all little at once." "No," laughed Doris. "I should like to be somewhere in the middle. Babies are so cunning, when they don't cry." Miss Recompense smiled at that. There was a comfortable low chair for Doris, and Uncle Win found her seated there, the ruddy firelight throwing up her face like a painting. Miss Recompense went out to see about the supper. There was a good-natured black woman in the kitchen to do the cooking, and Cato, who did the outside work and waited on Dinah and Miss Recompense--a tall, sedate, rather pompous colored man. Some indefinable charm about the house appealed to Doris. The table was arranged in such an attractive manner. Nothing could be more delightful than Aunt Elizabeth's cooking, but she stopped short at an invisible something. The china was saved for company, though there was one pretty cup they always gave to Aunt Priscilla. The everyday dishes were earthen, such as ordinary people used, and being of rather poor glaze they soon checked. Doris knew these pretty plates and the tall cream jug and sugar dish had not been brought out especially for her, though she had supposed they were when they all came over to a company tea. She started so when Uncle Winthrop addressed her in French, and glanced at him in amaze; then turned to a pink glow and laughed as she collected her scattered wits to answer. What a soft, exquisite accent the child had! Miss Recompense paused in her pouring tea to listen. Uncle Win smiled and continued. They were around the pretty tea table in a sort of triangle. Uncle Win passed the thin, dainty slices of bread. Miss Recompense, when she was done with the tea, passed the cold chicken. Then there were cheese and two kinds of preserves, plain cake and fruit cake. Children rarely drank tea, so Doris had some milk in a glass which was cut with just a sparkle here and there that the light caught and made brilliant. "How you _can_ understand any such talk as that beats me," said Miss Recompense in a sort of helpless fashion as she glanced from one to the other. "And if we were abroad talking English the forsigners would say the same thing," replied Mr. Adams. "But there is some sense in English." He laughed a little. "And if we lived in China we would think there was a good deal of sense in Chinese, which is said to be one of the queerest languages in the world." We did not know very much about China in those days, and our knowledge was chiefly gleaned from rather rude maps and some old histories, and the wonderful tales of sea captains. "It would be a pity for you to fall back when you are such a good scholar," Uncle Win said, looking over to Doris. "One forgets quite easily. I find I am a little lame. But you like your school, and it is near by this cold weather. Perhaps you and I can keep up enough interest to exercise our memories. You have some French books?" "Two or three. I tried to read 'Paul and Virginia' to Betty, but it took so long to tell the story over that she didn't get interested. There were so many lessons, too." She did not say that Aunt Elizabeth had discountenanced it. People were horrified by French novels in those days. Rousseau and Voltaire had been held in some degree responsible for the terrible French Revolution. And people shuddered at the name of Tom Paine. At first the Colonies, as they were still largely called, had been very much interested in the new French Republic. Lafayette had been so impressed with the idea of a government of the people when he had lent his assistance to America, that he had joined heartily in a plan for the regeneration of France. But after the king was executed, Sunday abolished, and the government passed into the hands of tyrants who shouted "liberty" and yet brought about the slavery of terror, he and many others had stood aside--indeed, left their beloved city to the mob. Then had come the first strong and promising theories of Napoleon. He had been first Consul, then Consul for life, then Emperor, and was now the scourge of Europe. To Mrs. Leverett all French books were as actors and plays, to be shunned. That any little girl should have read a French story or be able to repeat French verses was quite horrifying. She had a feeling that it really belittled the Bible to appear in the French language. "Yes," returned Uncle Winthrop assentingly. He could understand the situation, for he knew Mrs. Leverett's prejudices were very strong, and continuous. That she was a thoroughly good and upright woman he readily admitted. The supper being finished they went to the cozy hall fire again. You had to sit near it to keep comfortable, for the rooms were large in those days and the outer edges chilly. Some people were putting up great stoves in their halls and the high pipes warmed the stairs and all around. Miss Recompense brought out some knitting. She was making a spread in small squares,--red, white, and blue,--and it would be very fine when it was done. Doris was very much interested when she laid down the squares to display the pattern. "I suppose you knit?" remarked Miss Recompense. "No. I don't know how. Betty showed me a little. And Aunt Elizabeth is going to teach me to make a stocking. It seems very easy when you see other people do it," and Doris sighed. "But I am afraid I am not very smart about a good many things besides tables." That honest admission rather annoyed Uncle Win. Elizabeth had said it as well. For his part he did not see that reading the Bible through by the time you were eight years old and knitting a pile of stockings was proof of extraordinary ability. "What kind of fancy work can you do?" asked Miss Recompense. "I've begun a sampler. That isn't hard. And Miss Arabella taught me to hem and to darn and to make lace." "Make lace! What kind of lace?" "Like the beautiful lace Madam Sheafe makes. Only I never did any so wide. But Miss Arabella used to. Betty took me there one afternoon. Madam Sheafe has such a lovely little house. And, oh, Uncle Win, she can talk French a little." He smiled and nodded. "You see," began Doris with sweet seriousness, "there was no one to make shirts for, and I suppose Miss Arabella thought it wasn't worth while. But I hemmed some on Uncle Leverett's, and Aunt Elizabeth said it was very nicely done." "I dare say." She looked as if anything she undertook would be nicely done, Miss Recompense thought. "Betty was learning housekeeping when she went to Hartford. I think that is very nice. To make pies and bread and cake, and roast chickens and turkeys and everything. But little girls have to go to school first. Six years is a long time, isn't it?" A half-smile crossed the grave face of Miss Recompense. "It seems a long time to a little girl, no doubt, but when you are older it passes very rapidly. There are years that prove all too short for the work crowded in them, and then they begin to lengthen again, though I suppose that is because we no longer hurry to get a certain amount of work done." "I wish the afternoons could be longer." "They will be in May. I like the long afternoons too, though the winter evenings by a cheerful fire are very enjoyable." "The world is so beautiful," said Doris, "that you can hardly tell which you do like best. Only the summer, with its flowers and the sweet, green out-of-doors, fills one with a kind of thanksgiving. Why did they not have Thanksgiving in the summer?" "Because we give thanks for a bountiful harvest." "Oh," Doris responded. Uncle Winthrop watched her as she chattered on, her voice like a soft, purling rill. Presently Dinah called Miss Recompense out in the kitchen to consult her about the breakfast, for she went to bed as soon as she had the kitchen set to rights. Then Doris glanced over to him in a shy, asking fashion, and brought her chair to his side. He inquired about Father Langhorne, and found he had been educated in Paris, and was really a Roman priest. Perhaps it was the province of childhood to see good in everybody. Or was it due to the simple life, the absence of that introspection, which had already done so much to make the New England conscience supersensitive and strenuous. When Miss Recompense returned she found them deep in French again. Doris laughed softly when Uncle Winthrop blundered a little, and perhaps he did it now and then purposely. The big old clock that said "Forever, never!" long before Longfellow's time, measured off nine hours. "It's funny," said Doris, "but I'm not a bit sleepy, and at Uncle Leverett's I almost nod, sometimes. Maybe it's the French." "I should not wonder," and Uncle Win smiled. "We will both go--it is about my time," remarked Miss Recompense. "Your uncle sits up all hours of the night." "And would like to sleep all hours of the morning," he returned humorously, "but Miss Recompense won't let me. If she raises her little finger the whole house moves." "Then she doesn't raise it very often," said that lady. "But it does seem a sin to sleep away good wholesome daylight." There were some candlesticks on a kind of secretary with a shelf-like top, and she lighted one, stepping out in the kitchen to see that all was safe and to bid Cato lock up. When she returned the candle was sending out its cheerful beam, so she nodded to Doris, who said good-night to Uncle Winthrop and followed her. Doris had an odd, company-like feeling. Her little bed was pretty, and the room had a fragrance of summer time, of roses and lavender. Miss Recompense stirred the fire and put on a big log. Then she sat down by the stand and read her nightly chapter, turning a little to give Doris a kind of privacy. "I hope you will sleep well. Your uncle thought you would be lonesome in the guest chamber." "I would ever so much rather be here. And the bed is so small and cunning, just the bed for a little girl. Thank you ever so many times." She said her prayers and breathed a soft good-night to the fire. And though she did not feel strange nor sleepy, and wondered about Betty and a dozen other things, one of the last remembrances was the glimmer of the candle on the wall, and the soft rustling of the blaze, that said "Snow, snow, snow." CHAPTER XI A LITTLE CHRISTMAS Sure enough, it snowed the next morning--one of the soft, clinging storms that loaded every branch with a furry aspect, made mounds of the shrubs, and wrapped the south sides of the houses with a mantle of dazzling whiteness. Now and then a patch fell off, and a long pendant would swing from the trees, and finally drop. It was a delight to see them. The breakfast was laid on the same small table in use last night, but Cato brought in everything hot, and "waited" as Barby used at home. Uncle Winthrop said she looked bright as a rose, and her cheeks had a delicate pink. Afterward he invited her in his study and told her she might look about and perhaps find a book to entertain herself with while he wrote some letters. "Thank you. I hope I shall not disturb you." "Oh, no." He felt somehow he could answer for her. She was so gentle in her movements, and he really wanted to see how he liked having a little girl about. There was a vague idea in his mind that he might decide to have her here some day, since Miss Recompense had taken a sort of fancy to her. Oh, what a luxury it was to wander softly about and read titles and look at bindings and speculate on what she would like! They had very few books at Uncle Leverett's. Some volume of sermons, a few biographies that she had found rather dreary, a history of the French-Canadian War, and some of Poor Richard's Almanacs, which she thought the most amusing of all. There was a circulating library that Warren patronized occasionally. There was also the nucleus of a free library, but so far people had been too busy to think much about reading, except the scholarly minds. Books were expensive, too, and very few persons accumulated any stock of them. Of Mr. Adams' collection some had come to him from his father, and Cousin Charles, who had been called a "queer stick," had some English, Latin, and Italian poets that he had bequeathed to the book lover. Winthrop Adams was a collector of several things beside books. Now and then at an auction sale on someone's death he picked up odd articles that were of value. And so his study was a kind of conglomerate. He had a cabinet of coins from different parts of the world and curios from India and Egypt. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt had awakened a good deal of interest in the country of the Pharaohs. Doris was so still he glanced around presently. She was curled up in the corner of the chimney, a book on her knees and her head bent over until the curls fell about her in a cloud. When Elizabeth had spoken of the benefit it might be to a growing child to have them cut he had protested at once. They were rarely beautiful, he decided now, gleaming gold in the firelight. She had a feeling presently that someone was looking at her, so she raised her head, shook away the curls, and smiled. "Did you find something?" "'The Vicar of Wakefield,' Uncle Winthrop. Oh, it is delightful! You said I might read anything!" with a touch of hesitation. "That was quite a wide permission," and he smiled. He couldn't see how that would hurt anyone, but he was not sure of a girl's reading. "I opened it at a picture--'Preparing Moses for the Fair.' It made me think of Betty going to Hartford. It was so interesting to wonder what you would do, and then to have things happen just right. Aunt Priscilla was so nice. I thought I couldn't like her at first, but I do now. You can't find out all about anyone in a minute, can you?" "I think not," rather humorously. "So then I turned to the first of the book. And the Vicar's wife must have known a good deal to read without much spelling. There are some awful hard words in the back of Betty's spelling book. Do you suppose she learned tables and all that?" "I don't believe she did." "And she could keep house." "They were a notable couple." He took up his pen again and she turned to her book. Suddenly a flood of golden sunshine poured across the floor, fairly dimming the fire. "Oh, Uncle Winthrop!" With her book pressed tightly against her body, she flew over to the window like a bird, disturbing nothing, and making only a soft flutter. "Isn't it glorious!" The edges of the snow everywhere were illumined with the prismatic rays in proper order. The tree branches caught them, the corners of the houses, the window hoods, the straggling bushes, the fences. Everywhere the sublime beauty was repeated until everything quivered with the excess. "It is like the New Jerusalem," she said. The air had softened a great deal. The sun on the window panes spoke of latent warmth. A slight breeze stirred the air, and down came the clinging snow in showers, leaving the trees bare and brown, except the few evergreens. "It is warmer," Mr. Adams said. "Though it is nearing noon, the warmest part of the day. And so far you have stood the cold weather very well, little Doris," smiling down in the eager face. "I've snowballed too, and it is real fun. I can slide ever so far, and I've ridden on Jimmie boy's sled. Betty thinks I would soon learn to skate. I would like to very much." "Then you must have some skates." "But I am afraid Betty may not come home in time to teach me." "Someone else might." "Do you skate?" in soft inquiry. "Not now; I used to. But I am not a young man, and not very energetic. I like warm firesides and a nice book. I am afraid I shall make an ease-loving old man." "But isn't it right to be"--what word would express it?--"happy, comfortable? For why should you try to make anyone happy if it was wrong?" "It is not wrong." The sky was very blue now, and the snow began to have an ethereal look. Cato came out to shovel and clear away some paths. He struck the young hemlocks and firs with a stick and beat the snow out of them. "The snow settles in the branches and sometimes freezes and that kills a little place," said Uncle Winthrop in answer to the questioning eyes. They walked back to the table, with his arm over her shoulder. "I am done my writing for to-day," he began. "I wonder if you would mind answering a few questions?" "Oh, no--if I knew the answers," smilingly. "Then tell me first of all how far you went in Latin. This is a grammar." She turned some leaves. "I didn't know it very well," skimming over the pages. "It was not like this book, and"--hanging her head a little--"I did not like it--that and the sums." "Who put you to studying it?" "Oh, the father did. He said Latin was the key to all other languages. I wonder how many I shall have to learn? Miss Arabella said it was foolishness, except the French." "Let me hear you read a little. This is not difficult." He was not sure there was any call for a girl to know Latin. French seemed quite necessary. She began in a hesitating manner and blundered somewhat at first, but as she went on gained courage, her voice growing firmer and clearer. "Why, that is very well. You ought to be at a higher school than Mrs. Webb's. And now let us consider these dreadful sums. The paper and a pencil will do." He put down quite a sum in addition. There were several nines and sevens in it. She drew a long breath. "It is a big sum. I haven't done any as large as that." "Well, begin. Add as I call them off." Alas! After three figures, in puzzling over an eight, the amount went out of her mind and she had to begin again. Uncle Winthrop made a mark at one figure and put down the amount beside it. After a while she reached the top of the column. Clearly heaven had not meant her for a mathematician. There was no rapport between her figures. Her eyes were limpid, almost as if there were tears in them. "Maybe that was pretty difficult for a little girl. I know most about big boys and young men." "Betty just guesses, this way--eight and nine, and it comes quite as easy as if I had said two and three are five." Uncle Win gave his gentle smile and it comforted her greatly. "This quickness comes by practice. When you have had six years' study you may know as much as Betty in arithmetic, and you will know more in some other branches." "If I can just know as much," she said wistfully. Cato gave a gentle rap on the open door. "Juno's ready," he announced. "Will master take little missy out, or shall I go for Master Cary?" "I had not thought. Would you like to go, Doris?" Her eyes answered him before she could speak. "You may put in the other seat, Cato, and drive." Cato bowed in a dignified manner. "Now run and bundle up well," said Uncle Win. Miss Recompense seemed to know a good deal about little girls, if she had none of her own. She tied a soft silk kerchief over Doris' ears before she put on her hood. Then she told Dinah to slip the soapstone in the foot-stove, and drew the long stockings up over her knees. "Now you could go up to Vermont and not get cold," she said pleasantly. But after all it was not so very cold. The sun shone in golden magnificence and almost dazzled your eyes out. Uncle Win had on his smoked glasses, and he looked very queer, but she saw other people with this protection. Some of the glasses were green. The streets were really merry. Children were out with sleds, and snowballing parties were in the field. They went over to State Street for the mail. Cato sprang out and returned with quite a budget. There was one English letter with a big black seal, but Mr. Adams covered it quickly with the papers and drew the package under the buffalo robe. There was a quaint old bookstore in Cornhill with the sign of Heart and Crown, that was quite a meeting place for students and bookish people, and they drove thither. A young lad came running out, making a bow and greeting his father politely. To have said "Hillo!" in those days would have been horrifying. And to have called one's father the "governor" or the "old gentleman" would have been little short of a crime. "This is the little English cousin, Doris Adams," said Uncle Win, "and this is my son Cary." Cary made a bow to her and said he was glad to meet her, then inquired after his father's health and stepped into the sleigh, picking up the reins and motioning Cato to the other side. Oh, how they spun along! Cary said one or two things, but the words were carried away by the wind. There were sleighs full of ladies and children, great family affairs with three seats; there were cutters with some portly man and a black driver; there were well-known people and unknown people who were to come to the fore in a few years and be famous. For Boston was throbbing even then with the mighty changes transforming her into a great city. Although she had suffered severely at the first of the war and held many priceless memories of it, the early evacuation of the town had left her free for domestic matters, which had prospered despite poverty and hard times and the great loss of population. Many of the old Tory families had returned to England, and the remnants of the provincial aristocracy were being lessened by death and absorbed by marriage. The squires and gentry of the small towns, most of them intense patriots, had filled their places and given tone to social life, that was still formal, if some of the old stateliness had slipped away. The French Revolution had brought about some other changes. The State possessed fine advantages for maritime commerce, and all the seaports were veritable hives of industry in the early part of the century. This laid a foundation of respect for fortunes acquired by energy rather than inheritance. The United States, being the only neutral nation in the fierce conflicts raging round the world, had been reaping a rich harvest for several years. Sea captains and merchants had been thriving splendidly until the last year or two, when seizures began to be made by the British Government that roused a ferment of warlike spirit again. But while men talked politics the women and those who thought it wiser to take neither side, still amused themselves with card parties, tea parties and dances, with now and then an evening at the theater, and driving. There were so many fine long roads not yet cut up into blocks that were great favorites on a day like this. Doris felt the exhilaration and her eyes shone like stars. Presently Cary turned, and here they were at Common Street. "That has been fine!" he began as he drew up to the door. "It sets your blood all a-sparkle. Have I taken your breath away, little cousin?" He came around and offered his hand to his father. Then he lifted Doris as if she had been a feather, and stood her on the broad porch. That recalled Warren Leverett to her mind. "It was splendid," answered Doris. They all walked in together, and Cary shook hands cordially with Miss Recompense. He was almost as tall as his father, with a fair, boyish face and thick light hair that did not curl, but tumbled about and was always falling over his forehead. Warren was stouter and had more color, and there was a kind of laughing expression to his face. Cary's had a certain resolution and that loftiness we are given to calling aristocratic. When Doris had carried the foot-stove to Dinah, and her own wraps upstairs, she stood for a moment uncertain. Cary and his father were talking eagerly in the study, so she sat down by the hall fire and began to think about the Vicar and Mrs. Primrose, and wanted to know what Moses did at the Fair. She had been at one town fair, but she could not recall much besides the rather quaintly and gayly dressed crowd. Then there was a summons to supper. "Oh," cried Cary, "sit still a moment. You look like a page of Mother Goose. You can't be Miss Muffet, for you have no curds and whey, and you are not Jack Horner----" She sprang up then and caught Uncle Winthrop's hand. "Nor Mother Goose," she rejoined laughingly. The plates were moved just a little. Cary sat between her and his father. "I have heard quite a good deal about you," he began. "Are you French or English?" She caught a tiny gleam in Uncle Win's eye, and gravely answered in French. "How do you get along there in Sudbury Street? Who does the talking?" he asked in surprise. "We all talk," she answered. He flushed a little and then gave an amused nod. "Upon my word, you are not slow, if the weather is cold. And you _parlez-vous_ like a native. Now, if you and father want to say anything bad about me, you may hope to keep it a secret, but I warn you that I can understand French to some extent." "I shall not say anything bad," she returned naïvely. Adding, "Why, I don't know anything bad." "Oh, Miss Recompense, isn't it nice to be perfect in someone's eyes?" he laughed. "Wait until she has known you several years." "But you have known me several years," appealingly. "It is best to begin with an unbiased opinion." "I shall get Betty to speak a good word for me. You have confidence in Betty?" "I love Betty," Doris said simply. "And Boston. That begins with a B too. You must love Boston, and the State of Massachusetts, and the whole United States. And if there comes another war you must be true to the flag and the country. No skipping off to England, mind." "I couldn't skip across the whole Atlantic." "Then you would have to stay. Which is the nicest, Sudbury Street or this?" "Cary, you have teased enough," said his father. "I think the out-of-doors of this will be the prettiest in the summer," replied Doris gravely, "and when I came off the ship I thought the indoors in Sudbury Street just delightful. There was such a splendid fire, and everybody was so kind." Cary glanced up at his father, who gave his soft half-smile. "You were a brave little girl not to be homesick." "I did want to see Miss Arabella, and the pony. I had such a darling pony." "Why, you can have a pony next summer," said Uncle Win. "I am very fond of riding." Doris' face was filled with speechless delight. After supper they sat round the fire and Cary asked her about the Old Boston. She had very good descriptive powers. Her life had been so circumscribed there that it had deepened impressions, and the young fellow listened quite surprised. Like his father he had known very little about girls in their childhood. She was so quaintly pretty, too, with the bow of dark ribbon high up on her head, amid the waving light hair. Some time after Uncle Winthrop said: "Doris, I have a letter from Miss Arabella. Would you not like to come in the study and read it?" "Oh, yes," and she sprang up with the lightness of a bird. He had cut around the great black seal. Sometime Doris might be glad to have the letter intact. There were no envelopes then besides those used for state purposes. "Dear and Respected Sir," it began in the formal, old-fashioned manner. She had been rejoiced to hear of Doris' safe arrival and continued good health, and every day she saw the wisdom of the change, though she had missed the child sorely. Her sister had passed peacefully away soon after the departure of Doris, a loss to be accepted with resignation, since her life on earth had long ceased to have any satisfaction to herself. Her own health was very much broken, and she knew it would not be long before she should join those who had preceded her in a better land. When this occurred there would be some articles forwarded to him for Doris, and again she commended the little girl to his affectionate interest and care, and hoped she would grow into a sweet and useful womanhood and be all her parents could wish if they had lived. "Dear Miss Arabella!" Doris wiped the tears from her eyes. How strange the little room must look without Miss Henrietta sitting at the window babbling of childish things! "And she is all alone with Barby. How sad it must be. I should not like to live alone." Unconsciously she drew nearer Uncle Winthrop. He put his arm over her shoulder in a caressing manner, and his heart was moved with sympathy for the solitary lady across the ocean. Doris thought of Aunt Priscilla and wondered whether she ever was lonesome. Sunday was still bright, and somehow felt warm when contrasted with the biting weather of the last ten days. The three went to old Trinity Church, that stood then on a corner of Summer Street--a plain wooden building with a gambrel roof, quite as old-fashioned inside as out, and even now three-quarters of a century old. Up to the Revolution the king and the queen, when there was one, had been prayed for most fervently. The Church conceded this point reluctantly, since there were many who doubted the success of the struggle. But the clergy had resigned from King's Chapel and Christ Church. For a long while afterward Dr. Mather Byles had kept himself before the people by his wit and readiness for controversy, and the two old ladies, his sisters, were well known for their adherence to Royalist costumes and the unction with which they prayed for the king in their own house--with open windows, in summer. In fact, even now Episcopalianism was considered rather foreign than of a home growth. But there had been such a divergence from the old-time faiths that people's prejudices were much softened. It seemed quite natural again to Doris, and she had no difficulty in finding her places, though Cary offered her his prayer book every time. And it sounded so hearty to say "Amen" to the prayers, to respond to the commandments, and sing some of the old chants. There was a short service in the afternoon, and in the evening she and Cary sang hymns. They were getting to be very good friends. Then on Christmas morning they all went again. There was a little "box and fir," and a branch of hemlock in the corner, but the people of that day would have been horrified at the greenery and the flowers met to hail the birth of Christ to-day. They paused in the vestibule to give each other a cordial greeting, for the congregation was not very large. A fine-looking elderly lady shook hands with Mr. Adams and his son. "This is my little niece from abroad," announced the elder, "another of the Adams family. Her father was own nephew to Cousin Charles. Doris, this is Madam Royall." "Poor Charles. Yes, I remember him well. Our children spied out the little girl in the sleigh with you on Saturday, and made no end of guesses. Is it the child who attends Mrs. Webb's school? Dorcas Payne goes there this winter, and she has been teasing to have her name changed to Doris, which she admires beyond measure." "Yes," answered Doris timidly, as Madam Royall seemed addressing her. "I know Dorcas Payne." "Oh, Mr. Adams, I have just thought--our children are going to have a little time to-night--not anything as pretentious as a party, a sort of Christmas frolic. Will you not come around and bring Cary and the little girl? You shall have some Christmas cake and wine with us, Cary can take tea with Isabel and Alice, and the little girl can have a good romp. Please do not refuse." Cary flushed. Mr. Adams looked undecided. "No, you shall not hunt about for an excuse. Dorcas has talked so much about the little girl that we are all curious to see her. Shouldn't you like a frolic with other little girls, my dear?" Doris smiled with assenting eagerness. "We shall surely look for you. I shall tell them all that you are coming, and that I have captured little Doris Adams." "Very well," returned Mr. Adams. "At four, exactly. The children's supper is at five." Doris had tight hold of Uncle Winthrop's hand, and if she had not just come out of church she must have skipped for very gladness. For Dorcas Payne had talked about her cousins, the Royalls, and their charming grandmother, and the good times they had in their fine large house. Uncle Win looked her all over as she sat at the dinner table. She was a pretty child, with her hair gathered up high and falling in a golden shower. Her frock was some gray woolen stuff, and he wondered vaguely if blue or red would have been better. He had seen little girls in red frocks; they looked so warm and comfortable in winter. Elizabeth Leverett would be shocked at the color, he knew. What made so many women afraid of it, and why did they cling to dismal grays and browns? He wished he knew a little more about girls. They had a splendid young goose for the Christmas dinner, vegetables and pickles and jellies. Cider was used largely then; no hearty dinner would have been the thing without it. Even the Leveretts used that, while they frowned on all other beverages. And then the thick mince pie with a crust that fairly melted before you could chew it! One needed something to sustain him through the long cold winter, and the large rooms where you shivered if you went out of the chimney corner. Doris stole a little while for her enchanting Primrose people, though Cary kept teasing by saying: "Has Moses gone to the Fair? Just wait until you see the sort of bargains he makes!" Uncle Winthrop went out to Miss Recompense. "She looks very plain for a little--well, I suppose it _is_ a party, and I dare say there is another frock at the Leveretts'. I think the first time I saw her she had on something very pretty--silk, I believe it was. But there is no time to get it. Recompense, if you could find a ribbon or any suitable adornment to brighten her up. In that big bureau upstairs--I wish you would look." Years ago the pretty things had been laid away. Recompense went over them every spring during house-cleaning time, to see that moths had not disturbed them. Thieves were never thought of. She always touched them with a delicate regard for the young wife she had never known. She put a shawl about her now and went upstairs, unlocked the drawer of "trinkets," and peered into some of the boxes. Oh, here was a pretty bit of lace, simple enough for a child. White ribbons turned to cream, pale-blue grown paler with age, stiff brocaded ones, and down at the very bottom a rose color with just a simple silvery band crossing it at intervals. There was enough for a sash and a bow for the hair, and with the lace tucker it would be all right. "Doris," she called over the baluster. "Yes, ma'am," and Doris came tripping up, book in hand. "Your uncle wants you fixed up a bit," she said, "and as you have nothing here I have looked up a few things. Let me fasten the tucker in your frock. There, that does look better. Madam Royall is quite dressy, like all fashionable people who go out and have company. I'm not much of a hand to fix up children, seeing that for years I have had none of it to do. But I guess I can manage to tie the sash. There, I think that will do." "Oh, how lovely! How good of you, Miss Recompense." Recompense Gardiner hated to take the credit for anything she had not done, but she had to let it go now. "How to get this ribbon in your hair! I think it is too wide." "Oh, can I have that too? Well, you see, you take up the curls this way and put the ribbon under. Can it be folded? Then you tie it on the top." Miss Recompense did not make a very artistic bow, but Doris looked in the glass of the dressing table, and pulled and patted it a little, and said it was right and that she was a thousand times grateful. The sober-minded woman admitted within herself that the child was greatly improved. Perhaps gay attire _did_ foster vanity, yet it was pleasant for others to look upon. "Run down and ask your uncle if you will do," exclaimed Miss Recompense, feeling that by his approval she would discharge her conscience from the sin, if sin it were. She looked so dainty as she came and stood by him, and asked her question with such a bewitching flush, that he kissed her on the forehead for approval. But she put her soft young arms about his neck and kissed him back, and he held her there with a strange new warmth stirring his heart. The old Royall house in Summer Street went its way three-quarters of a century ago. No one dreams now of the beautiful garden that surrounded it, and the blossoming shrubbery and beds of flowers from which nosegays were sent to friends, and the fruit distributed later on. It was an old house then, a great square, two-story building with a cupola railed around a flat place at the point of the roof, or what would have been the point if carried up. There were some rooms built out at the back, and an arbor--a covered sort of _allée_ where the ladies sat and sewed at times and the children played. Thirty years before there had been many a meeting of friends to discuss the state of affairs. There had been disagreements, ruptures, quarrels made and healed. George Royall had gone back to England. Dwight Royall had fought on the side of the "Rebels." One daughter had married an English officer who had surrendered with Cornwallis and then returned to his native land. A younger son had married and died, and left two daughters to his mother's care, their own mother being dead. A widowed daughter had come home to live with her four children, the two youngest being girls. Dorcas Payne was a cousin to them on their father's side. There were often guests staying with them, and the old house was still the scene of good times, as they were then: friends dropping in and finding ready hospitality. For though Madam Royall had passed the three score and ten, she was still intelligent and had been in her earlier years accomplished. She could play on her old-fashioned spinet for the children to dance, and sometimes she sang the songs of her youth, though her voice had grown a trifle unsteady in singing. The sun was setting the west in a glow of magnificence as they walked up to the Royall house. Madam Royall and her daughter Mrs. Chapman were waiting to welcome them. In this hall was the tall stove that was beginning to do duty for the cheerful hearthfire, and it diffused a delightful atmosphere of warmth. But you could see the blaze in the parlor and the dining room, where some friends were already assembled and having a game of cards. The sideboard, as was the custom then, was set out with a decanter of Madeira and one of sherry and the glasses, besides a great silver basin filled with nuts and dried fruit and another dish of crullers. On the opposite side of the hall there was a hubbub of children's voices. Madam Royall ushered Mr. Adams into the dining room, left Cary to the attention of the two girls and their aunt, and took possession of Doris herself, removing her wraps and handing them to the maid. Then taking her hand she drew her into the room, kept mostly for dancing and party purposes. CHAPTER XII A CHILDREN'S PARTY "This is Doris Adams, a little girl who came from England not long ago. You must make her welcome and show her what delightful children there are in Boston. These two girls are Helen and Eudora Chapman, my grandchildren, and the others are grandnieces and friends. Helen, you must do the honors." Dorcas Payne came forward. "She goes to the same school that I do." She had been entertaining the girls with nearly all she knew about Doris. That Mr. Winthrop Adams was her uncle and guardian raised her a good deal in the estimation of Dorcas, for even then a man was thought unusually well off to be able to live without doing any real business. "Would you like to play graces?" asked Eudora. "I don't know," admitted Doris. "We were playing. Grace and Molly, you go down that end of the room. Now, this is the way. When Betty tosses it you catch it on the sticks, so." It seemed very easy when Eudora caught it and tossed it back, and Betty threw it again. "Now you try," and she put the sticks in Doris' hands. "Oh, what tiny little hands you have, and as white as snow!" Doris blushed. She threw the hoop and it "wabbled," but Betty, a bright, black-eyed girl, made a lunge or two, and caught it on the tip of one stick, and back it came. Doris was looking at her and never moved her hand. "Pick it up and try again," said Eudora. "That isn't the right way, but we will excuse you this time." Alas! this time Doris ran and brandished her stick in the air to no purpose. "I would rather see you play," she said. "You are all doing it so beautifully." "Then you stand here and watch." It was very fascinating. There were three sets playing. Doris found that when a girl missed she gave up to some other companion. Her eyes could hardly move quickly enough to watch all the hoops. Now and then a girl was crowned,--that meant the hoops encircled her head,--and they all shouted. Then Helen said they had played that long enough, and now they would try "Hunt the slipper." The slipper was a pretty one, made of pink plush with a dainty heel and a shining buckle set in a small pink bow. Doris said "it looked like a Cinderella slipper." "Oh, do you know about Cinderella? Do you know many stories?" "Not a great many. Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast, and a few in verses." "I wish you knew something quite new. Oh!" Eudora had forgotten to keep the slipper going. The girls were sitting in a ring, so she jumped up cheerfully and began to hunt. There were a great many little giggles and exclamations, and then someone said: "Oh, let's stop playing and tell riddles!" That was a never-failing amusement. There were some very bright ones, some very puzzling ones. One girl asked how many baskets of dirt there were in Copp's Hill. "Why, there can't anybody tell," said Helen. "You couldn't measure it that way." Everybody looked at everybody else, and the glances finally grew indignant. "There isn't any answer." "Give it up?" "Yes," cried the voices in unison. "Why, one--if the basket is big enough." "There couldn't be a basket made as large as that. You might as well ask how many drops of water there are in the sea, and then say only one because they all run together." The girls applauded that, and, before anyone had thought of another, Miranda,--tall, black, imposing, with a gay turban wound round her head,--announced: "De little misses were all disquested to walk out to de Christmas supper." Grandmamma did not know how to leave her guests, and she was in the middle of a game of loo, but she had promised to sit at the head of the table, so Mrs. Chapman took her place. No one felt troubled because there were no boys at the party: the only boy of the house had gone out skating with some other boys. It was quite a royal feast. There were thin bread and butter, dainty biscuits not much larger than the penny of that day, cold turkey and cold ham, and cake of every kind, it would seem, ranged around the iced Christmas cake that was surmounted by a wreath of some odd golden flowers that people dried and kept all winter for ornamental purposes. They puzzled grandmamma with the two riddles, but she thought that about the sea the better one. And she said no one would ever have an opportunity to measure Copp's Hill, but for all that they did, if they had cared to. The grown-up people had some tea and chocolate in the dining room, and seemed to be having as merry a time as the children. There was something infectious in the air or the house. Doris thought it very delightful. Her cheeks began to bloom in a wild-rose tint, and her eyes had a luminous look, as if happiness was shining through them. Afterward grandmamma played on the spinet and they danced several pretty simple figures, ending with the minuet. When the clock struck seven someone came in a sleigh for four of the girls who lived quite near together. Pompey, the Royalls' servant, was to escort the others, and Betty March lived just across in Winter Street. When children went out the hours were kept pretty strictly. Seven o'clock meant seven truly, and not eight or nine. Each child had a pretty paper box of candy, tied with a bright ribbon. Bonbons we should call them now. And they all expressed their thanks and made a courtesy as they reached the hall door. "Have you had a good time?" asked Madam Royall, taking Doris by the hand. "It's been just delightful, every moment," the child answered. "And she's only looked on, grandmamma," exclaimed Eudora. "Now, let's us get real acquainted. We will go in the parlor and have a good talk." "Very well," returned grandmamma. "I'll go and see what the _old_ people are about." "I am glad you don't have to go home so soon," began Helen. "Why don't you live with your Uncle Adams instead of in Sudbury Street? Are there any girls there?" "One real big one who is sixteen. She has gone to Hartford now. That's Betty Leverett. And I went there first, because--well, Uncle Leverett came for me when the vessel reached Boston." "Oh, he is your uncle, too! Did you come from another Boston, truly now?" "Yes, it was Boston." "And like this?" "Oh, no." "Did you know ever so many girls?" "No. We lived quite out of the town." "And, oh, were you not afraid to cross the ocean? Suppose there had been a pirate or something?" "I didn't know anything about pirates," said Doris. "But I was afraid at first, when you could not see any land for days and days. There were two little girls and they had a doll. We played together and grew used to the water. But it was worse when it stormed." "I should have been frightened out of my life. Grandmamma has been to England. We have some cousins there, but they are grown-up people and married. Which place do you like best?" "I had no real relatives there after papa died. Oh, I like this Boston best." Then they branched off into school matters. Eudora and her sister went to a Miss Parker, and to a writing school an hour in the afternoon. Eudora wished she was grown-up like Isabel and Alice, and could go out to real parties and have a silk frock. Grandmamma was going to give her one when she was fifteen. A feeling of delicacy kept Doris from confessing that she owned the coveted article. Some of the girls had worn very pretty frocks. Eudora's was a beautiful soft blue, and had bands of black velvet and short sleeves with lace around them. But Doris had forgotten about her own attire, though she recalled the fact that there was only one little girl in a gray frock, and it didn't seem very pretty. So they chattered on, and Eudora said they would have splendid times if she came in the summer. They had a big swing, and they went over on the Common and had no end of fun playing tag. The warm weather was the nicest, though there was great fun sledding and snowballing when the boys were not too rough. Oh, had she seen the forts and the great light out at Fort Hill? Wasn't it just grand? "But, you know, Walter said if the redoubts had been stone instead of snow, the Rebels never could have taken them. You know, they called _us_ Rebels then. And now we are a nation." Doris wondered what a redoubt was, but she saved it to ask Uncle Win. She gave a sigh to think what an ignorant little girl she was. "I think it is a great deal finer to be a country all by yourself and govern your own people. The King of England is half crazy, you know. You don't mind, do you, when we talk about the English? We don't really mean every person, and our friends and--and all"--getting rather confused with distinctions. "We mean the government," interposed Helen. "It stands to reason people thousands of miles away wouldn't know what is best for us. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if someone in Virginia should pretend to instruct grandmamma what to do? Grandmamma knows so much. And she is one of the handsomest old ladies in Boston. Oh, listen!" A mysterious sound came from the kitchen. A fiddle was surely tuning up somewhere. "The big folks are going to dance, and that is black Joe, Mr. Winslow's man." Mr. Winslow and a young lady had arrived also. They tendered many apologies about their lateness. The people in the dining room left the table and came out in the hall. Cary Adams had been having a very nice time, for a young fellow. Isabel poured the chocolate, and on her right sat a Harvard senior. Alice poured the tea, and beside her sat Cary, who made himself useful handing it about. He liked Alice very much. A young married couple were over on the other side, and now this addition and the fiddle looked suspicious. "My dear Doris," exclaimed her uncle. He had been discussing Greek poets with the Harvard professor, and had really forgotten about her. "Are you tired? It's about time a young person like you, and an old person like me, went home." He didn't look a bit old. There was a tint of pink in his cheeks--he had been so roused and warmed with his argument and his tea. "Oh, do let Doris stay and see them dance, just one dance," pleaded Eudora. "We have been sitting here talking, and haven't tired ourselves out a bit." The fiddler and the dancers went to the room where the children had their frolic. That was Jane Morse's cousin Winslow. How odd she should see him and hear black Joe, who fiddled like the blind piper. The children kept time with their feet. The minuet was elegant. Then they had a cotillion in which there was a great deal of bowing. After that Mr. Adams said they must go home, and Madam Royall came and talked to Doris in a charming fashion, and then told Susan, the slim colored maid, to wrap her up head and ears, and in spite of Mr. Adams' protest Pompey came round with the sleigh. "I hope you had a nice time," said Madam Royall, as she put a Christmas box in the little girl's hand. "I'm just full of joy," she answered with shining eyes. "I couldn't hold any more unless I grew," laughingly. They made her promise to come again, and the children kissed her good-by. Then they were whisked off and set down at their own door in no time. "Now you must run to bed. Aunt Elizabeth would be horrified at your staying up so late." Miss Recompense was--almost. She had been nodding over the fire. They went upstairs together. She took a look at Doris, and suddenly the child clasped her round the waist. "Oh, dear Miss Recompense, I was so glad about the beautiful sash. Most of the frocks were prettier than mine. Some had tiny ruffles round the bottom and the sleeves. But the party was so nice I forgot all about that. Oh, Miss Recompense, were you ever brimful of happiness, and you wanted to sing for pure gladness? I think that is the way the birds must feel." No, Miss Recompense had never been that happy. A great joy, the delight of childhood, had been lost out of her life. She had been trained to believe that for every miserable day you spent bewailing your sins, a day in heaven would be intensified, and that happiness on earth was a snare of the Evil One to lead astray. She had gone out in the fields and bemoaned herself, and wondered how the birds _could_ sing when they had to die so soon, and how anyone could laugh when he had to answer for everything at the Day of Judgment. "Everybody was so delightful, though at first I felt strange. And I did not make out at all playing graces. That's just beautiful, and I'd like to know how. And now if you will untie the sash and put it away, and I am a hundred times obliged to you." Some of the children she had known would have begged for the sash. Doris' frank return touched her. Mr. Adams no doubt meant her to keep it--she would ask him. And then the happy little girl went to bed, while even in the dark the room seemed full of exquisite visions and voices that charmed her. Cary had to go away the next morning. Uncle Win said he couldn't spare her, and sent Cato over to tell Mrs. Leverett. A young man came in for some instruction, and Doris followed the fate of the Vicar's household a while, until she felt she ought to study, since there were so many things she did not know. Uncle Win found her in the chimney corner with a pile of books. "What is it now?" he asked. "I think I know _all_ my spelling. But I can't get some of the addition tables right when I ask myself questions. I wish there had not been any nine." "The world couldn't get along without the nine. It is very necessary." "Most of the good things _are_ hard," she said with a philosophic sigh. He laughed. "Eudora does not like tables either." "I will tell you a famous thing about nine that you can't do with any other figure. How much is ten and ten?" "Why, twenty, and ten more are thirty, and so on. It is easy as turning over your hand." "Ten and nine." Doris looked nonplused and began to draw her brow in perplexed lines. "Nine is only one less than ten. Now, if you can remember that----" "Nineteen! Why, that is splendid." "Now sixteen and nine?" "Twenty-five," rather hesitatingly. He nodded. "And nine more." "Thirty-four. Oh, we made a rhyme. Uncle Winthrop, is it very hard to write verses? They are so beautiful." "I think it is--rather," with his half-smile. People had not had the leisure to be very poetical as yet. But through these years some children were being born into the world whose verses were to find a place by every fireside before the little girl said her last good-night to it. So far there had been some bright witticisms and sarcasms in rhyme, and the clergy had penned verses for wedding and funeral occasions. The Rev. John Cotton had indulged in flowing versification, and even Governor Bradford had interspersed his severer cares with visions of softer strains. Anne Dudley, the wife of Governor Bradstreet, with her eight children, had found time for study and writing, and about 1650 had a volume of verse published in London entitled "The Tenth Muse. Several poems compiled with a great variety of wit and learning. By an American Gentlewoman." And she makes this protest even then: I am obnoxious to each carping tongue, Who says my hand a needle better fits; A poet's pen all scorn I thus should wrong, For such despite they cast on female wits: If what I do prove well it won't advance, They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance. There was also a Mrs. Murray and a Mercy Otis Warren, who evinced very fine intellectual ability; and Mrs. Adams had written letters that the world a hundred years later was to admire and esteem. On the parlor table in some houses you found a thin volume of poems with a romantic history. A Mrs. Wheatley bought a little girl at the slave market one day, mostly out of pity. She learned to read very rapidly, and was so modest and thoughtful that as a young woman she was held in high esteem by Dr. Sewall's flock at the Old South Church. She went abroad with her master's son before the breaking out of the war, and interested Londoners so much that her poems were published and she was the recipient of a good many attentions. Afterward they were reissued in Boston and met with warm commendations for the nobility of sentiment and smooth versification. So to Phillis Wheately belongs the honor of having been one of the first female poets in Boston. And young men even now celebrated their sweethearts' charms in rhyme. Gay gallants wrote their own valentines. Young collegians struggled with Latin verse, and sometimes scaled the heights of Thessaly from whence inspiration sprang. But, for the most part, the temperaments that inclined to the worship of the Muses sought solace in Chaucer, Shakspere, and Milton while the later ones were winning their way. Doris sighed over the doubtfulness in her uncle's tone. But it was music rather than poetry that floated through her brain. "You might come and read a little Latin, and then we will have a talk in French. We will leave the prosaic part. What you will do in square root and cube root----" "I am afraid I shall not grow at all. I'll just wither up. Isn't there some round root?" "Yes, among vegetables." They both laughed at that. She did quite well in the Latin. Then she spelled some rather difficult words, and being in the high tide of French when dinner was announced, they kept on talking, to the great amusement of Miss Recompense, who could hardly convince herself that it really did mean anything reasonable. Uncle Winthrop said then they certainly deserved some indulgence, and if she was not afraid of blowing away they would go out riding again. They took the small sleigh and he drove, and they turned down toward the stem end of the pear, and if Boston had not held on good and strong in those early years it might in some high wind have been twisted off and left an island. It does not look, to-day, much as it did when Doris first saw it. Charles River has shrunken, Back Bay has been filled up. It has stretched out everywhere and made itself a marvelous city. The Common has changed as well, and is more beautiful than one could have imagined then, but a thousand old recollections cling to it. They left the streets behind. Sleigh riding was the great winter amusement then, but you had to take it in cold weather, for the salt air all about softened the snow the first mild day. There was no factory smoke or dust to mar it, and it lay in great unbroken sheets. There were people skating on Back Bay, and chairs on runners with ladies well wrapped up in furs, and sleds of every description. They came up around the other side and saw the wharves and the idle shipping and the white-capped islands in the harbor. Now the wind _did_ nearly blow you away. The next day was very lowering and chilly. Uncle Winthrop had to go to a dinner among some notables. Miss Recompense always brushed his hair and tied the queue. Young men did not wear them, but some of the older people thought leaving them off was aping youthfulness. He put on his black velvet smallclothes, his silk stockings and low shoes with silver buckles, his flowered waistcoat, his high stock and fine French broadcloth coat. His shirt front had two full ruffles beautifully crimped. Miss Recompense did it with a penknife. "You look just like a picture, Uncle Winthrop," Doris exclaimed admiringly. "Party clothes _do_ make one handsomer. I suppose it isn't good for one to be handsome all the time." "We should grow too vain," he answered smilingly, yet he did enjoy the honest praise. "Perhaps if we were used to it all the time it would not seem so beautiful. It would get to be everyday-like, and you would not think about it." True enough. He had a fancy Madam Royall did not think half so much about her apparel as some of the more strenuous people who referred continually to conscience. "Good-by. Maybe you will be in bed when I come back." "Oh, will you be gone that late?" She stood upon a stool and reached over to give him a parting kiss, if she could not see him until to-morrow, and she did not even touch his immaculate ruffles. It was growing dusky, and Miss Recompense was in and out, and was in no hurry for candlelight herself. Doris sat in a kind of chaotic thinking. Someone came up the steps, stamped his feet quite too noisily for Cato,--even if he had returned so soon,--knocked at the door, and then opened it. "Oh, Uncle Leverett!" and she sprang up. "Well, well, little runaway! I was quite struck when mother told me you were going to stay all the week. I wanted to see my little girl. It's lonesome without you and Betty, I can tell you--lonesome as the woods in winter; and as I couldn't get to see her, I thought I would run around this way and see you. The longest way round is the surest way home, I have heard"--with a twinkle in his eye. "Where's Uncle Win? What are you doing in the dark alone?" "Uncle Win has gone to a grand dinner at the Exchange something. And he dressed all up. He looked splendid." "I dare say. He isn't bad-looking in his everyday gear. And you are having a good time?" "A most beautiful time, Uncle Leverett. I went to church Christmas morning. And a lady asked us both to a party--yes, it was a party. The grown people were by themselves, and the children--there were ten little girls--they had a grand supper and played games and told riddles, and we talked--" "Where was this fine affair?" "At Madam Royall's. And she was so kind and sweet and handsome." "Well, I declare! Right in amongst the quality! I don't know what mother would say to a party. What a pity you didn't have that pretty frock!" "I did wish for it at first, but we had such a nice time it made no difference. And then some more people came and Mr. Winslow and Black Joe, who was at Betty's party, and they danced. Cary went, too. He stayed after Uncle Win and I came home." "Great doings. I am glad you are happy. But I shall be doubly glad to get you back. And now I must run off home." Miss Recompense came in and lighted the candles. They were going to have supper in five minutes and he must take off his coat and stay. "I've sort of run away, and no one would know where I am. Wife would keep supper waiting. No, I must hustle back, thanking you for the asking. I wanted to see Doris. Somehow we have grown so used to her already that the house seems kind of lost without her, Betty being away. We haven't had any letter from Hartford, but I dare say she is there all safe." "Post teams do get delayed. Doris is well and satisfied. She and her uncle have great times studying." "That is good. Wife worried a little about school. Now I must go. Good-night. You will surely be home on Saturday." "Good-night," returned the soft voice. Somehow the supper was very quiet. Doris had begun to read aloud to Miss Recompense "The Story of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." She did not like it as well as her dear Vicar, but Uncle Win said it was good. He was not quite sure of the Vicar for such a child. So she read along very well for a while, and then she yawned. "You were up late last night and you must go to bed," said the elder lady. Doris was ready. She _was_ sleepy, but somehow she did not drop asleep all in a minute. There was a grave subject to consider. All day she was thinking how splendid it would be if Uncle Win should ask her to come here and live. She liked him. She liked the books and the curiosities and the talks and the teaching. Uncle Win was so much more interesting than Mrs. Webb, who flung questions at you in a way that made you jump if you were not paying strict attention. There were other delights that she could not explain to herself. And the books, the leisure to sit and think. For careful Aunt Elizabeth said--"Have you hung up your cloak, Doris? Are you sure you know your spelling? I do wonder if you will ever get those tables perfect! The idea of such a big girl not knowing how to knit a stocking! Don't sit there looking into the fire and dreaming, Doris; attend to your book. Jimmie boy is away ahead of you in some things." And here she could sit and dream. Of course she was not going to school. Miss Recompense did not think of something all the time. She had learned a sort of graciousness since she had lived with Mr. Winthrop Adams. True, she had nothing to worry about--no children to advance in life, no husband whose business she must be anxiously considering. She had a snug little sum of money, and was adding to it all the time, and she was still a long way from old age. Doris could not have understood the difference in both position and demands, but she enjoyed the atmosphere of ease. And there was a certain aspect of luxury, a freedom from the grinding exactions of conscience that had been trained to keep continually on the alert lest one "fall into temptation." "He had wanted to see his little girl. He was lonesome without her." She could see the longing in Uncle Leverett's face and hear his wistful voice there in the dark. He had come to the ship and given her the first greeting and brought her home. Yes, she supposed she _was_ his little girl. Guardians were to take care of one's money; you did not have to live with them, of course. Uncle Leverett was something in a business way, too; and he loved her. She knew that without any explanation. She was quite sure Uncle Win loved her also, but her real place was in Sudbury Street. Friday afternoon she was curled up by the fire reading, looking like a big kitten, if you had seen only her gray frock. Uncle Win had glanced at her every now and then. He did not mind having her around--not as much, in fact, as Cary, who tumbled books about and moved chairs noisily and kept one's nerves astir all the time, as a big healthy fellow whose body has grown so fast that he hardly knows what to do with his long arms and legs is apt to do. Doris was like a little mouse. She never rattled the leaves when she turned them over, she never put books in the cases upside down, she did not finger papers or anything that lay on the table when she stood by it. He had a fancy that all children were meddlesome and curious and given to asking queer questions: these were the things he remembered about Cary in those first years of sorrow when he could hardly bear him out of his sight. Instead, Doris was restful with her quaint ways. She did not run against chairs nor move a stool so that the legs emitted a "screak" of agony, and she could sit still for an hour at a time if she had a book. Of course, being a girl she ought to sew instead. It was getting quite dusky. Uncle Winthrop came and stirred the fire and put on a pine log, then drew up his chair. "Put away your book, Doris. You will try your eyes." She shut it up and came and stood by him. He passed his arm around her. "Uncle Win, there was a time when people had to read and sew by the blaze of logs and torches. There were no candles." "They did it not so many years ago here. I dare say they are still doing it out in country places. They go to bed early." "What seems queer to me is that people are continually finding out things. They must at one time have been very ignorant. No, they could not have been either," reflectively. "For just think how Adam named the animals. And Miss Arabella said that Job knew all about the stars and called them by their names. But perhaps it was the little things like candles and such. Yet they had lamps ever and ever so long ago." "People seem to advance and then fall back. They emigrate and cannot take all their appliances with them, and they make simpler things to use until they have leisure and begin to accumulate wealth. You see, they could not bring a great deal from England or Holland in the vessels they had in early sixteen hundred. So they had to begin at the foundation in many things." "It is all so wonderful when you really come to learn about it," she said with a gentle sigh. The blaze was shining on her now, and bringing out the puzzles on the fair child's face. She was very intelligent, if she was slow at figures. "Doris,"--after a long pause,--"how would you like to live here?" "Oh, Uncle Win, it would be the most splendid thing----" "I fancied you might like to change. And there are some matters connected with your education--why, what is it, Doris?" She raised her eyes an instant, then they drooped and he saw the dark fringe beaded with tears. She took a long quivering inspiration. "Uncle Win--I don't believe I can." The words came very slowly. "You see Betty is away, and Uncle Leverett missed me very much. He said the other night I was his little girl, and he was lonesome----" "I shall be lonesome when you are gone." "But you have so many books and things, and people coming, and--I should like to stay. Oh, I do like you so." She put her slim arm around his neck and laid her cheek against his. "Sometimes it seems as if you were like what I remember of papa. I only saw such a little of him, you know, after I went to England. But Aunt Elizabeth says it is the hard things that are right always. She would have Jimmie boy, you know, if I stayed, but Uncle Leverett wants me. I can just feel how it is, but I don't know how to explain it. He has always been so good to me. And that day on the ship he said, 'Is this my little girl?' and I was so glad to really belong to someone again----" She was crying softly. He felt the tears on his cheek. Her simple heroism touched him. "Yes, dear," he said with a comforting sound in his voice. "Perhaps it would be best to wait a little, until Betty returns, or in the summer. You can come over Friday night and spend Sunday, and brush up on Latin, and brush me up on French, and we will have a nice visit." "Oh, thank you, thank you. Uncle Win--if I could be two little girls----" "I want you all, complete. We will keep it to think about." Then Miss Recompense said supper was ready, and Doris wiped the tears out of her eyes and smiled. But the pressure of her hand as they walked out confessed that she belonged to him. CHAPTER XIII VARIOUS OPINIONS OF LITTLE GIRLS "You have kept up wonderfully for being absent a whole week. You haven't fallen back a bit," said Mrs. Webb. Doris flushed with delight. The little training Uncle Winthrop had given her had borne fruit. But she was shocked that Jimmie boy was so bad he had to be punished with the ruler. He had been punished twice in the week before. "Don't you darst to tell grandmother," he said as they were turning into Sudbury Street. "If you do I'll--I'll"--she was a girl, and he couldn't punch her--"I won't take you on my sled." "No. I won't tell." "Honest and true? Hope to die?" "I'll say honest and true." "A little thing like that aint much, just two or three slaps. You ought to see the teacher at Salem? My brother Foster gets licked sometimes, and he makes us promise not to tell father." James had stood a little in awe of Doris on the point of good behavior. But Sam had been up, and James had gone down to Aunt Martha's, and he felt a great deal bigger now. Uncle Leverett was very glad to get his little girl back. They had heard from Betty, who had spent two delightful days with Mrs. Eastman, and then they had gone to Hartford together. Electa and the children were well, and she had a beautiful house with a Brussels carpet in the parlor and velvet furniture and vases and a table with a marble top. Betty sent love to everybody, and they were to tell Aunt Priscilla that the beaver bonnet was just the thing, and she was going to have the silk frock made over right away. Electa thought the India silk lovely, and she was so glad she had brought the extra piece along, for she was going to have the little cape with long tabs to tie behind, and she should use up every scrap putting a frill on it. Aunt Priscilla had not waited until March, but taken another cold and was confined to the house, so Aunt Elizabeth went over quite often. Martha Grant proved very efficient, and she was industry itself. She, too, was amazed that Doris wasn't "put to something useful." Doris had brought home a Latin book, but Aunt Elizabeth could not cordially indorse such a boyish study. Women were never meant to go to colleges. But she did not feel free to thwart Cousin Adams' plans for her. He came over on Saturday and took her out, and they had a nice laughing French talk, though he admitted he and Miss Recompense had missed her very much. She told him about Betty, and what Mrs. Webb had said, and seemed quite happy. Just at the last of the month they were all very much interested in a grand affair to which Uncle Winthrop was an invited guest. It was at the great Exchange Coffee House, and really in honor of the gallant struggle Spain had been making against the man who bid fair then to be the dictator of all Europe. On one throne after another he had placed the different members of his family. Joseph Bonaparte, who had been King of Naples, was summarily transferred to the throne of Spain, with small regard for the desires of her people. He found himself quite unable to cope with the insurgents rising on every hand. And America sent Spain her warmest sympathy. Uncle Leverett read the account aloud from his weekly paper. Now and then there appeared a daily paper for a brief while, and a tolerably successful semi-weekly, but the real substantial paper was the weekly. How they would have found time then to read a morning and an evening paper--two or three, perhaps--is beyond comprehension. And to have heard news from every quarter of the globe before it was more than a few hours old would have seemed witchcraft. Napoleon was now at the zenith of his fame. But the feeling of the country at his divorcing Josephine, who loved him deeply, was a thrill of indignation, for the tie of marriage was now considered irrevocable save for the gravest cause. That he should marry an Austrian princess for the sake of allying himself to a royal house and having an heir to the throne, which was nearly half of Europe now, was causing people even then to draw a parallel between him and our own hero, Washington. Both had started with an endeavor to free their respective countries from an intolerable yoke, and when this was achieved Washington had grandly and calmly laid down the burdens of state and retired to private life, while Napoleon was still bent upon conquest. The sympathies of America went out to all struggling nations. There had been an ode read, and toasts and songs; indeed, it had called together the notable men of the city, who had partaken of a grand feast. It was much talked of for weeks; and Doris questioned Uncle Winthrop and began to be interested in matters pertaining to her new country. She was learning a good deal about the city. Warren took her to Aunt Priscilla's one noon, and came for her when they had "shut up shop." Aunt Priscilla did not mend rapidly. She called it being "pudgicky," as if there was no name of a real disease to give it. A little fresh cold, a good deal of weakness--and she had always been so strong; some fever that would persist in coming back even when she had succeeded in breaking it up for a few days. The time hung heavily on her hands. She did miss Betty's freshness and bright, argumentative ways. So she was glad to see Doris, for Polly sat out in the kitchen half asleep most of the time. Solomon as well always seemed very glad to see Doris. He came and sat in her lap, and Aunt Priscilla told about the days when she was a little girl, more than fifty years ago. Doris thought life must have been very hard, and she was glad not to have lived then. She did like Miss Recompense the best, but she felt very sorry for Aunt Priscilla's loneliness. "She and Polly have grown old together, and they need some younger person to take care of them both," said Uncle Leverett. "She ought to take her comfort; she has money enough." "It is so difficult to find anyone to suit," and Aunt Elizabeth sighed. "I shall crawl out in the spring," declared Mrs. Perkins; but her tone was rather despondent. Doris wondered when the spring would come. The snow and ice had never been entirely off the ground. Besides going to Uncle Winthrop's,--and she went every other Saturday,--she had been asked to Madam Royall's to tea with the children. The elder lady had not forgotten her. Indeed, this was one of the houses that Mr. Adams thoroughly enjoyed, though he was not much of a hand to visit. But people felt then that they really owed their neighbors some social duty. There were not so many public amusements. The Chapman children had real dolls, not simply rag babies; and the clothes were made so you could take them off. Doris was quite charmed with them. Helen's had blue eyes and Eudora's brown, but both were red-cheeked and had black hair, which was not really hair at all, but shaped of the composition and curled and painted over. They had a grand long slide in their garden at the back. The servant would flood it over now and then and make it smooth as glass. Doris found it quite an art to stand up. Helen could go the whole length beautifully, and balance herself better than Eudora. But if you fell you generally tumbled over in the bank of snow and did not get hurt. Playing graces was a great delight to her and after several trials she became quite expert. Then on one occasion Madam Royall found that she had a very sweet voice. "You are old enough to learn some pretty songs, my child," she said. "I must speak to your uncle. When the weather gets pleasanter he must place you in a singing class." Singing was quite a great accomplishment then. Very few people had pianos. But young ladies and young men would sometimes spend a whole evening in singing beautiful old songs. In March there was a new President, Mr. Madison. Everybody was hoping for a new policy and better times, yet now and then there were quite sharp talks of war. One day Mrs. Manning and the baby came in and made quite a visit. The baby was very sweet and good, with pretty dark eyes, and Mrs. Manning looked very much like Aunt Elizabeth. Mrs. Hollis Leverett came and spent the day, and young married women who had been Mary Leverett's friends came to tea. Warren went over in the old chaise and brought Aunt Priscilla. Everybody seemed personally aggrieved that Betty should stay away so long. But Betty was having a grand time. Her letters to her mother were very staid and respectful, but there were accounts of dinners and evening parties and two or three weddings. Her brother King had given her a pretty pink silk, and that was made pompadour waist and had a full double plait at the back that hung down to the floor in a train. He had taken her and Electa to a grand affair where there were crowds of beautifully attired ladies. Betty did not call it a ball, for she knew they would all be shocked. And though her mother had written for her to come home, Mrs. King had begged for a little longer visit, as there seemed to be something special all the time. "What extravagance for a young girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Manning. "Pink silk indeed, and a train! Betty will be so flighty when she comes back there will be no getting along with her. 'Lecty has grown very worldly, I think. I have never found any occasion for a pink silk." Mrs. Leverett sighed. And Betty was not yet seventeen! Mrs. Manning took James home with her, for she said grandmother was spoiling him. She kept the children with a pretty strict hand at home, and they soon jumped over the traces when you gave them a little liberty. She was very glad to have him go to school all winter and hoped he had made some improvement. She was very brisk and energetic and was surprised to think they were letting Doris grow up into such a helpless, know-nothing sort of girl. And her daughter of nine was like a steady little woman. "Still it isn't wise to put too much on her," said Mrs. Leverett in mild protest. "Where one cannot help it, why, you must; but I think life is getting a little easier, and children ought to have their share of it." "I'm not asking anything of her that I did not do," returned Mrs. Manning. "And I am proud of my training and my housekeeping." "But it was so different then. Your father and I began life with only a few hundred dollars. Then there was his three years in the war, and people were doing everything for themselves--spinning and weaving and dyeing, and making clothes of every kind. To be sure I make soap and candles," laughing a little; "but we have only one cow now and give half the milk for her care. I really felt as if I ought not have Martha, but father insisted." "I don't see why Doris couldn't have done a good deal instead of poring over books so much." "Well--you see she isn't really our own. Cousin Winthrop has some ideas about her education. She will have a little money, too, if everything turns out right." "It's just the way to spoil girls. And you will find, mother, that Betty will be none the better for her visit to 'Lecty. Dear me! I don't see how 'Lecty can answer to her conscience, spending money that way. We couldn't. It's wrong and sinful. And it's wrong to bring up any child in a helpless, do-little fashion." They were sitting by the south window sewing, and Doris was at the other side of the chimney studying. Now and then she could not help catching a sentence. She wondered what little Elizabeth Manning was like, who could cook a meal, work butter, tend babies, and sew and knit stockings. She only went to school in the winter; there was too much work to do in the summer. She was not left alone now; one of the Manning aunts had been staying some time. This aunt was a tailoress and had been fitting out Mr. Manning, and now James must go home to have some clothes made. Jimmie boy privately admitted to Doris that he would rather stay at grandmother's. She was a good deal easier on him than his mother, and he didn't mind Mrs. Webb a bit. "But you just ought to see Mr. Green. He does lick the boys like fury! And there's such lots of errands to do home. Mother never gives you a chunk of cake either. I don't see why they couldn't all have been grandmothers instead of mothers." James was not the first boy who had wished such a thing. But he knew he had to go home, and that was all there was about it. Martha wanted to go also. She had bought a good stout English cambric--lively colored, as she called it--and a nice woolen or stuff frock, as goods of that kind was often called. She was going to do up her last summer's white frock to be married in. They would have a wedding supper at her father's and then go home, and begin housekeeping the next morning. Mrs. Leverett added a tablecloth to her store. Betty must be sent for imperatively. Her mother was afraid she would be quite spoiled. And she could not help wishing that Mrs. King would be a little more careful and not branch out so, and Mary take life a little easier, for Mr. Manning was putting by money and had his large farm clear. Then Aunt Priscilla was suddenly at sea. Jonas Field had bought a place of his own where he could live over the store. In spite of a changed name, King Street had dropped down and down, and was now largely given to taverns. The better class had kept moving out and a poorer class coming in, with colored people among them. No one had applied for the store, but a man who wanted to keep a tavern combined with a kind of sailor lodging house had made her a very good offer to buy the property. "I'm going to live my time out in this very house," declared Aunt Priscilla with some of her olden energy. "I came here when I was married and I'll stay to be buried. By the looks of things, it won't be a great many years. And I haven't made a sign of a will yet! Not that the Perkinses would get anything if I died in this state--that aint the word, but it means the same thing, not having your will made, and I aint quite sure after all that would be right. I worked and saved, and I had some when we were married, but husband had farsight, and knew how to turn it over. Some of his money ought to go back to his folks." This had been one of the decisions haunting Aunt Priscilla's conscience. Down at the bottom she had a strict sense of justice. "It is hardly nice to go there any more," said Aunt Elizabeth. "And I shall not enjoy a young girl like Betty running over there, if Aunt Priscilla shouldn't be very well, and she is breaking. Polly gets worse and really is not to be trusted." It was Polly after all who settled the matter, or the summons that came to Polly one night. For in the morning, quite late, after a good deal of calling and scolding, Aunt Priscilla found she had taken the last journey. It was a great shock. Jonas Field's errand boy was dispatched to the Leveretts'. The woman who came soon gave notice that she "couldn't stay in no such neighborhood for steady company." Mr. Leverett and Cousin Adams urged her to sell. If there should be war she might not have a chance in a long while again. "But I don't know the first thing in the world to do," she moaned. "I haven't a chick nor a child to care about me." "Come over and stop with us a bit until you can make some plans. There's two rooms upstairs in which you could housekeep if you wanted to. Our family gets smaller all the time. But if you liked to live with us a spell----" said Mr. Leverett. "I don't know how 'Lizabeth could stand an old woman and a young one"--hesitatingly. "If you mean Doris, she is going over to Winthrop's," he replied. "Ready to jump at the chance, I'll warrant. You can't count on children." "No, Aunt Priscilla, she didn't jump. She's a wise, fond little thing. Win asked her about Christmas, and she wouldn't consent until Betty came back, for fear we would be lonesome. It quite touched me when I heard of it. Win has some ideas about her education, and I guess he's nearer right. So that needn't trouble you. It would be so much better for you to sell." "I'll think it over," she said almost gruffly, for she was moved herself. "I never could get along with this Rachel Day. She doesn't allow that anyone in the world knows anything but herself, and I kept house before she was born. I don't like quite such smart people." Miss Hetty Perkins came in to offer her services as housekeeper. Every now and then she had "edged round," as Aunt Priscilla expressed it. Everybody said Hetty was closer than the skin, but then she had no one except herself to depend upon. And Amos Perkins called to see if Aunt Priscilla had anyone she could trust to do her business. He heard she was going to sell. "I haven't made up my mind," she answered tartly. She was not fond of Amos either. Then the would-be purchaser found he could have a place two doors below. He did not like it as well, but it would answer. "It seems as if I was bound to have a rum shop and a sailor's boarding-house under my nose. There'll be a crowd of men hanging round and fiddling and carousing half the night. I don't see what's getting into Boston! Places that were good enough twenty year ago are only fit for tramps, and decent people have to get out of the way, whether they will or no." Betty came home the last of March. She looked taller--perhaps it was because she wore her dresses so long and her hair so high. She had a pretty new frock--a rich warm brown ground, with little flowers in green and yellow and a kind of dull red sprinkled all over it. It had come from New York, and was called delaine. She had discarded her homespun woolen. And, oh, how stylishly pretty she was, quite like the young ladies at Madam Royall's! She held Doris to her heart and almost smothered her, kissing her fondly. "You have grown lovely by the minute!" she cried. "I was so afraid someone would cut your hair. 'Lecty said at first that I had only one idea, and that was Doris Adams, I talked about you so much. And she's wild to see you. She's quite grand and full of fun, altogether different from Mary. Mary holds onto every penny until I should think she'd pinch it thin. And I've had the most magnificent time, though Hartford is nothing compared to Boston. It is like a country place where you know everybody that is at all worth knowing. I have such lots of things to tell you." It came rather hard to take up the old routine of work, and get up early in the morning. She was dismayed by the news that Aunt Priscilla was coming and Doris going. "Though I don't know," she declared after reflecting a day or two on the subject. "I'll have such a good excuse to go to Uncle Win's, and we can have delightful talks. But Aunt Priscilla is certainly a dispensation of Providence equal to St. Paul's thorn in the flesh." "I've made her some visits this winter, and she has been real nice," said Doris. "I shouldn't mind her at all now. And I told Uncle Win that I would like to be two little girls, so one _could_ stay here. I love Uncle Win very much. I love your father too." "Is there anybody in the whole wide world you do not love?" Doris flushed. She had not been able to feel very tenderly toward Mrs. Manning, and Mrs. Hollis Leverett talked about her being so backward, and such a "meachin" little thing. "I dare say if the truth was known, her mother died of consumption. And that great mop of hair is enough to take the strength out of any child. I wouldn't have it on Bessy's head for an hour," declared Mrs. Hollis. But Bessy told her in a confidential whisper that she thought her curls the sweetest thing in the world, and when she was a grown-up young lady she meant to curl her hair all over her head. Doris was glad Uncle Winthrop did not find any fault with them. Of course she should be sorry to go. It was curious how one could be glad and sorry in a breath. Mrs. Leverett went over to Aunt Priscilla's to help pack. Oh, the boxes and bundles and bags! They were tied up and labeled; some of them had not been opened for years. Gowns that she had outgrown, stockings she had knit, petticoats she had quilted--quite a fashion then. "It's lucky we have a big garret," said Mrs. Leverett. "And whatever will you do with them?" "There's that flax wheel--it was grandmother's. She was like Benjamin Franklin, who gave his sister Jane a spinning wheel on her wedding day: she gave me that. And Jane's gone, though I did hear someone bought the wheel for a sort of keepsake. Oh, Elizabeth, I don't know what _you_ will do with all this old trumpery!" Elizabeth hardly knew either. It was good to have children and grandchildren to take some of these things just to keep one from hoarding up. Elizabeth, sweet soul, remembered the poor at her gates as well. But most people were fond of holding onto everything until their latest breath. There was some virtue in it, for the later generations had many priceless heirlooms. One of the south rooms was emptied, and after a great deal of argument Aunt Priscilla was prevailed upon to use her best chamber furniture for the rest of her life. She had not cared much for the housekeeping project, and decided she would rather board a while until she could get back some of her strength. "What are you going to do with Solomon?" asked Doris. "Well--I don't know. Aunt Elizabeth doesn't like cats very much. He's such a nice fellow, I should hate to leave him behind and have him neglected. But it's bad luck to move cats." "I should like to have him." "Would you, now? He's almost like a human. I've said that many a time; and he went round asking after Polly just as plain as anyone could. I declare, it made my heart ache. Polly had been a capable woman, and Mr. Perkins bought her, so I didn't feel free to turn her away when he was gone. And I'd grown used to a servant, too. I don't know what I should have done without her the two years he was ailing. Though when she came to be forgetful and lose her judgment it did use to try me. But I'm glad now I kept her to the end. I'd borrowed a sight of trouble thinking what I'd do if she fell sick, and I might just as well have trusted the Lord right straight along. When I come to have this other creetur ordering everything, and making tea her way,--she will boil it and you might as well give me senna,--then I knew Polly had some sense and memory, after all. You can't think how I miss her! I'm sorry for every bit of fault I've found these last two years." Aunt Priscilla stopped to take breath and wipe her eyes. Polly's death had opened her mind to many things. Doris sat and stroked Solomon and rubbed him under the throat. Now and then he looked up with an intent, asking gaze, and a solemn flick of one ear, as if he said, "Can't you tell me where Polly is gone?" "You'd have to ask Uncle Winthrop. And I don't know what Miss Recompense would say." "She likes cats." "Oh. Well, I'm afraid Uncle Winthrop doesn't." "If he _should_," tentatively. "I think I'd miss Solomon a good deal. But he'd be a bother to keep at the Leveretts'. I would like him to have a good home. And he is very fond of you." Uncle Win was over the very next day, and Doris laid the case before him. "I like the picture of comfort a nice cat makes before the fire. I haven't any objection to cats in themselves. But I dislike cat hairs." "Uncle Win, I could brush you off. And Solomon has been so well trained. He has a box with a cushion, so he never jumps up in chairs. And he has a piece of blanket on the rug where he lies. He loves me so, and Aunt Elizabeth can't bear cats. Oh, I wish I might have him." "I'll talk to Miss Recompense. She's having a little room fixed up for you just off of hers. It opens on the hall, and it has a window where you can see the sun rise. I think through the summer you need not go to school, but study at home as you did Christmas week." "That will be delightful! And I shall be so glad when it is truly spring." It had been a long cold winter, but now there were signs everywhere of a curious awakening among the maples. Some were already out in red bloom. The grass had begun to spring up in its soft green, though there were patches of ice in shady places and a broad skim along the edge of the Charles River marsh. But the bay and the harbor were clear and beautiful. Betty and Doris had confidential chats after they were in bed--in very low tones, lest they should be heard. "Everybody would be shocked to see how really gay Electa is. There are very religious people in Hartford, too, who begin on Saturday night. But the men insist upon parties and dinners, and they bring their fashions up from New York. Boston is just as gay in some places, and Jane Morse has had a splendid time this winter going to dances. The gentlemen who come to Mr. King's are so polite, some of them elegant. I envy 'Lecty. It's just the kind of world to live in." "And I want to hear about your pink silk." "I left it at 'Lecty's. It was too gay to bring home. It would have frightened everybody. And 'Lecty thinks of going to New York next winter, and if she does she will send for me. I should have had to rumple it all up bringing it home, and I don't believe I'd had a chance to wear it. I have the other two, and Mat thought the blue and white one very pretty. Mat laughs at what he calls Puritanism, and says the world is growing broader and more generous. He is a splendid man too, and though he is making a good deal of money he doesn't think all the time of saving, as Mary and her husband do. He is good to the poor, and generous and kind, and wants everyone to be happy. Of course they go to church, but there is a curious difference. I sometimes wonder who is right and if it _is_ a sin to be happy." Doris' mind had no especial theological bent, and her conscience had not been trained to keep on the alert. "It was very nice in him to give it to you. And you must have looked lovely in it." "Oh, the frock," Betty laughed. "Yes, I did. And when you know you look nice you stop feeling anxious about it. It was just so at Jane's party. But I should have been mortified in my gray woolen gown. Well--the mortification may be good, but it isn't pleasant. I wore the pink silk to the weddings and to some dinners. Dinners are quite grand things there, but they last so long I should call them suppers. And sometimes there is a grand march afterward, which is a kind of stately dancing. It has been just delightful. I don't know how I will settle down and wash and iron and scrub. But I would a great deal rather be in 'Lecty's place than in Mary's, and saving up money to buy farms isn't everything to life. I think the Mannings worship their farms and stock a good deal more than 'Lecty and Mat do their fine house and their money and all." Her admirers and her conquests she confided to Janie Morse. There was one very charming young man that she liked a great deal, but her sister said she was too young to keep company, and there might be next winter in New York. It spoke volumes for the wholesome, sensible nature of Betty Leverett that she could take her olden place in the household, assist her mother, and entertain her father with the many interesting events of her gay and happy winter. CHAPTER XIV IN THE SPRING The matter had settled itself so easily that Doris could not find much opportunity for sorrow, nor misgivings for her joy. She could not see the struggle there had been in Uncle Leverett's mind, and the sturdy common sense that had come to his assistance. He could recall habits of second-cousin Charles that were like a woman's for daintiness, and Winthrop Adams had the same touch of refinement and delicacy. It was in the Adams blood, doubtless. Aunt Priscilla had not a large share, but he had noted some of it in Elizabeth. It pervaded every atom of Doris' slender body and every cell of her brain. She never would take to the rougher, coarser things of life; indeed, why should she when there was no need? He had wandered so far from the orthodox faith that he began to question useless discipline. Winthrop could understand and care for her better. She would grow up in his house to the kind of girl nature had meant her to be. Here the useful, that might never come in use, would be mingled and confused with what was necessary. He had watched her trying to achieve the stocking that all little girls could knit at her age. It was as bad as Penelope's web. Aunt Elizabeth pulled it out after she had gone to bed, and knit two or three "rounds," so as not to utterly discourage her inapt pupil. But Doris had set up some lace on a "cushion," after Madam Sheafe's direction, and it grew a web of beauty under her dainty fingers. It was not as if Doris would be quite lost to them. They would see her every day or two. And when it was decided that Aunt Priscilla would come he was really glad. Aunt Priscilla's captious talk did not always proceed from an unkindly heart. Betty made a violent protest at first. "After all, it will not be quite so bad as I thought," she admitted presently. "I shall go to Uncle Win's twice as often, and I have always been so fond of him. And things _are_ prettier there, somehow. There is a great difference in the way people live, and I mean to change some things. It isn't because one is ashamed to be old-fashioned; some of the old ways are lovely. It is only when you tack hardness and commonness on them and think ugliness has a real virtue in it. We will have both sides to talk about. But if you were going back to England, it would break my heart, Doris." Doris winked some tears out of her eyes. She thought her room at Uncle Win's was like a picture. The wall was whitewashed: people thought then it was much healthier for sleeping chambers. The floor was painted a rather palish yellow. There was only one window, but the door was opposite, and a door that opened into the room of Miss Recompense. The window had white curtains with ruffled edges, made of rather coarse muslin, but it was clear, and looked very tidy. Miss Recompense had found a small bedstead among the stored-away articles. It had high posts and curtains and valance of pale-blue flowered chintz. There was a big bureau, a dressing table covered with white, and a looking glass prettily draped. At the top of this, surmounted by a gilt eagle, was a marvelous picture of a man with a blue coat and yellow smallclothes handing into a boat a lady who wore a skirt of purple and an overdress of scarlet, very much betrimmed, holding a green parasol over her head with one hand and placing a slippered foot on the edge of the boat. After a long while Doris thought she should be much relieved to have them sail off somewhere. There were two quaint rush-bottomed chairs and a yellow stool, such as we tie with ribbons and call a milking stool. A nice warm rug lay at the side of the bed, and a smaller one at the washing stand. These were woven like rag carpet, but made of woolen rags with plenty of ends standing up all over, like the surface of a Moquette carpet. They were considered quite handsome then, as they were more trouble than braided rugs, and so soft to the foot. Some strenuous housekeepers declared them terrible dust catchers. Doris' delight in the room amply repaid Miss Recompense. She had learned her way about, and could come down alone, now that the weather had grown pleasanter, and she was full of joy over everything. Occasionally Uncle Winthrop would be out, then she and Miss Recompense would have what they called a "nice talk." Miss Recompense Gardiner was quite sure she had never seen just such a child. Indeed at five-and-forty she was rather set in her ways, disliked noise and bustle, and could not bear to have a house "torn up," as she phrased it. Twelve years before she had come here to "housekeep," as the old phrase went. She had not lacked admirers, but she had been very particular. Her sisters said she was a born old maid. There was in her soul a great love of refinement and order. Mr. Winthrop Adams just suited her. He was quiet, neat, made no trouble, and did not smoke. That was a wretched habit in her estimation. Cousin Charles used to come over, and different branches of the family were invited in now and then to tea. Cary was a rather proper, well-ordered boy, trained by his mother's sister, who had married and gone away just before the advent of Miss Gardiner. There had been some talk that Mr. Winthrop might espouse Miss Harriet Cary in the course of time, but as there were no signs, and Miss Cary had an excellent offer of marriage, she accepted it. Cary went to the Latin School and then to Harvard. He was a fair average boy, a good student, and ready for his share of fun at any time. His father had marked out his course, which was to be law, and Cary was indifferent as to what he took up. So they had gone on year after year. It promised a pleasant break to have the little girl. The greatest trouble, Miss Recompense thought, would be making Solomon feel at home. Doris brought his cushion, and the box he slept in at night was sent. Warren brought him over in a bag and they put him in the closet for the night. He uttered some pathetic wails, and Doris talked to him until he quieted down. He was a good deal frightened the next morning, but he clung to Doris, who carried him about in her arms and introduced him to every place. He was afraid of Mr. Adams and Cato, his acquaintance with men having been rather limited. After several days he began to feel quite at home, and took cordially to his cushion in the corner. "He doesn't offer to run away," announced Doris to Aunt Priscilla. "He likes Miss Recompense. Uncle Winthrop thinks him the handsomest cat he has ever seen." "Poor old Polly! She set a great deal of store by Solomon. I never did care much for a cat, but I do think Solomon was most as wise as folks. I don't know what I should have done last winter when I was so miserable if it had not been for him. He seemed to take such comfort that it was almost as good as a sermon. And sometimes when he purred it was like the sound of a hymn with the up and down and the long notes. I don't believe he would have stayed with anyone else though. Child, what is there about you that just goes to the heart of even a dumb beast?" Doris looked amazed, then thoughtful. "I suppose it is because I love them," she said simply. There was a great stir everywhere, it seemed. The slow spring had really come at last. The streets were being cleared up, the gardens put in order, some of the houses had a fresh coat of paint; the stores put out their best array, the trees were misty-looking with tiny green shoots, and the maples Doris thought wonderful. There were four in the row on Common Street; one was full of soft dull-red blooms, one had little pale-green hoods on the end of every twig, another looked as if it held a tiny scarlet parasol over each baby bud, and the fourth dropped clusters of brownish-green fringe. "Oh, how beautiful they are!" cried Doris, her eyes alight with enthusiasm. And then all the great Common began to put on spring attire. The marsh grass over beyond sent up stiff green spikes and tussocks that looked like little islands, and there were water plants with large leaves that seemed continually nodding to their neighbors. The frog concerts at the pond were simply bewildering with the variety of voices, each one proclaiming that the reign of ice and snow was at an end and they were giving thanks. "They are so glad," declared Doris. "I shouldn't like to be frozen up all winter in a little hole." Miss Recompense smiled. Perhaps they _were_ grateful. She had never thought of it before. Doris did not go back to Mrs. Webb's school, though that lady said she was sorry to give her up. Uncle Win gave her some lessons, and she went to writing school for an hour every day. Miss Recompense instructed her how to keep her room tidy, but Uncle Win said there would be time enough for her to learn housekeeping. Then there were hunts for flowers. Betty came over; she knew some nooks where the trailing arbutus grew and bloomed. The swamp pinks and the violets of every shade and almost every size--from the wee little fellow who sheltered his head under his mother's leaf-green umbrella to the tall, sentinel-like fellow who seemed to fling out defiance. Doris used to come home with her hands full of blooms. The rides too were delightful. They went over the bridges to West Boston and South Boston and to Cambridge, going through the college buildings--small, indeed, compared with the magnificent pile of to-day. But Boston did seem almost like a collection of islands. The bays and rivers, the winding creeks that crept through the green marsh grass, the long low shores held no presentiment of the great city that was to be. Although people groaned over hard times and talked of war, still the town kept a thriving aspect. Men were at work leveling Beacon Hill. Boylston Street was being made something better than a lane, and Common Street was improved. Uncle Winthrop said next thing he supposed they would begin to improve him and order him to take up his house and walk. For houses were moved even then, when they stood in the way of a street. The earth from the hill, or rather hills, went to fill in the Mill Pond. Lord Lyndhurst had once owned a large part, but he had gone to England to live. Charles Street was partly laid out--as far as the flats were filled in. It was quite entertaining to watch the great patient oxen, which, when they were standing still, chewed their cud in solemn content and gazed around as though they could predict unutterable things. From the house down to Common Street was a kind of garden where Cato raised vegetables and Miss Recompense had her beds of sweet and medicinal herbs. For then the housekeeper concocted various household remedies, and made extracts by the use of a little still for flavoring and perfumery. She gathered all the rose leaves and lavender blossoms and sewed them up in thin muslin bags and laid them in the drawers and closets. And, oh, what roses she had then! Great sweet damask roses, pink and the loveliest deep red, twice as large as the Jack roses of to-day. And trailing pink and white roses climbing over everything. Aunt Elizabeth said Miss Recompense could make a dry stick grow and bloom. Uncle Winthrop found a new and charming interest in the little girl. She was so fond of taking walks and hearing the legends about the old places. She could see where the old beacon had stood when the place was called Sentry Hill, and she knew it had been blown down in a gale, and that on the spot had been erected a beautiful Doric column surmounted by an eagle, to commemorate "the train of events that led to the American Revolution and finally secured liberty and Independence." But the State House had made one great excavation, and the Mill Pond Corporation was making others, and they were planning to remove the monument. "We ought to have more regard for these old places," Uncle Win used to say with a sigh. Cary had not been a companionable child. He was a regular boy, and the great point of interest in Sentry Hill for him was batting a ball up the hill. It was a proud day for him when he carried it farther than any other boy. He was fond of games of all kinds, and was one of the fleetest runners and a fine oarsman, and could sail a boat equal to any old salt, he thought. He was a boy, of course, and Uncle Win did not want him to be a "Molly coddle," so he gave in, for he did not quite know what to do with a lad who could tumble more books around in five minutes than he could put in order in half an hour, and knew more about every corner in Old Boston than anyone else, and was much more confident of his knowledge. But this little girl, who soon learned the peculiarity of every tree, the song of the different birds, and the season of bloom for wild flowers, and could listen for hours to the incidents of the past, that seem of more vital importance to middle-aged people than the matters of every day, was a veritable treasure to Mr. Winthrop Adams. He did not mind if she could not knit a stocking, and he sometimes excused her deficiencies in arithmetic because she was so fond of hearing him read poetry. For Doris thought, of all the things in the world, being able to write verses was the most delightful, and that was her aim when she was a grown-up young lady. She did pick up a good deal of general knowledge that she would not have acquired at school, but Uncle Win wasn't quite sure how much a girl ought to be educated. She began to see considerable of the Chapman girls, and Madam Royall grew very fond of her. But she did not forget her dear friends in Sudbury Street. Sometimes when Uncle Win was going out to a supper or to stay away all the evening she would go up and spend the night with Betty, and sit in the old corner, for it was Uncle Leverett's favorite place whether there was fire or not. He was as fond as ever of listening to her chatter. She always brought a message to Aunt Priscilla about Solomon. Uncle Winthrop thought him the handsomest cat he had ever seen, and now Solomon was not even afraid of Cato, but would walk about the garden with him, and Miss Recompense said he was so much company when she, Doris, was out of the house. Indeed, he would look at her with inquiring eyes and a soft, questioning sound in his voice that was not quite a mew. "Yes," Miss Recompense would say, "Doris has gone up to Sudbury Street. We miss her, don't we, Solomon? It's a different house without her." Solomon would assent in a wise fashion. "I never did think to take comfort in talking to a cat," Miss Recompense would say to herself with a touch of sarcasm. About the middle of June, when roses and spice pinks and ten-weeks' stocks, and sweet-williams were at their best, Mr. Adams always gave a family gathering at which cousins to the third and fourth generation were invited. Everything was at its loveliest, and the Mall just across the street was resplendent in beauty. Even then it had magnificent trees and great stretches of grass, green and velvety. Already it was a favorite strolling place. Miss Recompense had sent a special request for Betty on that particular afternoon and evening. There was to be a high tea at five o'clock. "I shall have my new white frock all done," said Betty delightedly. "There is just a little needlework around the neck and the skirt to sew on." "But I wouldn't wear it," rejoined her mother. "You may get a fruit stain on it, or meet with some accident. Miss Recompense will expect you to work a little." "Have you anything new, Doris?" "Oh, yes," replied Doris. "A white India muslin, and a cambric with a tiny rosebud in it. Madam Royall chose them and ordered them made. And Betty, I have almost outgrown the silk already. Madam Royall is going to see about getting it altered. And in the autumn Helen Chapman will have a birthday company, and I am invited already, or my frock is," and Doris laughed. "She has made me promise to wear it then." "You go to the Royalls' a good deal," exclaimed Aunt Priscilla jealously. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, very straight and prim. She was not quite at home yet, and kept wondering if she wouldn't rather have her own house if she could get a reasonable sort of servant. Still, she did enjoy the sociable side of life, and it was pleasant here at Cousin Leverett's. They all tried to make her feel at home, and though Betty tormented her sometimes by a certain argumentativeness, she was very ready to wait on her. Aunt Priscilla did like to hear of the delightful entertainments her silk gown had gone to after being hidden away so many years. As for the hat, a young Englishman had said "She looked like a princess in it." "You are just eaten up with vanity, Betty Leverett," Aunt Priscilla tried to rejoin in her severest tone. Doris glanced over to her now. "Yes," she answered. "Uncle Winthrop thinks I ought to know something about little girls. Eudora is six months older than I am. They have such a magnificent swing, four girls can sit in it. Helen is studying French and the young ladies can talk a little. They do not see how I can talk so fast." Doris laughed gleefully. Aunt Priscilla sniffed. Winthrop Adams would make a flighty, useless girl out of her. And companying so much with rich people would fill her mind with vanity. Yes, the child would be ruined! "And we tell each other stories about _our_ Boston. This Boston," making a pretty gesture with her hand, "has the most splendid ones about the war and all, and the ships coming over here almost two hundred years ago. It is a long while to live one hundred years, even. But I knew about Mr. Cotton and the lady Arabella Johnston. They had not heard about the saint and how his body was carried around to make it rain." "To make it rain! Whose body was it, pray?" asked Aunt Priscilla sharply, scenting heresy. She was not quite sure but so much French would shut one out from final salvation. "Did you have saints in Old Boston?" "Oh, it was the old Saint of the Church--St. Botolph." Doris hesitated and glanced up at Uncle Leverett, who nodded. "He was a very, very good man," she resumed seriously. "And one summer there was a very long drought. The grass all dried up, the fruit began to fall off, and they were afraid there would be nothing for the cattle to feed upon. So they took up St. Botolph in his coffin and carried him all around the town, praying as they went. And it began to rain." "Stuff and nonsense! The idea of reasonable human beings believing that!" "But you know the prophet prayed for rain in the Bible." "But to take up his body! Are they doing it now in a dry time?" Aunt Priscilla asked sarcastically. "They don't now, but it was said they did it several times, and it always rained." "They wan't good orthodox Christians. No one ever heard of such a thing." "But our orthodox Christians believed in witches--even the descendants of this very John Cotton who came over to escape the Lords Bishops," said Warren. "And, unlike Mr. Blacksone, stayed and had a hard time with the Lords Brethren," said Mr. Leverett. "I hardly know which was the worst"--smiling with a glint of humor. "And you more than half believe in witches yourself, Aunt Priscilla." "I am sure I have reason to. Grandmother Parker was a good woman if ever there was one, and she _was_ bewitched. And would it have said in the Bible--'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' if there had not been any?" "They were telling stories at Madam Royall's one day. And sometime Uncle Winthrop is going to take us all to Marblehead, where Mammy Redd lived. Eudora said this: "'Old Mammy Redd Of Marblehead Sweet milk could turn To mold in churn.' And Uncle Winthrop has a big book about them." "He had better take you to Salem. That was the very hot-bed of it all," said Warren. Doris came around to Aunt Priscilla. "Did your grandmother really see a witch?" she asked in a serious tone. "Well, perhaps she didn't exactly _see_ it. But she was living at Salem and had a queer neighbor. One day they had some words, and when grandmother went to churn her milk turned all moldy and spoiled the butter. Grandmother didn't even dare feed it to the pigs. So it went on several times. Then another neighbor said to her, 'The next time it happens you just throw a dipper-full over the back log.' And so grandmother did. It made an awful smell and smoke. Then she washed out her churn and put it away. She was barely through when someone came running in, and said, 'Have you any sweet oil, Mrs. Parker? Hetty Lane set herself afire cleaning the cinders out of her oven, and she's dreadfully burned. Come right over.' Grandmother was a little afraid, but she went, and, sure enough, it had happened just the moment she threw the milk in the fire. One side of her was burned, and one hand. And although the neighbors suspected her, they were all very kind to her while she was ill. But grandmother had no more trouble after that, and it was said Hetty Lane never bewitched anybody again." "It's something like the kelpies and brownies Barby used to tell about that were in England long time ago," said Doris, big-eyed. "They hid tools and ate up the food and spoiled the milk and the bread, turning it to stone. They went away--perhaps someone burned them up." Aunt Priscilla gave her sniff. To be compared with such childish stuff! "It was very curious," said Mrs. Leverett. "I have always been glad I was not alive at that time. Sometimes unaccountable things happen." "Did you ever see a truly witch yourself, Aunt Priscilla?" asked the child. "No, I never did," she answered honestly. "Then I guess they did go with the fairies and kelpies. Could I tell your story over sometime?" she inquired eagerly. Telling ghost stories and witch stories was quite an amusement at that period. "Why, yes--if you want to." She was rather pleased to have it go to the Royalls'. "The last stitch," and Betty folded up her work. "Come, Doris, say good-night, and let us go to bed." Doris put a little kiss on Aunt Priscilla's wrinkled hand. CHAPTER XV A FREEDOM SUIT Aunt Priscilla had a dozen changes of mind as to whether to go to Cousin Adams' or not. But Betty insisted. She trimmed her cap and altered the sleeves of her best black silk gown. The elderly people were wearing "leg-o'-mutton" sleeves now, while the young people had great puffs. Long straight Puritan sleeves were hardly considered stylish. And then Cousin Win sent the chaise up for her. Mrs. March, Cary's aunt, had come up to Boston to make a little visit. Mr. March was a ship builder at Plymouth. She was quite anxious to see this cousin that Cary had talked about so much, and she was almost jealous lest he should be crowded out of his rightful place. She had no children of her own, but her husband had four when they were married. So a kind of motherly sympathy still went out to Cary. Betty came over in the morning. She and Miss Recompense were always very friendly. They talked of jells and jams and preserves; it was too early for any fresh fruit except strawberries, and Cato always took a good deal of pains to have these of the very nicest. The wide fireplace was filled in with green boughs and the shining leaves of "bread and butter." The rugs were taken up and the floor had a coat of polish. The parlor was wide open, arrayed in the stately furnishings of a century ago. There were two Louis XIV. chairs that had really come from France. There were some square, heavy pieces of furniture that we should call Eastlake now. And the extravagant thing was a Brussels carpet with a scroll centerpiece and a border in arabesque. The guests began to come at two. Miss Recompense and Betty had been arranging the long table with its thick basket-work cloth that was fragrant with sweet scents. Betty wore her blue and white silk, as that had met with some mishaps at Hartford. Miss Recompense had on a brown silk with a choice bit of thread lace, and a thread lace cap. Many of the elderly society ladies wore immense headgears like turbans, with sometimes one or two marabou feathers, which were considered extremely elegant. But Miss Recompense kept to her small rather plain cap, and looked very ladylike, quite fit to do the honors of the house. Some of the cousins had driven in from Cambridge and South Boston. Miss Cragie, who admired her second-cousin Adams very much, and it was said would not have been averse to a marriage with him, came over from the old house that had once been Washington's headquarters and was to be more famous still as the home of one of America's finest poets. She took a great interest in Cary and made him a welcome guest. We should call it a kind of lawn party now. The guests flitted around the garden and lawn, inspected the promising fruit trees, and were enthusiastic over the roses. Then they wandered over to the Mall and discussed the impending changes in Boston, and said, as people nearly always do, that it would be ruined by improvements. It was sacrilegious to take away Beacon Hill. It was absurd to think of filling in the flats! Who would want to live on made ground? And where were all the people to come from to build houses on these wonderful streets? Why, it was simply ridiculous! There were some young men who felt rather awkward and kept in a little knot with Cary. There were a few young girls who envied Betty Leverett her at-homeness, and the fact that she had spent a winter in Hartford. Croquet would have been a boon then, to make a breach in the walls of deadly reserve. Elderly men smoked, walked about, and talked of the prospect of war. Most of them had high hopes of President Madison just now. Doris was a point of interest for everybody. Her charming simplicity went to all hearts. Betty had dressed her hair a dozen different ways, but found none so pretty as tying part of the curls on top with a ribbon. She had grown quite a little taller, but was still slim and fair. Miss Cragie took a great fancy to her and said she must come and spend the day with her and visit the notable points of Cambridge. And next year Cary would graduate, and she supposed they would have a grand time. The supper was quite imposing. Cato's nephew, a tidy young colored lad, came from one of the inns, and acquitted himself with superior elegance. It was indeed a feast, enlivened with bright conversation. People expected to talk then, not look bored and indifferent. Each one brought something besides appetite to the feast. Afterward they went out on the porch and sang, the ice being broken between the younger part of the company. There were some amusing patriotic songs with choruses that inspired even the older people. "Hail, Columbia!" was greeted with applause. There were sentimental songs as well, Scotch and old English ballads. Two of Cary's friends sang "Queen Mary's Escape" with a great deal of spirit. Then Uncle Win asked Doris if she could not sing a little French song that she sang for him quite often, and that was set to a very touching melody. She hung back and colored up, but she did want to please Uncle Win. She was standing beside him, so she straightened up and took a step out, and holding his hand sang with a grace that went to each heart. But she hid herself behind Uncle Win's shoulder when the compliments began. Cary came around, and said "She need not be afraid; it was just beautiful!" After that the company began to disperse. Everybody said "It always was delightful to come over here," and the women wondered how it happened that such an attractive man as Mr. Winthrop Adams had not married again and had someone to entertain regularly. There was a magnificent full moon, and the air was delicious with fragrance. One after another drove away, or taking the arm of a companion uttered a cordial good-night. Mr. Adams had sent some elderly friends home in a carriage, and begged the Leveretts to wait until it came back. Warren had not been very intimate with the young collegian; their walks in life lay quite far apart. But Cary came and joined them as they were all out on the porch. "I hope you had a pleasant time," he began. "If it had not been a family party I should have asked the club to come over and sing some of the college songs. Arthur Sprague has a fine voice. And you sing very well, Warren." "I have been in a singing class this winter, I like music so much." "You ought to hear half a dozen of our fellows together! But this little bird warbled melodiously," and he put his arm over the shoulder of Doris. "I did not know she could move an audience so deeply." "I was so frightened at first," began Doris with a long breath. "I don't mind singing for Uncle Win, and one day when there were some guests Madam Royall asked me to sing a little French song she had known in her youth. Isn't it queer a song should last so long?" "The fine songs ought to last forever. I hope we will have some national songs presently besides the ridiculous 'Yankee Doodle.' It doesn't seem quite so bad when it is played by the band and men are marching to it." Cary straightened himself up. Being slender he often allowed his shoulders to droop. "Now you look like a soldier," exclaimed Warren. "I'd like to be one, first-rate. I'd leave college now and go in the Navy if there was another boy to follow out father's plans. But I can't bear to disappoint him. It's hard to go against your father when you are all he has. So I suppose I will go on and study law, and some day you will hear of my being judge. But we are going to have a big war, and I would like to take a hand in it. I wish I was twenty-one." "I shall be next month. I am going to have a little company. I'd like you to come, Cary." "I just will, thank you. What are you going to do?" "I shall stay with father, of course. I have been learning the business. I think I shouldn't like to go to war unless the enemy really came to us. I should fight for my home." "There are larger questions even than homes," replied Cary. Betty came around the corner of the porch with Uncle Win, to whom she was talking in her bright, energetic fashion. Aunt Elizabeth said it was very pleasant to see so many of the relatives again. "The older generation is dropping out, and we shall soon be among the old people ourselves," Mr. Leverett said. "I was thinking to-night how many youngish people were here who have grown up in the last ten years." "We each have a young staff to lean upon," rejoined Mr. Adams proudly, glancing at the two boys. The carriage came round. Aunt Priscilla shook hands with Cousin Winthrop, and said, much moved: "I've had a pleasant time, and I had a good mind not to come. I'm getting old and queer and not fit for anything but to sit in the corner and grumble, instead of frolicking round." "Oh, don't grumble. Why, I believe I am going backward. I feel ten years younger, and you are not old enough to die of old age. Betty, you must keep prodding her up." He handed her in the carriage himself, and when they were all in Doris said: "It seems as if I ought to go, too." Uncle Win caught her hand, as if she might run away. "I do think Cousin Winthrop has improved of late," said Mrs. Leverett. "He has gained a little flesh and looks so bright and interested, and he talked to all the folks in such a cordial way, as if he was really glad to see them. And those strawberries did beat all for size. Betty, the table looked like a feast for a king, if they deserve anything better than common folks." "Any other child would be clear out of bonds and past redemption," declared Aunt Priscilla. "Everybody made so much of her, as if it was her party. And how the little creetur does sing! I'd like to hear her praising the Lord with that voice instead of wasting it on French things that may be so bad you couldn't say them in good English." "That isn't," replied Betty. "It is a little good-night that her mother used to sing to her and taught her." Aunt Priscilla winked hard and subsided. A little orphan girl--well, Cousin Winthrop would be a good father to her. Perhaps no one would ever be quite tender enough for her mother. Everybody went home pleased. Yet nowadays such a family party would have been dull and formal, with no new books and theaters and plays and tennis and golf to talk about, and the last ball game, perhaps. There had been a kind of gracious courtesy in inquiries about each other's families--a true sympathy for the deaths and misfortunes, a kindly pleasure in the successes, a congratulation for the younger members of the family growing up, a little circling about religion and the recent rather broad doctrines the clergy were entertaining. For it was a time of ferment when the five strong points of Calvinism were being severely shaken, and the doctrine of election assaulted by the doctrine that, since Christ died for all, all might in some mysterious manner share the benefit without being ruled out by their neighbors. Winthrop Adams would hardly have dreamed that the presence of a little girl in the house was stirring every pulse in an unwonted fashion. He had brooded over books so long; now he took to nature and saw many things through the child's fresh, joyous sight. He brushed up his stories of half-forgotten knowledge for her; he recalled his boyhood's lore of birds and squirrels, bees and butterflies, and began to feast anew on the beauty of the world and all things in their season. It is true, in those days knowledge and literature were not widely diffused. A book or two of sermons, the "Pilgrim's Progress," perhaps "Fox's Book of Martyrs," and the Farmer's Almanac were the extent of literature in most families. Women had too much to do to spend their time reading except on Saturday evening and after second service on the Sabbath--then it must be religious reading. But Boston was beginning to stir in the education of its women. Mrs. Abigail Adams had said, "If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women." They started a circle of sociality that was to be above the newest pattern for a gown and the latest recipe for cake or preserves. A Mrs. Grant had written a volume called "Letters from the Mountains," which they interested themselves in having republished. Hannah Adams had written some valuable works, and was now braiding straw for a living; and Mrs. Josiah Quincy exerted herself to have so talented a woman placed above indigence. She also endeavored to have Miss Edgeworth's "Moral Tales" republished for young people. Scott was beginning to infuse new life with his wonderful tales, which could safely be put in the hands of younger readers. The first decade of the century was laying a foundation for the grand work to be done later on. And with nearly every vessel, or with the travelers from abroad, would come some new books from England. Though they were dear, yet there were a few "foolish" people who liked a book better than several dollars added to their savings. Warren's freedom suit and his freedom party interested Doris a great deal. Since Betty's return there had been several evening companies, with the parlor opened and the cake and lemonade set out on the table instead of being passed around. Betty and Jane Morse were fast friends. They went "uptown" of an afternoon and had a promenade, with now and then a nod from some of the quality. Betty was very much elated when Cary Adams walked home with her one afternoon and planned about the party. He would ask three of the young fellows, and with himself they would give some college songs. He knew Miss Morse's cousin, Morris Winslow, very well--he met him quite frequently at the Royalls'. Indeed, Cary knew he was a warm admirer of Isabel Royall. After all, the much-talked-of suit was only a best Sunday suit of black broadcloth. Doris looked disappointed. "Did you expect I would have red and white stripes down the sides and blue stars all over the coat?" Warren asked teasingly. "And an eagle on the buttons? I am afraid then I should be impressed and taken out to sea." "Betty," she said afterward, "will you have a freedom suit when you are twenty-one. And must it be a black gown?" "I think they never give girls that," answered Betty laughingly. "Theirs is a wedding gown. Though after you are twenty-one, if you go anywhere and earn money, you can keep it for yourself. Your parents cannot claim it." Warren had a holiday. His father said he did not want to see him near the store all day long. He went over to Uncle Win's, who was just having some late cherries picked to grace the feast, and he was asked into the library, where Uncle Win made him a very pleasant little birthday speech and gave him a silver watch to remember the occasion by. Warren was so surprised he hardly knew how to thank him. Betty was sorry there could be no dancing at the party, especially as Mr. Winslow had offered black Joe. But mother would be so opposed they did not even suggest it. The young people began to gather about seven. They congratulated the hero of the occasion, and one young fellow recited some amusing verses. They played games and forfeits and had a merry time. The Cambridge boys sang several beautiful songs, and others of the gay, rollicking order. The supper table looked very inviting, Betty thought. Altogether it was a great pleasure to the young people, who kept it up quite late, but then it was such a delightful summer night! Doris thought the singing the most beautiful part of all. Warren's great surprise occurred the next morning. There was a new sign up over the door in the place of the old weather-beaten one that his father had admitted was disgraceful. And on it in nice fresh lettering was: F. LEVERETT & SON. "Oh, father!" was all he could say for a moment. "Hollis was a good, steady boy--I've been blest in my boys, and I thank God for it, so when Hollis was through with his trade, and had that good opportunity to go in business, I advanced him some money. He has been prospered and would have paid it back, but I told him to keep it for his part. This will be your offset to it. Cousin Winthrop is coming down presently, and Giles Thatcher, and we will have all the papers signed, so that if anything happens to me there will be no trouble. You've been a good son, Warren, and I hope you will make a good, honorable man." The tears sprang to Warren's eyes. He was very glad he had yielded some points to his father and accepted obedience as his due to be rendered cheerfully. For Mr. Leverett had never been an unreasonable man. Uncle Win congratulated him again. Betty and her mother went down in the afternoon to see the new sign. Aunt Priscilla thought it rather risky business, for being twenty-one didn't always bring good sense with it, and too much liberty was apt to spoil anyone with no more experience than Warren. Betty said Aunt Priscilla must have something to worry about, which was true enough. She had come to the Leveretts' to see how she could stand "being without a home," as she phrased it. But she found herself quite feeble, and with a cough, and she admitted she never had quite gotten over the winter's cold which she took going to church that bitter Sunday. As just the right person to keep her house had not come to hand, and as it really was cheaper to live this way, and gave one a secure feeling in case of illness, she thought it best to go on. Elizabeth Leverett made her feel very much at home. She could go down in the kitchen and do a bit of work when she wanted to, she could weed a little out in the garden, she could mend and knit and pass away the time, and it was a pleasure to have someone to converse with, to argue with. She had been in great trouble at first about black Polly. That she had really entertained the thought of getting rid of her in a helpless old age seemed a great sin now. "And the poor old thing had been so faithful until she began to lose her memory. How could I have resolved to do such a thing!" she would exclaim. "You never did resolve to do it, Aunt Priscilla," Mr. Leverett said one day. "I am quite sure you could not have done it when it came to the pinch. It was one of the temptations only." "But I never struggled against it. That is what troubles me." "God knew just how it would end. He did not mean the poor creature to become a trouble to anyone. If he had wanted to try you further, no doubt he would have done it. Now, why can't you accept the release as he sent it? It seems almost as if you couldn't resign yourself to his wisdom." "You make religion so comfortable, Foster Leverett, that I hardly know whether to take it that way. It isn't the old-fashioned way in which I was brought up." "There was just one Doubting Thomas among the Twelve," he replied smilingly. There was little need of people going away for a summering then, though they did try to visit their relatives in the country places about. People came up from the more southern States for the cool breezes and the pleasant excursions everywhere. There were delightful parties going out almost every day, to the islands lying off the city, to the little towns farther away, to some places where it was necessary to remain all night. Madam Royall insisted upon taking Doris with the girls for a week's excursion, and she had a happy time. Cary went to Plymouth to his aunt's, and was fascinated with sea-going matters and the naval wars in progress. Josiah March was a stanch patriot, and said the thing would never be settled until we had taught England to let our men and our vessels alone. Only a few years before our commerce had extended over the world. Boston--with her eighty wharves and quays, her merchants of shrewd and sound judgment, ability of a high order and comprehensive as well as authentic information--at that time stood at the head of the maritime world. The West Indies, China,--though Canton was the only port to which foreigners were admitted,--and all the ports of Europe had been open to her. The coastwise trade was also enormous. From seventy to eighty sail of vessels had cleared in one day. Long Wharf, at the foot of State Street, was one of the most interesting and busy places. The treaty between France and America had agreed that "free bottoms made free ships," but during the wars of Napoleon this had been so abridged that trade was now practically destroyed. Then England had insisted upon the right of search, which left every ship at her mercy, and hundreds of our sailors were being taken prisoners. There was a great deal of war talk already. Trade was seriously disturbed. There was a very strong party opposed to war. What could so young a country, unprepared in every way, do? The government temporized--tried various methods in the hope of averting the storm. People began to economize; still there was a good deal of money in Boston. Pleasures took on a rather more economical aspect and grew simpler. But business was at a standstill. The Leveretts were among the first to suffer, but Mr. Leverett's equable temperament and serene philosophy kept his family from undue anxiety. "It's rather a hard beginning for you, my boy," he said, "but you will have years enough to recover. Only I sometimes wish it could come to a crisis and be over, so that we could begin again. It can never be quite as bad as the old war." Doris commenced school with the Chapman girls at Miss Parker's. Uncle Win had a great fancy for sending her to Mrs. Rowson. "Wait a year or so," counseled Madam Royall. "Children grow up fast enough without pushing them ahead. Little girlhood is the sweetest time of life for the elderly people, whatever it may be for the girls. I should like Helen and Eudora to stand still for a few years, and Doris is too perfect a little bud to be lured into blossoming. There is something unusual about the child." When anyone praised Doris, Uncle Win experienced a thrill of delight. Miss Parker's school was much more aristocratic than Mrs. Webb's. There were no boys and no very small children. Some of the accomplishments were taught. French, drawing and painting, and what was called the "use of the globe," which meant a large globe with all the countries of the world upon it, arranged to turn around on an axis. This was a new thing. Doris was quite fascinated by it, and when she found the North Sea and the Devonshire coast and the "Wash" the girls looked on eagerly and straightway she became a heroine. But one unlucky recess when she had won in the game of graces a girl said: "I don't care! That isn't anything! We beat your old English in the Revolutionary War, and if there's another war we'll beat you again. My father says so. I wouldn't be English for all the gold on the Guinea coast!" "I am not English," Doris protested. "My father was born in this very Boston. And I was born in France." "Well, the French are just as bad. They are not to be depended upon. You are a mean little foreign girl, and I shall not speak to you again, there now!" Doris looked very sober. Helen Chapman comforted her and said Faith Dunscomb was not worth minding. She told it over to Uncle Win that evening. "I suppose I can never be a real Boston girl," she said sorrowfully. "I think you are a pretty good one now, and of good old Boston stock," he replied smilingly. "Sometime you will be proud that you came from the other Boston. Oddly enough most of us came from England in the beginning. And the Faneuils came from France, and they are proud enough of their old Huguenot blood." She had been to Faneuil Hall and the Market with Uncle Winthrop. They raised all their vegetables and fruit, unless it was something quite rare, and Cato did the family marketing. Only a few years before the Market had been enlarged and improved. Fifty years earlier the building had burned down and been replaced, but even the old building had been identified with liberty of thought, and had a well-known portrait painter of that day, John Smibert, for its architect. In the later improvements it had been much enlarged, and the beautiful open arches of the ground floor were closed by doors and windows, which rendered it less picturesque. It was the marketplace _par excellence_ then, as Quincy Market came in with the enterprise of the real city. But even then it rejoiced in the appellation of "The Cradle of Liberty," and the hall over the market-space was used for political gatherings. Huckster and market wagons from the country farms congregated in Dock Square. The mornings were the most interesting time for a visit. The "quality" came in their carriages with their servant man to run to and fro; or some young lady on horseback rode up through the busy throng to leave an order, and then the women whose servant carried a basket, or those having no servant carried their own baskets, and who went about cheapening everything. So Doris was quite comforted to know that Peter Faneuil, who was held in such esteem, had not even been born in Boston, and was of French extraction. But girls soon get over their tiffs and disputes. Play is the great leveler. Then Doris was so obliging about the French exercises that the girls could not stay away very long at a time. Miss Parker's typified the conventional idea of a girl's education prevalent at that time: that it should be largely accomplishment. So Doris was allowed considerable latitude in the commoner branches. Mrs. Webb had been exacting in the few things she taught, especially arithmetic. And Uncle Win admitted to himself that Doris had a poor head for figures. When she came to fractions it was heartrending. Common multiples and least and greatest common divisors had such a way of getting mixed up in her brain, that he felt very sorry for her. She brought over Betty's book in which all her sums in the more difficult rules had been worked out and copied beautifully. There were banking and equation of payments and all the "roots" and progression and alligation and mensuration. "I don't know what good they will really be to Betty," said Uncle Win gravely. Then, as his face relaxed into a half-smile, he added: "Perhaps Mary Manning's fifty pairs of stockings she had when she was married may be more useful. Betty has a good head and "twinkling feet." Did you know a poet said that? And another one wrote: "'Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice stole in and out As if they feared the light; But, oh, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter day Is half so fair a sight.'" "Oh, Uncle Win, that's just delightful! Did your poet write any more such dainty things, and can I read them? Betty would just go wild over that." "Yes, I will find it for you. And we won't worry now about the hard knots over in the back of the arithmetic." "Nor about the stockings. Miss Isabel is knitting some beautiful silk ones, blossom color." Ladies and girls danced in slippers then and wore them for evening company, and stockings were quite a feature in attire. Uncle Win was too indulgent, of course. Miss Recompense said she had never known a girl to be brought up just that way, and shook her head doubtfully. Early in the new year an event happened, or rather the tidings came to them that seemed to have a bearing on both of these points. An old sea captain one day brought a curious oaken chest, brass bound, and with three brass initials on the top. The key, which was tied up in a small leathern bag, and a letter stowed away in an enormous well-worn wallet, he delivered to "Mr. Winthrop Adams, Esq." It contained an unfinished letter from Miss Arabella, beginning "Dear and Honored Sir," and another from the borough justice. Miss Arabella was dead. The care of her sister had worn her so much that she had dropped into a gentle decline, and knowing herself near the end had packed the chest with some table linen that belonged to the mother of Doris, some clothing, two dresses of her own, several petticoats, two pairs of satin slippers she had worn in her youth and outgrown, and six pairs of silk stockings. Doris would grow into them all presently. Then inclosed was a bank note for one hundred pounds sterling, and much love and fond remembrances. The other note announced the death of Miss Arabella Sophia Roulstone, aged eighty-one years and three months, and the time of her burial. Her will had been read and the bequests were being paid. Mr. Millington requested a release before a notary, and an acknowledgment of the safe arrival of the goods and the legacy, to be returned by the captain. Mr. Adams went out with the captain and attended to the business. Doris had a little cry over Miss Arabella. It did not seem as if she could be eighty years old. She could recall the sweet, placid face under the snowy cap, and almost hear the soft voice. "That is quite a legacy," said Uncle Win. "Doris, can you compute it in dollars?" We had come to have a currency of our own--"decimal" it was called, because computed by tens. We still reckoned a good deal in pounds, shillings, and pence, but ours were not pounds sterling. Doris considered and knit her delicate brows. Then a soft light illumined her face. "Why, Uncle Win, it is five hundred dollars! Isn't that a great deal of money for a little girl like me? And must it not be saved up some way?" "Yes, I think for your wedding day." "And then suppose I should not get married?" CHAPTER XVI A SUMMER IN BOSTON The Leveretts rejoiced heartily over Doris' good fortune. Aunt Priscilla began to trouble herself again about her will. She had taken the usual autumnal cold, but recovered from it with good nursing. Certainly Elizabeth Leverett was very kind. Aunt Priscilla had eased up Betty while her mother spent a fortnight at Salem, helping with the fall sewing and making comfortables. And this time she brought home little Ruth, who was thin and peevish, and who had not gotten well over the measles, that had affected her eyes badly. Ruth was past four. "I wish Mary did not take life so hard," said Mrs. Leverett with a sigh. "They have been buying a new twenty-acre pasture lot and two new cows, and it is just drive all the time. That poor little Elizabeth will be all worn out before she is grown up. And Ruth wouldn't have lived the winter through there." Ruth was extremely troublesome at first. But grandmothers have a soothing art, and after a few weeks she began to improve. The visits of Doris fairly transported her, and she amused grandpa by asking every morning "if Doris would come to-day," having implicit faith in his knowledge of everything. Aunt Priscilla counted on the visits as well. She kept her room a good deal. Ruth's chatter disturbed her. Pattern children brought up on the strictest rules did not seem quite so agreeable to her as the little flower growing up in its own sweetness. Betty used to walk a short distance home with her, as she declared it was the only chance she had for a bit of Doris. She was very fond of hearing about the Royalls, and now Miss Isabel's engagement to Mr. Morris Winslow was announced. Warren declared Jane was quite "top-loftical" about it. She had been introduced to Miss Isabel at an evening company, and then they had met at Thayer's dry goods store, where she and Mrs. Chapman had been shopping, and had quite a little chat. They bowed in the street, and Jane was much pleased at the prospect of being indirectly related. But Betty had taken tea at Uncle Winthrop's with Miss Alice Royall, who had come over with the two little girls to return some of the visits Doris had made. The girls fell in love with bright, versatile Betty, and Alice was much interested in her visit to Hartford, and thought her quite charming. Then it was quite fascinating to compare notes about Mr. Adams with one of his own kin. Alice made no secret of her admiration for him; the whole family joined in, for that matter. Young girls could be a little free and friendly with elderly gentlemen without exciting comment or having to be so precise. When Jane said "Cousin Morris told me such or such a thing," Betty was delighted to reply, "Yes, Doris was speaking of it." The girls were the best of friends, but this half-unconscious rivalry was natural. Mrs. Leverett had no objections to the intimacy now. Betty was older and more sensible, and now she was really a young lady receiving invitations, and going out to walk or to shop with the girls. For hard as the times were, a little finery had to be bought, or a gown now and then. Mrs. King had not gone to New York, though her husband had been there on business. She would have been very glad of Betty's company; but with little Ruth and Aunt Priscilla, Betty felt she ought not leave her mother. And, then, she was having a young girl's good time at home. Mrs. Leverett half wished Jane might "fancy Warren." She was a smart, attractive, and withal sensible girl. But Warren was not thinking of girls just now, or of marrying. The debating society was a source of great interest and nearly every "talk" turned on some aspect of the possible war. His singing class occupied him one evening, and one evening was devoted to dancing. He liked Jane very much in a friendly fashion, and they went on calling each other by their first names, but if he happened to drop in there was almost sure to be other company. The "Son" on the business sign over the doorway gave him a great sense of responsibility, especially now when everything was so dull, and money, as people said, "came like drawing teeth," a painful enough process in those days. Finally Miss Isabel Royall's wedding day was set for early in June. The shopping was quite an undertaking. There were Thayer's dry-goods store and Daniel Simpson's and Mr. Bromfield's, the greater and the lesser shops on Washington and School streets. It was quite a risk now ordering things from abroad, vessels were interfered with so much. But there were China silks and Canton crape,--a beautiful material,--and French and English goods that escaped the enemy; so if you had the money you could find enough for an extensive wedding outfit. At home we had also begun to make some very nice woolen goods. May came out full of bloom and beauty. Such a shower of blossoms from cherry, peach, pear, and apple would be difficult now to imagine. For almost every house had a yard or a garden. Colonnade Row was among the earliest places to be built up compactly of brick and was considered very handsome for the time. But people strolled around then to see the beautiful unfolding of nature. There was the old Hancock House on Beacon Street. The old hero had gone his way, and his wife was now Madam Scott, and lived in the same house, and though the garden and nursery had been shorn of much of their glory, there were numerous foreign trees that were curiously beautiful, and people used to make at least one pilgrimage to see these immense mulberry trees in bloom. The old Bowdoin garden was another remarkable place, and the air around was sweet for weeks with the bloom of fruit trees and later on the grapes that were raised in great profusion. You sometimes saw elegant old Madam Bowdoin walking up and down the garden paths and the grandchildren skipping rope or playing tag. But Summer Street, with its crown of beauty, held its head as high as any of its neighbors. "I don't see why May should be considered unlucky for weddings," Isabel protested. "I should like to be married in a bower of apple blossoms." "But isn't a bower of roses as beautiful?" "And the snow of the cherries and pears! Think of it--fragrant snow!" But Isabel gave parties to her friends, and they took tea out under the great apple tree and were snowed on with every soft wave of wind. It was not necessary then to go into seclusion. The bride-elect took pleasure in showing her gowns and her finery to her dearest friends. She was to be married in grandmother's brocade. Her own mother had it lent to her for the occasion. It was very handsome and could almost "stand alone." There were great flowers that looked as if they were embroidered on it, and now it had assumed an ivory tint. Two breadths had been taken out of the skirt, people were so slim at present. But the court train was left. The bertha, as we should call it now, was as a cobweb, and the lace from the puff sleeve falling over the arm of the same elegant material. It was good luck to borrow something to be married in, and good luck to have something old as well as the something new. Morris Winslow had been quite a beau about town. He was thirty now, ten years older than Isabel. He had a big house over in Dorchester and almost a farm. He owned another in Boston, where a tavern of the higher sort was kept and rooms rented to bachelors. He had an apartment here and kept his servant Joe and his handsome team, besides his saddle horse. He was rather gay, but of good moral character. No one else would have been accepted as a lover at the Royalls'. Jane was invited to one of the teas. People had not come to calling them "Dove" parties yet, nor had breakfasts or luncheon parties come in vogue for such occasions. There were about a dozen girls. They inspected the wedding outfit, they played graces, they sang songs, and had tea in Madam Royall's old china that had come to America almost a hundred years before. Afterward several young gentlemen called, and they walked up and down in the moonlight. A young lady could invite her own escort, especially if she was "keeping company." Sometimes the mothers sent a servant to fetch home their daughters. Of course Jane had an invitation to the wedding. Alice and a friend were to be bridesmaids, and the children were to be gowned in simple white muslin, with bows and streamers of pink satin ribbon and strew roses in the bride's path. They were flower maidens. Dorcas Payne was asked, and Madam Royall begged Mr. Adams to allow his niece to join them. They would all take it as a great favor. "The idea!" cried Aunt Priscilla; "and she no relation! If the queen was to come to Boston I dare say Doris Adams would be asked to turn out to meet her! Well, I hope her pretty face won't ever get her into trouble." It was a beautiful wedding, everybody said. The great rooms and the halls were full of guests, but they kept a way open for the bride, who came downstairs on her lover's arm, and he looked very proud and manly. The bridesmaids and groomsmen stood one couple at each side. The little girls strewed their flowers and then stood in a circle, and the bride swept gracefully to the open space and turned to face the guests. The maid was a little excited when she pulled off the bride's glove, but all went well, and Isabel Royall was at her very best. While the kissing and congratulations were going on, four violins struck up melodious strains. It was just six o'clock then. The bride and groom stood for a while in the center of the room, then marched around and smiled and talked, and finally went out to the dining room, where the feast was spread, and where the bride had to cut the cake. Cary Adams was among the young people. He was a great favorite with Alice, and a welcome guest, if he did not come quite as often as his father. One of the prettiest things afterward was the minuet danced by the four little girls, and after that two or three cotillions were formed. The bride danced with both of the groomsmen, and the new husband with both of the bridesmaids. Then their duty was done. They were to drive over to Dorchester that night, so presently they started. Two or three old slippers were thrown for good luck. Several of the younger men were quite nonplused at this arrangement, for they had planned some rather rough fun in a serenade, thinking the bridal couple would stay in town. There were some amusements, jesting and laughter, some card-playing and health-drinking among the elders. The guests congratulated Madam Royall nearly as much as they had the bride. Then one after another came and bade her good-night, and took away their parcel of wedding cake to dream on. "Oh," cried Doris on the way home,--the night was so pleasant they were walking,--"oh, wasn't it splendid! I wish Betty could have been there. Cary, how old must you be before you can get married?" "Well--I should have to look up a girl." "Oh, take Miss Alice. She likes you ever so much--I heard her say so. But you haven't any house like Mr. Winslow. Uncle Win, couldn't he bring her home to live with us?" Cary's cheeks were in a red flame. Uncle Win laughed. "My dear," he began, "a young man must have some business or some money to take care of his wife. She wouldn't like to be dependent on his relatives. Cary is going to study law, which will take some years, then he must get established, and so we will have to wait a long while. He is too young. Mr. Winslow is thirty; Cary isn't twenty yet." "Oh, dear! Well, perhaps Betty will get married. The girl doesn't have to be so old?" "No," said Uncle Win. Betty came over the next morning to spend the day and help Miss Recompense to distill. She wanted to hear the first account from Doris and Uncle Win, to take off the edge of Jane's triumphant news. They made rose water and a concoction from the spice pinks. Then they preserved cherries. Uncle Win took them driving toward night and said some day they would go over to Dorchester. He had several friends there. The next excitement for Doris was the college commencement. Mr. Adams was disappointed that his son should not stand at the head of almost everything. He had taken one prize and made some excellent examinations, but there were many ranking as high and some higher. There were no ball games, no college regattas to share honors then. Not that these things were tabooed. There were some splendid rowing matches and games, but then young men had a desire to stand high intellectually. A long while before Judge Sewall had expressed his disapproval of the excesses at dinners, the wine-drinking and conviviality, and had set Friday for commencement so that there would be less time for frolicking. The war, with its long train of economies, and the greater seriousness of life in general, had tempered all things, but there was gayety enough now, with dinners given to the prize winners and a very general jollification. Doris went with Uncle Winthrop. Commencement was one of the great occasions of the year. All the orations were in Latin, and the young men might have been haranguing a Roman army, so vigorous were they. Many of the graduates were very young; boys really studied at that time. The remainder of the day and the one following were given over to festivities. Booths were everywhere on the ground; colors flying, flowers wreathed in every fashion, and so much merriment that they quite needed Judge Sewall back again to restrain the excesses. Mr. Adams and Doris went to dine at the Cragie House, and Doris would have felt quite lost among judges and professors but for Miss Cragie, who took her in charge. When they went home in the early evening the shouts and songs and boisterousness seemed like a perfect orgy. Someone has said, with a kind of dry wit, "Wherever an Englishman goes courts and litigation are sure to prevail." Certainly our New England forefathers, who set out with the highest aims, soon found it necessary to establish law courts. In the early days every man pleaded his own cause, and was especially versed in the "quirks of the law." Jeremy Gridley, a graduate of Harvard, interested himself in forming a law club in the early part of the previous century to pursue the study enough "to keep out of the briars." And to Justice Dana is ascribed the credit of administering to Mr. Secretary Oliver, standing under the Liberty Tree in a great assemblage of angry townspeople, an oath that he would take no measures to enforce the odius Stamp Act of the British Parliament or distribute it among the people. And now the bar had a rank of its own, and Winthrop Adams had a strong desire to see his son one of the shining lights in the profession. Cary had a fine voice and was a good speaker. More than once he had distinguished himself in an argument at some of the debates. To be admitted to the office of Governor Gore was considered a high honor then, and this Mr. Adams gained for his son. Cary had another vague dream, but parental authority in well-bred families was not to be disputed at that period, and Cary acquiesced in his father's decision, since he knew his own must bring about much discussion and probably a refusal. Mrs. King came to visit her mother this summer. She left all her children at home, as she wanted to visit round, and was afraid they might be an annoyance to Aunt Priscilla. Little Ruth had gone home very much improved, her eyes quite restored. Uncle Winthrop enjoyed Mrs. King's society very much. She was intelligent and had cultivated her natural abilities, she also had a certain society suavity that made her an agreeable companion. Doris thought her a good deal like Betty, she was so pleasant and ready for all kinds of enjoyment. Aunt Priscilla considered her very frivolous, and there was so much going and coming that she wondered Elizabeth did not get crazy over it. They were to remove to New York in the fall, Mr. King having perfected his business arrangements. So Betty would have her winter in the gay city after all. There were many delightful excursions with pleasure parties up and down the bay. The Embargo had been repealed, and the sails of merchant ships were again whitening the harbor, and business people breathed more freely. There were Castle Island, with its fortifications and its waving flag, and queer old dreary-looking Noddle's Island, also little towns and settlements where one could spend a day delightfully. Every place, it seemed to Doris, had some queer, interesting story, and she possessed an insatiable appetite for them. There was the great beautiful sweep of Boston Bay, with its inlets running around the towns and its green islands everywhere--places that had been famous and had suffered in the war, and were soon to suffer again. Mrs. King had a friend at Hingham, and one day they went there in a sort of family party. Uncle Winthrop obtained a carriage and drove them around. It was still famous for its wooden-ware factories, and Uncle Win said in the time of Governor Andros, when money was scarce among the early settlers, Hingham had paid its taxes in milk pails, but they decided the taxes could not have been very high, or the fame of the milk pails must have been very great. Mrs. Gerry said in the early season forget-me-nots grew wild all about, and the ground was blue with them. "Oh, Uncle Win, let us come and see them next year," cried Doris. Then they hunted up the old church that had been nearly rent asunder by the bringing in of a bass viol to assist the singers. Party spirit had run very high. The musical people had quoted the harps and sacbuts of King David's time, the trumpets and cymbals. At last the big bass viol won the victory and was there. And the hymn was: "Oh, may my heart in tune be found, Like David's harp of solemn sound." But the old minister was not to be outdone. The hymn was lined off in this fashion: "Oh, may my heart go diddle, diddle, Like Uncle David's sacred fiddle." There were still a great many people opposed to instrumental music and who could see no reverence in the organ's solemn sound. Uncle Winthrop smiled over the story, and Betty said it would do to tell to Aunt Priscilla. Betty begged that they might take Doris to Salem with them. Doris thought she should like to see the smart little Elizabeth, who was like a woman already, and her old playfellow James, as well as Ruth, who seemed to her hardly beyond babyhood. And there were all the weird old stories--she had read some of them in Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," and begged others from Miss Recompense, who did not quite know whether she believed them or not, but she said emphatically that people had been mistaken and there was no such thing as witches. "A whole week!" said Uncle Winthrop. "Whatever shall I do without a little girl that length of time?" "But you have Cary now," she returned archly. Cary was a good deal occupied with young friends and college associates. Now and then he went over to Charlestown and stayed all night with one of his chums. "I suppose I ought to learn how it will be without you when you want to go away in real earnest." "I am never going away." "Suppose Mrs. King should invite you to New York? She has some little girls." "You might like to go," she returned with a touch of hesitation. "To see the little girls?" smilingly. "To see a great city. Do you suppose they are very queer--and Dutch?" He laughed at that. "But the Dutch people went there and settled, just as the Puritans came here. And I think I like the Dutch because they have such a merry time at Christmas. We read about them in history at school." "And then the English came, you know. I think now there is not much that would suggest Holland. I have been there." Then Doris was eager to know what it was like, and Uncle Winthrop was interested in telling her. They forgot all about Salem--at least, Doris did until she was going to bed. "If you _do_ go you must be very careful a witch does not catch you, for I couldn't spare my little girl altogether." "Uncle Winthrop, I am going to stay with you always. When Miss Recompense gets real old and cannot look after things I shall be your housekeeper." "When Miss Recompense reaches old age I am afraid I shall be quaking for very fear." "But it takes a long while for people to get very old," she returned decisively. Betty came over the next day to tell her they would start on Thursday morning, and were going in a sloop to Marblehead with a friend of her father's, Captain Morton. It was almost like going to sea, Doris thought. They had to thread their way through the islands and round Winthrop Head. There was Grover's Cliff, and then they went out past Nahant into the broad, beautiful bay, where you could see the ocean. It seemed ages ago since she had crossed it. They kept quite in to the green shores and could see Lynn and Swampscott, then they rounded one more point and came to Marblehead, where Captain Morton stopped to unload his cargo, while they went on to Salem. At the old dock they were met by a big boy and a country wagon. This was Foster Manning, the eldest grandson of the family. "Oh," cried Betty in amazement, "how you have grown! It _is_ Foster?" He smiled and blushed under the sunburn--a thin, angular boy, tall for his age, with rather large features and light-brown hair with tawny streaks in it. But his gray-blue eyes were bright and honest-looking. "Yes, 'm," staring at the others, for he had at the moment forgotten his aunt's looks. Betty introduced them. "I should not have known you," said Aunt Electa. "But boys change a good deal in two years or so." They were helped in the wagon, more by Betty than Foster, who was evidently very bashful. They drove up past the old Court House, through the main part of the town, which even then presented a thriving appearance with its home industries. But the seaport trade had been sadly interfered with by the rumors and apprehensions of war. At that time it was quaint and country-looking, with few pretensions to architectural beauty. There was old Gallows Hill at one end, with its haunting stories of witchcraft days. The irregular road wandered out to the farming districts. Many small towns had been set off from the original Salem in the century before, and the boundaries were marked mostly by the farms. Betty inquired after everybody, but most of the answers were "Yes, 'm" and "No, 'm." When they came in sight of the house Mrs. Manning and little Ruth ran out to welcome the guests, followed by Elizabeth, who was almost as good as a woman. The house itself was a plain two-story with the hall door in the middle and a window on each side. The roof had a rather steep pitch in front with overhanging eaves. From this pitch it wandered off in a slow curve at the back and seemed stretched out to cover the kitchen and the sheds. A grassy plot in front was divided by a trodden path. On one side of the small stoop was a great patch of hollyhocks that were tolerated because they needed no special care. Mrs. Manning had no time to waste upon flowers. The aspect was neat enough, but rather dreary, as Doris contrasted it with the bloom at home. But the greetings were cordial, only Mrs. Manning asked Betty "If she had been waiting for someone to come and show her the way?" Ruth ran to Doris at once and caught her round the waist, nestling her head fondly on the bosom of the guest. Elizabeth stood awkwardly distant, and only stared when Betty presented her to Doris. They were ushered into the first room, which was the guest chamber. The floor was painted, and in summer the rugs were put away. A large bedstead with faded chintz hangings, a bureau, a table, and two chairs completed the furniture. The ornaments were two brass candlesticks and a snuffers tray on the high mantel. Here they took off their hats and laid down their budgets, and then went through to mother's room, where there were a bed and a cradle, a bureau, a big chest, a table piled up with work, a smaller candlestand, and a curious old desk. Next to this was the living-room, where the main work of life went on. Beyond this were a kitchen and some sheds. Baby Hester sat on the floor and looked amazed at the irruption, then began to whimper. Her mother hushed her up sharply, and she crept out to the living-room. "We may as well all go out," said Mrs. Manning. "I must see about supper, for that creature we have doesn't know when the kettle boils," and she led the way. Elizabeth began to spread the tea table. A youngish woman was working in the kitchen. The Mannings had taken one of the town's poor, who at this period were farmed out. Sarah Lewis was not mentally bright, and required close watching, which she certainly received at the Mannings'. Doris stood by the window with Ruth, until the baby cried, when her mother told her to take Hester out in the kitchen and give her some supper and put her to bed. And then Doris could do nothing but watch Elizabeth while the elders discussed family affairs, the conversation a good deal interrupted by rather sharp orders to Sarah in the kitchen, and some not quite so sharp to Elizabeth. Supper was all on the table when the men came in. There were Mr. Manning, Foster and James, and two hired men. "You must wait, James," said his mother--"you and Elizabeth." The guests were ranged at one end of the table, the hired men and Foster at the other. Elizabeth took some knitting and sat down by the window. The two younger children remained in the kitchen. Doris was curiously interested, though she felt a little strange. Her eyes wandered to Elizabeth, and met the other eyes, as curious as hers. Elizabeth had straight light hair, cut square across the neck, and across her forehead in what we should call a bang. "It was time to let it grow long," her mother admitted, "but it was such a bother, falling in her eyes." Her frock, whatever color it had been, was now faded to a hopeless, depressing gray, and her brown gingham apron tied at the waist betrayed the result of many washings. She was thin and pale, too, and tired-looking. Times had not been good, and some of the crops were not turning out well, so every nerve had to be strained to pay for the new lot, in order that the interest on the amount should not eat up everything. Afterward the men went to look to the cattle, and Mrs. Manning, when she had given orders a while in the kitchen, took her guests out on the front porch. She sat and knit as she talked to them, as the moon was shining and gave her light enough to see. When the old clock struck nine, Mr. Manning came through the hall and stood in the doorway. "Be you goin' to sit up all night, mother?" he inquired. "Dear, no. And I expect you're all tired. We're up so early in the morning here that we go to bed early. And I was thinking--Ruth needn't have gone upstairs, and Doris could have slept with Elizabeth----" "I'll go upstairs with Doris, and 'Lecty may have the room to herself," exclaimed Betty. Grandmother Manning had a room downstairs, back of the parlor, and one of the large rooms upstairs, that the family had the privilege of using, though it was stored nearly full with a motley collection of articles and furniture. This was her right in the house left by her husband. But she spent most of her time between her daughter at Danvers and another in the heart of the town, where there were neighbors to look at, if nothing else. Doris peered in the corners of the room by the dim candlelight. "It's very queer," she said with a half-smile at Betty, glancing around. For there were lines across on which hung clothes and bags of dried herbs that gave the room an aromatic fragrance, and parcels in one corner piled almost up to the wall. But the space to the bed was clear, and there were a stand for the candle and two chairs. "The children are in the next room, and the boys and men sleep at the back. The other rooms have sloping roofs. And then there's a queer little garret. Grandmother Manning is real old, and some time Mary will have all the house to herself. Josiah bought out his sisters' share, and Mrs. Manning's runs only as long as she lives." "I shouldn't want to sleep with Elizabeth. I love you, Betty." Betty laughed wholesomely. "You will get acquainted with her to-morrow," she said. Doris laid awake some time, wondering if she really liked visiting, and recalling the delightful Christmas visit at Uncle Winthrop's. The indefinable something that she came to understand was not only leisure and refinement, but the certain harmonious satisfactions that make up the keynote of life from whence melody diffuses itself, were wanting here. They had their breakfast by themselves the next morning. Friday was a busy day, but all the household except the baby were astir at five, and often earlier. There were churning and the working of butter and packing it down for customers. Of course, June butter had the royal mark, but there were plenty of people glad to get any "grass" butter. Betty took Doris out for a walk and to show her what a farm was like. There was the herd of cows, and in a field by themselves the young ones from three months to a year. There were two pretty colts Mr. Manning was raising. And there was a flock of sheep on a stony pasture lot, with some long-legged, awkward-looking lambs who had outgrown their babyhood. Then they espied James weeding out the garden beds. Betty sat down on a stone at the edge of the fence and took out some needlework she carried around in her pocket. Doris stood patting down the soft earth with her foot. "Do you like to do that?" she asked presently. "No, I don't," in a short tone. "I think I should not either." "'Taint the things you like, it's what has to be done," the boy flung out impatiently. "I'm not going to be a farmer. I just hate it. When I'm big enough I'm coming to Boston." "When will you be big enough?" "Well--when I'm twenty-one. You're of age then, you see, and your own master. But I might run away before that. Don't tell anyone that, Doris. Gewhilliker! didn't I have a splendid time at grandmother's that winter! I wish I could live there always. And grandpop is just the nicest man I know! I just hate a farm." Doris felt very sorry for him. She thought she would not like to work that way with her bare hands. Miss Recompense always wore gloves when she gardened. "I'd like to be you, with nothing to do." That was a great admission. The winter at Uncle Leverett's he had rather despised girls. Cousin Sam was the one to be envied then. And it seemed to her that she kept quite busy at home, but it was a pleasant kind of business. She did not see Elizabeth until dinner time. James took the men's dinner out to the field. They could not spend the time to come in. And after dinner Betty harnessed the old mare Jinny, and took Electa, Doris, and little Ruth out driving. The sun had gone under a cloud and the breeze was blowing over from the ocean. Electa chose to see the old town, even if there were but few changes and trade had fallen off. Several slender-masted merchantmen were lying idly at the quays, half afraid to venture with a cargo lest they might fall into the hands of privateers. The stores too had a depressed aspect. Men sat outside gossiping in a languid sort of way, and here and there a woman was tending her baby on the porch or doing a bit of sewing. "What a sleepy old place!" said Mrs. King. "It would drive me to distraction." CHAPTER XVII ANOTHER GIRL Saturday afternoon the work was finished up and the children washed. The supper was eaten early, and at sundown the Sabbath had begun. The parlor was opened, but the children were allowed out on the porch. Ruth sprang up a time or two rather impatiently. "Sit still," said Elizabeth, "or you will have to go to bed at once." "Couldn't I take her a little walk?" asked Doris. "A walk! Why it is part of Sunday!" "But I walk on Sunday with Uncle Winthrop." "It's very wicked. We _do_ walk to church, but that isn't anything for pleasure." "But uncle thinks one ought to be happy and joyous on Sunday. It is the day the Lord rose from the dead." "It's the Sabbath. And you are to remember the Sabbath to keep it holy." "What is the difference between Sabbath and Sunday?" "There aint any," said James. "There's six days to work, and I wish there was two Sundays--one in the middle of the week. The best time of all is Sunday night. You don't have to keep so very still, and you don't have to work neither." Elizabeth sighed. Then she said severely, "Do you know your catechism, James?" "Well--I always have to study it Sunday morning," was the rather sullen reply. "Maybe you had better go in and look it over." "You never do want a fellow to take any comfort. Yes, I know it." "Ruth, if you are getting sleepy go to bed." Ruth had leaned her head down on Doris' shoulder. "She's wide awake," and Doris gave her a little squeeze that made her smile. She would have laughed outright but for fear. Elizabeth leaned her head against the door jamb. "You look so tired," said Doris pityingly. "I am tired through and through. I am always glad to have Saturday night come and no knitting or anything. Don't you knit when you are home?" "I haven't knit--much." Doris flushed up to the roots of her fair hair, remembering her unfortunate attempts at achieving a stocking. "What do you do?" "Study, and read to Uncle Winthrop, and go to school and to writing school, and walk and take little journeys and drives and do drawing. Next year I shall learn to paint flowers." "But you do some kind of work?" "I keep my room in order and Uncle Win trusts me to dust his books. And I sew a little and make lace. But, you see, there is Miss Recompense and Dinah and Cato." "Oh, what a lot of help! What does Miss Recompense do?" "She is the housekeeper." "Is Uncle Winthrop very rich?" "I--I don't know." "But there are no children and boys to wear out their clothes and stockings. There's so much knitting to be done. I go to school in winter, but there is too much work in summer. Doris Adams, you are a lucky girl if your fortune doesn't spoil you." "Fortune!" exclaimed Doris in surprise. "Yes. I heard father talk about it. And all that from England! Then someone died in Boston and left you ever so much. I suppose you will be a grand lady!" "I'd like to be a lovely old lady like Madam Royall." "And who is she?" Doris was in the full tide of narration when Mrs. Manning came to the hall door. She caught some description of a party. "Elizabeth, put Ruth to bed at once and go yourself. Doris, talking of parties isn't a very good preparation for the Sabbath. Elizabeth, when you say your prayers think of your sins and shortcomings for the week, and repent of them earnestly." Ruth had fallen asleep and gave a little whine. Her mother slapped her. "Hush, not a word. You deserve the same and more, Elizabeth! James, go in and study your catechism over three times, then go to bed." Doris sat alone on the doorstep, confused and amazed. She was quite sure now she did not like Mrs. Manning, and she felt very sorry for Elizabeth. Then Betty came out and told her some odd Salem stories. They all went to church Sabbath morning, in the old Puritan parlance. Doris found it hard to comprehend the sermon. Many of the people from the farms brought their luncheons, and wandered about the graveyard or sat under the shady trees. At two the children were catechised, at three service began again. Mrs. King took Doris and Betty to dine with a friend of her youth, and then went back to the service out of respect to her sister and brother-in-law. Little Ruth fell asleep and was punished for it when she reached home. The children were all fractious and their mother scolded. When the sun went down there was a general sense of relief. The younger ones began to wander around. The two mothers sauntered off together, talking of matters they preferred not to have fall on the ears of small listeners. Betty attracted the boys. Foster could talk to her, though he was much afraid of girls in general. Doris and Elizabeth sat on the steps. Ruth was running small races with herself. "Would you rather go and walk?" inquired Elizabeth timidly. "Oh, no. Not if you like to sit still," cheerfully. "I just do. I'm always tired. You are so pretty, I was afraid of you at first. And you have such beautiful clothes. That blue ribbon on your hat is like a bit of the sky. And God made the sky." The voice died away in admiration. "That isn't my best hat," returned Doris simply. "Cousin Betty thought the damp of the ocean and running out in the dust would ruin it. It has some beautiful pink roses and ever so much gauzy stuff and a great bow of pink satin. Then I have a pink muslin frock with tiny green and brown sprigs all over it, and a great sash of the muslin that comes down to the hem. The Chapman girls have satin ribbon sashes, but Miss Recompense said she liked the muslin better." "Do you have to wear just what she says?" "Oh, no. Madam Royall chooses some things, and Betty. And Cousin King brought me an elegant sash, white, with flowers all over it. I have ever so many pretty things." "Oh, how proud you must feel!" said the Puritan maid half enviously. "I don't know"--hesitatingly. "I think I feel just nice, and that is all there is about it. Uncle Win likes what they get for me--men can't buy clothes, you know, and if he is pleased and thinks I look well, that is the end of it." "Oh, how good it must feel to be happy just like that. But are you quite sure," lowering her voice to a touch of awe, "that you will not be punished in the next world?" "What for? Doesn't God mean us to be happy?" "Well--not in this world, perhaps," answered the young theologian. "But you don't have anything in heaven except a white robe, and if you haven't had any pretty things in this world----" "I wish I could give you some of mine." Doris slipped her soft warm hand over the other, beginning to grow bony and strained already. "They wouldn't do me any good," was the almost apathetical reply. "I only go to church, and mother wouldn't let me wear them." "Do you like to go to church?" "I hate the long sermons and the prayers. Oh, that is dreadful wicked, isn't it? But I like to see the people and hear the talk, and they do have some new clothes; and the sitting still. When you've run and run all the week and are tired all over, it's just good to sit still. And it's different. I get so tired of the same things all the time and the hurry. Do you know what I am going to do when I am a woman?" "No," replied Doris with a look of interested inquiry. "I'm going to have one room like grandmother Manning, and live by myself. I shan't have any husband or children. I don't want to be sewing and knitting and patching continually, and babies are an awful sight of trouble, and husbands are just thinking of work, work all the time. Then I shall go visiting when I like, and though I shall read the Bible I won't mind about remembering the sermons. I'll just have a good time by myself." Doris felt strangely puzzled. She always wanted a good time with someone. The great pleasure to her was having another share a joy. And to live alone was almost like being imprisoned in some dreary cell. Neither could she think of Helen or Eudora living alone--indeed, any of the girls she knew. "Now you can go on about the wedding party," said Elizabeth after a pause. "And you really danced! And you were not afraid the ground would open and swallow you?" "Why, no," returned Doris. "There are earthquakes that swallow up whole towns, but, you see, the good and the bad go together. And I never heard of anyone being swallowed up----" "Why, yes--in the Bible--Korah, Dathan, and Abiram." "But they were not dancing. I think,"--hesitatingly,--"they were finding fault with Moses and Aaron, and wanting to be leaders in some manner." "Well--I am glad it wasn't dancing. And now go on quick before they come back." Elizabeth had never read a fairy story or any vivid description. She had no time and there were no books of that kind about the house. She fairly reveled in Doris' brilliant narrative. She had seen one middle-aged couple stand up to be married after the Sunday afternoon service, and she had heard of two or three younger people being married with a kind of wedding supper. But that Doris should have witnessed all this herself! That she should have worn a wedding gown and scattered flowers before the bride! Ruth was tired of running. "I'm sleepy," she said. "Unfasten my dress, I want to go to bed." Betty and the boys were coming up the path, with the shadowy forms of the grown people behind them. Mr. Manning had been taking a nap on the rude kitchen settee, his Sunday evening indulgence. Now he came through the hall. "Boys, children, it's time to go to bed. You are all sleepy enough in the mornin', but you would sit up half the night if someone did not drive you off." "Oh, I wish you lived here, Aunt Betty," said Foster for a good-night. Betty and Doris were almost ready for bed when there was a little sound at the door, pushed open by Elizabeth, who stood there in her plain, scant nightgown with a distraught expression, as if she had seen a ghost. "Oh, Aunt Betty or Doris, _can_ you remember the text and what the sermon was about? We always say it to mother after tea Sabbath evening, and she'll be sure to ask me to-morrow morning. And I can't think! I never scarcely do forget. Oh, what shall I do!" Her distress was so genuine that Betty folded her in her arms. Elizabeth began to cry at the tender touch. "There, little Bessy, don't cry. Let me see--I remember I was preaching another sermon to myself. It was--'Do this and ye shall live.' And instead of all the hard things he put in, I thought of the kindly things father was always doing, and Uncle Win, and mother, and the pleasant things instead of the severe laws. And when he reached his lastly he said no one could keep all the laws, and because they could not the Saviour came and died, but he seemed to preach as if the old laws were still in force, and that the Saviour's death really had not changed anything. That was in the morning. And the afternoon was the miracle of the loaves and fishes." "Yes--I could recall that. But I was sure mother would ask me the one I had forgotten. It always happens that way. Oh, I am so glad. Dear Aunt Betty! And if I was sometimes called Bessy, as you called me just now, or Betty, or anything besides the everlasting 'Lisbeth. Oh, Doris, how happy you must be----" "There, dear," said Betty soothingly, "don't cry so. I will write out what I can recall on a slip of paper and you can look it over in the morning. I just wish you could come and make me a visit, and go over to Uncle Win's. Yes, Doris _is_ a happy little girl." "But I have everything in the world," said Doris with a long breath. "I am afraid I could not be so happy here. Oh, can't we take Elizabeth home with us? Betty, coax her mother." "It wouldn't do a bit of good. You can't coax mother. And there is always so much work in the summer. I am afraid she wouldn't like it--even if you asked her." "But James came, and little Ruth----" "They were too young to work. Oh, it would be like going to heaven!" "It may be sometime, little Bessy. You can dream over it." "Good-night. Would you kiss me, Doris?" The happy girl kissed her a dozen times instead of once. But her deep eyes were full of tears as she turned to Betty when the small figure had slipped away. "Yes, it is a hard life," said Betty. "It seems as if children's lives ought to be happier. I don't know what makes Mary so hard. I'm sure she does not get it from father or mother. She appears to think all the virtue of the world lies in work. I wonder what such people will do in heaven!" "Oh, Betty, do try to have her come to Boston. I know Uncle Win will feel sorry for her." Those years in the early part of the century were not happy ones for childhood in general. Too much happiness was considered demoralizing in this world and a poor preparation for the next. Work was the great panacea for all sorts of evils. It was seldom work for one's neighbors, though people were ready to go in sickness and trouble. It was adding field to field and interest to interest, to strive and save and wear one's self out and die. Elizabeth was up betimes the next morning, and there lay the paper with chapter and verse and some "remarks." Her heart swelled with gratitude as she ran downstairs. Sarah had made the "shed" fire and the big wash kettle had been put over it. She was rubbing out the first clothes, the nicest pieces. "Now fly round, 'Lisbeth," said her mother. "You've dawdled enough these few days back, and there'll be an account to settle presently. I suppose your head was so full of that bunch of vanity you never remembered a word of the sermon yesterday. What was the text in the morning?" Elizabeth's pale face turned scarlet and her lip quivered; her slight frame seemed to shrink a moment, then in a gasping sort of way she gave chapter and verse and repeated the words. "I don't think that was it," said her mother sharply. "Ruth was in a fidget just as the text was given out. Wasn't that last Sunday's text?" "Some of the others may remember," the child said in her usual apathetical voice. "Well, you needn't act as if you were going to have a hysteric! Hand me that dish of beans. Your father likes them warmed over. Quick, there he comes now. You stir them." A trivet stood on the glowing coals, and the pan soon warmed through. Father and the men took their places. Foster came in sleepily. "Where's James?" inquired his mother. "I don't want him in the field to-day. He can weed in the garden. You send him with the dinners." "Where was yesterday morning's text, Foster?" Mrs. Manning asked sharply. The boy looked up blankly. As there was no Sunday evening examination it had slipped out of his mind. "It was something about--keeping the law--doing----" James entered at that moment and had heard the question and hesitating reply. "I can't remember chapter and verse, but it was short, and I just rammed the words down in my memory box. 'Do this and ye shall live.'" "James, no such irreverence," exclaimed his father. Elizabeth in the kitchen drew a long breath of relief. She wondered whether his mother would have taken Aunt Betty's word. Monday morning was always a hard time. Sarah required looking after, for her memory lapses were frequent. Mr. Manning said a good birch switch was the best remedy he knew. But though a hundred years before people had thought nothing of whipping their servants, public opinion was against it now. Mrs. Manning did sometimes box her ears when she was over-much tired. But she was a very faithful worker. Elizabeth gave Ruth and baby Hester their breakfast. Then Betty came down, and insisted upon getting the next breakfast while Mrs. Manning hung up her first clothes. She had been scolding to Betty about people having no thought or care as to how they put back the work with their late breakfast. But when Betty cooked and served it, and insisted upon washing up the dishes; and Doris amused the baby, who was not well, and helped Ruth shell the pease for dinner; when the washing and churning were out of the way long before noon, and Elizabeth was folding down the clothes for ironing while Sarah and her mother prepared the dinner and sent it out to the men--the child couldn't see that things were at all behindhand. Sarah and Elizabeth ironed in the afternoon. Mrs. Manning brought out her sewing and Betty helped on some frocks for the children. Two old neighbors came in to supper, bringing two little girls who were wonderfully attracted by Doris and delighted to be amused in quite a new fashion. But Elizabeth was too busy to be spared. After supper was cleared away and the visitors had gone Elizabeth brought her knitting and sat on the stoop step in the moonlight. "Oh, don't knit!" cried Doris. "You look so tired." "I'd like to go to bed this minute," said the child. "But last week I fell behind. You see, there are so many to wear stockings, and the boys do rattle them out so fast. We try to get most of the new knitting done in the summer, for autumn brings so much work. And if you will talk to me--I like so to hear about Boston and Madam Royall's beautiful house and your Uncle Win. It must be like reading some interesting book. Oh, I wish I could come and stay a whole week with you!" "A week!" Doris laughed. "Why, you couldn't see it all in a month, or a year. Every day I am finding something new about Boston, and Miss Recompense remembers so many queer stories. I'm going to tell her all about you. I know she'll be real nice about your coming. Everything is as Uncle Win says, but he always asks her." Doris could make her little descriptions very vivid and attractive. At first Elizabeth replied by exclamations, then there was quite a silence. Doris looked at her. She was leaning against the post of the porch and her needles no longer clicked, though she held the stocking in its place. The poor child had fallen fast asleep. The moonlight made her look so ghostly pale that at first Doris was startled. The three ladies came out, but Elizabeth never stirred. When her mother spied her she shook her sharply by the shoulder. "Poor child!" exclaimed Mrs. King. "Elizabeth, put up your work and go to bed." "If you are too sleepy to knit, put up your work and go out and knead on the bread a spell. Sarah always gets it lumpy if you don't watch her," said Mrs. Manning. Elizabeth gathered up her ball and went without a word. "I'll knit for you," said Betty, intercepting her, and taking the work. "Mary, you will kill that child presently, and when you have buried her I hope you will be satisfied to give Ruth a chance for her life," exclaimed Mrs. King indignantly. "I can't afford to bring my children up in idleness, and if I could, I hope I have too great a sense of responsibility and my duty toward them. I was trained to work, and I've been thankful many a time that _I_ didn't have to waste grown-up years in learning." "We didn't work like that. Then father had given some years to his country and we _were_ poor. You have no need, and it is cruel to make such a slave of a child. She does a woman's work." "I am quite capable of governing my own family, Electa, and I think I know what is best and right for them. We can't afford to bring up fine ladies and teach them French and other trumpery. If Elizabeth is fitted for a plain farmer's wife, that is all I ask. She won't be likely to marry a President or a foreign lord, and if we have a few hundred dollars to start her in life, maybe she won't object." "You had better give her a little comfort now instead of adding farm to farm, and saving up so much for the woman who will come in here when you are dead and gone. Think of the men who have second and third wives and whose children are often turned adrift to look out for themselves. Hundreds of poor women are living hard and joyless lives just to save up money. And it is a shame to grind their children to the lowest ebb." Mrs. Manning was very angry. She had no argument at hand, so she turned in an arrogant manner and said austerely: "I had better go and look after my daughter, to see that she doesn't work herself quite to death. But I don't know what we should do without bread." "Now you have done it!" cried Betty. "I only hope she won't vent her anger on the poor child." "It is a curious thing," said Mrs. King reflectively, "that women--well, men too--make such a point of church-going on Sunday, and hardly allow the poor children to draw a comfortable breath, and on Monday act like fiends. Women especially seem to think they have a right to indulge in dreadful tempers on washing day, and drive all before them. Think of the work that has been done in this house to-day, and the picture of Elizabeth, worn out, falling asleep over her knitting. I should have sent her to bed with the chickens. I'd like to take her home with me, but it would spoil her for the farm." Betty knit away on the stocking. "I can't see what makes Mary so hard and grasping," she said. "It troubles mother a good deal." When they went in the house was quiet and the kitchen dark. Mrs. Manning sat sewing. Their candles were on the table. Betty and Mrs. King said a cordial good-night. The sisters-in-law were to come the next day, and grandmother Manning, with an addition of four children. The Salem sister, Mrs. Gates, was stout and pleasant; the farmer sister thin and with a troublesome cough, and she had a young baby besides her little girl of six. She was to make a visit in Salem, and doctor somewhat, to see if she could not get over her cough before cold weather. The children were turned out of doors on the grassy roadside, where they couldn't hurt anything. Mrs. Gates and Betty helped in the kitchen, and after the dinner was cleared away Elizabeth was allowed to put on her second-best gingham and go out with the children. They ran and played and screamed and laughed. "I'd a hundred times rather sit still and hear you talk," she said to Doris. "And I'm awful sorry to have you go to-morrow. Even when I am busy it is so nice just to look at you, with your beautiful hair and your dark eyes, and your skin that is like velvet and doesn't seem to tan or freckle. Foster hates freckles so." Doris flushed at the compliment. "I wonder how it would seem to be as pretty as you are? And you're not a bit set up about your fine clothes and all. I s'pose when you're born that way you're so used to it, and there aint anything to wish for. I'm so glad you could come. And I do hope you will come again." They parted very good friends. Mrs. King had been quite generous to the small people, and Mrs. Manning really loved her sister, although she considered her very lax and extravagant. No one could tell what was before him, and thrift and prudence were the great virtues of those days. True, they often degenerated into penuriousness and labor that was early and late--so severe, indeed, it cost many a life; and the people who came after reaped the benefit. CHAPTER XVIII WINTER AND SORROW "Oh, Uncle Win," exclaimed Doris, "I can't be sorry that I went to Salem, and I've had a queer, delightful time seeing so many strange things and hearing stories about them! But I am very, very glad to get back to Boston, and gladdest of all to be your little girl. There isn't anybody in the whole wide world I'd change you for!" Her arms were about him. He was so tall that she could not quite reach up to his neck when he stood straight, but he had a way of bending over, and she was growing, and the clasp gave him a thrill of exquisite pleasure. "I've missed my little girl a great deal," he said. "I am afraid I shall never want you to go away again." "The next time you must go with me. Though Betty was delightful and Mrs. King is just splendid." They had famous talks about Salem afterward, and the little towns around. Miss Recompense said now she shouldn't know how to live without a child in the house. Mrs. King went home to her husband and little ones, and Doris imagined the joy in greeting such a fond mother. Uncle Win half promised he would visit New York sometime. Even Aunt Priscilla was pleased when Doris came up to Sudbury Street, and wanted her full share of every visit. And they were all amazed when she went over to Uncle Win's to spend a day and was very cordial with Miss Recompense. They had a nice chat about the old times and the Salem witches and the dead and gone Governors--even Governor and Lady Gage, who had been very gay in her day; and both women had seen her riding about in her elegant carriage, often with a handsome young girl at her side. She had some business, too, with Uncle Win. They were in the study a long while together. "Living with the Leveretts has certainly changed Aunt Priscilla very much," he said later in the evening to Miss Recompense. "I begin to think it is not good for people to live so much alone when they are going down the shady side of life. Or perhaps it would not be so shady if they would allow a little sun to shine in it." Solomon was full of purring content and growing lazier every day. Latterly he had courted Uncle Win's society. There was a wide ledge in one of the southern windows, and Doris made a cushion to fit one end. He loved to lie here and bask in the sunshine. When there was a fire on the hearth he had another cushion in the corner. Sometimes he sauntered around and interviewed the books quite as if he was aware of their contents. He considered that he had a supreme right to Doris' lap, and he sometimes had half a mind to spring up on Uncle Win's knee, but the invitation did not seem sufficiently pressing. Cary was at home regularly now, except that he spent one night every week with a friend at Charlestown, and went frequently to the Cragies' to meet some of his old chums. He had not appeared to care much for Doris at first, and she was rather shy. Latterly they had become quite friends. But it seemed to Doris that he was so much gayer and brighter at Madam Royall's, where he certainly was a great favorite. Miss Alice was very brilliant and charming. They were always having hosts of company. Mr. and Mrs. Winslow were at the head of one circle in society. And this autumn Miss Jane Morse was married and went to live in Sheaffe Street in handsome style. She had done very well indeed. Betty was one of the bridesmaids and wore a white India silk in which she looked quite a beauty. Miss Helen Chapman was transferred to Mrs. Rowson's school to be finished. Doris and Eudora still attended Miss Parker's. But Madam Royall had treated the girls to the new instrument coming into vogue, the pianoforte. It's tone was so much richer and deeper than the old spinet. She liked it very much herself. Doris was quite wild over it. Madam Royal begged that she might be allowed to take lessons on it with the girls. Uncle Winthrop said in a year or two she might have one if she liked it and could learn to play. She and Betty used to talk about Elizabeth Manning. There was a new baby now, another little boy. Mrs. Leverett made a visit and brought home Hester, to ease up things for the winter. Elizabeth couldn't go to school any more, there was so much to do. She wrote Doris quite a long letter and sent it by grandmother. Postage was high then, and people did not write much for pure pleasure. And just before the new year, when Betty was planning to go to New York for her visit to Mrs. King, a great sorrow came to all of them. Uncle Leverett had not seemed well all the fall, though he was for the most part his usual happy self, but business anxieties pressed deeply upon him and Warren. He used to drop in now and then and take tea with Cousin Winthrop, and as they sat round the cheerful fire Doris would bring her stool to his side and slip her hand in his as she had that first winter. She was growing tall quite rapidly now, and pretty by the minute, Uncle Leverett said. There was no end of disquieting rumors. American shipping was greatly interfered with and American seamen impressed aboard British ships by the hundreds, often to desert at the first opportunity. Merchantmen were deprived of the best of their crews for the British navy, as that country was carrying on several wars; and now Wellington had gone to the assistance of the Spanish, and all Europe was trying to break the power of Napoleon, who had set out since the birth of his son, now crowned King of Rome, to subdue all the nations. The _Leopard-Chesapeake_ affair had nearly plunged us into war, but it was promptly disavowed by the British Government and some indemnity paid. There was a powerful sentiment opposed to war in New York and New England, but the people were becoming much inflamed under repeated outrages. Young men were training in companies and studying up naval matters. The country had so few ships then that to rush into a struggle was considered madness. Mr. Winthrop Adams was among those bitterly opposed to war. Cary was strongly imbued with a young man's patriotic enthusiasm. There was a good deal of talk at Madam Royall's, and a young lieutenant had been quite a frequent visitor and was an admirer also of the fair Miss Alice. Then Alfred Barron, his friend at Charlestown, had entered the naval service. Studying law seemed dry and tiresome to the young fellow when such stirring events were happening on every side. Uncle Leverett took a hard cold early in the new year. He was indoors several days, then some business difficulties seemed to demand his attention and he went out again. A fever set in, and though at first it did not appear serious, after a week the doctor began to look very grave. Betty stopped her preparations and wrote a rather apprehensive letter to Mrs. King. One day Uncle Win was sent for, and remained all the afternoon and evening. The next morning he went down to the store. "I'm afraid father's worse," said Warren. "His fever was very high through the night, and he was flighty, and now he seems to be in a sort of stupor, with a very feeble pulse. Oh, Uncle Win, I haven't once thought of his dying, and now I am awfully afraid. Business is in such a dreadful way. That has worried him." Mr. Adams went up to Sudbury Street at once. The doctor was there. "There has been a great change since yesterday," he said gravely. "We must prepare for the worst. It has taken me by surprise, for he bid fair to pull through." Alas, the fears were only too true! By night they had all given up hope and watched tearfully for the next twenty-four hours, when the kindly, upright life that had blessed so many went to its own reward. To Doris is seemed incredible. That poor Miss Henrietta Maria should slip out of life was only a release, and that Miss Arabella in the ripeness of age should follow had awakened in her heart no real sorrow, but a gentle sense of their having gained something in another world. But Uncle Leverett had so much here, so many to love him and to need him. Death, the mystery to all of us, is doubly so to the young. When Doris looked on Uncle Leverett's placid face she was very sure he could not be really gone, but mysteriously asleep. Yes, little Doris--the active, loving, thinking man had "fallen on sleep," and the soul had gone to its reward. Foster Leverett had been very much respected, and there were many friends to follow him to his grave in the old Granary burying ground, where the Fosters and Leveretts rested from their labors. There on the walk stood the noble row of elms that Captain Adino Paddock had imported from England a dozen years before the Revolutionary War broke out, in their very pride of strength and grandeur now, even if they were leafless. It seemed very hard and cruel to leave him here in the bleakness of midwinter, Doris thought. And he was not really dead to her until the bearers turned away with empty hands, and the friends with sorrowful greeting passed out of the inclosure and left him alone to the coming evening and the requiem of the wind soughing through the trees. Doris sat by Miss Recompense that evening with Solomon on her lap. She could not study, she did not want to read or sew or make lace. Uncle Winthrop had gone up to Sudbury Street. All the family were to be there. The Kings had come from New York and the Mannings from Salem. "Oh," said Doris, after a long silence, "how can Aunt Elizabeth live, and Betty and Warren, when they cannot see uncle Leverett any more! And there are so many things to talk about, only they can never ask him any questions, and he was so--so comforting. He was the first one that came to me on the vessel, you know, and he said to Captain Grier, 'Have you a little girl who has come from Old Boston to New Boston?' Then he put his arm around me, and I liked him right away. And the great fire in the hall was so lovely. I liked everybody but Aunt Priscilla, and now I feel sorry for her and like her a good deal. Sometimes she gets queer and what she calls 'pudgicky.' But she is real good to Betty." "She's a sensible, clear-headed woman, and she has good solid principles. I do suppose we all get a little queer. I can see it in myself." "Oh, dear Miss Recompense, you are not queer," protested Doris, seizing her hand. "When I first came I was a little afraid--you were so very nice. And then I remembered that Miss Arabella had all these nice ways, and could not bear a cloth askew nor towels wrinkled instead of being laid straight, nor anything spilled at the table, nor an untidy room, and she was very sweet and nice. And then I tried to be as neat as I could." "I knew you had been well brought up." Miss Recompense was pleased always to be compared to her "dear Miss Arabella." There was something grateful to her woman's heart, that had long ago held a longing for a child of her own, in the ardent tone Doris always uttered this endearment. "Miss Recompense, don't you think there is something in people loving you? You want to love them in return. You want to do the things they like. And when they smile and are glad, your whole heart is light with a kind of inward sunshine. And I think if Mrs. Manning would smile on Elizabeth once in a while, and tell her what she did was nice, and that she was smart,--for she is very, very smart,--I know it would comfort her." "You see, people haven't thought it was best to praise children. They rarely did in my day." "But Uncle Leverett praised Warren and Betty, and always said what Aunt Elizabeth cooked and did was delightful." "Foster Leverett was one man out of a thousand. They will all miss him dreadfully." Aunt Priscilla would have been amazed to know that Mr. Leverett had been in the estimation of Miss Recompense an ideal husband. Years ago she had compared other men with him and found them wanting. Uncle Win was much surprised to find them sitting there talking when he came home, for it was ten o'clock. Cary returned shortly after, and the two men retired to the study. But there was a curious half-dread of some intangible influence that kept Doris awake a long while. The wind moaned outside and now and then raised to a somber gust sweeping across the wide Common. Oh, how lonely it must be in the old burying ground! Mr. Leverett's will had been read that evening. The business was left to Warren, as Hollis had most of his share years before. To the married daughters a small remembrance, to Betty and her mother the house in Sudbury Street, to be kept or sold as they should elect; if sold, they were to share equally. Mrs. King was very well satisfied. In the present state of affairs Warren's part was very uncertain, and his married sisters were to be paid out of that. The building was old, and though the lot was in a good business location, the value at that time was not great. "It seems to me the estate ought to be worth more," said Mrs. Manning. "I did suppose father was quite well off, and had considerable ready money." "So he did two years ago," answered Warren. "But it has been spent in the effort to keep afloat. If the times should ever get better----" "You'll pull through," said Hollis encouragingly. He had not suffered so much from the hard times, and was prospering. The will had been remade six months before, after a good deal of consideration. When Mrs. King went home, a few days after, she said privately to Warren: "Do not trouble about my legacy, and if you come to hard places I am sure Matt will help you out if he possibly can." Warren thanked her in a broken voice. Mr. King said nearly the same thing as he grasped the young fellow's hand. They were a very lonely household. Of course, Betty could not think of going away. And now that they knew what a struggle it had been for some time to keep matters going comfortably, they cast about to see what retrenchment could be made. Even if they wanted to, this would be no time to sell. The house seemed much too large for them, yet it was not planned so that any could be rented out. "If you're set upon that," said Aunt Priscilla, "I'll take the spare rooms, whether I need them or not. And we will just go on together. Strange though that Foster, who was so much needed, should be taken, and I, without a chick or a child, and so much older, be left behind." There was a new trustee to be looked up for Doris. A much younger man was needed. If Cary were five or six years older! Foster Leverett's death was a great shock to Winthrop Adams. Sometimes it seemed as if a shadowy form hovered over his shoulder, warning him that middle life was passing. He had a keen disappointment, too, in his son. He had hoped to find in him an intellectual companion as the years went on, but he could plainly see that his heart was not in his profession. The young fellow's ardor had been aroused on other lines that brought him in direct opposition to the elder's views. He had gone so far as to ask his father's permission to enlist in the navy, which had been refused, not only with prompt decision, but with a feeling of amazement that a son of his should have proposed such a step. Cary had the larger love of country and the enthusiasm of youth. His father was deeply interested in the welfare and standing of the city, and he desired it to keep at the head. He had hoped to see his son one of the rising men of the coming generation. War horrified him: it called forth the cruel and brutal side of most men, and was to be undertaken only for extremely urgent reasons as the last hope and salvation of one's country. We had gained a right to stand among the nations of the world; it was time now that we should take upon ourselves something higher--the cultivation of literature and the fine arts. To plunge the country into war again would be setting it back decades. He had taken a great deal of pleasure in the meetings, of the Anthology Club and the effort they had made to keep afloat a _Magazine of Polite Literature_. The little supper, which was very plain; the literary chat; the discussions of English poets and essayists, several of which were reprinted at this era; and the encouragement of native writers, of whom there were but few except in the line of sermons and orations. By 1793 there had been two American novels published, and though we should smile over them now we can find their compeers in several of the old English novels that crop out now and then, exhumed from what was meant to be a kindly oblivion. The magazine had been given up, and the life somehow had gone out of the club. There was a plan to form a reading room and library to take its place. Men like Mr. Adams were anxious to advance the intellectual reputation of the town, though few people found sufficient leisure to devote to the idea of a national literature. Others said: "What need, when we have the world of brilliant English thinkers that we can never excel, the poets, and novelists! Let us study those and be content." The incidents of the winter had been quite depressing to Mr. Adams. Cary was around to the Royalls' nearly every evening, sometimes to other places, and at discussions that would have alarmed his father still more if he had known it. The young fellow's conscience gave him many twinges. "Children, obey your parents" had been instilled into every generation and until a boy was of age he had no lawful right to think for himself. So it happened that Doris became more of a companion to Uncle Win. They rambled about as the spring opened and noted the improvements. Old Frog Lane was being changed into Boylston Street. Every year the historic Common took on some new charm. There was the Old Elm, that dated back to tradition, for no one could remember its youth. She was interested in the conflicts that had ushered in the freedom of the American Colonies. Here the British waited behind their earthworks for Washington to attack them, just as every winter boys congregated behind their snowy walls and fought mimic battles. Indeed, during General Gage's administration the soldiers had driven the boys off their coasting place on the Common, and in a body they had gone to the Governor and demanded their rights, which were restored to them. Many a famous celebration had occurred here, and here the militia met on training days and had their banquets in tents. At the first training all the colored population was allowed to throng the Common; but at the second, when the Ancient and Honorable Artillery chose its new officers, they were strictly prohibited. Many of the ropewalks up at the northern end were silent now. Indeed, everybody seemed waiting with bated breath for something to happen, but all nature went on its usual way and made the town a little world of beauty with wild flowers and shrubs and the gardens coming into bloom, and the myriads of fruit trees with their crowns of snowy white and pink in all gradations. "I think the world never was so beautiful," said Doris to Uncle Winthrop. It was so delightful to have such an appreciative companion, even if she was only a little girl. Cary's birthday was the last of May, and it was decided to have the family party at the same time. Cary's young friends would be invited in the evening, but for the elders there would be the regular supper. "You will have your freedom suit, and afterward you can do just as you like," said Doris laughingly. She and Cary had been quite friendly of late, young-mannish reserve having given place to a brotherly regard. "Do you suppose I _can_ do just as I like?" He studied the eager face. "Of course you wouldn't want to do anything Uncle Win would not like." Cary flushed. "I wonder if fathers always know what is best? And when you are a man----" he began. "Don't you want to study law?" "Under some circumstances I should like it." "Would you like keeping a store or having a factory, or building beautiful houses--architecture, I believe, the fine part is called. Or painting portraits like Copley and Stuart and the young Mr. Allston up in Court Street." "No, I can't aspire to that kind of genius, and I am sure I shouldn't like shop-keeping. I am just an ordinary young fellow and I am afraid I shall always be a disappointment to the kindest of fathers. I wish there were three or four other children." "How strange it would seem," returned Doris musingly. "I am glad he has you, little Doris." "Are you really glad?" Her face was alight with joy. "Sometimes I have almost wondered----" "Don't wonder any more. You are like a dear little sister. During the last six months it has been a great pleasure to me to see father so fond of you. I hope you will never go away." "I don't mean to. I love Uncle Win dearly. It used to trouble me sometimes when Uncle Leverett was alive, lest I couldn't love quite even, you know," and a tiny line came in her smooth brow. "What an idea!" with a soft smile that suggested his father. "It's curious how you can love so many people," she said reflectively. At first the Leveretts thought they could not come to the party, but Uncle Winthrop insisted strongly. Some of the other relatives had lost members from their households. All the gayety would be reserved for the evening. But Cary said they would miss Betty very much. They had a pleasant afternoon, and Betty was finally prevailed upon to stay a little while in the evening. Cary was congratulated by the elder relatives, who said many pleasant things and gave him good wishes as to his future success. One of the cousins proposed his health, and Cary replied in a very entertaining manner. There was a birthday cake that he had to cut and pass around. "I think Cary has been real delightful," said Betty. "I've never felt intimately acquainted with him, because he has always seemed rather distant, and went with the quality and all that, and we are rather plain people. Oh, how proud of him Uncle Win must be!" He certainly was proud of his gracious attentions to the elders and his pleasant way of taking the rather tiresome compliments of a few of the old ladies who had known his Grandfather Cary as well as his Grandfather Adams. Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Priscilla sat up in the room of Miss Recompense with a few of the guests who wanted to see the young people gather. There were four colored musicians, and they began to tune their instruments out on the rustic settee at the side of the front garden, where the beautiful drooping honey locusts hid them from sight and made even the tuning seem enchanting. Girls in white gowns trooped up the path, young men in the height of fashion carried fans and nosegays for them; there was laughing and chattering and floating back and forth to the dressing rooms. Madam Royall came with Miss Alice and Helen, who was allowed to go out occasionally under her wing. Eudora had been permitted just to look on a while and to return with grandmamma. The large parlor was cleared of the small and dainty tables and articles likely to be in the way of the dancers. The first was to be a new march to a patriotic air, and the guests stood on the stairs to watch them come out of the lower door of the long room, march through the hall, and enter the parlor at the other door. Oh, what a pretty crowd they were! The old Continental styles had not all gone out, but were toned down a little. There were pretty embroidered satin petticoats and sheer gowns falling away at the sides, with a train one had to tuck up under the belt when one really danced. Hair of all shades done high on the head with a comb of silver or brilliants, or tortoise shell so clear that you could see the limpid variations. Pompadour rolls, short curls, dainty puffs, many of the dark heads powdered, laces and frills and ribbons, and dainty feet in satin slippers and silken hose. After that they formed quadrilles in the parlor. There was space for three and one in the hall. Eudora and Doris patted their feet on the stairs in unison, and clasping each other's hands smiled and moved their heads in perfect time. Aunt Priscilla admitted that it was a beautiful sight, but she had her doubts about it. Betty was sorry there was such a sad cause for her not being among them. Even Cary had expressed regrets about it. Then the Leveretts and Madam Royall went home. A few of the elders had a game of loo, and Mr. Adams played chess with Morris Winslow, whose pretty wife still enjoyed dancing, though he was growing stout and begged to be excused on a warm night. They played forfeits afterward and had a merry time. Then there was supper, and they drank toasts and made bright speeches, and there was a great deal of jesting and gay laughter, and much wishing of success, a judgeship in the future, a mission abroad perhaps, a pretty and loving wife, a happy and honorable old age. They drank the health of Mr. Winthrop as well, and congratulated him on his promising son. He was very proud and happy that night, and planned within his heart what he would do for his boy. Doris kept begging to stay up a little longer. The music was so fascinating, for the band was playing soft strains out on the front porch while the guests were at supper. She sat on the stairs quite enchanted with the gay scene. The guests wandered about the hall and parlor and chatted joyously. Then there was a movement toward breaking up. Miss Alice espied her. "Oh, you midget, are you up here at midnight?" she cried. "Have we done Cary ample honor on his arrival at man's estate?" "You were all so beautiful!" said Doris breathlessly. "And the dancing and the music: It was splendid!" Helen kissed her good-night with girlish effusion. Some of the other ladies spoke to her, and Mrs. Winslow said: "No doubt you will have a party in this old house. But you will have a girl's advantage. You need not wait until you are twenty-one." When the last good-nights were said, and the lights put out, Cary Adams wondered whether he would have the determination to avow his plans. CHAPTER XIX THE HIGH RESOLVE OF YOUTH War was declared. The President, James Madison, proclaimed it June 18, 1812. Hostilities opened promptly. True, England's navy was largely engaged with France in the tremendous effort to keep Napoleon confined within the boundaries that he had at one time assented to by treaty, but at that period she had over a thousand vessels afloat, while America had only seventeen warships in her navy to brave them. There was a call for men and money. The Indian troubles had been fomented largely by England. There had been fighting on the borders, but the battle of Tippecanoe had broken the power of Tecumseh--for the time, at least. But now the hopes of the Indian chieftain revived, and the country was beset by both land and naval warfare. The town had been all along opposed to war. It had been said of Boston a few years before that she was like Tyre of old, and that her ships whitened every sea. Still, now that the fiat had gone forth, the latent enthusiasm came to the surface, and men were eager to enlist. A company had been studying naval tactics at Charlestown, and most of them offered their services, filled with the enthusiasm of youth and brimming with indignation at the treatment our sailors were continually receiving. Still, the little navy had proudly distinguished itself in the Mediterranean, and the _Constitution_ had gained for herself the sobriquet of "Old Ironsides"--a Boston-built vessel, though the live oak, the red cedar, and the pitch pine had come from South Carolina. But Paul Revere had furnished the copper bolts and spikes, and when the ship was recoppered, later on, that came from the same place. Ephraim Thayer, at the South End, had made her gun carriages, and her sails were manufactured in the Old Granary building. "A bunch of pine boards with a bit of striped bunting" had been the enemy's disdainful description of our youthful navy. And now they were to try their prowess with the Mistress of the Seas, who had defeated the combined navies of Europe. No wonder the country stood astounded over its own daring. Everything afloat was hurriedly equipped as a war vessel. The solid, far-sighted men of New York and New England shook their heads over the great mistake Congress and the President had made. Warren Leverett began to talk about enlisting. Business had been running behind. True, he could appeal to his brother-in-law King. He had sounded Hollis, who declared he had all he could do to keep afloat himself. Mrs. Leverett besought him to take no hasty step. What could they do without him? They might break up the home. Electa would be glad to have Betty--there were some things she could do, but Aunt Priscilla--whose health was really poor---- Aunt Priscilla understood the drift presently, and the perplexity. Warren admitted that if he had some money to tide him over he would fight through. The war couldn't last forever. "And you never thought of me!" declared Aunt Priscilla, pretending to be quite indignant. "See here, Warren Leverett, when I made my will I looked out for you and Betty. Mary Manning shan't hoard up any of my money, and 'Lecty King, thank the Lord, doesn't want it. So if you're to have it in the end you may as well take some of it now, fursisee. I shall have enough to last my time out. And I'm settled and comfortable here and don't want to be routed out and set down elsewhere." Warren and his mother were surprised and overcome by the offer. He would take it only on condition that he should pay Aunt Priscilla the interest. But his business stirred up wonderfully. Still, they all felt it was very generous in Aunt Priscilla, whose money had really been her idol. Doris had gone over from her music lesson one afternoon. They were always so glad to see her. Aunt Priscilla thought a piano in such times as these was almost defying Providence. But even the promise of that did not spoil Doris, and they were always glad to see her drop in and hear her dainty bits of news. They wanted very much to keep her to supper. "Why, they"--which meant the family at home--"will be sure you have stayed here or at the Royalls'. Mr. Winslow has given ever so much money toward the fitting out of a vessel. They are all very patriotic. And Cary's uncle, Mr. March, has gone in heart and hand. I don't know which is right," said Betty with a sigh, "but now that we are in it I hope we will win." But Doris was afraid Miss Recompense would feel anxious, and she promised to come in a few days and stay to supper. It was very odd that just as she reached the corner Cousin Cary should cross the street and join her. "I have been down having a talk with Warren," he said as if in explanation. "I wish I had a good, plodding business head like that, and Warren isn't lacking in the higher qualities, either. If there was money enough to keep the house going, he would enlist. He had almost resolved to when this stir in business came." "Oh, I don't know what his mother would have done! If Uncle Leverett was alive----" "He would have consented in a minute. Someone's sons must go," Cary said decisively. "No, don't go straight home--come over to the Common. Doris, you are only a little girl, but I want to talk to you. There is no one else----" Doris glanced at him in amazement. He was quite generally grave, though he sometimes teased her, and occasionally read with her and explained any difficult point. But she always felt so like a very little girl with him. They went on in silence, however, until they crossed Common Street and passed on under the magnificent elms. Clumps of shrubbery were blooming. Vines ran riotously over supports, and roses and honeysuckle made the air sweet. "Doris,"--his voice had a little huskiness in it,--"you are very fond of father, and he loves you quite as if you were his own child. Oh, I wish you were! I wish he had half a dozen sons and daughters. If mother had lived----" "Yes," Doris said at length, in the long silence broken only by the song and whistle of myriad birds. "I don't know how to tell you. I can't soften things, incidents, or explanations. I am so apt to go straight to the point, and though it may be honorable, it is not always wisest or best. But I can't help it now. I have enlisted in the navy. We start for Annapolis this evening." "Oh, Cary! And Uncle Win----" "That is it. That gives me a heartache, I must confess. For, you see, I can't go and tell him in a manly way, as I would like. We have had some talks over it. I asked him before I was of age, and he refused in the most decisive manner to consider it. He said if I went I would have to choose between the country and him, which meant--a separation for years, maybe. It is strange, too, for he is noble and just and patriotic on certain lines. I do think he would spend any money on me, give me everything I could possibly want, but he feels in some way that I am his and it is my duty to do with my life what he desires, not what I like. I am talking over your head, you are such a little girl, and so simple-hearted. And I have really come to love you a great deal, Doris." She looked up with a soft smile, but there were tears in her eyes. "You see, a big boy who has no sisters doesn't get used to little girls. And when he really begins to admire them they are generally older. Then, I have always been with boys and young men. I was glad when you came, because father was so interested in you. And I thought he had begun to love you so much that he wouldn't really mind if I went away. But, you see, his heart would be big enough for a houseful of children." "Oh, why do you go? He will be--broken-hearted." "Little Doris, I shall be broken-hearted if I stay. I shall begin to hate law--maybe I shall take to drink--young fellows do at times. I know I shall be just good for nothing. I should like best to talk it over dispassionately with him, but that can't be done. We should both say things that would hurt each other and that we should regret all our lives. I have written him a long letter, but I wanted to tell someone. I thought of Betty first, and Madam Royall, but no one can comfort him like you. Then I wanted you to feel, Doris, that I was not an ungrateful, disobedient son. I wish we could think alike about the war, but it seems that we cannot. And because you are here,--and, Doris, you are a very sweet little girl, and you will love him always, I know,--I give him in your charge. I hope to come back, but the chances of war are of a fearful sort, and if I should not, will you keep to him always, Doris? Will you be son and daughter to him as you grow up--oh, Doris, don't cry! People die every day, you know, staying at home. I have often thought how sad it was that my mother and both your parents should die so young----" His voice broke then. They came to a rustic seat and sat down. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "If I shouldn't ever come back"--tremulously--"I should like to feel at the last moment there was someone who would tell him that my very latest thought was of him and his tender love all my twenty-one years. I want you to make him feel that it was no disrespect to him, but love for my country, that impelled me to the step. You will understand it better when you grow older, and I can trust you to do me full justice and to be tender to him. And at first, Doris, when I can, I shall write to you. If he doesn't forbid you, I want you to answer if I can get letters. This is a sad, sad talk for a little girl----" Doris tried very hard not to sob. She seemed to understand intuitively how it was, and that to make any appeal could only pain him without persuading. If she were as wise and bright as Betty! "That is all--or if I said any more it would be a repetition, and it is awfully hard on you. But you will love him and comfort him." "I shall love him and stay with him all my life," said Doris with tender solemnity. They were both too young to understand all that such a promise implied. "My dear little sister!" He rose and stooping over kissed her on the fair forehead. "I will walk back to the house with you," he added as she rose. Neither of them said a word until they reached the corner. Then he took both hands and, kissing her again, turned away, feeling that he could not even utter a good-by. Doris stood quite still, as if she was stunned. She was not crying in any positive fashion, but the tears dropped silently. She could not go indoors, so she went down to the big apple tree that had a seat all around the trunk. Was Uncle Win at home? Then she heard voices. Miss Recompense had a visitor, and she was very glad. The lady, an old friend, stayed to supper. Uncle Win did not make his appearance. Doris took a book afterward and sat out on the stoop, but reading was only a pretense. She was frightened now at having a secret, and it seemed such a solemn thing as she recalled what she had promised. She would like to spend all her life with Uncle Win; but could she care for him and make him happy, when the one great love of his life was gone? Miss Recompense walked out to the gate with her visitor, and they had a great many last bits to say, and then she watched her going down the street. "Child, you can't see to read," she said to Doris. "I think it is damp. You had better come in. Mr. Adams will not be home before ten." Doris entered the lighted hall and stood a moment uncertain. "How pale and heavy-eyed you look!" exclaimed Miss Recompense. "Does your head ache? Have they some new trouble in Sudbury Street?" "Oh, no. But I am tired. I think I will go to bed. Good-night, dear Miss Recompense," and she gave her a gentle hug. She cried a little softly to her pillow. Had Cary gone? When Uncle Win came home he would find the letter. She dreaded to-morrow. Cary had one more errand before he started. He had said good-by to them at Madam Royall's and announced his enlistment, but he had asked Alice to meet him at the foot of the garden. They were not lovers, though he was perhaps quite in love. And he knew that he had only to speak to gain his father's consent and have his way to matrimony made easy, since it was Alice Royall. But he had never been quite sure that she cared for him with her whole soul, as Isabel had cared for Morris Winslow. And if he won her--would he, could he go away? He used to wonder later on how much was pure patriotism and how much a desire to stand well with Alice Royall. She was proudly patriotic and had stirred his blood many a time with her wishes and desires for the country. Grandmamma Royall had laughed a little at her vehemence, and said it was fortunate she was not a boy. "I should enlist at once. Or what would be better yet, I would beg brother Morris to fit out a war ship, and look up the men to command it, and go in _any_ capacity. I should not wait for a high-up appointment." When Cary confessed his step first to her, she caught his hands in hers so soft and delicate. "I knew you were the stuff out of which heroes were made!" she cried exultantly. "Oh, Cary, I shall pray for you day and night, and you will come back crowned with honors." "If I come back----" "You will. Take my word for your guerdon. I can't tell you _how_ I know it, but I am sure you will return. I can see you and the future----" She paused, flushed with excitement, her eyes intense, her rosy lips tremulous, and looked, indeed, as if she might be inspired. So she met him again at the garden gate for a last good-by. Young people who had been well brought up did not play at love-making in those days, though they might be warm friends. A girl seldom gave or received caresses until the elders had signified assent. An engagement was quite a solemn thing, not lightly to be entered into. And even to himself Cary seemed very young. All his instincts were those of a gentleman, and in his father he had had an example of the most punctilious honor. They walked up and down a few moments. He pressed tender kisses on her fair hand, about which there always seemed to cling the odor of roses. And then he tore himself away with a passionate sorrow that his father, the nearest in human ties of love, could not bid him Godspeed. The next morning Doris wondered what had happened. There was a loneliness in the very air, as there had been when Uncle Leverett died. The sky was overcast, not exactly promising a storm, but soft and penetrative, as if presaging sorrow. Oh, yes, she remembered now. She dressed herself and went quietly downstairs. "You may as well come and have your breakfast," exclaimed Miss Recompense. "Your uncle sent down word that he had a headache and begged not to be disturbed. He was up a long while after he came home last night; it must have been past midnight when he went to bed. I wish he did not get so deeply interested in improvements and everything. And if we are to be bombarded and destroyed I don't see any sense in laying out new streets and filling up ponds and wasting the money of the town." It seemed to Doris as if she could not swallow a mouthful. She tried heroically. Then she went out and gathered a bunch of roses for Uncle Win's study. She generally read French and Latin a while with him in the morning. Then she made her bed, dusted her room, put her books in her satchel and went to school in an unwilling sort of fashion. How long the morning seemed! Then there was a half-hour in deportment--we should call it physical culture at present. All the girls were gay and chatty. Eudora told her about a new lace stitch. Grandmamma had been out yesterday where there was such an elegant Spanish woman with coal-black eyes and hair. Her family had fled to this country to escape the horrors of war. They had been rich, but were now quite poor, and she was thinking of having a needlework class. Did Eudora know Cary had gone away? Uncle Win came out to dinner. She was a little late. He glanced up and gave a faint half-smile, but, oh, how deadly pale he was! "Dear Uncle Winthrop--is your headache better?" she asked with gentle solicitude. "A little," he said gravely. It was a very quiet meal. Although Mr. Winthrop Adams had a delicate appearance, he was rarely ill. Now there were deep rings under his eyes, and the utter depression was sad indeed to behold. Doris nearly always ran in the study and gossiped girlishly about the morning's employments. Now she sauntered out on the porch. There was neither music nor writing class. She wondered if she had better sew. She was learning to do that quite nicely, but the stocking still remained a puzzle. "Doris," said a gentle voice through the open window; and the sadness pierced her heart. She rose and went in. Solomon lay on his cushion in the corner, and even he, she thought, had a troubled look in his eyes. Uncle Win sat by the table, and there lay Cary's letter. She put her arms about his neck and pressed her soft warm cheek against his, so cool that it startled her. "My clear little Doris," he began. "I am childless. I have no son. Cary has gone away, against my wishes, in the face of my prohibition. I do not suppose he will ever return alive. And so I have given him up, Doris"--his voice failed him. He had meant to say, "You are all I have." "Uncle Win--may I tell you--I saw him yesterday in the afternoon. And he told me he had enlisted----" "Oh, then, you know!" The tone somehow grew harder. "Dear Uncle Win, I think he could not help going. He was very brave. And he was sorry, too. His eyes were full of tears while he was talking. And he asked me----" "To intercede for him?" "No--to stay here with you always. He said I was like a little sister. And I promised. Uncle Win, if you will keep me I will be your little girl all my life long. I will never leave you. I love you very dearly. For since Uncle Leverett went away I have given you both loves." She stood there in silence many minutes. Oh, how comforting was the clasp of the soft arms about his neck, how consoling the dear, assuring voice! "Will you tell me about it?" he said at length. She was a wise little thing, though I think her chief wisdom lay in her desire not to give anyone pain. Some few sentences she left out, others she softened. "Oh," she said beseechingly, "you will not be angry with him, Uncle Winthrop? I think it is very brave and heroic in him. It is like some of the old soldiers in the Latin stories. I shall study hard now, so I can read about them all. And I shall pray all the time that the war will come to an end. We shall be so proud and glad when he returns. And then you will have two children again." "Yes--we will hope for the war to end speedily. It ought never to have begun. What can we do against an enemy that has a hundred arms ready to destroy us? Little Doris, I am glad to have you." Winthrop Adams was not a man to talk over his sorrows. He had been wounded to the quick. He had not dreamed that his son would disregard his wishes. His fatherly pride was up in arms. But he did not turn his wounded side to the world. He quietly admitted that his son had gone to Annapolis, and received the congratulations of friends who sincerely believed it was time to strike. Salem was busy at her wharves, where peaceable merchantmen were being transformed into war vessels. Charlestown was all astir, and sailors donned the uniform proudly. New York and Baltimore joined in the general activity. The _Constellation_ was fitting out at Norfolk. The _Chesapeake_, the _United States_, and the _President_ were to be made famous on history's page. Privateers without number were hurried to the fore. The _Constitution_ had quite a reception in New York, and she started out with high endeavors. She had not gone far, however, before she found herself followed by three British frigates, and among them the _Guerriere_, whose captain Commodore Hull had met in New York. To be captured in this manner--for fighting against such odds would be of no avail--was not to be thought of, so there was nothing but a race before him. If he could reach Boston he would save his ship and his men, and somewhere perhaps gain a victory. Ah, what a race it was! The men put forth all their strength, all their ingenuity. At times it seemed as if capture was imminent. By night and by day, trying every experiment, working until they dropped from sheer fatigue, and after an hour or two of rest going at it again--Captain Hull kept her well to the windward, and with various maneuverings puzzled the pursuers. Then Providence favored them with a fine, driving rain, and she flew along in the darkness of the night, hardly daring to hope, but at dawn, after a three days' race, Boston was in sight, and her enemies were left behind. But that was not in any sense a complete victory, and she started out again to face her enemy and conquer if she could, for her captain knew the British ship _Guerriere_ was lying somewhere in wait for her. Everybody prayed and hoped. Firing was heard, but at such a distance from the harbor nothing could be decided. The frontier losses had been depressing in the extreme. Boston had hung her flags at half-mast for the brave dead. But suddenly a report came that the _Constitution_ had been victorious, and that the _Guerriere_ after having been disabled beyond any power of restoration, had been sent to a watery grave. In a moment it seemed as if the whole town was in a transport of joy. Flags were waving everywhere, and a gayly decorated flotilla went out in the harbor to greet the brave battle-scarred veteran. And when the tale of the great victory ran from lip to lip the rejoicing was unbounded. A national salute was fired, which was returned from the ship. The streets were in festive array and crowded with people who could not restrain their wild rejoicing. The _Guerriere_, which was to drive the insolent striped bunting from the face of the seas, had been swept away in a brief hour and a half, and the bunting waved above her grave. That night the story was told over in many a home. The loss of the _Constitution_ had been very small compared to that of the _Guerriere_, which had twenty-three dead and fifty-six wounded; and Captain Dacres headed the list of prisoners. There was a grand banquet at the Exchange Coffee House. The freedom of the city was presented to Captain Hull, and New York sent him a handsome sword. Congress voted him a gold medal, and Philadelphia a service of plate. At one blow the prestige of invincibility claimed for the British navy was shattered. And now the _Constitution's_ earlier escape from the hot chase of the three British frigates was understood to be a great race for the nation's honor and welfare, as well as for their own lives, and at last the baffled pursuers, out-sailed, out-maneuvered, dropped behind with no story of success to tell, and were to gnaw their hearts in bitterness when they heard of this glorious achievement. Uncle Winthrop took Doris and Betty out in the carriage that they might see the great rejoicing from all points. Everywhere one heard bits of the splendid action and the intrepidity of Captain Hull and his men. "I only wish Cary had been in it," said Betty with sparkling eyes. Warren told them that when Lieutenant Read came on deck with Captain Hull's "compliments, and wished to know if they had struck their flag," Captain Dacres replied: "Well--I don't know. Our mizzenmast is gone, our mainmast is gone, and I think you may say on the whole that we have struck our flag." One of the points that pleased Mr. Adams very much was the official report of Captain Dacres, who "wished to acknowledge, as a matter of courtesy, that the conduct of Captain Hull and his officers to our men had been that of a brave enemy; the greatest care being taken to prevent our losing the smallest trifle, and the kindest attention being paid to the wounded." More than one officer was to admit the same fact before the war ended, even if we did not receive the like consideration from our enemies. "I only wish Cary had been on the _Constitution_," said Betty eagerly. "I should be proud of the fact to my dying day, and tell it over to my grandchildren." A tint of color wavered over Uncle Winthrop's pale face. No one mentioned Cary, out of a sincere regard for his father, except people outside who did not know the truth of his sudden departure; though many of his young personal friends were aware of his interest and his study on the subject. Old Boston had a gala time surely. The flags floated for days, and everyone wore a kind of triumphant aspect. That her own ship, built with so much native work and equipments, should be the first to which a British frigate should strike her colors was indeed a triumph. Though there were not wanting voices across the sea to say the _Guerriere_ should have gone down with flying colors, but even that would have been impossible. Miss Recompense and Uncle Winthrop began to discuss Revolutionary times, and Doris listened with a great deal of interest. She delighted to identify herself strongly with her adopted country, and in her secret heart she was proud of Cary, though she could not be quite sure he was right in the step he had taken. They missed him so much. She tried in many ways to make up the loss, and her devotion went to her uncle's heart. If they could only hear! Not to know where he was seemed so hard to bear. CHAPTER XX A VISITOR FOR DORIS Doris was in the little still-room, as it was called--a large sort of pantry shelved on one side, and with numerous drawers and a kind of dresser with glass doors on another. By the window there were a table and the dainty little still where Miss Recompense made perfumes and extracts. There were boxes of sweet herbs, useful ones, bottles of medicinal cordials and salves. Miss Recompense was a "master hand" at such things, and the neighbors around thought her as good as a doctor. It was so fragrant in this little room that Doris always had a vague impression of a beautiful country. She had a kind of poetical temperament, and she hoped some day to be able to write verses. Helen Chapman had written a pretty song for a friend's birthday and had it set to music. The quartette sang it so well that the leading paper had praised it. There was no one she could confess her secret ambition to, but if she ever _did_ achieve anything she would confide in Uncle Winthrop. So she sat here with all manner of vague, delightful ideas floating through her brain, steeped with the fragrance of balms and odors. "Please, 'm," and Dinah stood in the door in all the glory of her gay afternoon turban, which seemed to make her face more black and shining--"Please, 'm, dere's a young sojer man jus' come. He got a bundle an' he say he got strict d'rections to gib it to missy. An' here's de ticket." "Oh, for me!" Doris took it eagerly and read aloud, "Lieutenant E. D. Hawthorne." "Oh, Miss Recompense, it's from Cary, I know," and for a moment she looked undecided. Miss Recompense had on her morning gown, rather faded, though she had changed it for dinner. Her sleeves were pushed above the elbow, her hands were a little stained, and just now she could not leave her concoction without great injury to it, though it was evidently improper for a child like Doris, or indeed a young lady, to see a strange gentleman alone. And Mr. Adams was out. Doris cut the Gordian knot by flashing through the kitchen and entering the lower end of the hall. The young man stood viewing "The Destruction of the Spanish Armada." But he turned at the sort of bird-like flutter and glanced at the vision that all his life long he thought the prettiest sight he had ever beheld. She had on a simple white frock, though it was one of her best, with a narrow embroidered ruffle around the bottom that Madam Royall had given her. When it was a little crumpled she put it on for afternoon wear. The neck was cut a small square with a bit of edging around it, gathered with a pink ribbon tied in a bow in front. She still wore her hair in ringlets; it did not seem to grow very fast, but she had been promoted to a pompadour, the front hair being brushed up over a cushion. That left innumerable short ends to curl in tiny tendrils about her forehead. Oddly enough, too, she had on a pink apron Betty had made out of the best breadth of a pink India lawn frock she had worn out. It had pretty pockets with a bow of the same. "Miss Doris Adams," exclaimed the young lieutenant. "I should have known you in a minute, although you are----" He paused and flushed, for Cary had said, "She isn't exactly handsome, but very sweet-looking with pretty, eager eyes and fair hair." He checked himself suddenly, understanding the impropriety of paying her the compliment on the end of his tongue, but he thought her an enchanting picture. "You are larger than I supposed. Adams always said 'My little cousin.'" "I was little when I first came. And I have grown ever so much this summer--since Cary went away. Oh, have you seen him? How is he? Where is he?" Doris had a soft and curiously musical voice, the sound that lingered with a sort of cadence. Her eyes shone in eager expectation, her curved red lips were dewy sweet. "He is well. He has sailed on the _United States_ as midshipman. I saw him at Annapolis--indeed, we came quite near being on the same vessel. He is a fine young fellow, but he doesn't look a day over eighteen. And there _is_ a family resemblance," but he thought Doris would make a much handsomer young woman than Cary would a young man. "And I have a small packet for you that I was to deliver to no one else." He held it out to her with a smile. It was sealed, and was also secured with a bit of cord, which, of course, should have been a thread of silk, but we saved our refinements of chivalry for other purposes. "He is going to make a fine, earnest, patriotic sailor. You will never hear anything about him that you need be ashamed of. He told me his father wasn't quite reconciled to the step, but after this splendid victory in Boston harbor--to strain a little point," laughingly, "the town may well be proud of the courageous navy. And I hope you will hear good news of him. One thing you may be sure of--he will never show the white feather." Oh, how her eyes glistened! There were tears in them as well. "He described the house to me, and the town. I have never been in Boston before, and have come from Washington on important business. I return this evening. I don't know when I shall see him again, and letters to vessels are so uncertain. That seems the hardest part of it all. But he may happen in this very port before a great while. One never knows. Believe that I am very glad to have the opportunity of coming myself, and if in the future I should run across him on the high seas or the shore even,"--smiling again,--"I shall feel better acquainted and more than ever interested in him. There is one great favor I should like to ask--could you show me the study? Adams talked so much about that and his father." "It is here." Doris made a pretty gesture with her hand, and he walked to the door, glancing around. There was the high backed chair by the table with its covering of Cordovan leather, and he could imagine the father sitting there. "One would want a year to journey around these four walls," he said with a soft sigh. "A library like this is an uncommon sight. And you study here? Adams said you had been such a comfort and pleasure to his father. Oh, what a magnificent cat!" "Kitty is mine," said Doris. She crossed over to the window, and Solomon rose to his fullest extent, gave a comfortable stretch, and rubbed the cheek of his young mistress, then arched his back, studied the visitor out of sleepy green eyes and began to turn around him three times in cat fashion. They both laughed at that. Did Doris know what a pretty picture she made of herself in her girlish grace? "Thank you. What a splendid old hall! I should like to spend a day looking round. But I had only the briefest while, and I was afraid I should not get here. So I must be satisfied with my glimpse. I shall hope that fate will send me this way again when I have more leisure. May I pay a visit here?" "Oh, yes," returned Doris impulsively. "And I can never tell you how glad I am for this," touching the little packet caressingly to her cheek. "There isn't any word with enough thanks and gratitude in it." "I am glad to have earned your gratitude. And now I must say farewell, for I know you are impatient to read your letter." He stepped out on the porch and bowed with a kind of courtly grace. Doris realized then that he was a very handsome young man. "Miss Doris,"--he paused halfway down the steps,--"I wonder if I might be so bold as to ask for yonder rose--the last on its parent stem?" Thomas Moore had not yet immortalized "The Last Rose of Summer" and given it such pathetic possibilities. "Oh, yes," she said. "That is a late-blooming rose--indeed, it blooms twice in the season." Only this morning she had gathered a bowl of rose leaves for Miss Recompense, and this one had opened since. She broke the stem and handed it to him. "It is a very little gift for all you have brought me," she added in a soft, heart-felt tone. "Thank you. I shall cherish it sacredly." Miss Recompense had hurried and donned a gingham gown and a fresh cap. She had come just in time to see the gift, and the manner in which the young man received it alarmed her. And when he had walked down to the street he turned and bowed and made a farewell gesture with his hand. Doris had nothing to cut the cord around the packet, so she bit it with her pretty teeth and tore off the wrapper, coming up the steps. Then raising her eyes she sprang forward. "Oh, dear Miss Recompense, letters, see! A letter from Cary all to myself, and one for Uncle Win! I'll just put that on his table to be a joyful surprise. And may I come and read mine to you? He was in such a hurry, though really I did not ask him to stay. Was that impolite?" "No--under the circumstances." She cleared her throat a little, but the lecture on propriety would not materialize. "'Dear little Doris.' Think of that--wouldn't Cary be surprised to see how much I have grown! May I sit here?" Miss Recompense was about to decant some of her preparations. Doris took the high stool and read eagerly, though now and then a little break came in her voice. The journey to Annapolis with half a dozen college chums bent on the same errand, the being mustered into the country's service and assigned to positions, meeting famous people and hearing some thrilling news, and at last the order for sailing, were vivid as a picture. She was to let Madam Royall and the household read all this, and he sent respectful regard to them all, and real love to all the Leveretts. There had been moments when he was wild to see them again, but after all he was prouder than ever to be of service to his country, who needed her bravest sons as much now as in her seven years' struggle. There was a loose page beginning "For your eyes alone, Doris," and she laid it by, for she felt even now that she wanted to cry over her brave cousin. Then he spoke of Lieutenant Hawthorne, who had been instrumental in getting him his appointment, and who had undertaken to see that this would reach her safely. And so many farewells, as if he could hardly say the very last one. Miss Recompense wiped her eyes and stepped about softly, as if her whole body was pervaded with a new tenderness. She made little comments to restore the equilibrium, so that neither would give way to undue emotion. "Miss Recompense, do you think I might run up to Aunt Elizabeth's with my letter? They will all want to hear." "Why--I see no objections, child. And then if you wanted to go to Madam Royall's--but I think they will keep you to tea at Sudbury Street. Let Betty or Warren walk home with you. Take off your apron." Doris read half a dozen lines of her own personal letter and laid it in the bottom of her workbox, that had come from India, and had a subtle fragrance. She did not want to cry in real earnest, as she felt she should, with all these references to Uncle Win. She tied on her hat and said "Good-afternoon," and really did run part of the way. They were just overflowing with joy to hear, only Betty said, "What a shame Cary had to go before the glorious news of the _Constitution_! There was a chance of two days after he had written his letter, so he might have heard." Postage was high at that time and mails uncertain, so letters and important matters were often trusted to private hands. Then Lieutenant Hawthorne had not gone to Boston as soon as he expected. Betty had some news too. Mr. and Mrs. King were going to Washington, perhaps for the greater part of the winter. As they walked home Betty rehearsed her perplexities to Doris. It was odd how many matters were confided to this girl of thirteen, but she seemed so wise and sensible and sympathetic. "If it wasn't quite such hard times, and if Warren could marry and bring Mercy home! She's an excellent housekeeper, just the wife for a struggling young man, mother admits. But whether _she_ would like it, and whether Aunt Priscilla would feel comfortable, are the great questions. She's been so good to Warren. Mary badgered him dreadfully about her part. If Mary was a little more like Electa!" Warren had been keeping company with Mercy Gilman for the last year. She was a bright, cheerful, industrious girl, well brought up, and the engagement was acceptable to both families. Young people paid more deference to their elders then. Warren felt that he could not go away from home, and surely there was room enough if they could all agree. "It's odd how many splendid things come to Electa, though it may be because she is always willing to take advantage of them. They have rented their house in New York and are to take some rooms in Washington. Bessy and Leverett are to be put in school, and she takes the two little ones. Their meals are to be sent in from a cook shop. Of course she can't be very gay, being in mourning. Everybody says Mrs. Madison is so charming." "Oh, I wish you could go," sighed Doris. "And Mary is always wondering why I do not come and stay with her, and sew and help along. Oh, Doris, what if I should be the old maid aunt and go visiting round! For there hasn't a soul asked me to keep company yet," and Betty laughed. But she was not very anxious on the subject. They reached the corner and kissed each other good-night. Miss Recompense sat on the stoop with a little shawl about her shoulders. She drew Doris down beside her and inquired about her visit. While there was much that was stern and hard and reticent in the Puritan character, there was also an innate delicacy concerning the inward life. They made few appeals to each other's sympathies. Perhaps this very reserve gave them strength to endure trials heroically and not burden others. Miss Recompense had judged wisely that Mr. Adams would prefer to receive his missive alone. His first remark had been the usual question: "Where is Doris?" "Oh, we have had quite an adventure--a call from a young naval officer. Here is his card. He brought letters to you and Doris, and she was eager to take hers over to Betty. She will stay to supper." He scrutinized the card while his breath came in strangling gasps, but he preserved his composure outwardly. "Did you--did he----" pausing confusedly. "I did not see him," returned Miss Recompense quietly. "I was not in company trim, and he asked for Doris. I dare say he thought her a young lady." "Is he staying in Boston?" fingering the card irresolutely. "He was to return to Washington at once. He had come on some urgent business." Mr. Adams went through to his study. He looked at the address some moments before he broke the seal, but he found the first lines reassuring. "Will you have supper now?" asked Miss Recompense from the doorway. "If convenient, yes." He laid down his letter and came out in the hall. "Doris told you all her news, I suppose?" "She read me her letter. Cary seems to be in good spirits and position. He spoke very highly of Lieutenant Hawthorne." "The accounts seem very satisfactory." Then they went out to the quiet supper. A meal was not the same without Doris. All the evening he had remained in his room, reading his son's letter more than once and lapsing into deep thought over it. He heard the greetings now, and came out, inquiring after the folks in Sudbury Street, sitting down on the step and listening with evident pleasure to Doris' eager chat. It was bedtime when they dispersed. "Uncle Win," Doris said the next morning, "there is a page in my letter I would like you to read. And do you think I might go home with Eudora and take dinner at Madam Royall's? Cary sent them some messages." "Yes, child," he made answer. They were indeed very glad, but like Betty they could not help wishing he had been on the famous _Constitution_. Alice was particularly interested, and said she should watch the career of the _United States_. After that the ice seemed broken and no one hesitated to mention Cary. But Mr. Winthrop said to Doris: "My dear child, will you give me this leaf of your letter. I know Cary did not mean it for my eyes, but it is very precious to me. Doris, how comes it that you find the way to everybody's heart?" "And you will forgive him, Uncle Win? He was so brave----" Her voice trembled. "I have forgiven him, Doris. If I should never see him again,--you are young and most likely will,--assure him there never was a moment that I ceased to love him. Perhaps I have not taken as much pains to understand him as I might have. I suppose different influences act upon the new generation. If we should both live to welcome him back----" "Oh, we must, Uncle Win." "If he has you----" Oh, what was he saying? "You will both have me. I shall stay here always." He stooped and kissed her. The other alternative, that Cary might not return, they banished resolutely. But it drew them nearer together in unspoken sympathy. Everybody noted how thin and frail-looking Mr. Adams had grown. Doris became his constant companion. She had a well-trained horse now, and they rode a good deal. Or they walked down Washington street, where there were some pretty shops, and met promenaders. They sauntered about Cornhill, where Uncle Win picked up now and then an odd book, and they discovered strange things that had belonged to the Old Boston of a hundred years agone. There was quite an art gallery in Cornhill kept by Dogget & Williams--the nucleus of great things to come. It was quite the fashion for young ladies to drop in and exercise their powers of budding criticism or love of art. Now and then someone lent a portrait of Smibert's or Copley's, or you found some fine German or English engravings. An elder person generally accompanied the younger people. The law students, released from their labors, or the young society men, would walk home beside the chaperone, but talk to the maidens. Then Uncle Winthrop committed a piece of great extravagance, everybody said--especially in such times as these, when the British might take and destroy Boston. This was buying a pianoforte. Madam Royall approved, for Doris was learning to play very nicely. An old German musician, Gottlieb Graupner, who was quite a visitor at the Royall house, had imported it for a friend who had been nearly ruined by war troubles and was compelled to part with it. Mr. Graupner and a knot of musical friends used to meet Saturday evenings in old Pond Street, and with a few instruments made a sort of orchestra. As a very great favor, friends were occasionally invited in. There was a new organist at Trinity Church, a Mr. Jackson, who was trying to bring in the higher class cathedral music. The choir of Park Street Church, some fifty in number, was considered one of the great successes of the day, and people flocked to hear it. Puritan music had been rather doleful and depressing. There was quite a discussion as to where the piano should stand. They had very little call to use the parlor in winter. Uncle Winthrop's friends generally visited him in the study. The spacious hall was the ordinary living-room, and Doris begged that it might be kept here--for the winter, at least. Oh, what a cheerful sound the music made in the old house! Uncle Win would bring out a book of poems, often Milton's "L'Allegro" and half read, half listen, to the entrancing combination. Dinah declared "It was like de w'ice ob de Angel Gabriel hisself." Miss Recompense enjoyed the grand old hymns that brought back her childhood. Solomon at first made a vigorous protest. He seemed jealous of the pretty fingers gliding over the keys, and would spring up to cover them or rest on her arms. But when he found he was banished to the kitchen every evening, he began to consider and presently gave in. He would sit beside Uncle Win in dignified protest, looking very "dour," as a Scotchman would say. And then the country was electrified with the news of another great victory. Off the Canary Islands, Captain Decatur, with the frigate _United States_, met the _Macedonian_, one of the finest of the British fleet. The fight had been at close quarters with terrific broadsides. After an hour and a half, with her fighting force disabled, the _Macedonian_ struck her colors. Her loss in men killed and wounded was over one hundred, and the _United States_ lost five killed and seven wounded. The American vessel brought her prize and prisoners into port amid general acclaim. The _Macedonian_ was repaired and added to the fast-increasing navy, that was rapidly winning a world-wide reputation. And when she came up to New York early in January with "The compliments of the season," there was great rejoicing. Samuel Woodworth, printer and poet, wrote the song of the occasion, and Calvert, another poet, celebrated the event in an ode. Captain Carden was severely censured by his own government, as Captain Dacres had been, for not going down with flying colors instead of allowing his flag to be captured and his ship turned to the enemy's advantage. Instead of jeering at the navy of "pine boards and striped bunting," it was claimed the American vessels were of superior size and armament and met the British at unfair advantage, and that they were largely manned by English sailors. There was an enthusiastic note from Cary. He was well, and it had been a glorious action. Captain Carden had been a brave gentleman, and he said regretfully, "Oh, why do we have to fight these heroic men!" But Betty had the letter of triumph this time. Mrs. King was a delightful correspondent, though she was always imploring Betty to join her. There had been a ball and reception given to several naval officers who were soon to go away. The President, engaged with some weighty affairs, had not come in yet, but the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Hamilton, and no end of military and naval men, in gold lace and epaulettes and gleaming swords, were present, and beautiful, enthusiastic women in shimmering silks and laces. One did not have to get a new gown for every occasion in those days. There was a little lull in the dancing. Mrs. Madison, who was charmingly affable, was seated with a group of men about her, when there was a stir in the hall, and a sudden thrill of expectancy quivered through the apartment. Ensign Hamilton, son of the Secretary, and several midshipmen entered, and the young man went straight to his father with the captured flag of the _Macedonian_. Such a cheer as rent the air! Ladies wiped their eyes and then waved their handkerchiefs in the wild burst of joy. They held the flag over the heads of the chief officer while the band played "Hail, Columbia!" Then it was laid at the feet of Mrs. Madison, who accepted it in the name of the country with a charming and graceful speech. Afterward it was festooned on the wall with the flag of the _Guerriere_. "So, you see, Cary has been the hero of a great victory," said Betty enthusiastically; "but we all wish it had been 'off Boston Light' instead of on the distant ocean. And it is a shame not to be in Washington. Electa seems to be going everywhere and seeing everything, 'in spite of her being the mother of four children,' as Aunt Priscilla says. And the ladies dress so beautifully. We shall come to be known as 'plain Boston' presently." There was no Worth or Pingat to charge enormous prices. Patterns were passed around. Ladies went visiting and took their sleeves along to make, or their ruffles to plait, and altered over their brocades and paduasoys and crapes, and some darned Brussels "footing" until it was transformed into really handsome lace. They could clean their feathers and ribbons, and one wonders how they found time for so many things. They were very good letter writers too. Dolly Madison and Mrs. Adams are fresh and interesting to-day. But Boston could rejoice, nevertheless. To the little girl Cary was invested with the attributes of a hero. He even looked different to her enchanted eyes. Uncle Win used to smile with grave softness when she chattered about him. At first it had given him a heartache to hear Cary's name mentioned, but now it was like a strain of comforting music. Only he wondered how he ever would have lived without the little girl from Old Boston. She used to play and sing "Hail, Columbia!"--for people were patriotic then. But the sweetest of all were the old-fashioned ones that his wife had sung as a young girl, daintily tender love songs. Sometimes he tried them with her, but his voice sounded to himself like a pale ghost out of the past, yet it still had a mournful sweetness. But with the rejoicing we had many sorrows. Our northern frontier warfare had been full of defeats; 1813 opened with various misfortunes. Ports were blockaded, business dropped lower and lower. Still social life went on, and in a tentative way intellectual life was making some progress. The drama was not neglected either. The old Boston Theater gave several stirring representations that to-day would be called quite realistic. One was the capture of the _Guerriere_ with officers, sailors and marines, and songs that aroused drooping patriotism. Perhaps the young people of that time enjoyed it as much as their grandchildren did "H. M. S. Pinafore." Doris liked the rare musical entertainments. People grew quite used to seeing Mr. Winthrop Adams with the pretty, bright, growing girl, who might have been his daughter. It was a delight to her when anyone made the mistake. Occasionally an old gentleman remembered her grandfather, and the little boy Charles who went to England. Then in the early summer Mrs. King came on for a visit, and brought her eldest child Bessy, a bright, well-trained little girl. There had been a good deal of trouble at the Mannings', and grandmother had gone back and forth, making it very confining for Betty. Crops had proved poor in the autumn; the children had the measles and Mrs. Manning a run of fever. Elizabeth had taken a cold in the early fall and had a troublesome cough all winter. Mrs. Leverett wanted to bring her home for a rest, but Mrs. Manning could not spare her, with all the summer work, and the warm weather would set her up, she was quite sure. The country was drawing a brief breath of relief. There had been the magnificent victories on the Lakes and some on the land, and now and then came cheering news of naval successes. Everybody was in better spirits. Mrs. King seemed to bring a waft of hope from the Capital itself, and the Leverett house was quite enlivened with callers. Invitations came in for dinners and suppers and evening parties. Madam Royall quite claimed her on the strength of the Adams relation, and also Doris, who was such a favorite. Doris and little Bessy fraternized at once, and practiced a duet for the entertainment of Uncle Winthrop, who praised them warmly. She planned to take Betty back to New York with her. "But I can't go," declared Betty. "Warren must not be taxed any more heavily, so there would be no hope of having help, and mother cannot be left alone." "Is there any objection to Mercy coming? Why doesn't Warren marry? That would relieve you all. I suppose it _is_ best for young people to have a home by themselves, but if it isn't possible--and I'd like to know how we are going to get along in heaven if we can't agree with each other here on earth!" Mrs. King inquired. "That sounds like father," said Betty laughingly, yet the tears came to her eyes. "Poor father! He did not suppose we would have such hard times. If the war would only end. You see,"--after a pause,--"we are not quite sure of Aunt Priscilla. She's changed and softened wonderfully, and she and mother get along so well. She insisted upon paying a generous board, and she was good to Warren." "I must talk it over with mother. There is no need of having your life spoiled, Betty." For Betty was a very well-looking girl, arch and vivacious, and her harvest time of youth must not be wasted. Mrs. King was really glad she had no entanglement. Mrs. Leverett had no objections to a speedy marriage If Mercy could be content. Warren had thought if he could be prosperous he would like to buy out Betty's share if she married. "And my share will be mine as long as I live," added the mother. "But Warren is fond of the old house, and Hollis has a home of his own. You girls will never want it." Warren was delighted with what he called "Lecty's spunk." For Aunt Priscilla agreed quite readily. It was dull for Betty with two old people. Mercy would have her husband. So the wedding day was appointed. Mercy had been a year getting ready. Girls began soon after they were engaged. Mrs. Gilman was rather afraid the thing wouldn't work, but she was sure Mercy was good tempered, and she had been a good daughter. They made quite a "turning round." Mrs. Leverett went upstairs to Betty's room, which adjoined Aunt Priscilla's, and she gave some of her furniture for the adornment of the bridal chamber. It was a very quiet wedding with a few friends and a supper. At nine o'clock the new wife went to Sudbury Street. Mrs. Gilman had some rather strict ideas, and declared it was no time for frolicking when war was at our very door, and no one knew what might happen, and hundreds of families were in pinching want. Mercy was up the next morning betimes and assisted her new mother with the breakfast. Warren went down to his shop. But they had quite an elaborate tea drinking at the Leveretts', and some songs and games in the evening. Mercy _did_ enjoy the wider life. Mrs. Manning had come in for the wedding and a few days' stay, though she didn't see how she could be spared just now, and things would get dreadfully behindhand. Mrs. King was to go home with her and make a little visit. Bessy thought she would rather stay with Doris, and she was captivated with the Royall House and Eudora. The children never seemed in the way of the grown people there, and if elderly men talked politics and city improvements,--quite visionary, some thought them,--the young people with Alice and Helen had the garden walks and the wide porch, and discussed the enjoyments of the time with the zest of enthusiastic inexperience but keen delight. CHAPTER XXI ELIZABETH AND--PEACE Mrs. King brought back Elizabeth Manning, a pale, slim ghost of a girl, tall for her age--indeed, really grown up, her mother said. Of the three girls Bessy King had the most indications of the traditional country girl. A fine clear skin, pink cheeks and a plump figure, and an inexhausible flow of spirits, ready for any fun or frolic. Doris was always well, but she had the Adams complexion, which was rather pale, with color when she was warm, or enthusiastic or indignant. The pink came and went like a swift summer cloud. "I do declare," exclaimed Aunt Priscilla, "if 'Lecty King doesn't beat all about getting what she wants, and making other people believe they want it, too! Warren might as well have been married in the winter, and Mercy would have been company for Betty. She never liked to run out and leave me alone. Mercy seems a nice, promising body, and Warren might as well be happy and settled as not. And 'Lecty's been to Washington and dined with the President and Mrs. Madison, and I'll venture to say there was something the President's wife consulted her about. And all the big captains and generals, and what not! And here's the quality of Boston running after her and asking her out just as if we had nothing to feed her on at home. She don't do anything, fursisee, but just look smiling and talk. But my opinion is that Elizabeth Manning hasn't a very long journey to the graveyard. I don't see what Mary's been thinking about." Mrs. King took her niece to Dr. Jackson, one of the best medical authorities of that day, and he looked the young girl over with his keen eyes. "If you want the real truth," said the doctor, "she has had too much east wind and too much hard work. The children of this generation are not going to stand what their mothers did. A bad cold or two next winter will finish her, but with care and no undue exposure she may live several years. But she will never reach the three score and ten that every human being has a right to." Uncle Winthrop sent the carriage around every day to the Leveretts'. They had given up theirs before Mr. Leverett's death. He and Doris took their morning horseback rides and scoured the beautiful country places for miles around, until Doris knew every magnificent tree or unusual shrub or queer old house and its history. These hours were a great delight to him. Elizabeth had often gone down to Salem town, but her time was so brief and there was so much to do that she "couldn't bother." And she wondered how Doris knew about the shops in Essex Street and Federal Street and Miss Rust's pretty millinery show, and Mr. John Innes' delicate French rolls and braided bread, and Molly Saunders' gingerbread that the school children devoured, and the old Forrester House with its legends and fine old pictures and the lovely gardens, the wharves with their idle fleets that dared not put out to sea for fear of being swallowed up by the enemy. Uncle Winthrop had taken her several times when some business had called him thither. But, truth to tell, she had never cared to repeat her visit to Mrs. Manning's. The piano was like a bit of heaven, Elizabeth thought, the first time she came over to visit Doris. "Oh," she said, with a long sigh, pressing her hand on her heart, for the deep breaths always hurt her, "if I was only prepared to go to heaven I shouldn't want to stay here a day longer. When they sing about 'eternal rest' it seems such a lovely thing, and to 'lay your burdens down.' But then there's 'the terrors of the law,' and the 'judgments to come,' and the great searching of the hearts and reins--do you know just what the reins are?" No, Doris didn't. Heaven had always seemed a lovely place to her and God like a father, only grander and tenderer than any human father could be. Then they talked about praying, and it came out that Doris said her mother's prayers still in French and her father's in English. "Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, horrified, "I shouldn't dare to pray to God in French--it would seem like a mockery. And 'Now I lay me down to sleep' is just a baby prayer, and really isn't pouring out your own soul to God." Doris asked Uncle Winthrop about it. "My child," he said with grave sweetness, "you can never say any better prayers of your own. The Saviour himself gave us the comprehensive Lord's Prayer. And are all the nations of the earth who cannot pray in English offering God vain petitions? You will find as you grow older that no earnest soul ever worships God in vain, and that religion is a life-long work. I am learning something new about it every day. And I think God means us to be happy here on earth. He doesn't save all the joys for heaven. He has given me one," and he stooped and kissed Doris on the forehead. "Poor Elizabeth," he added--"make her as happy as you can!" When Mrs. King proposed to take Betty to New York for the whole of the coming winter there was consternation, but no one could find a valid objection. It was a somewhat expensive journey, and winter was a very enjoyable season in the city. Then another year something new might happen to prevent--there was no time like the present. No one had the courage to object, though they did not know how to spare her. Aunt Priscilla sighed and brought out some beautiful long-laid-away articles that Electa declared would make over admirably. "Where do you suppose Aunt Priscilla picked up all these elegant things?" asked Electa. "I never remember seeing her wear them, though she always dressed well, but severely plain. And Uncle Perkins was quite strict about the pomps and vanities of the world." And so Aunt Priscilla put away the last of her idols and the life she had coveted and never had. But perhaps the best of all was her consideration for others, the certainty that it was quite as well to begin some of the virtues of the heavenly world here on earth that they might not seem strange to one. Mrs. Manning sent in for Elizabeth. "Well--you do seem like a different girl," her father declared, looking her over from head to foot. "You've had a good rest now, and you'll have to turn in strong and hearty, for Sarah's gone, and Ruth isn't big enough to take hold of everything. So hunt up your things while I'm doing some trading." Elizabeth only had time for the very briefest farewells. Mrs. King sent a little note containing the doctor's verdict, but Mrs. Manning was indignant rather than alarmed. It was lonesome when they were all gone. Eudora Chapman went to a "finishing school" this autumn, and Doris accompanied her--poor Doris, who had not mastered fractions, and whose written arithmetic could not compare with Betty's. She had achieved a pair of stockings after infinite labor and trouble. They _did_ look rowy, being knit tighter and looser. But Aunt Priscilla gave her a pair of fine merino that she had kept from the ravages of the moths. Miss Recompense declared that she had no one else to knit for. There were expert knitters who made beautiful silk stockings, and Uncle Winthrop said buying helped along trade, so why should Doris worry when there were so many more important matters? The little girl and her uncle kept track of what was going on in the great world. Napoleon the invincible had been driven back from Russia by cold and famine, forced to yield by the great coalition and losing step by step until he was compelled to accept banishment. Then England redoubled her efforts, prepared to carry on the war with us vigorously. Towns on the Chesapeake were plundered and burned, and General Ross entered Washington, from which Congress and the President's family had fled for their lives. America was again horror stricken, but gathering all her energies she made such a vigorous defense as to convince her antagonist that though cast down she could never be wholly defeated. But this attack gave us the inspiration of one of our finest deathless songs. A Mr. Francis S. Key, a resident of Georgetown, had gone down from Baltimore with a flag of truce to procure the release of a friend held as prisoner of war, when the bombardment of Fort McHenry began. All day long he watched the flag as it floated above the ramparts. Night came on and it was still there. And at midnight he could see it only by "the rockets' red glare," while he and his friends tremulously inquired if the "flag still waved o'er the Land of the Free." Oh, what joy must have been his when it "caught the gleam of the morning's first beam." He had put the night watch and the dawn in a song that is still an inspiration. And now convinced, the enemy withdrew. There were talks of peace, though we did not abate our energies. And the indications of a settlement brought about another wedding at the Royall house. Miss Alice had been a great favorite with the young men, and her ardent patriotism had inspired more than one, as it had Cary Adams, with a desire to rush to his country's defense. There were admirers too, but most of them had been kept at an intangible distance. At last she had yielded to the eloquence of young Oliver Sargent, who was in every way acceptable. Grandmother Royall expected to give her an elegant wedding along in the winter. The Government was to send out another commissioner to consult with those already at Ghent, and Mr. Sargent had been offered the post of private secretary. He was to sail from New York, but he obtained leave to spend a few days in Boston to attend to some affairs. He went at once to Madam Royall and laid his plans before her. He wanted to marry Alice and take her with him, as he might be gone a long while. Alice was nothing loath, for the journey abroad was extremely tempting. But what could one do in such a few days? And wedding clothes---- "Save the wedding gear until we come back," said the impatient young lover. "Alice can get clothes enough abroad." It was quite a new departure in a wedding. Invitations were always sent out by hand, even for small evening parties, and often verbally given. A private marriage would not have suited old Madam Royall. So the house was crowded at eleven in the morning, and the bride came through the wide hall in a mulberry-colored satin gown and pelisse that had been made two weeks before for ordinary autumn wear. But her bonnet was white with long streamers, and her gloves were white, and she made a very attractive bride, while young Sargent was manly and looked proud enough for a king. At twelve they went away with no end of good wishes, and an old slipper was thrown after the carriage. Mrs. Morris Winslow had two babies, and was already growing stout. But the departure of Alice made a great break. "But it is the way of the world and the way of God that young people should marry," said Madam Royall. "I was very happy myself." "Oh," exclaimed Doris eagerly that evening, her eyes aglow and her cheeks pink with excitement--"oh, Uncle Win, do you think there will be peace?" "My little girl, it is my prayer day and night." "And then Cary will come home." It had been a long while since they had heard. Cary had been transferred from the _United States_, that had lain blockaded in a harbor many weary weeks. But where he was now no one could tell. People began to take heart though the fighting had not ceased. And it was odd that a dozen years before everybody had looked askance at dancing, and now no one hesitated to give a dancing party. The contra-dance and cotillions were all the rage. Sometimes there was great amusement when it was a draw dance, for then you had to accept your partner whether or no. Whole families went, grandmothers and grandchildren. There were cards and conversation circles for those who did not care to join the mazy whirls. And the suppers were quite elegant, with brilliant lamps and flowers, plate and glass that had come through generations. Fruits and melons were preserved as long as possible, and a Turkish band in fine Oriental costume was often a feature of the entertainment. Doris had charming letters from Betty, a little stilted we should call them now, but very interesting. Mr. King was confident of peace. Doris used to read them to Aunt Priscilla, who said Betty was very frivolous, but that she always had a good time, and perhaps good times were not as wicked as people used to think. Mrs. Leverett went to Salem in November. Her namesake had taken a cold and had some fever, and she asked for grandmother continually. Mercy did finely at housekeeping, and so the weeks ran along, the invalid being better, then worse, and just before Christmas the frail little life floated out to the Land of Rest. "Oh, poor little Elizabeth!" cried Doris. "If she could have been real happy! But there never seemed any time. Uncle Win, they are not so poor that they have to work so hard, are they?" "No, dear. Mr. Manning has money out at interest, besides his handsome farm. But a great many people think there is solid virtue in working and saving. I suppose it makes them happy." Doris was puzzled. She said the same thing to Aunt Priscilla, who took off her glasses, rubbed them with a bit of old silk and wiped the tears out of her eyes. "I think we haven't had quite the right end of it," she began after a pause. "I was brought up that way. But then people had to spin and weave for themselves, and help the men with the out-of-doors work. The children dropped corn, and potatoes, and there was always weeding. There was so much spring work and fall work, and folks couldn't be comfortable if they saw a child playing 'cat's cradle.' They did think Satan was going about continually to catch up idle hands. Well maybe if I'd had children I'd 'a' done the same way." "Oh, you wouldn't, Aunt Priscilla, I know," said Doris with the sweetest faith shining in her eyes. "Elizabeth thought you such a comfortable old lady. She said you never worried at anyone." "That is because I have come to believe the worrying wrong. The Lord didn't worry at people. He told them what to do and then he let them alone. And Foster Leverett was about the best man I ever knew. He didn't even worry when times were so bad. Everybody said his children would be spoiled. They were out sledding and sliding and skating, and playing tag in summer. They've made nice men and women." "Oh, I remember how friendly he looked that day he came on the vessel. And how he said to Captain Grier, 'Is there a little girl for me that has come from Old Boston?' He might have said something else, you know. 'A little girl for me' was such a sweet welcome, I have never forgotten it." "Yes--I was here the night you came. We had been waiting. And the red cloak and big bonnet with the great bow under your chin, and a silk frock----" "Did I look very queer?" Doris laughed softly. "You looked like a picture, though that wan't my idea of what children should be." "Miss Recompense has them put away to keep. I outgrew them, you know. What would you have done with me?" Aunt Priscilla's pale face wrinkled up and then smoothed out. "I've come to the conclusion the Lord knows his business best and is capable of attending to it. When we meddle we make a rather poor fist of it. Betty has a lot of morning-glories out there," nodding her head, "and I said to her 'They're poor frail things: why not put out a hop vine or red beans? They can't stand a bit of sun, like Jonah's gourd.' But she only laughed--her father had that way when he didn't want to argue. When they came to bloom they were sights to behold, like the early morning when the sun is rising, and you see such beautiful colors. They used to nod to each other and swing back and forth, like people coming to call, then they said good-by and were off. The Lord meant 'em just to look pretty and they did." "Uncle Win likes them so much. Miss Recompense had a whole lattice full of them. Oh, did you mean I was like a morning glory? Haven't I some other uses?" "You're always fresh and blossoming every day. That's a use. You come in with a little greeting that warms one's heart. You were a great delight to Uncle Leverett, and I don't know what Uncle Winthrop would have done without you, Cary being away. And how Solomon took to you, when he was awful shy of strangers! He must have liked you uncommon to be willing to stay in a strange place, for cats cannot bear to be moved about. Maybe 'twould been the same if you had not been so pretty to look at, but the Lord made you the way he wanted you, and you haven't spoiled yourself a bit." Doris blushed. Compliments were quite a new thing with Aunt Priscilla. "What would you have done with me?" Doris asked again, after a long pause. "You won't like to hear it. I ought to confess it because it was a sin, a sort of meddling with the Lord's plans. You see, I'd taken it in my head that someone would have to give you a home. It didn't seem as if that old ma'shland would be good for anything, and I knew your father wasn't rich. Winthrop Adams was one of the finicky kind and quite put about to know what to do with you. So I thought if there didn't any place open, for Elizabeth Leverett was quite wrapped up in her grandchildren, that"--hesitatingly--"when things were straightened out a bit, I'd offer----" "That would have been good of you----" "No, it wasn't goodness," interrupted Aunt Priscilla. "I thought I should want someone, with Polly getting old. I'd have expected you to work, though I'd have done the fair thing by you, and left you some money in the end. I was a little jealous when everybody took to you so. I was sure you'd be spoiled. And, though you've got that music thing and go among the quality, and are pretty as a pink, and Winthrop Adams thinks you a nonesuch, you come in here in plain everyday fashion and talk and read and make it sunshiny for everybody. So, you see, the Lord knew, and it is just as if he said, 'Priscilla Perkins, your way doesn't suit at all. There's something in the world besides work and saving money. There's room enough in the world for a hill of potatoes and a morning-glory made of silk and dew if it doesn't bloom but just one morning. It's a smile, and there are others to follow, and it is a thousand times better than frowns.'" "And if there had been no money, and I had wanted a home, would you have given me one?" she asked in a soft, tremulous tone. "Yes, child. And I couldn't have worked you quite like poor little Elizabeth was worked. I didn't think there _was_ so much money, or that that lady in England would have left you a legacy or that Winthrop Adams would come to believing that he couldn't live without you." "Then you were kind to have a plan about it, and I am glad to know it." She had been sitting on Aunt Priscilla's footstool, but she rose and twined her arms about the shrunken neck, and kissed the wrinkled forehead. She saw a homeless little girl going to sheltering care, with a kindly remembrance at the last. Someone else might have thought of the exactions. "You make the thing look better than it was," Aunt Priscilla cried with true humility. "But the Lord put you in the right place." She saw the mean and selfish desire, the wish to get rid of a faithful old woman who might prove a burden. It was a sin like the finery she had longed for and bought and laid away. She had not worn the finery, she had not sent away the poor black soul, she had not been a hard taskmistress to the child, but early training had added the weight of possible sins to the actual ones. Christmas morning Doris was surprised by a lovely gift. In a small box by her plate, with best wishes from Uncle Winthrop, lay a watch and chain, a dainty thing with just "Doris" on the plain space in the center that overlay another name that had once been there. It had undergone some renovation at the jeweler's hands, after lying untouched more than twenty years. Winthrop Adams had kept it for a possible granddaughter, but he knew now no one could cherish it more tenderly than Doris. January, 1815, came in. People counted the days. But it was not until the middle of February that Boston town was one morning electrified by the ringing of bells and the shouts of men and boys, who ran along the streets crying "Peace! Peace! Peace!" Windows were raised; people ran out, so eager were they. Of all glorious words ever uttered none fell with such music on the air. Could it be true? Uncle Winthrop put on his surtout with the great fur collar. Then he looked at Doris. "Wrap yourself up and come along," he said huskily. Already people were hanging flags out of the windows and stringing them across the streets. Every sled and sleigh had some sort of banner, if nothing more than white or brown paper with the five welcome letters, and everybody was shouting. Some men were carrying high banners with the words in blue or red on a white ground. When they came to State Street it was impassable. Cornhill was jammed. The _Evening Gazette_ office had the announcement, thirty-two hours from New York (there was no telegraph or railroad train then): "Sir: I hasten to acquaint you for the information of the public of the arrival here this afternoon of H. Br. M. sloop of war _Favorite_, in which has come passenger Mr. Carroll, American Messenger, having in his possession A Treaty of Peace." They passed that word from the nearest, standing by the bulletin, to the farther circles, and in five minutes the crowd knew it by heart. On the Commons the drums were beating, the cannons firing, and people shouting themselves hoarse. Mr. Adams went around to the Royall house, and that looked like a hotel on a gala day, and was nearly as full of people. The treaty had been signed on Christmas Eve. The President had now to issue a decree suspending hostilities. But one of the most brilliant battles had been fought on the 8th of January at New Orleans, under General Jackson--a farewell shot. For a week no one could think or talk of anything else. Then the official accounts having been received from Washington, there were plans for a grand procession. An oratorio was given at the Stone Chapel in the morning. Madam Royall had managed to obtain seats for Mr. Winthrop and Doris with her party. The church was crowded. American and British officers in full uniform were side by side,--as happy to be at peace as the rulers themselves,--chatting cordially with each other. The State House was decorated with transparencies, and there were to be fireworks in the evening. The procession marched around the Common, with the different trades drawn on sleds. Printers struck off hand-bills with the word "Peace!" printed on them and distributed them among the crowd. The carpenters were erecting a Temple of Peace. The papermakers had long strips of red, white, and blue: every trade had hit upon some signification of the general joy. Uncle Win sent Cato round for Mercy and Warren Leverett to come to tea, and then they went out to see the illumination and the fireworks. Old Boston had suffered a great deal from the war, and her rejoicing was as broad as her sorrow had been deep. As if that was not enough, there was to be a grand Peace Ball. The gentry did not so often patronize public balls, but this was an exception. Uncle Winthrop procured a ticket for Warren and his wife. Mrs. Gilman was shocked, and Mercy like a modern woman declared she had nothing to wear. But Aunt Priscilla brought out her last remnant of gorgeousness, a gray satin that looked very youthful draped with sheer white. "I feel just as if I was going to be married over again," Mercy declared laughingly; and Warren said she had never looked so beautiful. Uncle Winthrop left Doris' adornments to Madam Royall and Mrs. Chapman. She and Eudora had the same kind of gowns--sheer, dotted muslin trimmed with rows of white satin ribbon, and the bodice with frills of lace and bows of ribbon. The hairdresser did her hair in a multitude of puffs and curls that made her look quite like a young lady. She was still very slim, but growing tall rapidly. In fact, as Uncle Winthrop looked at her he realized that she could not always remain a little girl. Concert Hall was brilliantly illuminated and decorated with flags and flowers. A platform surrounded the floor, and many people preferred to be spectators or just join in the march. There were some naval as well as military officers, and Doris kept a sharp watch, for it almost seemed as if she might come upon Cary. Oh, where would he hear the declaration of peace! The dancing was quite delightful to most of the young people. Even those who just walked about, looked happy, and little knots chatted and smiled, adding a certain interest to the scene. The supper was very fine, and after that many of the quality retired, leaving the floor to those who had come to dance. Doris looked bright the next morning as she came to breakfast in her blue flannel frock and lace tucker, and her hair tied up high with a red ribbon, which with her white skin "made the American colors," Helen Chapman said. "I am glad to get back my little girl," Uncle Winthrop exclaimed, as he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. "You looked strange to me last night. Doris, how tall you are growing!" in half-surprise. "That is an Adams trait, Aunt Priscilla would say. And do you remember that I am fifteen?" "Isn't there some way that girls can be set back?" he asked with feigned anxiety. "I've heard of their being set back after they reached thirty or forty," said Miss Recompense. "I don't want to wait so long," returned Uncle Winthrop with a smile. "There were some beautiful old ladies there last night," said Doris. "The one with black velvet and diamonds--Madam Bowdoin. Is that Aunt Priscilla's friend?" "I suppose so. Mr. Perkins was held in high esteem, and Aunt Priscilla used to go about in her carriage then." "And Madam Scott! Uncle Win, to think she was John Hancock's wife, and he signed the Declaration of Independence!" "And after that I wouldn't have married anybody," declared Miss Recompense with haughty stiffness. The enthusiasm did not die out at once. When men or women met they had to talk over the good news. Warren Leverett declared that business was reviving. Mercy told Uncle Winthrop that she had never expected to see so many famous people under such grand conditions as a Peace Ball, and that it would be something to talk about when she was an old lady. Aunt Priscilla listened to the accounts with deep interest. "And I looked like a real young lady," said Doris. "I was frightened when I came to think about it. I would like to stay a little girl for years and years. But I would not have missed the ball for anything. I do not believe there will ever be such a grand occasion again." CHAPTER XXII CARY ADAMS It took a good while in those days for the news of peace to go around the world. But there was a general reign of peace. The European countries had mostly settled their difficulties; there was royalty proper again on the throne of France. Napoleon swept through his hundred brilliant days, and was banished for life to the rocky isle of St. Helena; the young King of Rome was a virtual prisoner to Austria, and Russia and Prussia began to breathe freely once more. The United States had won a standing among the nations. Her indomitable courage, her successes against tremendous odds, had impressed Europe with her vitality and determination. One by one the ships came back to home ports. Mr. Adams and Doris watched and listened to every bit of news eagerly. The old apothecary's shop on Washington Street, to begin a famous history a decade later as "The Old Corner Bookstore," was even then a rendezvous for the news of the day. People paused going up and down, and each one added his bit to the general fund, or took with him the knowledge he was eagerly seeking. And when someone said, "Heard from your son yet, Mr. Adams?" he could only make a negative gesture. "If there isn't some word of Cary Adams soon, his father will never live to welcome him home," said Madam Royall to her daughter. "He grows thinner every day. What a perfect Godsend Doris has been!" Madam Royall was hale and hearty though she had lived through many sorrows. The coveted news came first from Betty. She had written a letter to send by a private messenger, and opened it to add this postscript: "Mr. Bowen is waiting for this letter. Mr. King has just come in with the news that two ships have arrived at Portsmouth. Among the officers is 'Lieutenant Cary Adams.' That is all we know." "Oh, Uncle Win!" Doris' eyes swam in tears of joy. "Read Betty's postscript." Then she ran out of the room and had a good cry by herself, though why anyone should want to cry over such joyful news she could not quite understand. Afterward she tied on her hat and ran over to Madam Royall's and then up to Sudbury Street. For in those days people were wont to say to their neighbors, "Come, rejoice with me!" When she returned home the house was very quiet. Solomon came and rubbed against her in mute inquiry. No one was in the study. She went out to the kitchen. "Don't disturb your uncle, Doris," said Miss Recompense. "The news quite overcame him. He has gone to lie down." After dinner she went out again for some lessons. Oh, how bright the world looked, though it was a day in later March, but the wind had a Southern softness. Soon the wild flowers would be out. There was a very interesting new study, botany, that the previous autumn had taken groups of girls out in the lanes and fields, and some had ventured to visit the Botanic Gardens at Harvard University. Doris was much interested in it. Uncle Winthrop came to supper, and Doris played and sang for him during the evening. For though Cary was the uppermost thought in both hearts, they could not talk about him. It was a tedious post journey from Washington to Boston. One had to possess one's soul in patience. But the letter came at length. Cary had to go to Washington, as there was some prize money and claims to be inquired into. He had handed in his resignation, and should hereafter be a private citizen of dear old Boston. There was much more that gladdened his father's heart and betrayed a manly spirit. Betty returned home, though Mrs. King declared she only lent her for a visit. She was very stylish now, and was studying French, for it might be possible that Mr. King would go abroad and take his wife and Betty. "I do wonder if you will ever settle down?" exclaimed Mrs. Leverett anxiously. That meant marriage and housekeeping. Betty laughed. "You know I have settled to be the old maid aunt," she returned. "But I am going to have a good young time first. And, mother, you can hardly realize what a fine, generous, broad-minded man Mat King has made." There were lovely odds and ends of attire, dainty slippers, long gloves that came to your very shoulders, vandyke capes of beautiful lace, buckles that looked like diamonds, ribbons and belts and sashes. Mercy said Betty could go down to Washington Street and open a fancy-goods store. And, oh, the delightful things she had seen and done, the skating parties in the winter, the sleigh rides when one stopped at a cozy, well-kept tavern and had a dainty supper and a dance. The drives down around the Battery and Bowling Green, and the promenades. There were still a good many military men in New York, but it had not suffered as much from the war as Boston. But Boston was growing beautiful by the hour, with her pretty private gardens and hundreds of fruit trees blooming everywhere, and the great Common where people went for walks on sunny afternoons. Miss Recompense had a gorgeous tulip bed and some lilies of the valley, which were quite a new thing. Cato trimmed and trained the roses and vines, and the old Adams house was quite a bower of beauty. One April afternoon Doris sat by the study window doing some lace work, while Solomon lay curled up on the sill. She kept glancing out. People were quite given to going around this corner to get into Common Street. She liked to see them. Now and then a friend nodded. Uncle Win had been reading aloud from "Jerusalem Delivered," but Doris thought it rather prosy, and strayed off into her own thoughts. A tall, soldierly fellow came up the street, looked, hesitated, opened the gate softly, and glanced down at the tulips. He was quite imposing as to figure, and his complexion was bronzed, the ends of his brown hair rather long and curling. He was in citizen clothes, and Doris wondered why she should think of Lieutenant Hawthorne. She had expected Cary in all the glory of a naval uniform--a slim, fair, boyish person with a light springy walk. It never could be Cary! "Oh, Uncle Win, quick!" as the step sounded on the porch. "It is--someone----" She was so little certain she could not utter a name. Uncle Winthrop went out, opened the door, and his son put his arms about the father's neck. If there had been need of words neither could have uttered them for many minutes. When Miss Recompense cleaned house a week or two before the piano had been moved into the parlor. The door stood open so that it could have the warmth of the hall fire. The two entered it when they had found their voices. "It _is_ Cary," thought Doris with a sense of disappointment, though why she could not have told. Half an hour afterward they came out to the study. "Oh, Doris!" Cary cried, "how you have changed and grown. I shouldn't have known you! I've been carrying about with me the remembrance of a little girl. In my mind you have been no taller, no older, and yet I might have known--why, we shall have to get acquainted all over again." Doris blushed. "I am sure I have not changed as much as you. I did not think it could be you." "Someone at Annapolis before we went out designated me as 'That consumptive-looking young fellow.' But I have grown strong and hearty, and no doubt I shall come to fourscore. I do not mean that it shall be all labor and sorrow, either." Then Cary made the rounds of the house. Miss Recompense was as much amazed as Doris had been. Cato and Dinah were overjoyed. He had hardly dared dream that nothing would be changed, that more than the old love would be given back. He had gone away a boy, nurtured in the restraints of wise Puritanism that made a lasting mark on New England character; he had come home a man of experience, of deeper thought, of higher understanding and stronger affection. He was proud that he had done his duty as a citizen of the republic, but he knew now that neither naval or military life was to his taste. Henceforth he was to be a son in the old home. Doris left them talking when she went to bed, a little hurt and jealous that she was no longer first, that she could not be all to Uncle Win. It gave her a kind of solitary feeling. The old house took on an aspect of intense interest. There was a continual going and coming and enough congratulations for a wedding feast. All Cary's friends vied with each other in warm welcomes, and Madam Royall claimed him with the old time cordiality. Was there any disappointment about Alice? He had a boy's thought the first few months about winning glory for her, of coming back to her, and perhaps laying his triumphs at her feet. But the real work, the anxieties, the solemn fact of taking one's life in one's hands and realizing how near death might be, had changed him month by month, until he had only one prayer left--that he might see his father again. If she was happy--she surely had her heart's choice--he was satisfied. They had never really been lovers. When the first excitement of welcome was over there were many things to think about. His interrupted career was one. Governor Gore had been chosen United States Senator the year before, but he still kept his office, and very kindly greeted the return of his student, offering him still greater advantages. Here the young Daniel Webster, a lad fresh from the country, had won the friendship of his master, and after a brief trial in New Hampshire had returned to Boston. Boston town began to experience the beneficent power of peace. Languishing industries revived. Commerce had been crippled by the war, but the inhabitants of New England had learned the value of their own ingenuity and industry to supply needs, and now they were roused to the fact there was an outside world to supply as well. Improvements started up on every side. There was even talk of transforming the town into a city. Indeed, it had never been a formally incorporated town. The Court of Assistants one hundred and seventy years before had changed the name from Tri-Mountain to Boston, and it had taken the privileges of a town. But there were many grave questions coming to the front. The family party at the Adams house this year seemed to include half of Boston. One by one the old relatives had dropped out. Some of the younger ones had gone to other cities. Madam Royall came over to be mistress of ceremonies. For besides the ovation to the returned lieutenant, Miss Doris Adams was to be presented as a full-fledged young lady, and she wore her pretty gown made for the Peace Ball, and pink roses. Miss Betty Leverett was quite a star as well. Miss Helen Chapman was engaged, and Eudora was a favorite with the young gentlemen. "I shall be so sorry when they are all gone," declared Madam Royall. "I do love young people, but I am afraid my fourth generation will not grow up in time for me to enjoy them. You must keep good watch over Doris lest some wolf enters the fold and carries off the sweet child." Uncle Win smiled and then looked grave. Doris carried off--oh, no, he could never spare her! Cary Adams had not forgotten how to dance, and every girl he asked was delighted with the opportunity. It seemed rather queer to Doris to accept or decline on her own responsibility. A week or two later, when they had settled to quite regular living, Cary came out and sat on the step one evening. "Doris," he began, "do you remember the letter I sent you by a Lieutenant Hawthorne--that first letter----" What a flood of remembrances it brought! "Oh, yes." She had begun to feel very much at home with Cary--his little sister, as he called her. "And I must tell you a queer thing--the day you came home--when I looked down the path--I thought of him. You had changed so. I don't know what sent him to my mind." "That was odd. He is in town. He called on me to-day. For the last year he has been Captain Hawthorne, and he is a splendid fellow. He has been sent to the Charlestown Navy Yard, and may be here the next three months, for now the Government is considering a navy. Well--we did some splendid fighting with the old ships. But oh, Doris, you can't imagine how homesick I was. I had half a mind to show the white feather and come home." "Oh, you couldn't have done it, Cary!" "No, I couldn't when it came to the pinch. But if I had gone with father's consent! I understood then what it would be never to see him again. I think I shall be a better son all my life for the lesson." "Yes," in her gentle approving fashion. "Hawthorne wants to come over here," Cary said presently. "I think my father would like him, though I notice he has an aversion to military or naval men. But I shall never go away again unless the country is in great danger." "I should like to see him. I wonder if he has changed as much as you?" "I think not," and Cary laughed. "He was twenty-four then, and sort of settled into manhood, while I was a rather green stripling." "You are losing some of the 'sea tan,' as Madam Royall calls it. I am glad of it. I like you best fair." "Captain Hawthorne is a very handsome man. I ought to feel flattered to be mistaken for him." "Is he?" returned Doris simply. "Don't you remember him?" "I remember that he asked me for a rose and I gave it to him. It was the last one on the bush. I was so glad to get the letter I couldn't think of anything else." So Cary brought him over to tea one afternoon. Doris noted then that he was extremely good-looking and very entertaining. Besides, he had a fine tenor voice and they sang songs together. Uncle Winthrop was troubled at first. Captain Hawthorne's enthusiasm for his profession was so ardent that Mr. Adams was alarmed lest it might turn Cary's thoughts seaward again. But he found presently that Cary's enlisting had been that of a patriotic, high-spirited boy, and that he had no real desire for the life. What a summer it was! Betty was over often, Eudora was enchanted with the Adams house, and there was a bevy of girls who brought their sewing and spent the afternoon on the stoop. Sometimes Uncle Win came out and read to them. There were several new English poets. A Lord Byron was writing the cantos of a beautiful and stirring poem entitled "Childe Harold" that abounded in fine descriptions. There were "The Lady ol the Lake" and "Marmion," and there was a queer Scotchy poet by the name of Burns, who had a dry wit--and few could master the tongue. A whole harvest of delight was coming over from England. There were so many curious and lovely places within a few hours sail or drive. Captain Hawthorne had spent most of his life in Maryland, and this scenery was new. They made up parties for the day, or Betty, Doris, and Uncle Winthrop and the captain went in a quartette. "I don't know," Uncle Win said one day with a grave shake of the head. "Do you not think I am rather an old fellow to go careering round with you young people?" "But, you see, someone would have to go," explained Doris. "Young ladies can't go out with a young man alone. It would have to be Aunt Elizabeth, or Mrs. Chapman, and I would so much rather have you. It's nice to be just by ourselves." "The captain seems to like Betty very much." "Indeed he does," answered Doris warmly. Occasionally Cary would get off and join them. But he was trying hard to catch up. He had gotten out of study habits, and some days he found it quite irksome, for he was fond of pleasure, and it seemed to him that Betty was extremely charming, and Doris quaint, and Eudora vivacious to the point of wit. One warm August afternoon he sat alone, having resolved to master a knotty point. What were the others doing? he wondered. There was a step, and he glanced up. "Oh," nodding to Captain Hawthorne, "I was just envying you and all the others, and wondering where you were on pleasure bound." "It was not pleasure, but hard work over at the yard to-day. However, I have the evening, and feel like inviting myself to partake of a cup of the comforting tea Miss Recompense brews." "Come along then. I have put in a good day and am conscience-clear." Cary began to pile up his books. "I have only about a fortnight more," Captain Hawthorne said slowly. Cary changed his coat and locked his desk. "Well?" as the caller was watching him earnestly. "Adams, do you mean--do you expect to marry your cousin?" Hawthorne asked abruptly. "My cousin? Betty or Doris?" "Doris." "Why--no, I never thought of it. And I have a sight of work to do before I marry." "Then--I suppose you never suspected such a thing--but I am in love with her." "In love with Doris! Why, she's just a child." "I dare say I shall have to serve seven years before I can get your father's consent. She will be older then. I was listening to a romantic story about an old house where a handsome girl leaned out of a window and her beauty attracted an English officer passing by, who said to himself that was the one woman for him, and long afterward he went back, found her, and married her." "A handsome Miss Sheafe. Yes." Cary smiled. "See here, Cary Adams." Hawthorne took a small leather case out of his pocket. Between two cards was a pressed rose. "When I took your packet to Miss Doris Adams almost four years ago, I gave it into the hands of the sweetest little girl I ever saw. If I had been less of a gentleman I must have kissed her. I espied one rose in the garden and asked her for it. This is the rose she gave me. I meant to come North and find her, and when I asked for leave of absence to visit Boston this business was put in my charge. Then I said, 'I will look up the little girl, who must be a large girl now, and woo her with the sincerest regard.' It shall go hard indeed with me if I cannot win her. But I have fancied of late that you----" "She is very dear to me and to my father. But I had not thought----" "Then I take my chances. As I said, I will wait for her. She is still very young, and I should feel conscience-smitten to rob your father. Sometime you may want to bring the woman you love to the old home, and then it will not be so hard. I could keep true to her the whole world over; and if she promises, she will keep true to me." Cary Adams was deeply moved. Such devotion ought to win a reward. How blind he and his father had been, thinking of Betty Leverett. Oh, how could they let Doris go! Yet a lover like this was not to be curtly refused. "I shall not stand in your way," quietly. "Thank you a thousand times. But if she had been for you, as I feared, I should have proved man enough to keep silent and go my way. It has been a happy summer, and in two weeks more it will end. Still, I may be able to get an appointment here. I shall try for it and return." "Come," said Cary Adams, and he went out feeling there had been a great change in the world, and he was wrapped about with some mysterious influence. Doris had thought of Captain Hawthorne on the day of his, Cary's, return. How many times besides had she thought of him? And she had recalled giving him the rose. CHAPTER XXIII THE COST OF WOMANHOOD A happy fortnight. It was worth all the after-pain to have it to remember. When Boston was a great city half a century later, and there had been another war, and Captain Hawthorne had risen in the ranks and been put on the retired list, he came a grizzled old man to find the place that had always lived in his remembrance. But the old house had been swept away by the march of improvement, the rounding corner straightened and given over to business, and the Common was magnificent in beauty. The tall, thin, scholarly man had gone to the wife of his youth. Doris, little Doris, was very happy. So what did it matter? There was a succession of lovely days. One morning, early, Captain Hawthorne joined Doris and her uncle in a long ride over on Boston Neck. They found an odd old tavern kept by a sailor who had been round the world and taken a hand in the "scrimmage," as he called it, and with his small prize money bought out the place. There was some delightful bread and cold chicken, wine and bottled cider equal to champagne. There was another long lovely day when with Betty they went up to Salem and drove around the quaint streets and watched the signs of awakening business. There was Fort Pickering, the lighthouse out on the island, the pretty Common, the East India Marine Society's hall with its curiosities (quite wonderful even then), and the clean streets with their tidy shops, the children coming from school, the housewives going about on errands. Foster Manning drove his grandmother down to join them; and he was almost a young man now. He told Doris they all missed Elizabeth so much, but he was glad she had had that nice visit to Boston. So the days drifted on; Doris unconsciously sweet in her simplicity, yet so innocent that the lover began to fear while he hoped. Uncle Winthrop had gone to a meeting of the Historical Society. Miss Recompense had a neighbor in great trouble that she was trying to console out in the supper room, where they could talk unreservedly. Cary was in the study, and the two were sauntering around the fragrant walks where the grassy beds had recently been cut. There was no moon, and the whole world seemed soft and still, as if it was listening to the story Captain Hawthorne had to tell, as if it was in love with itself. "Oh," interrupted Doris with a sharp, pained cry, "do not, please do not! I never dreamed--I--shall never go away from Uncle Winthrop. I do not want any other love. I thought it was--Betty. Oh, forgive me for the pain and disappointment. I seem even to myself such a little girl----" "But I can wait years. I wanted you to know. Oh, Doris, as the years go on can you not learn to love me? I will be patient and live in the sweet, grand hope that some day----" "No, no; do not hope. I cannot promise. Oh, you are so noble and upright, can you not accept this truth from me? For it would only be pain and disappointment in the end." No, she did not love him. Her sweet soul was still asleep within her fair body. He was too really honorable to persist. "Doris," he said,--what a sweet girl's name it was!--"five years from this time I shall come back. You will be a woman then, you are still a child. And if no other lover has won you, I shall ask again." He pressed her hand to his lips. Then he led her around to the porch, and bade her a tender good-night. He would not embarrass her by any longer stay. She ran up the steps. Cary intercepted her in the hall. "Has he gone? Doris----" "Oh, _did_ you know? How could you let him!" she cried in anguish. "How could you!" "Doris--my dear little sister, he loved you so. But I wish it had been Betty. Oh, don't cry. You have done nothing. I am sorry, but he would not have been satisfied if he had not spoken. He wanted to ask father first, but I hated to have _him_ pained if it was not necessary----" "Thank you for that, Cary. Do not tell him. You will not?" she pleaded, thinking of the other first. "No, dear. We must shield him all we can." Yes, they would try always. There was a little rift in the cloud of pain. The next evening Captain Hawthorne came over to bid them a formal good-by. Helen Chapman and her lover and Eudora were there, so it was an unembarrassing affair with many good wishes on both sides. Doris thought she would like to run away and hide. It seemed as if the whole story was written in her face. Betty suspected, but she loved her too well to tease. And almost immediately Helen announced her arrangements. She was to be married in October. Doris and Cary must stand with her, and one of the Chapman cousins with Eudora. Another warm girl friend and her lover would complete the party. Grandmamma had stipulated that Mr. Harrison Gray should cast in his lot with them for a year. Mr. Sargent had been attached to the embassy at London and they would remain two years longer at least. Madam Royall could not bear to have the family shrink so rapidly. Betty was to go away again. Mr. and Mrs. Matthias King came together this time to see old friends and Boston, that Mr. King found wonderfully changed. He was to go to France on business for the firm of which he was a member, and be absent a year at least. It would be such a splendid chance for Betty. They were to take their own little Bessy and leave the three younger children with a friend who had a school for small people and who would give them a mother's care. There was a little grandson in Sudbury Street, and Mercy had proved a very agreeable daughter-in-law. Warren had begun to prosper again, and was full of hope. The children at Hollis Leverett's were growing rapidly. They no longer said "little Sam." He was almost a young man. He had taken the Franklin prize at the Latin School and was now apprenticed to an architect and builder, and would set up for himself when he came of age, as Boston had begun to build up rapidly. But he couldn't help envying Cousin Cary Adams his prize money and wondering what he meant to do with it. An invitation to go to Paris was not to be lightly declined then, any more than it would be now. Mrs. Manning did not see "how Betty could leave mother for so long," but Mrs. Leverett was in good health, and though she hated to have her go so far away, there really could be no objection, when Matthias King was so generous. "I am going to have some of my good times while we are together and able to enjoy them," he said to Mrs. Leverett. "I shall have to leave Electa alone every now and then while I am about business, and it will be such a comfort to her to have Betty. No doubt, we shall marry her to a French count." "Oh, no, bring her back to me," said Betty's mother. There was quite a stir among Betty's compeers. She was congratulated and envied, and they begged her to write everything she could about French fashions. How lucky that she had been studying French! Aunt Priscilla had a hard struggle with conscience about a matter that she felt to be quite a duty. Giving away finery that you would never wear was one thing, but your money was quite another. "Betty," she said, "I'm going to make you a little gift. If you shouldn't want to use it maybe Mat will see some way to invest it for you. When the trouble came to Warren, I said he might as well have his part as to wait until I was dead and gone. I have been paid over and over again in comfort. He grows so much like your father, Betty. And he's weathered through the storm and stress. So I'll do the same by you, and if you never get any more you must be content." It was an order for five hundred dollars. Winthrop Adams would see it paid. Betty was quite overwhelmed. "I ought to give half of it to mother!" she cried. "No, no. Your mother will have all she needs. The Mannings would borrow it of her to buy more ground with. I've no patience with all their scrimping, and sometimes I give thanks that poor Elizabeth is out of it all. Don't have an anxious thought about money where you mother is concerned." "What a comfort you are, Aunt Priscilla." "Well, it took years enough to teach me that anybody needed comforting." As for Doris, she was so busy that she could hardly think about herself or Captain Hawthorne. She did wish he had not loved her. If she had known about the rose her heart would have been still more sore and pitiful. Betty went before the wedding. They took a sloop to New York and were to leave there for Havre. Madam Royall had this wedding just to her fancy, and it was quite a fine affair. Cary looked very nice, Doris thought, for the sea tan had nearly all bleached out. His figure was compact, and he had a rather soldierly bearing. He was quite a hero, too, to his old college mates, some of whom had not considered him possessed of really strong characteristics. But the young ladies were proud of his notice and attention, and there was no end of invitations from their mothers when they were going to have evening companies. The cold weather came on apace. Mr. Adams seemed to feel it more and gave up his horseback rides. He interested himself very much in the library plans, but he grew fonder of staying at home, and Doris was such a pleasant companion. Cary had never been fond of poetry, and now he threw himself into his profession with a resolve to stand high. Manhood's ambition was so different from the lukewarm endeavors of the boy. His father did enjoy his earnestness very much. Sometimes he roused himself to argue a point when two or three young men dropped in, and the old fire flashed up, though he liked best his ease and his poets, or Doris reading or singing some old song. But he did not lose his interest in the world's progress or that of his beloved city. Doris was very happy in a young girl's way. One did not expect to fill every moment with pleasure, or go to parties or the theater every evening. There were other duties and purposes to life. As Aunt Priscilla did not go out after the cold weather set in, she ran up there nearly every day with some cheerful bit of gossip. Madam Royall had grown very fond of her as well. There was the dancing class; and the sewing class, when they made garments for poor people; and shopping--even if one did not buy much, for now such pretty French and English goods were shown again. Then one stopped in the confectioner's on Newberry Street and had a cup of hot coffee or tea if it was a cold day; or strolled down Cornhill to see what new books had come over from London, for the Waverley novels had just begun, and everybody was wondering about the author. Or you went to Faneuil Hall to see Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, which was considered a very remarkable work. There were the sleigh-rides, when you went out in style and had a supper and a dance; and the sledding parties, that were really the most fun of all, when you almost forgot you were grown-up. Cary was always ready to attend his cousin, though she quite as often went out with Mr. and Mrs. Gray and Eudora. When he thought of it, it did seem a little curious that Doris had no special company. But a girl was not allowed to keep special company until the family had consented and she was regularly engaged. Young men and girls came to sing, for a piano was a rarity; there were parties going here and there, but Doris never evinced any particular preference. So spring came again and gardening engrossed Doris. She had been learning housekeeping in all its branches under the experienced tuition of Miss Recompense and Dinah. A girl who did not know everything from the roasting of a turkey to the making of sack-posset, and through all the gradations of pickling and preserving, was not considered "finished." Doris was very fond of the wide out-of-doors. She often took her work, and Uncle Winthrop his book, and sat out on a rustic seat at the edge of the Common, which was beginning to be beautiful, though it was twenty years later that the Botanic Garden was started. But now that our ships were going everywhere, curious bulbs and plants were brought from Holland and from the East Indies by sea captains. And they found wonderful wild flowers that developed under cultivation. Brookline was a great resort on pleasant days, with its meadows and wooded hillsides and beautiful gardens. Colonel Perkins had all manner of foreign fruits and flowers that he had brought home from abroad, and had a greenhouse where you could often find the grandmother of the family, who was most generous in her gifts. There were people who thought you "flew in the face of Providence" when you made flowers bloom in winter, but Providence seemed to smile on them. Over on the Foster estate at Cambridge there was a genuine hawthorn. People made pilgrimages to see it when it was white with bloom and diffusing its peculiar odor all about. There were the sweet blossoms of the mulberry and the honey locust, and the air everywhere was fragrant, for there were so few factories, and people had not learned to turn waste materials into every sort of product and make vile smells. Cary sometimes left his books early in the afternoon and went driving with them. If he did not appreciate poetry so much, he was on the lookout for every fine tree and curious flower, and twenty years later he was deep in the Horticultural Society. Uncle Winthrop bought a new low carriage this summer. For anyone else but a grave gentleman it would have looked rather pronounced, but it was so much easier to get in and out. And Doris in her sweet unconsciousness never made any bid for attention, but people would turn and look at them as one looks at a picture. Thirty years or so afterward old ladies would sometimes say to the daughters of Doris: "My dear, I knew your mother when she was a sweet, fresh young girl and used to go out driving with her uncle. Mr. Winthrop Adams was one of the high-bred, delicate-looking men that would have graced a court. There wasn't a prettier sight in Boston--and, dear me! that was way back in '16 or '17. How time flies!" They heard from Betty occasionally. The letters were long and "writ fine," though happily not crossed. They should have been saved for a book, they were so chatty. In August one came to Doris that stirred up a mighty excitement. Betty had a way of being quite dramatic and leading up to a climax. A month before they had met a delightful Frenchman, a M. Henri de la Maur, twenty-five or thereabouts, and found him an excellent cicerone to some remarkable things they had not seen. He was much interested in America and its chief cities, especially Boston, when he found that was Betty's native town. And one day he told them of a search he had been making for a little girl. The De la Maurs had suffered considerably under the Napoleonic _régime_, and had now been restored to some of their rights. There was one estate that could not be settled until they found a missing member. They had traced the mother, who had died and left a husband and a little girl--Jacqueline. "That is such a common name in France," explained Betty. She had been placed in a convent, and that was such a common occurrence, too. Then she had been taken to the North of England. He had gone to the old town, but the child's father had died and some elderly relatives had passed away, and the child herself had been sent to the United States. Everybody who had known her was dead or had forgotten. "And I never thought until one day he said Old Boston," confessed Betty, "when I remembered suddenly that your mother's name was Jacqueline Marie de la Maur in the old marriage certificate. We had been talking of it a week or more, but one hears so many family stories here in Paris, and lost and found inheritances. But I almost screamed with surprise, and added the sequel; and he was just overjoyed, and brought the family papers. He and your mother are second- and third-cousins. It is queer you should have so many far-off relations, and so few near-by ones, and be mixed up in so many romances. "The fortune sounds quite grand in francs, but if we enumerated our money by quarters of dollars, we might all be rich. It is a snug little sum, however, and they are anxious to get it settled before the next turn in the dynasty, lest it might be confiscated again. So M. Henri is coming home with us, and we shall start the first day of September, as Mr. King has finished his business and Electa is wild to see her children. I think I shall give 'talks' all winter and invite you over to Sudbury Street, with your sewing, for I never shall be talked out." It was wonderful. Doris had to read the letter over and over. It had listeners at the Royall house who said it was a perfect romance, and at the Leveretts' they rejoiced greatly. "I declare!" exclaimed Aunt Priscilla, "if you should live to be fifty or sixty, and everybody go on leaving you fortunes, you won't know what to do with your money. They're filling up the Mill Pond and the big ma'sh and going to lay out streets. I wouldn't have believed it! Foster Leverett held on to his legacy because he couldn't sell it, and now Warren has been offered a good sum. Mary Manning will pinch herself blue to think she sold out when she did. I'm just glad for Warren. And Cary'll know so much law that he will look out for you." It was a beautiful autumn, for a wonder. Summer seemed loath to depart or allow the flame-colored finger of Fall to place her seal on the glowing foliage. But it was the last of October when Betty reached Boston, convoyed by a very old-time New England woman going on to Newburyport. "For you know," said Betty, "the French are very particular about a young woman traveling alone, but we did have a hunt to find someone coming to Boston. Otherwise M'sieur Henri--you see how apt I am in French--could not have accompanied me." M. de la Maur was a very nice-looking young man, not as tall as Cary, but with a graceful and manly figure, soft dark eyes, and hair that just missed being black, a clear complexion and fine color, and a small line of mustache. As to manners he was really charming, and so well-read that Mr. Winthrop Adams took to him at once. He was conversant with Voltaire and Rousseau, the plays of Racine and Molière, and the causes that had led to the French Revolution, and had been in Paris through the famous "Hundred Days." Of course he was bitter against Napoleon. The inheritance part was soon settled. Doris would have about three thousand dollars. But De la Maur took a great fancy to Boston, and the Royall family approved of him. Mr. and Mrs. Sargent had returned this fall and the old house was a center of attractive gayeties. "Do you know, I think Cousin Henri is in love with Betty," said Doris, with a feminine habit of guessing at love matters. "But she insists she will never live abroad, and Cousin Henri thinks Paris is the center of the world." "How will they manage?" Doris laughed. She did not just see herself. But Betty's romance came to light presently. It had begun during her winter in New York, but it had not run smoothly. Betty had a rather quick wit and was fond of teasing, and there had been "differences" not easily settled. Mr. Harman Gaynor had risen to the distinction of a partnership in the King firm, and on meeting Betty again, with the young Frenchman at her elbow, had presented his claim in such a way that Betty yielded. When Mr. Gaynor came to Boston to have a conference with Mrs. Leverett--for fathers and mothers still had authority in such matters--Betty's engagement was announced and the marriage set for spring. Somehow it was a delightful winter. But after a little one person began to feel strangely apprehensive, and this was Cary Adams. "I suppose Doris and her third- or fourth-cousin will make a match?" Madam Royall said one evening when they had been playing morris and she had won the rubber. "How can you let her go away?" "She will never leave father," exclaimed Cary confidently. There was a sudden stricture all over his body. It seemed as if some cold hand had clutched both heart and brain. He walked home in the bright, fresh air. It was barely ten. He passed De la Maur on the way and they greeted each other. The parlor windows were darkened, his father was alone in the study, and everyone else had gone to bed. "I wish you had been home," said his father glancing up. "De la Maur has been reciting Racine, and I have never heard anything finer! I wish he could read Shakspere. He certainly is a delightful person, so cultured and appreciative. It makes me feel that we really are a new people." Could no one see the danger? How happened it his father was so blind? Did Doris really care? She had not loved Captain Hawthorne, a man worthy of any woman's love. Cary had a confident feeling that in five years they would see him again. But he would be too old for Doris--thirteen years between them. Yet his father had been fifteen years older than his mother. Doris was so guileless, so simply honest, and if she loved--how curiously she had kept from friendships or intimacies with young men! Eudora had a train of admirers. So had Helen and Alice in their day. When he had met Mrs. Sargent he knew it had only been a boyish fancy for Alice Royall, and it had merely shaped and strengthened the ardent desire of youth to go to his country's defense. He was a man now, and capable of loving with supreme tenderness and strength. Yet he had seen no woman to whom he cared to pour out the first sweet draught of a man's regard. But Doris must not go away, she could not. Morning, noon, and night he watched her. She prepared his father's toast, she chatted with him and often coaxed him to taste this or that, for his appetite was slender. On sunny mornings they went to drive, or if not she brought her sewing and sat in the study, listened and discussed the subjects he loved, and was enthusiastic about the Boston that was to be, that they both saw with the eye of faith. While he took his siesta she ran up to Sudbury Street, or did an errand. Later in the afternoon there would be calls. There was a sideboard at the end of the hall where a bottle or two of wine were kept, as was the custom then, and a plate of cake. Doris brought in a fashion of offering tea or sometimes mulled cider on a cold day. But Miss Recompense made delicious tea, and some of the gentlemen took it just to see Doris drop in the lump of sugar so daintily. If they were at home there was always company in the evening, unless the night was very stormy. De la Maur generally made one of the guests. If they were alone they had a charming evening in the study. The young Frenchman was most punctilious. He might take a few cousinly freedoms, but he never offered any that were lover-like. So it was the more easy for Doris to persuade herself that it was merely relationship. Occasionally the eloquence of his eyes quite unnerved her. She cunningly sheltered herself beside Eudora when it was possible. But De la Maur's regard grew apace. It would not be honorable to come without declaring his intentions. And the American fashion of being engaged was extremely fascinating to him. He wanted the more than cousinly privileges. So it happened one night Betty and Warren came over with a piece of music Mrs. King had sent, a song by Moore, the Irish poet. Doris went to the parlor to try it. That was De la Maur's golden opportunity, and he could not allow it to slip. In a most deferential manner he laid his case before her relative and guardian and begged permission to address Miss Doris. Winthrop Adams was utterly amazed at the first moment. Then he recovered himself. Doris _was_ a young lady. One friend and another was being given in marriage, and Doris naturally would have lovers. There was one that he had hoped--but he had never seen any real indication. "It is true that I like my own Paris best, but if Miss Doris longed to stay here a few years, I would make myself content. But you will understand--I could not come any longer without explaining; and this time you allow young people--betrothment--looks so attractive. May I ask and learn her sentiments, since young ladies choose for themselves?" What could he do but consent? If Doris should not love him---- "Good-night Uncle Win," cried Betty from the hall. "Good-night, M. De la Maur." Doris was replacing some music in the portfolio. Cousin Henri crossed the room and she saw a mysterious sweetness in his face as he took her hand. "_Ma chère amie_ Cousin Doris, I have just explained to your uncle my sentiments concerning you, and have his permission to ask for your regard. I love you very dearly. Will you be my wife?" Doris drew her hand away and was pale and red by turns, while her throat constricted and her breath came in great bounds. "I am so sorry. I tried not to be--I did not want anything like this to happen--but sometimes I felt afraid," she stammered in her embarrassment. "I like you very much. But I do not want to marry or to be engaged. I shall stay with my uncle. I shall never go away from the country of my adoption." "But if I were willing to remain a while--so long as your uncle lived? I do not wonder you love him very much. He is a charming gentleman. I have no parents to bid me stay at home, I need consult only you and myself." "Oh, no, no! Do not compel me to pain you by continued refusals. I cannot consent. I will always be friend and cousin--I do not love anyone----" "Then if you do not love anyone this friendship might ripen into a sweet regard. Oh, Doris, I had hardly thought so deep a love possible." His imploring tone touched her. But she drew back farther and said in a more decisive tone: "Oh, no, no! I cannot promise." He was too gentlemanly to persist in his pleading. But he was confident he had Mr. Adams on his side. And at home the desires of parents and guardians counted for a great deal. "My dear cousin, will you talk this matter over with your uncle? You may look at it in a different light. And I shall remain your ardent admirer until I am convinced. Since you have no lover----" Doris Adams suddenly straightened her pliant young figure. Some dignity was born in her face and in the clear eyes she raised, too pure to doubt anything or to fear anything, sure for a moment that she possessed every pulse and thought and knowledge of her own soul, then beset by a strange shadowy misgiving that she had reached a curious crisis in her life that she did not know of an instant ago. But she said bravely, though there was a quiver in her breath that she tried to keep from her voice: "Let us remain cousins merely. My duty is here. My love is here also--to the best of fathers, the tenderest of friends. I cannot share it with anyone." De la Maur bowed and went slowly out of the apartment. CHAPTER XXIV THE BLOOM OF LIFE--LOVE Doris flew to the study. Uncle Winthrop's eyes were bent on his book and his face partly turned aside. He had been making a brave fight. A man of a less fine strain of honor would not have answered the brave young lover as he had done. He could not have answered him thus if he had not liked Henri de la Maur so well, and loved Doris with such singleness of heart. He heard her step and put out his hand without moving. His tone was very low. "Is it--France?" "France! Oh, Uncle Win! When I belong to you and Boston?" Her arms were around his neck. His heart, his whole body, seemed to give one great throb of joy as he drew her down to his knee. There had been only one other experience in life as sweet. "And you would have sent me away!" with a soft, broken upbraiding in which love was uppermost. "No, child, no. God forbid, Doris, now that you are _not_ going, I will confess--I think I should have died before the parting came. But, my little girl, I must say this in memory of two sweet years of wedded life--there is no happiness comparable to it. And to accept your youth, your golden period that never dawns but once on any human being, to gladden my declining years would be a selfish sin. I once had a dream--but it came to naught"--he drew a long breath as if the remembrance pained him. "You must be quite free, dear, to love and to marry. All these years with you have been so precious, but sometime I shall go my way, and I could not bear the thought of your being left alone!" "I shall stay with you. I--there can never be any home like this--any love like yours----" The hall door opened and shut slowly. That was Cary's step. She could not meet him here. She kissed Uncle Win vehemently and flashed past the young man standing there almost in the doorway with a white, strained face. The great armchair was in her way and she half stumbled over it. Then some other arms caught her and she had no strength to struggle. Did she want to? "Doris! Doris! Was it true what you said just now--that no home could be like this, and your love for him, which has been that of a tender daughter--his love for you--is there room for another regard still? for, Doris, I love you! I want you. I have been wild and jealous since I have suspected, since I have really known or guessed your cousin's intentions. I did not suspect at first--there were Betty and Eudora--and an old regard waiting for you, but now I can think of only one thing, that has been in my mind day and night for the last fortnight, that I love you as well as the others; only it seems a small and ignoble matter to appeal to your affection for my father and the old home. But I want your love, your sweetness, your precious faith, the trust of your coming womanhood, your own sweet self. I'm not a handsome fellow like Captain Hawthorne, nor accomplished like De la Maur, but I shall love you to my life's end, Doris!" They sat down on the step of the old staircase and he could feel the tremble in every pulse of her slim young figure. Was it the strange mystery that had come to her half an hour ago in the parlor opposite, a something that was not knowledge, but a vague consciousness that there was a person in the world who could say the words that would thrill her with delight instead of bringing sorrow and regret! "All that is a very illogical and incoherent presentation. I must do better when I come to argue my first case," and he gave a joyous little laugh. For he knew if Doris meant to say him "Nay," she would not let her head droop on his shoulder, or yield to the clasp of his arm. And suddenly his soul was filled with infinite pity for Hawthorne, and--yes--he felt sorry for De la Maur. "Doris--is it a little for my own sake?" A breath of happy content swept over her like a summer wind coming from some mysterious world. "You have been an angel of comfort to both of us. I don't know what I should have done in that unhappy time if it had not been for you. But Hawthorne's regard made it a point of honor with me. Could you have loved him, Doris? He is such a fine fellow." He noted the little shrinking, he was holding her so close. "Not in that way," and her reply was a soft whisper. "Thank Heaven! But I want to hear you say--oh, my darling, I want the assurance that I shall be dear to you, that it is not all because----" "I should stay for Uncle Win's sake. I think Miss Recompense finds a great many sources of happiness in a single life. But if I promised you, it would be because--because--I loved you." "Then promise me," he cried enraptured. "I love you dearly, if I haven't been much of a lover. I have said to myself that I was waiting for Hawthorne's five years to end, or to do something worthy of you. And now, Doris, I know what fighting means, and I would fight to the death for you. I am afraid I shall be selfish and exigent to the last degree." He felt the delicate revelation in the warmth of her cheek, the tremble of the soft hands, the relaxation of her whole body. And a kind of solemn exultation filled his soul. Except the youthful episode with Alice Royall, he had never sincerely cared for any woman, and he was very glad he could give Doris the first offering of a man's love as he understood it now. And then for a long while neither spoke, except in kisses--love's own language. Every moment the mystery seemed to grow upon Doris, to unfold as well, to pass the line of girlhood, to accept the crown of a woman's life. It had been very simply sweet. Some other woman might have made a rather tragic episode of her two lovers. Doris pitied them sincerely, but they both had the deepest sympathy from Cary Adams. "Let us go to him," Cary exclaimed presently, rising, with his arm still about her. There were two wax candles burning in their sconces that had been made over forty years ago in Paul Revere's foundry. By the softened light Cary glanced at the flushed face, downcast eyes and dewy, tremulous lips. Half the sweet story was still untold, but there would be years and years. Oh, Heaven grant they might have them together! And at this instant he was filled with a profound sympathy for his father's loss and lonely life. They walked slowly through the hall and paused a moment in the doorway. Winthrop Adams was leaning his head on his hand, and the lamp a little at the side threw up his thin, finely cut features, as if they had been done in marble, and he was almost as pale. The exultation went out of the soul of the young lover, and a rush of tenderness such as he had never experienced before swept through him. "Father," he said softly, touching him on the shoulder, "father--will you give me Doris, for your claim is first? Will you accept me as her lover, sometime to be her husband, always to be your son, and your daughter?" Winthrop Adams rose half-bewildered. Had the secret hope of his soul unfolded in blessed fruition? He looked from one to the other, then his glance rested on his son--their eyes met, and in that instant they came to know each other as they never had before, to understand, to comprehend all that was in the tie of nature. He laid one hand on his son's shoulder, the other clasped the slim virginal figure, no longer a little girl, but whose girlhood and affectionate devotion would always fill both hearts. "Doris, my child--you are quite sure----" He could not have his son defrauded of any sweetness. Doris raised her downcast eyes and smiled, while the pink flush was like a rosy gleam of sunrise. Then she laid her hand over both of the others' in a tender, caressing fashion. But she was too deeply moved for words. Winthrop Adams kissed her fair brow, but her lover kissed her on the sweet, rosy lips. They announced the engagement almost at once. It was done partly for De la Maur's sake, though after the first he took it quite philosophically. There were three people supremely happy over it. Miss Recompense, Madam Royall,--who declared she would have been disappointed in Providence if it had been any other way,--and Cousin Betty, who was happy as a queen in her own life, though why we should make royalty a synonym for happiness I do not know. "You never could have left Uncle Win," wrote Betty, "and Cary could not have gone away, neither could he have brought home a strange woman. This was the only satisfactory ending. But I hope you will be awfully in love with each other and sweet--and silly and all that. I am sorry for Captain Hawthorne, for, Doris, he loved you sincerely, but your French cousin can console himself with an English rhyme: "'If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be?'" And oddly enough a few months later he did console himself with Eudora Chapman. Just a few years afterward there was a great time in Boston. For she had adopted a charter and become a real city, after long and earnest discussion. There was a grand celebration and no end of dinners, and young Cary Adams made one of the addresses. Mr. Winthrop Adams insisted that his life work was done, but he lived to be interested in many more improvements, and some charming grandchildren. "But after all," Doris would declare, "splendid as it is going to be, I am glad to belong to Old Boston with her lanes and byways and rough hills and marsh lands, with their billowy grasses and wild flowers, and great gardens full of fruit trees, and the little old shops and people sitting on front stoops sewing or reading or chatting cozily. And what a pleasure it will be by and by to tell the children that I was a little girl in Old Boston." THE END. * * * * * Other Books Published by A. L. BURT COMPANY * * * * * The "Little Girl" Series By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS A Little Girl in Old New York A Little Girl of Long Ago A sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York" A Little Girl in Old Boston A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia A Little Girl in Old Washington A Little Girl in Old New Orleans A Little Girl in Old Detroit A Little Girl in Old St. Louis A Little Girl in Old Chicago A Little Girl in Old San Francisco A Little Girl in Old Quebec A Little Girl in Old Baltimore A Little Girl in Old Salem A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg * * * * * The Camp Fire Girls Series By HILDEGARD G. FREY. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go Camping. This lively Camp Fire group and their Guardian go back to Nature in a camp in the wilds of Maine and pile up more adventures in one summer than they have had in all their previous vacations put together. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers. How these seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school life the spirit of Work, Health and Love and yet manage to get into more than their share of mischief, is told in this story. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden. Migwan is determined to go to college, and not being strong enough to work indoors earns the money by raising fruits and vegetables. The Winnebagos all turn a hand to help the cause along and the "goingson" at Onoway House that summer make the foundation shake with laughter. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way. In which the Winnebagos take a thousand mile auto trip. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open Door. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE; or, The Trail of the Seven Cedars. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE OPEN ROAD; or, Glorify Work. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS DO THEIR BIT; or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY; or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House. THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT CAMP KEEWAYDIN; or, Down Paddles. * * * * * The Girl Chums Series A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity tenderness, healthy, interesting motives vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. BENHURST, CLUB, THE. By Howe Benning. BERTHA'S SUMMER BOARDERS. By Linnie S. Harris BILLOW PRAIRIE. A Story of Life in the Great West By Joy Allison. DUXBERRY DOINGS. A New England Story. By Caroline B. Le Row. FUSSBUDGET'S FOLKS. A Story For Young Girls. By Anna F. Burnham. HAPPY DISCIPLINE, A. By Elizabeth Cummings. JOLLY TEN, THE; and Their Year of Stories. By Agnes Carr Sage. KATIE ROBERTSON. A Girl's Story of Factory Life By M. E. Winslow. LONELY HILL. A Story For Girls. By M. L. Thornton-Wilder. MAJORIBANKS. A Girl's Story. By Elvirton Wright. MISS CHARITY'S HOUSE. By Howe Benning. MISS ELLIOT'S GIRLS. A Story For Young Girls. By Mary Spring Corning. MISS MALCOLM'S TEN. A Story For Girls. By Margaret E. Winslow. ONE GIRL'S WAY OUT. By Howe Benning. PEN'S VENTURE. By Elvirton Wright. RUTH PRENTICE. A Story For Girls. By Marion Thorne. THREE YEARS AT GLENWOOD. A Story of School Life. By M. E. Winslow. * * * * * The Girl Comrade's Series A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. A BACHELOR MAID AND HER BROTHER. By I. T. Thurston. ALL ABOARD. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. ALMOST A GENIUS. A Story For Girls. By Adelaide L. Rouse. ANNICE WYNKOOP, Artist. Story of a Country Girl. By Adelaide L. Rouse. BUBBLES. A Girl's Story. By Fannie E. Newberry. COMRADES. By Fannie E. Newberry. DEANE GIRLS, THE. A Home Story. By Adelaide L. Rouse. HELEN BEATON, COLLEGE WOMAN. By Adelaide L. Rouse. JOYCE'S INVESTMENTS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. MELLICENT RAYMOND. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL. A School Girl's Story. By Mrs. S. S. Robbins. NOT FOR PROFIT. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. ODD ONE, THE. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. SARA, A PRINCESS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry. * * * * * The Blue Grass Seminary Girls Series By CAROLYN JUDSON BURNETT _Splendid Stories of the Adventures of a Group of Charming Girls_ THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES; or, Shirley Willing to the Rescue. THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS; or, A Four Weeks' Tour with the Glee Club. THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS; or, Shirley Willing on a Mission of Peace. THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS ON THE WATER; or, Exciting Adventures on a Summer's Cruise Through the Panama Canal. * * * * * THE MILDRED SERIES By MARTHA FINLEY _A Companion Series to the famous "Elsie" Books by the Same Author_ MILDRED KEITH MILDRED AT ROSELANDS MILDRED AND ELSIE MILDRED'S MARRIED LIFE MILDRED AT HOME MILDRED'S BOYS AND GIRLS MILDRED'S NEW DAUGHTER 
27732	----	CITY CRIMES; OR LIFE IN NEW YORK AND BOSTON. A VOLUME FOR EVERYBODY: BEING A MIRROR OF FASHION, A PICTURE OF POVERTY, AND A STARTLING REVELATION OF THE SECRET CRIMES OF GREAT CITIES {First published 1849} [Illustration: Title page of _City Crimes_, 1849 edition. Reproduced with the permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.] CHAPTER I _A Young Gentleman of Wealth and Fashion--a noble resolve--the flatterers--the Midnight Encounter--an Adventure--the Courtezan--Temptation triumphant--how the Night was passed._ 'What a happy dog I ought to be!' exclaimed Frank Sydney, as he reposed his slippered feet upon the fender, and sipped his third glass of old Madeira, one winter's evening in the year 18--, in the great city of New York. Frank might well say so; for in addition to being as handsome a fellow as one would be likely to meet in a day's walk, he possessed an ample fortune, left him by a deceased uncle. He was an orphan; and at the age of twenty-one, found himself surrounded by all the advantages of wealth, and at the same time, was perfect master of his own actions. Occupying elegant apartments at a fashionable hotel, he was free from any of those petty cares and vexations which might have annoyed him, and he kept an establishment of his own; while at the same time he was enabled to maintain, in his rooms, a private table for the entertainment of himself and friends, who frequently repaired thither, to partake of his hospitality and champagne suppers. With such advantages of fortune and position, no wonder he exclaimed, as at the beginning of our tale--'What a happy dog I ought to be!' Pursuing the current of his thought Frank half audibly continued-- 'Yes, I have everything to make me truly happy--health, youth, good looks and wealth; and yet it seems to me that I should derive a more substantial satisfaction from my riches were I to apply them to the good of mankind. To benefit one's fellow creatures is the noblest and most exalted of enjoyments--far superior to the gratification of sense. The grateful blessings of the poor widow or orphan, relieved by my bounty, are greater music to my soul, than the insincere plaudits of my professed friends, who gather around my hearth to feast upon my hospitality, and yet who, were I to lose my wealth, and become poor, would soon cut my acquaintance, and sting me by their ingratitude. To-night I shall have a numerous party of these _friends_ to sup with me, and this supper shall be the last one to which I shall ever invite them. Yes! My wealth shall be employed for a nobler object than to pamper these false and hollow-hearted parasites. From this night, I devote my time, my energies and my affluence to the relief of deserving poverty and the welfare of all who need my aid with whom I may come in contact. I will go in person to the squalid abodes of the poor--I will seek them out in the dark alleys and obscure lanes of this mighty metropolis--I will, in the holy mission of charity, venture into the vilest dens of sin and iniquity, fearing no danger, and shrinking not from the duty which I have assumed.--Thus shall my wealth be a blessing to my fellow creatures, and not merely a means of ministering to my own selfishness.' Noble resolve! All honor to thy good and generous heart, Frank Sydney! Thou hast the true patent of nature's nobility, which elevates and ennobles thee, more than a thousand vain titles or empty honors! Thou wilt keep thy word, and become the poor man's friend--the liberal and enlightened philanthropist--the advocate of deserving poverty, and foe to the oppressor, who sets his heel upon the neck of his brother man. The friends who were to sup with him, arrived, and they all sat down to a sumptuous entertainment. Frank did the honors with his accustomed affability and care; and flowing bumpers were drunk to his health, while the most flattering eulogiums upon his merits and excellent qualities passed from lip to lip. Frank had sufficient discernment to perceive that all this praise was nothing but the ebullitions of the veriest sycophants; and he resolved at some time to test the sincerity of their protestations of eternal friendship. 'Allow me, gentlemen,' said Mr. Archibald Slinkey, a red-faced, elderly man, with a nose like the beak of a poll-parrot--'to propose the health of my excellent and highly esteemed friend, Frank Sydney. Gentlemen, I am a plain man, unused to flattery, and may be pardoned for speaking openly before the face of our friend--for I will say it, he is the most noble hearted, enlightened, conscientious, consistent, and superlatively good fellow I ever met in the course of my existence.' 'So he is,' echoed Mr. Narcissus Nobbs, a middle-aged gentleman, with no nose to speak of, but possessing a redundancy of chin and a wonderful capacity of mouth--'so he is, Slinkey; his position--his earning--his talent--his wealth--' 'Oh, d----n his wealth,' ejaculated Mr. Solomon Jenks, a young gentleman who affected a charming frankness and abruptness in his speech, but who was in reality the most specious flatterer of the entire party. Mr. Jenks rejoiced in the following personal advantages: red hair, a blue nose, goggle eyes, and jaws of transparent thinness. 'D----n his wealth!' said Jenks--'who cares for _that_? Sydney's a good fellow--a capital dog--an excellent, d----d good sort of a whole-souled devil--but his _wealth_ is no merit. If he lost every shilling he has in the world, why curse me if I shouldn't like him all the better for it! I almost wish the rascal would become penniless tomorrow, in order to afford me an opportunity of showing him the disinterestedness of my friendship. I would divide my purse with him, take him by the hand and say--Frank, my boy, I like you for yourself alone, and d----n me if you are not welcome to all I have in the world--That's how I would do it.' 'I thank you gentlemen, for your kind consideration,' said Frank; 'I trust I may never be necessitated to apply to any of my friends, for aid in a disagreeable emergency--but should such ever unfortunately be the case, be assured that I shall not hesitate to avail myself of your generous assistance.' 'Bravo--capital--excellent!' responded the choir of flatterers, in full chorus, and their glasses were again emptied in honor of their host. It was midnight ere these worthies took their departure. When at length they were all gone, and Frank found himself alone, he exclaimed--'Thank heaven, I am at last rid of those miserable and servile fellows, who in my presence load me with the most extravagant praise and adulation, while behind my back they doubtless ridicule my supposed credulity. I have too long tolerated them--henceforth, I discard and cast them off.' He approached the window, and drawing aside the curtain, looked forth into the streets. The moon was shining brightly; and its rays fell with dazzling lustre upon the snow which covered the ground. It was a most lovely night, altho' excessively cold; and Sydney, feeling not the least inclination to retire to rest, said to himself: 'What is to prevent me from beginning my career of usefulness and charity to-night? The hour is late--but misery sleeps not, and 'tis never too late to alleviate the sufferings of distressed humanity. Yes, I will go forth, even at the midnight hour, and perchance I may encounter some poor fellow-creature worthy of my aid, or visit some abode of poverty where I can minister to the comfort of its wretched inmates.' He threw on an ample cloak, put on a fur cap and gloves, and taking his sword-cane in his hand, left the hotel, and proceeded at a rapid pace thro' the moon-lit and deserted streets. He entered the Park, and crossed over towards Chatham street, wishing to penetrate into the more obscure portions of the city, where Poverty, too often linked with Crime, finds a miserable dwelling-place. Thus far, he had not encountered a single person; but on approaching the rear of the City Hall, he observed the figure of a man issue from the dark obscurity of the building, and advance directly toward him. Sydney did not seek to avoid him, supposing him to be one of the watchmen stationed in that vicinity, but a nearer view satisfied him that the person was no watchman but a man clothed in rags, whose appearance betokened the extreme of human wretchedness. He was of a large and powerful build, but seemed attenuated by want, or disease--or perhaps, both. As he approached Sydney, his gestures were wild and threatening: he held in his hands a large paving-stone, which he raised, as if to hurl it at the other with all his force. Sydney, naturally conceiving the man's intentions to be hostile, drew the sword from his cane, and prepared to act on the defensive, at the same time exclaiming: 'Who are you, and what do you wish?' 'Money!' answered the other, in a hollow tone, with the stone still upraised, while his eyes glowed savagely upon the young man. Sydney, who was brave and dauntless, steadily returned his gaze, and said, calmly: 'You adopt a strange method, friend, of levying contributions upon travellers. If you are in distress and need aid, you should apply for it in a becoming manner--not approach a stranger in this threatening and ruffianly style. Stand off--I am armed, you see--I shall not hesitate to use this weapon if--' The robber burst into a wild, ferocious laugh: 'Fool!' he cried. 'What can your weak arm or puny weapon do, against the strength of a madman? For look you, I am mad with _hunger_! For three days I have not tasted food--for three cold, wretched nights I have roamed thro' the streets of this Christian city, homeless, friendless, penniless! Give me money, or with this stone will I dash out your brains.' 'Unfortunate man,' said Sydney, in accents of deep pity--'I feel for you, on my soul I do. Want and wretchedness have made you desperate. Throw down your weapon, and listen to me; he who now addresses you is a man, possessing a heart that beats in sympathy for your misfortunes. I have both the means and the will to relieve your distress.' The robber cast the stone from him, and burst into tears. 'Pardon me, kind stranger,' he cried, 'I did intend you harm, for my brain is burning, and my vitals consumed by starvation. You have spoken to me the first words of kindness that I have heard for a long, long time. You pity me, and that pity subdues me. I will go and seek some other victim.' 'Stay,' said Sydney, 'for heaven's sake give up this dreadful trade of robbery. Here is money, sufficient to maintain you for weeks--make a good use of it--seek employment--be honest, and should you need further assistance, call at ---- Hotel, and ask for Francis Sydney. That is my name, and in me you will ever find a friend, so long as you prove yourself worthy.' 'Noble, generous man!' exclaim the robber, as he received a fifty dollar note from the hands of Frank. 'God will reward you for this. Believe me, I have not always been what I now am--a midnight ruffian, almost an assassin. No--I have had friends, and respectability, and wealth. But I have lost them all--all! We shall meet again--farewell!' He ran rapidly from the spot, leaving Frank to pursue his way alone, and ponder upon this remarkable encounter. Leaving the Park, and turning to the left, Frank proceeded up Chatham street towards the Bowery. As he was passing a house of humble but respectable exterior, he observed the street door to open, and a female voice said, in a low tone--'Young gentleman I wish to speak to you.' Frank was not much surprised at being thus accosted, for his long residence in New York had made him aware of the fact that courtezans often resorted to that mode of procuring 'patronage' from such midnight pedestrians as might happen to be passing their doors. His first impulse was to walk on without noticing the invitation--but then the thought suggested itself to his mind: 'Might I not possibly be of some use or benefit to that frail one? I will see what she has to say.' Reasoning thus, he stepped up to the door, when the female who had accosted him took him gently by the hand, and drawing him into the entry, closed the door. A lamp was burning upon a table which stood in the passage, and by its light Frank perceived that the lady was both young and pretty; she was wrapped in a large shawl, so that the outlines of her form were not plainly visible, yet it was easy to be seen that she was of good figure and graceful carriage. 'Madame, or Miss,' said Frank, 'be good enough to tell me why--' 'We cannot converse here in the cold,' interrupted the lady, smiling archly. 'Pray, sir, accompany me up-stairs to my room, and your curiosity shall be satisfied.' Frank (who had his own reasons) motioned her to lead the way; she took the lamp from the table, and ascended the staircase, followed by the young gentleman. The lady entered a room upon the second floor, in which stood a bed and other conveniences denoting it to be a sleeping chamber; a cheerful fire was glowing in the grate. The apartment was neatly and plainly furnished, containing nothing of a character to indicate that its occupant was other than a perfectly virtuous female. No obscene pictures or immodest images were to be seen--all was unexceptionable in point of propriety. The lady closed and locked the chamber door; then placing two chairs before the fire, she seated herself in one, and requested Frank to occupy the other. Throwing off her shawl, she displayed a fine form and voluptuous bust--the latter very liberally displayed, as she was arrayed in nothing but a loose dressing gown, which concealed neither her plump shoulders, nor the two fair and ample globes, whiter than alabaster, that gave her form a luxurious fullness. 'You probably have sufficient discrimination, sir, to divine my motive in inviting you into this house and chamber,' began the young lady, not without some embarrassment. 'You will readily infer, from my conduct, that I belong to the unfortunate class--' 'Say no more,' said Frank, interrupting her, 'I can readily guess why you accosted me, and as readily comprehend your true position and character. Madame, I regret to meet you in this situation.' The lady cast down her eyes, and made no immediate reply, but for some minutes continued to trace imaginary figures upon the carpet, with the point of her delicate slipper. Meanwhile, Frank had ample leisure to examine her narrowly. His eyes wandered over the graceful, undulating outlines of her fine form, and lingered admiringly upon the exposed beauties of her swelling bosom; he glanced at her regular and delicate features which were exceedingly girlish and pretty, for she certainly was not much over sixteen years of age. When it is remembered that Frank was a young man of an ardent and impulsive temperament, the reader will not be surprised that the loveliness of this young creature began to excite within his breast those feelings and desires which are inherent in human nature. In fact, he found himself being gradually overcome by the most tumultuous sensations: his heart palpitated violently, his breath grew hurried and irregular, and he could scarcely restrain himself from clasping her to his breast with licentious violence. His passions were still further excited, when she raised her eyes to his face, and glanced at him with a soft smile, full of tenderness and invitation. Frank Sydney was one of the best fellows in the world, and possessed a heart that beat in unison with every noble, generous and kindly feeling; but he was not an angel. No, he was _human_, and subject to all the frailties and passions of humanity. When, therefore, that enticing young woman raised her eyes, swimming with languishing desire, to his face, and smiled so irresistibly, he did precisely what ninety-nine out of every one hundred young men in existence would have done, in the same circumstances--he encircled her slender waist with his arm, drew her to his throbbing breast, and tasted the nectar of her ripe lips, which so plainly invited the salute. Ah Frank, Frank! thou hast gone too far to retract now! Thy hand plays with those ivory globes--thy lips kiss those rounded shoulders, and that beauteous neck--thy brain becomes dizzy, thy senses reel, and thy amorous soul bathes in a sea of rapturous delight! * * * * * Truly, Frank Sydney, thou art a pretty fellow to prate about sallying forth at midnight to do good to thy fellow creatures!--Here we find thee, within an hour after thy departure from thy home, on an 'errand of mercy,' embraced in the soft arms of a pretty wanton, and revelling in the delights of voluptuousness. We might have portrayed thee as a paragon of virtue and chastity; we might have described thee as rejecting with holy horror the advances of that frail but exceedingly fair young lady--we might have made a saint of thee, Frank. But we prefer to depict human nature _as it is_ not _as it should be_;--therefore we represent thee to be no better than thou art in reality. Many will pardon thee for thy folly, Frank, and admit that it was natural--very natural. Our hero did not return to his hotel until an hour after daybreak. The interval was passed with the young lady of frailty and beauty. He shared her couch; but neither of them slumbered, for at Frank's request, his fair friend occupied the time in narrating the particulars of her history, which we repeat in the succeeding chapter. CHAPTER II _The Courtezan's story, showing some of the Sins of Religious Professors--A carnal Preacher, a frail Mother, and a lustful Father--a plan of revenge._ 'My parents are persons of respectable standing in society;--they are both members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and remarkably rigid in their observance of the external forms and ceremonies of religion. Family worship was always adhered to by them, as well as grace before and after meals. They have ever been regarded as most exemplary and pious people. I was their only child; and the first ten years of my life were passed in much the same manner as those of other children of my sex and condition. I attended school, and received a good education; and my parents endeavored to instill the most pious precepts into my mind, to the end, they said, that I might become a vessel of holiness to the Lord. When I reached my twelfth year, a circumstance occurred which materially diminished my belief in the sanctity and godliness of one of my parents, and caused me to regard with suspicion and distrust, both religion and its professors. 'It was the custom of the pastor of the church to which my parents belonged, to make a weekly round of visits among the members of his congregation. These visits were generally made in the middle of the forenoon or afternoon, during the absence of the male members of the various families. I observed that 'our minister' invariably paid his visits to our house when my father was absent at his place of business. Upon these occasions, he would hold long and private conferences with my mother, who used to declare that these interviews with that holy man did her more substantial _good_ than all his preaching. 'It is so refreshing to my soul,' she would say, 'to pray in secret with that good man--he is _so_ full of Christian love--so tender in his exhortations--so fervent in his prayers! O that I could meet him every day, in the sanctity of my closet, to strengthen my faith by the outpourings of his inexhaustible fount of piety and Christian love!' 'The _wrestlings with the Lord_ of my maternal parent and her holy pastor, must have been both prolonged and severe, judging from the fact that at the termination of these pious interviews, my mother sometimes made her appearance with disordered apparel and disarranged hair; while the violence of her efforts to strengthen her faith was further manifest from the flushed condition of her countenance, and general peculiarity of aspect. 'One afternoon the Reverend Mr. Flanders--for that was the name of our minister--called to see my mother, and as usual they retired together to a private room, for 'holy communion.' Young as I was, my suspicions had long been excited in regard to the nature of these interviews; I began to think that their true object partook more largely of an earthly and carnal character, than either the pastor or my mother would care to have known. Upon the afternoon in question, I determined to satisfy myself on this point;--and accordingly, as soon as they entered the room and closed the door, (which they always locked,) I stole noiselessly up-stairs, and stationed myself in the passage, on the outside of the room, and listened intently. I had scarcely taken up my position, when my ear caught the sound of _kissing_; and applying my eye to the key-hole, I beheld the Rev. Mr. Flanders bestowing the most fervent embraces upon my mother, which she returned with compound interest. The pious gentleman, clasping her around the waist with one arm, proceeded to take liberties which astonished and disgusted me: and my mother not only permitted the revered scoundrel to do this, but actually seemed to encourage him. Soon they placed themselves upon a sofa, in full view of my gaze; and I was both mortified and enraged to observe the wantonness of my mother, and the lasciviousness of her _pious_ friend. After indulging in the most obscene and lecherous preliminaries, the full measure of their iniquity was consummated, I being a witness to the whole disgraceful scene. Horrified, and sick at heart, I left the spot and repaired to my own room, where I shed many bitter tears, for the dishonor of my mother and the hypocrisy of the minister filled me with shame and grief. From that moment, I ceased to love and respect my mother, as formerly; but she failed to perceive any alteration in my conduct towards her, and at that time was far from suspecting that I had witnessed the act of her dishonor and disgrace. 'I had always regarded my father as one of the best and most exemplary of men; and after my mother's crime, I comforted myself with the reflection that _he_, at least, was no hypocrite! but in every sense a good and sincere Christian. Nothing happened to shake this belief, until I had reached my fourteenth year; and then, alas! I became too painfully convinced that all _his_ professions of piety and holiness were but a cloak to conceal the real wickedness of his heart. It chanced, about this time, that a young woman was received into our family, as a domestic: this person was far from being handsome or in the slightest degree interesting, in countenance--yet her figure was rather good than otherwise. She was a bold, wanton-looking wench; and soon after she came to live with us, I noticed that my father frequently eyed her with something sensual in his glances. He frequently sought opportunities of being alone with her; and one evening, hearing a noise in the kitchen, I went to the head of the stairs, and listened--there was the sound of a tussle, and I heard Jane (the name of the young woman,) exclaim--'Have done, sire--take away your hands--how dare you?' And then she laughed, in a manner that indicated her words were not very seriously meant. My father's voice next reached me; what he said I could not clearly distinguish; but he seemed to be remonstrating with the girl, and entreating her to grant him some favor; what that favor was, I could readily guess; and that she _did_ grant it to him, without much further coaxing, was soon evident to my mind, by certain unmistakable sounds. But I preferred _seeing_ to _hearing;_ creeping softly down the kitchen stairs, I peeped in at the door, which was slightly ajar, and beheld my Christian papa engaged in a manner that reflected no credit on his observance of the seventh commandment. 'Thus having satisfied myself as to the nature and extent of _his_ sanctity and holiness, I softly ascended the stairs, and resumed my seat in the parlor. In less than ten minutes afterwards, the whole family were summoned together around the family altar, and then my excellent and pious father poured out his pure spirit in prayer, returning thanks for having been 'preserved from temptation,' and supplicating that all the members of his household might flee from fleshy lusts, which war against the soul; to which my chaste and saint-like mother responded in a fervent 'Amen.' From that evening, the kitchen wench with whom my father had defiled himself, assumed an air of bold insolence to every one in the house; she refused to perform any of the menial services devolving upon her, and when my mother spoke of dismissing her, my father would not listen to it; so the girl continued with us. She had evidently obtained entire dominion over my father, and did not scruple to use her power to her own advantage; for she flaunted about in showy ribbons and gay dresses, and I had no difficulty in surmising who furnished her with the means of procuring them. 'I still continued to attend the church of the Rev. Mr. Flanders. He used to preach excellent sermons, so far as composition and style of delivery were concerned; his words were smooth as oil; his manner full of the order of sanctity; his prayers were fervid eloquence. Yet, when I thought what a consummate scoundrel and hypocrite he was at heart, I viewed him with loathing and disgust. 'I soon became sensible that this reverend rogue began to view me with more than an ordinary degree of interest and admiration; for I may say, without vanity, that as I approached my fifteenth year, I was a very pretty girl; my form had begun to develop and ripen, and my maiden graces were not likely to escape the lustful eyes of the elderly roues of our 'flock,' and seemed to be particularly attractive to that aged libertine known as the Rev. Balaam Flanders. 'So far from being flattered by the attentions of our minister (as many of our flock were,) I detested and avoided him. Yet his lecherous glances were constantly upon me, whenever I was thrown into his society; even when he was in the pulpit, he would often annoy me with his lustful gaze. 'A bible class of young ladies was attached to the church, of which I was a member. We assembled at the close of divine service in the evening, for the study and examination of the Scriptures. Mr. Flanders himself had charge of this class, and was regarded by all the young ladies (myself excepted) as a 'dear, good man.' When one of us was particularly apt in answering a question or finding a passage, he would playfully chuck the good scholar under the chin, in token of his commendation; and sometimes, even, he would bestow a fatherly kiss upon the fair student of holy writ. 'These little tokens of his amativeness he often bestowed on me; and I permitted him, as I considered such liberties to be comparatively harmless. He soon however went beyond these 'attentions' to me--he first began by passing his hand over my bust, outside my dress, and, growing emboldened by my suffering him to do this, he would slide his hand into my bosom, and take hold of my budding evidences of approaching womanhood. Once he whispered in my ear--'My dear, what a delicious bust you have!' I was by no means surprised at his conduct or words, for his _faux pas_ with my frail mother convinced me that he was capable of any act of lechery. I also felt assured that he lusted after me with all the ardor of his lascivious passions, and I well know that he waited but for an opportunity to attempt my seduction.--I hated the man, both for his adultery with my mother, and his vile intentions towards myself--and I determined to _punish him_ for his lewdness and hypocrisy--yes, punish him through the medium of his own bad passions, and in a manner that would torture him with alternate hope and despair; now inspiring him with rapture by apparently almost yielding to his wishes, and then maddening him by my resistance--at the same time resolving not to submit to his desires in any case. This was my plan for punishing the hoary libertine, and you shall see how well I carried it out. 'I did not discourage my reverend admirer in his amorous advances, but on the contrary received them in such a manner as might induce him to suppose that they were rather pleasing to me than otherwise. This I did in order to ensure the success of my scheme--I observed with secret satisfaction that he grew bolder and bolder in the liberties which he took with my person. He frequently accompanied me home in the evening after prayer meeting; and he always took care to traverse the most obscure and deserted streets with me, so as to have a better opportunity to indulge in his licentious freedoms with me, unobserved. Not content with thrusting his hand into my bosom, he would often attempt to pursue his investigations elsewhere: but this I always refused to permit him to do. He was continually embracing and kissing me--and in the latter indulgence, he often disgusted me beyond measure, by the excessive libidinousness which he exhibited--I merely mention these things to show the vile and beastly nature of this man, whom the world regarded as a pure and holy minister of the gospel. Though old enough to be my grandfather, the most hot blooded boy in existence could not have been more wanton or eccentric in the manifestations of his lustful yearnings. In fact, he wearied me almost to death by his unceasing persecution of me; yet I bore it with patience, so as to accomplish the object I had in view. 'I have often, upon the Sabbath, looked at that man as he stood in the pulpit; how pious he appeared, with his high, serene forehead, his carefully arranged gray hair, his mild and saint-like features, his snow-white cravat, and plain yet rich suit of glossy black! How calm and musical were the tones of his voice!--How beautifully he portrayed the happiness of religion, and how eloquently he prayed for the repentance and salvation of poor sinners! Yet how black was his heart with hypocrisy, and how polluted his soul with lust! 'One New Year's evening--I remember it well--my parents went to pay a visit to a relative a short distance out of the city, leaving me in charge of the house; the servants had all gone to visit their friends, and I was entirely alone. I had good reason to suppose that the Rev. Mr. Flanders would call on me that evening, as he knew that my parents would be absent. I determined to improve the opportunity, and commence my system of torture. Going to my chamber, I dressed myself in the most fascinating manner, for my wardrobe was extensive; and glancing in the mirror, I was satisfied of my ability to fan the flame of his passions into fury. I then seated myself in the parlor, where a fine fire was burning: and in a few minutes a hurried knock at the door announced the arrival of my intended victim. I ran down stairs and admitted him, and he followed me into the parlor, where he deliberately took off his overcoat, and then wheeling the sofa in front of the fire, desired me to sit by him. This I did, with apparent hesitation, telling him there was nobody in the house, and I wasn't quite sure it was right for me to stay alone in his company. This information, conveyed with a well assumed maiden bashfulness, seemed to afford the old rascal the most intense delight; he threw his arm around me, and kissed me repeatedly, then his hand began the exploration to which I have alluded. I suffered him to proceed just far enough to set his passions in a blaze; and then, breaking from his embrace, I took my seat at the further end of the sofa, assuring him if he approached me without my permission, I should scream out. This was agony to him; I saw with delight that he was beginning to suffer. He begged, entreated, supplicated me to let him come near me; and at last I consented; upon condition that he should attempt to take no further liberties. To this he agreed, and seating himself at my side, but without touching me, he devoured me with lustful eyes. For some minutes neither of us spoke, but at length he took my hand, and again passed his arm around my waist. I did not oppose him, but remained passive and silent. 'Dear girl,' he whispered, pressing me close to him--'why need you be so cruel as to deny me the pleasure of love? Consider, I am your minister, and cannot sin: it will therefore be no sin for you to favor me.' 'Oh, sir,' I answered, 'I wish you were a young man--then I could almost--' 'Angelic creature!' he cried passionately--'true, I am not young, but Love never grows old--no, no, no! Consent to be mine, sweet delicious girl, and--' 'Ah, sir!' I murmured--'you tempt me sorely--I am but a weak giddy young creature; do not ask me to do wrong, for I fear that I may yield, and how very, very wicked that would be!' 'The reverend gentleman covered my cheeks and lips with hot kisses, as he said--'Wicked--no! Heaven has given us passions, and we must gratify them. Look at David--look at Solomon--both good men;--they enjoyed the delights of love, and are now saints in Heaven, and why may not we do the same? Why, my dear, it is the special privilege of the ministry to--' 'Ruin us young girls, sir?' I rejoined, smiling archly. 'Ah, you have set my heart in a strange flutter! I feel almost inclined--if you are sure it is not wicked--very sure--then I--' 'You are mine!' he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, with frenzied triumph gleaming in his eyes. I never saw anybody look so fearful as he did then; his form quivered with intense excitement--his features appeared as if convulsed--his eyes, almost starting from their sockets, were blood shot and fiery. I trembled, lest in the madness of his passions, he might forcibly overcome me. He anticipated no resistance, imagining that he had an easy prey; but, at that very instant when he thought he was about to intoxicate his vile soul with the delicious draught of sensual delight, I spurned him from me as I would have spurned the most loathsome reptile that crawls amid the foetid horrors of a dungeon vault.--That was the moment of my triumph; I had led him step by step, until he felt assured of his ultimate success: I had permitted him to obtain, as it were, glimpses of a Paradise he was never to enjoy; and at the very moment he thought to have crossed the golden threshold, to enter into the blissful and flowery precincts of that Paradise, he was hurled from the pinnacle of his hopes, and doomed to endure the bitter pangs of disappointment, and the gnawings of a raging desire, never to be appeased! 'Thus repulsed, my reverend admirer did not resume his attempt, for my indignation was aroused, and he saw fierce anger flashing from my eyes. I solemnly declared, that had he attempted forcibly to accomplish his purpose, I would have dashed out his brains with the first weapon I could have laid my hand to! 'Humbled and abashed, he retired to a corner of the room, where he seated himself with an air of mortified disappointment. Yet still he kept his eyes upon me; and as I knew that his desires were raging as violently within him as ever (tho' he dare not approach me,) I devised the following method of augmenting his passions, and inflicting further torture upon him:--In my struggle with him, my dress had become somewhat disarranged and torn; and standing before a large mirror which was placed over the mantle-piece, I loosened my garments, and while pretending to examine the injury which had been done to them, I took especial pains to remove all covering from my neck, shoulders and bosom, which were uncommonly soft and white, as you, my dear, can testify. The sight of my naked charms instantly produced the desired effect upon the minister, who watched my slightest movement with eager scrutiny: he ceased almost to breathe, but panted--yes, absolutely _panted_--with the intensity of his passions.--Oh, how my heart swelled with delight at the agony he was thus forced to endure! Affecting to be unconscious of his presence, I assumed the most graceful and voluptuous attitudes I could think of--and he could endure it no longer; for--would you believe it?--he actually fell upon his knees before me, and groveled at my feet, entreating me, in a hoarse whisper, to kill him at once and end his torments, or else yield myself to him! 'My revenge was now accomplished, and I desired no more. I requested him to arise from his abject posture, and listen to me. Then I told him all I knew of his hypocrisy and wickedness--how I had become aware of his criminal intercourse with my mother, which, combined with his vile conduct and intentions in regard to myself, had induced me to punish him in the manner I had done, by exciting his passions almost to madness, and then repulsing him with disdain. I added, maliciously, that my own passions were warm and ardent, and that my young blood sometimes coursed thro' my veins with all the heat of sensual desire--and that were a man, young and handsome, to solicit my favors, I _might possibly yield_, in a thoughtless moment: but as for _him_, (the minister) sooner than submit to _his_ embraces, I would permit the vilest negro in existence, to take me in his arms, and do with me as he pleased. 'All this I told the Rev. Mr. Flanders, and much more; and after listening in evident misery to my remarks, he took himself from the house. After this occurrence, I discontinued my attendance at his church and bible class. When my parents asked me the reason of my nonattendance, I refused to answer them; and at length they became enraged at what they termed my obstinacy, and insisted that I should not fail to attend church on the following Sabbath.--When the Sabbath came, I made no preparation for going to church; which mother perceiving, she began to apply the most reproachful and severe language to me. This irritated me; and without a moment's reflection, I said to her angrily: 'I can well conceive, madam, the reason of your great partiality to the Rev. Mr. Flanders; your many _private interviews_ with him have wonderfully impressed you in his favor!' 'Wretch, what do you mean?' stammered my mother in great confusion, and turning pale and red alternately. 'You know very well what I mean, vile woman!' I cried, enraged beyond all power of restraining my speech, and perfectly reckless of the consequences of what I was saying. 'I was a witness of your infamous adultery with the hypocritical parson, and--' 'As I uttered these words, my mother gave a piercing scream, and flew at me with the fury of a tigress. She beat me cruelly, tore my hair and clothes, and being a large and powerful woman, I verily believe she would have killed me, had not my father, hearing the noise, rushed into the room, and rescued me from her grasp. He demanded an explanation of this extraordinary scene, and, in spite of the threatening looks and fierce denial of my mother, I told him all. He staggered and almost fell to the floor, when I thus boldly accused her of the crime of adultery; clinging to a chair for support, he faintly ejaculated--'My God, can this be true?' 'It is false--I call Heaven to witness, it is false!' exclaimed my wretched and guilty mother--then, overcome by the terrors of the situation, she sank insensible upon the carpet. My father summoned a servant to her assistance; and then bade me follow him into another room. Carefully closing the doors, he turned to me with a stern aspect, and said, with much severity of tone and manner: 'Girl, you have made a serious charge against your mother; you have impugned her chastity and her honor. Adultery is the most flagrant crime that can stain the holy institution of marriage. If I believed your mother guilty of it, I would cast her off forever!' 'I laughed scornfully as he said this, whereupon he angrily demanded the cause of my ill-timed mirth; and as I detested his hypocrisy, I boldly told him that it ill became _him_ to preach on the enormity of the crime of adultery, after having been guilty of that very offence with his kitchen wench! He turned deadly pale at this unexpected retort, and stammered out--'Then you know all--denial is useless.' I told him how I had witnessed the affair in the kitchen, and reproached him bitterly for the infamous conduct. He admitted the justness of my rebuke, and when I informed him that Mr. Flanders had attempted to debauch me, he foamed with rage, and loaded the reverend libertine with epithets which were decidedly uncomplimentary. Still, he doubted the story of my mother's crime--he could not believe _her_ to be guilty of such baseness; but he assured me that he should satisfy himself of her innocence or guilt, then left me, after having made me promise not to expose him in reference to his affair with the servant girl in the kitchen. 'Upon leaving me, my father immediately sought an interview with my mother, who by this time had recovered from her swoon. She was in her chamber; but as I was naturally anxious to know what might pass between my parents, under such unusual circumstances, I stationed myself at the door of the room, as soon as my father had entered, and heard distinctly all that was said.' CHAPTER III _Domestic Troubles--A Scene, and a Compromise--an Escape--various matters amative, explanatory and miscellaneous, in the Tale of the Courtezan._ 'Well, madam,' said my father, in a cold, severe tone--'this is truly a strange and serious accusation which our daughter has brought against you. The crime of adultery, and with a Christian minister!' 'Surely,' rejoined my mother, sobbing--'you will not believe the assertions of that young hussy. I am innocent--indeed, indeed I am.' 'I am inclined to believe that you _are_ innocent, and yet I never shall rest perfectly satisfied until you _prove_ yourself guiltless in this matter,' rejoined my father, speaking in a kinder tone. 'Now listen to me,' he continued. 'I have thought of a plan by which to put your virtue, and the purity of our pastor, to the test. I shall invite the reverend gentleman to dinner this afternoon, after divine service; and when we have dined, you shall retire with him to this room, for private prayer. You shall go first, and in a few minutes he shall follow you; and I shall take care that no secret communication is held between you, in the way of whispering or warnings of any kind, whether by word or sign. I will contrive means to watch you narrowly, when you are with him in the chamber; and I caution you to beware of giving him the slightest hint to be on his guard, for that would be a conclusive evidence of your guilt. He will of course conduct himself as usual, not knowing that he is watched. If you are innocent, he will pray or converse with you in a Christian and proper manner; but if you ever _have_ had criminal intercourse with him, he will, in all human probability, indicate the same in his language and actions. This is most plain; and I trust that the result will clear you of all suspicion.' 'My mother knew it would be useless to remonstrate, for my father was unchangeable, when once he had made up his mind to anything. She therefore was obliged to submit. Accordingly, Mr. Flanders dined with us that day: once, during the meal, happening to look into his face, I saw that he was gazing at me intently, and I was startled by the expression of his countenance: for that expression was one of the deadliest hate. It was but for an instant, and then he turned away his eyes; yet I still remember that look of bitter hatred. As soon as dinner was over, my mother withdrew, and a few minutes afterwards my father said to the minister: 'Brother Flanders, I am going out for a short walk, to call upon a friend; meantime, I doubt not that Mrs. ---- will be happy to hold sisterly and Christian communion with you. You will find her in her chamber.' 'It is very pleasant, my brother,' responded the other--'to hold private and holy communion with our fellow seekers after divine truth. These family visits I regard as the priceless privilege of the pastor; by them the bond of love which unites him to his flock, is more strongly cemented. I will go to my sister and we will pray and converse together.' 'Saying this, Mr. Flanders arose and left the room; he had scarcely time to ascend the stairs and enter my mother's chamber, when my father quickly and noiselessly followed him, and entered an apartment adjoining. He had previously made a small hole in the wall, and to this hole he applied his eye. So rapid had been his movements, that the minister had just closed the door, when he was at his post of observation; so that it was rendered utterly impossible for my mother to whisper a word or make a sign, to caution her paramour against committing both her and himself. I lost no time in taking up my position at the chamber door, and availed myself of the keyhole as a convenient channel for both seeing and hearing. I saw that my mother was very pale and seemed ill at ease, and I did not wonder at it, for her position was an extremely painful and embarrassing one. She well knew that my father's eye was upon her, watching her slightest movement; she knew, also, that the minister was utterly unaware of my father's _espionage_, and she had good reason to fear that the reverend libertine would, as usual, begin the interview by amorous demonstrations. Oh, how she must have longed to put him on his guard, and thereby save both her honor and her reputation!--But she dare not. 'The minister seated himself near my unhappy mother, and opened the conversation as follows: 'Well, my dear Mrs. ----, I am sorry to inform you that I have tidings of an unpleasant nature to communicate to you. _We are discovered!_' 'These fatal words were uttered in a low whisper; but yet I doubt not that my father had heard them. I could see that my mother trembled violently--yet she spoke not a syllable. 'Yes,' continued the minister, all unconscious of the disclosure he was making to my father--'Your daughter knows all. She suspected, it seems, the real object of our last interview, when, you recollect, we indulged in a little amative dalliance.--On New Year's evening, during your absence, I called here and saw your daughter, when she reproached me for having debauched you, stating in what manner she had seen the whole affair. Since then, I have had no opportunity of informing you that she knew our intimacy.' 'Still my mother uttered not a single word!' 'This girl,' continued the minister,'must be made to hold her tongue, somehow or other: it would be dreadful to have it reach your husband's ears. But why are you so taciturn to-day, my dear? Come, let us enjoy the present, and dismiss all fear for the future. But first we must make sure that there are no listeners _this_ time,' and he approached the door. 'I retreated precipitately, and slipped into another room, while he opened the chamber; seeing no-one on the outside, he closed it again, and locked it. I instantly resumed my station; and I saw the minister approach my mother, (who appeared spell-bound,) and clasp her in his arms. He was about to proceed to the usual extreme of his criminality when my father uttered an expression of rage; I instantly ran into the room which had before served me as a hiding place, and in a moment more my father was at the door of my mother's chamber, demanding admission. After a short delay, the door was opened; and then a scene ensued which defies my powers of description. ''Tis needless to dwell upon the particulars of what followed. My father raved, the pastor entreated, and my mother wept. But after an hour or so, the tempest subsided; the parties arriving at the reasonable conclusion, that what was done could not be undone. Finally it was arranged that Mr. Flanders should pay my father a considerable sum of money, upon condition that the affair be hushed up.--My mother was promised forgiveness for her fault--and as I was the only person likely to divulge the matter, it was agreed that I should be placed under restraint, and not suffered to leave the house, until such time as I should solemnly swear never to reveal the secret of the adultery.--Accordingly, for one month I remained a close prisoner in the house, and at the end of that period, not feeling inclined to give the required pledge of secrecy, I determined to effect my escape, and leave my parents forever.--The thought of parting from them failed to produce the least impression of sadness upon my mind, for from the moment I had discovered the secret of their guilty intrigues, all love and respect for them had ceased. I knew it would be no easy matter for me to depart from the house unperceived, for the servant wench, Janet, was a spy upon my actions; but one evening I contrived to elude her observation, and slipping out of the door, walked rapidly away. What was to become of me, I knew not, nor cared, in my joy at having escaped from such an abode of hypocrisy as my parents' house--for of all the vices which can disgrace humanity, I regard _hypocrisy_ as the most detestable. 'Fortunately, I had several dollars in my possession; and I had no difficulty in procuring a boarding house. And now as my story must be getting tedious by its length, I will bring it to a close in as few words as possible. I supported myself for some time by the labor of my needle; but as this occupation afforded me only a slight maintenance, and proved to be injurious to my health, I abandoned it, and sought some other employment. It was about that time that I became acquainted with a young man named Frederick Archer, whose manners and appearance interested me exceedingly, and I observed with pleasure that he regarded me with admiration. Our acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy; we often went to places of amusement together, and he was very liberal in his expenditures for my entertainment. He was always perfectly respectful in his conduct towards me, never venturing upon any undue familiarity, and quite correct in his language. One evening I accompanied him to the Bowery Theatre, and after the play he proposed that we should repair to a neighboring 'Ladies Oyster Saloon,' and partake of refreshments. We accordingly entered a very fashionable place, and seated ourselves in a small room, just large enough to contain a table and sofa.--The oysters were brought, and also a bottle of champagne; and then I noticed that my companion very carefully locked the door of the room. This done, he threw his arms around me, and kissed me. Surprised at this liberty, which he had never attempted before, I scolded him a little for his rudeness; and he promised not to offend again. We then ate our oysters, and he persuaded me to drink some of the wine. Whether it contained a stimulant powder, or because I had never drank any before, I know not; but no sooner had I swallowed a glass of the sparkling liquid, than a strange dizzy sensation pervaded me--not a disagreeable feeling, by any means, but rather a delightful one. It seemed to heat my blood, and to a most extraordinary degree. Rising, I complained of being slightly unwell, and requested Frederick to conduct me out of the place immediately. Alas, sir, why need I dwell upon what followed? Frederick's conquest was an honest one; I suffered him to do with me as he pleased, and he soon initiated me into the voluptuous mysteries of Venus. I confess, I rather sought than avoided this consummation--for my passions were in a tumult, which could only be appeased by full unrestrained gratification. 'From that night my secret frailties with Frederick became frequent. I granted him all the favors he asked; yet I earnestly entreated him to marry me. This he consented to do, and we were accordingly united in the bonds of wedlock. My husband immediately hired these furnished apartments, which I at present occupy; and then he developed a trait in his character, which proved him a villain of the deepest dye. How he made a livelihood, had always to me been a profound mystery; and as he avoided the subject, I never questioned him. But how he intended to live, after our marriage, I soon became painfully aware. _He resolved that I should support him in idleness, by becoming a common prostitute._ When he made this debasing and inhuman proposition to me, I rejected it with the indignation it merited; whereupon he very coolly informed me, that unless I complied, he should abandon me to my fate, and proclaim to the world that I was a harlot before he married me. Finding me still obstinate, he drew a bowie knife, and swore a terrible oath, that unless I would do as he wished, he would kill me! Terrified for my life, I gave the required promise; but he made me swear upon the Bible to do as he wished. He set a woman in the house to watch me during the day, and prevent my escaping, and in the evening he returned, accompanied by an old gentleman of respectable appearance, whom he introduced to me as Mr. Rogers. This person surveyed me with an impertinent stare, and complimented me on my beauty; in a few minutes, Frederick arose and said to me--'Maria, I am going out for a little while, and in the meantime you must do your best to entertain Mr. Rogers.' He then whispered in my ear--'Let him do as he will with you, for he has paid me a good price; now don't refuse him, or be in the least degree prudish, or by G---- it shall be worse for you!' Scarcely had he taken his departure, when the old wretch, who had _purchased_ me, clasped me in his palsied arms, and prepared to debauch me; in reply to my entreaties to desist, and my appeals to his generosity, he only shook his head, and said--'No, no, young lady, I have given fifty dollars for you, and you are mine!' The old brute had neither shame, nor pity, nor honor in his breast; he forced me to comply with his base wishes, and a life of prostitution was for the first time opened to me. 'After this event, I attempted no further opposition to my husband's infamous scheme of prostituting myself for his support. Almost nightly, he brought home with him some _friend_ of his, who had previously paid him for the use of my person. The money he gains in this way he expends in gambling and dissipation; allowing me scarcely anything for the common necessaries of life, and I am in consequence obliged to solicit private aid from such gentlemen as are disposed to enjoy my favors. My husband rarely sleeps at home, and I see but very little of him; this is a source of no regret to me, for I have ceased to feel the slightest regard for him. 'And now, sir, you have heard the particulars of my history. You will do me the justice to believe that I have been reduced to my present unfortunate position, more through the influence of circumstances, than on account of any natural depravity.--True, I am now what is termed a woman of the town--but still I am not entirely destitute of delicacy or refinement of feeling. I am an admirer of it in others. My parents I have never seen, since the day I quitted their house; but I have heard that my mother has since given birth to a fine boy, the very image of the minister; and also that Jane, my father's paramour, has become the mother of a child bearing an astonishing resemblance to the old gentleman himself! 'If you ask me why I do not escape from my husband, and abandon my present course of living, I would remind you that, as society is constituted, I never can regain a respectable standing in the eyes of the world. No, my course is marked out, and I must adhere to it. I am not happy, neither am I completely miserable; for sometimes I have my moments of enjoyment. When I meet a gentlemanly and intelligent companion, like yourself, disposed to sympathize with the misfortunes of a poor and friendless girl, I am enabled to bear up under my hard lot with something like cheerfulness and hope.' Thus ended the Courtezan's Tale; and as it was now daylight, Frank Sydney arose and prepared for his departure, assuring her that he would endeavor to benefit her in some way, and generously presenting her with a liberal sum of money, for which she seemed truly grateful. He then bade her farewell, promising to call and see her again ere long. CHAPTER IV _A Fashionable Lady--the Lovers--the Negro Paramour--astounding developments of Crime in High Life--the Accouchement--Infanticide--the Marriage--a dark suspicion._ The scene changes to that superb avenue of fashion, Broadway; the time, eleven o'clock in the morning, and the place, one of the noblest mansions which adorn that aristocratic section of the city. Miss Julia Fairfield was seated in a luxurious apartment, lounging over a late breakfast, and listlessly glancing over the morning newspapers. This young lady was about eighteen years of age, a beauty, an heiress, and, per consequence, a _belle_. She was a brunette; her beauty was of a warm, majestic, voluptuous character; her eyes beamed with the fire of passion, and her features were full of expression and sentiment. Her attire was elegant, tasteful, and unique, consisting of a loose, flowing robe of white satin, trimmed with costliest lace; her hair was beautifully arranged in the best Parisian style; and her tiny feet were encased in gold-embroidered slippers. The peculiarity of her dress concealed the outlines of her form; yet the garment being made very low in the shoulders, the upper portions of a magnificently full bust were visible. For some time she continued to sip her chocolate and read in silence; but soon she exclaimed, in a rich, melodious voice-- 'Very well, indeed!--and so those odious editors have given the full particulars of the great ball last night, and have complimented me highly on my grace and beauty! Ah, I never could have ventured there in any other costume than the one I wore. These loose dresses are capital things--but my situation becomes more and more embarrassing every day.' At this moment a domestic announced Mr. Francis Sydney, and the announcement was followed by the entrance of that gentleman. 'My dear Julia,' said Frank, seating himself--'you will pardon my intrusion at this unfashionable hour, but I was anxious to learn the state of your health, after the fatigues of last night's assembly.' 'No apology is necessary, my dear Frank,' replied the lady, with a bewitching smile, at the same time giving him her hand, which he tenderly raised to his lips. 'I am in excellent health this morning, although dreadfully bored with _ennui_, which I trust will be dispelled by the enlivening influence of your presence.' 'What happiness do I derive from the reflection, my sweet girl,' said Frank, drawing his chair closer to hers, 'that, in one short month, I shall call you mine! Yes, we shall then stand before the bridal altar, and I shall have the felicity of wedding the loveliest, most accomplished, and purest of her sex!' 'Ah, Francis,' sighed the lady--'how joyfully will I then bestow upon you the gift of this hand!--my heart you have already.' These words were said with so much tenderness, and with such a charming air of affectionate modesty, that the young man caught her to his breast and covered her lips with kisses. Struggling from his ardent embrace, Julia said to him, in a tone of reproach,-- 'Francis, this is the first time you ever forgot the respect due to me as a lady; but do not repeat the offense, or you will diminish my friendship for you--perhaps, my love also.--When we are _married_,' she added, blushing--'my person will be wholly yours--but not till then.' 'Pardon me, dear Julia,' entreated Frank, in a tone of contrition--'I will not offend again.' The lady held out her hand, and smiled her forgiveness. 'Now that we are good friends again,' said she--'I will order some refreshments.' She rang a silver bell, and gave the necessary order to a servant, and in a few minutes, cake and wine were brought in by a black waiter, clad in rich livery. The complexion of this man was intensely dark, yet his features were good and regular and his figure tall and well-formed. In his demeanor towards his mistress and her guest, he was respectful in the extreme, seldom raising his eyes from the carpet, and when addressed, speaking in the most servile and humble tone. After having partaken of the refreshments, and enjoyed half an hour's conversation, Frank arose and took his leave. As soon as he had gone, an extraordinary scene took place in that parlor. The black waiter, having turned the key within the lock of the door, approached Miss Fairfield, deliberately threw his arms around her, and kissed her repeatedly! And how acted the lady--she who had reproved her affianced husband for a similar liberty--how acted she when thus rudely and grossly embraced by that black and miscreant menial? Did she not repulse him with indignant disgust,--did she not scream for assistance, and have him punished for the insolent outrage? No; she abandoned her person to his embraces, and returned them! She, the well-born, the beautiful, the wealthy, the accomplished lady--the betrothed bride of a young gentleman of honor--the daughter of an aristocrat--the star of a constellation of fashion--yielding herself to the arms of a negro servant! Oh, woman! how like an angel art thou in thy virtue and goodliness! how like a devil, when thou art fallen from thy high estate! Yes, that black fellow covers her exquisite neck and shoulders with lustful kisses! His hands revel amid the glories of her divine and voluptuous bosom; and his lips wander from her rosy mouth, to the luxurious beauties of her finely developed bust. 'My beautiful mistress!' said the black, 'how kind in you to grant me these favors! What can I do to testify my gratitude?' 'Oh Nero,' murmured the lady 'what if our intimacy should be discovered? yet you are discreet and trustworthy; for from the night I first hinted my desires to you, and admitted you into my chamber, you have behaved with prudence and caution. Yet you are aware of my situation; you know that I am _enciente_ by you; all our precautions have failed to prevent that result of our amours. I dress myself in such a way as to keep my condition from observation; no one suspects it. In a month, you know, I am to be married to Mr. Sydney; but I hope to give birth to the child in less than a week from the present time, so that, with good care and nursing, assisted by my naturally robust constitution, I shall recover my health and strength in sufficient time to enable my marriage to pass on without suspicion. I will endeavor to adopt such artifices and precautions as will completely deceive my husband, and he will never know that I am otherwise than he now supposes me. After my marriage, we can continue our intrigues as before, provided we are extremely cautious. Ah, my handsome African, how dearly I love you.' The guilty and depraved woman sank back upon a sofa, and her paramour clasped her in his arms. Let no one say that our narrative is becoming too improbable for belief, that the scenes which we depict find no parallel in real life. Those who are disposed to be skeptical with reference to such scenes as the foregoing had better throw this volume aside; for crimes of a much deeper dye, than any yet described, will be brought forward in this tale: crimes that are daily perpetrated, but which are seldom discovered or suspected. We have undertaken a difficult and painful task, and we shall accomplish it; unrestrained by a false delicacy, we shall drag forth from the dark and mysterious labyrinths of great cities, the hidden iniquities which taint the moral atmosphere, and assimilate human nature to the brute creation. Five days after the occurrences just described, in the middle of the afternoon, Miss Julia Fairfield rode out in her carriage alone, driven by the black, Nero. The vehicle stopped before a house of respectable exterior, in Washington street, and the young lady was assisted to alight; entering the house, she was received by an elderly female, who immediately conducted her to a private room, which contained a bed and furniture of a neat but unostentatious description. The carriage drove away, and Julia remained several hours in the house. At about nine o'clock in the evening, the carriage returned, and she was assisted to enter, being apparently in a very feeble and unwell condition. She reached her own dwelling, and for over a week remained in her chamber, under plea of severe indisposition. When at length she made her appearance, she looked extremely pale, and somewhat emaciated; yet, for the first time in several months, she wore a tight-fitting dress, and her father, unconscious of her crimes, good-naturedly expressed his joy at seeing her 'once more dressed like a Christian lady, and not in the loose and slatternly robes she had so long persisted in wearing.' The next morning after her visits to the house on Washington Street, the newspapers contained a notice of the discovery of the body of a newborn mulatto child, in the water off the Bowery. That child was the offspring of Miss Julia and the black; it had been strangled, and its body thrown into the water. About three weeks after her secret accouchement, Julia became the wife of Frank Sydney. An elegant establishment had been prepared for the young couple, in Broadway. Here they repaired after the performance of the marriage ceremony; and now being for the first time alone with his beautiful bride, Frank embraced her with passionate ardor, and was not repulsed. Ah, happy bridegroom, how little thou knowest the truth! Thou dost not suspect that the lovely woman at thy side, dressed in spotless white, and radiant with smiles--thou dost little think that she, whom thou hast taken to be thy wedded wife, comes to thy arms and nuptial bed, not a pure and stainless virgin, but a wretch whose soul is polluted and whose body is unchaste, by vile intimacy with a negro menial! The hour waxes late, and the impatient husband conducts his fair bride to the nuptial chamber--Love's hallowed sanctuary. Two hours afterwards, that husband was pacing a parlor back and forth, with uneven strides, his whole appearance indicative of mental agony.--Pausing, he exclaimed-- 'My God, what terrible suspicions cross my mind! I imagined Julia to be an angel of purity and virtue yet now I doubt her! Oh, horrible, horrible! But may not my doubts be facts without any foundation? I will tomorrow consult a physician on the subject. Pray heaven my suspicions may prove to be utterly groundless!' He was startled by the sound of an approaching foot-step; the door opened, and his wife entered, bearing a light. How seductive she looked, in her white night-dress! how tenderly she caressed him, as with affectionate concern she inquired if he were unwell. 'Dearest Frank,' she said, 'I had fallen into the most delicious slumber I have ever enjoyed;--doubly delicious, because my dreams were of you. Awaking suddenly, I missed you from my arms, and hastened hither to find you. What is the matter, love?' 'Nothing, Julia,' answered the husband; 'I had a slight head-ache, but it is over now. Return to your chamber, and I will follow you in a few moments.' She obeyed, and Frank was alone. 'Either that woman is as chaste as Diana,' he said to himself, 'or she is a consummate wretch and hypocrite. But let her not be too hastily condemned. My friend, Dr. Palmer, shall give me his opinion, and if he thinks that she could have been _as she was_, and still be chaste, then I will discard my suspicions; but if, on the contrary, the doctor deems such a condition to be incompatible with chastity, then will I cast her off forever. I cannot endure this fearful state of suspense, would that it were morning!' Morning came at last, and Sydney sought the residence of Dr. Palmer, with whom he held a long and private consultation. The result of this interview was not very satisfactory to the husband, for the doctor's concluding remarks were as follows:-- 'My dear sir, it is impossible for any physician, however great may be his professional knowledge and experience, to decide with positive certainty upon such a matter. Nature has many freaks; the condition of your lady _might_ be natural--yet pardon me if, in my own private opinion, I doubt its being so! I have heard of such cases, where the chastity of the lady was undoubted; yet such cases are exceedingly rare. Your position, Mr. Sydney, is a peculiarly embarrassing and delicate one. I cannot counsel you as a physician; yet, as _a friend_, permit me to advise you to refrain from acting hastily in this matter. Your wife may be innocent; you should consider her so, until you have ocular or other positive evidence of her guilt. Meanwhile, let her not know your suspicions, but watch her narrowly; if she were frail before marriage, she needs but the opportunity to be inconstant afterwards. I have attended upon the lady several times, during slight illness, in my capacity as a physician, and I have had the opportunity to observe that she is of an uncommonly ardent and voluptuous temperament. Phrenology confirms this; for her amative developments are singularly prominent.--Candidly, her physical conformation strongly impresses me with the belief, that moral principle will scarcely restrain her from unlawful indulgence, when prompted by inclination.' 'The devil!' muttered Frank, as he retraced his steps home--'I am about as wise as ever! A pretty opinion Dr. Palmer expresses of her, truly! Well, she shall have the benefit of a doubt, and I shall try to look upon her as an innocent woman, until I detect her in an act of guilt. Meanwhile, she shall be watched narrowly and constantly.' Frank's suspicions with reference to his newly-made wife, did not prevent his carrying out the plan of benevolence which he formed in the first chapter of this narrative. Adopting various disguises, he would penetrate into the most obscure and dangerous quarters of the city, at all hours of the day and night. The details of many of these secret adventures will be hereafter related. CHAPTER V _A Thieves' Crib on the Five Points--Bloody Mike--Ragged Pete--the Young Thief, and the stolen Letters--The Stranger--a general Turn-out-Peeling a Lodger--the 'Forty-Foot Cave.'_ It was a dreary winter's night, cold, dark, and stormy. The hour was midnight; and the place, the '_Five Points_.' The narrow and crooked streets which twine serpent-like around that dreaded plague spot of the city were deserted; but from many a dirty window, and through many a red, dingy curtain, streamed forth into the darkness rages of ruddy light, while the sounds of the violin, and the noise of Bacchanalian orgies, betokened that the squalid and vicious population of that vile region were still awake. In the low and dirty tap-room of a thieves' _crib_ in Cross street, are assembled about a dozen persons. The apartment is twenty feet square, and is warmed by a small stove, which is red-hot; a roughly constructed bar, two or three benches, and a table constitute all the furniture. Behind the bar stands the landlord, a great, bull-necked Irishman, with red hair, and ferocious countenance, the proprietor of the elegant appropriate appellation of 'Bloody Mike.' Upon the table are stretched two men, one richly dressed, and the other in rags--both sound asleep. Beneath the table lay a wretched-looking white prostitute, and a filthy-looking negro--also asleep. The remainder of the interesting party are seated around the stove, and sustain the following dialogue: 'Well, blow me tight,' said one, 'if ever I seed such times as these afore! Why, a feller can't steal enough to pay for his rum and tobacco. I haven't made a cent these three days. D----n me if I ain't half a mind to knock it off and go to work!' The speaker was a young man, not over one and twenty years of age; yet he was a most wretched and villainous looking fellow. His hair was wild and uncombed; his features bloated and covered with ulcers; his attire miserable and ragged in the extreme; and sundry sudden twitchings of his limbs, as well as frequent violent scratchings of the same, indicated that he was overrun with vermin. This man, whose indolence had made him a common loafer, had become a petty thief; he would lurk around backyards and steal any article he could lay his hands to--an axe, a shovel, or a garment off a line. 'What you say is true enough, Ragged Pete,' said a boy of about fourteen, quite good looking, and dressed with comparative neatness. 'A _Crossman_ has to look sharp now-a-days to make a _boodle_. And he often gets deceived when he thinks he has made a raise. Why the other day I cut a rich looking young lady's reticule from her arm in Broadway and got clear off with it; but upon examining my prize, I found it contained nothing but a handkerchief and some letters. The _wipe_ I kept for my own use; as for the letters, here they are--they are not worth a tinker's d----n, for they are all about love.' As he spoke, he carelessly threw upon the table several letters, which were taken up and examined by Ragged Pete, who being requested by others to read aloud, complied, and opening one, read as follows:-- '_Dear Mistress_,--Since your marriage, I have not enjoyed any of those delicious private _tete-a-tetes_ with you, which formerly afforded us both so much pleasure. Send me word when I can find you alone, and I will fly to your arms. 'Your ever faithful Nero' 'By Jesus!' exclaimed Bloody Mike--'it's a mighty quare name me gentleman signs himself, any how. And it's making love to another man's wife he'd be, blackguard! Devil the much I blame him for that same, if the lady's continted!' 'Here,' said Ragged Pete, taking up another letter, 'is one that's sealed and directed, and ain't been broke open yet. Let's see what it says.' Breaking the seal, he read aloud the contents, thus:-- '_Dear Nero_,--I am dying to see you, but my husband is with me so constantly that 'tis next to impossible. He is kind and attentive to me, but oh! how infinitely I prefer _you to him_! I do not think that he has ever suspected that before my marriage, I * * * _Fortunately for us_, Mr. Sydney has lately been in the habit of absenting himself from home evenings, often staying out very late. Where he goes I care not, tho' I suspect he is engaged in some intrigue of his own; and if so, all the better for us, my dear Nero. 'Thus I arrange matters; when he has gone, and I have reason to think he will not soon return, a light will be placed in my chamber window, which is on the extreme left of the building, in the third story. Without this signal, do not venture into the house. If all is favourable my maid, Susan (who is in our secret,) will admit you by the back gate, when you knock thrice. Trusting that we may meet soon, I remain, dear Nero, 'Your loving and faithful JULIA.' 'Hell and furies!' exclaimed one of the company, starting from his seat, and seizing the letter; he ran his eye hastily over it, and with a groan of anguish, sank back upon the bench. The person who manifested this violent emotion, was a young man, dressed in a mean and tattered garb, his face begrimed corresponding with that of the motley crew by which he was surrounded. He was a perfect stranger to the others present, and had not participated in their previous conversation, nor been personally addressed by any of them. Bloody Mike, the landlord, deeming this a fit opportunity for the exercise of his authority, growled out, in a ferocious tone-- 'And who the devil may ye be, that makes such a bobbaboo about a letter that a _kinchen_ stales from a lady's work bag? Spake, ye blasted scoundrel; or wid my first, (and it's no small one) I'll let daylight thro' yer skull! And be what right do ye snatch the letter from Ragged Pete? Answer me _that_ ye devil's pup!' All present regarded the formidable Irishman with awe, excepting the stranger, who gazed at him in contemptuous silence. This enraged the landlord still more, and he cried out-- 'Bad luck to ye, who are ye, at all at all? Ye're a stranger to all of us--ye haven't spint a pinney for the good of the house, for all ye've been toasting yer shins furnist the fire for two hours or more! Who knows but ye're a police spy, an officer in disguise, or--' 'Oh, _slash yer gammon_, Bloody Mike,' exclaimed the stranger, speaking with a coarse, vulgar accent--'I know you well enough, tho' you don't remember _me_. Police spy, hey? Why, I've just come out of _quod_ myself, d'y see--and I've got _tin_ enough to stand the rum for the whole party. So call up, fellers--what'll ye all have to drink?' It is impossible to describe the effect of these words on everybody present. Bloody Mike swore that the stranger was a 'rare gentleman', and asked his pardon; Ragged Pete grasped his hand in a transport of friendship; the young thief declared he was 'one of the b'hoys from home;' the negro and the prostitute crawled from under the table, and thanked him with hoarse and drunken voices; the vagabond and well-dressed man on the table, both rolled off, and 'called on.' And the stranger threw upon the counter a handful of silver, and bade them 'drink it up.' Such a scene followed! Half pints of 'blue ruin' were dispensed to the thirsty throng, and in a short time all, with two or three exceptions, were extremely drunk. The negro and the prostitute resumed their places under the table; the well-dressed man and his ragged companion stretched themselves upon their former hard couch; and Ragged Pete ensconced himself in the fireplace, with his head buried in the ashes and his heels up the chimney, in which comfortable position he vainly essay'd to sing a sentimental song, wherein he [_illegible word_] to deplore the loss of his 'own true love.' (The only sober persons were the stranger, the young thief and the Irish landlord.) The two former of these, seated in one corner, conversed together in low whispers. 'See here, young feller,' said the stranger--'I've taken a fancy to them two letters, and if you'll let me keep 'em, here's a dollar for you.' The boy readily agreed, and the other continued: 'I say, there's a rum set o' coves in this here crib, ain't there? Who is that well-dressed chap on the table?' 'That,' said the boy, 'is a thief who lately made a large haul, since which time he has been cutting a tremendous swell--but he spent the whole thousand dollars in two or three weeks, and his fine clothes is all that remains. In less than a week he will look as bad as Ragged Pete.' 'And what kind of a cove is the landlord, Bloody Mike?' asked the stranger. 'He is the best friend a fellow has in the world, as long as his money lasts,' replied the boy. 'The moment that is gone, he don't know you. Now you'll see in a few moments how he'll clear everybody out of the house except such as he thinks has money. And, 'twixt you and me, he is the d----dst scoundrel out of jail, and would as lief kill a man as not.' At this moment, Bloody Mike came from behind the counter and took a general survey of the whole party. At length his eye settled upon the form of Ragged Pete, in the fireplace; muttering something about 'pinnyless loafers,' he seized that individual by the heels, and dragging him to the door, opened it, and thrust the poor wretch forth into the deep snow and pelting storm! All the rest with the exception of the stranger, the boy thief, and the well dressed man, shared the same fate. But Mike was not done yet; he swore that the well dressed personage should pay for his lodgings, and deliberately he stripped the man of his coat, vest and boots, after which summary proceeding he ejected him from the house, as he had the others. 'Suppose we take up our quarters in some other 'crib',' whispered the boy to the stranger; the latter assented, and they both arose to depart. The landlord invited them to remain and partake of 'something hot,' but they declined this hospitality, and sallied forth into the street. It was now about two o'clock, and snowing heavily. The stranger, placing himself under the guidance of the boy, followed him around into Orange street. Pausing before a steep cellar, exceedingly narrow, dark and deep, the young thief whispered-- 'This is the _forty-foot cave_--the entrance into the _dark vaults_.[1] You have been down, I suppose?' The stranger answered in the negative. 'Then come on, if you are not afraid,' said the boy--and followed by his companion, he cautiously began to descend into the dark and dreary chasm. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: It is a fact by no means generally known that there was, beneath the section of New York called the 'Five Points,' a vast subterranean cavern, known as the _dark vaults_. There mysterious passages run in many directions, for a great distance, far beneath the foundations of the houses. Some have supposed that the place was excavated in time of war, for the secretion of ammunition or stores, while others think it was formerly a deep sewer of the city. In these dark labyrinths _daylight_ never _shone_: an eternal night prevailed. Yet it swarmed with human beings, who passed their lives amid its unwholesome damps and gloomy horrors. It served as a refuge for monstrous crimes and loathsome wretchedness. The Police rarely ventured to explore its secret mysteries--for Death lurked in its dark passages and hidden recesses. The horrors of this awful place have never heretofore been thoroughly revealed; and now the author of this work will, for the first time, drag forth the ghastly inmates of this charnel-house into the clear light of day.] CHAPTER VI _The Dark Vaults--Scenes of Appalling Horror--The Dead Man--The Catechism--arrangements for a Burglary._ Down, down, they went, far into the bowels of the earth; groping their way in darkness, and often hazarding their necks by stumbling upon the steep and slippery steps. At length the bottom of the 'forty-foot cave' was reached; and the boy grasping the hand of his follower, conducted him thro' a long and circuitous passage. Intense darkness and profound silence reigned; but after traversing this passage for a considerable distance, lights began to illumine the dreary path, and that indistinct hum which proceeds from numerous inhabitants, became audible. Soon the two explorers emerged into a large open space, having the appearance of a vast vault, arched overhead with rough black masonry, which was supported by huge pillars of brick and stone. Encircling this mighty _tomb_, as it might be properly called, were numerous small hovels, or rather _caves_, dug into the earth; and these holes were swarming with human beings. Here was a _subterranean village_! Myriads of men and women dwelt in this awful place, where the sun never shone; here they festered with corruption, and died of starvation and wretchedness--those who were poor; and here also the fugitive murderer, the branded outlaw, the hunted thief, and the successful robber, laden with his booty, found a safe asylum, where justice _dare not_ follow them--here they gloried in the remembrance of past crimes, and anticipated future enormities. Men had no secrets here;--for no treachery could place them within the grasp of the law, and every one spoke openly and boldly of his long-hidden deeds of villainy and outrage. 'Come', said the boy to the stranger--'let us go the rounds and see what's going on.' They drew nigh a large, shelving aperture in the earth, on one side of the vault, and looking in saw a man, nearly naked; seated upon a heap of excrement and filthy straw. A fragment of a penny candle was burning dimly near him, which showed him to be literally daubed from head to foot with the vilest filth. Before him lay the carcase of some animal which had died from disease--it was swollen and green with putrefaction; and oh, horrible! we sicken as we record the loathsome fact--the starved wretch was ravenously devouring the carrion! Yes, with his finger nails, long as vultures' claws, he tore out the reeking entrails, and ate them with the ferocity of the grave-robbing hyena! One of the spectators spoke to him, but he only growled savagely, and continued his revolting meal. 'Oh, God!' said the stranger, shuddering--'this is horrible!' 'Pooh!' rejoined the boy--'_that's_ nothing at all to what you will see if you have the courage and inclination to follow me wherever I shall lead you, in these vaults.' In another cavern an awful scene presented itself. It was an Irish _wake_--a dead body lay upon the table, and the relations and friends of the deceased were howling their lamentations over it. An awful stench emanating from the corpse, indicated that the process of decomposition had already commenced. In one corner, several half-crazed, drunken, naked wretches were fighting with the ferocity of tigers, and the mourners soon joining in the fray, a general combat ensued, in the fury of which, the table on which lay the body was overturned, and the corpse was crushed beneath the feet of the combatants. Leaving this appalling scene, the boy and the stranger passed on, until they stood before a cave which was literally crammed with human beings. Men and women, boys and girls, young children, negroes, and _hogs_ were laying indiscriminately upon the ground, in a compact mass. Some were cursing each other with fierce oaths; and horrible to relate! negroes were lying with young white girls, and several, unmindful of the presence of others, were perpetrating the most dreadful enormities. These beings were vile and loathsome in appearance, beyond all human conception; every one of them was a mass of rags, filth, disease, and corruption. As the stranger surveyed the loathsome group, he said to his guide, with a refinement of speech he had not before assumed-- 'Had any one, two hours ago, assured me that such a place as this, containing such horrible inmates, existed in the very heart of the city, I would have given him the lie direct! But I see it for myself, and am forced to believe it.' 'These wretches,' said the boy--'are many of them related to each other. There are husbands and wives there; mothers and children; brothers and sisters. Yet they all herd together, you see, without regard to nature or decency. Why the crime of _incest_ is as common among them as dirt! I have known a mother and her son--a father and his daughter--a brother and sister--to be guilty of criminal intimacy! Those wretched children are many of them the offspring of such unnatural and beastly connections. In my opinion, those hogs have as good a claim to humanity, as those brutes in human form!' 'And how came those hogs to form part of the inhabitants of this infernal place?' asked the stranger. 'You must know,' replied the boy,'that these vaults communicate with the common street _sewers_ of the city; well, those animals get into the sewers, to devour the vegetable matter, filth and offal that accumulate there; and, being unable to get out, they eventually find their way to these vaults. Here they are killed and eaten by the starving wretches. And would you believe it?--these people derive almost all their food from these sewers. They take out the decayed vegetables and other filth, which they actually eat; and the floating sticks and timber serve them for fuel. You remember the man we saw devouring the dead animal; well, he took that carcase from the sewer.' 'And what effect does such loathsome diet produce upon them?' asked the other. 'Oh,' was the reply--'it makes them insane in a short time; eventually they lose the faculty of speech, and howl like wild animals. Their bodies become diseased, their limbs rot, and finally they putrify and die.' 'And how do they dispose of the dead bodies?' asked the stranger. '_They throw them into the sewer_,' answered the boy, with indifference. His listener shuddered. 'Come,' said the young guide--'you have only seen the wretched portion of the Dark Vaults. You are sick of such miseries, and well you may be--but we will now pay a visit to a quarter where there are no sickening sights. We will go to the _Infernal Regions_!' Saying this, he led the way thro' a long, narrow passage, which was partially illumined by a bright light at the further end. As they advanced loud bursts of laughter greeted their ears; and finally they emerged into a large cavern, brilliantly illuminated by a multitude of candles, and furnished with a huge round table. Seated around this were about twenty men, whose appearance denoted them to be the most desperate and villainous characters which can infest a city. Not any of them were positively ragged or dirty; on the contrary, some of them were dressed richly and expensively; but there was no mistaking their true characters, for villain was written in their faces as plainly as though the word was branded on their faces with a hot iron. Seated upon a stool in the centre of the table was a man of frightful appearance: his long, tangled hair hung over two eyes that gleamed with savage ferocity; his face was the most awful that can be imagined--long, lean, cadaverous and livid, it resembled that of a corpse. No stranger could view it without a shudder; it caused the spectator to recoil with horror. His form was tall and bony, and he was gifted with prodigious strength. This man, on account of his corpse-like appearance was known as 'the Dead Man.' He never went by any other title; and his real name was unknown. The stupendous villainy and depravity of this man's character will appear hereafter. Upon the occasion of his first introduction in this narrative, he was acting as president of the carousals; he was the first one to notice the entrance of the boy and the stranger; and addressing the former, he said-- 'How now, _Kinchen_--who have you brought with you? Is the cove _cross_ or _square_--and what does he want in our _ken_?' 'He is a _cross cove_,' answered the boy--'he is just from _quay_; and wishes to make the acquaintance of the knights of the Round Table.' 'That being the case,' rejoined the Dead Man, 'he is welcome, provided he has the blunt to pay for the _lush_ all round.' The stranger, understanding the import of these words, threw upon the table a handful of money; this generosity instantly raised him high in the estimation of all present. He was provided with a seat at the table, and a bumper of brandy was handed him, which he merely tasted, without drinking. The boy seated himself at the side of the stranger, and the Dead Man, addressing a person by the name of the 'Doctor,' requested him to resume the narration of his story, in which he had been interrupted by the two newcomers. The 'Doctor,' a large, dark man, very showily dressed, complied, and spoke as follows:-- 'As I was saying, gentlemen, I had become awfully reduced--not a cent in my possession, not a friend in the world, and clothed in rags. One night, half-crazed with hunger, I stationed myself at the Park, having armed myself with a paving stone, determined to rob the first person that came along, even if I should be obliged to dash out his brains.--After a while, a young gentleman approached my lurking place; I advanced towards him with my missile raised, and he drew a sword from his cane, prepared to act on the defensive--but when I mentioned that three days had elapsed since I had taken food, the generous young man, who might easily have overcome me, weak and reduced as I was--took from his pocket a fifty dollar bill, and gave it to me. This generous gift set me on my legs again, and now here am I, a Knight of the Round Table, with a pocket full of rocks, and good prospects in anticipation. Now, the only wish of my heart is to do that generous benefactor of mine a service; and if ever I can do a good action to him, to prove my gratitude, I shall be a happy fellow indeed.' 'Posh!' said the Dead Man, contemptuously--'don't talk to me of gratitude--if a man does _me_ a service I hate him for it ever afterwards. I never rest till I repay him by some act of treachery or vengeance.' As the hideous man gave utterance to this abominable sentiment, several females entered the apartment, one of whom led by the hand a small boy of five years of age. This woman was the wife of the Dead Man, and the child was his son. The little fellow scrambled upon the table, and his father took him upon his knee, saying to the company-- 'Pals, you know the blessed Bible tells us to 'train up a child in the way he should go;' very good--now you will see how well I have obeyed the command with this little _kid_. Attend to your catechism, my son. What is your name?' 'Jack the Prig,' answered the boy without hesitation. 'Who gave you that name?' 'The Jolly Knights of the Round Table.' 'Who made you?' asked the father. 'His Majesty, old Beelzebub!' said the child. 'For what purpose did he make you?' 'To be a bold thief all my life, and die like a man upon the gallows!' Immense applause followed this answer. 'What is the whole duty of man?' 'To drink, lie, rob, and murder when necessary.' 'What do you think of the Bible?' 'It's all a cursed humbug!' 'What do you think of me--now speak up like a man!' 'You're the d----dest scoundrel that ever went unhung,' replied the boy, looking up in his father's face and smiling. The roar of laughter that followed his answer was perfectly deafening, and was heartily joined in by the Dead Man himself, who had taught the child the very words--and those words were true as gospel. The Dead Man knew he was a villain, and gloried in the title. He gave the boy a glass of brandy to drink, as a reward for his cleverness; and further encouraged him by prophesying that he would one day become a great thief. Room was now made at the table for the women, several of whom were young and good-looking. They were all depraved creatures, being common prostitutes, or very little better; and they drank, swore, and boasted of their exploits in thieving and other villainy, with as much gusto as their male companions. After an hour of so spent in riotous debauchery, the company, wearied with their excesses, broke up, and most of them went to their sleeping places; the Dead Man, the boy and the stranger, together with a man named Fred, remained at the table; and the former, addressing the stranger, said to him-- 'And so, young man, you have just come out of _quod_, hey? Well, as you look rather hard up, and most likely haven't a great deal of blunt on hand, suppose I put you in the way of a little profitable business--eh?' The stranger nodded approvingly. 'Well, then,' continued the Dead Man--'you must know that Fred Archer here and myself _spotted_ a very pretty _crib_ on Broadway, and we have determined to _crack_ it. The house is occupied by a young gentleman named Sydney, and his wife--they have been married but a short time. We shall have no difficulty in getting into the crib, for Mr. Sydney's butler, a fellow named Davis, is bribed by me to admit us into the house, at a given signal. What say you--will you join us?' 'Yes--and devilish glad of the chance,' replied the stranger, gazing at Fred Archer with much interest. Fred was a good looking young man, genteelly dressed, but with a dissipated, rakish air. 'Very well--that matter is settled,' said the Dead Man. 'Three of us will be enough to do the job, and therefore we shan't want your assistance, _Kinchen_,' he added, addressing the boy. 'It must now be about six o'clock in the morning--we will meet here to-night at eleven precisely. Do not fail, for money is to be made in this affair.' The stranger promised to be punctual at the appointed hour; and bidding him good night (for it was always night in that place), Fred and the Dead Man retired, leaving the _Kinchen_ and the stranger alone together. 'Well,' said the _Kinchen_--'so it seems that you have got into business already. Well and good--but I must caution you to beware of that Dead Man, for he is treacherous as a rattlesnake. He will betray you, if anything is to be gained by it--and even when no advantage could be gained, he will play the traitor out of sheer malice. He is well aware that I, knowing his real character, would not join him in the business, and therefore he affected to think that my assistance was unnecessary.' 'I will look out for him,' rejoined the stranger--and then added, 'I will now thank you to conduct me out of this place, as I have matters to attend to elsewhere.' The _Kinchen_ complied, and in ten minutes they emerged into the street above, by the same way they had entered. Here they parted, the stranger having first presented the boy with a liberal remuneration for his services as guide, and made an appointment to meet him on a future occasion. CHAPTER VII _The false wife, and the dishonest servant--scene in the Police Court--capture of the Burglars, and threat of vengeance._ Mr. Francis Sydney and his lady were seated at dinner, in the sumptuously furnished dining parlor of their elegant Broadway mansion. The gentleman looked somewhat pale and ill at ease, but the lady had never looked more superbly beautiful. The table was waited upon by Davis, the butler, a respectable looking man of middle age, and Mr. Sydney, from time to time, glanced furtively from his wife to this man, with a very peculiar expression of countenance. 'My love,' said Mrs. Sydney, after a pause of several minutes--'I have a little favor to ask.' 'You have but to name it, Julia, to ensure it being granted,' was the reply. 'It is this,' said the lady;--'our present footman is a stupid Irishman, clumsy and awkward; and I really wish him to be discharged. And, my dear, I should be delighted to have the place filled by my father's black footman, who is called Nero. He is civil and attentive, and has been in my father's family many years. Let us receive him into our household.' 'Well Julia,' said the husband, 'I will consider on the subject. I should not like to part with our present footman, Dennis, without some reluctance--for though uncouth in his manners, he is an honest fellow, and has served me faithfully for many years. _Honest_ servants are exceedingly scarce now-a-days.' As he uttered these last words, Davis, the butler, cast a sudden and suspicious look upon his master, who appeared to be busily engaged with the contents of his plate, but who in reality was steadfastly regarding him from the corner of his eyes. As soon as dinner was over, the lady retired to her _boudoir_; Davis removed the cloth and Mr. Sydney was left alone. After taking two or three turns up and down the room, he paused before the fireplace and soliloquized thus: 'Curses on my unhappy situation! My wife is an adulteress, and my servants in league with villains to rob me! These two letters confirm the first--and my last night's adventure in the Dark Vaults convinced me of the second. And then the woman just now had the damnable effrontery to request me to take her rascally paramour into my service, in place of my faithful Dennis! She wishes to carry on her amours under my very nose! And that scoundrel Davis--how demure, how innocently he looks--and yet how suspiciously he glanced at me, when I emphasized _honest_ servants! He is a cursed villain, and yet not one-tenth part so guilty as this woman, whom I espoused in honorable marriage, supposing her to be pure and untainted and yet who was, previous to our marriage, defiled by co-habitation with a vile negro--and now _after_ our marriage, is still desirous of continuing her beastly intrigues. Davis is nothing but a low-born menial, without education or position, but Julia is by birth a lady, the daughter of a man of reputation and honor, moving in a brilliant sphere, possessing education and talent, admired as much for her beauty as for her accomplishments and wit--and for her to surrender her person to the lewd embraces of _any man_--much more a negro menial--is horrible! And then to allow herself to be led to the altar, enhanced her guilt tenfold; but what caps the climax of her crimes, is this last movement of hers, to continue her adulterous intercourse! Heavens!--what a devil in the form of a lovely woman! But patience, patience! I must set about my plan of vengeance with patience.' The reader of course need not be told, that the stranger of the Dark Vaults, and Frank Sydney, were one and the same person. The adventure had furnished him with the evidences of his wife's criminality and his servant's dishonesty and perfidy. That same afternoon, the young gentleman sallied forth from his mansion, and took his way to the police office. On his way he mused thus: 'By capturing these two villains, the Dead Man and Fred Archer, I shall render an important service to the community. It is evident that the first of these men is a most diabolical wretch, capable of any crime; and the other, I am convinced, is the same Frederick Archer who is the husband of the unfortunate girl with whom I passed the night not long since, at which time she related to me her whole history. He must be a most infernal scoundrel to make his wife prostitute herself for his support; and he is a _burglar_ too, it seems. Society will be benefited by the imprisonment of two such wretches--and this very night shall they both lodge in the Tombs.' When Frank arrived at the police office, he found a large crowd assembled; a young thief had just been brought in, charged with having abstracted a gentleman's pocket-book from his coat pocket, in Chatham Street. What was Frank's surprise at recognizing in the prisoner, the same boy who had been his companion in the Dark Vaults, on the proceeding night! The lad did not know Frank, for there was no similarity between the ragged, vagabond looking fellow of the night before, and the elegantly dressed young gentleman who now surveyed him with pity and interest depicted in his handsome countenance. It was a clear case--the young offender was seen in the act, and the pocket-book was found in his possession. The magistrate was about to make out his commitment, when Frank stepped forward, and required what amount of bail would be taken on the premises? 'I shall require surety to the amount of five hundred dollars, as the theft amounts to grand larceny,' replied the magistrate. 'I will bail him, then,' said Frank. 'Very well, Mr. Sydney,' observed the magistrate, who knew the young gentleman perfectly well, and highly respected him. 'You will wait here in the office for me, until I have transacted some business, and then accompany me to my residence,' said Frank--'I feel interested in you, and, if you are worthy of my confidence hereafter, your future welfare shall be promoted by me.' Frank had a long private interview with the magistrate. After having made arrangements for the capture of the two burglars, the young man urged the police functionary to take immediate measures for the breaking up of the band of desperate villains who lurked in the Dark Vaults, and the relief of the miserable wretches who found a loathsome refuge in that terrible place. The magistrate listened with attention and then said-- 'I have long been aware of the existence of the secret, subterranean Vaults of which you allude, and so have the officers of the police; yet the fact is known to very, very few of the citizens generally. Now you propose that an efficient and armed force of the police and watch, make a sudden descent into the den, with the view of capturing the villains who inhabit it. Ridiculous!--why, sir, the thing is impossible: they have a mysterious passage, unknown to any but themselves, by which they can escape and defy pursuit. The thing has been attempted twenty times, and as often failed. So much for the _villains_ of the den;--now in regard to the wretched beings whom you have described, if we took them from that hole, what in the world should we do with them? Put them in the prisons and almshouse, you say. That would soon breed contagion throughout the establishments where they might be placed, and thus many lives would be sacrificed thro' a misdirected philanthropy. No, no--believe me, Mr. Sydney, that those who take up their abode in the Vaults, and become diseased, and rot, and die there, had much better be suffered to remain there, far removed from the community, than to come into contact with that community, and impart their disease and pollution to those who are now healthy and pure. Those vaults may be regarded as the moral sewers of the city--the scum and filth of our vast population accumulate in them. With reference to the desperadoes who congregate there, their living is made by robbery and outrage throughout the city; and all, sooner or later, are liable to be arrested and imprisoned for their offences.' 'I admit the force of your reasoning,' said Frank--'yet I cannot but deeply deplore the existence of such a den of horrors.' 'A den of horrors indeed!' rejoined the magistrate. 'Why, sir, there are at this moment no less than six murderers in the Vaults--one of whom escaped from his cell the night previous to the day on which he was to be hung. The gallows was erected in the prison yard--but when the sheriff went to bring the convict forth to pay the penalty of his crime, his cell was empty; and upon the wall was written with charcoal,--'_Seek me in the Dark Vaults!_' The police authorities once blocked up every known avenue to the caverns, with the design of starving out the inmates; but they might have waited till doomsday for the accomplishment of that object, as the secret outlet which I have mentioned enabled the villains to procure stores of provisions, and to pass in and out at pleasure. I am glad that your scheme, Mr. Sydney, will tonight place in the grip of the law, two of these miscreants, one of whom, the Dead Man, has long been known as the blackest villain that ever breathed. He is a fugitive from justice, having a year ago escaped from the State Prison, where he had been sentenced for life, for an atrocious murder; he had been reprieved from the gallows, thro' the mistaken clemency of the Executive. He will now be returned to his old quarters, to fulfil his original sentence, and pass the remainder of his accursed life in imprisonment and exclusion from the world, in which he is not fit to dwell.' Frank now took leave of the magistrate, and, accompanied by the young pickpocket, returned to his own residence. It was now about five o'clock, and growing quite dark; a drizzly rain was falling intermingled with snow. Frank conducted the boy to his library, and having carefully closed and locked the door, said to him-- '_Kinchen_, don't you know me?' The boy started, and gazed earnestly at him for a few moments, and then shook his head. 'Wait here a short time, and I will return,' said Frank, and he stepped into a closet adjoining the library, and shut the door. Ten minutes elapsed; the closet door opened, and a ragged, dirty looking individual entered the library. The boy jumped to his feet in astonishment, and exclaimed-- 'Why, old fellow, how the devil came _you_ here?' 'Hush,' said Frank--'I am the man who accompanied you thro' the Vaults last night, and I am also the gentleman who bailed you to-day. Now listen; you can do me a service. You know that the Dead Man, Fred Archer and myself are to enter this house to-night; the two burglars little think that I am the master of the house. It is my intention to entrap those two villains. Take this pistol; conceal yourself in that closet, and remain quiet until you hear the noise of a struggle; then rush to the scene of the conflict, and aid me and the officers in capturing the two miscreants. Rather than either of them should escape, shoot him thro' the head. I am inclined to think that you will prove faithful to me; be honest, and in me you have secured a friend. But I must enlist another person in our cause.' He rang a bell, and Dennis, the Irish footman, made his appearance. This individual was not surprised to see his master arrayed in that strange garb, for he had often assisted him in similar disguises. Dennis was a large, raw-looking Hibernian, yet possessing an honest open countenance.--Frank explained to him in a few words the state of the case, and the nature of the service required of him; and honest Dennis was delighted with the opportunity of displaying his personal prowess, and fidelity to his master. 'Och, be the powers!' he exclaimed--'it's nather a sword nor a pistol I want at all, but only a nate little bit of shillalab in my fist, to bate the thieves of the worruld, and scatter them like the praste scatters the divil wid holy water.' 'Very well,' said Frank--'now, _Kinchen_, you will take your station in the closet, for fear you should be seen by the servants, and you, Dennis, will bring him up some refreshments, and then attend to your ordinary duties as usual. Say not a word to anybody in regard to this affair, and give the other servants to understand that I have gone out, and will not return until tomorrow morning. I shall now leave the house, and at about midnight you may expect me, accompanied by the burglars.' Saying this, Frank quitted the mansion by a private stair-case. Turning into Canal street, he walked towards the Bowery, and not far from where that broad thoroughfare joins Chatham street, he ascended the steps of a dwelling-house, and knocked gently at the door; it was soon opened by the young courtezan with whom Frank had passed the night at the commencement of this tale. She did not recognize the visitor in his altered garb, until he had whispered a few words in her ear, and then uttering an exclamation of pleasure, she requested him to follow her up-stairs. Frank complied, and after seating himself in the well-remembered chamber, related to the young woman, as briefly as possible, the circumstances under which he had met her husband, Fred Archer, and the share he was to take in the burglary. He concluded by saying-- 'I am sure, Mrs. Archer, that you will rejoice in the prospect of getting rid of such a husband. Once convicted and sent to the State Prison, he has no further claim upon you. You will be as effectually separated from him as though you were divorced.' 'I shall be most happy,' said Mrs. Archer--'to escape from the tyrannical power of that bad man. He has used me brutally of late, and I have often suffered for the common necessaries of life. Oh, how gladly would I abandon the dreadful trade of prostitution and live a life of virtue!' 'And so you shall, by Heavens!' cried Frank, in the warmth of his generous nature. 'Take courage, madam, and after the affairs of tonight are settled, your welfare shall be my special care. I will endeavor to procure you a comfortable home in some respectable family, where--' At this moment the street door was opened, and some one was heard ascending the stairs. 'It is my husband!' whispered Mrs. Archer, and pointing to the bed, she requested Frank to conceal himself behind the curtains; he did so, and in a moment more, Fred Archer entered the room, and threw himself into a chair. 'Well, by G----!' he exclaimed--'it seems impossible for a man to make a living these times! Here I am, without a cursed cent in my pocket. Maria, what money have you in the house?' 'I have no money, Frederick,' replied his wife. 'No money--you lie, cursed strumpet! What do you do with the gains of your prostitution?' 'As God is my witness,' replied the wretched woman, bursting into tears--'I have not received a cent for the past week; I have even suffered for food; and the lady threatens to turn me out of doors this very night, if the rent is not paid. I know not what to do.' 'Do!--why, d----n you, do as other w----s do; go and parade Broadway, until you pick up a flat--ha, ha, ha!' and the ruffian laughed brutally. After a pause, he added-- 'Well, I've got an appointment tonight, at eleven o'clock; a little job is to be done, that will fill my pocket with shiners. But don't you expect to get a farthing of the money--no, d----n you, you must earn your living as other prostitutes earn it. Good bye--I'm off.' He departed, and Frank emerged from his hiding place. 'What a beastly scoundrel that fellow is!' he thought, as he gazed with pity at the weeping and wretched wife. He was about to address her with some words of comfort, when a loud knocking was heard on the chamber door. Mrs. Archer started, and whispered to Frank that it was the landlady, come to demand her rent--she then in a louder tone, requested the person to walk in. A stout, vulgar looking woman entered the room and having violently shut the door and placed her back to it, said-- 'I've come, Missus, or Miss, or whatever you are, to see if so be you can pay me my rent, as has now been due better nor four weeks, and you can't deny it, either.' 'I am sorry to say, madam,' replied Mrs. Archer,'that I am still unable to pay you. My husband has left me no money, and--' 'Then you will please to bundle out of this house as soon as possible,' retorted the woman, fiercely. 'What am I to let my furnished rooms to a lazy, good-for-nothing hussy like you, as is too proud to work and too good to go out and look for company in the streets, and can't pay me, an honest, hard-working woman, her rent! Am I to put up with--' 'Silence, woman!' interrupted Frank--'do not abuse this unfortunate female in this manner! Have you no sympathy--no pity?' 'And who are _you_, sir?' demanded the virago, dreadfully enraged--'how dare _you_ interfere, you dirty, ragged, vagabond? Come, tramp out of this, both of you, this very instant, or I shall call in them as will make you!' Frank made no reply, but very composedly drew from his pocket a handful of silver and gold; at the sight of the money, the landlady's eyes and mouth opened in astonishment--and her manner, from being most insufferably insolent, changed to the most abject servility. 'Oh, sir,' she said, simpering and curtsying--'I am sure I always had the greatest respect for Mrs. Archer, and I hope that neither you nor her will think hard of me for what I said--I only meant--' 'That will do,' cried Frank, contemptuously--and having inquired the amount due, paid her, and then desired her to withdraw, which she did, with many servile apologies for her insolent rudeness. The young gentleman then prevailed upon Mrs. Archer to accept of a sum of money sufficient to place her beyond immediate want, and promised to call upon her again in a few days and see what could be done for her future subsistence. She thanked him for his kindness with tears in her eyes; and bidding her farewell, he left the house, and proceeded towards the Five Points. He had no difficulty in finding the 'forty-foot cave,' the entrance of the Dark Vaults; but, previous to descending, curiosity prompted him to step into the _crib_ of Bloody Mike, to see what was going on. He found the place crowded with a motley collection of vagrants, prostitutes, negroes and petty thieves; Ragged Pete was engaged in singing a shocking obscene song, the others joined in the chorus. Clothed in filthy rags, and stupidly drunk, was the man whom Frank had seen the night before so handsomely dressed; Bloody Mike, who had 'peeled' his coat, had since become the possessor of all his other genteel raiment, giving the poor wretch in exchange as much 'blue ruin' as he could drink, and the cast-off garments of a chimney-sweep! Bloody Mike welcomed Frank with enthusiasm, and introduced him to the company as the 'gintleman that had thrated all hands last night.' At this announcement, the dingy throng gave a loud shout of applause, and crowded about him to shake his hand and assure him how glad they were to see him. These demonstrations of regard were anything but pleasing to our hero, who threw a dollar upon the counter, inviting them all to drink; and, while they were crowding around the bar to receive their liquor, he made his escape from the _crib_, and sought the entrance to the Dark Vaults. Having reached the bottom of the 'forty-foot cave' in safety, he proceeded cautiously along the dark passage which he had before traversed, and passing thro' the first Vault, soon emerged into the cavern of the desperadoes. Here he was met by Fred Archer and the Dead Man, who had been waiting for him. 'Ah, old fellow,' said the latter worthy--'here you are; it's somewhat before the appointed time, but so much the better. Put it down and drink a bumper of brandy to the success of our enterprise.' The three seated themselves at the table, and remained over an hour drinking, smoking and conversing. Frank partook very sparingly of the liquor, but the others drank freely. At last the Dead Man arose, and announced that it was time to go. He then began to make his preparations. Retiring for a short time to an inner cavern, he returned with his arms full of various articles. First, there were three large horse pistols, two of which he gave to his companions, retaining one for himself; then he produced three cloaks to be worn by them, the better to conceal any booty which they might carry off. There was also a dark lantern, and various implements used by burglars. The Dead Man then proceeded to adjust a mask over his hideous face, which so completely disguised him, that not one of his most intimate acquaintances would have known him. The mask was formed of certain flexible materials, and being colored with singular truthfulness to nature, bore a most wonderful resemblance to a human face. The Dead Man, who, without it, carried in his countenance the loathsome appearance of a putrefying corpse, with it was transformed into a person of comely looks. All the preparations being now complete, the party took up their line of march, under the directions of the Dead Man. To Frank's surprise, that worthy did not lead the way out of the cavern by means of the 'forty-foot cave,' but proceeded in a different course, along a passage, dark and damp, its obscurity but partially dispelled by the dim rays of the dark lantern, which was carried by the leader. After traversing this passage for a considerable distance, the Dead Man suddenly paused, and said to Frank-- 'You are not acquainted with the Secret Outlet to these Vaults--and as you are not yet a Knight of the Round Table, I dare not trust you, a stranger, with the knowledge of it, until you join us, and prove yourself to be trustworthy. Therefore, we must blindfold you, until we reach the streets above. This is a precaution we use by every stranger who goes out this way.' 'But why do you not leave the Vaults by the 'forty-foot cave' thro' which I entered?' demanded Frank, who was fearful of some treachery. 'Because,' answered the Dead Man--'there are police officers in disguise constantly lurking around the entrance of that cave, ready to arrest the first suspicious character who may come forth. You were not arrested last night, because you were unknown to the police--but I, or Fred here, would be taken in a jiffy.' 'How would they know _you_ in the disguise of that mask?' asked Frank. 'They might recognise me by my form--my gait--my air--my speech--damn it, they would almost know me by my smell! At all events, I prefer not to risk myself, while there is a safe outlet here. But, if you hesitate, you can return the way you came, and we will abandon the undertaking.' 'No,' said Frank--'I will proceed.' The Dead Man bound a handkerchief tightly over Frank's eyes, and led him forward some distance; at length he was desired to step up about a foot, which he did, and found himself standing upon what appeared to be a wooden platform. The other two took their places beside him, and then he heard a noise similar to that produced by the turning of an iron crank; at the same time he became sensible that they were slowly ascending. Soon a dull, sluggish sound was heard, like the trickling of muddy water; and a foetid odor entered the nostrils, similar to the loathsome exhalations of a stagnant pool. Up, up they went, until Frank began to think that they must have attained a vast height from the place whence they had started; but at last the noise of the crank ceased, the platform stood still, and the Dead Man, after conversing for a short time in whispers with some person, took hold of Frank's arm, and led him forward thro' what appeared to be an entry. A door was opened, they passed out, and Frank, feeling the keen air, and snow beneath his feet, knew that they were in the open streets of the city. After walking some distance, and turning several corners the bandage was removed from his eyes, and he found himself in Pearl street, the Dead Man walking by his side, and Fred following on behind. They soon turned into Broadway, and in less than ten minutes had reached the mansion of Mr. Sydney. The streets were silent and deserted for the hour was late; and the Dead Man whispered to his companions-- 'We can now enter the house unobserved. In case of surprise, we must not hesitate to _kill_, sooner than be taken. I will now give the signal.' He gave a low and peculiar whistle, and after the lapse of a few moments, repeated it. Instantly, the hall door was noiselessly opened by a person whom Frank recognized as Davis, the butler. The Dead Man beckoned the two others to follow him into the hall, which they did, and the door was closed. Five minutes after they had entered the house two men who had been concealed behind a pile of bricks and rubbish on the opposite side of the street, crossed over, and passing around to the rear of the house, obtained access to the garden thro' the back gate which had been purposely left unfastened for them. These two men were police officers, who had been for some time on the watch for the burglars. They entered the house thro' the kitchen window, and stationed themselves upon the stairs, in readiness to rush to the assistance of Frank, as soon as he should give the appointed signal. Meantime, the Dead Man had raised the slide of his dark lantern, and by its light he led the way into the back parlor, followed by the others. Davis had not the remotest suspicion that one of the men, whom he supposed to be a burglar, and whose appearance was that of a ruffian, was his master! No--he looked him full in the face without recognizing him in the slightest degree. The Dead Man, approaching a side-board, poured out a bumper of wine and tossed it off, after which he drew from his pocket a small iron bar, (called by thieves a _jimmy_,) and applying it to a desk, broke it open in an instant. But it contained nothing of value;--and the burglar, addressing the others, said: 'We must disperse ourselves over the house, in order to do anything. I will rummage the first story: you, Fred, will explore the second, and our new friend here can try his luck in the third. As for you, Davis, you must descend into the kitchen, and collect what silver ware and plate you can find. So now to work.' At this instant Frank threw himself upon the Dead Man, and exclaimed, in a loud voice: 'Yield, villain!' 'Damnation, we are betrayed!' muttered the ruffian, as with a mighty effort he threw Frank from him, and drew his horse pistol;--levelling it at the young man with a deadly aim, he was about to draw the fatal trigger, when Dennis, the Irish footman, who had been concealed beneath a large dining table, sprang nimbly behind him, and felled him to the carpet with a tremendous blow of his thick cudgel, crying: 'Lie there, ye spalpeen, and rest asy.' Fred Archer and Davis instantly made for the door, with the intention of escaping--but they were seized by the two policemen, who now rushed to the scene of uproar; the butler and burglar, however, struggled desperately, and one of the policemen was stunned by a heavy blow on his head, with the butt of a pistol, dealt by the hand of Archer, who, thus freed from the grasp of his antagonist, dashed thro' the hall and effected his escape from the house. Davis, however, was quickly overpowered by the other officer, who slipped hand-cuffs upon his wrists, and thus secured him. All these occurrences took place within the space of two minutes; and the _Kinchen_, who had been secreted in the library upstairs, arrived, pistol in hand, at the scene of action, just as the conflict had terminated. The Dead Man lay motionless upon the carpet, and Frank began to fear that he was killed; but upon approaching and examining him, he discovered that he still breathed, though faintly. The blow from Dennis' cudgel had apparently rendered him insensible, and blood was flowing from a severe but not serious wound in his head. The policeman who had been stunned was speedily brought to, by proper treatment;--and it was found that he had sustained but a trifling injury. Frank now approached Davis, and regarding him sternly, said-- 'So, sir, you have leagued yourself with burglars, it seems. What induced you to act in this treacherous manner?' 'The promise of a liberal reward,' replied the man, sulkily. 'Your reward will now consist of a residence of several years in the State Prison,' observed his master as he walked away from him. The noise of the conflict had aroused the inmates of the house from their slumbers, and much alarm prevailed among them, particularly the females, whose screams resounded throughout the building. To quiet them, Dennis was despatched as a messenger, with assurances that the robbers were in safe custody, and no cause for alarm existed. On passing the chamber of his mistress, that lady called to him, desiring to know the cause of the uproar; and when she had learned the details of the affair, she expressed her gratification at the result. Frank ordered refreshments to be brought up, and while the whole party gathered around the table to partake of a substantial collation, he congratulated the two officers on having secured so desperate and dangerous a villain as the Dead Man. The form of that miscreant was still stretched upon the carpet directly behind Frank, who stood at the table; and as he was supposed to be insensible, from the effect of the heavy blow which he had received, no one deemed it necessary to bestow any attention upon him. But while the officers and others were eating and conversing, the _Kinchen_ suddenly uttered an exclamation of alarm, and seizing a wine bottle which stood upon the table, dashed it at the head of the Dead Man, who had arisen upon his knees, and held in his hand a sharp, murderous-looking knife, which he was just on the point of plunging into the side of the unsuspecting Frank! The bottle was broken into shivers against the ruffian's head, and ere he could recover himself, he was disarmed and handcuffed by the officers, one of whom tore the mask from his face; and the spectators shrunk in horror at the ghastly and awful appearance of that corpse-like countenance! Turning his glaring eye upon Frank, he said, in tones of deepest hate-- 'Sydney, look at me--_me_, the _Dead Man_--dead in heart, dead in pity, dead in everything save _vengeance_! You have won the game; but oh! think not your triumph will be a lasting one. No, by G----! there are no prison walls in the universe strong enough to keep me from wreaking upon you a terrible revenge! I will be your evil genius; I swear to follow you thro' life, and cling to you in death; yes--I will torture you in hell! Look for me at midnight, when you deem yourself most secure; I shall be in your chamber. Think of me in the halls of mirth and pleasure, for I shall be at your elbow. In the lonely forest, on the boundless sea, in far distant lands, I shall be ever near you, to tempt, to torture, and to drive you mad! From this hour you are blasted by my eternal curse!' * * * * * Half an hour afterwards, the Dead Man and Davis the butler were inmates of the 'Egyptian Tombs.' CHAPTER VIII _The Subterranean Cellar--Capture and Imprisonment of the Black--the Outcast Wife--The Villain Husband--the Murder and Arrest._ The next day after the occurrence of the events detailed in the last chapter, Frank Sydney caused to be conveyed to the negro footman, Nero, the letter which his wife had addressed to him--which letter it will be recollected, had been stolen from the lady, in her reticule, by the young thief, who had sold it and another epistle from the black, to Frank, at the _crib_ of Bloody Mike. The plan adopted by the much injured husband for the punishment of his guilty wife and her negro paramour, will be developed in the course of the present chapter. The black, upon receiving the letter, imagined that it came direct from the lady herself; and much rejoiced was he at the contents, resolving that very night to watch for the signal in the chamber window of the amorous fair one. Beneath the building in which Frank resided, was a deep stone cellar, originally designed as a wine vault; it was built in the most substantial manner, the only entrance being protected by a massive iron door--the said door having been attached in order to prevent dishonest or dissolute servants from plundering the wine. In the course of the day upon which he had sent the letter to Nero, Frank paid a visit to this cellar, and having examined it with great care, said to himself--'This will answer the purpose admirably.' He then summoned Dennis and the _Kinchen_--the latter of whom he retained in his service--and desired them to remove the few bottles and casks of wine which still remained in the cellar and deposit them elsewhere.--This being done, a quantity of straw was procured and thrown in one corner, and then the arrangements were complete. 'Now listen,' said Frank, addressing Dennis and the _Kinchen_; 'a certain person has injured me--irretrievably injured me--and it is my intention to confine him as a prisoner in this cellar. The matter must be kept a profound secret from the world; you must neither of you breathe a syllable in relation to it, to a living soul. My motive for confiding to you the secret, is this: I may at times find it necessary to be absent from home for a day or so, and it will devolve upon you two to supply the prisoner with his food. Be secret--be vigilant, and your faithfulness shall be rewarded.' Both of his listeners expressed their willingness to serve him in the matter, and Frank dismissed them, with instructions to await his further orders. Mrs. Sydney, having lost the letter which she had addressed to Nero (never dreaming that it had fallen into the hands of her husband,) that afternoon, while Frank was engaged in the wine cellar, wrote _another letter_ to the black, couched in nearly the same language as her former one, and making precisely the same arrangement in reference to an interview with him in her chamber. This letter she gave to her maid, Susan, to convey privately to the black. It so happened that Frank, who had just finished his business in the wine cellar, encountered the girl as she was emerging from the rear of the house; she held her mistress' letter in her hand, and, confused at meeting Mr. Sydney so unexpectedly, thrust it hastily into her bosom. Frank saw the action, and suspecting the truth, forced the letter from her, broke the seal, and hastily glanced over the contents. It instantly occurred to him that, if he permitted this letter to reach its intended destination, the negro would naturally suspect something wrong, from the fact that he had received that morning a precisely similar letter; and thus Frank's plan might be frustrated. On the other hand, it was necessary for Mrs. Sydney to believe that the letter was safely delivered, in order that she might still suppose her husband to be ignorant of her amour with the black. In view of these considerations, Frank put the letter in his pocket, and then turning to the trembling Susan, said to her, sternly-- 'Woman, your agency in this damnable intrigue is known to me, and if you would save yourself from ruin, you will do as I command you. Remain concealed in the house for half an hour, and then go to your mistress and tell her that you have delivered the letter to the black; and say to her that he sends word in reply, that _should the signal be given to-night, he will come to her chamber_. And do you, when you hear him knock thrice upon the gate, admit him, and conduct him to your mistress's chamber. Do this, and you are forgiven for the part you have taken in the business; but if you refuse, by the living God you shall die by my hand!' 'Oh, sir,' sobbed the girl, frightened at the threat, 'I will do all you wish me to.' 'Then you have nothing to fear--but remember, I am not to be trifled with.' Half an hour afterwards, Susan went up to the chamber of her mistress, and said-- 'Well, ma'am, I gave the letter to Nero.' 'And did he send any message?' asked the lady. 'Yes, ma'am,' replied the girl, in obedience to the instructions of Frank--'he said that if the signal is given to-night, he will come to your chamber.' 'Very well, Susan--you are a good girl, and here is a dollar for you,' said the lady, and then added--'you will be sure to admit him when he knocks?' 'Oh, yes, ma'am,' replied the maid; and thanking her mistress, she withdrew. Left alone, the guilty, adulterous woman fell into a voluptuous reverie, in which she pictured to herself the delights which she anticipated from her approaching interview with her sable lover. The possibility of her husband's remaining at home that evening, thereby preventing that interview, did not once obtrude itself upon her mind--so regularly had he absented himself from home every night during the preceding two or three weeks; and as he had never returned before midnight, she apprehended no difficulty in getting her paramour out of the house undiscovered by him. The conduct of this woman will doubtless appear very extraordinary and unaccountable to those who have not studied human nature very deeply; while the eccentricity of her passion, and the singular object of her desires, will excite disgust. But to the shrewd and intelligent observer of the female heart and its many impulses, the preferences of this frail lady are devoid of mystery. They are readily accounted for--pampered with luxury, and surrounded by all the appliances of a voluptuous leisure, a morbid craving for _unusual indulgences_ had commingled with her passions--a raging desire, and mad appetite for a _monstrous_ or _unnatural_ intrigue--and hence her disgraceful _liaison_ with the black. Were we disposed, what astounding disclosures we could make, of beastly amours among the sons and daughters of the aristocracy! We have known many instances of unnatural births, unquestionably produced by unnatural cohabitations! We once visited the private cabinet of an eminent medical practitioner, whose collection comprised over a hundred half-human monstrosities, preserved;--and we were assured that many were the results of the most outrageous crimes conceivable.--But why dwell upon such a subject, so degrading to humanity? We will pursue the loathsome theme no longer. Evening came, and after supper Mrs. Sydney retired to her chamber. To her surprise, her husband joined her there; but her surprise increased, and her annoyance was extreme, when he announced his intention of remaining with her that evening, at home! Disguising her real feelings, and affecting a joy which was a stranger to her heart at the moment, she only smiled as if in approval of his determination. But in her heart she was most painfully disappointed. 'At all events,' she said to herself, 'I will not place a light in my window, which was the signal I arranged with Nero--so I am safe, at least.' What was her astonishment and dismay, when her husband deliberately took the lamp from the table, and placed it in the window! Amazed and trembling, she sat for some minutes in silence, while Frank, having lighted a cigar, began smoking with the utmost coolness. At length the conscience-stricken lady ventured to say-- 'My dear, why do you place the light in the window?' 'Because it is my whim to do so,' replied Frank. 'It is a singular whim,' remarked his wife. 'Not so singular as the whim of a white lady of my acquaintance, who amalgamates with a negro,' said her husband. 'What do you mean?' demanded the guilty woman, ready to faint with terror and apprehension. 'I mean this, woman--that you are a vile adulteress!' exclaimed Frank, now thoroughly enraged--'I mean that your abominable conduct is known to me--your true character is discovered. Before your marriage you were defiled by that negro footman, Nero--and since our marriage you have sought the opportunity to renew the loathsome intimacy.' 'What proof have you of this?' murmured the wretched woman, ready to die with shame and terror. 'These letters--this one, addressed to you by the black, and this, which you wrote to him this very afternoon; but it did not reach its destination, for I intercepted it. The one which you wrote a few days ago, and which was stolen from you in your reticule, came into my possession in a manner almost providential--that letter I sent to the place this morning, and he, supposing it came from you, will come to-night to keep the appointment. He will observe the signal agreed upon, and will be admitted into the house, and conducted to this chamber, little imagining who is waiting for him. So you see, madam, both you and your _friend_ are in my power.' It is impossible to describe the expression of despair and misery which overspread the countenance of Mrs. Sydney during the utterance of these words. She attempted to speak, but could not articulate a single syllable--and in another moment had fallen insensible upon the carpet. Frank raised her and placed her upon the bed; he had scarcely done so, when he heard some one stealthily ascending the stairs, and in another moment the door softly opened, and Nero, the African footman, entered. Great was his astonishment and alarm on beholding the husband of the lady whom he had come to debauch. His first impulse was to retreat from the room and endeavor to make his escape from the house; but his design was frustrated by Frank, who rushed forward and seized him by the throat, exclaiming, in a tone of furious rage-- 'Eternal curses on you, black ruffian, how dare you enter this house?' The African, recovering somewhat his presence of mind, struggled to release himself from the fierce grasp of Frank, and would probably have succeeded, had not the _Kinchen_ entered, and, seizing a chair, dealt him a blow with it which knocked him down. He then drew from his pocket a stout cord, and, with Frank's assistance, bound the negro's arms securely with it. Nero, though a black, was both educated and intelligent; he knew that he was now in the power of the man who had been so foully wronged, and he conceived that there was but one way to extricate himself from the difficulty--namely, by promises and entreaties. 'Mr. Sydney,' said he, in an humble, submissive tone--'it is evident that you have discovered my intimacy with that lady, by what means I know not. You have just cause to be indignant and enraged; but I throw myself upon your mercy--and consider, sir, the lady made the first advances, and was I so much to blame for acceding to the wishes of such a lovely woman? Now, sir, if you will suffer me to depart, I promise to leave the city of New York forever, and never will I breathe to another ear the secret of my intimacy with your wife.' 'Think not, accursed miscreant, thus to escape my vengeance,' replied Frank. 'That you are less guilty than that adulterous woman who lies there,' he added, pointing to the bed, 'I admit, and her punishment shall be greater than yours, for she shall endure the pangs of infamy and disgrace, while you only suffer the physical inconvenience of a lengthened imprisonment. I cannot suffer you to go at large after this outrage on my honor as a husband and a man. Attempt no further parley--it is useless, for your fate is sealed.' Frank took from a bureau drawer a brace of pistols, and commanded the negro to follow him, threatening to shoot him through the head if he made the least noise or resistance.--Nero obeyed, trembling with apprehension and dread. Descending the stairs, Frank conducted him to the cellar, and unlocking the massive iron door, bade him enter; the poor wretch began to supplicate for mercy, but his inexorable captor sternly ordered him to hold his peace, and having unbound his arms, forced him into the dark and gloomy vault, closed the door, and locked it. He then gave the key to the _Kinchen_, requesting him to use the utmost vigilance to prevent the escape of the prisoner, and to supply him every day with sufficient food and water. 'You perceive, my boy,' said Frank, 'that I am disposed to place the utmost confidence in your integrity and faithfulness. From the moment I first saw you, I have been impressed with the belief that you possess a good heart, and some principles of honor. Destitution and bad company have led you astray--but I trust that your future conduct will prove your sincere repentance. I will see the gentleman from whom you attempted to take the pocket-book, and I will compromise the matter with him, so that it shall never come to trial. Be honest--be faithful--be true--and in my house you shall ever have a home, and in me you shall ever have a steadfast friend.' 'Oh, sir,' said the _Kinchen_, his eyes filling with tears--'your kindness and generosity have made me a different being from what I was. I now view my former life with abhorrence, and sooner would I die than return to it. Ah, it is delightful to lead an honest life, to have a comfortable home, and a kind friend like you, sir. My faithful devotion to your interests will prove my gratitude. I should like, sometime, to tell you my history, Mr. Sydney; and when you have heard it, I am sure that you will say that I deserve some pity, as well as blame.' 'I shall be pleased to hear your story,' replied Frank. 'As you are now regularly in my service, you shall be no longer designated as _Kinchen_,[2] for that name is associated with crime. What is your own proper name?' 'Clinton Romaine,' replied the boy. 'Well, Clinton, you shall hereafter be called by that name. To-morrow I will give you an order on my tailor for a new and complete wardrobe. You had better now retire to bed; as for myself,' he added, gloomily--'I shall probably enjoy but little rest or sleep to-night.' Clinton bade his patron good night, and retired; Frank ascended to the chamber of his wife, and found that she had recovered from her swoon, though she was still pale from apprehension and shame. Averting her eyes from her husband's gaze, she sat in moody silence; after a pause of several minutes, Frank said-- 'Julia, it is not my intention to waste my breath in upbraiding you--neither will I allude to your monstrous conduct further than to state it has determined me to cast you off forever. You are my wife no longer; you will leave this house to-night, and never again cross its threshold. Take with you your maid Susan, your wardrobe, your jewels--in short, all that belongs to you; you must relinquish the name of Sydney--cease to regard me as your husband, and never, never, let me see your face again.' These words, uttered calmly and solemnly, produced an extraordinary effect upon the lady; so far from subduing or humiliating her, they aroused within her all the pride of her nature, notwithstanding her recent overwhelming shame. A rich color dyed her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, and her bosom heaved, as she arose, and boldly confronting Frank, said, in passionate tones-- 'You cast me off forever!--I thank you for those words; they release me from a painful thralldom. Now am I mistress of my own actions--free to indulge to my heart's content in delightful amours!--I will not return to my father's house--no, for you will doubtless proclaim there the story of my shame, and my father would repulse me with loathing; and even if 'twere not so, I prefer liberty to follow my own inclinations, to the restraint of my parent's house.' 'Wretched woman,' exclaimed Franks--'are you indeed so lost--so depraved?' 'Fool!' returned the frail lady--'you cannot understand the fiery and insatiate cravings of my passions. I tell you that I consume with desire--but not for enjoyment with such as _you_, but for delicious amours which are _recherche_ and unique! Ah, I would give more for one hour with my superb African, than for a year's dalliance with one like you, so ordinary, so excessively common-place! Now that the mask is torn from my face, reserve is needless. Know then that I have been a wanton since early girlhood. What strange star I was born under, I know not; but my nature is impregnated with desires and longings which you would pronounce absurd, unnatural, and criminal. Be it so: I care not what you or the world may say or think--my cravings must be satisfied at all hazards. As for relinquishing the name of Sydney, I do so with pleasure--that name has no pleasure for me; I never loved you, and at this moment I hate and despise you. Do you ask me wherefore?--Because you had wit enough to detect me in my intrigues. I shall leave your house tonight, and we meet no more. My future career is plainly marked out: I shall become an abandoned and licentious woman, yielding myself up unreservedly to the voluptuous promptings of my ardent soul. I part from you without regret, and without sorrow do I now bid you farewell forever.' 'Stay a moment,' said Frank, as she was about to leave the room--'I would not have you to be entirely destitute: I will fill you out a check for a sum of money sufficient to keep you from immediate want.' He wrote out and signed a check for one thousand dollars, which he gave her, and then left her without saying another word. She received the donation with evident satisfaction, and immediately began to make her preparations for departure. Her maid, Susan, assisted her; and also informed her in what manner Frank had compelled her to assist in entrapping Nero into the house. Susan, herself being unobserved, had seen the African conveyed to the cellar, and locked in; this fact she also communicated to her mistress, who heard it with much pleasure, as she had anticipated that her paramour would meet with a worse fate than mere confinement.--She determined to effect his release, if possible, although she knew that some time must necessarily elapse before she could hope to accomplish that object. When all was ready, Julia and her maid seated themselves in a hackney coach which had been procured, and were rapidly driven from that princely mansion, of which the guilty woman had so recently been the proud mistress, but from which she was now an outcast forever. That night, Frank, in the solitude of his chamber, shed many bitter tears. He mourned over the fallen condition of that beautiful woman, whom, had she been worthy, he would have cherished as his wife, but who had proved herself not only undeserving of his affection, but depraved and wicked to an astonishing degree. Until the fatal moment when he was led to suspect her chastity, he had loved her devotedly and sincerely. How cruelly had he been deceived! And that night, in the solitude and darkness of his cold and gloomy dungeon, Nero, the African, swore a terrible oath of vengeance upon the white man who had shut him up in that subterranean cell. Within a week after the capture of the Dead Man and David the butler, those two villains were inmates of the State Prison at Sing Sing--the former to fulfil his original sentence of imprisonment for life, and the latter to undergo an imprisonment for five years, for his participation in the attempted robbery of Mr. Sydney. Fred Archer, on escaping from the officer in the manner which we have described, made his way to the Dark Vaults, where he remained concealed for several days, not venturing to appear abroad. At the end of a week he began to grow impatient of the restraint, and, conceiving that no great danger would be incurred if he left his place of refuge in the darkness of night, he resolved to do so; moreover, he was destitute of money, and entertained some hope of being able to extort a sum from his unfortunate wife, whom he had driven to prostitution. Accordingly, at about eight o'clock in the evening, he left the Vaults by means of the secret outlet before alluded to and gaining the street, proceeded at a rapid pace towards the Bowery. In the breast of his coat he carried a huge Bowie knife, with which to defend himself in case any attempt should be made to arrest him. That very day, Frank Sydney, mindful of his promise, had succeeded in obtaining a situation for Mrs. Archer, in the family of an old lady, an aunt of his, who required the attendance of a young woman as a companion and nurse, she being an invalid. In the afternoon, Mrs. Archer received a visit from the boy, Clinton, who came to announce to her the joyful intelligence of a good home having been secured for her; he then placed the following brief note from Frank in her hands:-- 'Mrs. Archer,--Madame: I shall this evening call upon you, to confirm the words of my messenger. The unfortunate career which you have followed, is now nearly ended. Extortion and oppression shall triumph no longer. F.S.' It was about eight o'clock in the evening when Frank knocked at the door of the house in which Mrs. Archer resided, and he was admitted by the mercenary landlady who figured not very creditably upon a former occasion. She immediately recognized the young gentleman, who was dressed in the garments of a laborer; and very civilly informing him that the young lady was at home, requested him to walk upstairs to her room. Our hero assumed a disguise upon that occasion, for this reason: he did not know but that the house was publicly regarded as a brothel; and he therefore did not wish to hazard his reputation by being recognized either while entering or leaving the place. He ascended the stairs and knocked gently at the chamber, which was immediately opened by Mrs. Archer, who pressed his hand with all the warmth of a grateful heart, and placed a chair for him near the fire.--Glancing around the room, Frank saw that she had made every arrangement for her departure: bandboxes and trunks were in readiness for removal, and all her little effects were heaped together in one corner. She herself was dressed with considerable elegance and taste; a close fitting dress of rich silk displayed the fine proportions of her symmetrical form to advantage. 'I know not how to thank you, Mr. Sydney,' she said, seating herself--'for your generous interest in my welfare; but oh! believe me, I am grateful for your kindness.' Frank assured her that he had derived much satisfaction from what services it had been in his power to render, tending to her benefit. He then related to her all that had occurred on the night of the attempted robbery at his house--how her husband had made his escape, and was probably lurking in the Dark Vaults. 'Then he is still at large,' said Mrs. Archer, shuddering--'and I am not yet safe.' 'Fear nothing,' said her benefactor--'he dare not intrude into the respectable and quiet asylum where you are to be placed. No harm can reach you there.' 'God grant it may be so!' fervently ejaculated the young lady; and at that instant some one was heard stealthily ascending the stairs. 'It is Frederick!' she whispered--'you had better conceal yourself, to avoid useless altercation.' Frank quickly secreted himself behind the curtains of the bed, his former hiding place: and in another moment Fred Archer entered the room, and closed the door with extreme caution. 'Maria,' he said, roughly--'I must have money from you to-night; the affair which I spoke to you about, when I was last here, failed most infernally. One of the very fellows who were to assist me in the job, proved to be the owner of the house which we were going to plunder. He had a trap prepared for us, and two of my pals were taken, while I escaped just by a miracle. I dare not go abroad in daylight, for fear of being arrested; and I need money--give it to me!' 'Frederick,' said his wife, mildly--'I have but a few dollars, and you are welcome to them. I leave this house to-night; I am going to live hereafter a life of honesty and virtue.' 'Indeed!' exclaimed Archer, now observing for the first time the preparations for removal--'and may I ask where the devil you're going?' 'I do not wish to tell you, Frederick,' replied the lady--'I shall have a good and comfortable home; let that suffice. I will always pray for your welfare; but we must part forever.' 'Ha! is it so?' he hissed from between his clenched teeth, while the hot blood of anger mantled on his face, and his eyes were lit up with the fires of demoniac passions--'do you think to desert me and cast me off forever?'--As he spoke, his right hand was thrust into the breast of his coat. 'We must part; my resolution is fixed,' she replied firmly. 'Your treatment of me--' She paused in affright, for her husband had seized her violently by the arm; then he plucked the gleaming Bowie knife from its sheath, and ere she could scream out, the murderous blade was buried in her heart! From his place of concealment behind the curtains of the bed, Frank saw the atrocious deed perpetrated. The villain had struck the fatal blow ere he could rush forth and stay his murderous arm. The poor victim sank upon the floor, the lifeblood streaming from her heart.--Ere the horrified witness of the crime could seize the murderer, he had fled from the house with a celerity which defied pursuit. Frank, overwhelmed with grief at the tragic fate of that erring but unfortunate woman, raised her body in his arms and placed it upon a sofa. He then drew from her bosom the reeking blade of the assassin, and as he did so, the warm blood spouted afresh from the gaping wound, staining his hands and garments with gore. He bent over the corpse, and contemplated the pallid features with profound sorrow. As he thus gazed mournfully at the face of the dead, holding in his hand the blood-stained knife, the chamber door opened, and the landlady entered the room. On beholding the awful scene--the bleeding, lifeless form stretched upon the sofa, and the young man standing with a gory knife grasped in his hand--the landlady made the house resound with her shrieks and cries of 'Murder!' The street door below was forced open and men with hurried footsteps ascended the stairs--in a moment more the chamber was filled with watchmen and citizens. 'Seize the murderer!' exclaimed the landlady, pointing towards Frank. Two watchmen instantly grasped him by the arms, and took from him the bloody knife. Frank turned deadly pale--he was speechless--his tongue refused its office, for then the dreadful conviction forced itself upon him, that he was regarded as the murderer of that young woman. And how could he prove his innocence? The weight of circumstantial evidence against him was tremendous and might produce his conviction and condemnation to an ignominious death! Several persons present recognized him as the rich and (until then) respectable Mr. Sydney; and then they whispered among themselves, with significant looks, that he was _disguised_!--clad in the mean garb of a common laborer! Now it happened that among the gentlemen who knew him, were two of the flatterers who supped with him in the first chapter of this narrative--namely, Messrs. Narcissus Nobbs and Solomon Jenks: the former of whom it will be recollected, was enthusiastic in his praises of Frank, upon that occasion, while the latter boisterously professed for him the strongest attachment and friendship. The sincerity of these worthies will be manifested by the following brief conversation which took place between them, in whispers-- 'A precious ugly scrape your friend has got himself into,' said Mr. Nobbs. '_My_ friend, indeed!' responded Mr. Jenks, indignantly--'curse the fellow, he's no friend of mine! I always suspected that he was a d----d scoundrel at heart!' 'I always _knew_ so,' rejoiced Mr. Nobbs. Oh, hollow-hearted Jenks and false-souled Nobbs! Ye fitly represent the great world, in its adulation of prosperous patrons--its forgetfulness of unfortunate friends! Frank Sydney was handcuffed, placed in a coach and driven to the Tombs. Here he was immured in the strong cell which had long borne the title of the 'murderer's room.' Fred Archer was safely concealed in the secret recesses of the Dark Vaults. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: The term _Kinchen_, in the flash language of the thieves, signifies a boy thief.] CHAPTER IX _The Masquerade Ball--the Curtain raised, and the Crimes of the Aristocracy exposed._ Mrs. Lucretia Franklin was a wealthy widow lady, who resided in an elegant mansion in Washington Place. In her younger days she had been a celebrated beauty; and though she was nearly forty at the period at which we write, she still continued to be an exceedingly attractive woman. Her features were handsome and expressive, and she possessed a figure remarkable for its voluptuous fullness. Mrs. Franklin had two daughters: Josephine and Sophia. The former was eighteen years of age, and the latter sixteen. They were both beautiful girls, but vastly different in their style of beauty; Josephine being a superb brunette, with eyes and hair dark as night, while Sophia was a lovely blonde, with hair like a shower of sunbeams, and eyes of the azure hue of a summer sky. In many other respects did the two beautiful sisters differ. The figure of Josephine was tall and majestic; her walk and gestures were imperative and commanding. Sophia's form was slight and sylph-like; her every movement was characterized by exquisite modesty and grace, and her voice had all the liquid melody of the Aeolean harp. In mind and disposition they were as dissimilar as in their personal qualities. Josephine was passionate, fiery and haughty to an eminent degree; Sophia, on the contrary, possessed an angelic placidity of temper, and a sweetness of disposition which, like a fragrant flower, shed its grateful perfume upon the lowly and humble, as upon the wealthy and proud. Mrs. Franklin's husband had died two years previous to the date of this narrative; he had been an enterprising and successful merchant, and at his death left a large fortune to his wife. Upon that fortune the lady and her two daughters lived in the enjoyment of every fashionable luxury which the metropolis could afford; and they moved in a sphere of society the most aristocratic and select. Mr. Edgar Franklin, the lady's deceased husband, was a most excellent and exemplary man, a true philanthropist and a sincere Christian. He was scrupulously strict in his moral and religious notions--and resolutely set his face against the least departure from exact propriety, either in matters divine or temporal. The austerity of his opinions and habits was somewhat distasteful to his wife and eldest daughter, both of whom had a decided predilection for gay and fashionable amusements. Previous to his death, they were obliged to conform to his views and wishes; but after that event, they unreservedly participated in all the aristocratic pleasures of the 'upper ten': and their evenings were very frequently devoted to attendance at balls, parties, theatres, the opera, and other entertainments of the gay and wealthy inhabitants of the 'empire city.' Mr. Franklin's death had occurred in a sudden and rather remarkable manner. He had retired to bed in his usual good health, and in the morning was found dead by the servant who went to call him. The body was reclining upon one side in a natural position, and there was nothing in its appearance to indicate either a violent or painful death. Disease of the heart was ascribed as the cause of his sudden demise; and his remains were deposited in the family tomb in St. Paul's churchyard. Many were the tears shed at the funeral of that good man;--for his unaffected piety and universal benevolence had endeared him to a large circle of friends. The grief of the bereaved widow and eldest daughter was manifested by loud lamentations and passionate floods of tears; but the sorrow of the gentle Sophia, though less violent, was none the less heart-felt and sincere. There was little sympathy between the haughty, imperious Josephine and her mild, unobtrusive sister. Their natures were too dissimilar to admit of it; and yet Sophia loved the other, and at the same time feared her--she was so cold, so distant, so formal, so reserved. Josephine, on her part, viewed her sister as a mere child--not absolutely as an inferior, but as one unfitted by nature and disposition to be her companion and friend. Her treatment of Sophia was therefore marked by an air and tone of patronizing condescension, rather than by a tender, sisterly affection. Mrs. Franklin loved both her daughters, but her preference manifestly inclined to Josephine, whose tastes were in exact accordance with her own. Sophia had little or no inclination for the excitement and tumult of fashionable pleasures; and therefore she was left much to herself, alone and dependent upon her own resources to beguile her time, while her mother and sister were abroad in the giddy whirl of patrician dissipation. But upon the Sabbath, no family were more regular in their attendance at church than the Franklins. Punctually every Sunday morning, the mother and daughter would alight from their splendid carriage opposite St. Paul's church, and seating themselves in their luxuriously cushioned and furnished pew, listen to the brilliant eloquence of Dr. Sinclair, with profound attention. Then, when the pealing organ and the swelling anthem filled the vast dome with majestic harmony, the superb voice of Josephine Franklin would soar far above the rolling flood of melody, and her magnificent charms would become the cynosure of all eyes. Few noticed the fair young creature at her side, her golden hair parted simply over her pure brow, and her mild blue eyes cast modestly upon the page of the hymn-book before her. Having now introduced Mrs. Lucretia Franklin and her two daughters to the reader, we shall proceed at once to bring them forward as active participants in the events of our history. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon; in a sumptuous chamber of Franklin House (for by that high-sounding title was the residence of the wealthy widow known,) two ladies were engaged in the absorbing mysteries of a singular toilet. One of these ladies was just issuing from a bath. Although not young, she was very handsome; and her partially denuded form exhibited all the matured fullness of a ripened womanhood. This lady was Mrs. Lucretia Franklin. Her companion was her daughter Josephine. This beautiful creature was standing behind her mother; she had just drawn on a pair of broadcloth pants, and was in an attitude of graceful and charming perplexity, unaccustomed as she was to that article of dress. The undergarment she wore had slipped down from her shoulders, revealing voluptuous beauties which the envious fashion of ladies' ordinary attire, usually conceals. Upon the carpet were a pair of elegant French boots and a cap, evidently designed for Miss Josephine. Various articles of decoration and costume were scattered about: upon a dressing-table (whereon stood a superb mirror,) were the usual luxurious trifles which appertain to a fashionable toilet--perfumes, cosmetics, &c.--and in one corner stood a magnificent bed. This was the chamber of Josephine; that young lady and her mother were arraying themselves for a grand fancy and masquerade ball to be given that night, at the princely mansion of a _millionaire_. By listening to their conversation, we shall probably obtain a good insight into their true characters. 'I am thinking, mamma,' said Josephine--'that I might have selected a better costume for this occasion, than these boys' clothes. I shall secure no admirers.' 'Silly girl,' responded her mother--'don't you know that the men will all run distracted after a pretty woman in male attire? Besides, such a costume will display your shape so admirably.' 'Ah, that is true,' remarked the beautiful girl, smiling so as to display her brilliant teeth; and removing her feminine garment, she stood before the mirror to admire her own distracting and voluptuous loveliness. 'And this costume of an Oriental Queen--do you think it will become me, my love,' asked her mother. 'Admirably,' replied Josephine--'it is exactly suitable to your figure. Ah, mamma, your days of conquest are not over yet.' 'And yours have just begun, my dear. Yours is a glorious destiny, Josephine; beautiful and rich, you can select a husband from among the handsomest and most desirable young gentlemen in the city. But you must profit by _my_ experience: do not be in haste to unite yourself in marriage to a man who, when he becomes your husband, will restrict you in the enjoyment of those voluptuous pleasures in which you now take such delight. _I_ 'married in haste and repented at leisure;' after my union with your father, I found him to be a cold formalist and canting religionist, continually boring me with his lectures on the sins and folly of 'fashionable dissipation,' as he termed the elegant amusements suitable to our wealth and rank and discoursing upon the pleasures of the domestic circle, and such humbugs. All this was exceedingly irksome to me, accustomed as I was to one unvarying round of excitement; but your father was as firm as he was puritanical--and obstinately interposed his authority as a husband, to prevent my indulging in my favorite entertainments. This state of affairs continued, my dear, until you attained the age of sixteen, when you began to feel a distaste for the insipidity of a domestic life, and longed for a change.--Our positions were then precisely similar: we both were debarred from the delights of gay society, for which we so ardently longed. One obstacle, and one only, lay in our way; that obstacle was your father--my husband. We were both sensible that we never could enjoy ourselves in our own way, while _he lived_; his death alone would release us from the condition of thralldom in which we were placed--but as his constitution was robust and his health invariably good, the agreeable prospect of his death was very remote--and we might have continued all our lives under the despotic rules of his stern morality, had we not rid ourselves of him by--' 'For Heaven's sake, mother,' said Josephine, hastily--'don't allude to _that_!' 'And why not,' asked the mother, calmly. 'You surely do not regret the act which removed our inexorable jailer, and opened to us such flowery avenues of pleasure? Ah, Josephine, the deed was admirably planned and skillfully executed. No one suspects--' 'Once more, mother, I entreat you to make no further allusion to that subject; it is disagreeable--painful to me,' interrupted the daughter, impatiently. 'Besides, sometimes the walls have ears.' 'Well, well, child--I will say no more about it. Let us now dress.' Josephine, having arranged her clustering hair in a style as masculine as possible, proceeded to invest herself in the boyish habiliments which she had provided. First, she drew on over her luscious charms, a delicately embroidered shirt, of snowy whiteness, and then put on a splendid cravat, in the tasteful fold of which glittered a magnificent diamond. A superb Parisian waistcoat of figured satin was then closely laced over her rounded and swelling bust; a jacket of fine broadcloth, decorated with gold naval buttons and a little cap, similarly adorned, completed her costume. The character she was supposed to represent was that of 'the Royal Middy;' and her appearance was singularly captivating in that unique and splendid dress. Mrs. Franklin, when attired as the Sultana or Oriental Queen, looked truly regal--the rich and glittering Eastern robes well became her voluptuous style of beauty. The labor of the toilet being completed, the ladies found that it still lacked an hour or so of the time appointed for them to set out; and while they partook of a slight but elegant repast, they amused themselves and beguiled the time by lively and entertaining chat. 'These masquerade balls are delightful affairs; one can enjoy an intrigue with so much safety, beneath the concealing mask,' remarked Mrs. Franklin. 'And yet last Sabbath, you recollect, Dr. Sinclair denounced masquerades as one of Satan's most dangerous devices for the destruction of souls,' said Josephine. 'True--so he did,' assented her mother--'but he need never know that we attend them.' 'The Doctor is very strict--yet he is very fascinating,' rejoined her daughter;--'do you know, mamma, that I am desperately enamored of him? I would give the world could I entice him into an intrigue with me.' And as she spoke, her bosom heaved with voluptuous sensations. 'Naughty girl,' said Mrs. Franklin, smiling complacently--'I cannot blame you for conceiving a passion for our handsome young pastor. To confess the truth, I myself view him with high admiration, not only as a talented preacher, but also as one who would make a most delightful lover.' 'Delightful indeed!' sighed Josephine--'but then he is so pure, so strict, so truly and devotedly religious, that it would be useless to try to tempt him by any advances; I should only compromise myself thereby.' 'Well, my dear,' remarked Mrs. Franklin, 'there are other handsome young men in the world, besides our pastor--many who would grovel at your feet to enjoy your favors. By the way, who is your _favored one_ at present?' 'Oh, a young fellow to whom I took a fancy the other day,' replied Josephine, 'he is a clerk, or something of the kind--respectable and educated, but poor. I encountered him in the street--liked his fresh, robust appearance--dropped my glove--smiled when he picked it up and handed it to me--encouraged him to walk me home--invited him in, and made him, as well as myself, extremely happy by my kindness. I permitted him to call frequently, but of course I soon grew tired of him--the affair lacked zeal, romance, piquancy; so, this morning when he visited me, I suffered him to take a last kiss, and dismissed him forever, with a twenty-dollar bill and an intimation that we were in future entire strangers. Poor fellow! he shed tears--but I only laughed, and rang the bell for the servant to show him out. Now, mamma, you must be equally communicative with me, and tell me who has the good fortune to be the recipient of _your_ favors at present.' 'My dear Josey,' said Mrs. Franklin--'I must really decline according you the required information; you will only laugh at my folly.' 'By no means, mamma,' rejoined the young lady--'we have both at times been strangely eccentric in our tastes, and must not ridicule each other's preferences, however singular.' 'Well then, you must know that my lover is a very pretty youth of about fifteen, who reciprocates my passion with boyish ardor. You will acknowledge that to a woman of my age, such an amour must be delicious and unique. For a few days past I have not seen the youthful Adonis, who, by the bye, bears the very romantic name of Clinton Romaine. I first met him under very unusual and singular circumstances.' 'Pray, how was that, mamma?' asked Josephine. 'You shall hear,' replied her mother. 'The occurrence which I am about to relate took place a month ago. I was awakened one night from a sound sleep by a noise in my chamber, and starting up in affright, I beheld by the light of a lamp which was burning near the bed, a boy in the act of forcing open my _escritoire_, with a small instrument which caused the noise. I was about to scream for assistance, when the young rogue, perceiving that he was discovered, advanced to the bed, and quieted me by the assurance that he intended me no personal harm, and implored me to suffer him to depart without molestation, promising never to repeat his nocturnal visit. He then placed upon the table my watch, purse, a casket of jewels, which he had secured about his person--and, in answer to my inquiry as to how he had obtained an entrance into my chamber he informed me that he had climbed into the window by means of a ladder which he had found in the garden. While he was speaking, I regarded him attentively, and was struck with his boyish beauty; for the excitement of the adventure and the danger of his position had caused a flush upon his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes, which captivated me. I found it impossible to resist the voluptuous feelings which began to steal over me--and I smiled tenderly upon the handsome youth; he, merely supposing this smile to be an indication of my having forgiven him, thanked me and was about to depart in the same manner in which he came, when I intimated to him my willingness to extend a much greater kindness than my pardon. In short, his offence was punished only by sweet imprisonment in my arms; and delighted with his precocity, I blessed the lucky chance which had so unexpectedly furnished me with a youthful and handsome lover. Ere daylight he departed; and has since then frequently visited me, always gaining access to my chamber by means of the gardener's ladder. To my regret he has of late discontinued his visits, and I know not what has become of my youthful gallant. And now my dear, you have heard the whole story.' 'Very interesting and romantic,' remarked Josephine, and consulting her gold watch, she announced that the hour was come for them to go to the masquerade. The mother and daughter enveloped themselves in ample cloaks, and descending the stairs, took their seats in the carriage which was in readiness at the door. A quarter of an hour's drive brought them to the superb mansion wherein the entertainment was to be given. Alighting from the carriage, they were conducted by an obsequious attendant to a small ante-room, where they deposited their cloaks, and adjusted over their faces the sort of half-mask used on such occasions. A beautiful boy, dressed as a page, then led the way up a broad marble stair case, and throwing open a door, they were ushered into a scene of such magnificence, that for a moment they stood bewildered and amazed, tho' perfectly accustomed to all the splendors of fashionable life. A fine-looking elderly man, without a mask and in plain clothes, advanced towards the mother and daughter; this gentleman was Mr. Philip Livingston, the host--a bachelor of fifty, reputed to be worth two millions of dollars. The page who had waited upon the two ladies, _whispered_ their names in Mr. Livingston's ear; and after the usual compliments, he bowed, and they mingled with the glittering crowds which thronged the rooms. We feel almost inadequate to the task of describing the wonders of that gorgeous festival; yet will make the attempt, for without it, our work would be incomplete. Livingston House was an edifice of vast dimensions, built in the sombre but grand Gothic style of architecture. Extensive apartments communicated with each other by means of massive folding doors, which were now thrown open, and the eye wandered through a long vista of brilliantly lighted rooms, the extent of which seemed increased ten-fold by the multitude of immense mirrors placed on every side. Art, science and taste had combined to produce an effect the most grand and imposing; rare and costly paintings, exquisite statuary, gorgeous gildings, were there, in rich profusion. But the most magnificent feature of Livingston House was its _conservatory_, which was probably the finest in the country, second only in beauty to the famous conservatory of the Duke of Devonshire in England. A brief description of this gem of Livingston House may prove interesting to the reader. Leaving the hall through an arch tastefully decorated with flowers and evergreens, the visitor descended a flight of marble steps, and entered the conservatory, which occupied an extensive area of ground, and was entirely roofed with glass. Though the season was winter and the weather intensely cold, a delightful warmth pervaded the place, produced by invisible pipes of heated water. The atmosphere was as mild and genial as a summer's eve; and the illusion was rendered still more complete by a large lamp, suspended high above, and shaped like a full moon; this lamp, being provided with a peculiar kind of glass, shed a mild, subdued lustre around, producing the beautiful effect of a moonlit eve! On every side rare exotics and choice plants exhaled a delicious perfume; tropic fruits grew from the carefully nurtured soil;--orange, pomegranate, citron, &c. Gravelled walks led through rich shrubbery, darkened by overhanging foliage. Mossy paths, of charming intricacy, invited the wanderer to explore their mysterious windings. At every turn a marble statue, life-sized, met the eye: here the sylvan god Pan, with rustic pipes in hand--here the huntress Diana, with drawn bow--here the amorous god Cupid, upon a beautiful pedestal on which was sculptured these lines, said to have been once written by Voltaire under a statue of the heathen divinity: 'Whoe'er thou art, thy master see;-- He _was_, or _is_, or _is to be_.' In the centre of this miniature Paradise was an artificial cascade, which fell over a large rock into a lake o'er whose glassy waters several swans with snow white plumage were gliding; and on the brink of this crystal expanse, romantic grottos and classic temples formed convenient retreats for the weary dancers from the crowded halls. In short, this magnificent conservatory was furnished with every beautiful rarity which the proprietor's immense wealth could procure, and every classic and graceful adornment which his refined and superior taste could suggest. Mrs. Franklin and her daughter, who had come on purpose to engage in amorous intrigues, agreed to separate, and accordingly they parted, the mother remaining in the ball room, while Josephine resolved to seek for adventures amid the mysterious shades of the conservatory. Over five hundred persons had now assembled in the halls appropriated to dancing; and these were arrayed in every variety of fancy and picturesque costume possible to be conceived. The grave Turk, the stately Spanish cavalier, the Italian bandit and the Grecian corsair, mingled together without reserve;--and the fairer portion of creation was represented by fairies, nuns, queens, peasant girls and goddesses. Mrs. Franklin soon observed that she was followed by a person in the dress of a Savoyard; he was closely masked, and his figure was slight and youthful. Determined to give him an opportunity to address her, the lady strolled to a remote corner of the hall, whither she was followed by the young Savoyard, who after some apparent hesitation, said to her-- 'Fair Sultana, pardon my presumption, but methinks I have seen that queenly form before.' 'Ah, that voice!' exclaimed the delighted lady--'thou art my little lover, Clinton Romaine.' 'It is indeed so,' said the boy, gallantly kissing her hand. The lady surveyed him with wanton eye. 'Naughty truant!' she murmured, drawing him towards her--'why have you absented yourself from me so long? Do you no longer desire my favors?' 'Dear madam,' replied Clinton--'I am never so happy as when in your arms; but I have recently entered the service of a good, kind gentleman, who has been my benefactor; and my time is devoted to him.' 'Come with me,' said the lady, 'to a private room, for I wish to converse with you without being observed.' She led the way to a small anteroom, and having carefully fastened the door to prevent intrusion, clasped the young Savoyard in her arms. * * * * * Half an hour afterwards, the boy and his aristocratic mistress issued from the ante-room, and parted. Clinton wandered thro' the halls, and descending into the conservatory, entered a temple which stood upon the margin of the little lake, threw himself upon a luxurious ottoman, and abandoned himself to his reflections. 'How ungrateful I am,' he said half aloud--'to engage in an intrigue with that wicked, licentious woman, while my poor master, Mr. Sydney, is languishing in a prison cell, charged with the dreadful crime of murder! And yet I know he is innocent. I remember carrying his note to Mrs. Archer on the fatal day; I knew not its contents, but I recollect the words which he instructed me to say to her--they were words of friendship, conveying to her an assurance that he had procured for her a situation with his aunt. Surely, after sending such a message, he would not go and murder her! And his aunt can testify that such an arrangement was made, in reference to Mrs. Archer. Oh, that I could obtain admission to the cell of my poor master, to try to comfort him, to whom I owe so much! But alas! the keepers will not admit me; they remember that I was once a thief, and drive me from the prison door with curses. 'I am persuaded in my own mind,' continued Clinton, following the course of his reflections--'that Fred Archer is the murderer of that woman. I know he secretes himself in the Dark Vaults, but I dare not venture there to seek him, for my agency in the arrest of the Dead Man is known to the 'Knights of the Round Table,' and were I to fall in their power, they would assuredly kill me. Now, what has brought me here to-night?--Not a desire for pleasure; but a faint hope of encountering amid the masked visitors, the villain Archer; for I know that he, as well as the other desperadoes in the Vaults, frequently attends masquerade balls, in disguise, on account of the facilities afforded for robbery and other crimes. Oh that I might meet him here to-night--I would boldly accuse him of the murder, and have him taken into custody, trusting to chance for the proofs of his guilt, and the innocence of my master.' It may be well here to observe that it was comparatively easy for such characters as Archer and his companions to gain admission to such a masquerade ball as we are describing. In the bustle and confusion of receiving such a large company, they found but little difficulty in slipping in, unnoticed and unsuspected. 'And that horrible Dead Man,' continued Clinton--'thank God, _he_ is now safe within the strong walls of the State Prison, there to pass the remainder of his earthly existence. How awfully he glared upon me, on the night of his capture! Oh, if he were at large, my life would be in continued danger; I should not sleep at night, for terror; I should tremble lest his corpse-like face should appear at my bedside, and his bony fingers grapple me by the throat! Yes, thank God--he is deprived of the power to injure me; I am safe from his fiend-like malice.' At this moment, Clinton heard foot-steps approaching, and presently some one said-- 'Let us enter this little temple, where we can talk without being overheard.' The blood rushed swiftly through Clinton's veins, and his heart beat violently; for these words were spoken in the well-known voice of Fred Archer! With great presence of mind he instantly crept beneath the ottoman on which he had been lying; and the next moment two persons entered the temple, and seated themselves directly above him. 'It was, as you say,' remarked Archer to his companion in a low tone--'a most extraordinary piece of good luck for me that Sydney was taken for that murder which I committed; suspicions are diverted from me, and he will swing for it, that's certain. I'm safe in regard to that business.' 'And yet, I almost regret, Fred,' said the other, speaking in an almost inaudible whisper--'that Sydney is in the grip of the Philistines; my vengeance upon him would have been more terrible than a thousand deaths by hanging. Well, since it is so, let him swing, and be d----d to him!' A long conversation here followed, but the two men spoke in such a low tone, that Clinton could only hear a word now and then. He was, however, certain as to the identity of Fred Archer; and he determined not to lose sight of that ruffian without endeavoring to have him taken into custody. At length the two men arose and quitted the temple, followed at a safe distance by the boy. At the bottom of the marble steps which led to the halls above, Fred Archer and his companion paused for a few moments, and conversed in whispers; then the two parted, the former ascending the steps, while the latter turned and advanced slowly towards Clinton. The boy instantly started in pursuit of Archer; but as he was about to pass the person who had just quitted the company of that villain, his progress was arrested by a strong arm, and a voice whispered in his ear--'Ah, _Kinchen_, well met!--come with me!' Clinton attempted to shake off the stranger's grasp--but he was no match for his adversary, who dragged him back into the little temple before mentioned, and regarded him with a terrible look. 'Who are you--and what means this treatment of me?' demanded the boy, trembling with affright. The mysterious unknown replied not by words--but slowly raised the mask from his face. Clinton's blood ran cold with horror; for, by the dim and uncertain light, he beheld the ghastly, awful features of THE DEAD MAN! 'Said I not truly that no prison could hold me?--vain are all stone walls and iron chains, for I can burst them asunder at will! I had hoped to avenge myself on that accursed Sydney, in a terrible appalling manner; but the law has become the avenger--he will die upon the gallows, and I am content. Ha, ha, ha! how he will writhe, and choke while I shall be at liberty, to read the account of his execution in the papers, and gloat over the description of his dying agonies! But I have an account to settle with _you_, _Kinchen_; you recollect how you hurled the wine-bottle at my head, as I was about to stab Sydney on the night of my capture--thereby preventing me from securing a speedy and deadly revenge at that time? Now, what punishment do you deserve for that damnable piece of treachery to an old comrade?' Thus spoke the terrible Dead Man, as he glared menacingly upon the affrighted and trembling Clinton, whose fears deprived him of all power of utterance. 'Sydney will hang like a dog,' continued the hideous miscreant, the words hissing from between his clenched teeth--'My revenge in _that_ quarter shall be consummated, while you, d----d young villain that you are, shall--' 'Sydney shall _not_ suffer such a fate, monster!' exclaimed Clinton, his indignation getting the better of his fears, as he looked the villain boldly in the face--'there are two witnesses, whose testimony can and will prove his innocence.' 'And who may those two witnesses be?' demanded the Dead Man scornfully. 'I am one--and Sydney's aunt, Mrs. Stevens, who resides at No. ---- Grand Street, is the other,' replied Clinton. 'And what can _you_ testify to in Sydney's favor?' asked the other in a milder tone. 'I can swear that Mr. Sydney sent me with a note to the lady who was murdered, and desired me to inform her that he had procured a good situation for her with his aunt--thus plainly showing the friendly nature of his feelings and intentions towards her,' replied Clinton. 'And this aunt--what will be the nature of _her_ testimony?' inquired the Dead Man, with assumed indifference. 'Mrs. Stevens can testify that the nephew Mr. Sydney strongly recommended her to receive the poor unfortunate lady into her service--and that arrangements were made to that effect,' answered the boy, unsuspiciously. The Dead Man seemed for a moment lost in deep thought. 'So it appears that there are two witnesses whose testimony _might_ tend to the acquittal of Sydney,' he thought to himself. 'Those two witnesses must be put out of the way; one of them is now in my power--_he_ is done for; I am acquainted with the name and residence of the other, and by G----d, _she_ shall be done for, too!--_Kinchen_,' he said aloud, turning savagely to the boy--'You must accompany me to the Dark Vaults.' 'Never,' exclaimed Clinton, resolutely--'rather will I die here. If you attempt to carry me forcibly with you, I will struggle and resist--I will proclaim to the guests in the ball room your dread character and name; the mask will be torn from your face, and you will be dragged back to prison, from whence you escaped.' For the second time did the Dead Man pause, and reflect profoundly. He thought somewhat in this wise:--'There is no possible means of egress from this place, except thro' the ball room, which is crowded with guests. True, I might bind and gag the _Kinchen_, but his struggles would be sure to attract attention--and my discovery and capture would be the result. It is evident, therefore, that I cannot carry him forcibly hence, with safety to myself. Shall I _murder_ him? No, damn it, 'tis hardly worth my while to do that--and somehow or other, these murders almost invariably lead to detection. The devil himself couldn't save my neck if I were to be hauled up on another murder--yet, by hell, I must risk it in reference to that Mrs. Stevens, whose testimony would be apt to save her accursed nephew, Sydney, from the gallows. Yes, I must slit the old lady's windpipe; but the _Kinchen_--what the devil shall I do to keep _him_ from blabbing, since I can't make up my mind to kill him?' Suddenly, a horrible thought flashed through the villain's mind. '_Kinchen_,' he whispered, with a fiend-like laugh--'I have thought of a plan by which to _silence your tongue forever_.' He drew a huge clasp-knife from his pocket. Ere Clinton could cry out for assistance, the monster grasped him by the throat with his vice-like fingers--the poor boy's tongue protruded from his mouth--and oh, horrible! the incarnate devil, suddenly loosening his hold on the throat, quick as lightning caught hold of the tongue, and forcibly drew it out to its utmost tension--then, with one rapid stroke of his sharp knife, he _cut it off_, and threw it from him with a howl of savage satisfaction. 'Now, d----n you,' exclaimed the Dead Man--'see if you can testify in court!' The victim sank upon the floor, weltering in his blood, while the barbarian who had perpetrated the monstrous outrage, fled from the conservatory, passed through the ball room and proceeded with rapid strides towards the residence of Mrs. Stevens, Sydney's aunt, in Grand Street, having first put on the mask which he wore to conceal the repulsive aspect of his countenance. He found the house without difficulty, for he remembered the number which poor Clinton had given him; and ascending the steps, he knocked boldly at the door. The summons was speedily answered by a servant who ushered the Dead Man into a parlor, saying that her mistress would be down directly. In a few moments the door opened and Mrs. Stevens entered the room. This lady was a widow, somewhat advanced in years, and in affluent circumstances. Her countenance was the index of a benevolent and excellent heart; and in truth she was a most estimable woman. 'Madam,' said the Dead Man--'I have called upon you at the request of your unfortunate nephew, Francis Sydney.' 'Oh, sir,' exclaimed the old lady, shedding tears--'how is the poor young man--and how does he bear his cruel and unjust punishment?--for unjust it is, as he is innocent of the dreadful crime imputed to him. Alas! the very day the poor lady was murdered, he called and entreated me to take her into my service, to which I readily consented. Oh, he is innocent, I am sure.' 'Mrs. Stevens,' said the villain--'I have something of a most important nature to communicate, relative to your nephew; are we certain of no interruption here?--for my intelligence must be delivered in strict privacy.' 'We are alone in this house,' replied the unsuspecting lady. 'The servant who admitted you has gone out on a short errand, and you need fear no interruption.' 'Then, madam, I have to inform you that--' While uttering these words, the Dead Man advanced towards Mrs. Stevens, who stood in the centre of the apartment; he assumed an air of profound mystery, and she, supposing that he was about to whisper in her ear, inclined her head toward him. That movement was her last on earth; in another instant she was prostrate upon the carpet, her throat encircled by the fingers of the ghastly monster; her countenance became suffused with a dark purple--blood gushed from her mouth, eyes and nostrils--and in a few minutes all was over! The murderer arose from his appalling work, and his loathsome face assumed, beneath his mask, an expression of demoniac satisfaction. ''Tis done!' he muttered--'damn the old fool, she thought I was a _friend_ of her accursed nephew's. But I must leave the corpse in such a situation that it may be supposed the old woman committed suicide.' He tore off the large shawl which the poor lady had worn, and fastened it about her neck; then he hung the body upon the parlor door, and placed an overturned chair near its feet, to lead to the supposition that she had stood upon the chair while adjusting the shawl about her neck and then overturned it in giving the fatal spring. This arrangement the Dead Man effected with the utmost rapidity and then forcing open a bureau which stood in the parlor, he took from the drawer various articles of value, jewelry, &c., and a pocket-book containing a considerable sum of money--forgetting, in his blind stupidity, that the circumstances of a robbery having taken place, would destroy the impression that the unfortunate old lady had come to her death voluntarily by her own hands. The murderer then fled from the house and that night he and Archer, in the mysterious depths of the Dark Vaults, celebrated their bloody exploits by mad orgies, horrid blasphemy, and demoniac laughter. We left Clinton weltering in his blood upon the floor of the temple in the conservatory. The poor mangled youth was discovered in that deplorable situation shortly after the perpetration of the abominable outrage which had deprived him of the blessed gift of speech forever. He was conveyed to the residence of Dr. Schultz, a medical gentleman of eminent skill, who stopped the effusion of blood, and pronounced his eventual recovery certain. But oh! who can imagine the feelings of the unfortunate boy, when returning consciousness brought with it the appalling conviction that the faculty of expressing his thoughts in words was gone forever, and henceforward he was hopelessly _dumb_! By great exertion he scrawled upon a piece of paper his name and residence; a carriage was procured, and he was soon beneath the roof of his master, Mr. Sydney, under the kind care of honest Dennis and the benevolent housekeeper. And Sydney--alas for him! Immured in that awful sepulchre of crime, the Tombs--charged with the deed of murder, and adjudged guilty by public opinion--deserted by those whom he had regarded as his friends, suffering from confinement in a noisome cell, and dreading the ignominy of a trial and the horrors of a public execution--his fair fame blasted forever by the taint of crime--what wonder that he, so young, so rich, so gifted with every qualification to enjoy life, should begin to doubt the justice of divine dispensation, and, loathing existence, pray for death to terminate his state of suspense and misery! But we must not lose sight of Josephine Franklin; her adventures at the masquerade hall were of too amorous and exciting a nature to be passed lightly over, in this mirror of the fashions, follies and crimes of city life.--Our next chapter will duly record the particulars of the fair lady's romantic intrigues on that brilliant and memorable occasion. CHAPTER X _The Amours of Josephine--The Spanish Ambassador, and the Ecclesiastical Lover._ Josephine, dressed as the 'Royal Middy,' entered the conservatory, and strolled leisurely along a gravelled walk which led to a little grotto composed of rare minerals and shells. Entering this picturesque retreat, she placed herself upon a seat exquisitely sculptured from marble, and listened to the beautiful strains of music which proceeded from the ball room. While thus abandoning herself to the voluptuous feelings of the moment, she observed that a tall, finely formed person in the costume of a Spanish cavalier, passed the grotto several times, each time gazing at her with evident admiration. He was masked, but Josephine had removed her mask, and her superb countenance was fully revealed. The cavalier had followed her from the ball-room, but she did not perceive him until he passed the grotto. 'I have secured an admirer already,' she said to herself, as a smile of satisfaction parted her rosy lips. 'I must encourage him, and perhaps he may prove to be a desirable conquest.' The cavalier saw her smile and, encouraged by that token of her complaisance, paused before the grotto, and addressed her in a slightly foreign accent:-- 'Fair lady, will you suffer me to repose myself for a while in this fairy-like retreat?' 'I shall play off a little prank upon this stranger,' thought Josephine to herself--'it will serve to amuse me.' And then she burst into a merry laugh, as she replied-- 'I have no objection in the world, sir, to your sharing this grotto with me; but really, you make a great mistake--you suppose me to be a lady; but I'm no more a lady than you are, don't you see that I'm a _boy_?' 'Indeed!--a _boy_!' Exclaimed the stranger, surveying Josephine with great interest. 'By heaven, I took you for a female; and though you are a boy, I will say that you are an extremely pretty one.' He entered into the grotto, and seated himself at her side. Taking her hand, he said-- 'This hand is wonderfully fair and soft for a boy's. Confess, now--are you not deceiving me?' 'Why should I deceive you?' asked Josephine--'if my hand is fair and soft, it is because I have been brought up as a gentleman, and it has never become soiled or hardened by labor.' 'And yet,' rejoined the stranger, passing his hand over the swelling outlines of her bosom, which no disguise could entirely conceal--'there seems to me to be something feminine in these pretty proportions.' 'You doubtless think so,' replied Josephine, removing his hand--'but you greatly err. The fact is, my appearance is naturally very effeminate, and sometimes it is my whim to encourage the belief that I am a female. I came here to-night, resolved to produce that impression; and you see with what a successful result--you yourself imagined me to be a lady dressed in male attire, but again I assure you that you never were more mistaken in your life. The fullness of my bosom is accounted for, when I inform you that my vest is very skillfully _padded_. So now I hope you will be no longer skeptical in regard to my true sex.' 'I no longer doubt you, my dear boy,' said the stranger, gazing at Josephine with increased admiration. 'Were you a lady, you would be beautiful, but as a boy you are doubly charming. Be not surprised when I assure you that you please me ten times--aye, ten thousand times more, as a boy, than as a woman. By heaven, I must kiss those ripe lips!' 'Kiss _me_!' responded Josephine, laughing--'come, sire, this is too good--you must be joking.' 'No, beautiful boy, I am serious,' exclaimed the stranger, vehemently--'you may pronounce my passion strange, unaccountable, and absurd, if you will--but 'tis none the less violent or sincere. I am a native of Spain, a country whose ardent souls confine not their affections to the fairest portion of the human race alone, but--' 'What mean you?' demanded Josephine, in astonishment. The stranger whispered a few words in her ear, and she drew back in horror and disgust. 'Nay, hear me,' exclaimed the Spaniard, passionately--'it is no low-born or vulgar person who solicits this favor; for know,' he continued, removing his mask--'that I am Don Jose Velasquez, ambassador to this country from the court of Spain; and however high my rank, I kneel at your feet and--' 'Say no more, sir,' said Josephine, interrupting him, and rising as she spoke--'it is time that you should know that your first supposition in reference to me was correct. I am a woman. I did but pretend, in accordance with a suddenly conceived notion, to deceive you for a while, but that deception has developed an iniquity in the human character, the existence of which I have heard before, but never fully believed till today. Your unnatural iniquity inspires me with abhorrence; leave me instantly and attempt not to follow me, or I shall expose you to the guests, in which case _His Excellency_ Don Jose Velasquez, ambassador to this country from the court of Spain, would become an object of derision and contempt.' The Spaniard muttered a threat of vengeance and strode hastily away. Josephine put on her mask, and leaving the grotto, was about to return to the ball-room, when a gentleman, plainly but richly attired in black velvet, and closely masked, thus accosted her in a respectful tone-- 'Lady--for your graceful figure and gait betray you, notwithstanding your boyish disguise--suffer me to depart so far from the formality of fashionable etiquette as to entreat your acceptance of me as your _chaperon_ through this beautiful place.' This gentleman's speech was distinguished by a voice uncommonly melodious, and an accent peculiarly refined; he was evidently a person of education and respectable social position. The tones of his voice struck Josephine as being familiar to her; yet she could not divine who he was, and concluded that there only existed an accidental resemblance between his voice and that of some one of her friends. His manner being so frank, and at the same time so gentleman-like and courteous, that she replied without hesitation-- 'I thank you, sir--I will avail myself of your kindness.' She took his proffered arm, and they began slowly to promenade the principal avenue of the conservatory, engaged at first in that polite and desultory discourse which might be supposed to arise between a lady and gentleman who meet under such circumstances. At length, becoming fatigued, they entered a pretty little arbor quite remote from observation, and seated themselves upon a moss-covered trunk. After a few commonplace observations, the gentleman suddenly addressed Josephine in a start of ardent passion. 'Lady,' he exclaimed, taking her hand and pressing it tenderly, 'pardon my rudeness; but I am overcome by feelings which I never before experienced. Although your face is concealed by your mask, I know you are beautiful--the rich luxuriance of your raven hair, and the exquisite proportions of this fair hand, are proofs of the angelic loveliness of your countenance. Am I presumptuous and bold--does my language give you offence?--if so, I will tear myself from your side, though it will rend my heart with anguish to do so. You do not speak--you are offended with me; farewell, then--' 'Stay,' murmured Josephine--'I am not offended, sire--far from it; you are courteous and gallant, and why should I be displeased?' The gentleman kissed her hand with rapture. 'Oh,' said he, in a low tone--'I am entranced by your kindness. You will be surprised when I assure you that I am but a novice in the way of love; and yet I most solemnly declare that never before have I pressed woman's hand with passion--never before has my heart beat with the tumult of amorous inclination--never before have I clasped woman's lovely form as I now clasp yours.' And he encircled the yielding form of Josephine with his arms. 'Why have you been such a novice in the delights of love?' she asked, permitting him to clasp her passionately to his breast. 'Dear lady,' he replied--'my position in life is one that precludes me in a great measure from the enjoyment of sensual indulgences; and I have heretofore imagined myself impervious to the attacks of Venus; but ah! you have conquered me. My leisure moments have been devoted to study and contemplation; I ventured here to-night to be a spectator of the joys of others, not designing to participate in those joys myself. The graceful voluptuousness of your form, developed by this boyish costume, fired my soul with new and strange sensations, which, so help me heaven! I never experienced before. Ah, I would give half of my existence to be allowed to kiss those luscious lips!' 'You can have your wish at a far less expense,' murmured the lady, her bosom heaving with passionate emotions. 'But first remove that mask,' said the gentleman, enraptured at the success of the first intrigue of his life. 'I have no objection to uncover my countenance, provided you bestow upon me a similar favor,' replied Josephine. 'I am most anxious to preserve my _incognito_,' said the gentleman, in a tone of hesitation. 'My standing and peculiar occupation in life are entirely incompatible with such a festival as this, and my reputation would be dangerously compromised, if not utterly ruined. Nay, then, since you insist upon it, fair creature, I will unmask, trusting to your honor as a lady to keep my secret.' He uncovered his face, and Josephine was thunderstruck when she recognized in the amorous stranger, no less a personage than Dr. Sinclair, the pious and eloquent rector of St. Paul's. Yes--that learned and talented divine, who had so often denounced the sins and follies of the fashionable world, and declaimed particularly against the demoralizing influences of masquerade balls--that young and handsome preacher, whose exalted reputation for sanctity and holiness had induced the amorous Josephine and her licentious mother to suppose him inaccessible to their lustful glances, and far removed from the power of temptation--that model of purity and virtue was now present at this scene of profligate dissipation, gazing into the wanton eyes of a beautiful siren, his face flushed with excitement, and his heart palpitating with eager desire! For a few moments Josephine sat overcome by astonishment, and could not utter a single syllable. 'You seem surprised, dear lady,' said Dr. Sinclair--'may I ask if you have ever seen me before?' 'You can read in my countenance an answer to your question,' replied Josephine, taking off her mask. 'Heavens, Miss Franklin!' exclaimed the divine. It was now his turn to be astonished. 'We meet under extraordinary circumstances,' said Dr. Sinclair after a short and somewhat embarrassing pause. 'Had I known that you are one who every Sabbath sits under my ministration, no earthly consideration would have induced me to disclose myself--not even the certainty of enjoying your favors. However, you know me now, and 'tis impossible to recall the past; therefore, beautiful Miss Franklin, do not withhold from the preacher that kindness which you would have granted to the private gentleman.--Let us religiously preserve our secret from the knowledge of the world: when we meet in company, let it be with the cold formality which exists between persons who are almost strangers; but now let us revel in the joys of love.' The superb but profligate Josephine needed no urgent persuasion to induce her to become a guilty participator in a criminal _liaison_ with the handsome young rector whom she had so long regarded with the eyes of desire;--_hers_ was the conquest, that unprincipled lady of fashion; and _he_ was the victim, that recreant fallen minister of the gospel. Humbled and conscience-stricken, Dr. Sinclair left Livingston House and returned to his own luxurious but solitary home; while Josephine was driven in her carriage to Franklin House, the flush of triumph on her cheeks and her proud, guilty heart reeling with exultation. CHAPTER XI _The Condemnation to Death--the Burglar's Confession and Awful Fate in the Iron Coffin._ The arrest of Frank Sydney for the murder of Maria Archer created an immense excitement throughout the whole community.--His wealth, standing in society, and former respectability caused many to believe him innocent of the dreadful crime imputed to him; but public opinion generally pronounced him guilty. The following article, extracted from a newspaper published at that period, will throw some light upon the views held in reference to the unhappy young man, and show how the circumstances under which he was arrested operated prejudicially to him:-- 'ATROCIOUS MURDER. Last night, about nine o'clock, cries of murder were heard proceeding from the house No.--Bowery. The door was forced open by several citizens and watchmen, who, on entering a room on the second story, found the body of a young woman named Maria Archer stretched upon a sofa, her throat cut in a horrible manner, and standing over the corpse a young gentleman named Francis Sydney, holding in his hand a large Bowie knife, covered with blood. The landlady, Mrs. Flint, stated that Maria had that afternoon announced her intention to remove from the house in the evening; at about eight o'clock, Mr. Sydney called, _disguised_, and went up into the room of the deceased;--after a while, she (the landlady), being surprised that Maria did not begin to remove, went up to her room, and on opening the door, saw the young woman lying upon the sofa, her throat cut, and Mr. Sydney standing over her with the knife in his hand. On seeing this she screamed for assistance, and her cries had brought the watchman and citizens into the house, as we have stated. 'Mr. Sydney is a very wealthy young man, and has heretofore been highly respected. There can be no doubt of his guilt. He had probably formed a criminal connection with Mrs. Archer, whose character for chastity did not stand very high; it is supposed that it was in consequence of this intimacy that Mrs. Sydney recently separated from her husband. It is also presumed that a quarrel arose between Sydney and his paramour in consequence of his refusal to supply her with what money she demanded. This belief is predicated upon the following note, in the handwriting of Sydney, which was found upon the person of his murdered victim:-- 'Mrs. Archer.--Madam: I shall this evening call upon you to confirm the words of my messenger. The unfortunate career which you have followed, is now nearly ended. Extortion and oppression shall triumph no longer. F.S.' 'This note, it will be perceived, accuses her of extortion and contains a threat, &c. Alarmed at this, the poor young woman determined to leave the house that night--but was prevented by her paramour who barbarously slew her. 'The prisoner, whose appearance and behavior after his arrest proved his guilt, was conveyed to the Tombs, to await his trial for one of the most atrocious murders that has stained our criminal courts for many years.' Thus it will be seen that poor, innocent Frank was regarded as the murderer. It is needless for us to enter into the particulars of his trial: suffice it to say, he was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. The evidence, though entirely circumstantial, was deemed positive against him. Mrs. Flint testifying that he was the only person who had entered the house that evening, and the situation in which she had discovered him, the murderous weapon in his hand, and his clothes stained with blood, admitted not a doubt of his guilt in the minds of the jury, who did not hesitate to bring in their fatal verdict, conscientiously believing it to be a just one. A few days previous to his trial, the public were astounded by the intelligence that Mrs. Stevens, the prisoner's aunt, had committed suicide by hanging; and her nephew's disgrace and peril were supposed to have been the cause of the rash act. But when it came to be discovered that a robbery had been committed in the house, and it was stated by the servant that a strange man had sought and obtained an interview with the unfortunate old lady that evening, the public opinion took a different turn, and the belief became general that she had been murdered by some unknown miscreant, whose object was to plunder the house. No one suspected that she had been slain to prevent her from giving favorable testimony at the trial of her nephew Francis Sydney. The diabolical outrage perpetrated upon the boy Clinton at the masquerade ball soon became noised abroad, and gave rise to many surmises, and much indignation; tho' no one as yet imagined that any connection existed between that horrible affair and the brutal murder of Mrs. Stevens. After his conviction and condemnation to death, Sydney was placed in irons, and treated with but little indulgence by the petty officials who have charge of the Tombs. An application on his behalf was made to the Governor, in the hope of either obtaining a pardon, or a commutation of his sentence to imprisonment, but the executive functionary refused to interfere, and Frank prepared for death. The day before that fixed upon for his execution, a lady applied for admission to the prisoner's cell, her request was granted, and Frank was astonished by the entrance of Julia, his guilty and discarded wife! Did she come to entreat his forgiveness for her crime, and to endeavor to administer consolation and comfort to him in this his last extremity? No, the remorseless and vindictive woman had come to exult over his misfortunes, and triumph over his downfall! 'So, miserable wretch,' she said, in a tone of contempt--'You are at last placed in a situation in which I can rejoice over your degradation and shame! A convicted, chained murderer, to die to-morrow--ha, ha, ha!' and she laughed with hellish glee. 'Accursed woman,' cried Frank, with indignation--'why have you come to mock my misery? Have you the heart to rejoice over my awful and undeserved fate?' and the poor young man, folding his arms, wept bitterly, for his noble and manly nature was for the time overcome by the horror of his situation. 'Yes, I have come to gloat upon your misery,' replied the vile, unfeeling woman. 'To-morrow you will die upon the gallows, and your memory will be hated and condemned by those who believe you to be guilty. I am convinced in my own mind that you are innocent of the murder; yet I rejoice none the less in your fate. Your death will free me from all restraint; I can adopt an assumed name, and removing to some distant city, entrap some rich fool into a marriage with me, whose wealth will administer to my extravagance, while I secretly abandon myself to licentious pleasures. Sydney, I never loved you--and when you discovered my intimacy with my dear African, I hated you--oh, how bitterly! When you cast me off, I vowed revenge upon you; but my vengeance will be satisfied to-morrow, when you pay the forfeit of another's crime. And now in the hour of your disgrace and death, I spit upon and despise you!' 'Begone, vile strumpet that you are,' exclaimed Frank, starting to his feet--'taunt me no more, or you will drive me to commit an actual murder, and send your blackened soul into the presence of your offended Creator!' 'Farewell, forever,' said Julia, in a tone of indifference, and she left her poor, wronged husband to his own bitter reflections. Shortly after her departure, a clergyman entered the cell, and remained with the prisoner until long after midnight, preparing him for the awful change he was to undergo on the morrow. * * * * * That very night Fred Archer issued from the secret outlet of the Dark Vaults, and bent his steps in the direction of Wall street. This street is the great focus around which all the most extensive financial operations of the great metropolis are carried on. It is occupied exclusively by banks, brokers' and insurance offices, and establishments of the like character. It was midnight when Archer turned into Wall street from Broadway. The moon was obscured by clouds, and the street was entirely deserted. He paused before a large, massive building in the neighborhood of the Exchange, and glanced around him in every direction to assure himself that he was unobserved. Seeing no one, he ascended the marble steps, drew from his pocket a huge key, and with it unlocked the door; he entered, and closing the door after him, carefully re-locked it. 'So far all is well,' muttered the burglar, as he ignited a match and lighted a piece of wax candle which he had brought with him. 'It's lucky that I obtained an impression of that lock in wax, and from it made this key, or I might have had the devil's trouble in getting in.' He advanced along the passageway, and opening a large door covered with green baize, entered a commodious apartment, containing a long table covered with papers, a desk, chairs, and other furniture, suitable to a business office. In one corner stood an immense safe, six feet in height and four in depth; this safe, made of massive plates of iron and protected by a door of prodigious strength, contained the books, valuable papers, and cash belonging to the ---- Insurance Company. Archer advanced to the safe, and took from his pocket a piece of paper, on which some words were written; this paper he examined with much attention. 'Here,' said he, 'I have the written directions, furnished me by the locksmith who made the lock attached to the safe, by which I can open it. Curse the fellow, a cool hundred dollars was a round sum of money to give him for this little bit of paper, but without it I never could see the interior of his iron closet, tho' I have an exact model of the key belonging to it, made from an impression in wax, which I bribed the clerk to get for me.' Pursuing the directions contained in the paper, he touched a small spring concealed in the masonry adjoining the safe, and instantly a slide drew back in a panel of the door, revealing a key-hole. In this he inserted a key, and turned it, but found that he could not unlock it; he therefore had recourse to his paper a second time, which communicated the secret of the only method by which to open the door. Following those directions implicitly, he soon had the satisfaction of turning back the massive bolts which secured the door; a spring now only held it fast, but this was easily turned by means of a small brass knob, and the heavy door swung back upon its gigantic hinges, to the intense delight of the burglar, who anticipated securing a rich booty. Nor was he likely to be disappointed; for upon examination he found that the safe contained money to a large amount. A small tin cash box was full of bank-notes of various denominations; and in a drawer were several thousands of dollars in gold. 'My fortune is made, by G----d!' exclaimed the burglar, as he stood within the safe, and began hastily to transfer the treasures to his pockets. The light of his candle, which he held in his hand, shed a faint glow upon the walls and ceiling of the apartment. 'The devil!' muttered Archer--'my success thus far must not destroy my prudence. If that light were to be seen from these windows, suspicion would be excited and I might be disagreeably interrupted.' Reaching out his arm, he caught hold of the door of the safe, and pulled it violently towards him so that the light of his candle might not betray him. The immense mass of iron swung heavingly upon its hinges, and closed with a sharp _click_; the spring held it fast, and on the inside of the door there was no means of turning back that spring. Like lightning the awful conviction flashed through the burglar's mind that he was _entombed alive_! Vain, vain were his efforts to burst forth from his iron coffin; as well might he attempt to move the solid rock! He shrieked aloud for assistance--but no sound could penetrate through those iron walls! He called upon God to pity him in that moment of his awful distress--but that God, whom he had so often blasphemed, now interposed not His power to succor the vile wretch, thus so signally punished. No friendly crevice admitted one mouthful of air into the safe, and Archer soon began to breathe with difficulty; he became sensible that he must die a terrible death by suffocation. Oh, how he longed for someone to arrive and release him from his dreadful situation, even though the remainder of his days were passed within the gloomy walls of a prison! How he cursed the money, to obtain which he had entered that safe, wherein he was now imprisoned as securely as if buried far down in the bowels of the earth! With the howl of a demon he dashed the banknotes and glittering gold beneath his feet, and trampled on them. Then, sinking down upon the floor of the safe, he abandoned himself to despair. Already had the air of that small, confined place become fetid and noisome; and the burglar began to pant with agony, while the hot blood swelled his veins almost to bursting. A hundred thousand dollars lay within his grasp--he would have given it all for one breath of fresh air, or one draught of cold water. As the agonies of his body increased, the horrors of his guilty conscience tortured his soul. The remembrance of the many crimes he had committed arose before him; the spirit of his murdered wife hovered over him, ghastly, pale and bloody. Then he recollected that an innocent man was to be hung on the morrow, for that dreadful deed which _he_ had perpetrated; and the thought added to the mental tortures which he was enduring. A thought struck the dying wretch; it was perhaps in his power to make some atonement for his crimes--he might save an innocent man from an ignominious death. No sooner had that thought suggested itself to his mind, than he acted upon it, for he knew that his moments were few; already he felt the cold hand of death upon him. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and with a feeble hand traced the following words upon the iron door of the safe:-- 'My last hour is come, and I call on God, in whose awful presence I am shortly to appear, to witness the truth of this dying declaration. I do confess myself to be the murderer of Maria Archer. The young man Sydney is innocent of that crime. God have mercy--' He could write no more; his brain grew dizzy and his senses fled. It seemed as if his iron coffin was red-hot, and he writhed in all the agony of a death by fire. Terrible shapes crowded around him, and the spirit of his murdered wife beckoned him to follow her to perdition. A mighty and crushing weight oppressed him; blood gushed from the pores of his skin; his eyes almost leaped from their sockets, and his brain seemed swimming in molten lead. At length Death came, and snapped asunder the chord of his existence; the soul of the murderer was in the presence of its Maker. * * * * * Morning dawned upon the doomed Sydney, in his prison cell; the glad sunbeams penetrated into that gloomy apartment, shedding a glow of ruddy light upon the white walls. That day at the hour of noon, he was to be led forth to die--he, the noble, generous Sydney, whose heart teemed with the most admirable qualities, and who would not wantonly have injured the lowest creature that crawls upon the Creator's footstool--he to die the death of a malefactor, upon the scaffold! The day wore heavily on; Frank, composed and resigned, was ready to meet his fate like a man. He had heard the deep voice of the Sheriff, in the hall of the prison, commanding his subordinates to put up the scaffold; he had heard them removing that cumbrous engine of death from an unoccupied cell, and his ear had caught the sound of its being erected in the prison yard. Then he knelt down and prayed. His hour had come. They came and removed his irons; they clothed him in the fearful livery of the grave. His step was firm and his eye undaunted as he passed into the prison yard, and stood beneath the black and frowning gallows. The last prayer was said; the last farewell spoken; and many a hard-hearted jailer and cruel official turned aside to conceal the tears which would flow, at the thought that in a few moments that fine young man, so handsome, so talented and so noble to look upon, would be strangling and writhing with the tortures of the murderous rope, and soon after cut down, a ghastly and disfigured corpse. The Sheriff adjusted the rope, and there was an awful pause; a man was tottering on the verge of eternity! But oh, blessed pause--'twas ordained by the Almighty, to snatch that innocent man from the jaws of death! At that critical moment, a confused murmur was heard in the interior of the prison; the Sheriff, who had his hand upon the fatal book, which alone intervened between the condemned and eternity, was stopped from the performance of his deadly office, by a loud shout that rent the air, as a crowd of citizens rushed into the prison yard, exclaiming-- 'Hold--stay the execution!' The Mayor of the city, who was present, exchanged a few hurried words with the foremost of the citizens who had thus interrupted the awful ceremony; and instantly, with the concurrence of the Sheriff, ordered Sydney to be taken from the gallows, and conducted back to his cell, there to await the result of certain investigations, which it was believed would procure his entire exoneration from the crime of which he had been deemed guilty, and his consequent release from imprisonment. It appeared that an officer connected with the ---- Insurance Company, on opening the safe that morning at about half-past eleven o'clock, discovered the dead body of the burglar, the money scattered about, and the writing upon the door. The officer, who was an intelligent and energetic man, instantly comprehended the state of affairs, and hastened with a number of other citizens to the Tombs, in order to save an innocent man from death. Had he arrived a few moments later, it might have been too late; but as it was, he had the satisfaction of rescuing poor Sydney from a dreadful fate, and the credit of saving the State from the disgrace of committing a judicial murder. A dispatch was immediately sent to the Governor, at Albany, apprising him of these facts. The next day a letter was received from His Excellency, in which he stated that he had just perused the evidence which had produced the conviction of Mr. Sydney, and that evidence, besides being merely circumstantial, was, to his mind, vague and insufficient. The pressure of official business had prevented him from examining the case before, but had he reviewed the testimony, he would assuredly have granted the prisoner a reprieve. The dying confession of the burglar, the husband of the murdered woman, left not the slightest doubt of Mr. Sydney's innocence; and His Excellency concluded by ordering the prisoner's immediate discharge from custody. Sydney left the prison, and, escorted by a number of friends, entered a carriage and was driven to his residence in Broadway. Here he was received with unbounded joy and hearty congratulations by all his household, including honest Dennis, and poor, dumb Clinton, who could only manifest his satisfaction by expressive signs. 'I will avenge thee, poor boy,' whispered Frank in his ear, as he cordially pressed his hand. A tall man, wrapped in a cloak, had followed Frank's carriage, and watched him narrowly as he alighted and entered his house. This man's eyes alone were visible, and they glared with a fiend-like malignity upon the young gentleman; turning away, he muttered a deep curse, and a momentary disarrangement of the cloak which hid his face, revealed the horrible lineaments of the DEAD MAN! CHAPTER XII _Showing how the Dead Man escaped from the State Prison at Sing Sing._ The New York State Prison is situated at Sing Sing, a village on the banks of the Hudson river, a few miles above the city. Being built in the strongest manner, it is deemed almost an impossibility for a prisoner to effect his escape from its massive walls. The discipline is strict and severe, and the system one of hard labor and unbroken silence, with reference to any conversation among the convicts--though in respect to the last regulation, it is impossible to enforce it always, where so many men are brought together in the prison and workshops attached to it. The Dead Man, (who it will be recollected formerly made his escape from the prison,) on being returned there, after his capture by the two officers at Sydney's house, was locked in one of the cells, and left to his own not very agreeable reflections. He had been sentenced to imprisonment for life; and as his conduct and character precluded all hope of his ever being made the object of executive clemency, he was certain to remain there during the rest of his days, unless he could again manage to escape; and this he determined to do, or perish in the attempt. For three days he was kept locked in his solitary cell, the only food allowed him being bread and water. On the third day he was brought out, stripped, and severely flogged with the _cats_, an instrument of torture similar to that used (to our national disgrace be it said,) on board of the men-of-war in our naval service. Then, with his back all lacerated and bleeding, the miscreant was placed at work in the shop where cabinet making was carried on--that having been his occupation in the prison, previous to his escape; an occupation which he had learned, while a boy, within the walls of some penitentiary. The convict applied himself to his labor with a look which only bespoke a sullen apathy; but in his heart there raged a hell of evil passions. That night when he was locked in his cell, he slept not, but sat till morning endeavoring to devise some plan of escape. The next day it chanced that he and another convict employed in the cabinet-maker's shop were engaged in packing furniture in large boxes to be conveyed in a sloop to the city of New York. These boxes, as soon as they were filled and nailed up, were carried down to the wharf, and stowed on board the sloop, which was to sail as soon as she was loaded. It instantly occurred to the Dead Man that these operations might afford him a chance to escape; and he determined to attempt it, at all hazards. Upon an elevated platform in the centre of the shop (which was extensive) was stationed an overseer, whose duty it was to see that the convicts attended strictly to their work, and held no communication with each other. This officer had received special instructions from the Warden of the prison, to watch the Dead Man with all possible vigilance, and by no means to lose sight of him for a single moment, inasmuch as his former escape had been accomplished through the inattention of the overseer who had charge of him. Upon that occasion, he had watched for a favorable moment, slipped out of the shop unperceived, entered the Warden's dwelling house (which is situated within the walls of the prison) and helping himself to a suit of citizen's clothes, dressed himself therein, and deliberately marched out of the front gate, before the eyes of half a dozen keepers and guards, who supposed him to be some gentleman visiting the establishment, his hideous and well-known features being partially concealed by the broad-brimmed hat of a respectable Quaker. To prevent a repetition of that maneuver, and to detect any other which might be attempted by the bold and desperate ruffian, the overseer kept his eyes almost constantly upon him, being resolved that no second chance should be afforded him to 'take French leave.' The Dead Man soon became conscious that he was watched with extraordinary vigilance; he was sagacious as well as criminal, and he deemed it to be good policy to assume the air of a man who was resigned to his fate, knowing it to be inevitable. He therefore worked with alacrity and endeavored to wear upon his villainous face an expression of contentment almost amounting to cheerfulness. Near him labored a prisoner whose countenance indicated good-nature and courage;--and to him the Dead Man said, in an almost inaudible whisper, but without raising his eyes from his work, or moving his lips:-- 'My friend, there is something in your appearance which assures me that you can be trusted; listen to me with attention, but do not look towards me. I am sentenced here for life: I am anxious to escape, and a plan has suggested itself to my mind, but you must assist me--will you do it?' 'Yes, poor fellow, I will, if it lies in my power, provided you were not sent here for any offence which I disapprove of,' replied the other, in a similar tone. 'I was sentenced here for the term of seven years, for manslaughter; a villain seduced my daughter, and I shot him dead--the honor of my child was worth a million of such accursed lives as his.--I consider myself guilty of no crime; he sacrificed my daughter to his lust, and then abandoned her--I sacrificed him to my vengeance, and never regretted the deed. The term of imprisonment will expire the day after to-morrow, and I shall then be a free man; therefore, I can assist you without running any great risk of myself. But you shall not have my aid if you were sent here for any deliberate villainy or black crime--for, thank God! I have a conscience, and that conscience permits me, though a prisoner, to call myself an honest man.' 'Be assured,' whispered the Dead Man, perceiving the necessity of using a falsehood to accomplish his ends--'that I am neither a deliberate villain nor hardened criminal; an enemy attacked me, and in _self defense_ I slew him, for which I was sentenced here for life.' 'In that case,' rejoined the other--'I will cheerfully assist you to escape from this earthly hell--for self-defense is Nature's first law. Had you been a willful murderer, a robber, or aught of that kind, I would refuse to aid you--but the case is different.--But what is your plan?' 'I will get into one of these boxes, and you will nail on the cover, and I shall be conveyed on board the sloop, which will sail in less than an hour hence. When the vessel arrives at New York I shall perhaps have an opportunity to get on shore unperceived, and escape into the city, where I know of a place of refuge which the devil himself could not find,'--and the Dead Man chuckled inwardly as he thought of the Dark Vaults. 'The plan is a good one, and worthy of a trial,' said the other. 'But the overseer has his eye constantly upon you--how can you escape his vigilance?' 'There's the only difficulty,' replied the Dead Man--and his subtle brain was beginning to hatch some plan of surmounting that difficulty, when a large party of visitors, among whom were several ladies, entered the shop. Now the overseer was a young man, and withal a tolerably good-looking one; and among the ladies were two or three whose beauty commended them to his gallant attentions. He therefore left his station on the platform, and went forward to receive them, and make himself agreeable. 'Now's my time, by G----d!' whispered the Dead Man to his fellow prisoner; instantly he lay down in one of the boxes, and the other nailed on the cover securely. A few moments afterwards, the box which contained the Dead Man was carried down to the wharf, by two convicts, and placed on board the vessel. Meanwhile, the overseer had become the oracle of the party of ladies and gentlemen who had visited the shop; surrounded by the group, he occupied half an hour in replying to the many questions put to him, relative to the prison discipline, and other matters connected with it. In answer to a question addressed to him concerning the character of those under his charge, the overseer remarked in a tone of much self-complacency: 'I have now in this shop a convict who is the most diabolical villain that ever was confined in this prison. He is called the Dead Man, from the fact that his countenance resembles that of a dead person. He was sentenced here for life, for a murder, but contrived to escape about a year ago. However, he was arrested on a burglary not long since, sent back here, and placed under my particular care. I flatter myself that he will not escape a second time. Step this way, ladies and gentlemen, and view the hideous criminal.' With a smirk of satisfaction, the overseer presented his arm to a pretty young lady, whose dark eyes had somewhat smitten him, and led the way to the further end of the shop, followed by the whole party. The Dead Man was nowhere to be seen! 'Hullo, here! Where the devil is that rascal gone?' cried the overseer, in great alarm, gazing wildly about him. 'Say, you fellows there, where is the Dead Man?' This inquiry, addressed to the convicts who were at work in that part of the shop, was answered by a general 'don't know, sir.' With one exception they all spoke the truth; for only the man who had nailed the Dead Man in the box, was cognizant of the affair, and he did not choose to confess his agency in the matter. An instant search was made throughout the premises, but without success--and the officers of the prison were forced to arrive at the disagreeable conclusion that the miscreant had again given them the slip. Not one of them had suspected that he was nailed up in a box on board the sloop which was then on her way to New York. The Warden sent for the luckless overseer who had charge of the escaped convict, and sternly informed him that his services were no longer needed in that establishment; he added to the discomfiture of the poor young man by darkly hinting his suspicions that he (the overseer) had connived at the escape of the prisoner--but, as the reader knows, this charge was unfounded and unjust. The distance between Sing Sing and the city is not great: wind and tide both being favorable, the vessel soon reached her place of destination, and was attached to one of the numerous wharves which extend around the city. The boxes of furniture on board were immediately placed upon carts, for conveyance to a large warehouse in Pearl street. The tightness of the box in which the Dead Man was placed, produced no small inconvenience to that worthy, who during the passage was nearly suffocated; however, he consoled himself with the thought that in a short time he would be free. The box was about six feet in length; and two in breadth and depth; and in this narrow compass the villain felt as if he were in a coffin. He was greatly rejoiced when the men who were unloading the vessel raised the box from the deck and carried it towards one of the carts. But oh, horrible! unconscious that there was a man in the box, they stood it upon one end, and the Dead Man was left _standing upon his head_. The next moment the cart was driven rapidly over the rough pavement, towards the warehouse. There were but two alternatives left for him--either to endure the torments of that unnatural position until the box was taken from the cart, or to cry out for some one to rescue him, in which case, clothed as he was in the garb of the prison, he would be immediately recognized as an escaped convict, and sent back to his old quarters. This latter alternative was so dreadful to him that he resolved to endure the torture if possible; and he could not help shuddering when he thought that perhaps he might be placed in the same position in the warehouse! The drive from the wharf to Pearl street occupied scarce five minutes, yet during that brief period of time, the Dead man endured all the torments of the damned. The blood settled in his head, and gushed from his mouth and nostrils; unable to hold out longer, he was about to yell in his agony for aid, when the cart stopped, and in a few moments he was relieved by his box being taken down and carried into the warehouse, where, to his inexpressible joy, it was placed in a position to cause him no further inconvenience. The warehouse being an extensive one, many persons were employed in it; and he deemed it prudent to remain in his box until night, as the clerks and porters were constantly running about, and they would be sure to observe him if he issued from his place of concealment then. As he lay in his narrow quarters, he heard the voices of two persons conversing near him, one of whom was evidently the proprietor of the establishment. 'We have just heard from Sing Sing,' said the proprietor--'that the villain they call the Dead Man made his escape this morning, in what manner nobody knows. I am sorry for it, because such a wretch is dangerous to society; but my regret that he has escaped arises principally from the fact that he is an excellent workman, and I, as contractor, enjoyed the advantages of his labor, paying the State a trifle of thirty cents a day for him, when he could earn me two dollars and a half. This system of convict labor is a glorious thing for us master mechanics, though it plays the devil with the journeymen. Why, I formerly employed fifty workmen, who earned on an average two dollars a day; but since I contracted with the State to employ its convicts, the work which cost me one hundred dollars a day I now get for _fifteen_ dollars.' And he laughed heartily. 'So it seems,' remarked the other,'that you are enriching yourself at the expense of the State, while honest mechanics are thrown out of employment.' 'Precisely so,' responded the proprietor--'and if the _honest mechanics_, as you call them, wish to work for me, they must commit a crime and be sent to Sing Sing, where they can enjoy that satisfaction--ha, ha, ha.' Just then, a poor woman miserably clad, holding in her hand a scrap of paper, entered the store, and advanced timidly to where the wealthy proprietor and his friend were seated. The former, observing her, said to her in a harsh tone-- 'There, woman, turn right around and march out, and don't come here again with your begging petition, or I'll have you taken up as a vagrant.' 'If you please, sir,' answered the poor creature, humbly--'I haven't come to beg, but to ask if you won't be so kind as to pay this bill of my husband's. It's only five dollars, sir, and he is lying sick in bed, and we are in great distress from want of food and fire-wood. Since you discharged him he has not been able to get work, and--' 'Oh, get out!' interrupted the wealthy proprietor, brutally--'don't come bothering _me_ with your distress and such humbug. I paid your husband more than he ought to have had--giving two dollars a day to a fellow, when I now get the same work for thirty cents! If you're in distress, go to the Poor House, but don't come here again--d'ye hear?' The poor woman merely bowed her head in token of assent, and left the store, her pale cheeks moistened with tears. The friend of the wealthy proprietor said nothing, but thought to himself, 'You're a d----d scoundrel.' And, reader, we think so too, though not in the habit of swearing. She had not proceeded two dozen steps from the store, when a rough-looking man in coarse overalls touched her arm, and thus addressed her: 'Beg your pardon, ma'am, but I'm a porter in the store of that blasted rascal as wouldn't pay your poor husband's bill for his work, and treated you so insultingly; I overheard what passed betwixt you and him, and I felt mad enough to go at him and _knock blazes_ out of him. No matter--every dog has his day, as the saying is; and he may yet be brought to know what poverty is. I'm poor, but you are welcome to all the money I've got in the world--take this, and God bless you.' The noble fellow passed three or four dollars in silver into her hand, and walked away ere she could thank him. The recording angel above opened the great Book wherein all human actions are written, and affixed another _black mark_ to the name of the wealthy proprietor. There were many black marks attached to that name already. The angel then sought out another name, and upon it impressed the stamp of a celestial seal. It was the name of the poor laborer. Oh, laborer! Thou art uncouth to look upon: thy face is unshaven, thy shirt dirty, and lo! thy overalls smell of paint and grease; thy speech is ungrammatical, and thy manners unpolished--but give us the grasp of thy honest hand, and the warm feelings of thy generous heart, fifty, yes a million times sooner than the mean heart and niggard hand of the selfish cur that calls itself thy master! And oh, wealthy proprietor how smooth and smiling is thy face, how precise thy dress and snow-white thy linen! thy words (except to the poor,) are well-chosen and marked with strict grammatical propriety.--The world doffs its hat to thee, and calls thee 'respectable,' and 'good.' Thou rotten-hearted villain!--morally thou art not fit to brush the cowhide boots of the MAN that thou callst thy servant! Out upon ye, base-soul'd wretch! The countenance of the wealthy proprietor, which had assumed a severe and indignant expression at the woman's audacity, had just recovered its wonted smile of complacency, when a gentleman of an elderly age and reverend aspect entered the store. He was attired in a respectable suit of black, and his neck was enveloped in a white cravat. 'My dear Mr. Flanders,' said the proprietor, shaking him warmly by the hand, 'I am delighted to see you. Allow me to make you acquainted with my friend, Mr. Jameson--the Rev. Balaam Flanders, our worthy and beloved pastor.' The two gentlemen bowed, and the parson proceeded to unfold the object of his visit. 'Brother Hartless,' said he to the proprietor, 'I have called upon you in behalf of a most excellent institution, of which I have the honor to be President; I allude to the 'Society for Supplying Indigent and Naked Savages in Hindustan with Flannel Shirts.' The object of the Society, you perceive, is a most philanthropic and commendable one; every Christian and lover of humanity should cheerfully contribute his mite towards its promotion--Your reputation for enlightened views and noble generosity has induced me to call upon you to head the list of its patrons--which list,' he added in a significant whisper, 'will be published in full in the _Missionary Journal and Cannibal's Friend_, that excellent periodical.' 'You do me honor,' replied Mr. Hartless, a flush of pride suffusing his face; then, going to his desk, he wrote in bold characters, at the top of a sheet of paper-- '_Donations in aid of the Society for Supplying Indigent and Naked Savages in Hindustan with Flannel Shirts._ --Paul Hartless. $100.00' This document he handed to the parson, with a look which clearly said 'What do you think of that?' and then, producing his pocket-book, took from thence a bank-note for one hundred dollars, which he presented to the reverend gentleman, who received the donation with many thanks on behalf of the 'Society for Supplying, &c.' and then left. All this time the Dead Man lay in his box, impatiently awaiting the arrival of evening, when the store would be closed, and an opportunity afforded him to emerge from the narrow prison in which he was confined. Once, he came very near being discovered; for a person chanced to enter the warehouse accompanied by a dog, and the animal began smelling around the box in a manner that excited some surprise and remark on the part of those who observed it. The dog's acute powers of smell detected the presence of some person in the box: fortunately, however, for the Dead Man, the owner of the four-legged inquisitor, having transacted his business, called the animal away, and left the store. Mr. Hartless, in the course of some further desultory conversation with Mr. Jameson, casually remarked-- 'By the way, my policy of insurance expired yesterday, and I meant to have it renewed today; however, tomorrow will answer just as well. But I must not delay the matter, for this building is crammed from cellar to roof with valuable goods, and were it burnt down tonight, or before I renew my insurance, I should be a beggar!' The Dead Man heard this, and grinned with satisfaction. The day wore slowly away, and at last the welcome evening came; the hum of business gradually ceased, and finally the last person belonging to the warehouse, who remained, took his departure, having closed the shutters and locked the door; then a profound silence reigned throughout the building. 'Now I may venture to get out of this accursed box,' thought the escaped convict:--and he tried to force off the cover, but to his disappointment and alarm, he found that it resisted all his efforts. It had been too tightly nailed on to admit of its being easily removed. 'Damnation!' exclaimed the Dead Man, a thousand fears crowding into his mind,--'it's all up with me unless I can burst off this infernal cover.' And, cursing the man who had fastened it on so securely, he redoubled his efforts. He succeeded at last; the cover flew off, and he arose from his constrained and painful position with feelings of the most intense satisfaction. All was pitch dark, and he began groping around for some door or window which would afford him egress from the place. His hand soon came in contact with a window; he raised the sash, and unfastened the shutters, threw them open, when instantly a flood of moonlight streamed into the store, enabling him to discern objects with tolerable distinctness. The window, which was not over five feet from the ground, overlooked a small yard surrounded by a fence of no great height; and the Dead Man, satisfied with the appearance of things, proceeded to put into execution a plan which he had formed while in the box. The nature of that plan will presently appear. After breaking open a desk, and rummaging several drawers without finding anything worth carrying off, he took from his pocket a match, and being in a philosophical mood, (for great rascals are generally profound philosophers,) he apostrophized it thus: 'Is it not strange, thou little morsel of wood, scarce worth the fiftieth fraction of a cent, that in thy tiny form doth dwell a Mighty Power, which can destroy thousands of dollars, and pull down the great fabric of a rich man's fortune? Thy power I now invoke, thou little minister of vengeance; for I hate the aristocrat who expressed his regret at my escape, because, forsooth! my services were valuable to him!--and now, as the flames of fire consume his worldly possessions, so may the flames of eternal torment consume his soul hereafter!' Ah, Mr. Hartless! that was an unfortunate observation you made relative to the expiration of your term of insurance. Your words were overheard by a miscreant, whose close proximity you little suspected. Your abominable treatment of that poor man is about to meet with a terrible retribution. The Dead Man placed a considerable quantity of paper beneath a large pile of boxes and furniture; he then ignited the match, and having set fire to the paper, made his exit through the window, crossed the yard, scaled the fence, and passing through an alley gained the street, and made the best of his way to the Dark Vaults. In less than ten minutes after he had issued from that building, fierce and crackling flames were bursting forth from its doors and windows. The streets echoed with the cry of _Fire_--the deep-toned bell of the City Hall filled the air with its notes of solemn warning and the fire engines thundered over the pavement towards the scene of conflagration. But in vain were the efforts of the firemen to subdue the raging flames; higher and higher they rose, until the entire building was on fire, belching forth mingled flame, and smoke, and showers of sparks. At length the interior of the building was entirely consumed, and the tottering walls fell in with a tremendous crash. The extensive warehouse of Mr. Paul Hartless, with its valuable contents, no longer existed, but had given place to a heap of black and smoking ruins! The reader is now acquainted with the manner of the Dead Man's escape from Sing Sing State Prison, and the circumstances connected with that event. CHAPTER XIII _The African and his Mistress--the Haunted House--Night of Terror._ Nero, the African, still remained a prisoner in the vault beneath Sydney's house. He was regularly supplied with his food by Dennis, who performed the part of jailer, and was untiring in his vigilance to prevent the escape of the negro under his charge. One afternoon a boy of apparently fifteen or sixteen years of age called upon Dennis and desired to speak with him in private. He was a handsome lad, of easy, graceful manners, and long, curling hair; his dress was juvenile, and his whole appearance extremely prepossessing. The interview being granted, the boy made known the object of his call by earnestly desiring to be permitted to visit the imprisoned black. 'Is it the _nager_ ye want to see?' exclaimed Dennis--'and how the devil did ye know we had a nager shut up in the cellar, any how?' 'Oh,' replied the boy, 'a lady of my acquaintance is aware of the fact, and she sent me here to present you with this five dollar gold piece, and to ask your consent to my delivering a short message to the black man.' 'Och, be the powers, and is that it?' muttered Dennis, half aloud, as he surveyed the bright coin which the boy had placed in his hand--'I begin to smell a rat, faith; this gossoon was sent here by Mr. Sydney's blackguard wife, who has such a hankering after the black divil--not contented with her own lawful husband, and a decent man he is, but she must take up wid that dirty nager, bad luck to her and him! My master gave me no orders to prevint any person from seeing the black spalpeen; and as a goold yankee sovereign can't be picked up every day in the street, faith it's yerself Dennis Macarty, that will take the responsibility, and let this good-looking gossoon in to see black Nero, and bad luck to him!' Accordingly, the worthy Irishman produced a huge key from his pocket, and led the way to the door of the vault, which he opened, and having admitted the youth, relocked it, after requesting the visitor to knock loudly upon the door when he desired to come out. 'Who is there?' demanded the negro in a hollow voice, from a remote corner of the dungeon. 'Tis I, your Julia!' answered the disguised woman, in a soft whisper--for it was no other than Sydney's guilty wife. 'My good, kind mistress!' exclaimed the black, and the next moment he had caught the graceful form of his paramour in his arms. We shall not offend the reader's good taste by describing the disgusting caresses which followed. Suffice it to say, that the interview was commenced in such a manner as might have been expected under the circumstance. The first emotions of rapture at their meeting having subsided, they engaged in a long and earnest conversation. We shall not weary the reader's patience by detailing at length what passed between them; suffice it to say, they did not separate until a plan had been arranged for the escape of Nero from that dungeon vault. When Julia left the abode of her husband, in the manner described in Chapter VIII, she took apartments for herself and her maid Susan at a respectable boarding house near the Battery. Representing herself to be a widow lady recently from Europe, she was treated with the utmost respect by the inmates of the establishment, who little suspected that she was the cast-off wife of an injured husband, and the mistress of a negro! She assumed the name of Mrs. Belmont; and, to avoid confusion, we shall hereafter designate her by that appellation. Mrs. Belmont was very well satisfied with her position, but she was well aware that she could not always maintain it, unless she entrapped some wealthy man into an amour or marriage with her; for her pecuniary resources, though temporarily sufficient for all her wants, could not last always. In this view of the case, she deemed it expedient to hire some suitable and genteel dwelling-house, where she could carry on her operations with less restraint than in a boarding-house. She accordingly advertised for such a house; and the same day on which her advertisement appeared in the paper, an old gentleman called upon her, and stated he was the proprietor of just such a tenement as she had expressed a desire to engage. 'This house, madam,' said the old gentleman, 'is a neat three-story brick edifice, situated in Reade street. It is built in the most substantial manner, and furnished with every convenience; moreover, you shall occupy it upon your own terms.' 'As to that,' remarked Mrs. Belmont, 'if the house suits me, you have but to name the rent, and it shall be paid.' 'Why, madam,' replied the old gentleman, with some embarrassment of manner--'it is my duty to inform you that a silly prejudice exists in the minds of some people in the neighborhood of the house, and that prejudice renders it somewhat difficult for me to procure a tenant. You will smile at the absurdity of the notion, but nevertheless I assure you that a belief generally prevails that the house is _haunted_.' 'Are there any grounds for each a supposition?' inquired the lady, with an incredulous smile, yet feeling an interest in the matter. 'Why,' replied the owner, 'all who have as yet occupied the house have, after remaining one to two nights in it, removed precipitately, declaring that the most dreadful noises were heard during the night, tho' none have positively affirmed that they actually _saw_ any supernatural visitant. These tales of terror have so frightened people that the building has been unoccupied for some time; and as it is a fine house, and one that cost me a good sum of money, I am extremely anxious to get a tenant of whom only a very moderate rent would be required. The fact is, I am no believer in this _ghost_ business; the people who lived in the house were probably frightened by pranks of mischievous boys, or else their nervous, excited imaginations conjured up fancies and fears which had no reasonable foundation. Now, madam, I have candidly told you all; it remains for you to decide whether you will conform to a foolish prejudice, or, rising above the superstitions of the vulgar and ignorant, become the occupant of my _haunted_ house--which, in my belief, is haunted by naught but mice in the cupboards and crickets in the chimneys.' Mrs. Belmont reflected for a few moments, and then said-- 'If the house suits me upon examination, I will become your tenant, notwithstanding the ghostly reputation of the building.' 'I am delighted, my dear madam,' rejoined the old gentleman, with vivacity, 'to find in you a person superior to the absurd terrors of weak-minded people. If you will do me the honor to accompany me to Reade street, I will go over the house with you, and if you are pleased with it, the bargain shall be completed upon the spot.' This proposal was acceded to by Mrs. Belmont, who, after putting on her cloak and bonnet, took the arm of the old gentleman and proceeded with him up Broadway. A walk of little more than ten minutes brought them to Reade street, into which they turned; and in a few moments more the old gentleman paused before a handsome dwelling-house, standing about twenty feet back from the line of the street. The house did not adjoin any other building, but was located upon the edge of an open lot of considerable extent. 'This is the place,' said the guide as he took a key from his pocket; then, politely desiring the lady to follow him, he ascended the steps, unlocked the front door, and they entered the house. The rooms were of course entirely empty, yet they were clean and in excellent condition.--The parlors, chambers and other apartments were admirably arranged and Mrs. Belmont, after going all over the house, expressed her perfect satisfaction with it, and signified her wish to remove into it the next day. The terms were soon agreed upon; and Mr. Hedge (for that was the name of the landlord,) after delivering the key into her hands, waited upon her to the door of her boarding-house, and then took his leave. The next morning, at an early hour, Mrs. Belmont began making preparations to occupy her new abode. From an extensive dealer she hired elegant furniture sufficient to furnish every apartment in the house; and, by noon that day, the rooms which had lately appeared so bare and desolate, presented an aspect of luxury and comfort. The naked walls were covered with fine paintings, in handsome frames; rich curtains were hung in the windows, and upon the floors were laid beautiful carpets.--The mirrors, sofas, chairs and cabinets were of the costliest kind; a magnificent piano was placed in the parlor, and the lady took care that the chamber which she intended to occupy was fitted up with all possible elegance and taste. A voluptuous bed, in which Venus might have revelled, was not the least attractive feature of that luxurious sleeping apartment. Every arrangement being completed, and as it was still early in the afternoon, Mrs. Belmont resolved to carry out a plan which she had formed some days previously--a plan by which she could enjoy an interview with Nero the black. The reader is already aware that she disguised herself in boys' clothes, and accomplished her object without much difficulty. That evening, Mrs. Belmont was seated in the comfortable parlor of her new abode, before a fine fire which glowed in the ample grate, and diffused a genial warmth throughout the apartment. She had just partaken of a luxurious supper; and the materials of the repast being removed, she was indulging in reflections which were far more pleasing at that moment, than any which had employed her mind since her separation from her husband. She was attired with tasteful simplicity; for although she expected no company that evening, she had taken her usual pains to dress herself becomingly and well, being a lady who never neglected her toilet, under any circumstances--a trait of refinement which we cannot help admiring, even in one so depraved and abandoned as she was. As she lounged indolently upon the sofa, complacently regarding her delicate foot, which, encased in a satin slipper, reposed upon the rich hearth-rug, her thoughts ran somewhat in the following channel--: 'Well--I am now not only mistress of my own actions, but also mistress of a splendidly furnished house. Ah, 'twas a fortunate day for me when I separated from that man I once called husband! Yet with what cool contempt he treated me on the night when he commanded me to leave his house forever! How bitterly I hate that man--how I long to be revenged upon him. Not that he has ever injured me--oh, no--'tis I that have injured him; therefore do I hate him, and thirst for revenge! And poor Nero, whom I visited this afternoon in his dungeon--how emaciated and feeble has he become by close confinement in that gloomy place! His liberation must be effected, at all hazards; for strange as it is, I love the African passionately. Now, as regards my own position and affairs: I am young, beautiful, and accomplished--skilled in human nature and intrigue. Two distinct paths lie before me, which are equally desirable: as a virtuous widow lady, I can win the love and secure the hand of some rich and credulous gentleman, who, satisfied with having obtained a pretty wife, will not be too inquisitive with reference to my past history. In case of marriage, I will remove to Boston with my new husband: for not being divorced from Sydney, (how I hate that name!) I should be rendered liable to the charge of bigamy, if the fact of my second marriage should transpire.--On the other hand, leaving marriage entirely out of the question: As a young and lovely woman, residing alone, and not under the protection of male relatives, I shall attract the attention of wealthy libertines, who will almost throw their fortunes at my feet to enjoy my favors. Selecting the richest of these men, it will be my aim to infatuate him by my arts, to make him my slave, and then to deny him the pleasure for which he pants, until he gives me a large sum of money; this being done, I can either surrender myself to him, or still refuse to afford him the gratification he seeks, as suits my whim. When he becomes wearied of my perverseness and extortion, I will dismiss him, and seek another victim. Those with whom I shall thus have to deal, will be what the world calls respectable men--husbands, fathers--perhaps professedly pious men and clergymen--who would make any sacrifice sooner than have their amours exposed to their wives, families, and society generally. Once having committed themselves with me, I shall have a hold upon them, which they never can shake off;--a hold which will enable me to draw money from their well-filled coffers, whenever my necessities or extravagances require it. I may practice whatever imposition or extortion on them I choose, with perfect impunity; they will never dare to use threats or violence towards me, for the appalling threat of _exposure_ will curb their tempers and render them tamely submissive to all my exactions and caprices. Thus will I reap a rich harvest from those wealthy votaries of carnal pleasure whom I may allure to my arms, while at the same time I can for my own gratification unrestrainedly enjoy the embraces of any lover whom I may happen to fancy. Ah, I am delightfully situated at present, and have before me a glorious and happy career!' We have devoted considerable space to the above reflections of this unprincipled woman, because they will serve to show her views in reference to her present position, and her plans for the future. The agreeable current of her meditations was interrupted by the entrance of her maid Susan. 'Well, ma'am,' said the abigail, 'I have obeyed all your orders; I have locked all the doors, and fastened all the shutters, so that if the ghost _should_ pay us a visit, it will have to get in through the keyhole. But oh! my gracious! how terrible it is for you and I, ma'am, two poor weak women, as a body might say, to be all alone together in a house that is haunted!' 'Sit down, Susan,' said Mrs. Belmont, who was herself not altogether devoid of superstitious fears. 'Are you so foolish as to believe in _ghosts_? Do you think that the spirits of dead people are allowed to re-visit the earth, to frighten us out of our wits? No, no--we have reason to fear the _living_, but not those who are dead and buried.' 'But, if you please, ma'am,' rejoined Susan, in a solemn tone, 'I once seed a ghost with my own eyes, and not only seed it, but _felt_ it, too.' 'Indeed--and pray how did that happen?' inquired her mistress. 'I'll tell you all about it, ma'am,' replied Susan, who, by the way, was rather a pretty young woman, though she was, like all ladies' maids, a prodigious talker. 'You see, ma'am, I once went to live in the family of a minister, and a very excellent man he was, as prayed night and morning, and said grace afore meals. Oh, he was a dreadful clever gentleman, 'cause he always used to kiss me when he catch'd me alone, and chuck me under the chin, and tell me I was handsome. Well, Saturday the minister's wife and family went to pay a visit to some relations in New Jersey, and was to stay for two or three days; but the minister himself didn't go with them, 'cause he was obliged to stay and preach on Sunday.--Now comes the dreadful part of my story, ma'am, and it is true as gospel.--That Saturday night, about twelve o'clock, I was awoke by hearing the door of my little attic bed-room softly open; and by the light of the moon I seed a human figger, all dressed in white, come into the room, shut the door, and then walk towards my bed. Oh, I was dreadfully frightened, to be sure; and just as I was going to scream out, the ghost puts his hand upon me and says--'_hush!_' which skeer'd me so that I almost fainted away. Well, ma'am, what does the ghost do next but take ondecent liberties with me, and I was too much frightened to say, 'have done, now!' And then the awful critter did what no ghost ever did before to me, nor man neither.--Oh, I actually fainted away two or three times; I did indeed. After a while it went away, but I was in such a flutter that I couldn't sleep no more that night. The next morning I up and told the minister how I had seed a ghost, and how it had treated me; and the minister he smiled, and said he guessed I'd get over it, and gave me some money, telling me not to say anything more about it, 'cause it might frighten the folks. Now, ma'am, after that, you needn't wonder that I believe in ghosts.' Mrs. Belmont was highly amused by this narration of her maid's experience in supernatural visitation; and the hearty laughter in which she indulged at the close of the story, dispelled in a great measure those unpleasant feelings which had begun to gain the ascendancy over her. While under the influence of those feelings, she had intended to request Susan to sleep with her in her chamber; but as such an arrangement would betray _fear_ on her part, while she was most anxious to appear bold and courageous, she concluded to occupy her sleeping apartment alone. Susan herself would have been very glad to share the room of her mistress; but as a suggestion to that effect, coming from her, might have seemed presumptuous and impertinent, she said nothing about it. Accordingly, when the hour for retiring arrived, Mrs. Belmont retired to her chamber, where she dismissed her maid, saying that she should not want her services any more that night; and poor Susan was obliged to ascend to her solitary apartment, which she did with many fearful misgivings, and the most dreadful apprehensions in regard to ghosts, coupled with much painful reflection relative to the unpleasantness of sleeping _alone_--in a haunted house. Mrs. Belmont disrobed herself, yet ere she retired to her couch, she paused before a large mirror to admire her own naked and voluptuous beauty. While she was surveying herself, she gave utterance to her thoughts in words:-- 'Ah, these charms of mine will procure me friends and fortune. What man could resist the intoxicating influence of such glorious loveliness of face and person as I possess!' Scarcely had she uttered these words, when her ear was greeted by a low sound, which bore some resemblance to a laugh. Terrified and trembling, she cast a rapid glance around the room, but could see nobody; she then examined a small closet which adjoined the chamber and looked under the bed, not knowing but that some person might be concealed there--but she could uncover nothing to account for the noise which she had heard. It then occurred to her to open the door of her chamber; but as she was about to do so, an appalling thought flashed thro' her mind. 'What if some terrible being is now standing at the outside of that door?' and she shrank from opening it. She deeply regretted that she had not requested her maid Susan to sleep with her, as she crept into bed, leaving a candle burning on the table. For about a quarter of an hour she listened intensely, but the sound which had alarmed her was not repeated; and she began to reason with herself upon the absurdity of her fears. Finally she succeeded in persuading herself that she had in reality heard nothing, but had been deceived by her own imagination. Still, she could not entirely dissipate her fears; she recollected that the house had the reputation of being 'haunted'--and, though she was naturally neither timid nor superstitious, a vague and undefinable dread oppressed her, as she lay in that solitary chamber, where reigned a heavy gloom and profound stillness. It was an hour after midnight when she awoke from an uneasy slumber into which she had fallen; and the first object which met her gaze, was a human figure, enveloped from head to toe in white drapery, standing near her bed! Yes, there it stood, with the upper part of a ghastly face alone visible, pointing at her with its finger, and freezing her soul with the steady glare of its eyes. Long, long stood that dreadful apparition; its attitude seemed to be either menacing or warning. The terrified woman, under the influence of a painful fascination, could not avert her gaze from it; and the spectre stood until the candle was entirely consumed, and the room was wrapped in profound darkness. Then the Form glided to the bedside, and laid its cold hand upon her brow. '_Thou shalt see me again!_' it whispered, and then passed noiselessly from the room. Mrs. Belmont gave one loud and piercing scream, and then sank into a state of insensibility. CHAPTER XIV _A Glimpse of the Crimes and Miseries of a Great City._ After his narrow escape from an ignominious death, Frank Sydney resumed his nocturnal wanderings thro' the city, in disguise, in order to do deeds of charity and benevolence to those who needed his aid. One night, dressed in the garb of a sailor, and wearing an immense pair of false whiskers, he strolled towards the Five Points, and entered the 'crib' of Bloody Mike. That respectable establishment was filled as usual with a motley collection of gentlemen of undoubted reputation--thieves, vagabonds, homeless wretches, and others of the same stamp, among whom were some of the most miserable looking objects possible to be conceived. At the moment of Frank's entrance, Ragged Pete was engaged in relating the particulars of a horrible event which had occurred upon the preceding night on the 'Points.' The incident is a _true_ one, and we introduce it here to show what awful misery exists in the very midst of all our boasted civilization and benevolence:-- 'You see, fellers,' said Ragged Pete, leisurely sipping a gill of _blue ruin_, which he held in his hand--'the victim was a woman of the town, as lived upstairs in Pat Mulligan's crib in this street. She had once been a decent woman, but her husband was a drunken vagabond, as beat and starved her to such an extent, that she was obliged to go on the town to keep herself from dying of actual starvation. Well, the husband he was took up and sent to quod for six months, as a common vagrant; and the wife she lived in Mulligan's crib, in a room as hadn't a single article of furniture in it, exceptin' a filthy old bed of straw in one corner. A week ago, the poor cretur was taken ill, and felt herself likely to become a mother, but the brutes in the house wouldn't pay no attention to her in that situation, but left her all to herself. What she must have suffered during that night and the next day, you can imagine; and towards evening Pat Mulligan goes to her room, and finds her almost dead, with her poor child in her arms, wrapped up in an old blanket. Well, what does Pat do but ax her for his rent, which she owed him; and because the poor woman had nothing to pay him, the Irish vagabond (axing your pardon, Bloody Mike,) bundles her neck and crop into the street, weak and sick as she was, with a hinfant scarce a day old, crying in her arms. The weather was precious cold, and it was snowing, and to keep herself and child from freezing to death, as she thought, she crept into a hog-pen which stands in Pat's yard. And this morning she was found in the hog-pen, stone dead, and the hogs were devouring the dead body of the child, which was already half ate up! I'll tell you what, fellers,' exclaimed Ragged Pete, dashing a tear from his eye, and swallowing the remainder of his gin--'I'm a hard case myself, and have seen some hard things in my time, but d----n me if the sight of that poor woman's corpse and the mutilated body of her child, didn't set me to thinking that this is a great city, where such a thing takes place in the very midst of it!' 'Three groans for Pat Mulligan!' roared a drunken fellow from beneath the table. The groans were rendered with due emphasis and effect; and then one of the drunken crowd proposed that they should visit the 'crib' of Mr. Mulligan, and testify their disapprobation of that gentleman's conduct in a more forcible and striking manner. This proposal was received with a shout of approbation by the drunken crew, and was warmly seconded by Bloody Mike himself, who regarded Mr. Patrick Mulligan as a formidable rival in his line of business, and therefore entertained feelings strongly hostile to his fellow-countryman. Then forth sallied the dingy crowd, headed by Ragged Pete, (who found himself suddenly transformed into a hero,) and followed by Frank Sydney, who was desirous of seeing the issue of this strange affair. The house occupied by Mulligan was an old, rotten tenement, which would undoubtedly have fallen to the ground, had it not been propped up by the adjoining buildings; and as it was, one end of it had settled down, in consequence of the giving away of the foundation, so that every room in the house was like a steep hill. The lower room was occupied as a groggery and dance-hall, and was several feet below the level of the street. Into this precious den did the guests of Bloody Mike march, in single file. It had been previously agreed between them, that Ragged Pete would give the signal for battle, by personally attacking no less a person than Mr. Mulligan himself. Frank also entered, and taking up a secure position in one corner, surveyed the scene with interest. Seated in the corner, upon an inverted wash-tub, was an old negro, whose wool was white as snow, who was arrayed in a dirty, ragged, military coat which had once been red. This sable genius rejoiced in the lofty title of 'the General;' he was playing with frantic violence on an old, cracked violin, during which performance he threw his whole body into the strangest contortions, working his head, jaws, legs and arms in the most ludicrous manner. The 'music' thus produced was responded to, 'on the floor,' by about twenty persons, who were indulging in the 'mazy dance.' The company included old prostitutes, young thieves, negro chimney-sweeps, and many others whom it would be difficult to classify. The room being small and very close, and heated by an immense stove, the stench was intolerable.--Behind the bar was a villainous looking Irishman, whose countenance expressed as much intellect or humanity as that of a hog. This was Pat Mulligan, and he was busily engaged in dealing out the delectable nectar called 'blue ruin' at the very moderate rate of one penny per gill. A _very_ important man, forsooth, was that Irish 'landlord,' in the estimation of himself and customers.--None dare address him without prefixing a deferential '_Mr._' to his name; and Frank Sydney was both amused and irritated as he observed the brutal insolence with which the low, ignorant ruffian treated the poor miserable wretches, from whose scanty pence he derived his disgraceful livelihood. 'Mr. Mulligan,' said a pale, emaciated woman, whose hollow cheek and sunken eye eloquently proclaimed her starving condition--'won't you trust me for a sixpenny loaf of bread until to-morrow? My little girl, poor thing, is dying, and I have eaten nothing this day.' And the poor creature wept. 'Trust ye!' roared the Irishman, glaring ferociously upon her--'faith, it's not exactly _trust_ I'll give ye; but I'll give ye a beating that'll not leave a whole bone in your skin, if ye are not out of this place in less time than it takes a pig to grunt.' The poor woman turned and left the place, with a heavy heart, and Ragged Pete, deeming this a good opportunity to begin hostilities, advanced to the bar with a swagger, and said to the Irishman,-- 'You're too hard upon that woman, Pat.' 'What's that to you, ye dirty spalpeen?' growled Mulligan, savagely. 'This much,' responded Pete, seizing an immense earthen pitcher which stood on the counter, and hurling it with unerring aim at the head of the Irishman. The vessel broke into a hundred pieces, and though it wounded Mulligan dreadfully, he was not disabled; for, grasping an axe which stood within his reach, he rushed from behind the bar, and swinging the formidable weapon aloft, he would have cloven in twain the skull of Ragged Pete, had not that gentleman evaded him with much agility, and closing with him, bore him to the floor, and began to pummel him vigorously. No sooner did the customers of Pat Mulligan see their dreaded landlord receiving a sound thrashing, then all fear of him vanished; and, as they all hated the Irish bully, and smarted under the remembrance of numerous insults and wrongs sustained at his hands, they with one accord fell upon him, and beat him within an inch of his life. Not content with this mode of retaliation, they tore down the bar, demolished the glasses and decanters, spilled all the liquor, and in short caused the flourishing establishment of Mr. Pat Mulligan to assume a very forlorn appearance. While this work of destruction was going on, the alarm was given that a body of watchmen had assembled outside the door, and was about to make an advance upon the 'crib.' To exit the house now became the general intent; and several had already beaten a retreat through the rear of the premises, when the watchman burst into the front door, and made captives of all who were present. Frank Sydney was collared by one of the officials, and although our hero protested that he had not mingled in the row, but was merely a spectator, he was carried to the watch-house along with the others. When the party arrived at the watch-house, (which is situated in a wing of the 'Tombs,') the prisoners were all arrayed in a straight line before the desk of the Captain of the Watch, for that officer's examination. To give the reader an idea of the way in which justice is sometimes administered in New York, we shall detail several of the individual examinations, and their results:-- 'What's your name?' cried the Captain, addressing the first of the prisoners. 'Barney McQuig, an' plaze yer honor,' was the reply, in a strong Hibernian accent. A sort of under-official, who was seated at the desk, whispered in the ear of the Captain of the Watch-- 'I know him, he's an infernal scoundrel, but he _votes our ticket_, and you let him slide, by all means.' 'McQuig, you are discharged,' said the Captain to the prisoner. 'Why, sir, that man was one of the worst of the rioters, and he is, besides, one of the greatest villains on the Points,' remarked a watchman, who, having only been recently appointed, was comparatively _green_, and by no means _au fait_ in the method of doing business in that 'shop.' 'Silence, sir!' thundered the Captain--'how dare you dispute my authority? I shall discharge whom I please, damn you; and you will do well if you are not discharged from your post for your interference.' The indignant Captain demanded the name of the next prisoner, who confessed to the eccentric Scriptural cognomen of 'Numbers Clapp.' 'I know _him_, too,' again whispered the under-official--'he is a common and notorious thief, but he is useful to us as a _stool pigeon_,[3] and you must let him go.' 'Clapp, you can go,' said the Captain; and Mr. Numbers Clapp lost no time in conveying himself from the dangerous vicinity of justice; though such _justice_ as we here record, was not very dangerous to _him_. 'Now, fellow, what's _your_ name?' asked the Captain of a shabbily dressed man, whose appearance strongly indicated both abject poverty and extreme ill health. 'Dionysus Wheezlecroft,' answered the man, with a consumptive cough. 'Do you know him?' inquired the Captain, addressing the under-official, in a whisper. 'Perfectly well,' replied the other--'he is a poor devil, utterly harmless and inoffensive, and is both sick and friendless. He was formerly a political stump orator of some celebrity; he worked hard for his party, and when that party got into power, it kicked him to the devil, and he has been flat on his back ever since.' 'What party did he belong to?--_ours?_' asked the Captain. 'No,' was the reply; and that brief monosyllable of two letters, sealed the doom of Dionysus Wheezlecroft. 'Lock him up,' cried the Captain--'he will be _sent over_ for six months in the morning.' And so he was--not for any crime, but because he did not belong to _our party_. Several negroes, male and female, who could not possibly belong to any party, were then summarily disposed of; and at last it came to Frank's turn to be examined. 'Say, you sailor fellow,' quoth the Captain, 'what's your name?' Frank quietly stepped forward, and in as few words as possible made himself known; he explained the motives of his disguise, and the circumstances under which he had been induced to enter the house of Pat Mulligan.--The Captain, though savage and tyrannical to his inferiors, was all smiles and affability to the rich Mr. Sydney. 'Really, my dear sir,' said he, rubbing his hands, and accompanying almost every word with a corresponding bow, 'you have disguised yourself so admirably, that it would puzzle the wits of a lawyer to make out who you are, until you should _speak_, and then your gentlemanly accent would betray you. Allow me to offer you ten thousand apologies, on behalf of my men, for having dared to subject you to the inconvenience of an arrest; and permit me also to assure you that if they had known who you were, they would not have molested you had they found you demolishing all the houses on the Points.' 'I presume I am at liberty to depart?' said Frank; and the Captain returned a polite affirmative. Our hero left the hall of judgment, thoroughly disgusted with the injustice and partiality of this petty minion of the law; for he well knew that had he himself been in reality nothing more than a poor sailor, as his garb indicated, the three words, 'lock him up,' would have decided his fate for that night; and that upon the following morning the three words, 'send him over,' would have decided his fate for the ensuing six months. When Frank was gone, the Captain said to the under official: 'That is Mr. Sydney, the young gentleman who was convicted of murder a short time ago, and whose innocence of the crime was made manifest in such an extraordinary manner, just in time to save his neck. He is very rich, and of course I could not think of locking _him_ up.' The Captain proceeded to examine other prisoners, and Frank went in quest of other adventures, in which pursuit we shall follow him. As he turned into Broadway, he encountered a showily dressed courtezan, who, addressing him with that absence of ceremony for which such ladies are remarkable, requested him to accompany her home. 'This may lead to something,' thought Frank; and pretending to be somewhat intoxicated, he proffered her his arm, which she took, at the same time informing him that her residence was in Anthony street. This street was but a short distance from where they had met; a walk of five minutes brought them to it, and the woman conducted Frank back into a dark narrow court, and into an old wooden building which stood at its further extremity. 'Wait here a few moments, until I get a light,' said the woman; and entering a room which opened from the entry, she left our hero standing in the midst of profound darkness.--Hearing a low conversation going on in the room, he applied his ear to the key-hole, and listened, having good reason to suppose that he himself was the object of the discourse. 'What sort of a man does he appear to be?' was asked, in a voice which sent a thrill through every nerve in Frank's body--for it struck him that he had heard it before. It was the voice of a man, and its tones were peculiar. 'He is a sailor,' replied the woman--'and as he is somewhat drunk now, the powder will soon put him to sleep, and then--' The remainder of the sentence was inaudible to Frank; he had heard enough, however, to put him on his guard; for he felt convinced that he was in one of those murderous dens of prostitution and crime, where robbery and assassination are perpetrated upon many an unsuspecting victim. In a few minutes the woman issued from the room, bearing a lighted candle; and requesting Frank to follow, she led the way up a crooked and broken stair-case, and into a small chamber, scantily furnished, containing only a bed, a table, a few chairs, and other articles of furniture, of the commonest kind. Our hero had now an opportunity to examine the woman narrowly.--Though her eyes were sunken with dissipation, and her cheeks laden with paint, the remains of great beauty were still discernible in her features, and a vague idea obtruded itself, like a dim shadow, upon Frank's mind, that this was not the _first_ time he had seen her. 'Why do you watch me so closely?' demanded the woman, fixing her piercing eyes upon his countenance. 'Ax yer pardon, old gal, but aren't you going to fetch on some grog?' said our hero, assuming a thick, drunken tone, and drawing from his pocket a handful of gold and silver coin. 'Give me some money, and I will get you some liquor,' rejoined the woman, her eyes sparkling with delight, as she saw that her intended victim was well supplied with funds. Frank gave her a half dollar, and she went down stairs, promising to be back in less than ten minutes. During her absence, and while our hero was debating whether to make a hasty retreat from the house, or remain and see what discoveries he could make tending to throw light on the character and practices of the inmates, the chamber door opened, and to his surprise a small boy of about five years of age entered, and gazed at him with childish curiosity. 'Surely I have seen that little lad before,' thought Frank; and then he said, aloud-- 'What is your name, my boy?' '_Jack the Prig_,' replied the little fellow. Frank started; memory carried him back to the Dark Vaults, where he had heard the Dead Man _catechise_ his little son, and he recollected that the urchin had, on that occasion, made the same reply to a similar question. By referring to the sixth chapter of this work, the reader will find the questions and answers of that singular catechism. Resolving to test the matter further, our hero asked the boy the next question which he remembered the Dead Man had addressed to his son, on that eventful night:-- 'Who gave you that name?' '_The Jolly Knights of the Round Table_,' replied the boy, mechanically. 'By heavens, 'tis as I suspected!' thought Frank--'the child's answers to my questions prove him to be the son of the Dead Man; the voice which I heard while listening in the passage, and which seemed familiar to me, was the voice of that infernal miscreant himself: and the woman whom I accompanied hither, and whom I half fancied I had seen before--that woman is his wife.' The boy, probably fearing a return of his mother, left the room; and Frank continued his meditations in the following strain:-- 'The mystery begins to clear up. This house is probably the one that communicates with the _secret outlet_ of the Dark Vaults, through which I passed, blindfolded, accompanied by those two villains, Fred Archer, and the Dead Man. The woman, no doubt, entices unsuspecting men into this devil's trap, and after _drugging_ them into a state of insensibility, hands them over to the tender mercies of her hideous husband, who, after robbing them, casts them, perhaps, into some infernal pit beneath this house, there to die and rot!--Good God, what terrible iniquities are perpetrated in the very heart of this great city--iniquities which are unsuspected and unknown! And yet the perpetrators of them often escape their merited punishment, while I, an innocent man, came within a hair's breadth of perishing upon the scaffold for another's crime! But I will not question the divine justice of the Almighty; the guilty may elude the punishment due their crimes, in this world, but vengeance will overtake them in the next. It shall, however, henceforth be the great object of my life, to bring one stupendous miscreant to the bar of human justice--the Dead Man whose escape from the State Prison was followed by his outrage upon Clinton Romaine, by which the poor boy was forever deprived of the faculty of speech; and 'tis my firm belief that 'twas by his accursed hand my aunt was murdered; she was too elevated in character, and too good a Christian, to commit suicide, and _he_ is the only man in existence who could slay such an excellent and honorable woman! Yes--something tells me that the Dead Man is the murderer of my beloved relative, and never will I rest till he is in my power, that I may wreak upon him my deadly vengeance!' Hearing a footstep on the stairs, he assumed an attitude and expression of countenance indicative of drowsiness and stupidity. A moment afterwards, the woman entered, and placed upon the table a small pitcher containing liquor. Taking from a shelf two tumblers, she turned her back towards Frank, and drew from her bosom a small box, from which she rapidly transferred a few grains of fine white powder into one of the tumblers; then going to a cupboard in one corner, she put a teaspoonful of loaf sugar into each of the tumblers, and placing them upon the table, requested our hero to 'help himself.' Frank poured some liquor into the tumbler nearest him, and looking askance at the woman as he did so, he saw that her features wore a smile of satisfaction; she then supplied her own glass, and was about to raise it to her lips, when our hero said, in a gruff, sleepy tone-- 'I say, old woman, you haven't half sweetened this grog of mine. Don't be so d--d stingy of your sugar, for I've money enough to pay for it.' The woman turned and went to the closet to get another spoonful of the article in question; when Frank, with the rapidity of lightning, _changed the tumblers_, placing the deadly dose designed for him, in the same spot where the woman's tumbler had stood. This movement was accomplished with so much dexterity, that when she advanced to the table with the sugar, she failed to notice the alteration. 'Well, old gal--here's to the wind that blows, the ship that goes, and the lass that loves a sailor!' And delivering himself of this hackneyed nautical toast, the pretended seaman drank off the contents of his glass, an example which was followed by the female miscreant, who responded to Frank's toast by uttering aloud the significant wish-- 'May your sleep to-night be sound!' 'Ay, ay, I hope so, and yours, too,' grumbled our hero, placing an enormous quid of tobacco in his cheek, in order to remove the unpleasant taste of the vile liquor which he had just drank. There was a pause of a few minutes; when suddenly the woman grasped Frank convulsively by the arm, and gazed into his countenance with wildly gleaming eyes. 'Tell me,' she gasped, like one in the agonies of strangulation--'tell me the truth, for God's sake--_did you change those tumblers_?' 'I did,' was the answer. 'Then I am lost!' she almost shrieked--'lost, lost! The liquor which I drank contained a powder which will within half an hour sink me into a condition of insensibility, from which I shall only awake a raging maniac! I am rightly served--for I designed that to be _your_ fate!' 'Wretched woman, I pity you,' said Frank, in a tone of commiseration. 'I deserve not your pity,' she cried, writhing as if in great bodily torment--'my soul is stained with the guilt of a thousand crimes--and the only reparation I can make you, to atone for the wrong I intended, is to warn you to fly from this house as from a pestilence! This is the abode of murder--it is a charnel-house of iniquity; fly from hence, as you value your life--for an hour after midnight my husband, the terrible Dead Man, will return, and although you frustrated me, you cannot escape his vengeance, should he find you here. Ah, my God! my brain burns--the deadly potion is at work!' And thus the miserable woman continued to rave, until the powerful drug which she had taken fully accomplished its work, and she sank upon the floor in a state of death-like insensibility. 'Thou art rightly served,' thought Frank, as he contemplated her prostrate form--'now to penetrate into some of the mysteries of this infernal den!' Taking the candle from the table, he began his exploration in that fearful house. In the apartment which adjoined the chamber he discovered little 'Jack the Prig,' fast asleep in bed. In the restlessness of slumber, the boy had partially thrown off the bed-clothes, and he exhibited upon his naked breast the picture of a gallows, and a man hanging! This appalling scene had been drawn with India ink, and pricked into the flesh with needles, so that it never could be effaced. It was the work of the boy's hideous father, who, not contented with training up his son to a life of crime, was anxious that he should also carry upon his person, through life, that fearful representation of a criminal's doom. 'Would it not be a deed of mercy,' thought our hero--'to take the poor boy from his unnatural parents, and train him up to a life of honesty and virtue? If I ever get the father in my power, I will look after the welfare of this unfortunate lad.' Frank left the room, and descending the stairs, began to explore the lower apartments of the house. In one, he found a large collection of tools, comprising every implement used by the villains in their depredations. There were dark lanterns, crowbars, augers, London _jimmies_, and skeleton keys, for burglary; also, spades, pickaxes, and shovels, which were probably used in robbing graves, a crime which at that period was very common in New York. A large quantity of clothing of all kinds hung upon the walls, from the broadcloth suit of the gentleman down to the squalid rags of the beggar; these garments Frank conjectured to be _disguises_, a supposition which was confirmed by the masks, false whiskers, wigs and other articles for altering the person, which were scattered about. In a small closet which communicated with this room, our hero found dies for coining, and a press for printing counterfeit bank-notes; and a table drawer, which he opened containing a quantity of false coin, several bank-note plates, and a package of counterfeit bills, which had not yet been signed. Having sufficiently examined these interesting objects, Frank passed into the next room, which was of considerable extent. It was almost completely filled with goods of various kinds, evidently the proceeds of robberies. There were overcoats, buffalo robes, ladies' cloaks and furs, silk dresses, shawls, boxes of boots and shoes, cases of dry goods, and a miscellaneous assortment of articles sufficient to furnish out a large store. The goods in that room were worth several thousands of dollars. 'I shall now seek to discover the _secret outlet_ of the Dark Vaults,' thought Frank, as he descended into the cellar of the house. Here he gazed about him with much interest; the cellar was damp and gloomy and his entrance with the light disturbed a legion of rats, which went scampering off in every direction, from a corner in which they had collected together; as the young man approached that corner, a fetid, sickening odor saluted his nostrils and a fearful thought flashed across his mind; a moment afterwards, his blood curdled with horror, for before him lay the dead body of a man, entirely naked, and far advanced in state of decomposition; and upon that putrefying corpse had the swarm of rats been making their terrible banquet! Sick with horror and disgust, Frank precipitately retreated from the loathsome and appalling spectacle, satisfied that he had beheld one of the Dead Man's murdered victims; and he shuddered as he thought that such might have been _his_ fate! In the centre of the cellar an apparatus of singular appearance attracted his notice; and approaching it he instantly became convinced that this was the _secret outlet_ for which he sought. Four strong, upright posts supported two ponderous iron crossbars, to which were attached four ropes of great thickness and strength, these ropes were connected with a wooden platform, about six feet square; and beneath the platform was a dark and yawning chasm. Closely examining this apparatus, our hero saw that by an ingenious contrivance, a person standing on the platform could, by turning a crank, raise or lower himself at will. He cautiously approached the edge of the chasm, and holding down the light, endeavored to penetrate through the darkness; but in vain--he could see nothing, though he could faintly hear a dull, sluggish sound like that produced by the flowing of a vast body of muddy water, and at the same time an awful stench which arose from the black gulf, compelled him to return a short distance. 'The mystery is solved,' he thought--'that fearful hole leads to the subterranean sewers of the city, and also to the Dark Vaults beyond them. By means of that platform, the villains of the _Infernal Regions_ below, can pass to and from their den with facility and safety.' At this moment he heard the vast bell of the City Hall proclaiming the hour of midnight; and he remembered that the woman had told him that her husband, the Dead Man, would return in an hour from that time. At first it occurred to him to await the miscreant's coming, and endeavor to capture him--but then he reflected that the Dead Man might return accompanied by other villains, in which case the plan would not only be impracticable, but his own life would be endangered. 'And even were the villain to come back alone,' thought Frank, 'were I to spring upon him, he might give some signal which would bring to his aid his band of desperadoes from the Vaults below. No--I must not needlessly peril my own life; I will depart from the house now, satisfied for the present with the discoveries I have made, and trusting to be enabled at no distant time to come here with a force sufficient to overcome the hideous ruffian and all his band.' Leaving the cellar, he traversed the entry and attempted to open the front door; but to his surprise it was securely locked, nor could all his efforts push back the massive bolts which held it fast. He re-entered the room, and examining the windows, found them furnished with thick iron bars like the windows of a prison, so that to pass through them was impossible; and further investigation resulted in the unpleasant conviction that he was a prisoner in that dreadful house, with no immediate means of escape. He again descended into the cellar, and began seriously to reflect upon the realities of his situation. He was a young man of determination and courage: yet he could not entirely subdue those feelings of uneasiness and alarm which were natural under the circumstances. He was alone, at midnight, in that abode of crime and murder; near him lay the corpse of an unfortunate fellow creature, who had without a doubt fallen by the hand of an assassin; he was momentarily expecting the return of that arch-miscreant, who would show him no mercy; a deep, unbroken silence, and an air of fearful mystery, reigned in that gloomy cellar and throughout that awful house--and before him, dark and yawning as the gate of hell, was that black and infernal pit which led to the subterranean caverns of the Dark Vaults, far below. 'I will sell my life dearly, at all events,' thought our hero, as he drew a bowie knife from his breast, and felt its keen, glittering edge; then impelled by a sudden thought, he advanced to the mouth of the pit, and cut the four ropes, which sustained the wooden platform, so nearly asunder, that they would be almost sure to break with a slight additional weight. He had scarcely accomplished this task, when a strange, unnatural cry resounded throughout the cellar--a cry so indescribably fearful that it chilled his blood with horror. It was almost instantly followed by a low and melancholy wail, so intense, so solemn, so profoundly expressive of human misery, that Frank was convinced that some unfortunate being was near him, plunged in deepest anguish and distress. In a few moments the sound entirely ceased, and silence resumed its reign; then Frank, actuated by the noble feelings of his generous nature, said, in a loud voice-- 'If there is any unhappy creature who now hears me, and who needs my charitable aid, let him or her speak, that I may know where to direct my search.' No answer was returned to this request; all was profoundly silent. Frank, however, was determined to fathom the mystery; accordingly, he began a careful search throughout the cellar, and finally discovered in an obscure corner an iron door, which was secured on the outside by a bolt--to draw back this bolt and throw open this door, was but the work of a moment; and our hero was about to enter the cell thus revealed, when a hideous being started from the further end of the dungeon, and with an awful yell rushed out into the cellar, and hid itself in a deep embrasure of the wall. Whether this creature were human or not, the rapidity of its flight prevented Frank from ascertaining, he cautiously advanced to the place where it had concealed itself, and by the dim light of the lamp which he carried, he saw, crouching down upon the cold, damp earth, a _living object_ which appalled him; it was a human creature, but so horribly and unnaturally deformed, that it was a far more dreadful object to behold than the most loathsome of the brute creation. It was of pygmy size, its shrunk limbs distorted and fleshless, and its lank body covered with filthy rags; its head, of enormous size, was entirely devoid of hair; and the unnatural shape as well as the prodigious dimensions of that bald cranium, betokened beastly idiocy. Its features, ghastly and terrible to look upon, bore a strange resemblance to those of the _Dead Man_! and its snake-like eyes were fixed upon Frank with the ferocity of a poisonous reptile about to spring upon its prey. 'Who art thou?' demanded our hero, as he surveyed the hideous object with horror and disgust. It answered not, but again set up its low and melancholy wail. Then with extraordinary agility, it sprang from its retreat, and bounding towards the dungeon, entered, and crouched down in one corner, making the cellar resound with its awful shrieks. ''Tis more beast than human,' thought Frank--'I will fasten it in its den, or it may attack me;' and closing the door, he secured it with the bolt. As he did so, he heard the deep-toned bell peal forth the hour of--_one_! 'It is the hour appointed for the return of the Dead Man!' said our hero to himself, with a shudder; and instantly it occurred to him that he might have descended to the Dark Vaults and escaped that way, had he not cut the ropes which supported the platform. But then he reflected that on reaching the Vaults he would be almost certain to fall into the power of the villains assembled there; and he ceased to regret having cut the ropes. His attention was suddenly arrested by observing the platform descend into the abyss, moved by an unseen agency; for the apparatus was so contrived, that a person in the Vaults below could lower or raise the platform at will, by means of a rope connected with it. Frank had anticipated that the Dead Man would enter the house through the front door; but he now felt convinced that the miscreant was about to ascend on the platform from the Vaults; and he said to himself-- ''Tis well--these almost severed ropes will not sustain the villain's weight, and if he attains to any considerable height, and then falls, his instant death is certain.' The platform reached the bottom of the abyss--a short pause ensued, and then it began slowly to ascend; higher, higher it mounted, until our hero, fearing that the rope might not break, was about to cut it again, when a yell of agony reached his ear from the depths of the pit, and at the same moment the slackened condition of the rope convinced him that the platform had fallen. He listened, and heard a sound like the plunging of a body into water; then all was silent as the grave. 'The villain has met with a just doom,' thought Frank; and no longer apprehensive of the return of his mortal enemy, he left the cellar, and entering the room above, in which the stolen goods were deposited, threw himself upon a heap of clothes and garments, and fell into a deep slumber. It was broad daylight when he awoke; and starting up, his eyes rested upon an object which caused him to recoil with horror. The woman whom he had left insensible from the effects of the powerful drug which she had taken, was standing near him, her eyes rolling with insanity, her hair dishevelled, her clothes torn to rags and her face scratched and bleeding, she having in her own madness inflicted the wounds with her own nails. 'Ha!' she exclaimed--'had'st thou not awakened, I would have killed thee! Thy heart would have made me a brave breakfast, and I would have banqueted on thy life-blood! Go hence--go hence! thou shalt not unfold the awful mysteries of this charnel-house!--Ye must not behold the murdered man who lies rotting in the cellar, nor open the dark dungeon of the deformed child of crime!--'tis the hideous offspring of hideous parents--my child and the Dead Man's! 'Twas a judgement from Heaven, that monstrous being; we dare not kill it, so we shut it up from the light of day. Go hence--go hence, or I will fly at thee and tear thine eyes out!' Frank left the room, and ascended to the chamber, hoping to find a key which would enable him to unlock the front door; and in a table drawer he discovered one, which he doubted not would release him from his imprisonment. Before departing, he wrote the following words on a scrap of paper:-- 'If the villain known as the _Dead Man_ still lives, he is informed that he is indebted to _me_ for his unexpected fall last night. Let the miscreant tremble--for I have penetrated the mysteries of this infernal den, and my vengeance, if not ordinary justice, will speedily overtake him! SYDNEY.' Leaving the note upon the table, Frank descended the stairs, unlocked the door, and departed from that abode of crime and horror. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: A _stool pigeon_ is a person who associates with thieves, in order to betray their secrets to the police officers, in reference to any robbery which has been committed, or which may be in contemplation. As a reward for furnishing such information, the _stool pigeon_ is allowed to steal and rob, _on his own account_, with almost perfect impunity.] CHAPTER XV _Showing the pranks played in the Haunted House by the two Skeletons._ When Mrs. Belmont awoke from the swoon into which she had fallen, at sight of the terrible apparition which had visited her, daylight was shining through the windows of her chamber. She immediately recalled to mind the events of the preceding night, and resolved to remove without delay from a house which was troubled with such fearful visitants. Her maid Susan soon entered, to assist her in dressing; and she learned that the girl had neither seen nor heard anything of a mysterious or ghostly nature, during the night. But when the lady related what _she_ had seen, the terror of poor Susan knew no bounds, and she declared her determination not to sleep alone in the house another night. While at breakfast, a visitor was announced, who proved to be the landlord, Mr. Hedge. The old gentleman entered with many apologies for his intrusion, and said-- 'To confess the truth, my dear madam, I am anxious to learn how you passed the night. Were you disturbed by any of the goblins or spectres which are supposed to haunt the house?' Julia related everything which had occurred, and Mr. Hedge expressed great astonishment and concern. 'It is singular--very singular, and fearful,' said he musingly--'a terrible blot seems to rest upon this house; I must abandon the hope of ever having it occupied, as I presume you now desire to remove from it, as a matter of course?' 'Such _was_ my intention,' replied Julia, 'but you will be surprised when I assure you that within the last hour I have changed my mind, and am now resolved to remain here. To me there is a charm in mystery, even when that mystery, as in the present instance, is fraught with terror. I think I need entertain no apprehension of receiving personal injury from these ghostly night-walkers, for if they wished to harm me, they could have done so last night. Hereafter, my maid shall sleep in my chamber with me; I shall place a dagger under my pillow, with which to defend myself in case of any attempted injury or outrage--and I shall await the coming of my spectral friend with feelings of mingled dread and pleasure.' 'I am delighted to hear you say so,' rejoined the old gentleman, as he surveyed the animated countenance and fine form of the courageous woman with admiration. In truth, Julia looked very charming that morning; she was dressed in voluptuous _dishabille_, which partially revealed a bust whose luxurious fullness and exquisite symmetry are rarely equalled by the divine creations of the sculptor's art. 'She is very beautiful,' thought the old gentleman; and the sluggish current of his blood began to course thro' his veins with something of the ardor of youth. Mr. Hedge was a wealthy old bachelor;--and like the majority of individuals, who belong to that class, he adored pretty women, but had always adored them _at a distance_. To him, woman was a divinity; he bowed at her shrine, but dared not presume to taste the nectar of her lips, or inhale the perfume of her sighs. He had always regarded such familiarity as a type of sacrilege. But now, seated _tete-a-tete_ with that charming creature, and feasting his eyes upon her voluptuous beauty, his awe of the divinity merged into a burning admiration of the woman. Julia knew that Mr. Hedge was rich. 'He admires me,' thought she,--'he is old, but wealthy; I will try to fascinate him, and if he desires me to become either his wife or mistress, I will consent, for a connection with him would be to my pecuniary advantage.' And she _did_ fascinate him, as much by her sparkling wit and graceful discourse, as by her charms of person. She related to him a very pleasing little fiction entirely the offspring of her own fertile imagination, which purported to be a history of her own past life. She stated that she was the widow of an English gentleman; she had recently come to America, and had but few acquaintances, and still fewer friends; she felt the loneliness of her situation, and admitted that she much desired a friend to counsel and protect her; the adroit adventuress concluded her extemporaneous romance by adroitly insinuating that her income was scarcely adequate to her respectable maintenance. Mr. Hedge listened attentively to this narrative, and religiously believed every word of it. While the lady was speaking, he had drawn his chair close to hers, and taken one of her small, delicate hands in his. We must do him the justice to observe, that though her beauty had inspired him with passion, he nevertheless sincerely sympathised with her on account of her pretended misfortunes--and, supposing her to be strictly virtuous, he entertained not the slightest wish to take advantage of her unprotected situation. 'My dear young lady,' said he--'although I have known you but a very short time, I have become exceedingly interested in you. I am an old man--old enough to be your father; and as a father I now speak to you.--What I am about to say, might seem impertinent and offensive in a young man, but you will pardon it in me. You have unconscientiously dropped a hint touching the insufficiency of your income to maintain you as a lady should be maintained. I am rich--deign to accept from me as a gift--or as a loan, if you will--this scrap of paper; 'tis valueless to me, for I have more money than I need. The gift--or loan--shall be repeated as often as your necessities require it.' He squeezed a bank-note into her hand--and when she, with affected earnestness, desired him to take it back, assuring him that she needed no immediate pecuniary aid, he insisted that she should retain it; and shortly afterwards he arose and took his leave, having easily obtained permission to call upon her the next day. 'Egad, she would make me a charming wife--if she would only have me,' thought the old gentleman, as he left the house. 'Five hundred dollars!' exclaimed Julia, as she examined the bank-note which he had given her--'how liberal! I have fairly entrapped the silly old man; he is too honorable to propose that I should become his mistress, and he will probably offer me his hand in marriage. I will accept him at once--and to avoid detection, I shall remove with my venerable husband to Boston, which I have heard is a charming city, where a woman of fashion and intrigue can lead a glorious and brilliant career.' That night she retired early to rest, and her maid Susan shared her chamber--an arrangement highly satisfactory to the abigail, who was glad of company in a house where ghosts were in the habit of perambulating during the night. Neither mistress nor maid closed an eye in slumber--but midnight came, and they had not seen nor heard anything of a ghostly nature. Yet strange events were taking place in the house,--events which will throw light upon the fearful mysteries of the place. It was about an hour after midnight, when a large stone among those of which the foundation of the house was built, turned slowly upon pivots, revealing an aperture in the wall, and at the same instant the glare of a lantern shone into the cellar. From the aperture emerged two persons of frightful appearance, one of whom carried the lantern; they were both dressed in tight-fitting garments of black cloth, upon which was daubed in white paint the figure of a skeleton; and each of their faces had been blacked, and then drawn over with the representation of a skull. Seen by an imperfect light, they exactly resembled two skeletons. 'By Jesus!' exclaimed one of them, in a tone which was anything but hollow or sepulchral--'let's put for the pantry and see what there is to _ate_, for be the powers I'm starved wid hunger!' 'That's the talk, Bloody Mike--- so we will,' responded the other worthy, who was no other than our old friend Ragged Pete, though his nearest relatives would never have recognized him in the disguise he then wore. Mike and Pete ascended to the pantry, and began a diligent search after provisions. 'Glory to ould Ireland, here's grand illigant ham!' exclaimed the first mentioned individual, as he dragged from a shelf a large dish containing the article he had named. 'And blow me tight if here isn't a cold turkey and a pan of pudding,' rejoined Pete, whose researches had also been crowned with success. 'Faith, it's ourselves, Peter, dear, that'll have a supper fit for the bishop of Cork, an' that's a big word,' remarked Mike, as he triumphantly placed upon a table the savory viands above mentioned, and 'fell to' with surpassing vigor, an example in which he was followed by his comrade. 'This playing the ghost is a good business, by jingo!' said Pete, with his mouth full of ham. 'True for ye!' replied the Irish skeleton, his articulation rendered indistinct by the masses of turkey which were fast travelling down his throat to his capacious stomach. The repast was not finished until they had devoured every atom of the provisions; and then Pete went in quest of something to 'wash the wittles down with,' as he expressed it. Upon a sideboard in the adjoining room he found wines and liquors of excellent quality, which he and his companion were soon engaged in discussing, with as much ease and comfort as if they were joint proprietors of the whole concern. The two gentlemen grew quite cosey and confidential over their wine, and as their conversation mainly referred to matters in which the reader perhaps feels an interest, we shall so far intrude upon their privacy as to report the same. 'I've news to tell you, Mike,' said Pete--'the Dead Man has somehow or other found out that the lady who moved into this house yesterday, is the wife of Mr. Sydney, the rich chap that he hates so infernally 'cause he had him arrested once. Well, you know that last night some one cut the ropes that hoists the platform from the Vaults, so that the Dead Man fell and came nigh breaking his neck; and as it is, he's so awfully bruised that he won't have the use of his limbs for some time to come--besides, he fell into the sewers, and would have been drowned, if I hadn't heerd him, and dragged him out. The chap wot played him that trick was this same Sydney; for a note was found this morning in Anthony street crib, bragging about it, and signed with his name. Now it seems that his wife that lives in this house, and who we are trying to skeer out of it, as we have done all the others that ever lived here--it seems that _she_ hates Sydney like thunder and wants to be revenged on him for something--and that the Dead Man found that out, too. So 'our boss' thinks he'll try and set up a partnership with this Mrs. Belmont, as she calls herself--and with her aid he calculates to get Mr. Sydney into his power. If the lady and him sets up business together, our services as ghosts won't be wanted any longer; and I'm very sorry for it, because we've had glorious times in this house, frightening people, and making them believe the place was haunted.' As this long harangue rendered Pete thirsty, he extinguished his eloquence for a few moments in a copious draught of choice Burgundy. 'That row at Pat Mulligan's last night was a divilish nate affair,' remarked Mike. 'Yes,' said Pete--'and we all got bundled off to the watch-house; but the Captain let me go--he always does, because I vote for his party. After I got clear, I came here, wrapped in a great sheet, and went up into Mrs. Belmont's chamber; after frightening the poor woman almost to death, I goes up to the bed, puts my hand on her face, and tells her that she'd see me agin--whereupon she gives a great shriek, and I cut my puck through the hole in the cellar.' 'Be the powers,' remarked Bloody Mike--'it's a great convenience entirely, to have thim sacret passages from the Vault into intarior of houses; there's two of thim, one under the crib in Anthony street, and the other under this dacent house in _Rade_ street.' 'Yes, you're right,' said Pete--'but come, let's do our business and be off--it's near three o'clock.' The two worthies mounted the stairs with noiseless steps, and pausing before Mrs. Belmont's chamber, Ragged Pete gave utterance to an awful groan. A stifled shriek from the interior of the room convinced them the inmates were awake and terribly frightened. Pete's groan was followed by a violent _hiccuping_ on the part of Bloody Mike--for, to confess the truth, that convivial gentleman had imbibed so freely that he was, in vulgar parlance, most essentially drunk. 'Stop that infernal noise, and follow me into the room,' whispered Pete, who, having confined himself to wine instead of brandy, was comparatively sober. 'Lade on, I'm after ye!' roared the Irish skeleton. Pete, finding the door locked gave it a tremendous kick, and it burst open with a loud crash. Julia and her maid screamed with horror and affright, as they beheld two hideous forms resembling skeletons come rushing into the room. Ragged Pete advanced to the bedside of Mrs. Belmont, and threw himself into an approved pugilistic attitude, as if challenging that lady to take a 'set to' with him; while Bloody Mike stumbled over the prostrate form of the lady's maid, who occupied a temporary bed upon the floor. Forgetting his assumed part, he yelled out for something to drink, and forthwith began to sing in tones of thunder, the pathetic Hibernian ballad commencing with-- 'A sayman courted a farmer's daughter, That lived convenient to the Isle of Man.' 'The devil!--you'll spoil all,' muttered Pete, as he seized Mike, and with difficulty dragged him from the room. 'Ain't you a nice skeleton, to get drunk and sing love songs,' he whispered contemptuously, pulling his inebriated comrade downstairs after him: 'No dacent ghost ever gets as corn'd as you be,' he added, as they entered the 'hole in the wall;' after which the stone was turned into its place, which it fitted so exactly, that the most critical eye could not have discovered anything to indicate that it had ever been moved at all. Mrs. Belmont was now fully satisfied in her own mind that there was nothing supernatural about the nocturnal intruders, but that they were in reality substantial flesh and blood, and though she could not divine how they had entered the house, she was much relieved and comforted by the assurance that it was with _living_ men she had to deal--a conviction which was amply confirmed the next morning, when the havoc done to the eatables and drinkables was announced to her by the indignant Susan. In the afternoon Mr. Hedge called upon her as appointed, and dined with his interesting and fascinating tenant. After dinner, Julia caused the sofa to be wheeled in front of the glorious fire which glowed in the grate (for the weather was intensely cold) and seating herself, invited the old gentleman to place himself at her side. Then she exerted all her fine powers of discourse to increase his admiration, and draw from him a declaration of love, and an offer of marriage. Wine was brought in, and gradually their spirits became enlivened by the sparkling genii of the grape. The old man felt the fires of youth careering through his veins, and his withered cheek was suffused with a flush of passion. 'Beautiful Julia,' said he--'I observe that you have a magnificent piano; will you favor me with an air?' She smiled an assent, and her aged admirer conducted her to the instrument with the most ceremonious politeness. After a brilliant prelude, executed with artistic delicacy and skill, she dashed off into a superb Italian air, which raised her listener (who was passionately devoted to music,) into the seventh heaven of ecstasy. 'Glorious!--grand!' were his exclamations of delight, when she had finished the air and she needed no urgent persuasion to induce her to favor him with another. Artfully and admirably did she compose an extempore song, adapted to immediate circumstances, beginning--'I love no vain and fickle youth,' and beautifully depicting the love of a young woman for a man advanced in years. She sung it with a most touching air, and threw into her countenance and style an expression of melting tenderness. Ere she had terminated, the old gentleman was kneeling at her feet; and pressing her fair hand to his lips. 'Divine creature,' he murmured--'can you pardon the presumption and foolishness of an old man, who dares to love you? Your beauty and your fascinations have conquered and bewildered me. I know that the proposal coming from me, is madness--I know that you will reject my suit with disdain--yet hear me Julia; I am an old, rich and solitary man--I need some gentle ray of sunshine to gild my few remaining years--I need some beautiful creature, like yourself, to preside over my gloomy household, and cheer me in my loneliness by her delightful society and the music of her voice. Boundless wealth shall be at your command; no restraint shall ever be placed upon the number of your servants, the splendor of your carriages and equipages, the costliness of your jewels; and the magnificence of your amusements. Speak--and seal my destiny.' And Julia _did_ speak, and became the affianced wife of Mr. Hedge. Her operations thus far had been crowned with triumphant success. It was arranged that their marriage should take as privately as possible in one month, from that day.--Julia suggested that, immediately after their union, they should remove to Boston, and take up their permanent residence in that city, to which proposal the old gentleman gave a cheerful consent. 'And if you have no objection, my dear Julia,' said he, 'we will be united by Dr. Sinclair, the young and excellent rector of St. Paul's, to which church I belong.' Julia signified her compliance with the arrangement. She had both seen and admired the young rector, and thought him handsome--very handsome. Previous to Mr. Hedge's departure that evening, he presented her with a large sum of money, to defray, he said, the expenses necessary to be incurred in her preparations for the marriage. Then the enamored old gentleman kissed her hand, and took his leave. When he was gone, Julia abandoned herself to the pleasing thoughts engendered by her present brilliant prospects. While in the midst of these agreeable meditations, she was interrupted by the sound of a footstep behind her; and turning, she beheld a man of an aspect so hideous and revolting, that she screamed with terror. 'Hush! be silent, madam--I mean you no harm,' said the man, as he closed the door, and seated himself at her side upon the sofa. Julia gazed on him with surprise and dread. His face, which at best was the most loathsome and horrible ever worn by man, was mangled and bruised as if by some severe and terrible injury; he moved with evident pain and difficulty, and carried one of his arms in a sling. 'Our interview shall be brief, and to the point,' said the mysterious visitor. 'I am he who is called the _Dead Man_, and I am not disposed to quarrel with the title, for I like it.--You and your history are known to me; it matters not how I obtained my information; you are styled Mrs. Belmont, a widow--but you are the discarded wife of Francis Sydney, and half an hour ago you engaged yourself in marriage to Mr. Hedge, the owner of this house.' Julia started with alarm, for she felt that she was in the power of that terrible man. 'What is the object of your visit?' she asked. 'Listen and you shall know. I have a secret subterranean cavern which communicates with the cellar of this building, and 'twas by that means I entered the house to-night. Myself and friends often find it convenient to carry stolen goods through this house into our den; and in order to have the place all to ourselves, we have heretofore frightened away the people who have come here to live; thus the house is reputed to be haunted. 'Twas our design to frighten you away, also; but having discovered _who and what you are_, I've concluded to explain the mystery, and set up a copartnership with you.' 'And in what business can _we_ possibly be connected together?' asked Julia, with ill-concealed disgust. 'In the business of _vengeance_!' thundered the Dead Man, foaming with rage. 'Tell me, woman--do you hate Sydney?' 'I do!--and would sell my soul to be revenged upon him,' she replied with flashing eyes. 'Enough!' cried the other, with triumphant joy--'I knew you would join me in my plan of vengeance. Now, madam, from this moment we are friends--_partners_, rather let me say--and there's my hand upon it.' And he gripped her hand almost fiercely, while she shuddered at the awful contact. It seemed as if she were touching a corpse. 'Hereafter,' continued the miscreant,--'you shall rest at night securely in this house, undisturbed by pretended ghosts. Do you see these wounds and bruises?--for them I am indebted to Sydney; my wife is a raging maniac, and I am also indebted to him for _that_--and by eternal hell! when I get him in my power, he shall die by inches; he shall suffer every slow torture which my ingenuity can devise; his brain shall burn, and when death shall end his torments, I have sworn to eat his heart; and by G----, _I'll do it_!' 'But how will you get him into your power?' asked Julia, delighted with the prospect of revenging herself upon poor Frank. 'I will contrive some means of deluding him into this house; and once in here, he shall never again behold the light of day,' replied the Dead Man, as he arose to withdraw. 'Stay a moment,' said Julia, with some embarrassment--'there is also a colored man in Sydney's house, and--' 'I know it--he shall be liberated,' interrupted the Dead Man, and added--'you shall see me again to-morrow--farewell.' He left the room, descended to the cellar, and passed through the secret passage to the Dark Vaults. That night at about the hour of twelve, the dark figure of a man crossed the garden in the rear of Frank Sydney's house, and approached the iron door of the wine-vault wherein Nero, the African, was imprisoned. By the aid of skeleton keys he unlocked the door, and bade the prisoner come forth. The negro obeyed, surprised and delighted at his unexpected deliverance. 'To whom am I indebted for this friendly act?' he asked. 'I have no time to answer questions,' replied the Dead Man, for it was he. 'Hasten to your mistress at No.--Reade street, and remember your motto as well as mine must be--'Vengeance on Sydney!'' 'Yes--vengeance on Sydney,' muttered the black, from between his clenched teeth, as he hurried away in the direction of Reade street. 'He will be another agent to assist me in torturing my enemy,' said the Dead Man to himself, as he bent his rapid footsteps towards the Dark Vaults. Nero soon reached the residence of Mrs. Belmont, in Reade street. He was admitted into the house by Susan, who informed him that her mistress had not yet retired. The black quickly mounted the stairs, and entering the room, was about to rush forward and clasp the lady in his arms, when she checked him by a movement of disgust, desired him not to approach her, and pointing to a chair in a distant corner, coldly requested him to seat himself there. Why did that unprincipled and licentious woman thus repulse the former partner of her guilty joys--he who had so long been the recipient of her favors, and the object of her unhallowed love? Was it because he was emaciated, filthy and in rags, the results of his long imprisonment in a loathsome dungeon? No--that was not the reason of her repulsing him. Julia was a woman wildly capricious in her nature; she was a creature of sudden impulses--her most passionate love would often instantly change to bitterest hate. In this instance, her love for the African had entirely and forever ceased, and she now viewed him with contemptuous disgust, wondering that she could ever have had such a _penchant_ for him. ''Tis strange,' she thought, 'that I ever could descend to an intrigue with that vile negro. Heavens! I loathe the very sight of him!' Nero, on his part, was astounded at this unexpected reception; he had anticipated a night of voluptuous bliss with his former paramour, and he could not divine the cause of her sudden rejection of him. 'My dear Julia, why this coldness?--what have I done to offend you?' he demanded, after a short pause. 'Presume not to call me _your dear Julia_, fellow,' she replied scornfully. 'You have done nothing to offend me, but the days of our familiarity are over. The liberties which I permitted you to take, and the indulgences which I formerly granted to you, can never be repeated. I will not condescend to explain myself farther than to remark, that all my former regard for you has ceased, and I now view you not only with indifference, but with positive dislike. I procured your liberation from that dungeon merely because it was on my account you were placed there. You can, if you choose, re-enter my service as footman, and your wages shall be the same as those of any other servant of your class; but remember--henceforth I am the mistress, and you the menial, and any presumption on your part, or attempt at familiarity, shall be instantly followed by your discharge. Clean yourself of that filth, and begin your duties to-morrow, as a respectful, orderly and obedient servant. You can go now.' Nero left the room, humbled and crest-fallen, inwardly resolved to revenge himself upon that proud and abandoned woman, should the opportunity ever present itself. Gentlest of readers, we now invite thee to accompany us to view other scenes and other characters in our grand drama of human life, and its many crimes. CHAPTER XVI _Showing the Voluptuous Revellings of the Rector and the Licentious Josephine, and illustrating the Power of Temptation over Piety and Morality._ Alas, for Dr. Sinclair! the masquerade ball, and the triumph of Josephine Franklin, were but the commencement of a career of folly and crime on his part. From that fatal night in after years of remorse and misery, he dated his downfall. He became a frequent visitor at the Franklin House, and continued his guilty amour, with unabated zeal. Yet neither his own idolizing congregation, nor the admiring world, suspected his frailty; he was regarded as the most exemplary of Christians, and the best of men. When in the pulpit, it was often remarked that he seemed absent-minded, and ill at ease; he did not preach with his usual fluent and fervid eloquence, nor pray with his accustomed earnest devotion. In person, too, he was changed; his eyes were red, as if with weeping; his cheeks were pale and haggard, and the rosy hue of health was gone. His dress was frequently neglected and disordered, and he even sometimes appeared with his hair uncombed, and his face unshaved. These indications of mental and personal irregularity were much noticed and commented upon by his congregation, comprised as it was of people the most aristocratic and particular. 'Our dear pastor is ill,' said they, with looks of concern and sympathy; but in answer to the numerous questions addressed to him in reference to the state of his health, he denied the existence of all bodily ailment. 'Then he must be affected with some mental disquietude,' said they, and forthwith he was beset by a tribe of comforters; one of whom had at last the audacity to affirm that the Doctor's breath smelt unpleasantly of wine! This insinuation was received with contempt, for the brethren and sisters of the congregation would not believe anything discreditable to the beloved rector, and he continued to enjoy their confidence and esteem, long after they had begun to observe something very singular in his conduct and appearance. But in truth, Dr. Sinclair had fallen from his high estate, and become a wine bibber and a lover of the flesh. His stern integrity, his sterling piety, and his moral principle, were gone forever; the temptress had triumphed and he was ruined. Why are ministers of the gospel so prone to licentiousness? is a question often asked, and is often answered thus--Because they are a set of hypocritical libertines. But we say, may not we see the reason in this: the female members of a church are apt to regard their minister with the highest degree of affectionate admiration--as an idol worthy to be worshipped. They load him with presents--they spoil him with flattery--they dazzle him with their glances, and encourage him by their smiles. Living a life of luxurious ease, and enjoying a fat salary, he cannot avoid experiencing those feelings which are natural to all mankind. He is very often thrown into the society of pretty women of his flock, under circumstances which are dangerously fascinating. The 'sister,' instead of maintaining a proper reserve, grows too communicative and too familiar, and the minister, who is but a man, subject to all the weaknesses and frailties of humanity, often in an unguarded moment forgets his sacred calling, and becomes the seducer--though we question if literal _seduction_ be involved, where the female so readily _complies_ with voluptuous wishes, which perchance, she responds to with as much fervor as the other party entertains them. Therefore, we say that licentiousness on the part of ministers of the gospel is produced in _very many_ cases by the encouragements held out to them by too admiring and too affectionate sisters. One evening, Dr. Sinclair repaired to Franklin House at an early hour, for he had engaged to dine with Josephine. He was admitted by a tall, fresh-looking country lad, who had recently entered the house in the capacity of footman, having been selected for that station by Mrs. Franklin herself, as the lady had conceived a strong admiration of his robust form and well-proportioned limbs. The Doctor found Josephine in her _boudoir_, voluptuously reclining upon a damask ottoman, and languidly turning over the leaves of a splendid portfolio of engravings. 'Ah, my dear Doc,' she exclaimed, using a familiar abbreviation of Doctor, 'I am devilish glad to see you, for I am bored to death with _ennui_. Heigho!' 'And if I may presume to inquire, Josey,' said the Doctor--'what have you there to engage your attention?' 'Oh, views from nature,' she laughingly replied, handing him the portfolio for his inspection. Turning over the leaves, the Doctor found, somewhat to his astonishment, that the engravings were of rather an obscene character, consisting principally of nude male figures;--and upon these specimens of a perverted art had she been feasting her impure imagination. The time had been, when the Doctor would have turned with pain and disgust from such an evidence of depravity; but he had lately become so habituated to vice, that he merely smiled in playful reproach, and leisurely examined the pictures. 'I commend your taste,' said he, at length. 'Our preferences are both strictly classical; you dote upon the Apollo Belvedere, while in you I worship a Venus.' 'Yes--_you_ are my Apollo,' she rejoined, with a glance of passion, encircling him with her arms. * * * * * Dinner was magnificently served in an apartment whose splendor could scarce have been surpassed in a kingly palace. They dined alone; for Mrs. Franklin was invisible--and so, also, was the comely young footman! After dinner, came wine--bright, sparkling wine, whose magical influence gilds the dull realities of life with the soft radiance of fairy land! How the foaming champagne glittered in the silver cup, and danced joyously to the ripe, pouting lip of beauty, and the eloquent mouth of divinity! How brilliant became their eyes, and what a glorious roseate hue suffused their cheeks! Again and again was the goblet drained and replenished, until the maddening spell of intoxication was upon them both. Hurrah! away with religion, and sermonizing, and conscience! Bacchus is the only true divinity, and at his rosy shrine let us worship, and pledge him in brimming cups of the bright nectar, the drink of the gods! Then came obscene revels and libidinous acts. The depraved Josephine, attired in a superb robe of lace, her splendid bust uncovered, and her cheeks flushed with wine, danced with voluptuous freedom, while the intoxicated rector, reeling and flourishing a goblet, sang a lively opera air, in keeping with her graceful but indelicate movements. Then--but we will not inflict upon the reader the disgusting details of that evening's licentious extravagances. Midnight came and the doctor, tipsy as he was, saw the necessity of taking his departure; for though urged by Josephine to pass the night with her, he dared not comply, knowing that his absence from home all night would appear strange and suspicious to his housekeeper and domestics, and give rise to unpleasant inquiries and remarks. He therefore sallied forth, and though he staggered occasionally, he got along tolerably well, until he encountered a watchman standing half asleep in a doorway, muffled up in his huge cloak; and then, with that invincible spirit of mischief which characterizes a drunken man, the Doctor determined to have a 'lark' with the night guardian, somewhat after the fashion of the wild, harem-scarem students at the University at which he had graduated--in which pranks he had often participated. Leaning against a lamp-post support, he began singing, in a loud and boisterous manner-- 'Watchman--hic--tell us of the--hic--night.' Now it happened that the watchman was one of those surly ruffians who never stop to remonstrate with a poor fellow, in whom wine has triumphed over wit. Instead of kindly inquiring his address, and conducting the unfortunate gentleman to his residence, the self-important petty official adopted the very means to irritate him and render him more boisterous. In a savage, brutal manner, he ordered the doctor to 'stop his d----d noise, and move on, or he'd make him!' 'Nay, friend, thou art insolent,' remarked the young gentleman, who drunk as he was, could not brook the insults of the low, vulgar ruffian. 'Insolent, am I?--take that, and be d----d to you!' cried the fellow, raising a heavy bludgeon, and dealing the poor Doctor a blow on the head which felled him senseless to the ground, covered with blood. 'That'll teach you genteel chaps not to meddle with us _officers_,' growled the watchman. 'I wonder what he's got about him--perhaps some dangerous weapon--let's see.' Thrusting his hand into the pockets of his victim, he drew forth a valuable gold watch, and a purse containing a considerable sum of money. Why did he so rapidly transfer these articles to this own pockets? Was if for the purpose of restoring them to the owner, on the morrow? We shall see. 'I 'spose I'd better lug him to the watch-house,' said the 'officer'--and he struck his club three times on the pavement, which summoned another 'officer' to his assistance. The two then raising the wounded man between them, conducted him towards the Tombs. The Doctor, awaking from his unconsciousness, and feeling himself in the grasp of the watchman, instantly comprehended the state of affairs, and shuddered as he thought of his exposure and ruin. The fumes of the wine which he had drunk, had entirely subsided; but he felt himself weak from loss of blood, sick from his recent debauch, while the wound on his head pained him terribly. Oh, how bitterly he deplored his connection with that depraved woman, who had been the cause of his downfall! The awful dread of exposure prompted him to appeal to the mercy of his captors. 'Watchman,' said he, 'pray conduct me to my home, or suffer me to go there myself, for with shame I confess it, I am a gospel minister, and wish to avoid exposure.' The two fellows laughed scornfully. 'Don't think to come that gammon over us,' said they. 'A minister indeed!--and picked up blind drunk in the street at midnight!' 'But I have money about me, and will pay you well,' said the Doctor. The man who had struck him with the club, knowing that he had no money, affected to be indignant at this attempt to 'bribe an officer,' and refused to release him. Oh, hapless fate!--truly the 'way of transgressors is hard.' The learned and eloquent Dr. Sinclair--the idol of his aristocratic and fashionable congregation--whose words of piety and holiness were listened to with attention by admiring thousands every Sabbath day--was incarcerated in the watch-house! Yes--thrust into a filthy cell, among a swarm of felons, vile negroes, vagabonds and loafers--the scum of the city! The cell was about twenty feet square; one half of it was occupied by a platform, at a height of four feet from the floor. This platform was called the '_bunk_,' and it was covered with the prostate forms of about twenty men, including the ragged beggar, the raving drunkard, and the well-dressed thief--all huddled together, and shivering with the cold, which was intense. The stone floor of the cell was damp and covered with filth; yet upon it, and beneath the _bunk_, several wretched beings were stretched, some cursing each other and themselves, others making the place resound with hideous laughter, while one was singing, in drunken tones, a shockingly obscene song. Into this den of horrors was Dr. Sinclair rudely thrust; for no one believed his statement that he was a clergyman, and indeed his appearance, when undergoing the examination of the Captain of the Watch, was anything but clerical. His face was covered with blood, his clothes soiled and disordered, his hat crushed, and his manner wild and incoherent. It is more than probable that, had the Captain known who he was, he would have ordered his immediate discharge. Groping his way along the damp, cold walls of his cell, which was in profound darkness, the Doctor stumbled over a person who was lying upon the floor, writhing in the agonies of _delirium tremens_. In frantic rage, this miserable creature seized the rector's leg, and bit it horribly, causing him to utter a cry of agony, which was responded to by roars of laughter from the hellish crew. Extricating himself with difficulty from the fierce clutch of the maniac, the unhappy gentleman seated himself upon a large iron pipe which ran through the cell, and prayed for death. Slowly passed the dreadful night away; and the first faint rays of morning, struggling through the narrow aperture in the wall, revealed an appalling sight. Men made hideous and inhuman by vice and wretchedness lay stretched amid the filth and dampness of that dungeon, glaring at each other with savage eyes. And soon the awful discovery was made, that one of their number had, during the night, been frozen to death! Yes--there, beneath the _bunk_, cold and ghastly, lay the rigid corpse of a poor fellow creature, whose only crime had been his poverty! Out upon such justice and such laws, which tolerate such barbarities to one whose misfortunes should be pitied, not visited by the damnable cruelty of the base hirelings of a corrupt misgovernment! It is not our wish to devote much time to the relation of unimportant particulars; suffice it to say, that Dr. Sinclair was brought before the police for drunkenness, and was also charged with having violently assaulted Watchman Squiggs, who had taken him in custody! 'You see, yer honor, I was going my rounds, when up comes this ere chap and knocks me down, and would have killed me, if I hadn't hit him a light tap on the head with my club. Then I rapped for help, and--' 'That's enough!' growled the magistrate, who had himself been drunk the night before, and was made irritable by a severe headache--'that's enough--he struck an officer--serious offence--looks guilty--old offender--thief, no doubt--send him up for six months!' The Doctor whispered a few words in the ear of the magistrate, who rubbed his eyes and regarded him with a look of astonishment, saying-- 'Bless my soul, is it possible? Dr. Sinclair--humph! Sentence is revoked--you're discharged; the devil!--about to send you up for six months--a great mistake, upon my word--ha, ha, ha!' The rector turned to watchman Squiggs, and said to him, sternly-- 'Fellow, when I fell into your infernal clutches, I had a watch and money about me; they are now missing; can you give any account of them?' The watchman solemnly declared he knew nothing about them! The Doctor felt no inclination to bandy words with the scoundrel; he paused a moment to reflect upon the best course to pursue, under the disagreeable circumstances in which he found himself placed. A feasible plan soon suggested itself, and leaving the police office, he stepped into a hackney coach, and requested the driver to convey him with all despatch to Franklin house. Arrived there, he dismissed the vehicle, and ascending to Josephine's chamber, explained to her the whole affair, and threw himself upon a sofa to obtain a few hours' necessary repose. As soon as he had left the police office, the magistrate whispered to the watchman-- 'Squiggs, I know very well that you took that gentleman's watch and money. Don't interrupt me--I say, _I know you did_. Well, you must share the spoils with me.' 'I'll take my oath, yer honor--' '_Your oath!_--that's a good one!' cried the magistrate, laughing heartily.--'d'ye think I'd believe you on oath? Why, man, you just now perjured yourself in swearing that Parson Sinclair assaulted you--whereas _you_ beat him horribly with your club, with little provocation, and stole his watch and money. I know you, Squiggs; you can't gammon me. Once for all, will you share the booty with me?' The rascal dared not hesitate any longer; so with great reluctance he drew the plunder from his pocket, and divided it equally with 'his honor,' who reserved the watch for himself, it being a splendid article, of great value. Is any one disposed to doubt the truth of this little sketch? We assure the reader it is not in the least degree exaggerated. The local magistracy of New York included many functionaries who were dishonest and corrupt. Licentiousness was a prominent feature in the characters of some of these unworthy ministers of justice. Attached to the police office was a room, ostensibly for the private examination of witnesses. When a witness happened to be a female, and pretty, 'his honor' very often passed an hour or so in this room with her, carefully locking the door to prevent intrusion; and there is every reason to suppose that his examination of her was both close and searching. We remember an incident which occurred several years ago, which is both curious and amusing. A beautiful French girl--a fashionable courtezan--was taken to the police office, charged with stealing a lady's small gold watch. Her accuser was positive that she had the article about her; her pocket, reticule, bonnet, hair, and dress were searched without success. The rude hand of the officer invaded her voluptuous bosom, but still without finding the watch. 'Perhaps she has it in her mouth,' suggested the magistrate; but no, it was not there. 'Where can she have hidden it? I am certain she has it somewhere on her person,' remarked the accuser. 'I will examine her in private,' quoth the magistrate, and he directed the girl to follow him into the adjoining room. His honor locked the door, and said to the fair culprit--'My dear, where have you concealed the watch?' In the most charming broken English imaginable, Mademoiselle protested her innocence of the charge, with such passionate eloquence, that his honor began to think the accuser must be mistaken. 'At all events,' thought he, 'she is a sweet little gipsy;' and he forthwith honored her with a shower of amorous kisses, which she received with the most bewitching _naivete_; but when he began to make demonstrations of a still more decided nature, she resisted, though unsuccessfully, for his honor was portly and powerful, and somewhat 'used to things.' But lo! to his astonishment, he _discovered the watch_--and in _such_ a place! French ingenuity alone could have devised such a! method of concealment, and legal research alone could have discovered it. We left Dr. Sinclair in the chamber of Josephine, at Franklin House, reposing after the exciting and disagreeable adventures of the preceding night. He awoke at noon, somewhat refreshed, and entered a bath while Josephine sent a servant to purchase a suit of clothes, as those which he had worn were so soiled and torn as to be unfit for further service. Reclining luxuriously in the perfumed water of the marble bath, the Doctor experienced a feeling of repose and comfort. He had long learned to disregard the 'still, small voice' of his own conscience; and, provided he could reach his home and answer all inquiries without incurring suspicion--provided, also, his having been incarcerated in the watch-house should not be exposed--he was perfectly contented. His clothes being brought him, he dressed himself, and joining Josephine in the parlor, partook of a refreshing repast; then, bidding farewell to his 'lady-love,' he took his departure, and proceeded to his own residence. In answer to the earnest inquiries of the members of his household, he stated that he had passed the night with a friend in Brooklyn; and entering his study, he applied himself to the task of writing his next Sunday's sermon. CHAPTER XVII _Illustrating the truth of the proverb that 'Murder will out,' and containing an Appalling Discovery._ Two or three days after the above events, Dr. Sinclair was sent for by a woman lying at the point of death. He found her occupying the garret of an old, crazy tenement in Orange street; she was stretched upon a miserable bed, covered only by a few rags, and her short breathings, sunken cheeks, and lustreless eyes, proclaimed that the hand of death was upon her. Though young in years, her appearance indicated that she had passed through much suffering, destitution and sin. 'Are you the clergyman?' she asked in a faint voice. 'I am; what can I do for you, my good woman?' said the Doctor, seating himself on a rickety stool at the bedside. 'Oh, sir,' cried the invalid, evidently in great mental distress, 'I want you to pray for me. Do you think there is any hope for such a sinner as I have been? I am dying, and my soul is lost--forever!' In his own heart, the rector felt his unfitness to administer comfort in such a case, considering his own wickedness; yet he strove to quiet the uneasiness of the poor creature, by assuring her that there was hope for the 'chief of sinners.' At her request he prayed with her; and then she addressed him as follows:-- 'There is something on my mind which I must make confession of, or I shall not die easy--something that will make you shrink from me, as from a guilty wretch, who deserves no mercy. I am a _murderess_!' 'A murderess!' echoed the Doctor, starting back with horror; after a few moments' pause, he added--'proceed with your confession.' 'I will, sir. Four years ago, I entered the service of Mrs. Lucretia Franklin, in Washington Place.' The Doctor started again--this time with surprise; and he listened with attentive interest to the woman's narrative. 'Mrs. Franklin's husband,' she resumed, 'was a very rich man, and very religious and strict; his daughter Sophia took after him much, and was a very good girl; but his wife and daughter Josephine were exactly contrary to him, for they were very giddy and gay, always going to theatres, and balls, and such like places, keeping late hours, and acting so dissipated like, that at last Mr. Franklin was determined to put a stop to it entirely, and make them stay at home. So he told them that he shouldn't allow them to go on as they had any longer; and having once said the word, he stuck to it. My lady and Miss Josephine were both very much dissatisfied with Mr. Franklin, on account of his being so strict with them; and I could plainly see that they began to hate him. It is now about two years ago, and Josephine was in her sixteenth year (ah, sir, I have good reason to remember the time,) when I found myself in the way to become a mother, having been led astray by a young man, who deceived me under a promise of marriage, and then deserted me. Well, sir, my situation was at last noticed by my lady and her daughter, and one evening they called me up into a chamber, and accused me of being a lewd girl. Falling on my knees, I acknowledged my fault, and implored them to pity and forgive me, and not turn me off without a character. Then Miss Josephine spoke harshly to me, and asked me how I dared do such a thing, and bring disgrace upon their house and family; and her mother threatened to send me to jail, which frightened me so that I promised to do anything in the world if they would forgive me. '_Will you do any thing we command you to do_, if we forgive you?' asked Mrs. Franklin; and I said that I would. '_You must swear it_,' said Miss Josephine; and getting a Bible, they made me swear a dreadful oath to do as they bid me. They then told me that there was one thing I must do, and they would give me as much money as I wanted; they said I must _kill Mr. Franklin_! On hearing such a horrible request, I almost fainted; and told them that I never would do such a dreadful thing. But they reminded me of my oath, and at last threatened and frightened me so, that I consented to do the awful deed. '_It must be done to-night!_' said Miss Josephine, and her eyes seemed to flash fire; then she gave me some brandy to drink, which flew into my brain, and I felt myself able to do anything, no matter how wicked it might be.--They staid with me until midnight, and made me drink brandy until I was almost crazy. You must know, sir, that Mr. Franklin slept in a separate room from my lady, ever since their disagreement; upon that dreadful night he retired to bed at about ten o'clock. Well--but oh, my God! how can I tell the dreadful truth!--yet I must nerve myself to confess the whole matter. At midnight, Mrs. Franklin brought into the room a small copper cup, which contained a small quantity of _lead_; this cup she held over the lamp until the lead was melted as thin as water; and then she handed it to me, and told me to go softly into her husband's room, and _pour the lead into his ear_! I DID IT! Yes, as God is my Judge, I did it!--The poor gentleman was lying on his side, in a sound sleep; with a steady hand I poured the liquid metal into his ear--_it did not awake him!_ he merely shuddered once, and died.--The next morning he was found by his servant, stiff and cold. Some people talked of 'disease of the heart,' others, of 'apoplexy,' many, of 'the visitation of God,' while some shrugged their shoulders, and said nothing. But _I_ knew the secret of his death! He was buried with great pomp in the family tomb in St. Paul's churchyard. My confession is made. After the funeral, my lady and Josephine gave me plenty of money. 'Go,' said they, 'to some other city, and take up your abode; you will never the mention the manner in which Mr. Franklin came to his death, for such a disclosure would bring your own neck to the halter, without injuring us--_your hand_ alone did the deed!' I went to Boston, and gave birth to a stillborn child; my money soon went and I became a common prostitute.--Disease soon overtook me--but why dwell upon the misfortunes and wanderings of a wretch like me? A week ago, I found myself again in New York, the inmate of this garret; to-day I felt myself dying, and sent for a clergyman to hear my dying confession. I am exhausted; I can say no more--God have mercy on me!' 'One word more,' cried the rector; 'by what name were you known to the Franklins?' 'Mary Welch,' she replied, faintly. The wretched creature soon afterwards breathed her last. The Doctor left a sufficient sum of money with the inmates of the house to defray the expenses of the woman's funeral, and took his departure from that scene of wretchedness. As he retraced his steps to his own dwelling, his thoughts were of the most painful nature; the woman's confession, implicating Josephine and her mother in the crime of murder, horrified him, and gave rise to the most terrible reflections. In his own heart he could not doubt the truth of the wretched woman's statement, made as it was on her death-bed, and just as she was about to be ushered into the presence of her Maker. 'My God!' thought the rector, entering his study, and throwing himself distractedly into a seat--'to what a dreadful disclosure have I listened--Josephine the murderess of her father! Mrs. Franklin the murderess of her husband! Can it be possible?--Alas, I cannot doubt it; for why should that woman, at the awful moment of her dissolution, tell a falsehood? I remember now the circumstances of Mr. Franklin's death; it was sudden and unaccountable, and privately spoken of with suspicion, as to its cause; yet those suspicions never assumed any definite shape.--The poor gentleman was buried without any post mortem examination, and the singular circumstances of his death were gradually forgotten. But now the awful mystery is revealed to me; he met his death at the hands of that miserable woman, at the instigation of Josephine and her mother.' But the Doctor's most painful thoughts arose from the reflection that he had formed a criminal connection with such a vile, guilty creature as Josephine. He had learned to tolerate her licentiousness and her consummate hypocrisy; he had loved her with passionate fervor, while he had only regarded her as a frail, beautiful woman, who, having become enamored of him, had enticed him to her arms. But now she stood before him as a wretch capable of any crime--as the murderess of her own father; and all his love and admiration for her were turned into a loathing hate; and while he had no intention of denouncing her and her mother to the authorities of justice, he determined to have but one more interview with her, and at that interview to reproach her for her crime, and cast her off forever. 'But previous to that interview,' thought he, 'I will make assurance doubly sure; I will find means to enter the vault wherein Mr. Franklin's body was interred; I will examine the remains, and as my knowledge of human anatomy is considerable, I shall have no difficulty in discovering the evidences of foul play, if such evidences exist. Having thus satisfied myself beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr. Franklin was murdered, I can with confidence accuse Josephine and her mother of the deed; and from that moment, all connection between me and that wicked woman shall cease forever. I have been infatuated and enslaved by her seductive beauty and her fascinating favors; but thank God, I am myself again, and resolved to atone for the past, by leading a life of purity and virtue for the future.' That night the Doctor was called on to perform the marriage ceremony at the house of a friend, at a distant part of the city; and it was late when he set out to return to his own home. It was a dismal night, dark and starless; the sky was laden with impending storm, and the rector shuddered as he looked forward into the gloom, and contrasted it with the scene of light and gaiety which he had just left. His heart was oppressed with a heavy weight; for he could not shake off the dreadful thought that Josephine--beautiful and accomplished Josephine--whom he had loved with a fervent though unholy passion--was a _murderess_! While hurrying on with rapid strides, his mind tortured by such painful reflections, a tall figure suddenly stood before him, and a voice whispered-- 'Deliver your money, or die!' The rector perceived that the robber had his arm raised, and that he held in his hand a large knife, ready to strike in case of resistance or alarm. Dr. Sinclair was no coward; had there been a single chance in his favor, he would have grappled with the robber, rather than yield to his demand; yet he was slender and by no means powerful--he was also unarmed; and besides, the idea flashed through his mind that the desperado might be of use to him, and these considerations prompted him to speak in a conciliatory tone and manner:-- 'Friend,' said he, 'unfortunately for you I am but a poor parson, and have only about me a few dollars, which I have just received as my fee for uniting a happy couple in the holy bonds of wedlock. What I have you are welcome to; here is my purse.' The robber took the purse, and was about to move off, when the rector called to him and said,-- 'Stay, friend; you are the very man I want to assist me in a dangerous enterprise--one that requires courage, and strength, and skill; if you engage to aid me, your reward shall be liberal--what say you?' 'You must first tell me what it is you want done,' replied the robber. 'I want to break open a tomb in St. Paul's churchyard, and examine a dead body; and to do this I shall require an assistant,' said the Doctor, in a low tone. 'That is all well enough,' rejoined the robber; 'but how do I know that you are not laying a plan to entrap me into the clutches of the law, for having robbed you?' 'Pshaw!' exclaimed the Doctor, disdainfully, 'why should I seek to entrap you? You have only relieved me of a few dollars, and what care I for that! Draw near, and examine me closely; do I look like a man who would tell a base lie, even to bring a robber to justice?--have I not the appearance of a gentleman? I pledge you my sacred word of honor, that I meditate no treachery against you.' 'Enough--I am satisfied,' said the robber, after having scrutinized the Doctor as closely as the darkness would admit of--'when is this thing to be done?' 'To-morrow night will probably be stormy, and suitable for the purpose,' replied Dr. Sinclair. 'Meet me precisely as the clock strikes the hour of midnight, at the great gate on the lower extremity of the Park; you must come provided with such tools as will be necessary to effect an entrance into the tomb, which is probably secured by a strong padlock; also bring with you a lantern, and the means of lighting it. My object in thus disturbing the repose of the dead, is of no consequence to you; it will be sufficient for you to understand that you are hired to perform a service, which is to be well paid for when completed--you comprehend me?' 'I do,' said the robber, 'and shall not fail to meet you at the time and place appointed; if you have no more to say to me, I will now bid you good night.' 'Good night,' said the Doctor; 'and pray, my good friend, do not menace any other belated traveller with that ugly knife of yours.' The robber laughed, and turning on his heel, strode away in the darkness, while the rector continued on his way towards his residence. When he reached his house, and had entered the door, a person emerged from the darkness, and by the light of a street lamp which was near, read the name upon the door-plate.--The Doctor had been followed home by the robber. 'All right,' muttered the latter worthy, as he walked away--'he lives in that house, and his name is Dr. Sinclair. Men of his class don't generally play the spy or traitor; so I can safely keep the appointment. He is not a physician or surgeon; therefore what in the devil's name should he want to break into a tomb for? No matter; to-morrow night will explain the mystery.' And the robber's form was lost in the darkness. As the Doctor had predicted, the night which followed the adventure just related, was stormy; the snow fell thick and fast, and the darkness was intense. As the clock struck the hour of midnight, a figure muffled in a cloak slowly emerged from the lower extremity of the Park, and paused at the great gate which forms the Southern angle of that vast enclosure. He had waited there but a few minutes, when he was joined by another person, who asked him-- 'Well, Sir Robber, is it you?' 'All right, sir; you see I am punctual,' replied the robber. The other person was of course the rector. Without any further conversation, the two proceeded down Broadway, until they stood before the magnificent church of St. Paul's. This splendid edifice, of Grecian architecture, was situated on the border of an extensive burying ground, which with the church itself, was surrounded by an iron railing of great height. Finding the front gate secured by a massive lock, the robber applied himself to the task of picking it, with an instrument designed for that purpose. This was soon accomplished, and entering the enclosure, the two passed around the rear of the church, and stood among the many tomb-stones which marked the last resting place of the quiet dead. The rector, being well acquainted with the arrangements of the ground, had no difficulty in finding the tomb he wished to enter. A plain marble slab, upon which was sculptured the words 'Franklin Family,' denoted the spot. It required the united strength of both the men to raise this slab from the masonry on which it rested. This being done, they stepped into the aperture, descended a short flight of stone steps, and found their further progress arrested by an iron door, secured by an immense padlock. 'It will now be necessary to light my lantern; I can do so with safety,' said the robber. And igniting a match, he lighted a dark lantern which he had brought with him. Dr. Sinclair then, for the first time, distinctly beheld the features of his midnight companion; and he started with horror--for the most diabolically hideous countenance he had ever seen or dreamed of in his life, met his gaze. The robber observed the impression he had made upon his employer, and grinned horribly a ghastly smile. 'You don't like my looks, master,' said he, gruffly. 'I certainly cannot call you handsome,' replied the Doctor, trying to smile--'but no matter--you will answer my purpose as well as a comelier person. Let us proceed with our work; can you break or pick this padlock?' The robber made no reply, but drew from his pocket a bunch of skeleton keys, with which he soon removed the padlock; and the heavy iron door swung upon its rusty hinges with a loud creaking noise. 'D----n and blast that noise!' growled the robber. 'Silence, fellow!' cried the rector, authoritatively; 'you are standing in the chamber of the dead, and such profanity is out of place here--no more of it.' This reproof was received with a very ill grace by the robber, who glared savagely upon his reprover, and seemed almost inclined to spring upon him and strangle him on the spot--no difficult thing for him to do, for the Doctor was of slender build, while he himself possessed a frame unusually muscular and powerful. They entered the vault, and the feeble rays of the lantern shone dimly on the damp green walls, and on the few coffins which were placed upon shelves. An awful odor pervaded the place, so loathsome, so laden with the effluvia of death and corruption, that the rector hesitated, and was more than half inclined to abandon the undertaking; but after a moment's reflection-- 'No,' he said, mentally--'having gone thus far, it would ill become me to retreat when just on the point of solving the terrible mystery; I will proceed.' He advanced and examined the coffins, some of which were so much decayed, that their ghastly inmates were visible through the large holes in the crumbling wood. At length he found one, in a tolerable state of preservation, upon which was a gold plate bearing the name of Edgar Franklin. Satisfied that this was the one he was in search of, he desired the robber to come forward and assist in removing the lid, which being done, a fleshless skeleton was revealed to their view. 'Now, fellow,' said the Doctor, 'I am about to make a certain investigation, of which you must not be a witness; therefore, you will retire to the outer entrance of the tomb, and wait there until I call you. Your reward shall be in proportion to your faithful obedience of my orders.' Casting a look of malignant hate at the young gentleman, the robber withdrew from the vault, shutting the iron door behind him; and as he did so, he muttered a deep and terrible curse. 'Now may Heaven nerve me to the performance of this terrible task!' exclaimed the rector, solemnly; and bending over the coffin, he held the lantern in such a position as enabled him to gaze into the interior of the skull, through the eyeless sockets. But oh, horrible--within that skull was a mass of live corruption--a myriad of grave worms banquetting upon the brains of the dead! The Doctor reeled to the iron door of the vault, threw it open, and eagerly breathed the fresh air from above. This somewhat revived him, and he called on his assistant to come down. The robber obeyed, and was thus addressed by his employer-- 'Friend, I have overrated my own powers--perhaps your nerves are stronger, your heart bolder than mine. Go to that coffin which we opened, search the interior of the skull, and if you find anything in it singular, or in the least degree unusual, bring it to me.--Here is a pocket-book containing money to a large amount; take it and keep it, but do as I have requested.' The robber took the pocket-book and went into the vault. Horror could not sicken _him_; the terrors of death itself had no terror for him. After the lapse of a few moments, he exclaimed--'I have found something!' and advancing to the door, he handed to the doctor a small object, having first wiped it with an old handkerchief. Overcoming his repugnance by a powerful effort, the doctor walked back into the vaults towards the lantern, which still remained upon the coffin-lid. Upon examining the article which had been taken from the skull, he found it to be _a piece of lead_, of an irregular shape and weighing nearly two ounces. 'My belief in the guilt of Josephine and her mother is confirmed,' thought he. 'Shall I deliver them into the hands of justice? that must be decided hereafter; at all events, I will accuse them of the crime, and discontinue all connection with the wretched Josephine forever.' Having carefully placed the piece of lead in his pocket, he advanced to the door, with the intent of leaving the robber to fasten on the lid of the coffin. To his surprise and horror he discovered that the door was locked! He knocked frantically against it, but was only answered by a low laugh from the outside. 'Wretch--villain!' he exclaimed. 'What mean you by this trick? Open the door instantly, I command you!' 'Fool!' cried the robber, contemptuously. 'I obey your commands no longer. You shall be left in this tomb to rot and die. You spoke to me with scorn, and shall now feel my vengeance. Think not, that I am ignorant of your true object in entering this tomb;--there has been a _murder_ committed, and you sought for evidence of the crime. That evidence is now in your possession; but the secret is known to me, and I shall not fail to use it to my advantage. I shall seek out the Franklins, and inform them of the discovery which places them completely in my power. Farewell, parson--; I leave you to your agreeable meditations, and to the enjoyment of a long, sound sleep!' The miserable rector heard the sound of the ruffian's departing footsteps; with a wild cry of anguish and despair he threw himself against the iron door, which yielded not to his feeble efforts, and he sank exhausted upon the floor, in the awful conviction that he was buried alive! Soon the horrors of his situation increased to a ten-fold degree--for he found himself assailed by a legion of rats. These creatures attacked him in such numbers that he was obliged to act on the defensive; and all his exertions were scarce sufficient to keep them from springing upon him, and tearing his flesh with their sharp teeth. To his dismay he observed that the light of the lantern was growing dim and came near to being exhausted; darkness was about to add to the terrors of the place. Nerved to desperation, though faint and sick with the awful stench of that death vault, he searched about for some weapon with which to end his miserable existence. While thus engaged, he stumbled over a heavy iron crowbar which lay in one corner and seizing it with a cry of joy, applied it with all his force to the door of his loathsome prison. It yielded--he was free! for the slab had not been replaced over the tomb, owing to the robber's inability to raise it. Falling on his knees, the rector thanked God for his deliverance; and ascending the steps, stood in the burial-ground, just as the lamps in the tomb below had become extinguished. He was about to make his way out of the grave-yard, when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and low voices; and just as he had concealed himself behind a tall tomb-stone, he saw, through the thick darkness, two men approach the uncovered tomb from which he emerged only a few minutes before. ''Twas fortunate I met you, Ragged Pete,' said one; 'for without your aid I never could have lifted this stone into its place; and if it were left in its present position, it would attract attention in the morning, and that cursed parson might be rescued from the tomb. Take hold, and let's raise it on.' 'Werry good--but are you sure that the chap is down there still?' demanded Ragged Pete; 'hadn't we better go down and see if he hasn't took leg bait?' 'Pshaw, you fool!' rejoined the first speaker, angrily; 'how could he escape after I had locked him in? There's an iron door, fastened with a padlock as big as your head; so hold your tongue, and help me raise the stone to its place.' This was done with considerable difficulty; and the two men sat down to rest after their labor. 'The parson won't live over night; if he is not devoured by the rats, he is sure to be suffocated,' remarked the man who had fastened the doctor in the tomb. 'Somehow or other,' said Ragged Pete, 'whoever offends you is sure to be punished in some dreadful and unheard-of manner. By thunder, I must try and keep in your good graces!' 'You will do well to do so,' rejoined his companion, 'my vengeance is always sure to overtake those who cross my path. Pete, I have led a strange life of crime and wickedness, from my very cradle, I may say, up to the present time. See, the storm is over, and the stars are shining brightly. It lacks several hours of daybreak; and as I feel somewhat sociably inclined, suppose I tell you my story? I have a flask of brandy in my pocket, and while we are moistening our clay, you shall listen to the history of one whose proudest boast is, he never did a good action, but has perpetrated every enormity in the dark catalogue of crimes.' Ragged Pete expressed his desire to hear the story; and even Dr. Sinclair, in his place of concealment, prepared to listen with attention. Probably the reader has already guessed that the robber was no other than the terrible _Dead Man_; such was indeed the case; it was that same villain, who has occupied so prominent a place in the criminal portions of our narrative. We shall devote a separate chapter to his story. CHAPTER XVIII _The Dead Man's story; being a tale of many Crimes._ 'I never knew who my parents were; they may have been saints--they may have been devils; but in all probability they belonged to the latter class, for when I was three weeks old, they dropped me upon the highway one fine morning near the great city of Boston, to which famous city belongs the honor of my birth! Well, I was picked up by some Samaritans, who wrapped me up in red flannel, and clapped me in the Alms House. Behold me, then, a pauper! 'I throve and grew; my constitution was iron--my sinews were steel, and my heart a lion's. Up to the age of twelve, I was as other children are--I cried when I was whipped, and submitted when oppressed. At twelve, I began to reason and think; I said to myself,--Before me lies the world, created for the use of all its inhabitants. I am an inhabitant and entitled to my share--but other inhabitants, being rogues and sharpers, refuse to let me have my share. The world plunders me--in turn, I will plunder the world! 'At fourteen, I bade adieu to the Alms House, without the knowledge or consent of the overseer. I exchanged my grey pauper suit for a broadcloth of a young nabob, which I accidentally found in one of the chambers of a fashionable hotel, in Court street. Behold me, then, a gentleman! But I had no money; and so took occasion to borrow a trifling sum from an old gentleman, one night, upon one of the bridges which lead from Boston to Charleston. Do you ask how he came to give me credit? Why, I just tapped him on the head with a paving stone tied up in the corner of a handkerchief, after which delicate salutation he made not the slightest objection to my borrowing what he had about him. The next day it was said that a man's body had been found on the bridge, with his skull severely smashed--but what cared I? 'Gay was the life I led; for I was young and handsome. You laugh--but I was handsome then--my features had not the deathlike expression which they now wear. By and by you shall learn how I acquired the hideousness of face which procured for me the title of the _Dead Man_. 'One day I made too free with a gentleman's gold watch on the Common; and they shut me up for five years in the Stone University, where I completed my education at the expense of the State. At twenty I was free again. Behold me, then, a thoroughly educated scoundrel! I resolved to enlarge my modes of operation, and play the villain on a more extensive scale. 'Hiring an office in a dark alley in Boston, I assumed the lofty title of Doctor Sketers. My shelves were well stocked with empty phials and bottles--my windows were furnished with curtains, upon which my assumed name was painted in flaming capitals. The columns of the newspapers teemed with my advertisements, in which I was declared to be the only regular advertising physician--one who had successfully treated twenty-five millions of cases of delicate unmentionable complaints. Certificates of cure were also published by thousands, signed by people who never existed. Having procured an old medical diploma, I inserted my borrowed name, and exhibited it as an evidence of my trustworthiness and skill. The consequence of all this was, I was overrun with patients, none of whom I cured. My private entrance for ladies often gave admission to respectable unmarried females, who came to consult me on the best method of suppressing the natural proofs of their frailty. From these I would extract all the money possible and then send them to consult the skillful agent of Madam R----. A thriving, profitable business, that of quackery! From it I reaped a golden harvest, and when that became tiresome, I put on a white neckcloth, and became a priest. 'Behold me a deacon, and a brother beloved! Who so pious, so exemplary, so holy as I! I lived in an atmosphere of purity and prayer; prayer seasoned my food before meals, and washed it down afterwards; prayer was my nightcap when I went to bed and my eye opener in the morning. At length I began to pray so fervently with the younger and fairer sisters of the flock, that the old ones, with whom I had no desire to pray, began to murmur--so, growing tired of piety, I kicked it to the devil, and joined the ranks of temperance. 'For over a year I lectured in public, and got drunk in private--glorious times! But at last people began to suspect that I was inspired by the spirit of alcohol, instead of the spirit of reform. A committee was appointed to wait on me and smell my breath--which they had no sooner done than they smelt a rat--and while some were searching my heart, others searched my closet, and not only discovered a bottle of fourth-proof, but uncovered a pile of counterfeit bank notes, there concealed. Reacting like a man of genius, my conduct was both forcible and striking; I knocked three of the brethren down, jumped out of the back window, scaled a fence, rushed through an alley, gained the street and was that afternoon on a steamboat bound for New York. 'On the passage, I observed a gentleman counting a pile of money; he was a country merchant, going to purchase goods. The weather was intensely warm, and many of the passengers slept on deck; among these was the country merchant. He lay at a considerable distance from the others and the night was dark. I stole upon him, and passed my long Spanish knife through his heart.--He died easy--a single gasp and all was over. I took his money, and threw his body over to the fishes. 'Twas my second murder--it never troubled me, for I never had a conscience. I entered New York, for the first time, with a capital of three thousand dollars, got by the murder of the country merchant; and this capital I resolved to increase by future murders and future crimes. 'I will now relate a little incident of my life, which will serve to show the bitterness of my hatred towards all mankind. For several years I had lived in various families, in a menial capacity, my object, of course, being robbery, and other crimes. It chanced that I once went to live in the family of a wealthy gentleman, whose wife was the most beautiful woman I ever saw; and her loveliness inspired me with such passion, that one day, during her husband's absence, I ventured to clasp her in my arms--struggling from my embrace, she repelled me with indignant scorn, and commanded me to leave the house instantly. I obeyed, swearing vengeance against her, and her family; and how well that oath was kept! About a week after my dismissal from the family, being one night at the theatre, I saw Mr. Ross, the husband of the lady whom I had insulted, seated in the boxes. Keeping my eye constantly upon him, I saw him when he left the theatre, and immediately followed him, though at such a distance as to prevent his seeing me. Fortunately his way home lay through a dark and lonely street; in the most obscure part of that street, I quickened my steps until I overtook him--and just as he was about to turn around to see who followed him, I gave him a tremendous blow on his right temple with a heavy slung shot, and he fell to the earth without a groan. I knew that I had killed him and was glad of it--it was my third murder. After dragging his body into a dark alley, so that he might not be found by the watchman, I rifled his pockets of their contents, among which was the night-key of his house, which I regarded as a prize of inestimable value. 'Leaving the corpse of Mr. Ross in the alley, I went straight to his house in Howard street, and admitted myself by means of the night-key which I had found in his pocket. A lamp was burning in the hall; I extinguished it and groped my way up stairs to the chamber of Mrs. Ross with the situation of which I was well acquainted. On opening the chamber door, I found to my intense delight that no light or candle was burning within; all was in darkness. Approaching the bed, I became convinced that the lady was in a sound sleep; this circumstance added greatly to my satisfaction. Well, I deliberately stripped myself and got into bed; still she awoke not. Think you I was troubled with any remorse of conscience, while lying at the side of the wronged woman whose husband had just been slain by my hand? Not a bit of it; I chuckled inwardly at the success of my scheme, and impatiently waited an opportunity to take every advantage of my position. At last she awoke; supposing me, of course, to be her husband, she gently chided me for remaining out so late; I did not dare suffer her to hear the sound of my voice, but replied to her in whispers. She suspected nothing--and I completed my triumph! Yes, the proud, beautiful woman who had treated me with such scorn, was then my slave. I had sacrificed her honor on the altar of my duplicity and lust! 'Morning came, and its first beams revealed to my victim the extent of her degradation--she saw through the deception, and with a wild cry, fell back senseless. Hastily dressing myself, I stepped into an adjoining room where the two children of Mrs. Ross were sleeping; they were twins, a boy and a girl, three years of age, and pretty children they were. I drew my pocket knife, to cut their throats; just then they awoke, and gazed upon me with bright, inquiring eyes--then recognizing me, their rosy cheeks were dimpled with smiles, and they lisped my name. Perhaps you think their innocence and helplessness touched my heart--hah! no such thing; I merely changed my mind, and with the point of my knife cut out their beautiful eyes! having first gagged them both, to prevent their screaming. Delicious fun, wasn't it? Then I bolted down stairs, but was so unfortunate as to encounter several of the servants, who had been aroused by their mistress's shriek. Frightened at my appearance, (for I was covered with the children's blood,) they did not arrest my flight, and I made good my escape from the house. That scrape was my last for some time; for people were maddened by the chapter of outrages committed by me on that family--the murder of the husband, the dishonor of the wife, and the blinding of those two innocent children. I was hunted like a wild beast from city to city; large rewards were offered for my apprehension, and minute descriptions of my entire person flooded every part of the country. But my cunning baffled them all; for two months I lived in the woods, in an obscure part of New Jersey, subsisting upon roots, and wild herbs, and wild berries, and crawling worms, which I dug from the earth. One day in my wanderings, I came across a gang of counterfeiters, who made their rendezvous in a cave; these were congenial spirits for me--I told them my story, and became one of them. The gang included several men of superior education and attainments, among whom was a celebrated chemist. 'This man undertook to procure for me a certain chemical preparation which he said would alter and disfigure my features so that I never could be recognized, even by those who were most intimately acquainted with me. He was as good as his word; he furnished me with a colorless liquid, contained in a small phial, directing me to apply it to my face at night, but cautioning me particularly to avoid getting any of it into my eyes. His directions were followed by me, to the very letter;--during the night, my face seemed on fire, but I heeded not the torture. Morning came--the pain was over; I arose, and rushed to a mirror. Great God! I scarce knew myself, so terribly changed was my countenance. My features, once comely and regular, had assumed the ghastly, horrible and death-like appearance they now wear. Oh, how I hugged myself with joy when I found myself thus impenetrably disguised! Never did the face of beauty have half the charms for me, that my blanched and terrific visage had! 'I will go forth into the great world again--no one will ever recognize me!' thought I; and bidding adieu to my brother counterfeiters, I returned to New York. Ha, ha, ha! how people shrank from me! how children screamed at my approach; how mothers clasped their babes to their breasts as I passed by, as though I were the destroying angel! The universal terror which I inspired was to me a source of mad joy. Having ample means in my possession, I began a career of lavish expenditure and extravagant debauchery, until the eye of the police was fastened upon me with suspicion; and then I deemed it prudent to act with more caution.--About that time I became aware of the existence of the Dark Vaults, and the 'Jolly Knights of the Round Table.' Soon after my meeting with that jovial crew, the law put its iron clutch on me for a murder--a mere trifle; I passed my knife between a gentleman's ribs one night in the street, just to tickle his heart a bit, and put him in a good humor to lend me some money, but the fool died under the operation, having first very impolitely called out _Murder!_ which resulted in my being captured on the spot by two of those night prowlers known as watchmen. Well, my ugly face was against me, and I could give no good account of myself--therefore they (the judge and jury) voted me a hempen cravat, to be presented and adjusted one fine morning between the hours of ten and twelve. But his Excellency the Governor, (a particular friend of mine,) objected to such a summary proceeding, as one calculated to deprive society of its brightest ornament; he therefore favored me with a special permit to pass the rest of my useful life within the walls of a place vulgarly termed the State Prison--a very beautiful edifice when viewed from the outside. I did not long remain there, however, to partake of the State's hospitality--to be brief, I ran away, but was carried back again, after being a year at liberty, through the instrumentality of Sydney, whom may the devil confound! But again I escaped--you know in what manner; and you are well acquainted with most of my adventures since--my cutting out the boy _Kinchen's_ tongue, my murder of Mrs. Stevens, and other matters not necessary for me to repeat.' 'But,' said Ragged Pete, with some hesitation, 'you haven't told me of your wife, you know.' 'Wife--ha, ha, ha!' and the Dead Man laughed long and loud; there was something in his laugh which chilled the blood, and made the heart beat with a nameless terror. 'True, Pete, I have not yet told you about my wife, as you call her. But you shall hear. What would you say if I told you that Mrs. Ross, the lady whose husband I murdered, whose children I blinded, and whom I so outrageously deceived herself--what would you say if you were told that the woman who passes for my wife, is that same lady?' 'I should say it was a thing impossible,' replied Pete. 'It is true,' rejoined the Dead Man.--'Listen:--when I left my counterfeiting friends in New Jersey, and returned to New York with my new face, I learned by inquiry that Mrs. Ross was living with her blind twins in a state of poverty, her husband's property, at his death, having been seized upon by his creditors, leaving her entirely destitute. I found her in an obscure part of the city, subsisting upon the charity of neighbors, the occupant of a garret. The woman's misfortunes, through me, had ruined her intellect;--she had grown fierce and reckless,--as wild as a tigress. I sat down and conversed with her; she knew me not. 'You are hideous to look upon,' said she, 'and I like you for it. The world is fair, but it has robbed me of husband, honor and taken away my children's eye-sight. Henceforward, all that is hideous I will love!' I saw that her brain was topsy-turvy, and it rejoiced me. Her children were still pretty, though they were blind; and it almost made me laugh to see them grope their way to their mother's side, and turning their sightless eyes toward her, ask, in childish accents,--'Mamma, what made the naughty man put out our eyes?' Well, the woman, with a singular perversity of human nature, liked me, and commenced to place herself under my protection. She could be of service to me; but her children were likely to prove a burden--and so I got rid of them.' 'What did you do with them--no harm, I hope?' asked Pete. 'Certainly not--the Dark Vaults were not a fit place of abode for the blind babes, and so I sent them to take up their abode in another place, and that was heaven; to explain, I cut their throats, and threw their bodies into the sewers.' 'Monster--inhuman villain!' was the involuntary exclamation of Dr. Sinclair, in his hiding-place behind the tomb-stone. 'Ha--who spoke?' cried the Dead Man, jumping to his feet, and gazing eagerly about him. 'Pete, did you hear anything?' 'I heerd a noise, that's certain--but perhaps 'twas only the wind a whistling among these old tomb-stones,' answered Pete. 'Most probably it was,' rejoined the other--'for who the devil could be here to-night, besides ourselves? Well, to resume my story: after I had made away with the children, their mother never asked for them; she seemed to have forgotten that she ever had children at all. She manifested a strange unnatural liking for me; not love, but the fierce attachment of a tigress for her keeper. She obeyed me in everything; and finding her such an easy instrument in my hands, I took pains to instruct her in all the mysteries of city crimes. By parading the streets like a woman of the town, she enticed men to my Anthony street crib (which you know communicates with the Vaults,) and by the aid of the drugging powder our victims were soon made unresisting objects of robbery and murder. You know how she allured Sydney into the house, disguised as a sailor, and how the rascal caused her to swallow the dose intended for him--also how he cut the ropes of the platform the same night, which nearly cost me my life. Ever since the woman took the powder, she has been a raging maniac, and I am deprived of her valuable services. May the devil scorch that Sydney!' 'You have had two children by her,' remarked Pete. 'Yes, the first one, that infernal dwarf, whom I call my Image; we kept him shut up in the cellar, in Anthony street. Our second child, whom I have christened Jack the Prig, takes after his mother, and a smart little fellow he is. Why man, he can pick a pocket in as workmanlike a manner as either of us. He will make a glorious thief, and will shed honor on his father's name. The day when he commits murder will be the happiest day of my life.' Ragged Pete, having imbibed the greater part of the contents of the brandy flask, now suggested to his companion that they should take their departure. The Dead Man assented and the worthy pair took themselves off, little thinking that every word which had been said, was heard by him whom they supposed to be imprisoned in the tomb below. The rector emerged from his place of concealment, and went to his home with a heavy heart. Though he had himself become, in a measure, depraved and reckless of his moral and religious obligations, still he was horrified and astounded at the awful evidences of crime which had been revealed to him that night.--The miscreant's tale of murder and outrage, told with such cool indifference, and with an air of sincerity that left no doubt of its perfect truth, appalled him; and the proof he had obtained of the guilt of Josephine and her mother struck his soul with horror. Ere he sought his couch, he prayed long and earnestly for the forgiveness of his past transgressions, and for strength to resist future temptations. CHAPTER XIX _Showing how Mrs. Belmont was pursued by a hideous ruffian._ The time appointed for the marriage of Mr. Hedge to Mrs. Belmont approached. The enamored old gentleman paid her frequent visits, and supplied her liberally with funds, nor did he neglect to make her most costly presents. Julia's position and prospects, with reference to her contemplated marriage, were certainly very gratifying to her; yet there was one thing which troubled her exceedingly and was a source of constant apprehension and dread. The uneasiness proceeded from the fact that she was completely in the power of the Dead Man, who knew that she was the cast-off wife of Sydney--cast off for the crime of adultery with a black--and who could at any time, by exposing her true character to Mr. Hedge, ruin her schemes in that quarter forever. She knew too well that the deadly villain was as deceitful as he was criminal; and she knew not at what moment he might betray her to her intended husband. The Dead Man was disposed to take every advantage in his power over her. The secret passage into the cellar admitted him into the house at all hours of the day and night; and his visits were frequent. At first his treatment of her was more respectful than otherwise; but gradually he grew familiar and insolent, and began to insinuate that as she had formerly granted her favors to a negro, she could not object to treat HIM with equal kindness. This hint she received with disgust; and assuming an indignant tone, bade him relinquish all thought of such a connection, and never recur to the subject again. But the villain was not to be repulsed; each time he visited her he grew more insulting and audacious, until at last his persecutions became almost unbearable to the proud and beautiful woman, who viewed him with loathing and abhorrence. One afternoon, about a fortnight previous to the time fixed on for her marriage, she was seated in her chamber, engaged in reflections which partook of the mingled elements of pleasure and pain. The day was dark and gloomy, and the wind sighed mournfully around the house, and through the leafless branches of the trees which fronted it. Suddenly the door of the chamber was opened, and the Dead Man entered. Julia shuddered, for the presence of that terrible man inspired her with a nameless dread. He seated himself familiarly at her side--and on glancing at him, she perceived, to her alarm, that he was much intoxicated. His eyes rolled wildly, and his loathsome features were convulsed and full of dark and awful meaning. 'Well, my bird,' said he in an unsteady voice--'by Venus and by Cupid, I swear thou art beautiful today! Nay, thou need'st not shrink from me--for I have sworn by Satan to taste thy ripe charms within this very hour!' He attempted to clasp her in his arms, but she pushed him from her with a look of such disgust, that he became enraged and furious. Drawing a sharp knife from his pocket, he seized her by her arm, and hissed from between his clenched teeth-- 'Hark'ee, woman, I have borne with your d----d nonsense long enough, and now if you resist me I'll cut that fair throat of yours from ear to ear--I will by hell!' She would have screamed with affright, but he grasped her by the throat, and nearly strangled her. 'Silly wench,' he cried, as he released her and again placed himself at her side--'why do you provoke me into enmity, when I would fain be your lover and friend? Mine you must be--mine you shall be, if I have to murder you!' Miserable Julia! thy wickedness has met with a terrible retribution; thou art a slave to the lust and fury of a monster more dreadful than the venomous and deadly cobra di capello of the East! Ye who revel in guilty joys, and drink deep of the nectar in the gilded cup of unhallowed pleasures--beware! Though the draught be delicious as the wines of Cypress, and though the goblet be crowned with flowers, fragrant as the perfume of love's sighs--a coiled serpent lurks in the dregs of the cup, whose deadly fang will strike deep in the heart and leave there the cankering sores of remorse and dark despair. Ye who bask in the smiles of beauty, and voluptuously repose on the soft couch of licentiousness--beware! That beauty is but external; beneath the fair surface lie corruption, disease, and death! The ruffian, having accomplished his triumph, developed a new trait in the fiendish malignity of his nature. He would have the wretched lady become his menial--he would have her perform for him the drudgery of a servant. He ordered her to bring him wine, and wait upon him; and enforced the command with a blow, which left a red mark upon her beautiful white shoulder. 'Henceforward,' cried he, with an oath, 'I am your master, and you are my slave. Hesitate to obey me in any thing which I may desire you to do, and I will denounce you to Mr. Hedge as a vile adulteress and impostor, unworthy to become his wife, even if you had no husband living. Dare to refuse my slightest wish, and I will prevent your marriage under pain of being sent to the State Prison for the crime of bigamy.' By these and other threats did the ruffian compel the unhappy Julia to obey him. She brought him wine and waited upon him; and was obliged to submit to every species of insult and degradation. Nor was this the only refinement of cruelty which only his own infernal ingenuity could have devised; he resolved that Nero, the black, should be a witness of her humiliation; and accordingly he rang the bell, and ordered the negro to be sent up. Nero entered the room, and observing the triumphant chuckle of the Dead Man, and the dejected look of his mistress, with his natural acuteness instantly comprehended the true state of affairs. The contempt with which Julia had treated him was still fresh in his memory, and led him to view that lady with hatred; he therefore determined to add to her chagrin and hatred on the present occasion, by enjoying the scene as much as possible. 'Sit down, Nero,' said the Dead Man, with a sardonic grin--'this beautiful lady, who formerly showered her favors upon you, has transferred her kindness to me; I have just tasted the joys of heaven in her arms. Is she not a superb creature?' 'Divinely voluptuous,' replied the African, rubbing his hands and showing his white teeth. 'She is so,' said the other--'but the virtue of obedience is her most prominent and excellent quality. Mark how she will obey me in what I order her to do: Julia, love, my shoes are muddy; take them off my feet, and clean them.' The high-born lady was about to give utterance to an indignant refusal, when a terrible glance from her tyrant assured her that resistance would be useless. His savage brutality--the blow he had given her--her forced submission to his loathsome embraces--and the consciousness that she was completely in his power, compelled her to obey the degrading command. Yes--that lovely, educated and accomplished lady actually took off the vile ruffian's dirty shoes, with her delicate hands; then with an elegant pearl handled pen-knife, she scraped off the filth, and afterwards, at the orders of her _master_, washed them with rose-water in a china ewer, and wiped them with a cambric handkerchief--and all in the presence of her negro footman. This task being completed, the Dead Man requested Nero to retire; and then he inflicted new and nameless indignities upon his poor victim. Once, when she shudderingly refused to obey some horrible request, he struck her violently in the face, and the crimson blood dyed her fair cheek. To be brief, the stupendous villain, in the diabolical malignity of his nature, derived a fierce pleasure from ill-treating and outraging that frail, but to him inoffensive woman. Her defenceless situation might have excited compassion in the breast of a less brutal ruffian; but when had his stony heart ever known compassion? Nero entered the room to inform his mistress that Mr. Hedge was below, having called on his accustomed evening visit. 'Wash the blood from your face, then go and receive him,' said the Dead Man. 'I shall station myself in the adjoining room, to see and hear all that passes between you.' Poor Julia removed from her face the sanguinary stains, and endeavoring to arrange her hair so as to conceal the wound which had been inflicted upon her; all in vain, however, for Mr. Hedge noticed it the first moment she entered the room. 'My own dear Julia,' said he, in a tone of much concern, and taking her hand--'what has caused that terrible bruise upon your cheek? And my God! you look pale and ill--speak, dearest, and tell me what is the matter.' She could not reply; but burst into tears; the old gentleman's kindness of manner, contrasted with the savage cruelty of her persecutor, had overcome her. Mr. Hedge strove to comfort her, as a father might comfort a distressed child; and his kindness filled her soul with remorse, in view of the great deceit she was practising upon him. Still, she could not muster sufficient resolution to confess that deceit. Considering herself just on the eve of securing a great prize, she could not bring herself to ruin all by a confession of her true character. In answer to his renewed inquiries, she stated that her wound had been caused by a severe fall; but she assured him that it was nothing serious. The Dead Man grinned with satisfaction, as, with his ear applied to the key-hole, he heard her thus account for the wound inflicted by his own villainous hand. Mr. Hedge did not remain long that evening: but ere his departure he presented Julia with a magnificent set of diamonds, which had cost him near a thousand dollars. 'Wear these, my dear Julia, for my sake,' said he--'and though they cannot increase your charms, they may serve to remind you of me when I am absent. A fortnight more, and I shall claim you for my own bride; then, in the beautiful city of Boston, we will be enabled to move in that sphere of society and fashion which your loveliness and accomplishments so eminently qualify you to adorn.' After Mr. Hedge had taken his leave, the Dead Man entered the room with a smile of satisfaction. 'By Satan,' cried he--'Mrs. Belmont, as you call yourself, that old gallant of yours is devilish liberal, and there's no reason why I should not come in for a share of his generosity. These diamonds I shall carry off with me, and you can tell him that you were robbed--and so you are; ha, ha, ha! So you're going to Boston after you're married--hey? Well, I'll go to Boston too; and you must always keep me plentifully supplied with cash to insure my silence with regard to matters that you don't wish to have known. I'll leave you now; but listen:--to-morrow I intend to make a grand effort to get Francis Sydney into my power. Does that intelligence afford you pleasure?' 'Yes,' replied Julia, forgetting in her hatred of Sydney, the cruelty of the Dead Man--'yes, it does; give me but the opportunity to see him writhe with agony, and I forgive your barbarous treatment of me to-day.' 'That opportunity you shall have,' rejoined the ruffian--'come, I am half inclined to be sorry for having used you so; but d----n it, 'tis my nature, and I cannot help it. My heart even now hungers after outrage and human blood--and Sydney--Sydney shall be the victim to appease that hunger!' Saying this, he quitted the room, leaving Julia to her own reflections, which were of the most painful nature. The only thought which shed a gleam of joy into her heart, was the prospect of soon gratifying her spirit of revenge upon Sydney, whom she unjustly regarded as the author of her troubles. CHAPTER XX _Frank Sydney in the Power of his Enemies--his incarceration in the Dark Dungeon, with the Dwarf._ The next day after the occurrence just related, Frank Sydney, as was his custom, took a leisurely stroll down the most fashionable promenade of the metropolis--Broadway; this magnificent avenue was thronged with elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen, who had issued forth to enjoy the genial air of a fine afternoon. At one of the crossings of the street, our hero observed an old woman, respectfully dressed, but nearly double with age and infirmity, and scarcely able to crawl along, in great danger of being run over by a carriage which was being driven at a furious rate. Frank humanely rushed forward, and dragged the poor creature from the impending danger, just in time to save her from being dashed beneath the wheels of the carriage. She faintly thanked her deliverer, but declared her inability to proceed without assistance. On inquiring where she resided, he learned that it was in Reade street, which was but a short distance from where they then stood; and he generously offered her the support of his arm, saying that he would conduct her home, an offer which was thankfully accepted. They soon reached her place of abode, which was a house of genteel appearance, and at the invitation of the old lady, Frank entered, to rest a few moments after his walk. He had scarcely seated himself in the back parlor, when he was horrified and astounded at what he saw. The old woman, throwing off her cloak, bonnet and mask, stood before him, erect and threatening; and our hero saw that he had been made the dupe of the _Dead Man_! 'Welcome, Sydney, welcome!' cried the miscreant, his features lighted up with a demon's triumph--'at last thou art in my power. Did I not play my part well? Who so likely to excite thy compassion as an old lady in distress; 'twas ably planned and executed. Thou hast fallen into the trap, and shall never escape. But there are others who will be gratified to see thee, Frank. Nero--Julia--the bird is caught at last!' These last words were uttered in a loud tone; and were immediately responded to by the entrance of Julia and the black. The woman's eyes flashed fire when she beheld the object of her hate; she advanced towards him and spat in his face, saying-- 'May the fires of hell consume thee, heart and soul, detested wretch--thou didst cast me from thee, friendless and unprotected, when a kind reproof might have worked my reformation. Through thee I have become the victim of a ruffian's lust, the object of his cruelty; I have been struck like a dog, (look at this mark upon my cheek,) and I have been compelled to minister to the disgusting and unnatural lechery of a monster--all through thee, thou chicken-hearted knave, who even now doth tremble with unmanly terror!' 'Woman, thou art a liar!' exclaimed our hero, rising and boldly confronting his three enemies--'I do tremble, but with indignation alone! Dare you charge your misfortune upon me? Did you not dishonor me by adultery with this vile negro?--and then to talk to me of kind reproof! Pshaw, thou double-eyed traitorous w----e!--I had served thee rightly had I strangled thee on the spot, and thrown thy unclean carcase to the dogs!' 'Silence, curse ye, or I'll cut out your tongue as I did the _Kinchen's_!' roared the Dead Man, drawing his knife. 'Nero, what cause of complaint have you against this man?' 'Cause enough,' replied the black--'he shut me up in a dark dungeon for having gratified the wishes of his licentious wife.' 'Enough,' cried the Dead Man--'I will now state my grounds of complaint against him. Firstly--he played the spy upon me, and was the cause of my being returned to the State Prison, from which I had escaped. Secondly--he discovered the secrets of my Anthony street crib, and administered a drug to my wife which has deprived her of reason. And thirdly he is my mortal foe, and I hate him. Is that not enough?' 'It is--it is!' replied Julia and the African. The Dead Man continued: 'Now, Sydney, listen to me: you behold the light of day for the last time. But 'tis not my wish to kill you at once--no, that would not satisfy my vengeance. You shall die a slow, lingering death; each moment of your existence shall be fraught with a hell of torment; you will pray for death in vain; death shall not come to your relief for years. Each day I will rack my ingenuity to devise some new mode of torture. To increase the horrors of your situation, you shall have a companion in your captivity--a being unnatural and loathsome to look upon--a creature fierce as a hyena, malignant as a devil. Ha, you turn pale; you guess my meaning. You are right; you shall be shut up in the same dungeon with my Image! the deformed and monstrous dwarf, whom Heaven (if there is one,) must have sent as a curse and a reproach to me; he shall now become your curse and punishment!' Poor Frank heard this awful doom pronounced which he could not repress. He could have borne any ordinary physical torture with fortitude; but the thought of being shut up in that noisome dungeon with a being so fearful and loathsome as the Image, made him sick and faint; and when the Dead Man and the negro seized him in their powerful grasp, in order to convey him to the dungeon, he could make no resistance, even if resistance had been of any avail. Julia did not accompany them, but contented herself with a glance of malignant triumph at her husband. They descended to the cellar, and entered the secret passage, which they traversed in profound darkness. This passage communicated directly with the cellar of the house in Anthony street; a walk of ten minutes brought them to it, and when they had entered it, the Dead Man ignited a match and lit a lamp. The appearance of the cellar was precisely the same as when Frank had last seen it.--There was the same outlet and the moveable platform; there, in that dim and distant corner, lay the putrefying corpse; and there, too, was the iron door of the dungeon, secured on the outside by the massive bolt. At that moment the fearful inmate of that dungeon set up its strange, unnatural cry. 'Hark--my Image welcomes you, Sydney,' whispered the Dead Man, and, assisted by the African, he hurried his victim towards the dungeon door. 'In God's name,' said Frank, imploringly--'I beseech you to kill me at once, rather than shut me up with that fearful creature--for death is preferable to that!' But the two ruffians only laughed--and drawing back the bolt, they opened the iron door, and thrust their victim into the dungeon; then closing the door, they pushed the bolt into its place, and left him to an eternal night of darkness and horror. He heard the sound of their department footsteps; groping his way to a corner of the dungeon, he sat down upon the cold stone floor. Had he been alone he could have reconciled himself to his situation; but the consciousness of being in such fearful company, froze his blood with horror. Soon his eyes became accustomed to the darkness; and as a very faint glimmer of light stole in over the door of the dungeon, he was enabled to see objects around him, though very indistinctly. With a shudder, he glanced around him; and there, cowering in one corner, like some hideous reptile, its green eyes fixed upon him, sat the Image of the Dead Man--the terrible Dwarf! Hour after hour did that mis-shapen thing gaze upon our hero, until a strange feeling of fascination came over him--his brain grew dizzy, and he felt as if under the influence of a horrible dream. Then it uttered its strange, unnatural cry, and with the crawling motion of a snake, stole to his side. He felt its breath, like the noisome breath of a charnel-house, upon his cheek; he felt its cold, clammy touch, and could not thrust it from him; it twined its distorted, fleshless arms around him, and repeated its awful yell. Then Sydney fell prostrate upon the floor, insensible. When he recovered from his swoon, (in which he had lain for many hours) he felt numbed with cold, sick with the foetid atmosphere of the place, and faint with hunger. The dwarf was ferociously devouring some carrion which had been thrown into the dungeon; and the creature made uncouth signs to our hero, as if inviting him to eat. But on examining the food he found it to be so repulsive, that he turned from it in disgust, and resolved, sooner than partake of it, to let starvation put an end to his misery. CHAPTER XXI _Josephine and Mrs. Franklin receive two important Visits._ Josephine Franklin and her mother were languidly partaking of a late breakfast, and indolently discussing the merits of the Italian opera, to which they had both been on the preceding night. It not being the hour for fashionable calls, both ladies were attired with an extreme negligence which indicated that they anticipated seeing no company. And yet, to the eyes of a true connoisseur in beauty, there was something far more seductive in those voluptuous dishabilles, than there could have been in the most magnificent full dress. The conversation in which they were engaged, was characteristic of them both:-- 'I think, mamma,' said Josephine--'that the most captivating fellow on the stage last night, was the Signor Stopazzi, who played the peasant. Ah, what superb legs! what a fine chest! what graceful motions! I am dying to get him for a lover!' 'What, tired of the handsome Sinclair already?' asked Mrs. Franklin with a smile. 'Indeed, to confess the truth, mamma,' replied Josephine--'the Doctor is becoming somewhat _de trop_--and then, again, those Italians make such delightful lovers; so full of fire, and passion, and poetry; and music, and charming romance--ah, I adore them!' 'Apropos of Italian lovers,' said her mother. 'I once had one; I was then in my sixteenth year, and superbly beautiful. My Angelo was a divine youth, and he loved me to distraction. Once, in a moment of intoxicating bliss, he swore to do whatever I commanded him, to test the sincerity of his life; and I playfully and thoughtlessly bade him go and kill himself for my sake. The words were forgotten by me, almost as soon as uttered. Angelo supped with me that night, and when he took his leave, he had never seemed gayer or happier. The next day, at noon, I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and a perfumed billet-doux; they were from Angelo. On opening the missive, I found that it contained the most eloquent assurance of his sincere love--but, to my horror, in a postscript of two lines he expressed his intention of destroying himself ere his note could reach me, in obedience to my command. Almost distracted, I flew to his hotel; my worst fears were confirmed. Poor Angelo was found with his throat cut, and quite dead, with my miniature pressed to his heart.'[4] 'Delightfully romantic!' exclaimed Josephine--'how I should like to have a lover kill himself for my sake!' But the brilliant eyes of her mother were suffused with tears. Just then a servant in livery entered and announced-- 'Dr. Sinclair is below, and craves an audience with Mrs. Franklin and Miss Josephine.' 'Let him come up,' said Josephine, with a gesture of some impatience; for, in truth, she was beginning to be tired of the rector, and longed for a new conquest. Dr. Sinclair entered with a constrained and gloomy air. 'My dear Doc,' cried Josephine, with affected cordiality--'how opportunely that you called! I was just now wishing that you would come.' 'Ladies,' said the Doctor, solemnly--'I have recently made a terrible, a most astonishing discovery.' 'Indeed! and pray what is it?' cried both mother and daughter. 'It is that Mr. Edgar Franklin, whose death was so sudden and unaccountable, was basely murdered!' The mother and daughter turned pale, and losing all power of utterance, gazed at each other with looks of wild alarm. 'Yes,' resumed the Doctor--'I have in my possession evidence the most conclusive, that he met his death by the hands of a murderess, who was urged to commit the deed by two other devils in female shape.' 'Doctor--explain--what mean you?' gasped Josephine, while her mother seemed as if about to go into hysterics. 'In the first place I will ask you if you ever knew a woman named Mary Welch?' said the Doctor; then after a pause, he added--'your looks convince me that you have known such a person; that woman recently died in this city, and on her death-bed she made the following confession.' The rector here produced and read a paper which he had drawn up embodying the statement and confession which the woman Welch had made to him, just before her death. As the reader is acquainted with the particulars of that confession it is unnecessary for us to repeat them. Having finished the perusal of this document, the rector proceeded to relate an account of his visit to the tomb of Mr. Franklin, and concluded his fearfully interesting narrative by producing the lump of lead which had been taken from the skull of the murdered man. It is impossible to describe the horror and dismay of the two wretched and guilty women, when they saw that their crime was discovered. Falling on their knees before the rector, they implored him to have mercy on them and not hand them over to justice.--They expressed their sincere repentance of the deed, and declared that sooner than suffer the ignominy of an arrest, they would die by their own hands. Josephine in particular did not fail to remind Dr. Sinclair of the many favors she had granted him and hinted that her exposure would result in his own ruin, as his former connection with her would be disclosed, if herself and mother were arrested and brought to trial. 'Were I inclined to bring you to justice, the dread of my own exposure would not prevent me; for no personal consideration should ever restrain me from doing an act of justice, provided the public good would be prompted thereby. But I do not see the necessity of bringing you to the horrors of a trial and execution; much rather would I see you allowed a chance of repentance. Therefore, you need apprehend no danger from me; the secret of your crime shall not be revealed by me. But I warn you that the secret is known to another, who will probably use his knowledge to his own advantage; the matter lies between you and him. I shall now leave this house, never again to cross its threshold; but ere I depart, let me urge you both before God to repent of your sins. Josephine, I have been very guilty in yielding to your temptations; but the Lord is merciful, and will not refuse forgiveness to the chief of sinners. Farewell--we shall meet no more: for I design shortly to retire from a ministerial life, of which I have proved myself unworthy; and shall take up my abode in some other place, and lead a life of obscurity and humble usefulness.' With these words the Doctor took his departure, leaving the mother and daughter in a state of mind easier to be imagined than described. Josephine was the first to break the silence which succeeded his exit from the house:-- 'So our secret is discovered,' said she.--'Perdition! who would have thought that our crime could ever be found out in that manner? Mother, what are we to do?' 'I know not what to say,' replied Mrs. Franklin. 'One thing, however, is certain; that whining parson will never betray us. He said that the dread of his own folly would not deter him from denouncing us, but he lies--that dread of being exposed will alone keep his mouth shut. Yet, good Heavens! he assures us that the secret is known to another person, who will not scruple to use the knowledge to his advantage. Who can that person be? And what reward will he require of us, to ensure his silence?' 'Mother,' said Josephine, in a decided tone--'We must quit this city forever. We can dwell here no longer with safety. Let us go to Boston, and dwell there under an assumed name. I have heard that Boston is a great city, where licentiousness and hypocrisy abound, in secret; where the artful dissimulator can cloak himself with sanctity, and violate with impunity every command of God and man. Yes, Boston is the city for us.' 'I agree with you, my dear,' rejoined her mother--'it is the greatest lust market of the Union. You will be surprised to learn that several of my old schoolmates are now keeping fashionable boarding houses for courtezans in that city and from the business derive a luxurious maintenance. There is my friend Louisa Atwill, whose history I have often narrated to you and there, too, is Lucy Bartlett, and Rachel Pierce, whose lover is the gay and celebrated Frank Hancock, whom I have often seen--nor must I omit to mention Julia Carr, whose establishment is noted for privacy, and is almost exclusively supported by married men. All these with whom I occasionally correspond testify to the voluptuous temperament of the Bostonians, among whom you will be sure to make many conquests.' We merely detail this conversation for the purpose of showing the recklessness and depravity of these two women. They had just acknowledged themselves guilty of the crime of murder; and could thus calmly converse on indifferent and sinful topics, immediately after the departure of their accuser, and as soon as their first excitement of fear had subsided. While thus arranging their plans for the future, the servant in livery again entered, to announce another visitor. 'He is a strange looking man,' said the servant, 'and when I civilly told him that the ladies received no company before dinner, he gave me such a look as I shall never forget, and told me to hold my tongue and lead the way--good Lord, here he comes now!' The terrified servant vanished from the room, as a tall figure stalked in, wrapped in a cloak. The ladies could scarce repress a shriek, when throwing aside his hat and cloak, the stranger exhibited a face of appalling hideousness; and a fearful misgiving took possession of their minds, that this was the other person who was in the secret of their crime. 'You are the two Franklin ladies I presume--mother and daughter--good!' and the stranger glanced from one to the other with a fierce satisfaction. 'What is your business with us?' demanded Josephine, haughtily. 'Ha! young hussey, you are very saucy,' growled the stranger savagely--'but your pride will soon be humbled. In the first place, are we alone, and secure from interruption?' 'We are--why do you ask?' said Mrs. Franklin. 'Because your own personal safety demands that our interview be not overheard,' replied the man. 'As you are fashionable people, I will introduce myself. Ladies, I am called the Dead Man, and have the honor to be your most obedient servant. Now to business.' The Dead Man proceeded to relate those circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted, connected with his visit to the tomb of Mr. Franklin, and the manner in which he had come to the knowledge of that gentleman's murder. He omitted, however, to state that he had shut up the rector in the tomb, for he firmly believed in his own mind that Dr. Sinclair had perished. 'You perceive,' said he, when he had finished these details--'it is in my power to have you hung up at any time. Now, to come to the point at once--what consideration will you allow me if I keep silent in regard to this affair?' 'Of course you require money,' remarked Josephine, who was disposed to treat the matter in as business-like a manner as possible. 'Why--yes; but not money alone,' replied the Dead Man, with a horrible leer;--'you are both devilish handsome, and I should prefer to take out a good portion of my reward in your soft embraces. You shudder ladies; yet would not my arms around those fair necks of yours be pleasanter than an ugly rope, adjusted by the hands of the hangman? You will one day admit the force of the argument; at present I will not press the matter, but content myself with a moderate demand on your purse. Oblige me with the loan--ha, ha!--of the small trifle of one thousand dollars.' After a moment's consultation with her daughter, Mrs. Franklin left the room to get the money from her _escritoire_. The door had scarcely closed upon her, when the Dead Man advanced to Josephine, caught her in his arms, despite her resistance, imprinted numberless foul kisses upon her glowing cheeks, her ripe lips, and alabaster shoulders. It was a rare scene; Beauty struggling in the arms of the Beast! The lecherous monster did not release her until he heard her mother returning. Mrs. Franklin handed to him a roll of bank-notes, and said-- 'There is the amount you asked for and you must grant that you are liberally paid for your silence. I trust that you will consider the reward sufficient, and that we shall see you no more.' 'Bah!' exclaimed the ruffian, as he deposited the money in his pocket--'do you think I will let you off so cheaply? No, no, my pretty mistress--you may expect to see me often; and at my next visit I must have something besides money--a few little amative favors will then prove acceptable, both from you and your fair daughter, whose lips, by Satan! are as sweet to my taste as human blood. I know very well you will attempt to run away from me, by secretly removing from the city; but hark'ee--though you remove to hell, and assume the hardest name of Beelzebub's family of fourth cousins--I'll find you out! Remember, I have said it. Adieu.' And bowing with mock politeness, the miscreant took his departure from the house. 'Good heavens!' exclaimed Mrs. Franklin--'we are completely in the power of that dreadful man. We must leave the city, without delay, for Boston; yet we will spread the report that we are going to Philadelphia, in order to escape from that monster, if possible.' 'A monster indeed!' said Josephine shuddering--'during your absence from the room, he took the most insolent liberties with me, and besmeared me with his loathsome kisses. How horrible it will be, if he ever finds us out, and compels us to yield our persons to his savage lust!' 'True,' said her mother--'and yet, for my own part, sooner than pay him another thousand, I would yield to his desires; for the manner in which we have squandered money, during the last two years, has fearfully diminished my fortune, and there is but a very small balance of cash in my favor at the bank. This house must be sold, together with all our furniture, in order to replenish our funds. Now, my dear, we must make preparations for our instant departure for Boston.' Mrs. Franklin summoned her servants, paid them their wages, and discharged them all, with the exception of her handsome footman, whom she determined to leave in charge of the house, until it was sold, after which he was privately requested to join his mistress in Boston; he was particularly directed to state, in answer to all inquiries, that the family had gone to Philadelphia. Simon, (for this was the footman's name) promised implicit obedience to these orders; and was rewarded for his fidelity by a private _tete-a-tete_ with his fair patron, during which many kisses were exchanged, and other little tokens of affection were indulged in; after which she gave him the keys of the house, charging him not to visit the wine-cellar too often, and by all means not to admit a woman into the house, under pain of her eternal displeasure. That same afternoon, the two ladies took passage in a steamer for Boston. They were received on board by the handsome and gentlemanly Captain, who, being somewhat of a fashionable man, had some slight acquaintance with the aristocratic mother and her beauteous daughter. He courteously insisted that they should occupy his own state-room; and they accordingly took possession of that elegant apartment, where they ordered tea be served; and, at their invitation, the Captain supped with them. The repast over, he apologized to the ladies for his necessary absence; and sent the steward to them with a bottle of very choice wine. The state-room was divided into two apartments by a curtain of silk; and in each of these apartments was a magnificent bed. The floor was handsomely carpeted, and the walls were adorned with superb mirrors and pictures. The Captain was a man of taste, and his cabin was a gem of luxury and splendor. As the stately steamer ploughed her way through the turbid waters of the Sound, many were the scenes which took place on board of her, worthy to be delineated by our pen. Though it is our peculiar province to write of city crimes, we nevertheless must not omit to depict some of the transactions which occurred during the passage, and which may be appropriately classed under the head of steamboat crimes. At the hour for retiring, the ladies' cabin was filled with the feminine portion of the passengers, who began to divest themselves of their garments in order to court the embraces of the drowsy god. There was the simpering boarding-school miss of sixteen; the fat wife of a citizen with a baby in her arms, and another in anticipation; the lady of fashion, attended by her maid; the buxom widow, attended by a lap-dog, musical with silver bells, and there, too, was the elderly dame, attended by a host of grandchildren, to the horror of an old maid, who declares she 'can't BEAR young ones,' which is true enough, literally. Now it is a fact beyond dispute, that ladies, among themselves, when no males are present, act and converse with more freedom from restraint, than a company of men; and the fact was never more forcibly illustrated than upon this occasion. The boarding-school miss, _en chemise_, romped with the buxom widow, who was herself in similar costume. The citizen's fat wife lent her baby to the old maid, who wanted to know how it seemed; and was rewarded for her kindness by a token of gratitude on the baby's part, which caused the aforesaid old maid to drop the little innocent like a hot potato. The fashionable lady, who dressed for bed as for a ball, was arrayed in a very costly and becoming night-dress, ornamented with a profusion of lace and ruffles; and standing before a mirror, was admiring her own charms; yet she painted, and had false teeth--defects which were atoned for by a fine bust and magnificent ankle. Her maid, a stout, well-looking girl, was toying with a very pretty boy of eight or nine years of age, and when unobserved, embraced and kissed him with an ardor which betokened a good share of amative sensibility on her part. 'The men are such odious creatures, I positively cannot endure them,' remarked the old maid. 'And yet they are very _useful_, and sometimes agreeable,' said the buxom widow, with an arch smile, (she was handsome, if she _was_ a widow,) and glancing significantly at the citizen's fat wife. 'Pooh!' exclaimed the old maid, climbing into her berth, and privately taking off her wig, (she was bald,)--'I can take my pick of ten thousand men, yet I wouldn't have one of them.' (She had been pining for an offer twenty years!) The buxom widow got into her berth, which she shared with her lapdog; and as the little animal dove under the bed-clothes and became invisible, it is difficult to conjecture in what precise locality he stowed himself! The fashionable lady 'turned in' after the most approved manner; and as the berths were somewhat scarce, her maid generously offered to share her couch with little Charley, an offer which that interesting youth at first declined, saying he was afraid of her, she 'squeezed him so,' but his scruples were overcome by her assurances that the offence should not be repeated, and Charley concluded to accept the offer. Those scenes did not pass unwitnessed for two men were standing outside, looking thro' one of the windows, from which the curtain had been partially drawn. Both these men were respectably dressed, and both were over sixty years of age; yet they viewed the unconscious and undressed ladies with lecherous delight. 'But, deacon,' said one--'do look at that one standing before the glass; what breasts--what legs--what a form--what--heavens! I shall go crazy if I look much longer!' 'Now, in my way of thinking,' said the deacon--'that young thing of sixteen is the most delicious little witch of the entire lot;--what a fair skin--what elastic limbs--what wantonness in every look and movement! There's a youthfulness and freshness about her, which render her doubly attractive.' 'Ah, they are all going to retire, and we shall lose our sport.--By the way, deacon, what kind of a set are they that I'm going to preach to, in Boston?' asked the Rev. John Marrowfat--for it was that noted hero of pulpit oratory, amours and matrimony! 'Oh, they're a set of soft-pated fools,' replied deacon Small, 'preach hell-fire and brimstone to 'em, they'll swallow everything you say, and give you a devilish good salary into the bargain.' A young man, small and thin, and well dressed, now approached, and grasped the deacon by the hand. 'Why, this is an unexpected pleasure,' said the young man--'who would have thought of seeing you here?' 'I am happy to meet you, brother,' said the deacon--'brother Marrowfat, allow me to introduce you to Samuel Cough, a distinguished advocate of temperance.' 'What are you going to do in Boston, Sam?' asked deacon Small. 'Oh, going to astonish the natives a little, that's all,' replied Mr. Cough. 'That was a bad scrape I got into, in Albany; I got infernally drunk, and slept in a brothel, which was all very well, you know, and nothing unusual--but people _found it out_! Well, I got up a cock-and-bull story about drinking drugged soda, and some people believe it and some don't. Now, when I get _corned_, I keep out of sight.--Ah, temperance spouting is a great business! But come, gentlemen--it won't do for us to be seen drinking at the bar; I've got a bottle of fourth-proof brandy in my pocket; let's take a swig all around.' And producing the article in question, Mr. Cough took a very copious swig, and passed the bottle to the others, who followed his example. We shall now leave this worthy trio, with the remark that they all got very comfortably drunk previous to retiring for the night. Mr. Cough turned into his berth with his boots on and a cigar in his mouth; Mr. Marrowfat sung obscene songs, and fell over a chair; and deacon Small rushed into the gentleman's cabin, and offered to fight any individual present, for a trifling wager. He was finally carried to bed in the custody of the bootblack. Among the passengers was a very handsome lad, twelve or fourteen years of age, whose prepossessing appearance seemed to attract the attention of a tall gentleman, of distinguished bearing, enveloped in a cloak.--He wore a heavy moustache, and his complexion was very dark. He paid the most incessant attention to the boy, making him liberal presents of cake and fruit, and finally gave him a beautiful gold ring, from his own finger. This man was a foreigner--one of those beasts in human shape whose perverted appetites prompts them to the commission of a crime against nature. Once before, in the tenth chapter of this narrative, we took occasion to introduce one of those fiends to the notice of the reader; it was at the masquerade ball, where the Spanish ambassador made a diabolical proposal to Josephine Franklin, whom he supposed to be a boy. It is an extremely delicate task for a writer to touch on a subject so revolting; yet the crime actually exists, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and therefore we are compelled to give it place in our list of crimes. We are about to record a startling fact--in New York, there are boys who _prostitute_ themselves from motives of gain; and they are liberally patronized by the tribe of genteel foreign vagabonds who infest the city. It was well known that the principal promenade for such cattle was in the Park, where they might be seen nightly; and the circumstance had been more than once commented upon by the newspapers.--Any person who has resided in New York for two or three years, knows that we are speaking the truth. Nor is this all. There was formerly a house of prostitution for that very purpose, kept by a foreigner, and splendidly furnished; here lads were taken as apprentices, and regularly trained for the business;--they were mostly boys who had been taken from the lowest classes of society, and were invariably of comely appearance. They were expensively dressed in a peculiar kind of costume; half masculine and half feminine; and were taught a certain style of speech and behaviour calculated to attract the beastly wretches who patronize them. For a long time the existence of this infernal den was a secret; but it eventually leaked out, and the proprietor and his gang were obliged to beat a hasty retreat from the city, to save themselves from the summary justice of Lynch law. But to return to the steamboat. The foreigner called the lad aside, and the following conversation ensued:-- 'My pretty lad, this cabin is excessively close, and the bed inconvenient. I have a very nice state-room, and should be happy to have you share it with me.' 'Thank you, sir,' answered the boy--'if it would cause you no inconvenience--' 'None whatever; come with me at once,' said the other, and they ascended to the deck, and entered his state room. It is proper to observe, that the youth was perfectly innocent, and suspected not the design of his new _friend_. Half an hour afterwards he dashed from the state room with every appearance of indignation and affright; seeking one of the officers of the boat he told his story, and the result was that the foreign gentleman and his baggage were set ashore at a place destitute of every thing but rocks, and over ten miles from any house; very inconvenient for a traveller, especially at night, with a storm in prospect. The miserable sodomite should have been more harshly dealt with. To return to Josephine and her mother, whom we left in the Captain's elegant state room. We must here remark that Sophia Franklin, the gentle, angelic sister of the depraved Josephine, had gone to spend a month or so with an aunt, (her father's sister,) in Newark, N.J., which circumstance will account for not accompanying her mother and sister in their flight from New York. It may be as well to add that she was in blissful ignorance of her father having been murdered, and of course, knew nothing of the discovery of that fact by Dr. Sinclair. 'Thank heaven,' cried Josephine, raising the wine glass to her vermilion lips--'we are at last clear of that odious New York! I feel as if just liberated from a prison.' 'The feeling is natural, my dear,' rejoined her mother--'you are no longer in constant dread of that horrible fellow who is so savagely amorous with regard to both of us. We have fairly given him the slip, and it will be difficult for him to find us.' 'Don't you think, mamma,' asked the young lady--'that the Captain, who so politely surrendered this beautiful cabin for our accommodation, is a splendid fellow? Really, I am quite smitten with him.' 'So am I,' remarked her mother--'he is certainly very handsome, and it is hard that he should be turned out of his cabin on our account. Why cannot we all three sleep here? I am sure he needs but a hint to make him joyfully agree to such an arrangement.' 'I understand you mamma,' said Josephine, her eyes sparking with pleasure--'you will see what a delicate invitation I'll give him; but I won't be selfish--you shall enjoy as much benefit from the arrangement as myself. Hark! somebody knocks--it must be the Captain.' And so it was; he had come to inquire if the ladies were comfortable, and on receiving an affirmative answer, was about to bid them good night and depart, when Josephine invited him to sit down and have a glass of wine with them. It was not in the nature of the good Captain to decline an invitation when extended by a pretty woman. The mother and daughter, tastefully attired in superb evening dresses, looked irresistibly charming--the more so, perhaps, because their cheeks were suffused with the rosy hues of wine and passion. 'I have been thinking, Captain,' said Josephine, casting her brilliant eyes upon the carpet--'that it is unjust for us to drive you from your cabin, and make you pass the night in some less comfortable place. Mother and I have been talking about it, and we both think you had better sleep in here, as usual.' 'What--and drive you ladies out?' cried the Captain--'couldn't think of it, upon my honor.' 'Oh, it doesn't necessarily follow that we must be driven out,' said Josephine, raising her eyes to his face, and smiling archly--'you silly man, don't you see that we want to be very kind to you?' 'Is it possible?' exclaimed the Captain, almost beside himself with joy--'dear ladies, you cannot be jesting, and I accept your offer with gratitude and delight. Good heavens, what a lucky fellow I am!' And clasping both ladies around the waists, he kissed them alternately, again and again. That night was one of guilty rapture to all the parties; but the particulars must be supplied by the reader's own imagination. * * * * * And now, behold Mrs. Lucretia Franklin and her daughter Josephine, in the great city of Boston! The same day of their arrival they hired a handsome house, already furnished in Washington street: and the next day they made their _debut_ in that fashionable thoroughfare, by promenading, in dresses of such magnificence and costliness, that they created a tremendous excitement among the bucks and belles who throng there every fine afternoon. 'Who can they be?' was asked by every one, and answered by no one. The dandy clerks, in high dickies and incipient whiskers, rushed to the doors and windows of their stores, to have a glimpse of the two beautiful _unknowns_; the mustachioed exquisites raised their eye-glasses in admiration, and murmured, 'dem foine,' the charming Countess, the graceful Cad, and the bewitching Jane B----t, were all on the _qui vive_ to ascertain the names, quality and residence of the two fair strangers, who were likely to prove such formidable rivals in the hearts and purses of the lady-loving beaux of the city. That evening they went to the opera, and while listening to the divine strains of Biscaccianti, became the cynosure of a thousand admiring glances. And that night, beneath the windows of their residence, a party of gallant amateurs, with voice and instrument, awoke sounds of such celestial harmony, that the winged spirits of the air paused in their aerial flight to catch the choral symphony that floated on the soft breezes of the moon-lit night! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 4: A fact, derived by the Author from the private history of a fashionable courtezan.] CHAPTER XXII _Showing the Desperate and Bloody Combat which took place in the Dark Vaults._ 'You will pray for death in vain; death shall not come to your relief for years,' were the words of the miscreant who had shut up poor Frank in that loathsome dungeon;--and like a weight of lead, that awful doom oppressed and crushed the heart of our hero, as he lay stretched upon the stone floor of the cell, with the maniac Dwarf gibbering beside him, and staring at him with its serpent-like and malignant eyes. While lying there, weak with hunger, and his soul filled with despair, a wild delirium took possession of his senses, and in his diseased mind horror succeeded horror. First, the misshaped Dwarf seemed transformed into a huge vulture, about to tear him to pieces with its strong talons; then it became a gigantic reptile, about to discharge upon him a deluge of poisonous slime; then it changed to the Evil One, come to bear him to perdition. Finally, as the wildest paroxysms of his delirium subsided, the creature stood before him as the Image and spirit of the Dead Man, appointed to torture and to drive him mad. 'Die, thou fiend incarnate!' he exclaimed, in a phrenzy of rage and despair; and starting from the ground, he rushed upon the creature and attempted to strangle it. But with an appalling yell, it struggled from his grasp, and leaping upon his shoulders bore him to the earth with a force that stunned him; and then it fastened its teeth in his flesh and began to drink his blood. But the fates willed that Sydney was not thus to die; for at that moment the iron door was suddenly thrown open, and the glare of a lantern shone into the dungeon; then there entered a person whose features were concealed by a hideous mask, and the dwarf quitted its hold of the victim, and flew screaming into a corner. 'He must be revived ere he is brought to judgement,' said the Mask; and he raised Sydney in his arms, carried him out of the dungeon, and fastened the door. Then the Mask stepped upon the platform with his burden, and descended into the dark abyss. When Frank recovered his senses, he found himself in a sort of cavern which was lighted by a lamp suspended from the ceiling. He was lying upon a rude bed; and near him, silent and motionless, sat a masked figure. 'Where am I--and who art thou?' demanded our hero, in a feeble tone, as a vague terror stole over him. The Mask replied not, but rising, brought him a cup of wine and some food, of which he partook with eagerness. Much refreshed, he sank back upon his pillow, and fell into a long, deep slumber. When he awoke, he found himself in the same cavern, on the same bed, and guarded as before by the mysterious Mask, who now spoke for the first time. 'Arise and follow me,' said he.--Sydney obeyed, and followed the Unknown through a long passage, and into a vast hall or cavern, brilliantly lighted. Glancing around him, he saw at once that he was in the Dark Vaults, in that part called the 'Infernal Regions,' the rendezvous of the band of miscreants known as the 'Jolly Knights of the Round Table.' Seated around that table was a company of men, to the number of about fifty, all so hideously masked, that they seemed like a band of demons just released from the bottomless pit. They sat in profound silence, and were all so perfectly motionless that they might have been taken for statues rudely chiseled from the solid rock. In the centre of the table, upon a coffin, sat the Judge of that awful tribunal, arrayed from head to foot in a blood-red robe: he wore no mask--why need he? What mask could exceed in hideousness the countenance of the Dead Man? Sydney was compelled to mount the table, and seat himself before his Judge, who thus addressed him:-- 'Prisoner, you are now in the presence of our august and powerful band,--the Knights of the Round Table, of which I have honor to be the Captain. I am also Judge and Executioner.--The charges I have against you are already known to every Knight present. It but remains for them to pronounce you guilty, and for me to pass and execute sentence upon you. Attention, Knights! those of you who believe the prisoner to be guilty, and worthy of such punishment as I shall choose to inflict upon him, will _stand up_!' Every masked figure arose, excepting _one_! and that one remained silent and motionless. To him the judge turned with a savage scowl. 'How now, Doctor!' he cried in a voice of thunder--'do you dare dissent from the decision of your comrades? Stand upon your feet, or by G---- I'll spring upon you and tear you limb from limb!' But the Doctor stirred not. 'By hell!' roared the Dead Man, foaming with rage--'dare you disobey the orders of your Captain? Villain, do you seek your own death?' '_Dare?_' exclaimed the Doctor, tearing off his mask, and confronting his ruffian leader with an unquailing eye--'_dare!_ Why, thou white-livered hound, I dare spit upon and spurn ye! And forsooth, ye call me a villain--you coward cut-throat, traitor, monster, murderer of weak women and helpless babes! I tell you, Dead Man, your Power is at an end in these Vaults. There are robbers, there may be murderers here--although thank God, _I_ never shed human blood--but bad as we are, your damnable villainy, your cruelty and your tyranny have disgusted us. I for one submit to your yoke no longer; so may the devil take you, and welcome!' Sydney now for the first time recognized in the speaker, the same individual who sought to rob him one night in the Park, and whose gratitude he had won by presenting him with a fifty dollar bill. The Dead Man glared from some moments in silence upon the bold fellow who thus defied him. At length he spoke-- 'Fool! you have presumed to dispute my authority as Captain of this band, and your life is forfeit to our laws. But, by Satan! I admire your courage, and you shall not die without having a chance for your life. You shall fight me, hand to hand--here to-night, at once; the Knights shall form a ring, and we will arm ourselves with Bowie knives; _cut and slash_ shall be the order of the combat; no quarters shall be shown; and he who cuts out his adversary's heart, and presents it to the band on the point of his knife, shall be Captain of the Round Table. Say do you agree to this?' 'Yes!' replied the Doctor, much to the disappointment of his challenger, who would have been glad had the offer been rejected. However, there was no retracting, and instant preparations were made for the combat. Sydney was placed in charge of two men, in order to prevent his escape; and the Knights formed themselves into a large ring, while the combatants prepared for the encounter. Both men stripped to the skin; around their left arms they wrapped blankets to serve as shields; and in their right hands, they grasped long, sharp Bowie knives, whose blades glittered in the brilliant light of the many candles. All was soon ready, and the adversaries entered the ring, amid profound silence.--Poor Sydney contemplated the scene with painful interest; how sincerely he prayed that the Doctor might prove victorious in the combat! Gaunt and bony, the Dead Man looked like a skeleton; yet the immense muscles upon his fleshless arms, indicated prodigious strength. He looked terribly formidable, with his livid face, deadly eye and jaws firmly set--his long fingers clutching his knife with an iron grasp, and his left arm raised to protect himself.--The Doctor was a large, dark-complexioned, handsome man--an Apollo in beauty and a Hercules in strength, presenting a singular contrast to the hideous, misshapen being with whom he was about to engage in deadly conflict. Cautiously they advanced towards each other, with knives upraised. Standing scarce five feet apart, they eyed each other for two minutes; not a muscle moved; with a howl like that of a hyena, the Dead Man sprang upon his enemy, and gave him a severe gash upon his shoulder; but the Doctor, who was an accomplished pugilist, knocked his assailant down, and favored him with a kick in the jaw that left its mark for many a day, and did not enhance his beauty. The Dead Man arose, grinding his teeth with passion, but advancing with extreme caution. By a rapid and dexterous movement of his foot, he tripped the Doctor down, and having him at that disadvantage, was about to bury his knife in his heart, when several of the band rushed forward and prevented him, exclaiming-- 'When you were down, the Doctor suffered you to regain your feet, and you shall allow him the same privilege. Begin again on equal terms, and he who gets the first advantage, shall improve it.' 'Curses on you for this interference,' growled the ruffian, as he reluctantly suffered the Doctor to arise. The combat was then renewed with increased vigor on both sides. Severe cuts were given and received; two of the Doctor's fingers were cut off, and Sydney began to fear that he would be vanquished, when, rallying desperately, he closed with the Dead Man, and with one tremendous stroke, severed the miscreant's right hand from his wrist! Thus disabled, he fell to the ground, bathed in blood. 'I'll not take your life, miserable dog,' cried the Doctor, as he surveyed his fallen adversary with a look of contempt--'as I have deprived you of that murderous hand, you shall live. You are now comparatively harmless--an object of pity rather than of fear. I am a surgeon, and will exert my skill to stop the effusion of blood.' The Dead Man had fainted. He was laid upon the Round Table, and the Doctor dressed the wound. Then he turned to his comrades, and said, 'Gentlemen of the Round Table, you will admit that I have fairly conquered our leader; I have spared his life not in the hope that he will ever become a better man, for that is impossible--but that he may be reserved for a worse fate than death by my knife. He shall live to die a death of horror.' The band crowded around the Doctor, clapping their hands, and exclaiming--'Hail to our new Captain!' 'Not so,' cried the Doctor--'to-night I leave this band forever. Nay, hear me, comrades--you know that I am not a bad man by nature--you are aware that I have been driven to this life by circumstances which I could not control. You are satisfied that I never will betray you; let that suffice. Should any of you meet me hereafter, you will find in me a friend, provided you are inclined to be honest.--I have a word to say in regard to this prisoner; he is my benefactor, having once supplied my wants when I was in a condition of deep distress. I am grateful to him, and wish to do him a service. He has been brought before you by the Captain, for some private wrongs, which have not affected you as a band. Say, comrades, will you set him free?' Many of the band seemed inclined to grant this favor; but one, who possessed much influence, turned the current of feeling against Sydney, by saying-- 'Comrades, listen to me. Though our Captain is conquered, we will not do him injustice. This man is his prisoner, captured by his hand, and _he_ alone can justly release him. Let the Doctor depart, since he wishes it; but let the prisoner be kept in custody; to be disposed of as our Captain may see proper.' This speech was received with applause by the others. The Doctor knew it would be useless to remonstrate; approaching Sydney, he whispered-- 'Have courage, sir--in me you have a friend who will never desert you. I shall be constantly near you to aid you at the first opportunity. Farewell.' He pressed Sydney's hand, bade adieu to his comrades, and left the Vaults. The Dead Man slowly revived; on opening his eyes, his first glance rested upon his prisoner, and a gleam of satisfaction passed over his ghastly visage. At his request, two of the band raised him from the table, and placed him in a chair; then, in a feeble voice, he said-- 'Eternal curses on you all, why have you suffered the Doctor to escape? Hell and fury--my right hand cut off!--But no matter; I shall learn to murder with the other. Ha, Sydney! you are there, I see; the Doctor may go, in welcome, since _you_ are left to feel my vengeance. I am too weak at present to enjoy the sight of your torture, and the music of your groans. Back to your dungeon, dog; yet stay--the dwarf may kill you, and thus cheat me of my revenge; it is not safe to confine you with him any longer. Maggot and Bloodhound, take Sydney and shut him up in the _Chamber of Death_.' Two of the worst villains of the gang, who answered to the singular names of Maggot and Bloodhound, seized Sydney by his arms, and dragged him along one of the dark passages which branched off from the Vault. The Dead Man himself followed, bearing a lantern in his only remaining hand. They arrived at a low iron door, in which was a grating formed of thick bars of the same metal. This door being opened, the party descended a flight of stone steps, and entered an apartment of great extent where the damp, chill air was so charged with noxious vapours, that the light of the lantern was almost extinguished. The stone walls and floor of this dungeon were covered with green damp; and from the ceiling in many places dripped a foul moisture. The further extremity of the place was involved in a profound darkness which could not be dissipated by feeble rays of the lamp. 'Here,' said the Dead Man, addressing his prisoner--'you will be kept in confinement for the rest of your life--a confinement varied only by different modes of torture which I shall apply to you, from time to time. This dungeon is called the Chamber of Death--for what reason you will ere long find out. It is built directly under the sewers of the city, which accounts for the liquid filth that oozes through the ceiling. Many persons have been shut up in this place, for offences against our band and against me; and not one of them has ever got out, either alive or dead! To-morrow I shall visit you, and bring you food--for I do not wish you to die of hunger; I will endeavor to protract, not shorten your life, so that I may longer enjoy the pleasure of torturing you. To-morrow, perhaps, you shall receive your first lesson in my methods of torture. Adieu--come, comrades, let's leave him the lamp, that he may contemplate the horrors of the place--for darkness here is bliss.' The three villains ascended the steps and left the dungeon, having first carefully locked the door. Poor Sydney fell upon his knees on the cold, damp floor, and prayed earnestly for either a safe deliverance from that awful place, or a speedy death. Somewhat comforted by the appeal to a Supreme Being, whose existence all men acknowledge in times of peril, he arose, and taking the lamp resolved to explore the dungeon. He had not proceeded far before a spectacle met his gaze which caused him to pause in horror and affright. Seated around a vast table, was a row of figures fantastically dressed and in every extravagant attitude. At first, Frank thought that they were living creatures; but observing that they did not move, he approached nearer, and discovered that they were skeletons. Some were dressed as males, others as females; and many of them, in fearful mockery of death, had been placed in attitudes the most obscene and indecent. Presiding over this ghastly revel, was a gigantic skeleton, arrayed in what had once been a splendid theatrical dress, and grasping in its fleshless hand a large gilt goblet; this figure was seated on a sort of throne, made of rough boards. These were the skeletons of those who had died in the Vaults, as well as of those persons who, having fallen into the power of the band of villains, had been murdered in that dungeon, by starvation or torture. With infernal ingenuity, the Dead Man had arrayed the skeletons in fanciful costumes, which had been plundered from the wardrobe of a theatre; and placed them in the most absurd and indecent positions his hellish fancy could devise. The large skeleton, which seemed to preside over the others, was the remains of a former Captain of the band, celebrated for his many villainies and gigantic stature. While gazing upon this figure, Sydney distinctly saw the head, or skull, nod at him. Astonished at this, yet doubting the evidence of his own eyesight, he approached nearer, and held the lamp close up to it; again it moved, so plainly as to admit of no further doubt. Our hero was not superstitious, but the strangeness of this incident almost terrified him, and he was about to make a rapid retreat to the other side of the dungeon, when the mystery was explained in a manner that would have been ludicrous under any other circumstances: a large cat leaped from the skull, where it had taken up an abode, and scampered off, to the great relief of Sydney, who was glad to find that the nod of the skeleton proceeded from such a trifling cause. On the back of each chair whereon was seated a member of the ghostly company was written the name which he or she had borne during life. Judges, magistrates and police officers were there, who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the gang, in years past, by vigilance in detecting, or severity in passing sentences upon many of its members. These individuals had been waylaid by their ruffian enemies, and made to die a lingering death in that dungeon; their fate was never known to their friends, and their sudden and unaccountable removal from the world, was chronicled in the newspapers, at the time, under the head of _mysterious disappearance_. Ladies, whose testimony had tended to the conviction of the band, were there; but their fate had been doubly horrible, for previous to their imprisonment in the dungeon, they had been dishonored by the vile embraces of almost every ruffian in the Vaults; and even after death, they had been placed in attitudes unseemly and shameful. But the horror of Sydney, while beholding these things, was soon absorbed in a discovery which to him was ten times more horrible than all the rest; for written on the chair of a female figure, was the name of his aunt Mrs. Stevens! It will be remembered that this lady was murdered by the Dead Man, at her residence in Grand Street; on the night of the masquerade ball, in order to prevent her giving favorable testimony at the trial of Sydney. Having been found, suspended by the neck, it was at first supposed that she committed suicide; but that belief was removed from the public mind, when it was found that a robbery had been committed in the house. It was then apparent that she had been inhumanely murdered. Her servant testified that a strange man had called on her mistress that evening whom she would not be able to recognize, his face having been concealed in the folds of his cloak. After admitting him into the house, and calling Mrs. Stevens, the girl had gone out on a short errand, and on her return, found her mistress in the situation described, and quite dead. The old lady was buried; but her murderer broke open the tomb, and carried the corpse to the dungeon of the Vaults, where he had placed her with the other victims, in the position in which Sydney, her nephew, now found her. 'It is as I suspected,' thought our hero, as he sadly viewed the remains of his poor aunt--'that villain murdered her, and now it is forever out of my power to avenge her blood. Ha! what's this?--_my name_, upon an empty chair.' And so it was; the name, Francis Sydney, was written out on the back of an unoccupied chair; he comprehended that this was designated to be _his_ seat when he should form one of that awful crew, in the chamber of Death. Suddenly, the damp, foul air of the place extinguished the light of his lamp, and he found himself in total darkness. CHAPTER XXIII _Showing how Sydney was tortured in the Chamber of Death, and how he made his escape through the City Sewers._ Groping his way to the extremity of the dungeon, Frank sat down upon the stone steps, his mind a prey to feelings of keenest horror and despair. His soul recoiled from the idea of suicide, as a heinous crime in the sight of Heaven, or he would have dashed his brains out against the walls of his prison, and thus put an end to his misery. Vainly he tried to forget his sorrows in sleep; no sooner would he close his eye-lids, than the band of skeletons would seem to rush towards him, and with fleshless arms beckon him to join their awful company. Slowly, slowly passed the hours away. Numbed with cold, and paralyzed with the terrors of his situation, Sydney was at last sinking into a state of insensibility, when he was aroused by the loud noise caused by the opening of the dungeon door, and the gleam of a lantern flashed upon him. He staggered to his feet, and saw that his visitors were the two villains, Maggot and Bloodhound. One of them came down the steps and deposited upon the floor a small basket and a lamp. 'Here,' said he--'is some _grub_ for you, and a light to scare away the ghosts. Eat your fill--you will need it; for in an hour from this time, our captain will visit you to commence his tortures, in which I and my comrade will be obliged to help him.' 'Why will you aid that wretch in his cruelties?' asked Sydney--'I never injured you; pray act like a man of heart and feeling, and release me from this dreadful place.' '_Release you!_' cried the man--'I dare not. True, I have no animosity against you, young man; but our Captain has, and were I to let you go, life would not be worth a minute's purchase. I'd not incur that man's wrath for a million of money. No, no, make up your mind to the worst--you can never go out of this dungeon.' With this consoling assurance, the man and his comrade took their departure. On examining the contents of the basket, our hero found an ample supply of good, wholesome food, and a jug of water; and while heartily partaking of these necessities, (of which he stood in great need,) he could not help comparing his situation with that of an animal being fattened for slaughter! An hour elapsed; the dungeon was again opened, and the Dead Man entered, followed by Maggot and Bloodhound. The two latter worthies carried between them an apparatus of singular appearance and construction. 'Well, dog,' cried the Dead Man, 'how do you like your new kennel? Not so comfortable, I'll swear, as your fine house on Broadway! Faith, a fine prayer you made last night, after we left you; you called on God to help you--ha, ha! Fool--_he_ cannot help you!--_I_ alone can do it. Down, then, on your marrow bones and worship me!' And saying this, he raised his right arm, and with it struck his victim heavily on his head; the extremity of the arm, where the hand had been cut off, had been furnished with a piece of iron like a sledge-hammer, to enable the ruffian to possess the means of attack and defence. Fortunate it was that the blow did not fracture Sydney's skull. Meanwhile Maggot and Bloodhound had placed the machine which they had brought with them upon the floor and began to prepare it for use. The vaults of the Spanish Inquisition never contained a more horrible instrument of torture. It was a box made of iron and shaped like a coffin; the sides and bottom were covered with sharp nails, firmly fixed with their points outwards; beneath the box was a sort of furnace, filled with shavings and charcoal. This apparatus was called by the ruffians--_The Bed of Ease_. Sydney was made to strip himself entirely naked, and lie down in the box; then the cover was fastened on. The points of the nails penetrated his flesh, causing him the most excruciating torture; blood started profusely from all parts of his body, and he could scarce repress groans of the most heart-felt anguish. But this was nothing to what he was doomed to endure; for the demons in human shape kindled a fire beneath him, and when nature could hold out no longer, and he screamed with agony, his tormentors roared with laughter. They released him when a cessation of his cries warned them that he could hold out no longer without endangering his life--for they wished him to live to endure future torments. He was truly a pitiable object when taken from the box--his flesh torn and bleeding, and horribly burnt. They rubbed him with oil, assisted him to dress and laid him upon a heap of straw which one of them brought. They then left him, after assuring him that, as soon as he was healed, they had tortures in store for him much more severe than the one just inflicted. The iron box they left behind them in the dungeon, probably intending to use it again on some future occasion. In what a deplorable situation did poor Sydney now find himself placed! Nearly dead with the torments which he had just undergone, his mind was harassed by the dread of other and more severe tortures yet in store for him. How gladly would he have bared his bosom to the deadly stroke of the knife, or the fatal discharge of the pistol! But exhausted nature could hold out no longer, and he fell into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened by the entrance of some person into the dungeon. Starting up, he was confronted by the dark and menacing visage of the Dead Man. The villain was alone and held in his left hand a large knife; Sydney perceived, by his unsteady gait, his wildly rolling eyes, and his thick, indistinct utterance, that he was much intoxicated. 'I am come, dog,' said he, with a look that a demon might have envied--'to feast upon your heart, and drink your blood. My soul is hungry. I wish you had a thousand lives for me to take. Sit up, and let me dig out your eyes, and cut off your nose, ears and fingers--for you must die by inches! Get up, I say!' 'The monster is drunk,' thought Sydney; 'had I a weapon and sufficient strength, I might perhaps overcome him; but alas! I am weak and sore--' 'Get up!' again roared the ruffian,'that I may sacrifice ye upon the flaming altar of Satan, my deity. My heart is a coal of fire; it burns me, and blood alone can quench it!' With the howl of a wild beast, he threw himself upon his victim. But ere he could strike the deadly blow, he was writhing and struggling in the powerful grasp of a tall, stout man, who at that crisis rushed into the dungeon. 'Now, reptile, I have thee!' muttered the Doctor, (for it was he) as with mighty and resistless strength he dashed the miscreant to the floor and deprived him of his knife. But the Dead Man struggled with all the fury of desperation; with his _iron hand_ he made rapid and savage passes at the head of his assailant, knowing that a single well-directed blow would stun him. But the Doctor's science in pugilism enabled him to keep off the blows with ease, while he punished his antagonist in the most thorough and satisfactory manner. Finding himself likely to be overcome, the villain yelled at the top of his voice--'Treason! murder! help!' 'Your handkerchief, Mr. Sydney--quick!' cried the Doctor. Frank, who had already arisen from his bed of straw, handed his gallant protector the article he had called for--and, though very weak, assisted in gagging the vanquished ruffian, who, breathless and exhausted, could now offer but a slight resistance. 'Into the box with him!' exclaimed the Doctor, and the next minute the Dead Man was stretched upon the points of the sharp nails; the lid was closed upon him, the fire was lighted beneath, and he writhed in all the torture he had inflicted upon poor Sydney. Suddenly, the Doctor assumed a listening attitude, and whispered to his companion-- 'By heavens, the band is aroused, and the Knights are coming to the rescue. If they capture us, we are lost! There is but one way for us to escape--and that is _through the sewers_, a dreadful avenue! Will you dare it?' 'I will dare anything, to escape from this earthly hell!' cried our hero, vigor returning to his frame as he thought of liberty. 'Follow me, then,' said the Doctor, taking up the lamp, and hurrying up the dungeon steps; he led the way, at a rapid pace, up another high flight of steps, to a point which overlooked the city sewers. By the dim light of the lamp, Frank saw, twenty feet below, the dark, sluggish and nauseous stream of the filthy drainings of the vast city overhead, which, running thro' holes under the edges of the sidewalk, collect in these immense subterranean reservoirs, and are slowly discharged into the river. 'Leap boldly after me--you will land in the mud, and break no bones,' said the Doctor--'our enemies are at our heels!' A fact that was demonstrated by the sound of many footsteps hurrying rapidly towards them. The Doctor leaped into the dark and terrible abyss. Sydney heard the splash of his fall into the muddy water, and nerving himself for the deed, jumped in after him; he sank up to his chin in the loathsome pool. His friend grasped his hand, and whispered--'We are now safe from our pursuers, unless they follow us, which is hardly probable; for I confess these sewers are so full of horrors, that even those villains would hesitate to pass through them, unless under circumstances as desperate as ours.' Frank shuddered. 'Will they not fire upon us?' he asked. The Doctor answered:-- 'No, they dare not; for the noise of fire-arms would be heard in the streets above, and people might be led to inquire into the cause of such a phenomena. Fortunately my lamp is not extinguished, and as the mud is not over our heads, we may make our way out of this infernal trap, provided we are not devoured by rats and reptiles, which swarm here. Ah, by Jupiter, there are our pursuers!' And as he spoke, some fifteen or twenty men appeared above them, on the point from which they had jumped. On seeing the fugitives, they setup a shout of surprise and anger. 'A pretty trick you've served us, Doctor,' called out the fellow known as Bloodhound--'you've nearly roasted the Dead Man, and carried off his prisoner; however, we rescued our Captain just in time to save his life. You had better come back, or we'll blow your brains out!'--and he levelled a pistol. 'Blow and be d----d,' coolly remarked the Doctor, who knew very well that he dare not fire--'come, Mr. Sydney, follow me, and leave these fellows to talk to the empty air.' With much difficulty the two fugitives began to move off through the mud and water. 'What, cowards, will you let them escape before your eyes?' roared the Dead Man, as he rushed up to the brink of the chasm, and glared after Sydney and his friend with flaming eyes. 'Plunge in after them, and bring them back, or by G----every man of you shall die the death of a dog!' Not a man stirred to obey the order; and the miscreant would have leaped into the sewers himself, had they not forcibly held him back. 'No, no, Captain,' cried Maggot--'the Doctor's too much for you; you've only got one hand now, and you'd be no match for him, for he's the devil's pup at a tussle. Let them both slide this time; you may catch them napping before long. As it is, they've got but a devilish small chance of escape, for it rains terribly overhead, which will fill up the sewers, and drown them like kittens.' Meanwhile, Frank and his brave deliverer struggled manfully through the foul waters which encompassed them. Soon an angle in the wall concealed them from their enemies; and they entered a passage of vast extent, arched overhead with immense blocks of stone. This section of the sewers was directly under Canal street, and pursued a course parallel with that great avenue, until its contents were emptied into the North river. Our subterranean travellers could distinctly hear the rumbling of the carts and carriages in the street above them, like the rolling of thunder. It was an awful journey, through that dark and loathsome place. At every few steps they encountered the putrid carcase of some animal, floating on the surface of the sickening stream. As they advanced, hundreds of gigantic rats leaped from crevices in the wall, and plunged into the water. Their lamp cast its dim rays upon the green, slimy stone-work on either side of them; and their blood curdled with horror as they saw, clinging there, hideous reptiles, of prodigious size, engendered and nourished there. They imagined that at every step they took, they could feel those monsters crawl and squirm beneath their feet--and they trembled lest the reptiles should twine around their limbs, and strike deadly venom to their blood. But a new terror came to increase their fears; the water was growing deeper every instant, and threatened to overwhelm them. Sydney overcome by the awful effluvia, grew too sick and faint to proceed further; he requested the Doctor to leave him to his fate--but the gallant man raised his sinking form in his powerful arms, and struggled bravely on. 'Courage, my friend,' cried the Doctor--'we are near the river, for I see a light ahead, glimmering like a star of hope!' In ten minutes more they emerged from the sewers, and plunged into the clear waters of the North river. Without much difficulty they got on board of a sloop which lay moored at the wharf; and as Sydney had money, he easily procured a change of raiment for himself and friend, from the skipper, who was too lazy to ask any questions, and who was very well satisfied to sell them two suits of clothes at five times their value. Frank took the Doctor to his home, resolved never to part with so faithful and gallant a friend, whose faults had been the faults of unfortunate circumstances, but whose heart, he felt assured, was 'in the right place.' Poor Clinton, the dumb boy, welcomed his master and his old acquaintance the Doctor, with mute eloquence. Dennis, the Irish footman, was almost crazy with delight at Mr. Sydney's safe return, swearing that he thought him 'murthered and kilt intirely.' That awful night was so indelibly stamped upon the memory of our hero, that often, in after times, it haunted him in his dreams. CHAPTER XXIV _The Marriage--The Intoxicated Rector--Miseries of an aged Bridegroom on his Wedding Night._ Mrs. Belmont was seated in the elegant parlor of her residence in Reade street. It was the evening appointed for her marriage with Mr. Hedge, and she was dressed in bridal attire--a spotless robe of virgin white well set off her fine form and rich complexion, while a chaplet of white roses made a beautiful contrast with the dark, luxuriant hair on which it rested. A superb French clock on the marble mantel piece proclaimed in silvery tones, the hour of seven. 'He will soon be here,' she murmured--'to carry me to the house of the clergyman, there to be made his wife. How little the fond, foolish old man suspects the snare in which he is about to fall! How admirably have my artifices deceived him! And the other evening when in the heat of passion, he pressed me to grant him a certain favor in advance of our marriage, how well I affected indignation, and made him beg for forgiveness! Oh, he thinks me the most virtuous of my sex--but there is his carriage; now for the consummation of my hopes!' Mr. Hedge entered the room, and raising her jewelled hand to his lips, kissed it with rapture. The old gentleman was dressed in a style quite juvenile;--his coat was of the most modern cut, his vest and gloves white, and his cambric handkerchief fragrant with _eau de cologne_. To make himself look as young as possible, he had dyed his gray hair to a jet black, and his withered cheeks had been slightly tinged with _rouge_, to conceal the wrinkles, and give him a youthful, fresh appearance. He certainly looked twenty years younger than ever, but he could not disguise his infirm gait and the paralytic motions of his body. But let not the reader suppose that he was either a superannuated coxcomb or a driveling dotard. He was a man of sense and feeling, but his passion for Julia had, for the time, changed all his manner and habits.--He saw that she was a young and lovely woman, about to give herself to the arms of a man thrice her age; and he wished to render the union less repugnant to her, by appearing to be as youthful as possible himself. Therefore, he had made up his toilet as we have described, not from personal vanity, but from a desire to please his intended bride. We wish not to disguise the fact that Mr. Hedge was an exceedingly amorous old gentleman; and that in taking Julia to his matrimonial embrace, he was partially actuated by the promptings of the flesh. But in justice to him we will state that these were not the only considerations which had induced him to marry her; he wanted a companion and friend--one whose accomplishments and buoyancy of spirits would serve to dispel the loneliness and _ennui_ of his solitary old age. Such a person he fancied he had found in the young, beautiful 'widow,' Mrs. Belmont. 'Sweetest Julia,' said the aged bridegroom, enclosing her taper waist with her arm--'the carriage is at the door, and all is in readiness to complete our felicity. To-night we will revel in the first joys of our union in my own house--to-morrow, as you have requested, we depart for Boston.' 'Ah, dearest,' murmured Julia, as her ripe lips were pressed to his--'you make me so happy! How young you look tonight! What raptures I anticipate in your arms! Feel how my heart beats with the wildness of passion!' She placed his hand into her fair, soft bosom, and he felt that her heart was indeed throbbing violently; yet 'twas not with amorous passion, as she had said; no, 'twas with fierce triumph at the success of her schemes. The contact of his hand with her voluptuous charms, inflamed him with impatient desire. 'Come,' cried he,--'let us no longer defer the blissful hour that gives you to my arms.' In a few minutes Julia was ready; and the happy pair, seating themselves in the carriage, were driven to the abode of Dr. Sinclair, who was to perform the marriage ceremony. We said _happy_ pair--yes, they were indeed so; the old gentleman was happy in the prospect of having such a beautiful creature to share his fortune and bed; and the young lady was happy in the certainty of having secured a husband whose wealth would enable her to live in luxury and splendor. They arrive at the rector's residence, and are ushered into a spacious apartment. Everything is handsome and costly, yet everything is in disorder; judging from appearances one would suppose that the place was occupied by a gentleman of intemperate habits--not by a minister of the gospel. The rich carpet is disfigured with many stains, which look marvelously like the stains produced by the spilling of port wine. The mirror is cracked; the sofa is daubed with mud; a new hat lies crushed beneath an overturned chair. An open Bible is upon the table, but on it stand a decanter and a wine-glass; and the sacred page is stained with the blood-red juice of the grape. On the mantle-piece are books, thrown in a confused pile; the collection embraces all sorts--Watts' hymn book reposes at the side of the 'Frisky Songsters,' the Pilgrim's Progress plays hide-and-seek with the last novel of Paul de Kock; while 'Women of Noted Piety' are in close companionship with the 'Voluptuous Turk.' Soon the rector enters, and there is something in his appearance peculiar, if not suspicious. His disordered dress corresponds with his disordered room. His coat is soiled and torn, his cravat is put on awry, and his linen is none of the cleanest. He salutes Brother Hedge and his fair intended, in an unsteady voice, while his eyes wander vacantly around the apartment, and he leans against a chair for support. 'How very strangely he looks and acts,' whispered Julia to her frosty bridegroom--'surely he can't be _tipsy_?' 'Of course not,' replied Mr. Hedge--'such a supposition with reference to our beloved pastor would be sacrilege. He is only somewhat agitated; he is extremely sensitive, and deep study has doubtless operated to the injury of his nervous system. My dear Brother Sinclair, we are waiting for you to perform the ceremony,' he added, in a louder tone. 'Waiting--ceremony--' said the rector, abstractedly, gazing upward at the ceiling--'Oh, marriage ceremony, you mean? Ah, yes, I had forgotten. Certainly. Quite right, Brother Hedge, or Ditch--ha, ha! Excuse me. All ready.' We shall not attempt to imitate the rector, in his manner of performing the ceremony, as we deem the matter to be too serious for jest; but we will say, never before was ceremony performed in so strange a manner. However, to all intents and purposes, they were married; and at the conclusion of the service, the bridegroom slipped a fifty-dollar note into the rector's hand, and then conducted his lovely bride to the carriage, in which they were soon driven to Mr. Hedge's residence in Hudson street. In explanation of the singular conduct of Dr. Sinclair, we will state that he became a wine-bibber and a drunkard. Remorse for his amorous follies with Josephine, and horror at her crimes, had driven him to drown such painful remembrances in the bottle. The very next day after he had accused the mother and daughter of the murder, he drank himself into a state of intoxication, and each subsequent day witnessed a renewal of the folly. On the Sabbath, he managed to preserve a tolerably decent degree of sobriety, but his appearance plainly indicated a recent debauch, and his style of preaching was tame and irregular. His congregation viewed him with suspicion and distrust privately; but as yet, no public charge had been made against him. He knew very well that he could not long continue in his own unworthy course, and be a minister of the gospel; he plainly saw the precipice over which he hung--but with mad infatuation he heeded not the danger, and rushed onwards to his ruin. His house became the scene of disorder and revelry. His servants neglected their duties when he so far forgot himself as to make them familiar associates of his orgies. The voice of prayer was no longer heard in his dwelling: the Bible was cast aside. Blasphemy had supplanted the one and obscene books had taken the place of the other. We shall see how rapid was his downfall, and to what a state of degradation he sunk at last. But we return for the present to Mr. Hedge and his newly-made wife. They alighted at the old gentleman's princely mansion in Hudson street and entered a magnificent apartment in which a bridal supper had been prepared for them. Julia, as the mistress of the house, was received with the most profound respect by half a score of domestics, clad in plain but costly livery. Everything betokened unbounded wealth, and the repast was served on a scale of splendid luxury--every article of plate being of massive silver. Viands the most _recherche_ graced the board, and wines the most rare added zest to the feast. There, sparkling like the bright waters of the Castalian fountain, flowed the rich Greek wine--a classic beverage, fit for the gods; there, too, was the delicate wine of Persia, fragrant with the spices of the East; and the diamond-crested champagne, inspiring divinities of poesy and Love. 'Drink, my Julia,' cried the happy bridegroom--'one cup to Hymen, and then let us seek his joys in each other's arms. I have a chamber prepared for us, which I have dedicated to Venus and to Cupid; there hath Love spread his wing, and beneath it shall we enjoy extatic repose. Come, dearest.' He took her hand, and preceded by a female domestic bearing candles, conducted her up a broad marble staircase; they entered an apartment sumptuously furnished--it was the bridal chamber. The footstep fell noiseless upon the thick and yielding carpet; each chair was a gilded throne, and each sofa a luxurious divan, cushioned with purple velvet. Vast paintings, on subjects chiefly mythological, were reflected in immense mirrors, reaching from floor to ceiling. The bed was curtained with white satin, spangled with silver stars; and a wilderness of flowers, in exquisite vases, enriched the atmosphere with their perfume. The old gentleman kissed his bride, whispered a few words in her ear, and left the chamber, followed by the domestic. Then Julia was waited upon by two young ladies, dressed in white, who saluted her respectfully, and signified their desire to assist her in disrobing. 'We are only servants, madam,' said they, modestly,--'we perform the duties of housekeepers for Mr. Hedge, and are highly honored if we can be of service to his lady.' But the truth is, these young ladies were the illegitimate daughters of the old gentleman. Tho' Julia was his first wife, in his young days he had formed an attachment for a poor but lovely young woman; circumstances would not admit of his marrying her, and as she loved him in return, they tasted the joys of Venus without lighting the torch of Hymen. The young woman became _enciente_, and died in giving birth to twins--both daughters. Mr. Hedge brought these children up under his own roof, and educated them liberally; yet while he treated them with the most indulgent kindness, he never acknowledged himself to be their father, fearing that if the fact became known, it would injure his reputation as a man and a Christian, he being a zealous church member. The girls themselves were ignorant of their parentage, and only regarded Mr. Hedge as their generous benefactor. They had been taught to believe that they had been abandoned by their parents in their infancy, and that the old gentleman had taken them under his protection from motives of charity. They were of a gentle disposition, beloved by all who knew them, and by none more so than by Mr. Hedge, who maintained them as ladies although he suffered them to superintend the affairs of his extensive bachelor establishment. Their names were Emma and Lucy. While these young ladies are engaged in disrobing the fair (but _not_ blushing) bride, let us seek the newly-elected husband, in the privacy of his library. A library--How we love to linger in such a place, amid the thousands of volumes grown dingy with the accumulated dust of years!--We care not for one of your modern libraries, with its spruce shelves, filled with the sickly effusions of romantic triflers--the solemn, philosophical nonsense of Arthur, the dandified affectation of Willis, and the clever but wearisome twittle-twattle of Dickens--once great in himself, now living on the fading reputation of past greatness; we care not to enter a library made up of such works, all faultlessly done up in the best style of binder. No--we love to pass long solitary hours in one of those old depositories of choice literature made venerable by the rich mellowing of time, and the sombre tapestry of cobwebs which are undisturbed by the intrusive visitation of prim housemaids. There, amid antique volumes, caskets of thought more precious than gems, how delightful to commune with the bright spirit of dead authors, whose inspired pens have left behind them the glorious scintillations of immortal genius, which sparkle on every page! When the soft light of declining day steals gently into the dusky room, and dim shadows hover in every nook, the truly contemplative mind pores with a quiet rapture over the sublime creations of Shakespeare, the massive grandeur of Scott, and the glowing beauties of Byron. Then are the dull realities of life forgotten, and the soul revels in a new and almost celestial existence. In such a place do we now find Mr. Hedge, but he is not feasting on the delicacies of an elevated literature. Far differently is he engaged: he is entirely undressed, and reclining at full length in a portable bath, which is one-third full of _wine_. Such luxurious bathing is often resorted to by wealthy and superannuated gentlemen, who desire to infuse into their feeble limbs a degree of youthful activity and strength, which temporarily enables them to accomplish gallantries under the banner of Venus, of which they are ordinarily incapable. 'Oh that I were young!' ejaculated the bridegroom, as with a melancholy air he contemplated his own wasted frame. 'Would that thro' my veins, as in days of yore, there leaped the fiery current of vigorous youth! Alas seventy winters have chilled my blood and while my wishes are as ardent as ever, my physical organization is old, and weak, and shattered--and I fear me, cannot carry out the warm promptings of my enamored soul. How gladly would I give all my wealth, for a new lease of life, that I might revel in the joys of youth again!' He rang a small bell, and a valet entered, bearing a dish containing a highly nutritious broth, which he had caused to be prepared on account of its invigorating properties. After partaking of this rich and savory mess, and having drank a glass of a certain cordial celebrated for its renovating influence, he arose, and his valet rubbed him vigorously with a coarse towel, then slipping on a few garments and a dressing-gown, he repaired to the bridal chamber with a beating heart. The two young ladies, having performed their task, had retired, and Julia was on the couch awaiting her husband's coming. As he entered, she partly rose from her recumbent posture, with a smile of tender invitation lighting up her charming face; and rushing forward, he strained her passionately to his breast. Then came a torrent of eager kisses, and a thousand whispered words of tenderness and love--sincere on the part of the old gentleman, but altogether affected on the part of Julia, who felt not the slightest degree of amorous inclination towards him. Yet he imagined her to be, like himself, fired with passion, and full of desire. His eyes feasted upon the beauties of her glorious form, which, so seductively voluptuous, was liberally exposed to his gaze; and his trembling hand wandered amid the treasures of her swelling bosom, so luxuriant in its ripened fullness. Soon the withered form of the aged bridegroom is encircled by the plump, soft arms of his beautiful young bride. There are kisses, and murmurings, and sighs--but there is a heavy load of disappointment on the heart of the husband, who curses the three score and ten years that bind his warm wishes with a chain of ice; and he prays in vain for the return--even the temporary return--of glad youth, with its vigor, and its joys. Julia comprehends all, and secretly congratulates herself on his imbecility which releases her from embraces that are repugnant to her, though she assumes an air of tender concern at his distress. Maddened at a failure so mortifying, Mr. Hedge half regrets his marriage. Oh, why does weak tottering age seek to unite itself with warm, impetuous youth! The ice of winter is no congenial mate for the fresh, early flower of spring. How often do we see old, decrepit men wooing and wedding young girls, purchased by wealth from mercenary parents! Well have such sacrifices to Lust and Mammon, been termed _legalized prostitution_. And does not such a system excuse, if not justify, infidelity on the part of the wife? An old, drivelling dotard takes to his home and bed a virgin in her teens, whom he has purchased, but as he has gone through a formal ceremony, law and the world pronounce her wife. His miserable physical incapacity provokes without satisfying the passions of his victim; and in the arms of a lover she secretly enjoys the solace which she cannot derive from her legal owner. Then, if she is detected, how the world holds up its ten thousand hands in pious horror!--Wives who have _young_ husbands are eloquent in their censure; old women who have long passed the rubicon of love and feeling, denounce her a _shameless hussey_; while the old reprobate who calls himself her husband, says to his indignant and sympathizing friends--'I took her from a low station in life; I raised her to a position of wealth and rank, and see how ungrateful she is.' Irritated by the disappointment, he arose, threw on his garments, and muttering a confused apology, left the chamber, taking with him a light. As he closed the door behind him, Julia burst into a gay silvery laugh. 'Poor old man!' she said to herself,--'how disconcerted he is!' I could scarce keep myself from laughing. Well, he is not likely to prove very troublesome to me as a husband, and I'm glad of it, for really, the pawings, and kisses, and soft nonsense of such an old man are disgusting to me. Heigho! when we get to Boston, I must look out for a lover or two, to atone for the lamentable deficiencies of that withered cypher.' When Mr. Hedge quitted the chamber, he went directly to his library, and rang the bell violently. In a few minutes the summons was answered by his valet. This man was of middle age, and rather good-looking, but possessed what is generally called a wicked eye. 'Brown,' said his master--'make a fire in this room, and bring up some wine and refreshments. I shall pass the night here.' 'The devil!' thought Brown, as he sat about obeying these orders--'master going to pass the night in his library, and just married to a woman so handsome that one's mouth waters to look at her! They've either had a quarrel, or else the old man has found himself mistaken in some of his calculations. I'm a fool if I don't turn things to my advantage. I see it all; she has cheated old Hedge into marrying her, although she has a husband already. She did not know me, in this livery; but she soon shall know me. Why, she's in my power completely, and if she don't do just as I want her to, d----n me if I don't _blow_ on her, and spoil all her fun!' We may as well enter into an explanation at once. This valet, called Brown, was no other than Davis--Frank Sydney's former butler--who had been sent to the State Prison for the term of five years, for his participation in the attempt to rob his master's house. In less than a month after his removal to Sing Sing, he was pardoned out by the Governor, who, being a good-natured man, could not refuse to grant the request of the prisoner's friends. On being set at liberty, Davis assumed the name of Brown, and entered the service of Mr. Hedge as valet. He had instantly recognized in the newly-made wife of his master, his former mistress, Mrs. Sydney;--but she knew him not, as his appearance was greatly changed. Being a shrewd fellow, he saw through the whole affair, and understanding her exact position, was resolved to take advantage of it, as soon as a proper opportunity should present itself. The fire was made, the refreshments were brought, and the valet stood as if awaiting further orders. 'Sit down, Brown,' said his master, 'and take a glass of wine. You know that I was married to-night to a young lady--you saw her. Ah, she's a beautiful creature; and yet she might as well be a stick or a stone, for I am too old and worn-out to enjoy her charms. I did wrong to marry her; she's an estimable lady, and deserves a husband capable of affording her the satisfaction which I cannot--Yet I'll do my utmost to make her happy; I know that she will be faithful to me. Hereafter we will occupy separate chambers; and as I cannot discharge the duties of a husband, I will become a father to her. To-morrow we depart for Boston; and as I still need the services of a valet, you can go with me if you choose.' 'Thank'ee, sir; I shall be glad to go with you,' said Brown. 'Then that matter is settled,' rejoined Mr. Hedge--'you can leave me now; I shall not want you again to-night. I will stretch myself upon this sofa, and try to sleep.' The valet bade his master good night, and left the library; but instead of going to his own room, he crept stealthily towards the chamber of Julia, now Mrs. Hedge. At the door he paused and listened; but hearing nothing, he softly opened the door, and glided in with noiseless steps, but with a palpitating heart, for it was a bold step he was taking--he, a low menial, to venture at midnight into the bed-chamber of his master's wife! Yet he was a daring fellow, lustful and reckless; and he fancied that his knowledge of the lady's true history, and her fear of exposure, would render her willing to yield her person to his wishes. He approached the bed, and found that she was sleeping. The atmosphere of the room was warm and heavy with voluptuous perfumes; and the dying light of the wax candles shed but a dim and uncertain ray upon the gorgeous furniture, the showy drapery of the bed, and the denuded form of the fair sleeper; denuded of everything but one slight garment, whose transparent texture imperfectly concealed charms we dare not describe. How gently rose and fell that distracting bosom, with its prominent pair of luscious _twin sisters_, like two polished globes of finest alabaster! A soft smile parted her rosy lips, disclosing the pearly teeth; and her clustering hair lay in rich masses upon the pillow. So angelic was her appearance, and so soft her slumbers that a painter would have taken her as a model for a picture of Sleeping Innocence. Yet, within that beautiful exterior, dwelt a soul tarnished with guilty passion, and void of the exalted purity which so ennobles the exquisite nature of woman. Long gazed the bold intruder upon that magnificent woman; and the sight of her ravishing charms made his breath come fast and thick, and his blood rushed madly through his veins. Trembling with eager wishes and a thousand fears, he bent over her and, almost touching his lips to hers, inhaled the fragrance of her breath, which came soft as a zephyr stirring the leaves of a rose. Then he laid his hand upon her bosom, and passed it daringly over the swelling and luxuriant outlines. Julia partially awoke, and mistaking the disturber of her slumbers for Mr. Hedge, languidly opened her eyes, and murmured--'Ah, dearest, have you returned?' The valet replied by imprinting a hot kiss upon her moist, red lips; but at that moment the lady saw that it was not her husband who had ravished the kiss. Starting up in bed she exclaimed, in mingled surprise and alarm-- 'Good heavens, who is this?--Fellow, what do you want, how dare you enter this chamber?' 'Why, ma'am,' said Brown, doggedly--'I knew that master is old, and no fit companion for such a lively young woman as you be, and I thought--' 'No more words, sir!' cried Julia, indignantly--'leave this room instantly--go at once, and I am willing to attribute your insolence to intoxication--but linger a moment, and I will alarm the house, and give you up to the anger of your master!' 'Oh, no missus,' said the fellow, coolly--'If _that_ be your game, I can play one worth two of it. Give the alarm--rouse up the servants--bring your husband here--and I'll expose you before them all as the wife of Mr. Sydney, turned out by him, for a nasty scrape with a negro footman! Missus you don't remember me, but I've lived in your house once, and know _you_ well enough. I am Davis, the butler, very much at your service.' 'I recollect you now,' rejoined Julia, scornfully--'You are the scoundrel who treacherously admitted burglars into the house, and who was captured and sent to the State Prison, from which you were pardoned, as I saw stated in the newspapers. You are mistaken if you think that a dread of exposure will induce me to submit to be outraged by you. Heavens, I will not yield my person to every ruffian who comes to me with threats of exposure! Vile menial, I will dare ruin and death sooner than become the slave of your lust!' As she uttered these words with a tone and air of indignant scorn, she looked more superbly beautiful than ever--her dark eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and her uncovered bosom heaved with excitement and anger. But Brown was a determined ruffian, and resolved to accomplish his purpose even if obliged to resort to force. Grasping the lady by both arms, he said, in a stern whisper-- 'Missus, I am stronger than you be--keep quiet, and let me have my way and you shan't be hurt; but if you go to kicking up a rumpus, why d----n me if I won't use you rather roughly.' He forced her back upon the bed, and placed his heavy hand over her mouth, to prevent her from screaming. Holding her in such a position that she could not move, he covered her face, neck and breasts with lecherous kisses; and was preparing to complete the outrage, when the report of a pistol thundered through the chamber, and the ruffian fell upon the carpet, weltering in his blood. His body had been perforated by a ball from a revolver, in the hands of Mr. Hedge. 'Die, you d----d treacherous villain,' cried the old gentleman, swearing for the first time in his life. The dying wretch turned his malignant eyes upon Julia, and gasped, faintly-- 'Mr. Hedge--your wife--false--negro--Sydney--' He could say no more, for the hand of death was upon him; and gnashing his teeth with rage and despair, he expired. Mr. Hedge had paid no attention to the ruffian's dying words; for he had caught Julia in his arms, and was inquiring anxiously if she were hurt. 'No, dearest,' she replied--'only frightened. But how came you to arrive so opportunely to my rescue?' 'I was endeavoring to get some sleep on the sofa in my library,' answered the old gentleman--'when suddenly I fancied I heard a noise in your chamber. Thinking that robbers might have got into the house, I grasped a pistol, and cautiously approached the door of this room. Pausing a moment to listen, I heard the villain threaten you with violence in case you resisted; the door being open a little, I stepped into the room without making any noise, and saw him preparing to accomplish the outrage. Then I raised my pistol with unerring aim, and put a ball through his infernal carcass. Thank heaven, I have reserved my Julia from a fate worse than death.' Fortunately for Julia, he had not heard what had passed between her and the valet, in reference to her exposure. He believed her to be the most virtuous of her sex; while she was beyond measure rejoiced that Davis, who might have ruined her, was now dead. The next day the newly-married pair left New York for the city of Boston, according to previous arrangement. Arrived in that great metropolis, they took up their quarters at the most fashionable hotel, there to remain until Mr. Hedge should purchase a suitable house in which to take up their permanent residence. Julia had not neglected to bring her maid Susan with her, as that discreet abigail might be of service to her in any little matter of intrigue she might engage in. Nero, the black, she had discharged from her service. Her greatest happiness now arose from the belief that she had now escaped from the persecutions of the Dead Man. CHAPTER XXV _Servants' Frolics--a Footman in Luck--a Spectre--a Footman out of Luck--the Torture--the Murder, and Destruction of Franklin House._ We left Franklin House in charge of Simon, the favorite footman of Mrs. Franklin, who was to take care of the house until it should be sold, and then join his mistress in Boston. Now, although Simon was an honorable, faithful fellow enough, he soon grew intolerably lonesome, and heartily tired of being all alone in that great mansion. To beguile his time, he often invited other servants of his acquaintance to come and sup with him; and regardless of the orders of his mistress, several of his visitors were females. These guests he would entertain in the most sumptuous manner; and Franklin House became the scene of reckless dissipation and noisy revels, such as it had seldom witnessed before. One evening Simon invited a goodly number of his friends to a 'grand banquet,' as he pompously termed it; and there assembled in the spacious parlor about twenty male and female domestics from various houses in the neighborhood. The males included fat butlers, gouty coachman, lean footmen and sturdy grooms; and among the females were buxom cooks, portly laundresses and pretty ladies' maids. Simon had well nigh emptied the cellar of its choice contents, in order to supply wine to his guests; and towards midnight the party became uproarious in the extreme. We shall not attempt to sketch the toasts that were offered, nor the speeches that were made; neither shall we enter too minutely into the particulars of the game of 'hide-and-seek,' in which they indulged--or tell how our handsome footman chased some black-eyed damsel into a dark and distant chamber, and there tussled her upon the carpet, or tumbled her upon the bed, or perpetrated other little pleasantries of a similar nature. Suffice it to say, all these amusements were gone through with by the company, until tired of the sport, they reassembled in the parlor, and gathering around the fire, began to converse on ghosts. Reader, have you ever, at the solemn hour of midnight, while listening to the recital of some fearful visitation from the land of spirits, felt your hair to bristle, and your flesh to creep, and your blood to chill with horror, as you imagined that some terrible being was at that moment standing outside the door, ready to glide into the room and stand beside your chair? Did you not then dread to look behind you as you drew close to your companions, and became almost breathless with painful interest in the story? Solemn feeling prevailed among Simon's guests, as Toby Tunk, the fat coachman, who had been relating his experience in ghosts uttered the following words:-- 'Well, I was sitting by the coffin, looking at the corpse, when the door slowly opened, and--' Toby was fearfully interrupted, for the door of that room DID slowly open and there entered a being of so terrible an aspect, that all the assembled guests recoiled from its presence with horror and affright. It advanced towards the fireplace, seated itself in an unoccupied chair, and surveyed the company with menacing eyes. The form of the spectre was tall, and its countenance was ghastly and awful to behold; it was enveloped in a cloak, and where its right hand should have been, was a massive piece of iron which joined the wrist. At length, after an interval, during which all the guests came near dying with fear, it spoke in a harsh and threatening tone:-- 'Those of ye that belong not in this house, depart instantly, on peril of your lives; and if any there be who _do_ belong here, let them remain, and stir not!' All, with the exception of poor Simon, tremblingly left the room and the house, resolved never again to cross the threshold of a place visited by such fearful beings. The spectre then turned to the affrightened footman, and said, with a hideous frown-- 'Now, rascal, tell me what has become of your mistress and her daughter--where have they gone--speak!' But Simon, imagining that he had to do with a being from the other world, fell upon his knees and began to mutter a prayer. 'Accursed fool!' cried the supposed spectre, striking him with his iron hand--'does _that_ feel like the touch of a shadowy ghost? Get up, and answer me; I am no ghost, but a living man--living, though known as the Dead Man. Where have the two Franklin ladies gone?' Now Simon, convinced that his visitor was indeed no ghost, was beginning to regain his natural shrewdness: and remembering the injunctions of his mistress, not to reveal where she had gone, with her daughter, he replied, in accordance with the instructions which he had received-- 'The ladies have gone to Philadelphia.' 'Liar!' cried the Dead Man--'you betray yourself; had you answered with more hesitation, I might have believed you--the readiness of your reply proves its falsehood. Now, by hell! tell me correctly where the ladies have gone, or I'll murder you!' 'Not so fast, old dead face,' cried Simon, who was a brave fellow, and had by this time recovered all his courage--'perhaps you mightn't find it so easy to murder me, as you imagine. Once for all, I'll see you d----d before I will tell you where the ladies have gone.' The Dead Man smiled grimly as he surveyed the slight form of the footman; then, in a fierce tone, he demanded-- 'Are you mad?--Do you want to rush on headlong to ruin and death? Do you know me? I am one whose awful presence inspires fear in my friends, consternation in my foes. Puny wretch, will you give me the required information, ere I crush you as a worm?' 'No!' replied Simon, decidedly. 'Bah! I shall have work here,' said the other, calmly: then he sprung upon the footman, who, altogether unprepared for so sudden an attack, could make but a feeble resistance, especially in the grasp of a man who possessed more than twice his strength. The struggle was brief, for the Dead Man handled him as easily as if he were a child. Soon he was gagged and bound fast to a chair;--then the miscreant, with a diabolical grin, thrust the poker into the fire, and when it became red-hot, he drew it forth, saying-- 'I have found a way to loosen your tongue, d----n you! When you get ready to answer my question, nod your head, and the torture shall cease.' The monster applied the iron to various parts of his victim's body, burning through the clothes, and deep into the flesh. Simon winced with intense torture, yet he did not give the designated sign in token of submission until the skin was entirely burnt from his face, by the fiery ordeal. Then the Dead Man removed the gag from his mouth, and asked-- 'Where have the Franklin ladies gone, you infernal, obstinate fool?' 'To Boston,' gasped the miserable young man, and fainted. Ah! Simon, thy faithfulness to thy worthless mistress was worthy of a better cause! 'Boston, hey?' growled the villain--'then, by G----, I must go to Boston, too. Ah, I'm not at all surprised at their selecting that city for their place of refuge--for it is the abode of hypocrisy and lust; and they no doubt anticipate reaping a rich harvest there. But ere I depart for that virtuous and Christian city, I must finish my business here. And first to silence this fool's tongue forever!' He drew forth his deadly knife, and plunged it up to the hilt in his victim's throat. With scarce a groan or struggle, poor Simon yielded his spirit into the hands of his Maker. The murderer viewed his appalling work with satisfaction. His eyes seemed to feast upon the purple stream that gushed from the wound, and stained the carpet. It seemed as if, in the ferocity of his soul, he could have _drank_ the gory flood! 'Would that the human race had but one single throat, and I could cut it at a stroke,' he cried, adopting the sentiment of another: then, taking a lamp, he left the room, with the intention of exploring the house. One apartment he found carefully locked; and he was obliged to exert all his strength to break in the door. This room was furnished in a style of extravagant luxury; it was of great extent, and adorned with a multitude of paintings and statues, all the size of life. A silken curtain, suspended across the further end of the room, bore in large gilt letters, the words 'Sanctuary of the Graces.' And behind the curtain were collected a large number of figures, exquisitely made of wax, representing males and females, large as life, and completely nude, in every imaginable variety of posture, a few classical, others voluptuous, and many positively obscene. In this curious apartment--a perfect gallery of amorous conceptions--Josephine and her mother were in the habit of consummating those intrigues which they wished to invest with extraordinary _eclat_ and voluptuousness. Here they loved to feed their impure tastes by contemplating every phase of licentious dalliance; and here they indulged in extravagant orgies which will admit of no description. The intruder into this singular scene noticed a small iron apparatus attached to the wall; a sudden idea struck him--advancing, he touched a spring, and instantly every wax figure was in motion, imitating the movements of real life with wonderful fidelity! A closet in one corner contained the machinery of these automatons; and the whole affair was the invention of an ingenious German, whose talents had been misapplied to its creation. It had formerly constituted a private exhibition; but, after the murder of her husband, Mrs. Franklin had purchased it at a large cost. 'By Satan!' cried the Dead Man--'those Franklins are ladies after my own heart; lecherous, murderous and abandoned, they are meet companions for me. What a splendid contrivance! It needs but the additions of myself and the superb Josephine, to render it complete!' He left the room, and entered an elegant bed-chamber which adjoined it. It was the chamber of Josephine; and her full-length portrait hung upon the wall; there was her proud brow, her wanton eyes, her magnificent bust, uncovered, and seeming to swell with lascivious emotions. Everything was sumptuous, yet everything lacked that beautiful propriety which is so charming a characteristic of the arrangements of a virtuous woman--one whose purity of soul is mirrored in all that surrounds her. The bed, gorgeous though it was, seemed, in its shameless disorder, to have been a nest of riotous harlotry. Costly garments lay trampled under foot; a bird in a golden-wired prison, was gasping and dying for want of nourishment; splendidly-bound books, with obscene contents, were scattered here and there, and a delicate white slipper, which Cinderella might have envied, was stuffed full with letters. The Dead Man examined the documents; and among them was a paper, in the handwriting of Josephine, which we shall take the liberty of transcribing:-- 'PRIVATE JOURNAL.--'Monday. Passed last evening with Signor Pacci, the handsome Italian Opera singer. Was rather disappointed in my expectations; he is impetuous, but * * * *.' 'Tuesday. Have just made an appointment with ---- the actor; he came to my box last night, between the acts, and made a thousand tender pretensions. _Mem._--must try and get rid of Tom the coachman--am tired of him; besides it is _outre_ to permit liberties to a menial.' 'Thursday. Am bored to death with the persecutions of Rev. Mr. ----. I cannot endure him, he is so ugly. _Mem._--His son is a charming youth of sixteen; must try and get him.' 'Saturday. Dreadfully provoked with mother for her disgraceful _liaison_ with her new coachman. She promised to discharge the fellow--did not perceive my drift. _Mem._--Am to admit him to-night to my chamber.' 'Sunday. Heard Mr. ---- preach; he visits me to-night.' Having perused this precious _morceau_, the Dead Man thrust it into his pocket, and then, after a moment's reflection, deliberately applied the flame of the lamp to the curtains of the bed; and having waited to see the fire fairly started, he ran rapidly down stairs, and escaped from the house. Within a quarter of an hour afterwards, Franklin House was entirely enveloped in flames; and notwithstanding every effort was made to save the building, it was completely destroyed. In one short hour that magnificent and stately pile was reduced to a heap of smoking ruins. The destruction of this house and the property contained in it, brought Mrs. Franklin and her daughter to absolute poverty. When the news of the event reached them in Boston they were far from supposing that it was caused by the hideous ruffian whom they had so much reason to fear; they attributed the conflagration to the carelessness of Simon, and knew nothing of his having been murdered, but thought that, being intoxicated, he had perished in the flames. The mother and daughter held a long consultation as to the best means of retrieving their ruined fortunes; and the result was, they determined to send for Sophia, in order to make use of her in a damnable plot, which, while it would supply them abundantly with cash, would forever ruin the peace and happiness of that innocent and pure-minded girl. In answer to the summons, Sophia left the home of her relative in New Jersey, and joined her mother and sister in Boston. They received her with every demonstration of affection; and little did she suspect that an infamous scheme had been concocted between them, to sacrifice her upon the altars of avarice and lust. CHAPTER XXVI _Scene on Boston Common--George Radcliff--the Rescue--Two Model Policemen--Innocence protected--the Duel, and the Death--the Unknown._ After Frank Sydney's escape from the Dark Vaults, through the City Sewers, he did not deem it prudent to remain longer in New York. Accordingly, accompanied by the Doctor, the dumb boy Clinton, and his faithful servant Dennis, he left the city, to take up his abode elsewhere. None of his friends knew the place of his destination; some supposed that he had gone to Europe; others thought that he had emigrated to the 'far West'; while many persons imagined that he had exhausted his fortune, and been obliged to leave by the persecutions of creditors. Those who had been accustomed to borrow money from him, regretted his departure; but those who had been afflicted with jealousy at his good looks and popularity with _la belle sex_, expressed themselves as 'devilish glad he'd gone.' But, in truth, Frank had neither gone to Europe, nor to the far West, neither had he been driven away by creditors; his fortune was still ample, and adequate to all his wants, present and to come. Where, then, was our hero flown? impatiently demands the reader. Softly, and you shall know in good time. It was a beautiful afternoon, in spring, and Boston Common was thronged with promenaders of both sexes and all conditions. Here was the portly speculator of State street, exulting over the success of his last _shave_; here was the humble laborer, emancipated for a brief season from the drudgery of his daily toil; here was the blackleg, meditating on future gains; and here the pickpocket, on the alert for a victim. Then there were ladies of every degree, from the poor, decent wife of the respectable mechanic, with her troop of rosy children, down to the languishing lady of fashion, with her silks, her simperings, and her look of _hauteur_. Nor was there wanting, to complete the variety, the brazen-faced courtezan, with her 'nods,' and becks, and wreathed smiles, tho' to class _her_ with ladies of any grade, would be sacrilege. The weather was delicious; a soft breeze gently stirred the trees, which were beginning to assume the fair livery of spring, and the mild rays of the declining sun shone cheerily over the noble enclosure. In the principal mall a young lady was slowly walking with an air pensive and thoughtful. She could scarce have been over sixteen years of age--a beautiful blonde, with golden hair and eyes of that deep blue wherein dwells a world of expression. In complexion she was divinely fair; her cheeks were suffused with just enough of a rich carnation to redeem her angelic countenance from an unbecoming paleness. Her figure, _petite_ and surpassingly graceful, had scarce yet attained the matured fullness of womanhood; yet it was of exquisite symmetry.--Her dress was elegant without being gaudy, and tasteful without being ostentatious. Have you noticed, reader, while perusing this narrative, that nearly all the characters introduced have been more or less tainted with crime?--Even Sydney, good, generous and noble as he was, had his faults and weaknesses. Alas! human excellence is so very scarce, that had we taken it as the principal ingredient of our book, we should have made a slim affair of it, indeed. But you may remember, that in the former portions of our story, we made a slight allusion to one Sophia Franklin. _She_, excellent young lady! shall redeem us from the imputation of total depravity. Her virtue and goodness shall illumine our dark pages with a celestial light--even though her mother and sister were _murderesses_! Sophia Franklin it was, then, whom we have introduced as walking on the Common, with thoughtful and pensive air, on that fine afternoon in early spring. But _why_ thoughtful, and _why_ pensive? Surely she must be happy.--There certainly cannot exist a creature made in God's glorious image, who would plant the thorn of unhappiness in the pure breast of that gentle girl? There is. Her worst enemies are her nearest relatives. Her mother and sister are plotting to sacrifice her to the lust of a rich villain, for gold. Oh, GOLD!--Great dragon that doth feed on human tears, and human honor, and human blood! Thou art the poor man's phantom--the rich man's curse. Magic is thy power, thou yellow talisman; thou canst cause men and women to forget themselves, their neighbors, their God! See yon grey-headed fool, who hugs gold to his breast as a mother hugs her first born; he builds houses--he accumulates money--he dabbles in railroads. A great man, forsooth, is that miserly old wretch, who stoops from manhood to indulge the dirty promptings of a petty avarice. But is he happy? NO; how can such a thing be happy, even tho' he possess thousands accumulated by his detestable meanness--when men spit on him with contempt; decency kicks him, dishonorable care will kill him, infamy will rear his monument, and the devil will roast him on the hottest gridiron in hell--_and he knows it!_ But to resume. Slowly did Sophia pursue her walk to the end of the mall, and as slowly did she retrace her steps; then, crossing a narrow path, she approached the venerable old elm, whose antique trunk is a monument of time. She had scarcely made two circuits around this ancient tree, when a gentleman who had espied her from a distance, advanced and greeted her with a familiar air. On seeing him, she became much agitated, and would have walked rapidly away, had he not caught her by the arm and forcibly detained her. This gentleman was a person of distinguished appearance, tall, graceful figure, and fashionably dressed.--His countenance though eminently handsome, was darkly tinged with Southern blood, and deeply marked with the lines of dissipation and care. He wore a jet-black mustache and imperial and his air was at once noble and commanding. 'My pretty Sophia,' said the stranger, in a passionate tone--'why do you fly from me thus? By heavens, I love you to distraction, and have sworn a solemn oath that you shall be mine, though a legion of fiends oppose me!' 'Pray let me go, Mr. Radcliff,' said the young girl entreatingly--'you wish me to do wrong, and I cannot consent to it, indeed I cannot. As you are a gentleman, do not persecute me any more.' 'Persecute you--_never!_' exclaimed the libertine; 'become mine, and you shall have the devotion of my life-time to repay you for the sacrifice. Consent, sweet girl.' 'Never!' said Sophia, firmly; 'had you honorably solicited me to become your wife, I might have loved you; but you seek my ruin, and I despise, detest you. Let me go, sir, I implore--I command you!' 'Command _me_!' exclaimed the libertine, his eyes sparkling with rage--'silly child, it is George Radcliff who stands before you; a man whom none dare presume to command, but whom all are accustomed to _obey_! I am a monarch among women, and they bow submissive to my wishes. Listen, Sophia; I have for years plucked the fairest flowers in the gardens of female beauty, but I am sated with their intoxicating perfume, and sick of their gaudy hues. Your luxurious mother and fiery sister were acceptable to me for a time, and I enjoyed their voluptuous caresses with delight; but the devil! the conquest was too easily achieved. I soon grew tired of them and was about to withdraw my patronage, when to retain it, they mentioned _you_, describing you to be a creature of angelic loveliness; my passions were fired by the description, and I longed to add so fair and sweet a lily to the brilliant bouquet of my conquests. They sent for you to New Jersey; you came, and surpassed my highest anticipations. I paid your mother and sister a large sum for you, promising to double the amount as soon as you should become mine. I have so far failed in my efforts; unwilling to use violence, I have tried to accomplish my object by entreaty.--Now, since you will not listen to my entreaties, I shall resort to force.--This very night I have arranged to visit you, and then--and _then_, sweet one--' He drew the shrinking girl towards him, and in spite of her resistance, profaned her pure lips with unholy kisses. During the conversation just related, day had softly melted into dim twilight, and the loungers on the Common had mostly taken their departure; very few were in the vicinity of Radcliff and Sophia--and there was but one person who saw the scene of kissing and struggling that we have described. That person was a young and handsome man, well-dressed, and possessing an open, generous and manly countenance. Observing what was going on between the pair, and seeing that the young lady was suffering violence from her companion, he silently approached, nobly resolved to protect the weaker party, at all hazards. Sophia had partially escaped from the grasp of Radcliff, and he was about to seize her again, when the young man just mentioned stepped forward, and said, calmly-- 'Come, sir, you have abused that young lady enough; molest her no further.' 'And who the devil may you be, who presumes thus to interfere with a gentleman's private amusements?' demanded the libertine, with savage irony: but the bold eyes of the other quailed not before his fierce glance. 'It matters not particularly who I am,' replied the young man, sternly--'suffice it for you to know that I am one who is bound to protect a lady against the assaults of a ruffian, even if that ruffian is clad in the garb of a gentleman.' 'Oh, sir,' said Sophia, bursting into tears--'God will reward you for rescuing me from the power of that bad man.' Radcliff's eyes literally blazed with fury as he strode towards the young lady's protector. 'You called me a ruffian,' said he, 'take _that_ for your impudence,' and he attempted to strike the young man--but the blow was skillfully warded off, and he found himself extended on the grass in a twinkling. Two policeman now ran up and demanded the cause of the fracas. The young man related everything that had occurred, whereupon the officers took Radcliff into custody. 'Fellow,' said the individual, haughtily addressing his antagonist,--'you are, I presume, nothing more than a shopman or common mechanic, beneath my notice; you therefore may hope to escape the just punishment of your insolence to-night.' 'You are a liar,' calmly responded the other--'I am neither a shopman nor a mechanic, and if I were, I should be far superior to such a scoundrel as you. I am a gentleman; your equal in birth and fortune--your superior in manhood and in honor. If you desire satisfaction for my conduct to-night, you will find me at the Tremont House, at any time. My name is Francis Sydney. I shall see this lady in safety to her residence.' Radcliff was led away by the two officers. They had proceeded but a short distance, when he thus addressed them-- 'My good fellow, it is scarcely worth while to trouble yourselves to detain me on account of this trifling affair. Here's five dollars a piece for you--will that do?' 'Why, sir,' said one of the fellows, pocketing his V, and giving the other to his companion--'we can't exactly let you go, but if you tip us over and run for it, perhaps we shan't be able to overtake you.' 'I understand you,' said Radcliff, and he gave each of those _faithful_ officers a slight push, scarce sufficient to disturb the equilibrium of a feather, whereupon one of them reeled out into the street to a distance of twenty feet, while the other fell down flat on the sidewalk in an apparently helpless condition, and the prisoner walked away at a leisurely pace, without the slightest molestation. Meanwhile, Frank Sydney escorted Sophia to the door of her residence in Washington street. The young lady warmly thanked her deliverer, as she termed him. 'No thanks are due me, miss,' said Frank--'I have but done my duty, in protecting you from the insults of a villain. I now leave you in safety with your friends.' 'Friends!' said the fair girl, with a deep sigh--'alas, I have no friends on earth.' The tone and manner of these words went to the heart of our hero; he turned for a moment to conceal a tear--then raised her hand respectfully to his lips, bade her farewell, and departed. Sophia entered the house, and found her mother and sister in the parlor. They greeted her with smiles. 'My darling Soph,' said Mrs. Franklin--'that charming fellow was much disappointed to find that you had gone out. We told him that you had probably gone to walk on the Common, and he went in search of you.' Sophia related all that had occurred to her during her absence. She complained of the libertine's treatment of her with mingled indignation and grief. 'Pooh! sis,' exclaimed Josephine,--'you mustn't think so hard of Mr. Radcliff's attentions. You must encourage him, for he is very rich, and _we need money_.' 'Must you have money at the expense of my honor?' demanded Sophia, with unwonted spirit. 'And why not?' asked her mother in a severe tone. 'Must we starve on account of your silly notions about virtue, and such humbug? Your sister and I have long since learned to dispose of our persons for pecuniary benefit, as well as for our sensual gratification--for it is as pleasurable as profitable; and you must do the same, now that you are old enough.' 'Never--never!' solemnly exclaimed Sophia--'my poor, dead father--' 'What of him?' eagerly demanded both mother and daughter, in the same breath. 'He seems to look down on me from Heaven, and tell me to commit no sin,' replied the young girl. 'Nonsense,' cried the mother--'but go now to your chamber, and retire to bed; to-night at least, you shall rest undisturbed.' Sophia bade them a mournful good night, and left the room. When the door closed upon her, Josephine glanced at her mother with a look of satisfaction. 'Radcliff will be here to-night at twelve,' said she--'according to his appointment, for he will find no difficulty in procuring his discharge from custody. Once introduced into Sophia's chamber, he will gain his object with little trouble; then he will pay us the remaining thousand, as agreed upon.' 'And which we need most desperately,' rejoined her mother--'how unfortunate about the burning of our house! It has reduced us almost to our last penny.' 'The loss is irreparable,' sighed Josephine--'what divine raptures we used to enjoy in the 'Sanctuary of the Graces!' And there, too, was my elegant wardrobe and that heavenly French bed!' These two abandoned women then retired to their respective chambers, to await the coming of Radcliff. At midnight he came. He was admitted into the house by Mrs. Franklin, and conducted to the chamber of Sophia, which he entered by means of a duplicate key furnished him by the perfidious mother. The libertine had not observed, on entering the house, that he was followed by a man at a short distance. He was too intent upon the accomplishment of his vile desire, to notice the close proximity of one who was determined to oppose him in its execution. Sydney had expected that Radcliff would be liberated, and felt assured that he would seek his victim again that night. He comprehended that the poor girl resided with those who would not protect her, and he nobly resolved to constitute himself her friend. He had lingered around the house for hours, and when he saw the libertine approaching, followed him to the very door, at which he stationed himself, and listened. Soon a piercing shriek proceeding from an upper chamber, told him that the moment for his aid had arrived. The street door was fortunately not locked, and was only secured by a night latch; this he broke by one vigorous push, and rushing through the hall, mounted the stairs, and entered the chamber from which he judged the cry of distress had issued. Then what a sight presented itself! Sophia, in her night dress, her hair in wild disorder, struggling in the arms of the villain Radcliff, whose fine countenance was rendered hideous by rage and passion. 'What!' he exclaimed--'_you_ here? By G----, you shall rue your interference with my schemes. How is it that you start up before me just at the very moment when my wishes are about to be crowned with success?' 'I will not parley with you,' replied Frank--'the chamber of this young lady is no fitting place for a dispute between us. As you claim to be a gentleman, follow me hence.' 'Lead on, then,' cried the libertine, foaming with rage. 'I desire nothing better than an opportunity to punish your presumption.' As they descended the stairs, Josephine and her mother, alarmed by the noise of the dispute, issued from their rooms, and when Frank had given them a hasty explanation, the latter angrily demanded how he dared intrude into that house, and interfere in a matter with which he had no business. 'Madam,' replied our hero--'you are, I presume, the mother of that much abused young lady up stairs. I see that you countenance the ruin of your daughter. I tell you to beware--for I shall take proper measures to expose your vileness, and have _her_ placed beyond the reach of your infernal schemes.' He then left the house followed by Radcliff. After proceeding a short distance, the latter paused, and said-- 'We can do nothing to-night, for we have no weapons, and to fight otherwise would scarce comport with the dignity of gentlemen. Meet me to-morrow morning, at the hour of six, upon this spot; bring with you a friend, and pistols; we will then repair to some secluded place, and settle our difficulty in honorable combat.' 'But what assurance have I that you will keep the appointment?' demanded Sydney; 'how do I know that this is not a mere subterfuge to escape me?' 'Young man, you do not know me,' rejoined Radcliff, and his breast swelled proudly. 'Do you think I'd resort to a base lie? Do you think that I _fear_ you? I confess I am a libertine, but I am a man of honor--and that honor I now pledge you that I will keep the appointment; for, let me tell you, that I desire this meeting as much as you do.' Strange inconsistency of terms!--'A libertine--but a man of _honor_!' This creed is preached by thousands of honorable adulterers. A seducer is of necessity a liar and a scoundrel--yet, forsooth, he is a man of _honor_! 'Very well, sir,' said Sydney--'I have no doubt you will come.' And with a cool 'good night,' they separated. The next morning early, at a secluded spot in Roxbury neck, four men might have been seen, whose operations were peculiar. Two of them were evidently preparing to settle a dispute by the 'code of honor.' The other two (the seconds) were engaged in measuring off the distance--ten paces. The morning was dark and cloudy, and a drizzling rain was falling. It was a most unpleasant season to be abroad, especially to execute such business as those four men had in hand. Sydney had chosen for his second 'the Doctor'; while Radcliff had brought with him a tall individual, whose countenance was mostly concealed by an enormous coat collar and muffler, and a slouched hat. Two cases of pistols had been brought, and as 'the Doctor' was an accomplished surgeon, it was deemed unnecessary to have the attendance of another. At length all was ready, and the antagonists took their places, with their deadly weapons in their hands. Both men were cool and collected; Radcliff was a most accomplished duelist, having been engaged in many similar encounters; and his countenance was expressive of confidence and unconcern. Sydney had never before fought a duel, yet, feeling assured of the justice of his cause, he had no apprehension as to the result. It may be asked why he so interested himself in a young lady he had never before seen, as to engage in a bloody encounter for her sake. We answer, he was prompted so to do by the chivalry of his disposition, and by a desire to vindicate the purity of his motives, and the sincerity of his conduct. He wished to let that unprincipled libertine see that he was no coward, and that he was prepared to defend the rights of a helpless woman with his life. The word was given to fire, and both pistols were discharged at once. Sydney was wounded slightly in the arm; but Radcliff fell, mortally wounded--his antagonist's ball had pierced his breast. Sydney bent over the dying man with deep concern; his intention had been merely to wound him--he had no desire to kill him; and when he saw that his shot had taken a fatal effect, he was sincerely grieved. He could not deny to himself that he felt a deep interest in the splendid libertine, whose princely wealth, prodigal generosity, magnificent person, and many amours, and rendered him the hero of romance, and the most celebrated man of the day. He knew that Radcliff's many vices were in a slight degree palliated by not a few excellent qualities which he possessed; and he sighed as he thought that such a brilliant intellect and such a happy combination of rare personal advantages should cease to exist, ere the possessor could repent of the sins of his past life. Radcliff's second, the tall man with the shrouded countenance, walked to a short distance from the melancholy group, with a gloomy and abstracted air. While the Doctor made vain efforts to alleviate the sufferings of Radcliff, that unhappy man raised his dying eyes to Sydney's face, and said, faintly:-- 'Young man, my doom is just.--Continue to be kind to Sophia Franklin, whom I would have wronged but for your timely interference; but beware of her mother and sister--they are devils in the shape of women. They would have sold her to me for gold--wretches that they were, and villain that I was!' 'Can I do anything for you?' asked Frank, gently. 'Nothing--but listen to me; the pains of death are upon me, and my time is short. You see my second--that tall, mysterious-looking person? I have known him, for many years--he is a villain of the deepest dye--one whom I formerly employed to kidnap young girls for my base uses. Last night I met him for the first time for a long period; I told him that I was to fight a person named Sydney this morning; he started at the mention of your name, and eagerly desired to act as my second. I consented. He is your most inveterate enemy, and thirsts for your blood. He seeks but an opportunity to kill you. _He fears your second_, and that prevents him from attacking you at once. Beware of him, for he is--is--is--the--' Radcliff could not finish the sentence, for the agonies of death were upon him. His eyes glazed, his breath grew fainter and fainter; and in a few moments he expired. Thus perished George Radcliff--the elegant _roue_--the heartless libertine--the man of pleasure--brilliant in intellect, beautiful in person, generous in heart--but how debased in soul! They laid the corpse down upon the smooth, green sward, and spread a handkerchief over the pale, ghastly features. Then they turned to look for the mysterious second; he was seated, at some distance, upon a large rock, and they beckoned him to approach. He complied, with some hesitation; and the Doctor said to him-- 'Sir, you seem to manifest very little interest in the fate of your friend; you see he is dead.' 'I care not,' was the reply--'his death causes me no grief, nor pleasure; he was no enemy of mine, and as for friends, I have none. Grief and friendship are sentiments which have long since died in my breast.' 'By heavens!' exclaimed the Doctor--'I know that voice! The right hand jealously thrust into your breast--your face so carefully concealed--the dying words of Radcliff--tell me that you are--' 'The Dead Man!' cried the stranger, uncovering his face--'you are right--I am he! Doctor, I did not expect to find you with Sydney, or I should not have ventured. I came to execute vengeance--but your presence restrains me; crippled as I am, I fear you. No matter; other chances will offer, when you are absent. That escape of yours through the sewers was done in masterly style. Doctor, you are a brave fellow, and your courage inspires me with admiration; you are worthy to follow my reckless fortunes. Let the past be forgotten; abandon this whining, preaching Sydney, and join me in my desperate career. Give me your hand, and let us be friends.' The Doctor hesitated a moment, and, to Sydney's unutterable amazement, grasped the Dead Man's hand, and said-- 'Oh, Captain, I will re-enlist under your banner; I am tired of a life of inactivity, and long for the excitement and dangers of an outlaw's career! We are friends, henceforth and forever.' The Dead Man grinned with delight; but poor Sydney was thunderstruck. 'Good God!' he exclaimed--'is it possible that you, Doctor, will desert me, after swearing to me an eternal friendship? You, whom I once benefitted--you, who have since benefitted me--you, whom I thought to be one of the best, bravest, and most faithful men under the sun--notwithstanding your former faults--to prove traitor to me now, and league yourself with my worst enemy? Oh, is there such a thing as honesty or truth on earth?' The Doctor was silent; the Dead Man whispered to him-- 'Let us kill Sydney--he is no friend to either of us, and why should he live?' 'No,' said the Doctor, decidedly--'we will harm him not, at least for the present. At some future time you may do with him as you will. Let us go.' And they went, leaving our hero in a frame of mind almost distracted with remorse and sorrow--remorse, that he had killed a fellow creature--sorrow, that a man whom he had regarded as a friend, should prove so perfidious. He retraced his way to the city, and returned to his hotel. The body of poor Radcliff was shortly afterwards found by several laborers, who conveyed it to the city, where an inquest was held over it. A verdict of _suicide_ was rendered by the jury, who, short-sighted souls, comprehended not the mysteries of duelling; and the 'rash act' was attributed by the erudite city newspapers to 'temporary insanity'! For three or four days after these events, Sydney was confined to his bed by illness. His wounded arm pained him much, and he had caught a severe cold upon the wet, drizzly morning of the duel. Clinton, the dumb boy, attended him with the most assiduous care. This poor youth had learned the 'dumb alphabet,' or language of signs, to perfection; and as his master had also learned it, they could converse together with considerable facility. Sydney was beginning to recover from his indisposition, when one evening Clinton came into his room, and communicated to him a piece of information that astounded him. It was, that Julia, his wife, was then stopping at that very same hotel, as the wife of an old gentleman named Mr. Hedge--that she was dressed superbly, glittering with diamonds, appeared to be in the most buoyant spirits, and looked as beautiful as ever. CHAPTER XXVII _The Ruined Rector--Misery and Destitution--the All Night House--A Painful Scene--Inhospitality--the Denouement._ We now return to Dr. Sinclair, whom we left on the downward path to ruin. The unfortunate man was now no longer the rector of St. Paul's; a committee of the congregation had paid him an official visit, at which he had been dismissed from all connection with the church. His place was supplied by a clergyman of far less talent, but much greater integrity. Mr. Sinclair (for such we shall hereafter call him,) was not possessed of wealth--for though he had lived in luxury, he had depended entirely upon his salary for subsistence; and now that he was turned from his sacred occupation, dishonored and disgraced, he found himself almost penniless. He had no friends to whom he could apply for assistance, for his conduct had been noised abroad, and those who formerly had loved and reverenced him, now turned their backs upon him with cold contempt. Instead of endeavouring to retrieve his fallen reputation by repentance and good conduct, he no sooner found himself shorn of his clerical honors, than he abandoned himself to every species of degraded dissipation. In two weeks after his removal from the church he was without a home; then he became the associate of the most vile. Occasionally he would venture to the house of some one of his former congregation, and in abject tones implore the gift of some trifling sum; moved by his miserable appearance, though disgusted by his follies, the gentleman would perhaps hand him a dollar or two, and sternly bid him come there no more. Sinclair would then hasten to the low pot house in Water Street which he made his resort, and amid his vagabond companions expend the money in the lowest debauchery. Perhaps the reader may say the thing is impossible--no man could fall so rapidly from a high and honorable position, as to become in a few short weeks the degraded creature Sinclair is now represented to be. But we maintain that there is nothing exaggerated in the picture we have drawn. Here is a church congregation eminently aristocratic, wealthy, and rigidly particular in the nicest points of propriety. The pastor proves himself unworthy of his sacred trust; he disgraces himself and them by indulgence in vice, which is betrayed by his looks and actions. Too haughty and too impatient to take the erring brother by the hand, and endeavor to reclaim him, they at once cast him off with disgust, and fill his place with a more faithful pastor. Humbled and degraded, rendered desperate by his unhappy situation, the miserable man abandons himself yet more recklessly to the vice; his self-respect is gone, the finger of scorn is pointed at him, and to drown all consciousness of his downfall, he becomes a constant tipple and an irreclaimable sot. The low groggery in Water street where poor Sinclair made his temporary home, was extensively known as the 'All Night House,' from the fact of its being kept open night and day. As this establishment was quite a feature in itself, we shall devote a brief space to a description of it. It was situated on the corner of Catherine street, opposite the Catherine Market--a region remarkable for a very 'ancient and fish-like smell.' This Market was a large, rotten old shanty, devoted to the sale of stale fish, bad beef, dubious sausages, suspicious oysters, and dog's meat. Beneath its stalls at night, many a 'lodger' often slumbered; and every Sunday morning it was the theatre of a lively and amusing scene, wherein was performed the renowned pastime of 'niggers dancing for eels.' All the unsavory fish that had been accumulated during the week, was thus disposed of, being given to such darkies as won the most applause in the science of the 'heel and toe.' The sport used to attract hundreds of spectators, and the rum shops in the vicinity did a good business. Suppose it to be midnight; let us enter the All Night House, and take a view. We find the place crowded with about forty men and boys, of all ages, conditions and complexions. Here is the veteran loafer, who had not slept in a bed for years--his clothes smelling of the grease and filth of the market stalls; here is the runaway apprentice, and here the dissipated young man who has been 'locked out,' and has come here to take lodgings. The company are all seated upon low stools; some are bending forward in painful attitudes of slumber; others are vainly trying to sit upright, but, overcome by sleep, they pitch forward, and recover themselves just in time to avoid falling on the floor. Notice in particular this young man who is seated like the rest, and is nodding in an uneasy slumber. His clothes are of broadcloth, and were once fashionable and good, but now they are torn to rags, and soiled with filth. His hands are small and white; his hair, luxurious and curling naturally, is uncombed; his features are handsome, but bruised and unwashed. This is Sinclair! The bar-keeper of this place is quite a character in his way. He rejoices in the title of 'Liverpool Jack,' and is the _bully of Water street_--that is, he is considered able to thrash any man that travels in that region. He is a blustering, ruffianly fellow, full of 'strange oaths.' He wears a red flannel shirt and tarpaulin hat; and possesses a bull-dog countenance expressive of the utmost ferocity. 'Hello, you fellers,' cries Liverpool Jack, savagely surveying the slumbering crowd--'yer goin' to set there all night and not paternize de _bar_--say? Vake up, or by de big Jerusalem cricket I'm bound to dump yer all off de stools!' Some of the poor devils arouse themselves, and rub their eyes; but the majority slumbered on. Liverpool Jack becomes exasperated, and rushing among them, seizes the legs of the stools, and dumps every sleeper upon the floor. Having accomplished this feat, he resumes his place behind the bar. The door opens, and a party of young bloods enter, who are evidently 'bound on a time.'--They are all fashionably dressed; and one of them, drawing a well-filled purse from his pocket, invites all hands up to drink--which invitation, it is needless to say, was eagerly accepted. Sinclair crowded up to the bar, with the others and one of the new comers, observing him, cries out-- 'By jingo, here's parson Sinclair! Give us a sermon, parson, and you shall have a pint of red-eye!' 'A sermon--a sermon!' exclaimed the others. Sinclair is placed upon a stool, and begins a wild, incoherent harangue, made up of eloquence, blasphemy and obscenity. His hearers respond in loud 'amens,' and one of the young bloods, being facetiously inclined, procures a rotten egg, and throws it at the unhappy man, deviling his face with the nauseous missile. This piece of ruffianism is immediately followed by another; the stool on which he stands is suddenly jerked from beneath him, and he falls violently to the floor, bruising his face and head shockingly. Roars of laughter follow this deed of cruelty; poor Sinclair is raised from the floor by Liverpool Jack, who thrusts him forth into the street with a curse, telling him to come there no more. It is raining--a cold, drizzly rain, which penetrates through the garments and strikes chill to the bones. On such a night as this, Sinclair was wont to be seated in his comfortable study, before a blazing fire, enveloped in a luxurious dressing gown, as he perused some interesting volume, or prepared his Sabbath sermon; then, he had but to ring a silver bell, and a well-dressed servant brought in a tray containing his late supper--the smoking tea urn, the hot rolls, the fresh eggs, the delicious bacon, the delicate custard, and the exquisite preserves. Then, he had but to pass through a warm and well--lighted passage, to reach his own chamber; the comfortable bed, with its snowy drapery and warm, thick coverlid, invited to repose; and his dreams were disturbed by no visions of horror or remorse. All was purity, and happiness, and peace. _Now_, how different! Houseless, homeless, shelterless--ragged, dirty, starving--diseased, degraded, desperate! Unhappy Sinclair, that was a fatal moment when thou did'st yield to the fascinations of that beautiful Josephine Franklin! It was near one o'clock, and the storm had increased to a perfect hurricane. The miserable man had eaten nothing that day; he tottered off with weakness, and was numbed with the cold. By an irresistible impulse he wandered in the direction of his former home in Broadway. He found the house brilliantly illuminated--strains of heavenly music issued from it--lovely forms flitted past the windows, and peals of silvery laughter mingled with the howling of the tempest. A grand party was given there that night; the occupant of the house was a man of fashion and pleasure, and he was celebrating the eighteenth birth-day of his beautiful daughter. Sinclair lingered long around the house--it seemed as if some invisible power attracted him there. From the basement there arose the grateful, savory odor of extensive cooking. 'I am starving,' said he to himself--'and they have plenty here. I will go to the door, like a beggar, and implore a morsel of food.' With feeble steps he descended to the basement, and with a trembling hand he knocked at the door. It was opened by a fat, well-fed servant, in livery, who demanded, in a surly tone, what he wanted? 'In heaven's name, give me food, for I am starving.' 'Ugh--a beggar!' said the servant, with disgust--'get you gone, we've nothing for you; master never encourages vagrants.' The door was shut in Sinclair's face; with an aching heart he crawled up the steps, and then, as if suddenly nerved with a desperate resolve, he approached the front door, and rang the bell. The door was opened by a footman, who stared at the intruder with surprise and suspicion. 'Tell your master,' said Sinclair, faintly, 'that a person is here who must speak with him. It is a matter of life and death.' The servant did as requested; in a few minutes he returned and said: 'Master says that if your business is particular you must come into the drawing room; he's not coming out here in the cold.' He followed the servant thro' the hall; and in a moment more found himself standing in the brilliantly lighted drawing-room, in the presence of a numerous party of ladies and gentlemen. His miserable appearance created quite a sensation in that fashionable circle. 'Aw, 'pon my honor,' lisped a dandy, raising his eye-glass and taking a deliberate survey of the intruder, 'what have we heah? quite a natural curiosity, dem me!' 'Oh, what an odious creature;' exclaimed a young lady with bare arms, naked shoulders, and the reddest possible hair. 'Quite shocking!' responded her admirer, a bottle-nosed specimen of monkeyism. 'I shall positively faint,' cried an old tabby, in a large turban; but as nobody noticed her, she didn't faint. The host himself now advanced, and said, sternly, 'Well, fellow, what d'ye want?--Speak quickly and begone, for this is no place for you. You d----d stupid scoundrel,' (to the servant,) 'how dare you bring such a scare-crow here?' 'I wish to speak with you alone, sir,' said Sinclair, humbly. The host motioned him to step out into the hall, followed him there, and commanded him to be as brief as possible. Sinclair told him who he was, and the circumstances of misery and destitution in which he was placed. His listener shook his head incredulously, saying, 'It is a good game, my fine fellow, that you are trying to play off; you are an excellent talker, but you will find it hard to make people believe that you are Dr. Sinclair. In one word, you're an imposter. What, _you_ a clergyman! Pooh, nonsense!--There, not another word, but clear out instantly. John, show this fellow the door, and never admit him again!' As poor Sinclair passed out of the door, he heard the company laugh long and loud at the supposed imposition he had attempted to practise upon Mr. Grump, the 'worthy host.' Now be it known that this Mr. Grump was one of the most arrant scoundrels that ever went unhung. Low-bred and vulgar, he had made a fortune by petty knavery and small rascalities. He was a master printer; one of those miserable whelps who fatten on the unpaid labor of those in their employ. An indignant 'jour' once told him, with as much truth as sarcasm, that 'every hair on his head was a fifty-six pound weight of sin and iniquity!' He well knew that the poor wretch who had applied to him for relief, was no impostor; for he had heard Dr. Sinclair preach a hundred times, and he had recognized him instantly, notwithstanding his altered aspect. But he had pretended to believe him an impostor, in order that he might have a good excuse for withholding assistance from the unfortunate man. Rudely did the servant thrust forth poor Sinclair into the inhospitable street and the fearful storm. The rain now fell in torrents; and the darkness was so intense, that the hapless wanderer cou'd only grope his way along, slowly and painfully.--Upon one corner of the street the foundation for a house had recently been dug, forming a deep and dangerous pit, lying directly in Sinclair's path: no friendly lantern warned him of the peril--no enclosure was there to protect him from falling. Unconscious of the danger, he slowly approached the brink of the pit; now he stood upon the extreme edge, and the next instant _he fell_! There was a dull, dead sound--then a stifled groan--and all was still! Morning dawned, bright and clear, the storm had subsided during the night, and the glorious sun arose in a cloudless sky. A crowd was collected on the corner of Broadway and one of the narrow streets which cross its lower section. They were gazing at a terrible spectacle: the body of a man lay in a deep pit below them, shockingly mangled; he had fallen upon a heap of stones--his brains were dashed out, and his blood scattered all around. Among the spectators was a portly, well-dressed man, who looked at the body steadfastly for some time, and then muttered to himself-- 'By G----, it is Dr. Sinclair, and no mistake! Too bad--too bad!--When he came to my house last night, I little thought to see him dead this morning! Plague on it, I ought to have given the poor devil sixpence or a shilling. No matter--he's better off now. He was a talented fellow--great pity, but can't be helped.' Yes, it _could_ have been helped, Mr. Grump; had you kindly taken that poor unfortunate by the hand, and afforded him food and shelter for a brief season, he never would have met that tragical end, but might have lived to reform, and lead a life of usefulness and honor; yes, he might have lived to bless you for that timely aid. Reader, 'speak gently to the erring.' Do not too hastily or too harshly condemn the follies or faults of others. A gentle word, spoken in kindness to an erring brother, may do much towards winning him back to the path of rectitude and right. Harsh words and stern reproofs may drive him on to ruin. But let us return to the crowd collected around the mangled body of Sinclair. 'It's a sin and a shame,' said a stout man, in working clothes, 'that there wasn't some kind of a fence put around this infernal trap. Where was the Alderman of this ward, that _he_ didn't attend to it?' 'Be careful what you say, fellow,' said Mr. Grump, turning very red in the face, 'I'd have you to know that _I_ am the Alderman of this ward!' 'Are you?--then let me tell you,' said the man, contemptuously, 'that you bear the name of being a mean, dirty old scamp; and if it was not for fear of the law, I'd give you a d----d good thrashing!' Alderman Grump beat a hasty retreat while the crowd set up a loud shout of derision--for he was universally hated and despised. The Coroner arrived--the inquest was held; and a 'verdict rendered in accordance with the facts.' The body was taken to the 'Dead House;' and as no friend or relative appeared to claim it, it was the next day conveyed to Potter's Field, and there interred among city paupers, felons and nameless vagrants. CHAPTER XXVIII _The Disguised Husband--the False Wife--the Murder--the Disclosure, and Suicide._ Reader, let thy fancy again wing its flight from New York to our own city of Boston. It was a strange coincidence that Frank Sydney and his wife Julia should tarry again beneath the same roof; yet they were not destined to meet under that roof--for the next day after Frank made the discovery, Mr. Hedge and the young lady removed from the Hotel to a splendid house which had been fitted up for them in the most aristocratic quarter of the city. 'I must see Julia once again,' said Frank to himself, when informed of her departure;--'I must see and converse with her again, for I am anxious to see if she has really reformed, since her marriage with this Mr. Hedge, whom I have heard spoken of as a very respectable old man. Of course, he can know nothing of her former character; and if I find her disposed to be faithful to her present husband, Heaven forbid that I should ruin her by exposure! But I must so disguise myself that she shall not recognise me; this I can easily do, for I am well acquainted with the art of disguise. I shall have no difficulty in meeting her on some of the fashionable promenades of the city, then my ingenuity will aid me in forming her acquaintance. My plan shall be put into immediate execution.' Our hero felt considerable uneasiness in the knowledge that the Dead Man was then in the city; and when he reflected that the Doctor had joined that arch miscreant, he knew not what infernal plot might be concocted against his liberty or life. He puzzled his brain in vain to account for the Doctor's singular conduct in deserting him for the friendship of a villain; and he was forced to arrive at the unwelcome conclusion, that the Doctor was a man whose natural depravity led him to prefer the companionship of crime to the society of honesty and honor. Sydney never ventured abroad without being thoroughly armed; and he was determined, if attacked by his enemies, to sell his life as dearly as possible. He had called once upon Miss Sophia Franklin, since the night he had rescued her from the designs of the libertine Radcliff; Josephine and her mother plainly evinced by their looks that they did not relish his visit; but the fair Sophia received him with every demonstration of gratitude and pleasure. She could not deny to herself that she felt a deep and growing interest in the handsome young stranger, who had so gallantly defended her honor: while on his part, he sympathized with her unfortunate situation, on account of her unprincipled relatives, and admired her for her beauty and goodness. He sighed as he thought that his abandoned wife was a barrier to any hopes which he might entertain in reference to Sophia; for he felt that he could joyfully make the young lady his bride, and thus preserve her from her mother and sister, were there no obstacle in the way. When he contrasted her purity and virtue with the vices of Julia, he cursed his destiny that had placed so great a prize beyond his grasp. Sophia, as yet, knew nothing of Frank's history, and was of course ignorant that he had a wife. Sweet hopes swelled the maiden's bosom, when the thought arose in her pure heart that she might be beloved by one whom she knew was worthy of her tenderest regard. It was with a high degree of satisfaction that Julia now found herself, by the liberality of Mr. Hedge, mistress of a splendid establishment.--Her dresses, her jewelry, her furniture were of the most magnificent kind; her husband placed no restraint upon her whatever, he slept in a separate chamber, and never annoyed her with his impotent embraces; each morning he was accustomed to meet her in the breakfast parlor, and partake with her the only meal they took together during the day; after the repast, he would usually present her with money sufficient to do her fashionable 'shopping;' then he would kiss her rosy cheek, bid her adieu, and leave her to pass the day as her fancy or caprice might dictate. Enjoying such a life of luxurious ease, Julia was almost perfectly happy. Yet her cup was not quite full; there was one thing wanting to complete the list of her pleasures--and this deficiency occupied her thoughts by day, and her dreams by night. Not to keep the reader in suspense, she longed for a handsome and agreeable lover--yet none could she find suited to her taste or wishes. True, she might have selected one from among the many gentlemen of leisure 'about town,' who are always ready to dangle at the heels of any woman who will clothe and feed them for their 'services.'--But she preferred a lover of a more exalted grade; one whose personal beauty was set off by mental graces, and superior manners. And he must be poor; for then he would be more dependent upon her, and consequently, more devoted and more constant. Time passed, and still Julia had no lover.--Mr. Hedge mentally gave her credit for the most virtuous fidelity; yet the amorous fair one was constantly on the _qui vive_ to catch in her silken meshes some desirable man with whom she might in secret pass the hours of her voluptuous leisure. One day, while promenading Tremont street, her eyes rested upon a gentleman whose appearance sent a thrill of admiration and desire through every fibre of her frame. His figure, of medium height, was erect and well-built; his gait was dignified and graceful; his dress, in exact accordance with the _mode_, was singularly elegant and rich--but a superb waistcoat, a gorgeous cravat in which glittered a diamond pin, and salmon-colored gloves, were the least attractive points in his appearance; for his countenance was eminently handsome and striking. His hair fell in rich masses over a fine, thoughtful brow; his eyes were dark, piercing, and full of expression and fire; and the lower part of his face was almost completely hidden by a luxuriant growth of whiskers, imperial and moustache. Whatever of foppishness there might be in his dress, was qualified by the dignified grace of his manner. 'He is a charming creature, and I must catch him,' thought Julia. So, on the next day when she met him again, and at the moment when his eyes were fixed admiringly upon her countenance, she smiled, then blushed in the most engaging manner, and passed on in sweet confusion. The gallant gentleman, encouraged by the smile and blush, turned and followed her. She walked on as far as the Common, entered, and regardless of her satin dress, seated herself upon one of the sheet-iron covered benches. The gentleman (bold fellow!) seated himself upon the same bench, though at a respectful distance. Julia blushed again, and cast down her beautiful eyes. You know very well, reader, how two persons, who are not acquainted, always begin a conversation. The weather is the topic first touched upon;--and that hackneyed subject merges easily and naturally into more agreeable discourse. So it was with Julia and her gallant; in less than half an hour after seating themselves on that bench, they were sociably and unrestrainedly conversing on the theatres, the opera, the last novel, and other matters and things pertaining to the world of fashion and amusement. The lady judged her companion, by a slight peculiarity in his accent, to be a foreigner--a circumstance that raised him still more in her estimation, for our amorous American ladies adore foreigners. He was also a man of wit, education and talent; and Julia became completely fascinated with him. He proposed an exchange of cards; she assented, and found her new friend to be the 'Signor Montoni'; and he subsequently informed her that he was an Italian teacher of languages--a piece of information that gave her pleasure, as his following a profession was a pretty certain indication that he was poor. When Julia returned home, the Italian accompanied her to the door. The next day they met again, and the next; and the intimacy between them increased so rapidly, that within a week after their confidential chat on the Common, Montoni called on Julia at her residence. But the lady noticed that he had suddenly grown reserved and bashful; and he made this and their other interviews provokingly short. She had hoped to have found in him an impetuous and impassioned lover--one who needed but the opportunity to pluck the ripe fruit so temptingly held out to him; but she found him, instead, an apparently cold and passionless man, taking no advantage of his intimacy with her, and treating her with a distant respect that precluded all hope in her bosom of a successful amour. In vain did the beautiful wanton assail him with inviting glances and seductive smiles; in vain did she, while in his presence, recline upon the sofa in attitudes of the most voluptuous abandonment; in vain did she, as if unconsciously, display to his gaze charms which might have moved an anchorite--a neck and shoulders of exquisite proportions, and a bosom glowing and swelling with a thousand suppressed fires. He withstood all these attacks, and remained calm and unmoved. When she gave him her hand to kiss at parting, he would merely raise it to his lips, and leave her with a cold 'adieu.' 'He is cold--senseless--unworthy of my regard; I will see him no more,' said Julia to herself. Yet when the image of the handsome Italian arose before her, so calmly noble, so proudly composed, her resolution forsook her, and she felt that he held her, heart and soul, under some strange and magical fascination. 'Yes, I love him,' she cried, bursting into a passionate flood of tears--'devotedly, madly love him. Oh, why am I the suppliant slave of this cold stranger? why cannot I entice him to my arms? Distraction: my most consummate art fails to kindle in his icy breast a single spark of the raging fire that is consuming me!' It may be proper to mention that Mr. Hedge knew nothing of the Italian's visits to his wife; for Julia received him in a private parlor of her own, and there was no danger of interruption. The old gentleman passed most of his evenings in his library; and having implicit faith in the integrity of his wife, he allowed her to spend her evenings as she chose. One evening Signor Montoni visited Julia rather earlier than usual; and she resolved that evening to make a desperate effort to conquer him, even if obliged to make known her wishes in words. During the evening she exerted herself, as usual, to captivate him, and bring him to her feet. She sang--she played--she liberally displayed the graces of her person, and the charms of her accomplished mind, but still in vain.--There he sat, with folded arms, in deep abstraction, gazing at the elaborate figures on the gorgeous carpet. At nine o'clock, Montoni arose, and took the lady's hand to bid her adieu. She gently detained him, and drew him towards her upon the sofa. 'Listen to me, Montoni;' said she, gazing into his eyes with an expression of deep fondness--'listen to me, and I will speak calmly if I can, though my heart is beating in wild tumult. Call me unwomanly, bold, wanton if you will, for making this declaration--_but I love you!_--God only knows how ardently, how passionately. The first moment I saw you, your image impressed itself indelibly upon my heart; in person, you were my _beau ideal_ of manhood--and in mind I found you all that I could wish. I have sought to make you my lover--for my husband is old and impotent, and my passions are strong. Look at me, Montoni; am I ugly or repulsive? Nay, the world calls me beautiful, yet I seek to be beautiful only in your eyes, my beloved. Why, then, have you despised my advances, disregarded my mute invitations, and left me to pine with disappointment and with hope deferred? Why will you not take me in your arms, cover me with kisses, and breathe into my ear the melody of your whispered love?' The lady paused, and the Italian gazed at her with admiration. Ah, how beautiful she looked! and yet how like a fiend in the shape of a lovely woman, tempting a man to ruin! 'Lady,' said Montoni, as a shade of sadness passed over his fine features--'you have mentioned your husband, and the recollection that you _have_ a husband forbids that I should take advantage of your preference for me. God forbid that I should be the cause of a wife's infidelity! Pardon me, lady--you are very beautiful; the Almighty never created so fair a sanctuary to become the dwelling place of sin; be advised, therefore, to suppress this guilty passion, and remain faithful to your husband, who, old though he be, has claims upon your constancy.' 'I long for the declarations of a lover, not the reasonings of a philosopher,' cried Julia passionately.--'Thou man of ice, nothing can melt you?' 'Remember your duty to your husband,' said Montoni, gravely, as he arose to depart. 'I will see you to-morrow evening--adieu.' He left her to her reflections.--Wild, tumultuous thoughts arose in her mind; and from the chaos of her bewildered brain, came a Hideous Whisper, prompting her to a bloody crime. She thought of her husband as an obstacle to her happiness with Montoni; and she began to hate the old man with the malignity of a fiend. 'Curses on the old dotard!' she cried, in a paroxysm of rage--'were it not for _him_, I might revel in the arms of my handsome Italian, whose unaccountable scruples will not permit him to enjoy the bliss of love with me, while I have a husband.--Were that husband DEAD--' Then, like a Mighty Shadow, came that dark thought over her soul. Myriads of beautiful demons, all bearing the semblance of Montoni, seemed to gather around her, and urge her to perpetrate a deed of--_murder_! But then a fair vision spread itself before her wandering fancy. There was her girlhood's home--far, far away in a green, flowery spot, where she had dwelt ere her life had been cast amid the follies and vices of cities. Then she thought of her mother--that gentle mother, whose heart she had broken, and who was sleeping in the old church-yard of her native village.--A tear dim'd her brilliant eye as these better feelings of her nature gained a temporary ascendancy: but she dashed her tear away, and suppressed the emotions of her heart, when the image of the fascinating Italian arose before her. 'He must be mine! I swear it by everything in heaven, earth or hell--he must be mine! Yes, though I stain my soul with the blackest crime--though remorse and misery be my lot on earth--though eternal torment be my portion in the world to come--he must and shall be mine! Aid me, ye powers of hell, in this my scheme--make my heart bold, my hand firm, my brain calm; for the deed is full of horror, and the thought of it chills my blood; I shudder and turn sick and dizzy--yet, for thy sake, Montoni, I WILL DO IT!' That night the wretched woman slept not; but in the solitude of her chamber employed her mind in endeavoring to form some plan by which to accomplish her fell purpose with secrecy and safety. Ere morning dawned, she had arranged the _programme_ of the awful drama in which she was to play the part of a murderess. When Mr. Hedge met her at breakfast, he noticed that she appeared feverish and unwell; and with almost parental solicitude, he gently chided her for neglecting to take proper care of her health. 'My dear Julia,' said he--'you must not pour out the golden sands of youth too fast. If you will suffer me to offer you advice, you will go less abroad, and endeavor to seek recreation at home. You know my ardent affection for you alone prompts me to make this suggestion.' Julia slightly curled her lip, but said nothing. The kindness of her husband's manner did not in the least affect her, or alter the abominable purpose of her heart. Mr. Hedge did not notice her contemptuous look; he gave her a sum of money, as usual, kissed her and bade her adieu. When he had gone, she dressed herself in her plainest attire, and going into an obscure part of the city, entered an apothecary's shop and purchased some arsenic. She then retraced her steps to her residence, and found that Mr. Hedge, contrary to his usual custom, had returned, and would dine at home. This arrangement afforded her much satisfaction. 'The fates are propitious,' said she--'to-night Montoni shall find me without a husband.' Mr. Hedge and Julia dined alone; dispensing with the attendance of a servant, they never were more sociable or more affectionate together. The old gentleman was in high spirits. 'My dear,' said he, 'your presence to-day inspires me with an unusual degree of happiness--and egad, I feel younger than ever. Pledge me in a bumper of good old port.' 'I cannot endure port,' said Julia--'sparkling champagne for me. I will ring for some.' 'By your leave, madam,' said her husband, with an air of gallantry; and rising, he walked across the room, and rang the bell. Quick as lightning, Julia took a small paper parcel from her bosom, and breaking it open, poured a white powder into her husband's glass, which was nearly full of port wine. Mr. Hedge resumed his seat, and raising the fatal glass to his lips, slowly drained it to the dregs. Just then the butler entered, in answer to the summons; and in obedience to Julia's order, he brought in a bottle of champagne, and withdrew. 'I am very unwell,' said the old gentleman--'my love, will you assist me to my chamber?' He arose with difficulty, and with her aid reached his chamber, and lay down upon the bed. Instantly he closed his eyes, and seemed to fall into a deep slumber. 'He will wake in another world,' murmured the guilty woman, as she saw the hue of death beginning to overspread his features. No repentance, no remorse, touched her vile heart; calmly she surveyed her victim for a few moments--then, not wishing to witness his dying agonies, she left the chamber, having carefully locked the door. That afternoon she went out and purchased a new and magnificent set of jewels. If for a moment the recollection of her horrible crime obtruded itself upon her mind, she banished it by thinking of her adored Montoni. Hers was a kind of mental intoxication, under the influence of which she could have perpetrated the most enormous crimes, blindly and almost unconsciously. Returning home she prepared her toilet with the most elaborate care. A French 'artist,' (all barbers are _artists_, by the way,) was sent for, who arranged her beautiful hair in the latest _mode_; and when arrayed in her superb evening dress of white satin with her fair neck, her wrist and her lovely brow blazing with jewels, she looked like some queen of Oriental romance, waiting to receive the homage of her vassals. And when, as the clock struck eight, the Signor Montoni entered, who can wonder that he thought her divinely lovely, as he glanced at her face radiant with smiles, her cheek suffused with the rich hues of health and happiness, and her eyes sparking with delight at seeing him? We said _happiness_--'twas not the deep, quiet happiness of the heart, but the wild, delirious joy of the intoxicated brain. 'Dear Montoni,' she cried, embracing and kissing him--'your presence never gave more pleasure. I have waited for your coming with impatience. You are mine now, you cannot deny me--the obstacle is removed.--Oh, my God, what happiness!' 'Lady,' replied the Italian, in his usual cold and respectful tone, as he disengaged himself from her embrace, 'what means this agitation? You speak of an _obstacle_ as being removed; pray explain the enigma.' 'Signor Montoni,' cried Julia, her eyes flashing almost fearfully--'when I spoke to you of love last night, you preached to me of my husband, and my duty to him. The recollection that I _had_ a husband, you said, forbade that you should take advantage of my preference for you. Rejoice with me, Montoni--come to my arms--my husband is no more!' 'How--what mean you?' demanded the Italian, in breathless astonishment. 'Follow me,' she said; and taking a lamp, she led the way to the chamber of Mr. Hedge. She unlocked the door, they entered, and she beckoned her companion to approach the bed. Montoni advanced, and gazed upon the swollen, disfigured face of a corpse! 'Your husband--dead!' cried the Italian. 'By heaven there has been foul play here. Woman, can it be possible--' 'Yes, all things are possible to Love!' exclaimed Julia, laughing hysterically;--''twas I did the deed, Montoni; for _your_ dear sake I killed him!' 'Murderess!' cried Montoni, recoiling from her with horror, 'has it come to this?--Then indeed it is time that this wretched farce should end!' He tore off the wig, the false whiskers, imperial and moustache--and Frank Sydney stood before her! With a wild shriek she fell senseless upon the carpet. 'God of heaven!' exclaimed Frank--'what infernal crimes blot thy fair creation! Let me escape from this house, for the atmosphere is thick with guilt, and will suffocate me if I remain longer!' And without casting one look at the ghastly corpse, or the swooning murderess upon the floor, he rushed from the house, and fled rapidly from it, as though it were the abode of the pestilence. Miserable Julia! She awoke to a full consciousness of her guilt and wretchedness. The intoxication of her senses was over; her delirium was past, and horrible remorse usurped the place of passion in her breast.--She arose, and gazed fearfully around her; there lay the body of her murdered victim, its stony eyes turned towards her, and seeming to reproach her for the deed. She could not remain in that awful chamber, in the presence of that accusing corpse, whose blood seemed to cry out for vengeance; she ran from it, and at every step imagined that her dead husband was pursuing her, to bring her back. Not for worlds would she have remained that night in the house; hastily throwing on a bonnet and shawl, she issued forth into the street. She cared not where she went, so long as she escaped from the vicinity of that scene of murder. In a state of mind bordering on distraction, the wretched woman wandered about the streets until a late hour; the disorder of her dress, the wildness of her appearance, induced many whom she met to suppose her to be intoxicated; and several riotous young men, returning from a theatre, believing her to be a courtezan, treated her with the utmost rudeness, at the same time calling her by the most opprobrious names, until a gentleman who was passing rescued her from their brutality. Midnight came, and still was the unhappy Julia a wanderer through the streets. At length she found herself upon Charlestown bridge; and being much fatigued, she paused and leaned against the railing, uncertain what to do or where to go. That hour was the most wretched of her life; her brain was dizzy with excitement--her heart racked with remorse--her limbs weak with fatigue, and numbed with cold. The spirit of Mr. Hedge seemed to emerge from the water, and invite her with outstretched arms to make the fatal plunge; and when she thought of his unvaried kindness to her, his unbounded generosity, and implicit faith in her honor, how bitterly she reproached herself for her base ingratitude and abominable crime! Oh, how gladly would she have given up her miserable life, could she but have undone that fearful deed! And even in that wretched hour she cursed Frank Sydney, as being the cause of her crime and its attendant misery. 'May the lightning of heaven's wrath sere his brain and scorch his heart!' she said--'had he not, disguised as the Italian, won my love and driven me to desperation, I now should be happy and comparatively guiltless. But, by his infernal means, I have become a murderess and an outcast--perhaps doomed to swing upon the scaffold! But no, no;--sooner than die _that_ death, I would end my misery in the dark waters of this river, which flows so calmly beneath my feet!' She heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and saw two men advancing on the opposite foot-path of the bridge. She crouched down to avoid observation; and as they passed, she distinctly heard their conversation. 'Have you heard,' said one, 'of the case of murder in ---- street?' 'No; how was it?' demanded the other. 'Why, a rich old fellow named Hedge was found this evening in his chamber, stone dead, having been poisoned by his wife, who they say is a young and handsome woman. It is supposed she did it on account of a lover, or some such thing; and since the murder, she has disappeared--but the police are on her track, and they won't be long in finding her. 'Twill be a bad job for her.' The men passed on out of sight and hearing; but the words struck terror to the heart of Julia. She started up and gazed wildly around her, expecting every moment to see the myrmidons of the law approaching, to drag her away to prison. Then she looked down upon the calm river, on whose placid breast reposed the soft moonlight. 'Why should I live?' she murmured, sadly--'earth has no longer any charms for me; the past brings remorse, the present is most wretched, the future full of impending horror! Death is my only refuge; the only cure for all my sorrows. Take me to thy embrace, thou peaceful river; thou canst end my earthly woes, but thou canst not wash off the stains of guilt from my soul! There may be a hell, but its torments cannot exceed those of this world--' She mounted upon the topmost rail of the bridge, clasped her hands, muttered a brief prayer, and leaped into the river. There was a splash--a gurgling sound--and then profound and solemn silence resumed its reign. * * * * * One more unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death! * * * * * The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch Of the black flowing river; Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be hurl'd-- Any where, any where Out of the world! In she plunged boldly, No matter how coldly The rough river ran-- Over the brink of it, Picture it--think of it, Dissolute Man! * * * * * Owning her weakness, Her evil behaviour! And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour! CHAPTER XXIX _Wherein one of the Characters in this Drama maketh a sudden and rapid exit from the stage._ In an upper apartment of an old, rickety wooden building in Ann street, two men were seated at a rough deal table, engaged in smoking long pipes and discussing the contents of a black bottle. Not to keep the reader in suspense, we may as well state at once that these two individuals were no other than our old acquaintances, the Dead Man and the Doctor. The room was dusky, gloomy, and dirty, with a multitude of cob-webs hanging from the ceiling, and the broken panes in the windows stuffed full of rags. The smoke-dried walls were covered with rude inscriptions and drawings, representing deeds of robbery and murder; and a hanging scene was not the least prominent of these interesting specimens of the 'fine arts.' The house was a noted resort for thieves, and the old harridan who kept it was known to the police as a 'fence,' or one who purchased stolen goods. 'Yes, Doctor,' cried the Dead Man, with an oath, as he slowly removed the pipe from his lips, and blew a cloud which curled in fantastic wreaths to the ceiling--'this state of affairs won't answer: we must have money. And money we _will_ have, this very night, if our spy, Stuttering Tom, succeeds in finding out where those Franklin ladies live. The bottle's out--knock for another pint of _lush_.' The Doctor obeyed, and in answer to the summons an old, wrinkled, blear-eyed hag made her appearance with the liquor. This old wretch was the 'landlady' of the house; she had been a celebrated and beautiful courtezan in her day, but age and vice had done their work, and she was now an object hideous to look upon. Though tottering upon the verge of the grave (she was over eighty,) an inordinate love of money, and an equal partiality for 'the ardent,' were her characteristics; but stranger than all, the miserable old creature affected still to retain, undiminished, those amorous propensities which had distinguished her in her youth! This horrible absurdity made her act in a manner at once ludicrous and disgusting; and the Dead Man, being facetiously inclined, resolved to humor her weakness, and enjoy a laugh at her expense by pretending to have fallen in love with her. 'By Satan!' he cried, clasping the old crone around the waist--'you look irresistible to-night, mother: I've half a mind to ravish a kiss from ye--ha, ha, ha!' 'Have done, now!' exclaimed the hag, in a cracked tone, at the same time vainly endeavoring to contort her toothless jaws into an engaging simper, while the Doctor nearly burst with laughter--'have done now, or I'll slap ye for your impudence. But, faith, ye are such a pleasant gentleman, that I don't mind bestowing a kiss or two upon ye!' 'You're a gay old lass,' said the Dead Man, without availing himself of the old lady's kind permission--'you have been a 'high one' in your time, but your day is nearly over.' 'No, no!' shrieked the old wretch, while her head and limbs quivered with palsy--'don't say that--I'm young as ever, only a little _shakey_, or so--I'm not going to die for many, many years to come--ha, ha, ha! a kiss, love, a kiss--' The old woman fell to the floor in a paralytic fit, and when they raised her up, they found that she was dead! 'Devil take the old fool!' cried the Dead Man, throwing the corpse contemptuously to the floor--'I meant to have strangled her some day, but I now am cheated of the sport. No matter; drink, Doctor!' The dead body was removed by several of the wretched inmates of the house, just as Stuttering Tom entered to announce the result of his search for the Franklin ladies. Tom was a short, dumpy specimen of humanity, with red hair, freckled face, nose of the pug order, and goggle eyes. His dress was picturesque, if not ragged: his coat and pants were so widely apart, at the waist, as to reveal a large track of very incorrect linen; and the said coat had been deprived of one of its tails, an unfortunate occurrence, as the loss exposed a large compound fracture in the rear of the young gentleman's trowsers, whereby he was subjected to the remark that he had 'a letter in the post office.' His name was derived from an inveterate habit of stuttering with which he was afflicted; and he related the issue of his search somewhat in the following manner: 'You see, I ha-ha-happened to be l-loafing down Wa-Wa-Washington street, this evening, quite pro-miscus like, ven I seed two vim-vimmen, as vos gallus ha-handsum, and dr-dressed to kill, a valking along, vich puts me in m-m-mind of the F-F-Franklin vimmen, as you hired me to f-f-find out. So I up and f-follers 'em, and by-and-by a f-fellers meets 'em and says, says he, 'Good evening, Missus and Miss F-F-Franklin.' These is the werry victims, says I to myself; and I f-f-foller them till they goes into a house in Wa-Washington street--and here I am.' 'You have done well, Tom,' said the Dead Man, approvingly--'you must now conduct us to the house in Washington street which the ladies entered: it is nine o'clock, and time that we should be up and doing.' Stuttering Tom led the way, and the three issued from the house. Ann street was 'all alive' at that hour; from every cellar came forth the sound of a fiddle, and the side-walks were crowded with a motley throng of Hibernians, Ethiopians, and Cyprians of an inferior order. Talk of Boston being a moral city! There is villainy, misery and vice enough in Ann street alone, to deserve for the whole place the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Dead Man and the Doctor, under the guidance of Stuttering Tom, soon reached the house in Washington street where Josephine and her mother had taken up their residence. The guide was then rewarded and dismissed; the two adventurers ascended the steps, and one of them rang the door-bell. A servant girl answered the summons, and in reply to their inquiries informed them that the ladies were both in the parlor. 'Show us up there,' said the Dead Man, in a commanding tone, as he concealed his hideous face behind his upturned coat-collar. The girl obeyed, and having conducted them up a flight of stairs, ushered them into an apartment where Josephine and her mother were seated, engaged there in playing _ecarte_. Their confusion and terror may easily be imagined, when turning to see who their visitors were, their eyes rested upon the awful lineaments of the DEAD MAN! 'Your humble servant, ladies,' said the villain, with a triumphant laugh--'you see you cannot hide from me, or escape me. Fair Josephine, you look truly charming--will you oblige me with a private interview?' 'It will be useless,' said Josephine coldly, as she recovered some portion of her composure--'we have no more money to give you.' 'You can give me something more acceptable than _money_,' rejoined the other, with a horrible leer--'at our last interview I told you what I should require at our next. Doctor, I leave you with the voluptuous mother, while I make court to the beautiful daughter.' He grasped Josephine violently by the arm, and dragged her from the room, forced her into an adjoining apartment, and thrust her brutally upon a sofa, saying with a fearful oath-- 'Dare to resist me, and I'll spoil your beauty, miss! Why do you act the prude with me--_you_, a shameless hussey, who has numbered more amours than years?' 'Odious ruffian!' exclaimed Josephine, no longer able to control her indignation--'I view you with contempt and loathing. Sooner than submit to your filthy embraces, I will dare exposure, and death itself! Think not to force me to a compliance with your wishes--I will resist you while life animates my frame. I fear you not, low villain that you are.' The Dead Man raised his _iron hand_ as if to dash out her brains for her temerity.--But he checked himself, and surveyed her with a sort of calm ferocity, as he said--'Young lady, since you are determined to oppose my wishes, I will not force you. Neither will I kill you; yet my vengeance shall be more terrible than death. You are beautiful and you pride yourself upon that beauty--but I will deprive you of your loveliness. You call me hideous--I will make you hideous as I am. Your cheeks shall become ghastly, your complexion livid, and your brilliant eyes shall become sightless orbs--for the curse of _blindness_ shall be added to your other miseries. Obstinate girl, bid an eternal farewell to eyesight and beauty, for from this moment you are deprived of both, forever!' He drew from his pocket a small phial, and with the quickness of lightning dashed it in the face of the unfortunate Josephine. It was shattered in a hundred pieces, and the contents--VITRIOL--ran in her eyes and down her face, burning her flesh in the most horrible manner. She shrieked with agony the most intense, and the Doctor rushed into the room, followed by Mrs. Franklin. They both stood aghast when they beheld the awful spectacle. The Doctor was the first to recover his presence of mind; he rushed to the aid of the burning wretch, and saved her life, though he could not restore her lost eyesight, or remove the horrible disfigurement of her burned and scarred visage. Mrs. Franklin was so overcome at her daughter's misfortune and sufferings that she fell upon the floor insensible. At that moment the door of the apartment was violently thrown open, and a young gentleman entered. The Dead Man and the Doctor turned, and in the newcomer recognised Frank Sydney! It will be necessary to explain the mystery of Frank's sudden appearance at that emergency. A day or two after the suicide of Julia, the body of that wretched woman was picked up by some fisherman, and conveyed to the city, where it was immediately recognized as the lady of Mr. Hedge. The circumstance of her death soon came to the knowledge of our hero; and while he could not help shedding a tear as he thought of her melancholy fate (she had once been his wife, and he had once loved her,) he could not deny to himself that he derived a secret joy from the thought, that now his hopes with reference to Sophia Franklin were not without some foundation. Acting upon this impulse, he had taken the earliest opportunity to call upon the young lady; and at that interview, he had with his customary frankness, related to her his entire history, and concluded his narrative by making her an offer of his hand and heart--and, reader, that honorable offer was accepted with the same frankness with which it was made. On the evening in question, Frank was enjoying one of those charming _tete-a-tetes_ with his Sophia, which all lovers find so delightful, when the agonizing screams of the suffering Josephine brought him to the room, as we have seen, and he found himself, to his astonishment, standing face to face with the Dead Man and the Doctor. 'Why, blood and fury!' cried the former, a gleam of pleasure passing over his horrid features--'here is the very man of all men upon earth, whom I most desired to see. Sydney, you are welcome.' 'What damnable villainy have you been at now?' demanded Frank, recovering his courage and presence of mind, altho' he had reason to believe that he had fallen into the power of his worst enemy in the world. 'What business is that of yours?' growled the Dead Man--'Suffice it for you to know that my _next_ act of villainy will be your assassination.' Our hero drew a revolver from his pocket, and levelled it at the villain's head, saying-- 'Advance but a step towards me, and you are a _dead man_ indeed--Scoundrel! I am no longer a prisoner in your dungeon vaults, but free, and able to protect myself against your brutal cruelty. Though you are aided by the Doctor, whom I once thought my friend, I fear you not, but dare you to do your worst.' 'You are brave, Sydney,' said the Dead Man, with something like a grim of admiration--'but I hate you, and you must die. From the first moment when I met you in the Dark Vaults, to the present time, I have observed something in you that inspires me with a kind of _fear_--a moral superiority over my malice and hatred that inflames me with jealous rage. Even when you were in my power, undergoing my trials and tortures, I have observed contempt upon your lip and scorn in your eye. I once called you coward--but you are a man of doubtless courage, and by Satan! I have half a mind to shake hands with you and call you friend.' During this harangue, Frank had unconsciously lowered his pistol, not suspecting that the long speech was merely a ruse of the Dead Man to spring upon him unawares. While he stood in an attitude poorly calculated for defence, the miscreant suddenly, with the quickness of lightning, sprang upon him, and with irresistible force hurled him to the floor. But our hero received an aid which was as unexpected as it was welcome; for the Doctor threw himself upon the Dead Man, grappled him by the throat, and nearly strangled him. In vain the ruffian struggled--he was in the grasp of an adversary too powerful and too intrepid to be successfully resisted by him. Panting and breathless, he was soon vanquished by his ancient enemy, who, having tied his arms behind him with a strong cord, regarded him with a look of hatred and contempt. 'Why, Doctor, what means this?' demanded the villain, in astonishment at having been so desperately attacked by one whom he had lately regarded as a friend. 'It means, d----n you,' coolly replied the other--'you have been deceived and foiled. In deserting Mr. Sydney to join _your_ bloody standard, I acted in accordance with a plan which I had formed to entrap and conquer you. I know that as long as I remained the professed friend of Mr. Sydney, you would view me with distrust and fear, and consequently, that you would be always on the alert to guard against any attempt of mine to wreak my vengeance on you. So I professed to become your friend, and pretended to attach myself to your interest, knowing that a good opportunity would thereby be afforded me to frustrate any scheme you might form against the life or safety of Mr. Sydney. You see how well I have succeeded; you are completely in my power, and by G----d, this night shall witness the termination of your bloody and infamous career.' 'You surely will not murder me,' said the Dead Man, frightened by the determined tone and manner of a man whose vengeance he had reason to dread. 'To take your accursed life will be no murder,' replied the Doctor--'you are a thousand times worse than a poisonous reptile or a beast of prey, and to kill you would be but an act of justice. Yet do not flatter yourself with the prospect of an easy and comparatively painless death; I have sworn that you shall die a death of lingering torture, and you will see how well I'll keep my oath. My knowledge as a physician, and natural ingenuity, have furnished me with a glorious method of tormenting you; and although you are a master in the art of torture, you will see how far I have surpassed you.' 'You have, by serving me this trick, proved yourself to be both a liar and a traitor,' remarked the Dead Man, bitterly. 'Any means,' rejoined the Doctor, calmly--'are justifiable in overthrowing such an infernal villain as you are; but I see the motive of your sneer--you wish to enrage me, that I may stab you to the heart at once, and place you beyond the reach of protracted torment. You shall fail in this, for I am cool as ice. Before commencing operations upon you, I must attend professionally to those ladies.' Mrs. Franklin was easily recovered from her fainting fit;--and the suffering Josephine received at the skillful hands of the Doctor every care and attention which her lamentable case demanded. He pronounced her life in no danger; but alas! her glorious beauty was gone forever--her face was horribly burnt and disfigured, and her brilliant eyes were destroyed; she was stone blind! Thus it is that the wicked are often the instruments of each other's punishment in this world, as devils are said to torment each other in the next. The mother and daughter having been properly looked after, Frank Sydney took the Doctor aside, and warmly thanked him for his timely and acceptable aid. 'You have proved yourself to be a true and faithful man,' said he grasping his friend's hand--'and my unjust opinions in regard to you have given place to the highest confidence in your integrity and honor. You have saved my life tonight, and not for the first time. I owe you a debt of gratitude; and from this moment we are sworn friends. You shall share my fortune, and move in a sphere of respectability and worth.' 'Mr. Sydney,' said the Doctor, much affected--'do you remember that night I met you in the Park, and would have robbed you? I was then moneyless and starving. I will not now stop to relate how I became reduced to such abject wretchedness, but I must do myself the justice to say that my downfall was produced by the rascalities of others. Your liberality to me upon that night was an evidence to my mind that the world was not entirely heartless and unjust; and tho' I did not immediately forsake the evil of my ways, yet your kindness softened me, and laid the foundation of my present reformation.--Noble young man, I accept the offer of your friendship with gratitude, but I will not share your fortune. No--my ambition is, to build up a fortune of my own, by laboring in my profession, in which I am skilled. By following a course of strict honor and integrity, I may partially retrieve the errors of my past life.' 'I cannot but commend your resolution,' remarked Frank--'but you must not refuse to accept from me such pecuniary aid as will be necessary to establish you in a respectable and creditable manner.--But in regard to this miscreant here; you actually intend to kill him by slow torture?' 'I do,' replied the Doctor, in a determined manner--'and my only regret is that I cannot protract his sufferings a year. Do not think me cold-blooded or cruel, my dear friend; that villain merits the worst death that man can inflict upon him. If we were to hand him over to the grasp of the law, for his numerous crimes, his infernal ingenuity might enable him to escape. Our only security lies in crushing the reptile while we have him in our trap.' 'I shall not interfere with you in your just punishment of the villain,' said our hero--'but I must decline being present. The enormous crimes he had committed, and the wrongs which I have sustained at his hands, will not allow me to say a single word in his behalf--yet I will not witness his torments.' 'I understand and respect your scruples; I being a physician, such a spectacle cannot affect my nerves.--You will please assist me to place the _subject_ upon this table, and then you can retire.' They raised the Dead Man from the floor, and placed him on a large table which stood in the centre of the room. Frank then bade the Doctor a temporary farewell, and passing through the hall was about to leave the house, when a servant informed him that Miss Sophia Franklin wished to see him. He joyfully obeyed the summons, and found the young lady in deep distress at the condition of her sister Josephine, and very anxious for an explanation of the terrible cause. Frank stated all he knew of the matter, and we leave him to the task of consoling her, while we witness the operations of the Doctor upon his living _subject_. In the first place, he tied the Dead Man down upon the table so firmly, that he could not move a hair's breadth. During this process, the miserable victim, losing all his customary bravado and savage insolence, begged hard to be killed at once, rather than undergo the torments which he dreaded. But the Doctor only laughed, and drew from his pocket a case of surgical instruments; he then produced a small phial, which he held close to his victim's eyes, and bade him examine it narrowly. 'You see,' said he, 'this little phial?--it contains a slow poison of peculiar and fearful power. You shall judge of its effects yourself presently. I will infuse it into your blood, and it will cause you greater agony than melted lead poured upon your heart.' 'For God's sake, Doctor,' cried the wretch,--'spare me _that_! I have heard you tell of it before. Will nothing move you? Show me mercy, and I will reveal to you many valuable and astounding secrets, known only to me. I will tell you where, within twenty miles of Boston, I have buried over twenty thousand dollars in gold and silver; I will myself lead you to the spot and you shall have it all--all! I will furnish you with a list of fashionable drinking houses in the city, where is sold liquor impregnated with a slow but deadly poison, which in two years will bring on a lingering disease, generally thought to be consumption; this disease always terminates in death, and the whole matter is arranged by physicians, who thus get a constant and extensive practice. I will take you to rooms where persons, under the name of 'secret societies,' privately meet to indulge in the most unnatural and beastly licentiousness. I will prove to you, by ocular demonstration, that in _certain cities_ of the Union, not a letter passes through the post offices, that is not broken open and read, and then re-sealed by a peculiar process--by which means much private information is gained by the police, and the most tremendous secrets often leak out, to the astonishment of the parties concerned. I will communicate to you a method by which the most virtuous and chaste woman can be made wild with desire, and easily overcome. I will show you how to make a man drop dead in the street, without touching him, or using knife or pistol--and not a mark will be found on his person. I will--' 'That'll do,' said the Doctor, dryly--'the matters you have mentioned are mostly no secrets to me; and if your object was to gain time and dissuade me from my purpose, you have signally failed. Villain! your long career of crime is now about to receive its reward. Prayers and entreaties shall not avail you; and to put an end to them, as well as to prevent you from yelling out in your agony--by which people would be attracted hither--I will take the liberty to _gag_ you.' In forcing the jaws of the Dead Man widely apart, in order to accomplish that purpose, the victim contrived to get one of his tormentor's fingers between his teeth, and it was nearly bitten off ere it could be disengaged. This enraged the Doctor so that he was about to kill his enemy instantly, but he checked himself; and having effectually gagged him, he prepared to commence the terrible ordeal. Taking a lancet from the case, he made an incision in the subject's right arm; then, in the wound, he poured a few drops of the contents of the phial. The effects were instantaneous and terrible; the poison became infused in every vein of the sufferer's body, and his blood seemed changed to liquid fire; he writhed in mighty agony--his heart leaped madly in his breast, in the intensity of his torment--his brain swam in a sea of fire--his eyes started from their sockets, and blood oozed from every pore of his body. These awful results were produced by a wonderful chemical preparation, known to but few, and first discovered in the days of the Spanish Inquisition. It was then termed the 'Ordeal of Fire;' and the infernal vengeance of hell itself could not have produced torment more intense or protracted; for though it racked every nerve and sinew in the body, filling the veins with a flood like molten lead, it was comparatively slow in producing death, and kept the sufferer for several hours writhing in all the tortures of the damned. For two mortal hours the miserable wretch endured the torment; while the Doctor stood over him, viewing him with a fixed gaze and an unmoved heart. Then he removed the gag from the sufferer's mouth, and poured a glass of water down his throat, which temporarily assuaged his agony. 'Doctor,' gasped the dying wretch--'for God's sake stab me to the heart, and end my misery! I am in hell--I am floating in an ocean of fire--my murdered victims are pouring rivers of blazing blood upon me--my soul is in flames--my _heart_ is RED HOT! Ah, kill me--kill me!' The Doctor, after a moment's deliberation, again took an instrument from his case, and skillfully divided the flesh in the region of the abdomen, making an incision of considerable extent. He then produced a small flask of gunpowder, in the neck of which he inserted a straw filled with the same combustible; and in the end of the straw he fastened a small slip of paper which he had previously prepared with saltpetre. Having made these arrangements, he placed the powder flask completely in the victim's abdomen, leaving the slow match to project slightly from the wound. The Dead Man was perfectly conscious during this horrible process, notwithstanding he suffered the most excruciating pain. 'You are going to blow me to atoms, Doctor,' he with difficulty articulated, as a ghastly smile spread over his hideous features--'I thank you for it; although I hate and curse you in this my dying hour. Grant me a moment longer; if the spirits of the dead are allowed to re-visit the earth, _my_ spirit shall visit you! Ha, ha, ha! In a few seconds, I shall be free from the power of your torture--free to follow you like a shadow through life, free to preside in ghastly horror over your midnight slumbers and to breathe constantly in your ear, curses--curses--curses!' 'Miserable devil, your blood-polluted spirit will be too strongly bound to hell, to wander on earth,' said the Doctor, with a contempt not unmingled with pity. 'Farewell, thou man of many crimes; for the wrongs you have done me, I forgive you, but human and divine justice have demanded this sacrifice.' He ignited a match, touched it to the paper at the end of the straw, and hastily retreated to the further extremities of the room. It was an awful moment; slowly the paper burnt towards the straw--so slowly, that the victim of this awful sacrifice had time to vent his dying rage in malignant curses, on himself, his tormentor, and his Maker! The straw is reached--the fire runs down to the powder flask with a low hiss--and then-- Awful was the explosion that followed; the wretch was torn into a hundred pieces; his limbs, his brains, his blood were scattered all about. A portion of the mangled carcass struck the Doctor; the lamp was broken by the shock and darkness prevailed in the room. The inmates of the house, frightened at the noise, rushed to the scene of the catastrophe with lights. Frank Sydney, Sophia and Mrs. Franklin, as well as several other male and female domestics, entering the apartment, stood aghast at the shocking spectacle presented to their gaze. There stood the Doctor, with folded arms and his face stained with blood; here an arm, here, a blackened mass of flesh; and here, the most horrible object of all, the mutilated and ghastly head, with the same expression of malignant hate upon its hideous features as when those livid lips had last uttered curses! 'The deed is done,' said the Doctor, addressing Sydney, with a grim smile--'justice has its due at last, and the diabolical villain has gone to his final account. Summon some scavenger to collect the vile remains, and bury them in a dung-hill. To give them Christian, decent burial would be treason to man, sacrilege to the Church, and impiety to God!' Thus perished the 'Dead Man,' a villain so stupendous, so bloodthirsty and so desperate that it may well be doubted whether such a monster ever could have existed. But this diabolical character is not entirely drawn from the author's imagination; neither is it highly exaggerated;--for the annals of crime will afford instances of villainy as deep and as monstrous as any that characterized the career of the 'Dead Man' of our tale. What, for example, can be more awful or incredible than the hideous deed of a noted criminal in France, who, having ensnared a peasant girl in a wood, brutally murdered her, then outraged the corpse, and afterwards _ate a part of it_? Yet no one will presume to doubt the fact, as it forms a portion of the French criminal records. Humanity shudders at such instances of worse than devilish depravity. Moreover, to show that we have indulged in no improbabilities in portraying the chief villain of our tale, we assert that a person bearing that name and the same disfigurement of countenance, _really existed_ not two years ago. He was renowned for his many crimes, and was murdered by a former accomplice, in a manner not dissimilar to the death we have assigned to him in the story. But we turn from a contemplation of such villains, to pursue a different and somewhat more agreeable channel. CHAPTER XXX _Showing that a man should never marry a woman before he sees her face--The Disappointed Bridegroom--Final Catastrophe._ Two months passed away. Two months!--how short a space of time, and yet, perchance, how pregnant with events affecting the happiness and the destiny of millions! Within that brief span--the millionth fraction of a single sand in Time's great hour-glass--thousands have begun their existence, to pursue through life a career of honor, of profit, of ambition, or of crime!--and thousands, too, have ceased their existence, and their places are filled by others in the great race of human life. But a truce to moralizing.--Two months passed away, and it was now the season of summer--that delicious season, fraught with more voluptuous pleasures than virgin spring, gloomy autumn or hoary winter. It was in rather an obscure street of Boston--in a modest two-story wooden house--and in an apartment plainly, even humbly furnished, that two ladies were seated, engaged in an earnest conversation. One of these ladies was probably near forty years of age, and had evidently once been extremely handsome; her countenance still retained traces of great beauty--but time, and care, and perhaps poverty, were beginning to mar it. Her figure was good, though perhaps rather too full for grace; and her dress was very plain yet neat, and not without some claims to taste. Her companion was probably much younger, and was attired with considerable elegance; yet a strange peculiarity in her costume would have instantly excited the surprise of an observer--for although the day was excessively warm, she wore a thick veil, which reached to her waist, and effectually concealed her face. She conversed in a voice of extraordinary melody; and the refined language of both ladies evinced that they had been accustomed to move in a higher sphere of society than that in which we now find them. 'At what time do you expect him here?' asked the oldest lady, in continuation of the discourse in which they had previously been engaged. 'At eight o'clock this evening,' replied the other. 'He is completely fascinated with me; and notwithstanding I have assured him, over and over again, that my countenance is horribly disfigured, and that I am entirely blind, he persists in believing that I am beautiful, and that I have perfect eye-sight, attributing my concealment of face to a whim.' 'Which opinion you have artfully encouraged, Josephine,' said Mrs. Franklin.--The reader has probably already guessed the identity of the two ladies; this was the mother and her once beautiful, but now hideous and blind daughter. They were reduced to the most abject poverty, and had been forced to leave their handsome residence in Washington street, and take up their abode in an humble and cheap tenement. Entirely destitute of means, they were obliged to struggle hard to keep themselves above absolute want. Josephine, being a superb singer, had obtained an engagement to sing in one of the fashionable churches; but as she always appeared closely veiled, the fact of her being so terribly disfigured was unsuspected. The beauty of her voice and the graceful symmetry of her figure had attracted the attention and won the admiration of a wealthy member of the church, who was also attached to the choir; and as she was always carefully conducted in and out of the church by her mother this gentleman never suspected that she was blind. He had framed an excuse to call upon her at her residence; and, tho' astonished to find her veiled, at home--and tho' he had never seen her face--he was charmed with her brilliant conversation, and resolved to win her, if possible. The very mystery of her conduct added to the intensity of his passion. Mr. Thurston, (the church member), continued his visits to Josephine, but never saw her face. When he grew more familiar, he ventured upon one occasion to inquire why she kept herself so constantly veiled; whereupon she informed him that her face had been disfigured by being scalded during her infancy, which accident had also deprived her of sight. But when he requested her to raise her veil, and allow him to look at her face, she refused with so much good-humored animation, that he began to suspect the young lady of having playfully deceived him. 'This interesting creature,' thought he, 'is trying to play me a trick.--She hides her face and pretends to be a fright, while the coquetry of her manners and the perfect ease of her conversation convince me that she cannot be otherwise than beautiful.--What, the owner of that superb voice and that elegant form, _ugly_? Impossible! Now I can easily guess her object in trying to play off this little piece of deception upon me; I have read somewhere of a lady who kept her face constantly veiled, and proclaimed herself to be hideously ugly, which was universally believed, notwithstanding which she secured an admirer, who loved her for her graces of mind; he offered her his hand, and she agreed to marry him, provided that he would not seek to behold her face until after the performance of the ceremony--adding, that if he saw how ugly she was, he would certainly never marry her. 'I love you for your mind, and care not for the absence of beauty,' cried the lover. They were married; they retired to their chamber. 'Now prepare yourself for an awful sight,'--said the bride, slowly raising her veil. The husband could not repress a shudder--he gazed for the first time upon the face of his wife--when lo and behold! instead of an ugly and disfigured face, he saw before him a countenance radiant with celestial beauty! 'Dear husband,' said the lovely wife, casting her arms around her astonished and happy lord, 'you loved me truly, although you thought me ugly; such devotion and such disinterested love well merit the prize of beauty.' 'Now, I feel assured,' said Mr. Thurston to himself, pursuing the current of his thoughts--'that this young lady, Miss Franklin, is trying to deceive me in a similar manner, in order to test the sincerity of my affection; and should I marry her, I would find her to be a paragon of beauty. Egad, she is so accomplished and bewitching, that I've more than half a mind to propose, and make her Mrs. T.' The worthy deacon (for such he was,) being a middle-aged man of very good looks, and moreover very rich, Josephine was determined to 'catch him' if she could; she therefore took advantage of his disbelief in her deformity, and, while she persisted in her assurances that she was hideously ugly, she made those assurances in a manner so light and playful, that Mr. T. would have taken his oath that she was beautiful, and he became more and more smitten with the mysterious veiled lady, whose face he had never seen. Josephine, with consummate art, was resolved, if possible, to entice him into matrimony; and once his wife, she knew that in case he refused to live with her on discovering her awful deformity, he would liberally provide for her support, and thus her mother and herself would be enabled again to live in luxury. As for Sophia, she no longer lived with them--the fair, innocent girl had gone to occupy a position to be stated hereafter. We now resume the conversation between Mrs. Franklin and her daughter, which we interrupted by the above necessary explanation.--'Which opinion you have artfully encouraged, Josephine,' said Mrs. Franklin--'and you will of course suffer him to enjoy that opinion, until after your marriage with him, which event is, I think, certain; then you can reveal your true condition to him, and if he casts you off, he will be obliged to afford you a sufficient income, which we both so much need; for he cannot charge you with having deceived him, as you represent to him your real condition, and if he chooses to disbelieve you, that is his own affair, not yours.' 'True, mother; and the marriage must be speedily accomplished, for we are sadly in need of funds, and all my best dresses are at the pawnbroker's. Alas, that my beauty should be destroyed--that beauty which would have captured the hearts and purses of so many rich admirers! I am almost inclined to rejoice that my eyesight is gone, for I cannot see my deformity. Am I very hideous, mother?' 'My poor, afflicted child,' said Mrs. Franklin, shedding tears--'do not question me on that subject. Oh, Josephine, had I, your mother, set you an example of purity and virtue, and trained you up in the path of rectitude, we never should have experienced our past and present misery, and you, my once beautiful child, would not now be deformed and blind. Alas, I have much to reproach myself for.' 'Tut, mother; you have grown puritanical of late. Let us try to forget the past, and cherish hope for the future.--How very warm it is!' She retired from the window to avoid the observation of the passers-by, and removed her veil. Good God!--Can she be the once lovely Josephine! Ah, terrible punishment of sin! Her once radiant countenance was of a ghastly yellow hue, save where deep purple streaks gave it the appearance of a putrefying corpse. Her once splendid eyes, that had so oft flashed with indignant scorn, glowed with the pride of her imperial beauty, or sparkled with the fires of amorous passion, had been literally burned out of her head! That once lofty and peerless brow was disfigured by hideous scars, and a wig supplied the place of her once clustering and luxuriant hair.--She was as loathsome to look upon as had been her destroyer, the Dead Man. Oh, it was a pitiful sight to see that talented and accomplished young lady thus stricken with the curses of deformity and blindness, through her own wickedness--to see that temple which God had made so beautiful and fair to look upon, thus shattered and defiled by the ravages of sin! Evening came, and with it brought Mr. Thurston. Josephine, seated on a sofa and impenetrably veiled, received him with a courteous welcome;--and comported herself so admirably and artfully, that the most critical observer would not have imagined her to be blind, but would have supposed her to be wearing a veil merely out of caprice, or from some trifling cause.--When she spoke to her lover, or was addressed by him, she invariably turned her face towards him, as if unconsciously; and the gentleman chuckled inwardly, as he thought he saw in that simple act an evidence of her being possessed of the faculty of sight. But one incident occurred which doubly confirmed him in his belief; it was an artful contrivance of Josephine and her mother. Previous to Mr. Thurston's arrival, a rose had been placed upon the carpet, close to Josephine's feet; and during a pause in the conversation, while apparently in an abstracted mood, she leaned forward, took it up by the stem, and began slowly to pick it to pieces, scattering the leaves all about her. 'By Jupiter, I have her now!' said the lover to himself, triumphantly--and then he abruptly said-- 'How now, Josephine! If you are blind, how saw you that rose upon the carpet?' Josephine, affecting to be much confused, stammered out something about her having discovered the rose to be near her by its fragrance; but Mr. Thurston laughed and said-- 'It won't do, my dear Miss Franklin; it is evident that you can see as well as I can. Come, end this farce at once, and let me see your face.' 'No, you shall not, for I have vowed that the first man who beholds my face shall be my husband.' 'Then hear me, Josephine,' cried her lover, raising her fair hand to his lips--'I know not what singular whim has prompted you in your endeavors to make me think you ugly and blind, but this I know, you have inspired me with ardent love. I _know_ you to be beautiful and free from imperfection of sight--nay, do not speak--but I will not again allude to the subject, nor press you to raise your veil, until after our marriage--that is, if you will accept me. Speak, Josephine.' 'Mr. Thurston, if, after my many solemn assurances to you that I am afflicted in the manner I have so often described, you ask me to become your wife--here is my hand.' 'A thousand thanks, my beautiful, mysterious, veiled lady!' exclaimed the enraptured lover--'as to your being afflicted--ha, ha!--I'll risk it, I'll risk it! Naughty Josephine, I'll punish you hereafter for your attempt to deceive me!' The poor man little suspected how egregiously she _was_ deceiving him!--He was a person of no natural penetration, and could no more see thro' her designs, than through the veil which covered her face. Midnight came, and found Josephine and her victim still seated upon the sofa in the little parlor, her head reposing upon his shoulder, and his arm encircling her waist. He felt as happy as any man can feel, who imagines he has won the love of a beautiful woman; but had he known the blackness of her heart, and seen the awful hideousness of her face, how he would have cast her from him with contempt and loathing! When about to take his leave, he lingered in the entry and begged her to grant him a kiss; she consented, on condition that it should be a 'kiss in the dark.' The candle was extinguished, she raised her veil, and he pressed his lips to hers. Could he have seen her ghastly cheek, her eyeless sockets, and the livid lips which he so rapturously kissed, his soul would have grown sick with horror. But he departed, in blissful ignorance of her deformity of body and impurity of soul. We hasten to the final catastrophe. They were married. The eager bridegroom conducted his veiled and trembling bride to the nuptial chamber.--Josephine was much agitated; for the grand crisis had arrived, which would either raise her to a comfortable independence, or hurl her into the dark abyss of despair. 'Is it very light here?' she asked. 'Yes, dearest,' replied the husband--'I have caused this our bridal chamber to be illuminated, in order that I may the better be enabled to feast my eyes upon your beauty, so long concealed from my gaze.' 'Prepare yourself,' murmured Josephine, 'for a terrible disappointment. I have not deceived you.--Behold your bride!' She threw up her veil. LETTER FROM MRS. SOPHIA SYDNEY TO A LADY. You cannot imagine, my dearest Alice, what a life of calm felicity I enjoy with my beloved Francis, in our new home among the majestic mountains of Vermont. Had you the faintest conception of the glorious scenery which surrounds the little rustic cottage which we inhabit, (our ark of safety--poor, wearied doves that we are!) you would willingly abandon your abode in the noisy, crowded metropolis, to join us in our beautiful and secluded retreat. Our dwelling is situated on the margin of a clear and quiet lake, whose glassy surface mirrors each passing cloud, and at night reflects a myriad of bright stars. We have procured a small but elegant pleasure barge, in which we often gently glide over those placid waters, when Evening darkens our mountain home with the shadow of her wing, and when the moon gilds our liquid path with soft radiance. Then, while my Francis guides the little vessel, I touch my guitar and sing some simple melody; and as we approach the dark, mysterious shore, my imagination oft conjures up a troop of fairy beings with bright wings, stealing away into the dim recesses of the shadowy forest. And often, when the noon-day sun renders the air oppressive with his heat, I wander into the depths of that forest, where the giant trees, forming a vast arch overhead, exclude the glare of summer, and produce a soft, delicious twilight. My favorite resting place is upon a mossy bank, near which flows a crystal brook whose dancing waters murmur with a melody almost as sweet as the low breathings of an Aeolian harp.--Here, with a volume of philosophic Cowper or fascinating Scott, I sometimes linger until twilight begins to deepen into darkness, and then return to meet with smiles the playful chidings of my husband, for my protracted absence--an offence he can easily forgive, if I present him with a bouquet of wild flowers gathered during my ramble; although he laughingly calls the floral offering a bribe. We have almost succeeded in banishing the remembrance of our past sorrows, and look forward to the future with trustful hope. I am happy, Alice--very, very happy; and oh! may no care or trouble ever o'ershadow our tranquil home. CONCLUSION 'So on your patience evermore attending, New joy wait on you--here our play has ending.' [SHAKESPEARE] Reader, our task is done. Thou hast kindly accompanied us through our rambling narrative, until the end; and now it but remains for us to dispose of the _dramatis personae_ who have figured in the various scenes, and then bid thee farewell. Frank Sydney and his beautiful Sophia were united in marriage, and are now residing in one of the most romantic spots to be found in all New England. Sophia has long since ceased all correspondence with her wretched and abandoned mother, who has become the keeper (under an assumed name) of a celebrated and fashionable brothel in West Cedar street. Josephine Franklin terminated her miserable existence by poison (procured for her by her own mother,) on the day after her marriage with Mr. Thurston, who, when he beheld the hideous deformity of his bride, instead of the beauty which he expected, recoiled with horror--and after bitterly reproaching her, drove her from his presence, bidding her never to let him see her again, and refusing to make the smallest provision for her support. A few days after Josephine's death, Mr. Thurston, overcome with mortification, shot himself through the heart. The Doctor has become one of the most respectable physicians, in Boston, and enjoys a lucrative and extensive practice. He is married to an amiable lady, and has named his first son after Sydney, his generous benefactor. He has received into his office, as a student of medicine, Clinton Romaine, the dumb boy, who bids fair to become a skilful and useful physician. Nero, the African, who has played no inconsiderable part in our drama, finally came to Boston, and now follows the respectable occupation of barber, in the vicinity of the Maine Railroad Depot. In conclusion, if the foregoing pages have in the least degree contributed to the reader's entertainment, or initiated him into any mystery of CITY CRIMES heretofore unknown--and if this tale, founded on fact, has served to illustrate the truth of the ancient proverbs that 'honesty is the best policy' and 'virtue is its own reward'--then is the author amply repaid for his time and toil, and he tenders to the indulgent public his most respectful parting salutations. [THE END.] TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Alternative spellings and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original book. Changes to the original have been made as follows: "Family worship was always adhered to by them, a well as grace before and after meals." --> "Family worship was always adhered to by them, as well as grace before and after meals." "'pressing me close to him" --> "pressing me close to him" "all that was said." --> "all that was said.'" "'These words were said" --> "These words were said" "'See here, young feller, 'said the stranger" --> "'See here, young feller,' said the stranger" "What is your name?" --> "What is your name?'" "'Then you will please to bundle out of this house as soon as possible," --> "'Then you will please to bundle out of this house as soon as possible,'" "Kinchen" italicized "inclined her heard toward him." --> "inclined her head toward him." "in another instant she was prostate" --> "in another instant she was prostrate" "While he was surveying herself, she gave utterance" --> "While she was surveying herself, she gave utterance" "to a cupboard in on corner" --> "to a cupboard in one corner" "'lost, lost!'" --> "'lost, lost!" "pausing before Mr. Belmont's chamber" --> "pausing before Mrs. Belmont's chamber" "the pathetic Hiberian ballad" --> "the pathetic Hibernian ballad" "Our preferences are both strictly classical;" --> "'Our preferences are both strictly classical;" "'Insolent, am I?'--take that, and be d----d to you!'" --> "'Insolent, am I?--take that, and be d----d to you!'" "laughing heartily.'--'d'ye think" --> "laughing heartily.--'d'ye think" "On, how I hugged myself with joy" --> "Oh, how I hugged myself with joy" "and gazing eagerly about him. Pete, did you hear anything?'" --> "and gazing eagerly about him. 'Pete, did you hear anything?'" "Kinchen's" italicized "The day when he commits murder will be he happiest day of my life." --> "The day when he commits murder will be the happiest day of my life." "She faintly thanked her deliver" --> "She faintly thanked her deliverer" "disgusting and and unnatural" --> "disgusting and unnatural" "until a strange feeling of fascination over him" --> "until a strange feeling of fascination came over him" "but, to my, horror," --> "but, to my horror," "my old schoolmates are now keeping fashionable boarding house" --> "my old schoolmates are now keeping fashionable boarding houses" "escritoire" italicized "tete-a-tete" italicized "'_Dare?_ exclaimed the Doctor" --> "'_Dare?_' exclaimed the Doctor" "with is so charming a characteristic" --> "which is so charming a characteristic" "have been more less tainted with crime" --> "have been more or less tainted with crime" "Two policeman now ran up" --> "Two policemen now ran up" "his unvaried kindess" --> "his unvaried kindness" "raising her fair had" --> "raising her fair hand" 
29199	----	images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE SIEGE OF BOSTON [Illustration: Logo] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE] THE SIEGE OF BOSTON BY ALLEN FRENCH New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1911 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1911. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO C. E. S. PREFACE In writing this book I have endeavored to produce a brief and readable account of the Siege of Boston, and of the events which brought it about. These were, of course, parts of a larger history, the connection with which I have carefully indicated. My main endeavor, nevertheless, has been to treat my subject as a single organic series of events. To select the more interesting and significant masses of detail, and properly to coördinate them, has not been an easy task. The minor incidents were conditioned by the scale of the book; the result, I hope, is fluency and a more evident connection between the larger events. So far as possible, I have relied upon contemporary statements. But no writer on the Siege can fail to acknowledge his deep obligations to the "History of the Siege" by Richard Frothingham. This acknowledgment I gladly make. Since 1849, however, the date of the publication of the book, there has come to light interesting new material which I have endeavored to incorporate here. The other authorities upon which I have chiefly depended will be found by referring to the footnotes. ALLEN FRENCH. CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS, January, 1911. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. BEGINNINGS AND CONDITIONS 1 II. WRITS OF ASSISTANCE AND THE STAMP ACT 21 III. CHARLES TOWNSHEND, SAM ADAMS, AND THE MASSACRE 41 IV. THE TEA-PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 71 V. THE OCCUPATION OF BOSTON 91 VI. THE POWDER ALARM AND THE WINTER OF 1774-1775 123 VII. MILITARY PREPARATIONS 161 VIII. THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL 187 IX. BOSTON BELEAGUERED 216 X. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 256 XI. WASHINGTON TAKES COMMAND 288 XII. EVENTS IN BOSTON FROM JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1775 331 XIII. WASHINGTON'S DIFFICULTIES 361 XIV. THE WINTER IN BOSTON 392 XV. THE EVACUATION 415 ILLUSTRATIONS OLD STATE HOUSE _Frontispiece_ PAGE THE HUTCHINSON HOUSE 35 FANEUIL HALL _facing_ 58 SAMUEL ADAMS _facing_ 69 THE INVESTMENT OF BOSTON _facing_ 127 REVERE'S PICTURE OF BOSTON IN 1768 175 THE OLD NORTH CHURCH _facing_ 181 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON _facing_ 193 PLAN OF THE SIEGE 235 THE MINUTE MAN _facing_ 303 THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE _facing_ 303 WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS _facing_ 374 DORCHESTER TOWER 407 GOLD MEDAL COMMEMORATING WASHINGTON'S VICTORY 434 THE SIEGE OF BOSTON CHAPTER I BEGINNINGS AND CONDITIONS The Siege of Boston was the culmination of a series of events which will always be of importance in the history of America. From the beginning of the reign of George the Third, the people of the English colonies in the new world found themselves at variance with their monarch, and nowhere more so than in Massachusetts. Since the New England people were fitted by their temperament and history to take the lead in the struggle, at their chief town naturally took place the more important incidents. These, which were often dramatic, had nevertheless a political cause and significance which link them in a rising series that ended in a violent outbreak and the eleven months' leaguer. As to the siege itself, it varies an old situation, for Boston was beset by its own neighbors in defence of the common rights. Previously the king's troops, though regarded as invaders, had been but half-hearted oppressors; it was the people themselves who persistently provoked difficulties. The siege proper is of striking military interest, for its hostilities begin by the repulse of an armed expedition into a community of farmers, continue with a pitched battle between regular troops and a militia, produce a general of commanding abilities, and end with a strategic move of great skill and daring. It is the first campaign of a great war, and precedes the birth of a nation. Politically, the cause of the struggle is of enduring consequence to mankind. Socially, the siege and its preliminaries bring to view people of all kinds, some weak, some base, some picturesque, some entirely admirable. The period shows the breaking up of an old society and the formation of a new. A study of the siege is therefore of value. It will be observed that the siege cannot satisfactorily be considered as a distinct series of military or semi-military events, abruptly beginning and still more abruptly ending. Such a view would reduce the siege to a mere matter of local history, having little connection with the larger movements of the American Revolution, and appearing almost as an accident which might have happened at any other centre of sufficient population.[1] On the contrary, neither the siege nor the Revolution were accidents of history. That the Revolution was bound to come about, and that its beginnings were equally bound to be at Boston, these were conditioned in the nature, first of the colonists in general, and second of the New Englanders in particular. However striking were certain of the occurrences, they were of less importance than their causes and consequences. Accordingly I shall consider as an organic series the more important of those events which happened in Boston during the reign of George the Third, and which ended when the last of his redcoats departed from the town. In fact, in order to be perfectly intelligible I must first devote a few pages to a consideration of previous conditions. "Any one," wrote George E. Ellis in the "Memorial History of Boston,"[2] "who attempts to trace the springs, the occasions, and the directing forces of the revolt ... cannot find his clew a year short of the date when the former self-governed Colony of Massachusetts Bay became a Royal Province." He is right in pointing out that in 1692 the struggle took open form. Yet even then the controversy was not new. In other form it had been carried on for more than half a century previous. Its ultimate origin lay in the fact that the very charter under which the colony was planted differed from all other documents granted by any English king. This difference lay in the omission of the condition, usual in such charters, that its governing board should meet in London practically for the purpose of supervision by the king. That the omission of this condition was the result of wisdom on the part of the founders, and stupidity on the part of the officers of the king, seems undeniable. The founders, unhappy and alarmed at the political and religious situation in England under Charles the First, were seeking to provide for themselves and their families a refuge from his oppressions. Secure in their charter, they presently left England for good. When they sailed for America they did all that could be done to cut themselves off from interference by the crown. At intervals, extremely valuable for the future of America, the Massachusetts colony certainly was free of all restraint. Charles's benediction seems to have been "Good riddance!" From the crown the colonists received no assistance whatever, and it was long both their boast and their plea that they had planted the colony "at their own expense." They were left to work out their own salvation.[3] As a result, their passionate desire for freedom from interference by the king grew into the feeling that they had earned it as a right. Englishmen they were still, and subjects of the king; but to the privileges of Englishmen they had added the right to manage their own affairs. The English king and the English law were to help them in their difficulties and to settle cases of appeal. In return they would grant money and fight for the king when necessary; but in the meantime they would live by themselves. Taking advantage of the clause in their charter which authorized them "to ordain and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes, and ordinances," they speedily took to themselves everything but the name of independence. They instituted courts for all purposes, set up their legislative government, raised their own taxes, whether general or local, and perfected that wonderful instrument of resistance to oppression, New England town government. They even coined money. And, different from most of the other colonies, they chose their governor from among their own number. Distance and home difficulties--for the Stuart kings usually had their hands full of trouble with their subjects--favored the non-interference which the colonists craved. When, however, the Stuarts had any leisure at all, they at once devoted it to quarrelling with their subjects in New England. Even to the easy-going Charles II the cool aloofness of the colonists was a bit too strong; to his father and brother it was intolerable. The invariable methods of the colonists, when facing a demand from the king, were evasion and delay. "Avoid or protract" were Winthrop's own words in 1635. In 1684 the General Court wrote advising their attorney, employed in England in defending the charter, "to spin out the case to the uttermost."[4] Once and once only until the Revolution--in the case of the seizing of Andros--did the men of Massachusetts proceed to action. Their habitual policy was safe, and, on the whole, successful. Slow communication (one voyage of commissioners from Boston to England took three months), and the existence in England of a strong party of friends, helped powerfully to obscure and obliterate the issues. Yet Charles I in 1640, and James II in 1689, made preparations to reduce the colony to proper subjection, by force if necessary. It was doubtless well for Massachusetts that both Charles and James were presently dethroned, for against the power of England no successful resistance could then have been made. New England, indeed, might have been united against the king, but it is very unlikely that the other colonies would have given their help. Some generations more were needed before the aristocrats of Virginia could feel themselves at one with the Puritans of New England. Yet it is interesting to notice the spirit of Massachusetts. On the news of Charles's intentions the colony prepared for resistance. In James's time it went a step further. When the news came of the expedition of William of Orange, Massachusetts cast in its lot with him. Without waiting to learn the result of the struggle, Boston rose against James's unpopular governor, and imprisoned him in the Castle. The act was heroic, for the Bloody Assizes had taught the world what punishment the cowardly king meted out to rebels. It will be noticed that the political status of Massachusetts was already changed. After many delays Charles II had abrogated the charter. His death followed almost immediately, and Andros had been appointed at the head of a provisional government. Doubtless the resistance to him had been inspired by the hope that the old charter might be restored. Instead, William, when once secure on the throne, issued a new charter. Under its provisions the colony, now a province, lived until the Revolution. In order that the events leading up to the siege may be understood, it will be well to consider the provisions of the new governmental machinery. At the head of the province were to be a governor and a lieutenant-governor, both appointed by the king. Their powers were executive, with the right of veto over legislation, and also over certain appointments by the legislature. Laws passed by this legislature and not vetoed by the governor or the king were to go in force three years after their enactment. The legislature had two houses, the lower a popular chamber, called the Assembly, elected by the towns. The upper branch was called the Council. The first Council was appointed by the king; later members were to be nominated by the Assembly for the approval of the governor. The Assembly and Council formed together the Great and General Court. Judges were to be chosen by the governor and Council, but all officers were to be paid by the General Court. As will be seen later, in the case of the Writs of Assistance, appeal could be taken to the English courts. And now for the first time became evident the fact that three generations of practical independence had bred in America a race of men--or it may be better to say had fostered a school of thought--that never could agree in submitting to a distant and arbitrary authority. In the seventy years which followed, New England showed this spirit in many ways. The most prominent cause of disagreement was the question of the governor's prerogatives, resulting in constant bickerings with the crown. The principle, of course, lay deeper still. On the one side were sovereigns whose powers were not yet definitely restricted, and who were likely to resent any apparent tendency to make them less. On the other side was a people who had progressed far in self-government, and who resisted any limitation of their rights. It is not the purpose of this book to trace the earlier unification of the colonies under pressure from without. By the year 1760 that process was approaching completion; there was, therefore, in America a stronger feeling than ever, while across the water was that new ruler into whose youthful ears his mother had continually dinned the words, "George, be king!" It is well to understand the status of a colony in those days, and the difficulties with which its inhabitants struggled. Yet it is hard for the modern man to conceive the restrictions upon freedom. From earliest days there had been discontent with the king's claim to the finest trees in the public forests, the "mast trees" which, reserved for the king's navy, no man might lawfully cut.[5] Exportation of lumber, except to England and the British West Indies, was long illegal. Trade with the French and Spanish islands was prohibited entirely, and trade in many products of home manufacture (tobacco, sugar, wool, dye-stuffs, furs, are prominent examples) was forbidden "to any place but Great Britain--even to Ireland."[6] Certain merchandise might be imported at will, subject to duty; but most articles could be bought, and sold, only through Great Britain. Further, internal commerce and manufacture were severely hampered. No wool or woollen product might be carried from one province to another. The Bible might not be printed. The making of hats was almost entirely suppressed. The manufacture of iron, on a scale sufficient to compete with English wares, was practically prohibited--as a "nuisance."[7] Under all these restrictions the colonies were not as yet restive. To be sure there were smuggling and illicit trade, and grievances in plenty; yet the stress of colonial life, the continual danger from the north and west, had kept the provincials satisfied as a body. And now, at the opening of the reign of George III, with the French driven out of Canada and the Mississippi Valley, and the Indians subdued, there should have been concord between the colonists and the king. The comparison between the two is very striking, while at the same time it is not easily brought home to the city dweller of to-day. City government gives the individual a chance to bury himself in the mass, and to avoid his duties; further, our cities are now many, and very large, while we are notoriously patient under misrule. In 1760, on the other hand, few towns had as yet adopted city government. Boston was the largest town, and its population was little more than fifteen thousand. So well did its enemies understand one reason for its truculence, that they even considered means to force upon the town a city charter. The question came, however, to no definite proposition. The town therefore proceeded with its open discussion of all public questions, with its right of free speech in town meetings extended even to strangers, and with its _viva voce_ vote letting each man know where his neighbor stood. "The town" was an entity of which each man felt himself a part. As a whole, its self-consciousness was like that of an individual: it could feel a trespass on its privileges as quickly as could the haughtiest monarch of the old world. And all New England was filled with towns whose feelings, on all essential points, were one and the same. Against the town-meetings of America stood George III, as determined to assert his prerogatives as was any member of the house of Stuart. Still comparatively young, he had not yet learned that there are limitations of power, even to a king. And it was to the misfortune of his empire that there were few in England to teach him. For the old Puritan middle class of the Stuart days was gone. Its fibre had softened; the class itself had disappeared in the easier-going masses of a more prosperous day. For seventy-five years England had had no internal dissensions, and her foreign wars had added to her wealth and contentment. To her well-wishers it seemed as if the people had given itself to sloth and indulgence. "I am satisfied," wrote Burke, "that, within a few years, there has been a great change in the national character. We seem no longer that eager, inquisitive, jealous, fiery people which we have been formerly, and which we have been a very short time ago."[8] England was the country of Tom Jones, hearty and healthy, but animated by no high principles and keyed to no noble actions. It needed the danger of the Napoleonic wars to bring out once more the sturdy manliness of the nation. Through all the earlier reign of George III there was, to be sure, a remainder of the old high-minded spirit. Chatham and Rockingham, Burke, Barre, and others, spoke in public and private for the rights of the colonists, to whom their encouragement gave strength. But the greater part of the English people was so indifferent to the moral and political significance of the quarrel that the king was practically able to do as he pleased. He proceeded on the assumption that every man had his price. The assumption was unhappily too correct, for he was able to gather round him, in Parliament or the civil service, his own party, the "King's Friends," who served him for the profit that they got. No tale of modern corruption can surpass the record of their plundering of a nation. With this goes a story of gambling, drinking, and general loose living which, while the attention is concentrated on it, rouses the belief that the nation was wholly degenerate, until the recollection of the remnant, Chatham and the party of the Earl of Rockingham, gives hope of the salvation of the country. At any rate, for more than fifteen years of his reign the king was in the ascendant. There was no party to depose him, scarcely one strong enough to curb him, even at times of popular indignation. He was, therefore, as no other king had been before him, able to force the issue upon the colonies, in spite of the protests of the few friends of liberty. In complete ignorance of the strength of the colonists, both in resources and in purpose, he proceeded to insist upon his rights. When it is remembered that those rights, according to his interpretation of them, were to tax without representation, to limit trade and manufactures, and to interfere at will in the management of colonial affairs, it will be seen that he was playing with fire. The danger will appear the greater if it is considered that the population of the colonies had not progressed, like that of England, to days of easy tolerance. The Americans, and especially the New Englanders, were of the same stuff as those who had beheaded Charles I, and driven James II from his kingdom. They had among their military officers plenty of such men as Pomeroy, who, destined to fight at Bunker Hill, wrote from the siege of Louisburg: "It looks as if our campaign would last long; but I am willing to stay till God's time comes to deliver the city into our hands."[9] Many besides himself wrote, and even spoke, in Biblical language. There were still heard, in New England, the echoes of the "Great Awakening"; the preaching of Whitefield and others had everywhere roused a keen religious feeling, and the people were as likely as ever to open town-meeting with prayer, and to go into battle with psalms. Such, then, were the contestants in the struggle. On the one side was the king with his privileges, backed by his Parliamentary majority, and having at command an efficient army and navy, and a full treasury. There was at hand no one to resist him successfully at home, none to whose warnings he would listen. And on the other side were the colonists, quite capable of fighting for what they knew to be the "rights of Englishmen." Both hoped to proceed peaceably. In ignorance, each was hoping for the impossible, for the king would not retreat, and the colonists would not yield. As soon as each understood the other's full intention, there would be a rupture. FOOTNOTES: [1] It may appear to a hasty consideration that Frothingham's "Siege of Boston" treats the siege as an isolated military event. It must, however, be remembered that Mr. Frothingham had treated previous events in a preliminary volume, his "Life of Joseph Warren." [2] "Memorial History of Boston," ii, 31. [3] "They nourished by your indulgence? They grew up by your neglect of them!" Barre's speech in Parliament, February, 1765. [4] "Memorial History of Boston," i, 340, 376. [5] See, on this point, Sabine's "American Loyalists," 7. [6] Bancroft's "United States," ed. 1855, v, 265. References to Bancroft will at first be to this edition. [7] Bancroft's "United States," v, 266. [8] Trevelyan, "American Revolution," Part i, 21. [9] "Memorial History of Boston," ii, 116. CHAPTER II WRITS OF ASSISTANCE AND THE STAMP ACT The men who, whether in America or England, took sides with the king or the colonies as Tories and Whigs, or as "prerogative men" and "friends of liberty," fall naturally into two classes. A line of cleavage could be seen at the time, and can even be traced now, among the supporters of either side, according as they followed principle or self-interest. There were those who sought profit in supporting the colonies, as well as those who knowingly faced loss in defending the king. It is well for Americans to remember, therefore, that while many sided with the king for what they could get, there were others whose minds could not conceive a country without a king, or a subject with inalienable rights. The best of the Tories honestly believed the Whig agitation to be "unnatural, causeless, wanton, and wicked."[10] Such Americans were, in the inevitable struggle, truly martyrs to their beliefs. Nevertheless, just as there was naturally more profit or prominence (and the two were often the same) on the king's side, so his party had the more self-seekers. "The cause is not worth dying for," said Ingersoll, facing the Connecticut farmers, and spoke the sentiment of all the stamp-officers who resigned their positions at the demand of the people. The cause, however, did seem worth working for. There were many, in England and America, who, like those whom Otis saw around him, "built much upon the fine salaries they should receive from the plantation branch of the revenue." Position, pay, and the chance to exploit the revenues as this was done in England, were the temptations which brought many to the side of the king, and which made men unite to urge upon him the acts which he desired for less selfish reasons. Urged by principle, then, or excited by self-interest, the proposers of new measures were strong. The earliest act of the king's reign showed what could and what would be done, and brought upon the Boston stage the first of the actors in the drama. On the one hand were the governor, the justices, and the minor officials, on the other the people's self-appointed--but willingly accepted--leaders. Francis Bernard was the first Massachusetts governor under George III. Bernard arrived August 2, 1760; the old king died on October 25; and in November the customs officials, stimulated by orders from home to enforce the provisions of the Sugar Act of 1733, petitioned for "writs of assistance," to empower them to summon help in forcible entries in search of smuggled goods. Now there can be no doubt that there was smuggling in the colony, even in Boston itself. On the other hand, the officials were inquisitorial and rapacious. Once they were armed with writs of assistance, no dwelling would be safe from entry by them. The struggle was at once begun, and in the council chamber of the old Town House was fought out before the eyes of the province. The scene is pictured on the walls of the modern State House. Chief among the justices sat Thomas Hutchinson, a man of property and education, and an excellent historian, but the very type of office-holder, and by prejudice and interest a partisan of the king. Against him stood James Otis, the first of the Massachusetts orators of liberty, a man of good family, and, like so many of the patriot leaders, a lawyer. His speech was the first definite pronouncement for a new order of things. "I am determined," he said, "to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of my country." He referred to the "kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of England his head and another his throne." Such language, publicly spoken, was new. His argument was, to Englishmen, irrefutable. No precedent, no English statute, could stand against the Constitution. "This writ, if declared legal, totally annihilates" the privacy of the home. "Custom-house officers might enter our houses when they please, and we could not resist them. Upon bare suspicion they could exercise this wanton power.... Both reason and the Constitution are against this writ.... Every act against the Constitution is void."[11] The speech, continued for four hours, was a brilliant example of keen logic combined with burning eloquence. This is Otis's great service to the cause of the Revolution. Fiery and magnetic, but moody and eventually unbalanced, he gave place in the public confidence to men perhaps of lesser talents, but with equal zeal and steadier purpose. Yet his service was invaluable. His speech expressed for his countrymen the indignation of the hour, and it pointed the way to younger men. To one at least of his hearers, John Adams, it was "like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal."[12] To many it was the final appeal that settled them in their patriotism. For history the scene has been called the beginning of the Revolution. Yet it had no immediate results, for Hutchinson--and the service was forgotten by neither his friends nor his opponents--secured delay of judgment in the case until the English courts could uphold him against his wavering associates. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that the public indignation secured moderate measures on the part of the customs officials, since we hear of few complaints. And the affair had its influence on the public attitude toward the Stamp Act, five years later. The Stamp Act was the first definite assertion of the right to tax America. In 1763 the Sugar Act had been reënacted, but its provisions, taxing only importations from foreign colonies, yielded little revenue. The king's treasury was already feeling the drains upon it, and a pack of eager office-seekers was clamoring to be let loose upon the revenues of the colonies. Together the king and his friends pushed through Parliament the legislation which was to secure their purposes. To meet any such danger as in the recent French and Indian wars, ten thousand soldiers were to be quartered on the colonies, which were to pay for their maintenance. Certain sops to public sentiment were given, in the shape of concessions, yet new restrictions were laid on foreign trade. And finally and most important, a stamp-tax, the easiest to collect, was laid on business and legal formalities of all kinds. After its passage no land title might be passed, no legal papers issued, no ship might clear from a home port, without a stamp affixed to the necessary documents. Not even inheritances might be transferred, nor marriages be legalized. This was the first internal taxation laid by England on America. A word is necessary as to the meaning of the phrase in those days. An external tax, perhaps merely an export duty, was levied and paid in England; its effect was seen in higher prices in the colonies. Internal taxation would include all taxes actually paid in America on goods coming from England. The provisions of the Sugar Act were regarded as "trade restrictions," and not as intended to raise an English revenue. There is perhaps no better place to discuss the justice of the Revolution than right here. Even to-day the illegality, the utter wrongfulness of the American position, is occasionally raised among us by those who see the great obligations to the mother country under which the colonies lay, and who recall the needless hardships suffered by the wretched Tories, the martyrs of a lost cause. Doubtless wrongs were inflicted in the course of the struggle, and the great expenditures of England were in large part unrequited. But it must be remembered that the world had not yet reached the point where the losers in a war were gently treated, and that no amount of financial obligation will ever compel to the acceptance of political servitude. By habit of mind and force of circumstances America had developed a political theory puzzlingly novel to the old world and as yet not thoroughly understood by the new. It was upon this unformulated theory that all future differences were to arise. It interfered in all affairs in which the question arose: Should the colonies be governed, and especially should they be taxed, without a voice in their own affairs? No one in England doubted that Parliament had a right to tax America without its consent. Customs restrictions were long familiar. As to internal taxation, why, it was asked, should the colonies have a voice in Parliament? Birmingham and Manchester, great centres of population, were not represented, while that uninhabited heap of stones, Old Sarum, sent a member to the Commons. Resting on these abuses, even Pitt and Burke were content to argue that taxation of America was just. For them it was a question whether that right should be exercised. With the best will in the world to be on good terms with the mother country, America could not agree in such reasoning. The case had nothing to do with obligations. As for these, the colonists knew that England would never have won against the French in Canada without their aid. But that was not the question. Should those who for a hundred and thirty-five years had paid no tax to England pay one now? Were the people who for seventy years had drawn a fine distinction between paying their governor of their own accord and paying him at the command of the king, and who in every year of royal governorship had made their contention plain--were they to be satisfied to pay taxes because Birmingham did? Undoubtedly there were other causes for discontent. "To me," says Sabine, in the preface to his "American Loyalists," "the documentary history, the state papers of the period teach nothing more clearly than this, namely, that almost every matter brought into discussion was practical, and in some form or other related to LABOR, to some branch of COMMON INDUSTRY." He reminds us that twenty-nine laws limited industry in the colonies, and concludes that "the great object of the Revolution was to release LABOR from these restrictions." Undoubtedly these restrictive laws had their effect upon the temper of the people. Undoubtedly also there was much fear lest there should be established in the colonies a bureaucracy of major and minor officials, corruptly, as in England, winning fortunes for themselves. Yet the question of taxation, a matter of merely theoretical submission, which produced no hardship and would not impoverish the country, was the main cause of trouble. The two branches of the race had long unconsciously parted their ways, and the realization of it was upon them. Upon the proposal of the Stamp Act the colonies did everything in their power to prevent the passage of the bill. They urged that internal taxation had never been levied before. Protests, arguments, and petitions were sent across the water, but in vain. The Commons fell back upon its custom "to receive no petition against a money bill," and would listen to nothing. "We have the power to tax them, and we will tax them."[13] And following this utterance of one of the ministry, the bill was passed. It is interesting to note that no resistance to the tax was expected. Its operation was automatic; there was no hardship in its provisions; of course the colonists would yield. Even Franklin, who should have known his countrymen better, expected submission. "The sun is down," he wrote, but "we may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way toward indemnifying us." His correspondent, Charles Thomson, had in this case the truer foresight, and predicted the works of darkness.[14] Throughout the colonies there was not only sorrow, but anger. When even Hutchinson had protested against the Stamp Act, it can be seen how the Whigs would feel. Non-importation agreements were widely signed, and people accustomed to silks and laces prepared to go into homespun. But the act, passed in February, 1765, was not to go into effect until November. Before that date, much could be done. What was done came from the lower as well as the upper classes. The people acted promptly. One colony after another sent crowds to those who had accepted, in advance, the positions of stamp-officers. One by one, under persuasion or intimidation, the officers resigned until none were left. In New York the governor fled to the military for protection, and from the parapet of the fort looked helplessly on while the people burnt before his eyes his own coach, containing images of himself and the devil. But before this happened, Boston, first of all the capitals to take a positive stand, began to draw upon itself the particular resentment of the king. Early in August came to Boston the news of the nomination of its stamp-collector, Andrew Oliver, long prominent upon the Tory side. The lower class of the inhabitants, after a week of delay, stirred itself to action. On the 14th the image of Oliver was seen hanging on the bough of a large elm, then known as the Great Tree. Hutchinson ordered the image down, but as the sheriff did not act, Bernard summoned his council, and until evening fruitlessly endeavored to urge them to action. Then the populace, having themselves removed the image, came to the Town House, and, passing directly through it, shouted to the council, still sitting upstairs, "Liberty, property, and no stamps!" Proceeding with perfect order, the crowd next tore down the frame of a building which Oliver was suspected of raising to use as his office, and, carrying the beams to Fort Hill, burnt them and the image before Oliver's house. Hutchinson, who never lacked personal courage, called on the militia colonel to summon his men and disperse the crowd, but the colonel replied that his drummers were in the mob. Hutchinson then went with the sheriff to order the crowd to disperse, but was himself forced to depart in order to escape violence. The next day Bernard, the governor, whose courage left him at the very thought of another such night, fled to Castle William, behind whose ancient walls he considered himself safe. Oliver hastily resigned his office, lest the mob should visit him again. [Illustration: THE HUTCHINSON HOUSE] The people were not satisfied with the conduct of Hutchinson, who, although he had actually opposed the passage of the Stamp Act, was under suspicion of secretly abetting and profiting by it. After twelve days there was a second outbreak; the mob began by burning the records of the vice-admiralty court, went on to invade the house of the comptroller of customs, and finally, worked to the usual pitch of a mob's courage, attacked Hutchinson's house. With his family he escaped, but the mob broke into the handsome mansion, and sacked it thoroughly. His library, with priceless manuscripts concerning the history of the colony, was scattered in the mud of the street. This was the most disgraceful event that happened in Boston during all the long period preceding the Revolution. It was due to popular feeling, wrongly directed; and to new working-men's organizations, not as yet understanding the task that was before them. These organizations, as yet almost formless, and never so important that records were kept, called themselves the Sons of Liberty, after a phrase used by Isaac Barre, in a speech in Parliament opposing the Stamp Act. The tree on which they had hung the image of Oliver was from this time called Liberty Tree. The better class of Boston citizens at once, in a town meeting called the following morning, declared their "detestation of these violent proceedings," and promised to suppress them in future. We shall see that one more such outbreak, and one only, was made by a Boston mob. There is here suggested an unwritten, perhaps never to be written, chapter of the history of this time. By what means did the Boston leaders, Samuel Adams chief among them, manage to control the Boston workmen? However it was done, by what conferences and through what reasoning, it is safe to say that the loose organizations of the Sons of Liberty, and still another set of clubs, the caucuses which met in various parts of the town, were utilized to control the lower classes. We know the names of a few of the leaders of the workmen: Edes the printer, Crafts the painter, and, most noted of them all, Paul Revere the silversmith. These sturdy men, and others in different trades, were the means of transmitting to the artisans of Boston the thoughts and desires of the upper-class Whigs. The organization was looser than that of a political party of to-day, but as soon as it was completed, it produced a subordination, secrecy, and self-control which cannot be paralleled in modern times. The opposition to the Stamp Act continued. More formidable than mobs were the actions of the town meetings and legislatures. Protests and declarations were solemnly drawn up; for the first time was heard the threat of disaffection. Representatives from nine provinces met in the Stamp Act Congress, and passed resolutions against the new taxation. It was impossible for England to ignore the situation. Reluctantly--it was an act which the king never forgot nor forgave--more than a year after its passage, when it was proved that its enforcement was impossible, the Stamp Act was repealed. This was the time for England to change her whole policy. Not Boston alone, but all America, had declared against American taxation. The principles of liberty had again and again been clearly pointed out. Further, there would have been no disgrace in admitting a mistake. The whole colonial question was new in human history, for Roman practice was inadmissible. "The best writers on public law," reasoned Otis, "contain nothing that is satisfactory on the natural rights of colonies.... Their researches are often but the history of ancient abuses."[15] The natural rights of man should have been allowed to rule, as in the course of time, with England's other colonies, they came to do. But, for better or for worse, sides had been taken. Few thought of turning back. In England there were no breaks in the ranks of the king's supporters; in America the office-holding class, the "best families," the people of settled income and vested rights, were as a rule, selfishly or unselfishly, for the king. Already "mobocracy," "the faction," "sedition," were familiar terms among them. England was ready to take, and the American Tories were ready to applaud, the next step. And Boston was being marked down as the most obnoxious of the towns of America.[16] FOOTNOTES: [10] The adjectives are those of _Massachusettensis_, the ablest Tory pamphleteer, as quoted in Frothingham's "Siege," 33. [11] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 5. [12] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 7. [13] Bancroft's "United States," v, 247. [14] Fiske, "American Revolution," illustrated edition, i, 17. [15] Bancroft's "United States," v, 203. [16] The Castle, or Castle William, referred to in this chapter, was the old fort on Castle Island. It was never put to any other use than as a barracks and magazine. CHAPTER III CHARLES TOWNSHEND, SAM ADAMS, AND THE MASSACRE Unfortunately, when the Stamp Act was repealed, the way had been left open for future trouble. The Rockingham ministry, the most liberal which could then be assembled, even in repealing the Stamp Act thought it incumbent upon them to assert, in the Declaratory Act, the right to tax America. The succeeding ministry, called together under the failing Pitt, was the means of reasserting the right. Pitt, too ill to support the labor of leading his party in the Commons, entered the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham, thus acknowledging the eclipse of fame and abilities which in the previous reign had astounded Europe. It was during one of his periods of illness, when he was unable to attend to public affairs, that a subordinate insubordinately reversed his public policy by proceeding once more to tax America. Charles Townshend was Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was he who had urged the reënactment of the Sugar Act in 1763, and he now saw opportunity to put through a more radical policy. In violation of all implied pledges, disdaining restraint from his colleagues, this brilliant but unstable politician introduced into Parliament a new bill for raising an American revenue. "I am still,"[17] he declared, "a firm advocate of the Stamp Act.... I laugh at the absurd distinction between internal and external taxation.... It is a distinction without a difference; if we have a right to impose the one, we have a right to impose the other; the distinction is ridiculous in the sight of everybody, except the Americans." "Everybody, except the Americans!" The phrase, from an important speech at a critical moment, marks the fact that a world of thought divided the two parts of the Empire more truly than did the Atlantic. But not as yet so evidently. It is only in unconscious acknowledgments such as these that we find the English admitting the new classification. In studying the years before and after this event we find the Americans often called Puritans and Oliverians, while the possible rise of a Cromwell among them is admitted. Yet the parallel, though unmistakably apt, and containing a serious warning, was never taken to heart, even in America. Americans were very slow in approaching the conclusion that colonists had irrefragable rights. Caution and habit and pride in the name of Englishman kept them from it; the colonist, visiting England for the first time, still proudly said that he was going "home." There was no reason why this feeling should ever change, if only the spirit of compromise, the basis of the British Constitution, had been kept in mind by Parliament. But the times were wrong. Hesitate as the colonists might before the syllogism which lay ready for completion, its minor and major premises were already accepted. That they were Englishmen, and that Englishmen had inalienable rights, were articles of faith among them. The conclusion would be drawn as soon as they were forced to it. And Townshend was preparing to force them. Townshend proposed small duties on lead, paints, glass, and paper. Besides this, he withdrew the previous export duty, one shilling per pound, on tea taken from England to America, and instead of this he laid an import duty of threepence per pound. This was ingeniously new, being internal taxation in a form different from that of the Stamp Act. At the same time was abandoned the ancient contention that customs duties were but trade regulations. The new taxes were obviously to raise an English revenue. For the execution of the new laws provision was made in each colony for collectors to be paid directly by the king, but indirectly by the colonies. The head of these collectors was a board of Commissioners of the Customs, stationed at Boston. It will be seen that thus were begun new irritations for the colonies, in the shape of duties for the benefit of England, and of a corps of officials whose dependence on the crown made sure that they would be subservient tools. While this was done, no change was made in the plan to maintain in America an army at colonial expense. Indeed, New York was punished for refusing to supply to the troops quartered in the city supplies that had been illegally demanded. Its assembly was not allowed to proceed with public business until the supplies should be voted. Thus every other colony was notified what to expect. The Revenue Acts were passed in July, 1767. Upon receiving the news the colonies expressed to each other their discontent. Concerning the Customs Commissioners Boston felt the greatest uneasiness. "We shall now," wrote Andrew Eliot, "be obliged to maintain in luxury sycophants, court parasites, and hungry dependents." The strongest expression upon the general situation was in Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters."[18] "This," said he, "is an INNOVATION, and a most dangerous innovation. We being obliged to take commodities from Great Britain, special duties upon their exportation to us are as much taxes as those imposed by the Stamp Act. Great Britain claims and exercises the right to prohibit manufactures in America. Once admit that she may lay duties upon her exportations to us, for the purpose of levying money on us only, she will then have nothing to do but to lay those duties on the articles which she prohibits us to manufacture, and the tragedy of American liberty is finished." There was but one way to meet the situation. In October the town of Boston resolved, through its town meeting, to import none of the dutiable articles. The example was followed by other towns until all the colonies had entered, unofficially, into a non-importation agreement. The question arose, What further should be done? Otis was beginning his mental decline. It was now that Samuel Adams, or Sam Adams, as Boston better loves to call him, came into the leadership which he ever after exercised. He was a man of plain Boston ancestry, whose father had interested himself in public affairs, and who, like his son, was of doubtful business ability. Sam Adams's interests were evident from his boyhood, and when in 1743 he took his degree of Master of Arts at Harvard, he presented a thesis on the subject: "Whether it be Lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved." Although he inherited a little property from his father, and although from the year 1753 he served constantly in public offices, up to the year 1764 he had scarcely been a success. His patrimony had largely disappeared; further, as tax-collector he stood, with his associates, indebted to the town for nearly ten thousand pounds. The reason for this is not clear; the fact has been used to his disadvantage by Tory historians, the first of them being Hutchinson, who calls the situation a "defalcation." But in order to feel sure that the state of affairs was justified by circumstances, we need only to consider that in the same year Adams was chosen by the town on the committee to "instruct" its representatives, and a year later was himself made a legislator. From that time on, his influence in Boston and Massachusetts politics steadily grew. His political sentiments were never in doubt. In his "instructions" of 1764 are found the words: "If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representative where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?"[19] Throughout the Stamp Act agitation he was active in opposing the new measures. He was found to be ready with his tongue, but especially so with his pen. For this reason he was constantly employed by the town and the Assembly to draft their resolutions, and some of the most momentous documents of the period remain to us in his handwriting. When at last, at the beginning of 1768, some one was needed to express the opinion of Massachusetts upon the Townshend Acts, Samuel Adams was naturally looked to as the man for the work. He drafted papers which were, one after the other, adopted by the Massachusetts Assembly. The first was a letter of remonstrance, addressed to the colony's agent in London, and intended to be made public. It protested, in words seven times revised by the Assembly, against the proposed measures. Similar letters were sent to members of the ministry and leaders of English opinion. Another letter was addressed to the king. Of the success of this, Adams apparently had little hope, for when his daughter remarked that the paper might be touched by the royal hand, he replied, "More likely it will be spurned by the royal foot." The final one of these state papers was a circular letter addressed to "each House of Representatives or Burgesses on the continent." This expressed the opinion of Massachusetts upon the new laws, and invited discussion. That nothing in this should be considered underhanded, a copy of the circular letter was sent to England. It is significant that at the same time the new revenue commission sent a secret letter to England, protesting against New England town meetings, "in which the lowest mechanics discussed the most important points of government with the utmost freedom,"[20] and asking for troops. This begins the series of misrepresentations and complaints which, constantly sent secretly to England, became a leading cause of trouble. The working of the old colonial system is here seen in its perfection. Believing in the right to tax and punish, the Ministry appointed officers of the same belief. These men, finding themselves in hot water in Boston, were annoyed and perhaps truly alarmed, and constantly urged harsher measures and the sending of troops. The ministry, listening to its own supporters, and disbelieving the assertions of the American Whigs, more and more steadily inclined toward severity. Perhaps no falser idea was created than that Boston was riotous. Says Fiske: "Of all the misconceptions of America by England which brought about the American Revolution, perhaps this notion of the turbulence of Boston was the most ludicrous." One of the most serious also. The chief cause was in the timorousness of Bernard, the governor. On the occasion of the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, when, as Hutchinson said, "We had only such a mob as we have long been used to on the Fifth of November," Bernard wrote that there was "a disposition to the utmost disorder." As a crowd reached his house, "There was so terrible a yell it was apprehended they were breaking in. It was not so; however, it caused the same terror as if it had been so." That such a letter should have any effect on home opinion is, as Fiske says, ludicrous. Yet the mischief caused by these reports is incalculable. "It is the bare truth," says Trevelyan, "that his own Governors and Lieutenant-Governors wrote King George out of America."[21] Another little series of incidents at this time shows the official disposition to magnify reports of trouble. For some weeks the ship of war _Romney_ had lain in the harbor, summoned by the commissioners of customs. That the ship should be summoned was in itself an offence to the town; but the conduct of the captain, in impressing seamen in the streets of Boston, was worse. Bad blood arose between the ship's crew and the longshoremen; one of the impressed men was rescued, but the captain angrily refused to accept a substitute for another. Trouble was brought to a head by the seizure, on the order of the commissioners of customs, of John Hancock's sloop, the _Liberty_, on alleged violation of regulations. Irritated by the seizure, and by the fact that the sloop was moored by the side of the _Romney_, a crowd threatened the customs house officers, broke the comptroller's windows, and, taking a boat belonging to the collector, after parading with it through the streets, burnt it on the Common. This was the second disturbance in Boston which can be called a riot. But it was of small size and short duration; the influence of the Whig leaders, working through secret channels, quieted the mob, and there was no further trouble. Nevertheless, four of the commissioners of the customs seized the occasion to flee to the _Romney_, and to request of the governor protection in the Castle, declaring that they dared not return. But the remaining commissioner remained undisturbed on shore, and a committee of the council, examining into the matter, found that the affair had been only "a small disturbance." A committee from the Boston town meeting, going in eleven chaises to Bernard at his country seat, secured from him a promise to stop impressments, and a statement of his desire for conciliation. Nevertheless Bernard, Hutchinson, and the various officers of the customs, used the incident in their letters home to urge that troops were needed in Boston. This was but an interlude, though an instructive one, in the main course of events. Massachusetts had protested against the new Acts. The next issue arose when the Assembly was directed, by the new colonial secretary, Lord Hillsborough, to rescind its Remonstrance and Circular Letter. The debate on the question was long and important; the demand was refused by a vote of seventeen to ninety-two. The curious can still see, in the Old State House, the punch-bowl that Paul Revere was commissioned to make for the "Immortal Ninety-two;" and there still exist copies of Revere's caricature of the Rescinders, with Timothy Ruggles at their head, being urged by devils into the mouth of hell. These are indications of the feelings of the times. The immediate result was that in June, 1768, Bernard dissolved the house, and Massachusetts was "left without a legislature." Upon the news reaching England, it was at last resolved to send troops to Boston. The crisis in Massachusetts was now serious. Against the governor and the expected troops stood only the council, with slight powers. Some machinery must be devised to meet the emergency, and the solution of the difficulty was found by Samuel Adams. His mind first leaped to the ultimate remedy for all troubles, and then found the way out of the present difficulty. The ultimate solution was independence. Though in moments of despondency and exasperation the word had been used by both parties, until now no one had considered independence possible except Samuel Adams. From this period he worked for it, in secret preparing men's minds for the grand change. According to a Tory accusation made in a later year, Adams "confessed that the independence of the colonies had been the great object of his life; that whenever he met a youth of parts he had endeavored to instil such notions into his mind, and had neglected no opportunity, either in public or in private, of preparing the way for independence."[22] Another Tory source, a deposition gathered when the Tories were preparing an accusation against Adams, shows the agitator at work. During the affair of the sloop _Liberty_, "the informant observed several parties of men gathered in the street at the south end of the town of Boston, in the forenoon of the day. The informant went up to one of the parties, and Mr. Samuel Adams, then one of the representatives of Boston, happened to join the same party near about the same time, trembling and in great agitation.... The informant heard the said Samuel Adams then say to the same party, 'If you are men, behave like men. Let us take up arms immediately, and be free, and seize all the king's officers. We shall have thirty thousand freemen to join us from the country.'" The statement of the deposition is crude and overdone, yet there can be no doubt that from this time Adams did work for the one great end. At first he was alone, yet he recognized the temper of the continent, and saw the way that the political sentiments of the country were tending. The methods which he followed were not always open; for never did he avow his true sentiments, while often protesting, on behalf of the town or the province, loyalty to the crown. Doubtless he did train the young men up as he saw them inclined. In one case we know that he failed. "Samuel Adams used to tell me," said John Coffin, a Boston Tory, "'Coffin, you must not leave us; we shall have warm work, and want you.'"[23] But in other cases Adams succeeded: one by one John Hancock, Josiah Quincy, Jr., John Adams, and Joseph Warren were by him brought into prominence. And at the same time he began to accustom men's minds to new methods of political activity. This Adams did in the present difficulty, when, in default of the Assembly, he yet needed an expression of the opinion of the province. Through his means was called a convention of the towns of Massachusetts, which met in Faneuil Hall, on the 22d of September, 1768. The convention was self-restrained. It called upon the governor to convene the Assembly, and approved all the acts which had caused the Assembly's dismissal; it resolved to preserve order, and quietly dissolved itself. "I doubt," said the British Attorney-General, "whether they have committed an overt act of treason, but I am sure they have come within a hair's breadth of it." Immediately afterwards arrived the ships with troops. These were landed with much parade, to find a peaceful town, yet one which from the first was able to annoy them. Demand was made for quarters for the soldiers; the Selectmen and Council replied by referring to the law which forbade such a requisition until the barracks at Castle William should be filled. By neither subtlety nor threats could the town be induced to yield; the troops camped on the Common until, at great expense, the crown officials were forced to hire quarters. It was but the beginning of the discomfort of the troops, openly scorned in a town where three-quarters of the people were against them. Where few women except their own camp-followers would have to do with the soldiers, where the men despised them and the boys jeered, where "lobster-back" was the mildest term that was flung at them, there was no satisfaction in wearing the king's uniform. [Illustration: FANEUIL HALL] Eighteen months of this life wore upon the soldiers. The townsfolk became adepts at subtle irritations, against which there was not even the solace of interesting occupation; for except for daily drill there was nothing to do. In time the more violent among the troops were ripe for any affray; while the lower classes among the inhabitants, stanch Whigs and sober livers, were sick of the noisy ribaldry which for so long had made unpleasant the streets of the town. Out of these conditions grew what has been called the Boston Massacre. The best contemporary, and in fact the best general authority for this event is the "Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston." This was published by the town for circulation in England, and is still extant in Doggett's reprint of 1849, and in Kidder's of 1870. In a report of a special committee the town rehearses both the events of the Massacre and the proceedings which followed it. Seventy-two pages of depositions are appended to the report of the committee: no other single event of those days is made so vivid to us. The Massacre was preceded by minor disturbances. On the second of March, 1770, insults having passed between a soldier and a ropemaker, the former came to the ropewalk, "and looking into one of the windows said, _by God I'll have satisfaction!_ ... and at last said he was not afraid of any one in the ropewalks. I"--thus deposes Nicholas Feriter, of lawful age, "stept out of the window and speedily knocked up his heels. On falling, his coat flew open, and a naked sword appeared, which one John Willson, following me out, took from him, and brought into the ropewalks." The soldier returned a second and a third time, each time with more men from his regiment. At the last they were "headed by a tall negro drummer, with a cutlass chained to his body, with which, at first rencounter," says valiant Nicholas, "I received a cut on the head, but being immediately supported by nine or ten more of the ropemakers, armed with their wouldring sticks, we again beat them off." For three days there was, among the two regiments stationed in the town, anger which the inhabitants endeavored to allay by the discharge of the ropemaker who gave the original insult, and by agreements made with the commanding officer, Colonel Dalrymple. But, as afterwards appeared, there were warnings of further trouble. Cautions were given to friends of the soldiers not to go on the streets at night. The soldiers and their women could not refrain from dark hints of violence to come. It is even possible that violence was concerted. On the night of the fifth a number of soldiers assembled in Atkinson Street. "They stood very still until the guns were fired in King Street, then they clapped their hands and gave a cheer, saying, 'This is all that we want'; they then ran to their barracks and came out again in a few minutes, all with their arms, and ran toward King Street." "I never," so runs other testimony, "saw men or dogs so greedy for their prey as these soldiers seemed to be." But the affray was of small proportions, and soon over. The actual outbreak originated in a quarrel between a barber's boy and a sentry, stationed in King Street below the east end of the Town House.[24] Boys and men gathered, the sentry called out the guard, fire-bells were rung, and the crowd increased. The captain of the guard was not the man for the emergency. Said Henry Knox, afterward general and Secretary of War, "I took Captain Preston by the coat and told him for God's sake to take his men back again, for if they fired his life must answer for the consequence; he replied he was sensible of it, or knew what he was about, or words to that purpose; and seemed in great haste and much agitated." The gathering still increased, there was crowding and jostling, snowballs and possibly sticks were thrown; the soldiers grew angry and the officer uncertain what to do. "The soldiers," testified John Hickling, "assumed different postures, shoving their bayonets frequently at the people, one in particular pushing against my side swore he would run me through; I laid hold of his bayonet and told him that nobody was going to meddle with them. Not more than ten seconds after this I saw something white, resembling a piece of snow or ice, fall among the soldiers, which knocked the end of a firelock to the ground. At that instant the word 'Fire!' was given, but by whom I know not; but concluded it did not come from the officer aforesaid, as I was within a yard of him and must have heard him had he spoken it, but am satisfied said Preston did not forbid them to fire; I instantly leaped within the soldier's bayonet as I heard him cock his gun, which that moment went off.... I, thinking there was nothing but powder fired, stood still, till ... I saw another gun fired, and the man since called Attucks, fall. I then withdrew about two or three yards.... During this the rest of the guns were fired, one after another, when I saw two more fall.... I further declare that I heard no other affront given them than the huzzaing and whistling of boys in the street." After the firing, other soldiers were summoned to the spot, and more townspeople appeared. The soldiers, says the official narrative, "were drawn up between the State House and main guard, their lines extended across the street and facing down King Street, where the town people were assembled. The first line kneeled, and the whole of the first platoon presented their guns ready to fire, as soon as the word should be given.... For some time the appearance of things were dismal. The soldiers outrageous on the one hand, and the inhabitants justly incensed against them on the other: both parties seemed disposed to come to action." Had the affair gone further, so that the soldiers fired again, or the townspeople stormed the barracks, then the affray would have resembled the riots not uncommon in Europe at that time, and known even in England. In such a case the turbulence of Boston might have been proved. But the good town was later able to claim that up to the actual breaking out of hostilities not one soldier or Tory had been harmed in Massachusetts. In the present case nothing further happened. The stubborn people stood their ground, but the eager troops were restrained and led away. The punishment of the offenders took place according to law, with John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., leaders of the Whigs, as successful defenders of the captain. The important consequences were political. Though the people dispersed that night, they assembled on the morrow in a crowded town meeting, where Samuel Adams guided the actions of the assembly. Adjourning from Faneuil Hall to the Old South, which itself could not accommodate them all, the throng passed the very spot of the Massacre and under the windows of the State House, where the lieutenant-governor viewed them. This man was Hutchinson, acting governor in the absence of Bernard, and at last about to arrive at the goal of colonial ambition. Thomas Hutchinson has been too much condemned, and of late years almost too much commended. He had spent thirty years in the service of the colony, holding more offices, and more at the same time, than any man of his generation. Now he was unpopular and misjudged, yet he was a man for his day and party honest and patriotic; his end, in exile in England, was one of the tragedies of American loyalty. But though a braver man than Bernard and more public-spirited, his methods were equally underhanded, and he fatally mistook the capacity of his countrymen to govern themselves. A man who could wish for less freedom of speech in England was not the man to sympathize with the spirit of Americans. He now, backed by a few councillors and officials, was to face Sam Adams and the Boston town meeting. With a committee from the meeting, Adams came to the State House to demand the withdrawal of the troops to the Castle. Hutchinson answered that he would withdraw one regiment, but had not the power to remove both. Retiring at the head of his committee, Adams passed through a lane of people on his way to the Old South. "Both regiments or none!" he said right and left as he passed, and every one took up the word. "Both regiments or none!" cried the meeting. Voting his report unsatisfactory, it sent him back to the governor to repeat his demand. "Now for the picture," wrote John Adams many years after. "The theatre and the scenery are the same with those at the discussion of the writs of assistance. The same glorious portraits of King Charles the Second, and King James the Second, to which might be added, and should be added, little miserable likenesses of Governor Winthrop, Governor Bradstreet, Governor Endicott, and Governor Belcher, hung up in obscure corners of the room. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, commander-in-chief in the absence of the governor, must be placed at the head of the council-table. Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, commander of his majesty's military forces, taking rank of all his majesty's councillors, must be seated by the side of the lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of the Province. Eight-and-twenty councillors must be painted, all seated at the council-board. Let me see,--what costume? What was the fashion of that day in the month of March? Large white wigs, English scarlet-cloth coats, some of them with gold-laced hats; not on their heads indeed in so august a presence, but on the table before them or under the table beneath them. Before these illustrious persons appeared SAMUEL ADAMS, a member of the House of Representatives and their clerk, now at the head of the committee of the great assembly at the Old South Church."[25] [Illustration: 1722--SAMUEL ADAMS 1803 By John Singleton Copley] It is this moment that Copley chose to represent Adams. Facing the governor, the officers, and the councillors, Adams stood in his simple "wine-colored suit," and appealed to the charter and the laws. "If you have power to remove one regiment, you have power to remove both. It is at your peril if you do not. The meeting is composed of three thousand people. They are become very impatient. A thousand men are already arrived from the neighborhood, and the country is in general motion. Night is approaching; an immediate answer is expected."[26] Hutchinson was a man learned in the history of the province and the people, and the occasion had impressed him already. As the meeting had passed under his windows on the way to the Old South, a friend at his side had remarked that this was not the kind of men that had sacked his house. He had noted the resolute countenances of the best men of the town, and had--to use his own words--judged their spirit to be as strong, and their resolve as high, as those of the men who had imprisoned Andros. Adams, narrowly watching him now, marked the tumult in Hutchinson's mind. "I observed his knees to tremble," said Adams afterward; "I saw his face grow pale; and I enjoyed the sight."[27] For Hutchinson, poorly supported and irresolute, the strain was too great. He temporized and parleyed, but he thought again of Andros, and gave way. It was a complete triumph for the town. The troops, until their removal to the Castle could be effected, were virtually imprisoned in their barracks by a patrol of citizens. From that time they bore the name of the "Sam Adams regiments." FOOTNOTES: [17] Bancroft, vi, 48. [18] Farmer's Letters, quoted in Bancroft, vi, 105. [19] Hosmer, "Life of Samuel Adams," 48. [20] Bancroft's "United States," vi, 128. [21] "American Revolution," Part 1, 43. [22] Hosmer's "Life of Adams." [23] Sabine's "Loyalists." [24] King Street is now State Street, and the Town House is the Old State House. [25] Hosmer's "Samuel Adams," 172. [26] Bancroft, vi, 344. [27] Bancroft, vi, 345. CHAPTER IV THE TEA-PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Step by step the mother country and its colonies were advancing to a rupture. The first step was taken at the test concerning the writs of assistance, the second at the passage of the Stamp Act and its repeal, the third resulted in the Massacre and the withdrawal of the troops from Boston. Each time the colonies gained the practical advantages which they sought; each time the king's party, while yielding, became more exasperated, and presently tested the strength of the colonies once more; and each time it was Boston that stood as the head and front of opposition. The town was marked for martyrdom. In the case of the Townshend Acts, the victory of the colonists was temporarily complete. The movement had come to a head at Boston in an actual outbreak, the Massacre, which obscured the greater issues; nevertheless the issues were won. America would not submit to the new revenue laws. Very calmly it had avoided them by refusing to import from England. A thorough test of nearly two years showed that from north to south the colonies were almost a unit in rejecting English and foreign goods, and in relying on home manufactures. From importations of more than a million and a quarter pounds, two-thirds fell clean away,[28] and the merchants of England felt the pinch. There was but one thing to do, and England grudgingly did it. The withdrawal of the troops from Boston was acquiesced in, and the revenue acts, the cause of all the trouble, were repealed, except for a duty still maintained upon tea. The response was such that England was relieved. New York began to import those articles which had been made free of duty. The non-importation agreement was broken, as the colonies perceived. "You had better send us your old liberty pole," wrote Philadelphia scornfully to New York, "since you clearly have no further use for it."[29] Whigs and Tories both saw that, the agreement thus broken, other colonies would follow the example of New York. The advantage was now clearly with the king, and he endeavored to make the most of it, not by abiding in peace, but by taking a further step. He ordered that colonial judges should in future be paid from the English treasury. No one in the colonies could fail to see that the blow was aimed directly at the independence of the judiciary. Massachusetts was alarmed. Boston sent resolutions to the governor, but Hutchinson, now at last in the chair, refused to listen to the town meeting. In this moment of indignation, Samuel Adams conceived a scheme which was the longest step yet taken toward independence. This was the idea of Committees of Correspondence, to be permanently maintained by each town and even by each colony. The idea of such committees was not novel. It had been suggested years before by Jonathan Mayhew, and had more than once been used in emergencies. But permanent committees, watching affairs and at any time ready to act, were new. Naturally composed of the best men in each town, they would at all times be ready to speak, and to speak vigorously. The plan, when perfected, eventually enabled the colonies to act as a unit. From the first it gave strength to the Americans; in the present instance it spread the news of the king's action and roused indignation, and before long it brought about an act which startled the English-speaking world. This was the Boston Tea-Party. The king had a hand in making the fire hot. He had been vexed by his unsuccessful tariff, and was now especially irritated that his concessions had brought about no result in one important particular. Until the present every shipmaster had been a smuggler, and all the Whigs dealt in smuggled goods. This was according to old English practice, but as a matter of fact illicit trade was more decorous in America than in England. Whereas in Cornwall the forces of the smugglers were so strong that they chased the revenue cutters into harbors and landed their goods by bright moonlight, in America the appearances of legality were gravely preserved. Nevertheless the result was the same, and in one quarter was actually serious. The recent tariff had brought to the royal treasury scarcely three hundred pounds from tea. The situation was no better now that the tea-duty was the only one remaining. So completely did America, while still drinking tea in quantity, avoid the duly imported article, that the revenue of the East India Company fell off alarmingly. On pathetic representations of the financial state of the company, the king gave permission, through a subservient Parliament, for the company to export tea to America free even of the English duty. The company had lost hundreds of thousands of pounds since the Townshend Acts went in force; now by favorable terms it was to be enabled to undersell in the colonial market even the smuggled teas. Taking advantage of this new ruling, tea was promptly shipped, in the autumn of 1773, to different consignees in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. It was confidently expected that the colonies would buy the tea. No one in the government supposed that the Americans would be blind to their own interests. This much, indeed, was admitted by the leaders among the Whigs, that once the tea was on sale Yankee principle might be sorely tempted by Yankee thrift. Indignant at the insidious temptation, determined that no such test should be made, and resenting the establishment of a practical monopoly throughout the colonies, the leaders resolved that the tea should not be landed. It is an odd fortune that connected the Chinese herb so closely with the struggle of principle in America. To this day, while the issues are obscured in the mind of the average American, he remembers the tax on tea, and that his ancestors would not pay it. Picturesque tales of ladies' associations depriving themselves of their favorite beverage, of men tarring and feathering unpopular tradesmen, have survived the hundred and thirty odd years which have passed since then; and the impression is general that the colonists would not pay a tax which bore heavy on them. But it will be noticed by those who have attentively read this account that the colonists were refusing to pay less, in order that they might have the satisfaction of paying more. They balked, not at the amount of the tax, but at its principle. In the case of the tea-ships the duty of action fell upon Boston. Charleston and Philadelphia had taken a positive stand resolving not to receive the tea; but the ships were due at Boston first. The eyes of the continent were upon this one town. Boston made ready to act, yet of the preparations we know nothing. While the story as it is told is interesting enough, there is no record of the secret meetings in which the events were prepared. Hints are dropped, and it is asserted that within the Green Dragon tavern, a favorite meeting-place of the Whigs, were finally decided the means by which the workmen of the town should carry out the plans of the leaders. But of these meetings nothing is positively known; all we can say with certainty is that the plans worked perfectly, and that Sam Adams must have had a hand in their making. The Sons of Liberty took the first step toward forcing the consignees of the tea to resign. "Handbills are stuck up," writes John Andrews, "calling upon Friends! Citizens! and Countrymen!" To Liberty Tree the "freemen of Boston and the neighboring towns" were invited, by placard and advertisement, "to hear the persons, to whom the tea shipped by the East India Company is consigned, make a public resignation of their office as consignees, upon oath."[30] But the consignees did not come, though the freemen did. The townspeople, forming themselves into a "meeting," sent a committee to the consignees, demanding that they refuse to receive the tea. But the consignees believed themselves safe. They were merchants of family and property, the governor's sons were among them, and it was rumored that Hutchinson had a pecuniary interest in the success of the venture. They refused to give the pledge. The official town meeting now took up the matter. Before the tea arrived, and again after the appearance of the first ship, the town called upon the consignees to resign. Each time the consignees refused. The second town meeting, after thus acting in vain, dissolved without the customary expression of opinion. Hutchinson himself records that "this sudden dissolution struck more terror into the consignees than the most minatory resolves." From that moment the matter was in the hands of the Boston Committee of Correspondence. By means of the committee, at whose head was Adams, communication was held with the towns throughout Massachusetts. The province was greatly excited, and repeated demands for resignation were made upon the consignees, but they clung to their offices and the hope of profit. Delays were skilfully secured, and the first ship was entered at the customs, after which according to law it must within twenty days either clear for England or land its cargo. The governor was resolved not to grant a clearance, and rejoiced over his opponents. "They find themselves," he said, "in invincible difficulties." But everything was prepared. To the last minute of the twenty days the Whigs were patient. Petition after petition, appeal after appeal, went to the governor or the consignees. There was no success. On the last day, the 16th of December, 1773, all three of the tea-ships were at Griffin's Wharf, watched by the patriots. A town meeting, the largest in the history of Boston, crowded the Old South, and again resolved that the tea should not be landed. "Who knows," asked John Rowe, "how tea will mingle with salt water?" The remark was greeted with cheers, yet one more legal step might be taken, and the meeting, sending Rotch, the master of the first tea-ship, to the governor at Milton to ask for a clearance, patiently waited while he should traverse the fifteen miles of his journey. During the hours of his absence there was no disturbance; when he returned, the daylight had gone, and the Old South was lighted with candles. Seven thousand people were silent to hear the report. It was brief, and its meaning was clear: the governor had refused; the last legal step had been taken. Then Samuel Adams rose. "This meeting," he declared, "can do nothing more to save the country." It was the expected signal. Immediately there was a shout from the porch, and the warwhoop sounded out of doors. The meeting poured out of doors and followed some fifty men in the garb of Indians, who suddenly appeared in the street. They hurried to Griffin's Wharf. There they posted guards, took possession of the tea-ships, and hoisting the chests from the holds, knocked them open and emptied the tea into the water. Under the moon the great crowd watched in silence, there was no interference from the troops or the war-ships, and in three hours the last of the tea was overboard. Nothing remained except what had sifted into the shoes of some of the "Indians," to be preserved as mementoes of the day. "They say," wrote John Andrews dryly two days later, "that the actors were _Indians_ from _Narragansett_. Whether they were or not, to a transient observer they appear'd as _such_, being cloath'd in Blankets with the heads muffled, and copper color'd countenances, being each arm'd with a hatchet or axe, and pair pistols, nor was their _dialect_ different from what I conceive these geniusses to _speak_, as their jargon was unintelligible to all but themselves. Not the least insult was offer'd to any person, save one Captain Conner, a letter of horses in this place, not many years since remov'd from _dear Ireland_, who had ript up the lining of his coat and waistcoat under the arms, and watching his opportunity had nearly fill'd 'em with tea, but being detected, was handled pretty roughly. They not only stripp'd him of his cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the bargain; and nothing but their utter aversion to make _any_ disturbance prevented his being tar'd and feather'd." Such was the Boston Tea-Party, "the boldest stroke," said Hutchinson, "that had yet been struck in America." Much has been written about it. It has been minimized into a riot and magnified into a deed of glory. As a matter of fact, it was neither the one nor the other, yet if either it was nearer the latter. Carried out by Boston mechanics, but doubtless directed by Boston leaders, it was a cool and deliberate law-breaking, the penalty for which, could the offenders but have been discovered, would have been severe. But none of the actors in the affair were betrayed at the time, though hundreds in the town must have had positive knowledge of their identity. Names, like those of the burners of the _Gaspee_ eighteen months before, were not given out until after the Revolution, and even to-day the list of them is not complete. The project of the king and the East India Company was a failure. In one way or other the other three seaports either destroyed or sent back their tea. But Boston was the first and most violent offender. It was on her that punishment was to descend. The news of the Tea-Party came to England at a time when king and Parliament were less amiably disposed than usual toward Massachusetts. Some weeks before had happened the affair of the Hutchinson letters. Benjamin Franklin, then Postmaster-General of England, and agent for Massachusetts, had secured possession of certain letters written by Governor Hutchinson and by others in office in the colony. These letters proved beyond doubt that the Massachusetts officials had been secretly urging upon the home government repressive measures against the colony. This was but what Bernard had done, and what had been suspected of his successor; yet the actual proof was too much for Franklin. He sent the letters, under pledge of secrecy, home to be read by the leaders among the Massachusetts Whigs. But the pledge of secrecy could not be kept. The letters were read in the Assembly and then published. "He had written," says Bancroft of Hutchinson, "against every part of the Constitution, the elective character of the Council, the annual choice of the Assembly, the New England organization of the towns; had advised and solicited the total dependence of the judiciary on the Crown, had hinted at making the experiment of declaring Martial Law, and of abrogating English liberty; had advised to the restraint of the commerce of Boston and the exclusion of the Province from the fisheries."[31] Hutchinson's defence was that he "had never wrote any public or private letter that tends to subvert the Constitution." But he was thinking of the Constitution rather than the Charter. The province was thoroughly roused, and sent to England a firm yet respectful petition demanding his dismissal. But Hutchinson had been serving the king as the king wished to be served. The wrath of the government fell upon Franklin. In a crowded meeting of the Privy Council, with scant respect for the forms of law, Franklin was subjected to elaborate abuse. There were none to defend him who could gain a respectful hearing; he stood immovable under the tongue-lashing of the Solicitor-General, and made no reply. "I have never," he said afterwards, "been so sensible of the power of a good conscience, for if I had not considered the thing for which I have been so much insulted, as one of the best actions of my life, and what I should certainly do again in the same circumstances, I could not have supported it."[32] The suit which he wore that day he put carefully away, and did not wear it again until as Commissioner for the United States he signed in Paris the treaty of alliance with France. Franklin was deprived of his office under the crown, and the king who directed the punishment, the council who condemned him, and the Parliament which cheered them both on, were not yet satisfied. When the news of the Tea-Party came, they felt that their chance had come to strike at the real culprit. The king consulted General Gage, who was fresh from Boston, and listened eagerly to his fatally mistaken account of the situation. "He says," wrote the king to Lord North, "'They will be lions while we are lambs; but if we take the resolute part they will undoubtedly prove very meek.' Four regiments sent to Boston will, he thinks, be sufficient to prevent any disturbance."[33] On such a basis the king and his prime minister planned the laws which should punish the town of Boston. The first act was the Boston Port Bill. It closed the port to all commerce until the East India Company should be paid for its tea, and the king satisfied that the town was repentant. Nothing except food and fuel was to be brought to the town in boats; in fact, as Lord North promised the Commons, Boston was to be removed seventeen miles from the ocean. For Salem was made the port of entry, and there the governor and the collector, the surveyor and the comptroller, and all underlings were to go. It was planned to station war-ships in Boston Harbor to enforce the law. The second law was the "Bill for the better Regulating the Government of the Massachusetts Bay," generally called the Regulating Act. This virtually swept away the charter of Massachusetts. It provided first that the Council was to be appointed by the king, and next that without the consent of the Council the governor might appoint or remove all officers of justice, from judges to constables. By the provisions of the law even the jury lists could be controlled by appointive officers. Finally town meetings were made illegal throughout the province, except for the election of town officers, and other necessary local business. The third proposal of the government was a bill "for the Impartial Administration of Justice," in proposing which "it was observed that Lord North trembled and faultered at every word of his motion." It provided that magistrates, officers, or soldiers might be tried for "murder, or any other capital offence," in Great Britain. The fourth act made provision for quartering troops in Boston. The bills went through Parliament without much opposition. Says Trevelyan, "Even after the lapse of a century and a quarter the debates are not pleasant reading for an Englishman."[34] It was assumed that the punishment was just, and that not only Boston but also the whole continent would take it meekly. A few voices were raised in protest, but as a rule even the Opposition was silent. One by one the bills became law. One more step was taken toward separation. FOOTNOTES: [28] Trevelyan, "American Revolution," Part I, 104. [29] "A Card from the Inhabitants of Philadelphia," Bancroft, vi, 366. [30] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 45. [31] Bancroft, vi, 461, 462. [32] Bancroft, vi, 498. [33] Avery, "History of the United States," v, 190. [34] "American Revolution," Part I, 181. CHAPTER V THE OCCUPATION OF BOSTON Early in May of 1774 Hutchinson, ostensibly called to England to advise the king, gave up his offices in Massachusetts. His exile was approaching. Never again was he to see the fair hill of Milton, nor to look from its top upon the town and harbor that he loved. The Whigs exulted over the fall of "the damn'd arch traitor;" yet surely, though as an official he failed in his task, and as a patriot misread the temper and the capacity of his countrymen, he commands our pity. Amid the booming of the cannon which welcomed his successor he prepared for his departure. Except for his pathetic letters and journals he made no further mark upon his times or ours. His Milton estate remains, but his house is gone, and the very street that he lived on bears the name of Adams, his most persistent enemy. Hutchinson's successor was Thomas Gage, the first governor sent to Boston with an army at his back. He was well known in the colonies, for he had fought well at Braddock's defeat, had married an American wife, and was courteous and affable. It remained to be seen whether one of his hesitating temperament could meet the situation. With four regiments he had undertaken to pacify Massachusetts. He had his four regiments and more, yet he must occasionally have wondered why he found no more signs of weakness in the ranks of his opponents. At this time there were in Boston four chief classes of Whigs. The first were the ministers, and these for many years had been American to the core. As the first settlers of Massachusetts, whether Puritan or Pilgrim, had fled away from prelacy, so their spiritual descendants still hated the name of bishop. In fact, episcopacy in New England was still weak, and its greater part was concentrated in Boston itself. Some few of its ministers preached submission; but they either had to content themselves with Tory congregations, or lost their pulpits, or had them boarded up against them. The wiser part was taken by most in avoiding politics. The sole Congregational minister who supported the king was Mather Byles, famed for his witticisms, and he likewise declined to bring into the pulpit any mention of the affairs of the day. "In the first place," he told those who demanded an expression of his opinion, "I do not understand politics; in the second place you all do, every man and mother's son of you; in the third place you have politics all the week, so pray let one day in the seven be devoted to religion; in the fourth place I am engaged in work of infinitely greater importance. Give me any subject to preach on of more consequence than the truth I bring to you, and I will preach on it next Sabbath."[35] Gage's support from the pulpit was therefore weak, while at the same time the opposition from the same source was strong. Those country ministers who were of the political creed of Sam Adams confessed it each Sabbath, and desisted not on week days from strengthening the wills of their congregations. More than that, like their predecessors in older times, many held chaplaincies in the militia, and on training days turned out, not only to approve by their presence the object of the drill, but also to stir the spirit of the homespun soldiery by prayers to the God of Moses, and of Joshua, and of David. Those in Boston, under the very nose of the general and in the presence of his soldiery, abated nothing of their zeal, but preached resistance as before. Gage, as he looked among them for signs of wavering, could have found very little comfort. The lawyers next, like the clergymen, had supplied the Whigs much of their strength. Surely, up to the present the patriot party had been distinguished by pliancy and persistence. These characteristics had come from the lawyers, whose rejoinders and remonstrances, petitions, resolves, and appeals were familiar professional devices. Yet Gage might have found hope in these men. For the purpose of all their delays had been compromise, and their hope was the avoidance of bloodshed. The lawyers had showed, too, a love of fair play; for while they pressed the Tories hard, they had also taken the lead in protesting against mob violence. Again, leading Whig lawyers had defended--and acquitted--the perpetrators of the Massacre. Possibly such men might be made to see reason. A more numerous class than the lawyers was made up of the merchants, small and large. Some few of these men had made their own way in the world, yet most of them may almost have been said to have held hereditary positions in the provincial aristocracy. By far the larger number of them were Whigs, some of considerable estate, others--like that John Andrews from whose letters I have already quoted and shall quote more--were men of moderate means, shrewdly working for a "competency." Gage, looking forward to the enforcement of the Port Bill, could see that these men would be hard hit. While they had so far been firm in the colonial cause, the coming temptation to desert their party would be very strong. Income, security, and the favor of the king awaited them. At the end of this series was the largest class of all, the mechanics. Until now these men had been eager in their demonstrations against technical oppression--which yet was technical after all. No Boston Whig had ever known a tithe of the wrongs of the French peasant or the Russian serf. No laboring class on earth enjoyed or ever had enjoyed greater freedom or less hampered prosperity. But with the enforcement of the Port Bill all this would change. Gage hoped, and the Tories declared, that the mechanics, so soon as pressure was applied, would "fall away from the faction." The first results of the new régime were not promising. To begin with, on the news of the passage of the Port Bill the Committee of Correspondence of Boston called a meeting of the committees of the neighboring towns. This meeting scouted the idea of paying for the tea, and in a circular letter to the other colonies proposed a general cessation of trade with Great Britain. Similarly the town meeting of Boston discussed the situation, pronounced against the Port Bill, and appealed to all the sister colonies, entreating not to be left to suffer alone. In more homely language the merchants appealed to their friends. "Yes, Bill," wrote John Andrews to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia, "nothing will save us but an entire stoppage of trade, both to England and the West Indies.... The least hesitancy on your part _to the Southerd_, and the matter is over." There was little hesitancy. The suggestion made by the Boston Whigs was taken up, and the maritime towns, which had been expected to take advantage of Boston's predicament, began to discontinue trade, not merely with Great Britain, but also with the West Indies. Then Salem, which was to be the capital in place of Boston, formally repudiated the idea of profiting by the situation. The news spread to the other colonies, and they began to act. New York proposed, and the sister provinces agreed in, a call for "a general Congress." In less than a month after the coming of the news of the Port Bill, Boston was assured that the continent would not leave her to suffer alone. But then, on the first of June, 1774, the Port Bill went into effect. So literally was it interpreted, that all carriage by boat in the harbor was forbidden. No owner of a pasture on the harbor islands might bring his hay to the town; no goods might be brought across any ferry; not even carriage by water from wharf to wharf in the town was allowed. Further, while food and fuel, according to the provisions of the act, might be brought to Boston by water, all vessels carrying them were forced to go through troublesome formalities. They must report at the customs in Salem, unload, load again, and receive a clearance for Boston. Returning, they might carry enough provision to last them only to Salem. Besides all this, the Commissioners of Customs at Salem undertook to decide when Boston had enough provisions. The blockade, as enforced by them and the ships of war in Boston Harbor, was minutely complete and vexatious. Yet at their mildest its provisions were complete enough. Trade by sea with the town was stopped. Consequently, so maritime were the town's activities, prosperity was instantly checked. All the workers immediately dependent on the sea for a living, sailors, wharfingers, longshoremen, and fishermen, were at once thrown out of employment. Then by a severe interpretation of the act all ship-building was stopped, since the authorities declared that, on launching, any boat would be confiscated. The shipyards shut down, the boats ready to launch were filled with water "for their preservation,"[36] and ship-carpenters, calkers, rope-makers, and sailmakers were thrown out of work. Much misery to the unemployed would have been the result but for the forethought of the patriot leaders. These men, early realizing the threatened hardship, called for help from the rest of the country. The response was prompt. "A special chronicle," says Bancroft, "could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds." While Lord North, fresh from an interview with Hutchinson, cheered the king with the belief that the province would soon submit, South Carolina was sending a cargo of provisions in a vessel offered for the purpose by the owner, and sailed without wages by the captain and her crew. Sheep were driven into Boston from all New England; provisions of every kind were brought in; wheat was sent by the French in Quebec; money was subscribed and sent from the more distant points. All supplies thus received were put in the hands of a donation committee, who distributed the gifts to the needy. Yet in spite of such relief as this, and though for a short time employment was given to workmen by permitting them to finish, launch, rig, and send away the ships then on the stocks, the situation was hard at best. It was felt not only by the lower classes, but by the merchants, whose profits ceased, and by all who depended for their income on the current trade and activity of the town. Gossipy John Andrews gives us the situation as it affected him. "If you'll believe me (though I have got near two thousand sterling out in debts and about as much more in stock), I have not received above eighty or ninety pounds Lawful money from both resources for above two months past; though previous to the port's being shut, I thought it an ordinary day's work if I did not carry home from twenty to forty dollars every evening." So little ready money circulated in the town "that really, Bill, I think myself well off to satisfy the necessary demands of my family, and you may as well ask a man for the teeth out of his head as to request the payment of money that he owes you (either in town or country, for we are alike affected), for you'll be as likely to get the one as the other."[37] Now was, indeed, the time to discover the weak points in the cause and organization of the Americans. Even strong Whigs were at times discontented, and chiefly among the middle class, without whom the leaders could have no strong support. Much of the distress of the shopkeepers and merchants came from the "Solemn League and Covenant" which, proposed on the first news of the Port Bill, was now in actual operation. Andrews's case must have been typical of many. He had countermanded all goods on the news of the Port Bill, and acquiesced in the non-importation agreement: "but upon y^e measure not being adopted by the Southern Colonies, I embraced the first opportunity and re-ordered about one-fourth part of such goods as I thought would be in most demand, and behold! in about three or four weeks after that, I heard of y^e amazing progress the non-consumption agreement had made through y^e country; which, in my opinion, has serv'd rather to create dissensions among ourselves than to answer any valuable purpose." Many of the Tories held the same opinion. Could not the waverers, they asked Gage, be induced to change their political faith, and especially could not the leaders be tempted? Among these leaders the influence of Otis was waning. He had always been eccentric and unreliable, and now his intellect was threatened. An assault upon him had nearly ruined both his health and his reason. But his place had been taken by others. Samuel Adams, John Adams, Joseph Warren, and John Hancock were the men whose names were oftenest mentioned. Sinister rumors were frequent that Gage had been directed to seize them and deport them to England. Whether or not more evidence against them was needed, no arrest was as yet attempted. Instead, in at least three quarters there was some hope of corruption. Warren the general left untempted; it is no small tribute to the patriot's character that there could be no doubt of his integrity. Warren was not yet thirty-five years old, was of good social position, had an excellent practice and an assured future. His temperament was frank and manly, and so enthusiastic as to be fiery. Once already, on the anniversary of the Massacre in 1772, he had addressed the town meeting in condemnation of the government measures; on many other opportunities, before and since, he had either spoken in public or expressed his opinions through the press. While no advocate of violence, he was unreservedly a Whig, and nothing could be made of him. So far as is known, no attempt was made to corrupt him. The case of John Adams was different, at least to Tory eyes. He was ambitious: no one who knew him could doubt that he was conscious of his own ability. Further, he was poor, with a growing family to support; he was known, with the troubled times which he clearly foresaw, to be anxious for his children's future. Surely there was a possibility that Adams might be wise, and be tempted to the safer course; and fortunately there was at hand an instrument to induce him to become a Tory. Adams was the close personal friend of Jonathan Sewall, the king's attorney-general for the province, and an admirable character. The chance of distinction, the certainty of prosperity, and the importunities of such a friend, might in the end persuade Adams. Of John Hancock it was often argued among the Tories that he might almost be left to himself. If Adams was ambitious, Hancock was more so; known to be vain, he was believed to be jealous by nature. With these weaknesses, he was also instinctively an aristocrat. How long, asked the Tories, would he continue to consort with men of low social position? How soon would he rebel at being led by the nose by the wily Adams? Position and influence were ready for him as soon as he chose to go over to the king. The bait was always plain, and he might be counted on eventually to take it. Even Samuel Adams, so reasoned the advisers of Gage, might be bought. For Adams was poor. In his devotion to public affairs he had let his business go to ruin, had seen his money melt away, had even sold off parts of his own house-lot. His sentiments were, no better known in Boston than his threadbare clothes. His sole income was from his salary as clerk of the house of representatives, only a hundred pounds a year. To the new governor it was the most natural thing in the world to suppose that the discontent of such a man could soon be removed. He forgot Hutchinson's words: "Such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposition of the man, that he never would be conciliated by any office or gift whatever."[38] Gage sent, therefore, Colonel Fenton to Adams with offers which would tempt any man that had a price. No definite knowledge of the inducements has come down to us: money, place, possibly even a patent of nobility. We know, however, that they were coupled with a threat in the form of advice to make his peace with the king. And we can imagine Adams as, rising from his seat, and standing with the habitual nervous tremor of head and hands which often led his adversaries to mistake his mettle, he delivered his fearless reply. "Sir, I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of kings. No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country. Tell Governor Gage that it is the advice of Samuel Adams to him no longer to insult the feelings of an exasperated people!"[39] And this was in the face of a situation the like of which had never been known in America. "Notwithstanding which," wrote John Andrews, "there seems to be ease, contentment, and perfect composure in the countenance of almost every person you meet in the streets, which conduct very much perplexes the Governor and others, our lords and masters, that they are greatly puzzled, and know not what to do or how to act, as they expected very different behaviour from us." There is but one explanation of such a state of mind in the Whigs, in the face of the evidently approaching trial. Their consciences were clear. This revolution, when finally it came about, was quite within the spirit of the British Constitution. The Whigs believed they were right, and had no fear of the consequences. No testimony to their virtues, as the backbone of a new nation, will speak louder than their present attitude. External testimony is not hard to quote. "The people of Boston and Massachusetts Bay," wrote Thomas Hollis but a few weeks before this time, "are, I suppose, take them as a body, the soberest, most knowing, virtuous people at this time upon earth." Other English opinion to the same effect, and French admiration by the chapter, might be quoted. Yet a truer proof of the quality of the people is to be found in the calm self-confidence which "very much perplexed" the governor. One more comment may safely be ventured here. Before two years were over it was known that Gage, and perhaps even Hutchinson during his administration, had had the most complete information of the secret doings of the Whig leaders. In fact, even the deliberations of the workmen's caucuses must have been known to Gage. That no arrests were made can mean but one thing: that the Whigs were honest in their endeavor to work their ends by legal means. Samuel Adams may have foreseen the eventual outcome, and knowing it to be inevitable may have striven to make it speedy and complete. But there was no general scheme for independence, no plot for a revolt. "The Father of the Revolution" laid his plans in silence, and waited for the ripening of the times. Gage and his advisers, "greatly puzzled," also watched the crystallizing of opinion. Of the temper of the Bostonians, although oppressed by the Port Bill, there could presently be no doubt. Emboldened by the presence of troops in the town, the Tories called town meetings, first to resolve to pay for the tea, and then to dismiss the Committee of Correspondence. These two actions, if taken, would have totally changed the situation. The meetings were crowded, every courtesy was shown the Tories, and in the second meeting, since Adams was absent, the Whigs had to be content with the leadership of Warren. But there was no hesitation in either case. The first meeting rejected the proposal to pay for the tea. In the second the discretion of Warren proved equal to his zeal, his management of the meeting was perfect, and the vote upheld the Committee of Correspondence by a large majority. The next action explains the absence of Adams from Boston at such an important time. According to the new laws, the Assembly met at Salem, under the eye of the governor and in the presence of his troops. Gage knew very well that a call had been sent throughout the colonies for an election of delegates to a general Congress which should deliberate on the present situation. He had no intention that delegates should be elected from Massachusetts. He had partisans in the Assembly, and an informant on the committee to introduce legislation. Every move was reported to him. Never did Sam Adams dissemble more cleverly. So dull and spiritless did public matters seem, that Gage's informant thought it safe to go home on private business. Then Adams acted. Quietly laying his plans, on the morning of the seventeenth of June, 1774, he locked the door of the chamber and proposed that the Assembly elect delegates to the Continental Congress. A Tory pleaded sickness and hurried to Gage with the news; but the door was again locked, and the business proceeded. Though the governor sent his secretary with a message dissolving the Assembly, the secretary knocked in vain. The doors were not opened until delegates had been elected to the Congress, a tax laid to pay their expenses, and resolutions passed exhorting the province to stand firm. One of the delegates-elect was John Adams. For years he had declined to hold public office, and had even avoided town meetings. There was now a natural Tory hope that he might refuse this office; there was even a last chance to wean him from the Whig cause, for he was presently to ride on circuit, and there would meet his friend Sewall. When the two met, the Tory reasoned earnestly, pointing out the irresistible power of Great Britain. But Adams was ready with his answer. "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country is my unalterable determination."[40] And so went another hope of the Tories. The summer of 1774 wore along, with no improvement in the situation. Rather it became worse. So much time had elapsed without definite news of the passing of the Regulating Act, that there was hope that the measure had failed. But early in August came news of its passage, and with it a list of appointments for the new Council. The appointees were all chosen from among the Tories, or from those inclined to the king's side. "It is apprehended," wrote Andrews, "that most of 'em will accept." Now at last it was natural to suppose that the Whigs had come to the end of their resources. Their Assembly was dissolved, a Tory held each appointive position, Boston was filled with soldiers, and the harbor was guarded by ships of war. Active opposition to the troops would have been madness, and it seemed impossible to conduct even the ordinary business of the town, for now town meetings might legally be called only for the purpose of electing officers. Yet when Gage called the selectmen before him, and graciously indicated his willingness to allow meetings for certain harmless purposes, the reply surprised him. There was no need, said the selectmen, to ask his permission for a meeting: they had one in existence already. In fact they had two, the May meeting and the June meeting, each legally called before the enforcement of the Regulating Act, and each legally "adjourned" until such time as it was needed. The technical subterfuge was too much for Gage, and the adjournments continued in spite of the law. As the Massachusetts delegates prepared for their journey to Philadelphia, where the Congress was to be held, there occurred, if we can believe the story told by John Andrews--it was certainly believed in Boston at the time--a demonstration of affection for Samuel Adams. "For not long since some persons (their names unknown) sent and ask'd his permission to build him a new barn, the old one being decay'd, which was executed in a few days. A second sent to ask leave to repair his house, which was thoroughly effected soon. A third sent to beg the favor of him to call at a taylor's shop and be measur'd for a suit of cloaths and chuse his cloth, which were finish'd and sent home for his acceptance. A fourth presented him with a new whig,[41] a fifth with a new Hatt, a sixth with a pair of the best silk hose, a seventh with six pair of fine thread ditto, a eighth with six pair shoes, and a ninth modestly inquired of him whether his finances want rather low than otherways. He reply'd it was true that was the case, but he was very indifferent about these matters, so that his _poor_ abilities was of any service to the Publick; upon which the Gentleman obliged him to accept of a purse containing about 15 or 20 Johannes." It is possible that these attentions to Adams grew out of the desire that he, so well known in Boston that his shabbiness meant nothing, should appear well at the Congress, where his dress might prejudice others against him. True or not, this little story has its significance, for, says Andrews to his correspondent, "I mention this to show you how much he is esteem'd here. They value him for his _good_ sense, _great_ abilities, _amazing_ fortitude, _noble_ resolution, and _undaunted_ courage: being firm and unmov'd at all the various reports that were propagated in regard to his being taken up and sent home,[42] notwithstanding he had repeated letters from his _friends_, both in England as well as here, to keep out of the way." If the governor desired to arrest Adams, he had plenty of opportunity. There was even a public occasion to take all the delegates together, when they left the town on their way to Philadelphia. "A very respectable parade," wrote Andrews, "in sight of five of the Regiments encamp'd on the Common, being in a coach and four, preceded by two white servants well mounted and arm'd, with four blacks behind in livery, two on horseback and two footmen." Perhaps Gage breathed a sigh of relief with the "brace of Adamses" away, but his real troubles were only beginning. Massachusetts would have nothing to do with the newly appointed officers. The thirty-six councillors, appointed under writ of mandamus, excited the most indignation. Of the Boston nominees thirteen accepted, two declined, and four took time to consider; throughout the province the proportion was about the same. But those who wavered and those who accepted presently heard from their neighbors. Leonard of Taunton, hearing of a surprise party mustering from the neighboring towns, departed hastily for Boston. His father, by promises that he would urge his son to resign, with difficulty prevailed on the disgusted neighbors to leave the councillor's property unharmed. In Worcester, Timothy Paine was taken to the common, and, in the presence of two thousand standing in military order, he read his declination of his appointment. Ruggles of Hardwick was warned not to return home; his neighbors swore that he should never pass the great bridge of the town alive. Murray of Rutland, like Leonard of Taunton, escaped the attentions of his townspeople, who scorned the threat of confiscation and death, and demanded his resignation. "This," wrote his brother to him, "is not the language of the common people only: those that have heretofore sustained the fairest character are the warmest in this matter; and, among the many friends you have heretofore had, I can scarcely mention any to you now." The people did not always act with violence, but the compulsion which they put upon their fellow-townsmen was strong. Watson of Plymouth, long respected in the town, had been appointed by the king to the Council, and had intended to accept. But when he appeared in church on the following Sunday, his friends rose and left the meeting-house. In the face of their scorn he bowed his head over his cane, and resolved to resign.[43] More than twenty of the thirty-six councillors either declined their appointment, or resigned. The rest could find no safety except in Boston, under the protection of the troops. Even the courts were prevented from sitting, in one case by the ingenious method of packing the court-room so solidly with spectators that judge and sheriff could not enter. Only among the garrison at Boston was there comfort for the Tory officials. Boston itself was troublesome enough. When Gage, regarding himself as "personally affronted" by John Hancock,[44] removed him from command of the Cadets, the company sent a deputation to Salem and returned him their standard, declining longer to keep up their customary service as the governor's body-guard. The governor, vexed, replied that had he previously known of their intentions, he would have dismissed them himself. The town meetings troubled him also. Salem held one under his nose, in spite of a feint to interrupt them by the soldiers. When he summoned the committee of correspondence of the town to answer for the meeting, they were stubborn and defiant, refused to give bail when arrested, and were consequently--released! Other towns held meetings to elect delegates to a county convention, and the governor was powerless to stop them. Although he had many more troops than the four regiments with which he first declared that he could do so much, he felt his helplessness, and, cursing the town meetings, waited for more soldiers. He summoned the remnant of his council to meet in Salem; but the members were afraid to come, and, departing from his orders, he allowed them to sit in Boston. And now, as the weeks passed on, even Boston was rumbling with the thunder of the coming storm. Israel Putnam, having driven to Boston a flock of sheep, the gift to the poor of Boston from his Connecticut town, became the lion of the day. Meeting on the Common some of his old friends in the regular army, they chaffed him on the military situation. Twenty ships and twenty regiments, they told him, were to be expected if the country did not submit. "If they come," returned the stanch old Indian fighter, "I am ready to treat them as enemies." At length the forms of law failed even in Boston. When the judges summoned a jury, it not only refused to take oath, but presented a written protest against the authority on which the court acted. The judges gave up the attempt in despair, and the governor and his advisers thought that matters were come to a pretty pass when a mere petit juror could declare "that his conscience would not let him take oath whiles Peter Oliver set upon the bench."[45] There was apparently no punishment to meet such obduracy. But at last news came to Gage on which he felt compelled to act. Much powder had been stored in the magazine at Quarry Hill in Charlestown. He was informed that during August the towns had removed their stock, until there remained only that which belonged to the province. This stock Gage determined to secure against possible illegal seizure, by seizing it himself. On the morning of the first of September, by early daylight, detachments of troops in boats took the powder to the Castle, and also secured two cannon from Cambridge. Rumors of violence and bloodshed spread rapidly, and by nightfall half of New England was in motion, marching toward Boston. FOOTNOTES: [35] Sabine's "Loyalists," 190. [36] Andrews Letters. [37] The Andrews Letters, as already noted, are in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings for the volume of 1864-1865. I shall refer to them frequently without quoting pages. [38] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 193. [39] Wells, "Adams," ii, 193. [40] Bancroft, edition of 1876, iv, 344. Subsequent references to Bancroft will be to this edition. [41] Sic! [42] Note the use of the word, as meaning England. [43] I take these facts from Bancroft and the Andrews Letters. [44] Hancock seems to have practised upon Gage the subterfuge which he afterwards used with Washington, pretending to be too ill to wait upon him. [45] Andrews Letters. CHAPTER VI THE POWDER ALARM AND THE WINTER OF 1774-1775 Gage had by this time given up hope of winning to his side the leaders of the Whigs. If he still retained a doubt of the temper of the people, the events of the first and second of September would have made him certain. Marching in companies, they converged upon Cambridge, whence the Lieutenant-Governor, Andrew Oliver, hastily departed to Boston, to implore Gage to send out no troops, lest not a man of them should return alive. On his way in, Oliver passed Warren hastening out. But his influence was not needed. The militia companies had already laid aside their weapons and were parading peacefully upon Cambridge common. There they were addressed by two of the Mandamus Council, who confirmed their resignations and promised in no way to be concerned in the acts of Gage's government. Then the high-sheriff came under the attention of the meeting, and likewise promised to do nothing under the new laws. Hallowell, the Commissioner of Customs, escaped more serious handling. Passing by the common and its assemblage of Whigs, he "spoke somewhat contemptuously of them." They promptly sent some mounted men after his chaise. On seeing them coming he stopped his chaise, unhitched his horse and mounted, and ran his pursuers a close race to Boston Neck, where he found safety with the guard. Oliver, returning to Cambridge with the governor's promise to send out no troops, was waited upon by the great assemblage. The Whigs demanded his resignation as a councillor. This, after demurring, Oliver gave, and offered to resign also from the lieutenant-governorship. But this the company allowed him to keep. Andrews records, "It is worthy remark that Judge Lee remarked to 'em, after he had made his resignation, that he never saw so large a number of people together and preserve so peaceable order before in his life." This orderly meeting, proceeding with parliamentary forms, passed a resolve that Gage was within his legal rights in removing the powder from the store-house. They then "voted unanimously their abhorrence of mobs and riots,"[46] and with these lessons given for any one to learn, they peaceably turned toward their homes. On their way they turned back those who, from further away, were eagerly coming to avenge the rumored death of their countrymen and the bombardment of the town. Putnam, after disbanding his Connecticut company, wrote to urge the men of Massachusetts to take better care of the remainder of their powder. The "Powder Alarm" stirred the country everywhere. At Philadelphia its exaggerated reports greatly disturbed the Congress, but the response was significant. "When the horrid news was brought here of the bombardment of Boston," wrote John Adams, "which made us completely miserable for two days, we saw proofs both of the sympathy and the resolution of the continent. War! war! war! was the cry, and it was pronounced in a tone which would have done honor to the oratory of a Briton or a Roman. If it had proved true, you would have heard the thunder of an American Congress."[47] Gage now, for the first time, seems to have had a glimmer of an idea of the formidable forces that were against him. He began to consider the military situation, and the defence of the town against another such rising. If on the next occasion the provincials should attempt to pursue a commissioner not merely to the Neck, but past it, there must be means of stopping them. Gage gave orders to fortify the Neck, which was in those days the single land approach to Boston. [Illustration: THE INVESTMENT OF BOSTON] The modern city in no way resembles the old town. Now, between South Boston and Cambridge, a score of highways lead into the city. Bridges and even tunnels give direct communication from South Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Chelsea, and East Boston. But in 1774 South Boston was a mudflat; the Back Bay--at least at high water--was what its name implies; Chelsea was Winnisimit, with but half a dozen houses; and East Boston was an island, having but two houses on it. Now the flats have been filled up, the mainland brought closer, and the approaches bridged. In Governor Gage's day Boston was still a peninsula, roughly pear-shaped, and connected with the mainland by a strip of land which was, at high tide, scarcely a hundred yards wide. Batteries commanding the road which crossed this isthmus seemed, at the time, quite sufficient to defend the town. It was not till later that Gage began to consider the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown, which, to the south and north, threatened Boston. Now he set to work upon an earthwork at the Neck, brought cannon there, and began to build block-houses. It was reported that he was to cut a ditch across the Neck, and confine traffic to a narrow bridge; but at the objection of the selectmen such an idea, if he had considered it, was given up. Protest against the new earthworks was also lodged. The selectmen of the town, and a committee from the convention for Suffolk County which then happened to sit, came to Gage with remonstrances. Warren, from the convention, twice urged his demands. "Good God, gentlemen," responded the harried governor, "make yourselves easy, and I will be so."[48] There was no more ease of mind for Governor Gage. Within the limits of Boston and Charlestown were several cannon belonging to the militia organizations of the town. When the general tried to secure the Charlestown guns from secretion by the provincials, they disappeared. "Ever since," wrote Andrews a fortnight later, "the General has ordered a double guard to y^e new and old gun houses, where y^e brass field pieces belonging to our militia are lodged: notwithstanding which ... We'n'sday evening, or rather night, our people took these from the Old house (by opening the side of the house) and carried away through Frank Johonnot's Garden. Upon which he gave it in orders the next day to the officer on guard to remove those from the New house (which stands directly opposite the encampment of the 4th Regiment and in the middle of the street near the large Elm tree), sometime the next night into the camp; and to place a guard at each end, or rather at both doors, till then. At the fixed hour the Officer went with a number of Mattrosses to execute his orders, but behold, the guns were gone!" Lest the guns in the North Battery should similarly be spirited away, the bewildered general ordered them to be spiked. His state of mind was not improved when he received, as he did early in September, the resolutions passed by the Suffolk convention. The Suffolk Resolves, as they are called, covered the whole of the existing situation. Repudiating the king's claim to unconditional obedience, they declared the Regulating Act unconstitutional, and called on all officers under it to resign their places. They advised that all taxes should be withheld from the king's treasury, and suggested a provincial congress to deal with the affairs of Massachusetts. The resolves further declared that the Americans had no intention of aggression, advised peaceful measures, but threatened to seize all crown officers if any political arrest were made. Looking forward to the eventual rupture, the resolves advised the towns to choose their military officers with great care, and finally made provision to spread alarm or summon assistance at a moment's notice. Affairs had now reached a new phase. The barrier which Gage had erected at the Neck had effectually cut him off from the province which he had been sent to govern. From that time on he had no authority beyond the range of his batteries. Boston was his, to be sure. In spite of alarms (for once the field day of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, the pride of the province, aroused the fleet; and once the little navy was awake all night against an attack that never came), in spite of such alarms, no attempt was made upon his army or his ships. The town was quiet, and Tory ladies and gentlemen were at last at ease. On the Mall they might daily watch the parade of the troops, speak their minds about the faction, and agree upon the cowardice of the provincials. Yet the Whigs of Boston made no submission. They were, as Warren wrote of them, "silent and inflexible." At the same time they had everything at stake. Their leaders Hancock and Warren still lived openly among them, in the face of the threat of arrest. The artisans, too, at this period put behind them a great temptation. For many months they had been idle; now within a few weeks the governor had commenced building barracks for the troops, upon which Boston workmen were engaged. For the first time since the Port Bill went into effect they were earning a comfortable living. But now they refused to work longer for the king. In vain Gage appealed to the selectmen and to Hancock. One and all the artisans withdrew, to subsist, as before, upon the donations that still continued to come in from the other towns and colonies. Outside the barrier at the Neck was an unparalleled state of affairs. In Massachusetts there was no legal government. The charter had been abrogated, but the new system had been rejected by the people. There were no judges and no courts, no sheriffs; there was no treasury, and no machinery of government whatever. Consequently there was a striking opportunity for lawlessness. Yet the quiet in the province was remarkable. In the absence of executive and judicial officers, the selectmen of the towns and the Committees of Correspondence took upon themselves the work that was to be done, and did it quietly and well. There was no thievery, no murder, no repudiation of debts. So far as their ordinary life was concerned, the people simply lived on in their ancient way. There was, nevertheless, plenty of lawlessness of the new kind. Just as soon as the people could catch the newly appointed officials, they forced them to resign; and whenever the courts attempted to sit they were made to adjourn. There continued the little migration of Tories toward Boston, always in the expectation that the sojourn was to be brief, and that presently Gage would have the situation in hand. Most of the refugees, however, never saw their homes again. As for Gage, he was suspected of detaining the remaining councillors in Boston, lest he should not have any left to him. Indeed, his position in Salem had already become so undignified and uncomfortable that early in September, with the Commissioners of Customs and all other officials, he returned to Boston. There he also withdrew the two regiments with which he had ineffectually endeavored to sustain his prestige in Salem. Yet he had not been long in Boston before he was forced to watch the preparations for a new act of defiance. Already, unfortunately for him, he had convened the Assembly to meet at Salem. Now that he was in Boston he desired the legislators to meet there also; yet he could not adjourn them until they met. This he planned to do. The delegates, however, knew that if they came to Boston they must take their oaths of office before the Mandamus Council. To this the representatives would never submit, and accordingly planned another move. Boston carried out its part under the eye of the governor. The town elected its representatives, chief among whom were Hancock, Warren, and the absent Samuel Adams. The meeting then deliberately, reminding the delegates that they could not conscientiously discharge their duty under the conditions which the governor would impose, "empowered and instructed" them to join with the delegates from other towns in a general provincial congress, to act upon public matters in such a manner as should appear "most conducive to the true interest of this town and province, and most likely to preserve the liberties of all America." Thus the town of Boston, inflexible but no longer silent, calmly ignored the governor and his troops. A strong governor would have imprisoned the delegates and dissolved the meeting; Gage allowed it to proceed for the rest of the day with illegal business, and did nothing. It was at this time that the conduct of affairs fell into the hands of Warren. Adams was away at Philadelphia, and Hancock, though older than Warren and an excellent figurehead, had neither Warren's wisdom nor his fiery energy. It was Warren who corresponded with the Congress at Philadelphia and with the Committees of Correspondence of the Massachusetts towns, and it was to him that the province naturally turned. When we remember him as the hero of Bunker Hill, it is well also to recall him as the tried servant and the excellent adviser of the public. One act of his at this point is worth remembering. As we have seen, Episcopalians were not in good odor with the Massachusetts Whigs; the colony had been founded as an asylum from "prelacy," and still, after nearly two hundred and fifty years, the few members of the English church were chiefly supporters of the crown. Warren now took occasion to remind his brethren that to the south conditions were different, and that "the gentlemen of the Established Church of England are men of the most just and liberal sentiments." In a printed letter he requested fair treatment of all Episcopalians, and ended by quoting from a letter of Samuel Adams an account of the Episcopal chaplain of the Philadelphia Congress, whose first prayer moved many of the members to tears. Although this chaplain later turned his coat, the reminder was timely and valuable, for many southern Whigs, among them Washington himself, were members of the Established Church. As to the proposed provincial congress, Gage now hastened to forestall the consequences of his own action. He declared the convening of the Assembly inexpedient, and removed the obligation to attend. Nevertheless ninety of the delegates came together, waited a day for the governor, then formed themselves into a provincial congress, and adjourned. On the 11th of October they met again at Concord, this time with nearly two hundred more members, and in the old meeting-house began their sessions with Hancock as their president, but with Warren as the most influential member of their body. His influence was thrown on the side of moderation. There were plenty in the province ready to urge violence. They argued that the old charter should be resumed; and as if the present acts were not sufficiently revolutionary, were ready to proceed to violent measures. But the time had not yet come. Massachusetts sentiment, responding to persecution, was far in advance of the feelings of the rest of the country. No action could safely be taken until the other colonies were ready to support New England. In constant touch with Samuel Adams--for Paul Revere and other trusted couriers were always on the road with letters--Warren was able to remind his colleagues of the need of patience, and to cool their ardor by his warnings that in open rebellion they would stand alone. His services, and those of the steadfast band who supported him, were invaluable. In these days he rose to the full stature of political leadership, in guiding the actions of the provincial congress and in constraining it to patience. And yet its acts were revolutionary enough. It must be remembered that until this time the Whigs of Massachusetts had remained within their constitutional rights. Apart from the Tea-Party, no word or act of town meeting or of legislature, or even of any prominent citizen, needed for justification anything more than the ancient charter rights of the province. But now the provincial congress went beyond anything that had ever been done before. It appointed a Committee of Safety, which should prepare for equipping and raising an army. It appointed a Committee of Supplies, which presently gathered together a few hundred spades and pickaxes, some muskets, a thousand wooden mess-bowls, four thousand flints, and a small supply of peas and flour--a pitiful attempt to compete with the vast resources of Great Britain. More than this, it appointed a Receiver-General, to keep the public money of the province. It might be argued that all these acts were still within the charter rights, yet the Whig position was no longer so strong as on the occasions when it had caused the crown lawyers to doubt. With a treasurer engaged in receiving the taxes which the towns willingly paid him, and with generals appointed to command an army, it began to look as if Massachusetts were in rebellion. Gage was perplexed. His province was out of his control, and now came the news that the Continental Congress, before adjourning, had voted approval of the course of Massachusetts. In fact, Congress had voted its support. "Resolved, that this congress approve of the opposition made by the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament; and, if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition." With such words in his mind, Gage had to listen to the ringing of the church bells in welcome to Samuel Adams as he returned from Philadelphia. Adams and Cushing, two of the Boston delegates, now took their seats in the provincial congress, and the remaining two delegates were invited to attend. The public acts of the congress continued bold and uncompromising, and every little while there came to the harried governor some public letter of remonstrance, or some delegation from an aggrieved town or county convention, to object, to expostulate, or to demand. Never were people better trained to politics than the Americans at this moment. Gage was quite unfitted to cope with them. Hutchinson would have been more vigorous, and even Bernard more clever. The king fitly characterized his governor as "the mild general." Gage, in his perplexity, now made trouble by suggesting the recruiting of Indians against the day of rebellion, and called for more troops from England. The disgusted king sought to replace him as commander-in-chief by the one English soldier whom the Americans held in respect, in fact, as the hero of the French war, almost in reverence. But Sir Jeffrey Amherst bluntly told the king that he would not serve against the Americans, "to whom he had been so much obliged." The king was forced to content himself by sending to Gage's support three major-generals, as if in the hope that their divided counsels would bring about a uniform policy. Of these three men America was to hear a good deal in the next seven years. The least important of them was Sir Henry Clinton, of respectable military skill. More striking in character was Sir John Burgoyne, poet, dramatist, parliamentarian, upon whom America will ever look with the indulgence which the victor feels for one who is signally and completely defeated. "General Big-talk," the Yankee balladist called him when once the siege was in progress. It is true that Burgoyne had an easy flow of words, and we shall before long find him doing his share to make Gage ridiculous. But Burgoyne had his manly parts, and though he lacked greatness, he commands at times our sympathy and our respect. He made a romantic marriage, which proved a happy one; and his real claim to literary distinction lies in the letter in which, on his departure for America, he commended his wife to the care of the king. Burgoyne, in a still brutal age, was a humanitarian, and was one of the first, not only to oppose flogging in the army, but also to advocate friendly personal relations between officers and men. America seldom took Burgoyne seriously, but he is to us of to-day a pleasing and picturesque character. The third of the new generals was Sir William Howe, whose chief misfortune was that fate had set him to oppose Washington. He came of a family well known in American annals, for one brother was now an admiral popular in the colonies, and another was still mourned in America for his brilliant talents and magnetic personality. William Howe had gained his seat in Parliament by appeals to the memory of that brother, and by promises to take no active military command against America. But on being offered the post under Gage, Howe asked if this were a request or an order. The adroit king returned the proper answer, and Howe, protesting that no other course was open to him, prepared to sail for Boston. Meanwhile Gage, alone, made various futile moves, at which the province looked with patience. From time to time his troops marched a few miles into the country, and returned again. In January he sent a detachment to Marshfield, to occupy the village so that the loyal residents might drink their tea in peace. It was a comfort to him to think that there was one town in the province in which a militia company was drilling for his support, and with the king's muskets. A month later Gage sent troops to Salem, in order to seize some cannon; but the commander, finding the country in arms to receive him, wisely withdrew his little force after--to use a term yet to be invented--"saving his face" by crossing a bridge under promise of immediate return. The Reverend Jonas Clark, speaking of this event, adds an indignant note to an equally indignant sermon.[49] "This unsuccessful expedition was made on Lord's day, Feb. 26, 1775. The party consisted of 200 or 300 men; it was commanded by Lieut. Col. Leslie. The vessels which brought them to _Marblehead_, arrived in the harbour, on the morning of the sabbath; and the better to conceal their intentions, lay quietly, at anchor, near to the wharves, with but very few hands upon deck (the troops being kept close) 'till the people of the town were assembled for the services of religion.--While the inhabitants were thus engaged in their devotions to God, the party landed and made a speedy march to Salem. But all their precaution did not avail them for the accomplishment of their enterprize. The _eagle-eyes_ of a watchful and wary people, justly jealous of every measure of their oppressors, are not easily evaded. Their motions were observed, and such timely notice given, that such numbers were collected and such measures taken, before they arrived, as effectually frustrated their design and obliged them to return defeated and chagrined." So, throughout the winter, the garrison and its governor accomplished nothing--or less than nothing, if one considers that Gage proved to the provincials the weakness of his character, while at the same time he angered them by issuing, when the provincial congress appointed a day of prayer, a proclamation against hypocrisy. As the winter passed there was at times hope that the political situation might be relieved by action of Parliament. Yet though the worst House of Commons in history had been dissolved, the one which took its place was, at its beginning, little better. It learned wisdom only from the events of the war. To this Parliament Chatham and Burke now appealed in vain; even Fox, at last definitely taking his stand with the supporters of America, could not move it from its subservience to the king. When finally a bill was introduced to deprive America of its fisheries, it began to seem that legislative oppression could go no further. And now to other Americans than Samuel Adams it became evident that there was no hope of concession from England. The second provincial congress began its sittings. Warren was still on the Committee of Safety. Preble, Ward, and Pomeroy were reappointed generals, and to them were added Thomas and Heath. Supplies were voted for an army of fifteen thousand. There was still hope of conciliation, but, wrote Warren, "every day, every hour, widens the breach." The town of Boston knew how wide the breach was, and how different the points of view. The letters and diaries of the time show the constant little irritations which exasperated both sides. In those days, if the British soldier was not so sober as now, the British officer was far more given to drink. From "the Erskine incident" until almost the outbreak of hostilities, drunken officers made trouble with the inhabitants, and found them less submissive than the average British citizen. Yankee burghers had an uncomfortable trick of arming themselves with cudgels and returning to the attack; the watch occasionally locked up Lieutenant This and Ensign That; and more dignified citizens, disdaining personal conflict, brought their complaints to the general, thus adding to his troubles. John Andrews tells the story of the school boys who, in the phrase of the day, "improv'd" the coast on School Street. "General Haldiman, improving the house that belongs to Old Cook, his servant took it upon him to cut up their coast and fling ashes upon it. The lads made a muster, and chose a committee to wait upon the General, who admitted them, and heard their complaint, which was couch'd in very genteel terms, complaining that their fathers before 'em had improv'd it as a coast from time immemorial, &ca. He ordered his servant to repair the damage, and acquainted the Governor with the affair, who observ'd that it was impossible to beat the notion of Liberty out of the people, as it was rooted in 'em _from their Childhood_." Gage did his best to be fair to the inhabitants, and they acknowledged his endeavor. But the officers, less experienced than he and with fewer responsibilities, and also less acquainted with the spirit of the colonists, were angry with him for what they called his subservience. They dubbed him Tommy, and confided their indignation to their diaries. "Yesterday," wrote Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own,[50] "in compliance with the request of the Select Men, Genl Gage order'd that no Soldier in future shou'd appear in the Streets with his side Arms. Query, Is this not encouraging the Inhabitants in their licentious and riotous disposition? Also orders are issued for the Guards to seize all military Men found engaged in any disturbance, whether Agressors or not; and to secure them, 'till the matter is enquired into. By Whom? By Villains that wou'd not censure one of their own Vagrants, even if He attempted the life of a Soldier; whereas if a Soldier errs in the least, who is more ready to accuse than Tommy? His negligence on the other hand has been too conspicuous in the affair of Cn. Maginis to require a further comment." Doubtless there is much to be said for the soldiers, both officers and privates, since the Bostonians had not abandoned their irritating ways, even in the midst of an army. But the army was also very hard to live with. On the first of January our discontented officer records, "Nothing remarkable but the drunkenness among the Soldiers, which is now got to a very great pitch; owing to the cheapness of the liquor, a Man may get drunk for a Copper or two." The officers, we have seen, did not set their men a very good example; but even in their sober senses they were scarcely conciliatory. They formed burlesque congresses, and marched in mock procession in the streets, absurdly dressed to represent the leaders of the Whigs. On the queen's birthday a banquet was held, and from the balcony of the tavern the toasts were announced, while in the street a squad of soldiers fired salutes. Toasts to Lord North were not relished in Boston, and reminders of Culloden were too significant for those whom the army already called rebels. It is an interesting proof of the weakness of Gage's hold upon his own army that such childishness should have been permitted, or that such threats should have been made to a town that still was within its legal rights. Beneath these petty quarrels we perceive the fundamental differences. Over these the more learned of both sides carried on a war of words. The newspapers teemed with letters, poems, essays, and dissertations; and Novanglus, Massachusettensis, Vindex, and other pseudo-Romans endeavored to convert each other, or else to point solemn warnings. "Remember," writes a yeoman of Suffolk County, "the fate of Wat Tyler, and think how vain it is for Jack, Sam, or Will to war against Great Britain, now she is in earnest!... Our leaders are desperate bankrupts! Our country is without money, stores, or necessaries of war,--without one place of refuge or defence! If we were called together, we should be a confused herd, without any disposition to obedience, without a general of ability to direct and guide us; and our numbers would be our destruction! Never did a people rebel with so little reason; therefore our conduct cannot be justified before God!... Rouse, rouse ye, Massachusetians, while it be yet time! Ask pardon of God, submit to our king and parliament, whom we have wickedly and grievously offended."[51] This exclamatory appeal plainly shows a type of mind which often has saved the British Empire, yet which at periods in history has come near to ruining it. English conservatism has at most times been invaluable to the country; but when, as repeatedly under the Stuart kings and again under George III, it has forsaken its true task in order to support absolutism, it has brought the ship of state very near to wreck. In reminding of the fate of Wat Tyler our Suffolk yeoman forgot, if indeed he ever knew, the fate of Charles and James Stuart. The majority of Englishmen have never been willing to admit that in defending their constitutional rights they were guilty of impiety. Though such warnings and appeals were at this time frequent enough, the Whigs paid no regard to them. When we leave the Tories and turn to the soldiery we find one other common English failing--underrating an adversary. England had so long been victorious on land and sea that it was almost a natural assumption that she was superior to any force that could be brought against her. But that she was always right, or her opponents always cowards, were corollaries that did not necessarily follow. Yet both of these were implicitly believed, not only by supporters at home, but also by the army in America. As to Yankee cowardice, many a Tory could, and later did, warn the troops against belief in it. But now, at any rate, the belief was fully indulged. From it was an easy step to general contempt. Rascal and Scoundrel were common synonyms for Whig. Lord Percy was a brigadier-general and old enough to form his own conclusions, yet after living in the camp at Boston for a month, he gives us a complete analysis of the American character--the summary, no doubt, of British military opinion. "The People here," he wrote home, "are the most designing, Artfull Villains in the World. They have not the least Idea of either Religion or Morality. Nor have they the least Scruple of taking the most solemn Oath on any Matter that can assist their Purpose, tho' they know the direct contrary can be clearly & evidently proved in half an Hour."[52] We see, then, the situation fully prepared: an inflexible people, a weak governor, a party of believers in divine right, and a contemptuous soldiery. The next event, which all but ended in violence, showed that there needed but a little tenser situation in order to bring about the rupture. Now occurred the annual oration on the Massacre. Since that tragedy, five years ago, there had been an annual commemoration of it in the form of a speech by one of the Whig leaders. This year the post was one of evident responsibility and even of danger, but Warren, true to his character, solicited the appointment. He announced his subject as "The Baleful Influence of Standing Armies in Time of Peace." On the fifth of March the crowd that came to hear him filled the Old South to the doors. The chance was one which, had Gage received the orders which were supposed to have been sent him, and had he been the man he ought to have been, he never should have let slip. There in one building were, of the chiefs of the "faction," Warren, Samuel Adams, Hancock, and many lesser men. They could be taken at one blow. Some forty British officers were present, whether to effect a capture or merely to cause a disturbance was not known. At Samuel Adams' instance they were given front seats, or places on the steps of the pulpit. There they listened quietly to Warren's words. The oration was, in the style of the day, florid; but it was full of genuine feeling. Warren spoke of the rise of the British Empire in America, the hope of its future, the policy of the king, and the Massacre. Turning then to the present situation, he spoke in words which no one could mistake, bolder, perhaps, than ever before had been publicly spoken in the presence of hostile soldiers. He reminded his countrymen of their martial achievements, he spoke of the critical situation, and, while disclaiming the desire for independence, encouraged the colonists to claim their rights. "An independence of Great Britain is not our aim. No: our wish is, that Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength together. But, whilst the infatuated plan of making one part of the empire slaves to the other is persisted in, the interest and safety of Britain as well as the colonies require that the wise measures recommended by the honorable, the Continental Congress be steadily pursued, whereby the unnatural contest between a parent honored and a child beloved may probably be brought to such an issue that the peace and happiness of both may be established upon a lasting basis. But, if these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears the only way to safety lies through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from our foes, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess, Liberty, fast by a Brunswick's side, on the American throne."[53] These were fearless words, and full of meaning. Had there been men of sense among the officers present, they must have been impressed by the solemnity of the warning; in fact, they were silent until the end. It was not until after the oration, when the meeting was voting thanks to the orator, that the officers endeavored to interrupt the proceedings. The cry of Fie! was mistaken for that of Fire, and there was a moment's panic. We have opposing accounts of it. "It was imagined," wrote our discontented Lieutenant of the King's Own, "that there wou'd have been a riot, which if there had wou'd in all probability have proved fatal to Hancock, Adams, Warren, and the rest of those Villains, as they were all up in the Pulpit together, and the meeting was crowded with Officers and Seamen in such a manner that they cou'd not have escaped; however it luckily did not turn out so; it wou'd indeed have been a pity for them to have made their exit in that way, as I hope before long we shall have the pleasure of seeing them do it by the hands of the Hangman." John Andrews looked at the matter differently. "The officers in general behave more like a parcel of children, of late, than men. Captain ---- of the Royal Irish first exposed himself by behaving in a very scandalous manner at the South meeting.... He got pretty decently frighted for it. A woman, among the rest, attacked him and threatened to wring his nose." An outbreak may have been what the officers wanted. "But," says Samuel Adams, who acted on his maxim that it is good politics to put and keep the enemy in the wrong, "order was restored, and we proceeded regularly, and finished the business. I am persuaded, were it not for the danger of precipitating a crisis, not a man of them would have been spared."[54] The whole was a type of the existing situation. Here were the officers, still causing petty disturbances; here too, no doubt, were Tories, contemptuous of the proceedings. Deeper still appears the real significance of the occasion. On the one side was the governor, unable, with all the power of the king, to prevent a meeting of the citizens to condemn his presence in the town--for the meeting was the "Port Bill meeting," adjourned from time to time since the previous May. And on the other side were the citizens, legally protesting and exasperatingly defiant, evidently under perfect self-restraint, determined not to strike the first blow. The officers took, as usual, a puerile revenge in the form of a burlesque. "A vast number" of them assembled at the Coffee House in King Street, and chose selectmen and an orator, "who deliver'd an oration from the balcony to a crowd of few else beside gaping officers."[55] Others of them caught a countryman who had been decoyed into buying a musket from a soldier, and tarred and feathered him. But these were surface trivialities. Beneath them the true situation was growing worse. Out in the country military stores were being collected at Worcester and at Concord; and over in Parliament the fisheries bill, designed to deprive thousands in America of their living, was sure of passing. At last Franklin, who had stayed in London as long as there seemed anything for him to accomplish, patiently bearing humiliation and insults, on the 20th of March took ship for Philadelphia. It was the sign that there was no further hope of peace. FOOTNOTES: [46] Bancroft. [47] Adams Letters, 39. [48] Andrews Letters. [49] A Sermon preached at Lexington, April 19, 1776, 26. [50] His diary is published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April and May, 1877, 384 and 544. I shall use it freely without further definite reference. [51] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 413 [52] Bulletin of Boston Public Library, x, No. 87, 320. [53] Frothingham's "Life of Warren," 435-436. [54] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 281. [55] Andrews Letters. CHAPTER VII MILITARY PREPARATIONS As the spring of 1775 advanced, matters took on a constantly more threatening aspect. The governor's force in Boston was steadily increasing, and was approaching a total of four thousand men. Vessels of war were with equal steadiness being added to the little fleet in the harbor. With each budget of news from England it became evident that Parliament would not yield, and at last came word that Lord North had offered a joint resolution that New England was in a state of rebellion, which both houses pledged their lives and fortunes to suppress. With such a military force at his command, and with such moral support from King and Parliament, Gage was in a position to take decided action. No one could doubt what that action would be. Since September the province had been gathering its meagre military supplies. It was but common sense to seize them before they could be used. Soon after the new year Gage began his measures. "Genl. Orders," writes disgruntled Lieutenant Barker. "If any officers of the different Regts. are _capable_ of taking sketches of a Country, they will send their names to the Dep. Adj. Genl ... that is an extraordinary method of wording the order; it might at least have been in a more genteel way; at present it looks as if he doubted whether there were any such." However, there were such, and in February the governor chose Captain Brown and Ensign De Berniere (or Bernicre, as the name is sometimes spelled) and sent them out to map the roads. The little expedition was somewhat absurd, for the disguise which the officers wore was sufficient to conceal them only from their friends. When, at the first tavern at which they stopped, they remarked that it was a very fine country, the black woman who waited on them answered, "So it is, and we have got brave fellows to defend it, and if you go any higher you will find it so." "This," admits Ensign De Berniere, whose account of the expedition was left in Boston at the evacuation, and was "printed for the information and amusement of the curious," "this disconcerted us a good deal." From that time on, any one who took the trouble to "eye them attentively" was in no doubt as to their real character. They went first to Worcester, where it was possible that the governor might wish to send troops, to protect the courts as well as to seize stores. The weather was rough and snowy, and the officers' task correspondingly difficult; the countrymen, by persevering sociability, kept them in an uneasy state of mind. After roughly mapping roads concerning which the general should long before have had accurate information, the two officers made their way to Sudbury, where they hoped to rest with a sympathizer, after walking in a snow-storm for hours. But the town doctor, though long a stranger at the house, came to call, and the townspeople showed their host various other undesirable attentions, so that in twenty minutes the two officers were glad to leave the place. They arrived again safely at Worcester, "very much fatigued, after walking thirty-two miles between two o'clock and half-after ten at night, through a road that every step we sunk up to the ankles, and it blowing and drifting snow all the way." In spite of this experience, the two officers, a month later, undertook a similar journey to Concord. In this they succeeded, returning with a rough sketch of the roads, but bringing also their Concord host, who did not think it safe to remain after entertaining them. They brought information that in Concord there were "fourteen cannon (ten iron and four brass) and two cohorns," with "a store of flour, fish, salt, and rice; and a magazine of powder and cartridges." They might, in their two journeys, have brought better information than that the Concord Whigs "fired their morning gun, and mounted a guard of ten men at night." The stores at Concord had far better protection than these, as the two officers should have learned at Framingham, where they watched the drill of the militia company. "After they had done their exercise, one of their commanders spoke a very eloquent speech, recommending patience, coolness, and bravery (which indeed they very much wanted), particularly told them they would always conquer if they did not break, and recommended them to charge us coolly, and wait for our fire, and everything would succeed with them--quoted Cæsar and Pompey, brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men; put them in mind of Cape Breton, and all the battles they had gained for his majesty in the last war, and observed that the regulars must have been ruined but for them." Had the two officers known it, every town in the province had just such a militia company, which at set seasons met, and drilled, and listened to good old-fashioned exhortations to valor. It would not take long, therefore, for the neighboring towns to send their companies to reinforce the guard of ten men which Concord set over its stores every night. And yet the province was not satisfied with this ancient militia organization, for it had set up another to strengthen it. The militia was composed, as it had been since the foundation of the colony, of the whole body of male inhabitants of proper military age. In some cases even clergymen drilled in the ranks. More than once this militia had gathered to repel an expected attack of French or Indians; it had stood between the settlers and their foes from the days of Miles Standish down to the French and Indian War. The martial spirit still prevailed among the youth of the colony, and each town took pride in its company. In 1774 John Andrews thus records his innocent delight in the appearance of the Boston trainbands:-- "Am almost every minute taken off with agreeable sight of our militia companies marching into the Common, as it is a grand field day with us.... They now vie with the best troops in his majesties service, being dress'd all in blue uniforms, with drums and fifes to each company dress'd in white uniforms trim'd in y^e most elegant manner; with a company of Grenadiers in red with every other apparatus, that equal any regular company I ever saw both in appearance and discipline, having a grand band of musick consisting of eight that play nearly equal to that of the 64th. What crowns all is the Cadet company, being perfectly compleat and under the best order you can conceive of, with a band of musick likewise, that perform admirably well. What with these and Paddock's company of artillery make y^e completest militia in America; not a drummer, fifer, and scarcely a soldier but what are in compleat uniforms and thoroughly instructed in the military exercises." It was this Boston Cadet company that, at the affront to its leader Hancock had returned its standard to the governor and disbanded. Gage knew too well that others of the companies were thoroughly disaffected. In fact, many of the Boston young men left the town before hostilities began, and were ready to join with their country brethren in showing that their military training was worth something. Yet early in the fall it was recognized in the colony that the militia system was not sufficient, being too slow of movement to meet any such sudden expedition as that which Gage sent to seize the powder. It is not surprising, therefore, to find John Andrews reporting on October 5 the existence of a new body of troops, "which are call'd _minute men_, _i.e._ to be ready at a minute's warning with a fortnight's provision, and ammunition and arms." There is doubt of the origin of this body, but it was first officially accepted in Concord, where the town adopted definite terms of enlistment, the more important of which reads:-- "We will ... to the utmost of our power and abilities, defend all and every of our charter rights, liberties, and privileges; and will hold ourselves in readiness at a minute's warning, with arms and ammunition thus to do."[56] Tradition says that the terms of the enlistment were interpreted literally, and that wherever the minute men went, to the field, the shop, or to church, gun and powder-horn and bullet-pouch were ready to hand. It is scarcely an exaggeration to suppose that, as represented by French's statue, the farmers actually left the plough in the furrow and snatched up the ready rifle. One further preparation was also made. The rallying point was possibly Worcester, where were the courts and some few stores; but it was more probably Concord. The shortest route to Concord, or to the road between Concord and Boston, was known to the captain of every company of minute men within a hundred miles. But that the captains should be notified of any emergency was essential. A complete system of couriers for spreading news was projected in September, and now was in good working order, so that, with Boston as a radiating point, the summons could be sent over the province with the greatest rapidity. By virtue of his efficiency, trustworthiness, and picturesque personality, Paul Revere is accepted as the type of the men who stood ready for this service. This system, further, had been tested. The spontaneous response to the Powder Alarm in September had been ready enough, for the men of Connecticut and New Hampshire were in motion before the next day. But through the winter of 1774-1775 there had been minor alarms at each little expedition on which Gage sent his soldiers. By these the new system was proved efficient. Whether the troops marched to Jamaica Pond, to the "punch bowl" in Brookline, or even went, by sea and land, as far as Salem, the militia of the surrounding towns showed a prompt curiosity as to the object of the excursion. These fruitless musters, far from making the minute men callous to alarms, served to prepare them to meet the great occasion which they foresaw would finally come. For that they were in excellent practice. As to Concord itself, it had become very important. The Congress, which after its first week in Concord had been sitting in Cambridge, now returned, and from the 22d of March until the 15th of April[57] sat daily in the meeting-house. The Committee of Safety remained still longer, busy with the gathering of supplies. It is within this period that Berniere and Brown came on their spying expedition to Concord, and were directed by a woman to the house of Daniel Bliss. A threat of the Whigs to tar and feather her sent her to the officers for refuge, and word presently came to Bliss that the Whigs "would not let him go out of the town alive that morning." This fate the officers and their host avoided by leaving in the night. What became of the woman is not said, but we may be easy about her: no injury, and in fact no serious indignity, was put upon a woman in New England at this period. The officers returned to Boston with a report of the stores in Concord. This may have increased the anxiety of the Committee of Safety. Already they had voted, "requiring Colonel Barrett of Concord to engage a sufficient number of faithful men to guard the Colony's magazines in that town; to keep a suitable number of teams in constant readiness, by day and night, to remove the stores; and to provide couriers to alarm the neighboring towns, on receiving information of any movements of the British troops."[58] A watch was kept upon the British movements; and finally, when, on the 15th, Warren sent Paul Revere from Boston with warning of suspicious movements, the Committee felt that soon Gage must strike. On the 18th it ordered the removal of some of the stores. "That very night," says Tolman, without knowledge of affairs in Boston, the work was begun. Meanwhile, in response to another vote of the committee, the British had been under close observation. The vote was that "members of this Committee belonging to the towns of Charlestown, Cambridge, and Roxbury, be required at the Province expense to procure at least two men for a watch every night to be placed in each of these towns, and that said members be in readiness to send couriers forward to the towns where the magazines are placed, when sallies are made by the army by night." In view of these preparations, it scarcely needs to be said that there was nothing accidental about Concord fight. Some day Gage was bound to strike at Concord, and for that day the Whigs were ready. It is now that Paul Revere comes prominently into the course of events. Revere was a Boston craftsman of Huguenot descent, who was and is well known as a silversmith, engraver, and cartoonist. His prints and articles of silverware sell to-day for high prices, and his house in North Square has recently been fitted up as a public museum, chiefly on account of a single act at a critical moment. One is glad to know, however, that Revere's fame is not accidental. His pictures are historically interesting; we should be the poorer without his prints which give views of Boston, and without his picture of the Massacre. His silver--we have mentioned his punch-bowl for the "immortal Ninety-two"--is usually beautiful. From the foundry which he established later in life came cannon, and church-bells which are in use to-day. And finally his famous ride, the object of which would have been brought about had Revere been stopped at the outset, was but one out of many. [Illustration: REVERE'S PICTURE OF BOSTON IN 1768.] "In the year 1773," says Revere of himself,[59] "I was employed by the selectmen of the town of Boston to carry the account of the Destruction of the Tea to New York, and afterwards, 1774, to carry their despatches to New York and Philadelphia for calling a Congress; and afterwards to Congress several times." Revere does not mention the fact that he was himself a member of the Tea-Party. When he goes on to speak of still more important events, he suppresses the fact that he was one of the leaders, if not the chief leader, of the Boston artisans. "In the fall of 1774, and winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a committee for the purpose of watching the movements of the British soldiers, and gaining every intelligence of the movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green Dragon Tavern. We were so careful that our meetings should be kept secret, that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible that they would not discover any of our transactions but to Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Doctors Warren, Church, and one or two more.... In the winter, towards the spring, we frequently took turns, two and two, to watch the soldiers, by patrolling the streets all night." Such was the watch, then, kept upon the royalists, and such were the preparations to receive the troops when they should march out. We know now that Gage was informed of them, for among those whom Revere names as confidants of the mechanics there was a traitor to the cause. Yet though Gage knew of the organization of the Whigs, of its efficiency he had apparently not the glimmer of an idea. It was with no expectation of serious results that, when at last he learned that the resolution declaring the colonies to be in rebellion had passed Parliament, he slowly put himself in motion to seize the stores of the provincials. The Americans were keenly aware of all his movements. There were two common methods of leaving the town, one by the Neck, the other over Charlestown ferry. But these routes lay through towns, either Roxbury or Charlestown, and to march so openly meant to give the alarm. The Americans were ready for Gage to take a third route: across the Charles by means of boats, and then by unfrequented roads until striking the highway at Cambridge Common. This way the Whigs suspected he might choose, and this they found he did. Gage's preparations were almost open. The boats of the men-of-war were hauled up and repaired at the foot of the Common. On the 14th, in the night, they were launched, and moored at the sterns of the men-of-war. On the 15th was given out in general orders that "'The Grenadiers and Light Infantry in order to learn Grenadrs. Exercise and new evolutions are to be off all duties till further orders.'--This," remarks Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own, "I suppose is by way of a blind. I dare say they have something for them to do." This "something" was either one or both of two objectives: the stores at Concord, and the persons of Adams and Hancock, then known to be staying at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. That this latter objective was seriously considered, at least by the Americans, we shall see from Revere's narrative. There never has been proof that Gage endeavored to seize either them or Warren. But in any case the stores were in danger, and strict watch was kept. There was evidence enough of a coming expedition. As before the Massacre, there were soldiers' rumors that something was to happen, and the name of Concord was whispered about. On the night of the 18th word came in from the country that parties of officers were riding here and there. This same notice was sent by vigilant patriots to Hancock at Lexington. In Boston itself different persons noticed that the troops were astir. Word of all this came from various sources to Warren who, relinquishing for a while his sittings with the Committee of Safety, had for some days been working for it at the post of responsibility and danger. Warren finally decided that he must act. He sent for the men who had pledged themselves for this service, and gave them his directions. One of these men was William Dawes, of whom, except for his actions on this night, we know little. Obeying his instructions, he took horse, and rode across the Neck to go to Lexington by way of Roxbury and Watertown. "About ten o'clock," writes Revere, "Dr. Warren sent in great haste for me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and acquaint them of the movement, and that it was thought they were the objects." Revere was ready. In returning on the 15th he had arranged signals to his friends in Charlestown to inform them what route the British would take; he knew, also, how he should cross--for the ferry was closed at nine o'clock--and where he should get his horse. From Warren's Revere went home, got his "boots and surtout," and started. Two of his friends rowed him to Charlestown in a boat which was kept ready for the purpose, another was already despatched to make certain of the route the British would take. [Illustration: THE OLD NORTH CHURCH (From which Paul Revere's signals were displayed.)] Of the person and the actions of this other friend there has been much dispute. The weight of evidence seems to show that on making sure of the route of the British, he went to the Old North Church, still standing in Salem Street, and from its steeple displayed the signal. I make no positive assertion that he spent any time in watching the British; Revere, knowing the route, may have signalled in order to make sure that the news crossed the river, even though he himself might fail. The person who displayed the signals seems to have been one Newman, the sexton of the church, rather than Captain Pulling, a friend of Revere's. At any rate, the signals were hung while Revere was crossing the river to Charlestown. He passed unobserved not far from the _Somerset_ man-of-war, and remarks that "it was then young flood, the ship was winding, and the moon was rising." On landing, his Charlestown friends told him they had already seen the signals. Revere (if we still suppose that he needed to make sure of the route) himself must have taken a look at the signal lanterns, as in Longfellow's poem. "Two if by sea." This poetical language means merely that the troops were preparing to cross the river in their boats. This is the traditional account of Revere's action. A contemporary memorandum states, however, that on landing Revere "informed [us] that the T [troops] were actually in the boats." "I got a horse," says Revere, "of Deacon Larkin," which horse the deacon never saw again. Before Revere started he again received warning that there were British officers on the road, but he was quite cool enough to take note of the beauty of the night, "about eleven o'clock and very pleasant." Crossing Charlestown Neck, he started on the road for Cambridge, when he saw before him two horsemen under a tree. As Revere drew near, they pushed out into the moonlight, and he saw their uniforms. One of them blocked the road, the other tried to take him, and Revere, turning back, galloped first for Charlestown and then "pushed for the Medford road." Revere made the turn successfully; the officer who followed, ignorant of the locality, mired himself in a clay pond. Revere's road was now clear. He reached Medford, and roused the captain of the minute men; then, hastening on through Menotomy, now Arlington, and thence to Lexington, he "alarmed almost every house." He reached Lexington about midnight, and went directly to the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark, where Hancock and Adams were sleeping under a guard of the militia. Revere asked admittance, and the sergeant informed him that the family had requested that no noise be made. "Noise!" replied Revere in the phrase familiar to every schoolboy, "you'll have noise enough before long--the regulars are coming out!"[60] The family was accordingly at once aroused. Meanwhile the troops had actually started. "Between 10 and 11 o'clock," says Lieutenant Barker, "all the Grenadiers and Light Infantry of the Army, making about 600 Men, (under command of Lt. Coll. Smith of the 10th and Major Pitcairn of the Marines,) embarked and were landed on the opposite shore of Cambridge Marsh." This phrasing is not immediately clear to one of to-day. In those days every regiment had two special companies, the heavy-armed grenadiers, so called because they originally carried hand-grenades, and the light-infantry company. These were frequently detached for special duty, as the present, when the Light Infantry would be used for flanking purposes. Thus every regiment in Boston was represented in the expedition--and we may add in the list of killed and wounded on the following day. The number is generally estimated at eight hundred. They were commanded by the colonel who had been longest on duty in New England. Smith was in character too much like Gage himself. The general would have done better to send one of his brigadiers. One at least of the brigadiers was reasonably alert. According to Stedman, Lord Percy was crossing the Common after learning from the general that a secret expedition had just started. Perceiving a group of men talking together, the nobleman joined them in time to hear one say, "The British troops have marched, but have missed their aim." "What aim?" asked Lord Percy. The reply was, "The cannon at Concord." Percy, in much perturbation, at once returned to the general and told him that his secret was known. Poor Gage complained that his confidence had been betrayed, "for that he had communicated his design to one person only besides his lordship." The student of the time sees in this story a side-thrust at Mrs. Gage, on whom, as an American, the officers were ready to blame the knowledge of secrets which were gained by Yankee shrewdness alone. In this case we have seen that it was Gage that betrayed himself to the eyes of Revere's volunteer watch. The general hastily sent to order the guard at the Neck to let no one leave the town. But he was too late: Dawes was gone, Revere was on the water, and the news was out. The expedition was bungled at the very start. "After getting over the Marsh, where we were wet up to the knees," says Lieutenant Barker, "we were halted in a dirty road and stood there till two o'clock in the morning, waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats and to be divided, and which most of the men threw away, having carried some with 'em." As they waited there they might have heard signal guns, and learned that in a constantly widening circle of villages, "the bells were rung backward, the drums they were beat." The news had three hours' start of them. At last, at two on the 19th, having "waded through a very long ford up to our middles," wet, dirty, and loaded with the heavy equipment of the period, they started on their march. FOOTNOTES: [56] Tolman, "The Concord Minute Man," 12. [57] I take many facts in the following pages from the three pamphlets by George Tolman, "The Concord Minute Man," "Preliminaries of Concord Fight," and "Events of April Nineteenth." These, published by the Concord Antiquarian Society, are invaluable to the student of this period. [58] "Preliminaries," 23-24. [59] After the Revolution, Revere wrote a narrative of the events in which he was concerned. It is to be found in several books, notably Goff's "Life of Revere." [60] Most of these facts are from Frothingham's "Siege," 57-59, and from Revere's letter. CHAPTER VIII THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL John Hancock never showed better in his life than on the morning of the 19th of April. Many times the Tories had tried to win him over. Hutchinson himself had written: "At present, Hancock and Adams are at variance. Some of my friends blow the coals, and I hope to see a good effect." Yet Adams and Hancock were still enlisted in the same cause on this morning when blood was to be shed. And Hancock, when roused from his sleep at midnight, was hot with the desire to take his musket and fight on Lexington Green. Adams and his friends--among them his sweetheart--dissuaded him. The two Whig leaders finally took the road to Woburn, and in the succeeding days passed on to Worcester and Hartford, planned the taking of Ticonderoga, and, joining the other delegates from Boston, in May met with the second Continental Congress. If Gage had meant to seize Hancock and Adams, he had lost his chance. The outcome lay in the hands of the fighting men. Revere waited at Mr. Clark's house for about half an hour, when Dawes arrived. The two then set out for Concord, and were joined on the way by "a young Dr. Prescott, whom we found to be a high son of liberty."[61] They began to rouse the farmers along the road, and had already gone halfway when they saw in the road horsemen whom Revere knew at once to be British officers. Revere and Prescott, blocked in front and rear, turned into a pasture; but this was a trap where other officers were waiting. Prescott, knowing the country, put his horse at a fence and got away; Revere found himself surrounded by six horsemen who, with swords and pistols ready, ordered him to dismount. There was nothing for him to do but comply. Dawes, who had been behind upon the road, turned to go back, and was pursued. He rode into a farmyard, shouted out as to friends in waiting, and frightened off his pursuers. Both he and Prescott were useful in spreading the alarm farther. But Revere was caught. His chief captor examined him, and got slight satisfaction. "I told him, and added that their troops had catched aground in passing the river and that there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up." His anxious captors consulted together, and were conducting him back toward Lexington, "when the militia fired a volley of guns, which seemed to alarm them very much." They asked if there were any other road to Cambridge, took Revere's horse, and left him. He hurried back to Lexington, to give Hancock and Adams the news that sent them on their way. Revere himself remained long enough to save a trunk of papers belonging to Hancock. Meanwhile the militia of the town, alarmed by Revere, assembled and waited for the troops. They sent two messengers toward Cambridge to bring certain news, but each of these blundered into the advancing regulars, and were seized and held. The militia waited for some hours, but on hearing no word they were finally dismissed, with a warning to be ready to come together again instantly. Some went to their homes, some to the near-by tavern, to finish out the night. News came at last to Captain Parker that the British were scarcely a mile away, and in such numbers that his company could not hope to oppose them. He called his men together, nevertheless, "but only with a view to determine what to do, when and where to meet, and to dismiss and disperse."[62] The minute men were still standing in their ranks when the British suddenly appeared. The succeeding events caused much controversy at the time. Gage reported "that the troops were fired upon by the rebels out of the meeting-house, and the neighboring houses, as well as by those that were in the field; and that the troops only returned the fire, and passed on their way to Concord."[63] But in number the little company of minute men were, according to Revere, who had just passed through them, "about fifty"; the Reverend Jonas Clark says "fifty or sixty, or even seventy." Had there been even the two or three hundred of the British reports, these men, drawn up without protection on an open green, are scarcely likely to have attacked a force of more than twice their number. The logic of the situation seems against Gage. There is one more factor to consider. It is well enough known that both the British officers, and the Americans as a whole, were under instructions not to fire, and earnest to obey. But what of the British privates? Their eagerness for blood at the time of the Massacre was so great as to account for that tragedy; it was now not likely to be less. There were even among the troops at Lexington two companies from one of the "Sam Adams regiments." When we learn from Lieutenant Barker that after the skirmish "the Men were so wild they cou'd hear no orders," we may even suspect that, as at the Massacre, the men may have taken matters into their own hands. "For," says the minister of Lexington, "no sooner did they come in sight of our company, but one of them, supposed to be an officer of rank, was heard to say to the troops, 'Damn them, we will have them!'--Upon this the troops shouted aloud, huzza'd, and rushed furiously towards our men.--About the same time, three officers (supposed to be Col. Smith, Major Pitcairn and another officer) advanced, on horse back, to the front of the body, and coming within five or six rods of the militia, one of them cried out, 'ye villains, ye Rebels, disperse; Damn you, disperse!' or words to this effect. One of them (whether the same, or not, is not easily determined) said, 'Lay down your arms, Damn you, why don't you lay down your arms!'--The second of these officers, about this time, fired a pistol towards the militia, as they were dispersing.--The foremost, who was within a few yards of our men, brandishing his sword, and then pointing towards them, said, with a loud voice, to the troops, 'Fire!--By God, fire!'--which was instantly followed by a discharge of arms from the said troops, succeeded by a very heavy and close fire upon our party, dispersing, so long as any of them were within reach.--Eight were left dead upon the ground! Ten were wounded."[64] [Illustration: THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON] This is the best contemporary account which we have of the affair. It is evident from his careful language and semi-legal terms that the Reverend Mr. Clark, though not on the ground until half an hour afterwards, took all possible pains to gather the facts, and considered himself upon oath in reporting them. He was himself a witness of the exultation of the troops at their victory, and expresses his indignation. Tradition gives Major Pitcairn, of the Marines, a prominent part in the affair. "A good man," says Stiles, "in a bad cause," and adds that had Pitcairn ever been able to say that he was sure the Americans fired first, he would have believed him. Honest Major Pitcairn could only state his belief. So the first blood in the Revolution was spilt. The death of one of the Americans, Jonathan Harrington, was pitiful: shot within sight of his home, he crawled to the door, and expired at his wife's feet. To the heavy volleys they received, the Americans returned but a scattering fire; some of them did not fire at all.[65] Two British privates were wounded, and Pitcairn's horse. The troops, as soon as they could be marshalled again, fired a volley and gave three cheers, rested for a little while, and marched on toward Concord. There, since early morning, had gathered some of the militia from Bedford and Lincoln, and about sunrise the little company marched out of town. "We thought," says Amos Barrett quaintly, "we would go and meet the British. We marched down towards Lexington about a mile or mile and a half, and we saw them coming." But on seeing their numbers the militia turned back, "and marched before them with our drums and fifes going, and also the British. We had grand musick."[66] The provincials halted once or twice on the hill that ran along the high road, and came at last to the liberty pole, overlooking the town. "The Yankees," records Lieutenant Barker of the King's Own, "had that hill but left it to us; we expected they wou'd have made a stand there, but they did not chuse it." The militia, still withdrawing before superior numbers, retreated across the river, and the British occupied the town. In place of the five bridges which to-day, within a mile of the meeting-house, encircle Concord, the town in 1775 had but two. The first of these was the South Bridge, on the present Main Street route to Marlborough and South Acton. The other was the North Bridge, on a highway now abandoned, which in those days led to Acton, Carlisle, and Bedford. Colonel Smith took possession of both these bridges, and while his men searched the town for stores, he sent a detachment across the North Bridge to the farm of Colonel Barrett, where it was known that supplies had been kept. Of our two British informants of the events of the day, Ensign Berniere guided the troops that went to the Barrett farm, Lieutenant Barker remained with a detachment that stayed to guard the bridge. Meanwhile, on a hillside beyond the river, almost within gunshot of the bridge, the militia watched the first detachment pass on its errand, and counted the numbers of the redcoats that held the nearer side of the passage. Colonel Smith speedily learned that his journey had been nearly in vain. As we have seen, already on the night before, without news from Boston, the removal of the stores had been begun. The alarm brought in by Dr. Prescott hastened the work. Men and boys, and even women and girls, were busy in hiding the stores or carrying them away. Some of them were skilfully secreted under the very eyes of the British. The troops found little. In the town some few gun-carriages, barrels of flour, wooden mess-bowls, and wooden spoons were found and destroyed. At Colonel Barrett's, acknowledges Berniere, "we did not find so much as we expected, but what there was we destroyed." He was unaware that the cannon had been laid in a ploughed field, and concealed by turning a furrow over them, the work continuing even while the troops were in sight. Of proceedings in the town we get the best picture from the petition of Martha Moulton, "widow-woman," who in her deposition "humbly sheweth: That on the 19th day of April, 1775, in the forenoon, the town of Concord, wherein I dwell, was beset with an army of regulars, who, in a hostile manner, entered the town, and drawed up in form before the house in which I live; and there they continued on the green, feeding their horses within five feet of the door; and about fifty or sixty of them was in and out of the house, calling for water and what they wanted, for about three hours." The neighbors had fled, and poor Mrs. Moulton was left with "no person near but an old man of eighty-five years, and myself seventy-one years old, and both very infirm. It may easily be imagined what a sad condition your petitioner must be in." But she committed herself to Providence, "and was very remarkably helpt with so much fortitude of mind, as to wait on them, as they called, with what we had,--chairs for Major Pitcairn and four or five more officers,--who sat at the door viewing their men. At length your petitioner had, by degrees, cultivated so much favor as to talk a little with them. When all on a sudden they had set fire to the great gun-carriages just by the house, and while they were in flames your petitioner saw smoke arise out of the Town House higher than the ridge of the house. Then your petitioner did put her life, as it were, in her hand, and ventured to beg of the officers to send some of their men to put out the fire; but they took no notice, only sneered. Your petitioner, seeing the Town House on fire, and must in a few minutes be past recovery, did yet venture to expostulate with the officers just by her, as she stood with a pail of water in her hand, begging them to send, &c. When they only said, 'O, mother, we won't do you any harm!' 'Don't be concerned, mother,' and such like talk." But the widow Moulton persisted, until "at last, by one pail of water and another, they did send and extinguish the fire."[67] It is pleasant to know that the courageous old lady received three pounds for her services, and that the smoke which rose higher than the Town House served only to give the signal for Concord fight. All this while the numbers of the militia had been growing. They were stationed on the slope of Punkatasset Hill, and from minute to minute squads and companies came in from the neighboring towns. It has been made a reproach to Concord that so few of her men were there, but they were engaged in the far more important duty of saving the stores. Nevertheless, one of her militia companies was on the ground, with those individuals who were able to hurry back after putting the stores in safety. The Carlisle and Acton men had joined the waiting provincials, whose numbers at last became so threatening that the guard at the bridge, in full sight of them, became uneasy. The militia became uneasy also. Beyond the bridge, in the town, they saw more smoke than seemed warranted by merely burning cannon wheels and spoons. The officers consulted, and Captain Smith, of Lincoln, urged that the bridge be forced. Davis of Acton, speaking of his company, said, "I haven't a man that's afraid to go!" The movement was decided upon, and the militia, in double file, marched down toward the bridge. The Acton company had the lead, with Davis at its head; beside him marched Major John Buttrick, of Concord, in command, with Lieutenant-Colonel Robinson, of Westford, as a volunteer aid. As the provincials drew near, the British hastily retreated across the bridge, and their commander awkwardly marshalled his three companies one behind the other, so that only the first could fire. As some of the soldiers began to take up the planks of the bridge, the Americans hastened their march, and presently the British fired. There is no question that they began the fight, with first a few scattering guns, "up the river," and then a volley at close range. The whole was seen by the Concord minister, William Emerson, from his study in the Manse, close by. For a moment, he records, he feared that the fire was not to be returned; but he need not have doubted. The British volley killed the Acton captain, Davis, and Hosmer, his adjutant. Then Major Buttrick, leaping into the air as he turned to his men, cried, "Fire, fellow-soldiers; for God's sake, fire!" "We were then," records Amos Barrett, of the second company, "all ordered to fire that could fire and not kill our own men." The return fire, though from the awkward position of double file, was effective. Two of the British were killed outright, another fell wounded, and the whole, apparently doubting their ability to hold the bridge, hastily retreated upon the main body. "We did not follow them," records Barrett. "There were eight or ten that were wounded and a-running and a-hobbling about, looking back to see if we were after them." As reminders of the fight, besides the bridge which Concord, many years after its disappearance, rebuilt on the centenary of the day, the town points to the graves of the two soldiers killed in the fight, who were buried close by. Another memorial is seen in the bullet-hole in the Elisha Jones house near at hand, at whose door the proprietor showed himself as the regulars hastily retreated. On being fired at, Jones speedily removed himself from the scene, and from subsequent history. There were no further immediate consequences. The Americans crossed the bridge, and stationed themselves behind the ridge that overlooked the town; the search-party that had gone to Colonel Barrett's returned. "They had taken up some planks of the bridge," says Berniere of the Americans, though the work was done by the British. "Had they destroyed it, we were most certainly all lost; however, we joined the main body." Colonel Smith now had his force together, and had done all that could be done, yet for two hours more he, by futile marchings and countermarchings, "discovered great Fickleness[68] and Inconstancy of Mind." The delay was serious; he had earlier sent to Gage for reinforcements, and he ought now to have considered that every minute was bringing more Americans to the line of his retreat. When, about noon, he started for Boston, the situation was very grave. The British left the town as they had come in, with the grenadiers on the highway, the light infantry flanking them on the ridge. On this elevation, above the house he later inhabited, Hawthorne laid the scene of the duel between Septimius Felton and the British officer. At Merriam's Corner the ridge ends. Here the flankers joined the main body, and together noted the approach of the Americans, who had dogged them. The regulars turned and fired, only to be driven onward by an accurate response. "When I got there," says Amos Barrett, "a great many lay dead, and the road was bloody." From that time ensued a scattering general engagement along the line of the retreat. In this kind of fighting the odds were greatly with the Americans, as Gage, with his memory of Braddock's defeat, might have foreseen. The British complained with exasperation that the militia would not stand up to them. The provincials knew better than to do so. Lightly armed, carrying little besides musket or rifle, powder horn and bullet-pouch,--and all these smaller and lighter than the British equipment,--the farmers were able with ease to keep up with the troops, to fire from cover, to load, and then again to regain the distance lost. Every furlong saw their numbers increase. At Merriam's Corner came in the Reading company; before long the survivors of the Lexington company joined the fight to take their revenge; and from that time on, from north, from south, and from the east, the minute men and militia came hurrying up to join the chase. Before five miles were passed, the retreat had degenerated into a mere rout. "We at first," says Berniere, "kept our order and returned their fire as hot as we received it, but when we arrived within a mile of Lexington, our ammunition began to fail, and the light companies were so fatigued with flanking they were scarce able to act, and a great number of wounded scarce able to get forward, made a great confusion; Col. Smith (our commanding officer) had received a wound through his leg, a number of officers were also wounded, so that we began to run rather than retreat in order.... At last, after we got through Lexington, the officers got to the front and presented their bayonets, and told the men that if they advanced they should die: Upon this they began to form under a heavy fire." There was, however, no hope for them unless they should be reinforced. In the nick of time the succor came. Early in the morning Gage had received word that the country was alarmed, and started to send out reinforcements. There were the usual delays; among other mistakes, they waited for Pitcairn, who was with the first detachment. The relief party as finally made up comprised about twelve hundred men, with two six-pounder field-pieces, under Lord Percy. Percy went out through Roxbury with his band playing Yankee Doodle, and as he went a quick-witted lad reminded him of Chevy Chase. More than once before night Percy must have thought of the Whig youngster. He was momentarily delayed at the Cambridge bridge, where the Committee of Safety had taken up the planks, but had frugally stored them in full view of the road. Percy relaid some of the planks and hurried on with his guns, leaving behind his baggage train and hospital supplies, which were presently captured by a company headed by a warlike minister. Percy was again delayed on Cambridge Common for want of a guide; when again he was able to push on he spared no time, and reached Lexington at the critical moment. He formed his men into a hollow square, to protect Smith's exhausted men, who threw themselves down on the ground, "their tongues hanging out of their mouths like those of dogs after a chase."[69] Percy turned on the militia his two field-pieces, "which our people," grimly remarks Mr. Clark, writing after Bunker Hill, "were not so well acquainted with then, as they have been since." Percy had the satisfaction, which both Berniere and Barker express, of silencing the provincials. He knew too well, however, that the Americans were willing to be quiet only because they awaited their own reinforcements. Every minute of delay was dangerous, for now the American military leaders were gathering. If Hancock and Adams had left the field, Warren hastened to it. We know some of his sayings as he left Boston. "They have begun it,--that either party can do; and we'll end it,--that only one can do." To the remark, "Well, they are gone out," he replied, "Yes, and we will be up with them before night." Warren probably was present at a meeting of the Committee of Safety which was held that morning, but his biographer says: "I am unable to locate him until the afternoon, about the time Lord Percy's column rescued Colonel Smith's party from entire destruction, which was at two o'clock." Warren was no mere adviser. With General Heath he had been planning for the work of the day, and when, after half an hour's rest, Percy's troops moved onward, the time came for the measures to be put into effect. Warren went with Heath to the scene of battle. Yet little could be done in organized form, at least in the open country, and the minute men continued to pick off the British. But when the troops were among houses, and in revenge for their losses began to plunder[70] and burn, the Americans for the first time began to close in. Many of them fired from barricaded houses, and were killed in consequence. The Danvers company, the only one that tried to fight as a body, were caught between the main column of the regulars and a strong flanking party, and many were killed in an improvised enclosure. But even without defences the Americans became very bold, and the fight fiercer. Warren, rashly exposing himself, had a pin shot out of his hair. Percy, on the other hand, lost a button from his waistcoat. Nothing can explain the comparatively slight losses of the British except the rapidity of their march to safety. As it was, the regulars were almost worn out with their exertions when they saw ahead of them the hills of Charlestown, and looking across the Back Bay, might perceive on the slopes of Beacon Hill half the population of Boston watching their disgrace. Boston had been in suspense since early morning. All the Whigs had suspected the meaning of Gage's preparations, and the town was no sooner astir than the news was abroad that the expedition had started. Next came word that an officer had come in haste with a message for Gage. At about eight came news of the death of five men in Lexington. Already Lord Percy's detachment was parading, waiting for the Marines, who in turn waited for their absent commander. Thousands of people were in the street, and even the schoolboys were running about, for Master Lovell had dismissed his school with the words, "War's begun, and school's done." Through the day came conflicting rumors. "About twelve o'clock it was gave out by the General's Aide camps that no person was kill'd, and that a single gun had not been fir'd, which report was variously believ'd."[71] Fairly correct accounts of the fight at Lexington began to come in, embellished with the addition that men had been killed in the meeting-house. In the afternoon people began to watch from the hills for the return of the troops, and before sunset the noise of firing was heard. Of the three British commanders, Lord Percy was the only one who displayed any military ability. He showed it in the route which he chose for his retreat. From Cambridge Common, where at last he arrived, the road to Boston was long, and was broken by the bridge whose difficult passage in the morning he remembered. Therefore he avoided it--and wisely, for the planks of the bridge were up again, and this time in use as barricades, while the militia were ready for him. Instead, Percy shook off many of his waylayers, and saved some miles of march, by taking the direct road to Charlestown. Yet even this route was hard beset. "I stood upon the hills in town," says Andrews, "and saw the engagement very plain." Many a Whig exulted as he watched, many a Tory cursed, at the sight of the weary regulars struggling forward, and of red figures that dropped and lay still. Percy was barely in time. Had the men of Essex, whose strong regiment arrived just too late, been quick enough to intercept them, and resolute enough to throw themselves across the retreat, it is more than likely that Percy must have surrendered, for his ammunition was almost gone. The exasperation of the Americans at losing their prey was later expressed in a court-martial of the Essex colonel. At any rate, Percy was not headed, and the regulars at last streamed across Charlestown Neck, to find protection under the guns of the fleet. "Thus," grumbles Lieutenant Barker, "ended this expedition, which from beginning to end was as ill plan'd and ill executed as it was possible to be.... For a few trifling Stores the Grenadiers and Light Infantry had a march of about 50 miles (going and returning) and in all human probability must every Man have been cut off if the Brigade had not fortunately come to their Assistance." Speaking for the reinforcing brigade, Lord Percy confessed that he had learned something. "Whoever looks upon them [the Americans] merely as an irregular mob will find himself much mistaken. They have men among them who know very well what they are about, having been employed as rangers against the Indians and Arcadians.... Nor are several of their men void of a spirit of enthusiasm, ... for many of them concealed themselves in houses, and advanced within ten yards to fire at me and other officers, though they were morally certain of being put to death.... For my part I never believed, I confess, that they would have attacked the King's troops, or have had the perseverance I found in them yesterday."[72] This was the day which Massachusetts now celebrates as Patriots' Day. Of her sons forty-nine were killed, thirty-nine were wounded, and five were taken prisoners. Berniere's figures of the British losses are 73 killed, 174 wounded, and 26 missing. The totals, for a day more important, as says Bancroft, than Agincourt or Blenheim, are very small. But the significance of the day was indeed enormous. Previously, said Warren, not above fifty persons in the province had expected bloodshed, and the ties to England were still strong. Within ten weeks Warren himself had written of England as "home." After this day there was no turning back from bloodshed, and no American ever again spoke of Britain by the endearing name. And the military situation was entirely changed. In the morning Gage was still the nominal governor of the province, free to come and go at will. At night he looked out upon a circle of hostile camp-fires. "From a plentiful town," says Berniere mournfully, "we were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of living on salt provisions, and fairly blocked up in Boston." FOOTNOTES: [61] Revere's narrative. [62] Clark's narrative. [63] Clark's narrative. [64] Clark's narrative. [65] Clark's narrative. [66] Letter of Amos Barrett, privately printed. [67] Frothingham's "Siege," Appendix, 369-370. [68] "Feekelness," Emerson's letter, "Source Book of the American Revolution," 146. [69] This quotation from Stedman, himself a British officer, is perhaps as well known as Revere's midnight remark, already given. [70] "The plundering was shameful," says Lieutenant Barker indignantly. See also depositions in Frothingham's "Siege," Appendices. [71] Andrews Letters. [72] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 102. CHAPTER IX BOSTON BELEAGUERED Gage and his army were at first surrounded by a mere collection of militia companies. As the pursuit ceased on the evening of the 19th the baffled Americans withdrew from the range of the guns of the fleet. As well as they could they gathered into their organizations and made some kind of a camp, sleeping either out of doors, or in convenient houses. A watch was set at Charlestown Neck, and at Roxbury Prescott of Pepperell and his men stood on guard against a sortie. The circuit between these points, comprising the whole sweep of the Charles River and the Back Bay, was likewise occupied. Headquarters were at Cambridge. On the following days men from the more distant towns came in, until before long the minute men and militia from the adjoining provinces, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, were upon the ground. Some of the records are striking. The men of Nottingham, New Hampshire, gathered by noon of the 20th and, after being joined by men of the neighboring towns, set out at two o'clock. "At dusk," says Bancroft, "they reached Haverhill Ferry, a distance of twenty-seven miles, having run rather than marched; they halted in Andover only for refreshments, and, traversing fifty-five miles in less than twenty hours, by sunrise of the twenty-first paraded on Cambridge common."[73] Israel Putnam, working on his farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut, received the news the morning after the fight at Concord. He left his work at once, and, mounting a horse, started out to rouse the militia, who, upon mustering, chose him leader. As his idea of a leader was one who went in front, he set out at once for Boston, ordering them to follow. He arrived in Cambridge at the time when the Nottingham men are reported as parading, "having ridden the same horse a hundred miles in eighteen hours."[74] Others followed in similar haste. Among them, Benedict Arnold first began to attract to himself public notice. Sabine says of him, "I am inclined to believe, that he was a finished scoundrel from early manhood to his grave." Nevertheless, his fiery nature kept him for a time with the Americans, and at the very outset he showed his independent spirit, having characteristically refused to "wait for proper orders." From New Hampshire came Stark, the hero of the frontier wars. And from all the towns came the militia leaders, who, gathering their companies into regiments, began the loose organization and crude subordination which should make of the crowd an army. In all this convergence of the militia toward Boston, there was one side current. This set toward Marshfield, where for some weeks had been a detachment of regulars. During this time there had been peace in the town but strong feeling on both sides--Marshfield had already produced a general for the king, and now was about to give one to the provincials. There had been one or two threatening demonstrations from neighboring towns, which now were repeated in earnest. On hearing the news from Lexington and Concord, the militia of the neighborhood gathered for an attack on the regulars. But they came too late. The British were embarking at Brant Rock, hastened by the signal guns of the Marshfield men from a neighboring hill. Yet though the regulars got safely away, they left behind them the three hundred muskets with which the Tory militia had drilled, and which presently formed a part of the equipment of the Whigs before Boston. That equipment, while most irregular, was not to be despised. By the 22d a strong army covered all land approach to Gage, who began to consider himself between two fires. "The regulars encamped," says one British account of the Concord expedition, "on a place called Bunker's Hill."[75] There, under the guns of the fleet, the tired troops found safety; and there, for all that any one can see, it would have been wise of Gage to leave them. With Bunker Hill at his command, and with Dorchester Heights once occupied by his forces, Boston would be safe from all attack by the Americans--and not till then. But on the next morning Gage withdrew the troops to Boston. As a matter of fact, he doubted his own strength, and greatly exaggerated the power of the rebels, since his first sensation was a dread lest the town should rise at his back, and his army be destroyed. Of this there was no real chance at any time. Yet he drew in his men in order to make himself secure, and began with the selectmen negotiations looking to his safety. There were many in the town who were eager to leave it, and many outside anxious to come in. The governor made the rule that for the purpose of taking out family effects but thirty wagons might enter the town at a time. The ruling drew from Warren the following very characteristic letter. CAMBRIDGE, April 20, 1775. SIR:--The unhappy situation into which this colony is thrown gives the greatest uneasiness to every man who regards the welfare of the empire, or feels for the distresses of his fellow-men: but even now much may be done to alleviate those misfortunes which cannot be entirely remedied; and I think it of the utmost importance to us, that our conduct be such as that the contending parties may entirely rely upon the honor and integrity of each other for the punctual performance of any agreement that shall be made between them. Your Excellency, I believe, knows very well the part I have taken in public affairs: I ever scorned disguise. I think I have done my duty: some will think otherwise; but be assured, sir, as far as my influence goes, everything which can reasonably be required of us to do shall be done, and everything promised shall be religiously performed. I should now be very glad to know from you, sir, how many days you desire may be allowed for such as desire to remove to Boston with their effects, and what time you will allow the people in Boston for their removal. When I have received that information, I will repair to congress, and hasten, as far as I am able, the issuing a proclamation. I beg leave to suggest, that the condition of admitting only thirty wagons at a time into the town appears to me to be very inconvenient, and will prevent the good effects of a proclamation intended to be issued for encouraging all wagoners to assist in removing the effects from Boston with all possible speed. If Your Excellency will be pleased to take the matter into consideration, and favor me, as soon as may be, with an answer, it will lay me under a great obligation, as it so nearly concerns the welfare of my friends in Boston. I have many things which I wish to say to Your Excellency, and most sincerely wish that I had broken through the formalities which I thought due to your rank, and freely told you all I knew or thought of public affairs; and I must ever confess, whatever may be the event, that you generously gave me such opening, as I now think I ought to have embraced: but the true cause of my not doing it was the vileness and treachery of many persons around you, who, I supposed, had gained your entire confidence. I am, &c., JOSEPH WARREN. His Excellency General Gage.[76] In striking contrast to the manly regret expressed by Warren in this letter is the scene enacted that afternoon at Cambridge, where the Committee of Safety met. Doctor Benjamin Church, one of the trusted leaders of the Whigs, an orator on the Massacre, and a pamphleteer, was a member of the committee, for which Warren had recently engaged Paul Revere as messenger. Revere writes, in the letter already quoted: "I was sitting with some, or near all that committee, in their room ... in Cambridge. Dr. Church, all at once, started up. 'Dr. Warren,' said he, 'I am determined to go into Boston to-morrow.' (It set them all a-staring.) Dr. Warren replied: 'Are you serious, Dr. Church? They will hang you if they catch you in Boston.' He replied: 'I am serious, and am determined to go at all adventures.' After a considerable conversation, Dr. Warren said: 'If you are determined, let us make some business for you.' They agreed that he should go and get medicine for their and our wounded officers."[77] Church was the first American traitor. Although possessed of all the Whig secrets, he had for some months, perhaps longer, been in communication with Gage. His journey to town was for the purpose of delivering information, and for some time yet he managed to carry on the double rôle. Nevertheless his information, put in the hands of Gage, did no harm. It throws but one more light upon the incompetence of the general that, with such information as Church now gave him, he blundered so continually. We learn from John Andrews' letters of the agreement made between Gage and the town. "Yesterday," he writes on the 24th, "we had town meetings all day, and finally concluded to deliver up _all_ our arms to the Selectmen, on condition that the Governor would open the avenues to the town." In this agreement the townspeople were advised by the Committee of Safety to join. Accordingly, there were delivered to the Selectmen, and lodged in Faneuil Hall, "1778 fire-arms, 634 pistols, 978 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses."[78] These were marked with their owners' names, and were later to be restored. As soon as this delivery of arms was effected, hundreds applied for passes to leave the town. Andrews must have reflected the feelings of many when he wrote, "If I can escape with the skin of my teeth, shall be glad." There were for a few days much hurry and bustle, both of egress and of ingress. At first as many as wished were allowed to go out, and the chief difficulty was one of transportation. It is to be supposed that for a while the admiral kept to his agreement to lend boats to the refugees. There was a very considerable exodus. "Near half the inhabitants," wrote Andrews on May 6, "have left the town already, and another quarter, _at least_, have been waiting for a week past." Andrews probably exaggerated, yet hundreds of the better class went out, and about five thousand of the poor. These latter were quartered among the different towns at public expense. But the outflow from Boston was speedily checked. On the 6th Andrews was still in Boston, and making up his mind to stay on account of his property, but still anxious to secure a pass for his wife, whose personal fears--she was an æsthetic person, an amateur artist whose landscapes Lord Percy had admired--were greater than her interest in her husband's safety. She did safely get away, amid the miserable procession that her husband describes. "You'll see parents that are lucky enough to procure papers, with bundles in one hand and a string of children in another, wandering out of the town (with _only_ a _sufferance_ of _one_ day's permission) not knowing where they'll go." Andrews' wife went out in a sailing vessel, but whether by land or by water she was one of the last to go. This was because the Tories interfered in the general removal. It alarmed them to see so many leave: these Whigs, and especially those of good social position, were the best hostages for the safety of the town from assault. So they made vigorous expression of their discontent, and to them Gage yielded. They had already formed military organizations for his support, and when they threatened to quit the town and seek refuge in Canada or London, the threat was too much for him. Restrictions were at once put upon the issuing of passes, and in a very short time the conditions imposed were so severe that it was practically impossible for people of the better class to leave the town. "There are but very few," wrote Abigail Adams, "who are permitted to come out in a day; they delay giving passes, make them wait from hour to hour, and their counsels are not two hours together alike. One day, they shall come out with their effects; the next day, merchandise is not effects. One day, their household furniture is to come out; the next, only wearing apparel; the next, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, and he refuseth to hearken to them, and will not let the people go."[79] Nevertheless the poor were still welcome to depart, and from time to time were even sent out in order to relieve Gage of the necessity of feeding them.[80] During this period a number of Tories came to Boston. These were the families of men already in the town, or were others who felt that, though until the present their homes had been safe for them, the future was too doubtful. They hastened to put the British defences between them and the Whigs. Among them the most notable was Lady Frankland of Hopkinton, who once had been Agnes Surriage, the barefooted serving-maid of the tavern at Marblehead. She now was a widow of nearly fifty, and came down from Hopkinton only to be detained before the lines, and made the subject of memoranda and petitions. The lieutenant who detained her person was reprimanded, and by vote of the provincial congress she was permitted to enter Boston with "seven trunks; all the beds with the furniture to them; all the boxes and crates; a basket of chickens, and a bag of corn; two barrels and a hamper; two horses and two chaises, and all the articles in the chaise, excepting arms and ammunition; one phaeton; some tongues, ham, and veal; and sundry small bundles."[81] Evidently thinking that Lady Frankland's household was well enough supplied, the congress did not allow to pass her seven wethers and two pigs. There were others who left their homes, though not to go to Boston. Of these Judge Curwen of Salem is a type. He was considered--unjustly, he protests--as a Tory, and finding his neighbors daily becoming "more and more soured and malevolent against moderate men," he left Massachusetts. In this case it was the wife who remained behind, "her apprehensions of danger from an incensed soldiery, a people licentious and enthusiastically mad and broken loose from all the restraints of law and religion, being less terrible to her than a short passage on the ocean."[82] Curwen went to Philadelphia, but finding the situation the same, proceeded to London and there lived out the war. Many others, like him, repaired to the capital, and formed a miserable colony, living on hope, watching the news from home, pensioned or grudgingly maintained by the government, and sadly feeling themselves strangers in a strange land. Without doubt the times were very hard for men who, like Judge Curwen, wished to take no side, but to live at peace with all men. Of such men there was a very large class, so large in fact that more than one Tory sympathizer has claimed that the Revolution was fought by a minority of the people of the colonies, who were so virulent as to force the moderates into their ranks from dread of personal consequences. Such a claim is weak upon its very face, and will not bear examination. Most of the moderates were but waiting to see how the cat would jump, and when once a preponderance of sentiment showed they speedily took sides. Had there been in the colonies a majority desirous of a return to allegiance, the Whig cause surely could not have survived the dark days of the war. We can safely conclude the majority to have been in favor of the rights of the colonies, always understanding that they desired nothing more than they had always had since the accession of George the Third. A man of such a type is clearly seen in John Andrews, with his occasional fits of depression and doubt, and his impatient exclamations against the radicals among the Whigs. Note, for instance, what he says on the death of William Molineux, one of the prominent Boston Whigs, whose death was a loss to the cause. "If he was too rash," remarked Andrews, "and drove matters to an imprudent pitch, it was owing to his natural temper; as when he was in business, he pursued it with the same impetuous zeal. His loss is not much regretted by the more prudent and judicious part of the community." Yet though Andrews could thus express himself, he could again speak quite otherwise, as the remarks quoted in this book have already shown. He doubted at times, and was petulant against the fortune that brought him discomfort and loss, but in the main he was stanch. Andrews was, then, a type of the moderate who threw in his lot with his country. Judge Curwen, on the other hand, was one of the smaller class which, in doubt and despair, withdrew to the protection of the crown. Many of them were too old to fight; many had not the heart to lift their hands against their neighbors. Every country sees such men at every war. Often they may live peaceably, anguished with doubt, and distressed for humanity. But in a civil war there is seldom a refuge for them. It was certainly so at the Revolution. A very few among the Tories, venerated by their neighbors, might remain neutral; the remainder must take sides, or go. The fighting men felt that those who were not with them were against them, and among the stay-at-home Whigs were plenty who were willing to express the feeling. Hence the reproaches and menaces which drove Judge Curwen from his home, and hence the doubtful looks in Philadelphia which made him "fearful whether, like Cain, I had not a discouraging mark upon me, or a strong feature of toryism." Curwen crossed the water, and other moderates slipped into Boston, to find themselves as unhappy within the town as they had been outside, in spite of the strength which Gage was slowly gaining. This strength was, so far, purely defensive. Gage did not consider himself ready to take the offensive. Those Tories who came to town informed him of the numbers outside, and he saw very plainly the result of sending an expedition against a militia which would melt before the head of his column, only to attack it in flank and rear. So no action was considered, especially as the rebels offered, so far, nothing to strike at. Gage made himself as strong as he could, and waited reinforcements. His strength was partly, as we have seen, in the organization of the Tories. Their men began at once to form themselves in companies, under the general leadership of Timothy Ruggles, who had long been a political tower of strength, and was now assuming military importance. The new volunteer companies were, as we have seen, of such value to Gage that they were able to make him break his promise to let the townspeople leave Boston. Yet so far as is known they did nothing more in the siege than to parade and mount guard. Gage's chief attention was directed to fortifying. His situation was easily defensible at certain points, and of them he first made sure. At the south, across the passage to Roxbury, were the "lines" of which all contemporary accounts speak. These Gage strengthened until by the 4th of May Lieutenant Barker records that the works were almost ready for ten twenty-four-pounders. From the Neck the western line of the peninsula of Boston ran in a general northerly direction for about a mile and a half; it then ran east for nearly a mile; then turning south, it finally swept inward to the Neck. The outline had three projections, each caused by a hill: Barton's Point at the northwest; Copp's Hill at the northeast; and Fort Hill on the middle of the eastern side. Each of these was fortified as soon as possible. The four points were Gage's main defences. [Illustration: PLAN OF THE SIEGE] When these forts were finished, the town was by no means secure. The forts commanded most of the northerly and easterly sides, of which the war-ships commanded the remainder; but the whole western side of the town, along the Common and the foot of Beacon Hill, was open to attack. This was, roughly speaking, along the line of the present Charles Street, prolonged into Tremont Street. The Back Bay beyond this water-line was so shallow that no war-ship could anchor there; a night attack, delivered in boats, might surprise the soldiers on the Common in their barracks or their tents. In order to command the western shore, and also to quell a possible rising in the town, Gage erected a "small work" on Beacon Hill. Later in the siege every one of these points was strengthened; a low hill, near the present Louisburg Square, was protected; and redoubts were thrown up to defend the shore-line of the Common. But the four main works, and the Beacon Hill fort, were all that Gage was able to accomplish before Bunker Hill battle. He managed, however, to put his army under strict military discipline, which before the 19th of April he had not imposed on them. From letters and diaries we get glimpses of the situation of the troops. They were short of fresh provision, disgusted with their situation, and at times not a little alarmed. What other unexpected qualities the Yankees might show no one could predict. They were still, however, regarded as low in the scale of humanity. On the fifth of May Lieutenant Barker records the discovery of a "most shocking" plot. "It was a scheme to cut off all the officers of the Garrison. Upon the 24th, the day we were to keep St. George's day, the Rebels were to make a feint Attack at night upon the Lines: a number of men were to be posted at the Lodgings of all the Officers, and upon the Alarm Guns firing they were to put the Officers to death as they were coming out of their houses to go to their Barracks. What a set of Villains must they be to think of such a thing! but there is nothing be it ever so bad that these people will stick at to gain their ends." The horrified lieutenant ascribes to this discovery the fact that Gage ordered the officers to sleep at barracks. It is, however, more likely that the general paid no attention to the tale, but thought it time for officers and men to be together. Once more the army was shocked. A fire broke out near property owned by Hancock, and in putting out the blaze there was discovered a chest of bullets "in Hancock's store." The news spread rapidly, and was regarded as another proof of the desperate nature of the Whigs. So the army, uncomfortable and uneasy, looked for its reinforcements, which before long began to come in. Troop-ships arrived, but the most welcome was the _Cerberus_, with the three major-generals. The relief of the garrison found expression in waggery; they called the generals the three bow-wows, and circulated the doggerel:-- "Behold the Cerberus the Atlantic plow, Her precious cargo Burgoyne, Clinton, Howe, Bow wow wow!" Burgoyne at this time made a special nickname for himself. Hailing a ship as they entered the harbor, the generals learned that the army was shut up by the provincials. "What!" cried Burgoyne. "Ten thousand peasants keep five thousand king's troops shut up! Well, let _us_ get in, and we'll soon find elbow-room!"[83] And Elbow-room was Burgoyne's name for a long time thereafter. Yet the three new generals for a while did nothing. Lieutenant Barker regretfully records: "Tho' we have new Generals come out, yet they have brought no more authority than we had before, which was none at all." It is safe to assume that on learning the quality of the "peasants," Burgoyne was not anxious to attack them with an inferior force. The British therefore continued to await reinforcements. From Burgoyne's voluminous correspondence we learn his state of mind. He had come to the country unwillingly: "I received your Majesty's commands for America with regret," he wrote in his letter to the king, and elsewhere records that the event was one of the most disagreeable in his life. Nevertheless, once enlisted in the campaign, he had thrown himself into it. Perceiving in advance how little, as junior major-general, he would have to do, he endeavored to have himself transferred to the post at New York, where he rightly perceived that there was much to be done. He was in favor of attempting conciliation. Had that post at this time been occupied by Burgoyne, his quick wit, true sympathies with the Americans, and real abilities might have made for him a different name in the history of America. But his attempt failed, and now, almost inactive in his post at Boston, he was studying the situation, probing the weakness of Gage and learning the difficulties of his position. Gage had little money for secret service, it is true, and the provincials were stubborn foes whose true measure Burgoyne had not yet taken,[84] but he saw how poorly Gage had provided against the calamities which had come upon him. Burgoyne doubted the outcome, and fretted at the situation. In the meanwhile the rebels had been working to make that situation worse. Their first need was to get some semblance of order among the troops. At the head of the Massachusetts army was Artemas Ward, a veteran of the French wars, no longer vigorous, and never used to independent command. He drew his authority from the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, which now hastily came together, and communicated with Ward chiefly through the Committee of Safety, of one of whose meetings we have already had a glimpse. The active head of the committee was Warren, who kept in close touch with Ward. Organization proceeded slowly, complicated by the fact that the other provinces maintained separate armies. The names of some of the commanders are still familiar. Putnam and Spencer were the heads of the Connecticut troops; John Stark was prominent among the New Hampshire men; while to command the Rhode Islanders came Nathanael Greene. With praiseworthy suppression of provincial jealousies the commanders speedily agreed to subordinate themselves to Ward, as the oldest among them, and the head of the largest body of troops. He was regarded as commander-in-chief, and his orders were to be observed by all. Yet the means to communicate orders and to receive reports were long lacking. The combined armies were far from being a unit, and if attacked could resist little better than on the 19th, as scattered bands, and not as a whole. The very size of the army was uncertain. On paper there were more than twenty thousand men; as a matter of fact there can seldom have been more than four-fifths of that number. Of the actual total Massachusetts provided 11,500, Connecticut 2300, New Hampshire 1200, Rhode Island 1000.[85] Further, in its variable size this was the very type of a volunteer army, of which every man owned his equipment, clothed himself, and considered himself still, to a large extent, his own master. Of the thousands living within twenty-five miles of Boston, who sprang to arms on the 19th, knowing that if they were quick they might strike the British before night, few had the foresight to prepare themselves properly for the campaign that was to follow. There were no commissary stores to supply them. Their affairs at home they left just where they stood. In the next few days many of these men went home, for the necessary arrangement of their affairs and for more clothing. The larger number of them returned to camp immediately, some were slower, and yet others stayed for a longer time. Even those who joined the army after more preparation often had business that called them home, in which case they considered it a hardship to be denied. The officers sympathized, especially when that business was haying. Cases occurred in which the men on furlough were making their officers' hay, while at the same time drawing the pay of the province. The position of the general commanding such troops was not to be envied. Further, military supplies were very few. In spite of the preparations of the provincial congress, there were on hand only sixty-eight half-barrels of powder, a scanty stock with which to begin the siege of a military garrison. Of cannon a varying number is reported, few of them as yet of value, for lack of shot to fit them. It was doubtless a great relief to Ward that he was not called upon to use his cannon, since they would have drawn too heavily upon his scanty supply of ammunition, which could be replaced but slowly. Altogether, the position of senior major-general was a difficult one. To knit into an army such a mass of units, to create supplies out of nothing, to organize a commissary and means of communication, and maintain a firm front over a line of ten miles, these were the needs of the situation. We need scarcely marvel that Ward, old and enfeebled, with his hands tied by uncertain authority, could not meet them. A genius was needed in his place, and the good fortune was that the genius eventually came. In the meanwhile Ward, pottering at his task, depended much on the initiative of his subordinates. The passage from the Neck to Roxbury was now guarded by Brigadier-General John Thomas of Marshfield,[86] who to deceive the enemy as to his numbers occasionally marched his force of seven hundred round and round a hill. The ruse was successful, for Lieutenant Barker wrote that "at Roxbury there must be between 2 and 3000." Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that so important a post was long left so slightly guarded. Thomas exercised his men with equal profit in cutting down trees to obstruct the passage, and in throwing up earthworks. Of other entrenchments, at this stage, we hear little. Putnam wanted to fortify Prospect Hill, commanding the passage from Charlestown Neck, but could not get permission. Yet the whole country about Boston was dotted with low hills, on which might easily be made a chain of fortifications. Besides such work as Thomas's, for a month little was done. To be sure, early in May a party of provincials, gathered in Connecticut and Vermont, and headed by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, took Ticonderoga by surprise, and gained for America a fine supply of cannon. We shall later see what was done with this artillery, but there was no present means of transporting it to Boston, and no powder for its use, and so there was no profit to the country save in encouragement. Until the 21st of May nothing happened near Boston save small skirmishes, and brushes of outposts. Here and there a floating battery of the British warped up near land and fired a few shots, and occasionally a squad of riflemen did a little pot-hunting on its own account. These skirmishes, except as they accustomed the provincials to the smell of powder, had no effect on the situation, until at last the opposing sides found that they had something worth contending for. Gage had in Boston no supply of fresh meat, but plenty of horses needing hay. It occurred to him, finally, that the islands in the harbor were plentifully stocked with sheep and cattle, and besides grew plenty of grass. He sent, therefore, on the 21st of May, a party to bring hay from Grape Island, near Weymouth. The Americans took the alarm, soldiers were sent from the camp, the militia who were at home turned out, and much long-range shooting was indulged in. "It was impossible to reach them, for want of boats," wrote Abigail Adams, "but the sight of so many persons, and the firing at them, prevented their getting more than three tons of hay, though they carted much more down to the water. At last a lighter was mustered, and a sloop from Hingham, which had six port holes. Our men eagerly jumped on board, and put off for the island. As soon as they perceived it, they decamped. Our people landed upon the island, and in an instant set fire to the hay, which, with the barn, was soon consumed,--about eighty tons, it is said." Emboldened by this success, the provincials began to take steps to remove from the islands the whole stock of cattle, sheep, and hay. Though, on the 25th of May, the garrison of Boston was largely reinforced and ships were added to the squadron, the Americans began work boldly with the islands nearest at hand. Noddle's Island, now East Boston, stretched within easy cannon shot of the town; it was reached from Hog Island by means of a couple of fords, passable at low tide. In broad day, on the 27th, the Americans occupied the islands, and were promptly assailed by the British in a schooner and a sloop. The skirmish grew very obstinate, but the schooner was left by the fleet to fight it out by her own means and those of her smaller consort. As a result, when she ran aground she was seized, stripped, and burned. On this day the Americans drove off the stock on Hog Island, which, with their capture of the schooner, was considered a great achievement. Three days later the stock was driven from Noddle's Island: "a trifling property," says Lieutenant Barker, "which we have no connexion with." This nonchalant dismissal of five hundred sheep and lambs[87] scarcely comes well from one who had recently recorded that his mess had "luckily got a Sheep." Within a week other large islands, which the army and the fleet might naturally have regarded as their own storehouses, were stripped of livestock and hay. By these means the Americans were made still more used to war, and according to contemporary accounts acted boldly, running considerable risks. The total of stock saved by this means was about twenty-two hundred, and the loss of life trifling. But the time was coming for more serious work. Gage felt his courage rise with his strength, and with his major-generals to back him he planned action. But first he had to fulminate. Much irritation had been caused by mock proclamations mysteriously appearing on the walls of the residences of the new generals, and Gage now determined to issue one in earnest. He called Burgoyne to his aid, and the literary general drafted a masterpiece. It was published on the 12th of June. Beginning "Whereas the infatuated multitudes," it proceeded in pompous style to the statement that the rebels were adding "insult to outrage," for "with a preposterous parade of military arrangement, they affected to hold the army besieged." Gage offered to pardon all who would lay down their arms, except Samuel Adams and John Hancock, "whose offences are of too flagitious a nature" for forgiveness. The bombastic proclamation delighted the Tories, who hoped for results from it. But it deeply angered the Americans. "All the records of time," wrote Abigail Adams,[88] "cannot produce a blacker page. Satan, when driven from the regions of bliss, exhibited not more malice. Surely the father of lies is superseded." The provincial congress prepared a counter proclamation, which similarly offered amnesty to all on the other side, "excepting only ... Thomas Gage, Samuel Graves, those counsellors who were appointed by Mandamus and have not signified their resignation, Jonathan Sewall, Charles Paxton, Benjamin Hallowell,[89] and all the natives of America who went out with the British troops on the 19th of April." We get from this an interesting glimpse of those who most excited American resentment, but the proclamation was never issued. More exciting events occurred to prevent it. Gage was planning to make himself secure in Boston. Even he could not fail to see that the heights of Charlestown and of Dorchester threatened his army. Now that his three major-generals had come, and that his reinforcements were arriving (the troop-ships, said Lieutenant Barker, were "continually dropping in"), he felt strong enough to take and hold the dangerous posts. His plan was first to seize Dorchester Heights, and for the action was set a date--the night of the eighteenth of June. But Gage's counsel was never well kept. While Burgoyne complained that the British "are ignorant not only of what passes in Congress, but want spies for the hill half a mile off," the Americans were in no such embarrassment. They had spies at every corner, and--we may suppose--listeners at many a door. Gage had already arrested men supposed to have been signalling from steeples. We do not know how the news got through on this occasion; at any rate the Americans were informed as early as the 13th.[90] The chiefs of the provincial army felt that they were called upon to act. In the seven weeks of the siege they had to some degree tested the mettle of their men, and now believed they could be depended on to keep together against an attack. The troops had, on one occasion, made an expedition to Charlestown, which lay practically deserted on its peninsula, as if conscious of the fate which was to overtake it. On the 13th of May, Putnam, to give his men confidence, marched his command, some twenty-two hundred men, into the town, over Bunker and Breed's Hills, where some of them were soon to lay down their lives, along the water-front close by the British shipping, and out of the town once more. "It was," wrote Lieutenant Barker, "expected the Body at Charles Town wou'd have fired on the Somerset, at least it was wished for, as she had everything ready for Action, and must have destroyed great numbers of them, besides putting the Town in Ashes." But no powder was burned. Now it was destined that Charlestown should smell powder enough. On learning the news of Gage's projected move, the Committee of Safety called for an accounting of the condition and supplies of the various regiments, advised an increase in the army, recommended that all persons go armed, even to church, and finally on the 15th of June took the decisive step of advising the seizure of Bunker Hill. "And as the particular situation of Dorchester Neck is unknown to this Committee, they advise that the council of war take and pursue such steps respecting the same, as to them shall appear to be for the security of this colony." Thus inadequate was still the American military organization: Ward was too old and too weak to assume actual leadership, and we find two consultative bodies advising each other, with no responsible head. Up to this time the Massachusetts congress had hoped that the second Continental Congress, now in session in Philadelphia, would adopt the army as its own and send it a general; but so far no answer had come to their requests. Nevertheless, even with this deficient organization something was effected. A detachment was made up, consisting on paper of fifteen hundred men, but in fact of about twelve hundred. These were placed under the command of Colonel William Prescott of Pepperell, a veteran of Louisburg and an excellent soldier. Assembling on Cambridge Common on the night of the 16th, "after prayer by President Langdon, they marched to Bunker Hill."[91] FOOTNOTES: [73] Bancroft, iv, 535. [74] Bancroft, iv, 536. [75] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 15. [76] Frothingham's "Warren," 467. [77] Revere's narrative. [78] Frothingham's "Siege," 95. [79] "Familiar Letters of John and Abigail Adams," 54. [80] Lieutenant Barker makes a suggestion that must have been popular among the officers. "I wonder the G----l will allow any of their people to quit the Town till they return the Prisoners; one wou'd think he might get 'em if he'd try." [81] "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 77. [82] Curwen's "Journal," 25. [83] Current newspapers, quoted in Frothingham's "Siege," 114. [84] "There was hardly a leading man among the rebels, in council, or in the field, but at a proper time, and by proper management, might have been bought."--BURGOYNE to Lord Rochfort, June, 1775. Fonblanque's "Burgoyne," 149-150. [85] Frothingham's "Siege," 101. [86] "And yet to-day, if you should ask ten Boston men, 'Who was Artemas Ward?' nine would say he was an amusing showman. If you asked 'Who was John Thomas?' nine would say he was a flunky commemorated by Thackeray."--E. E. HALE, "Memorial History of Boston," iii, 100. [87] Frothingham's "Siege," 110. [88] Adams Letters, p. 64. [89] Graves was the admiral, Sewall the attorney-general, and Paxton and Hallowell were commissioners of customs. [90] Frothingham's "Siege," 116. [91] Inscription in Cambridge. CHAPTER X THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL The strategy of Bunker Hill battle has been criticised as often as the battle has been described. We have already seen that the choice of Charlestown instead of Dorchester was owing to ignorance, on the part of the Committee of Safety, of the advantages of the latter. From Dorchester Heights the town could equally well have been threatened, the shipping more effectively annoyed, reinforcements more safely summoned, and retreat much better secured. Nevertheless, since at this stage the British might have taken any fortification, it is fortunate that the Americans chose as they did, and left Dorchester for a later attempt. Prescott's party of twelve hundred marched in silence to Charlestown, and on the lower slope of Bunker Hill the men rested for some time while the officers discussed the situation. On the ground were Prescott, Putnam, and "another general,"[92] with Colonel Richard Gridley, the chief engineer. Their discussion was as to the proper point to fortify. The peninsula of Charlestown, as has already been said, stretched toward Boston from the northwest. The approach to it was by a narrow neck of land, on one side of which, the northeast, ran the Mystic River; while on the southwesterly side was an inlet from the Charles. The town, a settlement of several houses, was on the bulge of the peninsula nearest Boston; but along the Mystic rose a series of three hills, from the lowest at Morton's or Moulton's Point, to the highest at Bunker Hill. Morton's Hill was 35 feet high, Breed's, in the centre, was 75 feet, and Bunker's was 110. The question arose, should Bunker Hill be fortified, as in the orders, or Breed's, which was nearer Boston and the shipping? Much time was spent in the discussion. Bunker Hill was higher and the safer, and commanded most landing points; but Breed's Hill seemed better suited to the eager spirits of the officers. When at last Gridley reminded that time was passing, the question seems to have been decided by the urgency of the unknown general, and a redoubt was laid out by the engineer on the summit of Breed's Hill. In the bright moonlight Prescott at once set his men at work digging, endeavoring to raise a good protection before morning. In this he was successful. His men were all farmers, used to the shovel and pick; the earth was soft and scarcely stony; and there was no interruption. Cheered from time to time by the cry of the sentry on the nearer ship, "All's Well!" they pushed on the work. When at daybreak the redoubt was seen, the British could scarcely believe their eyes, for a completed fort seemed to stand there. And now was a chance for a display of military science on the part of Gage and his three major-generals. There stood the little low redoubt, unflanked and unsupported by any other fortifications, easily cut off from its own line of relief or retreat. If now Gage had promptly seized the isthmus, drawn his ships up close, and dragged a battery to the top of Bunker Hill, the American force could very soon have been driven to surrender. Ruggles, the Tory brigadier, is known to have advised this, and there were some among the British leaders who urged it. The general feeling, however, seems to have been that it would be unmanly to catch the Americans in the trap which they had laid for themselves. In a hasty council of war it was decided to assault the redoubt in the good old British fashion of marching up to its face. Gage was in no hurry even for this. Contenting himself with ordering the shipping and the Boston batteries to fire upon the little fort, he gave the Americans every chance to complete their defences, while leaving the way open for reinforcements. In a leisurely way he set about preparing an expedition to cross Charlestown ferry. The men were mustered, and equipped as for a march. Howe was to take charge of the assault, and Burgoyne and Clinton to direct the Boston batteries. The fleet joined in the fire. From Copp's Hill, from Barton's Point, from five ships of war, and from a couple of floating batteries, such a storm of roundshot was poured upon the redoubt that its defenders were amazed, and on the death of a comrade were ready to stop work. But Prescott, coolly insisting--against the protest of a horrified chaplain--that the body be immediately buried, took his stand upon the parapet, and from there directed the finishing of the redoubt. In this position he was seen from Boston. Gage, handing his field-glasses to a Tory who stood near him, asked if he recognized the rebel. The Tory was Willard of Lancaster, a mandamus councillor, who well knew Prescott's declared intention never to be taken alive. "He is my brother-in-law," he replied. "Will he fight?" asked Gage. "I cannot answer for his men," said Willard; "but Prescott will fight you to the gates of hell!"[93] At the redoubt one of Prescott's aids followed his example, and walking back and forth on the parapet the two gave courage to their men. These fell to and completed the work. The rampart was raised to a considerable height, platforms of earth or wood were made inside for the defenders, and at about eleven o'clock the men stacked their tools and were ready. The redoubt, when thus finished, was roughly square, about "eight rods on the longest side," which had a single angle projecting toward the south. Running northwards from the northeast corner Prescott had made a breastwork of perhaps two hundred feet,[94] to prevent flanking. It stretched toward the Mystic River, but fell short by more than a hundred yards. Cooped up in this little fort, inadequately protected against flanking, with shot continually striking on the sides of the redoubt, Prescott's men waited. They had worked all night and most of the morning, had little food and water, saw as yet nothing of the relief that had been promised them, and could tell by the fever of activity visible in Boston's streets that the red coats soon would come against them. There is no wonder that when Putnam rode up and asked for the entrenching tools (proposing, with the best of military good sense, to make a supporting redoubt on Bunker Hill), many of Prescott's men were glad of the excuse to remove themselves from so dangerous a neighborhood. Of those who carried back the tools, few returned. But Prescott's remainder was stanch. The men were already veterans, having endured the work and the cannonade. Waiting in the fort, some of them could appreciate the marvel of the scene: a great stretch of intermingled land and water, the shipping spread below, close at hand the town of Charlestown, and across the narrow river the larger town of Boston, with its heights and house-tops already crowded by non-combatants, viewing the field that was prepared for the slaughter. It was all in bright and warm weather, under a cloudless sky. Since the world began, there had been few battle-fields so spectacularly laid out. At last the bustle in Boston's streets produced results. From the wharves pushed out into the placid water the boats of the fleet, loaded to the gunwales with soldiers in full equipment. As they neared the Charlestown shore, the fire upon the redoubt was doubled, and under its cover the troops landed upon Moulton's Point. There Howe at first deployed them, but after inspecting the ground sent back for reinforcements. For the men in the redoubt there were two more hours of waiting. Those two hours very nearly decided the fate of the struggle, for had Howe moved immediately to the assault there could have been no such resistance offered him as later he met. Prescott decided to send to Cambridge for reinforcements; but such was the confusion that the messenger could get no horse, and had to walk the six miles to headquarters. There he was ill received, for Ward, who during the whole day did not leave his house, feared an attack on Cambridge, dreaded to deplete his supply of powder, and only upon repeated representations ordered a couple of regiments in support of Prescott. These regiments had to draw their powder and make up their cartridges, and arrived when the battle was just about to begin. The student of this day finds it difficult to disentangle the varied accounts. Who was on the field and who was not, what part was taken by each, who was in command at this point and who there, and the total of men engaged, all either were or still are disputed points. It seems to be beyond doubt, however, that Prescott from the first was in command at the redoubt, and that Putnam assumed, and tried to execute, general oversight of the field of contest outside the redoubt and beyond the breastwork. While Howe's troops lunched quietly at Moulton's Point, the aspect of affairs for the Americans became brighter. Prescott, seeing that he must have better protection toward the Mystic River, ordered a detachment of Connecticut troops, under Captain Knowlton, and with them six field-pieces--which seem to have figured not at all in the result--to "go and oppose" the enemy. Avoiding a marshy spot of ground, Knowlton chose a position some two hundred yards to the rear of the redoubt and its breastwork. Here was a fence, the lower part of stone, the upper of rails. The men brought forward from the rear another rail fence, leaned it against the first, and wove in between the rails hay which they found recently cut upon the ground. This, the "rail fence" mentioned in all accounts of the battle, was their sole protection. Now began slowly to come across the isthmus the first of the reinforcements that strengthened the hands of the provincials. They came partly as individuals, of whom the most noted was Warren, who but the day before had been appointed general by the provincial congress. He came as a volunteer, knew his risk, and was prepared to die. Curiously James Otis, it is said, was also among the defenders of the redoubt, coming, like Warren, as a volunteer. It was a strange fate which sent him safely home, to live, still wrecked in intellect and useless to his country, while Warren was to fall. By this time a lively hail of shot and shell was falling on Charlestown Neck, and to cross it was a test of courage. Seth Pomeroy, brigadier-general, veteran of Louisburg, came on a borrowed horse, and, sending back the animal, crossed on foot. Others, alone, in groups, or in semi-military formation, followed him, to be directed by Putnam to the rail fence, which needed defenders. At last came one who needed no directions--Stark, at the head of his New Hampshire regiment. Although requested to hurry his men across the Neck, Stark replied, "One fresh man in action is worth ten fatigued ones,"[95] and would not change his step. Marching down the slope of Bunker Hill, he quickly noted that between the rail fence and the water the beach was unguarded. "I saw there," he said afterward, "the way so plain that the enemy could not miss it."[96] Before the attack could begin, Stark's men threw up a rude breastwork of cobbles behind which they could find a little shelter.--And now at last the American defences were completed, just as the troops were in motion to attack them. At this point Howe neglected a method of attack which would have made his victory immediate. The rail fence, and Stark's defence upon the beach, were open to attack from the river. We have seen that two floating batteries ("large flat boats," says Lieutenant Barker, "sides raised and musquet proof") were used to bombard the redoubt. These, like the shipping and the Boston batteries, did no good whatever. But placed in the Mystic in the proper position, they could have raked the rail fence. "Had these boats been with us," says our lieutenant, " ... they would have taken a part of the Rebels entrenchment in flank, and in their retreat wou'd have cut off numbers." But Howe was only a soldier, such an aid apparently never occurred to him, and the floating batteries--gondolas, as they were called--remained on the southern side of the peninsula. He ordered the attack. The attack was triple, but the artillery fire, on which Howe had counted, was at first valueless, because for the six-pounders had been sent over mostly nine-pound shot, thanks to the chief of artillery, who was afterward supposed to be making love to the schoolmaster's daughter. The cannon, further, got into the marshy ground, and could not find an effective position. So the real assault was first delivered by the troops alone, one detachment marching against the redoubt, and one against the rail fence. The troops moved with great confidence. According to the habit of the time, they were completely equipped as for an expedition, with blankets and three-days' rations. It has been computed that each soldier carried about a hundred and twenty pounds.[97] They were, therefore, greatly burdened at best; and on so hot a day, with the grass to their knees, and many fences to cross, their task was the worse. But they advanced with great composure, and apparently forgetting the 19th of April they were deployed in open order, as if to present each marksman with a separate target. Howe led those who marched at the rail fence, and General Pigot led the assault upon the redoubt. Both bodies of the regulars advanced with occasional ineffective volleys. At first, says tradition, a few Americans fired when the troops came in range, but Prescott and his officers, leaping upon the parapet of the redoubt, kicked up the muzzles of the guns. If the men would but obey him, Prescott told them, not a British soldier would get within the redoubt. At the rail fence the men were likewise prevented from firing, Putnam threatening to cut down any who disobeyed. They were ordered not to shoot until the regulars passed a stake which Stark set up for a mark. Many familiar sayings were passed among the provincials: "Wait till you see the whites of their eyes! Aim at the crossing of the belts! Pick out the handsome coats!" As if to add to the impressiveness of the scene, it was about this time that Charlestown, set on fire a little while before, that it should not give cover to the Americans, and that the smoke should confuse the rebels, burst into general conflagration. The town had been for weeks almost deserted, in dread of this fate; now at the command of Howe red-hot shot were thrown in among the houses, and marines landed from the ships and fired the wharves and waterside buildings. The act was, however, a wanton one, for no advantage was gained or lost to either side by the fire.[98] At last the troops were near enough. They had themselves been firing for some time, volleying as they advanced, but firing too high. Now, as they reached a line some eight or ten rods from the redoubt, Prescott gave the word to fire, and to continue firing. The discharge from the redoubt was close, deadly, and incessant, while at the rail fence the reception of the British was even more fatal. For a few minutes the regulars held their ground, returning the fire as best they might, yet decimated by the American bullets, and seeing their officers falling all about them. There was no hope to advance, and sullenly they withdrew. If ever there was a moment that marked the fate of our nation, it was that one. It forecast Bennington, Saratoga, and Yorktown, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. Well might the provincials exult as they saw the retreat of the regulars; and well might Washington exclaim, when he learned that the farmers had driven the British, "Then the liberties of the country are safe!"[99] But the battle was not yet won. The slaughter among the officers was frightful, yet the leaders were uninjured. Howe gave the order, the troops formed again, and again advanced to the attack. The Americans admired them as they approached, preserving unbroken order, and stepping over the bodies of the slain as if they had been logs of wood. This time the troops were allowed to come nearer yet, but when the provincials fired at the word the carnage was greater than before. In the smoke the officers were seen urging their men, striking them with their sword hilts, and even pricking them with the points. But it was in vain. The officers themselves were shot down in unheard-of proportion, and at the rail fence those who survived out of full companies of thirty-nine were in some cases only three, or four, or five. Nothing could be done under such a fire. Leaving their dead within a few yards of the American lines, for a second time the British retreated. At last Howe had learned his lesson. While his officers, for the sake of the men, implored him to find some other way to conquer the redoubt, he determined on a third assault. He ordered that the knapsacks be left behind, and that the troops be formed in column. In the work of rallying the disheartened men he was ably helped by Clinton, who, observing a detachment in disorder near their boats, impetuously hurried across the river, reformed their ranks, and put himself at their head. Some four hundred marines came over as reinforcements; according to Lieutenant Barker, the 47th regiment came also. Howe disposed his forces in three columns, to attack the three faces of the redoubt. Between the first and second assaults there had been less than half an hour's interval. This time the wait was longer, and the Americans ineffectually sought to take advantage of it. Messengers were again sent to Ward; the general, learning at last that so many of the British forces were occupied in the battle that Cambridge was safe from an attack, gave orders that more regiments should go to Prescott's assistance. To save the day there was yet time, but of the regiments thus ordered, few companies reached the ground, and fewer still took part in the action. And in this the weakness of the American organization was sadly evident. From first to last Ward seems to have sent to Bunker Hill sufficient force to have won the battle; but as he never left his house he could take no pains to make sure that his orders were obeyed. As a matter of fact, of the regiments despatched, one went to Lechmere's Point, where it must have secured an excellent view of the battle, but was completely useless. Being next ordered "to the hill," it was conducted by its colonel, James Scammans, to Cobble Hill; thence he sent to Bunker Hill to learn if he was wanted. Receiving a vigorous reply from Putnam, Scammans at last marched his men to Bunker Hill, reaching the top in time to witness the end of the battle. In similar fashion young Major Gridley of the artillery battalion, whom "parental partiality" had given too much responsibility, took post at a distance, and fired at the shipping. Both Scammans and Gridley were later court-martialled. Other officers lost their way, or, like Colonel Mansfield, who stayed with his regiment to "support" Gridley in his position of safety, disobeyed orders. These facts serve to show not only the confusion of the day, but also the bad judgment, to use no stronger phrase, of unseasoned soldiers. It is fair to say that the hesitancy of some was offset by the heroism of others. When Colonel Gerrish, who was later cashiered, could bring his men no further forward than Bunker Hill, his adjutant, Christian Febiger, a Dane, led a part of the command to the rail fence, and fought bravely there. One of the captains of artillery, disregarding Gridley's commands, took his two guns to Charlestown, and served one of them at the rail fence. Other individuals named and unnamed, with or without orders, went to the field, took post where they could, and fought for their own hand. Yet these are scattered instances in the midst of too many failures to obey. Those who did march down to the field of carnage, with "no more thought," as one of them confessed, "of ever rising the hill again than I had of ascending to Heaven, as Elijah did, soul and body together,"--those who thus devoted themselves left many behind on the safe side of Bunker Hill, or posted ineffectively behind distant fences or trees. Of the thousand Americans who during this last pause in the battle might have reached the post of danger, not enough arrived to affect the result. At last, while aides were still beating up for more support, and Putnam himself was returning from a similar errand, Howe put his troops in motion. This time the movement against the rail fence was but a feint; and now for the first time the artillery of either side did effective service in the battle. Against the protest of the artillery officers that the ground was too soft to take better position, Howe ordered them forward, and they loyally obeyed. They found a post from which they could enfilade the breastwork, and at their first discharge of grape sent its defenders into the redoubt for safety. It was the beginning of the end. Prescott, as he saw the breastwork abandoned, and marked the three advancing columns, saw that the redoubt was doomed. And yet the day ought not to have been lost. Had Ward but sent a hundred pounds of powder, the fight might have been won. But Prescott looked for it in vain. Or had those men, whom he saw shooting at long range from positions of safety, come forward to reinforce the defenders of the redoubt, the scales might have been turned. But the fight was to end as it had begun, with Prescott's small detachment still unsupported, left all day without food or water, and now at the end without powder. As the troops climbed the hill a few artillery cartridges were opened and their powder distributed among the provincials. Some of the men thus had three or four charges to their guns, some had only one; besides this, there were few bayonets among them. The wonder is that the men awaited the assault. This time the regulars came within twenty yards of the redoubt before the word was given to fire. The heads of the columns were swept away, but the rest came on, and mounted the parapet. The first who topped it were shot down, among them Pitcairn. But then the American powder was spent, and from three sides the British swarmed into the redoubt. Reluctantly Prescott gave his men the word to retreat. For a few moments the fighting was fierce. Some of the provincials were unwilling to run, and fought till they were killed. Some used stones, and some their clubbed muskets, retiring unwillingly. It might be supposed that the slaughter was great. But the British, for the very reason that they had entered from three sides, were afraid to fire on the farmers for the sake of their own men; the dust rose up in clouds, and so in the confusion most of the defenders escaped, like Peter Brown, who wrote his mother: "I was not suffered to be touched, although I was in the front when the enemy came in, and jumped over the walls, and ran half a mile, where balls flew like hailstones, and cannon roared like thunder."[100] Prescott came off unhurt. Those who saw him said that he "stepped long, with his sword up." He saved his life by parrying the bayonets which were thrust at him, although some of them pierced his clothes. That more were not killed in the pursuit was due to two factors. The first was the exhaustion of the soldiers, who, tired with carrying heavy loads in the unwonted heat (and an American summer is like the tropics to an Englishman), were winded with their last charge up the hill. They were therefore in no good condition to follow up their victory, and the fugitives were soon away beyond Bunker Hill. Yet that the pursuit was so poor was due partly to the defenders of the rail fence. These men, more like veteran regiments than fragments of many commands, withdrew in a body, continually threatening those who offered to close in from behind. The end of the fight was as honorable to them as its beginning. But there was much loss. A number were killed in the redoubt, and the slopes of Bunker Hill were dotted with slain, killed by bullets and cannon shot. At the Neck some few more were killed. The total of dead, according to Ward's record, was 115, of the wounded 305, of the captured 30. Slightly varying totals are reported.[101] The great personal loss on the part of the Americans was in the death of Warren. There had been no need of his coming, and his value for higher services--he was president of the provincial congress and had just been appointed a major-general--was greater than at the post of actual conflict. But his fiery spirit, of which we have seen so much, would not be denied. That day he waked with a headache, but on learning of the expected battle he declared himself well. Friends tried to detain him, but he replied with the Latin phrase, "It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country." On reaching the field he met Putnam, who offered to take his orders. But Warren had come as a volunteer, and asked where he should go. Putnam showed him the redoubt, saying, "There you will be covered." "Don't think," said Warren, "that I come to seek a place of safety; but tell me where the onset will be most furious." Putnam still sent him to the redoubt. "That is the enemy's object." Warren went to the redoubt, where the men received him with cheers, and Prescott offered him command. But Warren still declined, took a musket, and fought with the men. There is no doubt that part of the credit of the stout defence belongs to him. When the retreat was ordered he withdrew unwillingly, and was among the last to leave the redoubt. After he had gone but a little way in the open field he was shot in the head, and died instantly. Once, when the British questioned the courage of the Americans, he had said, "By Heavens, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood!" He had had his wish. Warren's death at the time was not certainly known to either friend or foe; his body was buried on the field, and was disinterred and identified only after the evacuation. Of the Boston leaders, he was the only one who gave his life for the cause. He was sadly missed, a man of keen intellect and excellent political sense, of deep sympathies, and high honor. A magnetic leader, he could ill be spared. The last figure on the battle-field was Putnam's. At the unfinished fortification on Bunker Hill he implored the fugitives to rally and "give them one shot more." The profanity which he used on this occasion he afterwards penitently acknowledged in church. He retired only when the pursuers were close behind, but went no further than Prospect Hill. There, seizing on the chance which so long had been denied him, without orders he collected men and commenced another redoubt. The next day he was found there, unwashed, still digging, and ready for another battle. Prescott returned to Cambridge, reported at headquarters, and offered if given sufficient troops to retake the hill. But Ward was afraid of his own position, and would not sanction the attempt. The British loss was very heavy, about one thousand and fifty, of whom a quarter were killed, while ninety-two among the dead were officers. Pitcairn was carried to Boston, and died there. Colonel Abercrombie was killed, and many others of lesser note. As soon as it was possible the wounded officers were conveyed to Boston for medical attendance, and we have in Major Clarke's narrative a dismal picture of one sad procession. "In the first carriage was Major Williams, bleeding and dying, and three dead captains of the fifty-second regiment. In the second, four dead officers; then another with wounded officers." The Americans, at first discouraged by their defeat, in the course of time came to regard it as a victory. This it certainly was not, yet it had all the moral effect of a British defeat. The regulars learned that the provincials would stand up to them. "Damn the rebels," was the current phrase; "they would not flinch."[102] Many of the officers felt called upon to explain, in letters home, the reason for the defeat. The American rifles, argued one, were "peculiarly adapted to take off the officers of a whole line as it advances to an attack." They reasoned that the redoubt, whose perfection when examined was astonishing, must have been the work of days. As to the comparative uselessness of the British cannon, it was explained by the nine-pound shot (some say twelve) sent for the six-pounders. Said one newspaper: "It naturally required a great while to ram down such disproportioned shot; nor did they, when discharged, fly with that velocity and true direction they would have done, had they been better suited to the size of the cannon."[103] But aside from a few such absurdities, the body of the army and the British public recognized at last that they had formidable antagonists. This was no such fight as that on the 19th of April, when the shifting provincials gave the regulars nothing to strike at. This was a pitched battle, and the farmers had all but won it. The British were amazed by the stubborn defence, and the rapidity and accuracy of the American fire. The proportion of killed among the officers was greater than any before known, and veterans admitted that the slaughter was worse than at Minden, the deadliest of recent European battles. It is with reason, then, that Boston still celebrates Bunker Hill. It was the first signal proof of American courage, and forecast the success of the siege. Indeed, it is not too much to say that Bunker Hill battle had influence in deciding the outcome of the war. Howe, destined to be the leader of the British forces, never forgot the lesson of the redoubt on Breed's Hill, or of the flimsy fence of rails and hay. It was seldom that he could resolve to send his men against a rebel entrenchment. FOOTNOTES: [92] Frothingham's "Siege," 123. [93] Frothingham's "Siege," 126, and Sabine's "Loyalists," 707. [94] Reports vary from eighty to three hundred feet. [95] Dearborn's account of the battle, _Historical Magazine_ for 1864. [96] Bancroft, v, 612. [97] Ross's "Life of Cornwallis," quoted in Fonblanque's "Burgoyne," 159. [98] The picturesqueness of this scene has been remarked by many writers. The best contemporary description is, of course, Burgoyne's. "To consider this action as a soldier, it comprised, though in a small compass, almost every branch of military duty and curiosity. Troops landed in the face of an enemy; a fine disposition; a march sustained by a powerful cannonade by moving field artillery, fixed batteries, floating batteries, and broadsides of ships at anchor, all operating separately and well disposed; a deployment from the march to form for the attack of the entrenchments and redoubt; a vigorous defence; a storm with bayonets; a large and fine town set on fire by shells. Whole streets of houses, ships upon the stocks, a number of churches, all sending up volumes of smoke and flame, or falling together in ruins, were capital objects. A prospect of the neighboring hills, the steeples of Boston, and the masts of such ships as were unemployed in the harbor, all crowded with spectators, friends and foes alike in anxious suspense, made a background to the piece; and the whole together composed a representation of war that I think the imagination of Lebrun never reached."--FONBLANQUE, "Burgoyne," 156. [99] Lodge's "Washington," i, 133. [100] Appendix to Frothingham's "Siege," 393. [101] Washington reported later 139 killed, 36 missing, 278 wounded. [102] Moore's "Diary of the Revolution," 110. [103] These two quotations are from Frothingham's "Siege." CHAPTER XI WASHINGTON TAKES COMMAND The immediate effect of the battle of Bunker Hill upon the American army--or rather armies--was one of dismay. The result was confusion. In fact, no study of the battle can fail to impress the examiner with the belief that outside the redoubt the whole conduct of the Americans was haphazard. Except for Stark's regiment, which itself came on in detachments, the reinforcements dribbled to the field in companies, platoons, or squads. They placed themselves where the hasty judgment of Putnam directed them, or if he was absent to beat up for more troops, chose their own positions and fought under their own officers. Putnam gave orders, yet was not always obeyed; and sent urgently for reinforcements, but, though his demands were received by officers from other colonies, got no response.[104] In this individual character of the fighting the day was much like that of the 19th of April. And after the battle conditions were much the same. Putnam commenced independently to fortify Prospect Hill. On Winter Hill the New Hampshire troops made a redoubt, and at Roxbury General Thomas hastily strengthened his position. Even at Cambridge Ward began to fortify. Word had been sent out to summon the militia, and as on the 19th of April these responded with alacrity and in great numbers. It was hourly expected that the British would sally from Boston, and the provincials kept themselves in a confused readiness. In the meantime the British cannon played steadily on the American fortifications, and the thunder of the artillery spread apprehension in the neighboring country. Abigail Adams wrote from Braintree: "The battle began upon our intrenchments upon Bunker's Hill, Saturday morning about three o'clock, and has not ceased yet, and it is now three o'clock Sabbath afternoon. It is expected they will come out over the Neck to-night, and a dreadful battle must ensue."[105] Yet the British did not come out, quiet gradually fell on the two armies, the militia returned to their homes, and the conduct of the siege entered on a new phase. Now more than ever the Americans recognized that conditions were precarious, and that the greatest need was for a better organization. Zeal was not wanting. Whenever the British cannonade recommenced, whenever there were rumors of an attack, the troops were ready for a fight. But means of communication, and prompt and efficient subordination, still were lacking. Nor does it appear that those on the ground were able, handicapped as they were by orders from the different provincial assemblies, to produce the necessary system. Higher political and military authority both were needed before the army could be efficient. Very fortunately events had been preparing to supply them. Since the middle of May the second Continental Congress had been sitting in Philadelphia. Among the Massachusetts delegates were Hancock and the two Adamses. Gage on the 12th of June had consigned Samuel Adams and Hancock to the gallows, but Hancock was serving as president of the Congress, while the Adamses were important members of committees. They watched and waited for the growth of a sentiment which should support New England in its resistance. The position of the Congress was without precedent. An illegal body, its delegates were elected by conventions improperly constituted. It had no authority to raise money, to purchase arms, or to direct the actions of the provinces. Though in New England war was in progress, many of the delegates loved the old order of things, and were not yet ready to move toward independence. The first actions of the Congress were for conciliation. There were those who saw that this was impossible. Of the New England delegates, very few ever again hoped for what was called "an accommodation." Washington, on his part, saw clearly that the end of the old order had come. Franklin knew that independence would be the result of the changes then in progress. Yet these men, and others like them, knew also that they could not hurry the Congress into radical action, and waited the effect of time. For weeks the Congress discussed and argued, and finally passed a resolve that "an humble and dutiful petition be presented to his majesty."[106] This would give a chance for feelings to cool, and for the supporters of the king to work for his interest. But events would not stand still. In England the news of Concord had not moved the king to lenity; he saw no lesson in the tragedy, and insisted on pressing his policy. Lord North's feeble endeavor to resign was checked, supplies were sent to Virginia to support the governor in his project of a rising of the slaves, a scheme was pressed to raise in Carolina a regiment of veteran Highlanders, and orders were sent to rouse the Iroquois against the rebels. Further, the king planned to strengthen his forces by hiring troops from the continent of Europe. News of all this, coming across the Atlantic, by degrees changed the aspect of affairs, and made the members of the Congress doubtful of reconciliation. They began to look to their own positions, and to feel that, as Franklin said, unless they hung together they would all hang separately. To remind them what they could do in self-defence the needs of the army around Boston were frequently brought to their attention. Its discipline, equipment, and leadership were poor. At last came a petition from Massachusetts, begging that Congress should "take command of the army by appointing a generalissimo."[107] Such a step was open and complete rebellion, and the Congress hesitated. By private letters to Samuel Adams the desired leader was pointed out: Washington. The choice was doubly wise. To the Adamses it had been plain that, though Hancock was desirous of the post, it should not be given to a New Englander. The New England army would be knit together, and its provincial jealousies appeased, by the appointment of a general from another section. Further, in all the continent there was not another man of Washington's experience, ability, and steadfastness. Washington was then in the prime of life, forty-three years of age, and of such physique as was needed for the bearer of the greatest burden that had ever been put upon an American. He was tall, finely built, majestic in carriage and impressive of feature, and accustomed from his youth to exposure, hardship, and constant exertion. He had long been used to depending upon himself, and had acquired an independent judgment that was almost unerring. Further, that judgment had been exercised on military matters. While Hancock had been at best the captain of a militia company in time of peace, Washington had from his nineteenth year been commissioned with higher commands, and had seen much active service. More than one campaign owed its success against the Indians largely to him, and it was he and his Virginians who saved the remnant at Braddock's defeat. He had a strong temper under almost perfect control, patience and persistence in equal amounts, and, with a wonderful reserve, the quality of winning the confidence of all honest men. Besides all this, he was heart and soul in the cause. While others had discussed and hesitated, he had long ago made up his mind, not only that the quarrel with the king would come to violence, but that all Americans should resist to the utmost. "Shall we," he asked in a letter to a friend, after enumerating Gage's despotic acts, "shall we after this whine and cry for relief, when we have already tried it in vain? Or shall we supinely sit and see one province after another fall a sacrifice to despotism?" In a letter to a British officer at Boston, he says, "Permit me with the freedom of a friend (for you know I always esteemed you), to express my sorrow that fortune should place you in a service that must fix curses to the latest posterity upon the contrivers, and, if success (which, by the by, is impossible) accompanies it, execrations upon all those who have been instrumental in the execution.... Give me leave to add as my opinion that more blood will be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity, than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America, and such a vital wound will be given to the peace of this great country, as time itself cannot cure or eradicate the remembrance of." Few in those days had such certainty of the result of an outbreak, and few were so ready to participate in one. In the Virginia convention he said, "I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march them to the relief of Boston." No wonder this was designated "the most eloquent speech that ever was made." He was not called on to make good his promise, but was sent to the two continental congresses. At the second it was noticed that he attended the sittings in his uniform of a Virginia colonel. Though he took no part in the debates, he made himself felt. Patrick Henry said of him at this time: "If you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on the floor."[108] To make the Congress "adopt" the army at Boston, and to have Washington appointed generalissimo, became the task of John Adams, who at this time did the country perhaps his greatest service. There were objections to putting a Virginian at the head of New Englanders, for colonial jealousies, and even colonial lack of mutual understanding, might bring about a fatal sullenness in the men. Adams discussed the matter in private with many delegates, and could not succeed even in making the Massachusetts and Virginia representatives agree. At last, determined to force action, one morning he announced to Samuel Adams that something must be done. "I am determined this morning to make a direct motion that Congress should adopt the army before Boston, and appoint Colonel Washington commander of it. Mr. Adams," he added in his diary, "seemed to think very seriously of it, but said nothing." Alone, then, but determinedly following his inspiration, John Adams laid before the Congress his proposal. First he spoke in favor of accepting the New England army as the army of the continent; then he began a eulogy of Washington. Hancock's eyes flashed with resentment, and Washington himself slipped from the room. There were a few days of delay and debate, but the energy of Adams carried his proposals. The Congress adopted the army, appointed four major-generals and eight brigadiers, and finally, on the 15th of June, chose the commander-in-chief. On the 17th of June, the day of Bunker Hill, Adams wrote joyfully to his wife: "I can now inform you that the Congress have made choice of the modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous, and brave George Washington, Esquire, to be General of the American Army."[109] This was a step which the Congress could not retrace. The colonies were now in rebellion, and the members, as they realized that the noose was preparing for their necks, voted the meagre sum of twenty-five thousand dollars to supply with powder the army which alone stood between them and a sudden taking off. Yet the significance of the act was not yet understood by the colonies at large, for a few days later the assembly of New York voted military escorts both to Washington and to the royalist governor, who happened to arrive on the same day. Washington himself, however, knew better than any man the consequence of the momentous step. He foresaw that the labor would be difficult and the struggle long. On the 16th of June he accepted his commission, but added: "Lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it to be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. "As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress, that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment, at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. These, I doubt not, they will discharge; and that is all I desire."[110] As soon as he could settle his affairs, Washington started for Boston. In New York he heard the news of Bunker Hill, and was cheered by it. He arrived on July 2 in Watertown, where the Massachusetts congress was sitting, and received a congratulatory address. He then pressed on to Cambridge, which he reached on the same day. On the 3d, a year and a day before the Declaration of Independence, and according to tradition under the great elm still standing near Cambridge Common, he took command of the army. The occasion was momentous, and was so appreciated by a few at the time. Would the critical volunteer army approve of its new chief? There was not a murmur against him. From the first Washington's magnificent bearing and kingly self-confidence won the admiration of his men. He brought with him to the camp at Cambridge two who were ambitious to displace him, yet of Lee and Gates, both retired English officers, the first never won a personal following, and the second achieved but the meagre dignity of leadership of a cabal. From the moment when he took command of the army, Washington was, indeed, "first in the hearts of his countrymen." And the student of our history cannot help remarking how providential it was that, almost at the outset of this struggle, Washington should come to the front. Eighty-six years later, at the beginning of the Rebellion, there was no accepted chief. Lincoln was doubted by the North, and the army had no true leader. By a slow process Lincoln's commanding strength became known; by an equally tedious sifting of the generals the qualities of Grant, Sherman, Thomas, and Meade were discovered. Only the tremendous resources of the North could have withstood the strain of such a delay. Had the same process been necessary at the outset of the Revolution, the colonies could scarcely have maintained the struggle. Had not Washington been at hand, accepted by the Congress and admired by the army, the virtual leader of both, the chances of success would have been slight. But he was Lincoln and Grant in one. Time and again, through the long years, it was Washington alone who brought victory from defeat. Without him the colonies might have won their independence as the result of an almost interminable guerilla warfare; but with him the fight was definite, decisive, glorious, and--for the infant republic--mercifully short. [Illustration: THE OLD NORTH BRIDGE (The Americans marched to the attack from the further side.)] [Illustration: THE MINUTE MAN By Daniel C. French] The army was now in the hands of a soldier, one who knew, if any man did, what was needed to make the raw militiaman into a professional. Washington fell at once to work. "There is great overturning in camp," wrote the Reverend William Emerson, he who had watched Concord Fight from the window of his study. "New lords, new laws. The Generals Washington and Lee are upon the lines every day. New orders from his Excellency are read to the respective regiments every morning after prayers. The strictest government is taking place, and great distinction is made between officers and soldiers. Every one is made to know his place and keep in it.... Thousands are at work every day from four till eleven o'clock in the morning."[111] This simple statement shows, in the wonder of the clergyman, not merely how much was now being done, but how little had been done before. As on the day of Bunker Hill, Ward had been a headquarters general, but Washington was "upon the lines." Many times later we find him exposing himself recklessly; now we see him constantly on active patrol of his outposts, supervising the new fortifications or the carrying out of the new regulations. Apart from fortifying, which he drove early and late, his immediate difficulties were with the army organization, and these difficulties began immediately. He brought with him commissions for his major-generals and brigadiers, and the commissions of the former he bestowed at once. The fourth major-general was Putnam of Connecticut, who had had as his colleague Joseph Spencer, of the same colony. "General Spencer's disgust," wrote Washington on the 10th of July, "was so great at General Putnam's promotion, that he left the army without visiting me, or making known his intention in any respect."[112] Upon this, Washington prudently withheld the other commissions, and proceeded cautiously, with regard to jealousies among the officers. By careful diplomacy he succeeded in retaining for the new establishment the services of most of the colonial brigadiers, for Spencer returned, and Thomas, who saw his juniors promoted over his head, agreed to take rank beneath them. Only one among the new appointees, Pomeroy, the veteran of Louisburg who had fought at the rail fence at Bunker Hill, declined his commission. He had marvelled that in the battle Warren should be taken and he, "old and useless," be left unhurt. Now he withdrew from further service on account of his age; yet, going later upon a volunteer expedition, he died of exposure. Before the jealousies of the higher officers were settled, Washington turned to the smaller fry. He now had to meet the nature of the New England volunteer. "There is no such thing," he wrote before very long, "as getting officers of this stamp to carry orders into execution.... I have made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the Massachusetts government abounds in, having broke one colonel and two captains for cowardly behaviour in the action on Bunker Hill, two captains for drawing more pay and provision than they had men in their company, and one for being absent from his post when the enemy appeared and burnt a house close by it.... In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these people seem to be attentive to everything but their own interest."[113] Washington was experiencing the difficulties which Lincoln was later to know, in dealing with the host of fair-weather soldiers and jobbing self-seekers who come to the front at the outset of a war. There was every reason why for some time he should estimate the New England character from what he saw of its worst side. Yet before the seven years of war were over he knew its better aspect. Massachusetts sent to the war nearly twice as many men as any other colony, and Connecticut was second. Measured by this standard, Washington's own colony came third in devotion to the cause.[114] We know that later he acknowledged his appreciation of the devotion of New England to the cause and to his person. It is particularly interesting to learn that he reversed his judgment in one of the cases mentioned above. Among those cashiered for disobedience of orders and alleged cowardice at Bunker Hill was John Callender, captain of an artillery company. The trial went against him, and Washington dismissed him "from all further service in the continental service as an officer." Callender, determined to wipe off the stain on his honor, remained as a private in the artillery service, and found his opportunity at the battle of Long Island, where the captain and lieutenant of his battery were shot. "He assumed the command, and, refusing to retreat, fought his pieces to the last. The bayonets of the soldiers were just upon him, when a British officer, admiring his chivalrous and desperate courage, interfered and saved him."[115] Washington ordered the record of Callender's sentence to be expunged from the orderly book, effected his exchange, and restored him his commission. Yet in too many of the cases the sentence of incompetence or cowardice was just. Even when simple laxity of discipline was at the bottom of trouble, the effect was exasperating. Washington had much to teach the minor members of his army. That it was in all outward aspects a truly volunteer assemblage, we have the testimony of an eye witness. "It is very diverting," wrote the Reverend William Emerson, "to walk among the camps. They are as different in their form as the owners are in their dress; and every tent is a portraiture of the temper and taste of the persons who encamp in it. Some are made of boards, and some of sailcloth. Some partly of one and partly of another. Again others are made of stone and turf, brick or brush. Some are thrown up in a hurry, others curiously wrought with doors and windows, done in wreaths and withes in the manner of a basket. Some are your proper tents and marquees, looking like the regular camp of the enemy.... However, I think this great variety is rather a beauty than a blemish in the army."[116] When we consider, however, that the men were dressed as variously as they were housed, and armed as from a museum of historical curiosities, we can easily see that the commander would not agree with the clergyman that such variety was to be admired. We find him advocating the purchase of uniforms. If nothing better can be had, he will be content with hunting-shirts, since a common costume would have a "happy tendency to unite the men, and abolish those provincial distinctions, that lead to jealousy and dissatisfaction."[117] Washington strove also, but by the end of the siege was still unable, to provide for his men some form of regulation firearm. He found, further, that the number of the troops had been overestimated. After waiting eight days for returns which he expected in an hour after his requisition, he found that, instead of the twenty thousand troops he had been led to hope for, he had but sixteen thousand effective men. With these he had to maintain a front of eight miles, against an enemy who could at will strike at any point. In such a situation the only safeguard was fortification. Before Washington's arrival the redoubts on Prospect and Winter Hills had been completed, with scattered minor works. Washington at once began by strengthening these, and by finishing all uncompleted works. Then, in a manner characteristic of the whole siege, and which never failed to take the British by surprise, one August evening he sent a party to Plowed Hill, "within point blank shot of the enemy on Charlestown Neck. We worked the whole night incessantly one thousand two hundred men, and, before morning, got an intrenchment in such forwardness, as to bid defiance to their cannon."[118] The British cannonaded for two days, but the Americans, finding to their disappointment that no assault was intended, finished the work at their ease. Similarly, as we shall see, Washington later took Lechmere's Point, commanding the river and the Back Bay. Before many weeks the works at Roxbury were made "amazing strong," and the rebels were in position to welcome an encounter. But there was no assault, and Washington had instead to meet the vexations of his office. These were often trivial enough. A company would protest against the appointment of an officer unknown to them, a town would apply for special guard, a prisoner would demand the privilege of wearing his sword.[119] Washington met such requests with unvarying courtesy, but with firmness; even to the governor of Connecticut he refused troops for sea-coast protection. One little correspondence throws a gleam of unconscious humor on the dull routine of Washington's correspondence. Hearing of hardships suffered in Boston by prisoners taken at Bunker Hill, Washington wrote to remonstrate. Gage returned answer two days later; its original is found in Burgoyne's letter book, "as wrote by me." It begins in the usual style of the literary general: "Sir, To the glory of civilized nations, humanity and war have been made almost compatible, and compassion to the subdued is become almost a general system. Britons, ever pre-eminent in mercy, have outgone common examples, and overlooked the criminal in the captive." Entering a general denial of Washington's charges, the letter goes on to bring counter-accusations, and finally, after giving valuable advice, the writers exhort Washington--of all men!--to "give free operation to truth." Truly, as Burgoyne's biographer admits, there is something irresistibly ludicrous in the spectacle of such generals lecturing such a man. The sequel was honorable to the American chief. At first determined to retaliate upon some prisoners in his hands, he changed his mind, apparently because they, having been captured off Machias as their vessel neared land, had "committed no hostility against the people of this country."[120] The general therefore gave them the practical freedom of the town of Northampton. One other correspondence caused about this time a flutter of excitement. Charles Lee was one of Washington's four major-generals, a man who had seen military service in many parts of Europe and America. He had served in the British army from 1747 until 1763, when, his regiment being disbanded, he served in Poland and Turkey, and finally, in 1772, came to America. Here he took up, almost violently, the cause of freedom, perhaps because of disappointment in the English service, perhaps because he foresaw opportunity. At any rate, he made himself conspicuous, and was generally regarded as the foremost military man in America, Washington alone excepted. Events proved that Lee acknowledged no superior, and impatiently desired to be rid of his chief. Washington was always on formal terms with his subordinate, no doubt because he read in his character, besides a certain ability, an unstable temperament and a hasty judgment. When once Lee was at Cambridge he immediately rushed into a correspondence with Burgoyne, under whom he had served in Portugal thirteen years before. The tone of his letter was highly literary. Lee reminded Burgoyne of their old friendship, and then, with many flourishes, went at his business. He lamented the infatuation of the times, when men of the stamp of Burgoyne and Howe could be seduced into an impious and nefarious service, and reminding Burgoyne of various bygone incidents, called to his mind his experience with the wickedness and treachery of the present court and cabinet. He spread himself at large on the principles of the present struggle, rejoiced that Burgoyne came by command of the king rather than his own desire, and warned him of the miscreants who had infatuated Gage. Then, explaining how his three years in America had acquainted him with facts, Lee begged Burgoyne to communicate the substance of the letter to Howe, who to his horror seemed to be becoming the satrap of an Eastern despot. Protesting his devotion to America as the last asylum of liberty, Lee signed himself with the greatest sincerity and affection. The letter was written before Bunker Hill, but not answered until the 8th of July. In his reply, Burgoyne hinted, with references to Locke, Charles the First, and James the Second, that he was equally well grounded in the principles of liberty. He urged Lee to lay his hand upon his heart, and say whether the Americans wanted freedom from taxation or independency. He, Burgoyne, with the army and fleet, and the king himself, was actuated only by the desire to maintain the laws. Then, having letters from England which were to be delivered into Lee's own hands, Burgoyne proposed a personal interview at the lines on Boston Neck, and sent the compliments of Howe, Clinton, and Percy. It must be admitted that Burgoyne's purpose in this proposal was quite other than to deliver letters, or even to argue upon political differences. In a letter to Lord North Burgoyne explained his real purpose in entering into correspondence with a rebel. In the proposed interview he would have cut Lee short in his paltry jargon, and pressed upon him the real facts in the case. Next he would have shown him the glory accruing to a successful mediator, and then, playing upon his pride, his interest, and his ambition, would have suggested a return to his allegiance. Burgoyne supposed that the reference to a mediator would have brought to Lee the memory of General Monk, and would have flattered him with the same intention to restore the state. There is upon this plan of Burgoyne's but one comment to be made, and that has been clearly stated by his own biographer. "If an American General could have been found base enough to purchase his restoration to the favour of his late Sovereign by gross treachery to his adopted country, an English General should surely not have thought it worthy of his character and position to bribe him to such an act."[121] Lee was not caught in the trap, though perhaps not owing to his own caution. Burgoyne's letter was laid before the Provincial Congress, which forbade the meeting. In a brief letter Lee explained that it was feared that the interview might create jealousies and suspicions. Burgoyne caught at this statement as showing, in the American staff, dissensions fruitful of future results; but the hope was never justified. Lee's future share in the siege faded into insignificance, and his damage to the American cause was not to come until later. Washington may have supervised the correspondence and influenced its result. It affected him not at all, but in the midst of many such little affairs he found opportunity for really aggressive work. Once he was well fortified, the next step was to vex and disturb the enemy by cutting off supplies by sea, and making the approach to Boston difficult. For the latter purpose a detachment went boldly in broad daylight and burned the lighthouse at the harbor's mouth. Since the first attempt was not satisfactory, the same men went again, and finished the job. Other little expeditions, carried on against either the harbor islands or the shipping near the town, were successfully undertaken. The men for such purposes were the fishermen of the sea-coast towns, thrown out of work by the fisheries bill, and burning with patriotic feeling. Washington turned them to still better account in beginning a navy. To be sure, the little fleet which presently was busily at work was at first a spontaneous growth, for whenever a store-ship or king's sloop ran aground or made land at the wrong harbor, dories and fishing-vessels swarmed out to board it. Even before Washington's coming privateers were acting for the country, but with no better standing than pirates, for they sailed under no flag and bore neither commission nor letters of marque. The provinces of Connecticut and Rhode Island legalized the achievements of those who were busy in their waters, but for the adventurous spirits who dared the men of war in Massachusetts Bay nothing was done until Washington found the way. Since, even though the need was imperative, he could not properly authorize the existence of a navy, we find him, on the second of September, wording a commission in the following manner: "You being appointed a captain in the army of the United Colonies of North America, are hereby directed to take command of a detachment of said army, and proceed on board the schooner _Hannah_, at Beverly." And thus the American Navy began its existence. Its vessels were few and small, being chiefly "converted" fishermen; its purpose was to intercept stores and gain information; and it was especially forbidden to engage with armed vessels, "though you may be equal in strength, or may have some small advantage." Before the end of the siege this little company of vessels was invaluable to Washington. But in Washington's army lay his chief hopes--and also his chief difficulties. That whenever there was a chance for a fight the men were very ardent, he was glad to acknowledge. But that when there was nothing to relieve the monotony of the camp they were indifferent to all discipline, he knew only too well. They were incorrigible traders of uniforms and equipment, sticklers for seniority upon but a few months' service, insistent for furloughs for return to labor on their own affairs, and troublesome even in demanding pay by lunar instead of calendar months. In order that their Yankee ingenuity might find less time to invent more trouble for him and for themselves, Washington very sensibly worked them hard at his fortifying, "Sundays not excepted."[122] There were, however, difficulties which could be got over neither by work, nor by thought, nor by gradually licking an army into shape. Powder and arms both were lacking. Powder was scarcely to be had anywhere. It was little made in the colonies, especially not in the neighborhood of Boston. Again and again we find Washington writing for it, and occasionally reporting his exact situation. More than once the army had but nine rounds to a man. On the twenty-fourth of August Washington writes: "We have been in a terrible situation, occasioned by a mistake in a return; we reckoned upon three hundred quarter casks, and had but thirty-two barrels."[123] A few days later the situation was better, but still was bad enough, for he writes: "We have only one hundred and eighty-four barrels of powder in all (including the late supply from Philadelphia), which is not sufficient to give twenty-five musket cartridges to each man, and scarcely to serve the artillery in any brisk action one single day." He sent to Bermuda to seize a supply, but his vessels arrived too late. Supplies did slowly dribble in, and sometimes came in encouraging quantities when a store-ship was captured. But there never was plenty on hand, and too often not enough, for the powder would deteriorate in bad weather, as was shown at a skirmish at Lechmere's Point. As the troops formed for duty, cartridge boxes were examined, "when the melancholy truth appeared."[124] Further, the men, from whom the lack of powder was concealed, were fond of amusing themselves by indiscriminate shooting. We find General Greene, in an order to his troops, threatening severe punishment to those who shot at geese passing over the camp. And so, with little acquisitions of powder, and steady depletion, Washington was never for a day properly supplied. His difficulty in finding muskets, though never so great, was always considerable. The gunsmiths of Philadelphia, who had been expected speedily to equip his army, were not able to supply a satisfactory portion of the arms required, so that Washington was reduced to sending agents through the neighboring towns to buy guns. Their success was small. He tried also to buy the muskets of those men who, on the expiration of their term of service, went home. Here again the result was poor, for the men, mindful of the possibility of militia service, were very unwilling to part with their arms. Yet the men had an ineradicable propensity to dicker among themselves. Arms and equipment changed hands in true Yankee fashion; even clothing was traded in, and the camp, when the men were off duty, must at times have been as busy as a market. Nothing better shows this than the diary of David How, whose brief entries prove him to be a true New Englander. Months later than Washington's first attempts to buy arms from the men, we find entries as follows. "13 (January, 1776) I Bought a gun & Bayonet & Cateridge Box of Joseph Jackson and gave 42/6 Lawfull Money for the Whole. I have been Makeing Cateridges this Day.... "20 I Bought a frock & Trouses of Parley Macingtyre and give 6/Law. "22 Peter Gage Staid Hear Last Night and I bought 3 Pare of Shoes of him @ 5/6 per pare "23 I sold a pare of Shoes for 6/8. "26 I Sold my Cateridge box For 4/6 Lawfull Money. "16 March I sold my gun to Timothy Jackson for Three pound Lawfull Money." We see in David How, even when soldiering, the qualities which later made him one of the richest men in Haverhill. The diary shows, also, what appears to be the visit to the camp of a shoe pedler. Modern disciplinarians would scarcely condone this, nor would they permit How's opportunity of making money when cooking for his company. For he writes:-- "24 day (January, 1776) I Cook this day & Bought 3 Barrels of Cyder for 9/per Barrel. "25 day I Bought 7 Bushels of Chesnuts & give 4 pisterens per bushel. "30 We have Sold Nuts and Cyder Every Day This Week." It was in the face of this well-nigh incorrigible tendency to make money out of the situation that Washington struggled to turn his militiamen into soldiers. We gather from his orderly books that he had difficulties with disorders of many kinds, not the least of which were caused by the visits of "pretended suttlers"[125] who sold bad rum. To check drunkenness he licensed the sutlers and limited their activities, and for general discipline he worked steadily to show officers and men alike what was expected of them. And all the time he diligently tried to purchase weapons, though with so little success that at last he even took up the question of implements more primitive than muskets. There was in camp a company of Stockbridge Indians, who were so successful as to waylay a British sentry or two and kill them with arrows. Franklin, perhaps taking the hint from this, wrote to prove that the long-bow might be revived, but Washington would have none of it. Pikes, however, whose use in European warfare was fairly recent, he would consider. A number were ordered, and after them a second set of stronger make, the first being "ridiculously short and light."[126] In October came to light the treason of Dr. Benjamin Church. As already shown, he had for some time before the 19th of April been in communication with Gage. On the 22d, when he went into Boston with the knowledge of the Committee of Safety, he doubtless saw the general in person. An occurrence now showed that he was writing to the British commander, though his agency was not at first suspected. From Newport came a letter, brought by an American patriot to whom it had been given by a woman from Cambridge, who had requested to have it delivered to some officer of the British vessel stationed in the harbor. The American kept the letter, and, suspecting its purport, opened it. It was in cipher. This in itself was suspicious, and the letter was brought to Washington, who caused the woman to be arrested and questioned. At first she was obstinate, but finally she named Church as the writer of the letter. He in his turn was put under guard, but had had time to destroy any papers that might betray him. The letter when deciphered proved to give little information besides the numbers of the American forces. From first to last Church had been of little value to Gage. But the army and country, as Washington wrote, were "exceedingly irritated." Church was a man of pleasing address and ready language, and had stood high in Boston for years. He had written Whig pamphlets, had been an orator on the Massacre, and had served on many committees, notably the Committee of Safety. In consequence he had been given the highest office that a physician could look for, that of surgeon-general to the army. Resentment at his betrayal was extreme, and Abigail Adams was probably right when she wrote, "If he is set at liberty, even after he has received a severe punishment, I do not think he will be safe." Church was not set free. As a member of the Massachusetts Congress he was brought before the House, and allowed to make his defence, which was elaborate and able. Church claimed that he was writing to his brother, and that his intentions were harmless; but he was not believed, and was expelled from the House. Later the Continental Congress adjudged him guilty, and ordered him confined in jail. Released later on account of his health, he was allowed to sail for the West Indies. His vessel was never again heard from. This was Washington's foretaste of the treason of Arnold. It may have disturbed him deeply, but of that he gave no sign. So far as we can see, he dismissed the matter from his mind and went on with his work of providing a way for assaulting the town. Congress desired this, the country looked for it, and his own fiery nature urged him to the risk. On the 11th of September, having previously notified his generals that he would lay the question before them, he had called a council of war, and proposed an attack upon Boston. They were unanimously against it. Now, in October, he again laid the matter before his council of war, and reached practically the same result, General Greene alone thinking the scheme practical, "if ten thousand men could be landed at Boston."[127] If it is true that councils of war do not fight, the result was natural; but the situation was a very difficult one. The British had made Charlestown practically impregnable against anything except surprise, by a powerful redoubt on Bunker Hill. As for Boston itself, it was fortified at all prominent points, and was very strongly garrisoned by veteran troops. The Neck could not be forced, and to cross in boats over the Back Bay was a hazardous undertaking. It was common sense, therefore, to wait until ice should make it possible to assault the town at several points. With his wonderful patience Washington accepted the situation, and contented himself with wishing that the British would attack him. There were continual rumors that the British plan was laid, and deserters frequently came from Boston prophesying a sally; but still the regulars lay in their fastness, and did not move. FOOTNOTES: [104] One Massachusetts colonel, who had urgently applied to Ward for permission to go to the Hill, but was refused, three times ignored the order of Putnam to come to his assistance--Putnam being from Connecticut. See Frothingham's "Siege," 168, note. [105] Adams Letters, 67. [106] Bancroft, iv, 583. [107] Bancroft, iv, 590. [108] These quotations are from Lodge's "Washington," i. [109] Adams Letters, 65. [110] Sparks, "Writings of Washington," iii, 1. [111] "Writings of Washington," iii, 491. [112] "Writings of Washington," iii, 23. [113] Lodge's "Washington," i, 138. [114] Trevelyan's "Revolution," Part 1, 378, footnote. [115] See Frothingham's "Siege," and Appendix III of Vol. 3 of the "Writings of Washington." Both of these books quote Swett's "History of Bunker Hill Battle." [116] "Writings of Washington," iii, 491. [117] "Writings of Washington," iii, 22. [118] _Ibid._, iii, 71. [119] Washington's correspondence with Major Christopher French is an interesting instance of the patience of a great man with the impatience of a small one. [120] The letters that passed between Washington and Gage, and later between him and Howe, are to be found in the volumes of his "Writings," and make interesting reading. Washington had at this time no prisoners in his hands other than those taken as described, because the prisoners of the 19th of April had been exchanged on the 6th of June. [121] Fonblanque's "Burgoyne." [122] "Writings of Washington," iii. [123] "Writings of Washington," iii. [124] _Ibid._ [125] Henshaw's "Orderly Book." [126] _Ibid._ [127] Trevelyan's "Revolution," Part I. CHAPTER XII EVENTS IN BOSTON FROM JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1775 The history of events in Boston after the battle of Bunker Hill is of a quite different tenor from that which we have just been considering. From the time when the wounded, and the more distinguished of the dead, were carried over from Charlestown on the evening of the seventeenth of June, the sober truth struck home, not yet to the Tories and the common run of officers, but to the generals. They were in a tight place, from which it would be difficult to escape with credit. They might--and some of them did--reckon it out by common arithmetic. If it cost a thousand men to take a hill, and required another thousand to garrison it when taken, how much could the British army master of the rolling country that lay before its eyes? Beyond the exit from either peninsula the next hill was already fortified, and the Americans prepared to "sell it at the same price."[128] The British generals wrote very plainly in explaining the situation to their superiors at home. To be sure, Gage was a trifle disingenuous in reviewing the past. While admitting that the recent trials at arms proved the rebels "not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be," he ignored his original boast concerning lions and lambs. In stating that in all previous wars the Americans had never showed so much "conduct, attention, and perseverance," he admitted his ignorance of colonial history. But Gage was endeavoring to salve his smart and conceal his own shame. Burgoyne, with nothing to palliate, wrote very frankly. "Look, my Lord," he said to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, "upon the country near Boston. It is all fortification." His mathematics has been already quoted; he adds that the army had nothing for transport in an active campaign of any duration. Proceeding, he delicately points out that Gage was not the man for the situation, and laments again that the general had no means of knowing what passed in the American councils, or even within the American lines. This is but another proof, if one were needed, of the poor use to which Church had put his opportunities. Surely he, as Arnold later, sold his soul to little purpose. Few things in this campaign are more honorable to America than the fact that Washington's most precious secret, his lack of powder, though known to many, never came to the ears of the British generals. One may question if the truth, if told, would have been believed, for men of Gage and Howe's training could scarcely suppose a man capable of such daring and dogged obstinacy as to hold his post before them without powder, or guns, or, as it finally turned out, almost without men. But no statement has been made that the commanders heard even rumors of Washington's difficulties. After Bunker Hill, then, the British generals plainly saw that they could never campaign successfully with Boston as a base. As to what should best be done, Gage had no idea; Burgoyne, however, was ready with a plan. He proposed to keep in Boston as small a garrison, supported by as small a fleet, as could safely be left, and to send the rest of the troops and ships to harry the coast. This proposition, if by the vague term of chastisement he meant the burning of defenceless towns, was unworthy of Burgoyne; but when later he proposed with this detached force to occupy Rhode Island, doubtless using Newport as a base, he outlined a plan which, if followed, would have seriously embarrassed the Americans. But the advice was not taken, and for months the British generals contented themselves with wishing they were at New York, without taking any steps toward going there. One thing at least they should have done. It will be remembered that the American occupancy of Bunker Hill had been precipitated by knowledge of a British plan to take Dorchester Heights. This plan of Gage's was not abandoned after the battle. It is spoken of in a letter of Burgoyne's, and is laid down as a part of his scheme to make Boston secure while his marauding fleet menaced southern New England. We are even able to suppose that feeble moves toward seizing the Heights were twice made. Once a couple of regiments, on transports, dropped down the channel; and once two regiments were withdrawn from Charlestown to Boston, with various companies from the castle. Lieutenant Barker gives the reason why in the latter case nothing was done: "the Genl. hearing that they had got intelligence and reinforced that place with 4000 men." But this is mere rumor; the Americans had not yet sent any troops into Dorchester. This leaves us very much in the dark as to why the Heights were not occupied; but occupied they were not; the plan receives no further mention, and though from month to month the British watched Washington seizing posts ever nearer to Boston, they behaved in all respects as if he were under pledge to avoid Dorchester. Gage's chief activity was in fortifying. He strengthened his existing works, and entrenched himself particularly well at Bunker Hill. As the American redoubt was of little value to the British, they made their main defence upon the top of the higher hill, and mounted guns to sweep Charlestown Neck and the country beyond. Little by little both Gage and his successor strengthened this post, cutting down trees for abatis, and making advanced posts similar to those at Boston Neck. Before the end of the siege it was the strongest British post, and Washington knew better than to molest it, especially when he had a better move to make. Actual military operations were trifling. In retaliation for an American attack, on the 30th of July the regulars made a sally from Boston toward Roxbury, drove in the American advance guard, and burnt a house or two. The undertaking appears to have been without object, and resulted in nothing except some harmless cannonading. At other times armed boats ventured along the Cambridge shore, or tried the rivers, always to be sent back by the bullets of Yankee sharpshooters. When the Virginia riflemen appeared, however, there was less of this diversion. These men, finding themselves debarred from the larger field operations, resolved at least to get something in return for their long march. So they set themselves to watch for the appearance of British exploring parties, and even stalked the sentries. The officers indignantly complained that this was not war according to rule, but both they and their sentries took care not to expose themselves. The largest operation undertaken by the British was at the approach of winter, when early in November they sent a small force to Lechmere's Point, at a time when a very high tide had converted the place into an island. They took a few cows, and lost a couple of men; on retiring they pointed to the American unwillingness to attack them, but this, as we have already learned, was on account of the spoiled cartridges. All these operations, it will be seen, took place practically within the limits of the Back Bay and its adjacent waters, into which flowed the Charles River and a few creeks. Once or twice British boats tried to explore the Mystic, but with the coming of the riflemen that diversion stopped. When finally the Yankees dragged whale-boats to the Mystic and Charles, and began building floating batteries on their own account, British curiosity as to the American shore-line lapsed entirely. Down the harbor Gage did nothing, except to send, tardily, to repel American expeditions. We have seen that the British could not save the lighthouse. The Yankee fishermen now took occasion to remove from the islands the hay and live stock which they had not taken before Bunker Hill. Their activities drew from Burgoyne an indignant letter. "It may be asked in England, 'What is the Admiral doing?' "I wish I were able to answer that question satisfactorily, but I can only say what he is _not_ doing. "That he is _not_ supplying us with sheep and oxen, the dinners of the best of us bear meagre testimony; the state of our hospitals bears a more melancholy one. "He is _not_ defending his own flocks and herds, for the enemy have repeatedly plundered his own islands. "He is _not_ defending the other islands in the harbour, for the enemy in force landed from a great number of boats, and burned the lighthouse at noonday (having first killed or taken the party of marines which was posted there) almost under the guns of two or three men-of-war. "He is _not_ employing his ships to keep up communication and intelligence with the King's servants and friends at different parts of the continent, for I do not believe that General Gage has received a letter from any correspondent out of Boston these six weeks. "He is intent upon greater objects, you will think,--supporting in the great points the dignity of the British flag,--and where a number of boats have been built for the enemy; privateers fitted out; prizes carried in; the King's armed vessels sunk; the crews made prisoners; the officers killed,--he is doubtless enforcing instant restitution and reparation by the voice of his cannon and laying the towns in ashes that refuse his terms? Alas! he is not."[129] Burgoyne finishes his indictment by lumping with the admiral's inefficiencies the weaknesses of quartermaster-generals, adjutant-generals, secretaries, and commissaries. In all this we catch a glimpse of one result of the king's policy, which was to reward his friends and rebuke his enemies. Since he classed with his enemies the Whigs who were at home, he had only Tories to draw from. From them came Admiral Graves, and the crowd of incompetents who filled offices in America. The royal service was now paying the piper. One result Burgoyne has noted very plainly, in the lack of fresh provision. The admiral could have protected the stock on the harbor islands, and without unnecessary violence could have seized provisions from the shore towns. This, however, he did not do, and we soon find the army complaining of its fare. It was not that the commissary was negligent; even the moneyed officers were at times unable to satisfy their desire for fresh meat, the supply of which was uncertain. For lack of hay, the milk supply soon disappeared, since cows could not be fed and had to be killed. Cheerful news came to the American camp that the venerable town bull had been sold for beef. The army even tired of its supply of fish, which, to be sure, never was great, though then as now Boston lay close to good fishing grounds. Salt pork was the main reliance, and before the middle of the summer the army had had altogether too much of that. In consequence of this restricted diet the wounded from Bunker Hill died in great numbers. Of the wounded American prisoners very few survived. Some, as Washington heard, were operated on in the common jail, in which most of them were confined, and where the chances of their recovery were slight. They fared "very hard," said John Leach, who had opportunity to know; not one of them survived amputation. As to the rest, there can be no question that they were badly treated. Their doctor complained that they had had no bread for two days; the Provost replied "they might eat the Nail Heads, and knaw the plank and be damn'd."[130] Their more fortunate fellow-prisoners, who were not taken in arms and who received food from their families in Boston, sent the Bunker Hill prisoners what comforts they could bribe the soldiers to take to them; but, says Leach's diary, "they have no Wood for days together, to Warm their Drink, and dying men drink them cold." By the 21st of September eighteen out of twenty-nine prisoners had died in the jail. Yet even the British wounded showed a high mortality. This was largely on account of the food, which, although it was the best that was to be had, was none too good for suffering men. The high death rate was in part due to the American marksmanship, which caused many body wounds. What with such wounds, and such food, and the unaccustomed heat, there were so many deaths among the wounded that it was seriously stated that the American bullets were poisoned. There was, then, considerable discontent among the British soldiery. Of it at one time the Americans took ingenious advantage. When the wind was setting toward the British lines at Charlestown, the Americans at the Medford lines scattered handbills that were driven to the British sentries. On the bills was to be read a comparison intended to increase British discontent. It ran:-- PROSPECT HILL BUNKER'S HILL I. Seven dollars a I. Three pence a month. day. II. Fresh provisions II. Rotten salt pork. and in plenty. III. Health. III. The scurvy. IV. Freedom, ease, IV. Slavery, beggary, affluence, and and want. a good farm. These handbills thus coming into the hands of the privates were passed about secretly, until the officers got wind of the device, and complained to the Americans. The retort was that the British themselves had already been tempting sentries to desert. This deserting did go on throughout the siege, from either side, though it would seem as if more of the British fled from their service. Into whichever lines they went, the deserters always brought highly colored tales to buy their welcome. The leaders very soon learned how little reliance could be placed upon such information. "We ought not to catch at such shadows as that. We have nothing under God to depend upon, but our own strength."[131] If the British private was discontented, that was his habit; and though the officers grumbled as well, they had comparatively little to complain of. To be sure, the food was coarse, but it was plentiful. Even the unaccustomed heat would seem comfortable to a Bostonian of to-day. The marine officers had more pleasant conditions, with their open ports and harbor breezes, and decks frequently sluiced with water. But the town itself had no tall buildings or confined spaces; generally speaking, it was open from water to water, with plentiful shade. Boston in 1775 must have been as cool as its own summer resorts of the twentieth century. The Tories, at least, found it bearable. They were accustomed to the summer heat, and knew themselves much better off than the unfortunate members of their party who had been unable to escape to the British lines. Many of the country Tories were confined to their estates, and forbidden to communicate with each other. "I wish to God," wrote Samuel Paine, "all our friends were here out of the hands of such Villains." Compared with such treatment, serenades by thirteen-inch mortars and twenty-four pounders were apparently trifling--though the ladies did not think so. One, writing of the skirmish on the night of July 30, spoke of the "most dreadful cannonading," and "the apprehensions that naturally seize every one, either of the enemy breaking in, or the town being set on fire."[132] Even Samuel Paine saw the serious side of the situation. "These," he asks, "are Governor Hutchinson's countrymen that would not fight, are they?" It was because he realized that fight they would, "and like the devil," that he and others considered enlisting in the various corps which were organized in the town. According to Frothingham, who could find no statistics of the numbers of Tory volunteers, there were at least three corps formed: the Loyal American Associators under Timothy Ruggles, the Loyal Irish Volunteers under James Forrest, and the Royal Fencible Americans under Colonel Graham.[133] According to Samuel Paine, there was a fourth corps, but it is not named. A commission in one of these organizations was particularly attractive, as the service was expected to be short, and at its expiration the officers were to go upon half pay. Further, the duties were very light, being confined to drilling and patrolling the town. In the military events of the siege these corps took no part whatever. It must be remembered, however, that out of this situation England did gain some valuable soldiers. The mettle of a few of the Tories was shown at Bunker Hill, where they went as individual volunteers, and served with the troops. Others, disdaining the toy-soldiering of their friends, seized the chance to join the regular army, and fought in it throughout the war, or until their deaths. Such men were John Coffin, Leverett Saltonstall, and the two Thomas Gilberts. Yet men of this quality were few, and at least at this stage of the war the Tories were of little service to their king. Most of them were content to wait until the time when the regulars should scatter the besiegers and conduct the loyalists to their homes. Meanwhile they enjoyed the society into which they were thrown. "We have here," wrote Samuel Paine, "Earls, Lords, and Baronets, I assure you Names that Sound grand." These names did bring to the Tories a fair amount of social gayety. Mrs. Gage was at the head of her own little circle, not always enjoyed by those who could not forget her American birth. There were other groups of ladies who, whether English or Tory, contrived to make the time pass pleasantly for themselves and for the men. With few responsibilities, and with confidence in the future, the loyalists had a pleasant enough summer, and saw ahead of them a comfortable winter. The situation of the Whigs was not so enjoyable. Before Bunker Hill, every one of them who could leave Boston had done so. But there were many of them left, and among them were a number of the more respectable and prominent of the Whigs. None of them wrote letters, and few indeed kept diaries; there is, therefore, a notable lack of information concerning their doings. We do know, however, that they were at a great disadvantage as against their Tory acquaintances. No privileges of the commissary were theirs, and no favors were to be had from the military authorities. When there was fresh meat in the town the Whigs could get little of it without repudiating their political creed; when the supply was scant, the Whigs went without. "They even denied us," wrote John Andrews, looking back upon this period, "the privilege of buying the surplusage of the soldiers' rations." Even before Bunker Hill he had written, "It's hard to stay cooped up here and feed upon salt provisions, more especially without one's wife.... Pork and beans one day, and beans and pork another, and fish when we can catch it." Throughout the summer the situation was little bettered. "A loaf of bread the size we formerly gave three pence for, thought ourselves well off to get for a shilling. Butter at two shillings. Milk, for months without tasting any." There were certain Whigs whose experiences were more grim. To Gage, always in fear of betrayal to the enemy, there came rumors pointing to men whose known sentiments, or whose actions, subjected them to suspicion. Among these were one Carpenter, a barber, who had swum to Cambridge and back; one "Dorrington, his son and maid, for blowing up flies"[134]; but particularly John Leach and James Lovell, schoolmasters, with Peter Edes, printer, and his father's partner, John Gill. All of these four were obnoxious to the Tories, being outspoken Whigs and teachers of sedition, whether in their schools or their publications. One by one they were imprisoned in the common jail, and held there during various terms. Their treatment was harsh and ungenerous, held in close neighborhood with felons and loose livers, and not informed of what they were accused. Leach and Edes kept diaries when in prison. "From the 2d July to the 17th," writes Leach, "a Complicated scene of Oaths, Curses, Debauchery, and the most horrid Blasphemy, committed by the Provost Marshal, his Deputy and Soldiers, who were our guard, Soldier prisoners, and sundry soldier women, confined for Thefts, &c.... When our Wives, Children, and Friends came to see us, (which was seldom they were permitted) we seemed to want them gone, notwithstanding we were desirous of their Company, as they were exposed to hear the most abandon'd language, as was grating to the ears of all sober persons." This Leach suspected to be intentional, but the offensive actions and words were incessant, especially on Sundays. On the 17th Leach's son died, "whom I left well in my house"; but he was not allowed to attend the funeral, nor to be tried, nor dismissed. Three weeks after he and Lovell had been put in jail they first learned of what they were accused: Lovell of "being a Spy, and giving intelligence to the rebels," and Leach of "being a spy, and suspected of taking plans." Their examination was a farce, the witness against them not knowing them apart. They were remanded to jail, and lay there until October. Lovell fell sick, and got a little better food, but no attention from his jailers--"no Compassion toward him any more than a Dog." On the same day Leach noted that the Provost "Cursed and Damned my little Child, for a Damn'd Rebel; he even Trembles at bringing my Diet." Lovell grew better, and the vexatious treatment continued with petty tyrannies. At last, although no trial had yet been held, Edes, Gill, and Leach were released upon sureties of two inhabitants that they would not leave the town. Lovell was kept in jail. He was son of Master John Lovell of the Latin School, in which he was usher until the opening of the war. His frank utterances had so incensed the authorities that they kept him in prison until the end of the siege, and then carried him with them to Halifax. His father was a Tory, and, so far as the diaries of the prison mates show, made no attempt to visit his son in prison. James Lovell was exchanged in the summer of 1776. Through Edes' prison diary, and the brief jottings which pass for the journal of Timothy Newell, selectman, we get a glimpse of a turncoat. The incident in which he figures is the only one that caused Newell, who gave a scant hundred and twenty-five words to Bunker Hill battle, to write at any length. One John Morrison, formerly minister at Peterborough, New Hampshire, had been "obliged," says Edes, "to quit his people on account of his scandalous behaviour." He joined the provincial army, and is said to have fought at Bunker Hill; but a week later he joined the British with the usual misstatements of the American intentions. In the middle of September, Morrison moved for permission to use for his services the Brattle Street Church, "Dr. Cooper's Meetinghouse," of which Timothy Newell was a member of the parish committee. Newell, "with an emotion of resentment," roundly refused to deliver the key to Morrison and his friends, and made his way into the presence of the governor, where he stated that Morrison was a man of infamous character. But the turncoat had respectable backers. Gage required the key of Newell, and got it; and Morrison held at least one service in the church. It was to this service, on the 17th of September, that Edes was conducted, doubtless as a privilege, and heard a political sermon on the ingratitude of the provincials. Edes remarked that the Tories present affected to grin, but it was horribly, with a ghastly smile. The newspapers, however, called it an excellent discourse to a genteel audience, and announced regular services. Morrison, still contemptuously styled the deserter, figures again in Newell's diary in November, when he informed against an old Dutch woman for trying to carry out of town more money than her permit allowed. His profit on this was ten dollars. When winter approached, the Brattle Street Church was taken for use as a barracks, and Morrison got himself a place in the commissary department, which perhaps was more to his liking than sermonizing.[135] The interview with Newell gives us a glimpse of Gage in almost the last of his troubles with the stiff-necked Bostonians. Less than a fortnight later[136] he received word from London that the king desired his presence, in order to consult upon future operations. Probably the unlucky commander saw in the message the end of his commission, but he went as one expecting to return. As was customary, he was presented with adulatory addresses, and on October 10 departed in state. His welcome in England was not so stately. The king did give him an interview, and listened attentively to his explanations, but it was popularly suggested that the unsuccessful general be created Lord Lexington, Baron of Bunker Hill. Gage's command was not restored to him, and he never again went on active service. One legacy indeed he left, perhaps the worst act of his administration and the most far-reaching, although the personal blame does not lie with Gage himself. On the 4th of October he sent out a small fleet of vessels which accomplished more harm than good. It skirmished with privateers, and eventually, reaching Falmouth, now Portland in Maine, but then in Massachusetts territory, attempted to levy upon the town. Captain Mowatt, the commander, picked a quarrel with the inhabitants, and finding them unyielding, burnt their village. The blame lies between Mowatt and Admiral Graves, both of whom had grudges against the town on account of a previous incident. The ministry repudiated the act, but the fact is undeniable that it was within the spirit of the instructions given to a later expedition, to "destroy any towns" that would not submit.[137] The effect on the Americans, however, was very far from teaching submission. The news of the burning of Falmouth did as much as any other event to impress the provincials with the impossibility of an agreement with the king. In Gage's place now stood Howe, on whom the British hopes centred. According to the Tory Samuel Paine, Howe united the spirit of a Wolfe with the genius of a Marlborough. Without prizing him quite so highly, both the army and the administration looked to Howe for action and results. It seemed to them that now at last something must happen. But Howe, though with a willing army at his back, disciplined and well equipped, did nothing. He strengthened the Charlestown lines and the fort on Bunker Hill, he improved the defences at Boston Neck, and he began various batteries on Beacon Hill and the shores of the Common. He demolished a number of buildings in the north end of the town, in order to make communication between his posts more direct. But except for the little expedition across the Back Bay to Lechmere's Point, which netted a few cows, Howe attempted no offensive operations. As already shown, the regulars returned from Lechmere's Point as soon as the provincials assembled in numbers, and no attempt was made to hold the little hill. Other skirmishes there were from time to time, but these were insignificant, and they were all. The fact is that Howe's opinion coincided exactly with those of Gage and Burgoyne. The country was too strong to be forced, especially since the Americans had spent a summer on their entrenchments. There was no profit in taking a rebel fort if the army and its situation were to be weakened thereby. Howe looked with longing eyes toward New York, took up Burgoyne's idea of a post in Rhode Island, and believed that if he had twenty thousand men holding all three positions the rebels would be beaten. But such an army was not forthcoming, and the question arose whether he had best stay in Boston or go to New York. In reply to questions from the ministry, Howe pointed out that he had not a large enough fleet to convey himself, his stores, and the Tories, from the place. It was therefore understood that more ships and men should be supplied him in the spring, and that meanwhile he should go into winter quarters. This was done. Buildings in the town were arranged to accommodate the troops, two of the churches being fitted up for this purpose. The tents were struck, and the army made itself snug. Howe busied himself with routine matters of the camp, and refused to budge. Though Washington first fortified Cobble Hill in Somerville, the nearest he had yet come to the British posts, and though after that he came a step nearer, seizing Lechmere's Point, Howe simply fired from cannon, but made no attempt to storm the works. The cannonading merely inured the Americans to danger, and seeing that it did them good rather than harm, Howe presently stopped it. Washington, perhaps not aware of the strength of his own position, declared himself "unable, upon any principle whatever," to account for Howe's inaction. He suspected it might be intended to lull him into a false sense of security, but resolved to be more vigilant than ever. FOOTNOTES: [128] This expression is ascribed to General Nathanael Greene. [129] Fonblanque's "Burgoyne," 197-198. [130] Leach's "Journal." [131] William T. Miller, of Newport, R.I., to his wife Lydia. Mass. Hist. and Gen. Register, 1855. [132] Frothingham's "Siege," 230. [133] _Ibid._, 279. [134] This obscure diversion caused the Dorringtons to be suspected of signalling at night to the rebels. [135] Leach's and Edes' "Journals," N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, 1865; Newell's "Journal," Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, i, series iv; Frothingham's "Siege," 239; Sabine's "Loyalists." [136] September 26. [137] Instructions for Clinton's expedition to the southward. Frothingham's "Siege," 292. CHAPTER XIII WASHINGTON'S DIFFICULTIES The situation at Boston in the fall of 1775 presents an interesting comparison: two generals of opposing armies, each ready to welcome an attack, but each unable to deliver one. The difference between the two, and the fact which determined the outcome, was in the natures of the two men. Howe, from a certain sluggishness of disposition, was content to sit tight, and wait until the government at home should send him his relief. Though at each move his enemy came nearer, Howe still appeared to believe that Dorchester was safe from seizure, and was content so to believe. But Washington was not satisfied to be still. His nature urged him to action, and though he knew himself too weak for an assault, he constantly schemed and worked to put his army into condition to strike. In some ways his organization was already complete. He had under him many of the men who were to serve him through the war. To be sure, he had Charles Lee, "the worst present that could be made to any army;" but Lee's part in the siege was slight, for Washington frequently employed him for distant undertakings. Gates was still present also, but in a subordinate capacity. And another of those who, before the war was over, did their best to wreck the American cause, was present for a while in the person of Benedict Arnold, already distinguished by his share in the taking of Ticonderoga. Early in September, however, Arnold was sent on his fruitless mission against Quebec. But besides these men, not one of whom had as yet proved his weakness, Washington had already at his back some of the best soldiers whom the war produced. Among the higher officers were Putnam, Thomas, Sullivan, Heath, and more particularly Greene. Of lower grade were Stark, Morgan, Prescott, and, not yet well known, Knox, the Boston bookseller whom we have seen endeavoring to prevent the Massacre, who had studied tactics in his own volumes and at the manoeuvres of the regulars, and who had escaped from Boston just before the 17th of June. There were yet others who were destined to distinguish themselves, and Washington knew that he had, among his officers, as courageous and intelligent soldiers as were to be found anywhere. Yet they were but a nucleus, while his supplies remained few and poor, and the organization of the army unsatisfactory. As the winter approached, Washington looked forward uneasily to the expiration of the terms of enlistment of his troops. Some would lapse in December, the rest at the first of January. His regiments were not uniform in size, and they retained too much of the provincial jealousy which had already troubled him, and which had perhaps lost Bunker Hill. It was very evident to him that an entirely new army should be organized. It was therefore welcome to him that Congress should send a committee to help him in the matter of reorganization. On October 18 the committee, with Franklin at its head, met with Washington, his staff, and delegates from the four colonies which until now had, practically alone, been prosecuting the siege. The subject had been already discussed by the council of war, and the little convention was made acquainted with the discrepancies in the organizations of the different regiments, and the needs of the army. It was decided to reduce the number of regiments from thirty-eight to twenty-six. This meant not so much to reduce the number of men as the number of officers. The term of reënlistment was to be one year, and the delegates assured Washington that he could count on twenty thousand men from Massachusetts, eight thousand from Connecticut, three thousand from New Hampshire, and fifteen hundred from Rhode Island. The regiments were to be uniform in size, consisting of eight companies each; besides regular infantry, there were to be riflemen and artillery. A system for clothing and supplying the army was agreed upon. When the little convention had broken up, the Committee from Congress remained for a few days, revising the articles of war, considering the disposition of naval prizes, and discussing a number of minor topics. Upon the committee's return to Philadelphia, its actions were ratified by Congress.[138] Washington then set himself with new assurance to his task. Thanks to the convention, he felt that he had a united country at his back, and that much had been done to dissipate colonial jealousies. These are surprising to us of to-day: one is astonished to find Greene seriously assuring "the gentlemen from the southward" that the four New England colonies, as soon as they had conquered King George, would not turn their arms against the South. Yet had there been any such intention, the New Englanders already had their hands full with the British, and Washington was by no means out of the woods. On paper he had an excellent organization; but in fact, everything was still to be done. With the approach of winter, the first task was to house his army. This was gradually accomplished, and the regiments went into their winter quarters. For a time, however, there was a scarcity of food and fuel. This was due, not to a lack of either, but to the weakness in the system of providing for them. For some weeks there was distress and discontent; at times we are told that the troops ate their provision raw, and most of the orchards and shade trees within the camp were cut down for fuel. Washington vigorously represented the state of the case to the Massachusetts congress; he gave permission to cut wood in private wood-lots, promising payment; and finally the need was met. The towns sent generous supplies of wood to the camp, rations were provided in plenty, and the only period of hardship which the Americans endured was safely passed before the winter set in. There was not much for the army to do when once the barracks were built and new quarters taken. The work of fortifying Lechmere's Point went on slowly, on account of the frost; it was not until the end of February that the redoubt was completed, and its guns mounted. But the troops were drilled, and were kept busy in perfecting the fortifications. Washington seized every chance to improve his defences, as we see him when planning new redoubts to guard against the possibility of a sortie from the Neck.[139] The news of the burning of Falmouth reached Washington on the 24th of October, and greatly roused his indignation. As it was expected that the British fleet might next descend upon Portsmouth, he sent General Sullivan thither, with orders to put the harbor in a state of defence, and at all events to save the small store of powder which had been brought into that place. This was a capture by the little navy. Mowatt's fleet, however, made no attempt upon Portsmouth, and presently returned to Boston. Feeling temporarily secure against further depredations upon the coast, Washington put his whole energy into the reorganization of his army. The period from the end of November until the early part of February was one of the hardest in Washington's career. His difficulties were those which we have seen already, want of powder and want of arms, but to them was added the great fear of a lack of men. As to powder, its supply still fluctuated, small quantities coming in irregularly, and being steadily used in equally niggardly amounts, or slowly spoiling in the soldiers' pouches. Muskets were still scanty, and Washington saw no hope except in buying those of his soldiers whose terms were about to expire, or in sending agents through the neighboring towns to secure what they could find. There was a corresponding lack of cannon, bayonets, flints, and small appurtenances. But weaknesses of this kind were nothing as compared with the threatened weakness in men. Washington was deeply disappointed at his failure to recruit his newly planned army. Although the delegates of the provinces had promised him full regiments, the new recruiting system seemed to fail almost entirely. The general presently perceived several distinct factors that were working against its success. In the first place, the new plan provided for fewer officers in the new army. Many of the provincial regiments, especially those of Massachusetts, had been over-officered, and now, when the number of regiments was less by twelve, it was evident that scores of officers must either accept lower rank or leave the army entirely. It was found that most of those who could not obtain equal rank were unwilling to remain, and that they were influencing their men to leave the army with them. Besides this, provincial jealousies worked strongly in this matter of officers. Massachusetts officers who had been forced out of service might have found places in the Connecticut regiments, but the soldiers of the other colony would have none of them. For each company and each platoon held firmly to the old idea that it must be consulted concerning its officers, and no private would consent to be commanded by a man from another colony. This alone made plentiful trouble. Finally the men themselves had ideas of their own as to whether they cared to enlist. To begin with, the shrewd among them reckoned that if they only held out long enough they might secure bounties for reënlisting. Some were finicky as to their officers, and waited until they should be satisfied. And most of them perceived that as a reward for patriotism they might at least receive furloughs, and stood out for them. The details of the work of enlisting were very obscure and complicated. It was found that officers were endeavoring to recruit their own companies, and in their zeal had enrolled men who were already registered elsewhere. Outsiders, anxious for commissions, were similarly forming companies, and presenting them for acceptance. Washington steadily refused to receive such unauthorized organizations. And finally it was suspected that many men who had given in their names had no intention of serving. What would make their defection more certain was the irregularity of pay. Congress had appropriated sums of money, but the currency reached Washington slowly. It was very singular, he complained, that the signers of the scrip could not keep pace with his needs. Further, Congress had a very imperfect idea of the magnitude of his legitimate needs; the appropriations were niggardly. As the new year approached, when it was important that the men should be paid, and receive assurance of further pay, Washington wrote to urge more remittances, that the soldiers might be satisfied. Even the crews of the little navy gave Washington no peace. His "plague, trouble, and vexation" with them he was unable to express; he believed that there was not on earth a more disorderly set. One crew deserted, and its vessel was docked. To be sure, there were moments of satisfaction in these dreary weeks of trial. Certain of the rejected officers rose above their disappointments. One of these was Colonel Whitcomb, who was not given a regiment in the new establishment. At this his men became so dissatisfied that they decided not to enlist at all. Colonel Whitcomb, in order to persuade them to remain, announced his willingness to enlist as a private. The situation was saved by Colonel Jonathan Brewer, who offered his command to Colonel Whitcomb. Washington, in a general order, thanked both of the officers. Brewer was made Barrack-Master, "until something better worth his acceptance can be provided."[140] Other relief was provided by captures of British vessels. Of great importance to both armies was the capture of the _Nancy_, an ordnance brig with a complete cargo of military supplies--saving only powder. So valuable did Washington consider the capture that he at once sent four companies to the spot where the stores were landed, impressed teams for transportation, and called out the neighboring militia lest Howe should make an effort to recover the royal property. The British were on their part greatly disgusted at the loss of the brig, not merely as weakening them, but also as strengthening the enemy. The chief prize on the ship was a thirteen-inch brass mortar, which on its arrival in camp was greeted with acclamation, and by means of a bottle of rum was solemnly christened the Congress. It was about this time that Washington had the satisfaction of being joined by his wife. There had been a suggestion that her residence on the Potomac was not safe, but even before the naval raids Washington had begun to suggest her joining him. She arrived on the 11th of December, and resided until the end of the siege with him at his headquarters in the old house still standing on Brattle Street, Cambridge. The house has had an interesting history, having been built by the Tory Vassalls, occupied by the Marblehead regiment, by Washington, by Dr. Andrew Craigie, surgeon at Bunker Hill, by Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, Noah Webster, and by the poet Longfellow, whose family still owns it. The quarters were for Washington central and pleasant; they gave him his last taste of home life for years. [Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS] Yet we are not to imagine him at any time free of difficulties. With December began his troubles with the Connecticut troops, whose enlistment had expired. In spite of previous promises to remain until their places were filled, and against orders to leave their weapons, many of the Connecticut men tried to slip away, guns and all. Washington frequently speaks of them in his letters of the first half of December. In securing their return he was well aided by the officers, and by the aged but still energetic Governor Trumbull, who heard of the actions of his men with "grief, surprise, and indignation." Trumbull called the assembly of Connecticut together to consider the situation, but action was forestalled by the people of the different towns. The hint that the soldiers had best return voluntarily, lest they be sent back with a feathered adornment that nature had not provided, was sufficient to hurry most of them back to their service. No sooner had this matter been smoothed over, than Washington had to meet the general situation, when on the first of January most of the enlistments would expire. For some weeks he had been anxiously watching the returns of the enlistments, and the figures frequently plunged him into depression. On the 28th of November, finding that but thirty-five hundred men had enlisted, he wrote: "Such a dearth of public spirit, such stock-jobbing, and such fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantages of one kind or another, in this great change of military arrangement, I never saw before, and pray God's mercy I may never be witness to again." A week later he found himself under obligations to give furlough to fifteen hundred men a week, in order to satisfy them. To fill their places and those of the Connecticut troops, he called on Massachusetts and New Hampshire for five thousand militia. By the middle of December scarcely six thousand men had enlisted, and on Christmas Day only eight thousand five hundred. On New Year's Day his army, which was to have been at least twenty thousand men, was not quite half that number. Under such circumstances many a weaker man would have thrown up his office or abandoned his post. Washington stuck to his task. If Howe would but remain inactive, the laggard country would in time retrieve itself. As a matter of fact, many of the soldiers, after a brief period of liberty, returned of their own accord to the standard. We find at least one case in the diary of David How, which, in addition to revealing his actions, gives a glimpse of the camp at the end of the year, when many of the men were going away, and the others were joining their new regiments. "This Day," writes How on the 30th of December, "we paraded and had our guns took from us By the Major to prise them. "31. This Day we have been In an uprore about packun our Things up In order to go home a Monday morning as Soon as we Can. "Jan 1. We have ben all Day a pecking up our Things For to go home. "2d we all Left Cambridg this morning I went to mr. Granger and staid all night. "3d I went to methuen. "5d I went to Haver hill to by some Leather for Bretches. "6 day I come to Andover and Staid at Mr. osgoods. "7 day I come to Cambridge about Six a Clock at Night. "Jany the 8 1776 This Day I Began with Mr. Watson.... "Jan 14.[141] This Day I wint to Cobble Hill & to Litchmor point and to prospeck hill & So Home again. Nothing new. "22. I listed with Leut David Chandler in Coln Sergant Regment." And so David How, veteran of Bunker Hill, and doubtless many other young men, found the lure of the camp, and let us say the chance to serve the country, too much to withstand. Freedom to earn their own wages, and to stroll about the fortifications on Sundays, were not to be measured against the romance of soldiering and the hope of battle. This same New Year's Day, 1776, occurred an event of importance in the hoisting of the flag with the thirteen stripes. Previously the colonies had used different devices, in the South a rattlesnake flag with the motto, "Don't tread on me," and for the Connecticut troops the colony arms and the motto _Qui transtulit sustinet_, "which we construe thus: 'God, who transplanted us hither, will support us.'"[142] Massachusetts had used the pinetree flag and the motto "Appeal to Heaven," and the little navy had a sign by which its ships were known to each other, "the ensign up to the main topping-lift." Now for the first time the thirteen stripes with the British crosses in the corner were raised, amid much enthusiasm. Curiously, this coincided with the coming of the king's recent speech in Parliament, and a strange interpretation was put upon the appearance of the new flag. The British had caused to be sent to the American lines many copies of the speech, expecting that its expression of the king's determination to prosecute the war, even by the use of foreign troops, would bring the rebels to their knees. The cheering in the American camp, all the louder on account of the sentiments of his gracious majesty, and the appearance of the new flag, combined to make the British suppose that the provincials were weakening. "By this time," wrote Washington grimly on the 4th, "I presume they begin to think it strange, that we have not made a formal surrender of our lines." It was well that he could jest, however sternly, for his situation was newly complicated by the permission of Congress to attack Boston whenever he might think expedient, "notwithstanding the town and property in it may be destroyed." Such permission was equivalent to a broad hint, and there were not lacking suggestions from many obscure quarters that the country would be more content if its general should relieve it of the presence of the British army. Of "chimney corner heroes" Washington had a genuine contempt, but the resolve of Congress was another matter, especially when it came through the hands of John Hancock. He was the largest property-owner in the town, and prospectively the greatest sufferer by its destruction, yet he cheerfully wrote, "May God crown your attempt with success!" Long before now, had Washington been able, he would have attempted to storm the town. But as often as he called a council of war to consider the matter, so often did his generals advise against the attempt. The Americans were doubtful, and Lee, affecting to mistrust the temper of the troops, would not advise the venture. As to burning the town by throwing carcasses[143] into it, Lee told the others that the town could not be set on fire by such means. Washington looked for a chance to assault the town by crossing on the ice, but for a long time the Back Bay did not freeze, and when at last it did, he had neither men nor powder. Such then was his situation when he answered the letter of Hancock.[144] He begged Congress to consider his situation if, in spite of their wishes, he did not act. And that they should clearly understand, he wrote these words:-- "It is not in the pages of history, perhaps, to furnish a case like ours. To maintain a post within musket shot of the enemy, for six months together, without and at the same time to disband one army, and recruit another, within that distance of twenty-odd British regiments, is more, probably, than was ever attempted." The significant omission in this passage is the word "powder." At another time, when doubtful of the safety of his letter, he used the paraphrase, "what we greatly need." He knew that his correspondents would supply the omission and interpret the reference. But once at least, on the 14th of January, when writing to Joseph Reed, formerly his aide, to whom at this period he seems to have written more freely than to any one else, Washington gave a complete account of his situation when almost at its worst, and ended with an explanation of his state of mind. Conditions are so completely summarized, and his thoughts are so frankly given, that the paragraphs had best be given entire. "Our enlistments are at a stand; the fears I ever entertained are realized; that is, the _discontented officers_ (for I do not know how else to account for it) have thrown such difficulties or stumbling-blocks in the way of recruiting, that I no longer entertain a hope of completing the army by voluntary enlistments, and I see no move or likelihood to do it by other means. In the last two weeks we have enlisted but about a thousand men; whereas I was confidently led to believe, by all the officers I conversed with, that we should by this time have had the regiments nearly completed. Our total number upon paper amounts to about ten thousand five hundred; but as a large portion of these are returned _not joined_, I never expect to receive them, as an ineffectual order has once issued to call them in. Another is now gone forth, peremptorily requiring all officers under pain of being cashiered, and recruits of being treated as deserters, to join their respective regiments by the 1st day of next month, that I may know my real strength; but if my fears are not imaginary, I shall have a dreadful account of the advanced month's pay.[145] In consequence of the assurances given, and my expectation of having at least men enough to defend our lines, to which may be added my unwillingness to burthen the cause with unnecessary expense, no relief of militia has been ordered in, to supply the places of those, who are released from their engagements tomorrow, and as to whom, though many have promised to continue out the month, there is no security for their stay. "Thus I am situated with respect to men. With regard to arms I am yet worse off. Before the dissolution of the old army, I issued an order directing three judicious men of each brigade to attend, review, and appraise the good arms of every regiment; and finding a very great unwillingness in the men to part with their arms, at the same time not having it in my power to pay them for the months of November and December, I threatened severely, that every soldier, who should carry away his firelock without leave, should never receive pay for those months; yet so many have been carried off, partly by stealth, but chiefly as condemned, that we have not at this time one hundred guns in the stores, of all that have been taken in the prize ship and from the soldiery, notwithstanding our regiments are not half complete. At the same time I am told, and believe it, that to restrain the enlistment to men with arms, you will get but few of the former, and still fewer of the latter which would be good for anything. "How to get furnished I know not. I have applied to this and the neighboring colonies, but with what success time only can tell. The reflection of my situation, and that of this army, produces many an unhappy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in, on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if, instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks, or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country, and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these and many other difficulties, I shall most religiously believe, that the finger of Providence is in it, to blind the eyes of our enemies; for surely if we get well through this month, it must be for want of their knowing the difficulties we labor under. "Could I have foreseen the difficulties, which have come upon us; could I have known, that such a backwardness would have been discovered among the old soldiers to the service, all the generals on earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston till this time."[146] One more blow Washington was to receive, in the news of the failure of the expedition against Quebec. This came to him on the 17th of January. But from about that time, though very slowly, the prospect began to brighten. His army strengthened, money was loaned him by Massachusetts, and though early in February he reported that he had in camp two thousand men without guns, even muskets were eventually provided. Moreover, cannon were now supplied him, through the exertions of Henry Knox. Washington had detached him in November to go to Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and provide means for bringing the captured cannon to camp. The general had even hoped that more might be had from Quebec, but that expectation was now gone. Knox, in the face of many difficulties, fulfilled his mission. On December 17 he wrote from Lake George that he had got the cannon as far as that point, and with forty-two "exceedingly strong sleds" and eighty yoke of oxen expected to make the journey to Springfield, whence fresh cattle would bring him to Cambridge. The artillery, in this humble manner, at last arrived, howitzers, mortars, and cannon, fifty-five pieces of iron or brass. With what had been captured elsewhere the supply was ample, and the guns, after a delay at Framingham, were mounted at the fortifications, or reserved for the attempt to take Dorchester. Powder also had slowly come in faster than it was used or could spoil, and Washington found himself almost ready to act. When at last he could draw a long breath, with the feeling that the worst of the situation was over, he gave, in letters to Joseph Reed and John Hancock, his opinion of his army as it then was, and of the means to make it better. Placed behind any kind of shelter, his provincials would give a good account of themselves. But they could not yet be depended on to make an assault in the open field. For this they would have to receive severer training, and in order to acquaint them with their proper duties a longer term of service was necessary. Even now, at the beginning of another year of service, the men had the officers too much in their power, for indulgence was necessary in order to make them enlist again. He was therefore firmly of the opinion that his present army, and all new recruits, should be enlisted "for and during the war." Thus Washington, looking beyond his still uncompleted task, like Lincoln many years later, perceived the only means to final success. But with the means which he had at hand he was now impatient to act. It was almost March, and at any time Howe might receive the reinforcements which would enable him to take the offensive. Washington prepared to fortify Dorchester as soon as the state of the ground would permit of digging, and in order to lessen the work he prepared fascines--which were bundles of sticks--and chandeliers or frameworks to hold the bundles in place in order to serve as the body of an embankment. Remembering how at Bunker Hill the regulars had been led to suppose that the troops at the rail fence, protected by nothing except the rails and hay, were behind an embankment, he collected ropes of hay to use if necessary for the same purpose, but also to bind the wheels of his carts that they might make no noise. Carts he collected to the number of three hundred. In the Charles River he prepared boats enough to carry twenty-eight hundred men. Two floating batteries were also made ready there; a third had earlier been destroyed by the bursting of its cannon when firing at the camp on the Common. Washington was about to strike, with the suddenness which characterized him, but also with the thorough readiness. For his camp, even if temporarily, was now full. Early in February came in ten regiments of militia, summoned on service until the first of April. They manifested, he wrote with satisfaction, the greatest alertness, and the determination of men engaged in the cause of freedom. And on the first of March he called into camp the militia of the neighboring towns, who were to report at Roxbury fully equipped for three days' service. To these men was read his general order, preparing their minds for action. They were forbidden to play at cards or other games of chance, and advised to ponder the importance of the cause in which they were enlisted. "But it may not be amiss for the troops to know," he added, "that if any man in action shall presume to skulk, or hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his commanding officer, he will be instantly shot down." And with this exhortation and warning Washington concluded his preparations. FOOTNOTES: [138] See the "Writings of Washington," iii, 123-124, note. [139] See letter to Ward, "Writings," iii, 161. [140] See the "Writings of Washington," iii, 161, note. The facts concerning Washington's difficulties with enlisting are taken chiefly from this volume, where they can best be studied. [141] This was a Sunday. [142] Frothingham's "Siege," 104. [143] Carcasses were hollow shells with several openings. They were filled with combustibles, and when thrown into a town were intended to set fire to buildings. [144] Washington's communications to Congress were addressed to Hancock, as its President. [145] He had paid in advance all who had enlisted. [146] "Writings of Washington," iii, 238-241. CHAPTER XIV THE WINTER IN BOSTON When the British army went into winter quarters it was nearly at the end of its difficulties concerning food. Supplies from England had been very meagre, and the occasional raids had provided poorly for the wants of the town. But since October matters had improved, largely because of the criticism of the English Whigs in Parliament. These pointed out the inactivity of the troops, the humiliation of the situation, the sickness and want in Boston. In order that nothing should be left undone to remedy the last, the perplexed ministry spent money lavishly to provision its garrison. Five thousand oxen, fourteen thousand sheep, with a great number of hogs, were purchased, and shipped alive. Vegetables, preserved by a new process, were bought in quantities; wheat and flour were collected; wood, coal, hay, and other fodder, with beer, porter, rum, Geneva, and the more innocent vinegar, were generously provided. To be sure, the commissions on all these purchases provided fortunes for the relatives of those in office, and the ship-owners found excuses for setting sail as late as possible, in order to increase the hire of their craft. As a result, much of the vast expense--some six hundred thousand pounds for provisions alone--was wasted. Contrary gales detained the ships; the live stock died by wholesale, and was thrown overboard; the vegetables spoiled; and numbers of the ships were lost outright. Others, arriving without convoy at the American coast, were captured by the watchful privateers. But of such vast supplies enough reached Boston to relieve the worst distresses of the inhabitants. Though the poorer of the Whigs had either to sign humiliating declarations in order to share in the rations of the troops, or else to continue on meagre fare, there was enough in the general market for the well-to-do among them to supply themselves. John Andrews, for instance, though he lived at the rate of six or seven hundred sterling a year, after October ate scarcely three meals of salt meat, "for I was determined to eat fresh provissions, while it was to be got, let it cost what it would." There was, however, for months a great shortage of fuel. As the winter set in early, and with severity, large quantities were needed, and there was little on hand. The troops, of their own initiative, had already, even in the summer, begun to make depredations on private property, stealing gates and breaking up fences. This the commanders endeavored to stop, but took the hint and did the same by official condemnation. As so many of the inhabitants had left the town, the abandoned houses were torn down for fuel. When the winter came, the troops again began on their own account to steal wood. Howe threatened to hang the next man caught in the act, but still was forced to follow the example. In choosing buildings for destruction, it was very natural to select Whig property. Perhaps the harshest assault on provincial sentiment had been made in summer, when during August Liberty Tree was felled. The Whigs felt very indignant, but took a peculiar pleasure in the reflection that during the operation a soldier had been accidentally killed. In the various poems written on the occasion the wretch's soul was unanimously consigned to Hades. It was besides remarked that the genuine tree of liberty, of which this had been but a symbol, had now grown so great as to overshadow the continent. Besides Liberty Tree, the property of leading Whigs suffered, "My house and barn," writes Newell the selectman, on the 16th of November, "pulled down by order of General Robinson." Leach the schoolmaster, whose imprisonment had made him a marked man, had a hard fight to save his property. On Christmas Day he found a party of soldiers destroying his wharf, which had been allotted, as was the custom, to one of the regiments, in this case the light dragoons. In spite of his efforts Leach was not able to stop this destruction, as evidently in the present state of the town there was no use for wharves. But when his schoolhouse was threatened he carried the matter to headquarters. Howe said Leach had corresponded with the people without. "I denied the charge.... Finally I told him, as an Englishman, and a subject of the King's, I claimed protection of my property; and if my House was pulled down, I would follow him to England, or to China, for satisfaction. I expected he would get angry, and order me under Guard, or else to Gaol again. However, in General he behaved kindly." Howe referred him to his subordinates, who delayed giving orders until the soldiers had already broken into the schoolhouse. With much resolution Leach got them from the house and stood on guard at the door until by referring to Howe the schoolhouse was saved. But Leach had meanwhile lost "valuable Books and Instruments, Drawings, Colours, Brushes, several curious Optick Glasses, and sundry things of Value that I brought from India and China, that I cannot replace for money."[147] At this time was pulled down the Old North Church, the steeple of the West Church, and John Winthrop's house, one of the oldest landmarks in the town. Over in Charlestown the troops used for fuel the deserted houses that had not been consumed on the 17th of June. At one time they were demolishing a mill near the American lines, but the provincials drove them away and presently burnt the mill. At another time, by a similar endeavor to lessen the British supply of fuel, there was brought about one of the more amusing incidents of the siege. The officers in Boston, having little active work to do, were endeavoring to forget the irksomeness and the humiliation of their situation. Through no fault of their own the position was a hard one; they had boasted, and were not allowed to make good their vainglory; they had despised their adversaries, and were cooped up in a provincial town. In letters home they uneasily endeavored to explain their inaction; by return mail they learned what the wits of London had to say of both them and the country. "Mrs. Brittania," remarked Horace Walpole, "orders her Senate to proclaim America a continent of cowards, and vote it should be starved, unless it would drink tea with her. She sends her only army to be besieged in one of her towns, and half her fleet to besiege the _terra firma_; but orders her army to do nothing, in hopes that the American Senate in Philadelphia will be so frightened at the British army being besieged in Boston that it will sue for peace." There was sting in these words, but no remedy for the smart. In order to forget such flings, and to banish the consideration of crowded quarters, irregular rations (for there still were periods of lean supply), slow pay, and inaction, the officers tried to kill time. The cavalry regiments searched for a means of exercising their horses, and Burgoyne is credited with the solution of their problem. Newell recorded in his journal how his church, after being profaned by Morrison, was examined by the colonel of the light horse, to see if the building was available for a riding-school. "But when it was considered that the Pillars must be taken away, which would bring down the roof, they altered their mind--so that the Pillars saved us." A more notable building had to suffer instead. The Old South was taken for the purpose. The furnishings were torn out, and Deacon Hubbard's carved pew was carted away to be used as a hog-sty. The dismantled church was transformed into a riding-ring, with tanbark on the floor, and a leaping-bar. One of the galleries was fitted up for a social meeting-place; the remainder were used for spectators, for whose comfort was put in a stove into which disappeared for kindling many of the books and manuscripts stored in the building. For the rest of the siege the Old South, once so formidable, was a centre of Tory fashion. Burgoyne was credited, also, with the design of putting an almost equally sacred edifice to a purpose still more horrifying to the good Calvinists of Boston. Faneuil Hall, the cradle of liberty, was made a theatre. Various plays were performed, and the amateurs were even so ambitious as to attempt the tragedies of _Zara_ and _Tamerlane_. For the latter performance Burgoyne wrote a prologue and epilogue, which were spoken by Lord Rawdon, who had distinguished himself at Bunker Hill, and "a young lady ten years old." But the great event of the season was to be the production of a farce called the _Blockade of Boston_. It was this performance which the Americans interrupted, to the perennial satisfaction of all students of local history. The play was to be performed on a January night. The _Busy Body_ had just been given, and the curtain rose on the farce, presenting a view of the American camp, and the figure of Washington absurdly burlesqued in uniform, wig, and rusty sword. At this moment a sergeant suddenly appeared on the stage, calling out, "The Yankees are attacking our works on Bunker's Hill!" Conceiving this spirited action a part of the play, the audience began to applaud. But the sergeant vigorously repeated his statement, the sounds of distant cannonading were heard, and an aide called out, "Officers, to your posts!" The officers responded in all haste, and the performance was over for the evening. The reason for this interruption was that Washington had despatched a party to burn some of the houses still standing in Charlestown. The success of the attempt had caused the cannonading, and the consequent interruption of the play. No historian of the siege has failed to remark that the Whig ladies had the laugh of their Tory sisters, forced to return without their escorts. A month before this incident, on the 5th of December, Burgoyne had sailed for home, recalled largely at his own instance, but already under consideration for the disastrous expedition from Canada. He did not return to Boston until 1777, when he came as a prisoner. It was when entering the town that he learned that the townspeople had long memories for his real or ascribed indignity to the Old South, for when he remarked to a friend upon the Province House, the headquarters during the siege, a voice from the crowd reminded him that the riding-school was close at hand. Since on the same occasion an old lady loudly beseeched her neighbors to "give the general elbow-room," Boston may be said to have taken its mild revenge on him. Theatrical performances, balls, and parties were the amusements of the officers at this period of the siege, and persons of fashion doubtless were pleasantly situated. It was not so comfortable for the troops and their dependents, as we have already seen. The lack of fuel and consequent depredations on property led to plundering of a different kind, and petty thievery, which Howe put down with a stern hand. Heavy floggings were meted out to delinquents, and a wife of one of the privates was even sentenced to public whipping for receiving stolen goods. While there were no true horrors at this siege, there was thus much roughness of conduct among the soldiery, and of this the Whigs were sure to be the victims. With the example of Leach and Lovell before their eyes, the wiser among the provincials spoke cannily and walked softly, and attracted as little attention as possible. But among the poorer class there was much distress for lack of food and fuel, for even when the troops had plenty, it was difficult for the patriots to buy. With their strength somewhat depleted, it was not to be wondered at that the poorer class was visited by smallpox. The epidemic was a mild one, and few persons died, but the visitation created great uneasiness. To lessen his burden, during the winter Howe sent out several companies of the poorer folk from the town landing them at Point Shirley, with the certainty that the Americans would care for them. But his action called down much reproach, and he was accused of sending out persons with the smallpox, in order to infect the besieging army. It was even charged that he had purposely inoculated some of the evicted. This, of course, is not to be believed; but it is curious to find the British at last taking satisfaction in the epidemic, since it would prevent Washington from attacking. Gradually a feeling of security came over the besieged town. Admiral Graves had been recalled, and Shuldham took his place. The lighthouse was rebuilt and guarded. Howe felt strong enough to detach a squadron from the fleet in order to carry Clinton with a body of troops to the southward. This was the expedition that made the unsuccessful attack upon Charleston. Howe sent other vessels to the northern provinces and the West Indies, which brought in supplies. The store-ships from England continued to come in, and though Howe was vexed and at times alarmed by the loss of the valuable stores that fell into Washington's hands, on the whole he felt very strong. So much fuel arrived that in January the destruction of houses and wharves was stopped, and the men who had been on duty for the purpose were commanded to make themselves presentable. Neatness was a hobby with Howe, and he enforced it on his men, though at times the untidiness of his troops seems to have been remarkable.[148] There are two expressions which show the confidence entertained at this period, not only by the garrison at large, but by the British general. One Crean Brush had made himself a place in the service, not in a military capacity, but as a useful hanger on. In January, anticipating the result of the spring campaign, he offered to raise a body of volunteers, not less than three hundred, with which he proposed, after the "subduction of the main body of the rebel force," to keep order along the Connecticut, and to maintain communication westward with Lake Champlain. There is no record that Howe took him at his word, but he well might have done so, so completely did he misjudge the situation. For about the same time he wrote to Lord Dartmouth that he was not apprehending any attempt by Washington, "by surprise or otherwise."[149] But the surprise came. On the night of the second of March the American batteries, so long silent, began to play. From Cobble Hill, Lechmere Point, and Lamb's Dam in Roxbury, the three redoubts nearest to Boston, the Americans bombarded the town, and Howe's gunners instantly responded. The American fire was ineffective. "Our people," wrote David How, "splet _the Congress_ the Third Time that they fired it." Other heavy mortars were likewise burst, doubtless owing to the inexperience of the gunners. But Washington's purpose, to "divert the attention" of the British from Dorchester, was fulfilled. They had no eyes save for the opposing batteries. For three nights the diversion continued; on the 4th it was, wrote Newell, "a most terrible bombardment and cannonade, on both sides, as if heaven and earth were engaged." At Braintree, miles away, Abigail Adams listened to the roar, and recorded the rattling of the windows, and the continual jar of the house. "At six in the morning," she writes, "there was quiet," but the quiet was from satisfaction on the one side, and amazement on the other. [Illustration: TOWER ON DORCHESTER HEIGHTS COMMEMORATING THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON] On the two heights of Dorchester, commanding the town and the harbor, stood two American redoubts, larger and stronger than the redoubt at Breed's Hill. On lesser elevations stood smaller works. Seen from below, Washington's preparations seemed complete. All that moonlit night, while the cannonade proceeded, the Americans had been busy. Everything had been prepared: the forts were staked out, the carts were loaded, the men were ready. As soon as the cannonade began, the men and carts were set in motion; the road was strewn with hay, and bales were piled to screen the carts as they passed to and fro. The troops worked with a will, first placing fascines in chandeliers to form the outlines of their works, and then covering them with earth. There is no better contemporary account given than in the diary of an unnamed officer, published some ninety years later.[150] He wrote:-- "A little before sunset marched off from Roxbury; but for more than half a mile before we came to Dorchester lines,[151] we overtook teams in great plenty, nor did we find any vacancy till we came to the lines; in some places they were so wedged in together, we were obliged to leave the road to get forward; we reached the lines at seven o'clock, where we waited half an hour for orders, when a signal was given and the cannonade began at Lamb's fort, and was immediately answered by a very warm fire from the enemy's lines; a brisk fire between N. Boston and our fortifications on Cambridge side, began soon after. It was supposed there was a thousand shot hove this night, by both armies, more than three fourths of which were sent from Boston.[152] Our party, consisting of about 2400 men, with 300 teams, were crossing the marsh, onto the Neck, which together with a fresh breeze from the S. W.[153] concealed us from the enemy till they could see our works by daylight. The division to which I was assigned, commanded by Col. Whitcomb, was ordered onto the northerly hill, where in one hour's time we had a fort enclosed, with fascines placed in shandelears; and we immediately employed as many men at intrenching as could be advantageously used for that purpose. A larger party was assigned to the high hill, where they erected a larger fort, built much in the same manner as ours. There were four other smaller forts and batteries erected this night on other eminences on the Neck."[154] It is not to be wondered that the British, on making the discovery, "seemed to be in great confusion."[155] The labor that had been expended appeared prodigious. Washington himself was satisfied with the works; he knew them to be secure against the British cannon. To Howe the achievement was amazing, and he is said to have exclaimed that his whole army could not have done as much in a month. He wrote to Lord Dartmouth that the rebels must have employed at least twelve thousand men, whereas it was accomplished by two details of little more than two thousand men each. But in those days the British soldier was a poor hand with a shovel, while the Americans were all farmers. Nevertheless it is worth noting the difference in organization displayed in the taking of Dorchester and in the earlier seizure of Breed's Hill. Instead of a small detachment sent to unsurveyed ground, and unaided during both the work and the battle, Washington had his ground prepared,[156] his detachments ready, and his cannon in reserve to send upon the Heights. In the morning the redoubts, presenting the appearance of finished fortifications, were manned with fresh men. Howe called at once a council of war. To it the admiral was summoned, and declared positively that his fleet was at the mercy of the rebels. There was but one opinion as to the situation: the honor of the army was at stake, and in addition the military reputation of the general. It was promptly decided to storm the works. For this purpose twenty-four hundred men were sent to the Castle, which lay close under the Heights to the east, with but a narrow channel between. The command of these men was given to Lord Percy, who hoped now for the distinction which illness had prevented his achieving at Bunker Hill. The attack was to be made at night. Within the lines at Boston Neck was to be gathered another force of troops, which was to second the attack from that direction. This last, in the face of the strong batteries at Roxbury, was a forlorn hope; according to Lieutenant Barker the troops were not to load, but to advance with fixed bayonets, and may have hoped to carry the works by surprise. Washington would have welcomed the main attack. During the day his works were strengthened and his men reinforced. Orchards had been cut down to serve as abattis, and barrels of earth were ready to roll down upon the British. The men were confident; they were commanded by Thomas, one of the best of the brigadiers, and Washington was there in person with a reminder that put courage into the breast of every American. For the day which he had chosen to decide the fate of Boston was the fifth of March, the anniversary of the Massacre. Besides all this, Washington had another weapon in reserve. In the Charles River, out of sight of Boston, were his two floating batteries and his bateaux filled with soldiers. They were under Putnam, Sullivan, and Greene; and at a given signal, if Washington deemed the opportunity good, they were to cross the Back Bay and attack the town.--Truly the preparations were for such fighting as had never been seen in America. But they came to naught, for nature took a hand in the struggle. Mercifully, since amid the projected battles the town itself might have perished with its inhabitants, there sprang up a gale. "A Hurrycane," wrote Newell, "or terrible sudden storm." The violence of the wind was such that no boat could live in the channel between the Castle and Dorchester, two of Percy's transports were driven ashore, and the attack was postponed. The next day the wind continued, accompanied by heavy rain. The Americans continued to labor on their works, until to every eye they were impregnable by any force that Howe might send against them. Howe called another council, and asked it to concur in his intention to evacuate the town. There was no other decision to make, and on the 6th of March[157] the orders were given. "Blessed be God," wrote Newell, "our redemption draws nigh." FOOTNOTES: [147] "N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register," 1865, 313-314. [148] See his general order enumerating faults, in Sparks, "Writings of Washington," iii, 236, note. [149] See Frothingham's "Siege," 294-295. [150] See the _Historical Magazine_ for 1864, 328-329. [151] These were a line of fortifications facing Dorchester, made earlier in the siege. [152] According to Knox's return, given in Frothingham's "Siege," 298, footnote, the Americans threw only 144 shot and 13 shells. The British seem to have needed only an occasional stimulus. [153] This breeze would bring the smoke of the Roxbury cannonade between the Heights and Boston. [154] It seems generally to be considered that there was but one fort at Dorchester. The statement in the text is confirmed by the Revolutionary Journal of Colonel Baldwin, one of the engineers. "Six works thrown up this night at different places on the Hills & high ground a very Great work for one Night." [155] Washington's letter to Hancock, "Writings," iii, 304. [156] Colonel Baldwin records that he was on the ground in the afternoon. [157] Frothingham says the 7th. But see the diaries of Barker (_Atlantic_, 39, 553) and Newell (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1, Series 4, 272). CHAPTER XV THE EVACUATION Washington, looking into Boston from the Heights of Dorchester, witnessed the confusion of the British at the discovery of his works, and watched with grim pleasure the preparations made to attack him. The abandonment of the assault was to him a great disappointment. He had never seen men more alert and willing than his soldiers on the Heights. If Howe had sent a small force against them, Washington felt confident of repulsing it. Had the attacking force been so large as to have appreciably weakened the army in Boston, Washington would have delivered his counterstroke by means of the men in boats under command of Putnam. "He would have had pretty easy work of it,"[158] wrote Washington, still after nearly a month regretting the issue. He wrote his brother, "that this most remarkable interposition of Providence is for some wise purpose, I have not a doubt. But ... as no men seemed better disposed to make the appeal than ours did upon that occasion, I can scarcely forbear lamenting the disappointment." Washington lay for a while inactive while the enemy prepared for their departure. But upon Howe's shoulders was thrown a tremendous task. He had under him, in the army and the fleet, about eleven thousand men.[159] For them he had been gathering military stores and provisions; he had many horses, much artillery, and at least a partial equipment for field service, in preparation for the spring campaign. His army had been at Boston for many months, some of the regiments for nearly two years; consequently there had been a natural accumulation of personal effects, for the convenience of the officers, with their wives and families. To carry away this army, its stores, and its belongings, there was not at hand enough shipping. But the difficulty was greater than this, for Howe had to consider the Tories and their families. Long before this, when Gage was in command, the ministry had written that in case of evacuation "the officers and friends of government must not be left to the rage and insult of rebels, who set no bounds to their barbarity." Howe's ships, therefore, were to be at the service of the Tories, and with full knowledge of the involved results, he so informed them. When the realization of the situation burst upon the Tories, they were, said a contemporary letter, "struck with paleness and astonishment."[160] "Not the last trump," wrote Washington, "could have struck them with greater consternation."[161] Until the very last, no suspicion of such a result seems to have disturbed them; they had borne themselves confidently, and had expected to see their enemies scattered when the new forces should arrive. Among their Whig brethren they had been very high-handed. "The selectmen say," wrote Eldad Taylor, who must have been at Watertown when the selectmen arrived there with the news of the evacuation, "that the Tories were the most dreadful of any, that all the sufferings of the poor for the want of provisions and the necessaries of life, were not equal to the dreadful scorn, derision, and contempt from them." Upon the Tories was now put the hard decision, whether to go or stay. In order to decide, they needed to know what the Whigs would do to them; and to know that, they had but to consider what they would do to the Whigs in similar case. In their own prison languished the Whig Lovell. They thought of the Whig prisons which might be waiting for them, and they decided to go. It is not to be denied that the decision was, under the circumstances, wise. The loyalists were right in supposing that the treatment which they would have meted to the Whigs, the Whigs would mete to them. For the country was inflamed against the Tories; Washington himself shared the sentiment against them. Much as we may regret this feeling, we must remember that it was natural to the age. Kind treatment to an opponent in civil war was not yet generally practised; it was Lincoln who made the lesson acceptable to mankind. Practically all of the Tories, therefore, made up their minds to go. Some few, indeed, remained behind, counting upon their humble station, or inoffensiveness. No harsh treatment of them is recorded. The one prominent Tory who remained, Mather Byles the minister, soon weathered the storm that rose against him. The remaining loyalists, who planned to depart, were some eleven hundred in number. It was necessary that they should be accommodated in the ships, necessary also that they should take with them such of their valuables as were easily portable. Howe gave orders that room be made for them, and the orders were unselfishly obeyed by the army and navy. But the haste, the disorder, even the tumult, in the days immediately following the order to depart, were extreme. Each regiment had to be assigned its transports, each Tory to find space for himself and his family, and if possible his goods. There was sorting of effects, bundling up of valuables, and strenuous efforts to get all in safety before Washington should bombard. Diarists agree in the concise terms with which they describe the town. Says Newell for the 8th: "The town all hurry and commotion, the troops with the Refugees and Tories all embarking." For the 9th he adds: "D^o. D^o. D^o." And for the 10th writes Lieutenant Barker: "Nothing but hurry and confusion." In the meantime the Americans at Dorchester strengthened their works, and fortified one more eminence, which commanded the channel. Washington did not wish to cannonade the British, for if not attacked he saw no advantage in attacking, lest the town should be set on fire and burned. He therefore bided his time. All his action until now, he wrote Hancock, was but preparatory to taking post on Nook's Hill, a low promontory which ran so far out upon Dorchester flats that from its top cannon could enfilade the British lines at the Neck, and could command almost any part of Boston. An attempt to fortify it upon the night of the 9th was betrayed by the folly of the men, who kindled a fire and were dispersed by British cannon. But by this Washington was not disturbed. He was willing that Howe should delay for a while, if the delay were not too long. He himself had reasons for waiting, since he reasoned that the British would, on departing, attempt to seize New York, and he wanted time to prepare and despatch a force to hold that place. So he watched the British army, sent a regiment of riflemen to strengthen New York, and made ready five other regiments to depart as soon as the British fleet should leave the harbor. But at this time the inhabitants of Boston were very uncertain of their own fate. Nothing was more natural than that Washington should attack, or that the exasperated British should on departing, even if unassailed, set fire to the wooden town. The selectmen, as spokesmen for the inhabitants, therefore inquired of Howe what his intentions were. Howe wrote in reply that he had no intention of destroying the town, if he were unmolested. This reply the selectmen sent in haste to Washington, begging for a similar assurance. Washington was not willing to bind himself, and returned answer that as Howe's note was "unauthenticated, and addressed to nobody," he could take no notice of it. Nevertheless, since no threat was made, the Bostonians felt more at ease.[162] All this time the wind was contrary, and the troops unable to set sail. They therefore remained in their quarters, while completing their preparations for departure. As the days passed Howe began to destroy what he could not take with him, and to seize what would be of advantage to the rebels. His troops spiked cannon, burned artillery and transport wagons, or else threw them into the harbor, and ruined bulky stores. What he did deliberately, his men increased through malice. The 13th seems to have been the worst day of this period. "The Inhabitants," wrote Newell, "in the utmost distress, thro' fear of the Town being destroyed by the Soldiers, a party of New York Carpenters with axes going thro' the town breaking open houses, &c. Soldiers and sailors plundering of houses, shops, warehouses--Sugar and salt &c. thrown into the River, which was greatly covered with hogsheads, barrels of flour, house furniture, carts, trucks &c. &c.--One Person suffered _four thousand pounds sterling_, by his shipping being cut to pieces &c.--Another _five thousand pounds sterling_, in salt wantonly thrown into the river." No wonder that the sturdy old selectman thought these to be "very distressed times." Howe's agent in the work of plundering was that Crean Brush who had offered to police the western part of Massachusetts with three hundred men. Him the general directed to receive all linen and woollen goods which were on sale, and to take those which were not delivered, giving certificates for the same. There is on file the petition of one Jackson, begging for payment for goods taken from him. Brush interpreted his commission very freely, and it was suspected that he was plundering on his own account. Every soldier or sailor who could give his officer the slip was doing the same, in spite of Howe's honest efforts to stop the plundering. There was a little genteel thievery as well. Some of the Tories had unfairly secured more than their share of room on shipboard, and found this the chance to take their pick of the furniture of their Whig relatives. "Wat," wrote John Andrews to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia, "has stripped your uncle's house of everything he could conveniently carry off.... He has left all the looking glasses and window curtains, with some tables and most of the chairs; only two bedsteads and one bed, without any bedding or sheets, or even a rag of linnen of any kind. Some of the china and the principal part of the pewter is the sum of what he has left, save the Library, which was packed up corded to ship, but your uncle Jerry and Mr. Austin went to him and absolutely forbid it, upon his peril." Another library did not fare so well. At this time disappeared that part of the Prince collection which had not been used for kindling the fires in the Old South. With it vanished the Bradford manuscript history of the Plymouth plantation, which a later generation freely returned. While the Tories were so carefully looking to the future, the Whigs were obliged to guard what they could. Newell covers too many incidents with etceteras, but John Andrews who, as soon as the siege was lifted, was free to begin again his correspondence, speaks clearly of his difficulties. Through the siege he had had the care of six houses with their furniture, and as many stores filled with goods; but now he underwent more fatigue and perplexity than for the past eleven months, for "I was obliged," he says, "to take my rounds all day, without any cessation, and scarce ever fail'd of finding depredations made upon some one or other of them, that I was finally necessitated to procure men at the extravagant rate of two dollars a day to sleep in the several houses and stores for a fortnight[163] before the military plunderers went off--for so sure as they were left alone one night, so sure they were plundered." Later he was obliged to pay at the rate of a dollar an hour for hands to assist him in moving; but "such was the demand for laborers, that they were taken from me, even at that, by the tories who bid over me." So, while the wind continued contrary, the plundering and the destruction continued. Before long the seashore dwellers might do their share of rescue, as the articles which were thrown into the harbor--"mahogany chairs, tables, etc.," records Abigail Adams--were cast up on the beaches. But one by one the transports filled and dropped down the harbor, until at last Washington grew impatient, and on the night of the 16th made his last move. Though the British, aware of the attempt, fired with their remaining guns all night at Nook's Hill, the Americans doggedly entrenched without returning a shot, and in the morning showed a finished redoubt. It was, as Trevelyan well says, Washington's notice to quit. Howe meekly accepted it. "At 4 o'clock in the Morn.," writes Lieutenant Barker, "the troops got under arms, at 5 they began to move, and by about 8 or 9 were all embarked, the rear being covered by the Grenadiers and Light Infantry." The ships sailed down the channel, no shot was fired from the American batteries, and in return the _Fowey_, the last of the fleet, which Howe had threatened should fire the town before she departed, carried away with her her "carcases and combustibles," and Boston stood free and unharmed. In half an hour the Americans were in possession. From Roxbury a company of five hundred, picked for the service because they had had the smallpox, entered the British lines, and manned the fortifications which looked toward the harbor. In the redoubt at Bunker Hill sentries appeared to be still doing their duty; but two men who were sent to reconnoitre found them to be dummies, and signalled their companions to follow them. General Putnam was given command of the town, from entering which the army in general, and all civilians, were prohibited until it was ascertained whether there was danger of smallpox. Washington's other measures were decisive. He directed Manly, admiral of his little squadron, to follow the British fleet and cut off as many vessels as possible. One result of this order gave the greatest satisfaction. "The brave Captain Manly," wrote Andrews, "has taken the Brig that contained that _cursed_ villain, Crean Brush, with great part of the plunder he rob'd the stores of here, that I immagine she must be the richest vessell in the fleet." Other ships were either similarly taken, or were forced to put ashore from lack of provision or of preparation. Another of Washington's moves was to despatch his five regiments to New York. They went by way of Norwich, Connecticut, and from there, to save fatigue and time, were taken by water to the city. They arrived fresh and ready for the expected struggle, but though they watched long for the British fleet, it did not come. Washington's third action was to defend Boston against a possible return of the British. The "lines" at Boston and Charlestown necks were demolished, and on the day after the evacuation Putnam and his men were at work building on Fort Hill a redoubt to command the harbor. With this and the Dorchester batteries the Bostonians might have been satisfied, but within a month they began fortifying Noddle's Island against any possible attempt by sea. In all these precautions the Americans were hastened by the fact that the British, though they had left the upper harbor, were still in the lower, lying off Nantasket. "From Penn's Hill," wrote Abigail Adams to her husband, "we have a view of the largest fleet ever seen in America. You may count upwards of a hundred and seventy sail. They look like a forest." Their stay greatly puzzled Washington: "what they are doing," he wrote, "the Lord knows." He was troubled as well. The ten regiments of militia, which had strengthened his army since the first of February, had promised to remain only until the first of April, and he knew that it was "as practical to stop a torrent, as these people, when their time is up." He therefore feared lest the British, by striking with all their force upon his rear, might do him great injury. This was not the first time that Washington, reasoning according to his own nature, expected from Howe that vigorous action which the British general was unable to perform. Howe, humiliated as he must have felt at receiving, while his vessel passed down the harbor, a despatch from the ministry applauding his decision not to evacuate the town, had no thought of revenge. He blew up the fortifications at the Castle, and prepared to destroy the lighthouse, but his purposes in remaining were to fit his fleet for sea, and to warn those British vessels which were bound for Boston. Nor had he the slightest intention of seizing New York. The statements which had come to Washington's ears, that Howe's destination was Halifax, in spite of the American's incredulity, were correct. On the 27th of March, ten days after the evacuation, the greater part of Howe's fleet weighed anchor, and sailed away for Halifax. His army felt its shame. "I do not know the thing so desperate," wrote an officer, "I would not undertake, in order to change our situation."[164] But in spite of the chagrin in the hearts of his soldiers, and the despair in the breasts of the Tories, few of them ever looked upon Boston again. Before this time it had been ascertained that Boston was in no serious danger from smallpox, and on the 20th the main body of the army marched into Boston. It was an occasion of great happiness to the inhabitants, and they "manifested a lively joy." Two days later the town was thrown open to all comers, and once more, as before the Port Bill, entrance by land or ferry was free. The town was speedily examined in all particulars, and those who had suffered by the siege were encouraged to bring in claims for damages. It was found that, except for the absolute destruction of buildings for fuel, the injury to houses was inconsiderable. Where the common soldiers had lived, interiors were defaced; yet externally the houses of the town looked much as they had before the siege. Where the officers had lived, the dwellings had suffered little, and even the homes of the prominent Whigs had not been injured. Abigail Adams wrote to her husband that their house was "very dirty, but no other damage has been done to it." She looked upon it as a new acquisition of property. Washington took pains to write Hancock, who had been so ready to sacrifice his belongings to the cause of the country, that his house, and even his furniture and pictures, had received no damage worth mentioning. To the immense satisfaction of all Whigs, many military stores were found in the town. Most important were more than two hundred pieces of ordnance, the larger part of which, though spiked, could soon be put into serviceable condition. Balls and shells for the cannon and mortars were found; provisions, horses and their provender, medicines in quantity, and many other articles were discovered, amounting in value to nearly forty thousand pounds. The booty of Brush of course swelled this amount. [Illustration: GOLD MEDAL COMMEMORATING WASHINGTON'S VICTORY] The Whigs now might see their friends again, and for a short time enjoyed military society of a new sort. John Andrews reports "nothing but a continual round of company." "Last week," he recorded, "I had the honor of General Washington with his lady, General Gates, Mr. Custos and Lady, with aid de Camps, &ca, to dine with me." It was an occasion of which he boasted to his dying day. In the town, now flooded with provision, there were many eager to feast Washington. But he did not tarry long. While Howe and his fleet were in the bay, he kept his men at work demolishing the British defences against the land, and strengthening the forts which looked seaward, and he was continually on his guard against the blow which Howe might deliver. But when the British had sailed away to the north-east, Washington himself, on the 4th of April, set off for New York. Howe had nevertheless left vessels at Nantasket Roads, to intercept the troop-ships and stores which were on their way to him. In this he was partly successful, for seven ship-loads of Highlanders were by this means saved from Yankee prisons. But even while the evacuation was in progress British vessels were captured in the harbor, and now in sight of the squadron and its Highlanders was taken the richest store-ship that had yet fallen into American hands. There was a brisk fight, also, between an American schooner, aground on Shirley Point, and thirteen boat-loads of men from the war-ships. The boats were beaten off, but the British had accomplished the death of the captain of the schooner, America's first naval hero, Mugford of Marblehead. At length a determined effort was made to drive away the squadron. The militia was called out, and artillery was carried to islands down the harbor. There was a brief cannonade between the Americans and the fleet. Then the British commander, finding his anchorage no longer safe, blew up the lighthouse and followed Howe to Halifax. This was on the second anniversary of the enforcement of the Port Bill. Two days later the remainder of the Highlanders, unsuspiciously entering the harbor, fell into the hands of the Americans.[165] The British resentment aroused by this last mischance was mild compared with the general indignation which burst on Howe's head at his conduct of the defence of Boston, and his hurried evacuation. The ministry announced the departure from Boston in the briefest fashion, but were forced to explain and excuse it in both the Commons and the Lords. "The General thought proper to shift his position," explained the Earl of Suffolk to the Lords, "in order, in the first place, to protect Halifax."[166] But the defence was riddled, Howe's general weakness was exposed, his neglect to fortify Dorchester was pointed out, and the English Whigs acutely reasoned that he must have had a virtual agreement with Washington to purchase the safety of the fleet and army at the price of immunity to the town. Newspapers and pamphleteers took up the subject, and Howe was eventually forced to ask for an inquiry into his conduct of the siege. To his dying day he was severely criticised for his generalship in America, and especially at Boston. Of the other British military leaders, not one was successful. Gage was never again given a command. Burgoyne returned to Boston only as a prisoner. Clinton for a time commanded in America, but he was recalled. As for the master whom these generals served, the king who was the cause of the war, his failure was complete. George III lost not only his revolted colonies, but also the dearer prize for which he fought, personal government. When at last peace was signed, the Americans had gained independence, and the English people had finally established the supremacy of Parliament. The king might reign, but he could no longer govern. The fate of the Tories cannot detain us long, painful as it was. Some few returned to America after the war, and made again places for themselves. Among these was Judge Curwen. Some went to England, where they were out of their element. Dependent for the most part on the bounty of the crown, they lived in hope of a change of fortune. They longed for their homes, and sickened for a sight of the New England country, to them the most beautiful on earth. Many of them were too old to begin life anew: by the end of the war it was recorded that, of the Massachusetts Tory leaders, forty-five died in England. One of these was Hutchinson, upon whose life the best comment is the concluding sentence of Sabine's brief biography: "I forget, in his melancholy end, all else." But numbers of the Tories remained in Canada. Doubtless many were discouraged from going to England by the reports of the condition of those already there. "As to your coming here," wrote Governor Wentworth from London to a friend in New Brunswick, "or any other Loyalist that can get clams and potatoes in America, they would most certainly regret making bad worse."[167] On such advice as this many, indeed most, of the refugees remained in Canada, and after the war, in which many of them fought, were of great service in building up that country. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick received the larger number of them; they became leaders of the bar, judges, physicians, prominent office-holders. It is not to be denied that among them were suffering and misery; they had lost much and had to begin again from the bottom, and many succumbed to the difficulties of the new life. After the war attempt was made to gain from the United States compensation for their losses; but the new country was unable even to recompense those who had suffered in its cause. The loyalists therefore looked to Britain for help, and in some measure found it, in pensions, grants of money, and holdings of land. There is much to regret in this emigration, which took from New England such numbers of men and women of good blood and gentle breeding. For the Tories were largely of the better class, many of them had been educated at Harvard, and they represented an element which no community can afford to lose. Some of the difficulties of the new commonwealths were due to the loss of the conservative balance-wheel; some further troubles beset them from the bitterness of feeling in the new colonists across the border. This has now died away, but boundary and fisheries disputes long brought out the hostility latent in the descendants of the Tories. So much for the losers in the fight. Of the winners, no American needs to be more than reminded of their fame and their successes. At the siege Washington made his first claim to fame. He proved his tenacity, his mastery of men, and the greatness of his resolution and daring. Some of his generals followed him in his success, some were failures. Lee attempted treachery, but was finally discarded by both sides. Gates endeavored to displace Washington, but ruined himself in the attempt. But most of Washington's other generals were able men. Greene proved himself to be a military genius second only to Washington. Knox, the sole Bostonian on Washington's staff, commanded the artillery throughout the war. Of the chief Boston politicians, all ended their days honorably. Soon after the evacuation the body of Warren was sought for among the dead buried on Bunker Hill. It was found, identified, and entombed at Boston with solemn mourning. Hancock presently signed his name on the Declaration of Independence so large that King George could read it without his spectacles. The Boston merchant served the Continental Congress for another year as its president; then returning to Boston he became "King" Hancock, the governor of Massachusetts practically for life. John Adams passed to greater usefulness as envoy to France, first minister to Great Britain, and finally as Washington's successor as President. But to a student of Boston itself the mind dwells most willingly on Samuel Adams, "the man of the town meeting," who roused the rebellion, guided it skilfully, served usefully in many public capacities, and became governor after Hancock's death. His statue stands to-day in the square named after him, not far from the Old South and the old Town House, and within sight of Faneuil Hall. But we trespass beyond the period of this history. When Howe sailed away, Boston's share in the Revolution was practically ended. No attempt was made to retake the town, for there could be no profit in gaining what could not be held. In the remaining years of the war the town had no more serious duty than fitting out ships of war and privateers, and of entertaining the officers of the French fleet. But Boston had earned its rest. For nearly sixteen years the town had stood as the spokesman for liberty, the leader of revolt. In bringing the country safely through a critical period, the services of Boston were essential. FOOTNOTES: [158] Trevelyan, in concluding that Washington disapproved of this attack by Putnam, is apparently misled by General Heath's curious habit of referring to himself in his Memoirs as "Our General." It was Heath who opposed the project. Against Howe's flimsy defences on the Back Bay, if weakened of defenders, Putnam might well have prevailed, especially in a night attack. They were, wrote Edward Bangs, "ill-constructed, and designed for little but to frighten us." James Warren, who reported on these works, found them to be very weak. See Frothingham's "Siege," 329. [159] Frothingham's "Siege," 311. [160] Eldad Taylor to his wife, Watertown, March 18, 1776. [161] "Writings," iii, 343. [162] For this correspondence, see Newell's "Diary," or "Washington's Writings," iii, 531-533. [163] It cannot have been more than eleven days. [164] Frothingham's "Siege," 310. [165] See concerning these men and their commander the interesting monograph by Charles H. Walcott: "Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil, sometime Prisoner of War in the Jail at Concord, Massachusetts." Privately printed. [166] "The Writings of Washington," iii, 531. [167] Sabine's "Loyalists," 217. 
37335	----	Brenda's Bargain _A Story for Girls_ BY HELEN LEAH REED AUTHOR OF "BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB" "BRENDA'S SUMMER AT ROCKLEY," "BRENDA'S COUSIN AT RADCLIFFE" ILLUSTRATED BY ELLEN BERNARD THOMPSON BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1903 _Copyright, 1903,_ BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. _All rights reserved_ Published October, 1903 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. [Illustration: But what startled Brenda was the sight of a girl sunk in a heap beside the broken glass] CONTENTS I. THE BROKEN VASE 1 II. A FAMILY COUNCIL 14 III. BRENDA AT THE MANSION 26 IV. AN EXPLORING TOUR 40 V. PHILIP'S LECTURE 51 VI. IN THE STUDIO 62 VII. IN DIFFICULTIES 73 VIII. THE FRINGED GENTIAN LEAGUE 86 IX. NORA'S WORK--AND POLLY 97 X. ARTHUR'S ABSENCE 107 XI. SEEDS OF JEALOUSY 120 XII. DOUBTS AND DUTIES 126 XIII. THE VALENTINE PARTY 139 XIV. CONCILIATION 147 XV. WAR AT HAND 158 XVI. THE ARTISTS' FESTIVAL 168 XVII. IDEAL HOMES 180 XVIII. WHERE HONOR CALLS 193 XIX. THEY STAND AND WAIT 204 XX. WEARY WAITING 215 XXI. AN OCTOBER WEDDING 227 XXII. THE WINNER 239 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "But what startled Brenda was the sight of a girl sunk in a heap beside the broken glass" _Frontispiece_ "Waiting for a car they had sat down on a wayside seat" 62 "'I think I hear some one coming upstairs'" 77 "They walked through the long galleries" 136 "She seemed to take but a languid interest in the world around her" 224 "Brenda had never looked so well" 235 BRENDA'S BARGAIN I THE BROKEN VASE One fine October afternoon Brenda Barlow walked leisurely across the Common by one of the diagonal paths from Beacon Street to the shopping district. It was an ideal day, and as she neared the shops she half begrudged the time that she must spend indoors. "Now or never," she thought philosophically; "I can't send a present that I haven't picked out myself, and I cannot very well order it by mail. But it needn't take me very long, especially as I know just what I want." Usually Brenda was fond of buying, and it merely was an evidence of the charm of the day that she now felt more inclined toward a country walk than a tour of the shops. Once inside the large building crowded with shoppers, she found a certain pleasure in looking at the new goods displayed on the counters. It was only a passing glance, however, that she gave them, and she hastened to get the special thing that she had in mind that she might be at home in season to keep an appointment. Her errand was to choose a wedding present for a former schoolmate, and she had set her heart on a cut-glass rose-bowl. Yet as she wandered past counters laden with pretty, fragile things she began to waver in her choice. "Rose-bowls!" the salesman shrugged his shoulders expressively; "they are going out of fashion." And Brenda wondered that she had thought of a thing that was not really up to date; for, recalling Ruth's wedding presents, she remembered that among them there were not many pieces of cut-glass, and not a single rose-bowl. At last after some indecision she chose a delicate iridescent vase, beautiful in design, but of no use as a flower holder. Its slender stem looked as if a touch would snap it in two. It cost twice as much as she had meant to spend for this particular thing, and had she thought longer she would have realized that so fragile a gift would be a care to its owner. Self-examination would have shown that she had made her choice chiefly to reflect credit on her own liberality and good taste. But her conscience had not begun to prick her as she drew from her purse the twenty-dollar bill to pay for the purchase. A moment later, as Brenda walked away, a crash made her turn her head. A second glance assured her that the glittering fragments on the floor were the remains of her beautiful vase. But what startled Brenda more than the shattered vase was the sight of a girl sunk in a heap beside the broken glass. She recognized her as the cash-girl whom the clerk had told to pack her purchase. Evidently she had let the vase fall from her hands, and as evidently she was overcome by what had happened. Had she fainted? Brenda, bending over her, laid her hand on the girl's head. Aroused by the touch, the child raised her head, showing a face that was a picture of misery. Sobs shook her slight frame, and she allowed a kind-looking saleswoman who came from behind a counter to lead her away from the gaze of the curious. Meanwhile the salesman who had served Brenda brushed the bits of glass into a pasteboard-box cover. "I'm very sorry," he said politely, "but we cannot replace that vase. As I told you, it was in every way unique. However, there are other pieces similar to it--a little higher-priced, perhaps--but we will make a discount, to compensate--" "But who pays for this?" Brenda interrupted, inclining her head toward the broken glass. "Oh, do not concern yourself about that, it is entirely our loss. Of course, if you prefer, we can return you your money, but still--" "Will they make that poor little girl pay for the glass?" "Well, of course she broke it; it was entirely her fault; she let it slip from her fingers. She is always very careless." "But I paid for it, didn't I?" asked Brenda. "That is my money, is it not?" for he still held a bill between his fingers. "Why, yes; as I told you, you can have your money back." "I have not asked for my money, but I should like to have the vase that I bought to take home with me. It will go into a small box now." "Do you mean these pieces?" The salesman was almost too bewildered to speak. "Why, of course, they belong to me, do they not?" and a smile twinkled around the corners of Brenda's mouth. At last the salesman understood. "It's very kind of you," he said, emptying the pieces from the cover into a small pasteboard box. "Mayn't we send it home?" "Yes, after all, you may send it. Please have it packed carefully;" and this time both Brenda and the salesman smiled outright. "It's the second thing," said the latter, "that Maggie has broken lately. She's bound to lose her place. It took a week's wages to pay for the cup, and I don't know what she could have done about this. It would have taken more than six weeks' pay." "I should like to see her," said Brenda. "Can I go where she is?" "Certainly, she's in the waiting-room, just over there." "Come, come, Maggie," said Brenda gently, when she found the girl still in tears; "stop crying, you won't have to pay for the glass vase. You know I bought it, and I'm having the pieces sent home." As the girl gazed at Brenda in astonishment her tears ceased to flow from her red-rimmed eyes. But the young lady's words seemed so improbable that in a moment sobs again shook her frame. "It cost twenty dollars," she said; "I heard him say it. I can't ever pay it in the world, and I don't want to go to prison." "Hush, hush, child!" cried a saleswoman who had stayed with her. "You must stop crying, for I have to go back to my place." She looked inquiringly at Brenda, and Brenda in a few words explained what she had done. "You are an angel," said the kind-hearted woman; "and if you can make Maggie understand, perhaps she will stop crying." Now at last the truth had entered Maggie's not very quick brain. Jumping to her feet she seized Brenda by the hand. "You mean it, you mean it, and I won't have to pay! But I'll pay you some time. Oh, how good you are! How good you are!" "There, Maggie, you'll frighten the young lady, and you're not fit to go back to the store. Your eyes would scare customers away. I'll take word that you're sick, so's you can go home now; and, Miss, I hope Maggie'll always remember how kind you've been." As the woman departed Brenda had a new idea, and when the message came that Maggie might go home she asked the little girl to meet her at the side door downstairs when she had put on her hat. "I want to talk with you," she said, "and will walk with you a little way." Such condescension on the part of a beautiful young lady was enough to turn the head of almost any little cash-girl, and Maggie could hardly believe her ears, yet she hastened toward the side door where Brenda was waiting. The latter glanced down at a forlorn little figure in the scant, green plaid gown, which, although faded, was clean and whole. Her dingy drab jacket was short-waisted, and her red woollen Tam o' Shanter made her look very childish. As the two stood there in the doorway two young men whom Brenda knew passed by. They were among the most supercilious of the younger set, and as they raised their hats they looked curiously at Brenda's companion. Brenda, though undisturbed, realized that she and Maggie were standing in a very conspicuous place. "Come, Maggie," she said, "wouldn't you like a cup of chocolate? I'm going to get one for myself." The little girl meekly followed her to a restaurant across the street, and when they were seated at an upstairs table near a window Maggie felt as if in some way she had been carried to a palace. There was really nothing palatial in the room, though it was bright and cheerful, with a red carpet that deadened all footfalls. But Maggie herself had never before sat at a little round table in a pleasant room, with a waitress attentive to her. A lunch counter was the only restaurant that she had known, and this was certainly very different. The hot chocolate with whipped cream, and the other dainties ordered for the two, made her half forget her grief for her carelessness. Gradually she lost a little of her shyness, and told Brenda about her work, and about the aunt with whom she lived. "She wants me to keep that place, for it's one of the best shops in town. But she's awful cross sometimes, and I'm terribly afraid of losing it. You see," she continued, "my fingers seem buttered, and I don't run quick enough when they call. I feel all confused like, for there's so much coming and going. Ah, I wish that I had something else I could do!" "When did you leave school, Maggie?" "Oh, I'm a graduate; I'm fifteen past, and I got my diploma last spring. My aunt was good; she thinks girls ought to go to school until they get through the grammar school. She says my mother and me, we've been a great expense, and the funeral cost a lot, so she needs every cent I earn." Gradually Brenda understood about Maggie, and it seemed to her that she would like to talk with her aunt. Glancing at the little enamelled watch pinned to her coat, she saw that it was nearly four o'clock, and this reminded her that at four she was to walk with Arthur Weston. Hurrying her utmost, she could not keep the appointment. She would much prefer to go home with Maggie. To think with Brenda was usually to act. So, finding her way to a telephone in the office downstairs, she called up her own house, and was surprised to have Arthur himself answer the call. "But where are you?" he asked; "why can't you come home?" "I've something very important to do, and I can walk with you any day." "Really!" "Yes, indeed." "But you shouldn't treat me in this way. I shall rush out to find you." "You can't do it, so you might as well give it up." In spite of Arthur's slight protest his voice had its usual jesting tone, but before he could remonstrate further he was cut off, and Brenda had turned back to Maggie. Though it was but a few months since the announcement of Brenda's engagement to Arthur Weston, these two young people had known each other long enough to have a thorough understanding of each other's character. Brenda knew that Arthur hated to be mystified, and Arthur knew that Brenda was wilful. Yet each at times would cross the other along what might be called the line of greatest resistance. If Maggie was surprised that her new friend wished to accompany her home she did not show her feeling, and Brenda soon found herself in a car travelling to an unfamiliar part of the city. Near the corner where they left the car was a large building, which Maggie explained was a very popular theatre. "I love to look at those pictures," said the girl, pointing to the gaudy bill-boards leaning against the wall. "I've only been there once, but I'm going Thanksgiving,--if I don't lose my place." Her face darkened as she remembered that her prospect for having money to spare at Thanksgiving had greatly lessened this afternoon. Brenda did not like the neighborhood through which they now hastened toward Maggie's home in Turquoise Street. It had not the antiquity of the North End, nor the picturesqueness of the West End. There were too many liquor shops, and the narrow street into which they turned was unattractive. She did not like the appearance of many of the people whom she met, and she felt like clinging to Maggie's hand. Still, the house itself which Maggie pointed out as the one where she lived looked like a comfortable private house. Indeed, it once had been the dwelling of a well-to-do private family. But inside, its halls were bare of carpets, and not over clean. Evidently it had become a mere tenement-house. "I wonder what my aunt will say," said Maggie timidly, as they stood at the door of her aunt's rooms. "We'll know soon;" and even as Brenda spoke Maggie had opened the door, and they stood face to face with a small, sharp-featured woman. "Goodness me! Maggie, are you sick? What did you come home for? Oh, a lady! Please take a seat, ma'am," and Mrs. McSorley showed her nervousness by vigorously dusting the seat of a chair with the end of her blue-checked apron. Brenda thanked her for the proffered chair, for she had just climbed two rather steep flights of stairs. She felt a little faint from the effort, and from the odors that she had inhaled on the way up. One tenant had evidently had cabbage for dinner, and another was frying onions for tea. Although Brenda herself could not have told what these strange odors were, they made her uncomfortable. While Maggie was explaining why she had returned home so early, Brenda glanced with interest around the room. It seemed to be a combination of kitchen and sitting-room. Above the large cooking-stove was a shelf of pots and pans, and there was an upholstered rocking-chair in one corner. There were plants in the windows, and a shelf on the wall between them with a loud-ticking clock. Under the shelf stood a table with a red-and-white plaid cotton table-cover. A glass sugar-bowl, a crockery pitcher, and a pile of plates showed that the table was for use as well as for ornament. Through a half-open door Brenda had a glimpse of a bedroom that looked equally neat and clean. "I'm sure, Miss," said Mrs. McSorley when Brenda had finished her story, "I'm very much obliged to you. Maggie's a dreadful careless girl, and a great trial to me. She'll make it her duty to pay that money back to you." "Oh, no, indeed, I couldn't think of such a thing; if any one was to blame it was I for buying so delicate a vase. Besides, they shouldn't have a small girl carry things about." "Oh, no, Miss, it was just Maggie's fault. Her fingers are buttered, and sometimes I don't know what her end will be. I suppose I'll have to put her somewhere so's she can't do no mischief." At these ominous words Maggie's tears fell again, and Brenda, as she afterward said to Arthur, felt her "heart in her mouth." For Mrs. McSorley, with her arms akimbo, and her high cheek-bones and determined expression looked indeed rather formidable, and Brenda hesitated to suggest what she had in mind for Maggie's benefit. "I've tried to do my duty by her," continued Mrs. McSorley, "just as I did by her mother, and we gave her a funeral with three carriages after she'd been sick on my hands for two years, and her only my sister-in-law; and I kept Maggie at school till she graduated, and she's got a place in one of the best stores in town on account of that. If she had any faculty she might have kept her place, but if people haven't faculty they haven't anything." While her aunt was talking Maggie had hung up her things,--the Tam o' Shanter on a hook on the bedroom door and the coat on another hook in the corner. Brenda, watching her, thought that her orderliness might prove an offset for her buttered fingers. Though there was little emotion on Mrs. McSorley's rather hard-featured face, she looked at her visitor with curiosity. She was so pretty, with her slight, graceful figure, waving dark hair, and the friendly expression in her bright eyes was likely to win even so stolid a person as Mrs. McSorley. "She dresses plain and neat," said Maggie, after Brenda had left; "but she must be awful rich to wear a diamond pin to fasten her watch to the outside of her coat, and there was about a dozen silver things dangling from her belt." Yet though Brenda made a good impression on Mrs. McSorley, the latter would not commit herself to say just what she would have Maggie do if she should lose her place. She'd set her mind on having the girl rise through the different grades. "I hate to have to switch my mind round--I'm that set," she had explained, adding, "Maggie thinks me stingy because I take all her earnings instead of letting her spend money for fine feathers and theatres like the rest of the girls hereabouts. But some time she'll be grateful." Then came Brenda's opportunity for saying a little about her plan for Maggie,--a plan so quickly made, so likely to be set aside by the grim aunt. While Mrs. McSorley listened she moved around the room, filling the tea-kettle, lighting the lamp. At last, when Brenda had finished, her reply gave only a slight hope that she would agree to the plan. Yet Brenda felt that she had gained a point when Mrs. McSorley promised to go with Maggie in a few days to visit the school. The lighted lamp reminded Brenda that outside it must be dusk. It would trouble her to find her way to the cars through unfamiliar streets, and she was only too glad to accept Maggie's offer to guide her, and Maggie was more than delighted to have this last chance for a little talk with "the kind young lady." "You'll not cry," said Brenda, "even if they won't take you back; remember that you have a new friend." "Oh, Miss, you're so good, and to think that you have nothing for your twenty dollars but those pieces of broken glass." "Ah! it's very pretty glass," responded Brenda, "and I'm going to keep the pieces as a reminder." What she meant was that she would keep the pieces as a reminder not to be extravagant, and as she looked at the little silver mesh purse hanging at her belt she smiled to think that since she left home in the early afternoon it had been emptied of more than twenty dollars, while she had nothing to show for the money,--nothing, indeed, except her new acquaintance with Mrs. McSorley and Maggie, and some fragments of glass. II A FAMILY COUNCIL Brenda had to change from the surface car to one that would take her home through the subway. It was so late that she involuntarily stepped toward a cab standing on the corner opposite the Common. On second thought she decided to economize, since she had already had an expensive afternoon. After depositing her subway ticket she had to wait a few minutes for her car in a crowd, and some one scrambling for a car pushed some one else against her. Brenda, looking around, saw a handsome black-eyed girl with a dark kerchief pinned over her head. "Oh, I beg your pardon," she said, with a foreign accent, fumbling in a basket that she carried on her arm. Later, as the car was emerging into the light of the open space near the Public Garden Brenda's hand went instinctively toward the silver-mesh purse that she wore at her belt. It was not there, though she remembered having taken a coin from it as she bought her car ticket. Though accustomed to losing her little personal possessions, Brenda especially valued this purse, and she set her wits at work to trace the loss. She remembered the little girl with the basket, and recalled that the moment before the child had begged her pardon she had felt something jerk her belt. Had she only put the two things together earlier she might have recovered the purse; for of course the child had taken it. Yet to prove this would have been difficult. She would never have had the courage to call a policeman, and remembering the little girl's large, soft eyes, she found it hard to believe her a thief. "An expensive afternoon!" she said to herself. "My twenty dollars gone in one crash, and then that pretty purse with two or three dollars more. What will they say when I tell them at home?" Then she decided to say nothing about losing the purse. This was the kind of thing that they expected her to do, and her brother-in-law would tease her unmercifully. But Brenda was not secretive, and it was easy enough to speak about Maggie and the broken vase. The story did not lose by her telling, especially as the box with the broken pieces arrived when she was in the midst of her tale. The family was seated in the library after dinner, and each one begged for a little piece of the iridescent glass as a souvenir. But Brenda refused the request, on the plea that for the present she wished to have something to show for her money. "Although even without the vase I feel that I've gained something," she concluded. "Experience?" queried her father; "I always hoped you'd feel that experience is a treasure." "Of course," responded Brenda, "but I was thinking of Maggie McSorley; she may prove of more worth than twenty dollars if she becomes my candidate for Julia's school,--a perfect bargain, in fact." "If she keeps her promise--" "If! why, Mamma, I am sure that she will." "Speaking of losing," interposed Agnes, Brenda's sister, "Arthur lost his temper to-day when he found that you were so ready to break your appointment." "Oh, he'll find it soon enough; besides, he can't expect me always to be ready to do just what he wishes." "Well, this involved some one else. He had promised young Halstead to take you to his studio to see a picture, and he was greatly disappointed, for the picture is to be sent away to-morrow." "There!" exclaimed Brenda, "why didn't I remember? I thought that we were simply going for a walk to Brookline, but they shut off the telephone, or cut me off, and that was why he couldn't remind me. I'm awfully sorry." "You won't have a chance to tell him so this evening. What shall I say when I see him?" "You needn't take the trouble, Ralph," replied Brenda; "we're to ride to-morrow, and I can explain." "It will be his turn to forget." But Brenda did not heed Ralph's teasing, for already at the sound of three sharp peals of the door-bell she had rushed out to meet her cousin Julia. "Oh, Julia, I have found _just_ the girl for your school; she is an orphan and hates study, and--" "Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Ralph, "those are certainly fine qualifications,--'an orphan and hates study'!" "I understand what she means, or thinks she means," responded Julia, as she laughingly advanced to the centre of the room, greeting the family cordially, while Agnes helped her remove her hat and coat. "You've come for a week, I hope," exclaimed her uncle, kissing her. "Oh, I shall be here several times in the course of the week, and I shall stay now overnight. But a whole week away from my work! Ah! Uncle Robert, you're a good business man, to suggest such a thing!" And, seating herself on the arm of Mr. Barlow's chair, Julia shook her finger playfully in his face. "When do you have your house-warming?" asked Agnes, taking up the bit of sewing that she had dropped on Julia's entrance. "We are not to have a house-warming, but later we shall invite you one by one, or perhaps two by two, to see the house." "I suppose you've taken out all the good furniture, and in a certain way the Du Launy Mansion must be greatly changed." "Don't speak so sadly, Aunt Anna; it is changed, and yet it is not changed. But I did not know that you were attached to the old house?" "Hardly attached, Julia, for I was there only once, when I called on Madame Du Launy the year before her death. But in its style of architecture and its furnishings it seemed so completely an old-time house that I regret that it has had to be changed into an institution." "Oh, no, please, Aunt Anna, not an institution; anything but that. Why, we mean to make it a real home, so that girls who haven't homes of their own will feel perfectly happy. Of course we have had to make some changes in the house itself, and remove some of the furniture, but when you visit us you will see that it is far removed from an institution." "How many nationalities have you now, Julia? You had a dozen or two waiting admittance when you were last here, had you not?" "There are to be only ten girls in the home, and there are still some vacancies. Indeed you are a tease, Uncle Robert." Yet, although her uncle and aunt had teased her a little, Julia was not disconcerted, and when Agnes asked her to tell them something about the girls already in residence, she entered upon the task with great good-will. "Well, first of all, Concetta. It's fair to speak of her first, because she's Miss South's protégée. She is the genuine Italian type, with the most perfectly oval cheeks, and a kind of peach bloom showing through the brown, and her hair closely plaited and wound round and round, and the largest brown eyes. Miss South became interested in her last year when she was visiting schools. She found that her father meant to take her out of school this year to become a chocolate dipper." "A chocolate dipper! I've heard of tin dippers,--but--" "Hush, Ralph, you are too literal." "Yes," continued Julia, "a chocolate dipper. You know there's an enormous candy factory there on the water front, and most of the girls think their fortunes made when they can work in it. But after Miss South had visited Concetta a few times she thought her capable of something better, and so she is to have her chance at the Mansion. But her uncle Luigi was determined to make Concetta a wage-earner as soon as possible. She did not need more schooling, he said. "Fortunately, however, Concetta has a godmother who, although a working-woman, dingily clad, and apparently hardly able to support herself, is supposed to have money hidden away somewhere. On this account she has much influence in the Zanetti family, and a word from her accomplished more than all our arguments. Concetta is now freed from the dirty, crowded tenement, and I feel that we may be able to make something of her. Then there is Edith's nominee, Gretchen Rosenbaum, whose grandfather is the Blairs' gardener. She's pale and thin, and not at all the typical German maiden. She has a diploma from school of which she is very proud, and she says that she wants to be a housekeeper. The family are very thankful for the chance offered her by the Mansion." "The Germans know a good thing when they see it, especially if it isn't going to cost them much," said Ralph. "Then," continued Julia, "there are my two little Portuguese cousins, Luisa and Inez, as alike as two peas in a pod. Angelina told me about them, and their teacher confirmed my opinion that it would be a charity to save them from the slop-work sewing to which their old aunt had destined them." "How much of an annuity do you have to pay the aunt?" asked Ralph. Julia blushed, for in fact, in order to give the girls the opportunity that she thought they ought to have at the Mansion, she had had to promise the aunt two dollars a week, which the latter had estimated as her share of their earnings for the next two years. Julia did not wholly approve of the arrangement, although she knew that only in this way could she help the two little girls. "Hasn't Nora contributed to your household?" "Oh, yes, the dearest little Irish girl; we can hardly understand a word Nellie says, though she thinks she talks English. Nora ran across her and a party of other immigrants one day when she had gone over to the Cunard wharf to meet some friends. Nellie and a half-dozen others had become separated from the guide who was to take them to their lodging-place in East Boston. They were near the dock, and Nora became very much interested in Nellie. She took her name and destination, and later went to see her, and the result is one of our most promising pupils; that is, we have a chance to teach her more than almost any of the others. But there! I'm ashamed of talking so much shop." "Oh, no, it's most interesting. You haven't finished?" "Well, there are two or three other girls, of whom I will tell you more some other time, and there are one or two vacancies. I wish, Brenda, that you could send us a pupil. I'm afraid that you won't have much interest in the school unless you have a girl of your own there." "But I have--I will--that is--can't you see that I have something very important to tell you?" and thereupon Brenda launched into a glowing account of Maggie McSorley and the prospect of her going to the Mansion. "I just jumped at the idea when it came to me," concluded Brenda, "for I have had so many things on my mind this summer that I didn't make the effort that I had intended to find a girl for you. But now I shall do my utmost to persuade that cross-grained aunt, and I am bound to succeed." "I wouldn't discourage you, but evidently you made little headway this afternoon," said her mother, "in spite of the pretty high price that you have paid for the pleasure of Maggie's acquaintance." "Just wait, Mamma; just wait. When I really set out to do a thing I generally succeed. I found out to-day that Mrs. McSorley rather begrudges Maggie her home, although she feels it her duty to keep her. She says that Maggie has a way of upsetting things that is very trying, and she's had to give up to her the little room that she used to keep for a sitting-room. Oh, I'm certain that I can persuade her to spare Maggie." Then the conversation drifted on to other sides of the work, and Julia's enthusiasm half reconciled Mr. and Mrs. Barlow to the fact that she was to be away from them. "Home is a career, and we need you more than any group of strange girls possibly can," Mr. Barlow had protested, when Julia had shown him the impossibility of her settling down quietly at home. "You have Brenda and Agnes. Suppose that I had gone to Europe for two or three years after leaving college. I am sure that then you would not have complained, for you would have thought this a thing for my especial profit and pleasure. Now when I shall be so near that you will see me at least once a week, you are not altogether pleased, because you think that I am likely to work too hard." "Oh, papa needn't worry," cried Brenda; "I shall see that you have enough frivolity. You shall not overwork the poor little girls either. I feel sorry for them now, with you and Pamela and Miss South egging them on. But I have various frivolities in mind, and you must encourage me." "I never knew you to need encouragement in frivolity. A little discouragement would be more likely to have a wholesome effect." Thus they chatted, and Mr. Barlow, looking up from his evening paper from time to time, was convinced that Julia's new interests had certainly not yet taken away her taste for the lighter side of life. Indeed, on the whole, he had no decided objection to the scheme that Julia and Miss South had started to carry out. As his niece's tastes so evidently ran in philanthropic directions, he knew that in the end she must be happiest when following her bent. Miss South herself would have been the last to claim originality for the much-discussed school. There were other social settlements in the city, and one or two other domestic science schools in which girls had a good chance to learn cooking and other branches of household work. Yet the school at the Mansion had an object all its own. Miss South felt that each year many young girls drifted into shop or factory who might be encouraged to a higher ambition. For many of them evidently thought first of the money they could immediately earn, and there was no one to suggest that if they prepared themselves for something better they would later have more money as well as greater honor. So she tried to find girls willing to spend two years at the Mansion, while she watched them and advised them and guided them into what she believed would be the best avenue of employment for them. Some people thought that she meant to train all the girls to be domestics; others thought she aimed to keep them out of this occupation. She meant to train them all in housework so thoroughly, that, whether they entered service or had homes of their own, they should be able to do their work properly. She meant, if any of these girls showed special talents, to encourage them to pursue their natural bent. "Would you let them study art or music?" some one had asked in surprise. "Yes; why not?" "Why, girls from the tenement districts!--it doesn't seem right to encourage them in this way." "Oughtn't any young thing to be encouraged to follow its natural bent? It's a case of individuals, not of sections of the city." "I've always been sorry," explained Miss South, "for the bright girls who drop out of school at fourteen that their ablebodied parents may snatch the little wages they can earn in the factories. The ten or twelve girls we may have here at the Mansion are very few compared with the hundreds who need the same kind of chance. But I am hoping that through these a broader influence may be exerted." Although many critics naturally thought that Miss South did wrong in giving girls of a certain class ideas above their sphere, on the whole she was commended for undertaking a good work. There were some also who pitied Mrs. Barlow on account of Julia's partnership in the scheme. "This is what comes of letting a girl go to college," and they wondered that Mrs. Barlow herself did not express more disapproval. "You'll have only orphans," said Mr. Elton, a cousin of Mrs. Barlow's, who took much interest in the work; "for in my experience fathers and mothers of the working class are just lying in wait for the earnings of their half-grown daughters. To fill your school you will either have to kill off a few fathers and mothers, or else consider only orphans to be suitable candidates. To be sure, you might offer heavy bribes to parents. But of course you can get the orphans easily, if they have cruel aunts or stepmothers." "As to cruel aunts," responded Julia, "judging from my own experience, as was said of Mrs. Harris, 'I don't believe there's no sich a person;' and in spite of Ovid and Cinderella, I have my doubts about cruel stepmothers." "We'll see," said Mr. Elton. "At any rate, you'll have to bribe your girls, and when I meet them my first question will be, How much do they pay you to stay?" One of the most delightful features in fitting up the house for its new use had been the eagerness to help shown by many of Miss South's former pupils. Ruth, for example, in furnishing the kitchen, had said, "This will show that I have a practical interest in housekeeping, even though I am to spend my first year of married life in idle travel." "With your disposition it won't be wholly idle," Miss South had responded. "Well, I do mean to discover at least one or two new receipts, or better than that, some new articles of food, that I can put at the service of the Mansion upon my return." "We certainly shall have you in mind whenever we look at these pretty and practical things." III BRENDA AT THE MANSION One fine afternoon, not so very long after she had wasted her twenty dollars and made a friend of Maggie McSorley, Brenda in riding costume opened the front door. As she stood on the top step, somewhat impatiently she snapped her short crop as she gazed anxiously up Beacon Street. On the steps of the house directly opposite were three girls seated and one standing near by. They were schoolgirls evidently, with short skirts hardly to their ankles, and with hair in long pig-tails. As she looked at them, by one of those swift flights of thought that so often carry us unexpectedly back to the past Brenda was reminded of another bright autumn afternoon, just six years earlier. Then she and Nora, and Edith and Belle, an inseparable quartette, had sat on her front steps discussing the arrival of her unknown cousin, Julia. How much had happened since that day! Then she had been younger even than those girls across the street, and Julia, who had come and conquered (though not without difficulties) was now a college graduate. But Brenda was not one to brood over the past, and when one of the girls shouted, "We know whom you're looking for," she had a bright reply ready. Soon around the corner came the clicking of hoofs on the asphalt pavement. Brenda, shading her eyes from the sun, looked toward the west. "Late, as usual, Arthur!" she cried, a trifle sharply, as a young man, flinging his reins to the groom on the other horse, ran up the steps toward her. "Impatient, as usual!" he responded pleasantly, consulting his watch. "As a matter of fact, I'm five minutes ahead of time. But I'd have been here half an hour earlier had I known it was a matter of life and death." The frown passed from Brenda's face. The two young people mounted their horses, and the groom walked back to the stable. "Have a good time!" shouted one of the girls, as the two riders started off. "The same to you!" cried Arthur. "Ah, me!" exclaimed Brenda, as they rode on, "I feel so old when I look at those Sellers girls. Why, they are almost in long dresses now, and I can remember when they were in baby carriages." "Well, even I would rather wear a long dress any day than a baby carriage," responded Arthur. "There, look out!" for they were turning a corner, and two or three bicyclists came suddenly upon them. Brenda avoided the bicyclists, crossed the car tracks safely, and soon the two were trotting through the Fenway. The foliage on the banks of the little stream was brilliant, and here and there were clumps of asters and other late flowers. They rode on in silence, and were well past the chocolate house before either spoke a word. "Why so silent, fair sister-in-law?" "Oh, I was only thinking." "No wonder that you could not speak. I trust that you were thinking of me." "To be frank," replied Brenda, "that is just what I was not doing. In fact I was thinking of a time when I did not know of your existence." "Mention not that sad time, mention it not! fair sister-in-law." When Arthur used this term in addressing Brenda she knew that he was bent on teasing; for although her sister had married Arthur's brother, her engagement to Arthur, announced in June, might very properly be thought to have done away with the teasing title "sister-in-law." "Don't be silly, Arthur," cried Brenda; "you can't tease me to-day. Several years of my life certainly did pass before I had an idea that you were in the world. I was thinking of the time before we knew each other, when I was so jealous of Julia." "Jealous of Julia!" "Oh, I hadn't seen her when I began to have this feeling." "But why--what made you jealous if you hadn't seen her? "I can't wholly explain. Perhaps it wasn't altogether jealousy. You see I didn't like the idea of her coming to live with us." "You must have got over that soon. You and she have always seemed to hit it off pretty well since I've known you." "Oh, yes, ever since you have known us; and I've always been ashamed of that first year. Though Belle led me on, just a little." As Arthur still seemed somewhat mystified, Brenda described Julia's first winter in Boston; and she did not spare herself, when she told how she had shut her cousin out from the little circle of "The Four." "Really, however, Nora and Edith were not at all to blame. They liked Julia from the first. Then what a brick Julia was when she made up that sum of money that I lost after we had worked so hard at the Bazaar for Mrs. Rosa." Though Arthur had heard more or less about these things before, he enjoyed hearing Brenda narrate them in her quick and somewhat excited fashion. "Why, you may believe that I really missed Julia when she was at Radcliffe, and I'm fearfully disappointed that she won't be at home with us this winter." "She isn't going back to Cambridge, is she? I certainly saw her degree, and it was on parchment." "Oh, Arthur, how you do forget things. I'm sure that I wrote you about the school that she and Miss South were to start." "I was probably more interested in other things in the letter. But has she lost her money, and hence starts a school?" "Arthur, I believe that you skip pages and pages." "No, indeed, dear sister-in-law, but some pages sink more deeply in my mind than others. Has Julia lost her money, and therefore must she teach?" "You are hopeless, though I believe that really you remember all about it. It's Miss South's scheme. You see she has that great Du Launy house on her hands, and it's a kind of domestic school for poor girls, and Julia is to help her." "What kind of a school?" "A domestic school; I think that's it; to teach girls how to keep house and be useful." "Indeed! Then couldn't you go there for a term or two, Brenda? That kind of knowledge may be very useful to you some time." Whereupon Brenda urged her horse and was off at a gallop, so distancing Arthur for some seconds before he overtook her. On they went through the Arboretum, and around Franklin Park, then over the Boulevard toward Mattapan and Milton. It was dusk when they turned homeward, and dark, as they looked from a height on the city twinkling below them. As Arthur left her to take the horses to the stable Brenda called after him, "I may take your advice and enter the school for a year or two." "We'll see," responded Arthur. Now, although Brenda had no real intention of entering the new school, either as resident or pupil, she was deeply interested and extremely anxious to see what changes had been made in the Du Launy Mansion, and she was to make her first visit there a day or two after this ride with Arthur Weston. The school itself was not as new as it seemed. It had existed in Miss South's mind long before she had a prospect of carrying out her plans. Many persons thought it a fine thing for her when she was able to give up her teaching and live a life of leisure in the fine old mansion with Madame Du Launy. Yet Miss South had wholly enjoyed her work at Miss Crawdon's school, and she had said good-bye to her pupils with regret. Kind though her grandmother was, she had sacrificed more than any one realized in becoming the constant companion of an exacting old lady. Still, as this was the duty that lay nearest her, she devoted herself to it wholly. Although Madame Du Launy had lived in a large and imposing house, containing much costly furniture, her fortune was smaller than most persons supposed. The larger part of her income came from an annuity that ceased with her death. Miss South had not enough money left to permit her to keep up the great house in the style in which her grandmother had lived; for out of it small incomes were to be paid during their lives to three old servants, and after their deaths this money was to go to Lydia South's brother Louis. To Louis also went the money from the sale of certain pictures and medieval tapestries that the will had ordered to be sold. As to the Mansion itself, Lydia South could do what she liked with it and its contents,--let it, sell it, or live in it. "She'll have to take boarders, though, if she lives there," said some one; "aside from the expense it would be altogether too dreary for a young woman to live there alone." But Miss South had no doubt as to what she should do. Here was the chance, that had once seemed so far away, of carrying out her plans for a model school. She found that it was wisest for her to retain the old house for her purpose, as she could neither sell it nor rent it to advantage. The neighborhood was not what it had once been. Almost all the older residents had moved away; two families or more were the rule in most of the houses in the street, and not so very far away were several unmistakable tenement-houses. Miss Crawdon's school had left the street a year or two before, and if she should sell the house no one would buy it for a residence. Julia, who was to be her partner in the new scheme, thought the Du Launy Mansion far better suited to their purpose than any house they could secure elsewhere. "The North End would be more picturesque, and we could do regular settlement work among those interesting foreigners. But there is more than one settlement down there already, and here we shall have the field almost to ourselves." Changes and additions to the house had been made during the summer, and not one of Julia's intimates, excepting those who were to live in the Mansion, had been permitted to see it. Nora and Edith and Brenda had implored, Philip had teased, but all had been refused. "You must wait until everything is in readiness." When, therefore, Brenda and Nora one morning found themselves walking up the little flagged walk to the old Du Launy House, they speculated greatly as to the changes in the house. Outside, on the front at least, there had been no alterations, and everything looked the same as on that morning when the mischievous girls had ventured to pass under the porte-cochère to apologize for breaking a window with their ball. It was the same exterior, and yet not the same. It had, as Brenda said, "a wide-awake look," whereas formerly almost all the blinds had been closed, giving an aspect of dreariness. Now all the shutters were thrown back, blinds were raised, and fresh muslin curtains showed at many windows instead of the heavy draperies of Madame Du Launy's time. In place of the sleek butler who had seemed like a part of the furnishings, permanent and unremovable, Angelina opened the front door, beaming with satisfaction at the dignity to which she had risen. Indeed she fairly bristled with a sense of her own importance, and answered their questions in her airiest manner. "Oh, Manuel's doing finely at school, Miss Barlow. I can't be spared much now to go to Shiloh, but I was there over Sunday, and my mother's got two boarders, young women that work in the factory and don't make much trouble for her. So you see I'm not so much needed at home. John's got a place, too, in the city this winter, so that I'll see him sometimes," and Angelina giggled in her rather foolish way. As she ushered them into the sitting-room Julia emerged from the shadows of the long hall to greet them, and then there was a confusion of sounds, as Nora and Brenda eagerly asked questions at the very moment when Julia was trying to answer them. "Yes," said Julia, as they sat down in the reception-room, "this is the same room where I first saw Madame Du Launy, the day I took Fidessa home. But you've both been here since?" "Oh, yes, and I can see that it hasn't been so very greatly changed. There's that picture of Miss South's mother that brought about the reconciliation, as they'd say in a novel," responded Nora gayly. "I'm glad that you haven't made the reception-room as bare as a hospital ward; I had my misgivings, as I approached the door." "Oh, we wished this to be as pleasant and homelike as possible; you can see that there are many things here that I had in my room at Cambridge," and she pointed to a Turner etching, and a colonial desk, and an easy-chair that Brenda and Nora both recognized. "The greatest changes," continued Julia, "are in the drawing-rooms;" and leading the way across the hall, Brenda and Nora both exclaimed in wonder. Two drawing-rooms, formerly connected by folding-doors, had been thrown together, and with the partitions removed, the one great room was really imposing. "You could give a dance here," cried Brenda, pirouetting over the polished floor. "Who knows?" replied Julia with a smile. "I'm afraid that you'll have nothing but lectures and classical concerts, and other improving things," rejoined Brenda. "Who knows?" again responded Julia. "But it's really lovely," interposed Nora; "I adore this grayish blue paper,--everything looks well with it. And what sweet pictures! why, there's that very water color that Madame Du Launy wanted to buy at the Bazaar. To think that it should come to her house after all! And there's your Botticelli print; well, I believe that it will have an elevating effect; I know that it always makes me feel rather queer to look at it." "Strange logic!" responded Nora, as they wandered through the large room. "I suppose that you chose the books, Julia; they look like you,--Ruskin, and Longfellow, and Greene's 'Shorter History;' surely you don't expect girls like these to read such books. Why, I haven't read half of them myself; and such good bindings. I really believe that these are your own books." "Why not? We have had great fun in choosing the books we thought they might like to read from my collections, and from the old-fashioned bookcases in Madame Du Launy's library. The best bindings are her books. Many of them had never been read by any one, I am sure; and as to the covers, we shall see that they are not ill-treated. We have a theory that they may be more attracted by handsomely dressed books; for there's no doubt," turning with a smile toward Miss South, "that they think more of us when arrayed in our best." "I love these low bookcases," continued Nora; "and I dare say that you'll train them up to liking this Tanagra figurine, and the Winged Victory, and all these other objects that you have arranged so artistically along the top." "And how you will feel," interposed Brenda, "when some girl in dusting knocks one of these pretty things to the floor. That bit of Tiffany glass, for instance, looks as if made expressly to fall under Maggie McSorley's slippery fingers." "Oh, that reminds me, Brenda, Maggie has come," said Miss South. "No; not really?" "Yes, her aunt brought her over very solemnly two or three days ago. She said she thought it her duty not to trouble you again, as Maggie had already been so much expense to you. She came here the day after you saw her, and I explained our plans, and what we should expect from every girl who entered. She promised that Maggie should stay the two years, and showed a canny Scotch appreciation of the fact, that although Maggie could earn little or nothing while here, at the end of the time she would be worth much more than if she had spent the two years in a shop." "But how does Maggie feel?" "Oh, I should judge that resignation is Maggie's chief state of mind. We are going to try to help her acquire some more active qualities," said Miss South. "Come, come;" Brenda tried to draw Nora from the centre table on which lay many attractive books and periodicals. "I'm very anxious to see Maggie. Can't we see her now, Julia?" "I believe she's in the kitchen, and as this is one of our most attractive rooms, you might as well go there first." "The kitchen, you remember, is practically Ruth's gift," said Julia, as they stood on the threshold of a broad sunny room in the new ell, to which they had descended a few steps from the main house. "She paid half the expense of building the ell, and her purse paid for everything in the kitchen." "But how beautiful; why, it isn't at all like a kitchen!" "All the same it is a kitchen, though we have tried to make it as pleasant as any room in the house--in its way," concluded Julia smiling. Advancing a few steps farther, Nora and Brenda continued their exclamations of admiration. The walls, painted a soft yellow, reflected the sunshine, without making a glare. The oiled hardwood floor had its centre covered with a large square of a substance resembling oilcloth, yet softer. A large space around the range was of brick tiles. The iron sink stood on four iron legs with a clear, open space beneath it; there were no wooden closets under it to harbor musty cloths and half-cleaned kettles, and serve as a breeding place for all kinds of microbes. A shelf beside the sink was so sloped that dishes placed there would quickly drain off before drying. The wall above the sink was of blue and white Dutch tiles, and between the sink and the range a zinc-covered table offered a suitable resting-place for hot kettles and pans. Below the clock shelf was another, with a row of books that closer inspection showed to be cook-books. All these details could not, of course, be taken in at once, although the pleasant impression was immediate. "Plants in the window, and what a curious wire netting!" cried Brenda. "Yes, it is neater than curtains, keeps out flies, and though it is so made that outsiders cannot look into the room it does not obscure the light. The shades at the top can be pulled down when we really need to darken the room." Nora stood enraptured before the tall dresser with its store of dishes and jelly moulds, then she gazed into the long, light pantry, the shelves of which were laden with materials for cooking in jars and tins and little boxes, all neatly labelled and within easy reach. On the wall were several charts--one showing the different cuts of beef and lamb, another by figures and diagrams giving the different nutritive values of different articles of food. On the walls were here and there hung various sets of maxims or rules neatly framed, among which, perhaps the most conspicuous, was: "I. Do everything in its proper time. "II. Keep everything in its proper place. "III. Put everything to its proper use." IV AN EXPLORING TOUR Examining and admiring everything in the kitchen, the girls had half forgotten Maggie, until the sound of singing attracted their attention. "'Hold the Fort,'" exclaimed Brenda; then, after listening a moment, "But no, the words sound strange." "Oh, it's one of their work songs," said Miss South, and listening again, they made it out. "Now the cleaning quite to finish, Pile up every plate, Shake the cloth, and then with neatness Fold exactly straight. Quick, but silent, every motion Taking things away, To the pantry, to the kitchen, With a little tray." "Their song betrays them," said Miss South; "this part of the work should have been done earlier," and pushing open the door that led from the other end of the pantry, the four found themselves in the girls' dining-room. "How is this?" asked Miss South so seriously that one of the young girls holding the table-cloth dropped an end suddenly, and both looked sheepish. "It was such a lovely day that we went out and sat on the back steps," said one of them frankly, "and then we forgot all about this room." "But it's the rule, is it not, to put this room in perfect order before you wash the dishes?" "Yes'm--but we forgot." "Well, I'm not here to scold, but I only wish that you had been as careful about this as about your kitchen work; I noticed that you had left everything there very neat." "Yes'm," was the answer from both girls at once. "Where's Miss Dreen, Concetta?" "Oh! she said she'd go to market right after breakfast, and leave us do what we could without her." "I understand," said Miss South, as she introduced each of the young girls to the visitors. "Miss Dreen, the housekeeper," she explained, as they turned to go upstairs, "supervises the girls in the kitchen. I suppose that she left them alone to test their sense of responsibility. She will require a report on her return." "Well, if they are as frank with her as with us, she will have little to complain of. One looked like an Italian, and I thought that they were never ready to tell the truth." "That depends on the girl," said Miss South; "but I have confidence in this one. The other, by the way, is German. Edith's protégée, you remember. I wonder where Maggie is," she continued; "she ought to have been there, for we have three girls together serve a turn in the kitchen each week, and we had her begin to-day." "I wish that Maggie were as pretty as Concetta," said Brenda, in a tone louder than was really necessary, "for Maggie is mortal plain;" and then, at that moment, she ran into somebody in a turn of the hallway, and when in the same instant the door of an opposite room was opened she saw Maggie McSorley gazing up at her with tear-stained eyes. "Why, Maggie, I came downstairs expressly to find you. Have you been crying?" A glance had assured her that the tears had not been caused by her hasty words. Indeed, the swollen eyes showed that the child had been crying for some time. "What is the matter, Maggie?" asked Julia, while Nora and Miss South passed on toward the reception-room. "Miss Barlow has come to see you, and she may think that we have not been kind to you." "Oh, no, 'm, you've been kind;" and Maggie began to sob after the fashion in which she had sobbed during her first interview with Brenda. At last by dint of much questioning they found that she and Concetta had disagreed when they first set about clearing the table, and while scuffling a pitcher had been broken. "_I_ didn't do it--truly; Concetta said I'd surely be sent home in disgrace, and she picked up the pieces to show you, and locked the dining-room door so's I couldn't go back and finish my work, and put the key in her pocket; and what will Miss Dreen say, for it was my day to tidy up the dining-room." Brenda and Julia saw that they had been rather hasty in forming an opinion of Concetta's innocence and gentleness. They did not doubt Maggie when she showed the swelling on her head, near her cheek-bone, that she said had been caused by a blow. "Evidently you and Concetta cannot work together at the same time. We'll send Nellie down to the kitchen this week. Now, Brenda, I'll leave you with Maggie for a little while, and she can tell you what she is learning here." But the interview was far from satisfactory to either of the two. Maggie, always reticent, was now doubly so, as her mind dwelt on the insult she had received from the Italian girl, "dago," as she said to herself. On her part Brenda hated tears, and as she had not witnessed the quarrel, she felt for Maggie less sympathy than when she had seen her weep over the broken vase. Brenda asked a few questions, Maggie replied in monosyllables, and both were relieved when Miss South suggested that Maggie take Brenda up to see her room. Meanwhile the two young girls in the kitchen were engaged in an animated discussion. In Brenda's presence Concetta's great, dark eyes had expressed intense admiration for the slender, graceful young woman flitting about with pleased exclamations for everything that she saw. "Ain't she stylish?" Concetta said to her companion as the visitors turned away, "with all them silver things jingling from her belt, and such shiny shoes. Say! don't you think those were silk flowers on her hat?" Concetta had not been able to give to her English the polish of her native tongue, and the grammar acquired in her teacher's presence slipped away under the influence of the many-tongued neighborhood where she lived. "She's a great sight handsomer than that Miss Blair," and she looked at her companion narrowly. "Yes, I wish she'd brought me here instead of Miss Blair; she seems so lively, and Miss Blair is so--so kind of slow." Gretchen knew very well that she was wrong in speaking thus of the one whose interest had made her an inmate of the delightful Mansion, yet as she and her companion continued to talk Brenda gained constantly at the expense of Edith. It not infrequently happens that those persons whom we ought to admire the most are those whom we find it the hardest to admire, sometimes even to like. Gretchen owed everything to Edith, who had been very kind to her at a time when her family were in rather sore straits. But appearances count for more than they should with many young persons. Whatever Edith wore was in good taste, and costly, even when lacking in the indefinite something called style. Nora the girls would have put in the same class with Brenda, as quite worthy for them to copy when they should be old enough to dress like young ladies. They did not know that Nora's clothes cost far less than Brenda's, and that Edith's dress was usually twice as costly. It was undoubtedly Brenda's brightness of manner and her generally graceful air that they translated into "stylishness"--the kind of thing that they thought they could make their own by imitation and practice when they were older. Now it happened that neither Concetta nor Gretchen had the least idea that Maggie was Brenda's special protégée. Had they known this their tongues might have flown even faster, as they jeered at the absent Maggie for being a regular cry-baby. Their own wrongdoing in teasing Maggie sat lightly on their little shoulders. It was their theory that might makes right, and as they had been able to get rid of the girl they didn't like, they believed themselves evidently much better than she. With her rather listless guide Brenda made the tour of the upper stories. There were twelve pretty bedrooms for the girls, of almost uniform size, although varying somewhat in shape. The furniture in each was the same, but to allow a little scope for individual taste each girl was permitted to decide upon the color to be used in draperies, counterpane, and china. Blue and pink were the prevailing choice, for the range of colors suitable for these purposes is limited. Nellie asked for green, and had it even to the green clover-leaf on the china; and another girl begged for plain white, unwilling to have even a touch of gilt on the china; "it makes me think of heaven," she confided to Julia, "to see everything so white and still when I come up to my room at night." Maggie had chosen brown for her room, a choice that had especially awakened the ridicule of Luisa, who had said that if she could have her own way there should be a mixture of red, yellow, and blue on all her possessions. "Why, it's ever so pretty, Maggie," said Brenda, "and you are keeping it neat; but I can't say that those broad brown ribbons tying up the window curtains are cheerful, and I never did like a brown pattern on crockery-ware; but still if you like it--" "Well, I don't like it quite as much as I expected." "Then perhaps later you can make some changes; I would certainly have blue ribbons." "Oh, I don't know, Miss Barlow, there's so many other colors, and I can't tell which I'd like the best." "I must send you two or three books for your bookshelf." "Thank you, Miss Barlow," said Maggie coldly, without suggesting, as Brenda hoped she might, some book that she particularly wished to own. Just then, to her relief, Julia passed through the hall. "Come upstairs with me and I will show you the gymnasium that we have had built. Edith, you know, paid for it all." So up to the top of the house the two cousins climbed, followed by Nora and Maggie. Two large rooms had been thrown into one, and as the roof was flat, a fine, large hall was the result. This was fitted up with light gymnastic apparatus, and Julia explained that a teacher was to come once a week to teach the girls. "In stormy weather, when we can't go out, this will be a grand place for bean-bags and similar games, and, indeed, I think that the gymnasium will prove one of the most attractive rooms in the Mansion." At this moment a Chinese gong resounded through the house. "Twelve o'clock; it seems hardly possible!" and Julia led the way for the others to follow her downstairs. From the school-room above three or four girls now appeared, and others came from various parts of the house where they had been at work, among them Concetta and Gretchen. "Let me count you," said Miss South, after they were seated; "although I can make only nine, I cannot decide who is missing." As Concetta raised her hand Gretchen tried to pull it down. "You're not in school; she don't want you to do that." But the former continued to shake her hand, until Miss South noticed her. "Please, 'm, it's Mary Murphy; she told me she was going to sneak home after breakfast. Her mother said she didn't sleep a wink for two nights thinking of her dear daughter in such a place; so's soon as she'd read the letter she said she'd go right home." "Very well," said Miss South, "I'm much obliged to you for telling me;" and then, to the disappointment of all, she made no further comment on Mary Murphy's departure. The half-hour in the library passed quickly. Each girl reported what she had done thus far, and in some cases Miss South gave instructions for the rest of the day. One or two had special questions to ask, one or two had grievances. Promptly at half-past twelve Miss South gave the signal, and they filed away to prepare for dinner. "It's a kind of dress inspection. You will understand what I mean if you have ever visited an army post." "You did not find much fault." "No, Nora, but I observed many things, and before night I shall have a chance for private conversation with several who stand in special need of it. There were Concetta's finger-nails, and Luisa's shoestrings, and Gretchen had her apron fastened with a safety-pin. Ah! well, we can't expect too much." "They really are very funny," interposed Julia. "The other day I heard Inez talking to Haleema as they were making a bed: 'Ain't it silly to have to put all these sheets and things on so straight every day when they get all mussed up at night.' "'My mother never used to make the beds,' said Haleema reminiscently. "'No, nor mine; we used just to lump them all at the foot of the bed, and pile the blankets from the children's bed on the floor.' "'It would be nice and handy to hang them over the foot here.' "'Yes, they'd get so well aired, and it would save all this bother.' "I'm almost sure that they would have tried this plan," continued Julia, "had they not seen me standing in the hall. However, Haleema did venture to say that she wondered why we insist on having the bureau drawers shut, after they've all been put in good order. It's only when they have nothing in them that she thinks that they should be closed. She also prefers to use the chair in her room for some of the little ornaments that she brought from home, and when she sits down she crouches on the rug." "Sits Turkish fashion, I suppose you mean." "Perhaps it is Turkish fashion, although I imagine that there is no love lost between the Syrians and the Turks." "Haleema is much neater than Luisa, and although we think of her as less civilized, she hasn't half as much objection to taking the daily bath that Luisa considers a perfect waste of time." "It's very discouraging," said Julia with a sigh. "Oh, one needn't mind a little thing like that. One or two that I could mention think it a great waste of time to wash the dishes after every meal." "Ugh!" and an expression of disgust crossed Brenda's face at the mere thought of using the same plates and cups unwashed for a second meal. "There's a slight strain on the one who supervises their table manners. I've just been through my week. You see," and she turned in explanation toward Nora and Brenda, "each resident serves for a week as head of the girls' table at breakfast, and it is her duty to correct all their little faults as a mother would. At the other two meals they have only Miss Dreen, for we think that they ought to be free from the restraint of our presence at these other meals." "Do you try to guide conversation, too?" "Oh, yes, but thus far our presence has seemed a decided damper, and the solemnity of breakfast is in great contrast with the hilarity at the other two meals. At tea-time their laughter sometimes reaches even as far as the library." "They are ready to learn, and particularly ready to imitate. I am really obliged to watch myself constantly," said Julia, "lest I say or do something that may return against me some time, like a boomerang." "Then I fear that I should be a poor kind of resident," rejoined Brenda, "for it has been said that I speak first and think afterwards. However, in the presence of Maggie McSorley I am always going to try to do my best; for apparently it's my duty to bring her up for the next few years, and I won't shirk. But I wish that it had been Concetta instead of Maggie on whom I stumbled. I'm going to tell Ralph that I've found a perfect model for his new picture. Wouldn't you let her pose?" "Ask Miss South," responded Julia. But Miss South, without waiting for the question, only shook her head, with an emphatic "No, indeed." V PHILIP'S LECTURE Angelina was smiling broadly, "grinning from ear to ear" some persons would have expressed it, as she ushered two visitors into the room where Miss South, Julia, and Pamela were sitting one afternoon toward six o'clock, for Pamela was one of the residents at the Mansion. "Why, Philip; why, Tom!" cried Julia, rising from the lounge where she was looking over a folio of engravings, "this _is_ a pleasure." "Yes, we thought we'd accept promptly your kind invitation to drop in upon you at any time, so that we could see the Mansion and its contents just as they are." "Oh, yes, they are always ready for inspection." "We hope that you will ask us to stay to dinner," added Tom, after he had followed Philip's example and had shaken hands with the others. "Oh, certainly! especially as you have made it so evident that you are ready to accept." "That is delightful! You see we feared to wait for a formal invitation, lest you might show us only the company side of things, and we are anxious to see you just as you are." "Ah! we have no company side. We decided in the beginning to welcome our friends at any time, if they would take us just as we were." "This doesn't look like an institution," said Tom, glancing around the pretty room. "No, we haven't seen the real inmates yet. I suppose you keep them under lock and key," interposed Philip. "Hardly," responded Miss South, "because--" Then, as the door was pushed open for a minute, shouts of merriment from another part of the house showed that if in durance vile, the inmates were at least in full possession of some of their faculties. Then the party broke up into two groups. Tom in his vivacious way told of his experiences as a fledgling lawyer. This was his first visit to Boston since he had been admitted to the bar, and he described himself as just beginning to believe that he might escape starvation from the fact that one or two clients had made their appearance at his office. "It's lucky for my friends that a little practice is coming my way, for I was ready, for the sake of business, to set any of them by the ears. Why, the other day when I was out with my uncle, and the cable car stopped too suddenly, I almost hoped that he would sprain his ankle--just a little, that I might have the chance to bring suit against the company." "How cruel!" exclaimed Julia, into whose ear he had let fall these rash admissions. While Tom ran on in this frivolous fashion, Philip was talking more seriously with Pamela and Miss South. Indeed, seriousness was a quality that Philip now showed to an extent that seemed strange to those who had known him in his earlier college years. Much responsibility had recently come to him on account of his father's failing health, and in the West he had been so thrown on his own resources that he no longer regarded life as unsatisfactory unless it offered him amusement. "I have wondered," he was saying to Miss South, "if you really wished me to give that talk on the Western country." "Yes, indeed, we are very anxious to have it. We are counting on you to open our lecture season." "Oh, I'm only too happy, although you must remember that I'm not a professional; but my lantern is in order, and I have nearly a hundred slides. Many of them are really fine,--even if I do say it," he concluded apologetically. "I'm sure they are," responded Miss South, "and I can tell you that we older 'inmates,' as you call us, are equally anxious to hear you." "You mean, to see the pictures; they will be worth your attention, but as to my speaking--" "'You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage,'" interposed Tom mockingly, as he overheard the latter part of the sentence. Whereat Philip, somewhat embarrassed, was glad to see Angelina at the door announcing "Dinner is served," and leading the way with Miss South the others followed them to the dining-room. As they took their places Philip found himself beside Pamela. He had seen her but two or three times since her Freshman year at Radcliffe, and in consequence would hardly have dared venture to allude to that sugar episode through which he had first made her acquaintance. But Pamela, no longer sensitive about this misadventure, brought it up herself. Though Philip politely persisted that it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to see before him on a Cambridge sidewalk a stream of sugar pouring from an overturned paper-bag, Pamela assured him that to her he had appeared like a hero on that memorable occasion, since he had saved her from a certain amount of mortification. "But I'm wiser now," she said; "I hadn't studied philosophy then," and she quoted one or two passages from certain ancient authors to show that she had attained a state of indifference to outside criticism. Gradually Pamela told Philip much about her school, to prove that it wasn't simply philosophy that helped her enjoy her work. "So it really is your interest in them that makes your pupils so fond of your classes." Then, in answer to her word of surprise, he added: "Oh, my little cousin, Emily Dover, one of your most devoted admirers, has been telling me--I believe that you have the misfortune to instruct her." "Ah, the good fortune! She is a bright little thing, if not a hard student." "You could hardly expect more from one of our family." "Why, your sister seems to me fairly intelligent." Could this be Pamela, actually speaking in a bantering tone, unawed by a young man considerably her senior? "I am glad," he said a moment later, "that you are surviving not only the experiment of teaching my little cousin, but this experiment at the Mansion." "Oh, this isn't an experiment, it's--it's--" "The real thing?" "Yes, it really is. If you wish to understand it, you must come here some day when the classes are at work. Miss South or Edith will be happy to show you about." "But I am a working-man now. At the time when I might properly visit the school I am afraid that there would be no classes in session." "Of course I'm busy myself, too," said Pamela, "and sometimes I feel that I am here on false pretences." "Remembering your reputation, I don't believe that you are very idle." "Oh, of course I help; but then some one else could as well do my work." "Tell me exactly what you do." But Pamela shook her head, and with all his urging Philip could not make her describe her exact sphere of activity. Yet Miss South or Julia could have told that no resident was more useful than Pamela, who devoted her evenings to the girls, talking to them, playing games, and in all that she did directing their thoughts toward the appreciation of beautiful things. Every Saturday she took two or three to the Art Museum, and later she meant them to see any exhibitions that there might be in town. One or two critics were inclined to laugh at this work. "It would put strange ideas into the heads of the girls. They would want things that they could never own." But Pamela was satisfied when she saw the rapturous glance of appreciation on the faces of Concetta and Inez, the most artistic of the girls, and the awakening interest in the others. But how could she explain all this to Philip in casual conversation at a dinner-table? Maggie, helping Angelina, found this, her first experience in waiting on company, very trying. To overcome her timidity Miss South had purposely assigned her to this task. But who could have supposed that she would let the bread fall as she passed it to Philip, tilting the plate so far that a slice or two fell on the table before him. "There!" and he smiled good-humoredly, "the Mansion realizes the extent of my appetite, and evidently I am to receive more even than I ask for." Poor Maggie's next mishap was to drop a dessert plate as she started to take it from the sideboard. "It was because you looked at me so hard," she said afterwards to Angelina; "I couldn't think what you wanted, you were shaking your head so fierce." "Why, it was the finger-bowl, child. You forgot it. There should be one on every plate. When I told you to get extra things for company, I meant finger-bowls too. We always have them on the dessert plates." "Oh, yes," said Maggie, as if her not getting them had been the merest oversight, although really this was her first experience in waiting at dinner, and she had not a good memory for the details that had been taught her. But shy as she was, she did not hesitate to take part in the conversation once or twice. Miss South and the others showed no surprise when twice her voice was heard replying to questions that Philip had expected Miss South or Pamela to answer. After the older people returned to the library, Angelina confided to Maggie that Mr. Philip Blair was to give a lecture at the Mansion in a week or two. "I know all about it, because Miss Julia told me a few days ago." Haleema, the little Syrian girl, who was helping Maggie in her dish-washing, paused in her singing to listen to Angelina's accounts of the wonderful adventures that Mr. Blair had had in the West. "Ho!" said Haleema, "it ain't nothing to go bear-hunting, if you don't get killed. Why, I've had two uncles and ten cousins killed by the Turks," and then she went on singing cheerfully,-- "'As quick as you're able set neatly the table, And first lay the table-cloth square; And then on the table-cloth, bright and clean table-cloth, Napkins arrange with due care.'" The air to which she sang was "Little Buttercup," and her voice was clear and sweet, but as she began the second stanza,-- "'Put plates in their places at regular spaces,'" Angelina interrupted her. "This isn't the time for singing this song, this is dish-washing time;" and, overawed by Angelina's imperative manner, Haleema was silenced. * * * * * As to the lecture itself, it is needless to say that Philip a few evenings later had an appreciative audience. All the girls were in a twitter at the prospect of this their first entertainment, Angelina most of all. She had arranged her hair in an elaborate coiffure, which, she informed Haleema, she had copied from a hairdresser's window in Washington Street. "Ah, then, perhaps you have one of those things--a whip, I think they call it?" "A what?" "A whip, a long piece of hair to tie on, for I did not know that you had so much hair, Miss Angelina." "Oh, a switch." Angelina looked at Haleema sharply and made no further reply. Haleema had addressed her by the flattering "Miss Angelina," which Manuel's sister, when none of the residents were present, tried to exact from all the younger girls at the Mansion, and therefore she would not reprove her for her insinuation about "the whip." Nevertheless Angelina held her head rather stiffly as she filled her part as head usher. Each girl at the Mansion had been permitted to invite two guests--a girl of her own age and an older person. And almost every one invited was present. Angelina's brother John was the only boy there. He had shot up into a fairly tall youth, with a very intelligent face. He was attending evening school in the city, and working through the day for a little more than his board. Julia knew that she could depend on him to help her when at times Angelina proved refractory. To-night John was to operate the lantern while Philip talked about the views. The girls held their breath in admiration as slide after slide was thrown on the screen. Gorges, cañons, mountain-passes followed one another in quick succession. The wonderful cañon of the Arkansas, the Marshall Pass, the Garden of the Gods, the tree-shaded streets of Colorado Springs, the railroad up Pike's Peak, and all the weird and wonderful sights of the Yellowstone Park. "He's really very handsome," whispered Nora to Julia during a pause between the pictures when Philip's regular features were thrown in silhouette upon the sheet. Then she continued, "Don't you remember how we used to laugh at him, and call him a dandy, when he was a Sophomore; but now he looks so manly, and his lecture has been really interesting." Pamela, seated on the other side of Nora, heard these words with surprise. She had not known Philip in the days when he was considered somewhat effeminate. All the girls expressed their pleasure as each new picture came in sight, and yet I am afraid that their loudest applause was given to a series of colored pictures showing the adventures of a farmer with an obstinate calf that he vainly tried to drive to the barn, succeeding only when he put a cow-bell around his own neck. At last the lights were turned on, but all were still seated as Angelina rushed to pick up the pointer and to help roll up the screen. There was no real need of her doing this, but she was anxious to impress the two girls whom she had invited from the North End with a sense of her own importance. Just as she had picked up the pointer, standing in full sight of all, she was aware of a titter that was turning into a full laugh. Instinctively she put her hand to her head, and looking around she met the childlike gaze of Haleema, who was holding aloft a braid of black hair. "Here, Miss Angelina, is your whip--I mean switch." Conscious of the strange appearance of her head since the towering structure had fallen, annoyed by the smile on the faces of those before her, and dreading the reproofs of her elders, Angelina fled shamefacedly from the room. Maggie and Concetta and the other young girls were able to bear this mishap with less discomfort than Angelina herself; for the latter in her way was apt to be domineering, and they knew that for a little while she would not come down to the dining-room where chocolate and cakes were to be served. Serving their guests, the young housekeepers were at their best. Each had her appointed duty. One carried plates and napkins, another arranged the little white cloths on half a dozen small tables placed around the room. One girl poured the chocolate, and another put the whipped cream on the top of each slender cup. None of them hesitated to tell her friends what portion of the feast she had prepared, whether sandwiches, whipped cream, or the wafer-like cookies. "I wish that Brenda had been here," said Edith, as she and Nora and Philip walked home. "Oh, Brenda wouldn't give an evening to this kind of thing at this season; she says that it's the gayest winter since she came out." "I don't see how she can stand going out every evening," rejoined Edith, who was wearing mourning for a relative, and hence was not accepting invitations to dinners and dances. "I suppose she thinks it her duty to enjoy herself here. She says it pleases her father and mother to have her enjoy herself." "Girls have strange ideas of duty," remarked Philip, "though it seems to me that those girls at the Mansion have just about the right idea." VI IN THE STUDIO As autumn sped on Brenda was not very ardent in following up the Mansion work. But what a perfect autumn it was! How bracing the air! How much more delightful to spend the daylight hours in long rides out over the bridle-path, along the broad boulevard, or in the narrower byways of the suburbs. Sometimes, instead of riding, Arthur and Brenda would walk even as far as the reservoir and back. One afternoon in late November they had circled the lovely sheet of water that lies embosomed among the hills of Brookline, and, waiting for a car, had sat down on a wayside seat. "Except for the bare trees it's hard to believe that this is November," Brenda had said. "Yes," responded Arthur. "Days like this almost redeem the bad character of the New England climate." "Oh, Arthur, there isn't a better all-round climate anywhere." "After a winter in California, I should think that you'd know better than that." [Illustration: Waiting for a car they had sat down on a wayside seat] The argument went a little further, and Brenda made out her case very well, quoting the surprise of Californians and Southerners, who had come to Boston expecting an Arctic winter, to find only an occasional frigid day. "Those must have been exceptional winters;" and Arthur shrugged his shoulders in a way that always provoked Brenda as he concluded, "Say what you will, it is always a vile winter climate." "Then I'm sure," retorted Brenda, "I don't see why you plan to spend the winter here." "Oh, indeed! I fancied that you knew the reason." Taking no notice of this pacific remark, Brenda continued: "Yes, if I were you I wouldn't stay in so dreadful a place; you certainly have no important business to keep you. Why, papa said--" She did not finish the sentence. Arthur frowned ominously, and he abruptly signalled a car just coming in sight. Brenda hardly understood why Arthur was so silent on the way home. She did not realize that her allusion to her father had annoyed him. Arthur knew that Mr. Barlow did not altogether approve of his lack of a profession. After completing his studies he had not wished to practise law. A slight impediment in his speech was likely to prevent his being a good pleader, and the opportunity that he desired for office practice had not yet offered. His personal income was just enough to permit him to drift without a settled profession. There was danger that he might learn to prefer a life of idleness to one in which work had the larger part. Yet Arthur's intentions were the best in the world. He really was only waiting for the right thing to present itself, and although Brenda had not quoted her father's words, his imagination had flown ahead of what she had said, and he was angry at the implied criticism. "No, I can't come in," he said, as he left Brenda at her door. "I have an engagement." "Oh, what--" Then Brenda checked herself. If he did not care to tell her, she could afford to hide her curiosity. After he left her she wondered what the engagement was. "I'll see you at the studio to-morrow." This was Arthur's parting word, in a pleasanter tone than that of a moment before. "Yes, perhaps so; I'm really not sure." The next day, toward four o'clock, Brenda and her little niece, Lettice, mounted the stairs to the studio. The stairs were long and narrow, for Ralph Weston, on his return from Europe, had chosen a studio in the top of one of the old houses opposite the Garden, in preference to a newer building. When his wife and her sister had protested that he would see them very seldom if he persisted in having this inaccessible studio, "It may seem ungallant to say so," he had said, "but that is one of my reasons for choosing to perch myself in this eyrie. I am all the less likely to be interrupted when seeking inspiration for a masterpiece. If I were connected with the earth by an elevator I should never be safe from interruption. In fact, I should probably urge you and your friends to spend your spare time here. But now, knowing that it would be an imposition to expect you to climb those stairs more than once a week, I feel quite secure until Thursday rolls around." "Oh, you needn't worry. That glimpse across the Garden from your window showing the State House as the very pinnacle of the city is beautiful, but we can live without it, if _you_ can exist without us;" and Brenda drew herself up with dignity. On this particular afternoon as she reached the studio door with Lettice clinging to her hand she was flushed and almost out of breath. Within the studio her sister Agnes, giving a few last touches to the table, exclaimed in surprise at sight of the little girl. "Why, Lettice, what in the world are you doing here?" "Oh, auntie found me in the park, and she sent nurse off." Then Brenda explained that Lettice looked so sweet that she just couldn't bear to leave her behind, "and nurse," she added, "fortunately had a very important errand down town, and was so glad that I could take Lettice off her hands, and so--" "'The lady protests too much, methinks,'" interposed Ralph. "But you really need not apologize. I am always glad to have Lettice here, even though her mother does think her too young to receive at afternoon teas." "At four years old--I should think so. There, dear, you mustn't touch anything on the table," for the little girl, on tiptoe, was trying to reach a plate of biscuit. Lettice withdrew her hand quickly, and, when her wraps were removed, allowed herself to be perched on a tabaret, where her mother said she was safe from harming or being harmed. The studio was filled with trophies that Mr. and Mrs. Weston had collected abroad. The high carved mantle-piece was the work of some medieval Hollander, the curtain shutting off one end of the room was old Norman tapestry--the most valuable of all their possessions. Each chair had, as Brenda sometimes said, a different nationality. Her own preference was for the Venetian seat, with its curving back and elaborate carving. As it grew darker outside the studio was brightened by the light from a pair of Roman candlesticks. Only one or two of the paintings on the wall were Mr. Weston's work. When asked, he always said that he had very little to show, and that he did not believe in boring his guests by driving them, against their judgment, perhaps, to praise what they saw. "Mock modesty!" Brenda had exclaimed at this expression of opinion. "If I were sure that that was a genuine Tintoretto, I should believe that you were afraid of coming in direct competition with an old master; though, to tell you the truth, I'm glad that your work is a little brighter and livelier," she concluded. One or two callers had now come in, and Brenda took her place at the tea-table, that Agnes might be free to move about the large studio. Soon the nurse appeared, and Lettice, protesting that she was a big girl and ought to stay, was ignominiously carried home. "Where's Arthur?" asked Ralph, as he stood near Brenda, waiting for her to pour a cup of tea for a guest. "I'm sure I don't know." "Oh, I beg your pardon," responded Ralph ceremoniously. "I fancied that you might have heard him say what he intended to do." Ralph went off with the tea, and Brenda continued to pour for other guests. But her mind was wandering. She served lemon when the guest had asked for cream, and generously dropped two lumps into the cup of one who had expressly requested no sugar. In spite of herself her eye travelled often to the door, and an observer would have seen that her mind was far away. When at last she saw Arthur entering the room some one was with him, and the two were laughing and chatting gayly. "Oh, we had such a time getting here," cried the shrill voice of Belle. "Mr. Weston's been making calls with me in Jamaica Plain, and the cars were blocked coming back, so that it seemed as if we should never get here." "But we're glad to arrive at last;" and Arthur moved toward the table, while Belle lingered for a word or two with Agnes and her husband. "Poor thing!" exclaimed Belle, when at last she joined Arthur beside the table. "Poor thing! have you been shut up here pouring tea all the afternoon? You ought to have been with us; we've had a perfectly lovely time." "You don't care for sweet things, so I won't give you any sugar," said Brenda, without replying directly to Belle. "Come, Belle, you must see this sketch of Lettice. It is the one you were asking about." Agnes had come to the rescue. As Belle turned away, Arthur tried to make his peace, for he saw that in some way he had displeased Brenda. He explained that he had merely happened to meet Belle, who was out on a calling expedition. He had accompanied her to one or two houses, because when she had paid these visits she intended to go to the studio. "I really meant to call for you, although you were so uncertain yesterday about coming," he concluded apologetically. "Of course you knew I would come. I always do on Thursdays," replied Brenda; "but you were not obliged to call for me if you had something pleasanter to do." "Ah, Belle is never out of temper." Arthur spoke significantly, annoyed by Brenda's unusual dignity of manner. Then, as she turned to speak to some one at the other side of the table, he crossed the room and joined Belle. Since the death of her grandmother two years before, Belle and her mother had been away from Boston. They expected to spend the coming season in Washington, as they had the preceding. Belle now pronounced Boston altogether too old-fashioned a place for a person of cosmopolitan tastes, and she dazzled the younger girls and the undergraduates of her acquaintance by talking of diplomatic and state dignitaries with the greatest freedom. According to her own estimate of herself, she was one of the brightest stars in Washington society. Although she and Brenda were less intimate than formerly, when Belle was in town she was with Brenda more than with any other girl of her acquaintance. Despite her insincerity and her various other failings, now much clearer to Brenda than in her school days, Belle had certain qualities that made her very companionable, and Brenda was inclined to overlook her less amiable traits. Indeed, she had clung to Belle in spite of the protests of various other girls. But to-day she felt impatient with Belle. Her high, sharp voice grated on her ear. Her witticisms seemed particularly shallow, and almost for the first time Brenda realized that the words with which Belle raised a laugh from those present carried a sting for some one absent. Again Belle approached her. "I suppose your cousin never indulges in frivolities like this. I hear that she has withdrawn altogether from the world into some kind of a home or institution." "There, Belle, how silly you are! If you'd spend more time in Boston, you'd at least hear things straight. Julia is just as fond of frivolity as any of us, only it's the right kind of frivolity." "Oh, excuse me," exclaimed Belle with mock sorrow. "I had entirely forgotten your new point of view. You used to feel so differently about your cousin." "Well, it is irritating to hear you talk about her being in an institution. Surely you've heard about Miss South and the old Du Launy Mansion; and if you go up there and call, you'll see that they are not shut out from the world." "Dear! dear! why need you take everything so seriously. There! why, it's half-past five! I'm really afraid to go home alone." This was said as Arthur came within earshot, and, of course, he could only offer to go home with her, as she professed to be in too great a hurry to wait for Brenda and the rest of the party. "But I will come back for you," murmured Arthur, as he turned away. "No, thank you; you needn't," responded Brenda stiffly; "I have Ralph and Agnes, and really I don't care for any one else." "Very well, then, we'll say good evening;" and the two young people went off after Belle had said her farewells very effusively to all in the studio. As Brenda sat alone in a corner of the studio after the other guests had gone, she had an opportunity to think over the events of the past few years which some of Belle's sharp remarks had brought up. Ralph and Agnes were busy discussing designs for some picture-frames that he was to have made, and, sitting apart, Brenda in a rather unusual fit of reverie recalled some of the happenings of the six years since her cousin Julia had first come into her life. When first she learned that her orphan cousin, who was a year and a half her senior, was to become a member of her family, she had been far from pleased. Without feeling jealousy in its meanest form, she was annoyed lest the presence of Julia should interfere with her enjoyment of her little circle of intimate friends. Edith Blair, Nora Gostar, Belle Gregg and she had formed a pleasant circle, "The Four," into which she did not care to have a fifth enter. Consequently she was far from kind to her cousin, and would not invite her to the weekly meetings of the group, when they gathered at her house to work for a bazaar. Belle prompted and upheld Brenda in her attitude toward her cousin, while Nora and Edith were Julia's champions. Later Julia had an opportunity to behave very generously toward Brenda, and from that time the cousins were good friends. Belle's departure for boarding-school and her later absence in Washington had naturally lessened her intimacy with Brenda. Julia, after two years at Miss Crawdon's school with Brenda, had entered Radcliffe College, where in her four years' course she had made many friends, and had been graduated with honor. Belle, as well as Julia and Brenda, had been one of Miss South's pupils at Miss Crawdon's school, but she was one of the few with no interest whatever in the work begun at the Mansion--a work which the majority had been only too glad to help. Belle had never shown herself to Brenda in so unlovely a light as on this particular afternoon at the studio. Yet she had often been far more disagreeable in her general way of expressing herself. The difference was that now Brenda herself had begun to look at life in a very different way. She had a higher standard; she understood and admired her cousin, even though in many ways they were very unlike, and Belle in contrast seemed particularly shallow. Then, too, to be perfectly honest with herself, she had to admit that she was surprised and not pleased that Arthur Weston should show so much interest in the society of Belle. "Come, Brenda, are you dreaming? We are ready to go home." At the sound of her sister's voice Brenda rose quickly, and was ready with a laughing reply to one of her brother-in-law's witticisms. Brenda was not inclined to be melancholy, and the half-hour of retrospect had been good for her. VII IN DIFFICULTIES On the same floor with the gymnasium at the end of the hall was a room whose door was usually locked. In passing up and down it was not strange that occasionally the girls would rattle the handle in their anxiety to catch a glimpse of the inside of the room. But the door was always fastened, and this fact allowed them to speculate widely as to what the room contained. "It is full of clothes and jewels that belonged to Miss South's grandmother," announced Concetta. "She was a very strange old lady, and as rich as rich could be, and when Miss South wants any money, she just sells some of the things from this room." "Oh, then the things must be beautiful; I wish we could see them!" "Well, we'll watch and watch, and perhaps some day we shall find it open." Once or twice, however, on their way to the gymnasium the girls had noticed this door ajar, and great had been their curiosity about it; for Concetta, who was never backward in wrongdoing, had announced that she meant to go in at the close of the gymnastic lesson, and look into some of the trunks that were piled against the wall. "No, no," replied Gretchen, to whom she confided her intention, "that wouldn't be right." "Why not?" "Oh, we've never been told that we could go in there." "But nobody said we couldn't go." "I'm sure Miss South wouldn't like it." "Ah, I shall go just the same; when I looked in just now, one of the trunks was open, and on the top I saw a wig, all white curls, and a pink satin dress. I'd like to have those things to dress up in. Just as soon as I can I'm going into that room." It happened, however, to Concetta's disappointment that when the girls came out from the gymnasium the room in the ell was locked. But she remembered the room, and another day in passing she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She now said nothing to Gretchen, but had a whispered conference with Haleema and Inez, with the result that these three lingered behind when the others went downstairs. As the last footfall died away, the three girls stole quietly to the room in the ell. Concetta laid her finger on her lips in token of silence, for she was by no means sure that some older person might not be within hearing. "Oh, they're all out this afternoon except Miss Dreen," said Haleema confidently, "and she's down in the kitchen giving a cooking lesson." "See! see!" added Concetta, as she tiptoed ahead of the others, "there's no one here; come on." And in a minute the three were inside the mysterious room. "Those are the chests of jewels!" and Concetta pointed to the three large chests ranged along the wall. At the end of the room were several large trunks. "I wish that we could look inside them," said Haleema. "Oh, no," and there was real terror in Inez's tone. "Don't be afraid; they're all out," said Concetta. "Yes, even Miss Angelina," added Haleema; "she's gone to a lecture." "Miss Angelina," responded Concetta, mimicking her tone. "She's no Miss Angelina." "But you always call her that." "Oh, that only to her face; I should never call her that behind her back. Why, she's only a girl, just like we are; why, she used to live down there at the North End, near where Luisa's mother lives. But there, shut the door, Haleema, so that we can look at these things." The three little girls bent over the trunk, the lid of which Concetta had boldly opened. On the top lay the pink satin gown that she had described in such glowing terms. Haleema slipped her arms into the sleeves, and strange to say the bodice fitted her very well. "You oughtn't to touch it," cried Inez. "You are such a scarecrow," said Concetta, whose English was not always perfect. "Scarecrow! you mean 'fraid-cat," corrected Inez. "Oh, well, it's all the same thing." What did a little question of English matter, when now they were so near the mysterious treasure; for Concetta had noticed what the others had not seen, that a bit of bright-colored fabric was hanging from one of the chests, and she rightly conjectured that this trunk was unlocked. Even while she spoke to Inez she was fingering the lid of the chest, and in a moment it was thrown back. Many were the exclamations of the three as garment after garment was drawn out from the depths; they were chiefly of bright-colored and delicate materials, and Madame Du Launy would have turned in her grave had she seen these little girls trying on the things that at one time in her life had so delighted her. "I don't see any jewels," said Haleema disappointedly. "Oh, we'll find them; there are some boxes at the bottom. But see here!" and Concetta drew out a mysterious, queerly shaped package. Opening it rather gingerly, for at first she was uncertain what it contained, and then with a skip and a jump-- "Oh, let's dress up; here are wigs and--" "No, no," said Inez, "perhaps some one might find us out." "No matter, no matter," and she waved the various wigs in the air. "Are they anybody's real hair?" asked Inez, in an awestruck tone, pointing to the gray toupee and the short curled wig that Concetta held in her hand. "Of course not, child. Oh, see! Haleema has found a box of paint," and they laughed loudly at the bright red spots on Haleema's cheeks. Then Haleema put on the curled wig. The others shrieked with laughter. "Your eyes look blacker than black." [Illustration: "'I think I hear some one coming upstairs'"] "Ah, this is better than Angelina's whip," and then they all shouted again, recalling the episode of Angelina and the switch. "Hush! hark!" cried Concetta, with her hand at her ear; "I think I hear some one coming upstairs." "Shut the trunk! Let's go into the closet;" and as she spoke the other two followed her into the closet. It was a large closet with a transom that let in a certain amount of light, and at first their situation seemed rather amusing to the three. Haleema, who had gone in last, had closed the door with a snap, and after a few minutes had passed she started to open it again. But, alas! she could not lift the latch. Evidently it had closed with a spring, and they would have to wait until some one should come to their relief. At first, as before, they giggled a little; then, as they realized their situation, they sobered down. "Suppose no one should come; we might have to stay all night." "They may think that we've run away, and so they won't look for us." "Oh, some one will remember that we didn't go downstairs; they'll come up here the first thing." "No, no, don't you remember how the others all ran down ahead of us? They won't remember." "Gretchen's the only one who might think of this room. I told her the other day that I meant to come in some time." "That won't do no good," rejoined Haleema; "she'll be glad to have you shut up." "We're better off here than we would be in that trunk," continued Haleema thoughtfully. "I read a poem the other day about a girl that got shut up in a chest, and she did not get out until she was dead. She was an Italian, too," she said, looking suggestively toward Concetta, "and her name was Jinerva." Whereupon Concetta began to weep softly, either in sympathy for her countrywoman or from fear that as an Italian she was more likely to suffer than the others. "Oh, that's nothing," said Inez; "why, we had a history lesson once about the Black Hole. Everybody that went into it died, and there were dozens of people." "Why did they go in?" asked Concetta with a languid interest. "Oh, it was in war; I don't remember much about it, only they all died." "Well, this isn't a black hole," said Haleema cheerfully; "there's quite a little light comes in at that window." And she began to hum, "'When a spring lock that lay in ambush there Fastened her down forever.' There, that's the last of that Jinerva poem; I couldn't help remembering it; I read it over several times." "Oh, Haleema, and we're fastened in with a spring lock." "Oh, we'll get out all right," said Haleema cheerfully; "'where there's a will, there's a way.'" While she spoke she was moving about the closet. "I wouldn't meddle any more; if you hadn't meddled with that trunk we wouldn't be in here now." "I'm not meddling," she replied angrily, "I'm trying to find something." Her search continued for some time, and at last the others heard an exclamation of satisfaction. "What is it?" asked Concetta. "What have you found?" "A stick," responded Haleema. "Do you know, I believe that I can break that window." As she spoke she stood on tiptoe, and reached toward the transom. But, alas! _she_ was too short, and the stick was too short, and with all her efforts she could not reach the glass. "We could not get out through that window," said Concetta scornfully. "We couldn't get out through that window, so what is the good of trying?" "Oh, I didn't mean to get out through the window, but if I break the glass we can have more air. We won't smother to death." At the suggestion of smothering, although Haleema had pronounced it an unlikely happening, Inez began to cry. "Don't be a baby," said the little Syrian scornfully. "I guess there's more than one way of catching a bird, even if you can't put salt on his tail," from which it may be seen that Haleema was well on the way to becoming a good Yankee, since her proverbs were not strictly Oriental. How long the time seemed! The light from the other room hardly showed through the transom. Though they could move about in the closet, their positions were naturally cramped. The air grew closer and warmer, and though they were in no danger of suffocation, they were becoming drowsy from the closeness and warmth. Haleema strained her ears to hear any one who should pass near, yet even when she noted a distant step she realized that it would be hard to make herself heard. Still the three girls kicked on the door, and sang at the top of their voices, but in vain. At last Haleema grew desperate. "There's just one thing I can do," she said, "and I'll do it." Thereupon she again seized the stick, and telling the others to go close up to the corners, she threw it toward the transom. The first time it fell back and hit her on the nose, the second time it merely grazed the wall beside the glass, the third time it touched the glass without breaking it. "There," said Haleema, "I'm sure that I can do it," and with one mighty effort she took aim again, and the stick crashed through the glass. Most of the pieces went outside, but a few bits fell into the closet, and one of these scratched Haleema's forehead. In her triumph at accomplishing her end she did not mind the injury. "There! you can come out of the corner. We'll get plenty of air from the room, and if any one should be passing, why, it will be easier to hear us. Sing, Concetta, at the top of your voice." "I'm too tired," said Concetta crossly, "and dreadful hungry. I wish you'd have let that trunk alone, Haleema; that's what made all the trouble." So the time dragged on, and at length Concetta, though she never would admit it, fell asleep. Haleema kept herself awake by telling wonderful stories--some of them fairy tales, and some of them stories of adventures that she professed to have passed through. At last even her lively tongue was quiet, and she had given up kicking against the door, as a useless expenditure of energy. In the meantime the absence of the three girls had become the subject of conjecture on the part of the others downstairs. No one apparently had noticed when they left the gymnasium, though Nellie thought that she had seen them on their way to the street floor. "Perhaps they've just gone off for fun. Haleema's always up to some mischief." "They may have run off for good, like Mary Murphy." "Oh, no, there's no danger; that ain't likely. They know which side their bread's buttered on." The three vacant places troubled Angelina as she sat at the end of the table opposite Miss Dreen. "If I hadn't been away, they wouldn't have dared go off." Anstiss, to whom at last they applied for advice, was uncertain what they ought to do. She was sorry that this was the evening that Pamela and Julia and Miss South had taken to dine with Lois in Newton. It would be late when they returned, and she did not like the responsibility that had fallen upon her. While the discussion was going on, many thoughts were passing through Gretchen's mind. Not until tea-time had she learned of the disappearance of her schoolmates, and as she was not very quick-witted, she had not at first connected them with the end room. When she did recall Concetta's desire to explore it, she hesitated about speaking. In the first place, if Concetta heard that she had told of her previous efforts to pry into the mysteries of the trunks, she would surely take vengeance, especially if at the present time she happened not to be there. If she had been shut up in the room all this time, or in a trunk--and then the story of Ginevra came into Gretchen's mind, and she was half afraid to suggest that the end room be explored. So positive, however, was Angelina that the girls had run away, or at least had taken advantage of Miss South's absence to spend the evening out, that no one suggested exploring the house thoroughly. Anstiss herself had gone to the room of each girl to assure herself that they were not in one of them, and had sat herself down to her hour's reading when she noticed that Gretchen was softly weeping. "Why, what is the matter, child?" she asked, and Gretchen, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief that left a little dark streak, looked up for a moment, and then hung down her head without answering. "Tell her," said Nellie, who sat beside her, with a nudge that made Gretchen wriggle her shoulders. To save herself, perhaps, from a second such demonstration, when Anstiss repeated her question Gretchen replied: "I'm afraid that they're locked up in the attic." "Who? Haleema and the other two?" Anstiss had already started toward the door. "Yes'm; I went upstairs just before you came in and I thought I heard a little noise from the end room." "Then why didn't you look in? Was the door locked?" "I don't know; I didn't try it. I was afraid that they might be dead." "But you said that you heard a noise. Oh, Gretchen, you are a silly girl." As she spoke Anstiss was wondering why she herself had not thought of the end room, since every corner of the house ought to have been thoroughly explored. Then she ran upstairs to the top of the house, and then down the two or three steps to the end room, with five girls and Fidessa following her closely. She felt sure that she heard a noise from the direction of the room; nor was she wrong. Haleema, who had managed to keep herself awake amid all the discomforts of her position, was shouting at the top of her rather weak lungs. Yet she had made herself heard. A glance around the small room and the sight of the broken glass on the floor outside showed Anstiss that the girls were in the closet. But here was a new difficulty. The door had shut with a spring that had locked it, and no one knew where the key could be found. The fact, however, that they were discovered had restored the spirits of the girls inside the closet. "Yes, we are starved," they admitted when questioned. "Let's get a ladder, and send down a basket by a rope over the door," suggested Angelina; and before any one could object she had gone down to the kitchen. When she returned with a small basket containing three oranges and some slices of bread and butter, Anstiss praised her warmly for bringing just the right things. In her absence a ladder had been brought from a corner of the gymnasium, and it was very little work to lower the basket over the transom to the hungry girls within. They had hardly finished their repast when the diners-out returned, and when they heard of the disturbance upstairs Miss South hastened at once to the scene. "Why, no," she said, "I haven't a key; it is strange that that should have been a spring latch, for there's nothing very valuable in the closet. We did not intend to keep it fastened. There are many things of my grandmother's in these trunks, and though we knew that no one would meddle with them, we meant to keep them locked, as well as the door of this room. I was up here myself just before I went out, and I fear that I must have left the door open." Not a word thus far of reproof for the meddlesome girls within the closet, although Miss South saw plainly that one trunk, if no more, had been ransacked. A minute later Julia and Pamela appeared with the small tool-chest that was kept in the hall closet on the first floor, and then, to every one's astonishment, Miss South herself set to work upon the latch in the deftest possible way, and in a minute the lock was off and the door open. "My! she did it as well as a man could," whispered Gretchen to Nellie. But Miss South heard the whisper, and, smiling, said, "As well as I hope every girl in the Mansion will be able to do before her term here is up." When the door was opened the prisoners rushed out; their faces were rather grave. It is true that they were quite wide-awake, but now, almost for the first time, they realized the impropriety of their conduct, and dreaded facing their comrades. Everything considered, they were hardly prepared for the shouts of laughter that greeted their appearance. "Oh, Haleema, you do look so funny!" and Haleema, putting her hand to her forehead, realized that she was still wearing the wig, while the observers saw what she could not, that the paint was daubed on very unevenly, and gave her a strange aspect. VIII THE FRINGED GENTIAN LEAGUE The "Fringed Gentian League" was the girls' favorite club; or it would be truer to say that it was the favorite, partly because it was the only regular club at the Mansion, and also because all its doings were extremely interesting. Anstiss Rowe was the Honorary President and Julia the Honorary Secretary, and the club had met two or three times before it had elected its own officers. In starting, every one of the girls was invited to join, and every one accepted. Then Miss South informed them that a medium-sized room on the second floor in the wing was to be their club-room. "I present the club," she said, when they first met in the room, "with these chairs and the large library-table, but I hope that you will gradually add to its furnishings from your own earnings." "Earnings!" At first none of them understood, nor indeed did they learn for some time later just what she meant by "earnings." The walls were covered with a cartridge-paper of a curious purplish blue, and that was what suggested to Gretchen the name for the League. Some of the girls rejected this as a poor suggestion. "That would be a funny reason to give," said Concetta, "to name a club for a wall-paper; we ought to have a different reason." Other girls gave other opinions, but while they were discussing it Gretchen had been saying to herself the stanzas of Bryant's poem. At last she looked as if she had come to a satisfactory reason, but she hesitated about giving it to the others, lest they should laugh at her. Accordingly she hastened to the honorary officers, who were busy with the large book that was to contain the names of the members. "Why, yes, dear, that is a very good reason," responded Julia, while Gretchen blushed at the praise. But although she had had the courage to tell her elders, it was harder for the little German maiden to express her thoughts to those of her own age. She was a curious mixture of poetic fancies and practical ideas, and the fancies she always hesitated to reveal to others. But at last she permitted Julia to tell the girls why she thought "Fringed Gentian" a good name for the club. "Because it's a looking upward club; that is, a 'look to heaven' club. Recite it, Gretchen," urged Miss Julia, and the little girl began timidly,-- "'I would that thus when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope blossoming within my heart, May look to heaven, as I depart.'" "Ugh!" cried Concetta, shaking her dark head. "How solemn; we don't mean to die in this club, Miss Julia." "No, my dear; but the fringed gentian does not die instantly, as it looks upward. Blue is the color of hope, and the fringed gentian by this poem becomes a flower of hope, and so I think that you can give this reason, if you ever have to give a reason, why this League is called the 'Fringed Gentian' League." It was therefore a following out of Gretchen's suggestion, that when they came to draw up the Constitution for the League, its purpose was defined in the language of much more important organizations. "The purpose of this League shall be to encourage good thoughts and good books, and to keep our hearts looking upward." Although some of the more matter-of-fact objected that hearts did not really look up at all, the vote was in favor of the phrase, and the honorary officers said that no club could have a loftier aim. The officers were to be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. But they were not to be elected until the second meeting. The honorary officers, indeed, had their hands full in advising the members as to what should and what should not be put in the Constitution. But at last it was all arranged in paragraphs: one to tell who should be the members, another to tell how many officers there should be and what their duties, and others defining the aims of the club, and one to state under what conditions a member might be put out of the club. Each girl was perfectly sure that such a thing would never happen. "It is always best to be prepared for the worst," said Maggie sagely, and the others acceded. Finally there was a paragraph providing for amendments, "for you may think of things you may wish to add to this Constitution, and it would be a pity to find yourselves tied to laws that you cannot add to or change." In fact, it was well that this provision was made, for at the next weekly meeting the girls wished to add to the numbers of the League by having associate members. Maggie, who made the suggestion, was praised for it by Julia, who saw that in this way other girls might become interested in the work of the Mansion. There was much discussion, of course, about the duties and privileges of the new members. But at last it was settled that there were to be no more than twelve associates. Each was to be elected unanimously by Mansion members of the League, and they were to have the privilege of attending all the regular meetings. They could take out books from the library, but unlike the regular members they were not to use the club-room at other times. "I would advise you," Julia had said, "not to elect more than half your associate members at first, for should the list fill up too soon, you might then find yourselves unable to invite other very desirable members." "Couldn't we have them too?" "Ah! Concetta, the room is small, and even when the League has twenty girls, you will find it fairly crowded." Guided partly by this advice, and also moved by the fact that the founders of the League had difficulty in agreeing on new members, only five associates had been added by Thanksgiving. One of these was a friend of Concetta's from Prince Street, a timid little Italian, and with her a Portuguese girl from the same house. It was again the advice of the honorary officers that the girls should be chosen from the same neighborhood, so that they could come and go together; for though the meetings were on Thursday afternoons, there were certain advantages in having the associates neighbors. Two others were Jewish girls from Blossom Street, and the fifth was a little German from Roxbury, a special friend of Gretchen's. Edith was slow in seeing the advantages of the League, as the girls at the Mansion already formed practically a large club. But she soon understood that it was well for them to learn that organization is a good thing. She saw, too, that it would help interest them in things outside their regular work. Angelina was honorary associate member, and Julia explained to her that she was to be present at all special functions, but that on account of her greater age--it pleased Angelina to have this set forth as an evidence of her superiority--she might better not attend the regular meetings, lest her presence should embarrass the younger girls. But "honorary associate member" had such a high and mighty sound that Angelina regarded the whole arrangement as complimentary to herself, and thus the feelings of all were saved. In its early meetings the club naturally had its attention set on Bryant. Julia was pleased to find that nearly all the girls were willing to commit verses or even long poems to memory, and that there was a good-natured rivalry as to which of them should learn the longest. She was surprised, too, to find that these girls who knew so little of the real country could appreciate many of the beautiful pictures of woods and flowers and birds presented by the poet. "The Waterfowl" and "Green River" and "The Evening Wind" were especial favorites, and indeed they were fond of some of the more serious poems. The girls of the League had other interests besides their reading, and they were encouraged to enter on certain bits of work that should not be entirely for themselves. One group was busy making scrap-books, to be given at Christmas to the Children's Hospital, and another was busy dressing dolls. The best scrap-book and the best-dressed doll were to receive a prize, and all were to be exhibited a day or two before Christmas. On Anstiss had fallen the task of deciding which girls should belong to the doll group, and which to the book group, and many were her difficulties in keeping the girls to their first intention. When Concetta, who had begun to dress a golden-haired doll, saw what a pretty scrap-book Nellie was making on sheets of blue cambric with edges buttonholed in red, she immediately threw down her doll with a gesture of impatience. "I hate sewing, and it would be much pleasanter to paste pictures in a scrap-book." "But if you make a scrap-book you must work at it, just as Nellie did, and you will have to buttonhole the edges." Whereat Concetta, making a wry face, protested that in spite of the buttonholing she would rather make the scrap-book. "Very well, then; when you have the leaves ready, I will give you some directions for pasting pictures. What color will you choose for the leaves?" "Oh, pink, with yellow edges;" and Concetta, turning her back to the discarded doll, sat down at the table beside Nellie. A week or two later Anstiss was surprised to have Concetta report that she had finished her book. "But you were not to put the pictures in until you had shown me the buttonholed edges." Whereupon Concetta, a little shamefacedly, be it said, displayed her book with the pictures and embossed decorations put in fairly well, but with the edges of the leaves merely cut in scallops. "A book like this," said Anstiss, "would be of no good to the little sick children. Almost as soon as they touched it, it would ravel out;" and with a touch or two her fingers fringed the edge of one of the pages. Concetta hung her head. "I can buttonhole it now, only I'd rather dress my doll." "It isn't your doll, Concetta; Gretchen has taken it. If you work the edges of the book now, I'm afraid that you will spoil the freshness of the pictures. I shall let the League decide what you are to do." Upon this the girls were called by Angelina into business session, and the vote was that Concetta must begin a new book. It was not a unanimous vote, and Concetta, keenly noting the hands that were raised against her, as she determined it, registered a vow to get even. Gretchen, who had the usual German skill with her fingers, was able to dress two dolls, a blonde of Concetta's in addition to the brunette that she had originally chosen, and Eliza made two scrap-books. But this was rapid work in proportion to the time that they had before them, and Anstiss did not encourage haste. Concetta was not the only girl who wished to change her work, for one or two outside members absented themselves from several meetings because they were dissatisfied with what they accomplished. Julia, visiting them in their homes, made them understand that there was only a friendly rivalry in the whole competition, and that no one would be permitted to criticise the work of another very severely. The staff of the Mansion, therefore, set itself at work very earnestly to find reasons why each book and each doll should receive some special award. So there were first prizes and second prizes: first for the neatest, then for the prettiest books; and in the same way prizes were given for the dolls. Besides these prizes there were honorable mention awards and certain supplementary awards that Edith had begged to be allowed to present, that no girl need feel that her industry had been unappreciated. "For after all, every one has really shown perseverance, and some, I am sure, displayed the greatest taste. Why, some of these dolls are so pretty that I should like to play with them myself." "I am not so surprised at the dolls," said Miss South, "for most of these girls have had sewing lessons in the public schools, and their fingers have developed considerable skill along this one line. But I am interested in the skill shown in making the scrap-books. To be sure, some of them are daubed more than is necessary. Maggie's book, for instance, shows a little glistening halo of dried mucilage around many of the pictures. But what pleases me the most is their skill in grouping and arranging." The girls themselves chose two of their number, Inez and Concetta, to be on the jury, and Pamela, Julia, and Nora made up the other three. The first prize was given for the Bryant scrap-book that Phoebe had made. No one certainly could find any fault with it, so neatly were the pictures arranged, and so free from daubs were the broad margins. Every one wondered where she had found so many pictures that exactly illustrated the poems chosen, and Phoebe assured them that this had been not at all difficult, since Miss South had let her look over dozens and dozens of old magazines, from which she had been able to choose those that best suited the words. No one dissented from the award of a volume of Bryant's poems to Phoebe, but there was more discussion when the second prize, a framed photograph of Greuze's "Head of the Dauphin," went to Haleema for a flower book. In this she had put a great variety of flower pictures, some of them mere decalcomanie, embossed groups, others colored lithographs from periodicals of all styles, while not a few were nature pictures from the magazines in which flowers were conspicuous. Concetta and Gretchen were partly right in thinking that the very prettiest of all was the book of children that Nellie had made. "The little sick children in the hospital will like it best, anyway," said Concetta. She did not happen to like Phoebe very well, and for the time being Nellie was especially in her favor. "Nellie's book certainly would be more entertaining to the little sick ones in the hospital, and if she had only trimmed the edge of her pictures more carefully, and had kept the margins free from mucilage, she would have had something better than third prize." But Nellie herself was very well contented with the award, and her beaming face testified that she did not need a champion to stand up for her rights. Concetta, therefore, found herself a minority on the committee in deciding this question, for all the others were in favor of Phoebe's having the prize. When it came to the dolls there was less difficulty, for Miss South had decreed that the award should go to the doll whose clothes showed the neatest sewing. There were no two opinions, and as Concetta herself was not on this committee of award, no one objected to her having the pretty case of scissors that the judges handed her, after they had carefully examined all the clothes of all the dolls--a piece of work that took considerable time and thought. But entertaining though the judging and awarding had been, the pleasantest part of this whole work came when they took the books and the dolls to the hospital. Naturally the girls did not all go together, but in two or three detachments, and their sympathies were moved to the utmost by the sight of the helpless little ones. They were delighted when they learned that this child or that would be in the hospital but a short time; and some of them--Nellie, for example--were moved to tears on learning that one or two whom they pitied might never be well. "There is no harm in having their sympathies touched," said Julia, when some one remonstrated with her for taking these girls to the hospital, "for we older people at the Mansion intend that the outcome shall be some practical work." IX NORA'S WORK--AND POLLY When Nora visited the Mansion, every one was delighted. Nellie's face naturally beamed at sight of her, for didn't Miss Nora belong to her more than to any one else? But all the others were fond of the bright, cheery young girl who not only remembered the name of each one, but had some directly personal question to ask. She could ask about their aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as about their nearer relatives by name, and this meant a good deal to these younger girls, who, although happy at the Mansion, remembered sometimes that they were among strangers, and were glad of any word that connected them with their own homes. Nora was an outside worker, and very proud that her last year's lessons in a normal cooking class had fitted her to give regular lessons to a group of the Mansion girls. "'A penny saved is a penny earned,'" she had said gayly, when she made the offer of her services; "and if you will hear me conduct one class, and then take a good, long look at my certificate, you will decide, I am sure,--or rather I hope,--to let me belong to the staff." Of course Miss South was only too happy, and she knew Nora's mental qualities so well as to believe that she would make a good teacher; nor was she disappointed after she had heard her conduct a class. "I really begin to feel as if I were of some use in the world," Nora said, after her first lesson; while Miss South remonstrated, "Why, Nora, you always have been one of the most useful girls of my acquaintance. You are always busy at home, and so helpful to your brothers, and--" "Oh, in the ordinary relations of life it would be very strange if I should not do what I can. But every one should reach out a little beyond her immediate circle; don't you think so?" "Yes, indeed, I do think so, Nora; but for this reaching out, the work of the world could not be carried on, and I am more than happy when I see so young a girl ready to do her part." Now Nora's disposition, as Miss South had said, had always been one of helpfulness to others. With less money to spend than most of her intimate friends, she had managed to enjoy life thoroughly, and she had been a most devoted sister and daughter. Her brothers would confide their difficulties to her more readily sometimes than to their mother, although Mrs. Gostar was herself a most sympathetic person, and Nora was friend and adviser to half a dozen youths of Toby's classmates in College. Yet in spite of her many home duties she found time for much outside work. She had a Sunday-school class of boys whose doings were a constant surprise and almost as constant an occupation for her. Sometimes their vagaries carried her even into the Police Court, where she was ready, if necessary, to say a good word for some boy brought up for a petty offence. When her brothers teased her about her burglar and highwayman protégés, she took their teasing in good part, and replied that as yet none of them had done anything bad enough to require her to give heavy bonds. "Which is fortunate, considering that I am not a large owner of real estate." "But how much of your pocket-money goes in fines or in cab-hire when you are called out in sudden emergencies?" whereat Nora blushed to a degree sufficient to show that Toby had hit somewhere near the truth; for Nora's Sunday-school class, though not in a mission, was yet made up of boys who were remarkably free from a sense of responsibility, and it was this sense of responsibility that Nora tried to impress upon them; and to assure them of her interest, she did all that she could for them in their every-day life, and not infrequently was to be met with some of them escorting her even on one of the fashionable thoroughfares. Nora did not flinch at the smiles that some of her friends bestowed on her when they met her with her cavaliers. Yet her interest in these boys did not prevent her having as great an interest in the girls at the Mansion, and in many a little emergency she was the right-hand helper of Julia and Miss South. It was Nora, too, who kept up the most active communication with Mrs. Rosa and the Rosa children at Shiloh. Manuel, indeed, was her especial pride, although she persisted that she was not entitled to all the praise that the family lavished on her for having rescued him years before from being run over. Angelina's sister was not as self-sufficient as she, and was only too glad to look up to Miss Gostar for advice and praise. Moreover, Nora gave perhaps a little less time than the others to the work at the Mansion, because she was especially interested in a Boys' Club. Some of her Sunday-school boys were in it, though a few of the club thought themselves too old for Sunday school. What Nora managed to accomplish in the course of a week was always a wonder to her friends, who with fewer home duties still seldom had time for outside work. Though her two elder brothers had gone from home, one to the West and one to New York, Toby and Stanley made constant demands upon her. "They not only expect me," she said, laughing, "to see that their buttons and gloves are in order, but wish me to be at home whenever they have invited any special friends to the house, and at pretty frequent intervals they expect me to ask some girl or another in whom they have a special interest. But they are very good to me, too," she would conclude, "and without one or the other of them to escort me where I wish to go, I do not see what I should do. I'd even have to stay away from the Mansion sometimes." The class in invalid cookery proved a great success, and Miss South, as she tasted one after another of the savory little dishes offered her by the proud cooks, said that she almost wished that she might be ill enough to have these jellies and broths recommended to her for a steady diet. Gretchen, to whom she said this, seemed greatly amused by the idea, and smiled and smiled, and finally broke into a loud laugh. "Would you really like to be sick in your bed," she asked, "just so's you could eat my jelly?" And then Miss South repeated her praise of Gretchen's work. "By and by," continued Miss South, "you may wish to have an exhibition of your work, and before spring I am sure you will probably have learned to make several new things." "Oh, yes, indeed," and Gretchen's face beamed with delight, for it really was her wish to excel in cooking, and the progress that she had made was one of the things that so pleased her grandfather, that he was likely to consent to her staying a second year. As to Gretchen herself, she was now quite determined to be a cook when she should be older, and Julia had made plans to send her to a regular cooking school at the end of a year. Her grandfather had said that he would gladly pay the cost of tuition, if Julia and the others would help in some other ways. The old man had several persons dependent on him, and it was his constant anxiety lest Gretchen should be left unable to earn a living when he should be taken away. Though it was clear what Gretchen's future occupation should be, it was less easy for Miss South and her staff to decide about the others. Concetta's one talent for fine needlework seemed to imply that she was intended to be a seamstress, and the aim of those interested should be to train her, that her work might place her in a good position. As to the others, it was too early to decide what they should do or be. Prompted by a spirit of mischief, one evening when Mrs. Blair asked her, Julia replied: "How can I tell just what we are training them for? One or two are very fond of music, Inez is devoted to art, Angelina is sure that she would love to travel, and Gretchen is the only one who seems a born cook." "But you don't mean that you would let all these girls follow their own tastes? Please pardon me for saying it, Julia. But I fear that you will not have the sympathy of--yes, of your friends, unless you turn all these girls into first-rate domestics. When you think how much need there is of good servants--really it is the most pressing problem." "I wish that I could help solve it," Julia replied gravely; "and if I can, you may be sure that I will. The girls at the Mansion have certainly a greater love for all kinds of household duties than they had six months ago, and every one of them could be very useful in her own home or any other. But they are too young yet to decide on the future profession, just as I am sure that you would consider it too early for the average schoolgirl to decide her whole future life when she is only fifteen." "Oh, but this is different; you have the chance of influencing these girls, and really it is your duty, when you consider the servant question--" and so _ad infinitum_; and, indeed, others of Julia's friends would continue the discussion. Usually Julia turned all criticism aside with a smiling and indefinite reply, although at times she would say, "Ah, I hope that I shall always be found ready to do what is best for each girl." Casual criticisms like this from those who did not really understand her aim did not greatly disturb Julia. They were more than balanced by the cordial appreciation of her aunt and Mrs. Gostar, and others who knew what she was really striving for. Then at intervals--though rather long intervals--she had a cheering word or two from Ruth, who, in spite of being on a protracted wedding tour in extremely interesting countries, evidently kept her thoughts constantly in touch with her Boston friends. "Of course I mean to be part of your experiment when I return home, and I mean to work like a Trojan to make up for my absence this year. Also, as I have written you before, I am collecting all kinds of weird receipts that I mean to have your poor little victims--for I am sure they call themselves victims--fed on next season." One afternoon, after a rather hard morning in which everything had happened just as it should not, Julia heard a tap at her study door. When she answered it Angelina ushered in--but no, Angelina had nothing to do with it--a flying figure flung itself upon Julia, and before its arms had been removed from her neck she recognized the soft accents of Polly Porson. "It seems like I hadn't seen you for a century, although now that I do see you, you look as natural as life, and not a bit as if you were weighed down by the care of a hundred girls, such as I hear you have taken under your wing." "Not a quarter nor an eighth of a hundred; but where in the world have you dropped from, Polly Porson? Have you come North, as you used to threaten, to buy a trousseau, or is your novel ready to offer to a publisher?" At which confusing double question the usually nonchalant Polly blushed so exceedingly that Julia knew which part of the question had been answered. "Who is he?" she asked so pointedly, that Polly, nothing loath, sat down to tell the story. She had sprained her ankle, it seemed, early in the autumn. "Why, I am sure I wrote you about it," she added, when Julia expressed her surprise, "and I'm sure that I told you about the doctor; didn't I say a great deal about him?" "Well, perhaps you did, but I was so unsuspicious that I did not attach much importance to what you said, or I thought what you wrote was in mere appreciation for his skill. Besides, I begin to remember that you told me that he was a cousin, and one whom you especially disliked, though you believed that he had saved you from being permanently lame." "Well, he is a cousin, as cousins go in the South, several degrees removed; and he was perfectly disagreeable at first because I had gone to College; but I've brought him round, so that he has made his own younger sister begin her preparation for Radcliffe." "So in gratitude to him you are going to give up all your plans for independence and fame. Alas, poor Polly!" "Oh, no, indeed; he says that I may write novels or do anything I like. You never saw such a changed man. I just wish that you had known him a year ago, so that you could mark the improvement." Thus Polly rattled on, and yet, as in their College days, there was an undercurrent of wisdom in all that she said. "To tell the truth," she explained, "one thing I came for was to see just how your experiment is working, for I have an idea that I shall be able to do something of the same kind in Atlanta--in a very small way," she added hastily, "not at all in this magnificent style; but it's very much needed, and I have some original ideas to combine with yours." So Polly spent several days at the Mansion, learning, and teaching too; for her words of encouragement taught Julia that she had been unduly discouraged by various things outside, as well as by a certain amount of friction among her protégées. Polly's visit drew her away from her cares. One evening Julia arranged a reunion of all the members of the class that she could collect at short notice, and though there were many gaps in the ranks, it was altogether a delightful evening, and each one present told all that she could, not only about herself, but about the absent. All too soon Polly flew away, and though she protested that her shopping in New York was not to be regarded as preparation for a trousseau, Julia was sure that when the two should meet again there would be no longer a Polly Porson. "Not that your new name will not be just as becoming as the old one," she added, as they said their last words, "but for some selfish reason I do wish that I could have Polly Porson stay Polly Porson a few years longer." "Nonsense!" cried Polly, as she bade her good-bye. X ARTHUR'S ABSENCE When Arthur wrote that he should be away Christmas, Brenda seemed undisturbed, although Ralph and Agnes were annoyed by his absence. "But he has been in Washington less than a month, and probably he wishes to stay over New Year's. We'll keep his Christmas presents until he returns." Ralph and Agnes exchanged a glance. "Hasn't he written you?" "Why, yes--but what?" Then Ralph explained that Arthur had had an offer to be private secretary to a certain senator, and that this would keep him in Washington all winter. "I received my letter only last night," Ralph hastened to add, lest Brenda should feel slighted. Brenda's own letter arrived that very day, but as it was second to Ralph's she read it in no very gracious spirit. Then, too, Arthur seemed to take it too much a matter of course that she would praise his remaining in Washington. Brenda, forgetting that she herself had really reproached him for his idleness in Boston, began to complain to her mother of his lack of dignity in taking the position of private secretary. "My dear," Mrs. Barlow had responded, "I am glad to hear that Arthur is busy. As there is no likelihood of his practising law, it is much better for him to have his mind occupied. It would be bad for you both were he to spend the winter in Boston with nothing to do but walk or drive or go to dinners and dances." "But he isn't very strong, Mamma." "Perhaps not; on that account the climate of Washington will be better for him. We have the assurance, however, that his health will be completely built up in a year, and your father has plans for him. It is no secret, so I may tell you that a new branch of the business is to be established next winter, and it is of such a nature that Arthur's knowledge of law will be valuable, and he will be put in charge of the office work." "Does Arthur know?" "Yes." "Then I cannot see why he need be busy this winter. I believe that he is just staying in Washington to annoy me." "Nonsense, Brenda!" But Brenda would not listen to her mother, and it is to be feared that her letters reflected her impatience, for Arthur's letters came at long intervals. Although she did not hear from him directly, she knew from Ralph and Agnes that he was well, and from another source she often heard about him. Although Brenda and Belle saw much less of each other than formerly, or perhaps because of this, they kept up a vigorous correspondence. After Christmas Belle and her mother had gone to Washington, and in her very first letter she mentioned having met Arthur Weston at a certain reception; "And I can assure you, that, in spite of being cut off from Boston, he looks very cheerful." After this Belle never failed to mention Arthur in her letters to Brenda. She told what a great favorite he was with this one or that one. "He is an immense favorite, and I almost ought to warn you that he is really too happy in the society of other people." Poor Brenda! All she could do was to write glowing letters to Belle, telling her that she herself had never known so pleasant a winter in Boston. She left Belle to infer that she was enjoying herself even more than would have been possible had Arthur been nearer. If the truth were told, Brenda amused herself rather sadly. Society wearied her, but she had not strength of mind to give it up altogether. To the delight, however, of Maggie McSorley, she went more often to the Mansion, and even condescended to give the girls some lessons in embroidery. Since her earlier school-days Brenda's skill in needlework had developed wonderfully, and she could work very beautiful patterns on doilies and centrepieces. But to design and fill out these patterns was one thing, and to impart any of her own skill was another. The latter required infinite patience on Brenda's part, and Brenda had never been noted for her patience. Yet the discipline was better for her even than for the younger girls as she guided their needles and watched them take the right stitches, and helped the careless Maggie pull out the threads where she had drawn them too tight, puckering the linen web, and, alas! too often soiling it hopelessly. It was good discipline for Brenda, because strangely enough she found herself more inclined to blame than to praise, and she could not help noticing how much defter and neater than all the others were the fingers of Concetta. Indeed, the latter did not really need the instruction. She had already, like many little Italian girls, served an apprenticeship in embroidery under her aunt. She did not intend to deceive any one in joining Brenda's class, but she could not bear the idea that she, among all the girls, should be deprived of the chance to be near the charming young lady, as she called Brenda, simply because she knew more than the others; so she too puckered her thread, and made occasional mistakes in fear lest perfection on her part should lead to her being excluded from the class. Amy called herself a detached member of the Mansion staff. She could not give much time to assisting Miss South and Julia without neglecting her college work. But there were certain things that she could do in her leisure, and occasional spare hours she gave with great good-will to a class in literature. Amy was still devoted to her early love, "The Faery Queen," and once in a while, like Mr. Wegg, of fragrant memory, she dropped into poetry herself. She was winning her laurels in college, however, for more serious work than poetry--more serious, that is, in the eyes of the world; and already she was famous among her classmates for her literary ability. Indirectly she had been the means of Haleema's going to the Mansion. It had happened in this way: during her first year in college she had gone once a week to play accompaniments at a College Settlement. In the chorus, for which she played, Haleema had been one of the most vociferous singers, and although Amy had not been able to see her much outside of the class, she had become much interested in the little girl, and had received one or two letters from her during the summer. What Haleema herself wrote, and what the head worker at the Settlement told her about Haleema's home life, convinced her that the little Syrian was exactly the kind of candidate desired for the Mansion school, and she was really pleased with her judgment when, after the first week or two, she heard Miss South and Julia praising the quickness and docility of her protégée. Haleema, however, was not a young person capable of great personal devotion, a fact that her pleading, poetic eyes seemed to contradict. As she sometimes confided to the other girls, she liked one person as well as another, and if she had gone a little further in her confidences, she might have said that the person in the ascendant was usually the one who at the time was doing some special favor for her. She appreciated presents, and had a hoard of pretty things stowed away in the bottom drawer of her bureau. On Mondays Brenda often found herself going to the Mansion, chiefly because this was her only chance of seeing Amy. Monday, the Wellesley holiday, Amy gave in part to a Mansion class in literature, and when her little informal talk was at an end Brenda would seize her for a half-hour of "gossip," as she called it. Sometimes she arrived at the house before the class was over, and then, if she slipped into the class-room, Amy had not the heart to send her out. Amy protested that her work was by no means up to the standard that Brenda should look for in a teacher, while Brenda insisted that Amy's account of certain great poets and their work was so stimulating, that she should take up a course of reading herself; and, indeed, she did induce Amy to make out a list of books that she ought to read. "I should rather they were interesting, but even if they are not really exciting, I'll promise to read at least three or four of them." "To please me?" queried Amy. "Well, partly to please you, but more to--to--well, to give me something to think about. Everything seems so dull and stupid this winter, that I'm going to try a homoeopathic remedy and try to read dull books--just to see if I can't strengthen my mind." Then Amy, noticing that Brenda seemed far from happy, wisely asked no questions, and as they walked across the Common to the station they talked of everything except the subject that lay nearest Brenda's heart. "How is Fritz Tomkins?" Brenda asked, almost abruptly, referring to an old playmate of Amy's, now a Harvard Sophomore. "Oh, Fritz is doing splendidly. I hardly ever see him, and I'm so pleased." "What a funny way of putting it--pleased because you seldom see him." "Why, yes, because I know that means that he is so busy with his work that he has no time for other things. He has come to Wellesley only once this winter, and he tells me that he never worked so hard in his life." If Amy's speech was a little disjointed, Brenda understood her, and in contrast her mind wandered to Arthur Weston. He, too, was busy, and perhaps doing his duty by remaining at his post in Washington. But unlike Amy, she did not feel pleased that he could so contentedly keep his back turned to his Boston friends. Consequently she sent only the briefest answers to his letters, and his replies became at last, if possible, briefer than hers. Belle, however, kept her informed of Arthur's doings, and Brenda was never quite sure whether the information that she gave her was intended to please or to trouble her. She wrote, for example, of a riding party to Chevy Chase, where Arthur and Annabel Harmon had led all the others in gayety. "Annabel Harmon!" The name was familiar; and soon Brenda recalled one of Julia's classmates at Radcliffe, a popular girl, and yet one whom some of the best girls did not like. She had had some trouble with that strange Clarissa Herter. Although Brenda had never cared so very much for Clarissa Herter, she was pleased now to recall that she had heard that Clarissa had in the end been more popular, or rather better liked, than Annabel. She remembered that Annabel's father was a politician, and when a second letter came with Annabel's name still connected closely with Arthur's, Brenda thought more deeply on the subject. She wondered if, perhaps, Arthur was planning to stay permanently in Washington, and if he hoped to get some position through the influence of Mr. Harmon. Had Arthur been at home, Brenda would, undoubtedly, have given less time to the Mansion work; for in the first place, in starting the work Miss South had not counted on her aid. Other girls, more enthusiastic in the beginning, had given less service in the end, and Brenda was almost the only one who, without having promised much, was willing to do a great deal. On the whole, Miss South was well pleased with the interest shown by her former pupils. There was Anstiss Rowe, for example, one of the most valued of the residents, who, after a year in society, had pronounced it all a bore. She had been one of the younger girls during Julia's days at Miss Crawdon's. "You never knew," she said once to Julia, "my intense admiration for you. It would have spoiled it all had you known. But each of us little girls had to have some object of devotion, and you were my pattern of perfection." "The idea!" responded Julia. "I suppose that I ought to blush, but what you say is too absurd." "Oh, I suppose that you never wondered who used to send you those valentines; probably you had so many that you never thought about mine. But there was one with some lovely mother-of-pearl ornaments. In fact, I sent you two valentines that year, and two the next; but, of course, you wouldn't remember mine especially." "It's all very touching, and, indeed, I do remember them, my dear Anstiss, for I have an idea that I received no other that year. At least, I have them safely put away at this very minute." "Well, I suppose that you thought some extraordinary youth sent them." "He would, indeed, have been extraordinary. But to tell you the truth, I suspected that some girl had a hand in them." "We missed you when you went to College," said Anstiss meditatively. Though Anstiss had pronounced society hollow and a bore, she had not entirely forsworn it, and at times she went home for a week or two, returning, however, always on the evening of her history reading. This was her special contribution to the school work. Anstiss had her own protégée at the Mansion--a girl who had been in her Sunday-school class. Phoebe had been loath to leave school when her parents insisted, and Anstiss said it was merely avariciousness on their part, as her father was earning good pay. "When I came to investigate," she said, "I found that he was only her stepfather, and her mother said that she did not need her money. So in the end I was able to get her consent to her coming here. Phoebe was never very bright at school--" Then Julia interrupted her. "But she's doing splendidly here. Miss Dreen says that she's a born cook, and never makes a mistake." "Yes, I know. And when she has finished her course I'm going to see what can be done to encourage her to study still further. She says she'd like to be a cook, but it seems to me that if she continues to be interested in her study, she might be a director of cooking somewhere." "She'd earn as much by being a cook in some household." "Yes, but after all she has hardly the physique, and certain qualities of hers lead me to think that she would be a good manager. We are going to have an exhibition soon, and although we do not expect the greatest results this first year, still I am sure that you will admit that the girls have learned something, and Phoebe shall exhibit one of her model luncheons. She has already served us some very good meals at a fabulously low cost. That is one of the things she is learning, to make the best use of inexpensive material." It was Edith who had been listening attentively to all that Anstiss had said, and her reply, "I believe that I would rather see than eat those very, very inexpensive things," was given seriously. Edith was always glad to help the work at the Mansion when some matter of additional expense was brought to her, and she made conscientious visits to Gretchen, and in turn reported her progress to the old gardener. But there was a certain coldness in her manner that the young girls felt. They thought that she was not really interested in them, and her visits were never greeted with the delight that was so evident when Nora made her appearance. Edith was decided in her likes and dislikes. She could always be depended on to stand by a friend, and as certainly was she apt to be severe toward a wrongdoer. Though devoted to Julia and Miss South, she was less fond of Pamela and Anstiss. "An artist's model! how Ralph would love to paint her!" Brenda had exclaimed to Miss South after first seeing Concetta. "How I wish that I had discovered her instead of Maggie." "She may have more personal charm," Miss South had responded, "but Maggie is devoted to you, and some persons call her rather pretty, although," a little apologetically, "we all understand here at the Mansion that 'handsome is what handsome does' should be our chief rule of conduct. I never permit the girls to make one word of comment about the personal appearance of another." "Oh, naturally," responded Brenda, accepting the implied reproof; "but the comparisons that I make will not come to the ears of the girls." "No, not the comparisons, perhaps; but we try ourselves not to let them think that any girl is preferred by any one who comes here. All girls of fifteen are sensitive." Yet Maggie, in spite of the fact that Concetta tried to make her jealous, was unwilling to believe that Brenda had a preference for Concetta. "Miss Brenda asked Miss South to send me up to her house to get that parcel of embroidery patterns; she could have sent it down by her man just as well," concluded Concetta, with an important air; "or she could have asked you to come." Then, when Maggie made no reply, except perhaps that she polished her glasses a little more vigorously, Concetta added: "But I'm sure she just loves to have me come to her house. You see she always invites me to go up to her room, and she asks me all kinds of questions." Then, as Maggie still continued provokingly silent, Concetta continued: "You see, my country is a very interesting country, and I tell her all kinds of things that I have heard, especially about the beautiful cathedrals. She thinks I remember them all, but it is what I have heard the elders say, and she listens quite open-eyed, that, so young, I can remember so much. Don't you hate that you were born only in Boston." "No, I don't," said Maggie gruffly; "I despise foreigners." Then did Concetta become wisely silent, for she heard the step in the hall of one in authority, and she did not wish at the moment to bring Maggie to the point of tears. Maggie wept with unusual ease, and just now Concetta was not anxious to draw on herself a reproof, lest it should be followed by a withdrawal of the permission to go to Miss Barlow's. It was true that Maggie had never swerved in her devotion, showing it often in unexpected ways. Whenever Brenda entered the room she followed her with her eyes, and when her goddess addressed her she always blushed deeply. Mrs. McSorley was constantly putting poor Maggie through a course of questioning, that the former might be made sure that little girl had done nothing likely to drive her out of this paradise. XI SEEDS OF JEALOUSY Fortunately for many of the girls at the Mansion, they did not live under a very rigorous system of rewards and punishments. Every one was expected to report once a week what property she had injured, and this usually meant what dishes she had broken. She was also expected to tell what other things she had done that were not for the good of the school. One or two girls really liked to have a long list of misdemeanors. They seemed to think that it gave them an air of distinction, and Concetta was especially delighted to read from a written list: "Bed not made until ten o'clock Monday. Bureau drawers untidy for three days. Forgot to put salt in the bread. Let the kitchen fire go out. Spilled ink on my best apron. Broke one of our blue cups," etc. Most of the girls were contented with one or two faults, and some were inclined to forget that they had any, until reminded by nudges from some of their neighbors. These "confession meetings" were held once a week, between four and five o'clock. A girl would have had to show herself unusually bad to be excluded from the pleasant hour that followed when Miss Julia played for them to sing, and then around the open fire gave them good advice for half an hour,--good advice that they never imagined to be anything but a bit of pleasant conversation, although they all said that they went away feeling as if they could be good forever. It is true that the girls whose conduct was especially approved by Julia, regardless in many cases of their reports, were permitted to borrow some book from her bookcase that they especially wished to read. At first she had been surprised to find that few of these girls had any idea about choosing books. Haleema didn't care to read; she liked to do other things better. Concetta loved to read, but had actually never read anything but stories; indeed, she was surprised to hear that people ever read anything else. Little did Brenda realize that she was sowing the seeds of jealousy. She felt much pride in Maggie as having been her own discovery. She thought, with some complacence, that but for her Maggie might still have been condemned to the tiresome round of a cash-girl's duties. She did several little kind things of which Maggie herself was unaware, that enabled Julia and Miss South to enlarge the work of the school in directions that were especially helpful to Maggie. But with the best intentions in the world, Brenda could not help showing her preference for the pretty Concetta, whose dark eyes seemed mirrors of truth, and whose manners were always so charmingly deferential. Had she known that she was giving pain to Maggie by showing her preference in this way she would herself have been always ready enough to admit that this was not wise. But Maggie, although her tears flowed so easily, had the ability to keep her thought to herself. Mrs. McSorley herself, with her Scotch canniness, had an exalted opinion of Brenda, and on Maggie's weekly visits home impressed on her the great advantages that she might expect from having the interest of a Back Bay young lady. "And if she likes any other girl better than you, it will be all your fault, and I'll take it a sign that you ain't doing your very best." So Maggie had never said a word to her aunt about Miss Barlow's growing preference for Concetta. To have spoken of this would only have drawn a reproof upon herself. It was hard enough to confess her real faults, to tell over the list of things she had broken during the week. She had promised on first entering the Mansion to do this, and thus far she had kept her promise. Now Maggie had her own little bit of a secret, and sometimes she drew from her pocket a crumpled half-sheet of paper, and wept when she saw at the bottom: "From your loving Tim." What would her aunt say, what would Miss Brenda say, if they knew that at intervals she received these misspelled letters from a jail-bird. Yes! "a jail-bird," that was what her aunt had called him, and though it was true that he had only been in the reformatory, and that his offence, as he had explained it, was due more to the fault of another man. Still he had been imprisoned, and Maggie was forbidden ever to speak to him again. Yet he was her uncle more than Mrs. McSorley was her aunt. The latter was only an aunt-in-law, while Tim was her own uncle, and in spite of his faults she loved him. Of course he was a ne'er-do-well, but his smile was so jolly in contrast with the long-drawn, severe expression of Mrs. McSorley. The latter said that it was very easy for him to be jolly, when he never had the least care in the world for himself or for any one else. But Maggie remembered many kind things that he had done. "Since for him I'd never have been to the circus, and it was a whole day we spent at Nantasket, and he gave me that plush box of pink note-paper;" and Maggie would wipe away one of her ready tears as she thought of Tim, and she gazed at the tintype that she kept with a few other treasures in the plush-covered box. Many a time she pondered what she should do if he should ever come to Boston, for he was now in Connecticut looking, as he said, for work. "And it won't be so very long," he wrote, "before I'll have me own house, and you for housekeeper; so learn all you can, for it won't be long." For Maggie had written him once or twice since coming to the Mansion, and her letters had been more cheerful than those that had found their way to him when she was living with her aunt. So Maggie had her day dreams; and the real secret of her patience, and her anxiety to learn everything relating to the work of the house, came from this hope, that she was to have the chance of showing her uncle what a good housekeeper she could be. Now Maggie should have realized that her aunt had done much more for her than her uncle; that Mrs. McSorley had shown her kindness in comparison with which Tim's occasional bursts of liberality were very small indeed. Where would she and her mother have been but for Mrs. McSorley? And Mrs. McSorley was only a sister-in-law, whereas Tim was her mother's own brother. Yet the kindness of Mrs. McSorley had been so overladen with good advice and reprimands, that it did not stand out as kindness pure and simple. Maggie was as sure that Mrs. McSorley did not love her as she was positive that Tim did love her. Among the girls at the home she found little Haleema almost the most sympathetic. At least Concetta disliked them both, and this was their first bond of sympathy. The girls were apt to be sent in pairs on errands, and occasionally on pleasure walks, and it had come to be the habit for Maggie and Haleema to go together. They had gone together in company with Julia to present their scrap-books and dolls to the Children's Hospital, and there it was that they had fallen in love with the prettiest little blue-eyed girl, who had been sent to the hospital with a broken leg. She was then almost well, and when Miss South saw how deeply interested the two were in her she allowed them to go each week on visiting day. Later, when little Jennie went home, the two continued to visit her; sometimes they even brought her to the Mansion to visit. There she soon became a great favorite, and poor Maggie saw that Jennie no longer owed everything to her and Haleema. Concetta won the child's heart by dressing her a beautiful doll, and all the others vied with one another in doing things for her. It was especially hard for her when, in answer to a request from Concetta, Brenda herself sent a box of useful and pretty things for Jennie's use. "It might just as well have gone through me," thought poor Maggie; though, on further reflection, she had to admit that Concetta deserved these things, because she had been bright enough and quick enough to think of asking for them. A few days later, when she went to see Jennie she took with her a beautiful bouquet, purchased with money taken from the little hoard that she had so carefully saved. This was a real sacrifice on Maggie's part, and when she saw the joy with which the little girl received her gift she was more than repaid. Moreover, in the hour that she spent with the little girl she was sure that Jennie cared for her as much as ever. Indeed, had she been able to reason more deeply, she would have discovered that a child discriminates very slightly as to the value of different gifts. Jennie, like other children, loved Maggie quite as well as she loved Concetta, and though she enjoyed the presents that each one brought her, she had no scale of values by which to measure them. XII DOUBTS AND DUTIES "But of course you haven't given up your music. If I thought that you had, I should march straight East, and find the reason why. If it's on account of that Mansion school, you'd have to leave it instantly; so when you write tell me what you've been composing, and whom you are studying with this year. As for me, I really am rather idle, and I'm learning that a college education isn't really wasted, even if one practises only the domestic virtues. My mother has been far from well this year, and she's luxuriating in having me here to run things. Running things, you know, is rather in my line. But ah! how I wish that I could see you and Pamela and Lois again, and all the others of our class who are enjoying themselves fairly near the classic shades. I suppose that you go out to Radcliffe at least once a week, and do you feel as blue as I do to think it's all over? But don't forget to tell me about your music. "Ever your "CLARISSA." As Julia folded up this letter from her old classmate her face grew thoughtful. She certainly was not even studying this year, nor had she composed a note. It was kind in Clarissa to remember her little talent. Even Lois had spoken to her recently about hiding her light under a bushel. Was she doing this? Might her little candle, properly tended, shine out large enough to be seen in the world? Her uncle and aunt had remonstrated with her for neglecting her music, and Julia had promised to resume her work later. But thus far the exact time had not come, and she hesitated to tell them that she doubted that she had the talent that they attributed to her. This feeling of discouragement had come to her in the last year at Radcliffe, when she began to see that her ability as a composer had its limits. Now, with Clarissa's letter before her, she wondered if she had been right in letting one or two slight set-backs discourage her. She had continued her practising, and her rendering of the great composers was a continual uplifting to those who heard her. But the other,--her work in harmony,--was she right or wrong in laying it aside for the present? Was this the talent that she should be called to account for? Ought she to keep it concealed in a napkin? As she thought of this, Julia longed more than ever for Ruth--Ruth, with whom she had found it easier to discuss these personal questions than with any other of her friends. But Ruth, on her wedding trip, was thousands of miles away. It would be six months, at least, before they could meet, and she glanced at the map on which she marked a record of Ruth's wanderings, and noted that now she was in the neighborhood of Calcutta. "The other side of the world," she thought. "Ah! well, I will let things go on as they have been going, and next year, perhaps, I shall see more clearly what I ought to do." Pamela was perhaps carrying out her ideals more thoroughly than Julia, for all her teaching was along the artistic lines that she loved the best. She was not always sure that the girls got just what she intended them to get from her little talks on the nature of beauty, and the relations of beauty to utility. She used the simplest language, however, and made her illustrations of a kind that they could easily comprehend. She had tried to show them the meaning of "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful," and in expounding this she saw that she must try to train them to understand the truly beautiful. For her own room she had had some mottoes done in pen and ink artistically lettered, and one at a time she would set them in a conspicuous place, sure to attract the attention of the girls at their lessons. Ruskin's "Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on person and face; every wrong action and foul thought, its seal of distortion," put up in plain sight, though at first it was not thoroughly understood, served as the text for a little talk, and each girl for the time being decided to curb her tongue, lest her face should show the effect of backbiting. Samples of dress fabrics, samples of wall papers, gaudy chromos contrasted with simple photographs, queer and over-decorated vases in comparison with graceful Greek shapes, were all used by Pamela to enforce her lessons. Yet she often had misgivings that her words were not accepted as actual gospel by Nellie and Haleema and one or two others, whose preference for crude colors and fantastic decorations often came unexpectedly to the surface. Nora laughed at her efforts to develop an æsthetic sense in these girls. "They'll never have the chance to own the really beautiful things, and they might as well think that these cheap and gaudy objects are beautiful." But Pamela shook her head at this. "Why, Nora, you surprise me! What I am trying to teach is the fact that beautiful things are often as cheap as ugly things. Of course, in one sense, they are always cheaper, because they give more pleasure and often last longer. But when a girl's taste is cultivated she can often find more attractive things for less money. Who wouldn't rather have a wicker chair than one of those hideous red and green plush upholstered affairs, and the wicker chair certainly costs less." "You are absolutely correct, Pamela Northcote, and your sentiments do not savor of anarchism, though I hear that Mrs. Blair is greatly perturbed lest this work at the Mansion should interfere with the labor market, and prevent the householder of the future from getting her rightful quota of domestics." "It would not surprise me," said Pamela, "if not more than two of the girls here actually became domestics. I think that Julia and Miss South are right in encouraging them to live up to their highest aspirations." "Well, I doubt if any of them have begun to aspire very strongly yet. On the whole they are remarkably short-sighted, and when I ask them what they intend to be they are usually so taken by surprise that they can make no reply." "Miss South feels that she can judge them only very superficially this year; but she hopes that next year she will know them so well that she can give them definite advice. In the mean time they are at the mercy of laymen like yourself and myself, and we have the responsibility of guiding them toward the heights of art, whether in the æsthetic or the culinary line." Theoretically Pamela took some of the girls each Saturday to the Art Museum; really the average was hardly oftener than every other week. There were rainy Saturdays, there were days when Pamela had special work of her own, or an occasional invitation would come for her to go out of town. Three girls at a time were invited to go. Julia would not permit Pamela to leave the house with more than that number, lest she should be mistaken for the head of an orphan asylum. Pamela made these trips so interesting that for a girl to be forbidden to go when her day came was the greatest punishment that could be inflicted on her. Julia and Miss South had discovered this, and the discovery had solved one of their greatest problems,--this question of punishment; for although the girls were old enough to be beyond the need of punishment, yet there were certain rules that only the very best never broke, and to the breaking of which certain penalties were attached. Thus it happened that on this particular Saturday afternoon Haleema, whose turn it was to go, was not of the trio, and in her place was Maggie, triumphant in the knowledge that for a whole week she had not broken a single cup or saucer, nor in fact a dish of any kind. "That means that I have my whole quarter to do as I like with," she said as they left the house. "That means," interpolated Concetta, "that you'll put it in your little bank. She's a regular miser, Miss Northcote." "No, I ain't," responded Maggie, "only just now I'm saving." "That's right," said Pamela. "'Many a little make a mickle.'" "Yes, 'm," and Maggie lapsed into her wonted silence. Concetta, however, was inclined to be more talkative. "Oh, she isn't simply saving, she's mean. Why, she got Nellie to buy her blue necktie last week; sold it for ten cents. Just think of that!" "Well, well, that is no affair of ours." "She sold a lovely story-book that her aunt gave her Christmas. She said it was too young for her, and she'd rather have the money." "That may be, Concetta; but still I say that this is none of our business." Yet although she thus reproved Concetta for her comments, Pamela wondered why Maggie wished to save. Economy was not a characteristic of girls of her age; though, recalling her own past need of money, Pamela felt that thrift was not a thing to be discouraged. "Oh, please let us go to the paintings first," begged Concetta. "No! no! to the jewelry," cried Gretchen; while Maggie, knowing as well as the others that they would first go where Miss Northcote chose, wisely said nothing, expressed no preference. On their first visit they had walked through all the galleries to get the necessary bird's-eye view, and a second visit had been given almost wholly to the old Greek room. But all the casts and reliefs were as nothing in Concetta's eyes compared with the richness of color in Corot's "Dante and Virgil in the Forest," and the wonderful realism of La Rolle's two peasant women. "I don't know whether they're Italians," said Concetta of the latter, "but there's something about them that makes me think of Italy;" for Concetta had vague remembrances of her native land and of the picturesque costumes of the Italian women. Although she was proud enough to consider herself an American citizen, she still was pleased when people called her a true daughter of Italy, and she loved everything that reminded her of her old home. Of all the things that she had seen, Gretchen declared that she would much prefer the great crystal ball to which a fabulous value was attached, although there were some exquisite gold necklaces that had an especial charm for her. Now on this special day Pamela meant to combine instruction with pleasure, and so the quartette quickly found themselves in the Egyptian room. "You don't think that beautiful, do you, Miss Northcote?" and there was more than a little doubt in Concetta's tone as she pointed to a granite bust of a ruler in one of the earliest dynasties. "I like it better than the mummies," interposed Gretchen, before Pamela could reply; "they give me the shivers." "I wish you'd take us into the mummy room," continued Concetta seductively; "there are some lovely blue beads there." But Pamela was sternly steadfast to her purpose, reminding them that there would be other opportunities for them to wander about indefinitely, whereas now she wished them to get a little idea of history through these reliefs and statues. But I am afraid that of the three Maggie alone really listened very attentively to her explanation of the difference between the Egyptians and the Assyrians, which their works of art brought out so well. But neither Thotmes, nor Assur-bani-pal, nor Nimrod, nor Rameses were names to conjure with, and in spite of her efforts to make her subject interesting, by connecting things she told them with Bible incidents, Pamela could not always hold their attention. To give up too easily would have seemed ignominious, and she decided to allow them a diversion in the shape of a visit to her favorite Tanagra figurines. "That will be good," said Gretchen, in her rather quaint English, as they turned their backs on the grim relics of Egypt; "and we'll try to remember every word you've told us to-day." "Then what _do_ you remember?" said Pamela with a suspicion of mischief in her voice. The three looked uncomfortable. On their faces was the same expression that Pamela often saw on the faces of her pupils in school when unable to answer her questions. "The names were rather hard," ventured Concetta. "Yes, but you must remember one fact,--at least one among all the things that I have been telling you." "I remember one," ventured Maggie. "Well, then, we shall be glad to hear it." "Why the Assyrians used to make their enemies look smaller than they when they made reliefs of battles," ventured Maggie. "And the Egyptians were very fond of cats," added Gretchen; and with all her efforts this was all the information Pamela gleaned from the girls after her hour's work. But before she had a chance to try a new and better way of presenting the Tanagra figures to them, she heard her name pronounced in a well-known voice, and looking up she saw Philip Blair gazing at her charges, and at her too, with an air of amusement. "This is a surprise. I did not realize that you were a lover of art," she said a little awkwardly. "Oh, yes, indeed, though I can't tell you when I've been in this museum before. It looks just about the same, though, as it did when I was a kid." "There are some new paintings upstairs," said Pamela; "though it's almost closing time now," she added, glancing at her watch. When they saw that Pamela was fairly absorbed in conversation, the three girls wandered off toward another room where, Concetta whispered, there were prettier things to be seen. "Do you bring them here often?" There was something quizzical in Philip's tone as he watched the three for a moment. "Some of them every week; it's a great pleasure." Pamela was bound not to apologize. "Do you think they'll get an idea of household art by coming here?" "I'm sure I hope so, though that isn't my whole aim. It will take more than these visits here to get them to change their views of the really beautiful. Concetta is always telling me about some of the beauties in the house of her cousin, who married a saloon-keeper. They have green and red brocade furniture in their sitting-room, and a piano that is decorated with a kind of stucco-work, as well as I can understand her description, for it can hardly be hand-carving." Emboldened by Philip's hearty laugh Pamela continued: "She also thinks our pictures far too simple, 'too neat and plain,' I think she called them. Certainly she told me that she likes chromos in gilt frames." "It is clearly, then, your duty to raise her ideals, though when it comes to a whole houseful of new ideas, you will certainly have all that you can do." But from this lighter talk Philip and Pamela turned to more serious things, and as they walked through the long galleries, unconsciously they were showing themselves in a new aspect to each other. Philip, at least, who had had so many trips abroad, had profited more than many young men by his opportunities; and as they walked, Pamela, for almost the first time in her life, felt a little envious as he talked of this great painting and then of that,--of paintings that she had longed to see,--speaking of them as casually as she would speak of the flower-beds on the Public Garden. Ah! was she never to have this chance of crossing the ocean? It was but a passing shadow; for a swift calculation of her probable savings showed that, though the time might be long, there was still every probability that some time she could take herself to Europe. But meanwhile-- "Ah! you should see a real Titian, or a Velasquez like the one the National Gallery bought a few years ago; I saw it the last time I was over. Oh! I should love to show you some of my favorites in the Dresden Gallery." "Yes, yes!" Pamela spoke absent-mindedly. She had suddenly remembered the existence of her charges. "I wonder," she began, when her speech was cut short by Gretchen, who ran rapidly up to her from the broad hall outside, a look of alarm on her face as she grasped Pamela's arm. "It's--it's Maggie!" she exclaimed excitedly. "What is it? Has anything happened? Is she hurt?" "I can't say as she's exactly hurt," responded Gretchen, "though she gave an awful scream; but you'd better come." [Illustration: They walked through the long galleries] With Gretchen leaning on her arm, or rather dragging her on, Pamela hastened to the large room with its tapestries and cases of embroideries. "No, no, not here; this little room," and Pamela soon saw Concetta and Maggie. The latter was weeping bitterly, the former stood near looking rather sulky. One of the custodians, with severity in every line of his face and figure, was talking to them "for all he was worth," as Gretchen phrased it. In a glance Pamela saw what had happened. There was a hole in the top of the glass case, and the man held in his hand a large glass marble. Pamela remembered that Maggie had been tossing it up and down on her way across the Common. "I didn't do it." Maggie was crying. "Nonsense, Maggie! I saw you playing with it myself." "But not now--not now." Pamela glanced suspiciously at Concetta, but the little Italian was already at the other side of the room, pretending a great interest in a case of ivories. For the moment Pamela was overcome. Her old shyness had returned. Several bystanders were gazing at the strange group, and Pamela was at a loss what to say. Clearly it was her duty to offer to make restitution, but she could not speak; she did not know what to say; and when Gretchen, too impressed, doubtless, by the brass buttons on the coat of the official, said anxiously, "If he's a p'liceman, will he put us all in jail?" the climax had been reached, and Pamela herself felt ready to cry. In a moment she saw Philip pass her; he had been not far behind all the time, and the few words that he spoke in a low voice made the grim features of the official relax. "Oh, certainly, sir, certainly," he said, as Philip gave him his card. "I'll go with you to the office." Philip paused only a moment to say to Pamela, "There, I leave you to your charges; let me know if they break anything more on the way home." Then, as if this was an afterthought, "By the way, it's all right about that glass; my father's a trustee, you know; I'm going to fix it in the office downstairs." When Pamela told her of the incident, Julia only laughed. "I dare say it cost Philip a pretty penny; that kind of glass is very expensive." "Oh, I feel so ashamed," said Pamela. "It was really my fault. I should not have let them leave me. I must repay the cost of the glass." "Nonsense! Philip might as well spend his money for that as for other things. He never has been considered especially economical. Besides, it was at least partly his fault that you left the girls, or let them leave you;" and this was a fact that Pamela could not deny. XIII THE VALENTINE PARTY When the "Leaguers" announced that they intended to have a valentine party, Julia and Miss South gave their assent with hesitation. "It has a sentimental sound," said Julia,--"a valentine party! and I do wonder whom they wish to invite." But when they were questioned the girls explained that they did not intend to ask a single person from outside, and, of course, not a single boy. The valentines that they most enjoyed sending were to other girls, and they wanted only girls at their valentine party. These, at least, were the words of Concetta, their spokesman, and if any of the others dissented, they did not express their disagreement. "But we expect you, Miss South, and Miss Bourne and Miss Barlow, and all the ladies who have been so very kind to us. Miss Northcote is in the secret, but every one else is going to be very much surprised." "We'll try not to be curious, and I suppose that you wouldn't let us bribe Angelina to tell us." "Oh, no'm; no, indeed. Miss Angelina," and Gretchen turned to Angelina, who was standing near, "if you tell we'll never--never--" "Oh, I'm not afraid." "We'll never call you Miss Angelina again--just plain Angelina." "I wouldn't stand being called 'plain Angelina,'" said Miss South, patting Angelina's shoulder as she passed by. Now for a week or two there was much secrecy, much whispering, many hours spent in the gymnasium at times when the rules about exercising did not require the girls to be there. Snippings of bright-colored paper were found in the hall, and not only bits of paper but of colored cambric; and Julia, and Nora when she came to the cooking-class, and all the other older persons interested in the Mansion, professed to be entirely mystified by what was going on. But at last the eventful fourteenth of February arrived, and all the guests had assembled in the dining-room. The little stage had been set up, and the audience awaited the performance with great interest. Each girl, as before, had been permitted to invite two guests, and a number of boys and men were present,--brothers, cousins, uncles, and an occasional father, and the women relatives were out in full force. Angelina's sister had come in from Shiloh to spend a day or two, and she was doorkeeper in Angelina's place. As the guests went to their places, each one was given a heart-shaped card, the edges gilded, to which was attached by a pink cord a small pencil shaped like an arrow. "Evidently we are to keep some kind of a score," said Nora, "but what it is to be I cannot imagine." "Nor I," responded Brenda; "I haven't been taken into the secret, but I know that it is to be something exciting." Brenda had not yet outgrown her love for emphatic words, and "exciting" once in a while reappeared as a reminder of her childish years. They had not waited very long when the door from the little room behind was opened, and a barefooted maiden with a broad straw hat torn at the rim, and a blue calico gown looped up over a paler blue petticoat, appeared. She carried a rake, and "Maud Muller" was breathed around the room before Angelina, coming from behind the scenes,--that is, from the other room,--had had time to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, you are asked to listen to each character, and to make a record of two things: First, those who look the best, then those who speak the best, that is,--I mean--" and for the first time almost in the memory of those present Angelina seemed to have stage fright, and was unable to translate her sentences into the clearer and more elegant phrases that she had intended to use. Thereupon she retired in some confusion, and Maud, who was really Nellie, recited the simple lines of the charming poem: "'Maud Muller, on a summer's day, Raked the meadow sweet with hay, Under her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.'" "I doubt that Maud had exactly that brogue," said Nora. "If she had, I believe that the judge would have been too thoroughly fascinated to ride away." After this came a strange, Spanish-looking figure, who took a kneeling attitude with bowed head. The solemnity of the effect was somewhat marred when Concetta--for she it was--turned her head around slightly to make sure that the audience was fully appreciative of her. Many were the guesses as to what she portrayed, and indeed it was one of the guests, a thoughtful girl, who ventured Ximena, "the angel of Buena Vista," and then every one else wondered why she had not been clever enough to think of this. "'From its smoking hell of battle, love and pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air.'" After the women of Marblehead and Barbara Freitchie had made themselves known, "The Witch's Daughter" was given in series of tableaux, in which Maggie took the part of Mabel, and Angelina the part of Esek Harden, in a coat which, if not historically accurate, was at least a suitable kind of masculine attire for a girl to wear. Next came Haleema as the Countess, and Luisa as Amy Wentworth, in rather elegant clothes that surely must have come from one of the chests in the end room; and last, but not least, Anna and Rhoda, the two sisters in their long white gowns,--Anna timid and shrinking and Rhoda vehemently denouncing her; Inez the former and Phoebe the latter,--reciting some of the more tragic stanzas of the poem. "Must we give up these pretty hearts?" asked one after another as Phoebe began to collect the cards. "Oh, you can have them back again if your names are on them, we only want to count the votes;" and then there was a general murmur, for some people had forgotten to record their opinions and a little time was lost. But in the interval Julia played a Chopin waltz that several of the girls especially liked, and followed this with a few chords of one of the choruses they had been learning, in which they all joined very heartily. When the score cards were brought back it was found that there was a tie for the favorite character between Haleema as the Countess, and Maggie and Angelina as Mabel Martin and Esek. Angelina was in a state of excitement when this result was announced, and was determined that the decision should be immediately in her favor; while Maggie, disturbed by being so conspicuous, hoped that the prize might be given to Haleema. "It isn't for you to decide," said Phoebe sagely; "they'll find some way of settling it--the ladies, I mean." This, of course, proved to be the case, and when an umpire had been chosen whose decision all present agreed to respect, he decided that the first prize should go to the Mabel Martin actors. This was not entirely to the satisfaction of the followers of the Countess, and Concetta, who was sometimes on Haleema's side and sometimes against her, now became a very active partisan, and the two younger girls frowned ominously on Angelina and Maggie. So far at least as prizes were concerned, Anstiss, as President of the League, had brought it about that every actor should have a prize, in each case an attractively bound book, with the only advantage for the winners of the first prize that they were allowed to have first choice. But there was a book for each of the others, and each girl, too, had the pleasure of hearing from her own friends that she really had made the very best representation of all. It was simply a case of where all were so good it was almost impossible to choose the very best. Mrs. McSorley was especially proud of Maggie's performance, and her face almost lost its wonted grimness as she walked about among the girls and their guests. "I'm thinking that you'll amount to something, after all," she vouchsafed to her niece; and as this was almost the highest praise she had ever given, Maggie was more than content. It may be said here that in Turquoise Street Mrs. McSorley was much more eloquent than she had been to Maggie's face, and the neighbors for many a day heard the story of this very brilliant evening at the Mansion, and of the remarkable manner in which Maggie McSorley had recited and acted the part of the witch's daughter. Another pleasant result of the evening was that Haleema became more friendly toward Maggie, for she had been impressed by Maggie's generosity in being willing to resign the first prize to her. This, however, did not mean the winning of Concetta, who still seemed to feel it her duty to refrain from any direct praise or showing any friendliness for Maggie. But after this an observer would have seen that she seldom showed any direct unfriendliness, and this was one of the things that Maggie especially observed. The fun of the valentine party was quite forgotten in the excitement that the girls of the Mansion, like every one else in the country, felt on that sixteenth of February; for that was the day when news was brought of the destruction of the "Maine." Angelina was the first to report it when she broke into the dining-room with a newspaper that she had bought from a boy at the front door. It had headlines in enormous, heavy black letters, and Miss South, in spite of her general disapproval of the headlines, could not resist reading the sheet that Angelina handed her. "It means war, doesn't it?" cried Angelina in a tone that implied that she hoped that it meant war. But neither Miss South nor the other residents, nor the great world outside, knew whether peace or war was to follow the awful disaster. It was useless to forbid the girls reading the harrowing details. All, indeed, except Maggie and Inez seemed to take a special delight in perusing them, and in speculating about the families of the victims and the guilt of the Spaniards; for of course the Spaniards had done this thing. There were no two opinions on the subject, so far as the girls were concerned. Gretchen quickly became the heroine of the day when it was learned that she had a cousin who was a seaman on the "Maine," and when his name was read in the list of those who had escaped, her special friends, Concetta and Luisa, seemed to think that they, too, shared in the distinction, and they offered to do her share of the housework that she might have time to think it all over. Angelina was not altogether pleased that this honor had come to Gretchen. "Julia," said Nora, whose day it was at the home, "I believe that she'd be willing to sacrifice John for the sake of being the sister of a victim," and in fact Angelina scanned the list of names, in the hope that she might find one that she might claim as a relative. But unluckily she could not fix on a single name that she could properly claim. When she read aloud the President's message to Sigsbee, her voice trembled with emotion: "The President directs me to express for himself and the people of the United States his profound sympathy for the officers and crew of the 'Maine,' and desires that no expense be spared in providing for the survivors, and the care of the dead. "JOHN D. LONG, _Secretary._ "SIGSBEE, U. S. S. 'Maine.'" "But there isn't any 'Maine' now," said Maggie, as Angelina read the last words, and then was the young girl moved to a word of genuine eloquence. "There will always be a 'Maine;' it will always live in the hearts of the American people!" and Julia, who happened to approach the group just at this moment, said "Bravo! bravo! Angelina, you are a true patriot." XIV CONCILIATION One day not so very long after the valentine party, when it was still rather uncertain whether Maggie and Concetta were to be friends or enemies, the former had a chance to do Concetta a real favor. It was a morning when she had been very busy herself, as it was her week for taking care of the large reading-room, and she had been up very early in order to finish certain things before breakfast. First of all she had cleaned mirrors with powdered whiting until they shone; then she had polished the brasses; and finally, after spreading covers over everything that might harbor dust, she had swept the long room. "Don't you hate sweeping?" asked Haleema, who was to help her dust and arrange the rooms. "Not half as much as dusting. I really do hate that, it is so fussy, and, do you know," dropping her voice, "I heard Miss Julia the other day saying that she didn't like dusting either." In spite of any dislike that she may have had for the work, Maggie was a willing worker, and soon she had the long room in perfect order. Soon after breakfast, passing through the back hall, they came upon an array of lamps ranged on a long table. "Where's Concetta?" "I don't know. She was here a little while ago." "Well, I've looked all over the house, and I haven't seen her for an hour." "It's her day to do the lamps. She'll get a scolding if she doesn't fill them." "Who'll scold her? I never heard any one in this house scold." "Well, Miss Dreen, for one, is very particular, and she said that she'd punish the next girl who neglected the lamps." "Oh, well," said Maggie, "perhaps she won't be back in time to do them,--that is, if she has gone off anywhere." "She hasn't any right to go off in the morning." "I don't mind doing the lamps," said Maggie,--"that is, I'm not so very fond of doing them, but I'd just as lieves, and it will save Concetta a scolding. I don't mind a bit." So Maggie set to work with a will. She filled the lamps, trimmed one or two wicks, put in one or two new ones, washed and polished the chimneys, and when they were finished set them on a large tray to be ready for evening. "Well, that's more than I would do," said Haleema. "I wonder how these lamps get used," said Maggie; "except in the library they mostly use gas--the young ladies, I mean--and, of course, we only have gas in our room." "Why, that's so," said Haleema, "though I never thought of it before." But neither of the girls put her mind sufficiently on the subject to see that the care of the lamps was one of the devices of the two head workers at the Mansion for getting a certain kind of exact service from the young girls. The lamps were not needed. Often two of them were set in a little-used room where they burned just long enough to sear the wicks and cloud the shades, so that the young housekeepers could show their skill in cleaning them. Miss South made it her duty usually to keep in mind the girl whose task for the week it was to attend to the lamps, and when the results were thoroughly satisfactory she was loud in her praise, just as she felt it her duty to blame when the reverse was true. From the lamps the two little girls went to the bathroom. "Oh, you oughtn't to dust without lifting down those bottles. Miss Dreen says that we ought never to leave a corner untouched." "But I've dusted in between; it doesn't matter what there is under the bottles." But Haleema was not to be rebuffed. "I like bottles," she added. "They almost always have things in them that smell good," and she reached up on tiptoe toward the shelf. The first bottle that she reached just came within her grasp, and she pulled it toward her. When she pulled the stopper, it proved to be a fragrant toilet water, and even Maggie, admitting that it was delightful, yielded to the pleasure of inhaling it directly from the bottle. Emboldened by her success, Haleema drew another bottle down toward her and made a feint of drinking from it. "Oh, don't!" cried Maggie, in genuine alarm, "it may be poison." "Oh, they wouldn't leave poisons around like this. I'd just as lief as not taste anything here. I ain't afraid." But although she spoke thus bravely, Haleema really did not venture to put the liquid to her mouth. Then she touched a third bottle, filled with a colorless liquid. She tried to pull out the rubber stopper, but it would not stir. Holding the bottle under one arm, she gave a second, more vigorous pull, when the stopper not only came out, but in some way the liquid flew out, and then--a loud scream from Maggie, who was wiping the edge of the bathtub. Haleema herself, half suffocated by the fumes of the ammonia from the harmless-looking bottle, had enough presence of mind to set it up on the marble washstand. But, alas! she set it down so hard that the glass broke and the ammonia trickled down, destroying the glossy surface of the hardwood floor. All these things, of course, had happened in a very short time; not a minute, indeed, had passed after Maggie's first shriek before Julia and Miss South and two or three girls had rushed to the room. The ammonia fumes at once told the story to Miss South, and without waiting for an explanation she had raised Maggie from the floor. "Oh, dear, my eyes!" sobbed Maggie, and for a moment Miss South was frightened. Ammonia can work great havoc when it touches the eyes. Fortunately, however, as it happened it was not Maggie's eyes but her face that the ammonia had really hurt. Her eyes were inflamed, and she had to be kept in a dark room for a day or two, and her face had to be salved and swathed in cloths. But in the end no great injury had been done, and she won Haleema's everlasting gratitude by resisting the temptation to tell enquirers that Haleema's carelessness had caused the disaster; for great injury had been done the polished floor, and Haleema knew that she deserved reproof and punishment. Yet such was Maggie's reputation for destructiveness that she was supposed to have broken the bottle, and in the injury to her face she was thought to have paid a sufficient penalty. When Concetta returned to the house an hour later, great was her surprise to find that her lamps had been cleaned, and when Haleema told her of Maggie's kindness she could not understand it. "Perhaps she's trying for a prize." "What prize?" "Why, don't you know? At the end of the year the very best girl at the Mansion is to have a prize. I shouldn't wonder if it would be a gold watch." "Oh, I don't believe it." "Then you can ask Miss Bourne." A few days later Concetta had a chance to put the question to Julia. "Yes, indeed, there are to be two prizes: one for the girl who has tried the hardest, and the other for the one who has succeeded the best." "Which will get them, Miss Bourne?" "Ah, how can I tell?" "I don't see how any one can tell; no one is watching us all the time." "Some one does take account, Inez, of almost everything that you say and do." "Oh, dear, I hate to be spied on," grumbled Concetta. "No one is spying, I can assure you; but there are certain things that we notice carefully, and you have all been here so long that we know pretty well just what you are likely to do." "I expect some one marks everything down in a book, like they used to at school?" Maggie put this as a question, but Julia did not reply directly. "All the advice I can give you is to do as well as you can, and whether things are written in a book or not you will fare very well--at least, you will all fare alike." "What will the prizes be, Miss Bourne?" "Ah, I cannot tell exactly." Thereupon the girls all fell to speculating not only about the prizes, but about the kind of conduct that would win one. While they were discussing this, Julia called to them from the floor above, "Have you forgotten that this is your shopping day?" Then there was a scampering, and the girls who were to go with her began to get ready. Each girl went shopping with one of the staff every three months, and to-day the group was to consist of Concetta, Inez, Maggie, and Nellie. It was Julia's turn to take them, and this was not wholly to the satisfaction of Concetta. "I thought Miss Barlow said that she would go with us this time," she murmured, as they left the house. She knew very well that if Brenda were their shopping guide they would be able to purchase according to their own sweet wills. She would be likely to approve everything that they bought, provided that they had money to pay for it, and it was even possible that she might supplement their allowance from her ever generous purse. Thus, indeed, had she done on the one occasion when she had taken them out, and her liberality had been even magnified by the lively tongues of those who had described it. Shopping was not, of course, intended to occupy a large share of the attention of these girls; yet to buy clothing properly was thought as important by the elders who had them in charge, as marketing for the table, and each girl was given a chance to market under the supervision of Miss Dreen. They already knew the most nutritious and least expensive cuts of meat. They could tell what vegetables could be most prudently bought at each season, and some of them had already begun to show a decided independence of judgment even in small matters relating to the table. Hardly any of them, however, had the same degree of judgment in matters of dress. On this account it had been thought wise to give each one a small allowance, and let her spend it as she wished, with a certain amount of guidance that she need not feel to be restraint. "What they spend for one thing they certainly will not have for another, and there is probably no other way in which they can better learn what to do." To let them use their own judgment on this particular shopping trip, Julia made few restrictions. Each had the same amount of money to spend, and out of it they were to buy spring hats, shoes and stockings, and the material for two dresses, one of gingham and one of a heavier material. All that they had left after making these purchases they were to spend as they wished, and the sum had been so calculated as to leave a fair margin. There was only one restriction: to save time and energy that might be consumed in wandering around from one shop to another, Julia planned that they should do all their purchasing in one of the larger department stores, and while they were busy she did a few errands of her own. At intervals she met them at certain counters by agreement, but in almost every instance she found that they had made their purchase, so that her advice was usually superfluous. "I thought that you were going to get a small sailor hat with a few flowers at the side," she could not forbear saying to Inez, who showed her a rather flimsy imitation tuscan, with some gaudy flowers and lace for trimming. "Oh, but you should have seen the perfectly elegant hats they have upstairs, all tulle and flowers, and as big--" at a loss for an object of comparison. Concetta concluded, "as big as a bushel basket," after which Julia could not say that the hat that Inez had chosen was really of unreasonable size. Concetta looked somewhat shamefaced as she announced that she had no hat. "But you had the money for it." "Yes, but I bought this, it's for the baby; I'd rather she'd have it," and Concetta opened a large box in which lay a pretty, pink silk coat. Closer examination showed that the silk was half cotton and the lace very tawdry, but Julia hadn't the heart to reprove her. Concetta's love for her baby cousin was genuine, and the coat undoubtedly represented a certain sacrifice on her part. When they came to the dress materials, Maggie insisted on buying two cotton dresses instead of the woollen dress, the material for which had been provided by her money. "Maggie's a miser," said Concetta, and Maggie reddened without making any explanation. Some of the materials bought were open to more or less criticism, and later Julia meant to make certain of these mistakes the subject of a little talk. They had done very well, she thought, for the present, in buying practically all the things that she had intended to have them buy with their money. Each of them, too, had a small surplus, and Inez was the only one who proposed to use hers up by spending it at once for candy. A little persuasion turned her aside from this purpose, and Julia was careful that evening to offer her and the girls some especially fine confections when they gathered in her room after tea. They all seemed so receptive then that she thought it a good time to show them just how their fifteen dollars might have been spent to the best advantage,--a third for the dress materials, a third for shoes and hat, a third for stockings and the other smaller things; and comparing what they had done with her ideal purchases, she was interested to find that Nellie, the young Irish girl, had really come the nearest to her standard, and accordingly Nellie's face was wreathed in smiles as she learned that she was thought to have been the ideal purchaser; for although Maggie had also done very well, Julia was not wholly satisfied with her having substituted the cotton for the woollen dress. That evening, as it was Saturday, they all played games in the large gymnasium, where there was space enough for the exciting French blindman's buff, in which, instead of having one of the players blinded, she had her hands tied behind her back, and do her best, often she could not catch the others. When they were tired of active sports, hjalma and draughts and other games were ready for them, and occasionally they had charades or impromptu tableaux, in which all the powers of their elders were taxed; for the girls themselves lacked originality, and Miss South or one of the other older members of the household had to supervise all that they did. In these sports sometimes little unexpected jealousies arose, and Julia, or Pamela, or Ruth, or Anstiss, as the case might be, had her hands full trying to keep peace. The least desirable characteristics of the girls came to the surface at times, and at times, too, their best qualities were displayed in an equally unexpected way. Phoebe alone of them all did not care for games. While the others were playing she was apt to bury herself in a book, and often Julia and Pamela would insist that she should put this aside to mingle with the others. XV WAR AT HAND As the weeks went on, Angelina and her little group of special friends followed closely the newspaper reports of the troubles in Cuba; that is, Angelina read the despatches and surmises, and told the others how things were progressing. Except in the case of such definite events as the destruction of the "Maine," the others were not extremely interested in what Concetta called "stupid" accounts of distant happenings. Angelina, however, was all excitement, and her theories were an interesting supplement to all that the Board of Enquiry didn't find out. When she read of Mr. Cannon's bill appropriating fifty millions for defence she was sure that war was near at hand. When Maggie said that there would be no money left in the country if so much was spent in war, Angelina made a rapid calculation that this meant less than a dollar for every person in the whole land, "and it would be a strange thing," she said, "if we couldn't afford that." Even at the meetings of the League the conversation turned to war, and they hastened through their readings of the Quaker poet to talk about things that were rather far away from his teachings, except that he was always on the side of the oppressed, and in the war of his time was heard with no uncertain voice. The stripping of the fleet for war and the movement of the troops that began early in April were described vividly by Angelina, after she had read about them. The girls all took more interest when war seemed really at hand, and Angelina was called upon to explain many things in which her knowledge hardly equalled her willingness to impart it. "The mosquito fleet; oh, what can that be? Is it to bite the Spaniards?" Inez had asked, and Angelina had replied most scornfully: "Of course not; it's a lot of long, thin iron boats that skim over the water as fast as a mosquito flies--all made of iron, of course, with long, thin legs that go out from the side like a mosquito's." "Legs," exclaimed Haleema dubiously; "on a boat!" and Angelina responded hastily: "Well, not real legs, only kind of paddles, that make them go faster;" and as no older person heard this original explanation, the girls continued to have their very special interest in the curious mosquito fleet. When the first shot was fired and the little "Buena Ventura" was captured on April 22, young and old knew that peace was at an end, and there was no surprise when the declaration of war came a few days later. "I've been looking for it," said Angelina, "ever since the 'Maine' was destroyed, and I should have been dreadfully disappointed if war hadn't come. But I was quite certain that there'd be fighting soon when I heard that an officer had been sent abroad to buy warships; for what in the world should _we_," with a strong emphasis on the "we," "want of warships if we hadn't made up our minds to have a war?" During all these weeks Brenda had been no less interested than the younger girls in the question of what should be done for Cuba. Washington had become the centre of the world for her in the strongest sense of the word, and evidently for the time it was the centre of interest for the whole country. Arthur's letters to her continued rather brief. He spoke of being overworked, and Belle in writing rarely failed to say that she had seen him at this or that social function, and almost as often she mentioned how popular he was. Brenda at last wrote one or two brief notes to Arthur, asking him to return for a dinner that she was giving before Lent; but he took no notice of these missives, at least he did not write to her until Lent itself was half over, and then he made a simple little reference to her request with a mere "I was sorry that I could not do what you wished, but you must have known that I could not before you wrote." Then Brenda came to the point of deciding that she would never write to him again, and she threw herself into the work at the Mansion with much more zeal than Julia had ever expected from her. She was far less cheerful than the Brenda of old. It was not merely because she could not have her own way, but rather that she felt the shadow of the impending war cloud hanging over the country. Every Thursday she assisted Agnes at the informal studio tea, and this was really her only amusement, and in the early spring the conversation around the tea-table hovered between the two subjects,--the prospect of war and the correct costume for the Festival. The Artists' Festival was an institution that the artists of the city planned and enjoyed with the assistance of their friends. Each year those who were invited were asked to appear in costumes suited to a chosen period, the range of which might be several hundred years, but within the limits of time and place each costume had to be artistically correct, and meet the approval of the costume committee. This was to be Brenda's first experience of the Festival, and earlier in the season, when she and Arthur had talked about it, she had planned a certain style of fourteenth-century costume, and Arthur was to go as her page. Ralph had selected the plates, and though the time was then far off, they had talked very definitely of what they should expect from the Festival. But now-- Brenda decided to make a final test of Arthur. She would remind him of the approaching Artists' Festival. "I shall be mortified to death," she had said to Agnes, "if Arthur does not return in season for it." "Oh, I fear that he cannot, Brenda, from what he writes Ralph; I should judge that he has work enough to keep him busy all the spring." "Well, it would be nothing for him to come here for two or three days and then return to Washington; he used to be so fond of travelling." "You might write," responded Agnes. "Perhaps he may come." But in answer to Brenda's brief and rather imperative note Arthur wrote simply that it was impossible for him to leave Washington now, greatly as he should have enjoyed the Festival. Then after a page of more personal matter he added that even if he could go to Boston, he should feel indisposed to take part in gayeties at a season when the affairs of the country were so unsettled. "Humph!" said Ralph, when Brenda repeated this part of the letter to him. "They must be nearer war in Washington than we are here, for I can contemplate an Artists' Festival without feeling that I am deserting my country in its hour of need." As for Brenda herself, when Arthur's letter was closely followed by one from Belle, in which she described a delightful dinner of the evening before at Senator Harmon's, she tore Belle's letter as well as Arthur's into small pieces; for Belle had told her that Arthur was one of the gayest of the guests at the dinner. Yet even those who were pretty certain that war was near felt that there could be no harm in planning for the Festival. Pamela was naturally interested, but the medieval period chosen demanded more expensive materials and a more elaborate costume than she felt disposed to prepare. Julia was uncertain whether she cared to give the time to it, and Miss South declared that she herself had not the energy to go. "So you, Anstiss, are the only one of us who will ornament the scene," said Julia; "though I really think that Pamela ought to go, it is so directly in line with the things that she likes." "As to that, it is ridiculous, Julia, that you shouldn't be there. When you were out at Radcliffe you used to encourage operettas and tableaux and all such things, but now--" "Well, now," responded Julia, "I feel as if I were working for a living and ought not to waste my time in frivolities." "That is where you are very foolish. Soon we shall hear loud protests from your aunt and uncle; indeed, they will probably come and drag you away. They would be justified, too, if you continue in your determination to have your whole life bounded by these walls." "Very comfortable walls they are, too, but I hate to wander too far in search of costumes, and the thousand and one little things that are necessary to make them complete. It is too much trouble for one evening's enjoyment." "There!" exclaimed Miss South as Julia had finished, "I have an idea; come with me." It was late and the pupils had all gone to bed, and Concetta, hearing unwonted steps going to the upper story, pushed her door open a little, and was surprised to see the strange procession winding upwards. It took its way to the end room in the attic, and when she had lit the gas Miss South asked Anstiss to help her lift out a chest from a corner of the closet. Selecting a small key from her ring and opening the trunk, she began to unfold one or two garments. "Oh, how beautiful! But who could have worn it?" exclaimed Julia, as a velvet gown trimmed with ermine and with a long train unfolded itself before them. "Ah, but this is lovelier!" she added, as a dove-colored brocade with pattern outlined in pink was shown, intended evidently to be worn with the pink satin petticoat that accompanied it. Further delving into the trunk brought out pointed shoes, elaborate head-dresses, and other fantastic things. "Did your grandmother ever wear these clothes?" asked Anstiss in surprise. "I should hardly think that they were of the style even of her day." "Oh, these things are intended for costume parties," returned Miss South. "My grandmother described some of the occasions when she first wore them abroad. She took the greatest care of them, and every spring she herself supervised her maid when she shook them and did them up again in camphor. Strangely enough I have been so busy the past year that I had forgotten about these particular things. There are two complete costumes. One of them is entirely in the period of the Festival, and the other needs so little alteration that you and Pamela, Julia, will be completely equipped, with almost no thought in the matter." "But why won't you go yourself?" "I have quite made up my mind about that; for the present, at least, I have no desire for gayety." It was really amazing that these two costumes should have been found so perfectly to meet all the requirements of the Festival. Julia, of course, could have had a costume especially designed for her by a costumer, but as she had said, in talking it over with Brenda, she was by no means in the mood for this, and she would have stayed home rather than waste the time in this way. Brenda threw herself into the preparations for the Festival as if she had no other interest in the world. She was to be a principal figure in the group that Ralph had arranged. With an artist's sense of beauty, and an accuracy that no one had ever before suspected, Ralph planned the costumes, and insisted that they should deviate in no particular from his design. To effect this proved an unending occupation for Brenda and Agnes. "There's one thing, Ralph, that has come out of this," said his wife one day after he had given her a lecture on the unsuitability of certain trimmings that she had selected. "After this I shall never worry about our future." "Have you been doing so?" he asked in some surprise. "Well, I have had misgivings as to what might happen if you should become blind, or if your pictures should fail to sell, or if Papa should lose his money, or--" "How many more 'ifs,'" he asked; "I had no idea that you were a borrower of trouble. What have I done to deserve this thoughtfulness, or perhaps I should say thoughtlessness, on your part; for you say that now you have ceased to worry." "Why, I am sure that you could transform yourself into a man milliner; in fact, I'm not sure that I may not try to persuade you to change to a more lucrative profession than that of a mere painter of portraits. From the very way in which you hold that little pincushion under your arm, I am sure that you would be a great success." Ralph only smiled as he snipped a bit from the end of a velvet train. Then he moved off a little, that he might survey his work from a distance. "It looks like a milliner's shop," said Brenda, pointing to the litter of silk and velvets, embroideries and fur, strewn over chairs, tables, and divan. "Yes, and I feel much as if I were waiting for customers. I believe, however, that no more are expected this afternoon. I can therefore attend to my mail orders. Tom Hearst, by the way, is coming on, and I am designing something for him." "Well, if Tom can spare the time, I should think that Arthur might." "Ah, Arthur writes that he is too much concerned at the prospect of war. He apparently does not approve of our frivolous doings. The times are too serious." "I do not see why he need take things so to heart. He is not a--a reconcentrado." Brenda's words may have seemed like an attempt at levity, but, indeed, she felt far from cheerful. She concluded with a weak, little "But you don't think that there will be a war, do you, Ralph?" "I do, indeed, think that there will be a war, dear sister-in-law, but I also think that it may be some distance off, and that we might as well eat, drink, and be merry, in other words, enjoy the Artists' Festival," he rejoined. XVI THE ARTISTS' FESTIVAL It was unfortunate that the Artists' Festival should have fallen on the evening of the day succeeding the formal declaration of war, or, as some of the younger people put it, that war should have been declared on the eve of the Festival; for, they urged, the arrangements for the Festival had been made before war had been even thought of, and so, if the President and Congress had only waited a day-- But public affairs take their course, and Boston is a very small corner of this large country, and though some persons may have absented themselves from a sense of duty to their country, Brenda agreed with Ralph that these never would be missed, so crowded did the hall prove after the French play had ended and the seats had been removed. The patronesses, seated on a dais on one side of the hall, were gorgeous in robes of cloth of gold, with the elaborate head-dresses of the time. The procession as it passed along was well worth seeing,--the trumpeters at the head, the craftsmen and village folk, the brown-robed monks singing a solemn chant, crusaders in scarlet coats, knights in armor, ladies in sweeping trains, and everywhere the high-horned cap with its graceful and inconvenient veil. On the stage at the end of the hall a French play was given, perfectly rendered, complete in every detail of dress and scenery as well as of acting. But it was a tragedy, acted so perfectly that Brenda, perhaps, was not the only one who found it too gloomy for the occasion. The tournament that followed, in which two hobby-horse knights tilted against each other, was much more to her taste. "Why, Brenda Barlow! I was wondering if we should see you." Brenda looked up in surprise. The voice was surely Belle's, and immediately she recognized her friend. Belle did not wait for questions after the first greetings. "Oh, a party of us came on from Washington last night. The rest are going back on Thursday, but I shall stay in New York for a month. Annabel didn't come, nor Arthur either. You must have been awfully disappointed that he wouldn't take any interest. I've always thought he was a little uncertain. How do you like my costume? We ordered them at the last minute from a costumer. I think he did very well, considering the time. Tell me, is mine frightfully unbecoming? I've been trying to make Mr. De Lancey tell me, but he simply says it's indescribably fetching. I can't be sure whether or not he's in earnest. Oh, let me present him to you; I forgot that you did not know each other." A moment later, separated from her own party, she was walking with Belle and Mr. De Lancey into the adjacent supper-room, which had been arranged in semblance of a rose-garden. They ate sandwiches and currant buns served to them in baskets, and drank lemonade from pewter mugs. The rooms had been rather cool. "It's the medieval chill," replied Brenda, when Belle asked her why she was so quiet. "I believe it's worse in this rose-garden than in the large hall. I'm afraid that these paper roses will become frostbitten." Soon Tom Hearst and Julia, in their search for Brenda, came upon her in the garden. "Well, here you are! We've been looking everywhere. The rest of the group has gone upstairs to be photographed. There's a man with a flashlight in one of the studios. Aren't you coming?" The posing of the group took some time, and then there were single pictures, and Agnes and Ralph were taken together. An idea came to Brenda. "Why shouldn't we form a group by ourselves?" Brenda had turned to Tom Hearst with her question. "I should say so," he responded enthusiastically. "I mean certainly. How shall I stand, or rather mayn't I prostrate myself at your feet as your humble page?" "No, no, how absurd you are!" for Tom was already kneeling in an attitude of devotion. "It's after twelve," the photographer reminded them, "and there are several waiting." "In other words," said Tom, "we ought to hurry. So look pleasant, Miss Barlow,--that is, as pleasant as you can under the circumstances," and Brenda assumed her stateliest pose, having first seen that her train was spread out to its broadest extent. "Really," exclaimed Ralph, who stood near, "you must send a copy of the picture to Arthur." Brenda did not reply, but when they were again among the gay crowd she was quieter than she had been before, and to the astonishment of Agnes she was ready to go home long before the carriage came. But, strange to say, Pamela, the conscientious, was much less disturbed than she should have been by the thought that this was the hour of her country's danger. The artistic beauty of the whole scene was such that for the time it occupied her mind completely, and she and Julia, with Tom and Philip as attendant cavaliers, were quite care free as they wandered among the gay throng. Yet her mind was turned a little toward the war when Philip began to tell her of his difficulties. "In the natural course of events," he said, "I should have been in the Cadets. But I had thought I'd wait a year or two. Now the only thing is for me to enlist, or get an appointment as officer. They say that the President will appoint any number of officers. There is only one thing--" Pamela waited for him to continue, and at last he took up the broken thread. "I haven't said much about it to other people, but my father is far from well this spring. I notice this in little things, and he depends so on me that I hesitate about taking a step that will lead to my leaving home just now." "It is often hard to choose between two duties," said Pamela; "but I believe the general rule is to choose the nearest, and in this case that is evidently your father." "Where have you been all the evening, Philip? I have looked everywhere for you." Edith's voice had an unwonted note of irritation. "Why, Edith, child, aren't you having a good time?" "Oh, I don't know; I've had to listen to such a lot of stuff from Belle, and I haven't seen half the people I promised to meet." "There, there, child, I know how you feel; Belle has been talking too much, but I will take care of you," and Philip pulled Edith's arm within his own. "A big brother is useful sometimes," he added, for he saw that Edith was a little perturbed. A moment later Nora joined the group, followed by Julia and Tom Hearst, and soon Brenda joined them. "Why, here we have almost all the old crowd," exclaimed Tom. "If only Will were here--" "And Ruth; you mustn't forget her." "Indeed, no, and I dare say that he is thinking of us. I fancy that at this present moment he is just wild to be on this side of the world. With his exalted ideas of patriotism, it must be torture to him that he isn't on hand when there's fighting to be done." "It seems to me that your sword hasn't been brandished very fiercely, at least, since the President's proclamation." "Ah! just wait. Within a month I may be waving a flag in Cuba. This sound of revelry by night may be the last that I shall hear for a long time. My uniform may not be as becoming to me as this costume," and Tom threw back his head and strutted a few steps, as if to display to the best advantage the artistic costume that Mr. Weston had designed for him,--a most effective one with its crimson doublet, slashed sleeves, and long, silk trunk hose. "Oh, don't talk about war," cried Brenda, almost pettishly, while Nora, whose sparkling eyes and bright smile showed that she, at least, had enjoyed the evening, said gently, "Come, Brenda, there are Agnes and Ralph beckoning to us; I suppose they wish to count us all to see that we are safe and sound before they start for home." A little bantering, a word or two of good-bye to passing friends, and the merry group started for home, never, although they knew it not then,--never to be together again as they had been that evening. In the next few weeks war news was of chief importance, and Brenda, never a newspaper reader, now turned to the daily papers with great interest. One afternoon she came into Julia's room at the Mansion with her eyes suspiciously red. "You haven't been crying?" "Oh, no, not exactly crying, but--" At this time a tell-tale tear fell, and Brenda dabbed her eyes fiercely with a crumpled handkerchief. "There, there, tell me all about it," said Julia. "Oh, it's nothing. Only I've just been at a meeting at the State House." Then, by dint of a little questioning, Julia learned that Brenda had read the notice of a meeting to be held at the State House in the interests of the Massachusetts troops that should go to the war, and that she had decided to attend it. "Oh, it was dreadful," she said, not restraining the tears that were now undeniably falling. "They talked about bandages and ambulances and the hundreds that would be killed, and the dreadful things that happened in the Civil War, and I couldn't help thinking how terrible it would be for Arthur and Tom and all the others we know." "Arthur?" queried Julia; "I knew that Tom was going, but with his regiment from New York--but Arthur, why, he has never been in the militia?" "Oh, no," responded Brenda, "it's all his being in Washington. I wish that he had never heard of Senator Harmon. It seems that he's to have a commission in the regular army. The President is to make any number of new officers, and you have to have influence. Ralph had a letter this morning,--and I know he'll be killed." "Nonsense, child! If there is any fighting, it will be only on sea." "Oh, you should have heard them talk at the meeting to-day; and Papa says that every young man should be ready to fight. He only wishes that he was young enough. Amy writes that Fritz Tomkins is crazy to leave college and volunteer, but his uncle won't let him, because his father is in China. But lots of men are leaving college to go into the army. Don't you think 'tis very noble in Arthur?" The last sentence was a change from the main subject, for Arthur's college years were far away; but it showed where Brenda's heart lay, and Julia did not laugh at her. "Come," she said, "let us go upstairs; you have never visited the home economics class, and you are just in time for it." So hand in hand the two cousins went upstairs, and if Brenda was less cheerful than usual, only Julia noticed this. "The dusty class," as some of the younger girls called it, because "Dust and its dangers" had been the subject of the lessons. "How businesslike it is!" exclaimed Brenda, glancing around the plain room, fitted with its long wooden table, plain walls, at one end of which were many glass bottles and tubes. "Test tubes," explained Julia, as Brenda asked a question; "and these gas jets that rise from the table are very useful in some of their experiments." "Yes, that is some of Pamela's Ruskin," Julia added, as Brenda stopped before a simply framed card on which in illuminated text was the following: "There are three material things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them. "These are Pure Air, Water, and Earth. "There are three immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them also. "These are Admiration, Hope, and Love." "It looks very scientific," said Brenda, "with all those bottles and tubes. I should call it a regular laboratory." "So it is," responded Julia; "and though the girls are untrained, and rather young to understand thoroughly the scientific value of much that is taught them, they do enjoy the experiments." At this moment the teacher entered the room. "Tell me, Miss Soddern," said Julia, after introducing Brenda to the teacher,--"tell me if the girls have had any success with their bacteria; I know that they are very much interested in their little boxes." "Oh, I'm going to have them report this morning. You must wait until they come." In a moment the girls filed in, Concetta, Luisa, Gretchen, Haleema, and the rest whom Brenda knew best, and with them two or three girls from outside who were members of the League; for in this, as in other classes, it had seemed wise to enlarge the work a little. So the class had taken in some of those whom the membership in the League had interested in things that otherwise they might not have had the interest to study. As they stood at their places around the table, Miss Soddern gave a resumé of what they had already learned about dust and its dangers. They talked with a fluency that surprised Brenda about bacteria and yeasts and spores and moulds, and in most cases showed by examples that they knew what they were talking about. "I am glad that all these bacteria are not harmful," said Brenda, "for otherwise I should stand in fear of instant death when caught in one of our east winds," and she looked with interest at the plate that showed a great many little spots irregularly distributed within a circle. Each spot represented a colony of bacteria, and though the showing was rather overwhelming, it was not nearly as bad as another exposure made at a crossing in a certain city where the old-fashioned street-cleaning methods prevailed. An exposure made just after the carts had been collecting heaps of dirt showed an almost incredible number, quite beyond counting. So interesting did Miss Soddern make her lesson that Brenda stayed quite through the hour. "I've gathered one or two new ideas on the subject of trailing skirts," she whispered to Julia in one of the intervals of the lesson. "I always thought it was just a notion, this talk about their being so unclean, but now I shall always think of them as regular bacteria collectors. Also I've learned one or two things about dusting, and I'm going to watch our maid to-morrow, and if she isn't using a moist cloth, I'll frighten her by asking her why she insists on distributing death-dealing germs around the room." Half of the class that day had to report the result of their own observation of bacteria colonies collected on the gelatine plate, and half were to prepare the little glass boxes to take home. Brenda watched the process with great interest,--the preparation of the boxes in a vacuum, so that there would be no air inside them when they should be first exposed in the new locality. "It's something," said Julia, "to get these girls to acquire habits of accuracy." "Oh, it reminds me of the class in physics at Miss Crawdon's," replied Brenda. "I never would take it myself, but some of the girls said that it was splendid; it taught one to be accurate." At that moment Miss Soddern began to address the girls. They had been so absorbed in their work that they had talked very little during the hour. "How many of you have anything to report regarding the boxes that you took home last week." One by one the outside girls gave accounts of their observations, each one vying with the others to describe the most prolific growth of bacteria. "As the boxes were to be exposed simply in their living-rooms, I am surprised at the results," said the teacher in an aside to Julia; "I'm afraid that some one must have been stirring up the dust. What does your family think of these experiments?" she continued, turning to a bright-eyed American girl. "Oh, they're so interested," the girl replied. "You've no idea how they've watched it; and since the bacteria have begun to develop,"--she said this with an important air--"they show it to company. Why, you may like to know that our visitors consider it more entertaining than the family album." Miss Soddern herself did not dare to smile at this remark, but Julia and Brenda hastily excused themselves. "Audible smiling," said Brenda, "is more excusable out here than it would be in the school-room," and then both laughed outright. "I never did care for family photograph albums," said Julia, "and now I see how easy it would be to have a scientific substitute." XVII IDEAL HOMES The triangular quarrel between Concetta, Haleema, and Angelina had reached such a state that the three spoke only when actually under the eyes of their elders. Even as Maggie had felt jealousy at first, did Angelina now feel jealousy of Concetta. On pleasant spring Sundays when Angelina walked out with John she would tell him her griefs, and so far as he could he would sympathize with her; but when she talked of running away, he would simply laugh. "Why, if you wish to go back to Shiloh, I'm sure Miss Julia would let you; you have only to tell her and she would let you off." Then Angelina would shake her head. "Ah! you have no idea how important I am. Why, I know they couldn't get along without me, and I'm sure that if I should leave, everything would stop. I'm surprised that you should suggest it, John." "But you talked of running away." "Well, so I might, if Concetta keeps on acting in that forward way, as if she were the most important person here. No, I won't desert Miss Julia, even if Miss Brenda does show so much partiality. I suppose it's my Spanish blood that makes me take it so hard." John looked at Angelina bewildered. "Spanish blood! why, we're not Spanish; I hadn't heard of it." "There, John, you haven't a bit of romance; I should think that you could tell that we're Spanish just by looking in the glass, and I'm sure Spain and Portugal are very near together, and though mother says she was born a Portuguese she may be Spanish. A great many people are beginning to sympathize with me on account of the war." There! the secret was out. The war with Spain had now come to the foreground, and Angelina wished in some way to be a part of it and of the general excitement. Had John been old enough to enlist she might have worked off some of her energy in urging him to do so. As it was, she amused those who had known her the longest by talking about her fears for her own safety; for although Manila Bay was an American victory, "of course," she would say, "every one has a prejudice against persons of Spanish blood," and Angelina would raise her handkerchief to her eyes, as if she were an exiled princess of Castile. John only laughed at Angelina when she talked in this way to him, and wished that he could enlist and go toward the South, where the troops were gathering for the war. "I should like to be a nurse," she then said, "for really this work here with these younger girls is very tiresome, and I don't think that Miss South and Miss Julia properly appreciate me." "You are ungrateful," John would reply solemnly. "Why, if it wasn't for these young ladies I'm sure that mother wouldn't be alive now; she never could have lived if we'd stayed on in Moon Street, and it was just through them that we were able to have a home of our own, for those bare rooms in Moon Street were not a home." John was an industrious youth, working hard, saving money, and studying evenings. He was devoted to Manuel, now a strong boy of nine, and anxious that he, too, should have a good education. Angelina's flightiness troubled him, but he hoped that she would in time outgrow it; for though the younger, he always felt that he was in the position of an older brother, and when it came to any particular action, Angelina usually took his advice, after first demurring, and professing that she would rather do something else. Now he felt that he was right in trying to make her keep her place at the Mansion; but even while he was trying to persuade her, he could see that Angelina was thinking of something else. But the war did not entirely occupy the thoughts of Julia and Pamela and the others at the Mansion, and the former went on with the preparations for her special exhibition after the fashion that she had planned long before the fateful sixteenth of February. Gretchen and Maggie were her chief assistants in carrying out her plans, and they went about with an air of mystery that was particularly tantalizing to the others. "What do you suppose it's going to be?" asked Concetta, with two buttons conspicuously fastened to her waist bearing the motto, "Remember the Maine." "Some kind of a picture show, I guess; I saw two boxes of thumb tacks on Miss South's table. I tried to make Maggie tell, but she's as still as a mouse; she always is. Don't she make you think of one?" "Yes, she does," replied Haleema. "I've a good mind to peek in now; there's nobody about." At that moment Angelina came around the corner. "I'm exceedingly surprised," she said, in her haughtiest manner, "that you should try to pry into what doesn't concern you." "I didn't." "Yes, you were trying to." "No, I wasn't, and, besides, I have a perfect right to; I belong to Miss Northcote's class. So there! You needn't stand and watch me." "I'll report you to Miss Dreen," said Angelina. "It's your day in the kitchen. I remember that." Concetta's face clouded as Angelina passed on to the kitchen. "I wish people would attend to their own business." Concetta had hoped that Miss Dreen, who was a little absent-minded, would fail to notice her absence. Another grievance was added to the long list that she cherished against Angelina. But after all they were not kept so very long in suspense, for on the Saturday after this little episode the doors were thrown open, and all the girls marched in to see what really had been going on behind the closed doors. Those in the secret were proud enough, and Maggie in particular displayed an unexpected talkativeness. At least she was able to explain the why and wherefore of the exhibit quite to the satisfaction of all who heard her. The first exclamations of pleasure were called out by the sight that met their eyes. One side of the room had been divided by partitions to make two rooms. Each was furnished completely, and even those girls who were too old to play with dolls were fascinated by the house; for each of the two rooms was fitted up with absolute perfectness, from the wall-paper to the tiny cushions on the sofa. They were on a scale large enough for everything to be seen in detail, but a degree or two smaller than life size. Pamela justly prided herself on the completeness of it all, and this completeness had been made possible only by the kindness of Julia, who had told her to spare no expense in having the house furnished exactly as she wished it to be. She was safe in giving this wide permission, since Pamela's friends all knew that extravagance was absolutely impossible with her, and that she would use another's money more carefully even than her own. Both rooms were furnished like sitting-rooms, but they differed utterly in style. Maggie put it correctly by saying that one was "warm and fussy-looking," while the other was "cool and restful." The floor-covering on the former, painted to imitate a real carpet, was of bright colors and florid design. The reds and greens of which it was composed were just a little off the tone of the flowered wall-paper,--a greenish background with stiff bunches of red flowers, "that look as if they were ready to jump out at you," as one of the girls put it. The little chairs and couch were upholstered in bright brocade velvet, each one different from the others, and none in harmony with the paper or with each other. On the tiny centre-table were one or two clumsy pieces of bric-à-brac, and the pictures on the walls were small chromos in ugly gilt frames. There were bright cushions on the divan, and crocheted tidies on every chair. Nellie thought this room "perfectly beautiful." Her cousin's wife, whose husband was a prosperous teamster, had one almost like it, she said. "Oh what lovely easy-chairs! I hope I'll have a parlor as elegant as this some day." The other room did not please her, it was too plain; whereas Concetta, within whose breast there must have lingered some remnant of Italian artistic instinct, thought it altogether beautiful. This second room had a plain, dull-green wall-paper, on which hung a few photographs suitably framed. There was matting on the floor, and in the centre a green art-square. The chairs were of rattan, in graceful shapes, with green cushions, and one of artistic design in black wood with broad arms was comfortably cushioned for a lounging-chair. A bookcase, also of black wood, was filled with plainly bound books. On the rattan centre-table was a tall green vase with a single rose in it, and near by two or three small volumes of good literature. The ornaments on the mantle-piece were few and well chosen, and each had an evident reason for being there. The simple gilt moulding at the top was in contrast with the fussy frieze in the other room, and the plain net draperies at the windows were much more agreeable than the lace curtains in the other room, with their elaborate pattern and plush lambrequins. Each girl as she came in was given a small blank-book, and was asked to note down what she thought of each room, and to state her reasons for preferring one room to another. "Ought we to like one more than another?" Inez asked anxiously. "Oh, Inez," said Haleema, "you are like sheep, you never stand alone," which, although not an exact rendering of the proverb, at least partly described the disposition of little Inez, who was far from independent. "My book isn't half full," said Phoebe, after she had written for several minutes. "Ah, that isn't all," rejoined Maggie. "No, indeed," added Pamela, who had been listening with much interest to all the comments. "You have entirely neglected this end of the room. You will probably find more to do here than at the other end." Here the wall had been covered with a plain gray denim, against which were pinned samples of wall-paper of every quality and color. Some were quiet and in good taste, as well as inexpensive; others were evidently costly, and at the same time loud and glaring. Each piece was numbered, and the girls were asked to write in their books their opinion of these samples. Again, on a table near the wall-paper lay a number of cards with pieces of dress fabric fastened to them, and the girls were asked to state which would probably hold their color the best, which would be suitable for a working dress, which for a durable winter dress; and near certain bright-colored fabrics were trimmings of various sorts, and they were asked to tell which would best harmonize with the fabric. "It ought not to be so very hard for you to answer these questions," said Julia, as she found Concetta scowling over her blank-book. "I know that Miss Northcote has had much to say to you this winter about furniture and wall-papers, and you ought to remember the reasons she has given for calling one thing more beautiful than another. Then, as to dress materials, why, think of our shopping expeditions, and the trouble I have taken to make you understand what is best." "Yes, 'm," said Concetta. "If there's to be a prize, I'll try to prefer the best things; but if there won't be one, why, I think I'll just say what I really think." "Oh, Concetta! Concetta! you are hopeless," responded Julia; and though she smiled slightly at this frank confession, she felt a little depressed that her winter's work should have had no better effect. At five o'clock the books were all collected and put in Pamela's care for discussion at the next meeting of her class, and a few minutes later the aunts or cousins of the girls, as the case might be, began to appear. Their "oh's" and "ah's" were genuine as they looked at the two rooms; the numbers were about equally divided between those who preferred the restful room and those who preferred the fussy and gaudy one. They were greatly surprised to find that the more showy room had had no more money spent on it than the other. To them it looked much the more expensive; whereas to Julia and Nora and the others it was a surprise that the cheap and shoddy things of the gaudy sitting-room had cost as much as those in the really æsthetic apartment. All had been invited to the six-o'clock tea, and this had been designed to show the skill in cooking of some of the number,--or perhaps I should say skill in the preparation of a meal, since much that was to go on the table was prepared under the eyes of the visitors. The dainty sandwiches, for instance, were so prepared. There were three or four different kinds, of lettuce, of cheese, and some with nuts laid between, to the great surprise of Mrs. McSorley. She had associated with the name only the sandwich of the ham variety. Then the cold chicken, creamed and served in the chafing-dish, and put steaming on the plates; the chocolate that Maggie prepared on a tiny gas range, crowned with whipped cream that she had whipped before their very eyes,--all these things had their effect. When Luisa showed the blanc-mange that she had made, "without any flavor of soup," Haleema remarked so mischievously, that Luisa had to admit that earlier in the season she had prepared some blanc-mange in a kettle which had not been washed since some strong-flavored soup had been contained in it. Each girl had one special dish that she had made the day before,--cake, or biscuit, or jelly. The results were very satisfactory to the admiring relatives, who went home particularly pleased with the Mansion and the young ladies, as well as with their own particular loaf of cake or mould of jelly, as the case may be. Each one, too, carried away a fine photograph of the Mansion, under which Pamela had written one of her ever applicable Ruskin quotations. "The girls to spin and weave and sew, and at a proper age to cook all proper ordinary food exquisitely; the youth of both sexes to be disciplined daily in the studies." This was at the bottom of the card, and at the top she had written: "Never look for amusement, but be always ready to amuse." "There," said Julia, after the last visitor had departed, "I don't suppose that any of our guests know that we are college women, nor probably have they heard the time-worn discussion as to whether college women are capable of understanding the management of a house, but it strikes me that we made a pretty good showing this evening." "Ah," replied Miss South, "I am older than you, and I can say pretty confidently that no one need stand up for the college woman as home maker; she needs no defence. More than half the college graduates of to-day have homes of their own that are well managed, and have a high sanitary standard, and--but there, I am talking as if you needed to be convinced, whereas this is very far from being the case." "Indeed, Miss South," said Nora, "even I, who am not a college girl--" "Oh, but you are; don't forget the good work that you did as a special at Radcliffe." "Thank you, Julia, but I'm only slightly a college girl. Well, even I always have plenty of ammunition ready when one or two persons I might mention have things to say about the uselessness of a college education." "You are a good champion in any cause, and we thank you," said Julia, slipping her arm in Nora's, and making a low courtesy. This exhibit of Pamela's was the end of the festivities at the Mansion. The evenings were growing warm, and the interests of the girls were turning in other directions. The meetings of the League were regular sewing circles, and the busy needles of the members struggled through the heavy denim that was to be used in comfort bags for the soldiers, or they hemmed flannel bandages, or applied themselves to other useful bits of work suggested by the Woman's Auxiliary of the Aid Association. While others worked, Angelina read aloud to them, for she was fond of reading; and those girls who had friends or relatives in the regiments that were going South were proud of the fact, and referred to it often. But Maggie--poor Maggie! It seemed to her that she had reason to be prouder than any of them, for she not only had a letter, but a photograph, from a soldier, and to her Tim was a really heroic figure in his blouse and campaign hat. And the words had a sacred meaning, "I'm going to do something great before you see me again; I'll do something great, and by and by we'll have that home of our own." She could not talk about this to any one, for the mention of Tim's name still aroused a very bitter spirit in Mrs. McSorley, and Maggie feared that if she confided even in Miss Julia, Tim's plans might in some way come to Mrs. McSorley's ears. Although living now afar from her immediate authority, Maggie still stood in great awe of her aunt, and though the rather scanty praises bestowed on her showed a change in Mrs. McSorley's spirit, Maggie knew how unwise it would be to speak to her of Tim. Of the staff, Brenda was the only one who had little to say about the war. She had not written to Arthur nor he to her since the Artists' Festival; but she heard of him indirectly through Ralph and Agnes. His regiment had gone to Tampa before the end of May, and if he was waiting for her to reply to that unanswered letter, he waited in vain. Brenda, when once she had made up her mind, was very determined. She showed, however, that she was not happy. Her face had lost its color, and she had less animation. "It all comes from staying indoors so much. Really, you must come with us to Rockley," her parents insisted. But Brenda would not change her mind. She was now taking the place of Anstiss, who had been called home on account of the illness of her mother. "I did not know that you could be so industrious, Brenda. Have you any idea how many hundred of these comfort bags you have made this spring?" "No," said Brenda, so shortly that Edith knew that she had made a mistake in asking the question. XVIII WHERE HONOR CALLS In all his life Philip Blair had hardly learned a harder lesson than that teaching him that it was his duty to stay at home with his father at a time when so many of his friends and classmates were setting off for the war. "They also serve who only stand and wait," echoed constantly in his ear, though unluckily almost as imperative was another refrain, "He that lives and fights and runs away, may live to fight another day." It seemed to him not unlikely that those who did not know him very well might put him in the latter class,--of those who avoided a present danger for an unlikely and distant good. He could not deny the fact that his father was evidently ill, and as evidently needed him. This in itself was reason enough for his staying in Boston. He had so thoroughly mastered the details of the business, that it would have been false modesty to deny that his departure would make no difference. Even had his father been in perfect health, Philip's departure would have thrown a certain amount of care upon him; but in his present rather weak condition the young man felt that he had no right to add to his burden. He envied Tom Hearst his commission as captain in a regiment of regular troops, and he felt that his years on the ranch had especially fitted him for a place with the Rough Riders. What an opportunity this war might offer a young man for real distinction! and yet the chance was that he could have no part in it. Poor Philip! If some of his critics could have read his heart, they would have had less to say about his staying at home. Certain complications in his father's business had led him to give up his plans for studying law. He was now a business man, pure and simple, and almost any one would admit that he was devoting himself to his father's interests. In one of his downcast moods one evening he strolled over to the Mansion to take a message from Edith to Julia. His family had already gone down to Beverly, but Edith, with her usual conscientiousness, let hardly a week pass without sending some special message to Gretchen. The evening was one of the close and sultry evenings of early spring, and as Philip drew near he was pleased to hear the voices of Brenda and Julia. The two were seated on a rattan settle that had been drawn out into the vestibule, and upon greeting them Philip discovered Pamela and Miss South near by. After delivering Edith's message the conversation drifted to the ever-engrossing subject. "I hardly expected to find so many of you here," said Philip. "Surely some of you intend to go as nurses to help your suffering countrymen." "Angelina," responded Miss South, "is the only one of us who is desperately in earnest about becoming a nurse." "So far as I can remember she has all the qualities that a nurse ought not to have." "Oh, you are rather severe; she is not quite so bad, yet I doubt that she would make a good nurse. But she really is interested, and I have known her to make many sacrifices this spring to help the soldiers." "She thinks that the Red Cross costume would be very becoming, and that is the secret of her interest," said Brenda, with a slight tinge of bitterness. "What do you hear from the seat of war?" asked Philip, turning to Brenda, as if to change the subject. "Oh, I never hear anything. Agnes and Ralph have letters, but I have too much to do to bother about the war." Brenda's tone belied her words, and Philip wisely attempted no rejoinder. A moment later she made an excuse for leaving the party in group. "Ralph," explained Julia, "expects to go abroad in a few days; his uncle is very ill in Paris, and it is necessary that he should see him. I believe that Agnes is not sorry that he has decided to go. Otherwise, I am sure that he would soon be starting for Cuba." "It's hard for any one to stay behind," said Philip; and then as Inez and Nellie came out from the house with a message for Miss South and Julia, the duty of entertaining Philip fell on Pamela. He never knew just how it happened, but soon he was opening his heart to her more freely than he had ever opened it to any one else; and when their little talk was over he felt that at least one person realized that in staying North at a time when men were needed in the South he was truly trying to do his best. Undoubtedly Julia understood this, and Miss South, and all sensible people who saw that Mr. Blair's health was now so precarious; but Pamela made it so clear to Philip that his duty to his father was really the higher duty, that he left the Mansion in a much more cheerful frame of mind than that in which he had approached it. "It is just as she says," he thought, as he walked homeward. "If my country were attacked, or if our flag were in danger, then it would be the duty of every man to rush to the front. But now--why, when it comes to fighting on land, we'll just have another walkover like the battle of Manila Bay." He stepped briskly down the hill toward his home. "What a bright girl Miss Northcote is, and how thankful she must be that her teaching is almost over for the year. Though she never admits it, she must find teaching very tiresome." Pamela was glad, indeed, that her school tasks were over in season to give her a week or two for special study, as she was anxious to do her very best in the work that she had chosen at Radcliffe this year. The two courses would count toward her post-graduate degree. Strangely enough, a few days before the examination she had a chance to put her own theories of duty into practice. A telegram from Vermont told her that her aunt had been thrown from a carriage and seriously injured, and that in her moments of delirium she was constantly calling for her. It took Pamela but a few moments to decide, and packing a small trunk she was ready for the evening train North. "My examinations can wait until next year," she replied to Julia's expostulations; "and even if they could not, this is really the only thing for me to do." Though for many years her relatives had been far from sympathetic, Pamela recalled the days of her childhood, when they offered her a home, and when in a clumsy way they had tried to make her happy. Knowing how her uncle had depended on his wife, she could not bear to think of his helplessness, and to help him became at once her nearest duty. Thus it happened that when Philip a few days later came again to the Mansion for counsel, he found Pamela gone. Julia, too, happened to be out, and Brenda, with whom he talked, was so downcast that he was obliged to put himself in the most cheerful frame of mind to assure her that there was not the least danger of actual fighting. "Why, before you know it, they'll all come marching home, and there'll be processions and speeches and all the things that conquering heroes expect--" "They won't be conquering heroes if they haven't done any fighting." "Don't interrupt; and you can throw a wreath at Arthur's feet." "I wasn't thinking of Arthur." "Excuse me, but I think that you were; and then, well--and then they will live happy ever after." "Philip Blair, you are too absurd. Conquering heroes and wreaths, indeed!" But Philip's nonsense had made Brenda smile, and for the time she was decidedly more cheerful. When Mr. and Mrs. Barlow went down to Rockley, Brenda had simply refused to go. When they told her that she would suffer in town from the heat, she replied that she did not care, she hoped, indeed, that she would suffer, and concluded by saying emphatically that she was tired of being a mere idler. "But since you are so unused to hard work, and to the city in hot weather, you must not overdo now. I do wish, Brenda," and Mrs. Barlow's tone was unusually serious, "that you could do things in moderation. If you had taken a little more interest in the work at the Mansion last winter, perhaps you would not feel it necessary to go to extremes now." "It isn't extremes now, only I have more time to give to Julia, and I don't feel like going to Rockley; and why should any one care, especially as you have Agnes and Lettice with you." Mrs. Barlow for the time said no more. She managed, however, to persuade Brenda to spend a day or two each week at Rockley, usually Saturday and Sunday; and every Wednesday a large box of flowers was sent up to the school with a card marked, "With love, from little Lettice." Concetta was now more than ever devoted to Brenda, and the latter found her conversation more entertaining than that of any of the others,--possibly because she heard more of it. Often during the hour before bedtime she sat on the old rattan settle in the vestibule, while the tongue of the little Italian girl rattled on over a great variety of topics. Maggie, passing in or out sometimes after watering the plants in the little garden, often felt like sitting down beside Brenda, but she was never asked to join the two, and, unasked, she would not venture. Then to console herself she would put her hand on the crumpled letter at the bottom of her pocket. There was one person who cared for her, and Tim, knowing that his letters would not be intercepted by Mrs. McSorley, wrote to her often. His description of his life with the troops seemed to her most wonderful, and oh! how she longed to show to the others that picture that he had had taken of himself in uniform and broad campaign hat. Angelina's interest in the war turned chiefly on her belief that she was destined to be a nurse. A large red cross cut from flannel she had sewed to her sleeve, and she told the younger girls that as soon as her mother should give her permission she was going to Cuba. "As soon, at least, as there's been a perfectly dreadful battle; of course I don't want to go until I can be of real use." As a matter of fact Angelina had little prospect of entering upon this career of nurse, though she cherished the hope that her mother and Miss Julia might some time give their consent. From Tampa in June Arthur wrote home much about the condition of the volunteers who had gone to the war without suitable equipment, and the fingers of the young girls at the Mansion flew more swiftly, that they might the more surely increase their quota of comfort bags. "Just think of Toby's having to work like a laborer," said Nora, two of whose brothers had already found their way to the army in the front at the South. "He says that if it were not for the hammock that he sleeps in at night he never could stand the heat; but oh, dear! I do hope that there won't be any real fighting. Where do you suppose that the Spaniards are now?" "Off this coast, probably," said Edith; "they say there's a big pile of coal at Salem, and that the Spanish ships will be sure to try to get it. I wish we were going to Europe this summer, for I'm afraid that I should not enjoy seeing a battle." "Well, I'd sooner see one than feel one, as might be the case if there should be fighting off this coast; but I am sure that this will not be the case, and we must feel that our part in the war is simply to keep up our own courage, and that of our friends and relations, especially of those who have gone to the war marching toward Cuba." This was the sensible view to take, and Nora was only one of many girls whose chief work those long spring days consisted in cutting out garments, in hemming and sewing, in knitting bandages, and in following the directions of those older women who had organized themselves to care for the needs of the soldiers in the field. Some of them, I am afraid (but we will whisper this), were a little impatient that nothing happened; that is, that there had been no fighting. But they were those who had no relatives and no friends in the army. Brenda waited eagerly for each letter from Arthur, for he wrote frequently from Tampa to Agnes. Ralph had already reached Paris, and the house at Rockley seemed strangely quiet; for Lettice was a demure little girl, playing very quietly in her corner of the garden or the drawing-room. Two letters of Arthur's had lain unanswered, and now Brenda was unwilling to make up for her neglect. "Arthur should write to me," she said to herself, although she really knew that she could hardly expect such a concession from even a young man far less proud than Arthur Weston. Yet Brenda for a time tried to nurse a grievance, rather vainly, it must be admitted, essaying to persuade herself that Arthur was in the wrong. In the mean time, at the Mansion, she was really very helpful. She was especially zealous in taking the girls to some of the factories that Julia and Miss South thought it well for the girls to visit in little groups. Thus the process of biscuit-making, and spice-making, and half a dozen other processes had been made clear to them in the course of the spring, and Brenda said that in accompanying Miss South and the girls on these expeditions she gained much more than she ever had from the occasional historic pilgrimages that she had sometimes made with her cousins. The girls of the Mansion made one or two historic pilgrimages, too. In Brenda there was not a deep poetic vein, and something akin to this is needed to make one thoroughly appreciate historic surroundings. In the bustling factories she found something with which her spirit was more in sympathy. The questions asked by the girls with her diverted her; the explanations given by their guides in these places took her out of herself. During the summer the girls were to be invited to New Hampshire; for Julia had been able to arrange with a farmer living not far from the home of Eliza, her former maid, to have half a dozen of the girls board with him for two months, while two were to be under the care of Eliza. Julia or Miss South was to be at the farmer's during all the stay of these girls, but on the whole the summer was to be considered a time of recreation rather than work, and what the girls should learn in the country was to be gained rather by observation than by direct teaching. As the choice had been given them, three or four had preferred to return to their own families for the summer rather than to go to the country, and thus the number to be looked after was not too large for the successful carrying out of Julia's vacation plans. Her first intention had been to take a house and equip it for summer work, carried on upon the same plan as that of the Mansion in the winter, but her uncle and aunt and others had pointed out so clearly the disadvantages of this scheme that she had quickly given it up. The girls were likely to return to their duties in the autumn much fresher, and much readier to set to work, than if they had had the same kind of household tasks that fell to them in winter. Mr. and Mrs. Barlow wished that Julia had planned to close the Mansion on the first of June instead of July, for they saw that Brenda had no intention of coming down to Rockley permanently until July. "Surely you are not so very much needed at this season. Julia and Miss South could undoubtedly get some one else to take your place," her mother remonstrated; and Brenda merely replied: "Oh, I am needed; I like to feel that I am needed, and besides it is my own choice; I am staying in town because I want to." It was evidently useless to argue, and Mrs. Barlow made no further effort to persuade her to change her mind. Naturally, however, she was somewhat concerned to notice that Brenda was growing paler and thinner. She felt that no good could come from Brenda's staying so late in town. XIX THEY STAND AND WAIT "Why so pensive?" "Pensive! Am I? I did not mean to be; it is certainly not exactly polite when I have company." Julia smiled at Lois as she spoke, for Lois was making one of her infrequent visits to the Mansion, and the two girls had been reviewing many of the events of their college years. "Yes, you were pensive; you looked as if something weighed on your mind. That particular expression has vanished now," concluded Lois; "but since I caught that very unusual look, please tell me what it means. Is it the war?" "Oh, no, not wholly." "Then partly; do you wish to go as a nurse?" "Oh, no; that is a kind of personal service for which I have never thought myself especially well adapted. I leave that to experts like you and Clarissa, for I suppose that now Clarissa is on her way to Cuba, ready to do the bidding of the Red Cross. Why, Lois, with your bent in that direction I do not wonder that you are pleased at the prospect of going where you can really do some good." "I am not altogether sure that I can go. My mother is opposed to my going, and to-day when I went to see Miss Ambrose I found her seriously ill. I came to town to do an errand for her, but I could not resist running up here for a few minutes; I wished to know what you had heard from Clarissa." "It was only the briefest note, but she seems perfectly delighted with the prospect before her of going. She is so strong that I am sure that no harm will come to her, and she will be a perfect host in camp or hospital." "And the cap and apron will become her. Can you not see her with her cap tilted over her dark curls? I haven't the slightest doubt that she will pin a bow of scarlet ribbon somewhere on her gown, even though the regulations prescribe sombre costume." "Indeed, I can see her at this very minute, a real ray of sunshine; but, Lois, I hope that Miss Ambrose is not very ill." "I cannot tell. It is a nervous break down. All that she reads and hears about the war carries her back to the days of the Civil War. She lost several dear relatives and friends then, and the present excitement has caused what I should call a kind of reflex action. Unless this Spanish War proves longer than we expect, a few weeks rest will bring her around. I am glad that my examinations are just over, for I must spend my time with her." "Naturally," responded Julia; "and after all, this will be as good a cause as nursing sick soldiers, though I understand your disappointment." As the two friends talked, Julia's face lost the pensive expression that Lois had remarked when she first came in. The expression had no deeper reason than her feeling of dissatisfaction with her winter's work, a regret that what she had undertaken must hamper her now, when greater things were claiming the attention of so many other of her friends. Yet before Lois went home she had begun to see that she need not be dissatisfied with her own limitations. "'They also serve who only stand and wait,'" Lois had quoted apropos to herself, just as Philip had quoted it some weeks before, and Julia found this line of Milton's even more applicable to her own case than Philip had to his. For there was a prospect that Lois, if the war continued, might find it possible to offer herself as a nurse, while Julia was sure that the duties that she had assumed would prevent her doing this, even as Philip knew that he could not leave his father. Julia regretted, too, that she had not as much money to offer as she would have had but for her year's work at the Mansion. Miss Ambrose, to whom Lois had referred, was not a relative, nor even an old friend. She had made the acquaintance of this elderly woman by chance toward the close of her Radcliffe course, and had found her way to Miss Ambrose's heart without special effort on her own part. An accident had enabled her to do Miss Ambrose a real kindness. The older woman had been greatly pleased to learn that Lois was studying at Radcliffe. Her own tastes in her younger days had inclined her to a college education, but, alas! at that time there was small opportunity for a woman to go to college. In interesting herself in Lois' college work she had seemed to live over again her own youth, and she was never weary of hearing the details of college life. Later, when Lois was on the point of leaving Radcliffe, because she had not the money to stay there longer, Miss Ambrose insisted on her accepting from her the sum necessary to enable her to remain. In view of the older woman's kindness, and also because a genuine friendship existed between the two, it was natural that Lois should wish to stay with Miss Ambrose while she was ill. Indeed, she was glad to do this, even though she had to curb her desire to be a nurse during the war. When Lois left, Julia put herself through a little cross-examination; for a month or two she had not been wholly satisfied with her year's work. Had she used her time and her money in the best way? Was there not some other work that she might have carried on to greater advantage? Was it altogether wise to have given up so entirely her own personal interests? Ah! Clarissa was right; she was not justified in putting entirely aside her music--especially her work in composition. What, indeed, had she to show for the year? So her thoughts ran. Ten girls better trained in useful things than would have been the case without the Mansion teaching; but this year must be followed up by another year of teaching, and then in the end could she be sure that they would retain what they had learned? Concetta and Haleema had improved superficially, but she was by no means confident that they were really neater or really more truthful than in the beginning. Maggie--and here she smiled--broke fewer dishes, but her reticence was far from commendable. Frankness was a virtue that she herself constantly preached, yet she had been able to instil very little of this quality into Maggie's breast. In spite of all her precepts, too, Inez was still as willing as at the beginning of the year to put on her stockings with the feet unmended, and--"Difficulties are things that show what men are." Like a ray of sunlight this thought from Epictetus flashed across Julia's mind. After all, how few real difficulties she had had to meet during the year; and had not the successes been more than the failures? Mary Murphy had been the only one of the girls to insist on leaving the school, although she had occasionally heard the others expressing their dissatisfaction, especially when some of them had undergone some of the discipline that they had to undergo. One of the first lessons to learn had been that of the general deceitfulness of girls, and of these girls in particular, who did not hesitate to make many little criticisms as unjustifiable as they were foolish. After all, the balance sheet did not show a total against the experiment, even when all the things were counted that had to be called not quite successful. "It is the warm weather," thought Julia, "that depresses me. Instead of dreading next year, when autumn comes I shall probably wish that I had twice as much to do." Brenda was disturbed by no such doubts as those that assailed Julia. She was helping Julia that she might help herself forget that a war was hanging over the country, and that if there should be a great battle, if Arthur should be killed, she could never forgive herself. Yet, after all, what had she had to do with his going, unless, indeed, she had been foolish in repeating her father's criticism of Arthur's idleness. She could not forget that autumn ride and that half-jesting conversation, and the change in Arthur from that moment; but for that, perhaps, he would not have gone to Washington, and if he had not gone to Washington she was sure that he would not have volunteered so early. Had he been near them, certainly Agnes and Ralph would have shown him that it was his duty to stay at home, just as much his duty as it was the duty of Ralph or Philip. Philip had stayed behind on account of his father, and Ralph felt it his duty to fly to Paris on account of his sick uncle. Arthur could have gone there in his place, and then he would have been perfectly safe. Now, even while Brenda was reasoning in this foolish fashion--yet it could hardly be called reasoning--she did not fully face the question as to whether she had not done wrong rather than Arthur. She still blamed him for not writing to her. What if she had not answered his last two letters? He was the one who had gone farthest away, and he should have written. Now all of this was the very poorest logic, and no one understood this better than Brenda herself, slow though she was to admit that she had made a blunder. Miss South heard frequently from her brother Louis, who had been one of the first to go to the front, and a box had been already sent from the Mansion filled with useful things for the men of his company, about whose privations in camp he had written very entertainingly. "How would you like it," he wrote, "to have to take your occasional bath in a rubber blanket? Yes! that is exactly what I do. We cannot bathe in the creek, for its muddy water is all we have to drink. So when I wish to bathe I dig a narrow trench some distance away, lay my rubber blanket in it, and carry enough water to fill it. In no other way could I get a decent--I mean a half-decent--bath." Then he told of the canned beef and hard bread that was his chief diet, and added that if the heat continued, he would have nothing worse to fear from the Cuban climate, "for to Cuba they say we shall go before the end of June." Brenda, listening to the letter, wondered if Arthur, too, had had the same experiences. More than all, she wondered if the troops now in camp would really go to Cuba, and if--if-- Then she would not let her thoughts go too far. She could not bear to think of the coming battles; for every one said that the Spaniards would not yield without a bitter conflict. Maggie, whose devotion to her was unnoted by Brenda, watched the latter from day to day, and often saved her steps by anticipating her wishes. Maggie observed that Brenda's face was paler and thinner than when she first began to live at the Mansion. She noticed, too, that she no longer cared for pretty gowns. She wore constantly a blue serge skirt and shirt waist, suitable enough in its way for one who was a resident at a settlement; but Brenda had formerly cared little for suitability, and Maggie, though she would not for a moment have admitted that her idol looked less than beautiful, still wished that she had the courage to ask her to wear occasionally one of the dainty muslin gowns that she knew she had brought with her to the Mansion. One day as Brenda strolled through the upper hall she saw the door of Maggie's room ajar. This reminded her that it was her turn to inspect the bureaus of the girls, and acting on impulse she went at once to Maggie's drawer. This inspection usually consisted only of a passing glance to make sure that the contents of the drawers were not in the state of hopeless confusion into which the bureaus of young girls have a strange way of throwing themselves. Maggie's bureau, if not above criticism, was fairly neat, but as Brenda turned away something strangely familiar caught her eye. It could not be--yet it surely was--and she took the bit of silver in her hand to assure herself that it really was the chatelaine clasp of the silver purse that she had lost. As she took up the little piece of silver her hand trembled. There was no doubt about it; too well she recognized the elaborately engraved rose, surmounted by the double B, that had been her own especial design. How vividly came back to her the day on which she had lost the purse--the day of the broken vase, of the discovery of Maggie, of the deferred walk with Arthur; all came back to her vividly, and yet these things seemed years and years away. She had never associated Maggie with the lost purse, but now suspicion followed suspicion, and all in an instant Maggie McSorley had become not merely a tiresome little girl, but one deserving of reprimand if not of punishment. Then discovery followed discovery. Just back of the silver clasp lay the picture of a young, good-looking soldier in campaign uniform, and Brenda could not help reading at the bottom the words, "From your loving Tim." At that moment there was a step at the door, and immediately Maggie was beside her. The little girl reddened as she looked over Brenda's shoulder. "My uncle," she exclaimed. "Why, Maggie! How often your aunt has said that you haven't a relation in the world but herself and her husband." "Then it's she that doesn't tell the truth," and frightened by her own boldness Maggie burst into tears. Brenda did not feel like consoling her. Moreover, Maggie's next words, "Don't tell my aunt," were not reassuring; so Brenda went rather sadly downstairs. The clasp was still in her left hand; she had even forgotten to show it to Maggie. Near the library door she met Concetta, looking bright and cheerful. What a pleasant contrast to the weeping, unsatisfactory girl upstairs! That evening Maggie did not appear again downstairs. She would take no tea, and Gretchen, who had gone above to inquire, reported that Maggie had a severe headache. As Julia left the rest of the family after tea to see what she could do for Maggie, Brenda seated herself at the library table beside Concetta, who was turning over the leaves of a book. Half absent-mindedly Brenda fingered the clasp which had been in her pocket since the afternoon, and Concetta, as her eye fell upon it, put out her hand as if to seize it. Then as quickly she drew her hand away, pretending not to have seen the bit of silver. Brenda did not notice Concetta's action, though she was pleased to hear her say a word or two in excuse of Maggie's weeping proclivities. "She's such a kind of tender-hearted girl. Yes, she told me the other evening that she hated to kill a mosquito; she'd rather let them bite her. Why, I'd kill hundreds of mosquitoes without thinking of it," concluded Concetta boldly; "and it made Maggie cry when the kitten got scalded the other day, but I wouldn't think of crying." Brenda listened to Concetta quietly; she was wondering if she ought to disclose her suspicions to Julia. At length she decided that it was her duty to do so. "Let us ask Miss South what she thinks. Perhaps there is some explanation that she can suggest." Miss South, when consulted, was inclined to question the accuracy of Brenda's memory. "Isn't it possible that you have forgotten just when you lost the purse?" "No, indeed, I have not forgotten," said Brenda. "It made a great impression on me that I should have lost it on the very day when I had had to pay for that broken vase, and that was the day when I first went home with Maggie; but really I never thought of her having taken it, and I'm very, very sorry." Brenda spoke in tones of genuine distress. It is true that she had never been very fond of Maggie, and that her first pride in her as an acquisition for the Mansion had soon passed away. Concetta and one or two of the other girls had interested her more. Yet in a general way she had had a good opinion of Maggie, which it hurt her very much now to be obliged to reverse. Thus, as the school year closed, Brenda, like Julia, was beginning to have doubts about the value of the work that she had been doing; for if Maggie had the clasp, she must also have the purse and its contents. The money contained in it had amounted to only about three dollars, but the purse itself had been valuable, and doubtless Maggie had sold it. "I suppose she was afraid to sell the clasp on account of the initials," Brenda thought, a little bitterly. Even though she had not liked Maggie as well as some of the other girls, she was not pleased that she had made this unpleasant discovery. She would have been more than glad if she had never seen that harmless-looking little clasp lying in Maggie's bureau, if Maggie had never told her that untruth about the soldier's photograph. XX WEARY WAITING Toward the end of June letters from Arthur were infrequent. Indeed, but one had come from him since he had left camp for Cuba, and this, like the earlier letters, had been addressed to Agnes, not to Brenda. Letters were mailed to him twice a week, and various things had been sent to him that the family hoped might be of use in camp. But although Brenda helped pack the little boxes, and though she had bought, or at least selected, many of the things that went in the boxes, she did not write. She was still waiting for Arthur's letter. The last week in June several of the girls from the Mansion went home to be with relatives for a few days before going up to the farm, and Brenda at last agreed to go down to Rockley. Mrs. Barlow had told her that she might bring with her any of the girls whom she wished to have with her. "Naturally, I suppose, you will wish to bring Maggie, as she is your especial protégée." Mrs. Barlow had not realized the waning of Brenda's interest in Maggie, but Brenda, as she read the letter, knew that she would not invite Maggie. She had not yet spoken to Maggie about the silver clasp, but she saw that the time had now come to do it, and she nerved herself to the disagreeable task. Accordingly, a day or two before she was to start for Rockley she called Maggie to her room, but when Maggie appeared she was not alone. Concetta was with her. It hardly seemed wise to send Concetta away, and the two little girls sat down, as if to make an afternoon visit. Hardly had she been seated five minutes, however, when Concetta spied the little silver clasp that Brenda had laid on the table near by. At first she put out her hand as if to take it, then even more quickly drew it back. But Brenda had noted the action, and after they had talked a few minutes of other things she brought up the subject of the lost purse. She had described the pretty purse that she had so valued, because it was a present from one of whom she was especially fond, and told how its loss had distressed her. It must be admitted that her heart beat a trifle more quickly as she looked at the two, but neither of the girls appeared the least self-conscious. Then she held up the clasp--perhaps it wasn't just right to say this before Concetta--and added: "It surprised me very much a day or two ago to find this little clasp in the possession of one of the girls here at the Mansion, for it is the very clasp that I lost with the silver purse." Then Maggie reddened and looked at Concetta, and Concetta looked from Maggie to Brenda. "Did you think that somebody stole it?" asked Maggie anxiously, and then she seemed to search Concetta's face for an answer. "I hardly care to say what I think," replied Brenda. "I should not like to believe that any one had stolen it." This time her gaze was so evidently directed toward Maggie that Maggie was almost driven to reply. "I know that it was in my drawer, Miss Barlow, but--" "Oh, it was I who gave it to her, I really did; but I didn't steal it." Concetta spoke very positively. Brenda was certainly puzzled by the turn of affairs, the more puzzled because she realized as well as any one else in the house that Maggie and Concetta had never been good friends, yet it was Maggie whom she now heard saying: "Oh, I'm sure, Miss Barlow, that Concetta isn't to blame." "I never saw the purse," explained Concetta, "but the clasp was given to me--that is, I paid twenty-five cents for it. The girl I got it from lives in the next house to my uncle's; you can ask her about it." "Well, I'm obliged to you, Concetta, for freeing Maggie from suspicion. It is indeed strange that the day I lost the purse was the very day on which I first saw Maggie. You remember, Maggie, the day when I went home with you." "Yes, indeed, Miss Barlow, the day I broke that vase; that was a bad bargain for you." "Why, I'm not so sure, Maggie; you see I seem to have found you in exchange for the vase, and perhaps, after all, I have had the best of the bargain. But tell me, Concetta, how it happens that you and Maggie are good friends now. Only a little while ago you seemed to be far from friendly, yet now you would not have been so ready to tell me about the silver clasp if you had not been anxious to help free Maggie from any chance of blame." So Concetta--for in spite of occasional mistakes in English she was always more voluble than Maggie--explained that several times of late Maggie had been very kind to her, and she gave among her instances the day when Maggie had helped with the lamps; "and then I thought that she was dreadfully good when she never told about Haleema the day the ammonia got spilled, for it was Haleema that broke the bottle, but Maggie never told; and then," concluded Concetta magnanimously, "I got tired of hearing every one find fault with Maggie, so she and I are going to be great friends now. That's one of the things I've learned here, that it's better to be good friends with every one, 'to love your neighbor as yourself.' Miss South often talks to me about it, and so I'm trying to think that every one is as good as I am;" and Concetta tossed her pretty head, and her expression seemed to say that she did not find this sentiment the easiest one in the world to hold. On investigation--for Concetta urged her to investigate--Brenda found her story true so far as it concerned the way in which she had come into possession of the silver clasp. The little girl from whom she had bought it referred her to an old woman who had a long story as to how it had come into her possession, and Brenda at last decided that it was useless to follow the clew further. But the outcome of all this was a better understanding between Brenda and Maggie, for Brenda, when she had once made a mistake, was never unwilling to rectify it. Whether this little girl had stolen it or whether the old woman was to blame she did not care. She felt sure that neither Maggie nor Concetta had taken the purse. She praised the latter for her frankness, and became so kind to the former, that Maggie actually blossomed out under her smiles. Before the end of the month Pamela had written that she must stay in Vermont all summer, and in consequence could take no part in the vacation work that Julia had planned. Nora accordingly offered her services, and Amy wrote that she volunteered to spend August with the girls. Brenda's cousin, Edward Elton, who happened to be present when the plans were discussed, expressed himself as being so gratified that Julia and Miss South would not be left to carry on the work quite alone, that Anstiss Rowe, ever a fun lover, began to speculate as to the reason for his concern. "Do you suppose that this is on account of his interest in Julia? Julia has so many others to worry about her, that he need not be especially fearful on her account, or--there, I'll ask her--" and running up to Miss South, who had just been bidding Mr. Elton good-bye at the door, she put the question so suddenly that Miss South actually blushed. Then a certain idea came into Anstiss' mind, which just then she did not put into words. It was the end of June before Brenda consented to go down to Rockley, and when she went Maggie accompanied her. The observing little girl was still disturbed as she noted how thin Brenda had grown, and even before Mr. and Mrs. Barlow noticed it, Maggie had seen that Brenda's step was a little heavy, that her bright manner had given place to listlessness. Her one interest seemed to consist in buying and collecting things for the benefit of the Volunteer Aid Association. No one now reproached her for extravagance, and when her father found that it would please her, he doubled his contribution to this Association, and sent another in Brenda's name. One afternoon Julia came down and spent the night, and the two cousins wandered on the beach, just as they had in that summer that now seemed so long past--that summer that had been Julia's first at Rockley. Little Lettice, skipping along beside them, begged her aunt to tell her about the day when she had sat on the rock and had dropped her book on the heads of Amy and Fritz seated just beneath her. It always interested Lettice to hear this, for Brenda had a fashion of ending the story with "and if I hadn't dropped that book, I might never have known your cousin Amy." For Amy was "Cousin Amy" in the vocabulary of Lettice, who would have thought it a great misfortune never to have known this adopted relative, since nobody else in her whole circle of acquaintances had so many delightful stories to tell. But on this particular evening Brenda was not ready to repeat her story nor to tell any other, and little Lettice, with a grieved expression, ran on ahead of Brenda and Julia to skip stones in the water. Julia did not remonstrate with Brenda, for she realized that her cousin was not acting wholly from perversity. Now Brenda was not the only one of the Mansion group whom the prospect of Cuban fighting troubled. Miss South's brother Louis was at the front, and two of Nora's brothers, and Tom Hearst, who had written several amusing letters from camp. Yet although those who were in the army tried to cheer the hearts of their friends at home, and although the latter wrote cheerfully in reply, all felt that the time was far from a happy one. The more timid, like Edith, had recovered from their fear that the Spanish fleet would pounce down upon the defenceless inhabitants of the North Shore. Yet some of them would have faced this danger rather than to live in dread that their sons and brothers were to meet the troops in actual conflict under the hot Cuban sun. Even the strongest, even those who had no relatives in the army, were stirred, as they had seldom been stirred before, on that Sunday morning when they received the first news of the attack on Santiago. How terrifying were the broad headlines with letters two or three inches long, and how meagre seemed the information given in the columns below,--meagre, yet appalling: "The volunteers were terribly raked. Nearly all the wounded will recover." How much and yet how little this meant until the names of the killed and wounded should be given! Brenda herself would not look at those Sunday newspapers. Agnes summarized the news for her, and told her that in the short list given of wounded or killed she had not yet found one that she knew. "Oh, when shall we hear everything?" cried Brenda. "Oh, Papa, can't you go; can't I go with you? I would so much rather be in Cuba than here." "My dear child, you are foolish. In Cuba at this season! Even if you could go, what could you do? The killed and wounded are a very small proportion of those who are fighting, and we have no reason to think that Arthur is among them. To be sure, I wish that Ralph were here; we could, at least, send him South. As it is, I may go myself, but we can only wait until to-morrow, when there will be more complete reports." Were twenty-four hours ever as long as those that passed before the Monday morning papers arrived? After her sleepless night again Brenda shrank from reading the reports. Agnes, going over the long list of killed and wounded, gave an exclamation of surprise,--or horror,--then checked it, with an anxious look at Brenda. The latter, watching her narrowly, sprang forward. "What is it Agnes? You must tell me at once." "Poor Tom Hearst!" cried Agnes, as her tears fell on the paper; "he was killed by a bursting shell during the early part of the attack on San Juan Hill." But Brenda apparently did not hear. "Is Arthur's name there?" she asked impatiently. "Why, yes," said Agnes reluctantly, "it--" But before she could utter another word Brenda had fallen heavily to the floor, and for a few minutes everything else was forgotten. Indeed, from the moment when Brenda was placed on the couch in her room upstairs Agnes did not leave her side, and for twenty-four hours, by the direction of the physician whom they had hastily summoned, they did not dare to refer to Santiago. When she came to herself Brenda learned that the report about Arthur had simply been "slightly wounded;" that her father was expecting an answer soon to his telegram of enquiry, and that Philip Blair had started South. A faint smile passed over Brenda's face. "I was sure--I was afraid that he was killed--like poor Tom. Isn't it dreadful that he should die? he was always so full of life." Then she began to weep silently, and said no more about Arthur. Now it happened that Brenda passed through a more severe illness that summer than Arthur. Her physician, in anxious consultation with the family, concluded that she had stayed too long in town. "I think, too," he said, "that she has had something to worry her. It would seem," he added apologetically, "that one situated as she is would have no cares; but it is hard sometimes to account for the workings of a young girl's mind. She may have magnified some little anxiety until it played serious injury to her nerves." "It is this war," responded Mrs. Barlow. "I wonder that more of us do not have nervous prostration." During those long weeks Brenda herself had little to say, even when she was well enough to sit up. When she spent long hours under the awning on the little balcony on which her windows opened, she seemed to take but a languid interest in the world around her. In those first two or three days when Brenda's condition was at its worst, when there was even a question whether or not she would get well, no one thought much about Maggie, the newcomer at Rockley, whose grief was greater than she could express. She kept her place in a corner of the piazza, hoping and hoping that some one would ask her to do something for the sick girl. Gladly would she have exchanged places with the trained nurse who went back and forth to the sick-room, had she not known that the nurse could do the things that she in her ignorance was unequal to. At last there came a day when Brenda herself asked for her, and after that Maggie was always in the sick-room, except on those occasions when she was carrying into effect some request of Brenda's. How thankful she felt for the lessons in invalid cookery, that now enabled her to prepare a tempting luncheon that Brenda would eat after she had petulantly refused the equally good luncheon prepared by the nurse. Then there were hours when no one but Maggie could amuse Brenda, when, after listening to a chapter or two from the book that she had asked Maggie to read, the sick girl would draw the other into conversation. Any one who listened would have found that the subject about which they talked was war and battles--especially the eventful day of the Santiago fight, concerning which Brenda would allow no one else to speak to her. [Illustration: She seemed to take but a languid interest in the world around her] Now it happened that one afternoon after Maggie had been reading to her, Brenda remembered the photograph that she had seen in Maggie's room, and again, as on that former day, she asked her about it. So Maggie was drawn to tell all about Tim, even the sad story of his imprisonment. "But now," she concluded, "everything is going to be all right. His captain is going to have him recommended for promotion for saving life--great bravery," and she pronounced the words with extreme pride. "He saved an officer at the risk of his own life, and when the war's over he's coming to see me." In fact, Maggie had good reason to be proud of Tim. She had read his name in the newspapers, and though his own letters were modest, she was sure that he had been a real hero. But the strangest thing of all was a letter from Philip Blair, that Mrs. Barlow read one day aloud in Maggie's presence. "After all," he wrote, "sick as Arthur is, we may be thankful that it is fever and a very slight wound that keep him on his back. From all I hear he had the narrowest escape, and but for a private soldier, Tim McSorley, he would probably have lost both legs." Then followed a description of the way in which Tim had rescued him almost from under the bursting shell; for, the newspaper report to the contrary, Arthur had not been badly hurt by the shell, only stunned, with a slight wound also from a grazing bullet. But the hardships of the campaign had so told on him that he was soon on the sick list, and when he reached Fort Monroe on the hospital ship he was in a raging fever. Now to Philip in this eventful July had come an opportunity for usefulness, really greater than if he had gone to Cuba in the army. As his father could now spare him, he had given invaluable service to the sick. He had made one trip to Cuba and had had the grave of Tom Hearst marked properly, and he had travelled the length of the country from Florida to Boston to report to the Volunteer Aid Association the especial needs of the sick soldiers in the camps that he had visited. He was a real ministering angel--for angels are often masculine--to Arthur and other sick friends of his in the hospital at Fort Monroe; and those who knew how much he accomplished in this direction wondered how he found time for the long and cheerful letters that he wrote to the friends of the sick to keep up their spirits. Lois, too, though belated, had a chance to serve as a nurse in one of the camps, and, while doing her duty there, had the satisfaction of knowing that she was not neglecting home duties; for both her family and Miss Ambrose were at last in such a condition that she felt justified in leaving them. Though few persons would have envied her her hard hospital work, Lois considered herself the most enviable of mortals, and all that she went through only confirmed her in her strong desire to be a doctor. XXI AN OCTOBER WEDDING One fine October morning, almost three months to a day from the victory at Santiago, Julia and Nora, Edith and Ruth, stood on one of the broad piazzas at Rockley talking as rapidly as four intimate friends can talk. Ruth and Julia were hand and hand, for this was their first day together since Ruth's return from her year's wedding journey, and each was delighted to find the other unchanged. "A little older," Julia had said when Ruth pressed her for her opinion; and then, that her friend might not take her too seriously, "but I'd never know it." "A little more sedate," Ruth had responded; "but you do not show it." Then the four fell to talking over the events of this very remarkable year. "Nothing can surprise me," Ruth said, "since I have heard of the engagement of Pamela to Philip Blair. I did not suppose that he had so much sense. Excuse me," she added hastily, noting Edith's surprised look; "I merely meant that Pamela's good qualities are the kind that the average man would be apt to overlook." "Philip is not an average man," responded Edith proudly; "we all think that he is most unusual." "Yes, indeed," interposed Nora; "my father says that he never saw any one develop so wonderfully, and when he was first in college every one thought that he was to be a mere society man, like Jimmy Jeremy. Wouldn't you hate it, Edith, if he had decided to devote his life to leading cotillions?" "Oh, he never would have done that," said the literal Edith; "he would have found something else to do daytimes." Then Nora, to emphasize Philip's development, told several anecdotes of his helpfulness and devotion to the sick soldiers. But neither Edith nor Nora then told what Ruth learned later, that Mrs. Blair was far from pleased with the turn of events, as the quiet and almost unknown Pamela was not the type of girl she would have selected to be Philip's wife. Her objection, however, had been made before Philip's engagement was formally announced. When once it was settled, she accepted it with the best possible grace, and even Pamela herself scarcely realized the obstacles that Philip had had to overcome in gaining his mother's consent. Edith had found it even harder to conceal her disappointment from Philip. Only to Nora did she say, frankly, "I hoped that it would be Julia. They were always such friends, and I am sure that no one ever had so much influence over him." "We can give Julia the credit of having made Philip look at life in a broader way, and I am sure that they are still the greatest friends. But I happen to know, Edith, that she never felt the least little bit of sentiment for him, and never would." More than this Nora could not be persuaded to say, and Edith, though with a slight accent of resignation, added: "Oh, well, I'm very fond of Pamela already, and if I can't have Julia for a sister-in-law, I'm sure that she and I will get along beautifully. Only it will seem very strange to have such a learned person in the family." But to return to the group on the piazza this bright autumn morning. Seldom have tongues flown faster than theirs. There were so many things to talk about, more absorbing even than Philip's engagement,--Arthur's wonderful escape, for example, of which Ruth had heard only the vaguest account. Now, as she wished to hear details, Nora naturally was ready to give them to her. "A shot had passed through his ankle, and he couldn't drag himself away, so that there seems not the slightest doubt that he would have been struck again, and perhaps killed, for he was just in the line of the enemy's fire." Nora spoke as if quite familiar with army tactics and military language, and since there was no one present to criticise her or to say whether her description was technically correct, she continued: "Yes, we are quite sure that he would have been killed if it hadn't been for Tim McSorley, who dragged him away--" "Ah," interposed Edith, "and isn't it strange this soldier proved to be a cousin or uncle of Maggie McSorley, a girl, you know, who is at the Mansion; and it's all the stranger because it was Brenda who discovered her, and this has made the greatest difference for Maggie. Brenda had got into the habit of snubbing her, but now she can't do enough for her." "It's all very interesting," said Ruth, smiling slightly; "but Maggie herself hadn't anything to do with rescuing Arthur, had she?" "Oh, no, indeed; but still it has made a difference, for Brenda naturally feels grateful to every one belonging to Tim McSorley. She is so impulsive. Then I think, too, that she saw that she had always been unfair to Maggie, and so now she can't do enough for her, just to make amends." "Yes, and besides, although Maggie had nothing to do with rescuing Arthur, it was her uncle's letter to her that gave the first account of what had really happened to Arthur. I was in the room when she came running to Brenda with the letter; it was when Brenda was nearly beside herself, waiting for some real news, and I honestly think that that letter saved her from brain fever," added Julia. "'All's well that ends well,'" rejoined Ruth, "is too trite a proverb to quote to-day, yet, however it happened, we should be thankful that Brenda escaped brain fever. No day could be more ideally suited for a wedding than this, but if Brenda's illness had been more severe than it was, who knows when the wedding could have taken place. The day might have been postponed to December or some equally disagreeable month, and no tenting on the lawn then." "I agree with you," said Julia; "and now I must run away, for there are still several things to do for Brenda, and in less than an hour the train will be here bringing Arthur and the rest of the wedding party. Let me advise you," she concluded, "to be arrayed in your wedding garments by that time, for on an informal occasion like this you will all be needed to help entertain. Many of the guests have never been here before." When at last the wedding guests arrived, the truth of this statement was evident, for among them were very few of the old friends of the Barlow family. "We have had one family wedding," Brenda had protested, when her friends expressed surprise at her plans; "and now, if I wish to have mine small and quiet, I think that I ought to be suited, and Arthur, too, for he wishes everything to be just as I wish it." There was no gainsaying this reasoning, nor would Mr. and Mrs. Barlow have asked Brenda to change her plans. What remonstrances there were came from some of the relatives, and from many of Brenda's young friends not invited to the house, who felt that in some way they were to lose something worth seeing. As Brenda had decreed that it should be a house wedding, they were not even to have the privileges of lookers-on, as might have been the case at a church wedding. But was ever any family perfectly satisfied with the plans made for the wedding of one of its members? Was there ever a wedding in preparing for which various persons did not think themselves more or less slighted? How, then, could Brenda expect to please all in her large connection? Now, in spite of her impulsiveness, Brenda had been considered rather conventional, and on this account many felt aggrieved that she had insisted on having the affair small and informal. Yet after all it wasn't a very small wedding, and the drawing-rooms at Rockley were well filled, though with a far less fashionable assemblage than that which had surrounded and greeted Agnes and Ralph Weston six years before. There were naturally a certain number of relatives present, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair, Dr. and Mrs. Gostar, and a few other old friends of both Brenda's and Arthur's families. Besides the "Four," and Julia and Amy and Ruth, there were Frances Pounder and two or three of Brenda's former schoolmates. Miss Crawdon, too, had been invited, and one or two teachers from her school. Frances Pounder, as her friends still called her, was now Mrs. Egbert Romeyn, and her husband was to perform the marriage ceremony. Mr. Romeyn's church was in a mission centre on the outskirts of the city, and Frances gladly shared his parish labors. To the great surprise of all who knew her, she had really buried the pride and haughty spirit of her school days. Anstiss and Miss South and the rest of the staff of the Mansion were present; and besides Philip Blair, and Will Hardon and Nora's brothers, and Fritz Tomkins and Ben Creighton, there were several other young men, Arthur's special friends chiefly, with a few of those who had known Brenda from childhood. Then in addition to these were a number of "unnecessary people," as Belle called them in a stage whisper to Nora,--all the girls from the Mansion, for example, every one of whom had accepted the invitation, and the whole Rosa family, from Mrs. Rosa to the youngest child. Since the defeat of the Spanish, and especially since the destruction of Cervera's fleet, Angelina had had little to say about her Spanish blood. Indeed, she had been overheard giving an elaborate explanation to one of the Mansion girls of the difference between Spanish and Portuguese, with the advantage on the side of the Portuguese, from whom, she said, she was proud to be descended, "although," she had added, "I was born in the United States, and so I shall always be an American citizen." Although Angelina was the especial protégée of Julia, rather than of Brenda, she took the greatest interest in the wedding. Had she been one of the bridesmaids she could hardly have taken more trouble in having her gown of the latest mode, at least as she had understood it from reading a certain fashion journal, with whose aid she and a rather bewildered Shiloh seamstress had made up the inexpensive pink muslin. Mrs. Rosa, dazed by the invitation to the wedding, inclined not to accept it; but Julia, anxious to please Brenda, did all that she could to make it possible for the whole Rosa family to come from Shiloh to Rockley. The Rosas did not seem exactly essential to the success of the wedding, yet as Brenda had set her heart on their presence, there was no reason why she should not be humored. To any one who did not know the circumstances, the presence of Mrs. McSorley and Tim may have appeared less explainable even than the presence of the Rosas. Yet Tim, Maggie's Tim, was only second in interest in the eyes of many present to Arthur himself; for he it was who had saved Arthur's life on that memorable day of battle, and for this and another act of heroism he had received especial praise from his commanding officers. It isn't every family that can have a hero in it, and Mrs. McSorley, after Maggie had shown her Tim's name in print, and some of his letters, had wisely concluded, as she said, to "let bygones be bygones;" and as the nearest relative after Maggie of the brave soldier, Arthur had sent her a special invitation. So it was that sharp-featured little Mrs. McSorley, almost to her own surprise, found herself at Rockley, though feeling somewhat out of place in the midst of what she considered great grandeur. She stood in the background, near one of the long glass doors opening on the piazza, ready to make her escape should any curious eyes be turned toward her. The Rosas, Angelina excepted, were near Mrs. McSorley, and Mrs. Rosa was in much the same state of mind as the latter. [Illustration: Brenda had never looked so well] Yet after all, who has eyes for any one else when once the bride and bridegroom have taken their places. Punctually at the appointed hour the bridal party entered the room, and the murmur of voices was hushed. But when the impressive service was over, and young and old hastened forward with their congratulations, again the voices were heard--a subdued chorus of admiration. For although, as Brenda had decreed, this was a most informal wedding, though the service was simple, and there were no attendants but little Lettice and her cousin Harriet, yet no wedding of the year had been more beautiful. Brenda herself had never looked so well, and her simple muslin gown was infinitely more becoming than one more elaborate could have been. She carried a great bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, and the little bridesmaids carried smaller bunches of the same flower. They wore little pins of white and green enamel, and pearls in the form of sprays of lily-of-the-valley, Arthur's gift to them, and they held their little heads very proudly, since this to them was the most important moment of their lives. Arthur, as a hero of the late war, was almost as interesting to the onlookers as the bride, and that is saying a great deal. Though a little against his own will, he wore his uniform, at Brenda's request, and thus gave just the right note of color, as the artistic Agnes phrased it. Over the spot where the two stood was a wedding-bell of white blossoms,--the one conventional thing that Brenda had permitted,--and in every possible place were masses of white chrysanthemums and roses and other white flowers. The continued warm weather had enabled Brenda to carry out her long-cherished plan of having the wedding-breakfast in a tent on the lawn, and she and Arthur led the way outside as soon as they could. The others followed, and quickly all the guests were grouped in smaller marquees arranged for them around the large tent in which the tables were set. The caterer and his assistants were aided by a rather unusual corps of helpers,--the girls from the Mansion, who had begged Brenda's permission to serve her in this way. Every one of them was there, and Maggie, who had been at Rockley all summer, directed them, pleased enough that her knowledge of the house and grounds enabled her to be of real use on this eventful day. "No," responded Brenda smilingly, as some one asked her what prizes there might be concealed within the slices of wedding-cake,--"no, this time I believe there is neither a thimble nor a ring, nor any other delusion. You see, at Agnes' wedding I received in my slice of bride-cake the thimble that should have consigned me to eternal spinsterhood, and Philip had the bachelor's button. Now you can picture my mental struggle when I found that I couldn't live up to what was so evidently predestined for me, and Philip doubtless has had the same trouble, and you can see why it is wiser that none of the guests to-day should be exposed to similar perplexity." "But you forget Miss South," said Nora, who was one of the group; "don't you remember that she found the ring in Agnes' cake?" "Oh, yes, but that only proves my rule." "Why, Brenda Barlow, how blind you are! Haven't you heard?" "I'm not Brenda Barlow, thank you, and I haven't heard, but I can see," and she looked in the direction in which Nora had turned. There, surrounded by the rest of the "Four," with Mr. and Mrs. Barlow and Mr. and Mrs. Blair near by, stood Mr. Edward Elston, the picture of happiness. Miss Lydia South, leaning on his arm, looked equally happy, and her attitude was that of one receiving congratulations. "They did not mean to have it come out until next week," explained Nora, "but in some unexplained way it became known, and now I suppose we may all congratulate them." In a moment Arthur and Brenda had offered Miss South their cordial good wishes. "I am more than glad to call you cousin," said Brenda, "and I do not know which to congratulate the more, you or Cousin Edward. But what will Julia and the Mansion do without you next year?" "Oh, I shall be at the Mansion until after Easter," replied Miss South, "and for the remainder of the year I think that Nora and Anstiss are willing to do double work. Beyond that we cannot look at present." "Arthur," said Brenda, as they moved away, "you are not half as cheerful to-day as you were at Agnes' wedding. You and Ralph seem to have changed places. It is he who is making every one laugh. It does not seem natural for you to be so serious." Brenda seemed satisfied with Arthur's reply. "For one thing," said Arthur, "I am thinking of poor Tom Hearst. I cannot help remembering that he was the life of everything then; it seems so hard that he should have been taken." "Yes, yes," responded Brenda gently. "I, too, have been thinking about him. I was looking, last evening, at the photograph we had taken at the Artists' Festival--the group in costume with Tom in it. He was so happy then at the thought of going to Cuba; and now--just think, Arthur, it was only six months ago." Brenda's voice broke, she could hardly finish the sentence. "There, there," interposed Arthur gently, "let us remember only that he died bravely;" and then in an unwonted poetical vein he recited a few lines beginning-- "How sleep the brave who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes bless'd!" and Brenda, listening, was partly cheered, though even as her face brightened she averred that she did not wish ever to wholly forget Tom Hearst. To Brenda, indeed, any allusion to the war was painful. She could not soon forget those first days of anxiety, and the anxious weeks of her convalescence, when it was not a question of whether she _would_ write to Arthur or not, but of whether she _could_. But now, with the future spreading so brightly before them, it was hardly the time to dwell on the mistakes of the past. XXII THE WINNER One morning not so very long after the wedding the old Du Launy Mansion was "bustling with excitement." This, at least, was the way in which Concetta phrased it, and if her expression was not exactly perfect in the matter of its English, every one who heard her understood what she meant, and agreed with her. Girls with eager faces hurried up and down stairs, laughing gayly as they met, even when occasionally the meeting happened to take the form of a collision. Lois, entering the vestibule, looked at the doorkeeper in surprise. She resembled Angelina, and yet it was not she. "I'm her sister," the little girl explained; "I'm Angelina's sister. She's going to study all the time this winter." "Oh, yes," responded Lois absent-mindedly; "so you are to take her place." Lois had not known the whole Rosa family, and if she had ever heard of Angelina's sisters, had forgotten their existence. Her first start of surprise, therefore, had not been strange. But now as she went upstairs she did recall the fact that Miss South and Julia had decided that Angelina's rather indefinite duties as doorkeeper and assistant were not likely to fit her for the most useful career. Taking advantage accordingly of her professed interest in nursing, they had advised her to begin a certain course of training, by which she might fit herself to be a skilled attendant. "At the end of this course you may be inclined to return to the Mansion and help us with the younger girls whom we shall then have with us." The suggestion that she might some time teach the younger girls pleased Angelina, and almost to their surprise she accepted the offer. Her letters from the school to which she had gone, though she had been there so short a time, were highly entertaining. Those who were most interested in her were glad that Angelina had made the change. She had not yet sufficient age and discretion to assume the role of mentor and patroness that she liked to assume before the younger girls now at the Mansion. "It is no reflection upon our school," Julia had said cheerfully, "that we send Angelina to another; but we shall have younger girls in our next year's class, and Angelina herself will then be older, and possibly wiser, so that if she then tries to guide our pupils, it will not be a case of the blind leading the blind." But this is a little aside from the entrance of Lois into the Mansion this bright October day. After she had passed the young doorkeeper her second surprise came in the shape of Maggie, who greeted her enthusiastically as she stood at the door of the study. Enthusiasm was a new quality for Maggie to manifest, and Lois would indeed have been unobserving not to notice that the Maggie who now spoke to her was altogether different from the Maggie McSorley whom she had known six months earlier. The other Maggie had been thin and pale, and her eyes were apt to have a red and watery look. But this Maggie was rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, and her expression was one of real happiness. Lois had no chance to compliment Maggie on the change, for, before she could speak, from behind two hands clasped themselves across her eyes, while a deep voice cried, "Guess, guess,--" "Clarissa!" exclaimed Lois, and then with her sight restored she turned quickly about to meet the smiling gaze of her old classmate. "I knew you were coming soon to visit Julia, but I had no idea that it would be so soon." "I hope that you are not disappointed," rejoined Clarissa. "I hurried on account of this wonderful prize-day. But how _did_ you manage to play hide-and-seek with me in Cuba. By rights we should have met at the bedside of some soldier, or at least on the hospital ship. Tell me, now, wasn't it great, to feel that one was actually saving life?" and then and there the two friends sat down on the lowest stair and began to talk over all they had gone through during the past few months, regardless of the wondering glances of the girls who passed on their way up and down. Lois, however, spoke less cheerfully of her experiences. She had happened to help attend to a number of extremely pathetic cases, and on the whole her work had touched her very deeply. A general improvement in Miss Ambrose's condition had enabled her to accept with a clear conscience an opportunity that had come to her for a brief term of service as nurse, and her family had put no further obstacles in her way. But on the whole, though glad that she had been able to help, she had found that she shrank from certain details of the work. An observer would not have imagined this condition of mind in Lois, for her hand was always steady, her mind always alert for every change in her patient, and she was unsparing of herself. But she had learned from her experience that it would be wiser for her to shape her future studies toward a scientific career, rather than in the direction of the active practice of medicine. To have attained this self-knowledge was worth a great deal to her. On the other hand, nursing had strengthened Clarissa in her zeal for personal service, and she had decided to add to her Red Cross training a regular hospital course for nurses. In the midst of their eager conversation the two friends suddenly were recalled to the present by seeing Julia at the head of the stairs. "What a lowly seat you have chosen!" she cried. "But do go into the study; I'll be there in a moment." When she joined them Lois apologized for having come so early. "You wrote me that this was to be the most remarkable prize-day you had ever had, and I thought that I might make myself useful by arriving this morning. But if you tell me that I am in the way, I'll bear the reproof for the sake of the pleasure I've had in meeting Clarissa. I had not realized that her visit to you had already begun." "Oh, we didn't tell you purposely. We wished to surprise you," and then the conversation drifted naturally to their Radcliffe days. Julia herself brought it to an end by asking her friends to go to the gymnasium, where they could make themselves useful by talking to her while she did several necessary things in connection with the award of the prizes. "It seems to me that it's always a prize-day here at the Mansion. Didn't you have several last winter?" asked Lois. "I remember the tableaux, and the valentines, and there were some prizes for scrap-books, and dolls, and--" "Well," said Julia, with a smile, "if competition is the soul of trade, why shouldn't it be the soul of education? At any rate, we feel that at the Mansion we can accomplish a great deal by stimulating the girls with the hope of a future reward. The prize award to-day, however, is nothing new. Prizes will be awarded on last year's record. You must remember that we promised two--one to the girl who had improved the most, who had succeeded in reaching the highest standard, and one to her who tried the hardest." "Ah, yes, I remember," responded Lois; "but I thought that they were to be given last year." "We were too much occupied at the end of the season with thoughts of the war. We decided to postpone the prize-day until autumn." "It's well that you did," said Clarissa, "otherwise you wouldn't have had the pleasure of hearing me make a speech on the happy occasion," and she drew herself up to her full height, as if about to begin an eloquent oration. When afternoon came a baker's dozen of girls assembled in the gymnasium, which was tastefully decorated with flags, branches of autumn foliage, and long-stemmed, tawny chrysanthemums arranged in tall vases. Besides the pupils there were present all the staff of the Mansion, but no outsiders, since this, after all, was to be a family affair--no outsiders, at least, except Clarissa; for Lois, like Nora and Amy, and one or two other friends of Julia's, were accounted members of the staff, though their help was less definite than that of Julia and Pamela and the other residents of the Mansion. As the girls took their places in a semicircle in front of the little platform, they talked to one another in an undertone. "I hear that the prizes are perfectly beautiful. Miss Brenda, I mean Mrs. Weston, sent one of the prizes, but I don't know what it is." "Whom did you vote for, Concetta?" "Oh, that's telling; we were not to tell until all the votes were counted; but I think--" "Hush! Miss Julia's going to speak." Then as all the eager faces turned toward her, Julia began her informal address. "I need not remind you that last winter you were told that two prizes would be awarded at the end of the season. The first to the girl who in every way had been the most successful--whose record was really the best. The second to the girl who had succeeded in making the most of herself. Miss South and I have watched you all carefully. Every day we made a record of your improvement--in some cases, I am sorry to say, of your lack of improvement. We have talked the matter over, and have asked Miss Northcote to help us decide; and after we three had made one decision, we referred it to every other person who had lived here the past year, or who had taught you even for a short time." Julia's natural timidity heightened perhaps the seriousness of her tone, and the faces before her grew sober. "Now at one time, as I think I told you, we thought of leaving it to you girls to vote on both the first and the second prizes; but on second thought we have seen that the first prize ought to be based on the records that have been kept. Accordingly," and she opened a box that lay on the table before her, "it gives me great pleasure to present this case of scissors to Phoebe, as a prize awarded her for having made the best record in work and in all other things during the past year." Now Phoebe had been so quiet a girl, so colorless in many ways, that no one had thought of her as a possible prize-winner. She accepted the scissors with a smile and a word of thanks, and passed the red morocco case around the circle that all might see its contents--six pairs of scissors, of the finest steel, ranging in size from a very small pair of embroidery scissors to the largest size for cutting cloth. There were whispered comments in the interval that followed. One girl expressing her astonishment that Phoebe had been the winner, another replying, "Why, she never did wrong, not once; didn't you ever notice?" Then in a little while Julia spoke again. "We have decided to let you vote for the girl who deserves the second prize. Remember it is to be given to the girl who has made the most of herself, who has shown the greatest improvement. Each must write her choice independently on one of these slips of paper, and at the end of ten minutes Miss Herter will collect the slips." As they wrote, the faces of the girls were worth studying. Evidently the matter was one that demanded deep thought. They bit their pencils, and looked at one another, and at last wrote the name in haste and folded the slip with the air of having accomplished a great thing. There were some, of course, who wrote their choice instantly, and with no hesitation, and waited almost impatiently for Clarissa to collect the slips. But at last the votes were in, and as it did not take long to count them, the result was soon known. "Nine votes--a majority--for Nellie, and it is confirmed by the staff," announced Clarissa in her clearest tones. At this there was much clapping of hands, and even a little cheering, for Nellie was a favorite, and no one begrudged her the set of ebony brushes and mirror for her table. Even Concetta and Haleema seemed content with the result, although more than one of the judges surmised that the slips that bore the names of these two girls were written each by the girl whose name it bore. There was justice in this award to Nellie, who a year before had been the most hoidenish of young Irish girls, in speech more difficult to understand than any of the others, in dress untidy to an extent bordering on uncouthness, and in disposition apparently very slow to learn the ways of an ordinary household. By the end of the season her speech had become clear and distinct, though with a charming brogue; her dress had become neat and tasteful, and she could make most of her own clothes, and Miss Dreen considered her the deftest of her waitresses. Perhaps, however, the vote would not have been so nearly unanimous had not Nellie also endeared herself to the girls by a certain sunniness of disposition. She had not made a single enemy during the whole year. But in the midst of their congratulations--from which the blushing Nellie would gladly have escaped--the girls again heard Julia's voice. "I have here a letter from Mrs. Arthur Weston ["Miss Brenda," two or three explained to their neighbors], who expresses her regret that she cannot be with us to-day." Julia would have been glad to read her cousin's letter to the girls, had it not been written in so unconventional a style as to make this impossible. There were passages, however, that it seemed wise to give at first hand, and with one or two slight changes of wording she was able to read them. But first she had a word or two of explanation. "You may remember last year, when I told you that you were to have a small allowance of money to spend each month as you pleased, I spoke of this as 'earnings.' Although we of the staff had decided that we should not criticise your way of spending it, we thought that by calling the money 'earnings,' you might take better care of it. Well, I know that two or three of you opened small accounts in a savings bank. I know that others have spent the money in useful things for their relatives at home, and more than one, I am sure, has nothing to show for her money except the memory of chocolates and oranges, and perishable ribbons and other fleeting pleasures; but we have agreed not to criticise this expenditure, and I merely refer to them because _I_ know that one of your number has been called a miser, because she was so intent on hoarding that she would not spend a cent for things either useful or frivolous." All eyes were now turned toward Maggie, and for the moment she felt like running from the room. "But before I continue," added Julia, "I must tell you a story," and then in a few words she related the episode of the broken vase; "and now," she concluded, "I will read directly from Mrs. Weston's letter: "'You may imagine my surprise,'" she read, "'when a letter came to me a day or two ago from Maggie McSorley containing a post-office order for twenty-two dollars. This was to pay for the broken vase with interest. It seems she had been saving it all winter from that meagre little allowance you allowed her, and to make up the whole sum she did some work this summer--berry-picking, _I_ believe. Arthur and I were very much touched, and I have put the post-office order away, for I am sure that I should never feel like spending it.'" "Sensible!" exclaimed Miss South, under her breath. Then Julia continued to read from Brenda's letter. "'So of course I want to make it up to Maggie, and I am sending a twenty-dollar gold piece, which you must promise to give her as a prize, on the same day when you give the other prizes, and she's to do exactly what she likes with it. It's a prize for her having learned not to break things. But I'm writing her that I am very glad she broke that vase, for if she had not, I should never have had the chance of having the help she gave me this last, dreadful summer.'" Perhaps Julia need not have read so much of the letter, though in doing so she attained what she had in mind,--to show the girls that Maggie was not a miser, and to explain why Brenda had of late shown so much more interest in her than in some of the other girls. So Maggie in her turn was congratulated, the more heartily even, because Miss South had added a word to Julia's speech by saying that, before Brenda's letter had come, she had contemplated a special prize for Maggie, since the latter had certainly succeeded in her efforts to overcome some of her more decided faults,--"'A reward,' rather than 'a prize,' perhaps we should call it, but, by whatever name, equally deserved." That evening, after Clarissa had accepted Lois' invitation to go with her to her Newton home for a day or two, Julia decided to go to her aunt's to spend the night. The family had not yet returned to town, though the house was now ready for them. A care-taker and another servant were in charge, and, weary from her exertions of the afternoon, Julia was rather glad of the rest and quiet that the lonely house afforded. But although she enjoyed the quiet, the very freedom from interruption gave her time for disquieting thoughts. She began to reflect upon her own loneliness, upon the fact that she was not really necessary to anybody. Her uncle and aunt were kindness itself, but even they did not depend upon her. Every one--even little Manuel Rosa--was of special importance to some one else, while among all the people in her circle she alone seemed to stand quite by herself. The thought wore upon her, and deepened when she thought of Brenda's absence. Later, when she went to Brenda's room to put away some things that she had promised to pack for her, the cover slipped from a little pasteboard box that she had lifted from a shelf. Glancing within she saw some bits of broken, iridescent glass. The sight made her smile. "Brenda's bargain," she said; "how absurd that whole thing was,--the loss of the vase, the acquisition of Maggie; and yet I am not sure," she continued to herself, "but that Brenda gained by the exchange. I am not sure but that Maggie was a better investment than any of us at first realized. She has been one of the means, certainly, by which Brenda has gained a truer knowledge of herself." Nor was Julia wrong in this. Maggie unconsciously had helped Brenda to a knowledge of herself; for the Brenda of the past year had been very different from the Brenda of six years before. The earlier Brenda, as Julia had first known her, had been unwilling to admit herself wrong, even when her blunders stared her in the face. But the latter Brenda had profited by her own blunders, in that she had been willing to learn from them; and though Maggie had been only one of the elements working toward Brenda's uplifting, she had had her part in the progress of the past year. Thinking of Brenda in this light, dwelling on the affection that had so increased as the two cousins had come to understand each other, Julia became more cheerful. She felt that she no longer stood alone, for even setting aside her circle of warm friends (how had she dared to overlook them?), was she not in her aunt's household a fourth daughter, and loved as well--almost as well--as Caroline, or Agnes, or Brenda? LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, _Publishers_ 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. * * * * * HELEN LEAH REED'S "BRENDA" BOOKS BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. 12mo. $1.50. _The Boston Herald_ says: "Miss Reed's girls have all the impulses and likes of real girls as their characters are developing, and her record of their thoughts and actions reads like a chapter snatched from the page of life. It is bright, genial, merry, wholesome, and full of good characterizations." BRENDA'S SUMMER AT ROCKLEY Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. 12mo. $1.50. A charming picture of vacation life along the famous North Shore of Massachusetts. The _Outlook_ says: "The author is one of the best equipped of our writers for girls of larger growth. Her stories are strong, intelligent, and wholesome." BRENDA'S COUSIN AT RADCLIFFE Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. 12mo. $1.20 _net._ A remarkably real and fascinating story of a college girl's career, excelling in interest Miss Reed's first "Brenda" book. The _Providence News_ says of it: "No better college story has been written." The author is a graduate of Radcliffe College which she describes. BRENDA'S BARGAIN Illustrated. 12mo. $1.20 _net._ The fourth of the "Brenda" books by Helen Leah Reed, which will bring this popular series to a close. It introduces a group of younger girls, pupils in the domestic science school conducted by Brenda's cousin and her former teacher, Miss South. The story also deals with social settlement work. * * * * * _Anna Chapin Ray's "Teddy" Stories_ TEDDY: HER BOOK. A Story of Sweet Sixteen Illustrated by Vesper L. George. 12mo. $1.50. Miss Ray's work draws instant comparison with the best of Miss Alcott's: first, because she has the same genuine sympathy with boy and girl life; secondly, because she creates real characters, individual and natural, like the young people one knows, actually working out the same kind of problems; and, finally, because her style of writing is equally unaffected and straightforward.--_Christian Register_, Boston. PHEBE: HER PROFESSION A Sequel to "Teddy: Her Book" Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 12mo. $1.50. This is one of the few books written for young people in which there is to be found the same vigor and grace that one demands in a good story for older people.--_Worcester Spy._ TEDDY: HER DAUGHTER A Sequel to "Teddy: Her Book," and "Phebe: Her Profession" Illustrated by J. B. Graff. 12mo. $1.50. Introduces a new generation of girls and boys, all well bred and gifted with good manners, takes them through much fun and such adventures as one may find on a small sandy island, and gives the girl a page or two of saving common sense about her duties to boys and her obligation to be true and womanly.--_New York Times Saturday Review._ NATHALIE'S CHUM Illustrated by Ellen Bernard Thompson. 12mo. $1.20 _net._ A charming story of a courageous fifteen-year-old girl's effort to help her older brother support an orphaned family of five. "Nathalie is the sort of a young girl whom other girls like to read about," says the _Hartford Courant_. URSULA'S FRESHMAN. A Sequel to "Nathalie's Chum" Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. 12mo. $1.20 _net._ A hot-tempered, domineering girl, yet full of common sense and capable of loyal love, and Jack, her cousin, who stoically accepts the loss of his father's fortune, and begins to earn his own way through Yale, are the two principal characters in Miss Ray's new book. * * * * * _Myra Sawyer Hamlin's Stories_ NAN AT CAMP CHICOPEE; or, Nan's Summer with the Boys Illustrated by Jessie McDermott. 16mo. $1.25. The story is one of free, outdoor life, characterized by a deal of fine descriptive writing and many bits of local color that invest the whole book with an atmosphere which is actually fragrant.--_Bangor Commercial._ NAN IN THE CITY; or, Nan's Winter with the Girls Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. 16mo. $1.25. A bright story in which children and animals play an equal part.--_The Outlook._ She is a womanly girl, and we have met her like outside of story-books. A wonderfully healthy, thoroughly womanly maiden, standing at the point in life where childhood and womanhood meet, one follows with interest the account of her first winter at school in a great city, where she made new friends and found some old ones.--_Chicago Advance._ NAN'S CHICOPEE CHILDREN Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. 16mo. $1.25. Myra Sawyer Hamlin's stories are full of outdoor life, redolent of the woods, the fields, and the mountain lakes, and her characters are very natural young folk.--_Cambridge Tribune._ Full of happiness and helpfulness, with experiences in doors and out that will interest all young people.--_Evening Standard, New Bedford._ CATHARINE'S PROXY. A Story of Schoolgirl Life Illustrated by Florence E. Plaisted. 12mo. $1.20 _net._ An entertaining story of a very modern young American girl of wealth who fails to appreciate the advantages of an expensive education, and at the suggestion of her father gives her educational advantage to another girl, who for a year becomes her proxy. The girl characters are from fifteen to seventeen years of age, the boys are preparing for college, and all are instilled with the spirit of modern life in our best schools. * * * * * NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE JO'S BOYS, And How They Turned Out A Sequel to "Little Men." By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. _New Illustrated Edition._ With ten full-page plates by Ellen Wetherald Ahrens. Crown 8vo. $2.00. _Uniform with Jo's Boys_ LITTLE WOMEN. Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. LITTLE MEN. Illustrated by Reginald B. Birch. AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL. Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. The four volumes put up in box, $8.00. THE GOLDEN WINDOWS A Book of Fables for Old and Young. By LAURA E. RICHARDS. Illustrated. 12mo. $1.50. This charming book will be a source of delight to those who love the best literature, and in its pages there is much that will be helpful in shaping children's lives. The stories are simply and gracefully told. THE AWAKENING OF THE DUCHESS By FRANCES CHARLES. With illustrations in color by I. H. Caliga. 12mo. $1.50. A pretty and touching story of a lonely little heiress, Roselle, who called her mother, a society favorite, "the Duchess"; and the final awakening of a mother's love for her own daughter. A DAUGHTER OF THE RICH By M. E. WALLER, author of "The Little Citizen." Illustrated. 12mo. $1.50. A delightful book, telling the story of a happy summer in the Green Mountains of Vermont and a pleasant winter in New York. The two girl characters are Hazel Clyde, the daughter of a New York millionaire, and Rose Blossom, a Vermont girl. 
37981	----	Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. [Illustration: "The best of all were the cosey talks we had in the twilight." _Frontispiece._] MAY FLOWERS BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT AUTHOR OF "LITTLE WOMEN," "LITTLE MEN," "AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL," ETC. Illustrated BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY _Copyright, 1887_, BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT. _Copyright, 1899_, BY JOHN S. P. ALCOTT. University Press JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. MAY FLOWERS Being Boston girls, of course they got up a club for mental improvement, and, as they were all descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, they called it the May Flower Club. A very good name, and the six young girls who were members of it made a very pretty posy when they met together, once a week, to sew, and read well-chosen books. At the first meeting of the season, after being separated all summer, there was a good deal of gossip to be attended to before the question, "What shall we read?" came up for serious discussion. Anna Winslow, as president, began by proposing "Happy Dodd;" but a chorus of "I've read it!" made her turn to her list for another title. "'Prisoners of Poverty' is all about workingwomen, very true and very sad; but Mamma said it might do us good to know something of the hard times other girls have," said Anna, soberly; for she was a thoughtful creature, very anxious to do her duty in all ways. "I'd rather not know about sad things, since I can't help to make them any better," answered Ella Carver, softly patting the apple blossoms she was embroidering on a bit of blue satin. "But we might help if we really tried, I suppose; you know how much Happy Dodd did when she once began, and she was only a poor little girl without half the means of doing good which we have," said Anna, glad to discuss the matter, for she had a little plan in her head and wanted to prepare a way for proposing it. "Yes, I'm always saying that I have more than my share of fun and comfort and pretty things, and that I ought and will share them with some one. But I don't do it; and now and then, when I hear about real poverty, or dreadful sickness, I feel _so_ wicked it quite upsets me. If I knew _how_ to begin, I really would. But dirty little children don't come in my way, nor tipsy women to be reformed, nor nice lame girls to sing and pray with, as it all happens in books," cried Marion Warren, with such a remorseful expression on her merry round face that her mates laughed with one accord. "I know something that I _could_ do if I only had the courage to begin it. But Papa would shake his head unbelievingly, and Mamma worry about its being proper, and it would interfere with my music, and everything nice that I especially wanted to go to would be sure to come on whatever day I set for my good work, and I should get discouraged or ashamed, and not half do it, so I don't begin, but I know I ought." And Elizabeth Alden rolled her large eyes from one friend to another, as if appealing to them to goad her to this duty by counsel and encouragement of some sort. "Well, I suppose it's right, but I do perfectly hate to go poking round among poor folks, smelling bad smells, seeing dreadful sights, hearing woful tales, and running the risk of catching fever, and diphtheria, and horrid things. I don't pretend to like charity, but say right out I'm a silly, selfish wretch, and want to enjoy every minute, and not worry about other people. Isn't it shameful?" Maggie Bradford looked such a sweet little sinner as she boldly made this sad confession, that no one could scold her, though Ida Standish, her bosom friend, shook her head, and Anna said, with a sigh: "I'm afraid we all feel very much as Maggie does, though we don't own it so honestly. Last spring, when I was ill and thought I might die, I was so ashamed of my idle, frivolous winter, that I felt as if I'd give all I had to be able to live it over and do better. Much is not expected of a girl of eighteen, I know; but oh! there were heaps of kind little things I _might_ have done if I hadn't thought only of myself. I resolved if I lived I'd try at least to be less selfish, and make some one happier for my being in the world. I tell you, girls, it's rather solemn when you lie expecting to die, and your sins come up before you, even though they are very small ones. I never shall forget it, and after my lovely summer I mean to be a better girl, and lead a better life if I can." Anna was so much in earnest that her words, straight out of a very innocent and contrite heart, touched her hearers deeply, and put them into the right mood to embrace her proposition. No one spoke for a moment, then Maggie said quietly,-- "I know what it is. I felt very much so when the horses ran away, and for fifteen minutes I sat clinging to Mamma, expecting to be killed. Every unkind, undutiful word I'd ever said to her came back to me, and was worse to bear than the fear of sudden death. It scared a great deal of naughtiness out of me, and dear Mamma and I have been more to each other ever since." "Let us begin with 'The Prisoners of Poverty,' and perhaps it will show us something to do," said Lizzie. "But I must say I never felt as if shop-girls needed much help; they generally seem so contented with themselves, and so pert or patronizing to us, that I don't pity them a bit, though it must be a hard life." "I think we can't do _much_ in that direction, except set an example of good manners when we go shopping. I wanted to propose that we each choose some small charity for this winter, and do it faithfully. That will teach us how to do more by and by, and we can help one another with our experiences, perhaps, or amuse with our failures. What do you say?" asked Anna, surveying her five friends with a persuasive smile. "What _could_ we do?" "People will call us goody-goody." "I haven't the least idea how to go to work." "Don't believe Mamma will let me." "We'd better change our names from May Flowers to sisters of charity, and wear meek black bonnets and flapping cloaks." Anna received these replies with great composure, and waited for the meeting to come to order, well knowing that the girls would have their fun and outcry first, and then set to work in good earnest. "I think it's a lovely idea, and I'll carry out my plan. But I won't tell what it is yet; you'd all shout, and say I couldn't do it, but if you were trying also, that would keep me up to the mark," said Lizzie, with a decided snap of her scissors, as she trimmed the edges of a plush case for her beloved music. "Suppose we all keep our attempts secret, and not let our right hand know what the left hand does? It's such fun to mystify people, and then no one _can_ laugh at us. If we fail, we can say nothing; if we succeed, we can tell of it and get our reward. I'd like that way, and will look round at once for some especially horrid boot-black, ungrateful old woman, or ugly child, and devote myself to him, her, or it with the patience of a saint," cried Maggie, caught by the idea of doing good in secret and being found out by accident. The other girls agreed, after some discussion, and then Anna took the floor again. "I propose that we each work in our own way till next May, then, at our last meeting, report what we have done, truly and honestly, and plan something better for next year. Is it a vote?" It evidently was a unanimous vote, for five gold thimbles went up, and five blooming faces smiled as the five girlish voices cried, "Aye!" "Very well, now let us decide what to read, and begin at once. I think the 'Prisoners' a good book, and we shall doubtless get some hints from it." So they began, and for an hour one pleasant voice after the other read aloud those sad, true stories of workingwomen and their hard lives, showing these gay young creatures what their pretty clothes cost the real makers of them, and how much injustice, suffering, and wasted strength went into them. It was very sober reading, but most absorbing; for the crochet needles went slower and slower, the lace-work lay idle, and a great tear shone like a drop of dew on the apple blossoms as Ella listened to "Rose's Story." They skipped the statistics, and dipped here and there as each took her turn; but when the two hours were over, and it was time for the club to adjourn, all the members were deeply interested in that pathetic book, and more in earnest than before; for this glimpse into other lives showed them how much help was needed, and made them anxious to lend a hand. "We can't do much, being 'only girls,'" said Anna; "but if each does one small chore somewhere it will pave the way for better work; so we will all try, at least, though it seems like so many ants trying to move a mountain." "Well, ants build nests higher than a man's head in Africa; you remember the picture of them in our old geographies? And we can do as much, I'm sure, if each tugs her pebble or straw faithfully. I shall shoulder mine to-morrow if Mamma is willing," answered Lizzie, shutting up her work-bag as if she had her resolution inside and was afraid it might evaporate before she got home. "I shall stand on the Common, and proclaim aloud, 'Here's a nice young missionary, in want of a job! Charity for sale cheap! Who'll buy? who'll buy?'" said Maggie, with a resigned expression, and a sanctimonious twang to her voice. "I shall wait and see what comes to me, since I don't know what I'm fit for;" and Marion gazed out of the window as if expecting to see some interesting pauper waiting for her to appear. "I shall ask Miss Bliss for advice; she knows all about the poor, and will give me a good start," added prudent Ida, who resolved to do nothing rashly lest she should fail. "I shall probably have a class of dirty little girls, and teach them how to sew, as I can't do anything else. They won't learn much, but steal, and break, and mess, and be a dreadful trial, and I shall get laughed at and wish I hadn't done it. Still I shall try it, and sacrifice my fancy-work to the cause of virtue," said Ella, carefully putting away her satin glove-case with a fond glance at the delicate flowers she so loved to embroider. "I have no plans, but want to do so much I shall have to wait till I discover what is best. After to-day we won't speak of our work, or it won't be a secret any longer. In May we will report. Good luck to all, and good-by till next Saturday." With these farewell words from their president the girls departed, with great plans and new ideas simmering in their young heads and hearts. It seemed a vast undertaking; but where there is a will there is always a way, and soon it was evident that each had found "a little chore" to do for sweet charity's sake. Not a word was said at the weekly meetings, but the artless faces betrayed all shades of hope, discouragement, pride, and doubt, as their various attempts seemed likely to succeed or fail. Much curiosity was felt, and a few accidental words, hints, or meetings in queer places, were very exciting, though nothing was discovered. Marion was often seen in a North End car, and Lizzie in a South End car, with a bag of books and papers. Ella haunted a certain shop where fancy articles were sold, and Ida always brought plain sewing to the club. Maggie seemed very busy at home, and Anna was found writing industriously several times when one of her friends called. All seemed very happy, and rather important when outsiders questioned them about their affairs. But they had their pleasures as usual, and seemed to enjoy them with an added relish, as if they realized as never before how many blessings they possessed, and were grateful for them. So the winter passed, and slowly something new and pleasant seemed to come into the lives of these young girls. The listless, discontented look some of them used to wear passed away; a sweet earnestness and a cheerful activity made them charming, though they did not know it, and wondered when people said, "That set of girls are growing up beautifully; they will make fine women by and by." The mayflowers were budding under the snow, and as spring came on the fresh perfume began to steal out, the rosy faces to brighten, and the last year's dead leaves to fall away, leaving the young plants green and strong. On the 15th of May the club met for the last time that year, as some left town early, and all were full of spring work and summer plans. Every member was in her place at an unusually early hour that day, and each wore an air of mingled anxiety, expectation, and satisfaction, pleasant to behold. Anna called them to order with three raps of her thimble and a beaming smile. "We need not choose a book for our reading to-day, as each of us is to contribute an original history of her winter's work. I know it will be very interesting, and I hope more instructive, than some of the novels we have read. Who shall begin?" "You! you!" was the unanimous answer; for all loved and respected her very much, and felt that their presiding officer should open the ball. Anna colored modestly, but surprised her friends by the composure with which she related her little story, quite as if used to public speaking. "You know I told you last November that I should have to look about for something that I _could_ do. I did look a long time, and was rather in despair, when my task came to me in the most unexpected way. Our winter work was being done, so I had a good deal of shopping on my hands, and found it less a bore than usual, because I liked to watch the shop girls, and wish I dared ask some of them if I could help them. I went often to get trimmings and buttons at Cotton's, and had a good deal to do with the two girls at that counter. They were very obliging and patient about matching some jet ornaments for Mamma, and I found out that their names were Mary and Maria Porter. I liked them, for they were very neat and plain in their dress,--not like some, who seem to think that if their waists are small, and their hair dressed in the fashion, it is no matter how soiled their collars are, nor how untidy their nails. Well, one day when I went for certain kinds of buttons which were to be made for us, Maria, the younger one, who took the order, was not there. I asked for her, and Mary said she was at home with a lame knee. I was so sorry, and ventured to put a few questions in a friendly way. Mary seemed glad to tell her troubles, and I found that 'Ria,' as she called her sister, had been suffering for a long time, but did not complain for fear of losing her place. No stools are allowed at Cotton's, so the poor girls stand nearly all day, or rest a minute now and then on a half-opened drawer. I'd seen Maria doing it, and wondered why some one did not make a stir about seats in this place, as they have in other stores and got stools for the shop women. I didn't dare to speak to the gentlemen, but I gave Mary the Jack roses I wore in my breast, and asked if I might take some books or flowers to poor Maria. It was lovely to see her sad face light up and hear her thank me when I went to see her, for she was very lonely without her sister, and discouraged about her place. She did not lose it entirely, but had to work at home, for her lame knee will be a long time in getting well. I begged Mamma and Mrs. Allingham to speak to Mr. Cotton for her; so she got the mending of the jet and bead work to do, and buttons to cover, and things of that sort. Mary takes them to and fro, and Maria feels so happy not to be idle. We also got stools for all the other girls in that shop. Mrs. Allingham is so rich and kind she can do anything, and now it's such a comfort to see those tired things resting when off duty that I often go in and enjoy the sight." Anna paused as cries of "Good! good!" interrupted her tale; but she did not add the prettiest part of it, and tell how the faces of the young women behind the counters brightened when she came in, nor how gladly all served the young lady who showed them what a true gentlewoman was. "I hope that isn't all?" said Maggie, eagerly. "Only a little more. I know you will laugh when I tell you that I've been reading papers to a class of shop girls at the Union once a week all winter." A murmur of awe and admiration greeted this deeply interesting statement; for, true to the traditions of the modern Athens in which they lived, the girls all felt the highest respect for "papers" on any subject, it being the fashion for ladies, old and young, to read and discuss every subject, from pottery to Pantheism, at the various clubs all over the city. "It came about very naturally," continued Anna, as if anxious to explain her seeming audacity. "I used to go to see Molly and Ria, and heard all about their life and its few pleasures, and learned to like them more and more. They had only each other in the world, lived in two rooms, worked all day, and in the way of amusement or instruction had only what they found at the Union in the evening. I went with them a few times, and saw how useful and pleasant it was, and wanted to help, as other kind girls only a little older than I did. Eva Randal read a letter from a friend in Russia one time, and the girls enjoyed it very much. That reminded me of my brother George's lively journals, written when he was abroad. You remember how we used to laugh over them when he sent them home? Well, when I was begged to give them an evening, I resolved to try one of those amusing journal-letters, and chose the best,--all about how George and a friend went to the different places Dickens describes in some of his funny books. I wish you could have seen how those dear girls enjoyed it, and laughed till they cried over the dismay of the boys, when they knocked at a door in Kingsgate Street, and asked if Mrs. Gamp lived there. It was actually a barber's shop, and a little man, very like Poll Sweedlepipes, told them 'Mrs. Britton was the nuss as lived there now.' It upset those rascals to come so near the truth, and they ran away because they couldn't keep sober." The members of the club indulged in a general smile as they recalled the immortal Sairey with "the bottle on the mankle-shelf," the "cowcumber," and the wooden pippins. Then Anna continued, with an air of calm satisfaction, quite sure now of her audience and herself,-- "It was a great success. So I went on, and when the journals were done, I used to read other things, and picked up books for their library, and helped in any way I could, while learning to know them better and give them confidence in me. They are proud and shy, just as we should be, but if you _really_ want to be friends and don't mind rebuffs now and then, they come to trust and like you, and there is so much to do for them one never need sit idle any more. I won't give names, as they don't like it, nor tell how I tried to serve them, but it is very sweet and good for me to have found this work, and to know that each year I can do it better and better. So I feel encouraged and am very glad I began, as I hope you all are. Now, who comes next?" As Anna ended, the needles dropped and ten soft hands gave her a hearty round of applause; for all felt that she had done well, and chosen a task especially fitted to her powers, as she had money, time, tact, and the winning manners that make friends everywhere. Beaming with pleasure at their approval, but feeling that they made too much of her small success, Anna called the club to order by saying, "Ella looks as if she were anxious to tell her experiences, so perhaps we had better ask her to hold forth next." "Hear! hear!" cried the girls; and, nothing loath, Ella promptly began, with twinkling eyes and a demure smile, for _her_ story ended romantically. "If you are interested in shop girls, Miss President and ladies, you will like to know that _I_ am one, at least a silent partner and co-worker in a small fancy store at the West End." "No!" exclaimed the amazed club with one voice; and, satisfied with this sensational beginning, Ella went on. "I really am, and you have bought some of my fancy-work. Isn't that a good joke? You needn't stare so, for I actually made that needle-book, Anna, and my partner knit Lizzie's new cloud. This is the way it all happened. I didn't wish to waste any time, but one can't rush into the street and collar shabby little girls, and say, 'Come along and learn to sew,' without a struggle, so I thought I'd go and ask Mrs. Brown how to begin. Her branch of the Associated Charities is in Laurel Street, not far from our house, you know; and the very day after our last meeting I posted off to get my 'chore.' I expected to have to fit work for poor needlewomen, or go to see some dreadful sick creature, or wash dirty little Pats, and was bracing up my mind for whatever might come, as I toiled up the hill in a gale of wind. Suddenly my hat flew off and went gayly skipping away, to the great delight of some black imps, who only grinned and cheered me on as I trotted after it with wild grabs and wrathful dodges. I got it at last out of a puddle, and there I was in a nice mess. The elastic was broken, feather wet, and the poor thing all mud and dirt. I didn't care much, as it was my old one,--dressed for my work, you see. But I couldn't go home bareheaded, and I didn't know a soul in that neighborhood. I turned to step into a grocery store at the corner, to borrow a brush, or buy a sheet of paper to wear, for I looked like a lunatic with my battered hat and my hair in a perfect mop. Luckily I spied a woman's fancy shop on the other corner, and rushed in there to hide myself, for the brats hooted and people stared. It was a very small shop, and behind the counter sat a tall, thin, washed-out-looking woman, making a baby's hood. She looked poor and blue and rather sour, but took pity on me; and while she sewed the cord, dried the feather, and brushed off the dirt, I warmed myself and looked about to see what I could buy in return for her trouble. "A few children's aprons hung in the little window, with some knit lace, balls, and old-fashioned garters, two or three dolls, and a very poor display of small wares. In a show-case, however, on the table that was the counter, I found some really pretty things, made of plush, silk, and ribbon, with a good deal of taste. So I said I'd buy a needle-book, and a gay ball, and a pair of distracting baby's shoes, made to look like little open-work socks with pink ankle-ties, so cunning and dainty, I was glad to get them for Cousin Clara's baby. The woman seemed pleased, though she had a grim way of talking, and never smiled once. I observed that she handled my hat as if used to such work, and evidently liked to do it. I thanked her for repairing damages so quickly and well, and she said, with my hat on her hand, as if she hated to part with it, 'I'm used to millinaryin' and never should have give it up, if I didn't have my folks to see to. I took this shop, hopin' to make things go, as such a place was needed round here, but mother broke down, and is a sight of care; so I couldn't leave her, and doctors is expensive, and times hard, and I had to drop my trade, and fall back on pins and needles, and so on.'" Ella was a capital mimic, and imitated the nasal tones of the Vermont woman to the life, with a doleful pucker of her own blooming face, which gave such a truthful picture of poor Miss Almira Miller that those who had seen her recognized it at once, and laughed gayly. "Just as I was murmuring a few words of regret at her bad luck," continued Ella, "a sharp voice called out from a back room, 'Almiry! Almiry! come here.' It sounded very like a cross parrot, but it was the old lady, and while I put on my hat I heard her asking who was in the shop, and what we were 'gabbin' about.' Her daughter told her, and the old soul demanded to 'see the gal;' so I went in, being ready for fun as usual. It was a little, dark, dismal place, but as neat as a pin, and in the bed sat a regular Grandma Smallweed smoking a pipe, with a big cap, a snuff-box, and a red cotton handkerchief. She was a tiny, dried-up thing, brown as a berry, with eyes like black beads, a nose and chin that nearly met, and hands like birds' claws. But such a fierce, lively, curious, blunt old lady you never saw, and I didn't know what would be the end of me when she began to question, then to scold, and finally to demand that 'folks should come and trade to Almiry's shop after promisin' they would, and she havin' took a lease of the place on account of them lies.' I wanted to laugh, but dared not do it, so just let her croak, for the daughter had to go to her customers. The old lady's tirade informed me that they came from Vermont, had 'been wal on 't till father died and the farm was sold.' Then it seems the women came to Boston and got on pretty well till 'a stroke of numb-palsy,' whatever that is, made the mother helpless and kept Almiry at home to care for her. I can't tell you how funny and yet how sad it was to see the poor old soul, so full of energy and yet so helpless, and the daughter so discouraged with her pathetic little shop and no customers to speak of. I did not know what to say till 'Grammer Miller,' as the children call her, happened to say, when she took up her knitting after the lecture, 'If folks who go spendin' money reckless on redic'lous toys for Christmas only knew what nice things, useful and fancy, me and Almiry could make ef we had the goods, they'd jest come round this corner and buy 'em, and keep me out of a Old Woman's Home and that good, hard-workin' gal of mine out of a 'sylum; for go there she will ef she don't get a boost somehow, with rent and firin' and vittles all on her shoulders, and me only able to wag them knittin'-needles.' "'I will buy things here and tell all my friends about it, and I have a drawer full of pretty bits of silk and velvet and plush, that I will give Miss Miller for her work, if she will let me.' I added that, for I saw that Almiry was rather proud, and hid her troubles under a grim look. "That pleased the old lady, and, lowering her voice, she said, with a motherly sort of look in her beady eyes: 'Seein' as you are so friendly, I'll tell you what frets me most, a layin' here, a burden to my darter. She kep' company with Nathan Baxter, a master carpenter up to Westminster where we lived, and ef father hadn't a died suddin' they'd a ben married. They waited a number o' years, workin' to their trades, and we was hopin' all would turn out wal, when troubles come, and here we be. Nathan's got his own folks to see to, and Almiry won't add to _his_ load with hern, nor leave me; so she give him back his ring, and jest buckled to all alone. She don't say a word, but it's wearin' her to a shadder, and I can't do a thing to help, but make a few pin-balls, knit garters, and kiver holders. Ef she got a start in business it would cheer her up a sight, and give her a kind of a hopeful prospeck, for old folks can't live forever, and Nathan is a waitin', faithful and true.' "That just finished me, for I am romantic, and do enjoy love stories with all my heart, even if the lovers are only a skinny spinster and a master carpenter. So I just resolved to see what I could do for poor Almiry and the peppery old lady. I didn't promise anything but my bits, and, taking the things I bought, went home to talk it over with Mamma. I found she had often got pins and tape, and such small wares, at the little shop, and found it very convenient, though she knew nothing about the Millers. She was willing I should help if I could, but advised going slowly, and seeing what they could do first. We did not dare to treat them like beggars, and send them money and clothes, and tea and sugar, as we do the Irish, for they were evidently respectable people, and proud as poor. So I took my bundle of odds and ends, and Mamma added some nice large pieces of dresses we had done with, and gave a fine order for aprons and holders and balls for our church fair. "It would have done your hearts good, girls, to see those poor old faces light up as I showed my scraps, and asked if the work would be ready by Christmas. Grammer fairly swam in the gay colors I strewed over her bed, and enjoyed them like a child, while Almiry tried to be grim, but had to give it up, as she began at once to cut aprons, and dropped tears all over the muslin when her back was turned to me. I didn't know a washed-out old maid _could_ be so pathetic." Ella stopped to give a regretful sigh over her past blindness, while her hearers made a sympathetic murmur; for young hearts are very tender, and take an innocent interest in lovers' sorrows, no matter how humble. "Well, that was the beginning of it. I got so absorbed in _making_ things go well that I didn't look any further, but just 'buckled to' with Miss Miller and helped run that little shop. No one knew me in that street, so I slipped in and out, and did what I liked. The old lady and I got to be great friends; though she often pecked and croaked like a cross raven, and was very wearing. I kept her busy with her 'pin-balls and knittin'-work,' and supplied Almiry with pretty materials for the various things I found she could make. You wouldn't believe what dainty bows those long fingers could tie, what ravishing doll's hats she would make out of a scrap of silk and lace, or the ingenious things she concocted with cones and shells and fans and baskets. I love such work, and used to go and help her often, for I wanted her window and shop to be full for Christmas, and lure in plenty of customers. Our new toys, and the little cases of sewing silk sold well, and people began to come more, after I lent Almiry some money to lay in a stock of better goods. Papa enjoyed my business venture immensely, and was never tired of joking about it. He actually went and bought balls for four small black boys who were gluing their noses to the window one day, spellbound by the orange, red, and blue treasures displayed there. He liked my partner's looks, though he teased me by saying that we'd better add lemonade to our stock as poor dear Almiry's acid face would make lemons unnecessary and sugar and water were cheap. "Well, Christmas came, and we did a great business, for Mamma came and sent others, and our fancy things were as pretty and cheaper than those at the art stores, so they went well, and the Millers were cheered up, and I felt encouraged, and we took a fresh start after the holidays. One of my gifts at New Year was my own glove-case,--you remember the apple-blossom thing I began last autumn? I put it in our window to fill up, and Mamma bought it, and gave it to me full of elegant gloves, with a sweet note, and Papa sent a check to 'Miller, Warren, & Co.' I was so pleased and proud I could hardly help telling you all. But the best joke was the day you girls came in and bought our goods, and I peeped at you through the crack of the door, being in the back room dying with laughter to see you look round, and praise our 'nice assortment of useful and pretty articles.'" "That's all very well, and we can bear to be laughed at if you succeeded, Miss. But I don't believe you did, for no Millers are there now. Have you taken a palatial store on Boylston Street for this year, intending to run it alone? We'll all patronize it, and your name will look well on a sign," said Maggie, wondering what the end of Ella's experience had been. "Ah! I still have the best of it, for my romance finished up delightfully, as you shall hear. We did well all winter, and no wonder. What was needed was a little 'boost' in the right direction, and I could give it; so my Millers were much comforted, and we were good friends. But in March Grammer died suddenly, and poor Almiry mourned as if she had been the sweetest mother in the world. The old lady's last wishes were to be 'laid out harnsome in a cap with a pale blue satin ribbin, white wasn't becomin', to hev at least three carriages to the funeral, and be sure a paper with her death in it was sent to N. Baxter, Westminster, Vermont.' "I faithfully obeyed her commands, put on the ugly cap myself, gave a party of old ladies from the Home a drive in the hacks, and carefully directed a marked paper to Nathan, hoping that he _had_ proved 'faithful and true.' I didn't expect he would, so was not surprised when no answer came. But I _was_ rather amazed when Almiry told me she didn't care to keep on with the store now she was free. She wanted to visit her friends a spell this spring, and in the fall would go back to her trade in some milliner's store. "I was sorry, for I really enjoyed my partnership. It seemed a little bit ungrateful after all my trouble in getting her customers, but I didn't say anything, and we sold out to the Widow Bates, who is a good soul with six children, and will profit by our efforts. "Almiry bid me good-by with all the grim look gone out of her face, many thanks, and a hearty promise to write soon. That was in April. A week ago I got a short letter saying,-- "'DEAR FRIEND,--You will be pleased to hear that I am married to Mr. Baxter, and shall remain here. He was away when the paper came with mother's death, but as soon as he got home he wrote. I couldn't make up my mind till I got home and see him. Now it's all right, and I am very happy. Many thanks for all you done for me and mother. I shall never forget it. My husband sends respects, and I remain "'Yours gratefully, "'ALMIRA M. BAXTER.'" "That's splendid! You did well, and next winter you can look up another sour spinster and cranky old lady and make them happy," said Anna, with the approving smile all loved to receive from her. "My adventures are not a bit romantic, or even interesting, and yet I've been as busy as a bee all winter, and enjoyed my work very much," began Elizabeth, as the President gave her a nod. "The plan I had in mind was to go and carry books and papers to the people in hospitals, as one of Mamma's friends has done for years. I went once to the City Hospital with her, and it was very interesting, but I didn't dare to go to the grown people all alone, so I went to the Children's Hospital, and soon loved to help amuse the poor little dears. I saved all the picture-books and papers I could find for them, dressed dolls, and mended toys, and got new ones, and made bibs and night-gowns, and felt like the mother of a large family. "I had my pets, of course, and did my best for them, reading and singing and amusing them, for many suffered very much. One little girl was so dreadfully burned she could not use her hands, and would lie and look at a gay dolly tied to the bedpost by the hour together, and talk to it and love it, and died with it on her pillow when I 'sung lullaby' to her for the last time. I keep it among my treasures, for I learned a lesson in patience from little Norah that I never can forget. [Illustration: "I had my pets of course, and did my best for them."] "Then Jimmy Dolan with hip disease was a great delight to me, for he was as gay as a lark in spite of pain, and a real little hero in the way he bore the hard things that had to be done to him. He never can get well, and he is at home now; but I still see to him, and he is learning to make toy furniture very nicely, so that by and by, if he gets able to work at all, he may be able to learn a cabinet-maker's trade, or some easy work. "But my pet of pets was Johnny, the blind boy. His poor eyes had to be taken out, and there he was left so helpless and pathetic, all his life before him, and no one to help him, for his people were poor, and he had to go away from the hospital since he was incurable. He seemed almost given to me, for the first time I saw him I was singing to Jimmy, when the door opened and a small boy came fumbling in. "'I hear a pretty voice, I want to find it,' he said, stopping as I stopped with both hands out as if begging for more. "'Come on, Johnny, and the lady will sing to you like a bobolink,' called Jimmy, as proud as Barnum showing off Jumbo. "The poor little thing came and stood at my knee, without stirring, while I sang all the nursery jingles I knew. Then he put such a thin little finger on my lips as if to feel where the music came from, and said, smiling all over his white face, 'More, please more, lots of 'em! I love it!' "So I sang away till I was as hoarse as a crow, and Johnny drank it all in like water; kept time with his head, stamped when I gave him 'Marching through Georgia,' and hurrahed feebly in the chorus of 'Red, White, and Blue.' It was lovely to see how he enjoyed it, and I was so glad I had a voice to comfort those poor babies with. He cried when I had to go, and so touched my heart that I asked all about him, and resolved to get him into the Blind School as the only place where he could be taught and made happy." "I thought you were bound there the day I met you, Lizzie; but you looked as solemn as if all your friends had lost their sight," cried Marion. "I did feel solemn, for if Johnny could not go there he would be badly off. Fortunately he was ten, and dear Mrs. Russell helped me, and those good people took him in though they were crowded. 'We cannot turn one away,' said kind Mr. Parpatharges. "So there my boy is, as happy as a king with his little mates, learning all sorts of useful lessons and pretty plays. He models nicely in clay. Here is one of his little works. Could you do as well without eyes?" and Lizzie proudly produced a very one-sided pear with a long straw for a stem. "I don't expect he will ever be a sculptor, but I hope he will do something with music, he loves it so, and is already piping away on a fife very cleverly. Whatever his gift may prove, if he lives, he will be taught to be a useful, independent man, not a helpless burden, nor an unhappy creature sitting alone in the dark. I feel very happy about my lads, and am surprised to find how well I get on with them. I shall look up some more next year, for I really think I have quite a gift that way, though you wouldn't expect it, as I have no brothers, and always had a fancy boys were little imps." The girls were much amused at Lizzie's discovery of her own powers, for she was a stately damsel, who never indulged in romps, but lived for her music. Now it was evident that she had found the key to unlock childish hearts, and was learning to use it, quite unconscious that the sweet voice she valued so highly was much improved by the tender tones singing lullabies gave it. The fat pear was passed round like refreshments, receiving much praise and no harsh criticism; and when it was safely returned to its proud possessor, Ida began her tale in a lively tone. "I waited for _my_ chore, and it came tumbling down our basement steps one rainy day in the shape of a large dilapidated umbrella with a pair of small boots below it. A mild howl made me run to open the door, for I was at lunch in the dining-room, all alone, and rather blue because I couldn't go over to see Ella. A very small girl lay with her head in a puddle at the foot of the steps, the boots waving in the air, and the umbrella brooding over her like a draggled green bird. "'Are you hurt, child?' said I. [Illustration: "'Are you hurt, child?' said I."] "'No, I thank you, ma'am,' said the mite quite calmly, as she sat up and settled a woman's shabby black hat on her head. "'Did you come begging?' I asked. "'No, ma'am, I came for some things Mrs. Grover's got for us. She told me to. I don't beg.' And up rose the sopping thing with great dignity. "So I asked her to sit down, and ran up to call Mrs. Grover. She was busy with Grandpa just then, and when I went back to my lunch there sat my lady with her arms folded, water dripping out of the toes of her old boots as they hung down from the high chair, and the biggest blue eyes I ever saw fixed upon the cake and oranges on the table. I gave her a piece, and she sighed with rapture, but only picked at it till I asked if she didn't like it. "'Oh yes, 'm, it's elegant! Only I was wishin' I could take it to Caddy and Tot, if you didn't mind. They never had frostin' in all their lives, and I did once.' "Of course I put up a little basket of cake and oranges and figs, and while Lotty feasted, we talked. I found that their mother washed dishes all day in a restaurant over by the Albany Station, leaving the three children alone in the room they have on Berry Street. Think of that poor thing going off before light these winter mornings to stand over horrid dishes all day long, and those three scraps of children alone till night! Sometimes they had a fire, and when they hadn't they stayed in bed. Broken food and four dollars a week was all the woman got, and on that they tried to live. Good Mrs. Grover happened to be nursing a poor soul near Berry Street last summer, and used to see the three little things trailing round the streets with no one to look after them. "Lotty is nine, though she looks about six, but is as old as most girls of fourteen, and takes good care of 'the babies,' as she calls the younger ones. Mrs. Grover went to see them, and, though a hard-working creature, did all she could for them. This winter she has plenty of time to sew, for Grandpa needs little done for him except at night and morning, and that kind woman spent her own money, and got warm flannel and cotton and stuff, and made each child a good suit. Lotty had come for hers, and when the bundle was in her arms she hugged it close, and put up her little face to kiss Grover so prettily, I felt that I wanted to do something too. So I hunted up Min's old waterproof and rubbers, and a hood, and sent Lotty home as happy as a queen, promising to go and see her. I did go, and there was my work all ready for me. Oh, girls! such a bare, cold room, without a spark of fire, and no food but a pan of bits of pie and bread and meat, not fit for any one to eat, and in the bed, with an old carpet for cover, lay the three children. Tot and Caddy cuddled in the warmest place, while Lotty, with her little blue hands, was trying to patch up some old stockings with bits of cotton. I didn't know _how_ to begin, but Lotty did, and I just took her orders; for that wise little woman told me where to buy a bushel of coal and some kindlings, and milk and meal, and all I wanted. I worked like a beaver for an hour or two, and was so glad I'd been to a cooking-class, for I could make a fire, with Lotty to do the grubby part, and start a nice soup with the cold meat and potatoes, and an onion or so. Soon the room was warm, and full of a nice smell, and out of bed tumbled 'the babies,' to dance round the stove and sniff at the soup, and drink milk like hungry kittens, till I could get bread and butter ready. "It was great fun! and when we had cleared things up a bit, and I'd put food for supper in the closet, and told Lotty to warm a bowl of soup for her mother and keep the fire going, I went home tired and dirty, but very glad I'd found something to do. It is perfectly amazing how little poor people's things cost, and yet they can't get the small amount of money needed without working themselves to death. Why, all I bought didn't cost more than I often spend for flowers, or theatre tickets, or lunches, and it made those poor babies so comfortable I could have cried to think I'd never done it before." Ida paused to shake her head remorsefully, then went on with her story, sewing busily all the while on an unbleached cotton night-gown which looked about fit for a large doll. "I have no romantic things to tell, for poor Mrs. Kennedy was a shiftless, broken-down woman, who could only 'sozzle round,' as Mrs. Grover said, and rub along with help from any one who would lend a hand. She had lived out, married young, and had no faculty about anything; so when her husband died, and she was left with three little children, it was hard to get on, with no trade, feeble health, and a discouraged mind. She does her best, loves the girls, and works hard at the only thing she can find to do; but when she gives out, they will all have to part,--she to a hospital, and the babies to some home. She dreads that, and tugs away, trying to keep together and get ahead. Thanks to Mrs. Grover, who is very sensible, and knows how to help poor people, we have made things comfortable, and the winter has gone nicely. "The mother has got work nearer home, Lotty and Caddy go to school, and Tot is safe and warm, with Miss Parsons to look after her. Miss Parsons is a young woman who was freezing and starving in a little room upstairs, too proud to beg and too shy and sick to get much work. I found her warming her hands one day in Mrs. Kennedy's room, and hanging over the soup-pot as if she was eating the smell. It reminded me of the picture in Punch where the two beggar boys look in at a kitchen, sniffing at the nice dinner cooking there. One says, 'I don't care for the meat, Bill, but I don't mind if I takes a smell at the pudd'n' when it's dished.' I proposed a lunch at once, and we all sat down, and ate soup out of yellow bowls with pewter spoons with such a relish it was fun to see. I had on my old rig; so poor Parsons thought I was some dressmaker or work-girl, and opened her heart to me as she never would have done if I'd gone and demanded her confidence, and patronized her, as some people do when they want to help. I promised her some work, and proposed that she should do it in Mrs. K.'s room, as a favor, mind you, so that the older girls could go to school and Tot have some one to look after her. She agreed, and that saved her fire, and made the K.'s all right. Sarah (that's Miss P.) tried to stiffen up when she learned where I lived; but she wanted the work, and soon found I didn't put on airs, but lent her books, and brought her and Tot my bouquets and favors after a german, and told her pleasant things as she sat cooking her poor chilblainy feet in the oven, as if she never could get thawed out. "This summer the whole batch are to go to Uncle Frank's farm and pick berries, and get strong. He hires dozens of women and children during the fruit season, and Mrs. Grover said it was just what they all needed. So off they go in June, as merry as grigs, and I shall be able to look after them now and then, as I always go to the farm in July. That's all,--not a bit interesting, but it came to me, and I did it, though only small chore." "I'm sure the helping of five poor souls is a fine work, and you may well be proud of it, Ida. Now I know why you wouldn't go to matinées with me, and buy every pretty thing we saw as you used to. The pocket money went for coal and food, and your fancy-work was little clothes for these live dolls of yours. You dear thing! how good you were to cook, and grub, and prick your fingers rough, and give up fun, for this kind work!" Maggie's hearty kiss, and the faces of her friends, made Ida feel that her humble task had its worth in their eyes, as well as in her own; and when the others had expressed their interest in her work, all composed themselves to hear what Marion had to tell. "I have been taking care of a scarlet runner,--a poor old frost-bitten, neglected thing; it is transplanted now, and doing well, I'm happy to say." "What _do_ you mean?" asked Ella, while the rest looked very curious. Marion picked up a dropped stitch in the large blue sock she was knitting, and continued, with a laugh in her eyes: "My dears, that is what we call the Soldiers' Messenger Corps, with their red caps and busy legs trotting all day. I've had one of them to care for, and a gorgeous time of it, I do assure you. But before I exult over my success, I must honestly confess my failures, for they were sad ones. I was so anxious to begin my work at once, that I did go out and collar the first pauper I saw. It was an old man, who sometimes stands at the corners of streets to sell bunches of ugly paper flowers. You've seen him, I dare say, and his magenta daisies and yellow peonies. Well, he was rather a forlorn object, with his poor old red nose, and bleary eyes, and white hair, standing at the windy corners silently holding out those horrid flowers. I bought all he had that day, and gave them to some colored children on my way home, and told him to come to our house and get an old coat Mamma was waiting to get rid of. He told a pitiful story of himself and his old wife, who made the paper horrors in her bed, and how they needed everything, but didn't wish to beg. I was much touched, and flew home to look up the coat and some shoes, and when my old Lear came creeping in the back way, I ordered cook to give him a warm dinner and something nice for the old woman. "I was called upstairs while he was mumbling his food, and blessing me in the most lovely manner; and he went away much comforted, I flattered myself. But an hour later, up came the cook in a great panic to report that my venerable and pious beggar had carried off several of Papa's shirts and pairs of socks out of the clothes-basket in the laundry, and the nice warm hood we keep for the girl to hang out clothes in. "I was _very_ angry, and, taking Harry with me, went at once to the address the old rascal gave me, a dirty court out of Hanover Street. No such person had ever lived there, and my white-haired saint was a humbug. Harry laughed at me, and Mamma forbade me to bring any more thieves to the house, and the girls scolded awfully. "Well, I recovered from the shock, and, nothing daunted, went off to the little Irishwoman who sells apples on the Common,--not the fat, cosey one with the stall near West Street, but the dried-up one who sits by the path, nodding over an old basket with six apples and four sticks of candy in it. No one ever seems to buy anything, but she sits there and trusts to kind souls dropping a dime now and then, she looks so feeble and forlorn, 'on the cold, cold ground.' "She told me another sad tale of being all alone and unable to work, and 'as wake as wather-grewl, without a hap-worth av flesh upon me bones, and for the love of Heaven gimme a thrifle to kape the breath av loife in a poor soul, with a bitter hard winter over me, and niver a chick or child to do a hand's turn.' I hadn't much faith in her, remembering my other humbug, but I did pity the old mummy; so I got some tea and sugar, and a shawl, and used to give her my odd pennies as I passed. I never told at home, they made such fun of my efforts to be charitable. I thought I really was getting on pretty well after a time, as my old Biddy seemed quite cheered up, and I was planning to give her some coal, when she disappeared all of a sudden. I feared she was ill, and asked Mrs. Maloney, the fat woman, about her. "'Lord love ye, Miss dear, it's tuk up and sint to the Island for tree months she is; for a drunken ould crayther is Biddy Ryan, and niver a cint but goes for whiskey,--more shame to her, wid a fine bye av her own ready to kape her daycint.' "Then I _was_ discouraged, and went home to fold my hands, and see what fate would send me, my own efforts being such failures." "Poor thing, it _was_ hard luck!" said Elizabeth, as they sobered down after the gale of merriment caused by Marion's mishaps, and her clever imitation of the brogue. "Now tell of your success, and the scarlet runner," added Maggie. "Ah! that was _sent_, and so I prospered. I must begin ever so far back, in war times, or I can't introduce my hero properly. You know Papa was in the army, and fought all through the war till Gettysburg, where he was wounded. He was engaged just before he went; so when his father hurried to him after that awful battle, Mamma went also, and helped nurse him till he could come home. He wouldn't go to an officer's hospital, but kept with his men in a poor sort of place, for many of his boys were hit, and he wouldn't leave them. Sergeant Joe Collins was one of the bravest, and lost his right arm saving the flag in one of the hottest struggles of that great fight. He had been a Maine lumberman, and was over six feet tall, but as gentle as a child, and as jolly as a boy, and very fond of his colonel. "Papa left first, but made Joe promise to let him know how he got on, and Joe did so till he too went home. Then Papa lost sight of him, and in the excitement of his own illness, and the end of the war, and being married, Joe Collins was forgotten, till we children came along, and used to love to hear the story of Papa's battles, and how the brave sergeant caught the flag when the bearer was shot, and held it in the rush till one arm was blown off and the other wounded. We have fighting blood in us, you know, so we were never tired of that story, though twenty-five years or more make it all as far away to us as the old Revolution, where _our_ ancestor was killed, at _our_ Bunker Hill! "Last December, just after my sad disappointments, Papa came home to dinner one day, exclaiming, in great glee: 'I've found old Joe! A messenger came with a letter to me, and when I looked up to give my answer, there stood a tall, grizzled fellow, as straight as a ramrod, grinning from ear to ear, with his hand to his temple, saluting me in regular style. "Don't you remember Joe Collins, Colonel? Awful glad to see you, sir," said he. And then it all came back, and we had a good talk, and I found out that the poor old boy was down on his luck, and almost friendless, but as proud and independent as ever, and bound to take care of himself while he had a leg to stand on. I've got his address, and mean to keep an eye on him, for he looks feeble and can't make much, I'm sure.' [Illustration: "And there stood a tall grizzly man, saluting in regular style."] "We were all very glad, and Joe came to see us, and Papa sent him on endless errands, and helped him in that way till he went to New York. Then, in the fun and flurry of the holidays, we forgot all about Joe, till Papa came home and missed him from his post. I said I'd go and find him; so Harry and I rummaged about till we did find him, in a little house at the North End, laid up with rheumatic fever in a stuffy back room, with no one to look after him but the washerwoman with whom he boarded. "I was _so_ sorry we had forgotten him! but _he_ never complained, only said, with his cheerful grin, 'I kinder mistrusted the Colonel was away, but I wasn't goin' to pester him.' He tried to be jolly, though in dreadful pain; called Harry 'Major,' and was so grateful for all we brought him, though he didn't want oranges and tea, and made us shout when I said, like a goose, thinking that was the proper thing to do, 'Shall I bathe your brow, you are so feverish?' "'No, thanky, miss, it was swabbed pretty stiddy to the horsepittle, and I reckon a trifle of tobaccer would do more good and be a sight more relishin', ef you'll excuse my mentionin' it.' "Harry rushed off and got a great lump and a pipe, and Joe lay blissfully puffing, in a cloud of smoke, when we left him, promising to come again. We did go nearly every day, and had lovely times; for Joe told us his adventures, and we got so interested in the war that I began to read up evenings, and Papa was pleased, and fought all his battles over again for us, and Harry and I were great friends reading together, and Papa was charmed to see the old General's spirit in us, as we got excited and discussed all our wars in a fever of patriotism that made Mamma laugh. Joe said I 'brustled up' at the word _battle_ like a war-horse at the smell of powder, and I'd ought to have been a drummer, the sound of martial music made me so 'skittish.' "It was all new and charming to us young ones, but poor old Joe had a hard time, and was very ill. Exposure and fatigue, and scanty food, and loneliness, and his wounds, were too much for him, and it was plain his working days were over. He hated the thought of the poor-house at home, which was all his own town could offer him, and he had no friends to live with, and he could not get a pension, something being wrong about his papers; so he would have been badly off, but for the Soldiers' Home at Chelsea. As soon as he was able, Papa got him in there, and he was glad to go, for that seemed the proper place, and a charity the proudest man might accept, after risking his life for his country. "There is where I used to be going when you saw me, and I was _so_ afraid you'd smell the cigars in my basket. The dear old boys always want them, and Papa says they _must_ have them, though it isn't half so romantic as flowers, and jelly, and wine, and the dainty messes we women always want to carry. I've learned about different kinds of tobacco and cigars, and you'd laugh to see me deal out my gifts, which are received as gratefully as the Victoria Cross, when the Queen decorates _her_ brave men. I'm quite a great gun over there, and the boys salute when I come, tell me their woes, and think that Papa and I can run the whole concern. I like it immensely, and am as proud and fond of my dear old wrecks as if I'd been a Rigoletto, and ridden on a cannon from my babyhood. That's _my_ story, but I can't begin to tell how interesting it all is, nor how glad I am that it led me to look into the history of American wars, in which brave men of our name did their parts so well." A hearty round of applause greeted Marion's tale, for her glowing face and excited voice stirred the patriotic spirit of the Boston girls, and made them beam approvingly upon her. "Now, Maggie, dear, last but not least, I'm sure," said Anna, with an encouraging glance, for _she_ had discovered the secret of this friend, and loved her more than ever for it. Maggie blushed and hesitated, as she put down the delicate muslin cap-strings she was hemming with such care. Then, looking about her with a face in which both humility and pride contended, she said, with an effort, "After the other lively experiences, mine will sound very flat. In fact, I have no story to tell, for _my_ charity began at home, and stopped there." "Tell it, dear. I know it is interesting, and will do us all good," said Anna, quickly; and, thus supported, Maggie went on. "I planned great things, and talked about what I meant to do, till Papa said one day, when things were in a mess, as they often are, at our house, 'If the little girls who want to help the world along would remember that charity begins at home, they would soon find enough to do.' "I was rather taken aback, and said no more, but after Papa had gone to the office, I began to think, and looked round to see what there was to be done at that particular moment. I found enough for that day, and took hold at once; for poor Mamma had one of her bad headaches, the children could not go out because it rained, and so were howling in the nursery, cook was on a rampage, and Maria had the toothache. Well, I began by making Mamma lie down for a good long sleep. I kept the children quiet by giving them my ribbon box and jewelry to dress up with, put a poultice on Maria's face, and offered to wash the glass and silver for her, to appease cook, who was as cross as two sticks over extra work washing-day. It wasn't much fun, as you may imagine, but I got through the afternoon, and kept the house still, and at dusk crept into Mamma's room and softly built up the fire, so it should be cheery when she waked. Then I went trembling to the kitchen for some tea, and there found three girls calling, and high jinks going on; for one whisked a plate of cake into the table drawer, another put a cup under her shawl, and cook hid the teapot, as I stirred round in the china closet before opening the slide, through a crack of which I'd seen, heard, and smelt 'the party,' as the children call it. "I was angry enough to scold the whole set, but I wisely held my tongue, shut my eyes, and politely asked for some hot water, nodded to the guests, and told cook Maria was better, and would do her work if she wanted to go out. "So peace reigned, and as I settled the tray, I heard cook say in her balmiest tone, for I suspect the cake and tea lay heavy on her conscience, 'The mistress is very poorly, and Miss takes nice care of her, the dear.' "All blarney, but it pleased me and made me remember how feeble poor Mamma was, and how little I really did. So I wept a repentant weep as I toiled upstairs with my tea and toast, and found Mamma all ready for them, and so pleased to find things going well. I saw by that what a relief it would be to her if I did it oftener, as I ought, and as I resolved that I would. "I didn't say anything, but I kept on doing whatever came along, and before I knew it ever so many duties slipped out of Mamma's hands into mine, and seemed to belong to me. I don't mean that I liked them, and didn't grumble to myself; I did, and felt regularly crushed and injured sometimes when I wanted to go and have my own fun. Duty is right, but it isn't easy, and the only comfort about it is a sort of quiet feeling you get after a while, and a strong feeling, as if you'd found something to hold on to and keep you steady. I can't express it, but you know?" And Maggie looked wistfully at the other faces, some of which answered her with a quick flash of sympathy, and some only wore a puzzled yet respectful expression, as if they felt they ought to know, but did not. "I need not tire you with all my humdrum doings," continued Maggie. "I made no plans, but just said each day, 'I'll take what comes, and try to be cheerful and contented.' So I looked after the children, and that left Maria more time to sew and help round. I did errands, and went to market, and saw that Papa had his meals comfortably when Mamma was not able to come down. I made calls for her, and received visitors, and soon went on as if I were the lady of the house, not 'a chit of a girl,' as Cousin Tom used to call me. "The best of all were the cosey talks we had in the twilight, Mamma and I, when she was rested, and all the day's worry was over, and we were waiting for Papa. Now, when he came, I didn't have to go away, for they wanted to ask and tell me things, and consult about affairs, and make me feel that I was really the eldest daughter. Oh, it was just lovely to sit between them and know that they needed me, and loved to have me with them! That made up for the hard and disagreeable things, and not long ago I got my reward. Mamma is better, and I was rejoicing over it, when she said, 'Yes, I really am mending now, and hope soon to be able to relieve my good girl. But I want to tell you, dear, that when I was most discouraged my greatest comfort was, that if I had to leave my poor babies they would find such a faithful little mother in you.' "I was _so_ pleased I wanted to cry, for the children _do_ love me, and run to me for everything now, and think the world of Sister, and they didn't use to care much for me. But that wasn't all. I ought not to tell these things, perhaps, but I'm so proud of them I can't help it. When I asked Papa privately, if Mamma was _really_ better and in no danger of falling ill again, he said, with his arms round me, and such a tender kiss,-- "'No danger now, for this brave little girl put her shoulder to the wheel so splendidly, that the dear woman got the relief from care she needed just at the right time, and now she really rests sure that we are not neglected. You couldn't have devoted yourself to a better charity, or done it more sweetly, my darling. God bless you!'" Here Maggie's voice gave out, and she hid her face, with a happy sob, that finished her story eloquently. Marion flew to wipe her tears away with the blue sock, and the others gave a sympathetic murmur, looking much touched; forgotten duties of their own rose before them, and sudden resolutions were made to attend to them at once, seeing how great Maggie's reward had been. "I didn't mean to be silly; but I wanted you to know that I hadn't been idle all winter, and that, though I haven't much to tell, I'm _quite_ satisfied with my chore," she said, looking up with smiles shining through the tears till her face resembled a rose in a sun-shower. "Many daughters have done well, but thou excellest them all," answered Anna, with a kiss that completed her satisfaction. "Now, as it is after our usual time, and we must break up," continued the President, producing a basket of flowers from its hiding-place, "I will merely say that I think we have all learned a good deal, and will be able to work better next winter; for I am sure we shall want to try again, it adds so much sweetness to our own lives to put even a little comfort into the hard lives of the poor. As a farewell token, I sent for some real Plymouth mayflowers, and here they are, a posy apiece, with my love and many thanks for your help in carrying out my plan so beautifully." So the nosegays were bestowed, the last lively chat enjoyed, new plans suggested, and goodbyes said; then the club separated, each member going gayly away with the rosy flowers on her bosom, and in it a clearer knowledge of the sad side of life, a fresh desire to see and help still more, and a sweet satisfaction in the thought that each had done what she could. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: All punctuation kept as per original, including unclosed quotes. 
38490	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. [Illustration: Book Cover] And So They Were Married [Illustration: "'It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his own, too, my dear'" (p. 126)] And So They Were Married _By_ Florence Morse Kingsley Author of "Titus," "The Singular Miss Smith," "The Resurrection of Miss Cynthia" With Illustrations By W. B. King New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1908 COPYRIGHT, 1908 By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1908 By FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY CHAPTER I Dr. North's wife, attired in her dressing-gown and slippers, noiselessly tilted the shutter of the old-fashioned inside blind and peered cautiously out. The moon was shining splendidly in the dark sky, and the empty street seemed almost as light as day. It had been snowing earlier in the evening, Mrs. North observed absent-mindedly, and the clinging drifts weighed the dark evergreens on either side of the gate almost to the ground. A dog barked noisily from his kennel in a neighbouring yard, and a chorus of answering barks acknowledged the signal; some one was coming along the moonlit street. There were two figures, as Mrs. North had expected; she craned her plump neck anxiously forward as the gate clicked and a light girlish laugh floated up on the frosty air. "Dear, dear!" she murmured, "I do hope Bessie will come right into the house. It is too cold to stand outside talking." Apparently the young persons below did not think so. They stood in the bright moonlight in full view of the anxious watcher behind the shutter, the man's tall figure bent eagerly toward the girl, whose delicate profile Mrs. North could see distinctly under the coquettish sweep of the broad hat-brim. "The child ought to have worn her high overshoes," she was thinking, when she was startled by the vision of the tall, broad figure stooping over the short, slight one. Then the key clicked in the lock and the front door opened softly; the sound was echoed by the closing gate, as the tall figure tramped briskly away over the creaking snow. The neighbour's dog barked again, perfunctorily this time, as if acknowledging the entire respectability of the passer-by; all the other dogs in town responded in kind, and again there was silence broken only by the sound of a light foot on the carpeted stair. Mrs. North opened her door softly. "Is that you, Bessie?" "Yes, mother." "Isn't it very late, child?" "It is only half past eleven." "Did Louise go with you?" "No, mother; she had a sore throat, and it was snowing; so her aunt wouldn't allow her to go." "Oh!" Mrs. North's voice expressed a faint disapproval. "Of course we couldn't help it; besides, all the other girls were there just with their escorts. You and grandma are so--old-fashioned. I'm sure I don't see why I always have to have some other girl along--and Louise Glenny of all persons! I couldn't help being just a little bit glad that she couldn't go." "Did you have a nice time, dear?" The girl turned a radiant face upon her mother. "Oh, we had a _lovely_ time!" she murmured. "I--I'll tell you about it to-morrow. Is father home?" "Yes; he came in early to-night and went right to bed. I hope the telephone bell won't ring again before morning." The girl laughed softly. "You might take off the receiver," she suggested. "Poor daddy!" "Oh, no; I couldn't do that. Your father would never forgive me. But I told him not to have it on his mind; I'll watch out for it and answer it, and if it's Mrs. Salter again with one of her imaginary sinking spells I'm going to tell her the doctor won't be in before six in the morning. I do hope it isn't wrong to deceive that much; but your father isn't made of iron, whatever some people may think." The girl laughed again, a low murmur of joy. "Good-night, dear little mother," she said caressingly. "You are always watching and waiting for some one; aren't you? But you needn't have worried about _me_." She stooped and kissed her mother, her eyes shining like stars; then hurried away to hide the blush which swept her face and neck. "Dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. North, as she crept back to her couch drawn close to the muffled telephone, "I suppose I ought to have spoken to her father before this; but he is always so busy; I hardly have time to say two words to him. Besides, he thinks Bessie is only a child, and he would have laughed at me." The girl was taking off her hat and cloak in her own room. How long ago it seemed since she had put them on. She smoothed out her white gloves with caressing fingers. "I shall always keep them," she thought. She was still conscious of his first kisses, and looked in her glass, as if half expecting to see some visible token of them. "I am so happy--so happy!" she murmured to the radiant reflection which smiled back at her from out its shadowy depths. She leaned forward and touched the cold smooth surface with her lips in a sudden passion of gratitude for the fair, richly tinted skin, the large bright eyes with their long curling lashes, the masses of brown waving hair, and the pliant beauty of the strong young figure in the mirror. "If I had been freckled and stoop-shouldered and awkward, like Louise Glenny, he _couldn't_ have loved me," she was thinking. She sank to her knees after awhile and buried her face in the coverlid of her little bed. But she could think only of the look in his eyes when he had said "I love you," and of the thrilling touch of his lips on hers. She crept into bed and lay there in a wide-eyed rapture, while the village clock struck one, and after a long, blissful hour, two. Then she fell asleep, and did not hear the telephone bell which called her tired father from his bed in the dim, cold hour between three and four. She was still rosily asleep and dreaming when Mrs. North came softly into the room in the broad sunlight of the winter morning. "Isn't Lizzie awake yet?" inquired a brisk voice from the hall. "My, _my_! but girls are idle creatures nowadays!" The owner of the voice followed this dictum with a quick patter of softly shod feet. "I didn't like to call her, mother," apologised Mrs. North. "She came in late, and----" Grandmother Carroll pursed up her small, wise mouth. "I heard her," she said, "and that young man with her. I don't know, daughter, but what we ought to inquire into his prospects and character a little more carefully, if he's to be allowed to come here so constant. Lizzie's very young, and----" "Oh, grandma!" protested a drowsy voice from the pillows; "I'm twenty!" "Twenty; yes, I know you're twenty, my dear; quite old enough, I should say, to be out of bed before nine in the morning." "It wasn't her fault, mother; I didn't call her." The girl was gazing at the two round matronly figures at the foot of the bed, her laughing eyes grown suddenly serious. "I'll get up at once," she said with decision, "and I'll eat bread and milk for breakfast; I sha'n't mind." "She's got something on her mind," whispered Mrs. North to her mother, as the two pattered softly downstairs. "I shouldn't wonder," responded Grandmother Carroll briskly. "Girls of her age are pretty likely to have, and I mistrust but what that young Bowser may have been putting notions into her head. I hope you'll be firm with her, daughter; she's much too young for anything of that sort." "You were married when you were eighteen, mother; and I was barely twenty, you know." "I was a very different girl at eighteen from what Lizzie is," Mrs. Carroll said warmly. "She's been brought up differently. In my time healthy girls didn't lie in bed till ten o'clock. Many and many's the time I've danced till twelve o'clock and been up in the morning at five 'tending to my work. You indulge Lizzie too much; and if that young Bixler----" "His name is Brewster, mother; don't you remember? and they say he comes of a fine old Boston family." "Well, Brewster or Bixler; it will make no difference to Lizzie, you'll find. I've been watching her for more than a month back, and I'll tell you, daughter, when a girl like Lizzie offers to eat bread and milk for breakfast you can expect almost anything. Her mind is on other things. I'll never forget the way you ate a boiled egg for breakfast every morning for a week--and you couldn't bear eggs--about the time the doctor was getting serious. I mistrusted there was something to pay, and I wasn't mistaken." Mrs. North sighed vaguely. Then her tired brown eyes lighted up with a smile. "I had letters from both the boys this morning," she said; "don't you want to read them, mother? Frank has passed all his mid-year examinations, and Elliot says he has just made the 'varsity gym' team." "Made the _what_?" "I don't quite understand myself," acknowledged Mrs. North; "but that's what he said. He said he'd have his numerals to show us when he came home Easter." "Hum!" murmured Mrs. Carroll dubiously; "I'm sure I hope he won't break his neck in any foolish way. Did he say anything about his lessons?" "Not much; he never was such a student as Frank; but he'll do well, mother." Elizabeth North, fresh as a dewy rose and radiant with her new happiness, came into the room just as Mrs. Carroll folded the last sheet of the college letters. "I'll ask Lizzie," she said. "Lizzie, what is a g-y-m team?" "Oh, grandma!" protested the girl, "_please_ don't call me _Lizzie_. Bessie is bad enough; but _Lizzie_! I always think of that absurd old Mother Goose rhyme, 'Elizabeth, Lizzie, Betsey and Bess, all went hunting to find a bird's nest'; and, besides, you promised me you wouldn't." "Lizzie was a good enough name for your mother," said grandma briskly. "Your father courted and married her under that name, and he didn't mind." Her keen old eyes behind their shining glasses dwelt triumphantly on the girl's changing colour. "You needn't tell _me_!" she finished irrelevantly. But Elizabeth had possessed herself of the letters, and was already deep in a laughing perusal of Elliot's scrawl. "Oh, how splendid!" she cried; "he's made the Varsity, on his ring work, too!" "I don't pretend to understand what particular _work_ Elliot is referring to," observed grandma, with studied mildness. "Is it some sort of mathematics?" Elizabeth sprang up and flung both arms about the smiling old lady. "You dear little hypocritical grandma!" she said; "you know perfectly well that it isn't any study at all, but just gymnastic work--all sorts of stunts, swinging on rings and doing back and front levers and shoulder stands and all that sort of thing. Elliot has such magnificent muscles he can do anything, and better than any one else, and that's why he's on the varsity, you see!" "Thank you, Elizabeth," said grandma tranquilly. "I'd entirely forgotten that young men don't go to college now to study their lessons. My memory is certainly getting poor." "No, grandma dear; it isn't. You remember everything a thousand times better than any one else, and what is more, you know it. But of course Elliot studies; he has to. Mr. Brewster says he thinks Elliot is one of the finest boys he knows. He thinks he would make a splendid engineer. He admires Frank, too, immensely, and----" "What does the young man think of Elizabeth?" asked Mrs. Carroll with a wise smile. "He--oh, grandma; I--didn't mean to tell just yet; but he--I----" "There, there, child! Better go and find your mother. I mistrust she's getting you a hot breakfast." She drew the girl into her soft old arms and kissed her twice. Elizabeth sprang up all in a lovely flame of blushes and ran out of the room. CHAPTER II When Samuel Herrick Brewster, B.S. and Civil Engineer, late of the Massachusetts School of Technology, came to Innisfield for the purpose of joining the corps of engineers already at work on a new and improved system of water-works, he had not the slightest intention of falling seriously in love. By "seriously" Sam Brewster himself might have told you--as he told his married sister living in Saginaw, Mich., and anxiously solicitous of the young man's general well-being--that he meant that sort and quality of affection which would naturally and inevitably lead a man into matrimony. He had always been fond of the society of pretty and amiable women, and well used to it, too. His further ideas with regard to matrimony, though delightfully vague in their general character, were sufficiently clear-cut and decided in one important particular, which he had been careful to expound at length to those impetuous undergraduates of his fraternity who had appeared to need friendly counsel from their elders. "A man," said young Brewster, conclusively, "has no business to marry till he can feel solid ground under his feet. He should be thoroughly established in his profession, and well able to pay the shot." When this sapient young gentleman first met Elizabeth North at a picnic given by the leading citizens of Innisfield to celebrate the completion of the new aqueduct he was disposed to regard her as a very nice, intelligent sort of a girl, with remarkably handsome brown eyes. On the occasion of his third meeting with the young lady he found himself, rather to his surprise, telling her about his successful work in the "Tech," and of how he hoped to "get somewhere" in his profession some day. Elizabeth in her turn had confided to him her disappointment in not being able to go to Wellesley, and her ambitious attempts to keep up with Marian Evans, who was in the Sophomore year, in literature and music. She played Chopin's Fantasia Impromptu for him on Mrs. North's garrulous old piano; and as her slender fingers twinkled over the yellow keys he caught himself wondering how much a first-class instrument would cost. In the course of a month he had fallen into the habit of strolling home with Elizabeth after church, and twice Mrs. North, in the kindness of her motherly heart, had asked him to dinner. She was afraid, she told Grandma Carroll, that the table board at Mrs. Bentwick's was none of the best. She spoke of him further as "that nice, good-looking boy," and hoped he wouldn't be too lonely in Innisfield, away from all his friends. As for Dr. North, that overworked physician was seldom to be seen, being apparently in a chronic state of hastily and energetically climbing into his gig, and as energetically and hastily climbing out again. He had hurriedly shaken hands with young Brewster, and made him welcome to his house in one of the brief intervals between office hours and the ever-waiting gig, with its imperturbable brown horse, who appeared to know quite as well as the doctor where the sick were to be found. After that, it is fair to state, the worthy doctor had completely forgotten that such a person as Samuel Herrick Brewster, B.S., C.E. existed. One may judge therefore of his feelings when his wife chose a moment of relaxation between a carefully cooked dinner and an expected summons by telephone to acquaint him with the fact of their daughter's engagement. "_Engaged?_" exclaimed the doctor, starting out of his chair. "Bess--engaged! Oh, I guess not. I sha'n't allow anything of the sort; she's nothing but a child, and as for this young fellow--what 'd you say his name was? We don't know him!" "You don't, you mean, papa," his wife corrected him gently. "The rest of us have seen a good deal of Mr. Brewster, and I'm sure Bessie----" [Illustration: "'Oh, daddy, he's the dearest person in the world!'"] "Now, mother, what made you? I wanted to tell daddy myself. Oh, daddy, he's the dearest person in the world!" Then as Elizabeth caught the hurt, bewildered look in her father's eyes she perched on his knee in the old familiar fashion. "It seems sudden--to you, I know," she murmured; "but really it isn't, daddy; as he will tell you if he can ever find you at home to talk to. Why, we've known each other since last summer!" "I'm afraid I'm very stupid, child; but I don't believe I understand. You don't mean to tell me that you have been thinking of--of getting married and to a man I don't know even." Dr. North shook his head decidedly. "But you do know him, daddy; he's been here ever so many times. Of course"--she added with a touch of laughing malice--"he's perfectly well, and you seldom notice well people, even when they're in your own family." "I don't have time, Bess," admitted the doctor soberly, "there are too many of the other sort. But now about this young man--Brewster--eh? You have him come 'round in office hours, say, and I'll----" "Now, daddy, _please_ don't straighten out your mouth like that; it isn't a bit becoming. Naturally you've got the sweetest, kindest look in the world, and you mustn't spoil it, especially when you are talking about Sam." The doctor pinched his daughter's pink ear. "I'm sorry to appear such an ogre," he said with a touch of grimness, "but I know too much about the world in general, and the business of getting married in particular, to allow my one daughter to go into it blindly. I'll be obliged to make the young man's further acquaintance, Bess, before we talk about an engagement." The girl's scarlet lips were set in firm lines, which strongly resembled the paternal expression to which she had objected; she kissed her father dutifully. "I want you to get acquainted with him, daddy," she said sweetly; "but we _are_ engaged." That same afternoon Dr. North, looking worried and anxious after a prolonged conference with the village hypochrondriac, who had come to the office fully charged with symptoms of a new and distinguished disease lately imported from Europe, found himself face to face with a tall, fresh-faced young man. This new visitor came into the office bringing with him a breath of the wintry air and a general appearance of breezy health which caused the hypochondriac to look up sourly in the act of putting on her rubbers. "If that new medicine doesn't relieve that terrible feelin' in my epigastrium, doctor--an' I don't believe it's a-goin' to--I'll let you know," she remarked acidly. "You needn't be surprised to be called most any time between now an' mornin'; for, as I told Mr. Salter, I ain't a-goin' to suffer as I did last night for nobody." "_Good_-afternoon, Mrs. Salter," said the doctor emphatically. "Now then, young man, what can I do for you?" The young man in question coloured boyishly. "I shouldn't have ventured to call upon you during your office hours, Dr. North; but I understood from Elizabeth that you could be seen at no other time; so I'm here." "Elizabeth--eh? Yes, yes; I see. I--er--didn't recall your face for the moment. Just come into my private office for a minute or two, Mr. Brewster; these--er--other patients will wait a bit, I fancy." The worthy doctor handed his visitor a chair facing the light, which he further increased by impatiently shoving the shades to the top of the windows. Then he seated himself and stared keenly at the young engineer, who on his part bore the scrutiny with a sturdy self-possession which pleased the doctor in spite of himself. "Elizabeth told you of our engagement, I believe, sir?" [Illustration: "'I said to her that I couldn't and wouldn't consider an engagement between you at present'"] "She told me something of the sort--yes," admitted the doctor testily. "I said to her that I couldn't and wouldn't consider an engagement between you at present. Did she tell you that?" "I was told that you wished to make my further acquaintance. I should like, if you have the time, to tell you something about myself. You have the right to know." The doctor nodded frowningly. "If you expect me--at any time in the future, you understand--to give you my only daughter, I certainly am entitled to know--everything." The young man looked the doctor squarely in the eyes during the longish pause that followed. "There isn't much to tell," he said. "My father and mother are dead. I have one sister, older than I, married to one of the best fellows in the world and living West. I made my home with them till I came to the Tech. You can ask any of the professors there about me. They'll tell you that I worked. I graduated a year ago last June. Since then I've been at work at my profession. I'm getting twelve hundred a year now; but----" "Stop right there. Why did you ask my girl to marry you?" "Because I loved her." "Hum! And she--er--fancies that she loves you--eh?" A dark flush swept over Samuel Brewster's ingenuous young face. "She does love me," was all he said. But he said it in a tone which suddenly brought back the older man's vanished youth. There was a short silence; then the doctor arose so abruptly that he nearly upset his chair. "_Well_," he said, "I've got to go to Boston to-morrow on a case, and I'll see those professors of yours, for one thing; I know Collins well. Not that he or anybody else can tell me all about you--not by a long shot; I know boys and young men well enough for that. But you see, sir, I--love my girl too, and I--I'll say _good_-afternoon, sir." He threw the door wide with an impatient hand. "Ah, Mrs. Tewksbury; you're next, I believe. Walk right in." An hour later, when the door had finally closed on his last patient, Dr. North sat still in his chair, apparently lost in thought. His dinner was waiting, he knew, and a round of visits must be made immediately thereafter, yet he did not stir. He was thinking, curiously enough, of the time when his daughter Elizabeth was a baby. What a round, pink little face she had, to be sure, and what a strong, healthy, plump little body. He could almost hear the unsteady feet toddling across the breadth of dingy oilcloth which carpeted his office floor. "Daddy, daddy!" her sweet, imperious voice was crying, "I'm tomin' to see you, daddy!" His eyes were wet when he finally stumbled to his feet. Then suddenly he felt a pair of warm arms about his neck, and a dozen butterfly kisses dropped on his cheeks, his hair, his forehead. "Daddy, dear, he came; didn't he? I saw him go away. I hope you weren't--cruel to him, oh, daddy!" "No, daughter; I wasn't exactly cruel to him. But didn't the young man stop to talk it over with you?" "No, daddy; I thought he would of course; but he just waved his hand for good-bye, and I--was frightened for fear----" "Didn't stop to talk it over--eh? Say, I like that! To tell you the truth, Bess, I--rather like him. Good, clear, steady eyes; good all 'round constitution, I should say; and if--Oh, come, come, child; we'd better be getting in to dinner or your mother will be anxious. But I want you to understand, miss, that your old daddy has no notion of playing second fiddle to any youngster's first, however tall and good-looking he may be." And singularly enough, Elizabeth appeared to be perfectly satisfied with this paternal dictum. "I knew you'd like him," she said, slipping her small hand into her father's big one, in the little girl fashion she had never lost. "Why, daddy, he's the best man I ever knew--except you, of course. He told me"--the girl's voice dropped to an awed whisper--"that he promised his mother when she was dying that he would never do a mean or dishonest thing. And--and he says, daddy, that whenever he has been tempted to do wrong he has felt his mother's eyes looking at him, so that he couldn't. Anybody would know he was good just from seeing him." "Hum! Well, well, that may be so. I'll talk to Collins and see what he has to say. Collins is a man of very good judgment; I value his opinion highly." "Don't you value mine, daddy?" asked Elizabeth, with an irresistible dimple appearing and disappearing at the corner of her mouth. "On some subjects, my dear," replied the doctor soberly; "but--er--on this particular one I fancy you may be slightly prejudiced." CHAPTER III The question of "wherewithal shall we be clothed," which has vexed the world since its beginning in the garden "planted eastward in Eden," confronts the children of Eve so persistently at every serious crisis of life that one is forced to the conclusion that clothes sustain a very real and vital relation to destiny. Even Solomon in all his glory must earnestly have considered the colour and texture of his famous robes of state when he was making ready to dazzle the eyes of the Queen of Sheba, and the Jewish Esther's royal apparel and Joseph's coat of many colours played important parts in the history of a nation. Elizabeth North had been engaged to be married to Samuel Brewster exactly a fortnight when the age-long question presented itself to her attention. It was perhaps inevitable that she should have thought speculatively of her wedding gown; what girl would not? But in the sweet amaze of her new and surprising happiness she might have gone on wearing her simple girlish frocks quite unaware of its relation to her wardrobe. She owed her awakening to Miss Evelyn Tripp. Elizabeth had known Evelyn Tripp in a distant fashion suited to the great gulf which appeared to exist between the fashionable lady from Boston, who was in the habit of paying semi-annual visits to Innisfield, and the young daughter of the country doctor. She had always regarded Miss Tripp as the epitome of all possible elegance, and vaguely associated her with undreamed-of festivities and privileges peculiar to the remote circles in which she moved when absent from Innisfield. Miss Tripp explained her presence in the quiet village after one formula which had grown familiar to every one. "I was _completely_ worn out, my dear; I've just run away from a perfect whirl of receptions, teas, luncheons and musicales; really, I was _on the verge_ of a nervous breakdown when my physician simply _insisted_ upon my leaving it all. I _do_ find dear, quiet Innisfield so _relaxing_ after the social strain." Miss Tripp's heavily italicised remarks were invariably accompanied by uplifted eyebrows, and a sweetly serious expression, alternating with flashing glimpses of very white teeth, and further accented by numberless little movements of her hands and shoulders which suggested deeper meanings than her words often conveyed. Ill-natured people, such as Mrs. Buckthorn and Electa Pratt, declared that Evelyn Tripp was thirty-five if she was a day, though she dressed like sixteen; and furthermore that her social popularity in Boston was a figment of her own vivid imagination. Elizabeth North, however, had always admired her almost reverently, in the shy, distant fashion of the young, country-bred girl. Miss Tripp was unquestionably elegant, and her smart gowns and the large picture hats she affected had created quite their usual sensation in Innisfield, where the slow-spreading ripples of fashion were viewed with a certain stern disfavour as being linked in some vague manner with irreligion of a dangerous sort. "She's too stylish to be good for much," being the excellent Mrs. Buckthorn's severe corollary. Miss Tripp had been among the first to press friendly congratulations upon young Brewster, who on his part received them with the engaging awkwardness of the unaccustomed bachelor. "You are certainly the _most_ fortunate of men to have won that sweet, simple Elizabeth North! I've known her since she was quite a child--since we were both children, in fact, and she was always the same unspoiled, unaffected girl, so different from the young women one meets in society circles." "She's all of that," quoth the fortunate engineer, vaguely aware of a lack of flavour in Miss Tripp's encomium, "and--er--more." Whereat Miss Tripp laughed archly and playfully shook a daintily gloved finger at him. "I can see that you think no one is capable of appreciating your prize; but I assure you _I do_! You shall see!" This last was a favourite phrase, and conveyed quite an alluring sense of mystery linked with vague promise of unstinted benevolences on the part of Miss Tripp. "Do you know," she added seriously, "I am told that you are closely related to Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser. She is a wonderful woman, so prominent in the best circles and interested in so many important charities." Samuel Brewster shook his head. "The relationship is hardly worth mentioning," he said. "Mrs. Van Duser was a distant relative of my mother's." "But of course you see a great deal of her when you are in Boston; do you not?" persisted the lady. "I dined there once," acknowledged the young man, vaguely uneasy and rather too obviously anxious to make his escape, "but I dare say she has forgotten my existence by this time. Mrs. Van Duser is, as you say, a very--er--active woman." On the following day Elizabeth North encountered Miss Tripp on the street. She was about to pass her after a shy salutation, when Miss Tripp held out both hands in a pretty, impulsive gesture. "I was just on my way to see you, dear; but if you are going out, of course I'll wait till another day. My dear, he's _simply_ perfect! and I really _couldn't_ wait to tell you so. Do tell me when you are to be married? In June, I hope, for then I shall be here to help." Elizabeth blushed prettily, her shy gaze taking in the details of Miss Tripp's modish costume. She was wondering if a jacket made like the one Miss Tripp was wearing would be becoming. "I--we haven't thought so far ahead as that," she said. Then with a sudden access of her new dignity. "Mr. Brewster expects to return to Boston in the spring. The work here will be finished by that time." Miss Tripp's eyes brightened with a speculative gleam. "Oh, then you will live in _Boston_! How _delighted_ I am to hear _that_! Did you know your _fiancé_ is related to Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser? and that he has _dined_ there? _You didn't?_ But of course you must have heard of Mrs. Van Duser; I believe your minister's wife is a relative of hers. But Mrs. Van Duser doesn't approve of Mrs. Pettibone, I'm told; her opinions are so odd. But I _am_ so glad for you, my dear; if everything is managed properly you will have an _entrée_ to the most exclusive circles." Miss Tripp's eyebrows and shoulders expressed such unfeigned interest and delight in her prospects that Elizabeth beamed and smiled in her turn. She wished confusedly that Miss Tripp would not talk to her about her engagement; it was too sacred, too wonderful a thing to discuss on the street with a mere acquaintance like Miss Tripp. Yet all the while she was rosily conscious of her new ring, which she could feel under her glove, and a childish desire to uncover its astonishing brilliancy before such warmly appreciative eyes presently overcame her desire to escape. "Won't you walk home with me?" she asked; "mother will be so glad to see you." "Oh, _thank_ you! Indeed I was coming to condole with your dear mother and to wish you all sorts of happiness. I've so often spoken of you to my friends in Boston." Elizabeth wondered what Miss Tripp could possibly have said about her to her friends in Boston. But she was assured by Miss Tripp's brilliant smile that it had been something agreeable. When she came into the room after removing her hat and cloak she found her mother deep in conversation with the visitor, who made room for her on the sofa with a smile and a graceful tilt of her plumed head. "We've been talking about you every minute, dear child. You'll see what a _sweet_ wedding you'll have. Everything must be of the very latest; and it isn't a minute too soon to begin on your trousseau. You really ought to have everything hand-embroidered, you know; those flimsy laces and machine-made edges are so common, you won't _think_ of them; and they don't wear a bit well, either." Mrs. North glanced appealingly at her daughter. "Oh," she said, in a bewildered tone, "I guess Elizabeth isn't intending to be married for a long, long time yet; I--we can't spare her." Miss Tripp laughed airily. "_Poor_ mamma," she murmured with a look of deep sympathy, "it _is_ too bad; isn't it? But, really, I'm sure you're to be congratulated on your future son-in-law. He belongs to a _very_ aristocratic family--Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser is a relative, you know; and dear Betty must have everything _suitable_. I'll do some pretty things, dear; I'd love to, and I'll begin this very day, though the doctor has absolutely forbidden me to use my eyes; but I simply can't resist the temptation." Then she had exclaimed over the sparkle of Elizabeth's modest diamond, which caught her eyes at the moment, and presently in a perfumed rush of silken skirts and laces and soft furs Miss Tripp swept away, chatting to the outermost verge of the frosty air in her sweet-toned drawling voice, so different from the harsh nasal accents familiar to Innisfield ears. Elizabeth drew a deep breath as she watched the slim, erect figure move lightly away. She felt somehow very ignorant and countrified and totally unfit for her high destiny as a member of Boston's select circles. As a result of these unwonted stirrings in her young heart she went up to her room and began to look over her wardrobe with growing dissatisfaction. Her mother hearing the sound of opening and shutting drawers came into the room and stood looking on with what appeared to the girl a provokingly indifferent expression on her plump middle-aged face. "It is really too soon to begin worrying about wedding clothes, Bessie," observed Mrs. North with a show of maternal authority. "Of course"--after a doubtful silence--"we might begin to make up some new underclothes. I've a good firm piece of cotton in the house, and we can buy some edges." The girl suddenly faced her mother, her pink lips thrust forward in an unbecoming pout. "Why, mother," she said, "don't you know people don't wear things made out of common cotton cloth now; everything has to be as fine and delicate as a cobweb almost, and--hand-embroidered. You can make them or buy them in the stores. Marian had some lovely things when she went to college. All the girls wear them--except me. Of course I've never had anything of the sort; but I suppose I'll have to now!" She shut her bureau drawer with an air of finality and leaned her puckered forehead upon her hand while the new diamond flashed its blue and white fires into her mother's perplexed eyes. "We'll do the very best we can, dear," Mrs. North said after a lengthening pause; "but your father's patients don't pay their bills very promptly, and there are the boys' college expenses to be met; we'll have to think of that." This conversation marked the beginning of many interviews, gradually increasing in poignant interest to both mother and daughter. It appeared that "Sam," as Elizabeth now called her lover with a pretty hesitancy which the young man found adorable, wished to be married in June, so as to take his bride with him on a trip West, in which business and pleasure might be profitably combined. Mrs. North demurred weakly; but Dr. North was found to be on the side of the young man. "I don't believe in long engagements myself," he had said, with a certain suspicious gruffness in his tones. "I hoped we should have our daughter to ourselves for a while longer; but she's chosen otherwise, and there is no use and no need to wait. We'll have to let her go, wife, and the sooner the better, for both of them." The important question being thus finally decided, not only Miss Tripp but the Norths' whole circle of acquaintances in Innisfield, as well as the female relations, near and far, were found ready and anxious to engage heart and soul in Elizabeth's preparations for her wedding, which had now begun in what might be well termed solemn earnest. "Are we going to--keep house?" Elizabeth asked her lover in the first inrush of this new tide of experience which was soon to bear her far from the old life. "To keep house, dear, with you would be pretty close to my idea of heaven," the young man had declared with all the fervour of the inexperienced bachelor. "I've boarded for nearly six years now with barely a taste of home between whiles, and I'm tired of it. Don't you want to keep house, dear?" And Elizabeth answered quite sweetly and truly that she did. "I can cook," she said, proud of her old-fashioned accomplishment in the light of her new happiness. "We will have just a little house to begin with, and then I can do everything." But a suitable house of any size in Boston was found to be quite out of the question. "It will have to be an apartment, my dear," the experienced Miss Tripp declared; "and I believe I know the very one in a _really good_ neighbourhood. I'll write at once. You mustn't _think_ of South Boston, even if it is more convenient for Mr. Brewster. It is so important to begin right; and you know, my dear, you couldn't expect any one to come to see you in South Boston." Mrs. Carroll, who chanced to be present, was observed to compress her lips firmly. "Lizzie," she said, when the fashionable Miss Tripp had finally taken her departure, after much voluble advice on the subject of the going-away gown, coupled with a spirited discussion of the rival merits of a church wedding and "just a pretty, simple home affair," "if I were you I shouldn't let that Evelina Kipp decide everything for me. You'd better make up your mind what you want to do, and what you can afford to do, and then do it without asking her leave. It seems to me her notions are extravagant and foolish." "Why, grandma!" pouted Elizabeth. "I think it is perfectly dear of Miss Tripp to take such an interest in my wedding. I shouldn't have known what to do about lots of things, and I'm sure you and mother haven't an idea." The girl's pretty lips curled and she moved her slim shoulders gently. "Your mother and I both managed to get married without Miss Fripp's advice," retorted grandma tranquilly. "I may not have an 'idea,' as you call it, but I can't see why you should have ruffled silk petticoats to all your dresses. One good moreen skirt did me, with a quilted alpaca for every-day wear and two white ones for best. And as for a dozen sets of underclothes, that won't wear once they see the washtub, they look foolish to me. More than all that, your father can't afford it, and you ought to consider him." Elizabeth looked up with a worried pucker between her girlish brows. "I don't see how I am going to help it, grandma," she sighed; "I really must have suitable clothes." "I agree with you there, Lizzie," said Mrs. Carroll, eyeing her granddaughter keenly over the top of her spectacles; "but you aren't going to have them, if you let that Sipp girl tell you what to buy." "It isn't _Sipp_, grandma, it's Tripp. T-r-i-p-p," said Elizabeth, in a long-suffering tone; "and she knows better than any one in Innisfield possibly can what I am going to need in Boston." "You'll find the people in Boston won't take any particular interest in your petticoats, Lizzie," her grandmother told her pointedly. But the girl had spied her lover coming up the walk toward the house and had flown to meet him. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" asked the young man, examining his treasure with the keen eyes of love. "You look tired and--er--worried. Anything wrong, little girl?" "N-no," denied Elizabeth evasively. "Only grandma has such queer, old-fashioned ideas about--clothes. And she thinks I ought to have just what she had when she was married to grandfather fifty years ago. Of course I want to have everything nice and--suitable for Boston, you know." "What you are wearing now is pretty enough for anywhere," declared Sam Brewster, with masculine obtuseness. "Don't you bother one minute about clothes, darling; you'd look lovely in anything." Then he kissed her faintly smiling lips with the fatuous idea that the final word as to wedding finery had been said. CHAPTER IV "If you can give me just a minute, Richard, before you go out." It was Mrs. North's timidly apologetic voice which broke in upon her husband's hasty preparations for a day's professional engagements. Dr. North faced about with a laughing twinkle in his eyes. "I know your minutes, Lizzie," he said, absent-mindedly sniffling at the cork of a half-emptied bottle. "This gentian's no good; I've a mind to ship it back to Avery's and tell them what I think of the firm for selling adulterated drugs. It's an outrage on suffering humanity. I'll write to them anyway." And he began to rummage his desk in quest of stationery. "I wanted to speak to you about Bessie's things," persisted Mrs. North. "You know you gave me some money for her wedding clothes last month; but it isn't--it won't be nearly enough." "What on earth have you been buying for the child?" asked her husband. "I should think with what she has already the money I gave you would go quite a ways." "That's just it," sighed Mrs. North. "Bessie thinks none of the things she has are--suitable." She hesitated a little over the hard-worked word. "Of course living in Boston, and----" "Pooh! Boston's no different from any other town," put in the doctor. "You tell Bess I said so. She doesn't need to worry about _Boston_!" He plumped down in his office chair and began an indignant protest addressed to the firm of Avery & Co., Wholesale Druggists and Dealers in Surgical Supplies. "I haven't bought any of her best dresses yet," sighed Mrs. North; "and she wants an all-over lace for her wedding dress. Miss Tripp says they're very much worn now." She paused suggestively while the doctor's pen raced busily over his page. "You didn't hear what I said, did you, Richard?" she ventured after a while. "Yes, m' dear; heard every word; you were saying you'd bought Bess a lace wedding dress, and that Miss Tripp says they're very much worn," replied her husband, fixing on a stamp with a sounding thump of his big fist. "Glad to hear it. Well, I'll have to be moving now. Good-bye, m' dear; home to dinner if I can; if not----" "If you could let me have two hundred and fifty dollars, Richard," said Mrs. North rather faintly, "we'll try to manage with that for the present." "Well, now, Lizzie, when it comes to your wanting anything I always get it for you--if I can; and you know that; but I sent off cheques to Frank and Elliot this morning, and I'm what you'd call strapped." "Couldn't you collect----" The doctor kissed his wife cheerfully. "How can I, wifey, when folks leave their doctor's bills till the last cent's paid to everybody else? Don't know as I blame 'em; it's hard enough to be sick without having to pay out money for it; now, isn't it?" "Oh, Dick; if that isn't just like you! But I--I've thought of a way." "Good! What is it?" "We might--borrow some money on the house. Other people do, and----" "Mortgage our house for wedding finery? I guess you're joking, Lizzie. At any rate, I'll call it a joke and let it pass! Good-bye!" The quick slam of the office door put a conclusive finish to the doctor's words, and his wife went back to her work on one of Elizabeth's elaborate garments with a heavy heart. "What did Richard say?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, when the girl had gone into another room to be fitted. "He said he couldn't possibly let me have anything more just now," said Richard's wife with a shade of reserve in her voice. "You know, mother, people are so slow in paying their bills. The doctor has any amount outstanding if he could only get it." "Such folks had ought to be made to pay before they get 'ary a pill or a powder, same 's they do for what made 'em sick. They'd find money for the doctor quick enough once they had a right sharp pain from over-eating," was grandma's trenchant opinion. "But I expected he'd say that all along, and I wanted to give you this for Lizzie." She slipped a little roll of bills into her daughter's lap. "Don't say anything to the child about it," she whispered, nodding her kind old head; "it would worry her. Besides I don't approve of the amount of money she's putting into perishable things. I meant to buy her a real good clock or a nice solid piece of furniture; but if she'd rather have lace frills that'll fall to pieces in the washtub, I'm willing she should learn by experience, same 's we've had to do before her." Mrs. North's eyes were moist and shining. "It's what you've been putting by for years, mother," she whispered, "for----" "Hush!" said grandma. "I guess when it comes right down to it I'm full as foolish as Lizzie. Once I set foot in the golden streets I know I sha'n't mind whether I leave a marble monument in the cemetery or not; and you don't need to either, daughter. Now remember!" Upon this hushed conversation entered Elizabeth in a flutter of excitement and rosy pleasure over a letter which the postman had just handed her. "It is from Evelyn Tripp," she said, "and she wants me to come to Boston and stay a week with her; she says she will help me pick out all my dresses, and I'd better have my wedding dress and my going-away gown made there, anyway. Isn't that lovely?" Then, as she met her mother's dubious gaze, "You know Malvina Bennett hasn't a particle of style; and we don't know anything about the best places to buy things in Boston; or the dressmakers, or anything." "I've shopped in Boston for years," said Mrs. North, with a show of firmness, "and I'm sure everything at Cooper's gives perfect satisfaction." "Oh, _Cooper's_?" laughed the girl. "Why, mother, _dear_, nobody goes to Cooper's nowadays. It's just for country people from out of town." "What are we, I'd like to know?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, with a humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd better do your shopping with your mother, Lizzie; her judgment would likely be quite as good as that Tipp girl's, and more in a line with what you can afford. You should remember that Samuel isn't a rich man, and you'll need good, substantial dresses that'll last. I remember I had a blue Russell-cord poplin when I was married that I wore for _fifteen years_; then I made it over for your mother, and she looked as pretty as a pink in it for two more; then she outgrew it and I gave it away; but the cloth in it was as good as new. A dress like that _pays_!" Elizabeth laughed somewhat impatiently. "I've heard about that wonderful poplin ever since I can remember," she said. "I wonder you didn't save it for me. But I don't want to buy any dresses that will last for fifteen years. I'm sure Sam can buy me more dresses when I want them. I may go to Boston; mayn't I, mother?" Mrs. North looked wistfully at the pretty, eager face. She had looked forward with pleasure--somewhat tempered, it is true, by the knowledge of her meagre resources, yet still with pleasure--to the choosing of her daughter's wedding gown, with all its dainty accessories of tulle and lace. "I had thought of a silk muslin," she said rather faintly, "or perhaps a cream satin--if you'd like it better, dear, and----" "I shouldn't like either of those," said the girl decidedly, "and there's so much to do that it will really save time if you don't have to bother with any of that; Evelyn (it was Evelyn and Elizabeth now) says chiffon over liberty satin would be lovely if I can't afford the lace. Of course I wouldn't buy a _cheap lace_." That night when Dr. North came home he tossed a handful of bills into his daughter's lap. "For the wedding gown, Bess," he said; "worse luck that you want one!" "Oh, why do you say that, you darling daddy?" murmured the girl, "when I'm going to be so happy!" She was radiantly happy now, it appeared, and the doctor's keen eyes grew moist as he looked at her. "Guess I was thinking about myself principally," he confessed gruffly, "and about your mother. We're going to be lonesome; and I--don't like to think of it." The girl's bright face clouded. "The boys will be at home summers," she said, "and I'll come back to--visit often, you know. I sha'n't be far away, daddy." She clung to him for a minute without a word, a faint realisation of the irrevocable change so near at hand sweeping over her. "Of course you _will_, Betsey Jane!" vociferated the doctor, affecting a vast jocularity for the purpose of concealing his feelings, which threatened to become unmanageable. "If you don't show up in Innisfield about once in so often I'll come to Boston with my bag and give that young robber a dose that will make his hair curl." The next day the bride-elect journeyed to Boston carrying what appeared to her a small fortune in her little hand-bag. "You've all been so good!" she said. "I can just buy everything I need with all this." Evelyn Tripp met Elizabeth in South Station with open arms. "How well you are looking, you _darling_!" she exclaimed effusively. "Now if we can only keep those roses through all the shopping and dressmaking. It is so exhausting; but I've everything planned for you down to the last frill, and Madame Pryse has at last consented to make your gowns! If you _knew_ what I've been through with that woman! She simply will _not_ take a new customer; but when I mentioned the fact that you were to marry a nephew of Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser she _finally_ capitulated. I could have _embraced_ her!" "But Sam isn't Mrs. Van Duser's nephew, Evelyn. I believe his mother was Mrs. Van Duser's second cousin." "Oh, well, that doesn't signify. I'm sure, I had to say something convincing, and Mrs. Van Duser was my _dernier resort_. Pryse will do anything for you now, you'll see, my dear! And, oh, Betty dear, when I was in at Altford's yesterday I just chanced upon the most _wonderful_ bargain in a lace robe, and had it sent up on approval. The most exquisite thing, and marked down from a hundred and twenty-seven dollars to--what do you think?--only eighty-nine, fifty! I was _so_ pleased; for I am sure it is _just_ what you want. I got samples, too, of the most bewitching silks for your dinner gown--you must have at least _one_, you know, a simple, pretty crêpe de chine or something of the sort; and then with a little frock or two for luncheons and card parties, your tailor-made--that _must_ be _good_--and your wedding gown for evening affairs you will do nicely." "But, Evelyn," interrupted Elizabeth timidly, "I'm afraid I can't-- You know I didn't expect to buy but two dresses in Boston. Malvina Bennett is making me a black silk, and----" Miss Tripp paused to smile and bow at a passing acquaintance; then she turned protesting eyes upon the girl. "You _dear_ child," she murmured, "you're not to worry about a _single_ thing. That's _just_ what I mean to spare you. I am determined you shall have just what you are going to _need_; and if you haven't enough money with you, I can arrange everything at Altford's without a bit of trouble; and of course you will pay Pryse _her_ bill when it is _perfectly_ convenient for _you_. She doesn't _expect_ to be paid promptly. Really, I don't believe she would have a particle of respect for a patron who insisted upon paying for a gown the minute it was finished. First-class modistes and milliners, too, are _all_ that way; they know better than to send their bills too soon. So _that_ needn't bother you, dear; and of course Pryse _finds_ everything, which will save enormously on your outlay." Elizabeth felt very meek and hopelessly countrified as she laid off her wraps in Miss Tripp's rather stuffy but ornate little apartment. Mrs. Tripp, a faded, apologetic person smelling of rice-powder and sachet, smiled vaguely upon her and murmured something about "Evy's wonderful taste!" One thing at least was clear to Elizabeth as she lay wide-eyed in the darkness that night, after an evening spent in the confusing examination and comparison of fashion-plates and samples, and that was the conviction that the "fortune" with which she had joyfully set forth that morning had dwindled to a pitiful insufficiency before the multiplied necessities imposed upon it by Miss Tripp's undeniable taste and knowledge. She almost wished she had chosen to do her shopping with her mother and Grandma Carroll, as she realised that she would be obliged to write home for more money. But it was too late to change her mind now; and, after all, Evelyn knew best as to what a bride about to move in polite circles in Boston would require. She went to sleep at last and dreamed of standing up to be married in a Russell-cord poplin (whatever that wonderful fabric might be) which had already done duty for fifteen years, and was "as good as new." CHAPTER V As the twenty-first day of June drew on apace, Fate, in the slim, active personality of Miss Evelyn Tripp, appeared to have taken the entire North household firmly in hand. Events marched on in orderly, if surprising sequence, beginning with the issuing of the invitations bearing the name of Boston's most expensive firm of engravers on the flap of the inner envelope. "Every one looks for that the very first thing," Miss Tripp had announced conclusively; "and one simply _couldn't_ have the name of a department store or a cheap engraver!" The correct Miss Tripp shuddered at the awful picture. "But these are so much more expensive than I had expected," demurred Mrs. North, with a worried sigh. "I had intended ordering them at Cooper's; they do them just as well there. Don't they sometimes leave off the name?" Miss Tripp bestowed a pitying smile upon the questioner. "Indeed they do, dear Mrs. North," she replied indulgently; "but _that_ is merely a subterfuge; one always suspects the worst when there is no name. It _pays_ to have the _best_." This latter undeniable dictum was found to be entirely applicable to every detail of the forthcoming festivities, and involved such a multiplicity of expensive items that Grandma Carroll was openly indignant, and her more pliant daughter reduced to a state of bewildered apathy. "I've been wanting to say to you for a long time, Miss Phipps, that our Lizzie isn't a fashionable girl, and that her father is a poor man and can't afford such doings," Mrs. Carroll protested in no uncertain tones. "Now I can't for the life of me see why we should have an organist from Boston to play the wedding march, when Liddy Green can do it just as well, and her feelings is going to be hurt if she doesn't; and as for a florist from Newton Centre to decorate the church, the young folks in the Sunday-school would be glad to go to the woods after greens, and they'll put 'em up for nothing. It's going to cost enough, the land knows, but there's no use of piling up unnecessary expenses." Miss Tripp smiled winningly upon the exasperated old lady. "_Nothing_ is too good for dear Elizabeth _now_," she murmured, "and you know, dear Mrs. Carroll, that a number of Boston people will be here--Mrs. Van Duser, we _hope_, and--others." Grandma Carroll fixed piercing eyes upon the indefatigable Evelyn. "Of course you _mean_ well," she said crisply; "but if I was you I'd take a rest; I'm afraid you're getting all tuckered out doing so much. And considering that you ain't any relation I guess I'd let Lizzie's own folks 'tend to the wedding from now on." There was no mistaking the meaning of this plain speech. For an instant Evelyn Tripp's faded cheeks glowed with mortified colour; then she recovered herself with a shrug of her elegant shoulders. Who, after all, was Mrs. Carroll to interfere in this unwarranted manner? "It is _so_ sweet of you to think of poor little me, dear Mrs. Carroll," she said caressingly. "And indeed I _am_ worn _almost_ to a fringe; but I am promising myself a good, long rest after everything is over. Nothing would induce me to leave dear Elizabeth _now_. She couldn't possibly get along without me." She dropped a forgiving kiss on top of Grandma Carroll's cap and flitted away before that justly indignant lady could reply. Miss Tripp was right. It would have been impossible for the unsophisticated Norths to have completed the arrangements for the entirely "correct" wedding which Miss Tripp had planned and was carrying through in the face of unnumbered obstacles. As to the motives which upheld her in her altruistic efforts in behalf of Elizabeth North Miss Tripp was not entirely clear. It is not always desirable, if possible, to classify and label one's actual motives, and Miss Tripp, for one, rarely attempted the task. A vague emptiness of purpose, a vast weariness of the unending routine of her own somewhat disappointing career, a real, if superficial kindness of heart, and back of all an entirely unacknowledged ambition to attain to that sacred inner circle of Boston society wherein revolved the august Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser, with other lesser luminaries, about the acknowledged "hub" of the universe; toward which Miss Tripp had hitherto gravitated like a humble asteroid, small, unnoticed, yet aspiring. One of the irreproachable invitations had been duly sent to Mrs. Van Duser; but as yet there had been no visible token that it had been received. "_Won't_ you ask Mr. Brewster if he will not add a personal invitation?" entreated Miss Tripp of the bride-elect, who had appeared alarmingly indifferent when the importance of this hoped-for guest was duly set forth in her hearing. "You don't seem to _realise_ what it would mean to you both to have Mrs. Van Duser present. Let me persuade him to write--or perhaps better to call; one cannot be _too_ attentive to a person in her position." But Sam Brewster had merely laughed and pulled the little curl behind his sweetheart's ear when she spoke of Mrs. Van Duser. "Really, I don't care whether the old lady comes or not," he said, without meaning any disrespect. "She's a stiff, uncomfortable sort of person; you wouldn't like her, Betty. I went there to dinner once, and, my word, it was enough for me!" "But," persisted Elizabeth, mindful of Miss Tripp's solemn exhortations, "if she's a relation of yours, oughtn't you to----" "She was mother's second cousin, I believe; not much of a relation to me, you see. And seriously, little girl, we can't travel in her class at all; and we don't want to, even if we could." "But why?" demanded Elizabeth, slightly piqued by his tone; "don't you think I am good enough?" "You're a hundred times too good, in my opinion!" And the young engineer kissed the pouting lips with an earnestness which admitted of no teasing doubts. "It's only that Mrs. Van D. is rich and proud and--er--queer, and that she won't take any notice of us. I'm glad you sent her an invitation, though; that was a civil acknowledgment of a slight obligation on my side. I hope she won't send us a present, and--I don't believe she will." The two were examining the bewildering array of glittering objects which had been arriving steadily for a week past, by mail and express; in cases left by Boston firms, and in dainty boxes tied with white ribbons from near-by friends and neighbours. The nebulous reports of Elizabeth's wedding outfit, circulated from mouth to mouth and expanding in rainbow tints as they travelled, were reflected in the shining cut glass and silver which was spread out before the wondering eyes of the young couple. When Aunt Miranda Carroll heard that Elizabeth's trousseau included a dozen of everything (all hand-embroidered), a lace wedding-dress that cost over a hundred dollars and a pale blue velvet dinner gown lined with taffeta, she instantly abandoned the idea she had in mind of four dozen fine cotton sheets, six dozen pillow-slips and fifty good, substantial huck towels in favour of a cut-glass punch-bowl of gigantic proportions. "It would be just the thing for parties in Boston," her daughter Marian thought. And Uncle Caleb North, at the urgent advice of his wife (who had heard in the meantime from Aunt Miranda), exchanged his cheque for a hundred dollars for a chest of silver knives with mother-of-pearl handles. They looked so much richer than the cheque, which would have to be concealed in an inconspicuous envelope. Following the shining example of Aunt Miranda and Uncle Caleb, other relatives of lesser substance contributed cut-glass bowls and dishes of every conceivable design and for every known contingency; silver forks and spoons of singular shapes and sizes, suggesting elaborate course luncheons and fashionable dinners. While of lace-trimmed and embroidered centre-pieces and doylies there was a plenitude which would have set forth a modest linen draper. Fragile vases, hand-painted fans, perfume bottles, silver trifles of unimagined uses, sofa pillows and gilt clocks crowded the tables and overflowed onto the floor and mantelpiece. Elizabeth surveyed the collection with sparkling eyes. "Aren't they lovely?" she demanded, slipping her hand within her lover's arm; "and aren't you surprised, Sam, to see how many friends we have?" "Yes, I am--awfully surprised," acknowledged the young man. His brows were drawn over meditative eyes as he examined a shining carving-set with impossible ivory handles. "What are we going to do with them all?" he propounded at length. "Do with them? Why use them, I suppose," responded Elizabeth vaguely. "Do see these darling little cups, all gold and roses, and these coffee-spoons with enamelled handles--these make eight dozen coffee-spoons, Sam!" "Hum!" mused the unappreciative engineer. "We might set up a restaurant, as far as coffee-spoons go." Elizabeth was bending rapturously over a lace fan, sewn thick with spangles. "I feel so rich with all these lovely things," she murmured. "I never dreamed of having so many." She made such an exquisite picture in her glowing youth amid the sparkle and glitter of the dainty trifles that it is little wonder that Samuel Brewster lost his usually level head for the moment. "You ought always to have all the pretty things you want, darling," he whispered; "for you are the prettiest and sweetest girl alive." Later in the day the ubiquitous Miss Tripp was discovered in the act of artfully concealing Mrs. Carroll's gift, made by her own faithful hands, under a profusion of lace-edged doylies lately arrived from a distant cousin. "There!" she exclaimed, with an air of relief, "those big gingham aprons and the dish-towels and dusters did look so absurd with all the other lovely things; they won't show now." And she planted a silver fern-dish in the midst and surveyed the effect with her head tilted thoughtfully. "Wasn't it _quaint_ of Mrs. Carroll to make all those useful things? You can give them to your maid afterward; they always expect to be found in aprons nowadays--if not frocks. Really, I draw the line at frocks, with the wages one is obliged to pay; and I should advise you to." "I'm not going to have a maid," said Elizabeth. "I can cook, and I like to." Miss Tripp whirled about and caught the girl in her arms with an amused laugh. "You dear, romantic child!" she cried. "Did it have the _prettiest_ dreams about love in a cottage, and the young wife with her sleeves rolled up cooking delicious impossibilities for a doting husband? That's all very well, my dear; but, seriously, it won't do in a Boston apartment-house. You won't have a minute to yourself after the season once begins, and of course after a while you'll be expected to entertain--quite simply, you know, a luncheon or two, with cards; possibly a dinner; you can do it beautifully with all these lovely things for your table. _I'll_ help you; so don't get frightened at the idea. But _fancy_ your doing all that without a maid! You mustn't _think_ of it! And I am sure dear Mrs. Van Duser will give you the same advice." The soft pink in Elizabeth's cheeks deepened to rose. "Mrs. Van Duser isn't coming to the wedding," she said, in a faintly defiant tone. "Oh! Did she send you----" "She sent regrets," said Elizabeth coldly. Miss Tripp's eyebrows expressed the profoundest disappointment. "I am so _sorry_," she murmured, suddenly aware that she was exceedingly weary of the North wedding. "It will _spoil everything_." "I can't see why," returned Elizabeth with spirit, not realising that Miss Tripp's comment applied solely to her own feelings. "It won't prevent my being married to Sam; and Sam says he is glad she is not coming. She must be a stiff, pokey sort of a person, and I am sure it will be pleasanter without her. She isn't hardly any relation to Sam, anyway, and I don't think I care to know her." "My _dear_!" expostulated Miss Tripp, "you'll see things _very_ differently some day, I _hope_. And I am glad to say that these relationships _do_ count in Boston, if not in other parts of the world, and you cannot prevent people from knowing that they exist." Like a skilful general Miss Tripp was sweeping her field clear of her disappointment, preparatory to marshalling her forces for a new campaign. "Did Mrs. Van Duser send cards, or did she----" "She wrote a note--a stiff, disagreeable note." "Would you mind showing it to me, dear?" Elizabeth produced a thick white envelope from the little embroidered pocket at her belt. "You may read it," she said; "then I mean to tear it up." Miss Tripp bent almost worshipful eyes upon the large, square sheet. "Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser" (she read) "begs to convey her acknowledgments to Dr. and Mrs. North for their invitation to the marriage of their daughter, and regrets that she cannot be present. Mrs. Van Duser begs to add that she will communicate further with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Brewster upon their arrival in Boston upon a matter of moment to them both." "Isn't that a disagreeable-sounding note?" demanded Elizabeth, her pretty chin tilted at an aggressive angle. "I just know I shouldn't like her from that letter. But I'm sure I can't think what she wants to say to us 'upon our arrival in Boston.'" "_My dear!_" exclaimed Miss Tripp, with a horrified stare, "what _can_ you be thinking of? That note is in the most perfect form. I am _so_ glad you showed it to me! 'Something of moment to you both,' what can it mean but a gift--perhaps a generous cheque, and _undoubtedly_ a reception to introduce you. My _dear_! Mrs. Van Duser is said to be worth _millions_, and what is more, and far, _far_ better, she moves in the most _exclusive_ society. You dear, lucky girl, I _congratulate_ you upon the recognition you have received. _Tear it up_--indeed, you will do nothing of the sort! I'll put it here right by this cut-glass vase, where every one will see it." Elizabeth pouted. "Mother didn't like it," she said, "and grandma laughed over it, and Sam told me to forget it; I don't see why you----" "_Because I know_," intoned Miss Tripp solemnly. "I only hope you won't forget poor little me when you're fairly launched in Mrs. Van Duser's set." Elizabeth gazed reflectively at her friend. "Oh, I couldn't forget you," she said; "you've been so good to me. But," she added, with what Miss Tripp mentally termed delicious naïveté, "I don't suppose we shall give many large parties, just at first." CHAPTER VI "I am of the opinion," wrote the sapient Dr. Johnson, "that marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the circumstances and characters, without the parties thereto having any choice in the matter." That this radical matrimonial reform did not find favour in the eyes of his own or any succeeding generation brands it as visionary, impracticable, not to be seriously entertained, in short, by any one not a philosopher and not himself in love. But could the benevolent shade of Dr. Johnson be let into the details of a fashionable modern wedding, it is safe to predict that he might recommend a new civic function to be administered either by the Lord Chancellor, or by some equally responsible person for the purpose of regulating by sumptuary law the bridal trousseau and the wedding presents. The renowned Georgian sage could not fail to recognise the relation which these too often unconsidered items bear to the welfare of the private citizen in particular and to the weal of mankind in general. And who can deny that all legislation is, or should be, centred chiefly on these very ends. [Illustration: "Never had there been such a wedding in Innisfield"] Such sober reflections as the above, though perhaps forming an unavoidable background in the minds of several of the older persons present, did not cloud the rapturous happiness of Elizabeth Carroll North, as she paced slowly up the aisle of the Innisfield Presbyterian church on the arm of her father, the folds of her "Pryse gown," as Miss Tripp was careful to designate it, sweeping gracefully behind her. The bridesmaids in pale rose-colour and the maid of honour in white; the tiny flower-girls bearing baskets of roses; the ushers with their boutonnières of orange buds; the waving palms and the sounding music each represented a separate Waterloo, fought and won by the Napoleonic Miss Tripp, who looked on, wan but self-satisfied, from a modest position in the audience. Never had there been such a wedding in Innisfield. Everybody said so in loud, buzzing whispers. Sadie Buckthorn, who was engaged to Milton Scrymger, informed her mamma that she should be married in church in October, and that her bridesmaids should wear yellow. And Bob Garrett, a clerk in a Boston department store, told his sweetheart that he guessed the wedding was about their speed, and added that he knew a swell floor-walker who would look simply great as best man. As for the young couple chiefly concerned they might have walked on air instead of on the roses strewed in their path by the little flower-girls; and the hundreds of curious eyes fastened upon them were as dim, painted eyes upon a tapestried wall. They only saw each other and the gate of that ancient Eden of the race opening before them. That same evening, after all was over, and when, as the village reporter phrased it with happy originality, "the young couple had departed upon their wedding journey amid showers of rice and roses," Dr. North sought his tired wife, busy clearing away the tokens of the late festivities. "Come, Lizzie," he said kindly, "we may as well get what rest we can; to-morrow'll be another day, and we've got to go jogging on about our middle-aged business as usual." Mrs. North looked up at him with tearful eyes. "I can't seem to realise that Bessie's gone to stay," she said tremulously. "I just caught myself thinking what I'd say to her when she came home, and what we'd----" Richard North passed his arm about the wife of his youth. "I--hope he'll be good to her," he said, his voice shaken with feeling. "I--I believe he's all right. If he isn't I'll--" He shrugged his broad shoulders impatiently. "Oh, I'm not a bit worried about _Sam_," said Mrs. North; "I know enough about men. But, O Dick, I'm going to miss my--baby!" He held her close for a minute while she sobbed on his shoulder; then the two went slowly up the stairs together, leaving the disordered rooms and the fading roses in the luminous dark of the June night. * * * * * The Boston apartment to which young Samuel Brewster brought his bride in the early part of September was of Miss Evelyn Tripp's choosing. The engineer had demurred at its distance from his work, but Elizabeth had said she preferred to be near Evelyn; and Evelyn said that the location, if not strictly fashionable, was at least _near_ the people they ought to know. The rent was thirty-eight dollars a month. And the rooms were small, inconvenient and old-fashioned. "But," as Miss Tripp kindly pointed out, "if one is obliged to choose between a small, old-fashioned suite in a really good locality and a light airy one in the unfashionable suburbs of South Boston one _ought_ not to hesitate." Mrs. North and Grandma Carroll had seen to putting the furnishings in place; and when the two arrived at the close of a hot afternoon they found everything in the exquisite order with which Elizabeth had been happily familiar all her life. She ran from room to room laughing and crying in the same breath. "Oh, Sam, dear, do see, there is ice in the refrigerator and a cunning little jar of cream and a print of butter; and here is a roast chicken and some of grandma's rolls and one of mother's delicious lemon pies! How hard they must have worked. I'll put on one of these big aprons, and we'll have supper in no time!" And Sam Brewster, as he watched his wife's pretty little figure moving lightly about her new kitchen, heaved a mighty sigh of content. "It seems almost too good to be true!" he murmured. "And to think it is for always!" It was not until they had eaten their first blissful meal together, and had washed the dishes, also together, in the dark little kitchen--an operation in which the young engineer covered himself with glory in his masterly handling of the dish-towel--that Elizabeth discovered a large square envelope, bearing the Van Duser crest, and addressed to herself. She opened it in the circle of Sam's arms, as the two reposed on their one small sofa in the room bearing the dignified title of reception hall. "Why--what in the name of common sense is she giving us?" was Sam Brewster's startled exclamation as his quick eye took in the contents of the sheet. "I--I don't understand," gasped Elizabeth, growing hot and cold and faint, "I can't think--how it could have happened." Yet Mrs. Van Duser's words, though few, were sufficiently succinct. They were inspired, as she afterward confided to her rector, Dr. Gallatin, by the most altruistic sentiments of which the human heart is capable. "Truth," Mrs. Van Duser had enunciated majestically, "never finds itself at a loss. And in administering so just a rebuke to a young person manifestly appointed to fill a humble station in life I feel that I am in a measure assuming the prerogatives of Providence." In this exalted rôle Mrs. Van Duser had written to Elizabeth North, whose miserable, shamed eyes avoided those of her husband after she had realised its contents. The letter enclosed a bill for one hundred and twenty-five dollars from Madame Léonie Pryse, for the material, making and findings for one blue velvet reception gown. There was a pencilled note attached, to the effect that as Madame Pryse had been referred to Mrs. Van Duser, she begged to present the bill, with the hope that it would be settled at an early date. Mrs. Van Duser's own majestic hand had added a brief communication, over which the young engineer scowled fiercely. He read: "As Mrs. Brewster's personal expenses, either before or after her marriage, can have no possible interest for Mrs. Van Duser, Mrs. Van Duser begs to bring to Mrs. Brewster's attention the enclosed statement. Mrs. Van Duser wishes to inform Mrs. Brewster that she has taken the pains to send for the tradeswoman in question, and that she has elicited from her facts which seem to show an entire misapprehension of the commoner ethical requirements on the part of the person addressed. "Mrs. Van Duser begs to add in the interests of society at large and of the person in whom, as a distant relative, she has interested herself somewhat, that she distinctly frowns upon all extravagance. Mrs. Van Duser trusts that this communication, which she begs to assure Mrs. Brewster is penned in a spirit of Christian charity, will effectually prevent further errors on the part of so young and inexperienced a person as Mrs. Brewster appears to be." "Well?" Samuel Brewster's blue eyes, grown unexpectedly keen and penetrating, rested questioningly upon his bride. "Don't look at me like that--please, Sam!" faltered Elizabeth. "I--I didn't mean to buy that dress; truly I didn't. I had paid for all the others, and I had twenty-seven dollars left, and Evelyn told me that Madame Pryse had a--a remnant of blue velvet which she would make up for me for a song. And--I--let her do it. I thought she would send the bill to me, and I would----" "Did she send it to you?" "Y-yes, twice. But Evelyn said for me not to worry. She said Madame Pryse's customers never paid her right away, and there was so much else--just at the last, I didn't like to ask daddy; Uncle Caleb always gives me fifty dollars for my birthday, and I thought--" Elizabeth's voice had grown fainter as she proceeded with her halting explanations. But she started up with a little cry, "Oh, Sam! what are you going to do?" For her husband was examining the bill with an expression about his mouth which she had never seen there before. "I don't see that you have been credited with the twenty-seven dollars," he said quietly. Then with a sorry attempt at a smile, "These _mesdames_ appear to pile up the items sky-high when it comes to building a gown; better have a cast-iron contract with 'em, I should say, and pay up when the job's finished." Elizabeth's tear-stained face was hidden on her husband's shoulder. "I--I spent the twenty-seven dollars for--for gloves," she confessed. "Evelyn said I didn't have enough long--ones." "_Confound Evelyn!_" said the young man strongly. "Come, Betty, dear, you're not to let this thing bother you, it isn't worth it. I'll pay this bill to-morrow. It's lucky I've the money in the bank; and I'll write to Mrs. Van D., too." He clenched his fist as though he would like to use something more powerful than his pen. "But, Sam, you oughtn't to--I can't let you pay--for----" "Well, I guess I can buy my wife a dress if I want to, and that blue velvet's a stunner. You haven't worn it yet, have you, dear? but when you do you'll look like a posy in it. Come, sweetheart, this was a tough proposition, I'll admit, but don't you let it bowl you over completely. And, Betty, you won't tell the Tripp lady about it, will you? I--er--couldn't stand for that, you know." Elizabeth stole one look at the strong, kind face bent toward her. For the first time, though happily not for the last, she was realising the immense, the immeasurable comfort to be found in her husband's love. "I'll never--do such a thing again," she quavered. "I knew all the time I was being extravagant; but I didn't expect--I never supposed----" "You couldn't very well have foreseen the Pryse woman's astonishing business methods, nor Mrs. Van D.'s Christian forbearance." His tone was bitter as he spoke the last words. "But what I can't seem to understand is how that bill ever found its way to my esteemed sixteenth cousin." Elizabeth's eyes overflowed again. "I'm afraid it was Evelyn," she stammered. "She--told Madame Pryse that you--were Mrs. Van Duser's nephew." Sam Brewster whistled. Then he fell into a fit of revery so prolonged that Elizabeth nestled uneasily in the strong circle of his arm. He was reviewing the events of the immediate past in the cold light of the present, and the result was not altogether complimentary to Miss Tripp. "I say, little girl," he said at length, looking down at the tear-stained face against his shoulder, "I don't want to be disagreeable, but--er--I can't for the life of me see why Miss Tripp should interest herself so--intimately--in our affairs. Don't you think you might--er--discourage her a bit?" Elizabeth sighed reminiscently. "I wouldn't hurt Evelyn's feelings for the world," she said, "but I--I'll try." CHAPTER VII The very next morning as Elizabeth was engaged in putting the finishing touches upon the arrangements of her new home, with all the keen delight of nest-building, so strong in some women and so utterly lacking in others, Miss Evelyn Tripp was announced, and a moment later stepped airily from the laborious little elevator. "Oh, here you are _at last_, you _darling_ girl!" she exclaimed, clasping and kissing Elizabeth with _empressement_. "I knew you were expected last night--indeed, I was here all the morning helping, but as I told your mother and that dear, quaint grandmamma of yours, I wouldn't have intruded upon your very first evening _for the world_! How delightfully well and pretty you are looking, and isn't this the _sweetest_ little place? and oh! I nearly forgot, _did_ you find Mrs. Van Duser's note? I assure you I pounced upon _that_, and took good care to put it where you would both see it the _very_ first thing. I don't mind confessing that I am simply devoured with _curiosity_. _Was_ it a cheque, dear? And _is_ she going to do something nice for you in a social way?" Elizabeth's cheeks burned uncomfortably. "It was only a--a friendly--at least I think--I am sure she meant it to be a friendly letter. She said so, anyway. Sam put it in his pocket and took it away with him," she made haste to add, forestalling the urgent appeal in Miss Tripp's luminous gaze. "Well, I am sure that was _most_ sweet and gracious of Mrs. Van Duser. Didn't you find it so, my dear? So _dear_ of her to personally welcome you to _Boston_! You'll call, of course, as soon as she returns from her country place. She will expect it, I am sure; such women are _most_ punctilious in their code of social requirements, and you can't be _too_ careful not to offend. You'll forgive me for saying this much, won't you, dear?" Elizabeth was conscious of a distinct sense of displeasure as she met Miss Tripp's anxiously solicitous eyes. "You are very good, Evelyn," she said, "but Sam--Mr. Brewster--thinks it will be best for us not to--" She paused, her candid face suffused with blushes. "I'd--prefer not to talk about Mrs. Van Duser, if you please. We don't _ever_ expect to go and see her." The tactful Miss Tripp looked sadly puzzled, but she felt that it would not be the part of wisdom to press the issue for the moment. Her face wreathed itself anew in forgiving smiles as she flitted about the little rooms. "_Isn't_ this the most convenient, cosy little apartment?" she twittered. "I am _so_ glad I was able to secure it for you; I assure you I was obliged to use all of my diplomacy with the agent. And your pretty things _do_ light up the dark corners so nicely. And speaking of corners somehow reminds me, I have found you a _perfect treasure_ of a maid; but you must take her at once. She's a cousin of our Marie, and has always been employed by the best people. She was with Mrs. Paget Smythe last, I believe. She told Marie last night that she would be willing to come to you for only twenty dollars a month, and that's _very_ reasonable, considering the fact that she is willing to do part of the laundry work,--the towels, sheets and plain things, you know. _Expensive?_ Indeed it's not, dear--for _Boston_. Why, I could tell you of plenty of people who are _glad_ to pay twenty-five and put all their laundry out. I'd advise you to engage Annita without delay. Really, you couldn't do better." Elizabeth shook her head. "I mean to do my own work," she said decidedly. "I shall want something to do while Sam is away, and why not this when I--like it?" "But you won't like it after a while, my poor child, when the shine is once worn off your new pans and things, and _think_ of your hands! It's absolutely impossible to keep one's nails in any sort of condition, and besides the heat from the gas-range is simply _ruinous_ for the complexion. Didn't you _know_ that? Of course you are all milk and roses now, but how long do you suppose that will last, if you are to be cooped up in a hot, stuffy little kitchen from morning till night?" Miss Tripp paused dramatically, her eyes wide with sympathy and apprehension. "But we--I am sure we oughtn't to afford to keep a maid," demurred Elizabeth in a small, weak voice. "So please don't----" "Oh, of course, it is nothing to me, my dear," and Miss Tripp arose with a justly offended air. "I _thought_ I was doing you a kindness when I asked Annita to call and see you this morning. It will be perfectly easy for you to tell her that you don't care to engage her. But when it comes to _affording_, _I_ think you can scarcely afford to waste your good looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only _too_ easy to lose it all, and then--" Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable Elizabeth to vague alarms. "I am sure," faltered the bride of two months, "that Sam would like me just as well even if I----" "Of course you _think_ so, dear, every woman does till it is _too late_," observed Miss Tripp plaintively. "I'm sure I _hope_ it will turn out differently in your case. But I could tell you things about some of my married friends that would-- Well, all I have to say is that _I_ never dared try it--matrimony, I mean--and if I were in your place-- But there! I _mustn't_ meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years ago that I wouldn't. The trouble with me is that I love my friends _too_ fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which might _so easily_ have been avoided. I'm coming to take you out to-morrow, and we'll lunch down town in the nicest, most inexpensive little place. And--_dear_, if you finally decide _not_ to engage Annita, _would_ you mind telling her that through a _slight misunderstanding_ you had secured some one else? These high-class servants are _so easily_ offended, you know, and on account of _our Marie_--a perfect _treasure_ Oh, _thank_ you! _Au revoir_--till to-morrow!" Perhaps it is not altogether to be wondered at that immediately after Miss Tripp's departure Elizabeth found occasion to glance into her mirror. Yes, she was undoubtedly prettier than ever, she decided, but suppose it should be true about the withering heat of the gas-range; and then there were the rose-tinted, polished nails, to which Elizabeth had only lately begun to pay particular attention. The day's work had already left perceptible blemishes upon their dainty perfection. Elizabeth recalled her mother's hands, marred with constant household labour, with a kind of terror. Her own would look the same before many years had passed, and would Sam--_could_ he love her just the same when the delicate beauty of which he was so fond and proud had faded? And what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as the price of one's happiness? Elizabeth sat down soberly with pencil and paper to contemplate the matter arithmetically. Thirty-eight dollars for rent, and twenty dollars for a maid, subtracted from one hundred and twenty--the latter sum representing the young engineer's monthly salary--left an undeniable balance of sixty-two dollars to be expended in food, clothing and other expenses. After half an hour of careful calculation, based on what she could remember of Innisfield prices, Elizabeth had reached very satisfactory conclusions. Clothing would cost next to nothing--for the first year, at least, and food for two came to a ridiculously small sum. There appeared, in short, to be a very handsome remainder left over for what Sam called "contingencies." This would include, of course, the fixed amount which they had prudently resolved to lay by on the arrival of every cheque. This much had already been settled between them. Sam had a promising nest-egg in a Boston bank, and both had dreams of its ultimate hatching into a house and lot, or into some comfortable interest-bearing bonds. Elizabeth was firmly resolved to be prudent and helpful to her husband in every possible way; but was it not her duty to keep herself young and lovely as long as possible? The idea so cogently presented to her attention by Miss Tripp not an hour since appeared to have become so much her own that she did not recognise it as borrowed property. It was at this psychological instant that a second summons announced the presence of a certain Annita McMurtry in the entrance hall below. "Did Mrs. Brewster wish to see this person?" Elizabeth hesitated for the fraction of a minute. "You may tell her to come up," was the message that finally found its way to the hall-boy's attentive ear. Annita McMurtry was a neatly attired young woman, with a penetrating black eye, a ready smile and a well-poised, not to say supercilious bearing. In response to Elizabeth's timid questions she vouchsafed the explanation that she could "do everything" and was prepared "to take full charge." "And by that you mean?" "I mean that the lady where I work doesn't have to worry herself about anything. I take full charge of everything--ordering, cooking, laundry and waiting on table, and I don't mind wiping up the floors in a small apartment like this. Window-cleaning and rugs the janitor attends to, of course." "When--could you come, if I--decide to engage you?" asked Elizabeth, finding herself vaguely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the alert black eyes. "If you please, madam, I'd rather speak first about wages and days out. I'd like my alternate Thursdays and three evenings a week; and will you be going to theatres often with supper parties after? I don't care for that, unless I get paid extra. I left my last place on account of it; I can't stand it to be up all hours of the night and do my work next day." "I should think not!" returned Elizabeth, with ready sympathy. "We should not require anything of the sort. As to wages, Miss Tripp said you would be willing to come for twenty dollars. It seemed very high to me for only two in the family." Elizabeth spoke in a very dignified way; she felt that she appeared quite the experienced housekeeper in the eyes of the maid, who was surveying her with a faint, inscrutable smile. "I never work for a family where there is more than two," said Miss McMurtry pointedly. "I could make my thirty-five a month easy if I would. But Miss Tripp must have misunderstood me; twenty-two was what I said, but you'll find I earn it. I'll come to-morrow morning about this time, and thank you kindly, madam." The young woman arose with a proud composure of manner, which put the finishing touch upon the interview, and accomplished her exit with the practised ease of a society woman. "I wonder if I ought to have done it? And what will Sam say?" Elizabeth asked herself, ready to run undignifiedly after the girl, whose retiring footsteps were already dying away down the corridor. But Sam was found to be of the opinion that his Elizabeth had done exactly right. He hadn't thought of hiring a servant, to be sure, but he ought, manifestly, to have been reminded of his omission. It was surely not to be expected that a man's wife should spend her time and strength toiling over his food in a dark little den of a kitchen. No decent fellow would stand for that sort of thing. He wanted his wife to have time to go out, he said; to enjoy herself; to see pictures and hear music. As for the expense, he guessed they could swing it; he was sure to get another rise in salary before long. And much more of the same sort, all of which proved pleasantly soothing to Elizabeth's somewhat disturbed conscience. "I suppose Grandma Carroll would say I was a lazy girl," she sighed. "You didn't marry Grandma Carroll, dear," Sam told her, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes which Elizabeth thought delightfully witty. CHAPTER VIII Whatever the opinion of the unthinking many on the subject of honest work as related to the happiness of the individual, there can be but one just conclusion as to the effect of continued idleness, whether it be illustrated in the person of the perennially tired gentleman who frequents our back doors at certain seasons of the year, or in the refined woman who has emptied her hands of all rightful activities. At the end of her first week's experience with her new maid Elizabeth found herself for the first time in her wholesome, well-ordered life at a loss for something to do. When Miss McMurtry stated that she would take full charge of Mrs. Brewster's ménage she meant what she said, and Elizabeth's inexperienced efforts to play the rôle of mistress, as she had conceived it, met with a civil but firm resistance on the part of the maid. "Yes, Mrs. Brewster, I had expected to wipe up the dining-room floor this morning, after I have finished my kitchen work," she would announce frostily, in response to Elizabeth's timid suggestion. "I have my regular days for things, an' I don't need to be told. I've already spoken to the janitor's boy about the rugs, an' you'll please to leave some money with me to pay him. Just put it on the kitchen dresser." And "No, madam, I shall not have time to make an apple-pie this morning; I generally order pastry of the baker when it's called for. Yes, Mrs. Brewster, those were baker's rolls you had on the breakfast-table. I ordered the man to stop regularly. You prefer home-made bread, you say? I'm sorry, but I never bake. It is quite unnecessary in the city." The young woman's emphasis on the last word delicately conveyed her knowledge of Mrs. Brewster's country origin, and her pitying disapproval of it. Miss Tripp, to whom Elizabeth confided her new perplexities, merely laughed indulgently. "You mustn't interfere, if you want Annita to stay with you," she counselled. "Just keep religiously out of your kitchen, my dear, and everything will go on peacefully. We never think of such a thing as dictating to Marie, and we're careful not to make too many suggestions. Of course you don't know what a perfectly _dreadful_ time people are having with servants here in town. My _dear_, I could tell you things that would frighten you! Just fancy having your prettiest _lingerie_ disappear bit by bit, and your silk stockings worn to rags, and not _daring_ to say a word!" "I have lost two handkerchiefs since Annita came," said Elizabeth doubtfully. "Oh, _handkerchiefs_, nobody expects to keep those forever. Really, do you know when I treat myself to a half dozen new ones I conceal them from Marie as long as I possibly can, for fear she'll decide I have too many." Elizabeth's artlessly inquiring gaze provoked another burst of well-bred merriment. "You dear little innocent, you _do_ amuse me so! Don't you see our good Marie doesn't propose to encourage me in senseless extravagance in laundry; you see there is no telling to what lengths I might go if left to myself, and it all takes Marie's time. No, I don't pretend to know what she does with them all. Gives them to her relations, perhaps. She _couldn't_ use them all, and I give her a half dozen at Christmas every year. Why, they're all that way, and both Marie and Annita would draw the line at one's best silk stockings, I am sure. We think Marie _perfectly honest_; that is to say, I would trust her with everything I have, feeling sure that she would use her discretion in selecting for herself only the things I ought not to want any longer. _They know_, I can tell you, and they despise parsimonious people who try to make their old things do forever. You may as well make up your mind to it, my dear, and when you are fortunate enough to secure a really good, competent servant like Annita, you _mustn't_ see _too_ much." Just why Elizabeth upon the heels of this enlightening conversation should have elected to purchase for herself two new handkerchiefs of a somewhat newer pattern than the ones she had lost was not entirely clear even to herself. There had been a new, crisp bill in her purse for a number of weeks nestling comfortably against the twin gold pieces her father had given her on the day of her wedding. Sam had put it there himself, and had joked with her on her economical habits when he had found it unbroken on what he laughingly called her next pay day. "Seriously, though, little wife of mine, I never want you to be out of money," he had said; "if I am cad enough to forget you mustn't hesitate to remind me. And you need never feel obliged to tell me what you've done with it." This wasn't the ideal arrangement for either; but neither husband nor wife was aware of it, nor of the fact that in the small, dainty purse which lay open between them lurked a possible danger to their common happiness. Elizabeth had been brought up in the old-fashioned way, her wants supplied by her careful mother, and an occasional pocket-piece by her overworked father, who always referred to the coins transferred from his pocket to her own as "money to buy a stick of candy with." The sum represented by the twin gold pieces and the crisp bills appeared to contain unlimited opportunities for enjoyment. A bunch of carnations for the dining table and a box of bonbons excused the long stroll down Tremont Street, during which Miss Tripp carried on the education of her protégée on subjects urban without interruption. "If I had only thought to stop at the bank this morning," observed Miss Tripp regretfully, "I should simply have insisted upon your lunching with me at Purcell's; then we might have gone to the matinée afterward; there is the dearest, brightest little piece on now--'Mademoiselle Rosette.' You haven't heard it? What a pity! This is the very last matinée. Never mind, dear, I sha'n't be so thoughtless another day." "But why shouldn't I--" began Elizabeth tardily; then with a deep blush. "I have plenty of money with me, and I should be so happy if you would lunch with me, and----" "My dear, I couldn't _think_ of it! I _mustn't_ allow you to be extravagant," demurred Miss Tripp. But in the end she yielded prettily, and Elizabeth forthwith tasted a new pleasure, which is irresistibly alluring to most generous women. That evening at dinner her eyes were so bright and her laughing mouth so red that her young husband surveyed her with new admiration. "What did you find to amuse you to-day in this big, dull town?" he wanted to know. "It isn't dull at all, Sam, and I've had the loveliest time with Evelyn," she told him, and added a spirited account of the opera seen with the unjaded eyes of the country-bred girl. "I've never had an opportunity to go to theatres and operas before," she concluded, "and Evelyn thinks I ought to see all the best things as a matter of education." "I think so too," beamed the unselfish Sam, "and I hope you'll go often now that you have the chance." "I may as well, I suppose, now that I have Annita," Elizabeth said. "It's dreadfully dull here at home when you are gone. I've nothing to do at all." Sam pinched her pink ear gently as the two strolled away from the table. "How does the new kitchen mechanic suit you?" he asked. The meat had been overdone, the vegetables watery and the coffee of an indifferent colour and flavour, he thought privately. "Why, she seems to know exactly what to do, and when to do it," Elizabeth said rather discontentedly, "and she's very neat; but did you like that custard, Sam? I thought it was horrid; I'm sure she didn't strain it, and it was cooked too much." "Since you put it to me so pointedly, I'm bound to confess that the present incumbent isn't a patch on the last lady who cooked for me," confessed her husband, laughing at the puzzled look in her eyes. "Oh, you mean me! I'm glad you like my cooking, Sam. I should feel dreadfully if you didn't. But about Annita, I am afraid she won't allow me to teach her any of the things I know; and when I said I meant to make a sponge-cake this morning, she said she was going to use the oven. But she wasn't, for I went out and looked afterward. Then she said right out that she wasn't used to having ladies in her kitchen, and that it made her nervous." "Hum!" commented the mere man; "you'd better ask your father to prescribe for the young person; and in the meanwhile I should frequent 'her kitchen' till she had gradually accustomed herself to the idea." "She would leave if I did that, Sam." "There are others." "Not like Annita," objected Elizabeth, with the chastened air of a three-dimensioned experience. "You've no idea of the dreadful times people have with servants here in Boston. And, really, one oughtn't to expect an angel to work in one's kitchen for twenty-two dollars a month; do you think so, Sam?" Her uplifted eyes and earnest lips and rose-tinted cheeks were so altogether charming as she propounded this somewhat absurd question that Sam said, "Speaking of angels puts me in mind of the fact that I have one right in hand," and much more of the good, old-fashioned nonsense which makes the heart beat quicker and the eyes glow and sparkle with unreasoning joy when the heart is young. Half an hour had passed in this agreeable manner when Elizabeth bethought herself to ask, "What had I better do about the butcher's and grocer's slips, Sam dear? Annita says that in all the places where she has worked they always run bills; but if we aren't to do that----" "And we're not, you know; we agreed about that, Elizabeth?" "Yes, of course; but Annita brought me several when I came in to-day; I had forgotten all about them. Do you think I ought to stay at home every day till after the butcher and grocer and baker have been here? Sometimes they don't call till after twelve o'clock." This was manifestly absurd, and he said so emphatically. The result of his subsequent cogitations was an order to Annita to leave the slips on his desk, where they would be attended to each evening. "Mind," he said, "I don't want Mrs. Brewster annoyed with anything of the sort." "Indeed, sir, I can see that Mrs. Brewster has not been used to being worrited about anything, an' no more she ought," the young woman had replied with an air of respectful affection for her mistress which struck Sam as being no less than admirable. It materially assisted him in his efforts to swallow Annita's muddy coffee of a morning and her leaden puddings at night. All this, while Elizabeth light-heartedly entered upon what Miss Tripp was pleased to call her "first Boston season." There was so much to be learned, so much to be seen, so much to enjoy; and the new gowns and hats and gloves were so exactly the thing for the matinées, teas, card-parties and luncheons to which she found herself asked with unlooked-for cordiality. She could hardly have been expected to know that her open sesame to even this circle without a circle consisted in a low-voiced allusion to the sidereally remote Mrs. Van Duser, "a connection by marriage, my dear." It was on a stormy afternoon in late February when Dr. North, unannounced and disdaining the noisy little elevator, climbed the three flights of stairs to his daughter's apartment and tapped lightly on the corridor door. His summons was answered by an alert young woman in a frilled cap and apron. Mrs. Brewster was giving a luncheon, she informed him, and could see no one. "But I am Mrs. Brewster's father, and she'll want to see me," the good doctor had insisted, sniffing delicately at the odours of salad and coffee which floated out to him from the gingerly opened door. "Go tell your mistress that Dr. North is here and would like to see her." In another minute a fashionable little figure in palest rose-colour had thrown two pretty lace-clad arms about his neck. "Oh, you dear, old darling daddy! why _didn't_ you let me know you were coming? Now I've this luncheon party, with bridge after it, and I can't-- But you must come in and wait; I'll tuck you away somewhere--in my bedroom, or----" "I can't stay, Bess--at least not long. I've a consultation at the hospital at three. But I'll tell you, I'll be back at five; how'll that do? I've a message from your mother, and----" Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders distractedly. "They won't go a minute before six," she said; "but come then--to dinner. Be sure now!" The doctor was hungry, he had had no lunch, and despite the warmth of his welcome there was a perceptible chill about his aging heart as he slowly made his way down the stairs. "I'm afraid I'll not be able to make it," he told himself; "my train goes at six-fifty, and--bless me! I've just time for a bite at a restaurant before I'm due at the hospital." CHAPTER IX A loving letter from his daughter followed Dr. North to Innisfield. In it Elizabeth had described her disappointment in not being able to see more of her darling daddy. They had waited dinner for him that night, she said, and Sam was dreadfully put out about it. "He _almost_ scolded me for not bringing you right in. But how could I, with all those women? You wouldn't have enjoyed it, daddy dear; I know you too well. Next time--and I hope it will be soon--you must telephone me. We have a 'phone in our apartment now, and I'm sure I don't know how we ever lived without it. You see I have so many engagements that even if I didn't happen to be entertaining, I might not be at home, which would be just as bad." The rest of the sheet was filled with a gay description of the automobile show, which was "really quite a function this year," and of her success as a hostess. "Evelyn says I've made immense progress, and she's quite proud of me." There was a short silence as Mrs. North folded the letter and slipped it into its envelope. "But I don't understand why you didn't go back and take dinner with them, as Bessie asked you to do," she said at last, in a reproachful tone. "You ought to have made an effort, Richard." The doctor's grizzled brows lifted humorously as he glanced across the breakfast table at his wife's worried face. "Ought to have made an effort--eh?" he repeated. "Well, didn't I? I wanted to see Bess the worst way, but it seems she didn't want to see me--at least not at the time I arrived. So I went my way, got my lunch, met Grayson at the hospital at two-thirty, finished the operation at four, ran over to Avery's and left an order, then----" "But why----" "I could have gone back to Bess then, and I wanted to; but she didn't invite me to come till six, and I knew I must make that six-twenty train, for I'd promised Mrs. Baxter I'd call in the evening. So you see, my dear, I was up against it, as the boys say." "Did she look well, Richard?" asked his wife anxiously. "Perfectly well, I should say." "And did she tell you when we might expect her at home for a little visit?" The doctor shook his head. "I didn't have a chance to ask any questions, my dear." He arose and pushed back his chair. "Well, I must be going. When you write to Bess tell her it's all right, and she's not to worry. I'll take care to let her know next time I'm coming." He went out and closed the door heavily behind him. Grandma Carroll, who had listened to the conversation without comment, pursed up her small, wise mouth. "That reminds me, daughter, I think I shall go to Boston to-day," she observed briskly. "To Boston--to-day?" echoed her daughter in surprise. "I don't believe I can possibly get away to go with you, mother. Malvina Bennett is coming to fix my black skirt; besides, there's the baking and----" "You needn't to feel that you must put yourself out on my account, Lizzie," Mrs. Carroll replied with a slightly offended air. "I am quite capable of going to China if it was necessary. I hadn't thought to mention it to you yesterday, but there's some shopping I want to do, so I'll get right off on the morning train." "Will you have time to get around to see Bessie?" "I'll make time," said grandma trenchantly. "I want to see what she's doing with my own eyes. I don't know what _you_ think about her not asking her father in to her table, but I know what _I_ think." "Oh, mother, I hope you won't----" "You needn't to worry a mite about what I'll say or do, I shan't be hasty; but I mistrust that Sipp woman is leading Lizzie into extravagance and foolishness, and I mean to find out. I shall probably stay all night, and maybe all day to-morrow." "But it might not be convenient for Bessie," hesitated Mrs. North, "you know what she said about telephoning; I guess I'd better let her know you're coming." "Hump!" ejaculated grandma, "it wasn't always convenient for me to be up nights with her when she had whooping-cough and measles, but I did it just the same. I don't want you should telephone, daughter. I don't know just when I shall get around to Lizzie's house; when I do, I'll stay till I get ready to come home, you can depend upon that, if all the folks in Boston are there a-visiting. I'll go right in and visit with them. I'm going to take my best silk dress and my point lace collar, so I guess I'll be full as dressy as any of 'em." Mrs. North sighed apprehensively, but in the end she saw Mrs. Carroll onto the train with a wondering sense of relief. "Mother always did know how to manage Bessie better than I did," she told herself vaguely. When Mrs. Carroll arrived at her destination the whistles were proclaiming the hour of noon. "I'm just in time for dinner, I guess," she observed cheerfully to the elevator boy, who grinned his appreciation. But there was no token of occupancy about the Brewster apartment when Mrs. Carroll rapped smartly upon the door. "The missis is out," volunteered the boy, who had lingered to watch the progress of the pink-cheeked, smiling old lady; "but the girl's there. I seen her go in not fifteen minutes ago." Thus encouraged Mrs. Carroll repeated her summons. After what seemed a second interminable silence the door opened, disclosing an alert presence in an immaculate cap and apron. "How do you do?" said grandma pleasantly. "This boy here says Mrs. Brewster isn't at home; but I'll come in and wait till she does. I'm her grandmother, Mrs. Carroll; you've probably heard her speak of me, and I guess you're the girl she tells about in her letters sometimes. You've got a pretty name, my dear, and you look real neat and clean. Now if you'll just take my bag, it's pretty heavy, and----" Annita had not taken her beady black eyes off the little presence. "I never let strangers in when Mrs. Brewster's not at home," she said stolidly. "It ain't to be expected that I should. I guess you'll have to come again, about four this afternoon, maybe." "I like to see a hired girl careful and watchful," said grandma approvingly, "but if you look in the photograph album I gave my grandaughter Lizzie, on her sixteenth birthday, you'll see my picture on the front page, and that'll relieve you of all responsibility." She pushed determinedly past the astonished Annita, and was laying off her bonnet in the front room before that young person could collect her forces for a second protest. "So your mistress isn't coming home for dinner?" Mrs. Carroll's voice full of kindly inflections pursued Miss McMurtry to her final stronghold. "My! I'd forgotten what a small kitchen this was. Dark, isn't it? I'm afraid that's what makes you look so pale. Now if you'll just make me a cup of tea--or let me do it if you're busy; I'm used to waiting on myself. I suppose I'll find the tea-caddy in here." "You--let--my place alone--you!" hissed Annita, livid with rage, as Grandma Carroll laid her hand on the door of the cupboard. But she was too late; the open door disclosed a large frosted cake, a heap of delicately browned rolls and a roasted chicken. "Well, well! your cooking looks very nice indeed. I suppose you're expecting company; but if you can spare me one of those tasty rolls I shall make out nicely with the tea. Be sure and have it hot, my dear." And grandma pattered gently back into the dining-room, smiling wisely to herself. Just how many of Miss McMurtry's plans went awry that afternoon it would be hard to say. At three o'clock, when a mysterious black-robed elderly person carrying a capacious basket came up in the elevator she was met in the corridor by a white-visaged fury in a frilled cap and apron, who implored her distractedly to go away. "An' phwat for should I go away; ain't the things ready as usual?" demanded the lady with the basket. "I'd like me cup o' tea, too; I'm that tired an' cold." Miss McMurtry almost wept on the maternal shoulder. "I've got a lovely chicken," she whispered, "an' a cake, besides the rolls you was hungry for, an' the groceries; but her gran'mother, bad luck to her, come this mornin' from the country, an' she's helpin' me _clean my kitchen_." "Phwat for 'd you let her into your kitchen?" demanded the elder McMurtry indignantly. "I'm surprised at ye, Annie." "I didn't let her in, she walked right out and poked her nose into me cupboard without so much as sayin' by your leave. I think I'll be leavin' my place; I won't wait t' be trowed out by her." Miss McMurtry's tone was bitter. "They ain't much anyway. I'd rather go where there was more to do with." "Right you are, Annie, my girl, I've towld you that same many's the time. But if you're leavin' the night be sure--" The woman's voice dropped to a hissing whisper. "I'll do it sure, and maybe--" The girl's black eyes gleamed wickedly as she caught the creak and rattle of the ascending elevator "--I can do better than what you said in the end. It's safe enough with the likes o' them. They're easy." At six o'clock in fluttered Elizabeth, a vision of elegant femininity in her soft furs and plumes and trailing skirts. Darling grandmamma was kissed and embraced quite in the latest fashion, and the two sat down cosily to visit while Annita set the table for dinner with stony composure. "I've been here since noon," said grandma, complacently, "and I've been putting in my time helping your hired girl clean her cupboards." "What! Annita? You've been helping Annita?" "Why, yes; I didn't have anything else to do, and the cupboards certainly did need cleaning. Seems to me, Lizzie, you keep a big stock of all sorts of groceries on hand for so small a family as yours." "Do we?" asked Elizabeth, yawning daintily. "I'm sure I don't know what we have. Annita is perfectly competent to attend to everything in the kitchen, and I never interfere. She doesn't like it, and so why should I." "What are you paying for butter this winter?" grandma wanted to know, after a thoughtful pause. "I'm sure I don't know, the usual price, I suppose. Sam attends to the bills. He looks them over every night when he comes home, and gives Annita the money to pay them with." "Hum!" commented grandma, surveying her granddaughter keenly over the top of her spectacles; "that's a new way to keep house, seems to me." "It's a nice way, I know that," laughed Elizabeth. She had changed subtly from the shy, undeveloped girl who had left Innisfield less than a year ago into a luxuriance of bloom and beauty which astonished the older woman. There was an air of poise, of elegance, of assured dignity about her slender figure which fitted her as did her gown. "It must be easy, certainly," agreed Mrs. Carroll, sniffing delicately, after a well-remembered fashion. Elizabeth laughed and shrugged her shoulders in a way she had caught from Evelyn Tripp. "Now you know you are dying to lecture me, grandma," she said caressingly; "but you see, dear, that things are decidedly different here in Boston, and-- But here comes Sam; he'll be so glad to see you." Mrs. Carroll was very cheerful and chatty with the young people that evening. She told them all the Innisfield news in her most spirited fashion, and never once by word or look expressed her growing disapproval of what her shrewd old eyes were telling her. Miss McMurtry, who stood with her ear glued to the crack of the door for a long half hour, finally retired with a contemptuous toss of her black head. Then, the coast being clear, she found opportunity to convey to their destination the comestibles dutifully provided for maternal consumption. "She's full as easy as the young one for all her meddlin' ways," said Miss McMurtry, "an' she'll be leavin' in the mornin', so there'll be no back talk comin' from her." But for once Annita was mistaken in her premises. Mrs. Carroll, it is true, made no immediate reference to the disclosures afforded by her daring invasion of the kitchen fastnesses, nor did she even remotely allude to the probable date of her departure for Innisfield. "I don't want you should make company of me, Lizzie," she said pleasantly, "or put yourself out a mite. I'll just join right in and do whatever you're planning to do." Elizabeth puckered her pretty forehead perplexedly; she was thinking that Grandma Carroll's unannounced visit would necessitate the hasty giving up of a gay luncheon and theatre party planned for that very afternoon. Tears of vexation sparkled in her brown eyes, as she took down the telephone receiver. Mrs. Carroll listened to the one-sided conversation which followed without visible discomfiture. "Now that's too bad," she observed sympathetically. "Why didn't you tell me you wanted to go, and I'd have eaten my lunch right here at home. There's plenty of cooked victuals in your kitchen pantry; I saw 'em yesterday whilst I was out helping around. I suppose your hired girl cooked that roast chicken and the layer-cake and the rolls for Samuel's noonings. I hope you'll see to it, Lizzie, that he takes a good, tasty lunch to work every day. But of course you do." Elizabeth stared. "Why, grandma," she said, "Sam doesn't carry his lunch like a common workman. He eats it at a restaurant in South Boston." "Hum!" mused Mrs. Carroll, "I wonder if he gets anything fit to eat there? Samuel appears to have gone off in his weight considerable since I saw him last," she added, shaking her head wisely. "He needs a gentian tonic, I should say, or--something." "You're mistaken, grandma," Elizabeth said, with an air of offended wifely dignity. "Sam isn't the least bit ill. Of course he works hard, but I should be the first to notice it if there was anything the matter with my husband." "Care killed a cat," quoted grandma sententiously, "and you appear to be pretty much occupied with other things. Home ought to come first, my dear; I hope you aren't forgetting that." Elizabeth's pretty face was a study; she bit her lip to keep back the petulant words that trembled on her tongue. "Evelyn is coming, grandma," she said hurriedly, "and please don't--discuss things before her." Miss Tripp was unaffectedly surprised and, as she declared, "_charmed_" to see dear Mrs. Carroll in Boston. "I didn't suppose," she said, "that you ever _could_ bring yourself to leave dear, quiet Innisfield." Mrs. Carroll, on her part, exhibited a smiling blandness of demeanour which served as an incentive to the lively, if somewhat one-sided conversation which followed; a shrewd question now and then on the part of Mrs. Carroll eliciting numerous facts all bearing on the varied social activities of "_dear_ Elizabeth." "I'm positively looking forward to Lent," sighed Miss Tripp; "for really I'm _worn_ to a _fringe_, but dear Elizabeth never seems tired, no matter how many engagements she has. It is a perfect _delight_ to look at her, isn't it, dear Mrs. Carroll?" "Lizzie certainly does look healthy," admitted the smiling old lady, "but it beats me how she finds time to look after her husband and her hired girl with so many parties." The result of Mrs. Carroll's subsequent observations and conclusions were summed up in the few trenchant remarks addressed to her granddaughter the following day, as she was tying on her bonnet preparatory to taking the train for Innisfield. "I hope you'll come again soon, grandma," Elizabeth said dutifully. "I mistrust you don't mean that, Lizzie," replied Mrs. Carroll, facing about and gazing keenly at the young matron, "and I may as well say that I'm not likely to interfere with your plans often. I like my own bed and my own rocking-chair too well to be going about the country much. But I couldn't make out from what your father said just what the matter was." Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders with a pretty air of forbearance. "I was awfully sorry about daddy," she murmured; "but I don't see how I could have done anything else under the circumstances." "Well, _I_ do," said Grandma Carroll severely. She buttoned her gloves energetically as she went on in no uncertain tones. "I've always been a great believer in everybody minding their own business, but there's times when a little plain speech won't hurt anybody. Things aren't going right in your house, Lizzie; I can see that without half looking. _I warn you to keep an eye on your kitchen pantry._ I mistrust there's a leak there." "I trust Annita perfectly," said Elizabeth, her round chin tilted aggressively. "And I'm sure I ought to know by this time." "I agree with you there, Lizzie, you ought to know, but you don't. That girl is carrying things out of your kitchen as fast as the grocer and the butcher can bring them in; I don't think you can afford to let her spend your husband's money as she pleases, and that is what it amounts to the way you're managing now." "But grandma," protested Elizabeth, "Sam looks over every one of the bills himself before he pays them." "It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his own too, my dear." Elizabeth hung her head, her face flaming with angry colour. "You've been brought up to be a sensible, industrious, economical woman," pursued Mrs. Carroll earnestly; "but from what that Tipp girl said yesterday, I should imagine you'd taken leave of your senses. What does Samuel say to your spending so much money and being out so constant?" "He--he likes to have me have a good time." "Well, I'll lose my guess if _he's_ having one," said grandma pointedly. "Samuel looked worried to death last night when Terita brought him the bills. And I took notice he didn't eat scarcely anything at dinner. For that matter, I didn't myself; there wasn't a thing on the table cooked properly. Now, Lizzie, I've said my say, and I'm going." She kissed her granddaughter heartily. "Take time to think it over, child, and mind you don't tell the Fripp girl what I've said. She could talk a bird off a bush without a bit of trouble." "I wonder if everybody gets as queer and unreasonable as grandma when they are old," mused Elizabeth, as she picked her way daintily through the sloppy streets. "I'm sure I hope I sha'n't. Of course Sam is all right. I guess he'd tell me the very first thing if he wasn't." Nevertheless, Mrs. Carroll's significant words had left an unpleasant echo in her mind which haunted her at intervals all day. Under its influence she made a bold incursion into her kitchen, after a luncheon of chipped beef, dry toast and indifferent baker's cake. "Have we any cold chicken, Annita?" she asked hesitatingly. "I--that is, I am expecting a few friends this afternoon, and I thought----" Miss McMurtry faced about and eyed her mistress with lowering brows. "There ain't any chicken in the place, Mrs. Brewster," she said stonily; "an' as I ain't in the habit of havin' parties sprung on me unbeknownst, I'll be leaving at the end of my month, which is to-morrow--_if_ you please." Elizabeth's new-found dignity enabled her to face the woman's angry looks without visible discomfiture. "Very well, Annita," she said quietly. "Perhaps that will be best for both of us." CHAPTER X Elizabeth greeted her husband that night with a speculative anxiety in her eyes born of the uncomfortable misgivings which had haunted her during the day. And when after dinner he dropped asleep over his evening paper she perceived with a sharp pang of apprehension that his face was thinner than she had ever seen it, that his healthy colour had paled somewhat, and that hitherto unnoticed lines had begun to show themselves about his mouth and eyes. She reached for his hand which hung idly by his side, and the light touch awakened him. "Oh, Sam," she began, "Grandma Carroll insisted upon it that you were looking ill, and I wanted to see if you had any fever; working over there in that unhealthy part of town, you might have caught something." "Who told you it was unhealthy?" he wanted to know. "It really isn't at all, little girl, and you're not to worry about me--or anything." At just what point in his career Samuel Brewster had acquired the Quixotic idea that a woman, and particularly a young and beautiful woman, should not be allowed to taste the smallest drop of the world's bitterness he could not have explained. But the notion, albeit a mistaken one, was as much a part of himself as the blue of his steadfast eyes or the bronzy brown of his crisp locks. "You're not," he repeated positively, "to give yourself the slightest anxiety about me. I never felt better in my life." And he smiled determinedly. "But, Sam dear, I shall be obliged to worry if you are going to be ill, or if--" a misty light breaking in upon her confused thoughts, "you are keeping anything from me that I ought to know. I've been thinking about it all day, and I've been wondering if--" she lowered her voice cautiously--"Annita is perfectly reliable. I've always thought so till to-day. Anyway, she's going to leave to-morrow, and you'll be obliged to go back to my cooking for a while, till I can get some one else." The somewhat vague explanations which followed called for an examination of grocer's and butcher's accounts; and the two heads were bent so closely over the parti-coloured slips that neither heard the hasty preparations for departure going on in the rear. "It looks to me as if our domestic had been spoiling the Egyptians," hazarded Sam, after half an hour of unsatisfactory work. "But I really don't know how much meat, groceries and stuff we ought to be using." "I might have found out," murmured Elizabeth contritely. "I've just gone on enjoying myself like a child, and--and I'm afraid I've spent too much money. I haven't kept any count." Her husband glanced at her pretty worried face with a frown of perplexity and annoyance between his honest eyes. "The fact is, Betty," he burst out, "a poor man has no business to marry and make a woman uncomfortable and unhappy. You haven't spent but a trifle, dear, and all on the simplest, most innocent pleasures; yet it does count up so confoundedly. I wanted you to have a good time, dear, and I couldn't--bear--" He dropped into a chair and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "Then we _have_ been spending too much on--contingencies; why didn't you tell me before?" He bit his lip. "We've spent nearly every dollar of our reserve, Betty," he said slowly, "and this month I'm afraid--I don't see how I am going to meet all of the bills." "Oh, Sam!" gasped Elizabeth, turning pale. A voice from the softly opened kitchen door broke in upon, this crucial conversation. "You'll please to excuse me, Mrs. Brewster, but I've had word that my mother is sick, an' I'll have to be leaving at once. My month's up in the morning anyway, an' I hope you'll not mind paying me my wages to-night." Her lip curled scornfully as she glanced at the tradesmen's slips scattered on the table. Miss McMurtry openly despised people who, as she expressed it, were always "trying to save a copper cent on their meat and groceries." She herself felt quite above such economies. One could always change one's place, and being somewhat versed in common law, she felt reasonably secure in such small pecadilloes as she had seen fit to commit while in the employ of the Brewsters. "I should like to ask you a few questions first about these accounts," said the inexperienced head of the house sternly. "How does it happen that you ordered fifteen pounds of sugar, seven pounds of butter and two of coffee last week? Surely Mrs. Brewster and I never consumed such an amount of provisions as I see we have paid for." Miss McMurtry's elbows vibrated slightly. "I only ordered what was needed, sir," she replied in a high, shrill voice. "Sure, you told me yourself not to bother the madame." "I did tell you that, I know. I thought you were to be trusted, but this doesn't look like it." A fearsome change came over the countenance of the respectable young person in the frilled apron. "Are you meaning to insinooate that _I_ took them groceries?" she demanded fiercely. "I'll ask you to prove that same. Prove it, I say! It's a lie, an' I'd be willin' to swear to it in a court of justice. That's what comes of me workin' for poor folks that can't pay their bills!" Miss McMurtry swung about on her heels and included Elizabeth in the lightning of her gaze. "I come here to accomydate her, thinkin' she was a perfec' lady, an' I've slaved night an' day in her kitchen a-tryin' my best to please her, an' this is what I gets for it! But you can't take my character away that easy; I've the best of references; an' I'll trouble you for my wages--if you can pay 'em. If not, there's ways I can collect 'em." "Pay her, Sam, and let her go, do!" begged Elizabeth in a frightened whisper. "I ought not to pay the girl, I'm sure of that; but to save you further annoyance, my dear--" He counted out twenty-two dollars, and pushed the little pile of bills across the table. "Take it," he said peremptorily, "and go." The two gazed at each other in silence while the loud trampling footsteps of the erstwhile gentle and noiseless Annita sounded in the rear. Then, when a violent and expressive bang of the kitchen door announced the fact that their domestic had finally shaken off the dust of her departure against them, Elizabeth burst into a relieved laugh. She came presently and perched on her husband's knee. "Sam, dear," she murmured, "it is all my fault, every bit of it. No; don't contradict me--nor interrupt--please! We can't afford to go on this way, and we're not going to. We'll begin over again, just as we meant to before I--" she paused while a flood of shamed colour swept over her drooped face "--tried to be fashionable. It isn't really so very much fun to go to card-parties and teas and luncheons, and I don't care a bit about it all, especially if--if it is going to cost us too much; and I--can see that it has already." All her little newly acquired graces and affectations dropped away as she spoke, and her husband saw the sweet, womanly soul he had loved and longed for in the beginning looking out of her brown eyes. He kissed her thankfully, almost solemnly. "Dear Betty," he whispered. "Couldn't we--go away from this place?" she went on after a while. "It isn't very pleasant, is it? and--I'm almost ashamed to say it--but Evelyn Tripp has such a way of making things look different to one. What she says sounds so--so _sensible_ that I can't--at least I haven't done as I intended in hardly anything." "There's a little red cottage to let, with a pocket-handkerchief lawn in front and room for a garden behind, not half a mile from where we are working," Sam told her, "but I haven't mentioned it because it's a long way to Tremont Street and--Evelyn." His blue eyes were full of the laughing light she had missed vaguely for more weeks than she cared to remember. "Let's engage it to-morrow!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Why, Sam dear, we could have roses and strawberries and all sorts of fun out there!" When, after missing her friend for several days, Miss Tripp called at the Brewster apartment she was astonished beyond measure to find her dearest Elizabeth busy packing some last trifles, while several brawny men were engaged in taking away the furniture. "_My dear!_" she exclaimed. "What _are_ you doing?" "We're moving," said Elizabeth tranquilly. "You know I never cared particularly for this apartment, the rooms are so dark and unpleasant; besides the rent is too high for us." "But _where_----" "I was just going to tell you; we've taken a little house away over near the new water-works." Then as Miss Tripp's eyebrows and shoulders expressed a surprise bordering on distraction, "I felt that it would be better for us both to be nearer Sam's work. He can come home to luncheon now, and I--we shall like that immensely." "But you're going _out of the world_; do you _realise_ that, my dear? And _just_ as you were beginning to be known, too; and when I've tried so hard to--" Miss Tripp's voice broke, and she touched her eyelids delicately with her handkerchief. "Oh, _why_ didn't you consult _me_ before taking such an irrevocable step? I'm sure I could have persuaded you to change your mind." Elizabeth opened her lips to reply; then she hesitated at sight of Evelyn's wan face, whereon the lavishly applied rice powder failed to conceal the traces of the multiplied fatigues and disappointments of a purely artificial life. "You'll be glad you didn't try to make me change my mind when you see our house," she said gaily. "It has all been painted and papered, and everything about the place is as fresh and sunny and delightful as this place is dark and dingy and disagreeable. Only think, Evelyn, there is a real fireplace in the living room, where we are going to burn real wood of an evening, and the bay-window in the dining-room looks out on a grass-plot bordered with rose-bushes!" "But the neighbourhood, dear!" wailed Evelyn. "Only think what a social Sahara you are going into!" "I don't know about that," Elizabeth told her calmly. "Several of the engineers who are working with Sam live near with their families, and Sam thinks we are going to enjoy it immensely. He is so glad we are going." Evelyn had folded her hands in her lap and sat looking hopelessly about the dismantled rooms. "You don't seem to think about me, Betty," she said, after a while. "I--I am going to miss you terribly." Tears shone in her faded eyes and her voice trembled. Elizabeth's warm heart was touched. "You've been very good to me, Evelyn," she said. "I shall never forget all that I've--learned from you. But we're really not going out of the world, and you shall come and see us whenever you will, and bye and bye we shall have strawberries and roses to offer you." CHAPTER XI The roses on the tiny lawn of which Sam had spoken were in full bud, and Elizabeth was searching eagerly for the first streak of pink in the infant blossoms when she was surprised by the sight of an imposing equipage drawing up at the curb. The fat black horses pawed the gravel disdainfully, shaking their jingling harness, as the liveried footman dismounted from his perch and approached the mistress of the house. "I beg pawdon, miss," he said loftily; "but can you tell me where--aw--Mrs. Samuel Brewster lives?" "I am Mrs. Brewster." Elizabeth told him. Whereupon the man presented a card with an air of haughty humility. Elizabeth's wondering eyes uprose from its perusal to the vision of a tall, stout lady attired in purple broadcloth who was being assisted from the carriage. The hot colour flamed over her fair face, and for an instant she was tempted to run into the house and hide herself and the neat checked gingham gown she was wearing. Then she gripped her courage with both hands and came forward smiling determinedly. The august personage in purple paused at sight of the slender, blue-frocked figure, and raising a gold-mounted lorgnette to her eyes deliberately inspected it. "You are--Samuel Brewster's wife?" she asked. "Yes, Mrs. Van Duser." Elizabeth's voice trembled in spite of herself, but her eyes were calmly bright. "Won't you come in?" she added politely. The lady breathed somewhat heavily as she mounted the vine-wreathed porch. "I will sit down here," she announced magisterially; "the air is pleasant in the country." Elizabeth's brief experience in Boston society came to her assistance, enabling her to reply suitably to this undeniable statement of fact. Then an awesome silence ensued, broken only by the bold chirp of an unabashed robin successfully hunting worms in the grass-plot. "Where is your husband?" suddenly propounded the visitor. "Mr. Brewster is engaged in making a topographical map for the city; I do not know exactly where he is this afternoon," replied Elizabeth, her colour paling, then rising as she recalled the too well-remembered words of Mrs. Van Duser's late communication. "Did you wish to see him?" Mrs. Van Duser was apparently engaged in a severe inspection of the adventurous robin. She did not at once reply. Elizabeth looked down at the toe of her shabby little shoe. "Sam--comes home to lunch now," she faltered. "I--he hasn't been gone long." "Ah!" intoned Mrs. Van Duser, majestically transferring her attention from the daring robin to Elizabeth's crimson face. "Samuel has neglected to call upon me since his return to Boston," was Mrs. Van Duser's next remark, delivered in an awe-inspiring contralto; "though it is evident that he owes me an acknowledgment of his present good fortune." Elizabeth fixed round eyes of astonishment upon her visitor. "I can't think what you mean," she exclaimed unguardedly. "And yet I find you here, in this sylvan spot, far removed from the follies and temptations of your former position, and--I trust--prospering in a modest way." "Thank you," murmured Elizabeth, pink with indignation, "we are getting on very well." "What rent do you pay?" Elizabeth looked about rather wildly, as if searching for a way of escape. The robin had swallowed his latest find with an air of huge satisfaction, and now flew away with a ringing summons to his mate. "We pay thirty dollars, Mrs. Van Duser," she said slowly, "by the month." "Um! Why don't you buy the place?" "I don't think--I'm sure we--couldn't--" hesitated Elizabeth. "You are wrong," said Mrs. Van Duser, again raising her lorgnette to her eyes; "if you can afford to pay three hundred and sixty dollars in rent you can afford to own a home, and you should do so. Tell Samuel I said so." "Yes, Mrs. Van Duser," murmured Elizabeth in a depressed monotone. "Do you keep a maid?" "No, Mrs. Van Duser, I do my own housework." Elizabeth's brown eyes sparkled defiantly as she added, "I was brought up to work, and I like to do it." Mrs. Van Duser's large solemn countenance relaxed into a smile as she gazed into the ingenuous young face at her side. "Ah, my dear," she sighed, "I envy you your happiness, though I had it myself once upon a time. I don't often speak of those days, but John Van Duser was a poor man when I married him, and we lived in a little house not unlike this, and I did the cooking. Do you think you could give me a cup of tea, my dear?" When Samuel Brewster came home from his work at an unexpectedly early hour that afternoon he was astonished to find an imposing coupé, drawn by two fat, shining horses, being driven slowly up and down before his door; and further, as he entered the house, by the cheerful sound of clinking silver and china and low-voiced conversation. Elizabeth, pink-cheeked and smiling, met him with an exclamation of happy surprise. "I am so glad you came home, Sam dear," she said. "Mrs. Van Duser was hoping to see you before she went." And Mrs. Van Duser, looking very much at home and very comfortable indeed in Sam's own big wicker chair, proffered him a large white jewelled hand, while she bade him give an account of himself quite in the tone of an affectionate relative. "You have a charming and sensible wife, Samuel, and a well-conducted home," said the great lady. "I have seen the whole house, cellar, kitchen and all," she added with a reminiscent sigh, "and it has carried me back to the happiest days I ever spent." The young engineer passed his arm about his Elizabeth's shoulders as the two stood at the gate watching the stately departure of the Van Duser equipage. "Well, Betty," he said, "so the mountain came to Mahomet? But the mountain doesn't seem such a bad sort, after all. I liked the way she kissed you good-bye, though I should never have guessed she was capable of it." Elizabeth drew a deep breath. "I never was so frightened in my life as when she first came," she confessed. "But she is kind, Sam, in her way, though at first I thought it wasn't a pleasant way. And O, Sam dear, she thinks we gave up our flat and came out here just because she wrote us that letter; she was as complacent as could be when she spoke of it." "Did you undeceive her?" "N-no, dear, I didn't even try. Perhaps it was the letter--partly, and anyway I felt sure I couldn't make her think any differently whatever I might say. But I did tell her about Annita and about how thoughtless and selfish I was, and----" "Did you tell her about the Tripp lady?" he suggested teasingly. "No," she said gravely. "Evelyn meant to be kind, too; I am sure of that." "O benevolent Betty!" he exclaimed with mock gravity. "O most sapient Elizabeth! I perceive that in gaining a new friend thou hast not lost an old one! I suppose from now on you will begin to model your small self on the Van Duser pattern. My lady will see to it that you do, if you see much of her." Elizabeth looked up at her tall husband, her brown eyes brimming with thoughtful light. "It is good to have friends," she said slowly; "but, Sam dear, we must never allow any--_friend_ to come between us again. We must live our own lives, and solve our own problems, even if we make an occasional blunder doing it." "We've solved our problems already," he said confidently, "and I'm not afraid of the blunders, thanks to the dearest and best little wife a man ever had." And Elizabeth smiled back at him, knowing in her wiser woman's heart that there were yet many problems to be solved, but not fearful of what the future would bring in the light of his loving eyes. 
36196	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. [Illustration: "HE TOOK OUT HIS EYEGLASS TO STUDY IT."] BOSTON NEIGHBOURS IN TOWN AND OUT BY AGNES BLAKE POOR [Illustration] G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1898 COPYRIGHT, 1898 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS [Illustration] CONTENTS PAGE OUR TOLSTOI CLUB 1 A LITTLE FOOL 41 WHY I MARRIED ELEANOR 83 THE STORY OF A WALL-FLOWER 123 POOR MR. PONSONBY 187 MODERN VENGEANCE 239 THREE CUPS OF TEA 274 THE TRAMPS' WEDDING 300 * * * * * The author and the publishers desire to make acknowledgment to the publishers of the _Century Magazine_ and of the _New England Magazine_ for their courtesy in permitting the re-issue of certain stories which were originally published in these periodicals. [Illustration] OUR TOLSTOI CLUB I should be glad to tell a story if I only knew one, but I don't. Some people say that one experience is as interesting as another, and that any real life is worth hearing about; but I think it must make some little difference who the person is. But if I really must tell one, and since you all have told yours, and such nice ones, and anything is better than nothing when we are kept in all the morning by a pouring rain, with nothing to do, because we came only for a week, and did not expect it to rain, I will try and tell you about our Tolstoi Club, because that was rather like a story--at least it might have been like one if things had turned out a little differently. You know I live in a suburb of Boston, and a very charming, delightful one it is. I cannot call it by its real name, because I am going to be so very personal; so I will call it "Babyland," which indeed people often do in fun. There never was such a place for children. The population is mostly under seven years old, for it was about seven years ago that young married people began to move into it in such numbers, because it is so healthy; but it was always a great place for them even when it was small. The old inhabitants are mostly grandfathers and grandmothers now, and enjoy it very much; but they usually go into town in the winter, with such unmarried children as they have left, to get a little change; for there is no denying that there is a sameness about it--the sidewalks are crowded with perambulators every pleasant day, and at our parties the talk is apt to run too much on nursery-maids, and milkmen and their cows, and drains, to be very interesting to those who have not learned how terribly important such things are. So in winter we--I mean the young married couples, of whom I am half a one--are left pretty much to our own devices. Though we are all so devoted to our infant families, we are not so much so as to give up all rational pleasures or intellectual tastes; we could not live so near Boston, you know, and do that. Our husbands go into town every day to make money, and we go in every few days to spend it, and in the evenings, if they are not too tired, we sometimes make them take us in to the theatres and concerts. We all have a very nice social circle, for Babyland is fashionable as well as respectable, and we are asked out more or less, and go out; but for real enjoyment we like our own clubs and classes the best. We feel so safe going round in the neighbourhood, because we are so near the children, and can be called home any time if necessary. There is our little evening dancing-club, which meets round at one another's houses, where we all exchange husbands--a kind of grown-up "puss-in-the-corner"; only, as the supply of dancing husbands is not quite equal to that of wives, we have to get a young man or two in if we can; and for the same reason we don't ask any girls, who, indeed, are not very eager to come. Then there is the musical club, and the sketching-club, and we have a great many morning clubs for the women alone, where we bring our work (and it is splendid to get so much time to sew), and read, or are read to, and then talk over things. Sometimes we stay to lunch, and sometimes not; and we would have an essay club, only we have no time to write the papers. Now, many of these clubs meet chiefly at Minnie Mason's--Mrs. Sydney Mason's. She gets them up, and is president: you see, she has more time, because she has no children--the only woman in Babyland who hasn't, and I don't doubt she feels dreadfully about it. She is not strong, and has to lie on the sofa most of the time, and that is another reason why we meet there so often; and then she lives right in the midst of us all, and so close to the road that we can all of us watch our children, when they are out for their airings, very conveniently. Minnie is very kind and sympathetic, and takes such an interest in all our affairs, and if she is somewhat inclined to gossip about them, poor dear, it is very natural, when she has so few of her own to think about. Well, in the autumn before last, Minnie said we must get up a Tolstoi Club; she said the Russians were the coming race, and Tolstoi was their greatest writer, and the most Christian of moralists (at least she had read so), and that everybody was talking about him, and we should be behindhand if we could not. So we turned one of our clubs, which had nothing particular on hand just then, into one; and, besides Tolstoi, we read other Russian novelists, Turgenieff and--that man whose name is so hard to pronounce, who writes all about convicts and--and other criminals. We did not read them all, for they are very long, and we can never get through anything long; but we hired a very nice lady "skimmer," who ran through them, and told us the plots, and all about the authors, and read us bits. I forget a good deal, but I remember she said that Tolstoi was the supreme realist, and that all previous novelists were romancers and idealists, and that he drew life just as it was, and nobody else had ever done anything like it, except indeed the other Russians; and then we discussed. In discussion we are very apt to stray off to other topics, but that day I remember Bessie Milliken saying that the Russians seemed very queer people; she supposed that if every one said these authors were so true to life, they must be, but she had never known such an extraordinary state of things. Just as soon as ever people were married--if they married at all--they seemed wild to make love to some one else, or have some one else make love to them. "They don't seem to do so here," said Fanny Deane. "_We_ certainly do not," said Blanche Livermore. "I think the reason must be that we have no time. I have scarcely time to see anything of my own husband, much less to fall in love with any one else's." We all laughed, but we felt that it was odd. In Babyland all went on in an orderly and respectable fashion. The gayest girls, the fastest young men, as soon as they were married and settled there, subsided at once into quiet, domestic ways. At our dances each of us secretly thought her own husband the most interesting person present, and he returned the compliment, and after a peaceful evening of passing them about we were always very thankful to get them back to go home with. Were we, then, so unlike the rest of humanity? "Are we sure?" asked Minnie Mason, always prone to speculation. "It is not likely that we are utterly different from the rest of the world. Who knows what dark tragedies lie hidden in the recesses of the heart? Who knows all her neighbour's secret history?" This was being rather personal, but no one took it home, for we never minded what Minnie said; and as many of the club were, as always occurred, detained at home by domestic duties, we thought it might apply to one of them. But I can't deny that we, and especially Minnie, who had a relish for what was sensational, and was pleased to find that realistic fiction, which she had always thought must be dull, was really exciting, felt a little ashamed at our being so behind the age--"provincial," as Mr. James would call it; "obsolete," as Mr. Howells is fond of saying--at Babyland as not to have the ghost of a scandal among us. None of us wished to give cause for the scandal ourselves; but I think we might not have been as sorry as we ought to be if one of our neighbours had been obliging enough to do so. We did not want anything very bad, you know. Of course none of us could ever have dreamed of running away with a fascinating young man--like Anna Karenina--because in the first place we all liked our husbands, and in the next place, who could be depended upon to go into town to do the marketing, and to see that the children wore their india-rubbers on wet days? But anything short of that we felt we could bear with equanimity. That same fall we were excited, though only in our usual harmless, innocent way, by hearing that the old Grahame house was sold, and pleased--though no more than was proper--that it was sold to the Williamses. It was a pretty, old farm-house which had been improved upon and enlarged, and had for many years been to let; and being as inconvenient as it was pretty, it was always changing its tenants, whom we despised as transients, and seldom called upon. But now it was bought, and by none of your new people, who, we began to think, were getting too common in Babyland. We all knew Willie Williams: all the men were his old friends, and all the women had danced with him, and liked him, and flirted with him; but I don't think it ever went deeper, for somehow all the girls had a way of laughing at him, though he was a handsome fellow, and had plenty of money, and was very well behaved, and clever too in his way; but we could not help thinking him silly. For one thing, he would be an artist, though you never saw such dreadful daubs as all his pictures were. It was a mercy he did not have to live by them, for he never sold any; he gave them away to his friends, and Blanche Livermore said that was why he had so many friends, for of course he could not work off more than one apiece on them. He was very popular with all the other artists, for he was the kindest-hearted creature, and always helped those who were poor, and admired those who were great; and they never had anything to say against him, though they could not get out anything more in his praise than that he was "careful and conscientious in his work," which was very likely true. Then he was vain; at least he liked his own good looks, and, being æsthetic in his tastes, chose to display them to advantage by his attire. He wore his hair, which was very light, long, and was seldom seen in anything less fanciful than a boating-suit, or a bicycle-suit, though he was not given to either exercise, but wanted an excuse for a blouse, and knee-breeches, and tights, and a soft hat--and these were all of a more startling pattern than other people's; while as to the velvet painting-jackets and brocade dressing-gowns, in which he indulged in his studio, I can only say that they made him a far more picturesque figure than any in his pictures. It was a shame to waste such materials on a man. Then he lisped when he was at all excited, which he often was; and he had odd ways of walking, and standing, and sitting, which looked affected, though I really don't think they were. He made enthusiastic, but very brief, love to all of us in turn. I don't know whether any of us could have had him; if one could, all could; but, supposing we could, I don't believe any of us would have had the courage to venture on Willie Williams. But we expected that his marriage would be romantic and exciting, and his wedding something out of the common. Opinions were divided as to whether his ardent love-making would induce some lovely young Italian or Spanish girl of rank to run away from a convent with him, or whether he would rashly take up with some artist's model, or goose-girl, or beggar-maid. We were much disappointed when, after all, he married in the most commonplace manner a very ordinary girl named Loulie Latham. We all knew Loulie too; she went to school at Miss Woodberry's, in the class next below mine; and she was a nice girl, and we all liked her well enough, but there never was a girl who had less in her. She was not bad-looking, but no beauty; not at all the kind of looks to attract an artist. Blanche Livermore said that he might have married her for her red hair if only there had been more of it. The Lathams were very well connected, and knew everybody, and she went about with the other girls, and had a fair show of attention at parties; but she never had friends or lovers. She had not much chance to have any, indeed, for she married very young. She was a very shy, quiet girl, and I used to think that perhaps it was because she was so overcrowed by her mother. Mrs. Latham was a large, striking-looking if not exactly handsome, lady-like though loud, woman, who talked a great deal about everything. She was clever, but eccentric, and took up all manner of fads and fancies, and though she was a thoroughly good woman, and well born and well bred, she did know the very queerest people--always hand in glove with some new crank. Hygiene, as she called it, was her pet hobby. Fortunately she had a particular aversion to dosing; but she dieted her daughter and herself, which, I fear, was nearly as bad. All her bread had husks in it, and she was always discovering that it was hurtful to eat any butter or drink any water, and no end of such notions. She dressed poor Loulie so frightfully that it was enough to take all the courage out of a girl: with all her dresses very short in the skirt, and big at the waist, and cut high, even in the evening, and thick shoes very queerly shaped, made after her own orders by some shoemaker of her own, and loose cotton gloves, and a mushroom hat down over her eyes. Finally she took up the mind-cure, and Loulie was to keep thinking all the time how perfectly well she was, which, I think, was what made her so thin and pale. Mrs. Latham always said that no one ever need be ill, and indeed she never was herself, for she was found dead in her bed one morning without any warning. This happened at Jackson, New Hampshire, where they were spending the summer. Of course poor Loulie was half distracted with the shock and the grief. There was no one in the house where they were whom she knew at all, or who was very congenial, I fancy, and Willie Williams, whom they knew slightly, was in the neighbourhood, sketching, and was very kind and attentive, and more helpful than any one would ever have imagined he could be. He saw to all the business, and telegraphed for some cousin or other, and made the funeral arrangements; and the end of it was that in three months he and Loulie Latham were married, and had sailed for Europe on their wedding tour. This was ten years ago, and they had never come back till now. They meant to come back sooner, but one thing after another prevented. They had no children for several years, and they thought it a good chance to poke around in the wildest parts of Southern Europe--Corsica, and Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, and all that--and made their winter quarters at Palermo. Then for the next six years they lived in less out-of-the-way places. They had four children, and lost two; and one thing or another kept them abroad, until they suddenly made up their minds to come home. We had not heard much of them while they were gone. Loulie had no one to correspond with, and Willie, like most men, never wrote letters; but we all were very curious to see them, and willing to welcome them, though we did not know how much they were going to surprise us. Willie Williams, indeed, was just the same as ever--in fact, our only surprise in him was to see him look no older than when he went away; but as for Mrs. Williams, she gave us quite a shock. For my part, I shall never forget how taken aback I was, when, strolling down to the station one afternoon with the children, with a vague idea of meeting Tom, who might come on that train, but who didn't, I came suddenly upon a tall, splendidly shaped, stately creature, in the most magnificent clothes; at least they looked so, though they were all black, and the dress was only cashmere, but it was draped in an entirely new way. She wore a shoulder-cape embroidered in jet, and a large black hat and feather set back over great masses of rich dark auburn hair; and, though so late in the season, she carried a large black lace parasol. To be sure, it was still very warm and pleasant. I never should have ventured to speak to her, but she stopped at once, and said, "Perhaps you have forgotten me, Mrs. White?" "No--oh, no," I said, trying not to seem confused; "Mrs.--Mrs. Williams, I believe?" "You knew me better as Loulie Latham," she said pleasantly enough; but I cannot say I liked her manner. There was something in it, though I could not say what, that seemed like condescension, and she hardly mentioned my children--and most people think them so pretty--though I saw her look at them earnestly once or twice. Willie was the same good-hearted, hospitable fellow as ever, and begged us to come in, and go all over his house, and see his studio that he had built on, and his bric-à-brac. And a lovely house it was, full of beautiful things, for he knew them, if he could not paint them, and indeed he had a great talent for amateur carpentering. We wished he would come to our houses and do little jobs to show his good-will, instead of giving us his pictures; but we tried to say something nice about them, and the frames were most elegant. Of course we saw a good deal of Mrs. Williams, but I don't think any of us took to her. She was very quiet, as she always had been, but with a difference. She was perfectly polite, and I can't say she gave herself airs, exactly; but there was something very like it in her seeming to be so well satisfied with herself and her position, and caring so little whether she pleased us or not. Of course we all invited them, and they accepted most of our invitations when they were asked together, though she showed no great eagerness to do so; but she would not join one of our morning clubs, and had no reason to give. It could not be want of time, for we used to see her dawdling about with her children all the morning, though we knew that she had brought over an excellent, highly trained, Protestant North German nurse for them. When we asked her to the dancing-class, she said she never danced, and we had better not depend on her, but Mr. Williams enjoyed it, and would be glad to come without her. We did not relish this indifference, though it gave us an extra man, and Minnie Mason said that it was not a good thing for a man to get into the way of going about without his wife. "Why not?" said Mrs. Williams, opening her great eyes with such an air of utter ignorance that it was impossible to explain. It was easy to see that she need not be afraid of trusting her husband out of her sight, for a more devoted and admiring one I never saw, whether with her or away from her talking of "Loulou" and her charms, as if sure of sympathy. But we had our doubts as to how much she returned his attachment, and Minnie said it was easy to see that she only tolerated him; and we all thought her unappreciative, to say the least. He was very much interested in her dress, and spent a great deal of time in choosing and buying beautiful ornaments and laces and stuffs for her, which she insisted on having made up in her own way, languidly remarking that it was enough for Willie to make her a fright on canvas, without doing so in real life. Blanche Livermore said she must have some affection for him, to sit so much to him, for he had painted about a hundred pictures of her in different styles, each one worse than the last. You would have thought her hideous if you had only seen them; but Willie's artist friends, some of them very distinguished, had painted her too, and had made her into a regular beauty. Opinions differed about her looks; but those who liked her the least had to allow that she was fine-looking, though some said it was greatly owing to her style of dress. We all called it shockingly conspicuous at first, and then went home and tried to make our things look as much like hers as we possibly could, which was very little; for, as we afterwards found out, they came from a modiste at Paris who worked for only one or two private customers, and whose costumes had a kind of combination of the fashionable and the artistic which it seemed impossible for any one here to hit. We used to wonder how poor Mrs. Latham would feel, could she rise from her grave, to behold her daughter's gowns, tight as a glove, and in the evening low and long to a degree, her high-heeled French shoes, and everything her mother had thought most sinful. Her hair had grown a deeper, richer shade abroad, and she had matched it to perfection, and one of Willie's pictures of her, with the real and false all down her back together, looked like the burning bush. She was in slight mourning for an old great-uncle who had left her a nice little sum of money; and we thought, if she were so inimitable now, what would she be when she put on colours? We did better in modelling our children's clothes after hers, and I must say she was very good-natured about lending us her patterns. She had a boy and girl, beautiful little creatures, but they looked rather delicate, which she did not seem to realise at all; she was very amiable in her ways to them, but cool, just as she was to their father. It must be confessed that we spent a great deal of time at our clubs in discussing her, especially at the Tolstoi Club; for, as Minnie remarked, she seemed very much in the Russian style, and it was not disagreeable, after all, to think that we might have such a "type," as they call it, among us. Just as we had begun to get accustomed to Mrs. Williams's dresses, and her beauty, and her nonchalance, and held up our heads again, she knocked us all over with another ten-strike. It was after a little dinner given for them at the Millikens', and a good many people had dropped in afterward, as they were apt to do after our little dinners, to which of course we could not ask all our set, however intimate. Mrs. Reynolds had come out from Boston, and as she was by way of being very musical, though she never performed, she eagerly asked Willie Williams, when he mentioned having lived so long in Sicily, whether he had ever seen Giudotti, the great composer, who had retired to the seclusion of his native island in disgust with the world, which he thought was going, musically speaking, to ruin. We listened respectfully, for most of us did not remember hearing of the great Giudotti, but Willie replied coolly: "Oh, yes; we met him often; he was my wife's teacher. Loulou, I wish you would sing that little thing of Mickiewicz, '_Panicz i Dziewczyna_,' which Giudotti set for you." Loulie was leaning back on a sofa across the room, lazily swaying her big black lace fan. She had on a lovely gown of real black Spanish lace, and a great bunch of yellow roses on her bosom, which you would not have thought would have looked well with her red hair; but they suited her "Venetian colouring," as her husband called it-- "Ni blanche ni cuivrée, mais dorée D'un rayon de soleil." Willie's strong point, or his weak point, as you may consider it, was in quotations. She did not seem any too well pleased with the request, and replied that she hardly thought people would care to hear any music; it seemed a pity to stop the conversation--for all but herself were chattering as fast as they could. But of course we all caught at the idea, and the hostess was pressing, and after every mortal in the room had entreated her, she rose, still reluctantly, and walked across the room to the piano, saying that she hoped they really would not mind the interruption. It sounded fine to have something specially composed for her, but we were accustomed to hear Fanny Deane, the most musical one among us, sing things set for her by her teacher--indeed, rather more than we could have wished; and I thought now to hear something of the same sort--some weak little melody all on a few notes, in a muffled little voice, with a word or two, such as "weinend," or "veilchen," or "frühling," or "stella," or "bella," distinguishable here and there, according as she sang in German or Italian. So you may imagine how I, as well as all the rest, was struck when, without a single note of prelude, her deep, low voice thrilled through the whole room: "Why so late in the wood, Fair maid?" I never felt so lonely and eery in my life; and then in a moment the wildly ringing music of the distant chase came, faint but growing nearer all the time from the piano, while her voice rose sweeter and sadder above it, till our pleasure grew more delicious as it almost melted into pain. The adventures of the fair maid in the wood were, to say the least, of a very compromising description; but we flattered ourselves that our course of realistic fiction had made us less provincial and old-fashioned, and we knew that nobody minded this sort of thing abroad, especially the Russians, of whom we supposed Mickiewicz was one till somewhat languidly set right by Mrs. Williams. After that her singing made a perfect sensation all about Boston, the more because it was so hard to get her to sing. Her style was peculiar, and was a good deal criticised by those who had never heard her. She never sang anything any one else did--that is, anybody you might call any one, for I have heard her sometimes sing something that had gone the rounds of all the hand-organs, and make it sound new again; but many of her songs were in manuscript, some composed for her by Giudotti, and others old things that he had picked up for her--folk-songs, and ballads, and such. She always accompanied herself, and never from any notes, and very often differently for the same song. Sometimes she would sing a whole verse through without playing a note, and then improvise something between. She always sang in English, which we thought queer, when she had lived so long abroad; but she said Giudotti had told her always to use the language of her audience, and Willie, who had a pretty turn for versifying, used to translate for her. We felt rather piqued that she should ignore the fact that we too had studied languages, but we all agreed that she knew how to set herself off, and indeed we thought she carried her affectation beyond justifiable limits. She had to be asked by every one in the room, and was always saying that it was not worth hearing, and that she hoped people would tell her when they had enough of it, though, indeed, she could rarely be induced to sing more than twice. If her voice was praised, she said she had none; and when she was asked to play, she would say she could not--she could only accompany herself. A likely story--as if any one who could do that as she could, could not play anything!--and we used to hear her, too, when she was in her own house, with nobody there but her husband. As for him, he overflowed with pride and delight in her music, and evidently much more than pleased her, and sometimes he even made her blush--a thing she rarely did--by his remarks, such as that if we really wanted to know how Loulou could sing, we must hide in the nursery. It was while singing to her baby, it appeared, that the great Giudotti had chanced to hear her, and immediately implored the privilege of teaching her, for anything or nothing. Minnie Mason said that it was impossible that a woman could sing like that unless she had a history; and she spent much of her time and all of her energy for several weeks in finding out what the history could be. It was wonderful how ingeniously she put this and that together, until one day at the club she told us the whole story, and we wondered that we had never thought of it before. It seems that before Loulie Latham was married there had been a love-affair between her and Walter Dana. It is not known exactly how far it went, but her feelings were very much involved. She was too young, poor thing, and too simple, to know that Walter Dana was not at all a marrying man; he could not have afforded it, if he had wanted to ever so much. He was the sort of young man, you know, who never does manage to afford to marry, though in other respects he seemed to get on well enough. He had passed down through several generations of girls, and was now rather attentive, in a harmless, general sort of way, to the married women, and came to our dances. "And then," said Minnie, "when he did not speak, and she was so suddenly left alone, and nearly penniless, after her mother's death, and Willie Williams was so much in love with her, and so pressing--though I don't believe he was ever in love with her more than he was with a dozen other girls, only the circumstances were such, you know, that he could hardly help proposing, he's so generous and impulsive. But he is not exactly the sort of man to fall in love with, and his oddities have evidently worn upon her; and now she feels with bitter regret how different her life might have been if she could have waited till her uncle left her this money. Walter has got on better, and might be able to marry her now, and she is young still--only twenty-nine. It is the wreck of two lives, perhaps of three. Willie is most unsuspicious, but should he ever find out----" We all shuddered with pleasurable horror at the thought that we were to be spectators of a Russian novel in real life. "I have seen them together," went on Minnie, "and their tones and looks were unmistakable. Surely you remember that Eliot Hall german he danced with her, the winter before her mother's death--the only winter she ever went into society; and I recollect now that he seemed very miserable about something at the time of her marriage, only I never suspected why then." "How very sad!" murmured Emmie Richards, a tender-hearted little thing. "It is sad," said Minnie, solemnly; "but love is a great and terrible factor in life, and elective affinities are not to be judged by conventional rules." For my own part, I thought Willie Williams a great deal nicer and more attractive than Walter Dana, except, to be sure, that Walter did talk and look like other people. Perhaps, I said, things were not quite so bad as Minnie made them out. It was to be hoped that poor Loulie would pause at the brink. A great many such stories, especially American ones, never come to anything, except that the heroine lives on, pining, with a blighted life; and I thought, if that were all, Willie was not the kind of man who would mind it much. Very likely he would never know it. Blanche Livermore said the idea of a woman pining all her days was nonsense. All girls had affairs, but after they were married the cares of a family soon knocked them all out of their heads. To be sure, Blanche's five boys were enough to knock anything out; but Minnie told us all afterward, separately, in confidence, that it was a little jealousy on her part, because she had been once rather smitten with Walter Dana herself. This seemed very realistic; and I must say my own observations confirmed the truth of Minnie's story. Mrs. Williams did look at times conscious and disturbed. One night, too, Tom and I called on them to make arrangements about some concert tickets. Willie welcomed us in his usual cordial fashion, saying Loulou would be down directly; and in ten minutes or so down she came, in one of her loveliest evening dresses, white embroidered crape, with a string of large amber beads round her throat. "I am afraid you are going out, Mrs. Williams; don't let us detain you." "Not at all," she said, with her usual indifference. "We are not going anywhere. I was waiting upstairs to see the children tucked up in their beds." It seemed like impropriety of behaviour in no slight degree to fag out one's best clothes at home in that aimless way, but when in ten minutes more Mr. Walter Dana walked in, her guilt was more plainly manifest, and I shuddered to think what a tragedy was weaving round us. Only a day or two after, I met her alone, near nightfall, hurrying toward her home, and with something so odd about her whole air and manner that I stopped short and asked, rather officiously perhaps, if Mr. Williams and the children were well. "Oh, yes; very--very well, indeed!" she threw back, in a quick, defiant tone, very unlike her usual self; and then, as I looked at her, I perceived to my dismay, that she was crying bitterly. I felt so awkward that I did not know what to say, and I stood staring, while she pulled down her veil with a jerk, and hurried on. I could not help going into Minnie's to ask her what she thought it could mean. Minnie, of course, knew all about it. "She has been in here, and I have been giving her a piece of my mind. I hope it will do her good. Crying, was she? I am very glad of it." "But, Minnie! how could you? how did you dare to? how did you begin?" I asked in amazement, heightened by the disrespectful way in which Minnie had dealt with elective affinities. "Oh, very easily. I began about her children, and said how very delicate they looked, and that we all thought they needed a great deal of care." "But she does seem to take a great deal of care of them. She has them with her most of the time." "Yes; that's just it. She always has them, because she wants to use them for a cover. I am sure she takes them out in very unfit weather, and keeps them out too long, just for a pretext to be strolling about with him." "You certainly have more courage than I could muster up," I said. "What else did you say?" "I did not say anything else out plainly; but I saw she understood perfectly well what I meant." "I don't see how you ever dared to do it." "It is enough to make one do something to live next door to her as I do. You know that Walter Dana has not been at either of the two last dancing-classes. Well, it is just because he has been there, spending the whole evening with her alone. I have been kept at home myself, and have seen him with my own eyes going away before Mr. Williams gets home. I can see their front gate from where I sit now, and the electric light strikes full on every one who comes and goes." I thought this was about enough, but we were to have yet more positive proof. One evening, soon after, we were all at the Jenkses'. It was a large party, and the rooms were hot and crowded. The Williamses were there, and Walter Dana; but he did not go near Loulie; he paid her no more attention in company than anybody else--from motives of policy, most probably--and she was even quieter than usual, and seemed weary and depressed. Mrs. Jenks asked her to sing, and she refused with more than her ordinary decision. "She would rather not sing to-night, if Mrs. Jenks did not mind," and this refusal she repeated without variation. But Mrs. Jenks did mind very much; she had asked some people from a distance, on purpose to hear Mrs. Williams, and when she had implored in vain, and made all her guests do so too, she finally, in despair, directed herself to Mr. Williams, who seemed in very good spirits, as he always did in company. It was enough for him to know that Professor Perkins and Judge Wheelwright depended on hearing his wife, to rouse his pride at once, and I heard him say to her coaxingly: "Come, Loulou, don't you think you could sing a little?" Loulou said something in so low a tone that I could not catch a word. "Yes, dear, I know; but I really don't think there's any reason for it--and they have all come to hear you, and it seems disobliging not to." Again Loulie's reply was inaudible, all but the last words, "Cannot get through with it." "Oh, yes, you will. Come, darling, won't you? Just once, to oblige me. It won't last long." Loulie still looked most unwilling, but she rose, more as if too tired to contest the point than anything else, and walked over to the piano. Her cheeks were burning, but I saw her shiver as she sat down. Her husband followed her, looking a little anxious, and I wondered if they had been having a scene. Surely the course of dissimulation she was keeping up must have its inevitable effect on her nerves and temper, but her voice rang out as thrilling and triumphant as ever. She sang an English song to the old French air _Musette de Nina_. It was a silly, sentimental thing, all about parted loves and hopeless regrets; but the most foolish words used to sound grandly expressive as she gave them. When she came to the last line, "The flowers of life will never bloom more," at "never" her accompaniment stopped, her voice shook, struggled with the next words, paused, and a look of despair transformed her whole face. I followed the direction of her eyes, and caught sight of Walter Dana, just visible in the doorway, and, like every other mortal in the room, gazing on her in rapt attention. It was like looking on a soul in torture, and we all shuddered as we saw it. What must it have been for him? He grew crimson, and made an uneasy movement, which seemed to break the spell; for, Loulie, rousing herself with an effort, struck a ringing chord, and taking up the words on a lower note, carried them through to the end, her voice gaining strength with the repetition that the air demanded. No one asked her to sing again; and when she rose Walter Dana had disappeared, and the Williamses left very soon afterward. Things had come to such a pass now that we most sincerely repented our desire for a Tolstoi novel among us; and if this was life as it was in Russia, we heartily wished it could be confined to that country. We felt that something shocking was sure to happen soon, and so it did; but if you go through with an earthquake, I am told, it never seems at all like what you expected, and this came in a most unlooked-for way. It was on a day when our Tolstoi Club met at Minnie Mason's, and she looked really ill and miserable. She said she had enough to make her so; and when we were all assembled, she asked one of us to shut all the doors, lest the servants should hear us, and then took out, from a locked drawer in her desk, a newspaper. It was the kind of paper that we had always regarded as improper to buy, or even to look at, and we wondered how Minnie had ever got hold of it; but she unfolded it nervously, and showed us a marked passage: "It is rumoured that proceedings for a divorce will soon be taken by a prominent Boston artist, whose lovely wife is widely known in first-class musical circles. The co-respondent is an old admirer of the lady's, as well as an intimate friend of her husband's." We all read these words with horror, and Emmie Richards began to cry. "We ought to have done _something_ to prevent it," said Blanche, decidedly. "What could we do?" said I. "Poor Willie hasn't a relation who could look after those children," murmured Bessie Milliken. We all felt moved to offer our services upon the spot, but just then there came a loud ring at the door-bell. We all started. It could not be a belated member of the club, for we always walked right in. Minnie had given orders, as usual, to be denied to any chance caller; but in a moment the door opened, and the maid announced that Mr. Williams was in the hall, and wished to see Mrs. Mason. "Ask Mr. Williams, Ellen, if he will please to leave a message; tell him I am engaged with my Tolstoi Club." "I did, ma'am; but he says he wishes to see the club. He says it is on very particular business, ma'am," as Minnie hesitated, and looked for our opinion. Our amazement was so great that it deprived us of words, and Minnie, after a moment, could only bow her head in silent affirmation to the girl, who vanished directly. Could Mrs. Williams have eloped, and had her husband rushed round to claim the sympathy of his female friends, among whom were so many of his old flames? It was a most eccentric proceeding, but we felt that if any man were capable of it, it was poor Willie. But even this conjecture failed, and our very reason seemed forsaking us, as Mr. Williams walked into the room, followed by Mr. Walter Dana, who looked rather awkward on the occasion, while Willie, on the contrary, was quite at his ease, and was faultlessly dressed in a London walking-suit of the newest cut; for he had plenty of such things, though he hated to wear them. He carried a large note-case in his hand. "Good-morning, Mrs. Mason," he began, "good-morning--" with a bow that took us all in; and without an invitation, which Minnie was too confused to give, he comfortably settled himself on a vacant chair, which proceeding Mr. Dana imitated, though with much less self-assurance, while his conductor, as he appeared to be, went on: "I beg your pardon for disturbing you; but I am sorry to find that you have been giving credence, if not circulation, to some very unpleasant and utterly false rumours concerning my wife's character. I do not know, nor do I care to know, how they originated, but I wish to put a stop to them; and as Mr. Dana is the other person chiefly concerned in them, I have brought him with me." I believe we felt as if we should like to sink into the earth; nay, it seemed to me that we must have done so, and come out in China, where everything is different. Willie Williams, without a lisp, without a smile, grave as a judge, and talking like a lawyer opening a case--it was a transformation to inspire any one with awe. He saw that we were frightened, and proceeded in a milder tone, but one equally strange in our ears. "Don't think I mean to blame you. I know women will talk, and I do not believe any of you meant the least harm, or dreamed of things going as far as they have. Indeed, Louise [!] attaches no importance to it whatever. She says it is only idle gossip, and will die out if let alone, and she did not wish me to take any notice of it; but I felt that I must do so on my own account, if not on hers. I don't care what trash gets into such journals as that," and he looked scornfully at the unhappy newspaper, which we wished we had never touched with a pair of tongs; "but I do not want our friends and neighbours to think more meanly of me than I deserve, when I have it in my power to put a stop to it at once. Mr. Dana, is it true that you and Mrs. Williams were ever in love with each other?" "It is not," replied Mr. Dana, who began to take courage under the skilful peroration of his chief. "I was never on any terms with Mrs. Williams, when she was Miss Latham, but those of the very slightest, and, of course, most respectful acquaintance. I don't believe we ever exchanged a dozen words." "I believe you," murmured Blanche Livermore, who sat next to me, and whose unruly tongue nothing could long subdue; and indeed we had none of us supposed that Loulie Latham conducted her love-affairs by means of conversation. "Did you dance the german with her at the Eliot Hall Assembly on January 4, 188-?" "I regret very much that I never had the pleasure of dancing the german with Mrs. Williams. At the party to which you refer I danced with Miss Wilmerding." We all remembered Alice Wilmerding and her red hair, just the shade of Loulie Latham's, but which had not procured her an artist for a husband; indeed, it had not procured any at all, for she was still single. "Neither," pursued Willie Williams, "is there any truth in the report that Louise was obliged to marry me for a support. She had no need to do so, being possessed of very sufficient means of her own, as I can show by her bank-account at that date." How he had got hold of every scrap we had said to one another, and even of all we had thought, we could not imagine then, but we afterward found out that he had procured every item from the editor of that horrid paper, under threats of instant personal and legal attack; and as to how this person happened to know so much, I can only advise you not to say or think anything you would be ashamed to have known while there are such papers in existence. "The only reason that Loulou and I married each other," went on Loulou's husband, "is that we loved each other; and we love each other now, if possible, twice as much as we did then. If you think she does not care for me because she is not demonstrative in company, you are mistaken. She gives me as much proof of it as I want. We all have our peculiarities, and I know I have a great many which she puts up with better than most women would. Of course I don't expect her to be without hers either; but they don't trouble me any more than mine do her, and, besides, most of what has struck you as singular in her behaviour can be easily explained. You have thought she was conceited about her music, but it's no such thing; she has not an atom of conceit in her; indeed, she thinks too humbly of herself. She has heard so much music of the highest class that she thinks little of any drawing-room performance, her own or anybody else's, and her reluctance to sing is genuine, for she has a horror of being urged or complimented out of mere politeness. You are not pleased, I hear" [_how_ could he know that?], "that she refused to join all your clubs and classes; one reason was that she really did not care to. Every one has a right to one's own taste; she has met a great deal of artistic and literary society abroad, and has become accustomed to live among people who are doing something; and it is tedious to her to go about so much with people who are always talking about things, as we are given to do here. She is really fond of hard reading, as but few women are; and she likes better, for instance, to stay at home and spend her time in reading Dante by herself in the original, than to go to a club and hear him talked over, with a little skimming from a translation interspersed. She dresses to please me and herself, and not to be envied or admired; and if she has a fondness for pretty clothes for their own sake, that is not surprising, when she had so little chance to indulge it when she was a girl." Here he paused, and it was high time, for we were growing restive under the catalogue of his wife's virtues; but in a moment he resumed. "There is another reason, too, why she has not been more sociable with you all. You don't know how unhappy Loulou is about her children; but you do know, perhaps, that we have lost two,"--here his voice faltered slightly, with some faint suggestion of the Willie Williams of our old acquaintance,--"and she is terribly afraid that the others will not live to grow up. I don't think them as fragile as she does; but they do look delicate, there's no denying it. We came home, and here, very much on their account; but yours are all so healthy and blooming that it's almost too much for poor Loulou sometimes, especially when people--" he was considerate enough not to look at Minnie--"tell her that they look poorly, and that she ought to be more careful of them. How can she be? She is always with them--more than is good for her; but she has an idea that they won't eat as much as they ought, or go to sleep when they should, without her; and she never leaves them at lunch, which is, of course, their dinner. I think she is a little morbid about them, but I can't torment her to leave it off; and I hope, as they get older and stronger, she'll be more cheerful. It is this that makes her out of spirits sometimes, and not any foolish nonsense about being in love with anybody else." "_Mon âne parle, et même il parle bien!_" whispered the incorrigible Blanche, and though I don't think it fair to call Willie Williams an ass at any time, our surprise at his present fluency was nearly as great as the prophet's. He seemed now to have made an end of what he wished to say, but Mr. Dana, whose presence we had nearly forgotten, looked at him meaningly, as if in request. "Oh, yes--I had forgotten--but it is only due to Mr. Dana to say that he has been coming to my house a good deal lately on business. I would tell you all about it, but it's rather private." But, humbled as we were, we could not hear this without a protesting murmur, disclaiming all vulgar curiosity. I did, indeed, wonder for a moment if he were painting Walter's portrait; if he were, I did not think it strange that the latter looked a little sheepish about it; but I afterward found out through Tom that it concerned some good offices of them both for an old friend in distress. "When he came to my house in the evening when I was out, it was to meet another person, and Mrs. Williams, half the time, never saw either of them. As to that song at Mrs. Jenks's party, which, I hear, created so much comment, she was feeling very unhappy that night because little Violet had a cold, and she thought she might have made a mistake in trying to keep her out, and toughen her, as you do your children here. Perhaps that heightened her expression; but as to breaking down on the last line of the song, that effect was one of Giudotti's lessons, and he taught her how to give that look. He always said she had the making of a great tragic actress in her. She does try to look at the wall," went on Willie, simply, "but it was so crowded there that she could not, and Mr. Dana could not help standing in the way of it. I think I have said all I need say--and I hope you won't mind it or think I am very impertinent, but I couldn't bear to have this thing going on; and I hope we shall all be as good friends as we were before, and that it will all be very soon forgotten." And he bowed and departed, followed by Mr. Dana, with alacrity. We were doubtful as to these happy results. We could all admire Willie Williams for standing up so gallantly for his wife, but we did not like her any the better for being so successfully stood up for, and we felt that we could never forget the unpleasant sensation he had given us. It took a long course of seeing him in his old shape and presentment among us--working in the same flamboyant clothes, at paintings as execrable as ever; with the same lisp, and the same trip and jerk, and the same easy good nature, and trifling enthusiasms--to forget that he had ever inspired us with actual fear, and might again, though he never has. We came also, in course of time, to like Loulou better, though it was rather galling to see how little she heeded the matter that cost us all so much remorse; but she lost her reserve in great measure as her children grew healthier and more like other people's. I think the hatchet was fairly buried for good and all when, in another year, she had another baby, a splendid boy weighing nine pounds and three quarters, at whose birth more enthusiasm was manifested in Babyland than on any similar occasion before, and who was loaded with the most beautiful presents, one in particular from Minnie Mason, who was much better, for her recovery of health dates from that sudden incursion into our Tolstoi Club, and the shock it gave her. I should have said as to that, that after the men had left us Blanche Livermore exclaimed, "Well, girls, I think we are pretty sufficiently crushed!" This was generous of Blanche, when she was the only one among us who had ever expressed any incredulity as to the "Russian novel," as we called it. "The fact is," she went on, "I have come to the conclusion that we have not yet advanced to the realistic period here; we are living in the realms of the ideal; and, what is worse, I fear I am so benighted that I like it best; don't you?" And, encouraged by an inarticulate but affirmatory murmur from all of us, she proceeded: "Let us all agree to settle down contentedly behind the age in our provinciality; and, that we may keep so, let us cut the realists in fiction, and take up something they don't approve of. I vote that we devote the rest of the season to a good thorough course of Walter Scott!" And so we did. [Illustration] [Illustration] A LITTLE FOOL "What, my dear Marian! And do you really and truly mean to say you thought of taking the girl without going to ask her character!" "There are so many difficulties about it. You see, she lived last with Mrs. Donald Craighead for two years, and that would be quite enough for a character. They all went abroad in a great hurry on account of Mr. Craighead's health, and Mrs. Craighead promised to give her one, but forgot it, and she couldn't bear to bother them when they were all in such trouble. I know myself that all that about them is true." "So do I; but that does not prove that she ever lived with them. Cannot she refer to any of the family?" "No; she did nothing but laundry work there, and never saw any of their friends, I fancy; but she does have a written character from the family she lived with before them, very nice people in South Boston." "What's their name?" "I don't remember," said Miss Marian Carter, blushing, "but I have it written down at home." "I should certainly go there, if I were you." "It is so far off, and I never went there in my life." "Well, you ought. It sounds very suspicious. Of course there are a few nice people in South Boston; they have to live there because they own factories and things, and have to be near them; but then, again, there are such dreadful neighbourhoods there. Most likely she depends on your not taking the trouble, and you will find the number she gave you over some low grog-shop." "Oh, I should be so frightened! I really do not think I can go!" "You surely ought not to risk taking her without, and very likely have her turn out an accomplice of burglars, like that Norah of mine, through whom I lost so much silver." "I thought you had a character with her." "So I did, or I should not have taken her. I make it a principle not to. It only shows how great the danger is with a character; without one it amounts to a certainty." "She was such a nice-looking girl!" "That makes no difference. I always mistrust maids who look too nice. They are sure to have some story, or scrape, or something, like that Florence of mine, who looked so much of a lady, and turned out to be a clergyman's daughter, and had run away from her husband--a most respectable man. He came to the house after her, and gave no end of trouble." "But this girl did not look at all like that; not a bit above her place, but so neatly dressed, and with a plain, sensible way about her; and her name is Drusilla Elms--such a quaint, old-fashioned, American-sounding name, quite refreshing to hear." "It sounds very like an assumed name. The very worst woman I ever had was named Bathsheba Fogg; she turned out to have been a chorus girl at some low theatre, and must have picked it up from some farce or other." "Then you really think I ought to go to South Boston?" "I should do so in your place," replied Mrs. William Treadwell. This gave but scant encouragement, for Marian could not but feel that the result of her friend's going and that of her own, might be very different; and Mrs. Treadwell, as she watched her visitor off, smiled good-humouredly, but pityingly. "Poor dear Marian! What a little fool she is to swallow everything that she is told in that way! It is a wonder that the Carters ever have a decent servant in their house." However much of a wonder it might be, it was still a fact; but it did not occur to Marian, as she bent her way homeward, to revive her feeble self-confidence, crushed flat by her friend's scorn, with any recollection that such fearful tales as she had just heard were without a parallel in her own experience. It is to be feared that she was a little fool, though she kept her mother's house very well and carefully, if, indeed, it were her mother's house. Nobody but the tax-gatherer knew to whom it really belonged, and he forgot between each assessment. It stood on Burroughs street, Jamaica Plain, a neighbourhood that still boasts an air of dignified repose. It was without the charm of a really old-fashioned house, or even such as may be possessed by a modern imitation of one; indeed it bore the stamp of that unfortunate period which may be called the middle age of American architecture, extending, at a rough estimate, from 1820 to 1865; but it was a well-built house, and looked, as at present inhabited, a pleasant abode enough, of sufficient size to accommodate a numerous female flock--Marian's grandmother and her great-aunt, her mother and her aunt, her widowed sister and two children, a trained nurse who was treated as one of the family, three servants, and Marian herself to make up the round dozen. The grandmother had lost the use of her limbs, and the great-aunt that of her mind; the mother and the trained nurse were devoted to them, and the aunt to philanthropic objects, and the sister to her children; so the housekeeper's duties devolved on Marian, though she was still but a child in her elders' eyes, and were well discharged, as they all allowed, though qualifying their praise with the remark that it was "easy enough to keep a house without a man in it." As Marian Carter passed along bustling, suburban Centre Street, she looked a very flower of the Western world of feminine liberty; fine and fair, free and fearless, coming and going at her own pleasure, on foot or by the horse-cars, those levellers of privilege; no duenna to track her steps, no yashmak or veil to hide her charms. Yet the fact was that she knew less of men than if she had lived in a harem or a convent. She had no sultan, no father confessor. She could not, like Miss Pole of Cranford memory, claim to know the other sex by virtue of her father having been a man, for Marian's father had died before she was born. Her sister Isabel and she had had friends, and had gone into society in a mild way, and being pretty girls, had met with a little general attention, but nothing ever came of it. The family never entertained, except now and then an old friend to tea, their means and opportunity being small; nor could young men venture to call. The grandmother had been a great invalid before she lost the use of her limbs, and the great-aunt a formidable person before she lost that of her mind, while Aunt Caroline from her youth upward had developed a great distaste for the society of men, even when viewed as objects of philanthropy. When Isabel was four and twenty she went to New York to visit some cousins, and though they lived very quietly, she made the acquaintance of a young civil engineer, at home on a vacation from his work in the United States of Colombia, who had married and borne her off after the briefest possible courtship, never to see her old home again till she came back, ten years after, a widow with two children, to eke out her small means by the shelter of the family abode. I cannot delay the humiliating confession, postponed as long as may be for the sake of the artistic unity of my picture, that the youngest of these children was a boy, if, as his mother was wont to plead, "a very little one." He was dressed in as unboyish a fashion as possible, and being christened Winthrop, was always called Winnie. He was a quiet, gentle child, kept down by his position; but though thus made the best of, he was felt to be an inconvenience and an encumbrance, if not now, certainly in the future. There was no end to the trouble it would make when Winnie grew older, and required a room to himself, and would be obliged to go to a boys' school, which might even lead up to the direful contingency of his "bringing home other boys." After Isabel's departure, Marian, though the prettier of the two, found it dull to go about alone. No one asked her to New York; the cousin had died, and the cousin's husband had married again; and when she grew past the dancing age, perhaps earlier than she need, she went nowhere where she had any chance of meeting any men but the husbands of one or two married friends, and she was such a little fool that she fancied they despised her for being an old maid. She knew she was five-and-thirty on her last birthday, and was foolish enough to be afraid and ashamed of owning to it. She need not have done so, for she did not look a day older than twenty-five; but the memories of her contemporaries were pitiless. She enjoyed her housekeeping, which gave her life some object, and her intercourse with her butcher, a fine young fellow who admired her hugely, was the nearest approach to a love-affair in which she had ever indulged, so much sentiment did he contrive to throw about the legs of mutton and the Sunday roast. Though honestly thinking herself happy, and her position a fortunate one, she relished a change, which seldom came, and was glad of the prospect of a visit to South Boston, now that she could conscientiously say she ought to go since Emma Treadwell had ordered it. The excitement of going off the beaten track was heightened by the mystery which invested the affair. Marian had not dared to confess to her managing friend that the "written character" to which she referred had struck her rather oddly when the neat, civil, young, but not too young woman whose appearance had so favourably impressed her had handed it to her with an air which seemed to indicate that nothing more need be said on the subject, although it only said, "Drusilla Elms refers by permission to ---- Hayward, City Point, South Boston," in a great, scrawling, masculine-looking hand. The name was easy enough to read, a painful effort having evidently been made to write thus much legibly; but the title, be it Mr., Mrs., or Miss, was so utterly unreadable that Marian, who dreaded, like most timid people, to put a direct question, ventured upon an indirect one: "Is--Mr. Hayward a widower?" "Oh, dear, no, ma'am!" replied Drusilla, emphatically. "And--they--still live there?" "Oh, dear, yes, ma'am!" Marian was very glad that the Saturday she chose for her expedition was Aunt Caroline's day for the Women's and Children's Hospital, and that Isabel had taken Minna and Winnie for a holiday trip into town to see the Art Museum, which left fewer people at home to whom to explain her errand, and to whose comments to reply. Mrs. Carter said it was silly to go so far, and if she couldn't be satisfied to take the girl without, she had better find some one near by. The trained nurse, who was slowly but surely getting the whole household under her control, said that Miss Carter's beautiful new spring suit would be ruined going all the way to South Boston in the horse-cars; and Mrs. Carter, who would never have thought of this herself, seconded her. Marian did not argue the point, but she wore the dress nevertheless. She never felt that anything she wore made any impression on any one she knew, but she could not help fancying that if she had the chance she might impress strangers. No one she knew ever called her pretty, and perhaps five-and-thirty was too old to be thought so; and yet, if there was any meaning in the word, it might surely be applied to the soft, shady darkness of her hair and eyes, and the delicate bloom of her cheeks and lips, set off by that silver-grey costume, with its own skilfully blended lights and shades of silk and cashmere, and the purple and white lilacs that were wreathed together on her small bonnet. She made a bad beginning, for while still enjoying the effect of her graceful draperies as she entered the horse-car for Boston, she carelessly caught the handle of her nice grey silk sunshade in the door, and snapped it short in the middle. She could have cried, though the man who always mended their umbrellas assured her, with a bow and smile, that it should be mended, when she called for it on her way back, "so that she would never know it;" but it deprived her costume of the finishing touch, and she really needed it on this warm sunny day; then, it was a bad omen, and she was foolish enough to believe in omens. Her disturbance prevented her from observing much of the route after she had drifted into a car for South Boston, and had assured herself that it was the right one. Perhaps this was as well, as the first part of the way was sufficiently uninviting to have frightened her out of her intention had she looked about her. When at last she did, they were passing along a wide street lined with sufficiently substantial brick buildings, chiefly devoted to business, crossed by narrower ones of small wooden houses more or less respectable in appearance; but surely no housemaid who would suit them could ever have served in one of these. Great rattling drays squeezed past the car, and Chinese laundrymen noiselessly got in and out. The one landmark she had heard of in South Boston, and for aught she knew the reason of its existence, was the Perkins Institution for the Blind, which her Aunt Caroline sometimes visited. But she passed the Institution, and still went on and on. That the world extended so far in that direction was an amazement in itself; she knew that there must be something there to fill up, but she had had a vague idea that it might be water, which is so accommodating in filling up the waste spaces of the terrestrial globe. Finally the now nearly empty car came to a full stop at the foot of a hill, the track winding off around it, and the conductor, of whom she had asked her way, approached her with the patronising deference which men in his position were very apt to assume to her: "Lady, you'll have to get out here, and walk up the hill. Keep straight ahead, and you can't miss it." "And can I take the car here when I come back?" asked Marian, clinging as if to an ark of refuge. "Oh, yes," said the man, encouragingly; "we're along every ten minutes. It ain't far off." Marian slowly touched one little foot, and then another, to the unknown and almost foreign soil of South Boston. She looked wistfully after the car till it turned a corner, and left her stranded, before she began slowly to climb the hill. It was warm, and she missed her sunshade. "I shall be shockingly burned!" she thought. She looked about her, and acknowledged that the street was a pleasant, sunny one, and that its commonplace architecture gained in picturesqueness by its steep ascent. As she neared the top the houses grew larger, scattered among garden grounds, and she at last found the number she looked for on the gate-post of one of the largest. She walked up a brick-paved path to the front door between thick box borders, inclosing beds none too well weeded, but whose bowery shrubs and great clumps of old-fashioned bulbs and perennials had acquired the secure possession of the soil that comes with age. Behind them were grape-vines trained on trellises, over which rose the blossoming heads of tall old cherry-trees, and through the interstices in the flowery wall might be caught glimpses of an old garden where grass and flowers and vegetables mingled at haphazard. It dated from the days when people planted gardens with a view to what they could get out of them, regardless of effect; and the house, in like manner, had been built to live in rather than to look at. No one could say how it had looked before trees had shaded it and creepers enveloped it so completely. The veranda which ran around it was well sheltered from the street, fortunately, thought Marian, for the bamboo chairs and sofas, piled up with rugs and cushions, with which it was crowded, were heaped with newspapers, and hats, and tennis-rackets, and riding-whips, and garden-tools, and baskets, tossed carelessly about. On the door-mat lay a large dog, who flopped his tail up and down with languid courtesy as she approached. She was terribly afraid of him, but thought it safer to face him than to turn her back upon him, and edging by him, gave a feeble ring at the door-bell. No one came. She rang again with more energy, and then, after a brief pause, the door was opened by a half-grown boy. Marian only knew a very few families who aspired to have their doors opened by anything more than a parlour-maid, and these had butlers of unimpeachable respectability. But this young person had a bright, but roguish look, which accorded better with the page of farce than with one of real life. He seemed surprised to see her, though he bowed civilly. "Is Mrs. Hayward at home?" asked Marian, in the most dulcet of small voices; and as he looked at her with a stare that seemed as if it might develop into a grin, she added, "or any of the ladies of the family? I only wish to see one of them on business." "Walk in, please, ma'am, and I'll see," faltered the porter, appearing perplexed; and he opened the door, and ushered Marian across a wide hall with a great, old-fashioned staircase at the further end--a place that would have had no end of capabilities about it in a modern decorator's eyes, but which looked now rather bare and unfurnished, save for pegs loaded with hats and coats, and stands of umbrellas--into a long, low room that looked crowded enough. Low bookcases ran around the walls, and there were a great many tables heaped with books and magazines, and a piano littered with music in a most slovenly condition; a music-stand or two, and a violin and violoncello in their cases clustered about it. The walls over the books were hung with old portraits, which looked as if they might be valuable; among them were squeezed in whips, and long pipes on racks, and calendars, and over them were hung horns and heads of unknown beasts, whose skins lay on the floor. Over the fireplace hung a sword and a pair of pistols in well-worn cases, but they were free from dust, which many of the furnishings were not. The long windows at the side opened on to the veranda, which was even more carelessly strewed with the family possessions than at the front door, and from which steps led down to a tennis-court in faultless trim, the only orderly spot on the premises. What a poor housekeeper Mrs. Hayward must be! She must let the men of the family do exactly as they pleased, and there must be at least half a dozen of them, while not a trace of feminine occupation was to be seen. No servant from here could hope to suit the Carter household, no matter how good a character she brought. But somehow the intensely masculine air of the place had a wild fascination for Marian herself, in spite of warning remembrances of how much her family would be shocked. There was something delicious in the freedom with which letters and papers were tossed about, and books piled up anywhere, while their proper homes stood vacant, and in the soothing, easy tolerance with which persecuted dust was allowed to find a quiet resting-place. A pungent and pleasing perfume pervaded the premises, which seemed appropriate and agreeable to her delicate senses, even though she supposed it must be tobacco-smoke. She had smelled tobacco only as it exhaled from passers in the street, and surely this fine, ineffable aroma came from a different source than theirs! While she daintily inhaled it as she looked curiously about, her ears became aware of singular sounds--a subdued scuffling and scraping at the door at the further end of the room, and a breathing at its keyhole, which gave her an unpleasant sensation of being watched; and she instantly sat stiffly upright and looked straight before her, her heart beating with wonder and affright lest the situation might prove actually dangerous. The sounds suddenly ceased, and in a moment more a halting step was heard outside, and a gentleman came in at the other door--a tall man, whose hair was thick, but well sprinkled with grey; whose figure, lean and lank, had a certain easy swing about its motions, in spite of a very perceptible limp; and whose face, brown and thin, and marred by a long scar right across the left cheek, had something attractive in its expression as he came forward with a courteous, expectant look. Marian could only bow. "I beg your pardon; did you wish to see me?" inquired the stranger, in a deep, low voice that sounded as if it might be powerful on occasion. "Oh, I am very sorry to trouble you! I only wanted to see the mistress of the house, if she is able----" "I am afraid I am the only person who answers to that description." There was a good-natured twinkle in his eye, and he had a pleasant smile, but his evident amusement abashed her. "I keep my own house," he went on. "Oh, I beg your pardon! I thought there was a Mrs. Hayward!" "I am sorry to say that there is none. But I am Mr. Hayward, and shall be very glad if I can be of any service to you." "I don't want to disturb you," said Marian, blushing deeply, while Mr. Hayward, with, "Will you allow me?" drew up a chair and sat down, as if to put her more at her ease. "It is only--only--" here she came to a dead stop. "I do not want to take up so much of your time," she confusedly stammered. "Not at all; I shall be very happy--" he paused too, not knowing how to fill up the blank, and waited quietly, while Marian sought frantically in her little bag for a paper which was, of course, at the very bottom. "It is only," she began again--"only to ask you about the character of a chambermaid named Drusilla--yes, Drusilla Elms. I think it must be you she refers to; at least I copied the address from the reference she showed me; here it is," handing him the slip of paper; and as he took out his eyeglass to study it, "only I couldn't tell--I didn't know--whether it was Mr., or Mrs., or what it was before the name, I am very sorry." "So am I. It has been the great misfortune of my life, I assure you, that I write such a confounded--such an execrable hand. Pray accept my apologies for it." "Oh, it was not a bad hand!--not at all! It was my own stupidity! I suppose you really did give her the character, then?" "In spite of your politeness, I am afraid I too plainly recognise the bewildering effect of my own scrawl. I think I must have given her the reference, though I don't remember doing so." "The name is so peculiar----" "Yes; but the fact is that our old Catherine, who has been cook here for a longer time than I can reckon, generally engages our other maid for us, and she dislikes to change the name, and calls them all Margaret. I think we had a very nice Margaret two years ago, but I will go and ask Catherine; she may recollect." "Oh, don't trouble yourself! I have no doubt that you are quite right--none at all!" "But I have so many doubts, I should like to be a little surer; and if you will excuse me for a moment--well! _What_, in the devil's name, are you up to now?" It must be explained that by this time he had reached the further door, and that the sudden close of his speech was addressed, not to Marian, but to some invisible person, or rather persons; for the subdued laughter which responded, the very equivalent to a girlish giggle, surely came from more than one pair of boyish lungs. Some stifled speech, too, was heard, to which the master of the house replied, "Go to ----, then, and be quick about it!" as he closed the door behind him, leaving Marian trembling with apprehension lest he might be mad or drunk. And yet if this were swearing, and she feared it was, there was something gratifying in the sound of a good, round, mouth-filling oath, especially when contrasted with the extreme and punctilious deference of his speech to her. He came back in a moment, and, standing before her with head inclined, said, as if apologising for some misdeed of his own: "I am very sorry, but Catherine is out, doing her marketing. She will probably return soon, if you do not mind waiting." "Oh, no!" said Marian, shocked with the idea that her presence might be inconvenient; "I could not possibly wait! I am in a very great hurry." "Then, if you will allow me to write what she says? I promise," he added, with another humorous twinkle in his eye, "to try and write my very best." "Thank you, if it is not too much trouble," said Marian, rising, and edging toward the door as if she had some hopes of getting off unnoticed. It was confusing to have him follow her with an air of expectation, she could not imagine of what, though she had a consciousness, too, of having forgotten something, which made her linger, trying to recollect it. He slowly turned the handle of the outer door, and, opening it for her exit, seemed waiting for her to say something--what, she racked her brains in vain to discover. He looked amused again, and as if he would have spoken himself; but Marian, with a sudden start, exclaimed, "Oh, dear, it rains!" She had not noticed how dark the sky was growing, but to judge by the looks of the pavement, it had been quietly showering for some time. "So it does!" said he. "That is a pity. I fear you are not very well protected against it." "Oh, it doesn't matter!" cried Marian, recklessly; "it is only a step to the horse-cars." "Enough for you to get very wet, I am afraid." "It isn't of the least consequence. I have nothing on that will hurt--nothing at all!" Mr. Hayward looked admiringly and incredulously at the lilacs on her bonnet. "I can hardly suppose your flowers are real ones, though certainly they look very much like them; if they are not, I fear a shower will scarcely prove of advantage to them. You must do me the honour of letting me see you to the car." As he spoke he extracted from the stand an enormous silk umbrella with a big handle, nearly as large as Marian herself. "I could not think of it!" she cried, and hurried down the wet steps, sweeping them with the dainty plaiting round the edge of her silvery skirt. "Oh, but you must!" he went on in a tone of lazy good humour, yet as one not accustomed to be refused. There was something paternal in his manner gratifying to her, for as he could not be much over fifty, he must think her much younger than she really was. "Don't hurry; there is a car every ten minutes, and a very good place to wait in; there--take care of the wet box, please, with your dress, and take my arm, if you don't mind." "Oh, no, thank you! Really, I am very well covered!" protested Marian, squeezing herself and her gown into the smallest possible space. The big umbrella was up before she knew it, and he was hobbling along the brick path by her side, in an old pair of yellow leather slippers as ill fitted to keep out the wet as her own shining little shoes. "I am very sorry you should have been caught in this way," he said apologetically. "Don't mention it." "I hope you have not far to go." "Oh, no, indeed! That is--yes, rather far; but when I get into the car, I am all right, because it meets--I mean, I can take a cab. It is very easy to get about in town, you know." She turned while he opened the gate, and caught sight of the front windows, thronged, like the gates of Paradise Lost, with faces which might indeed have served as models for a very realistic study, in modern style, of cherubim, being those of healthy boys of all ages from twelve to twenty, each wearing a broad grin of delight. "Confound 'em!" muttered her conductor in a low tone, but Marian caught the words, and the accompanying grimace which he flung back over his shoulder. Could his remarkable house be a boys' school? If so, he was the very oddest teacher, and his discipline the most extraordinary, she had ever heard of; it was too easy of egress, surely, to be a private lunatic asylum, a thought which had already excited her fears. "Please lower your head a little, Miss--" he paused for the name, but she did not fill up the gap; "the creepers hang so low here," and he carefully held the umbrella so as best to protect her from the dripping sprays. "How very pretty your garden is!" she said as he closed the gate. "It is a sad straggling place; we all run pretty wild here, I am afraid." "But it is so picturesque!" "Picturesque it may be, and we get a good deal of fruit and vegetables out of it; it isn't a show garden, but it is a comfort to have any breathing-place in a city." "This seems a very pleasant neighbourhood." "Hum! well, yes; I think it pleasant enough. It is my old home; near the water, too, and the boys like the boating. It's out of the way of society, but then, we have no ladies to look after. It is easy enough, you know, for men to come and go anyhow." "Coming and going anyhow" rang with a delicious thrill of freedom in Marian's ears, and in the midst of her alarm at possible consequences she revelled in her adventure, such a one as she had never had before, and probably never should again; and there was the car tinkling on its early way. Mr. Hayward signed to it to stop, and waded in his slippers through the wet dust, for it could not be called mud yet, to hand her deferentially in. "You are sure you can get along now?" he asked, as the car came to a stop. "Oh, yes, indeed! Thank you so much; I am very sorry----" "No need of it, I assure you. I am sorry I cannot do more." He looked at the big umbrella doubtfully, and so did she; but the idea of offering it to her was too absurd, and they both laughed, which Marian feared was improperly free and easy for her. Then, as she turned on the step to bow her farewell, he added, "I beg your pardon; but you have forgotten to leave me your address. I should be very glad to write in case Catherine----" "Mrs. W. Cracker, 40 Washington Street," stammered Marian, frightened out of her little sense, and rattling off the first words that came into her head, suggested in part by a baker's cart which passed at the moment. She should never dare to give her real address! Anything better than to have those dreadful boys know who she was! He looked puzzled, then laughed; but it was of no use for him to say anything, for the car had started, and swept her safely beyond his reach at once. She could see him looking after it till it turned out of sight, and was thankful he had not followed her, as he might perhaps have done if he had not had on those old slippers. Marian did not go directly home, but stopped at Mrs. William Treadwell's till the spring shower was over, that she might be able to tell her family that she had been there, and thus avoid over-curious questioning as to where she had been caught in it. She briefly informed them that she could obtain no satisfactory account of Drusilla Elms--the people to whom she referred seemed to have forgotten her--and wrote to the girl that she had made other arrangements. She waited in fear for a few days, lest something might happen to bring her little adventure to light; but nothing did, and her fears subsided, with a few faint wishes as well. What a pleasant world, she wistfully thought, was the world of men--a world where conventionalities and duty calls gave way to a delicious, free, Bohemian existence of boating and running about; where even housekeeping was a thing lightly considered, and where dogs jumped on sofas, and people threw their things around at pleasure--nay, even smoked and swore, regardless of consequences temporal or eternal! About a fortnight after her wild escapade, the household of Freeman-Robbins-Carter-Dale, to use the collective patronymic of the female dynasty which reigned there, was agitated by the unusual phenomenon of an evening visitor who called himself a man, though but in his freshman year at Harvard University. It was the son of their deceased cousin in New York, whose husband, though married again, retained sufficient sense of kinship to insist that the boy should call on his mother's relatives, which duty the unhappy youth had postponed from week to week, and from month to month, until the awkwardness of introducing himself was doubled. He had struggled through this ordeal, and now sat, the centre of an admiring female circle who were trying to hang upon his words. Winnie, whose presence might have given him some support, had been sent to bed; but his sister was privileged to remain up longer, and being a serious child, and wise beyond her years, she fixed him with her solemn gaze, while one great-aunt remarked over and over again on his resemblance to his grandfather, and the other as often inquired who he was, though his name and pedigree were carefully explained each time by the nurse. Mrs. Carter addressed him as "Freddy, dear!" and Miss Caroline asked what he was studying at college, and his cousin Isabel pressed sweet cake upon him. Only his cousin Marian sat silent in the background. He thought her very pretty, and not at all formidable, though so old--not that he had the least idea how old she really was. "Did you bolt the front door, Marian, when you let Trippet out?" asked her mother. Trippet was the family cat, who had shown symptoms of alarm at the aspect of the unwonted guest. "I--I think so." "You had better go and look," said her sister. "It would be no joke if Freddy's nice overcoat and hat were to be taken by a sneak-thief. They are very troublesome just now in the suburbs," she continued; "but we never leave anything of value in our front hall, and we always make it a rule to bolt as well as lock the door as soon as it grows dusk. There is no harm in taking every precaution." "Sneak-thieves and second-floor thieves have quite replaced the old-fashioned midnight burglar," said Miss Caroline. "They are just as bad," said Mrs. Dale. "Women--ladies--are taking to it now," said Master Frederick. "I heard the funniest story about one the other day." He paused, and grew red at the drawing upon himself the fire of eight pairs of eyes, but plucked up his courage and resumed the theme, not insensible to the possible delight of terrifying those before whom he had quailed. "It was in Ned Hayward's family, my classmate; he and his brother Bob--he's a junior--live in South Boston with their uncle, Colonel Hayward--the celebrated Colonel Hayward, you know, who was so distinguished in the war, and--and everything; perhaps you know him?" "We have heard of him," said Mrs. Carter, graciously. "Well, I've been out there sometimes with him, and it's no end of jolly--I mean, it is a pleasant place to visit in. The Colonel's an old bachelor, and brings his nephews up, because, you know, their father's dead." He stopped short again, overwhelmed with the sound of so long a speech from himself. "But about the thief? Oh, do tell us," murmured the circle, encouragingly. "Well," began Fred, seeing his retreat cut off, and gathering courage as the idea struck him that the topic, if skilfully dwelt on, might last out the call, "it happened this way. Bob was at home a few weeks ago to spend Sunday, and took a lot of fellows--I mean a large party of his classmates; and there were some boys there playing tennis with his brothers--it was on a Saturday morning--and a woman came and asked for the lady of the house; that's a common dodge of theirs, you know. Well, of course, the Colonel went in to see her. The boys wanted to see the fun, so they all took turns in looking through the keyhole; and Bob says she was stunning--I mean very pretty--and looked like a lady, and dressed up no end; but she seemed very confused and queer, and as if she hardly knew what to say, and she pretended to have come to ask for the character of a servant with the oddest name, I forget what; but most likely she made it up, for none of them could remember it. Well, she hung on ever so long, looking for a chance to hook something, I suppose, and at last, just as she was going, it began to rain, and she seemed to expect him to lend her an umbrella. But he wasn't as green as all that comes to; he said he would see her to the car himself; so off he walked with her as polite as you please. Bob says it's no end of fun to see his uncle with a lady; he doesn't see much of them, and when he does he treats 'em like princesses. He took her to the car, and put her in, and just as it started he asked her address, and she told him--" here an irrepressible fit of laughter interrupted his tale--"she told him that it was Mrs. W. Cracker, 40 Washington Street. Did you ever hear such stuff? Of course there's no such person, for the Colonel wasted lots of time taking particular pains to find out. Bob says they're all sure she was a thief, except his uncle, who was awfully smashed on her pretty face, and he sticks to it she was only a little out of her head. They poke no end of fun at him about it, but it really was no joke for him, for he walked with her down to the car in his old slippers in the wet, and caught cold in the leg where he was wounded; he's always lame in it, and when he takes cold it brings on his rheumatic gout. He was laid up a fortnight; he's always so funny when he's got the gout; he can't bear to have any of the boys come near him, and flings boots at their heads when they do, for of course they have to wait on him some, and he swears so. Bob says he's sorry for him, for of course it hurts, but he can't help laughing at the queer things he says. He always swears some when he's well, but when he's sick it fairly takes your head off." "Dear me! dear me!" said Mrs. Carter; "swearing is a sad habit. I hope, Freddy, dear, that you will not catch it. Colonel Hayward is a very distinguished officer, and they have to, I suppose, on the battle-field; but there is no war now, and it is not at all necessary." "Oh, he won't let the boys do it! He swears at them like thunder if they do, but they don't mind it. He's awfully good-natured, and lets them rough him as much as they please, and they've done it no end about the pretty little housebreaker. Bob has made a song about her to the tune of _Little Annie Rooney_--that's the one his uncle most particularly hates. Phil had a shy at her with his kodak, but what with the rain and the leaves, you can't see much of her." "It is a pity," said Miss Caroline; "it might be shown to the police, who could very likely identify her. I dare say she has been at Sherborne Prison, and there we photograph them all. If it were not that Mary Murray is in for a two years' sentence, I should say it answered very well to her description." Some more desultory conversation went on, while the hands of the clock ran rapidly on toward eleven. The youthful Minna silently stole away at a sign from her mother, without drawing attention upon herself. Ten o'clock was the latest hour at which these ladies were in the habit of being up; but how hint to a guest that he was staying too long? They guessed that it might not seem late to him, and feared that he was acquiring bad habits in college. The poor fellow knew perfectly well that he was making an unconscionably long call; but how break through the circle? And then he was remembering with affright into how much slang he had lapsed in the course of his tale, and was racking his brains for some particularly proper farewell speech which should efface the recollection of it. Suddenly his eyes were caught by Marian's face. Her look of abject misery he could attribute only to her extreme fatigue, and he made a desperate rally: "I'm afraid, Miss Dale, I mean Mrs. Robbins, that I'm making a terribly long call. I am very sorry." "Oh, not at all! Not at all! Pray do not hurry! You must come often; we shall be delighted to see you." "It seems a very long way," murmured Freddy, conscious that he was saying something rude, but unable to help himself; and he finally succeeded in escaping, under a fire of the most pressing invitations to "call again," for, as Mrs. Carter said, "we must show some hospitality to poor Ellen's boy. Marian, you look tired. I hope you did not let him see it. Do go to bed directly. I must confess I feel a little sleepy myself." But the troubles which Marian bore with her to the small room which she shared with her little niece were of a kind for which bed brought no solace, and she lay awake till almost dawn, only thankful that Minna slumbered undisturbed by her side. To Marian every private who had fought in the war was an angel, and every officer an archangel _ex officio_. That she should have been the cause of an attack of rheumatic gout to a wounded hero filled her with remorse, especially as this particular hero was the most delightful man she had ever met. She wept bitterly from a variety of emotions--pity, and shame, too--for what must he think of her? That last misery, at any rate, she could not and would not endure, and before breakfast she had written the following letter: "BURROUGHS STREET, JAMAICA PLAIN. "DEAR COLONEL HAYWARD, "I was very, very sorry to hear that you had taken cold and been ill in consequence of that unfortunate call of mine on Saturday, three weeks ago. I really came on the errand I said I did; but I don't wonder you thought otherwise, after I had behaved so foolishly. I did not know who you were, nor where I had been, and I gave the wrong name because I was frightened. But I cannot let you think so poorly of me, or believe I had the least intention of giving you so much pain and trouble. I can remember the war" [this was a mortifying confession for Marian to make, but she felt that the proper atonement for her fault demanded an unsparing sacrifice of her own feelings], "and I know how much gratitude I, and every other woman in our country, owe to you. Begging your pardon most sincerely, I am, "Yours very truly, "MARIAN R. CARTER. "_May 5th, 1885_." Marian found no time to copy this letter over again before she took it with her on her morning round of errands, to slip into the first post-box, and she would not keep it back for another mail, although she feared by turns that it was improperly forward, and chillingly distant. Posted it was, and she could not get it back. She did not know whether she wanted him to answer it or not. It would be kind and civil in him to do so, but she felt that she could hardly bear the curiosity of the family, as his letter was passed from hand to hand before it was opened to guess whom it could be from, or handed round again to be read. There was no more privacy in the house than there was in an ant-hill. She had not long to speculate, for the very next afternoon, as the family were all sitting in grandmamma's room downstairs, their common rallying-ground, as it was the pleasantest one in the house, and the old lady, who disliked being left alone, rarely went into the drawing-room till evening, the parlour-maid brought in a card, which went the rounds immediately: "MR. ROBERT HAYWARD, "City Point, South Boston." "What can he want?" said Mrs. Dale. "Very likely to see me on business," said Aunt Caroline. "It must be Colonel Hayward," said Isabel, remembering Frederick's tale. "It was Miss Marian he wanted to see," said Katy. "How very strange!" said Miss Caroline. But Mrs. Carter, dimly remembering Marian's South Boston errand, till now forgotten, and bewildered with the endeavour to weave any coherent theory out of her scattered recollections, was silent; and Marian glided speechless out of the room, and up the back stairs to her own for one hasty peep at her looking-glass, and then down the front stairs again. "Aunt Marian!" shouted Winnie from a front upper window, and she started at his tone, grown loud and boyish in a moment; "the gentleman came on a horse, and tied it to a post, and it is black, and it is stamping on the sidewalk; just hear it!" But Marian, whose pet he was, passed him without a word. She lingered so little that the Colonel had no more time to examine her abode than she had had his, and here the subject was more complex. The room was not very small, but it was very full, and everything in it, so to speak, was smothered. The carpet was covered with large rugs, and those again with small ones, and all the tables with covers, and those with mats. Each window had four different sets of curtains, and every sofa and chair was carefully dressed and draped. The very fireplace was arrayed in brocaded skirts like a lady, precluding all possibility of lighting a fire therein without causing a conflagration, and, indeed, those carefully placed logs were daily dusted by the parlour-maid. Every available inch of horizontal space was crowded with small objects, and what could not be squeezed on that was hung on the walls. The use of most of these was an enigma to the Colonel; he had an idea that they might be designed for ornament, and some, as gift books and booklets and Christmas cards, appealed to a literary taste; but he was a little overwhelmed by them, especially as there were a number of little boxes and bags and baskets about, trimmed and adorned in various fashions, which might contain as many more. There were a great many really pretty things there, if one could have taken them in; but they were utterly swamped, owing to the fatal habit which prevailed in the family of all giving each other presents on every Christmas and birthday. The Colonel felt terribly big and awkward among them. He sat down on a little chair with gilded frame and embroidered back and seat. It cracked beneath him, and he sprang hastily up and took another, from which he could see out of a window, and into a trim little garden where plants were bedded out in small beds neatly cut in shaved green turf. A few flowers were allowed in the drawing-room, discreetly quarantined on a china tray, though there were any number of empty vases, and from above he could hear the cheerful warble of a distant canary-bird, which woke no answering life in the stuffed corpses of his predecessors standing about under glass shades. The room looked stuffy, but it was not; the air was very sweet and clean and clear, and the Colonel felt uncomfortably that he was scenting it with tobacco. There could be no dust beneath those rugs, no spot on the glass behind those curtains. There was a feminine air of neatness, and even of fussiness, that pleased him; everything was so carefully preserved, so exquisitely cared for. It would be nice to have some one to look after one's things like that; he knew that the rubbish at home was always getting beyond him somehow. And now came blushing in his late visitor, even more daintily pretty than he had thought her before. The Colonel made a long call, as all the family, anxious to see the great man, dropped in one after the other; but the situation was not unpleasing to him, and he even exerted himself to win their liking, which was the easiest thing in the world. He told Mrs. Carter that he had come on behalf of his quondam servant, Drusilla Elms, whose name, he was sorry to say, his cook had forgotten; but now she remembered it, and could give her the very highest character, and he should be sorry if their carelessness had lost the poor girl so excellent a place. He listened to the tale of the grandmother's rheumatism, and even made some confidences in return about his own. He talked about the soldiers' lending libraries with Aunt Caroline, and promised to write to a friend of his in the regulars on the subject. In his imposing presence the great-aunt sat silently attentive. He had met Isabel's late husband, and he took much notice of her children. He said Winnie was a fine little lad, but would be better for a frolic with other boys. Could he not come over and spend a Saturday afternoon with them at South Boston, and his boys would take him on the water? Oh, yes; they were very careful, and quite at home in a boat. Yes, he would go with them himself, if Mrs. Dale would prefer it; and then the invitation was given and accepted--no unmeaning, general one, but a positive promise for Saturday next, and the one after if it rained. Of course, he should be charmed to have some of the ladies come, too. Miss Carter would, perhaps, for she knew the way. He did not take leave till his horse, to Winnie's ecstatic delight, had pawed a large hole in the ground; and a chorus of praise arose behind him from every tongue but Marian's. Colonel Hayward said nothing about his visit at home; but as he stood after returning from his long ride, for which the boys had observed that he had equipped himself with much more than ordinary care, smoking a meditative cigar before the crackling little fire which the afternoon east wind of a Boston May rendered so comfortable, he was roused by his nephew Bob's voice: "Really, Uncle Rob, our bachelor housekeeping is getting into a hopeless muddle!" Then, as his uncle said nothing: "I am afraid--I am really afraid that one of us will have to marry." "Marry yourself, then, you young scamp, and be hanged to you; you have my full consent if you can find a girl who will be fool enough to take you." "Of course, I could not expect _you_ to make the sacrifice; but though I am willing--entirely for your sake, I assure you--I shall not render it useless by asking some giddy and inexperienced girl. I shall seek some mature female, able and willing to cope with them----" "Them?" "The spiders. I have long known that they spun webs of immense size in and about our unfortunate dwelling; but I was not prepared to find that they attached them to our very persons." As he spoke he drew into sight a fabric hanging to the back of his uncle's coat. It was circular in shape, about the size of a dinner-plate, white in colour, and ingeniously woven out of thread in an open pattern with many interstices, by one of which it had fastened itself to the button at the back of the Colonel's coat as firmly as if it grew there. "What the ----!" I spare my readers the expletives which, with the offending waif, the Colonel hurled at his nephew as the young man and his brothers exploded in laughter. * * * * * "I never was so surprised!" cried Mrs. Treadwell. "I did not think anything in the matrimonial line could surprise you!" cried her husband. "Not often; but Colonel Hayward and Marian Carter! I could hardly believe it. Mrs. Carter herself seems perfectly amazed, though of course she's delighted. I suppose she had given up all idea of Marian's marrying." "She is a sweet little thing," said Mr. Treadwell; "I wonder she has not been married long ago." "I thought he was a confirmed old bachelor," said the lady; "I wonder where he met her! I wonder whatever made him think of her! I hope they'll be happy, but I don't know. Marian is a good girl, but she has so little sense!" "I should think any man ought to be happy with Miss Carter," said the gentleman, warmly; "I only hope he'll make her happy. Hayward's a very good fellow, but he'll frighten that little creature to death the first time he swears at her." "Colonel Hayward is a _gentleman_, William; he would never swear before a lady." "I wouldn't trust him--when she's his wife." * * * * * Nevertheless, Mrs. Robert Hayward has not yet been placed in danger of such a catastrophe, not even when her husband has been laid up with rheumatic gout. To be sure, her ministrations on those occasions were more soothing than those of the boys. Perhaps she was even a little disappointed in her craving for excitement, and her new household ran almost too smoothly. The boys gave no trouble, though they were aghast on first hearing that the Colonel really contemplated matrimony, and Bob reproached himself in no measured terms for having drawn attention to the "work of Arachne," and driven his uncle to rush madly upon fate. But Marian made it her particular request that things should go on as before, which pleased her bridegroom, though he had never dreamed of any change; and when they came to know her, she pleased the boys as well. "It's easy enough to get on with Aunt Marian," Bob would say; "she's such a dear little fool! She swallows everything men tell her, no matter how outrageous, and thinks if we want the moon, we must have it. If only Minna would turn out anything like her! But no; they are ruining all the girls now with their colleges. I doubt if Aunt Marian isn't the last of her day and generation." [Illustration] [Illustration] WHY I MARRIED ELEANOR It has often been remarked that if every man would truthfully tell how he wooed and won his wife, the world would be the gainer by a number of romances of real life which would put to shame the novelist's skill. "How" is the word usually employed in such cases, and, indeed, properly enough. There are a number of marriages where the reason is sufficiently palpable, and where any stronger one fails there is the all-sufficing one of propinquity. But none of these were allowed in the case of my marriage with Eleanor. Why did I do it? was the absorbing nine days' wonder; for, as was unanimously and justly observed, if it were a matter of propinquity alone, why did I not marry----? But I anticipate. To begin at the beginning, then, and to tell my tale as truthfully as if I were on oath; there was no reason why Eleanor, or any other girl, should not have married me. I was by all odds the best match in New England, being the only son and heir of Roger Greenway, third of the name. Whether my father could ever have made a fortune any more than I could is doubtful; but he inherited a considerable estate, so well invested that it only needed letting alone to grow, and for this he had the good sense. Large as it was when I came into it, it was more than doubled by my prospective wealth on the other side, for my mother was the oldest of the four daughters of old Jonathan Carver, the last of the Massachusetts vikings whose names were words of power in the China seas. My father was an elderly man when he married, and my mother was no longer young. She and her sisters were handsome, high-bred women, with every accomplishment and virtue under the sun. They did not, to use the vulgar phrase, marry off fast. Indeed, the phrase and the very idea would have shocked them. They were beings of far too much importance to be so lightly dealt with. When, only a few years before her father's death, Louisa married Roger Greenway, it was allowed by their whole world to be a most fitting thing; and when I appeared in due season, the old gentleman was so delighted that he made a will directly, tying up his whole estate as tightly as possible for future great-grandchildren. Some years after his death, my Aunt Clara, the second daughter, married a Unitarian clergyman of good family, weak lungs, æsthetic tastes, and small property, who never preached. He lived long enough to catalogue all our family pictures and bric-à-brac, and arrange the "Carver Collection" for the Art Museum, and then died of consumption soon after my own father, leaving no children. By the time these events had passed with all due observances, Aunt Frances and Aunt Grace thought it was hardly worth while to marry; there had been a sufficient number of weddings in the family, and they were very comfortable together--and then how could they ever want for an object, with that fine boy of dear Louisa's to bring up? We all had separate households; but my aunts were always at "Greenways," my place on the borders of Brookline and West Roxbury, which my father had bought when young and spent the greater part of his life in bringing to a state of perfection; and my mother and I were apt to pass the hottest summer months at Manchester-by-the-Sea, where Aunt Clara, during her married life, had reared a little fairy palace of her own; and to spend much of the winter at the great old Carver house on Mount Vernon Street, which Jonathan Carver had left to his unmarried daughters for life. I was the first object of four devoted and conscientious women. The results were different from what might have been expected. The world said I would be spoiled, and then marvelled that I was not; but my mother's and aunts' conscientiousness outran their devotion, and they all felt, though they would not acknowledge it to each other, that I had rather disappointed them. I grew up a big, handsome young fellow enough, very young-looking for my age, with a trick of blushing like a girl at anything or nothing, which gave me much pain, though it won upon all the old ladies, who said it showed the purity of my mind and the goodness of my heart. By the way in which my moral qualities were always selected for praise, it will be divined that but little could be said for my intellectual. Had I been a few steps lower on the social ladder, something might have been said against them. It was only by infinite pains on my own part and that of the highly salaried tutor who coached me, that I was ever squeezed through Harvard University. I did squeeze through, and with an unblemished moral record; my Aunt Clara, the pious one of the family, said it might have been worse, and my mother, to whom my commencement day was a blessed release from four years of perpetual worry, said she was highly gratified at the way in which dear Roger had withstood the temptations of college life. For this I deserved no credit. The temptations of which she thought were none to me. Where would have been the excitement of gambling, when I had nothing to lose? and one brought up from infancy in an atmosphere of fastidious refinement the baser female attractions repelled at once, before they had the chance of charming. I hated tobacco, and liquor of all kinds made me deadly sick. A more subtle snare was set for me. Time slipped away for the first few years after I left college. We all went to Europe and returned. I pottered a little about my place, and discharged social duties, and such few local political ones as a position like mine entails even in America. I did not know why I did not do more, or what more to do. I did not think I was stupid exactly; it seemed to me that I could do something, if I only knew what. Perhaps I was slow--I certainly was in thought; but sometimes I startled myself by hasty action before I thought at all, which gave me a dim consciousness of the presence of my "genius." My mother's expectations had just begun to take an apologetic turn, when my Aunt Frances, the clever one of the family, put forward a bright idea. She said that it was all very well for a young man who had his own way to make in the world to wait awhile; a man with my opportunities could never be in a satisfactory position to employ them until he was married. While I remained single there must always be speculations, expectations, and reports. Once let me be married, and all these worries, troublesome and distracting at present, would receive their proper quietus. The sisters all applauded her penetration, and all said with one voice that if Roger were to marry, he could not do better than--but I anticipate again. Greenways and the neighbouring estates were large, and the only very near neighbours we had were the Days and the Beechers; in fact, they were both my tenants. When my father bought the place there was an old farm-house on it, which, though it stood rather near the spot where he wished to build, was too well built and too picturesque to pull down. Old Sanderson, our head gardener for many a year, lived there with his wife, and their house, with its own pretty garden and little greenhouse, was one of my favourite haunts when a child. When the old couple died, nearly at the same time, Sanderson had long left off active work, and his deputy and successor, Macfarlane, lived in another house some distance off. My mother said of course she could never put him into the Garden House with all those children; she could never put another servant there at all; she hated to pull it down; she did not know what to do with it. My Aunt Grace, the impulsive one of the family, broke in, and all the others followed suit with, "Why would it not be just the thing for Katharine Day?" Katharine Day had been Katharine Latham, an old school friend of my Aunt Grace. She was the daughter of a country clergyman, a pretty woman of fascinating manners, and her relations were very well bred, though poor. The friendship was an excellent thing for her; I don't mean to say that it was not so for my aunt also, for I never knew a woman who could pay back a social debt to a superior more gracefully than Mrs. Day. She was always a little pitied as not having met with her deserts in marriage, though Mr. Day was a handsome man, with good connections and a fine tenor voice. He had some kind of an office with a very fair salary, but his wife said, and it was a thing generally understood, that they were very poor. They felt no shame, rather a sort of pride, in getting along so well in spite of it. They went everywhere, and all her richer friends admired Mrs. Day for being such a good manager, and dressing and entertaining so beautifully on positively nothing, and showed their admiration by deeds as well as words. One paid Phil's college expenses, another took Katie abroad, and they were always having all kinds of presents. They were invited everywhere in the height of the season, and always had tickets for the most reserved of reserved seats. My mother, or my guardian, for her, let them have the Garden House at a mere nothing of a rent, but we said that it was really a gain for us, they would take such beautiful care of it. Phil Day, though he was some years younger than I, was my classmate in college, and graduated far ahead of me. My mother was consoled for his superiority by thinking what a nice intimate friend he was for me. That he was my intimate friend was settled for me by the universal verdict. In reality I did not like him at all, but it would have been unkind to be as offish as I must have been to keep him from being always at my house, sailing my boats, riding my horses, playing at my billiard-table, smoking my cigars, and drinking my wines, as naturally as if he had been my brother, albeit I had a suspicion that these luxuries were not as harmless to Phil as they were to me. He was a clever, handsome fellow, and very popular. What I really disliked in him was his being such a terrible snob, but this was an accusation that it seemed particularly mean for me to make against him, even to my own mind. Phil's sister Katie was worth a dozen of him. She was a beautiful creature, tall and lithe, with a rich colour coming and going under a clear olive skin, and starry dark eyes that seemed to shoot out rays of light for the whole length of her long lashes. She was highly accomplished, and always exquisitely dressed. Mrs. Day said it did not cost much, for dear Katie was so clever at making her own clothes. To be sure, she could not make her boots and gloves, her fans and furs, and these were of the choicest. Their price would have made a large hole in her father's salary, but probably he was never called upon to pay it--for I know my Aunt Grace, for one, thought nothing of giving her a whole box of gloves at a time. Katie inherited all her mother's fascination of manner and practical talent, and, like her, well knew how to pay her way. She was a great pet of my mother and aunts. She poured out tea, and sang after dinner, helped in their charity work, and chose their presents. They had an idea that I could marry whom I pleased, but I knew they felt I could not do better than marry Katie. It was their opinion, and that of every one else, that she deserved a prize in the matrimonial line. Providence evidently designed that she should get one, for, as all her friends remarked, "If Katie Day could do so beautifully with so little, what could she not do if she were rich?" Providence as evidently had destined me for the lucky man, and even the other young men bowed to manifest destiny in the united claims of property and propinquity. The Beechers lived a little farther off the other way. About them and their dwelling there was no glamour of boyish memories. The bit of land on which it stood had always cut awkwardly into ours, and my father had longed to buy it; but it had some defect in the title which could not be set right until the death of some old lady in the country. She died at last just about the time that he did, and in the confusion caused by his sudden death the land was snapped up by O'Neil, an Irishman, who turned a penny when he could get a chance by levying blackmail upon a neighbourhood--buying up bits of land, building tenement houses on them, and crowding them with the poorest class of his country people, on the chance of being bought off at last at an exorbitant rate by the neighbouring proprietors. In this present case O'Neil had mistaken his man. My guardian and first cousin once removed, John Greenway, was the last person alive to screw a penny out of. He would have borne any such infliction himself with Spartan firmness; judge with what calmness he endured it for a ward. He built a high wall on O'Neil's boundary, planted trees thickly around that, and then proceeded to harass the unhappy tenants by every means within his power and the letter of the law, so that they ran away in hordes without waiting for quarter-day. O'Neil failed at last, and my guardian bought in the concern for a song. Before this, however, O'Neil, in desperate straits, had made a few cheap alterations in the house, advertised it as a "gentleman's residence," and let it to the Beechers, who were only too glad to get so well-situated a house so low. Mr. Beecher was well educated and of a good family, though he had no near relations who could do anything for him. He had married early a young lady much in the same condition, and had done but poorly in life, hampered in all his efforts by a delicate wife and a large family. When we bought the place I had not attained my legal majority; but I was old enough to have my wishes respected, and I said positively that I would not have him turned out. As I used to meet the poor old fellow--not that he was really old, though he looked to me a perfect Methuselah--with his grey head and shining, well-brushed coat, trotting to the station, a good mile and a half off, at seven in the morning, through winter's cold and summer's heat; and back again after dark, for nine months in the year, my heart used to ache for him. But I could not tell him so, and of course there was precious little I could do for him. My mother and aunts were eminently charitable, but what could they do for Mrs. Beecher? Her hours and ways and thoughts were not as theirs. She did not come very often when they invited her, nor seem to enjoy herself very much when she did. There was but little use in taking her rare flowers and hothouse grapes, and they could not send her food and clothes as if she were a poor person. The Beecher house had a garden of its own, out of which Mr. Beecher, with a little help from his boys, contrived to get their fruit and vegetables, though it always looked in very poor order. We were thankful that it was so well shut out from our view, and poor Mrs. Beecher was equally thankful that her boisterous boys and crying babies were so well shut in. My mother did not approve of her much, and said she must lack method not to get on better. Jonathan Carver's daughters had been so trained by their father that any one of them could have stepped into his counting-house and balanced his books at a minute's warning. They kept their own accounts, down to the last mill, by double entry, and were fond of saying that if you only did this you would always be able to manage well. They were most kind-hearted, when they saw their way how to be, but they had been so harassed from childhood up by begging letter-writers and agents for societies that they had a horror of leading people to expect anything from them; and as the Beechers evidently expected nothing, it was best that they should be left in that blissful condition. They were indeed painfully overwhelmed by their obligations in the matter of the house. I made the rent as low as I decently could, and put in improvements whenever I had the chance. I used to rack my brains to think what more I could do for them; but in all my wildest dreams it never occurred to me that I might give them a lift by marrying Eleanor. Eleanor was their oldest child, and a year or two younger than Katie Day. She was really as plain as a girl has any right to be. She had the light eyelashes and freckles which often mar the effect of the prettiest red hair, and hers was not a pretty shade, but very common carrots. Her features and her figure were not bad exactly, and her motions had nothing awkward--one would never have noticed them in any way. It might have been better for her had she been strikingly ugly. Anything striking is enough for some clever girls to build upon; but whether Eleanor were clever or stupid, no one knew or cared to know. She was a good girl, and helped her mother, and looked after the younger children;--but then, she had to. Her very goodness was a mere matter of course, and had nothing for the imagination to dwell upon. She was not a bit more helpful to her mother than Katie Day was to hers; and if Katie's path of duty led to trimming hats and writing notes, and Eleanor's to darning the children's stockings and washing their faces, why, that was no fault in the one nor merit in the other. I felt very sorry for Eleanor, when I thought of her at all, which was not often, but I could do even less for her than for her father. We used to invite them when we gave anything general, but they did not always come, and when we sent them tickets they often could not use them. They had not many other invitations, and could seldom accept any, on account of the cost of clothes and carriage hire. My mother, of course, could not take them about much, for there were our own family and the Days, whom she took everywhere, and who enjoyed going so much. I always asked Eleanor to dance, but as she was dreadfully afraid of me, I fear it gave her more pain than pleasure. She did not dance well, and I could not expect my friends to follow my example. Phil Day, indeed, once declared that he "drew the line at Eleanor Beecher." I remember longing to kick him for the speech, and that was the liveliest emotion I ever felt in connection with her. Why I did not marry Katie is plainer--to myself at least. I came very near it, not once alone, but many times. I do not think that there was any man who could have seen her day after day, as I did, and not have fallen in love with her, unless there were some barrier in the way. Mine was fragile as a reed, but it proved in the end to be strong enough. It arose in the days when I was a green young hobble-de-hoy of nineteen, dragging along in my freshman year, and she was a bright little gipsy four years younger. At a juvenile tea-party at the Days' we were playing games, and one--I don't know what it was, except that it demanded some familiarity with historical characters and readiness in using one's knowledge. The little wit I had was soon hopelessly knocked out of me, while Katie, quick and alert, was equally ready at showing all she knew, and shielded herself by repartee when she knew nothing. I made some absurd blunder, perhaps more in my awkward way of putting things than in what I really meant, between the two celebrated Cromwells, giving the impression that I thought the great Oliver a Catholic. I might have made some confused explanation, but was silenced by Katie's ringing laugh, a peal of irresistible girlish gayety, such as worldly prudence is rarely strong enough to check at fifteen. Perhaps she was excited and could not help it, but I thought she laughed more than she need, and there was something scornful in the tone that jarred on me painfully. I could not be so foolish as to resent it, but I could not forget it, and often when she has looked most lovely, and the star of love has shone most propitious, some sharper cadence than usual in her voice, or a hint at harder lines under the soft curves of her face, or a contemptuous ring in her musical laugh, has withered the words on my lips, and the hour has passed with them unspoken. It was, I dimly felt, only a question of time; the flood must some day rise high enough to sweep the frail barrier away. Katie and Eleanor had but little in common on the surface, nor were there ever any deeper sympathies of thought and feeling between them. Still, they were girls, living near together, and with all the others much farther off. It was impossible that there should not be some intercourse of business or pleasure, though never intimate and always irregular; and one pleasant September it came about that we spent a good many hours together, playing lawn tennis on my court. There was another young man hanging about; an admirer of Katie's, he might be called, though he was not very forward to try his chances, thinking, as I plainly saw, that they were not worth much. Herbert Riddell was not much cleverer than I was, and, though not poor, had no wealth to give him importance. He was a thoroughly good fellow, and felt no jealousy of me, and it was pleasant for him to loiter away the golden autumn days with beauty on the tennis court, even if both were another's property. We were well enough matched, for, though Herbert and Katie were very fair players, while Eleanor was a perfect stick, yet I played so much better than the others that I generally pulled her through. She really tried her best, but somehow the more she tried the more blunders she made, perhaps from nervousness, and one afternoon they were especially remarkable. We were hurrying to finish our match, as it was getting late and nearly time for "high tea" at the Days', to which we were all asked, though Eleanor, as usual, had declined, and Katie, as usual, had not pressed her. It was nothing to either Herbert or me, for we both found Mrs. Day a much more lively _pis aller_ in conversation than Eleanor. Katie was serving, and sent one of her finest, swiftest balls at Eleanor, who struck at it with all her force, and did really hit it, but unfortunately and mysteriously sent it straight up into the air. We all watched it breathlessly, as it came down--down--and fell on our side of the net. Katie, warm and excited, laughed loud and long. I thought that there was a little affection of superiority in her mirth, just like there was in the high, clear, scornful music that woke the echoes of long ago, and I in turn lost my self-possession, and returned my next ball with such nervous strength that it flew far beyond the lawn and over the clumps of laurels into the wood beyond. We had lost the set. "Really, Mr. Greenway," cried Katie, "you must have tried to do that; or have you been taking private lessons of Eleanor?" She stopped, her fine ear perhaps detecting something strained and hard in her own voice. I see her still as she looked then, poised like Mercury on one slender foot, one arm thrown back and holding her racket behind her head, framing it in, the little dimples quivering round her mouth, ready to melt into smiles at a word, while from under her dark eyelashes she shot out a long, bright look, half saucy defiance, half pleading for pardon. It was enough to madden any man who saw her, and it struck home to Riddell. Poor fellow! it was never aimed at him, and it fell short of its mark: "My heart's cold ashes vainly would she stir, The light was quenched she looked so lovely in." Eleanor, meanwhile, was bidding her usual good-by, nothing in her manner showing that she was at all offended. She need not be, for of course Katie could not seriously intend any slight to her, any more than to a stray tennis ball to which she might give a random hit. But I could not let a lady go home alone from my own ground in just this way, and I had a sort of fellow-feeling with her, which I wanted to show. "I will see Miss Beecher home, and then come back," I said, and hastened after her, although I had seen, by the prompt manner in which she had walked off, that she did not intend, and very likely did not wish, I should. I was glad to leave the ground and get away from them. I kept saying to myself that after all Katie was not much to blame; girls would be thoughtless, and Katie was so pretty and so petted that she might well be a little spoiled; and then I asked myself what right I had to set myself up as a judge of her conduct? None at all; only I wished that women, who can so easily and lightly touch on the raw places of others, would use their power to heal and not to wound. I could picture to myself some girl with an eagerness to share the overflowing gifts of fortune with others, a respectful tenderness for those who had but little, a yearning sweetness of sympathy that should disarm even envy, and give the very inequalities of life their fitness and significance. We men have rougher ways to hurt or heal; and though I tried desperately hard, I could not hit on anything pleasant or consolatory to say to Eleanor. She had got pretty well ahead of me, and was out of sight already. Her way home was by a long roundabout walk through our place, and then by a short one along the public road. When I turned into the winding, shady path which led through the thick barrier of trees hiding the Beecher wall, she was loitering slowly along before me; and though she quickened her pace when she heard me behind her, as a hint that I need not follow, I soon caught up with her, and then I was sorry I had tried to, for I saw that she was crying most undisguisedly and unbecomingly. "Miss Beecher--Eleanor," I stammered out, "you mustn't mind it--she didn't mean it--it was too bad--I was a little provoked myself--but don't feel so about it." "Oh, it's not that," said Eleanor, stopping short, and steadying her trembling voice, so that it seemed as if she were practised in stifling her emotions. The very tears stopped rolling down her cheeks. "It's--it's everything. You don't know what it is," she went on more rapidly; "you never can know--how should you--but if you were I, to see another girl ahead of you in everything--to have nothing, not one single thing, that you could feel any satisfaction in--and no matter how hard you tried, to have her do everything better without taking any trouble, and to know that if you worked night and day for people, you could not please them as well as she can without a moment's care or thought, just by being what she is--you would not like it. And the worst of it all is that I know I am mean and selfish and hateful to feel so about it, for it's not one bit Katie's fault." "Oh, come!" I said; "don't look at it so seriously. You exaggerate matters." "I should not mind it," said Eleanor, gravely, "if I did not feel so badly about it. Now, I know that's nonsense. I mean that if I could only keep from having wrong feelings about it myself, it would not matter much if she were ever so superior in every way." "Are you not a little bit morbid? If you were really as selfish as you think, you would not be so much concerned about it. It seems to me that we all have our own peculiar place in this world, and that if we fill it properly, we must have our own peculiar advantages; no one else can do just what we can, any more than we could do what they could; we must just try to do well what we have to do." "It is very well for you to talk in that way," said Eleanor, simply. "I?"--a little bitterly. "I am a very idle fellow, who has made but little effort to better himself or others. But we won't talk of efforts, for I am sure your conscience must acquit you there. I suppose you were thinking more of natural gifts--of pleasing, which is after all only another way of helping. One pleases one, and one another, and it is as well, perhaps, to be loved by a few as liked by a great many. Don't doubt, my dear Miss Beecher, that any man who truly loves you will find you more charming even than Katie Day." What there was in this harmless and well-meant speech to excite Eleanor's anger I could not imagine; but girls are queer creatures. She grew, if possible, redder than before, and her eyes fairly flashed. "No one--" she began, and stopped, unable to speak a word. I went on, as much for a sort of curious satisfaction I had in hearing my own words, as for any consolation they might be to her. "Beautiful as she is, she only pleases my eye; she does not touch my heart. I am not one particle in love with her, and sometimes I scarcely even like her." "Stop!" cried Eleanor; "you must not say such things--I did very wrong to speak to you as I did. You mean to be kind, but you don't know how every word you say humiliates me. Surely, you can't think me so mean as to let it please me, and yet, perhaps, you know me better than I do myself. There is a wretched little bit of a feeling that I would not own if I could help it, that--that--" She was trembling like a leaf now, and so pale that I thought she was going to faint away. I did not know whether to feel more sorry for her or angry with myself for having made things worse instead of better by my awkwardness. There was only one way to get out of the scrape. I threw my arm around her shaking form, took her cold hand in mine, and said with what was genuine feeling at the time, "Dearest Eleanor!" Of course there was no going back after that. Eleanor, equally of course, made her escape at once from my arm, but I still held her hand as I went on. "Do--do believe me. I love you and no one else." She seemed too much astonished to say anything. "Could you not love me a little?" She looked at me still surprised and incredulous. "You can't mean it--you don't know what you are saying." I remember feeling well satisfied with myself, for doing the thing so exactly according to the models in all dramas of polite society; but Eleanor, it must be owned, was terribly astray in her part. I went on with increasing energy. "Plainly, Eleanor, will you be my wife? Will you let me show what it is to be loved?" Poor Eleanor twisted her damp little handkerchief round and round in her restless fingers without speaking for a moment, and then said in a frightened whisper, "I--I don't know." I tried to take her hand again, but she drew it away, and said shyly, "Indeed I don't know. I never dreamed of any one's loving me, much less you. I don't know how I ought to feel." "Have you never thought how you would feel if you loved anyone?" I asked, her childish simplicity making me smile, and I felt as if I were talking to a little girl; but, to my surprise, she blushed deeply, and then answered firmly, as if bound to be truthful, "Yes! I have felt--all girls have their dreams"; here a something in her tone made her seem to have grown a woman in a moment; "I thought I should never find any real person to make my romance about, and so for a long time I have loved Sir Philip Sidney." "What?" "Because he would have been too much of a gentleman to mind how plain and insignificant I was; it isn't likely he would have loved me--but I should not have minded his knowing that I loved him." "And do you think that there are no gentlemen now?" As I looked at her, the surprise and interest roused by her words making me forget for a moment the position in which we stood, I saw a sudden eager look rise in her eyes, then fade away as quickly as it came; but it showed that if no one could call Eleanor beautiful, it might be possible to forget that she was plain. She walked along slowly under the broad fir boughs, and I by her side, both silent. She was frightened at having said so much. But as we drew near the gate which opened to the public road, I said, "Will you not give me my answer, Eleanor?" "I cannot," she murmured, "it is so sudden. Can you not give me a little time to think about it?" "Till this evening?" "No--no. I have no time before then. Come to-morrow morning--after church begins, and I will be at home--that is," she added apologetically, "if it is just as convenient to you." Poor child! she did not know what it was to use her power, in caprice or earnest, over a lover. Every word she said was like a fresh appeal to me. I told her it should be as she wished, and but little else passed till we reached her father's door, which closed between us, to our common relief. Instead of appearing at the Days' tea-table, which indeed I forgot, I walked straight to the darkest and remotest nook in the fir-wood, flung myself flat on the ground, and tried to face my utterly amazing position, and to realise what I had been about. It was evident that I had irrevocably pledged myself to marry Eleanor Beecher, but still I could hardly believe it. It seemed too absurd that I, who had been proof against the direct attacks of so many pretty girls, and the more delicate allurements of the prettiest one I knew, should have been such a fool as to blurt out a proposal because a plain one had shed a few tears, which, to do her justice, were shed utterly without the design of producing any effect on me. In this there lay a ray of hope. Eleanor, I had fully recognised, was transparently sincere; if she did not love me, I was sure she would tell me so frankly; and, after all, should I not be a conceited fool to think that every girl I saw must fall in love with me? If she refused me, as she very likely would, I should be very glad to have given her the chance; it would give her a little self-esteem, of which she seemed more destitute than a girl ought to be, and it would not diminish mine. I felt more interest in her than I could have thought possible two hours ago, but I did not love her, and did not want to marry her. I did not feel that we were at all suited to each other, and I hoped that she would have the good sense to see it too; and yet, would she--would she? Next day at a quarter past eleven I ascended the Beecher doorsteps in all the elegance of array that befitted the occasion, and, I hope, no unbecoming bearing. I had had a sleepless night of it, but had reasoned the matter out with myself, and decided that if I had done a foolish thing, I must take the consequences like a man, and see that they ended with me. Eleanor herself opened the door and showed me into the stiff little drawing-room, which had to be stiff or it would have been hopelessly shabby at once. The family were at church, and it was the only time in the week that she could have had any chance to see me alone. She had made, it was plain, a great effort to look well, and was looking very well for her. She had put on a fresh, though old, white frock, had stuck a white rose in her belt, and done up her hair in a way I had never seen it in before. She looked very nervous and frightened, but not unbecomingly so, I allowed, though with rather a sinking of the heart at the way these straws drifted. We got through the few polite nothings that people exchange on all occasions, from christenings to funerals, and then I said: "Dear Eleanor, I hope you have thought over what I said to you yesterday, and that you know how you really feel, and can--that you can love me enough to let you make me--to let me try to make you--I mean--" I was blundering terribly now, and getting very red. Yesterday's fluency had quite deserted me. But Eleanor was thinking too much of what she had to say herself to heed it. "Oh!" she began, "I am afraid--I know I am not worthy of you. It was all so sudden and so unexpected yesterday. But I know now that I do not love you as much as I ought--as you deserve to be loved by the woman you love. I ought to say that I will not marry you--but--" she looked up beseechingly--"I can't--I can't." She paused, then went on in a trembling voice, "You don't know how hard a time my father and mother have had. There has hardly a single pleasant thing ever happened to them. Ever since I was a little girl I have longed and longed to do something for them--something that would really make them happy--and I never could. I never dreamed I should have such a chance as this! and then all the others! I have thought so what I should like to give them, and I never had the smallest thing; and then myself--I don't want to make myself out more unselfish than I am--but you don't know how little pleasure I have had in my life. I never thought of such a chance as this--all the good things in life offered me at once--and I cannot--cannot let them go by." She stopped, breathless, only for a moment, but it was a bitter one for me. I had one of those agonising sudden glimpses such as come but seldom, of the irony of fate, when the whole tragedy of our lives lies bare and exposed before us in all its ugliness. So then even she, for whom I was giving up so much, could not love me, and I was going to be married for my money after all! Then with another electric shock of instant quick perception, it came across me that I was getting perhaps a better, certainly a rarer, thing than love. Many women had flattered my vanity with hints of that; but here was the only one I had ever met whom I was sure was telling me the absolute, unflattering truth. The sting of wounded pride grew milder as Eleanor, unconsciously swaying toward me in her earnestness, went on: "Will you--can you love me, and take my friendship, my gratitude and admiration--more than I can tell you--and wait for me to love you as well as you ought to be loved? I know I shall--how can I help it?" * * * * * As things in our family were always done with the strictest attention to etiquette, I informed my mother, as was due to her, during our usual stroll on the terrace, after our early Sunday dinner, that I was paying my addresses to Eleanor Beecher, and intended to apply for her father's consent that afternoon. It was a great and not a pleasant surprise for her. My mother was celebrated for never saying anything she would be sorry for afterwards--an admirable trait, but one which frequently interfered with her conversational powers; and unfortunately, on this occasion, to say nothing was almost as bad as anything she could have said. It was rather hard for both of us, but after it was over, she could go to her room and have a good cry by herself, while I was obliged to set off for an interview with my intended father-in-law, whom I found in his little garden, in shirt-sleeves and old slippers, cutting the ripest bunches from his grape-vines. It was the blessed hour sacred to dawdle--the only one the poor old fellow had from one week's end to the other. He was evidently not accustomed to have it broken in upon by young men visitors in faultless calling trim, and starting, dropped his shears, which I picked up and handed to him; dropped them again, shuffled about in his old slippers, and muttered something of an apology. Evidently I must plunge at once into the subject, but I was getting practised in this, and began boldly: "Mr. Beecher, may I have your consent to pay my addresses to your daughter Eleanor?" "Eleanor at home? Oh, yes, she's in. Perhaps you'll kindly excuse me?" and he looked helplessly toward the house door. "I don't think you quite understand me. I spoke to Eleanor last night about my wishes--hopes--my love for her, and she promised to give me an answer this morning. She has consented to become my wife--of course, with your approval." "Lord bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Beecher, throwing back his head, and looking full at me over the top of his spectacles; "who would ever have thought it? I mean--you seem so young, such a boy." "I am twenty-six, and Eleanor, I believe, is twenty." "True, true; yes, she was twenty last June--but--but--why, of course, she must decide for herself--that is, if you are sure you love her." I felt myself growing red; but Mr. Beecher seemed to interpret this as a sign of my ardent devotion, and anger at its being doubted, for he went on: "Yes, yes! I beg your pardon. I never heard anything about you but in your favour. Of course, I have nothing to say but that I am very happy. Of course," more quickly, "it's a great honour; that is, of course you know my daughter has no fortune to match with yours." "I am perfectly indifferent to that." "Of course--of course--well, it must rest with Eleanor. She is a good girl, and I can trust her choice. Will you not go in and see my--Mrs. Beecher?" he added with relief, as if struck with a bright idea; and I left him slashing off green bunches and doing awful havoc among his grape-vines. He did not appear so overwhelmed with delight at the prospect of an alliance with me as Eleanor had seemed to expect. Mrs. Beecher, on her part, took the tidings in rather a melancholy way; she wept, and said Eleanor was a dear good child, and she hoped we would make each other happy, but there was more despondency than joy in her manner; either she was accustomed to look at every new event in that light, or, as I suspected, this piece of good fortune was rather too overwhelming. I thought many times in the next two months of the man who received the gift of an elephant. I played the part of elephant in the Beecher _ménage_, and was sometimes terribly oppressed by my own magnificence. Perhaps an engagement may be a pleasant period of one's life under some circumstances; decidedly mine was not. I insisted on its being as short as possible, thinking that the sooner it was over the better for all parties. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher might have had some comfort in getting Eleanor ready to be married to some nice young man with a rising salary and a cottage at Roxbury; but to get her ready to be married to me was a task which I was afraid would be the death of both of them. Poor Eleanor herself was worn to a shadow with it all, and I remember looking forward with some satisfaction to bringing her up again after we were married. My mother, of course, could not interfere with their arrangements, even to offer help. She asked no questions, found no fault, but was throughout unapproachably courteous and overpoweringly civil. Once, and once only, did she speak out her mind to me. The evening after the wedding-day was fixed, she tapped late at my door, and when I opened it, she walked in in her white wrapper, candlestick in hand--for the whole house was long darkened--her long, thick, still bright brown locks hanging below her waist, and a look of determination on her features--looking like a Lady Macbeth, who had had the advantages of a good early education. "Roger!" she began, and paused. "Well." "Roger," as I placed a chair for her, and she sat down as if she were at the dentist's, "there is one thing I must say to you. I hope you will not mind. I must be satisfied on one point, and then I will never trouble you again about it." "Anything, dearest, that I can please you in." "Roger, did you ever--did you never care for Katie Day?" "I always liked her." "I mean, Roger, did you ever want to marry her? And, oh, Roger! I hope, I do hope that if you did not, you have never let her have any reason to think you did." "Never! I have never given her any reason to think I cared for her more than as a very good friend." "I felt sure you would never wilfully deceive any girl," said my mother, with a sigh of relief; "but I am anxious about you yourself. Did you and Katie ever have any quarrel--any misunderstanding? I have heard of people marrying some one else from pique after such things. Do forgive me, Roger, dear; but I should be so glad to know." My poor mother paused, more disconcerted than she usually allowed herself to be, and her beautiful eyes brimming over with tears. "Don't worry about me, dearest mother," I said, kissing her tenderly; for my heart was touched by her anxiety. "I can tell you truly that I have never really wanted to marry Katie, though once or twice I have thought of it. I have always admired her, as every one must. She is a lovely girl; and seeing so much of her as I have, it might have come to something in time, if it had not been for Eleanor." "If it had not been for Eleanor!" My mother was too well-bred to repeat my words, but I saw them run through her mind like a lightning flash. She looked for a moment as if she thought I was mad, then in another moment she remembered that she had heard love to be not only mad but blind. Her own Cupid had been a particularly wide-awake deity, with all his wits about him; but she bowed to the experience of mankind. From that hour to this she has never breathed a word which could convey any idea that Eleanor was anything but her own choice and pride as a daughter-in-law. The Beechers got up a very properly commonplace wedding, after all, though nothing to what my wedding ought to have been. Eleanor herself, like many prettier brides, was little but a peg to hang a wreath and veil on. Her younger sisters did very well as bridesmaids. The only will I showed in the matter was in refusing to ask Phil Day to act as best man, though I knew it was expected of me. I asked Herbert Riddell; and the good fellow performed his part admirably, and made the thing go off with some life. I verily believe he was the happiest person there. They only had a very small breakfast for the nearest relations, my mother remarking that we could have something larger afterwards; but the church was crammed. The thing I remember best of that day, now fifteen years ago, was the expression on Mrs. Day's and Katie's faces. It was not pique--they were too well-bred for that--nor disappointment--they were too proud for that, even had they felt it. And I don't believe that there was any deep disappointment, at least on Katie's part. I had made no undue advances; and she was far too sensible and sunny-tempered a lassie to let herself do more than indulge in a few day-dreams, or to wear the willow for any man, even if he were a good match, and had pleased her fancy. She married, as every one knows, Herbert Riddell, and made him a very good wife. But neither mother nor daughter could quite keep out of their faces, wreathed in smiles as befitted the occasion, the look of uncomprehending, unmitigated amazement, too overpowering to dissemble. I suppose it was reflected on many others, and I remembering overhearing Aunt Frances severely reproving Aunt Grace for so far forgetting herself as to utter the vulgar remark that she "would give ten thousand dollars to know what Roger was marrying that little fright for." The Roger Greenway and Eleanor Beecher of ten years ago are so far past now that I can talk of them like other people. That Roger Greenway ranked so low in his class at college is only remembered to be cited as a comfort to the mothers of stupid sons--Roger Greenway, now the coming man in Massachusetts. Have I not made a yacht voyage round Southern California, and is not my book on the deep-sea dredgings off the coasts considered an important contribution to the Darwinian theory, having drawn, in his later days, a kind and appreciative letter from the great naturalist? Do I not bid fair to revolutionise American agriculture by my success in domesticating the bison on my stock-farm in Maine? Have I not come forward in politics, made brilliant speeches through the State, and am I not now sitting in Congress for my second term? The world would be incredulous if I told them that all this was due to Eleanor. She did not, indeed, know exactly what deep-sea dredging was; but she said I ought to do something with my yacht, and had better make a voyage, and write a book about it. She is as afraid, not only of a bison, but of a cow, as a well-principled woman ought to be; but she said I ought to do something with my stock-farm, and had better try some experiments. She is no advocate of women's going into politics; but she said I was a good speaker, and ought to attend the primary meetings. And when I said the difficulty was to think of anything to say, she said if that were all, she could think of twenty things. So she did; and when I had once begun, I could think of them myself. I have had no military training; but if Eleanor were to say that she was sure I could take a fort, I verily believe I could and should. Not less is Eleanor Beecher of the old days lost in Mrs. Roger Greenway. As she grew older she grew stouter, which was very becoming to her, as she had always been of a good height, though no one ever gave her credit for it. Her complexion cleared up; her hair was better dressed, and looked a different shade; and she developed an original taste in dress. She developed a peculiar manner, too, very charming and quite her own. She showed an organising faculty; and after getting her household under perfect control, and starting her nursery on the most systematic basis, she grew into planning and carrying out new charities. The name of Mrs. Roger Greenway at the head of a charity committee wins public confidence at once, and, seen among the "remonstrants" against woman's suffrage, has more than once brought over half the doubtful votes in the General Court. Every one says that I am unusually fortunate in having such a wife for a public man, and my mother cannot sufficiently show her delight in the wisdom of dear Roger's choice. Eleanor would never let me do what she called "pauperise" her family; but I found Mr. Beecher a good place on a railroad, over which I had some control, which he filled admirably, and built a new house to let to him. I helped the boys through college, letting them pay me back, and gave them employment in the lines they chose. The girls, under pleasanter auspices, turned out prettier than their eldest sister, and enjoyed society; and one is well married, and another engaged. Katie Day, as I said before, married Herbert Riddell. She was an excellent wife, and made his means go twice as far as any one else could have done. She and Eleanor are called intimate friends with as much reason as Phil and I had been. I don't believe they ever have two words to say to each other when alone together, but then they very seldom are. Eleanor is always lending Katie the carriage, and sending her fruit and flowers when she gives one of her exquisite little dinners; and Katie looks pretty, and sings and talks at our parties, and so it goes on to mutual satisfaction. We all have our youthful dreams, though to few of us is it given to find them realities. Perhaps we might more often do so, did we know the vision when we met it in mortal form. I had had my ideal, a shadowy one indeed--and never, certainly, did I imagine that I was chasing after it when I followed Eleanor down the fir-tree walk. "An eagerness to share the overflowing gifts of fortune with others--a respectful tenderness for those who had but little--a yearning sweetness of sympathy that should disarm even envy, and give the very inequalities of life their fitness and significance." Had I ever clothed my fancies in words like these? I hardly knew; but as I watched my wife in the early days of our married life, shyly and slowly learning to use her new powers, as the butterfly, fresh from the chrysalis, stretches its cramped wings to the sun and air, they took life and shape before me--and I felt the charm of the "ever womanly" that has ever since drawn me on, as it must draw the race. Did Eleanor's love for me spring from gratitude for, or pleasure in, the wealth that was lavished on her with a liberal hand? Who shall say? A girl's love, if love it be, is often won by gifts of but a little higher sort. But if it be worthy of the name, it finds its earthly close in loving for love's sake alone; and then it matters not how it came, for it can never go, and the pulse of its life will be giving, not taking. To Eleanor herself, sure of my heart because so sure of her own, it would matter but little to-day if I had loved her first from pity. That I did not is my own happiness, not hers. [Illustration] THE STORY OF A WALL-FLOWER It would never have occurred to anyone on seeing Margaret Parke for the first time, that she was born to be a wall-flower,--plainness, or at best insignificance of person, being demanded by the popular mind as an attribute necessary to acting in that capacity, whereas Margaret was five feet eight inches in height, with a straight swaying figure like a young birch tree, a head well set back upon her shoulders--as if the better to carry her masses of fair hair--an oval face, a straight nose, blue eyes so deeply set, and so shaded by long dark eyelashes, that they would have looked dark too, but for the sparkles of coloured light that came from them, an apple-blossom skin, and thirty-two sound teeth behind her ripe red lips. With all these disqualifications for the part, it was a wonder that she should ever have thought of playing it; and to do her justice, she never did,--but some have "greatness thrust upon them." Margaret's father, too, was a man of some consequence, having a reputation great in degree, though limited in extent. He was hardly known out of medical circles, but within them everyone had heard of Dr. Parke of Royalston. His great work on "Tissues," which afterwards established his fame on a secure basis, lay tucked away in manuscript, with all its illustrations, for want of funds to publish it; but even then there were rooms in every hospital in Europe into which a king could hardly have gained admittance, where Dr. Parke might have walked in at his pleasure. So brilliant had been "Sandy" Parke's career at college, and in the Medical School, that his classmates had believed him capable of anything; and when he married Margaret's mother, a beauty in a quiet way, both young people, though neither had any money, were thought to have done excellently well for themselves. Alas! they were too young. Dr. Parke's marriage spoiled his chances of going abroad to complete his medical education. When he launched on his profession, it was found that many men were his superiors in the art of getting a lucrative practice in a large city; and, at last, he was glad to settle down in a country town, where he had a forty-mile circuit, moderate gains, and still more moderate expenses. His passion was study, which he pursued unremittingly, though time was brief and subjects were scanty. Mrs. Parke was a devoted wife and mother, who thought her husband the greatest of men, and pitied the world for not recognising the fact. She managed his affairs wisely, and they lived very comfortably and cheaply in the pleasant semi-rural town. Could the children have remained babies forever, Mrs. Parke's wishes would never have strayed beyond the limits of her house and garden; but as they grew older, and so fast! ambition began to stir in her heart. It was the great trial of her life that with all her economy, they could not find it prudent to send the two oldest boys to Harvard, but must content themselves with Williams College. She bore it well; but when Margaret bloomed into loveliness that struck the eyes of others than her partial parents, she felt here she must make an effort. Margaret should go down to Boston to see and be seen in her own old set, or what remained of it. Mrs. Parke was an orphan, with no very near relations, but her connections were excellent, and her own first cousin, Mrs. Robert Manton, might have been a most valuable one had things been a little different. Unfortunately, Mrs. Manton, being early left a widow, with a neat little property and no children, and having to find some occupation for herself, had chosen the profession of an invalid, which she pursued with exclusive devotion. She had long ceased to follow the active side of it--that of endeavouring to do anything to regain her health; having exhausted the resources of every physician of reputation in the New England and Middle States, among them Dr. Parke, who, like the others, did not understand her case, and indeed had never been able to see that she had any. She had now passed into the passive stage, trying only to avoid anything that might do her harm. She never went to Royalston, as there was far too much noise in the house there to suit her, but she felt kindly towards her cousin's family, and when she was able would send them pretty presents at Christmas. More often she would simply order a box of confectionery to be sent them, which they ate up as fast as possible, Dr. Parke being inclined to growl when he saw it about. Cousin Susan had rather dropped out of society, though the little she did keep up was of a very select order; and Mrs. Parke knew better than to expect her to take any trouble to introduce Margaret into it. The bare idea of having a young girl on her hands to take about would have sent her out of her senses. But she lived in her own very good house on West Cedar Street, and though she had let most of it to a physician, reserving rooms for herself and her maid, surely there was some little nook into which she could squeeze Margaret, if the girl, who had a pretty talent for drawing, could be sent to Boston to take a quarter at the Art School. Mrs. Manton assented, because refusing and excusing were too much trouble. Mrs. Parke had also written to an old school friend, now Mrs. David Underwood; a widow, too, but still better endowed, who had kept up with the world, and went out and entertained freely; the more, because her son, Ralph Underwood, a rising young stockbroker, was a distinguished member of the younger Boston society. Mrs. Underwood had visited the Parkes in her early widowhood, when Ralph was a little boy and Margaret a baby, and had been most hospitably entertained. Of course she would be only too glad to do all she could to show her friend's pretty daughter the world, and show her to it. Now, if Mrs. Parke had sent Margaret down to Boston a year sooner or a year later, things would doubtless have taken quite another turn, and this history could never have been written. But the year before she was still feeding her family on stews and boiled rice, to lay up the money for Margaret's expenses, and working early and late to get up an outfit for her; which objects she achieved by the autumn of 188-. What baleful conjunction of planets was then occurring to make Mrs. Underwood mutter, as she read the letter, that she wished Mary Pickering had chosen any other time to fasten her girl upon them, while Ralph growled across the breakfast-table under his breath, "At any rate, don't ask her to stay with us," must be left for the future to disclose. Mrs. Underwood eagerly promised anything and everything her son chose to ask, and as he sauntered out of the house leaving his breakfast untouched, and she watched anxiously after him from the window, the important letter dropped unheeded from her hand, and out of her mind. Margaret came down in due season, bright and expectant. Cousin Susan was rather taken aback at the girl's beauty, partly frightened at the responsibilities it involved, partly relieved by the thought that it would make Mrs. Underwood the more willing to assume them all. Margaret went to the Art School, and got on very well with her drawing. She was much admired by the other girls, who were never weary of sketching her. They were nice girls, though they did not move in the sphere of society in which they seemed to take it for granted that Margaret must achieve a distinguished success; and even though she was modest in her disclaimers, she could not help feeling that she might have what they called "a good time" under Mrs. Underwood's auspices. Mrs. Underwood for more than a week gave no sign of life; then made a very short, very formal call, apologising for her tardiness by reason of her numerous engagements, and proffering no further civilities; and when Margaret, in a day or two, returned the call, she found Mrs. Underwood "very much engaged." But in another day or two there came a note from her, asking Margaret to a small and early dance at her house, and a card for a set of Germans at Papanti's Hall, of which she was one of the lady patronesses, and which Cousin Susan knew to be the set of the season. In her note she rather curtly stated that she had settled the matter of Margaret's subscription to the latter affairs, and that she would call and take her to the first, which was to come off three days after her own dance. Margaret was pleased, but a little frightened; there was something not very encouraging in the manner of Mrs. Underwood's note; though perhaps it was silly to mind that when the matter was so satisfactory,--only she did hate to go to her first dance alone. She longed even for Cousin Susan's chaperonage, though she knew her longings were vain; Mrs. Manton never went out in the evening under any circumstances, and told Margaret that there was no need of a chaperon at so small an affair at the house of an intimate friend, and that she should have that especially desirable cab and cabman that she honoured with her own custom, whenever she could make up her mind to leave the house. It would, of course, be charged on her bill; after which piece of munificence she washed her hands of the whole affair. Margaret set out alone. It was a formidable ordeal for her to get herself into the house and up the staircase, and glad was she when she was safely landed in the dressing-room, though there was not a soul there whom she knew. Her dress was a pink silk that had been a part of her mother's trousseau; a good gown, though not at all the shade people were wearing now; but Mrs. Parke had made it over very carefully, and veiled it with white muslin. It had looked very nice to Margaret till it came in contact with the other girls' dresses. She hoped they would not look at it depreciatingly; and they did not,--they never looked at it at all, or at her either. She stood in the midst of the gayly greeting groups, less noticed than if she were a piece of furniture, on which at least a wrap or two might have been thrown. She found it easy enough, however, to get downstairs and into the reception-room in the stream, and up to Mrs. Underwood, who looked worried and anxious, said she was glad to see her, and it was a very cold evening; and then, as the waiting crowd pushed Margaret on, she could hear the hostess tell the next comer that she was glad to see him, and that it was a very warm evening. Margaret was softly but irresistibly urged on toward the door of the larger room where the dancing was to be; but that she had not the courage to enter alone, and coming across a single chair just at the entrance, she sat down in it and sat on for two hours without stirring. The men were bustling about to ask the girls who had already the most engagements; the girls were some of them looking out for possible partners, some on the watch for the men by whom they most wished to be asked to dance; but no one asked Margaret. The music struck up, and still she sat on unheeded. The loneliness of one in a crowd has often been dwelt upon, as greater than that of the wanderer in the desert; but all pictures of isolation are feeble compared to that of a solitary girl in a ballroom. Margaret's seat was in such a conspicuous position that it seemed as if all the couples who crushed past her in and out of the ballroom must take in the whole fact of her being neglected. There were a few older ladies in the room, but these sat together in another part of it, and talked among themselves without paying any heed to her. At first she hardly took in the situation in all its significance; but as dance after dance began and ended, she began to feel puzzled and frightened. Did the Underwoods mean to be rude to her, or was this the way people in society always behaved, and ought she to have known it all along? Ought she to feel more indignant with them, or ashamed of herself? If she could only know what the proper sentiment for the occasion might be, it would be some relief to feel miserable in the proper way. Miserable her condition must be, since she was the only girl in it. At last Mrs. Underwood brought up her son and introduced him. He was a tall, dark, well-grown young fellow, who might have been handsome but for a look of gloomy sulkiness which made his face repulsive. He muttered something indistinguishable and held out his arm, and Margaret, understanding it as an invitation to dance, mechanically rose, and allowed herself to be conducted to the ballroom. She made one or two remarks to which he never replied, and after pushing her once or twice round the room in as perfunctory a manner as if he were moving a table, watching the door over her head, meanwhile, with an attention which made him perpetually lose the step, he suddenly dropped her a little way from her former seat, on which she was glad to take refuge. She thought she must have made a worse figure on the floor than sitting down, and then a terrible fear rushed over her like a cold chill. Was there something very much amiss with her appearance? Had anything very shocking happened to her gown? She looked at it furtively; but just then the bustle of a late arrival diverted her thoughts a little, as a short, plump, black-eyed girl came laughing in, followed by a quiet, middle-aged lady, and a rather bashful-looking young man. Margaret thought her only rather pretty, not knowing that she was Miss Kitty Chester, the beauty of Boston for the past two seasons; however, she did observe that she had the most gorgeous gown, the biggest nosegay, and the highest spirits in the room. She hastened up to Mrs. Underwood, with an effusive greeting, which that lady seemed trying, not quite successfully, to return in kind. Half of the girls in the room, and most of the men, gathered round her in a moment; and a confused rattle of lively small talk arose, of which Margaret could make out nothing. She noticed, however, that the other girls, many of them momentarily deserted, appeared to regard the sensation with something of a disparaging air, and she heard one of them say, that it was a little too bad, even for Kitty Chester. What "it" might be remained a mystery, but there was no doubt that it contributed amazingly to the success of Mrs. Underwood's dance, which went on, Margaret thought, with redoubled zest, for all but herself; nor, indeed, did Ralph Underwood appear enlivened, for she caught a glimpse of him across the room, sulkier than ever. To her surprise, as he looked her way, a sort of satisfaction, it could not be called pleasure, suddenly dawned on his face. Surely she could never be the cause! And then for the first time she perceived that someone was standing behind her; and, as one is apt to do in such a consciousness, she turned sharply and suddenly around, the confusion which came too late to check her movement coloring her face. It was a relief to find that it was a very insignificant person on whom her glance fell, a small, plain man of indefinite age, who looked, as the girls phrase it, "common." He was dressed like the other men, but his clothes had not the set of theirs, and he had the air, if not of actual ill-health, of being in poor condition. In that one glance her eyes met his, which sent back a look, not of recognition, but of response. There was nothing which she could notice as an assumption of familiarity, but if anyone else had seen it they might have thought that she had been speaking to him. Of course, she could do nothing but turn as quickly back; but she was conscious that he still kept his place, and somehow it seemed a kind of protection to have him there. He stood near, but not obtrusively so; a little to one side, in just such a position that she could have spoken to him without moving, and they might have been thought to be looking on together, too much at their ease to talk. When people paired off for supper and nobody came for her, he waited till everyone else had left the room, so that he might have been thought her escort. He then disappeared; but in a moment Margaret was amazed by the entrance of a magnificent colored waiter, who offered her a choice of refreshments with the finest manners of his race. His subordinates rushed upon each other's heels with all the delicacies she wished, and more that she had never heard of, and their chief came again to see that she was properly served. Not a young woman at the ball had so good a supper as Margaret; but that is the portion of the entertainment for which young women care the least. Just before the crowd surged back from the supper-room, her protector, as she could not help calling him to herself, had slipped back into his old place, so naturally that he might have been there all the time during the supper, whose remains the waiters were now carrying off with as much deference as they had brought it. Margaret wondered how a person who looked, somehow, so out of his sphere, could act as if he were so perfectly in it. Very few people seemed to know him, and though when one or two of the men spoke to him it was with an air of being well acquainted, he seemed rather to discourage their advances, and Margaret was glad, for she dreaded his being drawn away from her neighbourhood. While she was puzzling over the question as to whether he were a poor relation, or Ralph's old tutor, the wished-for, yet dreaded hour of her release sounded,--dreaded, for how to say her good-by and get out of the room. But somehow the unknown was close behind her, and one or two of a party who were going at the same time were speaking to him, so she might have been of, as well as in, the group. Mrs. Underwood looked worried and tired and had hardly a word for her, but seemed to have something to say to her companion of a confidential nature, by which, however, he would not allow himself to be detained, but excused himself in a few murmured words, which seemed to satisfy his hostess, and passed on, still close behind Margaret, to the door, where they came full against Ralph Underwood, who barely returned Margaret's bow, but exclaimed: "What, Al, going? Oh, come now, don't go." "Al" said something in a low voice, as inexpressive as the rest of him, of which Margaret could only distinguish the words "coming back," and followed her on, waiting till she came down the stairs and out of the house. He did not offer to put her into the carriage, but somehow it was done without any exertion on her part, and as she drove off, she saw him on the steps looking after her. Margaret had a fine spirit of her own, and could have borne the downfall of her illusions and hopes as well as ninety-nine young women out of a hundred. She could even, when her distresses were well over, have laughed at them herself, and turned over the leaf in hopes of a better. But what was she to write home about it? how satisfy her father, mother, and Winnie, eager for news of her? how bear their disappointment? There lay the sting. "If it were not for them," she thought, "I should not mind so very much." She was strictly truthful both by nature and education, and though she did feel that if ever a few white lies were justifiable, they would be here, she dismissed the notion as foolish, as well as wicked, and lay awake most of the night, trying to diplomatically word a letter which should keep to the facts and still give a cheerful impression. "Mrs. Underwood's dance was very pretty," she said, and she described the decorations and dresses. She had "rather a quiet time" herself, not knowing many people, and did not dance more than "once or twice." Here was a long pause, until she decided that "once or twice" might literally stand for one as well as more. She did not see much of Mrs. Underwood or Ralph, as they were busy receiving, but "some of the men were very kind." Here again conscience pricked her; but to say one man would sound so pointed and particular--it would draw attention and perhaps inquiry which she could but ill sustain; and then luckily the devotion of the black waiters darted into her mind, and she went off peacefully to sleep, her difficulties conquered for the present, and a feeling of gratitude toward the unknown warm at her heart. Of course "a man like that" could only have acted out of pure good-nature, and couldn't have expected that she should dream of its being anything else. She wished she could have thanked him for it. The lesser trial of having to tell Cousin Susan about it was fortunately averted. Mrs. Manton never left her room the next day, and when Margaret saw her late the day after, the party was an old story, and Margaret could say carelessly that it had been rather slow, and her host not particularly attentive, without exciting too much comment. Cousin Susan said it was a pity, but that it would be better at the next, as she would know a few people to start with. Margaret did not feel so sure of that, and wished she could stay away; but she had no excuse to give without telling more of the truth than she could bring herself to do; and then, she reasoned, things might be different next time. Mrs. Underwood might have more time or inclination to attend to her, when she was not occupied with her other guests; and there were other matrons, some of whom might be good-natured,--perhaps some of the men might notice her at a second view, and ask her to dance; at any rate, she thought, it could not well be worse than the first. She wished she had another gown to wear than that pink silk, which might be unlucky, but the white muslin prepared as an alternative was by no means smart enough. So she put on the gown of Monday, trying to improve it in various little ways, and waited with something that might be called heroism. Mrs. Underwood called at the appointed hour. She bade Margaret good evening, and asked if she minded taking a front seat, as she was going to take up Mrs. Thorndike Freeman; and that, and Margaret's acquiescence, was about all that passed between them till the carriage stopped, and a faded-looking, though youngish woman, plain, but with an air of some distinction got in, and acknowledged her introduction to Margaret with a few muttered indistinguishable words. "Dear Katharine, I am so glad!" said Mrs. Underwood; "I thought you would certainly have some girl to take, and I should have to go alone." "I'm not quite such a fool, thank you," said Mrs. Freeman, in a quick little incisive voice that somehow brought her words out; "I told them I'd be a patroness, if I need have no trouble, and no responsibilities; but you needn't expect to see me with a girl on my hands." "Oh, but any girl with you would be sure to take." "You can never tell--unless a girl happens to hit, or her people are willing to entertain handsomely, you can't do much for her. A girl may be pretty enough, and nice enough, and have good connections, too, and she may fall perfectly flat. I had such a horrid time last winter with Nina Turner; I couldn't well refuse them. Well, thank Heaven, she's going _in_ this winter;--going to set up a camera and take to photography." "I wish more of them would go in," said Mrs. Underwood with a groan. "Here has Bella Manning accepted, if you will believe it. I should think she had had enough of sitting out the German. Well--I shan't trouble myself about her this winter. She ought to go in and be done with it." "The mistake was in her ever coming out," said Mrs. Freeman, with a laugh at her own wit. "It is a mistake a good many of them have made this year. Did you ever see a plainer set of debutantes?" "Never, really; it seems to have given Mabel Tufts courage to hold on another year. I hear she's coming." "Yes," said Mrs. Underwood scornfully. "It's too absurd. Why, her own nephews are out in society! They go about asking the other fellows, 'Have you met my aunt?' Ned Winship has made a song with those words for a chorus, and the boys all sing it. And yet, Mabel is very pretty still--I wonder no one has married her." "Mabel Tufts was never the sort of girl men care to marry." Margaret wondered in her own mind at the sort of girl Mr. Thorndike Freeman had cared to marry. She tried to keep her courage up, but it grew weaker as she followed the other ladies upstairs and took off her wraps and pulled on her gloves as fast as she could, while Mrs. Underwood stood impatiently waiting, and Mrs. Freeman looked Margaret over beginning with her feet and working upward. "Have you a partner engaged, Miss Parke?" asked Mrs. Underwood suddenly. "No"--faltered Margaret, unable to add anything to the bare fact. "I am afraid you won't get one then, there are so many more girls than men." The "so many more" turned out, in fact, to be two or three, but Margaret had no hope. She felt that whoever got a partner, it would not be she. The dancers paired off, the seats were drawn, the music began, and she found herself sitting by Mrs. Underwood on the back row of raised benches, with a quarter view of that lady's face, as she chatted with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman on the other side. There were only two other girls, as far as Margaret could make out, among the chaperons. Some of the latter were young enough, no doubt, but their dress and careless easy manner marked the difference. A pretty, thin, very fashionable-looking elderly young lady sat near Margaret;--perhaps the luckless Mabel Tufts; but she seemed to know plenty of people, and was perpetually being taken out for turns. She laughed and talked freely, as if defying her position, and Margaret wished she could carry it off so well, little guessing how fiercely the other was envying her for the simplicity that might not know how bad her plight was, and the youth that had still such boundless possibilities in store. Another small, pale girl in a dark silk sat far back, and perhaps had only come to look on,--too barefaced a pretence for Margaret in her terribly obtrusive pink gown. She could not even summon resolution to refuse young Underwood when he asked her for a turn, though she wished she had after he had deposited her in her chair again and stalked off with the air of one who has done his duty. The griefs of a young woman who has no partner for the German, though perhaps not so lasting as those of one who lacks bread and shelter, are worse while they do last, for there may be no shame in lacking bread, and one can, and generally does, take to begging before starving. As the giraffe is popularly supposed to suffer exceptionally from sore throat, owing to the length of that portion of his frame, so did Margaret, as she sat through one figure, and then through another, feel her torture through every nerve of her five feet, eight inches. What would she not have given to be smaller, perhaps even plainer,--somehow less conspicuous. Man after man strolled past her, and lounged in front of her, chatting and laughing with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman; but it was not possible they could help seeing her, however they might ignore her. "_Le jour sera dur, mais il se passera._" Margaret could have looked forward to all this being over at last, and to night and darkness, and bed for relief; but--here rose again the spectre--what could she write home about it? She could not devise another evasive letter; she must tell the whole truth, and had better have done so at first--for of course she should never, never come to one of these things again. The hands of the great clock crept slowly on; would they never hurry to midnight before the big ball in her throat swelled to choking, and her quivering, burning, throbbing pulses drove her to do something, she could not tell what, to get away and out of it all? The second figure was over, and she looked across the great hall, wondering if she could not truthfully plead a headache, and go to the cloak-room. But how was she to get there? and what could she do there alone? She would have died on the spot rather than make any appeal to Mrs. Underwood. No, she must go through with it; and then as she looked again, a great, sudden sense of relief came over her, for she saw in the doorway the slouching figure of her friend of Monday. He did not look at her, and she doubted if he saw her; but it was something to have him in the room. In a moment more, however, she saw him speak to Ralph Underwood; and then the latter came up to her and asked if he might present a friend of his, and at her acquiescence, moved away and came up again with "Miss Parke, let me introduce Mr. Smith." "I am very sorry to say I don't dance," Mr. Smith began, "but I hear that there are more ladies than men to-night; so perhaps if you have not a partner already, you won't mind doing me the favour of sitting it out with me." Margaret hardly knew what he meant, but she would have accepted, had he asked her to dance a _pas de deux_ with him in the middle of the hall. She took his arm and they walked far down to a place at the very end of the line of chairs; but it did not matter; it was in the crowd. Mr. Smith did not say much at first; he hung her opera cloak over the back of her chair carefully, so that she could draw it up if she needed it, and somehow the way he did so made her feel quite at home with him, and as if she had known him for a long time; even though she perceived, now that she had the opportunity to look more closely at him, that he was by no means so old as she had at first taken him to be. His hair was thin, and there were one or two deeply-marked lines on his face, but there was something about his figure and motions that gave an impression of youthfulness. Without knowing his age, you would have said that he looked old for it. He was rather undersized than small, having none of the trim compactness that we associate with the latter word, and his face had the dull, thick, sodden skin that indicates unhealthy influences in childhood. "That was a pleasant party at Mrs. Underwood's the other evening," he began at last. "Was it?" said Margaret, "I never was at a party before--I mean a party like that." "And I have been to very few; parties are not much in my line, and when I do go I am generally satisfied with looking on; but I like that very well, sometimes." "Perhaps," said Margaret ingenuously, "if I had gone only to look on, I should have thought it pleasant too; but I did not suppose one went to a party for that." "You do not know many people in Boston?" "Oh, no! I live in the country--at Royalston. I don't know anyone here but Mrs. Underwood; but I thought--mamma said, that she would probably introduce me to some of her friends; but she didn't--not to one. Don't people do so now?" "Well, it depends on circumstances. I certainly think she might have; but then she has so much to think about, you know." "I suppose I was foolish to expect anything different, but I had read about parties, and I thought--I was very silly--but I thought I didn't look so very badly. I thought I should dance a little--that everybody did. Perhaps my gown doesn't look right. Mamma made it, and took a great deal of pains with it. Of course, it isn't so new or nice as the others here, but I can't see that it looks so very different; do you?" "It looks very nice to me," said Mr. Smith, smiling. He had a pleasant, rather melancholy smile, which gave his face the sole physical attraction it possessed, and would have given it more, if he had had better teeth. "It looks very nice to me, and as you are my partner, I am the one you should wish most to please." "Oh, thank you! it was so kind in you to ask me. I can tell them when I write home that I had a partner at any rate; and you can tell me who some of the others are." "I am afraid not many," said Mr. Smith, "I go out but very little. I only went to the Underwoods because Ralph is an old friend of mine, and I came here because--" He checked himself suddenly. "I am sorry, since he is your friend, but I must say that I do think him very disagreeable. I did not know a man could be so unpleasant. I had rather he had not danced with me at all than to do it in that terribly dreary way, as if he were doing it because he had to." "You mustn't be hard on poor Ralph. He's a very good fellow, really, but he's almost beside himself just now. The very day of their dance, Kitty Chester's engagement came out. She had been keeping him hanging on for more than a year, and at one time he really thought she was going to have him; and not only that, but she and Frank Thomas actually came to his party, and they are here to-night. Ralph acts as if he had lost his senses, and his mother is almost wild about him. Why, after their dance, I was up all the rest of the night with him. He can't make any fight about it, and I think it would be better if he were to go away; but he won't--he just hangs about wherever she is to be seen. We all do all we can to get him to pluck up some spirit, but it's no go--yet." "I am very sorry for him," said Margaret, with all a girl's interest in a love story; and she cast an awe-struck glance toward the spot where Miss Chester was keeping half a dozen young men in conversation; "but he need not make everyone else so uncomfortable on account of it--need he?" "He needn't make himself so uncomfortable, you might say, for a girl who could treat him in that way; but it doesn't do to tell a man that. It doesn't seem to me that I should give up everything in the way he is doing; but then I was never in his place; of course, things are different for Ralph and me." "Yes, I am sure, you are different. I don't believe you would ever have behaved so ill to one girl in your own mother's house, because another hadn't treated you well." "I have had such a different experience of life; that was what I meant. It made me sympathise with you when you felt a little strange; though of course, it was only a mere accident that things happened so with you. Now, I was never brought up in society, and always feel a little out of place in it." "I don't know much about society either; we live very quietly at home, and when we do go out, why it is at home, you know, and that makes it different." "I suppose you live in a pretty place when you are at home?" "Oh, Royalston is lovely!" said Margaret, eagerly; "there are beautiful walks and drives all round it, and the streets have wide grass borders, and great elms arching over them, and every house has a garden, and our garden is one of the prettiest there. The place was an old one when father bought it, and the flower-beds have great thick box edges and they are so full of flowers; and there is a long walk up to the front door, between lilac bushes as big as trees, some purple and some white; and inside it is so pleasant, with rooms built on here and there, all in and out, and stairs up and down between them. Of course we are not rich at all, and things are very plain, but mamma has so much taste; and then there are all the old doors and windows, and the big fireplaces with carved mantel-pieces, and so much old panelling and queer little cupboards in the rooms--mamma says it is the kind of house that furnishes itself." "I see--it is a good thing to have such a home to care about. Now I was born in the ugliest village you can conceive of in the southern part of Illinois; dust all summer, and mud all winter, and in one of the ugliest houses in it; and yet, do you know, I am fond of the place; it was home. We were very poor then--poorer than you can possibly conceive of--and I was very sickly when I was a boy, and had to stay in most of the time. I was fond of reading, though I hadn't many books, but I never saw any society--what you would call society. When I was old enough to go to college, father had got along a little, and sent me to Harvard. I liked it there, and some of the fellows were very kind to me, especially Ralph Underwood, though you might not think it. I tried to learn what I could of their ways and customs, but it was rather late for me, and I never cared to go out much; and then--there were other reasons." A faint flush rose on his sallow face and he paused. Margaret fancied he alluded to his poverty, and felt sorry for him. She hoped he was getting on in the world, though he did not look very well fitted for it. By this time they were on a footing of easy comradeship, such as two people of the same sex and on the same plane of thought sometimes fall into at their first meeting. It is not often that a young man and a girl of such different antecedents slide so easily into it; but as Margaret said to herself, this was a peculiar case. He had told his little story with an apparent effort to be strictly truthful and put things in their proper position at the outset. There could be no intentions on his part, or foolish consciousness or any reason for it on hers, and she asked him with undisguised interest: "Where do you live now,--in Illinois?" "Not that part of it. Father and mother live in Chicago when they are at home. I am in Cambridge, just now, myself; it is a convenient place for my work"; and then as her eyes still looked inquiry, he went on, "I am writing a book." "Oh! and what is it about?" "The Albigenses--it is a historical monograph upon the Albigenses." "That must be a very interesting subject." "It is interesting. It would be too long a story to tell you how I came to think of writing it, but I do enjoy it very much indeed. It's the great pleasure of my life. It isn't that I have any ambition, you know," he said in a disclaiming manner. "It's not the kind of book that will sell well, or be very generally read, for I know I haven't the power to make it as readable as it ought to be; but I hope it may be useful to other writers. I am making it as complete as I can. I have been out twice to Europe to look up authorities, and spent a long time in the south of France studying localities." "Oh, have you? how delightful it must be! Father writes too," with a little pride in her tone, "but it's all on medical subjects; we don't understand them, and he doesn't care to have us. He hates women to dabble in medicine, and he says amateur physicians, anyhow, are no better than quacks." Mr. Smith made no answer, and they sat silent, till Margaret, fancying that perhaps he did not like the conversation turned from his book, asked another question on the subject. She was a well-taught girl, fond of books, and accustomed to hear them talked over at home, and made an intelligent auditor. The evening flew by rapidly for both of them, though their tête-à-tête was seldom disturbed. The man who sat on Margaret's other side, after staring at her for a long time, asked to be introduced to her, and took her out once; but it was not very satisfactory, for he had nothing to talk of but the season, and other parties of which she knew nothing. However, the figure brought a group of the ladies together for a moment in the middle of the hall; and a smiling girl who had been pretty before her face had taken on the tint of a beetroot, made some pleasant remark to Margaret on the excessive heat of the room, but was off and away before the answer. Margaret thought the room comfortably cool--but then she had been sitting still, while the other had hardly touched her chair since she came. Almost at the end of the evening too, it dawned upon good-natured, short-sighted, absent-minded Mrs. Willy Lowe, always put into every list of patronesses to keep the peace among them, that the pretty girl in pink did not seem to be dancing much; and she seized and dragged across the room, much as if by the hair of the head, the only man she could lay hold of--a shy, awkward undergraduate, of whose little wits she quickly deprived him, by introducing him as Warner, his real name being Warren. She addressed Margaret as Miss Parker; but she meant well, and Margaret was grateful, though they interrupted Mr. Smith in his account of the Roman Amphitheatre at Arles, and the "Lilies of Arles." But it was well that she should have something to put into her letter home besides Mr. Smith--it would never do to have it entirely taken up with him. By the by, what was his other name? Mr. Smith sounded so unmeaning. She had heard Ralph Underwood call his friend "Al," which it would not do for her to use. It might be either Alfred or Albert, and with that proneness to imagine we have heard what we wish, it really seemed to her as if she had heard that his name was Albert; she would venture on it, and if she were mistaken it would be very easy to correct it afterwards; and she wrote him down as "Mr. Albert Smith." His story she considered as told in confidence and nobody's affair but his own. Cousin Susan had never heard the name, but thought of course he must be one of the right Smiths, or he wouldn't have been there; there were plenty of them, and this one, it seemed, had lived much abroad. She would ask Mrs. Underwood when they next met; but this did not happen soon, and Cousin Susan never took any pains to expedite events--she was not able. The world did not make allowance for this habit of hers, but went on its determined course, and the very next day but one, as Margaret was lightly skimming with her quick country walk across the Public Garden on her way to the Art School, Mr. Smith, overtaking her with some difficulty, asked if he might not carry her portfolio? he was going that way. She did not know how she could, nor why she should, refuse and they walked happily on together. People turned to look after them rather curiously, and Margaret thought it must be because she was so much taller than Mr. Smith and wondered if he minded it. She should be very sorry if he did--she was sure she did not if he did not; and she longed to tell him so, but of course that would never do; and then the little worry faded from her mind, her companion had so much to say that was pleasant to hear. After that he joined her on her way more and more frequently. She did not think it could be improper. The Public Garden was free to everybody, and after all he didn't come every day, and somehow the meetings always had an accidental air, which seemed to put them out of her control. He could hardly call on her in the little sitting-room, where Cousin Susan was almost always lying on her sofa by the fire in a wrapper, secure from the intrusion of any man but the reigning physician. Sometimes Mrs. Swain, below, asked Margaret to sit with her, but the Swain sitting-room was full of their own affairs, the children and servants running in and out by day, and Dr. Swain, when at home, resting there in the evening. Margaret felt herself in the way in both places, and preferred her own chilly little bedroom. A man calling would be a sad infliction, and have a most tiresome time of it himself. The winter was a warm and bright one, and it was far pleasanter to stroll along the walks when it was too early for the school. Their acquaintance during this time progressed rapidly in some respects, more slowly in others. They knew each others' opinions and views on a vast variety of subjects. On many of these they were in accordance, and when they differed, Mr. Smith usually brought her round to his point of view in a way which she enjoyed more than if she had seen it at first. Sometimes she brought him round to hers, and then she was proud and pleased indeed. He told her all about his book, what he had done on it, what he did day by day, and what he projected. On her side, Margaret told him a world about her own family,--their names, ages, characters, and occupations,--but on this head he was by no means so communicative. She supposed the subject might be a painful one, after she had found out that he was the only survivor of a large family. He spoke of his parents, when he did speak, respectfully and affectionately, casually mentioning that his father had been very kind to let him take up literature instead of going into business. Margaret conjectured that they were not very well-to-do, and probably uneducated, and that without any false shame, of which, indeed, she judged him incapable, he might not enjoy being questioned about them; and she was rapidly learning an insight into his feelings, and a tender care for them. But one day a sudden impulse put it into her head to ask his Christian name, as yet unknown to her, and he quietly answered that it was Alcibiades. Margaret did not quite appreciate the ghastly irony of the appellation, but it hit upon her ear unpleasantly, and yet not as entirely unfamiliar. She was silent while her mind made one of those plunges among old memories, which, as when one reaches one's arm into a still pool after something glimmering at the bottom, only ruffles the water until the wished-for treasure is entirely lost to view; then she frankly said. "I was trying to think where I had heard your name before, but I can't." Mr. Smith actually colored, a rare thing for him, and Margaret longed to start some fresh topic, but could think of none. He did it for her in a moment, by asking her whether she meant to go to the German next Thursday. "I don't think I shall. I don't know anyone there, and it doesn't seem worth while." "I was going to ask you," said Mr. Smith, still with a slight confusion which she had never noticed in him before, "if you would mind going, and sitting it out with me as we did the other night?" "No, but--oh, yes, I should enjoy that ever so much, but--would you like it? You wouldn't go if it were not for me, would you?" "I certainly should not go if it were not for you; and I shall like it better than I ever liked anything in my life." It was now Margaret's turn to blush, and far more deeply. They had reached the corner of West Cedar Street, and parted with but few words more, for he never went further with her, and she went home in a happy dream, only broken by a few slight perplexities. What should she wear? She could not be marked out by that old pink silk again; she must wear the white, and make the best of it. And how was she to get there? She knew that it would not have been the thing for Mr. Smith to ask her to go with him. She was so urgent about the matter that she brought herself to do what she fairly hated, and wrote a timid little note to Mrs. Underwood, asking if she might not go with her. Mrs. Underwood wrote back that she was sorry, but her carriage was full; she would meet Miss Parke in the cloak-room. Even Cousin Susan was a little moved at this, and said it was too bad of Mrs. Underwood, though she had no suggestion to make herself but her former one of a cab. Margaret was apprehensive; but she knew that when she once got there, Mr. Smith would make it all right and easy for her, and her little troubles faded away in the light of a great pleasure beyond. The old white muslin looked better than might have been expected, and Cousin Susan gave her a lovely pair of long gloves; and she came down into the sitting-room to show off their effect, well pleased. On the table stood a big blue box with a card bearing her name attached to it. Mrs. Swain, who had come in to see her dress, was regarding it curiously, and Jenny, who had brought it up, was lingering and peering through the half-open door. "Your partner has sent you some flowers, Margaret," said Cousin Susan with unusual animation. "Do open that immense box, and let us see them!" Margaret had never thought of Mr. Smith sending her any flowers. She wished that Jenny had had the sense to take them into her own room; she would have liked to open them by herself; but it was of no use to object, and slowly and unwillingly she untied the cords, and lifted the lid. Silver paper, sheet upon sheet, cotton wool, layer upon layer; and then more silver paper came forth. An ineffable perfume was filling her senses and bringing up dim early memories. It grew stronger, and they grew weaker, as at last she took out a great bunch of white lilacs, the large sprays tied loosely and carelessly together with a wide, soft, thick white ribbon. "Ah!" said Mrs. Swain, in a slightly disappointed tone; "yes, very pretty; I suppose that is the style now; and they are raised in a hothouse, and must be a rarity at this season." "Where's his card?" asked Cousin Susan. But the card was tightly crushed up in Margaret's hand; she was not going to have "Alcibiades" exclaimed over. She need not have been afraid, for it only bore the words, "Mr. A. Smith, Jr." A pencil line was struck through "14,000 Michigan Avenue, Chicago," and "Garden Street, Cambridge," scribbled over it. Margaret wondered how she should ever get her precious flowers safely upstairs and into the hall--the box was so big; but the moment the carriage stopped an obsequiously bowing servant helped her out, seized her load, ushered her up and into the cloak-room, and set down his burden with an impressiveness that seemed to strike even the chattering groups of girls. Mrs. Underwood was nowhere to be seen, and Margaret was glad to have time to adjust her dress carefully. She took out her flowers at last; but on turning to the glass for a last look, saw that one of the knots of ribbon on her bodice was half-unpinned, and stopped to lay her nosegay down, while she secured it more firmly. "Oh, don't!" cried a voice beside her; "don't, pray don't put them down"; and Margaret turned to meet the pretty girl, very pretty now, whose passing word at the last dance had been the only sign of notice she had received from one of her own sex. "You'll spoil them," she went on; "do let me take them while you pin on your bow." Margaret, surprised and grateful, yielded up her flowers, which the other took gingerly with the tips of her fingers, tossing her own large lace-edged bouquet of red rosebuds on to a chair. "You will spoil your own beautiful flowers," said Margaret. "Oh, mine are tough! And then--why, they are very nice, of course, but not anything to compare to yours"--handling them as if they were made of glass. Margaret, astonished, took them back with thanks, and wished a moment later, that she had asked this good-natured young person to let her go into the ballroom with her party. But she had already been swept off by a crowd of friends, throwing back a parting smile and nod, and Margaret, left alone, and rather nervous at finding how late it was getting, walked across the room to the little side door that led into the dancing hall, and peeped through. There sat Mrs. Underwood at the further end, having evidently forgotten her very existence; and she drew back with a renewed sensation of awkward uncertainty. "They must have cost fifty dollars at least," said the clear, crisp tones of Miss Kitty Chester, so near her that she started, and then perceived, by a heap of pink flounces on the floor, that the sofa against the wall of the ballroom, close by the door, was occupied, though by whom she could not see without putting her head completely out, and being seen in her turn. "One might really almost dance with little Smith for that," went on the speaker. "Ralph Underwood says he isn't anything so bad as he looks," said the gentler voice of Margaret's new acquaintance. "Good heavens! I should hope not; that would be a little too much," laughed Kitty. "He is very clever, I hear, and has very good manners, considering--and she seems such a thoroughly nice girl." "Why, Gladys, you are quite in earnest about it. But now, do you think that you could ever make up your mind to be Mrs. Alcibiades?" "Why, of course not! but things are so different. A girl may be just as nice a girl, and,"--she stopped as suddenly as if she were shot. Margaret could discern the cause perfectly well; it was that Mr. Smith was approaching the door, looking out, she had no doubt, for her, and unconsciously returning the bows of the invisible pair. She had the consideration to wait a few moments before she appeared, and then she passed the sofa without a look, taking in through the back of her head, as it were, Miss Kitty's raised eyebrows and round mouth of comic despair, and poor Gladys's scarlet cheeks. Her own affairs were becoming so engrossing, that it mattered little to her what other people thought or said of them; and she crossed the floor on her partner's arm as unconsciously as if they were alone together, and spoke to the matrons with the ease which comes of absolute indifference. She did not mind Mrs. Underwood's short answers, or Mrs. Thorndike Freeman's little ungracious nod, but the long stare with which the latter lady regarded her flowers troubled her a little. What was the matter with them? Somehow, Mr. Smith had given her the impression of a man who counts his sixpences, and if he had really been sending her anything very expensive, it was flattering, though imprudent. Margaret was now beginning to feel a personal interest in his affairs, and its growth had been so gradual and so fostered by circumstances, that she was less shy with him than young girls usually are in such a position. She felt quite equal to administering a gentle scolding when she had the chance; and when they were seated, and the music made it safe to talk confidentially, she began with conciliation. "Thank you so much for these beautiful flowers." "Do you like the way they are put up?" "Oh, yes, they are perfect; but they are too handsome for me to carry. You ought not to have sent me such splendid ones, nor spent so much upon them. I did not have any idea what they were till I came here and everybody--" "I am very sorry," said Mr. Smith, apologetically, "to have made you so conspicuous; but really I never thought of their costing so much, or making such a show. I wanted to send you white lilacs, because somehow you always make me think of them; don't you remember telling me about the lilac bushes at Royalston? And when I saw the wretched little bits at the florist's I told them to cut some large sprays, and never thought of asking how much they would be." Then, as Margaret's eyes grew larger with anxiety, he went on, with an air of amusement she had seldom seen in him, "Never mind! I guess I can stand it for once, and I won't do so again. I'll tell you, Miss Parke, you shall choose the next flowers I give you, if you will. Will you be my partner at the next German, and give me a chance?" "I wish I could," said Margaret, "but I shall not be here then. I am going home." "What--so soon?" "Yes, my term at the Art School will be over, and I know Cousin Susan won't want to have me stay after that. She hates to have anyone round. Mother thought that if I came down, Mrs. Underwood would ask me to visit her before I went home, but she hasn't, and," with a little sigh, "I must go. Never mind! I have had a very nice time." Mr. Smith seemed about to say something, but checked himself; perhaps he might have taken it up again, but just then Ralph Underwood approached to ask Margaret for a turn. Something in her partner's manner had set her heart beating, and she was glad to rise and work off her excitement. As she spun round with young Underwood, she felt that his former frigid indifference was replaced by a sort of patronising interest, a mood that pleased her better, for she could cope with it; and when he said, "I'm so glad you like Al Smith, Miss Parke; he is a thorough good fellow," she looked him full in the face, with an emphatic, "Yes, that he is," which silenced him completely. The men Margaret had danced with the last time asked her again; and she was introduced to so many more, that she was on the floor a very fair share of the time. Her reputation as a wall-flower seemed threatened; but it was too late, for she went home that night from her last girlish gayety. The attentions which would have been so delightful at her first ball were rather a bore now. They kept breaking up her talks with Mr. Smith, making them desultory and fitful; and then she had such a hurried parting from him at last! It was too bad! and she might not have such another chance to see him before she left. Their talks were becoming too absorbing to be carried on with any comfort in the street,--it would be hateful to say good-by there. Perhaps he felt that himself, and would not try to meet her there again. She almost hoped he would not; and yet, as she entered the Public Garden a little later than usual the next morning, what a bound her heart gave as she saw him, evidently waiting for her! As he advanced to meet her, he said at once,-- "Miss Parke, will you walk a little way on the Common with me? There are not so many people there, and I have something I wish very much to say to you." Simple as Margaret was, it was impossible for her not to see that Mr. Smith "meant something"; only he did not have at all the air that she had supposed natural to the occasion. He looked neither confident nor doubtful, but calm, and a little sad. Perhaps it was not the great "something," after all, but an inferior "something else." She walked along with him in silence, her own face perplexed and doubtful enough. But when they reached the long walk across the loneliest corner of the Common, almost deserted at this season, he said, without further preface,-- "I don't think I ought to let you go home without telling you how great a happiness your stay here has been to me. I never thought I should enjoy anything--I mean anything of that kind--so much. It would not be fair not to tell you so, and it would not be fair to myself either. I must let you know how much I love you. I don't suppose there is much chance of your returning it, but you ought to know it." Margaret's downcast eyes and blushes, according to the wont of girls, might mean anything or nothing; but her eyes were brimming over with great tears, that, in spite of all her efforts to check them, rolled slowly over her crimson cheeks. "Don't, pray, feel so sorry about it," said her lover more cheerfully; "there is no need of that. I have been very happy since I first saw you,--happier than I ever was before. I knew it could not last long; but I shall have the memory of it always. You have given me more pleasure than pain, a great deal." For the first and last time in her life, Margaret felt a little provoked with Mr. Smith. Was the man blind? Then, as she looked down at his face, pale with suppressed emotion, a great wave of mingled pity and reverence at their utmost height swept over her, and made her feel for a moment how near human nature can come to the divine. Had he, indeed, been blind, light must have dawned for him; though, as it was never his way to leave things at loose ends, he had probably intended all along to say just what he did. He stopped short, and said in tones that were now tremulous with a rising hope,-- "Margaret, tell me if you can love me ever so little?" "How can I help it, when you have been so good to me?" Margaret contrived to stammer out, vexed with herself that she had nothing better to say. Her words sounded so inadequate--so foolish. "Oh, but you mustn't take me merely out of gratitude," said he, rather sadly. "Merely out of gratitude!" cried Margaret, her tongue loosened as if by magic, and exulting in her freedom as her words hurried over each other. "Why, what is there better than gratitude, or what more would you want to be loved for? If I had seen you behave to another girl as you have to me, I might have admired and respected you more than any man I ever saw; but I shouldn't have had the right to love you for it, as I do now. Oh!" she went on, all radiant now with beauty and happiness, "how I wish I could do something for you that would make you feel for one single moment to me as I feel to you, and then you would never, never talk of mere gratitude again! "Darling, forgive me--only give yourself to me, and I'll feel it all my life." * * * * * There was no Art School for Margaret that day, nor any thought of it, as she and Mr. Smith walked up and down the long walk again and again, until she was frightened to find how late it was, and hurried home; but now he proudly walked with her to the very door. They had so much to say about the past and the future both, and it was hard to tell which was most delightful; whether they laughingly recalled their first meeting, or more soberly discussed their future plans. How fortunate it was, after all, that she was going back so soon, as now Mr. Smith could follow her in a few days to Royalston. Margaret said she must write to mamma that night--she could not wait; and Mr. Smith said he hoped that her parents would not want to have their engagement a very long one. Of course he had some means besides his books on which to marry. It was asking a great deal of her father and mother, but perhaps he need not take her so very much away from them. Would it not be pleasant to have their home at Royalston, where he could do a great deal of his work, and run down to Boston when necessary? Margaret was charmed with the idea, and said that living was so cheap there, and house rent--oh, almost nothing. Margaret found Cousin Susan up and halfway through her lunch. She apologised in much confusion, but her cousin did not seem to mind. She, as well as Margaret, was occupied with some weighty affair of her own, and both were silent till Jenny had carried off the lunch tray, when both wanted to speak, but Margaret, always the quicker of the two, began first. Might not Mr. Smith call that evening? He had been saying--of course it could not be considered anything till her father and mother had heard--but she thought Cousin Susan ought to know it before he called at her house--only no one else must know a word till she had written home. This rather incoherent confession was helped out by the prettiest smiles and blushes; but Mrs. Manton showed none of an older woman's usual prompt comprehension and pleasure in helping out a faltering love-tale. She listened in stolid silence, the most repellent of confidantes, and when it ended in an almost appealing cadence, she broke out with, "Margaret Parke, I am astonished at you!" Margaret first started, then stared amazedly. "I would not have believed it if anyone had told me!" went on Mrs. Manton. "I would never have thought that your mother's daughter could sell herself in that barefaced way." "What do you mean?" "As if you did not know perfectly well that you were taking that--that Smith--" she paused in vain for an epithet; but the mere name sounded more opprobrious than any she could have selected--"for his money!" "What do you mean? Mr. Smith hasn't much money; he may have enough to live on; but I can't help that." "Margaret, don't quibble with the truth. You know well enough that he will have it all. Who else is there for the old man to leave it to?" "What old man?" "Why, old Smith, of course! You can't pretend you don't know who he is, and you have been artful enough to keep it all from me! You knew if I heard his Christian name it would all come out! I don't know what your father and mother will say! Mrs. Champion Pryor has been calling here to-day, and told me the whole story, and how you have been seen walking the streets with him for hours. I would scarcely credit it." "His Christian name! what's that got to do with it? He can't help it!" Margaret's first words rang out defiantly enough; but her voice faltered on the last, as her mind made another painful plunge after vanished memories. Cousin Susan rose, and rang the bell herself; more wonderful still, she went out into the entry, closing the door after her while she spoke to Jenny, and when the girl had run rapidly upstairs and down again, returned with something in her hand. "I knew Jenny had some of the vile stuff," she said triumphantly; "she was taking it last Friday, when I tried to persuade her to send for the doctor, and be properly treated for her cough." And she thrust a large green glass bottle under Margaret's eyes with these words on the paper label: "ERIGERON ELIXIR. "An Unfailing cure for "Ague. Asthma. Bright's Disease. Bronchitis. Catarrh. Consumption. Colds. Coughs. Diphtheria. Dropsy. "(We spare our readers the remainder of the alphabet.) "All genuine have the name of the inventor and proprietor blown on the bottle, thus: "ALCIBIADES SMITH." A sudden light flashed upon poor Margaret, showing her forgotten piles of bottles on the counters of village stores, and long columns of unheeded advertisements in the country newspapers. She stood silent and shamefaced. "What will your father say?" reiterated Cousin Susan. Dr. Parke's reputation with the general public was largely founded on a series of letters he had contributed to a scientific journal exposing and denouncing quack medicines. "I didn't know," said Margaret, helplessly, wondering that the truth could sound so like a lie, but unable to fortify it by any asseveration. "Why, you must have heard about the Smiths: everybody has. They have cut the most ridiculous figure everywhere. They came to Clifton Springs once while I was there; and they were really too dreadful; the kind of people you can't stay in the room with." Cousin Susan had not talked so much for years, and began to feel that the excitement was doing her good, which may excuse her merciless pelting of poor Margaret. "You were too young, perhaps," she went on, "to have heard about Ossian Smith, the oldest son, but the newspapers were full of him--of the life he led in London and Paris, when he was a mere boy. The American minister got him home at last, and a pretty penny old Smith had to pay to get him out of his entanglements. He had delirium tremens, and jumped out of a window, and killed himself, soon after--the best thing he could do. But you must have heard of Lunetta Smith, the daughter; about her running away with the coachman; it happened only about three or four years ago. Why, the New York _Sun_ had two columns about it, and the _World_ four. All the family were interviewed, your young man among the rest, and the comic papers said the mésalliance appeared to be on the coachman's side. She died, too, soon after; you must have heard of it." "No, I never did. Father never lets me read the daily papers," said Margaret, a little proudly. "Well!" said Cousin Susan, with relaxing energy, "I don't often read such things myself; but one can't help noticing them; and Mrs. Champion Pryor has been telling me a great deal about it." "And did Mrs. Pryor tell you anything about my--about young Mr. Smith?" "Oh, she said he was always very well spoken of. He was younger than the rest and delicate in health, and took to study; and his father had a good deal of money in time to educate him. They say he's rather clever, and the old man is quite proud of him; but he can't be a gentleman, Margaret--it is not possible." "Yes, he can!" burst out Margaret; "he's too much of a man not to be a gentleman, too!" "Well," said Cousin Susan, suddenly collapsing, "I can't talk any longer. I have such a headache. If you have asked him to call, I suppose he must come; but I can't see him. What's that? a box for you? more flowers? Oh, dear, do take them away. If there is anything I cannot stand when I have a headache, it is flowers about, and I can smell those lilacs you carried last night all the way downstairs, and through two closed doors." Poor Margaret escaped to her own room with her flowers to write her letter, the difficulty of her task suddenly increased. Mrs. Manton threw herself back on the sofa to nurse her headache, but found that it was of no use, and that what she needed was fresh air. She ordered a cab, and drove round to see Mrs. Underwood, unto whom, in strict confidence, she freed her mind. She found some relief in the dismay her recital gave her hearer. Ralph Underwood was slowly recovering from the fit of disappointment in which he had wreaked his ill-temper on whoever came near him, as a younger, badly trained child might do on the chairs and tables; and his mother, his chief _souffre douleur_; who in her turn had made all around her feel her own misery, was now beginning ruefully to count up the damages, of which she felt a large share was due to the Parkes. She had been wondering whether she could not give a little lunch for Margaret; she could, at least, take her to the next German, and find her some better partner than Al Smith. Nothing could have been more disconcerting than this news. She could not with any grace do anything for Margaret now to efface the memories of the first part of her visit, and the Parkes must blame her doubly for the neglect which had allowed this engagement to take place. Why, even Susan Manton put on an injured air! She craved some comfort in her turn, and after keeping the secret for a day and a night, told it in the strictest confidence to her intimate friend, Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, whose "dropping in" was an irresistible temptation. "What!" cried Mrs. Freeman, "is it that large young woman with red cheeks, whom you brought one evening to Papanti's? I think it will be an excellent thing; why, the Smiths can use her photograph as an advertisement for the Elixir." "Yes--but then her parents--you see, she's Mary Pickering's daughter." "Mary Pickering has been married to a country doctor for five and twenty years, hasn't she? You may be sure her eyes are open by this time. Depend upon it, they would swallow Al Smith, if he were bigger than he is. The daughter seems to have found no difficulty in the feat." "Well," said Mrs. Underwood, with a sigh, "perhaps I ought to be glad that poor Al has got some respectable girl to take him for his money. I never dreamed one would." "It isn't likely that he ever asked one before," said Mrs. Freeman, with a double-edged sneer. The door-bell rang, and the butler ushered in Margaret, who had come to make her farewell call. Mrs. Underwood looked at her in astonishment. Was this the shy, blushing girl who had come from Royalston three short months ago? With such gentle sweetness did she express her gratitude for the elder lady's kind attentions, with such graceful dignity did she wave aside a few awkwardly hinted apologies, above all, so regally beautiful did she look, that Mrs. Underwood felt more than ever that she would be called to account by the parents of such a creature. Margaret had quite forgiven Mrs. Underwood, for, she reasoned, if that lady had done as she ought to have done by her, she would never have had the chance of knowing Al, a contingency too dreadful to contemplate; and her forgiveness added to the superiority of her position. Mrs. Underwood could only reiterate the eternal useless regret of the tempted and fallen: "If things had not happened just when, and how, and as they did!" She envied Mrs. Freeman, who was now in the easiest manner possible plying the young girl with devoted attentions, with large doses of flattery thrown in. Mrs. Freeman, meanwhile, was mentally resolving to call on Margaret before she left town, in which case they could hardly avoid sending her wedding-cards. She foresaw that, as two negatives make an affirmative, Mr. and Mrs. Alcibiades Smith, Jr., might yet be worthy of the honor of her acquaintance. * * * * * Margaret's engagement was no primrose path. It was easier for her when her lover was away, for he wrote delightful letters, but they rarely had one happy and undisturbed hour together. Dr. and Mrs. Parke, of course, gave their consent to the marriage; but they did not like it, and did not pretend to. Dr. Parke, who, as is the wont of his profession, placed a high value on physical attractions, and who cared as little for money as any sane man could, hardly restrained his expressions of dislike. "What business," he growled, "had the fellow to ask her?" Mrs. Parke, while trying hard to keep her husband in order, was cold and constrained herself. Being a woman, she thought less of looks, and had learned in her married life to appreciate the value of money. She would have liked Margaret to make a good match; but here was more money by twenty times than she would have asked, had it only been offered by a lover more worthy of her beautiful daughter! And yet, if Margaret would only have been open with her! If she would have frankly said that she was tired of being poor, and could not forego the opportunity of marrying a rich man, who was a good sort of man enough, Mrs. Parke could have understood, and pitied, and forgiven; but to see her put on such an affectation of attachment for him drove her mother nearly wild. Why, she acted as if she were more in love than he was! The boys had been duly respectful on hearing that their sister's betrothed was a "Harvard man," but grew contemptuous when they found him so unfit for athletics. Relations and friends, and acquaintances of every degree, believed, and still believe, and always will believe, that Margaret's was one of the most mercenary of mercenary marriages. Some blamed her parents for allowing it; others thought that their opposition was feigned, and that they were really forcing poor Margaret into it. The two younger children, Harry and Winnie, at once adopted their new brother, and stood up stanchly for him on all occasions, and their sister was eternally grateful to them for it. Her only other support came, of all the people in the world, from Ralph Underwood. He could not be best man at the wedding, as he was going abroad with his mother, who was sadly run down and needed change; but he wrote Margaret a straightforward, manly letter, in which he said that he trusted, unworthy as he was, she would admit him to her friendship for Al's sake. He spoke of all he owed to his friend in such a way that Margaret perceived that more had passed in their college days than she ever had been or ever should be told. The family discomfort came to a climax on the day before the wedding, when the great Alcibiades Smith himself and his wife made their appearance at Royalston. They stayed at the hotel with their suite, but spent the evening with the Parkes to make the acquaintance of their new connections. Old Mr. Smith pronounced Margaret "a bouncer." He had always known, he said, that Al would get some kind of a wife, but never thought it would be such a stunner as this one. It naturally fell to him to be entertained by Dr. Parke, or rather to entertain him, which he did by relating the whole history of the Elixir, from its first invention to the number of million bottles that were put up the last year, winding up every period with, "As you're a medical man yourself, sir." Mrs. Smith was quieter, and though well pleased, a little awe-struck, as her French maid, her authority and terror, had told her, after Mrs. Parke's and Margaret's brief call at the hotel that afternoon, that these were, evidently, "_dames très comme il faut_." She poured into Mrs. Parke's ear, in a corner, the tale of all Al's early illnesses, and the various treatments he had had for them, till her hearer no longer wondered at their being so little of him; the wonder was, that there was anything left at all. Then, à propos of marriages, she grew confidential and almost tearful about their distresses in the case of their daughter "Luny." She did think Mr. Smith a little to blame for poor Luny's runaway match. There was an Italian count whom she liked, but her father could not be induced to pay his debts, and "a girl must marry somebody, you know," she wound up, with a look at Margaret. Margaret, in after years, could appreciate the comedy of the situation. It is no wonder if it seemed to her at the time the most gloomily tragical that perverse ingenuity could devise. Al's manner to his parents was perfect. He was very silent; not more, perhaps, than he always was in a room full, but she thought he looked fagged and tired, and wondered how he could bear it. She longed intensely to say something sympathetic to him; but, like most girls on the eve of their marriage, she felt overpowered with shyness. If this dreadful evening ever came to an end, and they were ever married, then she would tell him, once for all, that she loved him all the better for all and everything that he had to bear. * * * * * "They will spoil the whole effect," said Mrs. Parke, despondently, as she put the last careful touches to Margaret's wedding-dress. It was a very simple but becoming one of rich plain silk, with a little lace, and the pearl daisies with diamond dewdrops, sent by the bridegroom, accorded with it well. But Mr. Smith, senior, had begged that his gift, or part of it, should be worn on the occasion, and Mrs. Parke now slowly opened a velvet box, in which lay a crescent and a cross. Neither she nor Margaret was accustomed to estimate the price of diamonds, and had they been, they would have seen that these were far beyond their mark. "They don't go with the dress," repeated Mrs. Parke, doubtfully. "Oh, never mind; to please Mr. Smith," said Margaret, carelessly, as she bent forward to allow her mother to clasp round her neck the slender row of stones that held the cross, and to stick the long pins of the crescent with dexterous hand through the gathered tulle, of the veil and the thick wavy bands of hair beneath it. As she drew herself up to her full height again before the mirror, it seemed as if the June day outside had taken on the form of a mortal girl. The gold and blue of the heavens, the pink and white of the blossoming fields, whose luminous tints rested so softly on hair and eyes, on cheek and brow, were reflected and intensified in the rainbow rays of light that blazed on her head and at her throat. It was not in human nature not to look with one touch of pride and pleasure at the vision in the glass. But the sight of another face behind hers made her turn quickly round, with, "O mamma! mamma! what is it?" "Nothing, my dear; it's a very magnificent present; only I thought--" "Mamma! surely you don't think I care for such things! you don't, you can't think I am the least bit influenced by them in marrying Al. O mamma! don't, don't look at me so!" "Never mind, my dear. We will not talk about it now. It is too late for me to say anything, I know, and I am very foolish." "Mother!" cried the girl, piteously; "you _must_ believe me! You _know_ that when Al asked me to marry him, and I said I would, I had no idea, not the slightest idea, that he had a penny in the world!" "Hush, Margaret! hush, my dear! you are excited, and so am I. Don't say anything you may wish afterwards that you had not. God bless you, and make you a happy woman, and a good wife; but don't begin your married life with a--" Mrs. Parke choked down the word with a great sob, and hastily left the room. It was high noon, and she had not yet put on her own array. Margaret stood stiff and blind with horror. Had she really known, then? Had her hand been bought? Then she remembered her own innocence when she told her love. Not so proudly, not so freely, not so gladly, could it ever have been told to the millionaire's son. A rush of self-pity came over her, softening the indignant throbbing of her heart, and opening the fountains of tears. She was at the point where a woman must have a good cry, or go mad,--but where could she give way? Not here, where anyone might come in. Indeed, there was Winnie's voice at the door of the nursery, eager to show her bridesmaid's toilette. Margaret snatched up two white shawls which lay ready on the sofa, caught up the heavy train of her gown in one hand, and flew down the front staircase like a hunted swan, through the library to the sacred room beyond--her father's study, now, as she well knew, deserted, while its owner was above, reluctantly dressing for the festivity. She pushed the only chair forward to the table, threw one shawl over it, and laying the other on the table itself, sat down, and carefully bending her head down over her folded arms, so as not to crush her veil by a feather's touch, let loose the flood-gates. In a moment she was crying as only a healthy girl who seldom cries can, when she once gives up to it. Someone spoke to her; she never heard it. Someone touched her; she never felt it. It was only when a voice repeated, "Why, Margaret, dearest, what is the matter?" that she checked herself with a mighty effort, swallowed her sobs, and still holding her handkerchief over her tear-stained cheeks and quivering mouth, turned round to find herself face to face with her bridegroom, who having stopped to take up his best man, Alick Parke, was waiting till that young man tied his sixth necktie. She well knew that a lover who finds his betrothed crying her eyes out half an hour before the wedding has a prescriptive right to be both angry and jealous; but he looked neither; only a little anxious and troubled. "Darling, has anything happened?" "No--not exactly; that is--O Al! they won't believe me!" "They! who?" "Not one single one of them. Not mother, even mother! I thought she would--but she doesn't." "Does not what?" "She does not believe," said Margaret, trying to steady her voice, "that when you asked me to marry you, and I said I would, that I did not know you were rich. I told her, but she won't believe me." "Well," said Mr. Smith, quietly, though with a little flush on his face; "it's very natural. I don't blame her." "Al!" cried Margaret, seizing both his hands; "O Al, you don't--you do--_you_ believe me, don't you, Al? _don't_ you?" "Of course I do." [Illustration] POOR MR. PONSONBY On a bright, windy morning in March, Miss Emmeline Freeman threw open the gate of her mother's little front garden on Walnut Street, Brookline, slammed it behind her with one turn of her wrist, marched with an emphatic tapping of boot-heels up the path between the crocus-beds to the front door, threw that open, and rushed into the drawing-room, where she paused for breath, and began before she found it: "O mamma! O Aunt Sophia! O Bessie! What do you think? Lily Carey--you would never guess--Lily Carey--I was never so surprised in my life--Lily Carey is engaged!" Mrs. Freeman laid down her pen by the side of her column of figures, losing her account for the seventh time; Miss Sophia Morgan paused in the silk stocking she was knitting, just as she was beginning to narrow; and Bessie Freeman dropped her brush full of colour on to the panel she was finishing, while all three exclaimed with one voice, "To whom?" "That is the queer part of it. You will never guess. Indeed, how should you?" "To whom?" repeated the chorus, with a unanimity and precision that would have been creditable to the stage, and with the due accent of impatience on the important word. "To no one you ever would have dreamed of; indeed, you never heard of him--a Mr. Reginald Ponsonby. It is a most romantic thing. He is an Englishman, very good family and handsome and all that, but not much money. That is why it has been kept quiet so long." "So long? How long?" chimed in the trio, still in unison. "Why, for three years and more. Lily met him in New York that time she was there in the summer, you know, when her father was ill at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But Mr. Carey would never let it be called an engagement till now." "Did Lily tell you all this?" asked Bessie. "No, Ada Thorne was telling everyone about it at the lunch party. She heard it from Lily." "I think Lily might have told us herself." "She said she did not mean to write to anyone, it has been going on so long, and her prospects were so uncertain; she did not care to have any formal announcement, but just to have her friends hear of it gradually. But she sent you and me very kind messages, Bessie, and she wants you to take the O'Flanigans--that's her district family, you know--and me to take her Sunday-school class. She says she really must have her Sundays now to write to Mr. Ponsonby, poor fellow! She has been obliged to scribble to him at any odd moment she could, and he is so far off." "Where is he--in England?" "Oh, dear, no! In Australia. He owns an immense sheep-farm in West Australia. He belongs to a very good family; but he was born on the continent, and has no near relations in England, and has rather knocked about the world for a good many years. He had not very good luck in Australia at first, but now things look better there, and he may be able to come over here this summer, and if he does they will perhaps be married before he goes back. Mr. Carey won't hear it spoken of now, but Ada says she has no doubt he will give in when it comes to the point. He never refuses Lily anything, and if the young man really comes he won't have the heart to send him back alone, for Ada says he must be fascinating." "Lily seems to have laid her plans very judiciously," said Miss Morgan, "and if she wishes them generally understood, she does well to confide them to Ada Thorne." "And she has been engaged for years!" burst out Bessie, whose mental operations had meanwhile been going ahead of the rest; "why then--then there could never have been anything between her and Jack Allston!" "Certainly not," replied Emmeline, confidently. "Very likely he knew it all the time," said Bessie. "Or she may have refused him," said Mrs. Freeman. "What is Miss Thorne's version?" said Aunt Sophia. "I shall stand by that whatever it is. Considering the extent of that young woman's information, I am perpetually surprised by its accuracy." "Ada thinks Lily never let it come to a proposal, but probably let Jack see from the beginning that it would be useless, and that is why they were on such friendly terms." "Well!" said Aunt Sophia, "I am always glad to think better of my fellow-creatures. I always thought Jack Allston a fool for marrying as he did if he could have had Lily, and now I only think him half a one, since he couldn't. I am only afraid the folly is on poor Lily's side. However, we must all fulfil our destiny, and I always said she was born to become the heroine of a domestic drama, at least." "Oh, here's Bob!" said Emmeline, as her elder brother's entrance broke in upon the conversation. "Bob, who do you think is engaged?" "You have lost your chance of telling, Emmie," replied the young man, with a careful carelessness of manner; "I have just had the pleasure of walking from the village with Ada Thorne." "Really, it is too bad of Ada," said Emmeline, as she adjusted her hat at the glass. "She will not leave me one person to tell by to-morrow. Bessie, I think as long as we are going to five o'clock tea at the Pattersons', and I have all my things on, I will set out now and make some calls on the way. You might dress and come after me. I will be at Nina Turner's. Mamma and Aunt Sophy can"--but her voice was an indistinct buzz in her brother's ears, as he stood looking blankly out of the window at the bright crocus tufts. He had never had any intention of proposing to Lily Carey himself, and he knew that if he had she would never have accepted him, yet somehow a shadow had crept over the day that was so bright before. Lily Carey was at that time a very conspicuous figure in Boston society; that is, in the little circle of young people who went to all the "best" balls and assemblies. She was also well known in some that were less select, for the Careys had too assured a position to be exclusive, and were too good-natured to be fashionable, so that she knew the whole world and the whole world knew her. To be exact, she was acquainted with about one five-hundredth part of the inhabitants of Boston and vicinity, was known by sight to about twice as many, and by name to as many more, with acquaintance also in such other cities and villages as had sufficiently advanced in civilisation to have a "set" which knew the Boston "set." She stood out prominently from the usual dead level of monotonous prettiness which is the rule in American ballrooms and gives piquant plainness so many advantages. Her nymph-like figure, dressed very likely in a last-year's gown of no particular fashion--for the Careys were of that Boston _monde_ which systematically under-dresses--made the other girls look small and pinched and doll-like; her towering head, crowned with a great careless roll of her bright chestnut hair, made theirs look like barbers' dummies; and her brilliant colouring made one half of them show dull and dingy, the other faded and washed out. These advantages were not always appreciated as such--by no means; unusual beauty, like unusual genius, may fly over the heads of the uneducated; and it was the current opinion among the young ladies who only knew her by sight, and their admirers, that "Miss Carey had no style." Among her own acquaintance she reigned supreme. To have been in love with Lily Carey was regarded by every youth of quality as a necessary part of the curriculum of Harvard University; so much so that it was not at all detrimental to their future matrimonial prospects. Her old lovers, like her left-over partners, were always at the service of her whole coterie of adoring intimate friends. If she had no new ideas, these not being such common articles as is usually supposed, no one could more cleverly seize upon and deftly adapt some stray old one. She could write plays when none could be found to suit, and act half the parts, and coach the other actors; she made her mother give new kinds of parties, where all the new-old dances and games were brought to life again; and she set the little fleeting fashions of the day that never get into the fashion-books, to which, indeed, her dress might happen or not to correspond; but the exact angle at which she set on her hat, and the exact knot in which she tied her sash, and the exact spot where she stuck the rose in her bosom, were subjects of painstaking study, and objects of generally unsuccessful imitation to the rest of womankind. Why Lily Carey at one and twenty was not married, or even engaged, was a mystery; but for four years she had been supposed by that whole world of which we have spoken to be destined for Jack Allston. Jack was young, handsome, rich, of good family, and so rising in his profession, the law, that no one could suppose he lacked brains, though in general matters they were not so evident. For four years he had skated with Lily, danced with her, sung with her, ridden, if not driven, with her, sent her flowers, and scarcely paid a single attention of the sort to any other girl; and Lily had danced, sung, ridden, skated with him, at least twice as often as with any other man. Jack had had the _entrée_ of the Carey house, where old family friendship had admitted him from boyhood, almost as if he were another son, and was made far more useful than sons generally allow themselves to be made. He came to all parties early and stayed late, danced with all the wall-flowers and waited upon all the grandmothers and aunts, and prompted and drew up the curtain, and took all the "super" parts at their theatricals. He was "Jack" to all of them, from Papa Carey down to Muriel of four years old. The Carey family, if hints were dropped, disclaimed so smilingly that everyone was convinced that they knew all about it, and that Mrs. Carey, a most careful mother, who spent so much time in acting chaperon to her girls that she saw but little of them, would never have allowed it to go so far unless there were something in it. Why this something was not announced was a mystery. At first many reasons were assigned by those who must have reasons for other people's actions, all very sufficient: Lily too young, Jack not through the law-school, the Allstons in mourning, etc., etc.; but as one after another exhibited its futility, and new ones were less readily discovered, the subject was discussed in less amiable mood by tantalised expectants, and the ominous sentence was even murmured, "If they are not engaged they ought to be." On October 17, 1887, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé stock was quoted at 90-1/2, and the engagement of Mr. John Somerset Allston to Miss Julia Henrietta Bradstreet Noble was announced with all the formality of which Boston is capable on such occasions. It can hardly be said which piece of news created the greater sensation; but many a paterfamilias who had dragged himself home sick at heart from State Street found his family so engrossed in their own private morsel of intelligence that his, with all its consequences of no new bonnets and no Bar Harbor next summer, was robbed of its sting. All was done according to the most established etiquette. Jack Allston had told all the men at his lunch club, and a hundred notes from Miss Noble to her friends and relatives, which she had sat up late for the two preceding nights to write, had been received by the morning post. Jack had sat up later than she had, but only one single note had been the product of his vigils. Unmixed surprise was the first sensation excited as the news spread. It was astonishing that Jack Allston should be engaged to any girl but Lily Carey, and it was not much less so that he should be engaged to Miss Noble. She was a little older than he was, an only child, and an orphan. Her family was good, her connections high, and her fortune just large enough for her to live upon with their help. She was of course invited everywhere, and received the attentions demanded by politeness; but even politeness had begun to feel that it had done enough for her, and that she should perform the social _hara-kiri_ that unmarried women are expected to make at a certain age. She was very plain and had very little to say for herself. Her relatives could say nothing for her except that she was a "nice, sensible girl," a dictum expressed with more energy after her engagement to Jack Allston, when some of the more daring even discovered that she was "distinguished looking." The men had always, from her silence, had a vague opinion that she was stupid, but amiable; the other girls were doubtful on both these points, certain double-edged speeches forcibly recurring to their memory. Their doubts resolved into certainties after her engagement was announced, when she became so very unbearable that they could only, with the Spartan patience shown by young women on such occasions, hold their tongues and hope that it might be a short one. Their sole relief was in discussing the question as to whether Jack Allston had thrown over Lily, or whether she had refused him. Jack was sheepish and shy at being congratulated; Lily was bright and smiling, and in even higher spirits than usual; Miss Noble spoke very unpleasantly to and of Lily whenever she had the chance; but all these points of conduct might and very likely would be the same under either supposition. Parties were pretty evenly balanced, and the wedding was over before they had drifted to any final conclusion. As the season went on Lily looked rather worn and fagged, which gave the supporters of the first hypothesis some ground; but when, in the spring, her own engagement came out, it supplied a sufficient reason, and gave a triumphant and clinching argument to the advocates of the second. She looked happy enough then, though her own family gave but a doubtful sympathy. Mr. Carey refused to say anything further than that he hoped Lily knew her own mind; she must decide for herself. Mrs. Carey looked sad, and changed the subject, saying there was no need of saying anything about it at present; she was sorry that it was so widely known and talked about. The younger Carey girls, Susan and Eleanor, openly declared that they hoped it would never come to anything. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! His picture was very handsome, and the parts of his letters they had heard were very nice, but he did not seem likely to get on in the world, and he could not expect Lily to wait forever. "Would you like to see his picture?--an amateur one, taken by a friend; and Lily says it does not do him justice." The photograph won the hearts of all the female friends of the family, who saw it in confidence, and increased their desire to see the original. But Mr. Ponsonby was not able, as had been expected, to come over in the summer. Violent rains and consequent floods in the Australian sheep-runs inflicted so much damage upon his stock that the marriage was again postponed, at least for a year, in which time he hoped to get things on a better basis. Lily kept up her spirits bravely. She did not go to Mount Desert with her mother and sisters, but stayed at home, wrote her letters, hemstitched her linen, declaring that she was glad of the time to get up a proper outfit, and went to bed early, keeping a pleasant home for her father and the boys as they went and came, to their huge satisfaction, and gaining in bloom and freshness; so that she was in fine condition in the fall to nurse her mother through a low fever caught at a Bar Harbor hotel, also to wait upon Susan, nervous and worn down with late hours and perpetual racket, and Eleanor, laid up with a sprained ankle from an overturn in a buckboard. Eleanor, though not yet eighteen, was to come out next winter, Lily declaring that she should give up balls--what was the use when one was engaged? She stayed at home and saw that her sisters were kept in ball-gowns and gloves, no light task, taking the part of Cinderella _con amore_. She certainly looked younger than Susan at least, who since she had taken up the Harvard Annex course, besides going out, began to grow worn and thin. One February morning Eleanor's voice rose above the usual babble at the Carey breakfast-table. "Can't I go, mamma?" "Where, dear?" "Why, to the Racket Club german at Eliot Hall, next Tuesday. It's going to be so nice, you know, only fifty couples, and we ought to answer directly; and I have just had notes from Harry Foster and Julian Jervis asking me for it." "And which shall you dance with?" asked Lily. "Why, Harry, of course." "I would not have any _of course_ about it," said Lily, rather sharply. Harry Foster was now repeating Jack Allston's late role in the Carey family, with Eleanor for his ostensible object. "My advice is, dance with Julian; and I suppose I must see that your pink net is in order, if Miss Macalister cannot be induced to hurry up your new lilac." "Shall we not go, mamma?" "Why, mamma, how can we?" broke in Susan, who had her own game in another quarter. "It's the 'Old Men of Menottomy' night, and we missed the last, you know." "Those old Cambridge parties are the dullest affairs going," said Eleanor; "I'd rather stay at home than go to them." "That is very ungrateful of you," said Lily, laughing, "when I gave up my place in the 'Misses Carey' to you, for of course I don't go to either." "Can't I go to Eliot Hall with Roland, mamma? He is asked, and Mrs. Thorne is a patroness; she will chaperon me after I get there." "Roland will want to go right back to Cambridge, I know--the middle of the week and everything! He'll be late enough without coming here." "Then can't I take Margaret, and depend on Mrs. Thorne?" went on Eleanor, with the persistence of the youngest pet. "Half the girls go with their maids that way." "Oh, I don't know, my dear," said poor Mrs. Carey, looking helplessly from Eleanor, flushed and eager, to Susan, silent, but with a tightly shut look on her pretty mouth, that betokened no sign of yielding. "I never liked it--in a hired carriage--and you can't expect _me_ to go over the Cambridge bridges without James. And I hate asking Mrs. Thorne anything, she always makes such a favour of it, and the less trouble it is the more fuss she gets up about it. Do you and Susan settle it somehow between you, and let me know when it is decided." "Let me go with Eleanor, mamma," said Lily. "Mrs. Freeman will probably go with Emmeline and Bessie, and she will let me sit with her. I will wear my old black silk and look the chaperon all over--as good a one, I will wager, as any there. It will be good fun to act the part, and I have been engaged so long that I should think I might really begin to appear in it." Mr. Carey was heard to growl, as he pushed back his chair and threw his pile of newspapers on to the floor, that he wished Lily would stop that nonsensical talk about her engagement once for all; but the girls did not pause in their chatter, and Mrs. Carey was too much relieved to argue the point. "Only tell me what to do and I will do it," was this poor lady's favourite form of speech. She set off with a clear conscience on Tuesday evening with Susan for the assembly at Cambridge, where a promisingly learned post-graduate of good fortune and family was wont to unbend himself by sitting out the dances and explaining the theory of evolution to Miss Susan Carey, who was as mildly scientific as was considered proper for a young lady of her position. Lily accompanied Eleanor to more frivolous spheres, where chaperonage was an easier if less exciting task; for once having touched up her sister's dress in the ante-room, and handed her over to Julian Jervis, she bade her farewell for the evening, and herself took the arm of Harry Foster, who, gloomily cynical at the sight of Eleanor, radiant in her new lilac, with another partner, had hardly a word to say as he settled her on a bench on the raised platform where the chaperons congregated, except to ask her sulkily if she would not "take a turn," which she declined without mincing matters, and took the only seat left, next to Mrs. Jack Allston, who was matronising a cousin. "What, Lily! you here?" asked Mrs. Thorne. "Oh, yes; mamma has gone to Cambridge with Susan, and said I might come over with Eleanor, and she was sure Mrs. Freeman,"--with a smile at that lady--"would look after us if we needed it." "With the greatest pleasure," said Miss Morgan, who sat by her sister. "Here have Elizabeth and I both come to take care of our girls, as half-a-dozen elders sometimes hang on to one child at a circus. We both of us had set our hearts on seeing _this_ german and would not give up, so you see there is an extra chaperon at your service." "Doesn't your mother find it very troublesome to have three girls out at once?" asked Mrs. Allston of Lily, bluntly. "Hardly three; I am not out this winter, you know." "I don't see any need of staying in because one is engaged, unless, indeed, it were a very short one, like mine." Mrs. Allston cast a rapid and deprecatory glance at the "old black silk," which had seen its best days, and then a still swifter one at her own gown, from Worth, but so unbecoming to her that it was easy for Lily to smile serenely back, though her heart sank within her at her prospects for the evening. At the close of the first figure of the german, a slight flutter seemed to run through the crowd, tending toward the entrance. "Who is that standing in the doorway--just come in?" asked Lily, in the very lowest tone, of Miss Morgan. Miss Morgan looked, shook her head decidedly, and then passed the inquiry on to Mrs. Thorne, who hesitated and hemmed. "He spoke to me when he first came--but--I really don't recollect--it must be Mr.--Mr.----" "Arend Van Voorst," crushingly put in Mrs. Allston, with somewhat the effect of a garden-roller. Both of the older ladies looked interested. "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Thorne, "I sent him a card when I heard he was in Boston. I have not seen him--at least since he was very young--but his mother--of course I know Mrs. Van Voorst--a little." "I don't know them at all," said Miss Morgan; "but if that's young Van Voorst, he is better looking than there is any occasion for." "He was a classmate and intimate friend of Jack's," said Mrs. Allston, loftily. "I never saw him before," said Lily, incautiously. "He only went out in a very small set in Boston," said Mrs. Allston. "I met him often, of course." "You were too young, Lily, to meet any one when he was in college," said Miss Morgan, who liked "putting down Julia Allston." "It's too bad the girls are all engaged," said the simple-minded Mrs. Freeman; "he won't have any partner." "_He_ wouldn't dance!" said Julia, too tough to feel Miss Morgan's light touches. "Very likely, as you asked him, Mrs. Thorne, he may feel that he _must_ take a turn with Ada; and when he knows that Kitty Bradstreet is with me, very likely he will ask her out of compliment to me. He will hardly ask me to dance at such a very young party as this; I don't see any of the young married set here but myself." Mr. Van Voorst stood quietly in the doorway, hardly appearing to notice anything, but when Ada Thorne's partner was called out, and she was left sitting alone, he walked across the room and sat down by her. He did not ask her to dance, but it was perhaps as great an honour to have the Van Voorst of New York sitting by her, holding her bouquet and bending over her in an attitude of devotion; and if what he said did not flatter her vanity, it touched another sentiment equally strong in Ada even at that early period of life. "Who is that girl in black, sitting with the chaperons?" "Oh, that is Lily Carey." "Why is she there?" "She is chaperoning Eleanor, her youngest sister, that girl in lilac who is on the floor now. They look alike, don't they?" "Why, she is not married?" "No, only engaged. She has been engaged a great while, and never goes to balls or anything now--only she came here with Eleanor because Mrs. Carey wanted to go to Cambridge with Susan. There are three of the Careys out; it must be a dreadful bother, don't you think so?" "To whom is she engaged?" "To a Mr. Reginald Ponsonby--an Englishman settled in Australia somewhere. They were to have been married last summer, but he had business losses. She is perfectly devoted to him. He wrote and offered to release her, but she would not hear of it. She was very much admired; don't you think her pretty?" "Will you introduce me to Miss Carey? I see Mr. Freeman is coming to ask you for a turn--will you be so kind as to present me first?" There was a sort of cool determination about this young man which Ada, or any other girl, would have found it hard to resist. She did as she was bid, not ill-pleased at the general stir she excited as she crossed the floor with her two satellites and walked up the platform steps. "Mrs. Freeman, Miss Morgan, allow me to introduce Mr. Van Voorst. Miss Carey, Mr. Van Voorst;--I think you know my mother and Mrs. Allston." And having touched off her train, she whirled away with Robert Freeman, her observation still on the alert. Mrs. Thorne and Mr. Van Voorst exchanged civilities; Mrs. Allston said Jack was coming soon and would be glad to see him, making room for him at her side. "No, thank you, Mrs. Allston. Miss Carey, may I have the pleasure of a turn with you?" "Oh, Mr. Van Voorst! You are quite out of rule--tempting away our chaperons--you should ask some of the young ladies; we did not come here to dance." "I shall not dare to ask you, then, Mrs. Allston," he said, smiling, and offered his arm without another word to Lily. She rose without looking at him, with a quick furtive motion pulled off her left-hand glove--the right was off already--got out of the crowd about her and down the steps, she hardly knew how, and in a moment his arm was around her and they were floating down the long hall. The quartette left behind looked rather blankly at each other. "Well," said Mrs. Thorne at last, "it really is too bad for Lily Carey to come and say she did not mean to dance, and then walk off with Arend Van Voorst, who has not asked another girl here----" "And in that old gown!" chimed in Mrs. Allston. "It is certainly very unkind in her to look so well in an old gown," said Aunt Sophia; "it is a dangerous precedent." "Oh, auntie!" said Emmeline, who had come up to have her dress adjusted. "Poor Lily! She has been so very quiet all the winter, never going to anything, it would be too bad if she could not have a little pleasure." "Very kind in you, my dear; but I don't see the force of your 'poor Lily.' I shall reserve my pity for poor Mr. Ponsonby--he needs it most." It was long since Lily had danced, and as for Mr. Van Voorst, he was, as we have seen, supposed to be above it on so youthful an occasion; but perhaps it was this that gave such a zest, as if they were boy and girl together, to the pleasure of harmonious motion. Round and round again they went, till the dancing ranks grew thinner, and just as the music gave signs of drawing to a close, they passed, drawing all eyes, by the doorway. The line of men looking on opened and closed behind them. They had actually gone out to sit on the stairs, leaving a fruitful topic behind them for the buzz of talk between the figures. Eleanor Carey, a pretty girl, and not unlike her sister, bloomed out with added importance from her connection with one who might turn out to be the heroine of a drawing-room scandal. Meanwhile the two who were the theme of comment sat silent under the palms and ferns. No one knew better when to speak or not to speak than Lily, and her companion was looking at her with a curiously steady and absorbed gaze, to which any words would have been an interruption. It was not "the old black silk" which attracted his attention, except, perhaps, so far as it formed a background for the beautiful hands that lay folded together on her lap, too carelessly for coquetry. No such motive had influenced Lily when she had pulled off her gloves; it was only that they were not fresh enough to bear close scrutiny; but their absence showed conspicuous on the third finger of her left hand her only ring, a heavy one of rough beaten gold with an odd-looking dark-red stone in it. Not the flutter of a finger betrayed any consciousness as his eye lingered on it; but as he looked abruptly up he caught a glance from under her eyelashes which showed that she had on her part been looking at him. An irresistible flash of merriment was reflected back from face to face. "What did you say?" she asked. "I--I beg your pardon, I thought you said something." Both laughed like a couple of children; then he rose and offered his arm again, and they turned back to the ballroom. "Good evening, Jack," said Miss Lily brightly, holding out her hand to Mr. Allston, who had just come in, and was standing in the doorway. Jack, taken by surprise, as we all are by the sudden appearance of two people together whom we have never associated in our minds, looked shy and confused, but made a gallant effort to rally, and got through the proper civilities well enough, till just as the couple were again whirling into the ranks, he spoiled it all by asking with an awkward stammer in his voice: "How's--how's Mr. Ponsonby?" "Very well, when I last heard," Lily flung back over her shoulder, in her clearest tone and with a laugh, soft, but heard by both men. "What are you laughing at?" asked her partner. "At the recollection of my copy-book--was not yours amusing?" "I dare say it was, if it was the same as yours." "Oh, they are all alike. What I was thinking of was the page with 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'" "Yes--Jack was a very good fellow when we were in college together--but----" But "what" was left unsaid. On and on they went, and only stopped with the music. Lily, having broken the ice, was besieged by every man in the room for a turn. One or two she did favour with a very short one, but it was Mr. Van Voorst to whom she gave every other one, and those the longest, and with whom she walked between the figures; and finally it was Mr. Van Voorst who took her down to supper. Eleanor and she had all the best men in the room crowding round them. "Come and sit with us, Emmie," she asked, as Emmeline Freeman passed with her partner; and Emmeline came, half frightened at finding herself in the midst of what seemed to her a chapter from a novel. Never had the even tenor of her social experiences,--and they were of as unvarying and business-like a nature as the "day's work" of humbler maidens--been disturbed by such an upheaval of fixed ideas; one of which was that Lily Carey could do no wrong, and another, that there was something "fast" and improper in having more than one man waiting upon you at a time. "Do you mind going now, Eleanor?" asked Lily of her sister, as the crowd surged back to the ballroom. Eleanor looked rather blank at the thought of missing the after-supper dance, and such an after-supper dance; no mamma to get sleepy on the platform; no old James waiting out in the cold to lay up rheumatism for the future and to look respectfully reproachful at "Miss Ellis"; no horses whose wrongs might excite papa's wrath; nothing but that wretched impersonal slave, "a man from the livery stable" and his automatic beasts. But the Careys were a very amiable family, the one who spoke first generally getting her own way. The after-supper dance at the Racket Club german was rather a falling off from the brilliancy at the commencement, as Arend Van Voorst left after putting his partner into her carriage, and Julian Jervis and others of the men thought it the thing to follow his example. Two days after the german, "Richards's Pond," set in snowy shores, was hard and blue as steel under a cloudless sky, while a delicious breath of spring in the air gave warning that this was but for a day. The rare union of perfect comfort and the fascination that comes of transient pleasure irresistibly called out the skaters, and "everybody" was there; that is, about fifty young men and women were disporting themselves on the pond, and one or two ladies stood on the shore looking on. Miss Morgan, who was always willing to chaperon any number of girls to any amusement, stood warmly wrapped up in her fur-lined cloak and snow-boots, talking to a Mrs. Rhodes, a mild little new-comer in Brookline, who had come with her girls, who did not know many people, and whom she now had the satisfaction of seeing happily mingled with the proper "set"; for Eleanor Carey, who had good-naturedly asked them to come, had introduced them to some of the extra young men, of whom there were plenty; and that there might be no lack of excitement, Mr. Van Voorst and Miss Lily Carey were to be seen skating together, with hardly a word or a look for anyone else--a sight worth seeing. No record exists of the skating of the goddess Diana, but had she skated, Lily might have served as her model. Just so might she have swept over the ice with mazy motion, ever and ever throwing herself off her balance, just as surely to regain it. As for Arend Van Voorst, he skated like Harold Hardrada, of whose performances in that line we have not been left in ignorance. "It must be his Dutch blood," commented Miss Morgan. Ada Thorne, meanwhile, was skating contentedly enough under the escort of the lion second in degree--Prescott Avery, just returned from his journey round the world, about which he had written a magazine article, and was understood to be projecting a book. His thin but well-preserved flaxen locks, whitey-brown moustache, and little piping voice were unchanged by tropic heats or Alpine snows, but he had gained in consequence and, though mild and unassuming, felt it. He had always been in the habit of entertaining his fair friends with a number of pretty tales drawn from his varied social experiences, and had acquired a fresh stock of very exciting ones in his travels. But his present hearer's attention was wandering, and her smiles unmeaning, and in the very midst of a most interesting narrative about his encounter with an angry llama, she put an aimless question that showed utter ignorance whether it took place in China or Peru. Prescott, always amiable, gulped down his mortification with the aid of a cough, and then followed the lady's gaze to where the distant flash of a scarlet toque might be seen through the thin, leafless bushes on a low spur of land. "That is Lily Carey, is it not?" he asked. "How very handsome she is looking to-day! She has grown even more beautiful than when I went away. By-the-by, is that the gentleman she is engaged to?" "Oh, dear, no! Why, that is Arend Van Voorst! Don't you know him? She is engaged to a Mr. Ponsonby, an English settler in South Australia." "I see now that it is Mr. Van Voorst, whom I met several times before I left," said Prescott, with unfailing amiability even under a snubbing. Then, cheered by the prospect of again taking the superior position, he continued in an impressive tone: "But it is not astonishing that I should have taken him for Mr. Ponsonby. I believe I had the pleasure of meeting that gentleman in Melbourne when I was in Australia, and the resemblance is striking, especially at a little distance." "Did you, indeed?" asked Ada, inwardly burning with excitement, but outwardly nonchalant. The remarkable extent of Miss Thorne's knowledge of everyone's affairs was not gained by direct questioning, which she had found defeated its own object. "It is rather odd you should have happened to meet him in Melbourne, for he very seldom goes there, and lives on a ranch in quite another part of Australia." "But I did meet him," replied Prescott. "He had come to Melbourne on business, and I met him at a club dinner--a tall, handsome, light-haired man. He sat opposite to me and we did not happen to be introduced, but I am certain the name was Ponsonby. He took every opportunity of paying me attention, and said something very nice about American ladies, which made me feel sure he must have been here. Of course I did not know of Miss Carey's engagement, or I should certainly have made his acquaintance." "The engagement was not out then, and of course he could not speak of it. Now I think of it, Mr. Van Voorst does really look a great deal like Mr. Ponsonby's photograph." "I will speak of it to Miss Carey when I get an opportunity," said Prescott, delighted. "The experiences one has on a long journey are singular, Miss Thorne. Now as I was telling you----" Ten minutes later the whole crowd were gathering round Miss Morgan, who made a kind of nucleus for those with homeward intentions, when Mr. Avery and Miss Thorne came in the most accidental way right against Mr. Van Voorst and Miss Carey. By what means half the crowd already knew what was in the wind, and the other half knew that something was, we may not inquire. It was not in human nature not to look and listen as the four exchanged proper greetings. "Mr. Avery, Lily, has been telling me that he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ponsonby in Melbourne," said Ada, "and thought you would be glad to hear about it." "Oh, thank you," said Lily, quietly, "I have had letters written since, of course. You were not in Melbourne very lately, Mr. Avery?" "Last summer--winter, I should say. You know, Miss Carey, it is so queer, it is winter there when it is summer here--it is very hard to realise it. But it is always agreeable to meet those who have really seen one's absent friends, don't you think so?" "Oh, very!" "Mr. Ponsonby was looking very well and in very good spirits. I fancied he showed a great interest in American matters, which I could not account for. I wish I had known why, that I might have congratulated him. I hope you will tell him so." "Thank you," said Lily again. She spoke with ease and readiness, but her beautiful colour had faded, and there was a frightened look in her eyes, as of someone who sees a ghost invisible to the rest of the company. "Mr. Avery was struck with Mr. Ponsonby's resemblance to you, Mr. Van Voorst," said Ada; "you cannot be related, can you?" "Come," said Aunt Sophia, suddenly, "what is the use of standing here? I am tired of it, for one, and I am going to the Ripley's to get a little warmth into my bones, and all who are going to the Wilson's to-night had better come too. Emmie, you and Bessie _must_, Lily, you and Susie and Eleanor _had better_--you see, Mr. Van Voorst, how nice are the gradations of my chaperonage." "Let me help you up the bank, Miss Morgan," said Arend; "it is steep here." "Thank you--come, Mrs. Rhodes. Mrs. Ripley isn't at home, but we shall find hot bouillon and bread and butter." "I had better not, thank you. I don't know Mrs. Ripley," stammered, with chattering teeth, poor Mrs. Rhodes, shivering in her tight jacket and thin boots. "You need not know her if you do come, as she is out," said Miss Morgan, coolly; "and if you don't, you certainly won't, as you will most likely die of pneumonia. Now Fanny may think you a fool for doing so, if you like, but I'm not going to have her call me a brute for letting you. So come before we freeze." Mrs. Rhodes meekly followed her energetic companion, both gallantly assisted up the bank by Arend Van Voorst, who was devoted in his attentions till they reached the house. He never looked towards Lily, who, pale and quiet, walked behind with Emmeline Freeman, and as soon as she entered the Ripley drawing-room ensconced herself, as in a nook of refuge, behind the table with the big silver bowl, and ladled out the bouillon with a trembling hand. The young men bustled about with the cups, but Arend only took two for the older ladies, and went near her no more. Not a Ripley was there, though it was reported that Tom had been seen on the ice that morning and told them all to come in, of course. No one seemed to heed their absence; Miss Morgan pulled Mrs. Ripley's own blotting-book towards her and scribbled a letter to her friend; Eleanor Carey threw open the piano, and college songs resounded. Mrs. Rhodes was lost in wonder as she shyly sipped her soup, rather frightened at Mr. Van Voorst's attentions. How could Mrs. Ripley ever manage to make her cook send up hot soup at such an unheard-of hour? And could it be the "thing" to have one's drawing-room in "such a clutter"? She tried to take note of all the things lying about, unconscious that Miss Morgan was noting _her_ down in her letter. Then came the rapid throwing on of wraps, rushing to the station, and a laughing, pell-mell boarding of the train. Mr. Van Voorst had disappeared, and Ada Thorne said he was going to walk down to Brookline and take the next train from there--he was going to New York on the night train and wanted a walk first. No one else had anything to say in the matter, certainly not Lily, who continued to keep near Miss Morgan and sat between her and the window, silent all the while. As the train neared the first station, she jumped up suddenly and hastened toward the door. "Why, Lily, what are you about?" "Lily, come back!" "Lily, this is the wrong station!" resounded after her; but as no one was quick enough to follow her, she was seen as the train moved on, walking off alone, with the same scared look on her face. "There is something very odd about that girl," said Miss Morgan, as soon as she was with her nieces on their homeward path. "It is only that she feels a little overcome," said Lily's staunch admirer. "You know what Prescott Avery said about Mr. Van Voorst looking like Mr. Ponsonby, and I'm sure he does. Don't you think him very like his photograph?" "There is a kind of general likeness, but I must say of the two Arend Van Voorst looks better fitted to fight his way in the bush, while Mr. Ponsonby might spend his ten millions, if he had them, pleasantly enough. Perhaps the idea is what has 'overcome' Lily, as you say." "Now, auntie, I am sure the resemblance might make her feel badly. She has not seen Mr. Ponsonby for so long, and that attracted her to Mr. Van Voorst; and it was so unkind of people to say all the hateful things they did at the ball." "I must say myself, that she rather overdoes the part of Mrs. Gummidge. It looks as if there was something more in it than thinking of the 'old un.' If she really is so afraid of Mr. Ponsonby, he must look more like Arend Van Voorst than his picture does. Well--we shall see." Late that afternoon Arend Van Voorst walked up Walnut Street westward, drawn, as so many have been, by the red sunset glow that struck across the lake beyond, through the serried ranks of black tree trunks, down the long vista under the arching elms. Straight toward the blazing gate he walked, but when he came to where the road parted, leaving the brightness high and inaccessible above high banks of pure new snow that looked dark against it, and dipping down right and left into valleys where the shade of trees, even in winter, was thick and dark, he paused a moment and then struck into the right hand road, the one that did not lead toward the Careys' house. It was not till two or three hours later that he approached it from the other side, warm with walking, and having apparently walked off his hesitation, for he did not even slacken his pace as he passed up the drive, though he looked the house, the place, and the whole surroundings over with attentive carefulness. The Careys lived in a fascinating house, of no particular style, the result of perpetual additions to the original and now very old nucleus. As Mr. Carey's father had bought it fifty years ago, and as his progenitors for some time further back had inhabited a much humbler dwelling, now vanished, in the same town, it was called, as such things go in America, their "ancestral home." It was the despair of architects and decorators, who were always being adjured to "get an effect something like the Carey house." The component elements were simple enough, and the principal one was the habit of the Carey family always to buy everything they wanted and never to buy anything they did not want. If Mr. and Mrs. Carey took a fancy to a rug, or a chair, or a picture, or a book, they bought it then and there, but they would go on for years without new stair-carpets or drawing-room curtains--partly because they never had time to go and choose them, partly because it was such a stupid way to spend money; it was easier to keep the old ones, or use something for a substitute that no one had ever thought of before, and everybody was crazy to have afterwards. How much of all this Arend Van Voorst took in I cannot tell, but he looked about him with the same curiosity after the house door had opened and he was in the hall, and then as the parlour door opened, and he saw Lily rising from her low chair, before the fire afar off at the end of the long low room, a tall white figure standing out in pure, cool darkness against the blaze, like the snow-banks against the sunset. He did not know whether he wanted or not to see her alone, but on one point he was anxious--he wanted to know whether he was to be alone with her or not. The room was crowded with objects of every kind; two or three dogs and cats languidly raised their heads from the sofas and ottomans as he passed, and for aught he knew two or three children might be in the crowd. Lily had the advantage of him; she knew very well that her mother had driven into town with the other girls to the Wilsons' "small and early"; that the younger children had been out skating all the afternoon and had gone to bed; that the boys were out skating now and would not be home for hours yet; and that her father, shut into his study with the New York stock list, was as safe out of the way as if he had been studying hieroglyphics at the bottom of the Grand Pyramid. So she was almost too unconcerned in manner as she held out her hand and said, "Good evening." He took the offered hand absently, still looking round the room, and as he took in its empty condition, gave a sigh of relief. She sat down, with a very slight motion toward a chair on the other side of the fire. He obeyed mechanically, his eyes now fixed on her. If she was lovely in her "old black," how much more was she in her "old white," put on for the strictest home retirement. It was a much washed affair, very yellowish and shrunken, and clinging to every line of her tall figure, grand in its youthful promise. She had lost her colour, a rare thing for her, and she had accentuated the effect of her pale cheeks and dark eyelashes with a great spray of yellow roses in the bosom of her gown. "I thought you had gone to New York," she said, trying to speak lightly. "No," slowly; "I could not go without coming here first. I must see you once at your own home." Then with an eager thrill in his voice, "He has never been here, I believe?" "No," said Lily; "he was never here." "I have come the first, then; let him come when he wants to; I shall not come again, to see him and you together." Both sat silently looking into the fire for a few moments, which the clock seemed to mark off with maddening rapidity. Then Lily said in a low tone, but so clearly that it could have been heard all over the room, "If you do not wish to see him, he need never come at all." "For God's sake, Miss Carey!" burst out Arend, "show a little feeling in this matter. I don't ask you to feel for me. I knew what I was about from the first, and I took the risk. But show a little, feign a little, if you must, for him. You know I love you. If your Mr. Ponsonby were here to fight his own battles for himself, I would go in for a fair fight with him, and give and ask no quarter. But--but--he is far away and alone, keeping faith with you for years. If he has no claim on you, he has one on me, and I'll not forget it." He paused, but Lily was silent. She looked wistful, yet afraid to speak. Something of the same strangely frightened look was in her eyes that had been there that afternoon. Arend, whose emotion had reached the stage when the sound of one's own voice is a sedative, went on more calmly: "And don't think I make so much of a sacrifice. I am sure now you never loved or could have loved me. If you had, there would have been some struggle, some pleading of old remembrances. Your very feeling for me would have roused some pity, at least, for him. He has your first promise; I do not ask you to break it. You can give him all you have to give to anyone, and perhaps he may be satisfied." "You need not trouble yourself about Mr. Ponsonby," said Lily, now cold and calm, "as no such person exists." "What!" exclaimed her hearer, in bewildered astonishment. Wild visions of the luckless Ponsonby, having heard by clairvoyance, or submarine cable, of his own pretensions, and having forthwith taken himself out of the way by pistol or poison, floated through his brain, and he went on in an awe-struck tone, "Is he--is he dead?" "He never lived; Mr. Ponsonby, from first to last, is a pure piece of fiction. Oh, you need not look so amazed; I am not out of my senses, I assure you. Ask my father, ask my mother--they will tell you the same. And now, stop! Once for all, just once! You must hear what I have to say. I shall never ask you to hear me again, and you probably will never want to." He looked blankly at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment. "Oh," she broke out suddenly, "you do not know--how should you?--what it is to be a girl! to sit and smile and look pleasant while your life is being settled for you, and to see some man or other doing his best to make an utter snarl of it, while you must wait ready with your 'If you please,' when he chooses to ask you to dance with him or marry him. And to be a pretty girl is ten times worse. Everyone had settled ever since I was seventeen that I was to marry Jack Allston. Both his family and my family took it as a matter of course, and liked it well enough, as one likes matters of course. I liked it well enough myself. I cannot say now that I was ever in love with Jack Allston, but he seemed bound up in me, and I was very fond of him, and thought I should be still more so when we were once engaged. All the girls in my set expected to marry or be called social failures, and where was I ever to find a better match in every way than Jack? If I had refused him everyone would have thought that I was mad. I had not the least idea of doing so, but meanwhile I was in no hurry to be married. I thought it would be nicer to wait and have a little pleasure, and I did have a great deal, till I was eighteen, then till I was nineteen, and so on----" She stopped for a moment, for her voice was trembling, but with an effort recovered herself and went on more firmly: "Just as people began to look and talk, and wonder why we were so slow, and why it did not come out, and just as I began to think that I had had enough of society, and that perhaps I ought to be willing to settle down, I began to feel, too, that my power over him was going, gone! The strings I had always played upon so easily were broken, and though I ran over them in the old way, I could not win a sound. I hardly had time to feel more than puzzled and frightened, when his engagement came out, and it was all over. But there! it was the kindest way he could have done it. I hate to think of some of the things I did and said to try if he had indeed ceased to care for me; but they were not _much_, and if I had had time I might have done more and worse. I was struck dumb with surprise like everybody else. My father and mother were hurt and anxious, but it was easy to reassure them, and without deception. I could tell them the truth, but not the whole truth. I did not suffer from what they supposed. My heart was not broken, or even seriously hurt, but oh! how much I wished at times that it had been! Had I really loved and been forsaken, I could have sat down by the wayside and asked the whole world for pity, without a thought of shame. But for what had I to ask pity? I was like a rider who had been thrown and broken no bones, in so ridiculous a way that he excites no sympathy. What if he is battered and bruised? If he complains, people only laugh. I held my tongue when my raw places were hit. I had the pleasure of hearing that Julia Noble had been saying--" and here Lily put on Mrs. Allston's manner to perfection--"'I hope poor Miss Carey was not disappointed. Jack has, I fear, been paying her more attention than he ought; but it was only to divert comment from me; dear Jack has so much delicacy of feeling where I am concerned!'--No, don't say anything; let me have done, I will not take long. I could not get away from it all, and what was I to do? To go on in society and play the same game over with some one else was unendurable; I was getting past the age for that. Susan was out and Eleanor coming out, and I felt I ought to have taken myself out of their way, in the proper fashion. To take up art or philanthropy was not in my line. The girls I knew were not brought up with those ideas and didn't take to them unless they started with being odd, or ugly, or would own up to a disappointment. My place in the world had suited me to perfection, and now it was hateful and no other was offered me. "It was just at this time that the devil--to speak plainly, as I told you I was going to--put the idea of poor Mr. Ponsonby into my head. An engaged girl is always excused from everything else. My lover was not here to take up my time, and as I could postpone my wedding indefinitely whenever I pleased, my preparations need not be hurried. I dropped society and all the hateful going out, and had delicious evenings at home with papa when I was supposed to be writing my long letters to Australia. I thought I could drop it whenever I liked. I did not know what I was doing." "You? Perhaps not!" exclaimed Arend, with an exasperating air of superior age; "but your father and mother--what in the name of common sense were they thinking about to allow all this?" "Oh, you must not think they liked it; they didn't. To tell you all the truth, I don't think they half-understood it at first. I did not tell them until I had dropped a hint of it elsewhere, and I suppose they thought I had only given a vague glimpse of a possible future lover somewhere in the distance. Poor dears! things have changed since they were young, and they don't realise that if a man speaks to a girl it is in the newspapers the next day. I had not known what I was doing. I really have not told as many lies as you might think. Full half that you have heard about Mr. Ponsonby never came from me at all. You don't know how reports can grow, especially when Ada Thorne has the lead in them. Not that she exactly invents things, but a hint from me, and some I never meant, would come back all clothed in circumstance. I could not wear my old pink sash to save my others without hearing that that tea-rose tint was Mr. Ponsonby's favourite colour. Ponsonby grew out of my hands as this went on; and really the more he outgrew me the better I liked him, and indeed I ended by being rather in love with him. He had to have so many misfortunes, too, and that was a link between us." "But," said her hearer, suddenly, "did not Prescott Avery meet him at Melbourne?" "Oh, if you knew Prescott, you would know that he meets everybody. If it had been a Mr. Percival of Java, instead of Ponsonby of Australia, he would have remembered him or something about him. Still, that was a dreadful moment. I felt like Frankenstein when his creature stalks out alive. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! I shall send him his _coup-de-grâce_ by the next Australian mail. People will say that I did it in the hope of catching you, and have failed. Let them--I deserve it. And now, Mr. Van Voorst, please to go. I have humiliated myself before you enough. I said I would tell you the truth, and you have heard it all. If you must despise me, have pity and don't show it." Lily's voice, so clear at first, had grown hoarse, and her cheeks were burning in a way that caused her physical pain. She rose to her feet and stood leaning on the back of her chair and looking at the floor. "Go! and without a word? Do you think I have nothing to say? Sit down!"--as she made some little motion to go. "I have heard you, and now you must hear me." Lily sank unresistingly into her chair, while he went on, "You say girls have a hard time; so they do--I have always been sorry for them. But don't you suppose men have troubles of their own? You say a pretty girl has the worst of it. How much better off is the man, who, according to the common talk, has only to 'pick and choose'; who walks along the row of pretty faces to find a partner for the dance or for life, as it happens--it is much the same. The blue angel is the prettiest and the pink the wittiest; very likely he takes the yellow one, who is neither, while in the corner sits the white one, who would have suited him best, and whom he hardly saw at all. If he thinks he is satisfied, it is just as well. I was not unduly vain nor unduly humble. I knew my wealth was the first thing about me in most people's minds, but I was not a monster, and a girl might like me well enough without it. A woman is not often forced into marriage in this country. I had no notions of disguising myself, or educating a child to marry, as men have done, to be loved for themselves alone. What is a man's self? My wealth, my place in the world were part of me. I was born with them. I should probably find some nice girl who appreciated them and liked me well enough, and I felt that I ought to give some such one the chance--and yet--and yet--I wanted something more. "In this state of mind I met you at the ball. Very likely if I had seen you among the other girls, I might not have given you more than a passing glance; but I thought you were married, and the thrill of disappointment had as much pleasure as pain, for I felt I could have loved. But you were not married, only engaged. What's an engagement? It may mean everything or nothing. For the life of me I could not help trying how much it meant to you. What must the man be, I thought, as I sat by you on the stairs, whom this girl loves? He should be a hero, and yet, as such things go, he's just as likely to be a noodle. You laughed--I could have sworn you knew what I was thinking." "Yes! I remember. I was thinking how nicely you would do for a model for my Ponsonby," Lily said. Their eyes met for a moment with a swift flash of intelligence, but the light in hers was quenched with hot, unshed tears. "No laugh ever sounded more fancy free! I felt as if you challenged me; and if he had been here I would have taken up the challenge--he or I, once for all. But he was alone and far away, and I could not take his place. Why did I meet you on the pond, then? why did I come here to-night? Because I wanted to see if I could not go a little further with you. I wanted something to remember, a look, a tone, a word, that ought not to have been given to any man but your promised husband; something I could not have asked if I had hoped to be your husband. My magnanimity toward Ponsonby, you see, did not go the length of behaving to his future wife with the respect I would show my own." "You have shown how much you despise me," said Lily, springing to her feet, her hot tears dried with hotter anger, but her face white again. "That might have been spared me. I suppose you think I deserve it. Very well, I do, and you need not stay to argue the matter. Go!" "Go! Why I should be a fool to go now, and you would be--well, we will call it mistaken--to let me. After we have got as far as we have, it would be absurd to suppose we can go back again. We know each other now better than nine tenths of the couples who have been married a year. I don't ask you to say you love me now; I am very sure you can, and I know I can love you--infinitely----" "Oh, but--but you said you would not take his place--Mr. Ponsonby's. Can you let everyone think you capable of such an act of meanness? And if you could not respect me as your wife, how can you expect others to? Can we appear to act in a way to deserve contempt without despising each other?" "There will be a good deal that is unpleasant about it, no doubt; but everyone's life has some unpleasantness. It would be worse to let a dream, even a dream of honor, come between us and our future. You made a mistake and underestimated its consequences, but it would be foolish to lose the substance of happiness because we have lost the shadow. We will live it down together and be glad it is no worse." "But I have been so wrong, so very wrong--I have too many faults ever to make anyone happy." "Of course you have faults, but I know the worst of them and can put up with them. I have plenty of my own which you may be finding out by this time. I am very domineering--you will have to promise to obey me, and I shall keep you to it; and then I can, under provocation, be furiously jealous." "You are not jealous of Jack Allston?" she whispered. "Jealous of old Jack? Oh, no! I shall keep my jealousy for poor Mr. Ponsonby." Society had been so often agitated by Lily Carey's affairs that it took with comparative coolness the tidings that she was to be married to Arend Van Voorst in six weeks. Miss Morgan said she supposed Lily was tired of "engagements," and wanted to be married this time. Her niece Emmeline shed tears over "poor Mr. Ponsonby," and refused to act as bridesmaid at his rival's nuptials; and in spite of her aunt's scoldings and Lily's entreaties, and all the temptations of the bridesmaids' pearl "lily" brooches and nosegays of Easter lilies, arranged a visit to her cousins in Philadelphia to avoid being present. Miss Thorne had no such scruples, and it is to her the world owes a lively account of the wedding; how it was fixed at so early a date lest "poor Mr. Ponsonby" should hurry over to forbid the banns, and how terribly nervous Lily seemed lest he might, in spite of the absolute impossibility, and though Ponsonby, true gentleman to the last, never troubled her then or after. "Poor Mr. Van Voorst, I should say!" exclaimed Mrs. Jack Allston. "I am sure he is the one to be pitied. But do tell me all the presents that have come in, for Jack says that I must give them something handsome after such a present as he gave me when we were married." Mrs. Van Voorst received the tidings of her son's approaching marriage rather doubtfully. "Yes--the Careys were a very nice family; she knew Mrs. Carey was an Arlington, and her mother a Berkeley, and his mother--but--Miss Carey was very handsome, she had heard--with the Berkeley style of beauty and the Arlington manner, but--but--she did not mind their being Unitarians, for many of the very best people were, in Boston, but--but--but--indeed, my dear Arend, I have heard a good deal about her that I do not altogether like. I hope it may not be true--about her keeping Jack Allston hanging on for years, as _pis-aller_ to that young Englishman she was engaged to all the while--and finally throwing him over--and now she has thrown over this Mr. Ponsonby too!" "Will you do just one thing for me, dear mother," asked her son; "will you forget all you have _heard_ about Lily, and judge her by what you _see_?" Mrs. Van Voorst had never refused Arend anything in his life, and could not now. By what magic Lily, in their very first interview, won over the good lady is not known, but afterwards no mother-in-law's heart could have withstood the splendid son and heir with which she enriched the Van Voorst line. The young Van Voorsts were allowed by all their friends to be much happier than they deserved to be. Long after the gossip over their marriage had ceased, and it was an old story even to them, Arend was still in love with his wife. Lily was interesting; she had that quality or combination of qualities, impossible to analyse, which wins love where beauty fails, and keeps it when goodness tires. Her own happiness was more simple in its elements. She was better off than most women, and knew it--the last, the crowning gift, so often lacking to the fortunate of earth. She thought her husband much too good for her, though she never told him so. Nay, sometimes when she was a little fretted by his exacting disposition, for Arend was a strict martinet in all social and household matters and, as he had said, would be minded, she would sometimes more or less jestingly tell him that perhaps after all she had made a mistake in not keeping faith with "poor Mr. Ponsonby." [Illustration] [Illustration] MODERN VENGEANCE "Well, Lucy, I must say I never saw anything go off more delightfully!" "It would hardly fail to, with such interesting people," said Mrs. Henry Wilson. "Why, every one said they thought it would be most difficult to manage; a sort of half-public thing, you know, to entertain those delegates or whatever they call them; they said it was well you had it, for no one else could possibly have made it go so well." "I have no doubt most of them could, if they had all the help I had--from you, especially! I only wish I could have made it a dinner, instead of a lunch; but Henry is so very busy, just now, and I dared not attempt a dinner without him." "Oh, my dear!" said her mother-in-law, "a doctor's time is always so occupied; they all know that. And dear Henry, of course, is more occupied than most." "Perhaps it is as well," said the younger lady, "that they could come by daylight, as it is so far out of town; Medford is pretty, even in winter." "Oh, yes! so they all said. Lady Bayswater thinks it is the prettiest suburb of Boston she has yet seen; and she admired the house, too, and you, and everything. 'Mrs. Wilson,' she said to me, 'your charming daughter-in-law is the prettiest American woman I have seen yet.'" And Mrs. Wilson, senior, a little elderly woman, to whom even her rich mourning dress could not impart dignity, jerked her heavy black Astrachan cape upon her shoulders, and tied its wide ribbons in a fluttering, one-sided way. "She is very kind." "And they all said so many things--I can't remember them." "I am glad if they were pleased," said Mrs. Henry Wilson, rousing herself; "to tell the truth, I have not been able to think much of the lunch, or how it went off." "Why, dear Henry is well, isn't he?" "Yes, as well as usual, but a good deal troubled about----" "Oh, the poor little Talbot boy! how is he?" "I do not know. Henry, of course, gives no opinion; but I am afraid it is a very serious case. Membranous croup always is alarming, you know." "Yes, indeed! sad--very sad; and their only boy, too, now. To be sure, if any one can save him, dear Henry can; but then, what with losing the other, and so much sickness as they have had, and Mabel expecting again, I really don't see how they are to get along," said Mrs. Wilson, fussing with her pocket handkerchief. "It is very hard," assented her daughter-in-law, with a sigh. "I do pity poor Eugene. What can a man do? I saw all those children paddling in the wet snow only last week; very likely that brought it on. If I had let mine do so when they were little, I should have expected them to have croup, and diphtheria, and everything else. I would not mention it to any one but you, but I do think Mabel has always been very careless of her children." "Poor Mabel!" said Mrs. Henry Wilson, with a look of angelic compassion. "Remember how many cares and troubles she has had, and all her own ill-health. We all make mistakes sometimes in the care of our children, with the very best intentions. I let Harry play out in that very snow. I feared then that you might not approve; but you were not here, and he was so eager!" "Oh, but, my dear, you always look after Harry so well! Those Talbot children had no rubbers on; and then, Harry is so much stronger than his father was. I do think your management most successful. I only wish poor Eugene had a wife like you." And as her hearer was silent: "I must go. Darling Harry is still at gymnasium, isn't he? and I suppose it is no use waiting for dear Henry, now. My love to them both; and do come round when you can, dear, won't you?" And after a little more fuss in looking for her muff and letting down her veil, and a prolonged series of embraces of her daughter-in-law, she departed. Young Mrs. Wilson, left alone, sat down in front of a glowing fire to review her day; but earlier memories appealed so much more powerfully, that in another moment she was reviewing her whole past life--an indulgence she rarely allowed herself. If the poet in the country churchyard was struck with the thought of greatness that had perished unknown for lack of opportunity, how doubly he might have pointed his moral with renown missed by being of the wrong sex. In clear perception of her ends, and resistless pursuit of them, Lucy Morton had not been inferior in her sphere to Napoleon in his; and if, after all, she was not so clever as she thought herself, why, neither was he. To begin with, she was born in a _cul-de-sac_ ending at a cow pasture. But what is that to genius? "This lane," she thought, "shall never hem me in"; and from earliest childhood she struggled to grow out of it, like a creeper out of a hole, catching at every aid. She was early left an orphan, and lived with her grandfather, a well-to-do retired grocer, and her grandmother, and a maiden aunt. There was one other house in the lane, and in it lived a great-aunt, widow of the grocer's brother and partner, and a maiden first cousin once removed. They were a contented family, and liked the seclusion of their place of abode, which was clean and quiet, and where the old gentleman could prune his trees, and prick out his lettuces unobserved. He read the daily paper, and took a nap after his early dinner. The women made their own clothes, and dusted their parlours, and washed their dishes, and as the _cul-de-sac_ was loathed of servants, they often had the opportunity of doing all their own work, which they found a pleasant excitement, and in their secret souls preferred. They belonged to the Unitarian church, which marked them as slightly superior to the reigning grocer, who went to the "Orthodox meeting," but did not give them the social intercourse they would have found in churches of inferior pretensions. The elite of Medford, in those early days, was chiefly Unitarian, and it respected the Mortons, who gave generously of their time and money whenever they were asked. Its men spoke highly of "old Morton," and were civil to him at town and parish meetings; and its women would bow pleasantly to his female relatives after service and speak to them at sewing circles; and would inquire after the rest of the family when they could remember who they were. More, the Mortons did not ask or wish. They knew enough people on whom to make formal calls, gave or went to about six tea-parties a year, and exchanged visits with cousins who lived in Braintree. Lucy was sent to the public school, and taught sewing and housework at home. She proved an apt pupil at both, and showed no discontent with her daily routine. She was early allowed to sit up to tea, even when company came; and had she asked to bring home any little girl in her school to play with her, her grandmother would not have objected. But she did not ask, nor was she ever seen with her schoolmates in the shady, rural Medford roads. Perhaps she might have pined for companions of her own age, but that fortune had provided her with some near by. At the entrance of the lane where she lived, but fronting on a wider thoroughfare, was the house of Mrs. Wilson, a widow of good means and family, who filled less than her proper space among her own connections, for she went out but little, being engrossed with the care and education of her two delicate little boys to a degree which rendered her fatiguing as a companion--the poorness of their physical constitutions, and the excellence of their moral natures, being her one unending theme. They were not strong enough for the most private of schools, and were too good to be exposed to its temptations, and always had a governess at home. "Henny" and "Cocky" Wilson--their names were Henry and Cockburn, and their light red hair, combed into scanty crests on top of their heads, had suggested these soubriquets--were the amusement of their mother's contemporaries, and the scorn of their own. A hundred tales were told of them: as, how when Mrs. Wilson first came home from abroad, where she had lived long after her husband's death there, she brought her boys to Sunday-school, with the audible request to the superintendent that as they were such good little children, they might, if possible, be placed among those of similar, if not equal, qualities; thereby provoking the whole school for the next month to a riotous behaviour which poor Mr. Milliken found it difficult to subdue. Mrs. Wilson's friends made some efforts to induce their boys to be friendly with hers, with the result that one July evening, Eugene Talbot, a bright-eyed, curly-haired little dare-devil, who led the revels, patronisingly invited them to join a swimming party after dark in the reservoir which supplied Medford with water--one of those illegal, delicious sprees which to look back on stirs the blood of age. Henny and Cocky gave no answer till they had gone, as in duty bound, to consult their mother, who replied: "My dears, I think this would be a very uncomfortable amusement. Should you not enjoy much more taking a bath in our own bathroom, with plenty of soap and hot-water?" It required a great effort of self-control on Eugene's part not to knock the heads of the two together when they reported their mother's opinion to him _verbatim_; but he had the feeling that it would be as mean to hit one of the Wilsons as to hit a girl, and he only sent them to Coventry, where they grew up, apparently careless. They were content at home, and they could now and then play with Lucy Morton, who had contrived to make their acquaintance through the garden fence, and who, though three years younger than Cocky, the youngest, was quite as advanced in every way. When Mrs. Richard Reed, the social leader of the town, tired of taking her children into Boston to Papanti's dancing-class, prevailed upon the great man to come out and open one in Medford, she could not be over-particular in her selection of applicants, the requisite number being hard to make up; but when she opened a note signed, "Sarah C. Morton," asking admission for the writer's granddaughter, she paused doubtfully. "It is a queerly written note, but it looks like a lady's somehow," she said, consulting her privy council. "Oh, that is old Mrs. Morton, who comes to our church, don't you know? They are very respectable, quiet people. I don't believe there's any harm in the little girl," said adviser number one. "She is a pretty, well-behaved child. I have noticed her at Sunday-school," added councillor number two. "She is a sweet little thing," said Mrs. Wilson, who was present, though not esteemed of any use in the matter. "My dear boys sometimes play with her, and are so fond of her, and they would not like any little girl who was not nice." "Oh, well, she can come!" said Mrs. Reed, dashing off a hasty consenting line, and thinking, "She will do to dance with Henny and Cocky; none of the other girls will care to, I imagine, and I don't want to hurt the old lady's feelings. What can have made her think of asking?" It will easily be guessed that Miss Lucy had been the instigator of this daring move. She had begun by asking her grandfather, who never refused her anything, and backed by his sanction had succeeded in persuading her grandmother, who wrote an occasional letter, but who hardly knew what a note was, to sit down and write one to Mrs. Reed. So to the dancing-school she went, alone; for neither grandmother, aunts, nor cousin ever dreamed of accompanying her. But she felt no fears. She was a pretty little girl, and took to dancing as a duck to water; but she did not presume on the popularity these qualities might have won her with the older boys, but patiently devoted herself to Henny and Cocky and the younger fry, whom Mr. Papanti was only too glad to consign to her skilful pilotage. Their mothers approved of her, especially after she had asked Mrs. Reed, with many blushes, "if she might not sit near her, when she was not dancing?" "I have to come alone," she added shyly, "for my dear grandmamma is so old, you know, and my aunt is far from strong." Both of these women could have done a good day's washing, and slept soundly for nine hours after it; but of this Mrs. Reed knew nothing, and pronounced Lucy a charming child, with such sweet manners, took her home when it rained, and asked her to her next juvenile party. It was an easy step from this to Lucy Morton at one-and-twenty, where her quick backward glance next lighted, the popular favourite of the best "set" of girls in Medford, and extending her easy flight beyond under the drilling chaperonage of their mammas. She pleased all she met of whatever age or sex, though to more dangerous distinctions she made no pretensions. She had early learned the great secret of popularity, so rarely understood at any age, that people do not want to admire you--they want you to admire them. No one called Lucy Morton a beauty; but it was wonderful how many beauties were numbered among her intimate friends, how many compliments they received, what hosts of admirers they had, and how brilliant, clever, and full of promise were these admirers. Indeed, after a dance or a talk with Miss Morton, the young men could not help thinking so themselves. As for Lucy, she was early consigned by public opinion to one or other of the Wilsons. Henny and Cocky had miraculously survived their mother's coddling and clucking, and had kept alive through college and professional training, though looking as if it had been a hard struggle. Henny had, at the period on which his wife was now dwelling, returned from his medical studies at Vienna, while Cocky still lingered in Paris studying architecture. There was very little opening for Dr. Henry Wilson in his native town; but his mother would have been wretched had he gone anywhere else. He set up an office in her house, and his friends said it was a good thing he had money enough to live on, for really none of them could be expected to call him in. He practised among the poor, who seemed to like him; but of course they could not afford to be particular. He would be a very good match for Lucy Morton, if not for any girl of his own circle. They lived close by each other and had always been intimate; and she was such a sweet, amiable girl, just the one to put up with Mrs. Wilson's tiresome ways! If her relations were scarcely up to the Wilson claims, at least they were quiet and harmless, and would probably leave her a little money. With such reasoning did all the neighbouring matrons allay their anxieties as to their favourite's future. Their daughters dissented. The latter had gradually come to perceive that Lucy had no intentions of the kind. Not one of them but thought her justified in looking higher, and not one envious or grudging comment was spoken or even thought when they began to regard her as destined for Eugene Talbot--not even by those, and they were many, who themselves cherished a budding preference for Eugene, a flirt in a harmless, careless way. Everyone allowed that his attentions this time were serious. How naturally, how irresistibly, the pleasing conviction stole upon Lucy's own heart! Mrs. Wilson, a wife of many years, here sprang to her feet, with her heart beating hard, and her cheeks flushing scarlet with shame. So would they flush on her death-bed, if the remembrance of that time came to disturb her then--the only time when her prudence had for once failed, the only time when she had trusted any one but herself, when she had really, truly, been so sure that Eugene Talbot loved her, that she had let others see she thought so. She had disclaimed, indeed, all knowledge of his devotion, but she had disclaimed it with a blushing cheek and conscious smile, like a little--little--oh, _what_ a little fool! There was no open wound to her pride to resent. He had never spoken out plainly, and no mere attentions from an emperor would have won a premature response from Miss Morton; nor was it possible for her to betray her preference to anyone else. How she found out, as early and as surely as she did, that his hour for speaking was never to come, was marvellous even to herself; but she was clairvoyant, so to speak, so fully did she extract from those who surrounded her all they knew, and much they did not know. Before Eugene's engagement to Mabel Andrews was a fixed fact, before Mabel herself knew it was to come, she did, and took her measures accordingly. One terrible, long afternoon she spent in her own room behind closed shutters, seeing even then, in the darkness, Eugene, proud and handsome, breathing words of love in the Andrews's beautiful blossoming garden among all the flowers of May, while a glow of rapturous surprise lighted up Mabel's sweet, impassive face. It might have been some consolation to another girl to know her own superiority, and to feel sure that Eugene was marrying the amiable, refined, utterly commonplace Miss Andrews with the view to the push her highly placed relatives could, and doubtless would, give him in his business; but the knowledge only added a sting to Lucy's sufferings. She bore them silently, tasting their full bitterness, and then left the room, the very little bit of girlishness in her composition gone forever, but still ready to draw from life the gratifications proper to maturer years. She could imagine that revenge might not lose its taste with time, and she had already some faint conception of the form hers might take. She walked down the lane and far enough along the street to turn about and be overtaken by Dr. Wilson on his way home. Of course he stopped to speak to her, and then walked a little way up the lane with her; and when Miss Morton once had Dr. Wilson all to herself in a _cul-de-sac_, it was impossible for him to help proposing to her if she were inclined to have him. Indeed, he was much readier at the business than she had expected. In an hour both families knew all about it; and the next day the engagement was "out," to the excitement of their whole world. It was such a romantic affair--childish attachment--Henry Wilson so deeply in love, and so hopeless of success, his feelings accidentally betrayed at last! On these details dilated all Lucy's young friends. They did not think they could ever have loved him themselves, but they admired her for doing so. When, some time after, the grander but less interesting match between the Talbot and Andrews clans was announced, it chiefly roused excitement as having doubtless been the result of pique on Eugene's part--an idea to which his subdued appearance gave some colour; and he was pitied accordingly. His wedding was a quiet one, overshadowed by the glories of Lucy's. No one would have dreamed of her grandparents doing the thing with such magnificence; but they were so surprised and pleased, for to them the Wilson connection was a lofty one; and Mrs. Wilson was so flatteringly eager and delighted, that Lucy found them pliant to her will. Her grandfather unhesitatingly put at her disposal a larger sum than his yearly expenditure had ever amounted to; and her exquisite taste in using it made her wedding a spectacle to be remembered, and conferring distinction on everyone who assisted in the humblest capacity, while still each one of these had the flattering conviction that without his or her presence the whole thing would have been a failure. The bride of ten years back could not but recall with approval her own demeanour on the occasion, when, "as one in a dream, pale and stately she went," the very personification of feeling too deep to be stirred by the unregarded trifles of her wedding pomp. The tale of the ensuing years she ran briefly over, for it was one of uncheckered prosperity. Dr. Wilson's reputation had steadily grown. Hardly a year after his marriage he had successfully performed the operation of tracheotomy upon a patient almost _in articulo mortis_; and although it was only on the ninth child of an Irish labourer, it got into all the newspapers, and ran the rounds of all circles. It was wonderful how such cases came in his way after that, till no one in town dreamed of calling in anyone else for a sore throat; the other physicians being, as Mrs. Henry Wilson was wont to say, "very good general practitioners, _but_--" At thirty-five he had an established fame as a specialist, with an immense consulting practice extending all over and about Boston, his personal disadvantages forgotten in the prestige of his marvellous skill, indeed, rather enhancing it. He took his successes very indifferently; but his wife showed a loving pride in them, too simple and too well controlled to excite envy, gently checking his mother's more outspoken exultation, and backing him up in his refusal of all solicitations to move into Boston, well knowing his constitution could never stand a town life. Money was now less of an object to him than ever. Lucy's grandfather had died in peace and honour, leaving a much larger estate than any one had dreamed possible. The lane had been extended into a road, and the cow pasture had been cut up into building lots. All the Morton property had risen in value, and all was one day to be Lucy's; and on the very prettiest spot in it she now lived, in a charming house designed (with her assistance) by her brother-in-law, that rising young architect, Cockburn Wilson, so strikingly original, and so delightfully convenient, that photographs and plans of it were circulated in every direction, bringing the architect more orders than he wanted or needed; for though with not much more to boast of in the way of looks than his brother, he had made another amazing stroke of Wilson luck in marrying that great heiress, Miss Jenny Diman. She was a heavy, shy young person, who had been educated in foreign convents, and had missed her proper duty of marrying a foreign nobleman by being called suddenly home to settle her estate. She had taken a fancy to the clever, amusing Mrs. Wilson, had visited her, and found the little _partie carrée_ at her pretty house delightful, she hardly knew why; but it was evident that her hostess's married life was most successful, and Lucy told her that dear Cockburn had in him the making of as devoted a husband as dear Henry. Dear Cockburn for some time showed no eagerness to exercise his latent powers; but his delicacy in addressing so great an heiress once overcome, swelled into heroic proportions, and made the love affairs of two extremely plain and quiet people into a wildly romantic drama. They seemed surprised, but well content, when they found themselves settled in their pretty home, still prettier than Dr. Wilson's, because it showed yet newer ideas; and Mrs. Cockburn Wilson, who had never known society, developed a taste for it, which her sister-in-law well knew how to direct. Lucy's active mind had just run down the stream of time to the present, and was boldly projecting itself forward into the future, and the throbbing pulses her one painful memory had raised were subsiding in the soothing task of planning the decorations for a dinner party for which Jenny's invitations were already out. She had just decided that it would make a good winter effect to fill all Jenny's lovely Benares brass bowls with red carnations, when her husband entered the room. The crest of sandy locks, which had won Dr. Wilson his boyish title, had thinned and faded now. It was difficult to say of what colour it had been; and his face was of no colour at all. He had no salient points, and won attention chiefly by always looking very tired. This evening he looked doubly so. "Dear Henry, I am so glad!" cried his wife, springing up to give him an affectionate embrace. "You will have something to eat?" and, as he nodded silently, she rang the bell twice, the only signal needed at any hour to produce an appetising little meal at once; and she herself waited on him while he ate. "How is the little boy?" she asked timidly. "Very low." "Are you going back?" "Directly. I am going to operate as soon as Stevens gets there. I have telephoned for him." "Is there any hope?" "Can't say." "Can I do anything?" "You might come and take the other children home with you--all but the baby." "I can just as well have her too." "I would rather have her there; her mother needs her." "Yes, I suppose you don't want Mabel in the room while the operation is going on." "I don't want her there at all. She's of no use." "Poor thing!" "She can't help it." "Could I do anything there? If I can, Jenny will take the children, I know." "No, there's no need of that." The doctor threw out his sentences between mouthfuls of food automatically taken from a plate replenished by his wife. "What nurse have they?" "They've had Nelly Fuller--she is a very fair one; but of course they need two now, and one of them first rate, so I got Julia Mitchell for them." "Julia! but how ever could you make Mrs. Sypher give her up?" "I had no trouble." "And how can the Talbots ever manage to pay her?" "That will be all right. I told them she would not expect her full price for such a short engagement, in a gap between two others. I settled it with her myself beforehand, of course." "I am very glad you did," said Lucy, with another loving caress, which he hardly seemed to notice. He looked at his watch, and told her she had better hurry and change her dress. In five minutes they walked together down the street under the beautiful arch of leafless elms, where the snowy air brought glowing roses into Lucy's cheeks, and an elastic spring into her tread. Her husband shrank up closer inside his fur-lined coat, and slipped a case he had taken from his study from one cold hand to another. "I hope the children will be ready," from her; "Julia will see to that," from him,--were all the words that passed between them on their way. The Talbot house was but a few streets off. Lucy did not often enter it; but the picture of battered, faded prettiness it presented, taken in at a few glances, and heightened each time it was seen, was deeply stamped on her mind. There was no spare money to keep up appearances here. Mabel's father had been unfortunate in his investments and extravagant in his expenditures, and died a poor man, while her relations had grown tired of helping Eugene, whose business talents had not fulfilled their early promise. He always seemed, somehow, to miss in his calculations. What little order there now was in the place was due to the energetic rule of Julia Mitchell, already felt from garret to cellar. By her care the three little girls were dressed and ready, and were hanging, eager and excited, round their mother, who sat, her baby on her lap, with tear-washed cheeks and absent gaze, all pretence to the art of dress abandoned. She hardly looked up as her beautiful, richly clad visitor entered; but when she felt the tender pressure of the hand that Lucy silently extended, she gave way to a fresh burst of grief. "Stevens here? asked Dr. Wilson, aside, of Miss Mitchell. "Yes, sir; he's upstairs; and Miss Fuller, and Mr. Talbot--_he's_ some use, and the boy wants him. I don't believe you'll ever get him to take the ether unless his papa's 'round; and I thought, if Miss Fuller would stay outside and look after _her_?" "Certainly." "Then, if Mrs. Wilson will take the others off, why, the sooner the better." The doctor looked at his wife, who was quick to respond, though with her whole soul she longed to stay. She wanted to see Eugene; to know how he was taking it; to hear him say something to her, no matter what; to give him the comfort and support his wife was evidently past giving; and then, she wanted to see her husband as nearly as possible at the moment he had saved the child's life. She did not let the thought that he might fail enter her mind,--not in this case, the crowning case of his life! For this alone he had toiled, and she had striven. She gave his hand one hard squeeze, as if to make him catch some of the passionate longing of her heart, and then drew back with the fear that it might weaken rather than strengthen his nerve. He looked as immobile as ever; and she turned to take the children's little hands in hers. "Oh, Lucy!" faltered out her successful rival, "how good of you! I can't tell you--it does not seem as if it could be true that my beautiful Eugene--" Here another burst of sobs shook her all over. Lucy's own tears, as she kissed the poor mother, were bright in her eyes, but they did not fail. She led the two older girls silently away, and young Dr. Walker, who had been standing in the background, followed with the third in his arms, his cool business air, just tempered by a proper consideration for the parents' feelings, covering his inward excitement at this first chance of assisting the great physician at an operation. As he helped the pretty Mrs. Wilson, adored of all her husband's pupils, into her handsome carriage, which had come for her, and settled his little charge on her lap, he was astonished, and even awe-struck, to see that she was crying. "I never thought," he said to himself, "that Mrs. Wilson had so much feeling! but to be sure she has a boy just this little fellow's age!" * * * * * At nine o'clock, the Talbot children, weary of the delights of that earthly paradise, Harry Wilson's nursery, had been put to bed, and Lucy was waiting for her husband. She looked anxiously at his face when he came, but it told her nothing. "How--is he?" she faltered out at last. "Can't tell as yet." "Was the operation successful?" "Yes, that was all right enough." "And how soon shall you know if he's likely to rally?" "Impossible to say." "Any bad signs?" "No, nothing apparent as yet." "You must be very tired," she said, with a tender, unnoticed touch of her hand to his forehead. "Not very." "Have you been there all this time?" "No, I have made one or two other calls. I was there again just now." "Do have some tea," said Lucy, striking a match and lighting the alcohol lamp under her little brass kettle, to prepare the cup of weak, sugarless, creamless tea, the only luxury of taste which the doctor, otherwise rigidly keeping to a special unvaried regimen, allowed himself; and while he sipped it languidly, she watched him intently. If only he would say anything without being asked! But she could not wait. "How is Mabel?" "Very much overcome." "She has no self-control." "She is fairly worn out." "I am glad Julia is there." "Yes, I should not feel easy unless she were. But Talbot himself behaved very well. He is more of a hand with the boy than the mother is. He seems bound up in him." "Poor fellow!" said Lucy, sympathetically. Her husband did not respond. "You had better go to bed, dear, and get some sleep," she went on. "You must need it." "I told Julia I would be there before six," said Dr. Wilson, rising. "She must get some rest then. So if you'll wake me at five--" "Of course," said Lucy, who was as certain and much more agreeable than an alarm clock; "and now go to sleep, and forget it all. You have had a hard day, you poor fellow!" The doctor threw his arm round his wife, as she nestled closer to him, and they turned with a common impulse to the next room, where there own only child lay sleeping. Father and mother stood long without a word, looking at the bright-haired boy, whose healthy breathing came and went without a sound or a quiver; but when the mother turned to go, the father lingered still. She did not wait for him, for her exquisite tact could allow for shyness in a husband as well as in anyone else, and she had no manner of jealousy of it. If he wanted to say his prayers, or shed a few tears, or go through any other such sentimental performance which he would feel ashamed to have her witness, why, by all means let him have the chance; and she kept on diligently brushing her rich, dark hair, that he might not find her waiting. There was no dramatic scene when little Eugene Talbot was declared out of danger; it came gradually as blessings are apt to do; but after Dr. Wilson had informed his wife day after day for a week that the child was "no worse," he began to report him as "a little better," and finally somewhat grudgingly to allow that with care there was no reason why he should not recover. By early springtime the little fellow was playing about in the sun and air; his sisters had been sent home all well and blooming, with many a gift from Mrs. Wilson, and their wardrobes bearing everywhere traces of her dainty handiwork; the mother had overflowed in tearful thanks, and the father had struggled to speak his in vain. * * * * * "I wish I knew how small I could decently make Talbot's fee," said Dr. Wilson, as he sat at his desk, in a half-soliloquising tone, but still designed to catch his wife's ear, and win her judicious advice. But it was not till after he had repeated the words, that she said without raising her head from her work, while her fingers ran nervously on, "I will tell you what I should do." "Well?" as she paused. "I should make out my bill for the usual amount, and send it in receipted. Won't you, Henry? I wish you would, so very, very much!" she went on, surprised at the dawning of a look she had never seen before on his face. "That would be hardly treating him like a gentleman," he began; and then suddenly, "Lucy, how can you keep up such a grudge against Eugene Talbot?" Lucy's work dropped, and she sat looking full at him, her pretty face white as ashes, and her eyes dilated as if she had heard a voice from the grave. "I know," he resumed, "that he has injured you on the tenderest point on which a man can injure a woman, but surely you should have got over thinking of that by this time. Is it noble, is it Christian to bear malice so long? Can't you be satisfied without crowding down the coals of fire so very hard upon his head? I never," went on Dr. Wilson, reflectively, "did like that passage, though it is in the Bible." "Oh, Henry!" "Put it on a lower ground. Is it just to me? Do you owe me nothing? I don't forget how much I owe you. You have made the better part of what little reputation I have; you are proud of it; you would like to have me more so. But do you suppose I can feel pride in anything earthly, while another man has the power so to move my wife? You may think you do not love him now; but where you make a parade of forgiveness, resentment lingers; and where revenge is hot, love is still warm." "Then you knew it all?" gasped Lucy; "but how--how could you ever want to marry me?" "Because, my dear, I loved you--all the time--too well not to be thankful to get you on any terms. I gave you credit for too much good sense and high principle to let yourself care for him when you were once married; and--I am but a poor creature, God knows! but I hoped I could win your love in time. There, my dear, don't! I knew I could! I am very sure I did." He raised her head from where she had buried it among the sofa pillows, and let her weep out a flood of the bitterest tears she had ever shed, on his shoulder. It was long before she could check them enough to murmur, "Forgive me--only forgive me!" "Dearest, we will both of us forget it." * * * * * "Mr. Talbot wants to see you, ma'am." "Is the doctor out?" "Yes, ma'am. He did not ask for the doctor. He said he wanted to speak to you for a minute." "Show him into the library, and tell anyone else who calls that I am engaged for a few moments." Mrs. Wilson hastened downstairs, to find her visitor rather nervously turning over the books on her table. Eugene's once bright chestnut curls were as thin now as Henry Wilson's sandy locks, and his attire was elegant with an effort, though he still kept his fine eyes and winning smile. "Won't you sit down?" "No, thank you. I only came--I have not much time--I came on business--if you are not too much engaged?" "Not at all," said Lucy, quietly seating herself, which seemed to soothe her companion's nerves. He sat down, too, and began abruptly, "I cannot begin to tell you how much we owe to your husband!" "We have both sympathised so much in your sorrow and anxiety! If he could do anything at all, I am sure he is only too glad, and so am I." "It was not only his saving our child's life, but he has done--I can't tell you what he has done for us in every way, as if he had been a brother--" Lucy raised her head proudly, with a glad light in her eyes. Eugene looked at her a moment, and then went on with a sigh; "I couldn't say this to him, but I must to you, though of course you don't need any praise I can give him to tell you what he is." "No," said Lucy, "it is the greatest happiness of my life to know it--it would be if no one else did; not but what it is very pleasant to have him appreciated," she added, smiling. "I know," said Eugene, now growing red and confused, "that no recompense could ever express all we felt. Such services as his are not to be bought with a price, but I could not feel satisfied if I did not give him all that was in my power. I shall never rest till I have done so,--but--the fact is," he hurried on desperately, "I know his charges are very small--they seem ridiculously so for a man of his reputation--but the fact is, I am unable just now to meet all my obligations; the ill-health of my family has been terribly expensive--I must ask a little time--I am ashamed to do so, but I can do it better from him than from anyone else--and from you." "Oh, don't mention it!" cried Lucy, eagerly, "the sum is a mere trifle to us; it would not matter if we never had it. To whom should you turn to be helped or understood, if not to old friends like us?" "I hope to be able to pay all my just debts, and this among the first." "Oh, of course! but don't feel the least bit hurried about it! Henry will never think of it till the time comes. He always forgets all about his bills when they are once out. Wait till it is perfectly convenient." "Thank you," said Eugene huskily; "you are all goodness. I have not deserved this of you." He had already risen to go: but as he drew near the door he turned back: "Oh, Lucy, don't believe I was ever quite as heartless as I seemed. I know I treated you in a scoundrelly way, but I loved you all the time--indeed, indeed, I did." "Stop, Mr. Talbot! This is no language for you to use! If you have no regard for me, recollect at least what is due to your wife." "I have nothing to say against Mabel. She's a dear good girl, a great deal too good for me. It isn't her fault that things have gone against me. I always felt it was to pay me up for my conduct to you. I loved you as well as I ever could love anyone; but I was a selfish brute, and thought to better myself in the world--" "Stop, Mr. Talbot! I ought not to hear any more of this! I was too much overcome by surprise at first to check you, but now I must ask you to leave me at once if you cannot control yourself." "I haven't a word to say that need offend you," said Eugene, humbly. "I only wanted to ask you to forgive me for old time's sake." "There is nothing I know of for me to forgive. I am sorry, for your own sake, to hear that you ever had such feelings. I never dreamed of them." "It seemed to me as if you could not help knowing." "Indeed? I don't remember," said Mrs. Wilson, smiling. "I was so engrossed with my own affairs then, you see," she added with engaging candour; "and if I thought about you, I supposed you were the same. You can understand, after what you have seen of Henry, how little attention a girl who loved him would have to spare for anyone else." Eugene assented absently. He was unable to discipline his wandering memory, which just then was vividly picturing Lucy Morton at her prettiest, as with a sparkle in her eye and a curl on her lip she had, for the amusement of them both, flung some gentle sarcasm at "Henny Wilson." He could still hear her ringing laugh at his affected jealousy of her neighbour. But those days were past, and there before him sat Mrs. Wilson, her face lighted up with earnest emotion, grown more lovely still, and her voice thrilling with a deeper music. He allowed with a pang of mortification that he was not as clever as he had supposed himself in sounding the depths of womankind; and then with keener shame he stifled his incredulous doubts of Dr. Wilson's being able to win and keep love. "He deserves it all," he said aloud, while still a secret whisper told him that love does not go by desert. "Does he not?" said Lucy. "And now we will not talk of this any more. You must know how glad we are to be able to give you any little help, and you must be willing to take it as freely as it is given. I am very sure that brighter days are coming for Mabel and you; and when they do, we will all enjoy them together, will we not?" "You are an angel," said Eugene, taking the hand she held out; and then he let it go and turned away without another word. Lucy stood looking after him a longer time than she usually allowed herself to waste in revery; and then, starting, hastened off intent on household duties. "Why are these boots in such a condition?" she asked, in a more emphatic tone than was her wont to use to her servants, as a muddy pair in her back entry caught her eye. "I am very sorry, ma'am. I brought them down here to be cleaned, but Crossman has gone, as you ordered, to take Mrs. Talbot a little drive, and James is out with the doctor somewhere, and there are two clean pair in his dressing-room. Shall I black these, ma'am?" inquired the highly trained parlour maid, who would have gone down on her very knees to scrub the stable floor at a hint that such a proceeding might be agreeable to Dr. Wilson. "Oh, no; never mind," said her mistress, carelessly; but when the girl had gone, she stooped and, picking up the boots, bore them to her own room, and bringing blacking also, cleaned and blacked them all over in the neatest manner, with her own delicate hands. "I know I'm not worthy to black Henry's boots," she thought to herself, as a tear or two, which she made haste to rub away, dropped on their polished surface; "but I can do them well, at least. No one shall ever say that I have not made him a good wife!" [Illustration] [Illustration] THREE CUPS OF TEA "Mrs. Samuel N. Brackett, at home Wednesday, December Tenth, from four to seven, 3929 Commonwealth Avenue." * * * * * "Miss Caldwell, Wednesdays, Mount Vernon Street, December 10th, 4.30-6.30." * * * * * "100 CHARLESGATE, EAST. "DEAREST CARRIE: "I am obliged to give up the Bracketts'. Mother went and asked Dr. Thomas if I could go, and he said, of course not. I was so provoked, for if she hadn't spoken of it, he would never have dreamed of forbidding me to go out--he never does. Most likely he never imagines that anybody will go anywhere if they are not obliged to. Now that I am not going, mother won't go herself. She wants to go to Cousin Jane's little tea. She says they are so far apart she can't do both. So stupid in Cousin Jane to put hers the same day as the Bracketts'--but I dare say she will have a sufficient number of her own set to fill up. I doubt if she gets many of the girls. You are so soft-hearted that I dare say you will struggle for both. Do get through in time to drop in here any time after half-past six. I am going to have a few girls to tea in my room to cheer me up and tell me all about the Bracketts'. They have asked everyone they possibly can, and I dare say everyone will go to see what it is like. I am sure I would if I could. Remember you must come. "Ever your "GRACE G. D. "_Tuesday P.M._" As Miss Caroline Foster, after lunch on the tenth of December, inspected the cards and notes which encircled her mirror in a triple row, she selected these three as calling for immediate attention. Of course she meant to go to all: when was she ever known to refuse an invitation? Though young and pretty, well connected and well dowered, and far from stupid, she occupied in society the position of a down-trodden pariah or over-worked galley-slave, for the reason that she never could say no to anyone. She had nothing--money, time, sympathy--that was not at the service of anyone who chose to beg or borrow them. At parties she put up with the left-over partners, and often had none--for even the young men had found out that she could always be had when wanted. Perhaps this was the reason why, with all her prettiness and property, she was not already appropriated in marriage. Of course she had hosts of friends, who all despised her; but one advantage she did enjoy, for which others might have been willing to barter admiration and respect; no one, man, woman, or child, was ever heard to speak harshly to Caroline Foster, or to say anything against her. Malice itself must have blushed to say that she was too complying, and malice itself could think of nothing else. This tenth of December marked an uncommon event in her experience, for on it she had, for the first time in her life, made up her mind to refuse an asked-for gift; and the consciousness of this piece of spirit, and of a beautiful new costume of dark-blue velvet trimmed with otter fur, which set off her fair hair and fresh face to perfection, gave her an air of unwonted stateliness as she stepped into a handsome coupé and drove off alone. She was by no means an independent or unguarded young woman; but her aunt, with whom she lived, had two committee meetings that afternoon, and told Caroline that she might just as well go to Miss Caldwell's little tea for ladies only, alone. They would meet at Mrs. Brackett's; and if they didn't they could tell everyone they were trying to--which would do just as well. Miss Caldwell lived in an old house on Mount Vernon Street which gave the impression that people had forgotten to pull it down because it was so small; but within it looked spacious, as it sheltered only one lady and two maids. Everything about it had an air of being fresh and faded at once. The little library in front was warm dull olive-green; and the dining-room at the back soft deep grey-blue; and the drawing-room, up one flight of an unexpected staircase, was rich dark brick-red--all very soothing to the eye. They were full of family portraits, and old brass and pewter, and Japanese cabinets, and books bound in dimly gilded calf-skin, and India chintzes, all of which were Miss Caldwell's by inheritance. Even sunlight had a subdued effect in these rooms; and now they were lighted chiefly by candles, and none too brilliantly. Miss Caldwell had been receiving her guests in the drawing-room; but there were not many, and being a lady accustomed to do as she pleased, she had followed them down to the dining-room, which was just comfortably full. Conversation was, as it were, forced to be general, and the whole room heard Mrs. Spofford remark that "Malcolm Johnson would be a very poor match for Caroline Foster." "Caroline Foster and Malcolm Johnson, is that an engagement?" asked the stout, good-natured Mrs. Manson, who was tranquilly eating her way through the whole assortment of biscuits and bonbons on the table. "Well, Caroline is a dear, sweet girl--just the kind to make a good wife for a widower." "With five children to start with, and no means that I know of!" said Miss Caldwell, scornfully. "I am sure I hope not!" "I have heard it on the best authority," said the first speaker. "It will take better authority than that to make me believe it." "If he proposes to her," said Mrs. Manson, "I should say she would take him. I never knew Caroline to say no to anyone." "Well," said Miss Caldwell, "I suppose it's natural for a woman to be a fool in such matters--for most women," she corrected herself; "but if Caroline marries Malcolm Johnson I shall think her _too_ foolish--and she has never seemed to me to be lacking in sense." "Perhaps," said the pourer out of tea, a pretty damsel with large dark eyes, a little faded to match the room--"perhaps she wants a sphere." "As if her aunt could not find her fifty spheres if she wanted them!" "Too many, perhaps," said a tall lady with a sensible, school-teaching air. "I have sometimes thought that Mrs. Neal, with managing all her own children's families and her charities, had not much time or thought to spare for poor little Caroline. She is kind to her, but I doubt if she gives her much attention." "A woman likes something of her own," said Mrs. Manson. "Her own!" said Miss Caldwell. "How much good of her own is she likely to have if she marries Malcolm Johnson?" "Yes," said Mrs. Spofford, "his motives would be plain enough; I dare say he's in love with her. Caroline is a lovely girl, but of course in such a case her money goes for something." "But she has not so very much money," said Mildred, dropping a lump of sugar into a cup--"plenty, I suppose, for herself, but it would not support a large family like Mr. Johnson's." "It would pay his taxes, my dear, and buy his coal," said Miss Caldwell, "and he has kept house long enough to appreciate the help _that_ would be." "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Manson, "coal is so terribly high this winter!" "It would be a saving for him to marry anybody," said a thin lady with a sweet smile, slightly soiled gloves, and her bonnet rather on one side. "He tells me that his housekeepers are no end of trouble. He is always changing them, and his children are running wild with it all. He's a very old friend of mine," she added with a conscious air. "They are very troublesome children," said Miss Caldwell. "I hear them crying a great deal." "Poor little things!--they need training," said Mrs. Manson. "Caroline would never train them; she is too amiable." "They have so much illness," said Mrs. Eames, the "old friend." "Poor Malcolm tells me he is afraid that little Willie has incipient spine complaint; he is in pain most of the time. The poor child was always delicate, and his mother watched him most carefully. She was a most painstaking mother, poor thing, though I don't imagine there was much congeniality between her and Malcolm. I wish I could do something for them, but I have _such_ a family of my own." "Someone ought to warn Caroline," said Miss Caldwell. "I wonder he has the audacity to ask her. If he wasn't a widower he wouldn't dare to." "If he wasn't a widower," said Miss Mildred, "her loving him in spite of all his drawbacks would seem more natural." "If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Manson, "he wouldn't have the drawbacks, you know." "If he wasn't a widower," said Mrs. Eames, "he might not be so anxious to marry her. Good-by, dear Miss Caldwell. Such a delightful tea! I may take some little cakes to the dear children?" "Good-by," said Mrs. Manson, swallowing her last macaroon. She turned back as she reached the doorway; and her ample figure, completely filling it up, gave opportunity for a young lady who had been standing in the shadow of the staircase to dart across the hall unseen. Miss Caroline Foster had sought her hostess in the drawing-room, but finding it empty, had come downstairs again, and had been obliged to listen to the conversation, which she had not the courage to interrupt; and she now threw on her wrap and rushed past the astonished maid out of the house before Mrs. Manson's slow progress could reach the cloak-room. * * * * * At half-past five o'clock the Brackett tea was in full swing. The occupants of the carriages at the end of the long file were getting out and walking to the door, and some of the more prudent were handing in their cards and departing, judging from the crush that if their chance of getting in was but small, their chance of getting away was none at all. The Bracketts were at home; but of their home there was nothing to be seen for the crowd, except the blazing chandeliers overhead, the high-hung modern French pictures in heavy gilded frames, the intricate draperies of costly stuffs and laces at the tops of the tall windows, here and there the topmost spray of some pyramid or bank of flowers, and the upper part of the immense mirrors which reflected over and over what they could catch of the scene. The hostess was receiving in the middle drawing-room; but it was a work of time and pains to get so far as to obtain a view of the sparkling aigret in her hair. A meagre, carefully dressed woman had accomplished this duty, and might now fairly be getting off and leaving her place for someone else; yet she lingered near the door of the outer room, loath to depart, looking with an anxious eye for familiar faces, with an uneasy incipient smile waiting for the occasion to call out. Sometimes it grew more marked, and she made a tentative step forward; and if the person went by with scant greeting or none at all, she would draw back and patiently repair it for future use. For the one or two who stopped to speak to her she kept it carefully up to, but not beyond, a certain point, while still her restless eye strayed past them in search of better game. Just as she had exchanged a warmer greeting than her wont with a quiet, lady-like woman who was forced on inward by the crowd, she was startled by a smart tap on her shoulder, and as she turned sharp round towards the wall, the rich brocade window-curtains waved, and a low voice was heard from behind them. "Come in here, won't you, Miss Snow?" Miss Martha Snow, bewildered, drew aside the heavy folds, and found herself face to face with a richly arrayed, distinguished-looking, though _passée_ woman, who had settled herself comfortably on the cushioned seat between the lace curtains without and the silk within. "My dear Mrs. Freeman! how do you do? How you did frighten me!" "I have been trying to get at you for an age," said Mrs. Thorndike Freeman, laughing. "I thought you would never have done falling into the arms of that horrid Hapgood woman." "I could not help it. She would keep me. She is one of those people you can't shake off, you know." "I! _I_ don't know her." "But why are you here, out of sight of everyone? Are you waiting for a chance to get at Mrs. Brackett?" hurried on Miss Snow. "I'm waiting for a chance to get away from her. I would not be seen speaking to her for any consideration whatever." "I--I _was_ surprised to meet you here!" "I came because I wanted to see what it would be like, but I had no conception it would be so bad. Did you ever see such a set as she has collected?" "It does seem mixed." "Unmixed, I should call it. I have been waiting for half an hour to see a soul of my acquaintance. Sit down here, and let us have a nice talk." A nice talk with Mrs. Thorndike Freeman foreboded a dead cut from her the next time you met her; for she never took anyone up without as violently putting them down again--and then there was no one now to see and envy. However, Miss Snow dared not refuse, and seating herself with a conciliatory, frightened air, somewhat like a little dog in the cage of a lioness, asked in timid tones: "Why do you stay? Is not your carriage here?" "I want to get something to eat first," said Mrs. Freeman, "for I suppose their spread is something indescribable." "Oh, quite! The whole middle of the table is a mass of American Beauty roses as large as--as cabbages, and around that a bank of mignonette like--like small cauliflowers, and all over beneath it is covered with hothouse maiden-hair ferns, and----" "And what's the grub?" "I--did not eat much; I only wanted to see it; but I had a delicious little _paté_--chicken done in cream, somehow; and I saw aspic jelly with something in it handed round; and the ices--they are all in floral devices, water lilies floating on spun sugar, and roses in gold baskets, and cherries tied in bunches with ribbons, and grapes lying on tinted Bohemian glass leaves--and------" "It sounds appetising. I'll wait till I see a man that doesn't know me, and he shall get me some. I don't want it known that I ever entered their doors." "Shall I not go back to the dining-room and send a waiter to you?" "No, indeed--he would be sure to know me, and I should get put on the list." "The stationers who sent out the invitations will do that." "Oh, well--I can only say I never came. But the waiter would swear to me, and very likely describe my dress. No, I shall wait a little longer. Stay here and keep me company." "Oh, it will be delightful!" quavered Miss Snow, though worrying at the prospect of getting away late on foot, and ill able to afford cab-hire. "You've heard of the engagement, I suppose?" "Which of them?" asked Miss Snow, skilfully hedging. "Why, the only one, so far as I know. Why, haven't you heard? Ralph Underwood and Winnie Parke." "Oh, yes! has that come out? I have been away from home for a few days, and had not heard. Very pleasant, I'm sure." "Very--for her. It was her sister who did it, Mrs. Al Smith. She's a very clever young woman; fished for Al herself in the most barefaced way, and now she's caught Ralph for her sister; and she's not nearly so good-looking, either, Winnie Parke, though I should say she had a better temper than Margaret. You know Margaret Smith of course?" "Not very well," said Miss Snow, deprecatingly. "I thought when you spoke of an engagement you meant Malcolm Johnson and Caroline Foster." "That never will be an engagement!" said Mrs. Freeman scornfully. "Oh! I am very glad to hear you say so--only I have met him so much there lately, and it quite worried me; it would be such a bad thing for dear Caroline; she is a sweet girl." "You need not worry about it any longer, for I know positively that she has refused him." "I am very glad. I was so afraid that Caroline--she is so amiable a girl, you know, and so apt to do what people tell her to--I was afraid she might say yes for fear of hurting his feelings." "She would never dream of his having feelings--her position is so different. Why, Caroline is a cousin of my own." "Oh, yes, of course--only he would doubtless be so much in love; and many people think him delightful--he _was_ very handsome." "Before Caroline was born, maybe. No, no, Caroline has plenty of sense, though she looks so gentle--and then the family would never hear of it. His affairs are in a shocking condition. Why, you know what he lost in Atchison--and I happen to know that his other investments are in a very shaky condition." "He has that handsome house." "Mortgaged, my dear, mortgaged up to its full value. No, he's badly off--and then there are such discreditable rumours about him; Thorndike knows all about it." "Dear me! I never heard anything against his character." "I could tell you plenty," said Mrs. Freeman, with a little shrug. "And then he drinks, or at least he probably will end in drinking--they always do when they are driven desperate. Oh, no, Caroline is a cousin of mine, and a most charming girl. Don't for heaven's sake hint at such a thing." "Oh, I assure you, I never have. I am always so careful." "Yes, I never say a thing that I am not certain is true," said Mrs. Freeman, yawning. "Why, where do all these lovely youths come from? Ah! I see; past six o'clock; the shop is closed, and they have turned the clerks on duty here. Well, now, I can get something to eat, for I never buy anything of them. Tell that one over there to come to me, the light-haired one, I mean; he looks strong and good-humoured." As Miss Snow rose to obey this order, a fair-haired girl in a dark-blue velvet gown, who on entering had been pinned close against the wall within hearing by the crowd, made a frantic struggle for freedom, and succeeded in reaching the entrance hall, to the amazement of the other guests, who did not look for such a display of strength in so gentle-looking and painfully blushing a creature. * * * * * At half-past six a select party was assembling in Miss Grace Deane's own room, the prettiest room, it was said, in Boston, in the handsomest of the new Charlesgate houses; a corner room, with a bright sunny outlook over the long extent of waterside gardens. The high wainscot, the chimney-piece, the bed on its alcoved and curtained _haut pas_ were of cherry wood, the natural colour, carved with elaborate and unwearied fancy; and its rich hue showed here and there round the Persian rugs on the floor. At the top of the wall was a painted frieze of cherry boughs in bloom, with now and then one loaded with fruit peeping through, and the same idea was imitated in the chintzes. The wall space left was papered in a shade of spring green so delicate and elusive that no one could decide whether it verged on gold or silver, almost hidden with close-hung water colours and autotypes; and the ceiling showed between cherry beams an even softer tint in daintily stained woods. The Minton tiles around the fireplace and lining the little adjoining bathroom were all in different designs of pale green and white sparingly dashed with coral pink. There were sofas and low chairs and bookcases and cabinets and a tiny piano and a writing-desk and a drawing-table, and a work-table and yet more tables, all covered with smaller objects. Useless, and especially cheap, bric-à-brac was Miss Deane's abomination, but everything she used was exquisite. The bed and dressing-table were covered with finest linen, drawn and fretted by the needle, into filmy gossamer; and from the latter came a subdued glitter of a hundred silver trifles of the toilet, beaten and chiselled like the fine foamy crest of the wave. Miss Deane, the owner of this pretty room, for whom and by whom it had been devised and decked with abundant means held well in check by taste, was very seldom in it. The Deanes had two country houses, and they spent a great deal of time abroad, and in the winter they often went to California or Florida or Bermuda; and when they were at their town houses they were usually out. But Miss Deane did sometimes sleep there, and when she had a cold and had to keep in she could not but look around it with gratification. It certainly was a pleasant room to give a little tea in. Its being her bedroom only made the effect more piquant. She believed the ladies of the last century used to have tea in their bedrooms; and this was quite in antique style--yes, the tea-table and some of the chairs were real antiques. By the time she had arranged the flowers to her taste and sat down arrayed in a tea-gown of rose-coloured China crape and white lace to make tea in a Dresden service with little rosebuds for handles, she felt quite well again, and ready to greet a dozen or so of her dearest friends, who ran upstairs unannounced and threw off their own wraps on the lace-covered bed. Some of these young women were beautiful, and all looked pretty, their charms equalised by their clothes and manners. They had all been on the most intimate terms with each other from babyhood, and they had the eagerness to please anyone and everyone, characteristic of the American girl. Each talked to the other as if that other were a lover, and they had the sweetest smiles for the maid. "So it was pleasant at the Bracketts'?" asked Grace, beginning to fill her cups. "Oh, delightful!" exclaimed the whole circle; "that is"--with modified energy--"it was crowded of course, and very hot, and it was hard to get at people, and there was no time to talk when you did; but everybody was there," they concluded with revived spirit. "I was not there," sighed Mildred; "I had to make tea for Miss Caldwell--mother said I must--and some of the people stayed so late that it was no use thinking of the other place, though I put on this gown to be all ready. I thought it would do to pour out at such a little tea"--surveying her pale fawn cloth gown dashed with dark velvet worked in gold. "Oh, perfectly! most appropriate!" said the others. "Who else poured out?" said Grace. "Why, she told me that Caroline Foster was coming, and I was so delighted; but when I got there I found Mrs. Neal had sent a note saying she could not allow Caroline to give up the Bracketts' altogether; and Miss Caldwell had invited that Miss Leggett, whom I hardly know--wasn't it unpleasant? And she wore regular full dress, pink India silk and chiffon, cut very low--the effect was dreadful!" "Horrid!" murmured her sympathising friends. "Caroline was there, I suppose?" queried one. "No--she never came at all." "Probably she went to the Bracketts' first, and couldn't get away," said Grace. "I wonder she isn't here by this time. Who saw her there?" General silence was the sole answer, and she looked round her only to have it re-inforced by a more emphatic "I didn't." "Why, she must have been there! She told me she should surely go. How odd--" but her words died away, and the group regarded each other with looks of awe, till one daring young woman broke the spell with, "Do you think--can it be possible--that she's really engaged?" "To Mr. Johnson?" broke out the whole number. "Oh! I hope not! It would be shocking--dreadful--too bad!" "We shouldn't see a thing of her; she would be so tied down," murmured Dorothy Chandler, almost in tears. "Everyone who marries is tied down, for that matter," cheerfully remarked a blooming young matron, who had been the rounds of the teas. "I assure you," she went on, nibbling a chocolate peppermint with relish, "I am doing an awful thing myself in being here at this hour; aren't you, Anna?"--addressing a mate in like condition, who blushed, conscience-stricken as she said, "Perhaps Caroline is in love with Mr. Johnson." "I don't see how any one can fall in love with a widower," said Mildred. "That depends on the widower," said the pretty Mrs. Blanchard. "I do think Mr. Johnson is rather too far gone." "Oh, yes," said Mildred; "he looks so--so--I don't know how to express it." "What you would call dowdy if he were a woman," said her more experienced friend. "He looks as if he wanted a wife; but I don't see why someone else would not do as well as Caroline--some respectable maiden lady who could sew on his buttons and make his children stand round. I don't think Caroline would be of the least use to him." "It would be almost impossible to keep her up," said Grace. "Yes," said Mrs. Blanchard; "I'm very fond of Caroline, but I'm afraid I could never get Bertie up to the point of intimacy with Malcolm Johnson; he thinks him underbred--says his hats show it." "Is your tea too strong, Harriet, dear? There is no hot water left," said Grace, ringing her little silver bell with energy. But no one came. "I told Marguerite to keep in the sewing-room, in hearing," she went on, ringing it again. "I thought I heard her at the door just now," said the outermost of the circle. "_Would_ you mind looking, dear? If she's not there I'll ring the other bell for someone from downstairs." No Marguerite was at the door, the sounds laid to her charge having been caused by the precipitate retreat of a young lady who had come late and, running quickly upstairs unannounced, had paused at the room door to recover her breath, and had just time to do so and to fly downstairs again and out of the house without encountering anyone. Caroline--for it was she--hurried round the corner; for her home was so near that she had dismissed her carriage. The house was empty and dark. Mrs. Neal had gone to spend the evening with one of her married daughters and had not thought it necessary to provide any dinner at home. There was no neglect in this. There were plenty of cousins at whose houses Caroline could have dined and welcome; or if she did not choose to do so, there was abundance in the larder, and if her teas had left her any appetite she had but to give the order herself and sit down alone to her cold meat and bread and butter. As we know, her teas had been feasts of Tantalus; but she did not feel hungry--for food. She hastened up to her room without a word to the maid, lighted her gas, took a key from her watch-chain, opened her writing-desk, and took out a letter which she read, not for the first time, with attention. "MOUNT VERNON STREET. "MY DEAR MISS FOSTER: "You will, I am afraid, be surprised at what I am going to say. Perhaps you will blame me for writing it, and perhaps you will blame me for saying it at all. I know it is an act of presumption in me to ask one so beautiful, so young and untrammelled by care, to link her fortunes with mine: but I do it because I cannot help it. I love you so much that I am unable to turn my thoughts to my most pressing duties till I have at least tried my fate with you; and yet my hopes are so faint that I cannot venture to ask you in any way but this. "Don't think I love you less because I have so many other claimants for my affections; any more than I love them less because I love you. My poor children have no mother; I could never ask any woman to take that place to them unless we could both feel sure that ours was no mere match of convenience; but I could not love anyone unless she had the tenderness of nature which belongs to a true mother. I never saw any girl in whom it showed so plainly as in you. Your angelic sweetness and gentleness are to me, who have seen something of the rough side of life, unspeakably beautiful. I know I am not worthy of you in any way; but it sometimes seems to me that appreciating you so thoroughly as I do must make me a little so. "Your family will very likely object to me on the score of want of means. I am fully aware that I cannot give you such advantages in that respect as you have a right to expect, even if I were much richer than I am ever likely to be; but I am not so poorly off as they may suppose. I own the house in which I live, free of encumbrance, and I should like to settle it upon you. I do not know whether your property is secured to your separate use or not; but I should wish to have it so in any case. If my life and health are spared, I have no fears that I shall not be able to support my family in comfort. I know you will have to give up a great deal in the way of society; and I cannot promise that you shall have no cares, but I can and do promise that you will make us all very happy. "I still fear my chances are but small; but do, I entreat you, take time to think over this. No matter what your answer may be, I am and ever shall be "Your faithful and devoted "MALCOLM JOHNSON. "_December 8, 189-._" After Caroline had read this letter twice, she drew out another, spotless and freshly written, and breaking the seal, read: "BEACON STREET. "MY DEAR MR. JOHNSON: "I was very sorry to receive your letter this morning. Pray don't think I blame you for writing--but indeed you think much too highly of me. I am not at all fitted to assume such serious duties as being at the head of your family would involve, and it would only be a disappointment to you if I did. I have had no experience, and I should feel it wrong to undertake it, even if I could return your generous affection as it deserves. Indeed, I don't value money, or any of those things; but I do not want to give up my friends and all my own ways of life, unless I loved you. I am so sorry I can't--but surely you will not blame me, for I never dreamed of this, or I would have tried to let you know my thoughts sooner. "I am sure my aunt would disapprove. Highly as she esteems you, she would think me too young, and not at all the right kind of wife for you. I shall not breathe a word to her or to anyone, and I hope you will soon forget this, and find some one who will really be a good wife to you and a devoted mother to your children. No one will be more delighted at this than "Your sincere friend, "CAROLINE ALICE FOSTER. "_December 9, 189-._" This letter, which Caroline had spent three hours in writing, and copied six times, she now tore into small pieces and threw them into the fireplace. The fire was out, and the grate was black, so she lighted a match and watched till every scrap was consumed to ashes, when she sat down at her desk and, heedless of the chilly room, wrote with a flying pen: "BEACON STREET. "MY DEAR MR. JOHNSON: "Pray forgive me that I have been so long in answering your letter. I could not decide such an important matter in haste. Indeed you think more highly of me than you ought; but if such a foolish, ignorant girl as I am can make you happy, and you are sure you are not mistaken, I will try to return your love as it deserves. I have not much experience with children; but I will do my best to make yours love me, and it will surely be better for the dear little things than to have no mother at all. "I dare say my aunt will think me very presumptuous to undertake so responsible a position; but she will not oppose me when she knows my heart is concerned,--and I am of age, and have a right to decide for myself. I shall be so glad of some real duties to make my idle, aimless life really useful to someone. I don't care for wealth, and as for society, I am heartily tired of it. The only fear I have is that you are over-rating me; but it is so pleasant to be loved so much that I will not blame you for it. "I am ever yours sincerely, "CAROLINE ALICE FOSTER. "_December 10, 189-._" If Caroline, by writing this letter, constituted herself a lunatic in the judgment of all her friends, it must be allowed, as Miss Caldwell had said, that she was not quite lacking in sense. Unlike either a fool or the heroine of a novel, she rang the bell for no servant, sent for no messenger, but when she had sealed and stamped her letter she tripped downstairs with it and, having slipped back the latch as she opened the door, walked as far as the nearest post-box and dropped it in herself. [Illustration] [Illustration] THE TRAMPS' WEDDING "They know no country, own no lord. Their home the camp, their law the sword." "Who is it?" asked Mrs. Reed, as her husband entered her sitting-room; with some curiosity, pardonable in view of the fact that a stranger had for some time been holding an interview with him in his study. "Why," replied the Reverend Richard Reed, looking mildly absent, as was his custom when interrupted of a Saturday morning, "it is a Mr. Perley Pickens--the man, you know, who has taken the Maynard place for the summer." "Indeed! what did he want?" cried the lady, interested at once. The Maynard house was the great house of the place, and the Maynard family the magnates of the First Parish, and the whole town of Rutland. Their going abroad for a year or two had been felt as a public loss, and when, somewhat to the general surprise, it transpired that their house was let, it was at once surmised that it could only be to "nice" people, though the new occupants had never been heard of, and were rarely seen. "Oh, his daughter is to be married, and he wants the ceremony to take place in our church." "You don't say so? and he wants you to marry them?" "Certainly." "Why, we haven't had a wedding in the church for quite a while! It will be very nice, won't it?" "Yes, my dear; but excuse me, I am in a hurry just now. Mr. Pickens is waiting. He wants you to give him a few addresses. I gave him the sexton's----" "It will be a good thing for poor Langford," said Mrs. Reed, benevolently. "Yes--" drawled the Reverend Richard, still abstractedly, "very good; and he wants a Boston caterer, and a florist. I know nothing about such things, and I told him I'd ask you, though I did not believe you did, either." "Oh, yes, I do! Mrs. Maynard always has Rossi, and as for a florist, they must have John Wicks, at the corner here. He's just set up, and it will be such a chance for him." "Do you think he will do? Mr. Pickens said that expense was no object--that everything must be in style, as he phrased it." "Oh, he'll do! Anyone will do, at this season. Why, they could decorate the church, and house too, from their own place; but I shan't suggest that." "Very well, my dear--but I am keeping Mr. Pickens waiting." "I'll go and speak to him myself," said the lady, excitedly; and she tripped into the study, where the guest was sitting, with his hat on his knees; a tall, narrow-shouldered man, with a shifty eye. Somehow the sight of him was disappointing, she could hardly tell why, for he rose to greet her very politely, and thanked her effusively. "My wife will be most grateful, I am sure--most grateful for your kindness. It will save her so much trouble." "Here are the addresses you want," said Mrs. Reed, hastily scratching them off at her husband's desk, "and if Mrs. Pickens wants any others, I shall be happy to be of use to her." "Thank you! thank you! You see, she's a stranger here, and doesn't know anything about it." "You have not been in this part of the country before?" "No--oh, no, I come from Clarinda, Iowa. At least, I always register from there, though I haven't any house there now; and my present wife was a Missouri woman, though she's never lived in the State much. I had to be in Boston on business this summer, so thought I'd take a place outside, and Mr. Bowles, the real estate agent, said this was the handsomest going, and the country first-rate; but my wife's a little disappointed." "I suppose, if she has travelled so much, she has seen a great deal of fine scenery--but this is generally thought a pretty place." "Yes, certainly--very rustic, though, ain't it?" "I suppose so," said his hearer, a little puzzled, while for the first time her husband looked up, alert and amused. "I will call on Mrs. Pickens," she hastened to say, "if she would like to see me." "Yes, certainly; delighted, I'm sure; yes, she'd be delighted to see you, and so would Miss Minnie, too." "What a very queer man!" thought Mrs. Reed. But she only smiled sweetly, and made a little move, as if the interview were fairly over. Her visitor, however, did not seem inclined to depart, and after a moment's silence began again. "And there's another thing; if you would be so very kind as to recommend--I mean, introduce--we know so few people here, and Miss Minnie wants everything very stylish; perhaps you know some nice young men who would like to be ushers; I believe that is what they are called. It would be a good thing for them to be seen at; everything in first-class style, you know." The Reverend Richard, whose attention was now thoroughly aroused, beamed full on the speaker a guileless smile, while his wife thoughtfully murmured, "Let me see; do you expect a great many people?" "Oh, no, we don't know many round here; but if you and your family, and the ushers and their families, would come to the house, it would make quite a nice little company. As to the church--anyone that liked--it would be worth seeing." "I can find some ushers," said Mrs. Reed, still musing; "two at least; that will be enough, I should think." "And then," murmured Mr. Pickens, as if checking off a mental list, "there is a young man to go with the bridegroom, I believe. I never had one, but Miss Minnie says it's the fashion." "Oh, yes, a 'best man!'" explained his hostess, "but--the bridegroom usually selects one of his intimate friends for that." "I don't believe Mr. MacJacobs has any friends; round here, that is. He came from Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, but he's never been there since he was a boy. He's been in New Orleans, and then in Europe, as travelling agent for MacVickar & Company. I suppose you've heard of _them_." "I dare say I can find a best man." "Thank you. You are very kind; yes, very kind indeed, I'm sure." "I presume," interposed the host, in bland accents, "you wish to give away the bride yourself?" "Yes!" said Mr. Pickens, starting; "oh, yes, I suppose I can, if there's not too much to do. Should I have to say anything?" "Scarcely," replied the clergyman, reassuringly. "I ask a question to which you are supposed to reply, but a nod will be quite sufficient. The bridegroom is generally audible, and sometimes the bride, but I have never heard a sound proceed from the bride's father." "Very good--very good; it will be very pleasant to join in your service, I am sure. Many thanks to you for your kind advice. I will now take my leave," and after a jerking bow or two he departed, with a sort of fluttering, bird-like step. The pastor laughed, but his wife looked sober. "Our friend is as amusing a specimen as I ever encountered," he began. "Amusing! I call him disgusting, with his 'Miss Minnie 'and 'take his leave.' He can't be a gentleman; there is something very suspicious about the whole affair." "Indeed! and what do you suspect?" "I don't believe there's a wedding at all. Perhaps he's an impostor who wants to get in here to steal." "Do you miss anything?" "No," said the lady, after a peep into her dining-room. "I can't say I do. But he may come back on this pretended wedding business. Are you sure that he really is Mr. Perley Pickens?" "Why, yes. I have never spoken to him before, but I have seen him at the post-office, opening his box, and again at the station. I cannot be mistaken in that walk of his." "Well, he may be the head of a gang of thieves, and have taken the house and got up this scheme of a wedding for some end of his own." "Such as what?" "Why, to cheat somebody, somehow. I am sure you will never get a wedding fee for it; and he may not pay any of the bills, and the people may bother us." "He gave me the name of his Boston bankers, May & Maxwell, to whom he said I could refer the tradespeople, if they wished it, 'being a stranger here himself,' as he justly remarked. But whom, my dear, do you expect to provide for ushers or best man?" "Oh, for ushers, the Crocker boys will do. They will be glad of something to amuse them in vacation." "Are they not rather young? Fred can hardly be eighteen yet." "Well! he is six feet and over. One needn't tell his age; and as for best man, I think William Winchester wouldn't mind it--to oblige me." "But why, my love, since you are so distrustful, are you so anxious to be of use in this matter?" "Why!" echoed his wife, triumphantly; "it's the best way to encourage them to go on, and then, don't you see? if they have any dishonest designs, they'll be the sooner exposed; and then--I do want to see what the end of it all will be--don't you?" In pursuance of these ideas, Mrs. Reed, next afternoon, put on her best bonnet, and went to call on the ladies of the Pickens family. The gardens and shrubberies of the Maynard house, always beautiful, yet showed already the want of the master's eye. The servant who opened the door was of an inferior grade, and the drawing-room, stripped of Mrs. Maynard's personal belongings, looked bare and cold. Mrs. Reed sat and sighed for her old friend full quarter of an hour, before a pale, slim, pretty girl, much dressed, and with carefully crimped locks, came in with, "It's very kind in you to call. Aunt Delia's awfully sorry to keep you waiting, but she'll be down directly." "I am very glad to see you," said Mrs. Reed, looking with some attention at the probable bride-elect. "Aunt Delia was sitting in her dressing-sack. She generally does, day-times. It's so much trouble to dress, she thinks. Now I think it's something to do; there isn't much else, here." "This is a lovely place. I always admire it afresh every time I come here." "It's lonesome; but then, it's pleasant enough for a little while. I never care to stay long in any one place. I've lived in about a hundred since I can recollect; and I wouldn't take a house in any one of 'em for a gift, if I had to live in it." "Perhaps you may feel differently when you have a house of your own." "Well, that's one of the things Mr. MacJacobs and I quarrel about. I want to board, and he wants to take a flat. I tell him I'll do that, if he'll get one where we can dine at the table d'hote. That's about as easy as boarding. As like as not, when we get settled, he'll have to go off somewhere else; but if he is willing to pay for it himself, why, let him! Here's Aunt Delia," she suddenly added, as a fresh rustle announced the entrance of a stout lady, also very handsomely attired, and carrying a large fan, which she waved to and fro, slowly but steadily, gazing silently over it at her visitor, whom Minnie introduced with some explanation, after which she remarked that it was "awfully hot." "It is warm; but I have not found it unpleasant. I really enjoyed my walk here." "Did you walk?" asked her hostess, with more interest. "Oh, yes; it is not more than a mile here from the church; and the parsonage is but a step farther." "A mile!" "I am very glad," said Mrs. Reed, well trained, as became her position, in the art of filling gaps in talk, and striking out on new lines, "to find you at home, and Miss--I beg your pardon, but I have not heard your niece's name. Mr. Reed thought she was your daughter." "Oh, Minnie isn't my niece!" exclaimed the hostess, laughing, as if roused to some sense of amusement, which Minnie shared; "she's an adopted daughter of Mr. Webb's second wife!" "My name's Minnie Webb, though pa never approved of it, and when he married again, we thought it would be easier to say Aunt Delia, to distinguish her from ma, you know." Mrs. Reed paused before these complicated relationships, and skilfully executed another tack; "I hope you find it pleasant here." "It's a pretty place here, but it's awful dull," said Mrs. Pickens, "and it's so much trouble; I never kept house before. I've always boarded, and mostly in hotels." "I am afraid it may seem quiet here to a stranger," said Mrs. Reed, apologetically. "You see when anyone takes a house here for the summer, people are rather slow to call; they suppose that you have your own friends visiting you, and that you don't care to make new acquaintances for so short a time. I am sorry I have not been able to call before. I was not sure that you went to our church." "I don't go much to church; it is so much trouble. But Minnie says yours is the prettiest for a wedding," said Mrs. Pickens, smiling so aimlessly that it was impossible to suppose any rudeness intended. Mrs. Reed could only try to draw out the more responsive Minnie. "Is there anything else that I can do to help you about the wedding?" "Why, yes--only, you've been so kind. I most hate to ask you for anything more." "Don't mention it!" "Well, then, if you could think of any girl that would do for a bridesmaid." "A bridesmaid?" "Oh, yes, there ought to be _one_ bridesmaid; a pretty one I should want, of course, and just about my size. You see, I have her dress all ready, for when I ordered my own gown in Paris, Madame Valerie showed me the proper bridesmaid's gown to go with it, and it looked so nice I told her I would take it. I thought, if the worst came to the worst, I could wear it myself; but it would be a shame not to have it show at the wedding. Of course," said Minnie, impressively, "I mean to _give_ the young lady the dress--for her own, to keep!" Mrs. Reed, at last, was struck fairly speechless, and her resources failed. "Suppose," said the bride, in coaxing tones, "you just step up and look at the gowns; if it would not be too much trouble." The sight of the dresses was a mighty argument. At any rate, people with such garments could be planning no vulgar burglary. It might be a Gunpowder Treason, or an Assassination Plot, and that was romantic and dignified, while at the same time it was a duty to keep it under observation. "I think," said Mrs. Reed, slowly, "I know a girl--a very pretty one--who would just fit this dress." "What's her name?" "Muriel Blake." "Oh, how sweet! I wish it was mine! Who is she?" "She--she teaches school--but they're of very good family. She's very pretty--but they're not at all well off. She's a very sweet girl." Mrs. Reed balanced her phrases carefully, not knowing whether it would be better to present her young friend in the light of a candidate for pity or admiration. But Minnie smiled, and said she had no doubt it would do, and that Mrs. Reed was very good; and even Mrs. Pickens wound herself up to remark that it was very kind in her to take so much trouble. Mrs. Reed hastened home overwhelmed with business. The Crocker boys were easily persuaded to take the parts assigned them, and even her elegant and experienced friend, William Winchester, though he made a favour of his services, gave them at last, "wholly to oblige her." "Any bridesmaids?" asked Reggie Crocker. "She wants me to ask Muriel Blake." "What, the little beauty of a school teacher! Well, there will be sport!" cried his brother, and even William Winchester asked with some interest, if she supposed Miss Blake would consent. "I think so," said Mrs. Reed; but her hopes were faint as she bent her way to the little house where Mrs. Blake, an invalid widow with scarce a penny, scraped out a livelihood by taking the public-school teachers to board, while her Muriel did half the housework, and taught, herself, in a primary school, having neither time nor talents to fit herself for a higher grade. Never was there a girl who better exemplified the old simile of the clinging vine than she; only no support had ever offered itself for her to cling to, and she had none of that instinctive skill which so many creepers show in striking out for, and appropriating, an eligible one. Mrs. Blake, a gentlewoman born and bred, gave at first a most decided refusal to her daughter's appearance in the character proposed. But Mrs. Reed, warming as she met with obstacles, pressed her point hard. She said a great deal more in favour of the respectability of the Pickenses than she could assert from her own knowledge, dwelt with compassion on their loneliness, and touched, though lightly, on the favour to herself; both ladies knowing but too well that the claims to gratitude were past counting. Mrs. Blake faltered, perhaps moved somewhat by a wistful look, which through all doubts and excuses, would rise in her daughter's eyes. As for Muriel's own little childish objections, they were swept away by her patroness like so many cobwebs. There was a gown ready and waiting for her, and Mrs. Reed would arrange about her absence from school. "But, if I am bridesmaid, I ought to make her a present," she said at last, "and I am afraid----" "_That_ need not matter," said her mother, loftily, "I will give her one of my India China plates. That will be present enough for anybody; and I have several left." This, Mrs. Reed correctly augured, was the preface to surrender; and she walked Muriel off to call on Miss Webb, before any more objections should arise. "Well!" cried that young lady at the first sight of her bridesmaid, "Well! I beg your pardon, but you _are_--" and even Mrs. Pickens regarded the young girl with languid admiration. Muriel Blake's golden curls, and azure eyes, and roseate bloom flashed on the eye much as does a cardinal flower in a wayside brook. No one could help noticing her charms; but no one had ever gone farther than to notice them, and they were about as useful in her daily duties as diamonds on the handle of a dustpan. Minnie looked at her rather doubtfully for a moment; but her good humour returned during the pleasing task of arraying the girl in her costume, and she even insisted on Miss Blake's assuming the bridal dress herself. "Well, I'm sure! What a bride you would make! You aren't engaged, are you?" "No." "You ought to travel. You'd be sure to meet someone. Well, we'll take it off. I'm glad I'm going to wear it, and not you. You look quite stunning enough in the other." "It is lovely--too handsome for me." "I had a complete outfit made in Paris this spring, though I wasn't engaged then; but I guessed I should be before the things went out of fashion." "You knew Mr. MacJacobs very well then?" "No--oh, no. I'd never seen him. Ma was anxious I should marry a foreign gentleman." "Does your mother live abroad?" "Yes--that is, she's not my real mother. I never knew who my real father and mother were. Ma wanted to adopt a little girl, and, she took me from the Orphan Asylum at Detroit, because I had such lovely curls. They were as light as yours, then, but they've grown dark, since. Is there anything you put on yours to keep the colour?" "No--nothing." "Well, pa was very angry when he found out what ma had done. He didn't want to adopt a child; but ma said she would, and she could, because she had money of her own. But he was always real kind to me. They were both very nice, only they would quarrel. Well, when I was sixteen, ma said she would take me abroad to finish my education. We'd travelled so much, I never had much chance to go to school. Pa said it was nonsense, but she would go. But I didn't go to school there, either. We went to Germany to look at one we'd heard of, and there a German gentleman, Baron Von Krugenstern, proposed to me. He thought I was going to be awfully rich. But when he found out how things really were, and that ma had the money, he changed about and proposed to her. They are so fond of money, those foreigners, you know!" "Did your father die while you were abroad?" "Oh, dear, no! He wasn't dead! He was over here, all right. But ma got a divorce from him without any trouble. She and I and the Baron came over and went to Dakota, and it was all arranged, and they were married in six weeks. She got it for cruelty. I could testify I'd seen him throw things at her. She used to throw them back again, but no one asked me about that. Well, pa never heard about it till it was all over, and then he was awfully mad; but I guess he didn't mind much, for he soon married Aunt Delia, and they always got along very pleasantly. I made them a visit after they were married, and then I went abroad with ma and the Baron. But pa told me if I wasn't happy there, I could come back any time." "Were you happy there?" "No, I can't say I was. They lived in an awfully skimpy way, in a flat, three flights up, and no elevator. Baron Von Krugenstern didn't like ma's having brought me, till pa died, and that made a change. Pa left half his money to Aunt Delia, and the other half to me. Now, don't you call that noble of him?" Muriel assented. "As soon as they found that out, the whole family were awfully polite to me; they wanted me to marry his younger brother, Baron Stanislaus. But I wrote to Aunt Delia; she'd married Uncle Perley by that time, and come to Europe for a wedding tour. They were in Paris; and Uncle Perley was very kind, and sent back word for me to come to them, and I set off all alone; all the Von Krugensterns thought it was perfectly dreadful. I bought my trousseau in Paris, for I hadn't quite decided I wouldn't have Baron Stanislaus, after all. But Uncle Perley advised me strongly against it; he said American husbands were a great deal the best, and I conclude he was right. And then, on the voyage home, we met Mr. MacJacobs." "I suppose you are very glad you came away?" "Oh, yes, I am quite satisfied--quite. Baron Stanislaus was six feet three and a half inches high; but I don't think height goes for so much in a man; do you?" Muriel looked at the little nomad with some wonder, but without the reprobation which might have been expected from a young person carefully brought up under the teachings of the Reverend Richard Reed. She rather regarded Minnie in the aspect of--to quote the hymn familiar to her childhood--"a gypsy baby, taught to roam, and steal her daily bread;" and no matter how carefully guarded the infant mind, the experiences of the gypsy will kindle a flame of interest. She, too, like Mrs. Reed, felt eager to see the end of the story. The wedding preparations went on apace. The tradesmen worked briskly, for they had received information, on the application of some of the doubting among them to Messrs. May & Maxwell, that Mr. Pickens's credit was good for a million at least, not counting the very handsome banking accounts of his two ladies. Miss Webb made all the arrangements for her bridal, as Mr. MacJacobs could not come till the evening before. "I only hope he'll come at all," carelessly suggested William Winchester, one evening at the Parsonage. "Why! do you think there is any danger of his giving it up?" cried Mrs. Reed, in consternation. "I rather begin to think that there is no such person. MacJacobs! What a name! Can it possibly be real?" "The name has a goodly ring of wealth about it," said the parson. "Scotch and Hebrew! 'tis a rich combination, indeed! Still, if it were as you suggest, it is a comfort to know that the remedy is at hand. You have done so much for them, Emma, my dear, that you cannot fail them now. They will ask you to find some nice young man for a bridegroom, rather than have the whole thing fall through, and I hope William is prepared to see it in the proper light, and offer his services 'purely to oblige you.'" "I shall have an answer ready," said William, coolly, "I shall say that I am already bespoken." "And can you produce the proof? It will have to be a pretty convincing one." "Perhaps in such an emergency I might find a _very_ convincing one," said William, with a glance at Muriel, who had been looking confused, and who now coloured deeply. It was more with displeasure than distress; but then it was, for the first time, that she struck him as being something more than a merely pretty girl. MacJacobs, came, punctual to his time, a small but sprightly individual, with plenty to say as a proof of his existence. He brought neat, if not over-expensive, scarf-pins for his gentlemen attendants, and a bracelet in corresponding style for Miss Blake. The wedding went off to general admiration. The church was full, and if the company at the house was scanty, there was no scarcity in the banquet. And when the feast was over, and Mrs. MacJacobs, on the carriage-step, turned to take her last farewell; while Muriel's handkerchief was ready in her hand, and the Crocker boys were fumbling among the rice in their pockets, and William Winchester himself was feeling in his for the old shoe--"I am sure," she said, "it has gone off beautifully, and I shall never, never forget your kindness, as long as I live! I _did_ so want to have a pretty wedding--such as I've read about!" If these last words roused dismal forebodings in the minds of the bridal train, to be verified by a perusal of the next day's Boston papers, they were forgiven as soon as they were uttered; for the light patter of Minnie's voice died away in a quaver of genuine feeling; and a shower of real tears threw for once a veil of sweetness over her little inexpressive face. THE END. [Illustration] BY ANNA FULLER. A LITERARY COURTSHIP. =Under the auspices of Pike's Peak.= Printed on deckel edged paper, with illustrations. 22nd edition. 12°, gilt top $1.25 "A delightful little love story. Like her other book it is bright and breezy; its humor is crisp and the general idea decidedly original. It is just the book to slip into the pocket for a journey, when one does not care for a novel or serious reading."--_Boston Times._ A VENETIAN JUNE. Illustrated by George Sloane. Printed on deckel edged paper. 7th edition. 12°, gilt top $1.25 "_A Venetian June_ bespeaks its materials by its title, and very full the little story is of the picturesqueness, the novelty, the beauty, of life in the city of gondolas and gondoliers--a strong and able work, showing seriousness of motive and strength of touch."--_Literary World._ A _Venetian June_ and _A Literary Courtship_ are also put up as a set in a box. 2 vols $2.50 PRATT PORTRAITS. =Sketched in a New England Suburb.= 10th edition. 16°, paper, 50 cts.; cloth $1.00 New edition, illustrated by George Sloane. 8° $2.00 "The lines the author cuts in her vignette are sharp and clear, but she has, too, not alone the knack of color, but, what is rarer, the gift of humor."--_New York Times._ PEAK AND PRAIRIE. =From a Colorado Sketch-book.= 3rd edition. 16°. With a frontispiece by Louis Loeb $1.00 "We may say that the jaded reader fagged with the strenuous art of the passing hour, who chances to select this volume to cheer the hours, will throw up his hat for sheer joy at having hit upon a book in which morbidness and self-consciousness are conspicuous, by their absence."--_New York Times._ THE HUDSON LIBRARY _Registered as Second-Class Matter._ 16°, paper, 50 cts.; 12°, cloth, $1.00 and $1.25. I. =Love and Shawl-Straps.= By ANNETTE LUCILE NOBLE. "Decidedly a success."--_Boston Herald._ II. =Miss Hurd: An Enigma.= By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. "Miss Hurd fulfils one's anticipations from start to finish. She keeps you in a state of suspense which is positively fascinating."--_Kansas Times._ III. =How Thankful was Bewitched.= By J. K. HOSMER. "A picturesque romance charmingly told. The interest is both historical and poetic."--_Independent._ IV. =A Woman of Impulse.= By JUSTIN HUNTLEY MCCARTHY. "It is a book well worth reading, charmingly written, and containing a most interesting collection of characters that are just like life...."--_Chicago Journal._ V. =Countess Bettina.= By CLINTON ROSS. "There is a charm in stories of this kind, free from sentimentality, and written only to entertain."--_Boston Times._ VI. =Her Majesty.= By ELIZABETH K. TOMPKINS. "It is written with a charming style, with grace and ease, and very pretty unexpected turns of expression."--DROCH, in _N. Y. Life_. VII. =God Forsaken.= By FREDERIC BRETON. "A very clever book.... The characters are well and firmly drawn."--_Liverpool Mercury._ VIII. =An Island Princess.= By THEODORE GIFT. "A charming and often brilliant tale."--_Literary World._ IX. =Elizabeth's Pretenders.= By HAMILTON AÏDÉ. "It is a novel of character, of uncommon power and interest, wholesome, humorous, and sensible in every chapter."--_Bookman._ X. =At Tuxter's.= By G. B. BURGIN. "A very interesting story. The characters are particularly well drawn."--_Boston Times._ XI. =At Cherryfield Hall.= By FREDERIC H. BALFOUR (Ross George Deering). "This is a brilliantly-told tale, the constructive ingenuity and literary excellence of which entitle the author to a place of honor in the foremost rank of contemporary English romancists."--_London Telegraph._ XII. =The Crime of the Century.= By R. OTTOLENGUI. "It is one of the best-told stories of its kind we have read, and the reader will not be able to guess its ending easily."--_Boston Times._ XIII. =The Things that Matter.= By FRANCIS GRIBBLE. "A very amusing novel, full of bright satire directed against the New Woman and similar objects."--_London Speaker._ XIV. =The Heart of Life.= By W. H. MALLOCK. "Interesting, sometimes tender, and uniformly brilliant.... People will read Mr. Mallock's 'Heart of Life,' for the extraordinary brilliance with which he tells his story."--_Daily Telegraph._ XV. =The Broken Ring.= By ELIZABETH K. TOMPKINS. 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"Original and uncommonly interesting."--_Scotsman._ XXI. =The Professor's Dilemma.= By A. L. NOBLE. "A bright, entertaining novel ... fresh, piquant, and well told."--_Boston Transcript._ XXII. =The Ways of Life.= Two Stories. By MRS. OLIPHANT. "As a work of art we can praise the story without reserve."--_London Spectator._ XXIII. =The Man of the Family.= By CHRISTIAN REID. "A Southern story of romantic and thrilling interest."--_Boston Times._ XXIV. =Margot.= By SIDNEY PICKERING. "We have nothing but praise for this excellently written novel."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ XXV. =The Fall of the Sparrow.= By M. C. BALFOUR. "A book to be enjoyed ... of unlagging interest and original in conception."--_Boston Times._ XXVI. =Elementary Jane.= By RICHARD PRYCE. "A heartfelt, sincere, beautiful love story, told with infinite humor."--_Chicago Times-Herald._ XXVII. =The Man of Last Resort.= By MELVILLE D. POST. "The author makes a strong plea for moral responsibility in his work, and his vivid style and undeniable earnestness must carry great weight with all thinking readers. It is a notable book."--_Boston Times._ XXVIII. =The Confession of Stephen Whapshare.= By EMMA BROOKE. _In preparation:_ XXIX. =The Chase of an Heiress.= By CHRISTIAN REID. XXX. =Lost Man's Lane.= By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. THE UNIVERSITY SERIES I. =Harvard Stories.= Sketches of the Undergraduate. By W. K. POST. Fifteenth edition. 12°, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. "Not since the days of _Hammersmith_ have we had such a vivid picture of college life as Mr. W. K. Post has given us in this book. Unpretentious, in their style, the stories are mere sketches, yet withal the tone is so genuine, the local color so truly 'crimson,' as to make the book one of unfailing interest."--_Literary World._ II. =Pale Yarns.= By J. S. WOOD. Fifth edition. Illustrated, 12°, $1.00. "A bright, realistic picture of college life, told in an easy conversational, or descriptive style, and cannot fail to genuinely interest the reader who has the slightest appreciation of humor. The volume is illustrated and is just the book for an idle or a lonely hour."--_Los Angeles Times._ III. =The Babe, B.A.= Stories of Life at Cambridge University. By EDW F. BENSON. Illustrated, 12°, $1.00. "The story tells of the every-day life of a young man called the Babe.... Cleverly written and one of the best this author has written."--_Leader_, New Haven. IV. =A Princetonian.= A Story of Undergraduate Life at the College of New Jersey. By JAMES BARNES. Illustrated, 12°, $1.25. "It is fresh, hearty, sensible, and readable, leaving a good impression of college life upon the mind."--_Baltimore Sun._ BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN =The Leavenworth Case.= A Lawyer's Story. 4°, paper, 20 cts.; 16°, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. "She has worked up a _cause celèbre_ with a fertility of device and ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar Allan Poe."--_Christian Union._ ".... Told with a force and power that indicate great dramatic talent in the writer."--_St. Louis Post._ =Hand and Ring.= Popular edition. 4°, paper, 20 cts.; 16°, paper, illustrated, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. "The best, most intricate, most perfectly constructed, and most fascinating detective story ever written."--_Utica Herald._ =Marked "Personal."= 16°, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. "It is a tribute to the author's genius that she never tires and never loses her readers. It moves on, clean and healthy, and ends without raising images or making impressions which have to be forgotten."--_Boston Journal._ =That Affair Next Door.= Hudson Library, No. 17. Seventh edition. 12°, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. Other works by Anna Katharine Green are as follows: "A Strange Disappearance," "The Sword of Damocles," "The Mill Mystery," "Behind Closed Doors," "X. Y. Z.," "7 to 12," "The Old Stone House," "Cynthia Wakeham's Money," "The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock," "Dr. Izard." * * * * * G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON. 
36133	----	Brenda's Ward _A Sequel to "Amy in Acadia"_ By Helen Leah Reed Author of "The Brenda Books," "Irma and Nap," "Amy in Acadia," etc. Illustrated from Drawings by Frank T. Merrill Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1906 _Copyright, 1906_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. _All rights reserved_ Published October, 1906 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. [Illustration: "As Martine courtesied her thanks for this compliment, she backed gracefully."] CONTENTS I. A NEW HOME II. A STRANGE MEETING III. PRISCILLA'S PRIDE IV. CHANGES V. ANOTHER PARTING VI. ANGELINA'S COUP VII. A DROP OF INK VIII. A PRIZE WINNER IX. WORD FROM BRENDA X. THE RECITAL XI. MARTINE'S ALTRUISM XII. PUZZLES XIII. AT PLYMOUTH XIV. TALES AND RELICS XV. TROUBLES XVI. THE MISSING TRUNK XVII. CLASS DAY XVIII. AT YORK XIX. SIGHT-SEEING XX. THE ISLES OF SHOALS XXI. VARIETY XXII. EXCITEMENT XXIII. QUIET LIFE XXIV. PORTSMOUTH AND AFTERWARD XXV. THE SUMMER'S END LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "As Martine courtesied her thanks for this compliment, she backed gracefully" "'The real Memorial is here,' said Elinor, reverently, passing from one tablet to another" "'This little scarf--it is Roman, too,--is just the thing for Julius Cæsar'" "Aunt Nabby seemed to be making little dolls of clay" "The old captain proved very talkative" "While Martine was sketching, Clare fluttered about" Brenda's Ward CHAPTER I A NEW HOME "It's simply perfect." "I thought you would like it, Martine." "Like it! I should say so, but it isn't 'it,' it's everything,--the room, the house, you, Boston. Really, you don't know how glad I am to be here, Brenda--I mean Mrs. Weston." "What nonsense!" "That I should like things?" "No, that you should call me 'Mrs. Weston.' It's bad enough to be growing old, so don't try to make me feel like a grandmother. Truly, I can't believe that I am a day older than when I was sixteen, and yet when I _was_ sixteen, eighteen seemed the end of everything worth while. I could not imagine myself old, and serious, and--twenty." Martine smiled at Brenda's emphasis of the last word, and as she smiled she laid her hand on her friend's arm. "Come," she said, "just look in this mirror. A person who did not know could not tell which is the older, you or I." "Again, nonsense!" Yet even as she spoke Brenda could but admit to herself that Martine had an air of dignity suited to one much older than a girl of seventeen. But if she had thought Martine altogether grown up, she quickly changed her opinion, for at this very moment Martine sank on the floor beside her, and as her laughter re-echoed through the rooms Brenda was driven to say: "My dear, don't talk to me about being grown up. You act precisely like a child of ten. What in the world is the matter?" "Nothing, oh nothing; that is, almost nothing. Only look and you will laugh too." Glancing where Martine pointed, Brenda saw something really amusing. Before a pier-glass in the hall a sallow girl with glossy black hair piled high on her head was standing. She wore a pink satin gown that heightened her sallowness. It was cut square in the neck, and her elbow sleeves displayed a pair of skinny arms. "Who is she?" whispered Martine, recovering her breath. "Why, that, oh that is Angelina." Martine, fascinated by the vision in the glass, continued to watch the strange little figure, bowing, gesticulating, turning now to this side now to that, while her lips moved as if she were talking to herself. "Who is Angelina?" asked Martine. "Oh, Angelina, don't you know her? She is to help me for a week while Maggie is away taking care of her sick aunt." "Do you call that 'helping'?" and again Martine pointed toward the pier-glass. "She did not hear me come in; she thought I would ring," replied Brenda. "She thinks I am still downtown. She was to go to the door and has been waiting to hear me ring." "Would she go to the door looking like that?" "Oh, I hope not. She'd probably call through the tube and hurry on a coat, or do something of that kind. Yet no one is ever surprised at Angelina's doings. Let me tell you about her. Years ago Nora and some of the rest of us pulled her little brother Manuel from under the feet of a horse, and in a few days we went to visit the family at the North End. You can't imagine how poor they were. Then we had a club and worked for a bazaar to raise money to get them out into the country." "Oh, yes, Amy told me something about that, though it all happened before she knew you, I think she said." "Well, in the end Angelina became my cousin Julia's protégée. She has learned a great deal about housework at the Mansion School, but she is always yearning for something beyond. Lately she has been taking lessons in elocution." "That's it, then, she's rehearsing now," cried Martine. "Oh, I hope Maggie will stay away longer than you expect. I think we might have great sport with Angelina." "My dear," remonstrated Brenda, "remember that for the present you are my ward. I can't have you trifling with Angelina, although she can be very funny." The sound of voices had at last penetrated Angelina's ears, and she fled to her room. "Oh, my," she thought, "I wonder if Mrs. Weston saw me?" In her secret heart Angelina hoped that she had been observed. "And Miss Martine, she's almost as stylish as Mrs. Weston. I wonder what she thought of this dress--gown," she added, correcting herself. "I almost wish I'd been saying that soliloquy out loud. Then I could have asked them if they thought I used just the right inflections and gestures. Perhaps Miss Brenda would let me recite it all to her some time. She's more sympathetic than Miss Julia was. Now I know if I should ask Miss Julia she'd say I mustn't give that recital, and I'm sure she wouldn't approve of this gown. But Miss Brenda, why I shouldn't wonder if she'd go to it herself, and Miss Martine, I've heard how she spends money like water, and she'll probably buy a lot of tickets." As Angelina fled to her room Martine, rising from the floor, sat down on a divan beside Brenda. "If you wish to please me, do find another place for Maggie and keep Angelina. She'll be so entertaining, and poor Maggie always looks half ready to cry." "Oh, I couldn't part with Maggie, and more than a week of Angelina would be too much even for you." "Well, I will tell you at the end of this week. I am going to work so hard at school that I ought to have as much amusement as possible at home. Still I know I am going to be perfectly happy with you this winter, although I can remember the time when I should just have hated to spend a winter in Boston. Even now if it wasn't for you--" "But you had decided to spend the winter here before you ran across me." "No, my dear Mrs. Weston, my parents had decided that a year or two of Boston school would be the making of me. They had heard, as you know, of a dragon who had a boarding-house on the hill, who would look after me within an inch of my life. Wasn't it strange, though, that she should have been taken ill this autumn? I suppose you wouldn't let me say 'providential.'" "Certainly not! She was so ill that she had to go South for the winter." "Then that is providential for her. How much better the South must be for her than this bleak Boston. Besides, if she had been able to continue her home for helpless Western schoolgirls, I should not have had the delight of sharing your charming apartment." "Nor should I have had the pleasure of the company of a charming ward." As Martine courtesied her thanks for this compliment, she backed gracefully, and neither she nor Brenda realized that she was approaching too near a table of bric-à-brac, until it toppled over with a crash. "Oh what have I done! No wedding presents smashed, I hope." There was a touch of dismay in Martine's voice. "Not a thing that could break." Brenda's smile was reassuring. "Silver or brass, everyone of them. That's one thing I have already learned, not to have breakable things, if one values them, within anyone's reach. It's awfully disagreeable to have to blame anyone for what you could have prevented by a little care, and I never can let anybody replace what she has broken. Maggie is rather a breaker, and so my china and glass ornaments I set on high shelves." The noise of the falling table brought Angelina upon the scene. She had made what Martine called a "lightning change," and appeared in a dark gown and spotless collar and cuffs. "Why, are you in?" she said innocently, as she entered the room. "I didn't know but what it might be a burglar or something--" She looked from one to the other anxiously, and then catching sight of the overturned table, began to busy herself picking up the scattered ornaments. "Oh, dear," sighed Brenda, "will Angelina ever learn to be perfectly honest?" But her only words alone were. "Yes, we have been in some time; I thought you might have heard us." The implied reproof silenced Angelina, and soon the three separated without a word having been said about the private rehearsal. That the volatile Brenda Weston should undertake the charge of Martine Stratford for the winter at first surprised many of their friends, and yet this had come about in a perfectly natural way. When Martine returned from her summer with Amy in Acadia, her mother, who met her in Boston, was so much better that it seemed almost possible for her to spend the winter at home. But at last her physician prescribed a few months of travel, and as Martina's school work had already been unduly interrupted, it was thought wiser for her to carry out the plans already more than half formed that she should stay in Boston to attend Miss Crawdon's school. It was therefore a disappointment to Mrs. Stratford just before school opened to hear that Mrs. Montgomery, Martine's so-called "dragon," was ill. For several years the latter had been in the habit of having a few girls from a distance board with her while they attended school in Boston. When Mrs. Montgomery could not take her, Martine's parents thought that they must altogether give up the Boston plan. Mrs. Blair, a cousin of Martine's mother, with whom she had stayed in the spring, was now in Europe. Mrs. Redmond, in whose charge they would have liked to put Martine, had engaged a boarding-place in Wellesley, to be near her daughter in college; and had there been no other reason against Martine's living in Wellesley also, her parents objected to her going back and forth daily on the trains. The case seemed hopeless for Martine's staying in Boston until Brenda Weston came to the rescue. Brenda was for a few days at the large hotel overlooking the park, where also Mr. and Mrs. Stratford and Martine were staying. Martine had heard much of Brenda, though she had never met her until one afternoon when Amy came to call. Delighted to have the opportunity, she immediately introduced Brenda to her Chicago friends. This happened to be the very day when Martine was feeling most discouraged regarding her school plans. For although the young girl sometimes scoffed at Boston, she really wished to spend the winter there. Her summer's companionship with Amy and Priscilla had increased her ambition, and she was anxious to study at Miss Crawdon's. Very naturally, then, she confided her troubles to Brenda. Brenda sympathized with her, but made no suggestion until she had talked the matter over with her own family and with Martine's mother. When Mrs. Stratford told Martine that Brenda had offered to take her under her wing for the winter, Martine, overjoyed, rushed to Brenda's room to express her thanks. "I can't tell you how delighted I am at the thought of living with you in that dear little flat. It will be much more fun than anything else I could possibly do." Brenda looked at her keenly, shaking her head in mock reproof. "You are not coming to me just for fun. Your mother says that this must be a very serious year for you, that you did not do so very well in school last year, and that--" "There, there, Brenda,--I mean Mrs. Weston, dear,--I can be terribly serious. You will see for yourself. But still you want me to have a _little_ fun, just a little--" "Oh, yes; I am not a regular dragon, but I understand the importance of work." With a sudden movement Martine, who had been standing behind Brenda, threw her arms over Brenda's head, placed her hands over Brenda's mouth, thus silencing her for the moment. "Now listen, listen," she cried; "listen, please! Of course I am only too glad to be your ward, and I will be as good as good can be. I would promise anything rather than go to boarding-school, or live with Mrs. Blair, or board in a house full of girls. Lucian hopes I'll stay in Boston because he is a little lonely sometimes at college, and I wish to stay with you, and you are so sweet to give me the chance that I really won't make any trouble for you." So it was settled, and Mr. and Mrs. Stratford went home, quite satisfied to leave Martine in Brenda's care. They would have been better pleased had Mrs. Redmond been able to take complete charge of their daughter; but as it was, Mrs. Redmond promised to have Martine constantly in mind and to help her when any emergency arose. It was Martine's one regret, when she took up her abode with Brenda, that she had not become Brenda's ward early enough in the season to help her furnish. "It must have been such fun," she said one day soon after her arrival, "to shop for all these pretty things, and decide on wallpapers and rugs, and fit them into their little corners and nooks." "You know I didn't have to go shopping for all my belongings; you have no idea what quantities of things were given me." "Oh, I can imagine, just by looking around. Wedding presents are so fascinating." "But still," continued Brenda, "there were certain things I had to buy, chairs and tables, for example, and it was hard sometimes to decide between Mission styles and mahogany, and whether the bedstead should be brass or painted iron for the smaller rooms; and then the kitchen furnishings were puzzling. Of course I'm not perfectly satisfied with everything, but, on the whole, we must be contented until we have a house." "Oh, how can you speak of a house! This is ever so much better. It's the prettiest flat I ever saw; don't you just love to be up here in the top? You can see over everything, even to the river, and down the avenue and up the avenue; it's more like Paris than anything I've seen since I was in Europe." "I do enjoy the view," replied Brenda. "I should hate to be shut in in a narrow street. I don't like it here quite as well as in our old house on the water side of Beacon street, where my room had such a broad outlook." "You must have hated to leave home." "In a way I did, but though mamma tried to persuade me to stay with her this winter, I felt that I just must begin to keep house myself." "You ought to be very happy that you are so near your mother." Martine spoke wistfully; although she wouldn't have admitted it for the world, she was beginning to be homesick. Chicago seemed altogether too far away. "It is pleasant," replied Brenda, "to be able to run in and out there when I please. Besides, my sister and her children are there, and I am awfully fond of the little girls." "Naturally. But that reminds me, though there isn't any real connection with what we've been talking about, you haven't shown me your kitchen. Can't we go out there now?" "Why, yes,"--then Brenda's face clouded,--"if the cook--" "Oh, Brenda Weston! You are afraid of the cook." Brenda colored. "Not afraid; only you know cooks are so queer, and of course dinners have to be just so, and she's apt to spoil things if anything annoys her. But this is her afternoon out." "Then we can go and look through everything," and Martine thereupon followed Brenda through the long narrow hall to the little kitchen at the very end of the suite. "You see," explained Brenda, as they entered the cook's domain, "though this is not an old house, the kitchen needed some improvements that I learned are necessary when I lived at the Mansion. It's astonishing how many things men forget when they build houses. Now, out here, there was an old-fashioned closed-in wooden sink, but I had it replaced with this open one at our expense, and this tiling put all around the walls, and here, this was my idea and this," and one by one she pointed out many little things that might have escaped Martine's notice. "I learned so much," continued Brenda, "that year at the Mansion School. You see a year ago last spring I was very low-spirited. Everything seemed so gloomy after the war began, so I went for a while to help Julia with her girls; and hardly anyone, hardly Julia herself, realized that I was learning. But I was, and somehow things that I didn't know I had noticed sank into my mind, and when we began to get this apartment ready, I was really practical; even my mother said so. Arthur was pleased, and my sister Anna was perfectly astonished. You know she has lived mostly in studios, or in houses where someone else did the planning, and this year at home with mother she has no responsibility, so she can't understand how I know so much about housekeeping." "It _is_ strange, it seems strange to me," responded Martine. "No one would ever expect you to know a thing." "Why not? Do I appear a perfect ignoramus?" There was indignation in Brenda's tone. "Oh, no, of course not; only kitchens are so different, so--well, I shouldn't expect you to know about kitchen work." "Then, I confess, there's one thing I don't understand very well. I really cannot cook. Sometimes I think it's on account of the cooking class we used to have; it was too much like work, and so I didn't try to remember what I was taught. That's why I'm afraid of the cook, for if she should leave suddenly, I don't know what I should do." "I know what _I'd_ do," responded Martine, quickly. "I'd go to a restaurant; it's ever so much more fun than dining at home. Why, when I was visiting my cousin in New York, we went somewhere nearly every evening. Of course there isn't a Sherry's or a Waldorf-Astoria here--" "Oh, I don't want to dine at restaurants when I've a house of my own. Besides, I'm going to learn--look!" and Brenda opened the door of a small closet. "These are all electric things," and she pointed to a row of silver kettles and chafing-dishes. "We have two plugs in the dining-room wall and can cook almost anything without going into the kitchen. But come, I've something to show you in my own room now." As they turned away Martine exclaimed, "If you have a good receipe book, with all those shiny saucepans, I'm sure you needn't care whether you have a cook or not." "I'm not so sure," responded Brenda, "and I can't help being just a little afraid." "Pshaw! How absurd!--as if you could really be afraid of anything," retorted Martine with a smile. Now, interesting though Martine found her life under Brenda's roof, she soon realized that her winter was not to be one wholly of pleasure. Her studies had been carried on so irregularly for a year or two that she now perceived that she must settle down to regular work. School had been in session a week or two before she returned to Miss Crawdon's; this fact was not altogether in her favor, and she found herself a little behind the girls in her class. But Martine was resolute, and when she once set herself at a task in genuine earnest, she was likely to go ahead with a will. So, for the first month she studied diligently; it was to her advantage that she had not many Boston acquaintances. Brenda, in her new position of guide and philosopher as well as friend, gave Martine much good advice. One day in a serious mood she expressed the hope that Martine would not think of ending her studies at Miss Crawdon's school. "It's astonishing," she said, "how many girls are beginning to fit for college, though when I was in school many of us thought my cousin Julia queer because she studied Greek and wished to go to Radcliffe; yet really she wasn't queer at all, only rather more interesting than most people." "I should like so much to see her, everyone seems so fond of her," responded Martine. "When will she come back from Europe?" "Not before summer, I think. She worked so hard at the Mansion School last year that we all hope she'll get all she can out of this journey. She's studying, of course, for she never can be perfectly idle; but I am glad to say that she has gone back to her music, for that is the thing she has the most talent for." "Oh, dear," sighed Martine, "how delightful it must be to know that you have a talent for anything. It seems to me sometimes that I haven't a particle of talent. I can do several things passably well, but no one thing better than another. Mother thinks that the Boston air is going to develop some special talent of mine, but which or what, nobody knows. For my own part, as I said before, I am sure that I have no talent." "Don't be so severe toward yourself," expostulated Brenda. "I am sure of one thing--you have a talent for being pleasant and amusing." "I'm not quite sure that that is exactly a compliment." "But, really, I mean it to be one." CHAPTER II A STRANGE MEETING One Saturday morning after a rainy Friday, Martine looked out the window. "How refreshing to have a fine day again. Really, when it poured yesterday I thought it would rain forever, and I had such a funny adventure, Brenda Weston, that if you hadn't been out when I came home I should have told you on the spot. Adventures are like buckwheat cakes, so much better when they are fresh from the griddle, and this was a kind of frying-pan affair." "I am afraid I don't understand. What was it?" "Something that happened after the Rehearsal. I slipped away from Priscilla and her aunt and there was a great crowd going down the steps yesterday, so that of course I got separated from Priscilla and her aunt." "It seems to me that's a way you have," Brenda tried to speak severely. "Oh, yes," sighed Martine, "Mrs. Tilworth is quite resigned now. Generally I separate myself from her only about every other week, but yesterday I wanted some soda water, and I knew she would never condescend to go into a drug shop or let Priscilla go with me. However, when I was once in the street the rain was falling in such torrents that I made a beeline for a Crosstown car that I saw coming. I had had some trouble in getting away from Mrs. Tilworth, for she kept not only her eagle eye, but her arm on me as long as she could; she meant to bring me home in a cab, but after all I managed to wriggle away. I don't know why I thought I ought to run for my car, but I did, and so did another girl, only the trouble was, that she was coming from the opposite direction. Of course you can see what happened. I didn't mean to knock her down, for she was shorter than I and we were both furious." "Because she was shorter than you?" "Oh, I don't see now why we were both so mad, only she knocked my hat off, that one with the light blue feathers, and it went sailing down the asphalt, and my umbrella jabbed into her face. 'You're terribly clumsy; I should think you might see what you're doing. You might have put my eye out,' I heard her say in the savagest kind of a tone. Just then I caught sight of my hat, and all I could do was to laugh and laugh, and she thought I was laughing at her, and turned her back on me in a regular frigid Boston way, holding her handkerchief to her eye." "How could so much happen while two people were getting on a car?" "Getting on a car! Naturally we missed the car. It didn't wait for us to settle matters. I suppose that was partly what made her so cross. But I wish you could have seen my hat when finally I picked it up." "I'm glad I didn't, if it was ruined. I have some responsibility for your clothes. No wonder Mrs. Tilworth tries to keep her eye on you!" "She has to try pretty hard, I can assure you," retorted Martine. "You should take things more seriously," rejoined Brenda. "In future please come home at least as far as Copley Square with her and Priscilla, but now--yes, now let us go in and look at the table." And with her hand in Brenda's arm, Martine led the way to the dining-room. The sight that met her eye there was indeed well worth seeing. The polished surface of the round mahogany table shone like a mirror. Covers were laid for nine and the centrepiece and doilies were embroidered in yellow. In a tall green glass in the middle were some large yellow chrysanthemums. The bonbons were in little gilded baskets and the china had yellow blossoms on a white ground. With housewifely pride Brenda adjusted the blinds. "Yes," she said, "I think that everything will go just as it should. Elinor Naylor, you see, is a sister of one of Arthur's best college friends. I should like to have asked her to dine, but the cousin she is staying with has an engagement for her this evening, and as Arthur will be away next week, a luncheon was the best thing I could manage." "Oh, it's just the thing," cried Martine; "dinners are so stiff. With the boys coming in to take us out to Cambridge, a luncheon will be far jollier than any dinner." "I hope so," replied Brenda, "and I wonder what this Elinor Naylor is like. She was out when I called, but she writes a beautiful note, and from what I have heard, I imagine that she is rather stately and elegant. But dear me, it's nearly twelve, and with luncheon at one we shall really have to hurry." So with a few last touches to the table Brenda and Martine went to their rooms, and long before one, Brenda, with some trepidation, was waiting in the library for the arrival of her special guest. The Harvard boys, however, were the first to arrive--Fritz Tomkins, and Martine's brother Lucian, and Robert Pringle, Lucian's classmate. Next came Priscilla and Amy, the former somewhat abashed at hearing the laughter from the little library, and wondering if she could be late, until Amy reassured her. Priscilla bore some good-natured chaffing from her host, who seeing her glance at her watch, could not forbear teasing her. "Yes," he said, "I can read the workings of a guilty conscience. Here we've been waiting for you this long time. The goose is burning up in the oven--" "There isn't any goose in the house, Arthur, except you," protested Brenda. "I am so sorry," began Priscilla, apologetically. "It was because Amy--" "Don't throw the blame on another," protested Mr. Weston, solemnly. "I don't mean to blame her. We both thought it was earlier, and besides," fortified by a glance at her watch, Priscilla spoke with more decision, "my watch says 'a quarter before one.'" "That's what our clock says too," interposed Brenda, kindly. "Arthur was only teasing. Our guest, evidently, does not mean to be too early." "If she's like her brother, she's a punctilious person and will arrive promptly at five minutes before one." Strange to say, the longer hand had just marked five minutes of one when Angelina announced "Miss Elinor Naylor." A minute or two later the young lady entered the room, and after the other introductions had been made, Martine's turn came last. As she greeted all the others, Miss Elinor Naylor had extended her hand very cordially, but when Brenda led Martine to her, her arm fell automatically to her side. Martine at the same time reddened deeply, and it was not often that Martine was so perceptibly embarrassed. Each girl, however, said a polite word or two, and in a few moments all went out to the little dining-room. After they were seated, the conversation at first was not general, and I am afraid that anyone who had overheard the words exchanged between any two speakers might have called what was said rather commonplace. In a short time, however, some question arose regarding a recent Yale victory, and at once Arthur and Fritz plunged into an ardent discussion in which, soon, all took part. "Oh, of course," said Arthur; "it's more than six to one. I know you are all against me. I can't even depend on Brenda, and so, Miss Naylor, I must turn to you as my one supporter in this controversy." "You can depend on me," replied the guest; "whatever a Yale man says is bound to be true." "The real Yale spirit," commented Martine. "I didn't know that girls had it as well as their brothers." There was an unamiable tinge in Martine's tone that Brenda, too much occupied with things more important, did not notice. The more observant Arthur, however, had seen that Martine and Elinor had had little to say to each other, although they had been placed at table where they could easily have said more. "You two young things," he said at last, "by which I mean our visitors from Chicago and Philadelphia, look at each other as if you had met before and were afraid to speak until you had found the clew to the previous meeting. Is that the case?" Elinor was silent, but after a second Martine replied, "No, not exactly; that is--" Then Martine came to a pause suddenly and answered some question that Robert Pringle, on her right hand, had asked her. Any embarrassment that she or Elinor might have felt was speedily ended by something with which they personally had nothing to do. Now it happened that although Maggie had returned to her post of duty in Brenda's household, the latter had decided that things would move more smoothly with two waitresses, and so Angelina had been called in to assist at the little luncheon. All would have gone on well had not a spirit of emulation taken possession of the two helpers, so that each seemed anxious to reach Elinor first. Twice, as they entered through the swing door, one almost abreast of the other, although Brenda had previously given them their directions, they both started to serve the special guest with her oysters, and only Brenda's warning glance prevented Maggie's plate from being placed on top of the one that Angelina had already set before Elinor. This incident ruffled the spirits of the two waitresses, and when they entered with their cups of bouillon, each was determined to reach Elinor before the other. The result of their exertions might have been more disastrous. As it was, Elinor did not suffer, though Martine, looking up suddenly, expected to see Maggie's cup splash over Elinor's light gown. Luckily--for Elinor--Maggie lost her nerve soon enough to drop her bouillon cup to the floor, and though the crash of china and the splash of liquid on the polished floor startled all at the table, Elinor escaped a drenching. Although everyone knew that there had been an accident, everyone tried to look unconcerned. Maggie, crestfallen, gathered up the pieces; Angelina, with her head high, as if such a catastrophe could never occur to her, went back to the kitchen for other cups--and only Martine giggled. "Your best Dresden," murmured Amy to Brenda. The latter shook her head. Arthur glanced at her approvingly. "And mistress of herself, though china fall," and at the hackneyed quotation, all smiled. Then the luncheon went on for two courses with only one waitress, for Maggie had betaken herself to her sure refuge, a flood of tears, and she returned only with the salad. "Now," said Mr. Weston, "since the ice is broken--I mean, the china--you can see how much livelier we are. During the oysters you were altogether too quiet for young people, and I wondered if this was wholly because your host is a Yale man. It's painful to me sometimes to find myself in the midst of a Harvard crowd." "Oh, we are magnanimous, and since you've become a Bostonian, we can forgive you Yale's recent football victory," replied Fritz. "Then I can confess that my cheering played a large part in gaining the victory. I try to be as modest as I can about it," responded Arthur Weston. "Wait till the baseball season comes," interposed Robert Pringle, "and then you'll see another side of Yale." "I wish we girls could have seen the game," cried Martine. "I can't see why they played it at New Haven; it was the one Saturday of the whole autumn when I had to stay in Boston." "Why, it was New Haven's turn to have the game; you know Harvard and Yale have them on their own fields every other year," said Elinor, as if explaining something that Martine did not understand. "Oh, indeed," began Martine, sarcastically; then, remembering that she was to a degree Elinor's hostess, she murmured in an aside to Robert, "As if I did not know that better than she." "It's strange," continued Elinor, in a placid tone, "that I know so little of Harvard; we generally rush through Boston on our way to Bar Harbor. Once we drove round, one hot summer day in vacation, but I can only remember a Memorial Hall and some queer old brick buildings." Possibly Elinor's adjectives did not please Martine, for the latter spoke up quickly. "They're not queer, but historic; we think everything of Harvard here in Boston." "Oh, naturally," replied Elinor, in her most languid tone. "So say we all of us," cried Robert Pringle, while Amy and Fritz, who had been carrying on an animated discussion, looked up quickly. "What's wrong?" asked Fritz, innocently. "Nothing, nothing," and Brenda, hastening to change the subject, asked suddenly, "Did you bring your automobile, Lucian?" "Of course. I only wish I could take you all to Cambridge in it." "Who's going in which?" asked Amy a little later, as they stood at the door, before which were Lucian's automobile and Robert Pringle's dogcart. "Oh, the automobile for me!" cried Martine, impulsively. "Will you go in the automobile?" asked Lucian politely, turning toward Elinor. "Yes, indeed, I should like to, thank you," replied the guest. "Priscilla is coming in the dogcart with me," said Mr. Weston. "Then I think I'll drive with Priscilla," added Martine. "Such affection!" exclaimed Amy. "To give up the automobile because you prefer Priscilla's company!" "It isn't that I like Rome more, but Cæsar less," rejoined Martine, garbling her quotation and looking toward the automobile, where Elinor had already taken her seat. Amy understood, and decided to give Martine a bit of advice at the first opportunity; for the present she and Brenda, with Fritz and Lucian, went in the automobile with Elinor, while Arthur and Robert Pringle accompanied Martine and Priscilla. The automobile speeded out through the Avenue across a corner of Brighton, that Elinor might have a good view of Soldiers Field. The dogcart proceeded over Harvard Bridge, and Martine tried to make Priscilla take a wager as to which vehicle would first reach the College Yard. When at last, however, they drew up before the Johnston Gate, Lucian and his party were waiting there, having left the automobile at the garage. "As we're going to explore these unknown regions on foot," said Lucian, "we can't allow you to drive haughtily around. There's a boy, Robert, to take your trap over to the stable. And so," he added, after Martine and Priscilla had alighted, "the elephant now goes round, the band begins to play; in other words, let the procession move in through the great gate. It was given by a Chicago man," he concluded. "That's why I'm proud to have you see it." After the gate had received its share of admiration, "Here are your 'queer old brick buildings,' Miss Naylor," cried Fritz. "Every brick has a history, but I can't show you the college pump. It was blown up by anarchists, who probably meant to blow up one of the buildings." "How shocking!" said the sympathetic Elinor. "That they did not blow up the buildings?" "Oh, no, but that they should behave so badly. I trust they were punished." "Oh, they were blown up too." "Really?" Although Elinor gazed directly at Fritz, there was no suspicion in her calm blue eye. "Doesn't she remind you of my cousin, Edith Blair?" whispered Martine to Amy. "I can't say that they look much alike." "Oh, Amy, please don't be literal, too. I mean she believes everything Fritz says, and between him and Mr. Weston she'll have a hard time." "And a strange opinion of Harvard," added Brenda, who had joined the two speakers. As the majority of the party, including Elinor, were now out of hearing, Brenda thought this a good time to ask Martine to explain her prejudice against Elinor, "who seems a pleasant and dignified girl," she concluded. "Yes, that's it; she's too dignified for her size, she ought to be bright and jolly and--" "But remember, please, that she's among strangers. You can't dislike her simply because she's quiet and dignified, so you might as well confess." "Well, then," replied Martine, "if I must, I must; but you'll understand, when I tell you that she's the girl who knocked my hat off." Amy looked puzzled and Brenda smiled as she responded, "Oh, the girl whom you tried to knock down with your umbrella. I suppose that is what has made that scratch on her face. No wonder she is on her dignity with you." "I shouldn't have cared," retorted Martine, "if she hadn't refused to shake hands with me to-day. Surely everyone must have noticed that, and it's she who ought to apologize for destroying my third best hat." Then, as she recalled the sight of the hat with the pale blue feathers sliding along on the asphalt, Martine laughed heartily, and from that moment, in her mind, all was peace between her and Elinor. "I didn't mean to get so far ahead," explained Lucian, as the others came up to the spot where he and Fritz were standing with Elinor. "But Miss Naylor is delighted with Holden." "Yes," murmured Elinor, "it is the cunningest little building! I should like to pick it up and carry it off as a souvenir. It's too bad that it isn't the very oldest of all the buildings now standing." "No, Massachusetts has that honor, but Holden is the first to take its name from an English benefactor," said Fritz. "It seems too bad that nothing remains of the original Harvard, but the fire of 1764 swept them all away. Massachusetts is older than that, and so are one or two others now standing. The old buildings are not particularly beautiful," Robert Pringle apologized. "But they look like New England," interrupted Martine, "so practical and business-like and angular; that's why I like them." "There must be some interesting stories connected with them," said Elinor, sentimentally. "Oh, yes, stories, quantities of them. What would you like to hear?" asked Fritz, with an eagerness that showed he was ready to manufacture any tale or legend that Elinor might desire. "Did the college go on during the Revolution?" asked Elinor. "I know Washington had his headquarters in Cambridge." "The library was sent up to Andover for safety, and the students to the Concord Reformatory." "Oh, Fritz," protested Amy, "if you are not careful, Miss Naylor will believe you." "Why not?" asked Fritz, innocently. "It's history that they were sent to Concord, and why not to the Reformatory? They must have needed it, if they were like some of the present students, and they would have been sent there surely had Concord possessed a reformatory in those benighted years." Upon this Lucian insisted that Miss Naylor must accept him only as her Harvard guide; otherwise she would get an utterly wrong impression. "Let me tell you," he began, "about the squirrels. Really, they are of more consequence than most other dwellers in the Yard. They will eat anything, from mushrooms to pâté de foie gras, and although it's rather expensive, we try to give them whatever they demand. The tree trunks here are probably filled with treasures that they have hidden away; some of them even are fond of books, and I heard of one who had an intimate acquaintance with Greek roots. No nuts are too hard for them to crack; they are real philosophers, and here," he cried as he threw some acorns on the grass, "they are so tame one doesn't have even to throw salt on their tails to catch them." Upon this, with a deft movement, he picked up a bushy-tailed gray squirrel that had been attracted by the bait he had thrown down, and as he held it toward Elinor, "Here," he exclaimed, "if you wish a souvenir of Harvard, is the real thing," and extending his arm, he pressed the little creature's head against Elinor's cheek. Then, to everyone's surprise, Elinor Naylor, the dignified Miss Elinor Naylor of Philadelphia, screamed loudly, and turning her back on Lucian, ran up to Martine, who happened to be nearest her, and laid her head on Martine's arm, crying loudly, "Take it away, take it away, it's just like a big rat." Lucian, decidedly crestfallen at this little episode, let the squirrel whisk itself away, while he walked up to Elinor to offer his apologies. In his heart he was saying, "Thank heaven that Martine has some nerve," and Martine herself, by a sudden revulsion of feeling, at once became the champion of the girl she had recently been criticising. Elinor accepted Lucian's apologies very graciously. "I know that I am foolish," she said, "but I never have liked those little creepy animals; they all seem to be like rats and mice, except at a distance." "You were certainly very thoughtless, Lucian." Martine spoke in a tone of deep reproof, and during the remainder of their walk she had Elinor hanging on her arm. The suite of rooms occupied by Lucian and Robert Pringle was in a dormitory outside the Yard, in the neighborhood of the old ballground, Jarvis Field. To reach it the party went across the Memorial Delta, past the statue of John Harvard--concerning which the boys had various strange tales to tell--and along a quiet street on which were several other dormitories. "How delightful! This suite is much more attractive than Joe's rooms at Yale, as I remember them," cried Elinor. "Yes," sighed Arthur Weston, "Joe and I were not sybarites. We went in for hard work, plain living, and high thinking," and he looked reproachfully toward Lucian and Robert. "We work too, I can assure you," insisted Robert. "Of course we had to furnish up a little." "Work! I should say so," added Lucian. "Don't judge us by our surroundings." "We'll try not to," retorted Martine, "for this tea-table is almost too ladylike for two tall boys like you." "Oh, when we're alone we never look at the tea-table. We fold it up and keep it in the closet. To-day we brought it out only for you girls," and Lucian bowed profoundly to his guests. "I think that your belongings are rather frivolous," and Brenda took the little silver tea caddy in her hand. "Oh, I picked that up in Holland; it's a mere trifle," cried Robert. "These things are wasted on boys," added Martine, examining the little coffee spoons that lay on the tray. Amy, walking round the room, gazed critically at the two or three water-color sketches and the fine photographs hanging on the walls, and she thought that the easy-chairs, the broad divan, and all the other handsome belongings were really too elaborate for the rooms of boys under twenty. "But there's one good thing," she said aloud; "you have plenty of books, Lucian, and you have made an excellent choice in many cases." "Yes," replied Lucian, "thanks to Fritz, our library has made a good beginning; he took it in hand last spring, and what do you think? Fritz says that if it hadn't been for you, he couldn't have helped us half as well. So, Miss Amy Redmond, when you praise our library, indirectly you praise yourself." Before their hour in Lucian's room was over, few things in the sitting-room had escaped the scrutiny of the three younger girls. They handled the steins on the mantelpiece, read the certificates of membership in various clubs and athletic societies, and admired the photographs of all, and finally Martine struck up a few chords on the piano, which Lucian and Robert recognizing, accompanied with a jolly college song. At Lucian's request Priscilla made tea, and although, while the water was boiling, she wondered whether she would remember just what proportion of tea should be used for each cup of water, she passed through the ordeal successfully and was highly praised for her skill. When the boys indiscreetly offered Elinor her choice among the sights they might see before their return to the city, Elinor too promptly chose the Botanic Garden. In spite of their sophomorific air of worldly wisdom, Robert and Lucian could not quite conceal their dismay at this suggestion, especially as she expressed a desire to see the Shakespeare garden, of which they knew nothing. "In that case I fear that you will have to lose the glass flowers, as the garden is in just the opposite direction," said Lucian, politely. "The glass flowers!" cried Elinor, perceiving that her former suggestion had not been received with favor. "Why, of course I would much rather see the glass flowers." And so the whole party set out toward the great museum. "Not to throw cold water on the efforts of Lucian to guide you to the best that Cambridge offers," said Fritz, "I must tell you that a visit to the glass flowers is almost commonplace. They share with tourists from afar the attraction of Bunker Hill; in the minds of many not to have seen the glass flowers is not to have seen Cambridge. If you wish to be original, pass them by." "Thank you," replied Elinor; "but really I never have cared especially to be original." Later, after Elinor had seen not only the glass flowers but many of the other treasures in the great museum, she admitted that even Yale had little better to offer. From the museum the party went on to Memorial Hall. "It's a pity that you cannot wait a little longer, it would be such fun to see the students at dinner," sighed Martine, for whom human nature always had more interest than tablets and pictures. "I should love to stay, but I promised to be at my cousin's before six. Yet there is so much to see here in Memorial, these windows and portraits are so fascinating, that it's very hard to go away without studying them all more carefully." Elinor had barely time for a glance at the portraits and the stained glass windows in the great hall. "It's the finest hall I ever saw," said the girl from Philadelphia; "I like everything about it except--" "Except what? This is an age of improvements, and if you'll just mention what you have in mind, so far as Lucian and I can carry out your suggestion it shall be accomplished," and Robert Pringle bowed low to Elinor. Elinor seemed so embarrassed by this mock courtesy that Martine hastened to her rescue. The older members of the party were out of hearing. "You are as great a tease now as Lucian. I could mention dozens of things that could be done to improve Memorial Hall, handsome as it is." Martine cast about in her mind for something to strengthen her assertion. Up to this moment she had never realized any special imperfection in the great building. But now-- "For example!" she exclaimed emphatically, "just look at these dining-tables in a hall like this. It's casting your pearls before swine. They ought to be taken away." "Well, I'm glad that Robert and I board at a club table. I should hate to be included in your group of swine, whom you wish to have taken away--" "Oh, Lucian!" It was now Elinor's turn to come to Martine's rescue. "Why, that is just what I meant. I think that the tables ought to be taken away. It seems a pity that Memorial Hall should be a mere dining-room. I should like to see it quite clear of them." "Then you must come here Class Day. Can't you wait for ours? I'll show you Memorial Hall as it should be--filled with youth and beauty dancing, and not a tablecloth in sight." "Oh, it doesn't seem the place for dancing either," and Elinor gazed solemnly at one of the class windows, on which were portrayed Epaminondas and Sir Philip Sidney, as examples of valor. "You must remember, Miss Naylor, that in the long waits between courses, the undergraduates who board here have a fine chance to study these windows, with their lessons of patriotism and valor. This food for reflection goes a long way toward making them forget the real nature of the food served here--" "Come, come, Robert! Remember you are talking to a Yale girl, and not an ingenuous Harvard maiden. We must not have derogatory reports get abroad." But Elinor and Martine had no intention of wasting their time listening to Robert's nonsense, and were now pushing through the doors into the transept. "The real Memorial is here," said Elinor, reverently, passing from one tablet to another, on which were inscribed the names of those Harvard men who fell in the Civil War. [Illustration: "'The real Memorial is here,' said Elinor, reverently, passing from one tablet to another."] "A short life hath Nature given to man, but the remembrance of a life nobly rendered up is eternal!" she murmured, translating one of the inscriptions on the wall. "Oh!" sighed Martine. "How wonderful that you can translate Latin at sight! I have taken a tremendous fancy to Latin, but now I'm only in the beginning of Virgil, and I have to look up every other word, and you are not much older than I." In her admiration for Elinor's ability, she wondered if Elinor had realized the prejudice she had felt when they started on their drive. How strange that in a few hours her feeling toward anyone should change so completely. Lucian and Robert, slightly bored by the girls' interest in the inscriptions, walked to the door, where they almost ran into Brenda, Fritz, and the rest of the party, who had been strolling through the Yard. "Your vehicles are here!" cried Fritz. "They are just around the corner--" "Good enough," responded Lucian. "It's rather boresome taking visitors around Memorial--Oh, they won't hear!" he concluded, as Brenda raised a warning finger. "Come, Martine," he cried in a louder voice, "we are all waiting." Reluctantly Elinor and Martine turned toward the others. Each had just made the discovery that her companion was a very entertaining girl. "Who's going in the auto?" asked Lucian. "Oh, Elinor and I, certainly." Martine was some distance ahead of Elinor. "But I thought that was why you scorned the auto coming out to Cambridge--because you didn't wish to ride with Elinor." "Oh, everything is changed now. She is one of the most charming girls." "Then she has forgiven you for knocking her down and hitting her with your umbrella?" "Why, we haven't even spoken of it, though she knows that I know that she--" "Come, girls, tumble in!" cried Lucian, and Lucian had so many remarkable Harvard tales to tell as they speeded along that neither had time to refer to the rainy-day episode and their first strange meeting. CHAPTER III PRISCILLA'S PRIDE "Why, I never lose my temper! What do you mean?" "That _is_ what I mean. You seldom lose your temper; I should hardly say 'never.' Neither does Priscilla." "Well, then, why won't she let me pay for the photographs?" Martine looked keenly at Amy, who had been spending an hour with her that afternoon, as if she expected to read the answer in her friend's eyes. "I cannot tell you Priscilla's reasons, but her spirit of independence." "Spirit of independence! Boys of '76! How tired I am of American history! Priscilla is just like one of her own Pilgrim Fathers--only more so. Probably any one of them would have let a friend pay for one of those neat silhouettes, especially if the friend had insisted on having it made, or taken, or cut, or whatever it was that they did to make silhouettes; but Priscilla is a great deal harder than Plymouth Rock, and that is saying no little." "All the same, you and Priscilla will have to settle this affair for yourselves," and rising from her seat, after a few words of farewell, Amy left Martine to reflect on the matter they had been discussing. Now the dispute between Priscilla and Martine, if worth dignifying by so serious a name, was not of a kind likely to make lasting trouble between friends. For some time Martine had been teasing Priscilla to have her photograph taken, and Priscilla had never given a decided answer. At last one day, as they passed a fashionable gallery, Martine had insisted that the two should go in merely to look at samples of the photographer's work. On the impulse Martine decided that it would be great fun for them to be taken together. Vainly Priscilla protested that her costume was not suitable, that she didn't feel in the mood for sitting; Martine carried her point and two or three negatives were made of Priscilla and Martine sitting or standing, side by side. Then two or three were made of the two girls, each by herself. When the proofs were sent home, the photographs of Priscilla were exceedingly good. But Priscilla hesitating about ordering the finished pictures, she did not give the whole reason to Martine. Her hesitation came from the fact that the artist was expensive and that she had already exceeded her allowance for Christmas presents. "I do not think that I can really afford them," she said at last to Martine one day, when the latter asked her if she had made her choice among the negatives. "I should simply love," she added, "to have some for my mother and a few of my relations Christmas, but I shall have to wait a little before deciding." Yet while she spoke she retained in her hand one proof that seemed to meet her approval. "Then this is the one you prefer?" said Martine, taking it gently in her own hand. "Yes, I haven't had a photograph since I was a small girl, but I am sure that mother would be delighted with this one." A week later a box came by mail to Priscilla. Opening it she found not only a half dozen of the photographs in which she and Martine were taken together, but also a dozen of the single heads, finished in the most expensive style. For a moment she was rather upset by the packet. "Of course there's some mistake," she said. "The man must have thought that I meant to give an order like Martine's, but I can never in the world afford these, and mother would be displeased with me for ordering them. There is only one thing--I'm sure to have some money given me at Christmas, and I can use some, or all of it, to pay this bill." No bill was contained in the package, and after a few days, when Priscilla went to the photographer's to ask for it, she was told that it was already paid. Then she sought Martine, who did not deny that she had paid the bill. "Why, it was the proper thing for me to do," she said. "It was I who had the photographs taken, and I who ordered them finished. I can't see that you have much to do with the matter now, except to send the photographs as Christmas cards. I can tell you they'll go like hot cakes, for they are just as good as they can be." But Priscilla was firm, and though Martine tried to be firmer, she could not get her friend to promise to accept the pictures as a gift. "They are really not a gift, either," urged Martine, "for I myself wanted to be in a group with you, and you stood there only to oblige me; so certainly you've earned something for your trouble, and as to the single heads, I wanted a separate picture of you, and while the photographer was about it, it didn't cost much more for a dozen than for one." Again Priscilla presented her side, adding only that she must ask Martine to wait until after Christmas for the sum she had spent. "If I didn't like the photographs," she concluded, "the whole thing would be different; but I do like them, and I can send them away as Christmas gifts, and so I must pay the bill." "But it came to me." "For my photographs?" "No, for mine; I had them taken. They wouldn't have been printed if I hadn't ordered them." "Oh, but mine are mine." "Why, of course they are yours--at least all that were sent to your house." "I can't bear to be obliged to anyone else for them." "That's one of your greatest faults, Priscilla; you hate to be obliged to anybody for anything." So for the present the discussion was dropped, though each friend was determined that in the end she would carry her own point. This steadfast holding to her purpose was what Martine called Priscilla's "ill-temper," in describing the affair to Amy. Though she inwardly approved of her friend's independence, she felt that after she had approved of it Priscilla ought then to be ready to yield to her. "It is strange," she said, "that I can never get Priscilla to accept anything from me. 'Pride goeth before destruction,' and that will be the way with Priscilla. Something will surely happen to her if she keeps on like this." In the early summer, a few months before, Priscilla and Martine had first become really acquainted, when as travelling companions they made a journey with Amy and her mother. For some time the two seemed far from congenial; each looked at life from a very different standpoint. Priscilla, brought up rather strictly and economically, prided herself, perhaps unduly, on her unworldliness, and found it hard to understand the extravagant, fun-loving Martine. But each girl at last accepted the other's good qualities, and before they had left Canadian soil the two had begun to be good friends. When Martine's plans were finally settled, Priscilla was delighted that she and the young Chicagoan were to be at the same school. Now Priscilla, although for a long time she had spent several weeks of each year in Boston with her aunt, Mrs. Tilworth, had made few friends among the girls of her own age whose parents her mother or her aunt knew. Her natural shyness stood in her way when they came to call on her, and when she returned their calls she progressed no further. Often she was invited to their parties, and when she could not escape it, she accepted their invitations. Though she took part in their games in a quiet way, no one paid much attention to the pale little girl who always seemed ill at ease. One awful day Mrs. Tilworth decided that she must give a party for Priscilla; in vain Priscilla protested that she hated parties. The invitations were written and sent out, and on the appointed afternoon Priscilla, in a ruffled muslin gown, had to stand beside her aunt to receive her guests. When she had safely passed through this ordeal she slipped away to a corner, where she sat for a while looking on. When she found that no one tried to draw her out, she managed to slip still farther away. "They don't need me," she murmured. Later, when they looked for her, that she might take her place at the head of the table--for it was a children's party, with a sit-down supper at six o'clock--there was a great uproar when she could not be found. At last two or three of the children went to Priscilla's room, and entering without knocking, they saw her seated in an easy-chair by the droplight on the little centre table. She was so engrossed in the book she was reading that at first she did not hear them, and when one of them snatched the volume out of her hand to read the title, they discovered that it was a little history of Mary Queen of Scots. "Those children tired me," she explained later to her aunt. "They played so hard, and I just thought I'd go upstairs and read for a while." Somehow the story got out. Mrs. Tilworth repeated it to one of the older girls, and for a long time Priscilla was called behind her back "Mary Queen of Scots," only someone said, "She will never lose her head, her neck is so stiff." Martine, when Brenda told her of this story, could not help laughing, in spite of her desire to be loyal to her friend. "Priscilla is still stiff-necked," she said, "but already since she's had my acquaintance she's been forced to unbend a little, and before another summer comes round her education will be much further advanced." Priscilla was conscious of her own shyness, and often envied those girls who seemed to have so much fun together. "I shouldn't expect Priscilla to be very cheerful while she lives with Mrs. Tilworth; the house is really gloomy; it has plenty of windows, but the curtains are always pulled down, and the furniture is so heavy and primly arranged that it naturally affects Priscilla's disposition." What Martine said was true to a great extent. Mrs. Tilworth's house was halfway up the hill, not so very far from the Mansion School, but its whole aspect, inside and out, was far less attractive than Mrs. DuLaunuy's. It was furnished in the heavy style of about fifty years ago, lacking the elegance of real antiquity. Priscilla's room was large and overfurnished, with its great black walnut bedstead and marble-top table and heavy rocking-chairs. But it wasn't exactly a young girl's room, and the gilt-framed steel engravings on the wall gave her no inspiration for study or work. Secretly she envied Martine her cheerful room in Brenda's apartment, with its couch covered in pink and white cretonne, its white enamelled dressing-table and oval mirror, brass bedstead, and rattan chairs cushioned to match the divan. She did not express her envy of these pretty belongings, lest she should appear ungrateful to Mrs. Tilworth; for she knew that her aunt wished her to be comfortable and happy, according to her own standard of comfort and happiness. Indeed most people who knew Mrs. Tilworth thought Priscilla exceedingly fortunate in having so good a home offered her at a time when her mother was especially burdened with care. Although Mrs. Tilworth had never expressed herself on the subject, Martine believed that she did not approve of persons who lived in apartments. The little original prejudice that she had against Martine as an outsider was probably somewhat stronger from this fact. "I should think," she had said to Priscilla, "that Mrs. Stratford must have been greatly disappointed that Mrs. Montgomery could not take Martine this winter; it would have been so much better for her to live in a house." "But an apartment is just as pleasant," Priscilla had responded, "and it's a fine thing that Brenda Weston was able to take her. Brenda lives in a flat because it's more economical." "Don't say 'flat'; you've learned that from Martine; in Boston we always say 'apartment.' But an apartment on the Avenue is not economical, my dear child. A whole house on Chestnut Street would cost no more, and though I would not make anyone else's business my own, I can't understand how anyone who might live in a house can prefer a few rooms high up in the air." "It's very homelike there," sighed Priscilla, casting a glance around the large, gloomy dining-room, where they sat at dinner. "I always enjoy myself at Brenda's--" Mrs. Tilworth, noticing the sigh, looked sharply at her niece. "I hope you are perfectly happy with me," she said. "Oh, yes, indeed I am; you are certainly very kind." Yet even as she spoke, Priscilla realized that in some ways she wasn't benefiting as she should from her aunt's kindness, and she began to wonder if the fault might not lie a little with herself. A few days after the discussion about the photographs, Priscilla came to school with a letter in her hand. "It's from Eunice," she said, as she and Martine sat together near a window, a quarter of an hour before the time for the school to begin. "Oh, read me what she says," urged Martine. "Her letters are always entertaining, because they are so old-fashioned." Eunice Airton was a young girl near Priscilla's age, whose acquaintance Mrs. Redmond and her party had made during their stay in Annapolis. She was especially Priscilla's friend, while her brother Balfour was Martine's ideal of an independent college boy; and it was rather because she hoped to hear some news of Balfour that Martine urged Priscilla to read the letter. "I am sorry to say," wrote Eunice, "that I hardly think it will be possible for me to go to college. It will be very difficult for me to overcome the prejudices of my mother, who still does not think it is quite proper for a girl to have the same education as a man. But the fact that you are planning to go to college will have much weight with her, for, as you perhaps know, she thinks you quite a model and says that she never can realize that you are an American." Martine smiled at this expression of Mrs. Airton's opinion, which indeed she had heard more than once before. "Eunice," she said to Priscilla, "is too polite to repeat all that her mother said in speaking of you. She probably contrasted you with me, whom, I am sure, she considers the typical Yankee girl." "Oh, no, of course not," protested Priscilla, continuing to read Eunice's letter. "Before I tell you of any of my own personal affairs, I must mention something that will interest you more deeply. There is an Acadian family living in Annapolis, and whom do you suppose they have had visiting them lately? Why, the little Yvonne, the blind girl, of whom I have heard you speak, who is the special protégée, if I remember, of Miss Stratford. It is indeed due to her kindness, I understand, that Yvonne has been able to make this journey from Meteghan, and I am told that she is to stay here three months under the care of a physician who thinks that he can help her eyes. She is also to take lessons on the piano, as those who are interested in her think that it is better for her to let her voice rest for the present, but to play the piano well enough to accompany her songs will some time be a great advantage to her." "There," exclaimed Martine, excitedly, "that's a fine idea! I wonder who suggested it to the Babets. It isn't likely that the doctor can do so very much for her eyes, but it will be splendid for her to get a start in music. When I see papa at Christmas I intend to persuade him to have Yvonne brought to Boston for a year." "Oh, that would be a great expense," said Priscilla, "and someone would have to take care of her." "That could be managed easily enough, if I can only get papa thoroughly interested." "I think he has already done his part, for it's through the money he gave you for Yvonne that she is able to be in Annapolis now." "I wonder how Eunice used her money; did she ever tell you, Priscilla?" "No," replied Priscilla; "but she may have helped her mother about the mortgage, and perhaps she may have put a little aside for a college nest-egg. She is so practical." "It's wonderful--isn't it, Priscilla?--that you should have met a girl you approve of so thoroughly in a corner of the world that isn't Plymouth or even Boston." Priscilla, as she folded up her letter, looked questioningly at Martine. There was something that she did not quite understand in Martine's attitude toward Eunice. Whatever question she had in mind remained for the time unspoken. It was time for school to begin, and they hurried to their places. CHAPTER IV CHANGES The first week in December a strange thing happened. Brenda had received a letter with a Washington postmark, yet this in itself was not remarkable. Such letters came to her daily, for Arthur had gone to Washington on business a day or two after the trip to Harvard. But her manner, as she rapidly scanned this particular letter, was so unusual that Martine, watching her, knew that it brought news out of the ordinary. The slight frown on Brenda's face deepened as she read the four or five pages, and when she had finished she flung the letter down on the floor. "Oh--it seems too bad," she sighed, in response to Martine's look of surprise. "Just as we are settled, to have to give everything up!" "Give up--what?" asked the puzzled Martine. "Why this--everything--our apartment--Boston--oh, dear--of course I knew it might come--but I hoped next year." As Brenda finished there were tears in her eyes, and still Martine did not wholly understand. "Of course I am sorry," said Martine, "since it's something that troubles you. But would you please tell me what it is all about?" "Well--it's Arthur's business," she explained. "A promotion that he has expected has come. It took him some time to find out what he really could do after he left college. The office in San Francisco is more important just now than the one in Boston. He is needed there for six months--and we must go at once--yes," she concluded, looking at the letter a second time. "We must be there by the first of January. Well, fortunately, we need not give up this apartment, for we have a two years' lease, and it wouldn't be worth while to sublet it, as we may return in six months. So you see, my dear, that things might be worse. I shall have to pack only my clothes and small belongings, and after all, it will be rather fun to see a new corner of the world." "What you say sounds practical--except--you seem to have forgotten _me_." "Oh, you poor child, how selfish I am! Why you could just stay on here with the cook and Maggie, or Angelina, if you prefer her." "Brenda Weston! You know that would never do! I mean other people would say it would never do." "There, there, child, don't worry," said Brenda, assuming her most elderly manner. "I will write to your mother, and between us something delightful will be arranged. What a shame you are in school," she concluded, forgetting for the moment her position as Martine's temporary guardian. "Except for that you might go to San Francisco, or even travel with your mother." "I am growing fond of school," replied Martine, as she returned to her book. "Even to go to California I wouldn't give it up, but if it's really settled that you are going, I must write home at once." In a few days Brenda and Martine both received answers to their letters to Mrs. Stratford. To Martine what her mother wrote was even more surprising than Brenda's change of plans. "Your father has to go to South America on very important business. It is too long a journey for me, although I am much stronger than a year ago. We think the wisest plan would be for me to go to Boston to be near you and Lucian, and I am writing Mrs. Weston to see if we may not engage her apartment for the next six months." "Hurrah!" cried Martine, turning to Brenda, who had just finished reading the letter Mrs. Stratford had written her. "Of course you'll say 'yes.' Oh, how perfectly happy I shall be to have mother with me." "Of course I will say 'yes.' But please spare my feelings; if you are too happy you will forget to miss me." "Oh, never, never; but then mother must be feeling much stronger, and I have seen her so little the past few years. She has been under the doctor's care or travelling, and our Chicago house has been closed so long, and hotels are so unhomelike. But now, with this apartment to ourselves, and Lucian coming in from college--oh! it will be delightful." Again Brenda protested that Martine was unfeeling in counting her out so completely. "But I can't count you in, when you calmly and deliberately plan to turn your back on Boston and me. You know that I shall miss you, but to have mother here--of course that makes all the difference in the world." For the Christmas holidays Lucian and Martine joined Mr. and Mrs. Stratford in New York. A day or two after Christmas, Mr. Stratford sailed for England, whence he was to embark for South America. Martine could but notice that the sadness that her father showed during these last days seemed due to something besides the fact that he was to be absent from his family for a few months. He had often before gone on long journeys, but usually he made an effort to have his departure particularly cheerful. "Your father is worried," her mother said; "his business is not going just as it should. He hopes that this visit to South America will straighten out some things. If it does not--well, we needn't talk of the future now. I am glad that we are all together this Christmas. You and Lucian must do all you can to divert your father, he has so much to trouble him." Martine took this advice to heart, and though Mr. Stratford spent some hours each day downtown, after luncheon she always insisted that he must entertain her. By this she meant that she must entertain him, and in consequence she thought out all kinds of odd ways of amusing him. One day they sailed on the Ferry to Staten Island to visit Sailors' Snug Harbor. Another afternoon they went up to Van Cortland Park to see the old Van Cortland house. One day they wandered for an hour in the Bowery, but Martine admitted that this wasn't as entertaining an expedition as she had imagined it would be from the accounts she had read of it. The shops on the whole seemed commonplace, and the crowded cross-streets of the East Side looked far more interesting, as she caught glimpses of them in passing. She had to let these glimpses satisfy her, as she had promised her mother not to explore any out-of-the-way corners of the tenement district; and so obedient was she in this that she would not even go inside a certain Bowery pawnshop in whose windows she saw a fascinating little guitar. Instead she urged her father to price it, and when he came outside with it under his arm she accepted it with delight. "It's neither a violin nor a guitar," Mr. Stratford explained, "but the little instrument that the Sandwich Islanders love." Martine was delighted by this account of her new treasure, and she carried it home with great pride. But unconventional expeditions were not the only pleasures that Martine shared with her father. One day Mrs. Stratford drove with them through the Park up beyond Riverside and Grant's tomb. Two or three afternoons they spent with relatives, of whom Mr. Stratford had a number in New York. Lucian was little with his father during the holidays. Classmates at Ardsley and Trenton and Germantown claimed short visits from him. But on Christmas Day he joined his parents at the small uptown hotel where they were staying. "Martine," he said as they sat at breakfast, "Elinor Naylor was at the Harbins' dance night before last in Germantown. She took a lot of trouble to introduce me to some of her best friends just because I was your brother. I tell you what--you made a great impression on her." "I certainly did--the first time we met," responded Martine, smiling, and Lucian did not quite understand, because his sister had never really explained the circumstances under which she and Elinor had first met. With slight urging from Martine, however, Lucian plunged into a description of the Harbins' dance, and though boy-like he could not describe what Elinor wore, he declared that whatever it was it just suited her, and that she certainly was a regular peach, "and the funniest thing about it is that you don't think about her being pretty when you first see her. It's only when you begin to remember her that you realize how good-looking she is." "Poor Priscilla," sighed Martine in mock sorrow, "I fear her nose is out of joint." "Oh, no--at least, what do you mean?" asked Lucian, and at this moment the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Stratford put an end to their fun. The Christmas breakfast, in spite of Martine's efforts, passed off rather quietly. Her parents both seemed sad and disinclined to talk. Even the unobservant Lucian at last noticed this and tried to turn the conversation into cheerful and impersonal channels, with poor success. Their Christmas dinner was at the house of an elderly cousin of the Stratfords in Washington Square. The guests were nearly all relatives of Martine's father, and the young visitor received abundant criticism, favorable or unfavorable, according to the dispositions of the various critics. But even those who thought Martine a little forward or too self-possessed for a girl of her age could but admire her frank, cheery manner and the consideration that she constantly showed for older people. The less conservative found her charming and complimented her on her clever way of telling a story. Some said she looked like her father, some like her mother, and the oldest cousin of them all, taking her aside said, "You are just like your father's mother when she was your age. She had your coloring and your bright brown eyes. I knew her well when I was a girl. She was said to be the image of her French grandmother, and I can wish you nothing better than to grow up like her," and as the old lady kissed her Martine felt her own eyes moistening. "I am glad that I have some French blood in my veins," she said a little later; "the Huguenots were so wonderful. I wish that papa and I had time to go up to New Rochelle, for although I believe there's little left there of the Huguenots now except the name, I should like to see the place because my forefathers lived there." Lucian found the Washington-Square dinner rather a bore, although he managed to conceal his feelings until with his family he was back at the hotel. "They might have asked at least one girl near my age," Lucian said. "No wonder you were such a belle, Martine, among all those antiquities," a compliment that Martine refused to accept until Lucian admitted that she possessed qualities that would make her popular even in a younger crowd. One of Martine's Christmas gifts did not surprise her,--a complete set of brushes, mirror and little boxes to replace those she had lost in the Windsor fire. This did, however, surprise Lucian, who knew that his father had promised Martine a full set of silver. "Why, how is this?" he asked, as Martine spread out her new possessions before him on a table. "Is plain black wood more in fashion than silver? It must be, or you wouldn't have it." "But this is pretty; don't you think so?" asked Martine, always anxious for her brother's approval. "It's rather neat, with your initial in silver, but it couldn't have cost as much as the other, and I thought you always preferred the most expensive things." For the moment Martine did not explain that her preference was still for the silver, but that she had chosen the other because of a chance word or two from her mother on her tendency toward extravagance. "I know you have generally whatever you wish, Martine, and your father and I generally give you what you ask. You are seldom unreasonable, although we may have been overindulgent. For now--" Here Mrs. Stratford broke off suddenly. "But now, mamma, are things very different? I know we usually stay at a larger hotel, and still--" "Oh, no, dear. Things are not very different. Perhaps they will not be. Yet your father has so much care now that you will surely do your best to relieve him from needless burdens." Therefore, when Mr. Stratford took Martine downtown to choose her present, she could not be shaken from her determination to have something simpler than silver. "It will be so much better in case I am caught in another fire, papa. Things that are burnt up are gone forever, and as I seem to be a rather unlucky person, this plainer set is much better--and besides I like it, papa." In the end it seemed to Martine that Mr. Stratford was rather pleased by her choice, for when the matter was decided he patted her hand gently as he slipped it within his arm, saying,-- "After all, daughter, you are getting to be a very sensible girl. I have noticed a great change within the past year." "Oh, thank you, papa. Do you really think I've improved? Then it's partly on account of the company I have kept. I am sure of that." "I am pleased that you are on the right track, and when I am far from you, as I shall be now for some time, it will be a great satisfaction to think that you are doing your best." A few days later Martine and Lucian, with their mother, stood on the dock watching the receding ocean-liner that was carrying Mr. Stratford to England. There was a great lump in Martine's throat as she wiped away her tears with the handkerchief that a moment before she had been waving frantically at her father. "Goose, goose!" whispered Lucian. "You are too big a girl to cry." "Oh, I hate saying good-bye," murmured Martine. "Why, we've hardly been together--all four of us--for years." "That's just it! It's been so pleasant lately--and now to have father in South America!--it's just dreadful." "Nonsense, child! South America isn't so very far away. The trouble is, you've had too long a vacation. It's well we're going back to Boston to-morrow, and that in a day or two you'll be at your books again." "'At my books'--as if I were a six-year-old! I can't see why Harvard College gives even a day's vacation to its students, since their chief use of time seems to be to tease their sisters," and with this little burst of temper Martine's tears were blown away. CHAPTER V ANOTHER PARTING To Martine the return to Boston after Christmas was far from cheerful. Not only was she still under the shadow of the parting with her father, but she began to feel that the approaching departure of Brenda would be rather hard to bear. While her mother was spending a day or two with friends outside the city, Martine had to stand by and watch Brenda bidding good-bye to her family and friends. Her trunks were packed. The walls and mantelpieces were denuded of many little pictures and ornaments; for at the last she had decided that it was wiser to take some of her more personal belongings with her to make her new abode more homelike. "I haven't taken a thing that you or your mother would need," Brenda explained; "only the little presents that have special associations for us. Your mother wrote me that she had a box or two of her own ornaments and pictures coming, so that she, too, could be reminded of home." "Well, I wish our boxes were here now. It makes me so homesick to see those empty places on the wall. I don't see how you can be so cheerful." "But everyone has been so kind. I didn't know how much everyone cared for me. So much has been done for me the past two weeks that I have hardly had time to pack. Arthur went back to Washington in despair yesterday. He is to join mother and me in New York. He said if we should try to start from Boston we'd never get off. Some one would plan some special function just to detain us." "I wish that we _could_ detain you." "You couldn't do it now," rejoined the optimistic Brenda. "After all, when a thing is finally settled, I believe that I really love change. I shall miss Lettice and my other little niece--she's a dear if she is only a baby--but you know I have a niece and namesake in California, and my mother and father say they will come out in March--so there will be a very short separation." "And what about me?" asked Martine, in much the same tone she had used when Brenda first spoke of going away. "Oh, you? Why you are better off than you have been for years, with your mother to take care of you--and Lucian so near--" "And no guardian," wailed Martine, in mock sorrow. "Don't flatter yourself that you can get rid of me so easily." "I shall write you and think of you. You will still be my ward, no matter where I am. There, there," as Martine leaned over her to touch her lips gently to her forehead. "Don't act as if we were parting forever. Maggie's red eyes are a constant reproach to me. So please wait until I am out of sight before you bid me good-bye." In spite of her optimism Brenda was far from happy in leaving Boston, her friends, and her pretty apartment, even for a limited time. Sometimes she thought that the various functions in her honor made her going all the harder. Nora Gostar, who had taken Julia's place at the head of the Mansion School, gave a tea to which were invited all the former pupils. Not all, naturally, were able to attend, for some of the girls were in situations from which they could not be spared. "I wish we had a picture such as they give with patent medicines 'before' and 'after' taking," said Brenda. "I can assure you it would be worth framing and taking to California. Do you remember what an untidy little creature Luisa was when she first entered the Mansion School, and how thin and forlorn Gretchen looked, and Maggie, who always lost her head when she had an order given her, and Haleema--why isn't she here to-day?" "Oh, Haleema--haven't you heard? She has gone to Lowell to live. Her husband is a prosperous rug-merchant and he is very proud of her ability as a housekeeper. He has promised to contribute something toward sending her younger sister here for a couple of years." "I knew she had married," replied Brenda, "but I had not heard of her removal to Lowell. It's delightful to know how well most of these girls have turned out. Even Mrs. Blair admits that the Mansion School is a useful institution." "Yes," said Nora, laughing. "She gave us a handsome donation this year. We accepted it gratefully as conscience money for her not letting Edith work with us." "Nora!" cried Brenda, impulsively. "You are a wonder! Of all our four, you are the one best fitted to shine in society. But here you go on with this work as meekly as if there were nothing else for you to do." "There was no one else to take Julia's place this year," replied Nora, quietly, "and it would have been a great pity either to let the school run down or to allow Julia to give up her year in Europe. What fun she will have when she goes with the Eltons to Greece, and I am sure that when she comes back next year we shall all be the better for her trip. She will have so much to tell us." "Nora, you are a brick!" cried Brenda. "You never have been abroad yourself, yet you never utter a word of envy for anyone else's good time." "Besides," continued Nora, "you are wrong about my shining in society. I doubt if I should really care for it, even if I had the money to keep up that kind of thing. You wouldn't wish me to be like Belle, reported in all those silly newspapers as visiting Mrs. This at Lenox, and being the admired of all who saw her with Mrs. That at Newport, and sitting in the front row, as at the Horse Show, in a gown that was perfectly _chic_. Oh, no, I hate that kind of thing, and I sympathize with Edith for refusing to be a mere society girl, such as her mother would like her to be. But we shouldn't be here by ourselves, for you are the special guest, and all the girls, old and new, wish to shake hands with you and hear you talk." In a moment Brenda was again the centre of an admiring group, for all of whom she had a bright smile and a word that really meant something, while they all took note of her dress and little trinkets, and felt doubly pleased that a person of such elegance should show an interest in them. So exact were the observations of her young admirers that before she had actually left Boston a hat, a blouse, and a skirt were in process of construction by the deft fingers of three of the girls who had taken special note of the details of her attire at this Mansion tea. Martine laughed heartily at Brenda's account of the girls at the Mansion. "I have promised Miss Gostar to go there once a week to give a lesson in water color. It might seem a case of the blind trying to teach the blind if I were to pretend to teach them much. But the aim is, I believe, simply to give them an idea of colors. I wrote to Mrs. Redmond for advice while I was away, and it pleased me immensely to have her say I should probably do more good than harm by this little experiment." "Of course you will do good. I have an idea that you could make things very clear. In the weeks I lived at the Mansion I learned more than I taught, for I am not a born teacher. But it was wonderful to see what Julia and Miss South accomplished for their first class of girls. I enjoyed my afternoon with the old girls far more than the farewell reception mamma arranged for me, and infinitely more than that stiff dinner at Mrs. Blair's last week." "If people kill the fatted goose--or was it the fatted calf?--after you reach San Francisco at the same rate they've been doing here, you'll have indigestion." "No danger, my dear. We shall just be nobody there. Mamma has explained that I must not expect too much. Here everyone knows who I am--I mean everyone I come in contact with. But it will be altogether different in the West. We shall just be part of the great crowd of Easterners who have left home to better their condition." "Nonsense!" "But that _is_ why we are going West,--because Arthur will get a larger salary and have more rapid promotion. We are willing to give up the things we like best, for a while, and live economically. Oh, dear." And with her usual inconsistency Brenda did not try to straighten out the quaver in her voice as she concluded with a futile smile. "How I wish we could stay here!" "Oh, how I wish you could!" moaned Maggie, appearing suddenly on the scene, and the tear-stained face of the latter so amused Brenda that her own melancholy ended in a burst of laughter. When Brenda at last was really away, Martine and her mother began to adapt themselves to the new conditions. The cook, of whom Brenda had stood more or less in awe, gave warning promptly when she heard that there was to be a change of mistresses. Maggie, after much tearful and prayerful consideration, as Brenda put it, also decided not to stay with Mrs. Stratford. Only her devotion to Brenda had led her to take this place, as she really desired work that would occupy her simply during the day. Her aunt, she said, was weak and lonely, and she wished to be at home with her evenings. Angelina, learning Maggie's intention, promptly presented herself as a candidate for the vacant place. Mrs. Stratford hesitated, for Martine had given her an exceedingly humorous account of the Portuguese girl's peculiarities,--an account that did not tend to recommend her as a reliable domestic. "Of course, mother, she isn't a cut-and-dried housemaid," plead Martine; "but she _is_ so amusing, and if we take her I am sure she will stay, for she says she is perfectly devoted to me. I dare say she won't half do the work, for she always has several irons in the fire. But I shall not mind doing my own room, if we have Angelina, and in fact I'll have to do it probably, as she is absent-minded and often forgets to do what she should. But she loves waiting on table, and it's a great thing to have a cheerful person in the house. _Do_ say you'll take her, mamma." "There seems little chance of escape for me. From what Angelina herself says, I should judge that you and she had already settled matters. I do not wish to play the part of a tyrannical parent and so, to please you, just to please you, Martine, I will engage Angelina." "Thank you, mamma! You _are_ an angel. I always knew you were." "I hope that Angelina is an angel in something besides her name, and I wish that her name were less dressy. Would she care if I should call her plain Mary?" "Oh, mamma, not 'plain,' at any rate. I thought you understood that Angelina _is_ rather dressy in her feelings. She takes the greatest delight in her name. Please don't think of calling her anything else." So Angelina remained plain Angelina, and on account of her previous experience with Brenda, proved very useful to Mrs. Stratford. For a week or two a succession of cooks passed in and out of the little kitchen, until Martine's mother despaired of ever having the apartment in running order. In this emergency Angelina was only too proud to show what she could do. She would not admit that she had ever learned anything from anybody. "I'm a natural born cook," she would say; "and if I didn't consider it a menial position, I would become a professional. It's on account of my Spanish blood, I suppose, that I'm able to season things so well. You know in Spain they like things hot and spicy." "Spanish blood?" questioned Mrs. Stratford, as Angelina turned away. "Aren't the Rosas Portuguese?" "Yes, mamma, or they were until our war with Spain. Brenda explained it all to me. During the war Angelina thought it would make her more interesting if she called herself Spanish, and now she probably has persuaded herself that she really _is_ Spanish. This amuses her and doesn't hurt anyone else." "But I don't like the idea of her being untruthful. This quality may extend to other things." "I hope not, mamma. But then we can watch her." Lucian, when he heard of Angelina's Spanish proclivities, laughed heartily. "She _is_ worth watching," he said. "Each of us must keep an eye on her." CHAPTER VI ANGELINA'S COUP The first occasion for Angelina to make herself spectacularly useful came on the Saturday after New Year's, when Mrs. Stratford invited Priscilla and Mrs. Tilworth to dine. The latter had already shown Mrs. Stratford some little courtesies, such as she felt were due Mrs. Blair's cousin. On account of Martine's growing fondness for Priscilla, Mrs. Stratford was anxious to have the two households on more intimate terms. Lucian and Robert Pringle were also coming home to dinner, and although Mrs. Tilworth was the only outsider, on her account a certain amount of formality had been planned for this little dinner for six. At about four o'clock on the afternoon Angelina knocked at the door of Martine's room. Her face wore its most solemn expression. "Why, Angelina, what is the matter? You look as if you had been drawn through a keyhole." Angelina at first did not reply. "There, there, speak out! Is it anything very dreadful?" Martine rose from her little desk, where she had been writing a letter to her father, and as she took a step or two toward the door, Angelina spoke. "That depends on how you look on it; it's only that the cook's gone." "Gracious! you don't mean it. But perhaps she has only gone for a walk--" "Oh, no, Miss Martine. I fear that she's gone for good and all. I've been down to her room, and not a vestige of her possessions remains." Angelina, even in a crisis, had to use long words. "In fact I may say that I heard her trunk being carried away about two o'clock. There it went, thumpity, thump down the stairs--those expressmen are so careless, and I was quite unaware whose trunk it was, or I might have reported it to your mother. But when the luncheon dishes were washed, the cook followed the trunk; at least she is nowhere in sight now, and not a thing done about this evening's dinner. It's the dinner, and not the cook that disturbs me," explained Angelina. "The dinner! I should say so," responded Martine. "We must get word to Mrs. Tilworth at once. She's the fussiest old--I mean she's a very particular person, and mother wishes everything to be just so when she dines here." "Of course, Miss Martine. Every guest of Mrs. Stratford's should receive the greatest consideration." Angelina's manner was respectful in the extreme. "Dear me!" Martine's perplexity showed itself in her wrinkled forehead. "I certainly don't know what's to be done. Mamma and Mrs. Tilworth were to come home together from a meeting in Brookline. Mrs. Tilworth is always taking people to meetings of some kind. Poor mamma didn't want to go, but she couldn't get out of it. There's no way of getting word to them until nearly dinner time. Mrs. Tilworth would think it awfully rude to uninvite her. The only thing is to let her come, and then we can all go out to a hotel or something, and she'll call that very shiftless." Martine was really excited. She knew Mrs. Tilworth's opinion of people who lived in apartments, and she had had a thrill of pleasant anticipation at the idea of Mrs. Tilworth's finding everything as homelike in their apartment as within the four walls of a detached house. To have to go outside to a hotel would indeed be ignominious--from Martine's present point of view. "Do you think Mrs. Stratford is strong enough to go to a hotel to dinner, after being out all the afternoon? I certainly shouldn't advise it." Angelina spoke with all the impressiveness of one in authority. "You make me think of a trained nurse, Angelina. But what in the world are we to do?" "Come with me," cried Angelina, and Martine, following her to the kitchen, noticed as she turned her head that there was a twinkle in Angelina's eye. "Perhaps there's something in the refrigerator," thought Martine; "refrigerators always are full of things that can be warmed over. We might call it 'luncheon' instead of 'dinner,' and tell Mrs. Tilworth that's the way we do in Chicago. She will believe anything about Western people." A glance at the refrigerator did not greatly encourage Martine. There were a quantity of cold potatoes, and a great roast of beef for their Sunday dinner, as well as eggs, bacon, milk, and butter. "How frightfully unattractive it all looks--and smells," cried Martine, slamming the door. "I never could be a good cook, for I hate the sight of raw food. But what _were_ we to have for dinner to-night? What _are_ we to have now? You wouldn't have brought me out here if you hadn't some plan. It's half-past four, and if anything's to be done, it ought to be doing now." "Oh, if you request me to take hold," said Angelina, "I shall be only too happy to accept your orders in your mother's place. Come, see!" and removing a cloth that had covered the kitchen table, she showed Martine an inviting array of vegetables and two pairs of small chickens. "First of all the dessert," she began. "Before the soup?" asked Martine. Then remembering that if she stood in her mother's place it would be undignified to trifle with Angelina, she waited for the latter to disclose her plans. "What I mean is this," continued the latter; "you can telephone to the creamery for ice-cream and cake. The cook had orders to make something with a long name, but that's impossible now. Then the black coffee--your brother loves to potter with that electric coffee machine--and there's plenty of crackers and cheese." "And finger bowls, too," said Martine, laughing, "that will finish the dinner. But how shall we begin? If we begin dinner well, it won't matter how it ends." "Well, there's no trouble about oysters, now, is there? And the soup--well, instead of the potage something or other that we were going to have, it'll be bouillon with croûtons, and a sprig of parsley on top; that always looks foreign, and with my Spanish seasoning, Mrs. Tilworth will never know it's plain extract of beef. It won't take me a minute to prepare the minced fish, and you can put it in these little shells to bake when the oven is hot. The salad won't be any trouble, just tomato on a leaf of lettuce. The chickens can be broiled, and there's only one vegetable to boil besides the potatoes. The other things like celery and radishes only need to be put on attractively." "But what about these lobsters?" "Oh, yes, that's an idea of my own. They were meant for salad. But if I were you, as long as you've got such a big chafing-dish, I'd have a lobster Neuberg. Mrs. Tilworth will expect something out of the ordinary, and a lobster Neuberg at dinner is very unexpected." "And very good to eat, and I'll let Robert Pringle cook it at the table." "Yes, Miss Martine, only I'll prepare the sauce first, so much depends on that." "You're a genius," said Martine; "but who'll wait on table?" "Why, I will, Miss Martine, if you'll set it now. I'll have my hands full until dinner is served, and don't tell your mother about the cook until dinner's over. She'll be surprised that the dinner is different from what she ordered. But she won't find anything to be ashamed of." Seldom, indeed, had Martine worked harder than in the hour succeeding her discovery of the cook's departure. In setting the table she made many little mistakes that Angelina gently but firmly corrected. But at half-past five, just before her mother came home, she surveyed the finished whole with pride, and then hurried away to her room to change her dress as she heard some one opening the door. "Oh, Lucian," she cried, "if mother asks for Angelina, please say she's busy just now; keep Mrs. Tilworth amused until dinner. I wonder why Prissie's so late." "I'm not late," and in a moment Priscilla was with her. "I came in without ringing, as the door was partly open." To Priscilla Martine explained the secret of the dinner. "Angelina will wait on table, though I don't see how she'll manage. But if there's any chance to help things on, you'll do so, won't you?" "With pleasure," replied Priscilla, not realizing just what her promise might involve. As it happened the dinner went on very smoothly from beginning to end, at least almost to the end. Mrs. Tilworth was in her most amiable frame of mind, even condescending to smile at some of the inane jokes perpetrated by the two Sophomores. This was doubtless due to her having a soft spot in her heart for boys in general, as her only son had died when he was six years old. Mrs. Stratford, it is true, looked somewhat mystified at Angelina's occasional long absences in the kitchen. But at these moments Martine and Priscilla managed to introduce interesting subjects for discussion, whereby their elders were diverted from observing the remissness of their waitress. Before the dessert, however, the wait was suspiciously long. Mrs. Tilworth, in an aside, had just been complimenting Mrs. Stratford on her daughter's ease of manner, when looking up she saw Martine gesticulating and frowning, apparently at Priscilla. A moment later Priscilla had dashed from the room through the door into the kitchen. "What's up?" asked Robert. "What's down?" added Lucian, as a tremendous crash fell on their ears. "Oh, it's nothing," responded Martine, reddening. She felt Mrs. Tilworth's keen eye upon her and wished that Priscilla had acted less impulsively. Mrs. Stratford fanned herself nervously. There were disadvantages, she began to think, in apartment housekeeping with a limited staff. In the meanwhile what had happened? When Angelina went to the kitchen for the ices and cakes, a sorry sight presented itself to her. The cover of the freezer had been left off,--she had meant it to be but a moment, and not the half hour that had really passed. Through her carelessness, not only had the ices begun to soften, but some of the salt and coarse ice from the freezer had drifted in. In her efforts to repair the damage, much time had passed before Priscilla appeared. Then Priscilla, in her effort to help, had taken hold of one side of the heavy tin to lift it to the table. The edge was slippery, the tin glided from between Priscilla's fingers, and as it crashed back into the tub of ice, a stream of pink and green stickiness spurted over her new blue gown. "No matter about me," cried poor Priscilla, as Angelina began to mop off the gown. "I must go back to the dining-room. I can hold my handkerchief over the spots. The dinner mustn't be spoiled. My aunt is so critical." "But there's no dessert. What will they think?" and Angelina looked the picture of despair. For to her no festivity was complete without the finishing touch of pink and white ice-cream. "I will explain," began Priscilla. "Isn't there anything to come but the ices?" "Oh yes, cakes and fruit and coffee and cheese." Angelina had already recovered her spirit. "I'll hurry in and attach the coffee machine to the electric light; that will divert them, while you make the explanations. It wouldn't be proper for me in my capacity of waitress to say a word." So Priscilla, hastening back, explained that the ices had met a mishap, and she wondered if they all wondered what her part had been in the misadventure. No one, however, attached as much importance as Angelina did to the loss of the ices. The coffee machine diverted them all. Even Mrs. Tilworth was interested in watching the water bubble in the crystal globe. Of them all Priscilla alone was disturbed. She realized, when too late, that she must have misunderstood her friend's signals, and that it had been Martine's duty, and not hers, to go to the kitchen. Moreover, she dreaded the merited reproof from her aunt when the spots on her skirt should be discovered. Mrs. Stratford was amused rather than displeased when Martine, after the departure of their guests, explained the whole matter. "I realized that something strange was going on, and though Angelina covered herself with glory so far as the cooking was concerned, she certainly did not appear an expert waitress. Then, my dear, if you had only given me a hint of the situation, I need not have perjured myself to Mrs. Tilworth. She thought everything so exquisitely seasoned that I told her all about the cook, how she had lived at Dr. Gostar's and later at Mrs. Rowe's. I admitted that the menu was a little different from what I had expected, but still--" "Excuse me, mamma--but why do you suppose the cook left?" To this question Mrs. Stratford had no answer. CHAPTER VII A DROP OF INK "Somehow I find it awfully hard to settle down to work," said Martine to one of the girls at school a day or two after Washington's Birthday. "I don't know whether it's the holiday--or what." "It's 'what,' I think; vacations ought not to hurt us, they are meant to set one up." "How literal you are! Look at Priscilla; she's as busy as can be. She knows how to study at school; but then of course there couldn't have been anything very exciting in a Plymouth holiday; but although she was away only two days I do wonder that she can study so in school." "It's a sensible thing, all the same, and saves home study. I begrudge more than an hour a day out of school, and if you don't work here, you surely have to spend three or four hours there." "You'll have to spend more than an hour a day on home work if you are going to prepare that essay. Isn't it outrageous?" "Well, it's as fair for one as for another. There's no use in talking about it now; we must keep at this translation." And for the next ten minutes the two girls kept their eyes on their Virgils. Martine and Grace had gone into a small room off the main schoolroom, where a certain amount of conversation was permitted to two girls who happened to be studying together. They were not expected, however, to wander far from the lesson they had set out to prepare, and idle conversation, if overheard, would have carried a reproof. Yet the special essay to which Grace had referred was for the time uppermost in the minds of most of Miss Crawdon's pupils, and to Martine the necessity for writing it was peculiarly disagreeable; she did not pretend to be literary; her brightness and energy expressed themselves in far different ways. She could talk better than most girls, but when it came to putting her thoughts on paper in an extended form, she was really at sea. No one sympathized with her when she protested that it was absolutely impossible for her to write a ten-page essay on the question "Is the pen mightier than the sword?" "Why, it's what I call the simplest kind of a subject," said Priscilla. "We all know that war is a terrible thing and ought to be done away with, and that a good book accomplishes a great deal more than the most famous battle. That's all the subject means." "Oh, is it?" queried Martine, somewhat sarcastically. "Well, I'd like to see you fill ten large foolscap pages proving it." "That's easy enough; just get your thoughts together." "I can get a few of them together, but when it comes to putting them on paper, that's quite another thing." Yet in the face of Martine's evident despair, Priscilla still insisted that the subject was not difficult, and that if Martine would simply collect her thoughts, she would soon find words to fill ten pages. "Of course you've got to look up authorities on peace and war and some of the poets like Whittier and Tennyson, and Longfellow's 'Ship of State,' and say something about 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and look over your English history pretty carefully." "Oh, Priscilla, with all my other lessons? It's quite natural for you to know where to find all these authorities and poems, but it's quite another thing for me, and there's likely to be some splendid skating this month; and it's odious to have to stay cooped up in the house when the afternoons are short enough at the best." But at last Martine had to yield to necessity, and less than a week before the day when the essays were to be handed in she sat down for one last, and it may be said first, great effort. Lucian, happening in from Cambridge, laughed as he saw her forlorn face as she sat at a table littered with papers. "What a ridiculous fuss," he cried, "about a little composition." "It isn't a little composition; it's an essay." "Well, what's the difference? You ought to have daily themes, then you'd know." "We do, we have them once a week, every Monday morning." "Daily themes,--once a week!" and again Lucian laughed. "You needn't laugh, Lucian. Of course it's easy enough to write; that isn't the trouble; but it's getting things together." "What things?" "My ideas. Oh, if I were only Priscilla." "Well, you are not; she's altogether different. But what's this?" cried Lucian, picking up a paper from the table. "Oh, that's one of Priscilla's last year's essays. It's perfectly splendid, and she thought it might help me to look it over." "Why don't you get her to help you in some other way?" "Oh, that wouldn't do. We're supposed to do this all alone. It's a kind of test. You see the little themes are different. We write accounts of things we see, or that somebody tells us; but Miss Crawdon likes things we observe, and I am always seeing something funny. Everyone laughs at what I write. But I just can't do a long logical essay, and I don't want mine to be the very worst in the class." "Of course not." Lucian's tone was more sympathetic than usual. "There can't be any harm in my helping you." And he took up a pencil. "I'm not sure," responded Martine; "but still a brother, I suppose, is different from anyone else." "Naturally," said Lucian, undisturbed by any scruples. In a moment the two were at work, or rather Lucian was working, while Martine listened intently. "First of all," he began, in a professorial manner, "you must think out your subject carefully and sub-divide it--so--and so. Then, well, whenever you have a thought, write it down on a piece of paper or a card--if I were you I'd buy a box of blank cards." Martine instantly resolved to pay a visit to a wholesale stationer's, and Lucian spent a few moments in cogitation and then wrote down a number of headings on small squares of paper. He had never before had so good a chance to expose the methods of his favorite English course. "See, now, you kind of shuffle and arrange your headings, and you begin to think of other funny little things to put in, and write them out on large sheets, and before you know it, it's almost done. Now try." Martine tried. Lucian's method was something like a game, and under his guidance she made a fair beginning. Before they had fairly started on the essay, Lucian talked learnedly about "clearness," and "force," and "elegance," and Martine listened, somewhat dazzled by her brother's show of knowledge. "Well, Harvard has done you some good, after all, Lucian. As a sophomore you seem to be making up for what you lost in your freshman year." "There, there, child, no twitting on facts. Of course Harvard has done a great deal for me. Why else should I go to college?" "I wonder what college would do for me. What would you think of my going to Radcliffe, for example?" Martine looked anxiously at her brother; she had known boys who positively opposed their sister's ambitions in this direction. "Well, if you could get in," said Lucian, "I think it would be a mighty good thing." The "if" nettled Martine. "What other girls do I suppose I could do too." "Oh, yes; and if you should turn out like Miss Amy Redmond, or if you'd work like Priscilla, why I'd be proud enough of you." "Ah, Amy's a brick," responded Martine, "but I didn't know that you really admired Priscilla. Robert Pringle says she's just the kind boys don't like." "Oh, Robert is too fresh; he can't settle everything, though he thinks he can. But here, we can't waste time. Remember that you're trying to prove your point." "Yes, the point of the sword," said Martine. "No frivolity, child." And by their united efforts they made a draft of the essay, which Lucian copied out in his peculiar back hand, and later Martine, still further expanding what he presented to her, was able to produce ten pages that were not only fairly logical, according to Lucian's standards, but in addition had various humorous little touches from the hand of Martine. Priscilla was so busy with her own work that she hardly had time to observe that Martine had ceased to complain at what she had at first called "an outrageous task." On the morning when the essays were handed in, Miss Crawdon made a short speech to the class. "You will be interested, I am sure, to hear that I have decided to award a prize for the best essay. I did not suggest this in advance, because in a general way I do not approve of school competition. You have worked under natural conditions, and although only one girl will have a prize, I am sure all the others will see nothing unfair in this distinction, since all have had an equal chance. All have worked independently without help from anyone, and none have been tempted to put themselves under too severe a strain. I ought to say that the prize, which consists of the new two-volume 'Life of Tennyson,' is a gift from Mrs. Edward Elton. You remember that she was one of our teachers here a few years ago and that English was her specialty. When she left this school she helped establish the Mansion School in the house of her grandmother, Madame DuLaunuy. For more than a year she and Mr. Elton have been travelling abroad, but she writes to me often about the school, and her interest in our English work still continues." In the brief interval following Miss Crawdon's speech, those girls who had known the former Miss South said one or two agreeable things about her to the others, and it pleased Martine to recall that Mr. Elton was a cousin of Brenda's. But she was not altogether pleased that the essay with which Lucian had helped her was to compete for a prize. In this special case Martine was not quite sure of the precise line between right and wrong, and until she could decide this for herself, she thought it not worth while to discuss the matter with others. Now it happened, strangely enough, that the essay which in a small way had been a snare for Martine also caused some trouble for Priscilla. The beginning came on the Friday after the essays were handed in. In the early afternoon Priscilla had an errand to do for her aunt at the farther end of Commonwealth Avenue. There was no Symphony this week, and she enjoyed the change. As she walked homeward, she was in an unusually happy mood. It was one of those mild days in late January that seemed to be preparing the way for an early spring. The path under the trees in the middle of the park was rather wet from melting snow and ice, and after trying it for a few steps, Priscilla preferred the sidewalk. There she walked down between the rows of nurses with their baby carriages, or little children in charge. "A prize baby show" Martine had called it. Priscilla enjoyed the show and thought of her little brothers and sisters at home as she stopped at intervals to speak to some child she knew. From the Avenue she crossed the Garden and stood for a moment on the bridge to watch the ice breaking in the pond; and she continued her walk along the mall of the Common, until she was opposite Spruce Street. Turning into the narrower streets, when at last she reached her aunt's house, it seemed particularly gloomy, and she wished that she might have stayed out in the sun an hour longer. But she realized that the task before her could not be postponed. The weekly theme must be ready on Monday, and nothing could be accomplished unless she set herself at work. Filling her fountain pen carefully she sat down at a small table near the window and began her task. Although Priscilla frowned slightly, as almost any girl will frown when writing a theme, the frown was not very deep. She expected no real difficulties at the present stage of her work, as she had already made a good draft in pencil, and it only remained now for her to copy it. At first her pen fairly flew over the paper, but after a time, as it may happen even with more accomplished authors, she grew a little weary, and rising, she walked to the window. Then she took a few steps around the room, at the same time idly flourishing her pen. The habits of fountain pens are indeed hard to understand. There certainly seemed to be no reason why Priscilla's pen should have chosen the particular moment when she stood beside her bureau for a catastrophe. Priscilla herself was almost petrified with horror as she gazed at the great black spot on the immaculate bureau-scarf. How could one little drop of ink, falling carelessly from a pen held upside down, spread itself into such a big spot? After her first resentment against the pen, which she quickly laid down on the blotter on her table, Priscilla's irritation took a new form. "I always hated that bureau-scarf. I always thought it foolish of aunt Tilworth to put it in my room. She has told me a dozen times that it was made by a favorite cousin who can never make any more like it because she's dead. I can't bear to think what she will say when she sees this." Priscilla went closer to the bureau. Fortunately the spot was on the plain material, some distance from the embroidery. It almost looked as if she might wash it out--if ink ever could be washed out. If it should stay, how could she ever explain the accident to her aunt, since it was an unwritten law of the house that ink was to be used only in the library? "This might help a little," she murmured, tearing off a small piece from her blotter, and applying it to the spot. But the ink had been so thoroughly absorbed that her efforts made no impression. Then she remembered something she had read and rushed to the kitchen. "A glass of milk, is it?" exclaimed the crabbed old cook; "and why didn't you send the housemaid?" But Priscilla secured the milk, and while she was busily mopping the spot, Martine appeared on the scene. "You queer child, what are you doing? That milk will certainly spoil the bureau." "Oh no, it's marble underneath." "But what are you doing? Oh, that spot? But you'll never get it out that way. You must use salts, salts of something, I forget its name, only it's deadly poison. They'll know what it is when you ask at the druggist's." "Nothing would induce me to touch poison. Please don't suggest such a thing." "But you're not going to taste it or give it to anyone. Just think what your aunt would say if she saw that spot!" "That's just what I have been thinking," said poor Priscilla, feebly. "I hate to have her know how careless I have been." "Then let me go--no, I am going anyway, I want to see how surprised the druggist will be when I ask for this salts of something or other." "He can't appear very surprised if you don't know its name." "Oh, I'll tell him it's a deadly poison, and that I want it immediately. Good-bye, Prissie dear, I'll soon be back, alive or dead." "Now cheer up, Miss Doleful," cried Martine, when she returned ten minutes later. "I got it easily enough, and the man hardly seemed surprised, though he put a little poison label on the box." Priscilla handled the box gingerly. "There, there," cried Martine, "it won't hurt you! Give it back!" And taking off the cover, she disclosed some innocent looking crystals. Moistening a few of these, she spread the pasty mass on the spot. "My, how it stings! My tongue is burning." "You didn't taste it! I thought you said it was poison?" "Oh, I got some on my fingers. But I know it won't hurt. But there," scraping the crystals from the spot, "it hasn't done a bit of good." "Yes, it has done a little. I think the ink is not quite so black. But a brown spot is about as bad as a black one." "I'll tell you what we ought to do," and Martine read the label on the box. "We should spread this out in the sun. Then something chemical will happen, and the ink will fade away." "This ink will _never_ fade. I am sure of that, and besides there's no sun to-day, and there won't be, because it's after four o'clock." "To-morrow will do just as well," said Martine. "If aunt Tilworth doesn't happen to come in." "What are you afraid of, my dear Prissie? You surely don't expect your aunt to whip you like a baby?" "Of course not. My aunt doesn't mean to be unkind, only she is very particular." "I should say so. Her house shows that she was meant to be a regular old maid. How I should love to stir things up a little. I don't suppose you dropped that ink on purpose, though the room certainly looks far less prim than when I saw it a day or two ago." Priscilla bore Martine's teasing fairly well, but at last she said firmly, "I have wasted a lot of time over this ink-spot. Now I must go back to my work. I haven't even prepared my lessons for Monday. I know you will excuse me, Martine, and I am ever so much obliged for your help." "On this hint I'll act," replied Martine, gayly. "Your spot is certainly worse than the one in Macbeth, though I won't use the language that Macbeth--or was it her Ladyship?--used regarding it. But don't worry, Prissie dear. I will arrange things so that no one will know what happened." And suiting her action to her words, Martine carefully replaced the scarf on the table and set a large pincushion over the ink-spot, so that not a vestige of the spot, or of the attempts to remove it, could be seen. Then with a word or two more of absurd advice to Priscilla, Martine, bidding her friend good-bye, tripped lightly downstairs. When Martine reached the lower story all was still. Priscilla had said that her aunt was at a meeting. Evidently she had not yet returned. On her way downstairs a mischievous plan had been forming in Martine's brain. "I'll never have a better chance," she said to herself, and she tiptoed into the drawing-room. A noise from the direction of the dining-room made her start. Then glancing around she took heart. "I think I can do it," she murmured, "before any one appears on the scene." Again she felt discouraged as she noted how massive, how immovable most of the furniture appeared. A large centre-table in the middle of the room pleased her; she pushed it from its place into a distant corner. Over it she threw a scarf that had decorated a sofa. Then from the great bookcase in the hall she took two or three volumes that she laid on the table open and face downward. "Everything seems glued to the walls," she murmured, "and these tidies are so ugly. There can't be much harm in folding them up and putting them under the sofa." Then she paused. "This little scarf--it is Roman, too,--is just the thing for Julius Cæsar." And tying the striped scarf around the neck of the great conqueror, she bolstered the bust on an easy-chair, draping an afghan around him to conceal his lack of body and limbs. [Illustration: "'This little scarf--it is Roman, too,--is just the thing for Julius Cæsar.'"] Then with one or two minor touches to the room she hurried away. CHAPTER VIII A PRIZE WINNER While Martine was thus mischievously occupied, Priscilla, unconscious of what was going on, continued her work. She had not heard her aunt come in, but when she went down to dinner she instantly realized that Mrs. Tilworth was displeased. Was there any possibility that the injury to the bureau-scarf had been discovered? At once Priscilla dismissed that thought, knowing Mrs. Tilworth could not have been in her room, as she herself had not left it. As the young girl turned toward the dining-room Mrs. Tilworth laid her hand on her shoulder. "This way, please," she said briefly, pointing toward the room where Julius Cæsar was enthroned in his easy-chair. Priscilla could not suppress a smile at the absurd sight. "Then you did it?" "I? Why of course not! I haven't been downstairs." Then Priscilla stopped. She remembered her visit to the kitchen, and for the present she was not anxious to explain the glass of milk. "But who could have done this ridiculous thing? An earthquake couldn't have done much more." Priscilla hardly dared glance around the dishevelled room. Some of the results accomplished by Martine were foolish, others were improvements on the original arrangement of things. "You must have had a visitor," continued Mrs. Tilworth, pursuing her search for information. Priscilla was silent. She perceived that Martine had been the mischief-maker, and for the moment she was indignant with her friend. Martine might have realized that an act of this kind would bring Mrs. Tilworth's wrath on Priscilla as well as on the absent perpetrator of the mischief. "Then it was Martine Stratford!" continued Mrs. Tilworth. "I am glad that you had no hand in this foolishness, Priscilla. For I take your word that you have not been downstairs. But I am disappointed in Martine. She has attractive manners, and lately she seemed to be toning down. Certainly she appeared very well at the dinner the other evening. Her mother, too, is a sensible woman. So it must be her father who spoils Martine. The girl has had a training very different from yours, and her sense of responsibility is small." "She didn't mean anything, I am sure of that," protested Priscilla. "Didn't mean anything! That's just the trouble. After this I must ask you to see less of Martine. Really I ought not to have let you spend so much time with her." "Mamma knows all about Martine. She does not object." "She _will_ object when she learns how disrespectful Martine has been to me. As if I did not know how to arrange my own furniture." Again Priscilla felt like smiling. Martine's hints had been understood, even though they might not be followed. Mrs. Tilworth was a fair-minded woman, and after expressing herself clearly on the subject of Martine's misdeeds, she did not try to make her niece more uncomfortable. Nevertheless, Priscilla's dinner hour that evening was far from cheerful. She wondered if it might not be wiser, as well as more honest, to tell her aunt of her own mishap of the afternoon. Yet the more she thought of it, the less inclined was she to do this. She clung to the hope that with a further effort she could make the scarf as good as new. That night she dreamed of wading through rivers of ink, and in her dreams she saw the bust of Julius Cæsar sitting on a bridge with many small black ink-spots mottling the bald head. In the intervals between her dreams she tossed about restlessly, and she thought of all the little criticisms that she had ever heard anyone make about Mrs. Tilworth. "After all, she isn't my real aunt," she murmured; "only my uncle's widow, and I suppose she just hates to have me here. But she has a kind of family pride, and thinks that it will help mamma. I know the house is furnished queerly. I heard mamma say that it is neither antique, nor modern--only second-rate. Those black walnut things are always ugly, even Martine knows better." Yet in all her ruminations Priscilla had to admit that Mrs. Tilworth had always treated her kindly. She had no real grievance against her aunt. She was merely afraid of the reproof that her carelessness merited. Now it was one of Mrs. Tilworth's theories that a girl should make her own bed and dust her own furniture. It was a theory, too, that she put into practice. Except on sweeping days, Priscilla took entire care of her own room. Sometimes she begrudged the time that she had to spend in this way. But on the morning after Martine's visit she was pleased that no housemaid had the right to handle the things on her bureau. Now, as this was Saturday morning, Priscilla took more time than usual dusting and arranging things generally. She did not dare move the corpulent pincushion lest someone should come in upon her while she was examining the ink mark. She knew that her aunt had a morning engagement, and while she worked she listened eagerly for the closing of the front door that would show that her aunt had departed. But alas for her calculations! While she was still dusting her mantle-piece, Mrs. Tilworth, with hat and coat on, entered the room. "My dear," began Mrs. Tilworth, kindly, "you must not take to yourself all that I said about Martine Stratford. You and she are really very different, and although I cannot say that her acquaintance was forced upon you, still it came about almost by accident. Had you not both gone to Acadia in Mrs. Redmond's care, you never would have known each other so well. You are not careless--I see you have been putting your room in order. It looks very well, but this pincushion is too near the edge. Dear me, what is this?" Poor Priscilla reddened as Mrs. Tilworth gazed in horror at the spot that the cushion had concealed. Her aunt's praise in the first place had been unexpected, and now she felt that she could hardly bear her reproof. "What is this?" continued Mrs. Tilworth, picking up one of the tiny crystals from the cloth and touching it to the tip of her tongue. "As I thought, oxalic acid." "Martine called it salts of lemon." "So this is some of Martine's work, too. Perhaps she forgot to tell you that the salts, or the acid, whichever you choose to call it, is bound to eat a great hole in linen--and this the most valued of all my bureau covers. Ah, Priscilla, I thought you could be trusted." And pushing back the smaller articles that rested on it, Mrs. Tilworth flung the scarf over her arm and walked away with it--ink-spot and all. Priscilla was now more deeply disturbed than before. In no way was she willing to have Martine blamed for what she had not done. Her friend was already sufficiently disgraced in Mrs. Tilworth's eyes. But now, even if she wished, she could not explain. Mrs. Tilworth had gone away for the day. In her heart of hearts Priscilla knew that even had her aunt been at home she would have found it difficult to explain things in their true light. For at the best she must appear extremely careless, and quite unworthy the confidence that Mrs. Tilworth had just expressed. Few girls are willing at a moment's notice to pull themselves down from a pedestal on which they may have been placed. When Mrs. Tilworth and she were together on Saturday evening, Priscilla still found it hard to make the explanation that she knew was Martine's due, and she found the task no easier on Sunday. Monday was the day when the results of the prize contest were to be announced, and the usually calm Priscilla was inwardly perturbed. Her rank in English was high, and she could not help wondering if there might not be a chance that the prize would fall to her. "What became of your spot?" asked Martine, mischievously, as she met Priscilla. "Hush," replied Priscilla; "don't talk about it now, it's too, too disturbing. But I finished my theme for to-day," she continued more brightly, "and now I suppose we shall hear the result of the prize essays." "If I had known prizes were to be given for these essays, I might not have sent mine in." "Are you afraid that you'll get the prize? Really, I think there's no danger." Marie Taggart was noted for her sharp tongue, and Martine controlled the quick reply that rose to her own lips. "Come, Priscilla," she cried, turning to her friend, "let me lead you to your seat, so that I can be free to hunt about for a laurel wreath. I should hate to be unprepared when the prize is awarded you." There was an expectant air throughout the class as Miss Crawdon arose to announce the result of the essay contest. A moment or two later Priscilla's name was called by Miss Crawdon, and as she stepped forward to receive the prize, no one in the school begrudged her what they knew she had gained by careful and conscientious effort. But everyone, even Martine herself, was amazed when Miss Crawdon added, "I have here a small card of honorable mention for two girls, one of them Martine Stratford and the other Inez Galbraith, who are only second to the prize-winner; and although their side of the argument, 'The sword is mightier than the pen' is the less popular, I am glad to commend them for the independence shown in their work." Martine's brow contracted as she heard Miss Crawdon's words. She had little pleasure in the commendation bestowed on her, for suddenly she realized that in letting Lucian help her she had probably done wrong. It is true she had thought out each point for herself, following in many cases Lucian's suggestion, and she had added many things that her brother had not thought of; yet, with it all, she was quite sure that, but for Lucian's help, she never in the world could have written the essay. Therefore the smiles of approval that met her as she went to her seat almost stung her, and Priscilla later, at recess, was surprised at Martine's irritability when she asked her how she had managed to deceive them all by pretending that she could not write. Yet Martine had no intention of cultivating an over-sensitive Puritan conscience. She was an honest girl on the whole, never intentionally untruthful, although sometimes lacking, perhaps, in frankness. This latter quality was the one that Priscilla had especially criticised during their journey through Acadia. In the present instance Martine was not quite sure to what extent she was right, to what extent wrong. If only she could talk it all over with Priscilla. "Priscilla, I know, will advise my telling Miss Crawdon, and then perhaps the whole thing would have to be explained to the school, and I should feel awfully mortified. It isn't as if I had won a real prize, or kept anyone else out of anything--and I have worked hard enough over my English to get something. So I'll just imagine it's all right and let it go." Yet in spite of her determination to think little about the affair, Martine's conscience was not quite clear, and at recess Priscilla noticed a certain change in her manner. Things were not bettered when Martine reminded Priscilla that she had promised to go home with her after school on Monday or Tuesday. "Monday is better than Tuesday, so you must come to-day, and we can telephone your aunt, that she needn't wonder at your mysterious disappearance." "Thank you, really I cannot, I am busy, I must go downtown, and besides--" So Priscilla stumbled along, to Martine's great astonishment. "Oh, I thought you always enjoyed coming home with me. I am sure you have often said so; but you needn't if you don't want to." Martine's air of injured innocence sat ill upon her. She could not explain to Priscilla why she was so anxious to have her spend the afternoon with her. She could not fully explain this anxiety to herself, although the real reason was her hope that a talk with Priscilla might settle that little problem of right and wrong connected with the prize essay. If Martine was annoyed by Priscilla's refusal, poor Priscilla was deeply disturbed by the turn of affairs. Not for a moment did it occur to her that she might disregard her aunt's injunction in relation to Martine. Priscilla had been brought up so strictly that, as Martine sometimes said, she did not think it possible to disobey "the powers that be," whether teachers, parent, or guardian. In Boston Mrs. Tilworth stood in her mother's place, and in consequence whatever she said was law. In the present instance, however, obedience was a little harder than usual, because she knew that Mrs. Tilworth's severity toward her friend came from an error of judgment. Foolish though Martine had been, she was much better than Mrs. Tilworth thought her, and Priscilla knew that it lay with her to correct her aunt's impression. "Good-bye, Martine," said Priscilla, as they parted at the corner below the school. "Really and truly, I am sorry not to go home with you." "There, my dear child, someway or other I always have to believe you; but all the same you are very ridiculous and disobliging not to come with me," and although she smiled as she spoke, Martine's voice still held a little bitterness as she turned away from Priscilla and went down the hill. Through the week the two went their separate ways--at least out of school. In their classes and at recess they were still the best of friends. But neither said a word to the other about visiting her. Priscilla, conscious of her aunt's disapproval of Martine, was tongue-tied, and Martine's sense of wounded dignity lasted longer than usual. On Friday Martine did not go to the Symphony rehearsal, and this in itself was not strange, as she not only was not fond of music, but found the restraint of Mrs. Tilworth's presence rather irksome. In her absence her mother, however, usually occupied her seat, and thus the ticket was not wasted. Martine justified her own absences by telling Priscilla that it would be selfish in her to monopolize the seat when really her mother enjoyed the concert far more than she did. Nevertheless, until this particular week, it had always been her habit to talk the matter over with Priscilla, and often at the last moment she would yield to the persuasions of the latter that this particular symphony, or that particular soloist was too fine for her to miss. But when on Friday morning Martine said nothing whatever about the rehearsal, and when on Friday afternoon neither she nor her mother occupied the seat next Priscilla's, the latter felt that the time had come for her to speak. It is to be feared that that particular symphony meant little to Mrs. Tilworth's niece. Discord, not harmony, filled her mind. She hardly noticed the execution of the great pianist who was the soloist of the day, and when her aunt put a question, her answers were so vague that Mrs. Tilworth, glancing at her keenly, said, "I fear you have been working too hard this winter. It will do you good to go down to Plymouth Easter." The kindness in her aunt's tone encouraged Priscilla, and that evening after dinner she told the whole story of the spot of ink. When she had finished, to her great surprise, the dignified Mrs. Tilworth began to laugh. "Excuse me, my dear, but it seems to me you have made much ado about a small matter. It is true that I value that bureau cover, and I consider you most careless in handling your pen, but that you should think me an ogre--" "Oh, I do not, only I knew I had been careless. I meant to tell you, but I thought I could get it out first." "That was your mistake, child. A good laundress could have removed the ink if she had had the cover before any one else experimented with it. As it is, the oxalic acid weakened the fibre so that we have had to darn it. When you see it, you will admit that the work has been done very well, but everything would have gone much better had you told me in the first place." "Yes, aunt, I know it, and I deserve punishment. But what I wanted to say was about Martine. I know she was silly in doing what she did in the drawing-room, but although she seems so grown up, sometimes she acts just like a child. Why, I really believe she has forgotten all about last Saturday; at least she hasn't said a word to me, and she can't understand why I don't go to her house, and I can't ask her here, and I do wish that you'd let me." "I did not mean to forbid you to go to Martine's," responded Mrs. Tilworth. "I should be sorry to do that, for, as you know, I like Mrs. Stratford. I merely advised you to see less of Martine. There are other girls who ought to be just as companionable--some indeed whom you might like better, if you would make the effort." "I had to make an effort to like Martine at first, and now that I am used to her, I can't grow intimate with anyone else." "Very well, my dear, I think still that you are a little tired. If Martine sees fit to apologize for last Saturday, we can turn over the pages of that chapter." "Then I may go to see her to-morrow?" "I never forbade you to go." "Oh, thank you, aunt Sarah," and as Mrs. Tilworth watched Priscilla's expression brighten, she wondered if in some way she had not been wrong in thinking the child overworked. CHAPTER IX WORD FROM BRENDA Martine was at home when Priscilla called on Saturday morning. "It's really very condescending in your ladyship to come," she began; "and it's a wonder that you found me. I was to take a riding-lesson to-day, but by good luck I found when I telephoned yesterday that I could have an hour to myself then. So here I have Saturday free, with nothing on my mind but your visit and Brenda's letter." "Oh, have you heard again from Mrs. Weston?" "Yes; isn't she a dear to write to me when she has so many people who really belong to her. She says she considers I belong to her, and that she's going to call me her ward until I really come out, and, of course, I shall consider myself her ward always. You've no idea how much I learned from her this autumn. If she had been a stiff, frumpy thing, I just couldn't have paid the least attention to her. I only wish mamma would let me do my hair up like Mrs. Weston's, but she says I'm too young. Well, in a year I shall be a perfect model of style à la Brenda." "But what is in the letter?" "I can't say there's so much actual news, only it makes you just long to get out of this cold, bleak climate. Only think of picking roses by the bushel in March, and sitting out in the sun without a wrap." "In San Francisco?" questioned Priscilla. "Why, I heard my cousin say that it was always too cold for thin gowns there, and that the winds were something terrible." "Oh, my dear child, you are so literal. No, this is down in Monterey, where there are wonderful gardens. Let me read: "'We are thankful that the rainy season is almost over, for when it rains there is apt to be a perfect flood, and we stay indoors for days. Sometimes it rains in the morning as if it would never stop, and then in the afternoon the sun comes out beautifully and the flowers look as if they had grown inches. But after the middle of June there will be no more rain until winter, and we can camp or plan excursions without casting a thought to the weather. Life, however, is not entirely play with us. Arthur is very busy, and often in the evenings he is too tired to go out. Consequently we are reading together a number of improving things, and when I get back to Boston I am almost sure that every one will say, "How much she knows!" I feel as if my new stock of learning must show on the surface even before anyone has time to discover it by talking with me. Arthur says he doesn't object to it at all, and won't do so unless I have to wear eyeglasses, which every one knows I always did hate.'" "The letter certainly sounds like her; when she got started she always talked in that breathless way." "'San Francisco is the most picturesque city I ever saw,'" continued Martine, reading Brenda's letter, "'all up and down hills, so that you feel as if you were riding over the waves of the ocean when you go out in a cable-car. "'From some of the high places where you go up to get a view, very often you only see things dimly through a fog, and then the towers and spires seem parts of castles and you can imagine you are in Europe. "'But although I am perfectly contented here, I often wish I were in Boston, and it makes me too blue for anything to remember that except for business I might now be living in the dearest little apartment in the world. I hope you and your mother enjoy it, Martine, as much as I did, and that you and Priscilla are still great friends.'" Martine let the sheet of paper fall from her hand. "Are we good friends, Prissie dear?" she asked, leaning forward and resting her hand on Priscilla's arm. "Why, of course, Martine; that's why I came. You see it was all on account of that acid, or salts, or whatever you call it, and the ink-spot, and--yes--and Julius Cæsar." "Julius Cæsar?" For a moment Martine appeared to be mystified. "Oh, yes," she spoke with a smile, "Julius and the Roman scarf, and the other improvements that I made in the drawing-room. Mrs. Tilworth blamed you." "No, no, not for that. She knew I couldn't be so silly." "Thanks, my dear. Then she blamed me. To be honest, I had hardly thought about my misbehavior since then. I had a vague idea that you would go down before your aunt came in and restore things to their proper condition. Now I perceive I must apologize. It's written all over you that Mrs. Tilworth will believe me a reprobate until I do so. So that is why you have been so very stiff and Plymouthy this week. Oh, Prissie, Prissie!" Priscilla made no reply. Now, as always, she found it difficult to reply to Martine's teasing. "You must stay here to luncheon, Prissie," continued Martine, "and this afternoon we'll have some fun. You must have had a very dull week without me. Dear me, this drawer is too full," she continued, as she endeavored to close a drawer of her desk on the top of which she had just placed Brenda's letter. "Let me help you," and Priscilla rushed over to Martine's side, but between them they only managed to pull drawer and contents to the floor. "There, I will leave you to yourself, Prissie," said Martine; "you are better than I at straightening things out. I am going out to the dining-room to speak to Angelina." As Priscilla carefully replaced the scattered contents of the drawer she refrained from looking at the letters and other papers that lay before her. She acted thus from habit rather than because she thought there was any need of this carefulness just now. She had not come upon the drawer by accident, and therefore she was at liberty to look at anything that attracted her attention. Just as Priscilla's own reflections had taken this turn, she allowed her eye to rest on a half sheet of foolscap that she had last picked up. The handwriting upon it was not Martine's, and almost without realizing what she was doing, she began to read a sentence or two. Then somewhat startled, she folded the paper, and quickly put it back in the drawer. "Oh, I wish I hadn't seen it!" she thought. "It was Lucian's handwriting, and yet it seemed to be an outline of Martine's essay. I wonder if he wrote it for her. They say he does so well in English. I wish I hadn't seen it. It doesn't seem like Martine." Priscilla was genuinely distressed, and when Martine returned, her feeling had taken the form of embarrassment. When Martine spoke to her, she replied with hesitation, and her manner had some of its old awkwardness. "There," exclaimed Martine, with some acrimony, "you are really rather provoking. Here I have been telephoning and planning a good time for you, and you begin to seem as icebergy as you seemed at Yarmouth last summer. Now listen, first of all I have apologized to your aunt by telephone." "Oh, Martine!" "Yes, and she says it's all right, and she has forgiven me on condition that I never disturb Julius Cæsar again. It was really very good of her, when you consider that she couldn't see my blushes of repentance. So that is settled. Secondly, you are to stay here for dinner, and go with us to a recital this evening." "A recital, and who is 'us'?" "Oh, Lucian, and Robert, and me, or 'I,' whichever is most grammatical. As to the recital, why, haven't you heard that Angelina intends to distinguish herself in elocution? All her little surplus goes for voice-training, and things of that kind--and her recital's to-night. I should have invited you before, only you have been so high and mighty all the week." "But did my aunt say I could go? She doesn't approve of evening things generally--except parties, on Friday or Saturday evenings." "Well, thank goodness, there's no stupid party this evening." "But I'll have to go home to dress." "Oh, Prissie, Prissie! surely you are not growing vain. What you have on is suitable for any occasion. Observe that I speak as one in authority. Mamma would say the same. The recital is not to be given at the Somerset or the Touraine, but somewhere in the outskirts, where 'glad clothes,' as the boys call them, would be quite out of place." "Very well," and Priscilla resigned herself to Martine's stronger will. "I suppose it's all right." "There, dear iceberg, I am glad to see that you have begun to thaw. I hope Lucian and Robert will be as amiable. They have no idea what is before them, except that I am going to take them somewhere. Once in a while Lucian is too amiable to refuse what I ask, and this will be one of the times. For my own part, I shall be as thankful as mamma when the affair is over, for Angelina has been hopping about like a chicken with its head chopped off for a month past. What little mind she has has been fixed on her recitations, and I only hope she'll do herself proud." "Oh, Martine," protested Priscilla, "how can you use so much slang! Just think how Mrs. Redmond and Amy used to talk to you last summer." "Yes, and you too, Prissie dear, and this winter, my own mother. But when you begin to deteriorate, you will know that there are moments when one's spirits must have a safety valve, and slang is mine." Priscilla shook her head. "So now, my dear Prissie, to show that I am not lost to all refining influences, let me suggest an hour at the Art Museum. I love pictures as dearly as I do not love music, and there are several favorites of mine there that I haven't seen for a month. Put on your hat and coat, and we'll be there in five minutes." When they were out in the clear air Martine's tone changed. "Priscilla," she said gently, "do you know I am a little worried about father? He writes as if his business was not going well. He does not say it in exactly those words, but he has written only once, and the letter was far from cheerful. Either it is his business, or he doesn't feel well--and he is so far away. It seems to me now that we oughtn't to have let him go." "But could you have helped it?" asked the practical Priscilla. "Perhaps one of us could have gone with him--Lucian or I. South America seems so far away." Priscilla's sympathy was readily aroused, and she gave it generously to Martine. "It must be very, very hard for you to have your father so far away, especially if you think that he is not quite well. I know how it was when papa was in Cuba. It just seemed as if I couldn't bear it, and yet I suppose that there was nothing I could do, even if I had been there." For a moment both girls were silent, though they realized that a bond of sympathy was drawing them more closely together. Then Priscilla essayed the part of comforter. "You feel worse about your father because he is so far away. They say far-off fields look green, but I think that far-off worries are harder to bear than those near at hand. I mean when the people or things we worry about are so far away that we can't understand exactly what is going on." "Thank you, Priscilla, for your sympathy. I dare say you are right, and yet I cannot help wishing that I understood things better. I am old enough to help--if only I really knew how." "The way will show itself if you are really needed. That is one of the small things I have learned the past year," responded Priscilla. "Priscilla, you have helped me; you are a philosopher," cried Martine. In their hour at the Art Museum Martine recovered her spirits. She really knew something about paintings, and her favorites were chosen with discrimination. She lingered long and silently before those she loved best, and gave reasons for her preferences that would have done credit to a connoisseur. "I don't see how you ever learned so much," said Priscilla. "I feel like a perfect ignoramus before you when you talk of these things." "I did not mean to pose as an expert; you make me feel as if I had been too bumptious," replied Martine. "It's only because we've travelled so much that I know something of art. I have picked it up little by little; even last summer, in spite of our efforts to devote ourselves to history, I gained a lot from Mrs. Redmond about color values, and light and shade." "It's a great thing to know just what pictures to like," responded Priscilla. "I like some paintings more than others, but I never know why." "Neither do I, my dear child, when we come right down to facts. I know why I _ought_ to like certain things, but often those are the paintings that I like least. It's with pictures as with people, we admire many that we do not care for, and when we care very much, it's often because we really cannot help ourselves." "You and I are so different," mused Priscilla, "I often wonder why you like me." "Priscilla," cried Martine, "don't try to be a philosopher until you have left school." Yet hardly an hour before Martine had been praising Priscilla for her philosophy. CHAPTER X THE RECITAL For a few weeks after Angelina's _coup_ she had little further opportunity to show her skill. The successor of the eloping cook proved a capable, steady person, so in love with her new place that to Angelina's disgust she hardly ever even took the afternoon and evening off to which she was entitled. For it had always been Angelina's custom in the absence of the cook to entertain some of her own friends in Mrs. Stratford's dining-room, and to provide them with refreshments of her own concoction. For doing this she would have justified herself (had she thought she needed justification) by saying that no one had ever forbidden her to have company--and anyway, Miss Martine would never object. In this opinion she was quite correct. But, unfortunately, Mrs. Stratford, and not her daughter, was in charge, and the former, unlike Martine, did not find the Portuguese girl a perpetual source of amusement. Neither was Angelina as popular with the new cook as she had hoped to be. Her blandishments had never availed so little to get her what she wanted. "And why she's so anxious to get me out of the house, I can in no ways understand, Mrs. Stratford, and me as quiet as can be, and never saying nothing to her when she sits there reading them novels with the big pictures on the cover, or making faces over the pomes she's learning." "Oh, I don't believe she's anxious to have you out of the way--only--" "Yes'm, it's just that. She's wishing to fill the place up with company of her own, and because I keep an eye to the ice-chest she isn't at all pleased. I know what girls is, ma'am, and that Angelina, she's always up to something." Martine, when her mother repeated the substance of the cook's words, laughed lightly. "Oh, it's much more entertaining to have one person in the house who's up to something. If they were all as stupid as the cook, how dull it would be. But I can tell you what's the matter with Angelina--she is going to give a recital." "A recital?" "Yes. It seems she has been taking elocution lessons ever since she had any money of her own to spend." "Did Miss Bourne encourage this kind of thing?" "Oh, no, she disapproved, but she just couldn't stop her. Brenda Weston told me all about it. Brenda thought there was no great harm in Angelina's amusing herself this way." "But elocution lessons must cost so--" "Yes, that's what Miss Bourne said, and she didn't want Angelina to go on the stage, as she threatened." "Angelina on the stage!" "Yes, mamma. She has even confided to me that she has been answering advertisements of companies that want soubrettes. Of course I told her it was dreadful, and she's promised to give up that idea for the present. But I have taken some tickets for her recital." "My dear, I wish you hadn't encouraged her." "Oh, anything else would have seemed mean, and she didn't dare try to sell you any." After Martine's explanation, Mrs. Stratford was more patient with Angelina. How could she expect regular work from her until after the recital! This was the affair that Martine persuaded Priscilla to attend with her, as well as Lucian and Robert. The four other tickets that she had bought in addition to those needed for her party lay unused in her desk drawer. No one to whom she had offered them cared for them. The recital was to be given in a place too far away. "You are sure we are on the right car?" Martine asked, after the four had been some time on their way. "You said Chelsea, didn't you? well, this car is bound for the Chelsea Ferry," replied Lucian. "Chelsea," exclaimed Priscilla, "I didn't know we were going there! Isn't that awfully far away? I oughtn't to go outside of Boston." "But this is only across the harbor, and Angelina says the hall is a very short way from the dock." "Oh, very well," and Priscilla sank back in her seat. She must continue with her friends and since they were prepared to go to Chelsea, she could only resign herself to their plans. She did not like the ferry-boat. She did not enjoy the walk to the hall. Robert's jokes failed to amuse her, and even Lucian's college stories grew tiresome. To tell the truth, Priscilla dreaded the explanation she must give her aunt. Mrs. Tilworth had readily acceded to her dining with Martine. She had objected only slightly over the telephone when Priscilla had asked if she might go to a recital with Martine and her brother. Priscilla had telephoned even after Martine had obtained Mrs. Tilworth's consent. "I am sorry that it is not to be a musical affair. I do not care for miscellaneous programs. But there will be less harm in wasting time Saturday than any other evening, but I must ask you to be home early. I like to have the house locked at ten." "Yes, aunt," and as Mrs. Tilworth had asked no questions about the performers, Priscilla was spared the necessity of telling her that Angelina would be the chief attraction. Yet of one thing she was now sure, as the four journeyed Chelseaward--Mrs. Tilworth would be displeased if she should be out late, and to return early from Chelsea, why, that surely was an impossibility. "I wonder what your Portuguese calls a short walk," growled Lucian, after they had wandered about for some time after leaving the ferry. "Thus far, every one we have asked has given us a different location. Do you know, Martine, this whole undertaking is a fool thing? Who but you would ever have thought of coming to Chelsea for amusement?" "Thank you, Taps," responded Martine, sweetly, knowing that the old nickname would stir Lucian's anger even more. She did not dread Lucian's anger, for it never flamed very high, and while it lasted it was sometimes rather funny. "You have good company," continued Martine, in a calm tone, ill-calculated to soothe an irritated brother. "Priscilla and I have to walk just as far as you, and you ought to appreciate our being with you." Ungallant Lucian did not reply, and the laugh with which the girls received some remark of Robert's did not please him. "It may seem funny to you to be wandering around the streets of Chelsea, but it would be more to the point, Martine, if you would gather your wits together, and remember the hall where this foolish entertainment is to hold forth." At this moment by some subtle working of her mind light came to Martine, and the next moment she had whispered the forgotten name of the hall to Robert. Upon this Robert shot ahead of the others, and when Lucian caught up with him, he was standing in front of a corner drug-store. "Come," he said, seizing Lucian's arm, "I'll show you where to go. We're ever so far out of our way. If you had left it all to me, we should have been there long ago." Turning the corner beyond the drug-store, and walking a few steps along a street parallel to the one on which they had looked for the hall, the four young people were soon at the entrance of a large building, the lower story of which was occupied by a grocery shop. In front of the shop was a group of half-grown boys. "Got a ticket, Mister?" said one of them, holding the green pasteboard card to Lucian. Lucian, who was really an amiable youth, had quickly recovered from his annoyance with Martine, and would not gratify Robert by showing vexation that the latter had been more successful in finding the hall. He suspected the truth--that Martine had helped Robert, and since they were now at the hall, what did it matter? "Got a ticket, Mister?" A second boy held out his hand to Lucian. "Of course, that's why we're here," replied Lucian. "Are you selling them?" "No, we're giving them away. We want an aujence," was the astonishing response. "What _does_ he mean?" "We'll soon know, Martine," said Priscilla, following the two others up a long flight of dimly-lit stairs. "Did you ever?" Martine gazed around the hall as they entered; "there are not ten people here." "Just thirty." Priscilla was nothing if not accurate. "But I thought Angelina said she had sold two hundred tickets, Martine." "Expected to sell them, Lucian, though, to tell the truth, I thought she _had_ sold them." "I'll wager she gave away half the seats that are occupied now. Those are Portuguese faces down in the front." "I paid for mine." "I know that, Martine. You always had a foolish habit of getting rid of your allowance almost as soon as you received it." "That reminds me," asked Robert, "is this a charitable performance? It would have been more charitable to let us stay quietly in our rooms. Just think what a fine four hours of study Lucian and I could have put in this evening." "Yes, you are so apt to study Saturday evening," interposed Martine; "but to answer your question, I can't say that this is wholly charitable. Part of it is for a girls' club over here--I mean part of the profits--and the rest--" "Here's a poster," interrupted Lucian; "let's see what it says." "It's easy enough to read. It must have been meant for bill-board decoration. Big black letters on green paper. Listen!" and after reading aloud place and date, Lucian continued: MISS ANGELINA ROSA THE EMINENT MONOLOGUIST, WILL GIVE ONE OF HER CHOICE RECITALS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE GIRLS' EXCELSIOR CLUB AND A HALF-ORPHAN "A half-orphan!" shouted Robert. "What in the world--?" "Why, she means herself, of course; her father is dead." "Oh, I see!" and then, after the fashion of young people, the four began to giggle. "Hush! the audience will be disturbed." Priscilla was the first to recover herself. "What audience?" asked Martine, looking around the almost empty hall. "It's fifteen minutes past eight." Lucian closed his watch with a snap. "There's something happening. I wonder what it is. Two or three of those foreigners have gone behind the curtain." At half-past eight Angelina had not appeared. Lucian proposed going home. Martine thought she ought to find Angelina to learn if anything serious had happened. Some of the boys in the front seats scuffled angrily. The hall was neither well heated, nor well lit. Every one was uncomfortable. "I think that we really ought to go home," whispered Priscilla, half-timidly, to Lucian. But just at this moment the curtain was pushed aside, and Angelina appeared in the centre of the stage. In her pink satin gown with its tawdry trimmings at neck and sleeves, she looked "blacker and skinnier than ever," as Lucian put it. Just behind her walked a man who stumbled over her train, and then with a bow began to speak. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is most unfortunate that this lady and I may not be able to give our entertainment as advertised." Hisses from the front soon interrupted the speaker. "What has he to do with it?" Lucian looked again at the poster where "Mr. Smithkins, accompanist" appeared in small letters at the bottom. Mr. Smithkins resumed his speech: "The fact is there's been some misunderstanding with the owner of this hall, who refuses to let us proceed until the rent has been paid in advance." "Yes, every cent of it," and a stout woman with a red face and a bonnet trimmed with purple flowers pushed her way from behind. Angelina waved a large red fan nervously, but otherwise did not appear discomposed. She was at least the centre of the stage and although the audience was small, all eyes were certainly fixed on her. The eloquence of the stout lady quite drowned the words of Mr. Smithkins, making vain efforts to give his version of the situation. But after the hubbub had subsided, it was fairly clear to those present that Angelina had failed to pay the fifteen dollars she had promised in advance for the hall. Moreover, it was even clearer that Mrs. Stinton, the owner of the building, meant not only to stop the entertainment, but also to prevent Angelina's "skipping," without giving her her due. "Will they arrest her?" asked Priscilla, anxiously. "Oh, no, of course not; Angelina must pay the money." "But you heard Mr. Smithkins say that she had been disappointed in the sale of tickets, and hadn't a cent even to pay him, and if he could afford to wait, Mrs. Stinton ought to be able to wait too." "Give us a song or a pome," called a voice from the rear of the hall. The boys, who had been lounging at the door, were now inside. Lucian and Robert rose from their seats. "Excuse us for a moment," said the latter to Martine as the two made their way out into the aisle. "Why, they're going behind the scenes," said Priscilla, in surprise. Still more surprised was she when Lucian, raising the curtain, beckoned to Mrs. Stinton. The latter, impressed by the young man's appearance, went behind the curtain, and Mr. Smithkins, anxious to understand what was going on, followed her. Thus Angelina, to her own great satisfaction, was left in possession of the stage. When Mr. Smithkins, a little later, appeared before the audience, he had the pleasure to announce, as he phrased it, that Mrs. Stinton's demands had been paid in full by a friend of the talented Miss Rosa, and that the performance would go on as advertised. In promising this, however, Mr. Smithkins went a little too far. The cold hall, the low-necked gown, the long wait in which the young monologuist had heroically concealed her anxiety, all proved a great strain for Angelina. Although she began bravely enough with what she considered the gem of the repertoire, the monologue was given quite tamely, and though she continued it to the end she was evidently glad to stop. It was at this point that Mr. Smithkins showed himself of especial service, as he seated himself at the cracked piano. There he pounded out a number of popular airs to the great delight of the audience, and received far greater applause than poor Angelina. Nevertheless, when Angelina appeared for the second time, there fell at her feet a large bouquet of carnations, for which she bowed her acknowledgments several times. It was all very pathetic as well as absurd. The dimly-lit, cold hall, the empty seats, the little figure bowing on the platform. Martine, always ready to see the amusing side of things, began to laugh. The rest of her party, even the considerate Priscilla, echoed the laugh. Then it spread to the front seats, and when Angelina was in the midst of her second selection, one in which she meant to move her audience to tears, all she could hear was one prolonged giggle. Poor Angelina! This laughter was the last straw. Still holding the flowers and the fan, she threw one angry glance toward the house, and then turning her back on friend and foe alike fled behind the curtain. "There, Martine, you've done it. It was your giggling that set them off. You ought to go behind and console her." Lucian seemed in earnest. "It's half-past nine." Robert looked at his watch. "Then we ought to start for home. We are so far away." There was nervousness in Priscilla's tone. Martine had made no effort to go to Angelina. "How is the prima donna to get to town?" asked Lucian. "Are you going to look after her, Martine?" "Oh, no, her brother John is here. He is that tall, good-looking youth, standing near the door. She can depend on him." "Then we may start," continued Lucian, "even if the show isn't wholly over. We cannot wait for further instalments." "We've had more than the value of our money," added Robert. "Mrs. Stinton's performance alone was worth the price." "Yes, girls, you should have heard her express her surprise and gratitude when we gave her the fifteen dollars, and when we told her we were Harvard students, she could hardly believe it." "But what did Angelina think?" "Oh, we told her, Martine, that you had sent it, and that she must pay it back gradually. So you see that you, dear sister, will make the most out of this evening, as we'll let you keep whatever she pays back." With Angelina's _fiasco_ to talk over, the four found the journey back to town much less tiresome than the "voyage," as Martine called it, to Chelsea. It seemed shorter, perhaps, because Robert discovered that they could return to Boston by a bridge instead of the ferry. When at last they left Priscilla at her door, it was not as late as it might have been if Angelina had carried out her full program. CHAPTER XI MARTINE'S ALTRUISM In spite of her love of fun, Martine was considerate enough not to tease Angelina about her recital. Later, by degrees of her own accord, the little Portuguese told the story. After all, there was not much to tell. She had depended on a few posters scattered at random to fill the hall. She had thought that the girls of the Excelsior Club would sell many tickets. But she had fixed the price so high that the girls could neither afford to buy them, nor succeed in disposing of them to their friends. Moreover, on the night of the recital, a Grand Army fair was holding an auction to which admission was free, and thither every one with a penny to spend had rushed, hoping for bargains. Even if Angelina had been a well-known elocutionist, she would have had difficulty in drawing people from the greater attraction. "But I never thought," she said, "that some of the people who regularly bought tickets from me would never pay for them, just because they thought it was too much trouble to go when they found out how far away the hall was. My brother John bought and paid for tickets, and so did you, Miss Martine, and with the tickets I sold I just made out to pay Mr. Smithkins the ten dollars I'd promised him. But it was very embarrassing about the hall--and if it hadn't been for your fifteen dollars, I don't know what I should have done." Martine did not explain her brother's part in the matter. "Of course, that Mrs. Stinton could have charged it as well as not. It wouldn't have been anything to her. They say she owns a whole block of houses down by the ferry. But it's my last of the Excelsior Club. I consider they went back on me." "I hope you have learned a lesson, Angelina. You ought not to have promised to pay for the hall until you were sure of getting enough money out of a recital. You should have waited--" "But I couldn't give a recital without a hall, and I should have paid if I'd sold more tickets." "Well, this ought to be the last of your recitals." "Didn't I do well?" asked Angelina, anxiously. "Oh, that isn't the point." Martine did not care at this moment to give her precise opinion of Angelina's dramatic ability. "But you see, this must have cost you a great deal, and you ought to save your money--everybody ought, and life is more serious--there, Angelina--I'll leave it all to mamma. She'll advise you," concluded Martine, feeling that she was getting into deep water, in advocating principles that she herself had not always been able to live up to. The experience of that memorable Saturday, combined with the advice given by Mrs. Stratford, so far influenced Angelina that for the time she devoted herself exclusively to her household duties, ceased to take elocution lessons, and began to save money. At first she offered to pay Martine a dollar a week, but when the latter learned that Angelina had other debts, she urged her to consider them first. "I can wait," she said, "and when you have finished paying for that pink satin dress--it would be a good idea for you to make your mother a present." Nora Gostar, who always kept closely in touch with the Rosas at their home in Shiloh, had asked Martine to influence Angelina to do more for her family. "Ever since the Four Club years ago began to help the Rosas, Angelina has taken it for granted that the public would look after them. It is true that on the whole they are now fairly prosperous. With her boarders and her garden Mrs. Rosa makes both ends meet, and John always has something to spare for his brothers and sisters. It is only Angelina who seems ready to escape all responsibility. You will remind her, won't you, Martine?" "Yes," said Martine, "but some people say I haven't enough sense of responsibility myself." "My dear, then no one has observed you lately. You certainly have taken hold splendidly of the girls in your painting class. Two or three of them, you know, have been called 'hard cases.' No one else ever could interest them, and yet they seem perfectly devoted to you." "Oh, they are so amusing," said Martine, "that I can't help throwing myself into the work, and then I find out what they want to do, and let them do it. It's silly to make people do things they dislike. Of course," she added, with some embarrassment, "I am aware that this wouldn't be the right principle if I were a real artist, and were trying to make artists out of them. Some of them can't even draw, but they do take an interest in color, and so I am always hunting for good pictures in black and white--and their color effects sometimes are quite wonderful." Martine did not explain that not a little of her own pocket money was spent for pictures suitable to her rather original method of conducting the class. Photographs and lithographs cost money, and though Amy remonstrated that it was contrary to art to gild the lily, Martine replied that the end would justify her means. Among her six little pupils only one showed marked talent. She was a Russian girl who had been in Boston but a year, and her gift took the form of a genius for making caricatures. Her pencil was constantly in her hand, and even with her brush she could outline figures and scenes on the margins of her pictures that would send the others into fits of uproarious laughter. "Esther, Esther," Martine said one day, "you should never make fun of older people. Who is that tall, thin person, with the lorgnette in her hand?" "That's teacher," explained one of the others, "the teacher in our school. It's her dead image, ain't it?" and the friend to whom she turned for confirmation, nodded, adding-- "When she's mad she puts her glasses up just so--and we all feel cheaper 'n thirty cents." "I hope you don't make fun of me this way, Esther, behind my back." "Oh, no'm, you ain't a teacher." As Martine was already aware that her girls always spoke of her as "the young lady," this doubtful compliment passed without criticism. Neither in her heart did she think it wise to criticise the little girl's caricatures. She was delighted when Mrs. Redmond, after looking at Esther's drawings, said that the child had real talent. Then without further delay, without indeed consulting anyone, Martine engaged an expensive teacher to give Esther drawing lessons once a week. Mrs. Redmond would have taught her gratuitously, had she not felt that the little girl's peculiar talent would be best developed by a teacher who made a specialty of figure drawing. Before Mr. Stratford's departure for England Martine had suggested that he add to the sum he had given her for Yvonne. To the little Acadienne had gone one third of three hundred dollars. This was a sum that Mr. Stratford had asked his daughter to share with her two friends Amy and Priscilla, and expend on the three young people in whom they had taken a special interest during their trip through Acadia. It had surprised Martine not a little when her usually generous father had hesitated about granting her little request for Yvonne. "Send her ten dollars from your own Christmas money, dear child, and later I will add to it. Your desire to help her pleases me very much, but just now I would rather not promise a large sum." "But I did not mean _very_ large, papa; only enough for Alexander Babet to bring her up here and stay for a few months, until the doctors know what can be done for her eyes. It would make you happier, wouldn't it, papa, to know that she could see perfectly?" "Indeed it would, Martine, but just now I would rather postpone anything of this kind. Besides, even if I were a second Croesus, I should be more inclined to wait until I could have more thorough knowledge of the condition of the Babet family." "Oh, papa, surely you believe what I have told you--that Yvonne is almost blind, and that she has the most beautiful voice." "Yes, my dear, but I know also that the Acadians are thrifty, and that the Babets will spend your gift so carefully, that it will go farther than five hundred dollars with most people. Some day we shall do more for Yvonne, but for the present she must be content with what she has." So positively did Mr. Stratford speak, that Martine, too, had to be content. She managed, however, not only to send the money that Mr. Stratford had suggested, but a box of slightly worn garments that could be adapted to the use of the little blind girl. She remembered Yvonne's love for pretty things, and what she sent had only enough of the newness worn off to enable the box to pass the watchful customs officials of Nova Scotia. Priscilla did not pretend to be as altruistic as Martine, though both professed to take Amy for their model. Yet letters between Eunice and Priscilla passed back and forth constantly, and after reading them Priscilla was apt to sigh, and fall into a brown study; for Eunice, having for the first time found a confidante of her own age, opened her heart almost too freely, and in emphasizing the disappointments of her daily life, sometimes threw a cloud over her friend. This is a mistake made by some young letter-writers. They write intensely of personal disappointments that soon pass away. Yet the letter that they send seems to give permanence to their troubles, and if the person to whom they write is sensitive, she pictures the absent one as continually unhappy. Eunice and Balfour Airton were brother and sister living with their mother in Annapolis. They had been able to make pleasanter than it might have been the stay of Mrs. Redmond and the three girls in the old town. Eunice and Priscilla had soon become warm friends, and after their comparatively short acquaintance parted almost in tears. The Airtons were descended from Tories who had gone to Nova Scotia after the Revolution, and had always been highly respected. Even before the death of Eunice's father, however, they had lost much of their property, and were under a heavy strain to make both ends meet. Balfour Airton, who was a year or two older than Martine, was working his way through college. In his vacations he served as clerk in a grocery shop. Indeed, Martine had made his acquaintance one day when lost in the fog on the North Mountain. She had been rescued by Balfour, who fortunately drove up in his grocery cart. Balfour proved a most companionable boy, and his energy and industry made a great impression on Martine, when she contrasted him with the idler college boys whom she knew. By a combination of proofs needless to describe here, Martine discovered that she and the Airtons were third cousins, since their great-great-grandfather and hers, Thomas Blair, was the Tory exile who had gone to Nova Scotia after the Revolution. In the same way Edith Blair, Brenda's great friend, was a cousin of Eunice and Balfour, and Martine's first impulse on returning home had been to urge her father and Mr. Blair to provide for Balfour, so that he no longer need earn his way through college. Fortunately enough, before she had spoken to her father, she talked the matter over with Mrs. Redmond. "My dear Martine, I sincerely hope that you will change your mind about this. Or, if you do not, hope that your father and Mr. Blair will be hard-hearted enough to refuse your request." "How hard-hearted _you_ are, Mrs. Redmond!" "No, indeed, not hard-hearted--only hard-headed." "What do you mean?" "I am looking strictly to the practical side. In the first place, you would risk the loss of Balfour's friendship, if you should put him in the position of a pauper--for this is the light in which he might regard your interference." "Oh, no, not a pauper!" "Well, Balfour is very proud--and in the second place, he could not afford to risk his independence, as he must, if he should accept money from strangers." "But they wouldn't be strangers; in the South third cousins are very near." "Well, this isn't the South, and the relationship is on your mother's side, and Mrs. Blair's. Balfour would probably regard the men as strangers. Think over what I have said, Martine, and remember Balfour's disposition." "It is because he is so bright and industrious that I think it a shame that he should not have as good a chance as Lucian or Robert." "Balfour has the best possible chance. In the end his friends will be proud of him, and he will be thankful that no one took away his independence." Martine was sufficiently impressed by what Mrs. Redmond had said to give up for the time the plan she had formed of getting help for Balfour. When she saw that her father was not quite ready to do what she had planned for Yvonne, she was glad that she had not thrown on him the extra burden of considering the case of Balfour. She decided, however, to interest Lucian in Eunice's brother. In spite of Lucian's fondness for teasing Martine, he was really devoted to her. He was apt in the end to be influenced by her, although in the beginning often pretending to resist her influence. In his Freshman year, Lucian was drifting into the extravagant habits of an idle group from the preparatory school where he had fitted for Harvard. Fortunately, however, at the critical moment he came under the ken of Fritz Tomkins--a Junior. Between the two there then sprang up a friendship rather unusual in its way. For even at Harvard Freshmen and Juniors are seldom intimate. So it happened that when the summer came, instead of going to Europe with two or three of his classmates, Lucian really preferred a trip with Fritz. The two went to Nova Scotia, and the constant companionship with the sensible Fritz had given Lucian new views of life, or not to put it too seriously--of the value of time and money. Fritz himself was gay and light-hearted, fond of teasing his old friend Amy Redmond, and willing always to have others laugh at him. But beneath all his apparent frivolity was a depth of purpose that those who knew him best fully realized. CHAPTER XII PUZZLES In the weeks immediately after the recital Martine and Priscilla were both so occupied with their studies and their little duties and pleasures that they saw less than usual of each other. Martine, on whom care sat rather lightly, ceased for the time to worry about her father. She noticed, it is true, that her mother did not read her father's last letter, which arrived about a week after her conversation with Priscilla. "Is everything going on properly?" she asked eagerly, as her mother folded the letter within its envelope. "I hope for the best, dear. It seems too bad that your father had to go away at this time. It was a long, hard journey, and there are still difficulties before him." "Oh, I wish we could help, Lucian and I, I mean." "You can help; indeed you have helped me immensely, by being bright and cheerful and--" "Yes, and economical. Once in a while it seems strange to have to stop and think of money. I bought two-dollar seats for the Paderewski matinee, although the three-dollar seats were much better, but I thought that as I had invited Priscilla and Grace--as well as Miss Mings--our history teacher--and as we were to go to the Somerset afterwards, I ought to be economical." Even Mrs. Stratford smiled at Martine's intended economy, as she said, "But my dear, I think perhaps it would have been wiser to pass this matinee by. You are not fond of instrumental music, and the whole thing means spending more money than you ought to spend in this way at present." "Then I'll take it out of my allowance. Of course I meant to anyway. I don't honestly care much about Paderewski myself, but Priscilla does, and most of the girls are wild about him, and everyone is going, so I should feel very silly to have to say I hadn't been." "Very well, my dear, I cannot criticise you, for I gave you my permission, but in future you must think more about the cost of things." "Yes, mamma! indeed I often think of economizing, for even though it is pleasant here, living in an apartment with only Angelina and a cook is very different from being in our house at home, and I know we're here to save money. How some of the people we know would stare to see us trying to help with the work! why, the week the cook left I actually saw you washing dishes." Mrs. Stratford smiled faintly; some of her Boston experiences had been trying, but she had said little to Martine about them. "So far as I am concerned," added Martine, "I have enjoyed everything in Boston. I have learned lots about cooking, and if it wasn't for school, sometimes I think we could manage just with Angelina. But I am going to economize so that papa will hardly know me when he comes home in June. I can get along with only one tailor-made suit, and perhaps two or three new silks this spring. But I do hope we can plan something worth while for the summer. Wouldn't you like the Yellowstone, with our own special guide, papa, Lucian, and all of us, and I could invite Priscilla, and we might have a few weeks in one of those big hotels among the mountains. What sport it would be!" Martine paused, almost out of breath. "We can't make many plans until we hear from your father," replied Mrs. Stratford, quietly, "but what you suggest isn't exactly in the direction of economy." "Oh, I didn't suppose we'd have to economize always. Then you ought to speak to Lucian, mamma, he has ordered a new touring car." "That is the worst of indulging a boy from the cradle," and Mrs. Stratford sighed. "Last year your father told him he might have a new car this spring, and Lucian thinks he's very moderate because he is keeping within the two-thousand-dollar limit. I don't like to stop him, for if things come out as well as they may, he can have it." "Two thousand dollars!" exclaimed Martine, to whom figures usually did not mean much. "That is a large sum! Why, it would put a boy through college." She was thinking of Balfour Airton, and all that this amount of money would do for him. "Mrs. Blair," continued Martine's mother, "calls Lucian very moderate in his college expenses. He stands well in his classes, too. She says that Philip spent three times as much." "And he had to leave Harvard without a degree!" "He has made it up since, and he is doing splendidly in business." "Edith says it's Pamela's influence that has done so much for him." "He was lucky enough to find a girl like her to marry him." "She certainly is a superior woman--even if she is country-born and a college graduate, as Mrs. Blair would say," responded Martine, smiling. "If only they lived nearer, I should spend half my time with cousin Pamela--if she'd let me, but Lincoln seems far away in the winter. That's one thing we'd gain from Lucian's new car; those out-of-town places would seem close at hand." Lucian, when Martine spoke to him about his car, admitted that he had ordered it, and he tried to laugh away her concern over family affairs. But his efforts in this direction were not really successful, and he saw that his sister was still troubled in spite of his argument that, if things were really going badly, he would have heard more from his father. "He'd be the last one to wish me to countermand the order. Why, every fellow in our set has a new machine this spring. I thought I was doing something to send my order in so early, though of course if worse comes to worse, I can get rid of it easily enough. Mine is to be ready in June, and I know a fellow who would take it off my hands gladly enough, as he can't get his until August. I'm going to pray, however, that things won't come to that pass." Martine, fortunately, was not inclined to borrow trouble, and although she by no means forgot the little conversation with her mother regarding her father's business, remembering it did not depress her. Life in the spring, even in a bleak New England spring, holds so many pleasant things for a girl of seventeen that intangible troubles are not likely to prevent her enjoyment of the present. Martine was popular at school, and her invitations far exceeded those of the majority of her classmates. The younger girls liked her because she was always cheerful, and never snubbed them. The older girls admired her because she had an air of knowing the world, and was ever ready with some amusing story. She was popular without having many intimate friends, and Priscilla was proud of the distinction of being the one girl who knew Martine the best. Here and there, naturally enough, there were girls who did not care especially for Martine. There were one or two who professed an inherent dislike of outsiders, as a class, and there were others who found fault with Martine in particular. They said that she was forward, that she was patronizing, and that her liberality in the spending of money was merely a way of "showing off" of which they did not approve. But the fact that Martine, at the beginning of the school year, had been dubbed "Brenda's ward" was more effectual than any other one thing in placing her within the inner circle of the school. In spite of the years that had elapsed since Brenda was a pupil at Miss Crawdon's, she and her doings were still remembered. Older sisters had talked to younger sisters about her, and everyone knew that she had been the most popular girl of her day. She was still spoken of most habitually as "Brenda," even by those who had not known her well. For in Boston the unmarried names of girls cling to them longer than in most cities, and those who immediately recalled "Brenda Barlow" had to think twice when "Mrs. Arthur Weston" was named. Priscilla, who was nothing if not exact, remonstrated occasionally with girls who spoke of Martine as "Brenda's ward." "She never was really her ward, you know, only Brenda was to chaperone her, and now that Mrs. Weston has gone away, it seems to me that the name ought to be dropped." The girls to whom Priscilla spoke only laughed at her. "My dear child," said Marie Taggart, "from the way you cling to her, I judge you would rather have Martine called 'Priscilla's ward,' but Brenda is so far away that you mustn't be jealous of her, really and truly you must not." After this Priscilla said no more on this subject, although an observer would have noticed that she herself never spoke of her friend by the obnoxious title. When Mrs. Stratford and Martine first took possession of Brenda's little apartment, Brenda's mother and sister, Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Weston, added much to their pleasure by introducing them to their large circle of relatives and friends and in other ways, as Mrs. Barlow put it, "adopting" them in Brenda's place. But before January had come to an end the whole Barlow household was itself preparing to move. His physician had prescribed a change of air for Mr. Barlow, and after a few weeks in Florida the family intended to travel West, to join Brenda in California in the late spring. It happened, therefore, that the special groups to whom Mrs. Barlow had introduced the Stratfords felt no personal responsibility for them. This was not because they did not find the Chicagoans interesting, but because the latter seemed able to make their own friends without the help of a third person. "It would be a great bore, mamma," Martine had protested, when one or two of Mrs. Barlow's friends urged that the young girl should join a certain exclusive dancing-class. "It would be a great bore if we had to act as if we were real old Bostonians. We are not, and though some of the sewing circles and dancing-classes, and afternoon-readings are offered us kindly, I do prefer to be independent and know only the people I want to know and do only the things I really wish to do. Anything else would be a nuisance, so please don't let anyone make social engagements for me." Mrs. Stratford herself was not strong, and she really preferred a quiet life. Later she saw that Martine herself had been very wise in her attitude of independence. Martine indeed was happy enough--happy in her school acquaintances, happy in her friendship with Priscilla, and happier in her affection for Amy. It is true that Amy in this her last year of college was too busy to give much time to Martine, but when occasionally they had a half-day together, no one could have doubted their perfect understanding of each other. On the morning before the matinee to which Mrs. Stratford had referred, or to be more exact, at twelve o'clock on the very day of the great Paderewski recital, Martine ran out to the letter-box to post two or three notes. Angelina could have taken them for her, or she might better have followed the custom of the house, which was to give them to the hall-boy. But Martine had not been out that morning, as illness among her drawing pupils had occasioned a postponement of the usual Saturday lesson. She had therefore seized on the letters as an excuse for getting a breath of the fresh spring air that came in through the half-open windows, tantalizing her and urging her to leave the house. "I half wish I were not going to the recital," she said to herself, "on a mild sunny day like this I begrudge the hours I must spend in a crowded hall, and though I won't have to pretend to be in a seventh heaven over the music, yet it will weary me to have to show a proper degree of appreciation in the presence of my guests." So ran the course of Martine's thoughts as she approached the letter-box. After a turn or two in the mall under the trees, she walked back slowly toward the house. "After all," she mused, "mamma was probably right. I have been extravagant. The tickets have really cost a pretty sum, counting premiums and all. For what is the good in inviting guests, unless one has the very best seats?" This thought of the seats inclined Martine to look again at her tickets, and as soon as she reached her room she went to her desk to look at them. "Mamma," she called, "you haven't by any chance seen a narrow envelope with my Paderewski tickets?" "No, my dear," replied her mother, "surely you haven't lost them?" "Oh, no, I remember now, I put them in a larger envelope; they were lying here with my letters." A moment later Martine stood before her mother with dismay written on her face. "What do you suppose I have done? it's too foolish and too annoying for anything. I can't find the envelope with the tickets and I really believe that I dropped it into the letter-box." "Oh, Martine, I thought you'd outgrown those careless habits!" "I thought so too, but there's no use in crying about spilled milk; I will try to do what I can to get the tickets from the postman." "There again you talk like a baby," said Mrs. Stratford. "Surely you must know that no postman can give you anything from a letter-box simply because you ask for it." "Well, I can try, that is if there's time." "But it's half-past twelve now, and if you are to meet Priscilla at half-past one, you will have all you can do to dress and keep your appointment." "But, mamma, what _can_ I do without tickets? It will be terrible if we can't get in, and how everyone will laugh at me. And they were such good seats in the house." "I am sorry for you, my child, but I can say little to help you." While they were speaking, Martine had been making a rapid calculation. The only result at which she arrived was the impossibility of recovering the lost envelope. "There's one thing I can do," she said. "I'll dress as quickly as I can and run over to the branch postoffice; then I'll beg them to look over their mail and see if an envelope is there with the tickets I describe." "Of course you can try, but I feel sure that you will not succeed." "Then what shall I do, mamma? It will be terrible to disappoint three people I've invited to so important an affair as this." "There is only one thing, my dear. If you fail to recover the tickets, you can pay single admissions at the door, and if you remember the number of your seats or in a general way where they are, you can take possession of them." "Thank you, mamma, that certainly is the only way, but dear me, four single admissions at one dollar apiece; this is something I hadn't planned for, and I intended to be so economical the rest of the spring." As quickly as she could, Martine hastened away to the postoffice, only to find that the mail from the box in which she had deposited her letters would not reach the office until half-past two, and that even then it was doubtful if the envelope would be given to her immediately. The only way, then, of saving her reputation as a hostess was to follow her mother's suggestion. She met her friends as she had planned, paid for admission to the hall and after some discussion with a rather obtuse usher at last found herself in possession of her own seats. It is to be feared that her impressions of the great pianist were sadly blurred that afternoon. Her brain was automatically working out problems of expenditure. She was trying to plan in what way she could economize to make up for the extravagance of this Paderewski matinee--to make up not only for this, but for various other needless expenses that she had lately incurred. So abstracted was she that she failed to join in the applause repeatedly showered on the musician, and on leaving the hall, she had very little to say to her friends. At the hotel afterwards, however, she brightened up and confided to Priscilla and Grace the way in which she had lost the tickets. "I think you managed very well," said Priscilla, "I should not have had the least idea what to do if anything like that happened to me." "Neither should I," added Grace, "but you are always clever about things, Martine." "Oh, no, it was all mamma; I felt quite sure at first that I should have to telephone you not to meet me, but 'all's well that ends well,' and I'm so glad that that stupid usher let us have our seats; for you know they told me at the box office that actually there wasn't a seat to sell in the whole house, and ours were about the last admissions." "You were fortunate enough," said Miss Mings who had listened with considerable amusement to Martine's entertaining account of her mistake adventure. "Our afternoon with you has been so pleasant that I should have been very sorry to lose it." "Oh, I should have made it up in some way," responded Martine. "We were bound to have this little tea here, and we might have taken a drive through the Park instead of hearing Paderewski. Truly, now, it would have been more fun, wouldn't it, Priscilla?" Honest Priscilla shook her head. "Nothing could have been more delightful than this concert, though of course if we had had to give it up I should have made the best of it." "As you do of everything, Prissie dear. I only wish that I were half as amiable as you." Martine's economy did not extend very far. She refrained from doing some things that she would like to have done, when to do them meant going outside of her regular allowance. But each month's spending money was soon laid out on the various little things that pleased her fancy, and as she heard no more of depressing business conditions, she almost forgot her mother's warning. A week after the matinee Martine received a letter from Elinor Naylor. "Listen, mother," she said, "isn't this the funniest thing? Elinor says that a few days ago she received an unsealed letter from me--at least the envelope was unsealed, but there wasn't a scrap of writing inside. Instead there were four tickets for a concert by Paderewski. She wondered why I sent them as she didn't receive them until the day after the date on the tickets. Now she returns them--and here they are! Isn't it ridiculous?" "Your carelessness certainly was ridiculous." "I understand it all now," cried Martine. "I had addressed and stamped an envelope to Elinor, as I sometimes do when I am intending to write. Then when I wanted to put my tickets away, I picked up this envelope without looking at the addressed side. Of course the tickets went safely to Philadelphia." "'Until I looked at the date,'" Martine read from Elinor's letter, "'I thought you had heard of my intention of coming to Boston, and meant me to hear Paderewski. But as I do not leave home until next week, there must be some other explanation.'" "I had no idea that Elinor was coming here," said Martine. "But I am delighted. If she can manage it, mightn't I have her here to spend a day or two with me? I know you would like her." "Certainly, my dear," replied Mrs. Stratford, and when Elinor accepted her invitation, Martine was delighted. Although Elinor could spare her only two days, both girls made the most of their time, and parted the best of friends, greatly to their own amusement. For both Elinor and Martine, whose friendship was of sudden growth, had begun their acquaintance with more or less prejudice. The acquaintance had developed into friendship chiefly through correspondence, as both girls had a gift for writing interesting letters. A chance commission which Elinor had entrusted to Martine the day of their drive to Cambridge had occasioned the first interchange of letters after Elinor's return to Philadelphia, and in the succeeding months they had continued to write once a fortnight. Thus their friendship had developed without their having seen much of each other, and Elinor's flying visit was delightful to them both in showing them how much they really had in common. CHAPTER XIII AT PLYMOUTH "Mother," said Martine, a week before Easter, "I have a splendid plan." "Well, my dear, what is it?" "Wouldn't it be fine to take Priscilla to New York for the holidays? Just think! she has never been there--and at her age--!" Mrs. Stratford could but laugh at Martine's seriousness. "I imagine many persons twice Priscilla's age have never been in New York." "Oh, yes--but Boston is so near--and Priscilla ought to go because she has the strangest notions about New York people--that they are all frivolous, with nothing to do but amuse themselves. I would like to have her at the Waldorf for a few days. Wouldn't she open her eyes? I am just crazy to take her!" "I fear it isn't feasible, my dear, to go away now." "But you like New York, and a change always benefits you." "Oh, yes." "You like Priscilla, too?" "Certainly. She is an excellent companion for you. You balance each other perfectly, and I should be glad to have you spend your holidays together. But New York--no, my dear, we must be careful this spring about spending money--your father has had losses and expenses." Something in her mother's tone impressed Martine, something in her words, too, as well as in her tone. She had seldom heard either her father or her mother talk of economy, except in occasional instances when she herself had been carelessly extravagant. Now the mention of her father stirred her. "Oh, I hope that wasn't why papa went away, on account of money. Of course I know we have to be more economical--but a trip to New York is so short, and we always have travelled so much." "I know it, dear. But, fortunately, neither of us needs change just now. There is much in Boston that you have not yet seen, and I can imagine your spending the vacation delightfully without leaving the city." "Oh, I am sure I could, mamma; and now that you have spoken of it, I should just love to economize. I don't need a new spring hat--the one I had last season is as good as new--and if you would let the cook go--I am sure that Angelina and I could do all the work." Martine spoke anxiously, even excitedly. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. "There is no need of any desperate economy just yet. But if you and Lucian can be contented with me, I can promise you a pleasant vacation." "I am sure of it, mamma; let us make some plans now." But the plans that Martine and her mother made were not destined to be carried out--at least, during this particular vacation. For a couple of days before school closed an invitation came from Mrs. Danforth, urging Martine to spend a week at Plymouth. Immediately New York lost all its attractiveness for Martine. To visit Plymouth was her one desire. "It will be delightful, Puritan Prissie"--even now she could not resist her love of teasing--"to see the place where you were 'raised,' as they say down South. I wonder if there's something in the air to make Plymouth people different from others. To be sure, you are the only one I've ever seen." "Am I so very different from other people?" Priscilla spoke as if not altogether pleased with Martine's words. "Not too different--only you are fearfully conscientious, and you fuss too much over little things, and you know how to economize--which I wish I did. But for all that, you are not half bad, and your mother is perfectly lovely to invite a girl she has never seen to spend a week with her. You must have given a good account of me." "Of course, Martine, and she has heard of you from others--if only you wouldn't make fun of everything." "I won't, I promise you I won't." Martine looked keenly at her friend, wondering if she really feared that she would be so thoughtless. "I suppose I was rather mean last summer," she reflected, "and it's natural, perhaps, for Priscilla to lack confidence in me." When they were ready to start Martine was somewhat disappointed that they could not go to Plymouth by boat. "A train seems so prosaic," she said; "and now when I am going to historic ground, I should like to be able to jump ashore--just as the Pilgrims did." "I didn't suppose you'd take so much interest. Last summer--" "Now, Prissie! After all my efforts this winter, surely you might admit that I have improved. Why, now, I've wholly forgotten that we ever had a French and English question to dispute over. Before we reach Plymouth I'll be as good a Puritan as you." Mrs. Tilworth and Lucian saw the two girls safely on board their train. But from Boston to Plymouth Priscilla and Martine travelled alone. They had so much to talk of that the journey seemed short enough, and Martine was surprised when the conductor called Plymouth. Hardly had Priscilla's foot touched the platform, when a whirlwind of heads and arms seemed to engulf her. "Say, I'm going to ride up in the carriage--" "No, I am!" "What did Aunt Sarah send us?" "Oh, Priscilla, I'm so glad you're home. The yellow cat has four of the cunningest kittens!" "Yes, and we've had to muzzle Carlo, because a mad dog from Kingston ran through town the other day." "There, there," and Priscilla disentangled herself from the arms of the children. "Martine, these are my little brothers and sister. There are only three of them--though they sound like a regiment. Children, this is my great friend, Martine Stratford." The children looked up brightly, and held out their hands. "We are very glad to see you," said Marcus, the elder boy. "We hope you'll stay a long time," added George, the second. Little Lucy was too shy to speak to the newcomer, but she held up her head, as if expecting the kiss that Martine promptly bestowed on her. The resemblance between the three children was very striking, and they all looked like Priscilla, with their calm, blue eyes and blonde hair. "Say, Priscilla," exclaimed Marcus, recovering from the awful moment of being introduced to a stranger. "Say, now, I _can_ ride up with you, can't I?" "It's my turn," interposed George. "'Tisn't fair for you to ride every time." "Lucy can come with us," replied Priscilla. "There's no room for you boys." "Let them all come with us," cried Martine. "We won't mind being crowded." "Of course, I don't mind," responded Priscilla. "I was thinking of you." The carriage into which the children climbed was an old-fashioned carryall, the driver an elderly man, who addressed Priscilla without formality. "What did Aunt Sarah send me?" persisted George, as they drove along. "But, my dear, it isn't long since you had your Christmas presents," protested Priscilla. "You never come home without bringing something." "Wait and see," said Priscilla, squeezing Lucy. "It seems as if I hadn't seen a child for a year." "You were here Christmas; you didn't go away until New Year's," said the literal Marcus. "I mean that I haven't had a chance to talk to a child, not to mention squeezing one," responded the smiling Priscilla. "Aren't there any little girls in Boston?" asked Lucy, timidly. "Haven't your friends any sisters and brothers?" "Martine hasn't, and she's my best friend." "Oh, how too bad!" "That I'm Priscilla's best friend?" "No; that you haven't brothers and sisters." "I have a big brother, but he's in college." "Oh!" "Here we are! There's mother at the door." In her delight, Priscilla was almost ready to jump from the carriage before it had fully stopped. Again Martine stared at her friend. Could this be the cool, unemotional Priscilla? The greetings of mother and daughter could have been no warmer had they been separated for years instead of months. "There, there, Priscilla, Martine will think we have forgotten her--I should know you, my dear--" and Mrs. Danforth held out both hands to Martine, "from Priscilla's enthusiastic descriptions of you. I can see you are just what she said you were." From that moment when Mrs. Danforth kissed her lightly on the forehead, Martine felt perfectly at home. As Martine had approached the Danforth house, she had noticed that the house was a large, square wooden structure, painted brown. The paint, indeed, was faded in spots, and the general aspect was rather dingy. Once inside the house, Martine, without meaning to be critical, was slightly impressed by the general air of shabbiness. The carpets were dull from the trampling of many little feet, the furniture was simple, the pictures old-fashioned, and the gilt frames somewhat tarnished. But there were books everywhere, in the open bookshelves in hall and sitting-room. Open fires were blazing in large fireplaces. When Priscilla led her to her own room there was the same air of homelikeness, from the easy-chair drawn up before the fire to the large bowls of mayflowers on mantelpiece and dressing-table. After supper, when all gathered around her, Lucy on her knee, the boys hanging over her chair, to hear what she had to tell about Chicago--for this was their special request--Martine felt as if she had known the Danforths all her life. As to Priscilla--Martine now really understood why Eunice Airton and Priscilla had been so much to each other. Far apart though Plymouth and Annapolis were, the Danforth household had an atmosphere very similar to that of the Airton family. It was true that Eunice had no younger brothers or sister, nor was Mrs. Danforth quite as old-fashioned as Mrs. Airton in manner and speech. Mrs. Danforth, indeed, seemed to Martine more like some one she had always known, and she soon felt completely at home with her. The evening passed quickly away, as they sat around the open fire, and the children were allowed to extend their bed-hour an hour beyond the usual time. "Who is going to be my guide?" asked Martine, before they separated for the night. "That depends on what you want to see," responded Marcus, cautiously. "You are not very gallant," protested Mrs. Danforth. "You should be very proud to guide a young lady from the city wherever she wishes to go." "I _am_ proud," interposed George. "I'll go anywhere." "Well," said the cautious Marcus, "I only meant that I don't want to go up on Burial Hill. It's very stupid looking at those old gravestones, and there aren't any real Pilgrims there, at least not any worth mentioning." "But there's a lovely view," said Priscilla, "and the first fort stood up there, and some people like old gravestones." "To be perfectly frank," said Martine, "I don't care so very much for them, unless the inscriptions are entertaining. Don't look shocked, Prissie, epitaphs can be very amusing sometimes. But what would you like to show me, Marcus?" "Oh, I'd like to take you out into the woods for mayflowers, for one thing, and over to Duxbury to see the Standish monument for another; but I just hate poking about the town, looking for old houses and ruins the way some people do; for we haven't any ruins here." "Then I suppose you wouldn't condescend to show me Plymouth Rock? For that, of course, is one of the things I _must_ see." "Oh, I'll take you there!" interrupted George; "let's go right after breakfast." "Very well, I'll be ready; and thank you for your invitation." And Martine, bending toward the little fellow, kissed him good-night. As she turned away, George reddened with delight; it was pleasant to be treated as if he were as old as Marcus; for Marcus, his elder by two years, had a brotherly habit of making him feel himself to be of the slightest consequence in the estimation of strangers. Promptly after breakfast Martine set out with George. "I know you won't mind my leaving you, Priscilla," she said. "You and your mother must have so many things to talk over." "Thank you; a little later I will go join you, but I know that George will show you just what you wish to see;" and Priscilla kissed Martine good-bye. At her first sight of the rock, the Plymouth Rock of history and poetry, Martine gave a gasp of surprise. It was so much smaller than she had expected. The little guide-book that Mrs. Danforth had put in her hands told her that from 1775 to 1880 the rock had been in two pieces, and that one piece was for a long time exhibited in Pilgrim Hall; but at last a generous son of Plymouth, feeling that the rock deserved greater honor, had had the two pieces put together on a spot that was probably very near the place that it occupied in 1620, and had had it protected by granite canopy and an iron fence. "Why, it looks as though I could almost carry it away myself; it's hardly large enough for a good-sized man to stand on." "Oh, two or three men could stand on it," said the literal George, who thereupon began to make calculations to convince Martine of her error. Martine, somewhat amused by George's earnestness, began to tease the little fellow. "Do you really believe that this rock was here in the time of the Pilgrim Fathers?" "Why, yes, where else could it have been?" To this question Martine had no answer ready, and before she had made a second attempt to puzzle George, an old gentleman who had been standing near them stepped up. "You are not skeptical, young lady, about the famous rock?" "Oh, no," replied Martine; "I don't know enough about it to be skeptical." The old gentleman glanced at her quizzically. "There is more philosophy in that remark than you perhaps realize, young lady. But this is really _the_ rock, the only one to be found the whole length of this sandy shore. So it must be the rock on which the Mayflower's passengers landed." "I wonder why they didn't just step out on the beach," persisted Martine. "I should think that would have been ever so much more comfortable than hopping down on this rock." "Others besides you have intimated the same thing," persisted the old gentleman; "but you must admit that a rock is a better foundation for the sentiment of a nation to base itself on than a sandy beach. Even our foreign-born children pin much of their patriotism to Plymouth Rock." "Do you believe--?" "My dear young lady, in George's presence, at least, you must not intimate that it is possible to believe anything about Plymouth Rock except what is usually taught in school histories." Martine looked earnestly at the old gentleman. She could not tell whether he was in jest or in earnest, but there was something in his face that she liked. She felt as if she had always known him. He seemed really like an old friend. "Mr. Stacy," interposed George, "I never know exactly what you mean, but I am sure that the school histories are true." "Surely, my dear, but I can see that this young lady wishes to go back of the printed book. She would like to know why we think this is the rock of the Pilgrims. So, as there is no one else here to inform her, the duty seems to have fallen on me. We pin our faith to the rock," he continued, "on account of the testimony of Elder Faunce, a truthful man, who, in the first half of the eighteenth century--1743, I believe--made a vigorous protest when certain individuals began to build a wharf, which would have covered the rock. He said that this stone had been pointed out to him by his father as the one on which the founders of the colony had landed. It is true that John Faunce, the father, did not come over on the Mayflower, and what he knew of the landing he must have heard from others. But as he had arrived in Plymouth in 1623, he must have had his information on the best authority. Elder Faunce, the son of John Faunce, was forty years old when the last of the Mayflower passengers died, and if the story of the rock was not true, doubtless he would have heard some one contradict it." "Did they build the wharf?" asked Martine. "I believe they did. But the rock was kept in sight, and eventually became the step of a warehouse. Later, as I dare say you have heard, it was broken in two pieces, and it is only since 1880 that we have had it restored here to a spot very near where the Mayflower landed--and protected," he concluded, with a smile, "so that the relic hunters can't carry it off bodily. It's a wonder that some one hasn't tried to get it for one of the World's Fairs now so prevalent in the country." "I should hate to see it carted around like the Liberty Bell, although we were glad enough to have it in Chicago." "So you are from Chicago," said Mr. Stacy; "then I must try to make you think that Plymouth is the centre of the earth. From your being with George I thought you were one of Priscilla's Boston friends. By the way, perhaps you may recall the lines in Miles Standish, where John Alden and others went down to the seashore: "'Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a door, Into a world unknown--the cornerstone of a nation!' I always thought that a fine line, though it isn't quoted as often as it might be; 'the cornerstone of a nation,'" repeated Mr. Stacy. "Well, Priscilla and I always have a pretty little quarrel over this particular doorstep. You know she is very proud of her descent from Priscilla and John Alden." "So am I," piped up little George. "Of course, my boy, just as I am of descending from Mary Chilton. Well, traditions are somewhat confused as to who stepped first on Plymouth Rock--providing anyone of the Mayflower people really stepped on it at all. The honors are divided apparently between Mary Chilton and John Alden. I'd like to give them to a lady--Priscilla, for example, but in that case I should have to slight another lady, my ancestress, Mary Chilton; so there you have the two horns of a dilemma." "Oh, I know better than that," cried George; "Mary Chilton wasn't in it, of course she wasn't." "In what, my child? or are you merely indulging in slang?" "Oh, you know, Mr. Stacy, she wasn't in that first shallop that went ashore from Clark's Island. Of course a woman wouldn't come out in a little boat, when they were trying to find a landing-place. No, of course it was John Alden." "Your reasoning is pretty reasonable--for a little boy," said Mr. Stacy. "But, my dear Miss Chicago," he continued, "if you are on a sight-seeing walk, let me go with you. I need not say to an up-to-date young lady that none of the houses of the original Pilgrims are here, though as we walk along we shall pass near the sites of many of them. The old Plymouth was chiefly down here near the water, not so very far from the rock. This is the first street, close to the brook that ran down from Billington Sea." "It must be very pleasant in summer," and Martine glanced down the long tree-lined street. The trees were budding, but the leaves were not yet out. "It is a calm, shady street," rejoined Mr. Stacy; "sometimes we wish the electric cars were not so near, but the curse has been partly taken off by the names they bear. Probably you have noticed 'Priscilla,' 'Pilgrim,' 'Samoset,' and the other historical names. Perhaps it is just as well there are none of the old houses left. The descendants of forefathers might have been ashamed of them, of the houses--I mean. Perhaps you remember Holmes' lines on the subject. The Autocrat had the faculty of hitting the nail on the head and in speaking of the Pilgrim, he says:-- "'His home was a freezing cabin Too bare for a freezing rat, Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, And bald enough for that. The hole that served for casement Was glazed with a ragged hat.' But this description applies only to the very first houses. Those that were built for the next twenty or thirty years were plain enough, but comfortable. Plymouth never had many of the elaborate Colonial houses that are shown in some of the New England towns." "I wish one or two of those oldest houses were left," said Martine. "Isn't there even one?" "Why, I believe you are really interested in old Plymouth," said Mr. Stacy, smiling at Martine. "If you don't mind walking with me I'll show you the oldest house now standing. But this old Doten house was built only a few years before 1660, and is very little changed from its original appearance, at least so far as the outside is concerned." "The trees look as if they might be almost as old as the house," said Martine, as they stood before the little low-roofed house in Sandwich Street in front of which two great trees with gnarled trunks stood as sentinels. "Say, Martine, let's go up to the Monument," whispered George. "I'm afraid Mr. Stacy will want to take us up on Burial Hill." Mr. Stacy heard the loud whisper, and Martine herself was amused at George's entreaty. "Why, that was what Marcus didn't want to do, and you said you would go anywhere with me." "I want to show you something myself. You can go with Mr. Stacy to the hill some other day." "There, George, you have suggested just what I had in mind. Please tell your mother that I hope to come over to see Priscilla and her friend this evening. Then we can arrange about our visit to Burial Hill." After Mr. Stacy had said good-bye Martine and George retraced their steps, and climbed the hill to the monument to the Forefathers. "There's nine acres in the park," explained George, "and the monument is eighty-one feet high. That's the figure of Faith on top, and I think the whole thing is fine, don't you?" "It certainly _is_ fine," responded Martine, amused at George's eagerness. "You know down at Provincetown they say the Pilgrims landed there first, and they're going to build a monument that will beat this all to pieces. But I don't believe they can, do you, Miss Martine?" "No," said Martine, "indeed I do not." Whereupon, after she had sufficiently admired the historic bas-reliefs depicting scenes in the lives of the Forefathers, George led his guest down the hill, well pleased with her appreciation of his favorite work of art. CHAPTER XIV TALES AND RELICS True to his promise Mr. Stacy called on Priscilla and Martine the second evening of their stay in Plymouth. He proved even more entertaining as a story-teller than as a guide. "What he doesn't know about old-colony life isn't worth knowing," Priscilla had said, and Mr. Stacy certainly proved the truth of these words. Of Bradford and Carver and Winslow and Brewster he spoke as familiarly as if they were brothers. He made them live again as he talked, bringing out little facts that he said every schoolgirl and boy ought to know, though Martine had to admit that if she had ever known these things, they were now half forgotten. Priscilla modestly concealed her own store of information, but Martine, remembering how eagerly her friend had drunk in all that Amy and Balfour had had to tell the summer before about the English and the Acadians in Nova Scotia, knew that Priscilla was probably hardly second to Mr. Stacy in her knowledge of Puritan history. "Oh, please, Mr. Stacy, tell us one of your witch stories," demanded Marcus, as they sat around the blazing fire. "A witch story! Do you wish me to frighten the young lady from Chicago?" "A witch story!" repeated Martine; "why, I thought the witches were only in Salem. I supposed people down here were too sensible to believe in witches." "Few localities are so sensible as to escape all delusion. A vague belief in evil spirits and witches existed in all the colonies even well-through the eighteenth century, although the witchcraft persecution was of comparatively short duration." "I don't care for witchcraft stories," said Priscilla, quietly. "Well, well!" cried Mr. Stacy, smiling; "between two fires, what shall I do? Mrs. Danforth, you must be umpire." "Tell them one little unexciting witch story," replied Mrs. Danforth. "Priscilla is too old to be troubled by bad dreams, at least from so small a cause." "It isn't that," protested staid Priscilla, "only witch stories are so silly." "Oh, if that's the only thing against them," cried Martine, "please tell me as many as you can. I love silly things--sometimes. So please tell us a story, Mr. Stacy." "Really," rejoined Mr. Stacy, "I should hardly know what to say, if the rules of hospitality did not provide me with an excuse. It is fair, I imagine, to regard Miss Martine as a guest of Plymouth in general, as well as of the Danforth family in particular, therefore, fair lady, I yield to your demand. But what I am going to tell you is neither very exciting, nor very silly. It merely shows how recently in this corner of the globe the plain people retained some of the mediæval belief in witches. For I knew a man who in his youth knew a man who believed this story. On the outskirts of Plymouth once lived an old woman whom people called a witch, and once when she was calling at a certain house, Jenny, a girl of twelve, placed the broom with which she was sweeping, under Aunt Nabby's chair. Aunt Nabby was the reputed witch, and if you know anything about witches, you must know that to offer one a broomstick can only be regarded as an insult. So in this case Aunt Nabby, when she perceived what Jenny had done, rose in anger, and vowed that she would get even with Jenny and her family." "Did she?" asked George, who was always over-anxious to hear the conclusion of a story. "Wait," replied Mr. Stacy, "you will soon hear. In a day or two Jenny became very ill, and the old country doctor could not tell what the matter was. She seemed to be fading away. 'Perhaps Aunt Nabby has something to do with it,' said poor Mrs. Bonsal, Jenny's mother; and then the doctor, asking what was meant, heard the story of the broomstick. 'Go, John Bonsal,' he said to Jenny's father, 'go to Aunt Nabby's, and find out what she is up to.' When John Bonsal reached Aunt Nabby's house, there was no one in the kitchen but her big black cat, whom some people thought her assistant in evil doing. So John Bonsal went down by the brook, where he found Aunt Nabby so much occupied that she hardly looked up at his approach." "What was she doing?" asked George. "Hush," cried Marcus; "listen, and you will find out." "Well," continued Mr. Stacy, "Aunt Nabby seemed to be making little dolls of clay that she moulded into shape with water from the brook. When she finished these figures or dolls, she stuck a pin or two into them, and John Bonsal understood at once that by means of these dolls she was working a charm on poor Jenny that in time would cause her death, unless he could stop the doll-making. Upon this the angry father raised the horsewhip that he carried in his hand, and thrashed Nabby with might and main. As she cried for mercy, he told her that she should be burned as a witch unless she promised to remove the spell that she had cast over his daughter. At first she refused, but at last she promised. 'Your Jenny shall get well,' she cried, 'and I will work no more charms.' Upon this the big black cat that had followed John Bonsal from the house gave a great howl, and vanished completely from sight." [Illustration: "Aunt Nabby seemed to be making little dolls of clay."] "Where did he go?" asked George. "Down to the centre of the earth, probably," replied Mr. Stacy, solemnly. "But it's more to the point that Jenny recovered, and Aunt Nabby was never again known to carry on any of her witcheries." "Thank you, thank you," cried all the circle, except Priscilla, who still looked as if she thought stories of this kind rather silly. "Mamma," cried Lucy, after a moment's pause, as if she, too, shared Priscilla's feeling, "let us have something more sensible than witch stories." "Let us have a charade--you said you had found one in an old book that you would give us." Mrs. Danforth looked at the clock. "There is just time for one before you go to bed," she said, "and so I will give you the old one you speak of." George and Lucy clapped their hands with delight. They were fond of guessing-games, particularly when their mother played with them. "I must tell you," said Mrs. Danforth, picking up a book from the table, "that this is a very short one and must be guessed within five minutes after I have read it." Whereupon she read slowly: "'Just where the heavens grew blue and high, My first that was so pure and bright, Ere it could rise into the sky, Passed in my second out of sight; Before it vanished from the earth My whole rose through it at their birth.'" "Only five minutes!" complained George; "I don't think that's long enough. I didn't understand what the first was." Patiently Mrs. Danforth read the first two lines, then the second, and finally, at Lucy's request, the last. "I have it," cried Marcus, before three minutes had passed. "Can't we have five minutes more? I know I could guess it, if we had time enough." "You never guess anything, George, no matter how much time there is," exclaimed Marcus. "Neither does Priscilla," rejoined George; "but if we had more time--" "Six minutes have passed; you see I have given more than the allotted time," called Mrs. Danforth at last. "What did you make it, Marcus?" "Snowballs!" cried Marcus, triumphantly. "Oh, no!" protested Lucy; "how could it be 'snowballs?' What is yours, Miss Martine?" Martine handed a slip of paper to Lucy on which she had written a word. "Yes, yes, that is it. Snowdrops, that is right, isn't it, mamma?" "Yes, my dear; it is almost too simple a charade to set before our guest. It would have been harder to guess if we had tried to act it. Perhaps to-morrow we can act charades." When the younger children had gone to bed, Martine enjoyed the quiet hour with Priscilla and Mrs. Danforth and Mr. Stacy. "I had no idea Plymouth could be so interesting," she said. "I feel that my two or three more days will not be enough for all that I wish to see." Nevertheless, Martine spent less time in actual sight-seeing than at first she had planned. The second day of her stay was so warm and springlike, that all voted for a mayflower picnic in the beautiful Plymouth woods. The next day was rainy--a genuine southerly storm, and no one cared to venture out. "In town neither of us would think of staying in simply on account of a storm," protested Martine. "I know it," responded Priscilla, lazily curling herself up in a corner of the big settle before the open fire. "But this is vacation, and home," she concluded, "and we can't behave just as we would in the city." Finally, on the fourth day of their stay, under the guidance of Mr. Stacy, the two went up to Burial Hill. "You won't care if I do not pretend to be awfully interested in the epitaphs," said Martine, frankly. "I wish that Amy were here. She loves old graveyards and inscriptions and everything that has a scrap of history. Now I am fond of funny epitaphs, and I love--oh, what a beautiful view!" "I am glad that Burial Hill has something of interest to offer you. Even in Plymouth we call this a fine view. Generally, we try to be modest about our possessions, but this really is worth praising." "It is wonderful!" and Martine gazed in admiration at the expanse of blue water that stretched far, far to the East, with only the tiny Clark's Island to break its continuity. "It looks almost like a toy town," she added, gazing down at the houses and spires of the old town seeming to nestle at the foot of the hill. "Those woods toward the West are where the Indians used to lurk, and you can see how wise our forefathers were in placing their fort here near the summit of the hill. You remember, probably, that it was a wooden building made of sawed planks, but the six cannon mounted for its defence made it really formidable to the Indians. From this point the defenders of the town could quickly discover the approach of the enemy. For a time, too, the fort was used as a church." "That is why they used the hill as a burying-place, I suppose." "Well, oddly enough, the founders of Plymouth were not buried here. Undoubtedly, the first settlers buried their dead near their dwellings. No stones mark the resting-place of most of the Mayflower passengers. There are memorials to many of them put up in later generations here on Burial Hill by their descendants, and two or three who lived to an advanced age, like John Howland, are buried here. But the earliest gravestone on the hill is that of Edward Gray, who died in 1681." Priscilla, browsing among the stones, returned to Martine with a shade of disappointment on her face. "I am really sorry, but I cannot find a single absurd stone. Some are rather quaint, but there are no amusing epitaphs, at least, of the kind you like, Martine. Often as I've been here, I have never looked for that special kind of thing before, but now that I have made you a true report, we might as well turn down toward Memorial Hall." "Thank you, Priscilla, I hope Mr. Stacy will not think that I care only for entertaining things that make one laugh. I have been more impressed by this old burying-ground than by any other I have ever visited. There is certainly something in the atmosphere that carries one back to the past. If there were anything here to laugh at I couldn't laugh." And silently and reverently Martine followed her friends down the hill into the quiet streets of the little town. "Now for Pilgrim Hall," said Mr. Stacy, as they walked along the Main Street. "And what shall we see there?" asked Martine. "Oh, relics of all kinds--driftwood of the past--some things that will move you to tears, and others that may make you smile." "Old furniture, I suppose. There are several shiploads of Mayflower furniture scattered through the country, and naturally I would look for a little of it here in Plymouth." "It would almost seem as if you had been reading my favorite Holmes," rejoined Mr. Stacy. "You perhaps recall his verses about the old punch-bowl that-- "'--Left the Dutchman's shore With those that in the Mayflower came--a hundred souls and more Along with all the furniture to fill their new abodes-- To judge by what is still on hand--at least a hundred loads.'" "I am not sure," replied Martine, "whether I have heard those particular lines, though the poet's sentiments are mine. Sometimes I wonder if the Pilgrims brought any furniture with them. Or if the things they brought could have lasted through the centuries." "You will soon be able to judge for yourself. I think you can safely believe in most of the specimens that you see here. At any rate, we people of Plymouth have believed in them so long that they have acquired a certain sanctity." When they were at last within the dignified hall, Priscilla and Martine flitted about from object to object, the latter asking questions, the former answering them, while Mr. Stacy in one or two instances had to act as umpire. A chair once owned by Governor Carver, and another brought by William Brewster in the Mayflower, were accepted by Martine without question, and she was equally interested in a cabinet also brought over in the Mayflower by the father of Peregrine White. "Priscilla," she cried, "your ancestor, John Alden, was particularly generous in his bequests. Here's his Bible, and an autograph of his that must be genuine because it is so hard to read. It seems to me that the Aldens and the Winslows have done well by this exhibition. Isn't this an odd ring, and do you really imagine it was once worn by Governor Edward Winslow?" "Why, yes," replied Priscilla, "I believe it, if that is what the placard says." And she drew nearer to read the card that was placed beside the ring. "The sword of Myles Standish! What a story it could tell! Really, Priscilla, these things have a wonderful power of calling up the past--and this little piece of embroidery, just look at the date. It is more than three hundred and fifty years old, and some of the silk threads have kept their colors." "Please read the verse in the corner," urged Priscilla. "Even when I was a very small girl I used to stand here, and call up pictures of the little Lorena." As Priscilla finished her sentence, Martine began to repeat the lines embroidered in the old sampler--for such the bit of work must have been. "'Lorena Standish is my name, Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will, Also fill my hands with such convenient skill As will conduce to virtue devoid of shame, And I will give the glory to Thy name.' "It is touching," said Martine. "A true Puritan maiden," commented Mr. Stacy, approaching the girls. "But come, you cannot linger too long over any one thing, however interesting. I will not blame you if you pass quickly by the Florida bones, and the Indian relics, and other so-called curiosities that hardly belong in Pilgrim Hall. But there are a number of autographs and old books that I wish to explain to you, and you must study carefully Weir's beautiful painting, 'The Embarkation of the Pilgrims,' and Charles Lucy's magnificent 'Departure of the Pilgrims.'" The pictures held Martine's attention for a long time, and when at last she left the hall, she had a new and tenderer feeling for Plymouth. "If ever I have time," she murmured in a laughing aside to Mr. Stacy, "I will try to hunt up some Mayflower ancestors, for I can't let Priscilla continue to be so superior to me in this respect." "Indeed, I don't feel superior," said Priscilla, "but I can't tell you how pleased I am, Martine, that you have stopped making fun of Plymouth and the Pilgrims." "Dear Prissie, you should not take things so seriously. My fun was only fun, and you were too ready to take it in as earnest." Martine from the first had no trouble in winning the affection of all the Danforths. George and Marcus struggled for the first place in her affections, and Lucy admitted that she loved her next to her mother and Priscilla. Martine made other friends in Plymouth besides the members of the Danforth family. A number of Mrs. Danforth's special friends called on her, and at an informal tea-party she met all the young people whom Priscilla cared for especially. "Every one seems to have heard of me, I am awfully pleased that you should have talked to people about me, but why am I called a 'heroine'? Three people have said to me, 'We are so pleased to meet the young heroine we have heard so much about.' What do they mean?" "It's the fire," cried Lucy. "Priscilla told us not to say too much to you about it, because you were so modest, but everybody knows how brave you were to pull Priscilla out of the burning house." "The burning house? Oh, at Windsor; but I didn't pull her out. There wasn't the least danger, and I only tapped at the door. Why, I had almost forgotten about it. It was nothing at all, so far as I was concerned." But Lucy only shook her head, as she repeated shyly, "But we think you a heroine all the same." Nor could any words of Martine's have made her change her mind. Had she not always been taught that the truly great were modest? Martine's very denials were a strong evidence that she was truly great. There was nothing, therefore, for Martine to do but accept the place on the pedestal where they put her. In spite of this idealizing, however, Priscilla's younger friends were not afraid of Martine. If they had felt any awe before they saw her it immediately passed away when they had looked into her frank brown eyes, and had heard the clear notes of her ringing laugh. Pleasanter even than the tea-party to Martine was the second evening that Mr. Stacy spent with her and Priscilla. "Everything that you haven't told me before about Plymouth and its early days you must tell me now," Martine had said. "When I go back to Boston I wish to astonish my brother by my display of historical knowledge. I am sure that he doesn't know the difference between a Puritan and a Pilgrim, which you have so carefully explained to me, Mr. Stacy; and there are fifty other things that I shall spring on him, and mortify him to death, for Lucian thinks that he knows a lot of history, but as far as I can make out he hasn't got far beyond Charlemagne in his two years at Harvard." "Yet he went to school first?" asked Mr. Stacy, quizzically. "Yes, but everyone knows that boys in the fitting schools remember as little as they can of American history--although," with an afterthought, "I will admit that Lucian did take an interest last summer in the English and Acadian history of Nova Scotia." This mention of Acadia suggested various questions to Mr. Stacy, and soon Martine had plunged into a vivid account of their experiences of the preceding summer. "I have heard part of this before from the lips of Priscilla," said Mr. Stacy, "and her description of the various protegées gathered in by your party interested me greatly. I know that she has not forgotten Eunice, and, indeed, we all expect to see the little Annapolis girl in Plymouth before many summers have passed. But what about Yvonne and Pierre, who on the whole interest me rather more than Eunice--as much, perhaps, because of their infirmities as on account of their foreign blood?" "As to Pierre," responded Martine, "Amy hears from him regularly, and he is very happy this winter in his work. A little money that was given him last autumn (Martine did not mention that this was her father's generous gift) has enabled him to have regular drawing lessons from a good teacher to whom he goes twice a week at Yarmouth. He insisted in using part of the money for his mother, and, like all Acadians, she seems to have spent it very thriftily." "But what of Yvonne? she, I believe, is your especial pet." "Oh, Yvonne, too, has had a little money to spend, and so the Babets have let her board with friends at Annapolis. Her eyes have had some attention from a good doctor, and she has been taking music lessons. I was hoping to arrange to have Alexander Babet bring Yvonne to Boston for treatment by a specialist, but for the present I have to wait." Here Martine sighed a deep sigh. This allusion to Yvonne reminded her of her father and his caution about economy. "I wonder if we shall always have to economize and give up the things we wish to do. Mother talked about economy when I spoke of inviting Priscilla to go to New York. I wonder--" and then a question from Mr. Stacy recalled Martine's wandering thoughts. "You scold me sometimes for being absent-minded," said Priscilla, "but we spoke to you three times before you heard." "I was only thinking, Prissie," responded Martine; "and I can't do two things at the same time--listen and think." Martine at last said good-bye to Plymouth with genuine regret--for Plymouth people at least, and for the Danforth family in particular. "New York wouldn't have been half as much fun," she said as the train steamed out of the station, "because I know it so well." Priscilla, who had not heard of Martine's New York plan, did not understand her friend's allusion; and as Martine made no further explanation, she had no opportunity for discontent--if the loss of a trip to New York would have made her discontented. CHAPTER XV TROUBLES The weeks after the Easter visit passed rapidly away. April was melting into May. People called it an early spring. "It doesn't make much difference to me whether the season is early or late," said Martine one Sunday afternoon, when Lucian and Robert had walked home with her from the afternoon service. "I have to work so hard to keep up with Priscilla that I haven't time to think about anything so commonplace as weather. If I'm not careful, I shall find myself fitting for college." "Don't," said Robert Pringle. "Do," cried Lucian. "As I may have said before, if you make half as much of yourself as Amy, nothing could be better for you than college." "Be yourself," said Robert with an air of wisdom. "Not Amy nor Priscilla, nor any one else. You have the artistic temperament." "Nonsense," replied Martine, with difficulty repressing a smile. "That's a very sophomorific speech. You've got it out of some of your philosophy courses." "Or one of the college magazines," growled Lucian. "People who are just beginning to write always love to talk about temperament." "Well," persisted Robert, "Fritz Tomkins says that Mrs. Redmond says that you have great talent." "Oh, yes," responded Martine, laughing, "my class at the Mansion considers me a true artist, because I can paint trees and grass that look real; but to tell you the truth, Robert, and to show you that you're not wholly wrong, I will admit that if I hadn't been so busy at school, I should have studied with Mrs. Redmond this spring. I just wish I had time for a sketching class, but fond as I am of riding, I can barely manage an hour's ride twice a week. That reminds me, Lucian," and Martine turned to her brother, "if you can afford a new auto, I surely can afford a new riding-horse. Wherever we go this summer, I mean to ride." "No, no," cried Lucian, "that is, I probably shall not have the auto, much as I want it." "Don't worry," said Robert, "you'll get it in season; if it isn't out by June, they'll have it for you in July." "Oh, that wasn't what I meant," rejoined Lucian, "only--" but at this moment he did not explain what he really had intended to say. The next evening Lucian came home to dinner. "What an unexpected honor," said Martine. "I've never known you to favor us with a Monday visit. You look rather glum, too," she added with sisterly frankness. "Is anything the matter?" "No, no," he said, "nothing special. You shouldn't be so curious." "I can read you like a book," replied Martine. "You are worrying over your finals and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. If I were a Harvard Sophomore, with all my time to use as I liked, I wouldn't be in such a state of mind over a few questions, for that's all an examination amounts to." "There, there, Martine, don't worry your brother," interposed Mrs. Stratford, joining them. "But he is so foolish," continued Martine, "just as if he hadn't as good a chance as anybody else." "To be perfectly frank," said Lucian at last, "you have no idea, little sister, what you are talking about; so the least said, soonest mended." Conversation during dinner proceeded cheerfully. Lucian was evidently making an effort to remove the impression that he was troubled about anything. But a little later, after their mother had left the room, Lucian drew his chair nearer Martine's and began to talk in an undertone. "You are right, Martine," he said, "I am troubled. I have something serious to say." Martine's heart beat nervously. She knew that boys in college sometimes did things that they should not do. Lucian had several friends of whom she did not approve. Into what mischief might they not lead him? "Tell me the worst, Lucian," she said sympathetically. "If it's stealing signs or doing any of those ridiculous Med. Fac. things, of course you were very silly. But I'll help you out if I can, without telling mother, and I'll lend you money, though I have only a very little bit of my own. I am paying for my clothes out of my allowance this spring. And you know I never used to do that." "Oh, your money wouldn't help, Martine; it isn't that." "Well, whatever it is, we'll keep it from mother; she certainly isn't as well as when she first came to Boston." "I know that," responded Lucian, "and that's the worst of this whole business. You see, it's this, Martine. Father's business is all at sixes and sevens and I had the queerest letter from him this morning; I can hardly make head or tail of it." Martine took the thin sheet of letter paper from Lucian's hand; the wording was incoherent. "Why, it doesn't sound like father," she exclaimed, "and what queer, trembling handwriting. I am afraid that he is sick. And if he has lost his money as he says, what are we to do?" "I haven't an idea in the world. This knocks me all to pieces," and Lucian leaned his head on his hands, the picture of bewilderment. "We ought to tell mother," Martine's voice trembled, "but perhaps we might as well wait another day; perhaps we can think of some one to advise us, or perhaps some plan will come to us in the night." "Very well," responded Lucian, "but I can't stay here long and pretend to be cheerful; I'll get out to Cambridge as quickly as I can." "Lucian made a short stay," said Mrs. Stratford when Martine told her that he had gone. "I agree with you that he is troubled about something. Perhaps he told you what it was." "Yes," said Martine, "he did give me an idea of it." Then Mrs. Stratford, knowing that it was not wise to interfere in the confidences of brother and sister, to Martine's relief asked no questions. The next day, however, the secret came out in part at least. Mrs. Stratford received a cable from Rio Janeiro. Its few words carried volumes of trouble. Mr. Stratford was ill, very ill; could some of his family come to him at once? Mrs. Stratford recognized the name of the one who had sent the cable; he was a man with whom her husband had long had business transactions. He would not have cabled unless her husband's condition were really serious. The telephone soon brought Lucian to the house. "There is only one thing," said Lucian; "by taking the afternoon express I can reach New York this evening, sail by a quick boat to-morrow for England, and go on as soon as possible to Rio Janeiro." "But we don't know anything about the sailings of the Brazilian boats." "No matter, mother, the sooner I reach England, the sooner I'll reach Brazil. I must go back to Cambridge now, throw a few things into a steamer trunk, and then, good-bye." "Oh, Lucian, what a help you are. At first I thought there was no one who could go. I will go down town at once and get a draft for you and meet you at the station; that will be better than stopping here on your way from Cambridge." These hasty plans were carried out exactly. "Everything is so hurried," complained Martine, "that I haven't had time yet to cry." "I have cabled to Rio Janeiro," said Mrs. Stratford, "to cable our bankers in London, if--if--anything happens." "Oh, nothing will happen," said Lucian cheerfully, "nothing serious, I mean. Only I am sure that it is wise for me to go, for father will need me to help him come home. And now good-bye." So mother and daughter parted with Lucian, and after this one exciting day, things settled down into their accustomed round. Within a week of Lucian's sailing Mrs. Stratford heard by cable that her husband was no worse. "It does not say 'better'," she murmured. "But 'no worse' is better than nothing," said Martine. "When we consider how little Lucian was here with us, it is strange," said Martine one day, "that we should miss him so. Poor boy, I am sorry that I teased him so about his finals. I am sure that he would rather be in Cambridge working for dear life than tossing about on the ocean, not knowing what news he may hear at the end of his journey. But there's one thing, he rose to the occasion, and I'm so thankful that he has really grown up." In spite of the anxiety of mother and daughter, each for the sake of the other tried to be cheerful. Martine, until the first of June, was fully occupied with school. Priscilla and her more intimate friends sympathized deeply with her when they heard of her father's illness. Letters from others came to them gradually, and some of Mr. Stratford's business associates were frank with Mrs. Stratford when she asked their opinion on her husband's affairs. One day she called Martine to her for a frank talk. "It is evident," she said, "that we must live at the very smallest possible expense for the next few months. I am going to send the cook away at the end of the present week; now that your school is ending, you will not object to supplementing Angelina's work. Angelina sees something dramatic in what she calls 'our fallen fortunes.' She is delighted to be considered housemaid and cook combined. She tells me that I am not to lift my hand, but wear my prettiest dresses all the time so that there'll be one lady in the house, while you and she are doing the work." "Well, really," cried Martine, "it's a little too much for her to put me immediately on her own level." "Oh, she doesn't mean it in that way; in fact, what she said was intended only to make me comfortable. If I were a little stronger I would plan to stay in Boston all summer, but I've had a talk with the doctor and he tells me that I need a complete change. We cannot afford any extravagance this summer, and only one plan suggests itself to me." "What is it, mamma?" "Simply this. A few years ago, when your father and I were at York Harbor, we fell in love with a little red farm-house that stood on a knoll commanding a view of the sea. We had no particular object in buying it, the land belonging to it was limited, but I had an idea that sometime perhaps we might build a house there. It is quite outside the fashionable section, yet not very far from the electric cars, and the house is in pretty good repair." "Does any one live there?" "Well, that is the curious part of it; the owner was an old woman and we let her stay on there, rent free, on condition that she should keep the little garden planted and let us know when any repairs were needed. Last September she died and the house has been unoccupied this winter; it seems to me that this would be an ideal place for us this summer. Even if I were able to stay in the city, I should not approve of your doing so. You need the out-door life to which you are accustomed. We could take enough of our small belongings with us to make the cottage comfortable and homelike. Angelina would be quite equal to the work." "With my help," interrupted Martine gayly. "Yes, with your help; and I know you can be very helpful, Martine, when you wish. What do you think of my plan?" "I think it's perfectly splendid," replied Martine. "I've often heard of York Harbor. Peggy Pratt used to talk about it. I think her family has a cottage there." "Of course," continued Mrs. Stratford, "you must remember that we shall live very quietly there; for the present I feel that we have no income coming in. We must live on the little money that I have saved until we know just where your father's business stands. Besides, until we know that he is really well, we are under a shadow. At any moment we may hear the worst news, and that, if nothing else, would lead us to live quietly." "Of course, mamma, of course I understand this perfectly. I have no wish for gayety; really I would rather live quietly. I am so glad that I got only one silk gown, instead of the three I intended. And, luckily, I haven't given away many of my last summer's clothes; so I shall be all fitted out without any expense." "There, there," cried Mrs. Stratford, "don't think too much about economy--or clothes; we shall do very well, even as things are, if only we hear good news from South America." It was now June. Priscilla had gone home. Martine's other friends had left the city for the North Shore or the mountains. Some of Lucian's friends in Cambridge dropped in occasionally, and Amy and Mrs. Redmond were as devoted as ever. Amy, however, was very busy with the many duties and pleasures of a Wellesley Senior when Commencement is only a few weeks away. Of all the invitations that she showered on Martine for the various festivities that Wellesley offers in June, Martine accepted only the one that took her to Wellesley Float Day. "As long as I live," she said afterwards, "I shall never forget the beautiful twilight on the lake, the boats gliding about so mysteriously and gracefully, the music floating over the water, the lights that bathed everything in glory; no, I never expect to see anything more beautiful of its kind," she added mischievously, as a kind of anti-climax, lest Amy, who was listening to her, should be too proud of her college. But as the long June days wore away, Martine had little time for anything outside her home; she could not deny the fact that her mother was growing paler and thinner. Mrs. Stratford, looking anxiously at Martine, saw a certain change in her daughter. "The sooner we get away, the better; Martine is worrying about her father, and will not tell me. A change of air and scene will benefit her. I wish that we had not undertaken to have the cottage painted. The last week in June seems too far away." In their trouble, Martine and her mother were not neglected by their friends. They had not many near relatives, yet invitations came to them from the cousins in New York, from other cousins in Chicago and even from Mrs. Blair; but mother and daughter both preferred the independence that they would find in their cottage at York to the formality of visiting even the best intentioned friends and relatives. "You may have visitors of your own part of the summer," said Mrs. Stratford. "We shall have at least one spare room in the cottage, and when things are running smoothly there'll be no reason why you should not have Priscilla with you." "That reminds me," said Martine, "that I've never told you that Mrs. Tilworth and I have really made up. You know she was rather frigid towards me for several weeks this spring; but after my return from Plymouth she told Priscilla that she had changed her mind about me. It seems that I made a great impression on Mr. Stacy during my holidays, and Mr. Stacy, it also seems, is the one person for whose opinion Mrs. Tilworth has an especial regard; consequently Mrs. Tilworth is inclined to accept Mr. Stacy's estimate of me and for the present the war between us is at an end." "War between you! My dear child, I should be very sorry indeed had there been such a state of affairs; I think myself that you and Priscilla have always been a little wrong in your opinion of Priscilla's aunt." CHAPTER XVI THE MISSING TRUNK It was the Thursday before Class Day, a clear morning, almost cool, with just a suggestion of coming warmth in the air. Martine sank into a chair by the open window, and gazed over the tops of the trees at the long vista of the Avenue. Not for a moment would she have admitted that she was tired, and yet there was a trace of weariness in the sigh with which she sank back in the comfortable easy chair. As a matter of fact she had been working with a degree of energy that she had seldom shown before. Martine had never been accused of laziness, even in her idler days, yet her energy had never been expended in the prosaic realm of household work. But now the situation was changed, and for the past week she had worked unremittingly, packing, clearing, doing all kinds of little things that would simplify the departure for York a week later. Angelina, it is true, had helped her to the best of her ability, and had even succeeded in subduing some of her own natural flightiness. She was proud of her present position as sole assistant in the little household, and the prospect of continued hard work during the summer in no way troubled her. If Martine was weary on this particular morning, her weariness was tempered with satisfaction. Everything had gone so smoothly that she would be able to enjoy Class Day without disagreeable remembrances of things left undone. While she sat by the window, thoroughly enjoying her well-earned rest, she was startled for a moment by feeling two soft hands clasped over her eyes. Before she had had time to wonder long, a soft laugh told her who the newcomer was. "Why, Elinor Naylor, where in the world--" "Straight from Bar Harbor," said Elinor, answering the unfinished question, "that is, we arrived early last evening, and I've come here directly from the hotel. Kate Starkweather's brother has a large spread to-morrow, and though I had not intended to come, mamma thinks I ought to see at least one Harvard Class Day--and so here I am." For a few moments the two talked as rapidly as friends will who have not seen each other for weeks. Elinor told her Class Day plans, and tried to arrange to meet Martine after the statue exercises. "I do not expect to see very much of Class Day," said Martine, "it would be different if Lucian were here. I am going with Amy to Fritz Tomkins' spread, and to the Pudding because Hazen Andrews is in it. His mother is one of mamma's friends in Chicago. Mrs. Blair thinks I ought to wait until I am eighteen before going at all. But mamma is not so conventional, and she said I might." "I suppose you are very busy," said Elinor, as she rose to go. "So I hesitate to ask a favor." "Ask it," cried Martine. "I am not half as busy as I was yesterday. I am sure you won't ask anything I cannot do." "It's only this," continued Elinor. "My trunk hadn't come this morning, and we could get no information when we telephoned. It would be simply awful if it shouldn't arrive in time for me to go to the Senior spread. Kate and I put our things into the one trunk, and I can't understand why it hasn't come. We gave our checks to an expressman at the station. If only I knew the city a little better, I'd go down town, and find out what has happened to it." "There," exclaimed Martine, laughing, "Your favor is a very simple one. You would like me to pilot you about--with the greatest pleasure." "I feared you might be too busy," and Elinor glanced around the room, with its half-filled boxes, and books piled on tables, waiting to be packed. "I should do little more to-day. My mother is staying with friends in Brookline over Sunday. Angelina is out just now, but I'll leave word with the elevator-boy that I'll be back by one." Martine was soon ready, and after one more vain effort to learn something by telephone about the trunk, the two set out for the downtown express office. There they were equally unsuccessful, and so continued their journey to the great North Station. The baggage-master was a trifle impatient. It was a warm day, and a busy season, but the two young girls and their evident anxiety appealed to him. "It's up to the Express Company," he said at last, "to give you your trunk. I have made a careful search, and no trunk with the number on your claim-check is here. You will find it probably at the hotel. I would advise you to go back." "You are sure it isn't here?" asked Martine. "Perfectly sure." "I know it isn't at the hotel. But of course I can ask again," said Elinor. "I am awfully sorry to have brought you on this wild-goose chase, Martine, we might as well turn about now. The whole thing is very queer." It seemed queerer when no search, no enquiries produced the missing trunk. One thing only was clear. There was a record that it had been taken from the station. It was perfectly evident that it had not been delivered at the hotel, where, strangely enough, the trunk belonging to Kate's aunt had arrived safely. "It was a large steamer trunk," said Elinor with a sigh, "but small enough for thieves to carry away. I suppose they took it from the back of the wagon. You shouldn't have thieves in Boston." "Probably they came from some other city. Philadelphia possibly," retorted Martine. Then, as quickly, "Excuse me Elinor, I did not really mean that. What a pity you and I are not the same size. I would gladly lend you anything of mine you could wear." "Oh--no--" responded Elinor, "I am sure nothing of yours would fit me. You are so much taller and thinner. Short and dumpy people like me never can wear other people's clothes. It won't be so bad for Kate, when I break the news to her." "But what will you do?" "We must go out at once and buy gowns and hats. I begrudge the money just now. Kate won't mind, nor her aunt. They love to spend money for clothes, and can afford anything. I have to be more careful; but after coming so far--I can't be cheated out of Class Day, and this grey gown and dark hat would be utterly out of place." "Not so very long ago I should have thought it great fun to buy a whole outfit on the spur of the moment," responded Martine, "but the past few weeks I have grown so economical that it seems extravagant to buy anything one doesn't need." "But I certainly need a muslin gown and a hat, a fan, a parasol, light shoes--" "There, there, let me lend you a parasol, fan, and some of the other things that don't have to be made to order. Also I have a lovely hat that would fit you like the paper on the wall, if you would borrow it. Please say yes." With some protests Elinor accepted Martine's offer, and after luncheon, accompanied by Kate and her aunt, they set out for the most fashionable outfitter's. Kate, with Mrs. Starkweather's approval, unrestricted in the matter of money, soon chose a costume complete in every detail. Elinor, wishing to spend less, had greater difficulty in suiting herself. "By six o'clock surely," said the obliging saleswoman, "everything shall be ready. Two or three workwomen will at once be set on the alterations. This is a special case, and we are glad to do all we can to oblige you." "Now Elinor, come back with me," urged Martine, "we have half the afternoon before us, and we might as well have a good long talk." "That will suit me very well. Mrs. Starkweather and Kate have to stay in to see callers. You will not care," she concluded turning to her friends, "if I stay with Martine until five. She is going to lend me a hat, and fan, and other things." "Provided you return to the hotel by five, you may go with Martine now. We are greatly obliged for your assistance," and Mrs. Starkweather shook hands cordially with the young girl. The apartment seemed cool and pleasant to the two friends, as they entered it, and Martine sank down in a little willow chair with a sigh of relief. "Angelina," she called, "Angelina!" In a moment Angelina stood before her. "Bring me the large hat-box from my closet, please." "Certainly, Miss Martine." "It's handsomer than my own," exclaimed Elinor, as Martine lifted the large white hat from the box, and set it on her friend's head. "It suits you perfectly. I am so glad I have it!" Martine did not explain that this was the hat she had herself meant to wear Class Day, and that her second best was not nearly as becoming. Martine was not vain, and it really pleased her that she had something to offer Elinor. The fan, parasol, and other little accessories were quickly chosen from Martine's abundant store, and then the two girls sat down for the promised long talk. "I know you'll like York," said Elinor. "Every one does." "Oh,--I dare say,--I remember Peggy Pratt at school was always talking about it. But of course I am not going for fun, and we are to live in the littlest bit of a house, with only Angelina for maid, and I shall hardly have a cent to spend." "I know, I know," responded Elinor gently, "but spending money is not everything, you can enjoy so many things without it." "Oh, I dare say, but money helps. You and Kate would have had to give up your Class Day, or wear unsuitable clothes, if you hadn't had money to buy new outfits to-day. Still, I like the idea of the little cottage, and helping mother, and if father only comes back safely, I sha'n't care if we haven't a penny in the world." "You must have had rather hard work packing up," said Elinor sympathetically; "I suppose Angelina has been more hindrance than help." "Oh, no--she has surprised us all by taking a real interest. I asked her if she wouldn't rather have a different kind of place for the summer. 'What an idea!' she replied. 'I love hard work when I can get all the credit for it. Wild horses wouldn't keep me away from York. Besides, your mother has got so used to my Spanish flavoring that her health would suffer if I should leave.'" "She's a case," commented Elinor, "but tell me, is it true that you might have visited Mrs. Stanley at Bar Harbor this summer?" "Oh, she's papa's cousin," rejoined Martine, "and she _did_ invite me. But of course I had no intention of leaving mamma, even if I had been in the mood for a gay place like Mt. Desert. She has been growing paler and thinner, all the spring, and though she might have boarded in some quiet spot, she just couldn't have got along without me." "Of course not." "She thought I could accept the invitation for August, but this was out of the question. I doubt that I should have gone out to Cambridge to-morrow, if I hadn't seen that mother would be disappointed if I gave that up. There will be other Class Days, and I can wait. But it isn't as if I had to buy anything--a muslin that I had made in the winter is just the thing, and I haven't had to bother." "You are very sweet, Martine, about everything, and so different from what I thought of you that day we ran into each other at the car. Didn't I seem a little hateful when we were first introduced at Mrs. Weston's luncheon?" "Oh--no--only a little stiff, but that was natural, when you think of our first meeting," and Martine laughed at the remembrance. "I can't imagine you out of temper, since I have really known you." "Not even to-day?" "To-day?" "Why, I have been feeling particularly savage about my trunk. You must have noticed how I spoke to the man in the express office." "He deserved it, but really I didn't notice anything of that kind. You were really polite, considering you had lost a trunk." "It is really a loss," responded Elinor, "even to Kate, and I wish that some one could explain what happened to it." "It may simply be mislaid. Ten to one it may turn up to-morrow." "Oh, I hope not. That would be exasperating, after all the trouble we have had to-day. I would almost rather that the trunk should stay lost. Then we could bring suit for damages." "You can generally get only a hundred dollars on a single trunk, at least I remember hearing papa say that was all railroads would pay," said Martine sagely, "and what would that be among two?" "You shouldn't have put all your eggs in one basket." Elinor and Martine started at the sound of a strange voice, but looking up they saw Angelina standing at the door leading toward the dining-room. She had used a curious falsetto with which at times she liked to experiment. "I just meant to remind you it's half-past four, and I heard Miss Elinor say she must be back at the hotel by five. You've just barely time, and if you please I'll carry the boxes for you." Thus Angelina turned aside the reproof that might have been given her for listening at the door. CHAPTER XVII CLASS DAY At the breakfast-table Class Day morning, Martine found an envelope addressed in Elinor's neat handwriting. "You just must come with us," she read, as she broke the seal; "I had only half as good a time as I might have had last night, thinking of you. There must have been crowds of people you knew there. Kate's brother brought us four tickets for everything--even for Sanders Theatre this morning. So please be ready at ten. Telephone. Hastily, Elinor." Martine, glancing at the clock, made a rapid calculation. In no way could she double the hours between eight o'clock and one, and she had a morning's work to do before she could rightfully set out on a pleasure-trip. "Angelina," she called, "please go to the telephone. Call up Miss Naylor, and say that I cannot go with her this morning. Tell her, please, that I will meet her as we agreed in the afternoon." For a moment Angelina did not move. Telephoning was one of her delights, and Martine wondered why she stood rooted to the spot. Angelina, however, quickly explained herself. "Oh, Miss Martine," she cried, "I hate to give a message like that. You just ought to go off and have a good time. It isn't right for you to slave and slave, and you younger than me." Martine smiled at Angelina's lugubrious expression. She did not wish the latter to see that she was a little downcast at the thought of the quiet morning at home. "Go, Angelina," she cried, "run quickly; it's a hot day, and I'm thankful enough that I can stay home until noon. Don't wait for an answer. Simply leave the message for Miss Elinor." Martine's tone was so positive that Angelina had no choice but to obey, and when she returned, Martine was on her knees packing one of her mother's trunks. "Angelina," she explained, "we have only this morning and to-morrow for the rest of our packing, for I have promised to spend Sunday with the Strothers' in Brookline, where mamma is. You are to go to Shiloh late Saturday afternoon, and on Monday morning you and I must be here promptly at nine, to send off the trunks and boxes. Mamma will stop here with Mrs. Strothers on her way to the station to see that everything is left in perfect condition. So even if we work with all our might this morning we shall barely get through in time." "There's another helper coming," murmured Angelina. "Oh, yes, a scrub-woman, who couldn't do the least little thing to help pack the trunks. But hurry with the dishes, Angelina, for you can be a lot of use." Though she spoke briskly, Martine felt a little depressed--for Martine. As she lifted trunk-trays, and folded skirts, and packed things in little boxes, she could not help thinking how much pleasanter it would be to spend the morning in Sander's Theatre, listening to witty speeches, or later walking about the college grounds, with Elinor and Kate and half a dozen attendant undergraduates. "If only mother hadn't been sick--" Then she suppressed the thought, ashamed of her own selfishness. At twelve o'clock she glanced around the room with undisguised satisfaction. "There, Angelina, we can easily finish to-morrow. Only two trunks and one box left, and some little odds and ends to do at the last moment. Oh, dear, I must get away quickly--the rooms look so bare." The fatigue that Martine had hardly before admitted to herself, almost overcame her while she was dressing. Bending, climbing, wielding a hammer, undoubtedly strengthen the muscles in the long run. Yet the process of muscle-building is often accompanied by sensations that an amateur athlete might pardonably call "weariness." Consequently, Martine must not be blamed if for a moment her spirit weakened as she looked at the white gown that Angelina had spread out for her on the divan. "I can't go," she said; "I am too tired. I ought to have waited for Lucian's Class Day, and if he is never to have a Class Day--why, then I am never to have any fun. If we are so poor that he cannot finish college, then I shall be too poor to go to parties--or--or anything." There is nothing worse for a girl's spirits than self-pity. As Martine bent over the dress on the divan, a big tear splashed on one end of the silk sash. This was followed by a second tear, and then the absurdity of the situation produced the rainbow. The rainbow in this case was the smile that flashed amid the tears, the smile that made the tears seem absolutely absurd as Martine caught sight of herself in the glass. "What a baby I am! Here I am going to join two of my best friends who have promised me a splendid time, and just because I am a little tired, I feel as if the world were falling to pieces." A cool bath--an hour of leisurely dressing--a few compliments from Angelina--and Martine was herself again. She knew that her mother would not altogether approve of her going alone to Cambridge, and she regretted that she had not allowed Amy to send some one for her, as at first she had suggested. Just as she was wondering whether, if she could afford a carriage, her mother would approve of her driving to Cambridge alone, she heard Angelina's-- "Walk in, please. Yes, ma'am, she hasn't gone yet," and then she recognized the pleasant voice of Mrs. Redmond, saying,-- "Tell her she need not hurry. I can wait." "But I can't wait--not a single minute," and Martine, rushing from the little bedroom, almost flung herself into Mrs. Redmond's arms. "There, there, my dear child--it's a warm day, and our clothes--" "Will not stand crushing. I know it, and how sweet you look in that soft gray. But I thought you were at Cambridge." "Oh, no, I was not invited to the feast of reason this morning. I am going out merely for the frivolities of the afternoon. I forgot to write you that I had promised your mother I would call for you. I realized my oversight only as I started. Perhaps you have made other plans?" "I have been too busy for plans. Mamma forgot to tell me you were coming. An hour ago I thought I was too busy to go to Cambridge, but now--it just delights me to think of going with you." The ride in an open car over the long bridge soothed Martine. She almost forgot that she had been tired. When Mrs. Redmond drew from her the story of her recent responsibilities, the young girl made light of the difficulties that had beset her. She was always happy with Mrs. Redmond, and the latter's quick understanding of her present trials lessened the trials themselves. When they reached Harvard Square, Martine's spirits rose. "There's no doubt I love a crowd," she said. "This makes me think of a country fair, only the people are better dressed, and there are no fakirs." "My dear child--a country fair!" "I mean the atmosphere is somewhat the same--oh, there are Amy and Fritz." Somewhere from the crowd pouring out from one of the smaller college gates, Amy and Fritz were approaching the spot on the sidewalk where Martine and Mrs. Redmond were standing. "I am delighted to see you, children," said Mrs. Redmond. "I was secretly wondering where we should go next--to Fritz' rooms or to the Pudding." "Oh, to the Pudding at once," responded Fritz; "you are none too early. As for Amy--" "I shall never dare look a strawberry in the face again. Early as it is, I have already eaten so many, and, oh, mamma, it is all so delightful. Fritz and I have already been at the Pudding, and now we'll go back with you." At this point Mrs. Redmond interfered. She assured Fritz that she and Martine were quite able to take care of themselves. "It is the Senior's day," she said; "and Martine and I are here only incidentally. One of us is too old, and the other too young--almost too young--to be exacting about Class Day. Martine's best time will come when Lucian graduates." "Run, Amy," exclaimed Martine. "It's delightful to see you and Mr. Tomkins getting on so well. You usually try to send him away somewhere; but now you are ready to go where he goes, and so your mother and I won't detain you for even a minute." "Let us hurry, then," said Amy, turning to Fritz. "If Martine is in one of her mischievous moods, we cannot tell when she will stop teasing." "At my rooms at four," cried Fritz, as he and Amy left the others at the entrance to the Pudding spread. From this moment for the rest of the day, Martine not only forgot that she was tired, but her recent troubles seemed altogether of the past. In spite of the great crowd, a number of her Chicago friends found Martine in the corner where Mrs. Redmond made her sit. It is true that she had not even a word with Hazen Andrews, her special host, who, like most Seniors, was thoroughly occupied looking after relatives and the girls of the older set, to which Martine did not belong. She had not many friends among the Seniors, though two or three in their flowing gowns, mortar-boards in their hands, came up to speak to her or Mrs. Redmond. "Isn't it fun?" cried Martine to the latter. "It's like taking a journey somewhere, and running upon all kinds of people that one hasn't seen for a long time--only one seldom sees so many persons one knows on a single journey." Promptly at four o'clock Mrs. Redmond and Martine met Amy and a number of her friends at Fritz' rooms, and together they all went over to the Memorial delta where the statue exercises were held. "It's dazzling!" cried Martine, looking about at the tiers and tiers of gayly dressed girls and women; "only more beautiful than a flower garden, because it's more alive, this garden of people. I wish we could see Elinor here." "My dear little girl, this is a great pleasure," said a voice at Martine's elbow, and turning to the left, to her great surprise, Martine found her neighbor to be a Chicago friend of her father. "Didn't know I was an old Harvard man! Well, the West does take the starch of culture out of us. I'm going down there among the graduates after a while. I'm holding these seats for my niece and a friend, who thought they could never find it unless I was here as a landmark. They failed to meet me, as people always fail on Class Day. Let me see, Lucian doesn't graduate this year?" "No, he isn't in Cambridge; he has gone to join father." "Yes, yes, of course; this has been a hard year for your father." The tears came to Martine's eyes. "Bless my soul, child, don't cry. It's coming out all right. Everyone must have some business cares, and up to the present your father has been remarkably successful. But money isn't everything!" "That's just it," responded Martine. "The money doesn't matter at all--to me. But we are afraid that father is breaking down--that's why Lucian has gone to South America; and we can't hear for some time just how things are." "Well, well! I didn't realize that things were going so badly--at least you must think they are going badly, or you wouldn't look downcast. A bright girl like you should always look on the bright side of things. But so far as your father's business is concerned, I may tell you that it is likely to take a turn for the better--at present I am not at liberty to say more. It's this news about his health that troubles me. Let me know what you hear from Lucian." Mr. Gamut's words were more cheering than anything Martine had heard for weeks, and in the few minutes that intervened before the arrival of his niece, he told her a number of interesting stories about earlier Class Days. "This is a larger gathering, this crowd around the statue, than we used to see at the tree. But give me the tree, and the wreath, and the wild scramble, and the torn flowers that the boys were almost ready to stake their lives for! Sometimes I am afraid we are making everything too refined; a little rough and tumble is good even for the most cultivated students. This confetti!--no, I don't care for it." Mr. Gamut, on the arrival of his niece, departed to his place among the graduates. The niece was a girl whom Martine had known slightly at home. She had recently come from Chicago, and in consequence, was able to tell Martine various bits of news, which, if not important, at least had some interest for one away from home. After the mass of students had marched into the enclosure, and had given all the regulation Harvard cheers, Martine felt herself thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the day. She listened intently to the cheers, hummed the air of "Johnny Harvard" while the students sang it. When her own stock of confetti was exhausted, she helped Mrs. Redmond throw hers in the direction of Fritz. "It's the prettiest sight I ever saw," she cried. "This wonderful shimmering network of ribbons--it's as if we had been caught in a rainbow--and if we were only a little farther away from people, they would seem like real fairies. Oh, I am glad I came!" "I am glad that you are cheerful again," whispered Mrs. Redmond. "For a moment to-day, I feared that you were going to be blue." "Well, it was only for a moment. Now I feel happy--almost as happy as Amy. Come, Amy dear, Fritz will never find you in this crowd. Let us return to his rooms as quickly as we can. The sooner we are there, the sooner we shall go on to the spread." How Priscilla would have shuddered at the teasing tone that Martine used in addressing Amy. Even though she now understood Martine so much better than formerly, and, indeed, really loved her, Priscilla could not accustom herself to Martine's frivolity of speech and manner toward Amy. Fortunately for her own feelings, Priscilla was safely at Plymouth at this particular moment, and Amy, whom Martine never offended, only smiled indulgently at the younger girl. They had not long to wait at Fritz' pleasant rooms before he appeared, flushed and triumphant, accompanied by two or three friends. "Wasn't it fine? We managed to bring you a few sprays of flowers. The bevy of beauty on the seats above almost blinded us. But for that we might have done better, although I can tell you, no one else got more; and we fairly had to fight our way out. Now we are ready to share our trophies. This for you, Amy, and Barton--yours, I believe, are for Miss Martine; but I forget, you have never met. Mr. Barton, Miss Stratford--I always forget that the men I know do not always know the girls I know. But now, Barton, you will escort Mrs. Redmond and Miss Martine to our humble spread--and Helmer--ah, here they are--Miss Naylor, Miss Starkweather--let me present Barton and Helmer, and Jack Underwood. Now we can start--I thought your aunt was coming--ah! lost?" "Of course she isn't lost, Kate," interposed the practical Elinor. "I am sure that I hear her on the stairs." And to prove that Elinor was right, a moment later the elder Miss Starkweather came panting into the room. "You should have waited for me, girls; I had such a fright--I was sure you were lost!" "Not lost--only gone before," interrupted Fritz. "I am sorry I shocked you, Amy," he whispered, catching her look of reproof. "Let us hurry on, ahead of the others." Martine, walking with Fritz' friend, Barton, across the college yard, felt quite in her element. The young man was by no means bashful, and in a few moments the two were deep in a lively conversation. Martine's fatigue had passed away. Family trials were forgotten. Fritz Tomkins had united with four or five of his friends in giving a large spread in one of the modern halls outside the yard. Secretly Martine thought the affair conventional, "like any afternoon tea, with flowers on the table, and candelabra, and all the fashionable bonbons." "But you wouldn't see so many men at a mere tea, truly I think it's great fun," said the staid Elinor, snuggling into a corner beside Martine. "At the next game I shall hardly know what side I am on. I like Harvard so well, and your hat, Martine, the one I am wearing, you can't imagine how many compliments it has had. You were altogether too good to let me have it. Do you suppose I shall _ever_ find that trunk?" Before Martine could reply, some one came to carry Elinor off for a walk. Martine, left to herself, eagerly watched everything around her. "I wonder why Fritz pays more attention to Amy than to anyone else. He sees so much of her always that I should think to-day he'd look after other people. Now, I'm sure Amy isn't sentimental." But just at this moment, Martine caught an expression on Fritz' face as he turned toward Amy that set her thinking. Rising to her feet, she hurried toward Mrs. Redmond. "Tell me, please, how late you mean to stay. It's dark now, and the lanterns in the yard must be lit. I'd like to see the illumination, and hear the Glee Club sing, but I ought to be home by nine, please. I have a busy day before me." "Just as you wish, my dear. I will speak to Amy." A moment later, Amy, Fritz, and Elinor surrounded Martine, protesting against her departure, urging her to go with them to Memorial, to return with them to Fritz' rooms, to watch the illuminations; in short, to do anything but go home. Martine, however, was firm, and when she started off for the yard with Mrs. Redmond, Mr. Barton went with them. "It is a glimpse of fairyland," said Martine, as they strolled about through the crowd. "Why do these lines of lanterns make the yard look ten times its usual size? Why do these red lights make every one seem beautiful? Why--" "Let me continue," interrupted Emmons Barton. "_Why_ won't you come over to Memorial? _Why_ must you hurry home?" "Because I am Cinderella," responded Martine gayly. "Because I should hate to lose my glass slipper. Come, Mrs. Redmond, I am sure our car is waiting, if Mr. Barton will only find it for us." CHAPTER XVIII AT YORK The morning after her arrival at York, Martine stood at the door of the little red farm-house. The air was fresh and cool, a delightful contrast to the last day or two of heat in the city that she had just left. A slight mist from the river softened without hiding the view. Through the rolling meadows that stretched before her across the road, she saw the thread of river winding its way toward the sea. The ocean itself was not in sight, though it made itself known in a certain agreeable saltness of odor that Martine quickly recognized. Martine gazed across the meadows with a certain pleasant expectancy, such as any young girl in a new place is likely to feel. The houses in the distance looked attractive. "I wonder if they are summer cottages, or if people really live there. I wonder who has this large house just across the road. It is rather handsome. I hope there are girls in the family. It must be very pleasant there, the garden seems to run down to the river. Our garden needs attention," she concluded, taking a few steps toward the flower beds, where a few stray geraniums and untrimmed rose-bushes were the sole adornments. After a few rather futile efforts to improve the appearance of these beds, Martine turned toward the house. The red cottage, as she faced it, was far from imposing. "It's like some of the roadside cottages I have seen in England and Wales. It isn't much larger. I'm glad that it is red instead of white--well I should have had to live in it just the same, but I should have hated a white house. A coat of red paint always makes a house seem picturesque," she concluded. At this moment Angelina, in a pink calico in which she looked more gypsy-like than ever, ran down the little slope to meet Martine. "Isn't it lovely," she said, "to be so near the road. We can see the electric cars pass by the corner over there, and hear the train. Didn't you notice the whistle this morning? I did, and it made me think of the city right off." "I don't often hear an engine whistle in the city." "Yes, but a steam-engine makes you think of the city. You know that you are not cut off from everything, and that sometime you can go back." "Why Angelina, I hope that you are not homesick?" There had been a suspicious quiver in Angelina's voice. "Not exactly homesick, oh, no, I feel perfectly at home with you and Mrs. Stratford, but still--well, you see, Miss Martine, we haven't as many neighbors as we had in the city. I knew something about every family in the Belhaven, but here I don't see how I'll begin to get acquainted." "Cheer up, Angelina," said Martine, pleasantly. "Don't let a little thing like that trouble you. A person of your sociable disposition can make acquaintances anywhere. But it's more dignified to proceed slowly. You and I will be busy enough the next few days getting settled. I have an idea that mother may need us now." "There," cried Angelina, as they stood inside the little entry. "It's small, Miss Martine, but it's real neat, isn't it?" "Yes, it's neat," and Martine looked at the steep flight of stairs that almost tumbled down into the narrow hall, separating the two front rooms. "It's neat enough, but I am glad we have a strip of red carpet for the stairs. Uncarpeted, the paint might soon wear off, and besides they would be rather noisy. But are you sure that you have finished your kitchen-work, Angelina?" "Well, I just haven't; I'm glad you reminded me." So Angelina hurried to the back of the house, where soon her voice was heard singing shrilly above the clatter of dishes. "Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, as her daughter entered the sitting-room at the left of the hall, "the wall paper was very successful. What would this room have been without it?" "These pale yellow roses certainly brighten it up, and the color is not only cheerful, but increases the size of the room. This little cupboard in the wall is fascinating, and when we get some of our china in, it will be truly æsthetic." "If only it opened on a piazza," sighed Mrs. Stratford. "It is singular enough that so many New England houses are built without any pretence of a porch or piazza." "Oh, that can be remedied," responded Martine cheerfully. "There's a very attractive nook between those two trees, and we can send to town for an awning, and if we lay down a rug, and move out a sofa, and some chairs and a table, why we'll have a regular little summer house." Martine, pausing almost out of breath, noted with regret that her mother did not smile. A shadow crossed Mrs. Stratford's face. "Mother does not like it here," thought Martine, "neither do I, but I must like it." "Come, mother," she said aloud, taking her mother by the arm. "Wasn't it a good idea to have the walls of this dining-room painted blue? You see it gets so much sun, and this gives it the effect of coolness." "I dislike oak furniture." Mrs. Stratford did not answer the question that Martine had put indirectly to her. Her attention was now centred on the ugly extension table and the uncomfortable chairs ranged stiffly around the wall. "We'll have to put up with the chairs, I suppose, but I have a lovely old blue cotton curtain in one of the trunks that will hide the table and give the room any amount of style." "You are trying to make the best of everything, my dear, and I dare say you are right. But the house is so much smaller and plainer than I remembered it, that I fear we shall hardly be comfortable." "Oh, no; come, let me show you, already I have made ever so many plans;" and impressed by Martine's vivacious optimism, Mrs. Stratford at last began to see the pleasanter possibilities of the red cottage. Martine was not deceiving either her mother or herself in pointing out the best side of things, and yet in her heart there was a certain disappointment in her first survey of "Red Knoll." "We must have a name for the house," she had said the very afternoon of their arrival. "'Red Farm,' no, that isn't exactly the thing; 'Red Top,' no, the roof isn't red, and besides, that name has been used by some one else. 'Red Knoll'--there, why not, it combines the color of the house and the situation on a knoll--why not, mamma?" and as Mrs. Stratford had no adverse answer, Red Knoll it was from the beginning. A house needs something besides a picturesque name to make it attractive even to an optimistic girl anxious to see the bright side of things. The little farm-house that Mr. and Mrs. Stratford had so impulsively bought, was barely large enough for the three persons who were now to make it the summer home. The two square rooms on each side of the front door, if thrown together, would have been smaller than the bedroom which had been Martine's in her father's house. Over them, originally, had been two rooms of equal size. One of these was now to be Mrs. Stratford's bedroom. The other had been divided by a partition into two rooms each, resembling the so-called hall bedroom of many city houses. The one nearest her mother Martine appropriated for herself. The second she named euphemistically the guest-room; but for the present she intended to use it as a studio or writing-room, and had removed one or two other pieces of furniture to make room for a large deal table. Beyond this room, connected by a narrow door, were two ell rooms, one of which was assigned to Angelina. Downstairs in the ell were kitchen and wash-room, both with white-washed walls. "A small house, but our own," said Martine cheerfully, as she first walked through it. "I'll try to forget how different it is from the place we used to have at Oconomowoc. When father first sold it, he said some time he would buy a place on the New England coast, but he certainly hadn't Red Knoll in mind then." As the first evening in their new home came on, Martine felt lonely. The shadows gathering around the little cottage seemed to shut her out from the world. "Will things ever come right? I feel so--so miserable. I wonder what it is--mother, where are you?" Two or three times she called, before her mother's voice came to her from a corner of the little garden. "What are you doing out in the damp?" "Is it damp, my child? But the sunset was too beautiful to miss. You should have been out here with me. Where were you, dear?" "Helping Angelina." "That was right; it will take her some time to get perfectly adjusted. You are going to be a great comfort, Martine." Her mother's praise sounded sweet to Martine, yet she could not shake off a certain strange feeling, that she would have called homesickness had her mother not been with her. When they reached the house, they sat for a moment by the open window. "Mother," cried Martine, "I have an idea--I mean a special idea. Wouldn't it be better after this to have tea later, just as it begins to grow dark. Then we needn't miss the sunset." "Wouldn't that make Angelina's dish-washing come rather late?" "Oh, listen, listen," cried Martine, with something of her old eagerness. "It is part of my plan to leave the dish-washing until morning. There are only three of us, and so we need not follow old-fashioned housekeeping rules." "I am not so sure of that," and Mrs. Stratford shook her head as if in doubt. "But we can try the late tea to-morrow, so that we can go up in the meadow behind the house for our sunset. It is a better place for a view than my corner of the garden." It pleased Martine to hear her mother speak so cheerfully. "I'll try not to mind the melancholy twilights, and all those strange chirping things and the feeling of being shut off in a corner of the world, if only this place is good for mother." The later tea hour proved feasible, and Martine at the table with her mother after their little stroll to Sunset Hill forgot the melancholy twilight. Nor had she in their busy first week much time for discontent. The village boy whom Mrs. Stratford engaged to unpack their trunks and boxes was bewildered by their number. "There are some, Angelina, that are not to be unpacked now, please get him to put them in the unfinished ell room." "Yes, Miss Martine, I know just which they are, and I'll hurry back to help you hang those pictures." When all the pictures were hung, when artistic draperies covered some of the ugliest chairs, when pretty sofa cushions softened ugly angles, when books and bric-à-brac were distributed in carelessly homelike fashion, and when a number of really valuable rugs were used to tone down the crudeness of the carpets, Angelina surveyed the result with a pride that could not have been greater if she had been the owner of the cottage. "There," she cried. "It looks just like a city house, only more so, if anything. Don't you think so, Miss Martine, and I do hope you'll have some callers right away. Why, I almost feel as if I was back at the Belhaven when I look from this Cashmere rug to that Arts and Crafts silver bowl on the mantle-piece. No one can say that we haven't shown perfect taste, can they, Miss Martine?" "I am glad we brought all these things," replied Martine, "mother thought I was packing too much, but if we are to be here three or four months, we must make it seem as homelike as possible." "It certainly is homelike," continued Angelina, "especially that picture of Miss Brenda. Mrs. Weston, I mean; when I first saw her I always thought she was stylish, and that was years ago. Of course I hadn't been acquainted with many Back Bay ladies then, excepting one that taught in our Sunday School. But still, after all I've known I just think Mrs. Weston's at the very head of them. You are something like her, too, Miss Martine, in fact I should say you're almost as stylish, and to-day when I rode down to the village I saw a lot of young ladies that are just your kind, in white muslins and high-heeled shoes, and I hope they'll call on you soon. As far as I could make out from something I heard some one on the seat behind me say, they were going to a tea, and it's likely to be a gay summer. I'm glad of this for your sake, Miss Martine, for you've been too quiet lately for one of your age." Martine was not altogether pleased with Angelina's familiarity, though for the moment it seemed hardly worth while to rebuke her. Consequently Angelina, unreproved, continued her monologue: "I noticed a good many people in bathing when I passed the beach, but when I went up I found they were chiefly nurse-maids, employees of the cottagers. There were a lot of pleasant-looking nurses and children playing in the sand, and one that I spoke to, a nurse, I mean, was very accommodating, and told me lots about the cottagers. They bathe at noon every day, and it's a great sight. I presume when I do go in, I'll have to go in with the employees, for I suppose I'll be classed with the nurses and children that generally bathe in the afternoon." "You'll be classed with the children, if you babble on in this way, Angelina. But as to the bathing, you must ask mother." "Well, I wish you had been going to that tea, Miss Martine; the young ladies looked just your style. I asked the nurse about it, and she said it was given by Miss Peggy Pratt of Philadelphia." These last words of Angelina's made more impression than all the others. "Peggy Pratt." Martine felt on further reflection particularly aggrieved. "Elinor must have written Peggy regarding her summer plans, for Elinor was a person of her word, and she had promised to do this. If Elinor had not promised, of course I should have written myself. But now I am glad I did not, for probably I should have been treated just the same. Yet it doesn't seem just like Peggy." "Martine," called Mrs. Stratford from her corner a few minutes later, and Martine hurried to her mother's side. "Sit down, dear," added Mrs. Stratford, then with a shade of anxiety in her voice. "But you look tired. I fear you have been working too hard. Perhaps you did more than your share in preparing this boudoir for me." "Oh, no, Angelina and Timothy worked much harder than I. But it _is_ a cosy corner. Between the awning and the trees, you will be as well shaded from the sun as you would be indoors, and an open window wouldn't begin to give you so much air." Martine swung herself into the hammock. "There, I feel like a bird. Mother dear, you called me for something special, what is it?" "Only to say that Angelina is anxious to know how we will celebrate." "Celebrate?" "Yes, Miss Martine." Angelina had reappeared on the scene with Mrs. Stratford's glass of milk. "Celebrate," she repeated. "Why, Miss Martine, you haven't forgotten what day to-morrow is?" Martine sat upright in the hammock. "I really and truly had, but now you mention it it's the great and glorious Fourth, and what of that?" she concluded, waving her hand dramatically. "Oh, Miss Martine, it wouldn't be right to pass it by unnoticed. Why at the North End we used to sit up all the night before, and the streets were as full of noise as if a war was going on." "We couldn't celebrate in exactly that way," responded Martine smiling. "I am almost sure that I won't sit up to-night, and as to fire-crackers, what's the good, unless there's a boy in the house?" Again the sober expression returned to Martine's face, as this mention of the Fourth brought vividly to mind the many celebrations in which she and Lucian had taken a lively interest. Where was Lucian now? Would the whole family ever be together again? She came to herself with Angelina's high-pitched voice still ringing in her ears. "So I felt quite sure that you wouldn't object as the ten weeks is more than past, and as I've paid all that up, why, I made sure you wouldn't mind my spending just a little for fireworks. But I'd like you to look in your little book first." "I know it's all settled, Angelina, but you can bring me that little red book from the drawer in my writing-table." While Angelina was in the house, Martine explained to her mother what she had meant by "paying up." "It is that money Lucian paid for the hall. He told her to give it back to me. So she has been paying a dollar and a half a week. It is Lucian's money, though he wished me to keep it, and I agreed not to let Angelina know that it was he who helped her." "It is to Angelina's credit that she has paid so promptly." "It really is, mamma, and I think it has been rather a good thing as it has kept her from spending all her money foolishly. Of course, the hall itself was a foolish expense, yet these last few weeks she has been able to waste only part of her money, but now--" At this moment Angelina appeared with the little red book, and Martine, quickly turning to the pages with her account, saw to Angelina's satisfaction as well as her own, that the indebtedness for the hall had been cancelled. "There," cried Angelina, folding up the receipt that Martine with business-like exactness gave her. "I am relieved. Now I can celebrate all I want to, for fire-crackers cost a lot." "Please don't waste your money on fireworks." "Really, Angelina, you must not," added Martine. But Angelina, making no reply either to Mrs. Stratford or Martine--unless a nod and three shakes of the head and a broad smile could be called a reply, flew down the little slope toward the road. The morning of the Fourth was so quiet that Martine might have forgotten the great and glorious holiday but for Angelina. Before the breakfast dishes were washed, the latter was outside striking torpedoes against the stone that formed the kitchen doorstep. When Mrs. Stratford went with her books to her retreat under the trees in the garden, she found two small flags standing in the vase that was usually filled with flowers. When once her mind was turned toward the Fourth, Martine began to recall Independence Days of the past. What fun she and Lucian used to have! Why, they often had been up before sunrise to play with their fire-crackers and torpedoes. Then at night-- "I wonder," mused Martine, "if any other children ever had half the sport we had. Set pieces, and fire balloons, as well as rockets; how indulgent father always was. No wonder I feel blue to-day, and expect too much--when it isn't likely that in this town a single person is thinking about us." The day, as befitted the holiday, proved hot, and Martine, swinging languidly in the hammock, at length admitted to herself that she was glad that she had no troublesome social engagement to keep, and she maintained this opinion even in face of Angelina's report, after a walk to the village, that there seemed to be a great deal going on. To oblige Angelina, dinner instead of tea was served at five, and it proved a great success. "I would like to have served red white and blue ice-cream, but I didn't know how to make it blue, so it's red and white," apologized Angelina. "I might have supplied the blue this morning," said Martine. "It's too late now." But no one understood her feeble attempt at a pun. "It seems worse," said Angelina, as they gathered up the dishes, "to leave dinner things to be washed until morning, but if your mother don't mind--" "I am sure that I don't," said Martine, "and as for mother--why, of course she won't care." "Well, I have some very important business to attend to--if you'll excuse me." Upon this Angelina disappeared, and in the pleasant twilight Martine went outside with her mother to the little retreat in the garden. "I half wish," said Mrs. Stratford, "that we had had a few fireworks. Even if we are shut off from the world, we ought not to forget the Fourth. I didn't suppose there would be much celebrating down here, but see!" Looking where her mother pointed, Martine saw a great fire balloon soaring slowly into the air. They watched it until it disappeared and as the twilight deepened, they counted many rockets and Roman candles going up in various directions. Before Martine could decide whether it would be wise to recall the Fourth when Lucian almost put his eye out by blowing into a fire-cracker to see if it was still burning, Angelina appeared on the scene with a number of packages. These she deposited on the slope in front of the house with consequential air. "Angelina," cried Mrs. Stratford. "Yes'm," responded Angelina. "Angelina," called Martine, and without waiting for a reply walked down to where the girl was undoing her packages. "Then you really have fire-crackers here?" "Yes, Miss Martine, and rockets, and Roman candles, and fire balloons, at least only one balloon. It didn't seem homelike not to have something doing on the Fourth, and now that I can spend my own money, there's no reason why I shouldn't celebrate." Martine had no reply for this unanswerable argument, and in a second she, too, was busy helping. "I might have bought some myself, if I had thought of it in time." "That's it, if you'd thought of it in time. My, that's fine," and Angelina clapped her hands, as a rocket shot into the air falling in a shower of golden stars. "I didn't know I could find pleasure in anything so simple," said Martine, returning to her mother's side. "It only shows how limited our life here is," and Mrs. Stratford sank back in her chair with a sigh. "Oh, fireworks amuse everybody," rejoined Martine, "but now I must run back to Angelina. The last, she says,--is finest of all--a fire balloon." After two or three ineffectual efforts Martine and Angelina at last had the pleasure of sending off the balloon. But alas! Instead of pursuing its upward way, it was borne horizontally by a wandering breeze, and at last was lost to sight. "I know," cried Angelina. "It has gone somewhere behind the buildings of that estate over the way. I must get it." And in a flash she had run toward the large house regarding whose occupants Martine had so often wondered. "Our celebration is over, I suppose," said Martine to her mother, "but we might as well stay outside a little longer, and see! What magnificent rockets are going up from the estate across the way." A change of intonation carried out Martine's mimicry of Angelina's words. "Yes, and there's a balloon that puts Angelina's to the blush," and mother and daughter watched the ball of fire dwindling in the upper air, until it was lost apparently among the stars. It was some time before Angelina returned, breathless. "Oh, did you see my balloon? Wasn't it magnificent? They said they were proud to help send it up from their estate, and they only wished they had had some of their own. You see it had got kind of twisted after you and I sent it, and went down sideways, right on the lawn in front of their house. They seemed the most elegant people, and I told them how lonely it was for you up here, and you used to things so very different. When I mentioned your names it seemed to me they'd heard of you before, and so I asked them to come to see you." "Oh, how could you, Angelina, how could you!" cried Martine. "There, there," said Mrs. Stratford, as she laid her hand on Martine's arm as they turned toward the house. "I have always told you you would spoil Angelina. It's useless to reprove her now, for she won't understand what you mean, but in future you can be more careful." CHAPTER XIX SIGHT-SEEING "York is pretty dull for you, Martine," said Mrs. Stratford a morning or two after the Fourth. "I was hoping you would run across some one you knew here. Wasn't Elinor to write to some of her friends?" "I thought so, mamma, but either she has forgotten, or they don't think it worth while to travel up to Red Knoll." "Of course you have many things to interest you about the house, but still it's quiet for you here, Martine." "It might be livelier," admitted Martine, "but there's a lot of sight-seeing I can do, while waiting for something to turn up. Amy and Priscilla have quite got me into the sight-seeing habit, and it would be a strange New England town that couldn't show something to a seeker for information." Mrs. Stratford smiled at her daughter's way of putting things. "York really has some history, and the village, as I drove through it the other day, had a pleasant, old-time aspect, though nothing looked ancient enough to take one back even a hundred years." "Oh, then you didn't notice the little gaol on the hill; labelled sixteen hundred and something, I've forgotten just what, but I believe it's as old as it claims to be, for it looks something like Noah's Ark. If Angelina will stay with you this afternoon, I will see what is to be seen there. They told me at the postoffice that the Historical Society has it in charge and that it's full of curiosities." While she was speaking, Martine's face had brightened perceptibly, and her enthusiasm pleased her mother. Later in the day she set off, for Angelina, whose habit it was to take the afternoons for her own amusement, willingly accepted Martine's suggestion that she should stay with Mrs. Stratford. "At any time when you wish it, Miss Martine, I'll be happy to oblige you," said Angelina, with an air better befitting a princess than a domestic employee, the most of whose time should have been at the disposal of her employer. "I've never really gone to jail before," cried Martine gayly, as she bade her mother good-bye, "but I'll try so to behave myself that I'll have nothing but good to report when I come back." For a moment or two, before she entered the gaol, Martine surveyed it from the road below. Her comparison of the little building to Noah's Ark really suited it very well. "I can't say that it's exactly my idea of a prison," she thought, "although those brick walls may be thick enough to balance the wooden ends; and even if a prisoner found it easy to jump from the upper windows to the ground, I dare say that some of the bolts and bars were strong enough to hold dangerous persons." Once inside the little building, Martine almost forgot that it was a prison, as she walked about gazing at all kinds of odd things that have been brought together to connect the present with the past. Old china, old pictures, autographs, furniture, fans, and other articles of personal adornment, spoke eloquently of bygone days; so eloquently that Martine shortly realized that a feeling of sadness was taking possession of her. She began to picture the people to whom these things had belonged, to wonder who they were, how long they had lived, and why their homes had been broken up. "For no one with a home," she said to herself, "would ever part with things of this kind." She looked into the old dungeon, the walls of which were eighteen or twenty inches thick, and turned away hastily when another visitor asked her if she wouldn't like to go farther inside. Then she went to the attendant seated at a table in the front room. "How old is this building?" she asked, rather to make conversation than because she really cared to know. "It was built in 1653," was the polite answer, "and is said to be the oldest public building in the United States; there are probably some churches and houses still standing that are a little older, but no building used for more than two hundred years continuously for public purposes. It was built by the Massachusetts people when they took possession of this part of the country in the time of Cromwell." "Indeed!" Martine was not exactly eager for information, but to hear a little more history would help pass the time. "Of course you know," continued the other, "that York was founded under a grant to Sir Ferdinand Gorges, and it was always strongly Royalist; it's the oldest incorporated city in the United States, and although its mayor and aldermen and other high officials existed chiefly on paper and the place was only a small village even into the eighteenth century, still we are all very proud of our history." At this moment a voice at Martine's elbow cried, "Bless my soul," in tones that were strangely familiar, and turning about she met the surprised gaze of Mr. Gamut whom she had last seen at the exercises around the Harvard statue on Class Day. "So it really is you, Miss Martine," said the Mr. Gamut, holding out his hand. "I had no idea that you were in this part of the world." "We have a little cottage here this summer," responded Martine. "Are you all together again? Surely your father--" "Oh, no, my father isn't here; we've had only one letter since I saw you, and that wasn't encouraging." Against her will, tears came to Martine's eyes. "There, there, remember what I told you; things are bound to come out all right." "Oh, I hope so. Mother says that if things were worse we should probably have had a cable." "That's the way to look at it. Come, walk around with me for a little while. I suppose you know all about these things. My niece wouldn't come with me. She doesn't care for history. A great place this New England! They seem to have saved all their old odds and ends and have a story to fit everything." "But York is really old and historic," protested Martine, proud of her recently acquired information. "The first settlers here were Royalists and held high positions." "On paper," said Mr. Gamut with a laugh. "Oh, yes, I know about Sir Ferdinand Gorges and his remarkable charter. Here are some of the coats of arms of the first settlers," exclaimed Mr. Gamut. "Do you suppose they wore them tied around their necks when they first came out?" "Not exactly," responded Martine, detecting Mr. Gamut's scepticism. "Well, I'm only a plain western man," continued the latter, "and I rather think that coats of arms and things of that kind didn't trouble the first settlers in spite of all this foolery," and he pointed to the colors blazoned on the shield and scrolls on the walls. "They're pretty to look at," apologized Martine. "Oh, yes, and I suppose people of a certain name have an uncertain right to claim these heraldic ornaments, but for my own part, I prefer something more substantial. Things like this appeal to me more," and he led Martine to a little cradle in which Sir William Pepperell slept in his babyhood. "Or even this," and he pointed out a small table at which Handkerchief Moody used to eat by himself. "Who in the world was 'Handkerchief Moody'?" "His story is one of the few York tales that I can tell," replied Mr. Gamut, smiling. "And you ought to know it too, young lady, because Hawthorne, in his way, has immortalized it. This Moody was the son of one of the ministers of the old church; he was intended for the law, but having accidentally killed a friend while out hunting, his father persuaded him to enter the ministry. Remorse, however, so preyed on him that he spent his life in comparative solitude, and whenever he went in public, it is said, he covered his face with a handkerchief; different reasons have been given for his strange behavior, and it may be that he was always mildly insane. At least, there must be some truth in the stories told about him." Martine, impressed by this curious story, was silent for a few minutes. "There's one thing," she said, "that I have learned about the old people of York; they must have set what Angelina would call a very handsome table. I've seldom seen in one place so many fine old cups and saucers and drinking glasses and decanters." "These things don't fit exactly our theories about New England plain living and high thinking. I tell you what, object lessons often teach us much more than books. But now," and Mr. Gamut looked at his watch, "I'm sorry to see that I must hurry back to the house; I am visiting a cousin for a few days and if you'll tell me where your cottage is, I shall have a great deal of pleasure in calling on you and your mother." As accurately as she could, Martine described the location of Red Knoll, and as suddenly as he had appeared on the scene, Mr. Gamut disappeared. After he had gone, Martine mounted the steep stairs to the second story of the gaol where she examined at her leisure the hand-made quilts and quaint furnishings of an old-time bedroom, and looked with interest at the picturesque costumes giving a somewhat ghostly effect to a number of dummy figures in one of the attics. She saw the cell, or rather the room, where gentlemen prisoners were confined, and going downstairs, took a final survey of the old kitchen, well equipped with cooking utensils of Colonial days. Her visit to the gaol had diverted her, but as she walked homeward over the dusty road, the old feeling of loneliness returned. Never before had she realized that she was dependent on young companionship; yet never before had she been so cut off from her own special friends. Mrs. Stratford was pleased to hear that Mr. Gamut intended to visit Red Knoll. "He probably," she said, "has friends at York, of whom we shall be likely to see something; he and your father were never intimate, but always good friends. I shall be glad to see him and I hope his niece will come with him, for there is no reason why we should live in utter seclusion." Two or three days passed away and then a week, and still Mr. Gamut had not presented himself. Meanwhile a letter had arrived from Lucian. "Father is still in a rather critical condition; he is not able to attend to business, though they say he is much better than before I came; it will be impossible to tell for some time how things really stand or when we can come home." "I call that very encouraging," cried Martine, reading the letter aloud for the second time. "I'm so glad that Lucian went out there." "He has certainly taken hold very well," responded Mrs. Stratford, "although I cannot agree with you that the letter is very encouraging." "But it might have been so much worse," murmured Martine, turning away that her mother might not discern any lack of cheerfulness in her face. For although the letter might have been worse, Martine realized that after all it did not promise a great deal for the future. Other letters came now to Red Knoll. Priscilla wrote affectionately. She knew, she wrote, it was probably warmer at Plymouth than at York and yet, if only it could have been arranged, she believed that Martine and her mother might have enjoyed the South Shore better even than the North. "The children talk of you constantly; no one ever made a deeper impression; so I have promised them that Thanksgiving, if not before, you will come again to visit us. Mr. Stacy asks for you whenever he sees me, and that, you know, is fairly often. He says that York is historic in its way, and he hopes that you will find a lot to interest you there, so that you can tell him all about it when you see him. He evidently thinks that York history isn't half as important as our Plymouth history, and of course he's right, because this was the earlier settlement; still if there's anything worth knowing about the place, I am sure you will find it out. For even though you made so much fun of Acadian history last summer, in the end you really knew more about it than any of the rest of us. That was because there was so much more to know about the Acadians than the English, and you may recall I tried not to remember the Acadian history that Amy talked so much about." "Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, "I hope that Priscilla will visit you; she is the kind of girl to be quite comfortable in that little room next yours; there are some people we wouldn't care to put there." "Oh, Priscilla would just love it, but she wrote me a while ago that she couldn't possibly be spared, at least that she oughtn't to wish to be spared; and when Priscilla says 'ought not' she generally means 'will not.'" A day later Martine had her first letter from Amy, who was enjoying her first trip abroad; she and her mother had gone directly from Liverpool to North Wales, where Mrs. Redmond was anxious to spend a week or two sketching in the neighborhood of Snowdon. "She was here years ago, before her marriage," wrote Amy, "and so this is a kind of sentimental journey for her; she thinks that I have made a sacrifice in postponing our visit to London; but indeed, I find it very attractive here, and perhaps it is just as well to rest for a little while before we set out on a regular sight-seeing tour." "Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, as her daughter replaced Amy's letter in its envelope, "you haven't yet gone down to the beach?" "No, mamma, I haven't really felt like going." "Well, I _do_ feel like going to-day," said Mrs. Stratford. "Let us take the next car and ride down as near as we can; people bathe about twelve and we shall be in season to see all that is going on." "Very well, mamma;" Martine's tone implied resignation to something that she did not wholly approve. In a few moments mother and daughter were well on their way to the beach. After they were once fairly started Martine's spirits revived. She and her mother had never passed through the village together and Martine pointed out the gaol and the old white church with its high spire, fronting a little green; and the old churchyard across the road, whose inscriptions she said she would not try to decipher until she could have Priscilla with her. It was a warm morning, but the motion of the car produced a refreshing breeze, and when at last they left it to walk toward the beach, both mother and daughter were in good spirits. At the edge of the sands a gay sight met them. Two large pavilions, roofed over, but open at the sides, were filled with gayly dressed people; the tide was fairly low, and on the sand in front half-grown boys and girls were romping in their bathing-suits, and nurse-maids with little children were disporting themselves in large numbers. From the bath houses behind the pavilions, a long plank extended to the water. Here bathers were coming and going, some dripping from their plunge, others ready to go in. Martine and her mother seated themselves on the first empty seat they came to at the edge of the pavilion. Martine, impressed by the gay hats, fluttering, colored veils, and thin muslin gowns, seen on every side, glanced involuntarily at her own plain linen suit. Mrs. Stratford, understanding her glance, spoke encouragingly. "You look very well, Martine; your dress is entirely suitable for the morning. Some of these other costumes are too elaborate." "I had no idea it would be so gay," responded Martine; "evidently we are in York, but not of it." Instantly she was sorry. But if Mrs. Stratford had heard her words, she made no comment. Mother and daughter sat for some time idly watching the crowd. Once or twice they recognized people they had known in Chicago, not intimate friends, but persons with whom they had a speaking acquaintance. "There's Mrs. Brownville," exclaimed Mrs. Stratford, as an elderly woman with an elaborate hat walked down on the sands. "I will drop a line to her; probably Carlotta is here too, and they will be glad to see you." "No, no, mamma," exclaimed Martine; "I never did like them, except at a distance, and I should hate to have them get in the habit of running to see us." "They might not take the trouble to come at all; we are out of the way," rejoined her mother. Martine made no further reply; her attention was fixed on a girl who was walking up from the sands past the end of the pavilion. She seemed to be looking directly at Martine, and the latter rose from her seat as if to speak to the other; but before she could make her way outside, this girl had passed on without a sign of recognition. "That's a nice looking girl," said Mrs. Stratford. "Yes," responded Martine. "That was Peggy Pratt." "Peggy Pratt; isn't she a friend of yours?" "A school friend," responded Martine bitterly. "But evidently she doesn't wish to recognize me here. I suppose she thinks that I'll be troublesome in some way." "Perhaps she didn't really see you." "She couldn't help it," replied Martine. That very day an invitation from Edith Blair came to Martine. "Mother and I," wrote Edith, from the North Shore, "would both be delighted to have a visit from you, a fortnight at least, a month if you can stay as long. Your mother, we hear, is much better, and she surely does not need you all the time." For a moment Martine was strongly tempted to show the letter to her mother, who, she knew, would certainly urge her to accept the invitation. It is true that Edith and her friends were some years older than Martine, but the latter knew that they would do their best to give her a good time. She would have a fine riding-horse, there would be trips of all kinds up and down the shore, and delightful afternoons at the Essex Country Club, pleasant evenings on the Blairs' piazza after dinners with bright and agreeable people. Under these circumstances, she could put up for a time with the patronizing manners of her mother's cousin, Mrs. Blair; for Edith was always sweet and agreeable, if a little slow. Really, it would be sensible to spend two weeks in this way. She could make herself more entertaining to her mother on her return. But here Martine drew herself up. Duty for the time being presented only one face; her place, for the present, was at Red Knoll; so without mentioning the invitation, she merely gave her mother the personal messages contained in Edith's letter. CHAPTER XX THE ISLES OF SHOALS It never rains but it pours. A day or two after their visit to the bathing beach, Martine and her mother were seated in their nook under the trees. It was early afternoon, and, as usual, Angelina was off for a stroll. "Why, there are some visitors," exclaimed Mrs. Stratford, and Martine looked up to see two ladies approaching the front door. Martine wouldn't have been a girl, if she hadn't glanced down involuntarily at her dress. "You look very well," said her mother, understanding her glance. "Well, I hate to have to play the part of maid," said Martine, "but it can't be helped now." So, laying down the book from which she had been reading aloud, she went over toward the newcomers. "I am Mrs. Ethridge, and this is my daughter, Clare. We are really your nearest neighbors," and she pointed to the large house across the road, about which Martine had often wondered. "A young girl, your assistant, I think she calls herself, came over to our house on the evening of the Fourth. Her fire balloon had gone astray." And Mrs. Ethridge smiled at the recollection. "She told us you were lonely, but we could not quite understand. Surely you are Martine Stratford, of whom we have heard so much from Elinor Naylor; you must have many friends at York; there are so many Philadelphians and Chicagoans here. Elinor mentioned you in the letter we had a day or two ago, and we recognized your name as the one your assistant had given us. In any case we ought to have called earlier, but we have had a house full of visitors, and--" "No apologies are necessary," responded Martine, with dignity. "We expected to be quiet this summer, although my mother will be most happy to see you." And leading them to Mrs. Stratford's corner, introductions were quickly made. Hardly had they seated themselves when Clare Ethridge exclaimed, "Why, there's Peggy Pratt," and Martine looking up, recognized the girl who was hurrying across the lawn, and a second later, Peggy was shaking hands with Martine most effusively. "What a queer girl you are, Martine Stratford; why didn't you let me know you were in York? Elinor Naylor wrote that you were coming, and I certainly thought you'd tell me where you were. Of course, I've asked everybody, but no one had seen you or heard a thing about you. I couldn't imagine your being hidden in a corner like this; so I supposed you hadn't yet arrived. I'm sure I didn't know what to do," and she looked around with an air of injured innocence, as if some one had been unjustly blaming her. "You might have inquired at the postoffice," said Mrs. Ethridge smiling, "you can generally get information about people there." "Oh, I dare say; but I just concluded she wasn't here." "But now that I _am_ here and you know that I am here," responded Martine gayly, "everything is as it should be." She did not mention the little incident at the beach, for she saw that her judgment of Peggy then had been wrong, and that the eyes which had seemed to see her had really been looking at something else. While Mrs. Ethridge and Mrs. Stratford talked by themselves, Peggy's tongue flew on reciting the attractions of York. Trips up the river, tea at the Country Club, yachting, trolley and auto excursions apparently filled her days; "really I never have a minute to myself," she said, "and to-morrow we are going to have a fish dinner at the Shoals, the whole crowd of us. We've got a special car to take us over to Portsmouth, and then we go by the steamboat; we thought it would be more fun than simply to sail over. There's a seat for you, Martine; I know your mother will let you go, and of course we shall see you too, Clare." "Yes," said Clare, "I had already promised." "Then it's all settled," cried Peggy; "you can bring Martine to the car, Clare. Now I must hurry on, for I have an engagement up at the Club, and I'm so glad to have seen you, Martine. Good-bye, Mrs. Stratford; good-bye, Mrs. Ethridge." And almost before they could say "good-bye" themselves, Peggy was out of sight. "I wonder that girl doesn't wear herself out; she is always flying from one thing to another," said Mrs. Ethridge. "It's hard for a girl to settle down in the summer," added Clare, "especially in a place where there is so much going on as there is here." "Habit is everything," and Mrs. Stratford glanced toward Martine, reflecting that she, at least, had been able to adapt herself the past few months to a quiet life. The prospect of the excursion to the Shoals was very agreeable to Martine, especially as she was to have the companionship of Clare. The latter was a quiet, dignified girl, possibly a little older than Martine and reminding her a little of Amy. Promptly at the appointed hour Martine met Clare at the turn of the road; they had not long to wait before the special car came in sight. As it stopped for them, there was a loud clapping of hands and shouts of welcome from those within. Martine, cut off for what had seemed so long a time from young people of her own age, was quite bewildered at this. Two of the boys who had stepped down to assist her and Clare on board, proved to be old acquaintances, Herbert Brownville and Atherton Grey; and when once they were fairly off her spirits had risen rapidly. The car sped on, up hill and down dale, past the golf club, through the woods, over bright, green meadows, along tressles surrounded by marshes. "To think," exclaimed Martine, "these cars almost pass our house and this is my first trip on them. Angelina went over to Portsmouth one day and was so enthusiastic she almost persuaded me to make a trip with her; but she is so easily pleased that I didn't quite believe all she said; but now I believe it and more too." After a time their road led them past quaint old houses and pleasant summer cottages. There were occasional glimpses of water on one side, and once in the distance, across the water, rose the massive outlines of a hotel. "This is Kittery," exclaimed Clare. "We are almost on the boundaries of Maine and New Hampshire; that water is the mouth of the Piscataqua; you must go down on the shore some time; artists love it." "I should like to sketch one of these tree-shaded old houses myself," replied Martine; "that one over there looks as if it could tell a story if it would." "Oh, that's one of the William Pepperell houses; I never could remember which was his special house and which his daughters lived in, but you know he set out for Louisburg from Kittery, and two or three of these houses have hardly been changed since his day." "Dear me!" sighed Martine, "have I got to follow the French and Indian war in this corner of the country? I had so much of it last summer in Acadia that I'd like something a little different now." "Acadia," exclaimed Peggy, overhearing Martine. "How sick I grew of that word last summer. Some people were with us in Nova Scotia, went about with guide books and histories and acted as if they were crazy; but I'm happy to say that I sailed away from Yarmouth without knowing a thing more than before I travelled." "I believe you," commented Clare. "But if I were you, I wouldn't boast. Some of us _do_ care for history." "Unfortunately they do; there's my aunt; when she heard we were coming to the Shoals to-day, she gave me a lot of interesting information that went in one ear and out the other; for I told her that I was simply off for a good time and I never meant to learn anything if I could help it outside of school." Several of the party applauded Peggy's sentiments, but Martine could not help thinking that a speech of this kind from a girl of Peggy's age was rather shallow; and she admitted to herself that there was a time, not so very long ago, when she too would not only have expressed herself in the same way, but would have felt just exactly as Peggy professed to feel. Soon after passing the Navy Yard, the car reached the shore of the Piscataqua, where they crossed the ferry to Portsmouth. Soon they were on the little steamboat, bound for the famous Isles of Shoals. "There's one thing that I do remember," said Peggy. "There are nine of these islands and they are nine miles out at sea, and they are partly in Maine and partly in New Hampshire; but please don't ask me another word, Martine Stratford, for I can see by your expression that you're thirsting for information." Martine reddened at Peggy's words, because Herbert Brownville, who was standing beside her, was known to have a special dislike for bookish girls. Martine was ashamed of herself for giving even a thought to Herbert's opinion, and in consequence, she reddened more deeply when Herbert asked in surprise, "Have you really come out only for information, Miss Martine, as Peggy told me on the car?" This question decided Martine; she did not care for Herbert's opinion; she would show him so plainly, and so she decided to mystify him. "Yes," she replied politely. "You know I have travelled a great deal, and some time I intend to write a book describing my travels. So wherever I go, it is necessary for me to get all the facts I can. Somehow I forgot to bring my notebook to-day, but perhaps you can lend me a pencil and paper." Poor Herbert looked at Martine in surprise. Was this the girl who was famous for her wit, who was one of the best dancers and riders in their set two or three years ago? How sad that she should have changed so; but it was all on account of Boston; no girl could live in Boston a year without becoming affected. But what a pity that a pretty girl like Martine should turn into a bookworm! Nevertheless, Herbert handed Martine the desired pencil and paper, and he sat beside her while she made a great show of writing down the few facts that she had gathered from the volatile Peggy. "I'm so glad," continued Martine, "that you are willing to help me; and when we reach the islands I'm going to ask you to find some one who will tell me all about them." "There can't be much to tell," replied poor Herbert; "you know they are small and rugged and very queer. I've been there many a time on a yacht and I'm perfectly sure from what I've seen that they haven't any history." "In such matters," responded Martine solemnly, as if she were preaching a sermon, "you cannot be too positive. No corner of the world is so obscure as to be without history." Again Herbert looked at her in amazement. Her head was turned from him and he did not see the mischievous expression lurking in her brown eyes. He liked Martine, and since there seemed to be no help for it, it would be only proper in him to promise what she asked. "Certainly," he replied, "I dare say we can find out something for your book; they have a very intelligent clerk at the hotel, and I know a man in a cottage on Smutty Nose who's lived there a long time, and what he can't tell probably would not be worth knowing." Thus Herbert constituted himself Martine's guide for the day, and kept beside her and Clare until the boat touched Appledore. True to his promise, when they had finished dinner, he got a row-boat and took them over to Smutty Nose, where the old Captain proved very talkative. He explained that the name of the islands did not come from their structure, but from the quantities of fish found in the waters near the "schooling" or "shoaling" of fish. He told them that the Shoals had probably been visited by Captain John Smith, and Christopher Leavitt in 1623 had written something about them. [Illustration: "The old captain proved very talkative."] "Of course the first settlers," said the old man, "were fishermen, and they were always a pretty rough lot, though the Reverend John Brock did something to improve them. There are all kinds of stories going about pirates and wrecks and strange happenings in the old times." "I suppose Captain Kidd buried some of his treasure here," said Herbert sarcastically. "That he did, at least they say so," responded Captain Dickerson; "and if you and the young ladies are real enterprising, you might dig a while, for it's never been found, and you've as good a chance as any one." "Thanks," said Herbert, rather taken aback by finding that his chance arrow had hit the mark, "but we've other things to do to-day. Sometime, perhaps, we'll return." "Well," said the old man, "there's a chance that other treasure might do you just as well. Nigh a hundred years ago, a Spanish ship went to pieces on the islands, and there were other wrecks that perhaps cast treasure on the sands." "Oh, I remember," exclaimed Clare, "a poem that I learned at school, 'The Wreck of the Pocahontas.' Celia Thaxter wrote it. It begins something like this:-- "'I lit the lamps in the lighthouse tower, For the sun dropped down and the day was dead; They shone like a glorious clustered flower, Ten golden and five red.'" "Ah, Mrs. Thaxter," said Capt. Dickerson, "there isn't much on the islands that she hasn't put into poetry. But you'll hear all about her over at Appledore, and I won't spoil your fun by trying to tell what other people can tell better." "Haven't you some stories of your own?" "There won't be time for a long story," interposed Herbert, looking at his watch. "We must be prompt for dinner." "Just one," pleaded Martine, smiling at Capt. Dickerson. "Most of the stories of these parts belong to Kittery and Portsmouth," rejoined Capt. Dickerson. "You'll have to fish them up there. The only one I can think of you mightn't like--except it will interest you if you love dogs--as most young ladies do." "Well, tell us, please." "It's about a murder that took place on Smutty Nose once when I was off on a cruise. Two helpless women in a little cottage were killed by a wretch who thought there was money saved in the house. A third woman with a small dog in her arms escaped and hid here among the rocks. She was terribly scared that the little creature would bark and betray her." "Did it?" "Well, she crouched in the darkness, while she heard the murderer pass close by, calling and threatening. But the dog seemed to understand, and kept perfectly quiet until daylight. The woman had heard the murderer rowing away at dawn, and when people on Appledore were stirring they saw her making frantic signs, and they came over and got her and the dog." "Was the murderer ever caught?" asked Herbert. "Yes--and he paid the penalty. But I don't know how long the dog lived, young ladies, for I see that's what you'd like to hear," added Capt. Dickerson, turning to the girls. "I wish I could tell you more," he continued, after a pause. "I dare say you know the Shoals were once called 'Smith's Eyelands,' and there's a monument to Capt. Smith on Star. You've heard about Gorges, I suppose; well, they were in Gorges and Mason's grant, and when Massachusetts people stepped into Maine, the most northerly went to Maine, and the others to New Hampshire." "Any other great men here, besides Smith?" asked Herbert. "Not many--besides myself," said Capt. Dickerson, smiling, "except, perhaps, Sir Wm. Pepperell. At least his father was one of the early settlers of the Shoals, and he was born here. But you'll hear about him at Kittery. Then, as I said before, Appledore's full of Celia Thaxter, and her father was queer enough to be called a great man. He had been a politician, and when he got out of sorts with his party he quit the mainland, and brought his boys to White Island, where he was lighthouse keeper. They say the boys were fourteen or fifteen before they ever went ashore, and then they were frightened by the first horse they saw." "Thank you, Capt. Dickerson. I knew you'd have something interesting to tell," and Herbert moved away impatiently. "I'm coming over some day next week to go fishing with you." "Yes, I shall be expecting you. I could show you a good many things, young ladies, if you'd spend the day, but it is hard to understand even Smutty Nose alone in an hour." "Oh, but we've enjoyed coming here," replied Martine, and she and Clare shook hands cordially with Captain Dickerson as they said good-bye. After dinner at Appledore, all sat for a half-hour on the hotel piazza, which was so near the water that it seemed in many ways like the deck of a ship. Miss Byng and Mrs. Trotter, who had taken charge of the party from York Harbor (the girls declined to call them chaperones) met several acquaintances among the hotel guests. Miss Byng, in fact, had spent a summer at Appledore, and she exchanged reminiscences with one of her friends about Celia Thaxter, the "Queen of Appledore." "She was certainly a wonderful woman," said Miss Byng, as Clare and Martine drew their chairs within her circle. "Sometimes in the early morning when I looked out of my window, I would see her working in her garden. She was often up at four o'clock, and she made the most wonderful flowers grow from this rocky soil." "Oh, flowers were to her as individual as human beings," added Mrs. Trotter. "She watched over them lovingly while they were in the garden, and when she brought them into the house they were treated sumptuously. Each flower was placed in a vase by itself, and every spot that could hold them had its vases, silver, glass, or china, each with its single blossom." "What a strange idea!" cried Clare. "The effect was beautiful, the brilliant flowers, the picture-covered walls--and the queenly mistress of the house with snow-white hair, in her clinging grey gown--the favorite costume of her latter years." "Appledore is not the same now," and Mrs. Trotter sighed, "do you recall Mrs. Thaxter's lines-- "The barren island dreams in flowers, while blow The south winds, drawing haze on sea and land, Yet the great heart of ocean, throbbing slow Makes the pale flowers vibrate where they stand." "Oh dear!" whispered Martine to Clare, "I feel as if I were at a funeral. Let's find what Peggy has been doing." "But I'd like to have known Mrs. Thaxter, wouldn't you?" "Yes, though a person who had lived most of her life on an island of four hundred acres must have been different from the rest of the world." "She _did_ write poetry," replied Clare. "Yes, that made her different from most of us. But here come Peggy and the rest. I wonder where they've been." Peggy and her party explained that they had been watching the surf on the farther side of the island. "Yes," exclaimed Peggy, "it was fine, I can tell you, and the view, why, we could see miles and miles; if we had had a glass, I believe we could have heard people talking at York." Whereat, in the fashion of young people, all laughed as heartily as if Peggy had said something really funny. While they stood there, Herbert was looking nervously at his watch. "Excuse me, but I really think--" Carlotta, after the manner of sisters, laughed derisively. "Listen! I believe he wishes to make an original remark." Herbert was farther off than the others and had not heard just what Carlotta said. "If we are not careful," he said again, looking at his watch, "we shall miss the boat." "There," said Carlotta, "I told you that he was going to make an original remark." This time Herbert heard her words, and when all laughed except Martine, he reddened deeply. "It's better to be early than late," remarked Martine consolingly; "I've often missed a boat or a train just by thinking I had plenty of time." Herbert turned gratefully towards Martine and walked back with her to the hotel. As a matter of fact they had half an hour to spare and were able to say good-bye to all their acquaintances without undue haste. The return trip was unexciting, and they reached Portsmouth in good spirits just in season to get the Ferry for Kittery. As they came to their special car, "Here's your admirer," said Peggy mischievously to Martine. "What do you mean?" asked Martine. "Why, the conductor; didn't you notice him coming over? Carlotta did." "Yes," added Carlotta, "I certainly thought he was going to speak to you." "Nonsense!" said Martine. "Do you know him?" whispered Peggy mischievously, as the car speeded along the Kittery shore. "I haven't even looked at him," replied Martine indignantly. "Herbert has had charge of the fares, and as the conductor stands on the back platform, and as I have no eyes in the back of my head, I couldn't recognize him even if he were an old friend." Later, however, as the young man moved along and stood for a while beside the motorman, Martine had a chance to see him, though it was only a back view. "Carlotta," she said, "that conductor does remind me of some one. I wonder if it's any one we know at home? Do you see a resemblance? A resemblance to any one you know?" "No," said Carlotta, "really I do not." And so the matter dropped. It was nearly dusk when Martine and Clare left the car at the turn of the road. "Step carefully," said the conductor, holding out his hands to help the two. Martine started, turned and looked toward the car, but it was already on its way down the hill. "I wonder,"--but she did not complete the sentence, though all that evening she continued to ponder over the strange resemblance. CHAPTER XXI VARIETY After the Shoals excursion Martine's life was less placid than before. Peggy, as if to make amends for her apparent neglect, tried to draw her into some of the gayer doings of the younger set. "It's very kind of Peggy, but I can't make her understand that I didn't come here wholly for fun; or rather that I find fun in things that she would consider quiet. Clare feels as I do, and we try to make Peggy see that we enjoy a morning under the trees, or a walk in the meadow, quite as well as a game of golf with tea at the Club." "Golf is good exercise, and you used to like it." "I know it, but I don't need it in midsummer, and besides--" Martine did not explain that she did not care to engage in golf, or in anything that would take her away too much from Red Knoll. "Besides," she said to herself, "I won't accept invitations that I can't return, and we are not in the mood for entertaining this summer, even if we had money to waste." Angelina thought it strange that Mrs. Stratford and Martine preferred the quiet life, and by gentle hints tried to impress on them that they were losing a great deal by declining some of the invitations that came to them. Mrs. Brownville, among others, had called. A day or two after the Shoals excursion, Mrs. Brownville and Carlotta drove up to Red Knoll. Martine at the moment was carrying on an argument with the butcher, who had drawn his cart up nearer the front door than the back. Martine was balancing a chicken in one hand and holding a large cabbage in the other, and was gently arguing with the butcher regarding his prices. It was somewhat disconcerting to have Mrs. Brownville and Carlotta, in elaborate gowns and flower-laden hats, descend upon her while she was wearing an apron over her gingham skirt. There was no escape for Martine, and before she could decide what to do with the chicken or the cabbage, Mrs. Brownville had advanced toward her with outstretched hand. At this moment, Angelina fortunately appeared on the scene to relieve Martine of her burdens, and Mrs. Brownville politely ignored what she had seen. Martine, however, after the first greetings, broke the ice by plunging into a humorous discussion of summer housekeeping. "It's the funniest thing," she said, "that clothes and food are so much alike." "Yes," said Mrs. Brownville, though her expression showed that she could not grasp Martine's meaning. "Yes," repeated Martine; "in both cases we have to pay highest for the trimmings. When I order three pounds of beef-steak and only get a pound and a half, though I pay for three, the butcher says, 'It's all on account of the trimmings' and it's so with chickens, and lamb, and almost everything except eggs; though for eggs there are three grades of fresh eggs." "Really?" said Mrs. Brownville, not knowing what else to say. She had a small sense of humor combined with a kind heart; that is, she was always willing to do a kindness when it came directly in her way to do it. She was not quite sure whether or not Martine was making a demand on her for sympathy. Before she could decide what to say, Carlotta interposed. She suspected that Martine was laughing at them both and she wished she could escape the special errand which had brought her. A moment later Martine had led the way into the little sitting-room where her mother received the guests; and soon Carlotta made her errand known. "I am going to have a little dance at the Club on Saturday evening and I do hope you can come," she said to Martine. "Yes," added Mrs. Brownville, "it's going to be the most elegant dance of the season, that is for the young people." A shade of annoyance crossed Carlotta's face; she had wished to pretend it was to be a very simple affair, so that her guests would be the more impressed in the end by all the expense lavished on it. "Oh, thank you very much," replied Martine, "but I'm not going out at all evenings at present." "Herbert will be so disappointed." At this speech of her mother's Carlotta felt an annoyance that she did not show. She did not wish Martine to know that her invitation was due only to Herbert's urging. "I know it would be delightful," said Martine, "but really I am not dancing this summer." Carlotta for the moment felt that she would do almost anything to get Martine to take back her refusal. It was irritating that a girl living in as humble a house as Red Knoll should show so little appreciation of an invitation that should have been accepted almost with gratitude. So she rose to her feet and rather abruptly said good-bye to Mrs. Stratford and Martine. "I must hurry on," she explained, "as I have an engagement at the Club. Mamma, I will send the carriage back for you." And with another word or two of good-bye, Carlotta made a rather hasty departure. After her daughter had gone Mrs. Brownville talked on in her usual rather rambling fashion. She admired the wall papers and the furnishings of the little room. "Really you've made the most of everything," she said in a manner savoring of patronage that irritated Martine, though she knew Mrs. Brownville did not mean to offend her. A little later Herbert appeared on the scene. "Oh, do change your mind," he urged; "I told Carlotta--" "Then it was you who asked her to come? I thought so." Again Herbert reddened. "Well, you see you weren't on the list when the first invitations were sent out, and I was afraid you might be offended, only I thought you were too sensible, and so--" "There, there," interposed Martine; "I am sensible, that is, I am not offended really, because Carlotta did not think of me in the first place." "Then you will accept?" "Oh, no, I am not going out this summer, at least to things of that kind." "Then I won't go either," said Herbert sulkily; "I hate summer dances and I know a lot of fellows who will stay away too." "Now, Herbert," said Martine emphatically, "don't be a goose. You ought to try to please Carlotta once in a while, and really, if I hear that you stay away from Carlotta's party, I won't be friends with you." Whether or not Martine influenced him she never knew, but it was a fact that Herbert and his friends went in force to Carlotta's dance, which Martine heard was really a very successful affair. For a week or two after this Martine herself felt rather left out of things. She had few friends in the Philadelphia group. Peggy, it is true, as if to make up for her early apparent neglect, did try on more than one occasion to get Martine to join some excursion. But Martine was firm. She saw that she could not well accept one invitation and refuse another, and she decided that she could afford neither the time nor the money that these outings required. Mrs. Stratford watched Martine with some concern. The change from her former self was almost too great. But when her mother remonstrated with her, Martine invariably replied that she was perfectly contented--that housekeeping that involved a constant oversight of Angelina afforded excitement enough. "Besides," she added, "there is Clare; she is livelier than Priscilla, though almost as improving. To-morrow we are going down by Spouting Rock; she, to take photographs, I, to sketch, and she knows any number of picturesque places." "Your plan sounds improving, if not exciting," responded Mrs. Stratford, smiling. "We think it will be more fun than going off with a crowd. Instead of riding to Bald Head Cliff with Peggy and her crowd, Clare has asked me to go to Ogunquit on Saturday. We shall drive over, and she is going to ask you too. Her cousin, Mr. Carrol, has a studio there, and we are all invited to luncheon, so please say you will go, mamma." "Why, yes, when I am really invited," replied Mrs. Stratford, smiling; and a few moments later, when Clare appeared with her message from Mrs. Ethridge, the drive was quickly arranged. The day at Ogunquit was one of many pleasant, quiet days that Martine spent with Clare on the shore or up the river. Almost always Mrs. Stratford and Mrs. Ethridge went with them. In a short time Martine had become an expert paddler, and she was proud enough to have her mother entrust herself to her care. One afternoon, in two canoes, the four went three or four miles up the river to have tea in a little cove on the Bans. It did not detract from Martine's pleasure, when they passed the Country Club, to hear Peggy and Carlotta shout from the piazza: "Don't go past." "There's a landing here." Or rather, if they did not hear clearly they judged that this was the meaning of the words that were accompanied with signals and gestures. But without heeding the sirens, Martine and Clare paddled on and their outing was a complete success. It cannot be said that they made their passage upstream without difficulties. It was near the turn of the tide, and part of the way the current was against them. But of two evils they had to choose the less, as Clare thought it wiser to return down the river with the current wholly in their favor. "If the York were a real river, we wouldn't have to do so much planning, but you see it's only an arm of the sea, and in its whole seven miles from the harbor, the tide has to be closely reckoned with." "Yes, I've heard weird tales of canoeists left high and dry on the shore because they had forgotten to calculate the rise and fall of the tide," added Martine. "It's generally worse for the parents at home than for the stranded young people. I have known mothers half-distracted while waiting to hear from missing daughters," said Mrs. Ethridge. "Then we were wise in coming with the girls," added Mrs. Stratford. "As if we would have come without you. The whole fun to-day is showing you the river," responded Martine, who had been up with Clare before. "There," she continued, "I forgot to give you my one piece of information--that Sewall's Bridge near the Country Club is the oldest pier bridge in the United States, and was built by the same Major Sewall who built the first bridge between Cambridge and Boston." "Unimportant, if true," and Mrs. Stratford smiled at Martine's earnestness. "I approve, my dear, of your zeal for history, but in New England people often make too much of unimportant trifling things." "Bridges and houses." "Yes, and Indians and wars and--" "Then you won't appreciate this verse that Clare recited the other day: "Hundreds were murdered in their beds Without shame or remorse, And soon the floors and roads were strewed With many a bloody corse." "Evidently the writer of those lines had a real tragedy in mind," replied Mrs. Stratford. "Yes," interposed Clare, "it was the Indian massacre of 1792, when more than three hundred savages came into York on snow-shoes, and killed half the people of the place,--all in fact except those who had taken refuge in the old garrison house. The minister, Rev. Shubael Dummer was shot while standing at his door--and--" "Tell her, Clare, about the little boy," said Martine. "Oh, Jeremiah Moulton, the only person within the Indian's reach whom they spared. He was a fat little boy, and when he caught sight of the savages he waddled away as fast as his little legs would carry him. This so amused the Indians that they laughed and laughed and spared him. Though hardly more than a baby at the time the boy never forgot his fright, and years later he revenged himself on the Indians in what was known as the Harmon Massacre,--and many people have since blamed him for his cruelty." "Probably they had never been chased by Indians," responded Martine. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound." "We must go to the McIntire garrison house some day," continued Clare. "Though it wasn't the refuge during that particular massacre, the two houses were probably much alike, and this is one of the oldest buildings in the country--built in 1623." "Clare," exclaimed Martine, "excuse my interrupting you, but you are tremendously like Amy when you are imparting information, though at other times I hardly notice the resemblance. I shall forget half you have told me, and I wonder how you happen to remember so much." "If you should come here as many summers as I have come, you would unconsciously imbibe dates and scraps of information." "But now," said Martine, "we are hungry for something more substantial than dates, and with your permission, Mrs. Ethridge, we'll open the basket." The sandwiches prepared by Angelina's deft fingers, and the cakes and fruit brought by Clare made a supper fit for a king, as Martine phrased it, and the journey home with wind and tide in their favor brought to an end one of the pleasantest afternoons of the season. A few days after the canoe trip Martine and Clare started out for a day at Newcastle, accompanied by Angelina. Mrs. Stratford was spending the day with Mrs. Ethridge, and Angelina was in a seventh heaven of delight as she walked along carrying the basket. Angelina had an especial interest in Clare dating from the night of the Fourth, for she considered that her fire-balloon and the tact with which she had rescued it from Mrs. Ethridge's grounds had led to the acquaintance between the Red Knoll household and the family across the road. She did not know, since she was not a mind-reader, that Mrs. Ethridge would have called on Mrs. Stratford within a few days of the Fourth, even without her intervention. But as her own belief made her so happy, no one had pricked the bubble of Angelina's illusion. While the girls were waiting for the car, Herbert came in sight. "Off for the day, portfolio, camera, easel!" he exclaimed. "Then surely you will let me go with you." "No," replied Martine firmly, "this isn't a picnic. We are just going off to work a little, and enjoy ourselves." "I like that. As if I would interfere. Atherton will be along in a minute, and he would enjoy the excursion too." "No," repeated Martine, with increasing firmness. "We have made our plans. We wish to go by ourselves." Clare, who saw no good reason for Martine's attitude toward Herbert, yet thought it wiser not to interfere. Herbert, who so seldom was out of temper, now seemed offended. "Very well," he said abruptly, "I won't trouble you," and turning on his heel, he walked away. "I can't help it," explained Martine in answer to Clare's look of wonder. "One boy, or two, for that matter, would be terribly in the way in a little trip like this. Here's the car, and I am glad enough to be off." Now it happened that Carlotta and another girl who knew Martine went as far as Kittery on the same car. On their return to York they found Herbert on the links. "You were on the same car with Martine; did she say where she was going with Grace?" he asked abruptly. "She mentioned Newcastle," replied Carlotta. "They will cross on the ferry, and may row back across the river." "How foolish girls are!" grumbled Herbert. "They think because they can paddle up York River that it's perfectly safe to row anywhere else. I hope they won't try it alone. There's a fearful current at the mouth of the Piscataqua." "I don't see why you should care," responded Carlotta sharply. "Besides, Martine can generally take care of herself. Besides, I must tell you a funny thing. You know there was a young conductor on the special the day we went to the Shoals. Peggy says he watched Martine when she wasn't looking, and I know Martine asked me if he reminded me of any one I knew at home. Well, to-day he was on the regular car--and once when we waited at a turnout, Clare and Martine got off and stood by the side of the road, and in a minute he and she were talking as if they had always been acquainted. They actually stood there under the trees and talked, and Angelina stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat, the way she always does." "Well, why not? Why shouldn't Martine talk to whom she pleases? Really, Carlotta, how silly you are!" and Herbert walked off with an expression of disdain for a foolish sister. Now this is what had really happened. Martine and Clare had not been long on their way when the former exclaimed excitedly, "Do you remember, Clare, that boy I told you of, Balfour Airton, whom we met in Nova Scotia, who was so clever and knew everything about old Port Royal, whom I discovered to be a kind of cousin? Well, he's the conductor." "What conductor?" asked Clare, who had not quite followed the course of Martine's thought. "Why, our conductor on this car, and he was on the special the other day; I thought so then, but now I am quite sure. He hasn't given me a chance to speak to him, because I wasn't noticing him when you paid the fares, but as soon as I can I am going to recognize him." A moment after this, the car reached the turnout where it had to wait for the car from Portsmouth, and then Martine had her opportunity. So Carlotta was right. Martine and Clare did spend a minute or two talking to the young conductor, who admitted that he had recognized Martine on the former occasion, though he had hesitated to reveal his identity to her. "Your uniform was almost a disguise, though at the last moment I knew it was your voice; but of course I had no idea you were in this part of the world." Balfour had no time to explain before the other car appeared in sight, but as he assisted the girls back to their seats Martine said cordially, "You must be sure to look us up." It was not long before they reached the point on the Kittery shore where they were to take the little ferry for Newcastle. "The Piscataqua is more of a river than the York," said Clare, "and there's a good deal to see along these banks. We'll have to content ourselves with Newcastle to-day, but sometime we might go farther down and touch at the other landings." "We mustn't forget that we have come here to work to-day," replied Martine. "I am really anxious to do one sketch--and here is just the spot," she concluded, taking her position at a point from which she had a perfect view of an old house well shaded at the head of a little beach. While Martine was sketching, Clare fluttered about, taking first one thing and then another that pleased her fancy, and often including Angelina in her views to the great delight of the latter. [Illustration: "While Martine was sketching, Clare fluttered about."] "How blue the water is, and the sky! I haven't felt so thoroughly in the mood for good work since I left Acadia," exclaimed Martine. "But the sun is terribly hot," replied Clare, "and I am hungry. Let us go inside Fort Constitution for our luncheon. There will surely be more shade there." "Your word is law," and Martine reluctantly gathered up her belongings, and soon the three had ensconced themselves in a shady corner within the crumbling walls of the old grass-grown Fort. "'Fort William and Mary' was the name of the first Fort near this spot," explained Clare, returning to her rôle of guide, "and even before his ride to Concord and Lexington, Paul Revere is said to have posted up here to tell the people of Portsmouth that the British were sending one hundred men to take all the powder away. "Accordingly four hundred men of Portsmouth marched out to Fort William and Mary, and required the Captain in command and his five men to surrender. Then they took the powder to a safer hiding-place, and later it was sent down to Boston, where it is said to have been used in the Battle of Bunker Hill. That other little tower is called the Walbach Tower, for Col. Walbach who commanded the fort in the War of 1812. There's a funny story about the building of this tower. Any one can see that it probably isn't true, although a poem has been written on the subject. The story is simply that the people of Portsmouth, alarmed by the sight of some British ships in the harbor, came over here in the night and worked like bees, men, women, and children, laying stones until this tower was built. There isn't an atom of proof that this is true." "But it's a pretty story," said Martine. After luncheon, Clare gave Martine the choice of two walks--to Odiorne's Point, called the "Plymouth Rock of New Hampshire," as the first settlement was made there, or to Little Harbor. Martine promptly chose the latter, because she was anxious to see the old Wentworth house. To their disappointment, when the girls reached it, the three found the old house closed; but the grounds were open to them and the curious exterior amused Martine, reminding her, as she said, of half a dozen small houses piled and twisted together to make one large one. "This is the house where Martha Hilton was married," explained Clare. "I am sorry we cannot go inside. The rooms with their polished floors and old-time furniture are really fascinating. Cousin Mary--I hope you will meet her some time in Portsmouth--says that Benning Wentworth, in spite of being Governor, was a plain man, and son of a plain farmer, so that his marriage with Martha Hilton was not such a tremendous mesalliance." "Oh, I remember that poem," cried Angelina, "how the Governor married the servant maid. It's by Longfellow, and the story's something like Agnes Surriage. The minister didn't want to marry them. I can say some of it, and she recited dramatically: "'This is the lady, do you hesitate? Then I command you, as Chief Magistrate. The Rector read the service loud and clear. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here-- And so on to the end. At his command On the fourth finger of her fair left hand, The governor placed the ring, and that was all. Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall.' "So I'm glad to see this hall," she added, after Clare and Martine had sufficiently praised her recitation,--"and there's one thing more that I'd like to see,--the island in the harbor, where they kept the Spanish prisoners two years ago. You know I used to think I must be partly Spanish myself, I had so much sympathy for Cervera and all his men. I'm sorry they didn't stay here longer. It would be so pleasant to go to the island and console them." "Perhaps you'll be as well pleased if you can _see_ Seavey's Island," replied Clare, smiling. "We passed the other day on our way to the Shoals; and sometime you must take the same trip." For the time this suggestion satisfied Angelina, and she heard with evident pleasure all that Clare and Martine had to say about old Newcastle. Intending to catch the last ferry of the afternoon, Clare and Martine cut short their stay at Little Harbor, delightful though they found the neighborhood with its suggestions of antiquity. They had a long walk before them--long at least for an August afternoon, and they did not reach the pier as quickly as they had hoped. In spite of Clare's intention and Martine's efforts to be prompt, the little tug had left the landing a minute before they reached it. By close calculation, as they glanced at the time-table, they saw that they would be altogether too late in reaching home, if they waited for the next boat. "Isn't it aggravating?" cried Martine, "to have to stand here and wait, when the distance across to Kittery is so little." "There's nothing to do but wait," replied Clare. Martine followed the direction in which she pointed, and saw an old man in a row-boat approaching the pier. "Do you suppose he would take us over?" "Why not? Let's ask him." The two friends, with Angelina following close behind, stood on the end of the pier while the old man was mooring his boat. "Will you row us over to the other side?" asked Martine. He paid no attention to them, but continued tying a knot in his rope. The question was repeated in a slightly different form, and still the old man made no answer. "He must be deaf," said Angelina. "Or the wind's blowing in the wrong direction," said Clare. "We must wait till he comes up to us." When the old man approached, by signs and words they made him understand what they wished, and he smiled pleasantly when Clare put a dollar bill in his hand. "It's worth it," she said in an aside to Martine. "If we cross with him, we shall save two hours on our homeward journey." So the old man untied his boat, which was ample enough for the four, and the girls quickly took their places. "I can't say that I like a deaf boatman," said Clare, "in case of an accident we might find it awkward that he can't hear." "An accident!" exclaimed Martine, who seldom feared any unseen things; "there certainly could be no accident in this quiet water." Before they had gone very far, however, she began to change her mind. The breeze which they had noticed while they were on the landing, now seemed to be blowing violently, and despite its heavy freight the boat rocked violently; it not only rocked, but veered from its course. Martine held her breath, while the excitable Angelina began to scream. "Hush! hush!" said Martine, "it's nothing." "Nothing?" cried Angelina, as a great wave broke over the end of the boat, half drenching her. "It's only the Piscataqua current," said Clare. "But ask him if there's any danger." The boatman ignored the question. Probably he had not heard it. A great wave slapped the boat sidewise, and this time Clare's screams were added to Angelina's. Billows rose all around them. Apparently they were no longer on the surface of a quiet river, but in the midst of a disturbed ocean and their boat was small. Martine kept her eyes on the distant shore; she saw that they were approaching it, slow though their progress was. The old man seemed to be doing his best, when suddenly one of his oars broke and they heard him mutter, "that's bad." Bad, it certainly was; even Martine's courage waned. One thing, however, led her to hope that they might escape disaster. She had noticed a little boat pushing out from the other side. How rapidly it seemed to approach! Very soon after the old man's oar snapped, she recognized one of the rowers in the approaching boat. It was Herbert Brownville. As the boat drew nearer, they saw that Atherton was Herbert's companion. The boys rowed steadily and swiftly, and soon their boat was beside the other. Leaning over, Herbert extended an oar to the old man who accepted it with a nod of thanks; it wasn't a time for words; Angelina was in tears, Clare was barely calm, and even Martine, the courageous, looked disturbed. The old man bent to the oars, the two boats, almost side by side, went on in a straight line. "Thank you, thank you!" cried Clare, as they got into calmer water. "You weren't really scared, were you?" shouted Herbert. "Just a little," replied Martine. "You should have known of the current," added Herbert. "It was just the wrong time to cross in a small boat, especially with only one oar." The wind continued to blow, but the rest of their short journey was so calm compared with the turbulent five minutes, that Martine was ashamed of their needless alarm; and yet she was glad enough when at last she found herself standing on the Kittery bank of the river. "I knew you'd need a rescuer," exclaimed Herbert, after he had helped them ashore. "But how in the world did you know where to find us?" asked Martine. Herbert was silent; he did not really care to tell her what Carlotta had said. CHAPTER XXII EXCITEMENT Mrs. Stratford was interested in Martine's account of her interview with Balfour Airton. "I should certainly like to see him, and if he's as you describe him, and I am sure he is, I should be glad to welcome him as a long lost cousin. From what Mrs. Redmond has said, I'm sure that he contributed a great deal to your pleasure last summer." Several days passed and Balfour did not appear. At last Mrs. Stratford sent a note to the headquarters of the trolley line addressed to Balfour and inviting him to tea. On the appointed evening he made his appearance at Red Knoll. "It is not often," he said, "that I can get enough time off to accept an invitation of this kind; but I can tell you that it's very delightful to be among friends. That's the worst of going so far from home. You're among strangers and nobody cares especially for you." Although Martine and her mother were both somewhat curious as to what had brought Balfour to this corner of the world, for the moment they asked no questions. Martine inquired about Eunice. "Of course she writes regularly to Priscilla," she said, "and Priscilla keeps me informed about Annapolis happenings. Do you think your sister will go to college?" Balfour shook his head. "I am not sure; I am not even sure that Eunice knows her own mind; but if she does wish to go to college, some one will certainly find a way for her to carry out her wishes." Martine, looking at him, felt that Balfour was likely to be that "some one." "I ought to say," added Balfour, turning to Mrs. Stratford, "that the money so kindly sent Eunice last autumn did an immense amount of good. It was the first money of her own that she had ever had to handle, and I may add," he concluded smiling, "that she has at least half of it still stored away for a rainy day." At last Martine could not control her curiosity. "How did you happen to think of coming up here?" she asked. "Oh, some of my friends had had opportunities as extra men on the New England trolley lines, and I decided that I could spend my time more profitably here than on the vehicle I drove last summer. "That wasn't such a bad vehicle," interposed Martine. "If you hadn't been driving it, I might still be lost in the fog." During this conversation the three had gone outside to sit. And now in the darkness they heard a voice inquiring anxiously, "Is this Red Knoll?" "It's Mr. Gamut," exclaimed Martine, and rushing forward, was soon greeting the old gentleman. "I've only just come back," he cried volubly after he had joined the group. "You must have thought it strange that I disappeared so completely; but I was called away on business, and my niece has been visiting friends on the South Shore. Now tell me about your father; what do you hear? Good news, I hope." Martine said nothing. "What we hear is indefinite," said Mrs. Stratford. "Oh, well, 'no news is good news' and you must expect the best. Young people who have no care don't realize the ups and downs of life; they expect things to move along in an upward line. You, young man," he continued, "expect life to continue to be one continual round of pleasure; you bathe, play golf, drive, have evening excursions, and it's all right for the summer; but after a while you will have a hard hill to climb, and that is right too; it's part of life; only you mustn't let the summer spoil you." "Oh, but Mr. Gamut," began Martine. "Yes, I know," said Mr. Gamut, turning to Balfour, "you think perhaps there needn't be a hill for every one." "I think I know what Miss Stratford meant to say; she meant to tell you that I am not a pleasure seeker, but a worker. I am simply a conductor on the trolley line." "Bless my soul!" exclaimed the old gentleman, and though the light was too dim for him really to see, Balfour realized that Mr. Gamut had raised his glasses and had fixed his eyes upon him. "A conductor!" he exclaimed; "how extraordinary! do you really think it will lead to something? That's what a young man should always ask himself." "It will lead to my having more money at the end of the season than I had before," responded Balfour. "Yes, yes; but it's very unusual." Before Mr. Gamut could complete his sentence, a loud scream from the direction of the kitchen fell on the ears of the four. "I wish Angelina were not so excitable," said Mrs. Stratford. "It takes so little to make her scream; probably she has seen a mouse." When the scream rang out a second time, Balfour started to his feet and in another instant was racing to the gate in pursuit of a flying figure; an instant later, the others had reached Angelina. "It was a burglar," she cried. "He was opening the trunks in the ell room, and when I came through with the safety lamp in my hand I saw him plainly, and he started and ran, leaving his booty on the floor," she concluded dramatically. "But those were empty trunks," cried Martine, climbing the stairs. "Come and see," said Angelina, leading the way upstairs, where indeed the floor was strewn with clothing. Martine picked up a delicate muslin skirt. "This isn't mine, mamma," she said. "The man must have had a bundle with him that he dropped here; these things are not mine; it all seems very queer." "Yes," said Angelina, "especially as the burglar is an old acquaintance of mine." Thoughts of collusion crossed Mrs. Stratford's mind while Angelina continued: "It was years and years ago, and I'd know him anywhere; especially because I've seen his twin brother since, and he looks just like him, though this wasn't the twin. He's an honest man and he lives in Salem." "Let us get out into the fresh air again," said Mrs. Stratford. "I feel faint." "Angelina's story makes me feel fainter," added Martine. "I hope that interesting young conductor hasn't been hurt by the burglar; if he should catch him, I wonder if he'd know what to do with him." "We can only wait." Their time of waiting was not long. Balfour came back rather crestfallen. "He gave me a great run," said Balfour, "and I couldn't catch up with him. But I'm sure he won't trouble you again, and on my way home I'll telephone so that the authorities here and in Portsmouth can be on the lookout for him. Do you suppose he took anything of yours?" "I hardly think so," replied Martine, "he seems to have left something behind him." "Oh, he's nothing but a sneak thief," continued Angelina. "I know him." "A friend of yours?" asked Balfour in surprise. "Oh, Angelina was just going to tell us about him," said Mrs. Stratford, trying to repress certain suspicions regarding Angelina that had come to her since the girl had said that she knew the intruder. "It was this way," continued Angelina, pleased, as usual, to be the centre of interest. "It was my mother he took the money from a long time ago, when she lived at the North End. It was the money that was to take us to the country, that Miss Brenda and her Club had made at a bazaar; and he went off to some far country, and now he's come back, I suppose he'll go on stealing. Miss Brenda had to make up the money out of her own allowance, because she had been careless in giving the money too soon to my mother. So if you had caught this thief, Mister--" here Angelina hesitated, not knowing Balfour's name,--"we might have recovered what he took." "I'm sorry that I did not," replied the young man, "but I'll do my best to help some one else catch him." A little later Mr. Gamut and Balfour walked off together, and the Red Knoll household, left to itself, talked over the exciting evening. Mr. Gamut and Balfour had both offered to stay, or even to sit up all night if Mrs. Stratford or the girls felt timid. But at last all agreed that the intruder had been so effectually put to flight that there was no danger of his returning. That night Martine's dreams were filled with visions of a burglar chasing Balfour, with Mr. Gamut in a white muslin skirt following closely in pursuit. They were all late for breakfast, and were still at the table when the grocer brought the mail. There was but one letter for Martine, and she read it eagerly. "What do you think?" she asked, when she had finished. "Elinor is going to stay over at York on her way to the mountains. She is to be at the Hotel for a day or two. Oh, I wish that she could stay here! What do you think, mamma? she could be comfortable in my room, and I would take the little one next." "Certainly, my dear, you may ask her as soon as she arrives. When does she arrive?" "Why, it must be to-day--for this is Thursday. I wonder why the letter was so slow. I'll go over as soon as the work is done." Now it happened that Elinor herself made the first visit, as she had come in from Portsmouth on an early train. After they had talked of other things for half an hour, Martine told Elinor of their excitement of the evening before. "Are you sure he didn't take anything?" asked Elinor. "I should think you wouldn't have slept a wink. I should have been awake all night after such a fright." "I can't say I was frightened; it seemed rather funny. Do come upstairs with me now. I must see what the man left behind." Elinor followed Martine upstairs. "Why, Martine, what is this?" she cried, raising the white skirt "It is--why, it must be the gown I lost Class Day--and this--it really is my trunk," and she gave Martine a severe glance as she bent toward a small trunk in the corner. "Nonsense," cried Martine. "That is a skirt the burglar left, part of his 'booty,' as Angelina calls it, and this is one of our packing trunks. It has been here all summer." "But it has my name on it," protested Elinor. Martine shook her head. Elinor's manner reminded her of her manner on the day of their first meeting, and it annoyed her. Nevertheless she bent down towards the label on the trunk. "Don't look at me in that tone of voice," she said gayly, as she turned again toward her friend. "The label is certainly marked, "_Miss Elinor Naylor_ _The Belhaven, Boston_ and now that I look at it closely I can see that this is not one of our trunks. But how did it come here, Angelina?" "Oh, Miss Martine, we brought the trunk with us from Boston. It was in the storeroom. I don't know anything about it, except it came the day before Class Day. There was a laundress working there that afternoon, and I remember she told me she had had a trunk sent to the trunk-room. I supposed you told her, and of course when we moved, all the trunks came here. You told me they were to come." "Perhaps you are not altogether to blame, Angelina, although I wish that you had said something to mamma or me, and I still don't understand why the trunk was sent to us." It was now Elinor's turn to explain. "I understand it all. When I left Bar Harbor for Class Day, I simply put on a tag with my name and I didn't notice this old label, which was the one I used when I spent a day or two with you in the spring. The expressman followed the Belhaven tag, instead of keeping my trunk with Kate's aunt,--so if any one is to blame, it is I for leaving that tag on." "I am not so sure of that," replied Martine. "If I had been a really up-to-date housekeeper I should have known exactly what trunks came down to York. Now I only hope that our burglar didn't make way with any of your things." "We'll soon know;" already Elinor was on her knees before the trunk. "No" she said, "I hardly think he took anything. The trunk is closely packed below the tray, and the tray would hold little more than these things he tumbled out. But I remember a set of topaz studs in a box that I put in this corner. The box is not here." After a careful search neither she nor Martine could find the studs. But Elinor was philosophical over this loss. "In finding the trunk I feel as if I had recovered a small fortune--and I can bear the loss of the studs. I daresay Kate will be pleased to get back her things, although she is so up-to-date, that she may consider these class-day clothes old-fashioned now, as they were made to wear two months ago." "How ridiculous!" exclaimed Martine, "and yet," she admitted, "I can remember when I would not wear anything that was not of the very latest, but now--why this is a last year's shirt-waist, and you know how the sleeves have changed." A few hours later Martine and Elinor were telling the story of the "Class-day trunk," as they dubbed it, to a group of merry young people on the piazza of the hotel, and every one teased Martine about her skill in abstracting so important a part of Elinor's wardrobe. After a day or two at the hotel, Elinor began a visit at Martine's that lengthened itself into a week, and during her friend's stay Martine's life was as gay as that of the gayest at the Harbor. She drove, she sat at noon with the gay throng under the pavilion to watch the bathers. She would not bathe, because she had brought no bathing-suit to York, and because it was too late in the season, she said, to begin a course of spectacular bathing. She went with a sailing party on Herbert's cat-boat, although before Elinor's arrival she had refused all his invitations. She spent two mornings at the Club watching the tennis tournament, and she accepted invitations to two luncheons given in Elinor's honor. "Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, two or three days after Elinor's arrival, "Would you not like to have a luncheon for Elinor? On a small scale we could manage it very well." "Oh yes, Mrs. Stratford," interposed Angelina, who overheard the suggestion. "I've just been longing for Miss Martine to have some kind of an entertainment. There's something going on every day, and I don't like Miss Martine to be the only one that doesn't entertain--not that I'd be so presuming as to talk of anything you hadn't spoken of yourself," she concluded hastily. She was bright enough to notice an expression of surprise on Mrs. Stratford's face. "It would make some trouble for you," said Martine. "Oh, I wouldn't mind that, and I'm always happy when there's something going on." "Lucian's last letter was more cheerful;" Martine said this to draw her mother out. "Yes, my dear, and I am sure you need not let your father's health stand in the way of your party. I am sure that he is better." "But ought we to spend money in that way?" "It will not cost much." "I know,--but still." "There, write your notes. They should be sent at once." "Instead of a luncheon, mamma, let me have a tea late in the afternoon and ask boys as well. Herbert has been very good to Elinor, and Atherton has given us a lot of time, and there are several others. I wish I needn't ask Carlotta, but I must. However, I can leave out the most of her crowd." Elinor helped Martine write the notes, and Angelina took hold of the preparations with a heartiness that spoke for success. The tables were spread out-doors, one for serving chocolate and coffee, one for lemonade. Elinor and Clare gathered flowers in abundance, especially great clusters of St. Anne's lace, that proved a most effective table decoration. In spite of the short notice nearly all whom Martine invited accepted the invitation, even Carlotta and two or three of her set, who "never would be missed," said Martine almost ruefully as she read their replies. "Then why did you ask them?" Elinor's tone was reproachful. "Oh, because--well, because I had no good reason for leaving them out. They have all invited me to something or other, and of course in one way I want them, only Carlotta is so critical that I hate to think of her making fun of things here." "She will have cause to be critical if you do not hurry down to the village for that extra cream. It's strange they forgot to leave it this morning. Of course," concluded Elinor, "I think that Carlotta might have been prompter in answering your invitation, but when she comes she'll be on her best behavior." Now it chanced that as Martine was returning from the village, warm and a little tired, carrying a large bottle of cream under one arm and a package of odds and ends on the other, she met Carlotta and three or four others driving rapidly down from the Club. How it happened Martine never knew, but an unlucky stumble made her lose her hold of the bottle, and as it flew into the road the cream emptied itself in a sticky pool in the dusty road. Poor Martine! The drag slowed up. She thought she heard a half-suppressed outburst of laughter. But in a moment Herbert stood beside her. He had slipped down from the drag, and he looked at her now as if waiting for her to tell him what to do. "Let me help you," he said at last. "Help me!" cried Martine scornfully. "'Oh, Phoebe you have torn your dress! Where are your berries, child?' "There, Herbert, that is the way I feel. To think that I must go back to the village for a second bottle of cream! We are all in a hurry, and they are waiting for me. Angelina herself could not have done worse." "Of course you won't turn back. Go home with the other things, and I will bring you your cream." So eager was Herbert to be of use that he hardly listened to Martine's thanks, and Martine, to her own great surprise, for once in her life found herself ready to obey one to whom she was not in the habit of looking up. For Herbert, although nearer Lucian's age than Martine's, always seemed to the latter like a younger boy whom she could order around. In the present emergency she was thankful for Herbert's help and pleased enough to receive the cream that he brought from the village. When her guests arrived at the appointed hour, Martine was fairly proud of the appearance of Red Knoll. She had had the grass clipped the day before, and the lawn, if stubbly on close inspection, at least was of a vivid green. The old-fashioned garden at the side that had been the pride of the former occupants of the farm, was now in full bloom, and almost all the chairs had been brought from the house to be set under the trees or farther up in the meadow, where those who wished could enjoy the rather unusual view. With the chairs removed, the dining-room seemed almost spacious, and there Peggy at one end of the table and Clare at the other served chocolate and lemonade. The afternoon passed quickly away. Martine forgot her first anxiety when she saw that her friends were evidently enjoying themselves. "I am surprised to see you here," Peggy exclaimed to Herbert. "Isn't it a great condescension? I thought you had vowed never to go to a tea at York." "Generally this kind of thing is a bore, and I had fairly hard work to get the other fellows to come. But I told them that anything Martine did was sure to pass off well, and it's true." "This is just like any other tea," protested Peggy, remembering that Herbert had never accepted one of her invitations. "Oh, it's smaller than others," responded Herbert, "and every one knows every one and we all feel that we can do as we like--and no one is wearing white gloves," he concluded, as if he had made a special discovery. "There are no gloves of any color so far as I can see," retorted Peggy. "That's just it, we can have a good time here, because everything is unconventional. But, alas, here is Carlotta--" and Herbert moved rapidly in the opposite direction from his sister. Although Carlotta seldom said really disagreeable things, something in her manner excited Martine's antagonism. "She need not have referred to the spilt cream," thought the latter, after a word or two with Carlotta. "She must know I hate to be reminded that I cut a ridiculous figure." "Oh yes," she continued aloud, "I am too busy to do much pleasuring this summer. The house gives me plenty to do, and I have some extra studying." "We heard you were going to college," said one of Martine's friends. "Yes," added Carlotta, "but I shouldn't think you'd quite like to. It makes a girl so conspicuous to go to college." "A college girl isn't half so conspicuous as a golf-champion. Why, I saw your picture in a Sunday paper last month, Carlotta, beside a prize bicycle rider's, and your weight and height and all kinds of things about you were there, too." Martine spoke hotly, as she was apt to when excited, and Carlotta made no reply. "If I go to college," continued Martine, "I fear I'll never be distinguished enough to have my portrait in print." Then, remembering that personal speeches of this kind were not in good taste from a hostess to a guest, she changed the subject to something less irritating. But Carlotta turned away, only half mollified. "Elinor," cried Martine, as the last of her guests went home, "this tea has been bad for me; it has given me a taste for society that will worry me the rest of the summer." "There's no reason why you shouldn't be a little gayer." "Oh, yes, there is, every reason. If things go better, I'll have my turn in a year or two when I am really out, and if things go ill, why I shall bury myself in work. Really, I meant what I said to Carlotta. I do mean to try for college. It would be fun to pass the examinations with Priscilla, even if I couldn't go through. For, of course, if we are very poor, I shall have to work for a living." "Martine," cried Elinor, "you are very absurd. When I think of your cousin Mrs. Stanley at Bar Harbor--" "Yes, and my cousin Mrs. Blair, who has one of the handsomest places on the North Shore. But unluckily what is theirs is not mine, and I have never been a beggar." "Of course not, but from one extreme you have gone to the other, and I think that you ought to hope for the best." "If hoping were having," murmured Martine. Mr. Gamut was one of the guests whom Martine invited in Elinor's honor. "Where's your young conductor?" he asked, when he had a moment alone with her. "We invited him, but he wrote that he couldn't get off. Mamma felt pretty sure he wouldn't have come, even if he had time to spare. He is in this part of the world for business, not pleasure." "Just so, just so, he's a fine fellow, though, and I mean to keep an eye on him. I can offer him a good place when he's through studying. I have no prejudice against the college man in business, and he'll be none the worse for taking his degree. I liked the way he ran after that fellow the other night, and he's done some clever detective work since. You'll hear about it soon." "Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, when her daughter later told her what Mr. Gamut had said; "you may congratulate yourself on this one thing, if on nothing else this summer. By bringing Mr. Gamut and Balfour together you have accomplished more than you realize." "But it was the burglar and not I," said Martine, "who really had the most to do with it. It was the way Balfour ran that impressed Mr. Gamut the most." "However it came about, you have had a good share in bringing them together, and with Mr. Gamut's good will, Balfour is sure to prosper." "I'm glad of that, mamma. Sometimes I feel that I have been so useless this summer." "My dear--" and then Mrs. Stratford said no more. She was really afraid of spoiling Martine by praise, but she thought it better for the latter to find out certain things for herself. CHAPTER XXIII QUIET LIFE When Elinor left York for the mountains, she took the little trunk with her, after carefully removing the Belhaven label. The label itself she carried in her card-case. "I shall need it," she said, "to illustrate my tale of a trunk when I tell it. Every one who has heard it thus far thinks it the most amusing story that ever was--and if it hadn't happened no one could believe it. This label is a proof of its truth." Martine missed Elinor more than she admitted even to her mother. It was part of her summer plan to seem perfectly contented with everything. Mrs. Stratford noted with some concern that Martine was growing paler, if not a little thinner. Could it be that she was less happy than she professed to be, less contented? Whatever she did, she did with her utmost energy, and in summer it was possible for a young girl to have too much of housework, gardening and study. It had become almost a passion with her to make up one or two deficiencies before her return to school. Strangely enough, it was Herbert now, on whom she began to depend for help in carrying on her work, and this is how it came about. Herbert, after the so-called rescue on the Piscataqua, made light of the affair, in spite of Martine's reiteration that except for him she knew that she and Clare--not to mention Angelina--must have capsized. "We might not have met a watery grave--but we certainly should have reached shore very wet." "Well, perhaps," responded Herbert, "but even if it meant something to you to be saved from your 'peril' as you call it, you must admit that Atherton and I ran no risk." "That doesn't alter the fact that you were thoughtful as well as brave, and really, Herbert, if only you wouldn't pretend to be so lazy, you'd--" Martine did not finish the sentence, for Herbert immediately tried to prove that he was not lazy. "Of course I won't fall in with all of Carlotta's plans; if I did she'd keep me busy from morning to night. But I got into college without conditions--and that reminds me--Miss Martine Stratford--I heard you complaining the other day about your Cicero, and so, if you are not too lazy, I will come to you two or three times a week to read Latin with you. We'll make the orations fly like hot-cakes, and Carlotta will be more infuriated than ever that I have something to do that will keep me from trotting around after her." "If that's your motive, I refuse to be helped." "You ought to be very grateful, for in general I don't approve of a girl's going to college, and I understand it's because you have college in view that you wish to skip on with your Latin. But it's only because I think college won't spoil you that I consent to give you the benefit of my knowledge," and Herbert assumed a pompous air that greatly amused Martine. Thus it happened that a day or two after Elinor left York, Herbert entered on his self-appointed office of tutor. Mrs. Stratford had made no objection when Martine told her of Herbert's plan. She had known Herbert for a long time, and she understood some of the difficulties of his home surroundings. Carlotta and he were so unlike in temperament, that they were constantly at swords' points, and Mrs. Brownville was so absorbed in her own narrow interests that she had never found time to study her children. Mrs. Stratford realized that Martine could do more for Herbert than he for her, as he never resented the sisterly advice that she bestowed on him. Carlotta was the only one who seemed to object to Herbert's new occupation. She teased him unmercifully, and showed an inclination to snub Martine. The two girls, fortunately, did not meet often, for Martine had little part in the gayeties of August, while Carlotta was a leader of the younger set. Carlotta, had she been so disposed, might have done much for Martine. On the other hand, Martine, with a little effort, could have shared in the pleasures of the young people of her own age. At last her mother remonstrated with her for holding herself aloof from those who were pleasantly disposed to her. But Martine was firm. "No, mother, I can't serve two masters. The summer has been flying away, and I haven't accomplished half that I had hoped to. I shan't dare to look Priscilla in the face if I haven't made up all that Latin. Then I shouldn't have a really good time if I 'mingled' more, as Angelina suggests. People here are cliquey, and Carlotta and Peggy are the only girls in the crowd that I've ever known before. Peggy is a regular will-o'-the-wisp, and Carlotta and I never could be intimate." "But still--" began Mrs. Stratford. "But still," echoed Martine, "you seem to forget, mother dear, that we came here to save money--and everything costs so much--and I don't want to spend my poor little allowance on dress and excursions, and sometimes I feel pretty blue, and until we know from Lucian how father really is, I couldn't plunge into things. There wouldn't be any half way with me; if I should begin to 'go,' I would just have to go all the time." Here Martine stopped for sheer want of breath. But her mother, watching her closely, wondered if she really understood herself. Yet Martine was sincere. It was only when she heard of some particularly pleasant thing that she felt left out. A moonlight sail, an all-day picnic up the river, an excursion to Agamenticus, all seemed to her as she heard of them more delightful affairs than they actually were to those who took part in them. Before Herbert and Clare, Martine maintained her Spartan indifference, even when they talked of their own experiences in a well-meant effort to make her express a desire to go with them on their next expedition. But nothing could weaken Martine's determination to lead a quiet life. "It isn't as if I never had had any fun, or never should have any more," she wrote to Priscilla, "but even as it is I believe I have been running about too much. For the next few weeks I mean to be quiet as a dormouse, and two pages of Latin a day will keep me pretty busy. You see, Prissie, if papa really has lost all his money, I shall want to earn my living at once. I never could be dependent on my relations, and Lucian will have all he can do for the next few years. Oh, how different this summer is from last, when I almost felt as if I owned the world, though I hope I didn't show it. Of course we are very comfortable here. The house is small, but we brought enough of our own things to make it homelike, and Angelina does pretty well, though I have to help out with things sometimes. We have radishes and peas and a few tomato plants in the kitchen garden, but the rest of the place is all in grass, except the flower garden, and that would do your heart good. There are all kinds of old-fashioned things that you would love. They have grown up in the wildest way, and I am kept very busy weeding the flowers as well as the vegetables. Now, Prissie, before we leave York you must make us a visit. Mother and I both want you, and York will suit you to a T. The summer people make it livelier than Plymouth, but there are enough queer old houses to make you feel quite at home. You'd enjoy the graveyard opposite the church. It is shaded with ancient trees, and every one browses around there at least once. The funniest stone that I saw there was Father Moody's; he was the father of Handkerchief Moody. The inscription is just what you might expect from a thrifty New Englander. I wonder more haven't tried the same thing. Instead of having a long inscription put on he just gave the chapter and verse, 2 Corinthians, III, 1-6, so that any one interested could read. I am sorry to say I haven't yet had time. There's another thing that might amuse you. There are a lot of little cottages down by the Long Beach beyond the harbor. They look as if they were made of cardboard, painted in bright colors, and have fancy names like 'Sea-crest' and 'Harbor View.' Well, the other day on our way to Cape Neddock, I noticed one called Gorgeana, and I thought the owners had given it this name because they meant to enjoy themselves by eating all they could, or gorging. "I was awfully snubbed by Herbert when I asked him if it wasn't a shame for people to advertise their greediness. He laughed well at me when he reminded me that the name was in honor of Gorges, the founder of York, a fact which I really ought to have remembered, for of course I knew it. "You need not be jealous of Clare, as you suggest. It is certainly pleasant to have a congenial girl so near. But she never could take your place--never in the world. "She is something like you, however, quiet and dignified, and fond of history. Mrs. Ethridge is great fun, and would be good company for mother, except that she plays bridge from morning till night. "You haven't told me what you think of my rescue, and of Balfour and the burglar. I wrote you a few days ago. "I had a letter from Brenda last week. Isn't it wonderful that she should find time to think of me when she is so far away. She is delighted because all the family are with her now, and they are to be in San Rafael the rest of the summer. "She is not sure whether she will be in Boston next winter. How I wish we might have her apartment again. But we can't tell what we shall do until father and Lucian return. She says she would like to be with me one winter, to be sure that I really deserve to be called her ward." Then, with messages to Mrs. Danforth and the children, Martine concluded her letter. It brought a quick reply, in which Priscilla laughed at Martine for her two rescues--if one can be said to laugh in a letter. "For an independent person it seems to me that you succeed in getting rescued from extreme danger pretty often. Balfour, in the fog last summer, had the easier time I should say, and I only hope that he and Herbert Brownville may not come to blows in trying to decide which is the greater hero. "If I am called on to help to decide, I should have to decide against Balfour, for you could not be half as much lost on a horse as in a boat." Although Priscilla was correct in her diagnosis of the different kinds of dangers, Balfour and Herbert gave no signs of coming to blows on the subject of their prowess. On the contrary, they showed an inclination to be very good friends. As Balfour's time was so fully occupied with his duties, Herbert acquired the habit of taking long rides on the cars. Then at the end of the route, or when waiting at turn-outs, he and Balfour had chances for the snatches of conversation in which boys find more pleasure than girls. Carlotta was as little pleased with Herbert's intimacy with Balfour, as with his interest in Martine's Latin. It might not be fair to say that she wished to keep her brother entirely under her thumb, and yet it annoyed her that he was so much less amenable to her than formerly. She liked to feel that he was ready to come and go as she wished. She especially needed him to help entertain her visitors, of whom she usually had two or three staying in the house. Now it happened one evening that Martine reading a Boston newspaper came upon something that excited her mightily. "O, mamma," she exclaimed, "Only think! Mrs. Dundonald is coming here--just listen; Mrs. Dundonald, the well-known artist, passed through Boston to-day on her way to York Harbor where she is to spend a few days with friends." "Well, my dear, what of it?" responded Mrs. Stratford. "Oh, you know how I admire Mrs. Dundonald's work. She does exactly the kind of thing I should like to do, and they say she is perfectly charming. To think she is coming here! Oh, I do hope we shall meet her!" Then Martine paused suddenly, remembering that for the present she and her mother were not likely to meet any distinguished stranger visiting York. From Clare she learned the next day that Mrs. Dundonald was staying with Miss Stark, an elderly lady whose house was next that of the Brownvilles'. Clare offered to take Martine to call on Miss Stark and Mrs. Dundonald, but Martine hesitated because she had heard that Miss Stark was a rigid upholder of formal etiquette. "I have had one or two little snubs," she said, "and I should hate to be treated with scorn because I had made the first call on an older woman." "There is no danger of that," replied Clare, "but still, there will probably be some other way, for you ought to have a chance to meet Mrs. Dundonald." Just at this time Herbert happened to be away on a short yachting trip, so that Martine could not tell him of her desire. The Brownvilles were cousins as well as neighbors of Miss Stark's, and had Herbert been at home he could easily have arranged a meeting between Martine and the artist. "Martine," said Clare a day after their conversation about Miss Stark and her guest, "I saw Carlotta at the beach this morning and I told her how anxious you were to meet Mrs. Dundonald. She knows her very well, and--" "She didn't promise to introduce me immediately?" Martine's tone was sarcastic. She knew very well that Carlotta would hardly exert herself to do her a favor. The girls were seated on Mrs. Ethridge's piazza at this moment, and before Clare could reply to Martine, the maid handed her a note that had come by special messenger. Martine watched her friend as she read, and noticed that she made no comment as she slipped the note back in its envelope. Then for a few moments neither girl spoke. Martine had recognized the man who had given the note to the maid. He was one of the Brownvilles' coachmen. "Martine," said Clare, at length, "Carlotta is giving a large stand-up luncheon for Mrs. Dundonald the day after to-morrow. It is just to let the girls here at York have a chance to meet her. Of course you will find your invitation when you go home." "Perhaps," replied Martine, and this word found an echo in Clare's heart. When Martine returned home she found no invitation from Carlotta, nor did one come before the luncheon. Strange as it may seem, in view of Martine's repeated declaration that she hated formal festivities in summer, she felt aggrieved that Carlotta had left her out. "Perhaps Carlotta has heard you express yourself. You know my dear, you have been a little scornful about the doings of the younger set." "Oh, no, mamma, I have seldom taken the trouble to express my opinions to Carlotta. Besides, she knows I am anxious to meet Mrs. Dundonald. Unluckily Clare has told her this, so my snubbing is all the harder to bear." Nor was Martine's disappointment lessened by the fact that Clare gave up the luncheon. "You might as well have gone," she said. "It is all the worse for me to know that I have kept you out of something you would have enjoyed." "But I have met so many artists," replied Clare, smiling, "that one more or less makes little difference to me. You know I do not care for crowds, and although Carlotta speaks of this luncheon as 'small,' I know there will be a crush. I'd much rather go off somewhere with you for the day. Cousin Mary has been urging me to come over to Portsmouth for the day. She would love to see you too. Let us go to-morrow; it will be much more fun than Carlotta's luncheon." But when to-morrow came, a strange thing happened. By some means known only to her, Angelina had heard that a man had been arrested in Portsmouth for breaking and entering a little shop. "I want to go over and identify him; I know he's our burglar, and that, of course, makes him Miguel Silva, who took Miss Brenda's money." "But you would better wait until you are sent for. You may be needed as a witness." "Oh, I don't know about that. The law is slow, they say, so I want to go now and look at him, and shake my fist at him, and tell him that I am Angelina Rosa, and then, please, I am going on in the trolley to Boston. I had a letter from my mother. She'd like to see me, and I want to tell her about Miguel Silva." "Would you leave us now, with no one to help us?" Mrs. Stratford spoke sharply. Martine was too surprised to speak. "I am sorry, of course," said Angelina, "the place isn't hard, and you've been like a mother to me. But it's very quiet for me at York. You see we're not exactly in things, and I think I'd better be nearer home. My trunk is all packed, and I'll get the express to call to-day." "Very well," said Mrs. Stratford, turning away with a dignity that gave Angelina no chance to reply. "Maggie would never have done this, and I am surprised at you," remonstrated Martine as Angelina bade her good-bye. "I am sorry you feel so," rejoined Angelina, "for I haven't a fault to find with you and Mrs. Stratford. I have heard of a wash-lady that would come in by the day, and I'll stop at her house on the way." "Oh, no, we can look out for ourselves." "It isn't that it hasn't been pleasant here," continued Angelina; "I've had a real good time almost always, but I'm homesick, and I have a duty to my family, and I think I'd better go while Miguel Silva is where I can get at him; for after to-day they might lock him up where I couldn't see him, and I want him to know what I think. There's only one thing I want to confess, Miss Martine. You remember when the cook went away last winter,--so unexpectedly, you know, before your dinner? Well, it was I who discharged her. I told her you wanted her to go, and I paid her for the rest of the week. I was so anxious to have things all to myself, so I could show what I could do. But it didn't do me much good,--after the expense of paying her,--for you kept getting cooks that wouldn't let me meddle. But I hope you'll think kindly of me, Miss Martine, and so now good-bye." After this extraordinary speech, Angelina tripped gayly down the path in the direction of the cars. "It's frightful ingratitude!" said Martine. "I feel as if I should never wish to do anything for any one again." "Angelina has earned her money," responded Mrs. Stratford. "She has worked pretty faithfully. As I have studied her character, I have sometimes wondered that she should stay so contentedly with us, when we have given her so little opportunity to indulge in her favorite gossip." "But what shall we do now? That is the question, mamma. Of course I will help all I can, but I am feeling tired, and you are not strong enough, and we must stay here." "There, there, Martine, do not borrow trouble. To-day will take care of itself, and as for to-morrow--" "To-morrow," cried Clare, suddenly coming upon them, "will be the best day for our Portsmouth excursion, and mamma has sent me over to invite you, Mrs. Stratford, to spend the day with her." "There, Martine, to-morrow is provided for. Tell your mother, Clare, that I am only too happy to accept her invitation. I must leave you now, while Martine relates the story of Angelina." As her mother turned toward the house, Martine told Clare of Angelina's departure. "You must find some one to take her place," said Clare. "You are thinner than when you came to York, and if you don't mind my saying so, you look tired." To Clare's great surprise, her friend, instead of replying, shed a tear or two. But the tears were followed by smiles, as Martine exclaimed: "There, I am almost as bad as Priscilla." "But do you suppose that Angelina was right about the burglar? I wonder if your friend Balfour Airton has heard--" "Oh, if the burglar has been caught, I am sure Balfour knows all about it. He was really very anxious himself to discover the fellow. If he is off duty, he will probably come over to see us this evening--at least if he has anything to tell." CHAPTER XXIV PORTSMOUTH AND AFTERWARD It was not until they were on their way to Portsmouth, that Clare and Martine had their first good chance to talk to Balfour about the burglar. "It is really true," said Balfour, "that the fellow has been arrested for entering a Portsmouth shop. I was pretty sure of him, and when this shop was entered, I told the police about this man. He was wearing a pair of topaz sleeve-links, and you said, I remember, that these were the only things missing from Miss Elinor's trunk." Balfour spoke modestly. From him the girls could get no idea of the many hours he had put into the case until he had assured himself that this was the very man wanted by the police of more than one city. "How excited Angelina will be if she really identifies him as the man who took her mother's money long ago." "Yes," added Martine, "if she is only called in court as a witness, she will be perfectly happy." At Kittery, as on the day they went to the Shoals, Balfour was left with his car on the Kittery Shore. "I believe this will be the pleasantest of all our excursions," said Martine to Clare as the two strolled about. "A crowd would seem out of place in these quiet old streets." "Is there anything you especially care to see before we go to Cousin Mary's?" asked Clare. "You know she expects us there to luncheon, and she always has any number of stories to tell." "I'd like to see Strawberry Bank," replied Martine. "It sounded so attractive when I came across it in my History as the first name of Portsmouth." "I fear there are no strawberries there now, though the first settlers are said to have built the Great House in the centre of ground covered with wild strawberry-vines. There's little to see there now, though you have enough imagination to picture where the Great House stood in the time of Mason." So they went down on Water Street, and thence to the substantial little house where Washington's secretary, Tobias Lear, lived. Here Washington himself called on Madame Lear when he visited Portsmouth soon after his inauguration. As they turned back toward the statelier mansions of Congress and Pleasant Streets, Clare tried to fit the things she had heard about old Portsmouth to the right persons and people. "I remember that some distinguished French nobleman described the Langdon House as elegant and well furnished. Washington, too, called it the handsomest house in Portsmouth, and when Louis Philippe was in exile here, he lived for some time in this house. But I like this old Wentworth House better because I really remember one of the romantic stories connected with it." "Tell me, please." "Oh, this is simply about Frances Wentworth who jilted her cousin John because he was too poor. John went to England, and Frances married Theodore Atkinson, who was rich and amiable and delicate. In the course of time John Wentworth returned from London as governor of the Province, and when two years later the husband of Frances died, she mourned only ten days, and then became the bride of her cousin John. But here we are at Cousin Mary's, and I ought to have left this story for her. She can tell it so dramatically." Cousin Mary lived near the old Warner house, and she had much to say to the girls about a former owner of this historic dwelling, whom her mother remembered as one of the last of the townsmen to wear a cocked hat and knee-breeches. After luncheon she took her young visitors to call at the Warner mansion, where they saw the curious wall paintings that no one had known about, until the removal of several layers of paper brought the paintings to the light a few years ago. "You can see how little this house has been changed," said the owner, proudly. "It is really an eighteenth century house of the best type." "Such as Amy Wentworth dwelt in," added Martine, reciting. "'With stately stairways worn By feet of old Colonial knights, And ladies gentle-born. And on her from the wainscot old Ancestral faces frown, And this has worn the soldier's sword, And that--the judge's gown?' "You did not know I could quote Portsmouth poetry?" asked Martine, turning mischievously to Clare, "but I caught the habit from Amy last summer, as she had a ballad or a story for every place we visited." "Portsmouth is full of stories," responded Clare; "I wish, Cousin Mary, we could stay here three or four days. Martine would enjoy everything--old stories as well as old houses--" "We have plenty of both, my dear," said Cousin Mary, laying her hand on Martine's arm. "I have been wondering about the houses, there are so many more of what you might call 'stately mansions,' than there are in Plymouth," and Martine looked enquiringly at Cousin Mary. "Oh, that is easily explained," replied the older woman, understanding Martine's unexpressed question. "Portsmouth was a Royal Province, and its merchants were prosperous and fond of the good things of life. They vied with one another in the eighteenth century in building handsome dwellings. There were also many government officials here, who felt that fine surroundings were their rightful due. When the Revolution came, Portsmouth was full of Tories, as you may have read in some of the recent historical novels. They were far from pleased with the change in government." "Martine and I certainly must come over again," cried Clare, looking at her watch, "there are two or three special stories that I hope you will tell her, though they are too long for to-day. I am afraid we have barely time for the church, if we mean to get back to York to-night." "This church," explained Cousin Mary, as they drew near old St. John's, "is interesting because it succeeds the old Queen's Chapel. It may surprise you to learn that in Portsmouth the first church observed the forms of the Church of England. But after the earliest years, for a long time there was no Episcopal church until the Queen's Chapel was built in the early eighteenth century." "They couldn't have a Queen's Chapel after the Revolution!" exclaimed Martine. "Well, it was Queen's Chapel for a few years. This was its name when Washington attended service here. But in 1791, when the parish was re-organized, the new church was known as 'St. John's.'" The girls made the most of the short time they had to spend at the old church. There were a number of things to see, but nothing, not even the famous Queen Caroline chairs interested Martine more than the old bell in the tower. For Cousin Mary told her that it had been brought from an old church at Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell's victorious men. "I must come down some Sunday," she said, "just to hear it. In Nova Scotia they tell some weird stories about these old French bells," and as she spoke, Martine recalled her afternoon with Balfour and Amy near the site of the Acadian church. "You certainly must spend a day or two with me soon," said Cousin Mary, and when the girls bade her good-bye, the day was set for a longer visit from Clare and Martine. A slight fog overtook them as they rode home, and this, perhaps, lowered Martine's spirits. Had Clare known Martine longer, she would have been even more surprised than she was at her friend's despondent tone, for those who knew her best had seldom seen her out of spirits. It was Clare herself, however, who had turned the conversation in a direction not exactly enlivening. "I suppose we shall see Herbert to-morrow," she said. "He won't be exactly pleased when he hears about Carlotta's luncheon." "You mean my being left out? Oh, he won't care. Boys never take up those things. Besides, I hope no one will tell him. Besides, I shouldn't have cared if it hadn't been for Mrs. Dundonald, though I shall probably have a chance to meet her again, somewhere." "Of course," responded Clare, "she is likely to be in Boston, and you know so many people. I think you have been very amiable about the whole thing. For certainly it was hard to bear." Now sympathy is often the last straw to break one down, and as she replied to Clare, Martine did not control a little quaver in her voice. "Naturally no one likes to be slighted, but then nothing has gone exactly right this summer. I have hardly done a thing I wanted to, and I have been left out of things I might have gone to." "But, my dear, I have heard you say over and over again that you wouldn't have any gayety on account of your father and--" "Yes, that is true," replied Martine, undisturbed by her own inconsistency, "but all the same it isn't pleasant to be left out, and I really don't like being economical, although I have to pretend I don't mind. I suppose that's why some people slight me. I never believed before that money made any difference, but now I know." "Martine," said Clare, "you are ridiculous. I believe you have been working too hard, and so are a little run down." "I haven't slept well lately," Martine admitted, "I have been thinking so much about my father and Lucian." "Isn't your father improving?" "The last letter was more cheerful. But we haven't heard for three weeks, and I am wondering what we shall do next year if he has lost _all_ his money. It will be so hard for Lucian to give up college." Clare was at a loss for a reply. Mrs. Stratford and Martine were new friends and she really knew little about their affairs. She had to content herself with rather vague attempts to cheer Martine, and she was gratified before they reached their stopping place to see the smiles return to Martine's face. It was almost dusk as the car sped down a long hill near the Country Club. "Why, that was Carlotta driving," exclaimed Clare, as they passed a restive horse that was driven by a girl in a high cart. "She has poor control of her horse," rejoined Martine. "It's curious," added Clare, "that Carlotta, who is so good at other sports, knows so little about a horse. She seldom drives alone. I wonder how it happens that no one is with her now." "She may swim better than I," rejoined Martine, "but I believe I could give her points about managing a horse." Soon the two friends had reached their corner and were about to part when they heard the clatter of hoofs and wheels. "Keep to the side, Clare," cried Martine. "It's Carlotta, the horse is running away." Hardly had she uttered these words when the horse and carriage were upon them. The reins had fallen, and Carlotta, helpless, was clinging to the side of the carriage. Martine did not hesitate. Instantly she plunged forward, and unheeding Clare's warning scream, flung herself before the horse. Yet, in spite of her impetuosity, she knew what she was doing. The creature's speed was less than it seemed to the frightened Clare. Martine with a sure aim reached the bridle. Although she was dragged a few steps, the horse slackened his pace, and stopped. Carlotta, too much shaken to resume control, jumped to the ground on the opposite side from Martine. "Look!" cried Clare, running up to her as she came to the horse's head. "Is she hurt?" asked Carlotta, anxiously, as Clare stooped down toward Martine, who had fallen to the ground. "She must be," replied Clare. "What shall we do?" "I cannot very well leave my horse," responded Carlotta, still with her hand on the bridle; "if only somebody--" At that moment "somebody" did appear, in the shape of Mr. Gamut. "Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "What is this? An accident?" Martine lay white and still. Clare, stooping down, could not rouse her. "Let us take her to the house, and then I will go for Mrs. Stratford," cried Clare; "she has been spending the day with my mother." "I was on my way to Red Knoll," said Mr. Gamut. "I came on the afternoon train, and I felt anxious to talk over the good news; but now, this looks serious," he continued, as together he and Clare lifted Martine from the ground. "May I take my horse to your stable, Clare?" asked Carlotta. "He is quiet enough, but I would rather not drive now, and then I will hurry to the village for a doctor. I am so sorry for all this," she concluded. "There are certainly no bones broken," said the practical Clare; "she has simply fainted." Clare and Mr. Gamut slowly carried Martine to the side of the road, and now Clare was supporting her friend's head on her knee, while Mr. Gamut had gone to Red Knoll for water. As Carlotta disappeared down the lane leading to the Ethridge house, Martine stirred slightly, and opened her eyes. "Where am I?" she asked, faintly. "Oh--yes--I remember," and though she closed her eyes again, she no longer lay a dead weight against Clare's arm. CHAPTER XXV THE SUMMER'S END One afternoon in late September, Martine sat under the trees in her mother's corner of the Red Knoll garden. A number of letters lay before her on a little round table, and beside her, swinging lazily in a hammock, was Priscilla, the practical, who had often been heard to say that she despised hammocks. After a moment Priscilla, bringing herself to a full stop, leaned forward and gazed intently at Martine. "I cannot see," she said at length, "that you look so _very_ thin." "Why should I be _very_ thin?" "Well, from what I heard I thought you must be. They said you weren't eating, and you are thinner than you were in the spring. I am sure your eyes look larger." "Probably my eyes have grown; I am sure my waistbands have." There was a twinkle in Martine's brown eyes, as she pushed back a wavy lock of hair. "You are just a little paler, too," persisted Priscilla, "but except for that, no one would believe that you had been so ill." "I don't believe it myself," replied Martine, "though I am perfectly willing to take the word of those who say they know. To tell you the truth, I am rather ashamed to hear that I barely escaped nervous prostration, just because I tried to stop a horse from running away." "But you _did_ stop him." "Then he wasn't running away. It was only that Carlotta had let go the reins." "Well, they all say that if you hadn't seized the bridle, he would have gone straight down the little embankment." "Nonsense--at any rate I spoilt the effect of it all by fainting, and yet I shouldn't have fainted if I hadn't been following your example. The horse had nothing to do with it." "Oh, Martine!" "Yes, my dear Prissie. I had been following your old example of borrowing trouble, and I had been keeping my tribulations to myself, until I just couldn't bear them. You see it was this way. I was sure that father wouldn't get well, and that the shock of his death would kill mother, and Lucian would have to leave college, and I would have to start out at once to earn my living. Then little things were bothering me too, like Carlotta's being mean, and Angelina's leaving us with no one to help, and I was tired of being economical, so the horse was just the last straw." Though Martine's explanation was not very lucid, Priscilla certainly understood her. "I believe Clare was disappointed," she continued, "that I hadn't at least one bone broken. She wanted to make a heroine of me, and she isn't at all pleased when I tell her I wasn't in danger." "Well, if you were not, Carlotta was. She is very grateful." "I know, I know," said Martine, hastily. "But when you are not very fond of people, it is rather disagreeable to have them grateful, especially for nothing at all. I was really sorry that the person in the carriage was Carlotta. I suppose this sounds very hateful, for she has written me a fine letter--says she is sorry she couldn't see me before she went to the mountains, but still--" "But still," echoed Priscilla. "Oh, nothing, except that I like Mrs. Brownville's letter so much better. She says that I have been a great help to Herbert this summer--keeping him away from a set of young men the family didn't care for, and giving him ideals. I shouldn't expect Mrs. Brownville to know an ideal when she saw it. However, I dare say she's right, only it was unconscious goodness on my part. I didn't know Herbert had to be kept away from any set of foolish companions. I simply found him good company, and I am so used to giving advice to Lucian and Robert that I naturally favored Herbert in the same way. Then he was tremendously good in reading Latin with me. Except for this accident I should have been ahead of you, Prissie dear." "I should like to have seen Herbert Brownville." "Yes, it's a pity he had to go back to college before you came. But you'll see him in Boston some time." "When do you expect your father?" asked Priscilla. "Oh, in a week--just think of it--in a week, and he is almost well, and although he has lost money, things are not going to be so very dreadful,--not at all as I feared. I looked too far ahead." "Yes," said Priscilla, mischievously, "jumping at conclusions is almost as bad as borrowing trouble. They mean much the same thing." "I am not so sure. I cannot imagine a slow, deliberate person like you jumping at conclusions, though I have known you to borrow trouble." "Sometimes I am very hasty," responded Priscilla, slowly, as if reflecting on something. "There is one thing I ought to tell you. Do you remember your prize essay last spring?" "Oh, yes, but I didn't set out to get a prize." "I know. If you had, I suppose you would have written it all alone." "What do you mean? I did write it alone." Then remembering Lucian's help, Martine flushed to the roots of her hair. "I did not mean to offend you," continued Priscilla, "for even if Lucian helped you a little, this was all right; I was only thinking how unfair I had been. I accidentally saw some notes for your essay in Lucian's handwriting, and for a little while I felt that you had acted unfairly. Do you remember one week last spring, when I was stiff and disagreeable and wouldn't go anywhere with you?" "_One_ week!" exclaimed Martine, roguishly. "Oh, I dare say there were others. Only I remember the why of that particular week." "But it's so long ago," cried Martine, "Let's not remember it now." "It's only fair that you should know that I sometimes jump to conclusions." "As long as you are ready to jump away from them again, there's no great harm done." "That's what I wanted to say. I realized after all that there was no rule in school against getting help in an essay, and that you didn't know a prize was to be given when you wrote yours. But I always thought you ought to know how unfair I had been." "Then we are friends again," said Martine, laughing, "though I didn't know we had ever been anything else." Secretly, she thought Priscilla had made a great ado about nothing. "It's the Puritan way, I suppose," she said to herself. Then aloud,-- "As I have forgiven you, we may call it square about those Christmas photographs. Thus far I have always been able to prevent your paying me for them. But to-day, when I found your note with this money on my bureau--really, Priscilla, I was almost offended. So here, child," and she held out an envelope, "if you will take back this money, I will forgive you for your unfair thoughts." Under the circumstances Priscilla could not refuse Martine, and thus both girls were satisfied. "There's one thing," said Martine, to change the subject, "I have had some lovely letters lately. Just think of little Esther's writing me. Nora must have told her where I was. She hopes I will be able to go on with the Mansion Class next year--but dear me, Priscilla, she has got far beyond me; only look at this pen and ink," and she displayed the last page of the letter, in which Esther had drawn a picture that Priscilla at once recognized as Martine herself. "Then Alexander Babet has written me about Yvonne, that she is much stronger, and so happy with her music lessons,--and would you believe it, they still have some of that hundred dollars left. It's wonderful how far some people can make a little money go." Here Martine sighed, recalling the time when she would not have thought a hundred dollars too much to spend in gratifying a single small wish. "Do you know," she continued, "it may be that I can really do something for Yvonne next year. If papa can't spare the money, why I can give up something of my own--riding lessons, for example,--and spend what it would cost for Yvonne. This year I have been so frightfully useless; it seems as if I hadn't done anything for anybody." "How foolish you are," exclaimed Priscilla. "If there were nothing else, you certainly have helped Yvonne and Esther, and just think what Mrs. Brownville writes about Herbert, and your mother says you have been a wonderful housekeeper, and that you have taken so much care off her shoulders, and Angelina--" "Well, Angelina is rather absurd," interposed Martine; "I was just coming to myself that evening after--what shall I call it--the Carlotta incident, when Angelina rushed into the room, and almost threw herself on my neck. She seemed to think that something awful had happened to me because she had undertaken to leave us, and that my salvation depended on her. She said she had had queer feelings all day, and that she just felt drawn back to Red Knoll, which she never, never, would desert again. Really it was just as well that she came back, for although mother was able to get an extra helper, Angelina knew exactly where things were. Of course she was tremendously proud of what she had accomplished in her trip to Portsmouth, for she made the house-breaker admit that he was Miguel Silva, and though she can't recover her money, she has a kind of wicked satisfaction in knowing that he will be punished for his other misdeeds." "She doesn't seem to be quite as Spanish as she was last winter. At least she doesn't say as much about it." "No, she gives me the credit for that. She says that I have shown her that it is wrong to pretend anything. However, on that same Portsmouth trip, she went down the harbor to look at the island where Cervera's men were prisoners, and now she likes to speak of the Spaniards in a patronizing tone as people to be spoken of as inferiors rather than kinsmen." "It's astonishing," mused Priscilla, "how many friends you make!" "Why should it be astonishing? Why shouldn't I make friends?" "I only meant it was astonishing in comparison with me. No one ever attaches importance to me. In the past year I have hardly made a new friend--while you--" "You have made a friend of me for one thing, and Lucian thinks you are exactly right, and my mother considers you a perfect model. Oh, yes, and there's Eunice." Priscilla, in spite of herself, smiled at Martine's droll tone. "But think of all the people you have to your credit. Mr. Stacy says he never saw a young girl talk so intelligently about Plymouth, and the children are always asking me when you will come again, and in her secret heart I believe Aunt Tilworth prefers you to me,--and my mother--" "What nonsense, Priscilla! It's only because people think me so very empty-headed when they first meet me, that they are surprised later to find that there's anything to me, just as I am surprised some times to discover these quiet dignified girls, like Elinor, and Clare, are really very good fun when you come to know them better." "Then," continued Priscilla, "there are Balfour and Mr. Gamut. If you hadn't been considerate of Balfour's feelings, and invited him to your house, he wouldn't have met Mr. Gamut, and Eunice says he has made him a splendid offer, and he will take it as soon as he's through college." "Oh, well, things may have happened that way; but you know yourself that I haven't any particular talent for anything, and I never go out of my way to help people." "You help them just by being bright and pleasant and making them think the best of themselves." "Perhaps; but as to Balfour, I am glad that he's to be helped by Mr. Gamut, and not by Mr. Blair, or even papa, as I once hoped. For, as it is, he's much more independent, without feeling that anything has been done for him, because he's a connection of ours, even though the cousinship is rather far away. It was so funny, though, to see Mr. Gamut the evening Carlotta's horse tried to run. He appeared on the scene just as I fainted, and later, when I came to, he was hopping about, anxious to do something, but not knowing what to do. Faint as I was, I almost laughed at him. But that would have been mean, for he had come almost expressly to bring me news that he had just heard about papa's affairs. He said he knew I had been worrying, and he wanted to be the first to tell me. Naturally, he was surprised to find me lying on my back in the middle of the road. But come, we mustn't waste all the morning here," and seizing Priscilla by the arm, Martine fairly dragged her from the hammock. "I feel so energetic now," she cried, "that we must do something exciting--take a long walk to work off my energy--if we could gather a party, I believe I could climb Agamenticus. What would you say to that, Prissie?" The diminutive no longer annoyed Priscilla. She had learned to understand Martine. "It isn't necessary for me to say anything. Your mother will tell you what she thinks about your climbing Agamenticus." "I suppose it is too far. You always do know better than I. I believe that next year I shall have to be known as Priscilla's, instead of Brenda's ward"--and with her hand in Priscilla's, Martine went into the house. THE END HELEN LEAH REED'S "BRENDA" BOOKS BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. _The Boston Herald_ says: "Miss Reed's girls have all the impulses and likes of real girls as their characters are developing, and her record of their thoughts and actions reads like a chapter snatched from the page of life. It is bright, genial, merry, wholesome, and full of good characterizations." BRENDA'S SUMMER AT ROCKLEY Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith. A charming picture of vacation life along the famous North Shore of Massachusetts. _The Outlook_ says: "The author is one of the best equipped of our writers for girls of larger growth. Her stories are strong, intelligent, and wholesome." BRENDA'S COUSIN AT RADCLIFFE Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. A remarkably real and fascinating story of a college girl's career, excelling in interest Miss Reed's first "Brenda" book. The _Providence News_ says of it: "No better college story has been written." The author is a graduate of Radcliffe College which she describes. No better college story has been written.--_Providence News._ Miss Reed is herself a Radcliffe woman, and she has made a sympathetic and accurate study of the woman's college at Cambridge.--_Chicago Evening Post._ The author is one of the best equipped of our writers for girls of larger growth. Her stories are strong, intelligent, and wholesome.--_The Outlook_, N. Y. The book has the background of old Cambridge, a little of Harvard, and Boston in the distance.... The heroine is a fine girl, and the other characters are girls of many varieties and from many places.--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ She brings out all sides of the life, and, while making much of the fun and good fellowship, does not let it be forgotten that work and growth are the end and object of it all.--_Chicago Tribune._ BRENDA'S BARGAIN Illustrated. "The fourth and last of the 'Brenda' books," says _The Bookman_, "deals with social settlement work, under conditions with which the author is familiar." The _Boston Transcript_ adds: "This book is by far the best of the series." * * * * * _Another Popular "Brenda" Story_ AMY IN ACADIA Illustrated by Katharine Pyle. A delightful scene for a tale that arouses and holds the young reader's attention and sympathies from the beginning.--_Washington Star._ The entire story is full of life, action, and entertainment, as well as information.--_Newark Advertiser._ Amy, now a college senior, and some of her friends have various unique experiences, and incidentally introduce a great many historical details concerning the descendants of the exiled Acadians in the romantic region of Clare in Nova Scotia.--_New York Sun._ A splendid tale for girls, carefully written, interesting, and full of information concerning the romantic region made famous by the vicissitudes of Evangeline.--_Toronto Globe._ The adventures of Amy and her girl friends among the descendants of the exiled Acadians have a spice of novelty to them.--_Philadelphia Press._ So well written that it holds the attention of the young reader, and so well developed in its story as to prove without question another popular addition to the young folks' library.--_Boston Journal._ * * * * * _A Story for Younger Girls_ IRMA AND NAP Illustrated by Clara E. Atwood. A brightly written story about children from eleven to thirteen years of age, who live in a suburban town, and attend a public grammar school. The book is full of incident of school and home life. The story deals with real life, and is told in the simple and natural style which characterized Miss Reed's popular "Brenda" stories.--_Washington Post._ There are little people in this sweetly written story with whom all will feel at once that they have been long acquainted, so real do they seem, as well as their plans, their play, and their school and home and everyday life.--_Boston Courier._ Her children are real; her style also is natural and pleasing.--_The Outlook_, New York. Miss Reed's children are perfectly natural and act as real girls would under the same circumstances. Nap is a lively little dog, who takes an important part in the development of the story.--_Christian Register_, Boston. A clever story, not a bit preachy, but with much influence for right living in evidence throughout.--_Chicago Evening Post._ 
38417	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive.) _Curiosities of History:_ BOSTON SEPTEMBER SEVENTEENTH, 1630-1880. BY WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. _SECOND EDITION._ "Ringing clearly with a will What she was is Boston still." --WHITTIER. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK: CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 1880. COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. _Author's Address:_ BOX 229, CONCORD, MASS. _Franklin Press: Rand, Avery, & Company, 117 Franklin Street, Boston._ AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED _TO MY WIFE_, JULIET REBECCA WHEILDON, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE Fifty-first Year of our Married Life, _MAY 28, 1880_. WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. INTRODUCTION. It seems proper to say in offering this little volume to the public, that no attempt has been made to exhaust the subjects of which the papers respectively treat; but rather to enlarge upon matters of historical interest to Boston, which have been referred to only in a general way by historians and previous writers.--This idea rather than any determination to select merely curious topics, has in a large measure influenced the writer; and the endeavor has been to treat them freely and fairly, and present what may be new, or comparatively new, concerning them, from such sources as are now accessible and have been open to the writer. It is not, however, intended to say that an impulse towards some curious matters of history has not been indulged, and, indeed, considering the subjects and materials which presented themselves, could scarcely have been avoided, which was by no means desirable. Although it has been impertinently said, that "the most curious thing to be found is a woman not curious," we submit that curiosity is a quality not to be disparaged by wit or sarcasm, but is rather the germ and quality of progress in art and science and history. It has been impossible to correct or qualify, or perhaps we might say avoid, all the errors, mistakes, or contradictions, which have been encountered in preparing these pages; and very possibly we may have inadvertently added to the number. At all events, with our best endeavors against being drawn into or multiplying errors, we lay no claim to invulnerability in the matter of accuracy, or immaculacy in the way of opinions; and we very sincerely add, if errors or mistakes have been made and are found, we shall be glad to be apprised of them. There are errors in our history which it is scarcely worth the while to attempt to correct, although they are not to be countenanced and should not be repeated. A period of two hundred and fifty years since the settlement of the town includes and covers a history of no ordinary character, involving progress and development, not merely of customs, manners and opinions, but of principles, passions and government. The city is a creation, as it were, by the art and industry of man; and, with the reverence of Cotton Mather himself, we add, "With the help of God!" and we venture the comparison that no change or growth, improvement or embellishment, is to be found in the settlement or the city, that may not be paralleled in the growth, advancement and elevation of its people: indeed, we go even farther than this, the material progress to be seen around us, in all its multifarious forms and combinations, item by item, small or great, is indicative only of the advancement of the people, and marks the progress of moral, mental and intellectual power--of art, science and knowledge. We take this opportunity to acknowledge our indebtedness to several friends for the loan and use of many rare and valuable works in the preparation of this history, and in particular to Messrs. John A. Lewis and John L. DeWolf, of Boston, and Mr. J. Ward Dean, of the N. E. His. Gen. Society. TABLE OF CONTENTS: I. Topography of Boston. 13 The Peninsula. Two Islands. Anne Pollard. Curious Descriptions. The Mill Creek. Great South Cove. The North Cove. Boston Common. II. The Public Ferries. 27 The Great Ferry. Order of Court, Nov. 1630. Lease to Edward Converse. Ferry to Winnisimmet; Grant to Harvard College. Bad "peag," money. Wampompeague. Judge Sewall over the Ice. Charlestown mother of Boston. Andros Revolution and Fires. Portsmouth Stage. Paul Revere crossing. III. The Boston Cornfields. 37 Spragues at Charlestown; Dividing the Land; Corn from the Indians; Fencing the Fields, &c. The Cornfields and Pastures; The Granary. IV. Puritan Government. 45 Authority of the Company. Ex post facto Laws. Punished for a pun. Fines and Ear-cropping. Whipping through three towns. Set in his own Stocks. Regulating the Dress of Women. The "Body of Liberties." Ward on Kissing Women. John Dunton on the Laws. V. Narragansett Indians. 57 Murder of Mr. Oldham. Visit of Miantonomo to Gov. Vane, Treaty, &c. Narragansett Art. Coining money. Marriage of Children. Egyptian Custom. Marriage of Cleopatra. VI. Names of Places, Streets, &c. 62 Curious Indian Names; Names of Streets, Taverns, &c.; Paddy Alley and William Paddy; Dates of the Streets and Lanes; Royal Names, Names of Patriots, Puritans and Union Names; Names of Taverns and Shops; Number of Streets and Wharves. VII. Persecution of the Quakers. 74 Church Government and Civil Government. Interference of the King. Arrival of Quakers, 1656. Execution of Quakers. Order from the King, 1661. Hutchinson's Opinion. Triumph of the Quakers. Their Meeting House. Meetings discontinued. VIII. First Newspaper in America. 87 First ever issued--in writing. Gazette in Venice, 1583. English Mercury, 1588. "Publick Occurrences" 1690. Legislative Interference. To cure the 'Spirit of Lying.' The Christian Indians. Massacre of French Indians. General character of the paper and its reading matter. IX. Curious Boston Lectures. 98 History of Boston; "Boston's Ebenezer;" A Stone of Help; Widows and Orphans; Hope in God; Appeal to the Public Officers; Household Religion; Fanaticism and Declamation. X. Remarkable Proclamations. 1774-5. 104 _March 29_, War against France; _October 18_, On account of a Riot; _October 19_, War against Indians; _October 20_, Thanksgiving Day; _Nov. 2_, Rewards for Indian scalps; 1745, _March 25_, For a Fast Day; " _July 8_, Thanksgiving Day; " _Sept. 6_, For a Fast Day; " _November 22_, Sailor's Riot; " _November 25_, Thanksgiving. XI. Popular Puritan Literature. 115 An Earthquake in Boston; Deborah; a Bee; Popish Invasion of England; The Scotch Rebellion. XII. Revolutionary Proclamations. 126 Gen. Gage's Administration; Shutting up of Boston Harbor; Election of delegates to Congress; General Gage's Proclamation; Against non-importation league. Remarkable Proclamation for the promotion of Piety and Virtue. Its Character and Observance. XIII. Curiosities of the Market. 131 Supplies of Gov. Winthrop; Bartering for Furs; Scarcity of Provisions; Hunting, Game, Fish, &c.; Living in the Olden Time; Supplies for a British fleet. CONCLUSION. [Illustration: Map of DORCHESTER, BOSTON and CHARLESTOWN, the Three Peninsulas, showing their Bays and Coves, Castle Island, Roxbury and Cambridge.] I. TOPOGRAPHY OF BOSTON. THE ORIGINAL PENINSULA. There is a line of Cowper to the effect that "God made the country, and man made the town;" and there is probably no more striking evidence of the truthfulness of the axiom than is to be found in the history and growth of Boston, between the years 1630 and 1880, confirming in a remarkable manner Capt. Wood's prophecy concerning the town, in 1650: viz., "whose continuall inlargement presages some sumptuous city." The original territory which has formed the basis, so to speak, of Boston proper, was a peninsula, and appeared like two islands, or, by the continued operation of the sea, was likely to become so. Its distinguishing feature was to be found in its three prominent hills, or, perhaps, its two hills and its three-peaked mountain. These were her jewels: they have since represented her fame, her history, her sentiments; for these were all wrapped around them. The peninsula was a point of land projected into the harbor, with a narrow neck connecting it with the mainland, and another narrow place in the vicinity of what is now Dock Square, which was once quite open to the harbor. In length from the south line at Roxbury, it was something less than three miles (two and three-fourths and two hundred and thirty-eight yards). Its width at the widest point, between Wheelwright's wharf (afterwards Rowe's, and now Foster's) to Barton's Point, Leverett Street, was something over one mile, and its circumference about four miles. CURIOUS EARLY DESCRIPTIONS. The first impression of the "island" which has been recorded is that of Anne Pollard, who died in Boston, Dec. 6, 1725, at the age of 105 years, and left over one hundred descendants. She always said that she came over from Charlestown, in 1630, in the first boat that crossed with Gov. Winthrop's party, and, being what might now be called a romping girl for those times, ten years of age, was "the first to jump ashore;" and she afterwards described the place "as being at that time very uneven, abounding in small hollows and swamp, and covered with blueberry and other bushes." We do not think there is any one inclined to dispute this statement, or question its truthfulness. There are several descriptions of early Boston, topographical and otherwise, which have been quoted by subsequent writers upon the subject, rather as curious and original than as having any particular merit in themselves. First among these is that of Capt. Edward Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England," written about 1640. He describes it as surrounded by the brinish flood, "saving one small Istmos which gives free access to the neighbor townes," and says, "At their first landing the hideous thickets in this place were such that wolfes and beares nurst up their young from the eyes of all beholders.... The forme of this Towne is like a hearte, naturally situated for fortifications, having two hills on the frontice part thereof next the sea." These were Fort and Mill (Copps') Hills. "Betwixt these two strong armes lies a large cove or bay, on which the chiefest part of the town is built, overtopped with a third hill" (Sentry or Beacon Hill). There were two smaller hills on the Common, on one of which Gen. Gage afterwards built a battery, when the town was in his military possession, and on the other a powder-house. Another curious description of Boston is given in Wood's "New England's Prospect:"-- "Boston is two miles North-east from Roxberry. His situation is very pleasant, being a Peninsula hemm'd in on the south side with the Bay of Roxberry, and on the north side with Charles River, the marshes on the back side being not half a quarter of a mile over; so that a little fencing will secure their cattle from the woolves. It being a Necke and bare of wood, they are not troubled with those great annoyances, wolves, rattlesnakes and musquetoes.... This Necke of Land is not above four miles in compasse, in forme almost square, having on the south side at one corner a great broad hill, whereon is planted a Fort, which can command any ship as shee sayles into any Harbour within the still Bay. On the north side is another Hill equall in bignesse, whereon stands a winde mill. To the north-west is a high Mountaine, with three little rising Hills on the top of it, wherfore it is called Tramount.... This town although it be neither the greatest, nor the richest, yet is the most noted and frequented, being the Center of the Plantations, where the monthly Courts are kept. Here likewise dwells the Governor. This place hath very good land, affording rich Corne-fields, and fruitful gardens, having likewise sweete and pleasant springs." There were two large coves projecting into the peninsula,--one from the harbor and one from Charles River, nearly opposite to each other, and producing the narrow portion of the land already spoken of, so that if the peninsula was not formed of two islands originally, as has been supposed, the cutting of a creek across this narrow portion, nearly on the line of Blackstone Street, and uniting the waters of the two coves, had the effect practically to make it so, at least at such times as the waters of Charles River and the harbor met across the neck, near Roxbury; so that the peninsula can hardly be said to have been heart-shaped, much less square. But the most curious description of Boston, though it may hardly be called such, is that given by Edward Ward--a low, but ingenious and scandalous author, whose book cannot enter a decent presence--in his "Trip to New England."[1] He says of "Boston and the Inhabitants,"-- "On the south-west side of Massachusetts Bay is Boston, whose name is taken from the Town in Lincolnshire, and is the Metropolis of all New England. The houses, in some parts, join as in London. The buildings, like their women, being neat and handsome. And their streets, like the hearts of the male inhabitants, are paved with pebble. "In the chief or High Street there are stately edifices, some of which have cost the owners two or three thousand pounds the raising, which I think plainly proves two old adages true, viz., That a fool and his money is soon parted; and, Set a beggar on horseback he'll ride to the devil; for the fathers of these men were tinkers and pedlars. "To the glory of religion, and the credit of the town, there are four churches, built with clapboards and shingles, after the fashion of our meeting houses; which are supply'd by four ministers, to whom some, very justly, have applied these epithets, one a scholar, the second a gentleman, the third a dunce, and the fourth a clown." These extracts afford no idea of the scandalous character of the book, nor do even sentences like these: "The women, like the men, are excessive smokers." "They smoke in bed, smoke as they knead their bread, smoke whilst they are cooking their victuals, smoke at prayers," &c. "Eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping take up four parts in five of their time," &c. "Rum, alias kill-devil, is as much ador'd by the American English, as a dram of brandy is by an old billingsgate," &c. We can give our readers no further idea of the gross and indecent character of the whole volume, without offending in the way the author has done. THE SOUTH COVE. The South Cove extended from what is now Batterymarch Street to near the North Battery, at the foot of Fleet Street, curving inward as far as Kilby Street and near the old State House, with creeks extending towards Spring Lane, Milk and Federal Streets. Dearborn says, "Winthrop's Marsh, afterwards called Oliver's Dock, was near Kilby Street, and between the corner and Milk Street, a creek ran up to Spring Lane." An aged citizen once said he remembered hearing Dr. Chauncy say that he had taken smelts in Milk Street; and a Mr. Marshall remembered that when a boy they were caught in Federal Street, near the meeting-house, (Dr. Channing's). Another aged inhabitant is reported to have said, that, in the great storm of 1723, "we could sail in boats from the South Battery to the rise of ground in King Street," near the old State House. Dock Square was at the head of a small cove, the tide rising nearly to the pump, which was formerly there, at the foot of Cornhill. The statue of Sam Adams, recently erected, is directly over the well in which the pump stood. A narrow point or tongue of land projected into the cove between the Town Dock (then near Faneuil Hall) and Mill Creek, and upon this land stood the celebrated triangular warehouse,--a remarkable building for the time. It stood opposite the Swing Bridge, and a little north of the dock, measuring forty-one feet on Roebuck Passage (named after the tavern near it), and fifty feet on the back side. Near this place, in the small square formed by the junction of Ann, Union, and Elm Streets, was the Flat Conduit, so called. Ann Street was originally Conduit Street as far as Cross Street; and Union Street, in 1732, lead from the conduit to the Mill Pond. Around the South Cove, as has been said, in the early time the chiefest part of the town was built; and from thence it gradually expanded along the shore to the south and to the west. John Josselyn, in 1638, visited Boston, and wrote a volume entitled "New England Rarities," in which he says, "It was then rather a village than a town, there being not above twenty or thirty houses." THE NORTH COVE. The Cove on the north side of the peninsula, Charles River, commenced near the Charlestown Ferry, curving inwardly nearly to Prince Street, Baldwin Place, Haymarket Square, nearly on the line of Leverett Street, to Barton's Point, where the almshouse formerly stood. "The Mill Pond," as it was afterwards called, says Shurtleff, "was bounded by portions of Prince and Endicott Streets on the east, and Leverett Street, Tucker's pasture, and Bowling Green on the west; and on the south it covered the whole space of Haymarket Square. Most of the estates on what is now Salem Street, ... and on the west on Hawkins Street and Green Street, extended to the Mill Pond Cove." The margin of the cove, it is said by another, "passed across Union, Friend, and Portland Streets, to the bottom of Hawkins Street; thence westerly, across Pitts and Gouch Streets, to Leverett Street, which at one time was called Mill Alley. The descent of the land here was very steep. A street was laid out on the line of Temple Street [Staniford] from Leverett Street to Beacon Hill, where steps led to the top of the hill, a hundred and thirty-eight feet above the sea." THE MILL CREEK. The Creek, or the Mill Creek, as it was afterwards called, was undoubtedly prior to the formation of the Mill Pond; and it is doubtful if it was ever included in it, although Shaw conveys the idea that the North Cove was simply a piece of salt marsh, and that the creek was used for the purpose of covering it with water at flood-tide, and thus forming a mill-pond. As early as the 5th of July, 1631, an order was passed by the Court of Assistants, "that £30 be levied on the several plantations for clearing a creek, and opening a passage to the new town,"--the town at this time being the settlement around the South Cove; so that the "clearing of a creek" was "a work of industry" on a small scale for such an enterprise. It was made across the narrow neck of land between the two great coves, and while it united the waters of Charles River with the harbor, divided the peninsula into two islands or sections. The creek, whatever its relations may have been to the Mill Pond in the later years of its existence, was used by the boats coming from the Middlesex Canal, which terminated at Charlestown Neck, and furnished to them a shorter way to the harbor with their freights of wood, lumber, &c. A few extracts from the town records will afford some further insight into the character and uses of the creek. In 1648, in describing the property of Thomas Marshall, who owned some land near the Water Mill, Mill Creek, it is stated, "with liberty of egress and regress in said creek with boats, lighters, and other vessels;" and it is added, "Thomas Marshall shall not build any nearer the creek than the now dwelling-house of said Milom, and that he shall not hinder the mills going by any vessel in the creek." 1656, Aug. 25.--Butchers may throw their "garbidge" into the Mill Creek over the drawbridge, and in no other place. [The drawbridge was in Ann Street.] 1659, Oct. 20.--As the people were returning from the execution of Robinson and Stevenson [Quakers], the draw of the drawbridge fell upon a crowd of them, mortally wounding a woman, and severely hurting several others. 1691, August.--A fire broke out on Saturday evening, "consuming about fourteen houses, besides warehouses and brue houses from the Mill Bridgh down half way to the Draw Bridgh." 1698, Nov. 6.--Mr. James Russell of Charlestown and Mr. John Ballentine of Boston, or "whoever else may be concerned, or owners of the bridge over the Mill Creek, are ordered forthwith to repair the pavement on each side of the bridge, and to move the gutters beside it, that it might be passable for horse and cart, according to the grant of the Town, or pay 20_s._ a week till it should be done." 1712, March 10.--Ordered to make the draw-bridge (so called) in Ann Street a fast, firm bridge the width of the street. A committee was appointed to inquire if any damage be sustained by anybody in making the bridge in question a "fast bridge." THE MILL POND. The Mill Pond was formed by the building of a causeway across the head of the cove, as the street now runs, where there was, it would seem, a sort of Indian causeway, or pathway, at some prior time. It is represented by writers on the subject to have been built from Leverett Street to the Charlestown Ferry; but as this would include the creek, built some ten or twelve years before, this seems to be impossible; for if the creek was connected with the pond, without a gate to shut it off, there could be no mill-power. The creek, therefore, must have been separated from the pond by a gate, while there was a gate from the pond into Charles River. However, the causeway was built, and the mill-pond and the water-power it furnished, used for more than a hundred years without any special publicity or inquiry concerning them. In fact, it would seem as if the subject, and the large piece of territory involved, had been pretty much forgotten; so that in 1765, in March, a committee was appointed to inquire "by what terms the mill-owners held the mill-pond mills." In May following, this committee reported, that on the 31st of July, 1643, there was granted to Henry Simons, George Burden, John Hill, and their partners, all the cove on the north-west side of the causeway leading towards Charlestown, with all the salt marsh bordering thereupon, not formerly granted, on these conditions: that within three years they erect thereon one or more corn-mills, "and maintain the same forever; also make a gate ten feet wide to open with the flood for the passage of boats into the cove," &c. This gate was also to be "maintained forever." The Mill Pond, it is said, included about fifty acres,--nearly as large as the north end island,--and, of course, must have furnished during the time it was available--from an hour or two after full tide until an hour or two before the next tide, night and day--a very large and extensive water-power, and was, no doubt, though probably not half used, a very valuable property. It is stated by Drake, as if it were a consequence of the action of the committee, that, "four years after the above report, a committee took possession of the premises, as having reverted to the town." These proceedings, it will be noticed, all refer to the "mill-pond mills," but may be presumed to include the pond and the whole grant made in 1643; so that in 1769 the property was in the hands of the town, as appears from these statements. After this time, by some means or other, the Mill Pond Company, or Corporation, came into possession of the property, as Shaw says, "for the consideration of five dollars;" and in 1807, the town became a partner in the matter of tilling it up, the town to have the streets, we presume, and one-eighth of the lots filled within twenty years. Permission was also given to use the gravel of Beacon Hill for the purpose. The filling was completed more than fifty years ago, and the entire space has long been covered with buildings, and in 1832 included a theatre. The Boston and Maine Railroad Station stands over the creek; and the large depot buildings of the Fitchburg, Eastern, and Lowell Railroads are all on land taken from the river outside the ancient causeway: so that no one of the great railroad depots in the city stands upon the original land of the town. CONCLUSION. Thus we have seen what were the features and topographical characteristics of the original peninsula which forms the groundwork, as it were, of the city proper of to-day. In the steady march of progress and improvements which have marked its growth for two hundred and fifty years, such changes and enlargements have been made, that neither its early outlines or its original shape are any where to be observed. The great coves on either side of the town have disappeared; and the renowned Tri-mountain, around which so much of history gathered, and so much of puritanism and patriotism were enshrined, is shorn of its ancient prestige, although still, as it were, the summit of State authority; and of "Corne Hill," whereon the settlers of Boston, Charlestown, Roxbury, and Dorchester, in 1632, built the first fort for the defence of the settlement, not a vestige now remains. Yet, broad and extensive as these improvements and enlargements of the original peninsula have been, they are at least equalled, if not exceeded, by what has been accomplished in other parts of the town; so that Boston proper--at first two islands, or nearly so, and afterwards a peninsula--has long ceased to be either the one or the other, and must now be regarded as a portion of the mainland. And this, too, while Charles River, by encroachments upon its bed on both sides, the numerous wharves projecting into it, and the bridges, railroads, and other structures resting upon its bottom, has been reduced in its proportions to one-third of its original size, and, in fact, has almost ceased to be a river in the proper sense of that term. So also on the south side of the town: Four Point Channel, which reached to Dover-street bridge, is now a narrow stream; and the South Bay, which lay between Roxbury and South Boston, has been greatly reduced in its proportions, and is crossed by the New England Railroad. So that it may be said, the city proper to-day stands consolidated on one side of the ancient neck with Roxbury and Dorchester, and on the other with Roxbury and Brookline. There still remain, however, a section of Charles River, forming a bay of itself, between Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, and a considerable portion of the South Bay between Roxbury and South Boston. Brookline--originally Muddy Brook--was formerly considered as belonging to Boston, and its lands were apportioned among the early settlers of the town for agricultural purposes and the keeping of cattle. It is now nearly surrounded by the enlarged city, Brighton and Roxbury both belonging to Boston. There is, however, one feature of Boston which may be said to remain intact, and that is BOSTON COMMON. When the settlers bought the peninsula of William Blackstone, or all his interest in it, excepting six acres, which he reserved for his own occupation, "the town laid out a place for a training-field, which ever since and now is used for that purpose, and for the feeding of cattle." This was undoubtedly the origin of Boston Common; and the date of the transaction, as appears from the town records, was on "the 10th daye of the 9th month, 1634," which, as the year commenced with March, would be November, 1634. It has undergone many changes, some enlargement by filling up the marsh on the river side, and numerous improvements in its general appearance by laying out its malls and walks, setting out trees, excluding cattle, walling around Crescent Pond (formerly Frog Pond), introduction of the Cochituate water and fountains, and, last, by the erection of the Army and Navy Monument on its highest elevation, once occupied as a fortification against its rightful owners by Gen. Gage and Gen. Howe. Thus we have seen Boston as it was in 1630 and subsequent years,--originally one of three prominent peninsulas on the coast of New England, known by the Indians as Shawmut, Mishawam, and Mattapan, and afterwards, by the settlers, as Boston, Charlestown, and Dorchester (now South Boston). Each of these was connected with the mainland by a narrow neck of its own, and now all three, with the addition of Roxbury, West Roxbury, Brighton, and Noddle's Island (East Boston), are included in the present metropolis, while Muddy Brook (Brookline) and Winnisimmet (Chelsea), which were originally attached to Boston, are not included within her present limits. The growth and expansion of the town, we judge, are unparalleled, in some respects, by any other city in the world, with a character of her own and a position in the history of the country of which she may well be proud. II. THE PUBLIC FERRIES. THE GREAT FERRY. The first settlers of Charlestown and Boston of course saw an immediate necessity for the establishment of ferries on both sides of them; so that, after considerable numbers had arrived, this became imperative, especially that across Charles River,--"the great ferry," as it was afterwards called. This may be called the first public enterprise undertaken by the colonists. There was, no doubt, from the first, means of crossing the river furnished by individuals before any public action had taken place, just as was done by Samuel Maverick at Noddle's Island, who was disposed and prepared to accommodate everybody that came along. Measures were taken for the establishment of the Charlestown Ferry soon after the arrival of Gov. Winthrop's party at Charlestown. At a meeting of the Court of Assistants, holden at Boston, Nov. 19, 1630,--present the governor, deputy-governor, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Ludlowe, Capt. Endicott, Mr. Coddington, Mr. Pinchon, and Mr. Bradstreet,--"It is further ordered, That whosoever shall first give in his name to Mr. Governor that he will undertake to set up a ferry betwixt Boston and Charlestown, and shall begin the same at such time as Mr. Governor shall appoint, shall have 1_d._ for every person and 1_d._ for every 100 weight of goods he shall transport." The ferry was no doubt undertaken at this time by Edward Converse; and, probably as it did not then pay very well, in June 14, 1631, an order was passed, "That Edward Converse, who had undertaken to set up a ferry between Boston and Charlestown, be allowed 2_d._ for every single person, and 1_d._ apiece, if there be two or more." The lease to Mr. Converse, in 1631, was renewed Nov. 9, 1636, in form as follows: "The Governor and treasurer, by order of the general court, did demise to Edward Converse the ferry between Boston and Charlestown, to have the sole transporting of passengers and cattle from one side to the other, for three years from the first day of the next month, for the yearly rent of forty pounds to be paid quarterly to the treasurer: Provided, that he see it be well attended and furnished with sufficient boats; and that so soon as may be in the next spring he set up a convenient house on Boston side, and keep a boat there as need shall require. And he is allowed to take his wonted fees, viz., 2_d._ for a single person, and pence apiece, if there be more than one, as well on lecture days as at other times; and for every horse and cow with the man which goeth with them 6_d._, and for a goat 1_d._, and a swine 2_d._ And if any shall desire to pass before it be light in the morning, or after it is dark in the evening, he may take recompence answerable to the season and his pains and hazard, so as it be not excessive." The ferry was a great accommodation, of course, and could not be dispensed with. Johnson mentions it quite early in his "Wonder-Working Providence." In speaking of Charlestown, the "neighbor of Boston, being in the same fashion, with her bare neck," he says "there is kept a ferry-boat to convey passengers over Charles River, which, between the two towns, is a quarter of a mile over, being a very deep channel." But at times, no doubt, the ferry proved troublesome and annoying. So that in the month of October, 1632, Mr. Winthrop records that "about a fortnight before this, those of Charlestown, who had formerly been joined to Boston congregation, now, in regard of the difficulty of passage in the winter, and having opportunity of a pastor, one Mr. [Edward] James, who came over at this time, were dismissed from the congregation of Boston." This, it was said, was after a rather boisterous summer on the bay and harbor. WINNISIMMET FERRY. At a General Court, holden at Boston, the 18th of May, 1631, there were present Mr. Winthrop, governor; Mr. Dudley, deputy-governor; Mr. Ludlowe, Capt. Endicott, Mr. Nowell, Mr. Pinchon, Mr. Bradford, assistants (at which the governor and lieutenant-governor were chosen),--"Thomas Willins [Drake gives the name as Williams] hath undertook to sett up a ferry between Winnisimmet and Charlestown, for which he is to have after three pence a person and from Winnisimmet to Boston four pence a person." Mr. Savage, in a note to Winthrop's journal, speaking of Samuel Maverick at Noddle's Island, says, "Winisemet Ferry, both to Charlestown and Boston, was also granted to him forever." He certainly did conduct a ferry on one or both these routes for a time. Jan. 23, 1635.--"Thomas Marshall was chosen by general consent for ye keeping of a ferry from Milne Point [Copps' Hill] vnto Charlestowne, and to Wynnyseemitt, and to take for his ferrying vnto Charlestowne, as ye ferryman there hath, and vnto Wynnyseemitt for a single psn six pence; and for every one above ye number of two, two pence apiece." It is not probable that this ferry was continued for many years. In December, 1637, Edward Bendall was "to keepe a sufficient ferryboate to carry to Noddle's Island and to the shippes ryding before the Town: taking for a single person ij_d._ and for two 3_d._" GRANT TO HARVARD COLLEGE. In 1640, the Charlestown Ferry was granted to Harvard College, to the support of which the town had been annually contributing, and had received from the ferry fifty pounds for the year previous, 1639. This grant was continued, and, for nearly one hundred and fifty years before the bridge was built, it was a source of very handsome income to the institution. In 1644, it appears by the records of the town, William Bridge was appointed to keep the ferry in place of Mr. Converse, and "to have a penny a person for each that goes over, except they agree with him by the year, and two pence a person for each that goes over unseasonably." When the bridge was built in 1785, the gratuity to the college was continued by the terms of the Act authorizing it; and the sum of two hundred pounds per year was paid to it in commutation of its claim to the ferry. Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working Providence," describes Boston as surrounded by the brinish floods, and as having, on the north-west and north-east, "two constant Faires, kept for traffique thereunto." A ferry to Cambridge is spoken of in 1652; and in the fall of that year Mr. Cotton took cold in crossing it, and died soon after. COMPLAINTS OF THE FERRYMEN. In 1648, "the ferrymen, Francis Hudson and James Heyden, state in a petition to the General Court, that the ferry never was less productive: that contrary to law disorderly passengers would press into the boats, and on leaving refuse to pay their fare; that some pleaded they had nothing to pay, and others that they were in the country's service. And they further state, that the payment generally tendered was 'usually in such refuse, unwrought, broken, unstringed and unmerchantable peag' (wampum), at six a penny, that they lost two pence a shilling, being forced to take peag at six a penny and pay it at seven. They petition that if the Court intend 'all soldiers with their horses and military furniture be fare-free,' that they might be paid for it by the colony: that strangers, not able to pay, may be ordered to give in their names: that the 'peag hereafter to us paid may be so suitably in known parcels handsomely stringed, and their value assigned, that it may henceforth be a general, current and more agreeable pay.'" At a session of the General Court, at Boston, the 10th of the eight month, 1648, "For preventing ferry men's Damage by Persons not paying, &c., it shall be lawful for any Ferry man to demand and Receive his due before his Boat put off from the Shore, nor shall he be bound to pass over any that shall not give satisfaction, & any Ferry Man may refuse any wampum not stringed or Unmerchantable and such persons whether Horse or Foot which are passage free by Order of the Court must show something sufficient for their Discharge, or else pay as others do, except Magistrates and Deputies, &c., who are generally known to be free." And again, Oct. 18, the Court ordered that "all 'payable peag' should be 'entire without breaches, both the white and the black, suitably strung in eight known parcels, 1_d._, 3_d._, 12_d._, 5_s._, in white; and 2_d._, 6_d._, 2-6_d._, and 10_s._, in black.' The Court also ordered that for transporting officers in the colony service, the ferrymen should be allowed £4 per annum for the past, and £6 per annum for the time to come." PEAG, OR INDIAN MONEY. "Peag," or "wampum," or "wampumpeag," simply means stringed shells of a peculiar kind, or Indian money; and this, it seems, came early into use, as Hubbard says, "The people of New Plymouth, in the year 1627, began trade with the Dutch at Manhados, and there they had the first knowledge of Wampumpeag, and their acquaintance therewith occasioned the Indians of those parts to learn to make it." Hutchinson thinks the New England Indians, prior to this time, had not "any instrument of commerce;" and speaks of the Narragansetts as coining money, making pendants and bracelets, and also tobacco pipes. There seems, however, to have been among the Massachusetts settlers some other kinds of money in use, as, in 1635, the court ordered that brass farthings shall be discontinued, and that musket-balls shall pass for farthings. PENNY FERRY. Penny Ferry, across the Mystic River, where the Malden Bridge now is, was established by the town in April, 1640, when it was voted, "That Philip Drinker should keep a ferry at the Neck of Land, with a sufficient boat, and to have 2_d._ a single person, and a penny a piece when there go any more." It was not a source of any profit to the town for many years. In 1651, the Penny Ferry was granted for a year to Philip Knight, who appears to have had the income of it for taking care of it, he agreeing "to attend the ferry carefully, and not to neglect it, that there be no just complaint." In 1698, Judge Sewall makes the following entry in his diary: "February 19, I go over the ice and visit Mr. Morton, who keeps his bed. 21st, I rode over to Charlestown on the ice, then over to Stower's (Chelsea), so to Mr. Wigglesworth. The snow was so deep that I had a hard journey--could go but a foot pace on Mystic river, the snow was so deep. 26th, a considerable quantity of ice went away last night, so that now there is a glade of water along Governor's island, about as far as Bird island. 28th, a guard is set upon Charles River to prevent persons from venturing over on the ice for fear of drowning; and the ferrymen are put upon cutting and clearing the ice, which they do so happily, that I think the boat passeth once a day." CHARLESTOWN FERRY. The use of the ferry was confined to foot-passengers entirely at first; and afterwards, when larger boats were built, chaises were allowed, as the common riding or travelling vehicle of the time. It would seem that double tolls had been demanded on certain days; and in 1783, when the names of the ferrymen were presented to the town for approval, it was agreed, on their not taking double ferriage on those days, and their faithful promise to the same, to approbate them. It seems almost wonderful--but it is a fact--that this ferry was kept up as the sole means of communication, excepting the journey around through Roxbury and Cambridge, for more than one hundred and fifty years. It was over this ferry that the people came to Boston to assist in the fortification upon Corne Hill (Fort Hill) in May, 1632, and at other times for similar purposes. It was over this ferry also, on the 18th of April, 1689, that the troops came, in the time of the Andros Rebellion, to assist in maintaining the rights of the people at this early period in the history of the town. There were twenty companies in Boston, and it was said about fifteen hundred men at Charlestown that could not get over. Andros was imprisoned, the first charter of the colony dissolved, and Thomas Danforth came in as deputy-governor. On many other occasions during the long period of its continuance, and in cases of fire in Boston, the ferry had large duties to perform; and it is wonderful how it was ever made to answer its purposes for so long a time. 1741.--Oldmixon, in his "History of the British Empire in America" ("The History of New England," as a part of it is called), says, "Charlestown, the mother of Boston, is much more populous than Cambridge, and exceeds it much in respect of trade, being situated between two rivers, Mystic River and Charles River, and parted from Boston only by the latter, over which there is a ferry so well tended that a bridge would not be much more convenient, except in winter, when the ice will neither bear nor suffer a boat to move through it. Though the river is much broader about the town, it is not wider in the ferry passage than the Thames between London and Southwark. The profits of this ferry belong to Harvard College in Cambridge, and are considerable. The town is so large as to take up all the space between the two rivers." In 1763, April, the running of a stage-coach was commenced between Boston and Portsmouth, N.H., once a week,--out on Friday, and return on Tuesday. It is said, that, "owing to the trouble of ferrying the stage and horses over Charles River, they were kept at Charlestown, at the sign of the Three Cranes." The practice with this, and very likely other stage-lines, probably continued until the bridge was built. The memorable night, April 18, 1775, when Paul Revere crossed Charles River, near the ferry, is of course well remembered. During the occupation of Boston Harbor by the British navy, the boats of the ferry were drawn up alongside the men-of-war every night at nine o'clock, and there was no passing after that hour; but it seems that Revere kept a boat of his own at the north end, and employed two men to row him across, "a little to the eastward where the 'Somerset' man-of-war lay." He landed at Charlestown below the ferry, and says, "I told them what was acting, and went to get me a horse," and then pursued his momentous ride to Lexington. Imagine the continuance of this ferry, as the usual means of crossing the river between Boston and Charlestown, for a period of more than one hundred and fifty years! and all this time probably without the use of sails, as the stream at this point was very narrow and the currents very strong, and certainly without the power of steam, now so generally applied to ferries all over the country. There was, no doubt, in the winter season, a good deal of passing on the ice. The Winnisimmet Ferry, for many years prior to the introduction of steam, was operated by the use of large sail-boats for foot-passengers only. It is said that the Indian name of Charles River was Quimobequin, and that on Capt. Smith's map of 1614, it is called Massachusetts; and Hutchinson says, "Prince Charles gave the name of Charles river to what had been before called Massachusetts river." Smith himself says he called it Charles River; still Hutchinson may be right. III. THE BOSTON CORNFIELDS. It will hardly be realized at the present time that Boston, or the peninsula which originally comprised the town, was ever occupied by cornfields, or, as one may almost say, was a cornfield. If there were cornfields, as we assume there were, the curious thing about them is, that we know so little of them; for it can scarcely be said that they hold a place in history. There are, in fact, no definite statements about them; and a mystery seems to hang over them as to where they were, who owned them, who cultivated them, and what was done with the harvest. Were they private property or public property? We have not been able to find in contemporary or subsequent history any account of the Boston cornfields that will enable us with certainty to answer this question. The fair inference from statements made, however, is, that they were to some extent both public and private property. Perhaps the first allusion to them to be found in any record is that in 1632,--and there could have been no corn planted in Boston earlier than 1631, unless by Blackstone,--and this allusion is in the name of "Corne Hill." In 1632, May 24, "it was agreed to build a fort in that part of Boston called Corne Hill," meaning what thereafter was called Fort Hill; and one historical writer, quoting the record, says a fortification was begun on "_the_ corn hill;" and that was probably the only Corn Hill at that time. The question naturally arises, Why was it called Corn Hill? and the almost necessary answer to the question is, Because it was where corn was grown. There can be no doubt that it became necessary, as early as possible, for the settlers to seek means for their future subsistence. The stock and supply of provisions brought over were, no doubt, for a time and under certain regulations, a common stock; and possibly some of Gov. Winthrop's party had supplies of their own in addition thereto. But, at all events, prudence and self-preservation required immediate attention to the cultivation of the soil and the raising of corn and other grains. In 1628 (1629), before the arrival of Gov. Winthrop and his company at Charlestown, the place had been occupied by the Spragues, from Salem, under the direction of Mr. Graves, an agent of the company; and one of the first things they did was "to model and lay out the form of the town, with streets about the hill," which was approved by Gov. Endicott. They next "jointly agreed and concluded that each inhabitant have a two acre lot to plant upon and all to fence in common." The same year Mr. Graves wrote to England, "The increase of corne is here farre beyond expectation," showing that it had been grown, and most probably in the common cornfield; for it is afterwards said that Thomas Walford "lived on the south end of the westermost hill of the East Field." Another vote was passed the next year, 1630,--probably before the arrival of Gov. Winthrop,--that each person "dwelling within the neck, shall have two acres of land for a house plot, and two acres for every male that is able to plant." In the months of June and July, 1630, Gov. Winthrop and his party arrived at Charlestown, after a passage by some of the ships of seventeen or eighteen weeks, many of them sick of the scurvy. "The multitude set up cottages, booths and tents about the Town Hill;" and it is said "provisions were exceedingly wasted, and no supplies could now be expected by planting; besides, there was miserable damage and spoil of provisions at sea." Many of the party died,--some two hundred before December,--and others started out for other locations; and finally in September, 1630, by the invitation of Mr. Blackstone, the larger part of Gov. Winthrop's party crossed the river to Boston. This year there was a scarcity of corn, as will be seen by the following extract from Hutchinson's history:-- "In August, 1724, John Quttamug, a Nipmug Indian, came to Boston, above 112 years of age. He affirmed that in 1630, upon a message that the English were in want of corn, soon after their arrival, he went to Boston with his father, and carried a bushel and a half of corn all the way on his back; that there was only one cellar began in town, and that somewhere near the _Common_." Wood, in speaking of Boston in 1639, says, "This place hath very good land, affording rich cornfields and fruitful gardens," which, no doubt, were in existence years before he wrote his book. In 1635, it was voted, "Each able man is allowed two acres, and each able youth one acre to plant." Provision of some sort on the subject was no doubt made before this time, and gradually reached the regulation here recorded. In 1633, great scarcity of corn is mentioned by Winthrop, as he says, "By reason of the spoil of our hogs, there being no acorns, yet the people lived well with fish and the fruit of their gardens." Almost as a natural consequence of what has now been said, in March, 1636, we find that provision was made "for having sufficient fences to the Cornfielde before the 14th of the next second month (April); that for every defective rod then found, five shillings penalty;" and it was further provided, "The field toward Rocksberry to be looked into by Jacob Elyott and Jonathan Negoose; the Fort Hill, by James Penn and Richard Gridley; the Mylne field, by John Button and Edward Bendall, and the New Field by John Audley and Thomas Faireweather." Thus it will be seen, if the rule adopted was carried out, that there were four or more large cornfields in Boston, and that the principal work of the people for a time was the raising of corn. At a later period parcels of corn were occasionally presented or sent to the governor by the Indians, who had their cornfields before the English people arrived. In fact, it is recorded in the next month after the arrival of Winthrop, that so much provision had been sold to the Indians for beaver, that food became scarce; and in October, 1630, a vessel was sent to the Narragansetts to trade, and brought home one hundred bushels of corn. In May, 1631, corn in Boston was ten shillings a bushel, as probably much was required for planting at this time. In August, 1633, a great scarcity of corn was reported; and in November, the next year, a vessel arrived from Narragansett with five hundred bushels of Indian corn. It is very clear that corn was very early, and for some time, the great dependence of the settlers. In Plymouth Colony, in 1630, the salary of the messenger of the General Court was thirty bushels of corn. In 1685, the secretary's wages was fifteen pounds a year, payable in corn at two shillings per bushel. In 1690, "one third the Governor's salary ordered to be paid in money, the rest in corne." In 1637, April 16, "all the fences and gates to be made up. Sargeant Hutchinson and Richard Gridley to look after the Fort Field; John Button, James Everett and Isaac Grosse, in the Mill Field; Wm Colburn and Jacob Elyott on the Field next Roxburie." Again, in 1640, March 30, "To look to the fences: Richard Fairbanks and William Salter the field towards Roxbury; Benj. Gillam and Edmd. Jacklyn, the Fort Field; Wm. Hudson and Edward Bendall the New Field; Mr. Valentine Hill and John Button, the Mill Field." Dr. Shurtleff, in his "Topographical and Historical Description of Boston," enumerates five fields as follows, and speaks of them as ungranted lands: "The land around Copps' Hill, was known as the Mylne Field, or Mill Field; that around Fort Hill, the Fort Field; that at the Neck, the Neck Field, or the Field towards Roxbury; that where Beacon Hill Place now is, Centry Hill Field, and that west of Lynde Street, and north of Cambridge, the New Mill Field, or the New Field." And to show that these were not waste lands or pastures, the writer enumerates the various pastures for cattle, besides the privileges at Muddy Brook and Winnisimmet, as follows: "Besides the fields there were many pastures, so called: Christopher Stanley's was at the North End, covering the region of North Bennet Street, between Hanover and Salem Streets; Buttolph's was south of Cambridge Street; Tucker's, in the neighborhood of Lyman Street; Rowe's, east of Rowe Street; Wheeler's, where the southerly end of Chauncy Street is; Atkinson's, where Atkinson Street was a few years ago, and where Congress Street now is." And besides these he names Leverett's on Leverett Street; Middlecott's on Bowdoin Street; another on Winter and Tremont Streets, and, as he says, "a very large number of other great lots." And strange to say, in all this history, contemporary or modern, in only a single instance, so far as we know, are these fields or any one of them spoken of as a "cornfielde," and that is in the order of 1636, above quoted. There is, however, one other reference to them made, in 1657, in the body of instructions prepared for the selectmen to guide them in the discharge of their duties: "Relying on your wisdom and care in seeking the good of the town, we recommend that you cause to be executed all the orders of the town which you have on the records," &c., "as found in the printed laws under the titles Townships, Freeman, Highways, Small Causes, Indians, Cornfields," &c., which would assuredly show that there were cornfields in the town, distinct from pastures or waste lands, undoubtedly laid out and divided among the people, as already indicated, for their special cultivation. If, as we believe, the "fields" enumerated were cornfields, and cultivated in the manner suggested,--at first one field, and year by year, as necessity should require, a new field added,--there would naturally become, among a people situated as they were, a necessity for a granary for the storing and preservation of their crops. Consequently, in the enumeration of public buildings in Boston at a later period, we find mentioned "a public granary." The burying-ground on Tremont Street, known as the Granary Burying-Ground, was laid out on land taken from the Common in 1660, and, of course, took its name from the granary, which was built soon after on what was afterwards Centry Street, and now Park Street. Shurtleff says the land was first taken for the purpose, and "then, when the need came, a building, eighty feet by thirty feet, for a public granary, was erected, and subsequently, in 1737, removed to the corner, its end fronting on the principal street (Tremont). It stood until 1809, when it gave place to Park Street Church." So that, though latterly for some years used for another purpose, the granary stood in Boston for more than one hundred and forty years. It is described as a long wooden building, and was calculated to hold twelve thousand bushels of corn. In 1733, it would seem that corn or other grain continued to be grown in Boston, as in October of that year it was determined to erect a granary at the North End, "not to exceed £100" in cost. In the records of the selectmen, it is called a meal-house, and John Jeffries, Esq., and Mr. David Colson, two of the selectmen, were to contract for the work on a piece of land near the North Mill, belonging to the town. So that at what time the cultivation of corn ceased in Boston, it is impossible to tell; but it would seem, from the necessity for a new granary in 1733, that it must have continued for considerably more than a hundred years after the settlement of the town. IV. PURITAN GOVERNMENT. The early government of the Puritans in Boston was a sort of extemporary government, or, as it has been described, "temporary usurpation,"--a government of opinions and prejudices, and in small sense a government of law. It had some of the features of a family government, without system or order. If the inhabitant offended, or did any thing which was not thought proper by the Church, the assistants, or anybody else, fine or punishment was pretty sure to follow. To be sure there was the Massachusetts Colony Charter somewhere; but it is singular that the copy of it found among Hutchinson's papers, and since printed, is certified to be a "true copy of such letters patents under the great seal of England," by John Winthrop, Governor, dated "this 19th day of the month called March, 1613-1644." This verbose and peculiar document gives authority to the company in the matter of government in the following elaborate form:-- "And wee do of our further grace, certaine knowledge and meere motion give and grant to the said Governor and Company and their successors, that it shall and may be lawfull to and for the Governour or deputy Governor and such of the Assistants and Freemen of the said Company for the tyme being as shall be assembled in any of their generall courts aforesaid, or in any other courts to be specially summoned and assembled for that purpose, or the greater part of them (whereof the Governour or deputy Governor and sixe of the Assistants to be always seven) from tyme to tyme to make, ordaine and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, lawes, statutes and ordinances, directions and instructions not contrary to the lawes of this our realme of England, as well for the settling of the formes and ceremonies of government and magistracie fitt and necessary for the said plantation and the inhabitants there, and for nameing and styling of all sorts of officers both superiour and inferiour which they shall find needful for that government and plantation, and the distinguishing and setting forth of the severall duties, powers and limits of every such office and place, and the formes of such oathes warrantable by the lawes and statutes of this our realme of England as shall be respectively ministred unto them, for the execution of the said several offices and places, as also for the disposing and ordering of the elections of such of the said officers as shall be annuall, and of such others as shall be to succeed in case of death or removall, and ministring the said oathes to the new elected officers, and for imposition of lawfull fynes, mulcts, imprisonment or other lawfull correction, according to the course of other Corporations in this our realme of England, and for the directing, ruleing and disposeing of all other matters and things whereby our said people inhabiting there may be so religiously, peaceably and civily governed, as theire good life and orderly conversation may winne and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the onely true God and Saviour of mankind and the christian faith, which in our royall intention and the adventurers free profession is the principal end of this plantation." The charter goes on to give authority to commanders, captains, governors, and all other officers for the time being, "to correct, punish, pardon, govern and rule all such the subjects of us, our heires and successors, as shall from tyme to tyme adventure themselves in any voyage thither or from thence, or that shall at any tyme hereafter inhabit within the precincts and parts of New England aforesaid, according to the orders, lawes, ordinances, instructions and directions aforesaid, not repugnant to the laws and statutes of our realme of England as aforesaid." And in order to make the laws of these officers known, it is provided, as printing would not be practicable, that they shall be "published in writing under theire common seale." But it would seem, notwithstanding, that the authority exercised by the company was at first executive rather than legislative; and Mr. Savage remarks, that the body of the people "submitted at first to the mild and equal temporary usurpation of the officers, chosen by themselves, which was also justified by indisputable necessity." The first "Court of Assistants" was held at Charlestown, Aug. 23, 1630; and the first thing propounded was, "how the ministers shall be maintained," and it was determined, of course, at the public charge. Gov. Winthrop, Lieut.-Gov. Dudley, and the assistants were present; and this body carried on the government--what there was of it--"in a simply patriarchal manner," until "the first General Court or meeting of the whole company at Boston, 19 October," 1631, and this was held "for the establishing of the government." It was now determined that "the freemen should have the power of choosing assistants, and from themselves to choose a Governor and Lieut. Governor, who with the assistants should have the power of making laws and choosing officers to execute the same." This is the brief history of the origin of a local government in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, if it may be so called. It was autocratic for the first year and afterwards, although fully assented to by a general vote of the people. At first, of course, there were no laws; and punishments were adjudged and inflicted, under the authority of the charter, not only for trivial matters, as they would be now considered, but for very questionable, if not ludicrous, matters,--and all this, it would seem, without respect of persons: for, as early as Nov. 30, 1630, at a court, it was ordered that one of the assistants be fined five pounds for whipping two persons without the presence of another assistant, contrary to an act of court formerly made; so that this very early exercise of authority was not under a law made after the fact. At the same court another person was sentenced to be whipped for shooting a fowl on the sabbath day; and this, probably, was _ex post facto_. In 1631, a man was fined five pounds for taking upon himself the cure of scurvy by a water of no value, and selling it at a dear rate; to be imprisoned until he paid the fine, or whipped. In 1632, the first thief was sentenced to lose his estate, pay double what he had stolen, be whipped, bound out for three years, and after that be dealt with as the court directs. Other offences, or what not, were punished by "taking life and limb, branding with a hot iron, clipping off ears," &c. Indians also were proceeded against, in many cases by fines, penalties, and punishments. John Legge, a servant, was ordered "to be whipt this day [May 3, 1631] at Boston, and afterwards, so soon as convenient may be, at Salem, for striking Richard Wright." Richard Hopkins was ordered to be severely whipped, and branded with a hot iron on one of his cheeks, for selling guns, powder, and shot to the Indians. Joyce Bradwick was ordered to pay Alexander Beck twenty dollars for promising marriage without her friends' consent, and now refusing to perform the same. This was in 1632, and is undoubtedly the first breach-of-promise case that had occurred in the colony. It was ordered if any one deny the Scriptures to be the word of God, to be fined fifty pounds, or whipped forty stripes; if they recant, to pay ten pounds, and whipped if they pay not that. A man, who had been punished for being drunk, was ordered to wear a red D about his neck for a year. The case of one Knower, at Boston, 1631, is spoken of as curious, showing that the court, usurper and tyrant as it was, had no intention of being slighted, underestimated, or intimidated. "Thomas Knower was set in bilbows for threatening the Court, that if he should be punished, he would have it tried in England, whether he was lawfully punished or not." And for this he was punished. 1631.--Philip Radcliffe, for censuring the churches and government, has his ears cut off, is whipped and banished. 1636.--If any inhabitants entertained strangers over fourteen days, without leave "from those yt are appointed to order the Town's businesses," they were made liable to be dealt with by the "overseers" (before there were selectmen) as they thought advisable. In 1637, "a law was made that none should be received to inhabit within the jurisdiction but such as should be allowed by some of the magistrates; and it was fully understood that differing from the religions generally received in the country, was as great a disqualification as any political opinions whatever." On this subject Judge Minot says, "Whilst they scrupulously regulated the morals of the inhabitants within the colony, they neglected not to prevent the contagion of dissimilar habits and heretical principles from without.... No man could be qualified either to elect or be elected to office who was not a church member, and no church could be formed but by a license from a magistrate." In 1640, in the case of Josias Plaistow for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, he was ordered to return eight baskets, "to be fined £5, and to be called Josias, and not Mr. Josias Plaistow, as he formerly used to be." A carpenter was employed to make a pair of stocks; and, it being adjudged that he charged too much for his work, he was sentenced to be put in them for one hour. A servant, charged with slandering the Church, was whipped, then deprived of his ears and banished. This punishment was deemed severe, and excited some remarks upon the subject. A Capt. Stone was fined one hundred pounds and prohibited from coming into Boston without the governor's leave on pain of death, for calling Justice Ludlow a "just-ass." Another party, for being drunk, was sentenced to carry forty turfs to the fort; while another, being in the company of drunkards, was set in the stocks. But finally the Court of Assistants began to make laws, or lay down rules of some sort. As for example: Every one shall pay a penny sterling for every time of taking tobacco in any place. In Plymouth Colony the law was less stringent: there a man was fined five shillings for taking tobacco while on a jury, before a verdict had been rendered. Absence from church subjected the delinquent to a fine of ten shillings or imprisonment. Any one entering into a private conference at a public meeting shall forfeit twelve pence for public uses. 1642, Mr. Robert Saltonstall is fined five shillings for presenting his petition on so small and bad a piece of paper; and this, it seems, was after it had been determined "that a body of laws should be framed which would be approved of by the General Court and some of the ministers as a fundamental code." Notwithstanding this, in all cases, like the above, where there was no law, one was made, or inferred, to meet the case; so that, after the establishment of a "fundamental code," there was about as much _ex post facto_ law as before. Among the laws or orders of the "fundamental code" was one, "that no person, Householder or others, shall spend his time unprofitably under paine of such punishment as the court shall think meet to inflict;" and "the constables were ordered to take knowledge of offenders of this kind," and, among others, especially tobacco-takers. Another was, "that no person either man or woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes, other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back; also all cuttworks, imbroidered or needle workt caps, bands, vayles, are forbidden hereafter to be made or worn under said penalty--also all gold or silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats, are prohibited to be bought or worn hereafter, under the aforesaid penalty," &c. The penalty is such punishment as the Court may think meet to inflict. In addition to these, the code went still further in regulating the dress of women: "4th of 7th month [September, as the year began with March, until 1752], 1639, Boston. No garments shall be made with short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of the arm may be discovered in the wearing thereof;" and, where garments were already made with short sleeves, the arms to be covered with linen or otherwise. No person was allowed to make a garment for women with sleeves more than half an ell wide, and "so proportionate for bigger or smaller persons." In the matter of currency, it was ordered, in 1634, "that musket balls of a full boar shall pass currently for farthings apiece, provided that no man be compelled to take above 12 pence at a time in them." It would seem that some of these decisions, or the general character of the government, had caused some remark, as it was "ordered that Henry Lyn shall be whipt and banished the Plantation before the 6th day of October next, for writing into England falsely and maliciously against the government and execution of Justice here." "Execution of justice" is good, we should say. Ward, in his "Trip to New England," a very coarse and abusive paper, published in London, in 1706, in a book called "London Spy," says, in Boston "if you kiss a woman in publick, tho' offered as a Courteous Salutation, if any information is given to the Select Members, both shall be whipt or fined." He relates, that "a captain of a certain ship, who had been a long voyage, happen'd to meet his wife, and kist her in the street, for which he was fined Ten Shillings, and forc'd to pay the Money. Another inhabitant of the town was fin'd Ten Shillings for kissing his own wife in his Garden, and obstinately refusing to pay the Money, endur'd Twenty Lashes at the Gun, who, in Revenge for his Punishment, swore he would never kiss her again either in Publick or Private." John Dunton, in his famous work, "Dunton's Life and Errors," speaks of the government, when he was in Boston, in 1686. He says, "Let it be enough to say, The laws in force here, against immorality and prophaneness, are very severe. Witchcraft is punish'd with death, as 'tis well known; and theft with restoring fourfold, if the Criminal be sufficient.--An English woman, admitting some unlawful freedoms from an Indian, was forc'd twelve months to wear upon her Right arm an Indian cut in red cloath." The "Body of Liberties," as it was strangely called, contained an hundred laws, which had been drawn up pursuant to an order of the General Court, by Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the church at Ipswich, who had been formerly a practitioner of law in England; and this book was printed by Daye, the first printer, at Cambridge in 1641. (Thomas, p. 47.) There was also published in 1649 a "Book of General Laws and Liberties, concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts." By these, gaming by shuffle-board and bowling at houses of entertainment, where there was "much waste of wine and beer," were prohibited under pain for every keeper of such house twenty shillings, and every person playing at said games, five shillings. For "damnable heresies," as they were called, banishment was the appropriate punishment. Oldmixon mentions a singular law. He says, "The goodness of the pavement may compare with most in London: to gallop a horse on it is 3 shillings and four pence forfeit." This was more than a hundred years after the settlement of the town, and less than forty years before the commencement of the revolutionary war. A letter from London, from Edward Howes to his relative, J. Winthrop, jun., dated April 3, 1632, says, "I have heard divers complaints against the severity of your government, especially Mr. Endicott's, and that he shall be sent for over, about cutting off the lunatick man's ears and other grievances" (Savage's Winthrop, p. 56, vol. 1). In respect to the levying of fines, Gov. Winthrop, who was accused of not demanding their payment in some cases, remarked, "that in his judgment, it were not fit in the infancy of a Commonwealth to be too strict in levying fines, though severe in other punishments." It has been well said that "religion and laws were closely intertwined in the Puritan community; the government felt itself bound to expatriate every disorderly person, as much as the church was bound to excommunicate him. They were like a household. They had purchased their territory for a home; it was no _El Dorado_; it was their Mount of Sion. With immense toil and unspeakable denials, they had rescued it from the wild woods for the simple purpose that they might have a place for themselves and their children to worship God undisturbed. They knew nothing of toleration. Their right to shut the door against intruders seemed to them as undoubted and absolute as their right to breathe the air around them."[2] This is the sum and substance of the Puritan government as long as it lasted. Under the charter, or without the charter, they made such laws as they pleased, before or after the occasion. They punished every thing which they thought to be wrong, or which did not conform to their notions of propriety or their practice, and this, too, without consistency or discrimination. In 1639, Winthrop says, "The people had long desired a body of laws, and thought their condition very unsafe, while so much power rested in the discretion of the magistrates. Divers attempts had been made at former courts, and the matter referred to some of the magistrates and some of the elders, [the church and state, in such cases, were invariably united,] but still it came to no effect, for being committed to the care of so many, whatsoever was done by some, was still disliked or neglected by others." So that it is doubtful if they ever really had a set of laws that were relied upon; that limited the discretion of the magistrates, or was ever reasonably and impartially enforced. If the law failed to be adequate, it seemed to be proper for the magistrate to make it so; and he not only supplied the deficiency, but occasionally coined or misconstrued a law for his purpose. Such a government might well be considered "unsafe." V. THE NARRAGANSETT INDIANS. VISIT TO BOSTON. The Narragansett Indians were one of the largest, if not the very largest, tribe in New England, at the time of the arrival of the Puritans; and they were especially friendly to the settlers. They lived along the coast, from Stonington to Point Judith, on Narragansett Bay. "They consisted," says Hutchinson, "of several lesser principalities, but all united under one general ruler, called the Chief Sachem, to whom all others owed some kind of fealty or subjection." The Nianticks were considered as a branch of the Narragansetts, having very likely been conquered by them, and brought under their subjection. A letter of Roger Williams, who was intimate with, and a strong friend of, the Narragansett Indians, says they were "the settlers' fast friends, had been true in all the Pequot wars, were the means of the coming in of the Mohegans, never had shed English blood, and many settlers had had experience of the love and desire of peace which prevailed among them." In October, 1636, after the murder of Mr. Oldham, Gov. Vane invited their sachem, Miantonomo, to visit Boston, which he soon after did, bringing with him another sachem, two sons of Canonicus, and about twenty men. The governor sent twenty musketeers to Roxbury to meet them and escort them into town. The sachems and their council dined together in the same room with the governor and his ministers. After dinner a friendly treaty was made with Miantonomo, and signed by the parties; and, although at this time the English thought the Indians did not understand it, they kept it faithfully; but the English, who were afterwards instrumental in the death of Miantonomo, did not. The Indians were subsequently escorted out of town, "and dismissed with a volley of shot;" and the famous Roger Williams was appointed to explain the treaty to the Indians. In this treaty, Canonicus, who was the chief sachem of the tribe, and is said to have been "a just man, and a friend of the English," was represented by Miantonomo, his nephew, whom Canonicus, on account of his age, had caused to assume the government. The deputation that Gov. Vane sent to the Narragansetts in the matter of the murder of Mr. Oldham, speak of Canonicus "as a sachem of much state, great command over his men, and much wisdom in his answers and the carriage of the whole treaty; clearing himself and his neighbors of the murder, and offering assistance for revenge of it." Johnson represents Miantonomo "as a sterne, severe man, of great stature and a cruel nature, causing all his nobility and such as were his attendants to tremble at his speech." INDIAN ART.--CURIOUS MARRIAGE. The Narragansetts not only coined money (wampumpeag), but manufactured pendants and bracelets,--using shells, we presume, for these purposes. They also made tobacco-pipes, some blue and some white, out of stone, and furnished earthen vessels and pots for cookery and other domestic uses,--so that they had several approximations, in these respects, to civilization and art, not so distinctly manifested by other tribes. They had, in fact, commercial relations with other people and distant nations, and, it seems, were sometimes sneered at on account of their disinclination for war,--preferring other service. There is evidence, also, that they considered themselves--in some respects, at least--superior to other Indians; and this is illustrated by a very curious piece of history, said to be "the only tradition of any sort from the ancestors of our first Indians." It seems that the oldest Indians among the Narragansetts reported to the English, on their first arrival, "that they had in former times a sachem called Tashtassuck, who was incomparably greater than any in the whole land in power and state." This great sachem--who, it would seem, had the power to elevate, and, in some respects, enlighten his race--had only two children, a son and daughter; and, not being able to match them according to their dignity, he joined them together in matrimony, and they had four sons, of whom Canonicus, who was chief sachem when the English arrived, was the eldest. There is no reason to doubt that the marriage was a happy one, agreeable to the parties, satisfactory to the parent, and certainly famous in its progeny. INTERMARRIAGE AMONG THE EGYPTIANS. This probably is the only record of such a marriage in this country. The form of family marriage, however, it is a matter of history, was common among the Egyptians, and probably has been practised more or less among all the savage nations of the earth. Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, on the death of her father, was married, according to his will, to Ptolemy XII., his eldest son, and ascended the throne; both being minors, Pompey was appointed their guardian. In the wars which followed, her husband was drowned, and she then married her second brother, Ptolemy (Necteros), a child seven years old. Afterwards she became the mistress of Cæsar, and subsequently poisoned her boy-husband, when at the age of fourteen, because he claimed his share of the Egyptian crown. So that, in fact, she made war against her first husband, and poisoned her second,--a result very different from that recorded of the Narragansett intermarriage. MURDER OF MIANTONOMO. In a subsequent Indian war, 1643,--brought about, it is said, by Connecticut, between the Narragansetts and the Mohegans,--Miantonomo, by some strange accident, fell into the hands of Uncas, who, for fear of retaliation, instead of taking his life, sent him to Hartford. The Connecticut people, in their turn, sent him to Boston, to be judged by the Commissioners of the United Colonies; and these commissioners, "although they had no jurisdiction in the case, nor any just ground of complaint against the sachem," came to the conclusion "that Uncas would not be safe if he were suffered to live." Drake says, "Strange as it may seem, it was with the advice of the Elders of the Churches" (Winthrop says five of the most judicious elders) that it was determined Uncas might put Miantonomo to death,--a piece of barbarism and injustice hardly matched by any conduct of the Indians. He was taken back to Uncas "with a guard of English soldiers," and Uncas readily undertook the execution of his victim. When he arrived at a place appointed, a brother of Uncas "clave his head with a hatchet." "Thus inhumanly and unjustly perished the greatest Indian chief of whom any account is found in New England's annals." Canonicus, it is said, was greatly affected by the death of his nephew, in whom he always had the utmost confidence, and regarded him with the fondness of a father. Canonicus died in 1647. After the death of Miantonomo, the Narragansetts were never on very good terms with the English, who had suspected them once or twice unjustly. Hutchinson says, "The Narragansetts are said to have kept to the treaty until the Pequods were destroyed, and then they grew insolent and treacherous." It certainly appears that they were not well used by the English settlers, and it is not surprising that they should grow "insolent and treacherous;" for the treachery appears to have been first against them. VI. NAMES OF PLACES, STREETS, ETC. As a matter of course, some of the early names of places in and around Massachusetts Bay were Indian names or corruptions, until others were applied, as Shawmut, Mishawam, Mattapan, Winnisimmet, and others. The name of Plymouth, of course, the Pilgrims brought with them, as the Puritans did the name of Salem and of Boston. But just how the name of Massachusetts originated is not so well known. It was no doubt of Indian origin; and if derived from the "greatest king of the Indians," Massasoit, or, as Hutchinson says, Massasoiet,[3] it is well that it has been so preserved and perpetuated. Among the earliest English names, besides these mentioned, were the names applied to the islands, as Noddle's Island, which possibly was given to it by Maverick, and Bird Island, in 1630; Lovell's Island, in 1635, and several others. The names of Blackstone, Maverick, and Walford,[4] the original settlers of Boston, Noddle's Island, and Charlestown, have all been preserved in the names of streets, banks, &c., although two of them (Blackstone and Walford) were driven away, and the third, though living almost alone on Noddle's Island, being an Episcopalian, was rather severely treated in the general persecutions of the time. Of the Indian names, only a few of them have been preserved, and are in common use, and among them Shawmut, Mishawam, Winnisimmet, and possibly one or two others. In the list of nearly two thousand names of streets, places, &c., only three Indian names are to be found, namely, Shawmut, Oneida, and Ontario. But perhaps the most curious peculiarity prevailed with regard to the naming of streets, places, taverns, trades, &c., in Boston, before King Street and Queen Street had been named, and after they had passed away. King Street gave way to State Street; Queen Street, which at an earlier date had been called Prison Lane, gave way to Court Street: still some of the old English names remain. Marlborough, Newbury, and Orange, all English names, gave way to that of Washington, and this street has now been extended, under its latest name, from Haymarket Square (Mill Creek) to Brookline (Muddy Brook). Formerly it extended from the Gate at the Neck to Dock Square, and bore the name of Orange Street from the Gate to Eliot's Corner (Essex Street); Newbury Street from Eliot's Corner to Bethune's Corner (West Street); Marlborough Street from thence to Haugh's Corner (School Street); and Cornhill from thence to Dock Square. LANES AND ALLEYS. The first mention of any alley is that of Paddy Alley[5] (after a resident), running from Ann to Middle Street, 1658, but whether so named before or after the streets which it connects is not known. Rawson's Lane, afterwards Bromfield's Lane, and now Bromfield Street, 1693; Black Horse Lane, part of what is now known as Prince Street, 1698; Beer Lane, part of Richmond Street; Blind Lane, part of Bedford Street; Elbow Alley, which was in the form of a crescent, from Ann to Cross Street; Pudding Lane, part of Devonshire Street--all mentioned in 1708, when a list of the names of the streets, lanes, &c., was prepared and published by the Selectmen. Among these were Frog Lane, Hog Alley, Sheafe Lane, Blind Lane, Cow Lane, Flounder Lane, Crab Lane, &c. Probably all these lanes and alleys were laid out or established, at a much earlier date than that mentioned. Sheep Lane was first called Hog Lane, in 1789; Turn-again Alley, at an early date, was near Hamilton Place. The first lanes and possibly alleys, it has been said, were probably cow-paths or foot-paths, but at the end of seventy-eight years, in 1708, they had undoubtedly all received names, peculiar as some of them were. Most of these lanes--not all of them--were named after residents or owners in the neighborhood. The alleys were each named after some citizen, excepting where there might be some local name or peculiarity, as Board Alley, Brick Alley, Crooked Alley; and so of some of the lanes and streets, as Bog Lane, Marsh Lane, Well Street, Bath Street, Grape Place, Granite Place, and some others. NAMES OF CORNERS. One of the most curious collections of names in the list of 1879, is that of "Corners," not now recognized, and, we think, never before recorded, though occasionally used in defining the limits of streets. Over one hundred corners are named in this list, of which about eighty of them bear date of 1708 and 1732. All these are named after persons occupying the corners, and among them are the following: Antram's Corner, Ballantine's, Barrill's, Bill's, Bows', and Bull's Corners; Dafforne's, Frary's, and Frizzel's Corners; Gee's, Meer's, Melynes', Powning's, Ruck's, and Winsley's Corners, and there were five Clark's Corners in different parts of the town, in 1708-32. At the present time, as in the early time, the corners of streets may be spoken of and referred to, but are not recognized as local names of record. NAMES OF STREETS, ETC. Names, of course, of some kind or other, local, personal, or traditionary, must have been very early used in the settlement, to designate places, paths, and business, as well as persons and things, and most of these have been preserved and remembered. In Drake's collection of local names there are nearly one thousand, including the names of islands, wharves, streets, taverns, &c., and of these only about twenty are mentioned by date prior to 1700, though many of them must have been in use long before that time. In the collection of names made by the city government in 1879, there are about eighteen hundred, not including islands, wharves, or taverns. The earliest dates attached to any of the names is that of the Anchor Tavern, 1661, and of the Alms House on Sentry or Park Street, 1662. In the naming of streets, as in the laying of them out, there appears to have been neither rule, system, or order; but in both matters the action depended upon local circumstances, or some public or personal influence. It is believed that the first movement in laying out the road over the Neck to Roxbury, what is now a portion of Washington Street, was in June, 1636, as follows:-- "It is agreed that there shall be a sufficient foot-way from William Coleburne's field-end unto Samuel Wylebore's field-end next Roxbury, by the surveyors of highways before the last of the next 5th month" (July, 1636). From this it appears that there were at this early period surveyors of highways, and that highways, to some extent, were foot-ways. The foot-way in this case, to be laid out in one month, extended as supposed, from the corner of Boylston Street to the northerly line of Castle Street, that being the northerly end of Boston Neck; and the road or way laid out after this time to Roxbury, was on the easterly side of the present Washington Street, all the way near or on the sea-beach, and probably started from near Beach Street. The next order that we have in relation to the streets, is under date of 1636, 4th, 8 mo., which would be Oct. 4, 1636, and is as follows:-- "At a meeting of the overseers," it was ordered, that "from this day there shall be no house at all be built neare unto any streetes or laynes therein, but with the consent of the overseers, for the avoyding disorderly building to the inconvenience of streetes and laynes and for the more comely and commodious ordering of them, upon the forfeiture of such sume as the overseers shall see fitting." Soon after this, liberty was granted to Deacon Eliot "to set out his barn six or eight feet into the street, at the direction of Colonel Colbron." On the 17th of the same month, October, 1636, a street and lane were laid out, but names were not given to them in the record. In May, 1708, "at a meeting of the selectmen," a broad highway was laid out from the old fortifications at the Neck, near the present Dover Street, to Deacon Eliot's house (near Eliot Street), and called Orange Street, and money was appropriated for paving it, "provided the abuttors would pave each side of the street." A hundred years after this time, the road over Boston Neck to Roxbury, from Waltham Street to Roxbury line, was very wide, and paved only in the middle portion, so that the travel for years was chiefly on the sides of the street. In naming the streets, as we have said, there were local, personal, and national considerations. As an illustration of the latter influence, King and Queen Streets, two of the most important streets of the town, are well remembered. Possibly before these the Puritan names of Endicott, Winthrop, Eliot, Leverett, and others, may have been used. The names of revolutionary patriots were subsequently applied to streets, as Hancock, Adams, Warren, Franklin; and these were followed by national names, as Union, Congress, and Federal. There was also a class of local names, as North, South, Middle, Canal, School, Exchange, Water, Tremont, Beacon, Margin, Back, Bridge, Pond, High, and Broad, applied at different times. Then there were Orange, Elm, Chestnut, Walnut, Pine, Cherry, &c., followed, it may be, by Sun and Moon, Summer, Winter, and Spring. Latterly the names of towns in the State have been applied to the streets of the city; among the earliest of these are Salem, Lynn, Cambridge, Brighton; and after these, Arlington, Berkley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, and many others. LISTS OF STREETS, COURTS, ETC. In 1708, a list of the names of streets, places, lanes, alleys, &c., in Boston proper, was prepared by the Selectmen; and in this list there were at that time forty-four (44) streets recorded; eighteen (18) alleys; thirty-three (33) lanes; three squares, Church Square, Dock Square, and Clark Square; two ways, Old Way and Ferry Way; two hills, Snow Hill and Corn Hill; five courts, Half Square Court, Corn Court, Minot's Court, Sun Court, and Garden Court; one row, Merchants' Row; and two markets, Corn Market and Fish Market, making one hundred and ten (110) named places in the town, in May, 1708. In 1732, there was published in "Vade Mecum," a list of streets at that time, and in this list are fourteen not in that of 1708, making the number of streets sixty, lanes forty-one, alleys eighteen, making in all one hundred and nineteen (119), exclusive of squares, courts, &c. In 1817, including lanes, alleys, squares, and streets, there were 231 in Boston proper, and among them were Berry and Blossom, Chestnut and Walnut, Poplar and Elm, Myrtle and Vine, and others. There were at this time, thirty-four wharves. There are now probably five times as many streets in Boston proper as there were in 1732, a hundred years after the settlement of the town, without reckoning courts or squares. In 1817, Shaw enumerates 229 streets, lanes, &c., and after this time much attention was given to the subject of new streets, naming old ones not before accepted, &c., and some of the names were changed. In 1879, a complete list of the names of streets, avenues, places, courts, squares, corners, &c., that have ever been in use, or applied, was prepared by order of the city government, and has been printed. This list, of course, shows a surprising increase in the number of names over any former record, many of which, we presume, have never before been recorded, although they may have been to some extent in use. In this list nearly two thousand names (1795) are printed: of these 554 are streets, of which some are duplicates. Many of them are second or third names, all of which are recorded, so that the list does not represent the number of streets at present in the city proper, but simply the names that have heretofore been used, or are now applied to them. NAMES OF TAVERNS. Taverns were early mentioned by names, more or less personal and peculiar: one of the first mentioned is the State Arms, where the magistrates usually dieted and drank, in King Street, 1653; Ship Tavern, in Ann Street, 1666; Bunch of Grapes, in King Street, 1724; King's Head Tavern, near Fleet Street, 1755; Queen's Head, in Lynn Street, 1732; Ship in Distress, an ancient tavern, opposite Moon Street; and if the "ordinaries," spoken of by Cotton Mather, were taverns, they were very numerous and were known as ale-houses, or, as Mather says, "hell-houses." BUSINESS NAMES. There were numerous curious names in use among the tradespeople, as the Six Sugar-Loaves, probably a grocer, in Union Street, 1733; Three Sugar-Loaves and Canister, grocer, in King Street, 1733; two bearing the sign of Two Sugar-Loaves, one in Cornhill and the other in King Street, 1760,--all of these indicating some active competition in the sugar trade. Noah's Ark was the sign of a dry-goods store in Marlborough Street, 1769. There were signs of the Three Crowns, Three Doves, Three Horseshoes, Three Kings, and Three Nuns and a Comb. Another class embraced the Bible and Heart, afterwards Heart and Crown, corner of Cornhill and Water Streets, 1748; Blue Dog and Rainbow, sign of a dyer near Bowling Green, now Cambridge Street, 1729; Blue Glove, a bookstore on Union Street, 1762; Brazen Head, Cornhill, opposite Williams Court, where the great fire of 1760 commenced, in a dwelling-house occupied by Mrs. Mary Jackson and son, probably a boarding-house; Buck and Breeches in Ann Street, 1758, near the Draw Bridge, Joseph Belknap's sign; Golden Cock, in Ann Street, 1733; Golden Eagle, Dock Square, 1758; and one of the last things named was the Whipping Post, in King Street, removed in 1750, only twenty years before the Boston Massacre. NAMES OF PERSONS. In regard to the names of persons, as well as places and things, it is said that there was "a prejudice in favor of the Israelitish custom, and a fondness arose, or at least was increased, for significant names for children." "The three first that were baptized in Boston church were Joy, Recompence and Pity. The humor spread. The town of Dorchester, in particular, was remarkable for such names as Faith, Hope, Charity, Deliverance, Dependance, Preserved, Content, Prudent, Patience, Thankful, Hate-evil, Holdfast," &c. These are pretty much out of fashion: possibly the name of "Prudence" may yet be found. It is somewhat strange that this "prejudice" did not get a more public expression: perhaps Salutation Alley may be a relic of it. * * * * * The Hangman's Gallows, strange to say, was a permanent structure on the Neck, on the east side and somewhat in the rear of the burying-ground: the pirates were hung there as late as 1815. The following peculiar historical names, although well known, may be mentioned: Liberty Pole was in Liberty Square, at the point of meeting of Water and Kilby Streets. It was not restored after the Revolutionary War. Liberty Tree, corner of Newbury (now Washington) and Essex Streets, nearly opposite Boylston Market. It was cut down by the British in August, 1775. Green Dragon was the sign of a noted tavern in Union Street, licensed in 1697, and disappeared 1854. The building which now occupies the spot in Union Street, displays the Green Dragon on its front. The "Orange Tree" spoken of in the history of Boston, was on Hanover Street. A private school is spoken of as being in Hanover Street, "three doors below the Orange Tree," and an earlier writer speaks of it as on Queen (Court) Street. It was a tavern on or near the corner of these streets, probably on the site afterwards occupied by Concert Hall. Boston, at the present time, includes South Boston (formerly Dorchester), East Boston (formerly Noddle's Island), Dorchester, Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Charlestown, and within this territory there are now over 2,650 streets, squares, avenues, places, courts, &c., and 225 wharves, twenty-nine of which are in Charlestown District. Public halls in Boston, 119, and the number of these is increasing. In 1735, there were twelve wards in the town; revised in 1805, and now, including the annexations above named, there are twenty-five wards. VII. PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS. Notwithstanding the strange judgments, fines, and punishments, made under the civil law or without law in the colony of Massachusetts, there seems to have been another sort of government, or perhaps one of the same kind, in relation to spiritual or religious things, the administration of which shows such a spirit and system of persecution, and such a degree of fanaticism, as can hardly be paralleled in history. And it would seem also that the two kinds of government, both in the hands of the same parties, might occasionally be found in conflict. In 1655, Hutchinson says, "However inconsistent it may seem with the professed ecclesiastical constitution and the freedom of every church, the general court, in several instances, interposed its authority. They laid a large fine upon the church at Malden for choosing a minister without the consent and approbation of the neighboring churches and allowance of the magistrates, and there were other similar interferences, which, we suppose, were acceded to, and that the church was, in fact, under the control of the state." And the state, it may be added, was to some extent, subordinate to the church. The Episcopalians, Anabaptists, Baptists, and Quakers, were all treated, or maltreated, with the same spirit, though not proceeded against with the same degree of persistency and malice. The Episcopalians were mulcted in heavy fines "for contemptuous and seditious language," but finally overcame all difficulties, and became permanently established in 1686, and built a church in 1688. The Baptists were persecuted in a similar way, but finally got a meeting-house built in 1679, before the Episcopalians. The Quakers were persecuted from the first landing of some of their number in 1656 to 1667, and even later; and four of them were hanged on Boston Common. In July, 1656, two Quakers, both women, arrived at the settlement from Barbadoes, and soon after eight more came from England. In a few days they were ordered before the Court of Assistants. Some books were found about them or in their possession, amounting to a hundred volumes; and these were burned in the market-place, and their owners sent to prison. They were condemned as Quakers, kept in confinement several weeks, and then sent away; and yet it is said there was no law at this time against Quakers. After this, stringent laws were made to keep them out of the colony. Masters of vessels were subjected to one hundred pounds fine if they brought a Quaker into the colony, and required to give security to take him away; and, if a Quaker came into the jurisdiction, he was sent to the house of correction, and whipped twenty stripes. And the next year, further laws were made against the Quakers, and against all who befriended or entertained them: who were to be fined forty shillings an hour; and, "if he persisted, the offender was to have one of his ears cut off," and, if repeated, he was to lose his other ear. If this did not answer, whipping and boring the tongue with a hot iron, were to be the consequences. Notwithstanding these severe proceedings against the Quakers, others came into the colony, and some who had been banished returned to suffer more severe punishments. One Myra Clark, wife of a merchant tailor of London, came to Boston in 1657, to comply with what she conceived to be a spiritual command, and was whipped in a cruel manner. About the same time, two men, Christopher Holder and John Copeland, were seized in Salem, and, after being roughly handled, were "had to Boston." Holder, it is said, when he attempted to speak, had his head hauled back by the hair, and his mouth stuffed with handkerchief and gloves. At Boston they were whipped with a knotted whip, with all the strength of the hangman. A man named Shattock was imprisoned and whipped for interfering when Holder was gagged, and was afterwards banished. In the next year, (September, 1658), Holder, Copeland, and another young man named Rouse, had their right ears cut off in the prison. A number of women were whipped and imprisoned; and one, Katharine Scott of Providence, being in Boston, pronounced the above punishment in prison, "a work of darkness," and was therefore shamefully treated and abused, although a mother of children, and "a grave, sober, ancient woman." She was publicly whipped, and threatened with hanging if found in Boston again. Three persons known as Quakers, on their way from Salem to Rhode Island, to provide a place for themselves and families, were arrested by the constable at Dedham, and sent to Boston, where Gov. Endicott set them at liberty, but fined them twelve shillings, as it would seem for the stupidity of the constable. The constable, no doubt, arrested them for fear of being fined for neglect of duty. In 1658-59, persecutions continued fearfully, and numbers were arrested, imprisoned, and punished. In the latter year, William Robinson, formerly a London merchant, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Myra (or Mary) Dyar, having returned after banishment, were sentenced to be hung; and the two men were hung, Oct. 20. Myra Dyar was upon the ladder, her arms and legs tied, and the rope about her neck, when, at the urgent solicitation of her son, she was spared and sent out of the colony; but she returned again the next year, impressed with the belief that her death was necessary to the cause she had espoused,--as fanatical as were the Puritans themselves,--and was hung in June. The bodies of the men, it is said, were shamefully stripped and abused, after they were literally cut down, and were thrown into a hole together. In July, 1660, Margaret Brewster, from Barbadoes, and two or three other women, made an incursion into the Old South Church; she appeared "in sackcloth, with ashes on her head, barefoot and her face blackened," with some purpose of warning the people against the black pox, "if they put in practice a cruel law against swearing." It is said also "that Deborah Wilson went through the streets of Salem naked as she came into the world, for which she was well whipped." Thomas Newhouse went into a meeting-house in Boston, and smashed two empty bottles together, with a threat to the people; and, no doubt, other provoking things were done. In March, 1661, persecutions still prevailing, William Leddra, who came from Barbadoes, was arrested, together with one William Brend; and Drake says, "The cruelties perpetrated on these poor, misguided men are altogether of a character too horrid to be related." It is said that Leddra would not accept life on any terms, and was therefore hung on the 14th of March; and Capt. Johnson, who led him forth to the gallows, was afterwards taken "with a distemper which deprived him of his reason and understanding as a man." These proceedings, outrageous as they certainly were, led to a movement in England by the Quakers and their friends, which resulted in an order from the King, Sept. 9, 1661, requiring that a stop should be put to all capital or corporal punishments. The following are the words of this remarkable document:-- "CHARLES R. "Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Having been informed that several of our subjects amongst you, called Quakers, have been and are imprisoned by you, whereof some have been executed, and others (as hath been represented unto us) are in danger to undergo the like: We have thought fit to signify our pleasure in that behalf for the future, and do hereby require, that if there be any of those people now amongst you, now already condemned to suffer death or other corporal punishment, or that are imprisoned, and obnoxious to the like condemnation, you are to forbear to proceed any further therein, but that you forthwith send the said persons, whether condemned or imprisoned, over into this Our Kingdom of England, together with the respective crimes or offenses laid to their charge, to the end such course may be taken with them here as shall be agreeable to our laws and their demerits; and for so doing these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge. "Given at Our Court at Whitehall the ninth day of Sept., 1661, in the thirteenth year of Our Reign. "To Our trusty and well-beloved John Endicott, Esquire, &c. "By his Majesty's Command, "WILLIAM MORRIS." The bearer of this mandate from the King was one of the banished Quakers, formerly of Salem; and when he appeared at Gov. Endicott's house, on Pemberton Square, was admitted to the presence, and ordered to take his hat off; and on receiving the mandamus the Governor took his own hat off (which he probably put on to receive his callers). After reading the document, he went out and bade the two Friends to follow him, and proceeded to consult, as it appeared, with Lieut.-Gov. Willoughby (not Bellingham, as some writers have it). His answer was, "We shall obey his majesty's command." So far as hanging was forbidden, the command was obeyed. The formality of sending Commissioners to England to defend and justify the measures of the colony was adopted, but never amounted to any thing. The laws against the Quakers were afterwards revived to the extent of whipping, limited to "through three towns only;" and perhaps they did not choose to regard this display as "capital or corporal punishment." In May, 1664, Edward Wharton, of Salem, being in Boston, a Quaker meeting was held, when a warrant was issued for his arrest: but the meeting being over, he was found at a friend's house; was arrested; the next day whipped, and sent to the constable at Lynn, to be whipped there, and then sent to Salem. In one instance, a girl, eleven years of age, allowing herself to be a Quaker, whether she knew what the word meant or not, was sent to prison, and afterwards brought before the great and dignified Court. The Court speak of "the malice of Satan and his instruments," and determine that as "Satan is put to his shifts to make use of such a child, not being of the years of discretion, it is judged meet so far to slight her as a Quaker, as only to admonish and instruct her according to her capacity, and so discharge her." Hutchinson says, "It would have been horrible, if there had been any further severity." In 1665, additional laws were made, or orders passed, levying a fine of ten shillings for attending a Quaker meeting, and five pounds for speaking at one; and, in the same year, the penalty of death was revived against all Quakers who should return to the colony after they had been banished. Some persons ventured to express their dissent with regard to some of these laws, and, probably owing to their respectability, escaped punishment; but Nicholas Upsall, who had shown compassion to some Quakers while in prison, in 1656-57, was fined and banished, and endured incredible hardships. Three years later, in 1660, he returned, and was again thrown into prison, and died in 1666. The laws against Quakers and heretics were published in Boston "with beat of drum through its streets." We presume they were read after the town-crier fashion of later days. In 1677, when the toleration of the Quakers was thought to be one of the sins which brought on the Indian war, as a punishment, the Court ordered, "That every person found at a Quaker's meeting shall be apprehended ex officio, by the constable, and, by warrant from a magistrate or commissioner, shall be committed to the House of Correction, and there have the discipline of the house applied to them, and be kept to work, with bread and water, for three days, and then released, or else shall pay five pounds in money, as a fine to the country, for such offence, and all constables neglecting their duty, in not faithfully executing this order, shall incur the penalty of five pounds, upon conviction, one third thereof to the informer." Upon this remarkable order, Hutchinson declares, "I know of nothing which can be urged as in anywise tending to excuse the severity of this law, unless it be human infirmity," and, he adds, the practices of other religious sects who are persuaded that the indulgence of any other "was a toleration of impiety" and brought down the judgments of heaven. This law cost the colony many friends. Soon after this a party was arrested and "whipped at the cart's tail up and down the town with twenty lashes." On the same day, fourteen Quakers were arrested at a meeting, and twelve of them whipped: the other two had their fines paid by their friends. At the next meeting, fourteen or fifteen more, including some strangers, were arrested and whipped. And yet the Quakers continued their meetings; and, finally, one of them was so large, that, as it is said, "fearfulness surprised the hypocrites," and the meeting was not molested.[6] Hutchinson says, "Notwithstanding the great variety of sectaries in England, there had been no divisions of any consequence in the Massachusetts; but from 1637 to 1656, they enjoyed, in general, great quietness in their ecclesiastical affairs, discords in particular churches being healed and made up by a submission to the arbitrament of neighboring churches, and sometimes the interposition of the civil power." But soon after all this, commencing indeed in 1655, in New England, continues Hutchinson, "it must be confessed, that bigotry and cruel zeal prevailed, and to that degree that no opinions but their own could be tolerated. They were sincere but mistaken in their principles; and absurd as it is, it is too evident, they believed it to be for the glory of God to take away the lives of his creatures for maintaining tenets contrary to what they professed themselves." It is said, however, "that every religion which is persecuted becomes itself persecuting; for as soon as, by some accidental turn, it arises from persecution, it attacks the religion which persecuted it." Perhaps the Puritans thought they had been persecuted! It seems to be understood that the Quakers finally got a standing in Boston, and a meeting-house, as, in 1667, mention is made of their "ordinary place of meeting," though their numbers were small. The Baptists, however, did not get their meeting-house until 1679; and then, as a law had been passed against the building of meeting-houses without permission of the county courts, theirs was built as a private house, and afterwards purchased by them. But Drake says, "The times had become so much changed that such a law could not be very well enforced." By this time, also, the matter was again brought to the notice of the king, Charles II.; and he wrote, on July 24, to the authorities of Boston, "requiring them not to molest people in their worship, who were of the Protestant faith, and directing that liberty of conscience should be extended to all such." This letter, it is said, had some effect on the rulers, although they regarded it as an interference with their chartered rights; and, after all, it was rather a development of that common sense which fanaticism and bigotry had so long obscured, possibly awakened by the order of the king, rather than controlled by it, that brought about the change in the spirit of persecution. In 1737, a different Christian spirit was manifested towards the Quakers, and they were exempted from taxes for the support of the clergy, provided they attended their own meetings. A letter from a Quaker to the King gives the following statement of the punishments and penalties received by his brethren: "Twenty-two have been banished on pain of death, three have been martyred, three have had their right ears cut, one hath been burned in the hand with the letter H, thirty-one persons have received six hundred and fifty stripes, ... one thousand and forty-four pounds worth of goods have been taken from them, and one lieth now in fetters, condemned to die." The letter H was probably intended for "heretic," which would certainly be giving a judgment against the religion the Quakers professed. In 1694, the Quakers owned a lot on Brattle Street, and it is thought probable had some sort of a meeting-house upon it; but still the years passed on, we hardly know how, until 1708, when they desired to build a brick house, but could not get permission to do so. Afterwards they built a small brick meeting-house in the rear of Congress Street on one side, and in the rear of Water Street on the other. It ran back to what is now the line of Exchange Place; in fact, was nearly in the centre of the square formed by State, Congress, Water, and Devonshire Streets. This building was partly destroyed by fire in 1760, having been standing more than fifty years; was then repaired, and finally demolished in 1825, having been unoccupied for nearly twenty years, the society, in 1808, having voted to discontinue their meetings. It is probably true that the treatment of the Quakers in the Massachusetts Colony, in the years mentioned, from 1600 to 1666-67, is unparalleled in the history of the human race; and although it may be true, as has been said, that the people here exiled themselves in order that "they might maintain and perpetuate what they conceived to be the principles of true Christianity," they manifested but little of the spirit of the Saviour of mankind or the religion he came to teach. Hutchinson concludes what he has to say of the remarkable persecution of the Quakers and its severity, with the remark, "May the time never come again, when the government shall think that by killing men for their religion they do God good service." However other denominations of Christians were persecuted by the Puritans, only Quakers and witches were hung. "These transient persecutions," as Bancroft calls them, with all the leniency possible, "begun in self-defence, were yet no more than a train of mists hovering of an autumn morning over the channel of a fine river, that diffused freshness and fertility wherever it wound." Much of this condition of things, it must be admitted, resulted from natural causes; namely, the character and circumstances of the settlers, their peculiar religious belief, and absolute fanaticism. Finally, another writer says, "The Puritans _disclaimed_ the right to sit in judgment on the opinions of others. They denied that they persecuted for conscience sake." These and some other statements seem to show that they did not practise as they preached, or gave an interpretation to that practice not in accordance with the understanding and convictions of mankind. To be sure, they had a law to punish any one who spoke disrespectfully of the Scriptures, and at the same time fined, punished, banished, and hung those who entertained and presumed to teach principles, belief, or doctrines in relation to the Scriptures different from their own; not, as they allege, because they had the right to sit in judgment upon them, but because of the dangers of their teaching and practice: in other words, for their own protection, "self-defence," as has been said. Nevertheless, maiming, marring, and taking the lives of God's creatures, the equals in every respect of themselves, as Hutchinson puts it, is only to be apologized for or excused by the infirmities of humanity; indeed, we should rather say, is not to be excused on any such ground, and their own doctrine and belief teaches that it was a proceeding to be punished and repented of. This, at any rate, was always the belief of the Quakers. Drake says, "The persecuted Quakers were fully persuaded that a day of wrath would overtake New England, and they did not fail to declare their belief; and, indeed, it was not long before their predictions were fulfilled: for the terrible war with the Indians, which followed in a few years, was viewed by them as the vengeance of heaven for their cruelty to the Quakers." VIII. FIRST NEWSPAPER IN AMERICA. It is said that the first newspaper ever issued was at Venice in 1583,[7] called "The Gazette,"--and this was in manuscript,--unless (as has been reported) there was an older paper of some kind issued at Hong-Kong. The oldest printed newspaper, "The English Mercury," was issued in England in 1588,[8] but, it is believed, was not regularly published. In the next century, from 1624 onward, newspapers multiplied; and among them were "The Parliament Kite," and "The Secret Owl," and some other curious names. Towards the close of this century, the first American newspaper appeared; and possibly this had been preceded by what represented a newspaper, in manuscript, as was the case afterwards in Boston in 1704, when "The News-Letter" first appeared. The first American newspaper was issued in Boston in 1690,--only fifty or sixty years after newspapers became common in England,--if the statements which we have quoted are reliable. But at this time, as might be reasonably supposed, the people who came to this country in order to improve their liberties, were not prepared for a free press, or, one might almost say, for any thing that did not tally with their religious notions and vague superstitions; so that, after the first issue, Sept. 25, 1690, the paper was suppressed, as said, by the "legislative authorities." Still it was a newspaper, intended to be such, and intended to be regularly issued once a month, or oftener, if occasion required. It was entitled as follows:-- "Numb. 1. PUBLICK OCCURRENCES, _Both Foreign and Domestic_. BOSTON, _Thursday, Sept. 25, 1690_." It was "printed by R. Pierce, for Benjamin Harris, at the London Coffee House, 1690." And it would seem that most of the copies were destroyed, though probably not many were printed, as only one copy has ever been found, and that by some unknown chance got into the colonial state-paper office, in London. It is a small sheet of paper doubled, printed on three pages, two columns to each; and some years ago, after a good deal of trouble to find the copy in the London office, the contents of the whole sheet were copied by Dr. Samuel A. Green, of Boston, and have since been once or twice reprinted. It is said that it was stopped by the "legislative authorities," who described it as a "pamphlet," and as containing "reflections of a very high nature;" and the order of the Court, passed in 1662 forbade "any thing in print without license first obtained from those appointed by the government to grant the same:" so that it would seem that there was a law against printing any thing without a license, and that this sheet, called a pamphlet, came within its provisions. "In 1644, It is ordered that the Printers shall have leave to print the Election Sermon with Mr. Mather's consent, and the Artillery's with Mr. Norton's consent." This, of course, meant without their undergoing any inspection. With respect to the contents of this first newspaper, the introductory paragraph is as follows:-- "_It is designed that the countrey shall be furnished once a month_ (_or if any Glut of_ Occurrences _happen oftener_,) _with an Account of such considerable things as have arrived unto our Notice._" The editor, it is said, will take pains to get a faithful relation of things, and hopes observers will communicate of such matters as fall under their notice; and then states what is proposed in an editorial way: first, that memorable occurrences may not be neglected or forgotten: second, that people may better understand public affairs; and third, "_that something may be done towards the_ Curing, _or at least the_ Charming _of that_ Spirit of Lying, which prevails among us," &c. This, probably, is one of the passages referred to by the authorities as "reflections of a very high nature." And, in addition to what has been said, "the Publisher of these Occurrences" proposes to correct false reports, and expose the "First Raiser" of them, and thinks "_none will dislike this Proposal, but such as intend to be guilty of so villainous a Crime_." Then follows the news, or "Occurrences." Mention is made of a thanksgiving appointed by the Christian Indians of Plymouth; the husbandmen find no want of hands, "which is looked upon as a merciful Providence," being a favorable season; the Indians have stolen two children, aged nine and eleven years, from Chelmsford; an old man of Watertown hung himself in his cow-house, having lately lost his wife, and thereupon "the devil took advantage of the melancholy which he thereupon fell into." Epidemical fevers and agues and small-pox are next spoken of: of small-pox, three hundred and twenty had died in Boston, and "children were born full of the distemper." A large fire is spoken of near the Mill Creek,--twenty houses burned; and on the 16th and 17th of this instant (September, 1690), a fire broke out near the South Meeting-house, which consumed five or six houses; a young man perished in the flames, and one of the best printing-presses was lost. Report of a vessel bound to Virginia, put into Penobscot, where the Indians and French butchered the master and most of the crew. The next is a longer article in relation to the expedition to Canada under Gen. Winthrop, its failure, and a variety of Indian complications. The editor says, "'Tis possible we have not so exactly related the Circumstances of this business, but the Account is as near exactness as any that could be had, in the midst of many various reports about it." Then follows an account of the massacre of a body of French Indians in the "East Country." Two English captives escaped at Passamaquoddy, and got into Portsmouth. There was terrible butchery among the French, Indians, and English at this time. Following this is some news from Portsmouth by an arrival from Barbadoes; a report that the city of Cork had proclaimed King William, and turned their French landlords out of doors, &c.; more Indian troubles at Plymouth, Saco, &c., &c. Then follows the imprint at the end, as already quoted. Such was the nature, character, and contents of the first paper ever published in America; and we doubt if the first paper printed in England, more than a hundred years before, exceeded this in manner and matter. The judgment of the present day would be that it was a very good paper for the time, both in its news and editorial matter, and we fail to see any ground of offence either against law or religion. Many of the early papers published in this country, after the failure of this attempt, are not half as good as this first copy of "Publick Occurrences." It is creditable to Benjamin Harris, and its discontinuance not so creditable to the "legislative authorities," who either made or perverted a law for its suppression. But the idea of establishing a newspaper "that something may be done towards the Curing, or at least the Charming of that Spirit of Lying, which prevails among us," is very peculiar. In all newspaper nomenclature it is hardly possible to find a more appropriate name than that selected for this first newspaper of America. We now have Heralds, Couriers, and Messengers; Records, Chronicles, and Registers; then all sorts of party names; Banner, and Standard; Crayon, Scalpel, and Broadaxe; Age, Epoch, Era, Crisis, Times; and finally Sun, Star, Comet, Planet, Aurora, Galaxy, &c., but among these and thousands of other names, not one more truthful and expressive than that of "Publick Occurrences." THE BOSTON NEWS-LETTER. The first Boston newspaper which gained a permanency, was published in 1704, and was continued for more than seventy years. It was equally fortunate in the selection of an appropriate and significant name, the "Boston News-Letter," and this was possibly suggested by the fact that it was preceded by the issue of a news-letter in manuscript which was as strictly, as the newspaper which followed it, a "News-Letter." Naturally enough too, considering the times, it was originated by the postmaster, who came in contact in his business, not only with the people of Boston, but generally with those of the whole colony, as we think, there were then but few post-offices in the colony: the need of a News-Letter for everybody would, as we have intimated, naturally suggest itself to him, and be also, as in fact it was, an important aid to his business, though it is said he did not make much out of it, and soon after lost his position as postmaster. New England. _The_ BOSTON News-Letter. From Monday April 17, to Monday April 24, 1704. "Boston: Printed by B. Green, and sold by Nicholas Boone, at his shop near the old meeting-house." [Illustration: The Boston News-Letter.] John Campbell, a Scotchman, bookseller and postmaster, was the proprietor of the paper. It was printed on a half-sheet, pot paper, and was to be continued weekly, "Published by authority." Among the contents was an article from the "London Flying Post," containing news from Scotland, "concerning the present danger of the kingdom and the Protestant Religion," "Papists swarm the nation," &c.; also extracts from the London papers, and four paragraphs of marine news. Advertisements inserted "at a reasonable rate from twopence to five shillings." On the same day that the paper was issued Judge Sewall notes in his diary that he went over to Cambridge, and gave Mr. Willard, president of the College, "the first News-Letter that was ever carried over the river." The second issue of the paper, No. 2, was on a whole sheet of pot paper, the last page blank. In the fifth number Boone's name was left out, and the paper was sold at the post-office. To No. 192, the paper was printed on a half-sheet, excepting the second issue. Green printed the paper for Campbell, until Nov. 3, 1707, after which it was printed by John Allen, in Pudding Lane, near the post-office, and there to be sold; and Allen printed it four years to No. 390. On the day that number was published, Oct. 2, 1711, the post-office and printing-office were burnt; and the following week it was again printed by Green, in Newbury Street, and he continued to print it until October, 1715. In 1719, Mr. Campbell tried the experiment of printing a whole sheet, instead of a half sheet, every other week, but this did not pay very well; and in addition to this difficulty, he lost the office of postmaster in December of that year. The new postmaster also printed a paper (Gazette) and this led to the first newspaper war in the country, but which did not last long, and terminated without much damage. In 1721, Campbell got a new idea and printed some copies of the "News-Letter" on a sheet of writing paper, leaving one page blank, so that his subscribers could write their letters on that, and send the paper abroad without extra postage. In the next year, after he had published the paper eighteen years, he sold to his printer, Bartholomew Green. "Published by authority" had been omitted by Campbell for two years, and in 1725 Green restored it. In December, 1726, the title was changed to "The Weekly News-Letter," and subsequently, in 1730, to "The Boston Weekly News-Letter," and the numberings of the previous issues were added together, and the total reached 1,396, in October, 1730. No other alteration took place until the death of Green, when in Jan. 4, 1733, John Draper, his son-in-law, succeeded him. Draper printed the "News-Letter" for thirty years, and died November, 1762. His son, Richard Draper, continued the paper and enlarged the title to "The Boston Weekly News-Letter and New England Chronicle." In about a year the title was again altered to "The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter," and was decorated with the King's Arms. Richard took a kinsman as partner, and the paper now bore this imprint: "Published by Richard Draper, Printer to the Governor and Council, and by Samuel Draper, at the printing-office, in Newbury Street." Richard Draper continued the paper, and in May, 1768, a singular arrangement took place between the "Massachusetts Gazette" (or News-Letter) and the "Boston Post Boy and Advertiser," and both papers were "Published by authority," in other words as government papers. Each paper was one-half "The Massachusetts Gazette, published by authority," and the other half bore its own proper name; and Draper called it the "Adam and Eve paper." This plan continued until September, 1769, and then its title "The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter," was resumed. In May, 1774, Draper took a partner, and the next month he died, and his widow, Margaret Draper, continued the paper in the interest of the loyalists or tories, until the evacuation of Boston, and then it ceased. She went to Halifax and then to England, and there obtained a pension. The "News-Letter" was published seventy-two years. It is a curious fact that the first newspaper established in Boston should have got into the hands of the tories, and in the last year of its existence, in the trying times of the revolutionary war, should have been conducted by a woman. * * * * * "The New England Chronicle, or The Evening Gazette," published at Cambridge, Sept. 28, 1775, speaks of "Mrs. Draper's Paper," in the following paragraph:-- "The miserable Tools of Tyranny in Boston appear now to be somewhat conscious of their infamy in Burning Charlestown, and are, with the assistance of the Father of Liars, devising Methods for clearing up their characters. One of them, in Mrs. Draper's paper, asserts that the Provincials, on the 17th of June, after firing out of Houses upon the King's troops, set the Buildings on Fire. This doubtless, is as true as that the Provincials fired first upon the King's Troops at Lexington. Both of them are equally false, and well known to be as palpable Lies as ever were uttered. The propagation of them are, however, perfectly consistent with the Perfidy, Cowardice, and Barbarity of Gage and his detestable understrappers." Some other paragraphs are copied from "Mrs. Draper's last Boston Paper," of which the following is one:-- "We hear a certain Person of Weight among the Rebels hath offered to return to his Allegiance on Condition of being pardoned and provided for: What encouragement he has received remains a secret." * * * * * John L. DeWolf, Esq., of Boston, has complete files of "The Boston Weekly News-Letter," for the years 1744 and 1745; and we are indebted to him for the use of them. The following are specimens of some of the advertisements of the time:-- "To be sold, a likely Negro boy about 12 years old: enquire of the printer." "To be sold by the Province Treasurer: Good Winter Rye, which may be seen at the Granary, on the Common" [Park street]. "A fine negro male child to be given away." [There are numerous advertisements of slaves and negroes.] "To be sold, a Good Dwelling-House, situate near the Green Dragon, in the Main street, with a large tract of Land for a Garden, a good Well in the Cellar and other conveniences. Enquire of Daniel Johonnot, Distiller." Elizabeth Macneal advertises "a likely young negro girl;" "also some Household goods to be sold." Josiah Jones advertises his man servant, 19 years of age as a runaway, "having on an old ragged Coat, a good Check'd Shirt and Trowsers, a Pair of Black Callamanco Breeches, a pair of Gray Yarn Stockings, and a new Pair of Shoes." "The Gentleman who borrowed a Blue Great Coat at the White Swan, about three weeks past, is desir'd to return the same forthwith: the Person whom he borrow'd it of, thinking he has had it long enough." "This is to inform the Publick, That the Cold-Bath in the Bath-Garden, at the West End of Boston is in Beautiful Order for use. It is a living Spring of Water, which the coldest Season in Winter never affects or freezes," &c. "This is to inform the Publick that Edmond Lewis of Boston, watch-maker, never bought a Watch of, nor ever sold one to any Slave whatever; and the malicious Report of his having dealt with some negroes is scandalously false." "Choice Carolina Pork and Beef, to be sold at the Warehouse on the South side of the Town Dock, adjoining the Impost office." "A negro woman to be sold by the Printer of this paper; the very best negro woman in town; who has had the small-pox and measles; is as hearty as a horse, as brisk as a bird, and will work like a Beaver." IX. CURIOUS BOSTON LECTURES. BOSTONIAN EBENEZER. There was published in Boston, in 1698, a very small thin volume of 82 pages, 3 � 5 inches, entitled "The Bostonian Ebenezer." "Some Historical Remarks on the State of BOSTON, the _Chief Town of New England_ and of the _English_ AMERICA, with some _agreeable methods_ for Preserving and Promoting, the _Good State_ of THAT, as well as any _other Town_, in the like circumstances." "Humbly offered by a native of Boston." Ezk. 48, 35, "The Name of the City from that day, shall be THE LORD IS THERE." Boston: printed by B. Green and F. Allen, for Samuel Phillips, at the Brick Shop, 1698. This singular little volume contains two lectures. Preceding the first lecture at the top of the page are these lines:-- "THE HISTORY OF BOSTON, Related and Improved. At _Boston_ Lecture 7_d._ 2_m._ 1698." [April 7, 1698.] The remainder of the page is occupied with this preface:-- "Remarkable and memorable, was the Time, when an _Army_ of Terrible _Destroyers_ was coming against one of the _Chief Towns_ in the Land of Israel. God Rescued the _Town_ from the Irresistible Fury and Approach of those Destroyers, by an Immediate Hand of Heaven upon them. Upon that miraculous Rescue of the _Town_, and of the whole Country whose Fate was much enwrapped in it, there follow'd that Action of the Prophet, SAMUEL, which is this Day, to be, with some Imitation Repeated, in the midst of thee, O, BOSTON, _Thou helped of the Lord_." At the head of the next page we have the text,-- I SAM. VII. 12. "Then SAMUEL took a Stone and Set it up, ... and called the Name of it EBENEZER, saying, Hitherto the Lord hath Helped us." Then follows the exordium, in which the preacher says the Thankful Servants of God have used sometimes to erect monuments of stone as durable tokens of their thankfulness:-- "Jacob did so; Joshua did so; and Samuel did so." "The Stone erected by Samuel, with the name of Ebenezer, which is as much as to say, _A Stone of Help_. I know not whether any thing might be _Writt_ upon it; but I am sure, there is one thing to be now _Read_ upon it, by ourselves, in the Text where we find it: Namely, this much, "_That a People whom the God of Heaven hath Remarkably Helped, in their Distresses ought Greatly and Gratefully to acknowledge, what_ =help= _of Heaven they have Received._ "Now, 'tis not my Design to lay the Scene of my Discourse, as far off as _Bethcar_, the place where Samuel set up his Ebenezer. I am immediately to Transfer it into the heart of _Boston_, a place where the _Remarkable Help Received from Heaven_, by the People, does loudly call for an Ebenezer. And I do not ask you, to change the Name of the Town, into that of =Help stone=, as there is a Town in _England_ of that Name, which may seem the English of =Ebenezer=; but my _Sermon_ shall be this Day your _Ebenezer_, if you will with a Favorable and Profitable Attention Entertain it. May the Lord Jesus Christ, accept me, and assist me now to _Glorify Him_, in the _Town_, where I drew my First Sinful Breath. A _Town_, whereto I am under Great Obligations, for the Precious Opportunities to _Glorify Him_, which I have quietly enjoy'd therein, for NEAR EIGHTEEN years together. _O my Lord God, Remember me, I pray thee_, and _strengthen me this once, to speak from thee_, unto thy People. "And now, Sirs, That I may set up an EBENEZER among you, there are these Things to be inculcated." "1. Let us Thankfully, and Agreeably, and Particularly, acknowledge what Help we have received from the God of Heaven, in the years that have rolled over us. While the Blessed Apostle Paul, was as it should seem, yet short of being _Threescore_ years old, how affectionately did he set an _Ebenezer_ with the Acknowledgment in Acts 26, 22. _Having obtained Help of God, I continue to this day._ Our Town is now _Threescore and Eight_ years old: and certainly 'tis Time for us, with all possible affection to set up our _Ebenezer_, saying, Having obtained Help from God, the Town is continued, until almost the Age of Man is passed over it. The Town hath indeed Three Elder Sisters in this Colony; but it hath wonderfully outgrown them all; and her Mother, old Boston, in England also; Yea, within a Few Years, after the first settlement it grew to be, _the Metropolis of the whole English America_. Little was _this_ expected, by them that first settled the town, when, for a while, Boston was proverbially called _Lost Town_, for the mean and sad circumstances of it. But, O Boston, it is because thou hast _Obtained help from God_." "There have been several years wherein the Terrible Famine hath Terribly Stared the Town in the Face. We have been brought sometimes unto the Last Meal in the Barrel! But the fear'd Famine has always been kept off." The preacher proceeds,-- "A formidable French squadron hath not shot one Bomb into the midst of Thee;" our Streets have not run Blood and Gore; devouring-flames have not raged. "Boston, 'Tis a marvellous Thing, a Plague has not laid desolate!" "Boston, Thou hast been lifted up to Heaven; there is not a Town upon Earth, which, on some accounts, has more to answer for." Secondly, we are to acknowledge whose help it is. "This is the voice of God from Heaven to Boston this day; Thy God hath helped thee!" "Old Boston, by name, was but Saint _Botolphs Town_. Whereas Thou, O Boston, shall have but one Protector in Heaven, and that is Our Lord Jesus Christ." The preacher's third division is that the help Boston has already had should lead her people to Hope. "Hope in him for more help hereafter." "The motto upon all our Ebenezer's is Hope in God! Hope in God!" In the course of this part of his lecture, the preacher says,-- "The Town is at this day full of Widows and Orphans, and a multitude of them are very helpless creatures. I am astonished how they live! In that church, whereof I am the servant, I have counted. The Widows make about a sixth part of our communicants, and no doubt in the whole town, the proportion differs not very much. Now, stand still my Friends, and behold the will of God! _Were_ any of these ever starved yet? No, these widows are every one in some sort provided for." Fourthly, "Let all that bear public office in the town contribute all the help they can that may continue the help of God in us!" First the ministers will help, and then he calls upon the Justices of the Courts, the constables, the school-masters and the townsmen to help: "Each of the sorts by themselves, may they come together to consider, What shall we do to save the town?" Fifthly, "God help the town to manifest all that piety which a town so helped of Him, is obliged unto!" And then the town is warned against all sorts of iniquities: against fortune-tellers, bad houses, drinking houses, &c. "Ah! Boston, Beware, Beware, lest the Sin of Sodom get Footing in thee!" "And, Oh! that the Drinking Houses in the Town, might once come under a laudable _Regulation_. The Town has an _Enormous Number_ of them! Will the _Haunters_ of those _Houses_ hear the Counsels of Heaven? For _you_ that are the _Town Dwellers_, to be oft, or long, in your _Visits_ of the _Ordinary_, 'twill certainly Expose you to Mischiefs more than ordinary. I have seen certain _Taverns_ where the Pictures of horrible Devourers[9] were hang'd out for the signs; and thought I, 'twere well if such _Signs_ were not sometimes too _Significant_! Alas, men have their estates _Devoured_, their names _Devoured_, their Hours _Devoured_, and their very soul _Devoured_, when they are so besotted, that they are not in their _Element_, except they be in Tippling at Such Houses. When once a man is Bewitched with the Ordinary, what usually becomes of him? He is a _gone man_. And when he comes to Dy, he'l cry out, as many have done, _Ale Houses are Hell Houses! Ale Houses are Hell Houses! Ale Houses are Hell Houses!_" ... "There was an _Inn_ at _Bethlehem_, where the Lord Jesus Christ was to be met withal. Can _Boston_ boast of many such? Alas, Too ordinarily it may be said, _There is no Room for Him in the Inn!_ My Friends, Let me beg it of you: Banish _the unfruitful works of Darkness_, from your _Houses_, and then the _Sun of Righteousness_ will shine upon them. Don't countenance _Drunkenness_, _Revelling_ and _Mispending_ of precious Time in your Houses. Let none have the _snares of Death_ Laid for them in your _Houses_." The preacher goes on in two or three _further divisions_ with his declamation against evil and sins, and his conjurations for better things, in faith, hopes and works, intimating all the evils that exist in Boston, and warning the people of the danger of them. The second sermon is a piece of similar declamation, about what the preacher calls Household Religion, "at Boston Lecture, 26d. 7m. 1695." A short extract will give a sample of this discourse. "First, I suppose, we are all sensible, That for us to Loose our Houses by any Disaster whatsoever, would be a very terrible Calamity: Oh! it would be a _Judgment_ of God, wherein the _Anger_ of God, would be seen written with _fiery_ characters. If by an accident, or by an enemy, our House be laid in desolation, every Roar of the Raging Flames, every crack of the Tumbling Timbers, every Downfall of the Undermined walls, and every jingle of the Bells then tolling the Funeral of those Houses, would loudly utter the voice in Deut., _A Fire is Kindled in the Anger of God_." This discourse is very severe upon all "Houses where God is not served," and defines them as gaming-houses, drinking-houses, houses where troops and harlots assemble. "If the Worshipful Justices, and the Constables, and the Tythingmen, would Invigorate their zeal, to Rout the Villanous Haunts of those Houses, the whole Town would be vastly the Safer for it." All that can be said of these curious discourses is that they are a strange medley of declamation, fanaticism, and exhortation, not lacking in thought perhaps, or devoid of sense, but rather insinuating than direct and sensible. The author does not print his name, though they purport to be Boston Lectures, one delivered in 1695 and the other in 1698: it is understood, however, that they were by the Rev. Cotton Mather. X. REMARKABLE PROCLAMATIONS. FAST DAY. The first proclamation, issued on a broadside, that we have seen, is that of March, 1743, "for a public fast." It is issued by Gov. Shirley, and begins, "It being our constant and indispensable duty by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to make known our requests to God," &c. He then appoints the 12th of April ensuing to be observed as a day of general fasting and prayer. After acknowledging "all our heinous and aggravated offences," the people are required to implore the Divine mercy for "the following blessings, namely," the life and health of "Our Sovereign Lord the King;" the prosperity of his government; that he would direct and grant success to his Majesty's arms in the present war, and prevent a further rupture among the nations; in behalf of the Prince and Princess of Wales; and that "it would please God to cover and defend the English plantations, more especially this Province," &c. Given at the Council Chamber, signed, &c., and ending "God save the King." "WAR AGAINST THE FRENCH KING." The next proclamation which we have is not probably much known, and not such as were issued by the governors of the Provinces or States, but is a "Declaration of war against the French King." It purports to be issued originally from "Our Court at St. James's, the twenty-ninth day of March, 1744, in the 17th year of our reign." "God save the King." "Printed in London by Thomas Baskett and Robert Baskett, printers to the King's most excellent Majesty, 1744." "Boston, N. E. reprinted by John Draper, Printer to His Excellency the Governor and Council, 1774." The proclamation rehearses the troubles which have taken place among the European states, "with a view to overturn the balance of power in Europe, ... in direct violation of the solemn guaranty of the Pragmatick Sanction given by him [the French King] in 1738, in consideration of the cession of Lorrain." It refers to other offensive conduct of the French King, and then replies to some assertions made in the "French King's declaration of war." "Being therefore indispensably obliged to take up arms," the King calls upon all his subjects to assist in prosecuting the same by sea and land; but no special reference is made to the British colonies in America, and the governor (Shirley) does not even add his name to the proclamation. One copy of the remarkable document, at least, has been preserved, and is in possession of Mr. John L. DeWolf of Boston. It is headed by an engraving of the King's arms, as are all the proclamations issued by the governor, including those for Fast and Thanksgiving Days, &c. It is not probable, though we do not know the fact, that a declaration of war by the King of England was ever re-issued by the governor of any other colony. Previously to this, in this colony, in 1672, the proclamation of war, by the King of England against the Dutch, was publicly read in Boston. FAST DAY. Following this on the 8th of June, 1744, was issued the "proclamation for a public fast." "Whereas it hath pleased God, in his holy, wise and sovereign Providence, further to involve the British dominions in war, whereby this Province will be greatly affected," &c. Therefore the 28th day of June is appointed to be observed as a day of fasting and prayer, &c., "and all servile labor and recreations are forbidden on that day." Signed, W. Shirley. [Troops were raised in Boston at this time, following the declaration of 29th March, and sent to Annapolis, Nova Scotia, where they arrived, as Gordon says, in season, and "were the probable means of saving the country."] RIOT IN BRISTOL COUNTY. Among the lesser proclamations, issued by Gov. Shirley, was one on account of "an heinous riot in the Town of Bristol, in open defiance of His Majesty's authority and Government within this Province." This was a case where the six persons named and "a great number of others," marched to the county jail, and there demanded the release of John Round, jr., and by force of arms broke open said prison, "rescuing and carrying off the said John Round and Samuel Borden, another prisoner in said gaol." The governor calls upon all officers and people to apprehend and secure the parties, and "for the encouragement of all persons whatsoever that shall discover the parties," a reward of one hundred pounds is offered for several of them, and fifty pounds each for others. Given at the Council Chamber in Boston, 18th day of October, 1744. Signed, &c. WAR AGAINST THE INDIANS. Another remarkable proclamation was issued by "His Excellency, William Shirley, Esq., Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." This is a "declaration of war against the Cape Sable's and St. John's Indians." It is stated that whereas some of the Cape Sable Indians, who have formally by treaty submitted to his Majesty's government, have, "in the port of Jedoure, in a treacherous and cruel manner, murdered divers of His Majesty's English subjects, belonging to a fishing vessel; and, whereas, the Cape Sable Indians with the St. John's tribe, have in a hostile manner joined with the French King's subjects in assaulting His Majesty's fort at Annapolis-Royal, &c., therefore, said Indians are declared to be rebels, traitors, and enemies, and His Majesty's officers and subjects are to execute all acts of hostility against the said Indians," &c. This proclamation is dated at Boston, Oct. 19, 1744. THANKSGIVING. On the next day, 20th October, 1744, there was issued the usual proclamation for thanksgiving: "Forasmuch as, amidst the many rebukes of Divine Providence with which we are righteously afflicted, more especially in the present expensive and calamitous war, it has pleased God to favor us with many great and undeserved mercies in the course of this year," particularly in preserving the life and health of the King, the Prince and Princess of Wales, &c.; in the restraint hitherto given to the Indians near the frontiers of this Province, &c.: therefore, the twenty-second day of December is to be observed as a day of thanksgiving throughout the Province. It will be noticed that nothing is said concerning the season or the crops in any of these thanksgiving proclamations, and it would seem that that matter was not thought of any account as compared with the health of his Majesty the King and the royal princesses. [Here are three proclamations issued on the 18th, 19th, and 20th October, 1744, the first in relation to a "heinous riot," the second a bloody declaration of war, and the third for a public thanksgiving.] BLOODY PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE INDIANS. In two weeks after the thanksgiving proclamation, on the 2d of November, 1744, came forth another proclamation from Gov. Shirley, of a most bloody character, against the Indians, as follows:-- [Illustration] BY HIS EXCELLENCY WILLIAM SHIRLEY, Esq.; Captain-General and Governour-in-Chief, in and over HIS MAJESTY'S Province of the _Massachusetts-Bay_ in NEW-ENGLAND. A PROCLAMATION _For the Encouragement of_ Voluntiers _to prosecute the_ WAR _against the_ St. John's _and_ Cape Sable's _Indians_. Whereas the Indians of the _Cape-Sable's_ and St. _John's_ Tribes have by their Violation of their solemn Treaties with His Majesty's Governours, and their open Hostilities committed against His Majesty's Subjects of this Province and the Province of _Nova-Scotia_, obliged me, with the unanimous Advice of His Majesty's Council, to declare war against them; In Consequence of which the General Assembly of this Province have "_Voted_, That there be granted, to be paid out of the publick Treasury, to any Company, Party, or Person singly, of His Majesty's Subjects, belonging to and residing within this Province, who shall voluntarily, and at their own proper Cost and Charge, go out and kill a male Indian of the Age of Twelve Years or upwards, of the Tribe of St. _Johns_ or _Cape-Sables_, after the _Twenty-sixth_ Day of _October_ last past, and before the last Day of _June Anno Domini_, One Thousand seven Hundred and forty-five (or for such Part of that Term as the War shall continue), in any place to the Eastward of a Line, to be fixed by the Governour and His Majesty's Council of this Province, somewhere to the Eastward of _Penobscot_, and produce his Scalp in Evidence of his Death, the Sum of _one Hundred Pounds_ in Bills of Credit of this Province of the new Tenor, and the Sum of _one Hundred & Five Pounds_ in said Bills for any Male of the like Age who shall be taken Captive, and delivered to the Order of the Captain-General, to be at the Disposal and for the Use of the Government; and the Sum of _Fifty Pounds_, in said Bills, for women; and the like Sum for Children under the Age of Twelve Years killed in Fight; and _Fifty-five Pounds_ for such of them as shall be taken Prisoners, together with the Plunder: _Provided_ no Payment be made as aforesaid for killing or taking Captive any of the said Indians, until Proof thereof be made to the Acceptance of the Governour and Council;" AND _whereas_, since the passing of the said Vote of the General Assembly, I have with the Advice of His Majesty's Council determined, That the Line above mentioned, to the Eastward of which the said Indians may be slain and taken Prisoners, shall begin on the Sea-Shore at Three Leagues Distance from Eastermost Part of the Mouth of _Passamaquoddy_ River, and from thence to run North into the Country thro' the Province of _Nova-Scotia_, to the River of _St. Lawrence_; =I have therefore thought fit, with the Advice of His Majesty's Council, to issue this Proclamation for giving public notice of the Encouragement granted by the General Court of all Persons who may be disposed to serve their King and Country in the Prosecution of the War against the said Cape-Sable's and St. John's Tribes, in the manner above-mentioned, upon their own charge; as also to give Notice to the several Tribes of the Eastern Indians, who are still in Amity with us, of the Boundary-Line aforesaid; assuring them that this Government have determined to treat as Enemies all such Indians as live beyond the said Line.= Given at the Council Chamber in _Boston_, on Friday the Second Day of _November_, 1744. In the Eighteenth Year of the Reign of Our Sovereign Lord GEORGE the Second, by the Grace of GOD of _Great-Britain_, _France_ and _Ireland_, KING, Defender of the Faith, &c. W. SHIRLEY. _By order of the Governour, with the Advice of the Council_, J. WILLARD, Secr. GOD save the KING. No mention is made of either of these remarkable proclamations in any history of Boston, or other work that we have seen; and it can scarcely be generally known that Massachusetts indorsed the proclamation of the King of England, declaring war against "the French King," or that the colony, without regard to the King and his government, declared war, including the most desperate and bloody conditions, against the St. John's and Cape Sable's Indians, a hundred years after the settlement of the colony, and something more than one hundred and fifty years ago. It will be noticed that the sum of five pounds additional is offered in each case for man, woman, or child, if brought in alive; but considering the expense, danger, and trouble of doing so, it could hardly have been expected that any thing beyond the scalps of the victims, even of children, would be brought in; and it would seem, if any considerable number were killed or brought in, that the debt incurred would be likely to become somewhat burdensome upon the colony. The terms of the proclamation were based upon the votes and orders of the General Court, authorizing the payment of the rewards offered, passed on the 26th day of October. The records of Boston show that in 1756, January, £50 were paid for an Indian scalp, and it is to be hoped this was the only payment ever made for such a purchase. FAST DAY. This threatening proclamation was followed by another, on the 18th February, for a general fast, as at this time the expedition to Louisbourg, which soon followed, was in preparation:-- "Whereas it has pleased Almighty God, in his holy and sovereign Providence, to involve His Majesty's Dominions in War, which, notwithstanding the many instances of success, which, through Divine favor, have attended the arms of His Majesty and his allies, ought to be regarded as an effect of the anger of God against us; and, whereas, this government have, upon mature consideration, determined by the Divine permission, to prosecute an expedition against His Majesty's enemies, upon the success of which, the prosperity of His Majesty's subjects in North America, and more especially in this Province, does under God, much depend," &c., &c., therefore the 28th day of February instant, is appointed for a general fast, to be observed with fervent prayers and supplications, and all labor and recreation are strictly forbidden. "Given at the Province House, in Boston, the 18th day of February, 1744." [The expedition sailed soon after, and arrived at Canso, under Col. Pepperell, on the 4th of April, having 3,250 Massachusetts troops. The fort and city of Louisbourg were surrendered and given up on the 17th of June; and two East India ships and one South Sea ship, worth £600,000, were captured at the mouth of the harbor.] ANOTHER FAST. On the 25th of March, 1745, Gov. Shirley issues another proclamation for a general fast, on Thursday, 4th day of April. The expedition for Cape Breton had just embarked and "taken their departure from this place," and this was deemed, in addition to the usual custom, occasion for a fast. The favor of Divine Providence was implored for the success of the expedition which the government had, at "great expense and labor, raised and fitted out with a large body of troops and a considerable naval force, for an expedition against the French at Cape Breton," &c. THANKSGIVING REJOICING. News of the success of the expedition was received in Boston, on the 2d of July, 1745, and there were great rejoicings and illuminations in the town in consequence; and on the 8th, Gov. Shirley issued his proclamation for a general thanksgiving, it having pleased God, as he elaborately expressed it, "by a wonderful series of successes to bring this great affair to a happy issue in the reduction of the city and fortress of Louisbourg." There was added, "All servile labor is forbidden on said day," and the bar against recreations is omitted; but all persons are called upon to preserve order. GOV. PHIPS'S PROCLAMATIONS. In September, 1745, while Gov. Shirley and his lady were absent on a visit to Louisbourg, the scene of the late success of his expedition, Spencer Phips, acting governor, issued three proclamations in the following three months: on the 6th of September, for a public fast, partly on account of the war with the Indians, and among other things "that His Excellency the Governor may be directed and succeeded in the important affairs he is transacting at Louisbourg and returned in safety." Signed S. Phips. By order of the honorable the Lieut.-Governor, with the advice of the Council. J. Willard, Secretary. The second was issued on the twenty-second day of November, 1745, on account of some disorders in Boston, committed by divers officers and seamen, belonging to His Majesty's ship "Wager," and other seamen belonging to the sloop "Resolution," late in His Majesty's service, by which two persons lost their lives. The constables and authorities of Boston and Charlestown are called upon to search for them in any justly suspected houses, &c. By order of the Honorable the Lieut.-Governor, with the advice of the Council. The third proclamation of acting Governor Phips was issued on the 25th of November, 1745, for a general thanksgiving, in "consideration of the manifold and remarkable instances of the Divine favor towards our nation and land in the course of the past year, which (though mixed with various rebukes of Providence manifesting the righteous discipline of God toward us for our sins) demand our publick and thankful acknowledgments." Signed, S. Phips. By His Honor's command, with the advice of the Council. Besides the above there were two or three other proclamations, calling for troops and other objects. The first Fast Day held in the Plymouth Colony, so far as we know, was in the month of July, 1623, and the first in the Massachusetts Colony, July 30, 1630, soon after Winthrop's arrival. XI. POPULAR PURITAN LITERATURE. AN EARTHQUAKE IN BOSTON. On the Lord's day, June 3, 1744, between ten and eleven o'clock, there was experienced at Boston, a violent earthquake, "which was felt for above an hundred of miles." The matter, naturally somewhat startling and impressive, called forth from some unknown author, an elaborate poem, the purpose and spirit of which will be readily understood by a few extracts. It is printed on a sheet, about 12 by 20 inches, in three columns, and was "sold by Benjamin Gray, in Milk Street, 1744." The first portion and some other parts of the poem are missing from the copy we have. Somewhere near the middle of the first column our quotations commence:-- "Again the Lord did shake the Earth, While Christ was in the Tomb, When from the glorious Heavenly World A glorious Angel came. Behold there was at that same Time An Earthquake strong and great, Which made the Watchmen at the Tomb To tremble, shake and quake. Again when Paul and Silas was Once into Prison cast, And cruelly the Keeper had In stocks made their feet fast, Like the dear Children of the Lord, They to their Father sing, They praises sing unto the Lord Till all the Prison did ring. When lo! immediately there was A terrible Earthquake, Which made the whole foundation of The Prison-House to shake. The Doors fly open by its Power And now wide open stand, 'Till these dear Prisoners of the Lord Are loosed from their Bands. And thus we see in very Truth, This wondrous Work is done, By none but the eternal God, And Israel's holy One. And that they're tokens of his Wrath, O, let not one gain-say, For sure the Lord is much provok'd, When he speaks in this way. Be then excited, O, dear Friends With vigorous accord, And all the might and strength you have, To turn unto the Lord. For lo! on the last Sabbath day, The Lord did plainly shew, What in a single moment's time He might have done with you. A solemn warning let it be, To all with one accord For their Souls precious Life to haste Their turning unto God. * * * * * "Perhaps you'll think the Danger's past That all is safe and sure Because the mighty God hath said He'll drown the world no more. But, oh! consider dearest Friends, How vast his judgments are, And if you are resolv'd to Sin To meet your God prepare. Who hath his Magazines of Fire, In Heaven and Earth and Seas, Which always wait on his Command, And run where'er he please. If God the awful word but speak, And bid the Fire run, The Magazines together meet, And like a furnace burn. Above our Head, below our Feet, God Treasures hath in Store; And when he gives out his Command, The Volcano's will roar. Amazingly the Earth will quake, The World a flaming be When God, the great, the mighty God Gives forth his just Decree. * * * * * "That man can't be prevail'd upon Tho' with our strong desire, To get prepar'd against the Day When all the World on Fire Shall burn and blaze about their Heads, And they no Shelter have; No Rock to hide their guilty Heads, No, nor no watery Grave. For Rocks will melt like Wax away Before the dreadful Heat, And Earth and Sea and all will flame In one consuming Heap. The Earth beneath abounds with Stores Of Oils and Sulphurs too, And Turfs and Coals, which all will Flame, When God commands the blow. The flaming Lightning which we see Around the Heavens run, Do livelily now represent The Conflagration. Those flaming magazines of God Have fire enough in store, And only wait their Lord's commands To let us feel their power. When once receiv'd they then will run, They'll run from Pole to Pole, And all the strength of Earth and Hell Cannot their power controle. Justly may we now stand amaz'd, At God's abundant Grace, To think so base and vile a World Is not all in a Blaze; When far the greatest part thereof Are poor vile Infidels, Among the Christian part thereof Are sins as black as Hell." In conclusion, these "precious souls" are entreated to join with one accord "In praising of the Holy Name, Of the Eternal God." Earthquakes were at one time rather common in New England, but nothing to be compared to their frequency in England. It is said that in what is called the "mobile district," of Comrie, in Perthshire, during the winter of 1839 and 1840, they had one hundred and forty earthquakes, being at the rate of about one shock a day on an average; and it is added, "They seldom do much harm." The following is a memorandum, probably nearly correct and complete, of earthquakes experienced in Boston, between the years 1636 and 1817; and it may be considered fortunate that they were not all commemorated by Puritan poets. 1638. June 1. Great earthquake in Boston. 1639. Jan. 16. Another earthquake. 1643. March 5. Sunday morning another earthquake. 1658. A great earthquake. 1663. Jan. 26. Very great earthquake. 1669. April 3. An earthquake. 1727. Oct. 29. An earthquake. 1730. April 12. An earthquake. 1732. Sept. 5. An earthquake. 1737. Feb. 6. An earthquake. 1744. June 3. The earthquake commemorated. 1755. Nov. 18. A very great earthquake. About one hundred chimneys thrown down, and other damage. 1757. July 8. An earthquake. 1761. March 12. An earthquake. 1761. Nov. 1. An earthquake. 1782. Nov. 29. An earthquake. 1783. Nov. 29. An earthquake. 1800. March 11. An earthquake. 1810. Nov. 9. An earthquake. 1817. Sept. 7. An earthquake. DEBORAH: A BEE. Another broadside sheet, some seven by twelve, is entitled as above, and divided into paragraphs, numbered from one to twenty, in prose. It is a sort of sermon in which the Christian is compared to the Bee, or perhaps placed in competition with the industrious and self-supporting insect. Its positions, omitting most of the applications, are these: The bee is a laborious, diligent creature; so is the Christian. The bee is a provident creature; so is the Christian. The bee feeds on the sweetest and choicest foods; so does the Christian. The bee puts all into the common stock; so is the Christian of a generous, communicative temper. The bee is always armed; so is the Christian with respect to his spiritual armor. Bees are a sort of commonwealth; so Christians are likened to a city that is compacted together. The bee, as it always has a bag of honey, has also a bag of rank poison; so has the Christian, with the grace of God, a body of sin and corruption, &c. Lastly, the bee lies dormant all winter; so the Christian sometimes slumbers, &c. "Yet the hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall awake and come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but alas, they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation!" Sold by Kneeland & Green, in Queen Street. Illustrated with a small fanciful engraving of a bee-hive, surrounded with horns of plenty and decorative carving. PROPOSED POPISH INVASION. Every thing which occurred in England, or elsewhere, in fact, having any reference to Popery, however remote, was sure to interest the Puritans, and demand their attention; and, it would seem, was sometimes provocative of poetry. So when the "happy discovery of a cursed plot against the church of God, Great Britain and her King," was announced by the King, on the 15th of February, 1743 (i.e., 1744), a large hand-bill was issued from the Boston press, to which the printer did not put his name, headed, "Good news from London, to the rejoicing of every christian heart." This was the discovery of the plot "for bringing in a young Popish pretender." The news was received by an arrival at Portsmouth, N.H., in twenty-six days from England, and included the message of the King to Parliament. The hand-bill contained the message in which the King declares that "having received undoubted intelligence that the eldest son of the pretender to his crown is arrived in France, and that preparations are making there to invade this kingdom, in concert with disaffected persons here," &c., his Majesty acquaints the House of the matter in order that measures may be taken, &c. This is followed by a long anonymous poem, beginning,-- "Behold the French and Spaniards rage, And people with accord Combine, to take away the life Of George, our sovereign lord. * * * * * "When George the first came to the throne, Their rage began to burn, And now they fain would execute The same upon his son. "Their hellish breast being set on fire, Even with the fire of Hell, Nor Love, nor charms, nor clemency, Can their base malice quell." * * * * * And so on through three columns, and then comes the CONCLUSION. "Let all that openly profess, The ways of Christ our Lord, Not spare to tell how much such things Are by their souls abhor'd. "Let every child of God now cry, To the eternal one, That George our sovereign lord and king May ne'er be overcome. "That all his Foes may lick the Dust, And melt like Wax away, That joy and peace and righteousness May flourish in his day." The proposed expedition, it is well known, never landed in England. The combined fleet escaped an engagement, and the transports were wrecked and scattered by a storm in the English Channel. THE SCOTTISH REBELLION. "A short history of the Grand Rebellion in Scotland, or a brief account of the rise and progress of Charles Stuart, the young pretender, and his associates; and his seasonable defeat by His Majesty's Forces under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland." This remarkable production is printed on one side of a single sheet of paper, seven by twelve, in verse, three columns. It begins,-- "From Rome the proud Pretender's come Flush'd with conceits of Britain's Crown, Imagining, poor silly Lad, Those glorious Kingdoms to have had, And all the churches of the Lord, They've roll'd in seas of Purple Blood; His grand commission from the Pope Was Fire, Faggot, Sword, and Rope, Or Boots, or Scourges, Cord and Whips, For all poor vile Hereticks." The poet proceeds with the landing in Scotland, where the Popish priest demised to him the land; the joining of the disaffected, the robbing of the people:-- "They range about and seek for prey Nor spare aught comes in their way; They murder, steal, rob and destroy, And many a goodly Town annoy." Flushed with victory, they move toward England, "and now to London drive along." "Which brave Prince William quickly hears And without any Dread or Fears, Pursues the Rebels in full chase, And lo, they fly before his Grace, Who still pursues and overtakes, And many a Highland captive makes. * * * * * The rest now fly, won't stand to Fight, But back to Scotland make their flight. And there like Beasts who've furious grown They range about from Town to Town. * * * * * But Heaven beheld these bloody men, No longer now would bear with them, Inspires the Duke of Cumberland To take the work into his hand, To scourge this cursed barbarous Brood For all their Rapine, Stealth, and Blood. Away he goes, post haste he flies, To face the raging Enemies, To Scotland, where the wretches fled, When chas'd from Carlisle, full of dread, Where being come, his troops combine, And all in lovely Consort join, And strong Desires do now express, To slay these Sons of Wickedness. Great Joy and Gladness now was shown, When to the Folk it was made known That Cumberland, the brave, was come To save them from expected Ruin." The people joining the Duke, the enemy was pursued, when-- "A church in which their stores did lay, They blow'd up ere they ran away," after they had bid the people enter in, and many "precious souls at one sad Blast, into eternity are cast." "But hard beset by British force They dare not stay, or they'd do worse; Some fly to mountains, some to dales, When all their hellish Courage fails. * * * * * Flying I leave them, 'till we hear The end of this most bloody war. * * * * * For which the thankful folk proclaim Thanksgivings to the Almighty name, And may we all now join with them, And to their Thanks join our Amen." Sold by B. Gray, near the market. Without date; printed in 1744. XII. REVOLUTIONARY PROCLAMATIONS. Gen. Gage's administration of less than a year and a half in the "Province of Massachusetts Bay," for he never had any government over the province other than military, was prolific in proclamations, some of which are rather curious. On the 1st of June, 1774, by order of Parliament and the King, Boston Harbor was closed and possessed by ships of the British navy. Nothing could enter or leave the port: wood as fuel could not be brought from the islands, or merchandise or lumber removed from wharf to wharf by water; nothing whatever could be water borne within a circle of sixty miles, either to arrive or depart. At the same time British troops held the town; and the government, such as it was, was removed to Salem, where the General Court reassembled on the 7th of June. At this session, on the 17th, as the result of arrangements made by Samuel Adams and his fellow-patriots, five delegates were chosen to represent the colony in the proposed Continental Congress, at Philadelphia. As soon as these proceedings, while yet in progress, reached Gen. Gage's ears by a tricky tory, who got out of the hall by feigning a call of nature, he issued his first proclamation, which Mr. Secretary Flucker, as he found the door locked and could not get into the chamber, had to read on the stairs, as follows:-- "Province of MASSACHUSETTS-BAY. By the GOVERNOR. "A PROCLAMATION for dissolving the General-Court. "WHEREAS the Proceedings of the House of Representatives, in the present Session of the General Court, make it necessary, for his Majesty's Service, that the said General Court should be dissolved:-- "I have therefore thought fit to dissolve the said General Court, and the same is hereby dissolved accordingly, and the Members thereof are discharged from any further Attendance. "GIVEN under my Hand at Salem, the 17th Day of June, 1774, in the Fourteenth Year of his Majesty's Reign. By his Excellency's Command,} } T. GAGE. THO'S FLUCKER, Secretary. } "GOD SAVE THE KING." Gen. Gage's next proclamation was against the existence of the famous "Committee of Correspondence," which Samuel Adams had originated, and the "solemn league and covenant" "to suspend all commercial intercourse with the island of Great Britain," &c. And "in tenderness to the inhabitants of this province," he issued this proclamation of warning. Then, as if to cap the climax of pretension and folly, not to say hypocrisy, on the 25th of July, while he relied upon the counsels and efforts of the tory party, issued what may be called a very curious proclamation, such as possibly, under some circumstances, might have been issued by Gov. Endicott, in the early days of New England Puritanism; but the Puritans had long before this time passed out of power. The following is the proclamation:-- MASSACHUSETTS BAY. By the GOVERNOR. A PROCLAMATION. _For the Encouragement of Piety, and Virtue, and for preventing and punishing of vice, profanity and immorality._ In humble imitation of the laudable example of our most gracious sovereign _George_ the third, who in the first year of his reign was pleased to issue his Royal proclamation for the encouragement of piety and virtue, and for preventing of vice and immorality, in which he declares his royal purpose to punish all persons guilty thereof; and upon all occasions to bestow marks of his royal favor on persons distinguished for their piety and virtue: "I therefore, by and with the advice of his Majesty's Council, publish this proclamation, exhorting all his Majesty's subjects to avoid all hypocrisy, sedition, licentiousness, and all other immoralities, and to have a grateful sense of all God's mercies, making the divine laws the rule of their conduct. "I therefore command all Judges, Justices, Sheriffs, and other Officers, to use their utmost endeavors to enforce the laws for promoting religion and virtue, and restraining all vice and sedition; and I earnestly recommend to all ministers of the gospel that they be vigilant and active in inculcating a due submission to the laws of God and man; and I exhort all the people of this province, by every means in their power, to contribute what they can towards a general reformation of manners, restitution of peace and good order, and a proper subjection to the laws, as they expect the blessing of Heaven. "And I do further declare, that in the disposal of the offices of honor and trust, within this province, the supporters of true religion and good government shall be considered as the fittest objects of such appointments. "And I hereby require the Justices of assize, and Justices of the peace in this province, to give strict charge to the grand Jurors for the prosecution of offenders against the laws: and that, in their several courts they cause this proclamation to be publickly read immediately before the charge is given. "_GIVEN at the Council Chamber in Salem, the 21st day of July, 1774, in the fourteenth year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord GEORGE the Third by the Grace of GOD of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c._ "THOMAS GAGE. "By his Excellency's Command, THOS. FLUCKER, Secry. "GOD SAVE THE KING." The gist of the proclamation, which was specially intended for the people of Boston, for whose benefit the words "sedition and hypocrisy" were used, was in the phrase, "submission to the laws of God _and man_." This proclamation was not like the previous one, directed to the sheriffs; nor was it ordered to be posted in the several towns of the province; nor was it ordered to be read from the pulpits of the churches; but the justices of the courts and grand juries were to see to its observance. It was, in fact, a mere piece of gasconade on the part of the governor, in imitation of his Majesty very likely; but, like the others, nobody either observed it or troubled themselves about it; and it has very rarely been spoken of since, if at all, by any historian. However it may be characterized, it simply had the effect to exasperate the minds of the people, owing to the insertion of _hypocrisy_ among the immoralities.[10] The proclamation itself, as they thought, was the boldest piece of political hypocrisy the government had yet perpetrated. It was much like every thing else which the king, ministry, or governor had done from the time of the stamp-act, and had a tendency to make matters worse instead of better. Gen. Gage's proclamation of the 12th of June, 1775, offering pardon to all who shall lay down their arms, &c., is well known. It begins,-- "Whereas the infatuated multitude who have suffered themselves to be conducted by certain well-known incendiaries and traitors in a fatal progression of crimes against the constitutional authority of the state, have at length proceeded to avowed rebellion," &c. ... "A number of armed persons to the amount of many thousands assembled on the 19th of April," &c. "In this exigency I avail myself of the last effort," and thereupon offers "a full pardon to all who shall lay down their arms, excepting Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment," &c. The proclamation was probably written by Gen. Burgoyne, and so little attention was paid to it that the army continued intact at Cambridge, and in exactly one week from its date occurred the battle of Bunker Hill, which proved so "fatal" to more than a thousand British soldiers. In less than four months after this time Gen. Gage "laid down his arms" and returned to England; and a few months later, in March, 1776, the army and the navy followed his example and left the country, taking the "Port Act" with them, but leaving for the use of the colony, arms, ammunition, provisions, and even medical stores. XIII. CURIOSITIES OF THE MARKET. "The turnpike road to people's hearts, I find Lies through their mouths, or I mistake mankind." [Peter Pindar. After arriving at Mishawam, and voting the church and that the minister should be supported at the common charge, it became necessary to think of providing in some way for the sustenance of the party. Although Gov. Winthrop, when he arrived off the harbor, went up to Salem in a boat, and was handsomely entertained by Gov. Endicott, whom he came to displace, with a rich _venison paté_, such fare was not afterwards found to be very plenty; and the strawberries, which those he left on board the ships found on Cape Ann, were not always to be had, nor a very substantial food for the settlers. Of course, the party had a supply of provisions,--a market of their own which they brought with them; and, as nobody could become a freeman or have a vote in public affairs unless he was a member of the church, it is to be inferred that nobody would be allowed any thing to eat only on the same condition; and this, if Peter Pindar was right, was a facile method of conversion and making disciples of the most obdurate. Hunting and fishing were no doubt readily resorted to as rather promising pursuits, and possibly some thought may have been given to cornfields, though there was no great anxiety for work. At all events, however successful the hunting parties were, so much of their supply of provisions was bartered with the Indians for furs that a scarcity of food was soon experienced, and then they had to buy corn of them. Matters soon became serious: for whatever might have been the primary object of the Puritans in coming to this country, eating was not beyond a secondary consideration, to say the least of it; and a market of supplies for the material man became an important consideration then, and has been so ever since. Dr. Johnson, who loved a good dinner and rarely found it at home, thought "a tavern was the throne of human felicity;" but, of course, such a notion as that never entered the minds of the Puritans. The first thanksgiving was for the safe arrival of the party, and the next was for the arrival of the "Lion," or some other ship, with a supply of food; and this, it is supposed, was not bartered off for furs. Indian corn, which was a new thing to the settlers, was for a long time the principal diet, occasionally modified with fish; but the truth is, how the settlers managed to live through all this time, in such a climate, up to the times that we know something about, is a complete mystery. Capt. Roger Clapp, who arrived at Hull on the 30th of May, 1630, about a fortnight before Gov. Winthrop arrived at Salem, and who died in 1690-91, described the state of things "in those days," in the following words:-- "It was not accounted a strange thing in those Days to drink Water, and to eat Samp or Hominie without Butter or Milk. Indeed, it would have been a strange thing to see a piece of Roast Beef, Mutton or Veal; though it was not long before there was Roast Goat. After the first Winter, we were very Healthy; though some of us had no great Store of Corn. The Indians did sometimes bring Corn, and Truck with us for Cloathing and Knives; and once I had a Peck of Corn or thereabouts, for a little Puppy-Dog. Frost-fish, Muscles and Clams were a Relief to many." ANIMALS, BIRDS, AND FISHES. Wood, in his famous "New England's Prospect," gives some particulars about game and hunting among the early settlers in 1639:-- "Having related unto you the pleasant situation of the country, the healthfulness of the climate, the nature of the soil, with his vegetatives, and other commodities; it will not be amiss to inform you of such irrational creatures as are daily bred, and continually nourished in this country, which do much conduce to the well-being of the inhabitants, affording not only meat for the belly, but cloathing for the back. The beasts be as followeth:-- "The kingly Lion, and the strong arm'd Bear, The large limb'd Mooses, with the tripping Deer; Quill-darting Porcupines, and Raccoons be Castel'd in the hollow of an aged tree; The skipping Squirrel, Rabbet, purblind Hare, Immured in the self same castle are, Lest red-ey'd Ferret, wily Foxes should Them undermine, if rampir'd but with mould; The grim-fac'd Ounce, and rav'nous howling Wolf, Whose meagre paunch sucks like a swallowing gulf; Black glistering Otters, and rich coated Bever, The Civet scented Musquash smelling ever." WHAT BEFELL A HUNTER. "Two men going a fowling, appointed at evening to meet at a certain pond side, to share equally, and to return home; one of these gunners having killed a Seal or Sea-calf, brought it to the pond where he was to meet his comrade, afterwards returning to the sea-side for more game, and having loaded himself with more Geese and Ducks he repaired to the pond, where he saw a great Bear feeding on his seal, which caused him to throw down his load, and give the Bear a salute; which though it was but with goose-shot, yet tumbled him over and over; whereupon the man supposing him to be in a manner dead, ran and beat him with the handle of his gun. The Bear perceiving him to be such a coward to strike him when he was down, scrambled up, standing at defiance with him, scratching his legs, tearing his cloaths and face, who stood it out till his six foot gun was broken in the middle; then being deprived of his weapon, he ran up to the shoulders into the pond, where he remained till the Bear was gone, and his mate come in, who accompanied him home." The author gives a peculiar description of the animals named. Of the lion, he says he had never seen one; but others "lost in the woods have heard such terrible roarings as have made them much agast: which must be either Devils or Lions;" so lions have it. The moose "is as big as an ox, slow of foot, headed like a Buck, with a broad beam, some being two yards wide in the head; their flesh is as good as beef, their hides good for cloathing." He describes deer, rabbits, squirrels, &c. The small squirrel troubles the planters so, that they have "to carry their Cats into the corn-fields till their corn be three weeks old." "The beasts of offence be Squncks, Ferrets, Foxes, whose impudence sometimes diverts them to the good Wives Hen-roost, to fill their paunch." He gives a fearful account of the wolves, which set on swine, goats, calves, &c., and care nothing for a dog. Equally curious with these are his descriptions of the "beasts living in the water," as the otter, musquash, &c., and of "the birds and fowls, both of land and water." "The princely Eagle, and the soaring Hawk, Whom in their unknown ways there's none can chalk; The Humbird for some Queen's rich cage more fit, Than in the vacant wilderness to sit; The swift-winged Swallow sweeping to and fro, As swift as arrows from Tartarian bow; When as Aurora's infant day new springs, There th' morning mounting Lark her sweet lays sings; The harmonious Thrush, swift Pigeon, Turtle Dove, Who to her mate does ever constant prove; The Turkey-pheasant, Heathcock, Partridge rare, The carrion-tearing Crow, and hurtful Stare." The raven, screech-owl, heron, cormorant, and so on to geese, gulls, mallards, teal, ducks, snipes, and many others. The fish also are rehearsed in verse:-- "The king of waters, the sea-shouldering Whale, The snuffing Grampus, with the oily Seal; The storm-presaging Porpus, Herring-Hog, Line shearing Shark, the Catfish, and Sea Dog; The scale-fenc'd Sturgeon, wry-mouth'd Hollibut, The flouncing Salmon, Codfish, Greedigut; Cole, Haddick, Hake, the Thornback, and the Scate, Whose Slimy outside makes him seld' in date; The stately Bass, old Neptune's fleeting post, That tides it out and in from sea to coast; Consorting Herrings, and the bony Shad, Big-bellied Alewives, Mackrels richly clad With rainbow colour, the Frostfish and the Smelt, As good as ever Lady Gustus felt; The spotted Lamprons, Eels, the Lamperies, That seek fresh-water brooks with Argus eyes; These watery villagers, with thousands more, Do pass and repass near the verdant shore." KINDS OF SHELL-FISH. "The luscious Lobster, with the Crabfish raw, The brinish Oyster, Muscle, Perriwig, And Tortoise fought by the Indian's Squaw, Which to the flats dance many a winter's jig, To dive for Cockles, and to dig for Clams, Whereby her lazy husband's guts she crams." It was recommended to those who came over after Winthrop, to bring with them a hogshead and a half of meal, "to keep him until he may receive the fruit of his own labors, which will be a year and a half after his arrival, if he land in May or June." Also, "malt, beef, butter, cheese, pease, good wines, vinegar, and strong waters;" and in addition, a variety of clothing, boots, shoes, implements, iron wares, stew-pans, warming-pans, fish-hooks, and every conceivable thing for use or labor, being assured that whatever they did not want, could be disposed of at a profit. MARKET SUPPLIES. One of the earliest accounts of the market supplies in Boston is that written by a French refugee in 1687,--almost two hundred years ago. He says,-- "An ox costs from twelve to fifteen crowns; a Cow, eight to ten; Horses, from ten to fifty Crowns, and in Plenty. There are even wild ones in the Woods, which are yours if you can catch them. Foals are sometimes caught. Beef costs Two pence the Pound; Mutton, Two pence; Pork, from two to three pence, according to the Season; Flour, Fourteen shillings the one hundred and twelve Pound, all bolted; Fish is very cheap, and Vegetables also; Cabbage, Turnips, Onions, and Carrots abound here. Moreover, there are quantities of Nuts, Chestnuts, and Hazelnuts wild. These nuts are small, but of wonderful flavor. I have been told that there are other Sorts, which we shall see in the Season. I am assured that the Woods are full of Strawberries in the Season. I have seen Quantities of wild Grapevine, and eaten Grapes of very good Flavor, kept by one of my friends. There is no Doubt that the Vine will do well; there is some little planted in the country which has grown. The Rivers are full of Fish, and we have so great a Quantity of Sea and River Fish that no Account is made of them." It is pretty certain that these things have been so ever since. FAMILY BILL OF FARE. A later account than this, however, and one with which some who are now living may be more or less familiar, or have heard of, is given as follows:-- "The ordinary food of the early settlers here, for both breakfast and supper, was bean porridge, with bread and butter. On Sunday morning there was coffee in addition. Brown bread, made of rye and Indian, was the staff of life, white bread being used only when guests were present. Raked pumpkins (in their season) and milk composed a dish said to be luxurious. [This dish is in common use among the country people at the present time.] For dinner, twice every week, Sundays and Thursdays, baked beans and baked Indian pudding, the latter being served first. [This last custom has gone wholly out of practice; but the Sunday dinner prevails to-day over the whole of New England, to a very large extent.] Saturdays, salt fish; one day in every week, salt pork and corned beef, and one day, also, when practicable, roasted meat was the rule." It is surprising how continuously some of these customs have been kept up and prevail. SEARCHING FOR PROVISIONS. It is not to be denied that provisions have been scarce in Boston, at times, since the days of the Puritans, hardly now to be realized. Long before the Revolutionary period, in 1711, during one of the wars between France and England, Admiral Sir Hovender Walker, with a fleet of fifteen men-of-war, and forty transports with upwards of five thousand men, arrived in the harbor on his way to the St. Lawrence River, for the protection of Canada. He wanted to victual his ships, and applied to Capt. Belcher (father of Gov. Jonathan Belcher), a rich and leading man, as being the only person who could undertake the service, and he declined it. Next to Mr. Andrew Faneuil, and he undertook it. Provisions were scarce and the price put up, so that a supply could not be had, and the governor was compelled to issue an "order for searching for provisions." The men, during the stay of the fleet, were in camp at Noddle's Island, and it is said that a formidable number of them deserted. CONCLUSION. We have thus travelled over some of the old avenues, ways, customs, and things, peaceful and warlike, more or less in connection with the early settlement, the mature town, and the gorgeous city, from 1630 to 1880; from the period of scarcity and deprivation to that of prosperity and abundance. The task has been delightful, and whatever may be thought of the ways and doings, and we may almost say the undoings, of the Puritans, the town which they planted and the principles they promulgated, rather than the intolerance they practised, have become permanent and sure. Now, indeed, there is neither intolerance nor scarcity; and however much our predecessors may have suffered we are now able to supply bread and beef to millions of people less favorably circumstanced. Perhaps nothing more distinctly or emphatically marks the character and quality of a people than their "ways and means" of living. It has been said that Americans are disposed to revel in big dinners; and, in fact, undertake to accomplish every thing with a big dinner, or at least celebrate the accomplishment of it in that way. One writer has said, if we welcome a guest it is done with a dinner; if we inaugurate a stock company or start a charity, it is pretty sure to have its relations with the market and the stomach. This may be partly so. A good dinner, social and liberal, is the reconciler, the inspiration, the motive power of good works generally; and what it cannot do, or at least help to do, is pretty sure not to be accomplished. Of course, all this is understood, and almost sure to be practised, so that, when any thing comes up, instead of going to bed to sleep on it, we hurry off to Parker's or Young's, or it may be, if the matter is very staid and respectable, to the old Tremont, and eat on it. The custom is in us--in the blood; it is Saxon, and comes naturally enough from the mother country. In England, the great diner-out, Douglas Jerrold, who knows all about it, says, "If an earthquake were to engulf all England to-morrow, Englishmen would manage to meet, and dine somewhere among the rubbish," as if the occasion needed to be celebrated in that way. There have been times, now fortunately more than a hundred years ago, when our market could not be made to furnish a big dinner; when there was no market; when the enemy were seizing all the sheep and cattle; when the people were starving on salt provisions, and, in one instance at least, a party of gentlemen were invited to dine off a roasted rat in Boston; and again when a special request was made to the people, in consequence of the necessities of the times, "not to have more than two dishes of meat on their tables." But not long after this, on the 24th of January, 1793, there was a grand festival in honor of French Liberty and Equality, when an ox of more than a thousand weight was roasted entire, and drawn on a car by fifteen horses, followed by other carriages with hogsheads of punch, loaves of bread, &c., and a large procession of civil, military, municipal officers, and citizens, through the principal streets to State Street, where the table was spread and the dinner was served up in high style. At the present time, it would be an easy matter to roast an ox every day, and big dinners are regarded as of small account on the score of rarity. Some philosopher has said, "Eating dinner is a task which, above all others, requires the conscience pure, the mind easy, a reason undisturbed, the senses critical, and the body and spirit perfectly at rest." It may be said that the philosophers of the present day do not deem eating a good dinner "a task;" and it is pretty certain the mass of the people do not. It is to be hoped our market will never again be unprepared to furnish a big dinner, on all reasonable occasions, supply a British fleet, or meet the requirements of the people at home, or the necessities of the race abroad. FOOTNOTES: [1] The Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the London Spy. London: 1706. [2] The New England Tragedies in Prose, by Rowland H. Allen. [3] In the first interview between Governor Carver of Plymouth and the Indian Chief Massasoit, "after salutations, the Governor kissing his hand and the king kissing him, the Governor entertains him with some refreshments, and then they agree on a league of friendship." March 22, 1621. [4] Walford Street, in Charlestown, we believe, has been cut off by the Eastern Railroad freight tracks and likely to be lost. [5] William Paddy died in 1658, and the alley (now North Centre Street) bore his name for more than a hundred years. When some changes were made in the Old State House, in 1830, to accommodate the Boston Post Office, a stone was dug up which proved to be his grave-stone, though it is a little difficult to tell how it came there. On one side of it was the inscription, "Here lyeth the body of Mr. William Paddy, aged 58 years. Departed this life August--, 1658." And on the other side,-- "Here sleaps that Blessed one whose lief God help vs all to live That so when time shall be That we this world must lief We ever may be happy With blessed William Paddy." It may be concluded, we judge, that Paddy's Alley was well named. [6] In 1693, an eminent Quaker visited Boston, and afterwards wrote an account of his visit. He says, being a stranger and traveller, he could not but observe the barbarous and unchristian welcome he had into Boston. "Oh, what a pity it was," said one, "that all your society were not hanged with the other four!" [7] Faust invented printing, 1450. [8] Printing introduced into England, 1571. [9] The "Lion Tavern," or possibly the "Green Dragon." [10] Gordon's History, Vol. I., p. 253. LIST OF PUBLICATIONS. _Siege and Evacuation of Boston and Charlestown_, with a brief account of Pre-Revolutionary Buildings. By WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 8vo. pp. 64. 50 cents. "In this pamphlet Mr. Wheildon has gathered together, and put in a compact and readable form, such records as are accessible of the stirring events of a hundred years ago. Nothing could be more timely; and whoever wishes to acquaint himself with the events of 17th of March, 1776, will find what he seeks told in a simple and modest style between the covers of this pamphlet."--_Boston Journal._ "His account of the Siege and Evacuation of Boston and Charlestown, is by far the most complete and the best that has been prepared."--_Index._ "It is the most concise and accurate history of this interesting year of the Revolution published."--_Herald._ "To those who have read the history of the Battle of Bunker Hill, by the same author, William W. Wheildon, it is unnecessary to praise this work which covers a longer period."--_New Haven Palladium._ "It is an interesting story as told by Mr. Wheildon, who gives the chief credit for the conduct of the military operations, not to Washington, but to the Massachusetts officers."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ _Sentry or Beacon Hill: Its Beacon and Monument_, 1635 to 1812. By WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 8vo. pp. 120, with plans, heliotype plates, and engravings. 75 cents and $1.25. EXTRACTS FROM SOME PRIVATE LETTERS. "I am delighted with your new book Beacon Hill, &c. Nothing of the kind ever pleased me more." "I have read and re-read your exhaustive history of Beacon Hill. It revives a thousand delightful memories of my boyhood; all its statements tally with my recollections." "I enjoyed the reading of your book on Beacon Hill very highly. You have certainly made a careful study of that field, and have given me a large amount of information. I know much more about ancient Boston than I did before." _Paul Revere's Signal Lanterns_, April 18, 1775. By WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 8vo. pp. 50. Concord, 1878. "Mr. Wheildon considers, one by one, the various statements that have been made and theories broached concerning the display of lights from the Old North Church, on the evening of April 18, 1775. The conclusion to which he arrives seems to be supported by both documentary evidence and local tradition."--_Transcript._ "An occasional doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of the story; but the author of this pamphlet has evidently made a patient investigation, and appears to have established a very satisfactory case."--_Daily Globe._ "The author introduces many fresh facts having a direct bearing upon the once disputed position of the lanterns; and in consequence has produced a work of great historical value, in addition to many others of a similar nature from his pen."--_Commercial Bulletin._ [Since the publication of this pamphlet, the city committee have purchased two hundred copies of the work.] Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Passages in Blackleter font are indicated by =Blackleter=. 
44100	----	Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. RUTH OF BOSTON A STORY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY BY JAMES OTIS NEW YORK -:- CINCINNATI -:- CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY JAMES OTIS KALER ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON FOREWORD The purpose of this series of stories is to show the children, and even those who have already taken up the study of history, the _home life_ of the colonists with whom they meet in their books. To this end every effort has been made to avoid anything savoring of romance, and to deal only with facts, so far as that is possible, while describing the daily life of those people who conquered the wilderness whether for conscience sake or for gain. That the stories may appeal more directly to the children, they are told from the viewpoint of a child, and purport to have been related by a child. Should any criticism be made regarding the seeming neglect to mention important historical facts, the answer would be that these books are not sent out as histories,--although it is believed that they will awaken a desire to learn more of the building of the nation,--and only such incidents as would be particularly noted by a child are used. Surely it is entertaining as well as instructive for young people to read of the toil and privations in the homes of those who came into a new world to build up a country for themselves, and such homely facts are not to be found in the real histories of our land. JAMES OTIS. CONTENTS PAGE A PROPER BEGINNING 9 ON THE BROAD OCEAN 11 MAKING READY FOR BATTLE 13 THE REST OF THE VOYAGE 15 THE FIRST VIEW OF AMERICA 17 THE TOWN OF SALEM 19 OTHER VILLAGES 21 VISITING SALEM 22 MAKING COMPARISONS 25 AN INDIAN GUEST AND OTHER VISITORS 27 A CHRISTENING AND A DINNER 30 DECIDING UPON A HOME 33 A SAD LOSS 35 REJOICING TURNED INTO MOURNING 36 THANKSGIVING DAY IN JULY 38 LEAVING SALEM FOR CHARLESTOWN 39 OUR NEIGHBORS 40 GETTING SETTLED 42 THE GREAT SICKNESS 44 MOVING THE TOWN 46 MASTER GRAVES PROHIBITS SWIMMING 48 ANNA FOSTER'S PARTY 49 THE TOWN OF BOSTON 51 GUARDING AGAINST FIRES 53 OUR OWN NEW HOME 54 THE FASHION OF THE DAY 56 MY OWN WARDROBE 59 MASTER JOHNSON'S DEATH 60 MANY NEW KINDS OF FOOD 61 THE SUPPLY OF FOOD 64 THE SAILING OF THE "LYON" 66 THE FAMINE 67 THE SEARCH FOR FOOD 69 THE STARVATION TIME 70 A DAY TO BE REMEMBERED 73 THE COMING OF THE "LYON" 74 ANOTHER THANKSGIVING DAY 75 A DEFENSE FOR THE TOWN 78 THE PROBLEM OF SERVANTS 79 CHICKATABUT 80 BUILDING A SHIP 82 HOUSEHOLD CONVENIENCES 84 HOW THE WORK IS DIVIDED 86 LAUNCHING THE SHIP 88 MASTER WINTHROP'S MISHAP 90 NEW ARRIVALS 92 ANOTHER FAMINE 94 FINE CLOTHING FORBIDDEN 96 OUR FIRST CHURCH 97 A TROUBLESOME PERSON 100 THE VILLAGE OF MERRY MOUNT 101 PUNISHING THOMAS MORTON 102 PHILIP RATCLIFF'S CRIME 105 IN THE PILLORY 107 STEALING FROM THE INDIANS 108 THE PASSING OF NEW LAWS 110 MASTER PORMONT'S SCHOOL 112 SCHOOL DISCIPLINE 114 OTHER TOOLS OF TORTURE 116 DIFFICULT LESSONS 118 OTHER SCHOOLS 119 RAISING FLAX 121 PREPARING FLAX 123 SPINNING, BLEACHING, AND WEAVING FLAX 125 WHAT WE GIRLS DO AT HOME 127 MAKING SOAP 129 SOAP FROM BAYBERRIES 132 GOOSE-PICKING 133 A CHANGE OF GOVERNORS 135 THE FLIGHT OF ROGER WILLIAMS 136 SIR HARRY VANE 138 MAKING SUGAR 140 A "SUGARING DINNER" 143 TRAINING DAY 146 SHOOTING FOR A PRIZE 149 LECTURE DAY 151 PUNISHMENT FOR EVIL-DOERS 152 THE MURDER OF JOHN OLDHAM 154 SAVAGES ON THE WAR-PATH 156 PEQUOT INDIANS 158 RUTH OF BOSTON A PROPER BEGINNING [Illustration] Truly it seems a great undertaking to journey from London into the land of America, yet I have done so, and because of there being very few girls only twelve years of age who are likely to make such a voyage, it seems to me well if I set down those things which I saw and did that might be interesting to myself in the future, when I shall have grown to be an old lady, if God permits, or to any other who may come upon this diary. Of course I must first set down who I am, in case strangers should some day chance to find this book, and, growing interested in it--for who can say that I may not be able to tell a story which shall be entertaining, because of there being in it much which the people of England have never seen--give me credit for having written a diary without a proper beginning. You must know, then, that my name is Ruth. In the year of our Lord, 1630, when, as I have said, I was but twelve years of age, my father joined that company led by Master John Winthrop, whose intent it was to go into America to spread the gospel, and there also build up a town wherein should live only those who were one with them in the worship of God. This company was made up of four classes of people. First there were those who paid a sum of money for their passage to America, and, because of having done so, were to be given a certain number of acres of land in the New World. In the second class were those who, not having enough money to pay the full price for their passage, agreed to perform a sufficient amount of work, after arriving in America, to make up for the same. In the third class were those called indentured servants, which is much the same as if I said apprentices. The fourth and last class had in it those people who were to work for wages, at whatsoever trade or calling they were best fitted. It needs not that I should say more by way of a beginning, for surely all the people in England, if they do not know it now, will soon come to understand why we, together with those who have gone before us, and the companies that are to come after, have journeyed into America. ON THE BROAD OCEAN It was decided that my parents, and, of course, myself, should sail in the same ship with Master Winthrop, and the name of that vessel was the _Arabella_, she having been so called in honor of Lady Arabella Johnson, who journeyed with us. My mother was sadly grieved because of Mistress Winthrop's deciding not to go on the voyage with her husband, but to join him in the New World later, and this decision was a disappointment to very many of the company. I am in doubt as to whether the Lady Arabella would have gone with us on this ship, had she not believed Mistress Winthrop also was to go. It was on the twenty-second day of March, in that year which I have previously set down, that, having already journeyed from London to Southampton, we went aboard the _Arabella_, counting that the voyage would be begun without delay, and yet, because of unfriendly winds and cruel storms, our ship, with three others of the company, lay at anchor until the eighth day of April. Then it was, after the captain of the ship had shot off three guns as a farewell, that we sailed out on the broad ocean, where we were tossed by the waves and buffeted by the winds for nine long, dreary weeks. [Illustration] Had it not been for Master Winthrop's discourses day after day, we should have been more gloomy than we were; but with such a devout man to remind us of the mercy and goodness of God, it would have been little short of a sin had we repined because of not being carried more speedily to that land where was to be our home. There was one day during the voyage, when it seemed verily as if the Lord was not minded we should journey away from England. We had not been out from the port many days, when on a certain morning eight ships were seen behind us, coming up as if counting to learn what we were like; and then it was that all the men of the company believed these were Spanish vessels bent on taking us prisoners, for, as you know, at that time England was at war with Spain. It was most fearsome to all the children, but very much so to Susan, a girl very nearly my own age, with whom I made friends after coming aboard, and myself. MAKING READY FOR BATTLE When Susan and I saw the men taking down the hammocks from that portion of the vessel which was called the gun deck, loading the cannon, and bringing out the powder-chests, truly were we alarmed. [Illustration] Standing clasped in each other's arms, unheeded by our elders, all of whom were in a painful state of anxiety or fear, we watched intently all that forenoon the ships which we believed belonged to the enemy. Then I heard one of the sailors say that the Spaniards were surely gaining on us, and the captain of the vessel, as well as Master Winthrop and my father, must have believed it true, for all preparations were made for a battle. The small cabins, leading from the great one, were torn down that cannon might be used without hindrance, and the bedding, and all things that were likely to take fire, were thrown overboard. The boats were launched into the sea and towed alongside the ship so that when the worst came we might fly in them, and then that which was most fearsome of all, the women and children were sent down into the very middle of the vessel, where they might not be in danger when the Spaniards began to send iron balls among us, as it seemed certain they soon would. While we were huddled together in the darkness, many weeping, some moaning, and a few women, among whom was my mother, silent in the agony of grief, Master Winthrop came down to pray with us, greatly to our comforting, after which, so I have been told since, he went up among the men where he performed the same office. It was not until an hour after noon that our people discovered that those ships which we believed to be Spanish, were English vessels, from which we had nothing to fear. Then word was sent down to us in that dark place that we might come up above, and once in the sunlight again, we found all the passengers rejoicing and making merry over the fears which had so lately beset them. How bright the sun looked to Susan and me as we stood near the rail of our ship, gazing at the vessels which only a few hours before were a fearsome sight, but now seemed so friendly! It was as if we had been very near to death, and were suddenly come into a place of safety. THE REST OF THE VOYAGE From that time until St. George's Day, which you all know is the twenty-third of April, nothing happened deserving of being set down here. Then it was, however, that during the forenoon the captain moved our sails so that the ship would remain idle upon the waters, which is what sailors call "heaving to," and the captains of the other vessels, together with Master Pynchon and many more gentlemen, came on board for a feast. Lady Arabella and the gentlewomen of our company had dinner in the great cabin, while the gentlemen partook of their good cheer in the roundhouse, as the sailors call it, which is a sort of cabin on the hindermost part of the quarter-deck. By four o'clock in the afternoon the feast was at an end; the gentlemen who had come to visit us went on board their own ships, and again were the vessels headed for that country of America in which we counted to spend the remainder of our lives. Susan and I were much together during this voyage, for neither of us made very friendly with the other children, and I do not remember that anything of import happened until we were come, so the captain said, near to the New World. It is not needed I should set down that again and again were there furious storms, when it seemed certain our ship would be sunk, for there was so much of such disagreeable weather during the nine weeks of voyaging, that if I were to make a record of each unpleasant day, this diary would be filled with little else. [Illustration] I have set down, however, that on the seventh day of June, which was Monday, we had come, so Master Winthrop said, off "the Banks," where was good fishing to be found; but why this particular spot on the ocean should be called the Banks, neither Susan nor I could understand. The waves were much like those we had seen from day to day; but yet, in some way, the captain knew that we had come to the place where it would be possible to take fish in great numbers, and so we did. It is not seemly a young girl should set down the fact, with much of satisfaction, that she enjoyed unduly the food before her, and yet I must confess that those fish tasted most delicious after we had been feeding upon pickled pork, or pickled beef, with never anything fresh to take from one's mouth the flavor of salt. It was a feast, as Susan and I looked at the matter, far exceeding that which we had on St. George's Day, and surely more enjoyable to us, for what can be better pleasing to the mouth than a slice of fresh codfish, fried until it is so brown as to be almost beautiful, after one has had nothing save that which is pickled? THE FIRST VIEW OF AMERICA Five days later, which is the same as if I said on the twelfth day of June, early in the morning, when Susan and I came on deck, we saw spread out before us the land, and it needed not we should ask if this was the America where we were to live, for all the people roundabout us were talking excitedly of the skill which had been displayed by the master of the _Arabella_, in thus bringing us directly to the place where we had counted on coming. It can well be fancied that Susan and I overhung the rail as the ship sailed nearer and nearer to the land, watching intently everything before us; yet seeing, much to our surprise, little more than would have been seen had we come upon the coast of England. I had foolishly believed that even the shores of this New World would be unlike anything to be found elsewhere, and yet they were much the same. The rocks rising high above the waters, with the waves beating against them, made up a picture such as we had before us even while we lay at anchor off Cowes. The trees were like unto the trees in our own land, and the grass was of no different color. Save that all this before us was a wilderness, we might have been off the coast of Cornwall. I have said it was all the same, and yet because of the fears and the anxieties regarding the future, was it different. This was the land to which we had come for the making of a new home; the place where our parents had pledged themselves to spread the gospel as the Lord would have it spread. We knew, because of what had been written by our friends who had journeyed to this new world before us that here we were to find brown savages, many of whom, like wild beasts, would thirst to shed our blood. Here also could we expect to see fierce animals, such as might not be met with elsewhere in the world; and, in the way of blessings, we should meet those friends of ours who, for conscience sake and for the will to do God's bidding, had come to prepare the land that it should be more friendly toward us. THE TOWN OF SALEM I had not yet been able to discover any of the dwellings which marked the town of Naumkeag, or Salem, when all the cannon on board our vessel were set off with a great noise. Then, as we came around a point of land, there appeared before our eyes a goodly ship lying at anchor, and beyond her the town that was--much to my disappointment, for I had fancied something grander--made up of a few log houses which seemed rather to be quarters for servants than dwellings for gentlemen's families, although we had been told that the habitations would be rude indeed. [Illustration] A boat was put into the water from our ship, and as the sailors rowed toward the vessel which was at anchor, I heard my father say to my mother that they were going in quest of Master William Pierce, a London friend of ours. As we watched, I asked that question which had come often in my mind during the voyage, which was, why this new town that Master Endicott had built should have two names. Mother told me that the Indians had called the place Naumkeag, and so also did those men who first settled here; but when some of our people came, and gathered around them several from the Plymouth Colony, together with a number of planters who had built themselves homes along the shore, it was decided to name the new town Salem, which means peace, for here it was they hoped to gain that peace which should be on this earth like unto the peace we read of in the Book, which passeth all understanding. And now before I set down that which we saw, and while you are picturing our company on the deck of the _Arabella_ looking shoreward, impatient to set their feet once more on the earth, let me tell you what I had heard, since we left England; regarding this town of peace, and those of our people, or of other faiths, who settled here two years or more ago. OTHER VILLAGES Master Endicott, who was of our faith, had come to these shores in March of the year 1628, with a company of thirty or forty people, and, finding other men living at the head of this harbor which the _Arabella_ had entered after her long voyage, decided to build his home at this place. In the next year, Master Higginson, coming over with six vessels in which were eighteen women, twenty-six children, and three hundred men, joined the little colony. These last brought with them one hundred and forty head of cattle, and forty goats. However, only two hundred of this last company remained at Salem, the others having chosen to build for themselves a new town, which they called Charlestown, on that large body of water which is set down on the maps as Massachusetts Bay. In addition to these two villages, it was said that there were five or six houses at the place called Nantasket; that one Master Samuel Maverick was living on Noddles Island, and one Master William Blackstone on the Shawmut Peninsula. I have set this down to the end that those who read it may understand we were not come into a wild country, in which lived none but savages, and I must also add that not so many miles away was the town of Plymouth, where had been living, during ten years, a company of Englishmen who had worked bravely to make for themselves a home. And now since I am done with explaining, and since the boat which put out from our vessel and which I left you watching, has come back from that other ship, bringing Master William Pierce, let me tell you what we did on the first day in this new world. VISITING SALEM [Illustration] The gentlemen and ladies of our company were invited on shore to a feast of deer meat, while the servant women and maids were allowed to land on the other side of the harbor, where they feasted themselves on wild strawberries, which were exceeding large and sweet. It would be untrue for me to say that deer meat made into a huge pie is not inviting, because of my having enjoyed it greatly, and yet I could not give so much attention to the dainty as I would have done at almost any other time, so intent was I upon seeing this village concerning which Master Endicott had written so many words of praise. Had Susan and I come upon it within an hour after leaving the city of London, it would have looked exceedingly poor and mean; but now, when we were on the land after a voyage of nine long weeks, verily it seemed like a wondrous pleasant place in which to live. More than an hundred dwellings, so my father said, had been built. Some were of logs laid one on top of the other in a clumsy fashion, with the places where windows of glass should have been, covered with oiled paper, and doors that were so cumbersome and heavy it was a real task for Susan and me to open and close them, but yet they had a homely look. Then there were what might be called sheds, made of logs, or the bark of trees, and, in two cases, dwellings of branches laid up loosely as a child would build a toy camp. It was as if each man had built according to his inclination and willingness to labor, the more thrifty having log dwellings, and the indolent ones rude huts. Even Susan and I could understand that whosoever had decided upon the places where these homes should be built, had in mind the making of a large town; for paths, like unto streets, led here and there, while all around grew trees, not thickly, to be sure, but yet in such abundance as to show that all this had lately been a wilderness. [Illustration] Even in these streets had been left the stumps of trees after the trunks were removed, which served to give an untidy look to the whole, making it seem as if one were in a place where had been built shelters only for a little time, and which would shortly be abandoned. The welcome which was given us, however, was even warmer than we would have received at home in England, and little wonder that these gentlefolk whom we had known there, should be overjoyed to see us here. Both Susan and I came to understand, not many months afterward, how great can be the pleasure one has at seeing old friends whom he had feared never to meet again in this world. It was a veritable feast which these good people of Salem set before us, and yet so strange was the cookery, that I am minded to describe later some of the dishes at risk of dwelling overly long upon matters of no importance. MAKING COMPARISONS Master Winthrop said, when we were going on board the ship again, that although it was nothing but peas, pudding, and fish, quite coarse as compared with what we would have had at home in England, save as to the venison pie, it all seemed sweet and wholesome to him. When the day was come to an end, we went into the ship once more, for there were not spare beds enough in all the town to serve for half our party, and you may be very certain that once we were gathered again in the great cabin, all talked eagerly concerning what had been done; at least our parents did, for it would have been unseemly in us children to interrupt while our elders were talking. Mother was not well satisfied with the houses, believing it would be possible to make dwellings more like those we left behind; but father bade her have patience, saying that a shelter from the weather was the first matter to be thought of, and that the pleasing of the eye could well come later, after we had more with which to work. [Illustration] She, thinking as was I at the moment, of the floor in the house where we ate the venison pie, declared stoutly that there would be no more of labor in laying down planks, at least in the living-room, than in beating the earth hard, as it seemingly had been where we visited. Then, laughingly, he bade her rest content, nor set her mind so strongly upon the vanities of this world, saying that if God permitted him to raise a roof, so that his wife and child might be sheltered from the sun and from the rain, he would be satisfied, even though the legs of his table stood upon the bare earth. It was this conversation between my parents that caused the other women to talk of how they would have a home built, until Lady Arabella put an end to what was almost wrangling,--for each insisted that her plan for a dwelling in this New World was the best,--by saying that whatsoever God willed we should have, and that it would be more than we deserved. AN INDIAN GUEST AND OTHER VISITORS Both Susan and I had gazed about us eagerly when we went on shore, hoping to see a savage. We were not bent on meeting him near at hand, where he might do us a mischief; but had the desire that a brown man might go past at a distance, and we were grievously disappointed at coming aboard the ship again without having seen one. Therefore it is that you can well fancy how surprised and delighted we were next morning when, on going on deck just after breakfast to have another look at this new town, whom should we see walking to and fro on the quarter-deck with Master Winthrop, as if he had been one of the first gentlemen of the land, but a real Indian! There were the feathers, of which we had heard, encircling his head and ending in a long train behind. His skin was brown, or, perhaps, more the color of dulled copper. He wore a mantle of fur, with the skin tanned soft as cloth, and that which father said was deer hide cunningly treated until it was like to flannel, had been fashioned into a garment which answered in the stead of a doublet. [Illustration] I cannot describe his appearance better than by saying it would not have surprised me, had I been told that one of our own people had painted and dressed himself in this fanciful fashion to take part in some revel, for truly, save in regard to the color of his skin, he was not unlike the gentlemen who were on the ship. As Susan and I learned later, he was the king, or chief man, among those Indians who called themselves Agawams. Father said he was the sagamore, which, as I understand it, means that he was at the head of his people, and his name was Masconomo. A very kindly savage was he, and in no wise bloodthirsty looking as I had expected. He was a friend of Master Endicott as well as of all those who lived with him in this town of Salem, and had come to welcome our people to the new world, which, as it seemed to both Susan and me, was very thoughtful in one who was nothing less than a heathen. The Indian sagamore stayed on board the ship all day, and our company, together with the people of Salem, were as careful to make him welcome as if he had been King James himself. The reason for this, as father afterward explained to me, was because of its being of great importance that we make friends with the savages, else the time might come when they would set about taking our lives, being in far greater numbers than the white men. Neither Susan nor I could believe that there was any danger that these people with brown skins would ever want to do us harm. Surely they must be pleased, we thought, at knowing we were willing to live among them, and, besides, if all the savages were as mild looking as this Masconomo, they would never be wicked enough to commit the awful crime of murder. In the evening, after the Indian went ashore, the good people of Salem came on board in great numbers, and, seeing that it was a time when he might do good to their souls, Master Winthrop gathered us on deck, where he talked in a godly strain not less than an hour and a half. [Illustration] It was indeed wicked of Susan to say that she would have been better pleased had we been allowed to chat with the people concerning this new land, rather than listen to Master Winthrop, who, so mother says, is a most gifted preacher even though that is not his calling, yet way down in the bottom of my heart I felt much as did Susan, although, fortunately, I was not tempted to give words to the thought. A CHRISTENING AND A DINNER When another day came, we girls had a most delightful time, for there was to be a baby baptized in the house of logs where are held the meetings, and Mistress White, one of the gentlefolks who came here with the company of Master Higginson, was to give a dinner because of her young son's having lived to be christened. To both these festivals Susan and I were bidden, and it surprised me not a little to see so much of gaiety in this New World, where I had supposed every one went around in fear and trembling lest the savages should come to take their lives. [Illustration] The christening was attended to first, as a matter of course, and, because of his having so lately arrived from England, Master Winthrop was called upon to speak to the people, which he did at great length. Although the baby, in stiff dress and mittens of linen, with his cap of cotton wadded thickly with wool, must have been very uncomfortable on account of the heat, he made but little outcry during all this ceremony, or even when Master Higginson prayed a very long time. We were not above two hours in the meetinghouse, and then went to the home of Mistress White, getting there just as she came down from the loft with her young son in her arms. Mother was quite shocked because of the baby's having nothing in his hands, and while she is not given to placing undue weight in beliefs which savor of heathenism, declares that she never knew any good to come of taking a child up or down in the house without having first placed silver or gold between his fingers. Of course it is not so venturesome to bring a child down stairs empty-handed; but to take him back for the first time without something of value in his little fist, is the same as saying that he will never rise in the world to the gathering of wealth. The dinner was much enjoyed by both Susan and me, even though the baby, who seemed to be frightened because of seeing so many strange faces, cried a goodly part of the time. We had wild turkey roasted, and it was as pleasing a morsel as ever I put in my mouth. Then there was a huge pie of deer meat, with baked and fried fish in abundance, and lobsters so large that there was not a trencher bowl on the board big enough to hold a whole one. We had whitpot, yokhegg, suquatash, and many other Indian dishes, the making of which shall be explained as soon as I have learned the methods. It was a most enjoyable feast, and the good people of Salem were so friendly that when we went on board ship that night, Susan and I were emboldened to say to my father, that we should be rejoiced when the time arrived for our company to build houses. DECIDING UPON A HOME [Illustration] Then we learned for the first time that it had not been the plan of our people to settle in this pleasant place. It was not to the mind of Governor Winthrop, nor yet in accord with the belief of our people in England, that all of us who were to form what would be known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony, should build our homes in one spot. Therefore it was that our people, meaning the elders among the men, set off through the forest to search for a spot where should be made a new town, and we children were allowed to roam around the village of Salem at will, many of us, among whom were Susan and I, often spending the night in the houses of those people who were so well off in this world's goods as to have more than one bed. Lady Arabella Johnson and her husband had gone on shore to live the second day after we arrived, for my lady was far from well when she left England, and the voyage across the ocean had not been of benefit to her. Our fathers were not absent above three days in the search for a place to make our homes, and then Sarah and I were told that it had been decided we should live at Charlestown, where, as I have already told you, a year before our coming, Master Endicott had sent a company of fifty to build houses. It pleased me to know that we were not going directly into the wilderness, as both Susan and I had feared; but that we should be able to find shelter with the people who had already settled there, until our own houses could be built. It appeared that all the men of our company were not of Governor Winthrop's opinion, regarding the place for a home. Some of them, discontented with the town of Charles, went further afoot, deciding to settle on the banks of a river called the Mystic, while yet others crossed over that point of land opposite where we were to live, and found a pleasing place which they had already named Rocksbury. A SAD LOSS Susan and I believed, on the night our fathers came back from their journey, that we would set off in the ship to this village of Charlestown without delay, and so we might have done but for my Lady Arabella, who was taken suddenly worse of her sickness; therefore it was decided to wait until she had gained her health. But alas! the poor lady had come to this New World only to die, and it was a sad time indeed for Susan and me when the word was brought aboard ship that she had gone out from among us forever. We had learned during the voyage to love her very dearly, and it seemed even more of a blow for God to take her from us in this wilderness, than if she had been at her home in England. Although it is not right for me to say so, because, of course, our fathers know best, yet would my heart have been less sore if some word of farewell could have been said when we laid my Lady Arabella in the grave amid the thicket of fir trees. Mother says, that she is but repeating the words of Governor Winthrop, that it is wrong to say prayers over the dead, or to utter words of grief or faith. Therefore it was in silence we followed my lady in the coffin made by the ship's carpenter, up the gentle slope to the thicket of firs, the bell of the _Arabella_ tolling all the while; and in silence we stood, while the body was being covered with earth, little thinking how soon should we be doing a like service for another who had come to aid in building up a new nation. On the day after we left my Lady Arabella on the hillside, the ship _Talbot_, which was one of the vessels that should have sailed in company with the _Arabella_, arrived at Salem, and the grief which filled our hearts for the dead, was lightened somewhat by the joy in greeting the living who were come to join us. [Illustration] REJOICING TURNED INTO MOURNING Governor Winthrop was among those who seemingly had most cause for rejoicing, because of his son Henry's having arrived on the _Talbot_, bringing news of his mother and of the remainder of the family. Good Master Winthrop had so much of business to look after on this day, that he could not spend many moments in talking with his son, and mayhap he will never cease to regret that he did not give his first attention to the boy, for, during the afternoon, while his father was engaged with public affairs, Henry was moved by curiosity to visit some Indian wigwams which could be seen a long distance along the coast. [Illustration] Not being of the mind to walk so far, he cast about for a boat of some kind, and, seeing a canoe across the creek, plunged into the water to swim over that he might get it. Susan and I were watching the brave young man when he sprang so boldly and confidently into the water, never dreaming that harm might come to him, and yet before he was one quarter way across the creek, he suddenly flung up his arms with a stifled cry. Then he sank from our sight, to be seen no more alive. He had been seized with a cramp, while swimming most-like because of having gone into the cold water heated, so my father said, for the day was very warm; but however that may be, eight and forty hours later we walked, a mournful procession, up the hill, even as we had done behind the earthly clay of Lady Arabella, while the bells of the ships in the harbor tolled most dismally. Verily Governor Winthrop's strength is in the Lord, as my mother said, for although his heart must have been near to bursting with grief, no one saw a sign of sorrow on his face, so set and stern, as he stood there listening to the clods of earth that were thrown upon the box in which lay the body of his son. Susan, who is overly given to superstition, I am afraid, declared that it was an ill omen for us to have two die when we had but just come into the new country, and when I told her that it was wicked to place one's faith in signs, she reminded me that I found fault because of Mistress White's baby's being taken out of the room for the first time with neither gold nor silver in his hands. THANKSGIVING DAY IN JULY The ship _Success_, which was also of our fleet, having been left behind when we sailed from England, came into the harbor on the sixth of July, and then it was, although our hearts were bowed down with grief because of the death of Lady Arabella and the drowning of Henry Winthrop, that our people decided we should hold a service of thanksgiving to God because of His having permitted all our company to arrive in safety. Word was sent to the people of Charlestown, and to those few men in the settlement which is called Dorchester, that they might join with us in the service of praise, and many came to Salem to hear the preaching of Master Endicott, Master Higginson, and Governor Winthrop. [Illustration] LEAVING SALEM FOR CHARLESTOWN Four days later, which is the same as if I said on the twelfth of July, the fleet of ships sailed out of Salem harbor with those of our people on board who could not bear the fatigue of walking, to go up to the new village of Charlestown. Before night was come, we were at anchor off that place where we believed the remainder of our days on this earth would be spent. Because of the labor performed by those men whom Master Endicott had sent to this place a year before, there were five or six log houses which could be used by some of our people, and the governor's dwelling, which of course would be the most lofty in the town, was partially set up; yet the greater number of us did not go on shore immediately to live. Governor Winthrop remained on board the _Arabella_, as did my parents and Susan's, and now because there is little of interest to set down regarding the building of the village, am I minded to tell that which I heard our fathers talking about evening after evening, as we sat in the great cabin when the day's work was done. To you who have never gone into the wilderness to make a home, the anxiety which people in our condition felt concerning their neighbors cannot be understood. To us, if all we heard regarding what the savages might do against us was true, it was of the greatest importance we should know who were settled near at hand, if it so came that we were driven out from our town. OUR NEIGHBORS Now you must know that many years before, which is much the same as if I had said in the year of our Lord, 1620, a number of English people who had been living in Holland because of their consciences not permitting them to worship God in a manner according to the Church of England, came over to this country, and built a town which was called Plymouth. [Illustration] This town was not far by water from our settlement; indeed, one might have sailed there in a shallop, if he were so minded, and, in case the wind served well, perform the voyage between daylight and sunset. It was, as I have said, settled ten years before we came to this new world, and the inhabitants now numbered about three hundred. There were sixty-eight dwelling houses, a fort well built with wood, earth and stone, and a fair watch tower. Entirely around the town was a stout palisade, by which I mean a fence made of logs that stand eight or ten feet above the surface, and placed so closely together that an enemy may not make his way between them, and in all respects was it a goodly village, so my father declared. Near the mouth of the Neponset river Sir Christopher Gardner, who was not one of our friends in a religious way, had settled with a small company, and farther down the coast, many miles away, it was said were three other villages; but none among them could outshine Salem, either in numbers of people, or in dwellings. When we were on the shore in Charlestown, looking straight out over the water toward the nearest land, we could see, not above two miles away, three hills which were standing close to each other, and Master Thomas Graves, who had taken charge of the people that first settled in the town of Charles, had named the place Trimountain; but the Indians called it Shawmut. There only one white man was living and his name was Master William Blackstone, as I have already told you. It seemed to me a fairer land, because of the hills and dales, than was our settlement, and yet it would not have been seemly for me to say so much, after our fathers and mothers had decided this was the place where we were to live. GETTING SETTLED The days which followed our coming to Charlestown were busy ones, even to us women folks, for there was much to be done in taking the belongings ashore, or in helping our neighbors to set to rights their new dwellings. [Illustration] The Great House, in which Governor Winthrop would live, was finished first, and into this were moved as many of our people as it would hold. Then again, there were others who, not content with staying on the _Arabella_ after having remained on board of her so long, put up huts like unto the wigwams made by the Indians, which, while the weather continued to be so warm, served fairly well as places in which to live. If I said that we made shift to get lodgings on shore in whatsoever manner came most convenient for the moment, I should only be stating the truth, for some indeed were lodged in an exceeding odd and interesting fashion. Susan's father, going back some little distance from the Great House, cut away the trees in such a manner as to leave four standing in the form of a square, and from one to another of these he nailed small logs, topped with a piece of sail cloth that had been brought on shore from the _Talbot_, finishing the sides with branches of trees, sticks, and even two of his wife's best bed quilts. Into this queer home Susan went with her mother, while my parents were content to use one of the rooms in the Great House until father could build for us a dwelling of logs. [Illustration] THE GREAT SICKNESS It seemed much as if Susan was in the right, when she said that the deaths of Lady Arabella and Henry Winthrop were ill omens, because no sooner had all our people landed from the ships, or come up through the forest from Salem, than a great sickness raged among us. Many had been ill during the voyage with what Master Higginson called scurvy, which is a disease that attacks people who have lived long on salted food, and again many others took to their beds with a sickness caused by the lack of pure, fresh water. Our fathers had but just begun to build up this new town when it was as if the hand of God had been laid heavily upon us, for, so it was said, not more than one out of every five of our people was able to perform any work whatsoever. Those were long, dismal, dreadful days, when at each time of rising in the morning we learned that this friend or that neighbor had gone out from among us, and it seemed to Susan and me as if there were a constant succession of funerals, with not even the tolling of bells to mark the passage of a body from its poor home to its last resting place on earth, for by this time the ships had gone out of the harbor. The graves on the side of the hill increased tenfold faster than did the dwellings, and all of us, even the children, felt that our only recourse now was to pray God that He would remove the curse, for of a verity did it seem as if one had been placed upon us. Again and again did I hear men and women who had ever been devout and regular in their attendance upon the preaching, ask if we had not offended the Lord by breaking off from the English church, or if we might not have committed some sin in thus abandoning the land of our birth, thinking to ourselves that we would build up a new nation in the world. Therefore it was that even Susan and I felt a certain relief of mind, when Governor Winthrop set the thirtieth day of July as a day of fasting and of prayer; and in order that all the English people who had come into this portion of the New World might unite with us in begging God to remove the calamity from our midst, word was sent even as far as Plymouth, asking that every one meet on that day with words of devout petition. MOVING THE TOWN I have no doubt, because of mother's having said so again and again, that the good Lord heard our fervent entreaties, although the sickness was not removed from among us for near to six weeks. [Illustration] Then it was that Master William Blackstone came across from Trimountain, and told Governor Winthrop it was his belief we should do more toward aiding ourselves than simply praying. He advised, because of there being plenty of good water in Trimountain, that we forsake this village of Charlestown, and go across to the opposite shore. I might set down many words, repeating what I heard our fathers say concerning the wisdom of such a move, and yet this story which I am telling would not be improved thereby, for the day finally came when it was decided that, even at the cost of building new dwellings, we should take all our belongings across the water to the cove, back of which was a small hill, and, yet further behind, a circle of mountains. The cove would make an agreeable harbor for our boats; the hill straight behind it would serve as a location for a fort, while here and there were pleasant streams, or gushing springs, whereas in Charlestown we had only the water of the river, or from the marsh. That I may not weary you by much explaining, it is best I say that on the seventeenth of September, when the sun had risen, we gathered at the Great House to pray that God would bless us in this which was much the same as our second undertaking, for without delay, and before night had come, we were to go across the bay and make for ourselves other homes. And now lest it seem as if I were telling the same story twice, I will not set down anything concerning the building of this second village, because of that which we did in Trimountain being the same as had been done in Charlestown. The Great House was taken apart and carried across the water, as were also the dwellings of logs, and while this was being done, the women and children stayed in Charlestown, where Master Thomas Graves had made, what seemed to Susan and me, odd rules and regulations. MASTER GRAVES PROHIBITS SWIMMING He had been placed in command of the settlement by Master Endicott, and among his first acts was the appointment of tithing men, one of whose duties it was to prevent the boys from swimming in the water, as some lads of our company speedily learned when they would have enjoyed such sport. They were arrested straightway, and but for the fact of being strangers, who were not acquainted with the rules of the settlement, would have been fined three shillings each. Susan and I had no desire to spend our time swimming, even had it been seemly for girls so to do; but during very warm days it would have pleased us much to go down into the water, properly clad, in order to take a bath. Therefore did we believe Master Graves had done that which was almost cruel, and it surprised us no little when, later, our own fathers passed the same law. ANNA FOSTER'S PARTY There were good friends of ours in England who believed that we had come into a wilderness where was to be found naught save savages and furious beasts, and it would have surprised them greatly, I believe, if they could have known how much of entertainment could already be found. [Illustration] It was while we were waiting in Charlestown for the homes in Trimountain to be built, that Anna Foster, whose father is one of the tithing-men, invited all of us young girls who had come under Governor Winthrop's charge, to spend an evening with her, and we had much pleasure in playing hunt the whistle and thread the needle. Anna was dressed in a yellow coat with black bib and apron, and she had black feathers on her head. She wore both garnet and jet beads, with a locket, and no less than four rings. There was a black collar around her neck, black mitts on her hands, and a striped tucker and ruffles. Her shoes were of silk, and one would have said that she was dressed for some evening entertainment in London. Neither Susan nor I wore our best, because of the candles here being made from a kind of tallow stewed out of bayberry plums, which give forth much smoke, and mother was afraid this would soil our clothing. We were also told that because of there not being candles enough, some parts of the house would be lighted with candle-wood, which last is taken from the pitch pine tree, and fastened to the walls with nails. This wood gives forth a fairly good light; but there drops from it so much of a black, greasy substance, that whosoever by accident should stand beneath these flames would be in danger of receiving a most disagreeable shower. This entertainment was not the only one which was made for our pleasure while we remained in Charlestown; but because of the sickness everywhere around, very little in the way of merrymaking was indulged in, and it seemed almost a sin for us to be thus light-hearted while so many were in sore distress. THE TOWN OF BOSTON The first thing which was done by the governor and his advisors, after we had moved from Charlestown, was to change the name of Trimountain to that of Boston. As you must remember, Boston in England was near to the home of Captain John Smith, who explored so much of this New World and planted in Jamestown a prosperous settlement. It was also in Boston that the Lady Arabella, and the preacher, John Cotton, who had promised to come here to us, had lived; therefore did it seem as if such were the proper name for a town which we hoped would one day, God willing, grow to be a city. It is true our new village is built in a rocky place, where are many hollows and swamps, and it is almost an island, because the neck of land which leads from it to the main shore, is so narrow that very often does the tide wash completely over it; but yet, after that time of suffering in Charlestown, it seems to us a goodly spot. Our dwellings, except the Great House, are made of logs, and the roofs thatched with dried marsh-grass, or with the bark of trees. That each man shall have so much of this thatching as he may need, the governor and chief men of the village have set aside a certain portion of the salt marsh nearby, where any one may go to reap that which is needed for his own dwelling; but no more. [Illustration] In time to come, so father says, we shall have chimneys built of brick or stone, for when our settlement is older grown some of the people will, in order to gain a livelihood, set about making bricks, and already has Governor Winthrop sent out men to search for limestone so we may get mortar. But until that time shall come, we have on the outside of our houses what are called chimneys, which are made of logs plastered with clay, or of woven reeds besmeared both as to the outside and the inside with mud, until they are five or six inches thick. GUARDING AGAINST FIRES It needs not for me to say that these chimneys are most unsafe, for during our first winter in this new town of Boston, hardly a week passed but that one or another caught fire; and among the first laws which our people passed was one providing for the appointment of firewardens, who should have the right, and be obliged, to visit every kitchen, looking up into the chimneys to see if peradventure the plastering of clay had been burned away. Because of the number of these fires, and the likelihood that they would continue to visit us frequently, another law was made, obliging every man who owned a dwelling of logs to keep a ladder standing nearby, so that it might be easy to get at the thatched roof if the flames fastened upon it; and, as soon as might be, iron hooks with large handles were made to be hung on the outside of the buildings, for the purpose of tearing off the thatch when it was burning. It has also been decided that when we have a church, as we count on within a year, a goodly supply of ladders and buckets shall be kept therein for the use of the entire town, and then, when a fire springs out, our people will know where to go for tools with which to fight against it. OUR OWN NEW HOME It must not be supposed that because of our dwellings being unsightly on the outside, they are rough within, for such is not the case. Many of the settlers, as did father, brought over glass for the windows, therefore we are not forced to put up with oiled paper, as are a great many people living in this New World. It was partly the dampness inside our homes, so Governor Winthrop believed, which caused the sickness in Charlestown, and therefore it was that my father insisted we should have a floor of wood, instead of striving to get along with bare ground which had been beaten hard. Our floor is made of planks, roughly hewn, it is true, but nevertheless it serves to keep our feet from the ground. We have on the door real iron hinges, instead of leather, or the skins of animals, as we saw in Salem. Save for the roughness of the floor and the walls, the inside of my father's house is much the same as we had in England, for he, like all of Governor Winthrop's company who were able to do so, brought over the furnishings of the old home, and while some of the things look sadly out of place here, they provide us with a certain comfort which would have passed unheeded in the other country, because there we were not much better off in this world's goods than were our neighbors. [Illustration] Here, when I see a table made only of rough boards spread upon trestles, I can get much pleasure out of the knowledge that we brought with us those tables which we had been using in England, and, when our dinner is spread, save for the difference in the food, I can well fancy myself in the old home. We have our ware of pewter and of copper, and our trencher bowls are of the best that can be hewn from maple knots. In order that the walls and crevices, filled with moss and plastered over with clay, may not offend the eye, mother has put up all the hangings which she brought with her, and these, with some skins my father bought at Salem, hide entirely that which is so unsightly in other dwellings. Contrasting our home with many which we saw in Salem, or in Charlestown, I am come to believe my lines are truly cast in pleasant places, and I strive to be thankful to God for having given me the father which I have. THE FASHION OF THE DAY I am afraid it may be almost sinful for me so to set my mind upon the garments which one wears, and yet I cannot but contrast my father with some of the common men in the village. The ruff which he wears around his neck is always well starched, clean, and stands out in beautiful proportions. On his low, peaked shoes, mother ever has fixed rosettes, or knots made of ribbon. His doublet, which is gathered around the waist with a silken belt, is slashed on the sleeves to show the snowy linen beneath. His trunk hose, meaning those which reach from his waist to his knees, are of the finest wool. His stockings, when he is dressed to meet with the Council, are of silk, while his mandilion, or cloak, is always of silk or velvet. [Illustration] Perhaps one may think such attire hardly befitting a wild place like this, yet I know of nothing which serves to set off a man's figure, making him seem of importance in the world, better than that he be clad with due regard to the fashion of the day. Master Winthrop would not present the gentlemanly appearance which he does if he wore, as do the common people here, a band, or a flat collar with cord and tassels, breeches of leather, and a leather girdle around his waist. If he had, as do they, heavy shoes with heels of wood, or if his clothing were fastened together with hooks and eyes, instead of silken points, and if his hat were of leather, would we be pleased to call him Governor? My mother often says that it is unseemly in a child like me to speak of the clothing worn by gentlemen, and yet I have noticed often and again, that she is as careful of my father's attire when he goes out of doors as she was at home in England, where all gentlemen were dressed becomingly. Verily one need not go abroad in tatters, or oddities, simply because of having come into this New World, where much of work is required, and he who cares for his personal appearance, to my way of thinking, is to be given due credit. Surely so the Massachusetts Bay Company thought, for they furnished to every man who came from England to settle here, save it be those who could afford such things for themselves, four pairs of shoes and the same number of stockings; four shirts; two suits of doublet, and hose of leather lined with oiled skin; a woolen suit, lined with leather, together with four bands and two handkerchiefs, a green cotton waistcoat, two pairs of gloves, a leather belt, a woolen cap and two red knit caps, a mandilion lined with cotton, and also an extra pair of breeches. Of course such an outfit was for the common people, not the gentlefolk. [Illustration] In our company, the boys are clothed exactly as are their fathers, and many of them present a most attractive appearance, although my mother would not think it proper for me to say so, much less to put it down in writing. MY OWN WARDROBE It surely cannot be wrong for me to think of that which I wear, for if the good Lord has given me a comely body, why shall I not array it properly? Or if it be wrong, why did my father buy for me those things, a list of which I am here setting down, not from vanity, but simply to show how kind were my parents? I had a cap ruffle and a tucker, the lace of which cost five shillings a yard; eight pairs of white kid gloves, with two pairs of colored gloves, two pairs of worsted hose and three pairs of thread, a pair of laced silk shoes, and a pair of morocco shoes, not to speak of four pairs of plain Spanish shoes, or two pairs made of calf-skin for every day use; a hoop coat and a mask to wear when the wind blows too roughly, and a fan for use when the sun is hot. Susan had two necklaces, one of garnet and one of jet; but I had only garnets. Then I have a girdle with a buckle of silver; a mantle and coat of lutestring; a piece of calico to be made up when mother has time; four yards of ribbon for knots or bows, and one and one-half yards of best cambric. All these were bought especially for me when we left home, and surely it can be no sin that I take pride in them. MASTER JOHNSON'S DEATH It was shortly after coming to this town of Boston that we heard of the death of Master Johnson, Lady Arabella's husband. A friendly man was he, ever ready with a kindly word for us children, and we would have mourned his loss much more, but for knowing that it pleased him right well to go out of this world of sorrow, that he might join his wife in God's country. Susan and I had hoped we should hear of no more deaths among those we cared for, after having come into this last place of abode, and the news of Master Johnson's taking away caused her superstitious fears to break out anew; but I reminded her that we were in God's keeping, whatsoever might befall, and that for us to look forward into the morrow, searching for evil, was the same as an injustice to our Maker, who would do toward us whatsoever seemed good in His sight. As I look back now upon the time when our town of Boston first came into being, I can understand how well it is for us that we may not read the future. Had we at that time, when the winter was coming on, known how much of sorrow and of suffering was in store for us, before the earth would be freed from its bonds of ice, then I believe of a verity we must have given up in despair. However, it is not for me to look ahead even in this poor attempt at setting down what we did in the new land. Rather let me go back to our home life, and tell somewhat concerning the odd dishes which were frequently set on our table. MANY NEW KINDS OF FOOD There is little need for me to say that we had lobsters in abundance, and of such enormous size that one was put to it to lift them. I have heard it said that twenty-pound weight was not unusual, and whosoever might could catch, in traps made for the purpose, all the lobsters he would. [Illustration] As for other fish, I can not set down on one page of this paper, the many kinds with which the housewife might provide herself for a trifling sum of money. We often had eels roasted, fried, or boiled, because of father's being very fond of them, and mother sometimes stuffed them with nutmegs and cloves, making a dish which was not to my liking, for it was hot to the tongue. Some of the good wives in Salem had shown my mother how to prepare nassaump, which those who first came to Salem learned from the Indians how to make: It is nothing but corn beaten into small pieces, and boiled until soft, after which it is eaten hot, or cold, with milk or butter. Nookick is to my mind more of a dainty than a substantial food, and yet father declares that on a very small quantity of it, say three great spoonfuls a day, a man may travel or work without loss of strength. It is made by parching the Indian corn in hot ashes, and then beating it to a powder. Save for the flavor lent to it by the roasting, I can see no difference between nookick, and the meal made from the ground corn. Mother makes whitpot of oat meal, milk, sugar and spice, which is much to my taste, although father declares it is not unlike oatmeal porridge such as is eaten in some parts of England; but it hardly seems to me possible, because of one's not putting sugar and spice into porridge. We often have bread made of pumpkins boiled soft, and mixed with the meal from Indian corn, and this father much prefers to the bread of rye with the meal of corn; but the manner of cooking pumpkins most to my liking, is to cut them into small pieces, when they are ripe, and stew during one whole day upon a gentle fire, adding fresh bits of pumpkin as the mass softens. If this be steamed enough, it will look much like unto baked apples, and, dressed with a little vinegar and ginger, is to me a most tempting rarity. But we do not often have it upon the table because of so much labor being needed to prepare it. Yokhegg is a pudding of which I am exceedingly fond, and yet it is made of meal from the same Indian corn that supplies the people hereabout with so much of their food. It is boiled in milk and chocolate, sweetened to suit one's taste after being put on the table, and while to English people, who are not accustomed to all the uses which we make of this wheat, it may not sound especially inviting, it most truly is a toothsome dainty. [Illustration] The cost of setting one's table here is not great as compared with that in England, for we may get a quart of milk by paying a penny, or a dozen fat pigeons, in the season, for three pence, while father has more than once bought wild turkeys, to the weight of thirty pounds, for two shillings, and wild geese are worth but eight pence. THE SUPPLY OF FOOD The season had come when, if we had been in England, the people would have been gathering the harvest; but here we had none, having come so late in the year that there was no time to plant, and, consequently, we had no crops. I had never before realized how necessary it is for people that the earth shall yield in abundance; but I came to know it now right well through hearing father, as he talked with mother regarding the fears which the chief men of the colony had concerning the supply of food. Of course, girls such as Susan and I would not have been likely to learn anything of the kind, save that matters had come to such a pass as made the situation serious, in which case it was no more than natural we should hear our parents talking about it. It seems, from what I learned, that a portion of the provisions brought from England were spoiled during the voyage, and also, that many of our people had taken with them no more than enough to sustain life for a month or two, believing that in this New World food of all kinds would be found in abundance. Then again, many had bartered provisions, which they should have kept for the winter use, with the Indians in exchange for beaver skins, thinking thereby to make much money. So general had this traffic become, that early in September the Governor gave strict orders against it, and it was also ordered that no person in the town be allowed to carry out therefrom anything eatable. But yet the store of food grew smaller and smaller, for there were many mouths to feed, and it seemed as if we children were more often hungry because of knowing that there was little to be had. Susan reminded me of what she was pleased to call the "omen," when it was as if the first of our duties in the New World had been to bury two members of the company, and as the days wore on I began really to believe it a sin to harbor such thoughts. As it had been in Charlestown, so did it come to be here in Boston, when the rains of autumn set in. Many of the dwellings had not been built with due regard to sheltering those who were to live therein, and because of the dampness--although mother says it was owing quite as well to the homesickness and gloom which came upon us when the leaves in the forest turned brown, and yellow, and golden in token of the dying year--the people sickened. However it was, much of sickness prevailed among us in Boston, until the time came when my father and mother, to both of whom God had allowed good health, were absent from home day after day, nursing those of our neighbors who were unable to aid themselves. [Illustration] THE SAILING OF THE "LYON" It seemed at this time as if the Lord had set His face against the rearing of a nation in this new land, which he had given to the brown men for their homes, and Susan and I were not the only ones who came to believe we were offending Him in some way by thus having come here. Then Governor Winthrop caused it to be known throughout the town that he had hired Captain Pierce, of the ship _Lyon_, which was then in Salem Harbor, to go with all haste to the nearest town in England, there to get for us as much of food as could be bought. This news cheered the people somewhat, for now was the season when the winds blew strong, and it was believed the ship would have speedy passage. Indeed, some of the women declared she must return before the middle of October, and said so much concerning such possibility, that in time they came to believe it true. Therefore, when the month of October had nearly passed, their disappointment was great, and they were more despondent than at first. THE FAMINE [Illustration] Each day saw the store of provisions in the town grow smaller. Every family husbanded that which could be eaten, with greatest care, putting no more on the table than was absolutely necessary for a single meal, and those things which we had considered dainties, were no longer prepared. Then came the Angel of Death, and man after man, woman after woman, laid themselves down to die, not from being starved, but, so Governor Winthrop declared, from having sickened through scurvy, which had come upon them during the voyage, after which, falling into discontent and giving way to home-sickness, they no longer struggled to live. Before October had come to an end, food was so scarce in Boston that the poorer people had nothing save acorns, clams, and mussels to eat. During the summer it had seemed as if the sea were actually filled with fish, and yet now, when every boat that could be found in the town and nearby had been sent out, it was difficult for our men to take even fifty pounds weight in a day. As Susan said, even the fish forsook us, as the clams and mussels would have done had they legs or fins. The fowls of the forest also appeared to have departed, and by November the most any family could boast of was meal boiled in salt and water. In more happy days I would have turned up my nose at such food, and yet now it was like unto some sweet morsel, for so scanty had our store become that my mother would cook for each meal no more than half as much as we could have eaten. I have heard father say that for a bushel of flour which had been brought from England, he paid in those dark days fourteen shillings, and there was so little of it even at such price, that mother saved what store we had that it might be made into gruel, or something dainty, which the sick could keep upon their stomachs. THE SEARCH FOR FOOD Then it was that our pinnace was made ready for a voyage, and with five of the strongest men on board, was sent along the coast to trade with those Indians who called themselves Narragansetts, taking with them everything in the way of trinkets which was in the general store, or could be gathered up from among the housewives. [Illustration] Great was our rejoicing, five days later, when the men came back, bringing with them an hundred bushels of Indian corn. This seemed like a large amount of food, and yet, so many were the mouths to be fed from it, it was, so father said, scarce enough to hold life in our bodies three days, if so be it had been divided equally among all. Father told us that three men, who were of the poorer people, had walked all the way from Boston town to Plymouth; but even there, where a harvest had been gathered, they could get no more than one half-bushel of meal made from Indian corn. It was a time of famine such as I pray God we may never know again. In my home, until these dreary days, there had been no scarcity of food, and yet again and again did I save a crust of rye bread, thinking it a dainty to be nibbled upon slowly so that I might have longer the pleasure of eating. THE STARVATION TIME It was as if the ship _Lyon_, on whose return a few weeks before we had counted so hopefully, was gone, never to come back. Even the children watched the direction of the winds, saying on this day that it was a favoring one if the _Lyon_ were on her course for Boston, and on the morrow mourning because of the breeze being against her. Yet she came not, nor did we hear aught concerning her, or any other from the world beyond us. We were alone in what was much the same as a wilderness, and all those around upon whom we had counted to aid us in time of distress were in nearly the same dismal straits as were we. Even the Indians declared that they were hard pressed for something to eat, and more than once did they come in twos or in threes to beg from us who were starving, something that could be eaten. Susan and I, as we sat clasped in each other's arms hungry, and pining for the home over-seas which we had left, came to fancy that the famine which held possession of the land was like unto some terrible monster who hung above us as a cloud, settling slowly but surely day after day, until the hour would come when his terrible fangs would be securely fastened upon us. During the month of January the deaths through scurvy, if that indeed were the cause, grew less; but all believed that in the stead of being removed by disease, our people were slowly perishing from starvation. All the food in Boston was brought together, and portioned out, so that no one, whether he had of money, or was penniless, should suffer more than another. And yet again and again in the night have I been awakened by the gnawing of hunger in my stomach. [Illustration] With the beginning of January, Governor Winthrop appointed a day on which we should all fast and pray, as if indeed we had been doing other than fasting throughout the long, dreary winter. On this day every man, woman, and child in Boston town was to spend his or her time in praying to the Lord to deliver us from our affliction. We no longer hoped for the coming of the _Lyon_. Surely she must have been destroyed by the tempest, otherwise had we seen her before this, for nearly five months had gone by since she left Salem Harbor. A DAY TO BE REMEMBERED It was on the fifth day of February, which is the same as if I had said Saturday, and the fast was to be kept on the next Thursday. Susan had come to my home on Friday night to sleep in my bed with me, so that we might have such poor comfort as could be found in each other's company when we were nigh to starving. She had awakened before the day dawned on this Saturday morning, which will be remembered by me so long as the Lord permits that I live, and moaned in distress because of the desire for food, until I opened my eyes, fretting because of not being allowed to sleep yet longer, for while I slumbered the pangs of hunger were not known. Seeing me awake, Susan began to speak of the fast day on the following Thursday, saying that if we had no food whatsoever during the twenty-four hours, at a time when we were so near to starvation, surely would we die, and she was going back to what she called the omens, which came to us shortly after we arrived, when we were startled by a loud shouting in the street next beyond, where could be had a view of the sea. THE COMING OF THE "LYON" Dimly, like one in a dream, for there was no thought in my mind this might be a signal that our time of trial was come to an end, I wondered how it was that any in this famine-stricken Boston of ours could raise their voices as if in joy, until I heard father cry out from the living-room below: "The _Lyon_ has arrived! The _Lyon_ has arrived!" [Illustration] It might be that I could give you, by the aid simply of words, some faint idea of how we suffered during the time of starvation, of sickness, and of death; but it is impossible for me to set down that which shall picture the heartfelt rejoicings and fervent thanksgiving that were ours at thus knowing we were soon to have enough with which to drive death from our doors. It was a time of the wildest excitement. I hardly know what Susan and I did or said on that day, save that we dressed hurriedly, running down to the very shore of the cove, finding there nearly every person in Boston, and stood with the water lapping our feet as we watched the oncoming of the ship which was bringing relief. Never before had I thought a vessel could be beautiful; but I have not seen a fairer sight than was the _Lyon_ on that morning, and before night came, our stomachs, which had been crying out in distress because of lack of food, were groaning through being overly well filled. The time of famine had passed, at least for this season, and it was as if the sick began to gain new life, and health, and strength, simply through knowing that we were no longer in such dire straits. ANOTHER THANKSGIVING DAY Governor Winthrop gave voice to his relief and pleasure by ordering, even before the _Lyon_ had come to anchor, that the fast which had been appointed for the next Thursday should be a day of thanksgiving instead, and so we made it, with prayers all the more fervent because of our stomachs being well filled, and the fear of dying by starvation being put behind us. The ship was loaded with such things as wheat, peas, oatmeal, pickled beef and pork, cheese and butter, and, with what my mother declared was of the greatest value, lemon juice, which is said to be a remedy for those who are suffering with scurvy. It was not allowed that those who had money should buy plentifully of this cargo; but it was paid for by the town authorities, and divided equally among us all. When the day for thanksgiving came, my mother allowed me to have an unusually hearty breakfast, for, she said, there was so much for which to be thankful, and so many who would be present to give thanks, that no one could say when we might be able to have dinner. It was well she was thus thoughtful, for one of the preachers who came over with us, Master Wilson, preached, while Governor Winthrop treated us to a lecture, and Master Phillips was so blessed with the spirit that he prayed a full hour. Susan and I feared we would have yet more preaching, for on the ship _Lyon_ had come a young man whom my father said was gifted, and Susan's father believed he would make his influence felt among us. It was Master Roger Williams, and I am ashamed to say that I sat in fear and trembling lest Governor Winthrop should call upon him for a sermon, after we had already had much the same as two; but, fortunately, so it seemed to me, Master Williams did not raise his voice during the service. It was near to night before we were done with giving thanks, and then at each home was held a feast. [Illustration] During Governor Winthrop's lecture on this thanksgiving day, he urged that all the people, children as well as grown folks, should take this time of famine as a lesson, reminding us that it would not be a long while before we could hope to reap a harvest, and in the meantime there was very much of labor to be performed. He declared that even with the cargo of the _Lyon_, we had not enough to satisfy our wants until crops could be gathered; but it was certain other ships would come to Boston during the summer, with more stores. Yet because of its being possible we might come to a time of suffering again, so must we be careful that not the smallest grain of wheat be wasted. A DEFENSE FOR THE TOWN When the spring had come, and before it was time to put seed into the ground, our fathers set about building a defense for the town. If you remember, I have already set down that this new village of ours was on a point, connected with the main coast only by a very narrow strip of land. Now to defend our town from an attack by enemies, save they should come by water, it was only necessary the defence be built on this narrow neck, or strip, and so it was built. [Illustration] From one side to the other, extending even down into the water, was a palisade, or fence, of heavy logs, in the middle of which stood a gate to give entrance, and the law was that it should be shut at sunset, not to be opened again until day had dawned. THE PROBLEM OF SERVANTS Since coming here we have seen so many Indians as to become acquainted with them, which is to say, that we no longer look upon them as savages, and have no fear to stand in the road when they pass. But those whom Susan and I had seen, up to the day when Chickatabut, the chief man of the Massachusetts tribe, came, were only common people, and such servants as are employed here in the town, for you must know that more than one family has a Narragansett Indian, or, mayhap, a Nipmuck, to work in the house. [Illustration] Mother says that she would rather do all the work of the house alone, than have one of the brown women to help her, for they are not cleanly to look upon, but as for myself, I think I could stand the sight of one of them, especially when it comes to soap making, of which I will tell you later. Of course there are times when housewives must have some one to aid them, and those girls or women among us who would go out to work in the house are not many in numbers, therefore one must put up with the Indians, which is unpleasant, or take those who are known as indentured servants, meaning the people who have agreed with the Massachusetts Bay Company to work for so many years, in order to pay for their passage over from England. As for these last people, mother will not have them in the house, because of being afraid that we may not get one of good morals. Therefore in our home mother and I do all that is needed, rather than have around us people of whom we know nothing. CHICKATABUT It was not regarding the Indians, or free willers, as indentured servants are called, that I intended to write when I began. That which I counted to say was, that when the spring had come, after the arrival of the _Lyon_, and we were free for the time being from fears of a famine, the Indian by the name of Chickatabut came to see Governor Winthrop, having been invited to the end that he might sell us, who are here in Boston, this piece of land on which we are building our town. You must know that he is quite the most important savage roundabout here, and father believes, as does Governor Winthrop, that if he sells us the land, it will be a lawful bargain, because of his standing, as I have said, at the head of all these brown people nearabout. Now it so chanced that he was the first savage of note I had seen, and really he was something grand to look upon. He had feathers on his head, like unto a crown, and from this drooped a long trail of feathers reaching to the ground, while his leggings and doublet of tanned deer skin were covered with beads, worked in fanciful patterns, together with the claws of beasts. His arrows were carried across his back, in a covering embroidered with the quills of the porcupine painted in various colors, and he held his bow in his hand. [Illustration] I cannot set down as I would, exactly how he was dressed, because, having come upon him suddenly while on my way to Susan's house, of being startled by so much of adornment that I was like to have run away. He came, as I have said, to visit Governor Winthrop, and father declares that he sat at the table as a white man would have done, save that instead of using the knife and spoon, he took up food with his fingers. Mother thinks that the Governor must have been relieved indeed when his guest departed, for no one insists so strictly upon proper table manners as does Master Winthrop. It must have been that Chickatabut was pleased with his visit, for two or three days after having gone back to his people, he sent the Governor as much Indian corn as would fill a hogshead, and, in return for the gift, Master Winthrop presented him with a suit of clothing made in English fashion by a tailor. Father says that now indeed do we own all the land this side of the neck, for Master Blackstone, who had a farm here, as I have already said, sold it to our people before we moved over from Charlestown, and now with Chickatabut's selling of the same, there should be no question as to who has a lawful claim upon it. BUILDING A SHIP Although, in my own mind, there was never any doubt but that the land was rightfully ours without consulting a savage about it, yet I believe, from all I heard said, that our people felt better in mind after this Indian chief had agreed to our staying here, for it seemed as if he had no sooner made the bargain than work was pushed forward more as it would have been done in England. As for instance, Governor Winthrop began building a vessel, and now, if you please, we are to have a ship of our own, made in Boston, launched in Boston, and to sail from Boston. [Illustration] When she is finished, and has sailed to Southampton or Liverpool, the people there must begin to believe that we of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are getting well on in the world if we can own fleets, for in case one vessel can be built, there is no reason why we should not have many, while there is so much of lumber everywhere around. HOUSEHOLD CONVENIENCES Do you know what a betty-lamp is? We have two in our house, which were brought over by Captain Pierce of the _Lyon_, as a gift to my mother. You, who have more or less trouble with your rush lights, cannot fancy how luxurious it is to have one of these betty-lamps, which costs in care no more than is required to fill them with grease or oil. Fearing lest you may not know what these lamps are, which Susan's mother says should be called brown-bettys, I will do my best to set down here such a description as shall bring them before you. The two which we have are made of brass; but Captain Pierce says they are also to be found of pewter or of iron. These are round, and very much the same shape as half an apple, save that they have a nose an inch or two long, which sticks out from one side. The body of the bowl is filled with tallow or grease, and the wick, or a piece of twisted cloth, is threaded into the nose, with one end hanging out to be lighted. [Illustration] Ours hang by chains from the ceiling, and the light which they give is certainly equal to, if not stronger than, that of a wax candle; but they are not so cleanly, because if the wick be ever so little too long, the lamps send forth a great smoke. Father says he has seen a phoebe-lamp, which is much like our betty-lamps, save that it has a small cup underneath the nose to catch the dripping grease, and that I think would be a great improvement, if indeed it is possible to improve upon so useful an article of household furniture as this. Speaking of our betty-lamps reminds me that Susan's mother had sent over to her in the _Lyon_, a set of cob irons, which are something after the fashion of andirons, or fire-dogs, save that they are also intended to hold the spit and the dripping pan. She had also a pair of "creepers," which are small andirons, and which she sometimes used with the cob irons. [Illustration] The andirons which we brought from England are much too fine to be used in this fireplace, which is filled with pothooks, trammels, hakes, and other cooking utensils. They were a wedding present to my mother, and are in what we call "sets of three," meaning that on each side of the fireplace are three andirons; one to hold the heavy logs that are at the bottom of the fire; another raised still higher to bear the weight of the smaller sticks, and a third for much the same purpose as the second; or, perhaps, to make up more of an ornament, for they are of iron and brass, and are exceeding beautiful to look upon. I have used the words trammels and hakes, but it is possible that you may not know their meaning, and so I will add by way of explanation that though they are both hooks upon which we may hang pots and kettles, the trammel is so constructed that it may be lengthened or shortened, being made of two parts. HOW THE WORK IS DIVIDED There is no good reason why I should make any attempt at setting down here all that was done by our people in the way of planting, in order that we might have such a harvest in the fall as would put far from us the fear of another famine. It should be easy for you to fancy how we are employed here in this new town. Some of the men are working at the palisade, or barricade on the Neck; others are in the field planting and hoeing, while yet another company is in the shipyard on the Mystic River. Ten or twelve of the people are constantly fishing, or hunting, to add to the food supply, while those servingmen or laborers who are not skilled at other work are cutting trees into fuel, and otherwise clearing the land that it may be tilled another year. [Illustration] The women and children are no less busy, and it is easy for you to guess what their duties are. These log houses, while not requiring as much care as if they were mansions, need very much in the way of woman's work. Lest the shiftless ones, who have no pride in the appearance of the town, or are too lazy to do other than what may be absolutely necessary, should allow the dirt to gather round about the outside of the houses, a law has been made obliging each person to keep free from dirt or filth of any kind, all the land surrounding his dwelling for a distance of fifty paces, whether in the street or garden, and it is upon us children that this last work falls. Save for the babies, and those who are abed with sickness, there are no idle ones in Boston, and well indeed it should be so, for it surely is true that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." If we were not busily engaged during all the waking hours, then would we have opportunity to grow homesick, for much as we are growing to like this New World, there will come now and then thoughts of the homes we left in England, and one's heart falls sad at realizing that, perhaps, never again will we see those whom we left behind when the _Arabella_ sailed out of Southampton. LAUNCHING THE SHIP It is not well that I let my mind go back into the past. I should think only of the future, and of what we are doing here in Boston, the most important of which just now is the launching of our ship. She is what sailors call "bark rigged," which is the same as saying that she has three masts; but yet not as much of rigging as a ship. Her name, painted on the stern, is _Blessing of the Bay_, and there is hardly any need for me to say that every man, woman, and child in the town stood near at hand to see her as she slipped down the well greased ways into the river, where she rode as gracefully as a swan. I have already said that when the _Lyon_ came in, at the time of the famine, she appeared the most beautiful vessel I had ever seen, and next to her comes the _Blessing of the Bay_. As Governor Winthrop said in the short lecture he gave us before launching, she was Boston made, of Boston timber, and would be sailed by Boston sailors, so that when she goes out across the ocean, people shall know that there are Englishmen far overseas who are striving, with God's help, to make a country which shall one day stand equal with the England we have left forever. [Illustration] It is while speaking of the launching that I am reminded of a very comical mishap to Master Winthrop, and I may set it down without disrespect to him, for he is pleased to join in the mirth whenever it is spoken of as something to cause laughter. MASTER WINTHROP'S MISHAP It seems that the wolves had been worrying some of the goats that Master Winthrop brought over to this country with him, and on a certain day, after supper, he went out with his gun in the hope of killing a few of the ravenous beasts. He had not traveled more than half a mile from home when night came on, and, turning about to go back, as was prudent, for it is not safe that one man shall be alone in the forest after dark, because of the wild animals, he mistook his path, wandering directly away from the river, instead of toward it. I myself have heard him say that he must have walked a full hour, and was growing exceeding uncomfortable in mind, when he came to an Indian hut that was built of branches of trees and of skins, so that it formed a fairly comfortable dwelling, and was of sufficient strength to resist the efforts of any one to enter, save through the door. There was no person inside this hut or wigwam; the door was unfastened, and the Governor, understanding that he must have some shelter during the night, else was he in danger of being devoured by wild beasts, entered as if it were his own dwelling. With his flint and steel he built a fire, and by its light, saw, piled up in one corner of the place, mats such as the savages use to sleep upon. Having taken a mouthful of snakeweed, which is said to be of great benefit in quieting one's nerves, and prayed to God for safe keeping during the night, he lay down. Before much time had passed, and certainly while his eyes were yet wide open, it began to rain, and some of the water finding its way through the carelessly thatched roof, disturbed his rest, so that it was impossible to sleep. He spent the night singing psalms, gathering such wood as he could handily come at from the outside, to keep the fire going, and pacing to and fro in the narrow space, until near to daylight, when an Indian squaw came that way. [Illustration] The Governor, hearing her voice as she cried out to whosoever owned the hut and was evidently a friend of hers, barred the door as best he might, while she stood on the outside beating it with her hands, and calling aloud in the Indian language, first in friendly terms, and then angrily; but yet he made no reply. The door held firm against her efforts until day came, when the Governor walked out of the hut, not dreaming the woman would make an attack upon him, but straightway he was forced to take to his heels, or, as he laughingly declared, she would have clawed out his eyes. Although we children knew nothing whatsoever concerning it, the chief men of the town had been greatly alarmed because of the Governor's disappearance, and during the whole of the night no less than twenty had walked to and fro in the forest hunting for him; but by an unkind chance never going in the direction of this hut. When Master Winthrop made his appearance, it had just been decided that a hue and cry should be raised, and all the men in Boston be called to aid in the search. NEW ARRIVALS It was during this summer, when Captain Pierce brought the _Lyon_ to us for the third time, that Mistress Winthrop, the Governor's wife came over. John Eliot, the preacher, was also one of the passengers, and they had even a longer voyage than had we in the _Arabella_. The _Lyon_ left Southampton about the middle of August, and did not arrive here until the fourth of November, when she came to anchor off Nantasket. Then indeed did we have a week of rejoicing, sharing in the Governor's gladness that his family was with him once more. All those who could get boats to convey them, went down off Nantasket, and when Mistress Winthrop stepped ashore at the foot of our cove, she was honored by volleys from all the firearms in the town. [Illustration] During three days that followed, it was as if the people believed Master Winthrop and his loved ones were in danger of starvation, for, from the highest to the lowest in the town, each brought some gift of food, such as fat hogs, goats, deer meat, geese, partridges,--in fact, anything that could be eaten, save clams, fish, and lobsters, of which we had already more than plenty enough to dull one's appetite for such eating. Those who read what I have here set down, may charge me with speaking overly much concerning what we had to eat, and yet I question whether any of our company who passed through the famine of the year of 1630, and the pinching times of 1631 and 1632, could do otherwise than dwell upon our store of food. ANOTHER FAMINE [Illustration] Now, if you please, I will set down at once that which is in my mind concerning it, so that I need not weary you by repeating. This first year of harvest was a fairly plentiful one, and would have sufficed for all our wants during the coming winter, had it not been that other people were joining us by every ship, nearly all of whom were poorly provided for, having left England in the belief that we were dwelling amid plenty. Therefore it was, that to feed these new comers as well as ourselves, we were frequently hard pressed for what was actually needed to save ourselves the pangs of hunger. It is true that during this summer of 1631 many cattle were sent from England; but so many died during the voyage, that those which lived seemed extremely precious, because from them were we counting on our future herds. People who had spent their money in England buying twenty cows, but succeeded in bringing to Boston only four, could not afford to kill them for the sake of meat, more especially since the very life of our colony depended upon their increase. We had famine in the first year; we were cramped for food during the second year, yet consoled ourselves with the thought that when another season had come, there would be so much seed put into the ground that there could be no question of lack of whatever might be needed. But the summer of our third year in Boston was cold and wet; the crop of corn failed almost entirely, and again were we forced to seek our food from the sea, or to dig for clams; but even this last was extremely difficult, owing to the exceedingly cold winter of that season. The Charles river was frozen from shore to shore, and it was as if the snow fell almost every day, until the drifts were piled so high roundabout our town that, save in the very center of the village, we could not move about. Another famine was staring us in the face when the winter came to an end, and we knew that unless help should reach us from the outside, we could not add to our stores until another harvest time. Then it was that we realized the value of having neighbors, and truly these were neighbors indeed, who, at Jamestown in the New World, had such store of food, as would allow them to lade a ship wholly with corn, sending her, through God's direction, to that port where the supply was most needed. Lest I weary you with too many words regarding our hunger, I will set it down thus briefly, that, except at rare intervals, we were pinched for food during the first five years we lived in Boston, and not until that time had passed were we free from further fear of famine. FINE CLOTHING FORBIDDEN And yet we did not spend all our time complaining one to another lest on the morrow we should be hungry, and in proof of this I am minded to set down here that which I have copied from the law made in our town four years after we came across from Charlestown: "That no person, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen, or silk, or linen with any lace on it, silver, gold, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said cloths. Also that no person, either man or woman, shall make or buy any slashed cloths, other than one slash in each sleeve, and another in the back; also all cut-works, embroideries, or needle-work, capbands, and rails are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid penalty; also all gold and silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter." Mother says it is because of our people having given themselves up to vanity that the Lord laid His hand heavily upon us by cutting off the harvest, and yet it seems to me, although I question not that which she has said, that the good God would never punish all our people for the sin which a few committed. Yet, perhaps, there were more than a few who committed the sin, else why should it have been that our wise men felt it necessary to forbid fanciful dress, as they did in this law which I have set down? OUR FIRST CHURCH Not until the second year after Boston was settled, did we have a building devoted entirely to the worship of God. Then was built of logs, neatly hewn and set together with much care, so that both the outside and the inside were smooth and fair to look upon, that which we called our church. The sides did not stand as tall as some of our dwellings; but the roof was much higher and sharper, so that inside it looked to be very large. There were four windows in each side, and all of them contained glass, if you please. [Illustration] The pulpit, with a well fashioned sounding-board of odorous cedar above it, stood at the end of the building farthest from the door, and there were near about it eight pews made much after the same shape as those in the church at home. In these sit the magistrates, the elders and the deacons, with the men on one side, the women and girls on the other, and the boys in one corner, where the tithing-men may keep them in order. Back of these pews were benches sufficient in number to give seats to all our people, and if it could have been that Master Winthrop and those in authority believed we might worship God quite as well while comfortable in body, so that we had a fireplace, it would have delighted me much. It seems almost a sin to complain because of being cold while one is praising God, and yet during this long, dreary winter when the earth was piled high with snow, and the river imprisoned in ice, it was well nigh impossible, after having remained in the same position two or three hours, to prevent one's teeth from chattering so sharply that the noise might disturb others. It seems to me that one could enjoy a sermon much better if one were not wishing for the warmth of the fireplace at home. Many of our people have what is called a foot-stove to take with them to meeting, and it seems to me a most comfortable arrangement; but mother says that if our love of God be not strong enough to prevent discomfort simply because of the frost, when such a man as Master Wilson, or either of the preachers, or Governor Winthrop, is pleased to deliver a sermon, then are we utterly lost. [Illustration] Susan declares that she _was_ lost the first winter we came here, when her cheeks were frost-bitten during one of Master Winthrop's lectures, which took no more than two hours in the speaking. These foot-stoves, which I wish most fervently my father would believe we might be permitted to use, are square boxes made of iron, pierced with many tiny holes, and having a handle by which they can be carried. One of these, filled with live coals, will keep warm a very long time, especially if it be covered with skins, and I envy Mistress Winthrop and her daughter, even while knowing how great is the sin, when they sit in the Governor's pew so comfortably warm that there is no fear their teeth will, by chattering, cause unseemly disturbance. A TROUBLESOME PERSON There are certain matters concerning which I was minded not to speak, because of their causing both Susan and me very much of sadness at the time, and it has seemed as if I had set down little else except trouble and suffering, whereas there was very much of the time when we of Boston enjoyed our life in the New World. That some will not live as God would have them, we know only too well, and we found one such among us during the second year after our village was built. Thomas Morton was the person who gave the officers of Boston no little trouble, and in order to tell understandingly the story of what he did, I must go back to that time, two years before we landed here, when the people of Plymouth had cause to complain against this same man. From what I have heard father say, he had been a lawyer in the city of London, and came over to Plymouth hoping to better his fortunes; but because of not being a God-fearing man, the religious spirit of the colonies was little to his liking. THE VILLAGE OF MERRY MOUNT Within five or six miles of where stands our village, had been, a few years before, a settlement which one Captain Wollaston began, and, tiring of the enterprise, went back to England, leaving there some few of his followers, who were ungodly people. This Thomas Morton, believing himself held in too close restraint at Plymouth, sought out these people at Wollaston, and became one of them, to the shame and reproach of all godly-minded people in this New World. He changed the name of the village to Merry Mount; was chosen leader of the company there, and made of the place a perfect Sodom. It is said, so I have heard my father say, that they had no religious services, save now and then, when in a spirit of wickedness this Thomas Morton read from the prayer book. He increased the number of his following by enticing the servants away from the good folks of Plymouth. It gave much offence to them that such a village should be in the land where they had come to set up the true worship of God, therefore Captain Miles Standish, a soldier of Plymouth, went with a force of men to Merry Mount, seized this Thomas Morton, and sent him to England that he might answer for his crimes to the London Company. [Illustration] PUNISHING THOMAS MORTON What happened there my father does not know; but certain it is that when the _Lyon_ came on her second voyage, she brought among her passengers this same Thomas Morton, and from the moment he arrived our people had trouble with him. He brought considerable property in the way of firearms, powder and shot, and, without asking permission from the chief men of our town, set about trading these goods with the Indians for furs, as he had done at Merry Mount, which was not only a menace to all the white people in this new country, because of furnishing the savages with arms that might be used to kill us, but directly against the law which forbade trafficking with the Indians. He must have been a wicked man indeed, for, not content with doing that which our people had forbidden, he cheated the savages by selling them black sand for powder, and demanding more of furs than was fair and just for such goods as he gave them. Of course one may think that his crime against us was lessened when he weighed out worthless sand, instead of powder that might be used to our harm; but the chief men of Boston claimed that the savages must be dealt with fairly, otherwise would they look upon us, who were willing to trade honestly, as rogues and thieves. Therefore it was that our people seized this Thomas Morton, gave him fair trial before the court, and sentenced him to four and twenty hours in the bilboes, after which he was again to be sent as prisoner to England. It may be that some do not know what bilboes are, and I can explain because of having seen them while they were on Thomas Morton. A bilboe is a long bar of iron, on which are two heavy clamps, in shape not unlike bracelets which ladies of quality wear upon their arms, fastened by a ring to the bar in such manner that they may slide back and forth. These clamps, or clasps, are placed upon the prisoner's ankles, and pushed apart until his legs are stretched wide. His hands are tied behind his back, and he is forced to sit upon the ground, unable to give relief to his aching limbs, because of the bar's being too weighty for him to move it. [Illustration] All of Thomas Morton's goods were seized to pay the charges of the trial, and also to make good to the Indians what they had lost through his knavishness. The house which he had built, and it was a fair one made of heavy logs, was burned in the presence of the prisoner and the court, as a sign that we of Boston would not countenance dishonest tricks, even when they were played upon the savages. PHILIP RATCLIFF'S CRIME The punishment of Thomas Morton saddened Susan and myself sorely; but not so much as when one Philip Ratcliff was punished. He was such a wicked man that he went around the town saying he believed the devil was at the head of our church, and in every way casting reproach upon religion, despite the fact of his having been warned again and again that unless he put a bridle to his tongue, punishment would speedily follow. He did not give heed to the warning, however, and after a time, which was during the third summer of our being in this land, he was brought before the court as one who had cast reproach upon God. For this he was sentenced to be whipped, to have his ears cut off, to be fined forty shillings, and afterward to be banished to England. Because of this man's being so very, very wicked, Susan and I believed we should go to see him whipped, and gathered with the people at the pillory, where he stood with his neck and arms clutched by the heavy bars of wood; but when Samuel Morgan made ready the heavy whip, just as the man's back was bared to receive the lashes, we turned away in horror, not daring to look. Father said, when he came home in the evening, that Ratcliff bore the whipping and the ear-cutting without a cry; but when it was over, he threatened vengeance against us, after he should be set free in England, and later we came to know what he meant by such threats. [Illustration] He went everywhere about in the old country, telling that the New World was a hideous wilderness in which roamed the wildest savages thirsting for the blood of white people; that the land was rocky and barren, and not fit for farms, for no crops could be raised upon it; that the weather was cold, and that the climate caused deathly sickness. All this, father said, worked to our harm among those godly people who were inclined to join us, for they feared to come into such a place, not understanding that these things were lies which had been told out of a spirit of revenge. IN THE PILLORY Another wicked person who had come to Boston was Henry Linn, who was no sooner living among us than he wrote letters to England by every vessel, full of slander against the churches, and of those who took part in the government. He was forced to stand in the pillory from sunrise to sunset, and was then sent back to England with the warning that if he ever returned, worse punishment would follow. It has come to my mind that possibly some who read these words may not have seen a pillory, for I am told that there are places in this world where the people so fear God and love their neighbors that there is no need they be punished, therefore will I set down as best I may, a description of that instrument of shame that stands near to where lives Master Wilson. First a platform of logs is made of such height that he who stands upon it can be seen of all the people, and from the center of this rises a stout log to the height of four feet or more. On the top of the upright timber, and fastened immovable, is a puncheon plank on the upper edge of which are cut three grooves, the middle one large enough to contain a man's neck and the other two his wrists. Now a second plank is fashioned to fit down over the first one, with other grooves in it to match. Whosoever must be punished is forced to stand upon this platform with his head and arms fastened securely in the holes of the planks, exposed to the view of all the people during so long a time as the sentence demands. In addition to being a most shameful punishment, it must be exceeding painful, for one may not stand very long in the same position without becoming cramped, and he who is in the pillory cannot move hands or head. STEALING FROM THE INDIANS I grieve to say that there were some among our people who seemed to believe there was nothing of crime that could be committed against a savage, and Master Josias Plastow, whom we had ever looked upon as a godly man, showed himself to be knavish where the brown people were concerned. Chickatabut, the chief of the Massachusetts Indians, of whom I have already spoken, brought proof to Boston that Master Plastow had stolen three half-bushels of corn from some of his people, living near Neponset, and on being charged with the offence by Governor Winthrop, Master Plastow confessed that he had done so, claiming that it was not stealing to take from the savages. [Illustration] The Governor and his assistants thought differently, though, for Master Plastow was fined five pounds in money, and ordered to send six half-bushels of corn to the Indians from whom he had stolen, after which all people were forbidden to call him Master any more, but must give him only the name of Josias. Captain Stone believed this sentence to be wrong, and openly called the justice unseemly names. He was straightway summoned before the court, and fined one hundred pounds in money for speaking disrespectfully of one in authority. Nor was this the only case where fault was found with the punishment inflicted upon Josias. Henry Lyon wrote a letter to a cousin of his in Plymouth, another to a friend in Salem, and sent four to London, all of which were filled with harsh words against the Governor of Boston, and the manner in which justice was dealt out. He was given twelve lashes on the bare back, and banished to England. THE PASSING OF NEW LAWS When we had been in this village two years, there was much vexation because of the greater portion of the gold and silver money, which our people had brought with them, having been sent back to England in order to purchase goods there, and the result was that even those who were well off in the things of this world, found themselves unable to pay their debts. Therefore it was that the court ordered corn to be taken in the stead of gold and silver, unless money, or beaver skins, were set down in the writing as the method of payment agreed upon. At the same time another law was passed, part of which seemed to bear heavily upon those who were homesick to the point of going back to England, and yet may have offended the officers of the law in some way. It was declared that no person should be allowed to depart out of the town of Boston, either by sea or by land, or to buy goods out of any vessel or of the Indians, without permission from the magistrates. I know it is not seemly for a girl to question that which her elders have done, and yet there were many times when it seemed to me as if such a law worked injury to us of Boston. I might not have given so much heed to matters which do not concern girls, but for the fact that Susan's father had crossed the Neck on his way in search of wild animals, and having come some four miles into the forest, he met an Indian who had on his back a half-bushel of corn in a basket. The savage took a fancy to the girdle he wore, offered to give him the corn, and bring as much more on the following day, if the belt were given to him then. [Illustration] Susan's father, believing that the law against buying provisions of an Indian would not be carried so far as to prevent a bargain like the one which the savage had offered, stripped off his belt and took the corn. On coming back to the town, Samuel Goodlove, one of the tithing-men, met him, and asked how it chanced he had set forth in search of wild fowl and brought back corn. Thinking no harm, Susan's father told all that had been done in the forest, and straightway he was brought before Governor Winthrop, who fined him ten shillings and the corn he had brought on his back four miles, for having offended the law. In addition, he was sentenced to give back to the Indian as much corn as he had taken, but without demanding from him the girdle that had been given over. MASTER PORMONT'S SCHOOL Five years after we were settled in this town of Boston, a school was set up for young people, and such children of the Indians as wished to attend were allowed to do so freely without payment, although every white man was forced to pay each year a certain amount, either in money or in goods, for the hire of the teacher, who was Master Philemon Pormont. It must not be supposed that we children knew nothing whatsoever of reading, writing, or of doing small sums in arithmetic, up to this time. A certain portion of each day did my mother or father teach me my lessons, and when Master Pormont opened his school, I could write as fair a hand as I do now, which seems fortunate, for he was not skilful in teaching the art of writing. As for myself, I truly believe that had my first lessons in the use of a quill come from him, I had never known how to form a letter, because of his being exceeding harsh in his ways. [Illustration] A child who failed in doing at the first attempt exactly as Master Pormont thought fit, was given a sharp blow over the knuckles of the hand which held the quill, and Ezra Whitman was punished in this manner so severely on a certain day, that it was nearly a week before he was able to use his fingers. Even then the teacher declared that if the blow had been sharper, the boy would, before the pain had ceased, have known more about that which he was endeavoring to show him. The school was first set up in the house that had been built by Josias Plastow. If you remember, he was one who had been under the discipline of the court, and it was forbidden any should call him save by the name of Josias. Feeling that he had been harshly dealt with, Josias left Boston, and went into Plymouth to live, therefore did his dwelling belong to the town, according to the law. It was made into a schoolroom by having benches set up around the four sides, in such fashion that the scholars faced a ledge of puncheon planks, which was built against the walls to be used when we needed a desk on which to write, or to work out sums in arithmetic. Master Pormont sat upon a platform in the center of the room, where he could keep us children well in view, and woe betide the one who neglected his task, for punishment was certain to follow. SCHOOL DISCIPLINE There were times when it seemed to me as if Master Pormont had eyes in the back of his head, for once when I ventured to ask Susan Freeman for the loan of her quill, while he was looking in the opposite direction, I was speedily called to an account for misbehavior. Then it was he handed me a knife he carried in his pocket, and further command was not needed. I knew full well that I must go outside and cut a stout switch for use upon my own body, and if peradventure I had been so foolish as to bring back a small one, the first would have been used to switch me with until it was broken, after which it was my duty to go for another of more weight. [Illustration] My hands smarted a full hour after the punishment had been dealt out, and there were such swellings upon them when I got home that mother tied both up in linen after besmearing them plentifully with ointment. It was not always that Master Pormont used a switch upon a child who had been foolish enough to speak with his neighbor, for he had what were called whispering-sticks, which were most disagreeable to wear, and caused a great deal of pain, so Susan said; but as for myself, I was never forced to bear such punishment. These whispering-sticks were stout bits of wood from the oak tree, which could not readily be broken by the teeth, and were put into a child's mouth as you thrust a bit into the mouth of a horse, after which the two ends were bound securely back of the neck. Thus the unfortunate one's jaws were stretched wide open, oftentimes for a full hour. OTHER TOOLS OF TORTURE It seemed to me then, and does even now, that Master Pormont spent more time devising means of punishment than in teaching us our lessons, for he had as many torture tools of various kinds as would have served to make a heavy load for either of us children. That which the lads most feared was the flapper, and truly it was well contrived to cause pain. It was a piece of stout deer hide, or thick leather, four or five inches wide, and twice as long, with a hole in the center about as large as the end of my thumb. One end of this was tied to a stout handle, and, when applying it, Master Pormont forced the child who had disobeyed the rules of school, to lie over one of the benches in such a manner that he could come at the lad's bare skin. When the flapper was laid on vigorously, at each blow the flesh would puff up through this hole in the center of the leather, in a way most painful to behold. There is little need for me to say that Master Pormont had a number of dunce's caps made of bark from the birch tree, on which were painted different inscriptions to suit the offence, such as "Stupid Boy," for one who could not readily answer the questions he asked concerning the day's lessons; "A Silly Dunce," to fit one who was slow in learning; "A Wicked Liar," for some lad who had not told the truth. In fact, I cannot set down all the names which Master Pormont had written on these dunce's caps, and there was hardly an hour during the day when at least one of them was not in use. [Illustration] That contrivance which he had for children who would not sit quietly on their benches, was, seemingly, the most innocent, and yet, as I know to my sorrow, caused a vast amount of pain. It was a small square of puncheon plank with a single stick in the center as a leg, and on this the culprit was forced to sit, balancing himself or herself as best might be by the feet, without being allowed to touch the hands to anything. As I thus set down the poor description it seems a harmless thing, and a punishment too mild to meet a grave offence, but yet if you were to try to balance yourself on this unipod, as Master Pormont called it, for the space of an hour, every joint in your body would cry aloud with pain. As for myself, I know that more than once I would rather have fallen headlong from this unipod, than have endured the torture a single moment, even had I not known that more severe punishment would follow such a disregard of the rules of school. DIFFICULT LESSONS The first lesson which Master Pormont gave to those of us children who could read and write fairly well, was from the Latin grammar, and he required that we have at our tongue's end within the first day, the different forms of no less than six verbs; and this regardless of the fact that we had never so much as put our eyes to the language before! Do not let it be understood that I am in any way complaining of whatsoever Master Pormont did, for although I could not understand the reason for many of the lessons at that time, there can be no question but that so wise a man as he knew what was best suited for us children. But surely, to Susan and me, who knew no more of arithmetic than was to be found in the multiplying, dividing, and adding of small sums, it was most grievous work to stumble over such terms as "fret," "tare," and "net," when we had no idea of their meaning. Nor would Master Pormont give us such information, claiming that we should seek it from our parents, or from other people in the town, to the end that if it was gained by much labor we would the longer remember it. OTHER SCHOOLS To me it was a great relief when dame schools were established, and by this term I mean schools that were taught by women. Some of our more tender-hearted people believed Master Pormont's methods were too harsh for the younger children; therefore, after he had kept school one year, Mistress Sowerby, who was the widow of Master Sowerby who had been assistant in the church at Yarmouth, in England, was hired at the wage of six pounds a year to teach the girls and the smaller boys. She did not appear to think it necessary that young ladies should know so very much concerning Latin grammar, or arithmetic; but rather spent her time showing us how to spin tow strings, or to knit hose or stockings. Because of the school's having been set up in her own home, we could learn how to cook, and to weave, and to knit, not only for our own use, but to sell, and any kind of knitting work done well was in great demand. When I could do herringbone, or fox-and-geese patterns, working them, moreover, into mittens or stockings, I felt exceeding proud. [Illustration] Indeed, we had among us one girl who knit into a single pair of mittens, the alphabet and a verse of poetry in four lines. Mistress Sowerby was most careful in teaching us the use of the quill, for she claimed that the young girl or young woman, who could make easy, flowing letters, need not consider herself ignorant, even though she failed in arithmetic, or was unable to spell correctly the words she set down. It seemed to Susan and me as if the people of Boston were taking great pride in the teaching of their children, when we learned that four hundred pounds had been set aside from the money of the town with which to set up a college, near those plantations which we had come to call the New Town. We girls were more than disappointed, however, when told that only lads would be allowed to enter this college, and then not until having gained a certain amount of knowledge elsewhere; but yet it was a matter in which we could take pride, that there should be such a school formed when only six years had passed since we began to build the town of Boston. RAISING FLAX It would be strange indeed if I failed to set down anything concerning the flax which we spin, because save for it we would have had nothing of linen except what could be brought from England. There is no question but that every one who reads this will know exactly how flax is raised and spun into cloth; but yet I am minded to explain, because we girls of Boston have more to do with raising flax than with any other crop. It is sown early in the spring, and when the plants are three or four inches high, we girls are obliged to weed them, and in so doing are forced to go barefoot, because of the stalks being very tender and therefore easily broken down. [Illustration] I do not believe there is a child in town who fails to go into the flax fields, because of its being such work as can be done by young people better than by older ones, who are heavier and more likely to injure the plants. I have said that we are obliged to go barefooted; but where there is a heavy growth of thistles, as is often the case, we girls wear two or three pairs of woolen stockings to protect our feet. If there is any wind, we must perforce work facing it, so that such of the plants as may by accident have been trodden down, may be blown back into place by the breeze. Wearying labor it is indeed, this weeding of the flax, and yet those who come into a new world, as have we, must not complain at whatsoever is set them to do, for unless much time is expended, crops cannot be raised, and we children of Boston need only to be reminded of the famine, when we are inclined to laziness, in order to set us in motion. Of course you know that flax is a pretty plant, with a sweet, drooping, blue flower, and it ripens about the first of July, when it is pulled up by the roots and laid carefully out to dry, much as if one were making hay. This sort of work is always done by the men and boys, and during two or three days they are forced to turn the flax again and again, so that the sun may come upon every part of it. PREPARING FLAX I despair of trying to tell any one who has never seen flax prepared, how much and how many different kinds of labor are necessary, before it can be woven into the beautiful linen of which our mothers are so proud. First it must be rippled. The ripple comb is made of stout teeth, either wood or iron, set on a puncheon, and the stalks of flax are pulled through it to break off the seeds, which fall into a cloth that has been spread to catch them, so they may be sown for the next year's harvest. Of course this kind of work is always done in the field, and the stalks are then tied in bundles, which are called "bates," and stacked up something after the shape of a tent, being high in the middle and broadened out at the bottom. After the flax has been exposed to the weather long enough to be perfectly dry, then water must be sprinkled over it to rot the leaves and such portions of the stalks as are not used. [Illustration] Then comes that part of the work which only strong men can perform, called breaking the flax, to get from the center of the stalks the hard, wood-like "bun," which is of no value. This is done with a machine made of wood, as if you were to set three or four broad knives on a bench, at a certain distance apart, with as many more on a lever to come from above, fitting closely between the lower blades. The upper part of the machine is pulled down with force upon the flax, so that every portion of it is broken. After this comes the scutching, or swingling, which is done by chopping with dull knives on a block of wood to take out the small pieces of bark which may still be sticking to the fiber. Now that which remains is made up into bundles, and pounded again to clear it yet more thoroughly of what is of no value, after which it is hackled, and the fineness of the flax depends upon the number of times it has been hackled, which means, pulling it through a quantity of iron teeth driven into a board. SPINNING, BLEACHING, AND WEAVING FLAX After all this preparation has been done, then comes the spinning, which is, of course, the work of the women and girls. I am proud to say I could spin a skein of thread in one day, before I was thirteen years old, and you must know that this is no mean work for a girl, since it is reckoned that the best of spinners can do no more than two skeins. Of course the skeins must be bleached, otherwise the cloth made from them would look as if woven of tow, and this portion of the work mother is always very careful to look after herself. The skeins must stay in warm water for at least four days, and be wrung out dry every hour or two, when the water is to be changed. Then they are washed in a brook or river until there is no longer any dust or dirt remaining, after which they are bricked, which is the same as if I had said bleached, with ashes and hot water, over and over again, and afterward left to remain in clear water a full week. [Illustration] Then comes more rinsing, beating, washing, drying, and winding on bobbins; so that it may be handy for the loom. The chief men in Boston made a law that all boys and girls be taught to spin flax, and a certain sum of money was set aside to be given those who made the best linen that had been raised, spun, and woven within the town. I am told that in some of the villages nearabout, the men who make the laws have ordered that every family shall spin so many pounds of flax each year, or pay a very large amount of money as a fine for neglecting to do so. It is not needed I should set down how flax is spun, for there is but one way to spin that I know of, whether the material be wool, cotton, or flax. But I would I might be able so to set it down, that whosoever reads could understand, how my mother wove this linen thread into cloth; but it would require more of words than I have patience to write. If there be any who have the desire to know how the linen for their tables, or for their clothing, is made, I would advise that the matter be studied as one would a lesson in school, for it is most interesting, and father holds to it that every child should be able to make all of that which he wears. WHAT WE GIRLS DO AT HOME In this town of Boston, if we do not know how to make what is needed, then must we perforce go without, because one cannot well afford to spend the time, nor the money, required to send from Boston to London for whatever may be desired, and wait until it shall be brought across the sea. I wonder if it would interest any of you to know what Susan and I are obliged to do in our homes during each working day of the week? I can remember a time when we were put to it to perform certain tasks within six days, and have set down that which we did. It was on a Monday that Susan and I hackled fifty pounds of flax, and tired we were when the day was come to an end. On Tuesday we carded tow, and on Wednesday each spun a skein of linen thread. On Thursday we did the same stint, and on Friday made brooms of guinney wheat straw. On Saturday we spun twine out of the coarser part of flax, which is called tow, and of which I will tell you later. [Illustration] All this we did in a single week, in addition to helping our mothers about the house, and had no idea that we were working overly hard. And now about tow: when flax has been prepared to that stage where it is to be hackled, the fibers pulled out by the comb are yet further divided into cobweb-like threads, and laid carefully one above the other as straight as may be. To these a certain yellow substance sticks, which we call tow, and this can be spun into coarse stuff for aprons and mats, or into twine, which, by the way, is not very strong. It would surprise you, when working flax, to see to how small a bulk it may be reduced. What seems like an enormous stack, before being made ready for spinning, is lessened to such extent that you may readily take it in both hands, and then comes the next surprise, when you see how much cloth can be woven out of so small an amount of threads. As for myself, I am not any too fond of working amid the flax, save when it comes to spinning; but such labor is greatest pleasure as compared with soap-making, which is to my mind the most disagreeable and slovenly of all the housewife's duties. MAKING SOAP It seems strange that some industrious person, who is not overly fine in feelings or in habits, does not take it upon himself to make soap for sale. Verily it would be better that a family like ours buy a quart of soap whenever it is needed, than for the whole house to be turned topsy-turvy because of the dirty work. I wonder if there are in this country any girls so fortunate as not to have been obliged to learn how to make soap? I know of none in Boston, although it may be possible that in Salem, where are some lately come over from England, live those who still know the luxury of hard soap, such as can be bought in London. For those fortunate ones I will set down how my mother and I make a barrel of soap, for once we are forced to get about the task, we contrive to make up as large a quantity as possible. First, as you well know, we save all the grease which cannot be used in cooking, and is not needed for candles, until we have four and twenty pounds of such stuff as the fat of meat, scraps of suet, and drippings of wild turkey or wild geese, which last is not pleasant to use in food, and not fit for candles. Well, when we have saved four and twenty pounds of this kind of grease, and set aside six bushels of ashes from what is known as hard wood, such as oak, maple, or birch, we "set the leach." I suppose every family in Boston has a leach-barrel, which is a stout cask, perhaps one that has held pickled pork or pickled beef, and has in it at the very bottom a hole where is set a wooden spigot. This barrel is placed upon some sort of platform built to raise it sufficiently high from the ground, so that a small tub or bucket may be put under the spigot. Then it is filled with ashes, and water poured into the top, which, of course, trickles down until it runs, or, as some say, is leached, out through the spigot, into the bucket, or whatsoever you have put there to receive it. While running slowly through the ashes, it becomes what is called lye, and upon the making of this lye depends the quality of the soap. [Illustration] Now, of course, as the water is poured upon the contents of the barrel, the ashes settle down, and as fast as this comes to pass, yet more ashes are added and more water thrown in, until one has leached the entire six bushels, when the lye should be strong enough, as mother's receipt for soap-making has it, to "bear up an egg, or a potato, so that you can see a portion of it on the surface as big as a ninepence." If the lye is not of sufficient strength to stand this test, it must be ladled out and poured over the ashes again, until finally, as will surely be the case, it has become strong enough. The next turn in the work is to build a fire out of doors somewhere, because to make your soap in the house would be a most disagreeable undertaking. One needs a great pot, which should hold as much as one-third of a barrel, and into this is poured half of the grease and half of the lye, to be kept boiling until it has become soap. Now just when that point has been reached I cannot say, because of not having had sufficient experience; but mother is a master hand at this dirty labor, and always has greatest success with it. Of course, when one kettle-full has been boiled down, the remainder of the lye and the remainder of the grease is put in, and worked in the same manner as before. SOAP FROM BAYBERRIES It is possible, and we shall do so when time can be spent in making luxuries, to get soap from the tallow of bay berry plums. I have already said that we stew out a kind of vegetable tallow from bayberries with which to make candles, and this same grease, when boiled with lye as if you were making soft soap, can be cooked so stiff that, when poured into molds, it will form little hard cakes that are particularly convenient for the cleansing of one's hands. There can be no question but that bayberry soap will whiten and soften the skin better than does soft soap; but the labor of making it is so disagreeable that, as Susan says, I had rather my hands were tough and rough, than purchase a delicate skin at such an expense. GOOSE-PICKING There is another household duty which frets me much, and yet it must be performed, else would we be put to it for quills with which to write, and for soft beds, pillows, and quilts. It is goose-picking that I abhor, not only because of its seeming extremely cruel, but on account of its being like the soap-making, dirty work. I question if there be a family in Boston who does not own a flock of geese, and among them many who were once wild. They wander around the streets all summer, paddling the pools of water, chasing insects, and devouring whatsoever may have been thrown out of the houses that is eatable. I doubt whether, if it were within the power of our preachers so to do, they would not kill all the geese in the town, for more than once on a Sabbath day have these noisy creatures made such a tumult outside the church that the sermon was actually interrupted. Besides that, you cannot go anywhere without a lot of foolish geese running at your heels, hissing as if you had done something for which you should be ashamed, and they were calling attention to it. Twice each season, in the planting and the harvesting time, must the small feathers be stripped from the live birds, and while this is being done, the goose, which has a strong neck and beak, would inflict many a grievous wound if one did not pull an old stocking over its head. Some people are so particular as to have made goose baskets, which in shape are not unlike small gourds, and through the narrow neck of these the head of the goose is thrust, while the body can be held firmly between the knees of whosoever is doing the plucking. [Illustration] Of course, when one is pulling feathers from the bird, the fine fluff, or down, flies everywhere about like snow, and the result is, that unless you take the precaution of tying your hair up in cloths, and putting on an old linen dress from which dirt can readily be shaken, you will be covered from head to foot with these fluffy particles, which are not much larger than snow-flakes, and extremely difficult to remove. I have been so busy setting down matters concerning the household, as to forget that I should tell you how our town of Boston has grown, and who of the great men of England have come into it. A CHANGE OF GOVERNORS It was the third year after our coming, that Master John Cotton, the famous preacher, settled among us, taking upon himself, because of the entreaties of our people, the care of the First Church. It was also in this same year that a new governor was chosen, much to the regret of both Susan and me, for while we girls could not be expected to know anything regarding the matter, it surely seemed to us that Master Winthrop was the very best man in all this world to rule over us. But those who had the privilege of voting must have believed otherwise, for they elected Master Thomas Dudley in his stead, and made Master Winthrop one of the assistants in the Council. With the exception of that, and the trouble which Master Roger Williams, the great preacher, was making, nothing disturbed us. Our town continued to grow fast, until we began to believe that before many years had passed it would be even as great a city as could be found in England, with, of course, the exception of London. THE FLIGHT OF ROGER WILLIAMS Now as to the trouble which some of our people were having with Master Roger Williams: I should be able to set it down plainly, and yet it is not reasonable to suppose girls know much about the affairs of state. A very great preacher was Master Williams, and one who took it upon himself to write, for the public reading, that the King had no right to sell or give land to us white people, because of the whole country's belonging to the Indians, and it can be well understood how much of a stir the matter caused. Master Williams had been chosen by the people of Salem as teacher in their church, and when he declared that we had no right to hold the land which the King had granted us, which Master Blackstone had sold to us, and which Chickatabut had given to us in writing, the chief men of our town declared that he was not the kind of preacher who should be allowed to remain in the New World. Therefore they wrote to the people of Salem, demanding that he be sent back to England. Of course our gentlemen of Boston must have been in the right, for I have heard my father say they were, and surely he would not lend his face to anything which was at all wrong. However, the people of Salem refused to listen to us of Boston, and, much to our surprise, Master John Cotton took sides with Master Williams, which seemed to me very strange. I cannot say why it was that the people of the colony kept Governor Dudley in office only one year, or why Master Haynes was elected. Master Haynes was, of course, ruler over the entire colony, and, as father said, not the kind of man to be trifled with by Master Williams, even though he was a preacher. Therefore, when Captain Underhill was about to sail for England, our Governor commanded him to take Master Williams back to London. [Illustration] Some one, it seems, told the preacher what was on foot, and, although it was in January with the snow piled deep everywhere around, he fled from Salem into the woods, trusting himself to the mercy of the savages rather than be sent back in disgrace. I have heard that it was a bitterly cold day, with the snow blowing furiously, when the poor man plunged into the woods in flight, taking with him nothing whatsoever save that which he wore upon his back. Father came to know afterward, that Master Williams spent the winter with the Pokanoket Indians, some of whom he had met during the short time he lived at Plymouth, and in the spring went to the shore of Narragansett Bay, where it was reported that he was trying to build up a village. SIR HARRY VANE Quite the most distinguished person who came among us was Sir Harry Vane. His father was a Privy Councilor to the King, and one of the Secretaries of State in England. Because of wanting to see the New World, the young gentleman had been given permission to come to this country for a term of three years. I wish you could have seen the stir that was made when he arrived. The Governor, with his soldiers and trumpeters, went down to the wharf to receive him with great ceremony, and the cannon on board the ships were discharged with a wondrous noise when he stepped ashore. He was a most pleasing man to look upon, so young and so courtly, while his costume was a marvel of elegance. It seemed to me, as I saw him taking the Governor's hand with so much grace, that we needed but few men of the same kind among us to lend great distinction to our town in America. [Illustration] That same evening, however, my mother reproached me because of worldly thoughts, saying that fine feathers do not make fine birds, although they may make a bird look fine, which I suppose is the same as if she had said that an evil man might, by his costume, be made to appear worthy, whereas he would not be so at heart. However, I was not the only one in Boston who favored Sir Harry Vane, for before the year was over, when Master Haynes' term of office had expired, he was chosen as our Governor, and surely no person could have looked more kingly than did he, when he stood in the door of the Great House bowing to those people who had assembled in honor of his having been elected. MAKING SUGAR Susan and I had a right delightful time when the first warm days of spring came, for then it was the season in which to make sugar. I do not mean to say that we girls took any part in the sweet work; but on a certain day, very early in the morning, we were allowed to go out to Master Winthrop's plantation in New Town, there to see his people at the task, and, what was far better, we remained until late at night. It was the first time I had been away from home, save to go over to Charlestown for a few hours, since we came from England, and I enjoyed it all the more because of its being something strange. The snow was deep on the low-lying lands, therefore we wore snow-shoes, and you must know that we girls can use those odd footings almost as well as do the Indian children. It was a long walk to New Town; but father went with us, his gun loaded heavily in case we came across a hungry wolf, and so great was the excitement of going abroad after having been kept in the house, except on those days when we went to meeting or lecture, ever since the winter began, that we gave no heed to fatigue. [Illustration] It seems queer that one can get sugar from trees, and yet so we do in this new country, otherwise there would be many times when we would not have sweet cake, for vessels seldom arrive from England with stores at the very moment when one is in need of this thing or that. After we had arrived at Master Winthrop's plantation, good Mistress Winthrop went with us girls to see the sap drawn from the maples, and the three of us rode on a sled hauled by one of the serving men, of whom Master Winthrop has many. Do you know how the sap is taken? Well, first a hole is bored in the trunk of a tree, about as high from the surface as will admit of placing a bucket beneath it, and into this a small wooden spout, or spigot, is driven. Beneath the spout is placed a bucket or tub, and into this the sap, coaxed up from the roots by the warmth of the sun, drops, or runs, very slowly. [Illustration] Master Winthrop's serving men made holes in many trees, and then, when the work had been done, went about gathering the sap out of the buckets or tubs, into casks, which were hauled from place to place on a sled, exactly as Mistress Winthrop, Susan and I had ridden. As soon as a cask has been filled, a huge fire is built near at hand, and over it is hung a large kettle, much as if one were counting on making soap. In this the sap is boiled until it is thick, like molasses, in case one wishes to make syrup, or yet longer if sugar is wanted. Of course it is necessary to taste of the syrup very often to learn if it has been cooked enough, and this portion of the work Susan and I did until we felt much as flies look after they have been feasting on molasses, and have their wings and legs clogged with sweetness. I do not mean to say that we besmeared ourselves with it; but we ate so much while tasting to learn if the cooking was going on properly, that I felt as if I had been turned into a big cake of sugar. When the sap is thick enough to "sugar," as it is called, it is poured into pans of birch-bark, where it cools in cakes, each weighing two or three pounds. A "SUGARING DINNER" We enjoyed ourselves hugely until well after noon, when we were so weary and sticky that it was a positive relief to hear Mistress Winthrop propose that we go back to her dwelling, and there what do you think we found? No less than twenty people from Boston, among whom were Susan's mother and mine, had all come out for what is called the "sugaring dinner." Master Cotton, the preacher, was with the company, and he made a most beautiful prayer while we were waiting for the meal to be served, after which the spirit moved him to ask at great length, and in a most touching manner, that the food might be blessed to each and every one of us. [Illustration] One could never have believed that we who were gathered around the table ever had known what it was to be painfully hungry during one entire winter, for there was sufficient of food to have served us, in the old days, a full week. There were two enormous wild turkeys roasted to a most delicious crispness, one placed at either end of the table, while the handsomest standing salt I ever saw was exactly in the center, so that no one could say whether he was seated above or below the salt. There were also two huge venison pies, with the pastry made wholly of wheat flour; and placed around the pies in a most tasteful manner, were potted pigeons, in small dishes. There were apple and pear tarts; marmalade and preserved plums, grapes, barberries and cherries, together with poppy and cherry water, cordial and mint water. It was a most delicate feast, and my greatest regret was that I had tasted so often of the maple sap I could not do full justice to it. Tears actually stood in Susan's eyes as she whispered to me after the dinner was come to an end, and we were allowed to talk with each other, "I shall never live long enough to cease being sorry because I could not eat more." It was the same as if she had confessed to the sin of gluttony, and it was my duty to reprove her; but I could not find it in my heart so to do, because of much the same thought's being in my own mind. [Illustration] We all sang psalms until near to seven o'clock in the evening, when good Master Winthrop gave us a famous ride on his new sled drawn by two oxen, and thus did we go home like really fashionable folk, who must needs turn night into day, as my mother declared. TRAINING DAY I must tell you of our Training Day, in the month of May, after Master Roger Williams had fled into the wilderness to escape the wrath of our people which he had aroused; and I am setting down what happened on that particular day, because of its being the largest and most exciting training ever held in Boston, so every one says. Susan believes Training Day should come oftener than four times a year, so that we young people may get some idea of what gay life is like in the old countries, where they make festivals of Christmas, and other saints' days. It does truly seem as if we might see our soldiers perform quite often, for it is a most inspiring spectacle, and especially was it on last Training Day, when, so father says, there were upwards of seven hundred men marching back and forth across the Common in a manner which at times was really terrifying, because of their fierce appearance when fully armed. Imagine, if you can, a row of booths along the Common, in which are for sale ground nuts, packages of nookick, sweet cakes, pumpkin bread roasted brown and spread with syrup made from maple sap, together with dainties of all kinds lately brought over from England. Between these booths and the water are many tents, which have been set up that the people of quality may entertain their friends therein with toothsome food and sweet waters. The middle of the Common, and a long space at either end, is kept clear of idle ones that the soldiers may exercise at arms, and these do not appear until the on-lookers are in their places. Then we hear a flourish of trumpets, the rolling of drums, and from the direction of the Neck comes our army, a mighty array of seven hundred or more men, all armed and equipped as the law directs. When this vast body of warlike men have marched into the vacant space, they are drawn up in line, there is another flourish of trumpets, together with the rolling of drums, and Master Cotton comes out from the tent which has been set up for the use of the Governor and his assistants, to offer a prayer. On this day, moved by the sight of the great throng, Master Cotton prayed long and fervently, whereat some of the younger soldiers, having not the fear of God in their hearts, pulled long faces one to another, or shifted about uneasily on their feet, as if weary with long standing, and I trembled lest the Governor, seeing such levity, might rebuke them openly, which would be a great disgrace at such a time. [Illustration] When Master Cotton was done with praying, the soldiers began to march here and there in many ways, until one's eyes were confused with watching them, and then came the volleys, as the men shot straight over the heads of the people; but father says no one need fear such warlike work, for there were no bullets in the guns. Of course I understood that he must needs know whether this be true or not, else he would not have spoken it; and yet I could not but shudder when so many guns were fired at one time, while the smoke of powder in the air was most painful to the eyes. After the soldiers had marched back and forth in the most ferocious manner possible until noon, they were allowed a time for rest, and then it was that those who had set up tents, entertained their friends at table with stores upon stores of dainties of every kind. SHOOTING FOR A PRIZE I have heard that Sir Harry Vane declared our soldiers presented a very fine front, whatever that may be, and he is not backward about saying that even the King himself has no more warlike appearing men in his army. All of which is surely true, for Sir Harry, being the son of a Privy Councilor, must have seen His Majesty's troops many a time. After all the people had feasted, each in his own fashion, and the soldiers had been refreshed at the expense of the town, the marching was begun again, to be continued in a manner like to make one's head swim, until the Governor gave the signal that the shooting at a target might commence, when it was that the guns were loaded with real bullets. On this day it was Sir Harry who gave the prize to be shot for, which was a doublet of velvet trimmed with lace, the value of which, so father declares, is not less than five times as great as any prize that has ever been offered on Training Day in Boston. Susan and I were eager to know who won it; but before the matter was settled, my mother insisted it was time for us to go home, because of the behavior of some of the soldiers' being none of the best after they have done with the training. [Illustration] However, we saw the doublet, and marked well the pattern of the lace, therefore if the winner wears it on the street, there will be no question as to our knowing it again. The training was a most enjoyable spectacle, even though Susan and I were so frightened at times that it seemed as if our hearts were really in our mouths, and when we followed mother home on that afternoon, it was with the belief that our town of Boston, although not as old as Jamestown, Plymouth or Salem, had grown, both in numbers and fashion, far beyond any other settlement in this New World. LECTURE DAY My mother believes it would be better if Training Day were done away with entirely, for she says we spend far too much time in the pursuit of frivolity, when we have no less than one lecture day in each week. It must be that she is in the right, for father has much the same opinion, and declares a stop must be put to so many lectures, which but gives a convenient excuse for indolent people, who should be at work on the plantations or in the houses, to go gadding about the town. You must know that Thursday is the day when we listen to lectures by some of the preachers, or those among the magistrates who have the gift of speech, and this has been the custom since the first year we came here. In the early days the lecture hour was in the forenoon; but at the end of three years, after Boston was become a town, those in authority over us passed a law that the lecture should not begin until one of the clock in the afternoon, and this was done in order that the people might not have an excuse to spend the entire day in idleness. I cannot see, however, that any more work is done on Thursdays now than before the law was made, for as soon as breakfast is finished and the houses have been set in order, nearly every one walks on the streets, this pleasure being forbidden on Sabbath days, until it is time to gather at the church. Our magistrates also tried to make the rule that no minister, or other person, should lecture more often than once in every two weeks, in order that we might have less of such diversion; but no heed is given to this law, for I myself have heard Master Cotton speak to the people no less than twice on every Thursday, and this in addition to lectures by other preachers. If father were one of the magistrates, mother would do all she might to have the hour of the meetings set back to the morning, for she believes it is wrong to make of the forenoon a time for the punishing of evil-doers, as has come to be the custom. PUNISHMENT FOR EVIL-DOERS Now, when we go out to mingle with the people, it is impossible not to stop here or there when one of the constables is whipping an idle fellow through the streets, laying the lashes on his bare back with such force that the blood follows nearly every blow. Then again, it is not often that one can pass the post at the corner of Prison Lane, without seeing some wrong-doer chained there as punishment for striking one of the people, and the cage wherein are kept men and women who have offended against the laws is seldom empty on a Thursday. [Illustration] The prison itself is a dreary looking place, although it is not quite so very different from the church, but somehow its barred windows make the shivers run up and down my back and I always hurry past it with as much speed as possible. Most likely there are as many bad people in the other towns of this New World, as in Boston; but it surely seems to Susan and me as if we had among us all those in America who delight in breaking the laws. Of all the punishments which are inflicted here, I think the most cruel is that of sentencing a man to wear, so long as he may live, a halter around his neck so that every one may see it, for thus is the wrong-doer forced to shame himself during every hour of the day, and especially on Thursdays, when he must stand not less than two hours during the forenoon on the steps of the church. It is on lecture day that one may see the latest notices put up on the church, together with the announcements of those who intend to be married, and Susan and I have great pleasure in reading these, for then are we aware of anything important about to take place. Of course there are times when we are not so well pleased at being forced to sit still five or six long hours, listening to this preacher or that who feels a call to speak during the lecture time; but if we failed to do so, we should not be allowed to go on the street wheresoever we please, therefore I hope that mother will not be able to have the lecture hour changed to the morning. THE MURDER OF JOHN OLDHAM [Illustration] It was six years after we had come to live in Boston, that a most terrible crime was committed by the savages of the Narragansett tribe, for then they killed Captain John Oldham, and three other men, who were sailing on Long Island Sound. The vessel was taken by the Indians, after they had murdered all on board, and we in Boston were moved to great fear, believing the brown men around us were making ready to murder the white people. Sir Harry Vane, the Governor, sent five of our chief men to the head savage of the Narragansett tribe, to inquire into the matter, and these messengers were told that none save the Indians living on Block Island had any hand in the matter. Then it was that Governor Vane commanded Master Endicott of Salem, to take a large number of fighting men in three vessels, and punish the murderers as they deserved. Master Endicott did according to the command; but when he was come to Block Island, the brown people had run away; therefore all he could do was to burn the huts, destroy the canoes, and shoot the dogs that were prowling around the deserted village. This Master Endicott did not believe was punishment enough for what had been done, therefore he crossed over to the mainland where the Indians who call themselves Pequots live, and there he killed more than twenty of these people, besides seizing their corn. He also burned, or destroyed in some other way, all the goods belonging to the savages that he could find, and then came back to Boston, where the people of the town turned out to give him a noble welcome. We had a thanksgiving day because of what had been done, and believed, or, at least, Susan and I did, that we need fear nothing more from the savages, for surely the brown people would not dare molest any white man again after being so severely punished. SAVAGES ON THE WAR-PATH It was not many days, however, before word was brought to Boston that the Pequot Indians were trying to coax the Narragansett savages to join them in killing every Englishman that could be found in the land. Father had said that this might be done, if the brown people all over the country should come together, and we who lived in Boston and Salem were in great fear. The soldiers were called together from every village. The gates of the fort on the Neck were kept closed, with men stationed there night and day to see that no enemy came through, and the preachers prayed most fervently that our lives might be spared because of our doing our utmost to serve God as He would have us. Then it was that the Lord heard our prayers, else had we all been killed, and it was brought about in a way such as, my mother said, heaped coals of fire upon our heads. The same Master Roger Williams who had been driven out into the wilderness, because of holding a belief contrary to ours, and who had lived with the Narragansett Indians since then, so pleaded with the savages of the tribe that they sent some of their chief people to Boston, with promises of friendliness. Sir Harry Vane received the visitors with great state. All our soldiers were paraded through the streets, and in front of the Governor's house. The drummers marched to and fro making music, and the people came out on the streets that the Indians might believe we had not been afraid. [Illustration] It was much like Training Day, save that only the magistrates of the town were allowed to know what was being done in the Governor's house after the savages had gone into the building, decked out in a brave array of feathers, and in clothing embroidered with fanciful colored quills of porcupines, and with their faces painted in a most hideous fashion. We were told, after the Indians had marched out of the town, near to sunset, one behind the other in a manner as solemn as if they were coming from church, that the tribe of Narragansett savages had promised to aid us white people against the brown men of the Pequot tribe, in every way possible, and greatly did we rejoice that night, for it seemed as if all trouble had passed. PEQUOT INDIANS The Englishmen who had settled in the colony known as Connecticut, soon found that the Pequot savages could do much of wickedness, even though the Narragansetts had said they would be friends with the white people, for within a very short time after Master Roger Williams had sent the Indians to us in peace, did a season of murder begin. Because of my being a girl, who is not supposed to understand affairs of state, and who could only cower in fear and trembling by the side of her mother when word was brought of the dreadful deeds done by the Pequot savages, I shall not set down anything whatsoever concerning that terrible winter, when we heard nothing save stories of blood and direst suffering. No one could say whether, despite all Master Roger Williams might be able to do, the savages nearabout would not fall upon us of Boston as they had upon the white people of Connecticut, and, therefore, as soon as the shadows of evening had begun to gather, we girls sought the protection of our mothers. [Illustration] Seated before the roaring fires, not daring to move about the house even after the doors and shutters were securely barred, we started in alarm at every sound, hearing in the roaring of the wind, or the crackling of the fire, some token that the brown people were skulking around striving to get inside that they might shed our blood. It was far worse than the time of the famine, for then we knew just what might come to us, and if death entered the house, we would meet it in the arms of those we loved; but from all which had been told by those affrighted people who came to us from Connecticut, we realized that horrors such as could not even be imagined, would be upon us with the coming of those savages who had sworn to make an end of the white settlers in the New World. It is not well even that I set down in words the distress of mind which was ours during that long dreadful winter; but this I may say in all truth, as the parting word, that nowhere in the Massachusetts Bay Colony could have been found a more distressed or unhappy girl, than this same Ruth of Boston. 
42999	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive.) OLD BOSTON TAVERNS AND TAVERN CLUBS [Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN MARSTON, 1715-1786 Landlord of the "Golden Ball" and "Bunch of Grapes"] OLD BOSTON TAVERNS AND TAVERN CLUBS BY SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION WITH AN ACCOUNT OF "COLE'S INN," "THE BAKERS' ARMS," AND "GOLDEN BALL" BY WALTER K. WATKINS ALSO A LIST OF TAVERNS, GIVING THE NAMES OF THE VARIOUS OWNERS OF THE PROPERTY, FROM MISS THWING'S WORK ON "THE INHABITANTS AND ESTATES OF THE TOWN OF BOSTON, 1630-1800," IN THE POSSESSION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY W. A. BUTTERFIELD 59 BROMFIELD STREET, BOSTON 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY W. A. BUTTERFIELD. FOREWORD. The Inns of Old Boston have played such a part in its history that an illustrated edition of Drake may not be out of place at this late date. "Cole's Inn" has been definitely located, and the "Hancock Tavern" question also settled. I wish to thank the Bostonian Society for the privilege of reprinting Mr. Watkin's account of the "Bakers' Arms" and the "Golden Ball" and valuable assistance given by Messrs. C. F. Read, E. W. McGlenen, and W. A. Watkins; Henderson and Ross for the illustration of the "Crown Coffee House," and the Walton Advertising Co. for the "Royal Exchange Tavern." Other works consulted are Snow's History of Boston, Memorial History of Boston, Stark's Antique Views, Porter's Rambles in Old Boston, and Miss Thwing's very valuable work in the Massachusetts Historical Society. THE PUBLISHER. CONTENTS. PAGE I. UPON THE TAVERN AS AN INSTITUTION 9 II. THE EARLIER ORDINARIES 19 III. IN REVOLUTIONARY TIMES 33 IV. SIGNBOARD HUMOR 52 V. APPENDIX; BOSTON TAVERNS TO THE YEAR 1800 61 VI. COLE'S INN 73 VII. THE BAKERS' ARMS 76 VIII. THE GOLDEN BALL TAVERN 80 IX. THE HANCOCK TAVERN 89 X. LIST OF TAVERNS AND TAVERN OWNERS 99 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. CAPT. JOHN MARSTON _Frontispiece_ PAGE THE SIGN OF THE LAMB 17 THE HEART AND CROWN 18 ROYAL EXCHANGE TAVERN 24 PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH GREEN 26 PORTRAIT OF JOHN DUNTON 28 THE BUNCH OF GRAPES 34 CROMWELL HEAD BOARD BILL 44 THE CROMWELL'S HEAD 44 THE GREEN DRAGON 46 THE GREEN DRAGON SIGN 47 THE LIBERTY TREE 50 THE BRAZEN HEAD 51 THE GOOD WOMAN 52 THE DOG AND POT 53 HOW SHALL I GET THROUGH THIS WORLD? 54 THE CROWN COFFEE HOUSE 62 OLD NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENT 64 JULIEN HOUSE 65 THE SUN TAVERN 68 THE THREE DOVES 70 JOLLEY ALLEN ADVERTISEMENT 70 THE BAKERS' ARMS 75 SIGN OF BUNCH OF GRAPES 80 SIGN OF GOLDEN BALL 80 MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF COLE'S INN 88 COFFEE URN 90 MAP OF BOSTON, 1645 98 BROMFIELD HOUSE 102 FIREMAN'S TICKET 104 PORTRAIT OF GOVERNOR BELCHER 106 EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE, 1808-18 108 EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE, 1848 110 HATCH TAVERN 112 LAMB TAVERN 114 SUN TAVERN (DOCK SQUARE) 122 BONNERS' MAP OF BOSTON, 1722 124 OLD BOSTON TAVERNS. I. UPON THE TAVERN AS AN INSTITUTION. The famous remark of Louis XIV., "There are no longer any Pyrenees," may perhaps be open to criticism, but there are certainly no longer any taverns in New England. It is true that the statutes of the Commonwealth continue to designate such houses as the Brunswick and Vendome as taverns, and their proprietors as innkeepers; yet we must insist upon the truth of our assertion, the letter of the law to the contrary notwithstanding. No words need be wasted upon the present degradation which the name of tavern implies to polite ears. In most minds it is now associated with the slums of the city, and with that particular phase of city life only, so all may agree that, as a prominent feature of society and manners, the tavern has had its day. The situation is easily accounted for. The simple truth is, that, in moving on, the world has left the venerable institution standing in the eighteenth century; but it is equally true that, before that time, the history of any civilized people could hardly be written without making great mention of it. With the disappearance of the old signboards our streets certainly have lost a most picturesque feature, at least one avenue is closed to art, while a few very aged men mourn the loss of something endeared to them by many pleasant recollections. As an offset to the admission that the tavern has outlived its usefulness, we ought in justice to establish its actual character and standing as it was in the past. We shall then be the better able to judge how it was looked upon both from a moral and material stand-point, and can follow it on through successive stages of good or evil fortune, as we would the life of an individual. It fits our purpose admirably, and we are glad to find so eminent a scholar and divine as Dr. Dwight particularly explicit on this point. He tells us that, in his day, "The best old-fashioned New England inns were superior to any of the modern ones. There was less bustle, less parade, less appearance of doing a great deal to gratify your wishes, than at the reputable modern inns; but much more was actually done, and there was much more comfort and enjoyment. In a word, you found in these inns the pleasures of an excellent private house. If you were sick you were nursed and befriended as in your own family. To finish the story, your bills were always equitable, calculated on what you ought to pay, and not upon the scheme of getting the most which extortion might think proper to demand." Now this testimonial to what the public inn was eighty odd years ago comes with authority from one who had visited every nook and corner of New England, was so keen and capable an observer, and is always a faithful recorder of what he saw. Dr. Dwight has frequently said that during his travels he often "found his warmest welcome at an inn." In order to give the history of what may be called the Rise and Fall of the Tavern among us, we should go back to the earliest settlements, to the very beginning of things. In our own country the Pilgrim Fathers justly stand for the highest type of public and private morals. No less would be conceded them by the most unfriendly critic. Intemperance, extravagant living, or immorality found no harborage on Plymouth Rock, no matter under what disguise it might come. Because they were a virtuous and sober people, they had been filled with alarm for their own youth, lest the example set by the Hollanders should corrupt the stay and prop of their community. Indeed, Bradford tells us fairly that this was one determining cause of the removal into New England. The institution of taverns among the Pilgrims followed close upon the settlement. Not only were they a recognized need, but, as one of the time-honored institutions of the old country, no one seems to have thought of denouncing them as an evil, or even as a necessary evil. Travellers and sojourners had to be provided for even in a wilderness. Therefore taverns were licensed as fast as new villages grew up. Upward of a dozen were licensed at one sitting of the General Court. The usual form of concession is that So-and-So is licensed to draw wine and beer for the public. The supervision was strict, but not more so than the spirit of a patriarchal community, founded on morals, would seem to require; but there were no such attempts to cover up the true character of the tavern as we have seen practised in the cities of this Commonwealth for the purpose of evading the strict letter of the law; and the law then made itself respected. An innkeeper was not then looked upon as a person who was pursuing a disgraceful or immoral calling,--a sort of outcast, as it were,--but, while strictly held amenable to the law, he was actually taken under its protection. For instance, he was fined for selling any one person an immoderate quantity of liquor, and he was also liable to a fine if he refused to sell the quantity allowed to be drank on the premises, though no record is found of a prosecution under this singular statutory provision; still, for some time, this regulation was continued in force as the only logical way of dealing with the liquor question, as it then presented itself. When the law also prohibited a citizen from entertaining a stranger in his own house, unless he gave bonds for his guest's good behavior, the tavern occupied a place between the community and the outside world not wholly unlike that of a moral quarantine. The town constable could keep a watchful eye upon all suspicious characters with greater ease when they were under one roof. Then it was his business to know everybody's, so that any show of mystery about it would have settled, definitely, the stranger's _status_, as being no better than he should be. "Mind your own business," is a maxim hardly yet domesticated in New England, outside of our cities, or likely to become suddenly popular in our rural communities, where, in those good old days we are talking about, a public official was always a public inquisitor, as well as newsbearer from house to house. On their part, the Puritan Fathers seem to have taken the tavern under strict guardianship from the very first. In 1634, when the price of labor and everything else was regulated, sixpence was the legal charge for a meal, and a penny for an ale quart of beer, at an inn, and the landlord was liable to ten shillings fine if a greater charge was made. Josselyn, who was in New England at a very early day, remarks, that, "At the tap-houses of Boston I have had an ale quart of cider, spiced and sweetened with sugar, for a groat." So the fact that the law once actually prescribed how much should be paid for a morning dram may be set down among the curiosities of colonial legislation. No later than the year 1647 the number of applicants for licenses to keep taverns had so much increased that the following act was passed by our General Court for its own relief: "It is ordered by the authority of this court, that henceforth all such as are to keep houses of common entertainment, and to retail wine, beer, etc., shall be licensed at the county courts of the shire where they live, or the Court of Assistants, so as this court may not be thereby hindered in their more weighty affairs." A noticeable thing about this particular bill is, that when it went down for concurrence the word "deputies" was erased and "house" substituted by the speaker in its stead, thus showing that the newly born popular body had begun to assert itself as the only true representative chamber, and meant to show the more aristocratic branch that the sovereign people had spoken at last. By the time Philip's war had broken out, in 1675, taverns had become so numerous that Cotton Mather has said that every other house in Boston was one. Indeed, the calamity of the war itself was attributed to the number of tippling-houses in the colony. At any rate this was one of the alleged sins which, in the opinion of Mather, had called down upon the colony the frown of Providence. A century later, Governor Pownall repeated Mather's statement. So it is quite evident that the increase of taverns, both good and bad, had kept pace with the growth of the country. It is certain that, at the time of which we are speaking, some of the old laws affecting the drinking habits of society were openly disregarded. Drinking healths, for instance, though under the ban of the law, was still practised in Cotton Mather's day by those who met at the social board. We find him defending it as a common form of politeness, and not the invocation of Heaven it had once been in the days of chivalry. Drinking at funerals, weddings, church-raisings, and even at ordinations, was a thing everywhere sanctioned by custom. The person who should have refused to furnish liquor on such an occasion would have been the subject of remarks not at all complimentary to his motives. It seems curious enough to find that the use of tobacco was looked upon by the fathers of the colony as far more sinful, hurtful, and degrading than indulgence in intoxicating liquors. Indeed, in most of the New England settlements, not only the use but the planting of tobacco was strictly forbidden. Those who had a mind to solace themselves with the interdicted weed could do so only in the most private manner. The language of the law is, "Nor shall any take tobacco in any wine or common victual house, except in a private room there, so as the master of said house nor any guest there shall take offence thereat; which, if any do, then such person shall forbear upon pain of two shillings sixpence for every such offence." It is found on record that two innocent Dutchmen, who went on a visit to Harvard College,--when that venerable institution was much younger than it is to-day,--were so nearly choked with the fumes of tobacco-smoke, on first going in, that one said to the other, "This is certainly a tavern." It is also curious to note that, in spite of the steady growth of the smoking habit among all classes of people, public opinion continued to uphold the laws directed to its suppression, though, from our stand-point of to-day, these do seem uncommonly severe. And this state of things existed down to so late a day that men are now living who have been asked to plead "guilty or not guilty," at the bar of a police court, for smoking in the streets of Boston. A dawning sense of the ridiculous, it is presumed, led at last to the discontinuance of arrests for this cause; but for some time longer officers were in the habit of inviting detected smokers to show respect for the memory of a defunct statute of the Commonwealth, by throwing their cigars into the gutter. Turning to practical considerations, we shall find the tavern holding an important relation to its locality. In the first place, it being so nearly coeval with the laying out of villages, the tavern quickly became the one known landmark for its particular neighborhood. For instance, in Boston alone, the names Seven Star Lane, Orange Tree Lane, Red Lion Lane, Black Horse Lane, Sun Court, Cross Street, Bull Lane, not to mention others that now have so outlandish a sound to sensitive ears, were all derived from taverns. We risk little in saying that a Bostonian in London would think the great metropolis strangely altered for the worse should he find such hallowed names as Charing Cross, Bishopsgate, or Temple Bar replaced by those of some wealthy Smith, Brown, or Robinson; yet he looks on, while the same sort of vandalism is constantly going on at home, with hardly a murmur of disapproval, so differently does the same thing look from different points of view. As further fixing the topographical character of taverns, it may be stated that in the old almanacs distances are always computed between the inns, instead of from town to town, as the practice now is. Of course such topographical distinctions as we have pointed out began at a time when there were few public buildings; but the idea almost amounts to an instinct, because even now it is a common habit with every one to first direct the inquiring stranger to some prominent landmark. As such, tavern-signs were soon known and noted by all travellers. [Illustration: SIGN OF THE LAMB.] Then again, tavern-titles are, in most cases, traced back to the old country. Love for the old home and its associations made the colonist like to take his mug of ale under the same sign that he had patronized when in England. It was a never-failing reminiscence to him. And innkeepers knew how to appeal to this feeling. Hence the Red Lion and the Lamb, the St. George and the Green Dragon, the Black, White, and Red Horse, the Sun, Seven Stars, and Globe, were each and all so many reminiscences of Old London. In their way they denote the same sort of tie that is perpetuated by the Bostons, Portsmouths, Falmouths, and other names of English origin. II. THE EARLIER ORDINARIES. As early as 1638 there were at least two ordinaries, as taverns were then called, in Boston. That they were no ordinary taverns will at once occur to every one who considers the means then employed to secure sobriety and good order in them. For example, Josselyn says that when a stranger went into one for the purpose of refreshing the inner man, he presently found a constable at his elbow, who, it appeared, was there to see to it that the guest called for no more liquor than seemed good for him. If he did so, the beadle peremptorily countermanded the order, himself fixing the quantity to be drank; and from his decision there was no appeal. Of these early ordinaries the earliest known to be licensed goes as far back as 1634, when Samuel Cole, comfit-maker, kept it. A kind of interest naturally goes with the spot of ground on which this the first house of public entertainment in the New England metropolis stood. On this point all the early authorities seem to have been at fault. Misled by the meagre record in the Book of Possessions, the zealous antiquaries of former years had always located Cole's Inn in what is now Merchants' Row. Since Thomas Lechford's Note Book has been printed, the copy of a deed, dated in the year 1638, in which Cole conveys part of his dwelling, with brew-house, etc., has been brought to light. The estate noted here is the one situated next northerly from the well-known Old Corner Bookstore, on Washington Street. It would, therefore, appear, beyond reasonable doubt, that Cole's Inn stood in what was already the high street of the town, nearly opposite Governor Winthrop's, which gives greater point to my Lord Leigh's refusal to accept Winthrop's proffered hospitality when his lordship was sojourning under Cole's roof-tree. In his New England Tragedies, Mr. Longfellow introduces Cole, who is made to say,-- "But the 'Three Mariners' is an orderly, Most orderly, quiet, and respectable house." Cole, certainly, could have had no other than a poet's license for calling his house by this name, as it is never mentioned otherwise than as _Cole's Inn_. Another of these worthy landlords was William Hudson, who had leave to keep an ordinary in 1640. From his occupation of baker, he easily stepped into the congenial employment of innkeeper. Hudson was among the earliest settlers of Boston, and for many years is found most active in town affairs. His name is on the list of those who were admitted freemen of the Colony, in May, 1631. As his son William also followed the same calling, the distinction of Senior and Junior becomes necessary when speaking of them. Hudson's house is said to have stood on the ground now occupied by the New England Bank, which, if true, would make this the most noted of tavern stands in all New England, or rather in all the colonies, as the same site afterward became known as the =Bunch of Grapes=. We shall have much occasion to notice it under that title. In Hudson's time the appearance of things about this locality was very different from what is seen to-day. All the earlier topographical features have been obliterated. Then the tide flowed nearly up to the tavern door, so making the spot a landmark of the ancient shore line as the first settlers had found it. Even so simple a statement as this will serve to show us how difficult is the task of fixing, with approximate accuracy, residences or sites on the water front, going as far back as the original occupants of the soil. Next in order of time comes the house called the =King's Arms=. This celebrated inn stood at the head of the dock, in what is now Dock Square. Hugh Gunnison, victualler, kept a "cooke's shop" in his dwelling there some time before 1642, as he was then allowed to sell beer. The next year he humbly prayed the court for leave "to draw the wyne which was spent in his house," in the room of having his customers get it elsewhere, and then come into his place the worse for liquor,--a proceeding which he justly thought unfair as well as unprofitable dealing. He asks this favor in order that "God be not dishonored nor his people grieved." We know that Gunnison was favored with the custom of the General Court, because we find that body voting to defray the expenses incurred for being entertained in his house "out of y{e} custom of wines or y{e} wampum of y{e} Narragansetts." Gunnison's house presently took the not always popular name of the _King's Arms_, which it seems to have kept until the general overturning of thrones in the Old Country moved the Puritan rulers to order the taking down of the King's arms, and setting up of the State's in their stead; for, until the restoration of the Stuarts, the tavern is the same, we think, known as the =State's Arms=. It then loyally resumed its old insignia again. Such little incidents show us how taverns frequently denote the fluctuation of popular opinion. As Gunnison's bill of fare has not come down to us, we are at a loss to know just how the colonial fathers fared at his hospitable board; but so long as the 'treat' was had at the public expense we cannot doubt that the dinners were quite as good as the larder afforded, or that full justice was done to the contents of mine host's cellar by those worthy legislators and lawgivers. When Hugh Gunnison sold out the _King's Arms_ to Henry Shrimpton and others, in 1651, for £600 sterling, the rooms in his house all bore some distinguishing name or title. For instance, one chamber was called the "Exchange." We have sometimes wondered whether it was so named in consequence of its use by merchants of the town as a regular place of meeting. The chamber referred to was furnished with "one half-headed bedstead with blew pillars." There was also a "Court Chamber," which, doubtless, was the one assigned to the General Court when dining at Gunnison's. Still other rooms went by such names as the "London" and "Star." The hall contained three small rooms, or stalls, with a bar convenient to it. This room was for public use, but the apartments upstairs were for the "quality" alone, or for those who paid for the privilege of being private. All remember how, in "She Stoops to Conquer," Miss Hardcastle is made to say: "Attend the Lion, there!--Pipes and tobacco for the Angel!--The Lamb has been outrageous this half hour!" The =Castle Tavern= was another house of public resort, kept by William Hudson, Jr., at what is now the upper corner of Elm Street and Dock Square. Just at what time this noted tavern came into being is a matter extremely difficult to be determined; but, as we find a colonial order billeting soldiers in it in 1656, we conclude it to have been a public inn at that early day. At this time Hudson is styled lieutenant. If Whitman's records of the Artillery Company be taken as correct, the younger Hudson had seen service in the wars. With "divers other of our best military men," he had crossed the ocean to take service in the Parliamentary forces, in which he held the rank of ensign, returning home to New England, after an absence of two years, to find his wife publicly accused of faithlessness to her marriage vows. The presence of these old inns at the head of the town dock naturally points to that locality as the business centre, and it continued to hold that relation to the commerce of Boston until, by the building of wharves and piers, ships were enabled to come up to them for the purpose of unloading. Before that time their cargoes were landed in boats and lighters. Far back, in the beginning of things, when everything had to be transported by water to and from the neighboring settlements, this was naturally the busiest place in Boston. In time Dock Square became, as its name indicates, a sort of delta for the confluent lanes running down to the dock below it. Here, for a time, was centred all the movement to and from the shipping, and, we may add, about all the commerce of the infant settlement. Naturally the vicinity was most convenient for exposing for sale all sorts of merchandise as it was landed, which fact soon led to the establishment of a corn market on one side of the dock and a fish market on the other side. The =Royal Exchange= stood on the site of the Merchants' Bank, in State Street. In this high-sounding name we find a sure sign that the town had outgrown its old traditions and was making progress toward more citified ways. As time wore on a town-house had been built in the market-place. Its ground floor was purposely left open for the citizens to walk about, discuss the news, or bargain in. In the popular phrase, they were said to meet "on 'change," and thereafter this place of meeting was known as the Exchange, which name the tavern and lane soon took to themselves as a natural right. [Illustration: THE ROYAL EXCHANGE TAVERN (Merchants Bank site, State Street) The tall white building, mail coach just leaving] A glance at the locality in question shows the choice to have been made with a shrewd eye to the future. For example: the house fronted upon the town market-place, where, on stated days, fairs or markets for the sale of country products were held. On one side the tavern was flanked by the well-trodden lane which led to the town dock. From daily chaffering in a small way, those who wished to buy or sell came to meet here regularly. It also became the place for popular gatherings,--on such occasions of ceremony as the publishing of proclamations, mustering of troops, or punishment of criminals,--all of which vindicates its title to be called the heart of the little commonwealth. Indeed, on this spot the pulse of its daily life beat with ever-increasing vigor. Hither came the country people, with their donkeys and panniers. Here in the open air they set up their little booths to tempt the town's folk with the display of fresh country butter, cheese and eggs, fruits or vegetables. Here came the citizen, with his basket on his arm, exchanging his stock of news or opinions as he bargained for his dinner, and so caught the drift of popular sentiment beyond his own chimney-corner. To loiter a little longer at the sign of the _Royal Exchange_, which, by all accounts, always drew the best custom of the town, we find that, as long ago as Luke Vardy's time, it was a favorite resort of the Masonic fraternity, Vardy being a brother of the order. According to a poetic squib of the time,-- "'Twas he who oft dispelled their sadness, And filled the breth'ren's hearts with gladness." After the burning of the town-house, near by, in the winter of 1747, had turned the General Court out of doors, that body finished its sessions at Vardy's; nor do we find any record of legislation touching Luke's taproom on that occasion. Vardy's was the resort of the young bloods of the town, who spent their evenings in drinking, gaming, or recounting their love affairs. One July evening, in 1728, two young men belonging to the first families in the province quarreled over their cards or wine. A challenge passed. At that time the sword was the weapon of gentlemen. The parties repaired to a secluded part of the Common, stripped for the encounter, and fought it out by the light of the moon. After a few passes one of the combatants, named Woodbridge, received a mortal thrust; the survivor was hurried off by his friends on board a ship, which immediately set sail. This being the first duel ever fought in the town, it naturally made a great stir. [Illustration: JOSEPH GREEN Noted Boston merchant and wit, died in England, 1780 SATIRE ON LUKE TARDY OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE TAVERN BY JOSEPH GREEN AT A MASONIC MEETING, 1749 "Where's honest _Luke_,--that cook from London? For without _Luke_ the _Lodge_ is undone; 'Twas he who oft dispelled their sadness. And fill'd the _Brethren's_ heart with gladness. For them his ample bowls o'erflow'd. His table groan'd beneath its load; For them he stretch'd his utmost art.-- Their honours grateful they impart. _Luke_ in return is made a _brother_, As _good_ and _true_ as any other; And still, though broke with age and wine, Preserves the _token_ and the _sign_." --"Entertainments for a Winter's Evening."] We cannot leave the neighborhood without at least making mention of the Massacre of the 5th of March, 1770, which took place in front of the tavern. It was then a three-story brick house, the successor, it is believed, of the first building erected on the spot and destroyed in the great fire of 1711. On the opposite corner of the lane stood the Royal Custom House, where a sentry was walking his lonely round on that frosty night, little dreaming of the part he was to play in the coming tragedy. With the assault made by the mob on this sentinel, the fatal affray began which sealed the cause of the colonists with their blood. At this time the tavern enjoyed the patronage of the newly arrived British officers of the army and navy as well as of citizens or placemen, of the Tory party, so that its inmates must have witnessed, with peculiar feelings, every incident of that night of terror. Consequently the house with its sign is shown in Revere's well-known picture of the massacre. One more old hostelry in this vicinity merits a word from us. Though not going so far back or coming down to so late a date as some of the houses already mentioned, nevertheless it has ample claim not to be passed by in silence. The =Anchor=, otherwise the "Blew Anchor," stood on the ground now occupied by the Globe newspaper building. In early times it divided with the _State's Arms_ the patronage of the magistrates, who seem to have had a custom, perhaps not yet quite out of date, of adjourning to the ordinary over the way after transacting the business which had brought them together. So we find that the commissioners of the United Colonies, and even the reverend clergy, when they were summoned to the colonial capital to attend a synod, were usually entertained here at the _Anchor_. This fact presupposes a house having what we should now call the latest improvements, or at least possessing some advantages over its older rivals in the excellence of its table or cellarage. When Robert Turner kept it, his rooms were distinguished, after the manner of the old London inns, as the Cross Keys, Green Dragon, Anchor and Castle Chamber, Rose and Sun, Low Room, so making old associations bring in custom. It was in 1686 that John Dunton, a London bookseller whom Pope lampoons in the "Dunciad," came over to Boston to do a little business in the bookselling line. The vicinity of the town-house was then crowded with book-shops, all of which drove a thriving trade in printing and selling sermons, almanacs, or fugitive essays of a sort now quite unknown outside of a few eager collectors. The time was a critical one in New England, as she was feeling the tremor of the coming revolt which sent King James into exile; yet to read Dunton's account of men and things as he thought he saw them, one would imagine him just dropped into Arcadia, rather than breathing the threatening atmosphere of a country that was tottering on the edge of revolution. But it is to him, at any rate, that we are indebted for a portrait of the typical landlord,--one whom we feel at once we should like to have known, and, having known, to cherish in our memory. With a flourish of his goose-quill Dunton introduces us to George Monk, landlord of the _Anchor_, who, somehow, reminds us of Chaucer's Harry Bailly, and Ben Jonson's Goodstock. And we more than suspect from what follows that Dunton had tasted the "Anchor" Madeira, not only once, but again. [Illustration: JOHN DUNTON, Bookseller, 1659-1733] George Monk, mine host of the _Anchor_, Dunton tells us, was "a person so remarkable that, had I not been acquainted with him, it would be a hard matter to make any New England man believe that I had been in Boston; for there was no one house in all the town more noted, or where a man might meet with better accommodation. Besides he was a brisk and jolly man, whose conversation was coveted by all his guests as the life and spirit of the company." In this off-hand sketch we behold the traditional publican, now, alas! extinct. Gossip, newsmonger, banker, pawnbroker, expediter of men or effects, the intimate association so long existing between landlord and public under the old régime everywhere brought about a still closer one among the guild itself, so establishing a network of communication coextensive with all the great routes from Maine to Georgia. Situated just "around the corner" from the council-chamber, the _Anchor_ became, as we have seen, the favorite haunt of members of the government, and so acquired something of an official character and standing. We have strong reason to believe that, under the mellowing influence of the punch-bowl, those antique men of iron mould and mien could now and then crack a grim jest or tell a story or possibly troll a love-ditty, with grave gusto. At any rate, we find Chief Justice Sewall jotting down in his "Diary" the familiar sentence, "The deputies treated and I treated." And, to tell the truth, we would much prefer to think of the colonial fathers as possessing even some human frailties rather than as the statues now replacing their living forms and features in our streets. But now and then we can imagine the noise of great merriment making the very windows of some of these old hostelries rattle again. We learn that the =Greyhound= was a respectable public house, situated in Roxbury, and of very early date too; for the venerable and saintly Eliot lived upon one side and his pious colleague, Samuel Danforth, on the other. Yet notwithstanding its being, as it were, hedged in between two such eminent pillars of the church, the godly Danforth bitterly complains of the provocation which frequenters of the tavern sometimes tried him withal, and naïvely informs us that, when from his study windows he saw any of the town dwellers loitering there he would go down and "chide them away." It is related in the memoirs of the celebrated Indian fighter, Captain Benjamin Church, that he and Captain Converse once found themselves in the neighborhood of a tavern at the South End of Boston. As old comrades they wished to go in and take a parting glass together; but, on searching their pockets, Church could find only sixpence and Converse not a penny to bless himself with, so they were compelled to forego this pledge of friendship and part with thirsty lips. Going on to Roxbury, Church luckily found an old neighbor of his, who generously lent him money enough to get home with. He tells the anecdote in order to show to what straits the parsimony of the Massachusetts rulers had reduced him, their great captain, to whom the colony owed so much. The =Red Lion=, in North Street, was one of the oldest public houses, if not the oldest, to be opened at the North End of the town. It stood close to the waterside, the adjoining wharf and the lane running down to it both belonging to the house and both taking its name. The old Red Lion Lane is now Richmond Street, and the wharf has been filled up, so making identification of the old sites difficult, to say the least. Nicholas Upshall, the stout-hearted Quaker, kept the _Red Lion_ as early as 1654. At his death the land on which tavern and brewhouse stood went to his children. When the persecution of his sect began in earnest, Upshall was thrown into Boston jail, for his outspoken condemnation of the authorities and their rigorous proceedings toward this people. He was first doomed to perpetual imprisonment. A long and grievous confinement at last broke Upshall's health, if it did not, ultimately, prove the cause of his death. The =Ship Tavern= stood at the head of Clark's Wharf, or on the southwest corner of North and Clark streets, according to present boundaries. It was an ancient brick building, dating as far back as 1650 at least. John Vyal kept it in 1663. When Clark's Wharf was built it was the principal one of the town. Large ships came directly up to it, so making the tavern a most convenient resort for masters of vessels or their passengers, and associating it with the locality itself. King Charles's commissioners lodged at Vyal's house, when they undertook the task of bringing down the pride of the rulers of the colony a peg. One of them, Sir Robert Carr, pummeled a constable who attempted to arrest him in this house. He afterward refused to obey a summons to answer for the assault before the magistrates, loftily alleging His Majesty's commission as superior to any local mandate whatever. He thus retaliated Governor Leverett's affront to the commissioners in keeping his hat on his head when their authority to act was being read to the council. But Leverett was a man who had served under Cromwell, and had no love for the cavaliers or they for him. The commissioners sounded trumpets and made proclamations; but the colony kept on the even tenor of its way, in defiance of the royal mandate, equally regardless of the storm gathering about it, as of the magnitude of the conflict in which it was about to plunge, all unarmed and unprepared. III. IN REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. Such thoroughfares as King Street, just before the Revolution, were filled with horsemen, donkeys, oxen, and long-tailed trucks, with a sprinkling of one-horse chaises and coaches of the kind seen in Hogarth's realistic pictures of London life. To these should be added the chimney-sweeps, wood-sawyers, market-women, soldiers, and sailors, who are now quite as much out of date as the vehicles themselves are. There being no sidewalks, the narrow footway was protected, here and there, sometimes by posts, sometimes by an old cannon set upright at the corners, so that the traveller dismounted from his horse or alighted from coach or chaise at the very threshold. Next in the order of antiquity, as well as fame, to the taverns already named, comes the =Bunch of Grapes= in King, now State Street. The plain three-story stone building situated at the upper corner of Kilby Street stands where the once celebrated tavern did. Three gilded clusters of grapes dangled temptingly over the door before the eye of the passer-by. Apart from its palate-tickling suggestions, a pleasant aroma of antiquity surrounds this symbol, so dear to all devotees of Bacchus from immemorial time. In _Measure for Measure_ the clown says, "'Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight to sit, have you not?" And Froth answers, "I have so, because it is an open room and good for winter." [Illustration: THE BUNCH OF GRAPES] This house goes back to the year 1712, when Francis Holmes kept it, and perhaps further still, though we do not meet with it under this title before Holmes's time. From that time, until after the Revolution, it appears to have always been open as a public inn, and, as such, is feelingly referred to by one old traveller as the best punch-house to be found in all Boston. When the line came to be drawn between conditional loyalty, and loyalty at any rate, the _Bunch of Grapes_ became the resort of the High Whigs, who made it a sort of political headquarters, in which patriotism only passed current, and it was known as the Whig tavern. With military occupation and bayonet rule, still further intensifying public feeling, the line between Whig and Tory houses was drawn at the threshold. It was then kept by Marston. Cold welcome awaited the appearance of scarlet regimentals or a Tory phiz there; so gentlemen of that side of politics also formed cliques of their own at other houses, in which the talk and the toasts were more to their liking, and where they could abuse the Yankee rebels over their port to their heart's content. But, apart from political considerations, one or two incidents have given the _Bunch of Grapes_ a kind of pre-eminence over all its contemporaries, and, therefore, ought not to be passed over when the house is mentioned. On Monday, July 30, 1733, the first grand lodge of Masons in America was organized here by Henry Price, a Boston tailor, who had received authority from Lord Montague, Grand Master of England, for the purpose. Again, upon the evacuation of Boston by the royal troops, this house became the centre for popular demonstrations. First, His Excellency, General Washington, was handsomely entertained there. Some months later, after hearing the Declaration read from the balcony of the Town-house, the populace, having thus made their appeal to the King of kings, proceeded to pull down from the public buildings the royal arms which had distinguished them, and, gathering them in a heap in front of the tavern, made a bonfire of them, little imagining, we think, that the time would ever come when the act would be looked upon as vandalism on their part. General Stark's timely victory at Bennington was celebrated with all the more heartiness of enthusiasm in Boston because the people had been quaking with fear ever since the fall of Ticonderoga sent dismay throughout New England. The affair is accurately described in the following letter, written by a prominent actor, and going to show how such things were done in the times that not only tried men's souls, but would seem also to have put their stomachs to a pretty severe test. The writer says:-- "In consequence of this news we kept it up in high taste. At sundown about one hundred of the first gentlemen of the town, with all the strangers then in Boston, met at the _Bunch of Grapes_, where good liquors and a side-table were provided. In the street were two brass field-pieces with a detachment of Colonel Craft's regiment. In the balcony of the Town-house all the fifes and drums of my regiment were stationed. The ball opened with a discharge of thirteen cannon, and at every toast given three rounds were fired and a flight of rockets sent up. About nine o'clock two barrels of grog were brought out into the street for the people that had collected there. It was all conducted with the greatest propriety, and by ten o'clock every man was at his home." Shortly after this General Stark himself arrived in town and was right royally entertained here, at that time presenting the trophies now adorning the Senate Chamber. On his return from France in 1780 Lafayette was also received at this house with all the honors, on account of having brought the news that France had at last cast her puissant sword into the trembling balance of our Revolutionary contest. But the important event with which the _Bunch of Grapes_ is associated is, not the reception of a long line of illustrious guests, but the organization, by a number of continental officers, of the Ohio Company, under which the settlement of that great State began in earnest, at Marietta. The leading spirit in this first concerted movement of New England toward the Great West was General Rufus Putnam, a cousin of the more distinguished officer of Revolutionary fame. Taking this house as a sample of the best that the town could afford at the beginning of the century, we should probably find a company of about twenty persons assembled at dinner, who were privileged to indulge in as much familiar chat as they liked. No other formalities were observed than such as good breeding required. Two o'clock was the hour at which all the town dined. The guests were called together by the ringing of a bell in the street. They were served with salmon in season, veal, beef, mutton, fowl, ham, vegetables, and pudding, and each one had his pint of Madeira set before him. The carving was done at the table in the good old English way, each guest helping himself to what he liked best. Five shillings per day was the usual charge, which was certainly not an exorbitant one. In half an hour after the cloth was removed the table was usually deserted. The =British Coffee-House= was one of the first inns to take to itself the newly imported title. It stood on the site of the granite building numbered 66 State Street, and was, as its name implies, as emphatically the headquarters of the out-and-out loyalists as the _Bunch of Grapes_, over the way, was of the unconditional Whigs. A notable thing about it was the performance there in 1750, probably by amateurs, of Otway's "Orphan," an event which so outraged public sentiment as to cause the enactment of a law prohibiting the performance of stage plays under severe penalties. Perhaps an even more notable occurrence was the formation in this house of the first association in Boston taking to itself the distinctive name of a Club. The =Merchants' Club=, as it was called, met here as early as 1751. Its membership was not restricted to merchants, as might be inferred from its title, though they were possibly in a majority, but included crown officers, members of the bar, military and naval officers serving on the station, and gentlemen of high social rank of every shade of opinion. No others were eligible to membership. Up to a certain time this club, undoubtedly, represented the best culture, the most brilliant wit, and most delightful companionship that could be brought together in all the colonies; but when the political sky grew dark the old harmony was at an end, and a division became inevitable, the Whigs going over to the _Bunch of Grapes_, and thereafter taking to themselves the name of the Whig Club.[1] Under date of 1771, John Adams notes down in his Diary this item: "Spent the evening at Cordis's, in the front room towards the Long Wharf, where the _Merchants' Club_ has met these twenty years. It seems there is a schism in that church, a rent in that garment." Cordis was then the landlord.[2] Social and business meetings of the bar were also held at the _Coffee-House_, at one of which Josiah Quincy, Jr. was admitted. By and by the word "American" was substituted for "British" on the _Coffee-House_ sign, and for some time it flourished under its new title of the =American Coffee-House=. But before the clash of opinions had brought about the secession just mentioned, the best room in this house held almost nightly assemblages of a group of patriotic men, who were actively consolidating all the elements of opposition into a single force. Not inaptly they might be called the Old Guard of the Revolution. The principals were Otis, Cushing, John Adams, Pitts, Dr. Warren, and Molyneux. Probably no minutes of their proceedings were kept, for the excellent reason that they verged upon, if they did not overstep, the treasonable. His talents, position at the bar, no less than intimate knowledge of the questions which were then so profoundly agitating the public mind, naturally made Otis the leader in these conferences, in which the means for counteracting the aggressive measures then being put in force by the ministry formed the leading topic of discussion. His acute and logical mind, mastery of public law, intensity of purpose, together with the keen and biting satire which he knew so well how to call to his aid, procured for Otis the distinction of being the best-hated man on the Whig side of politics, because he was the one most feared. Whether in the House, the court-room, the taverns, or elsewhere, Otis led the van of resistance. In military phrase, his policy was the offensive-defensive. He was no respecter of ignorance in high places. Once when Governor Bernard sneeringly interrupted Otis to ask him who the authority was whom he was citing, the patriot coldly replied, "He is a very eminent jurist, and none the less so for being unknown to your Excellency." It was in the _Coffee-House_ that Otis, in attempting to pull a Tory nose, was set upon and so brutally beaten by a place-man named Robinson, and his friends, as to ultimately cause the loss of his reason and final withdrawal from public life. John Adams says he was "basely assaulted by a well-dressed banditti, with a commissioner of customs at their head." What they had never been able to compass by fair argument, the Tories now succeeded in accomplishing by brute force, since Otis was forever disqualified from taking part in the struggle which he had all along foreseen was coming,--and which, indeed, he had done more to bring about than any single man in the colonies. Connected with this affair is an anecdote which we think merits a place along with it. It is related by John Adams, who was an interested listener. William Molyneux had a petition before the legislature which did not succeed to his wishes, and for several evenings he had wearied the company with his complaints of services, losses, sacrifices, etc., always winding up with saying, "That a man who has behaved as I have should be treated as I am is intolerable," with much more to the same effect. Otis had said nothing, but the whole club were disgusted and out of patience, when he rose from his seat with the remark, "Come, come, Will, quit this subject, and let us enjoy ourselves. I also have a list of grievances; will you hear it?" The club expected some fun, so all cried out, "Ay! ay! let us hear your list." "Well, then, in the first place, I resigned the office of advocate-general, which I held from the crown, which produced me--how much do you think?" "A great deal, no doubt," said Molyneux. "Shall we say two hundred sterling a year?" "Ay, more, I believe," said Molyneux. "Well, let it be two hundred. That, for ten years, is two thousand. In the next place, I have been obliged to relinquish the greater part of my business at the bar. Will you set that at two hundred pounds more?" "Oh, I believe it much more than that!" was the answer. "Well, let it be two hundred. This, for ten years, makes two thousand. You allow, then, I have lost four thousand pounds sterling?" "Ay, and more too," said Molyneux. Otis went on: "In the next place, I have lost a hundred friends, among whom were men of the first rank, fortune, and power in the province. At what price will you estimate them?" "D--n them!" said Molyneux, "at nothing. You are better off without them than with them." A loud laugh from the company greeted this sally. "Be it so," said Otis. "In the next place, I have made a thousand enemies, among whom are the government of the province and the nation. What do you think of this item?" "That is as it may happen," said Molyneux, reflectively. "In the next place, you know I love pleasure, but I have renounced pleasure for ten years. What is that worth?" "No great matter: you have made politics your amusement." A hearty laugh. "In the next place, I have ruined as fine health as nature ever gave to man." "That is melancholy indeed; there is nothing to be said on that point," Molyneux replied. "Once more," continued Otis, holding down his head before Molyneux, "look upon this head!" (there was a deep, half-closed scar, in which a man might lay his finger)--"and, what is worse my friends think I have a monstrous crack in my skull." This made all the company look grave, and had the desired effect of making Molyneux who was really a good companion, heartily ashamed of his childish complaints. [Illustration] Another old inn of assured celebrity was the =Cromwell's Head=, in School Street. This was a two-story wooden building of venerable appearance, conspicuously displaying over the footway a grim likeness of the Lord Protector, it is said much to the disgust of the ultra royalists, who, rather than pass underneath it, habitually took the other side of the way. Indeed, some of the hot-headed Tories were for serving _Cromwell's Head_ as that man of might had served their martyr king's. So, when the town came under martial law, mine host Brackett, whose family kept the house for half a century or more, had to take down his sign, and conceal it until such time as the "British hirelings" should have made their inglorious exit from the town. [Illustration] After Braddock's crushing defeat in the West, a young Virginian colonel, named George Washington, was sent by Governor Dinwiddie to confer with Governor Shirley, who was the great war governor of his day, as Andrew was of our own, with the difference that Shirley then had the general direction of military affairs, from the Ohio to the St. Lawrence, pretty much in his own hands. Colonel Washington took up his quarters at Brackett's, little imagining, perhaps, that twenty years later he would enter Boston at the head of a victorious republican army, after having quartered his troops in Governor Shirley's splendid mansion. Major-General the Marquis Chastellux, of Rochambeau's auxiliary army, also lodged at the _Cromwell's Head_ when he was in Boston in 1782. He met there the renowned Paul Jones, whose excessive vanity led him to read to the company in the coffee-room some verses composed in his own honor, it is said, by Lady Craven. From the tavern of the gentry we pass on to the tavern of the mechanics, and of the class which Abraham Lincoln has forever distinguished by the title of the common people. Among such houses the =Salutation=, which stood at the junction of Salutation with North Street, is deserving of a conspicuous place. Its vicinity to the shipyards secured for it the custom of the sturdy North End shipwrights, caulkers, gravers, sparmakers, and the like,--a numerous body, who, while patriots to the backbone, were also quite clannish and independent in their feelings and views, and consequently had to be managed with due regard to their class prejudices, as in politics they always went in a body. Shrewd politicians, like Samuel Adams, understood this. Governor Phips owed his elevation to it. As a body, therefore, these mechanics were extremely formidable, whether at the polls or in carrying out the plans of their leaders. To their meetings the origin of the word _caucus_ is usually referred, the word itself undoubtedly having come into familiar use as a short way of saying caulkers' meetings. The _Salutation_ became the point of fusion between leading Whig politicians and the shipwrights. More than sixty influential mechanics attended the first meeting, called in 1772, at which Dr. Warren drew up a code of by-laws. Some leading mechanic, however, was always chosen to be the moderator. The "caucus," as it began to be called, continued to meet in this place until after the destruction of the tea, when, for greater secrecy, it became advisable to transfer the sittings to another place, and then the Green Dragon, in Union Street, was selected. The _Salutation_ had a sign of the sort that is said to tickle the popular fancy for what is quaint or humorous. It represented two citizens, with hands extended, bowing and scraping to each other in the most approved fashion. So the North-Enders nicknamed it "The Two Palaverers," by which name it was most commonly known. This house, also, was a reminiscence of the _Salutation_ in Newgate Street, London, which was the favorite haunt of Lamb and Coleridge. The =Green Dragon= will probably outlive all its contemporaries in the popular estimation. In the first place a mural tablet, with a dragon sculptured in relief, has been set in the wall of the building that now stands upon some part of the old tavern site. It is the only one of the old inns to be so distinguished. Its sign was the fabled dragon, in hammered metal, projecting out above the door, and was probably the counterpart of the _Green Dragon_ in Bishopsgate Street, London. [Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON TAVERN] As a public house this one goes back to 1712, when Richard Pullen kept it; and we also find it noticed, in 1715, as a place for entering horses to be run for a piece of plate of the value of twenty-five pounds. In passing, we may as well mention the fact that Revere Beach was the favorite race-ground of that day. The house was well situated for intercepting travel to and from the northern counties. [Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON.] To resume the historical connection between the _Salutation_ and _Green Dragon_, its worthy successor, it appears that Dr. Warren continued to be the commanding figure after the change of location; and, if he was not already the popular idol, he certainly came little short of it, for everything pointed to him as the coming leader whom the exigency should raise up. Samuel Adams was popular in a different way. He was cool, far-sighted, and persistent, but he certainly lacked the magnetic quality. Warren was much younger, far more impetuous and aggressive,--in short, he possessed all the more brilliant qualities for leadership which Adams lacked. Moreover, he was a fluent and effective speaker, of graceful person, handsome, affable, with frank and winning manners, all of which added no little to his popularity. Adams inspired respect, Warren confidence. As Adams himself said, he belonged to the "cabinet," while Warren's whole make-up as clearly marked him for the field. In all the local events preliminary to our revolutionary struggle, this _Green Dragon_ section or junto constituted an active and positive force. It represented the muscle of the Revolution. Every member was sworn to secrecy, and of them all one only proved recreant to his oath. These were the men who gave the alarm on the eve of the battle of Lexington, who spirited away cannon under General Gage's nose, and who in so many instances gallantly fought in the ranks of the republican army. Wanting a man whom he could fully trust, Warren early singled out Paul Revere for the most important services. He found him as true as steel. A peculiar kind of friendship seems to have sprung up between the two, owing, perhaps, to the same daring spirit common to both. So when Warren sent word to Revere that he must instantly ride to Lexington or all would be lost, he knew that, if it lay in the power of man to do it, the thing would be done. Besides the more noted of the tavern clubs there were numerous private coteries, some exclusively composed of politicians, others more resembling our modern debating societies than anything else. These clubs usually met at the houses of the members themselves, so exerting a silent influence on the body politic. The non-importation agreement originated at a private club in 1773. But all were not on the patriot side. The crown had equally zealous supporters, who met and talked the situation over without any of the secrecy which prudence counselled the other side to use in regard to their proceedings. Some associations endeavored to hold the balance between the factions by standing neutral. They deprecated the encroachments of the mother-country, but favored passive obedience. Dryden has described them: "Not Whigs nor Tories they, nor this nor that, Nor birds nor beasts, but just a kind of bat,-- A twilight animal, true to neither cause, With Tory wings but Whiggish teeth and claws." It should be mentioned that Gridley, the father of the Boston Bar, undertook, in 1765, to organize a law club, with the purpose of making head against Otis, Thatcher, and Auchmuty. John Adams and Fitch were Gridley's best men. They met first at Ballard's, and subsequently at each other's chambers; their "sodality," as they called it, being for professional study and advancement. Gridley, it appears, was a little jealous of his old pupil, Otis, who had beaten him in the famous argument on the Writs of Assistance. Mention is also made of a club of which Daniel Leonard (_Massachusettensis_), John Lowell, Elisha Hutchinson, Frank Dana, and Josiah Quincy were members. Similar clubs also existed in most of the principal towns in New England. The =Sons of Liberty= adopted the name given by Colonel Barré to the enemies of passive obedience in America. They met in the counting-room of Chase and Speakman's distillery, near Liberty Tree.[3] Mackintosh, the man who led the mob in the Stamp Act riots, is doubtless the same person who assisted in throwing the tea overboard. We hear no more of him after this. The "Sons" were an eminently democratic organization, as few except mechanics were members. Among them were men like Avery, Crafts, and Edes the printer. All attained more or less prominence. Edes continued to print the _Boston Gazette_ long after the Revolution. During Bernard's administration he was offered the whole of the government printing, if he would stop his opposition to the measures of the crown. He refused the bribe, and his paper was the only one printed in America without a stamp, in direct violation of an Act of Parliament. The "Sons" pursued their measures with such vigor as to create much alarm among the loyalists, on whom the Stamp Act riots had made a lasting impression. Samuel Adams is thought to have influenced their proceedings more than any other of the leaders. It was by no means a league of ascetics, who had resolved to mortify the flesh, as punch and tobacco were liberally used to stimulate the deliberations. [Illustration: THE LIBERTY TREE] No important political association outlived the beginning of hostilities. All the leaders were engaged in the military or civil service on one or the other side. Of the circle that met at the _Merchants'_ three were members of the Philadelphia Congress of 1774, one was president of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, the career of two was closed by death, and that of Otis by insanity. IV. SIGNBOARD HUMOR. Another tavern sign, though of later date, was that of the =Good Woman=, at the North End. This _Good Woman_ was painted without a head. [Illustration: THE GOOD WOMAN] Still another board had painted on it a bird, a tree, a ship, and a foaming can, with the legend,-- "This is the bird that never flew, This is the tree which never grew, This is the ship which never sails, This is the can which never fails." The =Dog and Pot=, =Turk's Head=, =Tun and Bacchus=, were also old and favorite emblems. Some of the houses which swung these signs were very quaint specimens of our early architecture. So, also, the signs themselves were not unfrequently the work of good artists. Smibert or Copley may have painted some of them. West once offered five hundred dollars for a red lion he had painted for a tavern sign. [Illustration: DOG AND POT.] Not a few boards displayed a good deal of ingenuity and mother-wit, which was not without its effect, especially upon thirsty Jack, who could hardly be expected to resist such an appeal as this one of the _Ship in Distress_: "With sorrows I am compass'd round; Pray lend a hand, my ship's aground." We hear of another signboard hanging out at the extreme South End of the town, on which was depicted a globe with a man breaking through the crust, like a chicken from its shell. The man's nakedness was supposed to betoken extreme poverty. So much for the sign itself. The story goes that early one morning a continental regiment was halted in front of the tavern, after having just made a forced march from Providence. The men were broken down with fatigue, bespattered with mud, famishing from hunger. One of these veterans doubtless echoed the sentiments of all the rest when he shouted out to the man on the sign, "'List, darn ye! 'List, and you'll get through this world fast enough!" [Illustration: "HOW SHALL I GET THROUGH THIS WORLD?"] In time of war the taverns were favorite recruiting rendezvous. Those at the waterside were conveniently situated for picking up men from among the idlers who frequented the tap-rooms. Under date of 1745, when we were at war with France, bills were posted in the town giving notice to all concerned that, "All gentlemen sailors and others, who are minded to go on a cruise off of Cape Breton, on board the brigantine _Hawk_, Captain Philip Bass commander, mounting fourteen carriage, and twenty swivel guns, going in consort with the brigantine _Ranger_, Captain Edward Fryer commander, of the like force, to intercept the East India, South Sea, and other ships bound to Cape Breton, let them repair to the Widow Gray's at the =Crown Tavern=, at the head of Clark's Wharf, to go with Captain Bass, or to the =Vernon's Head=, Richard Smith's, in King Street, to go in the _Ranger_." "Gentlemen sailors" is a novel sea-term that must have tickled an old salt's fancy amazingly. The following notice, given at the same date in the most public manner, is now curious reading. "To be sold, a likely negro or mulatto boy, about eleven years of age." This was in Boston. The Revolution wrought swift and significant change in many of the old, favorite signboards. Though the idea remained the same, their symbolism was now put to a different use. Down came the king's and up went the people's arms. The crowns and sceptres, the lions and unicorns, furnished fuel for patriotic bonfires or were painted out forever. With them disappeared the last tokens of the monarchy. The crown was knocked into a cocked-hat, the sceptre fell at the unsheathing of the sword. The heads of Washington and Hancock, Putnam and Lee, Jones and Hopkins, now fired the martial heart instead of Vernon, Hawk, or Wolfe. Allegiance to old and cherished traditions was swept away as ruthlessly as if it were in truth but the reflection of that loyalty which the colonists had now thrown off forever. They had accepted the maxim, that, when a subject draws his sword against his king, he should throw away the scabbard. Such acts are not to be referred to the fickleness of popular favor which Horace Walpole has moralized upon, or which the poet satirizes in the lines,-- "Vernon, the Butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppell, Howe, Evil and good have had their tithe of talk, And filled their sign-post then like Wellesly now." Rather should we credit it to that genuine and impassioned outburst of patriotic feeling which, having turned royalty out of doors, indignantly tossed its worthless trappings into the street after it. Not a single specimen of the old-time hostelries now remains in Boston. All is changed. The demon demolition is everywhere. Does not this very want of permanence suggest, with much force, the need of perpetuating a noted house or site by some appropriate memorial? It is true that a beginning has been made in this direction, but much more remains to be done. In this way, a great deal of curious and valuable information may be picked up in the streets, as all who run may read. It has been noticed that very few pass by such memorials without stopping to read the inscriptions. Certainly, no more popular method of teaching history could well be devised. This being done, on a liberal scale, the city would still hold its antique flavor through the records everywhere displayed on the walls of its buildings, and we should have a home application of the couplet: "Oh, but a wit can study in the streets, And raise his mind above the mob he meets." APPENDIX. BOSTON TAVERNS TO THE YEAR 1800. The =Anchor=, or =Blue Anchor=. Robert Turner, vintner, came into possession of the estate (Richard Fairbanks's) in 1652, died in 1664, and was succeeded in the business by his son John, who continued it till his own death in 1681; Turner's widow married George Monck, or Monk, who kept the _Anchor_ until his decease in 1698; his widow carried on the business till 1703, when the estate probably ceased to be a tavern. The house was destroyed in the great fire of 1711. The old and new Globe buildings stand on the site. [See communication of William R. Bagnall in _Boston Daily Globe_ of April 2, 1885.] Committees of the General Court used to meet here. (Hutchinson Coll., 345, 347.) =Admiral Vernon=, or =Vernon's Head=, corner of State Street and Merchants' Row. In 1743, Peter Faneuil's warehouse was opposite. Richard Smith kept it in 1745, Mary Bean in 1775; its sign was a portrait of the admiral. =American Coffee-House.= See _British Coffee-House_. =Black Horse=, in Prince Street, formerly Black Horse Lane, so named from the tavern as early as 1698. =Brazen-Head.= In Old Cornhill. Though not a tavern, memorable as the place where the Great Fire of 1760 originated. =Bull=, lower end of Summer Street, north side; demolished 1833 to make room "for the new street from Sea to Broad," formerly Flounder Lane, now Atlantic Avenue. It was then a very old building. Bull's Wharf and Lane named for it. =British Coffee-House=, mentioned in 1762. John Ballard kept it. Cord Cordis, in 1771. =Bunch of Grapes.= Kept by Francis Holmes, 1712; William Coffin, 1731-33; Edward Lutwych, 1733; Joshua Barker, 1749; William Wetherhead, 1750; Rebecca Coffin, 1760; Joseph Ingersoll, 1764-72. [In 1768 Ingersoll also had a wine-cellar next door.] Captain John Marston was landlord 1775-78; William Foster, 1782; Colonel Dudley Colman, 1783; James Vila, 1789, in which year he removed to Concert Hall; Thomas Lobdell, 1789. Trinity Church was organized in this house. It was often described as being at the head of Long Wharf. =Castle Tavern=, afterward the =George Tavern=. Northeast by Wing's Lane (Elm Street), front or southeast by Dock Square. For an account of Hudson's marital troubles, see Winthrop's _New England_, II. 249. Another house of the same name is mentioned in 1675 and 1693. A still earlier name was the "Blew Bell," 1673. It was in Mackerel Lane (Kilby Street), corner of Liberty Square. =Cole's Inn.= See the referred-to deed in _Proc. Am. Ant. Soc._, VII. p. 51. For the episode of Lord Leigh consult _Old Landmarks of Boston_, p. 109. =Cromwell's Head=, by Anthony Brackett, 1760; by his widow, 1764-68; later by Joshua Brackett. A two-story wooden house advertised to be sold, 1802. =Crown Coffee-House.= First house on Long Wharf. Thomas Selby kept it 1718-24; Widow Anna Swords, 1749; then the property of Governor Belcher; Belcher sold to Richard Smith, innholder, who in 1751 sold to Robert Sherlock. =Crown Tavern.= Widow Day's, head of Clark's Wharf; rendezvous for privateersmen in 1745. [Illustration: THE CROWN COFFEE HOUSE (Site of Fidelity Trust Building)] =Cross Tavern=, corner of Cross and Ann Streets, 1732; Samuel Mattocks advertises, 1729, two young bears "very tame" for sale at the _Sign of the Cross_. Cross Street takes its name from the tavern. Perhaps the same as the =Red Cross=, in Ann Street, mentioned in 1746, and then kept by John Osborn. Men who had enlisted for the Canada expedition were ordered to report there. =Dog and Pot=, at the head of Bartlett's Wharf in Ann (North) Street, or, as then described, Fish Street. Bartlett's Wharf was in 1722 next northeast of Lee's shipyard. =Concert Hall= was not at first a public house, but was built for, and mostly used as, a place for giving musical entertainments, balls, parties, etc., though refreshments were probably served in it by the lessee. A "concert of musick" was advertised to be given there as early as 1755. (See _Landmarks of Boston_.) Thomas Turner had a dancing and fencing academy there in 1776. As has been mentioned, James Vila took charge of Concert Hall in 1789. The old hall, which formed the second story, was high enough to be divided into two stories when the building was altered by later owners. It was of brick, and had two ornamental scrolls on the front, which were removed when the alterations were made. =Great Britain Coffee-House=, Ann Street, 1715. The house of Mr. Daniel Stevens, Ann Street, near the drawbridge. There was another house of the same name in Queen (Court) Street, near the Exchange, in 1713, where "superfine bohea, and green tea, chocolate, coffee-powder, etc.," were advertised. =George=, or =St. George, Tavern=, on the Neck, near Roxbury line. (See _Landmarks of Boston_.) Noted as early as 1721. Simon Rogers kept it 1730-34. In 1769 Edward Bardin took it and changed the name to the =King's Arms=. Thomas Brackett was landlord in 1770. Samuel Mears, later. During the siege of 1775 the tavern was burnt by the British, as it covered our advanced line. It was known at that time by its old name of the _George_. =Golden Ball.= Loring's Tavern, Merchants' Row, corner of Corn Court, 1777. Kept by Mrs. Loring in 1789. =General Wolfe=, Town Dock, north side of Faneuil Hall, 1768. Elizabeth Coleman offers for sale utensils of Brew-House, etc., 1773. =Green Dragon=, also _Freemason's Arms_. By Richard Pullin, 1712; by Mr. Pattoun, 1715; Joseph Kilder, 1734, who came from the =Three Cranes=, Charlestown. John Cary was licensed to keep it in 1769; Benjamin Burdick, 1771, when it became the place of meeting of the Revolutionary Club. St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons bought the building before the Revolution, and continued to own it for more than a century. See p. 46. =Hancock House=, Corn Court; sign has Governor Hancock's portrait,--a wretched daub; said to have been the house in which Louis Philippe lodged during his short stay in Boston. =Hat and Helmet=, by Daniel Jones; less than a quarter of a mile south of the Town-House. =Indian Queen=, =Blue Bell=, and ---- stood on the site of the Parker Block, Washington Street, formerly Marlborough Street. Nathaniel Bishop kept it in 1673. After stages begun running into the country, this house, then kept by Zadock Pomeroy, was a regular starting-place for the Concord, Groton, and Leominster stages. It was succeeded by the =Washington Coffee-House=. The =Indian Queen=, in Bromfield Street, was another noted stage-house, though not of so early date. Isaac Trask, Nabby, his widow, Simeon Boyden, and Preston Shepard kept it. The =Bromfield House= succeeded it, on the Methodist Book Concern site. [Illustration: _Daniel Jones of Boston_, Hereby informs his Customers and others that he has Opened a TAVERN in Newbury-Street, at the Sign of the HAT and HELMET, which is less than a Quarter of a Mile South of the Town-House: Where Gentlemen Travellers and others will be kind- ly entertained, and good Care taken of their Horses. He hath Accommodation for private and Fire- Clubs, and will engage to furnish with good Liquors and Attendance: Coffee to be had when called for, &c. The House to be supplied with the News-Papers for the Amusement of his Customers. N. B. Knapp'd and plain Bever and Beveret Hats, in the newest Taste, made and sold by said JONES. BOSTON NEWS-LETTER, FEB. 15, 1770] [Illustration: _STAGES._ The public are informed, that the Of- fice of the New-York Mail, and Old Line Stages, is re- oved from State-street, to Najor KING'S tavern near the Market, which they will leave at 8 o'clock, A. M. every day (Sundays excepted). Also, Albany Stage Office is kept at the same place. The Stage will leave it every Monday and Thursday at 8 o'clock, A M. The apartment in State-Street, lately occupied for the above purpose, is to be let. Apply to Major KING. December 11 COLUMBIAN CENTINEL. DEC. 11, 1799] [Illustration: _New-York_ and _Providence Mail_ STAGES, Leave Major Hatches, Royal Ex- change Coffee House, in State-Street, every morning at 8 o'clock, arrive at Providence at 6 the same day; leave Providence at 4 o'clock, for New-York, Tuesdays, Thurs- days and Saturdays. Stage Book kept at the bar for the en- trance of the names. Expresses forwarded to any part of the continent at the shortest notice, on reasonable terms; horses kept ready for that purpose only. All favors gratefully ac- knowledged by the Public's most humble servant. _Jan 1._ STEPHEN FULLER, jun. COLUMBIAN CENTINEL, JAN. 1, 1800] [Illustration: JULIEN HOUSE.] =Julien's Restorator=, corner of Congress and Milk streets. One of the most ancient buildings in Boston, when taken down in 1824, it having escaped the great fire of 1759. It stood in a grass-plot, fenced in from the street. It was a private dwelling until 1794. Then Jean Baptiste Julien opened in it the first public eating-house to be established in Boston, with the distinctive title of "Restorator,"--a crude attempt to turn the French word _restaurant_ into English. Before this time such places had always been called cook-shops. Julien was a Frenchman, who, like many of his countrymen, took refuge in America during the Reign of Terror. His soups soon became famous among the gourmands of the town, while the novelty of his _cuisine_ attracted custom. He was familiarly nicknamed the "Prince of Soups." At Julien's death, in 1805, his widow succeeded him in the business, she carrying it on successfully for ten years. The following lines were addressed to her successor, Frederick Rouillard: JULIEN'S RESTORATOR. I knew by the glow that so rosily shone Upon Frederick's cheeks, that he lived on good cheer; And I said, "If there's steaks to be had in the town, The man who loves venison should look for them here." 'Twas two; and the dinners were smoking around, The cits hastened home at the savory smell, And so still was the street that I heard not a sound But the barkeeper ringing the _Coffee-House_ bell. "And here in the cosy _Old Club_,"[4] I exclaimed, "With a steak that was tender, and Frederick's best wine, While under my platter a spirit-blaze flamed, How long could I sit, and how well could I dine! "By the side of my venison a tumbler of beer Or a bottle of sherry how pleasant to see, And to know that I dined on the best of the deer, That never was _dearer_ to any than me!" =King's Head=, by Scarlet's Wharf (northwest corner Fleet and North streets); burnt 1691, and rebuilt. Fleet Street was formerly Scarlet's Wharf Lane. Kept by James Davenport, 1755, and probably, also, by his widow. "A maiden _dwarf_, fifty-two years old," and only twenty-two inches high, was "to be seen at Widow Bignall's," next door to the =King's Head=, in August, 1771. The old _King's Head_, in Chancery Lane, London, was the rendezvous of Titus Oates' party. Cowley the poet was born in it. =Lamb.= The sign is mentioned as early as 1746. Colonel Doty kept it in 1760. The first stage-coach to Providence put up at this house. The Adams House is on the same site, named for Laban Adams, who had kept the _Lamb_. =Lion=, formerly =Grand Turk=. In Newbury, now Washington, Street. (See _Landmarks of Boston_.) Kept by Israel Hatch in 1789. =Light-House and Anchor=, at the North End, in 1763. Robert Whatley then kept it. A Light-house tavern is noted in King Street, opposite the Town-House, 1718. =Orange Tree=, head of Hanover Street, 1708. Jonathan Wardwell kept it in 1712; Mrs. Wardwell in 1724; still a tavern in 1785. Wardwell set up here the first hackney-coach stand in Boston. =Philadelphia=, or =North End Coffee-House=, opposite the head of Hancock's Wharf. Kept by David Porter, father of the old Commodore and grandfather of the present Admiral. "Lodges, clubs, societies, etc., may be provided with dinners and suppers,--small and retired rooms for small company,--oyster suppers in the nicest manner." Formerly kept by Bennet. Occupied, 1789, by Robert Wyre, distiller. =Punch Bowl=, Dock Square, kept by Mrs. Baker, 1789. =Queen's Head.= In 1732 Joshua Pierce, innholder, is allowed to remove his license from the sign of the =Logwood Tree=, in Lynn Street, to the _Queen's Head_, near Scarlet's Wharf, where Anthony Young last dwelt. =Roebuck=, north side of Town Dock (North Market Street). A house of bad repute, in which Henry Phillips killed Gaspard Dennegri, and was hanged for it in 1817. Roebuck passage, the alley-way through to Ann Street, took its name from the tavern. It is now included in the extension northward of Merchants' Row. =Rose and Crown=, near the fortification at Boston Neck. To be let January 25, 1728: "enquire of Gillam Phillips." This may be the house represented on Bonner's map of 1722. =Red Lion=, North Street, corner of Richmond. Noticed as early as 1654 and as late as 1766. John Buchanan, baker, kept near it in 1712. =Royal Exchange=, State Street, corner Exchange. An antique two-story brick building. Noticed under this name, 1711, then kept by Benjamin Johns; in 1727, and also, in 1747, by Luke Vardy. Stone kept it in 1768. Mrs. Mary Clapham boarded many British officers, and had several pretty daughters, one of whom eloped with an officer. The site of the Boston Massacre has been marked by a bronze tablet placed on the wall of the Merchants' Bank, opposite a wheel-line arrangement of the paving, denoting where the first blood of the Revolution was shed. It was the custom to exhibit transparencies on every anniversary of the Massacre from the front of this house. The first stage-coach ever run on the road from Boston to New York was started September 7, 1772, by Nicholas Brown, from this house, "to go once in every fourteen days." Israel Hatch kept it in 1800, as a regular stopping-place for the Providence stages, of which he was proprietor; but upon the completion of the turnpike he removed to Attleborough. =Salutation=, North Street, corner Salutation. See p. 45. Noticed in 1708; Samuel Green kept it in 1731; William Campbell, who died suddenly in a fit, January 18, 1773. =Seven Stars=, in Summer Street, gave the name of Seven Star Lane to that street. Said to have stood on part of the old Trinity Church lot. "Near the Haymarket" 1771, then kept by Jonathan Patten. [Illustration: THE SUN TAVERN (Dock Square)] =Shakespeare=, Water Street, second house below Devonshire; kept by Mrs. Baker. =Ship=, corner Clark and North streets; kept by John Vyall, 1666-67; frequently called Noah's Ark. =Ship in Distress=, vicinity of North Square. =Star=, in Hanover Street, corner Link Alley, 1704. Link Alley was the name given to that part of Union Street west of Hanover. Stephen North kept it in 1712-14. It belonged to Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton. =State's Arms=, also =King's Arms=. Colonel Henry Shrimpton bequeathed it to his daughter Sarah, 1666. Hugh Gunnison sold it to Shrimpton in 1651, the tavern being then the =King's Arms=. =Sun.= This seems to have been a favorite emblem, as there were several houses of the name. The _Sun_ in Batterymarch Street was the residence of Benjamin Hallowell, a loyalist, before it became a tavern. The estate was confiscated. General Henry Dearborn occupied it at one time. The sign bore a gilded sun, with rays, with this inscription: "The best Ale and Porter Under the Sun." Upon the conversion of the inn into a store the sign of the sun was transferred to a house in _Moon_ Street. The =Sun= in Dock Square, corner of Corn Court, was earlier, going back to 1724, kept by Samuel Mears, who was "lately deceased" in 1727. It was finally turned into a grocery store, kept first by George Murdock, and then by his successor, Wellington. A third house of this name was in Cornhill (Washington Street), in 1755. Captain James Day kept it. There was still another =Sun=, near Boston Stone, kept by Joseph Jackson in 1785. =Swan=, in Fish, now North Street, "by Scarlett's Wharf," 1708. There was another at the South End, "nearly opposite Arnold Welles'," in 1784. =Three Horse-Shoes=, "in the street leading up to the Common," probably Tremont Street. Kept by Mrs. Glover, who died about 1744. William Clears kept it in 1775. =White Horse=, a few rods south of the _Lamb_. It had a white horse painted on the signboard. Kept by Joseph Morton, 1760, who was still landlord in 1772. Israel Hatch, the ubiquitous, took it in 1787, on his arrival from Attleborough. His announcement is unique. (See _Landmarks of Boston_, pp. 392, 393.) [Illustration: Jolley Allen, Advertises all his good old Friends, Customers and others, That he has again opened Shop, opposite to the Three Doves in Marlborough-Street, Boston: And has for Sale, at the lowest Prices, the fol- lowing Articles; Muscovado Sugars of various Sorts and Prices, single, middle and double refined English Loaf Sugars, lately imported, Pepper, Bohea Tea, Coffee, Spices of all Sorts, Indigo, Raisins, Currants, Starch, Ginger, Copperas, Allum, Pipes of all Sorts, best Durham Flour of Mustard, and most other Kinds of Groceries too many to enumerate, which he will sell from the largest to the smallest Quantities.--Likewise a very large and compleat Assortment of Liver- pool and Staffordshire Ware, which he will engage to sell by the Crate, or single Piece, as low as any Store in Town.--Playing Cards, Wool Cards, Seive Bottoms, a few Pieces of Oznabrigs and Ticklenburgs, N{o}.4 and N{o}.12. Pins, a few Pieces of Sooses, Damasks, Sterrets, Loretto's, Burdetts, Brunswicks, Mozeens, for Summer Waistcoats, &c. &c. &c. Also, at said Allen's may be had, genteel Boarding and Lodging for six or eight Persons if should be wanted, for a longer or shorter Season, likewise good Stabling for ten Horses and Car- riages. N. B. If any Person inclines to hire the above Stable, and Place for Carriages, they may have a Lease of the same for 19 Years or less Time from the said Allen, and if wanted, on the same Premises can be spared, Room for forty or fifty Horses and Carriages: It is as good a Place for Horse and Chaise Letting as any in Boston. BOSTON NEWS-LETTER, MAY 27, 1773] COLE'S INN THE BAKERS' ARMS THE GOLDEN BALL TAVERN BY WALTER K. WATKINS AND THE HANCOCK TAVERN BY E. W. McGLENEN VI. SAMUEL COLE'S INN. Samuel Cole came to Boston in the fleet with Governor Winthrop, and he with his wife Ann were the fortieth and forty-first on the list of original members of the First Church. He requested to become a freeman October 19, 1630, and was sworn May 18, 1631. He was the ninth to sign the roll of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1637 and in the same year was disarmed for his religious views. In 1636 he contributed to the maintenance of a free school and in 1656 to the building of the town house. In 1652 he was one of those chosen to receive monies for Harvard College. In 1634 he opened the first ordinary, or inn. It was situated on Washington Street, nearly opposite the head of Water Street. Here, in 1636, Sir Henry Vane, the governor, entertained Miantonomo and two of Canonicus's sons, with other chiefs. While the four sachems dined at the Governor's house, which stood near the entrance to Pemberton Square, the chiefs, some twenty in all, dined at _Cole's Inn_. At this time a treaty of peace was concluded here between the English and the Narragansetts. In 1637, in the month of June, there sailed into Boston Harbor the ship _Hector_, from London, with the Rev. John Davenport and two London merchants, Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, his son-in-law, two future governors of Connecticut. On the same vessel was a young man, a ward of King Charles I., James, Lord Ley, a son of the Earl of Marlborough (who had just died). He was also to hold high positions in the future and attain fame as a mathematician and navigator. The Earl of Marlborough, while in Boston, was at _Cole's Inn_, and while he was here was of sober carriage and observant of the country which he came to view. He consorted frequently with Sir Henry Vane, visiting with him Maverick, at Noddle's Island, and returning to England with Vane in August, 1637. His estate in England was a small one in Teffont Evias, or Ewyas, Wilts, near Hinton Station, and in the church there may still be seen the tombs of the Leys. He also had a reversion to lands in Heywood, Wilts. In 1649 he compounded with Parliament for his lands and giving bond was allowed to depart from England to the plantations in America. On the restoration of Charles II. in 1661, the Earl returned to England and in the next year was assisted by the King to fit out an expedition to the West Indies. In 1665 he commanded "that huge ship," the _Old James_, and in the great victorious sea fight of June 3 with the Dutch was slain, with Rear Admiral Sansum, Lords Portland, Muskerry, and others. He died without issue and the title went to his uncle, in whom the title became extinct, to be revived later in the more celebrated Duke, of the Churchill family. It was shortly after the Earl's departure that Cole was disarmed for his sympathy for his neighbor on the south, Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, and he was also fined at the same time for disorders at his house. In the following spring he was given permission to sell his house, to which he had just built an addition, and he disposed of it to Capt. Robert Sedgwick in February, 1638. Cole then removed to a house erroneously noted by some as the first inn, situated next his son-in-law, Edmund Grosse, near the shore on North Street. This he sold in 1645 to George Halsall and bought other land of Valentine Hill. [Illustration: THE BAKERS' ARMS] VII. THE BAKERS' ARMS. PREDECESSOR OF THE GREEN DRAGON. Thomas Hawkins, biscuit baker, and a brother of James Hawkins, bricklayer, was born in England in 1608. He was a proprietor in Boston in 1636; his wife Hannah was admitted to the church there in 1641, and that year his son Abraham, born in 1637, was baptized. His home lot was on the west side of Washington Street, the second north of Court Street. He also had one quarter of an acre near the Mill Cove, and a house bought in 1645 from John Trotman. In 1662 James Johnson, glover, sold three quarters of an acre of marsh and upland, bounded on the north and east by the Mill Cove, to Hawkins. The latter was living by the Mill Cove by this time in a house built in 1649, and beside keeping his bake house he kept a cook shop, and also entertained with refreshments his customers by serving beer. A mortgage of the property, in 1663, to Simon Lynde discloses, besides the dwelling and bake house, a stable, brew house, outhouses, and three garden plots on the upland. In 1667 Hawkins was furnished £200 by the Rev. Thomas Thacher to cancel this mortgage. The property extended from the Mill Pond to Hanover Street, and was bounded north by Union Street, and was 280 feet by 104 feet--about two thirds of an acre in area. Thacher had married Margaret, widow of Jacob Sheafe and daughter of Henry Webb, a wealthy merchant. Mrs. Sheafe had a daughter, Mehitabel, who married her cousin, Sampson Sheafe. Mr. Thacher assigned the mortgage to Sampson Sheafe, and on 31 October, 1670, the time of payment having expired, Sheafe obtained judgment for possession of the property, which had become known as the "Bakers' Arms," which Hawkins had kept since 1665 as a house of entertainment. Hawkins had married a second wife, and in January, 1671, Rebecca Hawkins deeded her rights in the property to Sheafe. 15 May, 1672, Hawkins petitioned the General Court, and complained that he had been turned out of doors and his household property seized by Sheafe; that his houses and land were worth £800, and that Sheafe had only advanced £175. He asked for an appraisement, and the prayer of the petitioner was allowed. In 1673 Hawkins sued Sheafe in the County Court for selling some brewing utensils, a pump, sign, ladder, cooler and mash fat (wooden vessel containing eight bushels) taken from the brew house. He also objected to items in Sheafe's account against him, such as "Goodman Drury's shingling the house and Goodman Cooper whitening it." At this time we find two dwelling houses on the lot. The easterly house Sheafe sold in May, 1673, to John Howlet, and this became known as the Star Tavern. On 10 April, 1673, Sampson Sheafe sold to William Stoughton the west portion of the Hawkins property. In 1678 Mrs. Hawkins petitioned the General Court in the matter, and also the town to sell wine and strong water, on account of the weak condition of her husband and his necessity. 11 June, 1680, the General Court allowed her eleven pounds in clear of all claims and incumbrances. Hawkins having died, she had married, 4 June, 1680, John Stebbins, a baker. Stebbins died 4 December, 1681, aged 70, and the widow Rebecca Stebbins was licensed as an innkeeper in 1690. In 1699 the widow Stebbins, then 77 years old, testified as to her husband Thomas Hawkins having the south-east corner or sea end of half a warehouse at the Draw Bridge foot, which he purchased from Joshua Scotto and which Hawkins sold in 1657 to Edward Tyng. That Hawkins had used it for the landing and housing of corn for his trade as a baker. That he had bought the sea end for the convenience of vessels to land. It is probable the portion sold to Stoughton had but a frontage of two hundred and four feet on Union Street. Sheafe had torn down part of the building and made repairs, and had as tenant of the "Bakers' Arms" Nicholas Wilmot. Wilmot came to Boston about 1650. In 1674 he was allowed by the town to sell beer and give entertainment, and in 1682 he was licensed as an innholder. By his wife Mary he had Elizabeth, who married (1) Caleb Rawlins, an innkeeper, who died in 1693, and (2) Richard Newland; Abigail, who married Abraham Adams, an innkeeper; Hannah, who married Nathaniel Adams of Charlestown, blockmaker; Mary, who married John Alger; and Ann, the youngest, who married Joseph Allen. There were also two sons, Samuel and John Wilmot. Nicholas Wilmot died in 1684, and his widow in a very short time married Abraham Smith, to assist in carrying on the tavern. The tavern, even at this time, was of some size, and additions had perhaps been built by Stoughton. The rooms were designated by names, as in the taverns of Old England. In the chamber called the "Cross Keys" met the Scots Charitable Society, a benefit society for the residents of Scottish birth and sojourners from Scotland, two of the officers keeping each a key of the money box. The most noted of the chambers was that of the "Green Dragon," which at about this time gave the name of "Green Dragon" to the tavern. There were also the "Anchor," the "Castle," the "Sun," and the "Rose" chambers, which were also the names of other taverns in the town at that period. One cold December night in 1690, just after midnight, a fire occurred in the "Green Dragon," and it was burnt to the ground and very little of its contents saved. Snow on the houses in the vicinity was the means of preventing the spread of the flames, with the fact that there was no wind at the time. Within a year or two the tavern was rebuilt by Stoughton and again occupied by Abraham Smith, who died in 1696, leaving an estate of £273: 19: 5. His widow, Mary Smith, died shortly after her husband. In her will she freed her negro women Sue and Maria, and the deeds of manumission are recorded in the Suffolk Deeds. VIII. THE GOLDEN BALL TAVERN. In the manuscript collections of the Bostonian Society is a plan showing the earliest owners of the land bordering on the Corn Market. On the site now the south corner of Faneuil Hall Square and Merchants' Row is noted the possession of Edward Tyng. Another manuscript of the Society, equally unique, is an apprentice indenture of Robert Orchard in 1662. In the account of Orchard, printed in the _Publications of the Society_, Vol. IV, is given the continued history of Tyng's land after it came into the possession of Theodore Atkinson. In the history of the sign of the _Golden Ball Tavern_ we continue the story of the same plot of land. Originally owned by Edward Tyng, and later by Theodore Atkinson, and then by the purchase of the property by Henry Deering, who married the widow of Atkinson's son Theodore. All this was told in the Orchard article. It was about 1700 that Henry Deering erected on his land on the north side of a passage leading from Merchants' Row, on its west side, a building which was soon occupied as a tavern. Samuel Tyley, who had kept the _Star_ in 1699, the _Green Dragon_ in 1701, and later the _Salutation_ at the North End, left this last tavern in 1711 to take Mr. Deering's house in Merchants' Row, the _Golden Ball_. [Illustration: SIGN OF THE BUNCH OF GRAPES Now in the Masonic Temple] [Illustration: SIGN OF THE GOLDEN BALL Now in the possession of the Bostonian Society] Henry Deering died in 1717, and was buried with his wife on the same day. He had been a man greatly interested in public affairs. In 1707 he had proposed the erection of a building for the custody of the town's records; at the same time he proposed a wharf at the foot of the street, now State Street, then extending only as far as Merchants' Row. This was soon built as "Boston Pier" or "Long Wharf." He also presented a memorial for the "Preventing Disolation by Fire" in the town. In the division of Deering's estate in 1720 the dwelling house in the occupation of Samuel Tyley, known by the name of the _Golden Ball_, with privilege in the passage on the south and in the well, was given his daughter Mary, the wife of William Wilson. Mrs. Wilson, in her will drawn up in 1729, then a widow, devised the house to her namesake and niece, Mary, daughter of her brother, Capt. Henry Deering. At the time of Mrs. Wilson's death in 1753 her niece was the wife of John Gooch, whom she married in 1736. Samuel Tyley died in 1722, while still the landlord of the _Golden Ball_. The next landlord of whom we have knowledge was William Patten, who had taken the _Green Dragon_ in 1714. In 1733 he was host at the _Golden Ball_, where he stayed till 1736, when he took the inn on West Street, opposite the schoolhouse, and next to the estate later known as the _Washington Gardens_. He was succeeded by Humphrey Scarlett, who died January 4, 1739-40, aged forty-six, and is buried on Copp's Hill with his first wife Mehitable (Pierce) Scarlett. He married as a second wife Mary Wentworth. By the first wife he had a daughter Mary (b. 1719), who married Jedediah Lincoln, Jr., and by the second wife a son named Humphrey. When the son was a year old, in 1735, two negro servants of Scarlett, by name Yaw and Caesar, were indicted for attempting to poison the family one morning at breakfast, by putting ratsbane or arsenic in the chocolate. Four months after Scarlett's death his widow married William Ireland. Richard Gridley, born in Boston in 1710, was apprenticed to Theodore Atkinson, merchant, and later became a gauger. In 1735 he kept a tavern on Common Street, now Tremont Street. Here by order of the General Court he entertained four Indians, chiefs of the Pigwacket tribe, at an expense of £40 "for drinks, tobacco, victuals, and dressing." Five pounds of this was for extra trouble. The Committee thought the charges extravagant and cut him down to £33 for their entertainment from June 28 to July 9. In 1738 he took the _Golden Ball_. His fame in later years, at Louisburg and elsewhere, as an engineer and artillery officer is well known. Gridley was followed as landlord in 1740 by Increase Blake. He was born in Dorchester in 1699 and married Anne, daughter of Edward and Susanna (Harrison) Gray. Her parents are noted in Boston history for their ownership of the rope-walks at Fort Hill. Blake, a tinplate worker, held the office of sealer of weights and measures, and in 1737 leased a shop of the town at the head of the Town Dock. He later lived near Battery March, and was burned out in the fire of 1760. In 1715 there was born in Salem John Marston. He married in 1740 Hannah Welland, and by her had three daughters. In 1745, at the first siege of Louisburg, he was a first lieutenant in the fifth company, commanded by Capt. Charles King, in Colonel Jeremiah Moulton's regiment. His wife having died, he married her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth (Welland) Blake. His second wife died, and he married in 1755 Elizabeth Greenwood. He was landlord at the _Golden Ball_ as early as 1757. In 1760 he purchased a house on the southwest corner of Hanover and Cross streets, and later other property on Copp's Hill. He is said to have been a member of the "Boston Tea Party." During the Revolution he was known as "Captain" Marston, and attended to military matters in Boston, supplying muskets to the townspeople as a committeeman of the town. He continued to keep a house of entertainment and went to the _Bunch of Grapes_ in 1775. There he was cautioned in 1778 for allowing gaming in his house, such as playing backgammon. He died in August, 1786, while keeping the _Bunch of Grapes_ on King, now State Street, and there he was succeeded by his widow in retailing liquors. He left an estate valued at £2000. Benjamin Loring, born in Hingham in 1736, married Sarah Smith in Boston in 1771. During the Revolution he kept the _Golden Ball_. He died in the spring of 1782, and his widow succeeded him and kept the tavern till her death in 1790. From the inventory of her estate it appears that the house consisted, on the ground floor, of a large front room and small front room, the bar and kitchen, and closets in the entry. A front and a back chamber, front upper chamber, and another upper chamber and garret completed the list of rooms. On the shelves of the bar rested large and small china bowls for punch, decanters for wine, tumblers, wine glasses, and case bottles. There also was found a small sieve and lemon squeezer, with a Bible, Psalm, and Prayer Books. On the wall of the front chamber hung an old Highland sword. The cash on hand at the widow's death consisted of 4 English shillings, 20 New England shillings, 10 English sixpences, a French crown, a piece of Spanish money, half a guinea, and bank notes to the value of £4: 10. In one of the chambers was 8483 Continental paper money, of no appraised value. Benjamin Loring, at his death, left his share of one half a house in Hingham to be improved for his wife during her life, then to his sisters, Abigail and Elizabeth, and ultimately to go to Benjamin, the son of his brother Joseph Loring of Hingham. The younger Benjamin became a citizen of Boston, a captain of the "Ancients," and a colonel in the militia. He started in business as a bookbinder and later was a stationer and a manufacturer of blank books, leaving quite a fortune at his death in 1859. His portrait is displayed in the Armory of the Artillery Company. A portrait of the elder Loring (the landlord of the _Golden Ball_) shows him with a comely face and wearing a tie-wig. The Columbian _Centinel_ of December 3, 1794, had the following advertisement: For sale, if applied for immediately, The Noted Tavern in the Street leading from the Market to State street known by the name of the Golden Ball. It has been improved as a tavern for a number of years, and is an excellent stand for a store. Inquire of Ebenezer Storer, in Sudbury Street. Mr. Storer acted as the agent of Mary, wife of the Rev. Benjamin Gerrish Gray, of Windsor, N. S., who was the heiress of Mary Gooch, who resided at Marshfield, Mass., at the time of her death. Mr. Gray was a son of Joseph Gray of Boston and Halifax, N. S., a loyalist. Mary, the heiress, was a daughter of Nathaniel Ray Thomas, a loyalist of Marshfield, who had married Sally Deering, a sister of Mary Gooch of Marshfield. The property was sold by Mrs. Gray, June 9, 1795, to James Tisdale, a merchant, who bought also adjoining lots. It was at this time that the _Golden Ball_ disappeared from Merchants' Row, where it had hung as a landmark for about a century. Tisdale soon sold his lots to Joseph Blake, a merchant, who erected warehouses on the site. There was still an attraction in the _Golden Ball_, however, and in 1799 we find it swinging in Wing's Lane, now Elm Street, for Nathan Winship. He was the son of Jonathan, and born in Cambridge. In 1790 he was living in Roxbury. He died in 1818, leaving a daughter Lucy. He had parted with the _Golden Ball_ long before his death. In 1805 there was erected in South Boston a building by one Garrett Murphy. It stood on Fourth Street, between Dorchester Avenue and A Street, and here he displayed the _Golden Ball_ for five years, as his hotel sign. Just a century ago, in 1810, for want of patronage, it became a private residence. About 1840 the hotel was reopened as the South Boston Hotel. From South Boston the _Golden Ball_ rolled back to Elm Street, and in 1811 hung at the entrance of Joseph Bradley's Tavern. From this _Golden Ball_ started the stages for Quebec on Mondays at four in the morning. They arrived at Concord, N. H., at seven in the evening. Leaving there at four Tuesday morning, they reached Hanover, N. H., at two in the afternoon, and continuing on arrived at Haverhill, N. H., near Woodsville, at nine Wednesday evening. The next appearance of the _Golden Ball_ was on Congress Street, where at No. 13 was the new tavern of Thomas Murphy in 1816. Henry Cabot, born 1812, was a painter, and first began business at 2 Scollay's Building in 1833. He removed to Blackstone Street in 1835, where he was located at various numbers till 1858, when he went to North Street. He resided in Chelsea from 1846 till his death in 1875. The occupation of this owner of the _Golden Ball_ was that of an ornamental sign and standard painter. His choice of a sign was not according to the traditions of his trade, and did not conform with the painters' arms of the London Guild Company, which were placed on the building in Hanover Street by an earlier member of that craft. It was no worse choice, however, than a sign which some of us may recall as swinging on Washington Street, near Dock Square, fifty years ago, "The Sign of the Dying Warrior, N. M. Phillips, Sign Painter." The _Golden Ball_ was the sign anciently hung out in London by the silk mercers, and was used by them to the end of the eighteenth century. Mr. Cabot's choice of a location to start his business life was more appropriate than his sign, as in the block of shops, owned by the town, connecting on the west side of the Scollay's Building, had been the paint shop of Samuel, brother of Christopher Gore. COFFEE URN USED IN THE GREEN DRAGON. This interesting relic was given to the Bostonian Society during 1915. It is a coffee urn of Sheffield ware, formerly in the _Green Dragon Tavern_, which stood on Union Street from 1697 to 1832, and was a famous meeting place of the Patriots of the Revolution. It is globular in form and rests on a base, and inside is still to be seen the cylindrical piece of iron which, when heated, kept the delectable liquid contents of the urn hot until imbibed by the frequenters of the tavern. The _Green Dragon Tavern_ site, now occupied by a business structure, is owned by the St. Andrew's Lodge of Free Masons of Boston, and at a recent gathering of the Lodge on St. Andrew's Day the urn was exhibited to the assembled brethren. When the contents of the tavern were sold, the urn was bought by Mrs. Elizabeth Harrington, who then kept a famous boarding house on Pearl Street, in a building owned by the Quincy family. In 1847 the house was razed and replaced by the Quincy Block, and Mrs. Harrington removed to High Street and from there to Chauncey Place. Some of the prominent men of Boston boarded with her for many years. At her death the urn was given to her daughter, Mrs. John R. Bradford, and it has now been presented to the Society by Miss Phebe C. Bradford of Boston, granddaughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Harrington. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF COLE'S INN, WITH WHICH HANCOCK TAVERN HAS BEEN CONFOUNDED Dotted lines indicate the present Williams Court (Pie Alley)] IX. THE HANCOCK TAVERN. "As an old landmark the _Hancock Tavern_ is a failure. There was not an old window in the house; the nails were Bridgewater nails, the timbers were mill-sawed, and the front of it was of face brick, which were not made even in 1800. At the time of the Revolution it was merely a four-room dwelling house of twelve windows, and the first license ever given to it as an inn was in 1790. The building recently demolished was erected during the years 1807 to 1812." With the above words, Edward W. McGlenen, city registrar, effectually settled the question June 3, 1903, at a meeting of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, as to the widely credited report that it was in the _Hancock Tavern_, which for many years stood on Corn Court, the members of the Boston Tea Party met, disguised themselves as Indians, and from there journeyed to Griffin's Wharf, where they threw overboard the obnoxious tea. It was a special meeting of the society called to hear the report of a special committee appointed "to consider the question of the circumstances attending the formation and execution of the plans for what is known as the Boston Tea Party." This committee was made up of men who for years had been students of that very subject, and the result of their researches is interesting and conclusive. William C. Bates was chairman, and his associates were Edward W. McGlenen, the Rev. Anson Titus, William T. Eustis, and Herbert G. Briggs. The members of the society were present in large numbers, and Marshall P. Wilder Hall was well filled. William C. Bates, as chairman of the special committee, spoke of the endeavors of himself and colleagues to avoid ground covered by historians. He said that places of rendezvous for the "Mohawks" are to some extent known, for over half a dozen of the members have left to their descendants the story of where they met and costumed themselves. The four Bradlees met at their sister's house, corner of Hollis and Tremont streets; Joseph Brewer and others at the foot of Summer Street; John Crane in a carpenter shop on Tremont Street opposite Hollis; Joseph Shedd and a small party in his house on Milk Street, where the Equitable Building now stands; and James Swan in his boarding house on Hanover Street. In the testimony of the descendants, down to 1850 at least, there was no mention of the _Hancock Tavern_. The place of origin of the Tea Party and who first proposed it are matters of considerable discussion. Many of the party were members of St. Andrew's Lodge of Masons, which owned the _Green Dragon Inn_, and the lodge records state that the meeting held on the night of the Tea Party had to be adjourned for lack of attendance, "public matters being of greater importance." [Illustration: SHEFFIELD PLATE URN Used in the Green Dragon Tavern, now in possession of the Bostonian Society] It is not surprising that so much secrecy has been maintained, because of the danger of lawsuits by the East Indian Company and others. The members of the St. Andrew's Lodge were all young, many under twenty, the majority under thirty. Mr. McGlenen's report as to his investigations was especially interesting, settling, as it did, three distinct questions which had been undecided for many years--the location of the inn of Samuel Cole, the location of his residence, and the much mooted point as to whether the "Mohawks" met at the _Hancock Tavern_ for the preparatory steps toward the Boston Tea Party. All three questions were based on a statement printed in the souvenir of the _Hancock Tavern_, reading as follows: On the south side of Faneuil Hall is a passageway through which one may pass into Merchants' row. It is Corn court, a name known to few of the present day, but in the days gone by as familiar as the Corn market, with which it was connected. In the center of this court stands the oldest tavern in New England. It was opened March 4, 1634, by Samuel Cole. It was surrounded by spacious grounds, which commanded a view of the harbor and its shipping, for at that time the tide covered the spot where Faneuil Hall now stands. It was a popular resort from the beginning, and was frequented by many foreigners of note. The seeming authority for these statements and others, connecting it with pre-revolutionary events, said Mr. McGlenen, appears in _Rambles in Old Boston_ by the Rev. E. G. Porter, pages 67 and 68, evidently based on a newspaper article written by William Brazier Duggan, M.D., in the Quincy Patriot for August 28, 1852, and to a novel entitled _The Brigantine_ by one Ingraham, referring to legendary lore. None of these statements can be confirmed. The confusion has been caused by the statement made many years ago and reprinted as a note in the _Book of Possessions_, Vol. II, _Boston Town Records_, that somewhere near the water front Samuel Cole kept an inn; but Letchford's _Note Book_, the _Town Records_, and the _Suffolk Deeds_ prove to the contrary. Samuel Cole's Inn was kept by him from 1634 to 1638, when he sold out by order of the Colony Court. He purchased a residence near the town dock seven years later. It adjoined the _Hancock Tavern_ lot, and was bounded on the west by the lot originally in the ownership of Isaac Gross, whose son Clement kept the _Three Mariners_, an ale house which stood west of Pierse's Alley (Change Avenue) and east of the _Sun Tavern_. It is impossible to connect the _Hancock Tavern_ with any pre-Revolutionary event. It was a small house, as described in the _Direct Tax_ of 1798, of two stories, of two rooms each, built of wood, with twelve windows, value $1200. It was first licensed in 1790, and the earliest reference found in print is in the advertisement for the sale of lemons by John Duggan, in the _Columbian Centinel_ in 1794. As to Cole's Inn, from the records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Court, it appears that Samuel Cole kept the first inn or ordinary within the town of Boston. In 1638 the court gave him liberty to sell his house for an inn. This he did, disposing of it to Robert Sedgwick of Charlestown, as shown in Letchford's _Note Book_. The town records show that in 1638 Edward Hutchinson, Samuel Cole, Robert Turner, Richard Hutchinson, William Parker, and Richard Brackett were ordered to make a cartway near Mr. Hutchinson's house, which definitely locates Samuel Cole on the old highway leading to Roxbury, _i.e._ Washington Street (_Town Records_, Vol. II, Rec. Com. Report, p. 38). The _Book of Possessions_ shows in the same report that Valentine Hill had one house and garden bounded with the street on the east, meeting house and Richard Truesdale on the north, Capt. Robert Sedgwick on the south, and the prison yard west. Major Robert Sedgwick's house and garden bounded with Thomas Clarke, Robert Turner and the street on the east, Mr. Hutchinson on the south, Valentine Hill on the north, and Henry Messinger west. Valentine Hill granted, March 20, 1645, to William Davies, his house and garden bounded on the south with the ordinary now in the possession of James Pen (_Suffolk Deeds_, Vol. I, p. 60). This presumably is _Cole's Inn_, then in the possession of Robert Sedgwick, and occupied by James Pen. The question of Cole's residence was easily settled by Mr. McGlenen, when he read from deeds showing that in 1645 Valentine Hill sold to Samuel Cole a lot of land near the town dock. Samuel Cole died in 1666, and in his will left his house and lot to his daughter Elizabeth and son John. This property is on the corner of Change Avenue and Faneuil Hall Square, and is now occupied by W. W. Rawson as a seed store. The _Hancock Tavern_ is a distinct piece of property. Mr. McGlenen read from deeds which proved that the land was first owned by John Kenerick of Boston, yeoman, and was first sold to Robert Brecke of Dorchester, merchant, on January 8, 1652. It was again sold to Thomas Watkins of Boston, tobacco maker, in 1653; by him in 1679 to James Green of Boston, cooper; by him to Samuel Green of Boston, cooper, in 1712; and by him willed to his sons and daughter in 1750. The eastern portion of the original lot (that situated east of the one on which the _Hancock Tavern_, just demolished, was located) was sold by Samuel Green's heirs to Thomas Handasyd Peck in 1759. The _Hancock Tavern_ lot itself was then sold to Thomas Bromfield, merchant, in February, 1760. The deed says: "A certain dwelling house, with the land whereon the same doth stand." Bromfield in 1763 sold it to Joseph Jackson of Boston, who owned it at the time of the Revolution, and disposed of it on August 19, 1779, to Morris Keith, a Boston trader. Morris Keith, or Keefe, died in April, 1783, aged 62, leaving a widow and two children, Thomas and Mary. The son died in 1784, the widow in 1785, leaving the daughter Mary to inherit the property. The inventory describes Morris Keefe as a lemon dealer, and the house and land in Corn Court as worth £260. Mary Keefe married John Duggan, May 24, 1789, and in 1790 John Duggan was granted a license to retail liquor at his house in Corn Court. This is the earliest record of a license being granted to the _Hancock Tavern_, so called. Mary Duggan deeded the property to her husband in January, 1795, a few weeks before her death. In 1796 John Duggan married Mary Hopkins. He died April 21, 1802, leaving three children--Michael, born 1797; William, born 1799, and John Adams, born 1802. Mary (Hopkins) Duggan then married William Brazier in 1803. He died ten years later. The record commissioners' reports, No. 22, page 290, show the following inventory for 1798: John Duggan, owner and occupier; wooden dwelling; west on Corn Court; south on Moses Gill; north on James Tisdale. Land 1024 square feet; house 448 square feet; 2 stories, 12 windows; value $1200 Duggan's advertisement in the _Columbian Centinel_ of October 11, 1794, reads: Latest imported lemons--In excellent order, for sale, by John Duggan, at his house, at the sign of Gov. Hancock outside the market. His address in the Boston Directory for 1796 is: "John Duggan, lemon dealer, Corn court, S. side market." In 1795, Duggan, who is described as an innholder, and his wife deeded this property to Daniel English, who, on the same day, deeded it back to John, in order that he might have a clear title. "From these investigations," said Mr. McGlenen, "I think it is clear that as an old landmark the _Hancock Tavern_ is a failure." The Rev. Anson Titus then made his report of personal investigations relating to the Tea Party itself. He said that the only sure thing is this--that something happened in Boston on the evening of December 16, 1773. Beyond this to make statements is dangerous. Details of the affair were not subject of public conversation, because of the danger of prosecution and legal action. It was at the very edge of treason to the King. It is certain that there were a great crowd of visitors in Boston that night from the country towns who had been informed of what to expect and had come for a purpose. Secrecy was the word and obedience was the command. Mr. Titus quoted from the Boston papers of that time and from Gov. Hutchinson's letters, but declared that it was impossible to learn of the names of the actual members of the party. He said that the "Mohawks were men familiar with the vessels and the wharves. It is generally recognized that they were Masons." "In conclusion, as we began," he said, "in 1908, as in 1822, very little is known concerning the real participants of the Boston Tea Party. The lifelong silence on the part of those knowing most of the party is most commendable and patriotic. It was a hazardous undertaking, even treason, and long after American independence was gained, if proof which would have had the least weight in court had been found, there would have been claims for damages by the East India Company or the Crown against our young republic, which would have been obliged to meet them. The affair was a turning point in the history of American liberty, and glad ought we all to be that there is no evidence existing connecting scarcely an individual, the town of Boston, or the province with the Boston Tea Party." [Illustration: The Town of Boston before 1645 Showing the Streets Mentioned in the Book of Possessions Outline traced from Bonner's Map 1722 Details token from the records Annie Haven Thwing © 1914] LIST OF TAVERNS AND TAVERN OWNERS. This list is taken from Miss Thwing's work on the _Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630-1800_, in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society. There also may be found the authority for each statement and further details. It does not include many inns mentioned in advertisements in the papers of the eighteenth century, nor the names of many licensed innkeepers whose hostelry had no sign. The Colony records state that in 1682 persons annually licensed in Boston to keep taverns and sell beer shall not exceed six wine taverns, ten innholders, and eight retailers for wine and strong liquors out of doors. In 1684, as this was not enough for the accommodation of the inhabitants, the county court licensed five or six more public houses. In 1687 all licenses for public houses to be granted only to those persons of good repute, and have convenient houses and at least two beds to entertain strangers and travellers. In Boston the approbation of the Treasurer must be secured. The regulations of inns are given in detail in the records. =Admiral Vernon=, see _Vernon's Head_. =American Coffee-House=, see _British Coffee-House_. =Anchor=, also called =Blue Anchor=, east side of Washington Street, between State and Water streets (site of the Globe Building). In the _Book of Possessions_ Richard Fairbanks (innkeeper) had house and garden here. In 1646 he was licensed to keep a house of entertainment, and in 1652 sold his estate to Robert Turner, who was licensed in 1659, and his widow Penelope in 1666. His son John Turner inherited, and was licensed in 1667. In 1680 George Monk on his marriage with Lucy, widow of Turner, succeeded. Monk married a second wife, Elizabeth Woodmancy, who succeeded him in 1691, and kept the inn until 1703, when she sold the estate to James Pitts. In 1708 a neighboring estate bounded on the house "formerly the Anchor Tavern." From James Pitts the owners were Benjamin Bagnal, in 1724-25; William Speakman, 1745; 1746 Alice Quick, who bequeathed to her nephew Thomas Knight in 1761; and Mary Knight was the owner in 1798. =Bair=, Washington Street, between Dock Square and Milk Street. In 1722 Elizabeth Davis was licensed at the Bair in Cornhill. As she was the owner of the Bear at the Dock this may have been a mistake. =Bear=, see _Three Mariners_. =Baker's Arms=, in 1673 the house of John Gill was on the southwest corner of Hanover and Union streets, "near the Baker's Arms." This was possibly then the name of the Star Tavern or the Green Dragon. =Baulston.= William Baulston had a grant of land in 1636-37 on the west side of Washington Street, between Dock Square and Court Street. In June, 1637, he was licensed to keep a house of entertainment. In 1638 he sold to Thomas Cornewell, who was licensed to keep an inn in room of William Baulston. In 1639-40 the property was bought by Edward Tyng. =Bite=, see _Three Mariners_. =Black Horse=, Prince Street. It is commonly asserted that the early name of Prince Street came from a tavern of that name, but thus far no such tavern has been found on the records. Black Horse Lane was first mentioned in 1684. =Black and White Horse=, locality not stated. In 1767 Robert Sylvester was licensed. =Blue Anchor=, Washington Street, see _Anchor_. =Blue Anchor=, in 1760, "land where the Blue Anchor was before the fire near Oliver's Dock." =Blue Anchor=, locality not stated. In 1767 a man lodged at the Blue Anchor. =Blue Bell=, west side of Union Street, between Hanover and North streets. In 1663 John Button conveys to Edmund Jacklin his house, known as the Blue Bell. =Blue Bell=, southwest corner of Battery March and Water streets. The land on which this tavern stood was originally a marsh which the town let to Capt. James Johnson in 1656, he to pay an annual amount to the school of Boston. Part of this land was conveyed by Johnson to Thomas Hull. This deed is not recorded, but in 1674 in the deed of Richard Woodde to John Dafforne the west bounds were in part on land now of Deacon Allen and Hugh Drury, formerly of Thomas Hull, the house called the Blew Bell. In 1673 the house was let to Nathaniel Bishop. In the inventory of the estate of Hugh Drury in 1689 his part is described as one half of that house Mr. Wheeler lives in and cooper's shop. In the partition of his estate in 1692 there was set off to his grandson Thomas Drury one half of house and land commonly called the Castle Tavern, the said house and land being in partnership with Henry Allen. In the division of Allen's estate in 1703, the house and land is set off to his widow Judith. In 1707 Judith Allen and Thomas Drury make a division, the west half being assigned to Judith Allen and the east half to Drury. Judith Allen died in 1722, and in 1723 her son Henry conveyed to Robert Williams the westerly part of the estate, consisting of dwelling house, land, and cooper's shop. Williams deeds to his son Robert Williams, and the estate was in the family many years. =Brazen Head=, east side of Washington Street, between State and Water streets. Jan. 2, 1757, a soldier was taken with the smallpox at widow Jackson's at the Brazen Head. March 20, 1760, the great fire broke out here. Mrs. Jackson was not a property owner, but leased the premises. =Brewers' Arms=, east side of Washington Street, between Bedford and Essex streets. In 1696 Sarah, widow of Samuel Walker, mortgages the house called the Brewers' Arms in tenure of Daniel Elton (innholder). =British Coffee-House=, north side of State Street, between Change Avenue and Merchants' Row. In the _Book of Possessions_ James Oliver was the owner of this estate. Elisha Cooke recovers judgment against Oliver, and sells to Nicholas Moorcock in 1699. Moorcock conveys to Charles Burnham in 1717, whose heirs convey to Jonathan Badger in 1773. Badger deeds to Hannah Cordis in 1775 "The British Coffee-House." In 1780 the heirs of Badger confirm to Joseph Cordis "The American Coffee-House," and Cordis sells to the Massachusetts Bank in 1792. Cord Cordis was the innkeeper in 1771 and John Bryant was licensed in 1790. In 1798 this was a brick building, three stories, twenty-six windows, value $12,000. =Bromfield House=, Bromfield Street, see _Indian Queen_. [Illustration: BROMFIELD HOUSE ON THE SITE OF THE "INDIAN QUEEN" 36-38 Bromfield Street] =Bull=, foot of Summer Street. In the _Book of Possessions_ Nicholas Baxter had house and garden here. In 1668 he conveyed this to John Bull and wife Mary, the daughter of his wife Margaret. Baxter died in 1692, and in his will recites this deed and divides his personal property between his daughter Mary, wife of John Swett, and John and Mary Bull. In 1694 and 1704 Mary Swett attempted to regain the estate, but Bull gained his case each time. John Bull died in 1723, and in 1724 his son Jonathan buys the shares of other heirs. Jonathan died while on a visit to England in 1727 or 1728, and his will, probated in 1728-29, gives one third of his estate to his wife, and two thirds to his children, Elizabeth, John, and Samuel. Both sons died before coming of age, and Elizabeth inherited their shares. She married Rev. Roger Price, and they went to England. She died in 1780, and in 1783 her eldest son and daughter returned to Boston to recover the property which Barret Dyer, who had married Elizabeth, widow of John Bull, had attempted to regain. John Bull was licensed as innkeeper from 1689 to 1713, when his widow Mary succeeded. In 1757 Mr. Bean was the landlord, and in 1766 the house was let to Benjamin Bigelow. In 1798 William Price was the owner and Bethia Page the occupier. A wooden house of two stories, thirty-one windows, value $2000. The site is now covered by the South Station. =Bunch of Grapes=, southeast corner of State and Kilby streets. The early possession of William Davis, who sold to William Ingram in 1658. Ingram conveyed "The Bunch of Grapes" to John Holbrook in 1680; Adm. of Holbrook to Thomas Waite in 1731; Waite to Simon Eliot in 1760; Eliot to Leonard Jarvis in 1769; Jarvis to Joseph Rotch, Jr., in 1772; Francis Rotch to Elisha Doane, 1773; his heirs to Isaiah Doane, 1786. In 1798 it was a brick store. June 7, 1709, Francis Holmes was the keeper and was to billet five soldiers at his house of public entertainment. In 1750 kept by Weatherhead, being noted, said Goelet, as the best punch house in Boston. In 1757 one captain and one private soldier to be billeted at Weatherhead's. 1764 to 1772 Joseph Ingersol licensed. In 1790 Dudley Colman licensed. In 1790 James Bowdoin bequeathes house called "The Bunch of Grapes" to his wife. This was on the west corner of Kilby and State streets. =Castle=, west corner of Dock Square and Elm Street. In the _Book of Possessions_ William Hudson, Jr., had house and garden here. May 20, 1654, a street leading from the Castle Tavern is mentioned (Elm Street). Hudson sold off parts of his estate and in 1674 he conveyed to John Wing house, buildings, etc., commonly called Castle Tavern. In 1677 Wing mortgages to William Brown of Salem "all his new built dwelling house, being part of that building formerly known as the Castle Tavern." The estate was forfeited, and in 1694 Brown conveys to Benjamin Pemberton mansion heretofore called the Castle Tavern, since the George Tavern, subject to Wing's right of redemption. In his will of 1701-02 John Wing devises to his son John Wing the housing and land lying near the head of the town dock which he purchased of Capt. William Hudson, together with the brick messuage, formerly known by the name of the George Tavern, which has an encumbrance of 1000 pounds, due William Browne, now in possession of Benjamin Pemberton. In 1708 Wing releases the estate to Pemberton. In 1710 the heirs of Pemberton convey to Jonathan Waldo, and the succeeding owners were: Thomas Flucker, 1760; in the same year it passes to Isaac Winslow and Moses Gill; Gill to Caleb Loring, 1768; Nathaniel Frazier, 1771; David Sears, 1787; William Burgess, 1790; Nathaniel Frazier, 1792; John and Jonathan Amory, 1793. In 1798 Colonel Brewer was the occupier. A brick house, two stories, twelve windows, value $4000. =Castle=, Battery March and Water streets, see _Blue Bell_. [Illustration: FIREMAN'S TICKET NOTIFYING OF MEETING AT COLEMAN'S (Bunch of Grapes)] =Castle=, northeast corner of North and Fleet streets. The early possession of Thomas Savage, John Crabtree acquires, and in 1654 conveys to Bartholomew Barnard. Barnard sells to Edward Cock in 1672-73; Cock to Margaret Thatcher, who conveys to William Colman in 1679. Colman to William Everden in 1694-95, who mortgages to Francis Holmes. Holmes conveys to John Wentworth in 1708. In 1717 John Wentworth conveys to Thomas Lee house known as the "Castle Tavern, occupied by Sarah Hunt." In 1768 Thomas Love and wife Deborah (Lee) deed to Andrew Newell, the "Castle Tavern," and the same year Newell to Joseph Lee. In 1785 Joseph Lee conveys to Joseph Austin the "King's Head Tavern." In 1798 owned and occupied by Austin. House of three and two stories, twenty-five windows, value $3000. =Castle=, locality not stated. In 1721 Adrian, widow of John Cunningham, was licensed at the Castle, and in 1722 Mary English. =Cole=, Samuel Cole's inn, west side of Washington Street, corner of Williams Court, site of Thompson's Spa. In 1633-34 Samuel Cole set up the first house of common entertainment. In 1635 he was licensed to keep an ordinary, and in 1637-38 had leave to sell his house for an inn to Robert Sedgwick. In 1646 James Penn was licensed here. Lt. William Phillips acquired the property, and in 1656-57 mortgages "The Ship Tavern." He conveys it to Capt. Thomas Savage in 1660. The later owners were Ephraim Savage, 1677-78; Zachariah Trescott, 1712; Nicholas Bouve, 1715; John Comrin, 1742; Jonathan Mason, 1742; James Lloyd, 1763, in whose family it remained many years. =Concert Hall=, south corner of Hanover and Court streets. In the _Book of Possessions_ Jeremiah Houchin had house and garden here. His widow sold to Thomas Snawsell in 1670, and Snawsell to John Russell in 1671; Eleazar Russell to John Gardner and Priscilla Hunt in 1689-90; the heirs of Gardner to Gilbert and Lewis Deblois in 1749; Deblois to Stephen Deblois in 1754, and he to William Turner in 1769; Turner conveyed to John and Jonathan Amory in 1789. In 1798 John Amory was the owner and James Villa the occupier. A brick house, three stories, thirty windows, value $3000. Villa had been a tenant, and was licensed as an innkeeper for some years. Before it became a tavern the hall was used for various purposes--for meetings, musical concerts, and by the Grand Masons. =Cromwell's Head= or =Sign of Oliver Cromwell=, north side of School Street. In the _Book of Possessions_ Richard Hutchinson was the owner of land here. Abraham Brown acquired before 1658; Sarah (Brown) Rogers inherits in 1689-90, and in 1692 Gamaliel Rogers conveyed to Duncan McFarland; Mary (McFarland) Perkins inherits, and John Perkins deeds to Joseph Maylem in 1714; John Maylem inherits in 1733, and the next owner is Elizabeth (Maylem) Bracket, wife of Anthony Bracket. In 1764 Elizabeth Bracket was licensed at her house in School Street, and Joshua Bracket was licensed in 1768. In 1796 Abigail Bracket conveyed to John Warren, who was the owner in 1798, and Henry Vose the occupier. A wooden house, three stories, thirty windows, value $6000. =Crown Coffee-House=, north side of State Street, the first house on Long wharf (site of the Fidelity Trust Co. building). Jonathan Belcher was a proprietor of Long Wharf, which was extended from State Street in 1710. In 1749 his son Andrew Belcher conveyed to Richard Smith "The Crown Coffee-House," Smith to Robert Shellcock in 1751, and the administrator of Shellcock to Benjamin Brown in 1788. In 1798 stores covered the site. In 1714 Thomas Selby was licensed as an innholder at the Crown Coffee-House, and he died here in 1727. In 1729 William Burgess was licensed, and in 1730 and 1733 Edward Lutwych; 1762 Rebecca Coffin; 1766 Richard Bradford; and in 1772 Rebecca Coffin. [Illustration] =Dolphin=, east side of North Street, at the foot of Richmond Street. Nicholas Upshall was the owner of the land in 1644. He deeds to his son-in-law William Greenough in 1660. Henry Gibbs and wife Mercy (Greenough) inherit in 1694-95. In 1726-27 Henry Gibbs conveys to Noah Champney "The Dolphin Tavern." John Lowell and wife Sarah (Champney) inherit, and deed to Neil McIntire in 1753, McIntire to Neil McIntire of Portsmouth in 1784, and he to William Welsh in 1785, Welsh to Prince Snow in 1798. In 1798 it was a wooden house of two stories and eleven windows, value $600. The Dolphin Tavern is mentioned by Sewall in 1718. In 1726-27 Mercy Gibbs was licensed; in 1736 Alice Norwood, and 1740 James Stevens. =Dove, Sign of the=, northeast corner of Boylston and Tremont streets. In the _Book of Possessions_ Thomas Snow was the owner, and in 1667 he mortgages his old house to which the Sign of the Dove is fastened. William Wright and wife Milcha (Snow) inherit and in 1683 convey to Samuel Shrimpton, the heirs of Shrimpton to Adam Colson in 1781, Colson to William Cunningham in 1787, Cunningham to Francis Amory in 1793, Amory to Joseph Head in 1795. =Drum, Sign of the=, locality not stated. In 1761 and 1776 mentioned in the _Town Records_. =Exchange=, northwest corner of State and Exchange streets. In 1646 Anthony Stoddard and John Leverett deed to Henry Shrimpton house and land. His son Samuel inherits in 1666, and in 1697-98 Samuel Shrimpton, Jr., inherits "the Exchange Tavern." He mortgages to Nicholas Roberts in 1703, and the administrators of Roberts convey to Robert Stone in 1754 "the Royal Exchange Tavern." In 1784 Daniel Parker and wife Sally (Stone) convey to Benjamin Hitchbone. In 1798 Israel Hatch was the occupier. A brick house, four stories, thirty windows, value $12,000. In 1690-91 the Exchange Tavern is mentioned by Judge Sewall. In 1714 Rowland Dike petitioned for a license. In 1764 Seth Blodgett was licensed, 1770 Mr. Stone, 1772 Daniel Jones, 1776 Benjamin Loring, 1788 John Bowers, 1798 Israel Hatch. =Exchange Coffee-House=, southeast corner of State and Devonshire streets. In the _Book of Possessions_ the land was owned by Robert Scott. The house was built in 1804 and burnt in 1818; rebuilt in 1822 and closed as a tavern in 1854. =Flower de Luce=, west side of North Street, between Union and Cross streets. In 1675 Elizabeth, widow of Edmund Jackson, mortgages her house, known by the name of Flower de Luce, in tenure of Christopher Crow. =George=, west side of Washington Street, near the Roxbury line. The land was a grant of the town to James Penn in 1644. In 1652 he deeds, as a gift, five acres to Margery, widow of Jacob Eliot, for the use of her children. In 1701 Eliezer Holyoke and wife Mary (Eliot) convey to Stephen Minot. In 1701-02 Minot petitions for a license to keep an inn or tavern at his house, nigh Roxbury gate. This is disapproved. In 1707 the George Tavern is mentioned. In 1708-09 Samuel Meeres petitions to sell strong drink as an innholder at the house of Stephen Minot, in the room of John Gibbs, who is about to quit his license, and in 1722-23 he was still an innholder there. In 1726 Simon Rogers was licensed. In 1733 Stephen Minot, Jr., inherits the George Tavern, now in occupation of Simon Rogers. In 1734-35 occupied by Andrew Haliburton. In 1768 Gideon Gardner was licensed. Stephen Minot, Jr., conveys to Samuel and William Brown in 1738; William Brown to Aaron Willard in 1792. In 1770 Thomas Bracket was approved as a taverner in the house on the Neck called the King's Arms, formerly the George Tavern, lately kept by Mrs. Bowdine. Aug. 1, 1775, the George Tavern was burnt by the Regulars, writes Timothy Newell in his diary. [Illustration: THE EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE, 1803-1818 (Congress Square)] =George=, corner Dock Square and Elm Street, see _Castle_. =Globe=, northeast corner of Commercial and Hanover streets. In the _Book of Possessions_ the estate of William Douglass. Eliphalet Hett and wife Ann (Douglass) inherit; Nathaniel Parkman and wife Hannah (Hett) inherit. In 1702 Hannah Parkman conveys to Edward Budd; Budd to James Barnard in 1708. Barnard to John Greenough in 1711. In the division of the Greenough estate this was set off to William and Newman Greenough. Greenough to Joseph Oliver in 1779. Oliver to Henry H. Williams in 1788. In 1741 and 1787 the Globe Tavern is mentioned in the _Town Records_. =Goat=, locality not stated; in 1737 mentioned in the inventory of Elisha Cooke. =Golden Ball=, northwest corner of Merchants' Row and Corn Court. Edward Tyng was the first owner of the land, Theodore Atkinson acquired before 1662, and conveys to Henry Deering in 1690. In 1731 part of Deering's estate was the house known as the "Golden Ball," now occupied by Samuel Tyley. Mary (Deering) Wilson inherits and bequeathes to her niece Mary (Deering), wife of John Gooch. In 1795 Benjamin Gerrish Gray and wife Mary (Gooch) convey to James Tisdale house known by the name of the Golden Ball Tavern. In 1798 stores covered the site. In 1711 Samuel Tyley petitions for renewal of his license upon his removal from the Salutation to Mr. Deering's house in Merchants' Row. In 1757 it was kept by John Marston. =Grand Turk, Sign of=, Washington Street, between Winter and Boylston. In 1789 Israel Hatch (innholder). =Green Dragon=, west side of Union Street, north of Hanover. In the _Book of Possessions_ James Johnson owned three fourths of an acre on the mill pond. The next estate that separated him from Hanover Street was owned by John Davis. In 1646 Johnson deeds to Thomas Marshall, and Marshall to Thomas Hawkins. In 1645 John Davis deeds to John Trotman, whose wife Katherine on the same day conveys to Thomas Hawkins. In 1671 Hawkins mortgages to Samson Sheafe, and January, 1671-02, the property is delivered to Sheafe. In 1672-03 Sheafe deeds part to John Howlett (see _Star Tavern_), bounded northwest by William Stoughton. No deed is recorded to Stoughton. Stoughton died in 1701, and this estate fell to his granddaughter Mehitable, wife of Capt. Thomas Cooper. She later married Peter Sargent and Simeon Stoddard. In 1743 her son Rev. William Cooper conveys the brick dwelling called the Green Dragon Tavern to Dr. William Douglass. On the division of the estate of Douglass this fell to his sister Catherine Kerr, who in 1765 deeds to St. Andrews Lodge of Free Masons. In 1798 it is described as a brick dwelling, three stories, thirty-nine windows, with stable, value $3000. In 1714 William Patten, late of Charlestown, petitions to sell strong drink as an innholder at the Green Dragon in the room of Richard Pullen, who hath quitted his license there. =Gutteridge Coffee-House=, north side of State Street, between Washington and Exchange streets. Robert Gutteridge was a tenant of Hezekiah Usher in 1688, and was licensed in 1691. In 1718 Mary Gutteridge petitions for the renewal of her late husband's license to keep a public coffee-house. [Illustration: EXCHANGE COFFEE-HOUSE, 1848 From State Street, looking south down Congress Square] =Half Moon=, southwest side of Portland Street. Henry Pease was the owner of the land in the _Book of Possessions_. He conveys to Thomas Matson in 1648, and Joshua Matson to Edward Cricke in 1685. In 1705 his widow Deborah Cricke conveys to Thomas Gwin house commonly called "The Half Moon." In 1713 Gwin sells to William Clarke. The children of Sarah (Clarke) Kilby inherit and deed to John Bradford in 1760. His heirs were owners in 1798. A brick house, two stories, thirty-nine windows, value $4000. =Hancock=, Corn Court. This property was acquired by John Kendric, who sells to Robert Breck in 1652-53. Later owners, Thomas Watkins 1653, James Green 1659, Samuel Green 1712, Thomas Bromfield 1760, Joseph Jackson 1763. Jackson deeds to Morris Keefe in 1779, whose daughter Mary, wife of John Duggan, inherits in 1795. In 1798 it was a wooden house, two stories, twelve windows, value $1200. =Hatch=, east side Tremont Street, between West and Boylston streets. The land was a grant of the town to Richard Bellingham in 1665. Martin Sanders acquires and deeds to �neas Salter, and Salter to Sampson Sheaf in 1677. Jacob Sheaf to Abiah Holbrook in 1753. Adm. of Rebecca Holbrook to Israel Hatch in 1794. 1796 Israel Hatch (innkeeper). =Hawk=, Summer Street. In 1740 mentioned in the _Town Records_. =Horse Shoe=, east side of Tremont Street, between School and Bromfield streets. In the _Book of Possessions_ this was part of the land of Zaccheus Bosworth. His daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Morse convey to John Evered, _alias_ Webb, in 1660; Webb to William Pollard in 1663. John Pollard deeds to Jonathan Pollard in 1722 the "Horse Shoe Tavern." In 1782 the heirs of Pollard convey to George Hamblin, who occupied it in 1798. A wooden house, two stories, eleven windows, value $1500. In 1738 Alex Cochran was licensed here. =Indian Queen=, later =Bromfield House=, south side of Bromfield Street. The possession of William Aspinwall, who deeds the land to John Angier in 1652, and in the same year it passes to Sampson Shore and Theodore Atkinson; Atkinson to Edward Rawson in 1653-54; Rawson to Robert Noaxe, 1672; Noaxe to Joseph Whitney, 1675; Whitney to Edward Bromfield, 1684; Edward Bromfield, Jr., to Benjamin Kent, 1748; Ex. of Kent to Henry Newman, 1760; Newman to John Ballard, 1782. In 1798 it was occupied by Abel Wheelock, Trask, and Brown. A brick and wooden house, two stories, thirty-four windows, value $4500, with a stable. =Julien Restorator=, northwest corner of Milk and Congress streets. In the _Book of Possessions_ John Spoor had a house and one acre here, which he mortgaged to Nicholas Willis in 1648. In 1648-49 Henry Bridgham sold a house on Washington Street to John Spoore, so it may be possible that they exchanged lots. In 1655 Bridgham was the owner. He died in 1681, and his widow in 1672. In 1680 his estate was divided among his three sons. John, the eldest, settled in Ipswich, inherited the new house, and that included the west portion. In 1719 he deeds his share to his nephew Joseph Bridgham, who in 1734-35 conveys to Francis Borland, then measuring 106 ft. on Milk Street. Borland also bought a strip of James Dalton in 1763, which addition reached the whole length of the lot, which has been abridged by the laying out of Dalton's Lane (Congress Street). Francis Borland died in 1763, and left the Milk Street estate to his son Francis Lindall Borland, who was absent and feared to be dead. Jane Borland married John Still Winthrop, and in 1765 the estate was divided among the Winthrop children. These heirs conveyed the Congress Street corner to Thomas Clement in 1787, and in 1794 he sold it to Jean Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien (restorator). Julien died in 1806, and his heirs conveyed it in 1823 to the Commercial Co. The house was taken down in 1824. In 1798 it was a wooden dwelling, three stories, eighteen windows, value $6000. [Illustration: VIEW OF TREMONT STREET, SHOWING THE "HATCH TAVERN" IN FRONT OF THE "HAYMARKET THEATRE" From an original painting by Robertson, now in the Boston Public Library] =King's Arms=, west side of Washington Street, between Brattle and Court streets. Nearly all of the original lot was taken for the extension of Washington Street, and the exact location obliterated. It was one of the estates at the head of the Dock. In the _Book of Possessions_, owned by Hugh Gunnison, who in 1646 was licensed to keep a house of entertainment. Oct. 28, 1650, he mortgages the estate called the King's Arms, and in 1651 conveys it to John Samson, Henry Shrimpton, and William Brenton (see _Suff. Deeds_, Lib. 1, fol. 135, where there is an interesting and complete inventory). Henry Shrimpton gets possession of the whole, and in his will, 1666, bequeathes to his daughter Sarah Shrimpton "the house formerly called the States Arms." In 1668-69 Eliakim Hutchinson, on his marriage with Sarah Shrimpton, puts the estate in trust for his wife, "heretofore called the King's Arms." He also enlarged the estate by buying adjoining land of the William Tyng and Thomas Brattle estates. By the will of Eliakim Hutchinson in 1718, and that of his wife in 1720, the whole estate went to their son William Hutchinson, who in 1721 devised to his son Eliakim Hutchinson. Eliakim still further enlarged the estate. He was a Loyalist, and his estate was confiscated. In 1782 the government conveyed part of it to Thomas Green and the remainder to John Lucas and Edward Tuckerman. =King's Arms=, west side of North Street, between Sun Court and Fleet Street. The lot of Thomas Clarke in the _Book of Possessions_, which he sold to Launcelot Baker in 1648, and Baker to George Halsey in 1648, the trustees of Halsey to Evan Thomas in 1656, "The King's Arms." In 1680 his widow Alice Thomas mortgages the house formerly known as King's Arms, and she sells it in 1698 to Joseph Bill. =King's Arms=, on the Neck, see _George_. =King's Head=, northeast corner of North and Fleet streets, see _Castle_. =Lamb= and =White Lamb=, west side of Washington Street, between West and Boylston streets, on the site of the Adams House, the original lot of Richard Brocket, which he deeds to Jacob Leger in 1638; and Ann Leger, widow, to John Blake in 1664; Blake to Edward Durant in 1694; Durant to Jonathan Waldo the southern part in 1713-14; Jonathan Waldo, Jr., to Samuel Cookson in 1780; Cookson to Joel Crosby in 1795. In 1798 Joel Crosby was the owner and occupier of the Lamb Tavern. A wooden building of two stories, twenty-four windows, value $4200. In 1738 it was mentioned in the _Town Records_, and in 1782 Augustus Moor was licensed there. =Lighthouse=, 1766, mentioned in the _Town Records_. It was not far from the Old North Meeting House. =Lion, Sign of=, Washington Street, between Winter and Boylston streets. 1796 Henry Vose (innholder). =Logwood Tree, Sign of=, south side of Commercial Street, between Hanover and North streets. The lot of John Seabury in the _Book of Possessions_, which he deeds to Alex Adams in 1645, Adams to Nathaniel Fryer in 1653-54, and Fryer to John Scarlet in 1671. Scarlet to Joseph Parminter in 1671-72. In 1734-35 Hannah Emmes, sister of Parminter, conveys to John Read the house known as the "Sign of the Logwood Tree"; Read to Thomas Bently in 1744, and Bently to Joshua Bently 1756. In 1798 it was occupied by Captain Caswell. A wooden house, two stories, fourteen windows, value $1000. In 1732 mentioned in the _Town Records_. See also _Queen's Head_. [Illustration: THE LAMB TAVERN (The Adams House Site)] =Marlborough Arms= and =Marlborough Head=, south side of State Street, east of Kilby Street. In 1640 William Hudson was allowed to keep an ordinary. His son conveys this in 1648 to Francis Smith, and Smith to John Holland. Judith Holland conveys to Thomas Peck in 1656; Thomas Peck, Jr., to James Gibson, 1711. In 1722 Mary Gibson deeds to her children "house named Marlborough next the Grapes." James Gibson to Roger Passmore, 1741; Passmore to Simon Eliot, 1759; Eliot to Leonard, 1760; Jarvis to Benjamin Parker, 1766; John Erving acquires and deeds to William Stackpole, 1784. In 1798 it had been converted into a brick store. Elisha Odling was licensed in 1720, Sarah Wormal in 1721, and Elizabeth Smith 1722. =Mitre=, east side of North Street, at the head of Hancock Wharf (Lewis Wharf), between Sun Court and Fleet Street. The lot of Samuel Cole in the _Book of Possessions_, which he conveys to George Halsey in 1645; Halsey to Nathaniel Patten, 1654; Patten to Robert Cox, 1681; Cox to John Kind, 1683-84; Jane Kind to Thomas Clarke (pewterer), 1705-06; Clarke to John Jeffries, 1730. His nephew David Jeffries inherits in 1778, from whom it went to Joseph Eckley and wife Sarah (Jeffries). In 1782 heirs of John Jeffries owned house "formerly the Mitre Tavern." In 1798 the house had been taken down. =Noah's Ark=, southwest corner North and Clarke streets. The early possession of Capt. Thomas Hawkins. He was lost at sea, and his widow married (2) John Fenn and (3) Henry Shrimpton. In 1657 William Phillips conveys to Mary Fenn the house called Noah's Ark, the property of her first husband Thomas Hawkins, and which her son-in-law John Aylett had mortgaged to William Hudson, by whom it was sold to William Phillips. In 1657 Mary Fenn conveys to George Mountjoy, and in 1663 Mountjoy to John Vial. In 1695 Vial deeds to Thomas Hutchinson. In 1713 the house was known as Ship Tavern, heretofore Noah's Ark, in part above and in part below the street called Ship Street. =North Coffee-House=, North Street. Dec. 12, 1702, Edward Morrell was licensed. =North End Coffee-House=, northwest side of North Street, between Sun Court and Fleet Street. The land of Capt. Thomas Clarke in the _Book of Possessions_. Elisha Hutchinson and wife Elizabeth (Clarke) inherit. Edward Hutchinson conveys to Thomas Savage in 1758. John Savage inherits, and deeds to Joseph Tahon in 1781, Tahon to Robert Wier in 1786, Wier to John May in 1795 the "North End Coffee-House." In 1782 Capt. David Porter was licensed to keep a tavern at the North End Coffee-House. In 1798 John May was owner and occupier. A brick house, three stories, forty-five windows, value $4500. =Orange Tree=, northeast corner of Hanover and Court streets. Land first granted to Edmund Jackson, Thomas Leader acquires before 1651, and his heirs deed to Bozoon Allen in 1678. Allen conveys in 1700 to Francis Cook "the Orange Tree Inn." Benjamin Morse and wife Frances (Cook) inherit. John Tyng and wife Mary (Morse), daughter of Benjamin, inherit. John Marshall and other heirs of Tyng owners in 1785 and 1798, when it was unoccupied. A wooden house, three stories, fifty-three windows, value $4000. In 1712 Jonathan Wardell, who had married Frances (Cook), widow of Benjamin Morse, was licensed, and from 1724 to 1746 Mrs. Wardell was licensed. =Peacock=, west side of North Street, between Board Alley and Cross Street, on the original estate of Sampson Shore, who conveyed to Edwin Goodwin in 1648, and he to Nathaniel Adams. In 1707-08 Joseph and other children of Nathaniel Adams deed to Thomas Harris house and land near the Turkey or Peacock. In 1705 Elihu Warden owns a shop over against the Peacock Tavern. Sept. 26, 1709, Thomas Lee petitions to keep a victualling house at a hired house which formerly was the Sign of the Turkie Cock. =Peggy Moore's Boarding House=, southwest corner of Washington and Boylston streets. On the original estate of Jacob Eliot. His daughter Hannah Frary inherits, Abigail (Frary) Arnold inherits, and then Hannah (Arnold), wife of Samuel Welles. In 1798 Samuel Welles owner, and he with Mrs. Brown and Peggy Moore occupiers. A wooden house, two stories, and seventy-one windows, value $10,000. =Pine Tree=, Dock Square. In 1785 Capt. Benjamin Gorham was licensed on Dock Square, at the house known by the name of the Pine Tree Tavern. Gorham bought a house in 1782 of John Steel Tyler and wife Mary (Whitman), situated on northwest side of North Street, between Cross Street and Scott Alley, which he sold in 1786 to John Hinckley. =Punch Bowl, Sign of the=, Dock Square. 1789 Mrs. Baker (innholder). =Queen's Head=, Fleet Street. April 19, 1728, Anthony Young petitions to remove his license from the Salutation in Ship Street to the Sign of the Swan in Fleet Street, and set up the Sign of the Queen's Head there. Nov. 28, 1732, Joseph Pearse petitions to remove his license from the house where he lives, the Sign of the Logwood Tree in Lynn Street, to the house near Scarlett's Wharf at the Sign of the Queen's Head, where Anthony Young last dwelt. =Red Cross=, southwest corner of North and Cross streets. In 1746 John Osborn (innholder) bought land of Tolman Farr, to whom it had descended from Barnabas Fawer, who bought it of Valentine Hill in 1646. The children of Osborn sold it in 1756 to Ichabod Jones, whose son John Coffin Jones inherited. =Red Lyon=, northeast corner of North and Richmond streets. Nicholas Upshall was the owner in 1644. Nov. 9, 1654, Francis Brown's house was near the Red Lyon. Joseph Cock and wife Susannah (Upshall) inherit half in 1666, Edward Proctor and wife Elizabeth (Cock) inherit in 1693-94 half of the Red Lyon Inn, John Proctor deeds to Edward Proctor in 1770, Proctor to Charles Ryan in 1790, Ryan to Thomas Kast in 1791, Kast to Reuben Carver in 1794. In 1798 William T. Clapp was occupier. A brick and wooden dwelling, three and two stories, twenty-four windows, value $2500. In 1763 mentioned in the _Town Records_. =Red Lyon=, Washington Street, see _Lion_. 1798 James Clark (innholder). =Rising Sun=, Washington Street, between School and Winter streets. 1800 Luther Emes (innholder). =Roebuck=, east side of Merchants' Row (Swing Bridge Lane) a grant of land to Leonard Buttles in 1648-49. He sold to Richard Staines in 1655, whose widow Joyce Hall deeds to Thomas Winsor in 1691; Winsor mortgages to Giles Dyer in 1706, who deeds the same year to Thomas Loring; Loring to John Barber in 1712; Barber to John Pim in 1715. Samuel Wright and wife Mary (Pim) inherit. Jane Moncrief acquires, and conveys to William Welch in 1793, Welch to William Wittington in 1794. In 1798 William Wittington, Jr., was the occupier. House of brick and wood, three stories, nineteen windows, value $2500. In 1776 Elizabeth Wittington was licensed as an innholder at the Roebuck, Dock Square. In 1790 William Wittington at the Sign of the Roebuck was next to John Sheppard. =Roebuck=, Battery March. July 29, 1702, house of Widow Salter at the Sign of the Roebuck, nigh the South Battery. =Rose and Crown=, southwest corner of State and Devonshire streets. Thomas Matson was an early owner of the land. He deeds to Henry Webb in 1638, Webb to Henry Phillips in 1656-57. His widow Mary deeds to her son Samuel "the Rose and Crown" in 1705-06, Gillum Phillips to Peter Faneuil in 1738, George Bethune and wife Mary (Faneuil) to Abiel Smith in 1787. In 1798 a brick house, three stories, forty-four windows, value $9000. Dec. 29, 1697, a lane leading from the Rose and Crown Tavern (Devonshire Street). =Royal Exchange=, State Street, see _Exchange_. =Salutation=, northeast corner of North and Salutation streets. James Smith acquired the land at an early date. He deeds to Christopher Lawson, and Lawson to William Winburne in 1664; Winburne to John Brookins in 1662 "the Salutation Inn." Elizabeth, widow of Brookins, married (2) Edward Grove, who died in 1686, and (3) William Green. In 1692 William Green and wife Elizabeth convey to William Phipps house called the Salutation. Spencer Phipps inherits in 1695, Phipps to John Langdon in 1705, the heirs of Langdon to Thomas Bradford in 1766, Bradford to Jacob Rhodes in 1784, house formerly "the Two Palaverers." In 1798 it was occupied by George Singleton and Charles Shelton. A wooden house, two stories, thirty-five windows, value $2500. In 1686 Edward Grove was licensed, Samuel Tyley in 1711, Elisha Odling 1712, John Langdon, Jr., 1714. In 1715 he lets to Elisha Odling, Arthur Young 1722, Samuel Green 1731, Edward Drinker 1736. In 1757 called Two Palaverers. William Campbell licensed 1764, Francis Wright 1767, Thomas Bradford 1782, Jacob Rhodes 1784. =Schooner in Distress= and =Sign of the Schooner=, North Street, between Cross and Richmond streets. 1761 mentioned in the _Town Records_. =Seven Stars=, northwest corner of Summer and Hawley streets. The possession of John Palmer. His widow Audrey deeds to Henry Rust in 1652; Rust to his son Nathaniel, 1684-85; Nathaniel to Robert Earle, 1685; Earle to Thomas Banister, 1698, house being known by the name of Seven Stars; Samuel Banister to Samuel Tilly, 1720; Tilly to William Speakman, 1727; Speakman to Leonard Vassal, 1728; Vassal to John Barnes and others for Trinity Church. =Ship=, North Street, see _Noah's Ark_. =Ship=, Washington Street, see _Cole's Inn_. =Ship, Sign of=, west side of North Street, between Sun Court and Fleet Street. The original possession of Thomas Joy, who sold to Henry Fane, and Fane to Richard Way in 1659-60, Thomas Kellond 1777, Robert Bronsdon 1678-79, William Clarke 1707-08, Joseph Glidden 1728, and his heirs to John Ballard 1781. In 1789 John Ballard was innkeeper here. The Executor of Ballard conveys to John Page, and Page to George R. Cushing of Hingham in 1797. In 1798 it was a wooden building, three stories, twenty-nine windows, value $1850, and occupied by Ebenezer Knowlton, Ziba French, and John Daniels. =Shippen's Crane=, Dock Square. 1739 John Ballard licensed as retailer. =Star=, northwest corner of Hanover and Union streets. The lot of John Davis in the _Book of Possessions_. He deeds to John Trotman in 1645, whose wife Katherine deeds on the same day to Thomas Hawkins. In 1671 Hawkins mortgages to Sampson Sheafe, and in 1671-72 the property is delivered to Sheafe. 1672-73 Sheafe conveys to John Howlet, and in 1676 Susannah, wife of Howlet, deeds to Andrew Neale. 1709-10 the heirs of Neale deed to John Borland house by the name of "the Star," now occupied by Stephen North and Charles Salter. John Borland inherits 1727. Jonathan Simpson and wife Jane (Borland) convey to William Frobisher in 1787. In 1798 it was a wooden house, two stories, twenty-eight windows, value $3000. Frobisher and Thomas Dillaway were the occupiers. 1699 the fore street leading to Star Inn mentioned. 1700 house near the Star Ale House. In 1722 John Thing was licensed. 1737 house formerly the Star Tavern in Union Street. =State's Arms=, Washington Street. See _King's Arms_. =Sun=, Faneuil Hall Square. In the _Book of Possessions_ Edward Bendall had house and garden here. He mortgaged to Symon Lynde, who took possession in 1653. His son Samuel Lynde inherits in 1687, and his heirs make a division in 1736. Joseph Gooch and others convey to Joseph Jackson in 1769 the Sun Tavern. Jackson's widow Mary inherits in 1796 and occupied the house with others in 1798, when it was a brick house, three stories, twenty-two windows, value $8000. 1694-95 street running to the dock by the Sun Tavern. 1699-1700 now occupied by James Meeres. 1709 owned by Samuel Lynde, now in possession of Thomas Phillips. 1757 Capt. James Day was licensed. =Sun=, west side of Washington Street, between Brattle and Court streets. In 1782 Gillum Taylor deeds his estate to John Hinckley bounded south by the land in possession of Benjamin Edes, late the Sun Tavern. =Swan=, west side of Commercial Street, near the Ferry. In 1651 Thomas Rucke mortgages his house called The Swan, which he bought of Christopher Lawson in 1648, and he of Thomas Buttolph, who was the original owner. =Swan, Sign of the=, see _Queen's Head_. In 1708 Fish Street (North Street) extends to the Sign of the Swan by Scarlett's Wharf. =Swann=, locality not stated. 1777 mentioned in _Town Records_. =Three Crowns=, North Street, between Cross and Richmond streets. 1718 Thomas Coppin licensed. 1735 mentioned in the _Town Records_. =Three Horse Shoes=, west side of Washington Street, between School and Bromfield streets. The original possession of William Aspinwall, who deeds land to John Angier in 1652. The heirs of Edmund Rangier to William Turner in 1697. Turner to George Sirce in 1713. William Gatcomb and wife Mary (Sirce) inherit. In 1744 Philip Gatcomb mortgages house known by the Sign of the Three Horse Shoes; William Gatcomb to Gilbert Deblois, Jr., in 1784; Lewis Deblois to Christopher Gore, 1789; Gore to James Cutler and Jonathan Amory, 1793; Cutler to Jonathan Amory, Jr., 1797. =Three Mariners=, south side of Faneuil Hall Square. The original possession of Isaac Grosse. Thomas Grosse conveys to Joseph Pemberton in 1679, and Joseph to Benjamin Pemberton in 1701-02 "the Three Mariners." In 1701-02 occupied by Edward Bedford. In 1712 the executor of Benjamin Pemberton deeds to Benjamin Davis the house known by the name of the "Three Mariners." In 1723 the house of Elizabeth, widow of Benjamin Davis, known as "Bear Tavern," conveyed to Henry Whitten, Whitten to John Hammock in 1734-35, Ebenezer Miller and wife Elizabeth (Hammock) to William Boyce in 1772, Boyce to William Stackpole in 1795 the house known as the "Bear Tavern." In 1798 it was a wooden house, three stories, fourteen windows, value $5000, and occupied by Peter Richardson. In the nineteenth century it was known as the "Bite." =Three Mariners=, at the lower end of State Street. 1719 Thomas Finch licensed. [Illustration: THE SUN TAVERN (Dock Square) ABOUT 1900] =Turkie Cock=, see _Peacock_. =Two Palaverers=, see _Salutation_. =Union Flag=, Battery March. 1731 William Hallowell's house, known by the name of Union Flag. Possibly not a tavern. =Vernon's Head= and =Admiral Vernon=, northeast corner of State Street and Merchants' Row. The early possession of Edward Tyng, who sold to James Everill 1651-52, and he to John Evered _alias_ Webb in 1657. Webb conveyed to William Alford in 1664. Peter Butler and wife Mary (Alford) inherit, and deed to James Gooch in 1720. In 1760 John Gooch conveys to Tuthill Hubbard the "Vernon's Head." In 1798 it was a brick store. In 1745 Richard Smith was licensed, Thomas Hubbard 1764. In 1766 William Taunt, who has been at the Admiral Vernon several years, prays for a recommendation for keeping a tavern at the large house lately occupied by Potter and Gregory near by. Sarah Bean licensed 1774, Nicholas Lobdell 1776 and 1786, John Bryant 1790. =White Bear, Sign of=, location not stated. 1757 mentioned in the _Town Records_. =White Horse=, west side of Washington Street, between West and Boylston streets. Land owned by Elder William Colburne in the _Book of Possessions_. Moses Paine and wife Elizabeth (Colburne) inherit. Thomas Powell and wife Margaret (Paine) inherit. In 1700 Powell conveys to Thomas Brattle the inn known as the White Horse. William Brattle mortgages to John Marshall in 1732, and Marshall deeds to Jonathan Dwight in 1740. William Bowdoin recovers judgment from Dwight and conveys to Joseph Morton in 1765; Morton to Perez Morton, 1791. In 1798 it was occupied by Aaron Emmes. A wooden house, two stories, twenty-six windows, value $9000. In 1717 Thomas Chamberlain was licensed, William Cleeres in 1718, Mrs. Moulton 1764, Israel Hatch 1787, Joseph Morton 1789, Aaron Emmes 1798. =White Horse, Sign of the=, Cambridge Street, near Charles River Bridge. 1789 Moses Bradley (innkeeper). [Illustration: The TOWN of BOSTON in _New England_ by Cap{t} John Bonner 1722] FOOTNOTES: [1] Cordis's bill for a dinner given by Governor Hancock to the Fusileers at this house in 1792 is a veritable curiosity in its way:-- £ s. p. 136 Bowls of Punch 15 6 80 Dinners 8 21 Bottles of Sherry 4 14 6 Brandy 2 6 [2] A punch-bowl on which is engraved the names of seventeen members of the old Whig Club is, or was, in the possession of R. C. Mackay of Boston. Besides those already mentioned, Dr. Church, Dr. Young, Richard Derby of Salem, Benjamin Kent, Nathaniel Barber, William Mackay, and Colonel Timothy Bigelow of Worcester were also influential members. The Club corresponded with Wilkes, Saville, Barré, and Sawbridge,--all leading Whigs, and all opponents of the coercive measures directed against the Americans. [3] Liberty Tree grew where Liberty Tree Block now stands, corner of Essex and Washington Streets. [4] The name of a room at Julien's. Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=. Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. 
38889	----	Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 38889-h.htm or 38889-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38889/38889-h/38889-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38889/38889-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/literaryshrinesh00wolfrich Transcriber's note: Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). Superscripted characters are indicated with a carat followed by the superscripted character(s) in curly braces. LITERARY SHRINES FIFTH EDITION * * * * * * _BY DR. WOLFE_ Uniform with this volume A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE AMONG THE HAUNTS OF SOME FAMOUS BRITISH AUTHORS _Treating descriptively and reminiscently of the homes and resorts of English writers from the time of Chaucer to the present, and of the scenes commemorated in their works_ 262 pages. Illustrated with four photogravures. $1.25 A LITERARY PILGRIMAGE AND LITERARY SHRINES Two volumes in a box, $2.50 * * * * * * [Illustration: THE WAYSIDE, CONCORD] LITERARY SHRINES The Haunts of Some Famous American Authors by THEODORE F. WOLFE M.D. PH.D. Author of A Literary Pilgrimage etc. J. B. Lippincott Company Philadelphia. MDCCCXCV Copyright, 1895, By Theodore F. Wolfe. Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. TO MY WIFE, MY SYMPATHETIC AND APPRECIATIVE COMPANION IN PILGRIMAGES TO MANY LITERARY SHRINES IN THE NEW WORLD AND THE OLD, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. PREFACE For some years it has been the delightful privilege of the writer of the present volume to ramble and sojourn in the scenes amid which his best-beloved authors erst lived and wrote. He has made repeated pilgrimages to most of the shrines herein described, and has been, at one time or another, favored by intercourse and correspondence with many of the authors adverted to or with their surviving friends and neighbors. In the ensuing pages he has endeavored to portray these shrines in pen-pictures which, it is hoped, may be interesting to those who are unable to visit them and helpful and companionable for those who can and will. If certain prominent American authors receive little more than mention in these pages, it is mainly because so few objects and places associated with their lives and writings can now be indisputably identified: in some instances the writer has expended more time upon fruitless quests for shrines which proved to be non-existent or of doubtful genuineness than upon others which are themes for the chapters of this booklet. T. F. W. CONTENTS THE CONCORD PILGRIMAGE PAGE I. A VILLAGE OF LITERARY SHRINES. _Abodes of Thoreau--The Alcotts--Channing--Sanborn--Hudson--Hoar-- Wheildon--Bartlett--The Historic Common--Cemetery--Church_ 17 II. THE OLD MANSE. _Abode of Dr. Ripley--The Emersons--Hawthorne--Learned Mrs. Ripley--Its Famed Study and Apartments--Grounds--Guests--Ghosts-- A Transcendental Social Court_ 28 III. A STORIED RIVER AND BATTLE-FIELD. _Where Zenobia Drowned--Where Embattled Farmers Fought--Thoreau's Hemlocks--Haunts of Hawthorne--Channing--Thoreau--Emerson, etc._ 39 IV. THE HOME OF EMERSON. _An Intellectual Capitol and Pharos--Its Grounds, Library, and Literary Workshop--Famous Rooms and Visitants--Relics and Reminiscences of the Concord Sage_ 45 V. THE ORCHARD HOUSE AND ITS NEIGHBORS. _Ellery Channing--Margaret Fuller--The Alcotts--Professor Harris--Summer School of Philosophy--Where Little Women was written and Robert Hagburn lived--Where Cyril Norton was slain_ 52 VI. HAWTHORNE'S WAYSIDE HOME. _Sometime Abode of Alcott--Hawthorne--Lathrop--Margaret Sidney-- Storied Apartments--Hawthorne's Study--His Mount of Vision--Where Septimius Felton and Rose Garfield dwelt_ 58 VII. THE WALDEN OF THOREAU. _A Transcendental Font--Emerson's Garden--Thoreau's Cove--Cairn--Beanfield--Resort of Emerson--Hawthorne--Channing-- Hosmer--Alcott, etc._ 68 VIII. THE HILL-TOP HEARSED WITH PINES. _Last Resting-Place of the Illustrious Concord Company--Their Graves beneath the Piny Boughs_ 75 IN AND OUT OF LITERARY BOSTON IN BOSTON _A Golden Age of Letters--Literary Associations--Isms--Clubs--Where Hester Prynne and Silas Lapham lived--The Corner Book-store--Home of Fields--Sargent--Hilliard--Aldrich--Deland--Parkman--Holmes-- Howells--Moulton--Hale--Howe--Jane Austin, etc._ 83 OUT OF BOSTON I. CAMBRIDGE: ELMWOOD: MOUNT AUBURN. _Holmes's Church-yard--Bridge--Smithy, Chapel, and River of Longfellow's Verse--Abodes of Lettered Culture--Holmes-- Higginson--Agassiz--Norton--Clough--Howells--Fuller-- Longfellow--Lowell--Longfellow's City of the Dead and its Precious Graves_ 103 II. BELMONT: THE WAYSIDE INN: HOME OF WHITTIER. _Lowell's Beaver Brook--Abode of Trowbridge--Red Horse Tavern-- Parsons and the Company of Longfellow's Friends--Birthplace of Whittier--Scenes of his Poems--Dwelling and Grave of the Countess--Powow Hill--Whittier's Amesbury Home--His Church and Tomb_ 117 III. SALEM: WHITTIER'S OAK-KNOLL AND BEYOND. _Cemetery of Hawthorne's Ancestors--Birthplace of Hawthorne and his Wife--Where Fame was won--House of the Seven Gables-- Custom-House--Where Scarlet Letter was written--Main Street and Witch Hill--Sights from a Steeple--Later Home of Whittier-- Norman's Woe--Lucy Larcom--Parton, etc.--Rivermouth--Thaxter_ 128 IV. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD: BROOK FARM, ETC. _Scenes of the Old Oaken Bucket--Webster's Home and Grave--Where Emerson won his Wife--Home of Miss Peabody--Parkman--Miss Guiney--Aldrich's Ponkapog--Farm of Ripley's Community--Relics and Reminiscences_ 141 IN BERKSHIRE WITH HAWTHORNE I. THE GRAYLOCK AND HOOSAC REGION. _North Adams and about--Hawthorne's Acquaintances and Excursions-- Actors and Incidents of Ethan Brand--Kiln of Bertram the Lime-Burner--Natural Bridge--Graylock--Thoreau--Hoosac Mountain--Deerfield Arch--Williamstown--Bryant_ 155 II. LENOX AND MIDDLE BERKSHIRE. _Beloved of the Littérateurs--La Maison Rouge--Where The House of the Seven Gables was written--Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Scenes-- The Bowl--Beecher's Laurel Lake--Kemble--Bryant's Monument Mountain--Stockbridge--Catherine Sedgwick--Melville's Piazza and Chimney--Holmes--Longfellow--Pittsfield_ 176 A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET _Walk and Talk with Socrates in Camden--The Bard's Appearance and Surroundings--Recollections of his Life and Work--Hospital Service--Praise for his Critics--His Literary Habit, Purpose, Equipment, and Style--His Religious Bent--Readings_ 201 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Wayside, Concord _Frontispiece._ The Thoreau-Alcott House,--Present Appearance 21 The Grave of Emerson 78 Where Longfellow lived 108 THE CONCORD PILGRIMAGE I. A Village of Literary Shrines II. The Old Manse III. Storied River and Battle-field IV. The Home of Emerson V. Alcott's Orchard House, etc. VI. Hawthorne's Wayside Home VII. The Walden of Thoreau VIII. The Hill-top Hearsed with Pines I A VILLAGE OF LITERARY SHRINES _Abodes of Thoreau--The Alcotts--Channing--Sanborn--Hudson--Hoar-- Wheildon--Bartlett--The Historic Common--Cemetery--Church._ If to trace the footsteps of genius and to linger and muse in the sometime haunts of the authors we read and love, serve to bring us nearer their personality, to place us _en rapport_ with their aspirations, and thus to incite our own spiritual development and broaden and exalt our moral nature, then the Concord pilgrimage should be one of the most fruitful and beneficent of human experiences. Familiarity with the physical stand-point of our authors, with the scenes amid which they lived and wrote, and with the objects which suggested the imagery of their poems, the settings of their tales, and which gave tone and color to their work, will not only bring us into closer sympathy with the writers, but will help us to a better understanding of the writings. A plain, straggling village, set in a low country amid a landscape devoid of any striking beauty or grandeur, Concord yet attracts more pilgrims than any other place of equal size upon the continent, not because it holds an historic battle-field, but because it has been the dwelling-place of some of the brightest and best in American letters, who have here written their books and warred against creeds, forms, and intellectual servitude. It is another Stratford, another Mecca, to which come reverent pilgrims from the Old World and the New to worship at its shrines and to wander through the scenes hallowed by the memories of its illustrious _littérateurs_, seers, and evangels. To the literary prowler it is all sacred ground,--its streets, its environing hills, forests, lakes, and streams have alike been blessed by the loving presence of genius, have alike been the theatres and the inspirations of noble literary achievement. Our way lies by historic Lexington, and thence, through a pleasant country and by the road so fateful to the British soldiery, we approach Concord. It is a placid, almost somnolent village of villas, abounding with delightful lawns and gardens, with great elms shading its old-fashioned thoroughfares and drooping their pliant boughs above its comfortable homes. Elizabeth Hoar has said, "Concord is Thoreau's monument, adorned with inscriptions by his hand;" of the circle of brilliant souls who have given the town its world-wide fame, he alone was native here; he has left his imprint upon the place, and we meet some reminder of him at every turn. By the historic village Common is the quondam home of his grandfather, where his father was reared, and where the "New England Essene" himself lived some time with the unmarried aunt who made the ample homespun suit he wore at Walden. The house of his maternal grandmother, where Henry David Thoreau was born, stood a little way out on a by-road to Lexington, and a daughter of this home--Thoreau's winsome aunt Louisa Dunbar--was ineffectually wooed by the famous Daniel Webster. At the age of eight months the infant Thoreau was removed to the village, in which nearly the whole of his life was passed. Believing that Concord, with its sylvan environment, was a microcosm "by the study of which the whole world could be comprehended," this wildest of civilized men seldom strayed beyond its familiar precincts. Alcott declared that Thoreau thought he dwelt in the centre of the universe, and seriously contemplated annexing the rest of the planet to Concord. On the south side of the elm-shaded Main street of the village we find a pleasant and comfortable, old-fashioned wooden dwelling,--the home which, in his later years, the philosopher, poet, and mystic shared with his mother and sisters. About it are great trees which Thoreau planted; a stairway and some of the partition walls of the house are said to have been erected by him. In the second story of an extension at the back of the main edifice, some of the family worked at their father's trade of pencil-making. In the large room at the right of the entrance, afterward the sitting-room of the Alcotts, some of Thoreau's later writing was done, and here, one May morning of 1862, he breathed out a life all too brief and doubtless abbreviated by the storms and drenchings endured in his pantheistic pursuits. In this house Thoreau's "spiritual brother," John Brown of Osawatomie, was a welcome guest, and more than one wretched fugitive from slavery found shelter and protection. From his village home Thoreau made, with the poet Ellery Channing, the journey described in his "Yankee in Canada," and several shorter "Excursions,"--shared with Edward Hoar, Channing, and others,--which he has detailed in the delightful manner which gives him a distinct position in American literature. [Illustration: THE THOREAU-ALCOTT HOUSE] After the removal of Sophia, the last of Thoreau's family, his friend Frank B. Sanborn occupied the Thoreau house for some years, and then it became the home of the Alcott family. Here Mrs. Alcott, the "Marmee" of "Little Women," died; here Bronson Alcott was stricken with the fatal paralysis; here commenced the malady which contributed to the death of his illustrious daughter Louisa; here lived "Meg," the mother of the "Little Men" and widow of "John Brooke" of the Alcott books; and here now lives her son, while his brother, "Demi-John," dwells just around the corner in the next street. In the room at the left of the hall, fitted up for her study and workshop, Louisa Alcott wrote some of the tales which the world will not forget. An added apartment at the right of the sitting-room was long the sick-room of the Orphic philosopher and the scene of Louisa's tender care. Here the writer saw them both for the last time: Alcott helpless upon his couch, his bright intelligence dulled by a veil of darkness; the daughter at his bedside, sedulous of his comfort, devoted, hopeful, helpful to the end. A cherished memento of that interview is a photograph of the Thoreau-Alcott mansion, made by one of the "Little Men," and presented to the writer, with her latest book, by "Jo" herself. The front fence has since been removed, and the illustration shows the present view. In Thoreau's time, a modest dwelling, with a low roof sloping to the rear,--now removed to the other side of the street,--stood directly opposite his home, and was for some time the abode of his friend and earliest biographer, the sweet poet William Ellery Channing. Thoreau thought Channing one of the few who understood "the art of taking walks," and the two were almost constant companions in saunterings through the countryside, or in idyllic excursions upon the river in the boat which Thoreau kept moored to a riverside willow at the foot of Channing's garden. The beneficent influence of their comradeship is apparent in the work of both these recluse writers, and many of the most charming of Channing's stanzas are either inspired by or are poetic portrayals of the scenes he saw with Thoreau,--the "Rudolpho" and the "Idolon" of his verse. Thoreau's last earthly "Excursion" was with this friend to Monadnoc, where they encamped some days in 1860. To this home of Channing came, in 1855, Sanborn, who was welcomed to Concord by all the literary galaxy, and quickly became a familiar associate of each particular star. To go swimming together seems to have been, among these earnest and exalted thinkers, the highest evidence of mutual esteem, and so favored was Sanborn that he is able to record, "I have swum with Alcott in Thoreau's Cove, with Thoreau in the Assabet, with Channing in every water of Concord." In this home Sanborn entertained John Brown on the eve of his Virginia venture; here escaping slaves found refuge; here fugitives from the Harper's Ferry fight were concealed; here Sanborn was arrested for supposed complicity in Brown's abortive schemes, and was forcibly rescued by his indignant neighbors. This modest dwelling gave place to the later residence of Frederic Hudson, the historian of journalism, who here produced many of his contributions to literature. Professor Folsom, of "Translations of the Four Gospels," and the popular authoress Mrs. Austin have also lived in this neighborhood. For some years Sanborn had a famous select school on a street back of Thoreau's house, not far from the recent hermit-home of his friend Channing, at whose request Hawthorne sent some of his children to this school, in which Emerson's daughter--the present Mrs. Forbes--was a beloved pupil, and where, also, the daughters of John Brown were for some time placed. A few rods westward from his former dwelling we find Sanborn in a tasteful modern villa,--spending life's early autumn among his books. He abounds with memories of his friends of the by-gone time, and his reminiscences and biographies of some of them have largely employed his pen in his pleasant study here. Some time ago the sweet singer Channing suffered in his hermitage a severe illness, which prompted his appreciative friend Sanborn to take him into his own home; so we find two surviving witnesses or participants in the moral, intellectual, and political renaissance dwelling under the same roof. In the kindly atmosphere of this home, the shy poet--who in his age is more recluse than ever, and scarce known to his neighbors--so far regained physical vigor that he has resumed his frequent visits to the Boston library, long time a favorite haunt of his. The world refused to listen to this exquisite singer, and now "his songs have ceased." He has been celebrated by Emerson in the "Dial," by Thoreau in his "Week," by Hawthorne in "Mosses" and "Note-Books," by the generous and sympathetic Sanborn in many ways and places; but even such poems as "Earth-Spirit," "Poet's Hope," and "Reverence" found few readers,--the dainty little volumes fewer purchasers. Below the Thoreau-Alcott house on the village street was a prior home of Thoreau, from which he made, with his brother, the voyage described in his "Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers," and from which, in superb disdain of "civilization" and social conventionalities, he went to the two years' hermitage of "Walden." Nearly opposite the earlier residence of the stoic is the home of the Hoars, where lived Thoreau's comrade Edward Hoar, and Edward's sister,--styled "Elizabeth the Wise" by Emerson, of whom she was the especial friend and favorite, having been the _fiancée_ of his brother Charles, who died in early manhood. The adjacent spacious mansion was long the home of Wheildon, the historian, essayist, and pamphleteer. Nearer the village Common lived John A. Stone, dramatist of "The Ancient Briton" and of the "Metamora" in which Forrest won his first fame. In this part of the village the eminent correspondent "Warrington," author of "Manual of Parliamentary Law," was born and reared; and in Lowell Street, not far away, lives the gifted George B. Bartlett, of the "Carnival of Authors,"--poet, scenic artist, and local historian. In the public library we find copies of the printed works of the many Concord authors, and portraits or busts of most of the writers. Among the treasures of the institution are priceless manuscripts of Curtis, Motley, Lowell, Holmes, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and others. Among the thickly-strewn graves on the hill-side above the Common repose the ashes of Emerson's ancestors; about them lie the fore-fathers of the settlement,--some of them asleep here for two centuries, reckless alike of the resistance to British oppression and of the later struggle for freedom of thought which their townsmen have waged. A tree on the Common is pointed out as that beneath which Emerson made an address at the dedication of the soldiers' monument, and Bartlett records the tradition that the grandfather of the Concord sage stood on the same spot a hundred years before to harangue the "embattled farmers" on the morning of the Concord fight. Near by is the ancient church where Emerson's ancestors preached, and within whose framework the Provincial Congress met. Of the religious services here Emerson was always a supporter, often an attendant; here he sometimes preached in early manhood; here his children were christened by the elder Channing,--"the first minister he had known who was as good as they;" here Emerson's daughter is a devout worshipper. The comparatively few of the transcendental company who prayed within a pew came to this temple, but here all were brought at last for funeral rites: here lay Thoreau among his thronging townsmen while Emerson and Bronson Alcott made their touching eulogies and Ellery Channing read a dirge in a voice almost hushed with emotion; here James Freeman Clarke, who had married Hawthorne twenty-two years before, preached his funeral sermon above the lifeless body which bore upon its breast the unfinished "Dolliver Romance;" before the pulpit here lay the coffined Emerson,--"his eyes forever closed, his voice forever still,"--while a vast concourse looked upon him for the last time, and his neighbor Judge Hoar pronounced one of the most impressive panegyrics that ever fell from human lips, and the devoted Alcott read a sonnet. II THE OLD MANSE _Abode of Dr. Ripley--The Emersons--Hawthorne--Learned Mrs. Ripley--Its Famed Study and Apartments--Grounds--Guests--Ghosts--A Transcendental Social Court._ Northward from the village Common, a delightful stroll along a shaded highway, less secluded now than when Hawthorne "daily trudged" upon it to the post-office or trundled the carriage of "baby Una," brings us to the famous "Old Manse" about which he culled his "Mosses." This antique mansion was first tenanted by Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandsire, and next by Dr. Ezra Ripley, who married the previous occupant's widow and became guardian of her children,--born under its roof,--of whom Emerson's father was one. When his father died Emerson found a secondary home here with Dr. Ripley. The Manse was again the abode of Emerson and his mother in 1834-35, when he here wrote his first volume. In 1842, the year following the demise of the good Dr. Ripley, the Manse was profaned by its first lay occupant, Nathaniel Hawthorne. He brought here his bride, lovely Sophia Peabody (who, with the gifted Elizabeth and Mrs. Horace Mann, formed a famous triune sisterhood), and for four years lived here the ideal life of which his "Note-Books" and "Mosses" give us such delicious glimpses. Hawthorne's landlord, Samuel Ripley, was related to the George Ripley with whom Hawthorne had recently been associated at Brook Farm. He was uncle of Emerson, and preached his ordination sermon; was himself reared in the old Manse, and succeeded Hawthorne as resident there. His widow, born Sarah Bradford, and celebrated as "the most learned woman ever seen in New England," the close friend of Emerson and of the brilliant Concord company, survived here until 1876. She made a valuable collection of lichens, and sometimes trained young men for Harvard University. Conway records that a _savant_ called here one day and found her hearing at once the lesson of one student in Sophocles and that of another in Differential Calculus, while rocking her grandchild's cradle with one foot and shelling peas for dinner. The place is now owned by her daughters, who reside in Cambridge, and is rented in summer. It is little changed since the time Emerson's ancestor hurried thence to the gathering of his parishioners by his church-door before the Concord battle,--still less changed since the halcyon days when the great wizard of romance dwelt--the "most unknown of authors"--within its shades. It is still the unpretentious Eden, "the El Dorado for dreamers," which so completely won the heart of the sensitive Hawthorne. The picturesque old mansion stands amid greensward and foliage, its ample grounds divided from the highway by a low wall. The gate-way is flanked by tall posts of rough-hewn stone, whence a grass-grown avenue, bordered by a colonnade of overarching trees, leads to the house. Within the scattered sunshine and shade of the avenue, a row of stone slabs sunken in the turf like gravestones paves the path paced by Ripley, Emerson, and Hawthorne as they pondered and planned their compositions. Of the trees aligned upon either side, some, gray-lichened and broken, are survivors of Hawthorne's time; others are set to replace fallen patriarchs and keep the stately lines complete. At the right of the broad _allée_ and extending away to the battle-ground is the field, waving now with lush grass, where Hawthorne and Thoreau found the flint arrow-heads and other relics of an aboriginal village. Upon the space which skirts the other side of the avenue, Hawthorne had the garden which engaged so much of his time and thought, and where he produced for us abundant crops of something better than his vegetables. Here his Brook-Farm experience was useful. Passing neighbors would often see the darkly-clad figure of the recluse hoeing in this "patch," or, as often, standing motionless, gazing upon the ground so fixedly and so long--sometimes for hours together--that they thought him daft. Of the delights of summer mornings spent here with his peas, potatoes, and squashes, he gives us many glimpses in his record of that happy time; but the "Note-Books" show us, alas! that this simple pleasure was not without alloy, for, although his "garden flourished like Eden," there are hints of "weeds," next "more weeds," then a "ferocious banditti of weeds" with which "the other Adam" could never have contended. But a greater woe came with the foes who menaced his artistic squashes,--"the unconscionable squash-bugs," "those infernal squash-bugs," against which he must "carry on continual war." For the moments that we contemplate the scene of his entomic warfare, the greater battle-field, a few rods away, seems hardly more impressive. Few of the trees which in Hawthorne's time stood nearest the house remain; the producers of the peaches and "thumping pears" have gone the way of all trees. So has Dr. Ripley's famous willow--celebrated in Emerson's and Channing's exquisite verse and in Hawthorne's matchless prose--which veiled the western face of the mansion and through which Hawthorne's study-windows peeped out upon orchard, river, and mead. In the orchard that has borne such luscious fruit of fancy, some of the contorted and moss-grown trees, whose branches--"like withered hands and arms"--hold out the sweet blossoms on this June day, are the same that Hawthorne pictures among his "Mosses," and beneath which he lay in summer reverie. Few vines now clamber upon the house-walls, lilacs still grow beneath the old study-window, and a tall mass of their foliage screens a corner of the venerable edifice, which time has toned into perfect harmony with its picturesque environment. It is a great, square, wooden structure of two stories, with added attic rooms beneath an overwhelming gambrel roof, which is the conspicuous feature of the edifice and contributes to its antique form. The heavy roof settles down close upon the small, multipaned windows. From above the door little convex glasses, like a row of eyes, look out upon the visitor as he applies for admission. A spacious central hall, rich in antique panelling and sombre with grave tints, extends through the house. From its dusk and coolness we look out upon the bright summer day through its open doors; through one we see the "hill of the Emersons" beyond the highway, the other frames a pleasing picture of orchard and sward with glimpses of the river shining through its bordering shrubbery. The quaint apartments are darkly wainscoted and low-ceiled, with massive beams crossing overhead. Some of these rooms Hawthorne has shown us. The one at the left, which the novelist believed to have been the sleeping-room of Dr. Ripley, was the parlor of the Hawthornes, and--decked with a gladsome carpet, pictures, and flowers daily gathered from the river-bank--Hawthorne averred it was "one of the prettiest and pleasantest rooms in the whole world." To this room then came the sage Emerson "with a sunbeam in his face;" the "cast-iron man" Thoreau, "long-nosed, queer-mouthed, ugly as sin," but with whom to talk "is like hearing the wind among the boughs of a forest tree;" Ellery Channing, with his wife and her illustrious sister, Margaret Fuller; the gifted George William Curtis, then tilling a farm not far from the Manse, long before he lounged in an "Easy Chair;" genial Bradford, relative of Ripley, and associate and firm friend of Hawthorne; Horatio Bridge, of the "African Cruiser" and of the recent Hawthorne "Recollections;" the critic George Hillard, at whose house Hawthorne was married; "Prince" Lowell, the large-hearted; Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne's life-long friend. Concerning the discussion of things physical and metaphysical, to which these old walls then listened, the host gives us little hint. Sometimes the guests were "feasted on nectar and ambrosia" by the new Adam and Eve; sometimes they "listened to the music of the spheres which, for private convenience, is packed into a music-box,"--left here by Thoreau when he went to teach in the family of Emerson's brother; once here before this wide fireplace they sat late and told ghost stories,--doubtless suggested by the clerical phantom whose sighs they used to hear in yonder dusky corner, and whose rustling gown sometimes almost touched the company as he moved about among them. In this room Dr. Ripley penned, besides his "History of the Concord Fight" and "Treatise on Education," three thousand of his protracted homilies,--a fact upon which Hawthorne found it "awful to reflect,"--and here in our day the gifted George B. Bartlett wrote some part of his Concord sketches, etc. Here, too, and in the larger room opposite, the erudite and versatile Mrs. Samuel Ripley held her social court and received the exalted Concord conclave, with other earnest leaders of thought. In the front chamber at the right Hawthorne's first child, the hapless Una,--named from Spenser's "Faerie Queene,"--was born. Behind this is the "ten-foot-square" apartment which was Hawthorne's study and workshop. Two windows of small, prismatic-hued panes look into the orchard, and upon one of these Hawthorne has inscribed,-- "Nath^{l}. Hawthorne. This is his study, 1843." Below this another hand has graven,-- "Inscribed by my husband at Sunset Apr 3^{d} 1843 In the gold light S. A. H. Man's accidents are God's purposes. SOPHIA A. HAWTHORNE 1843." From its north window, said to have been cracked by the explosions of musketry in the conflict, we see the battle-field and a reach of the placid river. This room had been the study of Emerson's grandfather; from its window his wife watched the fight between his undrilled parishioners and the British veterans. His daughter Mary--aunt of our American Plato and herself a gifted writer--used to boast "she was in arms at the battle," having been held up at this window to see the soldiery in the highway. Years later Emerson himself came into possession of this room, and here wrote his "Nature," antagonizing many of the orthodox tenets. Perhaps it was well for the moral serenity of his ancestor--to whom the transcendental movement would have seemed arrant March-madness--that he could not foresee the composition of such a volume here within the sanctity of his old study. The book was published anonymously, and Sanborn says that when inquiry was made, "Who is the author of 'Nature?'" a Concord wit replied, "God and Waldo Emerson." Next, the dreamy Hawthorne succeeded to the little study, and here, with the sunlight glimmering through the willow boughs, he worked in solitude upon his charming productions for three or four hours of each day. Here, besides the copious entries in his journals, he prepared most of the papers of his "Mosses," wrote many articles for the "Democratic Review" and other magazines, edited "Old Dartmoor Prisoner" and Horatio Bridge's "African Cruiser." It is note-worthy that the "Celestial Railroad," in which Hawthorne records his condemnation of the spiritual renaissance by substituting the "terrible giant Transcendentalist" (who feeds upon pilgrims bound for the Celestial City) in place of the Pope and Pagan of Bunyan's allegory, was written in the same room with Emerson's volume, which inaugurated the great transcendental movement in the Western World. Among the recesses of the great attic of the Manse we may still see the "Saints' Chamber," with its fireplace and single window; but it is tenanted by sprouting clergymen no longer. The atmosphere of theological twilight and mustiness--acquired from generations of clerical inhabitants--which pervaded the place in Hawthorne's time has been dissipated by the larger and happier home-life of Mrs. Samuel Ripley and the blithe and brilliant company that gathered about her here. Dismayed by these beneficent influences, the ghosts have indignantly deserted the mansion: even the persistive clerical, who sighed in Hawthorne's parlor and noisily turned his sermon-leaves in the upper hall, has not disturbed the later occupants of the Manse. One might muse and linger long about the old place which, as his "Mosses" and journals show, Hawthorne made a part of his very life. Its air of antiquity, its traditional associations, its seclusion, and all its peaceful environment were pleasing to the shy and susceptible nature of the subtle romancer, and accorded well with his introspective habit. Besides, it was "the first home he ever had," and it was shared with his "new Eve." No wonder is it that he could here declare, "I had rather be on earth than in the seventh heaven, just now." It is saddening to remember that, from this paradise, poverty drove him forth. III A STORIED RIVER AND BATTLE-FIELD _Where Zenobia Drowned--Where Embattled Farmers Fought--Thoreau's Hemlocks--Haunts of Hawthorne--Channing--Thoreau--Emerson, etc._ Behind Hawthorne's "Old Manse"--its course so tortuous that Thoreau suggested for Concord's escutcheon "a field verdant with the river circling nine times round," so noiseless that he likened it to the "moccasined tread" of an Indian, so sluggish that Hawthorne had dwelt some weeks beside it before he determined which way its current lies--flows the Concord, "river of peace." This placid stream is the aboriginal "Musketaquid" of Emerson's poem,--sung of Thoreau, Channing, and many another bard, beloved of Hawthorne and pictured in rapturous phrase in his "Note-Books" and "Mosses from an Old Manse." It was the delightful haunt of Hawthorne's leisure, the scene of the occurrence which inspired the most thrilling and high-wrought chapter of his romance. A grassy path, shaded by orchard trees, leads from the west door of the Manse to the river's margin at the place where Hawthorne kept his boat under the willows. The boat had before been the property of Thoreau, built by his hands and used by him on the famous voyage described in his "Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers." Hawthorne named the craft "Pond-Lily," because it brought so many cargoes of that beautiful flower to decorate his home. In it, alone or accompanied by Thoreau or Ellery Channing, he made the many delightful excursions he has described. Embarking on the slumberous stream, we follow the course of Hawthorne's boat to many a scene made familiar by that dreamful romancer and by the poets and philosophers of Concord. First to the place, below the bridge of the battle, where one dark night Hawthorne and Channing assisted in recovering from the water the ghastly body of the girl-suicide, an incident which made a profoundly horrible impression upon the sensitive novelist, and which he employed as the thrilling termination of the tale of Zenobia in "The Blithedale Romance,"--portraying it with a tragic power which has never been surpassed. Thence we paddle up the placid stream, as it slumbers along its winding course between the meadows, kisses the tangled grasses and wild flowers that fringe its margins, bathes the roots and boughs of the elders and dwarf willows which overhang its surface as if to gaze upon the reflections of their own loveliness mirrored there. The reach of river--"from Nashawtuc to the Cliff"--above the confluence of the two branches was most beloved and frequented of Thoreau; here he sometimes brought Emerson, as on that summer evening when the sage's diary records, "the river-god took the form of my valiant Henry Thoreau and introduced me to the riches of his shadowy, starlit, moonlit stream," etc. The deeper portion of the river near the Manse was Hawthorne's habitual resort for bathing and fishing, but his longer solitary voyages and his "wild, free days" with Ellery Channing were upon the beautiful and sheltered North Branch,--the Assabeth of the "Mosses,"--which flows into the Concord a half-mile above the Manse. Into this branch we turn our boat, and through sunshine and shade we follow the winsome course of the lingering stream, finding new and delightful seclusion at every turn. A railway now lies along one lofty bank, but its unsightliness is concealed by long lines of willows planted by the loving hands of poet and artist,--Bartlett and French,--and the infrequent trains little disturb the seclusion of the place. Giant trees, standing with "their feet fixed in the flood," bend their bright foliage above the softly-flowing stream and fleck its surface with shadows; pond-lilies are still up-borne by its dreaming waters, and cardinal flowers bedeck its banks; its barer reaches are ribbons of reflected sky. The spot on the margin locally known as "The Hemlocks," and noted by Hawthorne as being only less sacred in his memory than the household hearth, remains itself undisturbed. Here a clump of great evergreens projects from the base of the lofty bank above and across the stream, and forms on the shore a shaded bower, carpeted by the brown needles which have fallen through many a year. This was a favorite haunt of Hawthorne and Channing in blissful days; here they prepared their sylvan noontide feasts; here they lounged and dreamed; here their "talk gushed up like the babble of a fountain." As we recline in their accustomed resting-place beside the sighing stream, and look up at the azure heaven through the boughs where erstwhile often curled the smoke of their fire, we vainly try to imagine something of what would be the converse, merry or profound, of such starry spirits amid such an inspiring scene, and we more than ever regret that neither the gentle poet nor the subtle romancer has chosen to share that converse with his readers. Long and lovingly we loiter in this consecrated spot, and then slowly float back to Hawthorne's landing-place by his orchard wall. A few rods distant, at the corner of his field, is the site of the "rude bridge that arched the flood," and the first battle-ground of the American Revolution. On the farther side a colossal minute-man in bronze, modelled by the Concord sculptor French, surmounts a granite pedestal inscribed with Emerson's immortal epic, and marks the spot where stood the irregular array of the "embattled farmers" when they here "fired the shot heard round the world." The statue replaces a bush which sprang from the soil fertilized by the blood of Davis, and which Emerson imaged as the "burning bush where God spake for his people." The position of the British regulars on the hither shore is indicated by the "votive stone" of Emerson's poem,--a slender obelisk of granite,--and near it, close under the wall of the Manse enclosure, is the rude memorial that marks the grave of the British soldiers who were slain on this spot. The current tradition that a lad who, after the battle, came, axe in hand, from the Manse wood-pile, found one of the soldiers yet alive and dispatched him with the axe, was first related to Hawthorne by James Russell Lowell, as they stood together above this grave. The effect of this story upon the feelings of the susceptible Hawthorne is told on a page of "The Old Manse," and--a score of years later and in different shape--is related in the romance of "Septimius Felton." IV THE HOME OF EMERSON _An Intellectual Capitol and Pharos--Its Grounds, Library, and Literary Workshop--Famous Rooms and Visitants--Relics and Reminiscences of the Concord Sage._ Following the direction of the British retreat from the historic Common, we come, beyond the village, to the modest mansion which was for half a century the abode of the princely man who was not only "the Sage of Concord," but, in the esteem of some contemporaries, "was Concord itself." Emerson declares, "great men never live in a crowd,"--"a scholar must embrace solitude as a bride, must have his glees and glooms alone." Of himself he says, "I am a poet and must therefore live in the country; a sunset, a forest, a river view are more to me than many friends, and must divide my day with my books;" and this was the consideration which finally determined his withdrawal from the storm and fret of the city to his chosen home here by Walden woods and among the scenes of his childhood. It was his retirement to this semi-seclusion which called forth his much-quoted poem, "Good-by, proud world! I'm going home." To him here came the afflatus he had before lacked, here his faculties were inspirited, and here his literary productiveness commenced. Behind a row of dense-leaved horse-chestnuts ranged along the highway, the quondam home of Emerson nestles among clustering evergreens which were planted by Bronson Alcott and Henry D. Thoreau for their friend. A copse of pines sighs in the summer wind close by; an orchard planted and pruned by Emerson's hands, and a garden tended by Thoreau, extend from the house to a brook flowing through the grounds and later joining the Concord by the famous old Manse; beyond the brook lies the way to Walden. At the left of the house is a narrow open reach of greensward on the farther verge of which erst stood the unique rustic bower--with a wind-harp of untrimmed branches above it--which was fashioned by the loving hands of Alcott. The mansion is a substantial, square, clapboarded structure of two stories, with hip-roofs; a square window projects at one side; a wing is joined at the back; covered porches protect the entrances; light paint covers the plain walls which gleam through the bowering foliage, and the whole aspect of the place is delightfully attractive and home-like. Its pleasant and unpretentious apartments more than realize the comfortable suggestion of the exterior. Adjoining the hall on the right is the plain, rectangular room which was the philosopher's library and workshop. The cheerful fireplace and the simple furnishings of the room are little changed since he here laid down his pen for the last time; the heavy table held his manuscript, his books are ranged upon the shelves, the busts and portraits he cherished adorn the walls, his accustomed chair is upon the spot where he sat to write. Emerson's afternoons were usually spent abroad, but his mornings were habitually passed among his books in this small corner-room--"the study under the pines"--recording, in "a pellucid style which his genius made classic," the truths which had come to him as he mused by shadowy lake or songful stream, in deep wood glade or wayside path. Most of all his pen produced, of divinest poetry, of gravest philosophy, of grandest thought, was minted into words and inscribed in this simple apartment. The adjoining parlor--a spacious, pleasant, home-like room, furnished forth with many mementos of illustrious friends and guests--is scarcely less interesting than the library. This house was the intellectual capitol of the village; to it freely came the Concord circle of shining ones,--Thoreau, Channing, Sanborn, the Alcotts, the Hoars,--less frequently, Hawthorne. For a long time Mrs. Samuel Ripley habitually passed her Sabbath evenings here. The Delphic Margaret Fuller, who was as truly the "blood of transcendentalism" as Emerson "was its brain," was here for months an honored guest. For long periods Thoreau, whose fame owes much to Emerson's generosity, was here an inmate and intimate. In Emerson's parlor were held the more formal _séances_ of the Concord galaxy; here met the short-lived "Monday Evening Club," which George William Curtis whimsically describes as a "congress of oracles," who ate russet-apples and discoursed celestially while Hawthorne looked on from his corner,--"a statue of night and silence;" here were held many of Bronson Alcott's famous "conversations," as well as those of that disciple of Platonism, Dr. Jones. Emerson belonged not to Concord only, but to the whole world,--"his thought was the thought of Christendom." To these plain rooms as to an intellectual court came, from his own and other lands, hundreds famed in art, literature, and politics. Here came Curtis and Bartol to sit at the feet of the sage; Charles Sumner and Moncure Conway to bear hence--as one of them has said--"memories like those Bunyan's pilgrim must have cherished of the Interpreter." Here "came Theodore Parker from the fight for free thought," and Wendell Phillips and John Brown from the conflict for free men; here came Howells, bearing the line from Hawthorne, "I find this young man worthy;" here came Whittier, Agassiz, Hedge, Longfellow, Bradford, Lowell, Colonel Higginson, Elizabeth Peabody, Julia Ward Howe, as to a fount of wisdom and purity. In this unpretentious parlor have gathered such guests as Stanley, Walt Whitman, Bret Harte, Henry James, Louis Kossuth, Arthur Clough, Lord Amberley, Jones Very, Fredrika Bremer, Harriet Martineau, and many others who, like these, would have felt repaid for their journey over leagues of land and sea by a hand-clasp and an hour's communion with the intellect that has been the beacon of thousands in mental darkness and storm. With these came another class of pilgrims, the great army of impracticables, "men with long hair, long beards, long collars,--many with long ears, each in full chase after the millennium," and each intent upon securing the endorsement of Emerson for his own pet scheme. The wonder is that the little library saw any work accomplished, so many came to it and claimed the time of the master; for to every one--scholar, tradesman, and "crank"--were accorded his never-failing courtesy and kindly interest. Any one might be the bearer of a divine message, so he listened to all,--the most uncouth and _outré_ visitant might be the coming man for whom his faith waited, therefore all were admitted. Here all were "assayed, not analyzed." Emerson's habitual quest for only the divinest traits and his quickened perception of the best in men enabled him to recognize excellencies which were yet unseen by others. While Hawthorne, the shy hermit at the Manse, was unheeded by the world and thought crazed by his neighbors, Emerson knew and proclaimed his transcendent genius. He first recognized the inspiration of Ellery Channing, and made for his exquisite verse exalted claims which have been fully justified, and which the world may yet allow. While to others Henry Thoreau was yet only an eccentric egotist, Emerson knew him as a poet and philosopher, and made him the "forest seer, the heart of all the scene," in his lyrical masterpiece "Wood-Notes." He promptly hailed Walt Whitman as a true poet while many of us were yet wondering if it were not charitable to think him insane. Emerson's cordiality won for him the honor which prophets rarely enjoy in their own country; the objects and places once associated with him here are still esteemed sacred by his old neighbors. We find among them at this day many who can know nothing of his books, but who, for memory of his simple kindness, go far from their furrow or swath to show us spots he loved and frequented in woodland or meadow, on swelling hill-side or by winding river. To his home here Emerson brought his bride sixty years ago; here he lived his fruitful life and accomplished his work; here he rose to the zenith of poesy and prophecy; to him here came the "great and grave transition which may not king or priest or conqueror spare;" from here his wife, lingering behind him in the eternal march, went a year or two ago to rejoin him on the piny hill-top; and here his unmarried daughter--of "saint-like face and nun-like garb"--inhabits his home and cherishes its treasures. Emerson's son and biographer some time ago relinquished his medical practice in Concord, and has since devoted himself to art. He has a residence a mile or so out of the village, but spends much of his time abroad. Last year he lectured in London upon the lives and writings of some of the Concord authors. V THE ORCHARD HOUSE AND ITS NEIGHBORS _Ellery Channing--Margaret Fuller--The Alcotts--Professor Harris--Summer School of Philosophy--Where Little Women was written and Robert Hagburn lived--Where Cyril Norton was slain._ A plain little cottage by the road, not far from Emerson's home, was for some time the abode of the companion of many of his rambles through the countryside,--the poet Ellery Channing. It was to this simple dwelling, as the author of "Little Women" once told the writer, that Channing brought his young wife--sister of Margaret Fuller--before the Alcotts had come to live in their hill-side home under the wooded ridge, and it was here he commenced the sequestered life so suited to his nature and tastes. Some of his descriptive poems of Concord landscapes were written in this little cottage. The scenes of one of his earlier winters in the neighborhood--when he chopped wood in a rude clearing--are portrayed in the exquisite lines of his "Woodman." In those days he thought his poems "too sacred to be sold for money," and they were kept for his circle of friends. Of the poet's modest home Miss Fuller--that "dazzling woman with the flame in her heart"--was a frequent inmate; it was from Concord that she went to live in the family of Horace Greeley in New York. At the time of her visits at Channing's cottage Thoreau was sojourning with Emerson, and we may be sure that the quartette of starry souls, thus _juxtaposé_, held much soulful and edifying converse. But those of us who deplore our lack of the supreme transcendental spirit which we ascribe to the Concord circle may find consolation in reflecting that some of this gifted company had also earthly tastes, and found even discourse concerning the "over-soul" sometimes tiresome. The "strained pitch of intellectual intensity" was, upon occasion, gladly relaxed; thus we discover the exalted Channing sometime profanely inviting Hawthorne--"the gentlest man that kindly Nature ever drew"--to visit him in Concord, alluring the novelist with prospects of strong-waters, pipes and tobacco without end, and urging, as the utmost inducement, "Emerson is gone and there is nobody here to bore you." A few furlongs farther eastward, under the high-soaring elms of the Lexington road, we come to the "Orchard House" of Bronson Alcott, "the grandfather of the 'Little Women.'" The tasteful dwelling stands several rods back from the street, nestling cosily at the foot of a pine-crowned slope, and having a wide, sunny outlook in front. Embowered in orchards and vines, and shaded by the overreaching arms of giant elms, it seems a most delightful home for culture and contemplative study. The cottage itself is a low, wide, gabled, picturesquely irregular edifice, which our Pythagorean mystic evolved from a forlorn, box-like farm-house which he found here when he purchased the place. The rustic fence he set along the highway is replaced by an ambitious modern structure. On this hill-side Alcott, the "most transcendent of the transcendentalists," lived for nearly thirty years,--but not all of that time in this house,--coming here first after the failure of his "Fruitlands" community in 1845, and finally twelve years later. Prior to this he had been assisted by Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody in his renowned Boston Temple School, which was a failure in a financial sense only, since it furnished a theme for Miss Peabody's "Record of a School," and Louisa Alcott's girlish recollections of it provided her a model for the delightful "Plumfield" of her books. Alcott's treatise on "Early Education," his "Gospels" and "Orphic Sayings," had been published, and his "very best contribution to literature"--his daughter Louisa--was also extant before he came to this home, but it was here that his maturer works and most of his charming essays and "Conversations" were produced. In this house were held the early sessions of the Summer School of Philosophy, of which Alcott was the leading spirit; here his daughter, the "Beth" of "Jo's" books, died. The interior of the "Orchard House" is roomy and quaint and abounds in surprising nooks and cosy recesses. In the corner-room Louisa wrote "Little Women" and other delicious books; in the room behind it, May, "our Madonna,"--who died Madame Nieriker,--had her studio and practised the art which made her famous before her untimely end. In the great attic under the sloping roof the "Little Women" acted the "comic tragedies" written by "Jo" and "Meg" (some of them now published in a volume with a "Foreword" by "Meg") until the increasing audiences of Concord children caused the removal of the mimic stage to the big barn on the hill-side. Hawthorne makes this house the abode of Robert Hagburn in "Septimius Felton." Along the brow of the tree-clad ridge which overlooks the place, and to which Bronson Alcott resorted for the morning and evening view, the patriots hastened to intercept the retreat of the British troops, "blackened and bloody." In the depression of the ridge just back of the house we find the spot where "Septimius Felton" shot the young officer, Cyril Norton, and buried him under the trees. On the grave here "Septimius" sat with Rose Garfield and the half-crazed Sibyl Dacy; here grew the crimson flower which he distilled in his "elixir of immortality," and here Sibyl came to die after her draught of the compound. After the removal of the Alcotts to the Thoreau house in the village, "Apple Slump"--as Louisa sometimes called this orchard home--became the property and residence of that disciple of Hegel, Professor Harris,--once principal of the Summer School of Philosophy, and now the head of the National Bureau of Education at Washington,--who sometimes comes here in summer. The "Hillside Chapel," erected by Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, of New York, for the sessions of the Summer Philosophers, is placed among the trees of the orchard adjoining Alcott's old home. It is a plain little structure of wood, tasteful in design, with pointed gables and vine-draped porch and windows. Its embowered walls, unpainted and unplastered, seem "scarcely large enough to contain the wisdom of the world," but they have held assemblages of such lights as Emerson, Alcott, Sanborn, Bartol, McCosh, Holland, Porter, Lathrop, Stedman, Wilder, Hedge, Dr. Jones, Elizabeth Peabody, Ward Howe, Ednah Cheney, and other like seekers and promoters of fundamental truth. VI HAWTHORNE'S WAYSIDE HOME. _Sometime Abode of Alcott--Hawthorne--Lathrop--Margaret Sidney--Storied Apartments--Hawthorne's Study--His Mount of Vision--Where Septimius Felton and Rose Garfield dwelt._ On the Lexington road, a little way beyond the Orchard House, is the once Wayside home of Hawthorne, the dwelling in which, at a tender age, Louisa M. Alcott made her first literary essay. It is a curious, wide, straggling, and irregular structure, of varying ages, heights, and styles. The central gambrel-roofed portion was the original house of four rooms, described as the residence of "Septimius Felton;" other rooms have been added at different periods and to serve the need of successive occupants, until an architecturally incongruous and altogether delightful mansion has been produced. To the ugly little square house which Alcott found here in 1845 and christened "Hillside" he added a low wing at each side, the central gable in the front of the old roof, and wide rustic piazzas across the front of the wings. No additions were made during Hawthorne's first residence here, nor during the occupancy of Mrs. Hawthorne's brother, while the novelist was abroad; but when Hawthorne returned to it in 1860, with "most of his family twice as big as when they left," he enlarged one wing by adding the barn to it, heightened the other side-wing, erected two spacious apartments at the back, and crowned the edifice with a square third-story study, which, with its great chimney and many gables, overtops the rambling roofs like an observatory, and may have been suggested by the tower of the Villa Montauto, where he wrote "The Marble Faun." No important changes have been made by the subsequent owners of the place. Hawthorne's widow left the Wayside in 1868. It was afterward occupied by a school for young ladies; then by Hawthorne's daughter Rose--herself a charming writer--with her husband, the gifted and versatile George Parsons Lathrop; later it was purchased by the Boston publisher Daniel Lothrop, and has since been the summer home of his widow, who is widely known as "Margaret Sidney," the creator of "Five Little Peppers," and writer of many delightful books. Hawthorne said, anent his visit to Abbotsford, "A house is forever ruined as a home by having been the abode of a great man,"--a truth well attested by the present amiable mistress of his own Wayside, whose experience with a legion of unaccredited, intrusive, and often insolent persons who come at all hours of the day, and sometimes in the night, demanding to be shown over the place, would be more ludicrous were it less provoking. Some details of the interior have been beautified by the æsthetic taste of Mrs. Lothrop, but an appreciative reverence for Hawthorne leads her to preserve his home and its belongings essentially unchanged. At the right of the entrance is an antique reception-room, which was Hawthorne's study during his first residence here, as it had long before been the study of "Septimius Felton" in the tale. It is a low-studded apartment with floor of oaken planks, heavy beams strutting from its ceiling, a generous fireplace against a side wall, and with two windows looking out upon the near highway. In this room Hawthorne wrote "Tanglewood Tales" and "Life of Franklin Pierce;" and here that creature of his imagination, "Septimius," brooded over his doubts and questions. Through yonder windows "Septimius" saw the British soldiery pass and repass; above this oaken mantel--now artistically fitted and embellished with rare pottery--he hung the sword of the officer he had slain; before this fireplace he pored over the mysterious manuscript his dying victim had given him; on this hearth he distilled the mystic potion, and here poor Sibyl quaffed it. The spacious room at the left, across the hall, was at first Hawthorne's parlor; but after he enlarged the dwelling this became the library, where he read aloud to the assembled family on winter evenings, and where his widow afterward transcribed his "Note-Books" for publication. The sunny room above this was the chamber of the unfortunate Una; Hawthorne's own sleeping apartment, on the second floor, is entered from the hall through the narrowest of door-ways. In the upper hall a little wall-closet was the repository of Hawthorne's manuscripts, and here, to the surprise of all, an entire unpublished romance was found after his death. From this hall a narrow stairway, so steep that one need cling to the iron rail at the side in order to scale it, ascends to Hawthorne's study in the tower, a lofty room with vaulted ceiling. On one side wall is the Gothic enclosure of the stairs, against which once stood his plain oaken writing-desk; upon it the bronze inkstand he brought from Italy, where it held the ink for "The Marble Faun." In this inkstand, he declared, lurked "the little imp" which sometimes controlled his pen. Attached to a side of the staircase was the high desk or shelf upon which he often wrote standing. Book-closets filled the corners at the back, and a little fireplace with a plain mantel was placed between two of the windows. Loving hands have neatly decorated the ceiling, and painted upon the walls mottoes commemorative of the master who wrought here. The views he beheld through the windows of this sanctum when he lifted his eyes from his book or manuscript are tranquil and soothing: across his roofs in one direction he looked upon the sunny grasslands of the valley; in another he saw placid slopes of darkly-wooded hills and a reach of the elm-bordered road; in a third direction, smiling fields and the vineyards where the famous Concord grape first grew met his vision; and through his north windows appeared the thick woods that crowned his own hill-top,--so near that he "could see the nodding wild flowers" among the trees and breathe the woodland odors. Local tradition declares that, to prevent intrusion into this den, Hawthorne habitually sat upon a trap-door in the floor, which was the only entrance. Without this precaution he found in this eyrie the seclusion he coveted, and here, among the birds and the tree-tops, remote from the tumult of life and above ordinary distracting influences, he could linger undisturbed in that border-land between shadow and substance which was his delight, could evoke and fix upon his pages the weird creatures of his fancy. Several hours of each day he passed here alone in musing or composition, and here, besides some papers for the "Atlantic," he wrote "Our Old Home," "Grimshaw's Secret," "Septimius Felton," and the "Dolliver Romance" fragment. Years before, Thoreau told him, the Wayside had once been inhabited by a man who believed he would never die. The thus suggested idea, of a deathless man associated with this house, seems to have clung to Hawthorne in his last years, and was embodied in both his later works,--the scene of "Septimius Felton" being laid here at the Wayside. No one knew aught of its composition, and the author, rereading the tale in the solitude of this study and finding it in some way lacking the perfection of his ideal, laid it away in his closet, and, in weariness and failing health, commenced and vainly tried to finish the "Dolliver Romance" from the same materials. The house is separated from the highway by a narrow strip of sward, out of which grow elms planted by Bronson Alcott and clustering evergreens rooted by Hawthorne himself. The greater part of his domain lies along the dark slope and the wooded summit of the ridge which rises close behind the house. At the extremity of the grounds nearest the Orchard House, a depression in the turf marks the site of the little house where dwelt the Rose Garfield of "Septimius." Hawthorne planted sunflowers in this hollow, and Julian, his son, remembers seeing the novelist stand here and contemplate their wide disks above the old cellar. On the steep hill-side remain the rough terraces Alcott fashioned when he occupied the place, and many of the flowering locusts and fruit-trees he and Thoreau planted. Here, too, are the sombre spruces and firs which Hawthorne sent from "Our Old Home" or planted after his return, and all are grown until they overshadow the whole place and fairly embower the house with their branches. Along the hill-side are the famous "Acacia path" of Mrs. Hawthorne and other walks planned by the novelist, some of them having been opened by him in the last summer of his life. By one path, once familiar to his feet, we find our way up the steep ascent among the locusts to the "Mount of Vision,"--as Mrs. Hawthorne named the ridge to which the novelist daily resorted for study and meditation. The hill-top is clothed with a tangled growth of trees which hides it from the lower world and renders it a fitting trysting-place for the wizard romancer and the mystic figures which abound in his tales. Along the brow we trace, among the ferns, vestiges of the pathway worn by his feet. In the safe seclusion of this spot he spent delectable hours, lying under the trees "with a book in his hands and an unwritten book in his thoughts," while the pines murmured to him of the mystery and shadow he loved. More often he sat on a rustic seat between yonder pair of giant trees, or paced his foot-path hour after hour, as he pondered his plots and worked out the mystic details of many romances, some of them never to be written. Walking here with Fields he unfolded his design of the "Dolliver" tale, which he left half told. Here he composed the weird story of "Septimius Felton," while trudging on the very path he describes as having been worn by his hero,--Hawthorne himself habitually walking, with hands clasped behind him and with eyes bent on the ground, in the very attitude he ascribes to "Septimius" as Rose saw him "treading, treading, treading, many a year," on this foot-path by the grave of the officer he had slain. In this refuge Hawthorne remained a whole day alone with his grief, when tidings came to him of the loss of his sister in the burning of the "Henry Clay." Here he sat with Howells one memorable afternoon. In the last years his wife was often with him here, sometimes walking, but more frequently sitting, with him,--as did Rose with "Septimius,"--and looking out, through an opening in the foliage near the western end of his path, upon the restful landscape, not less charming to-day than when his eyes lovingly lingered upon it. We see the same broad, sun-kissed meadows awave with lush grass and flecked with fleeting cloud-shadows, and beyond, the dark forests of Thoreau's Walden and the gentle outlines of low-lying hills which shut in the valley like a human life. For some months after the election to the Presidency of his friend Franklin Pierce, the Wayside was frequented by office-seekers; but ordinarily Hawthorne had few visitors besides his Concord friends. Fields, Holmes, Hilliard, Whipple, Longfellow, Howells, Horatio Bridge, the poet Stoddard, Henry Bright, came to him here. The visits of "Gail Hamilton" (Miss Abigail Dodge), mentioned by Hawthorne as "a sensible, healthy-minded woman," were especially enjoyed by him. His own visits were very infrequent; "Orphic" Alcott said that in the several years he lived next door Hawthorne came but twice into his house: the first time he quickly excused himself "because the stove was too hot," next time "because the clock ticked too loud." The Wayside was the only home Hawthorne ever owned. To it he came soon after his removal from the "little red house" in Berkshire, and to it he returned from his sojourn abroad; here, with failing health and desponding spirits, he lived in the gloomy war-days,--writing in his study or, with steps more and more uncertain, pacing his hill-top; from here he set out with his life-long friend Pierce on the last sad journey which ended so quickly and quietly. VII THE WALDEN OF THOREAU _A Transcendental Font--Emerson's Garden--Thoreau's Cove--Cairn-- Beanfield--Resort of Emerson--Hawthorne--Channing--Hosmer--Alcott, etc._ One long-to-be-remembered day we follow the shady foot-paths, once familiar to the sublimated Concord company, through their favorite forest retreats to "the blue-eyed Walden,"--sung by many a bard, beloved by transcendental saint and seer. After a delightful stroll of a mile or more, we emerge from the wood and see the lovely lakelet "smiling upon its neighbor pines." We find it a half-mile in diameter, with bold and picturesquely irregular margins indented with deep bays and mostly wooded to the pebbles at the water's edge. From this setting of emerald foliage it scintillates like a gem: its wavelets lave a narrow pebbly shore within which a bottom of pure white sand gleams upward through the most transparent water ever seen. At one point where the railway skirts the margin, the woods are disfigured with pavilions and tables for summer pleasure-seekers, and a farther wooded slope has recently been ravaged by fire; but most of the shore has escaped both profanation and devastation, so that the literary pilgrim will find the shrines he seeks little disturbed since the Concord luminaries here had their haunt. From the summit of the forest ledge which rises from the southern shore, the lakelet seems a foliage-framed patch of the firmament. This rocky eminence affords a wide and enchanting prospect, and was the terminus and object of many excursions of Emerson and the other "Walden-Pond-Walkers," as the transcendentalists were styled by their more prosy and orthodox neighbors. It was upon this elevation in the midst of a portion of his estate which he celebrates in his poetry as "My Garden"--whose "banks slope down to the blue lake-edge"--that Emerson proposed to erect a lodge or retreat for retirement and thought. A mossy path, once trodden almost daily by the philosopher and his friends, brings us to the beautiful and secluded cove where Emerson and Thoreau kept a boat, and where the shining ones often came to bathe in this limpid water. Ablution here seems to have been a sort of transcendent baptism, and many a visitor, eminent in art, thought, or letters, has boasted that he walked and talked with Emerson in Walden woods and bathed with him in Walden water. In this romantic nook Thoreau spent much time during his hermitage, sitting in reverie on its banks or afloat on its glassy surface, fishing or playing his flute to the charmed perch. On the shore of this cove he procured the stones for the foundations and the sand for the plastering of his cabin. From the water's edge an obscure path, bordered by the wild flowers he loved, winds among the murmuring pines up to the site of Thoreau's retreat, on a gentle hill-side which falls away to the shore a few rods distant. A cairn of small stones, placed by reverent pilgrims, stands upon or near the spot where he erected his dwelling at an outlay of twenty-eight dollars and lived upon an income of one dollar per month. The hermit would hardly know the place now; his young pines are grown into giants that allow but glimpses of the shimmering lake; even the "potato hole" he dug under his cabin, whence the squirrels chirped at him from beneath the floor as he sat to write, and where he kept his winter store,--the "beans with the weevil in them" and the "potatoes with every third one nibbled by chipmunks,"--is obliterated and overgrown with the glabrous sumach. His near-by field, where he learned to "know beans" and gathered relics of a previous and aboriginal race of bean-hoers, is covered by a growth of pines and dwarf oaks, in places so dense as to be almost impassable. Some one has said, "Thoreau experienced Nature as other men experience religion." Certainly the life at Walden, which he depicted in one of the most fascinating of books, was in all its details--whether he was ecstatically hoeing beans in his field or dreaming on his door-step, floating on the lake or rambling in forest and field--that of an ascetic and devout worshipper of Nature in all her moods. Thoreau "built himself in Walden woods a den" in 1845,--after his return from tutoring in the family of Emerson's brother at Staten Island; here he wrote most of "Walden" and the "Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers," and much more that has been posthumously published; from here he went to jail for refusing to pay a tax on his poll, from here he made the excursion described in "The Maine Woods." He finally removed from Walden in the autumn of 1847, to reside in the house of Emerson during that sage's absence in Europe. An old neighbor of Thoreau's, who had often watched his "stumpy" figure as he hoed the beans, and had even once or twice assisted him in that celestial agriculture, tells us that Thoreau's hut was removed by a gardener to the middle of the bean-field and there occupied for some years. Later it was purchased by a farmer, who set it upon wheels and conveyed it to his farm some miles distant, where it has decayed and gone to pieces. In Concord it is not difficult to identify the personages associated with Thoreau's life at Walden Pond and referred to in his book. The "landlord and waterlord" of the domain, on which Thoreau was "a squatter," was Waldo Emerson; the owner of the axe which the hermit borrowed to hew the frame of his hut was Bronson Alcott; the "honorable raisers" of the structure were Emerson, Curtis the Nile "Howadji," Alcott, Hosmer, and others; the lady who made the sketch of the hermitage which appears on the title-page of "Walden" was the author's sister Sophia. Of the hermit's visitors here, "the one who came oftenest" was Emerson; "the one who came farthest" was also the poet whom the hermit "took to board for a fortnight," Ellery Channing; the "long-headed farmer," who had "donned a frock instead of a professor's gown," was Thoreau's neighbor and life-long friend Edmund Hosmer, who is celebrated in the poetry of Emerson and Channing; the "last of the philosophers," the "Great Looker--great Expecter," who "first peddled wares and then his own brains," was Bronson Alcott, who spent long evenings here in converse with the hermit, or in listening to chapters from his manuscript. Here came Hawthorne to talk with his "cast-iron man" about trees and arrow-heads; here came George Hilliard and James T. Fields, and others,--sometimes so many that the hut would scarce contain them; the only complaint heard from Thoreau anent the narrowness of his quarters being that there was not room for the words to ricochet between him and his guests. Here, too, came humbler visitors, hunted slaves, who were never denied the shelter of the hermitage nor the sympathy and aid of the hermit. Another generation of visitors comes now to this spot,--pilgrims from far, like ourselves, to the shrine of a "stoic greater than Zeno or Xenophanes,"--a man whose "breath and core was conscience." We linger till the twilight, for the genius of this shrine seems very near us as we muse in the place where he dwelt incarnate alone with Nature, and there is for us a hint of his healthful spirit in the odor of his pines and of the wild flowers beside his path,--a vague whisper of his earnest, honest thought in the murmur of the clustering boughs and in the lapping of the wavelets upon the mimic strand. We bring from the shore a stone--the whitest we can find--for his cairn, and place with it a bright leaf, like those his callers in other days left for visiting cards upon his door-step, and then, through the wondrous half-lights of the summer evening, we walk silently away. VIII THE HILL-TOP HEARSED WITH PINES _Last Resting-Place of the Illustrious Concord Company--Their Graves beneath the Piny Boughs._ During Hawthorne's habitation of the "Old Manse" and his first residence at the Wayside, his favorite walk was to the "Sleepy Hollow," a beautifully diversified precinct of hill and vale which lies a little way eastward from the village. His habitual resting-place here was a pine-shaded hill-top where he often met Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, Elizabeth Hoar, Mrs. Ripley, or Margaret Fuller,--for all that sublimated company loved and frequented this spot. More often Hawthorne lounged and mused or chatted here alone with his lovely wife. Their letters and journals of this period make frequent mention of the walks to this place and of "our castle,"--a fanciful structure which, in their happy converse here under the pines, they planned to erect for their habitation on this hill-top. In their pleasant conceit, the terraced path which skirts the verge of the hollow and thence ascends the ridge was the grand "chariot-road" to their castle. This park has become a cemetery,--at its dedication Emerson made an oration and Frank B. Sanborn read a beautiful ode,--and on their beloved hill-top nearly all the transcendent company whom Hawthorne used to meet there, save Margaret Fuller who rests beneath the sea, lie at last in "the dreamless sleep that lulls the dead." First came Thoreau, to lie among his kindred under the wild flowers and the fallen needles of his dear pines, in a grave marked now by a simple stone graven with his name and age. Next came Hawthorne: with his "half-told tale" and a wreath of apple-blossoms from the "Old Manse" resting on his coffin, and with Emerson, Longfellow, Fields, Ellery Channing, Agassiz, Hoar, Lowell, Whipple, Alcott, Holmes, and George Hilliard walking mournfully by his side, he was borne, through the flowering orchards and up the hill-side path,--which was to have been his "chariot-road,"--to a grave on the site of the "castle" of his fancy; where his dearest friend Franklin Pierce covered him with flowers and James Freeman Clarke committed his mortal part to the lap of earth. Alas, that the beloved cohabitant of his dream-castle must lie in death a thousand leagues away! in no dream of his would such a separation from her have seemed possible. She tried to mark his tomb by a leafy monument of hawthorn shrubbery, but the rigorous climate prevented; now a low marble, inscribed with the one word "Hawthorne," stands at either extremity of his grave, and a glossy growth of periwinkle covers the spot where sleeps the great master of American romance. Some smaller graves are beside his: in one lies a child of Julian Hawthorne; in another, Rose--the daughter of Hawthorne's age--laid the son which her husband, Parsons Lathrop, commemorates in the lines of "The Flown Soul." Next Mrs. Ripley and Elizabeth Hoar were borne to this "God's acre," and then Emerson--followed by a vast concourse and mourned by all the world--was brought to "give his body back to earth again," in this loved retreat, near Hawthorne and his own "forest-seer" Thoreau. A gigantic pine towers above him here, and a massive triangular boulder of untooled pink quartz--already marred by the vandalism of relic-seekers--is placed to mark the grave of the great "King of Thought." It bore no inscription or device of any sort until a few months ago, when a bronze plate inscribed with his name and years and the lines-- "The passive master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned"-- was set in the rough surface of the stone. By Emerson lie his wife, his mother, two children of his son and biographer Dr. Emerson, and his own little child,--the "wondrous, deep-eyed boy" whom Emerson mourned in his matchless "Threnody." "O child of paradise, Boy who made dear his father's home, In whose deep eyes Men read the welfare of the times to come,-- I am too much bereft." Six years after Emerson, Bronson Alcott and his illustrious daughter Louisa were laid here, within a few yards of Hawthorne and the rest, on a spot selected by the "Beth" of the Alcott books who was herself the first to be interred in it. Now all the "Little Women" repose here with their parents and good "John Brooke,"--"Jo" being so placed as to suggest to her biographer that she is still to take care of parents and sisters "as she had done all her life." [Illustration: THE GRAVE OF EMERSON] No other spot of earth holds dust more precious than does this "hill-top hearsed with pines." We are pleased to find the native beauty of the place little disturbed,--the trees, the indigenous grasses, ferns, and flowers remaining for the most part as they were known and loved by those who sleep beneath them. The contour of the ground and the foliage which clusters upon the slopes measurably shut out the view of other portions of the enclosure from this secluded hill-top, and, as we sit by the graves under the moaning pines, we seem to be alone with these _our_ dead. Through the boughs we have glimpses of the motionless deeps of a summer sky; the patches of sunshine which illumine the graves about us are broken by foliate shadows sometimes as still as if painted upon the turf. No discordant sound from the haunts of men disturbs our meditations; the silence is unbroken save by the frequent sighs of the mourning pines. As we linger, the pervading quiet becomes something more than mere silence, it acquires the air and sense of reserve: the impression is borne into our thought that these asleep here, who once freely gave us their richest and best, are withholding something from us now,--some newly-learned wisdom, some higher thought. Does "an awful spell bind them to silence," or are they vainly repeating to us in the tender monotone of the pines a message we cannot hear or cannot bear? Or have they ceased from all ken or care for earthly things? Do they no longer love this once beloved spot? Do they not rejoice in the beauty of this summer day and the sunshine that falls upon their windowless palace? Are they conscious of our reverent tread on the turf above them, of our low words of remembrance and affection? Do they care that we have come from far to bend over them here? "For knowledge of all these things, we must"--as the greatest of this transcendent circle once said--"wait for to-morrow morning." IN AND OUT OF LITERARY BOSTON IN BOSTON OUT OF BOSTON I. Cambridge; Elmwood, etc. II. Belmont; Wayside Inn; Homes of Whittier III. The Salem of Hawthorne; Whittier's Oak Knoll IV. Webster's Marsh-field; Brook Farm and other Shrines IN BOSTON _A Golden Age of Letters--Literary Associations--Isms--Clubs--Where Hester Prynne and Silas Lapham lived--The Corner Book-store--Home of Fields--Sargent--Hilliard--Aldrich--Deland--Parkman--Holmes--Howells-- Moulton--Hale--Howe--Jane Austin, etc._ Of the cisatlantic cities our "modern Athens" is, to the literary pilgrim, the most interesting; for, whatever may be the claims of other cities to the present literary primacy, all must concede that Boston was long the intellectual capital of the continent and its centre of literary culture and achievement. If the pilgrim have attained to middle life and be loyal to the literary idols of his youth, his regard for the Boston of to-day must be largely reminiscential of a past that is rapidly becoming historic; for, of the constellation of brilliant authors and thinkers who first gained for the place its pre-eminence in letters, few or none remain alive. The requirements of labor and trade are transforming the old streets; the sedate and comfortable dwellings, once the abodes or the resorts of the _littérateurs_, are giving place to palatial shops or great factories; the neighborhood where Bancroft, Choate, Winthrop, Webster, and Edward Everett dwelt within a few rods of each other was long ago surrendered to merchandise and mammon; yet for us the busy scenes are haunted by memories and peopled by presences which the spirit of trade is powerless to exorcise. To tread the streets which have daily echoed the foot-falls of the illustrious company who created here a golden age of learning and culture were alone a pleasure, but the city holds many closer and more personal mementos of her dead prophets, as well as the homes of a present generation who worthily strive to sustain her place and prestige. Interwoven with the older Boston are literary associations hardly less memorable and enduring than its history: in the belfry of its historic holy of holies--Old South Church--was the study of the historian Dr. Belknap, and the dove that nested beneath the church-bell is preserved in the poetry of N. P. Willis; King's Chapel, the sanctuary where the beloved Dr. Holmes worshipped for so many years, and whence he was not long ago sadly borne to his burial, figures in the fiction of Fenimore Cooper; historic Copp's Hill is also a scene in a tale of the same novelist; the court-house occupies the site of the "beetle-browed" prison of Hester Prynne of "The Scarlet Letter;" the storied old State-house marked the place of her pillory; the theatre of the Boston Massacre is the scene of the thrilling episode of Hawthorne's "Gray Champion;" his "Legends of Province House" commemorate the ancient structure which stood nearly opposite the Old South Church; the Tremont House, where the "Jacobins' Club" used to assemble with Ripley, Channing, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, Peabody, and the extreme reformers, was the resort of Hawthorne's "Miles Coverdale," as it was of the novelist himself, and on the street here he saw "ragamuffin Moodie" of "The Blithedale Romance." On the site of Bowdoin School, Charles Sumner was born; at one hundred and twenty Hancock Street he lived and composed the early orations which made his fame; at number one Exeter Place, Theodore Parker, the Vulcan of the New England pulpit, forged his bolts and wrote the "Discourses of Religion;" in Essex Street lived and wrote Wendell Phillips, at thirty-seven Common Street he died; at thirty-one Hollis Street the gifted Harriet Martineau was the guest of Francis Jackson; at the corner of Congress and Water Streets Lloyd Garrison wrote and published "The Liberator." In this older city, antedating the luxury of the Back Bay district of the new Boston, Mather wrote the "Magnalia," Paine sang his songs, Allston composed his tales, Buckminster wrote his homilies, Bowditch translated La Place's "_Mécanique céleste_." Here Emerson, Motley, Parkman, and Poe were born; here Bancroft lived, Combe wrote, Spurzheim died. Here Maffit, Channing, and Pierpont preached; Agassiz, Phillips, and Lyell lectured; Alcott, Elizabeth Peabody, and Fuller taught. Here Sargent wrote "Dealings with the Dead," Sprague his "Curiosity," Prescott his "Ferdinand and Isabella;" here Margaret Fuller held the "Conversations" which attracted and impressed the leading spirits of the time, and Bronson Alcott favored elect circles with his Orphic and oracular utterances; here lived Melvill, pictured in Holmes's "Last Leaf;" here Emerson preached Unitarianism "until he had carried it to the jumping-off-place," as one of his quondam parishioners avers, and here commenced his career as philosopher and lecturer. Here, besides those above mentioned, Dwight, Brisbane, Quincy, Ripley, Graham, Thompson, Hovey, Loring, Miller, Mrs. Folsom, and others of similar ability or zeal, discoursed and wrote in advocacy of the various reforms and "isms" in vogue half a century or more ago. It has been said that, according to the local creed, whoso is born in Boston needs not to be born again, but some decades ago a literary prowler, like ourselves, discovered that "nobody is born in Boston," the people who have made its fame in letters and art being usually allured to it from other places. This is true in less degree of the present age, since Hale, Robert Grant, Ballou,--of "The Pearl of India,"--Bates, Guiney, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others are "to the manor born;" but, if Boston has few birthplaces, she cherishes the homes and haunts of two generations of adult intellectual giants. Prominent among the literary landmarks is the "Corner Book-store"--once the shop of the father of Dr. Clarke--at School and Washington Streets, which, like Murray's in London, has long been the rendezvous of the _littérateurs_. Here appeared the first American edition of "The Opium Eater" and of Tennyson's poems. Here was the early home of the "Atlantic," then edited by James T. Fields, who was the literary partner of the firm and the presiding genius of the old store. This lover of letters and sympathetic friend of literary men--always kind of heart and generous of hand--drew to him here the foremost of that galaxy who first achieved for America a place in the world of letters. To this literary Rialto, as familiar loungers, came in that golden age George Hilliard, Emerson, Ticknor, Saxe, Whipple, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, Agassiz, the "Autocrat," and the rest, to loiter among and discuss the new books, or, more often, to chat with their friend Fields at his desk, in the nook behind the green baize curtain. The store is altered some since Fields left it; the curtained back-corner, which was the domain of the Celtic urchin "Michael Angelo" and the trysting spot of the literary fraternity, has given place to shelves of shining books. The side entrance--used mostly by the authors because it brought them more directly to Fields's desk and den--is replaced by a window which looks out upon the spot where, as we remember with a thrill, Fields last shook Hawthorne's hand and stood looking after him as--faltering with weakness--he walked up this side street with Pierce to start upon the journey from which he never returned. Literary tourists come to the store as to a shrine: thus in later years Matthew Arnold, Cable, Edmund Gosse, Professor Drummond, Dr. Doyle, and others like them, have visited the old corner. Nor is it deserted by the authors of the day; Holmes was often here up to the time of his death, and the visitor may still see, turning the glossy pages, some who are writers as well as readers of books: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Scudder, Alger, Robert Grant,--whose "Reflections" and "Opinions" have been so widely read,--Miss Winthrop, Miss Jewett, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, and Mrs. Coffin are among those who still come to the familiar place. Near by, in Washington Street, Hawthorne's first romance, "Fanshawe," was published in 1828. From Fields's famous store the transition to the staid old mansion which was long his home, and in which his widow still lives, is easy and natural. We find it pleasantly placed below the western slope of Beacon Hill, overlooking an enchanting prospect of blue waters and sunset skies. It is one of those dignified, substantial, and altogether comfortable dwellings--with spacious rooms, wide halls, easy stairways, and generous fireplaces--which we inherit from a previous generation. Here Fields, hardly less famed as an author than as the friend of authors, and his gifted wife--who is still a charming writer--created in their beautiful home an atmosphere which attracted to it the best and highest of their kind, and made it what it has been for more than forty years, a centre and ganglion of literary life and interest. The old-fashioned rooms are aglow with most precious memories and teem with artistic and literary treasures, many of them being _souvenirs_ of the illustrious authors whom the Fields have numbered among their friends and guests. The letters of Dickens, Hawthorne, Emerson, and others reveal the quality of the hospitality of this house and show how it was prized by its recipients. For years this was the Boston home of Hawthorne; to it came Emerson, Longfellow, and Whittier almost as freely as to their own abodes; here Holmes, Lowell, Charles Sumner, Greene, Bayard Taylor, Joseph Jefferson, were frequent guests; and here we see a quaintly furnished bedchamber which has at various times been occupied by Dickens, Trollope, Arthur Clough, Thackeray, Charles Kingsley, Matthew Arnold, Charlotte Cushman, and others of equal fame. Of the delights of familiar intercourse with the starry spirits who frequented this house, of their brilliant discussions of men and books, their scintillations of wit, their sage and sober words of wisdom, Mrs. Annie Fields affords but tantalizing hints in her reminiscences and the glimpses she occasionally allows us of her husband's diary and letters. Fields's library on the second floor--described as "My Friend's Library"--is a most alluring apartment, where we see, besides the "Shelf of Old Books" of which Mrs. Fields gives such a sympathetic account, other shelves containing numerous curious and uniquely precious volumes,--among them the few hundreds of worn and much annotated books which constituted the library of Leigh Hunt. In this room Emerson, while awaiting breakfast, wrote one of his poems, to which the hostess gave title. In later years a younger generation of writers came to this mansion: Celia Thaxter was a frequent guest; the princess-like Sarah Orne Jewett, beloved by Whittier as a daughter, has made it her Boston home; Aldrich comes to see the widow of his friend; Miss Preston, Mrs. Ward, and other luminous spirits may be met among the company who assemble in these memory-haunted rooms. For several years Holmes lived in the same street, within a few doors of Fields's house. At number fifty-four in quaint Pinckney Street, around the corner from Mrs. Fields's and near the former residence of Aldrich, we find the house in which the brilliant George Hilliard lived and died, scarcely changed since the time James Freeman Clarke here married Hawthorne to the lovely Sophia Peabody. Upon the opposite side, at number eleven, dwells Mrs. E. P. Whipple, widow of the eminent author and critic,--herself a lady of refined critical tastes,--who keeps unchanged the home in which her husband died. In his lifetime a select circle of friends usually assembled here on Sunday evenings,--a circle in which Fields, Bronson Alcott, Lowell, Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Sumner, Clarke, Dr. Bartol, Ole Bull, Lucretia Hale, Edwin Booth, and others of similar eminence in letters or art were included. Just around the corner, in Louisburg Square, Bronson Alcott died in the house of his daughter Mrs. Pratt,--the "Meg" of Louisa Alcott's books. On Beacon Hill, in the next--Mount Vernon--street, we find near the "hub of the Hub" a tall, deep-roomed dwelling, surmounted by an observatory which commands a charming view of the city and its environs, and this is the elegant city home of the poet, novelist, and prince of conversationalists, Thomas Bailey Aldrich. His library, full of treasures, is on a lower floor, but the study in which he pens his delightful compositions is high above the distractions of the world. As one sees the author of "Marjorie Daw" and the recent "Unguarded Gates" among his books, there is no hint of his sixty years in his fresh, ruddy face, with its carefully waxed moustache, nor in his sprightly speech and manner. In the same street, the spacious mansion of ex-Governor Claflin was long a resort of a wise, earnest, and dazzling company of sublimated intellects. This house was in later years the usual haven of Whittier, the gentle Quaker bard, during his visits to Boston; and here, protected by the hostess from the eager kindness of his numerous friends, he spent many restful days when rest was most needed. Near by, on the same hill-side, the talented authoress of "John Ward, Preacher" inhabits a many-windowed home of sober brick. Within, we find everywhere evidences of the fastidious personality of Mrs. Margaret Deland. In her parlors are dainty articles of furniture and bric-à-brac, wide fireplaces, deep windows full of flowers, many pictures, many more books. In her study and work-room, her desk stands near another fireplace, about it are still more flowers, pictures and books galore; here, not long ago, that tragedy of selfishness--"Philip and His Wife"--was written. At the sumptuous home of the Sargents in the adjoining street have been held some of the _séances_ of the noted Radical Club, in which, as Mrs. Moulton says, "somebody read a paper and everybody else pulled it to pieces." At these sessions such spirits as Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Holmes, Edward Everett Hale, Carl Schurz, the genial Colonel Higginson, the serene James Freeman Clarke, the mystic Dr. Bartol,--who still lives in retirement in his old home,--and other representatives of advanced thought have discussed the ethics of life as well as of letters. A plain brick house of three stories in the same quiet street was the abode of Francis Parkman's sister, where, after the death of his wife, the historian spent his winters, his study here being a simple front room on the upper floor, with open fireplace and book-lined walls. In Park Street, above the Common, the ample mansion of George Ticknor--the chronicler of "Spanish Literature" and the autocrat of literary taste--was during many years a haunt of the best of Boston culture. We find its stately walls still standing, but the interior has been surrendered to the Philistines. On Beacon Street, but a door or two removed from the birthplace of Wendell Phillips, in a house whose number the poet-lover said he "remembered by thinking of the Thirty-Nine Articles," Longfellow won Miss Appleton to be his wife. Just across the Common, in Carver Street, Hawthorne's son was born. At many of the homes here mentioned were held the assemblages of the Ladies' Social Club. Among its readers were Agassiz, Emerson, Greene, Whipple, Clarke, and E. E. Hale. It was ironically styled the "Brain Club," and died after many years because, according to one ex-member, "the newer members brought into it too much Supper and Stomach and no Brain at all." A successor has been the Round Table Club, with Colonel Higginson for first president,--its meetings for essays and discussions being held in the homes of its literary or artistic members. Boston's Belgravia occupies a district which has been reclaimed from the waters of the "Back Bay" of the Charles River,--on whose shore Hawthorne placed the shunned and isolated thatched cottage of Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter," and the windows of many of Boston's Four Hundred overlook the same delightful vista of water, hills, and western skies which to the sad eyes of Hester and little Pearl were a daily vision. On the water side of Beacon Street, within this select region, is the four-floored, picturesque mansion of brick--its front embellished with a growth of ivy which clusters about the bay-windows--where not long ago we found the gentle and genial Holmes sitting among his books, serene in the golden sunset of life, happy in the love of friends and in the benedictions of the thousands his work has uplifted and beatified. The mansion is redolent of literary associations, and throughout its apartments were tastefully disposed articles of virtu, curios, and mementos--literary, artistic, or historic--of affection and regard from Holmes's many friends at home and abroad. His study was a large room at the back of the house, occupying the entire width of the second floor. Its broad window commands a sweep of the Charles, with its tides and its many craft, beyond which the poet could see, as he said, Cambridge where he was born, Harvard where he was educated, and Mount Auburn where he expected to lie in his last sleep. We last saw the "Autocrat" in his easy-chair, among the treasures of this apartment, with a portrait of his ancestress "Dorothy Q" looking down at him from a side wall. His hair was silvered and his kindly face had lost its smoothness,--for he was eighty-five "years young," as he would say,--but his faculties were keen and alert, and, in benign age, his greeting was no less cordial and his outlook upon men and affairs was no less cheery and optimistic than in the flush and vigor of early manhood. In this luxurious study were written several of his twenty-five volumes,--"Over the Teacups" being the most popular of those produced here,--and we found him still devoting some hours of each day to light literary tasks, oftenest dictating materials for his memoirs, which are yet to be published. Above the study, and overlooking the river on which he used to row and the farther green hills, is the chamber immortalized in "My Aviary;" and here, as he sat in his favorite chair, surrounded by his family, death came to him, and his spirit peacefully passed into the eternal silence. Then the "Last Leaf" had fallen, to be mourned by all the world. A door or two from Holmes sometime dwelt the versatile novelist, poet, playwright, and "Altrurian Traveller." A popular print of "Howells in his Library" is an interior of his Beacon Street house; the view of the glassy river-basin, with the roofs and spires of Cambridge rising from banks and bowers of foliage beyond,--which he pictures from the new house of "Silas Lapham" on this street,--is the one Howells daily beheld from his study window here. His latest Boston home was in the same district on the superb Commonwealth Avenue, near the statue of Garrison, and here, in a sumptuous, six-storied, bow-fronted mansion, he wrote "The Shadow of a Dream" and other widely read books. A modest, old-fashioned house on Beacon Street has long been the home of the poet and starry genius Julia Ward Howe, writer of the "Battle-Hymn of the Republic." Other members of her singularly gifted family have sojourned here, and the "home of the Howes" has been frequented by men and women eminent for culture and thought and for achievement in literature or art. In the adjacent Marlborough Street recently died the polished author and orator Robert C. Winthrop, and here, too, was the home of Dr. Ellis, the friend of Lowell's father. Farther away in this newer Boston of luxury and culture is the charming and hospitable home of the poet, essayist, novelist, and critic Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, whose American admirers complain that in late years she remains too much in London. When at home, she inhabits a delightful dwelling which, from entrance to attic, teems with pictures, rare books, curios, and other _souvenirs_ of her many friends in many lands. In her library, where much of "Garden of Dreams," "Swallow Flights," and other books was written, and where more of all "the work nearest her heart" was accomplished, are preserved many autograph copies of books by recent writers--several of them dedicated to Mrs. Moulton--and a priceless collection of letters from illustrious literary workers. In her drawing-rooms one may meet many of the famed authors of the day,--Higginson, Wendell, Horsford, Bynner, Nora Perry of the charming books for girls, Miss Conway, Miss Louise Imogen Guiney, Mrs. Howe, Arlo Bates, Adams, the jocosely serious Robert Grant, and others of Boston's newer lights of literature. If we "drive on down Washington Street" with "Silas Lapham," we shall find in Chester Square the "Nankeen Square" where he dwelt in his less ambitious days, and the pretty oval green with the sturdy trees which the worthy colonel saw grow from saplings. In a pleasant dwelling on the contiguous street lives and works the bright and busy Lucretia P. Hale, sister of the author-divine. She was the favorite scholar of Miss Elizabeth Peabody; and she has, through her writings and her classes, acquired an influence and discipleship little smaller than that which Margaret Fuller once possessed. Farther south, in the Roxbury district, we seek the abode of the famed author of "The Man without a Country." Sauntering along the shady and delectable Highland Street, we interrogate a uniformed guardian of the law, who heartily rejoins, "Dr. Hale's is a temple on the right a block further on: and if any man's fit to live in a temple, it's him." As we walk the "block further on" we think that, however defective his grammar, the policeman's estimate of Hale is beyond criticism and agrees with that of the thousands of readers and friends of the indefatigable author, lecturer, preacher, editor, reformer, and promoter of all good. We find the house--very like a Greek temple--standing back from the street in the midst of an ample lawn, shaded by noble trees and decked with a wealth of shrubbery and bloom. The mansion is a large square edifice, with great dormer-windows in its roofs, surmounted by a cupola, and having in front a lofty portico upheld by heavy Ionic pillars, between which interlacing woodbine forms a leafy screen. Within is a wide hall, and opening out of it are generously proportioned rooms, some of them lined from floor to ceiling with thousands of books. The study is a commodious room, with a "pamphlet-annex" adjoining it on the garden side, and is crammed with book-shelves and drawers, while piles of books, magazines, portfolios, manuscripts, and memoranda are disposed on cases, tables, and stands about the apartment. Everything is obviously arranged for convenient and ready use, and well it may be so, for this is the work-room and "thinking-shop" of the hardest-working literary man in America. The books which made his first fame were written before he came to this house; of all the works produced in this study, the numerous poems, romances, histories, essays, editorials, reviews, discussions, translations,--to say nothing of the many hundreds of well-considered and carefully written sermons,--we may not here mention even the names, for no writer since Voltaire is more fruitful of finished and masterly work. It is notable that Hale regards "In His Name" as his best work from a literary point of view; of his other productions, he thinks some of the poems of the latest collection, "For Fifty Years," as good as anything,--"always excepting his sermons." Among the abundant treasures of his study, Hale has a most interesting and valuable collection of autograph letters, of which he is justly proud. His father was Nathan Hale of the Boston "Advertiser," his mother was sister to Edward Everett and herself an author and translator, his wife is niece to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, his son Robert has already acquired a reputation in the domain of letters. The doctor himself has been a writer from childhood, his earliest contributions being to his father's paper. His illustrious sister declares that in their nursery days she and her brother used to take their meals with the "Advertiser" pinned under their chins,--a practice to which their literary precocity has been attributed. We find Hale at the age of seventy-three blithe and hopeful, working as much and manifestly accomplishing more than ever before. A little farther out on the same street is the dwelling where William Lloyd Garrison spent his last years, and in this neighborhood lived Mrs. Blake, poet of "Verses Along the Way." Here also are the early home of Miss Guiney and the school to which she was first sent,--or rather "carried neck and heels," because she refused to walk. Close by we find the pleasant home in which Jane G. Austin wrote some of her famed colonial tales and where she died not many months ago; and in the same delightful suburb, a half-mile beyond Hale's house, is the retreat where the beloved author of "Little Women" breathed out her too brief life. OUT OF BOSTON I CAMBRIDGE: ELMWOOD: MOUNT AUBURN _Holmes's Church-yard--Bridge, Smithy, Chapel, and River of Longfellow's Verse--Abodes of Lettered Culture--Holmes--Higginson--Agassiz-- Norton--Clough--Howells--Fuller--Longfellow--Lowell--Longfellow's City of the Dead and its Precious Graves._ Crossing the Charles by "The Bridge" of Longfellow's popular poem, a stroll along elm-shaded streets brings us to the ancient Common of Cambridge and a vicinage which has much besides its historic traditions to allure the literary pilgrim. For centuries the site of a celebrated college and a conspicuous centre of learning, it has long been the abiding-place of representatives of the best and foremost in American culture and mental achievement. Close by the Common, and opposite the remains of the elm beneath which Washington assumed the command of the patriot army, stood the old gambrel-roofed house in which that "gentlest of autocrats," Holmes, was born and reared, and upon whose door-post was first displayed his "shingle," on which he whimsically proposed to inscribe "The Smallest Fevers Thankfully Received;" across the college grounds is the home-like edifice where lived the erudite Professor Felton, loved by Dickens and oft mentioned in his letters; not far away, at the corner of Broadway, was the home of Agassiz, since occupied by his son; and a few rods eastward is the picturesque residence of the witty and profound Colonel Higginson,--poet, essayist, novelist, and reformer. In the adjacent Kirkland Street dwelt the delightful Dr. Estes Howe, brother-in-law to Lowell, with whom the poet sometime lived and whom he celebrated as "the Doctor" in the "Fable for Critics." Dr. C. C. Abbott formerly lived in this neighborhood, and the collections on which his best-known books are founded are preserved in the near-by Peabody Museum, beyond which we find the tasteful abode of Professor Charles Eliot Norton, the friend and literary executor of Lowell. Near the Common, too, dwelt for a year or so that rare poet Arthur Clough, author of "The Bothie" and "Qua Cursum Ventus;" and the sweet singer Charlotte Fiske Bates--the intimate friend of Longfellow--had her habitation in the same neighborhood. Opposite the southern end of the Common is the ancient village cemetery celebrated in the poetry of Holmes and Longfellow; a little way westward, Howells lived in a delightful rose-embowered cottage and pleasantly pictured many features of the old town in the "Charlesbridge" of his "Suburban Sketches." Two or three furlongs distant, within the grounds of the Botanic Garden, long lived the American Linnæus, Professor Asa Gray. Of all the Cambridge thoroughfares, the shady and venerable Brattle Street, which curves westward from the University Press, is most interesting and attractive. Near the Press building stands the historic Brattle House,--its beautiful stairway and other antique features preserved by the Social Club, to whom the property now belongs,--where Margaret Fuller, the priestess and queen of modern Transcendentalism, passed much of her youth and young womanhood, and where her sister, wife to the poet Ellery Channing, was reared. Margaret, who is said to have stood for the Theodora of Beaconsfield's "Lothair," first saw the light in a modest little dwelling in Main Street nearer the Boston bridge, and here attended school with Holmes and Richard Henry Dana; but it was in this Brattle House that her marvellous, and in some respects unique, intellectual career commenced. Here she acquired the moral and mental equipment which fitted her for leadership in the most vital epoch of American culture and thought, and here she attracted and attached all the wisest and noblest spirits within her range. To her here came Theodore Parker, the older Channing, Harriet Martineau, James Freeman Clarke,--the earnest, brilliant, and thoughtful of all ages and conditions. One noble soul who knew her here speaks of her friendship as a "gift of the gods," and some eminent in thought and achievement testify that they have ever striven toward standards set up for them by her in that early period of her residence here. Close by Miss Fuller's home, "under a spreading chestnut-tree" at the intersection of Story Street, stood the smithy of Pratt, who was immortalized by Longfellow as "The Village Blacksmith." To the poet, passing daily on the way between his home and the college, the "mighty man" at his anvil in the shaded smithy was long a familiar vision. The tree--a horse-chestnut--has been removed, the shop has given place to a modern dwelling, and years ago the worthy smith rejoined his wife, "singing in Paradise." A few steps westward from the site of the smithy is the "Chapel of St. John" of another sweet poem of Longfellow; and just beyond this we find, bowered by lilacs and environed by acres of shade and sward, the colonial Cragie House, once the sojourn of Washington, but holding for us more precious associations, since Sparks, Worcester, and Everett have lived within its time-honored walls, and our popular poet of grace and sentiment for near half a century here had his home, and from here passed into the unknown. The picturesque mansion wears the aspect of an old acquaintance, and the interior, with its princely proportioned rooms, spacious fireplaces, wide halls, curious carvings and tiles, has much that Longfellow has shared with his readers. On the entrance door is the ponderous knocker; a landing of the broad stairway holds "The Old Clock on the Stairs;" the right of the hall is the study, with its priceless mementos of the tender and sympathetic bard who wrought here the most and best of his life-work, from early manhood onward into the mellow twilight of sweet and benign age. Here is his chair, vacated by him but a few days before he died; his desk; his inkstand which had been Coleridge's; his pen with its "link from the chain of Bonnivard;" the antique pitcher of his "Drinking Song;" the fireplace of "The Wind over the Chimney;" the arm-chair carved from the "spreading chestnut-tree" of the smithy, which was presented to him by the village children and celebrated in his poem "From my Arm-Chair." About us here are his cherished books, his pictures, his manuscripts, all his precious belongings, and from his window we see, beyond the Longfellow Memorial Park, the river so often sung in his verse, "stealing onward, like the stream of life." In this room Washington held his war councils. Of the many intellectual _séances_ its walls have witnessed we contemplate with greatest pleasure the Wednesday evening meetings of the "Dante Club," when Lowell, Howells, Fields, Norton, Greene, and other friends and scholars sat here with Longfellow to revise the new translation of Dante. The book-lined apartment over the study--once the bedchamber of Washington and later of Talleyrand--was occupied by Longfellow when he first lived as a lodger in the old house. It was here he heard "Footsteps of Angels" and "Voices of the Night," and saw by the fitful firelight the "Being Beauteous" at his side; here he wrote "Hyperion" and the earlier poems which made him known and loved in every clime. Later this room became the nursery of his children, and some of the grotesque tiles which adorn its chimney are mentioned in his poem "To a Child:" "The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing-girl, the grave bashaw. The Chinese mandarin." [Illustration: WHERE LONGFELLOW LIVED] Along the western façade of the mansion stretches a wide veranda, where the poet was wont to take his daily exercise when "the goddess Neuralgia" or "the two Ws" (Work and Weather) prevented his walking abroad. In this stately old house his children were born and reared, here his wife met her tragic death, and here his daughter--the "grave Alice" of "The Children's Hour"--abides and preserves its precious relics, while "laughing Allegra" (Anna) and "Edith with golden hair"--now Mrs. Dana and Mrs. Thorp--have dwellings within the grounds of their childhood home, and their brother Ernst owns a modern cottage a few rods westward on the same street. In Sparks Street, just out of Brattle, dwelt the author Robert Carter,--familiarly, "The Don,"--sometime secretary to Prescott and long the especial friend of Lowell, with whom he was associated in the editorship of the short-lived "Pioneer." Carter's home here was the rendezvous of a circle of choice spirits, where one might often meet "Prince" Lowell,--as his friends delighted to call him,--Bartlett of "Familiar Quotations," and that "songless poet" John Holmes, brother of the "American Montaigne." A short walk under the arching elms of Brattle Street brings us to Elmwood, the life-long home of Lowell. The house, erected by the last British lieutenant-governor of the province, is a plain, square structure of wood, three stories in height, and is surrounded by a park of simple and natural beauty, whose abundant growth of trees gives to some portions of the grounds the sombreness and apparent seclusion of a forest. A gigantic hedge of trees encloses the place like a leafy wall, excluding the vision of the world and harboring thousands of birds who tenant its shades. Some of the aquatic fowl of the vicinage are referred to in Longfellow's "Herons of Elmwood." In the old mansion, long the home of Elbridge Gerry, Lowell was born and grew to manhood, and to it he brought the bride of his youth, the lovely Maria White, herself the writer of some exquisite poems; here, a few years later, she died in the same night that a child was born to Longfellow, whose poem "The Two Angels" commemorates both events. Here, too, Lowell lost his children one by one until a daughter, the present Mrs. Burnett,--now owner and occupant of Elmwood,--alone remained. During the poet's stay abroad, his house was tenanted by Mrs. Ole Bull and by Lowell's brother-bard Bailey Aldrich, who in this sweet retirement wrought some of his delicious work. To the beloved trees and birds of his old home Lowell returned from his embassage, and here, with his daughter, he passed his last years among his books and a chosen circle of friends. Here, where he wished to die, he died, and here his daughter preserves his former home and its contents unchanged since he was borne hence to his burial. Until the death of his father, Lowell's study was an upper front room at the left of the entrance. It is a plain, low-studded corner apartment, which the poet called "his garret," and where he slept as a boy. Its windows now look only into the neighboring trees, but when autumn has shorn the boughs of their foliage the front window commands a wide level of the sluggish Charles and its bordering lowlands, while the side window overlooks the beautiful slopes of Mount Auburn, where Lowell now lies with his poet-wife and the children who went before. His study windows suggested the title of his most interesting volume of prose essays. In this upper chamber he wrote his "Conversations on the Poets" and the early poems which made his fame,--"Irene," "Prometheus," "Rhoecus," "Sir Launfal,"--which was composed in five days,--and the first series of that collection of grotesque drolleries, "The Biglow Papers." Here also he prepared his editorial contributions to the "Atlantic." His later study was on the lower floor, at the left of the ample hall which traverses the centre of the house. It is a prim and delightful old-fashioned apartment, with low walls, a wide and cheerful fireplace, and pleasant windows which look out among the trees and lilacs upon a long reach of lawn. In this room the poet's best-loved books, copiously annotated by his hand, remain upon his shelves; here we see his table, his accustomed chair, the desk upon which he wrote the "Commemoration Ode," "Under the Willows," and many famous poems, besides the volumes of prose essays. In this study he sometimes gathered his classes in Dante, and to him here came his friends familiarly and informally,--for "receptions" were rare at Elmwood: most often came "The Don," "The Doctor," Norton, Owen, Bartlett, Felton, Stillman,--less frequently Godkin, Fields, Holmes, Child, Motley, Edmund Quincy, and the historian Parkman. While the older trees of the place were planted by Gerry, the pines and clustering lilacs were rooted by Lowell or his father. All who remember the poet's passionate love for this home will rejoice in the assurance that the old mansion, with its precious associations and mementos, and the acres immediately adjoining it, will not be in any way disturbed during the life of his daughter and her children. At most, the memorial park which has been planned by the literary people of Boston and Cambridge will include only that portion of the grounds which belonged to the poet's brothers and sisters. A narrow street separates the hedges of Elmwood from the peaceful shades of Mount Auburn,--the "City of the Dead" of Longfellow's sonnet. Lowell thought this the most delightful spot on earth. The late Francis Parkman told the writer that Lowell, in his youth, had confided to him that he habitually went into the cemetery at midnight and sat upon a tombstone, hoping to find there the poetic afflatus. He confessed he had not succeeded, and was warned by his friend that the custom would bring him more rheumatism than inspiration. Dr. Ellis testified that at this period his friend Dr. Lowell often expressed to him his anxiety "lest his son James would amount to nothing, because he had taken to writing poetry." In the sanctuary of Mount Auburn we find many of the names mentioned in these chapters,--names written on the scroll of fame, blazoned on title-pages, borne in the hearts of thousands of readers in all lands,--now, alas! inscribed above their graves. From the eminence of Mount Auburn, we look upon Longfellow's river "stealing with silent pace" around the sacred enclosure; the verdant meads along the stream; the distant cities, erst the abodes of those who sleep about us here,--for whom life's fever is ended and life's work done. Near this summit, Charlotte Cushman rests at the base of a tall obelisk, her favorite myrtle growing dense and dark above her. By the elevated Ridge Path, on a site long ago selected by him, Longfellow lies in a grave decked with profuse flowers and marked by a monument of brown stone. On Fountain Avenue we find a beautiful spot, shaded by two giant trees, which was a beloved resort of Lowell, and where he now lies among his kindred, his sepulchre marked by a simple slab of slate: "Good-night, sweet Prince!" Not far away is the beautiful Jackson plot, where not long ago the beloved Holmes was tenderly laid in the same grave with his wife beneath a burden of flowers. Some of the blossoms we lately saw upon this grave were newly placed by the creator of "Micah Clarke" and "Sherlock Holmes," Dr. Conan Doyle. By a great oak near the main avenue is the sarcophagus of Sumner, and one shady slope bears the memorial of Margaret Fuller and her husband,--buried beneath the sea on the coast of Fire Island. Near by we find the grave of "Fanny Fern,"--wife of Parton and sister of N. P. Willis,--with its white cross adorned with exquisitely carved ferns; the pillar of granite and marble which designates the resting-place of Everett; the granite boulder--its unchiselled surface overgrown with the lichens he loved--which covers the ashes of Agassiz; the simple sarcophagus of Rufus Choate; the cenotaph of Kirkland; the tomb of Spurzheim; and on the lovely slopes about us, under the dreaming trees, amid myriad witcheries of bough and bloom, are the enduring memorials of affection beneath which repose the mortal parts of Sargent, Quincy, Story, Parker, Worcester, Greene, Bigelow, William Ellery Channing, Edwin Booth, Phillips Brooks, and many like them whom the world will not soon forget. In this sweet summer day, their place of rest is so quiet and beautiful,--with the birds singing here their lowest and tenderest songs, the soft winds breathing a lullaby in the leafy boughs, the air full of a grateful peace and calm, the trees spreading their great branches in perpetual benediction above the turf-grown graves,--it seems that here, if anywhere, the restless wayfarer might learn to love restful death. OUT OF BOSTON II BELMONT: THE WAYSIDE INN: HOME OF WHITTIER _Lowell's Beaver Brook--Abode of Trowbridge--Red Horse Tavern--Parsons and the Company of Longfellow's Friends--Birthplace of Whittier-- Scenes of his Poems--Dwelling and Grave of the Countess--Powow Hill-- Whittier's Amesbury Home--His Church and Tomb._ A few miles westward from the classic shades of Cambridge we found, perched upon a breezy height of Belmont, a picturesque, red-roofed villa, for some years the summer home of our "Altrurian Traveller." From its verandas he overlooked a slumberous plain, diversified with meads, fields, country-seats, and heavy-tinted copses, and bordered by a circle of verdant hills; while on the eastern horizon rises the distant city, crowned by the resplendent dome of the capitol. In his dainty white study here, with its gladsome fireplace and curious carvings and mottoes, Howells wrote--besides other good things--his "Lady of the Aroostook," in which some claim to have discerned an answer to Henry James's "Daisy Miller." In this neighborhood is the valley of "Beaver Brook," a favorite haunt of Lowell, to which he brought the English poet Arthur Clough. The old mill is removed, but we find the water-fall and the other romantic features little changed since the poet depicted the ideal beauties of this dale, in what has been adjudged one of the most artistic poems of modern times. In a charming retreat among the hills of Arlington, scarce a mile away from Howells's sometime Belmont home, dwells and writes that genial and gifted poet and novelist, John T. Trowbridge, whose books--notably his war-time tales--have found readers round the world. [Sidenote: Longfellow's Wayside Inn] Westward again from Belmont, a prolonged drive through a delightful country brings us to "Sudbury town" and the former hostelry of 'Squire Howe,--the "Wayside Inn" of Longfellow's "Tales." Our companion and guide is one who well knew the old house and its neighborhood in the halcyon days when Professor Treadwell, Parsons,--the poet of the "Bust of Dante,"--and the quiet coterie of Longfellow's friends came, summer after summer, to find rest and seclusion under its ample roof and sheltering trees, among the hills of this remote region. The environment of fragrant meadow and smiling field, of deep wood glade and forest-clad height, is indeed alluring. About the ancient inn remain some of the giant elms and the "oak-trees, broad and high," shading it now as in the day when the "Tales" immortalized it with the "Tabard" of Chaucer; while through the near meadow circles the "well-remembered brook" of the poet's verse, in which his friends saw the inverted landscape and their own faces "looking up at them from below." The house is a great, old-fashioned, bare and weather-worn edifice of wood,--"somewhat fallen to decay."--standing close upon the highway. Its two stories of spacious rooms are supplemented by smaller chambers in a vast attic; two or three chimneys, "huge and tiled and tall," rise through its gambrel roofs among the bowering foliage; a wing abuts upon one side and imparts a pleasing irregularity to the otherwise plain parallelogram. The wide, low-studded rooms are lighted by windows of many small panes. Among the apartments we find the one once occupied by Major Molineaux, "whom Hawthorne hath immortal made," and that of Dr. Parsons, the laureate of this place, who has celebrated it in the stanzas of "Old House at Sudbury" and other poems. But it is the old inn parlor which most interests the literary visitor,--a great, low, square apartment, with oaken floors, ponderous beams overhead, and a broad hearth, where in the olden time blazed a log fire whose ruddy glow filled the room and shone out through the windows. It is this room which Longfellow peoples with his friends, who sat about the old fireplace and told his "Tales of a Wayside Inn." The "rapt musician" whose transfiguring portraiture we have in the Prelude is Ole Bull; the student "of old books and days" is Henry Wales; the young Sicilian, "in sight of Etna born and bred," is Luigi Monti, who dined every Sunday with Longfellow; the "Spanish Jew from Alicant" is Edrelei, a Boston Oriental dealer; the "Theologian from the school of Cambridge on the Charles" is Professor Daniel Treadwell; the Poet is T. W. Parsons, the Dantean student and translator of "Divina Commedia;" the Landlord is 'Squire Lyman Howe, the portly bachelor who then kept this "Red Horse Tavern," as it was called. Most of this goodly circle have been here in the flesh, and our companion has seen them in this old room, as well as Longfellow himself, who came here years afterward, when the Landlord was dead and the poet's company had left the old inn forever. In this room we see the corner where stood the ancient spinet, the spot on the wall where hung the highly colored coat of arms of Howe and the sword of his knightly grandfather near Queen Mary's pictured face, the places on the prismatic-hued windows where the names of Molineaux, Treadwell, etc., had been inscribed by hands that now are dust. Descendants of the woman who died of the "Shoc o' Num Palsy" are said to live in the neighborhood, as well as some other odd characters who are embalmed in Parsons's humorous verse. But the ancient edifice is no longer an inn; the Red Horse on the swinging sign-board years ago ceased to invite the weary wayfarer to rest and cakes and ale; the memory-haunted chambers, where starry spirits met and tarried in the golden past, were later inhabited by laborers, who displayed the rooms for a fee and plied the pilgrim with lies anent the former famed occupants. The storied structure has recently passed to the possession of appreciative owners,--Hon. Herbert Howe being one of them,--who have made the repairs needful for its preservation and have placed it in the charge of a proper custodian. A longer way out of Boston, in another direction, our guest is among the haunts of the beloved Quaker bard. On the bank of the Merrimac--his own "lowland river"--and among darkly wooded hills of hackmatack and pine, we find the humble farm-house, guarded by giant sentinel poplars, where eighty-eight years agone Whittier came into the world. [Sidenote: Scenes of Whittier's Poems] Among the plain and bare apartments, with their low ceilings, antique cross-beams, and multipaned windows, we see the lowly chamber of his birth; the simple study where his literary work was begun; the great kitchen, with its brick oven and its heavy crane in the wide fireplace, where he laid the famous winter's evening scene in "Snow-Bound," peopling the plain "old rude-furnished room" with the persons he here best knew and loved. We see the dwelling little changed since the time when Whittier dwelt--a dark-haired lad--under its roof; it is now carefully preserved, and through the old rooms are disposed articles of furniture from his Amesbury cottage, which are objects of interest to many visitors. All about the place are spots of tender identification of poet and poem: here are the brook and the garden wall of his "Barefoot Boy;" the scene of his "Telling the Bees;" the spring and meadow of "Maud Muller;" not far away, with the sumachs and blackberries clustering about it still, is the site of the rude academy of his "School Days;" and beyond the low hill the grasses grow upon the grave of the dear, brown-eyed girl who "hated to go above him." We may still loiter beneath the overarching sycamores planted by poor Tallant,--"pioneer of Erin's outcasts,"--where young Whittier pondered the story of "Floyd Ireson with the hard heart." Delightful rambles through the country-side bring us to many scenes familiar to the tender poet and by him made familiar to all the world. Thus we come to the "stranded village" of Aunt Mose,--"the muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale,"--where Whittier found the materials out of which he wrought the touching poem "The Countess," and where we see the poor low rooms in which pretty, blue-eyed Mary Ingalls was born and lived a too brief life of love, and her sepulchre--now reclaimed from a tangle of brake and brier--in the lonely old burial-ground that "slopes against the west." Her grave is in the row nearest the dusty highway, and is marked by a mossy slab of slate, which is now protected from the avidity of relic-gatherers by a net-work of iron, bearing the inscription, "The Grave of the Countess." Thus, too, we come to the ruined foundation of the cottage of "Mabel Martin, the Witch's Daughter," and look thence upon other haunts of the beloved bard, as well as upon his river "glassing the heavens" and the wave-like swells of foliage-clad hills which are "The Laurels" of his verse. In West Newbury, the town of his "Northman's Written Rock," we find the comfortable "Maplewood" homestead where lived and lately died the supposed sweetheart of the poet's early manhood. [Sidenote: Whittier's Amesbury Cottage] Whittier's beloved Amesbury, the "home of his heart," is larger and busier than he knew it, but, as we dally on its dusty avenues, we find them aglow with living memories of the sweet singer. In Friend Street stands--still occupied by Whittier's former friends--the plain little frame house which was so long his home. A bay window has been placed above the porch, but the place is otherwise little changed since he left it; the same noble elms shade the front, the fruit-trees he planted and pruned and beneath which the saddened throng sat at his funeral are in the garden; here too are the grape-vines which were the especial objects of his loving care,--one of them grown from a rootlet sent to him in a letter by Charles Sumner. Within, we see the famous "garden room," which was his sanctum and workshop, and where this gentle man of peace waged valiant warfare with his pen for the rights of man. In this room, with its sunny outlook among his vines and pear-trees, he kept his chosen books, his treasured souvenirs; and here he welcomed his friends,--Longfellow, Fields, Sumner, Lowell, Colonel Higginson, Bayard Taylor, Mrs. Thaxter, Mrs. Phelps-Ward, Alice Cary, Lucy Larcom, Sarah Orne Jewett, and many another illustrious child of genius. A quaint Franklin fireplace stood by one side wall,--usually surmounted in summer by a bouquet; in the nook between this and the sash-door was placed an old-fashioned writing-desk, and here he wrote many of the poems which brought him world-wide fame and voiced the convictions and the conscience of half the nation. Here are still preserved some of his cherished books. Above the study was Whittier's bedchamber, near the rooms of his mother, his "youngest and dearest" sister, and the "dear aunt" (Mercy) of "Snow-Bound," who came with him to this home and shared it until their deaths. After the others were gone, the brother and sister long dwelt here alone, later a niece was for some years his house-keeper, and at her marriage the poet gave up most of the house to some old friends, who kept his study and chamber in constant readiness for his return upon the prolonged sojourns which were continued until his last year of life,--this being always his best-loved home. Near by are the "painted shingly town-house" of his verse, where during many years he failed not to meet with his neighbors to deposit "the freeman's vote for Freedom," and the little, wooden Friends' meeting-house, where he loved to sit in silent introspection among the people of his faith. The trees which now shade its plain old walls with abundant foliage were long ago planted by his hands. The "Powow Hill" of his "Preacher" and "The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall" rises steeply near his home, and was a favorite resort, to which he often came, alone or with his guests. One who has often stood with Whittier there pilots us to his accustomed place on the lofty rounded summit, whence we overlook the village, the long reach of the "sea-seeking" river, and the entrancing scene pictured by the poet in the beautiful lines of "Miriam." [Sidenote: Whittier's Tomb] From these precious haunts our pilgrim shoon trace the revered bard to the peaceful precincts of the God's-acre--just without the town--where, in a sequestered spot beneath a dark cedar which sobs and soughs in the summer wind, his mortal part is forever laid, with his beloved sister and kindred, within "the low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings." OUT OF BOSTON III SALEM: WHITTIER'S OAK-KNOLL AND BEYOND _Cemetery of Hawthorne's Ancestors--Birthplace of Hawthorne and his Wife--Where Fame was won--House of the Seven Gables--Custom-House-- Where Scarlet Letter was written--Main Street and Witch Hill--Sights from a Steeple--Later Home of Whittier--Norman's Woe--Lucy Larcom-- Parton, etc.--Rivermouth--Thaxter._ [Sidenote: Hawthorne's Salem] A half-hour's jaunt by train brings us to the shaded streets of quaint old Salem and the scenes of Hawthorne's early life, work, and triumph. Here we find on Charter Street, in the old cemetery of "Dr. Grimshaw's Secret" and "Dolliver Romance," the sunken and turf-grown graves of Hawthorne's mariner ancestors, some of whom sailed forth on the ocean of eternity nearly two centuries ago. Among the curiously carved gravestones of slate we see that of John Hathorn, the "witch-judge" of Hawthorne's "Note-Books." Close at hand repose the ancestors of the novelist's wife, and the Doctor Swinnerton who preceded "Dolliver" and who was called to consider the cause of Colonel Pyncheon's death in the opening chapter of "The House of the Seven Gables." The sombre house which encroaches upon a corner of the cemetery enclosure--with the green billows surging about it so closely that its side windows are within our reach from the gravestones--was the home of the Peabodys, whence Hawthorne wooed the amiable Sophia, and where, in his tales, he domiciled Grandsir "Dolliver" and also "Doctor Grimshaw" with Ned and Elsie. We found it a rather depressing, hip-roofed, low-studded, and irregular edifice of wood, standing close upon the street, and obviously degenerated a little from the degree of respectability--"not sinking below the boundary of the genteel"--which the romancer ascribed to it. The little porch or hood protects the front entrance, and the back door communicates with the cemetery,--a circumstance which recalls the novelist's fancy that the dead might get out of their graves at night and steal into this house to warm themselves at the convenient fireside. Not many rods distant, in Union Street, stands the little house where Captain Hathorn left his family when he went away to sea, and where the novelist was born. The street is small, shabby, shadeless, dispiriting,--its inhabitants not select. The house--builded by Hawthorne's grandfather and lately numbered twenty-seven--stands close to the sidewalk, upon which its door-stone encroaches, leaving no space for flower or vine; the garden where Hawthorne "rolled on a grass-plot under an apple-tree and picked abundant currants" is despoiled of turf and tree, and the wooden house walls rise bare and bleak. It is a plain, uninviting, eight-roomed structure, with a lower addition at the back, and with a square central chimney-stack rising like a tower above the gambrel roof. The rooms are low and contracted, with quaint corner fireplaces and curiously designed closets, and with protuberant beams crossing the ceilings. From the entrance between the front rooms a narrow winding stair leads to an upper landing, at the left of which we find the little, low-ceiled chamber where, ninety years ago, America's greatest romancer first saw the light. It is one of the most cheerless of rooms, with rude fireplace of bricks, a mantel of painted planks, and two small windows which look into the verdureless yard. In a modest brick house upon the opposite side of the street, and but a few rods distant from the birthplace of her future husband, Hawthorne's wife was born five years subsequent to his nativity. [Sidenote: The Manning House] Abutting upon the back yard of Hawthorne's birthplace is the old Manning homestead of his maternal ancestors, the home of his own youth and middle age and the theatre of his struggles and triumph. It is known as number twelve Herbert Street, and is a tall, unsightly, erratic fabric of wood, with nothing pleasing or gracious in its aspect or environment. The ugly and commonplace character of his surroundings here during half his life must have been peculiarly depressing to such a sensitive temperament as Hawthorne's, and doubtless accounts for his mental habits. That he had no joyous memories of this old house his letters and journals abundantly show. Its interior arrangement has been somewhat changed to accommodate the several families of laborers who have since inhabited it, and one front room seems to have been used as a shop; but it is not difficult to identify the haunted chamber which was Hawthorne's bed-room and study. This little, dark, dreary apartment under the eaves, with its multipaned window looking down into the room where he was born, is to us one of the most interesting of all the Hawthorne shrines. Here the magician kept his solitary vigil during the long period of his literary probation, shunning his family, declining all human sympathy and fellowship, for some time going abroad only after nightfall; here he studied, pondered, wrote, revised, destroyed, day after day as the slow months went by; and here, after ten years of working and waiting for the world to know him, he triumphantly recorded, "In this dismal chamber FAME was won." Here he wrote "Twice-Told Tales" and many others, which were published in various periodicals, and here, after his residence at the old Manse,--for it was to this Manning house that he "always came back, like the bad halfpenny," as he said,--he completed the "Mosses." This old dwelling is one of the several which have been fixed upon as being the original "House of the Seven Gables," despite the novelist's averment that the Pyncheon mansion was "of materials long in use for constructing castles in the air." The pilgrim in Salem will be persistently assured that a house which stands near the shore by the foot of Turner Street, and is known as number thirty-four, was the model of Hawthorne's structure. It is an antique edifice of some architectural pretensions, displays five fine gables, and has spacious wainscoted and frescoed apartments, with quaint mantels and other evidences of colonial stateliness. It was an object familiar to the novelist from his boyhood,--he had often visited it while it was the home of pretty "Susie" Ingersol,--and it may have suggested the style of architecture he employed for the visionary mansion of the tale. The names Maule and Pyncheon, employed in the story, were those of old residents of Salem. [Sidenote: Hawthorne's Custom-House] But a few rods from Herbert Street is the Custom-House where Hawthorne did irksome duty as "Locofoco Surveyor," its exterior being--except for the addition of a cupola--essentially unchanged since his description was written, and its interior being even more somnolent than of yore. The wide and worn granite steps still lead up to the entrance portico; above it hovers the same enormous specimen of the American eagle, and a recent reburnishing has rendered even more evident the truculent attitude of that "unhappy fowl." The entry-way where the venerable officials of Hawthorne's time sat at the receipt of customs has been renovated, the antique chairs in which they used to drowse, "tilted back against the wall," have given place to others of more modern and elegant fashion, and the patriarchal dozers themselves--lying now in the profounder slumber of death--are replaced by younger and sprightlier successors, who wear their dignities and pocket their emoluments. At the left we find the room, "fifteen feet square and of lofty height," which was Hawthorne's office during the period of his surveyorship: it is no longer "cobwebbed and dingy," but is tastefully refitted and refurnished, and the once sanded floor, which the romancer "paced from corner to corner" like a caged lion, is now neatly carpeted. The "exceedingly decrepit and infirm" chairs, and the three-legged stool on which he lounged with his elbow on the old pine desk, have been retired, and the desk itself is now tenderly cherished among the treasures of the Essex Institute, on Essex Street, a few blocks distant, where the custodian proudly shows us the name of Hawthorne graven within the lid, in some idle moment, by the thumb-nail of the novelist. Some yellow documents bearing his official stamp and signature are preserved at the Custom-House, and the courteous official who now occupies Hawthorne's room displays to us here a rough stencil plate marked "Salem N Hawthorne Surr 1847," by means of which knowledge of Hawthorne's existence was blazoned abroad "on pepper-bags, cigar-boxes, and bales of dutiable merchandise," instead of on title-pages. The arched window, by which stood his desk, commands a view upon which his vision often rested, and which seems to us decidedly more pleasing and attractive than he has led us to expect. The picturesque old wharf in the foreground, the white-sailed shipping, and a shimmering expanse of water extending to the farther bold headlands of the coast form, we think, a pleasant picture for the lounger here. The apartment opposite to Hawthorne's was, in his day, occupied by the brave warrior General James Miller, who is graphically described as the "old Collector" in the introduction to "Scarlet Letter;" the room directly above it--which is the private office of the present chief executive, the genial Collector Waters--a portrait of the hero of Lundy's Lane now looks down from the wall upon the visitor; but no picture of Hawthorne is to be found in the edifice. An ample room at the right of the hall on the second floor, now handsomely fitted and furnished, was in Hawthorne's time open and unfinished, its bare beams festooned with cobwebs and its floor lumbered with barrels and bundles of musty official documents; and it was here that he discovered, among the accumulated rubbish of the past, the "scarlet, gold-embroidered letter," and the manuscript of Surveyor Prue,--Hawthorne's ancient predecessor in office,--which recorded the "doings and sufferings" of Hester Prynne. A short walk from the Custom-House brings us to the spot where, with "public notices posted upon its front and an iron goblet chained to its waist," stood that "eloquent monologist," the town-pump of Hawthorne's famous "Rill." Already its locality, at the corner of Essex and Washington Streets, is pointed out with pride as being among the sites memorable in the town's history, and thus the playful prophecy with which Hawthorne terminates the sketch of his official life is more than fulfilled. The spacious and well-preserved old frame house at number fourteen Mall Street--a neighborhood superior to that of his former residences--was Hawthorne's abode for three or four years. It was here that he, on the day of his official death, announced to his wife, "Well, Sophie, my head is off, so I must write a book;" and here, in the ensuing six months, disturbed and distressed by illness of his family, by the death of his mother, and by financial needs, he wrote our most famous romance, "The Scarlet Letter." A bare little room in the front of the third story was his study here, and while he wrote in solitude his wife worked in a sitting-room just beneath, decorating lamp-shades whose sale helped to sustain the household. [Sidenote: Salem--Witch Hill] As we saunter along the "Main Street" of Hawthorne's sketch and the other shady avenues he knew so well, the curious old town, which in his discontent he called tame and unattractive, seems to our eyes picturesque and beautiful, with its wide elm-bordered streets, its grassy waysides, its many gardens and square, embowered dwellings, not greatly changed since he knew them. If we follow "the long and lazy street" to the Witch Hill, which the novelist describes in "Alice Doane's Appeal," we may behold from that unhappy spot, where men and women suffered death for imagined misdoing, the whole of Hawthorne's Salem, with the environment he pictures in "Sights from a Steeple." We see the house-roofs of the town--half hidden by clustering foliage--extending now from the slopes of the fateful hill to the glinting waters of the harbor; the farther expanse of field and meadow, dotted with white villages and scored with shadowy water-ways; the craggy coast, with the Atlantic thundering endlessly against its headlands. Yonder is the steeple of Hawthorne's vision, beyond is the scene of the exquisite "Footprints in the Sand," and across the blue of the rippling sea we behold the place of the fierce fight in which the gallant Lawrence lost at once his ship and his life. Not far from Salem is Oak-Knoll, where the white-souled Whittier, "wearing his silver crown," passed "life's late afternoon" with his devoted relatives. It is a delightful, sheltered old country-seat, with wide lawns, and scores of broad acres wooded with noble trees, beneath which the poet loved to stroll or sit, soothed and inspirited by the gracious and generous beauty of the scene about him. One spot in the glimmering shade of an overarching oak is shown as his favorite resort. Close by the house is a circular, green-walled garden, where, in summer mornings, he delighted to work with rake and hoe among the flowers. The mansion is a dreamful, old-fashioned edifice, with wide and lofty piazzas, whose roofs are upheld by massive columns; and, with its grand setting of trees, it presents a pleasing picture. Whittier's study--a pleasant, cheerful room, with a delightful outlook and sunny exposure, a friendly-looking fireplace, and a glass door opening upon the veranda--was especially erected for him in a corner of the house, and here his later poems were penned. A bright and ample chamber above the parlor was his sleeping-apartment. [Sidenote: Whittier--Longfellow, etc.] The sweet poetess Miss Preston and the sprightly and versatile "Gail Hamilton" dwelt in the neighborhood and came often to this room to talk with the "transplanted prophet of Amesbury." Lucy Larcom and that "Sappho of the isles," Celia Thaxter, came less frequently. The place is still occupied by the relatives Whittier loved, who have preserved essentially unchanged the scenes he here inhabited. A little farther up the rock-bound coast are the scene of Lucy Larcom's touching poem "Hannah's at the Window Binding Shoes;" the hearth-stone where Longfellow saw his "Fire of Drift-Wood;" and the bleak sea-side home of "Floyd Ireson" of Whittier's verse. Beyond these lie the sometime summer homes of the poet Dana, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Fields, and Whipple, with that Mecca of the tourist, the savage reef of Norman's Woe,--celebrated in Longfellow's pathetic poem as the scene of "The Wreck of the Hesperus,"--not far away; while across the harbor a summer resort of the gifted Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward stands--an "Old Maid's Paradise" no longer--among the rocks of the shore. By the mouth of Whittier's "lowland river" we find the birthplace of Lloyd Garrison, the ancestral abode of the Longfellows, the tomb of Whitefield beneath the spot where he preached, the once sojourn of Talleyrand. Here, too, still inhabited by his family, we find the large, three-storied corner house in which Parton spent his last twenty years of busy life, and the low book-lined attic study where, in his cherished easy-chair with his manuscript resting upon a lap-board, he did much of his valuable work. Still farther northward, we come to the ancient town of Aldrich's "Bad Boy"-hood,--immortalized as the "Rivermouth" of his prose,--the place of Longfellow's "Lady Wentworth," the home of Hawthorne's Sir William Pepperell; and to the picturesque island realm of that "Princess of Thule," Celia Thaxter, and her gifted poet-brother Laighton;--but these shrines are worthy of a separate pilgrimage. OUT OF BOSTON IV WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD: BROOK FARM, ETC _Scenes of the Old Oaken Bucket--Webster's Home and Grave--Where Emerson won his Wife--Home of Miss Peabody--Parkman--Miss Guiney--Aldrich's Ponkapog--Farm of Ripley's Community--Relics and Reminiscences._ One day's excursion out of Boston is southward through the birthplace and ancestral home of the brilliant essayist Quincy to the boyhood haunts of Woodworth and the scenes which inspired his sweetest lyric. In Scituate, by the village of Greenbush, we find the well of the "Old Oaken Bucket" remaining at the site of the dwelling where the poet was born and reared. Most of the "loved scenes" of his childhood--the wide-spreading pond, the venerable orchard, the flower-decked meadow, the "deep-tangled wildwood"--may still be seen, little changed since he knew them; but the rock of the cataract has been removed and the cascade itself somewhat altered by the widening of the highway; the "cot of his father" has given place to a modern farm-house; and the "moss-covered bucket that hung in the well" has been supplanted by a convenient but unpoetical pump. [Sidenote: Webster's Home and Grave] A few miles beyond this romantic spot we come to the Marshfield home of Daniel Webster, set in the midst of a pleasant rural region, not far from the ancient abode of Governor Winslow of the Plymouth colony. On the site of Webster's farm-house of thirty rooms--destroyed by fire some years ago--his son's widow erected a pretty and tasteful modern cottage, in which she preserved many relics of the illustrious statesman and orator, which had been rescued from the flames. Some of the relics were afterward removed to Boston, and, the family becoming extinct with the death of Mrs. Fletcher Webster, the place found an appreciatory proprietor in Mr. Walton Hall, a Boston business-man who was reared in this neighborhood, where Webster's was "a name to conjure by." The objects connected with the memory of the statesman have been as far as possible preserved, and we find the cottage partially furnished with his former belongings. Here we see his writing-table, covered with ink-stained green baize; his phenomenally large arm-chair with seat of leather; the andirons from his study fireplace; the heavy cane he used in his walks about the farm; portraits of the great _genius loci_--one of them representing him in his coarse farm attire--and of members of his family; a fine cabinet of beetles and butterflies presented to him by the Emperor of Brazil; and a number of paintings, articles of furniture, and bric-à-brac which had once been Webster's. Near the house stand the great memorial elms, each planted by Webster's hand at the death of one of his children. His favorite tree, beneath which his coffined figure lay at his funeral, was injured by the fire and has since been removed. Behind the house is a pretty lakelet, on whose surface--by his desire--lights were kept burning at night during his last illness, so that he might see them from his bed in the Pink Room where he died. His study window looked out through a colonnade of trees upon the hill-side cemetery--a furlong distant--where he now sleeps in a spot he loved and chose for his sepulchre. His tomb, on the brow of the hill, is marked by a huge mound of earth crowned by a ponderous marble slab. The memorial stones about it were erected by him to commemorate his family, already sleeping in the vault here before he came to lie among them:--all save one, and that one died at Bull Run. Not far away lie Governor Winslow and the Peregrine White who was born on the Mayflower. From among the neglected graves we look abroad upon the acres Webster tilled, the creeks he fished, the meadows he hunted, the haunts of his leisure during many years: on the one hand, we see a stretch of verdant pastures and lowly hills dotted by white cottages and bounded by distant forests; on the other hand, across the wave-like dunes and glistening sands we see a silver rim flecked with white sails,--the ocean, whose low-sounding monotone, eternally responding to some whisper of the infinite, mayhap lulls the dreamless sleepers beneath our feet. Southward again, we come to historic old Plymouth, with its many Puritan shrines and associations, which did not prevent its becoming a shire-town of Transcendentalism. Here we see the house (framed in England, and erected here upside down) where Emerson, the fountain-head of that great "wave of spirituality," wooed and won Miss Jackson to be his wife; and not far away the lovely spot where, among his gardens, groves, and orchards, Marston Watson had his "Hillside" home,--to which resorted Emerson, Theodore Parker, Peabody, Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, and which the latter celebrated in a sonnet. Here, too, we find the church where Kendall preached, and the farm of Morton, the earliest historian of the Western world. [Sidenote: Miss Peabody] In the Boston suburb of Jamaica Plain we find, near the station, the modest apartments where Miss Elizabeth Peabody--the "Saint Elizabeth" of her friends--passed her later years, and where, not many months ago, she died, having survived nearly all her associates in the earlier struggle for the enlargement of the bounds of spiritual freedom. She had been the intimate friend of Emerson, Channing, Theodore Parker, and the rest; and of the wider spirituality which they proclaimed she was esteemed a prophetess. Most of her literary work was done before she came to this home; and the latest literary effort of her life, her autobiography (which was undertaken here in age and weariness), was frustrated by her increasing infirmities. [Sidenote: Parkman] In the same delightful suburb was the ideally beautiful home of the historian Francis Parkman. His wide and tasteful dwelling surmounted an elevation overlooking a pretty lakelet, and was environed by ample grounds filled with choicest shrubbery and flowers, where there were roods of the roses and lilies he loved and studied. In this place he lived thirty-four years, and, although practically blind and rarely free from torturing pain, he here produced many volumes and accomplished the work which places him among the foremost historians of the age. In this home he died a year or so ago: his grounds having been taken for a public park, it is now proposed to erect here a bronze memorial of the great historian amid the floral beauty he created and cherished. In the remoter region of Canton, Thomas Bailey Aldrich has a sometime summer home, erected among enchanting landscapes, where he has pondered and written much of his dainty prose and daintier poesy. The curious name of this rural retreat is preserved in the title of his entertaining volume of travel-sketches, "From Ponkapog to Pesth." The tree near his door was the home of the pair of birds he described in the delightful sketch "Our New Neighbors at Ponkapog." [Sidenote: Miss Guiney] A morning's drive westward through the shade and sheen of a delectable urban district conveys us to the village of Auburndale, where we find the tasteful cottage home of Louise Imogen Guiney, with its French roofs, wide windows, square tower, and embosoming foliage. Here, if we come properly accredited, we may (or might before she became the village postmistress) see the gifted poetess of "White Sail" and "Roadside Harp" and essayist of "English Gallery" and "Prose Idyls"--a _petite_ and attractive young lady--at her desk, surrounded by her treasures of books and bric-à-brac and with the portraits of many friends looking down upon her from the walls of the square upper room where she writes. She has little to say concerning her own work,--fascinating as it is to her,--but discourses pleasantly on many topics and narrates _con amore_ the history of the precious tomes and the literary relics she has gathered here, and describes the traits and lineage of her beloved canine pets, who have been execrated by some of her neighbors. [Sidenote: Brook Farm] Nearer Jamaica Plain is the quiet corner of West Roxbury, where the exalted community of Brook Farmers attempted to realize in external and material fashion their high ideals and to inaugurate the precursor of an Arcadian era. In this season, "the sweet o' the year," we find the farm a delightful spot, fully warranting Hawthorne's eulogium in "Blithedale Romance." The songful stream which gives the place its name is margined by verdant and sun-kissed meads which slope away to the circling Charles; on either side, fields and picturesque pastures--broken here and there by rocky ledges and copse-covered knolls--swell upward to feathery acclivities of pine and oak, with rugged escarpments of rock. From the elevation about the farm-house we overlook most of the domain of these social reformers,--the many acres of woodlands, the orchards and fields where Ripley, George William Curtis, Hawthorne, Dwight, Bedford, Pratt, Dana, and other transcendental enthusiasts held sublimated discourse while they performed the coarsest farm drudgery, applied uncelestial fertilizers, "belabored rugged furrows," or delved for the infinite in a peat-bog. Curtis has said "there never were such witty potato-patches, such sparkling corn-fields; the weeds were scratched out of the ground to the music of Tennyson and Browning." The farm-house stands above the highway, and is shaded by giant trees planted by Ripley and his associates. It is a commodious, antiquated structure of weather-worn wood, two stories in height, with a vast attic beneath the sloping roofs and an extension which has been recently enlarged. The original edifice is a ponderous fabric of almost square form, with an entrance in the middle of the front, massive chimneys at either end, and contains four spacious lower rooms, besides an outer scullery. Here we see the sitting-room of the reformers, where at first Channing sometimes preached and the now "Nestor of American journalism" sang bass in the choir; their refectory, where Dana served as head-waiter; and their brick-paved kitchen, where the erudite Mrs. Ripley and the soulful Margaret Fuller sometimes helped to prepare the bran bread and baked beans for the exalted brotherhood. Adjoining is the old "wash-room," where some who have since become famous in literature or politics pounded the soiled linen in a hogshead with a heavy wooden pestle; and just without is the turf-carpeted yard where the dignified and handsome Hawthorne, the brilliant Charles A. Dana (who certainly was the most popular member of the community), and the genial Curtis were sometimes seen hanging the moist garments upon the lines, a truly edifying spectacle for gods and men. It was from Curtis's pockets that the clothes-pins sometimes dropped during the evening dances. Some of the trees yet to be seen near the house were rooted from the nursery established here by Dana. This old house was the original "Hive" of the community, who added the extensive wing at the back, but increasing numbers soon forced a portion of the company to swarm, and other dormitories were erected. Of these we find vestiges of the "Eyrie"--which was also used as a school-house--upon a commanding ledge at a little distance from the house, and nearer the grove where the rural festivals of the association were held. Of the "Nest," the little house where Miss Ripley lived, the "Cottage," where Margaret Fuller lodged during her sojourns at the farm, the large barn, where social _séances_ were held while the starry company prepared vegetables for the market, and the other steading erected by the community, only the cellars and broken foundations remain. In the wood at some distance from the house is the "Eliot's Pulpit" of Coverdale's narrative, a mass of rock crowning a knoll and having a great fissure through its core; in the forest beyond we may find "Coverdale's Walk," and the "Hermitage" where he heard by accident the colloquy of Westervelt and Zenobia. After the day of Ripley's brilliant colony the broad acres of Brook Farm were tilled by the town poor, and--"to what base uses!"--the pretty cottage of Margaret Fuller became a loathsome small-pox pest-house; the rooms of the "Hive," after six years of familiarity with ideal refiners and reformers, became the abode of paupers, and at this day are aswarm with an odorous multitude of German orphans, wards of a Lutheran society that now owns the place. While the pilgrim may find but few traces of the physical labors of the choice spirits who once inhabited this spot, the beneficent results of the mental and moral work here accomplished--especially among the young--are manifest and ineffaceable. These infertile fields yielded but scant returns for the manual toil of the optimistic philosophers, but their earnest strivings toward social and mental emancipation have borne abundant fruit. IN BERKSHIRE WITH HAWTHORNE I. The Graylock and Hoosac Region II. Lenox and Middle Berkshire I THE GRAYLOCK AND HOOSAC REGION _North Adams and about--Hawthorne's Acquaintances and Excursions--Actors and Incidents of Ethan Brand--Kiln of Bertram the Lime-Burner--Natural Bridge--Graylock--Thoreau--Hoosac Mountain--Deerfield Arch-- Williamstown--Bryant._ The Hawthorne pilgrimage has drawn us to many shrines: the sunny scenes of "The Marble Faun," the peaceful landscapes of "Our Old Home," the now busy city of "The Scarlet Letter," the elm-shaded Salem of "Dr. Grimshaw" and "The House of the Seven Gables," the Manse of the "Mosses," the Wayside of "Septimius Felton" and "The Dolliver Romance,"--these and many another resort of the subtile romancer, in the Old World and the New, have held our lingering feet. Amid the splendors of a New England September we follow him into the "headlong Berkshire" of "Ethan Brand" and "Tanglewood Tales." Hawthorne was more than most writers influenced by environment; the situations and circumstances under which his work was produced often determined its tone and color, while the persons, localities, and occurrences observed by his alert senses in the real world about him were skilfully wrought into his romance. His residence in Berkshire affected not only the books written there, but some subsequently produced, and the scenery of this loveliest corner of New England supplied the setting for many of his tales. Some of the best passages of his "American Note-Books" are records of his observations in this region,--sundry scenes, characters, and incidents being afterward literally transcribed therefrom into his fiction,--while a few of his shorter stories seem to have been suggested by legends once current in Berkshire. It passes, therefore, that for us the greatest charm of this realm of delights is that all its beauties--the grandeur of its mountains, the enchantment of its valleys, the glamour of its autumn woods, the sheen of its lakelets, the sapphire of its skies--serve to bring us into closer sympathy with Hawthorne, to whom these beauties were once a familiar vision. He first came to Berkshire in the summer of 1838. For thirteen years he had bravely "waited for the world to know" him. His "Twice-Told Tales" had brought him little fame or money, but they had procured him the friendship of the Peabodys, and it would appear that he and the lovely Sophia already loved each other. In a letter to her sister Elizabeth, written early in the summer, Sophia says, "Hawthorne came one morning for a take-leave call, looking radiant. He said he was not going to tell any one, not even his mother, where he should be for the next months; he thought he should change his name, so that if he died no one would be able to find his gravestone. We asked him to keep a journal while he was gone. He at first said he would not write anything, but finally concluded it would suit very well for hints for future stories." It was from his journal of these months of mysterious retirement that, forty years later, the gentle Sophia--then his widow--transcribed those pages of the "Note-Books" which contain the account of his sojourn in upper Berkshire and of his observations and meditations there. How far the journal furnished "hints for future stories" the literary world well knows. A few days after this "take-leave call" we find Hawthorne at Pittsfield, where his Berkshire saunterings (and ours) fitly began. We follow him northward along a curving valley hemmed by mountains that slope upward to the azure; on the right rise the rugged Hoosacs in "Wave-like walls that block the sky With tints of gold and mists of blue;" on the left loom the darkly-wooded domes of the Taconics above the bright upland pastures, while before us grand old "Graylock" uprears his head "shaggy with primeval forest,"--his gigantic shape forming the culmination of the superb landscape. Hawthorne's superlative pleasure of beholding this grandeur and beauty from the driver's seat of a stage and being regaled at the same time by the converse of the driver is denied to us, but we enjoy quite as much as did Hawthorne the little "love-pats" and passages of a newly-wedded pair of our fellow-passengers. The stage has disappeared, the driver and the high-stepping steeds which served him "in wheel and in whoa" have given place to the engineer and the locomotive; the changes of the half-century since Hawthorne journeyed here have well-nigh overturned the world; only the eternal beauty of these hills and the bewraying demeanor of the newly-married remain evermore unchanged. [Sidenote: Hawthorne at North Adams] [Sidenote: Characters of his Fiction] At North Adams, which the magician, "liking indifferent well, made his head-quarters," we have lodgings near the place of his on the Main Street and in the domicile of one who, as a lad of fourteen years, had known Hawthorne during his stay here. Apparently he did not attempt to carry out his plan of concealing his identity; he certainly was known to some of the villagers as the author of "Twice-Told Tales," and a descendant of one of Hawthorne's "seven doctors of the place" recalls his delight on being told that the "Whig Tavern boarder" was the creator of "The Gentle Boy;" and he remembers his subsequent and consequent worshipful espionage of the wonderful being. To this espionage we are indebted for some edifying details of Hawthorne's sojourn in upper Berkshire. The world has known few handsomer men than Hawthorne was at this period of his life,--he had been styled Oberon at college,--and our informant recollects him as "the most brilliantly handsome person he ever beheld," tall, dark, with an expressive mobile face and a lustrous eye which held something "indescribably more than keenness" in its quick glances. (Charles Reade said Hawthorne's eye was "like a violet with a soul in it.") As remembered here, his expression was often abstracted, sometimes despondent. He would sit for hours at a time on the broad porch of the old "North Adams House," or in a corner of the bar-room, silently smoking and apparently oblivious to his surroundings, yet, as we know, vigilant to note the oddities of character and opinion he encountered. It is certain that he did not drink immoderately at this time. There were a few persons--_not_ the model men of the community--to whom he occasionally unbent and whom he admitted to a sort of comradeship, which, as his diary shows, often became confessionary upon their part. With these he held prolonged converse upon the tavern porch,--his part in the conversations being mainly suggestions calculated to elicit the whimsical conceits or experiences of his companions,--sitting the while in the posture of the venerable custom-house officials, described in the sketch introductory to the "Scarlet Letter," with "chair tipped on its hind legs" and his feet elevated against a pillar of the porch. Among those remembered to have been thus favored was Captain C----, called Captain Gavett in the "Note-Books," who dispensed metaphysics and maple sugar from the tavern steps, and a jolly blacksmith named Wetherel, described by Hawthorne as "big in the paunch and enormous in the rear," who came regularly to the bar for his stimulant. Another was the "lath-like, round-backed, rough-bearded, thin-visaged" stage-driver, Platt, whom Hawthorne honors as "a friend of mine" in the diary, and whose acquaintance he made during the ride from Pittsfield. In later years Platt's pride in having known Hawthorne eclipsed even his sense of distinction in being "the first and only man to drive an ox-team to the top of Graylock, sir." He had once been employed to haul the materials for an observatory up that mountain's steep inclines. Of the other "hangers-on" who were wont to infest the bar-room and porch fifty years ago and whom Hawthorne depicts in his journal and his fiction, few of the present generation of loungers in the place have ever heard. Orrin ----, the sportive widower whose peccadilloes are hinted at in the "Note-Books," is remembered by older residents of the town, and the "fellow who refused to pay six dollars for the coffin in which his wife was buried" may still be named as the personification of meanness. The maimed and dissolute Daniel Haines--nicknamed "Black Hawk"--was then a familiar figure in the village streets, and his unique history and appearance could not escape the notice of the great romancer nor be soon forgotten by the towns-people. As Hawthorne says, "he had slid down by degrees from law to the soap-vat." Once a reputable lawyer, his bibulous habits and an accident--his hand being "torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine"--had so reduced him that at the time Hawthorne saw him he maintained himself by boiling soap and practising phrenology. It is remembered that he used to "feel of bumps" for the price of a drink, and that, Hawthorne's head being submitted to his manipulation, he gravely assured the tavern company, "This man was created to shine as a bank president," and then privately advised the landlord to "make that chap pay in advance for his board." A resident tells us that this dirty and often drunken Haines used to make biweekly visits to his father's house, with a cart drawn by disreputable-looking dogs, to receive fat in exchange for soap. The novelist touches this odd character many times in his journal, and utilizes it in the romance of "Ethan Brand," where it is the "Lawyer Giles, the elderly ragamuffin," who, with the rest of the lazy regiment from the village tavern, came in response to the summons of the "boy Joe" to see poor Brand returned from his long search after the Unpardonable Sin. This "boy Joe," son of "Bertram the lime-burner," was also a bar-room character, noted here by Hawthorne, but obviously for a different use than that made of him in "Ethan Brand,"--a reference to him in the "Note-Books" being supplemented by this memorandum: "take this boy as the germ of a tavern-haunter, a country _roué_, to spend a wild and brutal youth, ten years of his prime in prison and his old age in the poor-house." This sketch may have been written in the spirit of prophecy, so exactly has the life of one bar-room boy coincided with Hawthorne's outline; the career of another lad whom he here saw and possibly had in mind was happier. [Sidenote: Characters and Scenes] A modern hotel has replaced the "Whig Tavern" of Hawthorne's time, and a new set of _habitués_ now frequent its bar-room; another generation of fat men has succeeded the individuals whose breadth of back was a marvel to the novelist, and in the increased population of the place the "many obese" would no longer provoke comment. The lapsing decades have expanded the pretty and busy factory-village he found into a prettier and busier factory-city without materially changing its prevailing air. The vigorous young city has not wholly out-grown the "hollow vale" walled in by towering mountains; the aspect of its grand environment is therefore essentially unaltered, and it chances that there is scarcely a spot, in or about the town, which received the notice of Hawthorne which may not still be identified. It is our crowning pleasure in the resplendent autumn days to follow his thoughtful step and dreamy vision through town and country-side to the spots he frequented and described, thus sharing, in a way, his companionship and beholding through his eyes the beauties which he has depicted of mountain and vale, forest and stream. On the summit of a hill in the village cemetery, where white gravestones gleam amid the evergreens, the grave of a child at whose burial Hawthorne assisted is pointed out by one who was present with him. The well-known author-divine Washington Gladden, sometime preached in a near-by church. The ever-varying phases of the heights which look down upon the town--the wondrous play of light and shade upon the great sweeps of foliage which clothe the mountain-sides, the shadows chasing each other along the slopes and changing from side to side as the day declines, until the vale lies in twilight while the near summits are gilded with sunset gold, the exquisite cloud-effects as the fleecy masses drift above the ridges or cling to the higher peaks--were a never-failing source of pleasure to Hawthorne, as they are to the loiterer of this day. Every shifting of the point of view as we stroll in the town reveals a new aspect of its mountain ramparts and arouses fresh delight. Hawthorne thought the village itself most beautiful when clouds deeply shaded the mountains while sunshine flooded the valley and, by contrast, made streets and houses a bright, rich gold. [Sidenote: Hawthorne's Rambles] The investing mountains give to the place the "snug and insular" air which Hawthorne observed; from many points it seems completely severed from the rest of the world. On some dark days sombre banks of cloud settle along the ridges and apparently so strengthen and heighten the beleaguering walls that we recall Hawthorne's fancy that egress is impossible save by "climbing above the clouds." However, the railways tunnel the base of one mountain and curve around the flanks of others, while "Old roads winding, as old roads will," find easy grades about and over the ramparts, so that the bustling "Tunnel-city" is by no means isolated from the outside world. The rambles among and beyond these investing mountains, by which Hawthorne made himself and "Eustace Bright" of "Wonder-Book" and "Tanglewood Tales" familiar with "rough, rugged, broken, headlong" Berkshire, were usually solitary. The before-mentioned admirer of the "Gentle Boy" sometimes offered to guide the novelist to places of interest in the vicinage, but he usually preferred to be alone with nature and his own reveries. Once when the lad proposed to pilot him to the peak of Graylock, Hawthorne replied he "did not care to soar so high; the Bellows-Pipe was sightly enough for him." He visited the latter point many times; it is a long walk from the village, and once he returned so late that the hotel was closed for the night and our lad pommelled the door for him until the landlord descended, in wrath and confidentially scant attire, to admit the novelist. [Sidenote: Ethan Brand] One starless night we were guided to the kiln of "Bertram the lime-burner" which Hawthorne visited with Mr. Leach,--one of several kilns high up on the steep slope without the town, where the marble of the mountain is converted into snow-white lime. The graphic imagery of the tale may all be realized here upon the spot where it is laid. Amid the darkness, the iron door which encloses the glowing limestone apparently opens into the mountain-side, and seems a veritable entrance to the infernal regions whose lurid flames escape by every crevice. The dark and silent figure, revealed to us by the weird light, sitting and musing before the kiln, is surely "Ethan Brand" on his solitary vigil, intent on perilous thoughts as he looks into the flame, or mutely listening to the fiend he has evoked from the fire to tell him of the Unpardonable Sin; or it is the same Brand returned to the foot of Graylock after eighteen years of weary searching abroad, to find the Sin in his own heart and to burn that heart into snowy whiteness and purity in the kiln he had watched so long. As we ponder the scene we would scarce be surprised to witness the approach of the village rabble led by Joe, the old Jew exhibiting his "peep-show" at the foot of the kiln, and the self-pursuing cur violently chasing his own shortened tail, or to hear the demoniac laughter of Brand which scattered the terror-stricken rabble in the surrounding darkness. Certain it is that, thirteen years before he wrote the tale, Hawthorne saw here, at a kiln on the foot-hill of Graylock, his "Bertram," and heard the legend of a demented creature who threw himself into the midst of the circle of fire. The name "Ethan Brand" was that of an old resident of Hawthorne's Salem. [Sidenote: Graylock] The summit of Graylock, whose rugged beauty has been sung by Holmes, Thoreau, Bryant, and Fanny Kemble, had for Hawthorne a sort of fascination. From the streets of the village, from all the ways by which he sauntered through the country-side, his eyes were continually turning to that lofty height, observant of its ever-changing aspects. His diary of the time abounds with records of its phases, presented in varying conditions of cloud and sunshine and from different places of prospect, and of the fanciful impressions suggested to his subtile thought by each fresh and unfamiliar appearance. A walk repeatedly enjoyed by him is along a primitive road on the mountain-side to the southern end of The Notch,--"where it slopes upward to the skies,"--whence he could see most of the enchanting valley of Berkshire--with its lakes, embowered villages, and billowy expanses of upland and mead--extending between mountain-borders to the great Dome which looms across it sixty miles away. In the distance he could see the crags of Bryant's Monument Mountain--the "headless sphinx" of his own "Wonder-Book"--rising above the gleaming lake whose margin was to be his later home. Our route to the peak of Graylock is that taken by Hawthorne and Thoreau through the savage cleft of The Notch. We follow up a dashing mountain-stream past a charming cascade beneath darkening hemlocks, then along a rough road by the houses whose inhabitants Hawthorne thought "ought to be temperance people" from the quality of the water they gave him to drink. In the remoter parts of the glen a stranger-pedestrian is still a wonder, and will be regarded as curiously as was the romancer. From the extremity of The Notch, Graylock rises steeply, his sides clothed with forests, through which we climb to the summit and our reward. From the site of Thoreau's bivouac, where Fanny Kemble once declaimed Romeo and Juliet to a picnic party, we behold a scene of unrivalled vastness and beauty,--on every side peak soaring beyond peak until the shadowy outlines blend with the distant sky. The view ranges from Grand Monadnock and the misty Adirondacks to the Catskills, the Dome of Mount Washington, and the far-away hills of Connecticut, while at our feet smiles the bright valley, as beautiful as that in which Rasselas dwelt. [Sidenote: Natural Bridge] A mile from the town we find one of the most picturesque spectacles in New England, the Natural Bridge, to which Hawthorne came again and again during his sojourn in this region. Amid a grove of pines apparently rooted in the solid rock, a tributary of the Hoosac has, during measureless eons of time, worn in the white marble a chasm sixty feet deep and fifteen feet wide, spanned at one point by a beautifully arched mass which forms a bridge high above the stream which frets along the rock-strewn floor of the canyon. Within the ravine the brook falls in a rainbow-crowned cascade, and below this is a placid pool with margins of polished marble, where Hawthorne once meditated a bath, but, alarmed by the approach of visitors, he hastily resumed his habiliments, "not caring to be to them the most curious part of the spectacle." From the deep bed of the brook the gazer looks heavenward between lofty walls of crystalline whiteness which seem to converge as they rise, whose surmounting crags jutting from the verge are crowned by sombre evergreens which overhang the chasm and almost shut out the sky. As we traverse the gorge whose wildness so impressed Hawthorne and listen to the re-echoing roar of the now diminished stream, we are reminded of his conceit that the scene is "like a heart that has been rent asunder by a torrent of passion which has raged and left ineffaceable traces, though now there is but a rill of feeling at the bottom." Our way back to the town is along a riotous stream which took strong hold upon the liking of the novelist, by which he often walked and in whose cool depths he bathed. His brief descriptions of its secluded and turbulent course, through resounding hollows, amid dark woods, under pine-crowned cliffs,--"talking to itself of its own wild fantasies in the voice of solitude and the wilderness,"--although written at the time but for his own perusal, are among the gems of the language. Farther down, the boisterous stream is now subdued and harnessed by man and made to turn wheels of factories; its limpid waters are discolored by dye-stuffs; its beauty is lost with its freedom; it becomes useful and--ugly. [Sidenote: Incidents and Characters of Tales] One day our excursion is into the romantic valley of the Deerfield by the old stage-road over the Hoosac range, the route which Hawthorne took with his friends Birch and Leach. The many turns by which the road accomplishes the ascent afford constantly varying vistas of the valley out of which we rise, and progressively widening prospects of the forest-clad mountains beyond. At the summit we are in the centre of the magnificent panorama of mountains--glowing now with autumnal crimson and gold--which extorted from Henry Clay the declaration that he had "never beheld anything so beautiful." On the bare and wind-swept plain which lies along the summit are a few farm-dwellings. Among these at the time of Hawthorne's visit--before the great tunnel had pierced the mountain and superseded the stage-route--was a homely wayside inn, afterward a farm-house, at whose bar passengers were wont to "wet their whistles." It may be assumed that the romancer and his companions failed not to conform to this time-honored custom, for it was in that rude bar-room--since a farm-kitchen--that Hawthorne met the itinerant Jew with a diorama of execrable scratchings which he carried upon his back and exhibited as "specimens of the fine arts;" in that room also the novelist witnessed the whimsical performance of the usually sensible and sedate old dog, who periodically broke out in an infuriated pursuit of his own tail, "as if one half of his body were at deadly enmity with the other." These incidents were carefully noted at the time for possible future use, and in such choice diction that when, many years afterward, he wove them into the fabric of a tale of "The Snow Image" volume, he transcribed them from his diary to his manuscript essentially unchanged. This instance illustrates the method of this consummate literary artist and his alertness to perceive and utilize the details of real life. His journals abundantly show that he was by no means the aphelxian dreamer he has been adjudged. [Sidenote: Deerfield Arch] As we descend into the deep valley we find a wild gulf where a brooklet from the top of Hoosac falls a hundred feet into a rock-bordered pool, whence it hastens to lose itself in the river; and a mile or two farther along the Deerfield we come to the Natural Arch which Hawthorne visited. It is in one of the wildest parts of the picturesque valley, where mountain-walls rise a thousand feet on either side. Through a mass of rock projecting from the margin the stream has wrought for itself a symmetrically arched passage as large as and very like the door-way of an Old-World cathedral. The summit of the arch and the water-worn pillars upon either side display "pot-holes" and other evidences of erosion, and in the bed of the current lie fragments of similarly attrite rocks which seem to indicate that at some period a series of arches spanned the entire space from mountain to mountain. Hawthorne's pleasing fancy makes this arch the entrance to an enchanted palace which has all vanished except the door-way that "now opens only into nothingness and empty space." [Sidenote: Williamstown] On other days our saunterings follow Hawthorne's to beautiful Williamstown and through the picturesque scenery which environs it. Within the park-like village the alma mater of Bryant, Garfield, and Hawthorne's "Eustace Bright" stands embowered in noble elms and overlooked by mighty Graylock. Viewed from here, Emerson thought Graylock "a serious mountain." Thoreau considered its proximity worth at least "one endowed professorship; it were as well to be educated in the shadow of a mount as in more classic shades. Some will remember not only that they went to the college but that they went to the mountain." Hawthorne visited both. At the college commencement we find him more attentive to the eccentric characters in the assemblage without the church than to the literary exercises within, as evidenced by his piquant description of the enterprising pedler with the "heterogeny" of wares, the gingerbread man, the negroes, and other oddities of the out-door company. [Sidenote: Bryant--Emerson] About us here lie the scenes which stirred in William Cullen Bryant that intense love of nature which inspired his best stanzas. A winsome walk brings us to a sequestered glen where a brooklet winds amid moss-covered rocks and dainty ferns, and mirrors in its clear pools the overhanging boughs and the patches of azure; this was a favorite haunt of the youthful Bryant, and here he pondered or composed his earlier poems, including some portion of the matchless "Thanatopsis." Here Emerson, lingering under the spell of the spot, was moved to recite Wordsworth's "Excursion" to a companion, who must evermore feel an enviable thrill when he recalls the exquisite lines falling from the lips of the "great evangel and seer" amid the loveliness of such a scene. II LENOX AND MIDDLE BERKSHIRE _Beloved of the Littérateurs--La Maison Rouge--Where The House of the Seven Gables was written--Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Scenes--The Bowl--Beecher's Laurel Lake--Kemble--Bryant's Monument Mountain-- Stockbridge--Catherine Sedgwick--Melville's Piazza and Chimney-- Holmes--Longfellow--Pittsfield._ We have only to accompany Eustace Bright of "Wonder-Book" from Williams College to his home, where Catherine Sedgwick's "Stockbridge Bowl" nestles among the summer-enchanted hills of central Berkshire, to find the abode of Hawthorne during the most fertile period of his life. This region of inspiring landscapes has long been a favorite residence of _littérateurs_. Here Jonathan Edwards compiled his predestined treatises; here Catherine Sedgwick wrote the romances which charmed her generation; here Elihu Burritt "the Learned Blacksmith," wrought out the "Sparks" that made him famous; here Bryant composed his best stanzas and made Monument Mountain and Green River classic spots; here Henry Ward Beecher indited many "Star Papers;" here Herman Melville produced his sea-tales and brilliant essays; here Headley and Holmes, Lowell and Longfellow, Curtis and James, Audubon and Whipple, Mrs. Sigourney and Martineau, Fanny Kemble and Frederika Bremer, the gifted sisters Goodale, and many other shining spirits, have had home or haunt and have invested the scenery with the splendors of their genius. Half a score of this galaxy were in Berkshire at the time of Hawthorne's residence there. After his sojourn in northern Berkshire he returned to Salem, where he married the lovely Sophia Peabody, endured some years of custom-house drudgery, and wrote the "Scarlet Letter," which made him famous: he then sought again the seclusion of the mountains. [Sidenote: Hawthorne's Return to Berkshire] Poverty, which he had long and bravely endured, has been assigned as the cause of his removal to the humble Berkshire abode in 1850; one writer refers to the slenderness of his larder here, another says the rent for his poor dwelling was paid by his friends, another that the rent was remitted by the owner, who was his friend. But the success of the "Scarlet Letter" had relieved the necessitous condition of its author; and his landlord here--Tappan of "Tanglewood"--testifies and Hawthorne's letters show that he was able to pay his rent. His motive in returning to Berkshire is stated in a letter to Bridge: "I have taken a house in Lenox--I long to get into the country, for my health is not what it has been. An hour or two of labor in a garden and a daily ramble in country air would keep me all right." Doubtless, too, he hoped to find the quiet and seclusion of the place favorable for his work. [Sidenote: His Home and Study] The habitation to which he brought his family he describes as "the very ugliest little bit of an old red farm-house you ever saw," "the most inconvenient and wretched hovel I ever put my head in." His wife's letters characterize it, "the reddest and smallest of houses," with such a low stud that she "fears to be crushed." In later years we have found it scarcely changed since Hawthorne's occupancy; it was indeed of the humblest and plainest,--a low-eaved, one-and-a-half-storied structure, with a lower wing at the side, dingy red in color, with window-shutters of green. The interior was cosy and more commodious than the exterior would indicate, and one could readily conceive that the artistic taste and deft fingers of Mrs. Hawthorne might create here the idyllic home her letters portray. We have been indebted to the courtesy of Hawthorne's friend Tappan for glimpses of the rooms which Mrs. Hawthorne had already made familiar to us: the tiny reception-room, where she "sewed at her stand and read to the children about Christ;" the drawing-room, where she disposed "the embroidered furniture," and where, in the farther corner, stood "Apollo with his head tied on;" the dining-room, where the "Pembroke table stood between the windows;" the small boudoir, with its enchanting outlook; the "golden chamber" where the baby Rose was born; the room of the "little lady Una;" and the low, dingy apartment which was the study of the master-genius. Of this room she says, "it can boast of nothing but his presence in the morning and the picture out of the window in the evening." His secretary was so placed that as he sat at his work he could look out upon a landscape of forest and meadow, lake and mountain, as beautiful as a poet's dream. It was the exquisite loveliness of this scene--which Hawthorne thought surpassed all others in Berkshire--that for a time reconciled him to the deficiencies of his situation here. Monument Mountain, looming almost across the valley, is the most prominent feature of this view, and it was from his study window that he noted most of its varying aspects which are depicted in the "Wonder-Book" and in his letters and journals. Its contour is to him that of a "huge, headless sphinx," and when--as on the days we beheld it from his window--it blazes from base to summit with the resplendent hues of autumn, his fancy suggested that "the sphinx is wrapped in a rich Persian shawl;" with the sunshine upon it, "it has the aspect of burnished copper;" now it has "a fleece of sun-brightened mist," again it seems "founded on a cloud;" on other days it is "enveloped as if in the smoke of a great battle." Upon the pane through which he had looked upon these changeful phases his hand inscribed, "Nathaniel Hawthorne, February 9, 1851." [Sidenote: Site of his Little Red House] He could scarcely have found a lovelier location for his home. The valley, which sometimes seemed to him "a vast basin filled with sunshine as with wine," is enclosed by groups of mountains piled and terraced to the horizon. As we behold them in the splendor of the October days, great patches of sunshine and sable cloud-shadows flit along the glowing slopes in the sport of the wind. On the one side, the ground sweeps upward from the cottage site to the "Bald Summit" of the "Wonder-Book;" on the other, a meadow--as long as the finger of the giant of "Three Golden Apples"--slopes to the lake a furlong distant. That beautiful water, sung by Sigourney, Sedgwick, and Fanny Kemble, stretches its bays three miles among the hills to the southward and mirrors its own wooded margins and the farther mountains. Beyond the lake, rising in mid-air like a great gray wall, are the sheer precipices of Monument Mountain, and in the hazy distance the loftier Taconics uprear their grand Dome in the illimitable blue. Of "La Maison Rouge" of Hawthorne's letters, the pilgrim of to-day finds only the blackened and broken foundation walls: a devouring fire, from which Tappan saved little of his furniture, has laid it low. These walls (which remain only because relic-hunters cannot easily carry them away) measurably indicate the form and dimensions of the cottage and its general arrangement. Its site is close upon the highway, from which it is partially screened by evergreen trees. The gate of the enclosure is of course an unworthy successor to that upon which Fields found Hawthorne swinging his children, but these near-by elms have shaded the great romancer, the tallest of the evergreens is the tree his wife thought "full of a thousand memories," and all about the spot cluster reminders of the simple, healthful life Hawthorne led here. Here are the garden ground he tilled and where he buried the pet rabbit "Bunny;" the "patch," ploughed for him by Tappan, where he raised beans for himself and corn for his hens (he had learned something of agriculture at Brook Farm, albeit it was said there he could do nothing but feed the hogs); the now great fruit-trees whose leaden labels little Julian destroyed, as Tappan remembers; the place of the "scientific hennery," fitted up by the "Man of Genius and the Naval Officer,"--Hawthorne and Horatio Bridge; the long declivity where the novelist as well as his Eustace Bright used to coast "in the nectared air of winter" with the children of the "Wonder-Book;" the leafy woods--his refuge from visitors--where he walked with his children and where Bright nutted with the little Pringles; the lake-shore where Hawthorne loitered or lay extended in the shade during summer hours, "smoking cigars, reading foolish novels, and thinking of nothing at all," while the children played about him or covered his chin and breast with long grasses to make him "look like the mighty Pan." Near by are other friends he has made known to us. Yonder copse shades a narrow glen whose braes border a brooklet winding and chattering on its way to the lake; this glen was a summer haunt of Hawthorne, where he doubtless pondered much of his work. Here he brought his children "to play with the brook" and helped them to build water-falls, or reclined in the shade and told them stories as described in the "Wonder-Book,"--for this is the "dell of Shadow-Brook," where the children picnicked with Bright and where he told them the story of "The Golden Touch" on such an afternoon as this, on which we behold the dell thickly strewn with golden leaves, as if King Midas had newly emptied his coffers there. [Sidenote: Tanglewood and Wonder-Book Scenes] Yonder mansion of Hawthorne's landlord, just beyond the highway, is "Tanglewood,"--place of the Pringles' home and still the abode of Tappan's daughters,--where Bright spent his vacations and where Hawthorne makes him tell many of the "Tales." The view described on the porch, where the "Gorgon's Head" was narrated, is the one Hawthorne saw from his study window. Glimpses of various rooms of the mansion which Tappan then inhabited and called "Highwood" are prefixed to the stories told in them. Beyond "Tanglewood" steeply rises an eminence whose bare acclivity Hawthorne often climbed with his family,--the "Bald Summit" where the Pringles listened to the tale of "The Chimera." We ascend by the novelist's accustomed way "through Luther Butler's orchard," and are repaid by a view extending from the mountains of Vermont to the Catskills and deserving the high praise Hawthorne bestowed. A golden cloud floating close to Graylock's shaggy head reminds us of Hawthorne's conceit that a mortal might step from the mountain to the cloud and thus ascend heavenly heights. The farther ranges enclose a valley of wave-like hills,--which look as if a tumultuous ocean had been transfixed and solidified,--dotted with farmsteads and picturesque villages whose white spires rise from embowering trees. At our feet the "Bowl" ripples and scintillates, farther away the "Echo Lake" of Christine Nilsson and many smaller lakelets "open their blue eyes to the sun," while the placid stream, fringed by overhanging willows, circles here and there through the valley like a shining ribbon. Here we may realize the immensity of Hawthorne's giant in the "Three Golden Apples," who was so tall he "might have seated himself on Taconic and had Monument Mountain for a footstool." [Sidenote: Resorts and Reminiscences] [Sidenote: Fanny Kemble] Not far away, near another shore of the shimmering "Bowl," that versatile genius "Carl Benson"--Charles Astor Bristed--dwelt for some time in a quaint old farm-house which has since been destroyed by fire, and here accomplished some of his literary work. Laurel Lake (the Scott's Pond of Hawthorne's "Note-Books"), where Beecher "bought a hundred acres to lie down upon,"--and called them Blossom Farm in the "Star Papers" written there,--was another resort of Hawthorne. We find it a pretty water, although its margins are mostly denuded of large trees. A bright matron of the vicinage, who, when a child, thought the author of the "Wonder-Book" the "greatest man in the world save only Franklin Pierce," lived then by Hawthorne's road to Laurel Lake. Her admiration for him (heightened by his intimacy with Pierce) led her to daily watch the road by which he would come from Tanglewood, and when she saw him approaching--which would be twice a week in good weather--she would go into the yard and reverently gaze at him until his swift gait had carried him out of sight. To her he was a tall, dark man with a handsome clean-shaven face and lustrous eyes which saw nothing but the ground directly before him, habitually dressed in black, with a wide-brimmed soft hat. Usually his walk was solitary, but sometimes Herman Melville, who was well known in the neighborhood, was his companion, and one autumn he was twice or thrice accompanied by "a light spare man,"--the poet Ellery Channing. Once Hawthorne strode past toward the lake when Fanny Kemble, who lived near by, rode her black steed by his side and "seemed to be doing all the talking"--she was capable of that--and "was talking politics." Having secured a Democratic auditor, she doubtless "improved the occasion" with her habitual vivaciousness. A neighbor of Hawthorne's tells us this incident of the following year, when the novelist's friend Pierce had been named for the Presidency. One dark night this neighbor went on foot to a campaign lecture at Lenox Furnace. At its close, he essayed to shorten the homeward walk by a "short cut" across the fields, and, of course, lost his way. Descrying a light, he directed his steps toward it, but found himself involved in a labyrinth of obstacles, and had to make so many détours that when he finally reached the house whence the light proceeded, and when in response to his hail the door was opened by Kemble herself, he was so distraught and amazed at being lost among his own farms that he could hardly explain his plight; but she quickly interrupted his incoherent account: "Yes, I see, poor benighted man! you've been to a Democratic meeting; no wonder you are bewildered! Now I'll lend you a good Whig lantern that will light you safe home." We find Mrs. Kemble-Butler's "Perch"--as she named her home here--a little enlarged, but not otherwise changed since the time of her occupancy. She was a general favorite, and her dark steed, which had cost her the proceeds of a volume of her poems, used to stop before every house in the vicinage. She often came, habited in a sort of bloomer costume which shocked some of her friends, to fish in the "Bowl" at the time Hawthorne dwelt by its shore. The death of Louis Kossuth, some time ago, reminded her former neighbors here that she led the dance with him at a ball in Lenox, when the exiled patriot was a guest of the Sedgwicks. [Sidenote: Monument Mountain] Our approach to Monument Mountain is along one of those sequestered by-ways which Hawthorne loved, with "an unseen torrent roaring at an unseen depth" near by. A rift in the morning mists which enshroud the valley displays the mountain summit bathed in sunshine. We ascend by Bryant's "path which conducts up the narrow battlement to the north," the same along which Hawthorne and his friends--Holmes, James T. Fields, Sedgwick, and the rest--were piloted by the historian Headley on a summer's day more than forty years ago. Standing upon the beetling verge, which is scarred and splintered by thunderbolts and overhangs a precipice of five hundred feet or more, we look abroad upon a landscape of wondrous expanse and beauty. Here we may realize all the prospect Bryant portrayed as he stood upon this spot: "A beautiful river Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads; On either side The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise The mighty columns with which earth props heaven." In the middle distance, across the Bowl, which gleams a veritable "mountain mirror," we see the site of the home whence Hawthorne so often looked upon these cliffs. Yonder detached pinnacle, rising from the base of the precipice beneath us, is the "Pulpit Rock" which Catherine Sedgwick christened when Hawthorne's party picnicked here; from the crag projecting from the verge Fanny Kemble declaimed Bryant's poem, and Herman Melville, bestriding the same rock for a bowsprit, "pulled and hauled imaginary ropes" for the amusement of the company. Among these splintered masses the company lunched that day and drank quantities of Heidsieck to the health of the "dear old poet of Monument Mountain." On the east, almost within sight from this eminence, is the spot where he was born, near the birthplaces of Warner and the gifted Mrs. Howe. [Sidenote: Hawthorne at Stockbridge] Another day we follow the same brilliant party of Hawthorne's friends through the Stockbridge Ice Glen,--a narrow gorge which cleaves a rugged mountain from base to summit, its riven sides being apparently held asunder by immense rocky masses hurled upon each other in wild confusion. Beneath are weird grottos and great recesses which the sun never penetrates, and within these we make our way--clambering and sliding over huge boulders--through the heart of the mountain. One of Hawthorne's company here testifies that in all the extemporaneous jollity of the scramble through the glen the usually silent novelist was foremost, and, being sometimes in the dark, dared use his tongue,--"calling out lustily and pretending that certain destruction threatened us all. I never saw him in better spirits than throughout this day." From the glen we trace Hawthorne to the staid old house of Burr's boyhood, where lived and wrote Jonathan Edwards, and the statelier dwelling whence Catherine Sedgwick gave her tales to the world. Near by we find the grave where she lies amid the scenes of her own "Hope Leslie," and not far from the sojourn of her gifted niece whose translation of Sand's "Fadette" has been so well received. Overlooking the village is the summer residence of Field of the "Evangelist,"--author of the delightful books of travel. Farther away is a little farm-house, with a "huge, corpulent, old Harry VIII. of a chimney," to which Hawthorne was a frequent visitor,--the "Arrow-Head" of Herman Melville. "Godfrey Graylock" says the friendship between Hawthorne and Melville originated in their taking refuge together, during an electric shower, in a narrow cleft of Monument Mountain. They had been coy of each other on account of Melville's review of the "Scarlet Letter" in Duyckinck's _Literary World_, but during some hours of enforced intercourse and propinquity in very contracted quarters they discovered in each other a correlation of thought and feeling which made them fast friends for life. Thereafter Melville was often at the little red house, where the children knew him as "Mr. Omoo," and less often Hawthorne came to chat with the racy romancer and philosopher by the great chimney. Once he was accompanied by little Una--"Onion" he sometimes called her--and remained a whole week. This visit--certainly unique in the life of the shy Hawthorne--was the topic when, not so long agone, we last looked upon the living face of Melville in his city home. March weather prevented walks abroad, so the pair spent most of the week in smoking and talking metaphysics in the barn,--Hawthorne usually lounging upon a carpenter's bench. When he was leaving, he jocosely declared he would write a report of their psychological discussions for publication in a volume to be called "A Week on a Work-Bench in a Barn," the title being a travesty upon that of Thoreau's then recent book, "A Week on Concord River," etc. [Sidenote: Melville's Arrow-Head] Sitting upon the north piazza, of "Piazza Tales," at Arrow-Head, where Hawthorne and his friend lingered in summer days, we look away to Graylock and enjoy "the calm prospect of things from a fair piazza" which Melville so whimsically describes. At Arrow-Head, too, we find the astonishing chimney which suggested the essay, still occupying the centre of the house and "leaving only the odd holes and corners" to Melville's nieces, who now inhabit the place in summer; the study where Hawthorne and Melville discussed the plot of the "White Whale" and other tales; the great fireplace, with its inscriptions from "I and my Chimney;" the window-view of Melville's "October Mountain,"--beloved of Longfellow,--whose autumn glories inspired that superb word-picture and metaphysical sketch. On a near knoll, commanding a view of the circle of mountains and the winding river, stands the sometime summer residence of Holmes among his ancestral acres, where Hawthorne and Fields came to visit him. His "den," in which he did much literary work, overlooks the beautiful meadows, and is now expanded into a large library, while the trees he planted are grown to be the crowning beauty of the place, which the owner calls Holmesdale. It was the hereditary home of the Wendells. [Sidenote: Pittsfield] Beyond, at the edge of the town of Pittsfield, is the mansion where Longfellow found his wife and his famous "Old Clock on the Stairs." At the Athenæum in the town some thousands of Holmes's books will soon be placed, and here is preserved the secretary from Hawthorne's study in the little red house,--a time-worn mahogany combination of desk, drawers, and shelves, at which he wrote "The House of the Seven Gables," "The Wonder-Book," "The Snow Image," and part of "The Blithedale Romance." Pittsfield was long the home of "Godfrey Graylock;" here the gifted Rose Terry Cooke passed her closing years of life with her husband, and not far away Josh Billings, "the Yankee Solomon," was born and reared as Henry Savage Shaw. One day we trace from Pittsfield the footsteps of Hawthorne and Melville across the Taconics to the whilom home of "Mother Ann" and to the higher Hancock peaks. Hawthorne's daily walk to the post-office was past the later residence of Charlotte Cushman, and by the church where the older Channing delivered his last discourse and where twenty years ago Parkhurst was preacher. In the church-tower Fanny Kemble's clock still tells the hours above the lovely spot where she desired to be buried. [Sidenote: Hawthorne's Habit of Meditation] These various excursions compass the range of Hawthorne's rambles in this region: he was never ten miles away from the little red house during his residence here. Obviously he preferred short and solitary strolls which allowed undisturbed meditation upon the work in hand. The quantity and finish of the writing done here indicate that much thought was expended upon it outside his study. We may be sure that upon "The House of the Seven Gables" were bestowed, besides the five months of daily sessions at his desk, other months of study and thought as he strolled the country roads and loitered by the lake-side or in the dell of "Blossom-Brook." He avowed himself a shameless idler in warm weather, declaring he was "good for nothing in a literary way until after the autumnal frosts" brightened his imagination as they did the foliage about him here; yet the meditations of one summer in Berkshire produced his masterpiece, and the next summer accomplished "The Wonder-Book," quickly followed by "The Snow Image" and "Blithedale." During this summer also he had a voluminous correspondence with the many "Pyncheon jackasses" who thought themselves aggrieved by his use of their name in "The House of the Seven Gables." [Sidenote: Life in the Little Red House] Of the simple home-life at the little red house, Hawthorne's diaries and letters, as well as some of the books written here, afford pleasing glimpses. The "Violet" and "Peony" of the "Snow Image" story are the novelist's own little Una and Julian, and the tale was suggested by some occurrence in their play; the incidents related of Eustace Bright and the young Pringles, which are prefixed to the "Wonder-Book" stories, are merely experiences of Hawthorne and his children, and during the composition of these tales he delighted these children--as one of them remembers--by reading to them each evening the work of the day. A grim-visaged negress named Peters, who was the servant here in the little red house, is said to have suggested the character of Aunt Keziah in "Septimius Felton." Hawthorne's chickens receive notice as members of the family in his diary,--thus: "Seven chickens hatched, J. T. Headley called--eight chickens;" "ascended a mountain with my wife, eight more chickens hatched." In a letter to Horatio Bridge, "Our children grow apace and so do our chickens;" "we are so intimate with every individual chicken that it seems like cannibalism to think of eating one of them." Hawthorne's daily walk with pail in hand to Luther Butler's, the next farm-house, he speaks of as his "milky way." Butler lives now two miles distant. The novelist thus announces to his friend Bridge the birth of the present gifted poetess, Mrs. Lathrop, the daughter of his age: "Mrs. Hawthorne has published a little work which still lies in sheets, but makes some noise in the world; it is a healthy miss with no present pretensions to beauty." Five cats were cherished by the novelist and his children; a snowy morning after Hawthorne's removal, three of the cats came to a neighboring house, where their descendants are still petted and cherished. A few visitors came to the little red house--Kemble, James, Lowell, Holmes, E. P. Whipple, and the others already mentioned--in whose presence the "statue of night and silence" was wont to relax, but for the most part his life was that of a recluse. Here, as elsewhere, his thoughts dwelt apart in "a twilight region" where the company of his kind was usually a perturbing intrusion. For companionship, his family, the lake, the woods, his own thoughts, sufficed; he seldom sought any other, and therefore was unpopular in the neighborhood. It is hardly to be supposed that the creator of Zenobia, Hester Prynne, and the Pyncheons would greatly enjoy the society of his rural neighbors, but they were not therefore the less displeased by his habitually going out of his way--sometimes across the fields--to avoid meeting them. Some of them had a notion that he was the author of "a poem, or an arithmetic, or some other kind of a book,"--as he makes "Primrose Pringle" to say of him in the tale,--but to most he was incomprehensible, perhaps a little uncanny, and the great genius of romance is yet mentioned here as "a queer sort o' man that lived in Tappan's red house." [Sidenote: Reasons for leaving Berkshire] His son records that after Hawthorne had freed himself from Salem "he soon wearied of any particular locality;" after a time he tired even of beautiful Berkshire. Its obtrusive scenery "with the same strong impressions repeated day after day" became irksome; then he grew tired of the mountains and "would joyfully see them laid flat." He writes to Fields, "I am sick of Berkshire, and hate to think of spending another winter here." Doubtless the region which we behold in the glamour of the early autumn seemed very different to Hawthorne in the season when he had daily "to trudge two miles to the post-office through snow or slush knee-deep." Ellery Channing--who had knowledge of the winter here--in his letters to Hawthorne calls Berkshire "that satanic institution of Spitzbergen," "that ice-plant of the Sedgwicks." A more cogent reason for Hawthorne's discontent here is found in his failing health. He writes to Pike, "I am not vigorous as I used to be on the coast;" to Fields, "For the first time since boyhood I feel languid and dispirited. Oh, that Providence would build me the merest shanty and mark me out a rood or two of garden near the coast." For these and other reasons Hawthorne finally left Berkshire at the end of 1851, going first to West Newton and a few months later to "the Wayside," while his friend Tappan occupied the thenceforth famous little red house. The world of readers owes much to Hawthorne's residence among the mountains. Besides the material here gathered and the exquisite settings for his tales these landscapes afforded, we are indebted to his environment in Berkshire for the quality of the work here accomplished and for its quantity as well; for he responded so readily to the inspiriting influence of his surroundings that he produced more during his stay here than at any similar period of his life. The soulful beauty and the seclusion of the haunts to which we here trace him, suiting well his solitary mood, may measurably account to us for his habit of thought and for the manner of expression by which nature was here portrayed and life expounded by the great master of American romance. A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET A DAY WITH THE GOOD GRAY POET _Walk and Talk with Socrates in Camden--The Bard's Appearance and Surroundings--Recollections of his Life and Work--Hospital Service-- Praise for his Critics--His Literary Habit, Purpose, Equipment, and Style--His Religious Bent--Readings._ "How can you find him? Nothing is easier," quoth the Philadelphia friend who some time before Whitman's death brought us an invitation from the bard; "you have only to cross the ferry and apply to the first man or woman you meet, for there is no one in Camden who does not know Walt Whitman or who would not go out of his way to bring you to him." The event justifies the prediction, for when we make inquiry of a tradesman standing before a shop, he speedily throws aside his apron, closes his door against evidently needed customers, and--despite our protest--sets out to conduct us to the home of the poet. This is done with such obvious ardor that we hint to our guide that he must be one of the "Whitmaniacs," whereupon he rejoins, "I never read a word Whitman wrote. I don't know why they call him Socrates, but I do know he never passes me without a friendly nod and a word of greeting that warms me all through." We subsequently find that it is this sort of "Whitmania," rather than that Swinburne deplores, which pervades the vicinage of the poet's home. Our conductor leaves us at the door of three hundred and twenty-eight Mickle Street, a neat thoroughfare bordered by unpretentious frame dwellings, hardly a furlong from the Delaware. The dingy little two-storied domicile is so disappointingly different from what we were expecting to see that the confirmatory testimony of the name "W. Whitman" upon the door-plate is needed to convince us that this is the oft-mentioned "neat and comfortable" dwelling of one of the world's celebrities. We are kept waiting upon the door-step long enough to observe that the unpainted boards of the house are weather-worn and that the shabby window-shutters and the cellar-door, which opens aslant upon the sidewalk, are in sad need of repair, and then we are admitted by the "good, faithful, young Jersey woman who," as he lovingly testifies, "cooks for and vigilantly sees to" the venerable bard. A moment later we are in his presence, in the spacious second-story room which is his sleeping apartment and work-room. "You are good to come early while I am fresh and rested," exclaims Walt Whitman, rising to his six feet of burly manhood and advancing a heavy step or two to greet us; "we are going to have a talk, and we have something to talk about, you know," referring to a literary venture of ours which had procured us the invitation to visit him. When he has regained the depths of his famous and phenomenal chair, the "Jersey woman" hands him a score of letters, which he offers to lay aside, but we insist that he shall read them at once, and while he is thus occupied we have opportunity to observe more closely the bard and his surroundings. [Sidenote: Whitman's Personal Appearance] We see a man made in massive mould, stalwart and symmetrical,--not bowed by the weight of time nor deformed by the long years of hemiplegia; a majestic head, large, leonine, Homeric, crowned with a wealth of flowing silvery hair; a face like "the statued Greek" (Bucke says it is the noblest he ever saw); all the features are full and handsome; the forehead, high and thoughtful, is marked by "deep furrows which life has ploughed;" the heavy brows are highly arched above eyes of gray-blue which in repose seem suave rather than brilliant; the upper lid droops over the eye nearly to the pupil,--a condition which obtains in partial ptosis,--and we afterward observe that when he speaks of matters which deeply move him his eyelids have a tendency to decline still farther, imparting to his eyes an appearance of lethargy altogether at variance with the thrilling earnestness and tremor of his voice. A strong nose, cheeks round and delicate, a complexion of florid and transparent pink,--its hue being heightened by the snowy whiteness of the fleecy beard which frames the face and falls upon the breast. The face is sweet and wholesome rather than refined, vital and virile rather than intellectual. Joaquin Miller has said that, even when destitute and dying, Whitman "looked like a Titan god." We think the habitual expression of his face to be that of the sage benignity that comes with age when life has been well lived and life's work well done. The expression bespeaks a soul at ease with itself, unbroken by age, poverty, and disease, unsoured by calumny and insult. Certainly his bufferings and his brave endurance of wrong have left no record of malice or even of impatience upon his kindly face. His manly form is clad in a loosely fitting suit of gray; his rolling and ample shirt-collar, worn without a tie, is open at the throat and exposes the upper part of his breast; all his attire, "from snowy linen to burnished boot," is scrupulously clean and neat. [Sidenote: His Study and Surroundings] His room is of generous proportions, occupying nearly the entire width of the house, and lighted by three windows in front. The floor is partly uncarpeted, and the furniture is of the simplest; his bed, covered by a white counterpane, occupies a corner; there are two large tables; an immense iron-bound trunk stands by one wall and an old-fashioned stove by another; a number of boxes and uncushioned seats are scattered through the apartment; on the walls are wardrobe-hooks, shelves, and many pictures,--a few fine engravings, a print of the Seminole Osceola, portraits of the poet's parents (his father's face is a good one) and sisters, and of "another--not a sister." There are many books here and there, some of them well worn; one corner holds several Greek and Latin classics and copies of Burns, Tennyson, Scott, Ossian, Emerson, etc. On the large table near his chair are his writing materials, with the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, and the Iliad within reach. Bundles of papers lie in odd places about the room; piles of books, magazines, and manuscripts are heaped high upon the tables, litter the chairs, and overflow and encumber the floor. This room holds what Whitman has called the "storage collection" of his life. "And now you are to tell me about yourself and your work," says the poet, pushing aside his letters. But, although he is the best of listeners, we are intent to make him talk, and a fortunate remark concerning one of his letters which had seemed to interest him more than the others--it came from a friend of his far-away boyhood--enables us to profit by the reminiscential mood the letter has inspired. In his low-toned voice he pictures his early home, his parents, and his first ventures into the world; with evident relish he narrates his ludicrous experience when he--a stripling school-master--"went boarding 'round." Than this, there was but one happier period of his life, and that was when he drove among the farms and villages distributing his _Long Islander_: "that was bliss." Later he was a politician and "stumped the island" for the Democratic candidates, but the enactment of the fugitive slave law disgusted him, and he declared his political emancipation in the poem "Blood-Money." At odd times he has done "a deal of newspaper drudgery" and other work, but his "forte always was loafing and writing poetry,--at least until the war." He began early to clothe his thought in verse, and was but a lad when a poem of his was accepted for publication in the New York _Mirror_, and he depicts for us the surprised delight with which he beheld his stanzas in that fashionable journal. [Sidenote: His Recollections] A pleasure of those early years was the companionship of Bryant, and he details to us the "glorious walks and talks" they had together along the North Shore in sweet summer days. This, he says with a sigh, was the dearest of the friendships lost to him by the publication of "Leaves of Grass;" "but there were compensations, Emerson and Tennyson." Of later events he speaks less freely. Of the years of devoted service to the wounded and dying in army hospitals, when day and night he literally gave himself for others,--living upon the coarsest fare that he might bestow his earnings upon "his sick boys,"--of these years he speaks not at all, save as to the causation of his "war paralysis." "Yes, it made an old man of me; but I would like to do it all again if there were need." Of his long years of suffering and his brave and patient confronting of pain, poverty, and imminent death, his "Specimen Days" is the fitting record. Replying to a question concerning a dainty volume of his poems which lay near us, and which we have been secretly coveting, he says, "You know I have never been the fashion; publishers were afraid of me, and I have sold the books myself, though I always advise people not to buy them, for I fear they are worthless." But when he writes his name and ours upon the title-page, and lays within the cover several portraits taken at different periods of his life, we wonder if he can ever know how very far from "worthless" the book will be to us. We tender in payment a bank-note of larger denomination than we could be supposed to possess, with a deprecating remark upon the novelty of an author's handling a fifty-dollar note, whereupon he laughs heartily: "A novelty to you, is it? I tell you it's an impossibility to me; why, my whole income from my books during a recent half-year was only twenty-two dollars and six cents: don't forget the six cents," he adds, with a twinkle. Then he assures us that he is not in want, and that his "shanty," as he calls his home, is nearly paid for. [Sidenote: Popularity with his Neighbors] He proposes a walk,--"a hobble" it must be for him,--which may afford opportunity to change the note; and as we saunter toward the river, he leaning heavily upon his cane, it is a pleasure to observe the evident feeling of liking and camaraderie which people have for him. They go out of their way to meet him and to receive merely a friendly nod, for he stops to speak with none save the children who leave their play to run to him. He seems mightily amused when one wee toddler calls him "Mister Socrates," and he tells us this is the first time he has been so addressed, although he understands that some of his friends speak of him among themselves by the name of that philosopher. So far as he knows, the name was first applied to him in Buchanan's lines "To Socrates in Camden." Everywhere we go, on the ferry, at the hotel where we lunch, he receives affectionate greeting from people of every rank, yet he is not loquacious, certainly not effusive. He shakes hands but once while we are out, and that is with an unknown man, and because he _is_ unknown, as Whitman afterward tells us. During luncheon we speak of a recent visit to Mrs. Howarth (the poetess "Clementine"). Whitman is at once interested, and questions until he has drawn out the pathetic story of her struggles with poverty, disease, and impeding environment, and then declares he will go to see her as soon as he is able. He declines to receive a copy of her poems, saying he is far more interested in her than he could possibly be in her books, and that he "nowadays religiously abstains from reading poetry." Confirmation of this latter statement occurs in our subsequent conversation. A friend of ours had met Swinburne, and had been assured by that erratic (please don't print it erotic) bard that he thinks Whitman, next to Hugo, the best of recent poets. When we tell our poet of this, and endeavor to ascertain if the admiration be reciprocal, we find him unfamiliar with Swinburne's recent works. Reference to the latter's retraction of his first praise elicits the pertinent observation, "The trouble with Swinburne seems to be he don't know his own mind," but this is followed by warm encomiums upon "Atalanta" and its gifted author. Whitman had seen Emerson for the last time when the philosopher's memory had failed and all his powers were weakening: instead of being shocked by this condition, Whitman thinks it fit and natural, "nature gradually reclaiming the elements she had lent, work all nobly done, soul and senses preparing for rest." Mentioning George Arnold,-- "Doubly dead because he died so young,"-- we find that Whitman loved and mourned him tenderly. He expresses an especial pleasure and pride in the successes of the poet Richard Watson Gilder,--"young Gilder," as he familiarly calls him. He loves Browning, and laments that "Browning never took to" him. He thinks our own country is fortunate in having felt the clean and healthful influences of four such natures as Emerson, Bryant, Whittier, and Longfellow. [Sidenote: His Good Word for Everybody] Indeed, he has a good word for everybody, and discerns laudable qualities in some whom the world has agreed to contemn and cast out. He has glowing expressions of affection for his devoted friends in all lands, and only words of excuse for his enemies. Of the pharisaic Harlan, who dismissed him from a government clerkship solely because he had, ten years before, published the poems of "Enfans d'Adam," he charitably says, "No doubt the man thought he was doing right." Concerning his harshest critics, including the author of the choice epithet "swan of the sewers," he speaks only in justification: from their stand-point, their denunciations of him and his book were deserved; "he never dreamt of blaming them for not seeing as he sees." After our return to his "shanty" we read to him a laudatory notice from the current number of one of our great magazines, in which one of his poems is mentioned with especial favor; whereupon he produces from his trunk a note written some years before from the same magazine, contemptuously refusing to publish that very poem. Evidences like this of a change in popular opinion are not needed to confirm Whitman's faith in his own future, nor in that of the great humanity of which he is the prophet and exponent. Questioned concerning his habits and methods of literary work, he says he carries some sheets of paper loosely fastened together and pencils upon these "the rough draft of his thought" wherever the thought comes to him. Thus, "Leaves of Grass" was composed on the Brooklyn ferry, on the top of stages amid the roar of Broadway, at the opera, in the fields, on the sea-shore. "Drum Taps" was written amid war scenes, on battle-fields, in camps, at hospital bedsides, in actual contact with the subjects it portrays with such tenderness and power. The poems thus born of spontaneous impulse are finally given to the world in a crisp diction which is the result of much study and thought; every word is well considered,--the work of revision being done "almost anywhere" and without the ordinary aids to literary composition. In late years he wrote mostly upon the broad right arm of his chair. Complete equipment for his work was derived from contact with Nature in her abounding moods, from sympathetic intimacy with men and women in all phases of their lives, and from life-long study of the best books; these--Job, Isaiah, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare--have been his teachers, and possibly his models, although he has never consciously imitated any of them. His matter and manner are alike his own; he has not borrowed Blake's style, as Stedman believed, to recast Emerson's thoughts, as Clarence Cook alleged. His style would naturally resemble that of the Semitic prophets and Gaelic bards,--"the large utterance of the early gods,"--because inspired by familiarity with the same objects: the surging sea, the wind-swept mountain, the star-decked heaven, the forest primeval. [Sidenote: His Literary Work--Its Aims] His purpose, the moral elevation of humanity, he trusts is apparent in every page of his book. By his book he means "Leaves of Grass," the real work of his life, representing the truest thoughts and the highest imaginings of forty years, to which his other work has been incidental and tributary. After its eight periods of growth, "hitches," he calls them, he completes them with the annex, "Good-bye my Fancy," and thinks his record for the future is made up; "hit or miss, he will bother himself no more about it." When questioned concerning the lines whose "naked naturalness" has been an offence to many, he impressively avers that he has pondered them earnestly in these latest days, and is sure he would not alter or recall them if he could. [Sidenote: His Religious Trust] While not professing a moral regeneration or confessing the need of it, he yet assures us, "No array of words can describe how much I am at peace about God and about death." The author of "Whispers of Heavenly Death" cannot be an irreverent person; the impassioned "prayer"-- "That Thou, O God, my life hast lighted With ray of light, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee. For that, O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees, Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee.... I will cling to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me. Thee, Thee, at least, I know"-- is not the utterance of an irreligious heart. One who has known Whitman long and well testifies that he was always a religious _exalté_, and his stanzas show that his musings on death and immortality are inspired by fullest faith. As we listen to him, calmly discoursing upon the great mysteries,--which to him are now mysteries no longer,--we wonder how many of those who call him "beast" or "atheist" can confront the vast unknown with his lofty trust, to say nothing of actual thanksgiving for death itself! "Praised be the fathomless universe For life and joy, for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love,--but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death." We who survive him will not forget his peaceful yielding of himself to "the sure-enwinding arms," nor the abounding trust breathed in his last message, sent back from the mystic frontier of the shadowy realm: "Tell them it makes no difference whether I live or die." [Sidenote: Readings] In our chat he discloses a surprising knowledge of men and things, and a more surprising lack of knowledge of his own poetry. More than once it strangely appears that the visitor is more familiar with the lines under discussion than is their author. When this is commented upon he laughingly says, "Oh, yes, my friends often tell me there is a book called 'Leaves of Grass' which I ought to read." So when we, about to take leave, ask him to recite one of his shorter poems, he assures us he does not remember one of them, but will read anything we wish. We ask for the wonderful elegy, "Out of the Cradle endlessly Rocking," and afterward for the night hymn, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," and his compliance confers a never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. He reads slowly and without effort, his voice often tremulous with emotion, the lines gaining new grandeur and pathos as they come from his lips. And this--alas that it must be!--is our final recollection of one of the world's immortals: a hoar and reverend bard,--"old, poor, and paralyzed," yet clinging to the optimistic creeds of his youth,--throned in his great chair among his books, with the waning light falling like a benediction upon his uplifted head, his face and eyes suffused with the exquisite tenderness of his theme, and all the air about him vibrating with the tones of his immortal chant to Death,--the "dark mother always gliding near with soft feet." Another hand-clasp, a prayerful "God keep you," and we have left him alone in the gathering twilight. [Sidenote: His Future Fame] We will not here discuss his literary merits. The encomiums of Emerson, Thoreau, Burroughs, Sanborn, Stedman, Ruskin, Tennyson, Rossetti, Buchanan, Sarrazin, etc., show what he is to men of their intellectual stature; but will he ever reach the great, struggling mass for whose uplifting he wrought? His own brave faith is contagious, and we may discern in the wide-spread sorrow over his death, in the changed attitude of critics and reviewers, as well as in the largely increased demand for his books, evidences of his general acceptance. His day is coming,--is come. He died with its dawn shining full upon him. INDEX Abbot, C. C., 104. Agassiz, 49, 104, 115. Alcott, Bronson, 21, 73, 78, 92, 144; Orchard House, 54; Wayside, 58. Alcott, L. M., 21, 54, 102; Grave, 78; Homes, 21, 55. Aldrich, 91, 111, 140; In Boston, 92; Ponkapog, 146. Amesbury, 124. Auburndale, 146. Austin, J. G., 102. Bartlett, G. B., 25, 34, 41. Bartol, Dr., 48, 94. Beecher, H. W., 176, 185. Benson, Carl, 184. Berkshire, 155-198. Billings, Josh, 193. Boston, 83-102. Bridge, Horatio, 34, 182. Brook Farm, 147. Brown, John, 20, 23. Bryant, W. C., 174, 188, 189, 207. Burritt, Elihu, 176. Cambridge, 103. Carter, Robert, 109. Channing, W. E., 24, 41, 50, 72, 186; Homes, 22, 24, 52. Clarke, J. F., 27, 76. Clough, Arthur, 49, 104, 118. Concord, 17-80; Battle-Field, 43; River, 39. Conway, Moncure, quoted, 29, 48. Cooke, Rose Terry, 193. Corner Book-Store, Boston, 87. Curtis, G. W., 33, 48, 148, 149. Cushman, Charlotte, 114, 193. Dana, C. A., 149. Dana, R. H., 105. Danvers, Oak-Knoll, 138. Day with Walt Whitman, 201. Deerfield Arch, 173. Deland, Margaret, 93. Elmwood, 110. Emerson, R. W., 26, 27, 28, 36, 41, 43, 69, 86, 144, 175; Grave, 77; Home, 45. Emerson, William, 26, 29, 35. Ethan Brand, 166. Fanny Fern's Grave, 115. Felton, Professor, 104. Field, H. M., 190. Fields, Annie, 89, 91. Fields, J. T., 65, 87; Home, 89. Fuller, Margaret, 48, 53, 86, 115, 149; Brattle House, 105. Gail Hamilton, 66, 139. Garrison, W. L., 85, 102, 139. Gilder, R. W., 211. Gladden, Washington, 164. Grant, Robert, 89, 99. Gray, Asa, 105. Graylock, 158, 167, 174, 184. Guiney, L. I., 99, 102; Home, 146. Hale, E. E., 94; Study and Abode, 100. Hale, Lucretia P., 99. Hamilton, Gail, 66, 139. Harris, Professor, 56. Haverhill, 122. Hawthorne, 27, 41, 50, 53, 85, 88, 91; Berkshire, 155-198; Brook Farm, 149; Manse, 28-39; Salem, 128-138; Sleepy Hollow, 75-77; Wayside, 59-67. Headley, J. T., 187, 195. Higginson, T. W., 94, 99, 104. Hilliard, George, 34, 66, 91. Hoar, Elizabeth, 25. Hoar, Judge, 27. Holmes, 84; Boston Abodes, 91, 95; Cambridge, 103; Grave, 114; Pittsfield, 192. House of the Seven Gables, 132, 193, 194. Howarth, Clementine, 209. Howe, Julia W., 98. Howells, 49, 66; Homes, 97, 105, 117. Jamaica Plain, 145. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 91. Kemble, Fanny, 169, 186, 188, 193. Kossuth, Louis, 49, 187. Larcom, Lucy, 139. Lathrop, G. P., 59. Lathrop, Rose H., 195. Laurel Lake, 185. Lenox (Hawthorne), 176-198. Little Men, 21. Little Women, 21, 55, 78. Longfellow, 106, 110, 139, 192; Grave, 114; Home, 107; Wayside Inn, 118. Lowell, J. R., 43, 118; Elmwood, 110; Mount Auburn, 113. Marshfield, 142. Martineau, Harriet, 85, 106. Melville, Herman, 177, 185, 188; Arrow-Head, 190. Monument Mountain, 168, 179, 187. Moulton, L. C., 93, 98. Mount Auburn, 113. Natural Bridge, 169. North Adams, 158-171. Norton, Professor, 104. Oak-Knoll, 138. Old Manse, 28-39. Orchard House, 53-56. Parker, Theodore, 49, 85. Parkman, Francis, 94, 113; Home, 145. Parsons, T. W., 118, 119, 120. Parton, James, 115; Study, 140. Peabody, Elizabeth, 29, 54, 145. Phelps-Ward, Mrs., 91, 125, 139. Phillips, Wendell, 49, 85. Pittsfield, 190-193. Plymouth, 144. Prescott, W. H., 86. Ripley, Ezra, 28, 33, 34. Ripley, Mrs. Samuel, 29, 35, 48. Salem, 128. Sanborn, F. B., 20-24. Scarlet Letter, 95, 135, 136. Sedgwick, Catherine, 176, 189, 190. Septimius Felton, 55, 60-65. Silas Lapham, 97, 99. Sleepy Hollow, 75-80. Sprague, Charles, 86. Stockbridge, 189; Bowl, 176, 181; Glen, 189. Stone, J. A., 25. Sudbury, 118. Summer School of Philosophy, 55, 56. Sumner, Charles, 85, 92, 124. Swinburne, A. C., 210. Tanglewood, 183. Thaxter, Celia, 91, 139, 140. Thoreau, 19, 22, 27, 33, 41, 50, 63, 76, 169, 174; Abodes, 20, 24; Walden, 68-74. Ticknor, George, 94. Walden Pond, 68. Wayside, The, 58. Wayside Inn, The, 118. Webster, Daniel, 19; Marshfield, 142. Wheildon, William, 25. Whipple, E. P., 66, 76, 91. Whitefield, George, 140. Whitman, Walt, 50; A Day with, 201; Leaves of Grass, 212, 213. Whittier, 90, 93; Homes, 122, 124, 138; Scenes, 122, 123, 124, 126; Sepulchre, 127. Williamstown, 173. Willis, N. P., 84, 115. Woodworth; Old Oaken Bucket, 141. Zenobia, 40, 150. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original. 
46774	----	Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/missionofpoubalo00burtrich Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). THE MISSION OF POUBALOV by FREDERICK R. BURTON [Illustration] New York Street & Smith, Publishers 29 Rose Street CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I--Her Wedding Morning 7 II--An Explanation Suggested 15 III--An Imperfect Vision 23 IV--Clara's Search Begins 31 V--The Agent of the Czar 39 VI--Litizki at Work 47 VII--A Dangerous Man 55 VIII--In the Hands of the Enemy 63 IX--Litizki's Lesson 71 X--Corroborative Detail 78 XI--Strange Exit of Poubalov 87 XII--Litizki Breaks His Appointment 95 XIII--What Became of Litizki 103 XIV--A New Departure 111 XV--Louise Receives a Caller 119 XVI--Lizzie White 127 XVII--How Litizki Saved Miss Hilman 135 XVIII--The Key to Ivan's Prison 143 XIX--The Ghost of Poubalov 151 XX--The Little Front Room 159 XXI--What Paul Palovna Saw 167 XXII--Poubalov's Revolution 175 XXIII--At One O'clock A.M. 183 XXIV--The New Clew 191 XXV--A Stubborn Antagonist 199 XXVI--Hide and Seek 207 XXVII--Behind Closed Doors 216 XXVIII--Poubalov Succeeds 225 A WEDDING BUT RATHER LATE CHAPTER I. THEIR WEDDING MORNING. Ivan pulled aside the curtain and looked up at the sky. It was as clear as crystal, as blue as the eyes of his beloved, the promise fulfilled of a perfect day. On a window cornice across the street a tiny bird perked his head toward the sun and chirped noisily. To a lively imagination kindled by fond anticipations the twittering of the bird would have seemed like music. So it was to Ivan. His heart responded with unformed melodies, and some of their stray notes found their way humming to his throat as he hastened his toilet. A long process it was in spite of his haste. Every outer garment, though but yesterday brought by the tailor, had to be brushed with exquisite care, and when it came to adjusting his tie, what with finding in the light of this beautiful morning that not one of the numerous assortment seemed to be bright enough for the occasion, and having rejected all in turn, and having selected one at last that might be made to do, and having found the knot and loosed it--well, time had passed, and under ordinary circumstances patience might have gone with it. Ordinary, the circumstances were not, and if they had been I presume any tie could have, and would have been thrown together in a shape not less pleasing than that which finally caused him to turn from the mirror in cheerful despair and ring for breakfast. Mrs. White was prompt in responding to the summons, for she had been expecting it with quivering anxiety for the last half hour. Good soul! With eggs at thirty-five cents a dozen she nevertheless plunged two in hot water every four minutes, in order that her lodger might not trace the slightest sense of disappointment, on this eventful day, to her. "I do hope his last breakfast here will be a pleasant one," she said when her daughter protested against the extravagance. There was certainly nothing in the plain breakfast to call for criticism. Ivan might not have noticed it if there had been, for his thoughts were elsewhere, and his emotions were stirred by causes at once more delicate and more powerful than appetite; but Mrs. White was probably in the right. It would have been a pity to permit any chance of a jarring note however slight in the harmony that pervaded his being. Ivan greeted his landlady gayly, and attacked his meal as if there were no such thing as love in the world, love that makes man melancholy, that destroys the delights of good living, that drives him to the production of gloomy wails in more or less eccentric verse. There was no such love for him. Out of the storm and stress of an eventful career, in which misfortune had rained its blows upon him with undue severity, love had arisen like the comforting glow of a home hearth fire, and it shone upon his exile with naught in its beams but serenity and peace. Ivan was happy. Breakfast was hardly begun when Mrs. White again appeared. "There's a gentleman to see you, Mr. Strobel," she said hesitatingly; "I didn't like to disturb you, but he seemed very anxious, and so I said I would see if you were at home." She laid a card upon the breakfast table and waited. Ivan glanced at it and frowned. So, there must needs be a cloud upon this day to remind him, as if he needed it! how surely the sun of happiness was shining for him. Alexander Poubalov! What could he be doing in America, and what could have led him to call at just this juncture? Bah! there could be no significance in it, nothing but a memory of troublous experiences could be evoked by his presence, nothing connected with that past could possibly intervene now between him and the new life upon which he was joyously entering. Mrs. White was sorely distressed, for she saw that her lodger was disturbed, and in her motherly heart she wished that she had told the stranger below one of those white lies that have come to be regarded as not sinful in that they effect at least a postponement of evil. She might have said that Mr. Strobel was engaged, or that he had given up his room a week before. Both statements would have been true enough for the Recording Angel's book, goodness knows! "If you had only just gone, or if he had come an hour later," she murmured plaintively. "Oh, there's nothing the matter," cried Ivan, lightly; "I was simply wondering what in the world he could want with me. I haven't seen him for five years. Show him up, please." Not half satisfied that nothing was the matter, Mrs. White obeyed, and presently Alexander Poubalov stood upon the threshold. He was a distinguished-looking man, tall, swarthy, middle-aged, a remarkable contrast to his fair-haired fellow countryman, Ivan Strobel. "I am indeed glad to see you, Strobel," he said, his deep tones vibrant as a church bell; "may I come in?" "I received your card and I sent for you," replied Ivan, coldly. He had risen and was standing by the breakfast table. "I shall be sorry if I have disturbed you, for I had no such purpose in calling upon you. Pray go on with your breakfast," and Poubalov took a step or two forward, as if waiting for an invitation to sit down. "To what purpose, then, may I attribute your call?" asked Ivan, without stirring. "You are in haste, my friend," replied Poubalov, smiling; "you have probably learned the American habit of putting business ahead of all other things; but I see, too, that there may be some especial reason to-day for hurry. You are dressed to go out, and you have packed your trunks----" "It is quite like you," interrupted Ivan, "to note every detail and attach some significance of your own to it. You are right, however, on this occasion. Time is precious with me to-day. I am to be married at noon." "Ah! married! Strobel," and Poubalov made as if he would extend his hand, "I wish you would permit me to congratulate you." "It is unnecessary," responded Ivan, remaining like a statue by his chair. Poubalov shrugged his shoulders and looked disappointed. "As you will," he said, "and perhaps it would be as well to postpone my call, as it seems you regard it as an unhappy intrusion." "If you have any business other than that attending to a spy in general," said Ivan, "I shall be pleased if you will dispatch it now. If, on the contrary, you still have any interest in my movements, I will give you my itinerary, and you can follow me if you like. I will only suggest that we are not in Russia, and that it is not my intention to go outside the jurisdiction of the United States." "You need only tell me, if you have no objection," replied Poubalov, "where I may look for you some time after your wedding journey." Ivan picked up Poubalov's card and wrote an address upon it. "I shall live there," he said, handing the card to his caller. "I expect to return in two weeks." Poubalov read the card and thoughtfully placed it in his pocketbook. "If I knew how to, Strobel," he remarked gravely, "I would assure you that you need have no anxiety on my account during your honeymoon, or afterward; but I see clearly that now, as heretofore, you will place no reliance whatever upon my words, and that you discredit my motives." "You speak truly," said Ivan; "but we will not discuss the reasons for my distrust. You know them even better than I do. You may spare yourself any words. I shall not be disturbed by anxiety." "On another occasion, then, I may hope for a somewhat extended conversation. Good-morning. My good wishes would doubtless be repugnant to you." Ivan bowed silently and Poubalov withdrew. "Strange that I should be pursued after all this lapse of time, and to this far country," thought Ivan; "but I have done right. I have nothing to fear from Poubalov or the government whose paid spy he is." He looked at his watch, and, resuming his place at the table, hastily swallowed a cup of coffee. Mrs. White's eggs remained unbroken. A carriage was waiting for him at the door and it was time that he should go, for the wedding was to take place at Rev. Dr. Merrill's little church in Roxbury, four miles away. With moderate driving and no accident he would be there in time to meet the bridal party at the door. A happy farewell to his landlady and her daughter, and he was off. He did not notice that as his coupé turned into Somerset Street from Ashburton Place, a closed carriage left its position not far from Mrs. White's door and followed. If he had observed it he would have thought nothing of it, for in Boston other persons besides bridegrooms employ public conveyances, and it is not always that a cabman is employed to drive a fare to a wedding. Ivan's coupé rolled gently down Park Street, and just as it reached the corner of Tremont, one of the forward wheels came off. The passenger was precipitated forward, and the driver with difficulty kept his seat. He climbed down in a moment, angry and bewildered. He could discover no break about his vehicle, but there was the wheel upon the ground, there was the body leaning forward, straining upon the shafts, disconcerting the horse---- "Open the door!" cried Ivan, imperatively; "I can't be shut up here!" The driver got the door open after a little trouble and Ivan crawled out. "I don't see how it happened," began the driver. "No matter. It can't be helped in a minute, can it? I must have another conveyance." A crowd was quickly gathering, and as Ivan looked around him he caught the eye of the driver of the closed carriage. "Are you engaged?" called Ivan. Then, as the driver signified his willingness to take a fare, Ivan recoiled. The carriage looked as if it were on the way to a funeral. He hated presentiments and despised himself for the momentary feeling of discomfort. "You can pull down the curtains, sir, after you get in," said the driver as if he had noticed his prospective passenger's discomfort. "Where to, sir?" he continued with his hand on the door. Ivan told him and with a "Hurry, please," bolted into the carriage. The driver sprang to his seat as if his salvation depended on his speed, lashed his horse heavily, and the carriage fairly leaped through the crowd and down Tremont Street. It was a beautiful June morning and the passenger was on his way to his own wedding, but he did not lower the curtains of the gloomy carriage. * * * * * A gentle quiver of excitement stirred the congregation that filled the little vine-covered church on Parker Avenue as the clock tolled the noon hour and the organist began to play softly, his fingers weaving scraps of melody into a vague but pleasing harmony like the light that filtered through the stained glass windows. This was but the suggestion of a coming outburst of harmony, for presently, as the joyful procession would be ready to move, he would open all the gates of sound and flood the edifice with the triumphal strains of the Wedding March, strains that seem light and music, too, to all listeners and beholders. Within the vestibule the bridal party awaited the coming of the groom. There, too, were Ivan's two friends, to do him honor by marching with him; one a Russian like himself, the other an American. With smiling faces they all endeavored to conceal annoyance that was speedily turning to anxiety over Ivan's delay. Clara Hilman, as lovely a bride as ever donned the orange-decked veil, stood with palpitating heart beside her uncle and guardian, Matthew Pembroke. With awkward words he was trying to soothe what he felt must be her fears. All about them were pretty children dressed to follow the bride, and Clara's dearest girl friends. Within the chancel Dr. Merrill waited, wondering a little, but not permitting himself to attach hasty blame to anybody for this embarrassing hitch in the proceedings. The organist looked inquiringly at the group that had found places in the choir loft and they returned his gaze by shakes of the head. "You are more nervous than I am, uncle," said Clara with an attempt at bravery, though her trembling lips betrayed her; "he will be here." "There he is!" cried Ralph Harmon, one of Ivan's friends, as a carriage was seen to turn into the avenue from a street a little way off, and come hurrying toward the church. "Be ready to tell the organist," he whispered to a boy who stood near. The waiting procession fell into partial disarray as every one craned his or her neck to see the bridegroom step from the carriage which now halted at the steps. All, nearly all, could see through the open doors as the driver dismounted and opened the door. A shiver of disappointment passed over the wedding party. An old, bent man issued from the carriage, leaning heavily on a cane and hobbled up the steps. "This is stranger than Ivan's delay!" exclaimed Harmon in a whisper to his Russian colleague; "I don't believe old Dexter ever went to a wedding before unless it was his own, and I never knew he was married." "Who is he?" asked the Russian. "Old Dexter is all I can say. He's a kind of miser and money-lender combined, I think. I don't believe he's any friend of Ivan's." "No. He's bowing to Mr. Pembroke." Very ceremoniously but with a halting movement, the old man had taken off his hat to Mr. Pembroke and passed on into the church. Mr. Pembroke had bowed stiffly in return and then bent over his niece to speak to her. Clara was by this time plainly disturbed. It was a quarter past the hour, and the congregation itself was getting nervous. A few persons came out into the vestibule to learn what caused the delay. The organist's flitting harmonies became monotonous, intolerable, and the rector within the chancel was not so impatient as alarmed. A few minutes later the organist stopped altogether. The rector joined the wedding party in the vestibule. Clara had been taken to a room in the vestry by her guardian. "If he should come now," said Mr. Pembroke, gravely, "I don't believe we could go on. The strain has been too great for Clara." Dr. Merrill spoke to her as only a clergyman can speak to a parishioner, and minutes dragged along. At last when an hour had passed, and there was yet no word from Ivan, the rector dismissed the congregation, and the members of the wedding party went homeward, wondering and sorrowful. CHAPTER II. AN EXPLANATION SUGGESTED. "Wait for me a moment, Paul," said Ralph Harmon as the people began to pour out of the church. He went to the room in the vestry where Clara Hilman sat pale and tearless. With her were Mr. Pembroke, his daughter Louise, and two or three other young ladies who were intimate friends of the unfortunate bride. Ralph did not approach the group, but paused at the door and looked significantly at Miss Pembroke. She went to him at once, and, unseen by the others, he took both her hands in his and said: "I am going to Strobel's room and shall take Palovna with me. If I find any trace or news, as I undoubtedly shall, I will go directly to your house and report. You may tell Miss Hilman so if you think it will relieve her." "Clara, dear!" exclaimed Miss Pembroke, impulsively, "Ralph is going to find Ivan, and will come back as quickly as he can to tell you." For several minutes the bride had been sitting as if petrified, making no answer to the well-meant questions of her friends, unconscious apparently of their tearful sympathy, but at this announcement her eyes were lit by just a gleam of gratitude and she tried to speak to Ralph. Her lips quivered with unformed words, and she turned appealingly to her uncle. "Come," she faltered, "let us go home." Ralph bowed and returned immediately to the vestibule, where Paul Palovna waited for him. Both were accosted by many of the outgoing audience, but they shook their heads and hurried down the steps and up the street to the nearest line of cars. They said little to each other on the way to Ashburton Place, for they were oppressed with forebodings, and the consciousness that they had nothing upon which to base speculation. Once Ralph exclaimed desperately, "What can have happened!" and Paul answered, "He must have fallen violently ill." Both hoped that this might be the case, and neither believed it. Mrs. White knew them both, for they were frequent callers upon her lodger, and her surprise, therefore, passed all bounds when she met them at the door and heard them ask as with one voice, "Where is Strobel?" "Where?" she repeated, "where should he be? Haven't you seen him?" "No," replied Ralph, "he did not come to the church, and the rector dismissed the congregation." Mrs. White threw up her hands and sank into a chair. "Why--why--" she stammered, "he left here all dressed and gay as could be." "Did he seem quite well?" asked Paul. The good lady remembered her surprise and disappointment at finding Ivan's eggs unbroken, his breakfast almost untasted and she told the young men about it. "That signifies nothing," said Paul; "I don't wonder he didn't care to eat. Did he appear to be troubled about anything?" "Not when he went away," answered Mrs. White; "I thought he seemed put out when the strange gentleman called." "There we have it!" exclaimed Paul, eagerly. "Who was the caller and what was his business, if you happen to know?" "I don't know either. I never saw the gentleman before. He was here only a few minutes. He sent up his card, and though I looked at the name, I couldn't remember it, for it had a strange look, something like yours." "May we go to his room? The card may still be there." "I don't think it is," said Mrs. White, rising to follow the young men who were already half way up the stairs; "I don't remember seeing it when I cleaned up." When Ralph and Paul had vainly examined the catch-alls, the vases, and every probable place into which a visitor's card might have been tucked, the Russian asked what had been done with the contents of the waste basket. "My daughter Lizzie helped me," replied Mrs. White, "and took the waste papers downstairs. I'll ask her to find them and look for the card." She left the room, and while she was gone the young men moved about nervously, repeatedly asking who the caller could have been, what possible connection his call could have had with Ivan's failure to appear at his wedding, and all manner of questions, vain and irritating, that arise when men are confronted by an emergency that teems with mystery. Mrs. White reported that her daughter had gone out and that the waste paper from Mr. Strobel's room had been burned. "Lizzie may have seen that card," she said, "and I'll ask her when she comes in. I can't think where she can have gone." "Was she here when the stranger called?" asked Ralph. "Oh, yes, and until after Mr. Strobel started away. I didn't know that she had left the house, and I can't imagine what she went out for. Perhaps she'll be back soon." "Do you know where Strobel hired his carriage?" inquired Paul. "No, I don't. Lizzie might, for I remember he said something to her about it the day before. I wonder where she----" "He probably ordered his carriage from Clark & Brown," said Ralph to Paul. He had no intention of ignoring Mrs. White's motherly anxiety about her daughter, but he saw no reason for attaching significance to her absence, and his mind was burdened with a growing conviction that something serious had happened to his friend. "Suppose we make some inquiries," responded Paul. "If you will go to Clark & Brown's office, I will take a run around all the hotel cab-stands in the vicinity. He might have left his order at the Tremont House or in Bosworth Street, you know." "I'm agreed," said Ralph. "We must get hold of the man who drove him. One of us is likely to succeed. Suppose, as Strobel may after all turn up at any minute, we meet here as soon as we can. I'll take in the Revere House as well as Clark & Brown's." "I wish you would meet here, gentlemen," interposed Mrs. White; "Lizzie may be back then." "I hope she will be, Mrs. White," said Ralph. "She may be able to tell us something about Strobel. It seems strange that he hasn't sent some word." "I begin to fear that we shall find him at a hospital, badly injured," remarked Paul. "Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Mrs. White. "I declare! it makes me feel dreadfully about Lizzie." The young men departed at once upon their errands. It was Paul Palovna who came upon a clew. He found where Ivan had engaged his carriage, and he went to the livery stable, which was in the South End, to find what had become of the driver and his passenger. He arrived there just after the driver had come in with his damaged carriage. "I started in with the gentleman," said the driver, "but I broke down at the corner of Tremont and Park Streets and he went along with somebody else." "Who was it?" asked Paul. "I don't know. I never saw the cabman before." "Whose rig was it?" "I don't know that, either. I never saw the horse before, and the carriage was like hundreds of others that you might see in Boston any day." Paul tried to think what ought to be done next. "Did Mr. Strobel have a second accident?" asked one of the stable proprietors. "I fear so," replied Paul; "we haven't seen him, and as he was going to his own wedding, his failure to turn up is rather alarming." "Going to be married, was he?" the stableman spoke thoughtfully. "Then I guess you'll find that he has been made the victim of a practical joke. I suppose he had plenty of friends who were aware of his intentions?" "Certainly, but I cannot imagine," said Paul with some indignation, "that any of them would have carried a joke to the extent of keeping him away from his wedding." "Perhaps not," admitted the stableman, "but it looks as if some one had deliberately tried to delay him. Don't you know how the accident happened to our carriage?" "No. What was the matter?" "Somebody had loosened the nut of the forward right wheel so that it was bound to come off before they had gone very far. The breakdown was no accident." "You are sure of this, I suppose," exclaimed Paul; "but when could it have been done?" "When Mike was waiting in front of the door to Mr. Strobel's place. You'd better tell this gentleman what you told me, Mike." "I waited there a good half hour before Mr. Strobel came out," replied the driver. "And while I was there a fellow crossed the street and spoke to me. He stood in the street kind o' leaning on the wheel. 'Go'n' to take Mr. Strobel to his wedding?' says he. 'I'm go'n' to take a gent of that name,' says I 'but I don't know nothing 'bout his wedding.' 'That's what 'tis,' says he, 'and a very fine man he is, and a fine day it is for the ceremony; and that's a fine horse you have,' and all that kind of palaver, till I thought he'd talk me blind. After a while he said good-morning, and went on, bad luck to him." Paul looked at the stableman in surprise. "Could the nut have been removed then without the driver knowing it?" he asked. "Yes, but it wasn't necessarily removed. It may have been started. You get up on the seat and sit back indifferently, as a driver would be likely to sit. Just try it. I want you to be satisfied." Paul climbed to the driver's seat on the coupé, and the stableman leaned over the wheel. "You see," said the latter, "unless you bent over and looked down sharply you wouldn't make out what I was up to, and not having any reason to suspect a trick, you'd likely sit still; more likely than not, if you was an ordinary driver, you'd look the other way most of the time; and--but I don't need to talk any longer for here is the nut!" and he held up a small wrench in which was the nut of the wheel by which he was standing. "Great Scott!" exclaimed Paul, smiling, in spite of his anxiety, at the dexterous way in which the stableman had proved that the trick might have been done. "What sort of man was this, Mike, who talked to you?" "I dunno, sir. Medium sized, young, I should say." "Would you know him again?" "I would that!" "By the way, did you see anybody call at the house while you were waiting?" "Yes, a gentleman went in. I heard him ask for Mr. Strobel, and he came out again inside of five minutes." "What was he like and where did he go?" "I couldn't tell you what he was like. I paid no attention to him. He went away toward Somerset Street. The fellow at the wheel was talking to me as he went along." This was all the information of value that Paul could obtain, although he asked many more questions. He found Ralph waiting for him in Ivan's room, and Mrs. White was there, overcome with anxiety on account of the continued absence of her daughter. "I think," said Ralph when he had heard his friend's report, "that we'd better speak of this at police headquarters." "Are you going to say anything about Lizzie?" asked Mrs. White. "Certainly not, unless you wish it. She will doubtless come in before evening." "I don't know," murmured the landlady, despairingly; "she didn't say a word about going out, and I'm dreadfully afraid! I can't find her little traveling bag----" She stopped suddenly as Paul wheeled about and glanced at her with a startled glance. There was a moment of silence, and then the Russian said quietly: "I will come back early in the evening, Mrs. White, and if your daughter has not appeared, I'll help you to make inquiries. We must look after Strobel now." The young men reported the circumstances at police headquarters and then went to Roxbury. It was five o'clock when they arrived at Mr. Pembroke's house, and they cherished a hope that some word from Ivan, if not Ivan himself, would be found there. They were disappointed. Louise Pembroke told them that nothing had occurred except that Clara had succumbed to the shock and strain, and was under the care of a physician. "About an hour ago she broke down and cried," said Louise, "and the physician said it was the best thing that could have happened to her. He would have been afraid to have Ivan return before that. Now she is not in any immediate danger." "Are you going to tell her what we have done?" asked Ralph. "Yes. I'll do so now." Louise found her cousin calm and hopeful. "Ralph has come back," said Clara. "I heard the bell, and knew it must be he. Well?" "Ralph says, dear," replied Louise, "that Ivan started for the church in a carriage, and that there was a breakdown on the way that appears to have been caused by a trick. He then took another carriage, and after that they do not know what became of him." "Lou," said the sufferer, "I suppose people would expect that I should feel humiliation most of all, but I don't, and if I did I should no longer feel it now that I know Ivan started for the church. Don't you see? He meant to come, of course! Something dreadful has happened to him--" Her eyes filled with tears, and she paused a moment before continuing: "There must be more details, of course, but I am not well enough yet to hear them. Ask Ralph and Paul to come to-morrow morning, will you, please? I must talk with them." "I will," replied Louise; "Ivan may come before that." Ralph went to his home immediately after leaving Mr. Pembroke's, but Paul, who had no other home than a furnished room in a lodging house, returned according to his promise to see Mrs. White. He felt that there might be a chance that the daughter, Lizzie, could throw some light on Ivan's movements, but he had no doubt whatever that she herself had returned. He reached the house just as a postman was leaving it. Mrs. White stood in the hall, the door remaining open, nervously opening a letter. When she had read it she screamed, and would have fallen to the floor had not Paul sprung forward to catch her. She recovered in a moment sufficiently to sob: "I'm so glad you've come. Lizzie has gone! Read what she says." Paul took the letter which she tremblingly handed him and read: "DEAR MOTHER: I am going away and shall not come back for a long time. Do not be anxious, and do not try to find me. You are not to blame for anything, and I cannot now tell you why I go. Some time I may do so, and I may write to you. I don't know yet. Do not think unkindly of me. You will know some time that it is best. I love you and----" Two words here had been laboriously scratched out. Then came the signature, "Lizzie." Paul made out the erased words to be "I love." In spite of himself a dreadful fear came over him, a fear of something more painful for all of Ivan's friends to bear than an accident, no matter how serious. CHAPTER III. AN IMPERFECT VISION. Ivan Strobel had been a lodger in Mrs. White's house for more than two years. During the greater part of that period he had been the only lodger, and from the beginning his relations with his landlady had been more as if he were a friend of the family than merely a tenant. His evenings were not infrequently spent in Mrs. White's sitting-room, where his strongly domestic nature found some comfort in reading aloud to the old lady and her daughter, or in playing cards, or in telling them stories of European life. Sometimes his friends would call, and find him there instead of in his own room, and more than once he had been the target for good-humored chaffing relative to his supposed fondness for the landlady's daughter. On such occasions Strobel laughed lightly, as if it were out of the question that anybody should seriously harbor a supposition that he was in love with Lizzie. That was in the comparatively early days of his residence there; and one afternoon, about a year before his eventful wedding morning, Ralph Harmon and Paul Palovna called together and found him in his own quarters, serving Russian tea to Mrs. White and her daughter. He was evidently delighted to see his friends, and he promptly set glasses of the fragrant, hot beverage before them. Mrs. White was enthusiastic in her praise of the tea, as well she might be, for Russians are past-masters in the art of tea-brewing, and Ivan was one of the most skillful; and she slyly intimated that the woman who would have the first place in his future household would do well to place him in charge of the kitchen. Ivan smiled and blushed as if pleased at the allusion, and while his friends commended the idea with noisy laughter, Miss Lizzie sat silent, sipping her tea with downcast eyes. Shortly afterward the ladies withdrew, and Palovna immediately began to tease Strobel about Lizzie. "On my word, Ivan," he cried, "you begin very badly. If you show her what a fine hand you have for kitchen-work, you'll never have any time to yourself after you're married. It's a fine thing to serve tea to your friends when you're a bachelor, but fancy a man setting the kettle to boil for his wife! Great Scott! what a picture!" Both visitors laughed heartily, but Strobel, with a grave smile, held up one hand deprecatingly. "I don't mind your raillery in the least," he said, "but it does injustice to the young lady who is the innocent subject of it rather than myself. I'm glad you came in as you did, for I have something to tell you, and, in fact, it was to tell Mrs. White and Lizzie the same thing that I invited them to take tea with me. I am engaged to Miss Hilman." "I'm mighty glad to hear it, and I congratulate you," exclaimed Ralph, jumping up and grasping Ivan by the hand. "And I, too," said Paul, not less sincerely; "pardon my joking. I hadn't suspected that the wind blew from that direction. When is it to be?" Then Strobel told them about his plans, and from that day until this minute, when Paul stood by the weeping landlady, with her daughter's incoherent letter in his hand, he had never associated Ivan and Lizzie in any other way than as ordinary friends. When, earlier in the afternoon, Mrs. White had said something that seemed to suggest the possibility that they had gone away together, Paul's indignation had been aroused, and it was with an effort that he had mastered his tongue, which fairly burned to deny such an outrageous assumption. He had dismissed the thought later, with the conviction that Mrs. White could not have realized the true significance of her words. Now, utterly at a loss to account for his friends' absence, he was compelled to face any suggestion that arose and make the best of it. "There is at least some comfort in this, Mrs. White," he said, unsteadily; "you know that your daughter is alive, and she says she may write to you. She would not have written this had she meant to hide herself completely from you." The mother's anguish was not to be tempered with this argument. The poignant fact remained that her daughter had gone away, deserted her home, and neglected deliberately to take her mother into her confidence. "How could she?" moaned Mrs. White; "why, oh, why has she done this?" Paul had hard questions to ask, hard for him as well as for her. "Mrs. White," he said, "you have shown me Lizzie's letter; will you let me help you if I can?" "Yes, yes!" she answered eagerly, raising her tearful eyes. The very proffer of sympathy and assistance helped to restore her to some degree of composure, and she opened the door to the sitting-room. "I forgot where we were," she said apologetically; "please come in and sit down." Paul complied, and, still with the letter in his hand, began: "I shall have to ask questions that would be impertinent if you had not said that I might try to help you. Do you--was Lizzie engaged?" "Oh, no!" replied Mrs. White, with a little gasp; "what made you think so?" "I don't think so, and what I really tried to ask was whether she were in love with anybody?" Mrs. White looked doubtfully at him. Her eyes were dry now, and she toyed nervously with her apron. "My daughter didn't tell me she was going away," she answered slowly after a minute; "if she wouldn't tell me that, how should you expect that she would speak to me of her love--if she did love anybody?" Paul was somewhat nettled at this apparent effort to juggle with his question. The situation seemed to him too serious to admit of anything but the most complete frankness. "I don't ask how you know, or why you don't, Mrs. White," he said as gently as he could; "I simply asked for a statement of fact." The landlady looked down at the floor, evidently trying to frame an answer. Paul would have dropped the matter right there, disgusted at her reticence if not her indirection, had he not been determined to learn everything possible that might throw light upon the fate of his friends. So he began on another tack. "Weren't you invited to Strobel's wedding, Mrs. White?" he asked. "Yes," she replied promptly, not suspecting the ultimate aim of the question; "both of us received invitations." "Why didn't you go?" "Lizzie didn't want to go. She said weddings always made her feel solemn, and I didn't want to go without her." "Wasn't there a deeper reason, Mrs. White, for your daughter's reluctance to go to Ivan Strobel's wedding?" "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Palovna," said the landlady, glancing at him and averting her eyes. Paul wanted to tell her that she was trying to dodge him, but he controlled himself and said: "I mean that in my opinion your daughter was hopelessly in love with Ivan." This statement did not provoke the storm that Paul had expected. Mrs. White's reserve had prepared him for an outburst of denials, indignant tears and the like, but the old lady sat very still, her hands clasped upon her lap, and after a little silence she spoke dreamily: "Lizzie never told me, but I guessed as much long ago, poor, dear girl!" Paul's heart sank as he felt his fears growing to conviction that the flight of Lizzie White was closely connected with the disappearance of Ivan Strobel. He was not disloyal to his friend even in his thoughts; he kept insisting to himself that Ivan was not the man to play all his friends double, but even as he rebelled against this possible explanation of the matter, reason interposed its stern voice to say that if, after all, Strobel had discovered that he loved Lizzie and not Clara, this was the probable course he would take to avoid facing the comments and criticisms of his friends; and although he repelled the explanation with all his will, he nevertheless felt a dreadful sense of doubt. "Mrs. White," he said gravely, "have you any reason to think that Strobel and your daughter went away together?" The landlady started as if she had been shot. "Of course not!" she cried; "how could you think such a thing? Why should you insult my poor child----" and she broke down and sobbed bitterly. Palovna was miserable. He saw that he had utterly misinterpreted Mrs. White's reluctance in answering his questions; that, far from suspecting that Lizzie's departure might be an elopement with Ivan, she had instinctively tried to guard her daughter's secret. "I am exceedingly sorry that I have hurt you," said Paul, contritely, "I don't think, cannot think that they have gone together; but, you see, I am in such a maze of anxiety about Strobel, everything is so strange and uncertain, that I--I hardly knew what I said." He paused, and Mrs. White, still sobbing, uttered some words of which the only one he understood was "cruel," and he promptly accepted it as applied to himself. "I can only repeat that I am sorry," he said. "Here is your letter. I fear I can be of no help to you unless you want me to take some message for you." "No--you cannot do anything now--I know you didn't mean it. Please come again to-morrow--when I can think--please, Mr. Palovna." So Paul left the house, wondering whether Mrs. White felt any unhappier than himself. He turned into Pemberton Square, and went as far as the door to police headquarters, halted abruptly and turned away. He could not be the one to fasten a suspicion of such a character upon his missing friend. If it were true that he had eloped, that ugly fact would be established soon enough without his giving any hints to the police detectives who were assigned to hunt for Ivan. The doctor had ordered Clara Hilman to bed, and under the first prostration of the blow she had willingly obeyed; but as evening came on and her mind cleared, she felt stronger, and at supper time she arose and dressed. She did not go down to the dining-room, and Louise brought delicacies to her chamber. She wished that Ralph and Paul would return, for she felt that she could talk with them now, and she longed intensely for any word, however insignificant, concerning her lover's movements. Louise sat with her, making well-intended efforts to distract her attention from the subject that was so terribly engrossing, and offering the comfort of hopeful assurances when it was evident that Clara could think of nothing else. The fact was that Louise disturbed Clara. Her thoughts were fixed in their own channel, and so obstinately clung there that it grew wearisome to attend to the interruptions that Louise was constantly making. So Clara said at last: "I think, dear, if you will forgive me, I would like to be alone a little while. I will call if I want anything." "To be sure, Clara," responded Louise, rising at once and putting her arms affectionately around her cousin; "I will go to my own room, and will come the minute you need me. Shall I get you anything to read?" "No, I cannot do anything but think, and I must think. Don't be alarmed. I am not going to let myself become ill." There was a faint, sweet smile upon her sad lips as she spoke, and, left to herself, she sat leaning slightly forward, her chin upon one hand, the other clinched upon her lap, gazing intently at the wall which she saw not. In its place was the carriage in front of Mrs. White's house, and as she watched it she saw the house door open and Ivan, her Ivan, come forth. She saw him turn to say good-by to the kind-hearted landlady, saw the happy smile upon his face, saw him enter the carriage, saw it start slowly away. This much of her lover's wedding journey was as clearly before her as if it were now occurring, and she were at a window in the house across the way from Mrs. White's in Ashburton Place. Her nerves strained to their utmost tension, she tried to follow the carriage. She could see that it turned into Somerset Street, but when it seemed to be at Beacon she could not tell which way it went. That it was still moving was apparent, but there was a confusion of vehicles and persons, streets and buildings, there was a pause--somewhere--was Ivan getting out? Was that he taking another carriage? Oh! why was not Paul here to tell her just what happened at this point, wherever it was? Why had she not heard his report when he was there to make it? Suddenly the confusion gave way, and the familiar wall was before her, but still she saw it not. Now she was listening. Did she hear her lover's name? Was it spoken in anger? It must be! it must be! They were speaking of him; who were they? In this house? where else if she heard it? Could it be that she had heard nothing? To her ear there was no tangible sound save the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Clara arose and crossed the room, staggering with weakness, and placed her hand upon the door. One instant she waited as if in doubt, and then she opened it very softly. Yes! there were voices below; they were in the library; that was her uncle speaking. Had she a right to listen? She stole to the head of the stairs and looked down. The library door was closed. The voice was an unintelligible murmur, nothing more. Down the stairs she crept and came to the library door. "Are you money-mad?" It was her uncle who spoke. "Don't you know that it hasn't come, that such a thing can't be effected in a moment?" "And I tell you, Mat Pembroke," said a harsh voice, "that you've got----" The voice suddenly stopped, and the speaker, the infirm old man who had arrived late at the church while the wedding party was waiting in the vestibule, half rose from his big chair and pointed with a bony, trembling hand over Mr. Pembroke's shoulder. Mr. Pembroke turned about and saw Clara Hilman with wide-open eyes and pale face standing just within the doorway. "Forgive me, uncle," she said in a voice scarce above a whisper; "I thought you were speaking of Ivan, and I--I came down to say that I am going to find him." She swayed slightly as she finished, and Mr. Pembroke ran forward and took her in his arms. CHAPTER IV. CLARA'S SEARCH BEGINS. Clara had not fainted in her uncle's arms, but she nestled against him quivering and sobbing; and again it was fortunate for her that the excited, pent-up forces of her brain had broken through in a flood of tears. "You see, Dexter!" cried Mr. Pembroke in broken accents, "how my poor girl suffers. There, there, Clara, better get back to your bed and try to sleep. I thought Louise was looking after you." "She has been with me," replied Clara, "but I sent her away. I wanted to think. Has nothing been heard from Ivan?" "Nothing yet, my dear. You shall know it as soon as we do even if it comes at three in the morning." Attracted by her cousin's voice, Louise appeared at this moment and led Clara upstairs, scolding her gently for having left her room. Clara was greatly subdued, and urged no longer to be left alone. Through the rest of the evening she sat quietly listening to Louise, and feeling no return of that tensity of the nerves that had preceded and accompanied her waking dream. In the morning she was better, stronger in every way. She met her uncle and cousin at breakfast, and although she was very quiet she seemed more like her natural self than they had expected. Every newspaper had something to say about the disappearance of Ivan Strobel, and the reporters, apparently, had interviewed everybody directly interested in him except the unhappy bride herself. The newspapers were in a pile by her uncle's plate when she surprised him by entering the room and taking her place at the table. "I'd like to see the papers, uncle," she said after responding to his greetings. Mr. Pembroke glanced nervously at his daughter, and laid his hand irresolutely on the pile. "I am afraid you won't find anything of comfort in them, my dear," he said. "No matter," she replied, "I don't expect to. Don't try to keep them from me. I shall get them later if I do not read them now." Mr. Pembroke passed them all to her except one which he opened and pretended to read himself. He had already been through it, and he did not intend, if he could help it, that she should see it. Clara intently read the account of the interrupted wedding in the first paper she took up, pausing only once to exclaim, "Then the reporters were here last evening!" "Yes," said Mr. Pembroke, "they were coming and going until long after midnight." "I almost wish I could have seen some of them," murmured Clara as she continued to read. The report told with fair accuracy about the break-down at Park and Tremont Streets and the explanation of it given by the stableman. Mrs. White was quoted, and as much as the reporter could imagine was made of the visit to Strobel by the mysterious stranger. Then there were interviews with the missing man's employers, State Street bankers, and the highly gratifying intelligence was set forth that there was no reason to suppose that Strobel had tampered with the funds or in any way betrayed his trust. Clara blushed with indignation as she read that the books would be examined in the morning, with a view to discovering whether Strobel had been guilty of any irregularities. "The idea that Ivan should be suspected of dishonesty!" exclaimed Clara, laying the paper down and taking up another. "People will think anything and everything," said her uncle, "and you must be prepared for the worst insinuations and speculations." Clara read the next account in silence. It was much longer than the first, and a great deal of attention and imagination had been devoted to the romantic aspect of the situation. Clara was described as utterly prostrated by the blow, dangerously ill, refusing to see her most intimate friends; and the intended union of the beautiful orphan with the Russian exile was dwelt upon with appropriate grace and picturesqueness. She blushed for herself this time and laid the paper down impatiently. "I shall show them," she said, "if they pay any further attention to the affair, that I am not prostrated by the blow, hard as it is." "What do you mean, Clara?" asked Mr. Pembroke and Louise together. "Just what I said last evening, uncle. I am going to find Ivan." "Why! dear, what can you do?" cried Louise, pityingly. "Do? I don't know yet what the details will be, but I can search for him. What better, what else could I do? If we had been married, and Ivan had disappeared, would it not be my duty as well as my inclination to turn the world upside down to find him? Should it make any difference just because the formal word had not been spoken that was to make us husband and wife?" Her voice trembled a little at the end of this brief speech, and her eyes were moist, but she took up a third paper resolutely and began to read. She had debated her situation thoroughly in the long hours of the previous day and evening, and her determination to devote herself to the search for her lover was not the effect of a temporary hallucination. Her uncle and cousin said nothing for the present either to dissuade or encourage her, Louise, at least, feeling that in due time Clara would see the futility of attempting anything on her own account as long as experienced detectives were in the field. Mr. Pembroke left the room for a moment, and when he returned the paper he had been reading was folded and hidden in his pocket. There was still another before Clara, and when she had read it she pushed them all away, saying: "They're as much alike as if the same man had written them all." Mr. Pembroke was relieved that she did not notice that one of the morning papers was not included in the lot she had read. Hardly had they finished breakfast when the bell rang, and a reporter for an evening paper inquired for news of Mr. Strobel and Miss Hilman's health. Mr. Pembroke frowned with annoyance, but Clara was for seeing the young man. "I don't want to be pictured as a useless, waiting, tear-drenched weakling!" she cried when uncle and cousin remonstrated. "Publicity? notoriety? what could be worse than the notoriety I have already acquired? Let me see him, please, so that he may have no excuse for describing me as a broken-down, useless incumbrance." "I will speak to him first," said Mr. Pembroke, hastily. "Wait here a minute. I'll send for you when I have heard what it is he wants." So Clara and Louise remained at the breakfast table, and a few minutes later Mr. Pembroke opened the door and said with an assumption of cheerfulness: "There! you see, sir, the young lady is bearing her trouble more bravely than the morning papers announced. This is Miss Hilman, Mr. Shaughnessy, and my daughter, Louise." Mr. Shaughnessy, thus introduced, entered the room bowing with old-fashioned extravagance. His head was bald as an egg, and his face was three-fourths concealed by a grizzly beard. The "young man" could no longer look forward to his sixtieth birthday. He wore gold-bowed eyeglasses, and in one hand he held hat and note-book and in the other a stub of a pencil. "Char-r-med, ladies," he said, "to see you looking so fine upon this gr-rievous occasion. May I ask, Miss Hilman, how you passed the night?" What with surprise at her uncle's maneuver in bringing the reporter to the breakfast room, and amusement at the courtly yet business-like manners of the "young man," Clara could not have repressed a smile if she had tried; and before she could reply, Mr. Shaughnessy had whipped his note-book to the top of his hat and written the significant mnemonic, "smile." "I slept quite as usual, thank you," replied Clara. "I am delighted to hear it," said Shaughnessy; "health, Miss Hilman, is the greatest pr-rop in time of trouble. Have you any obser-rvation to make upon Mr. Strobel's absence? Any theor-ry to account for it?" "No theory, Mr. Shaughnessy, though I hope to have one some time later in the day. I should like to have you tell your readers that I have absolute faith in Mr. Strobel, and that I expect any theory as to his disappearance to accord with honorable conduct on his part." "Yes, yes," said the reporter, scribbling away for dear life, that he might not lose a word of this important utterance. "Do I understand you to say that you expect to have news of your--Mr. Strobel before the day is over?" "I shall devote all my time to searching for him." "Clara!" exclaimed Louise, while Mr. Pembroke turned away with a despairing shrug. Shaughnessy looked doubtingly at Mr. Pembroke, and then said: "May I have the honor of calling on you later, then?" "I shall be glad at any time," replied Clara, "to give you any information in my power." Shaughnessy made a note. "I hope you will pardon me seeming imper-rtinence, Miss Hilman," he continued, "but me city editor commanded me to obtain photographs of yourself and Mr. Strobel." Louise sighed and looked genuinely alarmed; but Clara thought a moment, and answered that she would loan the reporter pictures if he would be sure to return them uninjured. "I shall be sure to do so," he answered, "and I commend your decision. It saves me a lot of trouble, for, of course, I must obey me city editor; he's a tyrant, Miss Hilman, and if you did not give me the pictures, I should have to get them elsewhere." Clara smiled as she left the room to get the photographs, and when she had given them to Shaughnessy he took his departure, promising to call again. "How could you give him the pictures, Clara?" asked Louise reproachfully. "Mine will do no harm," answered Clara, quietly; "didn't you hear him say he was bound to get it anyway? Moreover, it may help in discovering Ivan, if only they will print a good likeness of him." Clara was right in one respect at least. Nearly every evening paper published pictures of herself and Ivan, and nobody at the Pembroke house could have told where the originals were obtained. "Now I must keep my word and begin the search," said Clara after the reporter had gone. "You're not going to leave the house, I hope?" exclaimed her uncle. "Certainly, uncle," she replied; "I feel quite well, and I will not overtax myself. I can stand anything better than staying idle here." "I am strongly disposed to forbid you," said Mr. Pembroke, anxiously; "you are sure to have a most disagreeable and painful experience." "Please don't go!" cried Louise, who had read the paper that Mr. Pembroke had concealed. "I am sorry to displease you both," returned Clara, "but if I am forbidden to go I shall have to disobey." "Then Louise must go with you," said her uncle. "I should like to have her. Will you, Lou, dear?" Louise was only too anxious to accompany her cousin, and accordingly they left the house together just in time to escape a squad of reporters representing the other evening papers. Clara had arranged her programme the night before, and left word at the house for Ralph and Paul, should they come in her absence, to go to Ivan's room. Mrs. White had seen Clara on the few occasions when Mr. Strobel had served afternoon tea to his intended and other friends, and she fell into a great flurry of agitation when she recognized her at the door. "Come in," she stammered as she led the way; "of course I am glad to see you, for I am certain you cannot believe it." Louise tried to check the landlady from making the inevitable revelation, but Clara laid one hand on her cousin's arm and asked: "Believe what, Mrs. White?"' "Why, what's in the paper," replied the landlady; "you've read the papers, I suppose? I presumed that was why you came." "I read the papers," said Clara, "and I came to inquire about Ivan. Do you refer to the suggested irregularities in his accounts? Of course I do not believe anything of that kind." "Dear, no! I didn't suppose you did. I meant about my daughter Lizzie." "Your daughter!" exclaimed Clara in a low voice, while Louise hid her face in her hands. "What do you mean? Let me see the paper." More agitated than ever, Mrs. White produced a copy of the paper that Mr. Pembroke had withheld from his niece. "I must have overlooked this," said Clara, wonderingly, as she saw that the account differed in style from those she had read. The reporter of this paper, sharper than his rivals, had somehow discovered that Lizzie White had left her home, and he set forth the circumstances with every delicate turn that language would allow to suggest a connection between her flight and Ivan's disappearance. "It is shrewdly suspected by the friends of Strobel," so the story ran, "that as the time of his marriage approached, he found his fancy for Miss White stronger than his love for Miss Hilman, and that he chose elopement with the former as less dishonorable than marriage with the latter." The writer then proceeded to an elaborate explanation of how Strobel might himself have arranged the wheel of his coupé so that it would fall off, and how he might then, by previous understanding with the second cabman, who was also conveniently missing, have been driven to the Park Square railroad station, where he waited for Miss White. It was entirely possible that they might have taken the one o'clock train for New York, if not the noon train. Clara was very pale when she laid the paper down, but her faith in Ivan was not so much as touched by doubt. "It's an outrage," she said quietly. "I knew you wouldn't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. White. "Believe it! of course it isn't true! It's not possible!" There was a ring at the door just then, and Mrs. White excused herself to answer it. She opened upon Ivan's mysterious visitor, Alexander Poubalov. CHAPTER V. THE AGENT OF THE CZAR. "Good-morning," said Poubalov, gutturally; "this is Madame White, I believe?" "Yes, sir," replied the landlady, impressed at once by the stranger's deferential manner, and believing that through him the mystery would be cleared away; "won't you come in?" "Thank you, yes. I have called to inquire for my friend Strobel." "You are not the first, sir," said Mrs. White, opening the door to the sitting-room. "There are two here now who will be glad to see you. Miss Hilman, this is the gentleman who called on Mr. Strobel yesterday morning. Miss Hilman was to have married him, you know, and this is Miss Pembroke," and having thus awkwardly initiated a new scene, Mrs. White took refuge in the nearest chair. Poubalov was as near to showing surprise as he ever permitted himself to come, and Clara, rising impulsively, went directly to him and said: "Then you can tell me something about Mr. Strobel, can you not?" "I can tell you nothing," he answered gravely; "I came for information myself." Clara looked into his eyes searchingly, and went back to her chair feeling that her greatest hope had been dashed to the ground. "I feel the awkwardness of my position, ladies," continued Poubalov (I make no attempt to suggest his dialect, which was at times almost unintelligible, as there was nothing of a humorous or trivial character in his conversation). "Every newspaper makes me out as a possible foe to Mr. Strobel, a mysterious ogre going about seeking to destroy young men, and perhaps I should not blame anybody for supposing that I might have been concerned in preventing Mr. Strobel's marriage, but I assure you that I was not. I did not know of his intentions until yesterday morning, when he told me about it himself. I am as much surprised as anybody to read of his disappearance." Poubalov paused and with marked deliberation took out his card case. "It was but natural," said Clara, tremulously, "that we should hope that you could throw some light on his movements, for knowing nothing except that somebody had called on him unexpectedly, we could not fail to attribute something significant to the visit." "Especially," put in Mrs. White, "as the young men and I hunted the house over for your card and couldn't find it." "All very natural," responded Poubalov, imperturbably, "and it was a circumstance of the utmost triviality in itself that lent color to my mysterious coming and going. You remember, Mrs. White, do you not, that you took my card to Mr. Strobel?" "Yes, indeed, and he--I don't want to give offense--he didn't seem particularly pleased to see it." "So you told the newspaper men. I am not in the least offended. Here is the card you took to him. I asked Mr. Strobel where I might call upon him after his wedding tour, and he wrote that address upon my own card. Of course I took it away with me." He handed the card to Clara, adding: "I want you to see that I am concealing nothing, and if my voluntary return to this house did not signify anything, your suspicions should certainly be relieved by seeing that Strobel himself made a semi-appointment with me at his future home." "I hope, Mr. Poubalov," said Clara, with her eyes upon the card, "that you will forgive us for cherishing any unjust suspicions. At the worst, they were vague, and everything is so confusing." "I feel that there is nothing to forgive," began Poubalov, graciously, when Mrs. White interrupted, her mind naturally intent upon her own trouble: "And such horrid things as they say, too! You said you had read the papers?" "Yes, all of them." "Did you read about my daughter?" and the distressed mother rose, and, taking the newspaper from Clara's lap, thrust it into his hands. Without looking at it, Poubalov answered: "I read it." "And what do you think of it?" cried Mrs. White, stemming a fresh flood of tears. Poubalov's brows contracted slightly as a sign that he disapproved forcing this question forward at the time, and with a grave glance at Clara he replied: "I do not think. I watch, ask questions, and listen." Clara hardly knew whether to be encouraged or depressed by this answer. Unless this man were an intimate friend of Ivan, it was perhaps not to be expected that he should see the folly of supposing for an instant that the missing man had eloped with Lizzie White. "Mr. Poubalov," she said, "the reports in the newspapers do not throw the least light on this matter. I have no criticism to make on their statements of fact, but their conjectures of every kind are idle. They do not even disturb me." Poubalov bowed as if to signify that he heard and understood. "The cause of his disappearance," she continued after a moment, "it is yet to be found. The newspapers have not even hinted at it." "You have an idea, then," he said, "as to the correct explanation?" "No, not one," she answered; "I can only think of accident; but had there been any accident so serious as to render him unconscious and helpless, the police would have discovered it and reported it by this time, would they not?" "They would if your police are nearly as efficient as those of European cities," said Poubalov, "and I have no doubt they are so to the extent of such emergencies as this case presents." "Then, don't you see, the whole mystery is confined to two general solutions; either Mr. Strobel was seized by enemies and carried away; or he had some powerful reason for absenting himself, and disappeared voluntarily." The Russian was surprised and deeply impressed by the young lady's clearness of vision, and Louise, listening with rapt attention, was simply amazed to hear her cousin reason so calmly when every word she uttered must have cost her pain. "And which of these hypotheses," asked Poubalov, guardedly, "do you consider the more probable?" "I have no means of judging between them," replied Clara, "for I have no fact except the disappearance to justify either one. It seems as if there must be some other theory, if I could only think what it is." "There is no other," said Poubalov, "if you eliminate accident, as I think you properly do." "Then I must consider what grounds there might be for supporting both hypotheses. As I discard as utterly worthless all the suggestions in the newspapers, I must suppose that Mr. Strobel had enemies, and that these enemies were powerful enough either to abduct him in broad day on a crowded thoroughfare, or cause him such sudden fear that he felt obliged to go into hiding." Again was Poubalov surprised, for he could not himself have reasoned more clearly, or have stated his conclusions more concisely; but he simply nodded gravely, expressing neither convictions or emotions. Clara wished that he would speak. She had expressed her thoughts as they came to her there in Mrs. White's sitting room. It was thinking aloud rather than a statement of previously formed conclusions. Now she saw to just what end her arguments were bringing her, and she almost shrank from it. Summoning her utmost resolution she looked straight at the sombre face of the Russian and added: "I have no knowledge of Ivan's enemies, Mr. Poubalov; isn't it possible that you can give some information on that phase of the case?" "Yes, it is," replied Poubalov, without hesitation. Then he paused a moment before he continued: "Were not the case so serious and for you so distressing, I should feel that I must compliment you on your unusual faculty for analyzing a situation. Far from taking offense at your continued suspicion of me, I am really pleased." "I have not said that I suspected you." "You did not need to, Miss Hilman. Your reason tells you that Mr. Strobel was happy and confident of the future until suddenly one Poubalov appears before him like the ghost of past misfortunes and as a prophet of new ones." "I assure you," interrupted Clara again, "that I did not know that you were not an intimate friend of Mr. Strobel's; I spoke simply of natural inferences." "My dear young lady," said the Russian, "you were helpless in the hands of your own reason." Clara was silent. She felt instinctively that her analysis was correct and that she was facing, if not one of Ivan's enemies, at the least a man who represented all that might be hostile to him; and when she had endeavored to withdraw some of the force of her reasoning, he himself had held her to her conclusions and clinched them. "It was my intention," continued Poubalov, "to learn from Mrs. White who you were, that I might solicit the privilege of calling upon you and laying before you what is in my knowledge concerning Mr. Strobel, for I fear that I may----" He stopped abruptly and looked from one to another of the wondering ladies. "Go on, please," exclaimed Clara, now stirred by a growing agitation; "if you can give us the faintest light it would be cruel to withhold it." "May I hope that no offense will be taken," said Poubalov, "if I say that I planned to tell these things to you only? I will be pleased to call at your own convenience." "No, no!" replied Clara, rising; "I must know now. Tell me here. Mrs. White, may we step into your dining-room?" Louise and the landlady had risen at the same moment, and Mrs. White said: "If Miss Pembroke doesn't object, she and I will go out. Only, Mr.--sir, if you have anything to say about my daughter, I wish you would let me hear it!" "It was not my intention to mention her, madame," replied Poubalov. Louise went to Clara's side and kissed her. "You are so brave, dear!" she said. Clara gave Louise a grateful look as she and Mrs. White withdrew, and turned expectantly to the Russian. "Pray sit down, Miss Hilman," he said; "what I have to say may not be as important and useful to you as you hope, but I preferred, and with good reason, as I think you will see, to discuss the matter with you alone. It was on my tongue to say that I may have been innocently a part of the cause that sent Mr. Strobel into hiding." "Yes," whispered Clara, eagerly; "go on!" "Miss Hilman, I am an agent of the czar." Poubalov paused as if he expected this announcement to disturb, or otherwise impress his listener seriously, but she merely looked straight at him, as she did when he began to speak. "Strobel knew me in that capacity," he continued, "years ago when we were in Russia. Has he ever told you about his life there?" "A little," replied Clara, very doubtful how much she ought to reveal to this man who represented the autocratic, relentless power that had destroyed the fortune of the Strobel family and made Ivan himself an exile. "You find it difficult to be frank with me," said Poubalov, "and I am not surprised, but you must remember that I am setting the example. It is quite the habit of thoughtless persons to apply an opprobrious epithet to my occupation and call me a spy. Well, then, I, Alexander Poubalov, spy, paid by the government of Russia, tell you who I am, and tell you that at one time Ivan Strobel had reason to fear me." The door bell rang while Poubalov was speaking and Clara heard Mrs. White pattering through the hall to answer it. The man at the door was known to the landlady as Strobel's tailor, an undersized, forlorn-looking man who seemed always to be struggling with secret woe. She knew that Strobel had been kind to him, and helped him in more ways than mere patronage, and she knew that poor Litizki was as grateful and loyal as a dog. It was with sincere welcome, therefore, that she greeted him, and asked him into the house. "I only came," said the tailor, "to ask if there is any news of Mr. Strobel? The newspapers say he has disappeared." "We know nothing of him here," answered Mrs. White; "but come in, do! There's no telling who may say the word that will put us all on the right track. Miss Hilman is here, the lady he was to marry, you know. She's talking with a gentleman now in the parlor. I presume she may like to see you." "I don't know that I can give her any help," said Litizki, following the landlady into the dining-room, "but I'll wait a few minutes, for I wanted to know something that the papers do not make clear." He came to a sudden halt as he stepped into the dining-room, where the voices of the persons in the front room were heard much more distinctly than in the hall. "Who is that talking?" he exclaimed in an excited whisper. "It's a gentleman who called on Mr. Strobel yesterday," replied Mrs. White; "I can't think of his name." "I should know that voice," muttered Litizki as if speaking to himself. The rooms were separated by folding doors with glazed glass panels. On one of the panels there was a tiny spot where the opaque glaze had been rubbed or knocked off. Litizki applied his eye to that spot, and shaded the glass with his hand, straining to get a clear view of the man whose deep voice came to him like the distant rumble of an organ. After a moment he straightened up and turned about, his sallow, depressed features gleaming with savage interest. "I cannot see clearly," he whispered, "but if that is Alexander Poubalov, then the whole mystery of Strobel's disappearance is cleared away!" CHAPTER VI. LITIZKI AT WORK. "It would have been perfectly natural," continued Poubalov, "for Strobel to suspect me at first blush of evil intentions, and I presume he did so; for, without inquiring what brought me to America and to him, he took pains to remind me that he was within the jurisdiction of the United States, and that it was not his purpose to set foot outside the limits of your country, of which I presume he is by this time a citizen." "He has taken out his first papers," replied Clara. "And, therefore, should have felt himself secure from one who, supposing he were hostile, yet acted as the official of a foreign and a friendly government. I give you credit, Miss Hilman, of drawing a correct conclusion from that statement of relations." Poubalov paused, and Clara responded slowly: "It ought to mean that he had other enemies than you or those whom you represent." "Exactly; but why do you hedge--pardon the term--why do you set forth the conclusion with reservation? 'It ought to mean,' is what you said. Why not say it does mean?" "Because I do not know whether you are telling me the truth." Poubalov leaned back in his chair, and his dark face was momentarily illumined by an amused smile. "May I light a cigarette?" he asked in a tone that seemed to say how patient he was under this continuance of suspicion that not even reason could dissipate. It was as if he had said, "With all your unexpected cleverness as a logician, Miss Hilman, you are yet a woman, and you cling desperately to woman's reasonless intuitions." "Oh, pardon me if I am cruelly unjust," cried Clara, as clearly the woman in her quick relenting as she was in following her intuitions; "have patience with me! You must know how distressed I am, and how hard it is to think clearly. Your very admission that you are a paid spy suggests deceit and trickery--I suppose I am making the matter worse." "By no means, Miss Hilman," replied Poubalov, holding a cigarette between his fingers; "we shall come to an understanding presently, I am sure. I never take offense, not even when my loyalty to the czar is doubted; and nothing you may say will prevent me from doing what I can to clear away the mystery surrounding Mr. Strobel." "Please light your cigarette," said Clara; "if you wouldn't make me talk, we should get on better." Poubalov smiled again, and when he had puffed a great cloud of fragrant smoke from his lips, he resumed: "I will proceed as if you cherished no doubts as to my sincerity. It follows, from my analysis, that Mr. Strobel could have had no fear of harm coming to him from an official of Russia. He never had reason to fear me as an individual; in fact, the individuality of Alexander Poubalov long since disappeared in the person of the official agent. Poubalov has no enmities, no friendships; all men are hostile or friendly to him, as they are the enemies or the adherents of the czar, whom God preserve! The next step in the analysis is to suggest the nature of Mr. Strobel's present enemies. You did not tell me so, but I presume you are aware that when Mr. Strobel was younger he permitted his generous sympathies to be enlisted in what he would then have called 'the people's party' of Russia. Without going into details with which every intelligent person is more or less familiar, I will remind you that, incidental to the so-called democratic movement in Russia, was the organization of a secret society the avowed purpose of which was the disruption of the empire." Poubalov paused, and puffed at his cigarette deliberately. "You want me to say something," cried Clara in desperation, "and I don't know what to say." "Pardon me," said the spy, suavely, "a woman of your cleverness will not resent it when I tell you that you misstate your difficulty. You could say much, perhaps, but you are afraid to." Clara's silence was an admission that Poubalov had spoken correctly, and after giving her ample time to deny his accusation, he continued: "You are afraid--and again you will pardon plain language--that you will involve your lover in fresh difficulties. Let me point out again that, so far as his offenses against the government of the czar are concerned, they were purely political offenses, and he is therefore in a perfectly secure asylum as long as he is on American soil, whether he be simply a refugee or a naturalized citizen. You must seek for his enemies, Miss Hilman, elsewhere than among the representatives of Russian authority." "You give me too much credit for cleverness," said Clara, "for I cannot follow you." "You know that the secret society to which I referred adopted the term nihilism as a definition of its principles, do you not? And you must know, even if Mr. Strobel never told you so, that the Nihilists were bound by the most awful oaths never to betray the secrets of their association." "Do you mean to say that Mr. Strobel was a Nihilist?" "Certainly; that was what I was driving at from the beginning. It was for that he was compelled to fly from Russia, and that is why he cannot return to his native land. The government has done much to stamp out the curse of nihilistic propaganda, and many members of the society have fled. Some are in Switzerland, some in England, others are here, here in Boston. Far from the field of their evil machinations, they cherish still their destructive ambitions as applied to Russia; and, Miss Hilman, they still keep watch on one another. It would fare ill with any Nihilist in America should he venture to betray his former associates in any way." "I suppose I understand you now" said Clara, slowly. "You mean that I must look for Ivan's enemies among the Russian exiles who live in Boston." "Or elsewhere in America." "If he really were connected with them in Russia, he would be the last man to betray them." "Doubtless; but would they credit him with such loyalty? May they not have imagined that, under certain circumstances, he might be induced to betray them? And may they not have conveyed such definite and fearful threats that he found it necessary to disappear?" "Do you mean by 'certain circumstances' his intended marriage?" "No. I may not mean anything. We shall see some day whether I do or not." "You speak in a constant succession of riddles. Why not continue your frankness, and be strictly open with me?" Poubalov lit a fresh cigarette, and after a long scrutiny of the ceiling, responded: "That is not my way, Miss Hilman. I am sincerely trying to suggest the clew to your difficult problem." Clara took her own turn at reflection, and said at last: "If Ivan felt obliged to disappear for a time, in order to escape his enemies, he would have managed to let me know." "It would seem so," admitted Poubalov, rising; "and that brings you to your last alternative." "Wait," exclaimed Clara, imperatively; "you bring me to the last alternative as if that were the end of my difficulties. Suppose it to be true that some Russian exiles, in a mistaken distrust of Mr. Strobel, have abducted him. Can you not suggest how I am to proceed to prove that and to rescue him?" "I hope to be able to do so, Miss Hilman, in a short time, a few days at most, and I assure you that I shall henceforth give my undivided attention to searching for Mr. Strobel." Clara knitted her brows in painful perplexity. "A woman situated as I am," she said presently, "ought to be stirred by nothing but gratitude; but the one thing I can think to say is, why do you interest yourself so deeply in the matter?" "Still distrustful," said Poubalov in his deepest tones. "Miss Hilman, I might resort to sophistry and direct deceit in answering your question. I might point out that the newspapers have placed me, though not as yet by name, in a disagreeable position from which it should be my earnest desire to extricate myself. I might declare that I was moved by friendship or admiration for Mr. Strobel. But it does not please me to practice arts of trickery with you. Public notoriety I care as little for as for the fly that buzzes harmlessly about my head. I never had friendship or admiration for Mr. Strobel, and I feel neither sentiment now. Alexander Poubalov's one sentiment is loyalty to his czar." "You haven't answered the question." "Because I cannot answer it without either deceit or the betrayal of my trust. But I shall nevertheless use every endeavor to find your lover. Will you care to hear from me from time to time?" "Yes," replied Clara, after a moment's thought; "certainly, yes. I do thank you for speaking to me as you have, and I wish I could trust you. I almost do trust you." "It would be too ungracious in me," responded Poubalov, "not to wish that you could trust me, and not to hope that some time in the near future you will find that in this matter you can do so absolutely." "I suppose it would be vain to ask you what you are going to do?" "As vain as for me to ask you to tell me all I would like to know about Mr. Strobel." "Mr. Poubalov," exclaimed Clara, earnestly, "there can be no reason why I should withhold anything from you. Your own argument proves that; and, besides, you know more about Ivan's connection with the nihilistic movement than I ever dreamed of. You perceive the distrust that I cannot conquer, but you believe me, do you not?" "Implicitly, Miss Hilman." "Then I assure you that, to my knowledge, Mr. Strobel has not had anything to do with nihilistic propaganda in this country for three years at least. He used to write some on Russian topics, but he abandoned that when he went into business, and--I may say, when he became acquainted with me. I think I know all his friends, all his associates, and among them all there is but one Russian, a gentleman like himself." "I am very glad to hear this," said Poubalov; "and now I will see what I can do. I cannot act as I would in Russia, but I can still accomplish something, I think. I hope to have the honor of calling upon you soon. I leave it entirely to you to speak of our conversation as you please, but I will go out without disturbing Madame White and your friend. Au revoir, Miss Hilman." The distinguished-looking Russian bowed and left the room and immediately afterward Clara heard the outside door close upon him. When Litizki, the forlorn-looking tailor, mentioned Poubalov's name, both Mrs. White and Louise Pembroke exclaimed "That's it!" and both came forward as if their anxiety were about to be dissipated at one stroke. "Who is he?" asked Mrs. White, eagerly. "He is--" began Litizki fiercely; "no! I must not speak. Let me go out, that I may watch him. He shall lead me to Ivan Strobel. Do not tell him that I have been here, do not mention my name." "Dear me! it makes me more nervous than ever," said Mrs. White, laying a hand on Litizki's arm to restrain him. "Do you think, Mr. Litizki, that he has done anything to Mr. Strobel?" "Think!" exclaimed the little tailor who seemed on fire with excitement, "it is the next thing to knowing! Not a word, remember!" He tip-toed his way through the hall as if it were night and he were a thief, and cautiously opened the outside door. He touched his hand dramatically to his lips as he closed it behind him, leaving Mrs. White terrified and Miss Pembroke bewildered. Litizki, even in a tumult of rage and desperation, was not a very impressive man to look at. It would have seemed that his fury could be quelled by a gentle cuff with the open hand, and that his whole being could be snuffed out with a vigorous pinch; but if ever man was terribly in earnest, he was, and a close observer might have noted the danger signals in the formation of his head and in the hang of his lips. This was a man who might be stirred to such depths that his whole shallow nature would be in commotion, when discretion would be cast off like flecks of foam from an on-rushing wave; and then let an enemy be wary, for even a slender arm, like that of the little tailor, may strike a fatal blow! It seemed a long, long time to Litizki that Poubalov continued his conversation with Miss Hilman. He dared not linger near the house lest the spy should see him from a window, or emerge suddenly from the doorway and so discover that eager eyes were directed to his movements. Litizki slunk into one doorway after another, never staying long in one, lest he be warned away with sufficient outcry to alarm Poubalov, whose ear, he believed, was acutely tuned to the slightest sounds, and who found untoward significance even in the vagrant breeze. At last the door opened, and Litizki dodged into an open hall, only to flit out again as soon as he saw Poubalov turn toward Somerset Street. Arrived there, he turned down the hill, and then Litizki ran forward to the corner around which he peered cautiously. It would not have surprised him if his face had touched that of Poubalov as he did so, for it would have seemed to him but natural that the spy should think that he was followed and should wait there for the purpose of trapping his adversary. But, no; Poubalov was progressing calmly down the street, and at Howard he again turned to the left. Litizki ran after, fearful of losing his man in the more crowded street, saw him cross Bulfinch into Bulfinch Place, and finally open the door of a lodging house with a latch-key. "So!" thought the tailor, noting the number of the house and turning back, "he chooses his room within a stone's throw of Ivan Strobel's, and then takes a roundabout way to go from one house to the other. That is like him. Alexander Poubalov could not be direct in conversation or action even if he were intent upon a good deed--which would be impossible." The suggestion was so grotesquely absurd that Litizki laughed and shuddered at once. "Now," he reflected, "shall I tell the police where to look for Ivan Strobel, or shall I consult with his lady? I will go back and see her first." CHAPTER VII. A DANGEROUS MAN. For some minutes after Poubalov left the house Clara sat motionless, reviewing the strange discourse of the Russian, trying to persuade herself one moment to trust him, and the next impulsively throwing aside the theories so finely spun from his innuendoes and circumlocutions. She shuddered at the thought of Ivan in the hands of such fanatics as she knew were included in the most rabid enemies of Russian polity, and as promptly felt such a solution of the mystery to be impossible. Equally impossible seemed the solution that premised a fear on the part of Ivan so great that he dared not let even his intended wife know of his whereabouts. Removed from the influence of Poubalov's magnetic personality and his subtle arguments, Clara felt that it was to him rather than to the Nihilists that she must look for implacable hostility to Ivan. Yet why should Ivan, resident in and prospective citizen of the United States, fear him, an "official agent of a friendly government"? Fear? That was not like the Ivan she knew and loved! Was it not again impossible that her lover should have been so stirred by fear of anybody or anything as to take flight and conceal his hiding-place from her? On the other hand, how could she know what influences had been suddenly applied to Ivan to make him take a seemingly indefensible if not impossible course? And what was more impossible, in any of the suggested solutions, than his very disappearance, which was a painful fact, although hard to realize even after nearly twenty-four hours had passed since the time set for his wedding? The dining-room door was softly opened, and Mrs. White put in her head. "Has he gone?" she whispered. "Yes," replied Clara, starting up as if she had been aroused from sleep. "Come in." Louise approached her cousin solicitously. "We have had such a fright!" she said taking Clara in her arms; "I didn't know whether to be more alarmed when we could hear his deep voice than after the sound of it had ceased altogether." "Why should you have feared?" asked Clara; "you couldn't suppose that I was in any danger in Mrs. White's house, could you?" "No," answered Louise, "but the air is full of excitement; and while Mr. Poubalov was talking, another Russian came in who is friendly to Ivan. Mrs. White says he is a tailor, a very poor man whom Ivan befriended, and an exile like himself. He recognized Poubalov's voice, and declared positively that his presence here explained Ivan's fate. He was terribly agitated and refused to stay, saying that he must follow Poubalov. We couldn't tell what to make of it." This little narration came as a new shock to Clara. She had told Poubalov that among all of Ivan's friends there was but one Russian, and she had in mind, of course, Paul Palovna. She had never heard of this tailor, and although it might not follow that Ivan would count among his friends a poor man whom he might have befriended, was it not a reasonable inference that this poor man was a Nihilist? and that if there were one brought to light, that there might be many others whose identity would ever remain unknown to her? Had she not heard how the great body of the nihilistic society was made up of the poor? and this man had recognized Poubalov! That was significant, surely; but just what inference of value she should draw from it was anything but clear. While these thoughts and questions were chasing through her brain, Litizki and Paul Palovna arrived at the house, coming from different directions. Paul approached Clara with marked constraint. "Do not be afraid, my friend," she said, extending her hand; "I am quite strong and hopeful. I have read the papers, all of them, and they do not disturb me. I cannot thank you enough for what you did for me yesterday." "I am glad to hear you speak so bravely," responded Paul; "you mustn't feel indebted to me, however, for Strobel is the best friend I ever had, and it would be strange indeed if I did not try to find him. I suppose it is almost unkind to ask if there is any news?" "There is none exactly, and yet I have heard some things that you can advise me about better than anybody else." "Miss Hilman," interposed Mrs. White, "this is Mr. Litizki, the man Miss Pembroke was telling you about." Clara, intent upon referring Poubalov's suggestions to Paul, had not seen the little tailor come in. Now she turned and confronted Litizki with mingled hope and alarm; hope that this man, whose positive utterance had been reported, might give her a definite clew; alarm lest he be one of the most irreconcilable of revolutionists, a man who would sacrifice friends and family for a cause that he imagined just. Her doubts increased as she saw the wild gleam in his small eyes, that lit up his sallow face and made it glow with fierce intensity. Ivan had befriended him; must she distrust him, too? "I am glad to see you," she said with a quick resolution to win this man, and she surprised the tailor and made him speechless for the moment by grasping his hand warmly. "You have come to tell me something about Mr. Poubalov, or Mr. Strobel, or both?" Litizki, embarrassed and awed by this queenly young woman who looked into his eyes so searchingly and withal so graciously, cleared his throat, shifted about on his feet, and a faint tinge of red actually found its way to his sunken cheeks. "Yes," he answered after a moment, catching his breath with a gasp and swallowing as if he took oxygen into his system by way of his stomach; "yes, Miss Hilman, about both, if you please." He paused, excitement and embarrassment making it difficult to say anything coherently. "Poubalov?" said Paul, whose brows had contracted ominously when he heard the name, and who took advantage of the pause to ask, "What Poubalov is that?" "Can there be more than one who would hound a poor Russian the world over?" rasped Litizki, turning upon Paul, intense excitement blazing again in his usually dull eyes; "it is none other than Alexander Poubalov, spy, informer, traitor!" The little tailor trembled visibly as he hissed these words, and he turned to Clara as if to make certain that they should impress her deeply. "What, in the name of all that is right, does Poubalov do here?" asked Paul. "Do?" cried Litizki; "does he ever do anything but spy upon the poor? Ask what has he done here, and I will tell you that he has captured our Strobel, and has him bound in chains, waiting only a convenient and safe opportunity to convey him from the country to the presence of the little father[A] and then, Siberia, or----" and the tailor drew his hand significantly across his throat. [A] Russian familiar name for the czar. Clara observed Paul, not the tailor, during this extravagant speech. Would Palovna, an intelligent man, free from excitement, condemn and ridicule Litizki's assertions as wild and imaginary? No; he listened gravely and gave no sign that he discredited the tailor in the least. Noticing Clara's inquiring look, Paul said: "We Russians, Miss Hilman, are inclined to credit almost any monstrosity in the way of crime, treachery and violence to men like Alexander Poubalov. To us he stands as guilty of anything with which he is charged until he incontestably proves himself innocent." Clara's heart sank heavily, but she knew that she could trust Paul. "May I tell you something?" she asked, and he followed her into the dining-room. There she hurriedly repeated the substance of Poubalov's discourse, laying especial stress upon his warning relative to distrustful Nihilists. "It's a splendid argument," said Paul when she had finished; "I suppose you were attracted by his very frankness in admitting that he is a spy? That was a characteristic move. Mind you, I never had trouble with Poubalov; I wouldn't know him if I saw him, but I know about him. He is a very prince of spies, a past-master in the art of deceit, and many, many shrewd men have been the victims of his seeming candor. You may be sure he masks some villainy beneath his frankness, for he never was known to do a disinterested act." "He spoke as if he were here upon some mission," suggested Clara. "Certainly, but he wouldn't tell you what that mission was. That it had to do with Strobel is certain. I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, Miss Hilman, but Poubalov is a most dangerous man. It may be well for us that you have faced him, though we must necessarily have discovered his presence soon, and to see him is to suspect. We at least know where to look. Litizki is an impressionable, excitable man, but he may be right, nevertheless. I am sure that you can trust him, whether or not there is anything in Poubalov's nihilistic suggestions. And as to that, I don't believe there is--not with him about. Plenty of false notions prevail about the Russian revolutionists, and it would be to Poubalov's interest to arouse dread of them in your mind. Anything to distract attention and suspicion from himself." They returned to the front room. Litizki had recovered from his excitement, and was more like his customary, depressed self, but though he spoke quietly it was with bitter emphasis and strong conviction. "I believe," he said, "that Poubalov instigated if he did not take part in the abduction of Mr. Strobel. I am convinced that he has him now in hiding, and the question only is whether we are to inform the police or take action ourselves." "The police," responded Paul, "would not proceed against Poubalov on the strength of our suppositions. He would intrench himself in his official position, and insist on compliance with all forms of law; and during the delay, if, indeed, he has Strobel in his power, he would spirit him away." "So I think," said Litizki, "and as he won't dare to remove Strobel until the interest in his disappearance dies down, unless he were openly attacked in the manner you suggest, I intend, if Miss Hilman agrees, to hunt for our friend in my own way. I shall do so to-night. I must find him." He looked inquiringly at Clara. "I cannot say yes or no," she replied; "you are a friend of Mr. Strobel's and you will do what you think best. Only, let me know what you find." There was a gleam of pleasure in Litizki's eyes, followed by an expression of sullen determination as he responded: "You shall hear from me to-morrow." "Lou," said Clara, "I think we had better go home now. I am feeling very worn. If any of you hear the least word, I wish you would come to see me." As she prepared to leave she took occasion to whisper to Paul: "I do not know that I do right in encouraging Litizki. My feeling is that the more there are at work and the more various the methods, the greater is the chance of success. May I leave it to you to prevent Litizki, if possible, from any act that would be indiscreet, or worse?" "I will do what I can," said Paul; "but he is, after all, an irresponsible agent. I am inclined to think that good will come of his investigation, whatever he does." It was the luncheon hour when the young ladies reached home, and Mr. Pembroke had arrived before them. His face expressed painful anxiety as he greeted his niece. "My poor child," he said, "you have heard everything, I suppose?" "I have heard a great deal, uncle," replied Clara, "and appreciate your motives in withholding the paper from me that published the wicked rumor that Ivan had eloped, but you should have known me better. Do you suppose, uncle dear, that that rumor disturbed me? I dismiss it more lightly than anything that has been said." "Poor child! poor child!" sighed Mr. Pembroke. "Why do you say that?" asked Clara, sitting down wearily. "Of course, I am sorrowful; nobody can realize what I suffer; but I am confident that Ivan has done no wrong, and I cannot believe that we shall not find him. I have returned to rest, not to give up the search." "Clara, my dear girl," said her uncle, tenderly, "you'd best give it up. You have a great sorrow to bear, but I know how brave you are. There is no occasion for further search." "No occasion! Uncle, what do you mean?" "The detective assigned from headquarters to make an investigation has been to see me." "Yes, yes! what did he say?" "The worst possible, Clara. He is convinced that Strobel went to New York, if not with Lizzie White, then to join her there. It is the only possible explanation of his disappearance." "No! no! you know nothing about it, and the detective is a fool!" cried Clara. Mr. Pembroke was immensely surprised at this violent outbreak, when he had expected tears, prostration, the deepest grief. It occurred to him that perhaps his niece's mind had been unsettled by her trouble. She sat looking at him with blazing eyes, her face flushed, her foot nervously patting the floor. "You are greatly excited, Clara," ventured her uncle, gently. "Tell me what the detective said!" retorted Clara, imperiously. "He has found that a closed carriage, such as we know Strobel took at the corner of Park and Tremont Streets, halted at the Park Square Station shortly after that time. The passenger was a young man who answered the description of Strobel. He paid the driver, went into the station, bought a ticket for New York, and immediately took his place in the train. It is further known that Lizzie White took a train from the same station at about the same hour." "Is that all?" asked Clara, scornfully. "My dear girl, is it not enough?" "It is nothing, uncle, absolutely nothing. Has your detective seen the driver of the closed carriage?" "I don't know; I suppose so." "I must see the detective then. No, I am not going now. After luncheon. I shall not risk failure by neglecting to care for myself. Uncle dear," and she suddenly melted and put her arms around the old gentleman's neck, "forgive me, please, if I am impatient and hasty with you. I know Ivan as you do not; I know this accusation is not true. The detective has been mistaken, and I shall show him so, and all the world besides." Mr. Pembroke sighed sadly. "Your loyalty, my dear," he said, "is deserving of a better subject and a better fate." CHAPTER VIII. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. Nothing would deter Clara from a trip to police headquarters after luncheon, and, as in the forenoon, her Cousin Louise accompanied her. As they entered the building in Pemberton Square, they met the infirm old man, Dexter, he who had arrived late at the church, he whom Clara had interrupted in conversation with Mr. Pembroke. He bowed to the young ladies with an attempt at graciousness, and reached for the shapeless, soft cap that covered his head, but he only succeeded in pulling the visor awry, and he passed them, mumbling about the weather. "I am afraid," said Clara, "that my trouble is making me harsh toward everybody, but that old man seems to me the most disagreeable and repulsive being I ever saw. Who is he?" "I only know that his name is Dexter," replied Louise; "he has some business with papa, I believe." Clara inquired for the detective who had been assigned to the Strobel case, and after such delays as are naturally incident to strangers making their first call at the offices of the department, she was confronted by Mr. William Bowker, a commonplace-looking individual, who said: "Well, ladies, what can I do for you?" "I am Miss Hilman," replied Clara. "Ah!" and Bowker raised his brows regretfully, "I informed your uncle this forenoon, Miss Hilman, of what I have done and found in the matter." "He told me about it, but I couldn't be satisfied with a report at second hand. Won't you tell me just what you told him?" "It will be very unpleasant for you, Miss Hilman, and if Mr. Pembroke has told you the result of my investigation, that is really all there is to be said." "I won't trouble you to repeat that a gentleman answering the description of Mr. Strobel alighted from a closed carriage at the Park Square Station, shortly after the accident on Park Street and bought a ticket for New York, or that Miss White took the same train. I am willing to take it for granted that you have traced Miss White's movements correctly. I want to know what makes you so certain that the gentleman who took the train was Mr. Strobel?" Detective Bowker stared at the young lady a moment; it was his delicate way of expressing surprise. "The description of the man and the time tallied with Strobel and his accident," he answered, "to say nothing of the reasons for his running away." "Is that all, Mr. Bowker?" "No, it ain't; that was what we found at first. Don't it look reasonable----" and he proceeded to theorize on the matter until Clara checked him. "I could have heard all that from half the people in Boston," she said, "if I had paid any attention to the rumor. I supposed professional detectives would base their reports on something better than conjecture." Bowker shrugged his shoulders. "What would you say," he asked with a little temper, "if an acquaintance of Strobel's was to tell you that he saw the gentleman buy his ticket and go to the train?" "Have you such evidence as that? If so, who is it?" "I can't answer the question, Miss Hilman. I have no right to make public the workings of the department. I expect to get further evidence this afternoon to prove that Strobel eloped. It's by no wish of mine, you understand, that I tell you these disagreeable things." "You needn't apologize, Mr. Bowker. I came for information. I understand, then, that you do not regard your investigation as finished." "Well, not exactly. Of course we want to clinch it." "Have you seen the driver of the closed carriage?" "No. We have no means of identifying him except recognition by the man who drove the coupé. If a man should walk in here and say that he drove the closed carriage, we'd examine him, of course, but we've been unable yet to find that man. The thing being in the papers, it may happen--in fact, it's quite likely--that the missing driver will turn up to-day. Cabmen are usually anxious to please the department. I suppose the evidence of the cabman would be satisfactory, wouldn't it?" "Quite, if I was satisfied that it was the man, and that he told the truth." "I guess you're hard to satisfy, Miss Hilman." "Mr. Bowker," and Clara beamed on him with a smile so sweet and radiant that he started with astonishment, "I think you are working hard and as faithfully as you know how to prove a theory which you formed early in your investigations, even before you had Lizzie White's flight to base it on. I shouldn't think you'd do that, you know. Honestly, wouldn't you rather find out the truth, even if it did upset your first theory?" Bowker stared in undisguised discomfort. "If you've got any facts," he said, "you'd ought to let us have them. Of course we want to find out the truth. What is it you know, or think of?" "No, thank you, Mr. Bowker," responded Clara, rising, and still bewildering him with her lovely smiles; "you work along in your way and I'll work in mine. When I learn that you've found anything worth considering, I may take you into my confidence; I might even co-operate with you. Good-afternoon." No one was more amazed at Clara's coolness than her Cousin Louise. "I don't see how you can do it, Clara," she said when they were again in Pemberton Square. "Do you realize," returned Clara, "what might happen if I didn't do something of this kind? Somebody must stir everybody else up, or else the public will not only come to believe that Ivan was false, but we shall never find him. I may be making mistakes, but I don't believe that detective will be content to stop where he is. He'll look further, and the further he looks the more certainly will he find that he has been working at a wrong theory. Let's go somewhere and find a business directory." They went to the parlor of a neighboring hotel, where for an hour Clara busied herself making a list of all the livery and hack stables in the city. Then she hired a cab, and for hours the young ladies went from one to another stable, Clara always with the same inquiry, seeking for some trace of him whom for convenience she came to call the "second driver." There is no need to go into the details of her tedious search. It was not concluded when evening came, and she had to desist from sheer fatigue. She had found no clew that promised the discovery of the one witness who could certainly be of use to her. From Mrs. White's Litizki went to his shop and toiled patiently and methodically for two or three hours. He hardly opened his lips during the whole time, but his brain was busy with projects. That Poubalov was responsible for the fate of Ivan Strobel did not admit of a shadow of doubt; that he had concealed the young man in his lodgings was not so certain, but Litizki deemed it altogether probable. The spy would have plenty of money, he could have put up at a hotel; why had he not done so? Because, according to Litizki's reasoning, he had uses for a lodging to which the public conveniences of a hotel could not safely be bent. Distrustful of all men, the spy would keep his prisoner under his own charge, and in a lodging-house it would not be difficult to purchase the discreet silence of a not too scrupulous landlady concerning a mysterious co-tenant. The more he thought about it the more firmly the idea took possession of the tailor that Strobel was confined in the Bulfinch Place lodging-house which Poubalov had entered by means of a latch-key. If any one had suggested to him the spy's arguments to the effect that as the agent of a friendly government he could not venture, if he would, to violate American law, Litizki would have laughed, and that would have been very significant of his immeasurable contempt for the argument, for it was not in the memory of his associates that the tailor had ever smiled. His nearest approach to it, in fact, was when he manifested pleasure at the idea of being countenanced in an investigation of Poubalov's doings in his own way. Respect American law, indeed! Then would Poubalov be other than he was, and the leopard might be expected to change his spots. Litizki hated Poubalov with all the concentrated venom of his small nature, a nature that had known little of good in the world save in Ivan Strobel's kindness, that had felt the blows of tyranny and the stabs of treachery at the hands of this same spy. A desire for vengeance had smoldered long in his heart, and he had never expected that any breeze of fortune would fan it into living flame; and now, suddenly, it had burst forth a raging fire, and the possibility of opportunity rose before his dull eyes as the one glad hope of his wretched life. Poubalov in America! Poubalov at his treacherous work against the one man who had inspired Litizki with confidence and stirred his affections! and he, Litizki, knew Poubalov's secret, knew where he could lay hands upon him! Fate must have placed him there in order that Litizki's vengeance might be the more complete. The tailor laid down his tools and bent his head upon his hands. Poubalov must be checkmated, Strobel rescued; and if in accomplishing this end, the spy should be--Well, what then? Litizki put on a long coat with a high collar that he turned up about his ears, and a soft hat that he pulled down over his eyes. At the foot of the stairs that led to his shop he met Paul Palovna. "Hello, Litizki," exclaimed the young man, "where in the world are you going rigged out as if it were winter?" The grotesque little figure looked sourly up at the inquirer and replied: "I am going to begin my work." "See here, Litizki," said Paul, seriously, "you mustn't do anything rash. I was just coming to see you to give you warning. Poubalov is dangerous and very clever. Don't get yourself into trouble, and don't spoil all chance of trapping him, if he has really got hold of Strobel, by any premature act." The little tailor reflected. "For myself," he answered presently, "nothing matters. I will be careful, Paul Palovna, as careful as man can be not to compromise any chances. I shall act for myself alone. Nobody sends me, nobody influences me. If I succeed, we shall all rejoice; if I fail"--he shrugged his shoulders significantly--"I will be the only loser. I promise you not to be rash, Paul Palovna, for the sake of noble Ivan Strobel and his beautiful lady." Then he moved away, and Palovna knew hardly whether to smile at his ludicrous make-up, or shudder at the purpose that unquestionably lurked in his thoughts. "I hope good may come of it!" sighed Palovna. Litizki went to Bulfinch Place, and shrinking as far as possible into his long coat, walked along on the sidewalk opposite Poubalov's house. Yes, there the villain was, calmly reading a newspaper! One flight from the ground, front room. At the side of the room was a smaller one over the hall. Litizki knew the arrangement of the houses in that vicinity, and the blinds of that room were closed. Perhaps, though, the prison chamber would be in some more remote part of the house. Time and the night would tell. The tailor went to the corner of Bowdoin Street, and stood there, unmindful of the curious glances of passers until he saw Poubalov leave the lodging-house. It was just possible that the spy had his prisoner concealed elsewhere, and was now going to him. Litizki followed. It occurred to him that now might be the time to get into the house on some pretext and make a search, but he dismissed the thought as ruinous. If Strobel were there, the landlady would be paid to be watchful during Poubalov's absence. No; the night was the time when nobody would be watching, and when every corner in the house could be searched from cellar to garret. Poubalov went to State Street, and entered the bank where Strobel had been employed. He brushed past Litizki when he emerged, but apparently did not see him. The tailor followed him from one place to another, waited under a hotel window for an hour while the spy was dining, saw him into a theatre and eventually back to his lodgings, where he arrived at about eleven o'clock. It was evident that he went directly to bed, for the light in his room was extinguished very shortly after he went in. Litizki then went to a cheap restaurant, where he appeased his appetite and drank several cups of bad tea. It was after midnight before he left the place, and his one wish was that he had a dark lantern. To make up for his lack, he was plentifully supplied with matches. A printer, whom Litizki knew by sight, lived in the house adjoining the one where Poubalov lodged. The tailor knew that he ordinarily arrived home at one o'clock. He was on time this night, and as he turned into the tiny yard before the building, Litizki stepped down from the doorway. "I'm glad you've come," he said, "I left my key in the room and I can't rouse anybody by ringing." "No," responded the printer with a laugh, "they don't get up for anybody. How long you been living here?" "Only a few days." The door was opened, and both men went upstairs. The printer, with a cheery "good-night," entered a room on the second landing. Litizki continued to the top floor, and thence through a skylight to the roof. Fortune was, indeed, favoring him. He had supposed the skylight would be raised for the sake of ventilation. There had been doubt whether the steps leading to it would be in place. He cared little whether the skylight on the adjoining roof would be found open and the steps in place, or not; he would get in in any event. Both were in just the condition most favorable to his project, and a moment later Litizki had struck a match and was peering about in an empty room on the top floor of Poubalov's lodging house. The little tailor exulted more and more as he crept down the stairs after examining every room. Not a sleeper had been awakened, not a door had been found locked. He would search the whole house before trying the door to the hall room adjoining Poubalov's. That would be found locked. He had no doubt he should pick the lock, for he had skeleton keys in his pocket, and if not--a vigorous shove and he would burst it open. What cared he for details at the very end of his search? He had come to the floor above the spy's room. Here, as before, every door was unlocked, most of the rooms empty. He had just extinguished a match preparatory to descending further, when from somewhere out of the darkness heavy hands were laid upon him and he was borne to the floor. Another instant and a hand was pressed upon his mouth and there was a dazzling flash of light from a dark lantern held over him. Litizki saw the cruel eyes of Alexander Poubalov glaring down, and then the slide of the lantern was closed again. CHAPTER IX. LITIZKI'S LESSON. There had been no scuffle and almost no noise as the tailor fell to the floor, but one of the chamber doors opened, nevertheless, and a startled voice asked: "What's that?" "Sorry you've been disturbed," said Poubalov; "a friend of mine, with a little more of a load than he could manage, has stumbled. That's all. I will look out for him." The inquirer went back to bed grumbling, and as soon as the door closed Poubalov whispered in Russian: "Will you keep quiet, or shall I have to quiet you?" and he removed his hand from Litizki's mouth. "It's all one to me, Alexander Poubalov," muttered the tailor, and, feeling the pressure removed, he rose to his feet. Still speaking Russian, the spy remarked: "You are so good at finding your way in the dark that I will not pull the slide of my lantern. I should dislike, for your sake, to have you recognized. Go down and enter my room." Litizki felt for the banister, and, guided by it, walked down the flight and opened the door, as directed, into his captor's room. When Poubalov came in he closed and bolted the door, then opened the lantern and let its rays fall on Litizki from head to feet, and head again, as if he were curiously studying the make-up. He laughed softly at last and said: "There's a chair just back of you. Sit down." The tailor sank into it, and Poubalov lit the gas. In the general light Litizki saw that the spy was fully dressed save for his coat, and that the folding bed which was a feature of the furniture had not been let down. Poubalov noticed Litizki's glance and understood: "No, my friend," he said suavely, "I did not go to bed. I expected you, and sat up to receive you." Litizki groaned. Until then he had hoped desperately that even as a prisoner he would be able to accomplish something; now, convinced that the spy had prepared for his coming, he realized that his effort had been in vain. The awful sense of the unshakable power this man represented and wielded came over him as it did in those gloomy days in Russia when he had to choose between voluntary exile and certain banishment. Poubalov drew a chair to a little table in the middle of the room, and sat down opposite the tailor. "Nicholas Litizki," he said, "you have surprised and grieved me! I would not have supposed that even a residence of several years in America could have made you forget that Alexander Poubalov never takes a step until he is thoroughly prepared for it. I, who hardly know what the word emotion means, am almost hurt. Surely it must be that contact with republican institutions deadens a man's sensibilities and affects his memory." Litizki's small eyes had been fixed upon those of his adversary from the beginning. They had relapsed to their customary dull expression, but they glowed faintly with new life, for, the first edge of his disappointment dulled, he recalled the two great purposes for which he had invaded the house: vengeance and the rescue of Ivan Strobel. Neither purpose might be lost, and if he must forego or postpone vengeance, he would not prejudice what means others might have at command for saving his benefactor. "Poubalov," said the tailor, "I am an American citizen." "I bow to your discretion," responded the spy, "but I knew it. You think to hide behind the generous skirts of your adopted country's goddess. Good! I admit the efficacy of the refuge, for the accredited agent of the czar--whom God preserve, Nicholas Litizki--will do nothing in a friendly country in violation of that country's laws. But see, my friend, what a tower of strength a proper respect for the law becomes: I not only knew you were coming, but I knew what you were coming for, and I need not say that I knew what way you would take. I have kept within the law, and yet I found out all about you and your associates before I had been in Boston--no matter how long. Poor fellow! did you really think that Poubalov's eyes did not penetrate your flimsy disguise? I am sorry, Litizki; your patience and devotion would fit you for service in the holy cause of the czar, and it is not at all adapted to pursuing the steps of honest men." "You do not frighten me," interposed Litizki; "I know your superlative cunning and your crooked ways. Your speech nauseates me. 'Honest men!' Bah!" "We won't dispute over trifles, then. I simply call to your attention the fact that you unlawfully invade a dwelling-house, prowling about like a common thief and thus place yourself unreservedly in my power. Of course, Nicholas Litizki did not enter here to commit theft. He came to find his friend, Ivan Strobel." "It is a lie, Alexander Poubalov! I sought him not." "You know whether it is a lie, or not. So do I. Therefore we will not argue the matter. Well, what are you going to do now that you are here?" Litizki boiled with futile rage. He was trapped not only literally as Poubalov's prisoner, but he felt how weak he was in any contest of words with this shrewd master of deceit. He had spoken truly in telling Paul Palovna that it mattered not what became of him, and although those words were uttered under the influence of a desire for vengeance that constant dwelling upon had turned to conviction that he would succeed, he now felt them to be as true, for he despaired, as he had been despairing for years, of accomplishing anything that would be worth the doing. Why had he presumed to undertake the hopeless task of outwitting Poubalov? He saw how wildly foolish had been his course, but his conviction remained unshaken. "Have it so, then," he hissed; "respect for law is not in your character. You have unlawfully taken possession of Ivan Strobel." "Yes?" responded Poubalov quietly; "you are very sure of that?" "I know it, yes; I did come here to find him, to liberate, ay, to kill you if need be!" "Indeed! the same, familiar antagonism to the authority of Russia, I suppose. The Russian agent is to you like the red flag to the bull. Yes, very interesting. Well, Litizki?" "Alexander Poubalov!" exclaimed the tailor, rising and speaking with all his long-treasured bitterness, "you have Ivan Strobel, an American citizen, in your power; you restrain him illegally of his liberty, with what purpose it matters not. I, as an American citizen, demand that you release him." Poubalov looked with mock admiration at the fierce but grotesque figure before him, and said: "Good! very good! I am not certain but that demand is good law. I shall have to think of it. When, Nicholas Litizki?" "I cannot tolerate your smart language," returned Litizki; "give him up now. It will be worse for you if you fool with me. You threw me down in the dark because I was taken unawares. In the light I can make my own fight, Alexander Poubalov! Come! Ivan Strobel is in that room, behind that door, and if you have not stopped his ears as you have gagged his mouth and bound his limbs, he hears my voice now and knows it. I should be less than man should I not take even a desperate step to rescue him, my friend, my benefactor!" Even to the cynical spy the grotesqueness of the little tailor's figure and make-up disappeared in the exaltation up to which his emotions bore him. He took one determined stride toward the door to the little hall room. "Nicholas Litizki," said Poubalov, softly. The tailor turned, such was the compelling power of that deep voice, and for the instant his progress was checked. Poubalov had extended one arm upon the table and his hand was toying with a revolver. "I believe you, my friend," remarked the spy, hardly looking toward the tailor at first, but later concentrating his gleaming eyes upon him, "I believe you when you say by actions if not by words that you would die for your friend, and that you do not care what becomes of you. But you have some degree of cleverness, Litizki. We learned that years ago. Listen, then, just a moment before you lay hand upon that door. It is locked, Litizki. Before you could open it I could put a bullet through your heart. Would I not dare? What should a peaceable lodger not do to a man who stealthily enters his house by night? Who would disbelieve me if I should calmly report to the police that you came as a burglar, and that I shot at you in protection of property and life? Suppose, however, that I prefer to avoid a disturbance. Before you could more than wrench the knob of that door once, I could pierce your heart silently." Poubalov rose and stood towering over Litizki, a knife glistening in his right hand. "You know something of my resources," he continued, "and whether I would be likely to find difficulty in disposing of your lifeless body. Why! you have come so secretly that you and I alone know of your whereabout. We would then have another disappearance to add to the Strobel mystery, but one that would not be half as interesting, Litizki, not half." "You have killed Ivan Strobel!" whispered Litizki, shrinking away. "In that inference," said Poubalov, contemptuously, as he laid his weapons on the table and resumed his seat, "your madness reaches its climax and you will speedily recover. You will not go to that door now. You see how useless it would be. Live, and you may yet see your friend, may yet assist in liberating him. Understand me, Nicholas Litizki: I have not come to this country for nothing. I have a mission to perform, and nothing shall prevent me from performing it, and in my own way." "You will then keep Strobel a prisoner," muttered Litizki, "until you have wrung from him by cruelty what you have come for?" "I shall perform my mission. Now it would be perfectly easy for me to remove you, for you are making yourself an obstacle, a slight one, to my plans. It pleases me better, however, that you should live, and you may yet be an assistance to me. I will show you to the street door whenever you feel ready to depart." Litizki shot a glance full of evil at his captor, but Poubalov ignored it, and calmly lighted the inevitable cigarette. "Very well, Alexander Poubalov," said Litizki after a moment, "you may let me go, but expect no gratitude from me. I know only too well that you think to serve your foul purposes by my liberty, but, weak as I am, I shall not rest until Strobel is restored to us or his fate made known, and even after that I shall pursue you! You teach me a lesson, Poubalov, a hard one, but I shall learn it." "I hope you will. Life will be easier if you do. Must you go now? Permit me," and with a fine pretense at courtesy he unbolted the door and accompanied Litizki to the street door, which he also opened. "Good-night, Nicholas Litizki," he whispered as he withdrew again into the house. It was Litizki's purpose to go at once to the house where Paul Palovna lodged, rouse him, and tell him his experience, with all the admissions that Poubalov had seemed to make, and all the inferences that were to be drawn from his remarks and innuendoes; but as he hurried along in the cool night air he felt as if something were leaving him. He slackened his pace, halted irresolutely, went on a few steps, and at last leaned heavily against a building and struck his hand angrily against his brow, muttering: "Fool, fool!" What was this sense of loss but a relief from the dominating influence of Poubalov's stronger personality? There, with all his desperation, even at the height of his exaltation, when he seemed to tread the border lands of heroism, he had halted at a single word from the spy. He had stood and listened to threats and sophistry, and had been moved by the one and convinced by the other. No! he could not tell all this to Palovna, or to any other person except Strobel; to him, if he should ever return, he would make a full confession of his defeat. For the present he must keep it to himself, and if he would still do something to effect his vengeance and rescue Strobel, he must work in secret. And as he reflected that it was just this course that Poubalov undoubtedly expected him to take, he groaned and slunk abashed and mortified to his lonely room. In the early morning, without waiting to read newspapers, or submit to interviews from reporters, should they call again at the house, Clara and Louise set forth to finish their search for the "second driver." Again they had a tedious, fruitless experience. Now and again it seemed momentarily as if they had come upon a clew to the man, but Clara's keen questions invariably brought them to the same disappointing end. By noon they had visited every livery stable in Boston. "Don't think me unkind, Clara," ventured Louise, "but I fear we ought to give this up. I don't know that I can say just why, for I sympathize with you as deeply as ever, and, like you, I believe in Ivan; but somehow I fear." "There are the stables in Cambridge and Somerville," responded Clara, absently; "we haven't been there. Forgive me, dear! I didn't mean to ignore what you said. We are both tired. I had meant to call at Mrs. White's before returning, but we will go home and rest, and see if fresh thinking will help us. There may be some word at home by this time." There was, indeed, some word at home. The servant reported that Detective Bowker had called and would be glad to see Miss Hilman, should she care to go downtown during this afternoon; and there were many letters from friends who had learned of her trouble. All except one were more or less sympathetic, but in more than one there was a veiled remonstrance against her taking such a vigorous and public part in the case. The exception was unsigned and without date. It read: "If Miss Hilman insists on being convinced with her own eyes that her 'lover' has been false, if she needs more proof to cause her to withdraw from the ridiculous attitude she has assumed, why doesn't she go to New York and find Lizzie White? The writer is certain that she would return fully satisfied." CHAPTER X. CORROBORATIVE DETAIL. Clara had not come sufficiently in contact with the evil side of human nature to ignore an anonymous letter. She felt all the contempt for the writer that he or she deserved, and she spurned the suggestion contained in the letter as utterly unworthy of a moment's attention. Yet the sting was there. She might ignore the letter to all appearances, and yet not be able to forget it. The cruelty of the writer was what she felt, not the force of the blow. "I cannot understand," she said, laying the letter down and taking a newspaper, "how a person can go out of his way for the sole purpose of doing an unkind thing." "What is it, dear?" asked Louise, stopping on her way out of the room. Clara started to show her the letter, but, overcome by a sense of repugnance for it, answered: "Let it pass until after luncheon. We shall have a great deal to talk of then." So Clara was left alone with the newspapers, and she read them with amazement and consternation. At the very first there was a little relief at finding no flaring headlines on the first page, for she had no enjoyment in the notoriety that the case thrust upon her. She bore it simply as one of the unavoidable features of the situation. As she searched the first paper, the relief vanished, and in its place came a growing wonder. The reports of the abandoned wedding had been set forth in complete detail with every expansion that fertile brains could suggest, as if every city editor had said to his reporter, "We'll stand all you can write." It had been the important news feature of the day, and to Clara it had seemed as if every newspaper in the city had undertaken to solve the mystery. Where, then, was the long account of the second day's developments? Tucked obscurely away in the middle of a page devoted to a miscellaneous assortment of news, she found at last a few paragraphs setting forth the conclusions of the detective bureau, that there was no financial irregularity to be attributed to Mr. Strobel, and that the missing man had undoubtedly eloped with Lizzie White. Miss Hilman's health was reported to be good, and it was noted that she had taken a personal hand in the investigation with every appearance of confidence in the loyalty of her betrothed. Clara found longer reports in the other papers, and the one that had published the first intimation of the elopement, continued to make it the sensation of the hour, but it was a labored effort, devoted quite as much to exploiting its own enterprise in beating the other papers as to setting forth the news. So, then, the community, of which the newspapers were the reflection, had contentedly accepted the first solution that offered, and all her work had gone for nothing, worse than nothing, for she found herself pictured as a pitiable victim to her lover's faithlessness. The very fact that the reporters refrained from bringing out the picture of her misery in strong colors was evidence of the sincerity with which they wrote. They were satisfied that Ivan had eloped! To tell how loyally she had clung to him would be to put her in a ridiculous light before all readers. The tears that came to Clara's eyes were angrily dashed away at first, but they would flow, and after a moment she gave full vent to them. Her experience was one that comes only to those who have to suffer such great calamities that for the time all life seems to be centered upon them, and the awaking to the cold fact that all life runs along just as before, and the great calamity speedily becomes an event of yesterday, is almost as hard to bear as the original shock. This awakening with Clara was coincident to a fresh determination to continue her search. The world might laugh if it chose to be so cruel; she believed in her lover and would yet find him. The bell had rung for luncheon, and drying her eyes, Clara went into the dining room. Her uncle was already at the table. His greeting was constrained but not lacking in affection and sympathy. "Don't you think it would be better, Clara," he said gently after they had exchanged a few words, "to withdraw for a while from public view? I am afraid you are doing no good, and I will not conceal from you that I regard your loyal search as hopeless. I am getting to be an old man, and I have seen a great deal of the world, as we reckon it by the human beings who populate it. This blow that has fallen upon you has fallen on others before your time, and it will fall again. This that seems to you incredible has been no less incredible in the past----" "Stop, please, uncle," interrupted Clara; "I cannot draw comparisons, and if I could they would be valueless. I must judge my affair by its own circumstances alone. I believe Ivan has done no wrong, and it is nothing less than my duty to him and myself to right the wrong that has been done to him." "But tell me, my dear child, is there anything in the situation that promises a solution other than that found by the detectives and the reporters?" "Yes, uncle, there is," replied Clara in a low tone, "and I am glad the reporters have not found the clew, and I am not sorry that Mr. Bowker missed it, too. I will tell you about it." "Papa," said Louise, coming into the room at this moment, "Mr. Dexter has called. I was coming downstairs when the bell rang, and I answered it. I showed him into the library." "I wish he would confine his calls to the office," exclaimed Mr. Pembroke, impatiently. "You will have to excuse me, though, for I am obliged to see him." "I am afraid papa is having a serious time with his business," said Louise, after he had gone. "Everything comes at once, doesn't it?" responded Clara; "I am so sorry! He wants me to give up trying to find Ivan, dear. It hurts me to displease uncle, but what would you do? I think he would like to have me go away for a time." "Oh, I don't think that! I am sure he feels toward you as if you were his own daughter." "I am sure he does, Lou. A father couldn't be more affectionate and kind; but in this matter, how can I yield to his wishes? He does not know." "Do you mean about Mr. Poubalov?" "Partly, but I had more in mind that no one could know Ivan's character as well as I do." Louise thought of her own budding love. If Ralph Harmon were under suspicion, could she fail to defend him? Could she think of him as other than honorable and faithful? A servant passed through the room, and left the door in the hall carelessly ajar. Neither of the young ladies noticed it. "Clara," said Louise, "I should try to do just as you are doing, but I know I could not be so brave. I think if you should tell uncle about Mr. Poubalov it might make him feel better." "I intend to do so," replied Clara, "and would have done so last evening if he had been at home." They were interrupted by Mr. Pembroke's voice. He had stepped from the library into the hall, and was speaking with ill-suppressed anger. "I won't listen to anything you have to say on the matter," he said, "and I will ask you to confine your talks to me to business matters; and when you must see me, go to the office." "Ugh!" grunted old Dexter in reply, "she'll make you as ridiculous as she makes herself." "Dexter," exclaimed Mr. Pembroke, "I think you're the worst villain unhung!" "H'm, h'm, h'm," muttered Dexter, "you're a fool, Mat Pembroke. I think you're a fool!" The front door closed loudly and Mr. Pembroke strode into the dining-room, where the young ladies were looking at each other with astonished eyes. Mr. Pembroke was flushed, and he bit his lip with added vexation as he noticed that his daughter and niece had heard the last words of his conversation with Dexter. "I am sorry----" he began, his voice still shaking with anger. He did not complete his remark, but sat down and tried to eat. After a moment Clara rose and put her arms softly about his neck. "I am sorry, too, uncle dear," she said, "that you have so much trouble about me. Of course that vile man was speaking of me." Mr. Pembroke shuddered violently at her first touch. He released her arms abruptly and stood up. "No, don't!" he said with an expression of the deepest pain; "you continue your search in your own way, child. Don't mind about me or anybody else, least of all that--that meddlesome Dexter." "I was going to tell you some of the information I learned yesterday, uncle." "No, no! no, no! I don't want to hear it--that is, not now. Forgive me, child; I am disturbed by business matters and cannot attend to it now. This evening if you like. Good-by." He hastened from the room, more agitated than when he had come in. "It's a shame," said Clara, bitterly, "that any one who is in trouble has to annoy all those who are near to her." "I wouldn't think of it that way, dear," responded Louise; "papa is as sympathetic as can be, and I am sure that when he gets over his anger at this Mr. Dexter's interference, there will be nothing to regret. He said himself, you know, that he would talk with you this evening." "I hope I shall have something definite to tell him then," said Clara. "Will you go downtown with me again this afternoon?" Of course she would, and in due time, therefore, the young ladies were again at police headquarters. Detective Bowker was evidently highly pleased with himself, although he manfully tried to suppress any signs of triumph. "I called at your house this forenoon, Miss Hilman," he said, "to inform you that the driver of the closed carriage has been found." "What does he say?" asked Clara eagerly. "He corroborates what I told you yesterday." "Does he say that he drove Mr. Strobel to the Park Square Station?" "Yes, just as I told you." "Can I see him?" "I have no doubt you will be able to do so. He is not here now. He has gone about his work, but I can have him here at any time, or he will call on you. He suggested that himself when I told him that you would be pretty likely to doubt his story." "I should like to see him," said Clara, her voice faint and tremulous in spite of herself. "When did you find him, Mr. Bowker?" "Well, as to that," replied the detective, reluctantly, "Billings came in here early this morning. You know I said that might happen." "Yes. What stable does he drive for?" "What stable?" echoed Bowker with his stare of surprise; "why should you ask that, Miss Hilman?" "Because I have visited every stable in Boston to find whether any employee could have been driving a closed carriage along Park Street at the hour when the wheel of Mr. Strobel's coupé came off." "Whew! you did mean business, didn't you?" exclaimed Bowker with evident admiration. "It's a pity you had such a time of it. Billings drove his own carriage. He wasn't connected with any of the stables." "I am glad to know that my search did not fail through any lack of thorough inquiry," said Clara, and she felt her courage reviving. "Will you send word to this Mr. Billings that I would like to see him?" "Certainly. When shall I tell him to call?" "Any time this evening. And, Mr. Bowker, can you not give me the name of the man who said he saw Mr. Strobel buy a ticket for New York?" "I cannot do so. The fact is, we haven't the name. I expected to get it, honestly I did, for I heard that Strobel was recognized in the station by a friend; but that friend hasn't turned up; and, to tell you the plain truth, we don't think it necessary to inquire for him." "It seems to me----" began Clara, stopping and reflecting. She was going to protest against the imperfect character of the investigation, but she thought better of it. This detective unquestionably had no interest to find other than the truth, and with his low conceptions of character, due doubtless to his frequent contact with criminals, it would be but natural for him to see no other explanation for Ivan's disappearance than the one to substantiate which he had obtained a certain amount of evidence. If even her good uncle were disposed to view the idea of the elopement as a possibility, nay, as a probability, what better could be expected of one to whom Ivan was merely a man like other men? And the evidence of the "second driver" which was undoubtedly straightforward---- Perhaps Ivan had gone to New York. How could she tell? Not with Lizzie White, of course, but---- She would talk with the driver. "I shall be greatly obliged," she concluded, "if you will send me word should any new development turn up. I don't suppose I can expect you to pay any further attention to the case." "We may hear from New York at any time," replied Bowker; "the police there are on the lookout for Strobel, and if we hear anything I will let you know." Louise tucked her arm affectionately within Clara's, and asked: "Where now, dear?" "We will go to Mrs. White's," responded Clara, drearily. Her faith was yet undisturbed, but the mystery seemed the darker, for if the wily Russian had had to do with Ivan's departure, how much harder it would be to find him in New York than in Boston! Then, had he gone voluntarily, might it not be possible that he did not wish her to search for him? Surely he would write if he could. With that thought, and a renewed conviction that Ivan was somehow constrained of his liberty, she arrived at Mrs. White's house. "I'm so glad to see you," cried the landlady, "with all this talk in the papers. I have heard from Lizzie. See! Here is the letter." She handed a sheet of paper to Clara. It was not a long letter, but what little there was was rambling in style. It was dated from Second Avenue, New York, and stated that the writer had found a new home. "I should be happy," she wrote, "if it wasn't for the way I had to go. But there wasn't any other way. After a while I shall tell you all about it." Clara's quick perceptions told her that any person with the elopement explanation in his head would see a significance in these words that could not fail to reflect unfavorably upon Ivan. "Mrs. White," she said tremulously, "you won't show this letter to reporters, or detectives, or anybody else, will you?" CHAPTER XI. STRANGE EXIT OF POUBALOV. "I had already shown it to Mr. Bowker," replied Mrs. White, anxiously; "I thought it might convince him that Lizzie had nothing to do with the disappearance of Mr. Strobel." "It didn't convince him," said Clara, bitterly; "but no matter. May I copy Miss Lizzie's address?" "Of course. Are you going to write to her?" "Perhaps so. Have you written yet?" "I haven't had time, but I shall do so this afternoon. Is there something you would like to have me say?" Clara was intent with her thoughts. "Mrs. White," she said presently, "if you write to-night, could you omit any reference to Mr. Strobel?" "Land sakes!" exclaimed the good lady; "whatever should I write about then? With Lizzie's name in the papers, and everybody believing that she ran away with Mr. Strobel, what should I say?" "I suppose it would be hard to ignore it altogether, but couldn't you omit saying anything of the rumors that have connected their names?" "Why, I'll try to, Miss Hilman, but Lizzie will have to know about it some time." "Certainly, when you write to-morrow you can say what you please about it. Just for to-day I wish you wouldn't. I'll come down early to-morrow morning, and perhaps I will be able to tell you a great deal more than you know now, more than any of us know." "I do hope you will hear something definite," said Mrs. White, "for you can't tell how much easier I am to know that Lizzie's settled somewhere, that she's alive and in a home. If you only knew that Mr. Strobel was sick in a hospital, now, it would be better, wouldn't it?" "Nothing is so dreadful as uncertainty," replied Clara; "you'll be very careful what you write then?" "As for that, Miss Hilman, I don't see that I need to write at all to-day. It's only a day more, and if you say it won't make any difference to you what I say to-morrow, I'll put it off till then if you like." "I should be so much obliged! Have you seen Mr. Litizki to-day?" "No, nor the dark gentleman, either. Mr. Litizki's shop is not far from here, if you'd like to see him." Clara inquired the way, and soon after the young ladies set out for the little tailor's place of business. Litizki was his own master in business, and he employed two or more fellow-countrymen as assistants, the number varying with the demands of his enterprise. On this day there were several men in the shop, but they were not there as workmen. Most of them had come to talk with Litizki about the Strobel case. He was not very communicative, but that was his way. Nevertheless he had some things to say, and for this reason his acquaintances found that he talked much more freely than usual. "I tell you," he insisted, his dull eyes glowing with hate, "Alexander Poubalov is in Boston. I am not one to be mistaken in that man, and his presence here means trouble for any, perhaps all of us." "What could he wish to do against poor Russians, Nicholas Litizki, who have no intention of revisiting their native country?" asked one of the group. "Better ask what has he done?" retorted the tailor. "Here is Ivan Strobel, more prosperous than we, with more powerful friends, and what has Poubalov done to him? Would that I knew!" "As soon as Poubalov appears," remarked another, "Litizki will lay the very next crime that occurs to his hands." "Where Poubalov goes," said Litizki, "you will ever find treachery and oppression. It is not for you, Peter, to make light of Poubalov. You have felt his hand as well as I." "Yes," admitted Peter, "but in the Strobel matter you do not forget what the police have discovered, do you? Well might you suspect the dirty spy, were it not that one does not go far, it seems, to find the woman in the case." "Bah!" sneered Litizki; "do you forget that there are two women in the case? And have you seen either of them? No. Well, I have seen both. I have no unkind word for Lizzie White, with whom they say he went away; but I tell you, friends, Ivan Strobel could not have preferred her to Miss Hilman." He pronounced the name softly as if it aroused a feeling akin to reverence. "You should see her," he continued; "she is a very angel of beauty and goodness. Happy would be the man whose privilege it was simply to worship her; and as for him whom she would permit to love her--Bah! talk to me not about the woman in the case until you have seen Miss Hilman." His friends listened gravely. They found nothing ludicrous in Litizki's occasionally extravagant language. When he was stirred to something like eloquence, it was almost always by a memory of the wrongs he had suffered, and then no language could have been too imaginative to express the bitterness with which his sympathetic hearers listened. "Where did you see her, Litizki?" asked one of them. "Never mind now," he replied; "I have seen her since Strobel disappeared. She is bearing up bravely, and scorns the suggestion that he eloped with Miss White. She is devoting her life to finding him, and it is my opinion that every poor Russian in Boston ought to do the same." He looked furtively from face to face in the group, to observe the effect of his words. Most of them stared at the floor. "Strobel was a good man," said one, after a long pause; "but what could any of us do?" "Do?" repeated the tailor, and his indignant reply died on his lips as he remembered with sudden distinctness the fiasco of the previous night. "We could at least watch Poubalov, and I, for one, intend to do so. I cannot sit, and cut, and sew, and think, while he is in this country and my friend is in his power." "Nicholas Litizki," said one who had not spoken previously, "if I were in your place, I would let the Strobel case take care of itself." The tailor glanced at the speaker. "You speak as if we were still in Russia," he said, "and you had authority to command me." "You will do as you please," returned the other; "but if I were in your place, I should keep quiet." "Listen then, all of you," exclaimed Litizki, with energy; "I shall not keep quiet. I shall pursue Poubalov, I shall do everything possible to effect the rescue of Ivan Strobel, and if I have to sacrifice my business and everything, and every chance I have in the world, I shall do it." The door of the little workshop opened, and Alexander Poubalov stepped in. "Good-day, to you, Nicholas Litizki, and friends," he said with easy familiarity. "When one is in a foreign land, and has need of something, he will naturally apply to a fellow-countryman, will he not?" He looked around at the group, as if expecting a general assent. The men looked darkly at him and were silent. If all had not seen him in Russia, they knew who he was; and if there had been any doubt, they would have but needed to glance at Litizki to see that he was facing his arch-enemy. The tailor rose from his bench, and his sallow face was deathly pale. "Alexander Poubalov," he said determinedly, "this is no place for you. You hear no words of welcome----" "Gently, Litizki, my friend, gently," interposed the spy; "I call simply on business. I want clothes. Will you make them for me?" "Not for all the wealth of the czar!" returned the tailor, fiercely. "Then we will waste no time discussing material and prices. Good-day again," and Poubalov walked grandly out. The group exchanged inquiring glances in silence for a moment, and then Litizki exclaimed: "You see, friends! you see! I was not mistaken in the man, and he is the same here as in Russia--the spy who goes everywhere and does nothing. I don't need to tell you that he wanted no garments. He came here for a purpose, and he accomplished it. It is now my turn, Vargovitch, to utter a warning. Poubalov's eyes are upon you, and if I were you--Bah!" Litizki had begun to imitate the serious tone in which his friend had warned him to let the Strobel case alone, but it seemed superfluous to suggest a warning to Vargovitch after he had himself seen the spy. "Yes, I understand," said Vargovitch, "and I simply repeat that you'd better keep out of the Strobel case." "Vargovitch," cried Litizki, "you do not talk like a loyal Russian. Is it you who would stand by and let this spy work his will among us?" "I have no more love for Poubalov and his work than you have, Litizki," replied Vargovitch. "May there not be reasons for my counsel--reasons that you do not understand?" Litizki peered at the speaker silently and resumed his work. Vargovitch left the room and shortly afterward the other visitors dispersed. "I would do what Vargovitch says, Nicholas Litizki," remarked one of the tailor's assistants. Litizki worked away as if he had not heard, and his thoughts were not pleasant or hopeful. It had seemed to him as if every compatriot of his in the city would need but the suggestion to unite in an effort to outwit Poubalov and rescue Strobel. Litizki could not understand it, and he was disappointed. It was while he was meditating thus that Clara and Louise called. The little tailor almost blushed as he left his bench and went to meet them. "I should almost say," he began hurriedly, after he had awkwardly acknowledged their greetings, "that you ought not to come here. Are you aware that Poubalov may be, probably is, watching your every step? That man has the eyes of a thousand, and if it were possible to throw him off the track it would be best to do so. But it is impossible. If you did not come here, he would find out that you know me, and he would infer the rest." "You seem troubled, Mr. Litizki," said Clara, kindly; "have you, too, given up Mr. Strobel?" "I? Never! It is because I do not give him up that--well, yes, I am troubled. Why disguise the fact that Poubalov is a powerful enemy? I am not a coward, Miss Hilman; my life is not worth enough to me to make me care for it, but I fear that man's power will be too great for the friends of Ivan Strobel." "You have seen him, then?" "Yes, I--" Litizki averted his eyes and continued: "He has been here, to-day, not more than half an hour ago." "I hope, Mr. Litizki," said Clara, "that you will not put yourself in his power. If you feel that it is dangerous to help in the search for Mr. Strobel, you must not do it." "Dangerous? It is too late to think of that, if I cared about it. That man has possession of Mr. Strobel, and will keep him until he has accomplished some purpose. Strobel will not yield." Litizki paused and looked gloomily away. "You see, it is a question of how to circumvent Poubalov," he added. "I am afraid, Mr. Litizki, that your loyalty to your friend will bring misfortune upon you. I should be very sorry for that." "Ah, Miss Hilman," muttered the tailor, and a sad wistfulness lingered briefly in his eyes, "you are worthy of my benefactor. I could not say more." Clara was deeply touched, and her voice trembled as she said: "Thank you, Mr. Litizki. I hope to be worthy of your kind thoughts. I may learn something to-night that will put another light on the case. Is it too much to ask you to call at my uncle's house some time during the evening?" "Not if you lived in Siberia, Miss Hilman. Where is it, and when shall I come?" Clara gave him the address and left him, begging him to come early. When they were on the way home, Louise said: "I am more and more amazed at your method every day, dear. Have I not been good to listen, and ask no questions and volunteer no advice?" "Too good, dear. I should often want advice, and ask it, but that I fear hurting you by not following it. I must go my own way." "Of course you must, but I was just leading up to this question: What in the world do you want of Mr. Litizki this evening?" "I hardly know myself, dear; but if that 'second driver' calls, I hope to make Mr. Litizki useful. Will that do?" It had to, for Clara fell to thinking, and her cousin saw that questions would be irritating. Mr. Pembroke sent word from his office that he should not come to dinner, and he had not arrived when the servant announced a caller, and handed a card to Clara. It was Poubalov. "I suppose," said Clara, showing not the least surprise, "that I'd better see him alone. Will you wait here" (they were in the dining-room), "in case I should want you?" Poubalov smiled and his face looked almost attractive as he rose and bowed when Clara entered the drawing-room. At that instant Clara felt that but for his self-confessed methods of deceit, she could have trusted him, and this in spite of the black pictures that Litizki and Paul Palovna had drawn of him. "I am delighted, Miss Hilman," he said, "to observe that you endure your sorrow and your remarkable work so well." "I am told that nothing escapes you," replied Clara, "and so I suppose you know all about my search for the driver of Mr. Strobel's second carriage." "Miss Clara," said a servant at the hall door, "a man who says his name is Billings wishes to see you." "Show him into the library, please," answered Clara, then to Poubalov--"Will you pardon me? This is the man of whom I was speaking, and I must see him." "Pray do," responded the Russian; "my message can well wait until he has gone." Clara at once crossed the hall into the library. The minute she was out of the room Poubalov went to the door and cautiously opened it a little way. He closed it quickly and reflected. Clara had left the door from the hall to the library wide open, and the street door would be easily in view to anybody in the library. Poubalov went from one to another of the several windows and looked out. From one at the side of the room he saw a few yards of turf bounded by a low hedge, and beyond that the park-like grounds surrounding a large dwelling. This window was partially open. The spy looked once more toward the hall door. He had given his hat and stick to the servant, and they had been placed somewhere in the hall. He shrugged his shoulders, pushed the window further up and stepped out. A moment later, Louise, who was idly gazing out of the dining-room window, was considerably startled to see a man, whom in the gathering dusk she could not recognize, leap over the hedge into the adjoining grounds, and disappear behind the shrubbery. CHAPTER XII. LITIZKI BREAKS HIS APPOINTMENT. In the brief interval that elapsed between the time when she turned from Poubalov and the moment she entered the library, Clara reflected that while her loyal heart would rebel at the story to be told by Billings, she must hear him patiently, and not permit her distrust of him to manifest itself. One can think to good purpose in even so short a time as it takes to walk across a room. Clara was fully resolved to be guided by her reason alone in dealing with Billings, and not to permit herself to doubt his story if it should prove, as was probable, that what he had to say tended to corroborate the detective's theory. Yet, when she looked at him, all her woman's intuition rebelled. She saw a man perhaps twenty-five years old, with nothing whatever remarkable in his appearance; but in his eyes and attitude there seemed to be a consciousness of antagonism, as if he expected to be doubted, sharply cross-examined, and as if he were determined that nothing should shake his story. His sullen, dogged expression was a help to Clara in conquering her immediate aversion to him, and she began the critical interview with a move that surprised and embarrassed him. He was sitting, holding his hat on his knees, at the farther side of the room. Clara crossed directly to him with outstretched hand, saying: "I am Miss Hilman. You are Mr. Billings, I believe. I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you. Mr. Bowker may have told you how I hunted the city over to find you. Sit down, please; let me take your hat." Billings had risen awkwardly as he saw that she was coming toward him, and, quite unaware of how she managed it, he found that she had taken one of his hands in her own. In his confusion he let his hat fall, picked it up hastily, and at last sat down again, feeling still the warm clasp of Clara's hand, while with bewildered eyes he saw this self-possessed, queenly young woman place his battered hat upon a table and draw up a chair opposite to him. He had not said a word. If he had come with any set phrases for beginning his story, they were completely driven from his mind. Clara looked at him for a moment, and he averted his eyes. "Were you acquainted with Mr. Strobel?" she asked presently, speaking in low tones that needed no art to color with the sadness that weighed upon her heart. "No'm, I wasn't," replied Billings, with a quick glance at her. "I am sorry for that," said Clara, "and yet it shows how kind you are to come here and tell me about this matter. I suppose you had to come a long way." "I live in the North End," said Billings, uneasily. "Bowker told me to come." "The North End is a long way off," she declared, "and I thank you just the same. I suppose you may have told Mr. Bowker so carefully about this that you are tired of the matter, but I should like very much to hear you myself. Do you mind telling me just what you told him?" "That's what I come for," and Billings seemed to be considerably relieved. "I was driving down Park Street," he began, "when I saw that the coupé just in front of me had got into trouble. I went slow because people got around thick, and, besides, I wanted to see what was the matter. As I was looking, the man in the coupé clumb out and asked me was I engaged. I told him no, and he got in. He seemed to be in a hurry." "One moment," interposed Clara, gently. The narration struck her as distinctly parrot-like, and if it were something that he had learned to recite, she preferred to break the thread of his story before he had come to the important part, rather than give him the advantage of establishing a statement in smooth order. If he were telling the truth, no manner of interruption could prevent him from eventually making himself understood; if he were lying, she must involve him in contradictions. So, without premeditation, Clara said: "You are going just a little too fast for me, and I hope you will forgive me. Every detail, you know, seems important to me. Where had you been that morning, Mr. Billings?" "Been to a funeral, miss," he answered promptly. "Yes, so I understood; but where?" "Out to Mount Auburn." "That is quite a long way from Park Street, isn't it? It must be four miles." "Yes'm, 'bout that." "It was about eleven o'clock, or a little after, when Mr. Strobel's coupé broke down, and you had been to Mount Auburn and had just got back. I see. Where did you leave your passengers, the persons you took to the funeral, I mean?" With a glance of sullen resentment Billings answered: "At their house." "Yes, Mr. Billings," and Clara smiled as if she were not in the least annoyed, "but that isn't telling where. I didn't ask for the street and number. Why should I? It was in Cambridge, was it not?" After the slightest perceptible hesitation, Billings answered: "No; 'twas in the West End." "Ah, then you had come over Beacon Hill on your way somewhere. Where were you going, Mr. Billings?" As Billings hesitated more noticeably, she continued: "Do you have some regular place where you wait for passengers, or do you drive about picking them up where you find them?" "I was going to the Old Colony Depot," said Billings, huskily. "I see. Is it customary, Mr. Billings, for cabmen to leave the curtains of their carriages closely drawn after they leave a funeral party?" "No, 'tain't, not long, but you wouldn't have me stop in front of the house to pull 'em up, would you?" "Certainly not. You did quite right, doubtless. When did you first see the coupé?" "At the corner of Beacon. It turned into Park Street just ahead of me." "Where did Mr. Strobel tell you to take him?" "To Dr. Merrill's church, Parker Avenue, Roxbury." Billings didn't know it, but his examiner came very near to breaking down at this point. There was nothing as yet to show that the driver was not telling the truth, although Clara had prepared a trap for him that she intended to spring a little later, and the mention of the church where she was to be married brought up such a flood of emotions that it seemed as if she would choke. Then, too, whether Billings were practicing deceit or not, it was certain that for this moment at least she was following her lover's journey correctly, and she had arrived at that critical point where the change in his intentions, or in his power to act, occurred. So, it was in a very faint voice that she told Billings to go on. He immediately resumed his parrot-like narration: "He seemed to be in a hurry, for he spoke quick. I closed the door on him, and got into my seat as fast as I could and whipped up. I wanted to get along myself, you see, 'cause it was quite a long drive, and I had to get back to the depot." This last sentence sounded like a fresh thought interjected on the spur of the moment, for Billings spoke it slower than the rest, and glanced inquiringly at Clara, as if to see how she took it. She noticed the difference, but simply nodded, and Billings went on. "Nothing happened till we got to Elliot Street. Then the gentleman opened the door and hollered 'Driver!' I pulled up a bit and turned round to see what he wanted. 'Driver!' says he, 'I've changed my mind. Take me to the Park Square Station.' 'All right, sir,' says I, and he closed the door again. So I druv 'im to the station, and he got out and give me a dollar and went inside, and that's all there is to it." "I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Billings," said Clara; "I suppose you went directly to the Old Colony Depot after that?" "Yes'm. That's where I went." He rose as if there could be nothing more for him to say, but Clara was not done with him. "Just one more question," she said; "sit down again, please. Did you see Mr. Strobel speak or bow to anybody at the station?" "No'm. There wasn't many people about, and he hurried inside like as if his train was just going." "Was there anybody there whom you knew?" "Yes'm, and you can ask him. A feller named O'Brien, who works there, was just at the door as we drew up, and he says 'Hello' to me. He'll tell you he saw me land my passenger there, for he came forward, thinking to get the gentleman's bag to carry." "Mr. O'Brien may have noticed where Mr. Strobel went after going into the station," mused Clara. "Yes'm, he might. You might ask him." "Thank you; I presume I shall. Now, Mr. Billings, I want to show you in some way that I appreciate your kindness in coming here to tell me this. I have had to drive about a great deal for two days, and shall have to use a carriage to-morrow. I shall be glad to employ you." Billings flushed and shifted about uneasily. "I can't, miss," he muttered. "Why not, Mr. Billings?" The driver stole a glance at her earnest face, and saw nothing there but sad surprise. "Why not?" Clara gave the man no help by suggesting a possible excuse. "My carriage is engaged--that is," he blurted, "I haven't got any carriage that would be fit for you." "What is the matter with the one in which you took Mr. Strobel?" "It got smashed up and is being repaired. You see," and he mumbled his words so that they were almost unintelligible, "the same day a party of toughs hired it; they were kind o' swell toughs, and they got on a racket, and the carriage was damaged. 'Tain't fit to use." "Mr. Billings!" Clara spoke with a sudden energy that startled the driver, "was Mr. Strobel in the carriage when it was damaged?" "No'm, no'm, he wan't," stammered Billings. The explanation suggested an entirely new thought to Clara. Before her mental vision there came swiftly a picture of her lover struggling with somebody--might it not be Poubalov?--in the carriage itself. She seemed to see a violent conflict in which seats and fixtures gave way as men's bodies fell heavily. And Ivan was overpowered, his enemies triumphed, he was motionless, unconscious--perhaps fatally injured, and they had hidden him away somewhere lest their crime come to the light! This was wholly unlike the vision she had seen on the evening of what should have been her wedding day; it had none of the aspects of an hallucination; for as the alarming details shaped themselves in her thoughts, she was conscious that Billings sat before her, looking frightened, and that he rose again to go. In this instance she was but following the suggestions brought out by her inquiry to what might be their logical, natural conclusion. "I am sorry you cannot drive me to-morrow," she said, recovering and withdrawing her eyes, which had been fixed in a strained stare upon Billings for a very brief period. "Before you go, tell me the names and addresses of the persons you took to the funeral, please." "I don't remember," replied Billings, uneasily. "I shall have to look up my book; 'tain't here." "Will you do so?" asked Clara, pleasantly, convinced now that the man was lying; "and send the names to me, please. Will you do that to-night?" "Yes'm," replied Billings reaching for his hat. "And what is your address?" Billings told her, and she laid her hand gently on his arm. An idea that had occurred to her vaguely when his name was announced as she stood before Poubalov, now recurred to her in the shape of a plan. She would have Billings confront the Russian, and watch their faces narrowly for some sign of recognition, or alarm. "Will you come into the next room a moment?" she said, "I have something to show you." There seemed to be a shade of suspicion in his eyes, but he made no objection, and Clara conducted him to the drawing-room. It was dark. With a premonition of disappointment, Clara found a match on the mantel and lit the gas. After a hasty glance around she opened the door to the dining-room. "Lou!" she whispered eagerly, "have you seen Mr. Poubalov?" "No," replied Louise, coming forward and entering the parlor; "has he gone? Then it must have been he!" "Who? What have you seen? Wait, come into the hall. Will you sit down just a minute longer, Mr. Billings? I shall be but a moment." Billings complied, and the young ladies passed quickly into the hall, where the first thing that Clara saw were Poubalov's hat and stick lying upon a table. She turned in the utmost wonderment upon her cousin. "All I can say," said Louise, "is that I saw a man leap over the hedge into Mr. Jordan's grounds a short time after you went into the drawing-room to meet Poubalov. I couldn't tell who it was, couldn't even see that he had no hat on. I feared he might be a tramp, but thought then that he had been frightened away, and that there was no danger." "He was frightened away?" murmured Clara, feeling her blood run cold; "he dared not face his man Billings!" "I supposed," continued Louise, in agitation, "that Poubalov was with you. I heard no voices, but thought perhaps that you had gone into the library with him, for a door closed once." "Yes, when Billings came. Oh! if Litizki were only here!" "Why! what could he do?" "I would have him follow Billings. Oh, I could cry! it is the one opportunity for solving this mystery that we have found, and now we are going to lose it!" Louise was greatly distressed. "Isn't there some way that you can detain Billings," she suggested, "until Litizki arrives?" "No. He's been trying to get away for several minutes. It is just possible that Litizki may be near. I'll go out with Billings, as if to call at a neighbor's, and if I see Litizki will put him on the track at once." She went upstairs for her hat, lingering over the preparation in order to give Litizki all possible opportunity to keep his appointment, and when she came down again Billings was in the hall. "I can't wait no longer," he said gruffly. "Very well," replied Clara; "I thank you again for calling. I am going as far as the next house, and you can escort me." Billings scowled with disagreeable surprise. At the gate he waited to see which way she would turn. "I'm not going that way, miss," he said, and started off at a rapid pace in the opposite direction. CHAPTER XIII. WHAT BECAME OF LITIZKI. Clara retired before her uncle returned, and when at last he appeared, it was only to pack his bag and hurry away to catch the midnight train for New York. "I may be gone a week," he told Louise, "and I may get back in two days. Telegraph me at the Travelers' Hotel, if I am wanted for anything." Mr. Pembroke's departure was a great disappointment to Clara. She reproached herself that she had not made an opportunity to tell him about her conversation with Poubalov and Litizki; it was his right to know everything that could possibly bear upon the case, and could she have told him, she would have besought him to advise her. She was now in a bewildering maze of doubts and uncertainties. Billings had lied to her; she was almost as sure of that as if she had already proved it; but at what part of his story the falsehood began she could only guess. There was no doubt that Ivan had taken Billings' carriage. Did he give the driver orders to go to the Park Square Station? Did Billings drive to the station? The latter question she could answer with some degree of satisfaction by inquiry of the man O'Brien, and that seemed the first thing to do; but what then? Poubalov had called to say something, and had not only gone away without saying it, but had gone in such wise as to leave no reasonable doubt that he dared not face the driver of the closed carriage. Was it not an inevitable inference that Billings had been hired by the Russian? It was with evident difficulty that Billings had stumbled through the story as it was. Would not Poubalov, recognizing the driver's mental inferiority, have argued that if they were suddenly brought face to face, Billings would have betrayed their complicity by at least a start? And Litizki, what had become of him? It was not to be thought of that he had abandoned the case. Poubalov had called at his shop during the day, unquestionably with some ulterior design. Could anything be more reasonable than to suppose that in some way the spy had frustrated the attempt of Litizki to help her? The more she pondered the various puzzling aspects of the case, the more everything seemed to center upon Poubalov, and she shuddered with apprehension as Litizki's characterization of him recurred to her. He was, indeed, a terrible enemy. Having in mind only the known facts in the case, and disregarding utterly all inferences and conjectures, she tried to reason along various lines, in the hope that thus a theory might be set up which should command sufficient respect to justify a new departure in her search. She began with the fact that Ivan had made every preparation for marriage--and there a new thought presented itself. He had surrendered his room; he must, therefore, have packed his belongings; had they been disturbed? This might be a matter of infinite significance, and one that she would attend to without delay. "Louise," she said (they were at the breakfast table and her cousin was lingering over her coffee while Clara was absorbed in thought), "will you go downtown with me again to-day?" "Of course, dear," replied Louise; "I will be ready in ten minutes." Louise was relieved at Clara's suggestions. She had been hopelessly wondering what Clara could find to do next, and she dreaded for her cousin's health should there prove to be no active work upon which she could concentrate her faculties. She left the room to prepare for the day's jaunt, and Clara resumed her thinking. Every preparation for marriage, and a start actually made for the church. Then an accident that somebody had prepared. Who? There must have been somebody who had a great object to attain in preventing the marriage, or in getting possession of Ivan. Suppose it were Poubalov, what then? With the insight he himself had given her into his character, would he not do everything possible to throw her off the right track? If he had abducted Ivan, would he hesitate to abduct Litizki if he found that the little tailor was in his way? It was vain to speculate for a reason for Poubalov's main action; that must lie in his capacity as a paid spy of a government with which Ivan, apparently, had been at one time in conflict. His subsequent actions, so far as she knew them, were all explainable on the theory that he had had to do with Ivan's disappearance. And so her thoughts revolved around Poubalov, finding at every turn a trace of obliquity that was wholly in consonance with his character and his confessed methods. Clara felt that her reasoning was bringing her to no definite end, although her brain teemed with courses of action that might have been possible could she have commanded the services of a corps of shrewd, faithful detectives. It is generally so with persons who have a great task to accomplish; they find themselves with more plans than resources, more brains than hands. Clara had just come to the sensible conclusion that, compelled to work substantially alone, she would undertake exactly one thing at a time, and, having chosen a line of inquiry, would follow it uninterruptedly to the end, when a servant announced that a man had called to see her. "I couldn't catch his name, Miss Clara," said the servant, "but I'm afraid he's a beggar, he looks so forlorn and seedy." Clara knew who it was and she sprang from her chair with more eagerness and animation than she had manifested at any time since the disastrous wedding day. She fairly ran into the drawing-room, both her hands extended, her face radiant with smiles, and completely overwhelmed poor Litizki with the warmth of her greeting. "I was so afraid something dreadful had happened to you!" she exclaimed, "but I knew that you had not deserted me." "Deserted you?" said Litizki huskily; "no, but I was afraid you would think so. I didn't know what Poubalov might have told you, and unless you thoroughly understand that man, that fiend, Miss Hilman, he is likely to make you believe anything." "Then you know that he had been here! You must have recognized his hat in the hall." "I saw it there and his stick, too, but I knew before then that he had been here. I came to tell you." Litizki paused, the look of grateful relief that had overspread his features at first giving way to his customary depressed expression, and he fell into his habit of speaking with averted eyes, or with but occasional furtive glances at the person addressed. "Do tell me," said Clara; "I have been very anxious about you." Litizki thought a moment, and then asked: "May I see Poubalov's cane?" "To be sure," replied Clara, and she brought it to him from the hall. Litizki took it, looked it over, felt along the top, and suddenly drew forth the handle, from which a gleaming blade depended. Clara started back with a low exclamation of alarm. Litizki touched the edge of the blade with his thumb, as a man tests a razor. "Alexander Poubalov," he murmured gloomily, "held this over my heart once, not so long ago." He thrust it back into its sheath, where it came to rest with an angry click, and handed the cane to Clara. "That is the kind of man he is, Miss Hilman," he said; "I thought you might like to know." If he had wished to impress Clara with the horrible gravity of the situation, with its frightful possibilities, he succeeded beyond measure. She held the cane, feeling that it epitomized the spy's career, and a dreadful faintness depressed her which she at length overcame with the utmost difficulty. Having returned the concealed weapon to the hall, she sank into a chair and asked Litizki to tell her what had happened to him during the previous evening. "You asked me to call early," he began, "and I set out to do so. Without going into unnecessary detail, I will say that I came up the street that ends nearly in front of this house, a little after seven o'clock. The exact time doesn't matter, for you will know as nearly as you need to when I tell you that just as I was about to cross the road I saw Poubalov in front of me. He had come by another route. I wasn't surprised, for the man seems to read one's thoughts, and it was as if he had known that I was coming, and had determined to prevent me. "I doubted whether it would be wise to call as long as he was in the neighborhood, but all doubts were set at rest when he himself went up the steps and rang. Of course it would have been the height of folly for me to enter the house then." "You had the right to," interrupted Clara; "I had asked you to come, and I needed you very much." Litizki looked so miserable that Clara hastened to add: "I didn't mean to reprove or find fault, Mr. Litizki. I forgot for the moment everything except that eventually, after Poubalov had run away, I wished you were at hand!" "I hope I made no mistake, Miss Hilman," said Litizki; "at all events I could see no other course at the time than to do what I did." "I have no doubt you were right. Go on, please." "I determined to wait until Poubalov went away. If I had been familiar with the house, I might have found my way to the back door and sent word to you by a servant, but I dared not venture, for I knew not from what window Poubalov might be looking. The same reason induced me to leave the street, which is clearly in view from some windows, and, moreover, I did not care to risk questions from anybody as to why I was loitering about. So I slipped into the adjoining grounds, where there is a lot of shrubbery, and crawled under a tree whose branches hung low. "From where I lay I could see whether anybody entered or left the house by the front door and I also saw all the windows on one side. I had been there less than a minute when somebody went up the steps and was admitted. I could not see who it was, for the evening was cloudy and it grew dark very quickly." "It was a man named Billings," said Clara; "he drove the closed carriage which took Mr. Strobel from Park Street." "Indeed! I wish I had known it. Well, events happened pretty quickly just then, for it seemed to me that less than another minute had passed when Poubalov appeared at one of the windows on the side of the house. He raised it, stepped out, and leaped over the hedge, not five yards from where I lay. He passed so close to me that I could have reached out from under the tree and tripped him up! I lay very still, wondering what his action could mean, for as you must know, he was bareheaded. If I had dreamed then of going to the house, I could not have done so, for he crouched down by the hedge near the street, and I could see that he had his eyes on the door and that he was waiting. I then determined to follow him wherever he should go, for of course he meditated villainy. I may have prevented him in that---- Oh! I don't know!" Litizki fairly groaned these words, and Clara was about to utter an anxious inquiry, when he resumed: "Don't let me disturb you, Miss Hilman; I will tell the whole wretched story. How long we lay there I don't know, but you must, for at last you, I think it was you, came out of the house and walked down to the gate to say good-night to somebody who left you there--Billings I suppose--and walked away in a direction opposite to us. You, was it you? Yes, you waited a moment, and returned to the house, whereupon Poubalov immediately got up, leaped over the hedge, darted across the road as noiselessly as if he were a cat, and disappeared. "I followed as well as I could, and, as luck would have it, I soon overtook him, for he was strolling along slowly, as unconcerned as if he owned a house near by and were out for a breath of fresh air. He rambled on until he came to Washington Street, when he stopped at the curb and looked idly about for several seconds. There were many people about, and his bareheaded condition attracted attention. All the shops were open, and suddenly he darted into one of them. It was not a hat store, but when he came out, which was almost immediately, he had a hat on. I suppose he bought it for an extravagant sum off the head of some stranger. It would be like him. "He idled about the neighborhood for as much as an hour, Miss Hilman, and I did all that I could think of to keep him in view without exposing myself. The man is a fiend with a million eyes! But wait, I'll tell you. At last he moved along, and, of course, I followed faithfully, noting every turn, that I might be able to go again by the same way if possible, or at least to the same place, wherever that might be. For in spite of my care I don't know what was his destination, if he had any. It is for this reason that I say I may have prevented him from some fresh villainy. "At last, in a street to which I could readily return, he paused. I was across the way from him, and I slipped into a doorway, where I was wholly in the dark. I could see him, though, and for a long, long time he paced slowly back and forth, never once speaking to anybody, or looking about, or getting out of my sight. It didn't matter to me. I would have stayed on till I starved in my tracks, but eventually he crossed the street directly toward me. He could not see me, of that I am certain, but of course he had seen me--and--I am a helpless, good-for-nothing fool, Miss Hilman!" "Why say that?" asked Clara kindly. "Because he came straight into the doorway, put his hand lightly on my shoulder and said in that deep, scornful voice of his: 'It is enough, Nicholas Litizki. Let us now go home,' and he laughed disagreeably." Litizki stared aside with an expression of utter self-contempt. "I weakly said to myself that it was a ruse to get rid of me, and I followed again as he walked briskly away. He took a street car and went straight to his room in Bulfinch Place. It was past midnight, and so I came this morning, Miss Hilman." CHAPTER XIV. A NEW DEPARTURE. "What a hard and disagreeable experience," exclaimed Clara, "and so strange too! You have no occasion to reproach yourself, Mr. Litizki, with any neglect. You did all that any man could do, I am sure, and it may not prove to be unfortunate that Poubalov saw that you were watching him." "I wish I could think so," responded the tailor, "and it is wonderfully kind of you to be so patient with my failure. Isn't there something that I can do now? I can do no work until this matter is settled, and it is torture to remain idle." "I know how true that is," sighed Clara; "yes, there is something I think you can do. If Poubalov had not called last evening, and so changed all our plans, I should have asked you to follow Billings when he left the house. I have little faith in him, Mr. Litizki, and it seems to me that on leaving here last night he must have gone directly to report to his accomplice, or employer. Are you sure that Poubalov spoke to nobody?" "If he did, it was no more than a passing word. He seemed to know no one." Clara had to stop and think, for Litizki's story tended to upset her theories concerning Poubalov's exit and his relations with Billings. Could it be possible, after all, that Billings had not been employed by the spy, and that the latter, therefore, had had nothing to do with Ivan's disappearance? Perhaps Poubalov worked through still another accomplice, and, suspecting possible treachery, had been at the pains of secretly following Billings, to learn whether he and the unknown other were faithful. This seemed rather a wild supposition, for it would not be like Poubalov to admit others into his secret operations. Had he followed Billings? There was no doubt in Clara's mind that this was what he started to do when he leaped over the hedge and ran to the side of the road opposite to where Billings was walking. Had Poubalov lost Billings in the darkness, and, observing Litizki's pursuit, purposely dodged hither and thither, to discomfit the tailor? From every question Clara turned more puzzled than before. It must be that she was on the wrong track, else a reasonable answer could be found, a reasonable explanation suggested for every act. Perhaps she was wrong in obstinately connecting Poubalov with the first act in the tragedy, the disappearance of Ivan; but if so, could his conduct even then be explained? "Mr. Litizki," said Clara, at length, "I want to know all that can possibly be learned about this man Billings. He gave me his address. Will you undertake to look him up? Unless he is very closely in league with Poubalov, he will not know who you are, and for that matter it probably won't be necessary for you to meet him. Eventually you might have to follow him somewhere, but at the start you might learn a great deal from his neighbors." "I'll do it, Miss Hilman; but I promise you now that every step I take will be dogged by Poubalov." "Well, never mind. You will be on your guard against him--and yet, I do not want you to expose yourself to danger," and Clara shuddered as she thought of the long dagger concealed in Poubalov's cane. "Bah!" returned Litizki, "I care nothing for the danger. My only fear is that the villain will overreach me in anything I may attempt. I am no match for him in skill and cunning, Miss Hilman." Litizki was woefully dejected. Never did man so long to be possessed of genius, or even talent, and the tailor was painfully aware of his own deficiencies. "You underestimate yourself," said Clara; "you see that I have confidence in you, else I would not ask you to undertake the investigation. Will you begin at once?" "Gladly. You cannot imagine how much courage your good words give me. If I dared to cherish a hope of any kind, it would be that I should accomplish something that would justify your good opinion." "You have already done so, and will do more, have no doubt of it! I am going downtown myself. Suppose you go to the address Billings gave me, make such inquiries there as seem advisable, and, if you see nothing to command your immediate attention, come and tell me what you have found. I shall be at Mrs. White's. If you come after I go, you will find some word from me as to where to go next." She gave him Billings' address, saw him to the door with a cheering smile, and then turned to Louise, who had been ready to start for several minutes. "He had what was to him a dismal story to tell," said Clara, "and I knew he would rather tell it to me alone." "I supposed so," returned Louise, "and so I took pains not to interrupt you. I wish I could think a quarter as well as you do, dear. I don't feel as if I were the least use." "Don't be silly, Lou," and Clara embraced her cousin affectionately; "if I could think as well as you imagine I do, we should be out of the difficulty in a day. What do you suppose I should do without you?" Louise was profoundly convinced that Clara would do exactly as she had been doing all along, but she didn't say so. She would have sympathized acutely with Litizki's self-abasement had she known how earnestly he had striven to be of use, and how utterly he had seemed to fail. They went first to the Park Square Station, Clara, as usual, deeply absorbed in studying the strange problems that confronted her. The impression she had received this morning that Poubalov might not have been associated directly with Ivan's taking off, grew upon her. How readily he had abandoned the suggestion of elopement! Abandon? he had ignored it utterly. Not once in her conversation with him had he put that forth as an explanation worthy of investigation. Could it have been his subtle purpose to interest her in a line of inquiry that should lead directly away from that? A shiver passed over her frame, and Louise inquired anxiously what was the matter? "New theories keep occurring to me," responded Clara gravely, "and each one is a shock worse than the one that preceded it. Let me tell you this one. Suppose that Lizzie White," Clara spoke with difficulty, every word seemingly dragged forth by a violent effort, "suppose she were in some way Poubalov's agent; I will not, cannot think that Ivan went away with her, but might it not be possible that this remarkable man, who has such mastery over ordinary minds, had made her an accomplice? Don't you see the cleverness of the plan? If Ivan was forced to go to New York, Lizzie's departure for that city the same day is immediately assumed by everybody to mean that they eloped, and probably all in Boston who think of the matter at all, suppose that they have been married. Ivan may be a prisoner in New York, and Lizzie may be under Poubalov's pay, or influence, the latter more likely, to act, not as his jailer, but as a mask for his presence there. "Poubalov has some object to attain in keeping him thus guarded, to torture some political secret from him, perhaps. Now what better could he do than divert suspicion in my mind from Lizzie to those whom he calls Nihilists, or even upon himself? He saw at first glance that I would not tolerate the thought of an elopement as among the possibilities, so he had no need to disarm me of suspicion in that direction. Has not everything he has done been done with a view to keeping me in Boston? What does he care how much poor Litizki dogs his steps, so long as the victim of his intrigue and villainy is hundreds of miles away? His one fear in Boston is that Billings, whom he hired to help in the abduction, may confess something. Therefore he tried to dog Billings' steps last night, and whether he succeeded I do not know." Much of this was Greek to Louise, and she said so, adding: "What I do understand is that you feel now as if it would be necessary to go to New York." "I think so. We will see." "Clara," said Louise, "you will not think that I have suspected Ivan of faithlessness, I am sure; but it has seemed to me that unless he returned soon, you would have to go to Lizzie White. You cannot leave any possible explanation unsought. I could not conjecture that she and Poubalov might be concerned together as you have, but I did feel as if you ought to look her up." "I am glad you think so," responded Clara, "for I was afraid you would oppose my going." At the station Clara readily found the Mr. O'Brien to whom Billings had referred for corroboration of a part of his story. "Yes'm," he said in reply to her questions, "I know the Billings you speak of. I saw him here last Monday. Has he been up to anything crooked?" "I don't know," said Clara; "it may help to settle that if you will tell me what were the circumstances of his call here." O'Brien hesitated. "I don't want to get tangled up in any police business," he declared; "Billings was said to be the man who drove the gent that skipped on his wedding day early this week." "Yes," said Clara; "I am Miss Hilman, and I was to be married to the gentleman." "Sho!" exclaimed O'Brien, sympathetically, "that must have been a pretty tough blow," and he scratched his head thoughtfully. "My inquiry," continued Clara, "has nothing to do with the police. They have abandoned the investigation, I believe. I am trying simply to satisfy myself, and surely you won't refuse to help." "No, I won't," replied O'Brien; "but what I can say won't do you no good. This was how it was. I had to go out to the front of the depot for something, and just as I got there, Billings drove up a closed carriage. I thought he nodded as if he wanted me, so I stepped forward. He pulled up further on than where carriages generally stop, and was in a place all by himself. I was the only one near. 'Hello,' says I, 'how long you been driving?' 'Mind your own business,' says he, and he whipped up and drove off. While I was speaking to him a man had got out of the carriage and gone into the depot. I didn't see him to know him, didn't pay any attention to him, for he went quickly, and I was wondering about Billings." "He says you came forward to get his passenger's baggage." "'Tain't so. That ain't my line of work." "Didn't the passenger pay his fare?" "Not there. He went straight into the depot." "Why did you ask Billings that question?" "'Cause I didn't know he'd got into the cab business. He used to be a porter." Clara thanked O'Brien, said she might call again if any other questions occurred to her, and the young ladies went on to Ashburton Place. Billings had lied, but it might have been Ivan, nevertheless, who went into the station from the closed carriage. Mrs. White's greeting was marked by constraint, and she sat in distressed silence for a moment after Clara and Louise entered. At length she said: "People will talk so! I'm sure you've been very good and brave, Miss Hilman, but what is one to think?" "I don't know what you mean, Mrs. White." "Well, don't you see, lots of my friends have called, seeing Lizzie's name in the papers, and Mr. Strobel's, and they will have it that they eloped." "Do you think so?" asked Clara, and in spite of her effort her tone was cold. "I don't know what to think," replied the landlady, plaintively. "You may think what you please," said Clara, her pride mastering her diplomacy for the moment; "I am going to New York to see your daughter. I called to say that you might write to her freely so far as any wish of mine is concerned, and to ask if I could take a look at Mr. Strobel's room." "Certainly," answered Mrs. White, uncomfortably. She longed to ask the imperious young lady a host of questions, but she was restrained by Clara's hauteur. The young ladies went up to Ivan's room, and found there his trunk as he had left it, apparently, and everything in just such condition as would be expected if a man were about to move and were going to send for his effects later. When they went down again they found Litizki talking with Mrs. White. "So you are going to New York to-day?" he said with some appearance of disappointment. "Yes," replied Clara, "but I don't care to have that information go further. Will you be careful, Mrs. White? Forgive me if I seemed harsh just now. I shall say nothing unkind to your daughter, and I believe less than ever that she eloped with Mr. Strobel. What have you found?" she asked, turning to Litizki. "Billings doesn't live at that address," he replied, "although he used to. He hasn't been about there for some time, and no one in the neighborhood knew he was a cab-driver." "Very well," said Clara. "There is nothing more to do in that direction for the present. I shall return from New York on Saturday morning, probably. I should like to see you then, if possible." "Yes, Miss Hilman. What train are you to take? I might have something to report to you at the last minute." Clara reflected and answered: "I shall have to go home first. I don't see how I can go earlier than by the three o'clock New England train. Will you be there?" Litizki said he would, and after some further conversation with Mrs. White the young ladies returned to Roxbury. Louise did not prepare to go to New York, the extra expense this journey involved deterring her, for Mr. Pembroke was not one who reveled in great wealth. It was decided to apprise him of Clara's coming by telegraph, so that she would not be without escort in the city. Litizki was at the train as he promised to be, and assisted Clara to her seat in the drawing-room car. He lingered until the starting signal had been given and then said "good-by" and jumped off; but instead of remaining in the depot, he ran forward and boarded the ordinary smoking-car. CHAPTER XV. LOUISE RECEIVES A CALLER. Mr. Pembroke met Clara at the train when it arrived in the Grand Central Depot promptly at nine o'clock. He was plainly anxious, almost agitated. "Tell me, child," he exclaimed, "why you have come?" "I couldn't be satisfied," she replied, "without setting at rest the rumors that connect Ivan's name with Lizzie White." "Oh," said her uncle, apparently relieved, "is that all?" "All, uncle? Why, no, not if I find anything that leads me to believe that Ivan is in New York. In that case I shall search for him here. What did you think I had come for?" "I had nothing in mind except anxiety. When I received your telegram, I feared something had happened. I couldn't tell what. I have been so occupied with business matters recently that I haven't been able to keep up with you, you know." "I'm so sorry to give you more trouble and anxiety," said Clara, with the sincerest contrition, "but I felt as if I must come on." "Let us go straight to the hotel," said Mr. Pembroke; "I suppose there's nothing you want to do to-night?" They had been standing on a station platform as they talked, and not far away was Litizki, watching, trying to listen, and wondering who the gentleman could be whom Clara greeted so affectionately. He knew nothing about her relationships, and supposed that Mr. Pembroke was her father. He followed them and saw them enter a hack, and he managed to get near enough to overhear Mr. Pembroke say "Travelers' Hotel" to the driver. Not content with knowing the hotel, however, Litizki ran along the sidewalk, keeping the vehicle in view all the way, and he did not turn aside content until he saw by the departure of the hack empty that Clara and her escort were both in the hotel. Then he felt that she would be safe through the night, for he was possessed of the idea that the powerful Poubalov would follow her, and he feared that she would come to harm at his hands. Mr. Pembroke had said little on the way from the depot to the hotel, but when they were in the quiet of Clara's room, he remarked: "I suppose, my dear, that this coming to see Lizzie White is the last step you will take in this matter, isn't it?" "I cannot tell yet, uncle," she replied; "I do not see why it should be, but, of course, I know so many things connected with the case that I have had no opportunity to tell you--things that I want to tell. I have needed somebody's advice, so much, and I could not intrude on you when you are so busy. I would not even now but that I think you ought to know as much as I do of what has happened." An expression of pain crossed Mr. Pembroke's features, and he responded uneasily: "Of course I want to help you, Clara, and I am more regretful than I can possibly express that my business has been in such shape." "Are you seriously alarmed about it, uncle?" "I was, but I think we shall pull through all right now. Let us talk of your affairs. I would like to suggest, with all sympathy, Clara, that the world in general, while it would admire your loyalty if it understood it, would yet do so in a pitying way that would be eminently distasteful to you if on your own part you understood the world. You see, you are regarded, no matter how unjustly, as deserted. You have a remarkably clear head, and you must see what I mean without putting me to the necessity of using disagreeable terms." Clara flushed. She felt at that moment the full force of the calamity that had overtaken her. While she was actively at work building up theories, investigating clews, and examining those who might throw light on the matter, her grief had been measurably lightened. The thought that she was working, however doubtfully, toward an end, had enabled her to keep her emotions in control. Her uncle's words, which were evidently but the preface to an appeal to give up the struggle, reopened her wounds. It was as if he had torn away the foundations of that structure of the mind by which she had supported her heart. With difficulty she restrained her tears, and responded: "It would be better, uncle, to use plain language. Then there would be no possible chance of a misunderstanding. I know how I am looked upon, as deserted by my lover, perhaps not for another woman, but at all events deserted by him. The world will say that it would comport better with womanly dignity to suffer in silence and solitude, and that it is unmaidenly to pursue the man." "You use harsher language than I would have used had I spoken without consideration of your feelings," interposed her uncle, nervously. His niece's faculty for manifesting occasionally an imperious will, and of firmly maintaining her own way without regard to general opinion, had always been a bit of a terror to him. It was difficult for him to reconcile it with her affectionate disposition, her real consideration for the sufferings of others. He could not see that in this matter, without the faintest trace of egotism, she unconsciously measured her own suffering as infinitely greater than that of anybody else who was related to the case, and that she as unconsciously asserted her right to minister to that suffering in the way best calculated to alleviate it. Such characters as hers, under the pressure of great trouble, elevate self-interest to the very heights of nobility. "I ask no consideration for my feelings," said Clara, almost coldly; "it seems to me that real consideration would credit me not only with dignified motives but with an intelligent basis for my conduct. Uncle dear," and she suddenly crossed to him and put her arms about his neck, "let me take that back. I didn't mean it. I wouldn't for the world say an unkind word to you, but you see I feel my lonely position so keenly. I do what I think is right, but there is no one to uphold me." Mr. Pembroke disengaged her arms, and again the expression of pain flitted across his face. "I am doing as well as I can under the circumstances," he said huskily, "not only to show you my deep sympathy, but to guide you also. For your own interests, I must point out one possibility of your interview to-morrow. I shall place no obstacle in the way of your seeing Lizzie White, but I caution you, without knowing more about her than that she left a good home, that she may take a most unfriendly attitude. If there is anything unseemly in the meeting, I know that it will arise from her. No one can tell me that she lacks your native refinement; it must be so; a woman such as she is at heart may make a dreadful scene, whether she be interested in Ivan or not. To be concerned in such a scene, my dear child, would be a stigma from which even your goodness could not escape. Clara, there is nothing so scandalous as a quarrel between women when a man is in question." "You wish me not to see her," said Clara, faintly. Mr. Pembroke rose and paced up and down in extreme agitation for several minutes, while Clara sat with a dreadful weight upon her heart; for she not only loved her uncle, and wished earnestly to be guided by him if possible, but she also realized that his warning was a wise one. She had herself, with all her thought, scarcely considered how she should approach Lizzie White. So certain was she that Ivan had not eloped with her, that the interview itself had not appealed to her as more than a friendly discussion of facts and rumors as to which both would be in accord. But there was her theory that Lizzie might be an accomplice of Poubalov's. What attitude might she not take, therefore, in order to carry out her part in the spy's design? "I would say yes," declared Mr. Pembroke at length, "for that is my wish, but I do not, cannot say it. Go to this Lizzie White to-morrow, Clara. You will know how to speak with her better than I can tell you. I will myself go to the house with you, but you shall have your meeting all alone if you so desire. Of course you do." "Then, uncle," said Clara, "let me tell you of the strange things that have occurred since I began to search for Ivan. I am sure you will feel, when you know all, that I am justified in my general course, however much I may have been mistaken in details." Mr. Pembroke listened with the closest attention to the narrative. He was deeply moved by it, and when she had finished he said brokenly: "There is great villainy at work here." Then he leaned his head upon his hand, shielding his eyes from hers as she eagerly sought, not so much commendation of her persistence as suggestion as to what to do, or some theory upon which to explain the many mysteries that centered upon the disappearance of Ivan. "I wonder," he mused at last, "if this could have been accident?" "Accident, uncle!" exclaimed Clara, with just a touch of impatience; "don't you see that if it had been accident, we should have known of it? Think: in a busy street of a city no accident could have occurred by which Ivan could be incapacitated without some report of it coming to the authorities. Even if Ivan had not been taken to a hospital in the usual way, but had fallen into the hands of private persons, it is not possible that with all the stir that was made by his disappearance, police or reporters should not have found some trace of him." "True, true," said Mr. Pembroke, vacantly; "I was thinking--you see it is hard to master all these strange details at once. I marvel at your courage." "Courage! What else could I do?" asked Clara. "Nothing with your character, nothing else. You have done right, Clara. I am very tired. Let us talk further of this in the morning." Mr. Pembroke was not disposed to talk in the morning, however, and Clara was engrossed with a long letter from Louise that had been mailed on the train leaving Boston at midnight. "Poubalov," she wrote, "was at the house when I returned from seeing you off. If the man were capable of expressing emotion, I should say that he was disappointed at not seeing you; but whatever he felt, he masked it under his grand assumption of dignity and courtesy. He had called, he said, to make his apologies for his extraordinary leave-taking of the evening before, and also, he added with ponderous humor, to recover his property. I got his hat and cane for him, and what do you think! he had brought a lovely basket of flowers for you, to plead his apologies, as he put it. There was no refusing such an offering, dear, and I am enjoying their fragrance and rich colors as I write. I hope this will reach you in time to be of use if Poubalov's call can be of use to you in New York. I thought it my duty to report it. I felt how immeasurably superior you are to me intellectually--I won't draw other comparisons lest they be odious to one of us--for I was utterly at a loss to draw him out. He didn't present his excuses to me, and how he managed to evade doing so I can't quite see now as I think it over, for he remained several minutes, talking with apparent candor. The man himself is as great a mystery as anything connected with your trouble. All I can say is that with one hat on his head, and his other hat and his cane in his hand, he eventually took his departure, promising to call again. There is one thing I managed not to do, though it was quite plain, even to me, that he was trying to find out. I didn't tell him where you were. Of course I had to say that you were not at home, and in answer to direct questions that I did not expect you before Saturday, but I didn't even hint at New York or Lizzie White, and he made no allusion to either. Did I do right? I hope so, for I have felt so often what a shame it is that I cannot be of more help to you. I believe in Ivan as you do, dear, and my heart and thoughts are with you." They were at breakfast in the great dining-room of the hotel when Clara read this letter, and she furtively kissed the paper that conveyed such loyal sympathy to her. As she replaced the letter in the envelope, she was surprised to see the old man Dexter hobbling across the room. There was an ugly scowl upon his face as he bowed to her, and Mr. Pembroke rose from his chair with an expression little less than fierce. "Another time, Dexter," he exclaimed under his breath, taking the old man by the arm and wheeling him around. As Mr. Pembroke walked him away, Clara heard Dexter croak: "What is she here for, Mat Pembroke?" When her uncle returned, his face was still dark and he said: "Business necessities, Clara, that sometimes compel a man to tolerate disagreeable persons. I wouldn't have him near you, however." "He is disagreeable, surely," responded Clara, "but I could have borne with him for your sake, uncle." The subject seemed intensely disagreeable to Mr. Pembroke, and nothing further was said about it. After breakfast Mr. Pembroke inquired the number of the house on Second Avenue from which Lizzie White had written, and they set out to find it. "I shall have to leave you, Clara," said her uncle, "as soon as I am sure you have found the right place. I will call for you or I will put a carriage at your disposal." "There is no telling how long I shall be," returned Clara, "and I don't see why you should need to inconvenience yourself. I have acquired more self-dependence during the last three or four days than I ever had before, and I think you can trust me to take care of myself. But I should think it would be well to have a carriage at command; and, uncle, all the expense I have been to thus far has come from my allowance. You will let me pay for a carriage, won't you?" "If you prefer to," said Mr. Pembroke, "and we will engage one in the vicinity of the house as we can reach the place readily by a cross-town line of cars." So they proceeded by street-car, and when they alighted in Second Avenue they were but a short distance from the desired number. Mr. Pembroke signaled to a passing hack and instructed the driver to wait near the house to which they were going. Then they continued their way on foot. Just before they came to the steps leading up to the door their attention was attracted by the noise of a man running behind them, and then a voice panting, "Miss Hilman! Miss Hilman!" They turned about quickly, and, to her unspeakable surprise, Clara saw that it was Litizki. His sallow face was flushed with the exertion of his long run, for he had chased them afoot from the hotel. He could hardly speak for lack of breath when he came up to them, but he did manage to gasp: "I've seen him, Miss Hilman, this morning!" CHAPTER XVI. LIZZIE WHITE. Clara clutched her uncle's arm convulsively and leaned heavily upon him. "You have seen Mr. Strobel?" she whispered. All the color fled from Litizki's face as he realized how woefully he had put his foot in it. In the intensity of his hate for Poubalov and his distrust of him, he had forgotten for the moment that the spy was but a secondary figure in the drama they were enacting. Clara saw in the little tailor's distressed expression that she had interpreted his words erroneously. The double shock well nigh unnerved her. "Let us walk on a little way," she said faintly. Stuyvesant Square was near by, and Mr. Pembroke led her within the gates and sat with her upon a bench. Litizki followed humbly, suffering miserably from his indiscreet zeal, and Clara told her uncle who he was. Mr. Pembroke asked: "Well, my man, who is it you have seen?" "Alexander Poubalov, sir," he replied with his eyes upon the ground. "Strange!" said Mr. Pembroke, turning to his niece; "did you tell him you were coming to New York?" "No; I didn't mean that he should know it. He called at the house yesterday after I had gone, and Louise writes that she withheld any definite information about my whereabout." Mr. Pembroke looked inquiringly at Litizki. "I came on yesterday by the same train that brought Miss Hilman," he said, "for I didn't know that there was anybody in New York to watch out for her. There was nothing for me to do in Boston, and I was afraid for her. Neither of you know this man Poubalov as I do. I should say that he had the gift of second sight, but I don't believe in the supernatural. He is not only a master of deceit, but he has marvelous powers of discernment. I was certain that he would pursue Miss Hilman, and I wanted to do what I could to protect her." "Mr. Litizki has been very kind and faithful, uncle," said Clara; "you remember that I told you about him." "Yes," replied Mr. Pembroke, to whom the idea of his beautiful niece under the watchful eye of such an unprepossessing man was distasteful. "How did you come to see Poubalov?" "I went to the hotel very early this morning," was the reply, "and hung around where I could keep all the doors in view. Poubalov turned up about half-past seven. He was walking very rapidly. He went first into the hotel near yours, and I saw him examining the register at the clerk's desk. Presently, with the same hurried strides, he came out and went into the Travelers'. There he looked over several pages of the register, and when he had finished he strolled to the door leisurely. All his hurry was gone, and after pausing to light a cigarette, he went slowly down the avenue. I remained to give warning to Miss Hilman. I didn't know your name, sir, or I would have sent for you, and I couldn't get a chance to say a word until just now. I am very sorry that I gave Miss Hilman a wrong impression." "Don't think of it, Mr. Litizki," said Clara, who was rapidly recovering her accustomed calmness; "it is all over now. You see, uncle, how strangely I am beset. There is no doubt, from Poubalov's actions, that he has followed me here. What is his purpose? To put Lizzie White on her guard? Then he has circumvented me, for he has had nearly two hours in which to act since he found from the register that you were staying at the Travelers', and perhaps my name, too, was on the book." "Yes, I put it there myself, last night." Clara rose and extended her hand to Litizki. "You are a faithful friend," she said, "and I am very glad you told me this. I shall be the more satisfied with my talk with Miss White now, for I shall be able to ask questions that otherwise might not have occurred to me." Litizki mumbled some words of acknowledgment of her kindness, and Mr. Pembroke asked anxiously whether she felt strong enough to proceed with her programme. "Oh, yes," she answered bravely; "you won't need to wait longer. I will take the carriage afterward and Mr. Litizki, I suppose, won't be far away if I need escort." "I shall not be far from you at any time," said the tailor. "I shall be glad when you are through with it," sighed Mr. Pembroke. "I will accompany you as far as the house as I at first intended." Litizki hung back as they started and remained within the entrance to the park until he saw them mount the steps, and until Mr. Pembroke had gone down again, leaving Clara in the house. The servant who answered the ring had readily admitted that Miss White lived there, and had invited the callers to enter. She ushered Clara into a small reception-room, and, without asking her name, went to find Lizzie. Clara sat down to wait, feeling more perturbation than she had experienced at any time since her trouble began. She had not long to pass in painful speculations, for Lizzie White promptly responded to the summons. "I supposed it was you," she said with a hard, resentful tone as she entered the room. Lizzie would have been a comely girl if her rather sharp features had been softened by a pleasant expression. On the contrary, disappointment and bitterness dwelt in her eyes and drew down the corners of her mouth. She was dressed as a domestic servant, wearing a white cap and apron. She held an open letter in her hand, and sat down in the nearest chair without making the slightest advance to the kindly greeting that was upon Clara's lips as she rose. It was as if she expected a disagreeable scene, and was determined not only to see it through, but to contribute her full share to its unpleasantness. Clara's greeting was unuttered. "Why did you think it was I?" she asked. "This," said Lizzie, indicating the letter; "it's from mother." "Did she tell you I was coming?" "No, but she tells me how you've hunted for Mr. Strobel, and how people say he went away with me. I knew well enough you'd come on here to find him." "It is hardly correct," said Clara, gently, "to say that I came on to find him, though I would go anywhere to do so." "Yes, I guess you would." Lizzie was relentless. Her tone spoke determination to make Miss Hilman suffer to the utmost. Clara conquered the emotions that Lizzie stirred within her, and added: "From the start, Lizzie, I have steadfastly denied that Mr. Strobel went away with you, or that your departure had to do with his disappearance. Please understand me: I did not expect to find Mr. Strobel with you. If I had thought differently, I should not have come." Lizzie laughed scornfully. "No," she said, "you would have known that you were too late. You are very brilliant, Miss Hilman, but I guess you're finding that it takes more than that to hold a man." This was as bad as anything that Clara had anticipated as among the possibilities of the conversation; but, holding her great purpose firmly in mind, she persisted in continuing the interview. Suffer insult she must, but she would not give up without obtaining some manner of information. "For your own good name, Lizzie----" began Clara, but the girl interrupted hotly: "My good name! what have you to do with it, I should like to know? I hadn't seen any Boston papers, and I didn't know until I got this letter that the whole city had talked about me. They have said that I eloped with Mr. Strobel, and that settles it, I suppose. Why didn't you let mother write to me the day she received my letter?" "I didn't ask her not to write," replied Clara, feeling a little guilty at the thrust; perhaps she had gone too far in influencing the communication between mother and daughter, setting her own anxieties and griefs above theirs. "I asked her not to mention Mr. Strobel's disappearance, and she chose herself not to write at all. I did so because I confidently expected to obtain proofs in the evening that he could not have gone with you." "Then you did think so!" cried Lizzie triumphantly; "you did fear, at least, that all your education and money and high society ways were not enough to keep him from falling in love with a poor girl who has no position!" "I had no such thought," returned Clara, greatly distressed; "I did think that you would be happier to know that such a thought could not occur to me, as you would know if the circumstances were such as to prove that Mr. Strobel could not have come to New York." "Me, happy!" exclaimed Lizzie, bitterly, and then in the same breath--"You found it quite possible that he could have come, didn't you?" Ignoring the last part of her remark, Clara quickly took her cue from the first, and said very gently: "Your mother showed me your letter in which you said you could be almost happy." The color rushed to Lizzie's cheeks as she replied: "Mother ought to have known better." Then she shut her lips hard together, and it was plain that she was obstinately determined to say no more on that subject. "I have sincerely tried," said Clara, "to think and act in a friendly way, Lizzie." "Friendly with a rival!" and again Lizzie laughed with bitter scorn. "I should not need the evidence of your words," responded Clara, "to convince me that there never was any rivalry between us." She rose to go, and Lizzie looked at her with startled eyes. Was this to be the end of the conversation? Clara was the picture of haughty pride, unmoved apparently by any of the thrusts that Lizzie had tried to make so cruel. Jealously insensible to Clara's kindly advances, Lizzie was completely overcome by her manifestation of calm superiority. She bit her lip and crumpled her mother's letter in her hand. "Mr. Strobel is not here," she said, and her voice broke as if the words choked her. "I know it," remarked Clara, coolly, with her hand upon the door. "Miss Hilman! don't go yet!" There was the sign of coming tears in Lizzie's eyes, and Clara looked down upon her pityingly. Lizzie made one last effort to recall her determination to be bitter, and compel her visitor to suffer as she suffered, but hers was not the strength of character to meet emergencies, overcome difficulties, and play a part unswayed by her deeper, genuine devotions. She extended her arms upon the table before her, and, laying her head upon them, burst into passionate crying. Clara laid her hand caressingly on Lizzie's head and waited until the first storm of sobs had begun to subside. Then she said in a quiet but not unkind voice: "Lizzie, have you seen Alexander Poubalov this morning?" The girl half raised her head, choked back the sobs and replied, "Who?" Clara repeated the name distinctly. "I don't know who he is," answered Lizzie, wearily. "Do you remember," asked Clara, "the gentleman who called on Mr. Strobel the morning he was to be married?" "I remember somebody called," said Lizzie, absently, "mother showed him up. I didn't see him. What has he got to do with it?" Clara felt that she must believe the girl, but she made one further move to discover whether in any way she might be allied with Poubalov. "Has anybody been to see you this morning?" she asked. "No," replied Lizzie; "what has this man you mention got to do with it?" "Everything, I think," said Clara. "It looks as if he had caused Mr. Strobel's disappearance, abducted him in fact, and I know that he followed me to New York." Lizzie was not keen enough to see that Clara had inferred a possible collusion between herself and Poubalov. "Then," she said, "Mr. Strobel did not desert you at all!" and the tears welled from her eyes afresh. Clara knew that she would speak further, and after a moment, with her face in her hand, Lizzie moaned: "I am very unhappy, Miss Hilman." "You must be, Lizzie," returned Clara, caressing her, "and I don't ask you to tell me anything. I am sorry I had to break in on you; but if you understood how I have been more than puzzled by the strange conduct of Mr. Strobel's enemy, you would forgive me." "Forgive? Why, Miss Hilman, it is my place to ask for forgiveness. I was so brutal when you first came in. Don't you see, I," her voice faltered pitiably but she continued desperately, "I loved Mr. Strobel before he ever met you, I think. He never mentioned love to me, but he was so good and kind that I foolishly thought he was fond of me. I suffered horribly when he told us of his engagement, and I couldn't get over it. I thought of running away many times, but I couldn't bring myself to do so while he was still with us. I thought perhaps I would feel differently after he was gone, but on that morning when he was getting ready for the church, I simply couldn't endure the thought of staying in the house any longer. So I came away. I hadn't made any preparation. I took the first train I could get, and while I was waiting I wrote a note to mother. Did you see it? No? I started to tell her why I went, but I couldn't, and I scratched the words out. I knew one friend in New York, and she got me employment here, where I thought I could work hard and forget. I hadn't heard a word of Mr. Strobel's disappearance until I got mother's letter. Then--then I felt somehow as if it was my revenge, and I think I hated you as much for your suffering as I did because you won his love." Clara heard this painful confession with an aching heart. Her sympathies were deeply touched by the artlessness with which this unhappy girl had developed bitterness and discontent from her love that it might take a lifetime of toil to soften. "We both suffer, Lizzie," she said gravely; "I am glad now that I came. Shall I tell your mother anything?" "No! no! I will write what's necessary. You can say that I am in a good family, and that some day I shall visit her." Lizzie looked appealingly at Clara as if she would have her remain longer, but no good end was to be accomplished by prolonging the interview, and Clara withdrew. As she stepped into the waiting carriage, she beckoned to Litizki who stood near the next corner. "I am going to the hotel," she said, "and as soon as I can I shall take the train for Boston. Will you get in?" "No, thank you, Miss Hilman," replied Litizki, abashed. "I will return by street-car. If you could let me know what train you intend to take, I should like it." "There's a train at noon. If I can see my uncle I will take that." She was driven away, and Litizki, head down, gloomy, more and more impressed with the conviction that Poubalov was not only responsible for Strobel's disappearance, but that he also plotted evil to Clara, slowly left the vicinity. When he was well out of the way, Alexander Poubalov left the window of a room he had hired two hours earlier, directly across the street from the house where Lizzie White lived, and came out upon the sidewalk. After a quick glance up and down the avenue, he went over the way, rang the bell, and asked to see Miss White. CHAPTER XVII. HOW LITIZKI SAVED MISS HILMAN. The ladies' entrance to the Travelers' Hotel was upon the same street as the main corridor, almost next door to it. Clara glanced in as the carriage slowly passed the open doors and she saw her uncle at the further end, pacing slowly toward her. Two men were with him whom she did not at the moment recognize, but so anxious was she to have a word with him that when she alighted, instead of going in at the ladies' entrance, she stepped over to the main doorway and stood there to attract his attention as soon as he should come near. He saw her immediately and quickened his pace. In that instant she saw that one of the other men was Dexter, and that he wheeled abruptly about, turning the third man around with him. Dexter hobbled back toward the clerk's desk and led his companion out of sight into a passage that terminated in the corridor. Clara saw this maneuver but dimly, as her attention was fixed upon her uncle, whose face had the haggard, anxious expression that she had noticed on it several times of late. He was quickly beside her, and attributing his anxiety largely to herself, she smiled bravely and said: "There was no scandal, uncle, and very little of what you could call a scene." "You are back sooner than I thought for," he responded with something of an effort. "Did you see anything?" "Of Poubalov? No." "I mean Strobel." "Oh, no! I am convinced that Lizzie knows nothing of him, poor girl!" "So am I," said Mr. Pembroke with a deep sigh; "I have had no time, of course, to give the matter much thought, but my impression is, and it grows constantly stronger, that you will eventually find Strobel in Boston." "And do you think I shall find him, uncle?" asked Clara, eager for encouraging words. "I hope so, my child, I hope so. It does not seem possible that this affair will resolve itself into an unfathomable mystery. There are few such things in real life, you know, and if the worst had happened to Strobel, we would have heard of it." "It gives me new courage to hear you say so," said Clara looking wistfully at her uncle, "I wanted to speak to you simply to let you know that nothing troublesome has happened, and that it is my intention to return to Boston as soon as possible, though I don't know what I can do after I get there." "I would rest if I were you, Clara." "I cannot think of rest now. We will see. Something may happen to give me a fresh start, or I may discover a new clew in something I already know, the significance of which I have overlooked." "Don't try to do too much; rest if you can," pleaded Mr. Pembroke. "I shall return myself to-night." "Do you want me to wait and go with you?" "I wouldn't," exclaimed her uncle, hastily; "you'll find the journey nothing by daylight, and it might be fatiguing at night. You are familiar with it, and don't mind traveling alone for so short a time, do you?" "Not at all. I merely thought you might want me to wait." "No, Dexter will have to be with me. I will be with you at home in time for breakfast. You'll take the noon train I suppose? Good-by." Haste was evident in Mr. Pembroke's manner as well as in his words, and Clara bade him good-by at once. She went to her room for her traveling bag, and when she returned to the carriage Litizki was waiting for her. "Is it the noon train, Miss Hilman?" he asked. "Yes," she answered; "won't you ride to the station with me?" "Do you wish it?" said the little tailor, hesitatingly. "Of course I do. Come, there may be things we wish to tell each other." So Litizki sat beside her on the way to the station, and after the carriage started he said: "Miss Hilman, I shrink from asking questions, and yet I think you will admit that I have more than curiosity about the result of your call on Miss White." "You have every right to know," she responded; "we talked very frankly after a while, and I came away satisfied that she is not an accomplice of Poubalov's." Litizki stared out of the window in silence for a time, and finally spoke much as if he were addressing himself: "When Miss Hilman says she is satisfied, it goes a great way to convince me." "You are still in doubt, then?" asked Clara. "I cannot help being so. Poubalov grows upon me until he is ever present in my mind, like a horrid nightmare. At every step we take it is Poubalov. If ever anything is discovered, you discover Poubalov's hand in it. Whenever we make an attempt to gain a point, we are frustrated, and it is Poubalov who stands over and above, in and through all, moving us with his master-hand, and setting up obstacles when we would move of our own will. We are at the mercy of him who knows no mercy, and so long as Poubalov remains--in America, we are without hope, unless he accomplishes his purpose and has no further use for Mr. Strobel." Litizki spoke with profound melancholy and just that touch of extravagance in language that Clara had noticed the first time she saw him in Mrs. White's. "I don't wonder," she said, "that you estimate Poubalov's power for evil so greatly, and it would be folly for the friends of Mr. Strobel to underestimate him; and yet, with a woman's imperfect reasoning, I feel that we shall some day outreach him." "There is nothing imperfect in your reasoning, Miss Hilman," and for once Litizki addressed her directly, his gloomy eyes fixed upon her own; "but you are speaking from the kindness of your heart rather than from the logic of your brain. This is not my first experience with Poubalov. But no matter." He turned away abruptly and again gazed out of the window. "It is nothing short of greatness in you," he continued presently, "in the midst of your sorrow to try to throw a little light into my life. Every kind word and every encouragement from you hurts me almost as much as the oppression and injustice from which I have suffered all my life. Until I knew Mr. Strobel I knew not real kindness. I am yet unused to it, and so it seems sometimes as if you had stabbed me. But there is this difference, Miss Hilman: Whereas constant injustice deadens the heart, kindness quickens it, and I shall yet do something, you may be sure, that will not only be evidence of my sincerity and devotion, but that will actually help you." "Mr. Litizki," returned Clara, disturbed by his morbid tone rather than by his words, which were but characteristic of his point of view, "you dwell too much upon these things, not only upon what has been evilly done to you, but upon what seems to you as exceptional goodness. Let us not think more about it until the time comes for action. Then we shall be the better prepared to think quickly and effectively. See, here we are at the depot. I will let you get my ticket for me, as you will have to go to the window also, and I will avoid the nuisance of having to wait in the line." Litizki took her purse without a word, after she had settled with the driver, escorted her to a seat and then went to the ticket window. When he returned he displayed unusual coolness, for him, as he handed her the ticket and said: "Poubalov will go by the same train as you. He is even now in this room, and he saw me buy the tickets. Of course I pretended not to see him, but he despises me and cares not for all my efforts." Clara felt no fear at this information, but it nevertheless aroused a sense of discomfort. A presentiment of misfortune she readily dismissed; this fact of being persistently "shadowed" by a man whom she believed to be her enemy she could not dismiss, and she could not shake off the irritation caused by it. "Suppose," suggested Litizki, "that you pretend to take this train but really wait for the next one." "No," replied Clara, "I will not be interfered with in my movements by Poubalov. I suppose it is his right to take the train, if he chooses to do so, as well as it is mine. I will go to my car now, please, and if he ventures to intrude upon me I shall know how to relieve myself of his presence." Litizki's eyes sparkled with exultant satisfaction for just an instant, and then the fire that lit them subsided to a steady glow that would have revealed a fixed and awful purpose had anybody seen it and read it correctly. But he kept his eyes averted as he escorted Clara to the car, thinking of her words, weighing them, repeating them to himself. They sank deep into his brain, where his perceptions of life, disordered by a rankling sense of injustice, distorted them and threw them back to the surface of his thoughts with an interpretation all his own. "She has the nature of heroes," he said to himself, "and she is capable of it! She is great, grand! How fitting that Alexander Poubalov should meet at last a foe of infinite spirit, intellect as keen as his own, courage unfaltering, and that foe a woman! But she is a woman, and her place is beside my benefactor. She must be saved for him and for herself. She must be spared this demonstration of her right to rank with heroes. I know what she is, and Strobel shall know when, Poubalov out of the way, he gains his freedom. She must be saved, and I must save her. It is my fate!" Wholly unsuspicious of the raving that was going on in her strange companion's mind, Clara proceeded to the car and took the chair that the porter pointed out to her. For just an instant it occurred to her to ask Litizki to sit with her, but there was nothing Quixotic in her character; she knew that the little tailor would be immeasurably hurt if she should suggest paying his traveling expenses, and, withal, he made her uncomfortable. She thought very kindly of him, but she felt no need of his protection. "We will meet again in Boston," she said, pleasantly, "and we may yet do some work together." "Perhaps so," responded Litizki. "I shall be on the train, and if you like I will watch outside till it starts and let you know whether Poubalov gets on board." "It's hardly necessary," said Clara; "still, if you would rather do so, I have no objection." Litizki, therefore, loitered on the platform beside the train until just before starting time. Then he went to Clara and told her that Poubalov had taken a seat in the car just behind hers. "I have no fear," she assured him, "but you may look for me when we get to Boston." She made this arrangement wholly for his sake, realizing the man's devotion and anxiety to serve her. He bowed gravely and made his way to the platform again, but instead of going to an ordinary coach he climbed the steps to the rear platform of the parlor car in which Poubalov sat. "Can you give me a seat in this car?" he asked of the conductor as the train started. "There's just one left," replied the official as he consulted his slips after a curious glance at the inquirer. Litizki paid for the seat immediately. It was at the very back of the car, against the partition of the smoking room wherein Poubalov was at the time seeking the comfort he found in cigarettes. The train had been in motion more than an hour when Poubalov appeared. He saw Litizki, and raised his brows slightly, as if in mild surprise. With no other sign of recognition he took his seat, which was in about the middle of the car. Hours passed slowly while the train rushed on as if madly intent upon checking the flight of time. Poubalov occupied himself with a book. Litizki could not have followed the words on a printed page had he tried to do so. His brain worked over and over the idea that had found its way there days before, and he could not, if he would, have thought of anything else. "The time matters not," he argued with himself; "as well now as at another, but there must be provocation if possible. If there is no provocation, then proceed without it. It must be done at all hazard. And there must be no failure." Somewhere between Westerly and Providence the train came to a stop. There was trouble with the engine--what, it matters not. The train could not proceed until the damage had been repaired. A brakeman was sent forward to the next station to telegraph for assistance, and the engineer busied himself in effecting a temporary adjustment of the machinery, so that some progress could be made even though it were slow. Poubalov went forward with many passengers to watch the work, and Litizki followed him. Altogether nearly two hours were lost by the accident, so that it was dark when the train rushed through the suburbs of Boston. Poubalov then rose and went into the car forward. Litizki went after and saw the spy drop into a chair not far from where Clara sat, her back to the window, her profile clearly in view. There were many vacant seats in the car, some unoccupied at the moment because the passengers, weary with the long journey, were standing up, making early preparations for departure. All the men were at the forward end, waiting their turns at the wash-room. The train had just rolled past Roxbury crossing, two miles from the terminus, when Poubalov rose again and sauntered forward, sinking negligently into the chair back of Clara which had just been vacated by a lady who was now submitting to the brush of the porter. Litizki saw Clara start when Poubalov addressed her, and his hand sought his pocket, but he withdrew it empty when he observed that the spy had left his cane leaning against the side of the car near his former seat. "That will do better," muttered the tailor, and he went to Poubalov's chair, took the cane in his hands, and, all unobserved by any of the preoccupied passengers, released the catch and drew forth the long blade. Concealing it by his side as he took the few remaining steps that lay between him and his victim, he presently raised it high over Poubalov's heart, and with the words, "I will do it for you, Miss Hilman!" brought it down with all his force. Poubalov fell into the aisle with a loud gasp, and Clara, uttering one scream of terror, bent over him. Litizki dashed to the rear platform. There was nobody in his way save one or two frightened women. The brakeman had already opened the doors of the vestibuled platform and before any one could lay hands upon him, the little tailor had swung himself off into the darkness. CHAPTER XVIII. THE KEY TO IVAN'S PRISON. The train was proceeding at such comparatively slow speed that Litizki, though he had jumped blindly and though he fell full length on the ground, was not hurt. Before the rear car had passed he was on his feet and making across the tracks. A fence too high for him to scale barred his progress, and he hurried in the direction of Roxbury, looking for some means of egress from the "yard" through which the railroad ran. He found it at last, a narrow gate in the fence at the end of a short street. The gate was unlocked, and Litizki was soon upon Columbus Avenue. Until then he had been conscious of no especial emotion, and his course had been taken instinctively rather than with a definite purpose of effecting his escape; but instead of breathing free now that he was where for a time at least he could mingle with the passers unsuspected, a great fear came upon him. Throughout all the long journey he had nursed his awful purpose calmly and steadfastly, never for an instant wavering; now he seemed still to feel the handle of the dagger in his palm, he saw the blade flash as he poised it over Poubalov's heart, and he heard again the loud gasp with which the spy fell under the blow. Litizki trembled. His throat was parched, his skin hot, but dry as the dust on the pavement. He glanced furtively up and down the avenue, as if to see the policeman who would presently arrest him. Litizki had paused, unable to walk without staggering, when he dropped so completely from heroism to trepidation. He grasped a trolley post for support and was dimly conscious that two or three girls who were passing laughed at him for being helplessly drunk. Half unconsciously he felt in his pocket and drew forth the revolver with which he had intended to kill the spy. Should he not end his misery then and there, and cheat the hangman? He looked down at the tiny barrel, so large in its tragic possibilities, and with the thought that he had but to exercise a steady hand upon himself as he had upon Poubalov in order to plunge into oblivion, he began to recover. The grated cover of a sewer basin was at his feet and he dropped the weapon upon it. It rebounded a very little and then slipped through the grating, out of sight and out of reach. Litizki instantly wondered why he had done that. "That was unreasonable. The revolver was not evidence," he muttered, and then a wild joy surged in his heart as he reflected that he had accomplished his purpose. "That was no crime in the light of reason," he argued. "The necessities of the situation demanded it, and though the law will say otherwise, I am content." He was almost himself again now, and it flashed upon him that his work, after all, was but half done. There was one other step to be taken before his heroic deed could be of service to her whom he worshiped, and to his benefactor whom he idolized. Strobel must be freed, but how? Certainly not by standing there at the curb in plain view, waiting to be arrested. No; whatever be his ultimate fate, he must effect at least a temporary escape. Once more steadied by a purpose to strive for, Litizki crossed the avenue and walked on in the same general direction until he came to Washington Street. His delay at the curb had been brief as measured by the watch. With every step he took his brain grew clearer. He saw the folly of going to Poubalov's lodging-house in Bulfinch Place for the purpose of releasing Strobel. His conviction that Strobel was confined there had not been shaken by any of the events since his failure to expose Poubalov's secret. News of the murder would undoubtedly be taken to that house before he could get there. The release must be effected by some other hand than his own; but what matter? He had made the release possible. Miss Hilman would ever give him credit for it, and that was enough, as undoubtedly she would tell Strobel how it came to pass. His plan of operation was fully formed when he reached Washington Street. He boarded the first Chelsea ferry car that came along, and set himself to thinking of it. When the conductor touched his shoulder to remind him of his fare, he started violently as if the avenging hand of law had been laid upon him. There was a recurrence of the dreadful fear that had momentarily possessed him, and again he shook as if with an ague. He felt an almost irresistible impulse to jump from the car and run; and when at last he left it, near the far end of Hanover Street, he had not yet recovered. With great difficulty he dragged his steps through the crowded streets of the North End until he came to the house where Vargovitch lived. As he climbed the stairs, he felt his courage return; and when Vargovitch bade him enter, he was again the somber, depressed figure with which all his acquaintances were familiar. "Vargovitch," he said directly but with averted eyes, "I leave the country to-morrow, never to return. Do not ask me why. You will know soon enough after I have gone. See, I have so much money," and he emptied the contents of his purse upon the table. "It is enough for the present, perhaps, but I shall some day need more, and I leave behind me accounts and stock, to say nothing of business good will, that are of value. I want you to help me realize upon them." Vargovitch looked sternly at his friend. "That mad head of yours," he responded, "has led you at last to difficulty from which there is no exit. I will ask no questions, Litizki, but I will not be concerned in your affair. You should not have come here." Litizki was sufficiently master of himself to repress the tremor that threatened him. "Do you desert me, Vargovitch?" he asked, turning his dull eyes apathetically on his comrade. "I'll accept no responsibility for what you may have done," returned Vargovitch, "I will neither harbor you nor inform upon you." "I do not ask the one, and I know you would not do the other. I shall remain but a short time. Come! will you take my business and dispose of it for me?" "Money cannot be raised among our people to-night." "I know it, but you can send me some when you have collected. Let me sit down and write a moment." Vargovitch silently placed writing materials before him, and Litizki wrote rapidly. When he had done, he handed the paper to his friend. It was a surrender of all his business property to Vargovitch, as complete a bill of sale as he could draw. "Take it or destroy it," said Litizki; "I go now, and by and by I shall send you my address. If you have accepted the trust I impose upon you, you will send me money; if not--" The tailor shrugged his shoulders and went to the door. "It is the last time you look upon me, Vargovitch," he concluded. "It is a wild scheme," muttered Vargovitch, looking at the document, "but we will see." The noise of the door closing aroused him. Litizki had left the room. On the street Litizki again had to struggle against the fear that his crime excited. All through the long night it came to him at irregular intervals, and he vibrated between an exaltation when he regarded himself as a hero, and abject cowardice when the rustling of a leaf made his very soul shiver. On this occasion, that is, after leaving Vargovitch, he staggered through unfamiliar streets and alleys, hoping that no friend would see him, and at length during a period of self-possession, he crossed the ferry to East Boston. There he took a room in an emigrant's hotel near the Cunard steamship dock. He knew that some boat of this line would depart on the morrow, the regular sailing day, and he had resolved to take passage in it. In the office of the hotel he found that the boat was the Cephalonia, and that she was scheduled to start at half-past eleven. That was a late hour, and he would be in great peril until then, but there was nothing for it but to take his chances. So he gathered up a lot of writing materials and retired to his room. He spent most of the night in writing to Clara. "In staying your hand," he began abruptly, without address of any sort, "from exacting from Alexander Poubalov the penalty of his crime against you, the penalty which your hand alone was worthy to exact, I was impelled not by egotism, or sudden emotion. It was my purpose to save you for a happier career than with all your nobility of character you could have achieved had you yourself done the deed. I shall try to escape the punishment that society would inflict upon me for this act of justice, for I find that at this moment I cling to my miserable life as does the dog whose master starves and maltreats him. If I do not escape, it will matter not at all, and I ask no tears from your beautiful eyes. I know your character so well that I shall die content with the gratitude that I know will warm your heart for your unworthy servant. "The blow that struck away the mighty obstacle to your success and happiness was but the key to the door that is closed upon Ivan Strobel. The happiness of opening that door with my own hands is not to be for me, and I do not deserve it. I am content to show you the way. "Poubalov's rooms are at 32 Bulfinch Place. He occupies two, possibly three rooms there, and in the sense that he has undoubtedly bought the landlady, the whole house is his. I am convinced that Strobel is confined there, and that that has been his prison house since his abduction last Monday. There will be no bar now to your going to the house and releasing your lover and my benefactor. I will tell you what room he is in, or at all events was in last Thursday night; and that you may thoroughly understand me, I will relate how I came to know this, although in so doing I shall lay bare to you the secrets of my heart and confess to you the weak, good-for-nothing that I am--such as you yourself have found me to be. I hope my action of this evening will redeem me somewhat in your eyes." Here followed a detailed account of Litizki's attempted rescue of Strobel, and he mitigated none of the mortifying occurrences, freely confessing himself a child in the hands of his adversary. "The room where Strobel was confined on that night," he continued, "is the little one adjoining Poubalov's main room. It is directly over the hall as you enter, one flight up. I doubt very much whether Poubalov has transferred his prisoner to any other part of the house, for that would have provoked comment and perhaps suspicion among the lodgers. Your happiness, therefore, is now in your own hands, and if I escape I shall never see you again. I could almost wish that I would be taken, for the certainty that you would come to visit me in my cell; but it is my desire to relieve you of everything that might even remind you of sorrow, and I therefore take leave of you in this letter with the hope that you will act upon it without delay, and that no accident will rob you of the reward which your loyalty merits." He signed his name without any formal concluding phrases, and having addressed, stamped and sealed the envelope, he went out to post it. The dawn was just breaking, and he could see with sufficient clearness all about the street and the freight yard in the vicinity of the hotel. No one, apparently, was stirring save himself. Believing that Clara would get the letter sooner if he took it to a post office instead of a street box, he attempted to find one. He knew there must be a branch office in East Boston somewhere, but he knew not where to look for it. He had come to the corner of Maverick Square when he saw a policeman standing within the shadow of a building. A violent shudder came over him as he suddenly realized that he had taken one step toward the officer with a view to asking the way to the post office! One of his fits of fear attacked him and again he staggered, but if the policeman had any thought of arresting him for drunkenness, he gave no indication of it, and Litizki stumbled on undisturbed. When he thought he could do so safely, he turned into a doorway to recover. He saw a street letter-box within twenty feet, but as he started toward it, letter in hand, he heard a bell ringing. "The ferry!" he muttered, and he began to run toward the river. With all his fears the little tailor kept his head faithful to his purpose. It was now in his thoughts that he would cross the river to the mainland and post his letter in the general office on Devonshire Street, whence he knew it would be taken with the least delay to Mr. Pembroke's house. He was conscious of the risk in thus showing himself even in the solitary hours of the early morning, but his courage was returning, and he felt again a hero who would brave all for her to whom he owed fealty. The gateman at the ferry heard him running down the street and held the boat for him. Litizki sank breathless upon a bench and felt again the triumph of his deed. He reveled in the difficulties he was overcoming and the dangers that beset him. A car was waiting at the city side of the ferry, and Litizki rode in it as far as Scollay Square. Then he walked to the post office, and remembering that a stamp window was open all night, he found it and added to his letter a "special delivery." "Now," he muttered, dropping the important missive in the box, "it doesn't matter what happens to me." He returned on foot by devious ways to the ferry, more than once evading marketmen and other early pedestrians as he felt the recurrence of terror, and at length came again to his hotel. The employees of the house were astir, steerage passengers were beginning to arrive, and Litizki felt a sudden repugnance to the solitude of his chamber. He sat by a window in the office and watched the groups of men and women who gradually gathered at the entrance to the dock, waiting to go on board the Cephalonia or to bid good-by to friends and relatives. Before very long he heard the strident voice of a newsboy calling his morning wares. He listened for a quotation of startling headlines, expecting that the murder of a passenger in a drawing-room car would be the great news feature of the day. Perhaps this boy had not read his papers carefully. At all events, he shouted nothing whatever concerning the event that had crowned Litizki's life and made him a hero and a coward at once. After some hesitation the tailor bought a paper, and ran his eyes over the captions of the leading articles. He found no reference to his deed there. He examined the paper, column by column, from first page to last, and not one line set forth so much as a hint of Poubalov's tragic end. CHAPTER XIX. THE GHOST OF POUBALOV. Litizki laid the newspaper down and tried to reflect. He had not slept at all since he awoke from a very brief nap in New York the morning before; therefore, he had not dreamed the scene in the drawing-room car. With his own hand he had actually struck Poubalov to the heart, and his victim had fallen with the gasp and shudder of death. This was so, and no newspaper could make it otherwise; but how should it happen that the reporters had missed the episode? It had happened upon a railroad train; what more probable, then, than that the railroad officials had suppressed the news? He had read many accounts of accidents in which the reporters set forth the reticence of officials and employees. "They imagine," thought Litizki, "that it is not for their interest to let the public know that so violent a crime, so they would call it, could be committed in one of their high-toned cars, and that, moreover, the murderer could escape." This thought appeased for a moment the new fear that threatened to unman him for all time, the fear that he had failed! Though he openly and emphatically repudiated all superstitions, and boasted over and again that his life and views were ruled by reason alone, he was yet subject to influences that, if they were not superstitions, were remarkably like them. Among these were his estimate of Poubalov, whose invincibility seemed to surpass human powers and attributes. Litizki was conscious of this tendency to surround the spy with a supernatural atmosphere, and he struggled against it, the result of his struggle invariably being his deeper self-abasement as he recognized Poubalov's immeasurable superiority. Now he felt again this superhuman character of the spy appealing to him, setting his poor brain in a whirl, and blurring his eyes as if a mighty wind had taken up the dust of the street and held it suspended in a dense cloud before him. "Bah!" exclaimed Litizki, striking his brow angrily, "he cannot"--and he stopped suddenly, conscious that he was speaking aloud. There was nobody in the room but a sleepy clerk, who looked up curiously from his ledger and then bent his head again over his work. Litizki tried to force his thoughts away from the topics that absorbed him. It occurred to him that he had eaten nothing since the morning before, and he went to the hotel restaurant. On the table at which he took a seat was a newspaper left by some previous customer. It was the same journal that had beaten its contemporaries in the first publication of the rumor, that was finally accepted as news, concerning the elopement of Strobel and Lizzie White. Litizki recalled the superior enterprise of this paper, and while waiting for his breakfast, he looked it over. Yes! there it was, and his heart bounded with joy and fear at once. It was not a long story under a half-column head, but the few lines were double-leaded, and paragraphed at every period. A newspaper man would have seen at a glance that the item had come in late, after the forms were made up, and that the editor had "lifted" a story of minor interest to make room for this. "Probable Murder," was the caption, and the statement beneath it was as follows: "A passenger in one of the drawing-room cars attached to the New York express due at Park Square at six P.M., but some hours late last night, was stabbed just before the train reached the station. "It is believed that the wound was mortal. "The assailant took advantage of the excitement and confusion to jump from the train. "No trace of him has been found. "The name of the victim is not known at this writing. "No rumor concerning the tragedy reached this office until long after midnight. "The police, to whom the railroad officials secretly reported the affair, for reasons best known to themselves, withhold information, but they admit that the assault took place as described above. "It is believed that the murderer will be arrested this morning. "An extra edition giving full details of this occurrence will be published at ten o'clock." Litizki looked cautiously around the room. A policeman in full uniform was eating at a table near the door. For one instant the tailor meditated flight through an open window. Then he pulled himself together and ate his breakfast. "We shall see," he thought, and he hastened, that he might finish ahead of the policeman and pass directly in front of him on the way to the office. "If he is here to arrest me," reflected Litizki, "he will obey his instructions when he sees me go out. If he lets me alone, it will mean that there is still a chance for me." The policeman did not stir when Litizki passed him. The tailor paid his bill, and, the dock being open, went to the steamship office and bought a steerage ticket for Liverpool. He was exultant once more, proud of himself as a hero. "The next edition, and then all the papers," he thought, "will print my name, and everybody will know what I have done. When Strobel is released there will be plenty of thinking people who will applaud me in their hearts, whatever they may say aloud." Believing that he could sleep now that his mind was relieved of uncertainty, he went down into the men's department of the steerage and crawled into a bunk away forward. A great many passengers were booked for this trip, and a compartment never used except in the event of a crowd had been fitted in the very prow of the ship. Litizki knew that the steward would not assign the bunks there until none were left elsewhere, and he hoped, therefore, to be undisturbed until after the boat had started. So he lay down upon the coarse mattress and tried to sleep. He closed his eyes only to view again the scene in the drawing-room car. Physical fatigue caused his mind to wander, and he would be conscious that he was dropping into sleep when suddenly his nerves would seem to be on fire with life, and he would start violently and grip the low rail of his bunk as if he were about to fall out. By dint of will power he compelled himself to remain there, although as the time passed he was in momentary expectation of arrest. He began to regret that he had shown himself so freely. Once the steamer was under way he would be able to rest undisturbed by phantasies for ten days. After that, what matter? Those ten days should be passed in full enjoyment of his one successful act. As the forenoon dragged along the steerage filled with men, and there was a constant hum of voices, and the shuffling of feet as the passengers jostled about in the narrow quarters and stowed their baggage on and under their bunks. Several men came into Litizki's compartment and took possession in turn of the unoccupied places. Some of them remained, scraping acquaintance with one another, and passing about the liquor without copious draughts of which few ocean travelers regard a voyage as properly begun. In the saloon, champagne serves as the exhilarant for a scene that should need no wine to set healthy blood to sparkling; and in the steerage, the whisky flask accomplishes its purpose just as effectively. A fellow-passenger offered his flask to Litizki. He was no drinker, and he accepted the friendly offering more to attract no comment to himself than because he craved a stimulant. Having mumbled "thanks, friend" and drunk as much as his throat would tolerate of the fiery stuff, he lay down again. A moment or two later he was surprised to find that he felt more composed, distinctly drowsy, in fact. He correctly attributed this to the whisky, and he lay very still in the hope that natural sleep would at last come upon him. This might have been the case, but he was aroused by a rough hand on his foot. "Come on there, my man; come on," said a commanding voice. "You want me, then, do you?" responded Litizki, sitting up quickly and bumping his head against the deck. "Save the ship, man," remarked the voice, jocosely, "and it will be better for your head. That deck's made of iron. Let me see your ticket." So it was not a policeman. Litizki showed his ticket, and the purser's assistant passed on. It must be approaching the hour of departure. The tailor, fully aroused, wished that his neighbor would offer him more liquor. "Do you think," he asked, "that I would have time to go ashore and get a bottle of whisky?" "Yes," was the facetious reply, "but you wouldn't have time to get back. Never mind, partner. Have a drop of this," and again the flask was passed to him. Litizki did not lie down again immediately after drinking. He sat crouched over with his hands about his knees, wondering if Miss Hilman had received his letter. The men in his compartment were chatting and laughing noisily. The single port-hole admitted so little light that he could not have distinguished the features of any of them except by the closest scrutiny. The steerage steward looked in. "There's one place here, sir," he said, "that your man can have." "All right," was the reply, in a wheezy, cracked voice; "take it, Billings." The tailor started. Was not that the name of the man whom Miss Hilman had mentioned as the driver of Strobel's second carriage? Could it be that he was taking flight, too? or was it a mere coincidence of names? A young fellow, preceded by an odor of strong drink, and followed by a decrepit old man, edged into the compartment. He carried a black, shiny portmanteau which he threw upon the vacant bunk. "There!" he growled, "that was heavy. Give me another swig, Mr. Dexter." "You shall have it, my boy, and welcome," croaked the old man, producing a flask from his pocket; "take a good, long drink. That's it! down with it, he! he! Pleasant voyage to you, Billings, my boy!" He patted the young fellow on the shoulder; and Billings, supposing that his hand was extended to take the flask, turned his back, and when he had drunk, corked the flask and remarked thickly: "I'll keep it thish time." "All right, all right," responded Dexter; "you may have it now. I'm going on deck. It's too close here." He hobbled away, and Billings staggered after him. Full of wonder, and almost forgetting his own part in the Strobel matter, Litizki descended from his bunk and went up to the deck also. To his amazement, he found that the Cephalonia was already a hundred yards from the dock. Several conceited little tugs were puffing away at stem and stern, to turn the gigantic ship about. A great crowd of people were on the pier, waving hands and handkerchiefs, and the salutes were frantically returned by the hundreds on board who crowded close to the rail. Billings had gone to the rail away from the shore, and Dexter stood beside him, still talking with forced jocularity, to which the young man listened with only half comprehension. The most that his fuddled brain could recognize was that he was on board a steamer bound for Europe, a big enough fact in itself to subdue the ordinary mind. Litizki watched the pair with troubled curiosity. Could this be the same Billings? and could his going away portend any failure for the plan that Litizki had executed at such heroic self-sacrifice? It could not be possible! The guilty driver might well flee from punishment, but neither his presence nor his absence could materially affect the outcome. Thinking thus, the tailor allowed his eyes to wander from Billings and Dexter, taking in the sights of the ship with indifferent interest. Suddenly he retreated a pace, and grasped a hatchway to prevent himself from sinking prone upon the deck. Were all his railings against superstition and the supernatural but empty words? Had he gone stark mad, or was that the ghost of Poubalov leaning negligently over the rail of the promenade deck and grinning down at him in evident amusement at his consternation? A long cry of terror seemed to struggle for utterance in Litizki's throat, but it found vent in a pitiable whine that nobody heard above the joyous cheering of the passengers except his frightened self. He could not take his eyes from that awful face, whose every feature seemed to glow with perfect health. How long he stood there, gasping, powerless under the terrible spell, Litizki could not have told, but a complete revulsion of feeling overcame him when the figure on the deck above shrugged its shoulders, sneered, and strode forward out of sight. Then Litizki knew that he had failed. Where now was all the exaltation of heroism that had sustained him? Where his devotion to Reason, that false goddess whose dictates had seemed to him infallible? Even in his agony of humiliation the light broke in upon him, and he saw that the guiding spirit of his miserable career had not been abstract, unimpeachable Reason, but a base, weak imitation--the lucubration of a disordered intellect, Litizki's reason. The unhappy man tried to think, not so much to explain how it had happened that the dagger had not done its work, but how should he act now? There was no withdrawal from the voyage already begun, and he wished least of all to go ashore. Why had he so insanely thrown away his revolver? The breast that had resisted a knife driven by his feeble arm could not withstand the force of a well-directed bullet. What should he do? Would fate be once more kind, just once more, and some time during the coming ten days, put Poubalov in his way so that he could push the villain overboard? Whisky mounted to his brain and told him to hope. He crawled up the steps to the forecastle-top whence he could command a view of the promenade deck throughout its entire length. Poubalov was there, idly observing the passing harbor. He hardly stirred until, just after passing Boston Light, the steamer's engines were stopped, and with several others, ladies and gentlemen, he went to the main deck. A tug came alongside, the visitors and the representatives of the Cunard Company crossed the plank, and in another moment the great vessel throbbed again with the revolutions of the screw that, barring accident, would not cease its work until it had propelled the steamer to the other side of the world. Poubalov stood in front of the wheel-house of the tug and waved his hat to Litizki, and by the side of the spy stood the decrepit old man, Dexter. CHAPTER XX. THE LITTLE FRONT ROOM. When Poubalov had fallen to the floor of the car and Clara was bending over him, his dark eyes shone with savage luster as he said: "I am not hurt, Miss Hilman, but I would I were, if I could thereby gain your sympathy." "Not hurt!" she repeated aghast at the spectacle he presented, and unable to credit his words. He lay flat on his back, and protruding upward from his closely-buttoned coat was the dagger. It looked as if half the length of the blade had been buried in his body. The passengers gathered about, horrified and excited, while the man whom they supposed to be dying, sat up in the aisle and deliberately wrenched the blade from his bosom. "See," he said holding it aloft where nearly everybody could observe it, "the point is badly blunted, and I shall have to grind it down, but there is no blood upon it!" Then he laughed quietly, sprang to his feet, and with strong arms helped Clara back to her chair. She was horribly shocked by the episode, for Litizki's melancholy meditations rushed back upon her, and she seemed again to hear him promising yet to do something for her that should be of great service. And this was it! She did not then realize that it was a remark of her own that had inspired his mad brain to action, and it was well that she did not, for it was enough that she should suffer as she did, accusing herself of failing to foresee what would happen if the little tailor were permitted to go on tormenting himself with the mystery, and indulging his immeasurable hatred of Poubalov. How could she have been so selfish, she thought, as to encourage the unfortunate man to devote his life to her purpose, and to arouse such devotion that he was carried by it to the very commission of murder? She shuddered as the word occurred to her, and she looked appealingly at Poubalov, as if to seek from him some further assurance that the miracle had occurred to avert the tragedy that Litizki had planned. "It is absolutely nothing, Miss Hilman," said the spy, interpreting her glance correctly, "save a hole in my coat and the probable perforation of some interesting documents. I will show you." Having just placed her in the chair, he was bending over her as he spoke, and now he stood erect, and while all the passengers looked on amazed, he unbuttoned his coat and drew from the breast pocket a large leather wallet filled with papers. "I wear no armor," he said, smiling as he laid the dagger on the window ledge, that he might use both hands in showing how he had escaped. One side of the wallet had the mark of the knife, a gash clean cut in the leather, evidence sufficient that the blow had fallen with all the force that Litizki could command. Opening the wallet, he took out several folded papers, showing without revealing their nature, that the blade had pierced them. At last he drew forth a little copper plate, and held it up to the light. "Yes," he said, "that finished it. The wallet itself was almost sufficient to save me, but without this plate I think I should have been scratched a bit. I had this plate engraved a short time ago in New York, as I wished to present my card with my name printed in characters that would be intelligible to English-speaking people. The engraver gave me the plate, of course, when he delivered my cards, and at the moment I put it here for convenience. I had forgotten all about it. You see," handing the plate to a gentleman who stood beside him, "my friend managed to erase my name but he left me my life." "You are to be congratulated," exclaimed the gentleman, returning the plate after a vain attempt to decipher the name. The point of the dagger had completely obliterated several letters and scratched most of the rest. Clara sat during this with her handkerchief to her lips, trying to recover her mental poise, and concentrating her mind on the fact that a tragedy had not taken place. The train rolled slowly into the station, and the passengers were speedily occupied with escaping from their confinement. One officious gentleman remarked to Poubalov: "You will, of course, report this matter to the police? I shall be pleased to give you my card if you require a witness, although I was in the wash-room at the time you were struck down." "Thank you," responded Poubalov, with a grave smile, "I shall not require your card, as I have no complaint to make." "What!" blustered the passenger, "you won't have your assailant arrested? Such a man ought not to be at large." "The railroad officials may take that view of it if they choose," said the spy, calmly; "I have no desire in the matter." Amazed and indignant, the officious passenger hunted up an official of the company, and having insisted on a thorough investigation of the attempted murder, went home complacent in that he had done his duty as a citizen. The train-men, of course, reported what they knew of the occurrence to their chief, but the assailant had leaped from the train, the name of the victim was not known, and the result was a lame account of the episode at the nearest police station late in the evening. The police had nothing to work upon, and, therefore, said nothing of it to the reporters when they made their regular calls at the station; and when at last, very late at night, a reporter to whose ears an exaggerated rumor had come, telephoned for corroboration, the sergeant in charge could only say that something of the kind had occurred; and thus it came about that one enterprising newspaper had an excusably imperfect report of the occurrence. Clara would have left the train without Poubalov's assistance, but he took her arm in his, caught up her handbag, and helped her to the platform, in spite of herself. Still suffering from the shock, she realized by the close contact with him how masterful was his influence, and how by force of character alone he must accomplish quite as much in his unattractive employment as by intrigue and deceit. "I thank you," she said faintly when she stood upon the platform; "I can go alone quite well now. I cannot tell you how glad I am that you escaped. I should have felt guilty if anything serious had happened, and I feel to blame for what has occurred." "You mustn't borrow trouble that way, Miss Hilman," he responded, gallantly; "the sanest man might well leap to folly if he imagined that you wished him to." "It pains me to have you make light of it," said Clara; "I assure you that I have quite recovered." "You will permit me to hand you to a carriage, Miss Hilman? I will not intrude further, believe me." She nodded assent, and they were about to proceed along the platform when Poubalov stepped squarely in front of her. "Pardon me," he said earnestly, "if I do not go as far even as the carriage. I have not yet had opportunity to say what I called to tell you about Wednesday evening, or to explain why I left your house so abruptly and informally. I shall call to-morrow to complete my errand. I do not ask your permission to call, as what I would say is important, and you will want to hear it. This way, cabby! take care of this lady. Till to-morrow, Miss Hilman." He had moved about slightly as he spoke and now darted away with quick strides. By standing in front of her and moving as he did, he had completely concealed from her view the driver, Billings, who was walking rapidly down the platform and who passed close by them. Mystified as usual by his strange conduct, but relieved that he was gone, Clara followed the cabman and in due time arrived safely at home. She went to bed at once, telling her cousin enough of what had occurred to show that she had endured a strain. Louise sat in her room until late at night, but Clara slept peacefully to all appearances, and seemed to require no watching. In the early morning Litizki's letter arrived, and a servant took it to Clara's room. She read it before dressing. While it recalled the shudders with which she had viewed the possibilities of Litizki's crime, and made her conscientious soul more sensible of what she deemed her responsibility in the matter, it nevertheless awakened hope afresh in her heart. Litizki was so positive in his belief that Ivan was confined in Poubalov's lodging-house, that she was well nigh convinced by his assurances, crazy though his brain undoubtedly was; but there were Poubalov's own utterances on that night when the little tailor had started to open the door to the hall room. They were not direct, but was ever Poubalov direct save when telling a straightforward lie? He had prevented Litizki from opening that door, and were not his ambiguous words susceptible of the interpretation that Ivan was, as Litizki had said, confined there, bound and gagged? She read and reread again the parts of the letter that had reference to this clew, and decided that it would be wrong not to act upon Litizki's suggestions. She was resolved that nothing she would do should be calculated to precipitate another tragedy, but rescue her lover she must, and she set herself to thinking how it could be done. When she was dressed, she went to her cousin's room, and Louise was surprised to be awakened by Clara, who looked none the worse for her extraordinary adventures. "I'm not going to ask you how you are this morning," said Louise, with mock resentment; "I couldn't look as well as you do if I employed a trained nurse the year round." "Perhaps I look better than I feel, dear," responded Clara; "but I confess that, in spite of everything, I do feel hopeful. Here is a sad letter from poor Litizki. Read it, and tell me if, underneath all his terrible madness, there is not some ground for hope." Louise read with awe-struck attention, and laid the long letter down with a shudder of horror. "How dreadful!" she exclaimed under her breath, "and yet with what perfect clearness he expresses himself! No rambling, few repetitions, everything directly to the point as he sees it." "That is the way it impresses me. Litizki was not all mad. Would it not be madness in us to ignore his information?" "Indeed it would! what will you do?" "Do you know Paul Palovna's address?" "No, but Ralph would." "I shall write a note to Paul. Get right up, please, and write to Ralph, telling him to see that my note reaches Paul as soon as possible. Of course, we cannot follow poor Litizki's plan, for he believed that he had killed Poubalov. How he must suffer! But we can investigate his theory, at all events, in our own way." The letters they wrote were taken to Ralph Harmon by a servant, and shortly before noon Paul appeared at Mr. Pembroke's house, in answer to Clara's summons. Her uncle had returned to Boston as he had planned, but he had sent word that he should not be able to come home until some time in the evening. So, again, Clara was thrown upon her own resources for guidance and action. Clara went over the whole situation with Paul, who expressed his regret that she had not sooner called upon him for assistance. "Not," he said, "that I could have done anything better than you have, but that I should have liked to help." "Events have happened too rapidly," she replied, "to make it possible for me to think of more than each episode as it occurred. I don't want you to take a step in this if it is to be at the cost of the slightest danger to yourself." "There is no danger," said Paul; "I do not underrate Poubalov's capacity for evil, but he has no reason to work against me. I doubt if he would recognize me, though he probably knows my name as that of Strobel's most intimate friend. As I understand it, you wish me to make a thorough investigation of Poubalov's house." "Yes, it should have been done days ago, and I would have seen to it had Litizki told me of his experience there." "It will be very simple. I will go there to look for rooms. Even if he should be there, and see me, he cannot well prevent me from going through the house. I will report to you before the day is over." Clara had not shown Litizki's letter to Paul, but she told him enough about it and its contents to convince him that the tailor had been on the right track. He was in feverish haste to get downtown and effect a solution of the mystery at once, and he more than half believed that he should succeed. His hope that Poubalov would not be in at the time of his call was realized, of course, for the spy was at that time on his way up the harbor after bidding the Cephalonia bon voyage. A scrubwoman answered his ring at 32 Bulfinch Place and left him standing in the hall while she went for the landlady. Paul had observed that the window just over the door was concealed by the blinds, whereas every other window on the front of the house was fully exposed. "I have several rooms vacant," said the landlady as she came jingling a bunch of keys from a back room. She was a stout, good-humored-looking woman whose pleasant face, a little hardened by business dealings, perhaps, did not suggest the duplicity that would be essential to an alliance with such a man as Poubalov. "What kind of a room do you want?" Paul thought he would look at them all. "I don't mind the price so much," he said, "as the way the room strikes me." "Well," responded the landlady with a sigh, "if you want a five-dollar room, I'd like to save climbing stairs to show those at two dollars. Come on." "There's a room for five," she said, opening the door of the back room up one flight. It was the room adjoining that occupied by Poubalov. "The others on this floor are occupied." "This little front room, too?" asked Paul, his hand on the door. He had quietly tried it and found it locked before she answered in the affirmative and started up the next flight. They looked at every room in the house above the second floor. Some of them were occupied, but the landlady opened the doors and looked in. Paul noticed that the only locked door was the one to the front hall room next to Poubalov's. "Well," said the landlady at last as they stood on the landing beside Poubalov's door, "do you see anything you like?" "Yes," answered Paul, "I'll take this back room," and he took a five-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to her. He said he would occupy the room at once, and the landlady gave him a house key. While this transaction was in progress, a young woman came up the stairs, humming a tune with that nonchalance that indicates familiarity with one's surroundings, opened the door of the little front room with a key she took from her purse, and went in, leaving the door open until she had thrown back the blinds. "She's been with me a year and a half," remarked the landlady, complacently, "and I don't believe you could hire her to occupy any other room." CHAPTER XXI. WHAT PAUL PALOVNA SAW. Paul was not disheartened by his discovery, or by the landlady's comment. He believed that she was telling the truth, and that the door that Litizki supposed to communicate with the little front room really opened into a huge closet, a convenience with which the old-fashioned house abounded. He had paid a week's rent, and he determined to get some good out of it. Accordingly, he returned to his regular quarters, and packed a bag with personal effects, as if he were going upon a journey. This he took down to the room in Bulfinch Place. He saw the landlady again as he entered. "By the way," he said, "is there any communication between my room and the one in front?" "No," she replied; "there's a door there that was put in years ago when a family occupied the whole of that floor, but it is nailed up. It won't open from either side, so you needn't be afraid. There's a very quiet gentleman in the front room, so you won't be disturbed." "All right, thanks," responded Paul, thinking that in due time he might make good use of the landlady's proclivity for gossip. He went to his room and studied the disused door attentively. There was a keyhole, but it was securely plugged. He lay upon the floor and peered under, but the door came close down upon the threshold, and nothing was to be seen. "It's a disagreeable expedient," he muttered, "but the end justifies the means in this case. I won't say anything to Miss Hilman about it, though." He opened his bag and took out a gimlet that he had bought on the way to his permanent room. Then he drew a chair to the door, stood upon it, and began to bore, starting at a level with his eyes, and slanting slightly downward. His notion was that Poubalov would not be so likely to observe the tiny hole if it were a foot or two above his head as if it were lower. For the same reason he bored very close to the edge of a panel, and he took great care not to let the gimlet more than pierce the further side of the wood. It would never do to let any fresh dust show on the carpet in Poubalov's room. After frequent experiments, to observe how far he had penetrated, he found that he could faintly discern the light from Poubalov's windows when he placed his eye close to the door and shaded it with his hands. Then he took a rusty nail that he pulled from the wall of his closet, and, working it patiently with his fingers, pushed it through the partially-bored hole until half its length must have protruded into the other room. A little more effort and he could put the nail in place and withdraw it without the slightest noise. Among the trifles that had accumulated in his possessions was an untrained lithograph representing cupids throwing flowers as big as themselves at one another. He could hardly remember how he came to have it; some young lady sent it to him, probably, as long ago as last Valentine's Day; but there it was, with a neat little card attached; and he hung it on the nail to excuse his operation should the landlady happen to notice it. There were plenty of hooks in the room, but he would tell her that it was his fancy to embellish the door. "There," he thought, as he contemplated his finished work, "if our spy is not more observing and suspicious than I think he is, I shall be able to take a look at him occasionally." Having carefully cleaned up the slight litter he had made, he locked the door of his room and went to make his report to Clara. He told her frankly that he believed Litizki had been mistaken about the little front room. "But," he added, "I have taken the back room for a week, and I shall be surprised if I do not make some discovery before my time is up." Intent upon being on the ground, where he could watch every movement of Poubalov, he hurried back to Bulfinch Place, and sat himself down to pass time with books until the spy should come in. All day long Clara heeded her uncle's injunction to rest, but that was because there was nothing she could do. Moreover, she expected Poubalov, and she was more than anxious to be at home to receive him. He came about five o'clock. The young ladies were refreshing themselves with tea, and Louise, who never ceased to be amazed at her cousin's proceedings, almost gasped when she saw Clara greet him cordially and hasten to get a cup for him. One would not have expected Poubalov to show fatigue, if he ever felt it, but if he were not weary on this occasion, something had occurred to disturb him. His eyes were heavy, his accent harder to understand than usual, and it was not until several minutes had passed, and he had drank freely of tea, that he spoke with anything like his customary masterful confidence. Clara led the conversation at the start. After the first greetings she referred to the episode in the car, saying: "I should have thought you would suffer as I did from the shock of that terrible assault. It was dreadful to look at, and how much more dreadful to be the intended victim." "You are mistaken, Miss Hilman," responded the spy; "the very shock of the blow convinced me that I was unharmed. There was therefore no more occasion for alarm on my part than as if a book had fallen from the rack upon my head." "But, really, I supposed the worst had happened," insisted Clara, "for you not only fell but you gasped----" "Naturally. To put it roughly, the fellow knocked the breath out of me." "And have you heard nothing of Litizki?" Poubalov looked at her gravely as he answered: "I have seen him." "Seen him!" echoed both his listeners, and "where?" asked Clara. "He was not under arrest," answered Poubalov; "he was free, as free as he ever will be with the memory of the recent past to haunt him, as it certainly will. You will never see him again"--he raised his hand deprecatingly; "pardon me, I did not mean to suggest the slightest discomfort. He has not committed suicide, and I do not know that he contemplates it." He turned his attention to his tea, and both young ladies were silent for a moment. Then Louise found an excuse for withdrawing, and Clara was left alone with the inscrutable foe to her happiness. There was a marked pause after Louise had gone, Clara waiting for Poubalov, and the spy--who can tell what was coursing through his mind? At length he set down his cup, and with an attempt at the aggressive self-possession that usually characterized his demeanor, he said: "I owe you an explanation, Miss Hilman." "Only one?" she asked coldly, but there was a strange smile on her face. "Many," responded the spy, and there was an expression on his features, in his bearing, in the tones of his voice, that, but for the circumstances, might have been credited to sincerity. He was either not his usual self, or he was playing a much deeper game than any he had yet revealed. "Many," he repeated, "and they will all be made in due time. Do you see that I honor you in the highest way that is possible for me? I mean by not treating you to the customary forms of courtesy which are the more or less transparent garments of falsehood. I do not come here with a plausible story to account for my conduct, asking you to accept it as an apology whether you believe it, or not. I tell you the truth, so far as I speak at all; and when the nature of the case would compel me to lie if I opened my lips, I am silent." "Or you evade the question," interposed Clara, and again she smiled provokingly, but there was no invitation to feel at ease in her expression. Poubalov did not misinterpret it, and it almost seemed as if he, the master mind, were discomposed. "Perhaps I do," he admitted after a moment; "my habits of speech are not such as conduce to absolute candor even with you, whom I respect too highly to consciously deceive. Tell me, Miss Hilman, will you not, can you not believe that I tell you the truth?" "I have thought about it a great deal," replied Clara steadily, "and sometimes I almost think you do; but, you know, you have really had very little conversation with me." "True enough, and I must confess that I never found it so hard to take my part in a conversation as I do at this minute. I usually lead it, I may say dominate it," and he smiled a little; "usually, you see, I make people, men and women, believe me. I would beg you to, Miss Hilman, if only I knew how." "Why try to compel me to stand on the same plane as you do?" asked Clara; "you confess your habits of deceit. How can I promise to believe you without confessing that, for this moment at least, I accept your own style of intercourse?" "You are an invincible logician, Miss Hilman," exclaimed Poubalov, compressing his lips. "I give up, and will let my words stand or fall on their merits, according as you judge them. I came here on Wednesday evening to tell you some things I had discovered. The man Billings called before I had begun to speak. I departed unceremoniously, because I did not wish to meet him." "I know that," said Clara, simply. "I knew it at the time." "Of course you did," responded Poubalov, crestfallen; "you could not infer otherwise, and my confession has all the appearance, therefore, of a pitiably weak attempt to bolster up my claim to veracity." "I do not interpret it that way. I can make my own test of your veracity. I shall listen to whatever you have to say, without reference to what you call a confession." "Well, then," resumed the spy, speaking rapidly, "this is what I came to say. I had made investigations in my own way along the lines of the theory laid down with respect to the possible operations of Nihilists against Mr. Strobel. I caught Litizki shadowing me, and recognized him as one with whom I had come in official contact in Russia. It seemed to me child's play to deal with him, for I had no respect for his intellect. I supposed at first that he was tracking me as the agent of a Nihilistic society. Then I learned that he was devoted to Strobel. I knew he would come to see me, but not openly. So I sat up for him, and he crept into the house like a thief. We had a conversation that I will not pause to detail. I did my best to impress him with my power, and then let him go away, for I wanted him to be at large, and I did not want him just then to report to you what I had told him. You see, I purposely allowed him to nurse his suspicions of me. Next day I called at his shop, my sole purpose being to learn who his associates were, and to endeavor to fasten upon them the taking off of Strobel. Among the men in his shop was one Boris Vargovitch, at one time somewhat of a leader among the Nihilists. The rest that I was going to say on that evening I do not need to say now, for I have since become convinced that Litizki was acting irresponsibly in pursuing me, and that if Nihilists were active, he was not in their confidence. Furthermore, I am now convinced that neither Vargovitch nor any other former Nihilist in Boston was concerned in the Strobel matter. I was mistaken in supposing that the Nihilists continued their close organization in this country. They may send revolutionary literature to Russia, but they do not keep up active operations here. I withdraw my innuendoes against them, therefore, and have to confess that you are now just as far along in your painful search as you were five days ago." Clara was deeply impressed by this narration. She could see no flaw in it, no evidence of untruthfulness. But there was a touch of evasion in the conclusion, and she remarked with merciless coolness: "You do not say that we are as far along as five days ago. You confine the lack of progress to me." There was a hasty glance from the spy that looked like apprehension. "Of course, I catch the significance of your words," he said; "you think I know more than I tell, that I instigated the abduction of Strobel." "Tell me," she said, looking straight into his eyes, "why did you not wish to meet Billings?" He hesitated, and the color rose slowly to his cheeks. "No," he answered, "not now. I have said all I can for the present. I am still pursuing this matter, Miss Hilman, but I must put off further information. I would ask you to trust me to report faithfully to you but that it is such a farce for two persons like you and me to bandy words." "It is a cruel farce," she exclaimed, rising indignantly; "you pretend to help me and you laboriously tell me things I already know." She walked across the room, and her brain struggled for a plan in the confusion of impulses, hopes and fears. What might Paul accomplish? Would she not surely lose a possible point by dismissing the spy once and for all, and might she not some day gain much by keeping in some sort of communication with him? This was the policy she had determined upon, and she would adhere to it. So she turned and faced him. He had risen, waiting her word of dismissal or encouragement. "I will give you one more opportunity to tell me the whole truth and make amends," she said sternly; "I believe what you have told me to-night. Next time I must have all, and nothing short of it. Will you come to-morrow?" "Yes, Miss Hilman, in the evening." He bowed gravely and left the house. Paul did not venture to go to dinner when evening came. He read on and on, waiting to hear Poubalov enter the adjoining room. It was late in the evening when at last he heard the door open and close, and he knew that the spy was at home. Then Paul laid down his book and stepped cautiously upon the chair by the door. He carefully drew out the nail and applied his eye to the hole. He commanded a view of the very center of Poubalov's room. The spy had thrown himself into a chair, and was sitting as if deeply wrapped in thought. There were wrinkles in his brow and his lips were set close together. After a few moments thus, he took his traveling bag from the bureau and unlocked it. Having fumbled over the contents, he drew forth a cabinet photograph that he took directly under the chandelier where the light was strongest. His back was partially turned to Paul, and he held the card so that the observer at the nail hole could see it distinctly. With a shock of surprise Paul recognized it as a picture of Clara Hilman. Poubalov gazed long and earnestly at it and then touched it reverently to his lips. CHAPTER XXII. POUBALOV'S REVOLUTION. Paul's heart seemed to stand still as he reflected on Poubalov's act. The original purpose of the spy in calling upon Strobel and instigating his abduction, was as much a mystery as ever, but it was one that could be explained on the ground of Poubalov's confessed relations with the government with which Strobel had been in conflict. There was nothing personal in that; but here was an element of personal relationship that might lead to worse than complications. Poubalov in love--no! not that sacred word; infatuated, rather, with Clara Hilman. What hope could there now be that the spy, having some day accomplished the purpose for which he had crossed the ocean to find Strobel, would set him free? In the very hopelessness of his passion would he not first murder Strobel, and then Clara herself? Paul felt sick with horror as the possibility of these tragedies occurred to his mind. They were more than possible. With Poubalov's character in view, they seemed like certainties. What could be done to avert them? What would Clara say? How revolting, more than terrifying, would be the revelation that this subtle, conscienceless foe had dared to love her! At first blush Paul felt that he could not tell Clara what he had seen. If there were only something that he himself could do to solve the mystery of Ivan's disappearance, for only Strobel's presence in perfect health could serve to check the spy's villainous course. He held absolute command of the situation as long as he succeeded in keeping Strobel in hiding. As the sense of his helplessness grew upon him, like an insidious vine whose twining tendrils choke the growth of a sapling, Paul wondered that poor Litizki's devotion had not the sooner driven him to madness. He saw that, with all its evils, the situation must be made clear to Clara. He would continue his observations during the next forenoon, and then report to her. Poubalov had said that he would call in the evening; Clara, therefore, in the early afternoon went to see Mrs. White. She went with no purpose of accomplishing anything in the mystery, but rather as an act of kindness to report how she had found Lizzie; but as she was about to turn into Ashburton Place, she saw Paul at the foot of the hill and she waited for him to come up. He had just started for Roxbury. "I have something to tell," he said in answer to her anxious look of inquiry, "but I fear it is nothing that will be helpful, and it will certainly be disagreeable." "I was going to call on Mrs. White," responded Clara; "suppose you go with me; but you can tell me what you have discovered before we go in." "If you think best," and Paul hesitated. "I do. Have no fear of me. Have I not learned to endure anything that can happen?" "Poubalov loves you, Miss Hilman." Clara blushed very faintly, looked straight into Paul's eyes for an instant, then off at the house-tops, and answered: "I felt it. How did you find out?" Amazed and relieved, Paul told her. "I have made myself a spy," he concluded, "but I felt that the circumstances justified me." "So I think, too," rejoined Clara. "Well, let us go on. I don't know at this moment how to act, but I cannot help thinking that this will bring matters to a crisis, and I hope, in spite of reason and fears, that it will end happily. I wonder where Poubalov got my photograph." Then she remembered that when the reporter, Shaughnessey, had returned her photograph, it had been placed for the moment upon the mantel in the drawing-room. The next day she had looked for it, and, not finding it at once, had supposed that Louise or a servant had put it away. In the stress of events she had thought no more about it; but Poubalov's call and bareheaded flight had occurred after the return of the photograph, and the natural and satisfactory explanation, therefore, was that he had stolen it. "There is one more thing," added Paul as they walked along, "and I suppose it shows that in order to circumvent this man one must have sleepless eyes and untiring vigilance. As soon as Poubalov went to bed last night, I hurried out and got supper. It didn't take me long, for I was anxious to get to sleep, so that I might get up early enough this morning to keep track of him. I rose before six, and took a preliminary peep through my nail hole. Poubalov had gone, and up to just now, when I left, had not returned." "I think there is nothing lost," said Clara; "he is to call on me this evening, and your discovery makes it certain that he will come. If you will come out to the house ahead of him, I should like it ever so much if you would follow him when he goes away." They were at Mrs. White's door, and Paul preferred not to go in. There was nothing more to be said, and it seemed better that he should return to Bulfinch Place, to observe Poubalov's doings, should he return. Mrs. White, comparatively free from anxiety about her daughter, seemed more than desirous of talking about Mr. Strobel. "I had a letter from Lizzie last night," she said, "and she told me how kind you were. I'm real glad you went to see her, 'cause it must make you feel so much more satisfied to know that Mr. Strobel did not run away with her. And you know, Miss Hilman, I can't quite think that the dark gentleman, Mr. Pou--something, has anything to do with it. He seems such a perfect gentleman." "It is very hard to understand it all," responded Clara; "but what makes you think Poubalov is better than we have thought him?" "Two or three things. Lizzie wrote me that he called to see her just after you had gone away, and she says he seemed real earnest about trying to find Mr. Strobel, and was just as polite as could be." "Doesn't she say anything more about his call than that?" "No, except that he spoke very kindly, and didn't let her think that he had suspected her of anything wrong." "I should say not," remarked Clara, rather bitterly; "no one would know better than he that Lizzie was not concerned in the affair." "I don't see why, Miss Hilman. Why shouldn't he think what other people thought? I'm afraid he did, for last Thursday evening he called here, and we had a real good talk about it. He seemed----" "Did you tell him I had gone to New York?" interrupted Clara, sharply, for she was impatient with these ingenuous statements of what Poubalov seemed to be. "Land sakes, no!" replied Mrs. White, "but he told me he was going on, and when he suggested so kindly that he would look up Lizzie, and let me know how she was situated, I was glad to give him her address. He hasn't been here since, though. Perhaps he hasn't got back yet." Clara wondered wearily how stupidity should manage to flourish in a world where people have to struggle so hard against one another, and then she immediately reproached herself for the thought, recalling what a taxing puzzle Poubalov's character presented to herself. She made no effort to undeceive Mrs. White--how could she with so little as she herself actually knew?--but rather turned the conversation into simple channels until she took her departure. Paul arrived at Mr. Pembroke's about six o'clock, reporting that Poubalov had been absent all day until late in the afternoon, and that when he came in he immediately began preparations for going out again. "I came along at once," said Paul, "lest he should get here ahead of me." Clara asked her uncle if he would like to meet the spy. "No," he answered uneasily; "what good purpose would it serve?" "I thought that perhaps you might read him better than I can," said Clara; "I don't see how we can help coming to a crisis this evening, and if you could help, we might bring about the release of Ivan all the sooner." Mr. Pembroke was careworn, and all his utterances and actions had been marked by indecision since his return from New York. "I am afraid I can do no good," he said with a sigh; "handle the situation as best you can, Clara. I believe you will find your happiness restored to you shortly." With that he shut himself in his library, and they saw no more of him that night. Poubalov acted more like himself than he did the day before, but it was apparent to Clara that his confident self-possession was maintained by an effort. "Must we begin where we left off yesterday?" he said by way of introduction. "You may begin where you please," responded Clara, "but you must tell me the truth. I think you are going to do so, Mr. Poubalov." "I cannot remember that I have told you a single lie since I met you, Miss Hilman. It must be a strange admission for you to hear me make, that I am not certain when I have spoken truly and when falsely; but that is the fault of the peculiar work that my emperor has set me to do, and it is not due in the present instance to any purpose of deceiving you. I am going to begin by telling you of a discovery that I have made since I began to work on this case--a discovery that to me, at least, is startling. "My experience throughout all my life has been such as to make me believe that honesty and sincerity did not exist save in the characters of simple-minded people whom it would be too harsh to call fools, and yet who are nothing short of fools when you look at them from the point of view of self-interest and material advancement. What have I found to be the chief requisite of leadership, whether in guiding the state, or seeking to wreck it, or in commerce? Craft, Miss Hilman, craft that suggests and includes indirect methods to attain ends, the holding out of false hopes, the display of the gilded side of things, the concealment of the base material--in short, trickery, which is but another name for treachery. I have believed that keen minds saw the folly of what we call honesty, and to find candor in a person of intelligence would have seemed to me an anomaly. I have discovered that extraordinary combination, Miss Hilman, and have been stupefied to find that my methods, however subtle, have availed nothing in opposition to this unaffected, unconscious honesty. It is a revelation to my mind that threatens to effect a revolution in my convictions." "One moment, Mr. Poubalov," interrupted Clara; "your habit of circuitous approach to a point is still strong upon you, and according to your own admissions, it is out of place in conversation with me. Permit me, then, to help you adjust yourself to your incomplete revolution, and I will do so without any clever turns of phraseology. I am, then, the embodiment of this wonderful candor that you have discovered. It would have taken you a long time to say it. I appreciate the compliment. Go on, please." There was a suspicion of a tremor in Poubalov's voice as he continued: "Yes, you have said it, beating me, as usual, in the one part wherein I thought I was skilled. But I have to add, Miss Hilman, that having discovered the existence of honesty associated with the highest order of intelligence, I am astounded to find that I not only do not scorn and despise it, I admire it--more than that, I am conquered by it; I yield to it as a serf to the will of his master, and I worship her who--" his voice railed him for an instant and then he concluded, "you, Miss Hilman." Clara sat looking calmly at the spy, much as if she were regarding a play in which he was an actor, or, as it seemed to him, as if she were studying a strange anatomical specimen. "This must be a remarkable experience for you," she said simply. "It is a marvel!" he responded with great emphasis; "I, who knew only loyalty to my czar, find that there is something more potent to stir me than his beck, or his reward. I love, and with all the strength of my being!" "It doesn't seem at all strange to me," she murmured, her voice low and musical; "I have never rated you as less than a human being, though at times you have seemed to fall infinitely below the standard of such men as it has been my good fortune to know." Poubalov winced at this merciless thrust at his intense egotism, and Clara went on: "What I do not understand is why you should have been to the mortifying pains of telling me about it, for it is a farce for such persons as you and me to bandy words. Has your revolution so far progressed as to convince you that it is worth while to waste energy?" "A man must speak out when he loves as I do," said Poubalov, desperately. "I will not rave, as I have read that lovers do; I will stick to my logic; but I must confess that when I awakened to this emotion, I could not help a day dream in which I saw you by my side, and the sight was sweet, it was inspiring, for it cannot be often that minds of such caliber as ours are brought together and united for life." "It will be better to return to your logic, Mr. Poubalov," said Clara, gently; his tones were passionate in spite of his evident effort, and she had no desire to lead him on to a freer outburst. "Let us dismiss this experience of yours, in which, of course, I share only as a disinterested spectator. What have you done with the man I do love?" Poubalov rose, and Clara expected to see him pace up and down the room after the manner of her uncle when he was agitated; but the spy stood before her trembling in every limb. "You have asked me the wrong question, Miss Hilman," he said hoarsely, "and I shall not answer it." "Then," exclaimed Clara, "either leave me at once, or proceed in your own way to tell me what I wish to know. I have been days in my search, and I can listen to you for the whole of this evening if it is necessary in order to learn what I must know." "Suppose I should tell you," said Poubalov, slowly, "that I can lay my hands upon Strobel at any moment. What would you say?" "I should bid you to bring him to me." Poubalov shook his head. "I should not do it," he said. CHAPTER XXIII. AT ONE O'CLOCK A.M. Clara rose at this and faced her adversary, speaking with intensity no less than his: "It discredits your boasted intelligence," she said, "to presume so much as to suggest a compromise to me. There can be no middle course. You do not care that I consider you an unspeakable villain, but you must see that you are bound to do one thing or the other. Bring my lover to me, or--it would be idle boasting to say what the alternative would be, but you know that I should never cease to pursue you. In my own way I should certainly circumvent you some day." "Yes, you would, I believe that; but, Miss Hilman, I decline to accept your first alternative," and he strode toward the door. "Stop!" she cried, running forward and getting in his way. "I told you this would be your last opportunity to tell me the whole truth. You haven't told me anything yet that I want to know. I meant what I said. I will not have you come here again." "Nevertheless, we shall meet again, Miss Hilman." Poubalov now appeared imperturbable. He had confessed to a certain weakness and defeat; in the presence of excitement and insistence he was easily the master of himself and the situation. Clara realized quickly that she had lost a point by yielding even momentarily to her emotions, and she strove to recover by assuming once more what Poubalov called her logical position. "You have said that you love me," she said as calmly as possible; "can you ask me to believe that when you deliberately cause me the most cruel grief? Is that consistent? With all your confessed craft, you have a certain half-respectable consistency, for you confess to me at least, how base you are. Will you, then, love and torture me, too?" The spy became deathly pale for an instant, and then answered: "We shall see. I have made my confession, and nothing now shall swerve me from accomplishing my purpose in my own way." "Is there such a thing as love of fair play in you?" asked Clara, her emotions now quelled and every instinct alive once more to fencing with her adversary. "I suppose not, except in an argument. Even then it might not seem to be fair play to the party who found himself overmatched." "In your arguments with me you do not treat me with the ordinary fairness of admitting me to a common ground with you. You withhold facts without which I cannot argue as well as I might." "That, Miss Hilman, is because our contest is over a real issue, not over an abstraction." "I don't wonder that poor Litizki regarded you as a fiend!" "Therein you manifest yourself a woman. You long for invective, but your refinement cannot teach you how to use epithets effectively." "This is the end of talking," said Clara, moving away; "I will not detain you." Poubalov promptly bowed ceremoniously, bade her good-evening, and left the house. Paul slipped out after him, and tried his ability at playing "shadow." Clara was greatly disturbed by her interview with Poubalov, although it had added nothing to her knowledge of the circumstances with which she was blindly battling. She felt like retiring at once, for she was exhausted, but there was a fresh call upon her strength within a few minutes of the spy's departure. This time it was the man whom she knew only by his first name, "Mike," who had been sent from the livery stable to take Ivan to the wedding. He was an uncouth, illiterate young man, the most violent contrast imaginable to her recent visitor, but also the most welcome, for there could be no manner of doubt as to his simple honesty. Clara found it a relief to talk with him apart from the fact that his message was one that stirred her with new hope and stimulated her weary brain to new plans for Ivan's deliverance. "I was to say to ye," said Mike, "how I'd had me eyes an' more, too, last night, on the feller what did the trick to me wheel." "Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Clara eagerly; "but what do you mean? Did somebody send you to tell me?" "Yes'm, me boss. I told me boss about it, an' he says you go to Miss Hilman with that, an' tell her all about it, an', says he, if it's anything that can be useful to her you can do, do it, says he." "You must thank him for me," said Clara. "Now tell me, please, how and where you saw this man, and what he said. I won't interrupt you." "It's not me as would like to tell you what he said, miss. He wasn't speakin' to a lady, an' I'm thinkin' a lady wouldn't 'a' give him the cause to curse as I did." Mike grinned in enjoyment of some retrospect that Clara thought she could imagine, and she smiled and waited patiently for him to tell his story in his own way. "It was last evenin', miss, at the corner of Dover an' Washington streets. I was done with me work for the day, an' was standin' in a saloon by the bar, havin' a drop of beer by myself, when this loafer came in. He stood alongside o' me an' called for something, I don't mind now what, for I was onto him, an' was thinkin' to meself would I thump him, or would I have an argyment. I was lookin' straight at him, me hand on me beer glass, an' I suppose he noticed me for that, for pretty soon he turns around an' with a kind of a start, 'Hello!' says he. "Now I don't know what would 'a' happened if he hadn't spoke, for I would 'a' spoke to him, an' it might 'a' been all the same, but I was that mad all of a sudden, that I let the beer fly in his face. With that he jumped on me an' we had a fine fight, till the bartenders came round an' chucked us both into the street. They was a policeman near by, so we quit fightin', an' went to another bar where we had a drink an' got friendly. He was already pretty full, miss, an' I was as sober as I am now, an' after three or four more drinks he got to talkin' confidential about that wheel." Clara was on the qui vive with anxiety to know just what had occurred between Mike and his acquaintance, while at the same time she felt repugnance to basing any serious efforts upon the words of a drunken man, as well as distrust as to the value of a clew from such a source; but she felt, too, that she could stop at nothing in the emergency that confronted her. So she asked, "What did he say, Michael?" "First off he was for denyin' that he had anythin' to do with it; but bymeby, seein' as I wasn't mad any more, an' enjoyin' the trick of it himself, he told me he done it, an' I know what became of your man,' says he. 'An' what?' says I. With that, though, he shut up. He winked his eye, an' talked about somethin' else, an' I, not thinkin' or caring very much at the time, didn't ask many questions. But this mornin' I was thinkin' it over, an' wonderin' what became of th' gentleman, an' thinkin' there must be something crooked, or they wouldn't 'a' took me wheel off, an' so I told me boss an' he told me to tell you." "It was very kind of you both," said Clara grateful, yet fearful that the point of most importance had been lost. "Was his name Billings?" "No'm, 'twas Patterson. Him an' me was together for some time after the fight, an' I walked along home with him." "You know where he lives then?" "Not exactly, miss, but I could go pretty near to it. You see, we was goin' along Washington Street toward Roxbury, and had come a long way from Dover, when he turns down a side street, an' then another, an' I kep' along for I hadn't anything better to do. He'd been silent for a while, an' suddenly he stops an' says, tryin' hard to brace up. 'You mustn't come any further,' says he. 'Why not?' says I, half minded to give him another lickin', only he was too full. ''Cause me boss says he will----' but never mind what he said his boss would do. I said I didn't care, an' turned back. He went on, an' then I was minded to see where he went. Of course it was dark, an' I couldn't be certain, but I think I could go straight to that building." "Will you take me there?" asked Clara. "Now, miss?" Clara reflected. Other objections aside, it might be the worst possible policy to move prematurely in the matter. It might be a false clew, she knew nothing about the building, and meantime Paul was following Poubalov. Much as she longed for immediate action, it seemed wiser to postpone it until an investigation could be made. "Would your employer spare you to help me to-morrow forenoon?" she asked. "I think he would, miss. He told me to do what you said, says he----" "Tell him, please, that I would like to have you go with me to-morrow as soon after nine o'clock as you can get here. I shall want you to show me the building, and identify the man Patterson." "That I will, miss, if he's served you any trick." Poubalov walked very rapidly after he left Mr. Pembroke's. He could have saved himself many steps by taking a street-car, but he evidently preferred energetic action. Paul, following, took note, as Litizki had done on a similar occasion, of the streets through which he passed, and at last he saw him pause and stand for several minutes at the curb, looking across the road at what seemed to be an old-fashioned hotel. After a time he walked slowly on, and soon thereafter was joined by a man with whom he conversed. Paul went near enough to see the man's face, but he did not recognize him as anybody he had ever seen before. The conversation finished, Poubalov continued on his way, again walking rapidly, but this time, after coming to Washington Street, he boarded a downtown car. An open car was directly behind it, and Paul found a place on its front seat, thus being enabled to keep the spy in view until he alighted at Scollay Square. The guilty as well as the innocent must eat, and supper was the next thing to engage Poubalov's attention. Paul improved the opportunity in the same way, but he finished quickly, and waited a long time for the spy to come forth. He had been watching the restaurant entrance from a doorway across the street, and at last he ventured over to see whether possibly his quarry had escaped him. No; there sat Poubalov, at a table not far from the door, his head bent down as if he were thinking profoundly. His supper lay almost untouched before him. Just as Paul looked in, the head waiter touched the customer on the shoulder. Poubalov looked up with a start, and the head waiter seemed to be apologizing for his intrusion. It was clear that he had supposed the customer to be asleep, or ill. Poubalov paid his check and left the place. He went to his lodging-house, and when Paul saw that he had lit the gas, he, too, went inside. He locked the door immediately and applied his eye to the nail hole. Poubalov sat with folded arms in an old-fashioned rocking chair, gazing abstractedly before him. On the little center table under the chandelier, Paul could just distinguish Clara's photograph. Paul remained with his eye at the hole until it seemed as if he could stand no longer. In all that time Poubalov had not moved perceptibly. The watcher got down and looked at his time-piece. It was half-past ten. He then sat with his head against the door that he might hear the slightest sound from the front room. Just what possessed Paul to be so vigilant on this occasion, when the spy was doing absolutely nothing but cudgel his inscrutable mind, he could not have told in less vague terms than that he didn't want Poubalov to get away from him. If he were to take a nocturnal, or early morning ramble, Paul purposed to be on hand to accompany him. Something like a half hour passed, and then Paul heard a long, heavy sigh, and the creak of the rocker as Poubalov rose. Quickly mounting his perch, Paul saw him pace back and forth, his hands clinched behind him and his brow set in hard wrinkles. He seemed to be in for a night of it, and as his movement promised to be productive of nothing more than his quiescence, Paul again dismounted and sat down. So monotonously did the march continue that the listener's head began to droop, lulled by the very sound he had set himself to hear, and had it not been for the extreme anxiety with which he had undertaken his task, Paul would have fallen asleep. After twice catching himself nodding, he no longer dared to sit still. So he rose and stepped lightly about the room to start the blood in his drowsy limbs. The sound of marching ceased. Poubalov had stopped under the chandelier, and when Paul had him in view he was in the act of turning Clara's photograph face down upon the table. He took out the leather pocketbook that had checked the dagger thrust by Litizki's hand, and examined one of the documents in it attentively. It appeared to be of an official character, for there was a big seal upon it, and it was bound with ribbon. Paul could see the holes made by the dagger in passing through the several folds of the paper, or parchment. Poubalov laid the document upon the table, sat down, and, drawing fresh paper before him, began to write. His pen traversed the sheets with great rapidity, and as Paul could hear the scratching plainly, he again sought relief from his uncomfortable perch. It was nearly one o'clock when the sound of writing ceased. Paul saw that Poubalov had removed his coat. What he had written was folded and placed in an envelope upon the table. The watcher supposed that the spy was about to retire, but there was so evidently something further upon Poubalov's mind, something that he seemed to debate whether it were best done now, or in the morning, that Paul kept his place and watched; and as he strained his eye to take in every movement, instinctively shading his face although he stood in the darkness, he saw Poubalov draw a revolver from his hip-pocket. Placing the hammer at half-cock, he tilted the barrel forward and pushed the cartridge cylinder about with his thumb and finger. Every chamber seemed to be as he wished it, and he readjusted the barrel. Then he walked to the bureau upon which swung a half-length mirror. His back was thus partially turned to the watcher, and Paul could see dimly the reflection of his face looking somberly toward him. He held the revolver in his right hand, the finger on the trigger, the barrel pointed toward the floor. Paul was in an agony of doubt and apprehension. What should he do? How long would Poubalov stand there and allow him to reflect? Would the spy, then, "get away," and by this manner of exit? With his left hand Poubalov took his watch from his pocket. He glanced at the face of the busy and faithful little machine, and it was only too evident that he had set the limit of his life at some point that the moving hands would presently reach. CHAPTER XXIV. THE NEW CLEW. Frantic with anxiety and dread, Paul followed a sudden impulse and jumped to the floor, ran to the door that opened into the hall, unlocked and opened it and rushed out. He had a wild idea of bursting in the door of Poubalov's room and wrestling with him if need be to take away the revolver and prevent suicide. He stopped, startled, just outside his door, for Poubalov stood before him, the light from the chandelier streaming out upon him and showing him erect, alert, his revolver pointed directly at the watcher. "What is the matter?" asked Poubalov, coolly. Paul caught his breath and leaned upon the banister. "I was going out in a hurry and stumbled against a chair," he stammered. "Strange time of night to do things in a hurry," remarked Poubalov, still aiming his weapon at the young man; "do you belong here?" "Yes; I moved in yesterday." Poubalov stood a little aside to let the light fall more fully upon Paul's face. "Humph!" he said, lowering the revolver; then added, in Russian, "you are Paul Palovna, intimate friend of Ivan Strobel." "Yes," admitted Paul, in the same language, "I am, and you are his deadly enemy.' "Bah!" exclaimed Poubalov in profound disgust, "you ought to know better. Come in here--but no! you are in a hurry. Go, then; I will talk to you another time." "Better now, Poubalov," returned Paul, significantly, "one of us might be missing before another opportunity occurred. I am not so much in a hurry that I cannot listen to you." "No!" said the spy, decidedly, "go your way, and take this comfort with you, Palovna, that you have done your friend Strobel a service." He shrugged his shoulders and withdrew into his room and closed the door. Paul went slowly down the stairs and opened the front door just as the landlady poked her head from her room on the ground floor and inquired in an agitated whisper, "Whatever was the trouble?" "It is nothing," said Paul, "I stumbled, and the gentleman in the front room mistook me for a burglar, I guess. Sorry I disturbed you." "It's all right," whispered the landlady, "but I guess he must have scared you some. Your face is as wet as if you'd been out in a rain." Paul realized then to what a tense degree his nerves had been strained. Perspiration seemed to be oozing from every pore. His knees felt weak and his head dizzy, but he kept in mind the part he was playing and left the house. However certain it was that Poubalov would infer that Strobel's intimate friend lodged there for the purpose of watching him, it would never do to openly admit the fact by returning immediately to his room. He went to the corner of Bowdoin Street, and back on the other side to a point directly opposite Poubalov's windows. As he walked, one deep-toned stroke rang out from a neighboring church tower. If that was the hour Poubalov had set for putting a bullet into his heart, he had let it pass without taking action. Paul kept his eyes upon the curtained windows behind which the chandelier light still glowed, and longed to be back at his peephole, watching the spy. Yet there was nothing that he could do if he were there. He had seen the one great incident in Poubalov's career come to its climax upon the awful verge of tragedy; and he felt that as the spy's life trembled in the balance, the weight had been thrown into the scale for prolonging it by his impulsive jump from the chair on which he had been viewing the scene. Not that Poubalov was hesitating; his was the nerve to pull the trigger with the precision and steadiness of a marksman when the appointed time came; but the shock of irrelevant circumstances had been just what was needed to release the morbid pressure of gloomy contemplation from the brain, and restore it to its normal activity. Thus Paul reflected, with his eyes upon the lighted windows. A party of roysterers swung into the place, singing discordantly. One of them fell at the corner of Bowdoin Street, and his companions helped him up with drunken jeers and laughter. Paul had turned his head to watch them, and when he looked again at the lodging-house across the way, all the windows were dark. Poubalov had gone to bed. As faithful as the unfortunate Litizki to his task, Paul sat up all that night. When drowsiness overcame him, he bathed his face and head with water, or walked gently about the room. He smoked all the cigarettes in his possession, for the sake of having something to do, and when his stock was exhausted, he went to a neighboring "all-night" restaurant and bought a handful of cigars. He listened through the hours for any suggestive sound from the front room, but, beyond an occasional deep breath, he heard nothing. Poubalov slept well. It was not until the day, reckoning by the light, was well advanced, that the spy rose and dressed. While he was still busy with his toilet, a messenger called and left a note for Paul with word to the scrub-woman who was already at work, that it was to be delivered at once. It was from Clara. "A new clew," she wrote, "and the most promising one thus far, has been brought to me this evening. I need help in following it to the end. Owing to my uncle's indisposition, I do not feel like even telling him about it, much less asking him to give me his time. Can you come? I know you are doing much, and quite likely taking time that you ought to devote to work, but I ask some further assistance, nevertheless, knowing that it is not necessary for me to plead. This is so important that I believe you can leave Poubalov for a while, no matter what he is doing. Please come by nine o'clock if you possibly can." Paul had great faith in Clara, although he had not known with sufficient detail of her recent work to give her judgment all the credit that it deserved, and so he found himself in an annoying quandary. To him it seemed essential to follow Poubalov now that he was well in view. He felt, too, some disappointment at being called away without being able to feel that his night had been spent sleeplessly to some purpose. It could not be that Clara had discovered anything of great importance compared to the developments that would probably follow a patient tracking of Poubalov's footsteps during the day. Why hadn't she mentioned what her clew was? No, she depended upon him to obey her implicitly, as if he had no more discretion than Litizki. If Paul was a bit unreasonable and restive, let it be charged against his fatigue. Few men can keep an even temper when the nerves are unstrung and the whole body cries for rest. Poubalov saved him from the error, if so it was, of disregarding Clara's wishes. It came about in this way: Paul climbed to his observation perch, to see how matters stood in the next room. Poubalov had opened the envelope containing the papers he had been at work upon during the midnight hour, and was now destroying them, burning them one sheet at a time over the wash-bowl that he had set upon the center table. He was fully dressed, even to the hat on his head, and Paul carefully replaced the nail which protected his peephole. He stood by the chair with Clara's letter in his hand, still undecided what course to take, when there was a knock at his door. He opened, and Poubalov stood there. "You can spare the time now, I suppose?" he said inquiringly with a grim glance at the valentine hanging from the improvised hook. Paul saw that his ruse was discovered, but he followed the spy into the front room, his heart beating high with expectation. "There is never an effect without a cause, young man," remarked Poubalov, motioning Paul to a chair; "the effect was sufficient for me last night, and so far as your act deserves it, you have my thanks. This morning I sought the cause, and of course, I found it. Do not be disturbed. I have no reproaches to make. You imagined yourself at war with me, and you took your own methods to win. There is nothing to complain of in that; but you, as a Russian of intelligence, should have known that I could not be as hostile as you think to an American citizen. Bah! it's not worth discussing! You've all lost your heads. "What I have to say is this: I am on duty for the czar, and having recovered from my dangerous temptation to be derelict, I shall do what duty demands, without let or hindrance from anybody. I will tolerate no interference, no matter whose fair lips give the command. When that little wretch, Litizki, was in that chair where you are now sitting, I sought to influence him by threats against himself. I don't take that method with you, Paul Palovna. If you choose to do so, you can dog my footsteps from now on, for I presume your American laws will not protect me in my desire to work undisturbed; but bear in mind that I have no more love for Ivan Strobel now than I ever had, and if I see fit to release him, it must be I, Alexander Poubalov, who chooses to do so of his own free will. Do you understand me?" "Sufficiently to see that you would frighten me from my course by threats against the man whom you have in your power, and whom I am trying to rescue." "You do well," continued Poubalov; "and if you are in any doubt as to whether I am in earnest, I advise you to report what I have said, and what you saw in this room last night, to Miss Hilman. She will tell you whether I am likely to be gratuitously merciful. Spy upon me, therefore, if you like. I shall know that you defy me, and you will have to bear the consequences. Shall we breakfast together, Paul Palovna?" Paul ignored the ironical invitation, which was Poubalov's way of saying that he has said his say, and remarked: "I also have a suggestion to make." Poubalov raised his brows in contemptuous surprise that anything could be added to his statement of the situation. "You have spoken of American law," said Paul, "and I simply suggest that the friends of Strobel may to-day resort to law to obtain his freedom. I don't know how much you may have said to Litizki and Miss Hilman, but you have made some damaging admissions to me." "Really! is that all you can think of? It's hardly worth a reply, but I will suggest in return that what you call my admissions are your own inferences, nothing more. Ask the nearest police captain, or, better, go to the public prosecutor with your imaginings. I will tell you that there isn't a scrap of evidence on which to base my arrest, for that, of course, is what you aim at. You are more of a child than I thought you were, with all your petty contrivances for peeping upon a Russian official. Au revoir, Palovna." Paul went downstairs in a rage, impressed, as all were whoever came in contact with this remarkable man, with Poubalov's faculty for gaining and keeping a masterful control over the situation. The worst of it was, the spy was probably entirely in the right so far as law was concerned. As well arrest himself, Palovna, as this foreigner who had shown his interest in the Strobel case in eccentric ways, perhaps, but who could not be charged with criminality, unless possibly by Litizki, and the tailor had himself made it impossible that he should be of any further service. There seemed to be no course open to him but to respect Clara's wishes, and, accordingly, out to Roxbury he went. He arrived at Mr. Pembroke's house just before nine o'clock, and found Clara waiting for him, dressed to go out. They exchanged information while waiting for Mike to come, Clara telling about the discovery of Patterson, and Paul giving a guarded account of Poubalov's contemplated suicide. He tried to spare Clara the horrors of the scene, but he felt that she ought to know how deeply in earnest Poubalov was, that she might the more correctly judge him and estimate the value of his threats. "It must have been a dreadful moment," she said when he had finished, "and I am glad that another tragedy has been averted. It is hard to believe that he will go to extreme measures--but what am I saying? What has he not done that is cruel, barbarous and wicked? How can I expect anything but unmixed evil from such a man? I believe it is well that for a time we can appear to withdraw our observations of him." Mike was late, but when he did come he came with a coupé. "Me boss said, miss," he explained, "that if there was to be any travelin', you was to ride as far an' as long as you liked, with his compliments." "Your employer is very kind," said Clara. "This gentleman, Mr. Palovna, will go with me, and if he asks you to do anything, you needn't wait for my consent. We will go straight to the place where you left Patterson. Stop there, and point out the house you think he went into, but don't drive up to it." When they were in the coupé, Clara continued to Paul: "I have no definite plan as to Patterson. That must develop when we find him. If he can be cajoled, bribed or frightened into telling us the truth, it must be done. I don't see that we are called upon to make nice discriminations in our methods." "Any way is fair in dealing with a criminal," returned Paul. "Humph!" "What is it?" asked Clara, observing that he began to take a lively interest in the street through which they were passing. "It may be only a coincidence," said Paul, "but it just occurred to me that thus far Mike has taken us over exactly the same course that Poubalov pursued when I followed him last evening." "I presume it's not a coincidence," responded Clara, and she thought of Litizki's passionate words: "If ever anything is discovered, you discover Poubalov's hand in it." Step by step the coupé followed Poubalov's line of march, and when it drew up at last, it was at the very corner where Paul had seen the spy talking with the stranger. Mike got down and opened the door, and as he spoke, Clara looked out in the direction in which he pointed. "This was where Patterson shook me, miss," he said, "an' I seen him go along down the street an' cross over just below there an' go into a house--that one, I think, with the balcony along the front, the one a gentleman is just comin' out of." Clara drew back into the coupé hastily. The gentleman coming from the house in question was Poubalov, and he was walking toward them. CHAPTER XXV. A STUBBORN ANTAGONIST. "Stay just where you are, Michael," exclaimed Clara, "and don't let that man see your face." Mike did as directed, pushing his head and shoulders far into the coupé and whispering: "It isn't him, is it, miss, who's got anything to do with the case?" "Yes," she replied in a low tone, while she and Paul kept as far back in the gloom of the carriage as they could; "have you ever seen him before?" "Yes'm, he was down to the stables the day this gentleman called, askin' would I know the man who did the trick to me wheel." "It was a ruse," muttered Paul; "he pretended to investigate in the same spirit that I did so as to throw suspicion from himself. If he has anything like the perceptions that we think he has, he will recognize this rig. Isn't it the same, Mike, with which you started to take Mr. Strobel to his wedding?" "Identical, sir, horse an' all." Poubalov had passed them during this brief conversation, and as none of them had ventured to look at him, they could not tell whether or not he recognized the turnout. They could hear his rapid steps as he strode along, and there was certainly no pause to indicate that he had seen anything that surprised or interested him. "I must know where he goes," said Clara. "Get on the box, Michael, and drive after him without letting him see, if you can help it, that you are following him. Let us know if he enters any house, but do not stop in front of it." "Yes'm," replied Mike, closing the door. He turned the vehicle about and drove slowly to the corner. Poubalov had paused, ostensibly to buy a paper at a news-stand a little way up the street. He glanced back at the approaching vehicle, shrugged his shoulders, and moved on as rapidly as before. Mike reported this to Clara a few minutes later, when he had seen Poubalov board a Scollay Square car. "He is satisfied that we are following him, then," said Clara, and she felt afraid as she recalled the threats that the spy had uttered to Paul. Would he proceed promptly to put into execution whatever design he might have for injuring Ivan? Would not the disappointed passion that had led him to all but the commission of suicide now prompt him to murder his prisoner? Clara sank back and covered her face with her hands, completely unnerved for the moment by the seeming imminence of catastrophe. "When will the end come!" she moaned. Mike looked on in honest and surprised distress, and Paul himself, knowing as he did the reasons for her excess of fear, was at his wits' end to suggest comfort. Clara uncovered her eyes suddenly. They blazed with new determination. "Michael," she cried, "could you overtake the car he is on?" "I could try it, miss, but he's got a pretty good start." "Try it, then. Don't spare the horse for just this once. If you come near to catching up, and he looks around, then drive more slowly, as if you were not able to keep up the pace, and finally stop altogether, let the car get away, and I'll tell you what to do next. Hurry!" Mike did hurry. The coupé started with a jolt as he lashed his astonished horse into a gallop. "What's your plan, Miss Hilman?" asked Paul, who was at a loss to account for this projected maneuver. "The man wants us to follow him," she replied, turning upon her companion almost fiercely in the intensity of her excitement. "He would lead us away from the scene of his operations, don't you see? Since he has discovered that you have been watching him, he has thought it all over, and he has concluded that it is more than likely that you tracked him to that street, for that was the street, wasn't it? Of course! Then he would naturally expect me to go there. I don't dream that he foresaw meeting us just now, but what I do believe to be the case is, that finding that house insecure for his purpose, he is now planning to remove his prisoner, and happening upon us as he did, he will do what he can to lead us away from it. Don't you see?" "It sounds reasonable; and you plan, then, to make a pretense at a desperate effort to catch up with him, and when he has got away a considerable distance, to return to the house and investigate." "That's it," and Clara again sank back, but this time her face expressed energy and confidence in success. "I wonder how we are getting on," she said after a moment. They were dashing along Washington Street now at a furious rate, attracting attention from all passers. Paul tried to look ahead, but he could not do so without leaning far out of the coupé, and that did not seem to be advisable. "Never mind," said Clara; "I think the driver can be trusted to play his part, if his horse doesn't play it for him by falling down from exhaustion. By the way, I had a letter from O'Brien this morning. You don't know who he is, do you? He is the employee at the Park Square Station who saw Billings drive up, and who says that a man left the carriage and went into the station. The detectives, you know, supposed that man to be Ivan. It's a small point, but O'Brien very kindly wrote to me when he discovered it. He says he was talking about the case with a fellow-workman who remembered the occurrence, and who says that shortly after Billings was seen by O'Brien, a closed carriage stopped at the Columbus Avenue entrance to the station, near the baggage rooms, you know, and that a man left the station and got in. Of course that was the carriage Billings drove, and the man was doubtless the same who got out at the front entrance. He had simply walked through the station, mingled with the crowd, perhaps going so far as to buy a ticket for New York, and then had rejoined his driver. Doesn't it seem clear?" "It's a perfectly plausible explanation of the point, but it's a pity O'Brien's friend didn't turn up with it sooner. You might have been saved your journey to New York." "I'm not sure about that. I am not sorry that I saw Lizzie White, although I never felt for an instant that Ivan had eloped." The coupé was still rattling onward at the highest speed the horse could attain, but a moment after Clara had finished, it came to a sudden halt, and they heard a stern voice saying: "You know better than to drive so fast in the street! I've a great mind to take you in." Mike was protesting in characteristic fashion, inventing something about the necessity of catching a train, when Clara opened the coupé door and stepped out. A policeman stood at the horse's head, glaring with offended dignity at the driver. "If there is any fault it is mine, officer," she said sweetly; "please scold me, for I told him to drive as fast as he could." "That don't make no difference, ma'am," returned the policeman, instantly mollified, but still feeling it incumbent upon him to assert the majesty of municipal ordinances; "he's a regular, and he knew better. 'Tain't allowed to go so fast anywhere in Boston 'less it's on a race track." "I'm very sorry," said Clara. "Go on with you," commanded the policeman to Mike, "and be a little more careful. It would be rough on me, you see," he added to Clara, "if I wasn't to stop him." Mike looked inquiringly down at his passenger. "Come to the door a minute, Michael," she said, and returned to the coupé. "That cop's too fresh to live," remarked Mike as he put his head in to receive instructions. "Were we anywhere near the car?" asked Clara. "Yes'm, we was most onto it, an' I was just goin' to pull up a bit when the cop got in his work." "Could you see the man we were after?" "Yes'm; he turned round, an' I guess he saw what the cop did, but I lost sight of him tryin' to keep me horse from treadin' on the cop's toes." "It's just as well, then," said Clara, satisfied. "I'm rather glad the policeman stopped us, for now Poubalov will be certain why it was that we didn't catch up. You needn't hurry so now, Michael; drive back to the place where we started from." "Where Patterson shook me, miss? All right. I'm on," and he clambered back to the box. Nothing occurred to disturb their return journey, and when Mike again opened the door for instructions, Clara and Paul got out. "We will go straight to the house and inquire for Patterson," said Clara, "and if we don't find him there, we'll ask all along the street." "Whist, miss!" exclaimed Mike, in his eagerness gripping her arm; "there goes Patterson now!" "Where?" she cried, looking, of course, in the wrong direction. "Below there, him on the box of the closed carriage, miss. On my soul, it looks like the same----" "Follow it quick, Michael," she said excitedly. "Come, Paul!" and she sprang into the coupé. "I'll sit on the box with Mike," answered Paul, tremendously aroused; he was already climbing to a place beside the driver; "from here I can act quicker. Hit her up, Mike!" So off they went on another pursuit, Mike treating his horse to more lash than he had ever experienced before. "I don't believe you'll need to go so fast as to risk arrest," said Paul; "Patterson probably don't suspect that we are after him, and it would be better to go a little slower than to be stopped again by a policeman." "I almost ran down one cop who tried to make me pull up before," responded Mike, through set teeth, "an' I wouldn't mind bein' took in myself if it wasn't for spoilin' the game. I'll look sharp, sir, never fear." Patterson and his carriage had disappeared around a corner almost before the coupé had started, but they were soon in view again, jogging forward at a rather lively rate several blocks ahead. "Will I overhaul him, sir, right away?" asked Mike. "I could do it by driving like sin." "Don't risk it," answered Paul; "as long as he is in sight, I shan't worry if we gain a little at every block. Let's not drive fast enough to attract attention, for we may have a row when we catch him, and the less crowd around the better." "If there's to be a fight," said Mike, with a hopeful grin, "I can do Patterson. I'm not even with him yet for doin' the trick to me wheel." "All right. If it comes to a scrimmage, you look after him, and I'll try to attend to the passengers. I'll tell you just what we suspect, so that you can understand what you are to do. If we're not mistaken, Mr. Strobel is in that carriage, helplessly bound. There may be another man with him. In any case, we must get Strobel away and put him in the coupé. When that is done, you drive straight to Mr. Pembroke's. Don't wait for Miss Hilman or me if we don't happen to get in. We'll take care of ourselves. You look out for Mr. Strobel. Call the police to help if you need to, for we've nothing to fear from the law." "I'm on," said Mike. The chase went on to the perfect satisfaction of Palovna, who, with growing excitement, saw the distance between him and Patterson's carriage gradually decreasing. His one fear now was that Strobel would be found to be seriously injured, and he felt a great dread lest Poubalov in his madness had killed him! He would not dwell upon this thought, however, concentrating all his force on the struggle that would probably ensue when the closed carriage was at last overtaken. They were now in Washington Street, and again going toward the city. Patterson was less than a block away. "Give it to him now, Mike," said Paul; "get right alongside and make him pull up." Mike nodded and gave his horse a smart cut with the whip. He sprang forward at a gallop. Patterson was driving near the curb, and Mike took the outside. He drove close beside the closed carriage, in order to "pocket" his adversary and so compel him to pull up. The maneuver succeeded admirably. Taken by surprise at the sudden appearance of a rapidly galloping horse very near his wheels, Patterson reined his pair nearer to the curb, uttering an impatient curse at the carelessness of the other driver. Mike forced him over still further, and Patterson was compelled in self-defense to stop. As he did so he turned his head to tell Mike what he thought of him, and Paul recognized the stranger whom he had seen in conversation with Poubalov. The two drivers exchanged angry words that would look rather worse in print, if possible, than they sounded, and Paul lost no time in descending to the ground. The vehicles were too close together to admit of going between them, so he ran around to the sidewalk and wrenched open the carriage door. Then he stood stock still. The carriage was empty. Clara was beside him in an instant, and though her face fell, she exclaimed: "Shut the door and stop the quarrel. I must speak to Patterson." Everything had happened so quickly that the two drivers were still on their respective boxes, making remarks to each other, when Paul stopped upon the wheel beside Patterson and said: "Mike, drive up to the curb just in front of us. Get down, Patterson. We've something to say to you." Patterson looked down in surprise, glanced at Clara, shook his head and gathered up the reins for a fresh start. Paul sprang from the wheel and caught the horses by the bits before they had taken a step. Mike was carrying out instructions and was then just abreast of him. "Mike!" said Paul in a loud voice, "don't stop, but pick up the first policeman you can find and bring him here in a hurry! We'll talk to this man in a cell if he won't wait here." Patterson was unquestionably alarmed at this. "What is it you want?" he asked in a surly tone. "Get down, and the lady there will tell you," answered Paul. Patterson prepared to obey, but just then a south-bound car stopped near them, and Poubalov alighted. He came rapidly toward the group, his dark face darker yet with passion. "Stay on the box!" he commanded. He took off his hat, bowed stiffly to Clara, with one hand on the carriage door, and said: "This is my carriage, Miss Hilman. Drive on, James," and before even quick-witted Clara could interpose a restraining word, the door had closed upon Poubalov, and the carriage rolled away. CHAPTER XXVI. HIDE AND SEEK. Clara's face was deathly pale, and in her heart anger burned as hotly at Poubalov's ceremonious insolence as it ached with this fresh blow to her hopes. Paul, blue with despair, feared for her, but she had not yet met the emergency that was too great for her to contend with, however unsuccessful she might be. "We must waste no time here!" she cried stepping quickly forward to the coupé. "Return to that house, Paul, and search it; do what you think is best, according to developments. I am going to pursue Poubalov as I said I would. If I do not hear from you before the day is over, Paul, I shall go to that house myself. If you have to go downtown, leave word at Mrs. White's. Keep that carriage in view, Michael, but don't try to overtake it. Good-by, Paul!" Her voice quivered with the desperation that had driven the tears to the brink of her eyes, and she hastily entered the coupé and pulled down the window curtains. Thus shut out from view, she gave way freely to her overstrained emotions, her soul seeming to be borne along on a rushing torrent of grief, and she felt that appalling desire, than which there is no more shocking experience of the heart, to throw herself into the arms of the lost loved one and find comfort there. It was a great day for sturdy Mike. The regret that he hadn't had time just now to "lambast" his friend Patterson, was sweetly assuaged by the fact that he was still pursuing the loafer who did the trick to his wheel, and the hope that another opportunity would soon offer for a fine fight. The chase exhilarated him, and the thought that he was called upon to champion a beautiful woman, made his fists ache to do valiant service upon somebody's head, Patterson's preferred, and he thumped his knees gently with his knuckles by way of practice, and kept his horse at a brisk trot a few rods behind Poubalov's carriage. He was quite confident that he could "do" both driver and passenger if such a thing were necessary, and he longed heartily for an occasion to demand a trial of his prowess. After having traversed a considerable distance, he pulled up, got down and gently opened the door. "Whist, miss," he said, "they've stopped entirely." "Where are we, and where are they?" asked Clara, now her composed self again. "In Scollay Square," answered Mike, "and they're just foreninst the Crawford House. The gentleman's talkin' to Patterson. Now he's lookin' at me, bad luck to him!" "I don't wish to come up to him," said Clara; "if he comes this way I shall be glad. You must have no fear if we talk angrily together." "I'd like to----" began Mike, significantly. "Yes, I know you would," she interrupted, "but we must have no trouble unless I give the word. I might do so if I thought a policeman would arrest him, and not you." "As to that, miss," said Mike, ruefully, "any copper's more likely to pull in the poor cab-driver instead of the fine gentleman. My brother's on the force, an' if we was only on his beat, now!" "Tell me what they are doing, please." "The gentleman is going into the hotel. Patterson is starting away. Shall I follow him?" Clara reflected just an instant. "No," she answered. "Stay here. I'm not going to pursue another empty carriage." "Huh!" chuckled Mike, "you're a keen one, sure, for that's just what he's wantin' you to do. Patterson has turned down Hanover Street." "We'll wait until he comes back," said Clara, "if we have to spend the rest of the day here; but you watch the hotel--Stay! there's a side entrance to the Crawford House, isn't there? Can you place the coupé where you can see both doors?" "Yes, but I don't know how long the police will let me stay there." "Try it, please. If they make you move on, drive around the square and come back." Mike accordingly drove up to the curb of Tremont Row, where he could look down Brattle Street. No policeman had disturbed him before Patterson turned from Cornhill into the square. He had driven around a few blocks, evidently for the purpose of testing the design of his pursuers. Clara wondered why Poubalov should permit such a chase to continue. It would have seemed more like him to come to her with some of his characteristic sophistry, and either appear to yield, or adopt an entirely different course. It must be that he had some plan in view to the execution of which Patterson and his closed carriage were essential. Patterson drove to the front entrance of the hotel and waited, casting ugly glances across the square at Mike, who grinned complacently and shook his fist. After a moment Poubalov came out, entered the carriage, and Patterson promptly drove away. It was plain as day that he had received his instructions while Poubalov stood on the side-walk at the time of their arrival there. He was to see whether Clara would persist in her pursuit, and if so he was to--and that remained to be seen. Mike speedily resumed the reins, and again the chase was in progress. Patterson went down Hanover Street, and, without any apparent effort to distance his pursuer, kept on until he came to Fleet Street, which leads to one of the East Boston ferries. He turned in there, and Mike lost a little by reason of a temporary jam of vehicles. As soon as he was out of it, he too went through Fleet Street, and saw, to his satisfaction, that Patterson was still but a short distance ahead. With painful anxiety, however, he saw that Patterson was making for the ferry, before which a rapidly increasing line of vehicles stood waiting for a chance to cross. Mike whipped up energetically, and managed to beat several drays and express wagons on the way in, and when at last he had to pull up and take his place in line, Patterson's was the carriage directly in front of him. "Smart, ain't ye, ye loafer!" said Mike, disdainfully. Patterson did not notice this remark, or any other of the many with which Mike assailed him while they waited for an incoming boat to discharge its cargo. When at length the gates were opened for the waiting vehicles, Mike was on the alert to take advantage of any opening that might occur to enable him to forge ahead, but none occurred. Policemen and ferry officials kept the teams to their places, and if Mike had attempted a trick, he would have been compelled to go back, and thus lose more than he could have gained. One by one the carriages and wagons went on board, and just after Patterson had passed the barrier the gates were closed. "Hold on there!" howled Mike, beside himself with disappointment and rage, "don't yees see I've got to get aboard?" The gateman laughed and told him to make himself easy; and Patterson, from his place at the very stern of the ferryboat, stood up in his seat and beckoned to Mike ironically. The unhappy chap fumed in vain and got down to tell Clara about it. "We're shook, miss, shook entirely," he said despondently. When Clara understood the unfortunate meaning of his words, and saw that Poubalov had won in another skirmish, she herself was in a quandary. "There are two ferries, aren't there?" she asked. "Aren't they near enough together on this side to make it possible to watch both for their return? for, of course, they haven't gone to East Boston for any other purpose than to come back here again unperceived." "That might possibly be done, miss," said Mike, after a look at the jam of vehicles behind him, "but we're in for a trip across anyways, for I couldn't turn 'round now. An' then, d'ye see, there's more ways to get back from East Boston. They might go over to Chelsea, an' come back by that ferry, or take a run around by road and bridge, so you'd best give 'em up as lost, miss, an' it's sorry I am to tell you so." "Well," said Clara sighing, "if we have to cross, we can make inquiries on the other side, and possibly come up with them again. We'll try it." Inquiries on the East Boston side were vain when they landed there ten minutes later. No one to whom they spoke could remember whether a carriage such as they described had been across or not. One man, anxious to parade information that he did not possess, thought vaguely that the carriage might have gone thus and so, and Clara instructed Mike to drive that way a short distance, and then to return to Boston by the other ferry. This was done, and all trace of Poubalov having been lost, and but one more hope remaining to her--Paul's investigation of the house in Roxbury--she directed Mike to drive to Ashburton Place. Paul had arrived at Mrs. White's a few minutes ahead of her. "I waited for you," he said in a disheartened voice, "because I'm completely at a loss what to do next, not because I have anything of importance to say." "Everything is of importance, Paul," replied Clara, finding herself now called upon to inspire her allies with courage as well as give them ideas. "You went to that quaint-looking house, of course?" "Yes, it's an abandoned tavern--that is, it was formerly run as a hotel, but the enterprise was a failure, and it is now closed. I learned that much from a man who was passing while I stood under the balcony, waiting for somebody to answer my ring. He remarked that he didn't believe I'd find anybody at home, as the house had been practically deserted for some time." "But we saw Poubalov come out of there this morning," urged Clara. "I said as much to my informant, but he answered that it was probably somebody who had been looking it over with a view to purchase. Of course we know better, but it goes to show that neither Patterson nor anybody else lives there." "Except Ivan, if he still lives," said Clara gravely. "Don't think I forgot that possibility," returned Paul, earnestly. "I quietly tried the door after my informant had passed on; he didn't know the name of the owner, by the way. Of course the door was locked. I went around to the side and back, for there is a driveway there leading to stables that are apparently as little used as the tavern itself. Every door and every window was closed. I knocked and shouted, and then neighbors put their heads out of windows and advised me that I was making a noise to no purpose. If it had been night I would have burst open a door or window, and have gone through the house from roof to cellar, but that plan is rather impracticable by daylight." "I wonder," said Clara, "if the law would allow a search of that building. I mean something to be done officially. I've heard of search-warrants." "It's barely possible, and you might try it; but my idea, such as it is, would be to go there quietly to-night ourselves, and force an entrance." "And in either case Poubalov might return during the day, and effect a change in the situation that would make the search useless." "Yes," said Paul, gloomily, "I had thought of that." "The house must be watched this afternoon," said Clara, decidedly, "but it is my very distinct impression that Poubalov will go to his lodging before he returns to Roxbury. It seems to me he must have been on his way there when he was compelled to make a long detour to elude us. And that means that I think his lodging should be watched as carefully as the abandoned tavern. Will you pass the afternoon in your room, Paul?" "Certainly, unless there is a better way of watching there. You must remember that Poubalov has discovered my peephole." "Then," said Clara, "we will borrow the little front hall room occupied by the young lady. Let us go down at once." On this occasion Mrs. White had left them to themselves, much to Clara's relief, for she would not have cared again to discuss her plans in the good lady's presence. It was not that she distrusted Mrs. White's intentions, but she had proven before that she was exceedingly pliable in Poubalov's hands. As they were ready to go, Clara sought Mrs. White to say good-by. "I'm sorry you are going so soon," said the landlady; "I thought you and Mr. Palovna would want a long talk, and so I busied myself in the kitchen, for fear I couldn't help interrupting to tell you my own good news. I expect Lizzie home to-night." "Do you, indeed?" exclaimed Clara; "I am really very glad for you." "It seems better, doesn't it?" continued Mrs. White, anxious to talk to somebody, and eager for sympathy; "she hasn't told me a word in her letters about why she went away, but, of course, I suspected; and I think from the way she writes in the letter I got this morning that she feels better, poor thing! At any rate, she's coming, and I feel very happy, and I should be perfectly content if only you could be happy, too, Miss Hilman." "That seems almost an impossible boon for me now," replied Clara, gently; "I shall come to see you and your daughter if she would like to have me." "I am sure she would, Miss Hilman. Must you hurry?" Every minute seemed so precious to Clara that she almost begrudged the brief interval spent in this exchange of courtesies. On the way to Bulfinch Place she told Paul again that she should manage to watch the tavern during the afternoon, "but," she added, "you are most likely to meet important developments, and you will know where to find me, either near the tavern, or at my uncle's. I shall try to watch the tavern in such a way as not to frighten off Poubalov should he wish to go in, but once he should enter, I shall follow him, you may be sure." At the lodging-house Clara made herself known to the occupant of the front hall room, who was at the time home for luncheon. Clara talked with her apart at length, telling her in a general way of her troubles, but not indicating her plans in detail. The young woman had not come in contact with Poubalov at all, it seemed. She hardly knew that he was a lodger in the house, and the upshot of it was that her sympathies were aroused, and Paul was installed in her room, where he could keep watch upon the roadway through the slats of the closed blinds. So once more Clara bade him good-by, and set forth on her own task. Paul did not venture to keep himself awake by smoking in the young lady's room, and he therefore had a dreadfully hard time of it, for the entire afternoon passed without an event of any kind to break the monotony of his watch. The young lady returned at six o'clock, and looked in for a moment before going to dinner. After that she sat gossiping with the landlady. The sun set and twilight gathered, and Paul began to fear that Poubalov had changed his quarters without giving notice; but just before it was too dark to distinguish faces in the street below, a carriage stopped before the door and Paul saw that Patterson sat on the box. CHAPTER XXVII. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. "About this hour, one week ago to-day," thought Clara as she took her place again in the coupé, "I should have been getting into a carriage at the church door, with Ivan, as his wife! What an eternity seems to have passed since then! Will the search and the waiting never end?" There were no tears now, no disposition to give way. The dull ache at her heart was there, and it seemed as if it would stay forever, but all emotion now was held in check by her determination not to let the day pass without a decisive investigation of this latest clew that had so far led to so much racing about, and thus far, too, to the utter defeat of her every plan. "Where to, miss?" asked Mike who had been standing at the coupé door. Clara had forgotten him for the moment, forgotten even where she was. Aroused to the work in hand, she debated for about one second whether to appeal to a lawyer to get a search-warrant for her. She dismissed the suggestion as likely to involve too much delay. She had never had any experience in law suits, but she had that general conviction due to the accepted phrase "the law's delay," that no one should resort to the courts unless there were ample time and to spare. "We will go first to my uncle's house," she said, "and I would like to have you take such a route that you will pass the house where we saw Poubalov and Patterson this forenoon." "An' I s'pose I'm to let you know if I see what's-his-name or Patterson on the way?" "By all means! do not stop unless you do." The half hour's drive to Roxbury was without adventure. Clara now had the curtains of the coupé up, and she glanced from side to side through the windows as they rolled along, ever alert to catch any sign of her adversaries. The old tavern looked, indeed, deserted. It needed but a touch of moss or ivy, to suggest a ruin, for it was not only an ancient building, but sadly out of repair as well. After they had passed beyond it a little way, Clara signaled to Mike to stop. "I dare not leave this place unguarded a moment," she said; "there is no telling when Poubalov will return, but I must go home for a very short time, or there will be anxiety and perhaps search for me. Suppose you stay here till I come back. It won't take me long if I go by car. Please, Michael, don't do anything rash. There was another good fellow, not so sensible as you, poor man! who tried to help me, and he got himself into dreadful trouble over it. This man, Poubalov, is a terrible enemy, Michael." "Is he the sort that carries a gun in one pocket and a razor in another?" asked Mike with perfect seriousness. "He goes well armed," replied Clara, earnestly, "and he has neither conscience nor fear. You know what I want to accomplish, Michael, but if any life is risked to save another's, it must be mine. I shall be very much displeased if anything serious happens while I am gone. Wait for me, sure." "All right, miss," said Mike, resignedly; "if anything happens after you get back, though, you bet I'll take a hand in!" And if there had been any temptation for a scrimmage during Clara's absence, there is no manner of doubt that Mike would have taken part in it in spite of her injunctions. Clara found Louise in a very nervous condition. "I have not been so much worried about you, dear," she said, "for I have learned to feel confidence that you can take care of yourself. Still I am relieved to see you safe again. My chief anxiety is about papa. I am afraid there is something very troublesome in his business, and that he is breaking down under the strain." "I know that his business has been troubling him very much of late," responded Clara, "for he told me so, and any one could see that he is much disturbed; but how has he shown it to-day? I didn't see him at breakfast, you know." "No, he hurried to his office, as he told me later, to get some important mail. I didn't notice anything beyond his usual nervous manner--that is, his recent manner, at breakfast time, but about half an hour after you had gone he returned in great haste and inquired for you. I told him you had gone with Paul and another man who had given you a clew, and that I couldn't tell when you would return. He seemed very much disappointed, and walked up and down the room several times. I asked him if he had any news about Ivan. He answered abruptly: 'I think so. I must see Clara.'" Startled by hope and fear at once, Clara sank into a chair. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Louise in dismay, "don't please break down now, for that isn't all, and I am so afraid you'll need all your strength to-day." "I am strong," said Clara, resolutely, but it was all she could do to keep her voice steady; "this day will see the end one way or another, and I am prepared for it." "I begged papa to tell me what he had heard, but he refused to do so, almost roughly, too. 'Tell her to wait when she comes in,' he said, and he went out again. He came back at luncheon time looking dreadfully excited. His first words were an inquiry for you. The perspiration rolled down his face as he tried to be calm. He couldn't eat or keep still. I tried to soothe him, but he wouldn't let me. Then I insisted that he tell me what he had heard. 'I haven't heard anything,' he answered excitedly; 'who said I had? I only surmise. I must see Clara.' We both supposed you would come home to luncheon, and he waited for you as long as his impatience would let him. He went away about fifteen minutes ago, telling me again to have you wait for him. I am dreadfully alarmed." "So am I," said Clara in a low voice. She was beginning to feel a sense of confusion, and she had to think hard to convince herself that she had really left Paul on guard at Bulfinch Place and Michael in the street near the old tavern. It seemed to her essential that she should be in both places, and here at home also. She had intended to seek her uncle's assistance in any event, and now he was vainly looking for her with some manner of important and, it seemed likely, bad news. "I am faint," she added after a moment; "perhaps I can think better if I have a cup of tea." Louise hastened to give the orders to the servant, and a few minutes later Clara ate and drank. It was well that she thought of luncheon, well that she could eat, for her vital energies had been severely drawn on, and there was much more ahead of her to do. After she had refreshed herself she said: "I cannot wait for uncle. I don't know what is the most important thing to do, but I feel that I must not wait here. I will send Michael, the cabman, back. Please see that he has luncheon, and keep him here until uncle returns. Then send him for me. He will know where to find me, and I promise to come home at once unless--Well, send him to me, and I will return if I can." Louise was tearful at Clara's departure, but she did not try to detain her. It would have done no good, and she knew it. When Clara found Mike faithfully on guard just where she had left him, she told him her programme, and together they hunted for a place from which she could keep her eyes on the old tavern, unobserved by Poubalov, should he return. They found it in the sitting-room of a house across the way, the mistress of which, a plain, practical woman who knew the woes of economy, was not averse to renting for a few hours the apartment she seldom had time to use, and never on a Monday. This done, Mike drove to Mr. Pembroke's and hitched his horse at the gate, with its nose in a feed-bag. The young man made short work of the luncheon Louise had prepared for him, and then promptly fell asleep over the book she gave him to while away time with. No good end will be served by reviewing the lonely hours of Clara's vigil. It was with her, as with Paul, a monotonous period, far harder to endure, in some senses, than the exciting and exacting experiences of the forenoon. It will be enough, then, to say that when Mike came in the edge of the evening to tell her that her uncle was at home, she had seen no sign of Poubalov or Patterson, or of life in the ancient tavern. Reluctantly she quitted her post, because nothing had happened, willingly because she hoped for definite information of some kind from her uncle. The coupé was at the door. "Will you want me longer, miss?" asked Mike as she came out, prepared to go home. "I suppose you ought to go," answered Clara, doubtfully. "I dunno," said Mike, in the same manner; "me boss will be wonderin' what's become of the rig." The long day, spent so far as he could see to no purpose, had tried him, and yet, had Clara said the word he would have remained in one spot through the night. Clara did not say it. She, too, was fatigued, not more with the exertion of the first half of the day than with the tedious watching of she second. "You may drive me home," she said wearily; "and if your employer will let you, you might come back in an hour or two to see if I need you." Mike, therefore, drove away, when he had left Clara at Mr. Pembroke's gate. She went up to the house, and Louise met her at the door with a white, frightened face. "Papa is worse than ever," she whispered; "go to him at once. He is in the library." Clara opened the door and went in. Her uncle sat at the table, with his arms and head upon it, and he did not look up until she touched him and spoke to him. "I am sorry, uncle dear," she said, "that I was not at home when you wanted me." He raised his head with a groan. "It doesn't matter," he responded; "you could have done nothing, as it has happened." "Didn't you have some news for me, uncle? Tell me; I can endure anything." He tried to look at her, but a violent fit of trembling seized him and he averted his eyes. "I thought there was going to be news, good news," he stammered, "but----" and he shook his head sorrowfully. "Do you mean that you have been disappointed, uncle?" "Disappointed!" he repeated excitedly; "worse! All is lost, Clara, lost! Oh! that wily Russian!" "What Russian, uncle? In mercy's name, tell me!" "Your man Poubalov! He is----" Mr. Pembroke's words stuck in his throat and he looked at Clara with watery eyes. "You have seen him then," she whispered faintly. Mr. Pembroke nodded. "And you have nothing to tell me?" Her uncle opened his lips, tried to speak, and failing, grasped the table with both hands while his eyes fixed themselves in a stare and his face grew livid. Clara ran to the sideboard in the dining-room and brought him a glass of brandy. She poured a quantity down his throat till he gasped with pain. The spasm passed, but left him weak, well-nigh helpless, and Clara summoned the servant to take him to his room. A neighboring physician was called in, and after half an hour or so he reported that Mr. Pembroke was in no immediate danger. Clara wished to see him, not, however, to torment him with questions, but the physician advised that he be left alone, with merely a servant, or Louise at hand to attend to his needs. "I am pretty certain," added the doctor, "that your presence would irritate him." Clara withdrew to the drawing-room and tried to collect her thoughts. She had not heard from Paul and it was now eight o'clock. It could not be that nothing had happened during the long afternoon. Something surely had occurred, and that through Poubalov, to prostrate her uncle---- Ah! she could not sit still. Her programme had not been fully performed. She was useless here, in the way, the doctor had said that plainly enough. The tavern must be searched to-night, and if Paul were not there to help, she must do without him. She said nothing to Louise, or the servants. In the kitchen she found a candle and a box of matches. There and elsewhere about the house were keys of various descriptions. She took every one she could lay her hands on, and thus provided, set forth alone. It was a very quiet, retired street, on which the tavern stood. Once it had been a main road, but traffic had long since been diverted into other channels. She saw nobody as she approached the gloomy structure with its overhanging porch, and few lights were in the windows of adjacent houses. Under the porch she paused a moment in the effort to still the beating of her heart. Then, instead of making any attempt to pass through the front door, she went around to the driveway that Paul had described, and came to an entrance at the very back of the tavern. She placed a trembling hand upon the knob and sought to insert a key in the lock--but the door was opening before her! It was not only not locked, it had not been latched, and the pressure of her hand had set it ajar. With unsteady step and with her mind bewildered by grewsome conjectures, Clara entered. She closed the door behind her and lit the candle. Had Poubalov, then, returned when she had weakly given up the watching, and abducted Ivan a second time? What did her uncle's words mean? "All is lost!" Was Ivan---- She did not permit herself to frame the thought completely, but gathering all her resolution set forth to accomplish her task. Not even indulging in a useless regret that Paul was not with her, she looked about the room in which she stood. It had once been a kitchen, and a glance at it was enough. An open door was before her and she passed through it. This was evidently the dining-room, and several doors were in view, only one of which was open. Feeling that this indicated the course taken by Poubalov in carrying Ivan out of the house from the room where he had been confined, she pushed on, and passing through this door, found herself in the front hall. There was a stairway at her right hand, and doors at both right and left. Whither should she go? The doors were closed and she chose the stairs. At the top were two corridors as well as the passage leading to another flight of stairs. Haphazard she proceeded along the corridor to the left. It was tortuous, like all hotel passages, and the floor was broken here and there by steps, now up, now down. She passed many doors, but all were closed. At the very end were two doors, almost side by side, and as she stood hesitant, her blood chilled and her heart leaped to her throat. Was that a groan that she had heard behind one of those doors? Utterly unable to move, she listened with painful intentness. Yes--again it came, muffled, feeble, inarticulate, but unmistakably the sound of a human voice. In her agony of apprehension Clara found herself halting, from a strange inability to decide which door to open. CHAPTER XXVIII. POUBALOV SUCCEEDS. Her indecision was but momentary. Every nerve tingling with apprehension, her arms straining to embrace her lover and allay his suffering, she threw open the door at her right hand. Dusty furniture, faded hangings confronted her, nothing else. Aroused by the disappointment to a fever of anxiety and energy, she laid her hand upon the other door, and above the rattling of the knob she heard again the faint moan. The door was locked, and it merely creaked complainingly when she exerted all the pressure she could bring to bear against it. She must work quickly. Holding the candle parallel to the floor, she allowed several drops of the melted tallow to fall, and on them she fastened her tiny torch upright. Then she applied her keys, one after the other, to the lock. It was a commonplace lock, a boot-buttoner would have worked it, and the most commonplace key in her collection at last turned freely and shot back the bolt. She threw the door open and rushed in, and as she passed, her flying skirts whisked out the candle flame and she was in darkness, but in the flashing glance she had had of the room she had seen the figure of a man bound to a chair, a cloth wound about his head and across his mouth. Clara did not seek the prisoner in the darkness. All impulse to rush forward and throw her arms about him had vanished; in its place was an icy chill at the heart and an infinite sob that lodged in her throat and would not out. Hastily still but with nerveless limbs she stooped and felt for the candle, and, having found it, she again brought its wick to flickering life and raised it from the floor. Standing then upon the threshold, one hand clutching the jamb, she made certain that the fleeting vision of surprise and disappointment was bitter and amazing reality. The man bound upon the chair was old Dexter. He turned upon her his blinking eyes, rendered sightless for the moment by the mild glare of the candle flame. He could stir no other part of his body by so much as a hair's breadth. A long rope was coiled many times about him, binding his legs to the chair rungs, his arms to his side, and his head to the back of the chair. A pitiful groan gurgled again in his throat as Clara held up the candle and looked at him. She stood thus not longer than a second, and then, having placed the candle in a cup that stood on the mantel, she sought to loose him. That he was concerned in some way with Ivan's disappearance she could not doubt, but she allowed herself no thought or hesitation on that account. His evident suffering appealed to her, and she plied her fingers hard and fast to undo the rope. The knot was at his back and it had not been drawn extremely taut, the numerous coils in themselves being almost sufficient to hold the prisoner in his place. Very shortly, therefore, she had the free ends of the rope in hand, and she unwound them from Dexter's arms, still standing behind his back and working above his head. When with his own hands he began to loose the coils from his lower limbs, she untied the handkerchief that held the gag in his mouth, and Dexter was free. He arose trembling. His limbs were stiff with long constraint and he steadied himself by grasping the back of the chair and leaning upon it. Breathing heavily and muttering unintelligible curses he turned slowly about and peered into Clara's eyes. "Ha!" he gasped, "it's you, is it!" His eyes, till then glowing with the rage of a baffled will, now flamed with ungovernable hate. Clara, all her resolution gone, her very life seeming to depart from her, yet stood ready to do what she could to help him, when with a passionate shriek he suddenly extended his thin quivering hands and seized her violently by the throat. Taken by surprise, her nervous energy exhausted by the long strain and its attendant disappointments, Clara made but slight resistance. Dexter clutched her with the desperate strength of a maniac and pushed her back against the wall. What with the noise they made in moving across the floor, and Dexter's snarling curses, she did not hear the sound of rapidly approaching steps along the corridor; but just as the frenzied old man had pressed her against the wall, and when it seemed as if his fingers would lock inextricably upon her throat, Poubalov dashed into the room, laid hold of Dexter, wrenched him away from her, picked him up bodily, bore him screaming across the chamber and threw him heavily upon a bed. Then he placed his hand over the old man's mouth and looked around. Clara was now held hard and fast by another man, and although Poubalov's eyes glittered with a fierce light, he made no effort to interfere. Paul Palovna appeared in the doorway, his weary face glowing with joy as he looked upon his friend restored at last to the arms of her who loved him. After a moment Strobel raised his head, and Clara, still embracing him, followed his eyes with her own, almost unbelieving that this meeting was reality. She turned her gaze with Ivan's to where Poubalov sat on the bed forcibly quieting the ravings of old Dexter. "Miss Hilman," said the spy in his deepest tones, "you have been the hardest adversary I ever encountered. Last evening you gave me two alternatives of action. You told me to take you to your lover, or you would pursue me relentlessly. You have made it a desperately hard task for me, but to some extent at least I have succeeded in evading both alternatives, and have, instead, brought your lover to you." Clara turned her wondering eyes to Ivan's for confirmation and explanation. "It is true, dearest," he said. "We owe my deliverance to Poubalov, and without his efforts I shudder to think what would have happened to me." "Is it possible," asked Clara in a subdued voice, "that you have really been trying to find Ivan all along?" "Miss Hilman," replied Poubalov, "until this Monday morning I did not know where Mr. Strobel was, and I had not the least suspicion of the truth until late last Friday night." "Let me sit down," said Clara faintly, "I cannot grasp it all. Tell me, Ivan." Ivan had conducted her to the chair wherein she had found Dexter a prisoner, and at her last words Poubalov turned away his head with a bitter smile. Not even yet would she trust him to speak the truth! "We owe our separation," said Ivan, "to the villain who lies there under Poubalov's hand and to him alone. To Poubalov we owe the deliverance. This man Dexter, Clara, is a money lender of the most outrageous type. Your uncle, to tide over a business depression, borrowed nearly a hundred thousand dollars from him. This debt was due to Dexter two days after what was to have been our wedding. I am telling you what Poubalov learned after his suspicions were attracted in the right direction. Tell her, my friend! You can do it better than I." "Miss Hilman will not believe me," replied Poubalov. "Oh, but I will!" cried Clara starting from the chair impulsively as she realized the situation. She went to the bed where the spy still sat with his hand over Dexter's mouth, and held out her hand. "Won't you forgive me?" she faltered; "I know I have cruelly misjudged you." Poubalov raised her hand to his lips and was about to answer when Dexter, the pressure removed from his mouth, scrambled to his knees, clinging to the Russian for support, and screamed, "Pay me! pay me! you're not married yet and you've got to pay me! I'll ruin Mat Pembroke! Pay me! I'll----" The old man choked, pawed with both palsied hands at his collar and would have fallen from the bed if Poubalov had not turned hastily from Clara and caught him. Clara shrank away, not terrified but shocked at Dexter's appearance, while Palovna hurried across the room to lend a hand. "He is dying!" exclaimed Clara faintly. "No, Miss Hilman, not dying," responded Poubalov quickly, "but he is a very sick man. Thanks, Paul Palovna, but I can get on better with him alone. You may go ahead of me, if you please, and try to find a physician----" "I saw a doctor's sign near the street corner," interrupted Palovna. "Summon him at once, then," said Poubalov who was bearing old Dexter as tenderly as a nurse might carry a sick child; "I will await you at the door and," addressing Clara, "be with you here in a moment if you would hear the hidden history of your troubles." "Better here, sweetheart," whispered Strobel, "here where I passed my week of death than in any other place!" It was several minutes before Poubalov returned. He carried Dexter not only to the door but through the street to the physician's house where medical skill was promptly applied with a view to restoring the miser's wreck of a body to something like life. If Dexter's course had run tranquilly he might, perhaps, have lingered like a noxious weed, for a long time upon the earth, but after the complex shocks of disappointment, imprisonment and fear, he had thrown the total of his nervous and physical energies into that mad attack upon Clara. There remained, then, but the dregs of his vicious vitality, and these sustained him less than the length of the night. He was still alive but the end was plainly in sight when Poubalov left him to rejoin the lovers. "Miss Hilman," he said the moment he came in, "your judgment of me has been marvellously correct. It is true that you have erred in detail and believed me deceiving you when I was doing my utmost to put the truth before you; but it is impossible for me to be straightforward. Mr. Strobel has said that his deliverance is due to me; that is true, but no credit is due me for generosity or nobility of conduct. What I have done in the way of searching for him and restoring him to liberty, has been done entirely in accordance with my nature. My desire to appear well in your eyes might lead me to vain reflections on what my nature might have been if the circumstances of my life had been other than they were, but past circumstances cannot be changed and nothing can palliate the fact that long practice as a detecter of stealthy criminals has made me habitually devious in my methods." "Mr. Poubalov," Clara began gently, but the Russian would not let her utter the deprecating words that were on her lips. "I could not change my methods," he said, "and moreover, there were circumstances connected with this matter that made it impossible for me to take you fully into my confidence. Don't you recall how I refused to answer, or evaded your questions? I would not lie to you, and I could not tell you the truth, for I was charged with a message from the czar to Mr. Strobel and to none other could I give it, and not to him unless I were satisfied of certain things, which, until Litizki's attempt upon my life were in doubt." "You must have suffered keenly," said Clara softly; "tell me all now if you can." "His imperial majesty, whom God preserve," resumed Poubalov, "saw fit to effect a complete restoration of the estates of the Strobel family, which had been confiscated on account of supposed treason, and to recall all the members of the family from exile. There was but one doubt in his august mind, and that related to your lover, Ivan. If he were engaged in sending pernicious literature to Russia, or in any other way fomenting the discontent that affects some of our people, the decree of restoration could not issue. I came to America solely to discover what Ivan Strobel was doing and thinking. I could not leave the country until I had found him unless I chose to disregard the wishes of my sovereign. Therefore, when he disappeared, I bent every energy to finding him. It is the habit of men like Litizki to invest me in their imaginations with extraordinary if not superhuman powers, and it is a part of my policy to encourage their delusion. But I am only an ordinary man, Miss Hilman, and in your hands I have proved to be as weak as the weakest." He paused and looked somberly at the floor. "I have been sadly puzzled by this case," he continued after a moment without raising his eyes; "nothing ever seemed so impenetrable a mystery. I was sincere in thinking the Nihilists had had something to do with it. After seeing you I was certain that no other woman could have led Strobel away; but I went to New York for much the same reason that you did, I suppose, hoping for some clew. I had about given up the Nihilistic theory when Litizki's assault and some inquiries I made shortly after, set that at rest completely. When Billings called at your house I determined to track him. Why not tell you then about it? Ask yourself if you would have believed me. You would have said that I was already in league with Billings." "I did think so," murmured Clara guiltily. "And I presume you thought I was afraid to face him. Yes? Then you see now that I had to operate alone. I was hiding in the shrubbery when he left your house. It was dark, but you lingered at the gate and so prevented me from leaving my place of concealment until Billings had got so far away that I could not find him. But I had seen his face. I readily saw that Litizki was following me that night and I purposely gave him a chase in order to mask my real purpose. "When we left the train in the Park Square Station after our return from New York on Friday evening, I recognized Billings among those upon the station platform. I left you abruptly to follow him. He waited for the next New York train which followed us in directly, for we were late, you remember, and there met the wretch whom you found imprisoned here. I will not enter into the details of my all-night watching and inquiring, but will confine myself to the results. First, to jump over several steps, I found that Dexter was going to pack Billings off to Europe, and I followed to the steamer, hoping for a chance to speak with Billings, for I can usually worm or frighten secrets from guilty men. Dexter stuck closely to him, however, and I returned from a trip to Boston Light having seen both Billings and Litizki in the steerage." "Litizki!" exclaimed Clara. "Yes. By tracking Dexter and employing my usual methods, I got acquainted with his man, Patterson. It was he who overcame Mr. Strobel in the closed carriage a week ago to-day, and who left him there bound and stupefied by a drug that he had forced down his throat while he went through the Park Square Station to give color to the theory that Dexter gave to the police that Strobel had gone to New York. Dexter at first declared that he had seen Strobel buy his ticket, but later he weakened on that point, saying he might have been mistaken. He had said enough for Detective Bowker, however, and the police investigation was pursued half heartedly. "Well, I looked up Dexter's affairs and I found that he had a grip on Mr. Pembroke." "Don't tell me my uncle was guilty of----" "No, Miss Hilman," interrupted Poubalov, "Mr. Pembroke had nothing to do with the abduction of Mr. Strobel. Dexter is the one villain in the case, and although Mr. Pembroke's conduct may be open to question in one respect, criticism would be finical for I don't see how he could have acted otherwise. I shall have to go back a long way now, but I will be brief. Matthew Pembroke had a brother, Charles, and a sister, Sophie. You, Miss Hilman, are her daughter. You know, of course, the family difference and the occasion of it. Your mother married against the wishes of your Uncle Charles, her elder brother and her guardian, and when she was left a widow he declined to help her. Your Uncle Matthew was kinder, and when she died he took you into his own home. Charles was apparently relentless to the end, and there was never any communication between you and him; but when he died, a short time ago, it was found that he had remembered you in his will. Two days before the wedding day Mr. Pembroke was notified that you were heiress to one hundred thousand dollars if you were unmarried. The will provided that in the event of your being a maiden, the entire sum was to be held by Matthew Pembroke, and administered by him in your interest. If you were married, twenty-five thousand dollars was to be set aside for you, and the balance was to go to educational institutions specifically named. "Mr. Pembroke was worrying about his obligation to Dexter, which he could not meet, and in his fretting he mentioned this to Dexter. He did not tell you at first, because he feared you might think you ought to postpone your wedding, and he did not regard such etiquette as necessary. Without saying a word to Pembroke, this wretch, Dexter, plotted and effected the abduction, thus compelling you to remain a maiden. The bequest was immediately available and he brought all possible pressure to bear upon Mr. Pembroke to make use of it for wiping out the debt. It was absolute ruin to him if he did not. Mr. Pembroke suspected Dexter, but what could he do? He had nothing but improbable conjecture to work upon, and Dexter applied the screws mercilessly. They went to New York to make arrangements for collecting the inheritance. While there they were both in terror lest you discover the truth, for once at least you saw them with the man who could have revealed the financial secret of the situation. You remember looking in at the hotel entrance and seeing Dexter, your uncle and a third man walking in the corridor? The third man was the executor of your Uncle Charles' estate, and Dexter walked him out of your sight as quickly as possible, lest troublesome questions should be asked. "It all came down to this, at last, that with your signature to-day to a document that the executors of the estate had prepared, and which you would have signed readily at your uncle's request, the money would have been turned over. The document came in the first mail, but Dexter did not turn up, and Mr. Pembroke could not find him. That was because, shortly after breakfast, I came here and found the villain, at last, giving Strobel sufficient nourishment to keep him alive. I bound him to the chair, but didn't release Strobel at the moment. After a mental struggle that I will not describe, I had determined to take him to you, Miss Hilman, and I was too proud to permit my plans to be balked. Moreover, I believed your uncle guilty, and I was determined that everybody who had been concerned in making you unhappy, should suffer the most extreme tortures that I could inflict. I had already bought and frightened Patterson. It was through him that I discovered this place, a hotel Dexter had seized for debt. After I had succeeded in eluding your pursuit this morning, I attacked Mr. Pembroke. I spent nearly the whole afternoon with him, and, to be brief, I got the story from him and drove him to the verge of insanity. He does not know yet what happened to Strobel, although he is aware that he is safe. "Having thus punished Mr. Pembroke, unjustly I will admit, to some extent, I came here and took away Strobel. He was very weak and suffering from the drug which had frequently been administered to him with his food. I am familiar with such matters, and I had in my room an antidote. By your attempted pursuit of me you had prevented me from going there to get it, so I had to take Strobel with me to Bulfinch Place before restoring him to you. We had a little scene at the lodging-house----" Poubalov paused here and glanced with a smile at Palovna. "Is it any wonder, Alexander Poubalov?" cried Palovna, flushing; "I regarded you as our enemy, and when I saw you with Strobel helpless in your possession, my worst suspicions were confirmed. I----" "You could have shot me with a clear conscience! I understand and I understood then. You are a loyal friend, Paul Palovna, and I owe you my life, not on this occasion, perhaps, but at that other time--no matter! The past is past and things are as they are! The short of it is, Miss Hilman, that we satisfied Palovna that matters were not as bad as they looked, and, as you see, he came along with us. We went to Mr. Pembroke's. As you were not there, we came directly here. And that, I think, is the whole story." Clara was weeping silently, and Ivan stood with his arm around her. There was a moment of silence, and then the party was disturbed by a hubbub in the hall below. It proved to be nothing serious. Mike had been ordered by his employer to return. He, too, had called at Mr. Pembroke's and so found his way to the tavern, and coming upon Patterson he had proceeded to thump him. Poubalov separated the antagonists, and went back to the chamber with the candle. The others stood under the porch, for the front door had been opened by Patterson, until he returned. "If there is anything more to be said," he remarked, "we'd better go to Mr. Pembroke's." Poubalov did not remain long with the lovers whom he had reunited. The supreme will of his imperial majesty, he gravely declared, would not permit of his lingering a moment after the accomplishment of his mission. It would give him profound pleasure to report that Mr. Strobel was too firmly attached to America to feel, much less commit hostility to the empire of the czar. And so he took his leave, Clara alone realizing that all well-meant efforts to detain him were calculated to give him needless pain. Mr. Pembroke recovered rapidly under the relief occasioned by the reappearance of Ivan, for whose absence he felt vaguely accountable. With the death of Dexter the business pressure was so far relieved that he could see his way clear from the trouble, for all he had needed was the time to turn in that the wretched miser would not grant. But little time was allowed to elapse before the strange interlude in Clara's wedding was brought to an end. A few days after the ceremony Ivan read a brief cable dispatch announcing the arrival of the Cephalonia at Queenstown. "A steerage passenger," it said, "traveling as Nicolaievitch, but known to be one Litizki, of Boston, jumped from the rail and was drowned shortly after the steamer sighted the Irish coast." "Poor Litizki!" thought Ivan, "he died for us," and he cut the item out to show to his wife if at some time she should ask whether anything had been heard of the little tailor. [THE END.] [Illustration: Chesapeake & Ohio Ry.] "THE RHINE, THE ALPS, And the BATTLEFIELD LINE." The Famous F.F.V. Limited FAST FLYING VIRGINIAN HAS NO EQUAL BETWEEN CINCINNATI and NEW YORK Via Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Vestibuled, Steam Heated, and Electric Lighted Throughout. THROUGH DINING CAR and COMPLETE PULLMAN SERVICE. THROUGH SLEEPERS TO AND FROM ST. LOUIS, CHICAGO AND LOUISVILLE. The most interesting historic associations and the most striking and beautiful scenery in the United States are linked together by the C. & O. System, which traverses Virginia, the first foothold of English settlers in America, where the Revolutionary War was begun and ended, and where the great battles of the Civil War were fought; crosses the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains and the famous Shenandoah Valley, reaches the celebrated Springs region of the Virginias, and lies through the canons of New River, where the scenery is grand beyond description. It follows the banks of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, and penetrates the famous Blue Grass region of Kentucky, noted for producing the greatest race-horses of the world. For maps, folders, descriptive pamphlets, etc., apply to Pennsylvania Railroad ticket offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, the principal ticket offices throughout the country, or any of the following C. & O. agencies: NEW YORK--362 and 1323 Broadway. WASHINGTON--513 and 1421 Pennsylvania avenue. CINCINNATI--Corner Fifth and Walnut streets. LOUISVILLE--253 Fourth avenue. ST. LOUIS--Corner Broadway and Chestnut street. CHICAGO--234 Clark street. =C. B. RYAN=, Assistant General Passenger Agent, Cincinnati, O. =H. W. FULLER=, General Passenger Agent, Washington, D. C. TAKE [Illustration: THE M K _AND_ T MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS RAILWAY.] FOR ALL PRINCIPAL POINTS IN MISSOURI, KANSAS, INDIAN TERRITORY, TEXAS, MEXICO _AND_ CALIFORNIA. FREE RECLINING CHAIR CARS ON ALL TRAINS. _THROUGH WAGNER PALACE BUFFET SLEEPING CARS FROM THE_ GREAT LAKES _TO THE_ GULF OF MEXICO. For further information call on or address your nearest Ticket Agent, or =JAMES BARKER=, G. P. & T. A. St. Louis, Mo. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: This book was published as part of Street & Smith's Criterion series; it appears to be a retitled reprint of the British publication _A Wedding, but Rather Late_. Normalized inconsistent accent in "coupé" (was omitted in many places). Retained some inconsistent spellings (e.g. sombre vs. somber). Retained some inconsistent hyphenation (e.g. scrubwoman vs. scrub-woman). Replaced some obvious missing punctuation (periods and commas) that may have been omitted from the original edition or may have simply been obscured in scans of this particular copy. The misplaced text "Mrs. White was prompt in responding to the summons," was relocated from the end of page 9 to the beginning of page 8. Page 9, corrected typographical error "indeeed" in "indeed glad." Page 17, corrected typographical error "imagin" in "I can't imagine." Page 19, corrected typographical error "keeing" in "keeping him away." Page 21, changed '?' to ?" after "what we have done?" Page 22, corrected typographical error "to-morow" in "to-morrow morning." Page 25, removed superfluous quote after "some degree of composure." Page 31, corrected typographical error "disppearance" in "disappearance of Ivan Strobel." Page 32, corrected typographical error "nam's" in "missing man's employers." Page 35, corrected typographical error "relpy" in "she could reply" and "memonic" in "significant mnemonic." Page 37, changed "his" to "this" in "reporter of this paper." Page 38, added missing "s" to "chose elopement." Page 40, corrected typographical error "destoy" in "destroy young men." Page 43, corrected typographical error "conclusons" in "her conclusions." Page 48, corrected typographical error "indivdual" in "as an individual." Page 52, changed "sad Poubalov" to "said Poubalov" after "very glad to hear this." Also changed "Clara hear the outside door" to "Clara heard the outside door." Page 55, changed "inuendoes" to "innuendoes," "semed" to "seemed" ("seemed the solution") and "whereabout" to "whereabouts." Page 56, corrected typographical error "fulll" in "full of excitement." Corrected typographical error "delcared" in "declared positively." Page 59, changed "but she that knew that she" to "but she knew that she." Page 61, changed "a" to "at" in "looking at him with blazing eyes." Page 65, changed "that her Cousin" to "than her Cousin." Also changed "Lizzie White's fight" to "Lizzie White's flight." Page 73, corrected double "enter" in "did not enter here." Changed "Poubavol to "Poubalov" before "I sought him not." Page 92, corrected typographical error "woud" in "he would find." Page 95, changed "elasped" to "elapsed" in first line of chapter XII. Page 105, corrected typographical error "someobdy" in "must have been somebody." Corrected typographical error "Poublaov" in "revolved around Poubalov." Page 112, corrected typographical error "darnkess" in "in the darkness." Changed "you" to "your" in "on your guard." Page 114, added missing "no" to "had no need to disarm me of suspicion." Page 115, added missing quote after "I don't know." Page 117, removed stray quote after "careful, Mrs. White?" Corrected typographical error "doubtfuly" in "however doubtfully." Page 125, changed "with are you" to "are with you." Page 134, changed "prologing" to "prolonging." Page 137, corrected typographical error "Poulabov" in "so long as Poubalov remains." Page 140, corrected typographical error "immediatley" in "the seat immediately." Page 146, corrected typographical error "mutterd" in "muttered Vargovitch." Page 152, changed "reache this office" to "reached this office." Page 157, corrected typographical error "noobdy" in "nobody heard." Page 160, changed "' to " after "Ralph would." Page 164, changed "asssistance" to "assistance." Page 168, corrected typographical error "Pouablov's" in "Poubalov's windows." Page 170, corrected typographical error "Pouablov" in "heard Poubalov enter." Page 182, changed "a swell" to "as well." Page 186, removed superfluous apostrophe before "an'" in "he done it, an'." Page 191, changed "Poubaolv" to "Poubalov" before "still aiming." Corrected typographical error "returnd" in "returned Paul, significantly." Page 193, corrected typographical error "unforunate" in "unfortunate Litizki." Page 197, changed "made it impossble" to "made it impossible." Page 203, corrected typographical error "stret" in "all along the street." Page 204, added missing comma after "to be a fight." Page 205, changed "vehicle," to "vehicles" in "vehicles were too close." Page 209, corrected typographical error "entirly" in "entirely different." Page 210, changed "Cara" to "Clara" in "When Clara understood." Page 212, changed "earnesly" to "earnestly." Page 231, changed "could have lead" to "could have led." Page 232, changed "weakend" to "weakened." Page 233, changed "You Uncle Matthew" to "Your Uncle Matthew." Page 234, changed "discoverd this placee" to "discovered this place." 
41524	----	MARION BERKLEY A STORY FOR GIRLS BY ELIZABETH B. COMINS PHILADELPHIA HENRY T. COATES & CO Copyright, 1870, by A. K. Loring. TO MY TWIN SISTERS THIS BOOK IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY _DEDICATED_. [Illustration: THE TWO BOUQUETS.] MARION BERKLEY. CHAPTER I. EN ROUTE FOR SCHOOL. "Come on, Mab! the carriage is round; only fifteen minutes to get to the depot." "Yes, I am coming. O mamma! do fasten this carpet-bag for me. Dear me! there goes the button off my gloves. Was there ever any one in such a flutter?" "Never mind, dear; it is too late to sew it on now. Here is your bag; come, we must not stop another moment; there is Fred calling again." "I say, Mab," shouted the first speaker from the bottom of the stairs, "if you're coming, why don't you come? I shan't leave until you bid me good-by, and I know I shall lose the ball-match. You do keep a fellow waiting so eternally long!" His sister was downstairs, and had her arms around his neck before he had finished speaking, and said to him, in a tone of mock gravity, "Now, Frederic, don't get excited; always follow my good example, and keep cool. There now!" she exclaimed, as she gave him a hearty kiss; "be off. I forgot all about your ball-match, and all the amends I can make is to hope the Isthmians will beat the Olympics all to pieces." "Come, come," called Mrs. Berkley from the inside of the carriage, "we have not a moment to lose." "Good-by, Hannah. One more kiss for Mab, Charlie. Good-by, all;" then to the coachman, as she whisked into the carriage, "Drive on, John, just as fast as you can." The carriage-door was shut with a snap; off went the horses, and Mrs. Berkley and her daughter were soon at the Western depot, where the latter was to take the cars for B----, a little New England town, where she attended boarding-school. They were very late at the depot, and Mrs. Berkley had only time for a fond kiss and a "Write often, darling," when the bell rung, and she was forced to leave the car, feeling a little uneasy that her daughter was obliged to take her journey alone. Just as the cars were starting, Marion put her head out of a window, and called to her mother, "O mamma! Flo is here; isn't that jolly? No fear now of--" The last part of the sentence was unintelligible, and all Mrs. Berkley got was a bright smile, and a wave of the hand, as the train moved out of the depot. "Now, Flo, I call this providential," exclaimed Marion; "for, I can tell you, I did not relish the prospect of my solitary ride. Just hand me your bag, and I'll put it in the rack with my budgets. This seat is empty; suppose we turn it over, and then we shall be perfectly comfortable. Now I say this is decidedly scrumptious;" and she settled herself back, with a sigh of satisfaction. "Why, Mab, what made you so late? I had been here fifteen minutes before you came, all on the _qui vive_, hoping to see some one I knew; but I never dreamed you would be here. I thought you were going up yesterday with the Thayers." "I did intend to; but Fred had a sort of spread last night for the Isthmians, so I stayed over. I expect Miss Stiefbach will give me one of her annihilators, but I guess I can stand it. I've been withered so many times, that the glances of those 'eagle eyes' have rather lost their effect." "Well, I only wish I had a little more of your spirit of resistance. What a lovely hat you have! Just suits your style. Where did you get it?" "Why, it's only my old sun-down dyed and pressed over, and bound with the velvet off my old brown rep. I trimmed it myself, and feel mighty proud of it." "Trimmed it yourself!--really? Well, I never saw such a girl; you can do anything! I couldn't have done it to save my life. I only wish to gracious I could; it would be very convenient sometimes." And so the two girls rattled on for some time, in true school-girl fashion; but at last they each took a book, and settled back into their respective corners. Before very long, however, Marion tossed her book on to the opposite seat; for they were coming to Lake Cochituate, and nothing could be lovelier than the view which was stretching itself before them. I do not think that half the people of Massachusetts realize how beautiful this piece of water is; but I believe, if they had seen it then, they surely must have appreciated its charms. It was about the middle of September, and the leaves were just beginning to turn; indeed, some of them were already quite brilliant. The day was soft and hazy,--just such a one as we often have in early autumn, and the slight mist of the atmosphere served to soften and harmonize the various colors of the landscape. The lake itself was as clear and smooth as polished glass, and every tree on the borders was distinctly reflected on its clear bosom; while the delicate blue sky, with the few feathery clouds floating across it seemed to be far beneath the surface of the water. Marion was at heart a true artist, and had all a true artist's intense love of nature; she now sat at the window, completely absorbed in the scene before her, her eye and mind taking in all the beauties of form, color, and reflection; and as the cars bore her too swiftly by she uttered a sigh of real regret. Perhaps there will be no better time than the present for giving my young readers a description of my heroine. My tale will contain no thrilling incidents, no hairbreadth escapes, or any of those startling events with which ideas of heroism are generally associated. It will be a simple story of a school-girl's life; its fun and frolic; its temptations, trials, and victories. Marion Berkley was a remarkably beautiful girl; but she owed her beauty chiefly to the singular contrast of her hair and eyes. The former was a beautiful golden color, while her eyes, eyebrows, and lashes were very dark. Her nose and mouth, though well formed, could not be considered in any way remarkable. When in conversation her face became animated, the expression changed with each inward emotion, and her eyes sparkled brilliantly; but when in repose they assumed a softer, dreamier look, which seemed to hint of a deeper nature beneath this gay and often frivolous exterior. Mr. Berkley was very fond of his daughter. He had a large circle of acquaintances, many of whom were in the habit of dining, or passing the evening, at his house, and it pleased him very much to have them notice her. Marion was by no means a vain girl; yet these attentions from those so much older than herself were rather inclined to turn her head. Fortunately, her mother was a very lovely and sensible woman, whose good example and sound advice served to counteract those influences which might otherwise have proved very injurious. And now that I have introduced my friends to Marion, it is no more than fair that I should present them to her companion. Florence Stevenson was a bright, pretty brunette, of sixteen. She and Marion had been friends ever since they made "mud pies" together in the Berkleys' back yard. They shared the same room at school, got into the same scrapes, kept each other's secrets, and were, in short, almost inseparable. Florence had lost her mother when she was very young, and her father's house was ruled over by a well-meaning, but disagreeable maiden-aunt, who, by her constant and oftentimes unnecessary fault-finding, made Florence so unhappy, that she had hailed with delight her father's proposition of going away to school. For three years Florence and Marion had been almost daily together, being only separated during vacations, when, as Florence lived five miles from Boston, it was impossible that they should see as much of each other as they would have liked. About four in the afternoon, the girls reached their destination; rather tired out by their long ride, but, nevertheless, in excellent spirits. Miss Stiefbach, after a few remarks as to the propriety of being a day before, rather than an hour behind time, dismissed them to their rooms to prepare for supper, where for the present we will leave them. CHAPTER II. SCHOOL. Miss Stiefbach and her sister Christine, were two excellent German ladies who, owing to a sudden reverse of fortune, were obliged to leave their mother-country, hoping to find means of supporting themselves in America. They were most kindly received by the gentlemen to whom they brought letters of introduction, and with their assistance they had been able to open a school for young ladies; and now, at the end of seven years, they found themselves free from debt, and at the head of one of the best boarding-schools in the United States. Miss Stiefbach, the head and director of the establishment, was a stern, cold, forbidding woman; acting on what she considered to be the most strictly conscientious principles, but never unbending in the slightest degree her frigid, repelling manner. To look at her was enough to have told you her character at once. She was above the medium height, excessively thin and angular in her figure, and was always dressed in some stiff material, which, as Marion Berkley expressed it, "looked as if it had been starched and frozen, and had never been thawed out." Miss Christine was fifteen years her junior, and her exact opposite in appearance as well as in disposition: she was short and stout, and rosy-cheeked, not at all pretty; but having such a kind smile, such a thoroughly good-natured face, that the girls all thought she was really beautiful, and would feel more repentance at one of her grieved looks, than they would for forty of Miss Stiefbach's frigid reprimands. And well they might love her, for she certainly was a kind friend to them. Many a school-girl trick or frolic had she concealed, which, if it had come under the searching eyes of her sister, would have secured the perpetrators as stern a rebuke, and perhaps as severe a punishment, as if they had committed some great wrong. Miss Stiefbach's school was by no means what is generally called a "fashionable school." The parents of the young girls who went there wished that their daughters should receive not only a sound education, but that they should be taught many useful things not always included in the list of a young lady's accomplishments. There were thirty scholars, ranging from the ages of seventeen to ten; two in each room. They were obliged to make their own beds, and take all the care of their rooms, except the sweeping. Every Saturday morning they all assembled in the school-room to darn their stockings, and do whatever other mending might be necessary. Formerly Miss Stiefbach herself had superintended their work, but for the last year she had put it under the charge of Miss Christine; an arrangement which was extremely pleasing to the girls, making for them a pleasant pastime of what had always been an irksome duty. After their mending was done, and their Bible lesson for the following Sabbath learned, the rest of the day was at their own disposal. Those who had friends in the neighborhood generally went to visit them; while the others took long walks, or occupied themselves in doing whatever best pleased them. There were of course some restrictions; but these were so slight, and so reasonable, that no one ever thought of complaining, and the day was almost always one of real enjoyment. Miss Stiefbach herself was an Episcopalian, and always required that every one, unless prevented by illness, should attend that church in the morning; but, in the afternoon, any girl who wished might go to any other church, first signifying her intention to one or the other of the sisters. Some of Miss Stiefbach's ancestors had suffered from religious persecutions in Germany, and, although she felt it her duty to have her scholars attend what she considered to be the "true church," she could not have it on her conscience to be the means of preventing any one from worshipping God in whatever manner their hearts dictated. CHAPTER III. MONSIEUR BÉRANGER. It was the half-hour intermission at school; and Marion and Florence had taken Julia Thayer up into their room to give her a taste of some of the goodies they had brought from home with them. Their room was one of the largest in the house, having two deep windows; one in front, the other on the side. The side window faced the west, and in it the girls had placed a very pretty flower-stand filled with plants; an ivy was trained against the side, and a lovely mirandia hung from the top. The front window had a long seat fitted into it, and as it overlooked the street it was here that the girls almost always sat at their work or studies. "Now, Julie," began Marion, "which will you have, sponge or currant?" "Why, you are getting awfully stingy!" exclaimed Flo; "give her some of both." "No, she can't have both; it is altogether too extravagant. This is my treat, and you need not make any comments." "Well, if I can't have but one, I think I'll try sponge." "Sensible girl! you knew it would not keep long. There, you shall have an Havana orange to pay you for your consideration." "Please, ma'am," said Flo, in a voice of mock humility, "may I give her some of my French candies?" "Yes, if you'll be a very good girl, and never interfere again when I am 'head-cook and bottle-washer.'" The girls sat round the room chatting and eating; Flora and Julia were on the bed, when Marion, who was at the front window, jumped up on the seat, and called out: "O Flo! Julie! do come here! Just look at this man coming down the street. Such a swell!" The two girls rushed precipitately to the window, and they all stood looking out with intense interest. "I do declare, he is coming in here! Who in the world can he be? How he struts!" said Marion. "What a startling mustache! I do wonder who in the world he is." "Allow me to see, young ladies; perhaps I can inform you," said a calm voice directly in their ears; and, turning, they beheld Miss Stiefbach. She had entered the room just as they began their comments, and now stood directly behind them. Florence and Julia fell back in dismay, and for a second a look of amazement passed over Marion's face; but it was only a second, for she instantly replied to Miss Stiefbach, in the same eager tone she had used when speaking to her companions: "Jump right up here; you can see him better, for he is underneath on the steps." Miss Stiefbach looked at her aghast, and for once she was overpowered. She, the calm, the dignified, the stately Miss Stiefbach--jump! It was too much. If a glance could have transfixed her, Marion would have been immovable for life. Miss Stiefbach's usually pale face was flushed to a burning red, and her voice was choked with suppressed excitement, as she said, "Young ladies, you will go at once to the school-room. Miss Berkley, report to me in my study, immediately after the close of school;" and she sailed out of the room. When she was gone, the girls stood and looked at each other, not exactly knowing whether to laugh or cry; but Marion decided for herself, by sitting down on the floor, and bursting into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Florence held up her finger warningly, "Hush-sh-sh! Mab, she'll hop out from under the bed, like as not; do come downstairs." "O girls! girls! that look!" shouted Marion. "Oh, I shall die! She was furious. Won't I catch it?" "O Mab, how did you dare? It was awfully impudent." "I know it, and I'm sure I don't know what made me say it. I never stopped to think; it just popped out, and I would not have lost that scene for anything;" and Marion went off again into one of her laughing-fits. "O Mab, do stop!" said Julia, rather impatiently; "you'll get us into a pretty scrape." "Well, I won't laugh another bit, if I can help it; come on!" and, jumping up, Marion ran downstairs, the others following her, into the school-room; when, what was their astonishment to see before them "the swell," who had been the cause of all their trouble, standing talking to Miss Stiefbach. They went quietly to their seats, wondering what would happen next. Marion whispered to Flo, "The new French teacher; a man, as I live, and not very old either. Won't we have fun?" "Young ladies of the first class in French go into the anteroom, where M. Béranger will examine you. Miss Christine, accompany them, and preserve order." As Miss Stiefbach said this in her usual calm tones, Marion's recollections were almost too much for her; but she had a little laugh all to herself, behind the cover of her desk, as she took out her books. The former French teacher had been a little, quiet woman, who had allowed herself to be ruled over by her pupils; but she had gone back to France, and Miss Stiefbach had secured the services of M. Béranger, who was recommended to her, both for his complete knowledge of his own language, and for his high moral character. The latter was indeed to be considered, for many foreigners, calling themselves professors, often prove to be mere worthless adventurers, knowing very little themselves of what they attempt to teach others, and being in other respects unfit for respectable society. The young ladies were in quite a little flutter of expectation, as they took their seats, for Mr. Stein, their old music-teacher, was the only gentleman teacher of the establishment, and he was decidedly different from this rather elegant-looking Frenchman. M. Béranger came in, bowed in a dignified manner, took his chair, and at once began questioning the girls as to what they had studied, how far they were advanced, etc. Marion, who was ready for anything, and thought she might as well have a little more fun for the scolding that she knew was in store for her, tried hard to get up a little excitement; pretending not to understand when M. Béranger spoke to her; replying to all his questions in English, notwithstanding his repeated ejaculations of "Mademoiselle, je ne vous comprends pas du tout; parlez Français." But Marion would not "parlez Français," disregarding the beseeching looks of Miss Christine, and either made no reply, or obstinately spoke in English. For some time M. Béranger took no notice of her conduct, but went on questioning the rest of the class; assuring the timid by his polite, considerate patience, and quietly correcting the mistakes of the more confident. At last, however, as Marion asked him some trifling question, he looked her directly in the face, and simply replied, "M'lle Berkley, si vous parlez l'Anglais, il faut que je vous mette dans la classe des petites filles." Marion looked at him a moment, in doubt whether he could be in earnest; but there was no mistaking that calm, determined look. Two things were before her: to rebel, and go down to the lower class in disgrace, or to yield gracefully to what she knew to be right. She chose the latter, and replied, "Monsieur, je pense que je resterai ici." As she said this, there was a slight flush of shame on her cheeks, and she bent her head with a little gesture, which seemed to beg pardon for her rudeness. At any rate, M. Béranger so understood it, and he ever afterwards entertained a secret respect and admiration for M'lle Berkley. That night, in her own room, Marion thus explained her singular conduct: "You see, Flo, I wanted to find out, in the first place, what sort of stuff he was made of; whether he was to rule us, or we him, as we did poor little mademoiselle; and I found out pretty quickly. He came here to teach, not to be made game of. In two weeks, I expect to have the true Parisian accent, and to have entirely forgotten all the English I ever knew. Bonne nuit, ma chère;" and Marion turned over, and was asleep in five minutes. CHAPTER IV. MARION'S SENTENCE. Immediately after the close of school Marion betook herself to the private study of Miss Stiefbach. This was a small room back of the drawing-room, fitted up very cosily and comfortably, and which no one but the sisters ever entered, except on state occasions, or under circumstances like the present. It must be confessed that Marion did not feel very comfortable as the door closed behind her, and Miss Stiefbach, who was sitting at her desk, turned round, motioning her to be seated. Marion knew she had done very wrong, and was really sorry for it, for, although none of the scholars could be said to have much affection for Miss Stiefbach, they all held her in the most profound respect, and no such direct attack upon her dignity had ever been made within the memory of any of the present pupils. Miss Stiefbach cleared her throat, and commenced speaking in her most impressive and awful voice. "Miss Berkley" (the fact that she addressed Marion in this very distant manner proved at once that she was very angry), "your conduct to me this day has been such as I have never seen in any young lady since I became the head of this establishment, and I consider it deserves a severe punishment. The remarks which I overheard this morning, as I entered your room, were enough in themselves to have merited a stern rebuke, even if they had not been followed by a direct insult to myself. I am surprised indeed, that any young ladies brought up in refined society should have made use of such expressions as '_swell_' and--and--other words of a like nature." It was evidently so hard for Miss Stiefbach to pronounce the word, even in a tone of intense disapproval, that Marion, despite her uneasiness, could not help being amused; but no trace of her feelings could be seen in her face; she sat before her teacher perfectly quiet,--so quiet, that Miss Stiefbach could not tell whether she was deeply repentant or supremely indifferent. "I have decided," resumed Miss Stiefbach, "that as M. Béranger was indirectly connected with the affair, you shall apologize to me before the whole school, and in his presence, on the next French day, which will be Friday. I should not have subjected you to this mortification, if you had shown any willingness to apologize to me here; but as you seem entirely insensible of the impropriety of your conduct, I consider that the punishment is perfectly just." Marion rose; for one second her eyes had flashed ominously when her sentence was delivered, but it was the only sign she gave of being surprised or otherwise moved. Perceiving that Miss Stiefbach had nothing more to say, she left the room as quietly as she had entered it. Several of the girls were standing at the study door waiting for her to come out, for the whole story had by this time become pretty freely circulated, and every one was impatient to know the result of the interview. Marion passed them without a glance, and without speaking, but with the most perfect _sang froid_, and went directly upstairs to her room. But once there her forced composure gave way, and, throwing herself on the bed, she burst into a passion of tears. Florence, who had been anxiously waiting for Marion to come up, knelt down beside her, smoothing her hair, calling her by all their fond, pet names, and doing everything she could to soothe and quiet her, but never once asking the questions that were uppermost in her own mind, for she knew that, as soon as this first hysterical fit of weeping was over, her friend would tell her all. She waited some time, until she became almost frightened, for Marion's sobs shook her from head to foot, and she seemed unable to control herself. Suddenly Marion sprang up, and exclaimed in the most excited, passionate tones, "Florence! Florence! what do you think she is going to make me do? Think of the most humiliating thing you can!" "Indeed, my darling, I cannot guess," replied Flo, while she had hard work to restrain her own tears. "I have got to apologize to her before the whole school, and before M. Béranger next Friday. Oh! I think it is abominable. She wouldn't have made any other girl do it, but she knows how proud I am, and she thinks now she'll humble me. Oh, it is too hard, too hard to bear!" and Marion threw herself back on the pillow, and sobbed aloud. Poor Florence was completely overpowered. Distressed as she was for her friend, and furiously indignant with Miss Stiefbach, she hardly dared to comfort and sympathize with her, except by caresses, for fear of increasing her excitement, and she could only throw her arms round Marion's neck, kissing her repeatedly, and exclaiming again and again, "I wish I could help you!--I wish I could help you!" But after a while the violence of Marion's grief and anger subsided, but left its traces in a severe headache; her temples throbbed fearfully, and her face and hands were burning hot. Florence wet a cloth in cold water, and laid it on her head, and, knowing that Marion would prefer to be alone, she kissed her quietly, and as her eyes were closed was about to leave the room without speaking, when Marion called her back, exclaiming, "Don't tell the girls anything about it; they'll find it out soon enough." "No, dear, I won't mention it, if I can help it. You lie still and try to get to sleep. Don't come downstairs to supper. I will excuse you to Miss Christine, and bring you up a cup of tea." "No! no! no!" excitedly repeated Marion; "do no such thing. I wouldn't stay up from supper, if it killed me to go down; it would only prove to old Stiffback how deep she has cut, and I mean she shall find it will take more than _she_ can do to humble me. Be sure and let me know when the bell rings. I don't think there is much danger of my going to sleep; but for fear I should, you come up before tea,--won't you?" Flo promised, and giving her another kiss, and advising her again to lie still and go to sleep,--a thing which she knew it was impossible for Marion to do,--she left the room. Left to herself Marion became a prey to her own varying emotions. Pride, anger, and mortification were rankling in her breast. When she thought of the coming disgrace which she was to endure, she sobbed and wept as if her heart would break; and then the image of Miss Stiefbach, with her calm, cool face, and deliberate manner, seeming so much as if she enjoyed giving such pain, rose before her mind, and she clenched her hands, and shut her teeth together, looking as she felt, willing to do almost anything to revenge herself. In her inmost heart she had been truly sorry for having spoken so impertinently to her teacher, and she had gone to the study fully prepared to acknowledge that she had done wrong, and to ask pardon for her fault. But Miss Stiefbach, by presupposing that she felt no regret for her conduct, or any desire to apologize, had frozen all such feelings, and roused all the rebellious part of the girl's nature. For some time Marion tossed restlessly from side to side; but at last, finding it impossible to quiet herself, much less to sleep, she got up, bathed her face, and prepared to arrange her disordered hair. To her excited imagination, it seemed almost as if she could hear the girls downstairs discussing the whole matter. Every laugh she heard she believed to be at her expense, and she dreaded meeting her companions, knowing full well that her looks and actions would be the subject of general comment. Throughout the school Marion was not a general favorite; almost all the girls admired her, but there were few who felt that they really knew her. She was acknowledged by almost all her companions to be the brightest and prettiest girl in the school, and was apparently on good terms with all of them; but that was all. Many who would have liked to know her better, and who would have been glad to make advances of intimate friendship, felt themselves held back from doing so, by a certain haughty, reserved manner, which she at times assumed, and by her own evident disinclination for anything more than an amicable school-girl acquaintance. Marion was quick to perceive the petty weaknesses and follies of these around her, and her keen sense of the ludicrous, combined with a habit of saying sharp, sarcastic things, often led her to draw out these foibles, and show them up in their most absurd light. No one knew her faults better than Marion herself, and she was constantly struggling to overcome them; but her pride and strong will led her to conceal her real feelings, and often when she was at heart angry with herself, and ashamed of her wilful, perhaps unkind, behavior, she would assume an aspect of supreme indifference, effectually deceiving every one as to what was really passing in her mind. She kept her struggles to herself. No one but her friend Florence and Miss Christine knew how sincerely she longed to conquer her faults, and how severe these struggles were. The knowledge of them had come to Miss Christine by accident. One day Marion had said something unusually sharp and cutting to one of her companions, but had appeared perfectly unconscious of having done anything unkind, and had gone to her own room humming a tune, with the most perfect nonchalance. Miss Christine shortly after followed her, wishing to talk with her, and show her the folly and wickedness of persisting in such conduct. She had found her door closed, and, knocking softly and receiving no answer, she gently opened it, when what was her astonishment to find Marion stretched upon the floor, weeping violently. She went to her, and, kneeling down beside her, called her by name. Marion, thus surprised, could not conceal her grief, or summon her cold, indifferent manner, and, leaning her head on Miss Christine's shoulder, she sobbed out her sorrow, shame, and repentance. Never since had Miss Christine in any way alluded to the event, or by any means tried to force herself into Marion's confidence; but this glimpse into her heart had showed her what she might otherwise never have known, that Marion saw and regretted her own faults and failings, and was resolved to conquer them. From that time a secret bond of sympathy was established between pupil and scholar, and though no word was spoken, a mild, reproachful glance from Miss Christine, or her hand laid gently on Marion's shoulder, had often checked a rising exclamation, or cutting sarcasm, which, no matter how sharply it might have struck its victim, would have rebounded with greater and deeper pain to the very heart of Marion. At home Marion had little or nothing to call forth the disagreeable qualities of her disposition. Surrounded by love and admiration on every side, the darling of her mother, and the pride and glory of her father, to whom she appeared almost faultless, it was no wonder that she found it hard to get on smoothly when thrown among a number of girls her own age, many of whom, jealous of her superior beauty and intelligence, would have been glad of any opportunity of getting her into trouble. Then it was that the worst side of her nature showed itself; and she was shocked when she discovered how many faults she had which she had never thought of before. Her sharp, sarcastic speeches gave her father infinite amusement when she was at home; but there her remarks rarely wounded any one; but at school she made her words tell, and she knew that her tongue was her greatest enemy. But towards the younger girls Marion was always kind and good-natured. No one ever told such delightful stories, or made such pretty paper-dolls, or drew them such lovely pictures as Marion Berkley, and it was always a mystery to them why the "big girls" did not all love her. * * * * * Downstairs poor Florence had been having a hard time. When she first made her appearance in the library there had been a general rush towards her, and she was greeted with a perfect volley of questions, which it needed her utmost ingenuity to parry. She knew Julia Thayer had a right to know all, for she had been personally concerned in the matter, besides being, next to Flo, Marion's dearest friend; but she saw that she could not tell her without further exciting the curiosity of the other girls, and she was forced to take her book, and appear to be deeply interested in her studies. But, although her lips monotonously whispered page after page of history, she knew no more about her lesson than if she had been reading Hindoostanee. What was her astonishment when she heard close beside her Marion's voice, asking, in a perfectly natural tone, "Did Miss Christine say six pages of English History, or seven?" Florence gave a quick glance at Marion's face, and saw that, although she was a little pale, she showed no signs of the storm that had so lately disturbed her. Neither did she throughout the evening appear other than bright and cheerful, effectually silencing by her own apparent ease any surmises or questions in which her companions might have indulged, and they all supposed that she had received a severe reprimand, and that there the matter would end. But all agreed with Sarah Brown, who exclaimed, "How Miss Stiefbach had ever swallowed that pill so easily was a perfect mystery!" CHAPTER V. THE APOLOGY. "Well, Flo, I've hit it!" exclaimed Marion to Florence, as they were sitting together in their room Thursday afternoon. "What do you mean?--hit what?" "Why, I mean I've hit upon a plan; no, not exactly a plan;--I have decided what my apology shall be." "Oh!" said Florence, "do you know just what you are going to say?" "No, not precisely; that is, I have not yet settled upon any exact form of words, but I have got my ideas together, and I really think it will be something quite out of the common line." Florence looked up inquisitively, for Marion's face or voice by no means expressed the repugnance which she had heretofore shown whenever she had spoken of the coming apology. In fact she looked rather triumphant, and a little, amused smile played about the corners of her mouth, as she bent over her work. "Now, Mab," exclaimed Florence, "I know you are up to something! Do tell me what it is that evidently amuses you so much?" "Oh, nothing particular," replied Marion; but in a tone which said plainly enough that there was something very particular indeed. "Now, Mab, you needn't tell me!" "That is exactly what I don't mean to do," provokingly replied Marion. "Oh, don't be disagreeable! You know I am positively dying with curiosity; so out with it!" and Florence tossed her own work on to the bed, and, catching hold of Marion's canvas, threw it behind her, as she established herself on her friend's lap. "Well, I'm sorry, my dear; but if your life depends on my telling you anything particular to-day, I am afraid you will come to an early grave." Florence laid her hands on Marion's shoulders, and looked steadily into her eyes. Marion met the look with a confident, amused smile, and exclaimed, "Well, Flo, you look as sober as a judge. I really believe you think I meditate murder; but I assure you Miss Stiefbach's life is in no danger from my hands." "I'll tell you just what I do think, Marion. I believe you are going to refuse to apologize, and if you do, you will be worse off than you've been yet;" and Florence really looked as serious as if she were trying a case in court. "No, Flo, you needn't trouble yourself on that score. I mean to apologize before the whole school, and M. Béranger to boot,--just as old Stiffy ordered." "Well, I am glad of it! Not glad that it _must_ be done, you know; but I was afraid you would try to get rid of it in some way; and I know that would make matters worse." "No, I don't mean to get rid of it; I shall do it in the most approved style. Come, get up, miss; you're awfully heavy!" Florence jumped up, considerably relieved, but still a little suspicious of her friend's intentions. At that moment Julia Thayer came into the room. "O girls! you here?" she exclaimed. "I've been hunting for you everywhere." "Well, I don't think you hunted much; we've been here ever since lessons were done," replied Marion. "Take a seat, Miss Thayer, and make yourself at home," said Florence. "Thank you, I was only waiting to be asked. Now, Marion, do tell me; have you decided what you are going to say to-morrow?" "It is no use asking her; you can't get anything out of her. I've just tried my best." "What! don't you mean to tell us, beforehand?" "No." "Not a word? not a syllable? Well, I do declare! I tell you what it is, Flo, she means to astonish us all by some wonderful production." "I suppose most of the girls _will_ be astonished, for I don't believe they know there is to be any apology at all." "No, I don't think they suspect it," said Julia. "So much for knowing how to hold one's tongue." "Well, Julia, I guess this is the first time you could be accused of that," laughingly replied Flo. "That is a libel! Who held their tongue about Aunt Bettie's doughnuts, I should like to know?" "Another rare instance," mischievously put in Marion; "put it down, Julia, you'll never have another chance." "But, girls, what do you mean?" cried Julia, in a deprecating tone. "Do you think I run and tell everything I know?" "No, dear, not a bit of it," replied Flo; "you are not quite so reserved as Marion, but I never heard any one accuse you of telling what you ought to keep to yourself, or, as the boys say, of 'peaching.'" "There, Julia, don't look so forlorn, for mercy's sake!" exclaimed Marion. "You are so delightfully easy to tease; but I confess it was a very poor reward for your silence of the past two days, which (she added with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes) I know must have almost killed you." Julia and Florence both laughed outright at this rather equivocal consolation, and at that moment the supper-bell rang. Friday morning every girl was in her seat precisely as the clock struck nine; for it was French day, and consequently only the second appearance of M. Béranger, and the novelty of having him there at all had by no means worn off. He entered the room, shortly after, and, having politely wished Miss Stiefbach and her sister good-morning, was about to pass into the anteroom, when Miss Stiefbach detained him. "Excuse me, M. Béranger, but I must trouble you to remain here a few moments." M. Béranger bowed with his usual grace, and Miss Stiefbach continued:-- "I regret to say (she did not look as if she regretted it at all) that a circumstance of a most painful nature has lately taken place in this school. One of my young ladies has done that which makes me deem it necessary to exact a public apology from her. As you were indirectly concerned in the matter, I think it proper that the apology should be made before you. Miss--" "But, madame," hastily interrupted the astonished Frenchman, "I cannot imagine; there must be a meestake--I am a perfect stranger; if you will have the goodness to excuse me, I shall be one tousand times obliged;" and the poor man looked as if he himself was the culprit. "It is impossible, monsieur," decidedly replied Miss Stiefbach; "one particular clause of her punishment was, that it should be made in your presence. Miss Berkley, you will please come forward." During the above conversation a most profound silence had reigned throughout the room; the girls, with the exception of the initiated three, had looked from one to another, and then at the group on the platform, with faces expressive of the most intense astonishment, proving how wholly unsuspicious they had been; but as Marion's name was pronounced a light broke in upon every one, and all eyes were turned upon her as she left her seat. Miss Stiefbach stood with her hands folded over each other in her usual stately attitude. M. Béranger looked infinitely annoyed and distressed, and twirled his watch-chain in a very nervous manner. Miss Christine had retired to the extreme end of the platform, and was trying to appear interested in a book; but her face had a sad, pained look, which showed how fully her sympathies were with her pupil. Florence Stevenson buried her face in her hands; she could not bear to witness her friend's disgrace. Marion advanced quietly up between the rows of desks, and as she stepped upon the platform turned so as to face the school. She never looked lovelier in her life; a bright color burned in her cheeks, and her eyes, always wonderfully beautiful, glowed with a strange light; but the expression of her face would have baffled the most scrutinizing observer. Calm, quiet, perfectly self-possessed, but without a particle of self-assurance, she stood, the centre of general observation. Presently she spoke in a full, clear voice: "Miss Stiefbach, as M. Béranger evidently does not know how he is concerned in this matter, perhaps I had better explain the circumstances to him." Miss Stiefbach bowed her consent, and Marion, turning towards the bewildered Frenchman, thus addressed him:-- "M. Béranger, last Wednesday morning, as I, with two of my companions, was in my room, which is in the front of the house, my attention was attracted towards a gentleman who was coming down the street, and I immediately called my two friends to the window that they might get a good view of him. Our interest was of course doubly increased when we saw the gentleman enter this garden. His whole appearance was so decidedly elegant (here M. Béranger, who began to see that he was the subject of her remarks, colored up to the roots of his hair) that we could not help giving our opinions of him, and _I_ applied to him the word 'swell,' which in itself I acknowledge to be very inelegant; but my only excuse for using it is, that in this case it was so very expressive." M. Béranger, despite his embarassment, could hardly conceal a smile, while a suppressed murmur of amusement ran round the room. Miss Stiefbach looked hard at Marion, but her face was composed, and her manner quietly polite; she was apparently perfectly unconscious of having said anything to cause this diversion. "While we were talking of him, Miss Stiefbach entered the room, and must have, unintentionally of course, overheard our comments, for the first intimation we had of her presence was this remark, which she made standing directly behind us: 'Young ladies, allow me to see; perhaps I can inform you.' And now occurred the remark which it was so exceedingly improper in me to make, and which justly gave so much offence to Miss Stiefbach." (Here Marion turned towards her teacher, who, as if to encourage her to proceed, bowed quite graciously.) "I was standing on the seat in the window, and consequently had the best view of the gentleman. In the excitement of the moment, regardless of the difference in our ages, and only remembering that we were impelled by one common object, I asked her to _jump_ on to the seat beside me. Miss Stiefbach, for that rudeness I most sincerely ask your pardon. It was wrong, very wrong of me; I should have stepped aside, thus giving you an excellent opportunity of gratifying your desire to look at what is rarely seen here,--a handsome man." The perfect absurdity of Miss Stiefbach's jumping up in a window with a party of wild school-girls, for the sake of looking at a handsome man, or indeed for her to look at a man at any time with any degree of interest, could only be appreciated by those who were daily witnesses of her prim, stately ways. It certainly was too much for the gravity of the inhabitants of that school-room. [Illustration: MARION APOLOGIZES.] M. Béranger bit his lip fiercely under his mustache; Miss Christine became suddenly very much interested in something out in the back yard; and the school-girls were obliged to resort to open books and desk-covers to conceal their amusement. Marion alone remained cool and collected, looking at Miss Stiefbach as if to ask if she had said enough. Miss Stiefbach's face was scarlet, and she shut her teeth tightly together, striving for her usual composure. The sudden turn of Marion's apology, which placed her in such a ridiculous light, had completely disconcerted her, and she knew not what to do or say. If Marion's eyes had twinkled with mischief; if there had been the slightest tinge of sarcasm in her tone, or of triumph in her manner, Miss Stiefbach would have thought she intended a fresh insult; but throughout the whole her bearing had been unusually quiet, ladylike, and polite. There was no tangible point for her teacher to fasten on, and, commanding herself sufficiently to speak, Miss Stiefbach merely said, "It is enough; you may go to your seat." Even then, if Marion's self-possession had given way, she would have been called back and severely reprimanded. But it did not; she passed all her school-mates, whose faces were turned towards her brimming with laughter and a keen appreciation of the affair, with a sort of preoccupied air, and, taking her books from her desk, followed M. Béranger into the anteroom. At recess the girls with one impulse flocked round her, exclaiming, "Oh! it was too good; just the richest scene I ever saw." "What do you mean?" coolly replied Marion. "Why!" exclaimed Sarah Brown, an unencouraged admirer of Marion's, "the way you turned the tables on Miss Stiefbach." "Indeed, Sarah, you are very much mistaken; I simply apologized to her for a great piece of rudeness." And Marion turned away and ran upstairs to her own room, where Florence and Julia were already giving vent to their long pent-up feelings in only half-suppressed bursts of laughter. As Marion made her appearance it was the signal for another shout; but she only replied by a quiet smile, which caused Julia to ejaculate in her most earnest manner, "I declare, Marion, you don't look a bit elated! If I had done such a bright thing as you have, I should be beaming with satisfaction." "Well, Julia, I don't think I _have_ done anything so very smart. To be sure I have had my revenge, and the only satisfaction I've got out of it is to feel thoroughly and heartily ashamed of myself." "Marion Berkley, you certainly _are_ the queerest girl I ever did see," exclaimed Julia. But Florence, who knew her friend best, said nothing, for she understood her feelings, and admired her the more for them. Marion had been determined to make her apology such as would reflect more absurdity on her teacher than on herself, and in that way to have her revenge for what she rightly considered her very unjust punishment. She had succeeded; but now that her momentary triumph was over, she sincerely wished that it had never occurred. The next day she went to Miss Christine, and told her just how she felt about it, and that, if she advised her to do so, she would go to Miss Stiefbach and ask her forgiveness. But Miss Christine told her, that, although she heartily disapproved of her conduct, she thought nothing more had better be said about it, for Miss Stiefbach had only been half inclined to believe that Marion could _intend_ a fresh impertinence. And so there the matter ended; but Marion could never fully satisfy her own conscience on the subject. She wrote a long letter to her mother, telling her the whole thing from beginning to end; and received one in reply, gently, but firmly, rebuking her for her conduct. But the next day came four pages from her father, full of his amusement and enjoyment of the whole matter, and highly complimenting her on what he called "her brilliant coup d'état." No wonder Marion's better nature was sometimes crushed, when the inward fires which she longed to extinguish were kindled by a father's hand. CHAPTER VI. THE NEW SCHOLAR "O girls, the new scholar has come!" shouted little Fannie Thayer, as she bounced into the library one afternoon, where some of the older girls were studying. "Do hush, Fannie!" exclaimed her sister Julia; "you do make such an awful noise! Of course you've left the door open, and it's cold enough to freeze one. Run away, child." "But, Julia," remonstrated Fannie, as her sister went on reading without taking any notice of her communication, "you didn't hear what I said,--the new scholar has come." "What new scholar?" inquired Florence Stevenson, looking up from her book. "This is the first I have heard of any." "Why, don't you know?" answered little Fannie, glad to have a listener. "Her name is--is--Well, I can't remember what it is,--something odd; but she comes from ever so far off, and she's real pretty, kind of sad-looking, you know." "What in the world is the child talking about?" broke in Marion. "Who ever heard of Miss Stiefbach's taking a scholar after the term had begun?" "I remember hearing something about it, now," said Julia. "The girl was to have come at the beginning of the quarter; but she has been sick, or something or other happened to prevent. I believe she comes from St. Louis." "I wonder who she'll room with; she can't come in with us, that's certain," said Marion, with a very decided air. "Why, of course she won't," replied Florence; "we never have but two girls in a room. Oh! I know, she will go in with little Rose May; see if she doesn't!" "Well, I tell you, I am sorry she's come!" ejaculated Marion. "I hate new scholars; they always put on airs, and consider themselves sort of privileged characters. I for one shall not take much notice of her." "Why, Marion," exclaimed Grace Minton, "I should think you would be ashamed to talk so! She may be a very nice girl indeed. You don't know anything about her." "I don't care if she is a nice girl. She ought to have come before. It will just upset all our plans; the classes are all arranged, and everything is going on nicely. There are just enough of us, and I say it is a perfect bother!" "I really don't see why you need trouble yourself so much," broke in Georgie Graham, who was always jealous of Marion, and never lost an opportunity of differing with her, though in a quiet way that was terribly aggravating. "I don't believe you will be called upon to make any arrangements, and I don't see how one, more or less, can make much difference any way." The entrance of Miss Christine prevented Marion's reply, and she immediately took up her book and became apparently absorbed in her studies. "O Miss Christine," they all exclaimed at once, "do tell us about the new scholar." "Is she pretty?" "Will she be kind to us little girls?" "How old is she?" and many other questions of a like nature, all asked in nearly the same breath. "If you will be quiet, and not all speak at once, I will try and tell you all you want to know. The name of the new scholar is Rachel Drayton. She is about sixteen, and I think she is very pretty, although I do not know as you will agree with me. She seems to have a very lovely disposition, and I should think that after a while she might be very lively, and a pleasant companion for you all; but at present she is very delicate, as she has just recovered from a very severe illness brought on by her great grief at the death of her father. They were all the world to each other, and she was perfectly devoted to him. She cannot yet reconcile herself to her loss. He has been dead about eight weeks. Her mother died when she was a baby, and the nearest relation she has is her father's brother, who is now in Europe. Poor child! she is all alone in the world; my heart aches for her." Miss Christine's usually cheery voice was very low and sad, and the tear that glistened in her eye proved that her expressions of sympathy were perfectly sincere; if, indeed, any one could have doubted that kind, loving face. As she ceased speaking, there was a perfect silence throughout the room, and those who had felt somewhat inclined to side with Marion felt very much conscience-stricken. Marion, however, continued studying, not showing the slightest signs of having had her sympathies aroused. Miss Christine continued: "I hope, girls, you will be particularly kind to Miss Drayton. She must naturally feel lonely, and perhaps diffident, among so many strangers, and I want you all to do everything in your power to make it pleasant for her. You in particular, Marion, having been here longer than any of the others, will be able to make her feel quite at home." "Indeed, Miss Christine, you must excuse me. You know taking up new friends at a moment's notice, and becoming desperately intimate with them, is not my forte." "Marion," replied Miss Christine, in a quiet, but reproving tone, "I do not ask you to become desperately intimate with her, as you call it, or anything of the kind. I merely wish you to show her that courtesy which is certainly due from one school-girl to another." Marion made no reply, and Miss Christine sat down and commenced talking to the girls in her usual pleasant manner. It was her evident interest in everything which concerned them, that made her so beloved by her pupils. They all knew that they could find in her a patient listener, and a willing helper, whenever they chose to seek her advice; whether it was about an important, or a very trifling matter. There was some little bustle and confusion as the girls laid aside their books, and clustered round Miss Christine with their fancy-work, or leaned back in their chairs, glad to have nothing in particular to do. "Miss Christine!" exclaimed little Rose May, "I do wish you would show me how to 'bind off.' I keep putting my thread over and over, and, instead of taking off stitches, it makes more every time. I think these sleeves are a perfect nuisance. I wish I hadn't begun 'em!" "Why, you poor child," laughingly replied her teacher, "what are you doing? You might knit forever and your sleeves would not be 'bound off,' if you do nothing but put your worsted over. Who told you to do that?" "Julia Thayer did; she said knit two and then put over, and knit two and then put over, all the time, and it would come all right." "Now, Rose, I didn't!" exclaimed Julia. "I said put your stitch over, you silly child! I should think you might have known that putting your worsted over would widen it." "I know you _didn't_ say put your stitch over," retorted Rose; "you just said put over, and how was I going to know by that? I think you're real mean; you never take any pains with us little ones; I don't--" "Hush, hush, Rose! You must not speak so," said Miss Christine, laying her hands on the child's lips; then, turning to Julia, she said, "If you had taken more pains with Rose, and tried to explain to her how she ought to have done her work, it would have been much better for both of you." "Well, Miss Christine, she came just as I was thinking up for my composition, and I didn't want to be bothered by any one. As it was, she put all my ideas out of my head." Miss Christine's only reply was a shake of the head and an incredulous smile, which made Julia wish she had shown a little more patience with the child. "There, Rose," said Miss Christine, as the little girl put the finishing touch to her sleeves, "next time you will not have to ask any one to show you how to 'bind off.' Your sleeves are very pretty, and I know your mother will be glad her daughter took so much pains to please her." Rose glanced up at her teacher with a bright smile, and went skipping off, ready for fun and frolic, now that those troublesome sleeves were finished. But she had hardly reached the hall when she came running back, saying, in a most mysterious sort of stage-whisper, "She's coming! she's coming downstairs with Miss Stiefbach! Rebecca what's-her-name; you know!" The girls looked up as Miss Stiefbach entered the room, and, although they were too well-bred to actually stare at her companion, it must be confessed that their faces betrayed considerable interest. Rachel Drayton, the "new scholar," was between sixteen and seventeen; tall and very slight; her eyes were very dark; her face intensely pale, but one saw at once it was the pallor of recent illness, or acute mental suffering, not of continued ill-health. She was dressed in the deepest mourning, in a style somewhat older than that generally worn by girls of her age. Her jet-black hair, which grew very low on her forehead, was brushed loosely back, and gathered into a rough knot behind, as if the owner was too indifferent to her personal appearance to try to arrange it carefully. As she stood now, fully conscious of the glances that were surreptitiously cast upon her, she appeared frightened and bewildered. Her eyes were cast down, but if any one had looked under their long lashes, they would have seen them dimmed with tears. Accustomed all her life to the society of older persons, no one who has not experienced the same feeling can imagine how great an ordeal it was for her to enter that room full of girls of her own age. To notice the sudden hush that fell upon all as she came in; to feel that each one was mentally making comments upon her, was almost more than she could bear. If they had been persons many years older than herself, she would have gone in perfectly at her ease; chatted first with this one, then with that, and would have made herself at home immediately. Unfortunately the only young persons in whose society she had been thrown were some young ladies she had met while travelling through the West with her father. They had been coarse, foolish creatures, making flippant remarks upon all whom they saw, in a rude, unladylike manner, and from whom she had shrunk with an irresistible feeling of repugnance. No wonder her heart had sunk within her when she thought that perhaps her future companions might be of the same stamp. Miss Christine noticed her embarrassment at once, and kindly went forward to meet her, saying as she did so, "Well, my dear, I am glad to see you down here; I am not going to introduce you to your companions now, you will get acquainted with them all in time; first I want you to come into the school-room with me and see how you like it." And she took her hand and led her through the open door into the school-room beyond; talking pleasantly all the time, calling her attention to the view from the windows, the arrangement of the desks, and various other things, until at last she saw her face light up with something like interest, and the timid, frightened look almost entirely disappear; then she took her back into the library. As they went in, Florence Stevenson, who stood near the fireplace, made room for them, remarking as she did so, "It is very chilly; you must be cold; come here and warm yourself. How do you like our school-room?" "Very much; that is, I think I shall. It seems very pleasant." "Yes, it is pleasant. It's so much nicer for being papered with that pretty paper than if it had had dark, horrid walls like some I've seen. What sort of a school did you use to go to?" "I never went to school before; I always studied at home;" and poor Rachel's voice trembled as she thought of the one who had always directed her studies; but Florence went bravely on, determined to do her part towards making the new scholar feel at home. "Well, I'm afraid you will find it hard to get used to us, if you have never been thrown with girls before. I don't believe but what you thought we were almost savages; now honestly, didn't you feel afraid to meet us?" "It was hard," replied Rachel; but as she glanced up at the bright, animated face before her, she thought that if all her future companions were like this one she should have no great fears for the future. Most of the scholars had left the room; the few who remained were chatting together apparently unconscious of the stranger's presence, and as Rachel stood before the fire, with her back to the rest of the room, and Florence beside her talking animatedly, she was surprised to find herself becoming interested and at ease, and before Miss Christine left them the two girls were comparing notes on their studies, and gave promise of soon becoming very good friends. When Marion left the library, she went directly to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the seat in the window in a tumult of emotion. Paramount over all other feelings stood shame. She could not excuse herself for her strange behavior, and she felt unhappy; almost miserable. "Why did I speak so?" she asked herself. "Why should I feel such an unaccountable prejudice against a person I never even heard of before? I thought I had conquered all these old, hateful feelings, and here they are all coming back again. I don't know what is the matter with me. It is not jealousy; for how can I be jealous of a person I never saw or heard of before in my life? I don't know what it is, and I don't much care; there aren't four girls in the school that like me, and only one _I_ really love, and that's dear old Flo. She's as good as gold, and if any one should ever come between us I pity her! I'll bet anything though, that she is downstairs making friends with that girl this minute." This thought was not calculated to calm Marion's ruffled feelings, and she sat brooding by the window in anything but an enviable mood. She was still in this state of mind when the tea-bell rang, and hastily smoothing her hair she went downstairs. It chanced that just as she entered the dining-room Rachel Drayton and Florence came in by the opposite door. Florence was evidently giving Rachel an account of some of their school frolics, though in an undertone, so that Marion could not catch the words, and her companion was listening, her face beaming with interest. No circumstance could have occurred which would have been more unfavorable for changing Marion's wayward mood. Coming downstairs she had been picturing to herself the unhappiness and loneliness of the poor orphan, and she had almost made up her mind to go forward, introduce herself, and try by being kind and agreeable to make amends for her former injustice; for although she knew Miss Drayton must be entirely unconscious of it, she could not in her own heart feel at rest until she had made some atonement. No one could have presented themselves to a perfect stranger,--a thing which it is not easy for most persons to do,--with more grace and loveliness than Marion, if she had been so inclined, for there was at times a certain fascination about her voice and manner that few could resist. She had expected to see a pale, sickly, utterly miserable-looking girl, towards whom she felt it would be impossible to steel her heart; and she saw one, who, although she was certainly pale enough, seemed to be anything but miserable, and above all was evidently fast becoming on intimate terms with her own dear friend Florence. That was enough; resolutely crushing down all kindly feelings that were struggling for utterance, she took her seat at the table as if unconscious of the stranger's existence. Miss Stiefbach sat at the head of one very long table, and Miss Christine at another, having most of the little girls at her end; while Marion sat directly opposite with Florence on her right. Without changing this long-established order of things, Miss Christine could not make room for Rachel by the side of Florence as she would have liked, and the only place for her seemed to be on Marion's left, as there were not so many girls on that side of the table. Hoping that such close proximity would force Marion to unbend the reserved manner which she saw she was fast assuming, Miss Christine, before taking her own seat, went to that end of the table and introduced Marion to Rachel, laughingly remarking that as they were the oldest young ladies there, they would have to sustain the dignity of the table. This jesting command was certainly carried out to the very letter of the law by Marion. She was intensely polite throughout the meal, but perfectly frigid in the dignity of her manner, which so acted upon poor Rachel, that the bright smiles which Florence had called forth were effectually dispelled, and throughout the rest of the evening she was the same sad, frightened girl who had first made her appearance in the library. When Marion knelt that night to pray, her lips refused to utter her accustomed prayers. It seemed hypocrisy for her, who had so resolutely made another unhappy, to ask God's blessings on her head, and she remained kneeling long after Florence had got into bed, communing with herself, her only inward cry being, "God forgive me!" But how could she expect God would forgive her, when day after day she knowingly committed the same faults? Sick at heart, she rose from her knees, turned out the gas, and went to bed, but not to sleep; far into the night she lay awake viewing her past conduct. She did not try to excuse herself, or to look at her faults in any other than their true light; but, repentant and sorrowful though she might be, she could not as yet sufficiently conquer her pride to ask pardon of those she had openly wounded, or to contradict an expressed opinion even after she regretted ever having formed it. Poor child! she thought she had struggled long and fiercely with herself; she had yet to learn that the battle was but just begun. CHAPTER VII. AUNT BETTIE. "Oh, dear!" yawned Grace Minton, "how I do hate stormy Saturdays!" "So do I!" exclaimed Georgie Graham; "they are a perfect nuisance, and we were going up to Aunt Bettie's this afternoon." "Who's we?" "Oh, 'her royal highness' for one, and your humble servant for another; Sarah Brown, Flo Stevenson, and Rachel Drayton, _of_ course. By the way, how terribly intimate those two have grown! I don't believe 'her highness' relishes their being so dreadfully thick." "What in the world makes you call Marion 'her highness'?" said Grace. "Oh, because she _is_ so high and mighty; she walks round here sometimes as if she were queen and we her subjects." "No such thing, Georgie Graham!" exclaimed Sarah Brown, who came in just as the last remark was made, and knew very well to whom it alluded; "she doesn't trouble herself about us at all." "That's just it; she thinks herself superior to us poor _plebeians_." "Stuff and nonsense! You know you're jealous of her, and always have been." "Oh, no!" replied Georgie, who, no matter how much she might be provoked, always spoke _to_ any one in a soft purring voice. "Oh, no! I'm not jealous of her; there is no reason why I should be. But really, Sarah, I don't see why you need take up the cudgel for her so fiercely; she always snubs you every chance she gets." Sarah tossed her head, blushing scarlet; for the remark certainly had a good deal of truth in it, and was none the less cutting for being made in a particularly mild tone. "Well, at any rate," said Grace Minton, for the sake of changing the subject, "I think Rachel Drayton is lovely." "Lovely!" exclaimed Georgie, "she's a perfect stick! I don't see what there is lovely about her, and for my part I wish she had never come here." "Seems to me the tune has changed," broke in Sarah. "I thought you were one of the ones who were so down on Marion Berkley for saying the same thing." "Oh, that was before I had seen her," replied Georgie, not at all disconcerted. "In other words, you said it just so as to have an opportunity to differ with Marion," retorted Sarah. "I really believe you hate her!" "Sarah, how can you get so excited? it is so very unbecoming, you know," purred Georgie. Sarah flounced out of the room too indignant for speech, and just as she was going through the hall met Marion, who was in an unusually pleasant mood. "See, Sarah, it is clearing off; we shall have a chance for our walk, I guess, after all." "Do you think so? It will be awful sloppy though, won't it?" "No, I don't believe it will; besides who cares for that? We are not made of sugar or salt." "How many are going?" asked Sarah. "I don't know exactly; let me see." And Marion counted off on her fingers. "You for one, and I for another; that's two. Miss Drayton and Florence are four. Grace Minton, if she wants to go, five; and Georgie Graham six." At the mention of the last name, Sarah gave her head a toss, which was so very expressive that Marion could not help laughing, and exclaimed, "Oh, yes! you know 'her royal highness' must allow some of the _plebeians_ among her subjects to follow in her train." Sarah laughed softly. "Did you hear?" she whispered. Marion nodded, and just at that moment Georgie came out of the room where she had been sitting. "What was that you said, Marion, about 'her highness'?" she asked. "Did you think that the title applied to yourself?" "I shouldn't have thought of such a thing, Georgie, if I hadn't overheard your remarks, and of course I could not but feel gratified at the honorable distinction." "How do you know it was meant for an honorable distinction?" "How can I doubt it, Georgie, when it was bestowed upon me by such an amiable young lady as yourself? Now if it had been Sarah, I might have thought _she_ said it out of spite; but of course when Georgie Graham said it, I knew it was intended as a tribute to my superiority;" and Marion made a provokingly graceful courtesy. "There is nothing like having a good opinion of one's self," replied Georgie. "But you see you are mistaken there, Georgie; it was you who seemed to have such a high opinion of me. You know I didn't claim the greatness,--it was 'thrust upon me;'" and Marion, satisfied with that shaft, turned on her heel, and opening the front door went out on to the piazza, followed by Sarah, who had been a silent but appreciative witness of the scene. Georgie Graham shut her teeth, muttering in anything but her usual soft tones, and with an expression in her eyes which was anything but pleasant to see, "Oh, how I hate you! But I'll be even with you yet!" The shower which had so disconcerted the whole school was evidently clearing off, and there was every prospect that the proposed plan of walking to Aunt Bettie's directly after dinner might be carried into execution. Aunt Bettie, as all the school-girls called her, was a farmer's wife, who supplied the school with eggs, butter, and cheese, and during the summer with fresh vegetables and berries. She lived about two or three miles from the school, on the same road, and the girls often went to see her. She was fond of them all, although she had her favorites, among whom was Marion; and she always kept a good supply of doughnuts, for which she was quite famous, on hand for them whenever they might come. The sun kept his promise, and before dinner-time the girls were all out on the piazza, getting up an appetite they said, although that was not often wanting with any of them. The party for Aunt Bettie's numbered eight,--Rose May and Fannie Thayer having begged Marion to ask permission for them to go,--and they all set out for their walk in high spirits. Although Marion treated Rachel with a certain degree of politeness, she never spoke to her unless it was absolutely necessary, and then always addressed her as Miss Drayton, although every other girl in school had, by this time, become accustomed to familiarly call her Rachel. Florence had done everything in her power to draw Marion into their conversation at table, but seeing that she was determined not to change her manner, she thought it best to take no more notice of it, as by doing so it only made it the more apparent to Rachel that Marion had no intention of becoming better acquainted with her. Rachel had been there but a short time, and already Marion began to feel that Florence was turning from her for a new friend. This was not really the case, and Florence, who knew Marion's feelings, was secretly very much troubled. She loved Marion as deeply and truly as ever; but she could not turn away from that motherless girl, between whom and herself an instinctive sympathy seem to have been established, arising from the loss which they had each felt, and which naturally drew them closer to each other. Florence had never known her mother, but the loss was none the less great to her; she felt that there was a place in the heart that none but a mother's love could ever have filled, and no matter how bright and happy she might feel, there was at times a sense of utter loneliness about her which she found hard to dispel. Rachel seemed to turn to her as her only friend among that crowd of strangers, and she could not refuse to give her her friendship in return, even at the risk of seeing Marion for a time estranged from her; for she trusted to Marion's better nature, hoping that in the future she would not be misjudged, and that all might be made pleasant and happy again. And so to-day for the first time since they had been to school together, Florence and Marion were taking their Saturday afternoon walk with separate companions. Marion had Rose May by the hand, while she told Sarah Brown to take care of little Fannie. Florence and Rachel were directly in front of her, and she knew that they would have been happy to have had her join in their conversation. In fact, they spoke so that she could hear every word they said; but she occupied herself by telling Rose a story of such remarkable length and interest as to perfectly enchant the child, who exclaimed as they reached the farm-house, "O Marion, you do tell the best stories; I really think you _ought_ to write a book!" Marion laughed, but had no chance to answer, for at that moment the door opened and Aunt Bettie appeared upon the threshold. "Wall, gals, I be glad to see ye; this is a sight good for old eyes!" "Did you expect us, auntie?" asked Marion. "Spect yer, child! why, I been a-lookin' for yer these three Saturdays past! What you been a-doin' that's kept yer so long?" "Well, nothing in particular; but you see the term has only just begun, and we've hardly got settled." "Oh, yes, honey, I know; I haint laid it up agin yer. But who's this new one?--yer haint introduced me." As Marion showed no inclination to perform the ceremony Florence presented Rachel, remarking that she was a new scholar from the West. But Aunt Bettie's keen eyes took in at a glance the deep mourning apparel, and her kind heart at once divined its cause; and she exclaimed with great heartiness as she took Rachel's hands in her own rough palms, "Wall, child, you couldn't 'a come to a better place than Miss Stiffback's, and you couldn't 'a got in with a better lot o' girls; take em as they come, they're about as good a set as I knows on!" "O Aunt Bettie!" exclaimed Florence; "flattering, as I live! I wouldn't have believed it of you." "Not a bit of it, child; just plain speakin', a thing that never hurt anybody yet, according to my notion. But come in, gals; come in, you must be tired after your long walk, and the tin box is most a-bustin' its sides, I crammed it so full." The girls laughed, for they all knew what the tin box contained, and were only too ready to be called upon to empty it. They all seated themselves in the large, old-fashioned kitchen, with its low ceiling and tremendous open fireplace, surmounted by a narrow shelf, on which was displayed a huge Bible, and a china shepherdess in a green skirt and pink bodice, smiling tenderly over two glass lamps and a Britannia teapot, at a china shepherd in a yellow jacket and sky-blue smalls; being, I suppose, exact representations of the sheep-tenders of that part of the country. Aunt Bettie bustled in and out of the huge pantry, bringing out a large tin box filled to the top with delicious brown, spicy doughnuts, and a large earthen pitcher of new milk. "There, gals," as she put a tray of tumblers on the table, "jest help yerselves, and the more yer eat, why the better I shall be suited." "Suppose we should go through the box and not leave any for Jabe; what should you say to that?" asked Marion. "Never you mind Jabe; trust him for getting his fill. Eat all yer want, and then stuff the rest in yer pockets." "Oh, that wouldn't do at all!" exclaimed Marion; "you don't know what a fuss we had about those Julia Thayer carried home last year! Miss Stiefbach didn't like it at all; she said it was bad enough bringing boxes from home, but going round the neighborhood picking up cake was disgraceful. She never knew exactly who took them to school, for Julia kept mum; but I don't think it would do to try it again." "Wall, I think that was too bad of Miss Stiffback; she knows nothin' pleases me so much as to have you come here and eat my doughnuts, and if you choose to carry some on 'em to school, what harm did it do? She ought to remember that she was a gal once herself." "Oh, mercy! auntie, I don't believe she ever was," ejaculated Marion. "She was born Miss Stiefbach, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she wore the same stiff dresses, and had the same I'm-a-little-better-than-any-body-else look when she was a baby." "Wall, child, she's a good woman after all. You know there aint any of us perfect; we all hev our faults; if it aint one thing it's another; it's pretty much the same the world over." "You do make the best doughnuts, Aunt Bettie, _I_ ever eat," declared Fannie Thayer, who was leaning with both elbows on the table, a piece of a doughnut in one hand, and a whole one in the other as a reserve force. "Wall, child, I ginerally kalkerlate I ken match any one going on doughnuts; but 't seemed to me these weren't 's good as common. I had something on my mind that worrited me when I was mixin' 'em, and I 'spose I wasn't quite as keerful as usual." "If _you_ don't call these good, _I_ do!" ejaculated Miss Fannie. "Why, I just wish you could have seen some Julia made last summer. She took a cooking-fit, and tried most everything; mother said she wasted more eggs and butter than she was worth, and her _doughnuts_!--Ugh! heavy, greasy things!" "She must 'a let 'em soak fat!" exclaimed Aunt Bettie, who was always interested in the cookery question; "that's the great trouble with doughnuts; some folks think everything's in the mixin', but I say more'n half depends on the fryin'. You must hev yer fat hot, and stand over 'em all the time. I allers watch mine pretty close and turn 'em offen with a fork, and then I hev a cullender ready to put 'em right in so't the fat ken dreen off. I find it pays t' be pertickeler;" and Aunt Bettie smoothed her apron, and leaned back in her chair with the air of one who had said something of benefit to mankind in general. "But where is Julia?" she asked after a short pause. "Why didn't she come?" "Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed Fannie; "she sent her love to you, and told me to tell you not to let us eat up all your doughnuts this time, because she'll be up before long and want some. She had a sore throat, and Miss Stiefbach thought she had better not go out." "I'm sorry for that," replied Aunt Bettie; "I hope she aint a-goin' to be sick." "Oh, no, it aint very bad. Julia thinks it's nothing but cankers; she often has them." "Wall, it's always best to be on the safe side, any way," said Aunt Bettie; "you tell her she needn't be afraid about the doughnuts; I'll have a fresh batch ready agin the time she comes." The business of eating and drinking so occupied the girls' attention, that they did not enter into conversation as readily as usual; and after the first flush of excitement at meeting her young friends and dispensing her hospitality was over, Aunt Bettie, too, subsided into a quiet, subdued manner, which was quite foreign to her usual brisk talkativeness. She sat in her high-backed rocking-chair, looking at the girls over her silver-bowed spectacles, with a sad, musing expression, as if the sight of them called up some unhappy thought. This unusual restraint on the part of their hostess communicated itself in a certain degree to her visitors, though they did not themselves remark the cause of their silence, and their visit was made shorter than usual. It was Marion who first made the move to go; and although Aunt Bettie pressed them to remain she did not urge it with her accustomed eagerness. They had got just beyond the bend of the road which hid the old farm-house from view, when Marion exclaimed, "You run on, Rose, with the others; I believe I left my gloves on the table; don't wait for me, I'll catch up with you;" and before Rose could beg to go back with her, she had turned round and ran off up the road. She ran quickly, but noiselessly along, and was back to the farm-house in a few moments, and was surprised to find Aunt Bettie sitting on the door-step with her head buried in her hands. Going up to her, she found her weeping as if her heart would break. "Aunt Bettie!" she said, in her gentlest tones, "Aunt Bettie! It's only Marion. What is the matter? I thought you seemed worried about something, and came back to see if I couldn't help you; can't I?" "Oh, dear!" sobbed the poor woman. "It may be dreadful wicked of me, but the sight of you young things, all lookin' so bright and happy, did make me feel awful bad, for I couldn't help thinking o' my own darter Jemimy." "Why, what is the matter with her, auntie? Where is she?" "The Lord knows, dear, I don't. Not a blessed word hev I heerd from her it's going on eight weeks. I've writ, and Jabe he's writ, but we haint had a sign of an answer, and I'm afraid she's dead, or perhaps wus;" and the poor woman rocked herself back and forth, completely overcome by her grief. "But, auntie," said Marion, laying her hand gently on the good woman's shoulder, "don't you see there are forty things that might have happened to prevent your hearing from her? You know a girl that lives out can't always find time to write as often as she would like. Besides, she may have got a new place, and in that case might not have received your letters." "I thought o' that, child, and the last letter Jabe writ he directed to the care of Miss Benson, the woman that keeps the intelligence office; but that's two weeks an' more ago, and I haven't heerd a word. You see, Miss Marion, there aint a better-hearted gal livin' than my Jemimy, but she got kinder lonesome and discontented-like a livin' way off here, and took it into her head she'd like the city better. She allus was a high-sperrited gal, and 'twas dull for her here, that's a fact; but I wish to the Lord I'd held my own and hadn't let her gone; for there's awful places in them big cities, and my gal's pretty enough to make any one look at her. I dunno, child, but I can't help feelin' somethin' dreadful's happened to her." "O auntie, you must not get discouraged so easily. I thought you were one of the kind who always looked on the bright side of things," said Marion in a cheerful tone. "Wall, dear, I do ginerally; but this has just keeled me right over, and I don't seem to know where I be. You see I haint got any one in the city as I ken call upon to help me. I don't know a soul in the place I could get to hunt her up. Sometimes I think I'll go down there; but where's the use? I should be like a hen with her head cut off in such a great, strange place as Boston." "Well, auntie, I'll try my best to help you. I tell you what I'll do: you give me Jemima's address, and I'll write to my mother, and get her to look her up. She has to go to those offices very often after servants, and like as not she might stumble right on her. Now cheer up, auntie, for I feel just as if we should find her;" and Marion passed her hand over Aunt Bettie's wrinkled forehead and gray hair as tenderly as if she were her own mother. Aunt Bettie looked at Marion with the tears still glistening in her eyes, and a sad smile on her face, as she said:-- "Marion Berkley it aint every gal as would take so much trouble for an old creetur like me, even if she noticed I was sad and worried. You've comforted a poor, old woman who was most broken-hearted. May the Lord bless you for it, an' I know he will." Marion smiled up at the tender, old face that looked down at her, while her own flushed with pleasure at the words of commendation. It was a pity that there were no unobserved witnesses of the scene; for Marion Berkley, cold and haughty, apparently indifferent alike to the praise or blame of those around her, was a very different person from this gentle girl. Her whole soul was shining through her eyes; all her haughtiness, pride, and coldness had fallen from her, and she stood almost like one transfigured, her face beaming with the light which makes the plainest face seem almost divine,--that of pure, disinterested sympathy for the sufferings and troubles of a fellow-being. For a moment there was silence between the two, while the tears rolled down both of their cheeks; but Marion dashed hers away, as she exclaimed in a cheery voice:-- "Come, auntie, it is getting late, and I must be off; so get me the address, please." "To be sure, child! How thoughtless I be! I'll get it for yer right away;" and Aunt Bettie went into the house with something of her usual briskness, and returning, brought out a scrap of paper, on which was written in a stiff, cramped, school-boy hand this direction:-- "MISS JEMIMA DOBBS, _In Kare of Mis Benson_, Number 22 Eest Crorfud Street, Boston." Marion could hardly repress a smile of amusement at the remarkable orthography; but remembering that in Aunt Bettie's eyes it was a perfect monument to the glory of her son Jabe, she made no comments, and folding it up, tucked it carefully away in her purse. Then, with a bright, encouraging smile, she said good-by to Aunt Bettie, and hurried off down the road. It was much later than she thought, and as the days were rapidly growing shorter, it was quite dusk, and the girls were entirely out of sight and hearing. But her thoughts kept her company on her long walk, and all the way home she was turning over in her mind the probabilities and improbabilities of her mother's being able to find the young, unknown country girl in a large city like Boston. Miss Christine had begun to feel quite anxious about her by the time she arrived, and Florence met her in the hall with a hearty caress, to which she responded with her old warmth. "Why, you dear, old thing!" exclaimed Florence; "what has kept you so long? It must have been forlorn walking home at this hour." "Oh, I did not mind it; I had something to think of," replied Marion, as she pulled off her muddy rubbers before going upstairs. "I'll tell you by and by; I must run up and get ready for supper." That night, after they got to bed, Marion gave Florence a synopsis of her conversation with Aunt Bettie, and told her of her plan of writing to her mother for assistance. "Well," said Florence, "I think it was real good of you to think of it. What a queer girl you are! I knew we didn't have quite as jolly a time as usual up there, but I never noticed there was anything the matter with Aunt Bettie; and if I had I don't believe it would have occurred to me to go back and comfort her. O Marion!"--and she threw her arm over her friend's shoulder,--"how much good there is in you! Why won't you let it all come out?" "I don't think there was anything particularly good in that. You see there was no virtue in my being kind to the poor, old thing, because I could not help it. If there had been any hateful feelings to overcome, or any wounded pride to interfere, I probably should not have done it." "I'm not so sure of that, Marion. You do conquer yourself sometimes." "Not often, dear," Marion replied, with a little, nervous, forced laugh. "It is too much trouble. Good-night, I must go to sleep." But it was long before sleep came to Marion. She laid perfectly still, so as not to disturb Florence, but the small hours found her still awake. She had been for some time thoroughly dissatisfied with herself, and the thought that she had been of some comfort to any one was indeed pleasant to her; but she would not attribute to herself credit that did not belong to her. It was just as she had said to Florence; she could not help being kind to the poor old woman in her trouble; she had obeyed the promptings of her naturally warm heart. It had been an impulsive action, not one in which a disagreeable duty had been plainly pointed out for her to follow; and she determinedly put aside all feeling of self-satisfaction. She knew that if Rachel Drayton had made a similar appeal to her kindness and sympathy, her heart would have been resolutely closed against her, and she would not have spoken a single encouraging word. This thought thrust itself upon her again and again. She tried to put it from her, but it was no use; she could not evade it. She told herself that she was ridiculously conscientious; that this girl had no claims upon her; and that she had done all that Miss Christine asked of her; treated Rachel politely and courteously; but she knew that her politeness had been cold and formal, and her courtesy less kindly than she would bestow upon a beggar at the door. But she said to herself, Florence makes up for all my deficiencies. This bitter thought, in various forms, had rankled in her breast day and night. She had often said that nothing could ever make her jealous of Florence; their affection had been too lasting, too much a part of themselves, for either to suspect the other of inconstancy; and now she was the first to doubt. But the last words of Florence, as they talked that night, came back to her, and she remembered the fond embrace and the earnestness of her voice as she besought her to act her real self. Should she doubt that generous heart, that had shown its love for her in a thousand ways, because, when it was appealed to by a fatherless, motherless girl, it had responded with all the warmth of its true, generous nature? No, she could not do it; she felt that it was only another reason for loving her more, and tears of shame and sorrow filled her eyes, as, bending over in the darkness, she pressed a kiss upon the lips of her sleeping companion. Her unjust suspicion of her friend vanquished and conquered forever, her thoughts gradually wandered back to Aunt Bettie, and with her mind full of plans and projects in her behalf, she at last fell asleep. CHAPTER VIII. AT CHURCH. Sunday morning came bright and clear, but very cold, and many of the girls made their appearance in the library, shaking and shivering, as if they had never before experienced a northern winter. "Gracious me!" exclaimed Sarah Brown, "I'm almost frozen. My room is as cold as a barn! My cheeks are as blue as a razor, and my nose looks like a great cranberry. Do let me get near the fire, Georgie; you're keeping the heat off of every one." Georgie made way for her, quietly remarking, as she did so:-- "Well, Sarah, I must say the cold is not very becoming to your style of beauty; your nose and hair together ought to heat this room." "You needn't say anything, Miss Graham; you're not so killing handsome yourself that you can afford to make fun of others!" hotly retorted Sarah. It was a notable fact that these two could never come together without a passage-at-arms. Grace's quietly hateful remarks always excited Sarah to a most unmitigated degree, and she could not seem to learn by experience that the only way to silence her was to take no notice of them; and their disputes were often great sources of amusement to the other girls. Georgie, tall and rather distingué-looking, although not pretty, with her quietly assured manner even when she knew herself beaten, and her hypocritically soft tones, was almost always more than a match for Sarah, who never could hide her feelings no matter what they were and who always retorted as sharply and spitefully as she could. She was a warm-hearted little thing, as honest and true as she was impulsive, and Georgie's quiet, deliberate hatefulness was more than she could bear. If there was one subject on which Sarah was more sensitive than another it was her hair. It was a rich, reddish-yellow; very thick, long and curling, and any artist would have looked upon it with admiration; but it was the bane of Sarah's existence. When she was a little girl it had been really red, but time had softened its shade, and many a Parisian belle might have envied Sarah its possession. Sarah could see no beauty in it, for at home she was often greeted by the name of "carrot-top," and "little red hen;" and once when she got into a very excited argument with her brother, and stood shaking her head at him with the long curls which she then wore, flying about her shoulders, he had run out of the room, shouting as he got well out of reach:-- "I say, Sal! how much would you charge to stand on Boston common nights, and light the city? Your head would save all the expense of gas!" You may be pretty sure it did not take Georgie Graham long to find out Sarah's weakness, and so the poor child's bane was still kept before her even at school, where there were no troublesome brothers. She resolutely brushed out her long curls, and braided them into soft, heavy braids, winding them round and round at the back of her head until it looked like a great golden bee-hive; but she could not keep the front from rippling into soft, delicate waves; or the short hairs from twisting themselves into numberless little curls, which all the crimping-pins and hot slate-pencils in the world could not imitate. This hair which Georgie Graham so affected to despise was in reality a great object of her admiration, and she would have gladly exchanged it, with its usual accompaniments of glowing cheeks and scarlet lips, for her own sallow skin and scanty, drabbish-brown locks. But I have made a digression; let us return to our group in the library. "What are you two quarrelling about this lovely Sunday morning?" asked Florence Stevenson as she and Marion came into the room together. "Oh, we were not quarrelling," replied Georgie. "Sarah was only remarking that her cheeks were as blue as razors and her nose like a cranberry, and I agreed with her,--that was all." "Yes," exclaimed Sarah, "and I told you you weren't killing handsome, and I dare say you agreed with me, though you didn't say so. But there is one thing certain, if the cold makes frights of both of us, it makes Marion look like a beauty!" and Sarah's eyes sparkled mischievously. Georgie only shrugged her shoulders and elevated her eyebrows, as she replied, "Chacun à son gout." "But it doesn't happen to be your "gout," does it, Georgie?" good-naturedly replied Marion, who knew very well that Sarah's admiration of herself was thus publicly exhibited solely for the sake of annoying Georgie. "Come, girls, let's declare peace, or at least a 'cessation of hostilities;' it's a shame to commence the day with quarrels;" and Florence knelt down on the rug between the two girls, looking up at them with a smile that it would have been hard for any one to have resisted. Directly after this Miss Stiefbach entered, and all were quiet as she read the morning prayers, and they joined in the responses. By ten o'clock the girls, with the exception of Julia Thayer, whose throat was still troubling her, and Grace Minton, who was suffering from a sick headache, were on their way to church. They did not walk in a regular procession like so many convicts on their way to prison, but each chose her own companion, and the walk was enlivened with pleasant conversation. It so chanced that Marion and Georgie Graham were together, not by choice of either party, but because they both happened to come downstairs a little late, and the others had already got into the street as they came out the front door. Florence Stevenson, Miss Christine, and Rachel Drayton were all walking together, and Georgie, observing this, thought it would be an excellent opportunity for making Marion thoroughly uncomfortable. "It seems to me," she began, "you and Florence are not quite so fond of each other as you used to be; or is it that she is not so fond of you?" "I don't think there is any difference on either side," quietly replied Marion, determined not to lose her temper, or be led into saying cutting things of which she would have to repent. "Oh, if you think so, I suppose it is all right; but I don't believe there's a girl in the school who hasn't noticed how Florence has left you to run after Rachel Drayton." Marion resolutely kept silence, and Georgie, thinking that her shots had not taken effect, continued: "I don't see what there is about that girl, I'm sure, to make Flo fancy her so much; she certainly isn't pretty, and she's awfully lackadaisical." "I think she is very pretty," replied Marion; "and the reason she seems lackadaisical is because she is not strong." "I thought you did not like her," said Georgie, "you certainly have not troubled yourself much to entertain her." "I do not see as that is any reason why I should not think her pretty, or why I should not see that she is quiet, because she is not only weak, but very homesick and sad." "Why, really, Marion, I had not any idea you had taken enough notice of her to see all that. What a farce you must have been acting all this time, to seem so indifferent when you were _really_ so deeply interested!" "If that is so, Georgie," replied Marion, as she looked her companion steadily in the face, "I have been a better actress than you, for you play your part so badly that the little boys in the amphitheatre might see into the plot in the first act. I advise you to try another rôle." Georgie opened her eyes in pretended astonishment; but she knew very well what Marion meant, and that her intentions of tormenting her companion were fully understood. But that fact did not prevent her from saying in a gently insinuating tone: "Now, Marion, don't be provoked, but _don't_ you think that Florence is rather turning the cold shoulder on you?" "No, Miss Graham, I do not," emphatically replied Marion, and for at least five minutes Georgie said nothing. "I wonder!" she at last exclaimed, "if Rachel Drayton is rich. I think she must be, for although there is no style to her clothes, and she is of course very dowdy-looking, still everything she has is made of the most expensive material, and you know nice mourning costs awfully. Just look at her vail now; see how long it is, and of the heaviest crépe; but she looks like a ghost under it! I don't believe but what she is rich." "Well, Georgie," replied Marion, with the slightest possible curve of her lip, "I can satisfy you on that point. She _is quite_ well off; her father left about two millions, and with the exception of a few legacies of two or three hundred thousand or so, mere trifles to her, she will have it all; you see she is pretty well provided for." "Two millions!" exclaimed Georgie, startled out of her usual composure; "two millions! why, I hadn't any idea of it." "No, I thought not," dryly replied Marion. "But, Marion, are you sure? How did you know it?" "I heard Miss Stiefbach tell Miss Christine so the day Miss Drayton came here." "And you've known it all this time!" ejaculated Georgie, who could not get over her astonishment. "Yes," replied Marion, "I've known it all this time, and actually haven't toadied her yet; aren't you surprised?" and Marion's voice had, by this time, assumed its most coolly sarcastic tones, and her eyes flashed scorn and indignation upon her bewildered companion. "I wonder if Florence Stevenson knew it. I suppose of course she did," musingly remarked Georgie. "No, she did not," sharply retorted Marion; "and she doesn't know it now, I'm sure." "Well, I don't know what to make of it!" replied Georgie in an annoyed tone; "an heiress in school and no one to know it!" "Don't you think her prettier than when you first saw her?" exclaimed Marion, in such cutting, sarcastic tones that even Georgie winced; "and her pale face, I'm sure you think there is something very distingué about that, set off by her 'heavy, expensive crépe;' and then I know you must think that there is something decidedly aristocratic about her 'lackadaisical' manner;" and Marion gave a little bitter laugh, expressing quite as much scorn as her words. At that moment, they entered the church porch, and Georgie made no reply, only too glad of an excuse for silence. Miss Stiefbach's scholars occupied the first six pews from the front; three on each side of the broad aisle. Miss Stiefbach sat at the head of one, with five of the youngest girls, and Miss Christine, on the opposite side, also had some of the smaller girls with her, while the rest of the scholars occupied the pews in front of their teachers. As Marion entered the church, and the girls quietly took their places and knelt in prayer, the solemn stillness of the place struck painfully upon her. She could not so soon shake off all outward impressions, and the cutting words which had passed her lips, just as she entered that holy place, were still ringing in her ears. She had risen that morning, her mind still filled with the pleasant thoughts which had lulled her to sleep, and with good resolutions for the future. She felt glad that it was Sunday, for she thought she was in the mood to be benefited by the sacred influences of the day. But where now were her good resolutions? She had yielded to the first temptation; she had broken the vows made on her knees that morning, and she was utterly disheartened and discouraged. She knelt with the rest, her head bowed as if in prayer, but her mind in a wild confusion of anger, shame, and remorse; but the anger died, leaving nothing but the saddest, most wretched thoughts of all; the sense of utter failure; of continued shortcomings, of broken resolutions and disregarded vows, made sacred by the time and place of their utterance. She thought she was wicked because she could not pray, because her thoughts would not become composed, quiet, and peaceful, like the place and hour, and she knelt on, her hands clasped tightly together, and her head pressed down into them, the only cry that could silently shape itself into words, breaking from her heart in very agony of doubt and despair: "O God, help me! O God, save me from myself!" And who shall say that it was not enough? That that cry, coming from the depths of a heart distressed, remorseful and repentant for errors that to many would seem but trifles, did not reach the ear of Him who, bending in mercy and love, sees into the hearts of all; reads the very secrets of their souls; and to all who sincerely put their faith in Him surely, sooner or later, sends them His consolation and peace? As the others rose from their knees Marion was recalled to herself, and rising with the rest, she opened her prayer-book and joined in the service, which had just then commenced. Mrs. Berkley had requested, when Marion entered Miss Stiefbach's school, that no sectarian influences should be brought to bear upon her daughter's mind. She wished that her child should follow her own inclinations and the dictates of her own conscience in religious matters, for she understood her well enough to know that she would not blindly follow any faith without first feeling sure that she clearly comprehended and sincerely believed all that its doctrines taught. The influences which of course continually surrounded, although in a quiet, unobtrusive way, were not without their effect. She loved the service of Miss Stiefbach's church, and joined in it heartily. It seemed to her that it brought her nearer to God if she knelt the first thing when she entered the church and asked his blessing on her head. Not that silent, heartfelt prayers could not be uttered anywhere and in any position; but it seemed to her as if there, on her knees, in the place sacredly dedicated to his worship. God did not seem so far off--as if she could more earnestly and fervently supplicate him. There was much in the service which she could not believe and accept as it was intended it should be accepted; but she interpreted it as her own heart dictated. The greater part, however, she believed and repeated with reverence, and a feeling which could never come to her in her own church; for there the intense simplicity and almost business-like manner of conducting the service, struck harshly upon her sensibilities; and she missed the participation in the prayers and responses which seemed to draw her out of herself, and raise her thoughts above their common level, even into the presence of the most High. But to-day the holy words, the prayers and selections had no power to calm her troubled spirit; she tried to fix her thoughts upon the sermon, and not let them wander to dwell upon her own troubles; but it was no use; her mind was still in bitter confusion when she left the church. As she went down the path, Georgie, who seemed to have forgotten her previous discomfiture, if not the subject of their conversation, joined her and began plying her with fresh questions about Rachel Drayton. Marion did her best to evade her remarks, but Georgie would not let her alone, until, thoroughly exasperated and provoked beyond endurance, she exclaimed shortly:-- "Georgie, I do wish you'd hold your tongue! I'm sick of your questions; do let me alone!" "Dear me!" replied Miss Georgie, "you were very communicative this morning; but it's not very strange that you should be rather annoyed, considering Rachel has taken your best friend away." An angry retort rose to Marion's lips, but she controlled herself sufficiently to keep from uttering it; although the expression of her face warned Georgie that she had said quite enough, and the two continued their walk in silence. Having received permission from Miss Stiefbach, Marion set off immediately after dinner for the All Saints' church, and as the services began a half hour before St. Mark's she had her walk all to herself; nor was she sorry for this, for she did not feel like talking to any one. She was early; hardly any one was in the church, and without waiting for the sexton to show her into a pew, she took the very front one, knowing that it was almost always unoccupied. The hymns were read by the clergyman of the parish; a good, earnest man, and one who in the homes of the poor, and by the bedsides of the suffering and dying was often seen, and most sincerely loved; but he had not the gift of preaching; he rarely made his sermons go home to the hearts of his hearers, and Marion felt disappointed when she saw him; she had hoped to hear some one else. Her surprise and pleasure was great, when Mr. More stepped forward and announced that Mr. B., who had been pastor of that church fifteen years before, would preach for them that day. The minister came forward, and bowing his head, remained for a moment in silent prayer; when he lifted it again Marion felt as if she had seen the face of an angel, so holy, peaceful, and patient was its expression. He was a very old man; his hair hung long and white about his shoulders; and as the beams of the afternoon's sun fell upon it, it gleamed with a light which was almost unearthly, spiritualizing and sanctifying that beautiful old face, until it seemed to many as if he were speaking to them from the very gates of heaven. His sermon was short but impressive; the gentle pathos of his voice, and the earnestness of his manner, were felt by all who heard him. Bending over the pulpit as he closed his discourse, his voice fell into a soft, musical cadence, which though very low reached the most remote recesses of the church, and stretching out his arms as if he would have taken each one by the hand and led them to the haven where he had found rest and peace, he exclaimed, or rather entreated:-- "O my friends! look down into your own hearts, and read each one of you what is written there; pride, wilfulness, sin in many forms. Man's greatest enemy is self. But who has said, 'He that conquereth himself is greater than he that taketh a city'?--Jesus! Jesus the Saviour, who came to wash out all our sins; to give us strength for the struggles and trials which come to us all; to teach us patience, humility, and charity. "Each one in this world, young or old, has his sorrows to bear; his temptations to resist; his victories to gain; and to each one it seems sometimes as if everything was darkness and desolation; the blackness of night surrounds them on every side; darkness! darkness everywhere! no light, no hope, no guide. Look up, my friends! look up! not to the darkness; but above it, beyond it, to where Christ stands, ready, ay, more than ready. He comes to meet you, his eyes beaming with compassionate love, his hands outstretched. Grasp those hands, hold fast and firm; they, and they alone, can lead you through storm and darkness, through sorrow and fear; until kneeling at last in perfect peace and happiness you shall behold the face of your Father in heaven." Then followed the Lord's Prayer; but Marion could not take her eyes from that holy face. It seemed to her as if every word had been uttered for her alone; as if the speaker had looked down into the secrets of her heart and had tried to give her comfort and consolation. And this was partly true. As Mr. B. leaned forward and cast his eyes over the congregation they fell upon the face of that young girl, looking up at him with a longing, wistful, tearful glance that startled him. For many years he had been settled over a fashionable society in New York, where he often felt that the words he uttered were but as "seed sown by the wayside" or "on stony ground;" but there was no mistaking the earnestness of that face, over which was spread an expression which it pained him to see in one so young; for he knew that her trials, whatever they were, were but just begun, and thinking of the years of struggling that would probably come to her, his heart yearned over her in deepest sympathy. With the thought of her uppermost in his mind he gave out the closing hymn; two verses only. Marion had heard them often before, but their depth and meaning never came to her so fully as now:-- "Give to the winds thy fears; Hope and be undismayed; God hears thy sighs, and counts thy tears; He shall lift up thy head. "Through waves, through clouds and storms, He gently clears thy way; Wait thou his time, so shall the night Soon end in glorious day." As the last notes of the choir died away, and Marion bowed her head to receive the benediction, she felt strengthened and encouraged; and a peace such as she had not known for months fell upon her heart. As she passed out of church she avoided meeting any one whom she knew, and hurried out of hearing of the remarks of various members of the congregation, who were commenting on the sermon in very much the same manner as if it had been a theatrical performance. Such expressions as, "Very fine sermon, wasn't it?--hit some of us pretty hard;" or "What a charming voice and manner! why, he really quite touched me!" made by different persons in a flippant, off-hand tone, jarred upon her ears, and she was thankful to leave them all behind. As she was about to cross the street, preparatory to turning off into the road which led to school, she stopped to allow a carriage to pass; as it reached her a gentleman leaned towards her, and looking up she met the eyes of the minister bent down upon her with an expression of the deepest interest. She never saw that face again; but the remembrance of it went with her through her whole life. CHAPTER IX. THE LETTER-BAG. Monday morning Marion sent a long letter to her mother, in which she gave a full account of her interview with Aunt Bettie; sent the address, and gave as accurate a description as she was able of Miss Jemima Dobbs herself. She waited anxiously for some days for an answer to her letter, and could hardly keep the thought of Aunt Bettie out of her head. Friday afternoon, when the postman came, she was the first to get to the door and take the bag from him. As she went with it into the library, the girls all crowded round her in eager expectation, while she stifled her own impatience and slowly unstrapped the bag, looking provokingly unconcerned, and quite regardless of the smiling, eager faces that were bent over her. "O Marion!" exclaimed Sarah Brown, "don't you see I'm dying to know if there's a letter for me? Do hurry up." "She doesn't expect a letter herself, so she doesn't care how long she keeps us waiting," sullenly remarked Mattie Denton; "she likes to torment us." "You're mistaken there, Mattie," replied Marion, with a teasing twinkle in her eyes, "for I do expect a letter; but I like 'linked sweetness, long drawn out,' you know. Hands off, girls!" as she slowly opened the mouth of the bag, and two or three arms were stretched out for the letters that filled it to the top; "hands off, I'm postman to-day, and I won't have my rights interfered with. Let me see,--number one; that's for Julia Thayer. Julia! where are you? Here, Fan, run upstairs and take it to her. Number two, Grace Minton. Here, Grace, virtue recognized and patience rewarded; you held your tongue, and see how well I've served you;" and Marion rattled on a string of nonsense as she took out the letters and handed them to their various owners. "Two letters and a pamphlet for Miss Stiefbach; one for Miss Christine; and whose is this great, fat one, I wonder, with a foreign stamp? Rachel Drayton, I do declare!" and she was about to add, "I'm glad she's got it;" but her habit of always treating Rachel with supreme indifference was too strong upon her, and she only remarked, "Here, who will take this letter up to Miss Drayton's room?" Georgie Graham came forward and offered her services. "I am going upstairs," she said; "I'll take it up to her." Marion handed it to her without speaking, but elevated her eyebrows in a very expressive way; but at that moment Rachel herself came into the room, and Georgie stepped forward and gave her the letter, saying in her sweetest tones:-- "Ah, Rachel! are you here? Here is a letter for you, and I could not resist giving myself the pleasure of delivering it." Rachel took the letter with a delighted smile, and, thanking Georgie, ran upstairs that she might read it undisturbed; in the surprise and pleasure of receiving it she did not notice Georgie's unusually affable manner, or the astonished glances and expressive looks which passed between the other girls. Marion mentally remarked, "The two millions are taking effect; Georgie has begun to toady already." "Well, Marion, haven't you got a letter for me?" asked little Rose May, who had stood patiently by Marion's side, saying nothing, but looking longingly into the bag, the bottom of which was fast becoming visible. "You poor little thing, how good you have been!" and Marion bent down and kissed the expectant, little face. "I'll look over these in a jiffy, and we'll see if there isn't one for you. Susie Brastow, May Fowler, _Marion Berkley_, and--yes, here is yours, Rose,--Miss Rose May in great black letters." "Oh, it's from father! I'm so glad!" and Rose seated herself on the floor in the bow-window, and was soon oblivious to everything but the contents of her letter. "Here, Grace!" exclaimed Marion, as Grace Minton passed on her way into the drawing-room, "just take this and hang it on the nail; that's a good girl;" and she held the letter-bag towards her. "No, I thank you," laughingly replied Grace; "you're very anxious to be postmaster when it comes to taking out the letters, but the rest of the duties you want to shirk on to some one else; but I won't submit, I'm going to do my practising." "Oh, you unnatural, ungrateful girl!" replied Marion; "you have read your letter, and are not even thankful to me for giving it to you, almost the first one; and here I am perfectly wild to read mine. However," she exclaimed with martyr-like air, "it's only another proof of the total depravity of the human race." "No ingratitude, Marion; but you _know_ you always get some one to hang the bag up for you after _you_ have had the fun of taking out the letters, and I don't think it is fair." "Perfectly," replied Marion, as she hung the bag up in the vestibule, ready for the girls to make their various deposits, "perfectly; equal distribution of labor you know." "Equal humbug!" replied Grace, who could not help laughing. "O Grace!" called out Marion over the banisters, as Grace was about to turn into the drawing-room, "couldn't you find out what Georgie Graham is going to practise, for when she is in the school-room, playing Chopin's Polonaise, and you are in the drawing-room running the scales,--at least, to one who is not especially fond of 'close harmony,'--the effect is not so charming as it might be." Grace, whose musical powers were not very extensive, made up a face, and slammed the drawing-room door, and Marion rushed precipitately into her own room. "Don't sit down on that bed!" cried Florence; "don't you see I've got on the ruffled tidies?" "O you old maid!" retorted Marion; "you know there's no place I enjoy sitting to read my letters so much as on the bed. What possessed you to put on those tidies to-day?" "Why, Marion, we have been back more than seven weeks, and have not had them on yet. Now just see how nice they look." "They do look lovely, that's a fact;" replied Marion. "There's one thing your respected aunt knows how to do to perfection, and that is to quill ruffles. On the whole I'm glad you put them on; it will cure me of my horrible habit of bouncing down on the bed; consequently save me an innumerable amount of lectures, besides making our room look very distingué; three excellent reasons for keeping them on, so I'll content myself with our old seat." "Well, Mab, do tell me what your mother writes." "Why, I actually haven't had time to read it yet; there were crowds of letters, and I, like a little goose, took the bag. I do hope she has some good news of Jemima;" and Marion opened the letter and read it aloud:-- "BOSTON, Nov. 16th. "MY DEAR MARION:--I was delighted to receive your letter, but particularly so when I read it and found how much my dear daughter was interesting herself for the good of others. "I have just been obliged to change our parlor girl, Mary having gone home to be with her invalid mother, and was preparing myself for going the usual round of the intelligence offices, when your letter came. The address which you sent (I presume it was not a specimen of Miss Stiefbach's instruction) I took with me, for I had never heard of Mrs. Benson's office, and doubted very much if I should be able to find it. "As events proved, I was right, for after having crossed the city in every direction,--in cars, coaches and on foot,--I found that the place must be in Crawford Street, East Boston, instead of East Crawford Street, Boston; so I went to the East Boston ferry, and as good luck would have it, there was a directory in the office, which I looked over, and discovered that there was such a street, but could find no Mrs. Benson; however, as the directory was an old one, I did not trust to it, but crossed the ferry. I found the street without any difficulty; but when I came to No. 22, behold, it was occupied by a barber! I must say, I was discouraged; but upon going in and making inquiries, I found that Mrs. Benson had formerly occupied the store, but, as the colored gentleman informed me, 'she had removed to Boston, thinking that the crowded metropolis would afford her a better opportunity of carrying on her business, so as to render it more lucrative.' He was so extremely affable and polite, that I almost felt it my duty to sit down and have all my hair cut off; but I contented myself with buying a new kind of crimping-pin, which he assured me was the same as those used by Her Royal Highness the Empress Eugénie. Of course I believed him, and the crimping-pins will be ready for you when you come home at Christmas. But to return to my story; Mr. Ambrose St. Leger (don't be frightened, Marion, that is only the barber) gave me minute directions how to find Mrs. Benson's office, and I came back to the city, thankful to have some clue, however indirect it might be. I found the office without any difficulty, and Mrs. Benson, being of course very anxious to work herself into the good graces of a Boston lady, was extremely loquacious and obliging, notwithstanding I was unable to suit myself there with a servant. To make a long story short, she told me that she had received several letters for a Jemima Dobbs, but as she had never had any such girl in her office, after keeping them some time, she had burned them up. "I must say I felt extremely disheartened, for I thought that if I found the right woman she would certainly be able to tell me something about Jemima Dobbs. She produced her books, and upon looking over them I found the name of Arabella Dobbs. It seemed ridiculous to think that could be the same person I wanted, but I had an inward conviction that it was, and I have still; though don't get elated yet. Mrs. Benson, who relies more upon her memory than her book-keeping, says she is sure she got Arabella Dobbs a place in East Boston several weeks ago, and she is going to write to the lady, to find out if she is still there, and if she ever had the name Jemima. I thanked her for the interest she had taken in the case, and gave her my address, as she promised to send me word the instant she received an answer to her letter. "And now, my dear, that is all I have to tell you. Very unsatisfactory I know it is; but I feel quite sure that Arabella Dobbs and Jemima Dobbs are one and the same person, for it is very seldom that one comes across a Yankee girl in these offices, and Dobbs is a name one would not be likely to find there twice. "You will be the best judge of what it is best to do about telling Mrs. Dobbs what I have written to you; perhaps it will be better to wait until you hear something more conclusive; but the suspense must be terrible for her to bear, and it may be some consolation for her to know there is some one interesting herself for her here. "I will write just as soon as I hear from Mrs. Benson; and now, my darling, I really have not another moment to spare you. "Your father sends his usual stock of love, and ever so many messages, which I could not remember if I tried; but they were all very affectionate and so complimentary, that perhaps it is just as well you should not hear them. "Charlie is asleep, and Fred has not yet come in from baseball; so you must content yourself with a whole heart-full of love from your fond "MAMMA." "Now, Flo, was there ever such a darling mamma as mine? I do think she is just perfection,--going all over Boston, and East Boston too, and never saying she was tired, or anything of the sort. I don't think there are many women that would do that; do you, Flo?" "No, I don't believe there are many like her; I think she is the loveliest woman I ever knew. But, Marion, I don't see as you have found out much about poor Jemima after all." "No, there is not much real, satisfactory information, that's a fact; but I _feel_ just as if that girl was the right one, and I know mamma must feel pretty sure of it too, or she would have waited for the answer to that letter before she wrote me. I shall go up to auntie's as soon as I can; but I'm afraid it won't be before Saturday, for you know to-morrow is English composition day, and next day French abstract, and I was so careless about mine last time that I really think I ought to lay myself out this week." "Indeed you ought, Marion," exclaimed Florence; "it's a shame that a girl who can write such compositions as you can, when you have a mind to, should hand in such a flat, silly thing as your last one was. I'm not complimentary, I know, but it's the truth; you know yourself it was horrible." "Yes, I know it was; and that is why I'm particularly anxious to have a good one this time; don't you see?" "But don't you think you will be able to get up to Aunt Bettie's before Saturday?" asked Florence; "it seems hard to keep her in suspense." "I really don't see how I can find time, and then I'm in hopes that if I wait, by that time the answer to that woman's letter will have come, and I shall hear something decisive from mamma." "Well, I think after all perhaps it will be better for you to wait until then. But do you know it is after four o'clock, and the girls have all got through practising? We ought to go down and try our duet." "Sure enough!" exclaimed Marion, springing up. "I don't know my part at all; haven't looked at the last two pages, and Mr. Stein comes to-morrow." "Oh, you read music so quickly, that you'll play your part better at sight than I shall after I've practised it a week. I wish I could read faster." "Don't wish it, Flo; it is very nice sometimes, but I don't think people who read easily ever play readily without their notes. Now for you to know a piece once is to know it always, with or without your notes, while I have to fairly pound it into my head." "There is more truth than poetry in that, I know," replied Florence, as the two went downstairs together, "for I have heard Aunt Sue complain of the same thing; nevertheless I wish I wasn't so awfully slow." But we will leave them to their music, and musical discussions, and hurry on with our story. CHAPTER X. MARION'S RIDE. Marion had no other letter from her mother during the week, and she was so busy the whole time with her studies, music, etc., that it was not until Saturday afternoon that she started on her errand. The weather had been unusually cold, and the previous night there had been quite a heavy fall of snow, which, notwithstanding it was now only the middle of November, still remained on the ground, and the thick, gray sky gave promise that there was yet more to come; indeed before Marion was fairly ready the flakes began to make their appearance, and came lazily down, as if they did not all relish being called out so early. But Marion did not mind wind or weather, and with her water-proof over her thick sack, the hood drawn up over her head, and her feet encased in rubbers, she set out for her long walk in the most excellent spirits. Florence went to the door with her and urged her to take an umbrella, but Marion laughed at the idea, saying, "It was only a little flurry and would be over in a minute;" but before she had reached Aunt Bettie's she wished she had taken Florence's advice, for the snow came down thicker and faster, beating against her face, and almost blinding her, so that it was with great difficulty that she could see her way, and it was at least an hour before she arrived at the farm-house. She went round to the back of the house, and without knocking lifted the latch of the door, and entered a sort of shed or unplastered room, which in summer was used as a kitchen, but which now served as a wood-shed. "Aunt Bettie," cried Marion, "are you there?" and she stamped her feet, and shook her clothes to get rid of the snow which covered her from head to foot. "For the goodness' sakes, who's that?" exclaimed Aunt Bettie as she jumped up from her seat by the kitchen fire, where she had fallen asleep over her knitting, and hurried into the outer room. "Why, it's only me, auntie, to be sure," said Marion. "Marion Berkley! well, did I ever! but massy me," as she took hold of Marion's water-proof, "you're as wet as a drownded rat; I'd no idee it snowed so hard!" "Oh, it's only wet on the outside; _I'm_ not wet a bit;" and Marion took off her water-proof and hung it over a chair to dry, pulling off her rubbers and placing them on the floor beside it; "but why don't you ask me what I came for, auntie?" "Wall, child, to tell the truth, I was so s'prised to see yer that I didn't think anything 'bout what yer come for, and I aint going to ask nuther, 'till you jist seat yourself in front o' that fire and toast them feet o' yourn. I never see sich a child! To think o' your startin' out sich weather's this to come and see me!" "It didn't snow much when I left school, and I hadn't the least idea it would be such a storm; it's so early, you know. Florence wanted me to bring an umbrella, but I wouldn't; I never will carry one if I can help it." "Wall, it is a reg'lar out-and-outer," exclaimed Aunt Bettie, as she stood peering through the window at the storm; "winter's sot in airly this time, an' no mistake. I tell you what," as she came back to the fire and seated herself beside Marion, "if you've come for anything pertickler, I guess you better tell it right away, fur it won't do fur you to stop long, it gathers so." "Well, I did come for something particular, auntie, but you must not expect too much;" and Marion, who saw that Aunt Bettie was unusually excited, notwithstanding she tried to appear composed, laid her hand on her arm in a soothing, caressing way. "It is only a little bit of comfort for you, not any real hope, except that you will perhaps feel encouraged to know that you have friends in the city looking for your daughter, and although I do not know anything certain about her, I think mamma has got hold of some clue. But I'll read you what she says; you know I promised to write her, and I did, and this is her answer." Aunt Bettie signed for Marion to go on; she was too much moved to speak, although her emotion was caused quite as much by gratitude as anxiety, for she had waited so long, and up to this time in such perfect silence, that hope had almost died out within her, and she really did not expect any joyful tidings. At the conclusion of the letter Marion looked up, almost dreading to meet Aunt Bettie's glance, feeling sure that it must be one of disappointment; but, contrary to her expectations, the good woman's face was positively beaming through her tears, as she exclaimed in an almost joyful tone:-- "The Lord bless you, Miss Marion, and your mother too, for you're a pair of Christians if there ever was one! I'm jist sure that that Arabella Dobbs is my Jemimy; an' I'll tell yer why I think so. Yer see the gal that set my darter up to goin' to Boston used to visit some o' her kinfolk down in the village, an' that's how she and Jemimy got acquainted; she put it into my gal's head that _Jemimy_ was an awful country kind of a name,--her own was Belindy,--and she always called her Arabella, an' jist as like as not Jemimy was fool enough to go an' give _that_ as her name. I declare she orter been ashamed of herself!" and Mrs. Dobbs' indignation so far got the better of her grief, that if Miss Jemimy had been there in the flesh it is quite probable she would have received at least a good scolding. "Why, auntie, if that is so," replied Marion, "I've no doubt it's the same girl; but how do you suppose she happened to go to East Boston instead of Boston?" "Oh, like's not that Belindy Beers lived in East Boston, and jist said Boston 'cause she thought 'twas smarter. I never could bear that gal anyhow, an' if it hadn't been for her my darter'd been here now." "Well, you know I haven't really found her yet," said Marion, who was afraid that Aunt Bettie's ire had caused her to lose sight of that fact; "we only have some _probability_ of finding out where she is." "I know, dear, I know all that, but I do feel better; it does seem as if there couldn't be two sich good creeturs as you an' your mother doin' your best to help me, and no good to come of it. 'T any rate I aint goin' to despond any more; it's like flyin' in the face o' Providence, and until I hear wus news I shall jist hope for the best." "Aunt Bettie, I'm glad enough to hear you say so; I _can't_ help feeling very hopeful myself, and I'm glad you can feel the same." "Well, child, I think it's the right way arter all; 'taint my nater usually to be very despondent, but somehow I got entirely discouraged; but _I should_ be an ungrateful woman enough if I didn't thank you over and over again. I can't speak it all, but I feel it jist the same." "Indeed, auntie, it is not me, but mamma, that you must thank. I have done nothing but write to her, and she has done all the work." "Yes, and how would she have known it, if it hadn't been for you? I thank her, the Lord knows I do, from the bottom of my heart, but it's all owin' to you, child, nevertheless. If you hadn't had quick eyes to see into my troubles, and a warm heart to put you up to helpin' me, what would she a' known about it? No, no, dear, you're the fust one I owe my thanks to, and whether I ever find Jemimy again or not, I shall always love you, and bless you for what you've done for me so long's I live." And Marion knew that Aunt Bettie meant every word she said, and she did not again try to alter her opinion. It was pleasant indeed to know that there was any one who could have such a high regard for her; and with a warmth about her heart which it was pleasant to feel, and a light in her eyes which it would certainly have done any one good to see, she sat talking with Mrs. Dobbs, both of them oblivious to the fact that time was fast slipping away, until, upon looking up, Marion was astonished to see that it was long after four o'clock. "Why, auntie!" she exclaimed, "see how dark it is growing; we've been talking nearly an hour. I must hurry off this minute, or I shall be frightened to death before I get home." "Why, sure enough, it's most five o'clock! I'd no idee of it. But massy sakes!" cried Aunt Bettie as she went to the window, "jest come here and look out! Why, you can't walk home in this snow nohow; why, it's up to your ankles! I never see snow gather so quick in my life." Marion went to the window, and took a survey of the scene. It certainly did not look very promising. The snow had gathered so rapidly that the roads were covered several inches deep, and darkness appeared to be fast approaching. Marion looked decidedly troubled; but there was no help for it; go she must; for she knew that Miss Stiefbach would be very much worried about her; so putting on as good a face as possible she said:-- "Well, auntie, I haven't a moment to spare; it is really quite dark, and it will take me longer to go than it did to come;" and Marion was hurrying out of the room to get her water-proof when Aunt Bettie caught hold of her:-- "You jest set down in that cheer, and don't you stir out of it till I tell yer you may! Do you s'pose I'm goin' to send you home afoot when it's sich walkin's this? No; not if my name's Sarey Ann Dobbs. You jest wait, and you shall have one sleigh-ride this year if you don't ever get another." "Aunt Bettie, what do you mean?" exclaimed Marion. "You jest wait, and you'll see what I mean." Auntie went into the outer room, and opening the door shouted at the very top of her lungs in a shrill, high key: "Jabe! Jabe Dobbs, be you there?" but Jabe did not respond to the maternal call. "Jabe! Ja-a-a-be!" Then in an undertone, "Plague take that boy! he's the laziest creetur I ever did see!" Presently there came a reply from one of the outside sheds in a slow, drawling voice; very much as if the owner of it had heard the first summons, but was not in a great hurry to heed it:-- "H-e-r-e!" "Wall, come in this minit, and don't keep me standin' here holdin' this door open any longer!" In a few moments, but in what seemed to Marion almost an eternity, heavy steps were heard on the flagstone, and directly after, a youth of about sixteen made his appearance in the door-way, and slowly knocking the snow off his boots, asked in the same drawling tone:-- "What do yer want?" "You come inside, and I'll tell yer," replied his mother. "Well, yer might o'--" but catching sight of Marion his head went down, and Jabe stood sheepishly twirling his hat in his hands, shuffling from one foot to the other, apparently too bashful for speech. "Don't stan' there twirlin' yer hat, and lookin' like a great idiot, but jest step round and be spry. Did you get down the big sleigh t'other day when I told yer to?" Jabe nodded assent. "Well, it's a wonder! Now you go out and tackle up Shadrack as quick as ever you can, and hev him round to the door, less'n no time; no shillyshallyin!" "What shall I put him into arter I get him tackled?" asked the hopeful youth, with a momentary glance at Marion from under his shaggy eyebrows. "Why, put him into the sleigh, to be sure; what'd you s'pose?" "Well, you didn't tell me, an' I didn't know but p'r'aps she was goin' to ride him," replied Jabe, with another glance at Marion, which almost upset her gravity. "You didn't think any such a thing, and you know you didn't! You're to drive Miss Marion back to school, and you jest hurry out; and don't let the grass grow under yer feet either!" "Aint much danger," replied Jabe, as he shuffled off; "it's most through sproutin' fur this year, and 'taint quite ready fur next." "Now, Miss Marion, did you _ever_ see sech a boy as that?" exclaimed Aunt Bettie in righteous indignation; "he worries my life out of me!" "What is the matter with him?" asked Marion, who was intensely amused at the ridiculous-looking object she had just seen, and his comical, awkward ways; "there doesn't seem to be anything very bad about him." "Bad! of course there isn't, but he _is_ so powerful slow! There's no doin' nothin' with him; he's too lazy to work, and he's too lazy to study. But there's one thing, he's honest as he ken be, and I rally do think he does set consid'rable store by me; though he _does_ try my patience awfully." "Of course he thinks a great deal of you," replied Marion; "he's just at a lazy age now. I dare say he'll get over it, and prove a great comfort to you one of these days." "Oh, he's a comfort now, in a sort of a way. He's stiddy enough; but laws! he's too lazy to be anything else." "He'll wake up yet, auntie, see if he doesn't. There's a twinkle in his eyes that shows he's nobody's fool." "Oh, I never supposed he was quite as bad's that; but he haint found his niche yet; when he does I s'pose he'll fit into it as tight as a pertater does its skin." In much shorter time than Marion had expected, judging from what she had seen of Jabe's activity, the jingle of bells was heard, and directly after, the musical voice of Mrs. Dobbs' young hopeful called out:-- "I'm ready if you be!" Aunt Bettie opened the door, her face positively radiant with smiles and the pleasure she felt at being able to give Marion a ride. As Marion's eyes beheld the equipage that stood ready for her use, it must be confessed that her first sensation was anything but agreeable. In common with most girls of her age, and I might say with girls considerably older than herself, she had a great admiration for handsome horses, elegant carriages, and a driver in keeping with the rest of the establishment. Certainly no one could say, however, that her driver was not perfectly in keeping with the establishment of which he evidently felt extremely proud; for he sat on the front seat, holding the reins in both hands, as if poor Shadrack was a four-in-hand team, or at least a tandem with a very refractory leader. The sleigh itself was of such peculiar structure, that it would have been almost impossible to have decided at what ancient period it must have been made. In shape, it most resembled that elegant vehicle commonly known as a "pung," excepting that it boasted of two seats, and a back that nearly reached the top of Marion's head. Its color was a beautiful pea-green, ornamented with various scrolls and devices in bright yellow, which might have been a combination of the paternal and maternal crests of Jabe's ancestors, but looked wonderfully like squash-vines. Around old Shadrack's neck was hung a string of iron bells about the size of small cannon-balls, which jingled most melodiously every time he moved. But Marion's good sense would not allow her to yield to any feeling of mortification which she might feel at the idea of appearing at school in such a turn-out. She only thought of Aunt Bettie's kindness in ordering out her old horse on such an unprecedented occasion; and thanking her warmly and sincerely for her thoughtfulness, she stepped into the sleigh and was driven off by Jabe, who flourished the whip over Shadrack's ears, quite regardless of his mother's warning, "not to let the critter trot fast, 'cause 'twas heavy haulin'; the snow was so soggy." For some time they jogged along, the silence only broken by the monotonous jingle of the bells. It had stopped snowing, and the sky was quite bright in the west, making it much lighter than it was earlier in the afternoon; touching up the trees with a rosy light, and casting a soft glow on the fields, as they passed along. Marion forgot everything else in the pleasure of watching the fading light, and was quite oblivious to the existence of Jabe, until she was roused from her silent observations by a mild "ger-lang!" which reminded her that it certainly was her duty to make herself agreeable to her escort. She hardly knew what to say to him, but she ventured to remark "that the horse did not look as if he was worked very hard." "Worked hard!" exclaimed Jabe. "Lord, he don't know what work is! I just wish I had as easy a time as Shadrack." "What in the world did you name him Shadrack for?" exclaimed Marion. "Me!" replied Jabe, turning round slowly and looking at Marion out of the corner of his eye, "'twant none o' my doin's, 'twas father's; he allus liked something different from anybody else, and that time I think he hit it." "Yes, I think he did," replied Marion, smiling in spite of herself; then in a soberer tone she asked, "Do you remember your father, Jabe?" "No, he died 'fore I was two years old." "Don't you wish he could have lived?" "Well now, that depends on circumstances," replied Jabe in a deliberating tone; "if he was such a fellow for work as the marm, I can't say as I _should_ be very particular 'bout havin' him round." "Why, Jabe Dobbs!" exclaimed Marion, striving to conceal her laughter, "aren't you ashamed of yourself? I dare say it would be better for you, if your mother made you work a great deal harder than she does." "O Lord! Miss Marion!" cried Jabe, in the most horrified tone, but with a twinkle in his eyes which Marion fully appreciated; "if she did I couldn't live nohow. You see, work and I don't hitch hosses; we weren't meant to go 'longside the same pole; and if one of us has got to stan' still, I think it might's well be me, and let _work_ go." At this Marion laughed outright, but not a muscle of his face did Jabe move, and if it had not been for that sly twinkle in his eye when he lifted it to Marion's face one would have thought he was solving some weighty problem. He sat round sideways, one leg on the seat, and the reins now hanging loosely in his hands, as Shadrack jogged lazily on, while he was evidently highly pleased and flattered by Marion's attention. "Well, Jabe," continued Marion, "perhaps, if you don't like to work, you like to study. Do you ever go to school?" "I went last winter by spells, an' I s'pose I shall go this winter too." "Do you like it?" asked Marion; "what do you like best,--spelling?" "Spelling," repeated Jabe, in a ruminating tone,--"spelling, no, I don't like it much, that is, I don't like it the way they larn you down there. I think p'r'aps if they'd let a feller follow his own fashion I might like it; but they put in so many letters that there aint no kind o' sense in havin', that it jest confuses me, an' so I ginerally spells accordin' to fancy." "O Jabe!" replied Marion, "that will never do in the world; but perhaps you like arithmetic better." "'Rithmetic!" and Jabe fairly dropped the reins and struck an emphatic blow on his knee, as he exclaimed again: "'rithmetic! I tell you _there_ you got me. If there is anything I do hate on the face o' this airth, it's 'rithmetic! Spellin's bad enough, but 'rithmetic's wus. When you set me to doin' a sum it's jest like the feller that had to go through the drill for the whole regiment; he got on fust-rate till they told him to go form a holler-square; but he said _that_ 'wrenched him awfully.'" "O Jabe! Jabe!" cried Marion, now fairly convulsed with laughter, "I am afraid you will never make much of a scholar anyway. But, indeed, you ought to try and do better; just think what a comfort you might be to your mother, if you would only----But stop the horse, stop the horse a minute; I've got an idea!" Jabe drew up the reins with a sudden jerk, and looked at Marion as if she had scattered every idea he ever possessed. "You jump out!" she exclaimed; "no, you needn't do that; just help me over on to the front seat, and then you climb on to the back. I'm going to drive up to school in style." Jabe dropped the reins, and did as he was told, with a very bewildered expression on his great, round face, as he looked at Marion very much as if he doubted her sanity; but she went on talking very fast as she tucked in the almost worn-out robe, and took the reins in her hands. "Don't you see, we're almost to the school, and everybody will be on the lookout for me; so I want to dash up to the door in very stunning fashion. Now sit up straight; fold your arms; hold your head up;--so,--that's it; you're my tiger; that means the groom, boy, you know, who sits behind when the gentleman drives. Now, when I stop the horse, you jump out just as quick as ever you can and rush to his head, as if you thought he wouldn't stand still long enough for me to get out. Do you understand?" "Yes," replied Jabe, who sat as straight as a ramrod, his eyes twinkling under his bushy, fur cap, and his mouth stretched from ear to ear. If he didn't love work, he certainly did a good joke, and he entered fully into the spirit of the thing. "Well, now, keep sober, and don't forget what I told you." Marion braced her feet against the dasher; threw back her shoulders; extended her arms at full length, and gave poor old Shadrack such a tremendous "cut" with the whip that he sprang forward as if forty fiends were after him; but Marion was used to driving, and only flourished the old wooden-handled ox-whip, and urged him on the faster. Everything happened precisely as Marion wished. Of course Miss Stiefbach had become considerably alarmed at her long absence, and every one had come into the front of the house, and all were looking out for her, their faces pressed up against the window-panes as they crowded together. Just as Marion came in sight some one opened the front door; this was what she wanted. Giving the whip an extra flourish, and saying in an undertone to Jabe, "Be ready," she dashed up to the gate, and suddenly drew the reins up short. Poor Shadrack, being thus brought to a very unexpected stand-still, threw his head up in the air, and planted his fore feet straight out in front of him, in a most warlike attitude. Almost before they stopped Jabe sprang out and grasped the poor panting beast by the head, as Marion threw the reins down, and stepping to the ground exclaimed in a pompous tone, loud enough to be heard by those standing in the door-way, "Rub him down well, Thomas, and give him an extra measure of oats;" then, as she turned into the gate, "and Thomas, have the tandem at the door in the cutter, to-morrow-morning at ten." Jabe, not to be outdone, touched his hat, sprang on to the seat, and whisked Shadrack round and up the road, at a pace that would have made his mother hold up her hands in holy horror. "Why, Marion Berkley, where _have_ you been?" exclaimed a chorus of voices, Miss Stiefbach's actually among the number. "I've been taking an airing on the Western Avenue. How do you like my turn-out? Neat but not gaudy, isn't it?" "Well, Marion, I don't know what you will do next," said Miss Christine; "but where have you really been?" "Marion, I must ask you to give a strict account of yourself," said Miss Stiefbach, who, now that she had recovered from her unusual surprise and alarm, was her own stately self again. Whereupon Marion gave a brief and satisfactory history of her afternoon's expedition, embellishing it with sundry remarks and expressions of her own, which rendered it highly entertaining to her younger hearers; and I might say to all but Miss Stiefbach, for Miss Christine joined heartily in the general laugh at Marion's first sleigh-ride of the season. CHAPTER XI. LA SOIRÉE MUSICALE. "Girls! what do you think's up?" exclaimed Sarah Brown, as she bounced into the library one afternoon. "Miss Stiefbach and Mr. Stein have just been having a long confab in the 'secret-chamber,' and they came out just as I passed the door, and I heard Miss 'Stiffy' say, 'Yes, I knew you would prefer Friday, so I ventured to invite them without seeing you again; as yet the young ladies know nothing about it!' Now _I_ should like to knew what in the world _it_ is." "Well, so should I!" exclaimed Julia Thayer. "What can she mean; 'invited them,' and 'the young ladies know nothing about it.' She must be going to give a party." "Yes, that's it, you may be sure," said Marion; "she's going to give a party, and she and Mr. Stein are going to lead the German. Won't they look well dancing the 'deux-temps' together?" "O Marion, how perfectly ridiculous!" laughed Florence. "You know she can't be going to have a party; but what can it mean?" "Are you sure you heard right, Sallie?" asked Grace Minton. "Why didn't you break your shoe-string and stop to tie it up; or do something or other to keep you there long enough to get something a little more satisfactory?" "Why, I couldn't hang round the hall listening to what they said, could I? But I know there is to be something going on here Friday; see if there isn't." "Yes, and Miss Stiefbach isn't going to say anything about it to us until the last moment, because she thinks our heads will be full of it," ejaculated Marion. "I've a great mind to ask her myself." "If I was in the habit of betting, I would bet you anything that I know all about it," remarked Georgie Graham, who had kept silent while the other girls were making their comments. "Oh, what is it?" asked Marion; "my principles and my purse too will stand a pound of candy." "And I another," cried Sarah. "Not so fast," replied Georgie. "I said _if_ I was in the habit of betting, but I never bet; it is very unladylike." "Granted!" cried Marion; "but please reserve your lecture for another time, and out with your secret." "I really don't know as I _ought_ to tell," said Georgie, as she counted the stitches on her canvas in a provokingly cool way. "I knew it by accident, and that is the reason I haven't spoken of it before." "Oh, if you got possession of it in the same way you have of several other secrets here, I don't blame you for not wanting to tell of it," retorted Sarah. "I don't know what you mean to insinuate, Sarah; but I heard of this entirely by accident two weeks ago to-morrow," replied Georgie in the same unmoved tone. "I was in the anteroom looking over an exercise which monsieur wanted me to correct, when I heard Mr. Stein and Miss Stiefbach talking together in very low tones in the school-room. Of course it did not occur to me that there could be anything private in what they were saying, or I should have let them know I was there"--("Of course," laconically remarked Marion)--"but when they had got through their conversation Miss Stiefbach said, 'We will say nothing about it to any one, as I wish it should remain a secret for the present;'--so I said nothing." "Well, don't you _intend_ to say anything?" cried Sarah Brown; "now that we know there is something going on, don't you intend to tell us what it is?" "I really don't think it would be very honorable in me," rejoined Georgie, thoroughly enjoying her important position. "Don't trouble her, Sarah; we all know what her conscientious scruples are. It would be a pity to have them disturbed," remarked Marion in a cutting, sarcastic tone. "I can tell you what it all means in five seconds." "What is it?--tell us, do!" cried all, with the exception of Georgie. "Miss Stiefbach intends to have some sort of a musical spread next Friday, and we girls have got to play." "How did you know it?" exclaimed Georgie, thoroughly off her guard. "I didn't take your method of finding it out, you may be sure," replied Marion. "I never heard a word about it before this afternoon; but if you put two and two together they generally make four, that's all." "What do you mean by putting 'two and two together'?" impatiently asked Julia Thayer. "Why, just this!" replied Marion. "Does Mr. Stein have an earthly thing to do with this school except to give us music-lessons? and is there anything that Miss Stiefbach could be getting up with him, that concerned the 'young ladies' that didn't have something to do with our music? and would she be inviting people here when it was convenient to _him_ if it wasn't that they are going to give a musicale, and he is going to make us play? So there you've got the whole matter; I don't think it required much brilliancy to see that." "Well, I _never_ should have thought of it!" exclaimed Sarah. "Nor I either," said Florence. "But don't you think it is awfully mean not to have let us known anything about it beforehand, so that we might have had time to practise?" "I presume Mr. Stein has been secretly drilling us for it this long time, though we poor, unconscious victims didn't suspect it," replied Marion. "But there's Georgie, she has the advantage of us; she has probably decided what she is going to play, and has learned it perfectly." But there was no reply from Georgie as she had discreetly left the room. "Oh, isn't she sly?" exclaimed Grace Minton. "Sly! sly isn't the word for it," put in Sarah Brown in her most energetic tones; "she ought to have been named Foxy Graham!" "Well, there's one thing certain," said Grace Minton, "I shan't have to play; I thank my stars for that!" "I wonder who will play," said Florence. "Georgie Graham of course; Julia; and you Mab; and I rather guess I shall have to. Well, I don't much care, I don't believe there will be many here, and I think it's time I learned to play before strangers." "I don't know how I shall ever get on in the world," cried Marion in a despairing tone; "that is about the only thing I never could do." "And I think it is so strange," remarked Julia Thayer; "for you see so much company at home, and always seem so self-possessed wherever you are, that it does seem queer that you are afraid to play before people." "I know it. I dare say every one thinks it is all affectation," replied Marion, "for I know you all think I've got assurance enough to do most anything; but it is the honest truth, that I'm frightened half to death whenever I sit down to play to any one; and if I get along well at this affair of Miss Stiefbach's, it will be nothing but my _will_ that carries me through." "So you mean to play, do you?" asked Georgie Graham, who at this juncture suddenly made her appearance in the room. "Yes, I mean to play if I'm asked, and I suppose I shall be, because I think I ought. I am determined to overcome this ridiculous nervousness, even if it is at the expense of fifty mortifying failures before I do it; so, girls, look out and prepare yourselves for a public disgrace; for of _course_ there is not one of you who would not take it quite to heart if I should break down." "Well," replied Sarah Brown in the most energetic tone (Sarah almost always spoke in italics), "I know I for one should feel dreadfully; though of _course_ I can't answer for some of the rest of us;" and she cast a meaning glance at Georgie. "I'm sure, Marion, I _hope_ you won't fail," said Georgie as she picked up her work, her ostensible reason for coming back, and left the room. "I know one thing," exclaimed Sarah; "if that girl kept a list of all the lies she tells in a week, white and black; she'd use up all the letter-paper there is in the town." "O Sallie!" laughed Florence, "you're too severe. I'm afraid you don't entertain a Christian spirit towards Georgie." "I don't, and I don't pretend to!" answered Sarah. "I never did like her, and I never shall; she's always saying something to aggravate me." "But she didn't say anything to you then," said Julia Thayer, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes; "she was only _hoping_ that Marion would not break down." "Yes, and a lot she hoped it!" excitedly replied Sarah; "there's nothing would suit her better than to have Mab make a regular failure of it; and I just wanted to let her know I thought so." "Now, Sarah," said Marion, in a half-laughing, half-serious tone, "don't you trouble yourself to fight my battles. I think I am quite equal to it myself; besides, you'll have your hands full to look after your own squabbles." "There's ingratitude for you!" said Grace Minton. "If I were you, Sallie, I never would trouble myself about her again; she doesn't deserve such a champion." "Oh, I don't mind what she says," replied Sarah, good-naturedly; "she can't make me hold my tongue, and I shall say just what I've a mind to, to that Georgie Graham, so long as she keeps on tormenting me." That evening the whole school was informed that on the following Friday Miss Stiefbach was to give a soirée musicale, at which ten of the scholars were to perform. These were Marion Berkley, Florence Stevenson, Alice Howard, Mattie Denton, Julia Thayer, Georgie Graham, Susie Snelling, Kate Brastow, and, to the surprise of every one, little Rose May and Fannie Thayer. Of course nothing was talked of that week out of study hours, but the soirée, and great indignation was expressed by most of the performers that they had not been allowed more time to prepare themselves. But Mr. Stein knew what he was about; he wished the musicale to be as much as was possible an impromptu affair, as it was not his idea to make an exhibition of the skill of his pupils, but to accustom them to play with ease and self-possession before strangers. He gave his pupils a list of their names in the order in which they were to play, selected from the music belonging to each girl several pieces, from which she was to choose one, exercising her own taste and judgment; decided himself upon the duets he wished performed, and then informed them that his part in the matter was ended; from that moment he was to be nothing but a spectator. "But, Mr. Stein," exclaimed one, "just _please_ tell me, can I play this well enough?" and then from a second, "O Mr. Stein, _would_ you play this?" and "Oh, I never can play _any_ of these before any one!" from a third, and many other exclamations and lamentations were poured upon him; but he only held up his hands in a deprecating way. "Now, young ladies, do not, do not, I beg of you, ask me another question! I consider that you know any one of the pieces which I have laid aside for you to choose from sufficiently well to play anywhere; it only remains for you to decide which one you will play. Now, good-by until Friday; you will not see me until then, when I shall not come as your teacher, but as an invited guest, to have my ears delighted with the sweet sounds which I shall expect to hear from that instrument;" and with a profound bow the old German made his exit. But, notwithstanding his apparent unconcern as to the result of this new whim of his, Mr. Stein was really quite excited about it; several of his pupils at Miss Stiefbach's he considered were quite remarkable for their age, and he looked forward to the coming musicale with a feeling of pride not unmixed with fear, lest some of his favorites should fail to do themselves credit. Marion had noticed that for two weeks before the secret was generally known Georgie Graham had practised Chopin's Polonaise in A, every day, but since the whole school had been informed of the musicale she had only heard her play it twice. This induced her to think that Georgie, taking advantage of the knowledge which she had surreptitiously gained, had chosen that piece for Friday night, and having nearly perfected herself in it, was avoiding practising it, so that none of the girls might suspect what she intended to play. Marion would not have been likely to have thought of this, if she had not taken the Polonaise about the same time that Georgie had, and had often remarked that she thought Georgie played it better than anything else, and very much better than she did herself. Remembering this, and knowing that Georgie would be particularly anxious to excel her in the eyes of the whole school, and before invited guests, she felt perfectly confident that Chopin's Polonaise was the piece she had chosen. Now Georgie had certainly done everything she could to make Marion thoroughly uncomfortable ever since they had been back at school, and Marion had been actually longing for an opportunity to revenge herself. Here was the opportunity. The soirée was to open with a duet by Mattie Denton and Julia Thayer; then a solo by Florence, followed by a song from Alice Howard; then a piano solo from Marion, and after her Georgie Graham. This precedence over Georgie gave Marion the opportunity which she could not resist. She would play the Polonaise herself, thus forcing Georgie to choose another piece almost without a moment's notice. Do not despise her, my friends; she was very much like other girls, and had a natural desire to punish Georgie for all the mean, petty annoyances to which she had been subjected at her hands. A very wrong desire, I grant you, and one for which she blamed herself very much; but she had it, and consequently as a faithful chronicler I must write it. But do not for a moment suppose that she intended publicly to disgrace her school-mate; nothing of the kind; she knew that Georgie was perfectly capable, and perfectly willing to play any of her music before no matter how many strangers. She only wanted to provoke her, and spoil her nicely arranged plan of playing a very difficult and very brilliant piece of music, better than any of the other girls would be able to play, as they had not had the advantages of practising expressly for the occasion which she had taken. She was not at all jealous of Georgie, for although they were generally considered the rival pianists of the establishment, the rivalry was entirely on Georgie's side. Many might say that they played equally well, but the few who truly loved music for its own sake missed something in Georgie's playing which they found in Marion's. The secret was this: Georgie played from a love of the admiration and praise she received, and from an ambitious resolution she had made when a little child, that no one she knew should play better than she did herself. Consequently every one was struck with the accuracy and rapidity of her execution, and the brilliancy of her touch in all difficult music; but in more quiet pieces,--pieces that required that the soul of the performer should thrill through every chord, and vibrate with every touch of the piano, that the full depth and beauty of their perfect harmony might be conveyed to the listener's ear,--then it was that Georgie's playing seemed cold and mechanical, while that of Marion seemed an interpretation of the purest ideas of the composer. Friday afternoon came at last. Throughout the house the two pianos had been going at almost every hour in the day; early and late, before breakfast and after supper, might be heard duets, solos, and songs, until those scholars who were not to perform at the musical soirée declared themselves thoroughly disgusted with the whole affair, and hoped Miss Stiefbach would never have another. This afternoon, however, no one was allowed to go near the piano, and every girl was obliged to learn her lessons for Monday, and take her usual amount of exercise, notwithstanding that they had all begged and entreated to be permitted to give their last moments to music. Miss Stiefbach was obdurate and held her ground, for she knew the girls were all very much excited, and that nothing but a strict attention to other things would sufficiently calm them to enable them to play at all, that night. But just before tea excitement reigned supreme. To be sure it was divided and subdivided by being confined to the various rooms where the scholars were dressing themselves for the evening; still, if an entire stranger had walked through the lower part of the house where everything was quiet, and no one was to be seen except Miss Christine, who was arranging some beautiful flowers that had mysteriously made their appearance that afternoon, he would have felt perfectly sure that some event of an unusual and highly interesting nature was about to take place. As a rule all the scholars dressed very plainly, for Miss Stiefbach's motto regarding dress which she endeavored to instill into the youthful minds about her was, "Neatness, not display." But notwithstanding the fact that ordinarily all finery was eschewed, almost every girl had stowed away in her trunk at least one dress a little more elaborate than the rest of her wardrobe; a set of pretty jewelry, or handsome ribbons, "in case anything should happen;" and now something was actually going to happen; the dull routine of school-life was to be broken in upon, and consequently the little vanities of this world would have a chance to air themselves. "To friz, or not to friz! that is the question!" exclaimed Marion, as she turned from her looking-glass and appealed to Florence, who was buttoning her best-fitting cloth boots. "Why, friz of course; you know it's the most becoming." "Oh, I know that well enough; but you see I was too sleepy to put it up last night, and now I shall have to do it with hot slate-pencil, and it's the ruination of the hair." "I guess it won't hurt it for just this once, and this is certainly a great occasion," answered Florence; "what are you going to wear on it,--cherry?" "Oh, no! that lovely gold band you gave me; it just suits my dress, and lights up beautifully. I like to wear only one color when I can." "That is all very well for you to say (these boots are _rayther_ snug), because you're a blonde, and look well in plain colors; but I'm such a darkey that nothing but red and yellow suits me," said Florence. "So much the better. I don't think there is anything handsomer than a rich orange or a bright scarlet, and sometimes a little of both is just the thing. There! how does that look?" continued Marion, as she put the last hair-pin in her back braids, gave an extra touch to the gleaming waves of her front hair, and straightened the narrow gold satin band which ran through them. "Perfectly lovely!" enthusiastically cried Florence; "you've got it just high enough without being a bit too high, and those crimps are heavenly! Now put on your dress; I want to see the whole effect before I get myself up." "I don't think it is quite long enough, do you?" asked Marion, in a doubtful tone, as she shook out the folds of a rich Irish poplin, and threw it over her head; "it is so awfully hard to get a dress just the right length, when you are not old enough for a train, and too old to have it up to your knees! But there! how's that?" and she turned for her friend's final verdict. "Lovely! just lovely! That is the prettiest shade of green I _ever_ saw; and _such_ a poplin! Where did you get it?" "Uncle George brought it to me from Ireland; wasn't it good of him? But come, Florence, you really must hurry; I expect the tea-bell will ring any minute; it's a blessed thing Miss Stiefbach put tea off half an hour, or we should never have been dressed beforehand. O Flo! what a stunning dress! I never saw it before." "_Do_ you like it? I didn't show it to you, for I was afraid you would think it was terribly niggery; but I saw it in Chandler's window, and just walked in and bought it without saying boo to auntie, and it really is quite becoming to me, I'm so black." "Becoming! I should think it was; I never saw you look so well in anything in your life. If the thing had been made for you it couldn't have suited your style better, and that Roman-gold jewelry is just right for it; in fact, as mademoiselle used to say, you are decidedly 'comme il faut.'" The two girls certainly made a charming picture as they stood together, each interested and eager that the other should look her best. Marion's beautiful hair fell slightly over her forehead in soft, curling waves, seeming even lighter and brighter than ever, and making the contrast with her dark eyes and eyebrows all the more marked. Her fair skin and glowing cheeks were set off to advantage by the rich green dress she wore, which, though simply trimmed and in keeping with her years, was very handsome. It would have been hard to choose between the two, for each in her own style was certainly very lovely. Florence's hair was drawn off from her low, broad forehead, as she always wore it, and she had nothing on it but a tiny gilt band, like a golden thread encircling her head; which, though she did not know it, was a perfect Clytie in contour. Her dress was a French poplin, the ground a rich blue, while all over it, at regular intervals, were embroidered singularly odd-shaped figures in the brightest-colored silks, giving it a peculiar, piquante appearance, and perfectly suiting the wearer's brunette beauty. Perhaps I have given too much time and space to dress; but parents and guardians may skip the above passage, as it is written expressly for young girls, who, I know from personal experience, are very naturally interested in such matters. The hour at last arrived. The grand-piano stood between the folding-doors which separated the two large parlors; in the back room was Miss Christine, surrounded by all the school, and in the front sat Miss Stiefbach and the invited guests, about twenty in number, all of them refined, cultivated persons, many of them quite severe musical critics. Mr. Stein fluttered from one room to the other, trying hard to appear unconcerned; but I doubt if any of his pupils were in a greater state of excitement than he. It had been an undecided question whether or no he should stand by the piano and turn over the music; but the majority concluded that he would only make them more nervous, so he retired to the back of the front parlor, in a position where he could command a view of every note in the key-board. M. Béranger made his appearance at an early hour, and declared his intention of sitting with Miss Christine, to help her preserve order. She remonstrated with him, telling him he could hear the music to much better advantage in the other room; but nevertheless, when the company was all seated, and silence reigned supreme preparatory to the opening duet, M. Béranger quietly ensconced himself in the back parlor. The fatal moment had at last arrived; the musicale was about to commence. Marion sat through the first duet, trying hard not to think of herself, and to listen to the music; but she heard nothing but a confusion of sounds, the beating of her own heart sounding loudest of all. Florence's piece she did enjoy, and joined heartily in the applause which followed its 'finale,' and gave her friend's hand a congratulatory squeeze, as she came back to the seat beside her. But in a very few moments Alice Howard's song was ended, and as the murmurs of approbation died away, Marion took her seat at the piano. To all outward appearance she was calm and self-possessed, and with a strong effort she summoned her almost indomitable will to her aid and struck the first chords clearly and decisively. Through the first two pages everything went well; but just as she was about to turn over her music, she missed one or two notes with her left hand. No one who was not perfectly familiar with every bar of the music would have noticed the omission; but to Marion it seemed as if she had made a terrible discord. Her forced composure left her, and all her nervousness came back again; she turned over hastily; the music slipped from her fingers and fell to the keys; she grasped it blindly with both hands, but the loose sheets fluttered to the floor, and confused, embarrassed, and mortified almost beyond endurance; she stooped to pick them up, amid a silence which was unbroken, save by Miss Stiefbach, who said in cold, hard tones:-- "Miss Berkley, do not attempt to repeat your piece; such carelessness is unpardonable." The hot blood rushed to Marion's face; then as suddenly receded, leaving it deathly white. She rose from the piano, and with a firm step and untrembling lips walked quietly to her seat. But although externally she was so calm as to appear almost indifferent, her mind was in a state of the wildest excitement. The air immediately about her seemed filled with a confusion of sounds, rushing, whirring, whirling about her; while the dead silence of the room seemed to take palpable shape and weight, crushing upon her, until she felt as if she must rush from the room to break through the unbearable stillness, or scream aloud to silence the imaginary sounds that were ringing in her ears. But she did neither; she sat quietly in her seat, the object of stealthy but almost general scrutiny. Some of the girls looked at her with pitying, sympathizing eyes; those who did not like her exchanged glances of satisfaction; but all refrained from speaking to her, or otherwise showing their sympathy,--all but Florence; she slipped her hand into her friend's, and there it remained for the rest of the evening. When Marion first struck the piano, and Georgie Graham saw what she was about to play, her rage and indignation knew no bounds; but when the music fell, and Marion stood mortified, and, as she thought, disgraced in the eyes of every one, her spirits rose to a most unparalleled height, and elated and radiant with satisfaction she took her seat at the piano, and played the Polonaise almost faultlessly; better than she had ever played it before. With the exception of Marion, all the pupils acquitted themselves with a great deal of credit; but for a while her failure seemed to cast a slight shadow over the evening's enjoyment; for her beauty, and the heroic manner with which she had borne her disgrace, aggravated as it was by Miss Stiefbach's very unnecessary rebuke, had won for her the admiration of all the guests, most of whom were entire strangers to her. After the close of the musicale, as pupils and guests were mingling together, and the room was noisy with animated conversation, Miss Christine went up to Marion, who was standing in a retired corner of the room talking to M. Béranger, and taking her hand said:-- "Marion, now that we are apparently unobserved I must tell you how sorry I was that Miss Stiefbach should have spoken so severely to you. I am sure she was not aware how unkind it seemed; she did not intend to hurt your feelings, and probably thought from your apparent calmness that you were really not at all nervous, and that dropping your music was nothing but carelessness and want of interest." Marion made no reply, her lips seemed glued together, and Miss Christine continued:-- "I was surprised that Georgie should have played the Polonaise. I rarely speak of the faults of one girl to another, and perhaps I ought not now, but I must say, I did not think I had a scholar who would be so unkind as to choose a piece she knew one of her companions had chosen." The rebuke intended for Georgie struck directly home to Marion. She had been struggling with herself ever since Miss Christine had stood there, knowing that she ought, before the evening was over, to tell her teacher the unworthy part she had acted; now every sense of honor and justice compelled her to do so. But directly beside her stood M. Béranger, and her pride rebelled at being again disgraced in his eyes, for his kindness and forbearance, ever since their first lesson, had won for him her sincere esteem and regard. The struggle was severe, but momentary, for raising her eyes to Miss Christine, she said:-- "It was a very contemptible thing, Miss Christine; nothing but an intense desire for revenge could have induced me to select a piece I knew Georgie had previously chosen." "You, Marion!" exclaimed Miss Christine; nothing else, just that exclamation; but the tone of her voice cut Marion more deeply than any harsh rebuke could have done. "Yes, Miss Christine, I chose it, knowing that Georgie had practised it on purpose to play it to-night. I thought as I was to play first I should be able to disconcert her. I am heartily ashamed of myself; my disgrace was nothing but what I deserved." For a moment there was silence. Miss Christine was shocked to find Marion could have done such a thing. Sarcastic, haughty, disagreeable to her companions in many ways, she had known her to be, but mean never; she could not understand it. If she had known the disgraceful part Georgie had really taken in the affair; if she had heard of the eaves-dropping of which she had been guilty in the school-room, to punish which had been quite as great an inducement for Marion's conduct as a desire for revenge, she would have felt very differently; but of that Marion said nothing. But Miss Christine was too kind-hearted, and understood her pupil too well to speak sternly to her; besides, she knew it must have cost Marion a severe struggle to exonerate Georgie at the expense of herself, and doubly so in the presence of M. Béranger. In fact, when the first shock of surprise had passed off, she felt that the nobleness of Marion's expiation had atoned for her fault, and she could not help thinking that there were many girls in the school who would have held their tongues, and been only too glad to thrust the blame on to one who was so intensely disagreeable to them. These thoughts flashed through Miss Christine's mind in a moment, and holding out her hand, she said in her kindest tones;-- "My dear Marion, I am sure this is the last time you will ever do anything so unworthy of yourself." Marion's only reply was a warm pressure of that dear hand, as she turned and left the room. "Do you not judge Mlle. Berkley too hasteelie?" whispered M. Béranger. "There is something behind all this, which you do not yet perceive. I feel verie sure that Mees Georgie do know more tan she do tell." CHAPTER XII. SARAH BROWN SPEAKS HER MIND. "Now where do you suppose they came from, Marion? I don't know of any one round here who has a conservatory; they must have come from Springfield. Who could have sent them?" asked Sarah Brown. "I'm sure I don't know; aren't they lovely?" replied Marion; "but here comes Miss Christine,--let's ask her. Miss Christine," she said, turning round quickly as her teacher entered the room, "who sent you these lovely flowers yesterday?" Miss Christine started at the abrupt, point-blank question, and looked a trifle confused:-- "Why, really, Marion, I--that is,--M. Béranger sent them here; but, as the box had no address, I presume they were for the benefit of the whole school. I certainly did not intend to monopolize them." "No, of course you didn't, you dear old Christian!" exclaimed Marion with the affectionate familiarity she often used towards her teacher; "of course you didn't; and as they were meant for all of us, you won't mind it a bit if I appropriate this little sprig of geranium, and do just as I've a mind to with it, now will you?" "No, I don't think I could refuse that, although it does seem a pity to take it out of water. Why, Marion, what are you going to do with it?--put it in my hair! No, no, it's too pretty, and it will wither in such a little while; do take it out!" "No, I shan't do any such a thing. You gave it to me to do just what I chose with it, and I _choose_ to have it in your hair; so you must not take it out." "No, Miss Christine, don't!" exclaimed Sarah Brown. "You ought to keep it in, even if it's only to please Marion, for most girls would have stuck it in their own heads; but she never _says_ anything or _does_ anything like most girls." "Hold your tongue, Sarah!" peremptorily replied Marion; "you don't know what you're talking about." "Yes, I do," replied Sarah, emphasizing every word with a shake of the head. "I know perfectly well what I am talking about, and you know I know it, and _I_ know I shan't know it much longer without letting somebody else know it; so there!" "Well, Sarah," said Miss Christine, who could not resist joining Marion in a hearty laugh at Sarah's excited and rather incoherent sentence, "if you and Marion know what you are talking about, that is certainly more than I can say, and as it is never polite to allude to a secret in the presence of a third party. I think I ought to be that somebody else, whom you are 'to let know it;'" and Miss Christine shook her head in laughing imitation of Sarah. "Well, I'll tell you one thing, Miss Christine; it's about Marion's--" "Sarah Brown, hold your tongue!" cried Marion, at the same time clapping her hand over Sarah's mouth. "Marion Berkley, I shan't!" cried Sarah, struggling to free herself, and gasping out at intervals broken sentences perfectly unintelligible to Miss Christine; then, as Marion loosed her hold, she shouted: "It's about Marion's break-down! there!" "Sarah Brown, you'll be sorry for this!" cried Marion, her eyes flashing with indignation. "Sarah! Marion!" exclaimed Miss Christine, looking from one to the other in utter amazement. "I don't understand you at all; what is this all about?" "She doesn't know what she is talking about, and I think she had better mind her own business!" exclaimed Marion. "I do know what I'm talking about, and it's just as much my business as it is any one else's; if it isn't, I'll make it so." "Girls! girls! you cannot think how you grieve and astonish me. Do you know how you are talking? Your language is unladylike in the extreme. But"--turning to Sarah--"even that is not so unpardonable as the thoughtlessness which could lead you to speak of Marion's failure last night, when you know it must be extremely unpleasant for her to have it alluded to in any way." "Miss Christine, it's too bad for you to speak so to me," cried Sarah, the tears now streaming down her cheeks, and her voice pitched to its most excited tones. "You know I just worship Marion, only she won't let me show it, and I never did an unkind thing to her in my life; but I told her I should tell about the Polonaise, and so I will; no one shall stop me!" "Sarah, you forget to whom you are speaking," quietly replied Miss Christine, adding as she glanced at Marion, and noticed that she stood with her lips tightly compressed, "If you have the affection for Marion which you profess, you will cease to speak of a subject which evidently annoys her." "Well, it has no business to annoy her, and I mean to tell every girl in the school," retorted Sarah, now fairly beside herself; and raising her voice until she fairly shouted, she called to the girls who were passing the door, on the way to the library, "Come in here, girls! come in here, every one of you! Yes, Georgie Graham, you too, I want you all. Now listen to what I've got to say. You all thought Marion Berkley ought to have been ashamed of herself to play the Polonaise when she knew Georgie was going to play it; and you were all glad she broke down, because almost all of you hate her, and are jealous of her because she's the handsomest, and the smartest, and the very best girl in the school every way; and because she doesn't say one thing to your back and another to your face, the way most of you do; but I'll tell you why she played it. She played it because that creature there--" pointing her finger at Georgie, who happened to be the central figure in the group of astonished listeners--"because that girl was in the anteroom _listening_, _eaves-dropping_, as she always is, and knew all about the musicale two weeks before any of us, and practised, and practised, by stealth, just for no other reason than to show off before company, and put Marion in the shade; and Marion played it just to punish Georgie for that and fifty other mean things she's done. I suppose you think it was hateful in Marion; but _I_ don't; I only just wish that for once she'd had a little of Georgie's _brass_,--for _she's_ got enough for every girl in the school,--and then she wouldn't have broken down. But I haven't done yet," exclaimed the excited girl, after stopping to take breath, "I haven't done yet; when Miss Christine told Marion how sorry she was that Georgie should have played the piece she had chosen, Marion told her the whole truth up and down. No, not the whole truth. She never told about Georgie's listening to Miss Stiefbach; no, not a word! She just told her she deserved to break down herself for having treated Georgie so unkindly; and there aren't a dozen girls in the school but what would have told on another to save herself. Now, who do you think was the mean one, I should like to know?" and Sarah glanced round the room with an air of triumph; then as suddenly changing her expression to one of contempt, she exclaimed, "You needn't say anything. I know you think just as Marion does, that I've been meddling in business that does not concern me; but I don't care _that_ for one of you;" and, snapping her fingers in the air, Sarah sat down in the nearest chair, completely exhausted by her harangue. "Young ladies! young ladies! what is the meaning of this noise?" exclaimed Miss Stiefbach, in utter amazement, as she entered the room by another door from that around which almost all the scholars were crowded. "Why are you not at work in the library? Miss Christine, explain the cause of this excitement." Miss Christine, who had heretofore been completely overpowered by the suddenness and volubility of Sarah's outbreak, saw at a glance that something must be done at once to prevent her from going through the whole again to Miss Stiefbach; for she dreaded the effect it might have upon her sister, knowing that she would look upon the matter from her cold, calculating point of view, and probably punish Sarah severely for her disrespectful conduct, utterly ignoring the generous impulses which had led to it. As for Georgie, when she hastily glanced at her, and saw her usually haughty head hanging in shame and confusion, she felt that for the present at least her punishment was sufficiently severe. So stepping forward and laying her hand on Sarah's shoulder, at the same time placing herself almost directly in front of her, she turned to Miss Stiefbach and said:-- "Sarah has been rather disrespectful to me; but I do not think she was intentionally rude. I shall have to send her to her own room to do her mending by herself. The rest of the young ladies must go at once to the library, and I will be with them, directly." Miss Stiefbach made no reply, although it did not escape her keen eye that more had been going on than she was made aware of; but she knew by previous experience that there were times when Miss Christine's judgment was wiser than her own. She turned towards the door, and with a commanding gesture waved the girls out. Marion hesitated, and would have held back, but Miss Stiefbach coldly remarked:-- "Marion, unless you, too, are in disgrace, you will please leave the room;" and motioning her to lead the way sailed out of the parlor. The instant they were gone Sarah threw her arms around her teacher's neck and sobbed aloud. "I could not help it, Sarah; indeed I could not," said Miss Christine with a troubled voice as she stroked her pupil's hair; "it certainly was very wrong of you to behave so, and if I had not sent you to your room I should have had to tell Miss Stiefbach all about it, and I am afraid she would have punished you more severely than I have." "It isn't that, Miss Christine, it isn't that," sobbed Sarah. "I'd a great deal rather go to my room; and you knew it when you sent me there. It's about Marion; she said she'd never speak to me again if I told; she didn't know I knew about it until this morning." "Well, how did you know it, dear; did any one tell you?" "No, and I wasn't listening either," exclaimed Sarah, raising her flushed face; "but several of us knew how Georgie found out about the musicale, and I noticed, just as Marion did, how much she had practised the Polonaise, and last night I heard her tell one of the girls she was glad Marion broke down, it just _did her good_; and I determined then I'd pay her for it. I was standing very near you, though you did not know it, when Marion told you all about it last night, and I thought it was outrageous that she should bear all the blame; and before M. Béranger too! It was a shame! But oh, dear, Miss Christine, it hasn't done a bit of good! She'll just hate me now, I know she will, for she almost made me promise not to tell." "I cannot say I quite approve of your method of doing Marion justice, but I hardly think she will be very severe to such a disinterested little champion," said Miss Christine, who could not help smiling at the utter wretchedness of Sarah's tone; "however, here she comes to speak for herself." "O Miss Christine, do come in there! I made an excuse to get me some darning-cotton; but Miss Stiefbach's reading the most stupid book of sermons; do come in and take her place! What!" as she caught sight of Sarah, "is she here yet?" "Yes, Marion, she is here, and is making herself perfectly miserable, because she believes she has made you an enemy for life. Don't you think you can convince her of the contrary?" "O Marion!" sobbed Sarah, "please don't be mad with me, for I really could not help it. I thought I was doing it all for your good, and when I got started I _could_ not stop till I had it all out." "You little bit of a goose! did you really think I was going to be angry with you after making such a thrilling stump-speech in my favor?" and throwing herself on her knees beside Sarah's chair, Marion looked up at her with a smiling face, but with eyes not undimmed by tears. "And you really think I did it from kindness?" "Yes, I certainly do!" "And you won't snub me any more?" cried Sarah, giving Marion a passionate kiss. "Oh, I can't promise you that," laughed Marion; "a little, healthy snub, now and then, does you good, and I shouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't give it to you, but"--and her voice assumed the tender, affectionate tone so rarely heard by her school-mates, and which touched Sarah even more than her words--"I shall never be really unkind to you again, and I promise to love you as much as you wish." "You really mean it, Marion? You really mean that you will love me?" "Yes, I really mean it. Miss Christine shall be my witness that I have this day gained a friend." "Yes, my dear," answered Miss Christine, who had been a silent but interested observer of this little scene: "and a truer one I do not think you could have." CHAPTER XIII. THE WANDERER RETURNS. For several days the musicale, and the events connected with it, formed the subjects of general conversation. At first Sarah's remarkable address to her school-mates appeared likely to have a contrary effect from that which she desired, being calculated to make Marion more disliked than ever by those to whom she had been held up by her zealous little champion as superior to themselves in every way. But Sarah, despite her quick temper, was a great favorite in the school, for her warm heart and generous nature made her as ready to do any one a kindness as she was to fly into a passion. She always spoke the truth, and if she unintentionally wounded or even annoyed one of her companions she was ever ready to make reparation. Perhaps many of them felt the truth of her remarks, and thought that in this case silence was their only safeguard. Miss Christine had spoken privately to the older scholars, entreating them not to harbor any ill-will towards either of the three immediately concerned, and so the matter was passed quietly over, and that which in many instances could have had nothing but evil results seemed likely in this one to be productive of good; for Marion, fearing that she had been the means of depriving Sarah of some of her warmest friends, almost unconsciously assumed a different bearing towards all her companions, and for her new friend's sake exhibited an interest in persons and things about her which she had heretofore treated with supreme indifference. And so the days wore on, and Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching. None of the girls who lived at a distance were going home this year, and the house was filled with lamentations, and half-stifled fears lest certain boxes should fail to make their appearance. Marion had as yet received no definite news from her mother regarding Jemima Dobbs, and her heart was filled with disappointment when she thought of the lonely Thanksgiving they were likely to have at the farm-house in place of the bright and happy one she had pictured to herself. She was sitting in her window one morning thinking of Aunt Bettie, when her door suddenly opened, a voice cried, "Look out for your head!" and a thick letter was shot into her lap. She caught it eagerly, not stopping to think whose was the unerring hand that had so accurately hit its mark, and tearing off the envelope in true school-girl fashion, she glanced rapidly along the pages, when her eyes were caught with the words: "Jemima will be at the B---- station Wednesday, when the seven o'clock train arrives; be sure and have some one there to meet her." With a cry of delight Marion ran to the door to call Florence, and was met by that young woman at the head of the stairs. She received the happy tidings as enthusiastically as Marion could possibly wish, and going back to their room, and seating themselves in their usual window, Marion read the letter aloud:-- "BOSTON, Nov. 24th. "MY DEAR DAUGHTER:--Papa has just gone down town; Fred is at school; and Charley radiantly happy in the possession of a new mechanical toy, which I expect will be demolished in a few moments, as that young gentleman is developing a surprising fancy for inquiring into the 'why and wherefore' of everything he takes hold of. As everything seems to promise a quiet time for me, I think I will devote myself to you, as I have quite a long story to tell you. "I know you have been very much disappointed that my recent letters have contained no news of your protégé; but I am in hopes that this one will put all your anxiety to rest, and quite equal your most ardent expectations. "After waiting some time, Mrs. Benson received a letter from the lady in Charlestown, with whom the girl calling herself Arabella Dobbs has gone to live, in which she wrote that Arabella had stayed with her three weeks, but had left, thinking she could find work in some wholesale clothing establishment, that would prove more profitable than living out. "The lady also voluntarily wrote, that she had every reason to think the girl was living under an assumed name, as she had repeatedly answered questions directed to the cook, whose name was Jemima, and seemed very much confused, when after doing so several times, remarks were made, and excused herself by saying that her mother used to call her Jemima 'just for fun.' "Of course we were not much longer in doubt as to the identity of Miss Arabella, but we were, if possible, wider from the mark than ever, for we had not the most remote idea to what clothing establishment she had gone, and there being several in the city, it did not seem very probable that without much difficulty we should be able to find the right one. While I stood talking with Mrs. Benson, as she was looking over the directory, a girl came up to the desk. I moved aside that she might more easily speak to Mrs. Benson, and she asked in a weak, tired voice, 'Any letters for me, ma'am?'--'What name?' demanded Mrs. Benson, running her finger down the column of the book, and not raising her eyes. 'Arabella Dobbs,' replied the servant-girl. "Up jumped Mrs. Benson, slamming the covers of the directory together with a report like a pistol, while I turned, equally unable to conceal my astonishment, and looked at the girl as if she had been a ghost. As you may imagine, such a proceeding could not be very agreeable to the poor thing, and she looked from one to the other with a bewildered, half-frightened expression. "I must say at my first glance I was not favorably impressed with her. I had looked for a round-faced, good-natured-looking country girl; perhaps a trifle 'airy' after her short experience of city life; but I saw a thin, angular face and figure, the hair drawn tightly off her forehead up to the very top of her head, and done in an immense waterfall; a little, round hat tipped forward, the brim just reaching her forehead, across which lay a row of corkscrew curls; her dress, which had originally been a good, serviceable delaine, but was now so soiled as to almost defy description, was looped up and puckered into a great bunch behind, in imitation of the panniers worn by the fashionable young ladies of the day. All this I took in at a glance, and confess to being rather disgusted with the young woman; but when I looked carefully at her face all such uncharitable feelings vanished, for it bore the marks of recent illness and real distress. "Do not think, my dear Mab, that I kept the poor creature standing as long as it has taken me to write all this; my thoughts flew much faster than my pen ever can. I went up to her, and putting out my hand said, before Mrs. Benson could recover from her surprise, "Jemima, I believe there are no letters for you now, but I can tell you about your dear mother, who is very, very lonely without her daughter." "It is useless to give you an account of our conversation, for I cannot remember it myself; the poor girl was so overcome by my unexpected kindness, and her own joy at finding a hand held out to her when she most needed help, that she opened her heart to me at once. The person who influenced her to come to Boston proved to be anything but a friend, and Jemima has paid heavily for following her advice; it was through her, as Mrs. Dobbs supposed, that she was induced to give her name as Arabella, and that act was the key-note to all her misfortune. She succeeded in getting work at a clothing establishment, at what seemed to her country ears most liberal terms; but work as hard as she could, she could earn but little more than enough to pay her board. Crowded into a room with more than twenty other girls, bending over her work in the stifled atmosphere from morning until night, soon told upon her health, accustomed as she had always been to pure country air and bodily exercise, and she had hardly been at the place three weeks when she was taken ill with a violent fever. The woman with whom she boarded, although a cold, grasping creature, was prevented from sending her away by the entreaties of the other boarders, who, as the fever was not of a malignant nature, insisted upon having her kept in the house. Some of the girls were very kind to her; but they could give her but little attention, as their time was mostly passed in the workroom. After the first severity of the fever passed, and the tiresome days of convalescence were reached, the poor thing yearned for home and dear, familiar faces; she had sent her friends to Mrs. Benson's several times to inquire for letters, but with most incredible short-sightedness had always told them to give the name Arabella Dobbs, entirely forgetting that her mother did not know she had thrown aside the countrified Jemima. "The day I saw her was the first day she had walked out, and she had literally dragged herself along the street, and up the two long flights leading to the office. She had given all her dresses, with the exception of the one she had on, to her landlady, and the woman had threatened to turn her out if she did not pay her five dollars that night. I fortunately had the carriage with me, and drove with Jemima to her boarding-place. The woman was all smiles and blandishments when she saw me, and quite overpowered Jemima with her tender inquiries as to how she felt after her walk; but I cut her short by telling her I had come to take Jemima home with me, and paid the five dollars she owed her. I think the woman would have asked more if she had not seen I was pretty determined; and so promising to send for Jemima's trunk, which was now almost entirely empty, I brought the exhausted girl here, that she might rest a few days and gain strength for her journey. She evidently is longing for home, and I do not believe she will feel like herself until she gets there. I am having her a good, warm dress made, and shall give her my plain gray silk bonnet, that her mother's good sense need not be shocked at sight of her hat, which is about the size of a small saucer. I think she is very much humbled; she shows it in many ways; most of all in her dress, and I am happy to say the corkscrew ringlets no longer adorn her brow. Jemima will be at the B---- station when the seven o'clock train arrives; be sure and have some one there to meet her. "And now, my dear, I have only time to say that we are all well, and hoping to hear from you soon. I know this letter will be more interesting to you than if it contained pages of spicy news. I seem to see you and Florence enjoying its contents. Give my love to her, and accept more than ever a letter carried before for yourself, from your fond "MAMMA." "She'll be here to-morrow, as true as you live!" exclaimed Marion. "Oh, I am so glad! for now Aunt Bettie will have a Thanksgiving after all, and I was afraid it would be anything but that." "Of course you'll go up there with her." "No, I shan't. I shall go this afternoon, if Miss Christine will let me, and of course she will, and tell auntie that Jemima is found, and will probably be with her by Saturday; then you see Jemima will surprise her by getting there to-morrow, for I must have a surprise about it somewhere. I shall tell auntie how sick Jemima has been, and that she must not be the least bit harsh with her." "But I should think you would want to go too, so as to see the fun," said Florence. "Fun! I don't think there'll be much fun in it. I believe it will be rather a _teary_ time at first, and I prefer to be out of the way." "In other words, you think it would be a little easier for them to be by themselves; so you give up seeing the 'grand tableau' at the close of the play, which never would have happened but for you." "Don't be a goose, Flo!" laughed Marion, who, although radiant with delight, and a secret sort of satisfaction, tried to remain cool, for fear she should appear too much pleased with the part she had played in the affair. "Who are you going to send to the station?" asked Florence. "I'm going myself." "Do you suppose Miss Stiffy's going to let you march off by yourself two days in succession?" "Not a bit of it," replied Marion. "I'm going to get up a party to go to the farm this afternoon, and I'll manage it so that I can hang back, and tell the good news after you have all gone out." "And then rush off and not give her a chance to thank you." "I dare say," replied Marion; "but I mustn't stop here; it's time we went down, for the clock struck five minutes ago." Marion was as good as her word, and arranged a party for Aunt Bettie's that afternoon, taking care, however, to have Florence gain the required permission, as she knew she should want the same favor the next day. She managed to make Aunt Bettie understand in a few words all that was necessary of her daughter's story, leaving it for Jemima to make up deficiencies, and hurried off, overtaking her companions before they had missed her. The next day, finding out at what hour the train in which Jemima was coming would arrive, she walked to the village, made arrangements with a man who was in the habit of doing errands for Miss Stiefbach, to have a comfortable covered wagon ready to take Jemima and her trunk to the farm, and then went to the station to await the arrival of the cars. As she sat waiting, the station-master came into the room, and planting himself in front of her, with both hands in his pockets, and chewing a toothpick suddenly accosted her with:-- "Goin' deown?" "Going where?" asked Marion, not overpleased at his advances. "Deown--deown to Boston;" jerking his thumb over his shoulder, as if that city was situated in the room directly behind him. "No, sir." "No? 'spectin' someun p'raps." Marion made no reply. "S'pose you're one o' them gals up t'the schule?" Marion still observed a dignified silence. "Spectin' one o' the gals?" queried the man, who, being a true Yankee, was not at all abashed by the coldness with which his questions, or rather comments, were received. "No, sir," replied Marion. "You ben't?--_not_ one o' the gals; you're marm, p'raps?" "No, sir." "Did you say as how you b'longed up t'the schule?" "No, I did not say so," replied Marion, too irritated to be amused at his persistency. "Oh, you didn't; wall, I didn't know but p'raps you did, an' ef so, I hed somethin' to tell yer, that's all;" and whistling a tune he was about to walk off, when Marion exclaimed:-- "I didn't say whether I belonged to the school or not, because you didn't ask me." "Didn't I jest say I s'posed you was one o' them gals up t'the schule?" demanded the man, still chewing his toothpick, and looking at her as if his last remark was a poser. "So you did," replied Marion; "you stated the fact, and as I didn't say anything took it for granted I was one of the scholars. When you ask a direct question perhaps I'll answer it." "Aint you a smart un?" exclaimed the man. "Wall now, that's what I call right deown smart; jest answer to the pint, an' then yer don't git cornered;" and he nodded his head at her in real admiration. "Wall, I s'pose I must put it pretty sharp ef I expect to git an answer. Neow," taking his hat off and rubbing his hands through his hair as if to collect his ideas, "be you one o' them gals as goes t'the schule jest abeout tew miles from here?" "Yes, I am," replied Marion, who, now that she saw the man had some motive besides idle curiosity, descended from her loftiness. "Wall, I've got a box in here that came deown in the express train, an' I didn't kneow but what you'd come to see 'bout it. It's fur one o' them gals, an' 's I haint bin here long I haint much used to the business, an' I didn't know heow to git it up there." "Who is it for?" asked Marion. "I don't remember; one o' yer highfalutin sort o' names. But you jest come and see it;" and he led the way into the "gentleman's room," and pointed to a large box standing in the corner. Marion walked up to it, and glancing at the address exclaimed: "Why, it is for me!" "Wall, neow du tell!" exclaimed the station-master; "neow I call that quite a coincydance, I du!" "Well, I call it a very nice box," laughed Marion; "and there comes a man I've engaged to do a job for me, and he can take it in his wagon, and leave it at the school." "You're a smart un, I tell you," remarked the man as he lifted the box and carried it to the door; "you know how to do the bisness, an' no mistake." Before Marion could reply, or take any notice of his remark, the whistle of an engine was heard, and as she went out on to the platform the train whizzed up and stopped If it had not have been for her mother's preparation, she would never have recognized in the thin, subdued, pale young woman who stepped from the cars, the bright, rosy country girl she had seen so many times at Aunt Bettie's. She welcomed Jemima most cordially, making no allusions that could embarrass the poor girl, and rattled on a string of good-natured nothings, as she delivered the little hair trunk into the hands of her charioteer, and then placed Jemima on the back seat. "Aint you goin', miss?" asked the driver. "Oh, no! I prefer to walk. Good-by, Jemima. Give my love to your mother, and tell her I wish her a happy thanksgiving." Jemima grasped the hand Marion held out to her, and exclaimed under her breath, just loud enough for Marion to catch the words, "God bless you, miss!" It was the first time she had spoken since she arrived; but I think Marion was satisfied. As Marion turned away from the wagon, her eyes fell upon the station-master, who, with his legs planted at a most respectful distance from each other, his hands still in the depths of his pockets, and his head cocked on one side, had been watching all the proceedings with the deepest interest. As she passed him he nodded his head slowly three times in the most serious manner, and remarked, with even more than his former emphasis, "You're a smart un!" CHAPTER XIV. MARION'S THANKSGIVING PARTY. "Where have you been?" exclaimed half-a-dozen girls as Marion entered the gate; "here's a splendid great box just come for you." "And who do you think was with the man that brought it?" asked one. "Why, Mimy Dobbs, as sure as you're born; you know she's been away ever so long, and the cook told me people thought she'd run away, and was never coming back at all, because she hated living with her mother up at that poky old farm." "Stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed Marion. "I advise cook to pay more attention to our dinners, and let other people's affairs alone. But that is a box worth having, if the inside prove as good as the out. Come, lend a hand, girls, and help me carry it upstairs, for if Miss Stiffy sees it I shall have to open it down here, and she'll _advise_ me to put most of the things in the larder, and that won't suit me at all." "Hush!" said Florence, as she took hold of one of the rope-handles with which the box was provided; "don't make a noise. Miss Stiefbach is in the secret-chamber; she passed through here a minute ago, and we girls all hustled round the box, and covered it up with our skirts; for it's such a bouncer we knew she'd make a fuss about it." "Come, ready now! You go first, and don't step on the back of your dress and stumble," whispered Marion. "Isn't it heavy though? Sarah Brown, do put your hands under, and give it a boost;--softly now!" Amid considerable pulling and tugging, accompanied with half-suppressed screams, as the corners of the box came in dangerous proximity to the wall, the two girls managed to get as far as the bend in the stairs, when, alas! notwithstanding Marion's warning, Florence made a misstep, and trod on her dress, which threw her violently back on to the stairs, bringing the box down with full force upon one of her feet. "Oh, it's half killing me! it's half killing me! take it up quick, or I shall scream right out!" exclaimed the poor girl, in low but agonized tones, which ought to have roused the sympathies of the hardest heart; but Marion and Sarah, notwithstanding they pitied Florence from the bottom of their hearts, were so full of laughter that, although they exerted to the utmost the little strength they had left, they could not move the box an inch. Poor Florence writhed and moaned in perfect torture, and not being a saint, but a very human girl, exclaimed, in tones of unmistakable anger, "I wish the old box was where it came from. If you don't stop laughing, and take it off my foot I'll yell at the top of my lungs!" Happily for all parties, Grace Minton and Julia Thayer, who had been watching them from below, sprang up the stairs, and, lifting the box, carried it into Marion's room. Florence could hardly move, and now that their laughter had subsided, Marion and Sarah helped her up to her room, making up by their devotion for their apparent thoughtlessness. "Oh, do be careful, Mab; it's almost killing me!" cried Florence, as she sat down on the edge of the bed, and Marion proceeded to take off her boot. "Oh! oh! just wait one minute till I brace myself,--there! Now give one awful pull, and have it over with." Marion did as she was told; the boot came off, but poor Florence, notwithstanding she shut her teeth tight, and clenched the coverlid with both hands, could not suppress a groan as she threw herself back on the bed. "Quick! quick! some camphor! cologne! rum! anything! she's going to faint!" cried Sarah Brown, clasping her hands, and jumping straight up and down, without offering to get either herself. "No, I'm not," said Florence, with considerable more energy than is generally shown by fainting persons; "but it did hurt terribly! Now pull off my stocking, please, and see if I've made a fuss about nothing. I shall be provoked if it isn't black and blue!" "I know just how you feel," said Marion, as she carefully pulled off the stocking; "it is a perfect satisfaction when one is hurt to have something to show for it; but mercy! I never saw such a looking foot; you'll be laid up for a week!" And there certainly seemed every reason to think Marion's prediction likely to prove true, for the edge of the box had made a deep, red groove across the instep, and the whole of the upper part of the foot was rapidly turning black and blue. "Bring the wash-basin full of water, and some towels, and bathe her foot very gently. I'll get some arnica and a roll of linen mother always has me bring in case I get hurt. What a lucky thing I happened to have it! Sarah, hand me a tumbler half full of water, and I'll put some arnica in it; it won't do for her to have it on clear." "Marion is right in her element," remarked Florence; "there's nothing she likes better than fussing over _wounds_." "Yes, particularly when they're of such a dangerous nature as this one," laughed Marion, as she knelt down to apply the arnica. After some time had been spent in sympathy and bathing, the injured foot was nicely bound up, and laid tenderly on the bed, but what to do for a stocking and shoe was the next question, for the foot was so much swollen that Florence could not possibly get on her own. "I tell you what I'll do," said Sarah Brown, who, now that there seemed no danger that Florence would faint, had become as cool as it was possible for her to be; "I'll just steal into Miss Stiffy's room, and get a pair of stockings out of her drawer, and a slipper too; she's got about forty pairs of creepers, and she won't miss 'em for a little while." "But suppose you should get caught?" exclaimed Florence; "then it would all come out, and we had better have told in the first place." "Not a bit of it! If we did it would spoil all our fun with Marion's box, for of course she intends to give us a treat." "Of course," replied Marion; "but why don't you go down into the laundry, and get Biddy to give you a pair? There are some there, I know, and she'll never tell of us." "Why, don't you see, Miss Stiefbach knows exactly how many pairs she puts into the wash, and if they didn't all come up she'd know it; but she won't miss 'em if I take them out of the drawer." "Well, if you really aren't afraid to risk it; and do be quick about it; don't make a bit of noise, for if Miss Stiefbach should catch you you'd never hear the last of it, and I should be to blame," said Florence. Sarah hurried along the entry until she reached Miss Stiefbach's room, which was directly over the private study, and then it occurred to her that Miss Christine might be in there; so she spoke and called her by name. Marion and Grace, who stood at the other door, exchanged glances with Florence, who was still on the bed, and all three looked like detected culprits. Sarah spoke again; but receiving no answer gently pushed the door open. She nodded her head to the girls to let them know that the coast was clear, and stealthily entered the room. Marion and Grace heard her as she crossed the room; then followed a moment of terrible silence; then they heard the creaking of the bureau-drawer as she slowly opened it. "Oh!" whispered Marion, "if she _should_ pull it out too far, and the whole thing come down on the floor with a bang! Miss Stiefbach would certainly hear it, and know some one was in there." "Hush!" answered Grace, "don't suggest anything go horrible! There, she's shutting it; so far so good; now for the slippers,--they're in the closet." "I know it, and that closet-door creaks awfully!" The closet-door did "creak awfully" and no mistake, and it seemed to the two girls, listening in almost breathless silence, that the noise was loud enough to be heard all over the house. In a moment they heard Sarah fumbling over the slippers, of which Miss Stiefbach always kept several pairs on hand, as she never wore anything else in the house. They felt comparatively safe now, for no sound was heard from below, except once in a while a laugh from the girls in the library, and Miss Stiefbach would not probably leave her study until supper time. They were just about to turn back into the room to go to Florence, when they heard the study-door open, and Miss Stiefbach's voice from below, saying, "In one moment, I am going upstairs to my room." What if she had heard the noise and was coming up to ascertain the cause! Marion rushed along the entry, reaching her teacher's room just as Sarah was carefully closing and latching the closet-door. "O Sarah, hurry! hurry! she's coming upstairs; she's at the foot of the stairs! Give me that slipper, and hide the stockings under your apron. Run for your life! No, no, it's no use, she'll meet us; we must face it out; don't look conscious." Sarah tucked the stockings under her apron, Marion slipped her arm through her friend's, and hiding the slipper between them, with beating hearts, and almost sure of detection, they walked slowly down the long entry, directly in the face and eyes of Miss Stiefbach. As they approached her she stopped, and with more than her usual mildness remarked:-- "Ah! young ladies, thinking of home, I dare say; but I trust you will have as pleasant a Thanksgiving here as there, although I am happy to say there has not been the usual influx of boxes." The girls laughed slightly in reply, nudging each other quietly as she passed on, restraining their desire to rush for Marion's room, and not until the door was fairly closed behind them did their pent-up feelings find vent, when Marion, tossing the slipper till it hit the ceiling, shouted:-- "Victory! three cheers for General Brown, the Stonewall Jackson of Massachusetts!" "But what in the world should I have done if you hadn't rushed in, and told me she was coming?" exclaimed Sarah. "Why, I should have run right into her!" "Lucky for you you didn't," remarked Grace; "she'd have given you Jessie; if you know what that is." "Well, Marion and Sarah," said Florence, "I think you're both perfect angels!" "Yes, dear, 'angels in disguise,'" remarked Marion. "Well, this angel will proceed to put your foot into Miss Stiffy's delicate, little stocking; the slipper will be a perfect fit, I know; you'll have the most stylish foot in town. There! now see if you can step on it." "Take hold of me, please, for I know I shan't be able to bear my whole weight on it!" "Don't be in a hurry; lean on my shoulder; put your well foot on the floor, and set the other down very carefully." "O Mab, it hurts awfully! I don't see how I can ever get down to tea in the world; but I shall have to grin and bear it, or else Miss Stiefbach will find it out." "Suppose you go down now," suggested Sarah, "and we can help you into the dining-room before the bell rings, and if we all crowd round you Miss Stiefbach won't notice the slipper." "That's a capital plan," said Marion; "now put your arm way over my shoulder, Flo. Grace, take hold of her that side, and Sallie go in front as a spy. I think this is growing interesting." "Very--for you," remarked Florence. "You poor child! does it hurt terribly? Don't step on it, hobble along as well as you can, and lean all your weight on us." With much hopping and halting, and little starts and agitated whispers, as they thought they heard Miss Stiefbach or Miss Christine behind them, they proceeded on their way, and after some little time reached the dining-room in safety, and as the tea-bell rang immediately after, and the scholars all came in together, nothing unusual was noticed; but they dreaded the moment when they should have to leave the dining-room on their way to the study, where Miss Stiefbach always read history aloud for an hour after supper. Marion had been turning it over in her own mind during the meal, and decided to make an attempt to get rid of the reading that night. "Miss Stiefbach," she asked, as supper was almost over, "didn't you say you hoped we should all have as pleasant a Thanksgiving as if we were at home?" "I believe I said so, Marion. I certainly meant it." "Well, do you know, when I'm at home, our Thanksgiving begins the night before, and we _never_ spend the evening reading history." Miss Stiefbach could not help joining in the general laugh, only her laugh was a dignified smile, and replied, "I suppose that means that you would like to give up our history to-night." "I don't think we should any of us weep if that should be the case." "No, I suppose not; and for fear you might if the reverse order of things was to take place, I will dispense with the reading to-night, and Miss Christine and myself will withdraw from the room, leaving you young ladies to chat over your supper for a while longer." "Oh, splendid!" "Thank you, Miss Stiefbach." "Just what we wanted!" etc., resounded from all sides, as, with a most unusually gracious bow, Miss Stiefbach left the room with Miss Christine, who nodded and smiled back at the girls, fully appreciating the pleasure they experienced at being released from all restraint. The closing of the door was a signal for a general hubbub; every tongue was unloosed, and the spirit of mischief reigned supreme. One girl drank her tea to find it strongly flavored with salt; another raised her goblet of water to her lips just as a piece of biscuit went splash to the bottom of the glass, dashing the contents into her face; a third turned suddenly on hearing her name called from the other side of the table, only to be hit plump on the nose with a hard cracker; and so it went on, a perfect Babel of shouts and cries; for the younger girls, following the example of the older ones, went in for a regular train, and pieces of bread and broken crackers were soon flying in every direction. Marion and Sarah took advantage of the confusion to get Florence up to her room; having succeeded in doing so, Marion produced a hammer, and getting down on her knees prepared to open that wonderful Thanksgiving box. "I mean to see what there is in it," she said, "and then if I can manage it, I'll get some of the girls up here, and we'll have a jolly time." With much hammering, pulling, and chattering, the cover of the box was at last removed, and Marion proceeded to display its contents to the eager eyes of her companions. "First of all, here's a note from mamma; now curb your impatience while I skim it over." Marion seated herself on the floor and having glanced down the page commenced reading it aloud:-- "BOSTON, Nov. 21st. "DEAR MARION:--I have only a moment to spare, for I have been so busy getting the box ready, that I have not had time to-day to write you a long letter, and only scratch off this bit of a note to let you know we are all well, and almost dreading to-morrow, because you will not be with us. "I hope you will enjoy the contents of your box. I think it would be an excellent plan for you to hand over some of the most substantial articles to Miss Stiefbach for the use of the community; but mind, I only make the suggestion, you can do as you please about following it; only don't go too far with your frolic, for I am perfectly sure you will have one. "Papa has made an addition to the bill of fare, which I submitted to him for inspection, of which I am supposed to be entirely ignorant; for, as he said, he was not entirely sure I would approve if I knew the contents of the brown-paper box, which you will find surrounded by your other goodies. As papa superintended the packing of it himself, and seemed particularly anxious lest it should not be sufficiently wrapped up, I cannot help suspecting that it has breakable qualities; whatever it is, my dear daughter, be judicious in your use of it. "My note has stretched into quite a letter. I am expecting the express-man any moment, so must close now with a thousand loving good-bys, "From your fond "MAMMA." "I wonder what it can be that papa has sent; something nice, I know! He doesn't think there is anything in the world too good for me,--an idea which I don't hesitate to encourage him in. Now, Sarah, just clear off that table, please, and pull it out into the middle of the room, so I can have a place to put all these things; toss the books and table-cover on to the bed there, beside of Florence. "First and foremost here are two loaves of cake, and such cake! Flo, do look at this one! That is some of Biddy's doings, I know; frosted elegantly, and 'Marion' in the centre all in quirlyqus; that's just like Bid! she's about as ridiculous over me as father is. What is the reason, girls,"--and Marion stopped short with the cake in both hands, and a change in her bright, joyous manner, "--that they all think so much of me at home, and hardly any one likes me here?" "Because you don't--" "There, Sarah Brown, that will do; I don't want to hear the rest," exclaimed Marion, putting up her hand with an impatient gesture. "I asked a question hastily, without thinking of the consequences. I'll take your answer for granted, and I know just as well what it would be as if you'd spoken; so you'll oblige me by keeping quiet." "Of course when 'Her Royal Highness' commands, her loyal subjects can have no choice but to obey," replied Sarah, with an air of mock humility and submission. "Well, see that you do," laughed Marion, "and put this great turkey on the table. I guess it will be policy for me to follow mamma's advice, and that gobbler will be handed over to Miss Stiffy. But see here, as true as you live, mamma has sent me a pair of cold ducks, and here's a glass of currant jelly; she knows I must have jell with my ducks. Here is a bundle of something, I'm sure I don't know what--oh, nuts! ever so many kinds, all cracked; that's splendid! And here is another of raisins, and a bundle of candy; take some, girls; hand it to Flo, Sarah, she can open it. Take some of these cookies, do; they're delicious, and lots of 'em, put in all round everywhere to fill up the cracks. I wish I could get out papa's box, but all these things are wedged in round it; besides, I must be careful not to break it, whatever _it_ is. Here's the last thing,--a bundle of prunes and dates, and from Fred; he knows I've a weakness for dates. And _now_ for papa's box; help me lift it out, Sarah, and take it over to the bed. Oh! oh! it's champagne! it's champagne, as sure as I'm a sinner; who would have believed it? Here's a card: 'Miss Marion Berkley, with the compliments of her totally depraved father.' That is papa right over! We always have a great joke about champagne, because I never drink it, except a glass with him Thanksgiving and Christmas day; you know I've always been home before, and he didn't mean I should be cheated out of it this year. Here it is, two bottles and a half-a-dozen glasses; we'll have a party to-night, a regular goose party, and drink the health of the dear, old darling." "What _would_ Miss Stiefbach say," exclaimed Florence, "if she knew you were going to have a regular Thanksgiving supper?" "Hold up her hands in holy horror; and of course it's a dreadful thing. I haven't the least doubt but what mamma thought it was cider." "Whom are you going to invite?" asked Sarah. "Only three besides ourselves; that will be six--a good number. Whom shall I ask, Flo?" "That's for you to say, I should think." "Well, you know it doesn't make much difference to me. I'll ask Grace, of course; she helped get the box up here." "And Georgie Graham," dryly suggested Sarah. "I rather think not," replied Marion. "Grace Minton, Julia Thayer, and who shall be the third? Come, say some one, Flo." "I wish you'd ask Rachel Drayton," said Florence, in the tone of one pleading for a great favor. "I don't believe she'd come if I asked her." "Well, you might try it," said Sarah; "she can't do anything more than refuse." "She won't refuse if Marion asks her cordially." "Well, Flo, I'll do it, considering you've been laid up in the cause." And Marion ran out of the room, and downstairs, to hunt up the three girls, and let them know, in as quiet a way as possible, that she wanted them up in her room in about fifteen minutes. In her inmost heart she had wanted to ask Rachel Drayton, but did not like to mention her herself, and she gave the invitation with so much warmth, despite the necessity of a mysterious whisper, that Rachel accepted at once with a nod, and a bright smile, such as Marion had never before called up on that usually serious face. When Marion got back to her room, Sarah had arranged the various articles on the table in something like order, although the variety and quantity prevented them from making a very elegant appearance. "There! how does that look?" she asked as Marion made her appearance. "Well, I must say it does not exactly suit me; there's too much on the table. We couldn't eat it half to-night, if we try; so what's the use of such a spread? That turkey I'm going to present to Miss Stiefbach; so that can go into the empty box. Flo, I'm going to appropriate your fancy basket for the nuts and raisins; it will give a distingué air to the table, you know. Now what shall we do for plates?" "Oh, never mind about plates," said Florence; "you can carve the ducks, and put a bit of jelly on each piece, and we can eat with our fingers; you mustn't be so particular." "But I've no idea of putting ducks and cakes, and cookies and dates, all higgledy-piggledy on to the table together! Sarah, you're such a good forager you won't mind running down the back way, and getting three or four plates, now will you?" "I just as lief as not, and I'll bring some knives and forks, and a spoon too, for the jelly." "You're a jewel! and be quick, or I'm afraid the girls will be here before you get back." Marion fluttered about, putting such things as she wished to keep for a future occasion on a shelf in the closet, chattering to Flo all the time. "Now isn't this jolly, Florence? I mean to have a magnificent time to-night, no matter what happens. Those bottles give quite a regal air to the table, don't they? And your basket is equal to the greatest achievement of the renowned Smith. I must say our supply of china doesn't look very promising; however, we'll have all the more fun." "Are they here?" asked Sarah, coming in. "No? Well, I thought I was pretty quick; here's one of the kitchen platters for the ducks, four plates, two knives and forks and a spoon; that's the best I could do for you." "Capital! Now I believe everything is ready;" and Marion stood back, and surveyed the scene with perfect satisfaction. "There they are!" she exclaimed, as a knock was heard at the door. "Stand in front of the table, Sallie, so that the full splendors of the scene won't burst on them at once, and I'll let them in,--that's it." "Hollo, girls! Come in quick; don't make a bit of noise, for fear Miss Stiefbach should hear you." "O Mab, how splendid! elegant! what a treat!" exclaimed the girls, as the full magnificence of the entertainment was revealed to them. "What a box that was!" said Grace Minton; "no wonder it half killed you, Flo." "And how are you now?" asked Rachel Drayton, who naturally felt a little out of place, for she had never been in the room before. Flo was rarely if ever there without Marion, and had never invited her there, not feeling sure of the reception she might meet with from her room-mate. "I'm feeling nicely now," she answered. "In fact, I've been so interested in watching Marion, that I've hardly thought of myself. I wonder if I couldn't get up, and stand by the table." "No, indeed!" exclaimed Marion; "you mustn't think of such a thing. You are to be the belle of the party; Miss Drayton comes next on the list of distinguished guests, and she must sit there;" placing a chair at the foot of the bed, where Rachel could have a good view of Florence; "the rest of you may sit where you've a mind to, and I'll do the honors." "I'll keep Florence company," said Julia Thayer, as she seated herself on the foot of the bed. "Now, Miss Brown, you can help Miss Berkley open the champagne." "Will it pop?" asked Sarah, clapping her hands over her ears. "Of course it will, if it's worth anything," replied Marion. "But you needn't be frightened; I'm only going to loosen the wires a little; we don't want to commence with champagne." "Wouldn't it be a joke," said Grace Minton, "if Miss Stiefbach should walk in on us just as you got the cork out?" But hardly were the words spoken, when the door, which all supposed locked, suddenly opened, and Miss Stiefbach appeared upon the threshold. Oh! horror of horrors! Marion's experience in opening wines had not been sufficient to teach her the force of champagne. As the door opened, she was standing in the middle of the room, holding the bottle at arms' length, fumbling at the wires; in her surprise and amazement at the apparition before her, she gave an extra tug, when pop went the cork, and with it half the contents of the bottle in Miss Stiefbach's face. Miss Stiefbach stood with uplifted hands, perfectly electrified with astonishment at the sight before her. As for the six girls, each in her turn was a perfect picture of horror; visions of fearful lectures, perhaps expulsion from school, rising in the minds of all. But before Miss Stiefbach could collect her scattered senses, and wrap herself in her mantle of frigid dignity, Marion set the bottle on the table, and, springing forward, caught up a towel, and with profuse lamentations and regrets for the accident, commenced wiping the stains from her teacher's dress. "O Miss Stiefbach, what did you come so soon for? It was too bad of you; it has just upset all our plans. We had only this moment got the table set, and I had not had time to go down and invite you and Miss Christine. I had no idea that horrid champagne would go off like that; it frightened us half to death.--Sarah, put your hand over that bottle, or we shall lose it all.--Now, Miss Stiefbach, _do_ sit down, and I'll go right off and get Miss Christine." "Marion Berkley, do you mean to say that you expect me and Miss Christine to sit down to a supper which you young ladies have secretly prepared?" "Why, of course I do!" replied Marion, with an air of perfect simplicity and confidence, which perfectly amazed her companions, who were breathlessly awaiting the issue of the conversation; "of course I do! Why, what did I ask you to give up the history for if it wasn't that I might have time for my supper? I knew it would never do to have it down in the dining-room, for then all the little girls would want to come, and of course we couldn't have them; and I don't care to invite all the old girls, only just those who would make a pleasant party. Now, Miss Stiefbach, it would be positively cruel for you to refuse to join us!" and Marion looked as if her whole future happiness depended on her teacher's answer. Miss Stiefbach was in a dilemma; she could hardly bring herself to believe that the supper was intended as a compliment to herself; but nevertheless Marion's invitation was given with such apparent sincerity, and without even a hint of a doubt as to the propriety of the affair, that she was put quite off her guard, and hardly knew what to say. To sit down with a parcel of school-girls to a table heaped with good things, and crowned with champagne, was altogether too much for her dignity, and a compromise suggested itself to her. "I thank you, Marion, for your implied compliment," she said with her usual stately, polite manner, "but I really think it would be unbecoming in me to enter into any festivities with a part of my scholars, from which the rest were excluded; but I will send Miss Christine to keep you company, as I could not think of leaving you alone." "Of course not," said Marion; "we never thought you would; but please before you go let us drink your health in a glass of champagne?" "Might I ask where this champagne came from?" asked Miss Stiefbach, glancing round the room at the other girls, who still maintained a discreet silence. "Oh, papa sent it to me," replied Marion. "I presume mamma thought it was cider; but papa always has me drink champagne with him Thanksgiving day, and as I could not be home, the next best thing was to send it, so I could drink it here. You don't think it was _very_ dreadful in him, do you?" "I cannot say that I wholly approve of it; but perhaps under the circumstances I must waive my objections." "Oh, please do, Miss Stiefbach, just this once; and oh, I forgot all about it, here's a great turkey, and a loaf of cake for you; shall I take it down?" "Thank you, you are very kind," replied Miss Stiefbach. "You may take it down after you have finished your supper; but I will go now, and send Miss Christine." "No! no! Miss Stiefbach, not yet. Papa would feel dreadfully if he knew you refused his champagne; it never would do in the world. Here, Sarah, hand these round to the girls;" and Marion filled the six glasses. "I shall have to take a tumbler myself, but never mind; now are you all ready? Well, here's to the health of Miss Stiefbach; may she live many years at the head of this school, and may every Thanksgiving eve see her as she is now, smiling encouragement upon the innocent pleasure of her pupils." The toast was drank with smiles and bows, and Miss Stiefbach retired from the room with a bland "Good-evening, young ladies, and a happy Thanksgiving to you all." Poor woman! with all her learning, and the terrible dignity with which she thought it necessary to enshroud herself, as a part of her position as head of a large school, she was at heart as simple-minded as a child. "Girls!" exclaimed Marion, as she turned to her companions, and the door closed after Miss Stiefbach, "you've been taught that there are seven wonders in the world; after this I think you can add an eighth." "Indeed we can!" exclaimed Sarah Brown; "and that eighth will be Marion Berkley!" "I don't mean myself at all, but the whole thing. Imagine Miss Stiffy smiling benignly on an affair like this! But keep quiet, Miss Christine will be here in a minute. She'll see through the whole thing, you may be sure; but nevertheless we must carry it out just the same. Don't you betray me; we'll have just as good a time, and better too, if she's here; besides, no matter what happens now, Miss Stiefbach has countenanced us. Don't stir off that bed, Julia, and keep your skirts well over Flo's foot. How do you feel now, dear?" "All right; in fact, I had forgotten all about it; but here's Miss Christine." Miss Christine came in with a comical smile on her face; but whatever may have been her opinion of the affair, she said nothing, and took everything just as it came. She was not so old but that she could enter heartily into the girls' fun and nonsense, and yet her presence was a restraint upon them, which, although unfelt, kept them from carrying their hilarity too far. Mr. Berkley's contribution to the box was certainly a very injudicious one, which the majority of parents would heartily condemn; and, as Marion had conjectured, his wife had supposed the bottles contained nothing more exciting than sweet cider. Fortunately, the unskilful manner in which they were opened sent more of their contents round the room than all that went into the glasses; so the amount consumed was really very small. At ten o'clock the party broke up, and I am inclined to think that for the rest of their lives those girls never forgot Marion's Thanksgiving party. CHAPTER XV. MISS CHRISTINE GOES TO A PARTY. Thanksgiving day passed off very quietly, but nevertheless very pleasantly, at school. The little dissipation of the night previous had given such perfect satisfaction to all those who participated in it, and they were the scholars who were generally the ringleaders in every scheme for fun and frolic, that they were all willing to maintain a most discreet behavior throughout the day. To be sure they entered into all the lively conversation of the dinner-table, and amused some of the younger ones afterwards with games and stories; but there was none of that general uproar and confusion that one would expect to see in a school full of all ages, when the whole day was fully understood to be at their disposal and they were released from any apparent restraint. The quiet behavior of Marion and her set might have been readily attributed to the fact of Florence's lameness, had that fact been known; it took the united energies and tact of the six to get her up and down stairs, and in and out of rooms so that her limping would not be noticed, or attention attracted to the sudden growth of one of her feet. She bore the pain like a martyr, and managed to conceal her sufferings from the public, only giving vent to her feelings when she was perfectly sure of not being observed. Of course Marion's supper could not remain a secret, and she and the five whom she had honored with invitations were made to feel the scorn of some of the older scholars, who were not of the favored few. Mutterings of discontent, contemptuous shrugs of the shoulders, and glances which were intended to be withering in the extreme, were levelled at the obnoxious six, who were highly entertained at the remarks and actions of some of the girls, and in various little ways added fuel to the flame. Georgie Graham felt herself especially insulted, and did everything in her power to rouse her companions to a realizing sense of their injured dignity. "Why, really, Georgie," said Mattie Denton, "I don't see as there was anything so very dreadful in Marion's asking the girls into her room. She probably had those she wanted, and I don't blame her. I'm sure you couldn't expect she would invite _you_!" "Expect she'd invite me!" retorted Georgie, with a scornful toss of her head; "she knew very well I wouldn't have gone if she had." "Oh, well," quietly replied Mattie, "I suppose, of course, that was the only reason she didn't ask you." "The idea of her having Rachel Drayton," continued Georgie, ignoring Mattie's remark; "she has hardly treated her decently since she's been here, and to start out all of a sudden, and be so _dreadfully_ intimate as to invite her into her room with a _select_ party of friends, is really too absurd--or would be if it wasn't so easy to see what she is after!" "See what she is after! Why, what in the world do you mean?" asked Mattie. "I don't imagine she's after anything." "Oh, no! I suppose not," scornfully laughed Georgie, tossing her head still higher. "Of course not! you know the old saying, Mattie, 'None so blind as those that won't see.'" "What in the world do you mean, Georgie Graham? I don't believe you know yourself!" "Don't I, though? Well, now, do you suppose that Marion Berkley, who holds her head so high, and doesn't condescend to take any notice of us girls, would have whisked round all of a sudden, and been so very sweet on Rachel Drayton, if she hadn't an object in view?" "You certainly are the strangest creature I ever saw," indignantly replied Mattie. "As if Marion ever had been sweet on Rachel! No one but you would ever have thought of such a thing! I presume she invited her, because she is a friend of Flo's." "No such thing," replied Georgie, leaning across the table and speaking every word slowly and distinctly. "She invited her because she is an heiress, and Marion intends to toady round her until she gets into her good graces." "I don't believe it," flatly declared Mattie. "She told me so herself." "What! told you she meant to toady Rachel!--a likely story!" "No, told me Rachel was an heiress." "Well, suppose she is an heiress, what of that? You know perfectly well that Marion Berkley is not a girl to _toady_ any one, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying so. I'm sure every one could see that she has not treated Rachel very cordially, and if she invited her into her room it was on Flo's account, and I'm glad for one she showed her some kindness. No one but _you_ would ever have put a bad motive on such a simple action." "Thank you, Mattie, for defending me," quietly remarked Marion herself, as she passed through the library where the two girls were sitting, and went upstairs. "There, Miss Graham, I hope you feel better now!" exclaimed Mattie, who was now thoroughly roused. "Pooh! I don't care; 'listeners never hear any good of themselves;' she shouldn't have been eaves-dropping." "That sounds well, Georgie, I must say, coming from you," replied Mattie. "She was in the school-room, and goodness knows we talked loud enough. Next time you have any such agreeable insinuations to make against one of your school-mates, you'll be kind enough to go to some one else;" and Mattie turned away indignantly, and left Georgie to her own reflections. Finding that she had not been able to rouse any ill-will towards Marion in Mattie's breast, and inwardly provoked with herself for having proclaimed Rachel to be an heiress,--a fact which for reasons of her own she would have preferred to have remain a secret,--she left the hall, and entered the drawing-room, where most of the girls were congregated, thinking perhaps that there would be a better field for her operations. Poor Marion had been cut to the quick by Georgie's remark; not on account of the source from which it came, but because she feared, that, through Georgie's manoeuvring, it would become the general opinion of the scholars, and in her inmost heart Marion had hoped that she might not leave the school at the end of the year, without leaving behind her a better reputation than she had borne before. She said nothing of this hope to any one, not even Florence, but had tried in many little things, principally in her manner, to be more kind to those of her school-mates who were not in any way attractive to her. Forgetful of the feelings of others as she so often appeared, she was herself extremely sensitive, and nothing could have annoyed her more than to be accused of toadying any one. She could not bear the idea of having such an imputation fastened upon her, and she secretly resolved that in the future she would treat Rachel Drayton with the same coldness and hauteur she had shown in the past. If she had only known that that was the very object at which Georgie was aiming! She had been thinking all day of Aunt Bettie's happiness, and the thought of it had greatly contributed to her own; but now all her peace of mind was quite destroyed. She knew the resolution she had made was unworthy of herself; but every time she tried to reason against it, the thought of how her conduct would be misrepresented if she should treat Rachel with kindness and consideration, as she had made up her mind the previous night she would do, proved too much for her sensitive pride, and she determined to hold firmly to her first resolution. She knew it was miserably weak in her, to allow herself to be governed by fear of the misrepresentation of any one whom she held in such utter contempt as she did Georgie Graham; but she knew that the girl's influence over some of the scholars was great, and though outwardly she appeared indifferent to whatever they might think of her, at heart she really longed for their good opinion. A still, small voice whispered in her ear, that if she would only follow the dictates of her better nature she would certainly be worthy of their good opinion, and in the sight of One who not only sees, but understands, everything that passes in our minds, she would be doing right. But she was not in a mood to listen to any such voice; she left the room, and running down to the parlor, seated herself at the piano, and for an hour played for the girls to dance, trying in that way to get rid of the unpleasant thoughts that would force themselves upon her. "What do you think?" exclaimed Mattie Denton, going up to her almost out of breath, after a furious gallop; "Miss Christine is going to a party." "A party!" exclaimed Marion; "when and where?" "To-night, at Mrs. Dickenson's; she has a family dinner-party, and a few friends are invited in the evening; of course I don't suppose it's a regular _party_, but quite an event for our Miss Christine." "I should think as much," replied Marion. "I am so glad she's going! Wasn't Miss Stiefbach invited?" "Oh, yes, of course; but she declined. I suppose she thought it would never do to leave us alone." "No, 'while the cat's away the mice _will_ play,' you know." "Yes, I should think the mice played a little last night," laughed Mattie. "So they did; but then the cat was round. Come, I've played enough for these girls. I mean to ask Miss Christine to let me do her hair. You come with me, and I'll give you some of the good things the mice _didn't_ play with." "O Marion!" wailed half-a-dozen girls; "aren't you going to play any more?" "No, I can't. I've most banged my fingers off; ask Fannie." "But she doesn't play half as well as you do." "Much obliged for your flattery; but it's all wasted this time," answered Marion, as she and Mattie left the room to hunt up Miss Christine. "Sallie, do you know where Miss Christine is?" asked Marion, as they met Sarah Brown on the stairs. "Yes, she's just gone to her room. Do you know she's going to a party!" "1 know it; isn't it splendid? I'm going up to ask her to let me do her hair." "I don't believe she'll let you." "Yes, she will; I'll coax her into it, see if I don't." "Where are you going to do it? Do let me see you." "In my room, I guess, so that Flo can see me; but not until after tea." After depositing Mattie in her room with a plateful of goodies, Marion proceeded to that of Miss Christine, which was directly opposite that of Miss Stiefbach, and upon knocking was immediately told to "Come in" by Miss Christine, who at that moment was shaking out the folds of a plain, but handsome black silk. "O Miss Christine, isn't it splendid?" cried Marion, clasping her hands; "you're going to a party!" Miss Christine laughed her dear, little, good-natured laugh. "Why, it seems to be considered a most wonderful event. Sarah has just been up here, and appears almost as pleased as if she were going herself." "Of course she is, and so am I; and I'm going to do your hair." "My dear," replied Miss Christine, "it will be too much trouble." "Trouble! why, I admire to do it. I always do mamma's when I'm home, and she wants to look _very_ fine." "But you see I don't want to look very fine." "Oh, yes, you do; or if you don't I want you to; besides, I promise not to do it any _fixy_ way,--braid the back _some_thing as you do, only put it up with a little more style." Miss Christine laughed. "Well, as you are so very kind as to offer, I'll let you; but when will you do it?" "Directly after supper, please; that will be time enough. Will you be kind enough to bring your brushes into my room? I think the light is better." "Very well, it does not make any difference to me. You run out now, and I will be all ready but putting on my dress, before tea." Marion ran back to Mattie, and then went down to communicate the success of her errand to Sarah and Florence. Immediately after supper they helped Flo upstairs, and had just got her comfortably settled in the only easy-chair in the room, with her foot on a cricket, and a shawl thrown carelessly over it, as Miss Christine came in, brushes in hand. Marion seated her with her back to the glass, saying as she did so, "I don't want you to see yourself until it is all done." "Don't make me look too fine," said Miss Christine. "No fear of that," replied Marion, as she rapidly undid the massive braids, and brushed them until they shone like burnished gold. "There is some pleasure in doing such hair as yours," said Marion, with all the enthusiasm of an Auguste; "no need of rats or yarn here." For a few moments she worked in silence, as her fingers flew in and out, until two long shining braids were made; these she twisted gracefully round at the back of Miss Christine's head, exclaiming as she put in the last hair-pin:-- "There! who would ever suppose she had as much hair as that? Just look at it, girls; isn't it lovely?" "Perfectly lovely!" cried Florence. "Why, Miss Christine, you don't make any show of it at all." "I braid it up as tight as possible, and don't care for anything but to have it stay firm and smooth." "Now, Miss Christine," said Marion, in a tone which seemed to imply that she expected opposition, but meant to conquer it, "I'm going to crimp the front." "My dear child, are you crazy? Why, I should not think of doing such a thing!" "Of course you wouldn't, because you don't know how; but I'll do it now, and teach you some other time." "Yes, yes," put in both Florence and Mattie; "your hair will be lovely crimped, and _so_ becoming; do let her!" "But I am afraid you'll make me look ridiculous, Marion," said Miss Christine, in a deprecating tone; "and perhaps you will burn it." "Indeed I won't; _your_ hair shan't suffer the way poor Meg's did in 'Little Women,' for I'll do it over a hot slate-pencil, and that _never_ burnt mine." "You don't mean to say you want to friz my hair up the way yours is!" "No, indeed; I'll take more hair, and that will do it in large, soft waves. Now you'll see how lovely I'll make it look;" and Marion already had the pencil in the gas, and in a moment more was twisting over it a lock of Miss Christine's hair. "Now for the other side; then I'll comb it out, and it will be perfectly stunning!" "Marion, what an expression!" said Miss Christine, as she sat in momentary expectation of having her hair singed off her head, or her forehead blistered. "I wish you would correct yourself of the habit of using slang words." "_Slang!_ why, that's not slang!" "Yes, my dear; I think it is." "Well, it is certainly a very mild form." "Mild or not, it is extremely unladylike, and I hope you will get over the habit soon, or it will become fixed upon you." "Well, I'll try," said Marion, taking a hair-pin out of her mouth; "but it will almost kill me. Stunning, and scrumptious, and jolly, and lots of those things, express so much more than any old, prim, stuck-up words. There! I suppose that's slang too! Well, never mind now, Miss Christine; when I come back after Christmas vacation, I'm going to be 'Miss Piety promoted;' see if I'm not! Now look at yourself." "Why, Marion, haven't you crimped my hair a _little_ too much?" "No, indeed!" cried the three girls. "You look just as sweet as you can look," said Florence; "it's not a bit too much, it's only lovely waves." "Now I'm to get your dress, and you must put it on in here," said Marion; and before Miss Christine could utter a word of remonstrance she was off, and in a moment came back with the dress over her arm, and a lace collar in her hand. "I wish the skirt was a trifle longer," said Marion, as she stooped, and pulled it down behind. "It's long enough for such a plain body as myself; you want to make a fashionable lady of me." "I wouldn't have you a fashionable lady for the world! but I do want you to look your very bestest." "You have forgotten my pin, dear; it was on the bureau beside my collar." "No I haven't forgotten it," said Marion, who was opening and shutting various boxes in her upper drawer. "Where in the world is that ribbon? Here it is. Now, Miss Christine, I don't want you to wear the pin; it's the same you wear every day, and you ought to have some color about you somewhere; so I want you to wear this knot of blue satin, and I've got a band to match. Please do, just for my sake!" "Why, Marion, you will make me absurd; you forget what an old maid I am." "Old maid! I should think as much," replied Marion, pinning on the bow in spite of all remonstrance,--"old maid indeed! You're nothing of the sort, and what's more you know you never will be;" and Marion gave a mischievous glance at her teacher. "Don't be impertinent, Marion," replied Miss Christine; but "old maid" as she called herself, she could not keep a very girlish blush from glowing on her cheeks at her pupil's words. "I think you are just as lovely as you can be!" exclaimed Marion. "Oh! I forgot; the band for your hair;--there! now you're complete." "Why, Miss Christine, you'll hardly know yourself," said Florence; "just look in the glass. Those crimps make you look five years younger." "I'm going down to get Sallie," said Marion. "Don't put your things on yet, please; she wants to see you." Marion ran off, returning in a few moments with Sarah Brown, who, the moment she saw her teacher, threw open her arms, and gave her a most emphatic hug. "Now you look just as you ought. I'm perfectly delighted you're going, and your hair is beautiful,--that band is so becoming." "That is all Marion's doings; in fact, I owe all my 'fine feathers' to her, and without them I should not be such a 'fine bird' as you seem to think me;" and Miss Christine laughed her dear, little laugh, that her scholars loved so well, and glanced affectionately at the group of admiring girls about her. "You are not a 'fine bird' at all," exclaimed Sarah, in her most enthusiastic way; "you are just a dear, white dove." "O Sarah! a white dove in black silk and blue satin--rather incongruous," said Miss Christine. The girls all joined Miss Christine in her laugh; but nevertheless protested that Sarah's simile was not a bit exaggerated. "Well now, Miss Christine," said Marion, "if you are ready, I'll go down and tell Biddy to put her things on." "Biddy isn't going with me," replied Miss Christine, who seemed very busily engaged enveloping her head in a cloud, bringing it so far over her face that not a vestige of her hair was visible. "Why, you're not going alone?" "No; M. Béranger was invited, and kindly offered to escort me," said Miss Christine, bending her head to fasten her glove. "Oh!" said Marion; but she gave a sly glance at her companions, which was not observed by Miss Christine, whose glove-buttons seemed to be giving her a great deal of trouble. "Now, good-night, girls. I thank you a thousand times for all you have done for me, Marion;" then, as she kissed them all, "I don't believe there ever was a teacher had such affectionate scholars." "You mean there never were scholars that had such a perfectly lovely teacher!" cried Sarah Brown, loud enough to be heard in the hall below. "'Sh!" said Miss Christine. "Monsieur is down there; he will hear you." "I guess it won't be any news to him," whispered Marion, as they hung over the banisters watching the proceedings below. "Do you know, Sallie, I believe she pulled that cloud over her head on purpose so that Miss Stiefbach wouldn't see she had her hair crimped. I dare say if she had, she'd have given her a lecture, when she got back, on the follies and vanities of this world." "I dare say," replied Sarah. "She'd like to make Miss Christine just such a stiff old maid as she is herself; but she won't succeed." "Not a bit of it," replied Marion. When Miss Christine came home from the party, and stood before her glass preparatory to undressing, if she had been one of her own scholars she would have said she had a "splendid time." Evening companies, even as small as the one she had just attended, were something in which she rarely indulged; in fact, she had often remained at home from preference, sending her sister in her place, thinking she was much more likely to shine in society than herself. But this night she had really enjoyed herself. It certainly was very pleasant to know she looked better than usual; and if the evidence of her own eyes, and the admiration of her scholars, had not proved that, there had been some one else who testified to the fact in a few respectful, but very earnest words. As she unpinned the blue ribbons, she wondered if it had been foolish and undignified in her to wear them; but the recollection of the loving girls who had urged her to do so filled her heart with delight, and she went to bed feeling that the affection of those young hearts was worth more than all the elegance of manner, and extreme dignity, for which her sister was noticeable, which, however it might inspire the awe and respect of her pupils, never won their love. The next morning the girls noticed that Miss Christine's crimps were not entirely "out." When she brushed her hair that morning, her first impulse had been to straighten out the pretty waves with a dash of cold water; then she thought, to please Marion, she would leave it as it was. I wonder if it occurred to her that the only lesson for the day was French? CHAPTER XVI. THE HOLIDAYS. The days and weeks at Miss Stiefbach's school quickly succeeded each other, all passing very much as those I have already described, and the Christmas holidays were close at hand. Shortly after Thanksgiving there had been another musicale, at which Marion played without dropping her music, or making any mistakes, and won universal admiration for the delicacy of her touch, and above all for the depth and beauty of her expression. Not that so-called expression which has lately become the fashion, which seems to consist in playing half the piece in pp., rushing from that to ff., with a rapidity which certainly astonishes the hearer, if it does nothing more; but carefully noting the crescendos and diminuendos, which are to music what the lights and shadows are to painting, and rendering the whole in a manner that appealed to the heart rather than the senses. Marion was gradually, and without any noticeable effort on her part, obtaining a different footing in the school. The girls who had admired but feared her might now be said to only admire; for the cutting sarcasms, the withering scorn, which had formerly led them to fear her, were now very rarely observable in either her conversation or her manners. Once or twice some of the scholars had spoken of the difference in Marion's behavior, and, as one of them expressed it, "wondered what had come over the spirit of her dreams;" but the answer to the query was generally accepted as a fact, "that it was only one of her odd freaks, and very likely would not last long." But it was not one of her freaks; far from it. A change was coming over her whole character; slowly but surely it was approaching; manifesting itself at present in certain ways, or perhaps not so much in certain ways as in the absence of certain other ways, which had before been the dark spots in a nature which God had intended to make broad, intense, and noble. God had intended?--no, not that; for what could God intend and not perform? The nature was there, heart and soul bearing the impress of the Maker's hand; but like a beautiful garden having within its borders flowers of surpassing beauty and luxurious growth, but twined and intertwined with rank weeds and choking briers, which the gardener must clear away,--not tearing them apart with rough and ruthless hands, and by so doing killing the tender plant; but delicately, carefully, as a mother would tend her babe; untwining tendril after tendril, leaf after leaf, propping and sustaining the flowers as he works, until at last the weeds lay withered and broken, but a few moments trailing their useless branches on the ground, ere the gardener with a firm grasp wrenches them from the soil. His hands may be scratched and bleeding from contact with the briers; but what of that? If the plants are rescued; if they raise up their drooping heads, and gladden his eyes with the sight of their buds and blossoms, do you suppose he will murmur or complain for any wounds he may have received? Not he! The weeds and briers are gone, the blooming plants are saved,--that is enough. Such a garden was Marion's heart, and she had already commenced the work of the gardener; but so slowly did she proceed that sometimes she was almost willing to let the work go, so hopeless did it seem to her; only a few tendrils untwined, only a few leaves saved from the briers whose roots as yet remained untouched. But such moments of discouragement did not come to her often, or if they did, she tried not to yield to them. The great trouble with her was the determination with which she held to her resolution in regard to Rachel; she still treated her with the same coldness, the same formal politeness, which she had shown her on her first arrival; she had not succeeded in quieting the still, small voice, which persisted in whispering in her ear; but though she could not help hearing it, she resolutely forbore to heed it. Poor Florence had built high hopes on the easy, friendly manner with which Marion had treated Rachel the night of the famous Thanksgiving party, and had thought the pain she suffered with her foot but a small price to pay for the bringing together of her old friend and her new; but she had seen those hopes vanish one by one. As the friendship between herself and Rachel increased, Marion's coldness became the more distressing to both parties; for although Marion had never abated one jot of her affection for Florence, there was a certain barrier between them, which each from her heart deplored, but which seemed destined for the present to remain uncrossed. But, my dear reader, I'm afraid you think I am growing fearfully prosy, and if you don't I am sure I do; so I will hurry on with my story. It was the 23d of December, and the young ladies of Miss Stiefbach's school were starting off en masse for their various homes; indeed, some living at the West had already gone, having been called for by parents or friends, and not a few by their older brothers on their way home from college, who were not at all averse to spending one night in "that stupid old town," for the sake of a peep at the pretty girls of the school. Marion Berkley, Mattie Denton, the two Thayers, Florence Stevenson, and Rachel Drayton, all went by the Boston train, and I don't believe a merrier party ever started on a journey together. Florence, finding that Rachel was intending to spend the holidays at the school, had written to her father, and obtained his permission to take her new friend home with her. Rachel had at first demurred, dreading to again encounter strangers; but Florence had plead so earnestly, representing to her how forlorn and stupid it would be for her at the school, at the same time promising that she should not see any company, or participate in any gayety,--"they would just have a quiet time at home and enjoy each other,"--that she had at last yielded. It was a most excellent thought of Florence, for anniversaries of any kind were likely to prove very trying to Rachel; making her realize more forcibly than ever the loss of her father,--a loss to which she had tried to reconcile herself; but, strive hard as she would, it was ever present in her mind, and if she had been left in that great house, with none of the pupils with whose laughter, fun, and frolic the walls had so often resounded, it is probable that the melancholy which had at first seemed fixed upon her, but which the presence of so many bright young lives around her had done much towards dispelling, would have returned to her with double force, and taken a stronger hold upon her than ever. When Florence had communicated her intention to Marion, she answered not a word; but no one knew what a hard struggle it was for her to keep silent. Christmas vacation was always looked forward to by them both, with greater anticipations of pleasure than any other, for Florence always spent several days in the city with Marion in a round of pleasure. Not balls and parties, but theatres, concerts, picture-galleries, etc., were visited; in fact, every new thing that came to the city that week, and was worth seeing, Mr. Berkley always made it a point to take the girls to see, and those good times were talked over for weeks and weeks after they were back at school. Marion had been looking forward to the holidays with more than her usual eagerness, for then she thought she and Florence would be together just as they used to be, without any barrier whatever between them; but when she heard that Rachel would spend the vacation with Florence, she knew, of course, that there would be an end to all the merry-makings; for even if she and Rachel had been on good terms, the latter would not of course have participated in such gayety. The girls were all met at the depot by their respective papas, mammas or "big brothers," and after great demonstrations of delight at meeting, and good-byes, and "Come round soon," etc., from the girls as they parted, they all separated on their way to their various homes. "Marion," asked Mr. Berkley at the breakfast-table the next morning, as he helped his daughter to the best chop on the platter, "who was that young lady with Florence last night?" "Miss Drayton," replied Marion, with the slightest possible change of manner,--"Rachel Drayton." "Rachel Drayton. That's rather an uncommon name. I don't think I ever heard of a real bona fide Rachel before; handsome, isn't she?" "No, not exactly; perhaps she would be if she were well." "She's uncommon-looking," continued Mr. Berkley, as he helped himself to another slice of toast; "didn't you notice her, Margaret?--tall, with jet-black hair and eyes. Rachel is just the name for her." "I noticed her; in fact, Florence introduced her, but I was attracted towards her first by the unusually sad expression of her face. I never saw it so noticeable in one so young; and I suppose she is young, though she looks much older than you or Florence." "She is only seventeen," replied Marion, busily engaged in giving Charley sips of her coffee. "Oh, well," said Mr. Berkley in his hearty way, "we'll soon get rid of that sad look; we'll have her in with Flo, and I guess after she's seen Warren once or twice she'll learn how to laugh. What do you think, Marion?" "It won't be any use for you to invite her, papa. She wouldn't come; she's in deep mourning,--she lost her father just before she came to school." "Poor child!" said Mrs. Berkley, whose heart always warmed towards any one in trouble; "poor child! Where does her mother live?" "She has no mother either; she died when Rachel was a baby. In fact, she has no relations at all except an uncle, who has been abroad for ten years, and will not be at home until school closes next spring." "Well, I do pity the poor thing!" said Mr. Berkley, who, although death had never robbed him of his own dear ones, felt the deepest sympathy for all those who had been so stricken. "I think it is one of the saddest cases I ever knew. I suppose Flo--bless her heart!--could sympathize with her even more than the rest of you, having lost her mother too." "She and Rachel are great friends," replied Marion, wishing the subject would ever be changed. "Is she well provided for?" asked Mr. Berkley. "She is immensely wealthy," replied Marion; "will have two or three millions in her own right, when she is twenty-one." "Whew!" exclaimed Mr. Berkley; "pretty well provided for, I should think. Well, I'm glad of it; she has had trouble enough already, without having to worry about money matters. Marion, have another chop?" "No, I thank you, papa, I've had quite enough," replied Marion, rousing herself, and speaking with her usual energy, the absence of which had not escaped her mother's ear. "How soon will Fred be home? I'm crazy to see him." "In about an hour, I expect," replied Mrs. Berkley; "he is quite as anxious to see you as you are to see him." "I tell you what, Mab," said Mr. Berkley, "Fred is a pretty important member of society since he got into college; you ought to hear him talk about 'the men of our class;' it makes me feel old." "Oh! he'll get over that," laughed Marion. "I suppose he feels particularly grand, because he's younger than most of his class." "Yes, I dare say," said Mrs. Berkley, with a little motherly anxiety in her voice. "I wish he had waited a year; it would have been much better for him." "Oh, nonsense!" answered Mr. Berkley, as he pushed his chair back from the table; "the sooner he sows his 'wild oats' the better; besides, he's sound enough, never fear. But I forgot, Marion; I'm getting to be almost too old a beau for you; so I told Fred to bring some one home from college to pass the vacation. He has invited a Mr. Thornton; he took a great fancy to Fred, though _he is_ a junior; so you can't turn up your nose at him." "I don't want to turn up my nose at him; but junior or not, he will not be my escort. I'll hand him over to mamma; but wherever I go, you'll have to take me, do you understand?" "Oh, yes, I understand perfectly. That all sounds very pretty, no doubt; but you wait till you see Arthur Thornton. Such _heavenly_ eyes!" exclaimed Mr. Berkley, disengaging himself from Marion, and clasping his hands in the most enthusiastic manner, "and such a _magnificent_ figure! and such a _stunning_ mustache, and such--such a--such a surprising appetite!" "Now, papa," said Marion, laughing at her father's romantic gestures, and the very unromantic conclusion of his sentence, "you know I never rave so over young men; it's so silly!" "Now, mamma, just hear her," said Mr. Berkley, turning to his wife; "she never raves over young men; oh, no! Wasn't little Bob Jones the _loveliest_ dancer she ever saw? and didn't Walter Hargate sing the 'rainy day' so as to make one weep _oceans_ of tears? and wasn't Jack Richards' profile 'enough to make one _wild_'? and wasn't--" "Stop! stop!" cried Marion, jumping up and putting her hand over her father's mouth; "you shan't say another word; it isn't fair. That was nearly two years ago, when I was young and foolish; now I am almost eighteen, and, as Fred says, 'I'm going to come the heavy dignity.'" "All right," replied her father, as he gave her a kiss; "only don't come it over me, that's all. Here they are now! Marion! Marion!" he cried, as she broke from him, and made a rush for the front door, "that's very undignified, very undignified indeed; you should receive them in the parlor." But Marion paid no heed to his admonition, and in a moment more had her arms round Fred's neck, utterly oblivious to the fact that a young six-footer stood behind him. "Come in, Marion; what do you mean by keeping Mr. Thornton standing out there in the cold?" said Mr. Berkley, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "I'm surprised at you! Come in, Mr. Thornton; glad to see you; my daughter, _Miss_ Berkley." Mr. Thornton raised his hat, and bent that "magnificent figure" in the most profound salutation, while Marion responded with a bow, which, as her father whispered to her, "was dignity itself." After the usual bustle accompanying an arrival was over, and some little time had been spent in chatting, Mr. Berkley said:-- "Come, Fred, you and Mr. Thornton must be hungry; go out and get some breakfast; we have had ours, but Marion will do the honors." "We breakfasted before we left," answered Fred. "I knew we should be late; but we'll do double duty at dinner." "I'm sorry for that," whispered Mr. Berkley to Marion, as he handed her his meerschaum to fill, "for I wanted to prove the last part of my description. I know you've accepted the first part already as perfect." "Hush, papa! don't be silly," answered Marion, as she dipped her fingers into the tobacco-box. "Miss Berkley, can you fill a pipe?" asked Mr. Thornton. "Why, of course she can," said her father; "she's filled mine ever since she was so high. I should have given up smoking long ago if it hadn't been for her." "That's all nonsense, papa; you'll never stop smoking till the day of your death; so I suppose I shall always fill your pipe." "Miss Berkley," said Mr. Thornton, with a graceful little bow, "I wish while I am here I might be allowed the pleasure of having _my_ pipe filled by those fair fingers." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Thornton," said Marion, with the least possible toss of her head; "but I never fill any one's but papa's." Mr. Thornton bowed, flushing slightly as he rose to follow Fred to his room, mentally resolving never to waste pretty speeches again on that girl; and Mr. Berkley observed as he left the room, "A perfect scorcher, Marion! If you keep that dignity up for the rest of his visit, there won't be a piece of him left as big as a chicken's wing." The following morning was as bright and beautiful as ever a Christmas morning could be, and indoors the merry party at Mr. Berkley's was quite in keeping with the weather; such strife as to who could wish "Merry Christmas" first, such an exhibition of presents, and such general jollification, could only be found where every one was in the best of spirits, and all determined to enjoy themselves to the utmost. The Christmas gifts had been arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Berkley the previous night in the parlor, where the door was kept fastened until directly after breakfast, when Mr. Berkley unlocked it, and let in the whole family. Marion was in a perfect state of excitement over her presents, quite forgetting the talked-of dignity in her admiration of them; and the charming way in which she thanked Mr. Thornton for a bouquet, bearing his card, quite did away with the effect of her hauteur of the previous day. From her father and mother she received what she had long expressed a wish for,--"Goethe's Female Characters illustrated by Kaulbach," a book which her intense love for art enabled her to fully appreciate; from Fred a beautiful amethyst ring; a pretty necktie from Charley, which, as he said, "he choosed hisself;" a bust of Clytie from her Uncle George; besides gloves, bows, embroidered handkerchiefs, etc., too numerous to mention, from various aunts and cousins. "But, Marion, there is something else," said her mother; "lift up that handkerchief and see what is under it." "Oh, is that for me? I didn't understand," said Marion, as she took up the handkerchief that hid something from view. "O mamma, how perfect! Isn't it lovely? She couldn't have given me anything I would have liked half so well;" and the tears started to her eyes, for the present was from Florence, and Marion had thought she had nothing from her, and was cut to the quick; for they had always exchanged Christmas gifts ever since they were children. This one was an exquisitely colored photograph of Florence herself, beautifully framed in blue velvet and gilt. "She had it taken just before she went back to school," said Mrs. Berkley, "and I colored it for her; isn't the frame lovely? She had it made to order. I never saw one like it." "It is lovely; just exactly like her;" and Marion looked fondly at the eyes that smiled into hers with such a sweet, affectionate expression, and as she did so thoughts of the past and present flitted quickly through her mind, and further speech just then was quite impossible. But it is useless to attempt a description of each of those many merry days; they all passed only too quickly. Mr. Thornton proved himself to be a very valuable addition to the home circle, as well as a most hearty participator in all their schemes for going about here, there, and everywhere. During the holidays Mr. and Mrs. Berkley received several invitations to large parties, in which 'Miss Berkley' was included; but all were declined, for Mrs. Berkley had no idea of having Marion go into society for more than a year yet. Her father had said, in his jolly, easy way, "Oh, let her go, it won't hurt her; why, you and I did most of our courting before you were as old as she is." "I can't help it, my dear; because you and I were foolish is no reason we should let her be," replied her mother. "I have no objections to her going to the little 'Germans' given by girls of her age; but regular balls and parties I can't allow." But Marion was not at all disturbed about the party question; she was enjoying her vacation to the utmost. At first she missed Florence very much. She had been out to see her once or twice. The first time she saw her alone for a few moments, and thanked her warmly for her photograph, receiving Florence's thanks in return for her present of a lovely locket, and promising to have her own picture taken to put in it. "Marion," said Mrs. Berkley one day, "don't you intend to invite Florence and Miss Drayton in here to spend the night?" "I don't think Rachel would come, if I asked her, mamma. You know we are pretty gay now that Mr. Thornton is here." "But you need not ask any one else, and I don't believe she would mind him;--he seems like one of the family." "I don't think she would come, mamma." "Very well, my dear, you know best;" and Mrs. Berkley did not again refer to the subject. She felt instinctively that Marion did not entertain the same friendship for Rachel that Florence did; but she said nothing about it, never wishing to force herself into her daughter's confidence, knowing well enough that, if she waited, that confidence would come of its own accord. Everything must come to an end at last, and so did those Christmas holidays, and Marion went back to school, and Fred and Mr. Thornton to college; the latter young gentleman, if we might judge from a little scrap of conversation he had with his chum on his return, not quite heart-whole. "You see, Sam, I went home with Berkley more to please him than myself. To be sure I knew I should have a stupid time loafing round here, and I had no idea of going home; for the house is all shut up while the old gentleman and mother are in Europe. So I thought, as Berk really seemed to want me, I'd go, and I tell you I never had a jollier time in my life;" and Arthur Thornton watched the wreaths of smoke as they curled about his head, quite lost in recollections of the past two weeks. "What did you do?" asked his companion, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Oh! went to the theatre, museum, concerts,--everything! Stayed at home once or twice, and had a 'candy-scrape.' It's the best place in the world to visit, and the most delightful family." "All of whom unite, I suppose, in worshipping Master Freddy." "Not by a long shot!" replied Arthur Thornton, energetically; "_he_ unites with the rest of the family in worshipping at quite another shrine." "And that is--" "His sister Marion; the most perfectly bewitching girl I ever saw in my life!" "Arty, my boy, has it come to that?" solemnly asked his companion, as he removed his pipe from his mouth, and looked at his friend with a face expressive of the deepest dejection; "do you mean to say that you've surrendered, and gone over to the enemy?" "I haven't gone over at all; but she certainly is the best specimen of a girl I ever saw! None of your sentimental, simpering kind! I just wish you'd seen her when I tried to make a pretty speech to her; didn't she toss her head up, and flash those eyes at me? By Jove! I never felt so small in my life!" "If she has the power of producing that effect upon you, she must be something fearful," replied his friend, coolly surveying the six feet of human frame which lay stretched on the sofa before him. "She flashes her eyes, does she?" "Doesn't she? and such eyes!--great, dark-brown eyes with long black lashes; and such hair!--golden hair! Do you hear? golden hair and dark eyes, and--" "My dear fellow," replied Sam, languidly waving his hand before him, "forbear! I entreat you to forbear; half of that description is enough to do away with the quieting influences of this pipe; if you should continue, I don't know what would become of me, to say nothing of yourself. I see that you are lost to me forever. Farewell, my once loved, never-to-be-forgotten friend; I see that you are--in for it." "Don't be a fool, Sam, and just wait till you've seen her yourself." "Until that blissful time arrives," replied his friend, rising to leave the room, "I will occupy all my spare hours in hunting up an armor that will be proof against the 'flashes' of those eyes." "You're an old idiot!" shouted Arthur; but Sam had dodged back, and slammed the door, just in time to escape being hit by a boot-jack, which his friend threw at him. To tell the truth, Mr. Thornton was just the least bit in the world touched. Marion had done her best to entertain her brother's friend, and indeed that was not a very severe task, when the individual in question was a handsome young fellow, intelligent and agreeable, and not possessing quite the usual amount of conceit that young men of his age are troubled with. In fact, she succeeded so well in making herself agreeable to him, that Fred told his mother in confidence, that "it was easy enough to see Thornton was dead smashed with Mab, and 'twouldn't be a bad thing for her if she should fancy him, for he was a 'regular brick,' and hadn't he got the rocks!" For which inelegant expressions his mother most seriously reproved him, at the same time saying that she thought Marion had taken a fancy to Mr. Thornton, and that was all she ever would care for him; and it was very silly to be talking about anything serious now, when she was nothing but a child. Of course when the scholars all met again at school nothing was talked of but the vacation; presents were shown and admired, and for days and days after their return, as soon as study hours were over, little knots of girls might be seen scattered all over the house, chattering away as fast as their tongues could go, rehearsing again and again the delights of the holidays. The first thing Marion did was to make a visit to Aunt Bettie's to thank the good woman for her present of a barrel of as rosy-cheeked apples as ever grew. She found the old lady well and happy, rocking away in the sunshine, while Jemima made bread in the pantry, singing in a clear, bright voice, which gave excellent proof of her recovered health and contentment. She carried Jemima a couple of bright ribbons, and a pretty embroidered linen collar, and Aunt Bettie a neat lace cap, which unexpected gifts quite overpowered them, and caused Aunt Bettie to remark, "Seemed as how some folks was a-doin' and a-doin' all the time, and could never do enuff;" which remark, Marion declared, as she ran out of the house, certainly did not apply to her. CHAPTER XVII. MARION'S MIDNIGHT WALK. It was a clear, cold day, in the latter part of February; the ground had been covered with snow ever since Christmas week, and seemed likely to be so for some time yet; even quite a heavy rain had failed to melt away King Winter's snowy mantle, for being followed by a freezing night it had only served to crust everything with a thin coating of ice, and set upon the old fellow's head a crown, which glittered and sparkled in the sunlight rivalling in beauty that of many a lesser monarch. A sleigh was standing at the gate of the school, and Martin, the Irishman who sawed the wood, built the fires, and did all the little odd jobs generally of the establishment, stood with the reins in his hands; evidently very much pleased with his new position as coachman. Miss Stiefbach was going away, fifteen miles into the country, to see a friend who was very ill, and had sent her a very pressing letter, asking her to come to her as soon as possible; and the most feasible way for her to get there and back seemed to be, to hire a horse and sleigh in the village, take Martin as driver, and return the next day. Nothing but the very urgent request of a sick friend would have called Miss Stiefbach away from school just at this time; for the cook was sick abed with a terribly sore throat; the laundress could hardly speak, on account of a bad cold, and Bridget, the housemaid, was almost worn out with doing a part of everybody's work, for the last three days. But Miss Christine begged her sister to go; she would get the older girls to help her with the extra work, and as it was only for one night, there certainly seemed no danger but what they could get along without her; so at two o'clock Miss Stiefbach started. Marion, Julia, and Sarah offered their services to wash the dinner-dishes, and with sleeves rolled up, and long aprons on, went into the business in earnest, laughing and chattering like magpies. While they were at work Rachel Drayton came into the room for a glass of water, and Sarah Brown, looking up, exclaimed:-- "Why, Rachel, what in the world is the matter with you? You look like a ghost!" "Only one of my headaches," said Rachel, making a feeble attempt to smile. "I've had it all day." "But you are hoarse; you can hardly speak," said Julia. "Don't say anything about it; but my throat is terribly sore. Please don't tell Miss Christine; there are enough sick in the house already without me." "But you ought to do something for it, indeed you ought," said Sarah. "I wish I could tell you of something; don't you know of anything for a sore throat, Marion?" "I always gargle mine with salt and water," answered Marion indifferently, without looking up from the buffet-drawer, where she was arranging the silver. "Well, do try it, Rachel," said Julia; "it can't hurt you certainly; here's some salt. How much do you put in a tumbler of water, Marion?" "I really don't know," replied Marion, still busy with the silver; "I never measured it." "Well, can't you give me any idea?" asked Julia, rather impatiently. "Don't trouble Miss Berkley," said Rachel, in a voice which she tried in vain to render steady, for, sick and suffering as she was, Marion's indifference cut her to the heart. She turned away to leave the room, the blinding tears rushed to her eyes, her head swam, and she staggered forward, as Sarah cried: "Quick, Julia! catch her; she's fainting!" Marion started up in time to see Rachel, with a deathly white face and closed eyes, stretch out her hands helplessly before her, as Julia and Sarah caught her in their arms, and saved her from falling. The sight of that white face struck Marion with horror; but still she did not move from the spot where she had stood ever since Rachel entered the room; it seemed as if she _could_ not move, until Sarah exclaimed:-- "Marion, hand me a glass of water, for Heaven's sake; she'll faint away." "No, I shan't," said Rachel, in a feeble voice, trying to raise her head; "it was only a sudden dizziness. I often have it when my head aches, only to-day it was worse than usual." "Lie still there," said Julia, as they led her to the sofa, "and keep perfectly quiet; I'll go call Miss Christine." "No! no!" cried Rachel, jumping up, but sinking back again as the sudden movement sent her head whizzing round; "please don't; she has gone up to give cook her medicine, and indeed I shall be better soon." "I won't call her, if you'll promise to go to bed as soon as you are able to walk." "Well, I will," answered Rachel. "I can go in a few minutes; would you mind asking Florence to come here?" Sarah ran off to get Florence, and Julia sat down by Rachel, bathing her head with cold water. Marion went on quietly putting away the dishes; only now and then glancing at the white face in such fearful contrast with its surroundings of black hair and dress. Florence came in, and, as soon as Rachel was able, helped her up to her room, where she laid down on the bed without undressing, hoping to feel well enough to go down to tea; but that was out of the question; her head grew worse instead of better, and at last Florence insisted upon calling Miss Christine. When Miss Christine came up, she told Marion to take Rachel into Miss Stiefbach's room, and help her to undress at once, while she went to get some hot water in which to bathe her feet. Very soon Rachel was in bed, and begged Miss Christine to "go away and not mind her, for she knew she should feel all right in the morning." But of this Miss Christine did not feel at all sure; the deadly pallor of Rachel's face had been succeeded by a bright red spot in each cheek, and the palms of her hands were burning hot. Leaving Florence to sit with her friend, she went down to attend to her other duties. She went into the dining-room to set the tea-table; but Marion and Sarah were there before her. "How is Rachel?" asked Sarah; "do you think she is going to be ill?" "I hope not; indeed I think not, for you know she often has these dreadful headaches; still she has a bad sore throat, and seems feverish. I almost wish Miss Stiefbach had not gone." "It was too bad," said Sarah; "just now when everybody is sick! I don't see why that lady had to send for her!" "Well, my dear, she could not possibly know that it was not convenient for us to have Miss Stiefbach away, and she wanted to see her about something very important; it could not be helped. I dare say everything will come out right in the end. I must go now and help Bridget, or she will get discouraged. O Marion," she said, as she was about to leave the room, "will you please sleep with Rose? She'll be afraid to sleep alone, and I have put Rachel into Miss Stiefbach's room, where I can be near her if she should want anything in the night." "Oh, I don't want to," replied Marion, much to Miss Christine's surprise. "Rose kicks awfully. Ask Florence." "Will she be any less likely to kick Florence than you?" asked Miss Christine, quietly. "No, I suppose not; but you know Florence won't mind, as long as it's for Rachel." "And you would, I am sorry to say." "I suppose it's no use for me to offer," said Sarah, "for that would leave Jennie all alone, and she's an awful coward." "No, I thank you," said Miss Christine, as she left the room; "I will ask Florence." Marion said nothing; she went on setting the table and talking to Sarah, never in any way alluding to Rachel, and doing her best not to think of her, or reproach herself for having treated her so unkindly; but no matter what she did, she could not stifle the voice of conscience, and its whisperings were far from pleasant to hear. That night, as she went up to bed, her better nature prompted her to step into Rachel's room, and ask her if she felt any better; but "No," she said to herself, "she will think it's all hypocrisy, and I won't do it." She hurried and undressed herself as quickly as possible, so that she was already in bed when Florence came in to get her night-clothes to carry into Rose's room; but she did not speak or open her eyes. Florence moved round as quietly as possible, getting her things together, and then stepping to the bedside stooped down and kissed her friend; but Marion did not speak or move; so Florence, thinking she was asleep, turned out the gas, and left the room. When she was gone Marion buried her head in the pillow, and wept bitter, bitter tears. It was a long time before she went to sleep, and then her rest was disturbed by frightful dreams; she thought the house was on fire; that she was safe, but Rachel and Florence were in the attic, where no one could reach them, and they must burn to death while she stood looking on. She awoke with a start, to see a bright light in the entry; springing out of bed, she ran to the door just as Miss Christine, with a candle in her hand, and a wrapper over her night-dress was passing by. "O Miss Christine," she cried, in an excited whisper, "is the house on fire?" "No, indeed, dear, nothing of the sort; but Rachel is very ill, and I am going down to make her some lemonade. Won't you please put something on, and go in and sit with her? I cannot bear to leave her alone." Marion did not stop to answer; but running back into her room, threw a shawl over her shoulders, and hastily thrusting her feet into her slippers, hurried into Miss Stiefbach's room. There was only a dim light in the chamber. Marion went up to the bed, and, leaning over, called Rachel by name; but she made no answer, only moaned feebly, and tossed her arms over her head, rolling her great black eyes from side to side. "Rachel," said Marion, thoroughly frightened, "don't you know me?" The voice seemed to rouse her, for she started up, and looked fixedly at Marion; then putting her hands before her eyes, as if to shut out some horrible sight, she cried, in a hoarse voice, "Go away! go away! you hate me! you hate me! you're going to kill me!" Marion shuddered, for she knew Rachel must be delirious; she tried to soothe her, but the sound of her voice only seemed to make her more excited. She seemed to have a vague idea who she was, and that she was there to do her harm. Once she sat up in bed, and, laying her hand on Marion's arm, said in the most grieved, beseeching tone, "What makes you hate me so? I never did you any harm." Marion, with tears in her eyes was about to speak, when suddenly the tender, supplicating expression left Rachel's face, and one of intense horror and grief took its place, as she grasped Marion's arm tightly with one hand, stretching out her other arm, and pointing into a dark corner of the room, exclaiming, in a voice that made her companion shudder from head to foot: "See! see! you see they're taking it off! they're taking it off! don't you see? It's my father! O father! father!" she wailed, stretching out her arm as if entreating some person seen only by herself, "don't leave me; for there'll be no one to love me then. I'm all alone! all alone! all alone!" Marion's tears fell thick and fast, as the exhausted girl threw herself back on the pillow and sobbed aloud; every unkind thought, every cold glance, and every act of neglect which she had shown the poor, desolate creature beside her pictured itself before her. Remorse was doing its work, and her greatest fear was that Rachel would die while yet delirious, and before she had an opportunity to ask her forgiveness, and atone by her kindness in the future for her neglect of the past. But although these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, they were but as the undercurrent of her immediate anxiety; it seemed as if Miss Christine would never come, and Rachel still moaned and sobbed in a heart-rending manner. When Miss Christine did at last enter the room, bringing the lemonade, Marion hurried towards her, and whispered:-- "Oh, do you think she's going to die? Can't we do anything for her? Can't _I_ do anything?" "I think she seems very ill indeed," replied Miss Christine, going to the bedside, and laying a cloth wet in cold water on Rachel's head; then coming back to Marion, "Will you stay with her while I go for the doctor?" "Can't you send Bridget?" "No, the poor thing is half worn out with all she has had to do this week. I would not call her up for anything. If you will stay with Rachel, and keep changing the cloth on her head, I will go, for I dare not wait until morning." "O Miss Christine!" exclaimed Marion, in a trembling whisper, "I can't stay; indeed I can't, and hear her rave about her father; it is dreadful! it goes right through me; you stay and _I'll_ go." "Marion, do you know it is almost midnight? You will be afraid." "You were not." "No, because I'm not nervous." "Well, I won't be nervous; if there's no danger for you, there is none for me. I shall go." "Any _real_ danger I do not think there is, but of imaginary danger a plenty, and if you should get seriously frightened I never should forgive myself." "But I won't be frightened or nervous," said Marion, resolutely. "Here, feel my hand; when Rachel was raving a moment ago, I _could_ not keep it still; now it is as steady as yours. O Miss Christine, if you only _knew_, you would let me go." "My dear child," said Miss Christine, laying her hand tenderly on Marion's cheek, "I _do_ know, and if you really are courageous enough, you may go. It is no use for me to wake up any of the girls; there is not one of them that would dare go with you, I know." "I'll go alone, Miss Christine, and I know nothing will happen to me." Marion hurried back into her room, and dressed herself as quickly as possible, putting on her thickest cloak, furs, and a warm hood. Miss Christine stepped into the entry, and kissed her good-by, saying:-- "Don't be afraid, darling; you know nothing ever happens round here, and if you bring the doctor back with you it may be the means of saving Rachel's life." Marion made no reply, except by a glance full of meaning, and went quietly downstairs, looking back as she reached the door, and nodding at Miss Christine, who stood at the head of the stairs, holding a candle; then she opened the door, and went out into the night alone. There were two roads which led to the village. By the road proper, on which several residences bordered, the distance was about two miles; but there was a shorter one, called the bridge road, which led through several open fields, and crossed the B---- River, which was rarely frequented except by the school-girls and farmers on their way to and from market. This road kept a perfectly straight course to the village, and although far more lonely than the other, on that account Marion chose it. It was a perfect night; clear and cold, very cold; but of that Marion thought nothing; she had braved New England winters all her life, and was almost as hardy as a backwoodsman. The moon was full, and shone down on as lovely a scene as one would wish to see; the trees with their delicate coating of ice glistened and gleamed in its beams, as though covered with myriads of jewels, and threw their fantastic shadows on the shining snow. Marion hurried along the road, not giving herself time for fear, until she had left the school-house some distance behind her. At any other time she would have been wildly enthusiastic over the beauty of the night; but looking at the moon from a comfortable sleigh, snugly tucked up in buffalo robes, the stillness of the night broken by the jolly jingling of bells and the laughter of merry friends, is a very different thing from contemplating it on a lonely country road, no house in sight, with your loudly beating heart for your only companion, and the hour near midnight. At least Marion found it so; and, brave as she was, she could not keep her heart from thumping against her side, or her hands from trembling nervously, as she clasped them inside of her muff. Every bush she passed took some fantastic shape, and as she strained her eyes before her to make it assume some rational form, it seemed to move stealthily as if about to spring upon her; the trees appeared to be stretching out their naked branches, like long arms with ghostly fingers to clutch her as she passed; now and then a twig, too heavily freighted with ice, would snap off and come crackling to the ground, the sudden noise making her heart stand still for an instant, only to start on again, beating more violently than before. But still she pressed on, and soon the river, which was on the very verge of the town, gleamed before her, and she quickened her pace, thankful that so much of her journey was past; but who can describe the horror and dismay she felt, when, upon reaching its banks, she found the bridge was gone! The little river wound in and out for several miles, doubling and redoubling itself, as it flowed among the woods and fields, and was as quiet and placid a little river as ever could be, with the exception of a number of rods above and below the bridge; here its bed was filled with a quantity of rocks and stones, and the water, rushing over and between them, formed innumerable cascades and whirlpools, never freezing in the coldest weather. For some time the bridge had been considered rather unsafe, and that afternoon the workmen had taken away the floor, leaving the stays and beams still standing. Marion looked at the skeleton frame in utter despair. There lay the town directly before her, the doctor's house being one of the first, and the only means of getting to it were gone. To go up the bank of the river and cross on the ice seemed out of the question, for there it was bordered by thick woods, in which she could easily lose her way, and to go back, and round by the regular road would take at least an hour longer. Meanwhile Rachel might be dying, for aught she knew. She went nearer the bridge, and inspected it more closely; the railings were perfectly secure, and built upon two broad, solid beams which spanned the river; the idea came into her head to cross the river on one of the beams, holding firmly to the railing with both hands. She tied her muff by the tassels round her neck, tightened the strings of her hood, and stepped cautiously on to the beam. It seemed a fearful undertaking; her heart almost misgave her; but the delirious cries of Rachel rang in her ears and spurred her on. Step by step, slowly and carefully, as a little child feels its way along a fence, she crept along; gaining confidence with every movement, until she reached the middle of the bridge; then she happened to look down. The black water seethed and foamed beneath her, touched into brightness here and there by the moonlight. For an instant her brain whirled, and she almost lost her balance. She shut her eyes, and with a tremendous effort of her will was herself again. Looking up to heaven, and inwardly beseeching God to sustain her, she kept on, slowly and carefully as ever, moving first one foot then the other, with both hands still firmly clasping the railing, until at last the opposite side was reached, and she stepped upon the snow. Her first impulse was to throw herself upon the nearest rock, for now that she had fairly crossed in safety, the extreme tension to which her nerves had been subjected relaxed itself, and she was more inclined to be alarmed at the loneliness of her situation than before. When on the bridge all her thoughts had been concentrated upon getting over safely; by force of will she had conquered her nervous fear, calling up all sorts of imaginary dangers, which disappeared before the actual danger which assailed her, and which, by presence of mind, she had been able to overcome. But she would not indulge any of her wild fancies, though they crowded themselves upon her against her will. She felt herself growing weaker and weaker as she approached the end of her walk. The shadows made by the trees and houses seemed even more gloomy than those of the open road. Once a dog, chained in the neighborhood, broke the stillness of the night by a long, mournful howl, which echoed through the air, making Marion shudder as she heard it. At last the house was reached; running up the steps she gave the bell a tremendous pull. She could hear it ring through the house; then all was still again. She waited, what seemed to her, standing there alone on the door-step, which did not even offer the friendly shadow of a porch, a very long time; then rang again, even more violently than before. In a moment she heard a window opened above, and looking up beheld a night-capped head, and the doctor's voice asked, "What's the row down there? Seems to me you're in a terrible hurry." "Some one's sick, do let me in quick, Dr. Brown!--it's Marion Berkley." "Marion Berkley!" exclaimed the doctor, in astonishment. "Here, catch this key; it's got a long string tied to it, and let yourself in; I'll be down directly." Marion caught the key, and in a moment unlocked the door; once inside, her strength forsook her, and she sank on the door-mat in total darkness, perfectly thankful to be in a place of safety. Pretty soon she heard a movement above, a light gleamed down the stairway, and she heard the doctor's voice calling to some one in the back of the house to have the horse harnessed, and brought round to the door immediately. In a few moments the doctor himself appeared, bearing a light in his hand, and exclaiming, as he made his way downstairs, "How, in the name of sense, did you come here at this time of night?" "I walked by the road," answered Marion, her teeth chattering with nervousness. "By the town road," said the doctor; "and who came with you?" "I came alone, by the bridge road." "By the bridge road!" exclaimed the doctor, stopping short, as he was putting on his great-coat. "Why, the bridge is down!" "I didn't know until I got to it," said Marion, wishing he would hurry, and not stop to question her; "then it was too late to go back; so I crossed on the beam." "The devil you did!" exclaimed the doctor; then catching up the candle in one hand, he led her by the other into the dining-room. "There! just sit down there! Your hands are shaking like old Deacon Grump's, and your teeth chatter as if they were going to drop out. Now drink every drop of that, while I go and wrap up." While he had been talking, the doctor had gone to the sideboard, and poured out a generous glass of sherry, which he handed to Marion; she took it and drank it all. It sent a genial warmth through her trembling frame, and by the time the doctor called out to her that he was ready, she felt quite like herself. After they were seated in the sleigh, and well tucked up with robes, the doctor said, "Well now, young lady, if it's agreeable to you, I should like to know who is sick enough to send you chasing over country roads, across broken bridges, to rout up an old fellow like me." "Rachel Drayton, sir," said Marion; "she's had a bad cold for some time; this afternoon she went to bed with a terrible headache and sore throat, and now she's in a high fever, and out of her head." "Rachel Drayton; that's the one with the great black eyes, isn't it?" said the doctor. "H'm! I remember her; very nervous sort of girl, isn't she?" "No, I shouldn't think she was," replied Marion; "she has always seemed very calm and quiet; you know she's an orphan." "Yes, I remember her. I saw her the last time I was there. She's just the one to be delirious with even a very slight illness." "Then you don't think she's going to be very sick?" asked Marion, eagerly. "My dear child," said the doctor, looking down at Marion, "how can I tell until I've seen her? But good heavens! what's the matter with you?" Marion had burst into a fit of laughter, and the doctor sat and looked at her in perfect amazement. "What _is_ the matter, child? What are you laughing at?" But Marion laughed and laughed; throwing her head down into her muff as if to control herself, and then looking up at the doctor, and laughing harder than before. "What's the matter with you, child?" cried the poor man, really growing uneasy. "Have you gone crazy, or was the wine too much for you?" "It isn't that, doctor, but you--you--" "What in the devil's the matter with me, I should like to know!" "You've--you've--got on your nightcap!" cried Marion, as well as she could speak. The doctor dropped the reins, and put both hands to his head. Sure enough, in the hurry of dressing he had forgotten to take off the immense bandanna handkerchief he wore tied round his head every night; and over it he had put his cloth cap, which, fitting tight to his head, left the ends of the handkerchief sticking out each side like great horns, giving an indescribably funny appearance to the doctor's jolly round face. Now Dr. Brown, although he always considered himself privileged to say and do anything he had a mind to, was excessively particular about his toilet, and to take a moonlight drive with a young lady, with his nightcap on, was quite contrary to his usual habits. However, it was altogether too ridiculous a situation to do anything but laugh, and the doctor could enjoy a joke even against himself. "Laugh on, Marion; I don't blame you a bit," he said. "I must cut a pretty figure." "Just look at your shadow; then you'll see for yourself." The doctor looked over his shoulder. "The devil!" he exclaimed. "Why, I look just like him, don't I? Depend upon it, that's what it is; I've called upon his Satanic majesty so often, that now he's after me in good earnest. Well, old fellow, I'll deprive you of your horns at any rate;" and the doctor brought the ends of the handkerchief down, and tucked them under his chin. "Marion, don't let me go into the house with this thing on. I won't take it off now, as long as you've seen it, for it's very comfortable this cold night; but I shouldn't like to shock Miss Stiefbach's dignity by appearing before her in such a rig." "Miss Stiefbach is away," replied Marion. "You don't say so! And the cook sick abed too. Well, Miss Christine has her hands full." "And both the other servants are half sick, and Martin went with Miss Stiefbach." "And that accounts for your coming out on such a wild-goose chase." "I was chasing after you, sir," answered Marion, mischievously. "No insinuations, miss! There's the school-house; get up, Beauty; you're growing lazy." Marion found the door unlocked, and entering the house quietly, only stopping long enough for the doctor to divest himself of his fantastic head-dress, she led the way upstairs. "How is she?" anxiously asked Marion of Miss Christine, who met them at the chamber-door. "She is more quiet, but I am _very_ glad the doctor is here." The doctor took off his gloves, rubbed his hands together two or three times, then went to the bedside. Rachel looked at him; but seemed to pay no attention to him or any one else. He felt of her head and pulse, then asked Miss Christine if she had ever seen her in a fever before. "No," replied Miss Christine; "but she often has severe headaches; she has a sore throat now." "Bring the light nearer," said the doctor. "Now, my dear young lady, will you please open your mouth?" But Rachel only moved her head, and showed signs of becoming restless. The doctor stooped down, opened her mouth himself, and tried to look down her throat; but she resisted him, and commenced sobbing and muttering incoherently. The doctor soothed her as he would a little child, and she became quiet. "Has she complained of pain in her back and limbs?" "None at all," replied Miss Christine. "I asked her particularly." "Give her a teaspoonful of this mixture every half hour until the fever abates," handing a glass to Miss Christine, "I will come again to-morrow morning." "O doctor," whispered Marion, who had silently watched every movement, "is it scarlet fever?" Miss Christine said nothing, but her eyes asked the same question. "Of course I cannot tell yet," said the doctor, rising and drawing on his gloves, "but I hardly think it is. I noticed her the other day, when I was here, and remember thinking at the time that even a slight illness would seem more severe with her than with most persons. She looks like a person who had suffered and endured without complaint. I don't like to see that sort of look on a young face. When she is ill this unnatural self-control gives way, and she's out of her head, when any other person would be all straight. However, I advise you to keep all the scholars away from her for the present. As for this young lady," taking hold of Marion's hand, "the best place for such adventurous young females, who go about crossing broken bridges at midnight, is bed." "What do you mean by broken bridges, doctor?" asked Miss Christine. "Only that the bridge was down, and she crossed on the beams, that's all. My prescription for her is a glass of hot lemonade with a drop of something in it to keep it; you understand, Miss Christine;" and the doctor nodded his head significantly as he left the room. "My dear Marion," whispered Miss Christine, as she threw her arms around her, "you are the bravest girl I ever knew!" "Nonsense!" replied Marion, "and please don't say anything about it downstairs in the morning; I won't be talked about." "I understand," said Miss Christine; "but now you must go straight to bed. I'll heat the lemonade over the gas, and bring it in to you." "Miss Christine, you go and lie down yourself, and I'll sit up; indeed, I couldn't sleep if I went to bed." "Yes, you will, and don't talk of sitting up, for I won't allow it; go right away." Marion obeyed; in a very few moments she was in bed, had drank the lemonade, and, before she knew she was even drowsy, was fast asleep. CHAPTER XVIII. THE VICTORY. The next day the scholars were all very much astonished to find Rachel was really ill, so much so that the doctor had been sent for in the night; but none were aware of Marion's midnight adventure, for Miss Christine had kept her promise to say nothing about it. Recitations were given up until Miss Stiefbach should return, and the scholars were all requested to keep as quiet as possible. Every one went about with noiseless steps and hushed voices; some learning that Rachel had been delirious, and had a fever, were seriously frightened lest it should prove to be contagious, and it was as much as the older girls could do to keep the little ones in order. About ten o'clock the doctor came, and the scholars all collected in the school-room and library, waiting to hear his verdict. Marion and Florence went to their own room, leaving the door ajar, that they might hear the doctor when he went down, and learn from his own lips his opinion of the case. He came at last, and Florence beckoned him into the room; she tried to ask the question uppermost in her mind, but could not. The doctor knew what she wanted, and said:-- "She is not so bad as I feared; the fever is not so high, and she is not at all delirious." "Then you don't think it's scarlet fever?" anxiously asked Marion. "No, nor typhoid; I feared one or the other, but now I am confident it is nothing contagious. She is pretty sick, but not dangerously so; but how are you, Miss Marion? Walking over broken bridges at twelve o'clock at night isn't a very good thing for red cheeks, is it?" "What did he mean?" asked Florence, as he left the room. "Some of his nonsense," replied Marion, from whose heart a great weight had been lifted. "Marion, you don't put me off in that way," said Florence, laying her hands on Marion's shoulders, and looking straight into her eyes. Suddenly an idea seemed to flash into her head: "Did you go for the doctor?" Marion nodded assent. "Tell me about it." "There is nothing to tell. I woke up in the night, and saw Miss Christine, with a light in her hand, going downstairs. She told me Rachel seemed very ill, and I went in and stayed with her while Miss Christine was gone. Then she wanted to go for the doctor, for she would not call Biddy; but I preferred going to being left with Rachel; so I went; that's all." "But what about the broken bridge?" asked Florence. "The bridge was half down, and I crossed on the beams." "Marion, how could you? How did you dare?" said Florence, throwing her arms round Marion, as if to shield her from present danger; "if your feet had slipped you would certainly have fallen in, and there would not have been a soul there to save you." "But my feet did not slip," said Marion. "I was frightened; I don't pretend to say I wasn't; and once when I got to the middle of the bridge I came near falling; but I shut my eyes, and the thought of Rachel gave me strength and courage. O Florence! if you had heard her raving, and talking about her father as I did, you would not wonder I went;" and Marion bowed her head on her friend's shoulder, and gave vent to the tears which she had been struggling to keep back. Florence held her close in her arms, saying nothing, but bending her own head until it rested against Marion's cheek, and lightly passing her hand over her hair until the violence of her emotion had passed away, and she looked up, with a faint smile, saying, "Don't think me a baby, Flo, but I haven't had a good cry with you for ever so long, and I believe I needed it." "Think you a baby, darling! Indeed I don't; I think you're the noblest girl I ever knew." "Yes, very noble, I should think!" exclaimed Marion, bitterly; "the way I have treated Rachel has been nobleness itself!" "But, my dear Marion, you have been acting against your better nature all the time. I knew you would come out all right." For a moment Marion was silent, then looking up suddenly, she said, "Flo, I've been awfully wicked; I might as well have it all out now, and done with it. When I heard Rachel was coming here I was provoked, because I didn't like the idea of having a new scholar, that was all; but when Miss Christine came in, and told us she was an orphan, it flashed into my head, like a presentiment, that your heart would warm towards her; that you would make her your friend; and from that moment I determined to hate her. Don't look so shocked, dear, or I can't go on, and I want to say it all now. It wasn't a very easy thing, you may be sure, after I saw her; but I would not listen to my conscience, and only steeled myself against her all the more, when I saw she had every quality that would make her lovable, and many that were particularly attractive to me. It was hard, you can't tell how hard, to see her day by day taking the place with you that had always been mine. I knew it was my own fault, because, if I had treated her as I ought, as I really wanted to, we might all three have been warm friends; but I wanted you all to myself. I was jealous, and I might as well say so! However, the night before Thanksgiving I determined to overcome my wicked feelings, and yield to my better nature. You know how I treated her that night, and I should have done the same ever since if I hadn't been a contemptible coward! I heard Georgie Graham tell Mattie Denton that I was _toadying_ Rachel, because she was an heiress; and I was afraid if I began to treat her kindly the whole school would think the same thing. There! it is all out now; do you think I am a perfect wretch?" At first Florence made no answer; then she said very gently, "'He that conquereth himself is greater than he that taketh a city.'" "I know it, Flo," answered Marion, with tears in her eyes; "I've thought of that so many times. But this is such a _little_ victory, and there really ought not to have been anything to conquer." "But there was, and you conquered it; if it were possible I should say I love you more than ever." "Then Rachel has never taken my place entirely away?" "No, darling, never! I love Rachel very much, very much indeed; but still it is not exactly as I love you. I can't explain the difference, but I know it is there." "I am satisfied," said Marion, kissing her friend softly. "Do you think Rachel will ever learn to love me?" "I know she will," replied Florence; "only act your own self; _follow_ your good impulses instead of driving them away from you, and you will make her love you whether she wants to or not." * * * * * For many days Rachel was very ill, and Miss Stiefbach and Miss Christine were very anxious about her; still the doctor assured them there was no cause for alarm; her illness would be likely to prove a tedious one, but after she was fairly recovered she would be much stronger than she had been for a long time. It seemed very sad to think of the poor girl, so ill, without a relative near her, for Miss Stiefbach knew there was no one for whom she could send, who would seem any nearer to Rachel, if as near, as herself and Miss Christine. They procured an excellent nurse to assist in taking care of her, but nevertheless devoted themselves to her as much as it was possible to do, without neglecting their other duties. It was a pity Miss Stiefbach's scholars could not have entered that sick-room, and seen their teacher as she appeared there; they would have learned to love her then as Rachel did. No one would have recognized, in the gentle-voiced, tender-hearted woman who bent over the orphan girl with almost a mother's watchful care, the cold, dignified superintendent of the school. After a while the fever subsided, but Rachel was still very weak, and the doctor's prediction, that her convalescence would be very slow, soon proved itself true. She was very patient, yielding herself entirely to those who so kindly watched over her. As soon as the fever was past, Florence had begged permission to sit with her, promising not to talk, as perfect rest and silence were most especially enjoined by the doctor. One day when the nurse had gone to lie down, and Miss Stiefbach and Miss Christine both had something which needed their immediate attention, Marion offered to sit with her. She had not been in the room since the first night of Rachel's illness, and was not prepared for the change which had taken place in her: then a bright color burned in her cheeks; now her face was so thin and pale as to be pitiable to look at. She was sleeping quietly; so Marion seated herself at the foot of the bed, not going any nearer for fear of disturbing her. She sat there some time, her thoughts busy with the past, when she was very much startled at hearing Rachel say, in a weak voice:-- "Miss Christine, is that you?" "No," answered Marion, rising, and going quickly to the bedside; "it's Marion; can I do anything for you?" "You, Marion!" said Rachel, holding out her hand. "I'm so glad!" "Why?" asked Marion, kneeling by the bed, and taking Rachel's hand in both of hers. "Because I wanted to see you so much. Miss Christine told me who went for the doctor for me that night. I want to thank you." "Don't Rachel! don't!" said Marion, her voice trembling despite her efforts to keep it steady. "Forgive me for all the unkind things I have done; that is what I want." "Forgive you, Marion! As if after that night there could be anything to forgive! I'll do better than that; I'll love you." Marion could not speak, but she bent forward and pressed a kiss upon Rachel's lips. That kiss was the seal upon a bond of friendship which was never broken by either. And so a few words, a silent action, cleared away all the unkindness and doubt of the past. Why is it, that so often, in the lives of all of us, such words are left unspoken, such actions go undone, the want of which clouds not only our own happiness, but that of others? Soon after this, Rachel was able to be moved on to a lounge, and every spare hour that Marion and Florence could get from their studies was devoted to her. Marion would seat herself on the floor by the couch, and Florence lean over the back as they talked of everything that was going on downstairs, or made plans for their summer vacation. Sometimes their conversation drifted on to quieter and graver subjects; then, as the twilight gathered round them, they would draw nearer together, and hand in hand sit in silence until Marion, fearing lest too much thinking would have a bad effect upon Rachel, with some jesting remarks, would jump up and light the gas. Lying there, in the daily companionship of her two friends, Rachel regained her health and strength, and passed happier hours than she had known since her father's death. CHAPTER XIX. THE WEDDING. "I've got the greatest piece of news for you, you ever heard!" cried Marion, bursting into the room where Florence, Rachel, Mattie, and Sarah were sitting one morning in the early part of June. "Guess who's engaged?" "Engaged!" echoed Sarah; "I'm sure I don't know." "Yourself," said Mattie. "Oh, pshaw! don't be ridiculous!" said Marion. "Come now, girls, guess somebody rational." "Well, aren't you rational, I should like to know?" asked Rachel. "I shouldn't be if I were engaged," retorted Marion; "but guess now; every one but Florence, for I think she would guess right." "Oh, tell us, Flo, do," urged Sarah; "Marion will keep it all night." "No, I won't," cried Marion; "it's _Miss Christine_." "Miss Christine!" shouted every girl, jumping to her feet in astonishment,--"to whom?" "Why, M. Béranger, of course," said Florence; "who else could it be?" "Why, I never thought of such a thing," said Rachel. "Well, I don't know where your eyes have been," said Marion; "for I've suspected it a long time, and so has Florence." "Oh, I thought he liked her, and she him; but I never thought of _that_." "Well, I think it is perfectly horrid!" declared Sarah. "Why, Sallie, what do you mean?" said Marion; "I think it's splendid." "Oh, of course, it's all very nice for you girls who are going away at the end of the term; but here I've got to stay another year, and I shall _die_ without Miss Christine!" "But you'll have her just the same," said Marion; "they're going to live here for a year at least; it almost makes me want to come back again." "Going to live here?" cried Sarah, clasping her hands with delight; "then I _do_ think it's perfectly magnificent!" "Tell us all about it, Marion," asked Mattie; "how did you know it?" "Miss Christine told me herself. You ought to have seen how pretty she looked! She blushed like any girl, and I just threw my arms round her and gave her a good hug. She told me I might tell the girls who were going to leave this term; but she didn't want the others to know it at present, and here I've been, and let the cat out of the bag; for I didn't see Sallie when I came in, and never dreamed she was here. Sallie, if you lisp a word of it, I'll have you shut up, and kept on bread and water for a week, and you shan't go to the wedding." "Is she going to be married during school?" "I shouldn't wonder; but I couldn't get it out of her when. Now, girls, we must give her a handsome present." "It ought to be from the whole school," suggested Florence. "Yes, so I think; but don't you think it would be nice if we six girls, who have been here four years together, should all work her something? My idea is to make an ottoman: one work the middle, four the corners, and the other fill it up; what do you say?" "A capital idea!" said Mattie; "and I choose the filling up, for that's the only part I like to do." "You're welcome to it," said Marion, "for we all hate it." "Mab, couldn't you design it yourself?" asked Florence; "it would be so much handsomer, and Miss Christine would think all the more of it." "Nothing I should like better, if you'll all trust me." "Of course we will," said Mattie; "you designed your carpet-bag, didn't you? It is a perfect beauty!" "Let me see it," said Sarah. "It's a new one, isn't it?" "Oh, what handsome letters!" said Rachel. "There, now I see for the first time why the girls call you Mab. I always thought it was such a queer nickname for Marion." "Why, didn't you know?" answered Marion. "M. A. B., Marion Ascott Berkley; but I never write my whole name; I like just the two, Marion Berkley, a great deal better." "Do you know," said Sarah, in the most serious way, "I don't think 'Mab' seems to suit you so well as it used to? then you were sort of--well--but now you're kind of--I don't exactly know what, but different from the other." "Sallie, you are a goose!" laughed Marion, as Sarah's lucid description of the change in her character produced a shout from the girls. "I shall have to muzzle you until you manage your tongue better;" and quick as a flash Marion seized her satchel, and clapped it over Sarah's head, who resisted violently; "will you be a good girl if I let you out?" "Yes! yes!" cried Sallie, from the inside of the bag, her voice almost drowned by the laughter of the girls. "Well now, behave yourself," said Marion, as she released her prisoner, "and next time don't talk of what you know nothing about." "Well, you are, any way!" cried Sarah, brushing the hair out of her eyes. "Take care!" laughed Marion, shaking the satchel at Sarah; "you know what you have to expect." "Come, girls, let's go downstairs and tell the others," said Rachel. "So we will," said Marion; "they ought to have known it as soon as we did;" and down they all went. Miss Christine's engagement did not long remain a secret, and when the knowledge became general, the little woman was fairly showered with kisses and caresses. Her scholars had almost worshipped her before, but now she seemed invested with a new importance, and was quite enveloped in a perpetual incense of love and admiration. M. Béranger, in the comparatively short time he had been with them, had won the respect of all his pupils; but now that he was going to marry their Miss Christine they made a perfect hero of him. It came out, at last, that the marriage was to take place the last day of June, two days later than the usual one for closing school. Miss Christine's first idea had been to be married very quietly in church, inviting any of the scholars who chose to do so to remain over; but the girls all begged her to have a "regular wedding," as they called it, and she had consented. Every one of the scholars was perfectly delighted at the idea of staying over to the wedding, and all were anxiously looking forward to the important day. Invitations were sent to those of the parents with whom Miss Christine was personally acquainted, and the girls had great fun planning and replanning how all the guests were to be accommodated for the night, as they would have to come the night previous. Great was the delight of Marion, when Miss Christine told her that she wanted the six graduates to be her bridesmaids, and she immediately ran off to find the girls and plan their dresses. They had been as busy as bees ever since they knew of the engagement; there were but a few stitches more to set in the ottoman, and it was to be sent the next day to Mrs. Berkley, who was to get it mounted, and bring it up when she came. As many of the scholars were very wealthy, while the parents of others were in moderate circumstances, Marion had suggested that all contributions for the present, from the whole school, should be put into a closed box, through a hole in the cover, thus preventing any one from having an uncomfortable consciousness that she had not been able to give as much as another. When the box was opened, it was found to contain a very large sum. This was forwarded by Marion, who seemed by general consent to be considered chief of the committee of arrangements, to her mother, with directions to use it in the purchase of a plain, but handsome, gold watch and chain. There proved to be a surplus fund, with which Mrs. Berkley bought a large album, in which were placed photographs of all the girls in the school. Miss Stiefbach had so much to occupy her mind, that several times during the week of the wedding she was actually seen to hurry through the hall, quite forgetful of her usual dignified glide. In fact, she seemed quite another person; the prospect of her sister's happiness had wrought a great change in her, and made her quite unbend to those around her. Aunt Bettie came down several times with butter and eggs, never going away without getting a glimpse of Marion, and for three or four days before _the_ day, Jemima was at the house all the time, stoning raisins, beating eggs, and making herself generally useful. At last the wedding-day actually arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Berkley, with several other fathers and mothers, had arrived the night previous, and every nook and corner of the house was filled to overflowing. Some of the scholars slept three in a bed, others on mattresses laid on the floor; but no one thought of complaining, and the more inconvenience they had to put up with, the better they seemed to like it; for wasn't it all for their Miss Christine? The six bridesmaids, with the other older girls, had been busy every moment of the day before, making wreaths of wild flowers and roses; these they hung early in the morning all over the lower part of the house. The folding-doors were festooned, and trimmed with an arch of flowers, and the walls of the little room back of them, in which Miss Christine was to stand to receive her friends, were perfectly covered with wreaths, garlands, and bouquets; so that it looked like a fairy bower. They had also decorated the church, although of that neither Miss Stiefbach nor Miss Christine was as yet aware. The chancel-rail was trimmed with garlands of white flowers; down the aisle were four arches, the one at the door being of bright, glowing colors, and each one growing paler, until the one in front of the altar was of pure, bridal white, and over that hung a "marriage bell" of marguerites. The girls had had to work hard, and had scoured the country far and near for flowers; but they had done everything themselves, and not a bud was twined in those decorations that did not take with it a loving thought of the dear little woman in whose honor they were made. At last everything was completed; the bridesmaids were all dressed, and collected in Marion's room, putting on their gloves, and Marion had gone to put on the bridal veil,--a favor which she had begged, and which had been most readily granted; in a few moments that was done and the party started for the church, where Miss Stiefbach and her guests were already arrived. I doubt if it would be possible to find a prettier bridal party in all the world, than entered that little church that glorious June morning. First came Mattie Denton and Grace Minton; then Julia Thayer and Alice Howard; then Marion and Florence, and directly behind them M. Béranger and Miss Christine. The bridesmaids wore simple white muslins, short, the upper skirts looped with clematis and rose-buds, and delicate wreaths of the same in their hair. The bride also wore white muslin, over which hung the bridal veil of tulle, put on with a wreath of natural orange-blossoms and myrtle, the work of Marion's hands. M. Béranger looked, and acted like a prince about to take possession of his kingdom, and his clear "I vill" could be heard in every part of the church. But the ceremony was soon over; the bridal party turned and faced the eager, happy faces before them, and passed slowly down under the arches of lovely flowers, out into the sunlight, the organ pealing forth the glorious old wedding-march. Such a wedding-reception was never seen before! There were no dignified ushers to lead you decorously up to the bride, and whisk you off again before you got an idea into your head; and if there had been, they would have been tremendously snubbed by that throng of impetuous girls, who all crowded round Miss Christine, or rather Madame Béranger, each one eager for the first kiss. All formality was set aside; every one was radiantly happy, and, literally, everything went merry as a marriage bell. It would be useless to attempt to describe Miss Christine's delight at her many presents; for, in addition to those I have already mentioned, almost every girl in the school gave her some little thing she had made herself. M. Béranger also received many proofs of their regard. But the time soon arrived when the bride and bridesmaids, who were to leave in the Boston train that afternoon, had to go and change their dresses. The girls' trunks were all packed, and there was little enough time for the adieus which naturally accompanied a final departure from school. The carriage for the bride was at the door, and behind it several wagons, of various descriptions, for the bridesmaids and their friends. Miss Christine came down, looking so lovely, in her gray travelling-suit, that there was a perfect rush at her for the final good-by; but the last one was said, and in a moment she and her husband were in the carriage and off. Sarah Brown threw an old shoe after them for good luck, the wagons followed on, and the whole party started down the road, amid the shouts and cheers of the girls, who crowded on to the piazza, almost hiding poor Miss Stiefbach, as they waved their handkerchiefs, and threw their farewell kisses in the air. CHAPTER XX. THE JOURNEY. Rachel's intention had been to stay with Miss Stiefbach until the return of her uncle, whom she expected during the month of October; but Marion had urged her to go home with her, and join their family party in their summer trip. Mrs. Berkley seconded the invitation so warmly that Rachel had accepted with great pleasure. Finding that Mr. Stevenson's means were not sufficient to enable him to allow Florence to join the party, Rachel, with the utmost delicacy and tact, had invited her to go with them,--an arrangement which proved more than satisfactory to all. I fear some of my readers have thought that Rachel's uncle must be a cold, hard-hearted man to leave his orphan niece so long to the care of strangers, and in justice to that gentleman I must give some explanation of his seeming neglect. Although a man of great wealth, he had devoted himself to the study of surgery, throwing into the pursuit as much energy as if he depended on his skill for his daily bread. Having become quite famous as a surgeon, he had for several years given his services to a charity hospital in Berlin; but having been away from his native land for ten years, he notified the directors of the hospital, a month previous to his brother's death, that at the end of a year from that time he must leave them. He signified his intention of donating to the hospital a sum of money, the income of which would be sufficient to pay a handsome salary to any one whom they might find competent to take his place. When the news of his brother's death reached him, his first impulse had been to start at once for America, and make a home for the orphan girl so suddenly bereft of a father's care; but the same steamer brought him letters from his lawyer and business agent, stating that, according to a wish expressed in the will of his deceased brother, his niece had been placed at an excellent boarding-school, where she would remain for a year, unless other directions were received from him; so he deferred leaving until the time Rachel's school would close; but as she wrote him that she was well and happy, and had made such pleasant plans for the summer, he postponed his return still later, finding that until that time no surgeon could be procured whom he felt capable of filling his responsible position. Mr. and Mrs. Berkley, Marion, Florence, and Rachel, with Fred and Mr. Thornton, made up the travelling party. Mr. Berkley secured a drawing-room car for their exclusive use, and in the best possible spirits they set out for New York. The day after arriving there they went up the Hudson to West Point, spending a week at that delightful place, made up of enchanting scenery and still more enchanting cadets. It would be useless to say the girls did not enjoy the latter quite as much as the former, for what girl of eighteen ever could resist brass buttons? For a day or two, Mr. Thornton and Fred escorted them about town, took them to the review, and everywhere else that there was anything worth seeing, but never introducing one of their military acquaintances, notwithstanding said acquaintances gave them plenty of opportunities for doing so. But such a state of things was not likely to last long; for the young women, although apparently unconscious of the admiring glances with which they were favored, in their secret hearts knew perfectly well that those spruce cadets never met them whenever they went out, or passed in front of their hotel-windows so many times a day, for the sole purpose of getting a bow from Fred or Mr. Thornton. "The idea," exclaimed Marion, as the three girls were putting on their hats for their usual walk, "of our going away from West Point without having been introduced to a single cadet! I think it's outrageous!" "But, Marion," said Rachel, "don't you suppose if they wanted to know us very much, they'd find a way to get introduced?" "How can they, when Fred and Arthur Thornton mount guard over us every time we go out? Papa doesn't know any one but the old officers. Arthur Thornton knows ever so many cadets, and I think it's _very_ strange he doesn't bring them to call on us." "I'm sure," said Florence, "Mr. Thornton is very polite and attentive himself; I think he's very nice." "Oh, so do I," replied Marion; "he's nice enough, but aren't we going to have _him_ all summer? I tell you just how it is; he doesn't intend to introduce any one, because he feels so grand taking us everywhere himself!" "O Marion," laughed Rachel, "I'm afraid you're growing conceited." "No, I'm not, but what I say is true. If we didn't dress in the fashion, and look pretty nice all the time, he'd be only too glad to get us off his hands." "Seems to me you're rather hard on Mr. Thornton," said Florence, smoothing the feather in her hat. "Why is he any more to blame than Fred?" "Of course he is! Fred doesn't know any one, but some of the little fellows, that Arthur Thornton hasn't introduced to him; besides, he's just the age when it makes him feel important to have three young females under his charge. But I tell you I'm going to put a stop to this; I know there are plenty of young men here actually dying to be presented to us. I think it is positively cruel to let them languish any longer, and if there isn't more than one cadet introduced to us before night, then my name is not Marion Berkley." That morning the whole party went to the armory with an old officer, who was at West Point making a visit to his son, a member of the graduating class. When they started from the hotel, Marion took her father's arm, and joined with him in his conversation with the officer. Before they reached the armory Col. Stranburg was perfectly delighted with her, and the interest she evinced for his profession, and quite devoted himself to her during the morning. "My dear young lady," he said as they were returning to the hotel, "I should like to call on you and your friends this evening, and bring my son with me." "I should be delighted," replied Marion, who had been wondering how she should ask him to do that very thing without appearing too eager; "for as yet we do not any of us know a single cadet." "What!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in unfeigned astonishment; "you don't mean to say you've been at West Point three days, and don't know a cadet! Why, I supposed that by this time you had a whole necklace of brass buttons." "I haven't," laughed Marion, "and I don't think I care for one; but I should like to know some one here." "Of course you would; and I don't understand it at all. Ah! now I see!" he exclaimed, with a meaning glance at the two young men who were walking in front with Florence and Rachel; "you have been monopolized, but we'll alter the state of things." Col. Stranburg was as good as his word, and called that evening, bringing with him, not only his son, but two other cadets, who proved to be the very young gentlemen the girls had so often noticed. The next day the young men called again, each bringing a friend, and so it went on; every evening their parlor was crowded, and the girls were showered with attentions and bouquets till the end of the week, when Mr. Berkley carried them off, declaring that their heads would be completely turned if they remained any longer. From West Point they went to the Catskills, spending several weeks there. Marion, who had never travelled to any extent, was perfectly delighted with everything she saw, but above all with the exquisite beauty of the scenery. She would often wander away from the others, find some unfrequented spot, and sit for hours drinking in the loveliness about her, her whole nature expanding under its influence. From the Catskills they went to Saratoga, giving only one day and night to that abode of fashion; from there to Montreal; then down the St. Lawrence to Niagara, and from there home, arriving in Boston about the last of September. It would be useless for me to attempt to give an account of all they saw and did that summer; it would fill at least one small volume. Suffice it to say, that every one enjoyed themselves to the utmost; that Rachel could never thank Mrs. Berkley half enough for inviting her to join their party; and Florence could never express half her gratitude to Rachel for inviting her to go with her. I think I conveyed to my readers the idea that Mr. Thornton was somewhat in love with Marion the first time he saw her; and the more he saw her the better he liked her. Every one knows how easily people get acquainted who are thrown together as they were, and before the summer was half over, they felt as if they had known each other for years. Marion liked Mr. Thornton very much; in fact, once or twice she had been guilty of indulging in certain little day-dreams, in which that young gentleman figured quite extensively; but she had been heartily ashamed of herself afterwards, and resolved in the future not to let her imagination take such ridiculous flights. But she could not help noticing, that, polite as he was to her friends, he was still more so to her. There was a difference in the very way he spoke to her; not that he was ever sentimental or tender; Marion would have had too much good sense to allow anything of the kind, even if he had been inclined to be so foolish, which I am happy to say he was not. But she remembered, that throughout their whole journey she had never expressed a wish to go to any particular place, or see any lovely view which the rest of the party considered rather unattainable, but what, somehow or other, Mr. Thornton cleared away all difficulties, and almost before she was aware of it the wish was gratified. She would have been something more than human, if such very chivalrous attentions had not been agreeable to her. CHAPTER XXI. RACHEL'S UNCLE RETURNS. "There, Rachel, I flatter myself that hangs just about right," said Marion, walking across the room to display the train of her new black silk. "And so it does," replied Rachel, turning away from the glass where she had been putting on her fall hat; "the slope is quite perfect. Why, you look positively queenly!" "Don't I though?" laughed Marion, only glancing now and then with an air of great satisfaction at the folds of her train as it swept gracefully beside her chair. "I've held out all summer, and would not put on a long dress until I could have a train, and now I've got one." "I should certainly say you had," said her mother, entering at that moment with her bonnet and shawl on. "Come Rachel, are you ready? The carriage is at the door. I suppose Marion will spend her time, while we are out, walking up and down the room, learning how to manage her train, so as not to stumble over it the first time she goes downstairs." "You horrible mamma!" laughed Marion; "as if I could be so clumsy! Besides, you know I am staying home on purpose to finish papa's slippers in time for his birthday." "Oh, yes, we know," said Rachel, "I don't suppose there's any danger of your having a caller while we are out." "No, I don't suppose there is," retorted Marion, knowing well the meaning of Rachel's mischievous glance, "unless your uncle should happen to come; if he does, I'll entertain him until you get back." "Oh, there's no danger of his interrupting the tête-à-tête," laughed Rachel, as she ran downstairs; "your father said the steamer would not be in until to-morrow morning." "O mamma," called out Marion, "won't you please stop on your way back, and get me a cherry ribbon? I haven't a bright bow to my name, and papa will have a fit to see me all in black." "I'll get you one," replied Mrs. Berkley, as she was closing the front door; "but there's one in my upper drawer you can wear until I get back." "It's not worth while," said Marion to herself, as she fastened her sleeve-buttons; "I'll just put in this jet pin, for I know there won't be any one here, and I haven't got time to prink." She seated herself at her work, and sewed away very industriously, only glancing now and then at the folds of her alpaca, as they swept out so gracefully beside her chair, looking "almost like a black silk." Her mother and Rachel had not been gone very long, when Bridget, the cook, came up, and said there was a gentleman downstairs. "Who is it, Biddy? didn't he send his name?" "Indade an' he didn't, miss. Ellen is out, and Sarey's just afther changin' her dress, an' it's meself as had to go to the door, an' I always gits so flustered that I laves me wits in the kitchen." "I should think you did," replied Marion, as she brushed the bits of worsted off her dress. "Do you think it's Mr. Thornton?" "Misther Thorington! An' haven't I sane the likes o' him too many times not to know him? Indade an' it aint, miss; it's a much oulder man than him." "Oh, I know who it is!" exclaimed Marion. "I'll go right down;" and she ran downstairs, not stopping to give a glance at the glass as she certainly would have done if it had been Mr. Thornton, and thinking to herself, "It must be Rachel's uncle. I am so glad the old gentleman has got here at last; I do hope he will be like her father." She entered the parlor hastily, but before she had a chance to speak, or even see who was there, she found herself encircled by a pair of strong arms; a bearded face bent over her, kissing her repeatedly, and a manly voice exclaimed: "My darling! have I got you at last?" Marion disengaged herself as quickly as possible, and sprang back, looking at the stranger with an expression in which astonishment and indignation were equally blended. He was a very handsome man, apparently about thirty-five; tall, and of a commanding figure. His features were fine, that is, his nose and eyes; the latter, when one could get a good look under the long black lashes which shaded them, showed themselves to be clear, blue-gray; but the lower part of his face was concealed by a soft, wavy beard and mustache of rich, chestnut-brown. There was an air of dignity about him which did not seem to be assumed for the occasion, and altogether he was the last man to suspect as an impostor, although such Marion had mentally styled him, deciding at the first glance that he could not be Rachel's uncle. Before she could collect her bewildered ideas sufficiently to speak, he again stretched out his arms as if to embrace her, saying in a reproachful tone:-- "What! your astonishment at seeing me is greater than your joy? I assure you, my dear, that is not the case with me." "Can you wonder at my astonishment, sir?" exclaimed Marion, retreating as he came near her, and motioning him back with a haughty gesture; "explain your singular conduct." "Have not I explained it sufficiently?" he asked. "You are a little unreasonable, I think, although that queenly manner sets well upon you, I must confess." "Sir!" exclaimed Marion, with flashing eyes, "if you do not instantly leave this house, I will find means to compel you to do so." "Come, come, my darling," he answered, stepping forward and taking possession of her hand, "your joke has gone quite far enough. I acknowledge you're as perfect a little actress as I ever saw; but I want something more than acting;" and he attempted to kiss her. But Marion sprang from him, throwing her head up, and looking at him with a face expressive of the utmost scorn, as she exclaimed, "Sir, you have the appearance of a gentleman, and for such I first took you, but I find I was mistaken; if you do not instantly leave the house I will call a policeman to put you out!" and Marion pointed to the door with a gesture that would have done honor to a queen, as she stood waiting to see him obey her command. But the stranger only looked at her a moment in silence, then said in an injured, reproachful tone, "I expected to find you changed; a young lady in fact; but that you should have chosen our first meeting for an exhibition of what seems to be your favorite accomplishment is more than I expected. I entreat you to drop this haughty indifference, which I sincerely hope is assumed for this occasion only, and be once more the little Rachel I left ten years ago." At the mention of the word Rachel, Marion's arm dropped to her side; her haughty bearing gave place to an air of confusion, and she exclaimed:-- "Rachel! Can it be that you thought I was Rachel Drayton?" For the first time it occurred to the stranger that he too might be laboring under a mistake, and he bowed slightly, as he said:-- "I certainly took you for my niece, Rachel Drayton; but I see by your face I am wrong. I most sincerely beg your pardon for what must have seemed an act of unparalleled impudence." Marion bowed, flushing crimson at the recollection of the very affectionate greeting he had given her; but she said in a charmingly frank way:-- "No apology is necessary, sir; it was a mistake all round,--you took me for Rachel, and I took you for an impostor, which certainly was not so complimentary; but now I know you must be Dr. Robert Drayton." Dr. Drayton smiled, as he said, "And you are Miss Marion Berkley, I presume?" "Yes," replied Marion, offering him a chair, and seating herself at the same time. "Rachel is staying with me; she has gone out riding with mamma. She did not expect you until to-morrow morning; but when the servant told me a gentleman was down here, I thought it must be you, but was sure I was mistaken when I saw you." "And why, may I ask?" inquired Dr. Drayton. "Oh!" laughed Marion, a trifle confused, "because I thought you were quite an old gentleman; at least old enough to be my father." "And so I am, almost," replied Dr. Drayton, smiling; "but tell me, does Rachel want to see me?" "Indeed she does; she has talked about you every day this summer, and has hardly been able to wait for you to get here. But how did you mistake me for her? We are not in the least alike." "You must remember it is ten years since I saw her; then she was a little, dark-eyed thing with golden hair, something like yours; your black dress, too, misled me." "Golden hair!" exclaimed Marion, wishing she had put on her mother's bright bow, thus saving herself all her embarrassment,--"golden hair, I can't imagine such a thing; she has jet-black now." "I dare say I don't remember it very correctly; has she grown much?" "She is very tall; much taller than I am." "I thought you were very tall just now when you ordered me out of the house," said Dr. Drayton, with an amused smile. "I beg you will never allude to the subject again," said Marion, raising her head involuntarily, with a slightly haughty gesture, as she invariably did when she was annoyed, but did not wish to appear so; "it was a mistake for which I sincerely beg your pardon." "As you said to me," replied Dr. Drayton, "no apology is needed. I promise never to allude to the subject again without your permission." "Which I certainly shall never grant," laughed Marion, ashamed of her unnecessary hauteur. "Now I shall be able to apply to you my one great test of the worth of humanity, that is, try your powers of keeping a secret." "I am willing to stand the test," laughed Dr. Drayton, "and feel sure that before morning I shall have no secret to keep, for by that time you will have told Rachel all about it." "I shall do no such thing," replied Marion, warmly; "but there is the carriage. Excuse me, Dr. Drayton, and I will tell Rachel you are here." The meeting between Dr. Drayton and Rachel was far different from his interview with Marion. Rachel had longed for his coming, for although she could not remember him very distinctly, she could not feel him to be a stranger to her; her father was very fond of his younger brother, and had always been in the habit of talking with his daughter a great deal about her Uncle Robert, until he had become almost a hero in her eyes. She had been in the habit of associating him in her mind with her father, so that she had quite forgotten he was many years his junior, and was not prepared to find so young a man; in fact, only thirty-two, although his beard gave him the appearance of being a few years older. There was a certain sense of strength and power about him, which led her to look upon him with the same feelings of deference and respect with which she would look upon an older man, while at the same time, the fact of his being younger put her upon an easier, more familiar footing with him; in short, Rachel was delighted with him, and felt she would receive from him all the affection and watchful care of a father, combined with the more demonstrative attentions of an elder brother. CHAPTER XXII. DR. DRAYTON'S HOUSE-KEEPER. "Mrs. Berkley, I'm in a dilemma," said Dr. Drayton, as he entered the library one morning where that lady was sitting, and took a chair near her. "Can I help you out of it?" "If you can't, I don't know of any one else to go to," said Dr. Drayton, who had become a daily visitor at the Berkleys'. "I have bought a house, and now I want a house-keeper. Even if I felt inclined to brave the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, and settle down with Rachel at the head of my establishment, I would not do it; she is too young to have so much care on her shoulders; I want the rest of her life to be as bright and happy as it is possible for me to make it. My idea is to get some cultivated, refined, middle-aged lady to come and take the care of the house-keeping, and be a person who would make it pleasant for Rachel, and any young friends she might wish to have with her. But how can I get such a person? I answered two advertisements last week, and had interviews with the females themselves at the Tremont House. One of them was old and thin, and had a sharp voice that sent a chill through me every time she spoke,--would be about as cheerful a member of society as an animated skeleton; the other fair, fat, and forty, but an incessant talker, and looked as if she had not brushed her hair for a week. Now, Mrs. Berkley, what shall I do? Here I am, a poor, forlorn bachelor, who throws himself on your hands. You must help me somehow or other." "Well, the best thing I can advise," replied Mrs. Berkley, with an amused smile, "is for you to cease to be a bachelor." Dr. Drayton shrugged his shoulders. "Impossible, madame!" "And why, I should like to know? You certainly are not bad-looking; your name is quite surrounded by a fast-increasing halo of fame,--something which is always attractive to the young ladies, you know,--and, what would be above all to many, you have money." "Exactly," replied Dr. Drayton, with considerable energy. "When I first settled down in Berlin, through some very influential friends the very first society of the place was open to me, and I found myself the recipient of marked attention from the heads of several families. I was delighted with them. Such cordiality! such hospitality! I really felt proud of myself for calling it forth, for then I was young, and the little halo which you speak of had not shed its benign influence over me; of course it was to my personal attractions, and nothing else, I owed my popularity. I happened to speak to a young American friend of mine, of the attentions I was constantly receiving,--invitations to this, that, and the other house, and wondered why it was he was not equally fortunate. 'My dear fellow,' said he, 'don't you know I haven't got any money?' His answer was certainly a damper to my feelings; but it was a good thing for me. I gave less time to balls and parties, and more to my profession; gradually, as I showed myself less and less in society, I received fewer invitations, and those from gentlemen all having marriageable daughters. No, Mrs. Berkley, don't ask me to get married; at least not at present. I don't know anything about American girls; but I suppose they are all very much the same as other young ladies, and not until I can find one who will love me for myself, and not my money, will there ever be a Mrs. Drayton at the head of my table." "That is certainly a good resolution," replied Mrs. Berkley, laughing; "but I am afraid I could find you a wife much easier than a house-keeper, such as you want. Of course you will want to put your house in order, and furnish it; meanwhile we are delighted to keep Rachel with us." "You are very kind, very kind indeed, and I certainly shall benefit myself by your offer, for I don't like the idea of taking her to a hotel. But you haven't asked me where my house is." "Sure enough," replied Mrs. Berkley; "but my mind has been too full of your house-keeper to think of your house. Where is it?" "That house on the corner of Beacon Street and the street just below here, I can't recall the name." "The free-stone house we noticed for sale the other day?" inquired Mrs. Berkley. "Yes, that is the one. It is larger than I really need; but the arrangement of the ground-floor suits me admirably, for I must have an office." "Then you intend to practise?" "Certainly, I should be ashamed of myself if I gave up my profession; but I do not intend to do anything out of office-hours, so it will not confine me at all. I intend to take the entire charge of Rachel's property until she is of age; meanwhile I want to give her a clear idea of the value of money, so that she may be able to make a good use of her immense fortune." "I will look about me," said Mrs. Berkley, "and if I hear of any lady that I think will suit you in every way, I will let you know; but here come the girls; they have been out to see Florence Stevenson." Rachel was delighted with the house her uncle had bought, for it was only a few moments' walk from Mr. Berkley's, and she would be able to be with Marion every day. The two girls commenced making plans for the winter, Rachel deciding that the first thing she would do, when they got into their new house, would be to have Florence in for a long visit. A few days after the conversation between Mrs. Berkley and Dr. Drayton, Mr. Berkley received a letter from a distant cousin of his, a lonely widow, who having lost her property, had written to him to see if he could get her a situation as house-keeper in some refined family. Upon showing this letter to his wife, she at once exclaimed that the lady was the very person for Dr. Drayton. The necessary arrangements were soon made; the house was put in perfect order, and elegantly furnished; and Dr. Drayton took his niece to as delightful a home as one could wish to have, for Mrs. Marston proved to be all that he desired. Cultivated and agreeable, she soon won his heartfelt esteem, and Rachel loved her from their very first meeting. After the new household had got fairly settled, Dr. Drayton proposed to Rachel that she should continue her German and French under his direction. He spoke both languages as fluently as he did English, and suggested that the lessons should consist entirely of conversation, and reading aloud from some of the best French and German authors. Rachel was very much pleased at his proposition, and asked if Marion might not join with them. "Yes, if she likes," replied Dr. Drayton, in answer to her request; "but I'm afraid her head will be too full of balls and parties, for her to ever keep up a regular course of studies." "Why, Uncle Robert!" indignantly cried Rachel; "you don't know Marion at all, or you would not say that!" "I don't pretend to," quietly replied the doctor; "but I suppose she is very much like all other young ladies." "Indeed she is not," replied Rachel, energetically. "I don't know of a girl that has as much strength of character as Marion." "Not even excepting Miss Florence?" "No, not even excepting her. I love Florence dearly; she is a lovely girl, but there is something about Marion which _she_ has not got." "I should say so, decidedly," replied Dr. Drayton, with provoking coolness. "Why, Uncle Robert, I never dreamed you didn't like Marion!" "Did I say I did not?" asked her uncle, as he unfolded the newspaper, and glanced down its columns. "No, you didn't say exactly those words, but you implied it." "I was not aware of the fact," said the doctor, as he lighted his cigar. "You said there was something about her different from Florence, and I agreed with you. I suppose, with feminine perversity, you would have preferred that I should have disagreed, thus giving you an opportunity to make an argument in favor of your side of the question; next time I'll remember." "Uncle Robert, you are perfectly provoking!" exclaimed Rachel, jumping up, and taking the paper away from him; "there!--you shan't have it until you've said something in Marion's favor." "Very well," replied her uncle, slightly raising his eyebrows; "you enumerate the catalogue of her virtues, and I'll subscribe to all I can." "In the first place, she's very handsome," commenced Rachel. "Well, no, not exactly what I call handsome," said the doctor in a deliberating tone; "she's not large enough for that." "Beautiful then; that's better still." "Well, yes,--I suppose you think so." "But it isn't to be what I think," impatiently replied Rachel. "You certainly _must_ acknowledge she has beautiful eyes; true as steel; the kind of eyes you could trust!" "I'll examine them the next time I see her," replied Dr. Drayton, as he laid back in his chair, and puffed a cloud of smoke into the air. "Excellence No. 3, if you please, Rachel." "She's very intelligent, and an excellent scholar," replied Rachel, tapping the floor with her foot, and trying not to get provoked. "As yet I have never had any conversation with her of any deeper import than the shade of your window-curtains; but I've no doubt she's at home with any subject, and is a perfect walking 'Encyclopædia Americana.'" "Uncle Robert, you are incorrigible! you are determined _not_ to see any good in her." "Not at all, my dear; the difficulty is, that after a six weeks' acquaintance, you expect me to be as enthusiastic over her as you are after a lengthy _school-girl_ intimacy." "I know what you mean to insinuate by a 'school-girl intimacy,' and I agree with you that as a general thing they don't amount to anything; but just let me tell you what Marion did for me, and then see if you'll wonder that I'm '_enthusiastic_' over her." "Go on; I am prepared for anything. I suppose she rescued you from a 'watery grave' in true novel fashion." "She did more than that; she risked finding one herself. She walked all alone, at midnight, from our school to the doctor's house, which is at least a mile and a half, and crossed the river on a bridge _that the flooring was taken off, and nothing for her to walk on but the beam where the railing was_!" "A heroine, as I live!" cried the doctor, holding up both hands; "something of which I've always had an innate horror." "Uncle Robert," said Rachel, really hurt, "I thought after that you'd at least show some regard for her, if only for my sake." "My dear girl," he replied, drawing her towards him, "I certainly will acknowledge that it was very brave in her; now give me my newspaper." "You don't deserve it, but you shall have it, if you will let Marion join our lessons." "I should be delighted to have her; and Miss Florence too." "Florence won't be able to give her time to it, I know. She can't come to make me a visit until spring, for she was away all summer, and her father can't spare her yet." "Very well; you arrange everything with Mrs. Berkley; only the time must not interfere with office-hours; before or after that I am at your service." "You're the dearest uncle in the world!" exclaimed Rachel, kissing him. "Even if I don't worship your heroine." "Oh, don't call her a _heroine_, for mercy's sake! and above all don't ever let her know that I told you." "My lips shall be sealed on the subject. Now run off, and let me read my paper in peace." Marion was very much pleased with the plan for the French and German lessons, and it was arranged that they should devote two hours, twice a week, to each language, meeting alternately at Marion's and Rachel's houses. Marion was a very good French scholar, and could manage to make herself understood in German; but she was really afraid of Dr. Drayton, and never did herself justice at the lessons. He was very patient and kind, but nevertheless very critical, and corrected the pronunciation of their German so many times, that Marion at last declared she never would say another word, for she knew she never could suit him; but she found him even more determined than M. Béranger, and soon learned, that if the lessons went on at all, his directions must be strictly attended to; and after a while the girls never thought of speaking English, during their French and German hours. Mr. Berkley, who happened to look in upon them one day when they were carrying on quite an excited argument, declared they were all jabbering just to hear themselves talk, for he knew perfectly well they couldn't any one of them understand a word the others were saying. * * * * * The intimacy between the two families increased daily, and the Berkleys welcomed Dr. Drayton most cordially to their family circle, finding him in every way a most delightful companion. Intelligent, cultivated, and refined, and having travelled over almost every country in Europe, he had the rare gift of describing everything he had seen in such a manner as to bring it vividly before the minds of his hearers, without incessantly introducing the personal pronoun, which, as a general thing, finds its way so often into a traveller's account of his journeyings. He became a general favorite with the family. Charley always ran to meet him, and commenced a raid upon his pockets, sure of finding something stowed away there for his especial benefit; the baby crowed with delight whenever he came near him; and Fred bestowed upon him, after their first meeting, the highest compliment he could pay a man,--"he was a regular brick!" But Marion declared "she thought they made altogether too much fuss over him, and she did not intend to join with the family in setting him up as a perfect hero; she must say she thought he was rather conceited, for he never paid her any attention, and when young people were there, and they were all having a nice time in the parlor, he always sat off with papa and mamma, in the library, as if he thought himself above such childish follies." CHAPTER XXIII. THE DÉBUT INTO SOCIETY. "And so it is to be a regular 'come-out party,'" said Dr. Drayton one evening as he sat smoking with Mr. Berkley in the library, the rest of the family being in the parlor. "Yes, a regular 'come-out party,'" repeated Mr. Berkley; "but I don't intend to dash out, and make a great spread; hire Papanti's hall, etc. I don't like that sort of thing. I shall invite enough to fill the house, and yet not have it a perfect jam; have half-a-dozen pieces of music, and a good supper; that's my idea of a party." "And a very correct idea, I should say," said the doctor. "Mrs. Berkley rather objected to giving it at all this winter. Marion is still so young, she wanted me to wait another year; but you see, doctor, I'm pretty proud of my only daughter, and I want her to go about in society, before I get too old to go with her." "How old is Miss Marion?" asked Dr. Drayton. "Eighteen last May." "Older than Rachel; I thought her younger." "She looks younger, I think myself, and sometimes seems younger still; but there's good stuff there. She's like her mother, and if I do say it, she'll make a noble woman." "If she proves to be like her mother, she certainly will," replied Dr. Drayton. "Mrs. Berkley is just my idea of what a wife and mother ought to be." "That remark proves you a man of sense and discernment," said Mr. Berkley, highly gratified, both by Dr. Drayton's words, and the warmth of his tone. "But about this party; of course you will come, and dance the 'German.'" "I certainly agree to come. It will be my first real entrance into Boston society; but as for dancing, that's quite another thing; I gave that up years ago." "Why, man alive!" exclaimed Mr. Berkley; "any one would think, to hear you talk sometimes, you were a perfect Methuselah! Here, Marion!" he cried, calling her in from the other room, "I want you to give Dr. Drayton private lessons in dancing, so that he will be able to get through the 'German' at your party." "I am much obliged to Miss Marion," said Dr. Drayton, quietly; "but it is too late for me to begin now; I must decline her services." "Perhaps it would be as well if you waited until I offered them," replied Marion, haughtily, piqued at the coolness of his manner. "I certainly had no intentions of becoming a dancing-mistress for you or any one else!" The doctor made no reply, but Mr. Berkley laughed aloud, as he exclaimed: "Look here, Marion, that Thornton has spoiled you! You are so used to having him consider it an honor to be allowed to pick up your handkerchief, that you begin to think that every one else must do the same." "Papa, how unkind!" said Marion, flushing to the roots of her hair; "I don't know as Mr. Thornton ever picked up my handkerchief in his life, and he wouldn't be so foolish as to consider it an honor if he had." "No?" replied her father, in the most provoking way; "but there,--you shan't be teased any more! Just turn round, and smile sweetly on the doctor, and tell him you don't think he's too old to come to your party, and you'll let him, if he'll promise to be a good boy." "I don't care whether he comes or not," cried Marion, struggling to get away from her father. "If that is the case," said Dr. Drayton, "I shall certainly come, simply for my own amusement. I didn't know but my presence might be particularly disagreeable to you; but as you seem so thoroughly indifferent, I shall come, and look on with the other old folks." Marion bit her lips, and said nothing; but as her father still held her hand, so that she could not get away, she seated herself on the arm of his chair with her face turned towards the fire. "Doctor," said Mr. Berkley, "why don't you shave off that beard? It makes you look five years older than you are." "That is my mask," replied the doctor, stroking his beard with his right hand; "I could not part with it." "What, in the name of sense, do you want of a mask?" "Unluckily for me, my mouth is the telltale feature of my face. I found, when I first became a surgeon, that my patients could tell by its expression whether they were to live or die; so I covered it up with this beard. After I had been at the hospital several years, and had seen sights that the very telling of them would make you shudder; when I performed operation after operation without flinching, or even having the slightest feeling of repugnance, I thought I must have got my mouth under perfect control, and so ventured to trim my mustache and shave my beard. That very morning I had to attend a poor fellow who had had his leg amputated the day before; during the examination I never looked at him, for I felt his eyes were fixed on my face. Suddenly he exclaimed: 'It's no use, doctor; you can keep your eyes down, but you can't hide your mouth,--that says death.' It was the truth; mortification had set in, and he died the next morning. After that I let my beard grow, and so long as I remain a surgeon, which I shall so long as my hand is steady enough to guide the knife, it will stay as it is." "Well, I think you are right," said Mr. Berkley; "but by and by, when you get a wife, perhaps she will think differently, and the beard, and the profession too, may have to go. The last, I hear, pays you nothing." "If ever I get a wife," replied Dr. Drayton, "she will probably think as I do,--that, as I have been blessed with more than an ample fortune, I should be a heartless wretch, if I did not devote my skill to the relief of the suffering poor." Marion, who had listened silently to the above conversation, finding her father had released his hold of her hand, slipped quietly away. The weeks flew past, and the eventful day, when Marion was to make her dêbut into fashionable society, at last arrived. Rachel, of course, would not go to the party, as she was still in deep mourning; but Florence was to stay all night with Marion, and Rachel went round early with her uncle, that she might see her two friends in the full splendor of their first ball-dresses. She went directly to the drawing-room, where she heard the voices of the girls, leaving her uncle to find his way to the dressing-room. "Hands off these two pieces of dry-goods!" cried Fred, who was capering round his sister and Florence, in a perfect state of delight, and all the glories of his first dress-coat, when Rachel entered the room. "You may admire as much as you please; but you can't touch 'em with a ten-foot pole." "Get out of the way, Fred," said Marion, putting him aside as she went forward to meet Rachel; "she shall touch me as much as she pleases. How do you like it, Rachel? Is it just the thing?" "I should say it certainly was!" exclaimed Rachel, enthusiastically. "I never saw anything so lovely in my life; and you two look so pretty together!" "You see our dresses are made just alike," said Florence, buttoning her gloves; "only my flowers are pink, and hers white." The two girls certainly did look lovely. Their dresses were of white tarlatan, puffed and ruffled sufficiently to be quite à la mode, but still so light and delicate as to give them a floating, airy appearance, and not make them look like exaggerated fashion-plates. Marion's was caught, here and there, with white daisies and delicate grasses, a wreath of the same in her hair; while Florence's was trimmed with pink roses and buds. "May I be allowed to come in at this early hour?" inquired Dr. Drayton, as he appeared on the threshold. "Yes, indeed," laughed Marion, advancing to meet him, and stopping in the centre of the room, to drop him a profound courtesy; "you are my first arrival." "And as such claim your acceptance of this bouquet, which I hope you will honor me by carrying during the evening." Marion looked up very much surprised, as he held towards her an exquisite bouquet. He was the last man from whom she would have expected such an attention. "I am very sorry, Dr. Drayton, but you see Fred has one in his hand which I promised a week ago I would carry to-night; but I am just as much obliged, and will set it on the stand close to where I sit in the 'German.'" "No, indeed," replied the doctor, without the slightest appearance of annoyance; "my poor bouquet shall not be so set aside. Mrs. Berkley, will you honor me?" "I say, Marion," exclaimed Fred, as Marion took her bouquet from his hand, "what a pity you promised Thornton you'd carry his! The doctor's is twice as handsome!" "So it's Mr. Thornton who has got ahead of me?" said the doctor. "Miss Florence, I hope I am not to be equally unfortunate with you;" and he presented her with a beautiful bouquet, which he had until that moment held behind him. "Oh, thank you!" cried Florence, perfectly delighted; "you know it's not my dêbut, and no one else has thought of honoring me; it was very kind of you. See, Marion, isn't it lovely?" "Yes, very," replied Marion, as she bent over it, inwardly provoked with herself for being annoyed because the doctor had not only handed over her bouquet to her mother with such perfect nonchalance, but had also brought one for Florence. * * * * * But guests were soon seen passing through the hall on their way to the dressing-rooms, and Rachel was obliged to hurry off; soon the rooms began to fill, and before long the wonderful "German" was at its height. The doctor felt himself a stranger in a strange land; he had been introduced to, and conversed with, several young ladies, but now all conversation was broken up by the "German," and he stood leaning against the door-way, and watched the dance as it proceeded. He noticed several men, much older than himself, dancing with fair young girls; and he wondered within himself if they were really enjoying themselves, and why it was that he stood like one shut out from all the pleasures of youth, young in years but old in feelings; in fact, he was getting a trifle misanthropical, when Marion floated slowly past him, waltzing with Arthur Thornton. As they passed, so near that her draperies touched him, he heard Mr. Thornton say, in a low tone full of meaning, "Marion you are enough to make a man mad, to-night! You are almost too lovely!" "So," thought the doctor, as he turned away, "it is all settled. Well, I supposed as much." He did not see Marion as she abruptly stopped dancing, and looked at poor, infatuated Arthur with a frigid glance, which made his heart leap to his throat, as she said, "Mr. Thornton, you forget yourself; will you lead me to my seat?" Poor Arthur! it was his first rash act; he had loved Marion so well, and tried so hard to conceal it until he was sure of her feelings; but to-night as he said, she was almost too lovely, and before he had thought of the consequences he had called her by name and told her so. It was his first act of tenderness and his last, for now he knew as well that to her he could never be anything more than a friend, as if she had refused him point-blank. Poor fellow! it was a hard blow, but he did not stagger under it; he danced the "German" with as much apparent gayety, and hid his grief under as bright a smile as ever graced a ball-room. But though he flattered himself that no one knew the pain he suffered, there was one, who, although she neither heard his remark, nor Marion's answer, witnessed the little scene between them, saw the frigid look in Marion's eyes, and the light die out of his, and her heart ached for the poor fellow, as only the heart of a young girl can ache, over the sorrows of a man whose happiness is dearer to her than her own. * * * * * The next morning Rachel was in the dining-room, waiting for her uncle to come to breakfast. She had watered and arranged the plants, and now stood tapping impatiently on the window-pane, and wondering why he was so late; but he soon made his appearance, coming in with Mrs. Marston. "O Uncle Robert!" she exclaimed, "I began to think you were never coming; don't you know I'm dying to hear about the party?" "My dear, if I had known you were in such a terrible state of mind and body," replied her uncle, as he seated himself at the table, "I would have come down at six; but if you will take the trouble to look at the clock, you will see it is you who are early, not I who am late." "Well, never mind that," impatiently replied Rachel; "how did Marion look?" "Didn't you see for yourself?" "Oh! that was before any one had got there, and she was not at all excited; she's always lovelier then, she has such a beautiful color, and it makes her eyes handsomer than ever." "I don't think it's necessary for me to say anything, do you, Mrs. Marston?" said the doctor, as he calmly stirred his coffee; "just imagine her as you saw her, only a little excited, and you'll know exactly how she looked." "Did she have much attention?" "You could hardly expect anything else, as the party was at her house." "Oh! of course people would be polite; but wasn't there anybody particularly attentive? Didn't she get 'taken out' a great deal?" "'Taken out?'" repeated the doctor, with a puzzled expression. "Mrs. Marston, can you enlighten me?" "Oh, yes!" laughed Mrs. Marston; "that is only one of the mysterious phrases of the 'German,' which being interpreted means, did a great many gentlemen ask her to dance?" "Oh, thank you," replied the doctor. "Yes, Rachel, she got 'taken out' a great deal; in fact she seemed to be out all the time." "There! _that's_ what I wanted to know," said Rachel, in a tone of satisfaction; "now tell me about Florence." "I'll try to answer you in the most approved style. She looked very charming indeed; seemed to have plenty of admirers, for I noticed that Miss Marion managed to have her share her honors, and made her the guest of the evening; she was 'taken out' a great deal, and above all, continued to carry my bouquet the whole evening without dropping it." "I'm so glad," cried Rachel, "but wasn't it a shame that Arthur Thornton should have sent his bouquet to Marion first?" "A shame? Why, no indeed," answered her uncle, with the utmost composure; "for if he had not, she would have been obliged to carry mine, and I know she preferred Mr. Thornton's." "I don't believe it; yours was a great deal handsomer." "Oh! that's not the point! Of course you must see that Mr. Thornton is to be _the_ man." "Uncle Robert, how absurd! I don't believe Marion would ever have him in the world!" "And why not, I should like to know? He is handsome, intelligent,--in fact, a very good fellow every way, and has plenty of money." "But Marion never will marry for money!" cried Rachel. "I don't say she will; but what is your objection to Mr. Thornton?" "I haven't any at all; I like him very much, but he would never do for Marion. She wants a much stronger man than he." "Well, perhaps he will develop his muscle," replied Dr. Drayton, coolly. "Uncle Robert! you know I don't mean that kind of strength!--mental strength; some one in every way superior to herself; in fact, some one that she could feel was her master." "Master! I can't imagine Miss Marion yielding her own sweet will to any one." "Rachel is right," said Mrs. Marston; "when Marion marries she will choose a man much older than herself." "Well, time will show," said Dr. Drayton; "but Rachel, if Marion Berkley is not engaged to Mr. Thornton at the end of six months, I'll give you the handsomest diamond ring I can buy at Bigelow's." CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION. The days and weeks flew by like hours, and Marion found herself surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and one of the acknowledged belles of the season. Balls, parties, receptions, matinées, and formal calls took up all her time, and what with lying abed in the morning to make up for her late hours, the days were fairly turned into night, and night into day. Mrs. Berkley remonstrated as she saw her daughter drifting farther and farther out on the sea of fashionable society, but it was now too late; she could not refuse all the invitations that were showered upon her, and those that she would have been glad to decline, her father would not allow her to, for fear of giving offence. She had at first made a struggle to keep up her French and German, but at last gave it up as useless, for if she had no engagement for those hours, she was too tired and worn out by her dissipation to attend to them properly. Rachel felt extremely sorry to be obliged to tell her uncle that his prediction had proved true; that Marion's time was too much occupied with balls and parties for her to attend the lessons; but she added a saving clause, to the effect that when Lent put an end to the extreme gayeties of the season, Marion would be glad to join them. "If she wishes to join us then, well and good," said Dr. Drayton; "but Rachel, I want you to fully understand, that you must never ask her to do so; she must come back to us as she left us, of her own free will." Marion felt far from satisfied with the life she was leading. At first it was very delightful to find herself so much admired; to know that the honor of her hand for the "German" was sought days in advance by the men who were considered the bright, particular stars of the fashionable world; to have hardly a day go by that did not bring her an exquisite bouquet, or basket of flowers; never go to the theatre or opera that several young exquisites did not come to her seat for a chat between the acts! Oh, it was very delightful indeed; and for a while she thought she had never been so happy in her life. But only for a while; she grew tired at last of hearing the same things said to her night after night, over and over again; she knew she was wasting her life; the precious moments and hours that would never come again. Her health, too, began to give way under this constant dissipation. She had frequent dull headaches, and could not keep herself from being irritated at trifles that she would never have noticed before. Even her father began to complain that "she was going out almost too much; he never had a quiet evening at home, and as for her music he had not heard her touch the piano for weeks." Just about this time she received a letter from Mme. Béranger. She wrote in a bright, happy strain, giving an account of what was going on at the school, alluding with a little conjugal pride to the beneficial influence which M. Béranger exerted over the scholars, and the respect which he inspired, not only from them, but from Miss Stiefbach also. She concluded by saying:-- "And now, my dear Marion, I am going to speak of yourself, a subject about which I know very well you do not care to have much said; but you will bear it patiently I feel sure from your old teacher, who says with truth, that, dear as all her scholars have been to her, none ever came so near, so completely won her love, as you have done. "I wanted to tell you, before the close of school last autumn, how much I rejoiced in the victories which I saw you were daily gaining over yourself; but the opportunity never seemed to arrive when I could do so without appearing to force myself upon you. "It would make you happy, I know, if you could hear yourself spoken of as I am almost daily in the habit of hearing your name mentioned by one or more of the scholars, in the kindest, most affectionate terms. "It is a good thing when a girl leaves school carrying with her the love and admiration of her school-mates, and leaving behind her nothing but regret that she is no longer there to join in their studies, or lead them in their fun and frolic. "Now you have done with school-days, and it is very probable that many of your school-mates you may never meet again; you will form new friends wherever you go, and to a certain extent owe some duties to society; but I cannot imagine you as among the class of young ladies, who, the moment the doors of the school-room close behind them, consider their education finished, and so straightway give up all sensible occupations, and fritter away their time in fashionable dissipation. I have seen too much of you, understand your nature too well, to believe you capable of such folly; but temptations of various kinds will come to you in the future, as they have come in the past, and the same sense of right, the same determination to conquer yourself, which helped you to overcome the faults of your girlhood, will strengthen and sustain you in your endeavors to attain a pure, noble womanhood. "But I fear you will think I am writing you a sermon, and that I have forgotten that you have passed from under my authority, but 'the spirit moved me,' and so I have spoken; if I have said more than I ought, forgive me, and take it kindly from your old Miss Christine. "My sister wished to be kindly remembered to you, and my husband says: Faites mes amitiés à Mlle. Berkley. Good-by, my dear, "From your true friend, "CHRISTINE BÉRANGER." Marion's conscience smote her as she read the letter, and thought how far short of all Mme. Béranger had hoped she would be, of all she had determined for herself, was the life she was now leading. Day by day she became more and more discontented with herself, as she saw how completely she had given her time to what her teacher had rightly called, "fashionable dissipation." Lent at last arrived, and Marion, although not an Episcopalian, welcomed it with delight, for now there would be few if any, large parties, and she would have a chance to rest. She was determined to commence a course of history; practise at least two hours a day, and, if Rachel proposed it, commence again her French and German, in which her friend had made such astonishing progress as to make Marion thoroughly ashamed of herself. But, much to Marion's surprise, Rachel did not propose it, neither did Dr. Drayton, before whom she had mentioned several times how sorry she was to find herself so far behind Rachel. She thought it very strange that the doctor did not again offer to teach her with his niece, and resolved, if she could ever manage to humble herself sufficiently to ask a favor of him, she would tell him herself she wanted to rejoin the class. An opportunity offered itself sooner than she had expected. The doctor had a fine baritone voice, and was extremely fond of music. Rachel, as a general thing, was able to play his accompaniments for him, but now and then he bought a new song too difficult for her to manage, and he often brought them, at Mr. Berkley's suggestion, for Marion to play for him. One evening he made his appearance with a piece of music in his hand, and said, as he shook hands with her:-- "Miss Marion, I have a song here that is most too much for Rachel: will you do me the favor of playing the accompaniment?" "Yes," replied Marion, as she took the music, and glanced over it; "on one condition." "And that is?" said the doctor. "That you will let me come back to the French and German readings." "Are you quite sure you want to come?" asked the doctor, looking down upon her, and speaking very much as he would have done to a naughty child. "Very sure," replied Marion, almost provoked with herself for not being able to say the contrary. "Very well then, come," said the doctor, in a lower tone, as he arranged the music for her. "You must want to very much, if you would be willing to ask it as a favor from me." Marion bit her lips and said nothing. She had intended to make it appear that she was granting the favor; but the doctor had reversed the order of things. The next day the old studies were commenced, and Marion took hold with a will, determined to conquer all difficulties and put herself by the side of Rachel. She was at first extremely mortified to find how many mistakes she made, and how much she had forgotten; but the doctor was more patient than ever before, and she soon made great improvement. Of late Marion had seen very little of Mr. Thornton, and now that she was not going about so much, she began to miss his bright, pleasant face, and many little attentions: and as Saturday after Saturday went by, and he did not make his appearance with Fred, as he had formerly been so often in the habit of doing, she asked her brother what had become of him. Fred's answer was, that "Thornton was cramming like blazes; he meant to leave college with flying colors." At first Marion felt a little chagrined that he could so soon have forgotten her, and had half a mind to write him a charming little note, inviting him over to spend Sunday; but she knew it would only be holding out a prospect of encouragement which she never really meant to give him, and so she refrained. Summer at last arrived, and the Berkleys and Draytons were making preparations for spending it among the White Mountains. Fred had urged them to stay for "Class-day," as Arthur Thornton graduated this year; but Marion's unusually pale cheeks told too plainly that either the dissipations of the winter, or some other unexplainable cause, had made a deep inroad on her health, and her parents were glad to get her away from the city. Florence's father had married again, and had taken a cottage at the beach for the summer; so she had declined Rachel's invitation to again make one of their party. They travelled slowly through the mountains, stopping for days at a time at whatever place seemed to them as particularly pleasant. It was too early for the great rush of fashionable visitors, and they enjoyed themselves the more on that account. After having spent several weeks in this manner, they settled down for the rest of the summer at a little hotel unknown to fame, and rarely visited except by pedestrians and artists wandering about in search of the most beautiful views. Marion had by this time entirely regained her strength, and could climb about the mountains, and take as long walks as any of the party; but still she did not seem the same as in former days. Her father and mother did not notice the change, for with them she was always as gay as ever, and they were perfectly happy to see her so well,--slightly tanned with the summer's sun, and a bright color always glowing in her cheeks. But Rachel wondered what had come over her, for when they were alone she seemed so much more quiet and preoccupied, that her friend could hardly realize it was the same Marion Berkley she had known at school. The doctor, too, silently noticed her altered manner, and had his own opinion as to the cause. One day towards the close of summer, Marion was sitting on a little piazza, which belonged exclusively to the private parlor used by their party. A book was in her lap, but her hands lay idly on its open pages, as she sat lost in a reverie, from which she was roused by Dr. Drayton as he came round the house, and stood holding a letter over her head, exclaiming, "See what I have for you, Miss Marion! Can you tell the writing from here?" "Oh, yes!" exclaimed Marion, in a delighted tone, reaching up her hand to take it; "it's from Florence. Do let me have it." "Not until you promise me," said the doctor, holding the letter out of her reach, "that you will tell me how you honestly feel about the most important piece of news this letter contains." "I promise," said Marion, smiling. "It will probably be that her new mamma has given her a lovely picture, and she is the dearest mamma in the world." "Never mind what it is," said the doctor; "you have promised;" and he leaned against the pillar opposite Marion, apparently engaged in reading a letter which he had held open in his hand during their conversation, but in reality furtively watching the expression of her face, for he knew what news the letter contained, and wanted to judge of its effect upon her. She read on, smiling to herself as Florence went into ecstasies over the kindness of her new, darling mamma. Then suddenly an expression of intense surprise passed over her face, which was succeeded by one which it would be difficult to define, as the letter dropped into her lap, and she sat looking straight before her, but evidently seeing nothing, and entirely forgetful of the doctor's presence. "Poor child!" he thought, as he watched the tears slowly gathering in her eyes; "it has come at last, and she so young! It is cruel in me to watch her; but I _must_ know how deeply it affects her." Suddenly Marion sprang up with the letter in her hand, and was running through the long parlor-window, when the doctor called to her:-- "Miss Marion, have you forgotten your promise?" "No, indeed!" answered Marion, without looking round. "Stay there; I'll be back in a moment." Dr. Drayton put his letter in his pocket, and folded his arms across his breast as he leaned against the pillar, like Marion looking straight before him, but seeing nothing. "If she can hide her wounds so bravely, cannot I do the same?" thought he; "it would be too cruel for me to make her tell me herself; I can at least spare her that." He was so lost in thought, that Marion had again stepped on to the piazza, and stood beside him before he was aware of her presence. "Now, doctor," she said, startling him by the brightness of her tone, "I'm ready to be questioned. There _was_ quite an important piece of news in the letter." "You need not tell me," he said very gently, "I know it already." "And how did you know it?" asked Marion, in a disappointed tone of voice. "I was to be the first one told, and then _I_ was to tell Rachel." "Your letter was delayed probably, and mine from Fred, written the next day, when every one knew it, came in the same mail." "But you don't seem a bit glad," said Marion. "_I_ am perfectly delighted." He looked down at her silently for a few moments. Could she be acting? He would put her to the test. "Miss Marion, I _will_ hold you to your promise; you said you would tell me honestly how you felt about this piece of news." "And so I will," replied Marion, surprised at his serious manner. "Mr. Thornton is as fine a young man as I know, and has always been a good friend of mine. When I tell you that I think him in every way worthy of Florence, you may know that is the highest compliment I can pay him; and I am perfectly delighted they are engaged." "And this is on your honor?" "On my honor," answered Marion, looking up at him with her clear, truthful eyes. "I believe you," he said; "but forgive me if I ask why, feeling so, the tears should have come into your eyes when you read the letter?" "Dr. Drayton," cried Marion, her face flushing, "it was too bad of you to watch me! It is cruel in you to ask me." "I know it is cruel," he answered; "but nevertheless I _must_ ask you." "I will tell you," replied Marion, hurriedly, "or you will misunderstand me. Florence and I have been very, very dear friends; we have loved each other all our lives, as I think few girls rarely do love; there has never been a cloud between us that was not soon cleared away; and when I first read that she was engaged to Arthur Thornton, I could not help feeling a little bit of sorrow, in spite of my greater joy, to think that now she would have some one to take my place away from me. But that feeling is all gone now--or will be soon," she added, choking down a sob, that would come in spite of her. "Marion," he almost whispered, as he bent over her, "are you sure you never loved Arthur Thornton?" "Very sure," answered Marion, not daring to raise her eyes, and blushing crimson as he for the first time called her by name. He bent lower still, and was about to lay his hand upon her arm, when Rachel rushed through the parlor-window, exclaiming, "Uncle Robert, Marion can't marry Mr. Thornton, if she wants to ever so much, and I want my diamond ring!" "The six months are past," replied her uncle. "I don't think that's fair, do you, Marion?" But Marion had slipped away, and was nowhere to be seen. A few evenings later the three were sitting on the piazza, enjoying their last night at the mountains. Mr. and Mrs. Berkley had retired early, so as to feel bright and fresh for their homeward journey the next day, but the rest had declared their intention of sitting up to watch the moon, as it went slowly down behind the distant hills. "Rachel," said Dr. Drayton, as he threw away his cigar, "how should you like to go to Europe next spring?" "Like it!" exclaimed Rachel, clasping her hands with delight. "I should be perfectly happy!" "Well, I thought so," replied her uncle, "and I am going to take you." "O Uncle Robert! you are too good! Marion, isn't that splendid?" But before Marion could answer, Dr. Drayton went on, as if he had not heard Rachel's remark. "Of course, it will not do for you to go travelling over Europe with only me." "Take Mrs. Marston!" exclaimed Rachel, determined to surmount all difficulties; "take Mrs. Marston; she's just the one!" "Oh, no!" replied her uncle, in a very decided tone; "she wouldn't do at all; she's too old. I've been thinking about it for some time; you want a young person, and so I am going to get married." "O Uncle Robert!" cried Rachel, jumping up, and taking hold of his arm; "don't get married! please don't! I'd rather never go to Europe as long as I live, than to have you do that!" "I am sure you are very kind indeed," replied her uncle, "to give up your pleasure on my account; but really I don't see as I can very well help being married now, for I've asked the lady, and she said yes." "O uncle! uncle! to think of your getting married just for the sake of having some one to go to Europe with me! It's dreadful!" "Yes, dear, I think it would be, if that were the case; but to tell you the truth I am very much in love with the lady myself." "Then I shall hate her!" exclaimed Rachel, dropping her uncle's arm,--"I know I shall hate her!" Marion had been sitting perfectly quiet during this conversation, with her back turned towards the speaker; she now rose, and attempted to pass by Dr. Drayton into the parlor; but he caught her with both hands, and turned her round towards his niece, saying, as he did so, "Allow me, Rachel, to introduce you to your future aunt; if you don't love her for my sake, try to for her own; she's worth it." Rachel stood in speechless astonishment, and Marion, also, could not utter a word. "This is a pretty state of things, I must say," said the doctor. "Rachel, won't you kiss your Aunt Marion?" "Kiss her!" exclaimed Rachel, finding her voice, and throwing her arms round Marion's neck; "I thought I loved her before, but _now_ I shall fairly worship her! I never was so happy in my life!" "Nor I either," whispered Marion, very softly. "But I don't understand it," cried Rachel, still in a state of bewilderment. "I never thought of such a thing. I thought you didn't like Marion at all, Uncle Robert." "I know it, my dear, and she thought the same; but I have satisfied her to the contrary, and I guess I can you." "Ah! Uncle Robert," said Rachel, archly, "I guess I _shan't_ have the handsomest diamond-ring at Bigelow's; I suppose Marion has that." "No, she has not," replied the doctor, lifting Marion's left hand, on which Rachel could see in the moonlight a heavy, plain, gold ring. "What!--not diamonds?" "No," replied the doctor, as he held the hand in both his own; "my wife shall have all the diamonds she wants, but this ring must be plain gold." "Are you satisfied, Marion?" asked Rachel. Marion gave a quick glance up at the doctor, then looked at Rachel, as she answered, "Perfectly." 
42522	----	[Illustration: Truly Yours Amos Lawrence R Andrews Print.] EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE AMOS LAWRENCE; WITH A +Brief Account of Some Incidents in his Life.+ EDITED BY HIS SON, WILLIAM R. LAWRENCE, M. D. BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET. NEW YORK: SHELDON, LAMPORT & BLAKEMAN. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 1856. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by WILLIAM R. LAWRENCE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts BOSTON: Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBINS, New England Type and Stereotype Foundery. Press of George C. Rand & Avery. +To his+ ONLY SURVIVING BROTHER, A M O S A. L A W R E N C E, OF BOSTON, +This Volume is Affectionately Inscribed+, BY THE EDITOR. PREFACE. Among the papers of the late Amos Lawrence were found copies of a large number of letters addressed to his children. With the hope that the good counsels there given, during a succession of years, extending from their childhood to adult age, might still be made profitable to their descendants, he had caused them to be carefully preserved. These letters, as well as an irregular record of his daily experience, were scattered through many volumes, and required arrangement before they could be of use to those for whom they were intended. As no one else of the immediate family could conveniently undertake the task, the editor considered it his duty to do that which could not properly be committed to one less nearly connected with the deceased. The present volume, containing what was thought most interesting among those letters and extracts, was accordingly prepared for private circulation; and an edition of one hundred copies was printed and distributed among the nearest relatives and friends. It has been thought by many that the record of such a life as is here portrayed would be useful to other readers, and especially to young men,--a class in whom Mr. Lawrence was deeply interested, and with whom circumstances in his own life had given him a peculiar bond of sympathy. Although many, among both friends and strangers, have urged the publication of the present memorial, and some have even questioned the moral right of withholding from the view of others the light of an example so worthy of imitation, much hesitation has been felt in submitting to the public the recital of such domestic incidents as are treasured in the memory of every family; those incidents which cast a sunbeam or a shadow across every fireside, and yet possess little or no interest for the busy world without. At the solicitation of the "Boston Young Men's Christian Union," the "Boston Young Men's Christian Association," and the students of Williams College, through their respective committees, and at the request of many esteemed citizens, the pages which were prepared for the eye of kindred and friends alone are now submitted to the public. Personal feeling is forgotten in the hope that the principles here inculcated may tend to promote the ends for which the subject of this memorial lived and labored. The interest manifested in his life, and the tributes rendered to his memory, have been a source of sincere gratification to his family; and they would here tender their acknowledgments to all those who have expressed their interest and their wishes in regard to this publication. The present volume is submitted with a few unimportant omissions, and with the addition of some materials, received after the issue of the first edition, which will throw light upon the character and principles of Mr. Lawrence during his early business career. His course was that of a private citizen, who took but little part in public measures or in public life. To the general reader, therefore, there may be but little to amuse in a career so devoid of incident, and so little connected with the stirring events of his times; but there cannot fail to be something to interest those who can appreciate the spirit which, in this instance, led to a rare fidelity in the fulfilment of important trusts, and the consecration of a life to the highest duties. Mr. Lawrence was eminently a religious man, and a deep sense of accountability may be discovered at the foundation of those acts of beneficence, which, during his lifetime, might have been attributed to a less worthy motive. It has been the object of the editor to allow the subject of this memorial to tell his own story, and to add merely what is necessary to preserve the thread of the narrative, or to throw light upon the various matters touched upon in the correspondence. It is designed to furnish such materials as will afford a history of Mr. Lawrence's charitable efforts, rather than give a detailed account of what was otherwise an uneventful career. Such selections from his correspondence are made as seemed best adapted to illustrate the character of the man; such as exhibit his good and valuable traits, without attempting to conceal those imperfections, an exemption from which would elevate him above the common sphere of mortals. Most of his letters are of a strictly private nature, and involve the record of many private details. His domestic tastes, and his affection for his family, often led him to make mention of persons and events in such a way that few letters could be wholly given without invading the precincts of the family circle. The engraving at the commencement of the volume is from an original portrait, by Harding, in the possession of the editor, a copy of which hangs in the library of Williams College. It seems also fitting to include a portrait of the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, who, for forty-three years, was so intimately associated with the subject of this memorial in all the trials, as well as in the triumphs, of business life, and who was still more closely connected by the bonds of fraternal affection and sympathy. A few days only have elapsed since he was removed from the scene of his earthly labors. The grave has rarely closed over one who to such energy of character and strength of purpose united a disposition so gentle and forbearing. Amidst the perplexities attending his extended business relations, and in the excitement of the political struggles in which he was called to take part, he was never tempted to overstep the bounds of courtesy, or to regard his opponents otherwise than with feelings of kindness. His wealth was used freely for the benefit of others, and for the advancement of all those good objects which tended to promote the welfare of his fellow-men. That divine spark of charity, which burned with such ceaseless energy in the bosom of his elder brother, was caught up by him, and exhibited its fruits in those acts of munificence which will make him long remembered as a benefactor of his race. BOSTON, _September_ 1st, 1855. LETTERS, REQUESTING PUBLICATION. _Rooms of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union, 6 Bedford-street, Boston, June 22, 1855._ WILLIAM R. LAWRENCE, ESQ. DEAR SIR: The undersigned, members of the Government of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union, some of whom have perused the excellent memoir of your honored father, feel deeply impressed with the desire that it should be published and circulated, knowing that its publication and perusal would greatly benefit the young, the old, and all classes of our busy mercantile community. Remembering with pleasure the friendship which your father expressed, not only in kind words, but in substantial offerings to the treasury and library of our Society, the Union would be most happy, should it comport with your feelings, to be made the medium of the publication and circulation of the memoir, which you have compiled with so much ability and faithfulness. Hoping to receive a favorable response to our desire, We are most truly yours, THOMAS GAFFIELD, H. K. WHITE, JOHN SWEETSER, J. F. AINSWORTH, JOSEPH H. ALLEN, W. H. RICHARDSON, CHAS. C. SMITH, FRANCIS S. RUSSELL, C. J. BISHOP, FREDERIC H. HENSHAW, F. H. PEABODY, CHARLES F. POTTER, W. IRVING SMITH, THORNTON K. LOTHROP, ARTHUR W. HOBART. GEO. S. HALE. * * * * * _Rooms of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association, Tremont Temple, Boston, July 10, 1855._ DEAR SIR: The Committee on the Library of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association beg leave, in its behalf, to tender you sincere thanks for your donation of a copy of the "Diary and Correspondence of Amos Lawrence." It will remain to the members of the Association a valued memorial of one of its earliest benefactors. It will be yet more prized for its record of his invaluable legacy,--the history of a long life--a bright example. The Committee, uniting with the subscribers, managers of the Association, are happy to improve this opportunity to express the hope that you may be induced to give the book a more general circulation. The kindly charities of your late lamented parent are still fresh in impressions of gratitude upon their recipients. They require no herald to give them publicity. The voice of fame would do violence to their spirit. Yet, now that "the good man" can no more utter his words of sympathy and counsel,--that his pen can no more subscribe its noble benefactions, or indite its lessons of wisdom and experience,--the press may silently perpetuate those which survive him. We must assure you of our pleasure in the knowledge that the liberal interest in the Association, so constantly manifested by your revered father, is actively maintained by yourself. We remain, in the fraternal bonds of Christian regard, Yours, truly, JACOB SLEEPER, FRANCIS D. STEDMAN, J. S. WARREN, ELIJAH SWIFT, SAMUEL GREGORY, B. C. CLARK, JR., LUTHER L. TARBELL, JOSEPH P. ELLICOTT, ALONZO C. TENNEY, GEO. N. NOYES, MOSES W. POND, PEARL MARTIN, STEPHEN G. DEBLOIS, W. H. JAMESON, HENRY FURNAS, W. F. STORY. FRANKLIN W. SMITH, } E. M. PUTNAM, } _Committee CHAS. L. ANDREWS, } on GEO. C. RAND, } Library and Rooms_ H. C. GILBERT, } To WILLIAM R. LAWRENCE, M.D. * * * * * _Williams College, June 30, 1855._ DEAR SIR: The students of Williams College having learned that you have prepared, for private distribution, a volume illustrating the character of the late Amos Lawrence, whose munificence to this Institution they appreciate, and whose memory they honor; the undersigned, a Committee appointed for the purpose, express to you their earnest desire that you would allow it to be published. Very truly yours, SAMUEL B. FORBES, E. C. SMITH, FRED. W. BEECHER, HENRY HOPKINS. To W. R. LAWRENCE, M.D., _Boston_. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. BIRTH.--ANCESTRY.--PARENTS, 15 CHAPTER II. EARLY YEARS.--SCHOOL DAYS.--APPRENTICESHIP, 20 CHAPTER III. ARRIVAL IN BOSTON.--CLERKSHIP.--COMMENCES BUSINESS.--HABITS, 28 CHAPTER IV. BUSINESS HABITS.--HIS FATHER'S MORTGAGE.--RESOLUTIONS.--ARRIVAL OF BROTHERS IN BOSTON, 35 CHAPTER V. VISITS AT GROTON.--SICKNESS.--LETTER FROM DR. SHATTUCK.-- ENGAGEMENT.--LETTER TO REV. DR. GANNETT.--MARRIAGE, 40 CHAPTER VI. BRAMBLE NEWS.--JUNIOR PARTNER GOES TO ENGLAND.--LETTERS TO BROTHER, 47 CHAPTER VII. DEATH OF SISTER.--LETTERS, 54 CHAPTER VIII. DOMESTIC HABITS.--ILLNESS AND DEATH OF WIFE, 59 CHAPTER IX. JOURNEYS.--LETTERS.--JOURNEY TO NEW YORK, 68 CHAPTER X. MARRIAGE.--ELECTED TO LEGISLATURE.--ENGAGES IN MANUFACTURES.-- REFLECTIONS, 77 CHAPTER XI. REFLECTIONS.--BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.--LETTERS, 82 CHAPTER XII. JOURNEY TO CANADA.--LETTERS.--DIARY.--CHARITIES, 89 CHAPTER XIII. CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. WEBSTER.--LETTERS, 96 CHAPTER XIV. TESTIMONIAL TO MR. WEBSTER.--DANGEROUS ILLNESS.--LETTERS, 102 CHAPTER XV. JOURNEY TO NEW HAMPSHIRE.--LETTERS.--RESIGNS OFFICE OF TRUSTEE AT HOSPITAL.--LETTERS, 109 CHAPTER XVI. DAILY EXERCISE.--REGIMEN.--IMPROVING HEALTH.--LETTERS, 122 CHAPTER XVII. REFLECTIONS.--VISIT TO WASHINGTON.--VISIT TO RAINSFORD ISLAND.--REFLECTIONS.--VIEW OF DEATH.--REFLECTIONS, 137 CHAPTER XVIII. BROTHER'S DEATH.--LETTERS.--GIFTS.--LETTERS.--BIRTH-PLACE.-- DIARY.--APPLICATIONS FOR AID.--REFLECTIONS.--LETTER FROM REV. DR. STONE.--DIARY, 147 CHAPTER XIX. REFLECTIONS.--LETTERS.--ACCOUNT OF EFFORTS TO COMPLETE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT, 165 CHAPTER XX. INTEREST IN MOUNT AUBURN.--REV. DR. SHARP.--LETTER FROM BISHOP McILVAINE.--LETTER FROM JUDGE STORY, 175 CHAPTER XXI. ACQUAINTANCE WITH PRESIDENT HOPKINS.--LETTERS.--AFFECTION FOR BRATTLE-STREET CHURCH.--DEATH OF MRS. APPLETON.-- LETTERS.--AMESBURY CO., 182 CHAPTER XXII. DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER.--LETTERS.--DONATION TO WILLIAMS COLLEGE.--BENEFICENCE.--LETTERS, 193 CHAPTER XXIII. LETTER FROM DR. SHARP.--ILLNESS AND DEATH OF HIS SON.-- LETTERS.--AFFLICTIONS, 203 CHAPTER XXIV. REFLECTIONS.--EXPENDITURES.--LETTERS.--DONATION FOR LIBRARY AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE.--VIEWS ON STUDY OF ANATOMY, 212 CHAPTER XXV. DONATION TO LAWRENCE ACADEMY.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH R. G. PARKER.--SLEIGH-RIDES.--AVERSION TO NOTORIETY.--CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, 221 CHAPTER XXVI. CAPTAIN A. S. MCKENZIE.--DIARY.--AID TO IRELAND.--MADAM PRESCOTT.--SIR WILLIAM COLEBROOKE, 234 CHAPTER XXVII. MR. LAWRENCE AS AN APPLICANT.--LETTERS.--DIARY.--PRAYER AND MEDITATIONS.--FAC-SIMILE OF HAND-WRITING.--LIBERALITY TO A CREDITOR.--LETTERS, 242 CHAPTER XXVIII. REFLECTIONS.--VIEWS ON HOLDING OFFICE.--LETTERS.--CAPT. A. SLIDELL McKENZIE.--DEATH OF BROTHER AND OF HON. J. MASON, 255 CHAPTER XXIX. SYSTEM IN ACCOUNTS.--LETTER FROM PROF. STUART--LETTERS.-- DIARY.--DR. HAMILTON.--FATHER MATHEW, 264 CHAPTER XXX. CODICIL TO WILL.--ILLNESS--GEN. WHITING.--LETTERS.--DIARY, 271 CHAPTER XXXI. DIARY.--REFLECTIONS.--SICKNESS.--LETTER FROM DR. SHARP.-- CORRESPONDENCE, 278 CHAPTER XXXII. AMIN BEY.--AMOUNT OF DONATIONS TO WILLIAMS COLLEGE, 285 CHAPTER XXXIII. LETTERS--LIKENESS OF ABBOTT LAWRENCE.--DIARY, 292 CHAPTER XXXIV. SIR T. F. BUXTON.--LETTER FROM LADY BUXTON.--ELLIOTT CRESSON.--LETTERS, 298 CHAPTER XXXV. LETTERS.--REV. DR. SCORESBY.--WABASH COLLEGE, 304 CHAPTER XXXVI. DIARY.--AMOUNT OF CHARITIES.--LETTERS.--THOMAS TARBELL.-- UNCLE TOBY.--REV. DR. LOWELL, 311 CHAPTER XXXVII. CORRESPONDENCE.--DIARY, 324 CHAPTER XXXVIII. MR. LAWRENCE SERVES AS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR.--GEN. FRANKLIN PIERCE--SUDDEN DEATH.--FUNERAL, 334 CHAPTER XXXIX. SKETCH OF CHARACTER BY REV. DRS. LOTHROP AND HOPKINS, 343 CHAPTER XL. CONCLUSION, 352 INDEX, 361 DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE. CHAPTER I. BIRTH.--ANCESTRY.--PARENTS. Amos Lawrence was born in Groton, Mass., on the 22d of April, 1786. His ancestor, John Lawrence, was baptized, according to the records, on the 8th of October, 1609, at Wisset, County of Suffolk, England, where the family had resided for a long period, though originally from the County of Lancaster. Butler, in his "History of Groton," has, among other details, the following: "The first account of the ancestor of the numerous families of this name in Groton and Pepperell, which can be relied upon as certain, is, that he was an inhabitant of Watertown as early as 1635. He probably came in the company which came with Governor Winthrop, in 1630. His given name was John, and that of his wife was Elizabeth. Whether they were married in England or not, has not been ascertained. Their eldest child was born in Watertown, January 14, 1635. He removed to Groton, with probably all his family, at an early period of its settlement, as his name is found in the records there in 1663. He was an original proprietor, having a twenty-acre right." Of the parents of the subject of this memoir, the same author writes: "Samuel Lawrence, the son of Captain Amos Lawrence, sen., was an officer in the continental army, in the former part of the Revolutionary War. He was in the battle of Bunker Hill, where a musket-ball passed through his beaver hat. He was also in the battle in Rhode Island, where he served as adjutant under General Sullivan. On the 22d day of July, 1777, being at home, on a furlough, for the express purpose, he was married to Susanna Parker. * * * * "Having faithfully served in the cause of his country during the term of his engagement, he returned to his native town, to enjoy the peace and quiet of domestic life on his farm. He was elected by his townsmen to some of the highest offices in their gift; he was a deacon of the church, and a justice of the peace _quorum unus_. He took a deep interest in providing means for the education of youth, particularly in establishing and supporting the seminary in Groton, which now, in gratitude to him and his sons, bears the family name. Of this institution he was a trustee thirty-three years, and in its benefits and advantages he gave ample opportunities for all his children to participate. Here their minds undoubtedly received some of those early impressions, the developments and consequences of which it will be the work of their biographers hereafter to portray. No deduction, however, should here be made from the importance of parental instruction, to add to the merit of academical education. The correct lessons given by the mother in the nursery are as necessary to give the right inclination to the tender mind as are those of the tutor in the highest seminary to prepare it for the business of life and intellectual greatness. In the present case, all the duties incumbent on a mother to teach her offspring to be good, and consequently great, were discharged with fidelity and success. Both parents lived to see, in the subject of their care, all that they could reasonably hope or desire. He died November 8, 1827, æt. seventy-three; and his venerable widow, May 2, 1845, æt. eighty-nine." Mr. Lawrence writes, in 1849, to a friend: "My father belonged to a company of _minute-men_ in Groton, at the commencement of the Revolution. On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, when the news reached town that the British troops were on the road from Boston, General Prescott, who was a neighbor, came towards the house on horseback, at rapid speed, and cried out, 'Samuel, notify your men: _the British are coming_.' My father mounted the general's horse, rode a distance of seven miles, notified the men of his circuit, and was back again at his father's house in forty minutes. In three hours the company was ready to march, and on the next day (the 20th) reached Cambridge. My father was in the battle of Bunker Hill; received a bullet through his cap, which cut his hair from front to rear; received a spent grape-shot upon his arm, without breaking the bone; and lost a large number of men. His veteran Captain Farwell was shot through the body, was taken up for dead, and was so reported by the man who was directed to carry him off. This report brought back the captain's voice, and he exclaimed, with his utmost power, '_It an't true; don't let my poor wife hear of this; I shall live to see my country free._' And so it turned out. This good man, who had served at the capture of Cape Breton in 1745, again in 1755, and now on Bunker Hill in 1775, is connected with everything interesting in my early days. The bullet was extracted, and remains, as a memento, with his descendants. My father and mother were acquainted from their childhood, and engaged to be married some time in 1775. They kept up a correspondence through 1776, when he was at New York; but, on a visit to her, in 1777 (his mother having advised them to be married, as Susan had better be Sam's widow than his forlorn damsel), they were married; but, while the ceremony was going forward, the signal was given to call all soldiers to their posts; and, within the hour, he left his wife, father, mother, and friends, to join his regiment, then at Cambridge. This was on the 22d day of July, 1777. In consideration of the circumstances, his colonel allowed him to return to his wife, and to join the army at Rhode Island in a brief time (two or three days). He did so, and saw nothing more of home until the last day of that year. The army being in winter quarters, he got a furlough for a short period, and reached home in time to assist at the ordination of the Rev. Daniel Chaplin, of whose church both my parents were then members. His return was a season of great joy to all his family. His stay was brief, and nothing more was seen of him until the autumn of 1778, when he retired from the army, in time to be with his wife at the birth of their first child. From that time he was identified with everything connected with the good of the town. As we children came forward, we were carefully looked after, but were taught to use the talents intrusted to us; and every nerve was strained to provide for us the academy which is now doing so much there. We _sons_ are doing less for education _for our means_ than our father for his means." Of his mother Mr. Lawrence always spoke in the strongest terms of veneration and love, and in many of his letters are found messages of affection, such as could have emanated only from a heart overflowing with filial gratitude. Her form bending over their bed in silent prayer, at the hour of twilight, when she was about leaving them for the night, is still among the earliest recollections of her children. She was a woman well fitted to train a family for the troubled times in which she lived. To the kindest affections and sympathies she united energy and decision, and in her household enforced that strict and unhesitating obedience, which she considered as the foundation of all success in the education of children. Her hands were never idle, as may be supposed, when it is remembered that in those days, throughout New England, in addition to the cares of a farming establishment, much of the material for clothing was manufactured by the inmates of the family. Many hours each day she passed at the hand-loom, and the hum of the almost obsolete spinning-wheel even now comes across the memory like the remembrance of a pleasant but half-forgotten melody. CHAPTER II. EARLY YEARS.--SCHOOL DAYS.--APPRENTICESHIP. The first public instruction received by Mr. Lawrence was at the district school kept at a short distance from his father's house. Possessing a feeble constitution, he was often detained at home by sickness, where he employed himself industriously with his books and tools, in the use of which he acquired a good degree of skill, as may be seen from a letter to his son, at Groton, in 1839: "Near the barn used to be an old fort, where the people went to protect themselves from the Indians; and, long since my remembrance, the old cellar was there, surrounded by elder-bushes and the like. I made use of many a piece of the elder for pop-guns and squirts, in the preparation of which I acquired a strong taste for the use of the pen-knife and jack-knife. I like the plan of boys acquiring the taste for tools, and of their taking pains to learn their use; for they may be so situated as to make a very slight acquaintance very valuable to them. And, then, another advantage is that they may have exercise of body and mind in some situations where they would suffer without. How do you employ yourself? Learn as much as you can of farming; for the work of your hands in this way may prove the best resource in securing comfort to you. The beautiful images of early life come up in these bright moonlight nights, the like of which I used to enjoy in the fields below our old mansion, where I was sent to watch the cattle. There I studied astronomy to more account than ever afterwards; for the heavens were impressive teachers of the goodness of that Father who is ever near to each one of his children. May you never lose sight of this truth, and so conduct yourself that at any moment you may be ready to answer when He calls!" He did not allow himself to be idle, but, from his earliest years, exhibited the same spirit of industry which led to success in after life. With a natural quickness of apprehension, and a fondness for books, he made commendable progress, in spite of his disadvantages. His father's social disposition and hospitable feelings made the house a favorite resort for both friends and strangers; and among the most welcome were old messmates and fellow-soldiers, to whose marvellous adventures and escapes the youthful listener lent a most attentive ear. In after life he often alluded to the intense interest with which he hung upon these accounts of revolutionary scenes, and times which "tried men's souls." The schoolmaster was usually billeted upon the family; and there are now living individuals high in political and social life who served in that capacity, and who look back with pleasure to the days passed under that hospitable roof. At a later period, he seems to have been transferred to another school, in the adjoining district, as will be seen by the following extract of a letter, written in 1844, to a youth at the Groton Academy: "More than fifty years ago, your father and I were school children together. I attended then at the old meeting-house, or North Barn, as it was called, by way of derision, where I once remember being in great tribulation at having lost my spelling-book on the way. It was afterwards restored to me by Captain Richardson, who found it under his pear-tree, where I had been, without leave, on my way to school, and with the other children helped myself to his fruit." From the district school, Mr. Lawrence entered the Groton Academy, of which all his brothers and sisters were members at various times. As his strength was not sufficient to make him useful upon the farm, in the autumn of 1799 he was placed in a small store, in the neighboring town of Dunstable. There he passed but a few months; and, on account, perhaps, of greater facilities for acquiring a knowledge of business, he was transferred to the establishment of James Brazer, Esq., of Groton, an enterprising and thrifty country merchant, who transacted a large business, for those times, with his own and surrounding towns. The store was situated on the high road leading from Boston to New Hampshire and Canada, and was, consequently, a place of much resort, both for travellers and neighbors who took an interest in passing events. Several clerks were employed; and, as Mr. Brazer did not take a very active part in the management of the business, after a year or two nearly the whole responsibility of the establishment rested upon young Lawrence. The stock consisted of the usual variety kept in the country stores of those days, when neighbors could not, as now, run down to the city, thirty or forty miles distant, for any little matter of fancy, and return before dinner-time. Puncheons of rum and brandy, bales of cloth, kegs of tobacco, with hardware and hosiery, shared attention in common with silks and thread, and all other articles for female use. Among other duties, the young clerk was obliged to dispense medicines, not only to customers, but to all the physicians within twenty miles around, who depended on this establishment for their supply. The confidence in his good judgment was such that he was often consulted, in preference to the physician, by those who were suffering from minor ails; and many were the extemporaneous doses which he administered for the weal or woe of the patient. The same confidence was extended to him in all other matters, no one doubted his assertion; and the character for probity and fairness which accompanied him through life was here established. The quantity of rum and brandy sold would surprise the temperance men of modern days. At eleven o'clock, each forenoon, some stimulating beverage, according to the taste of the clerk who compounded it, was served out for the benefit of clerks and customers. Mr. Lawrence partook with the others; but, soon finding that the desire became more pressing at the approach of the hour for indulgence, he resolved to discontinue the habit altogether: "His mind was soon made up. Understanding perfectly the ridicule he should meet with, and which for a time he did meet with in its fullest measure, he yet took at once the ground of _total abstinence_. Such a stand, taken at such an age, in such circumstances of temptation, before temperance societies had been heard of, or the investigations had been commenced on which they are based, was a practical instance of that judgment and decision which characterized him through life."[1] [1] President Hopkins's Sermon in commemoration of Amos Lawrence In regard to this resolution, he writes, many years afterward, to a young student in college: "In the first place, take this for your motto at the commencement of your journey, that the difference of going _just right_, or a _little wrong_, will be the difference of finding yourself in good quarters, or in a miserable bog or slough, at the end of it. Of the whole number educated in the Groton stores for some years before and after myself, no one else, to my knowledge, escaped the bog or slough; and my escape I trace to the simple fact of my having put a restraint upon my appetite. We five boys were in the habit, every forenoon, of making a drink compounded of rum, raisins, sugar, nutmeg, &c., with biscuit,--all palatable to eat and drink. After being in the store four weeks, I found myself admonished by my appetite of the approach of the hour for indulgence. Thinking the habit might make trouble if allowed to grow stronger, without further apology to my seniors I declined partaking with them. My first resolution was to abstain for a week, and, when the week was out, for a month, and then for a year. Finally, I resolved to abstain for the rest of my apprenticeship, which was for five years longer. During that whole period, I never drank a spoonful, though I mixed gallons daily for my old master and his customers. I decided not to be a slave to tobacco in any form, though I loved the odor of it then, and even now have in my drawer a superior Havana cigar, given me, not long since, by a friend, but only to smell of. I have never in my life smoked a cigar; never chewed but one quid, and that was before I was fifteen; and never took an ounce of snuff, though the scented rappee of forty years ago had great charms for me. Now, I say, to this simple fact of starting _just right_ am I indebted, with God's blessing on my labors, for my present position, as well as that of the numerous connections sprung up around me. I have many details that now appear as plain to me as the sun at noonday, by which events are connected together, and which have led to results that call on me to bless the Lord for all his benefits, and to use the opportunities thus permitted to me in cheering on the generation of young men who have claims upon my sympathies as relations, fellow-townsmen, or brethren on a more enlarged scale." Of this period he writes elsewhere, as follows: "When I look back, I can trace the small events which happened at your age as having an influence upon all the after things. My academy lessons, little academy balls, and eight-cent expenses for music and gingerbread, the agreeable partners in the hall, and pleasant companions in the stroll, all helped to make me feel that I had a character even then; and, after leaving school and going into the store, there was not a month passed before I became impressed with the opinion that restraint upon appetite was necessary to prevent the slavery I saw destroying numbers around me. Many and many of the farmers, mechanics, and apprentices, of that day, have filled drunkards' graves, and have left destitute families and friends. "The knowledge of every-day affairs which I acquired in my business apprenticeship in Groton has been a source of pleasure and profit even in my last ten years' discipline." The responsibility thrown upon the young clerk was very great; and he seems cheerfully to have accepted it, and to have given himself up entirely to the performance of his business duties. His time, from early dawn till evening, was fully taken up; and, although living in the family of his employer, and within a mile of his father's house, a whole week would sometimes pass without his having leisure to pay even a flying visit. But few details of his apprenticeship can now be gathered either from his contemporaries or from any allusions in his own writings. He was disabled for a time by an accident which came near being fatal. In assisting an acquaintance to unload a gun, by some means the charge exploded, and passed directly through the middle of his hand, making a round hole like that of a bullet. Sixty-three shot were picked out of the floor after the accident, and it seemed almost a miracle that he ever again had the use of his hand. CHAPTER III. ARRIVAL IN BOSTON.--CLERKSHIP.--COMMENCES BUSINESS.--HABITS.--LETTERS. On the 22d of April, 1807, Mr. Lawrence became of age; and his apprenticeship, which had lasted seven years, was terminated. On the 29th of the same month, he took his father's horse and chaise, and engaged a neighbor to drive him to Boston, with, as he says, many years afterwards,-- "Twenty dollars in my pocket, but feeling richer than I had ever felt before, or have felt since; so rich that I gave the man who came with me two dollars to save him from any expense, and insure him against loss by his spending two days on the journey here and back (for which he was glad of an excuse)." His object was to make acquaintances, and to establish a credit which would enable him to commence business in Groton on his own account, in company with a fellow-apprentice. A few days after his arrival in Boston, he received the offer of a clerkship from a respectable house; and, wishing to familiarize himself with the modes of conducting mercantile affairs in the metropolis, and with the desire of extending his acquaintance with business men, he accepted the offer. His employers were so well satisfied with the capacity of their new clerk, that, in the course of a few months, they made a proposition to admit him into partnership. Without any very definite knowledge of their affairs, he, much to their surprise, declined the offer. He did not consider the principles on which the business was conducted as the true ones. The result showed his sagacity; for, in the course of a few months, the firm became insolvent, and he was appointed by the creditors to settle their affairs. This he did to their satisfaction; and, having no further occupation, decided upon commencing business on his own account. He accordingly hired a small store in what was then called Cornhill, and furnished it by means of the credit which he had been able to obtain through the confidence with which he had inspired those whose acquaintance he had made during his brief sojourn in Boston. On the 17th of December, 1807, he commenced business, after having engaged as his clerk Henry Whiting, in after years well and honorably known as Brigadier-General Whiting, of the United States Army. Mr. Lawrence writes to General Whiting, in 1849, as follows: "I have just looked into my first sales-book, and there see the entries made by you more than forty-one years ago. Ever since, you have been going up from the cornet of dragoons to the present station. Abbott, who took your place, is now the representative of his country at the Court of St. James." In a memorandum in one of his account-books, he thus alludes to his condition at that time: "I was then, in the matter of property, not worth a dollar. My father was comfortably off as a farmer, somewhat in debt; with perhaps four thousand dollars. My brother Luther was in the practice of law, getting forward, but not worth two thousand dollars; William had nothing; Abbott, a lad just fifteen years old, at school; and Samuel, a child seven years old." Of the manner in which he occupied himself when not engaged about his business, he writes to his son in 1832: "When I first came to this city, I took lodgings in the family of a widow who had commenced keeping boarders for a living. I was one of her first, and perhaps had been in the city two months when I went to this place; and she, of course, while I remained, was inclined to adopt any rules for the boarders that I prescribed. The only one I ever made was, that, after supper, all the boarders who remained in the public room should remain quiet at least for one hour, to give those who chose to study or read an opportunity of doing so without disturbance. The consequence was, that we had the most quiet and improving set of young men in the town. The few who did not wish to comply with the regulation went abroad after tea, sometimes to the theatre, sometimes to other places, but, to a man, became bankrupt in after life, not only in fortune, but in reputation; while a majority of the other class sustained good characters, and some are now living who are ornaments to society, and fill important stations. The influence of this small measure will perhaps be felt throughout generations. It was not less favorable on myself than on others." Mr. Lawrence was remarkable through life for the most punctilious exactness in all matters relating to business. Ever prompt himself in all that he undertook, he submitted with little grace to the want of the same good trait in others. He writes to a friend: "And now having delivered the message, having the power at the present moment, and not having the assurance that I shall be able to do it the next hour, I will state that I practised upon the maxim, '_Business before friends_,' from the commencement of my course. During the first seven years of my business in this city, I never allowed a bill against me to stand unsettled over the Sabbath. If the purchase of goods was made at auction on Saturday, and delivered to me, I always examined and settled the bill by note or by crediting it, and having it clear, so that, in case I was not on duty on Monday, there would be no trouble for my boys; thus keeping the business _before_ me, instead of allowing it to _drive_ me." Absence from his home seemed only to strengthen the feelings of attachment with which he regarded its inmates. "My interest in home, and my desire to have something to tell my sisters to instruct and improve them, as well as to hear their comments upon whatever I communicated, was a powerful motive for me to spend a portion of each evening in my boarding-house, the first year I came to Boston, in reading and study." During the same month in which he commenced his business, he opened a correspondence with one of his sisters by the following letter: "BOSTON, December, 1807. "DEAR E.: Although the youngest, you are no less dear to me than the other sisters. To you, therefore, I ought to be as liberal in affording pleasure (if you can find any in reading my letters) as to S. and M.; and, if there is any benefit resulting from them, you have a claim to it as well as they. From these considerations, and with the hope that you will write to me whenever you can do so with convenience, I have begun a correspondence which I hope will end only with life. To be able to write a handsome letter is certainly a very great accomplishment, and can best be attained by practice; and, if you now begin, I have no hesitation in saying, that, by the time you are sixteen, you will be mistress of a handsome style, and thrice the quantity of ideas you would otherwise possess, by omitting this part of education. At present, you can write about any subject that will afford you an opportunity of putting together a sentence, and I shall read it with pleasure. I mention this, that you need not fear writing on subjects not particularly interesting to me; the manner at present being of as much consequence as the matter. "For our mutual pleasure and benefit, dear E., I hope you will not fail to gratify your affectionate brother AMOS." To show the nature of the correspondence between the parties, extracts are given below from a letter dated within a few days of the preceding, and addressed to another sister: "From you, my dear sister, the injunction not to forget the duties of religion comes with peculiar grace. You beg I will pardon you for presuming to offer good advice. Does a good act require pardon? Not having committed an offence, I can grant you no pardon; but my thanks I can give, which you will accept, with an injunction never to withhold any caution or advice which you may think necessary or beneficial on account of fewer years having passed over your head. * * * * "Many, when speaking of perfection, say it is not attainable, or hitherto unattainable, and it is therefore vain to try or hope for it. To such I would observe, that, from motives of duty to our Creator, and ambition in ourselves, we ought to strive for it, at least so far as not to be distanced by those who have preceded us. Morality is strict justice between man and man; therefore, a man being moral does not imply he is a Christian, but being a Christian implies he is a moral man. * * * * "We ought to use our utmost endeavors to conquer our passions and evil propensities, to conform our lives to the strict rules of morality and the best practice of Christianity. I cannot go further, without introducing the subject of evil speaking, which you will perhaps think I have exhausted. * * * "I do not, my dear M., set myself up as a reformer of human nature, or to find fault with it; but these observations (which have occurred to me as I am writing) may serve to show how apt we are to do things which afford us no pleasure, and which oftentimes are attended with the most disagreeable consequences. If you receive any improvement from the sentiments, or pleasure from the perusal, of this letter, the time in writing will be considered as well spent by your affectionate brother AMOS." CHAPTER IV. BUSINESS HABITS.--HIS FATHER'S MORTGAGE.--RESOLUTIONS.--ARRIVAL OF BROTHERS IN BOSTON. Mr. Lawrence had early formed, in the management of his affairs, certain principles, to which he rigidly adhered till the close of life. He writes: "I adopted the plan of keeping an accurate account of merchandise bought and sold each day, with the profit as far as practicable. This plan was pursued for a number of years; and I never found my merchandise fall short in taking an account of stock, which I did as often at least as once in each year. I was thus enabled to form an opinion of my actual state as a business man. I adopted also the rule always to have property, after my second year's business, to represent forty per cent. at least more than I owed; that is, never to be in debt more than two and a half times my capital. This caution saved me from ever getting embarrassed. If it were more generally adopted, we should see fewer failures in business. Excessive credit is the rock on which so many business men are broken. "When I commenced, the embargo had just been laid, and with such restrictions on trade that many were induced to leave it. But I felt great confidence, that, by industry, economy, and integrity, I could get a living; and the experiment showed that I was right. Most of the young men who commenced at that period failed by spending too much money, and using credit too freely. "I made about fifteen hundred dollars the first year, and more than four thousand the second. Probably, had I made four thousand the first year, I should have failed the second or third year. I practised a system of rigid economy, and never allowed myself to spend a fourpence for unnecessary objects until I had acquired it." It is known to many of Mr. Lawrence's friends that his father mortgaged his farm, and loaned the proceeds to his son; thereby enabling him, as some suppose, to do what he could not have done by his own unaided efforts. To show how far this supposition is correct, the following extract is given. It is copied from the back of the original mortgage deed, now lying before the writer, and bearing date of September 1, 1807. The extract is dated March, 1847: "The review of this transaction always calls up the deep feelings of my heart. My honored father brought to me the one thousand dollars, and asked me to give him my note for it. I told him he did wrong to place himself in a situation to be made unhappy, if I lost the money. He told me he _guessed I wouldn't lose it_, and I gave him my note. The first thing I did was to take four per cent. premium on my Boston bills (the difference then between passable and Boston money), and send a thousand dollars in bills of the Hillsborough Bank to Amherst, New Hampshire, by my father, to my brother L. to carry to the bank and get specie, as he was going there to attend court that week. My brother succeeded in getting specie, principally in silver change, for the bills, and returned it to me in a few days. In the mean time, or shortly after, the bank had been sued, the bills discredited, and, in the end, proved nearly worthless. I determined not to use the money, except in the safest way; and therefore loaned it to Messrs. Parkman, in whom I had entire confidence. After I had been in business, and had made more than a thousand dollars, I felt that I could repay the money, come what would of it; being insured against fire, and trusting nobody for goods. I used it in my business, but took care to pay off the mortgage as soon as it would be received. The whole transaction is deeply interesting, and calls forth humble and devout thanksgiving to that merciful Father who has been to us better than our most sanguine hopes." In alluding to this transaction in another place, he says: "This incident shows how dangerous it is to the independence and comfort of families, for parents to take pecuniary responsibilities for their sons in trade, beyond their power of meeting them without embarrassment. Had my Hillsborough Bank notes not been paid as they were, nearly the whole amount would have been lost, and myself and family might probably have been ruined. The incident was so striking, that I have uniformly discouraged young men who have applied to me for credit, offering their fathers as bondsmen; and, by doing so, I have, I believe, saved some respectable families from ruin. My advice, however, has been sometimes rejected with anger. A young man who cannot get along without such aid will not be likely to get along with it. On the first day of January, 1808, I had been but a few days in business; and the profits on all my sales to that day were one hundred and seventy-five dollars and eighteen cents. The expenses were to come out, and the balance was my capital. In 1842, the sum had increased to such an amount as I thought would be good for my descendants; and, from that time, I have been my own executor. How shall I show my sense of responsibility? Surely by active deeds more than by unmeaning words. God grant me to be true and faithful in his work!" Having become fairly established in Boston, Mr. Lawrence concluded to take his brother Abbott, then fifteen years of age, as an apprentice. On the 8th of October, 1808, Abbott accordingly joined his brother, who says of him: "In 1808, he came to me as my apprentice, bringing his bundle under his arm, with less than three dollars in his pocket (and this was his fortune); a first-rate business lad he was, but, like other bright lads, needed the careful eye of a senior to guard him from the pitfalls that he was exposed to." In his diary of February 10, 1847, he writes: "In the autumn of 1809, I boarded at Granger's Coffee House, opposite Brattle-street Church; and, in the same house, Mr. Charles White took up his quarters, to prepare his then new play, called the 'Clergyman's Daughter.' He spent some months in preparing it to secure a _run_ for the winter; and used to have Tennett, Canfield, Robert Treat Paine, and a host of others, to dine with him very often. I not unfrequently left the party at the dinner-table, and found them there when I returned to tea. Among the boarders was a fair proportion of respectable young men, of different pursuits; and, having got somewhat interested for White, we all agreed to go, and help bring out his 'Clergyman's Daughter.' Mrs. Darley was the lady to personate her, and a more beautiful creature could not be found. She and her husband (who sung his songs better than any man I had ever heard then) had all the spirit of parties in interest. We filled the boxes, and encored, and all promised a great run. After three nights, we found few beside the friends, and it was laid aside a failure. In looking back, the picture comes fresh before me; and, among all, I do not recollect one who was the better, and most were ruined. The theatre is no better now." In 1849, he resumes: "About this time, my brother William made me a little visit to recruit his health, which he had impaired by hard work on the farm, and by a generous attention to the joyous meetings of the young folks of both sexes, from six miles around, which meetings he never allowed to break in upon his work. He continued his visit through the winter, and became so much interested in my business that I agreed to furnish the store next my own for his benefit. Soon after that, I was taken sick; and he bought goods for himself to start with, and pushed on without fear. From that time, he was successful as a business man. He used his property faithfully, and I trust acceptably to the Master, who has called him to account for his talents. Our father's advice to us was, "'Do not fall out by the way, for a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.'" CHAPTER V. VISITS AT GROTON.--SICKNESS.--LETTER FROM DR. SHATTUCK.--ENGAGEMENT.--LETTER TO REV. DR. GANNETT.--MARRIAGE. During these years, Mr. Lawrence was in the habit of making occasional visits to his parents in Groton, thirty-five miles distant. His custom was to drive himself, leaving Boston at a late hour on Saturday afternoon, and often, as he says, encroaching upon the Sabbath before reaching home. After midnight, on Sunday, he would leave on his return; and thus was enabled to reach Boston about daybreak on Monday morning, without losing a moment's time in his business. In 1810, Mr. Lawrence was seized with an alarming illness, through which he enjoyed the care and skill of his friend and physician, the late Dr. G. C. Shattuck, who, shortly before his own death, transmitted the following account of this illness to the editor of these pages, who also had the privilege of enjoying a friendship so much prized by his father: "Feb. 28, 1853. "More than forty years ago, New England was visited with a pestilence. The people were stricken with panic. The first victims were taken off unawares. In many towns in the interior of the commonwealth, the people assembled in town meeting, and voted to pay, from the town treasury, physicians to be in readiness to attend on any one assailed with the premonitory symptoms of disease. The distemper was variously named, cold plague, spotted fever, and malignant remittent fever. After a day of unusual exercise, your father was suddenly taken ill. The worthy family in which he boarded were prompt in their sympathy. A physician was called: neighbors and friends volunteered their aid. Remedies were diligently employed. Prayers in the church were offered up for the sick one. A pious father left his home, on the banks of the Nashua, to be with his son. To the physician in attendance he gave a convulsive grasp of the hand, and, with eyes brimful of tears, and choked utterance, articulated, 'Doctor, if Amos has not money enough, I have!' To the anxious father his acres seemed like dust in the balance contrasted with the life of his son. He was a sensible man, acting on the principle that the stimulus of reward is a salutary adjunct to the promptings of humanity. God rebuked the disorder, though the convalescence was slow. A constitution with an originally susceptible nervous temperament had received a shock which rendered him a long time feeble. An apprentice, with a discretion beyond his years, maintained a healthy activity in his mercantile operations, to the quiet of his mind. He did not need great strength; for sagacity and decision supplied every other lack. Supply and demand were as familiar to him as the alphabet. He knew the wants of the country, and sources of supply. Accumulation followed his operations, and religious principle regulated the distribution of the cumbrous surplus. A sensible and pious father, aided by a prudent mother, had trained the child to become the future man. You will excuse my now addressing you, when you recur to the tradition that I had participated in the joy of the house when you first opened your eyes to the light. That God's promises to the seed of the righteous may extend to you and yours, is the prayer of your _early_ acquaintance, "GEORGE C. SHATTUCK." But few details of Mr. Lawrence's business from this date until 1815 are now found. Suffice it to say, that, through the difficult and troubled times in which the United States were engaged in the war with England, his efforts were crowned with success. Dark clouds sometimes arose in the horizon, and various causes of discouragement from time to time cast a gloom over the mercantile world; but despondency formed no part of his character, while cool sagacity and unceasing watchfulness and perseverance enabled him to weather many a storm which made shipwreck of others around him. Amidst the engrossing cares of business, however, Mr. Lawrence found time to indulge in more genial pursuits, as will be seen from the following lines, addressed to his sister: "BOSTON, March 17, 1811. "My not having written to you since your return, my dear M., has proceeded from my having other numerous avocations, and partly from a carelessness in such affairs reprehensible in me. You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn the extent and importance of my avocations; for, in addition to my usual routine of mercantile affairs, I have lately been engaged in a negotiation of the first importance, and which I have accomplished very much to my own satisfaction. It is no other than having offered myself as a husband to your very good friend Sarah Richards, which offer she has agreed to accept. So, next fall, you must set your mind on a wedding. Sarah I have long known and esteemed: there is such a reciprocity of feelings, sentiments, and principles, that I have long thought her the most suitable person I have seen for me to be united with. Much of my time, as you may well suppose, is spent in her society; and here I cannot but observe the infinite advantage of good sense and good principles over the merely elegant accomplishments of fashionable education. By the latter we may be fascinated for a time; but they will afford no satisfaction on retrospection. The former you are compelled to respect and to love. Such qualities are possessed by Sarah; and, were I to say anything further in her favor, it would be that she is beloved by you. Adieu, my dear sister, A. L." As this volume is intended only for the perusal of the family and friends of the late Amos Lawrence, no apology need be made for introducing such incidents of his life, of a domestic nature, as may be thought interesting, and which it might not seem advisable to introduce under other circumstances. Of this nature are some details connected with this engagement. The young lady here alluded to, whose solid qualities he thus, at the age of twenty-five and in the first flush of a successful courtship, so calmly discusses, in addition to these, possessed personal charms sufficient to captivate the fancy of even a more philosophical admirer than himself. Her father, Giles Richards, was a man of great ingenuity, who resided in Boston at the close of the Revolutionary War. He owned an establishment for the manufactory of cards for preparing wool. A large number of men were employed; and, at that time, it was considered one of the objects worthy of notice by strangers. As such, it was visited by General Washington on his northern tour; and may be found described, in the early editions of Morse's Geography, among the industrial establishments of Boston. As in the case of many more noted men of inventive genius, his plans were more vast than the means of accomplishment; and the result was, loss of a handsome competency, and embarrassment in business, from which he retired with unsullied reputation, and passed his latter years in the vicinity of Boston. Here the evening of his life was cheered by the constant and watchful care of his wife, whose cheerful and happy temperament shed a radiance around his path, which, from a naturally desponding character, might otherwise have terminated in gloom. She had been the constant companion of her husband in all his journeyings and residences in nearly every State in the Union, where his business had called him; and, after forty years, returned to die in the house where she was born,--the parsonage once occupied by her father, the Rev. Amos Adams, of Roxbury, who, at the time of the Revolution, was minister of the church now under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Putnam. Sarah had been placed in the family of the Rev. Dr. Chaplin, minister of the church at Groton, and was a member of the academy when Mr. Lawrence first made her acquaintance. "The academy balls, the agreeable partners in the hall, the pleasant companions in the stroll," remembered with so much pleasure in after life, were not improbably associated with this acquaintance, who had become a visitor and friend to his own sisters. After a separation of four years, the acquaintance was accidentally renewed in the year 1807. Sarah was on a visit at Cambridge to the family of Caleb Gannett, Esq., then and for many years afterwards Steward of Harvard University. In a letter to Rev. Dr. Gannett, dated February 15, 1845, Mr. Lawrence thus alludes to this interview: "My first interview with you, thirty-eight years ago, when you were led by the hand into the store where I then was, in Cornhill, by that friend (who was afterwards my wife), unconscious of my being within thirty miles, after a four years' separation, connects you in my thoughts with her, her children and grandchildren, in a way that no one can appreciate who has not had the experience." Enclosed in this letter was a faded paper, on which were written several verses of poetry, with the following explanation: "Only think of your sainted mother writing this little scrap thirty-eight years ago, when on her death-bed, for her young friend, then on a visit to her, to teach to you, who could not read; and this scrap, written upon a blank term-bill without premeditation, being preserved by that friend while she lived, and, after her death, by her daughter while she lived, and, after her death, being restored to me as the rightful disposer of it; and my happening, within four days after, to meet you under such circumstances as made it proper to show it to you." MRS. GANNETT'S HYMN FOR HER LITTLE BOY IN 1807. How can a child forgetful prove Of all that wakes the heart to love, And from the path of duty stray, To spend his time in sport and play; Neglectful of the blessing given, Which marks the path to peace and heaven? O! how can I, who daily share A mother's kind, assiduous care, Be idle, and ungrateful too; Forsake the good, the bad pursue; Neglectful of the blessings given, Which mark the path to peace and heaven? O! how can I such folly show, When faults indulged to vices grow,-- Who know that idle days ne'er make Men that are useful, good, or great? Dear mother, still be thou my guide, Nor suffer me my faults to hide; And O may God his grace impart To fix my feeble, foolish heart, That I may wait the blessing given, Which marks the path to peace and heaven! MEM.--Mrs. Gannett died soon after writing this on a blank term-bill of Harvard College, in 1807.--A. L., 1847. The marriage of Mr. Lawrence took place in Boston, on the 6th of June, 1811, three months after announcing his engagement to his sister. CHAPTER VI. BRAMBLE NEWS.--JUNIOR PARTNER GOES TO ENGLAND.--LETTERS TO BROTHER. In 1849, Mr. Lawrence writes as follows: "On the 1st of January, 1814, I took my brother Abbott into partnership on equal shares, putting fifty thousand dollars, that I had then earned, into the concern. Three days afterwards, the 'Bramble News' came, by which the excessive high price of goods was knocked down. Our stock was then large, and had cost a high price. He was in great anguish, considering himself a bankrupt for at least five thousand dollars. I cheered him by offering to cancel our copartnership indentures, give him up his note, and, at the end of the year, pay him five thousand dollars. He declined the offer, saying I should lose that, and more beside, and, as he had enlisted, would do the best he could. This was in character, and it was well for us both. He was called off to do duty as a soldier, through most of the year. I took care of the business, and prepared to retreat with my family into the country whenever the town seemed liable to fall into the hands of the British, who were very threatening in their demonstrations. We still continue mercantile business under the first set of indentures, and under the same firm, merely adding '& Co.,' as new partners have been admitted." In March, 1815, the junior partner embarked on board the ship Milo, the first vessel which sailed from Boston for England after the proclamation of peace. On the eve of his departure, he received from his brother and senior partner a letter containing many good counsels for his future moral guidance, as well as instructions in relation to the course of business to be pursued. From that letter, dated March 11th, the following extracts are taken: "MY DEAR BROTHER: I have thought best, before you go abroad, to suggest a few hints for your benefit in your intercourse with the people among whom you are going. As a first and leading principle, let every transaction be of that pure and honest character that you would not be ashamed to have appear before the whole world as clearly as to yourself. In addition to the advantages arising from an honest course of conduct with your fellow-men, there is the satisfaction of reflecting within yourself that you have endeavored to do your duty; and, however greatly the best may fall short of doing all they ought, they will be sure not to do more than their principles enjoin. "It is, therefore, of the highest consequence that you should not only cultivate correct principles, but that you should place your standard of action so high as to require great vigilance in living up to it. "In regard to your business transactions, let everything be so registered in your books, that any person, without difficulty, can understand the whole of your concerns. You may be cut off in the midst of your pursuits, and it is of no small consequence that your temporal affairs should always be so arranged that you may be in readiness. "If it is important that you should be well prepared in this point of view, how much more important is it that you should be prepared in that which relates to eternity! "You are young, and the course of life seems open, and pleasant prospects greet your ardent hopes; but you must remember that the race is not always to the swift, and that however flattering may be your prospects, and however zealously you may seek pleasure, you can never find it except by cherishing pure principles, and practising right conduct. My heart is full on this subject, my dear brother, and it is the only one on which I feel the least anxiety. "While here, your conduct has been such as to meet my entire approbation; but the scenes of another land may be more than your principles will stand against. I say, _may be_, because young men, of as fair promise as yourself, have been lost by giving a small latitude (innocent in the first instance) to their propensities. But I pray the Father of all mercies to have you in his keeping, and preserve you amid temptations. * * * * * "I can only add my wish to have you write me frequently and particularly, and that you will embrace every opportunity of gaining information. Your affectionate brother, "AMOS LAWRENCE. "TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE." Again, on the 28th of the month, he writes to the same, after his departure: "I hope you will have arrived in England early in April; and if so, you will be awaiting with anxious solicitude the arrival of the 'Galen,' by which vessel you will receive letters from _home_, a word which brings more agreeable associations to the mind and feelings of a young stranger in a foreign land than any other in our language. I have had many fears that you have had a rough passage, as the weather on the Friday following your departure was very boisterous, and continued so for a number of days, and much of the time since has been uncomfortable. I trust, however, that the same good Hand which supplies our daily wants has directed your course to the desired port. "With a just reliance on that Power, we need have no fear, though winds and waves should threaten our destruction. The interval between the time of bidding adieu and of actual departure called into exercise those fine feelings which those only have who can prize friends, and on that account I was happy to see so much feeling in yourself. "Since your departure nothing of a public nature has transpired of particular interest. All that there is of news or interest among us you will gather from the papers forwarded. "Those affairs which relate particularly to ourselves will be of as much interest as any; I shall therefore detail our business operations. * * * * * "My next and constant direction will be to keep a particular watch over yourself, that you do not fall into any habits of vice; and, as a means of preserving yourself, I would most strictly enjoin that your Sabbaths be not spent in noise and riot, but that you attend the public worship of God. This you may think an unnecessary direction to you, who have always been in the habit of doing so. I hope it may be; at any rate, it will do no harm. "That you may be blessed with health, and enjoy properly the blessings of life, is the wish of your ever affectionate brother, "A. L. "TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE." (TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE.) "BOSTON, April 15th, 1815. "MY DEAR BROTHER: By the favor of Heaven I trust ere this you have landed upon the soil from which sprang our forefathers. In the contemplation of that wonderful 'Isle' on your first arrival, there must be a feeling bordering on devotion. The thousand new objects, which make such constant demand on your attention, will not, I hope, displace the transatlantic friends from the place they should occupy in your remembrance. Already do I begin to count the days when I may reasonably hear from you. "I pray you to let no opportunity pass without writing, as you will be enabled to appreciate the pleasure your letters will give by those which you receive from home. Since your departure, our father has been dangerously ill; he seems fast recovering, but we much fear a relapse, when he would, in all probability, be immediately deprived of life, or his disease would so far weaken him as to terminate his usefulness. Our mother continues as comfortable as when you left us. Should you live to return, probably one or both our parents may not be here to welcome you; we have particular reason for thankfulness that they have both been spared to us so long, and have been so useful in the education of their children. "All others of our connection have been in health since your departure, and a comfortable share of happiness seems to have been enjoyed by all. * * * * * "Now for advice: you are placed in a particularly favorable situation, my dear brother, for improving yourself in the knowledge of such things as will hereafter be useful to you. Let no opportunity pass without making the most of it. There are necessarily many vacant hours in your business, which ought not to pass unemployed. I pretend not to suggest particular objects for your attention, but only the habit generally of active employment, which, while making your time useful and agreeable to yourself, will be the best safeguard to your virtue. The American character, I trust, is somewhat respected in England at this time, notwithstanding it was lately at so low an ebb; and I would wish every American to endeavor to do something to improve it. Especially do I wish you, my dear A., who visit that country under circumstances so favorable, to do your part in establishing a character for your country as well as for yourself. Thus prays your affectionate brother, A. L." To his wife, at Groton, Mr. Lawrence writes, under date of June 4, 1815: "The Milo got in yesterday, and brought letters from Abbott, dated 4th April. He was then in Manchester, and enjoyed the best health. He wrote to our father, which letter, I hope, will arrive at Groton by to-morrow's mail. I received from him merchandise, which I hope to get out of the ship and sell this week. I suspect there are few instances of a young man leaving this town, sending out goods, and having them sold within ninety days from the time of his departure. It is eighty-four days this morning since he left home." (TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE.) "BOSTON, June 7, 1815. "DEAR BROTHER: By the arrival of the Milo last Saturday, and packet on Monday, I received your several letters, giving an account of your proceedings. You are as famous among your acquaintances here for the rapidity of your movements as Bonaparte. Mr. ---- thinks that you leave Bonaparte entirely in the background. I really feel a little proud, my dear brother, of your conduct. Few instances of like despatch are known. "The sensations you experienced in being greeted so heartily by the citizens of Liverpool, were not unlike those you felt on hearing the news of peace. I am happy to state to you that our father has so far recovered from his illness as to be able to attend to his farm. Our mother's health is much as when you left. "Your friends here feel a good deal of interest in your welfare, and read with deep interest your letters to them. The opportunity is peculiarly favorable for establishing a reputation as a close observer of men and manners, and for those improvements which travelling is reputed to give. "When writing to you sentences of advice, my heart feels all the tender sympathies and affections which bind me to my own children. This is my apology, if any be necessary, for so frequently touching on subjects for your moral improvement. "In any condition I can subscribe myself no other than your ever affectionate brother, A. L." CHAPTER VII. DEATH OF SISTER.--LETTERS. On the 19th of August, 1815, Mr. Lawrence, in the following letter to his brother, announced the sudden death of a sister, who to youth and beauty united many valuable qualities of mind and character: "To you, who are at such a distance from home, and employed in the busy pursuits of life, the description of domestic woe will not come with such force as on us who were eye-witnesses to an event which we and all our friends shall not cease to deplore. We have attended this morning to the last sad office of affection to our loved sister S. Although for ourselves we mourn the loss of so much excellence, yet for her we rejoice that her race is so soon run. We are permitted to hope that she is now a saint in heaven, celebrating before the throne of her Father the praises of the redeemed. She met death in the enjoyment of that hope which is the peculiar consolation of the believer. This event, I know, my dear brother, is calculated to awaken all the tender recollections of home, and to call forth all your sympathy for the anguish of friends; but it is also calculated to soften the heart, and to guide you in your own preparation for that great day of account. The admonition, I hope, may not be lost on any of us, and happy will it be for us if we use it aright." (TO THE SAME.) "BOSTON, October 19, 1815. "DEAR ABBOTT: By this vessel I have written to you, but am always desirous of communicating the last intelligence from home, therefore I write again. The situation of our town, our country, our friends, and all the objects of endearment, continues the same as heretofore. We are, to be sure, getting into a religious controversy which does not promise to increase the stock of charity among us, but good will undoubtedly arise from it. The passions of some of our brethren are too much engaged, and it would seem from present appearances that consequences unfavorable to the cause of our Master may ensue; but the wrath of man is frequently made subservient to the best purposes, and the good of mankind may in this case be greatly promoted by what at present seems a great evil. Men's passions are but poor guides to the discovery of truth, but they may sometimes elicit light by which others may get at the truth. "It does seem to me that a man need only use his common sense, and feel a willingness to be instructed in the reading of the Scriptures, and there is enough made plain to his understanding to direct him in the way he should go. "Others, however, think differently; but that should not be a reason with me for calling them hard names, especially if by their lives they show that they are followers of the same Master." On December 2d, he writes again: "I heard from you verbally on the 1st of October, in company with a platoon of New England Guards; and hope the head of the corps allowed Lord Wellington the honor of an introduction, and of inspecting this choice corps, which once had the honor of protecting the constitution and independence of the United States, when menaced by the 'proud sons of Britain.' This is a theme on which _you_ may be allowed to dwell with some delight, although there are no recitals of hair-breadth escapes and hard-fought actions, when numbers bit the dust. Yet to you, who were active in performing duty, this should be a source of comfortable feeling, as the amount of human misery has not been increased by your means. Shakspeare's knight of sack thought 'the better part of valor was discretion,' but I do not believe the Guards would have confirmed this sentiment, had the opportunity offered for a trial. I am really glad to hear of you in Paris, and hope you will improve every moment of your time in acquiring information that will be agreeable and interesting; and, more particularly, I hope you will have gone over the ground where the great events have happened that now allow Europe to repose in peace. How much should I delight in a few hours' intercourse with you; but that must be deferred to another period, perhaps to a very distant period. "I feel very healthy and very happy; my wife and children all enjoying health, and a good share of the bounties of Providence in various ways. Well you may be contented, you will say. What more is wanting? Such is not always the lot of man possessing those blessings. There is often a voracious appetite for other and greater blessings. The desire for more splendor, the possession of more wealth, is coveted, without the disposition to use it as an accountable creature; and too late the poor man finds that all his toil for these earthly objects of his worship fails in satisfying or giving a good degree of content. I, therefore, have reason for thankfulness that I am blessed with a disposition to appreciate tolerably the temporal blessings I enjoy. To the Father of all mercies I am indebted for this and every other good thing; even for the increased affection with which I think of you. That he may bless and keep you, dear Abbott, is the prayer of your brother, A. L." On June 6th, 1817, a few days after the birth of a daughter, he writes to a friend: "I am the richest man, I suppose, that there is on this side of the water, and the richest because I am the happiest. On the 23d ult. I was blessed by the birth of a fine little daughter; this, as you may well suppose, has filled our hearts with joy. S. is very comfortable, and is not less gratified than I am. I wish you were a married man, and then (if you had a good wife) you would know how to appreciate the pleasures of a parent. I have lately thought more than ever of the propriety of your settling soon. It is extremely dangerous to defer making a connection until a late period; for a man is in more and more danger of not forming one the longer he puts it off; and any man who does not form this connection grossly miscalculates in the use of the means which God has given him to supply himself with pleasures in the downhill journey of life. "He is also foolish to allow himself to be cheated in this connection by the prospect of a few present advantages, to the exclusion of the more permanent ones. Every man's best pleasures should be at home; for there is the sphere for the exercise of his best virtues; and he should be particularly careful, in the selection of a partner, to get one who will jeopardize neither. On this subject, you know, I am always eloquent. But, at this time, there is reason for my being so, as it is the anniversary of my wedding day. "S. has put her eye on a _rib_ for you. The said person, you must know, is of a comely appearance (not beautiful), is rather taller than ----, has a good constitution, is perfectly acquainted with domestic economy, and has all the most desirable of the fashionable accomplishments, such as music, painting &c.; and my only objection to her is, as far as I have observed her, that she has a few thousand dollars in cash. This, however, might be remedied; for, after furnishing a house, the balance might be given to her near connections, or to some public institution. I will give no further description, but will only say that her connections are such as you would find pleasure in. No more on this subject. The subject of principal interest among us now is the new tariff of duties." * * * * CHAPTER VIII. DOMESTIC HABITS.--ILLNESS AND DEATH OF WIFE. In searching for records of the business at this period, the first copied letters are found in a volume commencing with the date of March 10, 1815; since which period the correspondence, contained in many volumes, is complete. On the first page of this volume is a letter from the senior partner somewhat characteristic. It relates to a bill of exchange for two thousand rupees, which he knew was a doubtful one, but which he had taken to relieve the pressing necessities of a young Englishwoman from Calcutta, with a worthless husband. He writes to his friends in that city: "We have been so particular as to send a clerk to her with the money, that we might be sure of her receiving it. Previous to her receiving the money from us, we were told her children were ragged, barefooted, and hungry; afterwards we knew they were kept comfortably clad." In tracing the course of business as revealed by the perusal of the correspondence, it is evident that Mr. Lawrence's time and attention must have been engrossed by the increasing importance and magnitude of the mercantile operations of his firm. The cares and perplexities of the day did not, however, unfit him for the quiet enjoyments of domestic life; and, however great and urgent were the calls upon his time and his thoughts from abroad, home, with its endearments, occupied the first place in his affections. So much did its interests transcend all others in his feelings, that he speaks in after life of having "watched night and day without leaving, for a fortnight," a sick child; and then being rewarded for his care by having it restored to him after the diligent application of remedies, when the physician and friends had given up all hope of recovery. With such affections and sources of happiness, connected with prosperity in his affairs, it may well be supposed that the current of life flowed smoothly on. His evenings were passed at home; and urgent must have been the call which could draw him from his fireside, where the social chat or friendly book banished the cares of the day. A gentleman, now a prominent merchant in New York, who was a clerk with Mr. Lawrence at this time, says of him: "When the business season was over, he would sit down with me, and converse freely and familiarly, and would have something interesting and useful to say. I used to enjoy these sittings; and, while I always feared to do anything, or leave anything undone, which would displease him, I at the same time had a very high regard, and I may say love, for him, such as I never felt for any other man beside my own father. He had a remarkable faculty of bringing the sterling money into our currency, with any advance, by a calculation in his mind, and would give the result with great accuracy in one quarter of the time which it took me to do it by figures. I used to try hard to acquire this faculty, but could not, and never saw any other person who possessed it to the degree he did. His mind was remarkably vigorous and accurate; and consequently his business was transacted in a prompt and correct manner. Nothing was left undone until to-morrow which could be done to-day. He was master of and controlled his business, instead of allowing his business to master and control him. When I took charge of the books, they were kept by single entry; and Mr. Lawrence daily examined every entry to detect errors. He was dissatisfied with this loose way of keeping the books; and, at his request, I studied book-keeping by double entry with Mr. Gershom Cobb, who had just introduced the new and shorter method of double entry. I then transferred the accounts into a new set of books on this plan, and well remember his anxiety during the process, and his expression of delight when the work was completed, and I had succeeded in making the first trial-balance come out right. This was the first set of books opened in Boston on the new system. While Mr. Lawrence required all to fulfil their engagements fully and promptly, so long as they were able to do so, he was lenient to those who were unfortunate, and always ready to compromise demands against such. No case occurred, while I was with him, which I thought he dealt harshly with a debtor who had failed in business." The year 1818 opened with cheering prospects; but a cloud was gathering which was destined to cast a shadow over all these pleasant hopes. During the spring, Mrs. Lawrence was troubled with a cough, which became so obstinate at the beginning of the summer, that she was persuaded to remain at Groton for a short period, in order to try the benefit of country air. Mr. Lawrence writes to her, July 16: "I am forcibly reminded of the blessings of wife, children, and friends, by the privation of wife and children; and, when at home, I really feel homesick and lonesome. Here I am, in two great rooms, almost alone; so you must prepare at a minute's notice to follow your husband." She remained in the country for several weeks, and was summoned suddenly home by the alarming illness of her husband; the result of which, for a time, seemed very doubtful. After a season of intense anxiety and unremitted watchings at his bedside, Mrs. Lawrence was seized during the night with a hemorrhage from the lungs. This symptom, which so much alarmed her friends, was hailed by herself with joy, as she now had no wish to outlive her husband, whose life she had despaired of. Mr. Lawrence's recovery was slow; and, as soon as it was deemed prudent, he was sent to Groton to recruit his strength. He writes, under date of November 5, 1818: "DEAREST SARAH: We have heard of the fire on Tuesday evening, and hope the alarm has not impaired your health. I enjoy myself here as much as it is possible for any one to do under like circumstances: The idea of leaving the objects most dear to me, a wife and child sick, is too great a drawback upon my happiness to allow me as much quiet as is desirable. Yet I have great reason for thankfulness that I am at this time able to enjoy the society of friends, and that you are so comfortable as to give good reason to hope that the next season will restore to you a tolerable share of health." Mrs. Lawrence writes, in reply to his letter: "I have just received yours, and feel better to hear that you are so well. I hope that you will leave no means unimproved to regain health. Do not allow unreasonable fears on my account. I am as well as I was the week past; but we are uneasy mortals, and I do not improve as I could wish. You know me: therefore make all allowances. It is a cloudy day." It soon became evident to all that the disease under which Mrs. Lawrence labored was a settled consumption, and that there could be little hope of recovery. To her mother Mr. Lawrence writes, Dec. 7: "Since I last wrote to you, there has been no material change in Sarah's situation. She suffers less pain, and has more cheerful spirits than when you were here. She is very well apprised of her situation, and complains that those who are admitted to see her look so sorrowful, that it has a painful effect upon her feelings. She is desirous of being kept cheerful and happy; and, as far as I am capable of making her so, I do it. Yet I am a poor hand to attempt doing, with my feeble health, what is so foreign to my feelings. Although she is much more comfortable than she was, I cannot flatter myself that she is any better. She still retains a faint hope that she may be so; yet it is but a faint one. It takes much from my distress to see her so calm, and so resigned to the will of the Almighty. Although her attachments to life are as strong and as numerous as are the attachments of most, I believe the principle of resignation is stronger. She is a genuine disciple of Christ; and, if my children walk in her steps, they will all be gathered among the blest, and sing the song of the redeemed. Should it be the will of God that we be separated for a season, there is an animation in the hope that we shall meet again, purified from the grossness of the flesh, and never to be parted. 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.' I shall have, therefore, no more put upon me than I am able to bear; yet I know not how to bring my mind to part with so excellent a friend, and so good a counsellor." On Jan. 13, 1819, he writes: "Sarah has continued to sink since you left, and is now apparently very easy, and very near the termination of her earthly career. She may continue two or three days; but the prospect is, that she will not open her eyes upon another morning. She suffers nothing, and it is, therefore, no trial to our feelings, compared with what it would be did she suffer. Her mind is a little clouded at times, but, in the main, quite clear. We shall give you early information of the event which blasts our dearest earthly hopes. _But God reigns: let us rejoice._" A few hours before her death, she called for a paper (now in possession of the writer), and, with a pencil, traced, in a trembling hand, some directions respecting small memorials to friends, and then added: "Feeling that I must soon depart from this, I trust, to a better world, I resign very dear friends to God, who has done so much for me. I am in ecstacies of love. How can I praise him enough! To my friends I give these tokens of remembrance." On the 14th of January, 1819, Mr. Lawrence closed the eyes of this most beloved of all his earthly objects, and immediately relapsed into a state of melancholy and gloom, which was, no doubt, greatly promoted by the peculiar state of health and physical debility under which he had labored since his last illness. A valued friend writes, a few days after the death of Mrs. L.: "It was my privilege to witness the closing scene; to behold faith triumphing over sense, and raising the soul above this world of shadows. It was a spectacle to convince the sceptic, and to animate and confirm the Christian. About a week before her death, her increasing weakness taught her the fallacy of all hope of recovery. From this time, it was the business of every moment to prepare herself and her friends for the change which awaited her. Serene, and even cheerful, she could look forward without apprehension into the dark valley, and beyond it she beheld those bright regions where she should meet her Saviour, through whose mediation she had the blessed assurance that her sins were pardoned, and her inheritance secure. God permitted a cloud to obscure the bright prospect; it was but for a moment, and the sun broke forth with redoubled splendor. On the last night of her life, she appeared to suffer extremely, though, when asked, she constantly replied in the negative. She repeated, in a feeble voice, detached portions of hymns of which she had been fond. Towards morning, as she appeared nearly insensible, Mrs. R. was persuaded to lie down and rest. Shortly after, Sarah roused herself, and said to L., 'I am going; call my mother.' Mrs. R. was at her bedside immediately, and asked her if she was sensible that she was leaving the world. She answered 'Yes,' and expressed her resignation. "Mrs. R. then repeated a few lines of Pope's Dying Christian, and the expiring saint, in broken accents, followed her. On her mother's saying 'the world recedes,' she added, 'It disappears,--heaven opens.' These were the last words I heard her utter. She then became insensible, and in about ten minutes expired. Not a sound interrupted the sacred silence; the tear of affection was shed, but no lamentation was heard. The eye of affection dwelt on the faded form, but faith pointed to those regions where the blessed spirit was admitted to those joys which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. Mr. L. is wonderfully supported. He feels as a man and a Christian." Upon this letter Mr. Lawrence has endorsed the following memorandum: "I saw this letter to-day for the first time. My son-in-law handed to me yesterday a number of memorials of my beloved daughter, who was called home on the second day of December last, when only a few months younger than her mother, whose death is so beautifully described within. The description brought the scene back to my mind with a force that unmanned me for a time, and leads me to pray most earnestly and humbly that I may be found worthy to join them through the beloved, when my summons comes. A. L. "February 5th, 1845." CHAPTER IX. JOURNEYS.--LETTERS.--JOURNEY TO NEW YORK. The sense of loss and the state of depression under which Mr. Lawrence labored were so great, that he was advised to try a change of scene; and accordingly, after having placed his three children with kind relatives in the country, he left Boston, on a tour, which lasted some weeks, through the Middle States and Virginia. He wrote many letters during this time, describing the scenes which he daily witnessed, and particularly the pleasure which he experienced in Virginia from the unbounded hospitality with which he was welcomed by those with whom he had become acquainted. He also visited Washington, and listened to some important debates on the admission of Missouri into the Union, which produced a strong and lasting influence upon his mind respecting the great questions then discussed. In a letter to his brother from the latter city, dated Feb. 25th, after describing a visit to the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, he writes: "Friend Webster has taken a stand here which no man can surpass; very few are able to keep even with him. He has made a wonderful argument for the United States Bank. If he does not stand confessedly first among the advocates here, he does not stand second. Tell brother L. of this; it will do him good." On March 30, he writes to his sister, after his return to Boston: "I am once more near the remains of her who was lately more dear to me than any other earthly object, after an absence of two months; my health much improved,--I may say restored; my heart filled with gratitude to the Author of all good for so many and rich blessings, so rapidly succeeding such severe privations and trials." A few days later, he writes to his sister-in-law: "Sunday evening, April 4, 1819. "DEAR S.: It is proper that I should explain to you why my feelings got so much the better of my reason at the celebration of the sacrament this morning. The last time I attended that service was with my beloved S., after an absence on her part of fifteen months, during which period you well know what passed in both our minds. On this occasion our minds and feelings were elevated with devotion, and (as I trust) suitably affected with gratitude to the Father of mercies for once more permitting her to celebrate with her husband this memorial of our Saviour. Then, indeed, were our hearts gladdened by the cheering prospect of her returning health and continued life. The consideration that I had since this period been almost within the purlieu of the grave, that my beloved Sarah had fallen a sacrifice to her care and anxiety for me, and that I was for the first time at the table of the Lord without her, with a view to celebrate the most solemn service of our religion, overwhelmed me as a torrent, and my feelings were too powerful to be restrained; I was almost suffocated in the attempt. "Comment is unnecessary. God grant us a suitable improvement of the scene! "Your affectionate brother, A. L." On April 6, he writes to a friend in England: "Since I last wrote, family misfortunes, of which you have from time to time been apprised, have pressed heavily upon me. I am now in tolerable health, and hope soon to see it entirely confirmed." After a visit to his parents, at Groton, he says, on April 9: "I arrived at home last Saturday night, at eleven o'clock, after rather an uncomfortable ride. However, I had the satisfaction on Monday of exercising my right of suffrage, which, had I not done, I should have felt unpleasantly. I wrote to M., on Tuesday, under a depression of spirits altogether greater than I have before felt. The effect of hope upon my feelings, before I saw the little ones, was very animating; since that time (although I found them all I could desire), the stimulus is gone, and I have been very wretched. The principles I cherish will now have their proper effect, although nature must first find its level. Do not imagine I feel severely depressed all the time; although I certainly have much less of animal spirits than I had before my return, I do not feel positively unhappy. Under all the circumstances it is thought best for me to journey. Hitherto, I have experienced the kind protection of an almighty Friend; it will not hereafter be withheld. Commending all dear friends and myself to Him, I remain your truly affectionate brother, "A. L." To another sister he writes five days afterwards, before commencing a second journey: "In a few moments I am off. I gladly seize the leisure they furnish me, to tell you I feel well, and have no doubt of having such a flow of spirits as will make my journey pleasant. At any rate, I start with this determination. You know not, dear E., the delight I feel in contemplating the situation of my little ones; this (if no higher principle) should be sufficient to do away all repining and vain regrets for the loss of an object so dear as was their mother. In short, her own wishes should operate very strongly against these regrets. I hope to be forgiven the offence, if such it be; and to make such improvement of it as will subserve the purposes of my heavenly Father, who doth not willingly afflict the children of men, but for their improvement. My prayer to God is, that the affliction may not be lost upon me; but that it may have the effect of making me estimate more justly the value of all temporal objects, and, by thus softening the heart, open it to the kind influences of our holy religion, and produce that love and charity well pleasing to our Father. I have no object in view further south than Baltimore; from thence I shall go across the Alleghanies, or journey through the interior to the northern border of this country. At Baltimore I remain a few days; my business there is as delegate from Brattle-street Church, in the settlement of a minister, a young gentleman named Sparks, from Connecticut." (TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE.) "PHILADELPHIA, April 26, 1819. "DEAR BROTHER: When I see how people in other places are doing business, I feel that we have reason to thank God that we are not obliged to do as they do, but are following that regular and profitably safe business that allows us to sleep well o' nights, and eat the bread of industry and quietness. The more I see of the changes produced by violent speculation, the more satisfied I am that our maxims are the only true ones for a life together. Different maxims may prove successful for a part of life, but will frequently produce disastrous results just at the time we stand most in need; that is, when life is on the wane, and a family is growing around us. "Two young brokers in ---- have played a dashing game. They have taken nearly one hundred thousand dollars from the bank, without the consent of the directors. A clerk discounted for them. They have lost it by United States Bank speculations. "Look after clerks well, if you wish to keep them honest. Too good a reputation sometimes tempts men to sin, upon the strength of their reputation. "As to business, it must be bad enough; that is nothing new; but patience and perseverance will overcome all obstacles, and, notwithstanding all things look so dark, I look for a good year's work. "You must remember that I have done nothing yet, and I have never failed of accomplishing more than my expectations; so I say again, we will make a good year's work of it yet, by the blessing of Heaven." From Lancaster, Penn., April 29, he writes to his sister: "My feelings are usually buoyant, except occasionally when imagination wanders back to departed days; then comes over me a shadow, which, by its frequency, I am now enabled to dispel without violence, and even to dwell upon without injury." (TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE.) "BALTIMORE, May 25, 1819. "DEAR BROTHER: I arrived in this city this morning, in the steamboat, from Norfolk, and have found a number of letters from you and brother W. From the present aspect of affairs in this city, I fear that I shall make but a short stay. At no period has the face of affairs been more trying to the feelings of the citizens. Baltimore has never seen but two days which will compare with last Friday: one of those was the mob day, the other was the day of the attack by the British. "Nearly one half the city, embracing its most active and hitherto wealthiest citizens, have stopped or must stop payment. Confidence is prostrated, capital vanished. "I am rejoiced to hear of your easy situation, and hope it may continue. Avoid responsibilities, and all is well with us. I am in no wise avaricious, and of course care not whether we make five thousand dollars more or less, if we risk twenty thousand to do it. "I have a high eulogium to pay the Virginians, which I must reserve for another letter; as also an account of my travels from Petersburg." In a letter to a friend, dated at Baltimore, he says: "Since I have been here, I have been constantly occupied; and, although the heavy cloud which overhangs this city is discharging its contents upon their heads, they bear it well, resolving that, if they are poor, they will not be unsocial, nor uncivil, and on this principle they meet in little groups, without much style or ceremony, and pass sensible and sociable evenings together. "I have really become very much interested in some of the people here. "And now my advice to you is, get married, and have no fear about the expense being too great. If you have two children born unto you within a twelve-month, you will be the richer man for it. Nothing sharpens a man's wits, in earning property and using it, better than to see a little flock growing up around him. So I say again, man, fear not." On his return, it seems to have been his object to interest himself as much as possible in business, and thus endeavor to divert his mind from those painful associations, which, in spite of all his efforts, would sometimes obtain the mastery. In the mean time, he had given up his house, and resided in the family of his brother Abbott; where he was welcomed as an inmate, and treated with so much sympathy and considerate kindness, that his mind, after a time, recovered its tone: his health was restored, and he was once more enabled to give his full powers to the growing interests of his firm. For the few succeeding years, he was engaged in the usual routine of mercantile affairs, and has left but few memorials or letters, except those relating to his business. In the winter of 1820, he made a visit to New York, which he describes in his diary under date of February 15, 1846: "Yesterday was one of the most lovely winter days. To-day the snow drives into all the cracks and corners, it being a boisterous easterly snow-storm, which recalls to my mind a similar one, which I shall never forget, in February, 1820. "I went to New York during that month, for the New England Bank, with about one hundred thousand dollars in foreign gold, the value of which by law at the mint was soon to be reduced from eighty-seven to eighty-five cents per pennyweight, or about that. I also had orders to buy bills with it, at the best rate I could. Accordingly I invested it, and had to analyze the standing of many who offered bills, as drawers or endorsers. "Some of the bills were protested for non-acceptance, and were returned at once, and damages claimed. This was new law in New York, and resisted; but the merchants were convinced by suits, and paid the twenty per cent. damages. The law of damage was altered soon after. "On my return, I took a packet for Providence, and came at the rate of ten knots an hour for the first seven hours of the night. I was alarmed by a crash, which seemed to me to be breaking in the side of the ship, within a few inches of my head. I ran upon deck, and it was a scene to be remembered. Beside the crew, on board were the officers of a wrecked vessel from Portsmouth, N. H., and some other old ship-masters, all at work, and giving directions to a coaster, which had run foul of us, and had lost its way. By favor and labor, we were saved from being wrecked; but were obliged to land at some fifteen miles from Providence, and get there as we could through the snow. I arrived there almost dead with headache and sickness. Madam Dexter and her daughter left the day before, and reached home in perfect safety before the storm. Such are the scenes of human life! Here am I enjoying my own fireside, while all who were then active with me in the scenes thus recalled are called to their account, excepting Philip Hone, M. Van Schaick, N. Goddard, Chancellor Kent, and his son-in-law, Isaac Hone." CHAPTER X. MARRIAGE.--ELECTED TO LEGISLATURE.--ENGAGES IN MANUFACTURES.--REFLECTIONS. In April, 1821, Mr. Lawrence was married to Mrs. Nancy Ellis, widow of the late Judge Ellis, of Claremont, N. H., and daughter of Robert Means, Esq., of Amherst, in the same State. His children, who had been placed with his parents and sisters at Groton, were brought home; and he was now permitted again to unite his family under his own roof, and to enjoy once more those domestic comforts so congenial to his taste, and which each revolving year seemed to increase until the close of his life. Mr. Lawrence was elected a representative from Boston to the Legislature for the session of 1821 and 22; and this was the only occasion on which he ever served in a public legislative body. Although deeply engaged in his own commercial pursuits, he was constantly at his post in the House of Representatives; and attended faithfully to the duties of his office, although with much sacrifice to his own personal interests. Very little is found among his memoranda relating to this new experience. As a member of a committee of the Legislature having in charge the subject of the erection of wooden buildings in Boston, he seems to have had a correspondence with the late Hon. John Lowell, who took strong ground before the committee against the multiplication of buildings of this material, and backed his arguments with some very characteristic statements and observations. On one of these letters Mr. Lawrence made a memorandum, dated March, 1845, as follows: "The _Boston Rebel_ was a true man, such as we need more of in these latter days. The open-mouthed lovers of the _dear people_ are self-seekers in most instances. Beware of such." The following extract is taken from a letter, dated January 4th, 1822, addressed by Mr. Lawrence to Hon. Frederic Wolcott, of Connecticut, respecting a son who was about to be placed in his counting-room, and who, in after years, became his partner in business: "H. will have much leisure in the evening, which, if he choose, may be profitably devoted to study; and we hope he will lay out such a course for himself, as to leave no portion of his time unappropriated. It is on account of so much leisure, that so many fine youths are ruined in this town. The habit of industry once well fixed, the danger is over. "Will it not be well for him to furnish you, at stated periods, an exact account of his expenditures? The habit of keeping such an account will be serviceable, and, if he is prudent, the satisfaction will be great, ten years hence, in looking back and observing the process by which his character has been formed. If he does as well as he is capable, we have no doubt of your experiencing the reward of your care over him." For the several following years, Mr. Lawrence was deeply engaged in business; and the firm of which he was the senior partner became interested in domestic manufactures, which, with the aid of other capitalists, afterwards grew into so much importance, until now it has become one of the great interests of the country. Apart from all selfish motives, he early became one of the strongest advocates for the protection of American industry, believing that the first duty of a government is to advance the interests of its own citizens, when it can be accomplished with justice to others; and in opposition to the system of free trade, which, however plausible in theory, he considered prejudicial to the true interests of our own people. He was conscientious in these opinions; and, in their support, corresponded largely with some of the leading statesmen at Washington, as well as with prominent opponents at the South, who combatted his opinions while they respected the motives by which he was actuated. He tested his sincerity, by embarking a large proportion of his property in these enterprises; and, to the last, entertained the belief that the climate, the soil, and the habits of the people, rendered domestic manufactures one of the permanent and abiding interests of New England. During seasons of high political excitement and sectional strife, he wrote to various friends at the South, urging them to discard all local prejudices, and to enter with the North into manly competition in all those branches of domestic industry which would tend, not only to enrich, but also to improve the moral and intellectual character of their people. He watched, with increasing interest, the progress of Lowell and other manufacturing districts, and was ever ready to lend a helping hand to any scheme which tended to advance their welfare. Churches, hospitals, libraries, in these growing communities, had in him a warm and earnest advocate; and it was always with honest pride that he pointed out to the intelligent foreigner the moral condition of the operative here, when compared with that of the same class in other countries. On the 1st of January, in each year, Mr. Lawrence was in the habit of noting down, in a small memorandum-book, an accurate account of all his property, in order that he might have a clear view of his own affairs, and also as a guide to his executors in the settlement of his estate, in case of his death. This annual statement commences in 1814, and, with the exception of 1819, when he was in great affliction on account of the death of his wife, is continued every year until that of his own death, in 1852. In this little volume the following memorandum occurs, dated January 1, 1826: "I have been extensively engaged in business during the last two years, and have added much to my worldly possessions; but have come to the same conclusions in regard to them that I did in 1818. I feel distressed in mind that the resolutions then made have not been more effectual in keeping me from this _overengagedness_ in business. I now find myself so engrossed with its cares, as to occupy my thoughts, waking or sleeping, to a degree entirely disproportioned to its importance. The quiet and comfort of home are broken in upon by the anxiety arising from the losses and mischances of a business so extensive as ours; and, above all, that communion which ought ever to be kept free between man and his Maker is interrupted by the incessant calls of the multifarious pursuits of our establishment." After noting down several rules for curtailing his affairs, he continues: "Property acquired at such sacrifices as I have been obliged to make the past year costs more than it's worth; and the anxiety in protecting it is the extreme of folly." * * * * * _1st of January, 1827._--"The principles of business laid down a year ago have been very nearly practised upon. Our responsibilities and anxieties have greatly diminished, as also have the accustomed profits of business; but there is sufficient remaining for the reward of our labor to impose on us increased responsibilities and duties, as agents who must at last render an account. God grant that mine be found correct!" CHAPTER XI. REFLECTIONS.--BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.--LETTERS. _1st of January, 1828._--After an account of his affairs, he remarks: "The amount of property is great for a young man under forty-two years of age, who came to this town when he was twenty-one years old with no other possessions than a common country education, a sincere love for his own family, and habits of industry, economy, and sobriety. Under God, it is these same self-denying habits, and a desire I always had to please, so far as I could without sinful compliance, that I can now look back upon and see as the true ground of my success. I have many things to reproach myself with; but among them is not idling away my time, or spending money for such things as are improper. My property imposes upon me many duties, which can only be known to my Maker. May a sense of these duties be constantly impressed upon my mind; and, by a constant discharge of them, God grant me the happiness at last of hearing the joyful sound, 'Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!' Amen. Amen." Previous to this date, but few private letters written by Mr. Lawrence were preserved. From that time, however, many volumes have been collected, a greater part of them addressed to his children. Out of a very large correspondence with them and with friends, such selections will be made as are thought most interesting, and most worthy to be preserved by his family and their descendants. The nature of this correspondence is such, involving many personal matters of transient interest that often scraps of letters only can be given; and, although it will be the aim of the editor to give an outline of the life of the author of these letters, it will be his object to allow him to speak for himself, and to reveal his own sentiments and character, rather than to follow out, from year to year, the details of his personal history. This correspondence commences with a series of letters extending through several years, and addressed to his eldest son, who was, during that time, at school in France and Spain. "BOSTON, November 11, 1828. "I trust that you will have had favoring gales and a pleasant passage, and will be safely landed at Havre within twenty days after sailing. You will see things so different from what you have been accustomed to, that you may think the French are far before or behind us in the arts of life, and formation of society. But you must remember that what is best for one people may be the worst for another; and that it is true wisdom to study the character of the people among whom you are, before adopting their manners, habits, or feelings, and carrying them to another people. I wish to see you, as long as you live, a well-bred, upright _Yankee_. Brother Jonathan should never forget his self-respect, nor should he be impertinent in claiming more for his country or himself than is due; but on no account should he speak ungraciously of his country or its friends abroad, whatever may be said by others. Lafayette in France is not what he is here; and, whatever may be said of him there, he is an ardent friend of the United States; and I will venture to say, if you introduce yourself to him as a grandson of one of his old Yankee officers, he will treat you with the kindness of a father. You must visit La Grange, and G. will go with you. He will not recollect your grandfather, or any of us. But tell him that your father and three uncles were introduced to him here in the State House; that they are much engaged in forwarding the Bunker Hill Monument; and, if ever he return to this country, it will be the pride of your father to lead him to the top of it." Among Mr. Lawrence's papers, this is the first allusion to the Bunker Hill Monument, in the erection of which he afterwards took so prominent a part, and to which he most liberally contributed both time and money. From early associations, perhaps from the accounts received from his father, who was present during the battle, his mind became strongly interested in the project of erecting a monument, and particularly in that of reserving the whole battle-ground for the use of the public forever. He had been chosen one of the Building Committee of the Board of Directors in October, 1825, in company with Dr. John C. Warren, General H. A. S. Dearborn, George Blake, and William Sullivan. From this time until the completion of the monument, the object occupied a prominent place in his thoughts; and allusion to his efforts in its behalf during the succeeding years will, from time to time, be introduced. On December 13, 1828, he thus alludes to the death of an invalid daughter six years of age: "She was taken with lung fever on the 4th, and died, after much suffering and distress, on the 8th. Nothing seemed to relieve her at all; and I was thankful when the dear child ceased to suffer, and was taken to the bosom of her Saviour, where sickness and suffering will no more reach her, and the imperfections of her earthly tenement will be corrected, and her mind and spirit will be allowed to expand and grow to their full stature in Christ. In his hands I most joyfully leave her, hoping that I may rejoin her with the other children whom it has pleased God to give me." (TO HIS SON.) "December 29. "My thoughts are often led to contemplate the condition of my children in every variety of situation, more especially in sickness, since the death of dear M. Although I do not allow myself to indulge in melancholy or fearful forebodings, I cannot but feel the deepest solicitude that their minds and principles should be so strengthened and stayed upon their God and Saviour as to give them all needed support in a time of such trial and suffering. You are so situated as perhaps not to recall so frequently to your mind as may be necessary the principles in which you have been educated. But let me, in the absence of these objects, remind you that God is ever present, and sees the inmost thoughts; and, while he allows every one to act freely, he gives to such as earnestly and honestly desire to do right all needed strength and encouragement to do it. Therefore, my dear son, do not cheat yourself by doing what you suspect _may_ be wrong. You are as much accountable to your Maker for an enlightened exercise of your conscience, as you would be to me to use due diligence in taking care of a bag of money which I might send by you to Mr. W. If you were to throw it upon deck, or into the bottom of the coach, you would certainly be culpable; but, if you packed it carefully in your trunk, and placed the trunk in the usual situation, it would be using common care. So in the exercise of your conscience: if you refuse to examine whether an action is right or wrong, you voluntarily defraud yourself of the guide provided by the Almighty. If you do wrong, you have no better excuse than he who had done so willingly and wilfully. It is the sincere desire that will be accepted." To his second son, then at school in Andover, he writes: "I received your note yesterday, and was prepared to hear your cash fell short, as a dollar-bill was found in your chamber on the morning you left home. You now see the benefit of keeping accounts, as you would not have been sure about this loss without having added up your account. Get the habit firmly fixed of putting down every cent you receive and every cent you expend. In this way you will acquire some knowledge of the relative value of things, and a habit of judging and of care which will be of use to you during all your life. Among the numerous people who have failed in business within my knowledge, a prominent cause has been a want of system in their affairs, by which to know when their expenses and losses exceeded their profits. This habit is as necessary for professional men as for a merchant; because, in their business, there are numerous ways to make little savings, if they find their income too small, which they would not adopt without looking at the detail of all their expenses. It is the habit of consideration I wish you to acquire; and the habit of being accurate will have an influence upon your whole character in life." (TO HIS SON IN FRANCE.) "April 28, 1829. "I beseech you to consider well the advantages you enjoy, and to avail yourself of your opportunities to give your manners a little more ease and polish; for, you may depend upon it, manners are highly important in your intercourse with the world. Good principles, good temper, and good manners, will carry a man through the world much better than he can get along with the absence of either. The most important is good principles. Without these, the best manners, although, for a time, very acceptable, cannot sustain a person in trying situations. "If you live to attain the age of thirty, the interim will appear but a span; and yet at that time you will be in the full force of manhood. To look forward to that period, it seems very long; and it is long enough to make great improvement. Do not omit the opportunity to acquire a character and habits that will continue to improve during the remainder of life. At its close, the reflection that you have thus done will be a support and stay worth more than any sacrifice you may ever feel called on to make in acquiring these habits." (TO THE SAME.) "June 7, 1829. "I was forcibly reminded, on entering our tomb last evening, of the inroads which death has made in our family since 1811, at the period when I purchased it. How soon any of us who survive may mingle our dust with theirs, is only known to Omniscience; but, at longest, it can be in his view but a moment, a mere point of time. How important, then, to us who can use this mere point for our everlasting good, that we should do it, and not squander it as a thing without value! Think upon this, my son; and do not merely admit the thought into your mind and drive it out by vain imaginations, but give it an abiding and practical use. To set a just value upon time, and to make a just use of it, deprives no one of any rational pleasure: on the contrary, it encourages temperance in the enjoyment of all the good things which a good Providence has placed within our reach, and thankfulness for all opportunities of bestowing happiness on our fellow-beings. Thus you have an opportunity of making me and your other friends happy, by diligence in your studies, temperance, truth, integrity, and purity of life and conversation. I may not write to you again for a number of weeks, as I shall commence a journey to Canada in a few days. You will get an account of the journey from some of the party." CHAPTER XII. JOURNEY TO CANADA.--LETTERS.--DIARY.--CHARITIES. Mr. Lawrence, with a large party, left Boston on the 13th of June, and passed through Vermont, across the Green Mountains, to Montreal and Quebec. Compared with these days of railroad facilities, the journey was slow. It was performed very leisurely in hired private vehicles, and seems to have been much enjoyed. He gives a glowing account of the beauty of the country through which he passed, as well as his impressions of the condition of the population. From Quebec the party proceeded to Niagara Falls, and returned through the State of New York to Boston, "greatly improved in health and spirits." This, with one other visit to Canada several years before, was the only occasion on which Mr. Lawrence ever left the territory of the United States; for, though sometimes tempted, in after years, to visit the Old World, his occupations and long-continued feeble health prevented his doing so. (TO HIS SON.) "July 27. "If, in an endeavor to do right, we fall short, we shall still be in the way of duty; and that is first to be looked at. We must keep in mind that we are to render an account of the use of those talents which are committed to us; and we are to be judged by unerring Wisdom, which can distinguish all the motives of action, as well as weigh the actions. As our stewardship has been faithful or otherwise, will be the sentence pronounced upon us. Give this your best thoughts, for it is a consideration of vast importance." "August 27. "Bring home no foreign fancies which are inapplicable to our state of society. It is very common for our young men to come home and appear quite ridiculous in attempting to introduce their foreign fashions. It should be always kept in mind that the state of society is widely different here from that in Europe; and our comfort and character require it should long remain so. Those who strive to introduce many of the European habits and fashions, by displacing our own, do a serious injury to the republic, and deserve censure. An idle person, with good powers of mind, becomes torpid and inactive after a few years of indulgence, and is incapable of making any high effort; highly important it is, then, to avoid this enemy of mental and moral improvement. I have no wish that you pursue trade. I would rather see you on a farm, or studying any profession." "October 16. "It should always be your aim so to conduct yourself that those whom you value most in the world would approve your conduct, if all your actions were laid bare to their inspection; and thus you will be pretty sure that He who sees the motive of all our actions will accept the good designed, though it fall short in its accomplishment. You are young, and are placed in a situation of great peril, and are perhaps sometimes tempted to do things which you would not do if you knew yourself under the eye of your guardian. The blandishments of a beautiful city may lead you to forget that you are always surrounded, supported, and seen, by that best Guardian." "December 27. "I suppose Christmas is observed with great pomp in France. It is a day which our Puritan forefathers, in their separation from the Church of England, endeavored to blot out from the days of religious festivals; and this because it was observed with so much pomp by the Romish Church. In this, as well as in many other things, they were as unreasonable as though they had said they would not eat bread because the Roman Catholics do. I hope and trust the time is not far distant when Christmas will be observed by the descendants of the Puritans with all suitable respect, as the first and highest holiday of Christians; combining all the feelings and views of New England Thanksgiving with all the other feelings appropriate to it." "January 31, 1830. "You have seen, perhaps, that the Directors of the Bunker Hill Monument Association have applied to the Legislature for a lottery. I am extremely sorry for it. I opposed the measure in all its stages, and feel mortified that they have done so. They cannot get it, and I desire that General Lafayette may understand this; and, if he will write us a few lines during the coming year, it will help us in getting forward a subscription. When our citizens shall have had one year of successful business, they will be ready to give the means to finish the monument. My feelings are deeply interested in it, believing it highly valuable as a nucleus for the affections of the people in after time; and, if my life be spared and my success continue, I will never cease my efforts until it be completed." Further details will be given in this volume to show now nobly Mr. Lawrence persevered in the resolution thus deliberately formed; and, though he was destined to witness many fruitless efforts, he had the satisfaction at last of seeing the completion of the monument, and from its summit of pointing out the details of the battle to the son of one of the British generals in command[2] on that eventful day. [2] Lord Prudhoe, now Duke of Northumberland. On the same page with the estimate of his property for the year 1830, he writes: "With a view to know the amount of my expenditures for objects other than the support of my family, I have, for the year 1829, kept a particular account of such other expenses as come under the denomination of charities, and appropriations for the benefit of others not of my own household, for many of whom I feel under the same obligation as for my own family." This memorandum was commenced on the 1st of January, 1829, and is continued until December 30, 1852, the last day of his life. It contains a complete statement of his charities during that whole period, including not only what he contributed in money, but also all other donations, in the shape of clothing materials, books, provisions, &c. His custom was to note down at cost the value of the donation, after it had been despatched; whether in the shape of a book, a turkey, or one of his immense bundles of varieties to some poor country minister's family, as large, as he says in addressing one, "as a small haycock." Two rooms in his house, and sometimes three, were used principally for the reception of useful articles for distribution. There, when stormy weather or ill health prevented him from taking his usual drive, he was in the habit of passing hours in selecting and packing up articles which he considered suitable to the wants of those whom he wished to aid. On such days, his coachman's services were put in requisition to pack and tie up "the small haycocks;" and many an illness was the result of over-exertion and fatigue in supplying the wants of his poorer brethren. These packages were selected according to the wants of the recipients, and a memorandum made of the contents. In one case, he notifies Professor ----, of ---- College, that he has sent by railroad "a barrel and a bundle of books, with broadcloth and pantaloon stuffs, with odds and ends for poor students when they go out to keep school in the winter." Another, for the president of a college at the West, one piece of silk and worsted, for three dresses; one piece of plaid, for "M. and mamma;" a lot of pretty books; a piece of lignum-vitæ from the Navy Yard, as a text for the support of the navy; and various items for the children: value, twenty-five dollars. To a professor in a college in a remote region he sends a package containing "dressing-gown, vest, hat, slippers, jack-knife, scissors, pins, neck-handkerchiefs, pantaloons, cloth for coat, 'History of Groton,' lot of pamphlets," &c. Most of the packages forwarded contained substantial articles for domestic use, and were often accompanied by a note containing from five to fifty dollars in money. The distribution of books was another mode of usefulness to which Mr. Lawrence attached much importance. In his daily drives, his carriage was well stored with useful volumes, which he scattered among persons of all classes and ages as he had opportunity. These books were generally of a religious character, while others of a miscellaneous nature were purchased in large numbers, and sent to institutions, or individuals in remote parts of the country. He purchased largely the very useful as well as tasteful volumes of the American Tract Society and the Sunday-School Union. An agent of the latter society writes: "I had almost felt intimately acquainted with him, as nearly every pleasant day he visited the depository to fill the front seat of his coach with books for distribution." Old and young, rich and poor, shared equally in these distributions; and he rarely allowed an occasion to pass unimproved when he thought an influence could be exerted by the gift of an appropriate volume. While waiting one day in his carriage with a friend, in one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, he beckoned to a genteelly-dressed young man who was passing, and handed him a book. Upon being asked whether the young man was an acquaintance, he replied: "No, he is not; but you remember where it is written, 'Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.'" "A barrel of books" is no uncommon item found in his record of articles almost daily forwarded to one and another of his distant beneficiaries. CHAPTER XIII. CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. WEBSTER.--LETTERS. (TO HIS SON.) "February 5, 1830. "Be sure and visit La Grange before you return; say to General Lafayette that the Bunker Hill Monument will _certainly be finished_, and that the foolish project of a lottery has been abandoned. If, in the course of Providence, I should be taken away, I hope my children will feel it a duty to continue the efforts that are made in this work, which I have had so much at heart, and have labored so much for." To his son, then at school at Versailles, he writes on Feb. 26, 1830: "After hearing from you again, I can judge better what to advise respecting your going into Spain. At all events, let no hope of going, or seeing, or doing anything else, prevent your using the present time for improving yourself in whatever you find to do. My greatest fear is, that you may form a wrong judgment of what constitutes your true respectability, happiness, and usefulness. To a youth just entering on the scenes of life, the roses on the wayside appear without thorns; but, in the eagerness to snatch them, many find, to their sorrow, that all which appears so fair is not in possession what it was in prospect, and that beneath the rose there is a thorn that sometimes wounds like a serpent's bite. Let not appearances deceive you; for, when once you have strayed, the second temptation is more likely to be fallen into than the first." "March 6, 1830. "We are all in New England deeply interested by Mr. Webster's late grand speech in the Senate, vindicating New England men and New England measures from reproach heaped upon them by the South; it was his most powerful effort, and you will see the American papers are full of it. You should read the whole debate between him and Mr. Hayne of South Carolina; you will find much to instruct and interest you, and much of what you ought to know. Mr. Webster never stood so high in this country as, at this moment; and I doubt if there be any man, either in Europe or America, his superior. The doctrines upon the Constitution in this speech should be read as a text-book by all our youth." After reading the great speech of Mr. Webster, Mr. Lawrence addressed to that gentleman a letter, expressing his admiration of the manner in which New England had been vindicated, and also his own personal feelings of gratitude for the proud stand thus taken. Mr. Webster replied as follows: "WASHINGTON, March 8, 1830. "DEAR SIR: I thank you very sincerely for your very kind and friendly letter. The sacrifices made in being here, and the mortifications sometimes experienced, are amply compensated by the consciousness that my friends at home feel that I have done some little service to our New England. I pray you to remember me with very true regard to Mrs. Lawrence, and believe me "Very faithfully and gratefully yours, "DANIEL WEBSTER. "TO AMOS LAWRENCE, Esq." EXTRACTS OF LETTERS TO HIS SON. "April 13, 1830. "You may feel very sure that any study which keeps your mind engaged will be likely to strengthen it; and that, if you leave your mind inactive, it will run to waste. Your arm is strengthened by wielding a broadsword, or even a foil. Your legs by various gymnastic exercises, and the organs of sight and hearing by careful and systematic use, are greatly improved; even the finger is trained, by the absence of sight, to perform almost the service of the eye. All this shows how natural it is for all the powers to grow stronger by use. You needed not these examples to convince you; but my desire to have you estimate your advantages properly induces me to write upon them very often. Every American youth owes his country his best talents and services, and should devote them to the country's welfare. In doing that, you will promote not only your own welfare, but your highest enjoyment. "The duty of an American citizen, at this period of the world, is that of a responsible agent; and he should endeavor to transmit to the next age the institutions of our country uninjured and improved. We hope, in your next letter, to hear something more of General Lafayette. The old gentleman is most warm in his affection for Americans. May he live long to encourage and bless by his example the good of all countries! In contemplating a life like his, who can say that compensation even here is not fully made for all the anguish and suffering he has formerly endured? Long life does not consist in many years; but in the period being filled with good services to our fellow-beings. He whose life ends at thirty may have done much, while he who has reached the age of one hundred may have done little. With the Almighty, a thousand years are a moment; and he will therefore give no credit to any talents not used to his glory; which use is the same thing as promoting, by all means in our power, the welfare and happiness of the beings among whom we are placed." "May 7, 1830. "I have been pretty steady at my business, without working hard, or having anxious feelings about it. It is well to have an agreeable pursuit to employ the mind and body. I think that I can work for the next six years with as good a relish as ever I did; but I make labor a pleasure. I have just passed into my forty-fifth year, you know. At my age, I hope you will feel as vigorous and youthful as I now do. A temperate use of the good things of life, and a freedom from anxious cares, tend, as much as anything, to keep off old age." "June 17, 1830. "To-day completes fifty-five years since the glorious battle of Bunker Hill, and five years since the nation's guest assisted at the laying of the corner-stone of the monument which is to commemorate to all future times the events which followed that battle. If it should please God to remove me before this structure is completed, I hope to remember it in my will, and that my sons will live to see it finished. But what I deem of more consequence is to retain for posterity the battle-field, now in the possession of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. The Association is in debt, and a part of the land may pass out of its possession; but I hope, if it do, there will be spirit enough among individuals to purchase it and restore it again; for I would rather the whole work should not be resumed for twenty years, than resume it by parting with the land. I name this to you now, that you may have a distinct intimation of my wishes to keep the land open for our children's children to the end of time." "July 17, 1830. "Temptation, if successfully resisted, strengthens the character; but it should always be avoided. 'Lead us not into temptation' are words of deep meaning, and should always carry with them corresponding desires of obedience. At a large meeting of merchants and others held ten days ago, it was resolved to make an effort to prevent the licensing of such numbers of soda-shops, retailers of spirits and the like, which have, in my opinion, done more than anything else to debase and ruin the youth of our city. It is a gross perversion of our privileges to waste and destroy ourselves in this way. God has given us a good land and many blessings. We misuse them, and make them minister to our vices. We shall be called to a strict account. Every good citizen owes it to his God and his country to stop, as far as he can, this moral desolation. Let me see you, on your return, an advocate of good order and good morals. * * * "Our old neighbor the sea-serpent was more than usually accommodating the day after we left Portsmouth. He exhibited himself to a great number of people who were at Hampton Beach last Saturday. They had a full view of his snakeship from the shore. He was so civil as to raise his head about four feet, and look into a boat, where were three men, who thought it the wisest way to retreat to their cabin. His length is supposed to be about one hundred feet, his head the size of a ten-gallon cask, and his body, in the largest part, about the size of a barrel. I have never had any more doubt respecting the existence of this animal, since he was seen here eleven years ago, than I have had of the existence of Bonaparte. The evidence was as strong to my mind of the one as of the other. I had never seen either; but I was as well satisfied of the existence of both, as I should have been had I seen both. And yet the idea of the sea-serpent's existence has been scouted and ridiculed." "September 25. "The events of the late French Revolution have reached us up to the 17th August. The consideration of them is animating, and speaks in almost more than human language. We are poor, frail, and mortal beings; but there is something elevating in the thought of a whole people acting as with the mind and the aim of one man, a part which allies man to a higher order of beings. I confess it makes me feel a sort of veneration for them; and trust that no extravagance will occur to mar the glory and the dignity of this enterprise. Our beloved old hero, too, acting as the guiding and presiding genius of this wonderful event! May God prosper them, and make it to the French people what it is capable of being, if they make a right use of it! I hope that you have been careful to see and learn everything, and that you will preserve the information you obtain in such a form as to recall the events to your mind a long time hence. We are all very well and very busy, and in fine spirits, here in the old town of Boston. Those who fell behind last year have some of them placed themselves in the rear rank, and are again on duty. Others are laid up, unfit for duty; and the places of all are supplied with fresh troops. We now present as happy and as busy a community as you would desire to see." CHAPTER XIV. TESTIMONIAL TO MR. WEBSTER.--DANGEROUS ILLNESS.--LETTERS. During the autumn of 1830, in order to testify in a more marked manner his appreciation of Mr. Webster's distinguished services in the Senate of the United States, Mr. Lawrence presented to that gentleman a service of silver plate, accompanied by the following note: "BOSTON, October 23, 1830. "HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. "DEAR SIR: Permit me to request your acceptance of the accompanying small service of plate, as a testimony of my gratitude for your services to the country in your late efforts in the Senate; especially for your vindication of the character of Massachusetts and of New England. "From your friend and fellow-citizen, "AMOS LAWRENCE. "P. S.--If by any emblem or inscription on any piece of this service, referring to the circumstances of which this is a memorial, the whole will be made more acceptable, I shall be glad to have you designate what it shall be, and permit me the opportunity of adding it." To which Mr. Webster replied, on the same evening, as follows: "SUMMER-STREET, October 23, 1830. "MY DEAR SIR: I cannot well express my sense of your kindness, manifested in the present of plate, which I have received this evening. I know that, from you, this token of respect is sincere; and I shall ever value it, and be happy in leaving it to my children, as a most gratifying evidence of your friendship. The only thing that can add to its value is your permission that it may be made to bear an inscription expressive of the donation. "I am, dear sir, with unfeigned esteem, "Your friend and obedient servant, "DANIEL WEBSTER. "AMOS LAWRENCE, Esq." (TO HIS SON.) "BOSTON, January 16, 1831. "Our local affairs are very delightful in this state and city. We have no violent political animosities; and the prosperity of the people is very great. In our city, in particular, the people have not had greater prosperity for twenty years. There is a general industry and talent in our population, that is calculated to produce striking results upon their character. In your reflections upon your course, you may settle it as a principle, that no man can attain any valuable influence or character among us, who does not labor with whatever talents he has to increase the sum of human improvement and happiness. An idler, who feels that he has no responsibilities, but is contriving to get rid of time without being useful to any one, whatever be his fortune, can find no comfort in staying here. We have not enough such to make up a society. We are literally all working-men; and the attempt to get up a 'Working-men's party' is a libel upon the whole population, as it implies that there are among us large numbers who are not working-men. He is a working-man whose mind is employed, whether in making researches into the meaning of hieroglyphics or in demonstrating any invention in the arts, just as much as he who cuts down the forests, or holds the plough, or swings the sledge-hammer. Therefore let it be the sentiment of your heart to use all the talents and powers you may possess in the advancement of the moral and political influence of New England. New England, I say; for here is to be the stronghold of liberty, and the seat of influence to the vast multitude of millions who are to people this republic." At the period when the preceding letter was written, the manufacturing interests had become of vast importance in this community; and the house of which Mr. Lawrence was the senior partner had identified itself with many of the great manufacturing corporations already created, or then in progress. With such pecuniary interests at stake, and with a sense of responsibility for the success of these enterprises, which had been projected on a scale and plan hitherto unknown, it may be supposed that his mind and energies were fully taxed, and that he could be fairly ranked among the working-men alluded to. While in the full tide of active life, and, as it were, at the crowning point of a successful career, the hand of Providence was laid upon him to remove him, for the rest of his days, from this sphere of honor and activity to the chamber of the invalid, and the comparatively tame and obscure walks of domestic life. Ever after this, his life hung upon a thread; and its very uncertainty, far from causing him to despond and rest from future effort, seemed only to excite the desire to work while the day lasted. The discipline thus acquired, instead of consigning him to the inglorious obscurity of a sick chamber, was the means of his entering upon that career of active philanthropy which is now the great source of whatever distinction there may be attached to his memory. His business life was ended; and, though he was enabled to advise with others, and give sometimes a direction to the course of affairs, he assumed no responsibility, and had virtually retired from the field. On the 1st of June, 1831, the weather being very warm, Mr. Lawrence, while engaged in the business of his counting-room, drank moderately of cold water, and, soon after, was seized with a violent and alarming illness. The functions of the stomach seemed to have been destroyed; and, for many days, there remained but small hope of his recovery. Much sympathy was expressed by his friends and the public, and in such a manner as to afford gratification to his family, as well as surprise to himself when sufficiently recovered to be informed of it. He had not yet learned the place which he had earned, in the estimation of those around him, as a merchant and a citizen; and it was, not improbably, a stimulus to merit, by his future course, the high encomiums which were then lavished upon him. Mr. Lawrence announced his sickness to his son, then in Spain, in the following letter, dated "BOSTON, June 27, 1831. "I desire to bless God for being again permitted to address you in this way. On the 1st day of this month, I was seized with a violent illness, which caused both myself and my friends almost to despair of my life. But, by the blessing of God, the remedies proved efficacious; and I am still in the land of the living, with a comfortable prospect of acquiring my usual health, although, thus far, not allowed to leave my chamber. In that dread hour when I thought that the next perhaps would be my last on earth,--my thoughts resting upon my God and Saviour, then upon the past scenes of my life, then upon my dear children,--the belief that their minds are well directed, and that they will prove blessings to society, and fulfil, in some good degree, the design of Providence in placing them here, was a balm to my spirits that proved more favorable to my recovery than any of the other remedies. May you never forget that every man is individually responsible for his actions, and must be held accountable for his opportunities! Thus he who has ten talents will receive a proportionate reward, if he makes a right use of them; and he who receives one will be punished, if he hides it in a napkin." "June 29, 1831. "MY DEAR AND EVER-HONORED MOTHER: Through the divine goodness, I am once more enabled to address you by letter, after having passed through a sickness alarming to my friends, although to myself a comparatively quiet one. I cannot in words express my grateful sense of God's goodness in thus carrying me, as it were, in his hand, and lighting the way by the brightness of his countenance. During that period in which I considered my recovery as hardly probable, my mind was calm; and, while in review of the past I found many things to lament, and in contemplation of the future much to fear, but more to hope, I could find no other words in which to express my thoughts than the words of the publican, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' All the small distinctions of sects and forms dwindled into air, thin air, and seemed to me even more worthless than ever. The cares and anxieties of the world did not disturb me, believing it to be of small moment whether I should be taken now or spared a few years longer. With returning health and strength, different prospects open, and different feelings take the place of those which were then so appropriate; and the social feelings and sympathies have their full share in their hold upon me. * * * * "From your ever-loving and dutiful son, A. L." (TO HIS SON.) "July 14. "I have been constantly gaining since my last to you, and with constant care, hope to acquire my usual health. I am, however, admonished, by the two attacks I have experienced within a month, that the continuance of my life for any considerable period will be very likely to depend upon a rigid prudence in my labor and living. The recovery from this last sickness is almost like being restored to life; and I hope the span that may be allowed me may be employed in better service than any period of my past life. We are placed here to be disciplined for another and higher state; and whatever happens to us makes a part of this discipline. In this view, we ought never to murmur, but to consider, when ills befall us, how we can make them subserve our highest good. What I am more desirous than anything else for you is, that you may feel that you are accountable for all your talents, and that you may so use them as to have an approving conscience, and the final recompense of a faithful servant at last. The period of trial is short; but the consequences are never-ending. How important to each individual, then,--to you and to me,--that we use aright the period assigned us!" CHAPTER XV. JOURNEY TO NEW HAMPSHIRE.--LETTERS.--RESIGNS OFFICE OF TRUSTEE AT HOSPITAL.--LETTERS. A few days after the date of the preceding letter, a change was thought desirable for the improvement of Mr. Lawrence's health; and he accordingly, with Mrs. L., went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and remained a week with his friend and brother-in-law, the late Hon. Jeremiah Mason. From thence he proceeded to visit friends in Amherst, New Hampshire, where he was attacked by a severe rheumatic fever, which confined him for several weeks; and it was with great difficulty that he succeeded in reaching home about the 20th of September, after an absence of nearly two months. On the 27th of September, he writes to his son: "It is only within a few days that I have been able to be removed to my own house. I am now able to walk my chamber, and sit up half the day; and, by the best care in the world, I have a fair hope of again enjoying so much health as to feel that I may yet be of some use in the world. My bodily sufferings have been great during this last sickness; but my mind in general has been quiet. I seem to want nothing which this world can give to make me an enviably happy man, but your presence and a return of my health; but these last are wisely withheld. We are apt, in the abundance of the gift, to lose the recollection whence it came, and feel that by our own power we can go forward. Happy for us that we are thus made to feel that all we have is from God; this recurrence to the Source of all our blessings makes us better men. I do not expect to be able to leave the house before the next spring; and, in the mean time, must be subject to the casualties incident to a person in my situation." On October 29, Mr. Lawrence, in a letter to the same son, expresses his gratitude for the enjoyment of life, "even in a sick chamber, as mine must be termed." "I receive my friends here, and once only have walked abroad for a few minutes. I drive in a carriage every pleasant day, and I can truly say that my days pass in the full enjoyment of more than the average of comfort. 'My mind is as easy as it ever is, and as active as is safe for the body. I employed myself yesterday in looking over your letters since you left home three years ago, and was reminded by them that the fourth year of your absence has just commenced. Although a brief space since it is passed, an equal time, if we look forward, appears to be far distant. The question you will naturally ask yourself is, How has the time been spent? and from the answer you may gather much instruction for the future. If you have made the best use of this period, happy is it for you, as the habit of the useful application of your time will make its continuance more natural and easy. If you have misused and abused your opportunities, there is not a moment to be lost in retracing your steps, and making good, by future effort, what has been lost by want of it. In short, we can none of us know that a future will be allowed us to amend and to correct our previous misdoings and omissions; and it is not less the part of wisdom than of duty to be always up and doing, that whenever our Master comes we may be ready. I never was made so sensible before of the power of the mind over the body. It is a matter of surprise to some of my friends, who have known my constant habits of business for a quarter of a century, that I can find so much comfort and quiet in the confinement of my house, when I feel so well, and there are so many calls for my labors abroad. I hope to pursue such a discreet course as shall allow me to come forth in the spring with my poor frame so far renovated and restored as to enable me to take my place among the active laborers of the day, and do what little I may for the advancement and well-being of my generation. If, however, I should, by any accident or exposure, be again brought to a bed of pain and suffering, may God grant me a patient and submissive temper to bear whatever may be put upon me, with a full conviction that such chastisements will tend to my good, if I make a right use of them!" The first of January, 1832, found Mr. Lawrence confined to his sick room, and unable, from bodily weakness, to drive out in the open air, as he had hitherto done. He writes to his son: "I am reminded, by the new year, that another portion of time has passed, by which we are accustomed to measure in prospect the space that is allotted us here; and the reflections at the close of the old and the commencement of the new year are calculated, if we do not cheat ourselves, to make us better than we otherwise should be. I am enjoying myself highly under the close confinement of two parlor chambers, from which I have only travelled into the entry since November. I have lived pretty much as other prisoners of a different character live, as regards food; namely, on bread and water, or bread and coffee or cocoa. I have come to the conclusion that the man who lives on bread and water, if he have enough, is the genuine epicure, according to the original and true meaning. I am favored with the visits of more pretty and interesting ladies than any _layman_ in the city, I believe. My rooms are quite a resort; and, old fellow as I am, I have the vanity to suppose I render myself quite agreeable to them." On the same day, in a letter of sympathy to his sister-in-law, whose invalid son was about to leave for a long voyage, he writes: "While my family are all absent at church, I am sitting alone, my mind going back to the beginning of the year just ended and forward through that just commenced; and, in view of both periods, I can see nothing but the unbounded goodness of our heavenly Father and best friend, in all that has been taken from me, as well as in all that is left to me. I can say, with sincerity, that I never have had so much to call forth my warmest and deepest gratitude for favors bestowed as at the present time. Among my sources of happiness is a settled conviction that, in chastening his children, God desires their good; and if his chastisements are thus viewed, we cannot receive them in any other light than as manifestations of his fatherly care and kindness. Although, at times, 'clouds and darkness are round about him,' we do certainly know, by the words of inspiration, 'that justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne,' and goodness and mercy the attributes of his character; and if it should please him further to try me with disease during the period of my probation, my prayer to him is that my mind and heart may remain stayed on him, and that I may practically illustrate those words of our blessed Saviour, 'Not my will, but thine be done.' It is quite possible that there may still be a few years of probation for me; but it is more probable that I may not remain here to the close of the present; but whether I remain longer or shorter is of little consequence, compared with the preparation or the dress in which I may be found when called away. It has seemed to me that the habit of mind we cultivate here will be that which will abide with us hereafter; and that heaven is as truly begun here as that the affections which make us love our friends grow stronger by use, and improve by cultivation. We are here in our infancy; the feelings cherished at this period grow with our growth, and, in the progress of time, will fit us for the highest enjoyments of the most distant future. I say, then, what sources of happiness are open to us, not only for the present, but for all future time! These hasty remarks are elicited on occasion of the separation so soon to take place from your son. I know full well the anxieties of a parent on such an occasion. "His health cannot, of course, be certainly predicted; but you will have the comfort of knowing that you have done everything that the fondest parents could do in this particular, whatever effect the absence may have upon him. "---- should feel that his obligations are increased, with his means and opportunities for improvement. If by travel he acquire a better education, and can make himself more useful on his return, he can no more divest himself of his increased duties, than he can divest himself of his duty to be honest. The account is to be rendered for the use of the talents, whether they be ten, or five, or one. If I have opportunity, I shall write a few lines to ---- before he leaves. If I should not, I desire him to feel that I have great affection for him, and deep interest in his progress, and an ardent hope that his health, improvement, and knowledge, may be commensurate with the rare advantages he will enjoy for the acquisition of all. "I know the tender feelings of your husband on all things touching his family or friends; and perhaps I may find opportunity to speak a word of comfort to him. But I know not what more to say than to reiterate the sentiment here expressed. Nature will have its way for a time, but I hope reason will be sufficient to make that time very short. Whatever time it may be, of this I feel confident, that, after the feelings have once subsided, ---- will have all the sunshine and joy which the event is calculated to produce. He cannot know until he has realized the pleasure of hearing the absent ones speak, as it were, in his ear, from a distance of three thousand miles. "May the best blessings of the Almighty rest on you and yours! From your ever affectionate A. L." (TO HIS SON.) "Sunday morning, Feb. 5, 1832. "I have seated myself at my writing-desk, notwithstanding it is holy time, in the hope and belief that I am in the way of duty. This consecration of one day in seven to the duties of religion,--comprising, as these do, every duty,--and if they be well performed, to self-examination, is a glorious renovation of the world. Who that has witnessed the effects of this rest upon the moral and physical condition of a people, can doubt the wisdom of the appointment? Wherever we turn our eyes or our thoughts, if we only will be as honest and candid, in our estimate of the value of the provision made for us, as we ordinarily are in our estimate of the character and conduct of our fellow-men, we must be struck with admiration and gratitude to that merciful Father who has seen our wants, and provided for our comfort to an extent to which the care and provision of the best earthly parents for their children hardly gives the name of resemblance." In speaking of some application for aid which he had received from a charitable institution, he writes to his son: "Our people are liberally disposed, and contribute to most objects which present a fair claim to their aid. I think you will find great advantage in doing this part of your duty upon a system which you can adopt; thus, for instance, divide your expenses into ten parts, nine of which may be termed for what is considered necessary, making a liberal calculation for such as your situation would render proper, and one part applied for the promotion of objects not directly or legally claiming your support, but such as every good citizen would desire to have succeed. This, I think, you will find the most agreeable part of your expense; and, if you should be favored with an abundance of means later in life, you may enlarge your appropriations of this sort, so as to be equal to one tenth of your income. Neither yourself nor those who depend upon you will ever feel the poorer. I assume that you have plenty, in thus fixing the proportion. I believe the rule might be profitably adopted by many who have small means; for they would save more by method than they would be required to pay. "To-morrow completes a hundred years since the birth of Washington. The day will be celebrated, from one end of the country to the other, with suitable demonstrations of respect, by processions, orations, and religious ceremonies, according to the feelings of the people who join in it. I think the spectacle will be a grand one, of a whole people brought together to commemorate the birth of one of their fellow-mortals, who by his virtues and his talents has made his memory immortal, and whose precepts and example are calculated to secure happiness to the countless millions of his fellow-beings who are to people this vast empire through all future time. It is permitted to few to have open to them such a field as Washington had; but no one since the Christian era has filled his sphere so gloriously. We are jogging along, in political, theological and commercial affairs, very much as usual." During the month of January, Mr. Lawrence, on account of ill health, resigned his seat in the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital, in which he had served for several years. This duty had always been one of unmingled pleasure to him; and, by means of his visits there, and at the McLean Asylum for the Insane, under the management of the same board, he became conversant with a class of sufferers who had excited a great interest in his mind, and whom he often visited during the remainder of his life, to cheer them in their sadness, and to convey to them such little tokens of kindness as assured them of his interest and sympathy. In a letter to his second son, at Andover, he writes, April 21: "You will be glad to hear I have got along very well through the wet, cold weather of the week, and am looking forward with cheerful hope to the sunny days to come. If it were not for my faculty of turning present disappointments to future pleasures in prospect, I should run down in spirits. I have always indulged myself in castle-building; but have generally taken care so to build as to be in no danger of their falling on my head, so that when I have gone as far with one as is safe, if it does not promise well, I transfer my labor to another, and thus am always supplied with objects. The last one finished was commenced last May, and it is one I delight to think of. It was then I determined to get your Uncle Mason[3] here. N. thought it a castle without foundation, but the result shows otherwise. "I send some of W.'s late letters, by which you perceive he is not idle; the thought of the dear fellow makes the tears start. God in mercy grant him a safe return, fully impressed with his obligations as a man and a Christian! That I am now living in the enjoyment of so much health, surrounded by so many blessings, is overpowering to my feelings. What shall I render unto God for all these benefits? I feel my unworthiness, and devoutly pray him that I may never lose sight of the great end of my being; and that, whenever it shall please him to call me hence, I may be found in the company of the redeemed through the merits and mediation of the Son of his love. If there is any one thing I would impress on your mind more strongly than another, it is to give good heed to the religious impressions with which you may be imbued; and, at a future day, these may prove a foundation that will support you when all other supports would fail. The youthful imagination frequently magnifies objects at a distance; experience is an able teacher, and detects, too late, perhaps, the fraud upon youth. Be wise in time, and avoid this fraud." [3] Hon. Jeremiah Mason, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who passed the rest of his life in Boston. A few days later, he writes to the same son, on the subject of systematic charity: "It is one of my privileges, not less than one of my duties, to be able thus to administer to the comfort of a circle of very dear friends. I hope you will one day have the delightful consciousness of using a portion of your means in a way to give you as much pleasure as I now experience. Your wants may be brought within a very moderate compass; and I hope you will never feel yourself at liberty to waste on yourself such means, as, by system and right principles, may be beneficially applied to the good of those around you. Providence has given us unerring principles to guide us in our duties of this sort. Our first duty is to those of our own household, then extending to kindred, friends, neighbors (and the term 'neighbor' may, in its broadest sense, take in the whole human family), citizens of our state, then of our country, then of the other countries of the world." In another letter, written soon after the preceding, he speaks of certain principles of business which governed him in early life, and adds: "The secret of the whole matter was, that we had formed the habit of promptly acting, thus taking the _top of the tide_; while the habit of some others was to delay until about _half-tide_, thus getting on the flats; while we were all the time prepared for action, and ready to put into any port that promised well. I wish, by all these remarks, to impress upon you the necessity of qualifying yourself to support yourself. The best education that I can secure shall be yours, and such facilities for usefulness as may be in my power shall be rendered; but no food to pamper idleness or wickedness will I ever supply willingly to any connection, however near. I trust I have none who will ever misuse so basely anything that may come to them as a blessing. This letter, you may think, has an undue proportion of advice. 'Line upon line, precept upon precept,' is recommended by one wiser than I am." (TO HIS DAUGHTER.) "Sunday morn. "MY DEAR DAUGHTER: In the quiet of this morning, my mind naturally rests on those objects nearest and dearest to me; and you, my child, are among the first. "The family are all at church, but the weather is not such as to permit my going; and the season by them employed in the service of the sanctuary will by me be employed in communicating with you. "You have now arrived at an age when the mind and heart are most susceptible of impressions for weal or woe; and the direction which may be given to them is what no parent can view with indifference, or pass over without incurring the guilt of being unfaithful in his duties. My earnest desire for you is, that you may fully appreciate your opportunities and responsibilities, and so use them that you may acquire a reasonable hope that you may secure the object for which we are placed here. The probation is short, but long enough to do all that is required of us, if faithfully used; the consequences are never-ending. "These simple views are such as any child of your age can comprehend, and should be made as familiar to your mind as the every-day duties of life. If the mind, from early days, be thus accustomed to look upon life as a school of preparation for higher services, then the changes and adversities to which we are all liable can only be viewed as necessary discipline to fit us for those higher services, and as such be considered as applied for our good, however painful they may seem at first. There is no truth better settled than this: that all the discipline of our heavenly Parent, if rightly used, will eventuate in our good. How, then, can we murmur and repine at his dealings with us? This conduct only shows our weakness and folly, and illustrates the better care of us than we should take of ourselves. "We are in the condition of the sick man, who sometimes craves that which, if given him by his friend, would cause his certain death; but he is not aware at the time that it is withheld for his good. The importance, then, of cultivating a right understanding of the things of which our duties and our happiness are composed, is second to no object which can employ the mind; for, with this knowledge, we must suppose that no one can be so lost to his own interest as not to feel that in the performance of these duties is to result the possession of those riches which are promised to the faithful by our Father in heaven, through the Son of his love. In the preparation which awaits you, do not stop at the things which are seen, but look to those which are unseen. These views, perhaps, may be profitably pondered long after I have been gathered to my fathers. "The tenure of my life seems very frail; still it may continue longer than the lives of my children; but, whenever it shall please God to call me hence, I hope to feel resigned to his will, and to leave behind me such an influence as shall help forward the timid and faint-hearted in the path of duty; and particularly on you, my child, do I urge these views. They debar you from no real or reasonable pleasure; they speak to you, in strong language, to enjoy all those blessings which a bountiful Parent has scattered in your path with unsparing plenty, and admonish you that to enjoy is not to abuse them; when abused, they cease to be enjoyed." CHAPTER XVI. DAILY EXERCISE.--REGIMEN.--IMPROVING HEALTH.--LETTERS. During the summer and autumn of 1832, Mr. Lawrence's health and strength were so much improved, that he was enabled to take exercise on horseback; and almost daily he took long rides, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend, about the environs of the city. This habit he was enabled to continue, with some intermissions, for two or three years, through summer and winter. The effect of the exercise amidst the beautiful scenery of the environs of Boston, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer, was most beneficial to his health, and, it is believed, was a great means of prolonging his life. Whenever he could do so, he secured the company of a friend, and kept a horse expressly for the purpose. As the ride was taken in the morning, when his business acquaintances were occupied, his most usual companion was some one of the city clergy, whom he secured for the occasion, or one of his sons. No denominational distinctions seemed to regulate his choice on these occasions. His own beloved pastor and friend, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, Rev. Drs. Stone and Greenwood, and Father Taylor, the seamen's chaplain, were often his companions. Occasionally a stray merchant or lawyer was engaged; and, as was sometimes the case where they had not been much accustomed to the exercise, a long trot of many miles in the sun, or in the face of a keen winter north-wester, would severely tax their own strength, while they wondered how so frail a figure as that of Mr. Lawrence could possess so much endurance. With all this apparent energy and strength, he was extremely liable to illness, which would come when least expected, and confine him for days to his house. An item of bad news, some annoying incident, a little anxiety, or a slight cold, would, as it were, paralyze his digestive functions, and reduce his strength to the lowest point. It was this extreme sensitiveness which unfitted him to engage in the general current of business, and which compelled him to keep aloof from participation in commercial affairs, and to adopt that peculiar system in diet and living which he adhered to for the remainder of his life. This system limited him to the use of certain kinds of food, which, from time to time, was slightly modified, as was thought expedient. This food was of the most simple kind, and was taken in small quantities, after being weighed in a balance, which always stood before him upon his writing-table. To secure perfect quiet during his meals, and also that he might not be tempted to overstep the bounds of prudence, a certain amount was sent to him in his chamber, from which he took what was allowed. The amount of liquid was also weighed; and so rigid was he in this system of diet, that, for the last sixteen years of his life, he sat down at no meal with his family. The amount of food taken varied, of course, with his strength and condition. In a letter to his friend, President Hopkins, of Williams College, he says: "If your young folks want to know the meaning of epicureanism, tell them to take some, bits of coarse bread (one ounce and a little more), soak them in three gills of coarse-meal gruel, and make their dinner of them and nothing else; beginning very hungry, and leaving off more hungry. The food is delicious, and such as no modern epicureanism can equal." For a considerable period, he kept a regular diet-table, in which he noted down the quantity of solid and liquid food taken during the twenty-four hours. One of his memorandum-books, labelled "Record of Diet and Discipline for 1839 and 1840," contains accurate records of this sort. In October, 1832, in writing to his son in the country, he alludes to this improvement in his health and strength: "We are all doing as well as usual here, myself among them doing better than usual. My little 'Doctor'[4] does wonders for me. I ride so much, and so advantageously, that I do not know but I shall be bold enough, by and by, to ride to B---- and back in a day, but shall hardly dare do so until I have practised a little more in this neighborhood. "I want you to analyze more closely the tendency of principles, associations, and conduct, and strive to adopt such as will make it easier for you to go right than go wrong. The moral taste, like the natural, is vitiated by abuse. Gluttony, tobacco, and intoxicating drink, are not less dangerous to the latter, than loose principles, bad associations, and profligate conduct, are to the former. Look well to all these things." [4] The name of his horse. The year 1833 opened with bright and cheering prospects; for, with Mr. Lawrence's increasing strength and improved health, there seemed a strong ground of hope that he might yet recover all his powers, and once more take his place among his former business associates. He writes at this time to his son at Andover: "I am as light as a feather this morning, and feel as if I could mount upon a zephyr, and ride upon its back to A----; but I am admonished to be careful when my spirits are thus buoyant, lest I come down to the torpor of the insect, which is shut up by the frost. Extremes are apt to follow, unless I take great care. Last Sabbath, I kept my bed, most of the day, with a poor turn. Brother A. said, on Saturday, he knew I was going to have one, for I talked _right on_." In March, he writes: "The season is coming forward now so as to allow me the use of the roads around Roxbury and Dorchester. My 'Doctor' looks so altered by a two hours' canter, that his own mother would hardly know him at first sight. We continue excellent friends; and I think he has never used me better than during the last few days. We both 'feel our oats' and our youth. I feel like sweet twenty-five; and he, I judge, like vigorous seven." On April 28, he writes to a young friend: "When you get married, do not expect a higher degree of perfection than is consistent with mortality in your wife. If you do, you will be disappointed. Be careful, and do not choose upon a theory either. I dislike much of the nonsense and quackery that is dignified with the name of intellectual among people. Old-fashioned common sense is a deal better. * * * * "There was a part of Boston which used to be visited by young men out of curiosity when I first came here, into which I never set foot for the whole time I remained a single man. I avoided it, because I not only wished to keep clear of the temptations common in that part, but to avoid the appearance of evil. I never regretted it; and I would advise all young men to strengthen their good resolutions by reflection, and to plant deep and strong the principles of right, and to avoid temptation, as time gives them strength to stand against it." On December 23, he writes to his wife, who had been summoned to the bedside of a dying relative: "Your absence makes a great blank in the family; and I feel that I must be very careful lest any little accident should make me feel of a _deep blue_ while you are away. Confidence is a great matter, not only in curing, but in preventing disease, whether of the body or the mind; and I have somehow got the notion that I am more safe when you[5] are looking after me than when you are not, and that any trouble is sooner cured when you are present than when you are not. This is, I suppose, the true charm which some people have faith in to keep off their ills. I have been forcibly reminded of the passage of time, by reviewing the scenes of the last three years, and am deeply sensible of the mercies that have been extended to me. What little I do is a poor return: may a better spirit prompt and guide my future services! What few I have rendered are estimated by my brethren beyond their value, and of course tend to flatter my self-love. This should not be; and I ought to see myself as I am seen by that eye that never sleeps. The situation I occupy is one that I would not exchange, if I had the power, with any man living: it is full of agreeable incidents, and free from the toils and anxieties frequently attendant on a high state of prosperity; and is, beside, free from that jealousy, or from any other cause of uneasiness, so common among the ardent and successful in this world's race." [5] The editor, in justice to his own feelings, will here remark, that he believes the continuation of Mr. Lawrence's life, after he became a confirmed invalid, was, under Providence, in a great measure due to the care and faithful attentions of his wife. For more than twenty years, and during his frequent seasons of languor and sickness, she submitted to many sacrifices, and bestowed a degree of care and watchfulness such as affection alone could have enabled her to render. To his daughter, who was on a visit at Washington, he writes: "BOSTON, May 18th, 1834. Sunday evening. "MY DEAR CHILD: The contrast in the weather to-day with what it has been most of the time since you left home, is as great as is usual between a bleak November day and the soft air of June. To-day it is beautiful, but on Wednesday it snowed, hailed, and rained, and I am told, indeed, that a few miles beyond Amherst the snow fell four inches in depth. You have reason to be thankful that you have been in a milder climate, and, at the same time, are seeing all the wonders that open upon you in the new world on which you have entered. "I shall be expecting a letter from you within a day or two; there can be no want of materials where so many new objects are constantly presenting themselves, and there is a pleasure in receiving them just as they appear to you; so you need not be afraid to place before me the first sketches, precisely as you catch them. "To-day I suppose you are in Philadelphia, and, if so, I hope you have attended a Friends' meeting. The manner of worship and the appearance of the people are different from anything you have seen; and the influence of this sect upon the taste and manners of the people is very striking, particularly in the matter of their dress. It is said that you can judge something of the character of a lady from her dress. Without deeming it an essential, I think it of some consequence. This strikes the eye only, and may deceive; how much more important that the dress of the heart and mind and affections be right, and that no deception be found there! I do most earnestly pray God that every opportunity may be improved by you, my dear S., to adorn yourself with all those graces that shall not only charm the eye, but also with those that shall win the affections of those whose affection you would prize, and more especially that you will secure the approval of our best Friend. * * * * * "_Monday afternoon, May 19._--I have received your charming letter, dated on Thursday last. It is just the thing, a simple narrative of facts; and you will find plenty of materials of this sort, as I stated to you before. I have been in the saddle to-day nearly five hours with your Uncle W. and Father Taylor, and am very tired, but shall get refreshed by a night's rest. "The day is beautiful, finer than any we have had since you left home. We went to Mount Auburn, and it appears very lovely; how much better than the dreary resting-places for the dead so common in New England, overgrown with thistles, and the graves hardly designated by a rude stone! Our Puritan forefathers mistook very much, I think, in making the place of deposit for our mortal remains so forbidding in appearance to the living. A better taste is growing among us. It may become a matter of ostentation (we are so apt to go to extremes), to build sepulchres and monuments to hold our bodies, that will speak to our shame when we are no longer subjects of trial; when, in short, we shall have gone to our account. If these monuments could speak to their living owners, and induce them to labor to merit, while they may, a good word from the future lookers on, then they would be valuable indeed. As it is, I have no fault to find; it is decidedly better than the old fashion of making these tenements look as dreary as anything in this world can look." To the same he writes, a few days later: "Tell ---- that I saw little ---- this morning. She is the sweetest little creature that ever lived, and I find myself smiling whenever I think of the dear child in health. Sympathy is a powerful agent in illustrating through the countenance the feelings within. I believe my face is as arrant a tell-tale as ever was worn; and whenever I think of those I love, under happy circumstances, I am happy, too. So you may judge how much I enjoy in the belief that you are enjoying so much, and doing so well, in this journey." On February 8, 1835, he writes to a young friend: "Take care that fancy does not beguile you of your understanding in making your choice: a mere picture is not all that is needful in the up and down hills of life. The arrangements of the household and the sick room have more in them to fasten upon the heart than all the beauties and honors of the mere gala days, however successfully shown off. Be careful, when you pick, to get a heart, a soul, and a body; not a show of a body that has mere vitality. All this comes in _by the ears_; but it is in,--I will not blot it out." March 16, he writes to his sister. "I have had so much call for my sympathy, assistance, and advice, among my brethren in trade, that I have little inclination or spirit to write social or family letters since my last; but, in all this turmoil and trouble (and it really is as disastrous as a siege or a famine to the country), I have kept up a good heart, and have been able to view the work of destruction with as much composure as the nature of the case will allow. Whatever effects it shall produce on my property, I shall submit to, as the inevitable destruction that comes without any fault of my own, of course without any self-reproaches; but for the authors I feel a just indignation. As regards the pecuniary distress among us, it is subsiding: there have been fewer failures than were anticipated; but there have been numbers on the brink, who have been saved by the help of friends. A few persons have done great service in helping those who could not help themselves; and the consequences will be felt here for years to come in the credit and standing of many worthy people, who must otherwise have been broken down. Brother A. has had a load of care and responsibility much too severe for him, and has now agreed to throw off a part of the business as soon as the present pressure is past." April 29, he writes: "I am busy these days, but have no very important duties, except riding with the ministers and the young ladies." Again, a few days later: "I am completely on one side, while I appear to be quite busy in putting in an oar now and then." To his daughter, on her eighteenth birth-day, he writes: "BOSTON, May 23, 1835. "MY DEAR S.: You have been much in my mind to-day, and now that I am sitting alone this evening, I place myself at your writing-desk to communicate with you, and thus impart some portion of those feelings of interest and affection which a return of this day brings more strongly into play. Eighteen years of your life are now passed, and the events of this period have been deeply interesting to me, and have made such impressions on you, and have left such marks of progress, I hope, in the divine life, as will insure your onward and upward course, until you shall join that dear one whose home has been in heaven for nearly the whole period of your life. When I look upon you, or think of your appearance, the image of your mother is before me, and then I feel that deep solicitude that your mind and heart may be imbued with those heavenly influences that gave a grace and charm to all she did. "There is no substitute for those traits, and you may feel entire confidence that a practical use of them in prosperity will prove the best security against the changes which adversity brings about. If I were to select for you the richest portion which a fond father could choose, it would be that you might have a mind and a heart to perform all those duties which your station and condition in life require, upon the true Christian principle of using your one or more talents, and thus, at the day of account, receive the cheering sound of the Master's voice. "What treasure will compare with this? The charms of life are captivating to the imagination, but there are none more calculated to add to our joys here than elevated Christian principles, however they may be branded by the mere worldling as 'cold, unsocial,' and the like. You see how important it is to form a just estimate of the value of these different objects. When a mistake is made here, the consequences may be never-ending. Our danger is in cheating ourselves, by leaving undone those things our conscience tells us we ought to do, and doing others that it tells us we ought not to do. "I have thought, for some time past, my dear child, that your mind was laboring under the influence of religious truth, and I have been made most comfortable in this belief. "Cultivate those feelings, and study to make your example good to others, as well as safe for yourself. Our time here is short, but it is long enough to accomplish the work we are sent to perform, and the consequences will be on our own heads if we omit or neglect to do it." (TO THE SAME.) "GROTON, August 9, 1835. "DEAR S.: I have been talking with your grandmother, for the last hour, upon the events of her early days, and I feel (as I always do when I contrast our present condition with the past) that we, as a whole people, and as individuals, have more reasons for gratitude and obedience to our heavenly Father than have ever before been placed before any people; and it seems to me we are more likely to disregard them than any other people I have any knowledge of. The fact is, we are so prosperous that we seem to forget the source of our prosperity, and take it as a matter of course that the character and conduct of a people cannot influence their condition. We are ready to say of an individual when he has been reckless and extravagant, that he has brought destruction on himself. Why, then, may not a whole people be judged by the same standard? Our great danger arises from false principles. We never act above the standard we adopt; and if our standard be so low as to authorize the gratification of the basest passions, how natural that our tastes become conformed to this standard! "These reflections arose in my mind by hearing from my mother the stories of the 'times that tried men's souls;' how she was separated from her husband immediately after her marriage, when he joined the army in Rhode Island; how, after a battle, his mother said to her 'she did not know but Sam was killed;' how she fell instantly upon the floor, and how, within a day or two, after a separation of eight months, she was rejoiced to see her husband safe and sound (although at the time alluded to he had been in great peril, having been saved from captivity by the desperate efforts of a company of blacks, and by the fleetness and force of his fine charger); and how, by confidence in the justness of the cause and the aid of the Almighty, they trusted they should get through the contest, and be permitted to enjoy the fruits of their own labor in their own way. And now, what proportion of the people do you suppose refer to the aid of the Almighty, or to his justice or judgment as a motive to their actions, or how far does his fear or his love influence their conduct? These questions are more easily asked than answered; but they fill the mind with mournful forebodings of the necessary consequences to any people of forgetting God and departing from his love. You and I, and every individual, have it in our power to keep off in some degree this fatal consummation. Let us, therefore, examine well ourselves, and strive to be numbered among those faithful stewards who, at their Master's coming, shall be placed among the happy company who enter the joy of their Lord. "This morning is one of those delightful quiet Sabbaths that seem to be like the rest of the saints above. We are all soon to be on our way to public worship. * * * * (TO HIS MOTHER.) "Aug. 16, 1835. "MY DEAR AND HONORED MOTHER: My mind turns back to you almost as frequently as its powers are brought into separate action, and always with an interest that animates and quickens my pulse; for, under God, it is by your good influence and teachings that I am prepared to enjoy those blessings which he has so richly scattered in my path in all my onward progress in life. How could it be otherwise than that your image should be with me, unless I should prove wholly unworthy of you? Your journey is so much of it performed, that those objects which interested you greatly in its early stages have lost their charms; and well it is that they have; for they now would prove _clogs_ in the way and it is to your children, to your Saviour, and your God, that your mind and heart now turn as the natural sources of pleasure. Each of these, I trust, in their proper place and degree, supply all your wants. The cheering promise that has encouraged you when your powers were the highest, will not fail you when the weight of years and infirmities have made it more necessary to your comfort to get over the few remaining spans of the journey. To God I commend you; and pray him to make the path light, and your way confiding and joyful, until you shall reach that home prepared for the faithful." In a letter to his sister, dated Oct. 25, he further alludes to his mother, as follows "My thoughts this morning have been much engaged with my early home. I conclude it best to embody them in part, and send them forward to add (if they may) a token of gratitude and thankfulness to that dear one who is left to us, for her care of our early days, and her Christian instruction and example to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; each generation of whom, I trust, will be made better in some of its members by her. It is more natural, when in our weakness and want, to turn our thoughts to those whom they have been accustomed to look to for assistance; and thus to me the impression of the blessing I enjoy in having such a home as mine is, and the blessing I early enjoyed of having such a home as mine was under my father's roof, say to my heart: 'All these increase thy responsibilities, and for their use thou must account.' I have had one of my slight ill turns within the last two days, that has brought back all these feelings with increased force; and I look upon these as gentle monitors, calculated to make me estimate more fully my blessings and my duties. Frequently as I am admonished of the frail tenure by which I hold my life, I am negligent and careless in the performance of those high and every-day duties which I should never lose sight of for an hour. I have also such buoyancy of spirits, that life seems to me a very, very great blessing, and I do at times strive to make it useful to those around me." CHAPTER XVII. REFLECTIONS.--VISIT TO WASHINGTON.--VISIT TO RAINSFORD ISLAND.--VIEWS OF DEATH.--REFLECTIONS. From memorandum-book of property, December 31, 1835: "My expenses have been ---- thousand dollars this year; of which about one half went for persons and objects that make me feel that it has been well expended, and is better used than to remain in my possession. God grant that I may have the disposition to use these talents in such manner as to receive at last the joyful sound of 'Well done!'" On March 29, 1836, Mr. Lawrence writes: "My anxiety for a day or two about little things kept me from the enjoyment of those bright scenes that are so common to me when not oppressed by any of these _may_ be events. My nerves are in such a shattered state, that I am quite unfit to encounter the responsibilities incident to my station, and I am ashamed of myself thus to expose my weakness." During the spring, Mr. Lawrence's health was so feeble, and his nervous system so shattered, that a journey was recommended; and, in the month of May, in company with his friend and pastor, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, he paid a visit to his brother Abbott, at Washington, then the representative in Congress for Boston. During this journey, he experienced a severe illness, and was shortly joined by Mrs. Lawrence. The visit to Washington extended through several weeks: and, although his health remained feeble and the weather unfavorable, he seems to have been alive to objects around him, and interested in what was going forward in the halls of Congress as well as in the society of the capital. He speaks of visits to the houses of Congress, and pleasant rides on horseback, "with hosts of agreeable companions ready to sally forth when the weather shall permit." He also takes a survey of the general state of society in Washington, with an occasional allusion to some particular personage. He writes: "It used to be said that Washington and the Springs were the places for matrimonial speculations. I feel a natural dislike to a lady being brought out as an extraordinary affair, having all perfections, and having refused _forty-nine_ offers, and still being on the carpet. It shows that she is either very silly herself, or has very silly friends, or both. Good strong common sense is worth more than forty-nine offers, with any quantity of slaves, or bank-notes, or lands, without it. * * * * * "I have passed two hours in the Representatives' Hall and Senate Chamber to-day. I heard the usual sparring, and confess myself greatly interested in it. I could learn nothing of the merits of any of the questions; but I had a preference, such as one feels in seeing two dogs fight, that one should beat. It was very agreeable to me to see and hear those various distinguished characters, and goes to demonstrate the common saying, that some objects appear smaller by our getting nearer to them." During this absence, one of his family remaining at home had experienced a light attack of varioloid; and, according to the law then in force, was obliged to be transported to the Quarantine Hospital, situated in Boston Harbor. Soon after Mr. Lawrence's return from the South, he paid a visit to Rainsford Island, on the invitation of Dr. J. V. C. Smith, then Quarantine Physician, and there passed some weeks very pleasantly, riding about the island on his horse, and watching, from the shores, the sea-views, which, with the passing ships, here afford an endless variety. In August, he returned to his own house in Boston; and, on the 21st, writes to his sister as follows: "The scenery in front, side, and rear, and all within, is unrivalled, except by the charms of the dear old home of my mother and sister; in short, it seems to me that no two spots combine so many charms as my early and present homes; and they impress me more fully now by my being so well as to enjoy not only natural scenery, but the social intercourse with loved ones, that more than compensate for anything I may have lost by sickness and suffering. I yesterday was on horseback nearly three hours, but did not ride more than ten miles; and, in that distance, I went over some scenes that I felt unwilling to leave, especially some of the old works on and near Dorchester Heights, for they appeared more interesting than ever before, from the circumstance of your showing me that mass of original letters from Washington, Hancock, Samuel Adams, and various other revolutionary characters, to General Ward; some of them touching the occupation of these heights sixty years ago, and some of them alluding to scenes which have scarcely been noticed in the published histories of those days. All go to show, however, the whole souls of those men to have been engaged in their work; and, further, how vain it is for us of this day, who are ambitious of distinction, to found it on any other basis than uprightness of character, purity of life, and the active performance of all those duties included in 'the doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly.' How few of us remember this! I hardly know when I have been more forcibly impressed with a plain truth than I was yesterday, while sitting alone on horseback, on the top of the redoubt on Dorchester Heights, and the considerations of the past, the present, and the future, were the subject of my thoughts, connecting the men of those days with the present, and the men of these days with the future. The evidence is irresistible, that there is a downhill tendency in the character of the people, which, in sixty years more, will make us more corrupt than any other enlightened nation so young as ours, unless we are checked by adversity and suffering. But this is not what I intended to write about, so I will go to something else. The old revolutionary documents, memorials of our father, never appeared to me so interesting as now; and those I now return to you will be carefully preserved, and such others as you may find, added to them. I would give a great sum of money, if by it I could get all the documents I used to see when I was a child, and which we thought of so little value that we did not preserve them with that care which should have been used in a family which cherishes such deep feelings of respect and affection for parents." The year 1837 will be remembered as one of great pecuniary embarrassment and distress in the commercial world. Mr. Lawrence alludes to it as follows, on May 13 "The violent pecuniary revulsion that has been anticipated for more than a year has at length overtaken this country, and is more severe than our worst fears. In addition to the failure of people to pay their debts, in all sections of the country, for the last two months, the banks, from Baltimore to Boston, and probably throughout the Union, as fast as the intelligence spreads, have suspended specie payment, and will not probably resume again very soon." On December 17 of the same year, he writes to his mother as follows "This day completes thirty years since my commencing business, with the hope of acquiring no very definite amount of property, or having in my mind any anticipation of ever enjoying a tithe of that consideration my friends and the public are disposed to award me at this time. In looking back to that period, and reviewing the events as they come along, I can see the good hand of God in all my experience; and acknowledge, with deep humiliation, my want of gratitude and proper return for all his mercies. May each day I live impress me more deeply with a sense of duty, and find me better prepared to answer his call, and account for my stewardship! The changes in our family have been perhaps no greater than usual in other families in that period, excepting in the matter of the eminent success that has attended our efforts of a worldly nature. This worldly success is the great cause of our danger in its uses, and may prove a snare, unless we strive to keep constantly in mind, that to whom much is given, of him will much be required. I feel my own deficiencies, and lament them; but am encouraged and rewarded by the enjoyment, in a high degree, of all my well-meant efforts for the good of those around me. In short, I feel as though I can still do a little to advance the cause of human happiness while I remain here. My maxim is, that I ought to 'work while the day lasts; for the night of death will soon overtake me, when I can no more work.' I continue to mend in strength, and feel at times the buoyancy of early days. It is now raining in torrents, keeping us all within doors. I have been at work with gimblet, saw, fore-plane, and hammer, thus securing a good share of exercise without leaving my chamber." * * * * * "_January 1, 1838._--Bless the Lord, O my soul! and forget not all his benefits; for he has restored my life twice during the past year, when I was apparently dead, and has permitted me to live, and see and enjoy much, and has surrounded me with blessings that call for thankfulness. The possession of my mind, the intercourse with beloved friends, the opportunity of performing some labor as his steward (although imperfectly done), all call upon me for thanksgiving and praise. The violent revulsion in the business of the country during the past year has been ruinous to many; but, so far as my own interests are concerned, has been less than I anticipated. My property remains much as it was a year ago. Something beyond my income has been disposed of; and I have no debts against me, either as a partner in the firm or individually. Everything is in a better form for settlement than at any former period, and I hope to feel ready to depart whenever called." The following is copied from an account-book, presented at the commencement of the year to his youngest son, then twelve years of age: "MY DEAR SON: I give you this little book, that you may write in it how much money you receive, and how you use it. It is of much importance, in forming your early character, to have correct habits, and a strict regard to truth in all you do. For this purpose, I advise you never to cheat yourself by making a false entry in this book. If you spend money for an object you would not willingly have known, you will be more likely to avoid doing the same thing again if you call it by its right name here, remembering always that there is _One_ who cannot be deceived, and that _He_ requires his children to render an account of all their doings at last. I pray God so to guide and direct you that, when your stewardship here is ended, he may say to you that the talents intrusted to your care have been faithfully employed. "Your affectionate father, A. L." In transmitting to his sister a letter received from Baltimore, from a mutual friend, he writes, on March 12, in a postscript: "This morning seems almost like a foretaste of heaven. The sun shines bright, the air is soft; I am comfortable, and expect a pleasant drive in the neighborhood. It is indeed brilliant, beautiful, and interesting to me, beyond any former experience of my life. I am the happiest man alive, and yet would willingly exchange worlds this day, if it be the good pleasure of our best Friend and Father in heaven." The extract quoted above will give an idea of that state of mind in which Mr. Lawrence was often found by his friends, and which he unceasingly strove to cultivate. He could not always exult in the same buoyant and almost rapturous feelings here expressed; for, with his feeble frame and extreme susceptibility to outward influences, to believe such was the case would be to suppose him more than mortal. The willingness to exchange worlds was, however, a constant frame of mind; and the daily probability of such an event he always kept in view. The work of each day was performed with the feeling that it might be his last; and there is, throughout his correspondence and diary, frequent allusion to the uncertain tenure by which he held life, and his determination to work while the day lasted. If a matter was to be attended to, of great or little importance, whether the founding a professorship, signing a will, or paying a household bill, all was done at the earliest moment, with the habitual remark, "I may not be here to-morrow to do it." In the same cheerful spirit, he writes to his son a few days after his marriage, and then on a journey to Virginia: "The whole scene here on Thursday last was so delightful that I hardly knew whether I was on the earth, or floating between earth and heaven. I have been exalted ever since, and the group of happy friends will be a sunny spot in your no less than in their remembrance." To his sister he writes, Dec. 22: "It is thirty-one years this week since I commenced business on my own account, and the prospects were as gloomy at that period for its successful pursuit as at any time since; but I never had any doubt or misgiving as to my success, for I then had no more wants than my means would justify. The habits then formed, and since confirmed and strengthened by use, have been the foundation of my good name, good fortune, and present happy condition. At that time (when you know I used to visit you as often as I could, by riding in the night until I sometimes encroached upon the earliest hour of the Sabbath before reaching my beloved home, to be at my business at the dawn of day on Monday morning), my gains were more than my expenses; thus strengthening and encouraging me in the steady pursuit of those objects I had in view as a beginner. From that time to this, I am not aware of ever desiring or acquiring any great amount by a single operation, or of taking any part of the property of any other man and mingling it with my own, where I had the legal right to do so. I have had such uniform success as to make my fidelity a matter of deep concern to myself; and my prayer to God is, that I may be found to have acted a uniform part, and receive the joyful 'Well done,' which is substantial wealth, that no man can take away. If my experience could be made available by my successors, I sometimes feel that it would be a guaranty that they would keep in the best path; but, as they are to be fitted by discipline for the journey, it is perhaps a vain thing for me to allow any doubts to rest upon my mind that _that_ discipline is not for their highest good. The pleasures of memory have never been more highly enjoyed than during the period of my last sickness. They have solaced my pains, and supported me through numerous fainting fits, growing out of the surgical treatment I have endured. I would ask you, my dear sister, if a merciful Parent has not stretched forth his hand almost visibly to support me through this trying scene, by scattering in my path these flowers and fruits so freely as almost to make me forget bodily pains; and bless him for what is past, and trust that what is future will be the means of making me a better man." * * * * * "_December 31, 1838._--The business of the year now brought to a close has been unexpectedly productive, and the prospects of continued success are very flattering. At the commencement of the year, my life seemed a flickering light, with small hope of its continuance through the winter; but a merciful Providence has permitted a brighter view, and my happiness through the year has been superior to that of any year of my life." After enumerating some domestic events which had contributed to this result, he adds: "My own health is so far restored as to allow me the enjoyment of everything around me in perfection. May God in mercy keep me mindful of my duties, and prepared to surrender my account at any moment he may call me hence!" CHAPTER XVIII. BROTHER'S DEATH.--LETTERS.--GIFTS.--LETTERS.--DIARY.--APPLICANTS FOR AID.--REFLECTIONS.--LETTER FROM REV. DR. STONE.--DIARY. If, at the close of the last year, Mr. Lawrence could say that "his happiness had been superior to that of any year of his life," it could not be said that its successor was one of unmingled brightness. The unbroken band of brothers who had marched thus far hand in hand, united by a common bond of sympathy and affection, sustaining each other in all trials, and rejoicing together in their common prosperity, was about to be sundered. Since their earliest days, they had had but one interest, and, residing near each other after leaving their early home, had been in the habit of most constant and intimate intercourse. Many of their friends will well remember seeing four, and sometimes five, of them, on Sunday evening, after service, walking together abreast, arm in arm; and have been tempted to exclaim, "Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." They had more than obeyed their father's injunction "not to fall out by the way, for a three-fold cord is not quickly broken." With them, it had been a five-fold cord; and, amidst all the perplexities of business, the management of important interests, and the various vicissitudes of domestic life, no strand had been broken until severed by the ruthless hand of death. The eldest brother, Luther, had been educated at Harvard College; had studied law with the Hon. Timothy Bigelow, then of Groton, afterwards of Medford, whose sister he subsequently married; and had commenced the practice of his profession in his native town. There he met with good success, and, for many years, represented the town in the House of Representatives, of which he was chosen Speaker for the session of 1821 and 1822. He was induced by his brothers, who had become largely interested in the new town of Lowell, to remove thither; and he accordingly took up his residence there in 1831, having accepted the presidency of the bank which had been lately established. In 1838, he had been elected Mayor of the city, and had given himself up to the pressing duties incident to the office in a new and growing community. While holding this office, he, on the 17th of April, 1839, accompanied an old friend and connection, who was on a visit at Lowell, to inspect the works of the Middlesex Manufacturing Company, recently erected by his brothers. In passing rapidly through one of the rooms, he made a misstep, and was precipitated many feet into a wheel-pit, causing almost instant death. This sad event was deeply felt by Mr. Lawrence, as well as by all who knew and appreciated the character of the deceased. In a letter to his sisters, dated April 22, he says: "I should have addressed a word of comfort to you before this. That he should be taken, and I left, is beyond my _ken_, and is a mystery which will be cleared up hereafter. I do, however, know _now_ that all is right, and better ordered than we could have done it. We _must_ submit, and _should_ be resigned. Brother L.'s death may, perhaps, be more efficient in instructing us in the path of duty than would have been his life; and the whole community around is admonished by this event in a way that I have rarely seen so marked. The homage to his character is a legacy to his children of more value than all the gold of the mint. Shall we, then, repine at his separation from us? Surely not. He has fulfilled his mission, and is taken home, with all his powers fresh and perfect, and with the character of having used these powers for the best and highest good of all around him. We shall all soon be called away, and should make his departure the signal to be also ready. This is the anniversary of my birth, and has been marked by many circumstances of peculiar interest." On the same date, he writes to a connection, who was about to take possession of his house on that day for the first time after his marriage: "I intended speaking a word in your ear before your leaving us for your own fireside and home, but have concluded to take this mode of doing it; and it is to say, that you possess a jewel in your wife, above price, which should be worn in such an atmosphere as will increase its purity and value the longer you possess it; and that is around the family altar. That you intend to establish it, I have no doubt; but, as to the precise time, you may not be fixed. What time so good as the present time, when the first evening of possession of this paradise on earth (a house and home of your own with such a wife), to make that offering to the Father of mercies which ascends to his throne as sweet incense from his children? It is the nutriment and efficient producing power of the best principles and the best fruits of our nature. Be wise in time, and strive to secure these, that you may go on from one degree to another, until you shall have reached our Father's house, and shall hear the cheering 'Well done!' promised to such as have used their talents without abusing them. My blessing attend you!" (TO HIS DAUGHTER.) "Monday evening. "DEAR S.: The admonition of the last week comes home to me in a way not to be neglected, and I hope to keep in mind that, in my best days, I am as likely to be called off, as in these days of anxious care, when pressed down with pain and weakness, and surrounded by those dear ones who look upon every emotion with deep solicitude. On comparing myself now with myself a year ago, I have much to animate and cheer in the increased strength of body and renewed powers, by which I can enjoy life; but I have also much to speak to the heart, and to tell me to be constantly ready to be called off without previous note of preparation. May I never lose sight, for a single hour, of the tenure by which I hold the privilege of seeing the dear ones settled so happily! It is more than I had reason to anticipate. "May you, dear child, never lose sight of the end for which your privileges are made so ample, nor forego the happiness of doing the best in your power at every stage of your journey, so that whenever you may be called hence, you may feel that you are ready, and that your work is done. It will not do for me to rely upon my every-day firmness to secure me against attacks of the kind last experienced. I do most fervently desire to be kept in mind of my exposure, and never for an hour forget that it may be my last." [Illustration: BIRTH PLACE AT GROTON.] Several passages in Mr. Lawrence's letters will show the attachment which he felt towards the place of his birth, connected as it was with so many associations and memories of the past. The old house, with the great elm in front and its welcome shade; the green meadow, stretching for a mile along a gentle declivity to the river; the range of mountains in the west, just distant enough to afford that tinge of blue which adds an indescribable charm to every landscape; the graceful undulations of the hills on the east, with the quiet village sleeping at their base, all seemed in his mind so associated with the loved inmates of his early home, that he ever contemplated the picture with delight. On June 4, in a letter to his sisters, he writes: "R. leaves us this morning, on his way to the old homestead, which, to my mind's eye, has all the charms of the most lovely associations of early days, with all the real beauty of those splendid descriptions given by the prophets of the holy city. I would earnestly impress all my children with a deep sense of the beauty and benefit of cherishing and cultivating a respect and affection for this dear spot, and for those more dear objects that have served to make it what it really is to all us children." In a letter to his son, whose visit is alluded to above, he says: "The beautiful scenery from Gibbet Hill, in Groton, and from the road from our old mansion south for a mile, towards the Wachusett and the Monadnock Mountains, comes next, in point of beauty, to my taste, to these views around the Boston Common. Be careful to do all things as you will wish you had done, that you may look back upon this visit with pleasure, and forward to another visit with increased relish. Remember that in the best performance of all your duties lies the highest enjoyment of all your pleasures. Those pleasures that flow from plans and doings that your conscience condemns are to be shunned as the net of the wicked one. When once entangled, the desire and effort to be released grow weaker, till, at length, conscience is put asleep, and the sleep of death comes over the soul. Be careful, therefore, to avoid evil, and not only so, but to avoid all appearance of evil. In this way, you will grow up with principles and fixed habits that will secure you against the ills of life, and supply a foretaste of the enjoyments of a better life to come." During a visit which he made to his early home a few months subsequent to the date of the preceding extract, he writes to his daughter: "I was very tired on arriving here last evening, but a quiet sleep has brought me into my best state. "This morning has allowed me to ride for two hours, and I have enjoyed everything and everybody here to the utmost. Groton is beautiful beyond any other place I have ever seen; but perhaps I am in the situation of old Mr. ----, whose opinion of his wife's beauty, when questioned of its accuracy, was justified by the declaration that the person must have his eyes to look through. "The whole country is full of charms; nothing seems wanting to impress upon the heart the goodness of that Parent who seeks by all means to bring us nearer to himself. "This visit has been full of interest, and it is a source of unfeigned thanksgiving that it has been permitted to me." Mr. Lawrence always took great delight in sending to friends and relatives, little and great, mementoes of his affection; and a great deal of time was spent in penning and reading the letters and notes which such transactions called forth. He had a rare faculty of adapting his gift to the peculiar necessities or tastes of the recipient; and, whether the matter treated of was a check for thousands or a bouquet of flowers, equal pleasure seemed to be given and received. In sending a gift of the former description, he notices the commencement of the year 1840 as follows: "January 1. "DEAR S.: W. will prize the enclosed more highly from your hand; for he will have proof that a good wife brings many blessings, that he never would know the value of but for you. May you experience many returns of the 'new year,' and each more happy than the past!" In a letter to his second son, then on a visit to Europe, he writes, under date of March 5, 1840: "We are all curious to know what impressions your visit to France and Italy produces, and still more what impressions a careful overlooking of our fatherland makes upon you. There is much food for reflection, and abundant material for the exercise of your powers of observation, in every league of the '_fast_-anchored isle,' especially in the scenes so beautifully portrayed in many of the books we have access to. In fact, I have an extensive collection of materials to renew your travels and observations, and shall value them more highly when you point out this or that seat or castle or abbey, which has arrested your notice. But the best scenes will be those in which the living souls of the present day are engaged. The habits and tastes of the people of England have doubtless much changed since the _Spectator_ days; but, in many important particulars, I should hope they had not. Some thirty years ago, I had a good specimen of the feelings and principles of a great variety of people, embracing almost all classes, from the year 1774 to 1776, in a multitude of letters that had accumulated in the post-office in this town, under Tuthill Hubbart. After his death, his house was pulled down; and, among the strange things found in it, were bushels of letters, of which I was permitted to take what I pleased. These letters showed a deeper religious feeling in the writers of those days, from England, Ireland, and Scotland, than I have seen in any miscellaneous collections of a later date. If that deep-toned piety which pervaded them has not been extinguished by the Jacobinism and freethinking of later days, happy for the people and the government! But I fear it has, in some great measure, been blotted out or obscured, as there seems to be a spirit of reckless adventure in politics and religion not contemplated seventy years ago. How far our experience in self-government in this country is going to advance the cause of good government, and the ultimate happiness of man, is yet a problem. Our principles are of the most elevating character; our practices under them, of the most debasing; and, if we continue in this way another generation, there will not be virtue enough in active use to save the forms of our government. We may hope that a better heart may be given us." In a letter to his son-in-law, the Rev. Charles Mason, who was at that time in company with his own son on a visit to England, he writes on June 28th, 1840: "I intended to defer writing until to-morrow morning; but the beauty of the western scenery and sunset is so striking, that I am strongly impelled to tell you that, much as you see, and highly as you enjoy the scenes of old England, there is nothing there more beautiful and sublime than this very scene from my chamber windows. It seems as though nature never was so beautifully dressed at this time of the year as at present. The season has been unusually favorable for the foliage, fruits, and flowers; and all around bears evidence of that goodness that never rests, and in my own person I feel that I am enjoying in a month what ought to content me for a year." The foregoing extract is selected from among many others of a similar nature, as an illustration of Mr. Lawrence's appreciation of the beauties of natural scenery. Towards the close of the day, his favorite seat was at a window, from which he could witness the glories of the setting sun, and, still later, the fading beauties of the twilight. Nature to him was no sealed volume; and with her, in all her phases, he loved to commune. The gorgeous hues of the western sky, the changing tints of the autumnal foliage, and the smiling features of the landscape, were in his mind typical of the more resplendent beauties of the future world. He writes: "To-day is one of those holy spring days which make us feel that, with right principles and conduct, we may enjoy a foretaste of that beautiful home we all long for. I have been over the Roxbury and Dorchester hills, which are a transcript of the beautiful scenery around Jerusalem. Mount Zion seemed before me, and by stretching my arms, I could almost fly upon its sides." He loved to think that the spirits of the departed may be permitted to hover around, and minister to those whom they have once loved on earth; and sometimes, as he viewed nature in her softer moods, he would imagine himself as holding communion with former cherished objects of affection. He writes to a friend: "Dear S. and R. speak in words without sounds, through every breeze and in every flower, and in the fragrance of every perfume from the field or the trees." And again: "Is there anything in Scripture to discourage the belief that the spirits of departed friends are still ministering spirits to such as are left here, and that a recognition and reünion will follow when we are called off? I believe fully in this happy reünion; and it is, next to the example of the beloved, the most animating feeling that prompts me through this wearisome journey." To a friend who had invited him to pay her a visit at her residence in the country, he writes: "N---- says I am like a child in the matter of the visit, and would be as much disappointed if it should not be accomplished; and I must admit that I am guilty of this weakness. There are so many loved ones on the old spot, so many lessons to be reviewed, and so many friends 'passed on,' whose spirits surround and fill the place with the peculiar halo and charm of the good angels (those ministering spirits in whose company we may ever find comfort, if we will think so). I say, with all these things, can I be blamed for being a child in this matter? You will all say No, and will love me the better for it." On the anniversary of his commencing his business, Dec. 17, Mr. Lawrence, as usual, reviews his past life and mercies, and adds: "My daily aspirations are for wisdom and integrity to do what is required of me; but the excuses for omissions, and the hidden promptings of pride or selfishness in the sins of commission, take away all confidence that all is done as it should be. I am in the enjoyment of as much as belongs to our condition here. Wife, children, and friends, those three little blessings that were spared to us after the fall, impart enjoyment that makes my home as near a heaven on earth as is allowed to mortals. "_Dec. 23._--This morning has been clear and beautiful, and I have enjoyed it highly. Have been sleigh-riding with Chancellor Kent. Went over to Bunker Hill Monument, and around by the river-side to Charlestown Neck, and had a regular old-fashioned talk with him. He gave me an account of the scenes which occurred where he was studying, in Connecticut, when the news came of the Lexington fight. As we parted, he promised to come again in the spring, take another ride, and resume the conversation. He leaves for New York at three o'clock, and is as bright and lively as a boy, though seventy-eight years old. The old gentleman attends to all his own affairs, had walked around the city this morning some miles, been to the Providence Railroad Dépôt for his ticket, overlooked divers bookstores, and so forth. He is very interesting, and has all the simplicity of a child." About this time, also, Mr. Lawrence seems to have had pleasant intercourse with the Chevalier Hulsemann, the Austrian Minister, so well known by his correspondence with Mr. Webster when the latter was Secretary of State. The minister was on a visit to Boston, and, from the correspondence which ensued, seems to have conceived a high regard for Mr. Lawrence, expressed in very kind and courteous terms; and this regard seems to have been fully reciprocated. "_April 1, 1841._--S. N., of T., an apprentice on board the United States ship 'Columbus,' in this harbor, thirteen years old, whom I picked up intoxicated in Beacon-street a month ago, and to whom I gave some books, with request to call and see me when on shore, came to-day, and appears very well. Gave him a Testament and some good counsel. "_June 6._--G. M. called to sell a lot of sermons called the ----, which he said he caused to be published to do good; he repeated it so often that I doubted him. He seems to me a _wooden nutmeg_ fellow, although he has the Rev. Mr. ----'s certificate." The preceding entry is given here merely as a sample of many such which are found in Mr. Lawrence's diary. Few who have not had the like experience can estimate the annoyance to which his reputation for benevolence and well-doing subjected him, in the shape of applications for aid in every imaginable form. His perceptions were naturally acute; and a long experience and intercourse with men enabled him to form, at a single glance, a pretty fair estimate of the merits of the applicant. He may sometimes have judged precipitately, and perhaps harshly; but, when he discovered that he had done so, no one could have been more ready to confess his fault and make reparation. A few years after this time, the annoyance became so serious, from the number and character of the applicants, that he felt obliged, on account of ill-health, to deny himself to all, unless personally known to him, or accredited by some one in whose statement he had confidence. Further than this, he was confirmed in his decision by actual abuse which had occasionally been administered to him by disappointed candidates for charitable aid. He kept upon his table a small memorandum-book, in which he recorded the names of those who sought aid, with their business, and often their age, the age and number of their children, sometimes facts in their past history, and any other information which could enable him to form an opinion of their claim upon him for assistance. He sometimes indulges also in somewhat quaint remarks respecting those who apply, or the manner in which they have presented their application. To the Rev. Robert Turnbull, a Baptist clergyman then settled in Boston, and who had sent to Mr. Lawrence a copy of his work entitled "Claims of Jesus," he writes under date of Nov. 2: "REV. AND DEAR SIR: I thank you for the little volume so kindly presented, and deem it the duty of all the friends of the Saviour to do what they can to stop the flood of infidelity and atheism that threatens such waste and devastation among us. However we may seem to be, I trust many may be found, in the ranks of my Unitarian friends, who admit the 'claims of Jesus' in their most elevated character, and who repudiate the doctrine of those who sink him to the level of a mere human teacher, as subversive of his authority and as nullifying his teachings. We take the record, and what is clearly declared; we do not go behind, even though we do not clearly comprehend it. It gives me pleasure to learn you are so well recovered from the injury you received from the overturn of your carriage near my house. "With great respect, believe me truly yours, A. L." "_January, 1842._--This year opens with renewed calls upon me to bless God for his mercies throughout its course. My family circle has not been broken by the death of any one of our whole number, and my own health has been better for the last half-year than for five years before. I have not had occasion to call a physician through the year. My brothers A. and W. have been dangerously sick, but are happily recovered; and both feel, I believe, that their hold on life is not as firm as they have felt it to be in former years. My dear children are growing up around me to bless and comfort me; and all I need is a right understanding of my duties, and a sincere purpose to fulfil them. I hope to have the will to continue them in as faithful a manner as heretofore, to say the least." Among the traits in Mr. Lawrence's character was that enlarged spirit of Christian feeling which enabled him to appreciate goodness in others, without reference to sect or denomination. This spirit of universal brotherhood was not in him a matter of mere theory, but was carried out in the practice of daily life, and was the means of cementing many and lasting friendships, especially among the clergy of various denominations around him. It may not be uninteresting in future years, for those now in childhood, for whom this volume has been prepared, to be reminded of the strong feeling of sympathy and affection which their grandfather entertained for the Rev. John S. Stone, D.D., once the Rector of St. Paul's Church, in Boston, and now the Rector of St. Paul's, in Brookline, Mass. The following is an extract from a letter written by that gentleman from Brooklyn, N. Y., daring the year 1842, with a memorandum endorsed by Mr. Lawrence, dated October, 1847, in which he says: "This letter was very interesting to me when received. I kept it in my pocket-book with one from Judge Story, which he had requested me to keep for my children. While son ---- was in Europe, I did not expect to live but a short time, and sent him the two letters, as the proper person to keep them for the use of his children." The letter commences by strong expressions of affection and regard, over which Mr. Lawrence's modesty had induced him to paste a slip of paper, endorsed as follows: "Personal matters between the writer and myself, covered up here, and not to be read by any of the friends to whom I may show this letter." The letter continues as follows: "Shall I ever forget the happy moments, hours, days, I may say weeks, which I have spent in riding with you, and chatting, as we rode, of all things as we passed them, till I seemed to myself to be living in the by-gone days of Boston and its neighborhood; and all its old families, houses, names, and anecdotes, became as familiar to my mind as the stories of my boyhood? Can I forget it all? I trow not. These things are all blended in with the beautiful scenery through which we used to ride, and associated with those graver lessons and reflections which you used to give me; insomuch that the picture which my memory retains of nature, society, history, and feeling, truth, friendship, and religion, and in which Boston and the living friends there are comprehended, has become imperishable. It never can fade out of my mind. It is a picture in which man has done much, friendship more, religion most, and God all; for religion is his, and friendship is from him, and man is his creature, and the green earth and glorious heavens are his home. There are many, very many, objects in this picture, which I contemplate with special delight; and few which give me pain, or which I would not have had there, had the whole ordering of its composition been left to me. Indeed, had this whole ordering been left to me, it may well be doubted whether, as a whole, it would have contained half of the beautiful and blessed things which it now contains. Taking it as it is, therefore, I am well content to receive it, hang it up in the choicest apartment of my memory, and keep it clean and in good order for use." * * * As an illustration of the pleasant intercourse alluded to above, among Mr. Lawrence's papers is found another most friendly letter from the Rev. Henry Ware, jun., dated a few days afterwards, with the following endorsement: "I went on Friday to Mr. Ware's house, and had a free, full, and deeply-interesting conversation upon the appointment of his successor; and was delighted to find him with the same views I have upon the necessity of removing the theological department from Cambridge." Dec. 2, Mr. Lawrence alludes to the probability of his own death taking place in the manner in which it actually occurred ten years afterwards, as follows: "Yesterday I was very well, and have been so for some time past. Experienced a severe ill turn this morning at five o'clock, more so than for years. This check brings me back to the reflection that, when I feel the best, I am most likely to experience one of my ill turns; some one of which will probably end my journey in this life. God grant me due preparation for the next!" CHAPTER XIX. REFLECTIONS.--LETTERS.--ACCOUNT OF EFFORTS TO COMPLETE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. In the memorandum-book of property for 1843 is found the usual estimate and list of expenditures; after which Mr. Lawrence writes as follows: "My outlay for other objects than my own family, for the last fourteen years, has been ---- dollars, which sum I esteem better invested than if in bond and mortgage in the city; and I have reason to believe many have been comforted and assisted by it, and its influence will be good on those who follow me. God grant me grace to be faithful to my trust!" To Hon. R. C. Winthrop, Member of Congress, at Washington, enclosing a letter from a young colored man: "BOSTON, Feb. 15, 1843. "DEAR SIR: This young man, as you will observe by his style, is well educated; and the circumstances he states, I have no doubt, are true. He applied to me, about two years since, for employment in writing or other business, to obtain means for further education; and I interested myself to secure to him what was required. A few months since, he started from here to go to Jamaica, to commence the practice of law, and was supplied by those who had taken an interest in him with a library suited to his wants. He received his early education in Indiana; and his parents were once slaves. He is a handsome colored fellow, better-mannered, better-looking, and more to be respected, than many young gentlemen who move in the higher walks of life, either in Carolina or Massachusetts. Now, I should like to know, if he should be admitted as an attorney to practice in our courts, and should take passage for Jamaica, and put into Charleston, would he be imprisoned, as is now the practice in regard to our black sailors? I feel a much stronger desire to see your report upon this subject of imprisoning our colored people, after the unfair course taken by the majority of your house to smother it; and I hope still to see it in print before the adjournment. I would further remark, that N. T. is a member of Grace Church in this city, I believe, under the care of Rev. T. M. Clark; and would, doubtless, bear affliction, if it should ever be his fortune to be afflicted by being imprisoned because his skin is dark, with a spirit becoming his profession. With great respect and esteem, believe me very truly yours, AMOS LAWRENCE." (TO HIS SISTER.) "BOSTON, April 19, 1843. "DEAR SISTER M.: When I heard a gun this morning, I was immediately transported back in imagination to the 19th of April, 1775, when our grandmother retreated from her house on the roadside in Concord, with her family, to keep out of the way of the 'regulars;' and that day and its scenes, as described, came back upon me with a force which kept me awake in considering whether the gun was fired to recall the facts to the people of this day; and, if recalled, whether we can profit by the events which followed. I found, however, on receiving my newspapers, that the gun was not for commemoration of Lexington and Concord, but to announce the arrival of the British steamer from Liverpool. The news by this steamer is of no more than common interest; and the intercourse is now so easy and rapid, that the interest felt to learn what is passing in Europe is not much greater than we used to feel on Call's stage-coach arriving at Groton from Boston once a week, fifty years ago. The changes within my own recollection are such as almost to make me distrust my own senses; and many of the changes are at the cost of much good. The downhill tendency in the standard of character is a bad sign, and threatens the prostration of our political fabric. Built as it is on the virtue and intelligence of the people, every waste of these endangers the stability of the whole structure." "_April 24._--I resume, though not in the same train of thought, which is slept off. My birth-day has passed since then; and I am now in my fifty-eighth year. This is the birth-day of our father, who would have been eighty-nine if living; and this week on Saturday will also complete thirty-six years since I left home to spend a few months in this city, preparatory to my commencing business in Groton. Here I have continued; and the consequences to our family seem to have stamped upon us such marks as make us objects of influence, for good or evil, to a much greater extent than if I had returned to commence my business career in my native town. I view in this a hand pointing upward,--'Seek me and ye shall find,'--and a caution to us to use without abusing the good things intrusted to us. How hard it is for those in prosperity to bring home to their feelings their dependence, their abuse of their privileges, their desires for objects wholly disproportionate to their value, their anxiety about trifles, while they are so utterly careless and indifferent about those of the highest moment! How we strive unceasingly to secure objects that can, at best, give us but a slight reward, and, in many cases, if attained to the full extent of our hopes, only serve to sharpen our appetite for more; thus demonstrating the benevolence of our heavenly Father in removing these obstacles to our progress in the ways and works of godliness! How important, then, for us to see a Father's hand in the disappointments, not less than in the success, of our plans! I now speak practically of those anxieties which I feel and condemn myself for, in looking forward to the condition of my family. This is all wrong; and I pray God to pardon me the want of faith this feeling implies. "I have thought much of your account of Mrs. N. going out, on the Sabbath after her husband's death, with her nine children. I remember her, and many others of my youthful schoolmates, with interest and regard. Please say so to her. And now, dear M., as the clouds seem thinner, I may hope to secure a little run, and shall take the post-office in my way; so must bid you adieu." (TO GENERAL ----.) "May 5, 1843. "MY DEAR OLD GENERAL: Our anticipated drive to-day is not to be: the weather settles it that I must keep house; and, to indemnify myself for the disappointment, will you allow me to feel that I have not gone too far in requesting you to receive the enclosed check? I am spared here for some object, and do not feel that to hoard money is that object. While I am in the receipt of an income so ample, I find it sometimes troublesome to invest exactly to my mind. In the present case, the hope that you may, by using this, add something to your enjoyment, makes me feel that it is one of my best investments; and for the reason that your proverbial good-will cannot refuse me such a boon, I have made this request. My heart yearns strongly toward the old-fashioned John Jay school in politics and morals; and, when I have an opportunity to minister in any way to one of the early members, it is a pleasure that sweetens my days as they pass." On the letter written in reply to the above, Mr. Lawrence has endorsed: "This letter from old General ----, now eighty-eight years old, and blind, is an acknowledgment of some little kindnesses I was enabled to render through the hand of Judge Story. It has afforded me more pleasure than it could have done either the Judge or the General. I am sure the good old man's feelings were gratified; and I am thankful that I could comfort him." On the 17th of June, 1843, took place the celebration in honor of the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument; an event which was regarded with no ordinary emotions by Mr. Lawrence, after so many years of effort and expectation. His only regret was that the whole battle-field could not have been preserved, and have remained, to use his own words, "a field-preacher for posterity." Eleven years before this, he had written to his son in Europe: "If we be true to ourselves, our city is destined to be the Athens of America, and the hallowed spots in our neighborhood to be the objects of interest throughout all future time. In this view, I would never permit a foot of the battle-field of Bunker Hill to be alienated; but keep it for your great-great-grandchildren, as a legacy of patriotism worth more than their portion of it, if covered with gold by measure. Until you are older, I do not expect you to feel as I do on this subject." This would seem to be the proper place to mention a few facts in regard to Mr. Lawrence's agency in securing the completion of the monument. It has already been mentioned that he was one of the earliest friends of the project to erect a monument, and, in 1825, had been placed upon the Standing Committee of Directors, with full powers to manage the affairs of the Association. In September, 1831, in a letter to his friend, Dr. J. C. Warren, who himself had been one of the warmest and most efficient advocates of the measure, he proposed to subscribe five thousand dollars, on condition that fifty thousand dollars should be raised within one year. The following passage occurs in that letter: "I think it inexpedient to allude to the sale of the land on Bunker Hill, as a resource for paying the debt, except in case of extreme necessity; and, at this time, I should personally sooner vote to sell ten acres of the Common, in front of my house, to pay the city debt (of Boston), than vote to sell the ten acres on Bunker Hill, until it shall appear that our citizens will not contribute the means of saving it." The proposition thus made was not responded to by the public.[6] As early as December, 1830, he had made provision by his will, in case of his own death, to secure the battle-field, liquidate the debts of the corporation, and complete the monument. These provisions were superseded by another will, executed April 1, 1833, after his health had failed, so as to forbid active participation in affairs. An extract from this document will show the views of the testator: "I am of opinion that the land owned by the Bunker Hill Monument Association, in Charlestown, will be of great value to posterity, if left as public ground. The spot is the most interesting in the country; and it seems to me it is calculated to impress the feelings of those who come after us with gratitude to the people of this generation, if we preserve it to them. The whole field contains about fifteen acres; and, in the hope of preserving it entire, either as the property of the State, of this city, or of any other competent body, and with the further view of insuring the completion of the monument, which now stands as a reproach to us, I have set apart a larger share of my property than would be necessary, had not the subject been presented to the public in such a manner as to discourage future attempts at raising the necessary funds by voluntary contribution." [6] For a history of the Bunker Hill Monument, see an article in collections of "Maine Historical Society," vol. iii., by Professor Packard, of Bowdoin College. The amount thus devised for the monument, in case that amount should not be raised in other ways, was fifty thousand dollars. In June, 1832, before the annual meeting of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, the same offer of five thousand dollars, as first named, was renewed, with an urgent appeal for the preservation of the land, and completion of the monument. A movement followed this appeal, but was not successful. In April, 1833, Mr. Lawrence proposed to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association to attempt the raising of fifty thousand dollars, to be secured within three months, for completing the monument and preserving the field; accompanying the proposition was an offer of five thousand dollars, or ten per cent. on any less sum that might be raised, as a donation to the Association. A public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall in response to this proposition, at which Hon. Edward Everett made a most powerful appeal, which produced so great an effect upon his auditors that the object was considered as accomplished. The effort was again unsuccessful. Early in 1839, Mr. Lawrence addressed a letter to George Darracott, Esq., President of the Mechanic Association, in which, after expressing regret that his feeble and precarious health would not permit him to make personal application to the citizens of Boston, he adds: "The next best thing I can do is to give money. The Monument Association owes a debt. To discharge the debt, finish the monument, surround it with a handsome iron fence, and otherwise ornament the ground as it deserves, will require forty thousand dollars more than it now has. If the Association will collect thirty thousand dollars the present year, and pay off the debt, I will give to the Charitable Mechanic Association ten thousand dollars to enable it to complete the work in a manner which our fathers would have done, had they been here to direct it." A further donation of ten thousand dollars was made by Judah Touro, Esq., of New Orleans; five thousand dollars were received from other sources; and this, with thirty thousand dollars received at the great fair held in Quincy Hall, September, 1840, afforded the means of completing the monument according to the original design. Thus was consummated a work which had been very near to Mr. Lawrence's heart, and which had cost him many a sleepless night, as well as days of toil and perplexity. To his associates in this work too much credit cannot be awarded, discouraged, as they often were, by indifference, and even censure. Their names will be handed down for centuries, in connection with a monument, which, while it commemorates a nation's freedom, teaches also a practical lesson of the perseverance and energy of man. The following is an extract from a newspaper published about the time the monument was completed, giving an account of a festival held in commemoration of the event: "The president remarked, that, among the benefactors to whom the Association had been particularly indebted for the means of completing the monument, two, whose names were written on a scroll at the other end of the hall, were Amos Lawrence and Judah Touro, each of whom had made a donation of ten thousand dollars. He thought it proper they should be remembered at the festive board, and gave the following: "Amos and Judah! venerated names! Patriarch and prophet press their equal claims; Like generous coursers, running neck and neck, Each aids the work by giving it a check. Christian and Jew, they carry out a plan; For, though of different faith, each is in heart a man." CHAPTER XX. INTEREST IN MOUNT AUBURN.--REV. DR. SHARP.--LETTER FROM BISHOP McILVAINE.--LETTER FROM JUDGE STORY. After the establishment of the cemetery at Mount Auburn, Mr. Lawrence had taken a deep interest in its progress, as well as in every plan for its gradual improvement and embellishment. In connection with his brothers, he had purchased a large space, which had been enclosed by a permanent granite wall and iron railing. To this spot he habitually resorted, containing, as it did, the remains of some of the dearest earthly objects of his affection, and destined, as it was, to be the final resting-place of not only himself, but of the various branches of his family. When this enclosure had been finished, it became an object with him to gather around him in death those whom he had loved and honored in life. In this way, he had been instrumental in causing to be removed to a burial-lot adjoining his own the remains of the Rev. J. S. Buckminster, the former minister of Brattle-street Church; and had also presented another lot to his friend and pastor, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop. Another friend, whose grave he wished to have near his own, was the Rev. Daniel Sharp, D.D., minister of the Charles-street Baptist Church, in Boston. There were few in Boston who were not familiar with the appearance of this venerable clergyman, as he daily appeared in the streets; and fewer still who had not learned to appreciate the truly catholic and Christian spirit which animated him in his intercourse with men of all sects and parties. Mr. Lawrence had early entertained a great esteem for his character; and this esteem had become mutual, and had ripened into the closest intimacy and friendship. On receiving a deed of a lot at Mount Auburn, Dr. Sharp writes as follows: "BOSTON, August 23, 1843. "MY DEAR SIR: I cannot find words with which to express my sense of your unexpected and considerate kindness, in providing so beautiful a resting-place in Mount Auburn for me and my loved ones. It is soothing to me to anticipate that my grave will be so near your own. May the Almighty, in his infinite mercy, grant, that, when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall awake, we may both rise together, to be forever with the Lord! If the proximity of my last place of repose to ministers of another denomination shall teach candor, charity, and peace, I enjoy the sweet consciousness that this will be in harmony with the object of my life. Yours, gratefully, "DANIEL SHARP. "AMOS LAWRENCE, Esq." The enlarged Christian spirit which formed so prominent a trait in Mr. Lawrence's character, and which enabled him to appreciate goodness wherever it could be found, without reference to nation, sect, or color, may be further illustrated by the following note of acknowledgment, received about the same time with the preceding, from Bishop McIlvaine, of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ohio, who was then on a visit to Boston to procure funds in aid of Kenyon College: "Wednesday evening. "MY DEAR SIR: I have just received your very kind and grateful letter, with its cheering enclosure of a hundred dollars towards an object which engrosses me much just now. Thank you, dear sir, most truly, for your kindness, and the _first fruits_ of Boston, for I came only to-day. I trust the ingathering will not dispossess the first ripe sheaf. Coming from one not of my own church, it is the more kind and grateful. O, sir! if God shall so bless my present effort as to send me home with the sum I seek, I shall know a freedom of mind from care and anxiety such as I have not experienced for many years, during which our present crisis has been anticipated. I shall have great pleasure in riding with you, according to your note to Mr. R. To-morrow will probably be a day of more leisure to me than any other while I shall be in Boston. "Yours, very truly and respectfully, "CHARLES P. MCILVAINE." (TO ONE OF HIS PARTNERS.) "December 18, 1843. "DEAR MR. PARKER: I am _puffed up_ (with ague), but not in a manner to gratify my pride, as I am housed, and denied the sight of most of those who call, but not the privilege of reading their papers, and spending money. In short, I have more use for money when in the house than when able to be abroad. If you will tell Brother Sharp[7] his beautiful bills find an exceedingly ready use, I shall be glad of one hundred in ones and twos, two hundred in fives, and three hundred in tens and twenties; say six hundred dollars, just to keep me along till the end of the month. The calls are frequent and striking. 'Do with thy might what thy hand findeth to do; for the night cometh, when no man can work.' God grant me the blessing of being ready to answer the call, whether it be at noon or at midnight!" [7] For more than forty years Teller in Massachusetts Bank. Twelve days after, he writes to the same gentleman for another supply; the sum already received not having been sufficient apparently to carry him through the year: "December 30, 1843. "'The good there is in riches lieth altogether in their use, like the woman's box of ointment; if it be not broken and the contents poured out for the refreshment of Jesus Christ, in his distressed members, they lose their worth; the covetous man may therefore truly write upon his rusting heaps, "These are good for nothing." He is not rich who lays up much, but he who lays out much; for it is all one not to have, as not to use. I will therefore be the richer by charitable laying out, while the worldling will be poorer by his covetous hoarding up.' "Here is the embodiment of a volume, and whoever wrote it deserves the thanks of good men. I would fain be rich, according as he defines riches; but _possession, possession, is the devil_, as the old Frenchman at ---- said to George Cabot. This devil I would try to cast out; you will therefore please send me twelve hundred dollars, which may do something for the comfort of those who have seen better days. Your friend, A. L. "TO C. H. PARKER, Esq." The following letter from Judge Story was received at about the time the preceding letter was written; but no memorandum is found by which to ascertain the occasion which called it forth. It may be that he had been made the channel, as was the case a few months before, of some donation to a third person; a mode which Mr. Lawrence often adopted when he felt a delicacy in proffering direct aid to some one whose sensitiveness might be wounded in receiving assistance from a comparative stranger: "CAMBRIDGE, Saturday noon. "MY DEAR SIR: I have this moment finished reading your letter and its enclosures, which did not reach me until this noon, and I can scarcely describe to you how deeply I have been affected by them. I almost feel that you are too much oppressed by the constant calls for charitable purposes, and that your liberal and conscientious spirit is tasked to its utmost extent. 'The poor have ye always with you' is a Christian truth; and I know not, in the whole circle of my friends, any one who realizes it so fully, and acts upon it so nobly, as yourself. God, my dear sir, will reward you for all your goodness; man never can. And yet the gratitude of the many whom you relieve, their prayers for your happiness, their consciousness of your expanded benevolence, is of itself a treasure of inestimable value. It is a source of consolation, which you would not exchange for any earthly boon of equal value. Wealth is to you an enlightened trust, for the benefit of your race. You administer it so gracefully, as well as so justly, that I can only regret that your means are not ten times as great. Gracious Heavens! What a contrast is your life to that of some wealthy men, who have lived many years, and have yet to learn how to give, or, as you beautifully expressed it the other day, who have yet to learn to be their own executors! My heart is so full of you, and of the whole matter, that I would fain pour out my thoughts at large to you; for you understand _me_, and I can sympathize with _you_. But just now I am full of all sorts of business, and without a moment to spare, having many judicial opinions to prepare in the few remaining days before I go to Washington; and, withal, having Mrs. S. very ill, in respect to whom I feel a deep anxiety. But, wherever I am, I pray you to believe that you are always in my thoughts, with the warmest affection and dearest remembrance. And, if this hasty scrawl is not too slight for such a matter, pray preserve it among your papers, that your children may know what I thought of their father, when you and I shall be both in our graves. "I am most truly and faithfully your obliged friend, "JOSEPH STORY. "AMOS LAWRENCE, Esq. "P. S.--I have sent the letter and its accompaniments to Mr. ----. Think of ----. Think of those rich men in ----, who have never dreamed of the duties of charity. Cast a view to their own posterity. How striking a memento is the very case of ----, presented in his own letters, of the instability of human fortune!" Mr. Lawrence closes the year 1843 by a review of his temporal affairs, and by fresh resolutions of fidelity to his trusts. He then gives an estimate of his income and expenditures, showing a somewhat large excess of the latter, though, as he says, from the state of the times, not to the detriment of his property. (TO THE MECHANIC APPRENTICES' LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.) "MY YOUNG FRIENDS: It cheers and comforts me to learn of your well-doing, and encourages me to offer a word of counsel, as prosperity is often more dangerous in its time than adversity. Now is your seed-time. See to it that it is good; for 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' The integrity, intelligence, and elevated bearing, of the Boston mechanics, have been and are a property for each citizen of great value; inasmuch as the good name of our beloved city is a common property, that every citizen has an interest in, and should help to preserve. At your time of life, habits are formed that grow with your years. Avoid rum and tobacco, in all forms, unless prescribed as a medicine; and I will promise you better contracts, heavier purses, happier families, and a more youthful and vigorous old age, by thus avoiding the beginning of evil. God speed you, my young friends, in all your good works! With the enclosed, I pray you to accept the felicitations of the season. "AMOS LAWRENCE." CHAPTER XXI. ACQUAINTANCE WITH PRESIDENT HOPKINS.--LETTERS.--AFFECTION FOR BRATTLE-STREET CHURCH.--DEATH OF MRS. APPLETON.--LETTERS.--AMESBURY CO. At the commencement of the year 1844, President Hopkins, of Williams College, delivered a course of lectures on the "Evidences of Christianity," before the Lowell Institute, in Boston. Mr. Lawrence had previously seen him, and had thought that he detected, in some features of his face, a resemblance to the family of his first wife. In allusion to this acquaintance, he writes to his son about this period: "President H. has the family look of your mother enough to belong to them; and it was in consequence of that resemblance, when I was first introduced to him many years ago, that I inquired his origin, and found him to be of the same stock." The acquaintance was renewed, and an intimacy ensued, which was not only the cause of much happiness to Mr. Lawrence through the remainder of his life, but was also the means of directing his attention to the wants of Williams College, of which he eventually became the greatest benefactor. An active and constant correspondence followed this acquaintance, and was so much prized by Mr. Lawrence that he had most of the letters copied, thereby filling several volumes, from which extracts will from time to time be made. In one of his first letters to that gentleman, dated May 11, he says: "If, by the consecration of my earthly possessions to some extent, I can make the Christian character practically more lovely, and illustrate, in my own case, that the higher enjoyments here are promoted by the free use of the good things intrusted to me, what so good use can I make of them? I feel that my stewardship is a very imperfect one, and that the use of these good things might be extended profitably to myself; and, since I have known how much good the little donation did your college, I feel ashamed of myself it had not been larger,--at any rate, sufficient to have cleared the debt." To the same gentleman, who had informed Mr. Lawrence that an accident had befallen a plaster bust of himself, he writes, under date of May 16: "DEAR PRESIDENT: You know the phrase 'Such a man's head is full of notions' has a meaning that we all understand to be not to his credit for discretion, whatever else may be said of him. As I propose throwing in a caveat against this general meaning, I proceed to state my case. And, firstly, President H. is made debtor to the Western Railroad Corporation for the transportation of a barrel to Pittsfield. The bill is receipted, so that you can have the barrel to-morrow by sending for it; which barrel contains neither biscuit nor flour, but the clay image of your friend. In the head are divers notions that my hand fell upon as I was preparing it for the jaunt; and, when the head was filled with things new and old, I was careful to secure the region under the shoulders, especially on the _left side_, and near the heart, by placing there that part of a lady's dress which designates a government that we men are unwilling openly to acknowledge, but is, withal, very conservative. Within its folds I wrapped up very securely 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and stuffed the empty space between my shoulders, and near my heart, _brim full_, I hope my young friend will find a motive and a moral in the image and in the book, to cheer him on in his pilgrimage of life." * * * * * "_July 22, 1844._--Sixty-seven years ago this day, my mother, now living, was married; and, while standing up for the ceremony, the alarm-bell rang, calling all soldiers to their posts. My father left her within the hour, and repaired to Cambridge; but the colonel, in consideration of the circumstances, allowed him to return to Groton to his wife, and to join his regiment within three days at Rhode Island. This he did, spending but a few hours with his wife; and she saw nothing more of him until the last day of the year, when he made her a visit. I have ordered a thousand dollars paid to the Massachusetts General Hospital, to aid in enlarging its wings, and to commemorate this event. The girls of this day know nothing of the privations and trials of their grandmothers." On the same day with the above entry in his diary occurs another, in which he alludes to assistance afforded to some young persons in Brattle-street Church,--"sons of Brattle-street, and, as such, assisted by me." Mr. Lawrence's early religious associations were connected with this church, where, it is believed, he attended from the first Sunday after his coming to Boston. With such associations, and connected as they were with the most endeared recollections of those who had worshipped there with him in early days, all that pertained to this venerable church possessed a strong and abiding interest. In this connection is quoted the beautiful testimony of his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, furnished in the funeral sermon delivered by him, where he speaks of Mr. Lawrence's love for the church, as well as of his religious character: "The prominent feature in Mr. Lawrence's life and character, its inspiration and its guide, was religion,--religious faith, affection, and hope. He loved God, and therefore he loved all God's creatures. He believed in Christ as the Messiah and Saviour of the world, and therefore found peace and strength in his soul, amid all the perils, duties, and sorrows of life. His religious opinions lay distinct and clear in his own mind. They were the result of careful reading and of serious reflection, and were marked by a profound reverence for the Sacred Scriptures, and the divine authority of Jesus Christ. A constant worshipper here during the forty-six years of his residence in this city, for more than forty years of this period a communicant, and for more than ten a deacon of this church,--resigning the office, at length, because of his invalid state of health,--he had strong attachments to this house of God. 'Our venerable church,' he says in one of his notes to me, 'has in it deeply impressive, improving, instructive, and interesting associations, going back to the early days of my worshipping there; and the prayers of my friends and fellow-worshippers of three generations, in part now belonging there, come in aid of my weakness in time of need; and no other spot, but that home where I was first taught my prayers, and this my domestic fireside, where my children have been taught theirs, has the same interest as our own old Brattle-square Church.'" To an old business friend and acquaintance, Joshua Aubin, Esq., the agent of the Amesbury Company, who had from the beginning been associated with him in this first and favorite manufacturing enterprise in which he had engaged, he writes on September 18, after receiving a quantity of manufactured articles for distribution among the poor: "You are brought very near to me on such a day as this (when I am shut up in the house), by your work as well as by your words. "Now, as to your last consignment, I have derived, and expect to derive, as much comfort and enjoyment from it as I ordinarily should from a cash dividend on my shares. In truth, I am able to employ these _odds and ends_ to such uses and for such persons as will make me feel as though I were spared here for some use. "For instance, I had a call from a most respectable friend (president of one of the best colleges in the West) last week, who agreed to come again this week to do some shopping as soon as he got some money for preaching on Sunday, and look over my stock of goods. "I intend making him up a good parcel of your work, and, depend on it, it is good seed, and will take root at the West. He says that they have no money, but plenty of corn, and beef, and pork. Corn pays for growing at ten cents a bushel, and will not bring that in cash; and ten bushels will not pay for a calico gown, or a flannel petticoat. "With his large family of children, don't you think these _odds and ends_ will come as a blessing? Besides, he is an old-fashioned Massachusetts Whig; loves the old Bay State as well as ever the Jews loved their State, and is, through his college exercising an influence in ---- that no body of men in that State can do; and will, in the end, bring them into regular line, as to education and elevation of character. Send me some of your flannels to give to Madam ---- for her family of one or two hundred children in the Children's Friend Society. "---- will give them over to these poor little destitute, unclad creatures. They are taken and saved by this interesting society. "A rainy day like this is the very time for me to work among my household goods. Many a poor minister and his family, and many a needy student at school or college, fare the better for your spinning and weaving. "I am living in my chamber, and on very close allowance. Every day to me is a day of glorious anticipations, if I am free from bodily suffering, and if my mind is free." On another occasion he writes to the same gentleman: "I have your letter and package; the cold of this morning will make the articles doubly acceptable to the shivering and sick poor among us. J. C.'s case is one for sympathy and relief. Engage to supply him a hundred dollars, which I will hand to you when you visit me; and tell the poor fellow to keep in good heart, for our merciful Father afflicts in love, and thus I trust that this will prove a stepping-stone to the mansions of bliss. I shall never cease to remember with interest the veterans of the A. F. Co. How are my friends B. and others of early days? Also, how is old father F.? Does he need my warm outside coat, when I get supplied with a better? "After your call upon me a few weeks since, I went back in memory to scenes of olden times, which had an interest that you can sympathize in, and which I intended to express to you before this; but I have had one of those admonitory ill turns since, that kept me under the eye of the doctor for a number of days. "In reviewing my beginnings in manufacturing, under your recommendation and care, almost a quarter of a century ago, I can see the men, the machines, the wheel-pit, and the speed-gauge, and especially I can see our old friend W. lying on the bottom of the pit, lamp in hand, with his best coat on, eying the wheels and cogs as an astronomer makes observations in an observatory. All these scenes are as fresh in my memory as though seen but yesterday. "Do you remember C. B., the brother of J. and G. B.? All three of whom were business men here at the time you were, and all were unfortunate. C. tried his; hand in ----, and did not succeed there; returned to this country, and settled on a tract of land in ----, where he has been hard at work for ten years, and has maintained his family. His wife died a few months since. One after another of his family sickened, and he became somewhat straitened, and knew not what to do. He wrote to an old business friend, who was his debtor, and who had failed, had paid a part only, and was discharged thirty years ago, and who has since been prosperous. He stated his case, and asked me to say a good word for him. That person sent one half, and I sent the other half, the day before Thanksgiving. It will reach him on Monday next, and will make his eyes glisten with joy. "Remember me to Capt. ---- and J. C, and B., and any other of the veterans." Sept. 23, Mr. Lawrence receives from an old debtor, once a clerk in his establishment, a check for five hundred dollars, which a sense of justice had induced him to send, though the debt of some thousands had been long since legally discharged. On receiving it, he writes, in a memorandum at the bottom of the letter received, to his brother and partner: "DEAR ABBOTT: I have the money. J. D. was always a person of truth. I take the statement as true; but I had no recollection of the thing till recalled by his statement. What say you to putting this money into the life office, in trust for his sister? Your affectionate brother, AMOS." "MEMORANDUM. _November 23._--Done, and policy sent to the sister." There are but few men, distinguished in public or private life, who are burdened with an undue amount of praise from their contemporaries; and yet this was the case with Mr. Lawrence, who was often chagrined, after some deed of charity, or some written expression of sympathy, to see it emblazoned, with superadded colors, in the public prints. Some one had enclosed to him a newspaper from another city, which contained a most labored and flattering notice of the kind referred to, to which he writes the following reply: "September, 1844. "DEAR ----: I received the paper last evening, and have read and re-read it with deep interest and attention. However true it may he, it is not calculated to promote the ultimate good of any of us; for we are all inclined to think full well enough of ourselves; and such puffs should be left for our obituaries. Truth is not always to be pushed forward; and its advocates may sometimes retard it by injudicious urging. Such is the danger in the present case. The writer appears to be a young man who has received favors, and is laboring to repay them or secure more. He has told the truth; but, as I before said, neither you nor I, nor any one of our families, are improved or benefited in any degree by it. God grant us to be humble, diligent, and faithful to the end of our journey, that we may then receive his approval, and be placed among the good of all nations and times!" On the 29th. of October, Mrs. Appleton, his sister-in-law, and widow of the Rev. Jesse Appleton, D.D., formerly President of Bowdoin College, died at his house, after a lingering illness. In a letter to his son, after describing her character and peaceful death, he says: "With such a life and such hopes, who can view the change as any other than putting away the fugitive and restless pleasures of an hour for the quiet and fixed enjoyments of eternity? Let us, then, my dear children, not look upon the separation of a few short years as a calamity to be dreaded, should we not meet here again in any other way than as we now meet. While I am here, every joy and enjoyment you experience, and give us an account of, is not less so to us than if we were with you to partake, as we have done of all such heretofore; and, in this source of enjoyment, few people have such ample stores. Three families of children and grandchildren within my daily walk,--is not this enough for any man? And here I would impress upon my grandsons the importance of looking carefully to their steps. The difference between going just right and a little wrong in the commencement of the journey of life, is the difference between their finding a happy home or a miserable slough at the end of the journey. Teach them to avoid tobacco and intoxicating drink, and all temptations that can lead them into evil, as it is easier to prevent than to remedy a fault. 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.' I was going on to say that, according to my estimate of men and things, I would not change conditions with Louis Philippe if I could by a wish, rich as he is in the matter of good children. I have a great liking for him, and a sincere respect for his family, as they are reported to me; but I trust that mine will not be tried by the temptations of great worldly grandeur, but that they will be found faithful stewards of the talents intrusted to them. Bring up your boys to do their work first, and enjoy their play afterwards. Begin early to teach them habits of order, a proper economy, and exact accountability in their affairs. This simple rule of making a child, after he is twelve years old, keep an exact account of all that he wears, uses, or expends, in any and every way, would save more suffering to families than can fairly be estimated by those who have not observed its operation. "And now, to change the subject," he writes Nov. 15, "we have got through the elections, and are humbled as Americans. The questions affecting our local labor, produce, and pecuniary interests, are of small moment, compared with that of annexing Texas to this Union. I wrote a brief note yesterday to our friend Chapman, late Mayor of the city, and a member of the Whig Committee, which speaks the language of my heart. It was as follows: "'MY DEAR SIR: The result of the election in Massachusetts is matter of devout and grateful feelings to every good citizen, and, so far as pride is allowable, is a subject of pride to every citizen, whatever his politics; for, wherever he goes, and carries the evidence of belonging to the old Bay State, he may be sure of the respect of all parties. This glorious result has not been wrought "without works;" and for it we, the people, are greatly indebted to your committee. So far as may be needed, I trust you will find no backwardness on our part in putting matters right. I bless God for sparing my life to this time; and I humbly beseech him to crown your labors with success in future. If Texas can be kept off, there will be hope for our government. All other questions are insignificant in comparison with this. The damning sin of adding it to this nation to extend slavery will be as certain to destroy us as death is to overtake us. The false step, once taken, cannot be retraced, and will be to the people who occupy what rum is to the toper. It eats up and uproots the very foundation on which Christian nations are based, and will make us the scorn of all Christendom. Let us work, then, in a Christian spirit, as we would for our individual salvation, to prevent this sad calamity befalling us.'" CHAPTER XXII. DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER.--LETTERS.--DONATION TO WILLIAMS COLLEGE.--BENEFICENCE.--LETTERS. On the 29th of November, Mr. Lawrence addressed to his son a most joyous letter, announcing the birth of twin-grand daughters, and the comfortable health of his daughter, the wife of the Rev. Charles Mason, Rector of St. Peter's Church, at Salem, Massachusetts. The letter is filled with the most devout expressions of gratitude at the event, and cheering anticipations for the future, and yet with some feelings of uneasiness lest the strength of his daughter should not be sufficient to sustain her in these trying circumstances. He adds: "Why, then, should I worry myself, about what I cannot help, and practically distrust that goodness that sustains and cheers and enlivens my days?" The fears expressed were too soon and sadly realized; the powers of her constitution had been too severely taxed, nature gave way, and, four days afterwards, she ceased to live. Mr. Lawrence announced the death of this cherished and only daughter in the following letter: "BOSTON, December 14, 1844. "MY DEAR SON: The joyous event I mentioned of S.'s twins has in it sad memorials of the uncertainty of all joys, excepting those arising from the happiness of friends whose journey is ended, and whose joys are commencing. Long life does not consist in many years, but in the use of the years allowed us; so that many a man who has seen his four-score has, for all the purposes of life, not lived at all. And, again, others, who have impressed distinct marks, and have been called away before twenty-eight years have passed over them, may have lived long lives, and have been objects of grateful interest to multitudes who hardly spoke to them while living. Such has been the case with our hearts' love and desire, Susan Mason. The giving birth to those two babes, either of whom would have been her pride and delight, was more than she could recruit from. The exhaustion and faintness at the time were great, but not alarming; and the joy of our hearts for a season seemed unmixed. After three days, the alarm for her safety had taken stronger hold of her other friends than of myself; and, at the time I wrote you last, I felt strong confidence in her recovery. On Sunday evening, at seven o'clock, a great change came over her, that precluded all hope, and she was told by C. how it was. She seemed prepared for it, was clear in her mind, and, with what little strength she had, sent messages of love. 'Give love to my father, and tell him I hope we shall meet in heaven,' was her graphic and characteristic message; and then she desired C. to lead and guide her thoughts in prayer, which he continued to do for as many as six times, until within the last half-hour of her life. At three o'clock on Monday morning, the 2d instant, her pure spirit passed out of its earthly tenement to its heavenly home, where our Father has called her to be secured from the trials and pains and exposures to which she was here liable. It is a merciful Father, who knows better than we do what is for our good. What is now mysterious will be made plain at the right time; for 'He doeth all things well.' Shall we, then, my dear children, doubt him in this? Surely not. S. was ripe for heaven, and, as a good scholar, has passed on in advance of her beloved ones; but beckons us on, to be reünited, and become joint heirs with her of those treasures provided for those who are found worthy. We are now to think of her as on the other side of Jordan, before the same altar that we worship at, without any of the alloy that mixes in ours; she praising, and we praying, and all hoping an interest in the Beloved that shall make all things seem less than nothing in comparison with this. We have had the sympathy of friends; and the circumstances have brought to light new friends, that make us feel our work here is not done. I feel called two ways at once: S. beckoning me to come up; the little ones appealing to the inmost recesses of my heart to stay, and lead them, with an old grandfather's fondest, strongest, tenderest emotions, as the embodiment of my child. Her remains are placed at the head of her mother's; and those two young mothers, thus placed, will speak to their kindred with an eloquence that words cannot. I try to say, in these renewed tokens of a Father's discipline, 'Thy will be done,' and to look more carefully after my tendency to have some idol growing upon me that is inconsistent with that first place _he_ requires; and I further try to keep in mind, that, if I loved S. much, _he_ loved her more, and has provided against the changes she was exposed to under the best care I could render. Let us praise God for her long life in a few years, and profit by the example she has left. The people of her own church are deeply afflicted, and not until her death were any of us aware of the strong hold she had upon them. Some touching incidents have occurred, which are a better monument to her memory than any marble that can be reared. * * * * "This morning opens most splendidly, and beautifully illustrates, in the appearance of the sky, that glorious eternity so much cherished in the mind of the believer. "With sincerest affection, your father, A. L." "TREMONT-STREET, Tuesday morning. "DEAR PARTNERS: The weather is such as to keep me housed to-day, and it is important to me to have something to think of beside myself. The sense of loss will press upon me more than I desire it, without the other side of the account. All is ordered in wisdom and in mercy; and we pay a poor tribute to our Father and best Friend in distrusting him. I do most sincerely hope that I may say, from the heart, 'Thy will be done.' Please send me a thousand dollars by G., in small bills, thus enabling me to fill up the time to some practical purpose. It is a painful thought to me that I shall see my beloved daughter no more on earth; but it is a happy one to think of joining her in heaven. Yours, ever, A. L. "A. & A. LAWRENCE & CO." On the last day of 1844, a date now to be remembered by his friends as that on which his own departure took place, eight years later, he writes to his children in France: "This last day of the year seems to have in it such tokens and emblems as are calculated to comfort and encourage the youthful pilgrim, just in his vigor, not less than the old one, near the end of his journey; for the sun in the heavens, the hills in the west, and the ocean on the east, all speak, in tones not to be mistaken, 'Be of good courage,' 'Work while it is day,' and receive, without murmuring, the discipline a Father applies; for he knows what is best for his children. Whether he plants thorns in the path, or afflicts them in any way, he does all for their good. Thus, my dear children, are we to view the removal of our beloved S. This year had been one of unusual prosperity and enjoyment, from the first day to the present month; and all seemed so lovely here that there was danger of our feeling too much reliance on these temporals. The gem in the centre has been removed, to show us the tenure by which we held the others." At the opening of the year 1845, Mr. Lawrence, after noting in his property-book the usual annual details, makes the following reflections: "The business of the past year has been eminently successful, and the increased value of many of the investments large. In view of these trusts, how shall we appear when the Master calls? I would earnestly strive to keep constantly in mind the fact that he _will_ call, and that speedily, upon each and all of us; and that, when he calls, the question will be, How have you used these? not How much have you hoarded?" With the new year, he set himself at work with renewed zeal to carry into effect his good resolutions. One of the first results was a donation of ten thousand dollars to Williams College, which he enters upon his book with the following memorandum: "I am so well satisfied with the appropriations heretofore made for the advancement and improvement of Williams College that I desire to make further investment in the same, to the amount of ten thousand dollars. In case any new professorship is established in the college, I should be gratified to have it called the Hopkins Professorship, entertaining, as I do, the most entire confidence and respect for its distinguished President." Nearly every day, at this period, bears some record of his charities; and among others was a considerable donation to a Baptist college, in another State, enclosed to a Baptist clergyman in Boston, with a check of fifty dollars for himself, to enable him to take a journey for recruiting his health and strength, of which he was much in need. Soon after Mr. Lawrence's death, an article appeared in an influential religious publication giving an estimate of the amount of his charities, and also stating that his pocket-book had written upon it a text of Scripture, calculated to remind him of his duties in the distribution of his wealth. The text was said to be, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" After making diligent search, the editor of this volume, rather to correct the statement in regard to the amount of his charities than for any other object, contradicted the assertion, and also expressed the opinion that Mr. Lawrence needed no such memorial as this to remind him of his duties; for the law of charity was too deeply graven on his heart to require the insertion of the text in the manner described. Some time afterward, an old pocket-book was found, which had not probably been in use for many years, but which contained the text alluded to, inscribed in ink, though faded from the lapse of time and constant use. It may have been useful to him in early years, before he engaged systematically in the work of charity; but, during the latter years of his life, if we can judge from his writings, as well as from his daily actions, his sense of accountability was extreme, if there can be an extreme in the zealous performance of one's duty in this respect. If the class of politicians alluded to in the following extract could have foreseen the course of events with the same sagacity, it might have saved them from much uncertainty, and have been of service in their career: "We are in a poor way, politically, in this country. This practice of taking up demagogues for high office is no way to perpetuate liberty. The new party of Native Americans is likely to go forward, and will break up the Whig party, and where it will stop is to be learned." "_March 1._--Spring opens upon us this morning with a frowning face; the whole heaven is veiled, and the horizon dark and lowering." "_May 7._--My venerated mother finished her earthly course last Friday, with the setting sun, which was emblematic of her end. She was such a woman as I am thankful to have descended from. Many interesting circumstances connected with her life, before and after her marriage (in July, 1777), are worth recording. She was in her ninetieth year." (TO HIS SON.) "April 30 "I began a record yesterday morning, referring to my position and duties thirty-eight years ago, when I left my father's house (one week after I was free), with less than twenty dollars in my possession. I came an unknown and unfriended young man, but feeling richer the morning after I came than I have ever felt since; so that I gave the man who came with me, in my father's chaise, a couple of dollars to save him from any expense, and insure him against loss, by his spending two days on the journey, for which he was glad of an excuse. Had he been as industrious and temperate and frugal, he would have left his wife and children independent, instead of leaving them poor and dependent. These contrasts, and the duties they impose, have pressed heavily upon my strength for a few days past; and, in endeavoring to place in a clear view my hopes and wishes, I became pressed down, and, since yesterday, have been upon my abstinence remedy. My wish has been to do a good work for our Athenæum and our Institution for Savings, by making it the interest of the Savings Institution to sell their building to the Athenæum, so that a handsome and convenient building may be erected while we are about it. To this end, I have offered to supply the beautiful temple built for the Washington Bank, rent free, for one year, or a longer period to the end of time, while used as a Savings Bank; intending, by this, to express to those who deposit their money there that I feel deeply interested in their welfare, and would earnestly impress upon them the importance of saving, and, when they become rich, of spending for the good of their fellow-mortals the surplus which a bountiful Father in heaven allows them to acquire. This surplus with me, at the present time, will be sufficient to allow me to speak with earnestness, sincerity, and power, to the tens of thousands of industrious _Thomases_ and _Marthas_,[8] as well as to the young mechanics, or the youngsters who have had little sums deposited for their education. All these characters appreciate a kind act as fully as those who move in a different sphere in the world. "7 P. M.--I have just learned that there is some difficulty not easily overcome in this removal of the Bank; and, after all, nothing may come out of my offer. If not, I shall have more spare means for something else." [8] Names of two faithful domestics. The value of the building thus offered was about twenty thousand dollars. Owing to the difficulties alluded to in the preceding letter, the offer was declined, though the motive for the act was fully appreciated. (TO A FRIEND.) "MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment learned the death of your dear boy J. L., and am with you in spirit in this trying scene. Our Father adapts his discipline to our needs; and in this (although to our weak perception it may seem harsh discipline) he has a Father's love and care of and for you; and the time will come when all will be made clear to you. In this trust and confidence, I hope both your dear wife and self will be able to say from the heart, 'Thy will be done.' Our business in this world is to prepare for another; and, if we act wisely, we shall view aright the calls upon us to make this world our great object, by attaining its honors, its houses, its lands, its praises for generosity, disinterestedness, and divers other things that pass well among men. Where we hope to be welcomed, temptations are not needed. We pray, therefore, to be accepted, through the Beloved, and so make all things work together to help us safely through our course. Yours ever, A. L." To the agent of a manufactory in which he was largely interested he writes: "We must make a good thing out of this establishment, unless you ruin us by working on Sundays. Nothing but works of necessity should be done in holy time; and I am a firm believer in the doctrine that a blessing will more surely follow those exertions which are made with reference to our religious obligations, than upon those made without such reference. The more you can impress your people with a sense of religious obligation, the better they will serve you." CHAPTER XXIII. LETTER FROM DR. SHARP.--ILLNESS AND DEATH OF SON.--LETTERS.--AFFLICTIONS. The Rev. Dr. Sharp, of the Baptist denomination, who has been previously alluded to as a valued friend of Mr. Lawrence, had made a visit to England, the land of his birth, after an absence of forty years, and thus addresses him from Leeds, July 1: "I esteem it one of the happy events of my life that I have been made personally acquainted with you. Not certainly because of your kind benefactions to me and mine, but because I have enjoyed your conversation, and have been delighted with those manifestations of principle and conduct, which, let them grow under what Christian culture they may, I know how to honor, to knowledge, and to love." The same gentleman writes, shortly afterwards: "I thank you for the kind manner in which you express yourself in regard to my occasional sermons. I never had any taste for controversy, nor for theological speculation; although, as a Christian watchman, I have kept myself informed of the religious opinions that have been, and that are. I thank you, as does my dear wife, for your thoughtful concern of the sacred spot so dear both to my recollections and hopes. There, when life's journey is ended, I hope to rest by the side of those whose company and unfailing affection have gladdened so many of my years; and it has given me a subdued pleasure, when I have thought that my own bed of death would be so near that of the kind and gentle-hearted friend who provided me with mine. May all who shall repose near that interesting spot be imbued with a pure and loving Christian spirit, that, when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall arise, we may all rise together in glorious forms, to be forever with the Lord!" (TO ONE OF HIS PARTNERS.) "Tremont-street, September 30, 1845. "DEAR MR. PARKER: I am buoyant and afloat again, and able to enjoy the good things you are so liberal in providing. The widow's box of ointment was broken before its value was learned. The sermon is significant and practical. I would be thankful to improve under its teaching. Will you send me two thousand dollars this morning in Mr. Sharp's clean money? thus allowing me the opportunity of expressing my gratitude to a merciful Father above, that he still permits me to administer the good things he has intrusted to me. Dear R. had a quiet night, although he did not sleep much during the first part. This experience is, indeed, the most trying; but I hope to be able to say truly, 'Thy will be done.' Your friend, "A. L. "C. H. PARKER, Esq." The trying experience alluded to was the serious illness of his youngest son, Robert, then a member of Harvard College. He had for some time been troubled by a cough, which had now become alarming, and excited the worst apprehensions of his friends. In relation to this sickness, he writes several letters to his son, from which the following extracts are made: "October 15 "We are in great anguish of spirit on account of dear R. We are getting reconciled to parting with the dear child, and to feel that he has done for us what any parents might feel thankful for, by living a good life, and in nineteen years giving us no cause to wish any one of them blotted out. If now called away, he will have lived a long life in a few years, and will be spared the trials and sufferings that flesh is heir to, and will be gathered like early fruit, before the blight or frost or mildew has marked it." "October 29. "R. remains gradually failing with consumption, but without much suffering, and perfectly aware of his situation. He never appeared so lovely as he has on his sick bed; so that his happy spirit and resignation, without a complaint or a wish that anything had been done differently, keep us as happy as we can be under such a weight of apprehension that we may so soon part with him. He asked me yesterday what I should write to you about him. I told him I should say that he was very sick, and might never be any better; but that he might also be better if the great Physician saw best, as it is only for him to speak, and the disease would be cured. If he were taken before me, I told him, it would be, I hoped, to welcome me to the company of the loved ones of our kindred and friends who have gone before, and to the society of angels and just men made perfect, who compose the great congregation that are gathered there from all the world, that God's love, through Christ, has redeemed. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son to redeem it from sin; and his teachings should not be lost on us, while we have power to profit by them. In this spirit, we talked of the good men whose writings have an influence in helping on this good work; and especially we talked of Dr. Doddridge, and his 'Rise and Progress.' "P. M.--I have been with M. to Brookline since writing the above. The falling leaves teach a beautiful lesson. The green leaf, the rose, the cypress, now enclosed to you, and all from your grounds, are instructive. These were cut within the last two hours." "November 1. "Dear R. had a trying day yesterday, and we thought might not continue through the night. He is still alive, and may continue some time; was conscious and clear in his mind after he revived yesterday; feels ready and willing and hoping to be with his Saviour." "November 14. "We toil for treasure through our years of active labor, and, when acquired, are anxious to have it well secured against the time when we or our children may have need of it; and we feel entire confidence in this security. We allow the common flurries of the world to pass by without disturbing our quiet or comfort essentially. What treasure of a temporal character is comparable with a child who is everything a Christian parent could desire, and who is just coming into mature life universally respected and beloved, and who is taken before any cloud or spot has touched him, and who has left bright and clear marks upon those who have come within his sphere of influence? Such was R. The green earth of Mount Auburn covers his mortal remains; the heavens above have his immortal; he was a ripe child of God, and I therefore feel that blessed assurance of entire security which adds another charm to that blessed company to which I hope, through mercy, to be admitted in our Father's own good time. This early death of our beloved youngest comes upon us as an additional lesson, necessary, without doubt, to prepare us for our last summons; and the reasons which now seem mysterious will be fully understood, and will show us that our good required this safe keeping of this treasure, so liable to be made our idol. R. had passed the dangerous period of his college life without blemish, and was only absent from prayers three times (which were for good cause), and had a settled purpose, from the beginning of his college life, so to conduct in all respects as to give his parents no cause for anxiety; and, for the last year, I have felt perfectly easy in regard to him. We have visited his grave to-day. The teachings there are such as speak to the heart with an eloquence that language cannot. Dear S. and R.! She the only daughter, he the only son of his mother! and both placed there since you left!" "November 22. "President H., in a letter a few days before I wrote to you, had this sentiment: 'The old oak, shorn of its green branches, is more liable to decay.' Applying this to the old oak fronting the graves of those loved ones who have passed on, the outspread branches of which make the spot more lovely, I was more deeply impressed than mere words could have impressed me. A few months after the death of S., a violent storm tore off a main limb of the old oak about midway between the ground and the top, in such way as to mar its beauty, and endanger its life. The limb fell upon the graves, but avoided the injury to the monuments which might have been expected. Since then, I noticed that some of the lower limbs cast a sort of blight or mildew upon the pure white of your mother's monument, and they required dressing. I desired the 'master' to do this, and also to come and heal the wound occasioned by the loss of this main limb on that side of the tree. The trimming out was done at once; the other was left undone until the request was renewed. On my visit there last week, I discovered, for the first time, that the wound had been healed, and the body of the tree appeared smooth, and of its natural color, and its health such as to give good hope that its other branches will spread out their shade more copiously than before. What a lesson was here! The appeal was to the heart; and, in my whole life, I remember none more eloquent. To-day I have been to Mount Auburn again; and the spot seems to be none other than the gate of heaven.'" "December 22. "Twenty-five years ago this morning, I came home from Plymouth, where I had spent the night previous, and heard Webster's great address. He has never done anything to surpass it; and it now is a model and a text for the youth of our country. The people who then were present are principally taken hence; and the consideration of how the time allowed has been spent, and how it now fares with us, is of deep interest. God in mercy grant us to act our part so as to meet his approval, when called to answer for the trust in our hands! I have thought of the emblem of the 'old oak,' till it has assumed a beauty almost beyond anything in nature; and, if I live to see the fresh leaves of spring spreading their covering over the head of the stranger or the friend who may stop under its shade, I will have a sketch of the spot painted, if the right person can be found. There is in the spot and scene a touching eloquence that language can scarcely communicate. The dear child's expressive look, and motion of his finger, when he said 'I am going up,' will abide with me while I live. The dealings of a Father with me have been marked, but ofttimes mysterious for a season. Now many things are clear; and all others will be, I trust, when I am fitted to know them." (TO HIS GRANDSON.) "BOSTON, December 30, 1845. "MY DEAR F.: Your charming letter of 28th November reached me by last steamer, and showed, in a practical way, how important the lessons of childhood are to the proper performance of the duties of manhood. It carried me back to the time when my own mother taught me, and, from that period, forward through the early lessons inculcated upon your father, and especially to the time when he began to write me letters, which I always encouraged him in, and thus formed a habit which has been the best security for our home affections that can be devised when separated from those most dear to us. If the prayers and labors of your ancestors are answered by your good progress and good conduct in the use of the privileges you enjoy, you will come forth a better and more useful man than any of the generations preceding; for you enjoy advantages that none of us have enjoyed. My heart beats quicker and stronger whenever I think of you; and my prayers ascend for you at all hours, and through every scene connecting us. Last Saturday, I had the first sleigh-ride of the season. The day was beautiful; and there was just snow enough to make the sleigh run smoothly. I visited Mount Auburn; and the day and place, the 'old oak' standing in front of our graves leafless and apparently almost lifeless, spoke to me a language as intelligible as if utterance had been given in sounds. I thought of you, dear F., as my eldest grandson, and in a manner the representative of the family to future times, and asked myself whether I was doing all I ought to make you feel the force of your trusts. There lie the mortal parts of your dear aunt and uncle, both placed there since you left home; and the spirits of both, I trust, are now rejoicing with the multitude of the beloved ones, whose work here is well done, and whom the Saviour has bid to 'come unto him,' and through whom they hoped to be accepted. Dear R. seems to call to us to 'come up;' and, whether I ever see you again or not, I pray you never to forget that he was such an uncle as you might well feel anxious to copy in your conduct to your parents; for he had a settled principle to do nothing to cause his parents anxiety. So, if you see your young companions indulging in any evil practices which may lead to bad habits, avoid them; for prevention is better than remedy. When you stand near the 'old oak,' whether its branches are green with shady leaves, or dry from natural decay, let it speak to your conscience, 'Come up,' and receive the reward promised to the faithful. "Ever your affectionate grandfather, A. L." The year 1845 closed with many sad recollections; and nearly every letter written at this period dwells upon the mournful events which had marked its course. In one letter, he says, "Death has cut right and left in my family." In a little more than twelve months, ten of his own immediate family and near connections were removed, and most of them when least expected. Although bowed down, and penetrated with grief at each successive blow, there was a deep-seated principle in Mr. Lawrence's heart, which made him rise above them all, and receive each call in that spirit of submission which the Christian faith alone can give. His own sorrows seemed only to augment his sympathy for the woes of others, and to excite him to renewed efforts in the great cause of charity and truth, to which he had consecrated every talent he possessed. In this spirit he makes an entry in his memorandum-book on the first day of the opening year. CHAPTER XXIV. EXPENDITURES.--LETTERS.--DONATION FOR LIBRARY AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE.--VIEWS ON STUDY OF ANATOMY. "_January 1, 1846._--The business of the past year has been very prosperous in our country; and my own duties seem more clearly pointed out than ever before. What am I left here for, and the young branches taken home? Is it not to teach me the danger of being unfaithful to my trusts? Dear R. taken! the delight of my eyes, a treasure secured! which explains better than in any other way what my Father sees me in need of. I hope to be faithful in applying some of my trusts to the uses God manifestly explains to me by his dealings. I repeat, 'Thy will be done.'" That his trusts, so far as the use of his property was concerned, were faithfully performed, may be inferred from the fact that, in July, or at the termination of the half-year, in making up his estimate of income and expenditures, he remarks that the latter are nearly twenty thousand dollars in advance of the former. Mr. Lawrence was often much disturbed by the publicity which attended his benevolent operations. There are, perhaps, thousands of the recipients of his favors now living, who alone are cognizant of his bounty towards themselves; but when a public institution became the subject of his liberality, the name of the donor could not so easily be concealed. The following letter will illustrate the mode which he sometimes was obliged to adopt to avoid that publicity; and it was his custom not unfrequently to contribute liberally to objects of charity through some person on whom he wished the credit of the donation to fall. (TO PRESIDENT HOPKINS.) "BOSTON, Jan. 26, 1846. "MY DEAR FRIEND: Since Saturday, I have thought much of the best mode of helping your college to a library building without getting into the newspapers, and have concluded that you had better assume the responsibility of building it; and, if anybody objects that you can't afford it, you may say you have friends whom you hope to have aid from; and I will be responsible to you for the cost to an amount not exceeding five thousand dollars; so that you may feel at liberty to prepare such a building as you will be satisfied with, and which will do credit to your taste and judgment fifty years hence. If I am taken before this is finished, which must be this year, my estate will be answerable, as I have made an entry in my book, stating the case. I had written a longer story, after you left me, on Saturday evening, but have laid it aside to hand you this, with best wishes, and that all may be done 'decently and in order.' I will pay a thousand or two dollars whenever it is wanted for the work. "Your friend, A. L." Mr. Lawrence had read in the newspapers the memorial to Congress of Mrs. Martha Gray, widow of Captain Robert Gray, the well-known navigator, who discovered, first entered, and gave its present name to the Columbia River. Captain Gray had been in the naval service of his country; and his widow, who had survived him for forty years, amidst many difficulties and struggles for support, petitioned for a pension, in consideration of the important discovery, and for the services rendered by her husband. Mr. Lawrence sent to Mrs. Gray a memorial of his regard, with the following note: "As a token of respect to the widow of one whose name and fame make a part of the property of every American who has a true heart, will Mrs. Gray accept the accompanying trifle from one, who, though personally unknown, felt her memorial to Congress through every nerve, and will hope to be allowed the pleasure of paying his respects in person when his health permits." About the same date, he says to President Hopkins: "I am happily employed, these days, in administering upon my own earnings, and have hope of hearing soon from you and your good work. I am still on my good behavior, but have been able to chat a little with Mr. D., and administer to His Excellency Governor Briggs, who has had a severe trial of fever and ague. On Saturday he rode an hour with me, and returned with his face shortened considerably. I can only say to you that I believe I am left here to do something more to improve and help on the brethren and sons who have more mind and less money than I have; but the precise way to do it is not so clear to me as it may be by and by." After receiving the proposed plan of the library which he had authorized to be built at Williams College, Mr. Lawrence writes to the same, on May 15: "I left off, after a brief note to you, three hours since, furnishing you a text on epicureanism to preach from, which I trust will find favor and use. "What think you? Why, that I am interfering in your business. When I awoke this morning, thinks I to myself, My friend won't have elbow-room in the centre of his octagon; and, as there is plenty of land to build upon, he may as well make his outside to outside fifty feet as forty-four feet, and thus give himself more space in the centre. The alcoves appear to me to be very nice; and, in the matter of expense, my young friend A. L. H. will see to that, to the tune of one or two thousand dollars. So you may feel yourself his representative in acting in this matter." * * * * * "_April 22._--My birth-day! Three-score years old! My life, hanging by a thread for years, and apparently, at times, within a few hours of its close, still continued, while so many around in the prime of life and vigor have been called away!" (TO A FRIEND.) "Tremont-street, April, 1846. "MY FRIEND ----: I have arisen after my siesta, and, as the Quakers say, am moved by the spirit to speak. So you will give what I have to say the value you consider it worth. And, in the first place, I will say, that this period of the year is so full of deeply-interesting memories of the past, that I hardly know where to begin. From my earliest days, the story of the intelligence reaching Groton at ten o'clock on the 19th April, 1775, that the British were coming, was a most interesting one. My father mounted Gen. Prescott's horse, and rode, at a speed which young men even of the present day would think rapid, to the south end of the town, by Sandy Pond, and notified the minute-men to assemble at the centre of the town forthwith. He made a range of seven miles, calling on all the men, and was back at his father's house in forty minutes. At one o'clock, P. M., the company was in readiness to march, and under way to Concord to meet the British. They kept on until they reached Cambridge; but, before that, they had seen and heard all that had been done by the troops sent out to Concord. The plough was left in the field; and my grandfather, with his horse and wagon, brought provisions to his neighbors and his son shortly after. My grandmother on my mother's side, then living in Concord, has described to me over and over again the appearance of the British, as she first saw them coming over the bill from Lincoln, about two miles from the centre of Concord; the sun just rising; and the red coats, glittering muskets, and fearful array, so captivating to us in peace-times, appearing to her as the angel of destruction, to be loathed and hated. She therefore left her house with her children (the house was standing within the last thirty years, and may be now, near the turn to go through Bedford, half a mile or more this side of Concord meeting-house), and went through the fields, and over the hills, to a safe place of retreat. The British, you are aware, on their retreat, had a hard time of it. They were shot down like wild game, and left by the wayside to die or be taken up as it might happen. Three thus left within gun-shot of my grandmother's house were taken up, and died in the course of a very few hours. But what I am coming to is this: Lord Percy, you know, was sent out from Boston with a strong body of troops to protect those first sent out; and, but for this, the whole would have been destroyed or made prisoners. About three years ago, Lord Prudhoe, second son of Lord Percy, was here; and I had considerable delightful intercourse with him. He, as you may well suppose, was deeply interested in all that related to his father; and I met him in the library at Cambridge, where he was very observant of the order and arrangement, and especially of the curious old documents and books, so nicely arranged, touching the early history of the province. After leaving Cambridge, he went to Mr. Cushing's and Mr. Pratt's, at Watertown, and was much interested in all that we in this city are proud of. I had not strength to be devoted to him more than an hour or two at a time, having then some other strangers under my care, belonging to Gov. Colebrooke's family, Lady Colebrooke being a niece of Major André; so that I had only some half-dozen interviews with him, all of which were instructive and interesting." The dissection of human bodies by medical students has always been a subject of deep-rooted prejudice in New England; and, even to this day, it exists in so great a degree that the facilities for this important and absolutely essential branch of instruction are not nearly as great as they should be, nor such as are afforded in the schools of other countries. When these difficulties shall be removed, and the prejudice allayed against the acquisition of a kind of knowledge which it is of the utmost interest to every one that the surgeon and physician shall receive, many young men will remain at home, and acquire that education which, with few exceptions, might be attained here as well as by a resort to foreign schools. In this prejudice Mr. Lawrence could not sympathize, as will be seen in the following extract of a letter to a friend * * * * * "Many years ago, there was a great stir, on account of graves being robbed for subjects for dissection, and some laws were passed: the want became so pressing, that subjects were brought from a long distance, and in a very bad state. Dr. Warren was attending me, and said he had invited the Legislature, then in session, to attend a lecture in the Medical College. He told me he intended to explain the necessity of having fit subjects, he having been poisoned in his lecture to his students a few days before, and was then suffering from it. He invited me also to attend, which I did, and took with me my precious boy R. While lecturing, the doctor had a man's hand, which he had just taken off at the hospital, brought in, nicely wrapped up in a wet cloth, by his son J. M. W., then a youngster. There were present about two hundred representatives; and, as soon as they saw the real hand, two or three fainted nearly away, and a half-dozen or more made their escape from the room. The scene was so striking, that I told Dr. Warren it was a pity that such a prejudice should exist; and, as I was desirous to be of use as far as in my power, and probably should be a good subject for him, I would gladly have him use me in the way to instruct the young men; but to take care of my remains, and have them consumed or buried, unless my bones were kept. I also told him that I desired very much to have this false feeling corrected, and perhaps my example might do something toward it. Some time afterwards, I spoke to ---- upon the subject; but I found it gave pain, and the plan was given up. * * * A. L." "Outward gains are ordinarily attended with inward losses. He indeed is rich in grace whose graces are not hindered by his riches." In a letter, dated June 3, Mr. Lawrence bears testimony to the character and services of the late Louis Dwight, so long and favorably known as the zealous Secretary of the Massachusetts Prison Discipline Society: "I have this moment had an interview with Louis Dwight, who leaves for Europe in two days. My labors and experience with him for nearly a quarter of a century enable me to testify to his ability, and unceasing efforts in the cause." "_May 27, 1846._--The following commentary[9] on the Lectures of the Rev. Dr. ---- accompanied their return to me from one to whom I had loaned the volume. I have now no recollection who the person is; but the words are full, and to the point: "'This sucking the marrow all out of our Bible, and leaving it as dry as a husk, pray what good to man, or honor to God, does that do? If we are going to fling away the old book from which ten thousand thousand men have drawn and are still drawing the life of their souls, then let us stand boldly up, and fling it away, cover and all; unless, indeed, a better way would be to save the boards and gilding, and make a family checker-board of it.'" [9] Supposed to be by Hon. Jeremiah Mason. CHAPTER XXV. DONATION TO LAWRENCE ACADEMY.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH R. G. PARKER.--SLEIGH-RIDES.--LETTERS.--AVERSION TO NOTORIETY.--CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL. Mr. Lawrence had always taken a deep interest in the academy at Groton, of which he, with all his brothers and sisters, had been members. The residence of his former master, James Brazer, Esq., with whom he lived when an apprentice, bordered on the academy grounds. It was a large, square, old-fashioned house, and easily convertible to some useful purpose, whenever the growing prosperity of the institution should require it. He accordingly purchased the estate; and, in July, 1846, presented it to the Board of Trustees by a deed, with the following preamble: "To all persons to whom these presents shall come, I, Amos Lawrence, of the City of Boston, in the County of Suffolk, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Esquire, send greeting: "Born and educated in Groton, in the County of Middlesex, in said Commonwealth, and deeply interested in the welfare of that town, and especially of the Lawrence Academy, established in it by my honored father, Samuel Lawrence, and his worthy associates, and grateful for the benefits which his and their descendants have derived from that institution, I am desirous to promote its future prosperity; trusting that those charged with the care and superintendence of it will ever strive zealously and faithfully to maintain it as a nursery of piety and sound learning." This had been preceded by a donation of two thousand dollars, with smaller gifts, at various dates, of valuable books, a telescope, etc., besides the foundation of several free scholarships. The present prosperity of the academy is, however, mainly due to his brother, William Lawrence, who has been by far its greatest benefactor; having, in 1844, made a donation of ten thousand dollars, followed by another, in 1846, of five thousand, and, finally, by will, bequeathed to it the sum of twenty thousand. The following memoranda are copied from Mr. Lawrence's donation-book: "_August 20, 1847._--I have felt a deep interest in Groton Academy for a long time; and while brother L. was living, and its president, he had it in charge to do what should be best to secure its greatest usefulness, and, while perfecting these plans, he was suddenly taken from this world. Since then, I have kept on doing for it; which makes my outlay for the school about twenty thousand dollars. I had prepared ten thousand dollars more, which brother William has assumed, and has taken the school upon himself, to give it such facilities as will make it a very desirable place for young men to enter to get a good preparation for business or college life." In an address[10] delivered at the jubilee celebration of the Lawrence Academy, held in Groton, July 12, 1854, the Rev. James Means, a former preceptor of the Institution, thus speaks of the benefactions of the two brothers: "It was my good fortune, after becoming the preceptor, in 1845, to have frequent intercourse with them in this particular regard,--the interests of the school. I shall never forget the impression made upon my mind by the depth of their feeling, and the strength of their attachment. They were both of them men of business; had been trained to business habits, and would not foolishly throw away the funds which God had intrusted to them as stewards. But it seemed to me then, as the event has proved, that they were willing to go as far as they could see their way clear before them to establish this school on a foundation that never should be shaken. "There was a singular difference in the character of these two brothers, and there is a similar difference in the results of their benefactions. I have reason personally to know that they conferred frequently and earnestly respecting the parts which they should severally perform in upbuilding this school. There was an emulation; but there was no selfishness, there was no difference of opinion. Both loved the academy, both wished to bless it and make it a blessing; each desired to accommodate the feelings of the other, each was unwilling to interfere with the other, each was ready to do what the other declined. Out of more than forty-five thousand dollars provided for the academy by Mr. William Lawrence, forty thousand still remain in the hands of the trustees for purposes of instruction. Of the library Mr. Amos Lawrence says, in one of his letters: 'I trust it will be second to no other in the country except that of Cambridge, and that the place will become a favorite resort of students of all ages before another fifty years have passed away. When he presented a cabinet of medals, he writes, 'I present them to the Institution in the name of my grandsons, F. W. and A. L., in the hope and expectation of implanting among their early objects of regard this school, so dear to us brothers of the old race, and which was more dear to our honored father, who labored with his hands, and gave from his scanty means, in the beginning, much more in proportion than we are required to do, if we place it at the head of this class of institutions, by furnishing all it can want.'" [10] See account of Jubilee of Lawrence Academy. At the same celebration, the Hon. John P. Bigelow, president of the day, in his opening address, said: "Charles Sprague, so loved and so honored as a man and a poet, was an intimate friend of the lamented William and Amos Lawrence. I invited him hither to-day. He cannot come, but sends a minstrel's tribute to their memory, from a harp, which, till now, has been silent for many years. 'These, these no marble columns need: Their monument is in the deed; A moral pyramid, to stand As long as wisdom lights the land. The granite pillar shall decay, The chisel's beauty pass away; But this shall last, in strength sublime, Unshaken through the storms of time.'" On July 15, Mr. Lawrence made a considerable donation of books to the Johnson School for girls, accompanied by a note to R. G. Parker, Esq., the Principal, from which the following extract is taken: "The sleigh-ride comes to me as though daguerreotyped, and I can hardly realize that I am here to enjoy still further the comfort that I then enjoyed. If the pupils of your school at that time were gratified, I was more than satisfied, and feel myself a debtor to your school of this day; and, in asking you to accept, for the use of the five hundred dear girls who attend upon your instruction, such of the books accompanying as you think proper for them, I only pay a debt which I feel to be justly due. The Johnson School is in my own district; and many a time, as I have passed it in my rides, have I enjoyed the appropriate animation and glee they have manifested in their gambols and sports during their intermission, and have felt as though I would gladly be among them to encourage them. Say to them, although personally unknown, I have looked on, and felt as though I wanted to put my hand upon their heads, and give them a word of counsel, encouragement, and my blessing. This is what I am left here for; and, when the Master calls, if I am only well enough prepared to pass examination, and receive the 'Well done' promised to such as are faithful, then I may feel that all things here are less than nothing in comparison to the riches of the future." The allusion to the sleigh-ride was called forth by a note received from Mr. Parker a day or two before, in which that gentleman writes: "As you have not the credit of a very good memory, so far as your own good actions are concerned, it will be proper that I should remind you that the occasion to which I refer was the time that the pupils of the Franklin School were about enjoying a sleigh-ride, from which pleasure a large number were excluded. On that occasion, as you were riding by, you were induced to inquire the reason of the exclusion of so many sad little faces; and, on learning that their inability to contribute to the expense of the excursion would cause them to be left behind, you very generously directed that all should be furnished with seats, and a draft made upon you for the additional expense." To a fondness for children, there seemed to be united in Mr. Lawrence a constant desire to exert an influence upon the youthful mind; and rarely was the opportunity passed over, when, by a word of advice or encouragement, or the gift of an appropriate book, he thought he could effect his object. His person was well known to the boys and girls who passed him in the streets; and, in the winter season, his large, open sleigh might often be seen filled with his youthful friends, whom he had allowed to crowd in to the utmost capacity of his vehicle. The acquaintances thus made would often, by his invitation, call to see him at his residence, and there would receive a kind notice, joined with such words of encouragement and advice as could not sometimes fail to have a lasting and beneficial influence. "_August 2._--'Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.'--Luke 16:2. "How ought this to be sounded in our ears! and how ought we to be influenced by the words! Surely there can be no double meaning here. The words are emphatic, clear, and of vast concern to every man. Let us profit by them while it is day, lest the night overtake us, when we can no longer do the work of the day." On the 22d of August, Mr. Lawrence sent a cane to Governor Briggs, at Pittsfield, with the following inscription graven upon it: FROM THE "OLD OAK" OF MOUNT AUBURN: +A Memento of Loved Ones gone before+. AMOS LAWRENCE TO GEORGE N. BRIGGS. 1846. The cane was accompanied by the following note: "MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter of Monday last came, as all your letters do, just right as a comforter through a feeble week; for I have been confined to the house, and unable to speak above a whisper, most of the time, and am still not allowed to talk or work much. The corresponding week of the last year, when our precious R. was your guest, comes over my mind and heart, at all hours of the night and the day, in a manner I need not attempt to describe to _you_; and it is only distressing when I see the suffering of his dear mother. But we feel that he is now the guest of the Supreme Governor, whose care and kindness takes from him all that can interrupt his perfect happiness through all time; and this surely ought to satisfy us. The good opinion of good men you know how to value, and can therefore judge how much I prize yours. Acting upon the public mind for good as you do, the memorial from the old oak will not be without its use in your instruction and advice to the young, whose special improvement and safety you have so much at heart. The cane is a part of the same branch as that sent to President H., and came to me since noon to-day. Accept it with assurances of continued and increased affection and respect. Most sincerely yours, "A. L." "_August 28._--Called at ---- shop, Washington-street, and there saw a nice-looking boy seventeen or eighteen years old, named T. S., to whom I gave a word of good counsel and encouragement. Shall look after him a little, as I like his manners." "_August 29._--A woman writes a figuring letter, calling herself S. M.; says she is sixty years old; has lost her sons, and wants help; came from New Hampshire. Also, N. T. wants aid to study, or something else. Also, a Mr. F., with a great share of hair on his face, gold ring, and chains, wants to travel for his health; has a wife and child. Those three cases within twenty-four hours are very forbidding." In a letter of advice to a young gentleman who was a stranger to him, but who through a mutual friend had asked his opinion on a matter of business, he writes, on Sept. 19th: "Your letter of the 17th is a flattering token of confidence and respect, that I wish were better merited. Such as I am, I am at your service; _but there is nothing of me_. I have been stricken down within a few days, and am hardly able to stand up. A kind Father keeps me vigilant by striking without notice, and when least expected; and on some one of these occasions I am to close the account of my stewardship, and no matter when, if the accounts are right. I cannot advise you except in one particular: Do with your might what your hands find to do; spend no man's money but your own, and look carefully after little items that tempt you." The notoriety attendant upon acts of beneficence which Mr. Lawrence instinctively shrunk from, and which so often deters the sensitive from the good acts which, without this penalty, they would gladly perform, was, as has before been stated, a subject of serious annoyance. This is illustrated by the following note, written to Mr. Parker, the Principal of the Johnson School for girls: "October 2, 1846. "I hope to send a few volumes to help forward the young guides of the mind and heart of the sons of New England, wherever they may be; for it is the mothers who act upon their sons more than all others. I hope to be felt as long as I am able, to work, and am quite as vain as I ought to be of my name and fame, but am really afraid I shall wear out my welcome if my little paragraphs are printed so frequently in the newspapers. I gave some books last Monday, and saw them acknowledged yesterday in the newspaper, and since have received the letter from the children. Now, my dear sir, I merely want to say, that I hope you will not put me in the newspaper at present; and, when my work is done here, if you have anything to say about me that will not hurt my children and grandchildren, _say on_." A few days afterwards, Mr. Lawrence received a letter from the parties to whom the books above alluded to had been sent, inquiring if he could suggest the name of some benevolent individual, to whom application might be made for aid in furthering the objects of the Association. He writes: "In reply to yours of to-day, I know of no one, but must request that my name be not thrust forward, as though I was to be a byword for my vanity. I want to do good, but am sorry to be published, as in the recent case." During the autumn of this year, Mr. Lawrence purchased the large building in Mason-street, which had, for many years, been used as the Medical School of Harvard College, with the intention of founding a charitable hospital for children. He had heard of the manner in which such institutions were conducted in France, and believed that a great benefit would be conferred on the poorer classes by caring for their sick children when their own poverty or occupations prevented their giving them that attention which could be secured in an institution of this kind. The great object was to secure the confidence of that class, and to overcome their repugnance to giving up their children to the care of others. The plan had not been tried in this country; though in France, where there exists a much larger and more needy population, the system was completely successful. Although but an experiment, Mr. Lawrence considered the results which might be obtained of sufficient magnitude to warrant the large outlays required. He viewed it not only as a mode of relieving sickness and suffering, but as a means of exercising a humanizing effect upon those who should come directly under its influence, as well as upon that class of persons generally for whose benefit it was designed. His heart was ever open to the cry of suffering; and he was equally ready to relieve it, whether it came from native or foreigner, bond or free. The building which had been purchased for the object, from its internal arrangement, and from its too confined position, was found less suitable than another, in the southerly part of the city, where an open view and ample grounds were more appropriate for the purpose; while there was no cause for that prejudice which, it was found, existed toward the project in the situation first thought of. With characteristic liberality, Mr. Lawrence offered the Medical College, now not required, to the Boston Society of Natural History at the cost, with a subscription from himself of five thousand dollars. The offer was accepted. An effort was made by the Society to raise by subscription the necessary funds; and the result was their possession of the beautiful building since occupied by their various collections in the different departments of natural history. The large house on Washington-street was soon put in complete repair, suitably furnished, provided with physicians and nurses, and opened as the Children's Infirmary, with accommodations for thirty patients. The following spring was marked by a great degree of mortality and suffering among the emigrant passengers, and consequently the beds were soon occupied by whole families of children, who arrived in the greatest state of destitution and misery. Many cases of ship-fever were admitted; so that several of the attendants were attacked by it, and the service became one of considerable danger. Many now living in comfort attribute the preservation of their life to the timely succor then furnished; and, had no other benefits followed, the good bestowed during the few weeks of spring would have compensated for the labor and cost. This institution continued in operation for about eighteen months, during which time some hundreds of patients were provided for. The prejudices of parents, which had been foreseen, were found to exist, but disappeared with the benefits received; and the whole experiment proved conclusively that such an institution may be sustained in this community with vast benefit to a large class of the suffering; and it is hoped that it may one day lead to an establishment of the kind on a larger scale, and with a more extensive organization and means of usefulness. In this experiment, it was found, from the limited number of beds, that the cost of each patient was much greater than if four times the number had been provided for, and so large that Mr. Lawrence decided that the same amount of money could be made to afford relief to much larger numbers of the same class of sufferers applied in some other way. He was a constant visitor at the Infirmary, and took a deep interest in many of the patients, whose varied history had been recited to him; and in after years, as he passed through the streets, many an eye would brighten as it caught a glimpse of the kind friend who had whispered words of consolation and hope in the lonely hours of sickness. CHAPTER XXVI. CAPTAIN A. S. McKENZIE.--DIARY.--AID TO IRELAND.--MADAM PRESCOTT.--SIR WILLIAM COLEBROOKE. (TO CAPT. ALEXANDER SLIDELL MCKENZIE, U. S. N.) "November 2, 1846. "MY DEAR SIR: I was exceedingly gratified by your kind remembrance of me, a few days since, in sending me a copy of your 'Life of Decatur,' which to its merits as a biography adds the charm of bringing before me my old friend Bainbridge, and the writer, whom I have felt a strong interest in ever since reading his 'Year in Spain;' for my son resided in the same family soon after you left, and made me acquainted with you before I had seen you. I am a 'minute-man' in life, but, while I remain here, shall always be glad to take you by the hand when you visit us. Whether we meet here is of less importance than that our work be done, and be said by the Master to be well done, when called off. Respectfully and faithfully yours, "A. L." "_December 17._--Thirty-nine years have passed since my first entry in this book; and, in reviewing this period, I have abundant reason to bless God for his great mercies, and especially for continuing us four brothers, engaged as we have been in business, an unbroken band to this day, and for the success attending our labors. We have been blessed more than most men, and have the power, by our right use of these blessings, of benefiting our fellow-men. God grant that the spirits of our parents may be cheered in their heavenly home by our doing the work here that we ought to do! To my descendants I commend this memorial, with the prayer that they may each of them be better than I am." * * * "Fifteen years hence, and the chief interest in us will be found in our Mount Auburn enclosure; and we ought to look well to the comment." As an expression of the feeling here referred to, he purchased a gold box of beautiful workmanship, and forwarded it to his youngest brother, then a resident of Lowell, with the following inscription engraven upon it: "BEHOLD, HOW GOOD AND HOW PLEASANT IT IS FOR BRETHREN TO DWELL TOGETHER IN UNITY!" TO SAMUEL LAWRENCE, FROM HIS BROTHER AMOS. "_December 19._--Rode to-day to the Asylum for the Blind with Major Arthur Lawrence, of the Rifle Brigade, British Army, and had a very interesting visit. Dr. Howe very attentive; and Laura Bridgman and Oliver Caswell both appeared well." "_December 27._--Rev. Mr. Rogers said to-day, 'Gold is not the coin of heaven: if it had been, Christ would have been rich; but he was a poor man.'" "_January 1, 1847._--In July last, I had spent the advance of my income, but am thankful now to be able to state the case differently, being in the receipt of ample means to be a comfort to the needy." From the various entries quoted in his Diary, it will be inferred that Mr. Lawrence's means for charitable distribution varied considerably in amount from year to year. To explain this difference, it may not be amiss to state here, that he had, from the first efforts to establish home manufactures in New England, taken a deep interest in their success, and had consequently invested a large proportion of his property in the various manufacturing corporations which had been built up in Lowell and other towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The great fluctuations in this department of industry are known to every one; for, while the returns of one year would be ample, those of the next year would, from embarrassments in the commercial world, or from some other cause, be little or nothing. "_January 8._--T. R. and S. J., two Englishmen in the employ of J. C., mended our pump to-day. I gave them some books and a word of counsel, and hope to observe their progress." "_February 15._--T. J. called, and is to embark to-morrow, on his way to the war in Mexico. He asked me to give him money to buy a pistol, which I declined, as I could not wish them success in Mexico; but gave him some books, a Bible, and good counsel." During the month of February, an appeal was made to the citizens of Boston in behalf of the famished population of Ireland, and resulted in the sending to that country a large quantity of food and clothing. Mr. Lawrence contributed himself towards the object, and, as was often the case, endeavored to interest others equally with himself. On the 24th of that month, he addressed a note to J. A. Stearns, Esq., Principal of the Mather School, at South Boston, for the pupils of his school composing the Lawrence Association. This Association, comprising a large number of boys and girls, had been formed for moral and intellectual improvement, and had been named in honor of Mr. Lawrence, who had, from its commencement, taken a deep interest in its success, and had often contributed books and money when needed. "Wednesday, March 2. "MY FRIENDS: The value of the offering to suffering Ireland from our city will be enhanced by the numbers contributing, as the offering will do more good as an expression of sympathy than as a matter of relief. The spirit of dear R. seems to speak through your 'Oak Leaf,'[11] and to say, 'Let all who will of the Association subscribe a half-dollar each, and all others a quarter each, for their suffering brethren, and children of a common Father.' A. L. "P. S.--The purses were presents to me, and must be returned. One of them from the lady of Sir John Strachan, herself a descendant of one of our Boston girls; the two open-work ones from ladies in this city. Take from them what is required, and return the balance, if any be left. If more is required, let me know, as I do not know the amount in the purses. "A. L." [11] A little newspaper published by the Association. One hundred and two members of the Association, and four hundred and thirty-eight other members of the school, in all five hundred and forty, availed themselves of the privilege thus offered them, and contributed the sum of one hundred and sixty dollars towards the object. At the church in Brattle-street, a collection was taken in aid of the same object; and, among other contributions, was a twenty-dollar bank-note, with the following attached to it, probably by Mr. Lawrence: "A ship of war to carry bread to the hungry and suffering, instead of powder and ball to inflict more suffering on our brethren,--children of the same Father,--is as it should be; and this is in aid of the plan." Among the most respected and valued friends of Mr. Lawrence was the venerable Madam Prescott, widow of the late Judge William Prescott, and mother of the distinguished historian of "Ferdinand and Isabella." Years seemed rather to quicken her naturally warm sympathies for the distresses of others; and, at the age of more than four-score, she was to be daily seen on foot in the streets, actively engaged upon her errands of mercy. Mr. Lawrence had, the year before, found a small volume, entitled the "Comforts of Old Age," by Sir Thomas Bernard; and had sent it to several of his friends, principally those in advanced age, asking for some record of their experience. His note to Madam Prescott on this subject was as follows. "March 8, 1847. "DEAR MADAM PRESCOTT: I have been a long time anxious to receive a favor from you, and have felt diffident in asking it; but am now at the required state of resolution. The book I send you is so much in character with your own life, that my grandchildren, who love you, will read to their grandchildren your words, written by your own hand in this book, if you will but place them there. I must beg you, my excellent friend, to believe that I am desirous of securing for my descendants some of your precious encouragements in the discipline of life. "Your friend, "AMOS LAWRENCE." The volume was returned with the following record: "BOSTON, March 10, 1847. "MY DEAR SIR: You ask me what are the comforts of old age. I answer, the retrospection of a well-spent life. The man who devotes himself to the cause of humanity, who clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, soothes the sorrows of the afflicted, and comforts the mourner,--whom each rising sun finds in the contemplation of some good deed, and each night closes with the assurance that it has been performed,--surely such a life must be the comfort of an old age. But where shall we find such a man? May I not be permitted to apply the character to my highly valued and respected friend, whose charities are boundless, and who daily dispenses blessings to all around him? May the enduring oak be emblematical of the continuance of your life! I depend much upon accompanying you to Mount Auburn, and to visit the spot which contains the precious relics of him whose life it is sweet to contemplate, and whose death has taught us how a Christian should die. The perusal of this little volume has increased my veneration and friendship for its owner. "Respectfully and affectionately, "C. G. PRESCOTT." "MEM. _by A. L., May 20, 1850._--Madam P., now much passed four-score years of age (born August 1, 1767), is as bright and active in body and mind as most ladies of fifty." * * * * * "_April 10._--Mrs. T. called to ask aid for a poor widow, which I declined, by telling her I did not hear or read people's stories from necessity, and I could not inquire this evening. She claims to be acquainted with Rev. Mr. ---- and Rev. Mr. ----. She gave me a severe lecture, and berated me soundly." "_April 19._--Mrs. C., of Lowell, asks me to loan her three hundred dollars to furnish a boarding-house for twelve young ladies at S., which I declined by mail this morning." In reply to Sir William Colebrooke, Governor of New Brunswick, who requested Mr. Lawrence to notify certain poor people in the neighborhood of Boston that their deposits in the Frederickstown Savings' Bank, which had been previously withheld, would be paid by means of an appropriation for the purpose recently made by the Provincial Assembly, he writes: "BOSTON, April 26, 1847. "MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM: Your kind letter of the 8th instant reached me on the 13th, and is most welcome and grateful, in making me the medium of so much solid comfort to the numerous people whose earnings are thus restored to them through your unceasing and faithful labors. May God reward you, and enable you to enjoy through life the elevated satisfaction that follows such good works to those who can give you nothing but their prayers! It is alike creditable to your Provincial Government and those true principles which are the best riches of all free governments; and I hope may exercise some good influence upon our State Governments, which have done injustice to many poor persons who have given credit to their promises. I have caused your notice to be scattered broadcast, and trust that all who have any interest in the Frederickstown Savings' Bank will know that their money and interest are ready for them. Pray present me most affectionately to Lady Colebrooke and your daughters; and assure her we shall take more comfort than ever in showing her over our beautiful hills, that have health and joy in every breeze. My own health continues as good as when you were last here; and my family (who have not been taken hence) seem devoted to my comfort. What reason have we for devout thanksgiving, that our two countries are not at swords' points, and that the true feeling of our common ancestry is now sweeping over our land! We are in deep disgrace on account of this wicked Mexican business. What the end is to be can only be known to Infinite Wisdom; but one thing is certain,--no good can come to us from it. "Again I pray you to be assured of my highest respect and regard, and am very faithfully yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE." CHAPTER XXVII. MR. LAWRENCE AS AN APPLICANT.--LETTERS.--DIARY.--PRAYER AND MEDITATIONS.--LIBERALITY TO A CREDITOR.--LETTERS. It was not uncommon for Mr. Lawrence, when a good work was in progress, to give not only his own means, but to lend a helping hand by soliciting contributions from others. The following note, addressed to a wealthy bachelor, is a specimen: "BOSTON, June 11, 1847. "MY DEAR SIR: You will be surprised at this letter, coming as it does as a first; but I know, from my experience of your skill and talents as a business man, how pleasant it is to you to make good bargains and safe investments; and, although you are a bachelor, the early business habits you acquired are marked, and are to be carried forward till the footing up of the account, and the trial-balance presented to the Master at his coming. As I said before, you like safe investments, that shall be returned four-fold, if such can be made. Now, I am free to say to you, I know of such an one; and the promisor is a more secure one than A. & A. L. & Co., Uncle Sam, the Old Bay State, or bonds and mortgages in your own neighborhood. You ask, Then why not take it yourself? I answer, Because I have invested in advance in the same sort of stock in other quarters, but am willing to give my guaranty that you shall be satisfied that it is all I represent when you make your final settlement. It is this: Amherst College you know all about; and that is now in especial need of new instructors, and increased funds for their support. Twenty thousand dollars from you will place it on high ground, give a name to a professorship, make you feel happier and richer than you ever did in your life. What say you?--will you do it? The respect of good men will be of more value to you through your remaining days than any amount of increase, even if as vast as Girard's or Astor's. As I am a mere looker-on, you will take this, as I design it, as an expression of good-will to the college, no less than to you." "MEM. by A. L.--Received an answer on the 16th, very good and kind, from Mr. ----." In addition to the "very good answer," Mr. Lawrence had soon after the gratification of knowing that the application had been successful, and that the necessary sum had been contributed by his correspondent. About the same date, he writes to his friend, Professor Packard, of Bowdoin College, as follows: "Your visit to us the last week has opened new views and visions, that are better described in the last chapter of Revelations than in any account I can give. Bowdoin College is connected with all that is near and dear to President Appleton,--not only those on the stage of action with him, but all who came after, embracing in this latter class your own loved ones, who may continue to exercise an important agency in making the college what the good man, in his lifetime, strove to make it. The love, veneration, and respect, my dear wife had for him, makes her feel a peculiar pleasure in doing what would have cheered and comforted him so much had he lived till this time. The thousand dollars handed to you is a first payment of six thousand that she will give to the college in aid of the fund now in progress of collection; and she directs that the Lawrence Academy, at Groton, may be allowed to send one scholar each year to Bowdoin College, to be carried through the four years without charge for instruction; and that, whenever the trustees of the academy do not supply a pupil, the college may fill the place. I will hold myself responsible to make good Mrs. L.'s intentions, should she be deprived in any way of this privilege before the work is done." Early in the summer of this year, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence made his munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars to Harvard College, for the purpose of founding what was afterwards called, in honor of the donor, the Lawrence Scientific School. After reading the letter accompanying this donation, Mr. Lawrence addressed to his brother the following: "Wednesday morning, June 9, 1847. "DEAR BROTHER ABBOTT: I hardly dare trust myself to speak what I feel, and therefore write a word to say that I thank God I am spared to this day to see accomplished by one so near and dear to me this last best work ever done by one of our name, which will prove a better title to true nobility than any from the potentates of the world. It is more honorable, and more to be coveted, than the highest political station in our country, purchased as these stations often are by time-serving. It is to impress on unborn millions the great truth that our talents are trusts committed to us for use, and to be accounted for when the Master calls. This magnificent plan is the great thing that you will see carried out, if your life is spared; and you may well cherish it as the thing nearest your heart. It enriches your descendants in a way that mere money never can do, and is a better investment than any one you have ever made. "Your affectionate brother, AMOS. "TO ABBOTT LAWRENCE." To a friend he writes, soon after: "This noble plan is worthy of him; and I can say truly to you, that I feel enlarged by his doing it. Instead of our sons going to France and other foreign lands for instruction, here will be a place, second to no other on earth, for such teaching as our country stands now in absolute need of. Here, at this moment, it is not in the power of the great railroad companies to secure a competent engineer to carry forward their work, so much are the services of such men in demand." * * * * * "BOSTON, June 18, 1847. "DEAR PARTNERS: Please pass to the credit of my friend, the Rev. Mark Hopkins, two thousand dollars, to pay for four scholarships at Williams College, to be used through all time by the Trustees of Lawrence Academy, in Groton. The said trustees, or their representatives, may send and keep in college four pupils from the academy, without any charge for tuition; and, whenever they omit or decline keeping up their full number, the government or the proper authorities of the college are authorized to fill the vacancy or vacancies from their own college pupils. Charge the same to my account. A. L." "To A. & A. L. & Co." During the last twenty years of his life, Mr. Lawrence was unable to attend more than the morning services of the church on Sunday, on account of the state of his health. He was a most devout and constant worshipper, and many of those who have conducted the religious services of the church which he attended will well remember the upturned countenance, the earnest attention, and the significant motions of his head, as he listened with an expression of approval to the faithful declarations of the speaker. He loved to listen to those who "did not shun to declare all the counsel of God," and would sometimes express disappointment when the preacher failed to declare what he considered the important truths of the Gospel. In writing to a friend, after listening to a discourse of the latter description from a stranger, he compares it, in its adaptation to the spiritual wants of the hearers, to the nourishment which a wood-chopper would receive by placing him in the top of a flowering tree, and allowing him to feed only on the odor of its blossoms. His feelings on this subject are expressed in a letter to an esteemed clergyman, who had solicited his aid in behalf of a church in a distant city. "BOSTON, June 11, 1847. "MY FRIEND: I have your letter of yesterday; and, in reply, I offer it as my opinion that the Unitarianism growing up among us the few years past has so much philosophy as to endanger the Christian character of our denomination, and to make us mere rationalists of the German school, which I dread more than anything in the way of religious progress. The church at ---- may be of use in spreading Christianity; but it may also be a reproval to it. I do not feel sufficient confidence in it to give money to keep life in it until I see evidence of some of the conservative influences that my own beloved and honored pastor is calling back among us. Your well-wisher and friend, "A. L. "P. S.--I fully agree in the opinion that ---- is an important point for the dissemination of truth; and, before giving aid, I must know the man before I help support the minister, having small confidence in the teachings of many who enjoy considerable reputation as teachers of righteousness. I may have expressed doubts and fears that may not seem well founded; but I feel them." The following entry in his diary will give some idea of Mr. Lawrence's exactness in his daily business: "_Saturday, July 24, 1847._--Enclosed in a note to the Rev. ---- ----, of ----, a fifty-dollar bank-note, of the Atlantic Bank, No. 93, dated Jan. 1, 1846, payable to George William Dodd; letter A at each end of the bill, and A. P. P. in blue ink, in my writing, at the top. Sent the letter to the post-office by coachman, and paid the postage; he keeping a memorandum of his having delivered it, and paid for it. A. L." "_Sept. 14._--Professor ----, of the Baptist College in ----, has called, to whom I shall give a parcel of books for the use of the college, and also a good word, which I hope will make him remember in whose service he is engaged." "_Sept. 15._--Delivered him about two hundred and fifty volumes, various; all of value to him and his college, he said. He is a young man (under thirty years) and a minister." "_September 16, 1847, Sabbath-day._[12]--'O most blessed Lord and Saviour; thou who didst, by thy precious death and burial, take away the sting of death and the darkness of the grave! grant unto me the precious fruit of this holy triumph of thine, and be my guide both in life and in death. In thy name will I lay me down in peace and rest; for thou, O Lord, makest me to dwell in safety! Enlighten, O Lord, the eyes of my understanding, that I may not sleep the sleep of death! Into thy hands I commend my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, O thou covenant-keeping God! Bless and preserve me, therefore, both now and forever! Amen!' "These are suitable thoughts and aspirations, such as every Christian may profitably indulge on retiring each night. His bed should remind him of his grave; and, as the day past brings him so much nearer to it, the appearance, when summoned hence, should be the point most distinctly before him. If he pass on with the 'Well done,' no time can be amiss when called up. O God! grant me to be ever ready; and, by thy blessing and thy mercy, grant me to be allowed to join company with those loved and precious ones whom I feel entirely assured are at thy right hand, then to be no more separated! AMOS LAWRENCE." [12] The opposite page is a fac-simile of the original manuscript found in Mr. Lawrence's pocket-book after his death. It may serve as a fair specimen of his chirography during his latter years. [Illustration: Fac-Simile of Mr Lawrence's Hand-writing in 1847.] The following note and memorandum by Mr. Lawrence will show how he dealt with an old debtor: (TO MR. G.) "MY DEAR SIR: If you have any mode by which I can have the pleasure of receiving your note and interest, amounting to twenty-three hundred dollars, to be vested by me for the benefit of your wife, I shall be pleased to do it, having long since determined to appropriate this money, whenever received, in this way "Yours, truly, A. L. "For himself and brother A." "MEM.--Mr. ---- was an invalid, and confined to his house at that period, and sent for me to call and see him. I did so, and he seemed much affected at my offer; but told me he was in better circumstances than I had supposed him, and declined the proffered aid. The information thus given me in this last interview was most welcome: from that time, I never mentioned his debt. After his decease, it was paid by his sons; and the family has been prosperous since. I spent the money for others in need, and am rejoiced that all his are so comfortable." Many of our readers who can look back a few years will recall to memory the manly form, and fine, open countenance, of William L. Green, who was so suddenly cut off at the very threshold of what promised to be an honorable and useful career. He had come to Boston from his native town of Groton; and, after serving an apprenticeship, had entered upon a successful business. He had endeared himself to a large circle of friends, and possessed such qualities of mind and heart as had made him the stay and hope of his parents in their declining years. Upon hearing of the death of this nephew, Mr. Lawrence addressed to his parents the following letter of sympathy: "BOSTON, October 22, 1847. "DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER: God speaks to us through the rustling of the leaves no less distinctly than in the voice of the whirlwind and the storm; and it is now our business and our privilege to look at him and to him for the lesson of yesterday. Dear W., as he parted from me the Sabbath noon before the last, looked the embodiment of health, long life, and happiness. Now, that noble figure, face, expression, and loved spirit, which lightened his path, is no longer among us, to be in danger of injury from our yielding him that which belongs to God only. Were we not liable, dear brother and sister, to interrupt those communings which God calls us to with himself? He is our merciful Father, and does for us what he sees is best; and, if we receive his teachings, however dark they may appear to us at present, all will be made clear at the right time. Your precious treasure is secured, I trust, and will prove an increased attraction to you to follow; and it seems to me that our children are uniting in their joyful meeting in heaven. May we see in this event, more clearly than ever, where we are to look for direction, instruction, and support! May we be ready when called! So prays your affectionate and afflicted brother, A. L." To a friend he writes, Dec. 27: "In our domestic relations, we are all as we could desire, save the individual case of my brother William, who is barely remaining this side Jordan, and in a happy state, I trust, to pass over. For a number of days, we have supposed each might be the last but he may continue for some days, or possibly weeks. Death strikes right and left, and takes from our midst the long-honored and beloved, in their maturity. Dr. Codman and Judge Hubbard are both to be buried to-day; two men whose places will not soon be filled, I fear. Only last Tuesday, in my ride with good Dr. Sharp, we agreed to call and pay our respects to Dr. C. on Thursday; but, on that morning, learned that he was dead. On Thursday, Judge Hubbard rode out, and transacted legal business as a magistrate; in the evening went to bed as usual; in the night-time was turned over in bed, as he requested to be, and ceased to breathe. How could a good man pass over Jordan more triumphantly and gloriously?" The reader will not fail to note the coïncidence, that, almost exactly five years later, Mr. Lawrence was summoned to "pass over" in the same manner, which, from the expression used, seems to have been to him so desirable; though his own departure was still more sudden and striking. (TO A PHYSICIAN.) "Sabbath evening, seven o'clock. "DEAR W.: I have been reading to ---- the last hour, beginning at the second chapter of Matthew, and so on in course. Please look at the fourth chapter, and the latter part of the twenty-third verse, and I think you will need no apology for doing what you do, with such instruction. Christ's example, no less than his precepts, is designed to be practically useful to the whole family of man; and I feel humbled and grieved that I have not followed him better, and preached better by all the motives he has thus spread out. I say, then, to you and yours, God bless you in your good work, and make you a worthy follower of the Beloved! A. L." CHAPTER XXVIII. REFLECTIONS.--VIEWS ON HOLDING OFFICE.--LETTERS.--CAPTAIN A. SLIDELL McKENZIE.--DEATH OF BROTHER, AND OF HON. J. MASON. "_Jan. 1, 1848._--In reviewing the scenes and the business of the past year, I have continued evidence of that mercy which a Father bestows on his children, and a louder call to yield more fully than I ever yet have done to the teachings he designs. Many things that seem dark, of which the reasons are not understood, will be made clear at the right time. It is manifest that my stewardship is not so far well done as to permit me to fold my arms and feel easy. No: my life is spared for more work. May its every day be marked by some token that shall meet Thine approval, when the final call shall come!" (TO PRESIDENT HOPKINS.) "BOSTON, March 9. "This religious awakening among your college students is among the blessings that our Father vouchsafes to his servants who labor faithfully in their work; and I can see his hand as plainly in it as though it were thrust before my face as I write this sentence. Let us, then, bless his holy name, and thank him, as disciples and followers of Christ the Beloved; and urge upon these young men to come forward, as doves to their windows. If my life and my trusteeship have been in any manner instrumental in this good work in your college, it will be matter of grateful thanksgiving while I live. Mrs. L. and myself both felt our hearts drawn out to you as we read your letter; and we commend you, and the good work of guiding these interesting young Christians in the ways and the works that lead to that blessed home to which our loved ones have been called, and to which we hope to be welcomed. To his grace and guidance we commend all things touching this onward and upward movement. I have been under the smarting-rod a few days within the past fortnight. Severe pain took all my courage and light-heartedness out of me, and made me a sorry companion; and my friends, seeing me in my every-day dress, would hardly know me in this sombre garb. Again, dear friend, I bid you God-speed in the good work; and, at last, may you receive the 'Well done' promised to the faithful!" In the presidential campaign of 1848, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence was made a prominent candidate of the Whig party for the Vice-Presidency; and, in the convention which assembled at Philadelphia in June, was voted for, and received but one vote short of that which would have secured the nomination. Mr. Fillmore, it will be recollected, was the successful candidate. During the canvass, a gentleman, editing a newspaper which strongly advocated the nomination of Taylor and Lawrence, addressed a very courteous letter to Mr. Amos Lawrence, asking for aid in supporting this movement, which he supposed he would of course be deeply interested in. The reply is given here, as an illustration of his views in regard to holding high political office: "DEAR SIR: In reply to yours, this moment handed me, I state that my income is so reduced, thus far, this year, that I am compelled to use prudence in the expenditure of money, and must therefore decline making the loan. If my vote would make my brother Vice-President, I would not give it, as I think it lowering his good name to accept office of any sort, by employing such means as are now needful to get votes. I hope 'Old Zack' will be President. "Respectfully yours, A. L." To President Hopkins he writes, April 15: "What should we do, if the Bible[13] were not the foundation of our system of self-government? and what will become of us, when we wilfully and wickedly cast it behind us? We have all more than common reason to pray, in the depths of our sins, God be merciful to us sinners. The efforts made to lessen respect for it, and confidence in it, will bring to its rescue multitudes who otherwise would not have learned how much they owe it. The 'Age of Reason,' fifty years ago, told, on the whole, in advancing truth, by bringing to its support the best minds of Christendom. I hope it may be so now. This is a theme for your head and heart and pen. No man in New England can make a deeper mark. What say ye? The Bible is our great charter, and does more than all others, written or unwritten." "W. C. writes from N., asking me to loan him three thousand dollars to buy a farm, and to improve his health and mind; stating that he is a cripple, but wants to do something for the world." "That man may last, but never lives, Who much receives, but nothing gives, Whom none can love, whom none can thank, Creation's blot, creation's blank." [13] In looking over the list of Life Directors of the American Bible Society, made such by the payment of one hundred and fifty dollars each, there are found at least ten who are known to have been constituted by Mr. Lawrence. (TO PRESIDENT HOPKINS.) "BOSTON, June 12, 1848 "MY DEAR FRIEND: Only think what changes a few weeks have produced in Europe, and the probable effects upon this country. It seems now certain that vast numbers will emigrate here, rich and poor, from the continent and from England. The question for us is, How shall we treat them? It is certain that foreigners will come here. We have land enough for them, but have not the needful discipline to make them safe associates in maintaining our system of government. Virtue and intelligence are our platform; but the base passions of our country have been ministered to so abundantly by unscrupulous politicians, that our moral sense has been blunted; and these poor, ignorant foreigners are brought into use for selfish purposes, and the prospects for the future are appalling. Yet a ray of light has just broken in upon us by the nomination of General Taylor for President; and my belief is, he is the best man for the place who can be named, with any prospect of success. He is not a politician, but a plain, straight-forward, honest man, anxious to do his duty in all his relations. As to my brother's nomination for Vice-President, I am thankful they did not make it in convention: he is in a higher position before the country than he would be if chosen Vice-President. His course has been elevated and magnanimous in this matter; for he might, by his personal influence and efforts, have received the nomination. "ADDITIONAL.--It is now almost two, P. M., and I have but just returned from Mount Auburn. The visit has been deeply interesting, on many accounts, and has almost unfitted me to finish this letter. However, there is nothing in the visit but what ought to make me thankful that my treasures, though removed, are secured; and, if my poor efforts can bring me again into their society through the blessed Saviour, I ought not allow this gush of feeling to unman me." A few days later, he writes to the same friend: "I have not as yet heard of the examination of yesterday at the Lawrence Academy, which son. A. A. attended, but hope for a good report. In truth, I feel as if that school and your college are to go hand in hand in making whole men for generations to come. There is a pleasant vision which opens to me when I look forward to the characters that the academy and the college are to send forth for the next hundred years. I bless God for my old home, and the great elm in front, which has a teaching and a significance that I shall endeavor to make use of in training my grandchildren and dear ones of my family connection. How important, then, that our places of education be sustained, as supplying the pure and living streams that shall irrigate every hill and valley of this vast empire, and train men to know and do their duty! I will not quarrel with a man's Presbyterian, Episcopal, or Baptist creed, so be he will act the part of a good soldier of Christ; for I verily believe great multitudes, of all creeds, desire to serve him faithfully." "_Aug. 23._--T. G. sent me a paper this morning, having many names on it, with a polite note. The paper I returned without reading; telling him I did not read such, or hear stories, and must be excused. He took the answer in high dudgeon, and sent another note, saying he had mistaken me, and desired that his first note should be returned. I wrote upon it that I lived by the day and hour, an invalid, and, for two years, had adopted this course, and had treated bishops, clergymen, and laymen, with the fewest words; that I intended no disrespect, and begged his pardon if I had done anything wrong. I also told him this course was urged upon me by my medical adviser; but, with all my care, there is now an average of six applications a day through the year." Mr. Lawrence had, many years previous to this date, formed an acquaintance with Captain Slidell McKenzie, of the United States Navy, which had been continued, and was a source of mutual pleasure. Among other relics in the possession of the writer, is a cane of palm-wood, presented by Capt. McKenzie, on his return from Mexico as commander of the United States Steamship "Mississippi," to Mr. Lawrence, who had caused to be engraven upon it, on a silver plate, the following inscription: ALEXANDER SLIDELL McKENZIE TO AMOS LAWRENCE. 1845. PALM-WOOD FROM THE BANKS OF THE TOBASCO RIVER. FROM THE UNITED STATES NAVAL COMMANDER WHO WAS NOT AFRAID TO DO HIS DUTY WHEN LIFE WAS REQUIRED AT THE YARD-ARM. The latter part of the inscription is in allusion to the course which Capt. McKenzie felt obliged to adopt in the mutiny on board the United States Brig "Somers," in 184--. On Sept. 15, he thus notices the death of that officer in his diary: "This, morning's newspapers give the intelligence that the excellent and accomplished Capt. McKenzie died at Sing Sing, N. Y., two days ago. He fell from his horse by an affection of the heart; and died almost instantly. Thus has departed a man whom I esteemed as among the best and purest I am acquainted with, and whose character should be a treasure for his family and the nation. I think him a model officer and a good Christian." * * * * * "_Oct. 11._-- CANADIAN BOAT-SONG. 'Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time; Soon as the woods on shore look dim, We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn. Row, brothers, row: the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, and daylight's past.' I first heard this song sung and played on the piano by ----, afterwards Mrs. ----, at her house in ---- street, in 1809. The song rang in my ears sweetly for weeks, as I was taken down with fever the next morning. I never think of it but with delight." "_Oct. 15._--My brother William died on Saturday, Oct. 14, at three, P. M., in the sixty-sixth year of his age; and my brother Mason died only five hours afterwards, in his eighty-first year,--within three doors of each other. Both were very dear to me in life, and both are very dear to me in death; and, in God's good time, I trust that I shall meet them again, not subject to the ills and changes of my present abode." In a letter of the same date to a friend, he says: "My letter of last Tuesday will have prepared you for the sad intelligence in this. Brother William continued without much suffering or consciousness till two o'clock yesterday, and then ceased breathing, without a groan. Yesterday morning, the hand of death was manifestly upon Brother Mason, who was conscious to objects around, and requested C. to pray with him; and, when asked if he understood what was said, answered, 'Yes,' and expressed by words and signs his wants and feelings. He continued in a quiet, humble, and hopeful frame, we judge, until just eight o'clock, when, with a single gasp and a slight noise, his mighty spirit passed out of its immense citadel of clay, to join the throng of the loved ones gone before. Brother W. was in his sixty-sixth year, Brother M. in his eighty-first; and both were such men as we need, true as steel in all good works and words. Mr. M. was never sick a day to disable him from attending to his professional and public duties in fifty years, and, until within a short time, never confined a day to his house by illness. On the last Sunday evening, I passed a most refreshing half-hour with him. He appeared as well as he had done for a year; inquired very particularly into Brother W.'s state; expressed the opinion that his own time was near at hand, and a hope that he might be taken without losing his mental and bodily powers. He remarked that protracted old age, after the loss of power to give and receive comfort, was not to be desired. He has often expressed to me the hope that he should be taken just as he has been. Have we not reason to praise and bless God in taking, no less than in sparing, these honored and loved ones?" CHAPTER XXIX. SYSTEM IN ACCOUNTS.--LETTER FROM PROF. STUART.--LETTERS.--DIARY.--DR. HAMILTON.--FATHER MATTHEW. "_January 1, 1849._--THE habit of keeping an account of my expenditures for objects other than for my family, and for strictly legal calls, I have found exceedingly convenient and satisfactory; as I have been sometimes encouraged, by looking back to some entry of aid to a needy institution or individual, to do twice as much for some other needy institution or individual. I can truly say, that I deem these outlays my best, and would not, if I could by a wish, have any of them back again. I adopted the practice, ten years ago, of spending my income. The more I give, the more I have; and do most devoutly and heartily pray God that I may be faithful in the use of the good things intrusted to me." "_January 2._--Yesterday, Peter C. Brooks died, aged eighty-two; a man who has minded his own business through life, and from a poor boy became the richest man in the city. I honor him as an honest man." (FROM PROF. STUART, OF ANDOVER.) "ANDOVER, January 23, 1849. "MY DEAR SIR: Soon after my daughter's return from Boston, I received a garment exceedingly appropriate to the severe cold to which I am daily exposed in my rides. Many, many hearty thanks for your kindness! To me the article in question is of peculiar value. The cold can hardly penetrate beneath such a garment. God has blessed you with wealth; but he has given you a richer blessing still; that is, a heart overflowing with kindness to your fellow-beings, and a willingness to do good to all as you have opportunity. I accept, with warm emotions of gratitude and thankfulness, the kindness you have done to me. I would not exchange your gift for a large lump of the California gold. Be assured you have my fervent prayer and wishes, that you may at last receive a thousand-fold for all the kindness that you have shown to your fellow-men. You and I are near our final account. May I not hope that this will also be entering on our final reward? I do hope this; I must hope it. What else is there in life that can make us patiently and submissively and calmly endure its ills? God Almighty bless and sustain and guide and comfort you until death; and then may you pass through the dark valley without a fear, cheerfully looking to what lies beyond it! "I am, my dear sir, with sincere gratitude, your friend and obedient servant, MOSES STUART." To President Hopkins he writes, Jan. 3: "Your letters always bring light to our path, and joy to our hearts, in one way or another. The two last seemed to come at the very time to do both, in a way to impress our senses and feelings, as the clear heavens, and brilliant sky, and exhilarating atmosphere, of this charming cold day, do mine, in contrast with a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my table as a love-token from some of my young sleigh-riding friends, and which makes me feel a boy with these boys, and an old man with such wise ones as you. "In the scenes of the past year, much that will mark its character stands out in bold relief; and, if we of this country are true to our principles, the great brotherhood of man will be elevated; for there have been overturns and overturns which will act until He whose right it is shall reign. If we live up to our political professions, our Protestant religion will elevate the millions who will be brought under our levelling process. 'Level up,' but not down, was Judge Story's maxim of democratic levelling, as he began his political career. In the business of levelling up, the Lawrence Academy, I trust, may do something. The late notices of it have been somewhat various by the newspaper editors to whom the preceptor sent catalogues." * * * * * "_February 25._--Attended Brattle-street Church this morning, and heard a consolatory sermon; and, at the closing prayer, the giving of thanks to our Father in heaven, through Jesus Christ, who lived to serve us, and died to save us." On the 28th, he writes to his brother Abbott, who had had tendered to him, by General Taylor, the office of Secretary of the Navy: "DEAR BROTHER: I have heard since noon that you have the invitation of General Taylor to take a seat in his cabinet, and that you will proceed to Washington forthwith to answer for yourself. I am not less gratified by the offer than you can be; but I should feel deep anguish, if I thought you could be induced to accept it, even for a brief period. Your name and fame as a private citizen is a better inheritance for your children than any distinction you may attain from official station; and the influence you can exercise for your country and friends, as you are, is higher and better than any you can exercise as an official of the government." On March 3, he writes to his brother at Washington: "I awoke this morning very early, and, after a while, fixed my mind in prayer to God, that your duty may be clearly seen, and that you may perform it in the spirit of a true disciple." And again on March 5, after hearing that his brother had declined the proffered seat in the cabinet, he writes to him: "The morning papers confirm my convictions of what you would do; and I do most heartily rejoice, and say that I never felt as proud before." * * * * * "_April 11._--A subscription paper, with an introductory letter from ----, was handed me, on which were seven or eight names for a hundred dollars each, to aid the family of ----, lately deceased. Not having any acquaintance with him or family, I did not subscribe. Applications come in from all quarters, for all objects. The reputation of giving freely is a very bad reputation, so far as my personal comfort is concerned." April 21, he writes to a friend: "The matters of deepest interest in my last were ----, the religious movement, ----'s ill-health, and ----'s accident. All these matters are presenting a sunny show now. Our dead Unitarianism of ten or fifteen years ago is stirred up, and the deep feelings of sin, and salvation through the Beloved, are awakened, where there seemed to be nothing but indifference and coldness; my hope and belief are that great good will follow. In the matter of the enjoyment of life, you judge me rightly; few men have so many and rich blessings to be thankful for; and, while I am spared with sufficient understanding to comprehend these, I pray that I may have the honesty to use them in the way that the Master will approve. Of what use will it be to have my thoughts directed to the increase of my property, at the cost of my hopes of heaven? There, a Lazarus is better off than a score of Dives. Pray without ceasing, that I may be faithful." The following extract of a letter is taken from a work entitled "A Romance of the Sea-Serpent, or the Ichthyosaurus," and will show Mr. Lawrence's views respecting the much contested subject of which it treats: "BOSTON, April 26, 1849. "I have never had any doubt of the existence of the _Sea-Serpent_ since the morning he was seen off Nahant by Martial Prince, through his famous mast-head spy-glass. For, within the next two hours, I conversed with Mr. Samuel Cabot, and Mr. Daniel P. Parker, I think, and one or more persons beside, who had spent a part of that morning in witnessing his movements. In addition, Colonel Harris, the commander at Fort Independence, told me that the creature had been seen by a number of his soldiers while standing sentry in the early dawn, some time before this show at Nahant; and Colonel Harris believed it as firmly as though the creature were drawn up before us in State-street, where we then were. "I again say, I have never, from that day to this, had a doubt of the _Sea-Serpent's existence_. The revival of the stories will bring out many facts that will place the matter before our people in such a light as will make them _as much ashamed_ to doubt, as _they formerly_ were to believe in its existence. "Yours truly, AMOS LAWRENCE." To a friend he writes, July 18: "Brother A. has received the place of Minister to the Court of St. James; the most flattering testimony of his worth and character that is within the gift of the present administration, and the only office that I would not advise against his accepting." About this time, Mr. Lawrence read a small work, entitled "Life in Earnest," by the Rev. James Hamilton, D.D., Minister of the Scotch Church, Regent's Square, London. The sentiments of this little volume were so much akin to his own, and were withal so forcibly exemplified, that he commenced a correspondence with the author, which became a most interesting one, and continued until the close of his life. "BOSTON, July 18, 1849. "TO REV. J. HAMILTON, D.D. "SIR: The few lines on the other side of this sheet are addressed to me by our excellent governor, whose good word may be grateful to you, coming as it does from a Christian brother across the Atlantic. If it should ever happen to you to visit this country, I need not say how great would be my pleasure to see you. I am a minute-man, living by the day and by the ounce; but am compensated for all privations, by reading such tracts as 'Life in Earnest,' in such a way that few are allowed. I have cleared out the Sunday-school depository three times in the last four weeks, and have scattered the work broadcast, and intend to continue to do so if my health allows. Among those to whom I have given one is my younger brother, who is soon to be with you in England, as Minister to your Court. I recommend him to your prayers and your confidence. "With great respect for your character, I am yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE." "_July 23._--We are to have Father Matthew here to-morrow: he is a lion, but I probably shall only see him at a distance. The influence he is said to have upon his Irish people may result in making many of them industrious citizens, who would, without him, be criminals, and a pest to honest people. The evil of such masses being thrown upon us we must bear, and study how to relieve ourselves in any practicable way. I see none but to educate the children, and circulate the Bible and good books among them, which shall encourage them to do the best they can for themselves. "The Christian banner may have many local influences and teachings; but its broad folds, I trust, will cover many true followers, however exact its worldly interpreters may be of what constitutes a true follower. I saw, in the _New York Observer_ (I think it was), a statement of a district in the South-west, where were forty-one Christian denominations, and no two of whose ministers could exchange pulpit labors. Do not these people need a Christian teacher?" "_August 3_.--Father Matthew is doing a good work here; and the result of his power is in his benevolent and sincere expression, and charming head and face. He has called to see me twice, and I intend to call and see him to-morrow. His ease and eloquence could not do for him what his heavenly expression does." CHAPTER XXX. CODICIL TO WILL.--ILLNESS.--GEN. WHITING.--LETTERS.--DIARY. In August, 1849, Mr. Lawrence reviewed his will and added to it the following codicil: "Through the mercy of God, my life has been prolonged to this time, and my mental and bodily powers continued to me to an extent that has enabled me to see to the application of those trusts that have been confided to me; and, should my stewardship end now or next year, and the 'Well done' of the Master be pronounced upon my labors, all things here will seem nothing, and less than nothing, in comparison. "In short, my life, cheerful and happy as it is made by the three blessings conferred upon man after his fall (wife, children, and friends), is in the keeping of a merciful Father, who, by thus continuing it, allows me a foretaste of that future home I hope for whenever he calls. "In reviewing my will, above written, executed on the 21st day of February, A. D. 1846, I see nothing to alter, and everything to confirm. And I do hereby declare it still my will, and this codicil is to be taken as a confirmation of it; and I do earnestly hope all in interest will see clearly the meaning of every clause, and carry out my meaning without any quibbling, question, or controversy. I have been my own executor, for many years, of the surplus property I have received, and intend to be while my powers of mind will allow it. Many near and dear friends to whom I looked for counsel and direction, at the time my will was executed, have been taken hence, which makes me more desirous of giving a renewed expression at this time." In this connection was the following note to his sons, found in his pocket-book after his decease: "DEAR W. AND A.: In my will, I have made no bequests as tokens of remembrance, and have endeavored to do for all (whom I am interested in out of my own family connections) what is needful and proper and best; yet I wish some expression of kindness to M. and F., if in the family when I am taken." * * * * Here follow donations to domestics who had been for many years in his family. About the 20th of September, Mr. Lawrence experienced a severe attack of cholera morbus, which was then a sort of epidemic in the community. Of this attack, he writes to President Hopkins as follows: "I hardly know how to address you, since I find myself once more spared to lay open my heart to you; for I do indeed feel all the force of the words, What shall I render unto God for all his unspeakable goodness? I have been upon the brink of Jordan, and, with my outstretched hand, seized hold of our merciful Father's hand, that was held out towards me, and was supported by his grasp as plainly as I could have been by your own hand. I was waiting, and praying to him to conduct me to the other side and permit me to join the company of loved ones _passed on_, and felt almost sure I should never see the sunlight of this world again, when, to my amazement, I found my pains subsiding, and that I had not finished the work he had assigned. When you were here, I gave you some little outline of my plan of work for ----. On the 18th of September, I completed that work, and felt stronger on that day than on any day for a month. Under the excitement of the scene and a sudden change of weather, I took cold, and had a terrible attack of cholera, which, by the immediate administration of remedies, was in a degree quieted. Thus my poor old worn-out machine was still kept from parting, as the sole of the shoe is sometimes kept on by freezing snow and water upon it." In the beginning of this volume, mention is made of the first clerk whom Mr. Lawrence employed after entering business in the year 1807. To that gentleman, now Brigadier-General Whiting, was addressed the following letter, which was the recommencement of a correspondence which had ceased for many years: "BOSTON, November, 1849. "MY DEAR GENERAL: I have been deeply interested in overlooking your volume of revolutionary orders of Washington, selected from your father's manuscripts, as it brought back scenes and memories of forty years and more ago, when I used to visit at your house in Lancaster, and to read those papers with a relish that might well be coveted by the youth of the present day. I thank you for this token of auld lang syne, and shall feel the more thankful if you will come and see me. I would certainly go to you, if I had the strength, and could do it safely; but shall never go so far from home, being at any moment liable to be called off. My earnest desire is to be 'in line,' and to be able to answer, promptly, 'here.' I hope to hear from you and your wife and wee things: all have a hold upon me, and you will give them an old man's love. I have taken the opportunity to send you some little reminiscences of old times. Butler's 'History of Groton' (which connects Lancaster in early days) is a model for its exact truthfulness: he was the preceptor of the academy until long after you entered the army. Then I have sent a catalogue of the school, from its beginning for fifty years or more; 'History of Lowell as it Was, and Lowell as it Is,' well written and true; 'Boston Notions,' put together by old Mr. Dearborn, the printer, whom you knew; and some other little matters, which will serve to freshen old things, as your 'Evolutionary Orders of Washington' have done with me. I have just looked into my first sales-book, and there see the entries made by you more than forty years ago. Ever since, you have been going up, from the cornet of dragoons to the present station. "Farewell. Your old friend, AMOS LAWRENCE. "GEN. HENRY WHITING, Fort Hamilton, N. Y." (TO ROBERT BARNWELL RHETT, ESQ., OF SOUTH CAROLINA.) "BOSTON, Dec. 12, 1849. "MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of November 30 reached me in due course, and gave me unfeigned pleasure in seeing my hopes confirmed, that the practical common sense of South Carolina was returning, and that the use of their head and hands was getting to be felt among the citizens, as necessary to their salvation as common brethren in the great family of States. Without the use of those trusts placed in their hands by our common Father, the State will not be worth the parchment on which to draw the deeds fifty years hence; and I most earnestly pray God to guide, guard, and save the State from their childishness in their fears that our northern agitators can harm them. I spent the winter of 1819 in Washington, and heard the whole of the debate upon admitting Alabama and Missouri into the Union. Alabama was admitted, Missouri rejected; and I made up my mind then that I would never interfere until requested by my brethren of the Slave-holding States; which resolution I have carried out from that day to this; and I still hold to it. But I would not have admitted Alabama then or Missouri on the terms they were admitted. We of the North have windy, frothy politicians, who hope to make capital out of their ultraism; but, in the aggregate, they soon find their level. Now, of the point to which I desire to come, I do earnestly desire your State to carry out your prophecy, that, in ten years, you will spin all your own crop of cotton; for we of Massachusetts will gladly surrender to you the manufacture of coarse fabrics, and turn our industry to making fine articles. In short, we could now, if you are ready, give up to you the coarse fabrics, and turn one half of our machinery into spinning and weaving cotton hose; and nothing will help us all so much as specific duties. The whole kingdom of Saxony is employed at this moment in making cotton hose for the United States from yarns purchased in England, and made of your cotton. How much better would it be for you and for us to save these treble profits and transport, by making up the cotton at home! Think of these matters, and look at them without the prejudice that prevails so extensively in your State. A few years ago, I asked our kinsman, Gen. ----, of your State, how the forty-bale theory was esteemed at that time. His answer was, 'We all thought it true when it was started, and it had its effect; but nobody is of that mind now.' Still, I believe, when an error gets strong hold of the popular mind, it is much more difficult to eradicate it than it is to supply the truth in its place. If I know myself, I would not mete to you any different measure from what I would ask of you; and I must say to you, that your State and people have placed themselves in a false position, which will be as apparent to them in a few years as the sun is at noonday. My own family and friends are in usual health; and no man this side heaven enjoys earth better than I do. I do pray you to come and see us. I hope to see your son at Cambridge this week. Most respectfully yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE." * * * * * "BOSTON, December 11, 1849. "To Gen. HENRY WHITING, U. S. A., Fort Hamilton, N. Y. "MY EARLY FRIEND: Forty years and more ago, we used to talk over together the dismemberment of Poland and the scenes that followed, and to pour out together our feelings for those martyrs of liberty. At the present moment, my feelings are deeply moved by taking by the hand Colonel P. and Major F., just landed here, and driven from their country, martyrs to the same cause. I need only say to you that they are strangers among us, and any attentions from you will be grateful to them, and duly felt by your old friend, A. L." * * * * * "_December 24, 1849._--I have been daily employed, of late, in accompanying visitors to our public institutions; among these, Mr. Charles Carroll, of Maryland, to the Mather School and the Perkins Asylum for the Blind. The effect of kindness upon the character of children is more strikingly illustrated in the Mather School than in any other I know of. Three fifths of the pupils are children of foreigners,--English, Irish, Scotch, German, Swiss, and the like,--mostly very poor. Two fifths are American; and these foreign children, after a few months, are ambitious to look as well and do as well as the best. The little Irish creatures are as anxious to have their faces clean, their hair smooth, their clothes mended, and to learn to read, write, and explain their lessons, as the upper children. These upper children, to the number of about one hundred, belong to the Lawrence Association." "_December 25, Christmas afternoon._--The following beautiful little note, accompanied by a silver cup, almost unmanned me. Forty-three girls signed the note; two others engaged in it are sick; and one died, and was buried at Mount Auburn by her particular request,--making forty-six of these children, who, of their own motion, got up this token. Their note is dated to-day, and runs thus: "'RESPECTED SIR: The misses of the Lawrence Association, anxious to testify their gratitude for the kind interest which you have ever manifested towards them, would most respectfully request your acceptance of this small token of their gratitude.'" (Signed by forty-three girls.) "_26._--We had great times with the children last evening at Sister M.'s. It really seemed to me that the entertainment gave me as much pleasure as any child among them; beside which, I went to the house of my old friend Dr. Bowditch (where I used to visit twenty-five years ago on like occasions), for a few minutes, and there found seventeen of his grandchildren enjoying the fruits of the Christmas-tree in the best manner possible." CHAPTER XXXI. DIARY.--REFLECTIONS.--SICKNESS.--LETTER PROM REV. DR. SHARP.--CORRESPONDENCE. On the first of January, 1850, Mr. Lawrence, as usual, reviews, in his property-book, the state of his affairs during the preceding year, with an estimate of his expenditures. The entry for the present year is as follows: "The amount of my expenditures for all objects (taxes included) is about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I consider the money well spent, and pray God constantly that I may be watchful in the use of the blessings he bestows, so that at last he may admit me among the faithful that surround his throne." The above entry will give some idea of the fidelity with which his trusts had been fulfilled, so far as regarded his worldly possessions. Each year, as it rolled by, as well as each successive attack of illness, seemed only to stimulate him in his efforts to accomplish what he could while the day lasted. No anxious fears disturbed him as he looked forward to the near approach of "that night when no man can work." That night to him was but a prelude of rest from bodily weakness and suffering, and the forerunner of a brighter day, of which, even in this world, he was sometimes permitted to obtain a glimpse. He says: "My own health and strength seem renewed. That cholera attack has changed the whole man; and it is only now and then I am brought to a pause that quickens me in my work when again started. A week since, I ventured on two ounces of solid food for my dinner, differing from what I have taken for many years. Nine hours after, in my sleep, I fainted, and was brought to life by dear N. standing over me, giving ammonia, rubbing, and the like. Fasting the day following brought me back to the usual vigor and enjoyments. Do you not see in this the sentence, 'Do with thy might what thy hand findeth to do,' stereotyped in large letters before me. This it is that brings me to the work at this hour in the morning." * * * * * "_March 24._--Received a letter from Rev. Mr. Hallock, Secretary of the American Tract Society, saying that the Society will publish Dr. Hamilton's lecture on the literary attractions of the Bible, which I had sent them a few weeks since; and will supply me with two thousand copies, as I requested. "Received also, this morning, another tract of Dr. H. from sister K., in London; called the 'Happy Home,' which finished that series to the working people. After reading this number, I feel a strong desire to see the preceding nine numbers." (TO THE REV. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.) "BOSTON, March 24, 1850. "REV. AND DEAR SIR: I need not repeat to you how deeply interesting all your writings which I have seen have been to me; but you may not feel indifferent to the fact that the lecture you delivered four months ago, on the literary attractions of the Bible (which I received from my sister, Mrs. Abbott Lawrence, a few weeks since), is now in process of republication by the American Tract Society, agreeably to my request. I hope to assist in scattering it broadcast over our broad land; and thus you will be speaking from your own desk, with the speed of light, to an audience from Passamaquoddy to Oregon. Will you do me the favor to give me a copy of 'Happy Home,' from which I may teach my children and grandchildren. "Respectfully your friend, and brother in Christ, "AMOS LAWRENCE." (TO A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN (ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONAL).) "BOSTON, May 16, 1850. "REV. AND DEAR SIR: I make no apology in asking your acceptance of the above, as I am quite sure it cannot come amiss to a poor clergyman, situated as you are. I pray that you will feel, in using it, you cheer my labors, and make me more happy while I am able to enjoy life, in thus sending an occasional remembrancer to one for whom I have always felt the highest respect and esteem. Your friend, "AMOS LAWRENCE." The above letter contained a draft for one hundred dollars, of which Mr. Lawrence makes the following memorandum, dated on the 18th: "Mr. ---- acknowledges the above letter in very grateful terms, being what his pressing wants require." In a letter to President Hopkins, dated June 22, Mr. Lawrence says: "If I cannot visit you bodily, as I had vainly hoped to do, I can convince you that the life and hope of younger days are still in me. Your parting word touched me to the quick, and I cannot repeat or read it without a sympathetic tear filling my own eye. I am not able to stand up; but am cheered by the hope that, before many weeks, I may be able to stand alone. Our good friend Governor Briggs called to see me this week, and was quite horrified to see me trundled about on a hospital chair; however, after a good talk, he concluded that what was cut off from the lower works was added to the upper, and the account in my favor. It has always been so with me; the dark places have been made clear at the right time; so I am no object of pity." The lameness here mentioned was caused by a slight sprain of the ankle, but was followed by great prostration of the bodily strength, and a feeble state of all the functions, resulting in that vitiated state of the blood called by physicians "purpura." Violent hemorrhages from the nose succeeded; and these, with the intense heat of the weather, so reduced his strength, that the only hope of recovery seemed to be in removing him from the city to the bracing air of the sea-shore. Towards the end of July, he was accordingly removed upon a mattress to the house of his son, at Nahant; and, from the moment he came within the influence of the fresh sea-breeze, he began to recover his spirits and his strength. A day or two after reaching Nahant, he received from his friend, the Rev. Dr. Sharp, the following letter, which is so characteristic, and reminds one so forcibly of the calm and staid manner of that venerable man, that it is given entire: "BOSTON, July 30, 1850. "MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: It was with deep regret I learned, on Friday last, that you were quite unwell, and at Nahant. It was in my mind yesterday morning to visit you; nothing prevented me but an apprehension that it might be deemed inexpedient to admit any one to your sick room, except your own family. But, although I have not seen you in person since your last sickness, yet I have been with you in spirit. I have felt exceedingly sad at the probability of your earthly departure. Seldom as we have seen each other, your friendship has been precious to me; and, to say nothing of your dear family, your continuance in life is of great importance to that large family of humanity, the poor, who have so often participated in your bounty. Indeed, as we cannot well spare you, I rather cherish the hope that, in his good providence, God will continue you to us a little longer. But, whatever may be the issue of your present illness, I trust that you, with all your friends, will be enabled to say, 'The will of the Lord be done.' If he 'lives the longest who answers life's great end,' your life, compared with most, has not been short. Not that any of us have done more than our duty. Nay, we have all come short, and may say, with all modesty and truthfulness, we are unprofitable servants; although, in some respects, and to our fellow-beings, we may have been profitable. I trust, my dear friend, you are looking for the mercy of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life. Death is not an eternal sleep; no, it is the gate to life. It opens up a blessed immortality to all who, in this world, have feared God and wrought righteousness. This world is a probationary state; if we have been faithful, in some humble degree, to our convictions of duty; if we have regretted our follies and sins; if we have sought to do the will of our heavenly Father, and sought forgiveness through the mediation of his Son,--God will receive us to his heavenly glory. I believe, in his own good time, he will receive you, my very dear friend; although my prayer is, with submission, that he will restore you to comfortable health, and allow you to remain with us a little longer. May God be with you, and bless you, in life, in death, and forevermore! With most respectful regard to Mrs. L., and sympathy with you in your afflictions, in which my dear wife joins, I am truly yours, DANIEL SHARP." From Little Nahant, Mr. Lawrence writes to a friend, under date of Aug. 16: "I have just arisen from bed, and am full of the matter to tell you how much good your letter has done. I came here as the last remedy for a sinking man; and, blessed be God, it promises me renewed life and enjoyment. What is it for, that I am thus saved in life, as by a miracle? Surely it must be in mercy, to finish out my work begun (in your college and other places), yet unfinished. Pray, give us what time you can when you visit Andover. If I continue to improve as I have done for ten days, I hope to return home next week; but may have some drawback that will alter the whole aspect of affairs. This beautiful Little Nahant seems to have been purchased, built up, and provided, by the good influence of our merciful Father in heaven upon the heart of ----, that he might save me from death, when it was made certain I could not hold out many days longer. Surely I am called on by angel voices to render praise to God." The five weeks' residence upon the sea-shore was greatly enjoyed by Mr. Lawrence. As the weather was generally fine, much of his time was passed in the open air, in watching the ever-varying sea-views, in reading, or in receiving the visits of his friends. Near the end of August, his health and strength had become so far restored as to warrant his return to the city, and, as his memoranda show, to increased efforts in the field of charity. CHAPTER XXXII. AMIN BEY.--AMOUNT OF DONATIONS TO WILLIAMS COLLEGE. In November, 1850, Amin Bey, Envoy from the Sultan of Turkey to the United States, visited Boston. Among other attentions, Mr. Lawrence accompanied him on a visit to the Female Orphan Asylum, then containing about one hundred inmates; and the pleasant intercourse was continued by a visit of the minister at Mr. Lawrence's house. The following note accompanied a number of volumes relating to Boston and its vicinity: (TO HIS EXCELLENCY AMIN BEY.) "MY BROTHER: The manifest pleasure you felt in visiting our Female Orphan Asylum yesterday has left a sunbeam on my path, that will illumine my journey to our Father's house. When we meet there, may the joy of that reünion you hope for with the loved ones in your own country be yours and mine, and all the good of all the world be our companions for all time! With the highest respect, believe me your friend, A. L." (TO PRESIDENT HOPKINS.) "BOSTON, November 11, 1850. "MY DEAR FRIEND: My brief letter of introduction by my young friend S., and your answer to it, which I mislaid or lost soon after it came, has made me feel a wish to write every day since the first week after I received yours. S. made me out better than I was when he saw me. I could walk across the rooms, get down and up stairs without much aid, and bear my weight on each foot; having strength in my ankle-bones that enabled me to enter the temple walking, not leaping, but praising God. If ever I am able to walk so far as around the Common, what gratitude to God should I feel to take your arm as my support! I am frequently admonished by faint turns that I am merely a 'minute-man,' liable to be called for at any moment. Only a few days since, I had a charming call from Amin Bey and suite, whom I received in my parlors below, where were some friends to meet him. All seemed interested, and Amin as much so as a Turk ever does. When he left us, I went with him to the door, saw him out and in his carriage, turned to open the inner entry-door, became faint just as M. was leaving the party, and leaned on her to get into the parlor. I was laid on the sofa, insensible for a short time, but, by labor, abstinence, and great care, for two or three days, have got upon my high horse again, and rode with N. to make calls upon the good people of Cambridge. After dinner, when I awoke, I tried to go about my work, but was called off again, and, from that time to this, have been up a little, and then down a little; thus asking me, with angels' voices, Why are you left here? The answer is plain: You have more work to do. Pray, my dear friend, for me to be faithful while my powers are left with me. The reports of and from your college make me feel that my labors in helping it to get on its legs have been repaid four-fold. I am its debtor, and will allow the money out of the next year's income to be used for a telescope, if you deem it best. I have made no further inquiry for the one in progress here, but will ask W. to look and see what progress is making. When I leave off writing, I shall ride to the office in Court-square, and deposit my Whig vote for Governor Briggs and the others. We are so mixed up here as hardly to know who are supporters of the regular ticket, and who not. This fugitive-slave business will keep our people excited till the law is blotted out. In some of our best circles the law is pronounced unconstitutional; and my belief is that Franklin Dexter's argument on that point will settle the question by starting it, our great men to the contrary notwithstanding." In the above letter Mr. Lawrence speaks of the gratification which he had derived from the results of his efforts in behalf of Williams College; and, as there may be no more fitting place to give an account of these efforts, the following record is here introduced, from the pen of President Hopkins. It is found in his sermon commemorative of the donor, delivered at the request of the students, on February 21, 1853. "In October, 1841, the building known as the East College was burned. Needy as the institution was before, this rendered necessary an application to the Legislature for funds; and, when this failed, to the public at large. Owing to a panic in the money market, this application was but slightly responded to, except in this town. In Boston the sum raised was less than two thousand dollars; and the largest sum given by any individual was one hundred dollars. This sum was given by Mr. Lawrence, who was applied to by a friend of the college; and this, it is believed, was the only application ever made to him on our behalf. This directed his attention to the wants of the college; but nothing more was heard from him till January, 1844. At that time, I was delivering a course of the Lowell Lectures, in Boston, when his son, Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, called and informed me that his father had five thousand dollars which he wished to place at the disposal of the college. As I was previously but slightly acquainted with Mr. Lawrence, and had had no conversation with him on the subject, this was to me an entire surprise; and, embarrassed as the institution then was by its debt for the new buildings, the relief and encouragement which it brought to my own mind, and to the minds of others, friends of the college, can hardly be expressed. Still, this did not wholly remove the debt. On hearing this casually mentioned, he said, if he had known how we were situated, he thought he should have given us more; and the following July, without another word on the subject, he sent me a check for five thousand dollars. This put the college out of debt, and added two or three thousand dollars to its available funds. In January, 1846, he wrote, saying he wished to see me; and, on meeting him, he said his object was to consult me about the disposition of ten thousand dollars, which he proposed to give the college. He wished to know how I thought it would do the most good. I replied, at once, By being placed at the disposal of the trustees, to be used at their discretion. He said, 'Very well;' and that was all that passed on that point. So I thought; and, knowing his simplicity of character, and singleness of purpose, I felt no embarrassment in making that reply. Here was a beautiful exemplification of the precept of the apostle, 'He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.' Such a man had a right to have, for one of his mottoes, 'Deeds, not words.' This was just what was needed; but it gave us some breadth and enlargement, and was a beginning in what it had long been felt must, sooner or later, be undertaken,--the securing of an available fund suitable as a basis for such an institution. His next large gift was the library. This came from his asking me, as I was riding with him the following winter, if we wanted anything. Nothing occurred to me at the time, and I replied in the negative; but, the next day, I remembered that the trustees had voted to build a library, provided the treasurer should find it could be done for twenty-five hundred dollars. This I mentioned to him. He inquired what I supposed it would cost. I replied, 'Five thousand dollars.' He said, at once, 'I will give it.' With his approbation, the plan of a building was subsequently adopted that would cost seven thousand dollars; and he paid that sum. A year or two subsequently, he inquired of me the price of tuition here, saying he should like to connect Groton Academy with Williams College; and he paid two thousand dollars to establish four scholarships for any one who might come from that institution. His next gift was the telescope, which cost about fifteen hundred dollars. The history of this would involve some details which I have not now time to give. In 1851, accompanied by Mrs. Lawrence, he made a visit here. This was the first time either of them had seen the place. In walking over the grounds, he said they had great capabilities, but that we needed more land; and authorized the purchase of an adjoining piece of four acres. This purchase was made for one thousand dollars; and, if the college can have the means of laying it out, and adorning it suitably, it will, besides furnishing scope for exercise, be a fit addition of the charms of culture to great beauty of natural scenery. In addition to these gifts, he has, at different times, enriched the library with costly books, of the expense of which I know nothing. Almost everything we have in the form of art was given by him. In December, 1845, I received a letter from him, dated the 22d, or 'Forefathers' Day,' which enclosed one hundred dollars, to be used for the aid of needy students in those emergencies which often arise. This was entirely at his own suggestion; and nothing could have been more timely or appropriate in an institution like this, where so many young men are struggling to make their own way. Since that time, he has furnished me with at least one hundred dollars annually for that purpose; and he regarded the expenditure with much interest. Thus, in different ways, Mr. Lawrence had given to the college between thirty and forty thousand dollars; and he had expressed the purpose, if he should live, of aiding it still further. Understanding as he did the position and wants of this college, he sympathized fully with the trustees in their purpose to raise the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and, at the time of his death, was exerting a most warm-hearted and powerful influence for its accomplishment. In reference to this great effort, we feel that a strong helper is taken away. The aid which Mr. Lawrence thus gave to the college was great and indispensable; and probably no memorial of him will be more enduring than what he has done here. By this, being dead, he yet speaks, and will continue to speak in all coming time. From him will flow down enjoyment and instruction to those who shall walk these grounds, and look at the heavens through this telescope, and read the books gathered in this library, and hear instruction from teachers sustained, wholly or in part, by his bounty. Probably he could not have spent this money more usefully; and there is reason to believe that he could have spent it in no way to bring to himself more enjoyment. The prosperity of the college was a source of great gratification to him; and he said, more than once, that he had been many times repaid for what he had done here. That he should have thus done what he did unsolicited, and that he--and, I may add, his family--should have continued to find in it so much of satisfaction, is most grateful to my own feelings, and must be so to every friend of the college. In doing it, he seemed to place himself in the relation, not so much of a patron of the college, as of a sympathizer and helper in a great and good work." CHAPTER XXXIII. LETTERS.--DIARY. At the beginning of the year 1851, Mr. Lawrence writes to President Hopkins: "The closing of the old year was like our western horizon after sunset, bright and beautiful; the opening of the new, radiant with life, light, and hope, and crowned with such a costume of love as few old fathers, grandfathers, and uncles, can muster; in short, my old sleigh is the pet of the season, and rarely appears without being well filled, outside and inside. It is a teacher to the school-children, no less than to my grandchildren; for they all understand that, if they are well-behaved, they can ride with me when I make the signal; and I have a strong persuasion that this attention to them, with a present of a book and a kind word now and then, makes the little fellows think more of their conduct and behavior. At any rate, it does me good to hear them call out, 'How do you do, Mr. Lawrence?' as I am driving along the streets and by-ways of the city." * * * To an aged clergyman in the country, who was blind and in indigent circumstances, he writes: "Jan. 14. "Your letter of last week reached me on Saturday, and was indeed a sunbeam, which quickened me to do what I had intended for a 'happy new-year,' before receiving yours. I trust you will have received a parcel sent by railroad, on Monday, directed to you, and containing such things as I deemed to be useful in your family; and I shall be more than paid, if they add one tint to the 'purple light' you speak of, that opens upon your further hopes of visiting us the coming season. For many months I was unable to walk; but my feet and ankle-bones have now received strength. I feel that the prayers of friends have been answered by my renewed power to do more work. How, then, can I enjoy life better than by distributing the good things intrusted to me among those who are comforted by receiving them? So you need not feel, my friend, that you are any more obliged than I am. The enclosed bank-bills may serve to fit up the materials for use; at any rate, will not be out of place in your pocket. I trust to see you again in this world, which has to me so many interesting connecting links between the first and only time I have ever seen you (thirty-five or more years ago, in Dr. Huntington's pulpit, Old South Church) and the present." (FROM REV. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.) "42 GOWER-STREET, LONDON, Feb. 15, 1851. "MY DEAR SIR: No letter which authorship has brought to me ever gave me such pleasure as I received from yours of July, 1849, enclosing one which Governor Briggs had written to you. That strangers so distinguished should take such interest in my writings, and should express yourselves so kindly towards myself, overwhelmed me with a pleasing surprise, and with thankfulness to God who had given me such favor. I confess, too, it helped to make me love more the country which has always been to me the dearest next to my own. In conjunction with some much-prized friendships which I have formed among your ministers, it would almost tempt me to cross the Atlantic. But I am so bad a sailor that I fear I must postpone personal intercourse with those American friends who do not come to England, until we reach the land where there is no more sea. However feebly expressed, please accept my heartfelt thanks for all the cost and trouble you have incurred in circulating my publications. It is pleasant to me to think that your motive in distributing them, in the first instance, could not be friendship for the author; and to both of us it will be the most welcome result, if they promote the cause of practical Christianity. Owing to weakness in the throat and chest, I cannot preach so much as many of my neighbors, and therefore I feel the more anxious that my tracts should do something for the honor of the Saviour and the welfare of mankind. You were kind enough to reprint my last lecture to young men. I could scarcely wish the same distinction bestowed on its successor, because it is a fragment. I have some thoughts of extending it into a short exposition of Ecclesiastes, which is a book well suited to the times, and but little understood. * * * "Yours, most truly, JAMES HAMILTON." [Illustration: ABBOTT LAWRENCE Print. by R. Andrews.] In reply to the above letter, Mr. Lawrence writes, April 8: "I will not attempt to express to you in words my pleasure in receiving your letter of Feb. 15, with its accompaniments. The lecture delivered to the young men on the 4th of February, although designated by you as a fragment, I sent to my friend, with a copy of your letter, asking him whether he would advise its publication, and whether he would scatter it with its predecessor; and, if so, I would pay the expense. His answer you have here, and I have the pleasure of saying that the 'Fragment' will be ready to circulate by thousands the present week; and, when you shall have added your further comments upon Solomon and his works, our American Tract Society will be ready to publish the whole by hundreds of thousands, I trust, thus enabling you to preach through our whole country. The Memoir of Lady Colquhon is a precious jewel, which I shall keep among my treasures to leave my descendants. I had previously purchased a number of copies of the American edition, and scattered them among my friends, so that there is great interest to see your copy sent me. The part of your letter which touched my heart most was that in which you speak of my brother Abbott, and say of him that 'no foreign minister is such a favorite with the British public.' It brought him before me like a daguerreotype likeness, through every period of his life for fifty years. First, as the guiding spirit of the boys of our neighborhood, in breaking through the deep snow-drifts which often blocked up the roads in winter; then as my apprentice in the city; and, in a few years, as the young military champion, to watch night and day, under arms, on the point of Bunker Hill nearest the ocean, the movements of a British fleet lying within four or five miles of him, and threatening the storming of Boston; then, soon after, as embarking in the very first ship for England, after the close of the war, to purchase goods, which were received here in eighty-three days after he sailed. Since that time, our firm has never been changed, except by adding '& Co.,' when other partners were admitted. He has been making his way to the people's respect and affection from that time to this, and now fills the only public station I would not have protested against his accepting, feeling that _place_ cannot impart _grace_. My prayers ascend continually for him, that he may do his work under the full impression that he must give an account to Him whose eye is constantly upon him, and whose 'Well done' will be infinitely better than all things else. I believe he is awakening an interest to learn more about this country; and the people will be amazed to see what opportunities are here enjoyed for happiness for the great mass. What we most fear is _that_ ignorance which will bring everything down to its own level, instead of that true knowledge, which shall level up the lowest places, now inundated with foreign emigrants. Our duty is plain; and, if we do not educate and elevate this class of our people they will change our system of government within fifty years. Virtue and intelligence are the basis of this government; and the duty of all good men is to keep it pure. * * * "And now, my friend, what can I say that will influence you to come here, and enjoy with me the beautiful scenes upon and around our Mount Zion? "With the highest respect and affection, I am most truly yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE. "P. S.--Mrs. L. desires me to present to you and your lady her most respectful regard, with the assurance that your writings are very precious to her. She is a granddaughter to a clergyman of your 'Kirk,' and enjoys much its best writings." To the same gentleman he writes soon after: "And now let me speak about the 'Royal Preacher.'[14] I expected much, but not so much as I found in it. We, on this side the Atlantic, thank you; and the pictures of some of our own great men are drawn to the life, although their history and character could not have been in your eye. Truth is the same now as in Solomon's time; and it is surprising that the mass of men do not see and acknowledge that 'the saint is greater than the sage, and discipleship to Jesus the pinnacle of human dignity.' I have had, this morning, two calls, from different sections of our Union, for your 'Life in Earnest,' 'Literary Attractions of the Bible,' 'Solomon,' 'Redeemed in Glory,' &c., which I responded to with hearty good-will. Some of the books will go out of the country many thousand miles, and will do good. I must shake hands with you across the Atlantic, if you can't 'screw up' your courage to come here, and bid you God-speed in all your broad plans for the good of your fellow-men. "I have a great respect for deep religious feelings, even when I cannot see as my friends do; and therefore pray God to clear away, in his good time, all that is now dark and veiled. "It is time for me to say farewell." [14] A tract by Dr. Hamilton. CHAPTER XXXIV. SIR T. F. BUXTON.--LETTER FROM LADY BUXTON.--ELLIOTT CRESSON.--LETTERS. After the death of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Mr. Lawrence had read what had been published respecting his life and character, and had formed an exalted opinion of his labors in behalf of the African race. A small volume had been issued, entitled "A Study for Young Men, or a Sketch of Sir T. F. Buxton," by Rev. T. Binney, of London. Mr. Lawrence had purchased and circulated large numbers of this work, which recorded the deeds of one upon whom he considered the mantle of Wilberforce to have fallen; and, through a mutual friend, he had been made known to Lady Buxton, who writes to him as follows: "Very, very grateful am I for your love for him, and, through him, to me and my children. I desire that you may be enriched by all spiritual blessings; and that, through languor and illness and infirmity, the Lord may bless and prosper you and the work of your hands. I beg your acceptance of the third edition, in the large octavo, of the memoir of Sir Fowell." Those who have read the memoir referred to will remember the writer, before her marriage, as Miss Hannah Gurney, a member of that distinguished family of Friends of which Mrs. Fry was the elder sister. During the remaining short period of Mr. Lawrence's life, a pleasant correspondence was kept up, from which a few extracts will hereafter be given. To Elliott Cresson, of Philadelphia, the enthusiastic and veteran champion of the colonization cause, Mr. Lawrence writes, June 12, 1851: "MY DEAR OLD FRIEND CRESSON: I have just re-read your kind letter of June 2, and have been feasting upon the treasure you sent me in the interesting volume entitled 'Africa Redeemed.' I will set your heart at rest at once by assuring you that I feel just as you do towards that land. Do you remember visiting me, a dozen or more years ago, to get me to lead off with a thousand-dollar subscription for colonization, and my refusing by assuring you that I would not interfere with the burden of slavery, then pressing on our own Slave States, until requested by them? * * * * Liberia, in the mean time, has gone on, and now promises to be to the black man what New England has been to the Pilgrims, and Pennsylvania to the Friends. I say, with all my heart, to Gov. Roberts and his associates, God speed you, and carry onward and upward the glorious work of redeeming Africa! I had a charming message from a young missionary in Africa a few days since,--the Rev. Mr. Hoffman, of the Episcopal Mission; and you will be glad to hear that the good work of education for Liberia progresses surely and steadily here. My son A. is one of the trustees and directors (Prof. Greenleaf is president), and has given a thousand dollars from 'a young merchant;' and I bid him give another thousand from 'an old merchant,' which he will do as soon as he returns from our old home with his family. Now I say to you, my friend, I can sympathize and work with you while I am spared. God be praised! we are greatly favored in many things. No period of my life has been more joyous. "With constant affection, I am yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE." Among other memoranda of the present month is found a cancelled note of five hundred dollars, which had been given by a clergyman in another State to a corporation, which, by reason of various misfortunes, he had not been able to pay. Mr. Lawrence had heard of the circumstance, and, without the knowledge of the clergyman, had sent the required sum to the treasurer of the corporation, with directions to cancel the obligation. (TO LADY BUXTON.) "BOSTON, July 8, 1851. "DEAR LADY BUXTON: Your letter, and the beautiful copy of the memoir of your revered and world-wide honored husband, reached me on the 26th of June. I have read and re-read your heart-touching note with an interest you can understand better than I can describe. I can say that I thank you, and leave you to imagine the rest. Sir Fowell was born the same year, and in the same month, that I was; and his character and his labors I have been well acquainted with since he came into public life; and no man of his time stood higher in my confidence and respect. Although I have never been in public life, I have been much interested in public men; and have sometimes had my confidence abused, but have generally given it to men who said what they meant, and did what they said. I feel no respect for the demagogue, however successful he may be; but am able to say, with the dear and honored friend whose mantle fell upon Sir Fowell, 'What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!' I feel pity for the man who sacrifices his hopes of heaven for such vain objects as end in the mere gaze of this world. The 'Study for Young Men,' republished here a short time since, is doing such work among us as must cheer the spirit of your husband in his heavenly home. "I enclose you a note from Laura Bridgman, a deaf, dumb, and blind girl, who has been educated at our asylum for the last twelve years or more (now about twenty-two years old), which may interest you from the fact of her extraordinary situation. "With great respect, I remain most truly yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE." (TO A LADY IN PHILADELPHIA.) "DEAR L.: Your call on me to 'pay up' makes me feel that I had forgotten, and therefore neglected, my promise. I begin without preface. When a child, and all the way up to fifty years of age, the incidents of revolutionary history were so often talked over by the old soldiers who made our house their rendezvous whenever they came near it, that I feel as if I had been an actor in the scenes described. Among these, the Battle of Bunker Hill was more strongly impressed upon my mind than any other event. My father, then twenty-one years old, was in Captain Farwell's company, a subaltern, full of the right spirit, as you may know, having some sparks left when you used to ride on his sled and in his wagon, and eat his 'rattle apples,' which were coveted by all the children. He was in the breastwork; and his captain was shot through the body just before or just after Pitcairn was shot. My father did not know Major Pitcairn personally, but understood it was he who mounted the breastwork, calling to his soldiers to follow, when he pitched into the slight trench outside, riddled and dead, as my father always thought as long as he lived. But it turned out otherwise. He was brought from the field, and lodged in a house in Prince-street, now standing (the third from Charlestown Bridge); and the intelligence was immediately communicated to the Governor, then in the Royal House, now called the Province House. He sent Dr. Kast and an officer, accompanied by young Bowdoin as an amateur, to see to the major, and report. On entering the chamber, the doctor wished to examine the wound; but Pitcairn declined allowing him, saying it was of no use, as he should soon die. When pressed by the argument that his excellency desired it, he allowed Dr. Kast to open his vest, and the blood, which had been stanched, spirted out upon the floor; so that the room carried the mark, and was called 'Pitcairn's Chamber' until long after the peace. The doctor returned immediately to the Governor to report; and, before he could get back, life had fled. He was laid out in his regimentals, and was deposited in the vault of St. George's Church, now the Stone Chapel, and there remained until 1788, when Dr. Winship, of Roxbury, then on a visit to London, had occasion to call on Dr. C. Letsom, and informed him that he had in his possession the key of the vault; that he had examined the body, which was in so good a state of preservation, that he recognized the features; and that he had counted at least thirty marks of musket-balls in various parts of the body. An arrangement was made, through Dr. Winship, for the removal of the body to England. Dr. William Pitcairn built a vault in the Burying-ground of St. Bartholomew, near the hospital, for its reception. Capt. James Scott, the commander of a trading vessel between Boston and London at that period, undertook the service of removal, although he foresaw difficulty in undertaking the business, on account of the strong prejudice of sailors to having a corpse on board. With a view to concealment, the coffin was enclosed in a square deal case, containing the church-organ, which was to be sent to England for repairs. This case, with 'Organ' inscribed upon it, was placed, as it was said, for better security, in a part of the ship near the sailors' berths, and in that situation was used occasionally during the passage for their seat or table. On arrival of the ship in the river, an order was obtained for the landing of the case; and, as it was necessary to describe its contents, the order expressed permission to land a corpse. This revealed the stratagem of Capt. Scott, and raised such a feeling among the sailors as to show that they would not have been quiet had they known the truth respecting their fellow-lodger. Major Pitcairn was the only British officer particularly regarded by our citizens, as ready to listen to their complaints, and, as far as in his power, to relieve them, when not impeded by his military duties. Our excellent old friend B. will be interested in the 'Stone Chapel' part of this story, and probably can add particulars that I may have omitted. "Your affectionate AMOS LAWRENCE." CHAPTER XXXV. LETTERS--REV. DR. SCORESBY.--WABASH COLLEGE. After receiving a note from a relative of Lady Colebrooke, announcing her death, at Dunscombe, in the island of Barbadoes, Mr. Lawrence wrote the following note of sympathy to her husband, Sir William Colebrooke, then Governor of that island. She will be remembered as the lady who had formerly visited Boston, and who was alluded to in one of his letters, as a niece of Major André: "DEAR SIR WILLIAM: I lose no time in expressing to you the feelings of my heart, on reading the brief notice of the last hours of dear Lady Colebrooke. All my recollections and associations of her are of the most interesting character; and for yourself I feel more than a common regard. We may never meet again in this world; but it matters little, if, when we are called off, we are found 'in line,' and ready to receive the cheering 'Well done' when we reach that better world we hope for. I trust that you, and all your dear ones, have been in the hollow of our Father's hand, through the shadings of his face from you; and that, in his own good time, all will be cleared away. "Faithfully and respectfully yours, AMOS LAWRENCE. "BOSTON, Aug. 8, 1851." (TO THE HON. CHARLES B. HADDOCK, MINISTER OF THE UNITED STATES TO PORTUGAL.) "BOSTON, Aug. 19, 1851. "DEAR AND KIND-HEARTED FRIEND: Your letters to me before leaving the country, and after reaching England, awakened many tender remembrances of times past, and agreeable hopes of times to come. In that, I felt as though I had you by the hand, with that encouraging 'Go forward' in the fear of God, and confidence in his fatherly care and guidance. I know your views have always put this trust at the head of practical duties, and that you will go forward in your present duties, and do better service to the country than any man who could be sent. Portugal is a sealed book, in a great degree, to us. Who so able to unlock and lay open its history as yourself? Now, then, what leisure you have may be most profitably applied to the spreading out the treasures before us; and, my word for it, your reputation as a writer and a thinker will make whatever you may publish of this sort desirable to be read by the great mass of our reading population. * * * * * "I hold that God has given us our highest enjoyments, in every period, from childhood to old age, in the exercise of our talents and our feelings with reference to his presence and oversight; and that, at any moment, he may call us off, and that we may thus be left to be among the children of light or of darkness, according to his word and our preparation. These enjoyments of childhood, of middle age, of mature life, and of old age, are all greatly increased by a constant reference to the source from whence they come; and the danger of great success in life is more to be feared, in our closing account, than anything else. A brief space will find us in the earth, and of no further consequence than as we shall have marked for good the generation of men growing up to take our places. The title of an honest man, who feared God, is worth more than all the honors and distinction of the world. Pray, let me hear from you, and the dear lady, whom I hope to escort once more over the sides of our Mount Zion, and introduce to some of my children and grandchildren settled upon the borders; and, if any stranger coming this way from you will accept such facilities as I can give to our institutions, I shall gladly render them. It is now many years since I have sat at table with my family, and I am now better than I have been at any time during that period; in short, I am light-hearted as a child, and enjoy the children's society with all the zest of early days. I must say, 'God speed you, my friend,' and have you constantly in the hollow of his hand! In all kind remembrances, Mrs. L. joins me, to your lady and yourself. "Faithfully and respectfully your friend, "AMOS LAWRENCE." On the same day that the preceding letter was penned, Mr. Lawrence, in acknowledgment of some work sent to him by the Rev. Dr. Scoresby, of Bradford, England, wrote the following letter. That gentleman had visited this country twice, and had made many friends in Boston. Once an Arctic traveller, and a man of great scientific acquirement, he has now become an eminent and active clergyman in the Church of England, and has devoted all his energies to the task of elevating the lower orders of the population where his field of labor has been cast. "BOSTON, Aug. 19, 1851. "MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter from Torquay, of ninth July, reached me on the sixth of this month. It brought to memory our agreeable intercourse of former years, and cheered me with the hope that I might again see you in this world, and again shake your hand in that cordial, social way that goes direct to the heart. I had been much interested in the account brought by ----, and in your kind messages by him. Your memorials of your father interest me exceedingly, and I thank you most sincerely for the volume and the sermon you sent. This sermon I sent to a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, who became such after hearing you preach in Liverpool. Professor ----, of ---- College, is a most talented, efficient, and popular teacher; and his present position he has attained by his industry and his merit. He was a poor youth, in Liverpool, who followed you in your preaching; came here, and went as an apprentice to a mechanical business; was noticed as a bright fellow; was educated by persons assisting him, and graduated at ---- College. He became a tutor, and is now a professor, and is an honor to the college and his nation. We are all at work in New England, and now feel a twinge from too fast driving in some branches of business; but, in the aggregate, our country is rapidly advancing in wealth, power, and strength, notwithstanding the discontent of our Southern brethren. We have allowed the 'black spot' to be too far spread over our land; it should have been restrained more than thirty years ago, and then our old Slave States would have had no just cause of complaint. I am called off, and must bid you farewell, with kind regards of Mrs. L., and my own most faithful and affectionate remembrance. AMOS LAWRENCE. "REV. WILLIAM SCORESBY, D.D., Torquay, Devonshire, Eng." (TO PRESIDENT HOPKINS.) "BOSTON, Nov. 15, 1851. "MY DEAR FRIEND: This is a rainy day, which keeps me housed; and, to improve it in 'pursuit,' I have a bundle made up, of the size of a small 'haycock,' and directed to you by railroad, with a few lines enclosed for the amusement of the children. I have told A. and L. that they couldn't jump over it; but H. could, by having a clear course of two rods. Louis Dwight has spent a half-hour with me this morning, exhibiting and explaining his plan for the new Lunatic Asylum of the State, which I think is the best model I have ever seen, and is a decided improvement on all our old ones. The committee, of which Governor Briggs is chairman, will give it a careful consideration and comparison with Dr. Bell's, and perhaps Dr. Butler's and others; and, with such an amount of talent and experience, the new asylum will be the best, I trust, that there is on this side of the Atlantic. Louis Dwight is in fine spirits, and in full employ in his peculiar line. The new institution in New York for vagrant children will very likely be built on his plan. He is really doing his work most successfully, in classing and separating these young sinners, so that they may be reclaimed, and trained to become useful citizens; in that light, he is a public benefactor. * * * "Faithfully and affectionately yours, "AMOS LAWRENCE." In a letter to a friend, written on Sunday, and within a few days of the preceding, Mr. Lawrence says, after describing one of his severe attacks: "I am not doing wrong, I think, in consecrating a part of the day to you, being kept within doors by one of those kindly admonitions which speaks through the body, and tells me that my home here is no shelter from the storm. I had been unusually well for some weeks past, and it seemed to me that my days passed with a rapidity and joyousness that nothing short of the intercourse with the loved ones around me could have caused. What can be more emphatic, until my final summons? If my work is done, and well done, I should not dread the summons; pray that it may be, and that we may meet again after a brief separation. I am hoping to be safely housed by and by where cold and heat, splendid furniture, luxurious living, and handsome houses, and attendants, will all be thought of as they really merit." Mr. Lawrence had, for a considerable time, been interested in the Wabash College, at Crawfordsville, Indiana; and, on the 24th of November, announced to the Trustees a donation from Mrs. L. of twelve hundred dollars, to found four free scholarships for the use of the academy at Groton. He adds: "I would recommend that candidates for the scholarships who abstain from the use of intoxicating drinks and tobacco always have a preference. This is not to be taken as a prohibition, but only as a condition to give a preference." Mr. Lawrence speaks of his interest in Wabash College, growing out of his affection and respect for its President, the Rev. Charles White, D.D., who went from New England, and with whom he had become acquainted during a visit which that gentleman had made to his native State. Eight days after this donation to Wabash College, Mr. Lawrence enclosed to Rev. Dr. Pond, of the Theological School at Bangor, Maine, the sum of five hundred dollars; which he says, with other sums already subscribed by others for new professorships, would "prove a great blessing to all who resort to the institution through all time." CHAPTER XXXVI. DIARY.--AMOUNT OF CHARITIES.--LETTERS.--THOMAS TARBELL.--UNCLE TOBY.--REV. DR. LOWELL. "_January 1, 1852._--The value of my property is somewhat more than it was a year ago, and I pray God that I may be faithful in its use. My life seems now more likely to be spared for a longer season than for many years past; and I never enjoyed myself more highly. Praise the Lord, O my soul! "P. S.--The outgoes for all objects since January 1, 1842 (ten years), have been six hundred and four thousand dollars more than five sixths of which have been applied in making other people happy; and it is no trouble to find objects for all I have to spare." This sum, in addition to the subscriptions and donations for the year 1852, makes the amount of his expenditures for charitable purposes, during the last eleven years of his life, to be about five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. From 1829 to 1842, the sum expended for like appropriations was, according to his memoranda, one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars; making, for the last twenty-three years of his life the sum of six hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars expended in charity. Taking the amount of his property at various times, as noted by himself, from the year 1807 to 1829, a period of twenty-two years, with his known liberality and habits of systematic charity, it would be safe to assert that during his life he expended seven hundred thousand dollars for the benefit of his fellow-men. Many persons have done more; but few perhaps have done as much in proportion to the means which they had to bestow. In a letter to President Hopkins, dated March 31, Mr. Lawrence writes: "I am interested in everything you write about in your last letter; but among the items of deepest interest is the fact of the religious feeling manifested by the young men; and I pray God it may take deep root, and grow, and become the controlling power in forming their character for immortality. I trust they will count the cost, and act consistently. May God speed them in this holy work!" A few days later, he writes on the same subject: "And now let us turn to matters of more importance; the awakening of the young men of your college to their highest interest,--the salvation of their souls. I have been moved to tears in reading the simple statement of the case, and I pray God to perfect the good work thus begun. I have much to think of to-day, this being my sixty-sixth birth-day. The question comes home to me, What I am rendering to the Lord for all his benefits; and the answer of conscience is, Imperfect service. If accepted, it will be through mercy; and, with this feeling of hope, I keep about, endeavoring to scatter good seed as I go forth in my daily ministrations." The following correspondence was not received in time to be placed in the order of its date, but is now given as an illustration of Mr. Lawrence's views on some important points, and also as an instance of his self-control. In the autumn of 1847, he became acquainted with the Rev. Dr. ----, a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, then on a visit to some friends in Boston. During a drive in the environs, with this gentleman and the Rev. Dr. Blagden, Mr. Lawrence made a remark of a practical nature upon some religious topic, which did not coincide with the views of his Scotch friend; and a debate ensued, which was characterized by somewhat more of warmth than was warranted by the nature of the subject. Mutual explanations and apologies followed, and the correspondence, which was continued after the return of Dr. ---- to Scotland, shows that the discussion on the occasion referred to had caused no diminution of their mutual regard or good-will. The Rev. Dr. Blagden, in a note to the editor, dated Boston, April 18, 1855, writes as follows: "As the result of our incidental conversation on Monday last, let me say, that the facts of which we spoke occurred during a drive which the Rev. Dr. ----, of Scotland, and I were enjoying with your father, in his carriage, at his kind invitation, in October, 1847. "Without being able to recall the precise connection in which the remarks were made, I only now remember that Mr. Lawrence was led to speak with some degree of warmth, but with entire kindness, on the great error of relying on any idea of justification before God by faith, without corresponding works; so that, to one not familiar with the religious events in the history of this community, which, by operating on Mr. Lawrence's habits of thought, might well lead him to be jealous of any view of faith which did not directly express the necessity of good works, his remarks might very readily have seemed like a direct attack on that great truth of justification by faith, which Luther affirmed to be, as it was held or rejected, the test of a falling or rising church. "Immediately, that which the late Edward Irving, in one of his sermons, under the name of 'Orations,' calls the 'ingenium perfervidum Scotorum,' burst from the Rev. Dr. ----, with something of that zeal for the doctrines of Knox and Calvin for which I understand he has been somewhat remarkable in his own country. He vehemently declared his abhorrence of any such denial of the first and fundamental truth of the Gospel, evidently taking it somewhat in the light of an insult to us as the preachers of that truth. He ended by saying, with much force and warmth, that the apostle Paul sometimes condensed the whole of the Gospel into a single phrase; and one of these phrases, as expressed in the Epistle to the Philippians, he commended to the notice of Mr. Lawrence, namely, 'We are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit; and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.' "Mr. Lawrence met this strong, and apparently indignant and truly honest expression of feeling, with entire courtesy and self-command, but with evident and deep emotion; and, repressing all expression of displeasure, he gradually led the conversation to less unwelcome subjects, so that our ride ended pleasantly, though the embarrassment created by this event continued, in a lessening degree, to its close. "It will probably add to the interest of the whole transaction, in your own mind, if I state, not only what you seemed aware of on Monday, that your father sent me, a day or two after, 'Barr's Help' (I believe is the name of the volume), with a very kind and polite note, alluding to what had passed, and a paper containing some development of his own religious belief; but Rev. Dr. ----, also, soon after, in alluding to the circumstances in a note to me, on another subject, and which is now before me, wrote: "'I regret the warmth with which I did so. Alas! it is my infirmity; but it was only a momentary flash, for I was enabled, through a silent act of prayer, to get my mind purged of all heat, before I ventured to resume the conversation on the vital topic which our good and kind friend himself was led to introduce.' "I suspect this will reach you at an hour too late entirely for the use which you thought might possibly be made of it. It may, however, have some little interest, as a further development of the excellent character of your father; and it refers to a scene of which I have never been in the habit of speaking to others, but which I shall always remember with great interest, as one among many pleasing and profitable recollections of him." The following extracts are taken from the paper referred to in the preceding communication: "BOSTON, November 4, 1847. "To Rev. G. W. BLAGDEN, D.D. "REV. AND DEAR SIR: Our interesting ride last Thursday has peculiar claims upon me as a teacher and a preacher for a better world. To one who knows me well, my unceremonious manner to our friend would not seem so strange; but it was none the less unkind in me to treat him thus. "My first impressions are generally the right ones, and govern the actions of daily and hourly experience here; and these impressions were entirely favorable to our friend; and my treatment, up to the moment that you 'poured your oil upon the waters,' had been such as I am now well pleased with. But the conversation then commenced; and the lecture, illustrations, arguments, and consequences, were all stereotyped in my mind, having been placed there twenty-seven years ago by a learned and pious Scotchman, whose character came back to my memory like a flash of light. It is enough to say that a multitude of matters wholly adverse to my first impressions left me no command of my courtesies; and I stopped the conversation. * * * "I believe that our Saviour came among men to do them good, and, having performed his mission, has returned to his Father and to our Father, to his God and our God; and if, by any means, he will receive me as a poor and needy sinner with the 'Well done' into the society of those whom he shall have accepted, I care not what sort of _ism_ I am ranked under here. "There is much, I think, that may be safely laid aside among Christians who are honest, earnest, and self-denying. Again I say, I have no hope in _isms_, but have strong hope in the cross of Christ. "The little book[15] I send is a fuller exposition of the Kirk's doctrine than our friend's. I have reviewed it, and see no reason to alter a prayer or an expression. Return it at your leisure, with the two notes of our friend to me since our drive. Soon after I left you, I came home, sat down at my table to write a note as an apology to him for my rudeness in stopping his discourse, fainted, went to bed; next day, ate three ounces of crusts, rode out, and went to bed sick with a cold in my face. For the following forty-eight hours, I did not take an ounce of food; the slightest amount of liquid sustained me; and yesterday was the first day of my being a man. To-day, I called to see and apologize to you." * * * * * [15] "Help to Professing Christians. By Rev. John Barr. Published by Perkins and Marvin. Boston, 1831." (TO A FRIEND IN SOUTH CAROLINA.) "BOSTON, June 12, 1852. "MY DEAR FRIEND: The announcement of the death of your beloved wife, and the queries and suggestions you made, touched me in a tender place. You and your dear wife are separated, it is true; but she is in the upper room, you in the lower. She is with Jesus, where, with his disciples, he keeps the feast; and, not long hence, he will say to you, 'Come up hither.' Your spirit and hers meet daily at the same throne,--hers to praise, yours to pray; and, when you next join her in person, it will be to part no more. Is not the prospect such as to gild the way with all those charms, which, in our childhood, used to make our hours pass too slowly? * * * * * "My connection with the people of your State, growing out of my marriage, has brought me into personal intercourse, for more than thirty years past, with a great family connection, embracing in its circle many of your distinguished characters. All the M. family, of whom your present Governor is one, came from the same stock; and the various ramifications of that family at the South include, I suppose, a great many thousand souls. I, therefore take a lively interest in everything interesting to your people. We have hot heads, and so have you; but I think your people misjudge, when they think of setting up an independent government. The peculiar institution which is so dear to them will never be interfered with by sober, honest men; but will never be allowed to be carried where it is not now, under the Federal government. Politicians, like horse-jockeys, strive to cover up wind-broken constitutions, as though in full health; but hard driving reveals the defect, and, within thirty years, the old Slave States will feel compelled to send their chattels away to save themselves from bankruptcy and starvation. I have never countenanced these abolition movements at the North; and have lately lent a hand to the cause of Colonization, which is destined to make a greater change in the condition of the blacks than any event since the Christian era. * * * "You need no new assurance of my interest in, and respect for, yourself, and the loved ones around you. I enjoy life as few old men do, I believe; for my family seem to live around and for me. My nephew by marriage, Franklin Pierce, seems to be a prominent candidate for the 'White House' for the next four years. He is the soul of honor, and an old-fashioned Democrat, born and bred, and to be depended on as such; but, as I am an old-fashioned George Washington, John Jay Federalist, from my earliest days, and hope to continue to be, I shall prefer one of this stamp to him. * * * "With a heart overflowing, I hardly know where to stop. We shall meet in the presence of the Saviour, if we hold fast to the hem of his garment; and I hope may be of the number of those whose sins are forgiven. "Ever yours, AMOS LAWRENCE." During the summer, a small volume appeared, entitled "Uncle Toby's Stories on Tobacco." Mr. Lawrence read it; and the views there inculcated so nearly coincided with his own, so often expressed during his whole life, that he caused two editions, of some thousands of copies, to be published and circulated, principally by the boys of the Mather School. On this subject, he writes to President Hopkins, under date of Aug. 5: "My two last scraps told their own stories to the children, and to-day you will receive a package by express that may require explanation. Uncle Toby has hit the nail on the head in telling his tobacco stories to American lads; and I think your students will do good service in carrying them among their friends wherever they are, to show them how much better it is to prevent an evil than to remedy it; and, taking school-boys as they are, these stories will do more good than any that have been published. I met the author yesterday accidentally at the American Sabbath School Union Depository, where I had just paid for the fifty copies sent to you, and he was very earnest to have me write a few lines for him to publish in his book; but I referred him to the three hundred boys of the Mather School, who are full of the matter to help other school-boys to do as they are doing. However, I may say to him, that, as a school-boy, I was anxious to be _manly_, like the larger boys; and, by the advice of one, I took a quid, and kept it till I was very sick, but did not tell my parents what the matter was; and, from that time to this, have never chewed, smoked, or snuffed. To this abstinence from its use (and from spirit) I owe, under God, my present position in society. Further, I have always given the preference to such persons as I have employed, for more than forty years past, who have avoided rum and tobacco; and my experience has been such as to confirm me that it is true wisdom to have done so. The evil is growing in a fearfully rapid ratio among us; and requires the steady course of respected and honored men to prevent its spread, by influencing the school-children of our land against becoming its slaves. You will please use the fifty copies in the way you think best. If my life is spared, the Mather School boys will be allowed to tell their own experience to the boys of all the other public schools in this city and neighborhood. In short, I look to these boys influencing three millions of boys within the next thirty or forty years. Is not this work worth looking after?" The following well-merited tribute to the character of a respected citizen, who devoted his life to the promotion of every good object, is extracted from a note written by Mr. Lawrence to the Hon. Benjamin Seaver, then Mayor of the city, and dated Aug. 23: "MY FRIEND SEAVER: I have desired, for some weeks past, to inquire of you some further particulars of the disposition our friend Tarbell[16] made of his property. You mentioned that something would be paid over to A. & A. Lawrence, and something to the Old Ladies' Home, which institution he helped forward by his labors and his influence, in an important stage of its existence; and he was called off just as he was beginning to enjoy the fruits of his labor, in making a multitude of old ladies happy in thus supplying them a home for the remainder of their days on earth. Our friend has passed on; but I doubt not that his labors have prepared him to enter that world where there is no weariness or want, and all sufferings are at an end. I have journeyed side by side, for more than three-score years, with our friend; and can say, with truth, that I never knew him guilty of a dishonest or dishonorable act, and that his life was a practical exponent of his Christian principles. I pray to our Father to make me more faithful in doing the work our friend had so much at heart, while I can do it. My share of the money,[17] coming from his estate, I shall wish paid over to the Old Ladies' Home, and I doubt not brother A. will wish the same done with his share. This appropriation will increase our friend's happiness, even in his heavenly home; for the voice from Heaven proclaims, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.'" [16] The late Thomas Tarbell, originally from Groton, Mass. [17] This was a debt contracted by Mr. T., in 1826, amounting, at that time, to about fifteen hundred dollars, when he failed in business. The amount of the debt was soon after transferred to the "Old Ladies' Home." The editor feels some delicacy in inserting the following, from a gentleman still living, and in our own vicinity; but the tribute to Mr. Lawrence, coming, as it does, from a divine so distinguished in all those qualities which adorn his own profession, as well as for every Christian virtue, is too flattering to be omitted: "ELMWOOD, Sept. 3. "MY DEAR FRIEND: I take such paper as happens to be near me, in my sick chamber, to thank you for the books and pamphlets, which I have read as much as my dim sight and weak nerves will allow me at present to read. I wish, when you write to your friend Dr. Hamilton, you would thank him for me for his eloquent and evangelical appeals for Christian truth and duty. Tell him I am a Congregational Minister of Boston, but no sectarian; that I was matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, fifty years ago, and studied divinity there under Drs. Hunter, Micklejohn, Moodie, &c., and moral philosophy, under Dugald Stewart;--that my particular friends were David Dickson, since Minister of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh; David Wilkie, since Minister of Old Gray Friar's Church, Edinburgh; Patrick McFarlane, since Minister in Glasgow and Greenock; Thomas Brown, since Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh; David Brewster, since Sir David, &c.: most of whom he probably knows. Tell him I should be glad of his correspondence, as I have that of his friend, Principal Lee, of the University of Edinburgh; and that we should be glad to see him in Boston. I was happy to see your name appended to a petition on the subject of the liquor law, though I always expect to find it among the advocates of every benevolent enterprise within your reach. Your visit did me much good. I have much valued your friendship, and your manifestations of respect and regard for me. Heaven bless you and yours, and make you more and more a blessing! Come and see me when you can, my dear friend. With much affection and respect, "Your old friend, CHARLES LOWELL. "P. S.--I write with a feeble hand, dim sight, and nervous temperament." In enclosing the preceding note to the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, Mr. Lawrence writes, Sept. 4: "The writer of the foregoing is the Rev. Dr. Lowell, of this city, who is broken down in health, but not at all in his confidence and hope and joy in the beloved Jesus. Of all men I have ever known, Dr. Lowell is one of the brightest exemplars of the character and teachings of the Master; for all denominations respect him, and confide in him. For more than forty years I have known him; and, in all the relations of a good pastor to his people, I have never known a better. I have met him in the sick chamber, with the dying, and in the house of prayer. In the character of a teacher, and a leader of the people heavenward, no one among us has been more valued. Although I have not been a member of his church, he has, in times of great urgency, supplied our pulpit, and has always been ready to attend my family and friends when asked. I sent him such of your writings as I had in store for circulation, 'The Royal Preacher' among them; and I must say to you that I think no living man is preaching to greater multitudes than you are at this day. I have circulated tens of thousands of your tracts and volumes, and, if I am spared, hope to continue the good work. Millions of souls will be influenced by your labors." CHAPTER XXXVII. CORRESPONDENCE.--DIARY. (FROM LADY BUXTON.) "NORTHRUPP'S HILL, Sept. 8, 1852. "MY DEAR FRIEND: Again I have to thank you for your kind remembrance of me in your note and little book on the abuse of tobacco, and your sympathy with me in my late deep anxiety, ending in the removal of my most tenderly beloved and valued daughter Priscilla. It pleased God to take her to himself on June 18, to the inexpressible loss and grief of myself, and her husband and children. We surely sorrow with hope; for she had loved and followed the Lord Jesus from her childhood, and had known and obeyed the Holy Scriptures, which did make her, under the influence of the blessed Spirit, wise unto salvation. To her, to live was Christ, and therefore to die, gain; and we are thankful, and rejoice for her. Her spirit is with the Lord, beholding and sharing his glory, and reünited to her dearest father, brothers, and sisters, and many beloved on earth, in joy unspeakable. Still, we do and are permitted to mourn. * * "Priscilla traced the foundation of her illness to the great exertion she used in revising and altering her father's work on the remedy for the slave-trade. The stress upon her feelings and mind was too great for her susceptible nature. I believe it might be traced further back to her very great efforts to assist her father in his public business; so that I may say, I have had to part with the two most beloved, and gifted nearly, I have ever known, for the cause of God. But the comfort is intense that they cannot lose the abundant recompense of reward given through mercy and favor, not for any merits of their own, to those who love and serve the Lord. I must thank you most warmly again for the valuable gift of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' When it arrived, it was unknown in this country; now it is universally read, but sold at such a cheap rate, in such poor print, that this very beautiful copy is quite sought after. How wonderfully successful a work it has proved! I hope your little book upon tobacco may be of use here. I shall send it to my grandsons at Rugby. I fear you have been suffering much from bodily illness and infirmity, my dear friend. I trust your interesting circle about you are all well and prospering, and enjoying the blessing and presence of the Saviour. With kindest regards and affection, I am yours very sincerely, H. BUXTON." "_September 23, 1852._--By a singular coincidence, at the same time I received Lady Buxton's letter, I received one from 'Mrs. Sunny Side,'[18] from her sick chamber, asking the loan of some of Miss Edgeworth's works; also a note from Mrs. Stowe, giving me some information respecting the publication of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' in England and Germany; also a letter from our minister in Portugal; and, three or four hours later, 'Uncle Toby' called, having spent the day in the Mather School, lecturing on tobacco." [18] Mrs. Phelps, wife of Professor Phelps, of Andover, and daughter of Professor Stuart, the authoress of "Sunny Side," "Peep at Number Five," and other popular works. From a letter written about this time, an extract is made, which is interesting as showing his system of diet. "My own wants are next to nothing, as I live on the most simple food,--crusts and coffee for breakfast; crusts and champagne for dinner, with never more than three ounces of chicken, or two ounces of tender beef, without any vegetable, together eight ounces; coarse wheat-meal crusts, and two or three ounces of meat, in the twenty-four hours,--beginning hungry, and leaving off more hungry. I have not sat at table with my family for fifteen years, nor eaten a full meal during that time, and am now more hale and hearty than during that whole period." (TO A LADY IN FLORIDA.) "BOSTON, Oct. 14, 1852. "DEAR MRS. ----: Your deeply interesting note reached me within the last half-hour; and I feel that no time should be lost in my reply. My life has been protracted beyond all my friends' expectations, and almost beyond my own hopes; yet I enjoy the days with all the zest of early youth, and feel myself a spare hand to do such work as the Master lays out before me. This of aiding you is one of the things for which I am spared; and I therefore forward one hundred dollars, which, if you are not willing to accept, you may use for the benefit of some other person or persons, at your discretion. Your precious brother has passed on; and, in God's good time, I hope to see him face to face, and to receive, through the Beloved, the 'Well done' promised to such as have used their Lord's trusts as he approves. I enclose you Lieut. ----'s letter on his return from sea. * * * * "I had a charming ride yesterday with my nephew Frank Pierce, and told him I thought he must occupy the White House the next term, but that I should go for Scott. Pierce is a fine, spirited fellow, and will do his duty wherever placed; but Scott will be my choice for President of the United States. God bless you, my child, and have you in the hollow of his hand, in these days of trial. Your friend, A. L." (TO THE HON. JONATHAN PHILLIPS.) "BOSTON, Oct. 25, 1852. "TO MY RESPECTED AND HONORED FRIEND: The changing scenes of life sometimes recall with peculiar freshness the events and feelings of years long past; and such is the case with me, growing out of the death of our great New England statesman, who has, for a long period of years, been looked up to as preaching and teaching the highest duties of American citizens with a power rarely equalled, never surpassed. He is now suddenly called to the bar of that Judge who sees not as man sees, and where mercy, not merit, will render the cheering 'Well done' to all who have used their trusts as faithful stewards of their Lord,--the richest prize to be thought of. Our great man had great virtues, and, doubtless, some defects; and I pray God that the former may be written in the hearts of his countrymen, the latter in the sea. Here I begin the story that comes over my thoughts. "About forty years ago, walking past your father's house, with my wife and some of our family friends, on a bright, moonlight night, we were led to discuss the character of the owner (your honored father); some of the party wishing they might possess a small part of the property which would make them happy, others something else, when my own wish was expressed. It was, that I might use whatever Providence might allow me to possess as faithfully as your father used his possessions, and that I should esteem such a reputation as his a better inheritance for my children than the highest political honors the country could bestow. A few years later, I was visiting Stafford Springs with my wife, and there met you and Mrs. P., and first made your acquaintance. Still a few years later, I became personally acquainted with your father by being chosen a Director of the Massachusetts Bank, he being President. Still later, I became more intimate with yourself by being a member of the Legislature with you, when the seceders from Williams College petitioned to be chartered as Amherst College, which you opposed by the best speech that was made; and we voted against the separation, and, I believe, acted together on all the subjects brought up during that session. Since then, which is about thirty years, I have been a successful business man, although, for the last twenty years, I have been a broken machine, that, by all common experience, should have been cast aside. But I am still moving; and no period of my life has had more to charm, or has had more flowers by the wayside, than my every-day life, with all my privations. The great secret of the enjoyment is, that I am able to do some further work, as your father's example taught me, when the question was discussed near forty years ago. Can you wonder, then, my friend, that I wish our names associated in one of the best literary institutions in this country; viz., Williams College? My interest in it seemed to be accidental, but must have been providential; for we cannot tell, till we reach a better world, what influence your speech had in directing my especial attention to the noble head of the college, when I first met him in a private circle in this city; and, since then, my respect for his character, my love for him as a man and a brother, has caused me to feel an interest in his college that I never should have felt without this personal intercourse. The two hundred young men there need more teachers; and the college, in view of its wants has appealed to the public for fifty thousand dollars, to place it upon an independent footing. * * * * * "There is money enough for all these good objects; and, if our worthy citizens can only be made to see that it will be returned to them four-fold, in the enjoyment of life in the way that never clogs, it will not be thought presumptuous in me to advise to such investments. From long observation, I am satisfied that we do better by being our own executors, than by hoarding large sums for our descendants. Pardon me for thus writing to you; but knowing, as I do, that the college has commenced its appeal for aid, I am sure you will excuse me, whether you contribute to its aid or not. With great respect, I am, as I have always been, "Your friend, AMOS LAWRENCE. "P. S.--If you wish to talk with me, I shall be rejoiced to say what I know about the college." In his diary of the same date, Mr. Lawrence writes: "6 P. M.--My good old friend has called to see and talk with me, and a most agreeable conversation we have had. He expressed good wishes for the college, and will subscribe a thousand dollars at once, which is a cheering beginning in this city. The interest in the college will grow here, when people know more about it." "BOSTON, _Saturday morning, Nov. 13, 1852_.--The circumstances which have brought me the following letter from my valued friend, 'Honest John Davis,' are these: Many years ago, I learned, from undoubted sources, that his pecuniary losses, through the agency of others, had so straitened him as to decide him to take his two sons from Williams College, which seemed to me a pity; and I therefore enclosed to him five hundred dollars, with a request that he would keep his boys in college, and, when his affairs became right again, that he might pay the same to the college for some future needy pupils. Two or three years afterwards, he said he was intending to hand over to the college the five hundred dollars, which I advised not to do until it was perfectly convenient for him. The circumstances which now call him out are very interesting; and, to me, the money seems worth ten times the amount received in the common business of life. Within ten minutes after Mr. Davis's letter was read to me, Dr. Peters, the agent of the college to collect funds for its necessities, called in to report progress in his work. I immediately handed over the five hundred dollars from John Davis, with a request that he would acknowledge its reception to my friend at once." "WORCESTER, Nov. 12, 1852. "MY DEAR SIR: I have been in Boston but once since my return from Washington, and then failed to see you. Nevertheless, you are seldom absent from our thoughts; you do so much which reminds us of the duties of life, and fixes in our minds sentiments of cherished regard and unalterable affection. No one can desire a more enviable distinction, a more emphatic name, than he whom all tongues proclaim to be the good man; the man who comprehends his mission, and, with unvarying steadiness of purpose, fulfils it. There is such a thing as mental superiority, as elevated station, as commanding influence, as glory, as honor; and these are sometimes all centered in the same individual; but, if that individual has no heart; if humanity is not mixed in his nature; if he has no ear for the infirmities, the weaknesses, and sufferings of his fellow-beings,--he is like the massive, coarse walls of a lofty fortress, having strength, greatness, and power; but, as a man, he is unfinished. He may have much to excite surprise or to overawe, but nothing to awaken the finer sensibilities of our nature, or to win our love. The divine efflatus has never softened the soul of such a man. The heavenly attributes of mercy, brotherly love, and charity, have never touched his heart with sympathy for his race. He forgets that a fellow-being, however humble, is the work of the same God who made him, and that the work of the Almighty has a purpose. He forgets the great command to love our neighbor. He forgets that all who are stricken down with disease, poverty, affliction, or suffering, are our neighbors; and that he who ministers to such, be he Jew or Samaritan, is, in the lofty, scriptural sense, a neighbor. Neither the hereditary descent of the Levite, nor the purple of the priest, makes a neighbor; but it is he who binds up the bleeding wound. This is the act upon which Heaven places its seal of approval, as pleasing in the sight of him that is perfect. Where there is an absence of purity of heart or generous sympathy, the man lacks the most ornate embellishment of character, that lustrous brightness which is the type of heaven. To minister to the necessities of the humble and lowly is the work of God's angels; and the man who follows their example cannot be far from his Maker. You have the means of doing good; but have what is greater, and a more marked distinction, the disposition to do it when and where it is needed. Your heart is always alive, and your hand untiring. * * * * * "Some years ago, you did that for me and mine which will command my gratitude while I live. I needed aid to educate my children; and you, in a spirit of marked generosity, came unasked to my relief. I need not say how deeply, how sincerely thankful I was, that one, upon whom I had no claim, should manifest so generous a spirit. After a while, times changed somewhat for the better; and, feeling that I was able to do it, I asked permission to restore the sum advanced, that you, to whom it belonged, might have the disposition of it, since it had performed with me the good that was intended. You kindly gave me leave to hand it over to the college, but advised me to take my own time, and suit my convenience. That time has now come; and, as you are again extending to the college your sustaining arm, and may wish to take this matter into the account, I herewith enclose a check for five hundred dollars, with the renewed thanks of myself and my wife for the great and generous service which you have done us. We shall, in all respects, have profited greatly by it; and have no wish to cancel our obligations by this act, but to recognize them in their fullest extent. I am, most truly and faithfully, "Your friend and obedient servant, "JOHN DAVIS." Some inquiries having been made of Mr. Lawrence respecting the early history of the Bunker Hill Monument, he writes, on the 12th of November, in a short note: DEAR SON: You may be glad to copy the twelfth section of my will, executed in 1833. This information is not before the world, but may be interesting to your children. I could have finished the monument, sick as I was, at any time before Edmund Dwight's death, by enlisting with him, who made me the offer, to join a small number of friends (three Appletons, Robert G. Shaw, and us three Lawrences), without saying, 'by your leave,' to the public." * * * * * "Surety-ship is a dangerous craft to embark in. Avoid it as you would a sail-boat with no other fastenings than mere wooden pegs and cobweb sails." CHAPTER XXXVIII. MR. LAWRENCE SERVES AS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR.--GEN. FRANKLIN PIERCE.--SUDDEN DEATH.--FUNERAL. In November, Robert G. Shaw, Esq., and Mr. Lawrence, were chosen Presidential Electors for the district in which they resided. Both, at that time, were in the enjoyment of their usual health, and yet both were removed within a few months by death. The Electoral College was convened in the State House at Boston, in December; and Mr. Lawrence has noticed the event by a memorandum, endorsed upon his commission of Elector, as follows: "_December 1._--I have attended to the duty, and have given my vote to Winfield Scott for President, and William A. Graham for Vice-President." He did not add, that, before leaving the State House, he gave the customary fee paid in such cases towards freeing the family of a negro from slavery. But little is found in the handwriting of Mr. Lawrence for the month of December, except his usual record of donations to charitable objects. He seems to have written but few letters, which may in part be accounted for by having had his time much occupied by a most agreeable intercourse with Gen. Franklin Pierce, who, with his family, were his guests during a part of the month. That gentleman had for many years been on terms of intimate friendship with Mr. Lawrence, and had kept up a familiar correspondence from Washington and elsewhere, which no political differences had abated. He had always been a favorite; and now, having been elected to the Presidential chair, and engaged in plans for his future administration, it may be imagined what interest this intercourse excited in Mr. Lawrence, deeply concerned as he was in every movement that tended to promote the political and moral welfare of the country. Many excursions were made to the interesting spots and charitable institutions of Boston and its vicinity, during this visit, which has a melancholy interest from the events which immediately followed it. On the twenty-sixth, General and Mrs. Pierce left Boston for their home at Concord, N. H., with the intention of spending a few days with their friends at Andover. They were accompanied by their only child Benjamin, a bright and promising boy, twelve years of age, whose melancholy death, but a few days afterwards, will give an interest to the following note, which he wrote to Mr. Lawrence in acknowledgment of a little token of remembrance: "ANDOVER, Dec. 27, 1852. "DEAR UNCLE LAWRENCE: I admire the beautiful pencil you sent me, and I think I shall find it very useful. I shall keep it very carefully for your sake, and I hope that I may learn to write all the better with it. It was kind in you to write such a good little note, too; and I see that being industrious while you were young enables you to be kind and benevolent now that you are old. I think that you have given me very good advice, and I hope I shall profit by it. So, dear uncle, with much love to aunt, I am "Your affectionate nephew, "B. PIERCE." The brief history of this promising boy, who exhibited a maturity and thoughtfulness far beyond his years, is soon told. Nine days afterwards, in company with his father and mother, he left Andover on his return home. A few minutes after starting, the cars were precipitated down a steep bank, among the rocks, causing the instant death of Benjamin, and bruising the father and many other passengers severely. The accident sent a thrill of sympathy throughout the Union, and cast a withering blight upon the prospects of the bereaved parents, which, amidst all earthly distinctions, can never be forgotten, and which has perhaps rendered more irksome the great and unceasing responsibilities of high official station. "_Dec. 28._--I sent a large bundle of clothing materials, books, and other items, with sixty dollars, by steamer for Bangor, to Professor Pond, of Bangor Theological Seminary, for the students. Also gave a parcel, costing twenty-five dollars, to Mrs. ----, who is a Groton girl, and now having twins, making twenty children: is very poor. "_Dec. 30._--To Professor ----, by dear S., one hundred dollars. Books and items to-day, five dollars." These were his last entries. On the afternoon of the above date, the writer, in his usual walk, passed Mr. Lawrence's door with the intention of calling on his return, but, after proceeding a few steps, decided, from some unaccountable motive, to give up the accustomed exercise, and pass the time with his father. Mr. Lawrence appeared in excellent health and spirits; and nearly an hour was agreeably spent in discussing the topics of the day. He seemed more than usually communicative; and, although always kind and affectionate, there was, on this occasion, an unusual softness of manner, and tenderness of expression, which cannot be forgotten. The last topic touched upon was the character of a prominent statesman, just deceased, and the evidence which he had given of preparation for an exchange of worlds. He spoke somewhat fully upon the nature of such preparation, and expressed a strong hope, that, in the present instance, the exchange had been a happy one. In the latter part of the evening, Mr. Lawrence addressed to his friend, Prof. Packard, of Bowdoin College, the following note, in reply to some questions asked by that gentleman in regard to the Bunker Hill Monument, of which he was preparing a history for publication among the records of the Maine Historical Society: "BOSTON, December 30, 1852, evening. "MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter of Tuesday reached me just before my morning excursion to Longwood to see our loved one there. In reply to your first query, I answer, that Mr. E. Everett presented a design of Bunker Hill Monument, which was very classic, and was supported by Col. Perkins and Gen. Dearborn, I believe, and perhaps one or two more. Young Greenough (Horatio), then a student of Harvard College, sent in a plan with an essay, that manifested extraordinary talents, and was substantially adopted, although the column was amended by the talents, taste, and influence of Loammi Baldwin, one of our directors. The discussion of the model was very interesting; and, among the whole mass of plans, this of Mr. Everett and Mr. Baldwin, or, as I before said, a modification of Greenough's, were the only ones that were thought of. Mr. Everett, and those who favored his classic plan, were very cordial in their support of the plan of the monument as it is, very soon after its adoption. Mr. Ticknor was very active in support of the plan as adopted; and I have a strong impression that young Greenough's arguments were wholly just, and, abating some assertions which seemed a little strong for a mere college-lad, were true and unexceptionable. I write from memory, and not from overlooking the plans carefully since the time they were considered. Young Greenough I felt a deep interest in, and advanced money to his father to allow him to go abroad to study, which has been repaid since his father's death. Here I have an interesting story to tell you of this debt, which I wished to cancel, that the widow might receive the amount. Mr. Greenough was near his end, and deeply affected, but fully persuaded that, by the provisions of his will, his widow would soon have an ample income, and declined the offer. It has turned out better than he ever anticipated. The books shall go forward, as you requested. All our family, 'kith and kin,' are pretty well. The President elect has, I think, the hardest time, being over-worked; and, as we are now without any one, we shall be rejoiced to see you here. Pray, come. I shall write again when I send the 'red book' you request. "With love to all, N. and I join; and I bid you adieu. "From your friend, "AMOS LAWRENCE. "To Prof. PACKARD, Brunswick, Me." The above letter was folded, directed, and left upon his table, and doubtless contained the last words he ever wrote. After the usual family devotions, he retired at about ten o'clock, and, before his attendant left the room, asked a few questions relating to the situation of a poor family which he had relieved a day or two before. Mrs. Lawrence had been in an adjoining room, and, on returning, found him lying quietly, and apparently engaged in silent prayer. She did not, therefore, disturb him, but retired for the night without speaking. In less than two hours, she was awakened by one of his usual attacks. Remedies were applied; but, no rallying symptoms appearing, the physician and family were summoned. All that medical skill could do was in vain; and, at a quarter past twelve, on the last day of the year, he quietly breathed his last, without having awakened to consciousness after his first sleep. All his temporal affairs seemed to have been arranged in view of this event. The partnership with his brother, which had existed for nearly forty years, was dissolved in that way which he had resolved in former years should alone terminate it. From various prudential reasons, however, he had changed his opinion, and had decided to withdraw from all business relations, and accordingly furnished the advertisement, which was to appear on the next day in the public prints, announcing his withdrawal. Four days previous, he had executed a codicil to his will; and thus seemed to have settled his concerns with the closing year. The summons did not find him unprepared; for it was such as he had long expected, and had alluded to many times in his conversation, as well as in his letters to friends. The plans of each day were made with reference to such a call. Nor can we doubt that he was, in the highest sense, prepared to exchange what he sometimes was permitted to call "the heaven on earth" for that higher heaven where so many of his most cherished objects of earthly affection had preceded him. On the morning of his death, the editor found upon his table the following lines, which had been copied by him a few days previous, and which are the more interesting from being a part of the same hymn containing the lines repeated by his wife upon her death-bed, thirty-three years before: "Vital spark of heavenly flame, Quit, O, quit this mortal frame! Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,-- O, the pain, the bliss, of dying! Cease, fond nature,--cease the strife, And let me languish into life. Hark!--------" It would almost seem that a vision of the angel-messenger had been afforded, and that the sound of his distant footsteps had fallen upon his ear; for, with the unfinished line, the pen thus abruptly stops. The funeral ceremonies were performed on Tuesday, the 4th of January. A prayer was first offered before the body was taken from the house, in the presence of the family and friends of the deceased, by the Rev. A. H. Vinton, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's Church. Public exercises in Brattle-street Church were then performed, in the presence of a crowded congregation, composed of the numerous friends and former associates of the deceased, clergymen of all denominations, and large numbers representing the various professions and trades of the community. The religious services were conducted by three of Mr. Lawrence's most intimate and valued friends, representing three different denominations. These were the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, pastor of Brattle-street Church; the Rev. Dr. Hopkins, President of Williams College; and the Rev. Dr. Sharp, pastor of the Baptist Society in Charles-street. A beautiful and appropriate hymn was sung by the members of the Lawrence Association, from the Mather School, who surrounded the coffin, and, at the conclusion of the hymn, covered it with flowers. The body, followed by a large procession of mourning friends, was then conveyed to Mount Auburn, and deposited by the side of the loved ones who had preceded him, and under the shade of the "Old Oak," where may it rest until summoned to the presence of that Saviour whose example and precepts he so much loved on earth, and through whom alone he looked for happiness in heaven! CHAPTER XXXIX. SKETCH OF CHARACTER BY REV. DRS. LOTHROP AND HOPKINS. The correspondence in the preceding pages will, perhaps, give a clearer view of the character of Mr. Lawrence than anything which can be adduced by others. It may not be amiss, however, to quote what has been written by two of his most intimate friends, who had the most ample means of forming a just estimate of the man, and of the motives by which he was actuated. Dr. Lothrop, in his sermon preached on the Sunday after the funeral, says: "I have intimated that Mr. Lawrence was intellectually great. I think he was so. By this, I do not mean he was a scholar or learned man, with a mind developed and disciplined by severe training, and enlarged and enriched by varied culture in the various departments of human thought and study. This, we know, he was not; although he was a man of considerable reading, who loved and appreciated the best books in English literature. But I mean that he was a man of great native vigor of intellect, whose mind was clear, strong, comprehensive in its grasp, penetrating, far-reaching in its observation, discerning and discriminating in its judgments, sagacious in its conclusions; a mind, which, if enriched by the requisite culture, and directed to such objects, would have made him eminent in any of the walks of literary or professional life, as, without that culture, it did make him eminent in those walks of practical, commercial life to which he did direct it. I mention this, not to dwell upon it, but simply because some who have known him little, and that only since disease had somewhat sapped his strength, may not do him justice in this respect. Those who remember his early manhood; who saw the strong, bold, and vigorous tread with which he walked forward to his rightful place among the merchants of the city; those who remember the sagacity of his enterprises, his quick and accurate discernment of character, and the commanding influence he exercised over others; the ease and rapidity with which he managed the concerns of a large commercial establishment, and decided and despatched the most important commercial negotiation,--these will be ready to admit that he was intellectually a strong man. To the last this vigor of intellect showed itself; if not always in his conversation, yet always in his letters, many of which will be found to have a force of thought, a fulness of wisdom and sound judgment, a terse, epigrammatic comprehensiveness of expression, of which no man, however distinguished by his learning and scholarship, would have need to be ashamed. The merchants of this city have ever been distinguished, I believe, for their integrity and benevolence. Nowhere is wealth acquired by a more honest and healthy activity; nowhere is a larger portion of it devoted to all the objects which a wise philanthropy, an extended patriotism, and a tender Christian sympathy, would foster and promote. Mr. Lawrence was conspicuous for these qualities. His integrity, I may venture to say, stands absolutely unimpeached, without spot or blemish. His history, as a merchant, from first to last, will bear the strictest scrutiny. Its minutest incidents, which have faded from the memory of those concerned; its most secret acts, those of which no human eye could take knowledge,--might all be brought into the light before us; and like those, I trust, of many of his fraternity, they would seem only to illustrate the purity and integrity of his principles, the conscientious regard to truth and right and justice with which he conducted all the negotiations of business, and all the affairs of his life. He seemed ever to me to have a reverence for right, unalloyed, unfaltering, supreme; a moral perception and a moral sensibility, which kept him from deviating a hair's breadth from what he saw and felt to be his duty. It was this that constituted the strength of his character, and was one of the great secrets of his success. It was this that secured him, when a young man, the entire confidence, and an almost unlimited use of capital, of some of the wealthiest and best men of that day. * * * * * "The prominent feature in Mr. Lawrence's life and character, its inspiration and its guide, was religion; religious faith, affection, and hope. He loved God, and therefore he loved all God's creatures. He believed in Christ, as the promised Messiah and Saviour of the world; and therefore found peace and strength to his soul, amid all the perils, duties, and sorrows of life. * * * * * "There was nothing narrow or sectarian about Mr. Lawrence's religious opinions or feelings. He had a large, catholic spirit, which embraced within the arms of its love, and of its pecuniary bounty also when needed, all denominations of Christians; and it is to be hoped that the influence of his example and character has done something, and will continue to do more, to rebuke that bigotry which 'makes its own light the measure of another's illumination.' He took no pleasure in religious disputes or discussions. The practical in Christianity was what interested him. His great aim was to illustrate his faith by his daily walk, and authenticate his creed by a life of practical usefulness, constant benevolence, and cheerful piety. This aim he successfully accomplished, to the conviction of persons of all creeds and of every name. These will all give him a name in the church universal; will all admit that he was a noble specimen of a true Christian,--a loving and believing disciple, who had the very spirit of his Master. That spirit pervaded his daily life, and formed the moral atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. It quickened in him all holy, devout, and pious affections; gave him a profound reverence, a cheerful submission, a bright and glorious hope,--a hope that crowned every hour with gladness, robbed death of all terrors, and, in _his_ soul, brought heaven down to earth." The following extracts are taken from the sermon, by President Hopkins, before the students of Williams College,--a sermon from which extracts have been already made: "Having thus spoken of the use of his property by Mr. Lawrence, I observe that it was distinguished by the three characteristics which seem to me essential to the most perfect accomplishment of the ends of benevolence, and that in two of these he was preëminent. "The first of these is, that he gave the money in his life-time. No man, I presume, has lived on this continent who has approximated him in the amount thus given; and in this course there are principles involved which deserve the careful attention of those who would act conscientiously, and with the highest wisdom. There may doubtless be good reasons why property destined for benevolent uses should be retained till death, and he is justly honored who then gives it a wise direction; but giving thus cannot furnish either the same test or discipline of character, or the same enjoyment, nor can it always accomplish the same ends. By his course, Mr. Lawrence put his money to its true work long before it could have done anything on the principle of accumulation; and to a work, too, to which it never could have been put in any other way. He made it sure, also, that that work should be done; and had the pleasure of seeing its results, and of knowing that through it he became the object of gratitude and affection. So doing, he showed that he stood completely above that tendency to accumulate which seems to form the chief end of most successful business men; and which, unless strongly counteracted, narrows itself into avarice, as old age comes on, almost with the certainty of a natural law. He did stand completely above this. No one could know him, without perceiving, that, in his giving, there was no remnant of grudging or reluctance; that he gave, not only freely, but with gladness, as if it were the appropriate action of a vital energy. And in so doing, and in witnessing the results, and in the atmosphere of sympathy and love thus created, there was a test and a discipline and an enjoyment, as well as a benefit to others, that could have been reached in no other way. "The second peculiarity in the bounty of Mr. Lawrence, and in which he was preëminent, was the personal attention and sympathy which he bestowed with it. He had in his house a room where he kept stores of useful articles for distribution. _He_ made up the bundle; _he_ directed the package. No detail was overlooked. He remembered the children, and designated for each the toy, the book, the elegant gift. He thought of every want, and was ingenious and happy in devising appropriate gifts. In this attention to the minutest token of regard, while, at the same time, he could give away thousands like a prince, I have known no one like him. And, if the gift was appropriate, the manner of giving was not less so. There was in this the nicest appreciation of the feelings of others, and an intuitive perception of delicacy and propriety. These were the characteristics that gave him a hold upon the hearts of many, and made his death really felt as that of few other men in Boston could have been. In this, we find not a little of the utility, and much of the beauty, of charity. Even in his human life, man does not live by bread alone, but by sympathy and the play of reciprocal affection, and is often more touched by the kindness than by the relief. Only this sympathy it is that can establish the right relation between the rich and the poor; and the necessity for this can be superseded by no legal provision. This only can neutralize the repellent and aggressive tendencies of individuals and of classes, and make society a brotherhood, where the various inequalities shall work out moral good, and where acts of mutual kindness and helpfulness may pass and repass, as upon a golden chain, during a brief pilgrimage and scene of probation. It is a great and a good thing for a rich man to set the stream of charity in motion, to employ an agent, to send a check, to found an asylum, to endow a professorship, to open a fountain that shall flow for ages; but it is as different from sympathy with present suffering, and the relief of immediate want, as the building of a dam to turn a factory by one great sluiceway is from the irrigation of the fields. By Mr. Lawrence both were done. "The third characteristic referred to of the bounty of Mr. Lawrence was, that he gave as a Christian man,--from a sense of religious obligation. Not that all his gifts had a religious aspect: he gave gifts of friendship and of affection. There was a large enclosure, where the affections walked foremost, and where, though they asked leave of Duty, they yet received no prompting from her. Whether he always drew this line rightly; whether, in the measure and direction of his charities, he was always right; whether so much of diffusion and individuality was wise,--it is not for me to say. Certain it is, that this form of charity holds a place in the church now less prominent relatively than it did in the early ages; and it may be that the proportions of Christian character, in portions of the church, need to be remodelled and recast in this respect. These are questions for each individual. It is sufficient to know that Mr. Lawrence looked the great doctrine of stewardship full in the face, and prayed earnestly over it, and responded to it practically, as few have done. * * * * "Undoubtedly, he was a man of great original powers. On this point, I have had but one opinion since knowing him. His mind was not speculative, discursive, metaphysical: but, in the high moral qualities; in decision and energy; in intuitive perception, and sound, practical judgment; in the sensibility and affections, and in the imagination,--he was great. Like all remarkable men who are not one-sided, he had large faculties, which found their harmony in their conflict, or rather in their balance. He was quick and tender in his feelings, yet firm; ardent in his affections, yet judicious; large in his gifts, yet discriminating; he was a keen observer, yet kind in his feelings; he had a fertile and shaping imagination: he built air-castles, and they vanished, and then he built others; but, when he decided to build anything on the ground, it was well-planned and promptly finished. His tastes were natural and simple, his habits plain, and his feelings always fresh, genuine, and youthful. Not even the smell of the fire of prosperity had passed on him. He shunned notoriety. He had a strong repugnance to all affectation and pretence and misplaced finery. A young man with rings on his fingers had small chance of favor or employment from him. He was impatient of talk when action was called for, and of all attempts to substitute talk for action. His command over the English language, especially in writing, indicated his power. Style is no mechanical product, that can be formed by rules, but is the outgrowth and image of the mind; and his had often great felicity and strength. When he wrote under the impulse of his feelings, he seemed to impregnate the very paper, and make it redolent of them. He loved nature; and, instead of becoming insensible to it as years came on, it seemed rather to open upon him like a new revelation. It was full of life and of teaching, and the charms of natural beauty were heightened by those associations which his quick imagination connected with its objects and scenes. After the death of two of his children, he says: 'Dear S. and R. speak in words without sound through every breeze, and in every flower, and in the fragrance of every perfume from the fields or the trees.' Years ago, after a long confinement, with little hope of recovery, he visited, when first able to get out, the Panorama of Jerusalem, then on exhibition in Boston, and remained there till the scene took full possession of his mind. Shortly after, on a fine day, he rode out to Brookline; and, as returning health threw over those hills a mantle of beauty that he had never seen before, they were immediately associated in his mind with the Panorama of Jerusalem, and then with the glories of the Jerusalem above. This association was indissoluble, and he would take his friends out to see his 'Mount Zion.' In 1850, he says, 'It really seems to me like the sides of Mount Zion, and that I can cling to them as I view them.' * * * * * "He was a deeply religious man. His trust in God, and his hope of salvation through Christ, were the basis of his character. He believed in the providence of God as concerned in all events, and as discriminating and retributive in this world. He felt that he could trust God in his providence, where he could not see. 'The events of my life,' he writes, 'have been so far ordered in a way to make me feel that I know nothing at the time, except that a Father rules; and his discipline, however severe, is never more so than is required.' He believed in the Bible, and saw rightly its relation to all our blessings. 'What,' he writes again, 'should we do, if the Bible were not the foundation of our self-government? and what will become of us, when we wilfully and wickedly past it behind us?' He read the Bible morning and evening in his family, and prayed with them; and it may aid those who are acquainted with the prayers of Thornton, in forming a conception of his religious character, to know that he used them. Family religion he esteemed as above all price; and, when he first learned that a beloved relative had established family worship, he wept for joy. He distributed religious books very extensively, chiefly those of the American Tract Society, and of the American Sunday School Union. * * * * Of creeds held in the understanding, but not influencing the life, he thought little; and the tendency of his mind was to practical rather than doctrinal views. He believed in our Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour, and trusted in him for salvation. He was a man of habitual prayer. The last time I visited him, he said to me, that he had been restless during the night, and that the only way in which he could 'get quieted was by getting near to God,' and that he went to sleep repeating a prayer. During the same visit, he spoke strongly of his readiness, and even of his desire, to depart. He viewed death with tranquillity and hope and preparation, for it was habitual with him. What need I say more? At midnight the summons came, and his work was done." CHAPTER XL. CONCLUSION. Mr. Lawrence was of about the medium height, and, until reduced by sickness, was erect in person, and active and vigorous in his movements. The expression of his countenance was mild and cheerful, partaking of that benevolent cast which one would have been led to expect from the tenor of his daily life. His affections were warm, and his feelings quick and ardent. His temperament was of a nervous character, thereby inclining him to impatience. With this defect he had to struggle much in early life. It is related of him, that he once, by some hasty reply, wounded the sensitive feelings of a cherished sister, who afterwards died; and so much did he regret his impatience, that he made a resolution to persevere in his efforts until he had conquered the fault. A great change was soon remarked in him in this respect; so much so, that a relative, who passed several months under his roof during his early married life, was surprised at not seeing the least evidence of this tendency. During his latter years, when weakened by disease, and when his nervous system had been shattered by his violent and peculiar attacks of illness, he had more difficulty in controlling his feelings and expressions. On the second, sober thought, however, no one could have been more ready to confess the fault, and to make such reparation as the case demanded. His daily actions were guided by the most exalted sense of right and wrong; and in his strict sense of justice, Aristides himself could not surpass him. He was a living example of a successful merchant, who had, from the earliest period of his business career, risen above all artifice, and had never been willing to turn to his own advantage the ignorance or misfortune of others. He demonstrated in his own case the possibility of success, while practising the highest standard of moral obligation. He had ever commanded the confidence of those around him. When an apprentice in his native town, many of his customers relied upon his judgment rather than their own. He never deceived them, and early adopted as his rule of life, to do to others as he would have them do to him. Thus he stood high in the confidence, as well as in the estimation, of his neighbors. What "Amos" said was right, and no one could gainsay. If any one thing was, more than another, the means of promoting his success in life, we should say it was this faculty of commanding the confidence of others. To this can be traced the prosperity of his earliest business years; and, as his sphere enlarged, and his financial operations were extended, the same feeling of confidence gave him the unlimited command of the means of some of the wealthiest capitalists in New England, who, through the most critical seasons in the mercantile world, placed implicit confidence in the house of which he was the senior partner. Mr. Lawrence had no fluency in conversation. His mind was ever active; but the volume of thought found no corresponding channel of utterance. The very number of ideas seemed to impede the power of expression. Had his talents been devoted to literary or scientific pursuits, he would have earned distinction by his pen. His mind was not of that logical cast, which, from patient reasoning, can deduce effects from a succession of causes; but arrived at its conclusions by a kind of intuition, somewhat like those rare instances of mathematicians who solve a difficult problem, and yet can give no account of the mental process by which the solution has been reached. As a husband and father, he was ever kind and affectionate. He was domestic in his tastes, and found his greatest enjoyment in his home. Here he was eminently favored, and ever found the warmest sympathy, and that considerate care and kindness so necessary in latter years to his feeble health. No one who has read the preceding correspondence can have failed to see the interest which he ever took in all that concerned the welfare of those whom Providence had committed to his keeping. His letters to his children would fill many volumes, and are in themselves an enduring testimony to his fidelity and watchful care during a long series of years. His motto was, "Line upon line, precept upon precept;" and thus his constant aim was to impress upon their minds the great principles of religion and morality. No parent could be more indulgent when such indulgence was consistent with the true welfare of his children, or more resolute in denying what was hurtful. Their present happiness was a great object; but his desire for their ultimate good was still greater. As a friend, he was most faithful and sympathizing; and many now living can testify to the value of his friendship. Few, perhaps, have had more friends. Their affection for him was not founded so much upon gratitude for his constantly recurring favors, as upon the warm sympathy and affection with which his heart, was filled toward them and theirs. As a citizen, his views were comprehensive, and were bounded by no lines of sectional or party feeling. He was most deeply interested in all that concerned the honor and prosperity of his country, and keenly sensitive to the injury inflicted by such measures as tended to depreciate her standing in the estimation of other nations, or of good men among her own citizens. He was a true patriot, and had adopted the views and aims of the best men of the republic in former days, while he viewed with distrust many of the popular movements of more modern times. From his father he had inherited the most profound veneration for Gen. Washington, and faith in his public policy; while the political principles of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay were those alone by which he thought the permanent happiness and prosperity of the country could be secured. As a Christian, he endeavored to walk in the footsteps of his Master. He had no taste for the discussion of those minor points of doctrine upon which good men so often differ, but embraced with all his heart the revealed truths of the Gospel, which the great body of Christians can unite in upholding. He sought those fields of labor where all can meet, rather than those which are hedged in by the dividing lines of sect and party. He reverenced the Bible, and, from the first chapter of the Old Testament to the last chapter of the New, received it as the inspired Word of God. This was his sheet-anchor; and to doubt was, in his view, to leave a safe and peaceful haven, to embark upon an unknown ocean of danger and uncertainty. Religion was for him a practical thing for every-day use, consisting not so much in frames and emotions as in the steady and persevering performance of the daily duties of life. His view of duty did not limit him to the common obligations of morality, but included the highest sense of duty towards God; or, as he has expressed it in one of his early letters, "to be a moral man merely, is not to be a Christian." He was an active helper in all that tended to promote the cause of Christianity among nations, as well as to promote spiritual progress among individuals. The Christian banner, in his view, covered many denominations; and, with this belief, his charities were directed to the building up of institutions under the influence of the various sects differing from that under which he himself was classed. What has been said of John Thornton might be applied to him: "He was a merchant renowned in his generation for a munificence more than princely. He was one of those rare men in whom the desire to relieve distress assumes the form of a master-passion. Conscious of no aims but such as may invite the scrutiny of God and man, he pursued them after his own fearless fashion, yielding to every honest impulse, choosing his associates in scorn of mere worldly precepts, and worshipping with any fellow-Christian whose heart beat in unison with his own, however inharmonious might be some of the articles of their respective creeds. His benevolence was as unsectarian as his general habits; and he stood ready to assist a beneficent design in every party, but would be the creature of none. He not only gave largely, but he gave wisely. He kept a regular account (not for ostentation, or the gratification of vanity, but for method) of every pound he gave. With him, his givings were made a matter of business, as Cowper says, in an 'Elegy' he wrote upon him,-- 'Thou hadst an industry in doing good, Restless as his who toils and sweats for food'" Those who were not acquainted with Mr. Lawrence might suppose that his long continued ill-health, extending through a period of twenty-one years, permitted the formation of a character which few could attain who should not be called upon to pass through a similar discipline. That the isolation from the business-world, and freedom from the cares and struggles of active life, to which most men are subjected, tended to give him a more just and dispassionate view of his relations to God, as well as to his fellow-men, cannot be doubted. The peculiar elevation and spirituality of mind which he acquired must not, however, be looked upon as the hot-bed growth of the invalid's chamber; but rather as the gradual development of a character whose germ was planted far back in the years of childhood. The principles of religion and truth which were inculcated by a faithful and sensible mother upon the heart of the child, shone forth in all the events which marked the life of the future man. Of Mr. Lawrence's religious opinions respecting those doctrinal points upon which Christians are divided, the writer will not speak; though, from repeated conversations with his father on the subject, in the hours of health as well as of sickness, he might consistently do so. Rather than make assertions which might lead to discussion, it is more grateful to his feelings to leave the subject to the unbiassed judgment of those who shall read the preceding correspondence. Let it rather be the aim of those who loved and honored him in life to imitate his example, now that he is dead. They may rejoice that they were permitted to claim as a relative, and to have daily intercourse with, one who has exhibited, in such an abundant degree, those fruits which are the truest and best evidence of a genuine faith. In completing this volume, the editor feels that he has fulfilled a sacred trust; and his great regret is, that the work could not have been undertaken by some one more fitted, by his qualifications and past experience, to do justice to the subject. For reasons given in the Preface, this could not be; and it is, therefore, with great diffidence that these pages are submitted as a memorial of one whose life and character deserve more than a passing record. If, however, what has been done shall be the means of directing the attention of those for whom the volume has been prepared to the consideration of the precepts here recorded; and, above all, if those precepts shall be the means of influencing them for good in their future course in life,--the effort will not have been in vain. INDEX. Abstinence; total, from tobacco and intoxicating drinks, by Mr. Lawrence, 25 Accounts, benefit of keeping, illustrated, 86 Adams, Amos, 44 Adams, Samuel, 140 Advice, letters of, to Abbott Lawrence, 48-53 Amherst College, effort of Mr. Lawrence in behalf of, 243 Amin Bey, letter to, from Mr. Lawrence, 285 Anatomy, views of Mr. Lawrence respecting the dissection of human bodies, 218 André, Major, 217 Appleton, Jesse, 190 Appleton, Mrs., death of, 190 Athenæum, in Boston, Mr. Lawrence's plans for benefit of, 200 Baldwin, Loammi, 338 Baltimore, derangement of business in, 73 Bangor Theological Seminary, donation by Mr. Lawrence to, 310 donation for students in, 337 Banks, suspension of in 1837, 141 Bible, Mr. Lawrence's estimate of the, 257 Birth-place, attachment to expressed by Mr. Lawrence, 151 of Mr. Lawrence, engraving of, 151 Blagden, George W., note from, respecting Rev. Dr. ----, of Scotland, 313 letter from Mr. Lawrence to, 316 Blake, George, 84 Bondsmen, advice respecting fathers becoming, 37 Book-keeping by double entry, adopted by Mr. Lawrence, 61 Boston, religious controversy in, 65 Mr. Lawrence elected representative of, 77 wooden buildings in, 78 post-office, dead letters from, 154 Bowdoin College, donation by Mrs. Lawrence to, 244 Brattle-street Church, Mr. Lawrence's connection with, 184 Brazer, James, 22, 221 his store described, 23 Bridgman, Laura, 235 Briggs, George N., 214, 281 presentation of a cane to, by Mr. Lawrence, 227 Brooks, Peter C., death and character of, 263 Buckminster, J. S., remains of removed to Mount Auburn by Mr. Lawrence, 175 Bunker Hill, desire of Mr. Lawrence to retain for posterity the battlefield, 99 Bunker Hill Monument, Mr. Lawrence's interest in, 84 objection to a lottery for, 91 completion of, 169 Mr. Lawrence's agency in securing the completion of, 170-174 note from Mr. Lawrence respecting early history of, 332 history of the plan of, 338 Burial-places, Mr. Lawrence's views respecting, 129 Business, secret of Mr. Lawrence's success in, 145 Buxton, Lady, letter from, to Mr. Lawrence, 298 letter from, to Mr. Lawrence, 324 Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 298 Cabot, Samuel, 268 Cambridge Theological School, views respecting, 163 Canada, journey of Mr. Lawrence to, 89 Canadian Boat-song, 261 Canfield, Mr., 38 Carroll, Charles, 276 Caswell, Oliver, 235 Chaplin, Daniel, 18 Chapman, Jonathan, 192 Charities, memorandum of, 92-95 proportion of, in 1835, 137 money for, 178 "odds and ends" for, 186-187 correction of a public statement respecting Mr. Lawrence's, 198 amount expended during ten years in, 311 total amount expended in, 312 Charity, systematic, inculcated by Mr. Lawrence, 118 Children, fondness of Mr. Lawrence for, 225-226 hospital for, founded by Mr. Lawrence, 230-233 Christ, object of his death, 266 Christmas, Mr. Lawrence's view of, 91 Cobb, Gershom, introduces book-keeping by double entry, 61 Codman, Dr., 253 Colebrooke, Lady, 217 death of, 304 Colebrooke, Sir William, letter to, from Mr. Lawrence, 240 letter from Mr. Lawrence to, 304 Colonization of Africa, aided by Mr. Lawrence, 299, 318 Concord, Mr. Lawrence's account of the fight in 1775 at, 215-217 Controversy, religious, in Boston, 55 Copartnership, offer of Amos Lawrence to dissolve,--declined by Abbott Lawrence, 47 Copartnership of A. & A. Lawrence dissolved by death, 340 Cornhill-street, store of Mr. Lawrence in, 29 Credit system, Mr. Lawrence's view of, 35 Cresson, Elliott, letter to, from Mr. Lawrence, 299 Darley, Mrs., 39 Darracott, George, 172 Davis, John, loan of $500 by Mr. Lawrence to, 330 letter from, to Mr. Lawrence, 330 Dearborn, H. A. S., 84, 338 Debts, Mr. Lawrence's promptness in paying, 31 Dexter, Franklin, estimate of his argument on the fugitive slave law, 287 Dexter, Madam, 75 Diet of Mr. Lawrence, 123, 326 table of, kept by Mr. Lawrence, 124 Dorchester Heights, reflections on, 140 Drinking habits in Mr. Lawrence's early days, 23 Dwight, Edmund, 332 Dwight, Louis, 308 testimony of Mr. Lawrence respecting, 219 Ellis, Judge, 77 Ellis, Mrs. Nancy, marriage of Mr. Lawrence to, 77 Epicureanism, Mr. Lawrence's notion of, 124 European fashions, introduction of discountenanced, 90 Everett, Edward, 172, 338 Expenditures, by Mr. Lawrence, in 1849, 278 from 1842 to 1852, 311 Fac-simile of Mr. Lawrence's hand-writing, 248 Family worship, Mr. Lawrence's remarks on, 150 Farwell, Captain, 17, 301 Fillmore, Millard, 256 Foreign gold, exchange of negotiated, 75 Fraternal affection, example of, 147 French Revolution of 1830, Mr. Lawrence's sympathy with, 101 Fugitive slave law, Mr. Lawrence's opinion of the, 287 Funeral ceremonies at the death of Amos Lawrence, 341, 342 Gannett, Ezra S., letter to, 45 Gannett, Caleb, 45 Gannett, Mrs., hymn for her little boy by, 46 Goddard, N., 76 Granger's Coffee House, 38 Gray, Mrs. Martha, present from Mr. Lawrence to, 214 Gray, Robert, 214 Green, Wm. L., death of, 251 Greenough, Horatio, 338 Greenwood, Rev. Dr., 123 Groton, scenery in, 152, 153 Groton Academy, donations of Mr. Lawrence to, preamble of the deed, 221 amount of donations to, by Mr. Lawrence, 222 donations of $45,000 by William Lawrence to, 222 extract from address at jubilee of, 223 Gurney, Hannah (see Buxton, Lady), 299 Haddock, Charles B., letter from Mr. Lawrence to, 305 Hallock, Rev. Mr., 279 Hamilton, James, letters from Mr. Lawrence to, 269, 279, 322 letter from, to Mr. Lawrence, 293 Hancock, John, 140 Harris, Colonel, 268 Harvard College, donation of $50,000 by Abbott Lawrence to, 244 Heaven, reunion of friends in, 157 Hillsborough Bank, Mr. Lawrence's draft on for specie, 36, 37 Hone, Isaac, 76 Hone, Philip, 76 Hopkins, Mark, President of Williams College, 341 letters to, from Mr. Lawrence, 124, 183, 213, 214, 255, 257, 258, 259, 265, 272, 280, 285, 292 lectures in Boston, 182 Hopkins, Mark, extract from his sermon on death of Mr. Lawrence, 287 peculiarities of Mr. Lawrence's bounty sketched by, 346-360 Howe, Dr., 235 Hubbard, Judge, 253 Hubbart, Tuthill, 154 Hulsemann, Chevalier, interview of Mr. Lawrence with, 158 Immigration from Europe, Mr. Lawrence's view of, 258, 270 Income, net, of Mr. Lawrence in the first two years, 36 practice of spending it, adopted by Mr. Lawrence, 263 Intoxicating liquors, total abstinence from, by Mr. Lawrence, 25 Ireland, Mr. Lawrence's contributions to the famished in, 236, 238 Johnson School, donation to, by Mr. Lawrence, 224 Kast, Dr., 302 Kent, Chancellor, 76 ride with--character of, 158 Kenyon College, aid to by Mr. Lawrence, 177 Lafayette, General, Mr. Lawrence's opinion of, 84 message to, 96 Lothrop, Samuel K., 122, 138, 175, 342 extract from his sermon on the death of Mr. Lawrence, 185 sketch of character of Mr. Lawrence by, 343-346 Lawrence, Abbott, 30, 131, 138 letters to, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56, 72, 73, 189, 244, 266, 267 becomes partner with Amos, 38 character as an apprentice, 38 declines offer to dissolve copartnership, 47 sails for Europe, 48 his dispatch of business, 52 his military service in the last war with Great Britain, 56, 295 donation of $50,000 to Harvard College, 244 candidate for the Vice-Presidency, 256 tendered the office of Secretary of the Navy, 266 appointed Minister to the Court of St. James, 269 his popularity in Great Britain, 295 likeness of, 295 Lawrence, Mrs. Abbott, 280 Lawrence, Amos, when and where born, 15 ancestry of, 15 early instruction of, 20 his mechanical skill in boyhood, 20 anecdote of his school-days, 22 enters Groton Academy, 22 becomes a merchant's clerk, 22 adopts the principle and practice of total abstinence, 24 wounded by a gun-shot, 26 apprenticeship terminated, 28 accepts a clerkship in Boston, 29 commences business in Boston, 29 his boarding-house rule, 30 his promptness in paying bills, 31 motive for daily study, 32 his remarks on letter-writing, 32 his distinction between morality and religion, 34 his mercantile principles, 35 view of the credit system, 35 net income of first two years, 36 advice against parents becoming bondsmen for their sons, 37 his opinion of the theatre, 39 assists to establish his brother William in business, 39 flying visits to Groton, 40 alarming illness, 40 engagement of marriage, 43 marriage, 46 offer to dissolve copartnership declined, 47 letter on the death of his sister, 54 letter on the birth of his daughter, 57 recommends marriage, 57 domestic attachments, 60 adoption of book-keeping by double entry, 61 leniency to unfortunate debtors, 61 second alarming illness, 62 resignation in prospect of his wife's death, 64 tour through the Middle States, 68 appreciation of the right of suffrage, 70 delegate to assist in settlement of Jared Sparks, 71 becomes an inmate of his brother's family, 74 negotiates an exchange of foreign gold, 75 narrow escape from shipwreck, 75 second marriage of, 77 resumes housekeeping, 77 representative in the Legislature, 77 letter to Mr. Wolcott respecting his son, 78 becomes a manufacturer, 79 curtailment of his business, 81 extent of his correspondence, 83 opinion of Lafayette, 84 interest in Bunker Hill Monument, 84 journey to Canada, 89 objection to European fashions, 90 objection to a lottery for Bunker Hill Monument, 91 presentation of plate to Daniel Webster, 102, 103 dangerous illness of, 105 feelings in sickness, 106, 107, 111 visit to New Hampshire, 109 his life in a sick chamber, 112 his submission under divine chastisements, 112-114 inculcates systematic charity, 118 secret of his success, 118 exercise on horseback, 122 his diet, 123 improvement of health, 125 avoids the appearance of evil,126 his views of burial-places, 129 advice about selecting a wife, 130 advice to his daughter, 131, 132 gratitude towards his mother, 135 visit to Washington, 138 aversion to matrimonial speculations, 138 estimate of Congressional debates, 139 visit to Rainsford Island, 139 reflections on completing thirty years of business, 141 pecuniary condition, January 1st, 1838, 142 habits of promptness, 144 prospects on December 31st, 1838, 146 reflections on the death of his brother, 149 advocates family worship, 150 engraving of his birth-place, 151 character in the bestowal of gifts, 153 enjoyment of natural scenery, 155, 156 belief in reunion of friends hereafter, 157 annoyances arising from his reputation for benevolence, 159 his religious belief, 160 interest in a young colored lawyer, 165-6 reflections on his fifty-eighth birth-day, 167 his agency in securing completion of Bunker Hill Monument, 170-174 poetical toast to, 174 renders aid to Kenyon College, 177 acquaintance with Pres. Hopkins, 182 presents sent to President Hopkins, 183-4 his aversion to public commendation of himself, 189, 229 advice respecting his grandchildren, 191 opposes annexation of Texas, 192 joy at birth of twin granddaughters, 193 letter on death of his daughter, 194-196 sentiments in view of his prosperity, 197 his view of keeping the Sabbath, 202 offer of his remains for the dissecting-room, 218 his interest in the Johnson School, 224 fondness for children, 226 provides a hospital for sick children, 230 his gratitude for prosperity, 234 contributes to the famished in Ireland, 236 his application in behalf of Amherst College, 242 congratulates Abbott Lawrence on his donation to Harvard College, 244 his attendance at church, 246 his exactness in business, 247 kindness to an old debtor, 248 fac-simile of his hand-writing, 248 sentiments respecting a religious awakening in college, 255, 312 objects to his brother's taking political office, 256-257, 258, 266 estimate of the Bible, 257 prefers Gen. Taylor for President, 258 treatment of an applicant for aid, 260 joy at a revival of religion among Unitarians, 267 interview with Father Mathew, 270 adds a codicil to his will, 271 illness, 272 desire for death, 272 keeps Christmas with children, 277 circulates Dr. Hamilton's works, 279, 291, 292, 294 lameness, 281 attentions to children, 292 circulates Buxton's Life, 298 cancels a note for $500 against a clergyman, 300 interest in Wabash College, 309 controversy with a Scotch clergyman, 313-315 his ground of religious hope, 316 circulates Uncle Toby's Stories on Tobacco, 319 his diet, 326 prefers Scott for President, 327 solicits aid for Williams College, from Jonathan Phillips, 328 relieves the straitened circumstances of Gov. Davis, 330 chosen presidential elector, 333 votes for Scott and Graham, 334 intercourse with Franklin Pierce, 335 his last writing, 339 death of, 340 funeral ceremonies, 341, 342 sketches of his character, 343 personal appearance, 352 character of John Thornton applied to, 357 general character, 352-359 Lawrence, Amos A., 288 Lawrence, Arthur, 235 Lawrence, John, 15 Lawrence, Luther, value of his property, 30 Speaker of House of Representatives, 148 Mayor of Lowell, 148 death of, 148, 149 Lawrence, Robert, illness of, 205 letters of Mr. Lawrence respecting, 206-210 Lawrence, Samuel, Sen., 30 account of, 16 sketch of his military career, 17, 18 Lawrence, Samuel, presentation of a gold box to, by Mr. Lawrence, 235 Lawrence, Mrs. Sarah, illness of, 62 letter to her husband, 63 her condition described by Mr. Lawrence, 64 death of, 65 her death-bed scene described, 65-6 Lawrence, Mrs. Susanna, character of, 19 death of, 199 Lawrence, William, 30, 252 commences business in Boston, 39 donations of $45,000 to Groton Academy by, 222 death and character of, 261, 262 Lawrence Association, in the Mather School, note to, 237 contributions for Ireland by, 238 presentation of a silver cup to Mr. Lawrence by, 277 hymn sung at funeral of Mr. Lawrence by, 342 Letsom, Dr. C., 302 Letters from Amos Lawrence, 47 to a friend, 17, 57, 70, 73, 126, 130, 157, 186, 187, 190, 201, 215, 245, 246, 252, 262, 267, 283 to his son, 20, 30, 85, 99, 100, 101, 112, 114, 115, 124, 152, 190, 194, 200, 205, 206, 207, 332 to a college student, 24, 25 to Gen. Henry Whiting, 30, 273, 276 to a sister, 32, 33, 42, 68, 71, 73, 130, 166, 145 to Dr. Gannett, 45 to Abbott Lawrence, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56, 72, 73, 189, 244, 266, 267 to his wife, 52, 63, 126 to a brother, 54, 68 to his mother-in-law, 63 to his sister-in-law, 69, 112 to Frederic Wolcott, 78 to his eldest son, abroad, 83, 87, 90, 91, 96, 98, 103, 106 to his second son, at Andover, 86, 117, 118, 125 to Daniel Webster, 97, 102 to his mother, 106, 107, 109, 110, 134, 141 to his daughter, 119, 127, 129, 131, 133, 150, 152 to his youngest son, 143 to his sisters, 149, 151 to a connection, 149 to his second son, in Europe, 154 to Rev. Charles Mason, 155 to Rev. Robert Turnbull, D.D., 160 to Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, 165 to General ----, 168 to Mr. Parker (a partner), 177, 204 to the Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association, 181 to President Hopkins, 183, 213, 214, 255, 257, 258, 259, 265, 272, 280, 285, 292 to his partners, 196, 245 to his children in France, 196 to his grandson, 209 to R. G. Parker, 224, 229 to Gov. Briggs, 227 to Alexander S. McKenzie, 234 to J. A. Stearns, for Lawrence Association, 237 to Madam Prescott, 239 to Sir Wm. Colebrooke, 240, 304 to a wealthy bachelor, 242 to Prof. Packard, 243, 338 to Mr. G----, 251 to Mr. and Mrs. Green, 252 to a physician, 253 to a newspaper editor, 257 to Rev. James Hamilton, D.D., 269, 279, 294, 296, 322 to his sons, 272 to Robert Barnwell Rhett, 274 to a country clergyman, 280 to an aged clergyman, 292 to Elliott Cresson, 299 to Lady Buxton, 300 to a lady in Philadelphia, 301 to Charles B. Haddock, 305 to Rev. Dr. Scoresby, 307 to. Rev. Geo. W. Blagden, D.D., 316 to a friend in South Carolina, 317 to Benjamin Seaver, 320 to a lady in Florida, 326 to Jonathan Phillips, 327 Levelling, Judge Story's maxim of, 266 Loan of money to Mr. Lawrence by his father, 36 Lowell, Charles, letter to Mr. Lawrence from, 321 Lowell, John, 78 Lunatic Asylum, plan for the new, 308 Manufactures, engagement of Mr. Lawrence in, 79 largeness of his interest in, 104 fluctuations in, 236 views of Mr. Lawrence respecting coarse and fine, 275 Marriage of Amos Lawrence, 46 Mason, Charles, 193 letter from Mr. Lawrence to, 155 Mason, Jeremiah, 109, 117 remarks of, on Rev, Dr. ----'s lectures, 219, 220 death and character of, 261, 262 Mason, Mrs. Susan, Mr. Lawrence's letter on the death of, 194-196 Massachusetts General Hospital, place of Trustee resigned by Mr. Lawrence, 116 Mather School, character of, 276 Mathew, Father, 270 Matrimonial speculations, aversion of Mr. Lawrence to, 138 Maxims of business--speculation condemned, 72 McIlvaine, Charles P., letter from, to Mr. Lawrence, 177 McKenzie, Alexander S., letter to, from Mr. Lawrence, 234 present of a cane to Mr. Lawrence from, 260 death of, 261 Means, James, extract from address at jubilee of Groton Academy, by, 223 Means, Robert, 77 Mercantile principles adopted by Mr. Lawrence, 35 "Milo," arrival of ship, 52 Money, advice about spending, 143 Morality and religion, Mr. Lawrence's distinction between, 34 Mortgage of his father's farm, 36 Mount Auburn, interest taken in, by Mr. Lawrence, 175 National character, reflections upon, 133, 134 Native Americans, Mr. Lawrence's view of, 199 Natural History Society, donation to, by Mr. Lawrence, 231 Old Ladies' Home, donation to, by Mr. Lawrence, 321 "Old Oak," in Mount Auburn, 207, 208 Paine, Robert Treat, 38 Parker, C. H., letter to, 177 Parker, Daniel P., 268 Parker, R. G., letter from to Mr. Lawrence, 225 Parker, Susanna, 16 Parkman, Messrs., 37 Percy, Lord, 217 Perkins, Thomas H., 338 Pestilence, Dr. Shattuck's account of the, 40-42 Phelps, Mrs., 325 Phillips, Jonathan, letter from Mr. Lawrence to, respecting aid to Williams College, 327 donation from, to Williams College, 229 Pierce, Benjamin, son of President Pierce, note from, to Mr. Lawrence, 336 sudden death of, 336 Pierce, Franklin, character of, 318, 326 his intercourse with Mr. Lawrence, 335 Pitcairn, Major, account of his death, 302 removal of his remains to England, 303 Pitcairn, William, 302 Pond, Rev. Dr., 310 Prayer adopted by Mr. Lawrence, 248 Prescott, General, 17 Madam, note from Mr. Lawrence to, 239 her views on the comforts of old age, 239 Presidential Elector, Mr. Lawrence chosen in 1852, 334 Prince, Martial, 268 Property, memorandum-book of Mr. Lawrence respecting his, 80 Prudhoe, Lord, 217 Rainsford Island, visit to, and description of scenery, 139 Religion. (See Morality.) its cultivation urged upon his daughter, 119-121 Representative, Mr. Lawrence elected, 77 Richards, Giles, his card manufactory, 44 Richards, Sarah, Mr. Lawrence's engagement of marriage with, 43 Richardson, Captain, 22 Sabbath, Mr. Lawrence's view of keeping the, 202 Savings Institution. (See Athenæum.) Scenery, Mr. Lawrence's enjoyment of, 155, 156 Scoresby, Wm., letter from Mr. Lawrence to, 307 Sea-serpent seen at Hampton Beach in 1830, Mr. Lawrence's belief in the, 100 Mr. Lawrence's belief in the existence of the, 268 Sectarianism, Mr. Lawrence's freedom from, 161 Sharp, Daniel, 253, 342 letters from, to Mr. Lawrence, 176, 203, 282 Shattuck, George C, his account of the New England pestilence, 40-42 Shaw, Robert G., 333, 334 Shipwreck, narrow escape of Mr. Lawrence from, 75 Slavery, views of Mr. Lawrence on questions of, 275 view of its tendencies, 318 contribution for freeing a negro from, 334 South Carolina, manufactures in, encouraged by Mr. Lawrence, 275 Sparks, Jared, Mr. Lawrence a delegate to assist in the settlement of, 71 Story, Joseph, 169 letter from, to Mr. Lawrence, 179, 180 his maxim of "levelling," 266 Stone, John S., 123 letter from to Mr. Lawrence, 162 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 325 Strachan, Lady, 237 Stuart, Moses, letter of thanks from, 263 Sullivan, William, 84 Tarbell, Thomas, tribute to the memory of, 320 Taylor, Father, 123 Zachary, preferred for President by Mr. Lawrence, 258 Tennett, Mr., 38 Texas, letter of Mr. Lawrence to Mayor Chapman, on the annexation of, 192 Ticknor, George, 338 Tobacco, total abstinence from, by Mr. Lawrence, 25 book against, circulated by Mr. Lawrence, 319 letter respecting use of, 319 Touro, Judah, his donation for Bunker Hill Monument, 173 Turnbull, Robert, letter from Mr. Lawrence to, 160 Uncle Tom's Cabin, Lady Buxton's testimony respecting, 325 Unitarianism, Mr. Lawrence's opinion of, 246, 247 Van Schaick, M., 76 Vinton, Alexander H., 341 Wabash College, donation from Mrs. Lawrence to, 309 Ward, General, 140 Ware, Henry, Jr., 163 Warren, John C., 84, 170, 218 Washington, General, 44 celebration of his birth-day, 116 Webster, Daniel, letter from Mr. Lawrence respecting, 68, 69 Mr. Lawrence's view of his speech in reply to Hayne, 97 letter to Mr. Lawrence from, 97 letter to, from Mr. Lawrence, accompanying a presentation of plate, 102 letter from to Mr. Lawrence, 103 remarks on his address at Plymouth, 208 view of his character by Mr. Lawrence, 327 of his preparation for death, 337 White, Charles, account of his play, the "Clergyman's Daughter," 38, 39 White, Charles, President of Wabash College, 309 Whiting, Henry, clerk to Mr. Lawrence, 29 Will of Amos Lawrence, codicil to, 271 Williams College, Mr. Lawrence's interest in, 182 donation of $10,000 to, by Mr. Lawrence, 197 donation of $5,000 by Mr. Lawrence, for a library building at, 213 enlargement of library building proposed, 215 scholarships established in, by Mr. Lawrence, 245 account of Mr. Lawrence's benefactions to, 287-291 donation to, by Jonathan Phillips, 329 Winship, Dr., 302 Wolcott, Frederic, letter to, from Mr. Lawrence, 78 * * * * * IMPORTANT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC WORKS, PUBLISHED BY GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY; Or, Year Book of Facts in Science and Art. By DAVID A. WELLS, A. M. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. This work, commenced in the year 1850, and issued in the month of January, annually, embraces an enumeration and description of every important Invention, Discovery, or Scientific Theory, reported during the year. Each volume is distinct in itself, and contains ENTIRELY NEW MATTER, with a fine portrait of some person distinguished for his attainments in science and art. LAKE SUPERIOR; Its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals. By L. AGASSIZ, and others. One volume, octavo, elegantly Illustrated. Cloth, $3.50. THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS. New Edition. With a SUPPLEMENTARY DIALOGUE, in which the author's reviewers are reviewed. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. This masterly production, which has excited so much interest in this country and in Europe, will now have increased attraction in the SUPPLEMENT, in which the author's reviewers are triumphantly reviewed. 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624	----	LOOKING BACKWARD From 2000 to 1887 by Edward Bellamy AUTHOR'S PREFACE Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, December 26, 2000 Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying the blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for those whose studies have not been largely historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an interval! The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, when anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on the lively gratitude of future ages! The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account. The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlying principles are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete's explanations of them rather trite--but it must be remembered that to Dr. Leete's guest they were not matters of course, and that this book is written for the express purpose of inducing the reader to forget for the nonce that they are so to him. One word more. The almost universal theme of the writers and orators who have celebrated this bimillennial epoch has been the future rather than the past, not the advance that has been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever onward and upward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. This is well, wholly well, but it seems to me that nowhere can we find more solid ground for daring anticipations of human development during the next one thousand years, than by "Looking Backward" upon the progress of the last one hundred. That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interest in the subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of the treatment is the hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr. Julian West to speak for himself. JTABLE 5 28 1 Chapter 1 I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!" you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the present year of grace, 2000. These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add that I am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that no person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I earnestly assure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will undertake, if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. If I may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying the assumption, that I know better than the reader when I was born, I will go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred to modify the immemorial division of society into the four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since the differences between them were far greater than those between any nations nowadays, of the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also educated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand-parents had lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I had any, would enjoy a like easy existence. But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. Why should the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render service? The answer is that my great-grandfather had accumulated a sum of money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum, you will naturally infer, must have been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however, was not the fact. The sum had been originally by no means large. It was, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been supported upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use without consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting the burden of one's support on the shoulders of others. The man who had accomplished this, and it was the end all sought, was said to live on the income of his investments. To explain at this point how the ancient methods of industry made this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stop now to say that interest on investments was a species of tax in perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which a person possessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not be supposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterous according to modern notions was never criticized by your ancestors. It had been the effort of lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages to abolish interest, or at least to limit it to the smallest possible rate. All these efforts had, however, failed, as they necessarily must so long as the ancient social organizations prevailed. At the time of which I write, the latter part of the nineteenth century, governments had generally given up trying to regulate the subject at all. By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats. It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach. I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in which Society could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it always would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy. The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose parents and grand-parents before them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essential difference between their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my own attitude toward the misery of my brothers. In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year. Although still unmarried, I was engaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on the top of the coach. That is to say, not to encumber ourselves further with an illustration which has, I hope, served its purpose of giving the reader some general impression of how we lived then, her family was wealthy. In that age, when money alone commanded all that was agreeable and refined in life, it was enough for a woman to be rich to have suitors; but Edith Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also. My lady readers, I am aware, will protest at this. "Handsome she might have been," I hear them saying, "but graceful never, in the costumes which were the fashion at that period, when the head covering was a dizzy structure a foot tall, and the almost incredible extension of the skirt behind by means of artificial contrivances more thoroughly dehumanized the form than any former device of dressmakers. Fancy any one graceful in such a costume!" The point is certainly well taken, and I can only reply that while the ladies of the twentieth century are lovely demonstrations of the effect of appropriate drapery in accenting feminine graces, my recollection of their great-grandmothers enables me to maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly disguise them. Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house which I was building for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of the city, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited by the rich. For it must be understood that the comparative desirability of different parts of Boston for residence depended then, not on natural features, but on the character of the neighboring population. Each class or nation lived by itself, in quarters of its own. A rich man living among the poor, an educated man among the uneducated, was like one living in isolation among a jealous and alien race. When the house had been begun, its completion by the winter of 1886 had been expected. The spring of the following year found it, however, yet incomplete, and my marriage still a thing of the future. The cause of a delay calculated to be particularly exasperating to an ardent lover was a series of strikes, that is to say, concerted refusals to work on the part of the brick-layers, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and other trades concerned in house building. What the specific causes of these strikes were I do not remember. Strikes had become so common at that period that people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months at a time. The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course recognize in these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of the great movement which ended in the establishment of the modern industrial system with all its social consequences. This is all so plain in the retrospect that a child can understand it, but not being prophets, we of that day had no clear idea what was happening to us. What we did see was that industrially the country was in a very queer way. The relation between the workingman and the employer, between labor and capital, appeared in some unaccountable manner to have become dislocated. The working classes had quite suddenly and very generally become infected with a profound discontent with their condition, and an idea that it could be greatly bettered if they only knew how to go about it. On every side, with one accord, they preferred demands for higher pay, shorter hours, better dwellings, better educational advantages, and a share in the refinements and luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible to see the way to granting unless the world were to become a great deal richer than it then was. Though they knew something of what they wanted, they knew nothing of how to accomplish it, and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged about any one who seemed likely to give them any light on the subject lent sudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some of whom had little enough light to give. However chimerical the aspirations of the laboring classes might be deemed, the devotion with which they supported one another in the strikes, which were their chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to carry them out left no doubt of their dead earnestness. As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the phrase by which the movement I have described was most commonly referred to, the opinions of the people of my class differed according to individual temperament. The sanguine argued very forcibly that it was in the very nature of things impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen could be satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal to satisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard and lived on short commons that the race did not starve outright, and no considerable improvement in their condition was possible while the world, as a whole, remained so poor. It was not the capitalists whom the laboring men were contending with, these maintained, but the iron-bound environment of humanity, and it was merely a question of the thickness of their skulls when they would discover the fact and make up their minds to endure what they could not cure. The less sanguine admitted all this. Of course the workingmen's aspirations were impossible of fulfillment for natural reasons, but there were grounds to fear that they would not discover this fact until they had made a sad mess of society. They had the votes and the power to do so if they pleased, and their leaders meant they should. Some of these desponding observers went so far as to predict an impending social cataclysm. Humanity, they argued, having climbed to the top round of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a header into chaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn round, and begin to climb again. Repeated experiences of this sort in historic and prehistoric times possibly accounted for the puzzling bumps on the human cranium. Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember serious men among my acquaintances who, in discussing the signs of the times, adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation. The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the talk of a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and proposed to terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by threats of violence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of fear. As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order of things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time of which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in postponing my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity to my feeling toward them. Chapter 2 The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of the annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth century, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doing honor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in the war for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors of the war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of music, were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths of flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the ceremony being a very solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett had fallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit of making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay. I had asked permission to make one of the party, and, on our return to the city at nightfall, remained to dine with the family of my betrothed. In the drawing-room, after dinner, I picked up an evening paper and read of a fresh strike in the building trades, which would probably still further delay the completion of my unlucky house. I remember distinctly how exasperated I was at this, and the objurgations, as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted, which I lavished upon workmen in general, and these strikers in particular. I had abundant sympathy from those about me, and the remarks made in the desultory conversation which followed, upon the unprincipled conduct of the labor agitators, were calculated to make those gentlemen's ears tingle. It was agreed that affairs were going from bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what we should come to soon. "The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett's saying, "is that the working classes all over the world seem to be going crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here. I'm sure I should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the other day where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took place which those socialists threaten. He said he did not know any place now where society could be called stable except Greenland, Patagonia, and the Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what they were about," somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western civilization. They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They saw it was nothing but dynamite in disguise." After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade her that it would be better to be married at once without waiting for the completion of the house, spending the time in travel till our home was ready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening, the mourning costume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off to great advantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even now with my mind's eye just as she looked that night. When I took my leave she followed me into the hall and I kissed her good-by as usual. There was no circumstance out of the common to distinguish this parting from previous occasions when we had bade each other good-by for a night or a day. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, or I am sure in hers, that this was more than an ordinary separation. Ah, well! The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for a lover, but the fact was no reflection on my devotion. I was a confirmed sufferer from insomnia, and although otherwise perfectly well had been completely fagged out that day, from having slept scarcely at all the two previous nights. Edith knew this and had insisted on sending me home by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go to bed at once. The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations of the family of which I was the only living representative in the direct line. It was a large, ancient wooden mansion, very elegant in an old-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had long since become undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement houses and manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think of bringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I had advertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it for sleeping purposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man by the name of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few wants. One feature of the house I expected to miss greatly when I should leave it, and this was the sleeping chamber which I had built under the foundations. I could not have slept in the city at all, with its never ceasing nightly noises, if I had been obliged to use an upstairs chamber. But to this subterranean room no murmur from the upper world ever penetrated. When I had entered it and closed the door, I was surrounded by the silence of the tomb. In order to prevent the dampness of the subsoil from penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid in hydraulic cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewise protected. In order that the room might serve also as a vault equally proof against violence and flames, for the storage of valuables, I had roofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer door was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe, communicating with a wind-mill on the top of the house, insured the renewal of air. It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able to command slumber, but it was rare that I slept well, even there, two nights in succession. So accustomed was I to wakefulness that I minded little the loss of one night's rest. A second night, however, spent in my reading chair instead of my bed, tired me out, and I never allowed myself to go longer than that without slumber, from fear of nervous disorder. From this statement it will be inferred that I had at my command some artificial means for inducing sleep in the last resort, and so in fact I had. If after two sleepless nights I found myself on the approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness, I called in Dr. Pillsbury. He was a doctor by courtesy only, what was called in those days an "irregular" or "quack" doctor. He called himself a "Professor of Animal Magnetism." I had come across him in the course of some amateur investigations into the phenomena of animal magnetism. I don't think he knew anything about medicine, but he was certainly a remarkable mesmerist. It was for the purpose of being put to sleep by his manipulations that I used to send for him when I found a third night of sleeplessness impending. Let my nervous excitement or mental preoccupation be however great, Dr. Pillsbury never failed, after a short time, to leave me in a deep slumber, which continued till I was aroused by a reversal of the mesmerizing process. The process for awaking the sleeper was much simpler than that for putting him to sleep, and for convenience I had made Dr Pillsbury teach Sawyer how to do it. My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr. Pillsbury visited me, or that he did so at all. Of course, when Edith became my wife I should have to tell her my secrets. I had not hitherto told her this, because there was unquestionably a slight risk in the mesmeric sleep, and I knew she would set her face against my practice. The risk, of course, was that it might become too profound and pass into a trance beyond the mesmerizer's power to break, ending in death. Repeated experiments had fully convinced me that the risk was next to nothing if reasonable precautions were exercised, and of this I hoped, though doubtingly, to convince Edith. I went directly home after leaving her, and at once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr. Pillsbury. Meanwhile I sought my subterranean sleeping chamber, and exchanging my costume for a comfortable dressing-gown, sat down to read the letters by the evening mail which Sawyer had laid on my reading table. One of them was from the builder of my new house, and confirmed what I had inferred from the newspaper item. The new strikes, he said, had postponed indefinitely the completion of the contract, as neither masters nor workmen would concede the point at issue without a long struggle. Caligula wished that the Roman people had but one neck that he might cut it off, and as I read this letter I am afraid that for a moment I was capable of wishing the same thing concerning the laboring classes of America. The return of Sawyer with the doctor interrupted my gloomy meditations. It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure his services, as he was preparing to leave the city that very night. The doctor explained that since he had seen me last he had learned of a fine professional opening in a distant city, and decided to take prompt advantage of it. On my asking, in some panic, what I was to do for some one to put me to sleep, he gave me the names of several mesmerizers in Boston who, he averred, had quite as great powers as he. Somewhat relieved on this point, I instructed Sawyer to rouse me at nine o'clock next morning, and, lying down on the bed in my dressing-gown, assumed a comfortable attitude, and surrendered myself to the manipulations of the mesmerizer. Owing, perhaps, to my unusually nervous state, I was slower than common in losing consciousness, but at length a delicious drowsiness stole over me. Chapter 3 "He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one of us at first." "Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." The first voice was a man's, the second a woman's, and both spoke in whispers. "I will see how he seems," replied the man. "No, no, promise me," persisted the other. "Let her have her way," whispered a third voice, also a woman. "Well, well, I promise, then," answered the man. "Quick, go! He is coming out of it." There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes. A fine looking man of perhaps sixty was bending over me, an expression of much benevolence mingled with great curiosity upon his features. He was an utter stranger. I raised myself on an elbow and looked around. The room was empty. I certainly had never been in it before, or one furnished like it. I looked back at my companion. He smiled. "How do you feel?" he inquired. "Where am I?" I demanded. "You are in my house," was the reply. "How came I here?" "We will talk about that when you are stronger. Meanwhile, I beg you will feel no anxiety. You are among friends and in good hands. How do you feel?" "A bit queerly," I replied, "but I am well, I suppose. Will you tell me how I came to be indebted to your hospitality? What has happened to me? How came I here? It was in my own house that I went to sleep." "There will be time enough for explanations later," my unknown host replied, with a reassuring smile. "It will be better to avoid agitating talk until you are a little more yourself. Will you oblige me by taking a couple of swallows of this mixture? It will do you good. I am a physician." I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch, although with an effort, for my head was strangely light. "I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have been doing with me," I said. "My dear sir," responded my companion, "let me beg that you will not agitate yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon explanations so soon, but if you do, I will try to satisfy you, provided you will first take this draught, which will strengthen you somewhat." I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, "It is not so simple a matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how you came here. You can tell me quite as much on that point as I can tell you. You have just been roused from a deep sleep, or, more properly, trance. So much I can tell you. You say you were in your own house when you fell into that sleep. May I ask you when that was?" "When?" I replied, "when? Why, last evening, of course, at about ten o'clock. I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine o'clock. What has become of Sawyer?" "I can't precisely tell you that," replied my companion, regarding me with a curious expression, "but I am sure that he is excusable for not being here. And now can you tell me a little more explicitly when it was that you fell into that sleep, the date, I mean?" "Why, last night, of course; I said so, didn't I? that is, unless I have overslept an entire day. Great heavens! that cannot be possible; and yet I have an odd sensation of having slept a long time. It was Decoration Day that I went to sleep." "Decoration Day?" "Yes, Monday, the 30th." "Pardon me, the 30th of what?" "Why, of this month, of course, unless I have slept into June, but that can't be." "This month is September." "September! You don't mean that I've slept since May! God in heaven! Why, it is incredible." "We shall see," replied my companion; "you say that it was May 30th when you went to sleep?" "Yes." "May I ask of what year?" I stared blankly at him, incapable of speech, for some moments. "Of what year?" I feebly echoed at last. "Yes, of what year, if you please? After you have told me that I shall be able to tell you how long you have slept." "It was the year 1887," I said. My companion insisted that I should take another draught from the glass, and felt my pulse. "My dear sir," he said, "your manner indicates that you are a man of culture, which I am aware was by no means the matter of course in your day it now is. No doubt, then, you have yourself made the observation that nothing in this world can be truly said to be more wonderful than anything else. The causes of all phenomena are equally adequate, and the results equally matters of course. That you should be startled by what I shall tell you is to be expected; but I am confident that you will not permit it to affect your equanimity unduly. Your appearance is that of a young man of barely thirty, and your bodily condition seems not greatly different from that of one just roused from a somewhat too long and profound sleep, and yet this is the tenth day of September in the year 2000, and you have slept exactly one hundred and thirteen years, three months, and eleven days." Feeling partially dazed, I drank a cup of some sort of broth at my companion's suggestion, and, immediately afterward becoming very drowsy, went off into a deep sleep. When I awoke it was broad daylight in the room, which had been lighted artificially when I was awake before. My mysterious host was sitting near. He was not looking at me when I opened my eyes, and I had a good opportunity to study him and meditate upon my extraordinary situation, before he observed that I was awake. My giddiness was all gone, and my mind perfectly clear. The story that I had been asleep one hundred and thirteen years, which, in my former weak and bewildered condition, I had accepted without question, recurred to me now only to be rejected as a preposterous attempt at an imposture, the motive of which it was impossible remotely to surmise. Something extraordinary had certainly happened to account for my waking up in this strange house with this unknown companion, but my fancy was utterly impotent to suggest more than the wildest guess as to what that something might have been. Could it be that I was the victim of some sort of conspiracy? It looked so, certainly; and yet, if human lineaments ever gave true evidence, it was certain that this man by my side, with a face so refined and ingenuous, was no party to any scheme of crime or outrage. Then it occurred to me to question if I might not be the butt of some elaborate practical joke on the part of friends who had somehow learned the secret of my underground chamber and taken this means of impressing me with the peril of mesmeric experiments. There were great difficulties in the way of this theory; Sawyer would never have betrayed me, nor had I any friends at all likely to undertake such an enterprise; nevertheless the supposition that I was the victim of a practical joke seemed on the whole the only one tenable. Half expecting to catch a glimpse of some familiar face grinning from behind a chair or curtain, I looked carefully about the room. When my eyes next rested on my companion, he was looking at me. "You have had a fine nap of twelve hours," he said briskly, "and I can see that it has done you good. You look much better. Your color is good and your eyes are bright. How do you feel?" "I never felt better," I said, sitting up. "You remember your first waking, no doubt," he pursued, "and your surprise when I told you how long you had been asleep?" "You said, I believe, that I had slept one hundred and thirteen years." "Exactly." "You will admit," I said, with an ironical smile, "that the story was rather an improbable one." "Extraordinary, I admit," he responded, "but given the proper conditions, not improbable nor inconsistent with what we know of the trance state. When complete, as in your case, the vital functions are absolutely suspended, and there is no waste of the tissues. No limit can be set to the possible duration of a trance when the external conditions protect the body from physical injury. This trance of yours is indeed the longest of which there is any positive record, but there is no known reason wherefore, had you not been discovered and had the chamber in which we found you continued intact, you might not have remained in a state of suspended animation till, at the end of indefinite ages, the gradual refrigeration of the earth had destroyed the bodily tissues and set the spirit free." I had to admit that, if I were indeed the victim of a practical joke, its authors had chosen an admirable agent for carrying out their imposition. The impressive and even eloquent manner of this man would have lent dignity to an argument that the moon was made of cheese. The smile with which I had regarded him as he advanced his trance hypothesis did not appear to confuse him in the slightest degree. "Perhaps," I said, "you will go on and favor me with some particulars as to the circumstances under which you discovered this chamber of which you speak, and its contents. I enjoy good fiction." "In this case," was the grave reply, "no fiction could be so strange as the truth. You must know that these many years I have been cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the large garden beside this house, for the purpose of chemical experiments for which I have a taste. Last Thursday the excavation for the cellar was at last begun. It was completed by that night, and Friday the masons were to have come. Thursday night we had a tremendous deluge of rain, and Friday morning I found my cellar a frog-pond and the walls quite washed down. My daughter, who had come out to view the disaster with me, called my attention to a corner of masonry laid bare by the crumbling away of one of the walls. I cleared a little earth from it, and, finding that it seemed part of a large mass, determined to investigate it. The workmen I sent for unearthed an oblong vault some eight feet below the surface, and set in the corner of what had evidently been the foundation walls of an ancient house. A layer of ashes and charcoal on the top of the vault showed that the house above had perished by fire. The vault itself was perfectly intact, the cement being as good as when first applied. It had a door, but this we could not force, and found entrance by removing one of the flagstones which formed the roof. The air which came up was stagnant but pure, dry and not cold. Descending with a lantern, I found myself in an apartment fitted up as a bedroom in the style of the nineteenth century. On the bed lay a young man. That he was dead and must have been dead a century was of course to be taken for granted; but the extraordinary state of preservation of the body struck me and the medical colleagues whom I had summoned with amazement. That the art of such embalming as this had ever been known we should not have believed, yet here seemed conclusive testimony that our immediate ancestors had possessed it. My medical colleagues, whose curiosity was highly excited, were at once for undertaking experiments to test the nature of the process employed, but I withheld them. My motive in so doing, at least the only motive I now need speak of, was the recollection of something I once had read about the extent to which your contemporaries had cultivated the subject of animal magnetism. It had occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in a trance, and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a time was not the craft of an embalmer, but life. So extremely fanciful did this idea seem, even to me, that I did not risk the ridicule of my fellow physicians by mentioning it, but gave some other reason for postponing their experiments. No sooner, however, had they left me, than I set on foot a systematic attempt at resuscitation, of which you know the result." Had its theme been yet more incredible, the circumstantiality of this narrative, as well as the impressive manner and personality of the narrator, might have staggered a listener, and I had begun to feel very strangely, when, as he closed, I chanced to catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall of the room. I rose and went up to it. The face I saw was the face to a hair and a line and not a day older than the one I had looked at as I tied my cravat before going to Edith that Decoration Day, which, as this man would have me believe, was celebrated one hundred and thirteen years before. At this, the colossal character of the fraud which was being attempted on me, came over me afresh. Indignation mastered my mind as I realized the outrageous liberty that had been taken. "You are probably surprised," said my companion, "to see that, although you are a century older than when you lay down to sleep in that underground chamber, your appearance is unchanged. That should not amaze you. It is by virtue of the total arrest of the vital functions that you have survived this great period of time. If your body could have undergone any change during your trance, it would long ago have suffered dissolution." "Sir," I replied, turning to him, "what your motive can be in reciting to me with a serious face this remarkable farrago, I am utterly unable to guess; but you are surely yourself too intelligent to suppose that anybody but an imbecile could be deceived by it. Spare me any more of this elaborate nonsense and once for all tell me whether you refuse to give me an intelligible account of where I am and how I came here. If so, I shall proceed to ascertain my whereabouts for myself, whoever may hinder." "You do not, then, believe that this is the year 2000?" "Do you really think it necessary to ask me that?" I returned. "Very well," replied my extraordinary host. "Since I cannot convince you, you shall convince yourself. Are you strong enough to follow me upstairs?" "I am as strong as I ever was," I replied angrily, "as I may have to prove if this jest is carried much farther." "I beg, sir," was my companion's response, "that you will not allow yourself to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim of a trick, lest the reaction, when you are convinced of the truth of my statements, should be too great." The tone of concern, mingled with commiseration, with which he said this, and the entire absence of any sign of resentment at my hot words, strangely daunted me, and I followed him from the room with an extraordinary mixture of emotions. He led the way up two flights of stairs and then up a shorter one, which landed us upon a belvedere on the house-top. "Be pleased to look around you," he said, as we reached the platform, "and tell me if this is the Boston of the nineteenth century." At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by trees and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in continuous blocks but set in larger or smaller inclosures, stretched in every direction. Every quarter contained large open squares filled with trees, among which statues glistened and fountains flashed in the late afternoon sun. Public buildings of a colossal size and an architectural grandeur unparalleled in my day raised their stately piles on every side. Surely I had never seen this city nor one comparable to it before. Raising my eyes at last towards the horizon, I looked westward. That blue ribbon winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuous Charles? I looked east; Boston harbor stretched before me within its headlands, not one of its green islets missing. I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the prodigious thing which had befallen me. Chapter 4 I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me very giddy, and I remember that my companion had to give me a strong arm as he conducted me from the roof to a roomy apartment on the upper floor of the house, where he insisted on my drinking a glass or two of good wine and partaking of a light repast. "I think you are going to be all right now," he said cheerily. "I should not have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of your position if your course, while perfectly excusable under the circumstances, had not rather obliged me to do so. I confess," he added laughing, "I was a little apprehensive at one time that I should undergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in the nineteenth century, if I did not act rather promptly. I remembered that the Bostonians of your day were famous pugilists, and thought best to lose no time. I take it you are now ready to acquit me of the charge of hoaxing you." "If you had told me," I replied, profoundly awed, "that a thousand years instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this city, I should now believe you." "Only a century has passed," he answered, "but many a millennium in the world's history has seen changes less extraordinary." "And now," he added, extending his hand with an air of irresistible cordiality, "let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of the twentieth century and to this house. My name is Leete, Dr. Leete they call me." "My name," I said as I shook his hand, "is Julian West." "I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West," he responded. "Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own, I hope you will find it easy to make yourself at home in it." After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a change of clothing, of which I gladly availed myself. It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's attire had been among the great changes my host had spoken of, for, barring a few details, my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all. Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it with me, the reader will doubtless wonder. What were my intellectual sensations, he may wish to know, on finding myself so suddenly dropped as it were into a new world. In reply let me ask him to suppose himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, transported from earth, say, to Paradise or Hades. What does he fancy would be his own experience? Would his thoughts return at once to the earth he had just left, or would he, after the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a while, albeit to be remembered later, in the interest excited by his new surroundings? All I can say is, that if his experience were at all like mine in the transition I am describing, the latter hypothesis would prove the correct one. The impressions of amazement and curiosity which my new surroundings produced occupied my mind, after the first shock, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. For the time the memory of my former life was, as it were, in abeyance. No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kind offices of my host, than I became eager to return to the house-top; and presently we were comfortably established there in easy-chairs, with the city beneath and around us. After Dr. Leete had responded to numerous questions on my part, as to the ancient landmarks I missed and the new ones which had replaced them, he asked me what point of the contrast between the new and the old city struck me most forcibly. "To speak of small things before great," I responded, "I really think that the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detail that first impressed me." "Ah!" ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest, "I had forgotten the chimneys, it is so long since they went out of use. It is nearly a century since the crude method of combustion on which you depended for heat became obsolete." "In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is the material prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificence implies." "I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of your day," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt, as you imply, the cities of that period were rather shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them splendid, which I would not be so rude as to question, the general poverty resulting from your extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means. Moreover, the excessive individualism which then prevailed was inconsistent with much public spirit. What little wealth you had seems almost wholly to have been lavished in private luxury. Nowadays, on the contrary, there is no destination of the surplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoy in equal degree." The sun had been setting as we returned to the house-top, and as we talked night descended upon the city. "It is growing dark," said Dr. Leete. "Let us descend into the house; I want to introduce my wife and daughter to you." His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had heard whispering about me as I was coming back to conscious life; and, most curious to learn what the ladies of the year 2000 were like, I assented with alacrity to the proposition. The apartment in which we found the wife and daughter of my host, as well as the entire interior of the house, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must be artificial, although I could not discover the source from which it was diffused. Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved woman of about her husband's age, while the daughter, who was in the first blush of womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Her face was as bewitching as deep blue eyes, delicately tinted complexion, and perfect features could make it, but even had her countenance lacked special charms, the faultless luxuriance of her figure would have given her place as a beauty among the women of the nineteenth century. Feminine softness and delicacy were in this lovely creature deliciously combined with an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the general strangeness of the situation, but still striking, that her name should be Edith. The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of social intercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was peculiarly strained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe indeed that it is under what may be called unnatural, in the sense of extraordinary, circumstances that people behave most naturally, for the reason, no doubt, that such circumstances banish artificiality. I know at any rate that my intercourse that evening with these representatives of another age and world was marked by an ingenuous sincerity and frankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance. No doubt the exquisite tact of my entertainers had much to do with this. Of course there was nothing we could talk of but the strange experience by virtue of which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naive and direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a great degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another century, so perfect was their tact. For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my mind to have been more alert and acute than that evening, or my intellectual sensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean that the consciousness of my amazing situation was for a moment out of mind, but its chief effect thus far was to produce a feverish elation, a sort of mental intoxication.[1] Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when several times the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face, I found her eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, almost like fascination. It was evident that I had excited her interest to an extraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, supposing her to be a girl of imagination. Though I supposed curiosity was the chief motive of her interest, it could but affect me as it would not have done had she been less beautiful. Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in my account of the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in the underground chamber. All had suggestions to offer to account for my having been forgotten there, and the theory which we finally agreed on offers at least a plausible explanation, although whether it be in its details the true one, nobody, of course, will ever know. The layer of ashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had been burned down. Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the night I fell asleep. It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost his life in the fire or by some accident connected with it, and the rest follows naturally enough. No one but he and Dr. Pillsbury either knew of the existence of the chamber or that I was in it, and Dr. Pillsbury, who had gone that night to New Orleans, had probably never heard of the fire at all. The conclusion of my friends, and of the public, must have been that I had perished in the flames. An excavation of the ruins, unless thorough, would not have disclosed the recess in the foundation walls connecting with my chamber. To be sure, if the site had been again built upon, at least immediately, such an excavation would have been necessary, but the troublous times and the undesirable character of the locality might well have prevented rebuilding. The size of the trees in the garden now occupying the site indicated, Dr. Leete said, that for more than half a century at least it had been open ground. [1] In accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my surroundings next to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. Within a block of my home in the old Boston I could have found social circles vastly more foreign to me. The speech of the Bostonians of the twentieth century differs even less from that of their cultured ancestors of the nineteenth than did that of the latter from the language of Washington and Franklin, while the differences between the style of dress and furniture of the two epochs are not more marked than I have known fashion to make in the time of one generation. Chapter 5 When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving Dr. Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep, saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but if I was inclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better than to bear me company. "I am a late bird, myself," he said, "and, without suspicion of flattery, I may say that a companion more interesting than yourself could scarcely be imagined. It is decidedly not often that one has a chance to converse with a man of the nineteenth century." Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to the time when I should be alone, on retiring for the night. Surrounded by these most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by their sympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance. Even then, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could not sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no cowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, in reply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that it would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would give me a dose which would insure me a sound night's sleep without fail. Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with the feeling of an old citizen. "Before I acquired that," I replied, "I must know a little more about the sort of Boston I have come back to. You told me when we were upon the house-top that though a century only had elapsed since I fell asleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions of humanity than many a previous millennium. With the city before me I could well believe that, but I am very curious to know what some of the changes have been. To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject is doubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for the labor question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour society, because the answer was not forthcoming. It is well worth sleeping a hundred years to learn what the right answer was, if, indeed, you have found it yet." "As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays," replied Dr. Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I suppose we may claim to have solved it. Society would indeed have fully deserved being devoured if it had failed to answer a riddle so entirely simple. In fact, to speak by the book, it was not necessary for society to solve the riddle at all. It may be said to have solved itself. The solution came as the result of a process of industrial evolution which could not have terminated otherwise. All that society had to do was to recognize and cooperate with that evolution, when its tendency had become unmistakable." "I can only say," I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no such evolution had been recognized." "It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said." "Yes, May 30th, 1887." My companion regarded me musingly for some moments. Then he observed, "And you tell me that even then there was no general recognition of the nature of the crisis which society was nearing? Of course, I fully credit your statement. The singular blindness of your contemporaries to the signs of the times is a phenomenon commented on by many of our historians, but few facts of history are more difficult for us to realize, so obvious and unmistakable as we look back seem the indications, which must also have come under your eyes, of the transformation about to come to pass. I should be interested, Mr. West, if you would give me a little more definite idea of the view which you and men of your grade of intellect took of the state and prospects of society in 1887. You must, at least, have realized that the widespread industrial and social troubles, and the underlying dissatisfaction of all classes with the inequalities of society, and the general misery of mankind, were portents of great changes of some sort." "We did, indeed, fully realize that," I replied. "We felt that society was dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift. Whither it would drift nobody could say, but all feared the rocks." "Nevertheless," said Dr. Leete, "the set of the current was perfectly perceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it, and it was not toward the rocks, but toward a deeper channel." "We had a popular proverb," I replied, "that 'hindsight is better than foresight,' the force of which I shall now, no doubt, appreciate more fully than ever. All I can say is, that the prospect was such when I went into that long sleep that I should not have been surprised had I looked down from your house-top to-day on a heap of charred and moss-grown ruins instead of this glorious city." Dr. Leete had listened to me with close attention and nodded thoughtfully as I finished speaking. "What you have said," he observed, "will be regarded as a most valuable vindication of Storiot, whose account of your era has been generally thought exaggerated in its picture of the gloom and confusion of men's minds. That a period of transition like that should be full of excitement and agitation was indeed to be looked for; but seeing how plain was the tendency of the forces in operation, it was natural to believe that hope rather than fear would have been the prevailing temper of the popular mind." "You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle which you found," I said. "I am impatient to know by what contradiction of natural sequence the peace and prosperity which you now seem to enjoy could have been the outcome of an era like my own." "Excuse me," replied my host, "but do you smoke?" It was not till our cigars were lighted and drawing well that he resumed. "Since you are in the humor to talk rather than to sleep, as I certainly am, perhaps I cannot do better than to try to give you enough idea of our modern industrial system to dissipate at least the impression that there is any mystery about the process of its evolution. The Bostonians of your day had the reputation of being great askers of questions, and I am going to show my descent by asking you one to begin with. What should you name as the most prominent feature of the labor troubles of your day?" "Why, the strikes, of course," I replied. "Exactly; but what made the strikes so formidable?" "The great labor organizations." "And what was the motive of these great organizations?" "The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their rights from the big corporations," I replied. "That is just it," said Dr. Leete; "the organization of labor and the strikes were an effect, merely, of the concentration of capital in greater masses than had ever been known before. Before this concentration began, while as yet commerce and industry were conducted by innumerable petty concerns with small capital, instead of a small number of great concerns with vast capital, the individual workman was relatively important and independent in his relations to the employer. Moreover, when a little capital or a new idea was enough to start a man in business for himself, workingmen were constantly becoming employers and there was no hard and fast line between the two classes. Labor unions were needless then, and general strikes out of the question. But when the era of small concerns with small capital was succeeded by that of the great aggregations of capital, all this was changed. The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to the small employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness over against the great corporation, while at the same time the way upward to the grade of employer was closed to him. Self-defense drove him to union with his fellows. "The records of the period show that the outcry against the concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it threatened society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever endured. They believed that the great corporations were preparing for them the yoke of a baser servitude than had ever been imposed on the race, servitude not to men but to soulless machines incapable of any motive but insatiable greed. Looking back, we cannot wonder at their desperation, for certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate more sordid and hideous than would have been the era of corporate tyranny which they anticipated. "Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by the clamor against it, the absorption of business by ever larger monopolies continued. In the United States there was not, after the beginning of the last quarter of the century, any opportunity whatever for individual enterprise in any important field of industry, unless backed by a great capital. During the last decade of the century, such small businesses as still remained were fast-failing survivals of a past epoch, or mere parasites on the great corporations, or else existed in fields too small to attract the great capitalists. Small businesses, as far as they still remained, were reduced to the condition of rats and mice, living in holes and corners, and counting on evading notice for the enjoyment of existence. The railroads had gone on combining till a few great syndicates controlled every rail in the land. In manufactories, every important staple was controlled by a syndicate. These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name, fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations as vast as themselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a still greater consolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed it country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself absorbed its smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was concentrated under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors of shops serving as clerks. Having no business of his own to put his money in, the small capitalist, at the same time that he took service under the corporation, found no other investment for his money but its stocks and bonds, thus becoming doubly dependent upon it. "The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation of business in a few powerful hands had no effect to check it proves that there must have been a strong economical reason for it. The small capitalists, with their innumerable petty concerns, had in fact yielded the field to the great aggregations of capital, because they belonged to a day of small things and were totally incompetent to the demands of an age of steam and telegraphs and the gigantic scale of its enterprises. To restore the former order of things, even if possible, would have involved returning to the day of stagecoaches. Oppressive and intolerable as was the regime of the great consolidations of capital, even its victims, while they cursed it, were forced to admit the prodigious increase of efficiency which had been imparted to the national industries, the vast economies effected by concentration of management and unity of organization, and to confess that since the new system had taken the place of the old the wealth of the world had increased at a rate before undreamed of. To be sure this vast increase had gone chiefly to make the rich richer, increasing the gap between them and the poor; but the fact remained that, as a means merely of producing wealth, capital had been proved efficient in proportion to its consolidation. The restoration of the old system with the subdivision of capital, if it were possible, might indeed bring back a greater equality of conditions, with more individual dignity and freedom, but it would be at the price of general poverty and the arrest of material progress. "Was there, then, no way of commanding the services of the mighty wealth-producing principle of consolidated capital without bowing down to a plutocracy like that of Carthage? As soon as men began to ask themselves these questions, they found the answer ready for them. The movement toward the conduct of business by larger and larger aggregations of capital, the tendency toward monopolies, which had been so desperately and vainly resisted, was recognized at last, in its true significance, as a process which only needed to complete its logical evolution to open a golden future to humanity. "Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the final consolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The industry and commerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted by a set of irresponsible corporations and syndicates of private persons at their caprice and for their profit, were intrusted to a single syndicate representing the people, to be conducted in the common interest for the common profit. The nation, that is to say, organized as the one great business corporation in which all other corporations were absorbed; it became the one capitalist in the place of all other capitalists, the sole employer, the final monopoly in which all previous and lesser monopolies were swallowed up, a monopoly in the profits and economies of which all citizens shared. The epoch of trusts had ended in The Great Trust. In a word, the people of the United States concluded to assume the conduct of their own business, just as one hundred odd years before they had assumed the conduct of their own government, organizing now for industrial purposes on precisely the same grounds that they had then organized for political purposes. At last, strangely late in the world's history, the obvious fact was perceived that no business is so essentially the public business as the industry and commerce on which the people's livelihood depends, and that to entrust it to private persons to be managed for private profit is a folly similar in kind, though vastly greater in magnitude, to that of surrendering the functions of political government to kings and nobles to be conducted for their personal glorification." "Such a stupendous change as you describe," said I, "did not, of course, take place without great bloodshed and terrible convulsions." "On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there was absolutely no violence. The change had been long foreseen. Public opinion had become fully ripe for it, and the whole mass of the people was behind it. There was no more possibility of opposing it by force than by argument. On the other hand the popular sentiment toward the great corporations and those identified with them had ceased to be one of bitterness, as they came to realize their necessity as a link, a transition phase, in the evolution of the true industrial system. The most violent foes of the great private monopolies were now forced to recognize how invaluable and indispensable had been their office in educating the people up to the point of assuming control of their own business. Fifty years before, the consolidation of the industries of the country under national control would have seemed a very daring experiment to the most sanguine. But by a series of object lessons, seen and studied by all men, the great corporations had taught the people an entirely new set of ideas on this subject. They had seen for many years syndicates handling revenues greater than those of states, and directing the labors of hundreds of thousands of men with an efficiency and economy unattainable in smaller operations. It had come to be recognized as an axiom that the larger the business the simpler the principles that can be applied to it; that, as the machine is truer than the hand, so the system, which in a great concern does the work of the master's eye in a small business, turns out more accurate results. Thus it came about that, thanks to the corporations themselves, when it was proposed that the nation should assume their functions, the suggestion implied nothing which seemed impracticable even to the timid. To be sure it was a step beyond any yet taken, a broader generalization, but the very fact that the nation would be the sole corporation in the field would, it was seen, relieve the undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial monopolies had contended." Chapter 6 Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he had described. Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions of government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming." "Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?" "In my day," I replied, "it was considered that the proper functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace and defending the people against the public enemy, that is, to the military and police powers." "And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and nakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary. Not even for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as were then used for the most maleficent." "Leaving comparisons aside," I said, "the demagoguery and corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable objections to any assumption by government of the charge of the national industries. We should have thought that no arrangement could be worse than to entrust the politicians with control of the wealth-producing machinery of the country. Its material interests were quite too much the football of parties as it was." "No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is changed now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for demagoguery and corruption, they are words having only an historical significance." "Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said. "Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. The organization of society with you was such that officials were under a constant temptation to misuse their power for the private profit of themselves or others. Under such circumstances it seems almost strange that you dared entrust them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the contrary, society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profit for himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as bad an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is no motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium on dishonesty. But these are matters which you can only understand as you come, with time, to know us better." "But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem. It is the problem of capital which we have been discussing," I said. "After the nation had assumed conduct of the mills, machinery, railroads, farms, mines, and capital in general of the country, the labor question still remained. In assuming the responsibilities of capital the nation had assumed the difficulties of the capitalist's position." "The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of capital those difficulties vanished," replied Dr. Leete. "The national organization of labor under one direction was the complete solution of what was, in your day and under your system, justly regarded as the insoluble labor problem. When the nation became the sole employer, all the citizens, by virtue of their citizenship, became employees, to be distributed according to the needs of industry." "That is," I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle of universal military service, as it was understood in our day, to the labor question." "Yes," said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as a matter of course as soon as the nation had become the sole capitalist. The people were already accustomed to the idea that the obligation of every citizen, not physically disabled, to contribute his military services to the defense of the nation was equal and absolute. That it was equally the duty of every citizen to contribute his quota of industrial or intellectual services to the maintenance of the nation was equally evident, though it was not until the nation became the employer of labor that citizens were able to render this sort of service with any pretense either of universality or equity. No organization of labor was possible when the employing power was divided among hundreds or thousands of individuals and corporations, between which concert of any kind was neither desired, nor indeed feasible. It constantly happened then that vast numbers who desired to labor could find no opportunity, and on the other hand, those who desired to evade a part or all of their debt could easily do so." "Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested. "It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion," replied Dr. Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought of. He would be thought to be an incredibly contemptible person who should need compulsion in such a case. Nevertheless, to speak of service being compulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute inevitableness. Our entire social order is so wholly based upon and deduced from it that if it were conceivable that a man could escape it, he would be left with no possible way to provide for his existence. He would have excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, in a word, committed suicide." "Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?" "Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average working period in your day. Your workshops were filled with children and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the course of education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. After forty-five, while discharged from labor, the citizen still remains liable to special calls, in case of emergencies causing a sudden great increase in the demand for labor, till he reaches the age of fifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact almost never, made. The fifteenth day of October of every year is what we call Muster Day, because those who have reached the age of twenty-one are then mustered into the industrial service, and at the same time those who, after twenty-four years' service, have reached the age of forty-five, are honorably mustered out. It is the great day of the year with us, whence we reckon all other events, our Olympiad, save that it is annual." Chapter 7 "It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for there its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the same thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the manual of arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must learn and follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations. What administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?" "The administration has nothing to do with determining that point." "Who does determine it, then?" I asked. "Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural aptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army is organized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical, determine what he can work at most profitably to the nation and most satisfactorily to himself. While the obligation of service in some form is not to be evaded, voluntary election, subject only to necessary regulation, is depended on to determine the particular sort of service every man is to render. As an individual's satisfaction during his term of service depends on his having an occupation to his taste, parents and teachers watch from early years for indications of special aptitudes in children. A thorough study of the National industrial system, with the history and rudiments of all the great trades, is an essential part of our educational system. While manual training is not allowed to encroach on the general intellectual culture to which our schools are devoted, it is carried far enough to give our youth, in addition to their theoretical knowledge of the national industries, mechanical and agricultural, a certain familiarity with their tools and methods. Our schools are constantly visiting our workshops, and often are taken on long excursions to inspect particular industrial enterprises. In your day a man was not ashamed to be grossly ignorant of all trades except his own, but such ignorance would not be consistent with our idea of placing every one in a position to select intelligently the occupation for which he has most taste. Usually long before he is mustered into service a young man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great deal of knowledge about it, and is waiting impatiently the time when he can enlist in its ranks." "Surely," I said, "it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for any trade is exactly the number needed in that trade. It must be generally either under or over the demand." "The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the demand," replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administration to see that this is the case. The rate of volunteering for each trade is closely watched. If there be a noticeably greater excess of volunteers over men needed in any trade, it is inferred that the trade offers greater attractions than others. On the other hand, if the number of volunteers for a trade tends to drop below the demand, it is inferred that it is thought more arduous. It is the business of the administration to seek constantly to equalize the attractions of the trades, so far as the conditions of labor in them are concerned, so that all trades shall be equally attractive to persons having natural tastes for them. This is done by making the hours of labor in different trades to differ according to their arduousness. The lighter trades, prosecuted under the most agreeable circumstances, have in this way the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very short hours. There is no theory, no a priori rule, by which the respective attractiveness of industries is determined. The administration, in taking burdens off one class of workers and adding them to other classes, simply follows the fluctuations of opinion among the workers themselves as indicated by the rate of volunteering. The principle is that no man's work ought to be, on the whole, harder for him than any other man's for him, the workers themselves to be the judges. There are no limits to the application of this rule. If any particular occupation is in itself so arduous or so oppressive that, in order to induce volunteers, the day's work in it had to be reduced to ten minutes, it would be done. If, even then, no man was willing to do it, it would remain undone. But of course, in point of fact, a moderate reduction in the hours of labor, or addition of other privileges, suffices to secure all needed volunteers for any occupation necessary to men. If, indeed, the unavoidable difficulties and dangers of such a necessary pursuit were so great that no inducement of compensating advantages would overcome men's repugnance to it, the administration would only need to take it out of the common order of occupations by declaring it 'extra hazardous,' and those who pursued it especially worthy of the national gratitude, to be overrun with volunteers. Our young men are very greedy of honor, and do not let slip such opportunities. Of course you will see that dependence on the purely voluntary choice of avocations involves the abolition in all of anything like unhygienic conditions or special peril to life and limb. Health and safety are conditions common to all industries. The nation does not maim and slaughter its workmen by thousands, as did the private capitalists and corporations of your day." "When there are more who want to enter a particular trade than there is room for, how do you decide between the applicants?" I inquired. "Preference is given to those who have acquired the most knowledge of the trade they wish to follow. No man, however, who through successive years remains persistent in his desire to show what he can do at any particular trade, is in the end denied an opportunity. Meanwhile, if a man cannot at first win entrance into the business he prefers, he has usually one or more alternative preferences, pursuits for which he has some degree of aptitude, although not the highest. Every one, indeed, is expected to study his aptitudes so as to have not only a first choice as to occupation, but a second or third, so that if, either at the outset of his career or subsequently, owing to the progress of invention or changes in demand, he is unable to follow his first vocation, he can still find reasonably congenial employment. This principle of secondary choices as to occupation is quite important in our system. I should add, in reference to the counter-possibility of some sudden failure of volunteers in a particular trade, or some sudden necessity of an increased force, that the administration, while depending on the voluntary system for filling up the trades as a rule, holds always in reserve the power to call for special volunteers, or draft any force needed from any quarter. Generally, however, all needs of this sort can be met by details from the class of unskilled or common laborers." "How is this class of common laborers recruited?" I asked. "Surely nobody voluntarily enters that." "It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three years of their service. It is not till after this period, during which he is assignable to any work at the discretion of his superiors, that the young man is allowed to elect a special avocation. These three years of stringent discipline none are exempt from, and very glad our young men are to pass from this severe school into the comparative liberty of the trades. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice as to occupation, he would simply remain a common laborer; but such cases, as you may suppose, are not common." "Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation," I remarked, "I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life." "Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted, every worker is allowed, of course, under certain regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. In this case his application is received just as if he were volunteering for the first time, and on the same terms. Not only this, but a worker may likewise, under suitable regulations and not too frequently, obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same industry in another part of the country which for any reason he may prefer. Under your system a discontented man could indeed leave his work at will, but he left his means of support at the same time, and took his chances as to future livelihood. We find that the number of men who wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and old friends and associations for strange ones, is small. It is only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change even as frequently as our regulations permit. Of course transfers or discharges, when health demands them, are always given." "As an industrial system, I should think this might be extremely efficient," I said, "but I don't see that it makes any provision for the professional classes, the men who serve the nation with brains instead of hands. Of course you can't get along without the brain-workers. How, then, are they selected from those who are to serve as farmers and mechanics? That must require a very delicate sort of sifting process, I should say." "So it does," replied Dr. Leete; "the most delicate possible test is needed here, and so we leave the question whether a man shall be a brain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the term of three years as a common laborer, which every man must serve, it is for him to choose, in accordance to his natural tastes, whether he will fit himself for an art or profession, or be a farmer or mechanic. If he feels that he can do better work with his brains than his muscles, he finds every facility provided for testing the reality of his supposed bent, of cultivating it, and if fit of pursuing it as his avocation. The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, of histrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open to aspirants without condition." "Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is to avoid work?" Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly. "No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the purpose of avoiding work, I assure you," he said. "They are intended for those with special aptitude for the branches they teach, and any one without it would find it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes. Of course many honestly mistake their vocation, and, finding themselves unequal to the requirements of the schools, drop out and return to the industrial service; no discredit attaches to such persons, for the public policy is to encourage all to develop suspected talents which only actual tests can prove the reality of. The professional and scientific schools of your day depended on the patronage of their pupils for support, and the practice appears to have been common of giving diplomas to unfit persons, who afterwards found their way into the professions. Our schools are national institutions, and to have passed their tests is a proof of special abilities not to be questioned. "This opportunity for a professional training," the doctor continued, "remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached, after which students are not received, as there would remain too brief a period before the age of discharge in which to serve the nation in their professions. In your day young men had to choose their professions very young, and therefore, in a large proportion of instances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is recognized nowadays that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in developing, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be made as early as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer." A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now found utterance, a question which touched upon what, in my time, had been regarded the most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlement of the industrial problem. "It is an extraordinary thing," I said, "that you should not yet have said a word about the method of adjusting wages. Since the nation is the sole employer, the government must fix the rate of wages and determine just how much everybody shall earn, from the doctors to the diggers. All I can say is, that this plan would never have worked with us, and I don't see how it can now unless human nature has changed. In my day, nobody was satisfied with his wages or salary. Even if he felt he received enough, he was sure his neighbor had too much, which was as bad. If the universal discontent on this subject, instead of being dissipated in curses and strikes directed against innumerable employers, could have been concentrated upon one, and that the government, the strongest ever devised would not have seen two pay days." Dr. Leete laughed heartily. "Very true, very true," he said, "a general strike would most probably have followed the first pay day, and a strike directed against a government is a revolution." "How, then, do you avoid a revolution every pay day?" if demanded. "Has some prodigious philosopher devised a new system of calculus satisfactory to all for determining the exact and comparative value of all sorts of service, whether by brawn or brain, by hand or voice, by ear or eye? Or has human nature itself changed, so that no man looks upon his own things but 'every man on the things of his neighbor'? One or the other of these events must be the explanation." "Neither one nor the other, however, is," was my host's laughing response. "And now, Mr. West," he continued, "you must remember that you are my patient as well as my guest, and permit me to prescribe sleep for you before we have any more conversation. It is after three o'clock." "The prescription is, no doubt, a wise one," I said; "I only hope it can be filled." "I will see to that," the doctor replied, and he did, for he gave me a wineglass of something or other which sent me to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. Chapter 8 When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed, and lay a considerable time in a dozing state, enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort. The experiences of the day previous, my waking to find myself in the year 2000, the sight of the new Boston, my host and his family, and the wonderful things I had heard, were a blank in my memory. I thought I was in my bed-chamber at home, and the half-dreaming, half-waking fancies which passed before my mind related to the incidents and experiences of my former life. Dreamily I reviewed the incidents of Decoration Day, my trip in company with Edith and her parents to Mount Auburn, and my dining with them on our return to the city. I recalled how extremely well Edith had looked, and from that fell to thinking of our marriage; but scarcely had my imagination begun to develop this delightful theme than my waking dream was cut short by the recollection of the letter I had received the night before from the builder announcing that the new strikes might postpone indefinitely the completion of the new house. The chagrin which this recollection brought with it effectually roused me. I remembered that I had an appointment with the builder at eleven o'clock, to discuss the strike, and opening my eyes, looked up at the clock at the foot of my bed to see what time it was. But no clock met my glance, and what was more, I instantly perceived that I was not in my room. Starting up on my couch, I stared wildly round the strange apartment. I think it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bed staring about, without being able to regain the clew to my personal identity. I was no more able to distinguish myself from pure being during those moments than we may suppose a soul in the rough to be before it has received the ear-marks, the individualizing touches which make it a person. Strange that the sense of this inability should be such anguish! but so we are constituted. There are no words for the mental torture I endured during this helpless, eyeless groping for myself in a boundless void. No other experience of the mind gives probably anything like the sense of absolute intellectual arrest from the loss of a mental fulcrum, a starting point of thought, which comes during such a momentary obscuration of the sense of one's identity. I trust I may never know what it is again. I do not know how long this condition had lasted--it seemed an interminable time--when, like a flash, the recollection of everything came back to me. I remembered who and where I was, and how I had come here, and that these scenes as of the life of yesterday which had been passing before my mind concerned a generation long, long ago mouldered to dust. Leaping from bed, I stood in the middle of the room clasping my temples with all my might between my hands to keep them from bursting. Then I fell prone on the couch, and, burying my face in the pillow, lay without motion. The reaction which was inevitable, from the mental elation, the fever of the intellect that had been the first effect of my tremendous experience, had arrived. The emotional crisis which had awaited the full realization of my actual position, and all that it implied, was upon me, and with set teeth and laboring chest, gripping the bedstead with frenzied strength, I lay there and fought for my sanity. In my mind, all had broken loose, habits of feeling, associations of thought, ideas of persons and things, all had dissolved and lost coherence and were seething together in apparently irretrievable chaos. There were no rallying points, nothing was left stable. There only remained the will, and was any human will strong enough to say to such a weltering sea, "Peace, be still"? I dared not think. Every effort to reason upon what had befallen me, and realize what it implied, set up an intolerable swimming of the brain. The idea that I was two persons, that my identity was double, began to fascinate me with its simple solution of my experience. I knew that I was on the verge of losing my mental balance. If I lay there thinking, I was doomed. Diversion of some sort I must have, at least the diversion of physical exertion. I sprang up, and, hastily dressing, opened the door of my room and went down-stairs. The hour was very early, it being not yet fairly light, and I found no one in the lower part of the house. There was a hat in the hall, and, opening the front door, which was fastened with a slightness indicating that burglary was not among the perils of the modern Boston, I found myself on the street. For two hours I walked or ran through the streets of the city, visiting most quarters of the peninsular part of the town. None but an antiquarian who knows something of the contrast which the Boston of today offers to the Boston of the nineteenth century can begin to appreciate what a series of bewildering surprises I underwent during that time. Viewed from the house-top the day before, the city had indeed appeared strange to me, but that was only in its general aspect. How complete the change had been I first realized now that I walked the streets. The few old landmarks which still remained only intensified this effect, for without them I might have imagined myself in a foreign town. A man may leave his native city in childhood, and return fifty years later, perhaps, to find it transformed in many features. He is astonished, but he is not bewildered. He is aware of a great lapse of time, and of changes likewise occurring in himself meanwhile. He but dimly recalls the city as he knew it when a child. But remember that there was no sense of any lapse of time with me. So far as my consciousness was concerned, it was but yesterday, but a few hours, since I had walked these streets in which scarcely a feature had escaped a complete metamorphosis. The mental image of the old city was so fresh and strong that it did not yield to the impression of the actual city, but contended with it, so that it was first one and then the other which seemed the more unreal. There was nothing I saw which was not blurred in this way, like the faces of a composite photograph. Finally, I stood again at the door of the house from which I had come out. My feet must have instinctively brought me back to the site of my old home, for I had no clear idea of returning thither. It was no more homelike to me than any other spot in this city of a strange generation, nor were its inmates less utterly and necessarily strangers than all the other men and women now on the earth. Had the door of the house been locked, I should have been reminded by its resistance that I had no object in entering, and turned away, but it yielded to my hand, and advancing with uncertain steps through the hall, I entered one of the apartments opening from it. Throwing myself into a chair, I covered my burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out the horror of strangeness. My mental confusion was so intense as to produce actual nausea. The anguish of those moments, during which my brain seemed melting, or the abjectness of my sense of helplessness, how can I describe? In my despair I groaned aloud. I began to feel that unless some help should come I was about to lose my mind. And just then it did come. I heard the rustle of drapery, and looked up. Edith Leete was standing before me. Her beautiful face was full of the most poignant sympathy. "Oh, what is the matter, Mr. West?" she said. "I was here when you came in. I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked, and when I heard you groan, I could not keep silent. What has happened to you? Where have you been? Can't I do something for you?" Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of compassion as she spoke. At any rate I had caught them in my own and was clinging to them with an impulse as instinctive as that which prompts the drowning man to seize upon and cling to the rope which is thrown him as he sinks for the last time. As I looked up into her compassionate face and her eyes moist with pity, my brain ceased to whirl. The tender human sympathy which thrilled in the soft pressure of her fingers had brought me the support I needed. Its effect to calm and soothe was like that of some wonder-working elixir. "God bless you," I said, after a few moments. "He must have sent you to me just now. I think I was in danger of going crazy if you had not come." At this the tears came into her eyes. "Oh, Mr. West!" she cried. "How heartless you must have thought us! How could we leave you to yourself so long! But it is over now, is it not? You are better, surely." "Yes," I said, "thanks to you. If you will not go away quite yet, I shall be myself soon." "Indeed I will not go away," she said, with a little quiver of her face, more expressive of her sympathy than a volume of words. "You must not think us so heartless as we seemed in leaving you so by yourself. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking how strange your waking would be this morning; but father said you would sleep till late. He said that it would be better not to show too much sympathy with you at first, but to try to divert your thoughts and make you feel that you were among friends." "You have indeed made me feel that," I answered. "But you see it is a good deal of a jolt to drop a hundred years, and although I did not seem to feel it so much last night, I have had very odd sensations this morning." While I held her hands and kept my eyes on her face, I could already even jest a little at my plight. "No one thought of such a thing as your going out in the city alone so early in the morning," she went on. "Oh, Mr. West, where have you been?" Then I told her of my morning's experience, from my first waking till the moment I had looked up to see her before me, just as I have told it here. She was overcome by distressful pity during the recital, and, though I had released one of her hands, did not try to take from me the other, seeing, no doubt, how much good it did me to hold it. "I can think a little what this feeling must have been like," she said. "It must have been terrible. And to think you were left alone to struggle with it! Can you ever forgive us?" "But it is gone now. You have driven it quite away for the present," I said. "You will not let it return again," she queried anxiously. "I can't quite say that," I replied. "It might be too early to say that, considering how strange everything will still be to me." "But you will not try to contend with it alone again, at least," she persisted. "Promise that you will come to us, and let us sympathize with you, and try to help you. Perhaps we can't do much, but it will surely be better than to try to bear such feelings alone." "I will come to you if you will let me," I said. "Oh yes, yes, I beg you will," she said eagerly. "I would do anything to help you that I could." "All you need do is to be sorry for me, as you seem to be now," I replied. "It is understood, then," she said, smiling with wet eyes, "that you are to come and tell me next time, and not run all over Boston among strangers." This assumption that we were not strangers seemed scarcely strange, so near within these few minutes had my trouble and her sympathetic tears brought us. "I will promise, when you come to me," she added, with an expression of charming archness, passing, as she continued, into one of enthusiasm, "to seem as sorry for you as you wish, but you must not for a moment suppose that I am really sorry for you at all, or that I think you will long be sorry for yourself. I know, as well as I know that the world now is heaven compared with what it was in your day, that the only feeling you will have after a little while will be one of thankfulness to God that your life in that age was so strangely cut off, to be returned to you in this." Chapter 9 Dr. and Mrs. Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn, when they presently appeared, that I had been all over the city alone that morning, and it was apparent that they were agreeably surprised to see that I seemed so little agitated after the experience. "Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting one," said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table soon after. "You must have seen a good many new things." "I saw very little that was not new," I replied. "But I think what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any stores on Washington Street, or any banks on State. What have you done with the merchants and bankers? Hung them all, perhaps, as the anarchists wanted to do in my day?" "Not so bad as that," replied Dr. Leete. "We have simply dispensed with them. Their functions are obsolete in the modern world." "Who sells you things when you want to buy them?" I inquired. "There is neither selling nor buying nowadays; the distribution of goods is effected in another way. As to the bankers, having no money we have no use for those gentry." "Miss Leete," said I, turning to Edith, "I am afraid that your father is making sport of me. I don't blame him, for the temptation my innocence offers must be extraordinary. But, really, there are limits to my credulity as to possible alterations in the social system." "Father has no idea of jesting, I am sure," she replied, with a reassuring smile. The conversation took another turn then, the point of ladies' fashions in the nineteenth century being raised, if I remember rightly, by Mrs. Leete, and it was not till after breakfast, when the doctor had invited me up to the house-top, which appeared to be a favorite resort of his, that he recurred to the subject. "You were surprised," he said, "at my saying that we got along without money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show that trade existed and money was needed in your day simply because the business of production was left in private hands, and that, consequently, they are superfluous now." "I do not at once see how that follows," I replied. "It is very simple," said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable different and independent persons produced the various things needful to life and comfort, endless exchanges between individuals were requisite in order that they might supply themselves with what they desired. These exchanges constituted trade, and money was essential as their medium. But as soon as the nation became the sole producer of all sorts of commodities, there was no need of exchanges between individuals that they might get what they required. Everything was procurable from one source, and nothing could be procured anywhere else. A system of direct distribution from the national storehouses took the place of trade, and for this money was unnecessary." "How is this distribution managed?" I asked. "On the simplest possible plan," replied Dr. Leete. "A credit corresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation is given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning of each year, and a credit card issued him with which he procures at the public storehouses, found in every community, whatever he desires whenever he desires it. This arrangement, you will see, totally obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort between individuals and consumers. Perhaps you would like to see what our credit cards are like. "You observe," he pursued as I was curiously examining the piece of pasteboard he gave me, "that this card is issued for a certain number of dollars. We have kept the old word, but not the substance. The term, as we use it, answers to no real thing, but merely serves as an algebraical symbol for comparing the values of products with one another. For this purpose they are all priced in dollars and cents, just as in your day. The value of what I procure on this card is checked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of squares the price of what I order." "If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor, could you transfer part of your credit to him as consideration?" I inquired. "In the first place," replied Dr. Leete, "our neighbors have nothing to sell us, but in any event our credit would not be transferable, being strictly personal. Before the nation could even think of honoring any such transfer as you speak of, it would be bound to inquire into all the circumstances of the transaction, so as to be able to guarantee its absolute equity. It would have been reason enough, had there been no other, for abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of rightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it or murdered for it, it was as good as in those which had earned it by industry. People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of friendship, but buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens and the sense of community of interest which supports our social system. According to our ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization." "What if you have to spend more than your card in any one year?" I asked. "The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to spend it all," replied Dr. Leete. "But if extraordinary expenses should exhaust it, we can obtain a limited advance on the next year's credit, though this practice is not encouraged, and a heavy discount is charged to check it. Of course if a man showed himself a reckless spendthrift he would receive his allowance monthly or weekly instead of yearly, or if necessary not be permitted to handle it all." "If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?" "That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay is anticipated. But unless notice to the contrary is given, it is presumed that the citizen who does not fully expend his credit did not have occasion to do so, and the balance is turned into the general surplus." "Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part of citizens," I said. "It is not intended to," was the reply. "The nation is rich, and does not wish the people to deprive themselves of any good thing. In your day, men were bound to lay up goods and money against coming failure of the means of support and for their children. This necessity made parsimony a virtue. But now it would have no such laudable object, and, having lost its utility, it has ceased to be regarded as a virtue. No man any more has any care for the morrow, either for himself or his children, for the nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave." "That is a sweeping guarantee!" I said. "What certainty can there be that the value of a man's labor will recompense the nation for its outlay on him? On the whole, society may be able to support all its members, but some must earn less than enough for their support, and others more; and that brings us back once more to the wages question, on which you have hitherto said nothing. It was at just this point, if you remember, that our talk ended last evening; and I say again, as I did then, that here I should suppose a national industrial system like yours would find its main difficulty. How, I ask once more, can you adjust satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the multitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which are necessary for the service of society? In our day the market rate determined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of goods. The employer paid as little as he could, and the worker got as much. It was not a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it did, at least, furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a question which must be settled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going to get forward. There seemed to us no other practicable way of doing it." "Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "it was the only practicable way under a system which made the interests of every individual antagonistic to those of every other; but it would have been a pity if humanity could never have devised a better plan, for yours was simply the application to the mutual relations of men of the devil's maxim, 'Your necessity is my opportunity.' The reward of any service depended not upon its difficulty, danger, or hardship, for throughout the world it seems that the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worst paid classes; but solely upon the strait of those who needed the service." "All that is conceded," I said. "But, with all its defects, the plan of settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan; and I cannot conceive what satisfactory substitute you can have devised for it. The government being the only possible employer, there is of course no labor market or market rate. Wages of all sorts must be arbitrarily fixed by the government. I cannot imagine a more complex and delicate function than that must be, or one, however performed, more certain to breed universal dissatisfaction." "I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you exaggerate the difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged with settling the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which, like ours, guaranteed employment to all, while permitting the choice of avocations. Don't you see that, however unsatisfactory the first adjustment might be, the mistakes would soon correct themselves? The favored trades would have too many volunteers, and those discriminated against would lack them till the errors were set right. But this is aside from the purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be practicable enough, it is no part of our system." "How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked. Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old order of things to understand just what you mean by that question; and yet the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am a little at loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate wages; I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your day." "I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in," said I. "But the credit given the worker at the government storehouse answers to his wages with us. How is the amount of the credit given respectively to the workers in different lines determined? By what title does the individual claim his particular share? What is the basis of allotment?" "His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of his claim is the fact that he is a man." "The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do you possibly mean that all have the same share?" "Most assuredly." The readers of this book never having practically known any other arrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the historical accounts of former epochs in which a very different system prevailed, cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of amazement into which Dr. Leete's simple statement plunged me. "You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have no money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all answering to your idea of wages." By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I was, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed. "Are the clever workmen content with a plan that ranks them with the indifferent?" "We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice," replied Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of service from all." "How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two men's powers are the same?" "Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We require of each that he shall make the same effort; that is, we demand of him the best service it is in his power to give." "And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the amount of the product resulting is twice greater from one man than from another." "Very true," replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the resulting product has nothing whatever to do with the question, which is one of desert. Desert is a moral question, and the amount of the product a material quantity. It would be an extraordinary sort of logic which should try to determine a moral question by a material standard. The amount of the effort alone is pertinent to the question of desert. All men who do their best, do the same. A man's endowments, however godlike, merely fix the measure of his duty. The man of great endowments who does not do all he might, though he may do more than a man of small endowments who does his best, is deemed a less deserving worker than the latter, and dies a debtor to his fellows. The Creator sets men's tasks for them by the faculties he gives them; we simply exact their fulfillment." "No doubt that is very fine philosophy," I said; "nevertheless it seems hard that the man who produces twice as much as another, even if both do their best, should have only the same share." "Does it, indeed, seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "Now, do you know, that seems very curious to me? The way it strikes people nowadays is, that a man who can produce twice as much as another with the same effort, instead of being rewarded for doing so, ought to be punished if he does not do so. In the nineteenth century, when a horse pulled a heavier load than a goat, I suppose you rewarded him. Now, we should have whipped him soundly if he had not, on the ground that, being much stronger, he ought to. It is singular how ethical standards change." The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I was obliged to laugh. "I suppose," I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded men for their endowments, while we considered those of horses and goats merely as fixing the service to be severally required of them, was that the animals, not being reasoning beings, naturally did the best they could, whereas men could only be induced to do so by rewarding them according to the amount of their product. That brings me to ask why, unless human nature has mightily changed in a hundred years, you are not under the same necessity." "We are," replied Dr. Leete. "I don't think there has been any change in human nature in that respect since your day. It is still so constituted that special incentives in the form of prizes, and advantages to be gained, are requisite to call out the best endeavors of the average man in any direction." "But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income remains the same? High characters may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such a system, but does not the average man tend to rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding diminish it?" "Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion, "that human nature is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives to effort? Your contemporaries did not really think so, though they might fancy they did. When it was a question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives. Not higher wages, but honor and the hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation, and never was there an age of the world when those motives did not call out what is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success. So you see that though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and inordinate luxury with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater part of the motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by higher motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your age. Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer self-service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the worker as in your day they did the soldier. The army of industry is an army, not alone by virtue of its perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor of self-devotion which animates its members. "But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism with the love of glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man, that is, the best he can do, you will see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, diligence in the national service is the sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and official power. The value of a man's services to society fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our social arrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem the object-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you depended a device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric. The lust of honor even in your sordid day notoriously impelled men to more desperate effort than the love of money could." "I should be extremely interested," I said, "to learn something of what these social arrangements are." "The scheme in its details," replied the doctor, "is of course very elaborate, for it underlies the entire organization of our industrial army; but a few words will give you a general idea of it." At this moment our talk was charmingly interrupted by the emergence upon the aerial platform where we sat of Edith Leete. She was dressed for the street, and had come to speak to her father about some commission she was to do for him. "By the way, Edith," he exclaimed, as she was about to leave us to ourselves, "I wonder if Mr. West would not be interested in visiting the store with you? I have been telling him something about our system of distribution, and perhaps he might like to see it in practical operation." "My daughter," he added, turning to me, "is an indefatigable shopper, and can tell you more about the stores than I can." The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me, and Edith being good enough to say that she should be glad to have my company, we left the house together. Chapter 10 "If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said my companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way to me. I have never been able to understand it from all I have read on the subject. For example, when you had such a vast number of shops, each with its different assortment, how could a lady ever settle upon any purchase till she had visited all the shops? for, until she had, she could not know what there was to choose from." "It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could know," I replied. "Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon be a very fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's laughing comment. "The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for the ladies of the idle class, though they complained also, I think the system was really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill time." "But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, perhaps, of the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to make their rounds?" "They really could not visit all, of course," I replied. "Those who did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might expect to find what they wanted. This class had made a science of the specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always getting the most and best for the least money. It required, however, long experience to acquire this knowledge. Those who were too busy, or bought too little to gain it, took their chances and were generally unfortunate, getting the least and worst for the most money. It was the merest chance if persons not experienced in shopping received the value of their money." "But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient arrangement when you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked me. "It was like all our social arrangements," I replied. "You can see their faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no remedy for them." "Here we are at the store of our ward," said Edith, as we turned in at the great portal of one of the magnificent public buildings I had observed in my morning walk. There was nothing in the exterior aspect of the edifice to suggest a store to a representative of the nineteenth century. There was no display of goods in the great windows, or any device to advertise wares, or attract custom. Nor was there any sort of sign or legend on the front of the building to indicate the character of the business carried on there; but instead, above the portal, standing out from the front of the building, a majestic life-size group of statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty, with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the throng passing in and out, about the same proportion of the sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth century. As we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great distributing establishments in each ward of the city, so that no residence was more than five or ten minutes' walk from one of them. It was the first interior of a twentieth-century public building that I had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturally impressed me deeply. I was in a vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet above. Beneath it, in the centre of the hall, a magnificent fountain played, cooling the atmosphere to a delicious freshness with its spray. The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior. Around the fountain was a space occupied with chairs and sofas, on which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on the walls all about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities the counters below were devoted. Edith directed her steps towards one of these, where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed, and proceeded to inspect them. "Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the counter, and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer. "I have no need of the clerk yet," said Edith; "I have not made my selection." "It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their selections in my day," I replied. "What! To tell people what they wanted?" "Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want." "But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked, wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whether people bought or not?" "It was their sole concern," I answered. "They were hired for the purpose of getting rid of the goods, and were expected to do their utmost, short of the use of force, to compass that end." "Ah, yes! How stupid I am to forget!" said Edith. "The storekeeper and his clerks depended for their livelihood on selling the goods in your day. Of course that is all different now. The goods are the nation's. They are here for those who want them, and it is the business of the clerks to wait on people and take their orders; but it is not the interest of the clerk or the nation to dispose of a yard or a pound of anything to anybody who does not want it." She smiled as she added, "How exceedingly odd it must have seemed to have clerks trying to induce one to take what one did not want, or was doubtful about!" "But even a twentieth century clerk might make himself useful in giving you information about the goods, though he did not tease you to buy them," I suggested. "No," said Edith, "that is not the business of the clerk. These printed cards, for which the government authorities are responsible, give us all the information we can possibly need." I saw then that there was fastened to each sample a card containing in succinct form a complete statement of the make and materials of the goods and all its qualities, as well as price, leaving absolutely no point to hang a question on. "The clerk has, then, nothing to say about the goods he sells?" I said. "Nothing at all. It is not necessary that he should know or profess to know anything about them. Courtesy and accuracy in taking orders are all that are required of him." "What a prodigious amount of lying that simple arrangement saves!" I ejaculated. "Do you mean that all the clerks misrepresented their goods in your day?" Edith asked. "God forbid that I should say so!" I replied, "for there were many who did not, and they were entitled to especial credit, for when one's livelihood and that of his wife and babies depended on the amount of goods he could dispose of, the temptation to deceive the customer--or let him deceive himself--was wellnigh overwhelming. But, Miss Leete, I am distracting you from your task with my talk." "Not at all. I have made my selections." With that she touched a button, and in a moment a clerk appeared. He took down her order on a tablet with a pencil which made two copies, of which he gave one to her, and enclosing the counterpart in a small receptacle, dropped it into a transmitting tube. "The duplicate of the order," said Edith as she turned away from the counter, after the clerk had punched the value of her purchase out of the credit card she gave him, "is given to the purchaser, so that any mistakes in filling it can be easily traced and rectified." "You were very quick about your selections," I said. "May I ask how you knew that you might not have found something to suit you better in some of the other stores? But probably you are required to buy in your own district." "Oh, no," she replied. "We buy where we please, though naturally most often near home. But I should have gained nothing by visiting other stores. The assortment in all is exactly the same, representing as it does in each case samples of all the varieties produced or imported by the United States. That is why one can decide quickly, and never need visit two stores." "And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off goods or marking bundles." "All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes of articles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the great central warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly from the producers. We order from the sample and the printed statement of texture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to the warehouse, and the goods distributed from there." "That must be a tremendous saving of handling," I said. "By our system, the manufacturer sold to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the retailer, and the retailer to the consumer, and the goods had to be handled each time. You avoid one handling of the goods, and eliminate the retailer altogether, with his big profit and the army of clerks it goes to support. Why, Miss Leete, this store is merely the order department of a wholesale house, with no more than a wholesaler's complement of clerks. Under our system of handling the goods, persuading the customer to buy them, cutting them off, and packing them, ten clerks would not do what one does here. The saving must be enormous." "I suppose so," said Edith, "but of course we have never known any other way. But, Mr. West, you must not fail to ask father to take you to the central warehouse some day, where they receive the orders from the different sample houses all over the city and parcel out and send the goods to their destinations. He took me there not long ago, and it was a wonderful sight. The system is certainly perfect; for example, over yonder in that sort of cage is the dispatching clerk. The orders, as they are taken by the different departments in the store, are sent by transmitters to him. His assistants sort them and enclose each class in a carrier-box by itself. The dispatching clerk has a dozen pneumatic transmitters before him answering to the general classes of goods, each communicating with the corresponding department at the warehouse. He drops the box of orders into the tube it calls for, and in a few moments later it drops on the proper desk in the warehouse, together with all the orders of the same sort from the other sample stores. The orders are read off, recorded, and sent to be filled, like lightning. The filling I thought the most interesting part. Bales of cloth are placed on spindles and turned by machinery, and the cutter, who also has a machine, works right through one bale after another till exhausted, when another man takes his place; and it is the same with those who fill the orders in any other staple. The packages are then delivered by larger tubes to the city districts, and thence distributed to the houses. You may understand how quickly it is all done when I tell you that my order will probably be at home sooner than I could have carried it from here." "How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts?" I asked. "The system is the same," Edith explained; "the village sample shops are connected by transmitters with the central county warehouse, which may be twenty miles away. The transmission is so swift, though, that the time lost on the way is trifling. But, to save expense, in many counties one set of tubes connect several villages with the warehouse, and then there is time lost waiting for one another. Sometimes it is two or three hours before goods ordered are received. It was so where I was staying last summer, and I found it quite inconvenient."[1] "There must be many other respects also, no doubt, in which the country stores are inferior to the city stores," I suggested. "No," Edith answered, "they are otherwise precisely as good. The sample shop of the smallest village, just like this one, gives you your choice of all the varieties of goods the nation has, for the county warehouse draws on the same source as the city warehouse." As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the size and cost of the houses. "How is it," I asked, "that this difference is consistent with the fact that all citizens have the same income?" "Because," Edith explained, "although the income is the same, personal taste determines how the individual shall spend it. Some like fine horses; others, like myself, prefer pretty clothes; and still others want an elaborate table. The rents which the nation receives for these houses vary, according to size, elegance, and location, so that everybody can find something to suit. The larger houses are usually occupied by large families, in which there are several to contribute to the rent; while small families, like ours, find smaller houses more convenient and economical. It is a matter of taste and convenience wholly. I have read that in old times people often kept up establishments and did other things which they could not afford for ostentation, to make people think them richer than they were. Was it really so, Mr. West?" "I shall have to admit that it was," I replied. "Well, you see, it could not be so nowadays; for everybody's income is known, and it is known that what is spent one way must be saved another." [1] I am informed since the above is in type that this lack of perfection in the distributing service of some of the country districts is to be remedied, and that soon every village will have its own set of tubes. Chapter 11 When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned, and Mrs. Leete was not visible. "Are you fond of music, Mr. West?" Edith asked. I assured her that it was half of life, according to my notion. "I ought to apologize for inquiring," she said. "It is not a question that we ask one another nowadays; but I have read that in your day, even among the cultured class, there were some who did not care for music." "You must remember, in excuse," I said, "that we had some rather absurd kinds of music." "Yes," she said, "I know that; I am afraid I should not have fancied it all myself. Would you like to hear some of ours now, Mr. West?" "Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you," I said. "To me!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you think I was going to play or sing to you?" "I hoped so, certainly," I replied. Seeing that I was a little abashed, she subdued her merriment and explained. "Of course, we all sing nowadays as a matter of course in the training of the voice, and some learn to play instruments for their private amusement; but the professional music is so much grander and more perfect than any performance of ours, and so easily commanded when we wish to hear it, that we don't think of calling our singing or playing music at all. All the really fine singers and players are in the musical service, and the rest of us hold our peace for the main part. But would you really like to hear some music?" I assured her once more that I would. "Come, then, into the music room," she said, and I followed her into an apartment finished, without hangings, in wood, with a floor of polished wood. I was prepared for new devices in musical instruments, but I saw nothing in the room which by any stretch of imagination could be conceived as such. It was evident that my puzzled appearance was affording intense amusement to Edith. "Please look at to-day's music," she said, handing me a card, "and tell me what you would prefer. It is now five o'clock, you will remember." The card bore the date "September 12, 2000," and contained the longest programme of music I had ever seen. It was as various as it was long, including a most extraordinary range of vocal and instrumental solos, duets, quartettes, and various orchestral combinations. I remained bewildered by the prodigious list until Edith's pink finger tip indicated a particular section of it, where several selections were bracketed, with the words "5 P.M." against them; then I observed that this prodigious programme was an all-day one, divided into twenty-four sections answering to the hours. There were but a few pieces of music in the "5 P.M." section, and I indicated an organ piece as my preference. "I am so glad you like the organ," said she. "I think there is scarcely any music that suits my mood oftener." She made me sit down comfortably, and, crossing the room, so far as I could see, merely touched one or two screws, and at once the room was filled with the music of a grand organ anthem; filled, not flooded, for, by some means, the volume of melody had been perfectly graduated to the size of the apartment. I listened, scarcely breathing, to the close. Such music, so perfectly rendered, I had never expected to hear. "Grand!" I cried, as the last great wave of sound broke and ebbed away into silence. "Bach must be at the keys of that organ; but where is the organ?" "Wait a moment, please," said Edith; "I want to have you listen to this waltz before you ask any questions. I think it is perfectly charming"; and as she spoke the sound of violins filled the room with the witchery of a summer night. When this had also ceased, she said: "There is nothing in the least mysterious about the music, as you seem to imagine. It is not made by fairies or genii, but by good, honest, and exceedingly clever human hands. We have simply carried the idea of labor saving by cooperation into our musical service as into everything else. There are a number of music rooms in the city, perfectly adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music. These halls are connected by telephone with all the houses of the city whose people care to pay the small fee, and there are none, you may be sure, who do not. The corps of musicians attached to each hall is so large that, although no individual performer, or group of performers, has more than a brief part, each day's programme lasts through the twenty-four hours. There are on that card for to-day, as you will see if you observe closely, distinct programmes of four of these concerts, each of a different order of music from the others, being now simultaneously performed, and any one of the four pieces now going on that you prefer, you can hear by merely pressing the button which will connect your house-wire with the hall where it is being rendered. The programmes are so coordinated that the pieces at any one time simultaneously proceeding in the different halls usually offer a choice, not only between instrumental and vocal, and between different sorts of instruments; but also between different motives from grave to gay, so that all tastes and moods can be suited." "It appears to me, Miss Leete," I said, "that if we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further improvements." "I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who depended at all on music managed to endure the old-fashioned system for providing it," replied Edith. "Music really worth hearing must have been, I suppose, wholly out of the reach of the masses, and attainable by the most favored only occasionally, at great trouble, prodigious expense, and then for brief periods, arbitrarily fixed by somebody else, and in connection with all sorts of undesirable circumstances. Your concerts, for instance, and operas! How perfectly exasperating it must have been, for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to have to sit for hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at a dinner one can skip the courses one does not care for. Who would ever dine, however hungry, if required to eat everything brought on the table? and I am sure one's hearing is quite as sensitive as one's taste. I suppose it was these difficulties in the way of commanding really good music which made you endure so much playing and singing in your homes by people who had only the rudiments of the art." "Yes," I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of us. "Ah, well," Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not so strange that people in those days so often did not care for music. I dare say I should have detested it, too." "Did I understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musical programme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on this card, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between say midnight and morning?" "Oh, many," Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if the music were provided from midnight to morning for no others, it still would be for the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. All our bedchambers have a telephone attachment at the head of the bed by which any person who may be sleepless can command music at pleasure, of the sort suited to the mood." "Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?" "Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not to think to tell you of that last night! Father will show you about the adjustment before you go to bed to-night, however; and with the receiver at your ear, I am quite sure you will be able to snap your fingers at all sorts of uncanny feelings if they trouble you again." That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, and in the course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenth century and the twentieth, which followed, something raised the question of inheritance. "I suppose," I said, "the inheritance of property is not now allowed." "On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference with it. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to know us, that there is far less interference of any sort with personal liberty nowadays than you were accustomed to. We require, indeed, by law that every man shall serve the nation for a fixed period, instead of leaving him his choice, as you did, between working, stealing, or starving. With the exception of this fundamental law, which is, indeed, merely a codification of the law of nature--the edict of Eden--by which it is made equal in its pressure on men, our system depends in no particular upon legislation, but is entirely voluntary, the logical outcome of the operation of human nature under rational conditions. This question of inheritance illustrates just that point. The fact that the nation is the sole capitalist and land-owner of course restricts the individual's possessions to his annual credit, and what personal and household belongings he may have procured with it. His credit, like an annuity in your day, ceases on his death, with the allowance of a fixed sum for funeral expenses. His other possessions he leaves as he pleases." "What is to prevent, in course of time, such accumulations of valuable goods and chattels in the hands of individuals as might seriously interfere with equality in the circumstances of citizens?" I asked. "That matter arranges itself very simply," was the reply. "Under the present organization of society, accumulations of personal property are merely burdensome the moment they exceed what adds to the real comfort. In your day, if a man had a house crammed full with gold and silver plate, rare china, expensive furniture, and such things, he was considered rich, for these things represented money, and could at any time be turned into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies of a hundred relatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar position, would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being salable, would be of no value to him except for their actual use or the enjoyment of their beauty. On the other hand, his income remaining the same, he would have to deplete his credit to hire houses to store the goods in, and still further to pay for the service of those who took care of them. You may be very sure that such a man would lose no time in scattering among his friends possessions which only made him the poorer, and that none of those friends would accept more of them than they could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then, that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view to prevent great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for the nation. The individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is not overburdened. So careful is he in this respect, that the relatives usually waive claim to most of the effects of deceased friends, reserving only particular objects. The nation takes charge of the resigned chattels, and turns such as are of value into the common stock once more." "You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses," said I; "that suggests a question I have several times been on the point of asking. How have you disposed of the problem of domestic service? Who are willing to be domestic servants in a community where all are social equals? Our ladies found it hard enough to find such even when there was little pretense of social equality." "It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equality nothing can compromise, and because service is honorable, in a society whose fundamental principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest, that we could easily provide a corps of domestic servants such as you never dreamed of, if we needed them," replied Dr. Leete. "But we do not need them." "Who does your house-work, then?" I asked. "There is none to do," said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had addressed this question. "Our washing is all done at public laundries at excessively cheap rates, and our cooking at public kitchens. The making and repairing of all we wear are done outside in public shops. Electricity, of course, takes the place of all fires and lighting. We choose houses no larger than we need, and furnish them so as to involve the minimum of trouble to keep them in order. We have no use for domestic servants." "The fact," said Dr. Leete, "that you had in the poorer classes a boundless supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts of painful and disagreeable tasks, made you indifferent to devices to avoid the necessity for them. But now that we all have to do in turn whatever work is done for society, every individual in the nation has the same interest, and a personal one, in devices for lightening the burden. This fact has given a prodigious impulse to labor-saving inventions in all sorts of industry, of which the combination of the maximum of comfort and minimum of trouble in household arrangements was one of the earliest results. "In case of special emergencies in the household," pursued Dr. Leete, "such as extensive cleaning or renovation, or sickness in the family, we can always secure assistance from the industrial force." "But how do you recompense these assistants, since you have no money?" "We do not pay them, of course, but the nation for them. Their services can be obtained by application at the proper bureau, and their value is pricked off the credit card of the applicant." "What a paradise for womankind the world must be now!" I exclaimed. "In my day, even wealth and unlimited servants did not enfranchise their possessors from household cares, while the women of the merely well-to-do and poorer classes lived and died martyrs to them." "Yes," said Mrs. Leete, "I have read something of that; enough to convince me that, badly off as the men, too, were in your day, they were more fortunate than their mothers and wives." "The broad shoulders of the nation," said Dr. Leete, "bear now like a feather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day. Their misery came, with all your other miseries, from that incapacity for cooperation which followed from the individualism on which your social system was founded, from your inability to perceive that you could make ten times more profit out of your fellow men by uniting with them than by contending with them. The wonder is, not that you did not live more comfortably, but that you were able to live together at all, who were all confessedly bent on making one another your servants, and securing possession of one another's goods. "There, there, father, if you are so vehement, Mr. West will think you are scolding him," laughingly interposed Edith. "When you want a doctor," I asked, "do you simply apply to the proper bureau and take any one that may be sent?" "That rule would not work well in the case of physicians," replied Dr. Leete. "The good a physician can do a patient depends largely on his acquaintance with his constitutional tendencies and condition. The patient must be able, therefore, to call in a particular doctor, and he does so just as patients did in your day. The only difference is that, instead of collecting his fee for himself, the doctor collects it for the nation by pricking off the amount, according to a regular scale for medical attendance, from the patient's credit card." "I can imagine," I said, "that if the fee is always the same, and a doctor may not turn away patients, as I suppose he may not, the good doctors are called constantly and the poor doctors left in idleness." "In the first place, if you will overlook the apparent conceit of the remark from a retired physician," replied Dr. Leete, with a smile, "we have no poor doctors. Anybody who pleases to get a little smattering of medical terms is not now at liberty to practice on the bodies of citizens, as in your day. None but students who have passed the severe tests of the schools, and clearly proved their vocation, are permitted to practice. Then, too, you will observe that there is nowadays no attempt of doctors to build up their practice at the expense of other doctors. There would be no motive for that. For the rest, the doctor has to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau, and if he is not reasonably well employed, work is found for him." Chapter 12 The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even an outline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth century being endless, and Dr. Leete's good-nature appearing equally so, we sat up talking for several hours after the ladies left us. Reminding my host of the point at which our talk had broken off that morning, I expressed my curiosity to learn how the organization of the industrial army was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to diligence in the lack of any anxiety on the worker's part as to his livelihood. "You must understand in the first place," replied the doctor, "that the supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in the organization we have adopted for the army. The other, and equally important, is to secure for the file-leaders and captains of the force, and the great officers of the nation, men of proven abilities, who are pledged by their own careers to hold their followers up to their highest standard of performance and permit no lagging. With a view to these two ends the industrial army is organized. First comes the unclassified grade of common laborers, men of all work, to which all recruits during their first three years belong. This grade is a sort of school, and a very strict one, in which the young men are taught habits of obedience, subordination, and devotion to duty. While the miscellaneous nature of the work done by this force prevents the systematic grading of the workers which is afterwards possible, yet individual records are kept, and excellence receives distinction corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers of young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the life employment they have most liking for. Having selected this, they enter upon it as apprentices. The length of the apprenticeship naturally differs in different occupations. At the end of it the apprentice becomes a full workman, and a member of his trade or guild. Now not only are the individual records of the apprentices for ability and industry strictly kept, and excellence distinguished by suitable distinctions, but upon the average of his record during apprenticeship the standing given the apprentice among the full workmen depends. "While the internal organizations of different industries, mechanical and agricultural, differ according to their peculiar conditions, they agree in a general division of their workers into first, second, and third grades, according to ability, and these grades are in many cases subdivided into first and second classes. According to his standing as an apprentice a young man is assigned his place as a first, second, or third grade worker. Of course only men of unusual ability pass directly from apprenticeship into the first grade of the workers. The most fall into the lower grades, working up as they grow more experienced, at the periodical regradings. These regradings take place in each industry at intervals corresponding with the length of the apprenticeship to that industry, so that merit never need wait long to rise, nor can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop into a lower rank. One of the notable advantages of a high grading is the privilege it gives the worker in electing which of the various branches or processes of his industry he will follow as his specialty. Of course it is not intended that any of these processes shall be disproportionately arduous, but there is often much difference between them, and the privilege of election is accordingly highly prized. So far as possible, indeed, the preferences even of the poorest workmen are considered in assigning them their line of work, because not only their happiness but their usefulness is thus enhanced. While, however, the wish of the lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies of the service permit, he is considered only after the upper grade men have been provided for, and often he has to put up with second or third choice, or even with an arbitrary assignment when help is needed. This privilege of election attends every regrading, and when a man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the sort of work he likes for some other less to his taste. The results of each regrading, giving the standing of every man in his industry, are gazetted in the public prints, and those who have won promotion since the last regrading receive the nation's thanks and are publicly invested with the badge of their new rank." "What may this badge be?" I asked. "Every industry has its emblematic device," replied Dr. Leete, "and this, in the shape of a metallic badge so small that you might not see it unless you knew where to look, is all the insignia which the men of the army wear, except where public convenience demands a distinctive uniform. This badge is the same in form for all grades of industry, but while the badge of the third grade is iron, that of the second grade is silver, and that of the first is gilt. "Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact that the high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men, and that rank in the army constitutes the only mode of social distinction for the vast majority who are not aspirants in art, literature, and the professions, various incitements of a minor, but perhaps equally effective, sort are provided in the form of special privileges and immunities in the way of discipline, which the superior class men enjoy. These, while intended to be as little as possible invidious to the less successful, have the effect of keeping constantly before every man's mind the great desirability of attaining the grade next above his own. "It is obviously important that not only the good but also the indifferent and poor workmen should be able to cherish the ambition of rising. Indeed, the number of the latter being so much greater, it is even more essential that the ranking system should not operate to discourage them than that it should stimulate the others. It is to this end that the grades are divided into classes. The grades as well as the classes being made numerically equal at each regrading, there is not at any time, counting out the officers and the unclassified and apprentice grades, over one-ninth of the industrial army in the lowest class, and most of this number are recent apprentices, all of whom expect to rise. Those who remain during the entire term of service in the lowest class are but a trifling fraction of the industrial army, and likely to be as deficient in sensibility to their position as in ability to better it. "It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion to a higher grade to have at least a taste of glory. While promotion requires a general excellence of record as a worker, honorable mention and various sorts of prizes are awarded for excellence less than sufficient for promotion, and also for special feats and single performances in the various industries. There are many minor distinctions of standing, not only within the grades but within the classes, each of which acts as a spur to the efforts of a group. It is intended that no form of merit shall wholly fail of recognition. "As for actual neglect of work positively bad work, or other overt remissness on the part of men incapable of generous motives, the discipline of the industrial army is far too strict to allow anything whatever of the sort. A man able to do duty, and persistently refusing, is sentenced to solitary imprisonment on bread and water till he consents. "The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army, that of assistant foremen or lieutenants, is appointed out of men who have held their place for two years in the first class of the first grade. Where this leaves too large a range of choice, only the first group of this class are eligible. No one thus comes to the point of commanding men until he is about thirty years old. After a man becomes an officer, his rating of course no longer depends on the efficiency of his own work, but on that of his men. The foremen are appointed from among the assistant foremen, by the same exercise of discretion limited to a small eligible class. In the appointments to the still higher grades another principle is introduced, which it would take too much time to explain now. "Of course such a system of grading as I have described would have been impracticable applied to the small industrial concerns of your day, in some of which there were hardly enough employees to have left one apiece for the classes. You must remember that, under the national organization of labor, all industries are carried on by great bodies of men, many of your farms or shops being combined as one. It is also owing solely to the vast scale on which each industry is organized, with co-ordinate establishments in every part of the country, that we are able by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly with the sort of work he can do best. "And now, Mr. West, I will leave it to you, on the bare outline of its features which I have given, if those who need special incentives to do their best are likely to lack them under our system. Does it not seem to you that men who found themselves obliged, whether they wished or not, to work, would under such a system be strongly impelled to do their best?" I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were, if any objection were to be made, too strong; that the pace set for the young men was too hot; and such, indeed, I would add with deference, still remains my opinion, now that by longer residence among you I become better acquainted with the whole subject. Dr. Leete, however, desired me to reflect, and I am ready to say that it is perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection, that the worker's livelihood is in no way dependent on his ranking, and anxiety for that never embitters his disappointments; that the working hours are short, the vacations regular, and that all emulation ceases at forty-five, with the attainment of middle life. "There are two or three other points I ought to refer to," he added, "to prevent your getting mistaken impressions. In the first place, you must understand that this system of preferment given the more efficient workers over the less so, in no way contravenes the fundamental idea of our social system, that all who do their best are equally deserving, whether that best be great or small. I have shown that the system is arranged to encourage the weaker as well as the stronger with the hope of rising, while the fact that the stronger are selected for the leaders is in no way a reflection upon the weaker, but in the interest of the common weal. "Do not imagine, either, because emulation is given free play as an incentive under our system, that we deem it a motive likely to appeal to the nobler sort of men, or worthy of them. Such as these find their motives within, not without, and measure their duty by their own endowments, not by those of others. So long as their achievement is proportioned to their powers, they would consider it preposterous to expect praise or blame because it chanced to be great or small. To such natures emulation appears philosophically absurd, and despicable in a moral aspect by its substitution of envy for admiration, and exultation for regret, in one's attitude toward the successes and the failures of others. "But all men, even in the last year of the twentieth century, are not of this high order, and the incentives to endeavor requisite for those who are not must be of a sort adapted to their inferior natures. For these, then, emulation of the keenest edge is provided as a constant spur. Those who need this motive will feel it. Those who are above its influence do not need it. "I should not fail to mention," resumed the doctor, "that for those too deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with the main body of workers, we have a separate grade, unconnected with the others,--a sort of invalid corps, the members of which are provided with a light class of tasks fitted to their strength. All our sick in mind and body, all our deaf and dumb, and lame and blind and crippled, and even our insane, belong to this invalid corps, and bear its insignia. The strongest often do nearly a man's work, the feeblest, of course, nothing; but none who can do anything are willing quite to give up. In their lucid intervals, even our insane are eager to do what they can." "That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps," I said. "Even a barbarian from the nineteenth century can appreciate that. It is a very graceful way of disguising charity, and must be grateful to the feelings of its recipients." "Charity!" repeated Dr. Leete. "Did you suppose that we consider the incapable class we are talking of objects of charity?" "Why, naturally," I said, "inasmuch as they are incapable of self-support." But here the doctor took me up quickly. "Who is capable of self-support?" he demanded. "There is no such thing in a civilized society as self-support. In a state of society so barbarous as not even to know family cooperation, each individual may possibly support himself, though even then for a part of his life only; but from the moment that men begin to live together, and constitute even the rudest sort of society, self-support becomes impossible. As men grow more civilized, and the subdivision of occupations and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence becomes the universal rule. Every man, however solitary may seem his occupation, is a member of a vast industrial partnership, as large as the nation, as large as humanity. The necessity of mutual dependence should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual support; and that it did not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and unreason of your system." "That may all be so," I replied, "but it does not touch the case of those who are unable to contribute anything to the product of industry." "Surely I told you this morning, at least I thought I did," replied Dr. Leete, "that the right of a man to maintenance at the nation's table depends on the fact that he is a man, and not on the amount of health and strength he may have, so long as he does his best." "You said so," I answered, "but I supposed the rule applied only to the workers of different ability. Does it also hold of those who can do nothing at all?" "Are they not also men?" "I am to understand, then, that the lame, the blind, the sick, and the impotent, are as well off as the most efficient and have the same income?" "Certainly," was the reply. "The idea of charity on such a scale," I answered, "would have made our most enthusiastic philanthropists gasp." "If you had a sick brother at home," replied Dr. Leete, "unable to work, would you feed him on less dainty food, and lodge and clothe him more poorly, than yourself? More likely far, you would give him the preference; nor would you think of calling it charity. Would not the word, in that connection, fill you with indignation?" "Of course," I replied; "but the cases are not parallel. There is a sense, no doubt, in which all men are brothers; but this general sort of brotherhood is not to be compared, except for rhetorical purposes, to the brotherhood of blood, either as to its sentiment or its obligations." "There speaks the nineteenth century!" exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Ah, Mr. West, there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept. If I were to give you, in one sentence, a key to what may seem the mysteries of our civilization as compared with that of your age, I should say that it is the fact that the solidarity of the race and the brotherhood of man, which to you were but fine phrases, are, to our thinking and feeling, ties as real and as vital as physical fraternity. "But even setting that consideration aside, I do not see why it so surprises you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right to live on the produce of those who can. Even in your day, the duty of military service for the protection of the nation, to which our industrial service corresponds, while obligatory on those able to discharge it, did not operate to deprive of the privileges of citizenship those who were unable. They stayed at home, and were protected by those who fought, and nobody questioned their right to be, or thought less of them. So, now, the requirement of industrial service from those able to render it does not operate to deprive of the privileges of citizenship, which now implies the citizen's maintenance, him who cannot work. The worker is not a citizen because he works, but works because he is a citizen. As you recognize the duty of the strong to fight for the weak, we, now that fighting is gone by, recognize his duty to work for him. "A solution which leaves an unaccounted-for residuum is no solution at all; and our solution of the problem of human society would have been none at all had it left the lame, the sick, and the blind outside with the beasts, to fare as they might. Better far have left the strong and well unprovided for than these burdened ones, toward whom every heart must yearn, and for whom ease of mind and body should be provided, if for no others. Therefore it is, as I told you this morning, that the title of every man, woman, and child to the means of existence rests on no basis less plain, broad, and simple than the fact that they are fellows of one race-members of one human family. The only coin current is the image of God, and that is good for all we have. "I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so repugnant to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated your dependent classes. Even if you had no pity, no feeling of brotherhood, how was it that you did not see that you were robbing the incapable class of their plain right in leaving them unprovided for?" "I don't quite follow you there," I said. "I admit the claim of this class to our pity, but how could they who produced nothing claim a share of the product as a right?" "How happened it," was Dr. Leete's reply, "that your workers were able to produce more than so many savages would have done? Was it not wholly on account of the heritage of the past knowledge and achievements of the race, the machinery of society, thousands of years in contriving, found by you ready-made to your hand? How did you come to be possessors of this knowledge and this machinery, which represent nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the value of your product? You inherited it, did you not? And were not these others, these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out, joint inheritors, co-heirs with you? What did you do with their share? Did you not rob them when you put them off with crusts, who were entitled to sit with the heirs, and did you not add insult to robbery when you called the crusts charity? "Ah, Mr. West," Dr. Leete continued, as I did not respond, "what I do not understand is, setting aside all considerations either of justice or brotherly feeling toward the crippled and defective, how the workers of your day could have had any heart for their work, knowing that their children, or grand-children, if unfortunate, would be deprived of the comforts and even necessities of life. It is a mystery how men with children could favor a system under which they were rewarded beyond those less endowed with bodily strength or mental power. For, by the same discrimination by which the father profited, the son, for whom he would give his life, being perchance weaker than others, might be reduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared leave children behind them, I have never been able to understand." Note.--Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete had emphasized the pains taken to enable every man to ascertain and follow his natural bent in choosing an occupation, it was not till I learned that the worker's income is the same in all occupations that I realized how absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and thus, by selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself, find that in which he can pull best. The failure of my age in any systematic or effective way to develop and utilize the natural aptitudes of men for the industries and intellectual avocations was one of the great wastes, as well as one of the most common causes of unhappiness in that time. The vast majority of my contemporaries, though nominally free to do so, never really chose their occupations at all, but were forced by circumstances into work for which they were relatively inefficient, because not naturally fitted for it. The rich, in this respect, had little advantage over the poor. The latter, indeed, being generally deprived of education, had no opportunity even to ascertain the natural aptitudes they might have, and on account of their poverty were unable to develop them by cultivation even when ascertained. The liberal and technical professions, except by favorable accident, were shut to them, to their own great loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, the well-to-do, although they could command education and opportunity, were scarcely less hampered by social prejudice, which forbade them to pursue manual avocations, even when adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to the professions, thus wasting many an excellent handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men to pursue money-making occupations for which they were unfit, instead of less remunerative employments for which they were fit, were responsible for another vast perversion of talent. All these things now are changed. Equal education and opportunity must needs bring to light whatever aptitudes a man has, and neither social prejudices nor mercenary considerations hamper him in the choice of his life work. Chapter 13 As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied me to my bedroom when I retired, to instruct me as to the adjustment of the musical telephone. He showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of the music could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so faint and far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or imagined it. If, of two persons side by side, one desired to listen to music and the other to sleep, it could be made audible to one and inaudible to another. "I should strongly advise you to sleep if you can to-night, Mr. West, in preference to listening to the finest tunes in the world," the doctor said, after explaining these points. "In the trying experience you are just now passing through, sleep is a nerve tonic for which there is no substitute." Mindful of what had happened to me that very morning, I promised to heed his counsel. "Very well," he said, "then I will set the telephone at eight o'clock." "What do you mean?" I asked. He explained that, by a clock-work combination, a person could arrange to be awakened at any hour by the music. It began to appear, as has since fully proved to be the case, that I had left my tendency to insomnia behind me with the other discomforts of existence in the nineteenth century; for though I took no sleeping draught this time, yet, as the night before, I had no sooner touched the pillow than I was asleep. I dreamed that I sat on the throne of the Abencerrages in the banqueting hall of the Alhambra, feasting my lords and generals, who next day were to follow the crescent against the Christian dogs of Spain. The air, cooled by the spray of fountains, was heavy with the scent of flowers. A band of Nautch girls, round-limbed and luscious-lipped, danced with voluptuous grace to the music of brazen and stringed instruments. Looking up to the latticed galleries, one caught a gleam now and then from the eye of some beauty of the royal harem, looking down upon the assembled flower of Moorish chivalry. Louder and louder clashed the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew the strain, till the blood of the desert race could no longer resist the martial delirium, and the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a thousand scimetars were bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook the hall and awoke me, to find it broad daylight, and the room tingling with the electric music of the "Turkish Reveille." At the breakfast-table, when I told my host of my morning's experience, I learned that it was not a mere chance that the piece of music which awakened me was a reveille. The airs played at one of the halls during the waking hours of the morning were always of an inspiring type. "By the way," I said, "I have not thought to ask you anything about the state of Europe. Have the societies of the Old World also been remodeled?" "Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "the great nations of Europe as well as Australia, Mexico, and parts of South America, are now organized industrially like the United States, which was the pioneer of the evolution. The peaceful relations of these nations are assured by a loose form of federal union of world-wide extent. An international council regulates the mutual intercourse and commerce of the members of the union and their joint policy toward the more backward races, which are gradually being educated up to civilized institutions. Complete autonomy within its own limits is enjoyed by every nation." "How do you carry on commerce without money?" I said. "In trading with other nations, you must use some sort of money, although you dispense with it in the internal affairs of the nation." "Oh, no; money is as superfluous in our foreign as in our internal relations. When foreign commerce was conducted by private enterprise, money was necessary to adjust it on account of the multifarious complexity of the transactions; but nowadays it is a function of the nations as units. There are thus only a dozen or so merchants in the world, and their business being supervised by the international council, a simple system of book accounts serves perfectly to regulate their dealings. Customs duties of every sort are of course superfluous. A nation simply does not import what its government does not think requisite for the general interest. Each nation has a bureau of foreign exchange, which manages its trading. For example, the American bureau, estimating such and such quantities of French goods necessary to America for a given year, sends the order to the French bureau, which in turn sends its order to our bureau. The same is done mutually by all the nations." "But how are the prices of foreign goods settled, since there is no competition?" "The price at which one nation supplies another with goods," replied Dr. Leete, "must be that at which it supplies its own citizens. So you see there is no danger of misunderstanding. Of course no nation is theoretically bound to supply another with the product of its own labor, but it is for the interest of all to exchange some commodities. If a nation is regularly supplying another with certain goods, notice is required from either side of any important change in the relation." "But what if a nation, having a monopoly of some natural product, should refuse to supply it to the others, or to one of them?" "Such a case has never occurred, and could not without doing the refusing party vastly more harm than the others," replied Dr. Leete. "In the fist place, no favoritism could be legally shown. The law requires that each nation shall deal with the others, in all respects, on exactly the same footing. Such a course as you suggest would cut off the nation adopting it from the remainder of the earth for all purposes whatever. The contingency is one that need not give us much anxiety." "But," said I, "supposing a nation, having a natural monopoly in some product of which it exports more than it consumes, should put the price away up, and thus, without cutting off the supply, make a profit out of its neighbors' necessities? Its own citizens would of course have to pay the higher price on that commodity, but as a body would make more out of foreigners than they would be out of pocket themselves." "When you come to know how prices of all commodities are determined nowadays, you will perceive how impossible it is that they could be altered, except with reference to the amount or arduousness of the work required respectively to produce them," was Dr. Leete's reply. "This principle is an international as well as a national guarantee; but even without it the sense of community of interest, international as well as national, and the conviction of the folly of selfishness, are too deep nowadays to render possible such a piece of sharp practice as you apprehend. You must understand that we all look forward to an eventual unification of the world as one nation. That, no doubt, will be the ultimate form of society, and will realize certain economic advantages over the present federal system of autonomous nations. Meanwhile, however, the present system works so nearly perfectly that we are quite content to leave to posterity the completion of the scheme. There are, indeed, some who hold that it never will be completed, on the ground that the federal plan is not merely a provisional solution of the problem of human society, but the best ultimate solution." "How do you manage," I asked, "when the books of any two nations do not balance? Supposing we import more from France than we export to her." "At the end of each year," replied the doctor, "the books of every nation are examined. If France is found in our debt, probably we are in the debt of some nation which owes France, and so on with all the nations. The balances that remain after the accounts have been cleared by the international council should not be large under our system. Whatever they may be, the council requires them to be settled every few years, and may require their settlement at any time if they are getting too large; for it is not intended that any nation shall run largely in debt to another, lest feelings unfavorable to amity should be engendered. To guard further against this, the international council inspects the commodities interchanged by the nations, to see that they are of perfect quality." "But what are the balances finally settled with, seeing that you have no money?" "In national staples; a basis of agreement as to what staples shall be accepted, and in what proportions, for settlement of accounts, being a preliminary to trade relations." "Emigration is another point I want to ask you about," said I. "With every nation organized as a close industrial partnership, monopolizing all means of production in the country, the emigrant, even if he were permitted to land, would starve. I suppose there is no emigration nowadays." "On the contrary, there is constant emigration, by which I suppose you mean removal to foreign countries for permanent residence," replied Dr. Leete. "It is arranged on a simple international arrangement of indemnities. For example, if a man at twenty-one emigrates from England to America, England loses all the expense of his maintenance and education, and America gets a workman for nothing. America accordingly makes England an allowance. The same principle, varied to suit the case, applies generally. If the man is near the term of his labor when he emigrates, the country receiving him has the allowance. As to imbecile persons, it is deemed best that each nation should be responsible for its own, and the emigration of such must be under full guarantees of support by his own nation. Subject to these regulations, the right of any man to emigrate at any time is unrestricted." "But how about mere pleasure trips; tours of observation? How can a stranger travel in a country whose people do not receive money, and are themselves supplied with the means of life on a basis not extended to him? His own credit card cannot, of course, be good in other lands. How does he pay his way?" "An American credit card," replied Dr. Leete, "is just as good in Europe as American gold used to be, and on precisely the same condition, namely, that it be exchanged into the currency of the country you are traveling in. An American in Berlin takes his credit card to the local office of the international council, and receives in exchange for the whole or part of it a German credit card, the amount being charged against the United States in favor of Germany on the international account." "Perhaps Mr. West would like to dine at the Elephant to-day," said Edith, as we left the table. "That is the name we give to the general dining-house in our ward," explained her father. "Not only is our cooking done at the public kitchens, as I told you last night, but the service and quality of the meals are much more satisfactory if taken at the dining-house. The two minor meals of the day are usually taken at home, as not worth the trouble of going out; but it is general to go out to dine. We have not done so since you have been with us, from a notion that it would be better to wait till you had become a little more familiar with our ways. What do you think? Shall we take dinner at the dining-house to-day?" I said that I should be very much pleased to do so. Not long after, Edith came to me, smiling, and said: "Last night, as I was thinking what I could do to make you feel at home until you came to be a little more used to us and our ways, an idea occurred to me. What would you say if I were to introduce you to some very nice people of your own times, whom I am sure you used to be well acquainted with?" I replied, rather vaguely, that it would certainly be very agreeable, but I did not see how she was going to manage it. "Come with me," was her smiling reply, "and see if I am not as good as my word." My susceptibility to surprise had been pretty well exhausted by the numerous shocks it had received, but it was with some wonderment that I followed her into a room which I had not before entered. It was a small, cosy apartment, walled with cases filled with books. "Here are your friends," said Edith, indicating one of the cases, and as my eye glanced over the names on the backs of the volumes, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Defoe, Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, Hawthorne, Irving, and a score of other great writers of my time and all time, I understood her meaning. She had indeed made good her promise in a sense compared with which its literal fulfillment would have been a disappointment. She had introduced me to a circle of friends whom the century that had elapsed since last I communed with them had aged as little as it had myself. Their spirit was as high, their wit as keen, their laughter and their tears as contagious, as when their speech had whiled away the hours of a former century. Lonely I was not and could not be more, with this goodly companionship, however wide the gulf of years that gaped between me and my old life. "You are glad I brought you here," exclaimed Edith, radiant, as she read in my face the success of her experiment. "It was a good idea, was it not, Mr. West? How stupid in me not to think of it before! I will leave you now with your old friends, for I know there will be no company for you like them just now; but remember you must not let old friends make you quite forget new ones!" and with that smiling caution she left me. Attracted by the most familiar of the names before me, I laid my hand on a volume of Dickens, and sat down to read. He had been my prime favorite among the bookwriters of the century,--I mean the nineteenth century,--and a week had rarely passed in my old life during which I had not taken up some volume of his works to while away an idle hour. Any volume with which I had been familiar would have produced an extraordinary impression, read under my present circumstances, but my exceptional familiarity with Dickens, and his consequent power to call up the associations of my former life, gave to his writings an effect no others could have had, to intensify, by force of contrast, my appreciation of the strangeness of my present environment. However new and astonishing one's surroundings, the tendency is to become a part of them so soon that almost from the first the power to see them objectively and fully measure their strangeness, is lost. That power, already dulled in my case, the pages of Dickens restored by carrying me back through their associations to the standpoint of my former life. With a clearness which I had not been able before to attain, I saw now the past and present, like contrasting pictures, side by side. The genius of the great novelist of the nineteenth century, like that of Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of his pathetic tales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, the pitiless cruelty of the system of society, had passed away as utterly as Circe and the sirens, Charybdis and Cyclops. During the hour or two that I sat there with Dickens open before me, I did not actually read more than a couple of pages. Every paragraph, every phrase, brought up some new aspect of the world-transformation which had taken place, and led my thoughts on long and widely ramifying excursions. As meditating thus in Dr. Leete's library I gradually attained a more clear and coherent idea of the prodigious spectacle which I had been so strangely enabled to view, I was filled with a deepening wonder at the seeming capriciousness of the fate that had given to one who so little deserved it, or seemed in any way set apart for it, the power alone among his contemporaries to stand upon the earth in this latter day. I had neither foreseen the new world nor toiled for it, as many about me had done regardless of the scorn of fools or the misconstruction of the good. Surely it would have been more in accordance with the fitness of things had one of those prophetic and strenuous souls been enabled to see the travail of his soul and be satisfied; he, for example, a thousand times rather than I, who, having beheld in a vision the world I looked on, sang of it in words that again and again, during these last wondrous days, had rung in my mind: For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled. In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world. Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. What though, in his old age, he momentarily lost faith in his own prediction, as prophets in their hours of depression and doubt generally do; the words had remained eternal testimony to the seership of a poet's heart, the insight that is given to faith. I was still in the library when some hours later Dr. Leete sought me there. "Edith told me of her idea," he said, "and I thought it an excellent one. I had a little curiosity what writer you would first turn to. Ah, Dickens! You admired him, then! That is where we moderns agree with you. Judged by our standards, he overtops all the writers of his age, not because his literary genius was highest, but because his great heart beat for the poor, because he made the cause of the victims of society his own, and devoted his pen to exposing its cruelties and shams. No man of his time did so much as he to turn men's minds to the wrong and wretchedness of the old order of things, and open their eyes to the necessity of the great change that was coming, although he himself did not clearly foresee it." Chapter 14 A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had concluded that the condition of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to give up the idea of going out to dinner, although the dining-hall I had understood to be quite near. I was much surprised when at the dinner hour the ladies appeared prepared to go out, but without either rubbers or umbrellas. The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the street, for a continuous waterproof covering had been let down so as to inclose the sidewalk and turn it into a well lighted and perfectly dry corridor, which was filled with a stream of ladies and gentlemen dressed for dinner. At the comers the entire open space was similarly roofed in. Edith Leete, with whom I walked, seemed much interested in learning what appeared to be entirely new to her, that in the stormy weather the streets of the Boston of my day had been impassable, except to persons protected by umbrellas, boots, and heavy clothing. "Were sidewalk coverings not used at all?" she asked. They were used, I explained, but in a scattered and utterly unsystematic way, being private enterprises. She said to me that at the present time all the streets were provided against inclement weather in the manner I saw, the apparatus being rolled out of the way when it was unnecessary. She intimated that it would be considered an extraordinary imbecility to permit the weather to have any effect on the social movements of the people. Dr. Leete, who was walking ahead, overhearing something of our talk, turned to say that the difference between the age of individualism and that of concert was well characterized by the fact that, in the nineteenth century, when it rained, the people of Boston put up three hundred thousand umbrellas over as many heads, and in the twentieth century they put up one umbrella over all the heads. As we walked on, Edith said, "The private umbrella is father's favorite figure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for himself and his family. There is a nineteenth century painting at the Art Gallery representing a crowd of people in the rain, each one holding his umbrella over himself and his wife, and giving his neighbors the drippings, which he claims must have been meant by the artist as a satire on his times." We now entered a large building into which a stream of people was pouring. I could not see the front, owing to the awning, but, if in correspondence with the interior, which was even finer than the store I visited the day before, it would have been magnificent. My companion said that the sculptured group over the entrance was especially admired. Going up a grand staircase we walked some distance along a broad corridor with many doors opening upon it. At one of these, which bore my host's name, we turned in, and I found myself in an elegant dining-room containing a table for four. Windows opened on a courtyard where a fountain played to a great height and music made the air electric. "You seem at home here," I said, as we seated ourselves at table, and Dr. Leete touched an annunciator. "This is, in fact, a part of our house, slightly detached from the rest," he replied. "Every family in the ward has a room set apart in this great building for its permanent and exclusive use for a small annual rental. For transient guests and individuals there is accommodation on another floor. If we expect to dine here, we put in our orders the night before, selecting anything in market, according to the daily reports in the papers. The meal is as expensive or as simple as we please, though of course everything is vastly cheaper as well as better than it would be prepared at home. There is actually nothing which our people take more interest in than the perfection of the catering and cooking done for them, and I admit that we are a little vain of the success that has been attained by this branch of the service. Ah, my dear Mr. West, though other aspects of your civilization were more tragical, I can imagine that none could have been more depressing than the poor dinners you had to eat, that is, all of you who had not great wealth." "You would have found none of us disposed to disagree with you on that point," I said. The waiter, a fine-looking young fellow, wearing a slightly distinctive uniform, now made his appearance. I observed him closely, as it was the first time I had been able to study particularly the bearing of one of the enlisted members of the industrial army. This young man, I knew from what I had been told, must be highly educated, and the equal, socially and in all respects, of those he served. But it was perfectly evident that to neither side was the situation in the slightest degree embarrassing. Dr. Leete addressed the young man in a tone devoid, of course, as any gentleman's would be, of superciliousness, but at the same time not in any way deprecatory, while the manner of the young man was simply that of a person intent on discharging correctly the task he was engaged in, equally without familiarity or obsequiousness. It was, in fact, the manner of a soldier on duty, but without the military stiffness. As the youth left the room, I said, "I cannot get over my wonder at seeing a young man like that serving so contentedly in a menial position." "What is that word 'menial'? I never heard it," said Edith. "It is obsolete now," remarked her father. "If I understand it rightly, it applied to persons who performed particularly disagreeable and unpleasant tasks for others, and carried with it an implication of contempt. Was it not so, Mr. West?" "That is about it," I said. "Personal service, such as waiting on tables, was considered menial, and held in such contempt, in my day, that persons of culture and refinement would suffer hardship before condescending to it." "What a strangely artificial idea," exclaimed Mrs. Leete wonderingly. "And yet these services had to be rendered," said Edith. "Of course," I replied. "But we imposed them on the poor, and those who had no alternative but starvation." "And increased the burden you imposed on them by adding your contempt," remarked Dr. Leete. "I don't think I clearly understand," said Edith. "Do you mean that you permitted people to do things for you which you despised them for doing, or that you accepted services from them which you would have been unwilling to render them? You can't surely mean that, Mr. West?" I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had stated. Dr. Leete, however, came to my relief. "To understand why Edith is surprised," he said, "you must know that nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from another which we would be unwilling to return in kind, if need were, is like borrowing with the intention of not repaying, while to enforce such a service by taking advantage of the poverty or necessity of a person would be an outrage like forcible robbery. It is the worst thing about any system which divides men, or allows them to be divided, into classes and castes, that it weakens the sense of a common humanity. Unequal distribution of wealth, and, still more effectually, unequal opportunities of education and culture, divided society in your day into classes which in many respects regarded each other as distinct races. There is not, after all, such a difference as might appear between our ways of looking at this question of service. Ladies and gentlemen of the cultured class in your day would no more have permitted persons of their own class to render them services they would scorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so. The poor and the uncultured, however, they looked upon as of another kind from themselves. The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture which all persons now enjoy have simply made us all members of one class, which corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. Until this equality of condition had come to pass, the idea of the solidarity of humanity, the brotherhood of all men, could never have become the real conviction and practical principle of action it is nowadays. In your day the same phrases were indeed used, but they were phrases merely." "Do the waiters, also, volunteer?" "No," replied Dr. Leete. "The waiters are young men in the unclassified grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all sorts of miscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. Waiting on table is one of these, and every young recruit is given a taste of it. I myself served as a waiter for several months in this very dining-house some forty years ago. Once more you must remember that there is recognized no sort of difference between the dignity of the different sorts of work required by the nation. The individual is never regarded, nor regards himself, as the servant of those he serves, nor is he in any way dependent upon them. It is always the nation which he is serving. No difference is recognized between a waiter's functions and those of any other worker. The fact that his is a personal service is indifferent from our point of view. So is a doctor's. I should as soon expect our waiter today to look down on me because I served him as a doctor, as think of looking down on him because he serves me as a waiter." After dinner my entertainers conducted me about the building, of which the extent, the magnificent architecture and richness of embellishment, astonished me. It seemed that it was not merely a dining-hall, but likewise a great pleasure-house and social rendezvous of the quarter, and no appliance of entertainment or recreation seemed lacking. "You find illustrated here," said Dr. Leete, when I had expressed my admiration, "what I said to you in our first conversation, when you were looking out over the city, as to the splendor of our public and common life as compared with the simplicity of our private and home life, and the contrast which, in this respect, the twentieth bears to the nineteenth century. To save ourselves useless burdens, we have as little gear about us at home as is consistent with comfort, but the social side of our life is ornate and luxurious beyond anything the world ever knew before. All the industrial and professional guilds have clubhouses as extensive as this, as well as country, mountain, and seaside houses for sport and rest in vacations." NOTE. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it became a practice of needy young men at some of the colleges of the country to earn a little money for their term bills by serving as waiters on tables at hotels during the long summer vacation. It was claimed, in reply to critics who expressed the prejudices of the time in asserting that persons voluntarily following such an occupation could not be gentlemen, that they were entitled to praise for vindicating, by their example, the dignity of all honest and necessary labor. The use of this argument illustrates a common confusion in thought on the part of my former contemporaries. The business of waiting on tables was in no more need of defense than most of the other ways of getting a living in that day, but to talk of dignity attaching to labor of any sort under the system then prevailing was absurd. There is no way in which selling labor for the highest price it will fetch is more dignified than selling goods for what can be got. Both were commercial transactions to be judged by the commercial standard. By setting a price in money on his service, the worker accepted the money measure for it, and renounced all clear claim to be judged by any other. The sordid taint which this necessity imparted to the noblest and the highest sorts of service was bitterly resented by generous souls, but there was no evading it. There was no exemption, however transcendent the quality of one's service, from the necessity of haggling for its price in the market-place. The physician must sell his healing and the apostle his preaching like the rest. The prophet, who had guessed the meaning of God, must dicker for the price of the revelation, and the poet hawk his visions in printers' row. If I were asked to name the most distinguishing felicity of this age, as compared to that in which I first saw the light, I should say that to me it seems to consist in the dignity you have given to labor by refusing to set a price upon it and abolishing the market-place forever. By requiring of every man his best you have made God his task-master, and by making honor the sole reward of achievement you have imparted to all service the distinction peculiar in my day to the soldier's. Chapter 15 When, in the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the library, we succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather chairs with which it was furnished, and sat down in one of the book-lined alcoves to rest and chat awhile.[1] "Edith tells me that you have been in the library all the morning," said Mrs. Leete. "Do you know, it seems to me, Mr. West, that you are the most enviable of mortals." "I should like to know just why," I replied. "Because the books of the last hundred years will be new to you," she answered. "You will have so much of the most absorbing literature to read as to leave you scarcely time for meals these five years to come. Ah, what would I give if I had not already read Berrian's novels." "Or Nesmyth's, mamma," added Edith. "Yes, or Oates' poems, or 'Past and Present,' or, 'In the Beginning,' or--oh, I could name a dozen books, each worth a year of one's life," declared Mrs. Leete, enthusiastically. "I judge, then, that there has been some notable literature produced in this century." "Yes," said Dr. Leete. "It has been an era of unexampled intellectual splendor. Probably humanity never before passed through a moral and material evolution, at once so vast in its scope and brief in its time of accomplishment, as that from the old order to the new in the early part of this century. When men came to realize the greatness of the felicity which had befallen them, and that the change through which they had passed was not merely an improvement in details of their condition, but the rise of the race to a new plane of existence with an illimitable vista of progress, their minds were affected in all their faculties with a stimulus, of which the outburst of the mediaeval renaissance offers a suggestion but faint indeed. There ensued an era of mechanical invention, scientific discovery, art, musical and literary productiveness to which no previous age of the world offers anything comparable." "By the way," said I, "talking of literature, how are books published now? Is that also done by the nation?" "Certainly." "But how do you manage it? Does the government publish everything that is brought it as a matter of course, at the public expense, or does it exercise a censorship and print only what it approves?" "Neither way. The printing department has no censorial powers. It is bound to print all that is offered it, but prints it only on condition that the author defray the first cost out of his credit. He must pay for the privilege of the public ear, and if he has any message worth hearing we consider that he will be glad to do it. Of course, if incomes were unequal, as in the old times, this rule would enable only the rich to be authors, but the resources of citizens being equal, it merely measures the strength of the author's motive. The cost of an edition of an average book can be saved out of a year's credit by the practice of economy and some sacrifices. The book, on being published, is placed on sale by the nation." "The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us, I suppose," I suggested. "Not as with you, certainly," replied Dr. Leete, "but nevertheless in one way. The price of every book is made up of the cost of its publication with a royalty for the author. The author fixes this royalty at any figure he pleases. Of course if he puts it unreasonably high it is his own loss, for the book will not sell. The amount of this royalty is set to his credit and he is discharged from other service to the nation for so long a period as this credit at the rate of allowance for the support of citizens shall suffice to support him. If his book be moderately successful, he has thus a furlough for several months, a year, two or three years, and if he in the mean time produces other successful work, the remission of service is extended so far as the sale of that may justify. An author of much acceptance succeeds in supporting himself by his pen during the entire period of service, and the degree of any writer's literary ability, as determined by the popular voice, is thus the measure of the opportunity given him to devote his time to literature. In this respect the outcome of our system is not very dissimilar to that of yours, but there are two notable differences. In the first place, the universally high level of education nowadays gives the popular verdict a conclusiveness on the real merit of literary work which in your day it was as far as possible from having. In the second place, there is no such thing now as favoritism of any sort to interfere with the recognition of true merit. Every author has precisely the same facilities for bringing his work before the popular tribunal. To judge from the complaints of the writers of your day, this absolute equality of opportunity would have been greatly prized." "In the recognition of merit in other fields of original genius, such as music, art, invention, design," I said, "I suppose you follow a similar principle." "Yes," he replied, "although the details differ. In art, for example, as in literature, the people are the sole judges. They vote upon the acceptance of statues and paintings for the public buildings, and their favorable verdict carries with it the artist's remission from other tasks to devote himself to his vocation. On copies of his work disposed of, he also derives the same advantage as the author on sales of his books. In all these lines of original genius the plan pursued is the same to offer a free field to aspirants, and as soon as exceptional talent is recognized to release it from all trammels and let it have free course. The remission of other service in these cases is not intended as a gift or reward, but as the means of obtaining more and higher service. Of course there are various literary, art, and scientific institutes to which membership comes to the famous and is greatly prized. The highest of all honors in the nation, higher than the presidency, which calls merely for good sense and devotion to duty, is the red ribbon awarded by the vote of the people to the great authors, artists, engineers, physicians, and inventors of the generation. Not over a certain number wear it at any one time, though every bright young fellow in the country loses innumerable nights' sleep dreaming of it. I even did myself." "Just as if mamma and I would have thought any more of you with it," exclaimed Edith; "not that it isn't, of course, a very fine thing to have." "You had no choice, my dear, but to take your father as you found him and make the best of him," Dr. Leete replied; "but as for your mother, there, she would never have had me if I had not assured her that I was bound to get the red ribbon or at least the blue." On this extravagance Mrs. Leete's only comment was a smile. "How about periodicals and newspapers?" I said. "I won't deny that your book publishing system is a considerable improvement on ours, both as to its tendency to encourage a real literary vocation, and, quite as important, to discourage mere scribblers; but I don't see how it can be made to apply to magazines and newspapers. It is very well to make a man pay for publishing a book, because the expense will be only occasional; but no man could afford the expense of publishing a newspaper every day in the year. It took the deep pockets of our private capitalists to do that, and often exhausted even them before the returns came in. If you have newspapers at all, they must, I fancy, be published by the government at the public expense, with government editors, reflecting government opinions. Now, if your system is so perfect that there is never anything to criticize in the conduct of affairs, this arrangement may answer. Otherwise I should think the lack of an independent unofficial medium for the expression of public opinion would have most unfortunate results. Confess, Dr. Leete, that a free newspaper press, with all that it implies, was a redeeming incident of the old system when capital was in private hands, and that you have to set off the loss of that against your gains in other respects." "I am afraid I can't give you even that consolation," replied Dr. Leete, laughing. "In the first place, Mr. West, the newspaper press is by no means the only or, as we look at it, the best vehicle for serious criticism of public affairs. To us, the judgments of your newspapers on such themes seem generally to have been crude and flippant, as well as deeply tinctured with prejudice and bitterness. In so far as they may be taken as expressing public opinion, they give an unfavorable impression of the popular intelligence, while so far as they may have formed public opinion, the nation was not to be felicitated. Nowadays, when a citizen desires to make a serious impression upon the public mind as to any aspect of public affairs, he comes out with a book or pamphlet, published as other books are. But this is not because we lack newspapers and magazines, or that they lack the most absolute freedom. The newspaper press is organized so as to be a more perfect expression of public opinion than it possibly could be in your day, when private capital controlled and managed it primarily as a money-making business, and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people." "But," said I, "if the government prints the papers at the public expense, how can it fail to control their policy? Who appoints the editors, if not the government?" "The government does not pay the expense of the papers, nor appoint their editors, nor in any way exert the slightest influence on their policy," replied Dr. Leete. "The people who take the paper pay the expense of its publication, choose its editor, and remove him when unsatisfactory. You will scarcely say, I think, that such a newspaper press is not a free organ of popular opinion." "Decidedly I shall not," I replied, "but how is it practicable?" "Nothing could be simpler. Supposing some of my neighbors or myself think we ought to have a newspaper reflecting our opinions, and devoted especially to our locality, trade, or profession. We go about among the people till we get the names of such a number that their annual subscriptions will meet the cost of the paper, which is little or big according to the largeness of its constituency. The amount of the subscriptions marked off the credits of the citizens guarantees the nation against loss in publishing the paper, its business, you understand, being that of a publisher purely, with no option to refuse the duty required. The subscribers to the paper now elect somebody as editor, who, if he accepts the office, is discharged from other service during his incumbency. Instead of paying a salary to him, as in your day, the subscribers pay the nation an indemnity equal to the cost of his support for taking him away from the general service. He manages the paper just as one of your editors did, except that he has no counting-room to obey, or interests of private capital as against the public good to defend. At the end of the first year, the subscribers for the next either re-elect the former editor or choose any one else to his place. An able editor, of course, keeps his place indefinitely. As the subscription list enlarges, the funds of the paper increase, and it is improved by the securing of more and better contributors, just as your papers were." "How is the staff of contributors recompensed, since they cannot be paid in money?" "The editor settles with them the price of their wares. The amount is transferred to their individual credit from the guarantee credit of the paper, and a remission of service is granted the contributor for a length of time corresponding to the amount credited him, just as to other authors. As to magazines, the system is the same. Those interested in the prospectus of a new periodical pledge enough subscriptions to run it for a year; select their editor, who recompenses his contributors just as in the other case, the printing bureau furnishing the necessary force and material for publication, as a matter of course. When an editor's services are no longer desired, if he cannot earn the right to his time by other literary work, he simply resumes his place in the industrial army. I should add that, though ordinarily the editor is elected only at the end of the year, and as a rule is continued in office for a term of years, in case of any sudden change he should give to the tone of the paper, provision is made for taking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at any time." "However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of study or meditation," I remarked, "he cannot get out of the harness, if I understand you rightly, except in these two ways you have mentioned. He must either by literary, artistic, or inventive productiveness indemnify the nation for the loss of his services, or must get a sufficient number of other people to contribute to such an indemnity." "It is most certain," replied Dr. Leete, "that no able-bodied man nowadays can evade his share of work and live on the toil of others, whether he calls himself by the fine name of student or confesses to being simply lazy. At the same time our system is elastic enough to give free play to every instinct of human nature which does not aim at dominating others or living on the fruit of others' labor. There is not only the remission by indemnification but the remission by abnegation. Any man in his thirty-third year, his term of service being then half done, can obtain an honorable discharge from the army, provided he accepts for the rest of his life one half the rate of maintenance other citizens receive. It is quite possible to live on this amount, though one must forego the luxuries and elegancies of life, with some, perhaps, of its comforts." When the ladies retired that evening, Edith brought me a book and said: "If you should be wakeful to-night, Mr. West, you might be interested in looking over this story by Berrian. It is considered his masterpiece, and will at least give you an idea what the stories nowadays are like." I sat up in my room that night reading "Penthesilia" till it grew gray in the east, and did not lay it down till I had finished it. And yet let no admirer of the great romancer of the twentieth century resent my saying that at the first reading what most impressed me was not so much what was in the book as what was left out of it. The story-writers of my day would have deemed the making of bricks without straw a light task compared with the construction of a romance from which should be excluded all effects drawn from the contrasts of wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, coarseness and refinement, high and low, all motives drawn from social pride and ambition, the desire of being richer or the fear of being poorer, together with sordid anxieties of any sort for one's self or others; a romance in which there should, indeed, be love galore, but love unfretted by artificial barriers created by differences of station or possessions, owning no other law but that of the heart. The reading of "Penthesilia" was of more value than almost any amount of explanation would have been in giving me something like a general impression of the social aspect of the twentieth century. The information Dr. Leete had imparted was indeed extensive as to facts, but they had affected my mind as so many separate impressions, which I had as yet succeeded but imperfectly in making cohere. Berrian put them together for me in a picture. [1] I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that reigns in the public libraries of the twentieth century as compared with the intolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, in which the books were jealously railed away from the people, and obtainable only at an expenditure of time and red tape calculated to discourage any ordinary taste for literature. Chapter 16 Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. As I descended the stairs, Edith stepped into the hall from the room which had been the scene of the morning interview between us described some chapters back. "Ah!" she exclaimed, with a charmingly arch expression, "you thought to slip out unbeknown for another of those solitary morning rambles which have such nice effects on you. But you see I am up too early for you this time. You are fairly caught." "You discredit the efficacy of your own cure," I said, "by supposing that such a ramble would now be attended with bad consequences." "I am very glad to hear that," she said. "I was in here arranging some flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down, and fancied I detected something surreptitious in your step on the stairs." "You did me injustice," I replied. "I had no idea of going out at all." Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception was purely accidental, I had at the time a dim suspicion of what I afterwards learned to be the fact, namely, that this sweet creature, in pursuance of her self-assumed guardianship over me, had risen for the last two or three mornings at an unheard-of hour, to insure against the possibility of my wandering off alone in case I should be affected as on the former occasion. Receiving permission to assist her in making up the breakfast bouquet, I followed her into the room from which she had emerged. "Are you sure," she asked, "that you are quite done with those terrible sensations you had that morning?" "I can't say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly queer," I replied, "moments when my personal identity seems an open question. It would be too much to expect after my experience that I should not have such sensations occasionally, but as for being carried entirely off my feet, as I was on the point of being that morning, I think the danger is past." "I shall never forget how you looked that morning," she said. "If you had merely saved my life," I continued, "I might, perhaps, find words to express my gratitude, but it was my reason you saved, and there are no words that would not belittle my debt to you." I spoke with emotion, and her eyes grew suddenly moist. "It is too much to believe all this," she said, "but it is very delightful to hear you say it. What I did was very little. I was very much distressed for you, I know. Father never thinks anything ought to astonish us when it can be explained scientifically, as I suppose this long sleep of yours can be, but even to fancy myself in your place makes my head swim. I know that I could not have borne it at all." "That would depend," I replied, "on whether an angel came to support you with her sympathy in the crisis of your condition, as one came to me." If my face at all expressed the feelings I had a right to have toward this sweet and lovely young girl, who had played so angelic a role toward me, its expression must have been very worshipful just then. The expression or the words, or both together, caused her now to drop her eyes with a charming blush. "For the matter of that," I said, "if your experience has not been as startling as mine, it must have been rather overwhelming to see a man belonging to a strange century, and apparently a hundred years dead, raised to life." "It seemed indeed strange beyond any describing at first," she said, "but when we began to put ourselves in your place, and realize how much stranger it must seem to you, I fancy we forgot our own feelings a good deal, at least I know I did. It seemed then not so much astounding as interesting and touching beyond anything ever heard of before." "But does it not come over you as astounding to sit at table with me, seeing who I am?" "You must remember that you do not seem so strange to us as we must to you," she answered. "We belong to a future of which you could not form an idea, a generation of which you knew nothing until you saw us. But you belong to a generation of which our forefathers were a part. We know all about it; the names of many of its members are household words with us. We have made a study of your ways of living and thinking; nothing you say or do surprises us, while we say and do nothing which does not seem strange to you. So you see, Mr. West, that if you feel that you can, in time, get accustomed to us, you must not be surprised that from the first we have scarcely found you strange at all." "I had not thought of it in that way," I replied. "There is indeed much in what you say. One can look back a thousand years easier than forward fifty. A century is not so very long a retrospect. I might have known your great-grand-parents. Possibly I did. Did they live in Boston?" "I believe so." "You are not sure, then?" "Yes," she replied. "Now I think, they did." "I had a very large circle of acquaintances in the city," I said. "It is not unlikely that I knew or knew of some of them. Perhaps I may have known them well. Wouldn't it be interesting if I should chance to be able to tell you all about your great-grandfather, for instance?" "Very interesting." "Do you know your genealogy well enough to tell me who your forbears were in the Boston of my day?" "Oh, yes." "Perhaps, then, you will some time tell me what some of their names were." She was engrossed in arranging a troublesome spray of green, and did not reply at once. Steps upon the stairway indicated that the other members of the family were descending. "Perhaps, some time," she said. After breakfast, Dr. Leete suggested taking me to inspect the central warehouse and observe actually in operation the machinery of distribution, which Edith had described to me. As we walked away from the house I said, "It is now several days that I have been living in your household on a most extraordinary footing, or rather on none at all. I have not spoken of this aspect of my position before because there were so many other aspects yet more extraordinary. But now that I am beginning a little to feel my feet under me, and to realize that, however I came here, I am here, and must make the best of it, I must speak to you on this point." "As for your being a guest in my house," replied Dr. Leete, "I pray you not to begin to be uneasy on that point, for I mean to keep you a long time yet. With all your modesty, you can but realize that such a guest as yourself is an acquisition not willingly to be parted with." "Thanks, doctor," I said. "It would be absurd, certainly, for me to affect any oversensitiveness about accepting the temporary hospitality of one to whom I owe it that I am not still awaiting the end of the world in a living tomb. But if I am to be a permanent citizen of this century I must have some standing in it. Now, in my time a person more or less entering the world, however he got in, would not be noticed in the unorganized throng of men, and might make a place for himself anywhere he chose if he were strong enough. But nowadays everybody is a part of a system with a distinct place and function. I am outside the system, and don't see how I can get in; there seems no way to get in, except to be born in or to come in as an emigrant from some other system." Dr. Leete laughed heartily. "I admit," he said, "that our system is defective in lacking provision for cases like yours, but you see nobody anticipated additions to the world except by the usual process. You need, however, have no fear that we shall be unable to provide both a place and occupation for you in due time. You have as yet been brought in contact only with the members of my family, but you must not suppose that I have kept your secret. On the contrary, your case, even before your resuscitation, and vastly more since has excited the profoundest interest in the nation. In view of your precarious nervous condition, it was thought best that I should take exclusive charge of you at first, and that you should, through me and my family, receive some general idea of the sort of world you had come back to before you began to make the acquaintance generally of its inhabitants. As to finding a function for you in society, there was no hesitation as to what that would be. Few of us have it in our power to confer so great a service on the nation as you will be able to when you leave my roof, which, however, you must not think of doing for a good time yet." "What can I possibly do?" I asked. "Perhaps you imagine I have some trade, or art, or special skill. I assure you I have none whatever. I never earned a dollar in my life, or did an hour's work. I am strong, and might be a common laborer, but nothing more." "If that were the most efficient service you were able to render the nation, you would find that avocation considered quite as respectable as any other," replied Dr. Leete; "but you can do something else better. You are easily the master of all our historians on questions relating to the social condition of the latter part of the nineteenth century, to us one of the most absorbingly interesting periods of history: and whenever in due time you have sufficiently familiarized yourself with our institutions, and are willing to teach us something concerning those of your day, you will find an historical lectureship in one of our colleges awaiting you." "Very good! very good indeed," I said, much relieved by so practical a suggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me. "If your people are really so much interested in the nineteenth century, there will indeed be an occupation ready-made for me. I don't think there is anything else that I could possibly earn my salt at, but I certainly may claim without conceit to have some special qualifications for such a post as you describe." Chapter 17 I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had described them, and became even enthusiastic over the truly remarkable illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously multiplied efficiency which perfect organization can give to labor. It is like a gigantic mill, into the hopper of which goods are being constantly poured by the train-load and shipload, to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and inches, pints and gallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal needs of half a million people. Dr. Leete, with the assistance of data furnished by me as to the way goods were sold in my day, figured out some astounding results in the way of the economies effected by the modern system. As we set out homeward, I said: "After what I have seen to-day, together with what you have told me, and what I learned under Miss Leete's tutelage at the sample store, I have a tolerably clear idea of your system of distribution, and how it enables you to dispense with a circulating medium. But I should like very much to know something more about your system of production. You have told me in general how your industrial army is levied and organized, but who directs its efforts? What supreme authority determines what shall be done in every department, so that enough of everything is produced and yet no labor wasted? It seems to me that this must be a wonderfully complex and difficult function, requiring very unusual endowments." "Does it indeed seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete. "I assure you that it is nothing of the kind, but on the other hand so simple, and depending on principles so obvious and easily applied, that the functionaries at Washington to whom it is trusted require to be nothing more than men of fair abilities to discharge it to the entire satisfaction of the nation. The machine which they direct is indeed a vast one, but so logical in its principles and direct and simple in its workings, that it all but runs itself; and nobody but a fool could derange it, as I think you will agree after a few words of explanation. Since you already have a pretty good idea of the working of the distributive system, let us begin at that end. Even in your day statisticians were able to tell you the number of yards of cotton, velvet, woolen, the number of barrels of flour, potatoes, butter, number of pairs of shoes, hats, and umbrellas annually consumed by the nation. Owing to the fact that production was in private hands, and that there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution, these figures were not exact, but they were nearly so. Now that every pin which is given out from a national warehouse is recorded, of course the figures of consumption for any week, month, or year, in the possession of the department of distribution at the end of that period, are precise. On these figures, allowing for tendencies to increase or decrease and for any special causes likely to affect demand, the estimates, say for a year ahead, are based. These estimates, with a proper margin for security, having been accepted by the general administration, the responsibility of the distributive department ceases until the goods are delivered to it. I speak of the estimates being furnished for an entire year ahead, but in reality they cover that much time only in case of the great staples for which the demand can be calculated on as steady. In the great majority of smaller industries for the product of which popular taste fluctuates, and novelty is frequently required, production is kept barely ahead of consumption, the distributive department furnishing frequent estimates based on the weekly state of demand. "Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry is divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of allied industries, each particular industry being in turn represented by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and force under its control, of the present product, and means of increasing it. The estimates of the distributive department, after adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great departments, which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing the particular industries, and these set the men at work. Each bureau is responsible for the task given it, and this responsibility is enforced by departmental oversight and that of the administration; nor does the distributive department accept the product without its own inspection; while even if in the hands of the consumer an article turns out unfit, the system enables the fault to be traced back to the original workman. The production of the commodities for actual public consumption does not, of course, require by any means all the national force of workers. After the necessary contingents have been detailed for the various industries, the amount of labor left for other employment is expended in creating fixed capital, such as buildings, machinery, engineering works, and so forth." "One point occurs to me," I said, "on which I should think there might be dissatisfaction. Where there is no opportunity for private enterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of small minorities of the people to have articles produced, for which there is no wide demand, will be respected? An official decree at any moment may deprive them of the means of gratifying some special taste, merely because the majority does not share it." "That would be tyranny indeed," replied Dr. Leete, "and you may be very sure that it does not happen with us, to whom liberty is as dear as equality or fraternity. As you come to know our system better, you will see that our officials are in fact, and not merely in name, the agents and servants of the people. The administration has no power to stop the production of any commodity for which there continues to be a demand. Suppose the demand for any article declines to such a point that its production becomes very costly. The price has to be raised in proportion, of course, but as long as the consumer cares to pay it, the production goes on. Again, suppose an article not before produced is demanded. If the administration doubts the reality of the demand, a popular petition guaranteeing a certain basis of consumption compels it to produce the desired article. A government, or a majority, which should undertake to tell the people, or a minority, what they were to eat, drink, or wear, as I believe governments in America did in your day, would be regarded as a curious anachronism indeed. Possibly you had reasons for tolerating these infringements of personal independence, but we should not think them endurable. I am glad you raised this point, for it has given me a chance to show you how much more direct and efficient is the control over production exercised by the individual citizen now than it was in your day, when what you called private initiative prevailed, though it should have been called capitalist initiative, for the average private citizen had little enough share in it." "You speak of raising the price of costly articles," I said. "How can prices be regulated in a country where there is no competition between buyers or sellers?" "Just as they were with you," replied Dr. Leete. "You think that needs explaining," he added, as I looked incredulous, "but the explanation need not be long; the cost of the labor which produced it was recognized as the legitimate basis of the price of an article in your day, and so it is in ours. In your day, it was the difference in wages that made the difference in the cost of labor; now it is the relative number of hours constituting a day's work in different trades, the maintenance of the worker being equal in all cases. The cost of a man's work in a trade so difficult that in order to attract volunteers the hours have to be fixed at four a day is twice as great as that in a trade where the men work eight hours. The result as to the cost of labor, you see, is just the same as if the man working four hours were paid, under your system, twice the wages the others get. This calculation applied to the labor employed in the various processes of a manufactured article gives its price relatively to other articles. Besides the cost of production and transportation, the factor of scarcity affects the prices of some commodities. As regards the great staples of life, of which an abundance can always be secured, scarcity is eliminated as a factor. There is always a large surplus kept on hand from which any fluctuations of demand or supply can be corrected, even in most cases of bad crops. The prices of the staples grow less year by year, but rarely, if ever, rise. There are, however, certain classes of articles permanently, and others temporarily, unequal to the demand, as, for example, fresh fish or dairy products in the latter category, and the products of high skill and rare materials in the other. All that can be done here is to equalize the inconvenience of the scarcity. This is done by temporarily raising the price if the scarcity be temporary, or fixing it high if it be permanent. High prices in your day meant restriction of the articles affected to the rich, but nowadays, when the means of all are the same, the effect is only that those to whom the articles seem most desirable are the ones who purchase them. Of course the nation, as any other caterer for the public needs must be, is frequently left with small lots of goods on its hands by changes in taste, unseasonable weather and various other causes. These it has to dispose of at a sacrifice just as merchants often did in your day, charging up the loss to the expenses of the business. Owing, however, to the vast body of consumers to which such lots can be simultaneously offered, there is rarely any difficulty in getting rid of them at trifling loss. I have given you now some general notion of our system of production; as well as distribution. Do you find it as complex as you expected?" I admitted that nothing could be much simpler. "I am sure," said Dr. Leete, "that it is within the truth to say that the head of one of the myriad private businesses of your day, who had to maintain sleepless vigilance against the fluctuations of the market, the machinations of his rivals, and the failure of his debtors, had a far more trying task than the group of men at Washington who nowadays direct the industries of the entire nation. All this merely shows, my dear fellow, how much easier it is to do things the right way than the wrong. It is easier for a general up in a balloon, with perfect survey of the field, to manoeuvre a million men to victory than for a sergeant to manage a platoon in a thicket." "The general of this army, including the flower of the manhood of the nation, must be the foremost man in the country, really greater even than the President of the United States," I said. "He is the President of the United States," replied Dr. Leete, "or rather the most important function of the presidency is the headship of the industrial army." "How is he chosen?" I asked. "I explained to you before," replied Dr. Leete, "when I was describing the force of the motive of emulation among all grades of the industrial army, that the line of promotion for the meritorious lies through three grades to the officer's grade, and thence up through the lieutenancies to the captaincy or foremanship, and superintendency or colonel's rank. Next, with an intervening grade in some of the larger trades, comes the general of the guild, under whose immediate control all the operations of the trade are conducted. This officer is at the head of the national bureau representing his trade, and is responsible for its work to the administration. The general of his guild holds a splendid position, and one which amply satisfies the ambition of most men, but above his rank, which may be compared--to follow the military analogies familiar to you--to that of a general of division or major-general, is that of the chiefs of the ten great departments, or groups of allied trades. The chiefs of these ten grand divisions of the industrial army may be compared to your commanders of army corps, or lieutenant-generals, each having from a dozen to a score of generals of separate guilds reporting to him. Above these ten great officers, who form his council, is the general-in-chief, who is the President of the United States. "The general-in-chief of the industrial army must have passed through all the grades below him, from the common laborers up. Let us see how he rises. As I have told you, it is simply by the excellence of his record as a worker that one rises through the grades of the privates and becomes a candidate for a lieutenancy. Through the lieutenancies he rises to the colonelcy, or superintendent's position, by appointment from above, strictly limited to the candidates of the best records. The general of the guild appoints to the ranks under him, but he himself is not appointed, but chosen by suffrage." "By suffrage!" I exclaimed. "Is not that ruinous to the discipline of the guild, by tempting the candidates to intrigue for the support of the workers under them?" "So it would be, no doubt," replied Dr. Leete, "if the workers had any suffrage to exercise, or anything to say about the choice. But they have nothing. Just here comes in a peculiarity of our system. The general of the guild is chosen from among the superintendents by vote of the honorary members of the guild, that is, of those who have served their time in the guild and received their discharge. As you know, at the age of forty-five we are mustered out of the army of industry, and have the residue of life for the pursuit of our own improvement or recreation. Of course, however, the associations of our active lifetime retain a powerful hold on us. The companionships we formed then remain our companionships till the end of life. We always continue honorary members of our former guilds, and retain the keenest and most jealous interest in their welfare and repute in the hands of the following generation. In the clubs maintained by the honorary members of the several guilds, in which we meet socially, there are no topics of conversation so common as those which relate to these matters, and the young aspirants for guild leadership who can pass the criticism of us old fellows are likely to be pretty well equipped. Recognizing this fact, the nation entrusts to the honorary members of each guild the election of its general, and I venture to claim that no previous form of society could have developed a body of electors so ideally adapted to their office, as regards absolute impartiality, knowledge of the special qualifications and record of candidates, solicitude for the best result, and complete absence of self-interest. "Each of the ten lieutenant-generals or heads of departments is himself elected from among the generals of the guilds grouped as a department, by vote of the honorary members of the guilds thus grouped. Of course there is a tendency on the part of each guild to vote for its own general, but no guild of any group has nearly enough votes to elect a man not supported by most of the others. I assure you that these elections are exceedingly lively." "The President, I suppose, is selected from among the ten heads of the great departments," I suggested. "Precisely, but the heads of departments are not eligible to the presidency till they have been a certain number of years out of office. It is rarely that a man passes through all the grades to the headship of a department much before he is forty, and at the end of a five years' term he is usually forty-five. If more, he still serves through his term, and if less, he is nevertheless discharged from the industrial army at its termination. It would not do for him to return to the ranks. The interval before he is a candidate for the presidency is intended to give time for him to recognize fully that he has returned into the general mass of the nation, and is identified with it rather than with the industrial army. Moreover, it is expected that he will employ this period in studying the general condition of the army, instead of that of the special group of guilds of which he was the head. From among the former heads of departments who may be eligible at the time, the President is elected by vote of all the men of the nation who are not connected with the industrial army." "The army is not allowed to vote for President?" "Certainly not. That would be perilous to its discipline, which it is the business of the President to maintain as the representative of the nation at large. His right hand for this purpose is the inspectorate, a highly important department of our system; to the inspectorate come all complaints or information as to defects in goods, insolence or inefficiency of officials, or dereliction of any sort in the public service. The inspectorate, however, does not wait for complaints. Not only is it on the alert to catch and sift every rumor of a fault in the service, but it is its business, by systematic and constant oversight and inspection of every branch of the army, to find out what is going wrong before anybody else does. The President is usually not far from fifty when elected, and serves five years, forming an honorable exception to the rule of retirement at forty-five. At the end of his term of office, a national Congress is called to receive his report and approve or condemn it. If it is approved, Congress usually elects him to represent the nation for five years more in the international council. Congress, I should also say, passes on the reports of the outgoing heads of departments, and a disapproval renders any one of them ineligible for President. But it is rare, indeed, that the nation has occasion for other sentiments than those of gratitude toward its high officers. As to their ability, to have risen from the ranks, by tests so various and severe, to their positions, is proof in itself of extraordinary qualities, while as to faithfulness, our social system leaves them absolutely without any other motive than that of winning the esteem of their fellow citizens. Corruption is impossible in a society where there is neither poverty to be bribed nor wealth to bribe, while as to demagoguery or intrigue for office, the conditions of promotion render them out of the question." "One point I do not quite understand," I said. "Are the members of the liberal professions eligible to the presidency? and if so, how are they ranked with those who pursue the industries proper?" "They have no ranking with them," replied Dr. Leete. "The members of the technical professions, such as engineers and architects, have a ranking with the constructive guilds; but the members of the liberal professions, the doctors and teachers, as well as the artists and men of letters who obtain remissions of industrial service, do not belong to the industrial army. On this ground they vote for the President, but are not eligible to his office. One of its main duties being the control and discipline of the industrial army, it is essential that the President should have passed through all its grades to understand his business." "That is reasonable," I said; "but if the doctors and teachers do not know enough of industry to be President, neither, I should think, can the President know enough of medicine and education to control those departments." "No more does he," was the reply. "Except in the general way that he is responsible for the enforcement of the laws as to all classes, the President has nothing to do with the faculties of medicine and education, which are controlled by boards of regents of their own, in which the President is ex-officio chairman, and has the casting vote. These regents, who, of course, are responsible to Congress, are chosen by the honorary members of the guilds of education and medicine, the retired teachers and doctors of the country." "Do you know," I said, "the method of electing officials by votes of the retired members of the guilds is nothing more than the application on a national scale of the plan of government by alumni, which we used to a slight extent occasionally in the management of our higher educational institutions." "Did you, indeed?" exclaimed Dr. Leete, with animation. "That is quite new to me, and I fancy will be to most of us, and of much interest as well. There has been great discussion as to the germ of the idea, and we fancied that there was for once something new under the sun. Well! well! In your higher educational institutions! that is interesting indeed. You must tell me more of that." "Truly, there is very little more to tell than I have told already," I replied. "If we had the germ of your idea, it was but as a germ." Chapter 18 That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had retired, talking with Dr. Leete about the effect of the plan of exempting men from further service to the nation after the age of forty-five, a point brought up by his account of the part taken by the retired citizens in the government. "At forty-five," said I, "a man still has ten years of good manual labor in him, and twice ten years of good intellectual service. To be superannuated at that age and laid on the shelf must be regarded rather as a hardship than a favor by men of energetic dispositions." "My dear Mr. West," exclaimed Dr. Leete, beaming upon me, "you cannot have any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth century ideas have for us of this day, the rare quaintness of their effect. Know, O child of another race and yet the same, that the labor we have to render as our part in securing for the nation the means of a comfortable physical existence is by no means regarded as the most important, the most interesting, or the most dignified employment of our powers. We look upon it as a necessary duty to be discharged before we can fully devote ourselves to the higher exercise of our faculties, the intellectual and spiritual enjoyments and pursuits which alone mean life. Everything possible is indeed done by the just distribution of burdens, and by all manner of special attractions and incentives to relieve our labor of irksomeness, and, except in a comparative sense, it is not usually irksome, and is often inspiring. But it is not our labor, but the higher and larger activities which the performance of our task will leave us free to enter upon, that are considered the main business of existence. "Of course not all, nor the majority, have those scientific, artistic, literary, or scholarly interests which make leisure the one thing valuable to their possessors. Many look upon the last half of life chiefly as a period for enjoyment of other sorts; for travel, for social relaxation in the company of their life-time friends; a time for the cultivation of all manner of personal idiosyncrasies and special tastes, and the pursuit of every imaginable form of recreation; in a word, a time for the leisurely and unperturbed appreciation of the good things of the world which they have helped to create. But, whatever the differences between our individual tastes as to the use we shall put our leisure to, we all agree in looking forward to the date of our discharge as the time when we shall first enter upon the full enjoyment of our birthright, the period when we shall first really attain our majority and become enfranchised from discipline and control, with the fee of our lives vested in ourselves. As eager boys in your day anticipated twenty-one, so men nowadays look forward to forty-five. At twenty-one we become men, but at forty-five we renew youth. Middle age and what you would have called old age are considered, rather than youth, the enviable time of life. Thanks to the better conditions of existence nowadays, and above all the freedom of every one from care, old age approaches many years later and has an aspect far more benign than in past times. Persons of average constitution usually live to eighty-five or ninety, and at forty-five we are physically and mentally younger, I fancy, than you were at thirty-five. It is a strange reflection that at forty-five, when we are just entering upon the most enjoyable period of life, you already began to think of growing old and to look backward. With you it was the forenoon, with us it is the afternoon, which is the brighter half of life." After this I remember that our talk branched into the subject of popular sports and recreations at the present time as compared with those of the nineteenth century. "In one respect," said Dr. Leete, "there is a marked difference. The professional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature of your day, we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for which our athletes contend money prizes, as with you. Our contests are always for glory only. The generous rivalry existing between the various guilds, and the loyalty of each worker to his own, afford a constant stimulation to all sorts of games and matches by sea and land, in which the young men take scarcely more interest than the honorary guildsmen who have served their time. The guild yacht races off Marblehead take place next week, and you will be able to judge for yourself of the popular enthusiasm which such events nowadays call out as compared with your day. The demand for 'panem ef circenses' preferred by the Roman populace is recognized nowadays as a wholly reasonable one. If bread is the first necessity of life, recreation is a close second, and the nation caters for both. Americans of the nineteenth century were as unfortunate in lacking an adequate provision for the one sort of need as for the other. Even if the people of that period had enjoyed larger leisure, they would, I fancy, have often been at a loss how to pass it agreeably. We are never in that predicament." Chapter 19 In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited Charlestown. Among the changes, too numerous to attempt to indicate, which mark the lapse of a century in that quarter, I particularly noted the total disappearance of the old state prison. "That went before my day, but I remember hearing about it," said Dr. Leete, when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table. "We have no jails nowadays. All cases of atavism are treated in the hospitals." "Of atavism!" I exclaimed, staring. "Why, yes," replied Dr. Leete. "The idea of dealing punitively with those unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago, and I think more." "I don't quite understand you," I said. "Atavism in my day was a word applied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of a remote ancestor recurred in a noticeable manner. Am I to understand that crime is nowadays looked upon as the recurrence of an ancestral trait?" "I beg your pardon," said Dr. Leete with a smile half humorous, half deprecating, "but since you have so explicitly asked the question, I am forced to say that the fact is precisely that." After what I had already learned of the moral contrasts between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it was doubtless absurd in me to begin to develop sensitiveness on the subject, and probably if Dr. Leete had not spoken with that apologetic air and Mrs. Leete and Edith shown a corresponding embarrassment, I should not have flushed, as I was conscious I did. "I was not in much danger of being vain of my generation before," I said; "but, really--" "This is your generation, Mr. West," interposed Edith. "It is the one in which you are living, you know, and it is only because we are alive now that we call it ours." "Thank you. I will try to think of it so," I said, and as my eyes met hers their expression quite cured my senseless sensitiveness. "After all," I said, with a laugh, "I was brought up a Calvinist, and ought not to be startled to hear crime spoken of as an ancestral trait." "In point of fact," said Dr. Leete, "our use of the word is no reflection at all on your generation, if, begging Edith's pardon, we may call it yours, so far as seeming to imply that we think ourselves, apart from our circumstances, better than you were. In your day fully nineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word broadly to include all sorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the inequality in the possessions of individuals; want tempted the poor, lust of greater gains, or the desire to preserve former gains, tempted the well-to-do. Directly or indirectly, the desire for money, which then meant every good thing, was the motive of all this crime, the taproot of a vast poison growth, which the machinery of law, courts, and police could barely prevent from choking your civilization outright. When we made the nation the sole trustee of the wealth of the people, and guaranteed to all abundant maintenance, on the one hand abolishing want, and on the other checking the accumulation of riches, we cut this root, and the poison tree that overshadowed your society withered, like Jonah's gourd, in a day. As for the comparatively small class of violent crimes against persons, unconnected with any idea of gain, they were almost wholly confined, even in your day, to the ignorant and bestial; and in these days, when education and good manners are not the monopoly of a few, but universal, such atrocities are scarcely ever heard of. You now see why the word 'atavism' is used for crime. It is because nearly all forms of crime known to you are motiveless now, and when they appear can only be explained as the outcropping of ancestral traits. You used to call persons who stole, evidently without any rational motive, kleptomaniacs, and when the case was clear deemed it absurd to punish them as thieves. Your attitude toward the genuine kleptomaniac is precisely ours toward the victim of atavism, an attitude of compassion and firm but gentle restraint." "Your courts must have an easy time of it," I observed. "With no private property to speak of, no disputes between citizens over business relations, no real estate to divide or debts to collect, there must be absolutely no civil business at all for them; and with no offenses against property, and mighty few of any sort to provide criminal cases, I should think you might almost do without judges and lawyers altogether." "We do without the lawyers, certainly," was Dr. Leete's reply. "It would not seem reasonable to us, in a case where the only interest of the nation is to find out the truth, that persons should take part in the proceedings who had an acknowledged motive to color it." "But who defends the accused?" "If he is a criminal he needs no defense, for he pleads guilty in most instances," replied Dr. Leete. "The plea of the accused is not a mere formality with us, as with you. It is usually the end of the case." "You don't mean that the man who pleads not guilty is thereupon discharged?" "No, I do not mean that. He is not accused on light grounds, and if he denies his guilt, must still be tried. But trials are few, for in most cases the guilty man pleads guilty. When he makes a false plea and is clearly proved guilty, his penalty is doubled. Falsehood is, however, so despised among us that few offenders would lie to save themselves." "That is the most astounding thing you have yet told me," I exclaimed. "If lying has gone out of fashion, this is indeed the 'new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,' which the prophet foretold." "Such is, in fact, the belief of some persons nowadays," was the doctor's answer. "They hold that we have entered upon the millennium, and the theory from their point of view does not lack plausibility. But as to your astonishment at finding that the world has outgrown lying, there is really no ground for it. Falsehood, even in your day, was not common between gentlemen and ladies, social equals. The lie of fear was the refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition offered a constant premium on lying at that time. Yet even then, the man who neither feared another nor desired to defraud him scorned falsehood. Because we are now all social equals, and no man either has anything to fear from another or can gain anything by deceiving him, the contempt of falsehood is so universal that it is rarely, as I told you, that even a criminal in other respects will be found willing to lie. When, however, a plea of not guilty is returned, the judge appoints two colleagues to state the opposite sides of the case. How far these men are from being like your hired advocates and prosecutors, determined to acquit or convict, may appear from the fact that unless both agree that the verdict found is just, the case is tried over, while anything like bias in the tone of either of the judges stating the case would be a shocking scandal." "Do I understand," I said, "that it is a judge who states each side of the case as well as a judge who hears it?" "Certainly. The judges take turns in serving on the bench and at the bar, and are expected to maintain the judicial temper equally whether in stating or deciding a case. The system is indeed in effect that of trial by three judges occupying different points of view as to the case. When they agree upon a verdict, we believe it to be as near to absolute truth as men well can come." "You have given up the jury system, then?" "It was well enough as a corrective in the days of hired advocates, and a bench sometimes venal, and often with a tenure that made it dependent, but is needless now. No conceivable motive but justice could actuate our judges." "How are these magistrates selected?" "They are an honorable exception to the rule which discharges all men from service at the age of forty-five. The President of the nation appoints the necessary judges year by year from the class reaching that age. The number appointed is, of course, exceedingly few, and the honor so high that it is held an offset to the additional term of service which follows, and though a judge's appointment may be declined, it rarely is. The term is five years, without eligibility to reappointment. The members of the Supreme Court, which is the guardian of the constitution, are selected from among the lower judges. When a vacancy in that court occurs, those of the lower judges, whose terms expire that year, select, as their last official act, the one of their colleagues left on the bench whom they deem fittest to fill it." "There being no legal profession to serve as a school for judges," I said, "they must, of course, come directly from the law school to the bench." "We have no such things as law schools," replied the doctor smiling. "The law as a special science is obsolete. It was a system of casuistry which the elaborate artificiality of the old order of society absolutely required to interpret it, but only a few of the plainest and simplest legal maxims have any application to the existing state of the world. Everything touching the relations of men to one another is now simpler, beyond any comparison, than in your day. We should have no sort of use for the hair-splitting experts who presided and argued in your courts. You must not imagine, however, that we have any disrespect for those ancient worthies because we have no use for them. On the contrary, we entertain an unfeigned respect, amounting almost to awe, for the men who alone understood and were able to expound the interminable complexity of the rights of property, and the relations of commercial and personal dependence involved in your system. What, indeed, could possibly give a more powerful impression of the intricacy and artificiality of that system than the fact that it was necessary to set apart from other pursuits the cream of the intellect of every generation, in order to provide a body of pundits able to make it even vaguely intelligible to those whose fates it determined. The treatises of your great lawyers, the works of Blackstone and Chitty, of Story and Parsons, stand in our museums, side by side with the tomes of Duns Scotus and his fellow scholastics, as curious monuments of intellectual subtlety devoted to subjects equally remote from the interests of modern men. Our judges are simply widely informed, judicious, and discreet men of ripe years. "I should not fail to speak of one important function of the minor judges," added Dr. Leete. "This is to adjudicate all cases where a private of the industrial army makes a complaint of unfairness against an officer. All such questions are heard and settled without appeal by a single judge, three judges being required only in graver cases. The efficiency of industry requires the strictest discipline in the army of labor, but the claim of the workman to just and considerate treatment is backed by the whole power of the nation. The officer commands and the private obeys, but no officer is so high that he would dare display an overbearing manner toward a workman of the lowest class. As for churlishness or rudeness by an official of any sort, in his relations to the public, not one among minor offenses is more sure of a prompt penalty than this. Not only justice but civility is enforced by our judges in all sorts of intercourse. No value of service is accepted as a set-off to boorish or offensive manners." It occurred to me, as Dr. Leete was speaking, that in all his talk I had heard much of the nation and nothing of the state governments. Had the organization of the nation as an industrial unit done away with the states? I asked. "Necessarily," he replied. "The state governments would have interfered with the control and discipline of the industrial army, which, of course, required to be central and uniform. Even if the state governments had not become inconvenient for other reasons, they were rendered superfluous by the prodigious simplification in the task of government since your day. Almost the sole function of the administration now is that of directing the industries of the country. Most of the purposes for which governments formerly existed no longer remain to be subserved. We have no army or navy, and no military organization. We have no departments of state or treasury, no excise or revenue services, no taxes or tax collectors. The only function proper of government, as known to you, which still remains, is the judiciary and police system. I have already explained to you how simple is our judicial system as compared with your huge and complex machine. Of course the same absence of crime and temptation to it, which make the duties of judges so light, reduces the number and duties of the police to a minimum." "But with no state legislatures, and Congress meeting only once in five years, how do you get your legislation done?" "We have no legislation," replied Dr. Leete, "that is, next to none. It is rarely that Congress, even when it meets, considers any new laws of consequence, and then it only has power to commend them to the following Congress, lest anything be done hastily. If you will consider a moment, Mr. West, you will see that we have nothing to make laws about. The fundamental principles on which our society is founded settle for all time the strifes and misunderstandings which in your day called for legislation. "Fully ninety-nine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned the definition and protection of private property and the relations of buyers and sellers. There is neither private property, beyond personal belongings, now, nor buying and selling, and therefore the occasion of nearly all the legislation formerly necessary has passed away. Formerly, society was a pyramid poised on its apex. All the gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws. A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twenty thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough to take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now society rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as the everlasting hills." "But you have at least municipal governments besides the one central authority?" "Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions in looking out for the public comfort and recreation, and the improvement and embellishment of the villages and cities." "But having no control over the labor of their people, or means of hiring it, how can they do anything?" "Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own public works, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizens contribute to the nation. This proportion, being assigned it as so much credit, can be applied in any way desired." Chapter 20 That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited the underground chamber in the garden in which I had been found. "Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doing so, lest the visit might revive old associations rather too strongly for my mental equilibrium." "Ah, yes!" she said, "I can imagine that you have done well to stay away. I ought to have thought of that." "No," I said, "I am glad you spoke of it. The danger, if there was any, existed only during the first day or two. Thanks to you, chiefly and always, I feel my footing now so firm in this new world, that if you will go with me to keep the ghosts off, I should really like to visit the place this afternoon." Edith demurred at first, but, finding that I was in earnest, consented to accompany me. The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavation was visible among the trees from the house, and a few steps brought us to the spot. All remained as it was at the point when work was interrupted by the discovery of the tenant of the chamber, save that the door had been opened and the slab from the roof replaced. Descending the sloping sides of the excavation, we went in at the door and stood within the dimly lighted room. Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one hundred and thirteen years previous, just before closing my eyes for that long sleep. I stood for some time silently looking about me. I saw that my companion was furtively regarding me with an expression of awed and sympathetic curiosity. I put out my hand to her and she placed hers in it, the soft fingers responding with a reassuring pressure to my clasp. Finally she whispered, "Had we not better go out now? You must not try yourself too far. Oh, how strange it must be to you!" "On the contrary," I replied, "it does not seem strange; that is the strangest part of it." "Not strange?" she echoed. "Even so," I replied. "The emotions with which you evidently credit me, and which I anticipated would attend this visit, I simply do not feel. I realize all that these surroundings suggest, but without the agitation I expected. You can't be nearly as much surprised at this as I am myself. Ever since that terrible morning when you came to my help, I have tried to avoid thinking of my former life, just as I have avoided coming here, for fear of the agitating effects. I am for all the world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to lie motionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive, and on trying to move it finds that it is paralyzed." "Do you mean your memory is gone?" "Not at all. I remember everything connected with my former life, but with a total lack of keen sensation. I remember it for clearness as if it had been but a day since then, but my feelings about what I remember are as faint as if to my consciousness, as well as in fact, a hundred years had intervened. Perhaps it is possible to explain this, too. The effect of change in surroundings is like that of lapse of time in making the past seem remote. When I first woke from that trance, my former life appeared as yesterday, but now, since I have learned to know my new surroundings, and to realize the prodigious changes that have transformed the world, I no longer find it hard, but very easy, to realize that I have slept a century. Can you conceive of such a thing as living a hundred years in four days? It really seems to me that I have done just that, and that it is this experience which has given so remote and unreal an appearance to my former life. Can you see how such a thing might be?" "I can conceive it," replied Edith, meditatively, "and I think we ought all to be thankful that it is so, for it will save you much suffering, I am sure." "Imagine," I said, in an effort to explain, as much to myself as to her, the strangeness of my mental condition, "that a man first heard of a bereavement many, many years, half a lifetime perhaps, after the event occurred. I fancy his feeling would be perhaps something as mine is. When I think of my friends in the world of that former day, and the sorrow they must have felt for me, it is with a pensive pity, rather than keen anguish, as of a sorrow long, long ago ended." "You have told us nothing yet of your friends," said Edith. "Had you many to mourn you?" "Thank God, I had very few relatives, none nearer than cousins," I replied. "But there was one, not a relative, but dearer to me than any kin of blood. She had your name. She was to have been my wife soon. Ah me!" "Ah me!" sighed the Edith by my side. "Think of the heartache she must have had." Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord in my benumbed heart. My eyes, before so dry, were flooded with the tears that had till now refused to come. When I had regained my composure, I saw that she too had been weeping freely. "God bless your tender heart," I said. "Would you like to see her picture?" A small locket with Edith Bartlett's picture, secured about my neck with a gold chain, had lain upon my breast all through that long sleep, and removing this I opened and gave it to my companion. She took it with eagerness, and after poring long over the sweet face, touched the picture with her lips. "I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve your tears," she said; "but remember her heartache was over long ago, and she has been in heaven for nearly a century." It was indeed so. Whatever her sorrow had once been, for nearly a century she had ceased to weep, and, my sudden passion spent, my own tears dried away. I had loved her very dearly in my other life, but it was a hundred years ago! I do not know but some may find in this confession evidence of lack of feeling, but I think, perhaps, that none can have had an experience sufficiently like mine to enable them to judge me. As we were about to leave the chamber, my eye rested upon the great iron safe which stood in one corner. Calling my companion's attention to it, I said: "This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room. In the safe yonder are several thousand dollars in gold, and any amount of securities. If I had known when I went to sleep that night just how long my nap would be, I should still have thought that the gold was a safe provision for my needs in any country or any century, however distant. That a time would ever come when it would lose its purchasing power, I should have considered the wildest of fancies. Nevertheless, here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload of gold will not procure a loaf of bread." As might be expected, I did not succeed in impressing Edith that there was anything remarkable in this fact. "Why in the world should it?" she merely asked. Chapter 21 It had been suggested by Dr. Leete that we should devote the next morning to an inspection of the schools and colleges of the city, with some attempt on his own part at an explanation of the educational system of the twentieth century. "You will see," said he, as we set out after breakfast, "many very important differences between our methods of education and yours, but the main difference is that nowadays all persons equally have those opportunities of higher education which in your day only an infinitesimal portion of the population enjoyed. We should think we had gained nothing worth speaking of, in equalizing the physical comfort of men, without this educational equality." "The cost must be very great," I said. "If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would grudge it," replied Dr. Leete, "nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance. But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten nor five times that of educating one thousand. The principle which makes all operations on a large scale proportionally cheaper than on a small scale holds as to education also." "College education was terribly expensive in my day," said I. "If I have not been misinformed by our historians," Dr. Leete answered, "it was not college education but college dissipation and extravagance which cost so highly. The actual expense of your colleges appears to have been very low, and would have been far lower if their patronage had been greater. The higher education nowadays is as cheap as the lower, as all grades of teachers, like all other workers, receive the same support. We have simply added to the common school system of compulsory education, in vogue in Massachusetts a hundred years ago, a half dozen higher grades, carrying the youth to the age of twenty-one and giving him what you used to call the education of a gentleman, instead of turning him loose at fourteen or fifteen with no mental equipment beyond reading, writing, and the multiplication table." "Setting aside the actual cost of these additional years of education," I replied, "we should not have thought we could afford the loss of time from industrial pursuits. Boys of the poorer classes usually went to work at sixteen or younger, and knew their trade at twenty." "We should not concede you any gain even in material product by that plan," Dr. Leete replied. "The greater efficiency which education gives to all sorts of labor, except the rudest, makes up in a short period for the time lost in acquiring it." "We should also have been afraid," said I, "that a high education, while it adapted men to the professions, would set them against manual labor of all sorts." "That was the effect of high education in your day, I have read," replied the doctor; "and it was no wonder, for manual labor meant association with a rude, coarse, and ignorant class of people. There is no such class now. It was inevitable that such a feeling should exist then, for the further reason that all men receiving a high education were understood to be destined for the professions or for wealthy leisure, and such an education in one neither rich nor professional was a proof of disappointed aspirations, an evidence of failure, a badge of inferiority rather than superiority. Nowadays, of course, when the highest education is deemed necessary to fit a man merely to live, without any reference to the sort of work he may do, its possession conveys no such implication." "After all," I remarked, "no amount of education can cure natural dullness or make up for original mental deficiencies. Unless the average natural mental capacity of men is much above its level in my day, a high education must be pretty nearly thrown away on a large element of the population. We used to hold that a certain amount of susceptibility to educational influences is required to make a mind worth cultivating, just as a certain natural fertility in soil is required if it is to repay tilling." "Ah," said Dr. Leete, "I am glad you used that illustration, for it is just the one I would have chosen to set forth the modern view of education. You say that land so poor that the product will not repay the labor of tilling is not cultivated. Nevertheless, much land that does not begin to repay tilling by its product was cultivated in your day and is in ours. I refer to gardens, parks, lawns, and, in general, to pieces of land so situated that, were they left to grow up to weeds and briers, they would be eyesores and inconveniencies to all about. They are therefore tilled, and though their product is little, there is yet no land that, in a wider sense, better repays cultivation. So it is with the men and women with whom we mingle in the relations of society, whose voices are always in our ears, whose behavior in innumerable ways affects our enjoyment--who are, in fact, as much conditions of our lives as the air we breathe, or any of the physical elements on which we depend. If, indeed, we could not afford to educate everybody, we should choose the coarsest and dullest by nature, rather than the brightest, to receive what education we could give. The naturally refined and intellectual can better dispense with aids to culture than those less fortunate in natural endowments. "To borrow a phrase which was often used in your day, we should not consider life worth living if we had to be surrounded by a population of ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly uncultivated men and women, as was the plight of the few educated in your day. Is a man satisfied, merely because he is perfumed himself, to mingle with a malodorous crowd? Could he take more than a very limited satisfaction, even in a palatial apartment, if the windows on all four sides opened into stable yards? And yet just that was the situation of those considered most fortunate as to culture and refinement in your day. I know that the poor and ignorant envied the rich and cultured then; but to us the latter, living as they did, surrounded by squalor and brutishness, seem little better off than the former. The cultured man in your age was like one up to the neck in a nauseous bog solacing himself with a smelling bottle. You see, perhaps, now, how we look at this question of universal high education. No single thing is so important to every man as to have for neighbors intelligent, companionable persons. There is nothing, therefore, which the nation can do for him that will enhance so much his own happiness as to educate his neighbors. When it fails to do so, the value of his own education to him is reduced by half, and many of the tastes he has cultivated are made positive sources of pain. "To educate some to the highest degree, and leave the mass wholly uncultivated, as you did, made the gap between them almost like that between different natural species, which have no means of communication. What could be more inhuman than this consequence of a partial enjoyment of education! Its universal and equal enjoyment leaves, indeed, the differences between men as to natural endowments as marked as in a state of nature, but the level of the lowest is vastly raised. Brutishness is eliminated. All have some inkling of the humanities, some appreciation of the things of the mind, and an admiration for the still higher culture they have fallen short of. They have become capable of receiving and imparting, in various degrees, but all in some measure, the pleasures and inspirations of a refined social life. The cultured society of the nineteenth century--what did it consist of but here and there a few microscopic oases in a vast, unbroken wilderness? The proportion of individuals capable of intellectual sympathies or refined intercourse, to the mass of their contemporaries, used to be so infinitesimal as to be in any broad view of humanity scarcely worth mentioning. One generation of the world to-day represents a greater volume of intellectual life than any five centuries ever did before. "There is still another point I should mention in stating the grounds on which nothing less than the universality of the best education could now be tolerated," continued Dr. Leete, "and that is, the interest of the coming generation in having educated parents. To put the matter in a nutshell, there are three main grounds on which our educational system rests: first, the right of every man to the completest education the nation can give him on his own account, as necessary to his enjoyment of himself; second, the right of his fellow-citizens to have him educated, as necessary to their enjoyment of his society; third, the right of the unborn to be guaranteed an intelligent and refined parentage." I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that day. Having taken but slight interest in educational matters in my former life, I could offer few comparisons of interest. Next to the fact of the universality of the higher as well as the lower education, I was most struck with the prominence given to physical culture, and the fact that proficiency in athletic feats and games as well as in scholarship had a place in the rating of the youth. "The faculty of education," Dr. Leete explained, "is held to the same responsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its charges. The highest possible physical, as well as mental, development of every one is the double object of a curriculum which lasts from the age of six to that of twenty-one." The magnificent health of the young people in the schools impressed me strongly. My previous observations, not only of the notable personal endowments of the family of my host, but of the people I had seen in my walks abroad, had already suggested the idea that there must have been something like a general improvement in the physical standard of the race since my day, and now, as I compared these stalwart young men and fresh, vigorous maidens with the young people I had seen in the schools of the nineteenth century, I was moved to impart my thought to Dr. Leete. He listened with great interest to what I said. "Your testimony on this point," he declared, "is invaluable. We believe that there has been such an improvement as you speak of, but of course it could only be a matter of theory with us. It is an incident of your unique position that you alone in the world of to-day can speak with authority on this point. Your opinion, when you state it publicly, will, I assure you, make a profound sensation. For the rest it would be strange, certainly, if the race did not show an improvement. In your day, riches debauched one class with idleness of mind and body, while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork, bad food, and pestilent homes. The labor required of children, and the burdens laid on women, enfeebled the very springs of life. Instead of these maleficent circumstances, all now enjoy the most favorable conditions of physical life; the young are carefully nurtured and studiously cared for; the labor which is required of all is limited to the period of greatest bodily vigor, and is never excessive; care for one's self and one's family, anxiety as to livelihood, the strain of a ceaseless battle for life--all these influences, which once did so much to wreck the minds and bodies of men and women, are known no more. Certainly, an improvement of the species ought to follow such a change. In certain specific respects we know, indeed, that the improvement has taken place. Insanity, for instance, which in the nineteenth century was so terribly common a product of your insane mode of life, has almost disappeared, with its alternative, suicide." Chapter 22 We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the dining-hall for dinner, after which, having some engagement, they left us sitting at table there, discussing our wine and cigars with a multitude of other matters. "Doctor," said I, in the course of our talk, "morally speaking, your social system is one which I should be insensate not to admire in comparison with any previously in vogue in the world, and especially with that of my own most unhappy century. If I were to fall into a mesmeric sleep tonight as lasting as that other and meanwhile the course of time were to take a turn backward instead of forward, and I were to wake up again in the nineteenth century, when I had told my friends what I had seen, they would every one admit that your world was a paradise of order, equity, and felicity. But they were a very practical people, my contemporaries, and after expressing their admiration for the moral beauty and material splendor of the system, they would presently begin to cipher and ask how you got the money to make everybody so happy; for certainly, to support the whole nation at a rate of comfort, and even luxury, such as I see around me, must involve vastly greater wealth than the nation produced in my day. Now, while I could explain to them pretty nearly everything else of the main features of your system, I should quite fail to answer this question, and failing there, they would tell me, for they were very close cipherers, that I had been dreaming; nor would they ever believe anything else. In my day, I know that the total annual product of the nation, although it might have been divided with absolute equality, would not have come to more than three or four hundred dollars per head, not very much more than enough to supply the necessities of life with few or any of its comforts. How is it that you have so much more?" "That is a very pertinent question, Mr. West," replied Dr. Leete, "and I should not blame your friends, in the case you supposed, if they declared your story all moonshine, failing a satisfactory reply to it. It is a question which I cannot answer exhaustively at any one sitting, and as for the exact statistics to bear out my general statements, I shall have to refer you for them to books in my library, but it would certainly be a pity to leave you to be put to confusion by your old acquaintances, in case of the contingency you speak of, for lack of a few suggestions. "Let us begin with a number of small items wherein we economize wealth as compared with you. We have no national, state, county, or municipal debts, or payments on their account. We have no sort of military or naval expenditures for men or materials, no army, navy, or militia. We have no revenue service, no swarm of tax assessors and collectors. As regards our judiciary, police, sheriffs, and jailers, the force which Massachusetts alone kept on foot in your day far more than suffices for the nation now. We have no criminal class preying upon the wealth of society as you had. The number of persons, more or less absolutely lost to the working force through physical disability, of the lame, sick, and debilitated, which constituted such a burden on the able-bodied in your day, now that all live under conditions of health and comfort, has shrunk to scarcely perceptible proportions, and with every generation is becoming more completely eliminated. "Another item wherein we save is the disuse of money and the thousand occupations connected with financial operations of all sorts, whereby an army of men was formerly taken away from useful employments. Also consider that the waste of the very rich in your day on inordinate personal luxury has ceased, though, indeed, this item might easily be over-estimated. Again, consider that there are no idlers now, rich or poor--no drones. "A very important cause of former poverty was the vast waste of labor and materials which resulted from domestic washing and cooking, and the performing separately of innumerable other tasks to which we apply the cooperative plan. "A larger economy than any of these--yes, of all together--is effected by the organization of our distributing system, by which the work done once by the merchants, traders, storekeepers, with their various grades of jobbers, wholesalers, retailers, agents, commercial travelers, and middlemen of all sorts, with an excessive waste of energy in needless transportation and interminable handlings, is performed by one tenth the number of hands and an unnecessary turn of not one wheel. Something of what our distributing system is like you know. Our statisticians calculate that one eightieth part of our workers suffices for all the processes of distribution which in your day required one eighth of the population, so much being withdrawn from the force engaged in productive labor." "I begin to see," I said, "where you get your greater wealth." "I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but you scarcely do as yet. The economies I have mentioned thus far, in the aggregate, considering the labor they would save directly and indirectly through saving of material, might possibly be equivalent to the addition to your annual production of wealth of one half its former total. These items are, however, scarcely worth mentioning in comparison with other prodigious wastes, now saved, which resulted inevitably from leaving the industries of the nation to private enterprise. However great the economies your contemporaries might have devised in the consumption of products, and however marvelous the progress of mechanical invention, they could never have raised themselves out of the slough of poverty so long as they held to that system. "No mode more wasteful for utilizing human energy could be devised, and for the credit of the human intellect it should be remembered that the system never was devised, but was merely a survival from the rude ages when the lack of social organization made any sort of cooperation impossible." "I will readily admit," I said, "that our industrial system was ethically very bad, but as a mere wealth-making machine, apart from moral aspects, it seemed to us admirable." "As I said," responded the doctor, "the subject is too large to discuss at length now, but if you are really interested to know the main criticisms which we moderns make on your industrial system as compared with our own, I can touch briefly on some of them. "The wastes which resulted from leaving the conduct of industry to irresponsible individuals, wholly without mutual understanding or concert, were mainly four: first, the waste by mistaken undertakings; second, the waste from the competition and mutual hostility of those engaged in industry; third, the waste by periodical gluts and crises, with the consequent interruptions of industry; fourth, the waste from idle capital and labor, at all times. Any one of these four great leaks, were all the others stopped, would suffice to make the difference between wealth and poverty on the part of a nation. "Take the waste by mistaken undertakings, to begin with. In your day the production and distribution of commodities being without concert or organization, there was no means of knowing just what demand there was for any class of products, or what was the rate of supply. Therefore, any enterprise by a private capitalist was always a doubtful experiment. The projector having no general view of the field of industry and consumption, such as our government has, could never be sure either what the people wanted, or what arrangements other capitalists were making to supply them. In view of this, we are not surprised to learn that the chances were considered several to one in favor of the failure of any given business enterprise, and that it was common for persons who at last succeeded in making a hit to have failed repeatedly. If a shoemaker, for every pair of shoes he succeeded in completing, spoiled the leather of four or five pair, besides losing the time spent on them, he would stand about the same chance of getting rich as your contemporaries did with their system of private enterprise, and its average of four or five failures to one success. "The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The field of industry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which the workers wasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if expended in concerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. As for mercy or quarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no suggestion of it. To deliberately enter a field of business and destroy the enterprises of those who had occupied it previously, in order to plant one's own enterprise on their ruins, was an achievement which never failed to command popular admiration. Nor is there any stretch of fancy in comparing this sort of struggle with actual warfare, so far as concerns the mental agony and physical suffering which attended the struggle, and the misery which overwhelmed the defeated and those dependent on them. Now nothing about your age is, at first sight, more astounding to a man of modern times than the fact that men engaged in the same industry, instead of fraternizing as comrades and co-laborers to a common end, should have regarded each other as rivals and enemies to be throttled and overthrown. This certainly seems like sheer madness, a scene from bedlam. But more closely regarded, it is seen to be no such thing. Your contemporaries, with their mutual throat-cutting, knew very well what they were at. The producers of the nineteenth century were not, like ours, working together for the maintenance of the community, but each solely for his own maintenance at the expense of the community. If, in working to this end, he at the same time increased the aggregate wealth, that was merely incidental. It was just as feasible and as common to increase one's private hoard by practices injurious to the general welfare. One's worst enemies were necessarily those of his own trade, for, under your plan of making private profit the motive of production, a scarcity of the article he produced was what each particular producer desired. It was for his interest that no more of it should be produced than he himself could produce. To secure this consummation as far as circumstances permitted, by killing off and discouraging those engaged in his line of industry, was his constant effort. When he had killed off all he could, his policy was to combine with those he could not kill, and convert their mutual warfare into a warfare upon the public at large by cornering the market, as I believe you used to call it, and putting up prices to the highest point people would stand before going without the goods. The day dream of the nineteenth century producer was to gain absolute control of the supply of some necessity of life, so that he might keep the public at the verge of starvation, and always command famine prices for what he supplied. This, Mr. West, is what was called in the nineteenth century a system of production. I will leave it to you if it does not seem, in some of its aspects, a great deal more like a system for preventing production. Some time when we have plenty of leisure I am going to ask you to sit down with me and try to make me comprehend, as I never yet could, though I have studied the matter a great deal how such shrewd fellows as your contemporaries appear to have been in many respects ever came to entrust the business of providing for the community to a class whose interest it was to starve it. I assure you that the wonder with us is, not that the world did not get rich under such a system, but that it did not perish outright from want. This wonder increases as we go on to consider some of the other prodigious wastes that characterized it. "Apart from the waste of labor and capital by misdirected industry, and that from the constant bloodletting of your industrial warfare, your system was liable to periodical convulsions, overwhelming alike the wise and unwise, the successful cut-throat as well as his victim. I refer to the business crises at intervals of five to ten years, which wrecked the industries of the nation, prostrating all weak enterprises and crippling the strongest, and were followed by long periods, often of many years, of so-called dull times, during which the capitalists slowly regathered their dissipated strength while the laboring classes starved and rioted. Then would ensue another brief season of prosperity, followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years of exhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations mutually dependent, these crises became world-wide, while the obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with the area affected by the convulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying centres. In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied and became complex, and the volume of capital involved was increased, these business cataclysms became more frequent, till, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, there were two years of bad times to one of good, and the system of industry, never before so extended or so imposing, seemed in danger of collapsing by its own weight. After endless discussions, your economists appear by that time to have settled down to the despairing conclusion that there was no more possibility of preventing or controlling these crises than if they had been drouths or hurricanes. It only remained to endure them as necessary evils, and when they had passed over to build up again the shattered structure of industry, as dwellers in an earthquake country keep on rebuilding their cities on the same site. "So far as considering the causes of the trouble inherent in their industrial system, your contemporaries were certainly correct. They were in its very basis, and must needs become more and more maleficent as the business fabric grew in size and complexity. One of these causes was the lack of any common control of the different industries, and the consequent impossibility of their orderly and coordinate development. It inevitably resulted from this lack that they were continually getting out of step with one another and out of relation with the demand. "Of the latter there was no criterion such as organized distribution gives us, and the first notice that it had been exceeded in any group of industries was a crash of prices, bankruptcy of producers, stoppage of production, reduction of wages, or discharge of workmen. This process was constantly going on in many industries, even in what were called good times, but a crisis took place only when the industries affected were extensive. The markets then were glutted with goods, of which nobody wanted beyond a sufficiency at any price. The wages and profits of those making the glutted classes of goods being reduced or wholly stopped, their purchasing power as consumers of other classes of goods, of which there were no natural glut, was taken away, and, as a consequence, goods of which there was no natural glut became artificially glutted, till their prices also were broken down, and their makers thrown out of work and deprived of income. The crisis was by this time fairly under way, and nothing could check it till a nation's ransom had been wasted. "A cause, also inherent in your system, which often produced and always terribly aggravated crises, was the machinery of money and credit. Money was essential when production was in many private hands, and buying and selling was necessary to secure what one wanted. It was, however, open to the obvious objection of substituting for food, clothing, and other things a merely conventional representative of them. The confusion of mind which this favored, between goods and their representative, led the way to the credit system and its prodigious illusions. Already accustomed to accept money for commodities, the people next accepted promises for money, and ceased to look at all behind the representative for the thing represented. Money was a sign of real commodities, but credit was but the sign of a sign. There was a natural limit to gold and silver, that is, money proper, but none to credit, and the result was that the volume of credit, that is, the promises of money, ceased to bear any ascertainable proportion to the money, still less to the commodities, actually in existence. Under such a system, frequent and periodical crises were necessitated by a law as absolute as that which brings to the ground a structure overhanging its centre of gravity. It was one of your fictions that the government and the banks authorized by it alone issued money; but everybody who gave a dollar's credit issued money to that extent, which was as good as any to swell the circulation till the next crises. The great extension of the credit system was a characteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth century, and accounts largely for the almost incessant business crises which marked that period. Perilous as credit was, you could not dispense with its use, for, lacking any national or other public organization of the capital of the country, it was the only means you had for concentrating and directing it upon industrial enterprises. It was in this way a most potent means for exaggerating the chief peril of the private enterprise system of industry by enabling particular industries to absorb disproportionate amounts of the disposable capital of the country, and thus prepare disaster. Business enterprises were always vastly in debt for advances of credit, both to one another and to the banks and capitalists, and the prompt withdrawal of this credit at the first sign of a crisis was generally the precipitating cause of it. "It was the misfortune of your contemporaries that they had to cement their business fabric with a material which an accident might at any moment turn into an explosive. They were in the plight of a man building a house with dynamite for mortar, for credit can be compared with nothing else. "If you would see how needless were these convulsions of business which I have been speaking of, and how entirely they resulted from leaving industry to private and unorganized management, just consider the working of our system. Overproduction in special lines, which was the great hobgoblin of your day, is impossible now, for by the connection between distribution and production supply is geared to demand like an engine to the governor which regulates its speed. Even suppose by an error of judgment an excessive production of some commodity. The consequent slackening or cessation of production in that line throws nobody out of employment. The suspended workers are at once found occupation in some other department of the vast workshop and lose only the time spent in changing, while, as for the glut, the business of the nation is large enough to carry any amount of product manufactured in excess of demand till the latter overtakes it. In such a case of over-production, as I have supposed, there is not with us, as with you, any complex machinery to get out of order and magnify a thousand times the original mistake. Of course, having not even money, we still less have credit. All estimates deal directly with the real things, the flour, iron, wood, wool, and labor, of which money and credit were for you the very misleading representatives. In our calculation of cost there can be no mistakes. Out of the annual product the amount necessary for the support of the people is taken, and the requisite labor to produce the next year's consumption provided for. The residue of the material and labor represents what can be safely expended in improvements. If the crops are bad, the surplus for that year is less than usual, that is all. Except for slight occasional effects of such natural causes, there are no fluctuations of business; the material prosperity of the nation flows on uninterruptedly from generation to generation, like an ever broadening and deepening river. "Your business crises, Mr. West," continued the doctor, "like either of the great wastes I mentioned before, were enough, alone, to have kept your noses to the grindstone forever; but I have still to speak of one other great cause of your poverty, and that was the idleness of a great part of your capital and labor. With us it is the business of the administration to keep in constant employment every ounce of available capital and labor in the country. In your day there was no general control of either capital or labor, and a large part of both failed to find employment. 'Capital,' you used to say, 'is naturally timid,' and it would certainly have been reckless if it had not been timid in an epoch when there was a large preponderance of probability that any particular business venture would end in failure. There was no time when, if security could have been guaranteed it, the amount of capital devoted to productive industry could not have been greatly increased. The proportion of it so employed underwent constant extraordinary fluctuations, according to the greater or less feeling of uncertainty as to the stability of the industrial situation, so that the output of the national industries greatly varied in different years. But for the same reason that the amount of capital employed at times of special insecurity was far less than at times of somewhat greater security, a very large proportion was never employed at all, because the hazard of business was always very great in the best of times. "It should be also noted that the great amount of capital always seeking employment where tolerable safety could be insured terribly embittered the competition between capitalists when a promising opening presented itself. The idleness of capital, the result of its timidity, of course meant the idleness of labor in corresponding degree. Moreover, every change in the adjustments of business, every slightest alteration in the condition of commerce or manufactures, not to speak of the innumerable business failures that took place yearly, even in the best of times, were constantly throwing a multitude of men out of employment for periods of weeks or months, or even years. A great number of these seekers after employment were constantly traversing the country, becoming in time professional vagabonds, then criminals. 'Give us work!' was the cry of an army of the unemployed at nearly all seasons, and in seasons of dullness in business this army swelled to a host so vast and desperate as to threaten the stability of the government. Could there conceivably be a more conclusive demonstration of the imbecility of the system of private enterprise as a method for enriching a nation than the fact that, in an age of such general poverty and want of everything, capitalists had to throttle one another to find a safe chance to invest their capital and workmen rioted and burned because they could find no work to do? "Now, Mr. West," continued Dr. Leete, "I want you to bear in mind that these points of which I have been speaking indicate only negatively the advantages of the national organization of industry by showing certain fatal defects and prodigious imbecilities of the systems of private enterprise which are not found in it. These alone, you must admit, would pretty well explain why the nation is so much richer than in your day. But the larger half of our advantage over you, the positive side of it, I have yet barely spoken of. Supposing the system of private enterprise in industry were without any of the great leaks I have mentioned; that there were no waste on account of misdirected effort growing out of mistakes as to the demand, and inability to command a general view of the industrial field. Suppose, also, there were no neutralizing and duplicating of effort from competition. Suppose, also, there were no waste from business panics and crises through bankruptcy and long interruptions of industry, and also none from the idleness of capital and labor. Supposing these evils, which are essential to the conduct of industry by capital in private hands, could all be miraculously prevented, and the system yet retained; even then the superiority of the results attained by the modern industrial system of national control would remain overwhelming. "You used to have some pretty large textile manufacturing establishments, even in your day, although not comparable with ours. No doubt you have visited these great mills in your time, covering acres of ground, employing thousands of hands, and combining under one roof, under one control, the hundred distinct processes between, say, the cotton bale and the bale of glossy calicoes. You have admired the vast economy of labor as of mechanical force resulting from the perfect interworking with the rest of every wheel and every hand. No doubt you have reflected how much less the same force of workers employed in that factory would accomplish if they were scattered, each man working independently. Would you think it an exaggeration to say that the utmost product of those workers, working thus apart, however amicable their relations might be, was increased not merely by a percentage, but many fold, when their efforts were organized under one control? Well now, Mr. West, the organization of the industry of the nation under a single control, so that all its processes interlock, has multiplied the total product over the utmost that could be done under the former system, even leaving out of account the four great wastes mentioned, in the same proportion that the product of those millworkers was increased by cooperation. The effectiveness of the working force of a nation, under the myriad-headed leadership of private capital, even if the leaders were not mutual enemies, as compared with that which it attains under a single head, may be likened to the military efficiency of a mob, or a horde of barbarians with a thousand petty chiefs, as compared with that of a disciplined army under one general--such a fighting machine, for example, as the German army in the time of Von Moltke." "After what you have told me," I said, "I do not so much wonder that the nation is richer now than then, but that you are not all Croesuses." "Well," replied Dr. Leete, "we are pretty well off. The rate at which we live is as luxurious as we could wish. The rivalry of ostentation, which in your day led to extravagance in no way conducive to comfort, finds no place, of course, in a society of people absolutely equal in resources, and our ambition stops at the surroundings which minister to the enjoyment of life. We might, indeed, have much larger incomes, individually, if we chose so to use the surplus of our product, but we prefer to expend it upon public works and pleasures in which all share, upon public halls and buildings, art galleries, bridges, statuary, means of transit, and the conveniences of our cities, great musical and theatrical exhibitions, and in providing on a vast scale for the recreations of the people. You have not begun to see how we live yet, Mr. West. At home we have comfort, but the splendor of our life is, on its social side, that which we share with our fellows. When you know more of it you will see where the money goes, as you used to say, and I think you will agree that we do well so to expend it." "I suppose," observed Dr. Leete, as we strolled homeward from the dining hall, "that no reflection would have cut the men of your wealth-worshiping century more keenly than the suggestion that they did not know how to make money. Nevertheless that is just the verdict history has passed on them. Their system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible." Chapter 23 That evening, as I sat with Edith in the music room, listening to some pieces in the programme of that day which had attracted my notice, I took advantage of an interval in the music to say, "I have a question to ask you which I fear is rather indiscreet." "I am quite sure it is not that," she replied, encouragingly. "I am in the position of an eavesdropper," I continued, "who, having overheard a little of a matter not intended for him, though seeming to concern him, has the impudence to come to the speaker for the rest." "An eavesdropper!" she repeated, looking puzzled. "Yes," I said, "but an excusable one, as I think you will admit." "This is very mysterious," she replied. "Yes," said I, "so mysterious that often I have doubted whether I really overheard at all what I am going to ask you about, or only dreamed it. I want you to tell me. The matter is this: When I was coming out of that sleep of a century, the first impression of which I was conscious was of voices talking around me, voices that afterwards I recognized as your father's, your mother's, and your own. First, I remember your father's voice saying, "He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one person at first." Then you said, if I did not dream it all, "Promise me, then, that you will not tell him." Your father seemed to hesitate about promising, but you insisted, and your mother interposing, he finally promised, and when I opened my eyes I saw only him." I had been quite serious when I said that I was not sure that I had not dreamed the conversation I fancied I had overheard, so incomprehensible was it that these people should know anything of me, a contemporary of their great-grandparents, which I did not know myself. But when I saw the effect of my words upon Edith, I knew that it was no dream, but another mystery, and a more puzzling one than any I had before encountered. For from the moment that the drift of my question became apparent, she showed indications of the most acute embarrassment. Her eyes, always so frank and direct in expression, had dropped in a panic before mine, while her face crimsoned from neck to forehead. "Pardon me," I said, as soon as I had recovered from bewilderment at the extraordinary effect of my words. "It seems, then, that I was not dreaming. There is some secret, something about me, which you are withholding from me. Really, doesn't it seem a little hard that a person in my position should not be given all the information possible concerning himself?" "It does not concern you--that is, not directly. It is not about you exactly," she replied, scarcely audibly. "But it concerns me in some way," I persisted. "It must be something that would interest me." "I don't know even that," she replied, venturing a momentary glance at my face, furiously blushing, and yet with a quaint smile flickering about her lips which betrayed a certain perception of humor in the situation despite its embarrassment,--"I am not sure that it would even interest you." "Your father would have told me," I insisted, with an accent of reproach. "It was you who forbade him. He thought I ought to know." She did not reply. She was so entirely charming in her confusion that I was now prompted, as much by the desire to prolong the situation as by my original curiosity, to importune her further. "Am I never to know? Will you never tell me?" I said. "It depends," she answered, after a long pause. "On what?" I persisted. "Ah, you ask too much," she replied. Then, raising to mine a face which inscrutable eyes, flushed cheeks, and smiling lips combined to render perfectly bewitching, she added, "What should you think if I said that it depended on--yourself?" "On myself?" I echoed. "How can that possibly be?" "Mr. West, we are losing some charming music," was her only reply to this, and turning to the telephone, at a touch of her finger she set the air to swaying to the rhythm of an adagio. After that she took good care that the music should leave no opportunity for conversation. She kept her face averted from me, and pretended to be absorbed in the airs, but that it was a mere pretense the crimson tide standing at flood in her cheeks sufficiently betrayed. When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I cared to, for that time, and we rose to leave the room, she came straight up to me and said, without raising her eyes, "Mr. West, you say I have been good to you. I have not been particularly so, but if you think I have, I want you to promise me that you will not try again to make me tell you this thing you have asked to-night, and that you will not try to find it out from any one else,--my father or mother, for instance." To such an appeal there was but one reply possible. "Forgive me for distressing you. Of course I will promise," I said. "I would never have asked you if I had fancied it could distress you. But do you blame me for being curious?" "I do not blame you at all." "And some time," I added, "if I do not tease you, you may tell me of your own accord. May I not hope so?" "Perhaps," she murmured. "Only perhaps?" Looking up, she read my face with a quick, deep glance. "Yes," she said, "I think I may tell you--some time": and so our conversation ended, for she gave me no chance to say anything more. That night I don't think even Dr. Pillsbury could have put me to sleep, till toward morning at least. Mysteries had been my accustomed food for days now, but none had before confronted me at once so mysterious and so fascinating as this, the solution of which Edith Leete had forbidden me even to seek. It was a double mystery. How, in the first place, was it conceivable that she should know any secret about me, a stranger from a strange age? In the second place, even if she should know such a secret, how account for the agitating effect which the knowledge of it seemed to have upon her? There are puzzles so difficult that one cannot even get so far as a conjecture as to the solution, and this seemed one of them. I am usually of too practical a turn to waste time on such conundrums; but the difficulty of a riddle embodied in a beautiful young girl does not detract from its fascination. In general, no doubt, maidens' blushes may be safely assumed to tell the same tale to young men in all ages and races, but to give that interpretation to Edith's crimson cheeks would, considering my position and the length of time I had known her, and still more the fact that this mystery dated from before I had known her at all, be a piece of utter fatuity. And yet she was an angel, and I should not have been a young man if reason and common sense had been able quite to banish a roseate tinge from my dreams that night. Chapter 24 In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing Edith alone. In this, however, I was disappointed. Not finding her in the house, I sought her in the garden, but she was not there. In the course of my wanderings I visited the underground chamber, and sat down there to rest. Upon the reading table in the chamber several periodicals and newspapers lay, and thinking that Dr. Leete might be interested in glancing over a Boston daily of 1887, I brought one of the papers with me into the house when I came. At breakfast I met Edith. She blushed as she greeted me, but was perfectly self-possessed. As we sat at table, Dr. Leete amused himself with looking over the paper I had brought in. There was in it, as in all the newspapers of that date, a great deal about the labor troubles, strikes, lockouts, boycotts, the programmes of labor parties, and the wild threats of the anarchists. "By the way," said I, as the doctor read aloud to us some of these items, "what part did the followers of the red flag take in the establishment of the new order of things? They were making considerable noise the last thing that I knew." "They had nothing to do with it except to hinder it, of course," replied Dr. Leete. "They did that very effectually while they lasted, for their talk so disgusted people as to deprive the best considered projects for social reform of a hearing. The subsidizing of those fellows was one of the shrewdest moves of the opponents of reform." "Subsidizing them!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "Certainly," replied Dr. Leete. "No historical authority nowadays doubts that they were paid by the great monopolies to wave the red flag and talk about burning, sacking, and blowing people up, in order, by alarming the timid, to head off any real reforms. What astonishes me most is that you should have fallen into the trap so unsuspectingly." "What are your grounds for believing that the red flag party was subsidized?" I inquired. "Why simply because they must have seen that their course made a thousand enemies of their professed cause to one friend. Not to suppose that they were hired for the work is to credit them with an inconceivable folly.[1] In the United States, of all countries, no party could intelligently expect to carry its point without first winning over to its ideas a majority of the nation, as the national party eventually did." "The national party!" I exclaimed. "That must have arisen after my day. I suppose it was one of the labor parties." "Oh no!" replied the doctor. "The labor parties, as such, never could have accomplished anything on a large or permanent scale. For purposes of national scope, their basis as merely class organizations was too narrow. It was not till a rearrangement of the industrial and social system on a higher ethical basis, and for the more efficient production of wealth, was recognized as the interest, not of one class, but equally of all classes, of rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, old and young, weak and strong, men and women, that there was any prospect that it would be achieved. Then the national party arose to carry it out by political methods. It probably took that name because its aim was to nationalize the functions of production and distribution. Indeed, it could not well have had any other name, for its purpose was to realize the idea of the nation with a grandeur and completeness never before conceived, not as an association of men for certain merely political functions affecting their happiness only remotely and superficially, but as a family, a vital union, a common life, a mighty heaven-touching tree whose leaves are its people, fed from its veins, and feeding it in turn. The most patriotic of all possible parties, it sought to justify patriotism and raise it from an instinct to a rational devotion, by making the native land truly a father land, a father who kept the people alive and was not merely an idol for which they were expected to die." [1] I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course of the anarchists on any other theory than that they were subsidized by the capitalists, but at the same time, there is no doubt that the theory is wholly erroneous. It certainly was not held at the time by any one, though it may seem so obvious in the retrospect. Chapter 25 The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly ever since I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of her father's house, and it was to be expected that after what had happened the night previous, I should be more than ever preoccupied with thoughts of her. From the first I had been struck with the air of serene frankness and ingenuous directness, more like that of a noble and innocent boy than any girl I had ever known, which characterized her. I was curious to know how far this charming quality might be peculiar to herself, and how far possibly a result of alterations in the social position of women which might have taken place since my time. Finding an opportunity that day, when alone with Dr. Leete, I turned the conversation in that direction. "I suppose," I said, "that women nowadays, having been relieved of the burden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation of their charms and graces." "So far as we men are concerned," replied Dr. Leete, "we should consider that they amply paid their way, to use one of your forms of expression, if they confined themselves to that occupation, but you may be very sure that they have quite too much spirit to consent to be mere beneficiaries of society, even as a return for ornamenting it. They did, indeed, welcome their riddance from housework, because that was not only exceptionally wearing in itself, but also wasteful, in the extreme, of energy, as compared with the cooperative plan; but they accepted relief from that sort of work only that they might contribute in other and more effectual, as well as more agreeable, ways to the common weal. Our women, as well as our men, are members of the industrial army, and leave it only when maternal duties claim them. The result is that most women, at one time or another of their lives, serve industrially some five or ten or fifteen years, while those who have no children fill out the full term." "A woman does not, then, necessarily leave the industrial service on marriage?" I queried. "No more than a man," replied the doctor. "Why on earth should she? Married women have no housekeeping responsibilities now, you know, and a husband is not a baby that he should be cared for." "It was thought one of the most grievous features of our civilization that we required so much toil from women," I said; "but it seems to me you get more out of them than we did." Dr. Leete laughed. "Indeed we do, just as we do out of our men. Yet the women of this age are very happy, and those of the nineteenth century, unless contemporary references greatly mislead us, were very miserable. The reason that women nowadays are so much more efficient colaborers with the men, and at the same time are so happy, is that, in regard to their work as well as men's, we follow the principle of providing every one the kind of occupation he or she is best adapted to. Women being inferior in strength to men, and further disqualified industrially in special ways, the kinds of occupation reserved for them, and the conditions under which they pursue them, have reference to these facts. The heavier sorts of work are everywhere reserved for men, the lighter occupations for women. Under no circumstances is a woman permitted to follow any employment not perfectly adapted, both as to kind and degree of labor, to her sex. Moreover, the hours of women's work are considerably shorter than those of men's, more frequent vacations are granted, and the most careful provision is made for rest when needed. The men of this day so well appreciate that they owe to the beauty and grace of women the chief zest of their lives and their main incentive to effort, that they permit them to work at all only because it is fully understood that a certain regular requirement of labor, of a sort adapted to their powers, is well for body and mind, during the period of maximum physical vigor. We believe that the magnificent health which distinguishes our women from those of your day, who seem to have been so generally sickly, is owing largely to the fact that all alike are furnished with healthful and inspiriting occupation." "I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong to the army of industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking and discipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are so different?" "They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. Leete, "and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the army of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and are under exclusively feminine regime. This general, as also the higher officers, is chosen by the body of women who have passed the time of service, in correspondence with the manner in which the chiefs of the masculine army and the President of the nation are elected. The general of the women's army sits in the cabinet of the President and has a veto on measures respecting women's work, pending appeals to Congress. I should have said, in speaking of the judiciary, that we have women on the bench, appointed by the general of the women, as well as men. Causes in which both parties are women are determined by women judges, and where a man and a woman are parties to a case, a judge of either sex must consent to the verdict." "Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of imperium in imperio in your system," I said. "To some extent," Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner imperium is one from which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to the nation. The lack of some such recognition of the distinct individuality of the sexes was one of the innumerable defects of your society. The passional attraction between men and women has too often prevented a perception of the profound differences which make the members of each sex in many things strange to the other, and capable of sympathy only with their own. It is in giving full play to the differences of sex rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was apparently the effort of some reformers in your day, that the enjoyment of each by itself and the piquancy which each has for the other, are alike enhanced. In your day there was no career for women except in an unnatural rivalry with men. We have given them a world of their own, with its emulations, ambitions, and careers, and I assure you they are very happy in it. It seems to us that women were more than any other class the victims of your civilization. There is something which, even at this distance of time, penetrates one with pathos in the spectacle of their ennuied, undeveloped lives, stunted at marriage, their narrow horizon, bounded so often, physically, by the four walls of home, and morally by a petty circle of personal interests. I speak now, not of the poorer classes, who were generally worked to death, but also of the well-to-do and rich. From the great sorrows, as well as the petty frets of life, they had no refuge in the breezy outdoor world of human affairs, nor any interests save those of the family. Such an existence would have softened men's brains or driven them mad. All that is changed to-day. No woman is heard nowadays wishing she were a man, nor parents desiring boy rather than girl children. Our girls are as full of ambition for their careers as our boys. Marriage, when it comes, does not mean incarceration for them, nor does it separate them in any way from the larger interests of society, the bustling life of the world. Only when maternity fills a woman's mind with new interests does she withdraw from the world for a time. Afterward, and at any time, she may return to her place among her comrades, nor need she ever lose touch with them. Women are a very happy race nowadays, as compared with what they ever were before in the world's history, and their power of giving happiness to men has been of course increased in proportion." "I should imagine it possible," I said, "that the interest which girls take in their careers as members of the industrial army and candidates for its distinctions might have an effect to deter them from marriage." Dr. Leete smiled. "Have no anxiety on that score, Mr. West," he replied. "The Creator took very good care that whatever other modifications the dispositions of men and women might with time take on, their attraction for each other should remain constant. The mere fact that in an age like yours, when the struggle for existence must have left people little time for other thoughts, and the future was so uncertain that to assume parental responsibilities must have often seemed like a criminal risk, there was even then marrying and giving in marriage, should be conclusive on this point. As for love nowadays, one of our authors says that the vacuum left in the minds of men and women by the absence of care for one's livelihood has been entirely taken up by the tender passion. That, however, I beg you to believe, is something of an exaggestion. For the rest, so far is marriage from being an interference with a woman's career, that the higher positions in the feminine army of industry are intrusted only to women who have been both wives and mothers, as they alone fully represent their sex." "Are credit cards issued to the women just as to the men?" "Certainly." "The credits of the women, I suppose, are for smaller sums, owing to the frequent suspension of their labor on account of family responsibilities." "Smaller!" exclaimed Dr. Leete, "oh, no! The maintenance of all our people is the same. There are no exceptions to that rule, but if any difference were made on account of the interruptions you speak of, it would be by making the woman's credit larger, not smaller. Can you think of any service constituting a stronger claim on the nation's gratitude than bearing and nursing the nation's children? According to our view, none deserve so well of the world as good parents. There is no task so unselfish, so necessarily without return, though the heart is well rewarded, as the nurture of the children who are to make the world for one another when we are gone." "It would seem to follow, from what you have said, that wives are in no way dependent on their husbands for maintenance." "Of course they are not," replied Dr. Leete, "nor children on their parents either, that is, for means of support, though of course they are for the offices of affection. The child's labor, when he grows up, will go to increase the common stock, not his parents', who will be dead, and therefore he is properly nurtured out of the common stock. The account of every person, man, woman, and child, you must understand, is always with the nation directly, and never through any intermediary, except, of course, that parents, to a certain extent, act for children as their guardians. You see that it is by virtue of the relation of individuals to the nation, of their membership in it, that they are entitled to support; and this title is in no way connected with or affected by their relations to other individuals who are fellow members of the nation with them. That any person should be dependent for the means of support upon another would be shocking to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational social theory. What would become of personal liberty and dignity under such an arrangement? I am aware that you called yourselves free in the nineteenth century. The meaning of the word could not then, however, have been at all what it is at present, or you certainly would not have applied it to a society of which nearly every member was in a position of galling personal dependence upon others as to the very means of life, the poor upon the rich, or employed upon employer, women upon men, children upon parents. Instead of distributing the product of the nation directly to its members, which would seem the most natural and obvious method, it would actually appear that you had given your minds to devising a plan of hand to hand distribution, involving the maximum of personal humiliation to all classes of recipients. "As regards the dependence of women upon men for support, which then was usual, of course, natural attraction in case of marriages of love may often have made it endurable, though for spirited women I should fancy it must always have remained humiliating. What, then, must it have been in the innumerable cases where women, with or without the form of marriage, had to sell themselves to men to get their living? Even your contemporaries, callous as they were to most of the revolting aspects of their society, seem to have had an idea that this was not quite as it should be; but, it was still only for pity's sake that they deplored the lot of the women. It did not occur to them that it was robbery as well as cruelty when men seized for themselves the whole product of the world and left women to beg and wheedle for their share. Why--but bless me, Mr. West, I am really running on at a remarkable rate, just as if the robbery, the sorrow, and the shame which those poor women endured were not over a century since, or as if you were responsible for what you no doubt deplored as much as I do." "I must bear my share of responsibility for the world as it then was," I replied. "All I can say in extenuation is that until the nation was ripe for the present system of organized production and distribution, no radical improvement in the position of woman was possible. The root of her disability, as you say, was her personal dependence upon man for her livelihood, and I can imagine no other mode of social organization than that you have adopted, which would have set woman free of man at the same time that it set men free of one another. I suppose, by the way, that so entire a change in the position of women cannot have taken place without affecting in marked ways the social relations of the sexes. That will be a very interesting study for me." "The change you will observe," said Dr. Leete, "will chiefly be, I think, the entire frankness and unconstraint which now characterizes those relations, as compared with the artificiality which seems to have marked them in your time. The sexes now meet with the ease of perfect equals, suitors to each other for nothing but love. In your time the fact that women were dependent for support on men made the woman in reality the one chiefly benefited by marriage. This fact, so far as we can judge from contemporary records, appears to have been coarsely enough recognized among the lower classes, while among the more polished it was glossed over by a system of elaborate conventionalities which aimed to carry the precisely opposite meaning, namely, that the man was the party chiefly benefited. To keep up this convention it was essential that he should always seem the suitor. Nothing was therefore considered more shocking to the proprieties than that a woman should betray a fondness for a man before he had indicated a desire to marry her. Why, we actually have in our libraries books, by authors of your day, written for no other purpose than to discuss the question whether, under any conceivable circumstances, a woman might, without discredit to her sex, reveal an unsolicited love. All this seems exquisitely absurd to us, and yet we know that, given your circumstances, the problem might have a serious side. When for a woman to proffer her love to a man was in effect to invite him to assume the burden of her support, it is easy to see that pride and delicacy might well have checked the promptings of the heart. When you go out into our society, Mr. West, you must be prepared to be often cross-questioned on this point by our young people, who are naturally much interested in this aspect of old-fashioned manners."[1] "And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love." "If they choose," replied Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affected coldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive him wholly now, for no one thinks of practicing it." "One result which must follow from the independence of women I can see for myself," I said. "There can be no marriages now except those of inclination." "That is a matter of course," replied Dr. Leete. "Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of pure love! Ah me, Dr. Leete, how far you are from being able to understand what an astonishing phenomenon such a world seems to a man of the nineteenth century!" "I can, however, to some extent, imagine it," replied the doctor. "But the fact you celebrate, that there are nothing but love matches, means even more, perhaps, than you probably at first realize. It means that for the first time in human history the principle of sexual selection, with its tendency to preserve and transmit the better types of the race, and let the inferior types drop out, has unhindered operation. The necessities of poverty, the need of having a home, no longer tempt women to accept as the fathers of their children men whom they neither can love nor respect. Wealth and rank no longer divert attention from personal qualities. Gold no longer 'gilds the straitened forehead of the fool.' The gifts of person, mind, and disposition; beauty, wit, eloquence, kindness, generosity, geniality, courage, are sure of transmission to posterity. Every generation is sifted through a little finer mesh than the last. The attributes that human nature admires are preserved, those that repel it are left behind. There are, of course, a great many women who with love must mingle admiration, and seek to wed greatly, but these not the less obey the same law, for to wed greatly now is not to marry men of fortune or title, but those who have risen above their fellows by the solidity or brilliance of their services to humanity. These form nowadays the only aristocracy with which alliance is distinction. "You were speaking, a day or two ago, of the physical superiority of our people to your contemporaries. Perhaps more important than any of the causes I mentioned then as tending to race purification has been the effect of untrammeled sexual selection upon the quality of two or three successive generations. I believe that when you have made a fuller study of our people you will find in them not only a physical, but a mental and moral improvement. It would be strange if it were not so, for not only is one of the great laws of nature now freely working out the salvation of the race, but a profound moral sentiment has come to its support. Individualism, which in your day was the animating idea of society, not only was fatal to any vital sentiment of brotherhood and common interest among living men, but equally to any realization of the responsibility of the living for the generation to follow. To-day this sense of responsibility, practically unrecognized in all previous ages, has become one of the great ethical ideas of the race, reinforcing, with an intense conviction of duty, the natural impulse to seek in marriage the best and noblest of the other sex. The result is, that not all the encouragements and incentives of every sort which we have provided to develop industry, talent, genius, excellence of whatever kind, are comparable in their effect on our young men with the fact that our women sit aloft as judges of the race and reserve themselves to reward the winners. Of all the whips, and spurs, and baits, and prizes, there is none like the thought of the radiant faces which the laggards will find averted. "Celibates nowadays are almost invariably men who have failed to acquit themselves creditably in the work of life. The woman must be a courageous one, with a very evil sort of courage, too, whom pity for one of these unfortunates should lead to defy the opinion of her generation--for otherwise she is free--so far as to accept him for a husband. I should add that, more exacting and difficult to resist than any other element in that opinion, she would find the sentiment of her own sex. Our women have risen to the full height of their responsibility as the wardens of the world to come, to whose keeping the keys of the future are confided. Their feeling of duty in this respect amounts to a sense of religious consecration. It is a cult in which they educate their daughters from childhood." After going to my room that night, I sat up late to read a romance of Berrian, handed me by Dr. Leete, the plot of which turned on a situation suggested by his last words, concerning the modern view of parental responsibility. A similar situation would almost certainly have been treated by a nineteenth century romancist so as to excite the morbid sympathy of the reader with the sentimental selfishness of the lovers, and his resentment toward the unwritten law which they outraged. I need not describe--for who has not read "Ruth Elton"?--how different is the course which Berrian takes, and with what tremendous effect he enforces the principle which he states: "Over the unborn our power is that of God, and our responsibility like His toward us. As we acquit ourselves toward them, so let Him deal with us." [1] I may say that Dr. Leete's warning has been fully justified by my experience. The amount and intensity of amusement which the young people of this day, and the young women especially, are able to extract from what they are pleased to call the oddities of courtship in the nineteenth century, appear unlimited. Chapter 26 I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days of the week, the circumstances excused me. Indeed, if I had been told that the method of reckoning time had been wholly changed and the days were now counted in lots of five, ten, or fifteen instead of seven, I should have been in no way surprised after what I had already heard and seen of the twentieth century. The first time that any inquiry as to the days of the week occurred to me was the morning following the conversation related in the last chapter. At the breakfast table Dr. Leete asked me if I would care to hear a sermon. "Is it Sunday, then?" I exclaimed. "Yes," he replied. "It was on Friday, you see, when we made the lucky discovery of the buried chamber to which we owe your society this morning. It was on Saturday morning, soon after midnight, that you first awoke, and Sunday afternoon when you awoke the second time with faculties fully regained." "So you still have Sundays and sermons," I said. "We had prophets who foretold that long before this time the world would have dispensed with both. I am very curious to know how the ecclesiastical systems fit in with the rest of your social arrangements. I suppose you have a sort of national church with official clergymen." Dr. Leete laughed, and Mrs. Leete and Edith seemed greatly amused. "Why, Mr. West," Edith said, "what odd people you must think us. You were quite done with national religious establishments in the nineteenth century, and did you fancy we had gone back to them?" "But how can voluntary churches and an unofficial clerical profession be reconciled with national ownership of all buildings, and the industrial service required of all men?" I answered. "The religious practices of the people have naturally changed considerably in a century," replied Dr. Leete; "but supposing them to have remained unchanged, our social system would accommodate them perfectly. The nation supplies any person or number of persons with buildings on guarantee of the rent, and they remain tenants while they pay it. As for the clergymen, if a number of persons wish the services of an individual for any particular end of their own, apart from the general service of the nation, they can always secure it, with that individual's own consent, of course, just as we secure the service of our editors, by contributing from their credit cards an indemnity to the nation for the loss of his services in general industry. This indemnity paid the nation for the individual answers to the salary in your day paid to the individual himself; and the various applications of this principle leave private initiative full play in all details to which national control is not applicable. Now, as to hearing a sermon to-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a church to hear it or stay at home." "How am I to hear it if I stay at home?" "Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour and selecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer to hear sermons in church, but most of our preaching, like our musical performances, is not in public, but delivered in acoustically prepared chambers, connected by wire with subscribers' houses. If you prefer to go to a church I shall be glad to accompany you, but I really don't believe you are likely to hear anywhere a better discourse than you will at home. I see by the paper that Mr. Barton is to preach this morning, and he preaches only by telephone, and to audiences often reaching 150,000." "The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under such circumstances would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's hearers, if for no other reason," I said. An hour or two later, as I sat reading in the library, Edith came for me, and I followed her to the music room, where Dr. and Mrs. Leete were waiting. We had not more than seated ourselves comfortably when the tinkle of a bell was heard, and a few moments after the voice of a man, at the pitch of ordinary conversation, addressed us, with an effect of proceeding from an invisible person in the room. This was what the voice said: MR. BARTON'S SERMON "We have had among us, during the past week, a critic from the nineteenth century, a living representative of the epoch of our great-grandparents. It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary had not somewhat strongly affected our imaginations. Perhaps most of us have been stimulated to some effort to realize the society of a century ago, and figure to ourselves what it must have been like to live then. In inviting you now to consider certain reflections upon this subject which have occurred to me, I presume that I shall rather follow than divert the course of your own thoughts." Edith whispered something to her father at this point, to which he nodded assent and turned to me. "Mr. West," he said, "Edith suggests that you may find it slightly embarrassing to listen to a discourse on the lines Mr. Barton is laying down, and if so, you need not be cheated out of a sermon. She will connect us with Mr. Sweetser's speaking room if you say so, and I can still promise you a very good discourse." "No, no," I said. "Believe me, I would much rather hear what Mr. Barton has to say." "As you please," replied my host. When her father spoke to me Edith had touched a screw, and the voice of Mr. Barton had ceased abruptly. Now at another touch the room was once more filled with the earnest sympathetic tones which had already impressed me most favorably. "I venture to assume that one effect has been common with us as a result of this effort at retrospection, and that it has been to leave us more than ever amazed at the stupendous change which one brief century has made in the material and moral conditions of humanity. "Still, as regards the contrast between the poverty of the nation and the world in the nineteenth century and their wealth now, it is not greater, possibly, than had been before seen in human history, perhaps not greater, for example, than that between the poverty of this country during the earliest colonial period of the seventeenth century and the relatively great wealth it had attained at the close of the nineteenth, or between the England of William the Conqueror and that of Victoria. Although the aggregate riches of a nation did not then, as now, afford any accurate criterion of the masses of its people, yet instances like these afford partial parallels for the merely material side of the contrast between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It is when we contemplate the moral aspect of that contrast that we find ourselves in the presence of a phenomenon for which history offers no precedent, however far back we may cast our eye. One might almost be excused who should exclaim, 'Here, surely, is something like a miracle!' Nevertheless, when we give over idle wonder, and begin to examine the seeming prodigy critically, we find it no prodigy at all, much less a miracle. It is not necessary to suppose a moral new birth of humanity, or a wholesale destruction of the wicked and survival of the good, to account for the fact before us. It finds its simple and obvious explanation in the reaction of a changed environment upon human nature. It means merely that a form of society which was founded on the pseudo self-interest of selfishness, and appealed solely to the anti-social and brutal side of human nature, has been replaced by institutions based on the true self-interest of a rational unselfishness, and appealing to the social and generous instincts of men. "My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed in the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the old social and industrial system, which taught them to view their natural prey in their fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. No doubt it seems to you that no necessity, however dire, would have tempted you to subsist on what superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others equally needy. But suppose it were not merely your own life that you were responsible for. I know well that there must have been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been merely a question of his own life, would sooner have given it up than nourished it by bread snatched from others. But this he was not permitted to do. He had dear lives dependent on him. Men loved women in those days, as now. God knows how they dared be fathers, but they had babies as sweet, no doubt, to them as ours to us, whom they must feed, clothe, educate. The gentlest creatures are fierce when they have young to provide for, and in that wolfish society the struggle for bread borrowed a peculiar desperation from the tenderest sentiments. For the sake of those dependent on him, a man might not choose, but must plunge into the foul fight--cheat, overreach, supplant, defraud, buy below worth and sell above, break down the business by which his neighbor fed his young ones, tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they should not, grind his laborers, sweat his debtors, cozen his creditors. Though a man sought it carefully with tears, it was hard to find a way in which he could earn a living and provide for his family except by pressing in before some weaker rival and taking the food from his mouth. Even the ministers of religion were not exempt from this cruel necessity. While they warned their flocks against the love of money, regard for their families compelled them to keep an outlook for the pecuniary prizes of their calling. Poor fellows, theirs was indeed a trying business, preaching to men a generosity and unselfishness which they and everybody knew would, in the existing state of the world, reduce to poverty those who should practice them, laying down laws of conduct which the law of self-preservation compelled men to break. Looking on the inhuman spectacle of society, these worthy men bitterly bemoaned the depravity of human nature; as if angelic nature would not have been debauched in such a devil's school! Ah, my friends, believe me, it is not now in this happy age that humanity is proving the divinity within it. It was rather in those evil days when not even the fight for life with one another, the struggle for mere existence, in which mercy was folly, could wholly banish generosity and kindness from the earth. "It is not hard to understand the desperation with which men and women, who under other conditions would have been full of gentleness and truth, fought and tore each other in the scramble for gold, when we realize what it meant to miss it, what poverty was in that day. For the body it was hunger and thirst, torment by heat and frost, in sickness neglect, in health unremitting toil; for the moral nature it meant oppression, contempt, and the patient endurance of indignity, brutish associations from infancy, the loss of all the innocence of childhood, the grace of womanhood, the dignity of manhood; for the mind it meant the death of ignorance, the torpor of all those faculties which distinguish us from brutes, the reduction of life to a round of bodily functions. "Ah, my friends, if such a fate as this were offered you and your children as the only alternative of success in the accumulation of wealth, how long do you fancy would you be in sinking to the moral level of your ancestors? "Some two or three centuries ago an act of barbarity was committed in India, which, though the number of lives destroyed was but a few score, was attended by such peculiar horrors that its memory is likely to be perpetual. A number of English prisoners were shut up in a room containing not enough air to supply one-tenth their number. The unfortunates were gallant men, devoted comrades in service, but, as the agonies of suffocation began to take hold on them, they forgot all else, and became involved in a hideous struggle, each one for himself, and against all others, to force a way to one of the small apertures of the prison at which alone it was possible to get a breath of air. It was a struggle in which men became beasts, and the recital of its horrors by the few survivors so shocked our forefathers that for a century later we find it a stock reference in their literature as a typical illustration of the extreme possibilities of human misery, as shocking in its moral as its physical aspect. They could scarcely have anticipated that to us the Black Hole of Calcutta, with its press of maddened men tearing and trampling one another in the struggle to win a place at the breathing holes, would seem a striking type of the society of their age. It lacked something of being a complete type, however, for in the Calcutta Black Hole there were no tender women, no little children and old men and women, no cripples. They were at least all men, strong to bear, who suffered. "When we reflect that the ancient order of which I have been speaking was prevalent up to the end of the nineteenth century, while to us the new order which succeeded it already seems antique, even our parents having known no other, we cannot fail to be astounded at the suddenness with which a transition so profound beyond all previous experience of the race must have been effected. Some observation of the state of men's minds during the last quarter of the nineteenth century will, however, in great measure, dissipate this astonishment. Though general intelligence in the modern sense could not be said to exist in any community at that time, yet, as compared with previous generations, the one then on the stage was intelligent. The inevitable consequence of even this comparative degree of intelligence had been a perception of the evils of society, such as had never before been general. It is quite true that these evils had been even worse, much worse, in previous ages. It was the increased intelligence of the masses which made the difference, as the dawn reveals the squalor of surroundings which in the darkness may have seemed tolerable. The key-note of the literature of the period was one of compassion for the poor and unfortunate, and indignant outcry against the failure of the social machinery to ameliorate the miseries of men. It is plain from these outbursts that the moral hideousness of the spectacle about them was, at least by flashes, fully realized by the best of the men of that time, and that the lives of some of the more sensitive and generous hearted of them were rendered well nigh unendurable by the intensity of their sympathies. "Although the idea of the vital unity of the family of mankind, the reality of human brotherhood, was very far from being apprehended by them as the moral axiom it seems to us, yet it is a mistake to suppose that there was no feeling at all corresponding to it. I could read you passages of great beauty from some of their writers which show that the conception was clearly attained by a few, and no doubt vaguely by many more. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the nineteenth century was in name Christian, and the fact that the entire commercial and industrial frame of society was the embodiment of the anti-Christian spirit must have had some weight, though I admit it was strangely little, with the nominal followers of Jesus Christ. "When we inquire why it did not have more, why, in general, long after a vast majority of men had agreed as to the crying abuses of the existing social arrangement, they still tolerated it, or contented themselves with talking of petty reforms in it, we come upon an extraordinary fact. It was the sincere belief of even the best of men at that epoch that the only stable elements in human nature, on which a social system could be safely founded, were its worst propensities. They had been taught and believed that greed and self-seeking were all that held mankind together, and that all human associations would fall to pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb their operation. In a word, they believed--even those who longed to believe otherwise--the exact reverse of what seems to us self-evident; they believed, that is, that the anti-social qualities of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesive force of society. It seemed reasonable to them that men lived together solely for the purpose of overreaching and oppressing one another, and of being overreached and oppressed, and that while a society that gave full scope to these propensities could stand, there would be little chance for one based on the idea of cooperation for the benefit of all. It seems absurd to expect any one to believe that convictions like these were ever seriously entertained by men; but that they were not only entertained by our great-grandfathers, but were responsible for the long delay in doing away with the ancient order, after a conviction of its intolerable abuses had become general, is as well established as any fact in history can be. Just here you will find the explanation of the profound pessimism of the literature of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the note of melancholy in its poetry, and the cynicism of its humor. "Feeling that the condition of the race was unendurable, they had no clear hope of anything better. They believed that the evolution of humanity had resulted in leading it into a cul de sac, and that there was no way of getting forward. The frame of men's minds at this time is strikingly illustrated by treatises which have come down to us, and may even now be consulted in our libraries by the curious, in which laborious arguments are pursued to prove that despite the evil plight of men, life was still, by some slight preponderance of considerations, probably better worth living than leaving. Despising themselves, they despised their Creator. There was a general decay of religious belief. Pale and watery gleams, from skies thickly veiled by doubt and dread, alone lighted up the chaos of earth. That men should doubt Him whose breath is in their nostrils, or dread the hands that moulded them, seems to us indeed a pitiable insanity; but we must remember that children who are brave by day have sometimes foolish fears at night. The dawn has come since then. It is very easy to believe in the fatherhood of God in the twentieth century. "Briefly, as must needs be in a discourse of this character, I have adverted to some of the causes which had prepared men's minds for the change from the old to the new order, as well as some causes of the conservatism of despair which for a while held it back after the time was ripe. To wonder at the rapidity with which the change was completed after its possibility was first entertained is to forget the intoxicating effect of hope upon minds long accustomed to despair. The sunburst, after so long and dark a night, must needs have had a dazzling effect. From the moment men allowed themselves to believe that humanity after all had not been meant for a dwarf, that its squat stature was not the measure of its possible growth, but that it stood upon the verge of an avatar of limitless development, the reaction must needs have been overwhelming. It is evident that nothing was able to stand against the enthusiasm which the new faith inspired. "Here, at last, men must have felt, was a cause compared with which the grandest of historic causes had been trivial. It was doubtless because it could have commanded millions of martyrs, that none were needed. The change of a dynasty in a petty kingdom of the old world often cost more lives than did the revolution which set the feet of the human race at last in the right way. "Doubtless it ill beseems one to whom the boon of life in our resplendent age has been vouchsafed to wish his destiny other, and yet I have often thought that I would fain exchange my share in this serene and golden day for a place in that stormy epoch of transition, when heroes burst the barred gate of the future and revealed to the kindling gaze of a hopeless race, in place of the blank wall that had closed its path, a vista of progress whose end, for very excess of light, still dazzles us. Ah, my friends! who will say that to have lived then, when the weakest influence was a lever to whose touch the centuries trembled, was not worth a share even in this era of fruition? "You know the story of that last, greatest, and most bloodless of revolutions. In the time of one generation men laid aside the social traditions and practices of barbarians, and assumed a social order worthy of rational and human beings. Ceasing to be predatory in their habits, they became co-workers, and found in fraternity, at once, the science of wealth and happiness. 'What shall I eat and drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed?' stated as a problem beginning and ending in self, had been an anxious and an endless one. But when once it was conceived, not from the individual, but the fraternal standpoint, 'What shall we eat and drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?'--its difficulties vanished. "Poverty with servitude had been the result, for the mass of humanity, of attempting to solve the problem of maintenance from the individual standpoint, but no sooner had the nation become the sole capitalist and employer than not alone did plenty replace poverty, but the last vestige of the serfdom of man to man disappeared from earth. Human slavery, so often vainly scotched, at last was killed. The means of subsistence no longer doled out by men to women, by employer to employed, by rich to poor, was distributed from a common stock as among children at the father's table. It was impossible for a man any longer to use his fellow-men as tools for his own profit. His esteem was the only sort of gain he could thenceforth make out of him. There was no more either arrogance or servility in the relations of human beings to one another. For the first time since the creation every man stood up straight before God. The fear of want and the lust of gain became extinct motives when abundance was assured to all and immoderate possessions made impossible of attainment. There were no more beggars nor almoners. Equity left charity without an occupation. The ten commandments became well nigh obsolete in a world where there was no temptation to theft, no occasion to lie either for fear or favor, no room for envy where all were equal, and little provocation to violence where men were disarmed of power to injure one another. Humanity's ancient dream of liberty, equality, fraternity, mocked by so many ages, at last was realized. "As in the old society the generous, the just, the tender-hearted had been placed at a disadvantage by the possession of those qualities; so in the new society the cold-hearted, the greedy, and self-seeking found themselves out of joint with the world. Now that the conditions of life for the first time ceased to operate as a forcing process to develop the brutal qualities of human nature, and the premium which had heretofore encouraged selfishness was not only removed, but placed upon unselfishness, it was for the first time possible to see what unperverted human nature really was like. The depraved tendencies, which had previously overgrown and obscured the better to so large an extent, now withered like cellar fungi in the open air, and the nobler qualities showed a sudden luxuriance which turned cynics into panegyrists and for the first time in human history tempted mankind to fall in love with itself. Soon was fully revealed, what the divines and philosophers of the old world never would have believed, that human nature in its essential qualities is good, not bad, that men by their natural intention and structure are generous, not selfish, pitiful, not cruel, sympathetic, not arrogant, godlike in aspirations, instinct with divinest impulses of tenderness and self-sacrifice, images of God indeed, not the travesties upon Him they had seemed. The constant pressure, through numberless generations, of conditions of life which might have perverted angels, had not been able to essentially alter the natural nobility of the stock, and these conditions once removed, like a bent tree, it had sprung back to its normal uprightness. "To put the whole matter in the nutshell of a parable, let me compare humanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a swamp, watered with black bog-water, breathing miasmatic fogs by day, and chilled with poison dews at night. Innumerable generations of gardeners had done their best to make it bloom, but beyond an occasional half-opened bud with a worm at the heart, their efforts had been unsuccessful. Many, indeed, claimed that the bush was no rosebush at all, but a noxious shrub, fit only to be uprooted and burned. The gardeners, for the most part, however, held that the bush belonged to the rose family, but had some ineradicable taint about it, which prevented the buds from coming out, and accounted for its generally sickly condition. There were a few, indeed, who maintained that the stock was good enough, that the trouble was in the bog, and that under more favorable conditions the plant might be expected to do better. But these persons were not regular gardeners, and being condemned by the latter as mere theorists and day dreamers, were, for the most part, so regarded by the people. Moreover, urged some eminent moral philosophers, even conceding for the sake of the argument that the bush might possibly do better elsewhere, it was a more valuable discipline for the buds to try to bloom in a bog than it would be under more favorable conditions. The buds that succeeded in opening might indeed be very rare, and the flowers pale and scentless, but they represented far more moral effort than if they had bloomed spontaneously in a garden. "The regular gardeners and the moral philosophers had their way. The bush remained rooted in the bog, and the old course of treatment went on. Continually new varieties of forcing mixtures were applied to the roots, and more recipes than could be numbered, each declared by its advocates the best and only suitable preparation, were used to kill the vermin and remove the mildew. This went on a very long time. Occasionally some one claimed to observe a slight improvement in the appearance of the bush, but there were quite as many who declared that it did not look so well as it used to. On the whole there could not be said to be any marked change. Finally, during a period of general despondency as to the prospects of the bush where it was, the idea of transplanting it was again mooted, and this time found favor. 'Let us try it,' was the general voice. 'Perhaps it may thrive better elsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it be worth cultivating longer.' So it came about that the rosebush of humanity was transplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, where the sun bathed it, the stars wooed it, and the south wind caressed it. Then it appeared that it was indeed a rosebush. The vermin and the mildew disappeared, and the bush was covered with most beautiful red roses, whose fragrance filled the world. "It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator has set in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged by which our past attainments seem always insignificant, and the goal never nearer. Had our forefathers conceived a state of society in which men should live together like brethren dwelling in unity, without strifes or envying, violence or overreaching, and where, at the price of a degree of labor not greater than health demands, in their chosen occupations, they should be wholly freed from care for the morrow and left with no more concern for their livelihood than trees which are watered by unfailing streams,--had they conceived such a condition, I say, it would have seemed to them nothing less than paradise. They would have confounded it with their idea of heaven, nor dreamed that there could possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired or striven for. "But how is it with us who stand on this height which they gazed up to? Already we have well nigh forgotten, except when it is especially called to our minds by some occasion like the present, that it was not always with men as it is now. It is a strain on our imaginations to conceive the social arrangements of our immediate ancestors. We find them grotesque. The solution of the problem of physical maintenance so as to banish care and crime, so far from seeming to us an ultimate attainment, appears but as a preliminary to anything like real human progress. We have but relieved ourselves of an impertinent and needless harassment which hindered our ancestor from undertaking the real ends of existence. We are merely stripped for the race; no more. We are like a child which has just learned to stand upright and to walk. It is a great event, from the child's point of view, when he first walks. Perhaps he fancies that there can be little beyond that achievement, but a year later he has forgotten that he could not always walk. His horizon did but widen when he rose, and enlarge as he moved. A great event indeed, in one sense, was his first step, but only as a beginning, not as the end. His true career was but then first entered on. The enfranchisement of humanity in the last century, from mental and physical absorption in working and scheming for the mere bodily necessities, may be regarded as a species of second birth of the race, without which its first birth to an existence that was but a burden would forever have remained unjustified, but whereby it is now abundantly vindicated. Since then, humanity has entered on a new phase of spiritual development, an evolution of higher faculties, the very existence of which in human nature our ancestors scarcely suspected. In place of the dreary hopelessness of the nineteenth century, its profound pessimism as to the future of humanity, the animating idea of the present age is an enthusiastic conception of the opportunities of our earthly existence, and the unbounded possibilities of human nature. The betterment of mankind from generation to generation, physically, mentally, morally, is recognized as the one great object supremely worthy of effort and of sacrifice. We believe the race for the first time to have entered on the realization of God's ideal of it, and each generation must now be a step upward. "Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall have passed away? I answer, the way stretches far before us, but the end is lost in light. For twofold is the return of man to God 'who is our home,' the return of the individual by the way of death, and the return of the race by the fulfillment of the evolution, when the divine secret hidden in the germ shall be perfectly unfolded. With a tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it." Chapter 27 I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my old life had been a time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy, when the color unaccountably faded out of all the aspects of life, and everything appeared pathetically uninteresting. The hours, which in general were wont to bear me easily on their wings, lost the power of flight, and toward the close of the day, drooping quite to earth, had fairly to be dragged along by main strength. Perhaps it was partly owing to the established association of ideas that, despite the utter change in my circumstances, I fell into a state of profound depression on the afternoon of this my first Sunday in the twentieth century. It was not, however, on the present occasion a depression without specific cause, the mere vague melancholy I have spoken of, but a sentiment suggested and certainly quite justified by my position. The sermon of Mr. Barton, with its constant implication of the vast moral gap between the century to which I belonged and that in which I found myself, had had an effect strongly to accentuate my sense of loneliness in it. Considerately and philosophically as he had spoken, his words could scarcely have failed to leave upon my mind a strong impression of the mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion which I, as a representative of an abhorred epoch, must excite in all around me. The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by Dr. Leete and his family, and especially the goodness of Edith, had hitherto prevented my fully realizing that their real sentiment toward me must necessarily be that of the whole generation to which they belonged. The recognition of this, as regarded Dr. Leete and his amiable wife, however painful, I might have endured, but the conviction that Edith must share their feeling was more than I could bear. The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a fact so obvious came to me opened my eyes fully to something which perhaps the reader has already suspected,--I loved Edith. Was it strange that I did? The affecting occasion on which our intimacy had begun, when her hands had drawn me out of the whirlpool of madness; the fact that her sympathy was the vital breath which had set me up in this new life and enabled me to support it; my habit of looking to her as the mediator between me and the world around in a sense that even her father was not,--these were circumstances that had predetermined a result which her remarkable loveliness of person and disposition would alone have accounted for. It was quite inevitable that she should have come to seem to me, in a sense quite different from the usual experience of lovers, the only woman in this world. Now that I had become suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the hopes I had begun to cherish, I suffered not merely what another lover might, but in addition a desolate loneliness, an utter forlornness, such as no other lover, however unhappy, could have felt. My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits, and did their best to divert me. Edith especially, I could see, was distressed for me, but according to the usual perversity of lovers, having once been so mad as to dream of receiving something more from her, there was no longer any virtue for me in a kindness that I knew was only sympathy. Toward nightfall, after secluding myself in my room most of the afternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day was overcast, with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. Finding myself near the excavation, I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there. "This," I muttered to myself, "is the only home I have. Let me stay here, and not go forth any more." Seeking aid from the familiar surroundings, I endeavored to find a sad sort of consolation in reviving the past and summoning up the forms and faces that were about me in my former life. It was in vain. There was no longer any life in them. For nearly one hundred years the stars had been looking down on Edith Bartlett's grave, and the graves of all my generation. The past was dead, crushed beneath a century's weight, and from the present I was shut out. There was no place for me anywhere. I was neither dead nor properly alive. "Forgive me for following you." I looked up. Edith stood in the door of the subterranean room, regarding me smilingly, but with eyes full of sympathetic distress. "Send me away if I am intruding on you," she said; "but we saw that you were out of spirits, and you know you promised to let me know if that were so. You have not kept your word." I rose and came to the door, trying to smile, but making, I fancy, rather sorry work of it, for the sight of her loveliness brought home to me the more poignantly the cause of my wretchedness. "I was feeling a little lonely, that is all," I said. "Has it never occurred to you that my position is so much more utterly alone than any human being's ever was before that a new word is really needed to describe it?" "Oh, you must not talk that way--you must not let yourself feel that way--you must not!" she exclaimed, with moistened eyes. "Are we not your friends? It is your own fault if you will not let us be. You need not be lonely." "You are good to me beyond my power of understanding," I said, "but don't you suppose that I know it is pity merely, sweet pity, but pity only. I should be a fool not to know that I cannot seem to you as other men of your own generation do, but as some strange uncanny being, a stranded creature of an unknown sea, whose forlornness touches your compassion despite its grotesqueness. I have been so foolish, you were so kind, as to almost forget that this must needs be so, and to fancy I might in time become naturalized, as we used to say, in this age, so as to feel like one of you and to seem to you like the other men about you. But Mr. Barton's sermon taught me how vain such a fancy is, how great the gulf between us must seem to you." "Oh that miserable sermon!" she exclaimed, fairly crying now in her sympathy, "I wanted you not to hear it. What does he know of you? He has read in old musty books about your times, that is all. What do you care about him, to let yourself be vexed by anything he said? Isn't it anything to you, that we who know you feel differently? Don't you care more about what we think of you than what he does who never saw you? Oh, Mr. West! you don't know, you can't think, how it makes me feel to see you so forlorn. I can't have it so. What can I say to you? How can I convince you how different our feeling for you is from what you think?" As before, in that other crisis of my fate when she had come to me, she extended her hands toward me in a gesture of helpfulness, and, as then, I caught and held them in my own; her bosom heaved with strong emotion, and little tremors in the fingers which I clasped emphasized the depth of her feeling. In her face, pity contended in a sort of divine spite against the obstacles which reduced it to impotence. Womanly compassion surely never wore a guise more lovely. Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me, and it seemed that the only fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth. Of course I had not a spark of hope, but on the other hand I had no fear that she would be angry. She was too pitiful for that. So I said presently, "It is very ungrateful in me not to be satisfied with such kindness as you have shown me, and are showing me now. But are you so blind as not to see why they are not enough to make me happy? Don't you see that it is because I have been mad enough to love you?" At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before mine, but she made no effort to withdraw her hands from my clasp. For some moments she stood so, panting a little. Then blushing deeper than ever, but with a dazzling smile, she looked up. "Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said. That was all, but it was enough, for it told me that, unaccountable, incredible as it was, this radiant daughter of a golden age had bestowed upon me not alone her pity, but her love. Still, I half believed I must be under some blissful hallucination even as I clasped her in my arms. "If I am beside myself," I cried, "let me remain so." "It is I whom you must think beside myself," she panted, escaping from my arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness of her lips. "Oh! oh! what must you think of me almost to throw myself in the arms of one I have known but a week? I did not mean that you should find it out so soon, but I was so sorry for you I forgot what I was saying. No, no; you must not touch me again till you know who I am. After that, sir, you shall apologize to me very humbly for thinking, as I know you do, that I have been over quick to fall in love with you. After you know who I am, you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less than my duty to fall in love with you at first sight, and that no girl of proper feeling in my place could do otherwise." As may be supposed, I would have been quite content to waive explanations, but Edith was resolute that there should be no more kisses until she had been vindicated from all suspicion of precipitancy in the bestowal of her affections, and I was fain to follow the lovely enigma into the house. Having come where her mother was, she blushingly whispered something in her ear and ran away, leaving us together. It then appeared that, strange as my experience had been, I was now first to know what was perhaps its strangest feature. From Mrs. Leete I learned that Edith was the great-granddaughter of no other than my lost love, Edith Bartlett. After mourning me for fourteen years, she had made a marriage of esteem, and left a son who had been Mrs. Leete's father. Mrs. Leete had never seen her grandmother, but had heard much of her, and, when her daughter was born, gave her the name of Edith. This fact might have tended to increase the interest which the girl took, as she grew up, in all that concerned her ancestress, and especially the tragic story of the supposed death of the lover, whose wife she expected to be, in the conflagration of his house. It was a tale well calculated to touch the sympathy of a romantic girl, and the fact that the blood of the unfortunate heroine was in her own veins naturally heightened Edith's interest in it. A portrait of Edith Bartlett and some of her papers, including a packet of my own letters, were among the family heirlooms. The picture represented a very beautiful young woman about whom it was easy to imagine all manner of tender and romantic things. My letters gave Edith some material for forming a distinct idea of my personality, and both together sufficed to make the sad old story very real to her. She used to tell her parents, half jestingly, that she would never marry till she found a lover like Julian West, and there were none such nowadays. Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whose mind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and would have had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning of the buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of the identity of its inmate. For when the apparently lifeless form had been borne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast was instantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, taken in connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I was no other than Julian West. Even had there been no thought, as at first there was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed that this event would have affected her daughter in a critical and life-long manner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, involving her fate with mine, would under all circumstances have possessed an irresistible fascination for almost any woman. Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from the first seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find a special solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving her love at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judge for myself. If I thought so, I must remember that this, after all, was the twentieth and not the nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt, now quicker in growth, as well as franker in utterance than then. From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was first of all to take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplation of her face. As I gazed, the memory of that other Edith, which had been affected as with a benumbing shock by the tremendous experience that had parted us, revived, and my heart was dissolved with tender and pitiful emotions, but also very blissful ones. For she who brought to me so poignantly the sense of my loss was to make that loss good. It was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and smiled consolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, but the most fortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle had been wrought for me. I had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world to find myself alone and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamed lost, had been reembodied for my consolation. When at last, in an ecstasy of gratitude and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in my arms, the two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have they ever since been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that on Edith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never, surely, was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than ours that afternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith Bartlett than of herself, of how I had loved her than how I loved herself, rewarding my fond words concerning another woman with tears and tender smiles and pressures of the hand. "You must not love me too much for myself," she said. "I shall be very jealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am going to tell you something which you may think strange. Do you not believe that spirits sometimes come back to the world to fulfill some work that lay near their hearts? What if I were to tell you that I have sometimes thought that her spirit lives in me--that Edith Bartlett, not Edith Leete, is my real name. I cannot know it; of course none of us can know who we really are; but I can feel it. Can you wonder that I have such a feeling, seeing how my life was affected by her and by you, even before you came. So you see you need not trouble to love me at all, if only you are true to her. I shall not be likely to be jealous." Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an interview with him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly unprepared for the intelligence I conveyed, and shook my hand heartily. "Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say that this step had been taken on rather short acquaintance; but these are decidedly not ordinary circumstances. In fairness, perhaps I ought to tell you," he added smilingly, "that while I cheerfully consent to the proposed arrangement, you must not feel too much indebted to me, as I judge my consent is a mere formality. From the moment the secret of the locket was out, it had to be, I fancy. Why, bless me, if Edith had not been there to redeem her great-grandmother's pledge, I really apprehend that Mrs. Leete's loyalty to me would have suffered a severe strain." That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and till midnight Edith and I wandered to and fro there, trying to grow accustomed to our happiness. "What should I have done if you had not cared for me?" she exclaimed. "I was afraid you were not going to. What should I have done then, when I felt I was consecrated to you! As soon as you came back to life, I was as sure as if she had told me that I was to be to you what she could not be, but that could only be if you would let me. Oh, how I wanted to tell you that morning, when you felt so terribly strange among us, who I was, but dared not open my lips about that, or let father or mother----" "That must have been what you would not let your father tell me!" I exclaimed, referring to the conversation I had overheard as I came out of my trance. "Of course it was," Edith laughed. "Did you only just guess that? Father being only a man, thought that it would make you feel among friends to tell you who we were. He did not think of me at all. But mother knew what I meant, and so I had my way. I could never have looked you in the face if you had known who I was. It would have been forcing myself on you quite too boldly. I am afraid you think I did that to-day, as it was. I am sure I did not mean to, for I know girls were expected to hide their feelings in your day, and I was dreadfully afraid of shocking you. Ah me, how hard it must have been for them to have always had to conceal their love like a fault. Why did they think it such a shame to love any one till they had been given permission? It is so odd to think of waiting for permission to fall in love. Was it because men in those days were angry when girls loved them? That is not the way women would feel, I am sure, or men either, I think, now. I don't understand it at all. That will be one of the curious things about the women of those days that you will have to explain to me. I don't believe Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others." After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting, she finally insisted that we must say good night. I was about to imprint upon her lips the positively last kiss, when she said, with an indescribable archness: "One thing troubles me. Are you sure that you quite forgive Edith Bartlett for marrying any one else? The books that have come down to us make out lovers of your time more jealous than fond, and that is what makes me ask. It would be a great relief to me if I could feel sure that you were not in the least jealous of my great-grandfather for marrying your sweetheart. May I tell my great-grandmother's picture when I go to my room that you quite forgive her for proving false to you?" Will the reader believe it, this coquettish quip, whether the speaker herself had any idea of it or not, actually touched and with the touching cured a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which I had been vaguely conscious of ever since Mrs. Leete had told me of Edith Bartlett's marriage. Even while I had been holding Edith Bartlett's great-granddaughter in my arms, I had not, till this moment, so illogical are some of our feelings, distinctly realized that but for that marriage I could not have done so. The absurdity of this frame of mind could only be equalled by the abruptness with which it dissolved as Edith's roguish query cleared the fog from my perceptions. I laughed as I kissed her. "You may assure her of my entire forgiveness," I said, "although if it had been any man but your great-grandfather whom she married, it would have been a very different matter." On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephone that I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes, as had become my habit. For once my thoughts made better music than even twentieth century orchestras discourse, and it held me enchanted till well toward morning, when I fell asleep. Chapter 28 "It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You did not come out of it as quick as common, sir." The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer. I started bolt upright in bed and stared around. I was in my underground chamber. The mellow light of the lamp which always burned in the room when I occupied it illumined the familiar walls and furnishings. By my bedside, with the glass of sherry in his hand which Dr. Pillsbury prescribed on first rousing from a mesmeric sleep, by way of awakening the torpid physical functions, stood Sawyer. "Better take this right off, sir," he said, as I stared blankly at him. "You look kind of flushed like, sir, and you need it." I tossed off the liquor and began to realize what had happened to me. It was, of course, very plain. All that about the twentieth century had been a dream. I had but dreamed of that enlightened and care-free race of men and their ingeniously simple institutions, of the glorious new Boston with its domes and pinnacles, its gardens and fountains, and its universal reign of comfort. The amiable family which I had learned to know so well, my genial host and Mentor, Dr. Leete, his wife, and their daughter, the second and more beauteous Edith, my betrothed--these, too, had been but figments of a vision. For a considerable time I remained in the attitude in which this conviction had come over me, sitting up in bed gazing at vacancy, absorbed in recalling the scenes and incidents of my fantastic experience. Sawyer, alarmed at my looks, was meanwhile anxiously inquiring what was the matter with me. Roused at length by his importunities to a recognition of my surroundings, I pulled myself together with an effort and assured the faithful fellow that I was all right. "I have had an extraordinary dream, that's all, Sawyer," I said, "a most-ex-traor-dinary dream." I dressed in a mechanical way, feeling light-headed and oddly uncertain of myself, and sat down to the coffee and rolls which Sawyer was in the habit of providing for my refreshment before I left the house. The morning newspaper lay by the plate. I took it up, and my eye fell on the date, May 31, 1887. I had known, of course, from the moment I opened my eyes that my long and detailed experience in another century had been a dream, and yet it was startling to have it so conclusively demonstrated that the world was but a few hours older than when I had lain down to sleep. Glancing at the table of contents at the head of the paper, which reviewed the news of the morning, I read the following summary: FOREIGN AFFAIRS.--The impending war between France and Germany. The French Chambers asked for new military credits to meet Germany's increase of her army. Probability that all Europe will be involved in case of war.--Great suffering among the unemployed in London. They demand work. Monster demonstration to be made. The authorities uneasy.--Great strikes in Belgium. The government preparing to repress outbreaks. Shocking facts in regard to the employment of girls in Belgium coal mines.--Wholesale evictions in Ireland. "HOME AFFAIRS.--The epidemic of fraud unchecked. Embezzlement of half a million in New York.--Misappropriation of a trust fund by executors. Orphans left penniless.--Clever system of thefts by a bank teller; $50,000 gone.--The coal barons decide to advance the price of coal and reduce production.--Speculators engineering a great wheat corner at Chicago.--A clique forcing up the price of coffee.--Enormous land-grabs of Western syndicates.--Revelations of shocking corruption among Chicago officials. Systematic bribery.--The trials of the Boodle aldermen to go on at New York.--Large failures of business houses. Fears of a business crisis.--A large grist of burglaries and larcenies.--A woman murdered in cold blood for her money at New Haven.--A householder shot by a burglar in this city last night.--A man shoots himself in Worcester because he could not get work. A large family left destitute.--An aged couple in New Jersey commit suicide rather than go to the poor-house.--Pitiable destitution among the women wage-workers in the great cities.--Startling growth of illiteracy in Massachusetts.--More insane asylums wanted.--Decoration Day addresses. Professor Brown's oration on the moral grandeur of nineteenth century civilization." It was indeed the nineteenth century to which I had awaked; there could be no kind of doubt about that. Its complete microcosm this summary of the day's news had presented, even to that last unmistakable touch of fatuous self-complacency. Coming after such a damning indictment of the age as that one day's chronicle of world-wide bloodshed, greed, and tyranny, was a bit of cynicism worthy of Mephistopheles, and yet of all whose eyes it had met this morning I was, perhaps, the only one who perceived the cynicism, and but yesterday I should have perceived it no more than the others. That strange dream it was which had made all the difference. For I know not how long, I forgot my surroundings after this, and was again in fancy moving in that vivid dream-world, in that glorious city, with its homes of simple comfort and its gorgeous public palaces. Around me were again faces unmarred by arrogance or servility, by envy or greed, by anxious care or feverish ambition, and stately forms of men and women who had never known fear of a fellow man or depended on his favor, but always, in the words of that sermon which still rang in my ears, had "stood up straight before God." With a profound sigh and a sense of irreparable loss, not the less poignant that it was a loss of what had never really been, I roused at last from my reverie, and soon after left the house. A dozen times between my door and Washington Street I had to stop and pull myself together, such power had been in that vision of the Boston of the future to make the real Boston strange. The squalor and malodorousness of the town struck me, from the moment I stood upon the street, as facts I had never before observed. But yesterday, moreover, it had seemed quite a matter of course that some of my fellow-citizens should wear silks, and others rags, that some should look well fed, and others hungry. Now on the contrary the glaring disparities in the dress and condition of the men and women who brushed each other on the sidewalks shocked me at every step, and yet more the entire indifference which the prosperous showed to the plight of the unfortunate. Were these human beings, who could behold the wretchedness of their fellows without so much as a change of countenance? And yet, all the while, I knew well that it was I who had changed, and not my contemporaries. I had dreamed of a city whose people fared all alike as children of one family and were one another's keepers in all things. Another feature of the real Boston, which assumed the extraordinary effect of strangeness that marks familiar things seen in a new light, was the prevalence of advertising. There had been no personal advertising in the Boston of the twentieth century, because there was no need of any, but here the walls of the buildings, the windows, the broadsides of the newspapers in every hand, the very pavements, everything in fact in sight, save the sky, were covered with the appeals of individuals who sought, under innumerable pretexts, to attract the contributions of others to their support. However the wording might vary, the tenor of all these appeals was the same: "Help John Jones. Never mind the rest. They are frauds. I, John Jones, am the right one. Buy of me. Employ me. Visit me. Hear me, John Jones. Look at me. Make no mistake, John Jones is the man and nobody else. Let the rest starve, but for God's sake remember John Jones!" Whether the pathos or the moral repulsiveness of the spectacle most impressed me, so suddenly become a stranger in my own city, I know not. Wretched men, I was moved to cry, who, because they will not learn to be helpers of one another, are doomed to be beggars of one another from the least to the greatest! This horrible babel of shameless self-assertion and mutual depreciation, this stunning clamor of conflicting boasts, appeals, and adjurations, this stupendous system of brazen beggary, what was it all but the necessity of a society in which the opportunity to serve the world according to his gifts, instead of being secured to every man as the first object of social organization, had to be fought for! I reached Washington Street at the busiest point, and there I stood and laughed aloud, to the scandal of the passers-by. For my life I could not have helped it, with such a mad humor was I moved at sight of the interminable rows of stores on either side, up and down the street so far as I could see--scores of them, to make the spectacle more utterly preposterous, within a stone's throw devoted to selling the same sort of goods. Stores! stores! stores! miles of stores! ten thousand stores to distribute the goods needed by this one city, which in my dream had been supplied with all things from a single warehouse, as they were ordered through one great store in every quarter, where the buyer, without waste of time or labor, found under one roof the world's assortment in whatever line he desired. There the labor of distribution had been so slight as to add but a scarcely perceptible fraction to the cost of commodities to the user. The cost of production was virtually all he paid. But here the mere distribution of the goods, their handling alone, added a fourth, a third, a half and more, to the cost. All these ten thousand plants must be paid for, their rent, their staffs of superintendence, their platoons of salesmen, their ten thousand sets of accountants, jobbers, and business dependents, with all they spent in advertising themselves and fighting one another, and the consumers must do the paying. What a famous process for beggaring a nation! Were these serious men I saw about me, or children, who did their business on such a plan? Could they be reasoning beings, who did not see the folly which, when the product is made and ready for use, wastes so much of it in getting it to the user? If people eat with a spoon that leaks half its contents between bowl and lip, are they not likely to go hungry? I had passed through Washington Street thousands of times before and viewed the ways of those who sold merchandise, but my curiosity concerning them was as if I had never gone by their way before. I took wondering note of the show windows of the stores, filled with goods arranged with a wealth of pains and artistic device to attract the eye. I saw the throngs of ladies looking in, and the proprietors eagerly watching the effect of the bait. I went within and noted the hawk-eyed floor-walker watching for business, overlooking the clerks, keeping them up to their task of inducing the customers to buy, buy, buy, for money if they had it, for credit if they had it not, to buy what they wanted not, more than they wanted, what they could not afford. At times I momentarily lost the clue and was confused by the sight. Why this effort to induce people to buy? Surely that had nothing to do with the legitimate business of distributing products to those who needed them. Surely it was the sheerest waste to force upon people what they did not want, but what might be useful to another. The nation was so much the poorer for every such achievement. What were these clerks thinking of? Then I would remember that they were not acting as distributors like those in the store I had visited in the dream Boston. They were not serving the public interest, but their immediate personal interest, and it was nothing to them what the ultimate effect of their course on the general prosperity might be, if but they increased their own hoard, for these goods were their own, and the more they sold and the more they got for them, the greater their gain. The more wasteful the people were, the more articles they did not want which they could be induced to buy, the better for these sellers. To encourage prodigality was the express aim of the ten thousand stores of Boston. Nor were these storekeepers and clerks a whit worse men than any others in Boston. They must earn a living and support their families, and how were they to find a trade to do it by which did not necessitate placing their individual interests before those of others and that of all? They could not be asked to starve while they waited for an order of things such as I had seen in my dream, in which the interest of each and that of all were identical. But, God in heaven! what wonder, under such a system as this about me--what wonder that the city was so shabby, and the people so meanly dressed, and so many of them ragged and hungry! Some time after this it was that I drifted over into South Boston and found myself among the manufacturing establishments. I had been in this quarter of the city a hundred times before, just as I had been on Washington Street, but here, as well as there, I now first perceived the true significance of what I witnessed. Formerly I had taken pride in the fact that, by actual count, Boston had some four thousand independent manufacturing establishments; but in this very multiplicity and independence I recognized now the secret of the insignificant total product of their industry. If Washington Street had been like a lane in Bedlam, this was a spectacle as much more melancholy as production is a more vital function than distribution. For not only were these four thousand establishments not working in concert, and for that reason alone operating at prodigious disadvantage, but, as if this did not involve a sufficiently disastrous loss of power, they were using their utmost skill to frustrate one another's effort, praying by night and working by day for the destruction of one another's enterprises. The roar and rattle of wheels and hammers resounding from every side was not the hum of a peaceful industry, but the clangor of swords wielded by foemen. These mills and shops were so many forts, each under its own flag, its guns trained on the mills and shops about it, and its sappers busy below, undermining them. Within each one of these forts the strictest organization of industry was insisted on; the separate gangs worked under a single central authority. No interference and no duplicating of work were permitted. Each had his allotted task, and none were idle. By what hiatus in the logical faculty, by what lost link of reasoning, account, then, for the failure to recognize the necessity of applying the same principle to the organization of the national industries as a whole, to see that if lack of organization could impair the efficiency of a shop, it must have effects as much more disastrous in disabling the industries of the nation at large as the latter are vaster in volume and more complex in the relationship of their parts. People would be prompt enough to ridicule an army in which there were neither companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, or army corps--no unit of organization, in fact, larger than the corporal's squad, with no officer higher than a corporal, and all the corporals equal in authority. And yet just such an army were the manufacturing industries of nineteenth century Boston, an army of four thousand independent squads led by four thousand independent corporals, each with a separate plan of campaign. Knots of idle men were to be seen here and there on every side, some idle because they could find no work at any price, others because they could not get what they thought a fair price. I accosted some of the latter, and they told me their grievances. It was very little comfort I could give them. "I am sorry for you," I said. "You get little enough, certainly, and yet the wonder to me is, not that industries conducted as these are do not pay you living wages, but that they are able to pay you any wages at all." Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city, toward three o'clock I stood on State Street, staring, as if I had never seen them before, at the banks and brokers' offices, and other financial institutions, of which there had been in the State Street of my vision no vestige. Business men, confidential clerks, and errand boys were thronging in and out of the banks, for it wanted but a few minutes of the closing hour. Opposite me was the bank where I did business, and presently I crossed the street, and, going in with the crowd, stood in a recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money, and the cues of depositors at the tellers' windows. An old gentleman whom I knew, a director of the bank, passing me and observing my contemplative attitude, stopped a moment. "Interesting sight, isn't it, Mr. West," he said. "Wonderful piece of mechanism; I find it so myself. I like sometimes to stand and look on at it just as you are doing. It's a poem, sir, a poem, that's what I call it. Did you ever think, Mr. West, that the bank is the heart of the business system? From it and to it, in endless flux and reflux, the life blood goes. It is flowing in now. It will flow out again in the morning"; and pleased with his little conceit, the old man passed on smiling. Yesterday I should have considered the simile apt enough, but since then I had visited a world incomparably more affluent than this, in which money was unknown and without conceivable use. I had learned that it had a use in the world around me only because the work of producing the nation's livelihood, instead of being regarded as the most strictly public and common of all concerns, and as such conducted by the nation, was abandoned to the hap-hazard efforts of individuals. This original mistake necessitated endless exchanges to bring about any sort of general distribution of products. These exchanges money effected--how equitably, might be seen in a walk from the tenement house districts to the Back Bay--at the cost of an army of men taken from productive labor to manage it, with constant ruinous breakdowns of its machinery, and a generally debauching influence on mankind which had justified its description, from ancient time, as the "root of all evil." Alas for the poor old bank director with his poem! He had mistaken the throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart. What he called "a wonderful piece of mechanism" was an imperfect device to remedy an unnecessary defect, the clumsy crutch of a self-made cripple. After the banks had closed I wandered aimlessly about the business quarter for an hour or two, and later sat a while on one of the benches of the Common, finding an interest merely in watching the throngs that passed, such as one has in studying the populace of a foreign city, so strange since yesterday had my fellow citizens and their ways become to me. For thirty years I had lived among them, and yet I seemed to have never noted before how drawn and anxious were their faces, of the rich as of the poor, the refined, acute faces of the educated as well as the dull masks of the ignorant. And well it might be so, for I saw now, as never before I had seen so plainly, that each as he walked constantly turned to catch the whispers of a spectre at his ear, the spectre of Uncertainty. "Do your work never so well," the spectre was whispering--"rise early and toil till late, rob cunningly or serve faithfully, you shall never know security. Rich you may be now and still come to poverty at last. Leave never so much wealth to your children, you cannot buy the assurance that your son may not be the servant of your servant, or that your daughter will not have to sell herself for bread." A man passing by thrust an advertising card in my hand, which set forth the merits of some new scheme of life insurance. The incident reminded me of the only device, pathetic in its admission of the universal need it so poorly supplied, which offered these tired and hunted men and women even a partial protection from uncertainty. By this means, those already well-to-do, I remembered, might purchase a precarious confidence that after their death their loved ones would not, for a while at least, be trampled under the feet of men. But this was all, and this was only for those who could pay well for it. What idea was possible to these wretched dwellers in the land of Ishmael, where every man's hand was against each and the hand of each against every other, of true life insurance as I had seen it among the people of that dream land, each of whom, by virtue merely of his membership in the national family, was guaranteed against need of any sort, by a policy underwritten by one hundred million fellow countrymen. Some time after this it was that I recall a glimpse of myself standing on the steps of a building on Tremont Street, looking at a military parade. A regiment was passing. It was the first sight in that dreary day which had inspired me with any other emotions than wondering pity and amazement. Here at last were order and reason, an exhibition of what intelligent cooperation can accomplish. The people who stood looking on with kindling faces,--could it be that the sight had for them no more than but a spectacular interest? Could they fail to see that it was their perfect concert of action, their organization under one control, which made these men the tremendous engine they were, able to vanquish a mob ten times as numerous? Seeing this so plainly, could they fail to compare the scientific manner in which the nation went to war with the unscientific manner in which it went to work? Would they not query since what time the killing of men had been a task so much more important than feeding and clothing them, that a trained army should be deemed alone adequate to the former, while the latter was left to a mob? It was now toward nightfall, and the streets were thronged with the workers from the stores, the shops, and mills. Carried along with the stronger part of the current, I found myself, as it began to grow dark, in the midst of a scene of squalor and human degradation such as only the South Cove tenement district could present. I had seen the mad wasting of human labor; here I saw in direst shape the want that waste had bred. From the black doorways and windows of the rookeries on every side came gusts of fetid air. The streets and alleys reeked with the effluvia of a slave ship's between-decks. As I passed I had glimpses within of pale babies gasping out their lives amid sultry stenches, of hopeless-faced women deformed by hardship, retaining of womanhood no trait save weakness, while from the windows leered girls with brows of brass. Like the starving bands of mongrel curs that infest the streets of Moslem towns, swarms of half-clad brutalized children filled the air with shrieks and curses as they fought and tumbled among the garbage that littered the court-yards. There was nothing in all this that was new to me. Often had I passed through this part of the city and witnessed its sights with feelings of disgust mingled with a certain philosophical wonder at the extremities mortals will endure and still cling to life. But not alone as regarded the economical follies of this age, but equally as touched its moral abominations, scales had fallen from my eyes since that vision of another century. No more did I look upon the woful dwellers in this Inferno with a callous curiosity as creatures scarcely human. I saw in them my brothers and sisters, my parents, my children, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. The festering mass of human wretchedness about me offended not now my senses merely, but pierced my heart like a knife, so that I could not repress sighs and groans. I not only saw but felt in my body all that I saw. Presently, too, as I observed the wretched beings about me more closely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their bodies were so many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was plainly written the hic jacet of a soul dead within. As I looked, horror struck, from one death's head to another, I was affected by a singular hallucination. Like a wavering translucent spirit face superimposed upon each of these brutish masks I saw the ideal, the possible face that would have been the actual if mind and soul had lived. It was not till I was aware of these ghostly faces, and of the reproach that could not be gainsaid which was in their eyes, that the full piteousness of the ruin that had been wrought was revealed to me. I was moved with contrition as with a strong agony, for I had been one of those who had endured that these things should be. I had been one of those who, well knowing that they were, had not desired to hear or be compelled to think much of them, but had gone on as if they were not, seeking my own pleasure and profit. Therefore now I found upon my garments the blood of this great multitude of strangled souls of my brothers. The voice of their blood cried out against me from the ground. Every stone of the reeking pavements, every brick of the pestilential rookeries, found a tongue and called after me as I fled: What hast thou done with thy brother Abel? I have no clear recollection of anything after this till I found myself standing on the carved stone steps of the magnificent home of my betrothed in Commonwealth Avenue. Amid the tumult of my thoughts that day, I had scarcely once thought of her, but now obeying some unconscious impulse my feet had found the familiar way to her door. I was told that the family were at dinner, but word was sent out that I should join them at table. Besides the family, I found several guests present, all known to me. The table glittered with plate and costly china. The ladies were sumptuously dressed and wore the jewels of queens. The scene was one of costly elegance and lavish luxury. The company was in excellent spirits, and there was plentiful laughter and a running fire of jests. To me it was as if, in wandering through the place of doom, my blood turned to tears by its sights, and my spirit attuned to sorrow, pity, and despair, I had happened in some glade upon a merry party of roisterers. I sat in silence until Edith began to rally me upon my sombre looks, What ailed me? The others presently joined in the playful assault, and I became a target for quips and jests. Where had I been, and what had I seen to make such a dull fellow of me? "I have been in Golgotha," at last I answered. "I have seen Humanity hanging on a cross! Do none of you know what sights the sun and stars look down on in this city, that you can think and talk of anything else? Do you not know that close to your doors a great multitude of men and women, flesh of your flesh, live lives that are one agony from birth to death? Listen! their dwellings are so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear their grievous voices, the piteous crying of the little ones that suckle poverty, the hoarse curses of men sodden in misery turned half-way back to brutes, the chaffering of an army of women selling themselves for bread. With what have you stopped your ears that you do not hear these doleful sounds? For me, I can hear nothing else." Silence followed my words. A passion of pity had shaken me as I spoke, but when I looked around upon the company, I saw that, far from being stirred as I was, their faces expressed a cold and hard astonishment, mingled in Edith's with extreme mortification, in her father's with anger. The ladies were exchanging scandalized looks, while one of the gentlemen had put up his eyeglass and was studying me with an air of scientific curiosity. When I saw that things which were to me so intolerable moved them not at all, that words that melted my heart to speak had only offended them with the speaker, I was at first stunned and then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the heart. What hope was there for the wretched, for the world, if thoughtful men and tender women were not moved by things like these! Then I bethought myself that it must be because I had not spoken aright. No doubt I had put the case badly. They were angry because they thought I was berating them, when God knew I was merely thinking of the horror of the fact without any attempt to assign the responsibility for it. I restrained my passion, and tried to speak calmly and logically that I might correct this impression. I told them that I had not meant to accuse them, as if they, or the rich in general, were responsible for the misery of the world. True indeed it was, that the superfluity which they wasted would, otherwise bestowed, relieve much bitter suffering. These costly viands, these rich wines, these gorgeous fabrics and glistening jewels represented the ransom of many lives. They were verily not without the guiltiness of those who waste in a land stricken with famine. Nevertheless, all the waste of all the rich, were it saved, would go but a little way to cure the poverty of the world. There was so little to divide that even if the rich went share and share with the poor, there would be but a common fare of crusts, albeit made very sweet then by brotherly love. The folly of men, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of the world's poverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of men, that made the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, a colossal world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how four fifths of the labor of men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare, the lack of organization and concert among the workers. Seeking to make the matter very plain, I instanced the case of arid lands where the soil yielded the means of life only by careful use of the watercourses for irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was counted the most important function of the government to see that the water was not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, since otherwise there would be famine. To this end its use was strictly regulated and systematized, and individuals of their mere caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it, or in any way to tamper with it. The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream which alone rendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream at best, and its use required to be regulated by a system which expended every drop to the best advantage, if the world were to be supported in abundance. But how far from any system was the actual practice! Every man wasted the precious fluid as he wished, animated only by the equal motives of saving his own crop and spoiling his neighbor's, that his might sell the better. What with greed and what with spite some fields were flooded while others were parched, and half the water ran wholly to waste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning might win the means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and of the weak and ignorant bitter want and perennial famine. Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it had neglected, and regulate for the common good the course of the life-giving stream, and the earth would bloom like one garden, and none of its children lack any good thing. I described the physical felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation which would then attend the lives of all men. With fervency I spoke of that new world, blessed with plenty, purified by justice and sweetened by brotherly kindness, the world of which I had indeed but dreamed, but which might so easily be made real. But when I had expected now surely the faces around me to light up with emotions akin to mine, they grew ever more dark, angry, and scornful. Instead of enthusiasm, the ladies showed only aversion and dread, while the men interrupted me with shouts of reprobation and contempt. "Madman!" "Pestilent fellow!" "Fanatic!" "Enemy of society!" were some of their cries, and the one who had before taken his eyeglass to me exclaimed, "He says we are to have no more poor. Ha! ha!" "Put the fellow out!" exclaimed the father of my betrothed, and at the signal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced upon me. It seemed to me that my heart would burst with the anguish of finding that what was to me so plain and so all important was to them meaningless, and that I was powerless to make it other. So hot had been my heart that I had thought to melt an iceberg with its glow, only to find at last the overmastering chill seizing my own vitals. It was not enmity that I felt toward them as they thronged me, but pity only, for them and for the world. Although despairing, I could not give over. Still I strove with them. Tears poured from my eyes. In my vehemence I became inarticulate. I panted, I sobbed, I groaned, and immediately afterward found myself sitting upright in bed in my room in Dr. Leete's house, and the morning sun shining through the open window into my eyes. I was gasping. The tears were streaming down my face, and I quivered in every nerve. As with an escaped convict who dreams that he has been recaptured and brought back to his dark and reeking dungeon, and opens his eyes to see the heaven's vault spread above him, so it was with me, as I realized that my return to the nineteenth century had been the dream, and my presence in the twentieth was the reality. The cruel sights which I had witnessed in my vision, and could so well confirm from the experience of my former life, though they had, alas! once been, and must in the retrospect to the end of time move the compassionate to tears, were, God be thanked, forever gone by. Long ago oppressor and oppressed, prophet and scorner, had been dust. For generations, rich and poor had been forgotten words. But in that moment, while yet I mused with unspeakable thankfulness upon the greatness of the world's salvation and my privilege in beholding it, there suddenly pierced me like a knife a pang of shame, remorse, and wondering self-reproach, that bowed my head upon my breast and made me wish the grave had hid me with my fellows from the sun. For I had been a man of that former time. What had I done to help on the deliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice? I who had lived in those cruel, insensate days, what had I done to bring them to an end? I had been every whit as indifferent to the wretchedness of my brothers, as cynically incredulous of better things, as besotted a worshiper of Chaos and Old Night, as any of my fellows. So far as my personal influence went, it had been exerted rather to hinder than to help forward the enfranchisement of the race which was even then preparing. What right had I to hail a salvation which reproached me, to rejoice in a day whose dawning I had mocked? "Better for you, better for you," a voice within me rang, "had this evil dream been the reality, and this fair reality the dream; better your part pleading for crucified humanity with a scoffing generation, than here, drinking of wells you digged not, and eating of trees whose husbandmen you stoned"; and my spirit answered, "Better, truly." When at length I raised my bowed head and looked forth from the window, Edith, fresh as the morning, had come into the garden and was gathering flowers. I hastened to descend to her. Kneeling before her, with my face in the dust, I confessed with tears how little was my worth to breathe the air of this golden century, and how infinitely less to wear upon my breast its consummate flower. Fortunate is he who, with a case so desperate as mine, finds a judge so merciful. 
50651	----	Gutenberg. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) [Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed is noted at the end of this ebook.] THE YOUNG VIGILANTES [Illustration: Walter and Bill tramping across the Isthmus.--_Page 132._] THE YOUNG VIGILANTES A STORY OF CALIFORNIA LIFE IN THE FIFTIES BY SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE Author of "Watch Fires of '76," "On Plymouth Rock," "Decisive Events in American History Series," etc. _ILLUSTRATED BY L. J. BRIDGMAN_ [Illustration] BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD 1904 Published August, 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY LEE AND SHEPARD _All rights reserved_ THE YOUNG VIGILANTES Norwood Press BERWICK & SMITH CO. Norwood, Mass. U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A NARROW ESCAPE 9 II. WALTER TELLS HIS STORY 18 III. AND CHARLEY TELLS HIS 30 IV. WHAT HAPPENED ON BOARD THE "ARGONAUT" 37 V. ONE WAY OF GOING TO CALIFORNIA 45 VI. A BLACK SHEEP IN THE FOLD 66 VII. THE FLIGHT 82 VIII. OUTWARD BOUND 100 IX. ACROSS NICARAGUA 117 X. THE LUCK OF YANKEE JIM 141 XI. SEEING THE SIGHTS IN 'FRISCO 154 XII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING 165 XIII. IN WHICH A MAN BREAKS INTO HIS OWN STORE, AND STEALS HIS OWN SAFE 182 XIV. CHARLEY AND WALTER GO A-GUNNING 203 XV. THE YOUNG VIGILANTES 215 XVI. RAMON FINDS HIS MATCH 231 XVII. A SHARP RISE IN LUMBER 241 XVIII. A CORNER IN LUMBER 250 XIX. HEARTS OF GOLD 262 XX. BRIGHT, SEABURY & COMPANY 274 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Walter and Bill tramping across the Isthmus (_Frontispiece._) 132 Walter rescuing Dora Bright 42 Waiting for the opening of the mail 160 The hunters hunted by a grizzly bear 208 Ramon made to give up his stealings 236 Arrival of the _Southern Cross_ at Sacramento 254 THE YOUNG VIGILANTES I A NARROW ESCAPE From the _Morning Post-Horn_: "As passenger train Number Four was rounding a curve at full speed, ten miles out of this city, on the morning of October 4, and at a point where a deep cut shut out the view ahead, the engineer saw some one, man or boy, he could not well make out which, running down the track toward the train, frantically swinging both arms and waving his cap in the air as if to attract attention. The engine-man instantly shut off steam, whistled for brakes, and quickly brought the train to a standstill. "The engine-man put his head out of the cab window. The conductor jumped off, followed by fifty frightened passengers, all talking and gesticulating at once; while the person who had just given the warning signal slackened his breakneck pace, somewhat, upon seeing that he had succeeded in stopping the train. "'What's the matter?' shouted the impatient engine-man when this person had come within hearing. "'What do you stop us for?' called out the little conductor sharply, in his turn, at the same time anxiously consulting the face of the watch he held in his hand. "To both questions the young man seemed too much out of breath to reply, offhand; but turning and pointing in the direction whence he came, he shook his head warningly, threw himself down on the roadbed, as limp as a rag, and began fanning himself with his cap. After getting his breath a little, he made out to say, 'Bridge afire--quarter mile back. Tried put it out--couldn't. Heard train coming--afraid be too late. Couldn't run another step.' "'Get aboard,' said the conductor to him. 'Jake,' to the grinning engine-man, 'we'll run down and take a look at it. Get out your flag!' to a brakeman. 'Like as not Thirteen'll be along before we can make Brenton switch. All aboard!' The delayed train then moved on. "As it neared the burning bridge it was clear to every one that the young man's warning had prevented a disastrous wreck, probably much loss of life, because the bridge could not be seen until the train was close upon it. All hands immediately set to work with pails extinguishing the flames, which was finally done after a hard fight. To risk a heavy train upon the half-burned stringers was, however, out of the question. Leaving a man to see that the fire did not break out again, the train was run back to the next station, there to await further orders. We were unable to learn the name of the young man to whose presence of mind the passengers on Number Four owed their escape from a serious, perhaps fatal disaster. But we are informed that a collection was taken up for him on the train, which he, however, refused to accept, stoutly insisting that he had only done what it was his duty to do under the circumstances." Thus far, the _Morning Post-Horn_. We now take up the narrative where the enterprising journal left off. While the delayed train was being held for orders, the young man whose ready wit had averted a calamity stood on the platform with his hands in his trousers pockets, apparently an unconcerned spectator of what was going on around him. The little pug-nosed conductor stepped up to him. "I say, young feller, what may I call your name?" "Seabury." "Zebra, Zebra," repeated the conductor, in a puzzled tone, "then I s'pose your ancestors came over in the Ark?" "I didn't say Zebra; I said Seabury plain enough," snapped back the young man, getting red in the face at seeing the broad grins on the faces around him. "Don't fire up so. Got any first name?" "Walter." "Walter Seabury," the conductor repeated slowly, while scratching it down. "Got to report this job, you know. Say, where you goin'?" "I'm walkin' to Boston." "Shanks' mare, hey. No, you ain't. Get aboard and save your muscle. You own this train to-day, and everything in it. Lively now." The conductor then waved his hand, and the train started on. At the bridge a transfer was effected to a second train, and this one again was soon reeling off the miles toward Boston, as if to make up for lost time. Being left to himself, young Seabury, whom we may as well hereafter call by his Christian name of Walter, could think of nothing else than his wonderful luck. Instead of having a long, weary tramp before him, here he was, riding in a railroad train, and without its costing him a cent. This was a saving of both time and money. Pretty soon the friendly conductor came down the aisle to where Walter sat, looking out of the car window. After giving him a sharp look, the conductor made up his mind that here was no vagabond tramp. "It's none of my business, but all the same I'd like to know what you're walkin' to Boston for, young feller?" he asked. "Going to look for work." "What's your job?" "I'm a rigger." And his hands, tarry and cracked, bore out his story perfectly. "Ever in Boston?" "Never." "Know anybody there?" "Nobody." "Got any of this--you know?" slapping his pocket. At this question Walter flushed up. He drew himself up stiffly, smiled a pitying smile, and said nothing. His manner conveyed the idea that he really didn't know exactly how much he was worth. "That's first-rate," the conductor went on. "Now, look here. You'll get lost in Boston. I'll tell you what. When we get in, I'll show you how to go to get down among the riggers' lofts. You're a rigger, you say?" Walter nodded. "They're all in a bunch, down at the North End, riggers, sailmakers, pump- and block-makers, and all the rest. Full of work, too, I guess, all on account of this Californy business. Everybody's goin' crazy over it. You will be, too, in a week." By this time, the train was rumbling over the long waste of salt-marsh stretching out between the mainland and the dome-capped city, and in five minutes more it drew up with a jerk in the station, with the locomotive puffing out steam like a tired racehorse after a hard push at the finish. The conductor was as good as his word. He told Walter to go straight up Tremont Street until he came to Hanover, then straight down Hanover to the water, and then to follow his nose. "Oh, you can't miss it," was the cheerful, parting assurance. "Smell it a mile." But going straight up this street, and straight down that, was a direction not so easy to follow, as Walter soon found. The crowds bewildered him, and in trying to get out of everybody's way, he got in everybody's way, and was jostled, shoved about, and stared at, as he slowly made his way through the throng, until his roving eyes caught sight of the tall masts and fluttering pennants, where the long street suddenly came to an end. Walter put down his bundle, took off his cap, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Whichever way he looked, the wharves were crowded with ships, the ships with workmen, and the street with loaded trucks and wagons. Casting an eye upward he could see riggers at work among the maze of ropes and spars, like so many spiders weaving their webs. Here, at least, he could feel at home. II WALTER TELLS HIS STORY Walter's first want was to find a boarding house suited to his means. Turning into a side street, walled in by a row of two-story brick houses, all as like as peas in a pod, he found that the difficulty would be to pick and choose, as all showed the same little tin sign announcing "Board and Lodging, by the Day or Week," tacked upon the door. After walking irresolutely up and down the street two or three times, he finally mustered up courage to give a timid pull at the bell of one of them. The door opened so suddenly that Walter fell back a step. He began stammering out something, but before he could finish, the untidy-looking girl sang out at the top of her voice: "Miss Hashall, Miss Hashall, there's somebody wants to see you!" She then bolted off through the back door singing "I want to be an angel," in a voice that set Walter's teeth on an edge. To make a long story short, Walter soon struck a bargain with the landlady,--a fat, pudgy person in a greasy black poplin, wearing a false front, false teeth, and false stones in her breastpin. True, Walter silently resented her demanding a week's board in advance, it seemed so like a reflection upon his honesty, but was easily mollified by the motherly interest she seemed to take in him--or his cash. Bright and early the next morning Walter sallied out in search of work. His landlady had told him to apply at the first loft he came to. "Why, you can't make no mistake," the woman declared. "They're all drove to death, and hands is scurse as hens' teeth, all on account of this Kalerforny fever what carries so many of 'em off. Don't I wish I was a man! I'd jest like to dig gold enough to buy me a house on Beacon Street and ride in my kerridge. You just go and spunk right up to 'em, like I do. That's the way to get along in this world, my son." Walter's landlady had told him truly. The demand for vessels for the California trade was so urgent that even worm-eaten old whaleships were being overhauled and refitted with all haste, and as Walter walked along he noticed that about every craft he saw showed the same sign in her rigging, "For San Francisco with dispatch." "Well, I'll be hanged if there ain't the old _Argonaut_ that father was mate of!" Walter exclaimed quite aloud, clearly taken by surprise at seeing an old acquaintance quite unexpectedly in a strange place, and quickly recognizing her, in spite of a new coat of paint alow and aloft. The riggers were busy setting up the standing rigging, reeving new halliards, and giving the old barky a general overhauling. Walter climbed on board and began a critical survey of the ship's rigging, high and low. "What yer lookin' at, greeny?" one of the riggers asked him, at seeing Walter's eyes fixed on some object aloft. "I'm looking at that Irish pennant[1] on that stay up there," was the quick reply. This caused a broad smile to spread over the faces of the workmen. [1] A strand of marline carelessly left flying by a rigger. "You a rigger?" "I've helped rig this ship." "Want a job?" "Yes." "Well, here," tossing Walter a marline-spike, "let's see you make this splice." It was neatly and quickly done. "I'll give you ten dollars a week." Walter held out for twelve, and after some demurring on the part of the boss, a bargain was struck. Walter's overalls were rolled up in a paper, under his arm, so that he was immediately ready to begin work. Being, as it were, in the midst of the stream of visitors to the ship, hearing no end of talk about the wonderful fortunes to be made in the Land of Gold, Walter did not wholly escape the prevailing frenzy, for such it was. But knowing that he had not the means of paying for his passage, Walter resolutely kept at work, and let the troubled stream pass by. There was still another obstacle. He would have to leave behind him a widowed aunt, whose means of support were strictly limited to her actual wants. He had at once written to her of his good fortune in obtaining work, though the receipt of that same letter had proved a great shock to the "poor lone creetur," as she described herself, because she had freely given out among her neighbors that a boy who would run away from such a good home as Walter had, would surely come to no good end. Walter had struck up a rather sudden friendship with a young fellow workman of about his own age, named Charley Wormwood. On account of his name he was nicknamed "Bitters." Charley was a happy-go-lucky sort of chap, valuing the world chiefly for the amusement it afforded, and finding that amusement in about everything and everybody. Though mercilessly chaffed by the older hands, Charley took it all so good-naturedly that he made himself a general favorite. The two young men soon arranged to room together, and had come to be sworn friends. One pleasant evening, as the two sat in their room, with chairs tilted back against the wall, the following conversation was begun by Charley: "I say, Walt, we've been together here two months now, to a dot, and never a word have you said about your folks. Mind now, I don't want to pry into your secrets, but I'd like to know who you are, if it's all the same to you. Have you killed a man, or broke a bank, or set a fire, or what? Folks think it funny, when I have to tell them I don't know anything about you, except by guess, and you know that's a mighty poor course to steer by. Pooh! you're as close as an oyster!" Walter colored to his temples. For a short space he sat eyeing Charley without speaking. Then he spoke up with an evident effort at self-control, as if the question, so suddenly put, had awakened painful memories. "There's no mystery about it," he said. "You want to hear the story? So be it, then. I'll tell mine if you'll tell yours. "I b'long to an old whaling port down on the Cape. I was left an orphan when I was a little shaver, knee-high to a toadstool. Uncle Dick, he took me home. Aunt Marthy didn't like it, I guess. All she said was, 'Massy me! another mouth to feed?' 'Pooh, pooh, Marthy,' uncle laughed, 'where there's enough for two, there's enough for three.' She shut up, but she never liked me one mite." "An orphan?" interjected Charley. "No father nor mother?" "I'll tell you about it. You see, my father went out mate on a whaling voyage in the Pacific, in this very same old _Argonaut_ we've been patchin' and pluggin' up. It may have been a year we got a letter telling he was dead. Boat he was in swamped, while fast to a whale--a big one. They picked up his hat. Sharks took him, I guess. Mother was poorly. She fell into a decline, they called it, and didn't live long. We had nothin' but father's wages. They was only a drop in the bucket. Then there was only me left." "That was the time your uncle took you home?" "Yes; Uncle Dick was a rigger by trade. He used to show me how to make all sorts of knots and splices evenings; and bimeby he got me a chance, when I was big enough, doin' odd jobs like, for a dollar a week, in the loft or on the ships. Aunt Marthy said a dollar a week didn't begin to pay for what I et. Guess she knew. Pretty soon, I got a raise to a dollar-half." "But what made you quit? Didn't you like the work?" "Liked it first-rate. Like it now. But I couldn't stand Aunt Marthy's sour looks and sharp tongue. Nothing suited her. She was either as cold as ice, or as hot as fire coals. When she wasn't scolding, she was groaning. Said she couldn't see what some folks was born into this world just to slave for other folks for." A frown passed over Walter's face at the recollection. "Nice woman that," observed the sententious Charley. "But how about the uncle?" he added. "Couldn't he make her hold her yawp?" "Oh, no better man ever stood. He was like a father to me--bless him!" (Walter's voice grew a little shaky here.) "But he showed the white feather to Aunt Marthy. Whenever she went into one of her tantrums, he would take his pipe and clear out, leaving me to bear the brunt of it. "A good while after mother died, father's sea-chest was brought home in the _Argonaut_. There was nothing in it but old clothes, this watch [showing it], and some torn and greasy sea-charts, with the courses father had sailed pricked out on 'em. Those charts made me sort o' hanker to see the world, which I then saw men traveled with the aid of a roll of paper, and a little knowledge, as certainly, and as safely, as we do the streets of Boston. You better believe I studied over those charts some! Anyhow, I know my geography." And Walter's blue eyes lighted up with a look of triumph. "Bully for you! Then that was what started you out on your travels, was it?" "No: I had often thought of slipping away some dark night, but couldn't make up my mind to it. It did seem so kind o' mean after all Uncle Dick had done for me. But one day (one bad day for me, Charley) a man came running up to the loft, all out of breath, to tell me that Uncle Dick had fallen down the ship's hatchway, and that they were now bringing him home on a stretcher. I tell you I felt sick and faint when I saw him lying there lifeless. He never spoke again. "Shortly after the funeral, upon going to the loft the foreman told me that work being slack they would have to lay off a lot of hands, me with the rest. Before I went to sleep that night I made up my mind to strike out for myself; for now that Uncle Dick was gone, I couldn't endure my life any longer. I set about packing up my duds without saying anything to my aunt, for I knew what a rumpus she would make over it, and if there's anything I hate it's a scene." "Me too," Charley vigorously assented. "Rather take a lickin'." "Well," Walter resumed, "I counted up my money first. There was just forty-nine dollars. Lucky number: it was the year '49 too. I put ten of it in an envelope directed to my aunt, and put it on the chimney-piece where she couldn't help seeing it when she came into my room. Then I took a piece of chalk and wrote on the table top: 'I'm going away to hunt for work. When I get some, I'll let you know. Please take care of my chest. Look on the mantelpiece. Good-bye. From Walter.' "Then, like a thief, I slipped out of the house by a back way, in my stocking feet, and never stopped running till I was 'way out of town. There I struck the railroad. I knew if I followed it it would take me to Boston. And it did. That's all." III AND CHARLEY TELLS HIS There was silence for a minute or two, each of the lads being busy with his own thoughts. Apparently they were not pleasant thoughts. What a tantalizing thing memory sometimes is! But it was not in the nature of things for either to remain long speechless. Walter first broke silence by reminding Charley of his promise. "Come now, you've wormed all that out of me about my folks, pay your debts. I should like to know what made you leave home. Did you run away, too?" At this question, Charley's mouth puckered up queerly, and then quickly broke out into a broad grin, while his eyes almost shut tight at the recollection Walter's question had summoned up. "It was all along of 'Rough on Rats,'" he managed to say at last. "'Rough on Rats?'" "Yes, 'Rough on Rats.' Rat poison. You just wait, and hear me through. "I've got a father somewhere, I b'leeve. Boys gen'ally have, I s'pose, though whether mine's dead or alive, not knowin', can't say. We were poor as Job's turkey, if you know how poor that was. I don't. Anyway, he put me out to work on a milk and chicken farm back here in the country, twenty miles or so, to a man by the name of Bennett, and then took himself off out West somewhere." "And you've never seen him since?" "No; I ha'n't never missed him, or the lickin's he give me. Well, my boss he raised lots of young chickens for market. We was awfully pestered with rats, big, fat, sassy ones, getting into the coops nights, and killing off the little chicks as soon's ever they was hatched out. You see, they was tender. Besides eating the chicks they et up most of the grain we throw'd into the hens. The boss he tried everything to drive those rats away. He tried cats an' he tried traps. 'Twan't no use. The cats wouldn't tech the rats nor the rats go near the traps. You can't fool an old rat much, anyhow," he added with a knowing shake of his head. "Well, the boss was a-countin' the chicks one mornin', while ladling out the dough to 'em. 'Confound those rats,' he sputtered out; 'there's eight more chicks gone sence I fed last night. I'd gin something to red the place on 'em, I would.' "'Uncle,' says I (he let me call him uncle, seein' he'd kind of adopted me like)--'uncle,' says I, 'why don't you try Rough on Rats? They say that'll fetch 'em every time.' "'What's that? Never heer'd on't. How do you know? Who says so?' he axed all in one breath." "'Anyhow, I seen a big poster down at the Four Corners that says so,' says I. 'The boys was a-talkin' about what it had done up to Skillings' place. Skillings allowed he'd red his place of rats with it. Hadn't seen hide nor hair of one sence he fust tried it. Everybody says it's a big thing.' "The old man said nothin' more just then. He didn't let on that my advice was worth a cent; but I noticed that he went off and bought some Rough on Rats that same afternoon, and when the old hens had gone to roost and the mother hens had gathered their broods under 'em for the night, uncle he slyly stirred up a big dose of the p'isen stuff into a pan of meal, which he set down inside the henhouse. "Uncle's idea was to get up early in the mornin', so's to count up the dead rats, I s'pose. "But he did not get up early enough. When he went out into the henhouse to investigate, he found fifteen or twenty of his best hens lying dead around the floor after eatin' of the p'isen'd meal. "When I come outdoors he was stoopin' down, with his back to me pickin' 'em up." Walter laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks, sobered down, and then broke out again. Charley found the laugh infectious and joined in it, though more moderately. "Go ahead. Let's have the rest, do," Walter entreated. "What next?" "I asked Uncle Bennett what he was goin' to do with all those dead hens. He flung one at my head. Oh! but he was mad. 'Just stop where you be, my little joker,' says he, startin' off for the stable; 'I've got somethin' that's Rough on Brats, an' you shall have a taste on't right off. Don't you stir a step,' shakin' his fist at me, 'or I'll give you the worst dressin' down you ever had in all your life.' "While he was gone for a horsewhip, I lit out for the Corners. You couldn't have seen me for dust. "I darsen't go back to the house and I had only a silver ninepence in my pocket and a few coppers, but I managed to beg my way to Boston. Oh! Walt, it was a long time between meals, I can tell you. I slept one night in a barn, on the haymow. Nobody saw me slip in after dark. I took off my neckerchief and laid it down within reach, for it was hot weather on that haymow, and I was 'most choked with the dust I swallowed. I overslept. In the morning I heard a noise down where the hosses were tied up. Some one was rakin' down hay for 'em. I reached for my neckerchief, thinkin' how I should get away without being seen, when a boy's voice gave a shout, 'Towser! Towser!' and then I knew it was all up, for that boy had raked down my neckerchief with the hay, and he knew there was a tramp somewhere about. "The long and short of it is, that the dog chased me till I was ready to drop or until another and a bigger one came out of a yard and tackled him. Then it was dog eat dog. "When I got to Boston it was night. I had no money. I didn't know where to go. Tired's no name for it. I was dead-beat. So I threw myself down on a doorstep and was asleep in a minnit. There was an alarm of fire. An ingine came jolting along. I forgot all about being tired and took holt of the rope, and ran, and hollered, with the rest. The fire was all out when we got there, so I went back to the ingine house, and the steward let me sleep in the cellar a couple of hours and wash up in the mornin'. But I'm ahead of my story. They had hot coffee and crackers and cheese when they got back from the fire. No cheese ever tasted like that before. Give me a fireman for a friend at need. I hung round that ingine house till I picked up a job. The company was all calkers, gravers, riggers, and the like. Tough lot! How they could wallop that old tub over the cobblestones, to be sure!" And here Charley fell into a fit of musing from which Walter did not attempt to rouse him. In their past experiences the two boys had found a common bond. IV WHAT HAPPENED ON BOARD THE "ARGONAUT" Seeing that Walter also had fallen into a brown study, Charley quickly changed the subject. "See here, Walt!" he exclaimed, "the _Argonaut's_ going to sail for Californy first fair wind. To-morrow's Sunday, and Father Taylor's goin' to preach aboard of her. He's immense! Let's go and hear him. What do you say?" Walter jumped at the proposal. "I want to hear Father Taylor ever so much, and I shouldn't mind taking a look at the passengers, too." Sunday came. Walter put on his best suit, and the two friends strolled down to the wharf where the _Argonaut_ lay moored with topsails loosened, and flags and streamers fluttering gayly aloft. The ship was thronged not only with those about to sail for the Land of Gold, but also with the friends who had come to bid them good-bye; besides many attracted by mere curiosity, or, perhaps, by the fame of Father Taylor's preaching. There was a perfect Babel of voices. As Walter was passing one group he overheard the remark, "She'll never get round the Horn. Too deep. Too many passengers by half. Look at that bow! Have to walk round her to tell stem from starn." "Oh, she'll get there fast enough," his companion replied. "She knows the way. Besides, you can't sink her. She's got lumber enough in her hold to keep her afloat if she should get waterlogged." "That ain't the whole story by a long shot," a third speaker broke in. "Don't you remember the crack ship that spoke an old whaler at sea, both bound out for California? The passengers on the crack ship called out to the passengers on the old whaler to know if they wanted to be reported. When the crack ship got into San Francisco, lo and behold! there lay the 'old tub' quietly at anchor. Been in a week." Strange sight, indeed, it was to see men who, but the day before, were clerks in sober tweeds, farmers in homespun, or mechanics in greasy overalls, now so dressed up as to look far more like brigands than peaceful citizens; for it would seem that, to their notion, they could be no true Californians unless they started off armed to the teeth. So the poor stay-at-homes were given to understand how wanting they were in the bold spirit of adventure by a lavish display of pistols and bowie-knives, rifles and carbines. Poor creatures! they little knew how soon they were to meet an enemy not to be overcome with powder and lead. Between decks, if the truth must be told, many of the passengers were engaged in sparring or wrestling bouts, playing cards, or shuffleboard, or hop-scotch, as regardless of the day as if going to California meant a cutting loose from all the restraints of civilized life. The two friends made haste to get on deck. As they mingled with the crowd again, Walter exchanged quick glances with a middle-aged gentleman on whose arm a remarkably pretty young lady was leaning. Walter was saying to himself, "I wonder where I have seen that man before," when the full and sonorous voice of Father Taylor, the seaman's friend, hushed the confused murmur of voices around him into a reverential silence. With none of the arts and graces of the pulpit orator, that short, thick-set, hard-featured man spoke like one inspired for a full hour, and during that hour nobody stirred from the spot where he had taken his stand. Father Taylor's every word had struck home. The last hymn had been sung, the last prayer said. At its ending the crowd slowly began filing down the one long, narrow plank reaching from the ship's gangway to the wharf. Nobody seemed to have noticed that the rising tide had lifted this plank to an incline that would make the descent trying to weak nerves, especially as there were five or six feet of clear water to be passed over between ship and shore. It was just as one young lady was in the act of stepping upon this plank that two young scapegraces ahead of her ran down it with such violence as to make it rebound like a springboard, causing the young lady first to lose her balance, then to make a false step, and then to fall screaming into the water, twenty feet below. Everybody ran to that side, and everybody began shouting at once: "Man overboard!" "A boat: get a boat!" "Throw over a rope!--a plank!" "She's going down!" "Help! help!" but nobody seemed to have their wits about them. With the hundreds looking on, it really seemed as if the girl might drown before help could reach her. Both Charley and Walter had witnessed the accident: coats and hats were off in a jiffy. Snatching up a coil of rope, it was the work of a moment for Walter to make a running noose, slip that under his arms, sign to Charley to take a turn round a bitt, then to swing himself over into the chains and be lowered down into the water on the run by the quick-witted Charley. Meantime, the young lady's father was almost beside himself. In one breath he called to his daughter, by the name of Dora, to catch at a rope that was too short to reach her; in the next he was offering fifty, a hundred dollars to Walter if he saved her. [Illustration: Walter rescuing Dora Bright.--_Page 42._] Giving himself a vigorous shove with his foot, in two or three strokes Walter was at the girl's side and with his arms around her. It was high time, too, as her clothes, which had buoyed her up so far, were now water-soaked and dragging her down. Only her head was to be seen above water. At Walter's cheery "Haul away!" fifty nervous arms dragged them dripping up the ship's side. The young lady fell, sobbing hysterically, into her father's arms, and was forthwith hurried off into the cabin, while Walter, after picking up his coat and hat, slipped off through the crowd, gained the wharf unnoticed, and with the faithful, but astonished, Charley at his heels, made a bee-line for his lodgings. Moreover, Walter exacted a solemn promise from Charley not to lisp one word of what had happened, on pain of a good drubbing. "My best suit, too!" he ruefully exclaimed, while divesting himself of his wet clothes. "No matter: let him keep his old fifty dollars. Pretty girl, though. I'm paid ten times over. A coil of rope's a handy thing sometimes. So's a rigger--eh, Charley?" Charley merely gave a dissatisfied grunt. He was very far from understanding such refined sentiments. Besides, half the money, he reflected, would have been his, or ought to have been, which was much the same thing to his way of thinking. And when he thought of the many things he could have done with his share, the loss of it made him feel very miserable, and more than half angry with Walter. "Fifty dollars don't grow on every bush," he muttered. "Then, what lions we'd 'a' been in the papers!" he lamented. "You look here. Can't you do anything without being paid for it? I'd taken thanks from the old duffer, but not money. Can't you understand? Now you keep still about this, I tell you." Though still grumbling, Charley concluded to hold his tongue, knowing that Walter would be as good as his word; but he inwardly promised himself to keep his eyes open, and if ever he should see a chance to let the cat out of the bag without Walter's knowing it, well, the mischief was in it if he, Charley, didn't improve it, that was all. V ONE WAY OF GOING TO CALIFORNIA The _Argonaut_ affair got into the newspapers, where it was correctly reported, in the main, except that the rescuer was supposed to be one of the _Argonaut's_ passengers, and as she was now many miles at sea, Mr. Bright, the father of Dora, as a last resort, put an advertisement in the daily papers asking the unknown to furnish his address without delay to his grateful debtors. But as this failed to elicit a reply, there was nothing more to be done. Walter, however, had seen the advertisement, and he had found out from it that Mr. Bright was one of the _Argonaut's_ principal owners. He therefore felt quite safe from discovery when he found himself reported as having sailed in that vessel. Time moved along quietly enough with Walter until the Fourth of July was near at hand, when it began to be noised about that the brand-new clipper ship then receiving her finishing touches in a neighboring yard would be launched at high water on that eventful day. What was unusual, the nameless ship was to be launched fully rigged, so that the riggers' gang was to take a hand in getting her off the ways. Everybody was consequently on the tiptoe of expectation. The eventful morning came at last. It being a holiday, thousands had repaired to the spot, attracted by the novelty of seeing a ship launched fully rigged. At a given signal, a hundred sledges, wielded by as many brawny arms, began a furious hammering away at the blocks, which held the gallant ship bound and helpless to the land. The men worked like tigers, as if each and every one had a personal interest in the success of the launch. At last the clatter of busy hammers ceased, the grimy workmen crept out, in twos and threes, from underneath the huge black hull, and a hush fell upon all that vast throng, so deep and breathless that the streamers at the mast-head could be heard snapping like so many whiplashes in the light breeze aloft. "All clear for'ard?" sang out the master workman. "All clear, sir," came back the quick response. "All clear aft?" the voice repeated. "Aye, aye, all clear." Still the towering mass did not budge. It really seemed as if she was a living creature hesitating on the brink of her own fate, whether to make the plunge or not. There was an anxious moment. A hush fell upon all that vast throng. Then, as the stately ship was seen to move majestically off, first slowly, and then with a rush and a leap, one deafening shout went up from a thousand throats: "There she goes! there she goes! hurrah! hurrah!" Every one declared it the prettiest launch ever seen. Just as the nameless vessel glided off the ways a young lady, who stood upon a tall scaffold at the bow, quickly dashed a bottle of wine against the stem, pronouncing as she did so the name that the good ship was to bear henceforth, so proudly, on the seas--the _Flying Arrow_. Three rousing cheers greeted the act, and the name. The crowd then began to disperse. As Walter was standing quite near the platform erected for this ceremony, his face all aglow with the vigorous use he had made of the sledge he still held in his hand, the young lady who had just christened the _Flying Arrow_ came down the stairs. In doing so, she looked Master Walter squarely in the face. Lo and behold! it was the girl of the _Argonaut_. The recognition was instant and mutual. Walter turned all colors at once. Giving one glance at his greasy duck trousers and checked shirt, his first impulse was to sneak off without a word; but before he could do so he was confronted by Mr. Bright himself. Walter was thus caught, as it were, between two fires. Oh, brave youth of the stalwart arm and manly brow, thus to show the white feather to that weak and timid little maiden! Noticing the young man's embarrassment, Mr. Bright drew him aside, out of earshot of those who still lingered about. "So, so, my young friend," he began with a quizzical look at Walter, "we've had some trouble finding you. Pray what were your reasons for avoiding us? Neither of us [turning toward his daughter] is a very dangerous person, as you may see for yourself." "Now, don't, papa," pleaded Dora. Then, after giving a sidelong and reproachful look at Walter, she added, "Why, he wouldn't even let us thank him!" Walter tried to stammer out something about not deserving thanks. The words seemed to stick in his throat; but he did manage to say: "Fifty stood ready to do what I did. I only got a little wetting, sir." "Just so. But they didn't, all the same. Come, we are not ungrateful. Can I depend on you to call at my office, 76 State Street, to-morrow morning about ten?" "You can, sir," bowing respectfully. "Very good. I shall expect you. Come, Dora, we must be going." Father and daughter then left the yard, but not until Dora had given Walter another reproachful look, out of the corner of her eye. "Poor, proud, and sheepish," was the merchant's only comment upon this interview, as they walked homeward. Mentally, he was asking himself where he had seen that face before. Dora said nothing. Her stolen glances had told her, however, that Walter was good-looking; and that was much in his favor. To be sure, he was plainly a common workman, and he had appeared very stiff and awkward when her father spoke to him. Still she felt that there was nothing low or vulgar about him. Punctual to the minute, Walter entered the merchant's counting room, though, to say truth, he found himself ill at ease in the presence of half a dozen spruce-looking clerks, who first shot sly glances at him, then at each other, as he carefully shut the door behind him. Walter, however, bore their scrutiny without flinching. He was only afraid of girls, from sixteen to eighteen years old. Mr. Bright immediately rose from his desk, and beckoned Walter to follow him out into the warehouse. "You are prompt. That's well," said he approvingly. "Now then, to business. We want an outdoor clerk on our wharf. You have no objection, I take it, to entering our employment?" Walter shook his head. "Oh, no, sir." "Very good, then. I'll tell you more of your duties presently. I hear a good account of you. The salary will be six hundred the first year, and a new suit of clothes, in return for the one you spoiled. Here's a tailor's address [handing Walter a card with the order written upon it]. Go and get measured when you like, and mind you get a good fit." Walter took a moment to think, but couldn't think at all. All he could say was: "If you think, sir, I can fill the place, I'll try my best to suit you." "That's right. Try never was beat. You may begin to-morrow." Walter went off feeling more happy than he remembered ever to have felt before. In truth, he could hardy realize his good fortune. This change in Walter's life brought with it other changes. For one thing it broke off his intimacy with Charley, although Walter continued to receive occasional visits from his old chum. He also began attending an evening school, kept by a retired schoolmaster, in order to improve his knowledge of writing, spelling, and arithmetic, or rather to repair the neglect of years; for he now began to feel his deficiencies keenly with increasing responsibilities. He was, however, an apt scholar, and was soon making good progress. The work on the wharf was far more to his liking than the confinement of the warehouse could have been; and Walter was every day storing up information which some time, he believed, would be of great use to him. Time wore on, one day's round being much like another's. But once Walter was given such a fright that he did not get over it for weeks. He was sometimes sent to the bank to make a deposit or cash a check. On this particular occasion he had drawn out quite a large sum, in small bills, to be used in paying off the help. Not knowing what else to do with it, Walter thrust the roll of bills into his trousers pocket. It was raining gently out of doors, and the sidewalks were thickly spread with a coating of greasy mud. There was another call or two to be made before Walter returned to the store. At the head of the street Walter stopped to think which call he should make first. Mechanically he thrust his hand in his pocket, then turned as pale as a sheet, and a mist passed before his eyes. The roll of bills was not there. A hole in the pocket told the whole story. The roll had slipped out somewhere. It was gone, and through his own carelessness. After a moment's indecision Walter started back to the bank, carefully looking for the lost roll at every step of the way. The street was full of people, for this was the busiest hour of the day. In vain he looked, and looked, at every one he met. No one had a roll of bills for which he was trying to find an owner. Almost beside himself, he rushed into the bank. Yes, the paying teller remembered him, but was quite sure the lost roll had not been picked up there, or he would have known it. So Walter's last and faintest hope now vanished. Go back to the office with his strange story, he dared not. The bank teller advised his reporting his loss to the police, and advertising it in the evening editions. Slowly and sadly Walter retraced his steps towards the spot where he had first missed his employer's money, inwardly scolding and accusing himself by turns. Vexed beyond measure, calling himself all the fools he could think of, Walter angrily stamped his foot on the sidewalk. Presto! out tumbled the missing roll of bills from the bottom of his trousers-leg when he brought his foot down with such force. It had been caught and held there by the stiffening material then fashionable. Walter went home that night thanking his lucky stars that he had come out of a bad scrape so easily. He was thinking over the matter, when Charley burst into the room. "I say, Walt, old fel, don't you want to buy a piece of me?" he blurted out, tossing his cap on the table, and falling into a chair quite out of breath. Walter simply stared, and for a minute the two friends stared at each other without speaking. Walter at length demanded: "Are you crazy, Charles Wormwood? What in the name of common sense do you mean?" "Oh, I'm not fooling. You needn't be scared. Haven't you ever heard of folks buying pieces of ships? Say?" "S'pose I have; what's that got to do with men?" "I'll tell you. Look here. When a feller wants to go to Californy awful bad, like me, and hasn't got the chink, like me, he gets some other fellers who can't go, like you, to chip in to pay his passage for him." "Pooh! That's all plain sailing. When he earns the money he pays it back," Walter rejoined. "No, you're all out. Just you hold your hosses. It's like this. The chap who gets the send-off binds himself, good and strong, mind you, to divide what he makes out there among his owners, 'cordin' to what they put into him--same's owning pieces of a ship, ain't it? See? How big a piece'll you take?" finished Charley, cracking his knuckles in his impatience. Walter leaned back in his chair, and burst out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Charley grew red in the face. "Look here, Walt, you needn't have any if you don't want it." He took up his cap to go. Walter stopped him. "There, you needn't get your back up, old chap. It's the funniest thing I ever heard of. Why, it beats all!" "It's done every day," Charley broke in. "You won't lose anything by me, Walt," he added, anxiously scanning Walter's face. "See if you do." Walter had saved a little money. He therefore agreed to become a shareholder in Charles Wormwood, Esquire, to the tune of fifty dollars, said Wormwood duly agreeing and covenanting, on his part, to pay over dividends as fast as earned. So the ingenious Charley sailed with as good a kit as could be picked up in Boston, not omitting a beautiful Colt's revolver (Walter's gift), on which was engraved, "Use me; don't abuse me." Charles was to work his passage out in the new clipper, which arrangement would land him in San Francisco with his capital unimpaired. "God bless you, Charley, my boy," stammered Walter, as the two friends wrung each other's hands. He could not have spoken another word without breaking down, which would have been positive degradation in a boy's eyes. "I'll make your fortune, see if I don't," was Charley's cheerful farewell. "On the square I will," he brokenly added. The house of Bright, Wantage & Company had a confidential clerk for whom Walter felt a secret antipathy from the first day they met. We cannot explain these things; we only know that they exist. It may be a senseless prejudice; no matter, we cannot help it. This clerk's name was Ramon Ingersoll. His manner toward his fellow clerks was so top-lofty and so condescending that one and all thoroughly disliked him. Some slight claim Ramon was supposed to have upon the senior partner, Mr. Bright, kept the junior clerks somewhat in awe of him. But there was always friction in the counting-room when the clerks were left alone together. The truth is that Ramon's father had at one time acted as agent for the house at Matanzas, in Cuba. When he died, leaving nothing but debts and this one orphan child, for he had buried his wife some years before, Mr. Bright had taken the little Ramon home, sent him to school, paid all his expenses out of his own pocket and finally given him a place of trust in his counting-house. In a word, this orphaned, penniless boy owed everything to his benefactor. As has been already mentioned, without being able to give a reason for his belief, Walter had an instinctive feeling that Ramon would some day get him into trouble. Fortunately Walter's duties kept him mostly outside the warehouse, so that the two seldom met. One day Ramon, with more than ordinary cordiality, asked Walter to visit him at his room that same evening In order to meet, as he said, one or two particular friends of his. At the appointed time Walter went, without mistrust, to Ingersoll's lodgings. Upon entering the room he found there two very flashy-looking men, one of whom was short, fat, and smooth-shaven, with an oily good-natured leer lurking about the corners of his mouth; the other dark-browed, bearded, and scowling, with, as Walter thought, as desperately villainous a face as he had ever looked upon. "Ah, here you are, at last!" cried Ramon, as he let Walter in. "This is Mr. Goodman," here the fat man bowed, and smiled blandly; "and this, Mr. Lambkin." The dark man looked up, scowled, and nodded. "And now," Ramon went on, "as we have been waiting for you, what say you to a little game of whist, or high-low-jack, or euchre, just to pass away the time?" "I'm agreeable," said Mr. Goodman, "though, upon my word and honor, I hardly know one card from another. However, just to make up your party, I will take a hand." The knight of the gloomy brow silently drew his chair up to the table, which was, at least, significant of his intentions. Walter had no scruples about playing an innocent game of whist. So he sat down with the others. The game went on rather languidly until, all at once, the fat man broke out, without taking his eyes off his cards, "Bless me!--why, the strangest thing!--if I were a betting man, I declare I wouldn't mind risking a trifle on this hand." Ramon laughed good-naturedly, as he replied in an offhand sort of way: "Oh, we're all friends here. There's no objection to a little social game, I suppose, among friends." Here he stole an inquiring look at Walter. "Besides," he continued, while carelessly glancing at his own hand, "I've a good mind to bet a trifle myself." Though still quite unsuspicious, Walter looked upon this interruption of the harmless game with misgiving. "All right," Goodman resumed, "here goes a dollar, just for the fun of the thing." The taciturn Lambkin said not a word, but taking out a well-stuffed wallet, quietly laid down two dollars on the one that Goodman had just put up. "I know I can beat them," Ramon whispered in Walter's ear. "By Jove, I'll risk it just this once!" "No, don't," Walter whispered back, pleadingly, "it's gambling." "Pshaw, man, it's only for sport," Ramon impatiently rejoined, immediately adding five dollars of his own money to the three before him. Walter laid down his cards, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms resolutely across his chest. "And the fat man said he hardly knew one card from another. How quick some folks do learn," he said to himself. "Isn't our young friend going to try his luck?" smiled, rather than asked, the unctuous Goodman. "No; I never play for money," was the quiet response. Once the ice was broken the game went on for higher, and still higher, stakes, until Walter, getting actually frightened at the recklessness with which Ramon played and lost, rose to go. After vainly urging him to remain, annoyed at his failure to make Walter play, enraged by his own losses, Ramon followed Walter outside the door, shut it behind them, and said in a menacing sort of way, "Not a word of this at the store." "Promise you won't play any more." "I won't do no such thing. Who set you up for my guardian? If you're mean enough to play the sneak, tell if you dare!" Walter felt his anger rising, but controlled himself. "Oh, very well, only remember that I warned you," he replied, turning away. "Don't preach, Master Innocence!" sneered Ramon. "Don't threaten, Master Hypocrite!" was the angry retort. Quick as a flash, Ramon sprang before Walter, and barred his way. All the tiger in his nature gleamed in his eyes. "One word of this to Mr. Bright, and I'll--I'll fix you!" he almost shrieked out. With that the two young men clinched, and for a few minutes nothing could be heard but their heavy breathing. This did not last. Walter soon showed himself much the stronger of the two, and Master Ramon, in spite of his struggles, found himself lying flat on his back, with his adversary's knee on his chest. Ramon instantly gave in. Choking down his wrath, he jerked out, "There, I promise. Let me up." "Oh, if you promise, so do I," said Walter, releasing his hold on Ramon. He then left the house without another word. He did not see Ramon shaking his fist behind his back, or hear him muttering threats of vengeance to himself, as he went back to his vicious companions. Walter did wish, however, that he had given Ramon just one more punch for keeps. So they parted. Satisfied that Walter would not break his promise, Ramon made all haste back to his companions, laughing in his sleeve to think how easily he had fooled that milksop Seabury. His companions were two as notorious sharpers as Boston contained. He continued to lose heavily, they luring him on by letting him win now and then, until they were satisfied he had nothing more to lose. At two in the morning their victim rose up from the table, hardly realizing, so far gone was he in liquor, that he was five hundred dollars in debt to Lambkin, or that he had signed a note for that sum with the name of his employers, Bright, Wantage & Company. He had found the road from gambling to forgery a natural and easy one. VI A BLACK SHEEP IN THE FOLD Leaving Ingersoll to follow his crooked ways, we must now introduce a character, with whom Walter had formed an acquaintance, destined to have no small influence upon his own future life. Bill Portlock was probably as good a specimen of an old, battered man-o'-war's man as could be scared up between Montauk and Quoddy Head. While a powder-monkey, on board the _President_ frigate, he had been taken prisoner and confined in Dartmoor Prison, from which he had made his escape, with some companions in captivity, by digging a hole under the foundation wall with an old iron spoon. Shipping on board a British merchantman, he had deserted at the first neutral port she touched at. He was now doing odd jobs about the wharves, as 'longshoreman; and as Walter had thrown many such in the old salt's way a kind of intimacy had grown up between them. Bill loved dearly to spin a yarn, and some of his adventures, told in his own vernacular, would have made the late Baron Munchausen turn green with envy. "Why," he would say, after spinning one of his wonderful yarns, "ef I sh'd tell ye my adventers, man and boy, you'd think 'twas Roberson Crushoe a-talkin' to ye. No need o' lyin'. Sober airnest beats all they make up." Bill's castle was a condemned caboose, left on the wharf by some ship that was now plowing some distant sea. Her name, the _Orpheus_, could still be read in faded paint on the caboose; so that Bill always claimed to belong to the _Orpheus_, or she to him, he couldn't exactly say which. When he was at work on the wharf, after securing his castle with a stout padlock, he announced the fact to an inquiring public by chalking up the legend, "Aboard the brig," or "Aboard the skoner," as the case might be. If called to take a passenger off to some vessel in his wherry, the notice would then read, "Back at eight bells." A sailor he was, and a sailor he said he would live and die. No one but a sailor, and an old sailor at that, could have squeezed himself into the narrow limits of the caboose, where it was not possible, even for a short man like Bill, to stand upright, though Bill himself considered it quite luxurious living. There was a rusty old cooking stove at one end, with two legs of its own, and two replaced by half-bricks; the other end being taken up by a bench, from which Bill deftly manipulated saucepan or skillet. "Why, Lor' bless ye!" said Bill to Walter one evening, "I seed ye fish that ar' young 'ooman out o' the dock that time. 'Bill,' sez I to myself, 'thar's a chap, now, as knows a backstay from a bullock's tail.'" "Pshaw!" Then after a moment's silence, while Bill was busy lighting his pipe, Walter absently asked, "Bill, were you ever in California?" "Kalerforny? Was I ever in Kalerforny? Didn't I go out to Sandy Ager, in thirty-eight, in a hide drogher? And d'ye know why they call it Sandy Ager? I does. Why, blow me if it ain't sandy 'nuff for old Cape Cod herself; and as for the ager, if you'll b'leeve me, our ship's crew shook so with it, that all hands had to turn to a-settin' up riggin' twict a month, it got so slack with the shakin' up like." "What an unhealthy place that must be," laughed Walter. Then suddenly changing the subject, he said: "Bill, you know the _Racehorse_ is a good two months overdue." Bill nodded. "I know our folks are getting uneasy about her. No wonder. Valuable cargo, and no insurance. What's your idea?" Bill gave a few whiffs at his pipe before replying. "I know that ar' _Racehorse_. She's a clipper, and has a good sailor aboard of her: but heavy sparred, an' not the kind to be carryin' sail on in the typhoon season, jest to make a quick passage." Bill shook his head. "Like as not she's dismasted, or sprung a leak, an' the Lord knows what all." The next day happened to be Saturday. As Walter was going into the warehouse he met Ramon coming out. Since the night at his lodgings, his manner toward Walter, outwardly at least, had undergone a marked change. If anything it was too cordial. "Hello! Seabury, that you?" he said, in his offhand way. "Lucky thing you happened in. It's steamer day, and I'm awfully hard pushed for time. Would you mind getting this check on the Suffolk cashed for me? No? That's a good fellow. Do as much for you some time. And, stay, on your way back call at the California steamship agency--you know?--all right. Well, see if there are any berths left in the _Georgia_. You won't forget the name? The _Georgia_. And, oh! be sure to get gold for that check. It's to pay duties with, you know," Ramon hurriedly explained in an undertone. "All right; I understand," said Walter, walking briskly away on his errand. He quite forgot all about the gold, though, until after he had left the bank; when, suddenly remembering it, he hurried back to get the coin, quite flurried and provoked at his own forgetfulness. The cashier, however, counted out the double-eagles, for the notes, without remark. Such little instances of forgetfulness were too common to excite his particular notice. On that same evening, finding time hanging rather heavily on his hands, Walter strolled uptown in the direction of Mr. Bright's house, which was in the fashionable Mt. Vernon Street. The truth is that the silly boy thought he might possibly catch a glimpse of a certain young lady, or her shadow, at least, in passing the brilliantly lighted residence. It was, he admitted to himself, a fool's errand, after walking slowly backwards and forwards two or three times, with his eyes fastened upon the lighted windows; and with a feeling of disappointment he turned away from the spot, heartily ashamed of himself, as well, for having given way to a sudden impulse. Glad he was that no one had noticed him. Walter's queer actions, however, did not escape the attention of a certain lynx-eyed policeman, who, snugly ensconced in the shadow of a doorway, had watched his every step. The young man had gone but a short distance on his homeward way, when, as he was about crossing the street, he came within an ace of being knocked down and run over by a passing hack, which turned the corner at such a break-neck pace that there was barely time to get out of the way. There was a gaslight on this corner. At Walter's warning shout to the driver, the person inside the hack quickly put his head out of the window, and as quickly drew it in again; but in that instant the light had shone full upon the face of Ramon Ingersoll. The driver lashed his horses into a run. Walter stood stupidly staring after the carriage. Then, without knowing why, he ran after it, confident that if he had recognized Ramon in that brief moment, Ramon must also have recognized him. The best he could do, however, was to keep the carriage in sight, but he soon saw that it was heading for the railway station at the South End. Out of breath, and nearly out of his head, too, Walter dashed through the arched doorway of the station, just in time to see a train going out at the other end in a cloud of smoke. In his eagerness, Walter ran headlong into the arms of the night-watchman, who, seeing the blank look on Walter's face, said, as he had said a hundred times before to belated travelers, "Too late, eh?" "Yes, yes, too late," repeated Walter, in a tone of deep vexation. While walking home he began to think he had been making a fool of himself again. After all, what business was it of his if Ramon had gone to New York? He might have gone on business of the firm. Of course that was it. And what right had he, Walter, to be chasing Ramon through the streets, anyhow? Still, he was sure that Ramon had recognized him, and just as sure that Ramon had wished to avoid being recognized, else why had he not spoken or even waved his hand? Walter gave it up, and went home to dream of chasing carriages all night long. Walter went to the wharf as usual the next morning. In the course of the forenoon a porter brought word that he was wanted at the counting-room. When Walter went into the office, Mr. Bright was walking the floor, back and forth, with hasty steps, while a very dark, clean-shaven, alert-looking man sat leaning back in a chair before the door. This person immediately arose, locked the office door, put the key in his pocket, and then quietly sat down again. Walter's heart was in his mouth. He grew red and pale by turns. Before he could collect his ideas Mr. Bright stopped in his walk, looked him squarely in the eye, and, in an altered voice, demanded sharply and sternly: "Ingersoll--where is he? No prevarication. I want the truth and nothing but the truth. You understand?" Walter tried hard to make a composed answer, but the words would not seem to come; and the merchant's cold gray eyes seemed searching him through and through. However, he managed to stammer out: "I don't know, sir, where he is--gone away, hasn't he?" "Don't know. Gone away," repeated the merchant. "Now answer me directly, without any ifs or buts; where, and when, did you see him last?" "Last night; at least, I thought it was Ramon." The dark man gave his head a little toss. "Well, go on? What then?" "It was about nine o'clock, in a close carriage, not far from the Common." That, by the way, was as near to Mr. Bright's house as Walter thought proper to locate the affair. Mr. Bright exchanged glances with the dark man, who merely nodded, but said never a word. Thinking his examination was over, Walter plucked up the courage to say of his own accord, "I ran after the carriage as tight as I could; but you see, sir, the driver was lashing his horses all the way, so I couldn't keep up with it; and when I got to the depot the train was just starting." "Pray, what took _you_ to that neighborhood at that hour?" the silent man demanded so suddenly that the sound of his voice startled Walter. If ever conscious guilt showed itself in a face, it now did in Walter's. He turned as red as a peony. Mr. Bright frowned, while the dark-skinned man smiled a knowing little smile. "Why, nothing in particular, sir. I was only taking a little stroll about town, before going home," Walter replied, a word at a time. "Yet your boarding place is at the other end of the city, is it not?" pursued Mr. Bright. "Yes, sir, it is." "Walter Seabury, up to this time I have always had a good opinion of you. This is no time for concealments. The house has been robbed of a large sum of money--so large that should it not be recovered within twenty-four hours we must fail. Do you hear--fail?" he repeated as if the word stuck in his throat and choked him. "Robbed; fail!" Walter faltered out, hardly believing his own ears. "Yes, robbed, and as I must believe by a scoundrel warmed at my own fireside. And you: why did you not report Ingersoll's flight before it was too late to stop him?" Though shocked beyond measure by this revelation, Walter made haste to reply: "Because, sir, I was not sure it was Ramon. It was just a look, and he was gone like a flash. Besides----" "Besides what?" "How could I know Ramon was running away?" "Why, then, did you run after him? Are you in the habit of chasing every carriage you may chance upon in the street?" again interrupted the silent man. Stung by the bantering tone of the stranger, Walter made no reply. Mr. Bright was his employer and had a perfect right to question him; but who was this man, and by what right did he mix himself up in the matter? "Quite right of you, young man, to say nothing to criminate yourself; but perhaps you will condescend to tell us, unless it would be betraying confidence [again that cunning smile], if you knew that this Ingersoll was a gambler?" The tell-tale blood again rushed to Walter's temples, but instantly left them as it dimly dawned upon him that he was suspected of knowing more than he was willing to tell. "Gently, marshal, gently," interposed Mr. Bright. "He will tell all, if we give him time." "One moment," rejoined the chief, with a meaning look at the merchant. "You hear, young man, this firm has been robbed of twenty thousand dollars--quite a haul. The thief has absconded. You tell a pretty straight story, I allow, but before you are many hours older you will have to explain why you, who have nothing to do with that department, should draw two thousand dollars at the bank yesterday; why, after getting banknotes you went back after gold," the marshal continued, warming up as he piled accusation on accusation; "why, again, you went from there to secure a berth in the _Georgia_, which sailed early this morning; and why you are seen, for seen you were, first watching Mr. Bright's house, and then arriving at the station just too late for the New York express. Take my advice. Make a clean breast of the whole affair. If you can clear yourself, now is the time; if you can't, possibly you may be of some use in recovering the money." Walter felt his legs giving way under him. At last it was all out. Now it was as clear as day how Ingersoll had so craftily managed everything as to make Walter appear in the light of a confederate. Now he knew why Ingersoll had wished to avoid being recognized. In a broken voice he told what he knew of Ingersoll's wrong-doings, excusing his own silence by the pledge he had given and received. When he had finished, the two men held a whispered conference together. "Clear case," observed the marshal; "one watched your house while the other was making his escape." "I'll not believe it. Why, this young man saved my daughter's life." "Think as you like. At any rate, I mean to keep an eye on him." So saying, the marshal went on his way, humming a tune to himself with as much unconcern as if he had just got up from a game of checkers which he had won handily. At the street corner he hailed an officer, to whom he gave an order in an undertone, and then walked on, smiling and nodding right and left as he went. Left alone with Mr. Bright, Walter stood nervously twisting his cap in both hands, like a culprit awaiting his sentence. It came at last. "Until this matter is cleared up," Mr. Bright said, "we cannot retain you in our employ. Get what is due you. You can go now." He then turned his back on Walter, and began busying himself over the papers on his desk. Walter went out of the office without another word. He was simply stunned. VII THE FLIGHT Walter walked slowly down the wharf, feeling as if the world had suddenly come to an end. Nothing looked to him exactly as it looked one short hour ago. He did not even notice that a policeman was keeping a few rods behind him. As he walked along with eyes fixed on the ground, a familiar voice hailed him with, "Why, what ails ye, lad? Seen a ghost or what?" "Bill," said Walter, "would you believe it, that skunk of a Ramon has run off with a lot of the firm's money--to California, they say? And, oh, Bill! Bill! they suspect me, _me_, of having helped him do it. And I'm discharged. That's all." It was no use trying to keep up longer. Walter broke down completely at the sound of a friendly voice at last. Bill silently led the way into the caboose. He first lighted his pipe, for, like the Indians, Bill seemed to believe that a good smoke tended to clear the intellect. He then, save for an occasional angry snort or grunt, heard Walter through without interruption. When the wretched story was all told Bill struck his open palm upon his knee, jerking out between whiffs: "My eye, here's a pretty kettle o' fish! Ruin, failure, crash, and smash. Ship ashore, and you all taken aback. Ssh!" suddenly checking himself, as a shadow darkened the one little pane of glass that served for a window. A policeman was looking in at them. Giving the two friends a careless nod, he walked slowly away. It slowly dawned upon Walter that the man with the black rosette in his hat, whom he had seen at the office, had set a watch upon him. "Bill, you mustn't be seen talking to me," said Walter, rising to leave. "They'll think you are in the plot, too. Oh! oh! they dog me about everywhere." The old fellow laughed scornfully. "That," he exclaimed, snapping his fingers, "for the hull b'ilin' on 'em. I've licked many a perleeceman in my time, and can do it again, old as I am. But we can be foxy, too, I guess. Listen. When I sees you comin', I'll go acrost the wharf to where that 'ar brig lays, over there. You foller me." Walter nodded. "I go up aloft. You follers. We has our little talk out in the maintop, free and easy like, and the perleeceman, he has his watch below." When Walter reached his boarding house his landlady met him in the entry. She seemed quite flustered and embarrassed. "Oh, Mr. Seabury," she began, "I'm so glad you've come! Such a time! There has been an officer here tossing everything topsy-turvy in your room. He would do it, in spite of all I could say. I told him you were the best boarder of the lot; never out late nights, or coming home the worse for liquor, and always prompt pay. Do you think, he told me to shut up, and mind my own business. Oh, sir, what _is_ the matter? That ever a nasty policeman should came ransacking in my house. Goodness alive! why, if it gets out, I'm a ruined woman. Please, sir, couldn't you find another boarding place?" This was the last straw for poor Walter. Without a word he crept upstairs to his little bedroom, threw himself down on the bed, and cried as if his heart would break. Walter was young. Conscious innocence helped him to throw off the fit of despondency; but in so far as feeling goes, he was ten years older when he came out of it. It was quite dark. Lighting a lamp, he hastily threw a few things into a bag, scribbled a short note to his aunt, inclosing the check received when he was discharged, settled with the landlady, who was in tears, always on tap; took his bag under his arm, and after satisfying himself that the coast was clear, struck out a roundabout course, through crooked ways and blind alleys, to the wharf. For the life of him, he could not keep back a little bitter laugh when he called to mind that this was the second time in his short life that he had run away. The wharf was deserted. There was no light in the caboose; but upon Walter's giving three cautious raps, the door was slid back, and as quickly closed after him. "Well," he said, wearily throwing himself down on a bench, "here I am again. I've been turned out of doors now. You are my only friend left. What would you do, if you were in my place? I can't bear it, and I won't," he broke out impulsively. "I see," said Bill, meditatively shutting both eyes, to give emphasis to the assertion. "Nobody will give me a place now, with a cloud like that hanging over me." Bill nodded assent. "I can't go back to the loft where I worked before, to be pointed at and jeered at by every duffer who may take it into his head to throw this scrape in my face. Would you?" As Bill made no reply, but smoked on in silence, Walter exclaimed, almost fiercely, "Confound it, man, say something! can't you? You drive me crazy with all the rest." This time Bill shook the ashes from his pipe. "What would I do? Why, if it was me I'd track the rascal to the eends of the airth, and jump off arter him, but I'd have him. And arter I'd cotched him, I'd twist his neck just as quick as I would a pullet's," was Bill's quiet but determined reply. Walter simply stared, though every nerve in his body thrilled at the bare idea. "Pshaw, you don't mean it. What put that silly notion into your head? Why, what could I do single-handed and alone, against such a consummate villain as that? Where's the money to come from, in the first place?" Bill watched Walter's sudden change from hot to cold. "Jest you take down that 'ar coffee-pot over your head." Walter handed it to him, as requested. First giving it a vigorous shake, which made the contents rattle again with a metallic sound, Bill then raised the lid, showing to Walter's astonished eyes a mixture of copper, silver, and even a few gold, coins, half filling the battered utensil. "Thar's a bank as never busts, my son," chuckled the old man, at the same time turning the coffee-pot this way and that, just for the pleasure of hearing it rattle. "What do you think of them 'ar coffee-grounds, heh? Single-handed, is it?" he continued, with a sniff of disdain. "I'll jest order my kerridge, and go 'long with ye, my boy." It took some minutes for Walter to realize that Bill was in real, downright, sober earnest. But Bill was already shoving some odds and ends into a canvas bag to emphasize his decision. "Strike while the iron's hot" was his motto. Walter started to his feet with something of his old animation. "That settles it!" he exclaimed. "Since I've been turned out of doors, I feel as if I wanted to put millions of miles between me and every one I've ever known. Do you know, I think every one I meet is saying to himself, 'There's that Walter Seabury, suspected of robbing his employers'? Go away I must, but I've found out from the papers that no steamer sails before Saturday, and to-day is Wednesday, you know. Where shall I hide my face for a day or two? How do I know they won't arrest me, if they catch me trying to leave the city? Oh, Bill, I can never stand that disgrace, never!" Having finished with his packing, Bill blew out the light, pushed back the slide, and gave a rapid look up and down the wharf. As he drew in his head, he said just as indifferently as if he had proposed taking a short walk about town, "'Pears to me as if the correck thing for folks in our sitivation like was to cut and run." "True enough for me. But how about you? They'll say that you were as deep in the mud as I am in the mire. Give it up, Bill. No, dear old friend, I mustn't drag you down with me. I can't." "Bah! Talk won't hurt old Bill nohow. Bill's about squar' with the world. He owes just as much as he don't owe." Walter was deeply touched. He saw plainly that it was no use trying to shake the old fellow's purpose, so forbore urging him further. The old man waited a moment for Walter to speak, and finding that he did not, laid his big rough hand on the lad's shoulder and asked impressively, "Did you send off your chist to your aunt as I told ye to?" "I did, an hour ago." "An' did you kind o' explanify things to the old gal?" "How could I tell her, Bill? Didn't she always say I would come to no good end? I wrote her that I was going away--a long way off--and for a long time. I couldn't say just how long. A year or two perhaps. My head was all topsy-turvy, anyhow." "You didn't forgit she took keer on ye when ye war a kid?" "I sent her the check I got from the store, right away." "Then I don't see nothin' to--hender us from takin' that 'ar little cruise we was a-talkin' about." It was pitch-dark when our two adventurers stepped out of the caboose. After securing the door with a stout padlock, Bill silently led the way to the stairs where he kept his wherry. Noiselessly the boat was rowed out of the dock, toward a light that glimmered in the rigging of an outward-bound brig that lay out in the stream waiting for the turning of the tide. Bill did not speak again until they were clear of the dock. "Yon brig's bound for York. I know the old man first-rate, 'cause I helped load her. He'll give us a berth if we take holt with the crew. Here we are." As he climbed the brig's side he set the wherry adrift with a vigorous shove of his foot. A day or two after the events just described, Mr. Bright and the marshal met on the street, the former looking sober and downcast, the latter smiling and elate. "What did I tell you?" cried the marshal, evidently well pleased with the tenor of the news he had to relate; "your _protégé_ has gone off with an old wharf rat that I've had my eye on for some time." "To tell you the whole truth, marshal, my mind is not quite easy about that boy," the merchant replied. "Opportunity makes the thief," the officer observed carelessly. "I'm afraid we've been too hasty." "Perhaps so; but it's my opinion that when Ramon is found, the other won't be far off. I honor your feelings in this matter, sir, but my experience tells me that every rascal asserts his innocence until his guilt is proved. I've notified the police of San Francisco to be on the lookout for that precious clerk of yours. Good-day, sir." When Mr. Bright returned to the store, on entering the office he saw an elderly woman, in a faded black bonnet and shawl, sitting bolt-upright on the edge of a chair facing the door, with two bony hands tightly clenched in her lap. There was fire in her eye. "That is Mr. Bright, madam," one of the clerks hastened to say. "What can I do for you, madam?" the merchant asked. The woman fixed two keen gray eyes upon the speaker's face, as she spoke up, quite unabashed by the quiet dignity of the merchant's manner of speaking. "Well," she began breathlessly, "I'm real glad to see you if you have kept me waiting. Here I've sot, an' sot, a good half-hour. 'Pears to me you Boston folks don't get up none too airly fer yer he'lth. I was down here before your shop was open this mornin'. Better late than never, though." The merchant bent his head politely. His visitor caught her breath and went on: "I'm Miss Marthy Seabury. What's all this coil about my nevvy? He's wrote me that he was goin' away. Where's he gone? What's he done? That's what I'd like to know, right up an' down." She paused for a reply, never taking her eyes off the merchant's troubled face for an instant. "My good woman," Mr. Bright began in a mollifying tone, when she broke in upon him abruptly: "No palaverin', mister. No beatin' the bush, if ye please. Come to the p'int. I left my dirty dishes in the sink to home, an' must go back in the afternoon keers." "Then don't let me detain you," resumed Mr. Bright gravely. "There has been a defalcation. I'm sorry to say your nephew is suspected of knowing more than he was willing to tell about it. So we had to let him go. Where he is now, is more than I can say." "What's a defalcation?" "A betrayal of trust, madam." "Do you mean my boy took anything that didn't belong to him?" "Not quite that. No, indeed. At least, I hope not. But, you see, Walter is badly mixed up with the precious rascal who did." "Well, you'd better not. I'd like to see the man who'd say my boy was a thief, that's all. Why, I'd trust him long before the President of the United States!" The woman actually glared at every one in the office, as if in search of some one willing to take up her challenge. "If you'll try to listen calmly, madam," interposed the merchant, "I'll try to tell you what we know." He then went on to relate the circumstances already known to us. Aunt Martha gave an indignant sniff when the merchant had finished. "You call yourself smart, eh? Why, an old woman sees through it with one eye. Walter was just humbugged. So was you, warn't ye? An' goin' on right under your own nose ever so long, an' ye none the wiser for't. Well, I declare to goodness, if I was you I sh'ld feel real downright small potatoes!" "I think, madam, perhaps we had better bring this interview to a close. It is a very painful subject, I do assure you." "Very well, sir. I sh'ld think you'd want to. But mark my words. You'll be sorry for this some day, as I am now that Walter ever laid eyes on you or--your darter." With this parting shot she bounced out of the office, shutting the door with a vicious bang behind her. But Mr. Bright's worries that day were not to be so easily set at rest. Upon reaching his home for a late dinner, looking pale and careworn, it was Dora who met him in the hallway, who put her arms round her father's neck, and who kissed him lovingly on both cheeks. "Dear papa, I know all," she said with a little sob. "Ah!" he ejaculated. "Then you have heard----" "Yes, papa; our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Pryor, has told me all about it. Hateful old thing!" The merchant made a gesture of resignation. "She said you would have to discharge most of your clerks." Mr. Bright made a gesture of assent. "Then I want to do something. I can give music lessons. I'll work my fingers off to help. I know I shall be a perfect treasure. But why _did_ you send Mr. Seabury away, papa?" "Because he was unfaithful." "I don't believe a word of it." "Appearances are strongly against him." "I don't care. I say it's a wicked shame. Why, what has he done?" "What has he done? Why, he knew Ramon gambled, and wouldn't tell. He knew Ramon had gone, and never lisped a syllable." "Yes, but that's what he didn't do." "He was caught hanging around our house the night that Ramon ran away. There, child, don't bother me with any more questions. Guilty or not, both have gone beyond reach." Dora came near letting slip a little cry of surprise. She knew that she was blushing furiously, but fortunately the hall was dark. A new light had flashed upon her. And she thought she could guess why Walter had been lurking round their house on that, to him, most eventful night. Although she had never exchanged a dozen words with him, he had won her gratitude and admiration fairly, and now she began to feel great pity and sorrow for the friendless clerk. Hearing Dora crying softly, her father put his arm around her waist and said soothingly: "There, child, don't cry; we must try to bear up under misfortune. But 'tis a thousand pities----" "Well," anxiously. "Well, if I had known all that in season, the worst might have been prevented." "And now?" "And now, child, your father is a ruined man." So saying, the merchant hung up his hat and walked gloomily away. Dora ran upstairs to her own room and locked herself in, leaving the despondent merchant to eat his dinner solitary and alone. VIII OUTWARD BOUND "Beats Boston, don't it?" said Bill to Walter, as the _Susan J._ was slowly working her way up the East River past the miles of wharves and warehouses with which the shores are lined. "Maybe it's bigger, but I don't believe it's any better," was Walter's guarded reply. As soon as the anchor was down, the two friends hailed a passing boatman, who quickly put them on shore at the Battery, whence they lost no time in making their way to the steamship company's office--Bill to see if he could get a chance to ship for the run to the Isthmus, Walter to get a berth in the steerage just as soon as Bill's case should be decided. So eager were they to have the matter settled that they would not stop even to look at the wonders of the town. While waiting their turn among the crowd in the office, Bill's roving eye happened to fall on a big, square-shouldered, thick-set man who sat comfortably warming his hands over a coal fire in the fireplace, which he wholly monopolized, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. It was now the month of December, and the air was chilly. Bill hailed him without ceremony. "Mawnin', mister. Fire feels kind o' good this cold mawnin', don't it?" The person thus addressed did not even turn his head. Unabashed by this cool reception, Bill added in a lower tone, "Lookin' out for a chance to ship, heh, matey?" At this question, so squarely put, a suppressed titter ran round the room. The silent man gave Bill a sidelong look, shrugged his shoulders, and absently asked, "What makes you think so?" "D'ye think I don't know a sailorman when I see one? Mighty stuck up, some folks is. Better get that Ingy-ink out o' yer hands ef yer 'shamed on it." The silent man rose up, buttoned his shaggy buffalo-skin coat up to his chin, pulled his fur cap down over his bushy eyebrows, and strode out of the office without looking either to the right or the left. "I say, you!" a clerk called out to Bill. "Do you know who you were talking to? That's the old man." "I don't keer ef it's the old boy. Ef that chap ha'n't hauled on a tarred rope afore now, I'm a nigger; that's all." "That was Commodore Vanderbilt, the owner of this line," the clerk retorted very pompously, quite as if he expected Bill to drop. The general laugh now went against Bill. "Whew! was it, though? Then I s'pose my cake's all dough," he grumbled to himself, but was greatly relieved when the shipping clerk, after a few questions, told him to sign the articles. Walter was duly engaged, in his turn, as a cabin waiter. This being settled, the two friends sallied forth in high spirits to report on board the _Prometheus_, bound for San Juan del Norte. Nowhere, probably, since the days of Noah was there ever seen such utter and seemingly helpless confusion as on one of those great floating arks engaged in the California trade by way of the Isthmus, in the early fifties, just before sailing. Bullocks were dismally lowing, sheep plaintively bleating, hogs squealing. Men were wildly running to and fro, shouting, pushing, and elbowing each other about, as if they had only a few minutes longer to live and must therefore make the most of their time. Women were quietly crying, or laughing hysterically, by turns, as the fit happened to take them. Of human beings, upwards of a thousand were thus occupied on board the _Prometheus_; while on the already crowded slip the shouting of belated hack drivers, who stormed and swore, the loud cries of peddlers and newsboys, who darted hither and thither among the surging throng, served to keep up an indescribable uproar. Add to this, that the sky was dark and lowering, the black river swimming with floating ice, crushing and grinding against the slip, as it moved out to sea with the ebb; and possibly some idea may be formed of what was taking place on that bleak December afternoon. But all things must come to an end. All this confusion was hushed when the word was passed to cast off, the paddle wheels began slowly to turn, and the big ship, careening heavily to port under its human freight, who swarmed like bees upon her decks, forged slowly out into the stream, carrying with her, if the truth must be told, many a sorry and homesick one already. Walter, however, drew a long breath of relief as the ship moved away from the shores. It was the first moment in which he had been able to shake off the fear of being followed. He therefore went about his duties cheerfully, if not very skillfully. Oh, the unspeakable misery of that first night at sea! A stiff southeaster was blowing when the steamer thrust her black nose outside of Sandy Hook. And as the hours wore on, and the gale rose higher and higher, with every lurch the straining ship would moan and tremble like a human being in distress. Now and then a big sea would strike the ship fairly, sending crockery and glassware flying about the cabin with a crash, then as she settled down into the trough, for one breathless moment it would seem as if she would never come up again. Twenty times that night the affrighted passengers gave themselves up for lost. Most of them lay in their berths prostrated by fear or seasickness. A few even put on life preservers. Perhaps a score or more, too much terrified even to seek their berths, crouched with pallid faces on the cabin stairs, foolishly imagining that if the ship did go down they would thus have the better chance of saving themselves. Some half-crazed women had even put on their bonnets, in order, as they sobbed out, to die decently. It was hardly light, if a blurred gray streak in the east could be called light, when Walter crept up the slippery companionway. His head felt like a balloon, his eyes like two lumps of lead, his legs like mismatched legs. The ship was working her engines just enough to keep her head to the sea. The deck was all awash, and littered with the rubbish of a row of temporary, or "standee," bunks abandoned by their occupants, and broken up by the force of the gale. The paddle-boxes were stove, and tons of water were pouring in upon the decks with every revolution of the wheels. By watching his chance, when the ship steadied herself for another plunge, Walter managed to work his way out to the forepart of the vessel. Here he found Bill, with half a dozen more, all wringing-wet, hastily swallowing, between lurches of the ship, a cupful of hot coffee, which the cook was passing out to them from the galley. If ever men looked completely worn out, then those men did. Bill no sooner caught sight of Walter, than he offered him his dipper. Walter put it away from him with a grimace of disgust. "Dirty night," said Bill, cooling his coffee between swallows; "blowed fresh; nary watch below sence we left the dock; no life in her; steered like a wild bull broke loose in Broadway. She's some easier now. Better have some [again holding out his cup]; 't will do you good. No? Well, here goes," tilting his head back and draining the cup to the last drop. Just then the first officer came bustling along in oilskins and sou'wester. "Here, you!" he called out, "lay for'ard there, and get the jib on her; come, bear a hand!" Walter went forward with the men. Hoisting the sail was no easy matter, with the ship plunging bows under every minute, but no sooner did the gale fill It fairly, than away it went with a report like a cannon, blown clean out of the bolt-rope, as if it had been a boy's kite held by a string. While the men were watching it disappear in the mist, crash came a ton or more of salt water pouring over the bow, throwing them violently against the deck-house. Shaking himself like a spaniel, the mate darted off to give the steersman a dressing-down for letting the ship "broach to." Two sailors had been lost overboard during the night. On a hint dropped by Bill, Walter was taken from the cabin, where there was little to do, and put to work with the carpenter's gang, repairing damages. The change being much to his liking, Walter applied himself to his new duties with a zeal that soon won for him the good will of his mates. And when it came to doing a job on the rigging, though out of practice, Walter was always the one called upon to do it. The captain, a quiet, gentlemanly man, who looked more like a schoolmaster than a shipmaster, told the purser to put Walter in the ship's books. Thoroughly tired out with his day's work, Walter was going below when the mate called out to him: "I say, youngster, you're not going down into that dog-hole again. There's a spare bunk in my stateroom. Get your traps and sail in. You can h'ist in as much sleep as you've storage room for." By noon of the second day out, the _Prometheus_ had run into the Gulf Stream. The gale had sensibly abated, though it still blew hard. When the captain came on deck, after taking a long look at the clouds, he said to the mate, "Mr. Gray, I think you may give her the jib and mainsail, to steady her a bit." At break of day on the morning of the fourth day out, as Walter was leaning over the weather rail, his eye caught sight of a dark spot rising out of the water nearly abeam. The mate was taking a long look at it through his glass. In reply to Walter's inquiring look, the mate told him it was a low-lying reef called Mariguana, one of the easternmost of the Bahamas. It was not long before most of the passengers were crowding up to get sight of that little speck of dry land, the first they had laid eyes on since the voyage began. "Now, my lad, you can judge something of how Columbus felt when he made his first landfall hereabouts so long ago!" exclaimed the mate. "Good for sore eyes, ain't it? We never try to pass it except in the daytime," he added; "if we did, ten to one we'd fetch up all standing." "San Domingo to-morrow!" cried the mate, rubbing his hands as he came out of the chart room on the fifth day. As the word passed through the ship it produced a magical effect among the passengers, whose chief desire was once more to set foot on dry land, and next to see it. Sure enough, when the sun rose out of the ocean next morning there was the lovely tropic island looming up, darkly blue, before them. There, too, were the hazy mountain peaks of Cuba rising in the west. All day long the ship was sailing between these islands, on a sea as smooth as a millpond. Every day she was getting in better trim, and going faster; and the spirits of all on board rose accordingly at the prospect of an early ending of the voyage. "This beats all!" was Walter's delighted comment to Bill, who was swabbing down the decks in his bare feet. "'Tis kind o' pooty," Bill assented, wiping his sweaty face with his bare arm. "That un," nodding toward Cuba, "Uncle Sam ought to hev, by good rights; but this 'ere," turning on San Domingo a look of contempt, "'z nothin' but niggers, airthquakes, an' harricanes. Let 'em keep it, says Bill;" then continuing, after a short pause, "Porter Prince is up in the bight of yon deep bay. I seen the old king-pin himself onct. Coal-tar ain't a patchin' to him; no, nor Day & Martin nuther. Hot? If you was ashore there, you'd think it was hot. Why, they cook eggs without fire right out in the sun." A two-days' run across the Caribbean Sea brought the _Prometheus_ on soundings, and a few hours more to her destined port. Every one was now making hurried preparations to leave the ship, bag and baggage; every eye beamed with delight at the prospect of escaping from the confinement of what had seemed more like a prison than anything else. While the _Prometheus_ was heading toward her anchorage there was time allowed for a brief survey of the town and harbor of San Juan del Norte, or, as it was then commonly called, Greytown. These were really nothing more than an open roadstead, bounded by a low, curving, and sandy shore, along which half a hundred poor cabins lay half hid among tall cocoanut palms. From the one two-story building in sight the British flag was flying. The harbor, however, presented a very animated and warlike appearance, in consequence of the warm dispute then in progress between England and the United States as to who should control the transit from ocean to ocean. Two American and two British warships lay within easy gunshot of each other, flying the flags of their respective nations, and no sooner were the colors of the starry banner caught sight of than a tremendous cheer burst from the thousand throats on board the _Prometheus_. Her anchor had hardly touched bottom when a boat from the _Saranac_ came alongside, the officer in charge eagerly hailing the deck for the latest news from the States. As for the jackies, to judge from their looks they seemed literally spoiling for a fight. Walter had no very clear idea upon the subject of this international dispute, still less of the importance it might assume in the future, but the evident anxiety shown on the faces around him led him to suppose that the matter was serious. He stood holding onto the lee rigging, watching the American tars in the boat alongside, and thinking what fine, manly fellows they looked, when two passengers near him began an animated discussion which set him to thinking. "Sare," said one, with a strong French accent, "it was, _ma foi_, I shall recollect--_ah oui_--it was my countryman, one Samuel Champlain, who first gave ze idea of cutting--what you call him?--one sheep canal across ze Eesmus. I shall not be wrong to-day." "Excuse me, monsieur," the other returned, "I think Cortez did that very thing long before him." "Nevair mind, _mon ami_. I _gage_ you 'ave ze _histoire_ correct. Eet only prove zat great minds 'ave always sometime ze same ideas. _Mais_, your Oncle Sam, wiz hees sillee Monroe Doctreen, he eez like ze dog wiz his paw on ze bone: he not eat himself; he not let any oder dog: he just growl, growl, growl." "But, monsieur, wouldn't Uncle Sam, as you call him, be a big fool to let any foreign nation get control of his road to California?" The Frenchman only replied by a shrug. Even before the _Prometheus_ dropped anchor she was surrounded by a swarm of native boatmen, of all shades of color from sour cream to jet-black, some holding up bunches of bananas, some screaming out praises of their boats to such as were disposed to go ashore, others begging the passengers to throw a dime into the water, for which they instantly plunged, head first, regardless of the sharks which could be seen lazily swimming about the harbor, attracted by the offal thrown over from the ships. "I don't know how 'tis," said Bill in Walter's ear, "but them sharks'll never tech a nigger. But come, time to wake up! Anchor's down. All's snug aboard. Now keep your weather eye peeled for a long pull across the Isthmus." "Good luck to ye," said the jolly mate, shaking Walter heartily by the hand as he was about leaving the ship. "I'm right glad to see you've been trying to improve your mind a bit, instead of moonin' about like a catfish in a mudhole, as most of 'em do on board here. Use your eyes. Keep your ears open and don't be afraid to ask questions. That's the way to travel, my hearty!" And with a parting wave of the hand he strode forward. IX ACROSS NICARAGUA In the course of an hour or so three light-draught stern-wheel steamboats ("wheelbarrows," Bill derisively called them) came puffing up alongside. Into them the passengers were now unceremoniously bundled, like so many sheep, and in such numbers as hardly to allow room to move about, yet all in high glee at escaping from the confinement of the ship, at which many angrily shook their fists as the fasts were cast off. In another quarter of an hour the boats were steaming slowly up the San Juan River, thus commencing the second stage of the long journey. For the first hour or two the travelers were fully occupied in looking about them with charmed eyes, as with mile after mile, and turn after turn, the wonders of a tropical forest, all hung about with rare and beautiful flowers, and all as still as death, passed before them. But Bill, to whom the sight was not new or strange, declared that for his part he would rather have a sniff of good old Boston's east wind than all the cloying perfumes of that wilderness of woods and blossoms. It was not long, however, before attention was drawn to the living inhabitants of this fairyland. First a strange object, something between a huge lizard and a bloated bullfrog, was spied clinging to a bush on the bank. No sooner seen than crack! crack! went a dozen pistol shots, and down dropped the dirty green-and-yellow creature with a loud splash into the river. "There's a tidbit gone," observed Bill, in Walter's ear. "What! eat that thing?" demanded Walter with a disgusted look. "Sartin. They eat um; eat anything. And what you can't eat, 'll eat you. If you don't b'leeve it, look at that 'ar reptyle on the bank yonder," said Bill, pointing out the object in question with the stem of his pipe. Walter followed the direction of Bill's pipe. Looking quite as much like a stranded log as anything else, a full-grown alligator lay stretched out along the muddy margin of the river at the water's edge. No sooner was he seen, than the ungainly monster became the target for a perfect storm of bullets, all of which glanced as harmlessly off his scaly back as hailstones from a slate roof. Disturbed by the noise and the shouts, the hideous animal slid slowly into the water and disappeared from sight, churning up the muddy bottom as he went. Bill put on a quizzical look as he asked Walter if he knew why some barbarians worshiped the alligator. Walter was obliged to admit that he did not. "'Cause the alligator can swaller the man, but the man can't swaller the alligator," chuckled Bill. Now and then a native bongo would be overhauled, bound for San Carlos, Grenada, or Leon, with a cargo of European goods. They were uncouth-looking boats, rigged with mast and sail, and sometimes thirty to forty feet long. Many a hearty laugh greeted the grotesque motions of the jet-black rowers, who half rose from their seats every time they dipped their oars, and then sank back with a grunt to give their strokes more power. The _patrón_, or master, prefaced all his orders with a persuasive "Now, gentlemen, a little faster, if you please!" "And so that's the way, is it, that all inland transportation has been carried on here for so many hundred years?" thought Walter. "Well, I never!" Incidents such as these served, now and then, to cause a ripple of excitement, or until even alligators became quite too numerous to waste powder upon. As darkness was coming on fast, there being no twilight to speak of in this part of the world, a ship's yawl was seen tied up under the bank for the night. Its occupants were nowhere in sight, but the dim light of a fire among the bushes showed that they were not far off. "Runaway sailors," Bill explained; "stole the boat, an' 'fraid to show themselves. Poor devils! they've a long pull afore 'em ef they get away, an' a rope's-end behind 'em if they're caught." "Why, how far is it across?" "It's more'n a hundred miles to the lake, and another hundred or so beyond." "Whew! you don't say. Well, I pity them." When darkness had shut down, the steamers also were tied up to trees on the bank, scope enough being given to the line to let the boats swing clear of the shores, on account of the mosquitoes, with which the woods were fairly alive. In this solitude the travelers passed their first night, without other shelter than the heavens above, and long before it was over there was good reason to repent of the abuse heaped upon the _Prometheus_, since very few got a wink of sleep; while all were more or less soaked by the rain that fell in torrents, as it can rain only in the tropics, during the night. As cold, wet, and gloomy as it dawned, the return of day was hailed with delight by the shivering and disconsolate travelers. In truth, much of the gilding had already been washed off, or worn off, of their El Dorado. And, as Bill bluntly put it, they all looked "like a passel of drownded rats." Bill made this remark while he and Walter were washing their hands and faces in the roily river water, an easy matter, as they had only to stoop over the side to do so, the boat's deck being hardly a foot out of water. Suddenly Walter caught Bill's arm and gave it a warning squeeze. Bill followed the direction in which Walter was looking, and gave a low whistle. A beautifully mottled black-and-white snake had coiled itself around the line by which the boat was tied to the shore, and was quietly working its way, in corkscrew fashion, toward the now motionless craft. Seizing a boat-hook, Bill aimed a savage blow at the reptile, but the rope only being struck, the snake dropped unharmed into the river. "Do they raise anything here besides alligators, snakes, lizards, and monkeys?" Walter asked the captain, who was looking on, while sipping his morning cup of black coffee. Glancing up, the captain good-humoredly replied, "Oh, yes; they raise plantains, bananas, oranges, limes, lemons, chocolate-nuts, cocoanuts----" "Pardon me," Walter interrupted; "those things are luxuries. I meant things of real value, sir." "A very proper distinction," the captain replied, looking a little surprised. "Well, then, before you get across you will probably see hundreds of mahogany trees, logwood trees, fustic and Brazil-wood trees, to say nothing of other dye-woods, more or less valuable, growing all about you." "Oh, yes, sir, I've seen all those woods you tell of coming out of vessels at home, but never growing. Somehow I never thought of them before as trees." "Then there is cochineal, indigo, sugar, Indian corn, coffee, tobacco, cotton, hides, vanilla, some India rubber----" Walter looked sheepish. "I see now how silly my question was. Please excuse my ignorance." "That's all right," said the captain pleasantly. "Don't ever be afraid to ask about what you want to know. I suppose I've carried twenty thousand passengers across, and you are positively the first one to ask about anything except eating, sleeping, or when we are going to get there." The two succeeding days were like the first, except that the river grew more and more shallow in proportion as it was ascended, and the country more and more hilly and broken. This furnished a new experience, as every now and then the boats would ground on some sand-bar, when all hands would have to tumble out into the water to lighten them over the rift, or wade ashore to be picked up again at some point higher up, after a fatiguing scramble through the dense jungle. "Whew! This is what I calls working your passage," was Bill's quiet comment, as he and Walter stood together on the bank, breathing hard, after making one of these forced excursions for half a mile. "Is here where they talk of building a canal?" Walter asked in amazement, casting an oblique glance into the pestilential swamps around him. "Surely, they can't be in earnest." "They'll need more grave-diggers than mud-diggers, if they try it on," was Bill's emphatic reply. "White men can't stand the climate nohow. And as for niggers--well, all you can git out o' 'em's clear gain, like lickin' a mule," he added, biting off a chew of tobacco as he spoke. On the afternoon of the third day the passengers were landed at the foot of the Castillio Rapids, so named from an old Spanish fort commanding the passage of the river at this point, though many years gone to ruin and decay. Walter and Bill climbed the steep path leading up to it. The castle was of great age, they were told, going back to the time of the mighty Philip II of Spain perhaps, who spent such vast sums in fortifying his American colonies against the dreaded buccaneers. Walter could not help feeling awe-struck at the thought that what he saw was already old when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Some one asked if this was not the place where England's naval hero, Lord Nelson, first distinguished himself, when the castle was taken in 1780. Leaving these crumbling ruins to the snakes, lizards, and other reptiles which glided away at their approach, the two went back to the clump of rough shanties by the river, and it was here that Walter made his first acquaintance with that class of adventurers who, if not buccaneers in name, had replaced them, to all intents, not only here but on all routes leading to the land of gold. There was a short portage around the rapids. A much larger and more comfortable boat had just landed some hundreds of returning Californians at the upper end of this portage, and a rough-and-ready looking lot they were, betraying by their talk and actions that they had long been strangers to the restraints of civilized life. Of course every word they dropped was greedily devoured by the newcomers, by whom the Californians were looked upon as superior beings. The two sets of passengers were soon exchanging newspapers or scraps of news, while their baggage was being transferred around the portage. Giving Walter a knowing wink, Bill accosted one of the Californians with the question, "I say, mister, is it a fact, now, that you can pick up gold in the streets in San Francisco?" "Stranger," this individual replied, "you may bet your bottom dollar you can. It's done every day in the week. You see a lump in the street, pick it up, and put it in your pocket until you come across a bigger one, then you heave the first one away, same's you do pickin' up pebbles on the beach, _sabe_?" Giving a nod to the half-dozen listeners, who were eagerly devouring every word, the fellow turned on his heel and walked off to join his companions. The run across Lake Nicaragua was made in the night. When the passengers awoke the next morning the steamer was riding at anchor at a cable's length from the shore, on which a lively surf was breaking. Behind this was a motley collection of thatched hovels known as Virgin Bay. The passengers were put ashore in lighters, into which as many were huddled as there was standing-room for, were then hauled to the beach by means of a hawser run between boat and shore, and, with their hearts in their mouths while pitching and tossing among the breakers, at last scrambled upon the sands as best they might, thanking their lucky stars for their escape from drowning.[2] [2] The picture is by no means overdrawn, as on a subsequent occasion, by the capsizing of a lighter in the surf, many passengers were drowned. Walter and Bill found themselves standing among groups of chattering half-breeds, half-nude children, dried-up old crones, and hairless, dejected-looking mules, whose shrill hee-haws struck into the general uproar with horribly discordant note. It was here bargains were made for the transportation of one's self or baggage across the intervening range of mountains to the Pacific. Secure in their monopoly of all the animals to be had for hire, the avaricious owners did not hesitate to demand as much for carrying a trunk sixteen miles as its whole contents were worth--more indeed than a mule would sell for. Walter was gazing on the novel scene with wide-open eyes. Already their little store of cash was running low. "You talk to them, Bill; you say you know their lingo," Walter suggested, impatient at seeing so many of the party mounting their balky steeds and riding away. Bill walked up to a sleepy-looking mule driver who stood nearby idly smoking his cigarette, and laying his hand upon the animal's flank, cleared his throat, and demanded carelessly, in broken Spanish, "Qui cary, hombre, por este mula?" The animal slowly turned his head toward the speaker, and viciously let go both hind feet, narrowly missing Bill's shins. "Wow! he's an infamous rhinoceros, este mula!" cried Bill, drawing back to a safe distance from the animal's heels. "Si, señor," replied the unmoved muleteer. "Viente pesos, no mas," he added in response to Bill's first question. "Twenty devils!" exclaimed Bill in amazement, dropping into forcible English; "we don't want to buy him." Then resorting to gestures, to assist his limited vocabulary, he pointed to his own and Walter's bags, again demanding, "Quantos por este carga, vamos the ranch, over yonder?" "Cinco pesos," articulated the impassive owner, between puffs. "Robber," muttered Bill under his breath. Rather than submit to be so outrageously fleeced, Bill hit upon the following method of traveling quite independently. He had seen it done in China, he explained, and why not here? Getting a stout bamboo, the two friends slung their traps to the middle, lifted it to their shoulders, and in this economical fashion trudged off for the mountains, quite elated at having so cleverly outwitted the Greasers, as Bill contemptuously termed them. In fact, the old fellow was immensely tickled over the ready transformation of two live men into a quadruped. Walter should be fore legs and he hind legs. When tired, they could take turn and turn about. If the load galled one shoulder, it could be shifted over to the other, without halting. "Hooray!" he shouted, when they were clear of the village; "to-morrow we'll see the place where old Bill Boar watered his hoss in the Pacific." "Balboa, Bill," Walter corrected. "No horse will drink salt water, silly. You know better. Besides, it wasn't a horse at all. 'Twas a mule." Night overtook the travelers before reaching the foothills, but after munching a biscuit and swallowing a few mouthfuls of water they stretched themselves out upon the bare ground, and were soon traveling in the land of dreams. The pair were bright and early on the road again, which was only a mule-track, deeply worn and gullied by the passing to and fro of many a caravan. It soon plunged into the thick woods, dropped down into slippery gorges, or scrambled up steep hillsides, where the pair would have to make a short halt to mop their brows and get their breath. Then they would listen to the screaming of countless parroquets, and watch the gambols of troops of chattering monkeys, among the branches overhead. Bill spoke up: "I don't believe men ever had no tails like them 'ar monkeys; some say they did: but I seen many a time I'd like to had one myself when layin' out on a topsail yard, in a dark night, with nothin' much to stan' on. A tail to kinder quirl around suthin', so's to let you use your hands and feet, is kind o' handy. Just look at that chap swingin' to that 'ar branch up there by his tail, like a trapeze performer, an' no rush o' blood to the brain nuther." Walter could hardly drag Bill away from the contemplation of this interesting problem. For six mortal hours the travelers were shut up in the gloomy tropical forest; but just at the close of day it seemed as if they had suddenly stepped out of darkness into light, for far and wide before them lay the mighty Pacific Ocean, crimsoned by the setting sun. Once seen, it was a sight never to be forgotten. Walter and Bill soon pushed on down the mountain into the village of San Juan del Sur, of which the less said the better. Thoroughly tired out by their day's tramp, the wayfarers succeeded in obtaining a night's lodging in an old tent, at the rate of four bits each. It consisted in the privilege of throwing themselves down upon the loose sand, already occupied by millions of fleas, chigoes, and other blood-letting bedfellows. Glad enough were they at the return of day. Bill's eyes were almost closed, and poor Walter's face looked as if he had just broken out with smallpox. San Juan del Sur was crowded with people anxiously awaiting the arrival of the steamship that was to take them on up the coast. The only craft in the little haven was a rusty-looking brigantine, which had put in here for a supply of fresh water. Her passengers declared that she worked like a basket in a gale of wind. Learning that the captain was on shore, our two friends lost no time in hunting him up, when the following colloquy took place: "Mawnin', cap," said Bill. "How much do you ax fur a cabin passage to 'Frisco?" "A hundred dollars, cash in advance. But I can't take you; all full in the cabin." "Well, s'pos'n I go in the hold; how much?" "Eighty dollars; but I can't take you. Hold's full, too." "Jerusalem! Why can't I go in the fore-peak? What's the price thar?" "Eighty dollars; but I can't take you. Full fore and aft." "'Z that so? Well, say, cap, can't I go aloft somewhere? What 'll you charge then?" "We charge eighty dollars to go anywhere; but can't carry you aloft. Got to carry our provisions there." Bill mused a minute. "Hard case, ain't it?" appealing first to Walter, then to the captain. "But as I want to go mighty bad, what 'll you tax to tow me?" The captain turned away, with a horselaugh and a shake of the head, to attend to his own affairs, leaving our two friends in no happy frame of mind at the prospect before them. With the utmost economy their little stock of money would last but little longer. The heat was oppressive and the place alive with vermin. Hours were spent on the harbor headland watching for the friendly smoke of the overdue steamer. Several days now went by before the delayed steamer put in an appearance. It was none too soon, for with so many mouths to feed, the place began to be threatened with famine. It was by the merest chance that Walter secured a passage for himself in the steerage, and for Bill as a coal-passer, on this ship. Luckily for them, the captain's name happened to be the same as Walter's. He also hailed from New Bedford. He even admitted, though cautiously, that there might be some distant relationship. So Walter won the day, with the understanding that he was to spread his blanket on deck, for other accommodations there were none; while before the ship was two days at sea, men actually fought for what were considered choice spots to lie down upon at night. The event of the voyage up the coast was a stay of several days at Acapulco, for making repairs in the engine room and for coaling ship. What a glorious harbor it is! land-locked and so sheltered by high mountains, that once within it is difficult to discover where a ship has found her way in, or how she is going to get out. Here, in bygone times, the great Manila galleons came with their rich cargoes, which were then transported across Mexico by pack-trains to be again reshipped to Old Spain. The arrival of a Yankee ship was now the only event that stirred the sleepy old place into life. At the sound of her cannon it rubbed its eyes, so to speak, and woke up. Bill even asserted that the people looked too "tarnation" lazy to draw their own breath. Ample time was allowed here for a welcome run on shore; and the arrival of another steamer, homeward bound, made Acapulco for the time populous. Bill could not get shore leave, so Walter went alone. There were a custom-house without custom, a plaza, in which the inhabitants had hurriedly set up a tempting display of fruits, shells, lemonade, and home-made nicknacks to catch the passengers' loose change, besides a moldy-looking cathedral, whose cracked bells now and again set a whole colony of watchful buzzards lazily flapping about the house-tops. And under the very shadow of the cathedral walls a group of native Mexicanos were busily engaged in their favorite amusement of gambling with cards or in cock-fighting. After sauntering about the town to his heart's content, Walter joined a knot of passengers who were making their way toward the dilapidated fort that commands the basin. On their way they passed a squad of barefooted soldiers, guarding three or four villainous-looking prisoners, who were at work on the road, and who shot evil glances at the light-hearted Americanos. Walter thought if this was a fair sample of the Mexican army, there was no use in crowing over the victories won by Scott and Taylor not many years before. At the end of a hot and dusty walk in the glare of a noonday sun, the visitors seated themselves on the crumbling ramparts of the old fort, and fell to swapping news, as the saying is. One of the Californians was being teased by his companions to tell the story of a man lost overboard on the trip down the coast; and while the others stretched themselves out in various attitudes to listen, he, after lighting a cheroot, began the story: "You know I can't tell a story worth a cent, but I reckon I can give you the facts if you want 'em. There was a queer sort of chap aboard of us who was workin' his passage home to the States. We know'd him by the name of Yankee Jim, 'cause he answered to the name of Jim, and said as how he come from 'way down East where they pry the sun up every morning with a crowbar. He did his turn, but never spoke unless spoken to. We all reckoned he was just a little mite cracked in the upper story. Hows'ever, his story came out at last." X THE LUCK OF YANKEE JIM One scorching afternoon in July, 185--, the Hangtown stage rumbled slowly over the plank road forming the principal street of Sacramento City, finally coming to a full stop in front of the El Dorado Hotel. This particular stage usually made connection with the day boat for "The Bay"; but on this occasion it came in an hour too late, consequently the boat was at that moment miles away, down the river. Upon learning this disagreeable piece of news, the belated passengers scattered, grumbling much at a detention which, each took good care to explain, could never have been worse-timed or more inconvenient than on this particular afternoon. One traveler, however, stood a moment or two longer, apparently nonplused by the situation, until his eye caught the word "Bank" in big golden letters staring at him from the opposite side of the street. He crossed over, read it again from the curbstone, and then shambled in at the open door. He knew not why, but once within, he felt a strange desire to get out again as quickly as possible. But this secret admonition passed unheeded. Before him was a counter extending across the room, at the back of which rose a solid wall of brick. Within this was built the bank vault, the half-open iron door disclosing bags of coin piled upon the floor and shelves from which the dull glitter of gold-dust caught the visitor's eye directly. The middle of the counter was occupied by a pair of tall scales, of beautiful workmanship, in which dust was weighed, while on a table behind it were trays containing gold and silver coins. A young man, who was writing and smoking at the same time, looked up as the stranger walked in. To look at the two men, one would have said that it was the bank clerk who might be expected to feel a presentiment of evil. Really, the other was half bandit in appearance. Although he was alone and unnoticed, yet the stranger's manner was undeniably nervous and suspicious. Addressing the cashier, he said: "I say, mister, this yer boat's left; can't get to 'Frisco afore to-morrow" (inquiringly). "That's so," the cashier assented. "Well," continued the miner, "here's my fix: bound home for the States [dropping his voice]; got two thousand stowed away; don't know a live _hombre_ in this yer burg, and might get knifed in some fandango. See?" "That's so," repeated the unmoved official. Then, seeing that his customer had come to an end, he said, "I reckon you want to deposit your money with us?" "That's the how of it, stranger. Lock it up tight whar I kin come fer it to-morrow." "Down with the dust then," observed the cashier, taking the pen from behind his ear and preparing to write; but seeing his customer cast a wary glance to right and left, he beckoned him to a more retired part of the bank, where the miner very coolly proceeded to strip to his shirt, in each corner of which five fifty-dollar "slugs" were knotted. An equal sum in dust was then produced from a buckskin belt, all of which was received without a word of comment upon the ingenuity with which it had been concealed. A certificate of deposit was then made out, specifying that James Wildes had that day deposited with the Mutual Confidence and Trust Company, subject to his order, two thousand dollars. Glancing at the scrap of crisp paper as if hardly comprehending how that could be an equivalent for his precious coin and dust, lying on the counter before him, Jim heaved a deep sigh of relief, then crumpling the certificate tightly within his big brown fist, he exclaimed: "Thar, I kin eat and sleep now, I reckon. Blamed if I ever knew afore what a coward a rich man is!" Our man, it seems, had been a sailor before the mast. When the anchor touched bottom, he with his shipmates started for the "diggings," where he had toiled with varying luck, but finding himself at last in possession of what would be considered a little fortune in his native town. He was now returning, filled with the hope of a happy meeting with the wife and children he had left behind. But while Yankee Jim slept soundly, and blissfully dreamed of pouring golden eagles into Jane's lap, his destiny was being fulfilled. The great financial storm of 185-- burst upon the State unheralded and unforeseen. Like a thief in the night the one fatal word flashed over the wires that shut the door of every bank, and made the boldest turn pale. Suspension was followed by universal panic and dismay. Yankee Jim was only an atom swallowed up in the general and overwhelming disaster of that dark day. In the morning he went early to the bank, only to find it shut fast, and an excited and threatening crowd surging to and fro before the doors. Men with haggard faces were talking and gesticulating wildly. Women were crying and wringing their hands. A sudden faintness came over him. What did it all mean? Mustering courage to put the question to a bystander, he was told to look and read for himself. Two ominous words, "Bank Closed," told the whole story. For a moment or two the poor fellow could not seem to take in the full meaning of the calamity that had befallen him. But as it dawned upon him that his little fortune was swept away, and with it the hopes that had opened to his delighted fancy, the blood rushed to his head, his brain reeled, and he fell backward in a fit. The first word he spoke when he came to himself was "Home." Some kind souls paid his passage to 'Frisco, where the sight of blue water seemed to revive him a little. Wholly possessed by the one idea of getting home, he shipped on board the first steamer, which happened to be ours, going about his duty like a man who sees without understanding what is passing around him. My own knowledge of the chief actor in this history began at four o'clock in the morning of the third day out. The _California's_ engines suddenly stopped. There was a hurried trampling of feet, a sudden rattling of blocks on deck, succeeded by a dead silence--a silence that could be felt. I jumped out of my berth and ran on deck. How well I can recall that scene! The night was an utterly dismal one--cold, damp, and foggy. A pale light struggled through the heavy mist, but it was too thick to see a cable's length from the ship, although we distinctly heard the rattle of oars at some distance, with now and then a quick shout that sent our hearts up into our mouths. We listened intently. No one spoke. No one needed to be told what those shouts meant. How long it was I cannot tell, for minutes seemed hours then; but at last we heard the dip of oars, and presently the boat shot out of the fog within a biscuit's toss of the ship. I remember that, as they came alongside, the upturned faces of the men were white and pinched. One glance showed that the search had been in vain. The boat was swung up, the huge paddles struck the black water like clods, the huge hulk swung slowly round to her helm. But at the instant when we were turning away, awed by the mystery of this death-scene, a cry came out of the black darkness--a yell of agony and despair--that nailed us to the deck. May I never hear the like again! "Save me! for God's sake, save me!" pierced through that awful silence till a hundred voices seemed repeating it. The cry seemed so near that every eye instinctively turned to the spot whence it proceeded--so near that it held all who heard it in breathless, in sickening suspense. Had the sea really given up its dead? Before one could count ten, the boat was again manned and clear of the ship. How well I recall the bent figure of the first officer as he stood in the stern-sheets, with the tiller-ropes in his hand, peering off into the fog! I can still see the men springing like tigers to their work again, and the cutter tossing on the seething brine astern like a chip. Then the fog shut them from our view. But nevermore was that voice heard on land or sea. No doubt it was the last agonized shriek of returning consciousness as the ocean closed over Yankee Jim's head. At eight bells we assembled around the capstan at our captain's call, when the few poor effects of the lost man were laid out to view. His kit contained one or two soiled letters, a daguerreotype of two blooming children hand in hand, a piece of crumpled paper, and a few articles of clothing not worth a picayune. I took notice that while smoothing out the creases in this scrap of paper, the captain suddenly became deeply attentive, then thoughtful, then very red. Clearing his throat he began as follows: "It's an old sea custom to sell by auction the kit of a shipmate who dies on blue water. You all know it's a custom of the land to read the will of a deceased person as soon as the funeral is over. The man we lost this morning shipped by his fo'castle or sea name--a very common thing among sailors; but I've just found out his true one since I stood here; and what's more I've found out that the man had been in trouble. An idea strikes me that he found it too heavy for him. God only knows. But it's more to the point that he has left a wife and two children dependent upon him for support. Gentlemen and mates, take off your hats while I read you this letter." The letter, which bore evidence of having been read and read again, ran as follows: "Oh, James! and are you really coming home, and with such a lot of money too? Oh, I can't believe it all! How happy we shall be once more! It makes me feel just like a young girl again, when you and I used to roam in the berry pastures, and never coveted anything in the wide world but to be together. You haven't forgot that, have you, James? or the old cedar on the cliff where you asked me for your own wife, and the sky over us and the sea at our feet, all so beautiful and we so happy? Do come quick. Surely God has helped me to wait all this long, weary time, but now it seems as if I couldn't bear it another day. And the little boy, James, just your image; it's all he can say, 'Papa, come home.' How can you have the heart to stay in that wicked place?" When the reading was finished some of the women passengers were crying softly. The men stood grimly pulling their long mustaches. After a short pause the captain read aloud the fatal certificate of deposit, holding it up so that all might see. "Now, ladies and gentlemen," he went on, "you've heard the story and can put this and that together. When we get to Panama I'm going to write a letter to the widow. It's for you to say what kind of a letter it shall be. Now, purser, you may put up the certificate of deposit." "How much am I offered--how much?" said the purser, waving the worthless bit of paper to right and left. Ten, twenty, forty, fifty dollars were bid before the words were fairly out of the purser's mouth. Then a woman's voice said seventy, another's one hundred, and the men, accepting the challenge, ran the bidding up fifty more, at which price the certificate was knocked down to a red-shirted miner who laid three fifty-dollar pieces on the capstan, saying as he did so: "'Tain't a patchin', boys. Sell her agin, cap--sell her agin." So the purser, at a nod from the captain, put it up again, and the sale went on, each buyer in turn turning the certificate over to the purser, until the noble emulation covered the capstan with gold. "Stop a bit, purser," interrupted Captain M----, counting the money. "That will do," he continued. "The sale is over. Here are just two thousand dollars. The certificate of deposit is redeemed." XI SEEING THE SIGHTS IN 'FRISCO It was a fine, sunny afternoon when the _Pacific_ turned her prow landward, and stood straight on for a break in the rugged coast line, like a hound with its nose to the ground. In an hour she was moving swiftly through the far-famed Golden Gate. A fort loomed up at the right, then a semaphore was seen working on a hilltop. In ten minutes more the last point was rounded, the last gun fired, and the city, sprung like magic from the bleak hillsides of its noble bay, welcomed the weary travelers with open arms. The long voyage was ended. The wharf was already black with people when the steamer came in sight. When within hailing distance a perfect storm of greetings, questions, and answers was tossed from ship to shore. Our two friends scanned the unquiet throng in vain for the sight of one familiar face. No sooner did the gangplank touch the wharf than the crowd rushed pell-mell on board. Women were being clasped in loving arms. Men were frantically hugging each other. While this was passing on board, Walter and Bill made their escape to the pier, hale and hearty, but as hungry as bears. Forty days had passed since their long journey began. What next? Our two adventurers presently found themselves being hurried along with the crowd, without the most remote idea of where they were going. As soon as possible, however, Bill drew Walter to one side, to get their breath and to take their bearings, as he phrased it. "Well," said he, clapping Walter on the back, "here we be at last!" Walter was staring every passer-by in the face. From the moment he had set foot on shore his one controlling thought and motive had come back to him with full force. "Come, come, that's no way to set about the job," observed the practical-minded Bill. "One thing to a time. Let's get sumfin' t' eat fust; then we can set about it with full stomachs. How much have you got?" Walter drew from his pocket a solitary quarter-eagle, which looked astonishingly small as it lay there in the palm of his hand. Bill pulled out a handful of small change, amounting to half as much more. "But coppers don't pass here, nor anything else under a dime, I'm told," observed Walter. "No matter, they'll do for ballast," was Bill's reply, whose attention was immediately diverted to a tempting list of eatables chalked upon the door-post of a restaurant. Beginning at the top of the list, Bill began reading in an undertone, meditatively stroking his chin the while: "'Oxtail soup, one dollar.' H'm, that don't go down. 'Pigs' feet, one dollar each.' Let 'em run. 'Fresh Californy eggs, one dollar each.' Eggs is eggs out here. 'Corned beef, one dollar per plate.' No salt horse for Bill. 'Roast lamb, one dollar.' Baa! do they think we want a whole one? 'Cabbage, squash, or beans, fifty cents.' Will you look at that! Move on, Walt, afore they tax us for smellin' the cookin'. My grief!" he added with a long face, as they walked on, "I'm so sharp set that if a fun'ral was passin' along, I b'leeve I could eat the co'pse and chase the mo'ners." Fortunately, however, Bill was not driven to practice cannibalism, for just that moment a Chinaman came shuffling along, balancing a trayful of pies on his head. Bill was not slow in hailing the moon-eyed Celestial in pigtail, to which the old fellow could not resist giving a sly tweak, just for the fun of the thing: "Mawnin', John. Be you a Whig or Know-Nothin'?" at the same time helping himself to a juicy turn-over, and signing to Walter to do the same. "Me cakes. Melican man allee my fliend. Talkee true. You shabee, two bitee?" This last remark referred to the pie which Bill had just confiscated. Sauntering on, jostling and being jostled by people of almost every nation on the face of the earth, they soon reached the plaza, or great square of the city. Not many steps were taken here, when the strains of delicious music floated out to them from the wide-open doors of a building at their right hand. Attracted by the sweet sounds of "Home, Sweet Home," our two wayfarers peered in, and to Walter's amazement at least, brought up as he had been at home, for the first time in his life he found himself gazing into the interior of a gambling-house, in full swing and in broad daylight, like any legitimate business, courting the custom of every passer-by. "Walk in, gentlemen," said a suave-looking individual who was standing at the door. "Call for what you like. Everything's free here. Free lunch, free drinks, free cigars; walk in and try your luck." "'Walk into my parlor, sez the spider to the fly,'" was Bill's ironical comment upon this polite invitation. "Walt," he continued, a moment later, "I'm 'feared we throw'd our money away on that Chinee. Here's grub for nothin'." If they had only known it, the person they were looking for was inside that gambling den at that very moment. After rambling about until they were tired, the two companions looked up a place in which to get a night's lodging--a luxury which cost them seventy-five cents apiece for the temporary use of a straw mattress, a consumptive pillow, and a greasy blanket. After making the most frugal breakfast possible, it was found that their joint cash would provide, at the farthest, for only one meal more. The case began to look desperate. They were sitting on the sill of the wharf, silently ruminating on the situation, when the booming of a cannon announced the arrival of a steamer which had been signaled an hour earlier from Telegraph Hill. A swarm of people was already setting toward the plaza. The movement of a crowd is always magnetic, so Walter and Bill followed on in the same direction. When within two blocks of the plaza they saw a long zigzag line of men and boys strung out for that distance ahead of them, some standing, some leaning against a friendly awning, some squatted on the edge of the plank sidewalk, while newcomers were every moment lengthening out the already long queue. "What a long tail our cat's got!" was Bill's pithy remark. "Be they takin' the census, or what?" It was learned that all these people were impatiently waiting for the opening of the post-office, but how soon that event was likely to happen nobody could tell. So the men smoked, whistled, chaffed every late arrival, and waited. [Illustration: Waiting for the opening of the mail.--_Page 160._] On the instant Walter was struck with a bright idea. Charley had never written him one word, it is true; but as it was ten to one everybody in the city would be at the post-office during the day, this seemed as likely a place as any to meet with him. Shoving Bill into a vacant place in the line, Walter started toward the head of it, staring hard at every one, and being stared at in return, as he walked slowly along. When nearing the head, without seeing a familiar face, a man well placed in the line sang out, "I say, _hombre_, want a job?" "What job?" "Hold my place for me till I kin go git a bite to eat." "I would in a minute, only I can't stop. I'm looking for some one," said Walter, starting on. "You can't make five dollars no easier." This startling proposition to a young fellow who did not know where his next meal was coming from, hit Walter in his weak spot. "Talk fast. Is it a whack?" the hungry man demanded. "I've been here two hours a'ready; be back before you can say Jack Robinson." This singular bargain being struck, Walter stepped into line, when his file-leader turned to him with the remark, "Fool you hadn't stuck out for ten. That man runs a bank." "Does he?" Walter innocently inquired. "What kind of a bank?" "Faro-bank." A loud guffaw from the bystanders followed this reply. As soon as the hungry man came back to claim his place, and had paid over his five dollars, Walter hurried off to where he had left Bill, who stopped him in his story with the whispered words, "I seed him." "Him? Who? Not Charley?" "No; t'other duffer." Walter gave a low whistle. "Where? Here? Don't you see I'm all on fire?" "Right here. Breshed by me as large as life, and twice as sassy. Oh, I know'd him in spite of his baird. Sez I to myself, 'Walk along, sonny, and smoke your shugarette. Our turn's comin' right along.'" "Too bad, too bad you didn't follow him." Walter was starting off again, with a sort of blind purpose to find Ramon, collar him, and make him disgorge his ill-gotten gains on the spot, when Bill held him back. "Tut, tut, Walt," he expostulated, "if the lubber sees you before we're good and ready to nab him, won't he be off in a jiffy? Now we know he's here, ain't that something? So much for so much. Lay low and keep shady, is our best holt." To such sound reasoning Walter was fain to give in. Besides, Bill now insisted upon staying in the line until he could sell out too. With a jerk of the thumb, he pointed to where one or two patient waiters were very comfortably seated on camp-stools, and in a husky undertone proposed finding out where camp-stools could be had. Taking the hint, Walter started off, instanter, in search of a dealer in camp-stools, with whom he quickly struck a bargain for as many as he could carry, by depositing his half-eagle as security. The stools went off like hot cakes, and at a good profit. Bill, too, having got his price, by patient waiting, the two lucky speculators walked away to the first full meal they had eaten since landing, the richer by twenty dollars from the morning's adventure. Bill called it finding money; "just like pickin' it up in the street." XII AN UNEXPECTED MEETING It was getting along toward the middle of the afternoon when the two newly fledged speculators turned their steps to the waterside, Bill to have his after-dinner smoke in peace and quiet, while scanning with critical eye the various craft afloat in that matchless bay. Something he saw there arrested his attention wonderfully, by the way he grasped Walter's arm and stretched out his long neck. "Will you look! Ef that arn't the old _Argonaut_ out there in the stream, I'm a nigger. The old tub! She's made her last v'y'ge by the looks--topmasts sent down, hole in her side big 'nuff to drive a yoke of oxen through. Ain't she a beauty?" After taking a good look at the dismantled hulk, Walter agreed that it could be no other than the ship on which he and Charley met with their adventure just before she sailed. It did seem so like seeing an old friend that Walter was seized with an eager desire to go on board. Hailing a Whitehall boatman, they were quickly rowed off alongside, and in another minute found themselves once more standing on the _Argonaut's_ deck. A well-grown, broad-shouldered, round-faced young fellow, in a guernsey jacket and skull-cap, met them at the gangway. There were three shouts blended in one: "Walter!" "Charley!" "Well, I'm blessed!" Then there followed such a shaking of hands all round, such a volley of questions without waiting for answers, and of answers without waiting for questions, that it was some minutes before quiet was restored. Charley then took up the word: "Why, Walt, old fel'," holding him off at arm's length, "I declare I should hardly have known you with that long hair and that brown face. Yes; this is the _Argonaut_. She's a storeship now; and I'm ship-keeper." He then went on to explain that most of the fleet of ships moored ahead and astern were similarly used for storing merchandise, some merchants even owning their own storeships. "You see, it's safer and cheaper than keeping the stuff on shore to help make a bonfire of some dark night." "Don't you have no crew?" Bill asked. "No; we can hire lightermen, same's you hire truckmen in Boston. All those stores you see built out over the water get in their goods through a trap-door in the floor, with fall and tackle." It may well be imagined that these three reunited friends had a good long talk together that evening. Charley pulled a skillet out of a cupboard, on which he put some sliced bacon. Bill started a fire in the cabin stove, while Walter made the coffee. Presently the bacon began to sizzle and the coffee to bubble. Then followed a famous clattering of knives and forks, as the joyous trio set to, with appetites such as only California air can create. Walter told his story first. Charley looked as black as a thundercloud, as Ramon's villainy was being exposed. Bill gave an angry snort or grunt to punctuate the tale. Walter finished by saying bitterly, "I suppose it's like looking for a needle in a haystack." "Not quite so bad as that," was Charley's quick reply. "It's a pity if we three," throwing out his chest, "can't cook his goose for him. Bill has seen him. Didn't you say he gambled? Thought so. Oh, he won't be lonesome; there's plenty more here of that stripe. Gamblers, thieves, and sharks own the town. They do. It ain't safe to be out late nights alone, unless you've got a Colt or a Derringer handy, for fear of the Hounds." "The Hounds!" echoed Walter and Bill. "Yes, the Hounds; that's what they call the ruff-scuff here. There's a storm brewing," he added mysteriously, then suddenly changing the subject, he asked, "Where do you _hombres_ ranch?" "Under the blue kannerpy, I guess," said Bill in a heavy tragedian's voice. "Not by a jugful! You'll both stop aboard here with me. I'm cap'n, chief cook, and bottle-washer. Bill's cut out for a lighterman, so he's as good as fixed. Something 'll turn up for Walt." "What did you mean by ranching?" Walter asked. "This is it. This is my ranch. You hire a room or a shanty, do your own cooking and washing, roll yourself up in your blanket at night and go it alone, as independent as a hog on ice. Oh, you'll soon get used to it, never fear, and like it too; bet your life. Women's as scarce as hens' teeth out here. You can't think it. Why, man alive, a nice, well-dressed lady is such a curiosity that I've seen all hands run out o' doors to get a sight of one passin' by. Come, Bill, bear a hand, and pull an armful of gunny-bags out of that bale for both your beds. Look out for that candle! That's a keg of blastin' powder you're settin' on, Walt! If I'd only known I was goin' to entertain company I'd 'a' swep' up a bit. Are you all ready? Then one, two, three, and out she goes." And with one vigorous puff out went the light. When Bill turned out in the morning he found Charley already up and busying himself with the breakfast things. "What's this 'ere craft loaded with?" was his first question. "Oh, a little of everything, assorted, you can think of, from gunny-bags to lumber." Walter was sitting on a locker, with one boot on and the other in his hand, listening. At hearing the word lumber he pricked up his ears. "That reminds me," he broke in. "Bright & Company shipped a cargo out here; dead loss; they said it was rotting in the ship that brought it." Charley stopped peeling a potato to ask her name. "The _Southern Cross_." "Bark?" "Yes, a bark." "Well, p'r'aps now that ain't queer," Charley continued. "That's her moored just astern of us. Never broke bulk; ship and cargo sold at auction to pay freight and charges. Went dirt cheap. My boss, he bought 'em in on a spec. And a mighty poor spec it's turned out. Why, everybody's got lumber to burn." Charley seemed so glum over it that Walter was about to drop the subject, when Charley resumed it. "You see, boys," he began, "here's where the shoe pinches. I had scraped together a tidy little sum of my own, workin' on ship work at big wages, sometimes for this man, sometimes for that. I was thinkin' all the while of buying off those folks at home who fitted me out (Walt here knows who I mean), when along comes my boss and says to me, 'I say, young feller, you seem a busy sort of chap. I've had my eye on you some time. Now, I tell you what I'll do with you. No nonsense now. Got any dust?' 'A few hundreds,' says I. 'Well, then,' says he, 'I don't mind givin' you a lift. Here's this _Southern Cross_ goin' to be sold for the freight. I'll buy it in on halves. You pay what you can down on the nail, the rest when we sell out at a profit. _Sabe?_' Like a fool I jumped at the chance." "Well, what ails you?" growled the irrepressible Bill; "that 'ar ship can't git away, moored with five fathoms o' chain, can she? Pine boards don't eat nor drink nothin', do they?" "Who said they did?" Charley tartly retorted. It was plain to see that with him the _Southern Cross_ was a sore subject. "Waal, 'tain't ushil to cry much over bein' a lumber king, is it?" persisted Bill, in his hectoring way. "Down East, whar I come from, they laugh and grow fat." "You don't hear me through. Listen to this: My partner went off to Australia seven or eight months ago, to settle up some old business there, he said. I've not heard hide nor hair of him since. Every red cent I'd raked and scraped is tied up hard and fast in that blamed old lumber. Nobody wants it; and if they did, I couldn't give a clean bill o' sale. Now, you know, Walt, why I never sent you nothin'!" Walter was struck with an odd idea. In a laughing sort of way, half in jest, half in earnest, he said, "You needn't worry any more about what you owe me, Charley; I don't; but if it will ease your mind any, I'll take as much out in lumber as will make us square, and give you a receipt in full in the bargain." "You will?" Charley exclaimed, with great animation. "By George!" slapping his knee, "it's a bargain. Take my share for what I owe you and welcome." "Pass the papers on't, boys. Put it in black an' white; have everything fair and square," interjected the methodical Bill. Charley brought out pen and ink, tore a blank leaf out of an account book, and prepared himself to write the bill of sale. "Hold on!" cried Walter, who seemed to be in a reckless mood this morning. "Put in that I'm to have the refusal of the other half of the cargo for ninety days at cost price. In for a penny, in for a pound," he laughed, by way of reply to Charley's wondering look. For a minute or two nothing was heard except the scratching of Charley's busy pen. Walter's face was a study. Bill seemed lost in wonder. "There. Down it is," said Charley, signing the paper with a flourish. "'Pears to me as if we was doin' a big business on a small capital this morning. And now it's done, what on earth did you do it for, Walt?" "Oh, I've an idea," said Walter, assuming an air of impenetrable mystery. "Have your own way," rejoined Charley, whose mind seemed lightened of its heavy load. "Here, Bill, you put these dirty dishes in that bread pan, douse some hot water over them--there! Now look in that middle locker and you'll find a bunch of oakum to wipe 'em with. Walter, you get a bucket of water from the cask with the pump in it, on deck, and fill up the b'iler." Under Charley's active directions the breakfast things were soon cleared away. Walter then asked to be put on shore, giving as a reason that he must find something to do without delay. "Whereabouts do they dig gold here?" he innocently asked. At this question Charley laughed outright. He then told Walter how the diggings were reached from there, pointing out the steamboats plying to "up-country" points, and then to distant Monte Diablo as the landmark of the route. "There ain't no actual diggin's here in 'Frisco," he went on to say, "but there's gold enough for them as is willin' to work for it, and has sense enough not to gamble or drink it all away. Mebbe you won't get rich quite so fast, and then again mebbe you will. _Quien sabe?_" "Queer sitivation for a lumber king," grumbled Bill. "I didn't come out here to get rich; you know I didn't," said Walter excitedly, rising and putting on his cap with an air of determination. "Easy now," urged Charley, putting an arm around Walter; "now don't you go running all over town in broad daylight after that fellow. Better send out the town crier, and done with it. That's not the way to go to work. Do you s'pose a chap in his shoes won't be keepin' a sharp lookout for himself? Bet your life. Yes, sir-ee! Now, look here. My idee is not to disturb the nest until we ketch the bird. This is my plan. We three 'll put in our nights ranging about town, lookin' into the gambling dens, saloons, and hotels. If the skunk is hidin' that's the time he'll come out of his hole, eh, Bill?" "Sartin sure," was the decided reply. "Well, then, Walt, hear to reason. Don't you see that if there's anything to be done, the night's our best holt to do it in?" Walter was not more than half convinced. "Couldn't I have him arrested on the strength of the handbill Marshal Tukey got out, offering a reward, and describing Ramon to a hair? See, here it is," drawing it out of an inside pocket and holding it up to view. "I could swear to him, you know, and so could Bill." "On a stack of Bibles," Bill assented. "Let me see it," Charley demanded, rapidly running his eye over the precious document. "'Five hundred dollars reward!' Five hundred fiddlesticks! Why, he'd go five hundred better and be off in a jiffy, with just a nod and a wink from the officers to keep out of the way a while." Having expressed this opinion, Charley tossed the handbill on the table with a disdainful sniff. Walter was dumb. He had actually thought for a whole month that the mere sight of this accusing piece of paper would make the guilty wretch fall on his knees and beg for mercy. And to be told now that it was only so much waste paper struck him speechless. Charley again came to the rescue. "Come, come; don't stand there looking as if you'd lost every friend you had on earth, but brace up. If you'd wanted to have that robber arrested, you should have gone a different way to work--'cordin' to law." "What's to be done, then?" "My idee is like this. Californy law is no good, anyhow. It's on the side that has most dust. But here's three of us and only one of him. We can lay for him, get him into some quiet corner, and then frighten him into doing what we say. How's that?" "Capital! Just the thing. I always said you had the best head of the three." "All right, then," cried Charley in his old, sprightly way; "I give you both a holiday, so you can see the sights. Walter, you take care that Bill don't get lost or stolen." "Me take care o' him, you mean," Bill retorted. Getting into the boat the two friends then pulled for the shore. Walter's first remark, as they slowly sauntered along, was: "What a wooden-looking town! Wooden houses, wooden sidewalks, plank streets. It looks as if everything had sprung up in a night." And so it had. At this time the city was beginning to work its way out from the natural beach toward deeper water; for as deep water would not come to the city, the city had to go out to deep water. And as many of the coming streets were as yet only narrow footways, thrust out over the shallow waters of the bay, the entire ragged waterfront seemed cautiously feeling its way toward its wished-for goal. Cheap one-story frame buildings were following these extensions of new and old streets, as fast as piles could be driven for them, so that a famous clattering of hammers was going on on every side from morning to night. The two friends soon had an exciting experience. Just ahead of them, a dray was being driven down the wharf at a rapid rate, making the loose planks rattle again. In turning out to let another dray pass him, the driver of the first went too near the edge of the wharf, when the weight of horse and dray suddenly tilted the loose planks in the air, the driver gave a yell, and over into the dock went horse, dray, and man with a tremendous splash. It was all done so quickly that Walter and Bill stood for a moment without stirring. Fortunately their boat was only a few rods off, so both ran back for her in a hurry. A few strokes brought them to where the frightened animal was still helplessly floundering in the water, dragged down by the weight of the dray. The man was first pulled into the boat, dripping wet. Bill then cut the traces with his sheath-knife, while the drayman held the struggling animal by the bit. He was then towed to the beach safe and sound. By this time a crowd had collected. Seeing his rescuers pushing off, the drayman elbowed his way out of the crowd, and shouted after them, "I say, you, _hombres_, this ain't no place to take a bath, is it? This ain't no place to be bashful. Come up to my stand, Jackson and Sansome, and ask for Jack Furbish." "Is your name Furbish?" asked Bill, resting on his oars. "Yes; why?" "Oh, nothin', only we lost a man overboard onct off Cape Horn. His name was Furbish." "Well, 'twarn't me. I was lost overboard from Pacific Wharf. Jackson and Sansome! Git up, Jim!" bringing his blacksnake smartly down on his horse's steaming flanks. XIII IN WHICH A MAN BREAKS INTO HIS OWN STORE, AND STEALS HIS OWN SAFE Walter's idea, as far as he had thought it out, was to hold on to this lumber cargo until Mr. Bright could be notified just how the matter stood. Should the merchant then choose to take any steps toward recovering the cargo of the _Southern Cross_, Walter thought this act on his part might go far to remove the unjust suspicions directed against himself. For this reason he had secured, as we have seen, a refusal of the cargo long enough for a letter to go and return. Walter now set about writing his letter, but he now found that what had seemed so simple at first was no easy matter. As he sat staring vacantly at the blank paper before him, tears came into his eyes; for again the trying scene in the merchant's counting-room rushed vividly upon his memory. An evil voice within him said, "Why should I trouble myself about those who have so ill-used me and robbed me of my good name?" Yet another, and gentler, voice answered, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." Compressing his lips resolutely, he succeeded in writing a very formal letter, not at all like what he had intended. But the main thing was to make himself clearly understood. So he carefully studied every word before putting it down in black and white, as follows: "MR. BRIGHT, "_Sir_: This is to inform you of my being here. I could not bear to be suspected of dishonesty when I knew I was innocent of wrongdoing. So I left. This is to inform you that the _Southern Cross_ is in charge of my friend Mr. Charles Wormwood. You may recollect him. He is a fine young man. Between us, we've got hold of half the cargo, and I have the refusal of the other half for ninety days. The man who owns it has gone away. If you think it worth while, send directions to somebody here what to do about it. This is a great country, only I'm afraid it will burn up all the time. "Your true friend, "WALTER SEABURY." While on his way uptown to post his letter, Walter heard a familiar voice call out, "Hi, _hombre_! lookin' for a job?" It was the drayman of yesterday's adventure, placidly kicking his heels on the tail of his dray. Walter candidly admitted that he would like something to do. The drayman spoke up briskly: "Good enough. Not afraid of dirty hands? No? Good again. Got some _plata_? No? Cleaned out, eh? So was I. Say, there's a first-rate handcart stand, on the next corner above here, I've had my eye on for some time. More people pass there in a day than any other in 'Frisco. Talk biz. That comer has been waiting for you, or it would 'a' been snapped up long ago. No job less than six bits. You can make anywhere from five to ten dollars a day. Come, what do you say? Do we hitch hosses or not?" Walter had a short struggle with his pride. It did seem rather low, to be sure, to be pushing a handcart through the streets, like the rag-men seen at home, but beggars should not be choosers, he reflected. So, putting his pride in his pocket, the bargain was closed without more words. Certainly Walter's best friends would hardly have known him when he made his first appearance on the stand, bright and early next morning, rigged out in a gray slouch hat, red woolen shirt, and blue overalls tucked into a pair of stout cowhide boots. His face, too, was beginning to show signs of quite a promising beard which Walter was often seen caressing as if to make sure it was still there overnight and which, indeed, so greatly altered his looks that he now felt little fear of being recognized by Ramon, should they happen to meet some day unexpectedly in the street. Walter ranched with his employer in a loft. With a hammer, a saw, and some nails, he had soon knocked together a bunk out of some old packing boxes. In this he slept on a straw mattress also of his own make, with a pair of coarse blankets for bedclothes. Another packing box, a water pail, a tin wash-basin, towel, and soap comprised all necessary conveniences, with which the morning toilet was soon made. The bed required no making. Rather primitive housekeeping, to be sure; yet Walter soon learned, from actual observation, that a majority of the merchants, some of whom were reputed worth their hundreds of thousands, were no better lodged than himself. On the whole, Walter rather liked his new occupation, as soon as his first awkwardness had worn off. Here, at any rate, he was his own master, and Walter had always chafed at being ordered about by boys no older than himself. Then, he liked the hearty, democratic way in which everybody greeted everybody. It made things move along much more cheerfully. Walter was attentive. Business was good. At the close of each day he handed over his earnings to his employer, who kept his own share, punctually returning Walter the rest. "You'll be buyin' out Sam Brannan one of these days, if you keep on as you're goin'," was Furbish's encouraging remark, as he figured up Walter's earnings at twenty-five dollars, at the end of the first week. "Who's Sam Brannan?" "Not know who Sam Brannan is?" asked the drayman, lifting his eyebrows in amazement. "He's reputed the richest man in 'Frisco. Owns a big block on Montgomery Street. Income's two thousand a day, they tell me." Walter could only gape, open-mouthed, in astonishment. The bare idea of any one man possessing such unheard-of wealth was something that he had never dreamed of. "Fact," repeated the drayman, observing Walter's look of incredulity. The restaurant at which Walter took his meals, until circumstances suggested a change, was one of the institutions peculiar to the San Francisco of that day. An old dismantled hulk had been hauled up alongside the wharf, the spar-deck roofed over, and some loose boards, laid upon wooden trestles, made to serve the purpose of a table, while the ship's caboose performed its customary office of scullery and kitchen. The restaurant keeper was evidently new to the business, for he was in the habit of urging his customers to have a second helping of everything, much to the annoyance of his wife, who did the cooking. This woman was one of the class locally known as Sydney Ducks, from the fact that she had come from Australia under the sanction of a ticket-of-leave. She was fat, brawny, red-faced, and quick-tempered,--in fact, fiery,--and when out of sorts gave her tongue free license. The pair were continually quarreling at meal-times, regardless of the presence of the boarders, some of whom took a malicious pleasure in egging on the one or the other when words failed them. But it happened more than once that, when words failed, man and wife began shying plates, or cups and saucers, at each other's head, which quickly cleared the table of boarders. Walter stood this sort of thing stoically until, one noon, when he was just entering the dining room, a flat-iron came whizzing by him, narrowly missing his head. The language that accompanied it showed madam to be mistress of the choicest Billingsgate in profusion. By the time a second flat-iron sailed through the door Walter was a block away, and still running. It was shrewdly surmised that man and wife had broken up housekeeping. Meanwhile the search for Ramon was faithfully kept up, yet so far with no better success than if the ground had opened and swallowed him up. Nobody knew a person of the name of Ingersoll. No doubt he had assumed another less incriminating. A decoy letter dropped in the post-office remained there unclaimed until sent to the dead-letter office. "Fool if he hadn't changed his name," muttered Bill, as Walter and he stood at a street corner, looking blankly into each other's face. They were taking their customary stroll uptown in the evening, when the big bell on the plaza suddenly clanged out an alarm of fire. There was no appearance of fire anywhere,--no shooting flames, no smoke, no red glare in the sky,--yet every one seemed flocking, as if by a common understanding, toward the Chinese quarter. Catching the prevailing excitement, the three friends pressed forward with the crowd, which at every step was visibly increasing. Upon reaching the point where the fire-engines were already hard at work, the crowd grew more and more dense, shouts and cries broke out here and there, lights were glancing hither and thither, and still no sign of fire could be detected. What could it all mean? It meant that by a secret understanding among the firemen, winked at by the city authorities, the fire department was "cleaning out" the Chinese quarter, which had become an intolerable nuisance, dangerous to health on account of the filthy habits of the moon-eyed Celestials. The fire lads were only too willing to undertake the job, which promised to be such a fine lark, and at the first tap of the bells they had rushed their machines to the indicated spot, run their hose into the houses, and, regardless of the screams and howlings of the frightened inmates, who were wildly running to and fro in frantic efforts to escape, a veritable deluge of water was being poured upon them from a dozen streams, fairly washing the poor devils out of house and home, some by the doors, some by leaping out of the windows, and some by the roofs. Whenever one made his appearance, the shouts of the mob would direct the firemen where to point their powerful streams, which quickly sent the unresisting victim rolling in the dirt, from which he scrambled to his feet more dead than alive. Meantime the Chinese quarter had been thoroughly drenched, inside and out, the terrified inhabitants scattered in every direction, their belongings utterly ruined either by water or by being thrown into the street pell-mell, and they themselves chased and hunted from pillar to post like so many rats drowned out of their holes by an inundation, until the last victim had fled beyond the reach of pursuit. When the whole district had been thus depopulated the vast throng turned homeward in great good humor at having shown those miserable barbarians how things were done in civilized America. Time slipped away in this manner, and gradually the edge was being taken off from the keenness of the search, though never completely lost sight of. Not a nook or corner of the town had been left unvisited, and still no Ramon. It was, even as Walter had first described it, quite like looking for a needle in a haystack. One morning Walter was called to help Furbish move some goods from a downtown wharf to a certain warehouse uptown. The owner was found standing among his belongings, which were piled and tossed about helter-skelter, in a state of angry excitement, which every now and then broke forth in muttered threats and snappy monosyllables, directed to a small crowd of bystanders who had been attracted to the spot. "There'll be some hanging done round here before long," he muttered, scowling darkly at two or three rough-looking men, each armed with a brace of pistols, who stood with their backs against the door of the building from which the man's goods had been so hastily thrown out. This building stood on one of the new streets spoken of in a former chapter as built out over the water, or on what was then known as a water-lot. It seems that the title to this lot was claimed by two parties. The late occupant had taken a lease from one claimant for a term of years, and had built a store upon the lot, wholly ignorant that another party claimed it. He had punctually paid his rent to his landlord every month, and was therefore dumfounded when, late one afternoon, the second claimant, armed with an order of a certain judge and accompanied by a sheriff's posse, walked into his store, and after demanding payment of all back rents, which was stoutly refused, promptly ejected the unfortunate tenant, neck and heels, from his place of business. His goods were then thrown out into the street after him, and the door locked against him, with an armed guard keeping possession. This was the state of things when Furbish and Walter arrived on the ground. "It's a wicked shame," declared Walter indignantly. "Makes business good for us," was Furbish's careless reply. Then lowering his voice, he added, "Talk low and keep shady. Mark my words. There'll be hanging done before long," thus unconsciously echoing the very words of the dispossessed tenant. Walter took the hint. He stared, it is true, but went to work without further comment, though he could see that the sympathy of the crowd was clearly with the unfortunate tenant. When the last load had been carted away, the crowd slowly dispersed, leaving only the surly-looking guards on the spot. "Is all out?" demanded Furbish of the merchant, nodding his head toward the empty building. "All but my safe. I want that bad; but you see these robbers won't let me in. It was too heavy for them to move, or they were too lazy, and now they won't even let me take my papers out of it. Curse them!" "Got the key?" "Oh, yes! That's all safe in my pocket. But what's a man going to do with a key?" "You want that safe bad?" "I'd give a hundred dollars for it this minute; yes, two hundred." Furbish now held a whispered colloquy with Walter. "Do you think your friends would take a hand?" "Oh, I'll answer for them," was the ready reply. "Enough said." A place of meeting was then fixed upon, after which the three conspirators went their several ways--Furbish to mature his plan of action, the merchant to nurse his new-found hopes, Walter to enlist his two friends in the coming adventure. Charley was in high spirits at the prospect. Bill thought it a risky piece of business, but if his boys were going to take a hand in it he would have to go too. Charley put an end to further argument by declaring that it was a burning shame if a man couldn't go into his own store after his own property, law or no law. For his part, he was bound to see the thing through. Walter stipulated that there should be no violence used, and that he should not be asked to enter the building if it was found to be still in the hands of the sheriff's men. Just at midnight a row-boat, with an empty lighter in tow, put off from the _Argonaut's_ side, care being taken to keep in the deep shadows as much as possible. Not a word was exchanged as the tow was quietly brought to the place agreed upon, where it lay completely hidden from curious eyes, if any such had been abroad at that hour. As the lighter lightly grazed the wharf a dark figure stole cautiously out from the shadow cast by a neighboring warehouse, and dropped into the hands stretched out to receive it: still another followed, and the party, now complete, held a short council in whispers. Furbish had reconnoitered the store, finding only one watchman on guard outside. Yet he was positive that there were two or more inside, as he had seen a light shining through a crevice in the window-shutters, which suddenly disappeared while he was watching it. The evicted merchant then explained that this light must have come from the little office, at the right hand of the street door, where he usually slept. This information confirmed the belief that the men inside had turned in until their turn should come to relieve the guard outside. If this should prove true, the midnight intruders felt that they would have a more easy task than they had supposed. This, however, remained to be seen. After listening to a minute description of the store, inside and out, Furbish gave the signal to proceed. Making the boat fast to the scow's stern, the latter was poled along in the shadows of the wharves until, under Bill's skillful guidance, she glided between the two piers which supported the building that the party was in search of. All listened intently for any sound indicating that their approach had been detected. As all seemed safe, the scow was quickly made fast directly underneath the trap-door contrived for hoisting up merchandise into the store by means of a block and tackle secured to a stout rafter overhead--an operation at which Charley had often assisted. It was, therefore, through this same trap-door that the intruders now meant to effect an entrance. But a first attempt, very cautiously made, to raise it, proved it to be bolted on the inside. This contingency, however, had been provided against, for Charley now produced a large auger, on which he rubbed some tallow to deaden the sound, while the merchant held a dark lantern in such a way as to show Charley where to use his tool to advantage. Very cautiously, and with frequent pauses to listen, a large hole was bored next to the place where the bolt shot into the socket. Two or three minutes were occupied in this work. Charley then succeeded in drawing back the bolt with his fingers, a little at a time, when the trap was carefully lifted far enough to let the merchant squeeze his body through it, and so up into the store. As this was felt to be the critical moment, those who were left below listened breathlessly for any sound from above, as the trap was immediately lowered after the merchant passed through it. It was, of course, pitch-dark in the store, but knowing the way as well in the dark as in the daytime, and being in his stocking-feet, the merchant stood only a moment to listen. Out of the darkness the sleeping watchmen could be heard snoring heavily away in the little corner office. Groping his way with cat-like tread, the merchant, with two or three quick turns of the wrist, screwed a gimlet into the woodwork of the office door, over the latch, thus securely fastening the sleepers in. Observing the same precautions, he then felt for the lock on the front door, and finding the key in the lock he turned it softly, putting the key in his pocket. Even should they awake, the watchmen inside the office could only get out by breaking down the door; while their comrade outside would be kept from coming to their assistance. The merchant had certainly shown himself not only to be a man of nerve, but no mean strategist. The merchant having signaled that all was safe, all the rest of the party, except Walter, immediately joined him. The safe was speedily located, some loose gunny-bags were spread upon the floor to deaden the sound, two stout slings were quickly passed around the safe, the tackle hooked on, and in less than ten minutes the object of the adventure was safely lowered into the lighter. No time was lost in getting the scow clear of her dangerous berth, nor was it until they had put a long stretch of water behind them that the adventurers breathed freely. The daring midnight burglary was duly chronicled in the evening papers as one of the boldest and most successful known to the criminal annals of San Francisco. Would it be believed, it was asked, that with three heavily armed guards on the watch inside and outside of the building, the burglars had actually succeeded in carrying off so bulky an article as an iron safe under the very noses of these alleged guardians? Connivance on their part was strongly hinted at. The police were on the track of the gang who did the job, and the public might rest assured that when caught they would be given short shrift. The burglars were supposed to have sunk the safe in the harbor after rifling it of its contents. XIV CHARLEY AND WALTER GO A-GUNNING Charley frequently came ashore in the evening, leaving Bill in charge of the ship. Walter ranched at Clark's Point, near the waterside, and only a few steps from the landing place. The neighborhood, to tell the truth, did not bear a very good reputation, it being a resort for sailors of all nations, whose nightly carousals in the low dramshops generally kept the place in an uproar till morning, and often ended in bloodshed. Walter was busily engaged in sewing up a rip in his overalls, meantime humming to himself snatches of "The Old Folks at Home," when Charley came stamping into the room. Seating himself on an empty nail-keg, he proceeded to free his mind in the following manner: "You've been working pretty steady now for--how long?" "Three months last Monday," assisted Walter, consulting a chalk mark on the wall. "Long 'nuff to entitle you to a bit of a vacation, I'm a-thinkin'. What say to takin' a little gunnin' trip up country? Bill knows the ropes now pretty well. A friend of mine 'll lend me the shootin' fixin's. Couldn't you get off for a few days, think? Come, get that Ramon chap out of your head for a bit. It's wearin' on you." Walter jumped at the offer. Thus far he had never set foot out of the city, and Charley, an enthusiast in anything that he had set his mind upon, now portrayed the delights of a tramp among the foothills of the Coast Range in glowing colors. Walter easily found a substitute for the few days he expected to be away, while Charley had nobody's permission to ask. So the very next afternoon saw the two sportsmen crossing the ferry to Contra Costa, Charley carrying a rifle and Walter a shotgun, the necessary traps for camping out being divided equally between them. "I only hope we may set eyes on a grizzly," Charley remarked, slapping the breech of his rifle affectionately, as they stepped on shore. "That's why I chose this feller," he added. "Better let grizzlys alone. From all I hear they're pretty tough customers," was Walter's cautious comment. "I don't care. Just you wait till I see one, that's all. I'm all fixed for him--lock, stock, and barrel." They soon struck into the well-beaten road leading to the Coast Range, and after steadily tramping until dark entered a small settlement where travelers, coming and going over this route, usually put up for the night. A night's lodging was soon arranged for at the only public house that the place could afford, and after eating a hearty supper, and leaving word with the landlord to call them up as soon as it was light in the morning, the two amateur hunters were glad to tumble into bed. The house was a two-story frame building, with the second-story windows in front opening upon a veranda, after the Southern style of public houses. The air being hot and close in their room, Walter threw up a window the first thing upon going into it. He saw that one might easily step out from the room onto the veranda, or in, for that matter. Then, there was no lock on the door, but as neither he nor Charley was afraid of being robbed, the want of a lock did not prevent their going to sleep as soon as they struck their beds. It is probable that they did not even turn over once during the night. Walter was awakened by the sound of a gentle scratching, or tapping, at the door. Upon opening his eyes he perceived that it was beginning to be quite light. He listened until the sound was repeated, sat up in bed, and being satisfied that it must be some one calling them to get up, slipped out of bed, yawning and stretching himself, went to the door, half opened it, and, still only half awake, peered out. What he saw made him start back in affright, and his hair to rise up on his head In an instant. Standing erect on his hind feet, clumsily beating the air with his forepaws and lolling out a long red tongue, was an enormous, shaggy grizzly bear at least a foot taller than Walter himself. One look was enough. Giving one yell, Walter made a dash for the open window, leaped out upon the veranda, vaulted over it, and grasping firm hold of the railing, let himself drop down into the street. Imagining that the bear was close behind, he incontinently took to his heels, not even turning to look back over his shoulder to see what had become of Charley. Startled out of a sound sleep by Walter's cry of alarm, Charley threw off the bedclothes, rubbed his eyes, and, with their aid, saw the bear waddling with rolling gait into the room on all fours. He too made a dash for the window, adopting without hesitation the only route of escape open to him. The bear quickly followed suit, sliding with ease down an upright, and, on touching the ground, immediately set off after the fugitives, upon whom the discovery that the bear was after them acted like a spur upon a mettled charger. They no longer ran, they flew. [Illustration: The hunters hunted by a grizzly bear.--_Page 208._] Up to this hour the village had not shaken off its slumbers, but the frantic shouts of the fugitives, who saw that the faster they ran the faster ran the bear, quickly aroused other sleepers from their morning nap. Dogs began to bark and give chase to the bear. Windows began to be thrown up, and heads to appear at them. Still the race for life continued. Bruin was evidently gaining upon the fugitives, who could not much longer keep up the pace at which they were going. Feeling his breath failing him, Charley, who was a few rods behind Walter, had even almost made up his mind to stop short in his tracks, face about, and let the bear work its will upon him, so giving his bosom friend a chance to escape. Fortunately, however, this heroic self-sacrifice was not to be made. At the last house a street door was seen very cautiously to open, while a head protruded from it. Ceremony here was quite out of the question. Walter instantly dashed into this welcome haven of refuge, with Charley, now quite spent, at his heels, overturning the man of the house in their mad rush for safety. It took but a moment to shut and bolt the door, and, as if that was not enough, Walter braced his back against it, panting and breathless. Only when this was done, did the two friends draw a free breath. Both were completely done up. Excited by the chase, enraged at seeing his victims escaping, the bear snuffed the air, pawed at the door, swayed his huge bulk to and fro, and gave vent to his rage in loud and unearthly roarings that could be heard by every inhabitant of the village. Meantime the man into whose premises the two young men had so unceremoniously entered, after taking a good look at the bear out of the window, almost bent double in the effort to control his laughter. "Why, boys," said he, between fits of choking, "that's Jem Stackpole's tame grizzly." He had recognized the animal now holding them besieged as one that had been taken when a cub, and brought up by the landlord of the public house from which the boys had made their sudden exit, as an object of curiosity to his guests. The iron collar which Bruin still wore confirmed this account. It was all plain enough now. Having contrived to free himself from his chain, the bear had easily gained access to the house by climbing up the before-mentioned veranda bear-fashion. He was considered quite harmless, the man explained, but on seeing the young men run away the bear had run after them, at first out of mere playfulness. So Walter and Charley had been running a race with a tame grizzly, through the public street of the village, in broad daylight, in their night clothes. By this time something of a crowd had collected, all tongues going at once. The laugh of course went against the boys, though some were in favor of shooting the bear, and so putting an end to his wild pranks. His master, however, who now came forward with a pitchfork in one hand and an earthenware dish containing a stiff mixture of whisky and honey in the other, objected to having the bear killed, although the creature was now so ferocious that no one dared to go near him. Setting the dish down upon the ground, and silently waving the crowd back, the man began calling the bear by his pet name of "Rusty" in a coaxing tone, and presently Bruin, having scented the seductive mixture, marched toward it and began lapping it up, occasionally emitting a fierce growl by way of notifying the bystanders to keep their distance. By the time the dish was licked clean Bruin was dead-drunk and rolling helplessly in the dirt. His chain was then securely fastened on, and the brute ignominiously dragged off to the stable to sleep off his potations. Walter and Charley were compelled to borrow a pair of trousers apiece before they could venture back to the public house, the observed of all observers. Needless to say, they made all haste to leave the inhospitable spot. Upon calling for their bill, the landlord declared there was nothing to pay, and, with a straight face, politely hoped they would recommend his house to their friends. Walter insisted upon paying, but the landlord was firm. The fame of the tame-bear hunt would attract customers to his house, he said. Under the circumstances he could not think of making any charge whatever. When they were well out of the village, Charley, who had maintained a dogged silence, suddenly turned to Walter and exclaimed, "I won't tell if you won't!" "Don't be a ninny," was the curt reply. "If I'd only had my rifle!" muttered Charley, who, all the same, could not forbear looking backward every few minutes as they trudged on. The disconsolate pair made their way up among the foothills, but neither seemed to be in the right mood for keen sportsmen, or else game was not so plenty as they had expected to find it. After Charley had blown the nipple out of his rifle in firing at a coyote, and Walter had shot half a dozen rabbits, which, though wounded, succeeded in reaching their holes and crawling into them, the twain willingly turned their faces homeward. Footsore and weary, but with appetites sharpened by their long tramp, they were only too glad to set foot once again in the streets of the city. With a brief "So long, Charley," "So long, Walt," "Mum, you know," "Hope to die," they separated to go their respective ways. XV THE YOUNG VIGILANTES While on his way to work on Saturday morning, full of his own thoughts, Walter could not help noticing the absence of the usual bustle and movement in the streets. If the shops had not been open, he would have thought it was Sunday, instead of the last day of the week. All business seemed to be at a standstill. Merchants stood outside their doors, glancing uneasily up and down the street and from time to time holding whispered talks with their neighbors. Every one wore a sober face; every one seemed expecting something to happen. But what was it? What could it be? Yesterday Walter would have passed along the same streets hardly noticed. To-day he wondered why everybody stared at him so. Furbish was about starting off on his dray when Walter reached the stand. He, too, hardly replied when Walter gave him the customary "Good-morning." What could it all mean? Suddenly the big bell on the plaza thundered out three heavy strokes--one, two, three, and no more--boom! boom! boom! To the last day of his life Walter never forgot the sight that followed. At the first stroke of that deep-toned bell the strange quiet burst its bounds. Those already in the streets started off on the run for the plaza. Those who were indoors rushed out, buckling on their weapons as they ran. Workmen threw down their tools to join in the race. Furbish jumped off his dray, shouting to Walter as he ran, "Come on! Don't you hear it?" There was no noise except the trampling of feet. Nobody asked a question of his neighbor. But every eye wore a look of grim determination, as if some matter of life and death dwelt in the imperious summons of that loud alarm-bell. After gazing a moment in utter bewilderment, Walter started off on the run with the rest. He, too, had caught the infection. The distance was nothing. He found the plaza already black with people. Beyond him, above the heads of the crowd, he saw a glittering line of bayonets; nearer at hand men were pouring out of a building at the right, with muskets in their hands. Walter stood on tiptoe. Some one was speaking to the crowd from an open window fronting the plaza, but Walter was too far off to catch a single word. The vast throng was as still as death. Then as the speaker put some question to vote, one tremendous "aye" went up from a thousand throats. It was the voice of an outraged people pronouncing the doom of evil-doers. By the gleam of satisfaction on the faces around him, Walter knew that something of unusual moment had just been decided upon. Burning with curiosity he timidly asked his nearest neighbor what it all meant. First giving him a blank look the man addressed curtly replied, "Get a morning paper," then moved off with the crowd, which was already dispersing, leaving the plaza in quiet possession of a body of citizen soldiers, with sentinels posted, and the strong arm of a new power uplifted in its might. That power was the dreaded Vigilantes, organized, armed, and ready for the common protection. Though terribly in earnest, it was by far the most orderly multitude Walter remembered ever having seen, and he had seen many. In the newspaper he read what everybody else already knew, that one of the most prominent citizens had been brutally murdered in cold blood by a well-known gambler, in a crowded street and at an early hour of the previous evening. The victim's only provocation consisted in having spoken out like a man against the monstrous evils under which the law-abiding citizens had so long and so silently been groaning. This murder was the last straw. The murderer had been promptly taken by members of the secret Committee of Vigilance; the trial had been swift; and the hangman's noose was being made ready for its victim. The account closed with a burning appeal to all law-abiding citizens, at every cost, to rid the city of the whole gang of gamblers, thieves, and outlaws infesting it like a plague. "When the sworn officers of the law are so notoriously in league with such miscreants, nothing is left for the people but to rise in their might. _Vox populi, vox Dei!_ Down with the Hounds!" Charley and Bill were quietly eating their noonday meal, when Walter burst into the _Argonaut's_ cabin in a state of wild excitement. Without stopping to take breath, he rapidly related what he had seen and heard that morning, while his listeners sat with wide-open eyes until the tale was finished. For a few moments the three friends stared at each other in silence. Ever prompt, Charley was the first to break it. Jumping to his feet, he struck the haft of his knife on the table with such force as to set the dishes rattling, then waving it in the air he cried out exultingly, "Now we've got him!" As the others made no reply except to look askance, he went on to say, "Don't you see that, foxy as he is, Ramon will be smoked out of his hole? Didn't I tell you there would be hanging before long? Why, there won't be one of his kidney left in 'Frisco inside of a week." "You're right," said Walter, "for as I came along I saw men putting up posters ordering all criminals out of the city, on pain of being put on board an outbound vessel and shipped off out of the country." "Good enough for 'em, too. The heft of 'em is Sydney Ducks an' ticket-o'-leave men, anyhow," quoth Bill, with a shake of the head. "Hark!" commanded Walter, holding up his hand for silence. Even as he spoke, the deep tones of a bell came booming across the water. At that moment the bodies of two condemned murderers were swinging from crossbeams from an upper window of the plaza. "If we're ever going to catch that chap, we'd better set about it before it's too late. What's to hinder our working this Vigilante business a little on our own hook? Nothing. Who's going to ask any questions? Nobody. Do you catch my idee?" questioned Charley. Without more words the three friends hastened on shore, Walter leading the way to his stand. They had agreed not to separate again, and were busy talking over their plans when a Chinaman came up to Walter and slipped a paper in his hand. Walter ran his eye over it, then crushed it in his hand. Turning to the Chinaman he simply said, "All right, John; I'll be there." "Allee light," repeated the Chinaman, making off into the crowd. Walter drew the heads of his two friends close to his own. Then he whispered: "What do you think? This is an order to take some things from a certain house on Dupont Street to a warehouse on Long Wharf, at ten o'clock to-night. (Night work's double pay.) I can't be mistaken. The order is in _his_ handwriting; I could swear to it." "I consait we orter follow the Chinee," Bill suggested tentatively. "No," objected Charley. "Prob'ly he'd lead us a wild-goose chase all over town. If Walter's right, we're hot on the scent now. Don't muddy the water, I say. The eel's a slippery cuss, and might wiggle away. Bill, let's you and I go take a look at that warehouse. Walt, don't you let on that you suspicion a thing. Why, you're all of a tremble, man! Straighten out your face. Anybody could read it like a book. Pull yourself together. Look at me! By jings, I feel like a fighting-cock just now!" "What a bantam!" muttered Bill, following in Charley's springing footsteps. At ten o'clock Walter was at the door of the house on Dupont Street with his cart. His knock was answered by the same Chinaman who had brought him the note in the morning. Several parcels were brought out and placed in the cart, but still no sign of the owner. The Chinaman then explained, in his pigeon English, that this person would meet Walter at the warehouse on the wharf, for which place Walter immediately started, revolving in his own mind whether this was not some trick of Ramon's contriving to throw him, Walter, off the scent. Nobody appeared to answer Walter's knock at the warehouse door. Evidently it was deserted, but a low whistle gave notice that Charley and Bill were close at hand. Indeed, so well had they concealed themselves that Walter had passed on without seeing them. "Have you got the rope all right, Bill?" Walter nervously whispered, as the three crouched in the friendly shadow of a narrow passageway, while waiting for their victim to show himself. "Sartin," that worthy calmly replied, "and all I wish is that what's-his-name was on one end, and I on t'other." "I don't half like this way of doing things; looks too much like kidnapping," Walter whispered, half to himself. "Come, Walt, you're not going to show the white feather now, after all this trouble, I hope," Charley impatiently said. "Ssh! here he comes. It's now or never." Sure enough, the sound of approaching footsteps was now plainly heard. As Ramon came nearer, walking fast, Bill, stepping out of the shadows, slowly lurched along ahead, cleverly imitating the zigzag walk of a tipsy sailor--no unusual sight at that time of night. When Ramon had passed a few rods beyond their hiding place, Charley quietly slipped out behind him, taking care to tread as softly as one of Cooper's Indians on the warpath. This plan had been carefully devised, for fear that Ramon might give an alarm if they attempted, all at once, to rush out upon him unawares. They now held their intended victim, as it were, between two fires. At that hour the street was so lonely and deserted that there was little fear of interruption, so Charley did not hurry. When Bill had reached the place agreed upon, where the street narrowed to a lane in which not more than two persons could walk abreast, he began to slacken his pace, so as to let Ramon come up with him. As nothing could be seen, at a few rods off, in that uncertain light, the signal agreed upon was to be given by Bill's striking a match, when Walter and Charley were to come up as rapidly as possible. As Ramon tried to push on by Bill, that worthy placed himself squarely in the way, pulled out his pipe, and gruffly demanded a light. He acted his part so well as completely to disarm Ramon's suspicions, had he had any. At being thus suddenly brought to a stand, Ramon attempted to shoulder Bill out of his path, but on finding himself stoutly opposed, he instinctively drew back a step. "Refuse a gen'leman a light, does yer? Want a whole street to yourself, does yer?" sputtered Bill, obstinately holding his ground. Ramon made a threatening movement. "Shove! I dare ye, ye lubber," continued the irate sailor, purposely raising his voice as his companion came in sight. "I'm a match for you any day in the week," he grumbled, striking a light as if to enforce the challenge. By the light of the match Bill instantly recognized Ramon. At the same moment Ramon saw that the speaker was a total stranger. Charley barred the way behind him. Ramon's first thought had been that he was being waylaid by footpads and, instinctively his hand went to his pistol; but as no demand was made for his valuables, he quickly concluded it to be a chance encounter with a couple of tipsy sailors. A street row was the very thing he most dreaded. He was in a fever to be off. Then the thought struck him that perhaps he might turn these fellows to his own advantage. So he altered his tone at once. "Oh, it's all right, lads," he said apologetically, "but one must be careful in these times, you know; and you certainly did give me a start. Never mind. If you've got a boat handy, I'll make this the best night's work you ever did in the whole course of your lives." Charley, who had edged up closer, now nudged Bill to hold his tongue. Speaking thickly, Charley said: "If you wants a boat we've got the one we was just goin' off in aboard ship. She lays right here, just ahead of us. If you come down han'some, we're the lads you want. 'Nuff said." Ramon was completely deceived. "All right, then. I've got some traps yonder. They're waiting for me, I see. We'll get them, and you can set me aboard the _Flamingo_. Hurry up! I've no time to lose." Walter was nonplused when he saw the trio approaching in so friendly a manner. He was about to say something, when Charley trod sharply on his foot to enforce silence. All four then went down to the boat with Ramon's luggage. After handing Walter a gold piece, Ramon stepped lightly into the boat, Bill shipped the oars, and Charley took the tiller. Walter first cast off the painter, gave the boat a vigorous shove, and then leaped on board himself. He could not make out what had happened to change their plans, but this was no time for explanations. Seeing the supposed cartman get into the boat, it then first flashed upon Ramon that he had been tricked. Half rising from his seat, he made a movement as if to leap overboard, but a big, bony hand dragged him backward. Maddened to desperation, Ramon then reached for his revolver, but before he could draw it, Walter threw his arms around him, and held him fast in spite of his struggles. Meantime Bill was taking two or three turns round Ramon's body with a stout rope, brought along for that very purpose, and in a twinkling that worthy found himself bound and helpless. No word was spoken until the boat touched the _Argonaut's_ side. Thoroughly cowed, shivering with cold and fright, Ramon's terror was heightened by the thought that he was being carried off to sea. As the black hull of the _Argonaut_ loomed up before him the dreadful truth seemed to break upon him clearly. Yes, there was no doubt of it: he was being shanghaied, as the forcible kidnaping of sailors was called. Charley went up the side first. In a minute he reappeared with a lighted lantern. A dull numbness had seized Ramon. He did not even attempt to cry out when Charley called to the others, in a guarded undertone, to "pass him along." Four stout arms then lifted, or rather boosted, Ramon on board the vessel, as limp and helpless as a dead man. "I knew it," he groaned, with chattering teeth; "shanghaied, by all that's horrible!" XVI RAMON FINDS HIS MATCH Charley at once led the way into the cabin. When all four had passed in he shut the door, turned the key in the lock, and set down the lantern on the table, when, by its dim light, Ramon saw, for the first time, the faces of his abductors. Stealing a quick glance around him he met Walter's set face and stern eye. The faces of the others gave him as little encouragement. Greatly relieved to find his worst fears unfounded, his courage began to rise again. He met Walter's look with one of defiance, and inwardly resolved to brazen it out. His life, he knew, was safe enough. To show that he was not afraid, he assumed a careless tone, as if he looked upon the whole thing as a joke. "You've got me, boys. But now you've got me, what do you want with me?" he demanded, twisting a cigarette in his trembling fingers. "First," said Walter, a trifle unsteadily, for the sight of his enemy was almost too much for him, "first we want you to sign this paper," taking it out of his pocket. "It is--you can read it--a full confession of your robbery of Bright & Company." In spite of his effrontery, Ramon could not help wincing a little. Walter went on without mercy, "And of your clever little scheme to throw suspicion on me as your accomplice." Ramon merely gave a contemptuous little shrug. "And lastly, of what you've done with all the property you--you stole." Ramon scowled and gnawed his mustache. Now that he knew the worst, Ramon began to bluster. "Oh, you shall smart for this when I get on shore--yes, all of you," he declared hotly. "You've got the wrong pig by the ear this time; yes, you have. As for you," this to Bill, "you hoary-headed old villain, I'll have you skinned alive and hung up by the heels for a scarecrow." Bill could hold in no longer. "Who said anything about your goin' ashore, I'd like to know?" he asked, in his bantering way. "You never'd be missed, nohow. Here yer be, and here you stop till we've done with you. So none of your black looks nor cheap talk. They won't pass here." "Stop me if you dare! It's abduction, kidnaping, felony!" cried Ramon, glancing fiercely from one face to the other. "I despise you and your threats. Where are your proofs? Where is your authority?" "Ugly words those, big words. You want proofs, eh? What do you say to this?" Walter asked, in his turn, unfolding a handbill before Ramon's eyes with one hand, while with the other he held the lantern up so that the accusing words, in staring print, might be the more easily read: STOP THIEF!!! $500 REWARD! The above reward will be paid for the apprehension of one Ramon Ingersoll, an absconding embezzler. This was followed by a detailed description of his personal appearance. "Now will you sign?" Walter again demanded of the branded thief and fugitive from justice. Ramon smiled a sickly smile. "Oh! it's the reward you're after, is it? Hope you may get it, that's all." At this fresh insult two red spots flamed up on Walter's cheeks. Ramon's dark eyes sparkled at having so cleverly seen through the motives of his captors. "Is that your last word?" "Before I'll sign that paper I'll rot right here!" "You had better sleep on it," replied Walter, turning away. "What! before s'archin' him for the stealin's?" Bill asked, with well-feigned surprise, at the same time critically looking Ramon over from head to foot. Ramon's hand went to his neckcloth, as if already he felt the hangman's noose choking him, the observant Bill meanwhile watching him as a cat does a mouse. "Come, my lad, turn out your pockets," he commanded, in a most business-like way. Pale with anger, Ramon first pulled out a leather pocket-book, which he threw upon the table, with something that sounded very much like a muttered curse, after which he folded his arms defiantly across his chest. "Now you've got it, much good may it do you," he sneered. The pocket-book contained only a few papers of little value to anybody. "What has become of all the money you took?" Walter demanded. "Gone," was the curt reply. "What! gone! You can't have spent it all so soon. Think again. There must be a trifle left." Ramon shrugged his shoulders by way of reply. "Feel for his belt, Bill," Charley struck in. Charley had been growing impatient for some time over so much waste of words. Bill hastened to take the hint. "Hands off! I tell you, I'll not be searched," shouted Ramon, carrying his hands to the threatened spot like a flash. In spite of his struggles, however, the belt, which every one wore in that day, was secured, and in it ten new fifty-dollar gold pieces were found, and turned out upon the table. Again Ramon's hand went to his neckcloth, nervously, tremblingly. In a twinkling Bill had twitched that article off and tossed it to Walter. "Good's a belt, hain't it?" asked Bill in answer to Walter's look. "I seed him grabbin' at it twicet. S'arch it! s'arch it!" [Illustration: Ramon made to give up his stealing's.--_Page 236._] Rolled up in a little wad, in the folds of the neckerchief, they found two certificates of deposit of a thousand dollars each, and in another similar roll several notes of hand for quite large sums, made payable to Bright & Company, but with forged indorsements to a third party, who, it is needless to say, was no other than Ramon himself, who had thus added forgery to his catalogue of crime. Fortunately, his hurried departure had prevented the negotiating of these notes, which now furnished the most damning evidence of his misdeeds. "Now, then," said Walter, sweeping the money and papers together in a heap, "we've drawn his teeth, let him bite if he can." At this cutting taunt, Ramon summoned to his aid the remains of his fast-waning assurance. "Oho! my fine gentlemen, suppose I'm all you say I am, if you take my money you're as deep in the mud as I am in the mire; eh, my gallant highwaymen?" he hissed out. "Enough of this. We shall take good care of you to-night; but to-morrow we mean to hand you over to the Vigilantes. You can then plead your own cause, Master Embezzler." So saying, Walter pointed to a stateroom opposite, to signify that the last word had been said. Ramon's face instantly turned of a sickly pallor. As Bill afterwards said, "Walter's threat took all the starch out of him." In a broken voice he now pleaded for mercy. "I give it up. I'll confess. I'll sign all you say--anything--if you'll promise not to give me up to those bloodhounds," he almost whimpered. Truly, his craven spirit had at last got the mastery. Walter pretended to hesitate, but in truth he was only turning over in his own mind how best to dispose of Ramon. Hitherto the wish for revenge had been strong within him, had really gone hand-in-hand with that to see wrong made right. But Ramon was now only an object of pity, of contempt. The confession was again placed before him with the addition of a clause stating that the money surrendered was the same he had taken from his employers. He himself added the words, "This is my free act and deed," after which he signed his full name as if in a hurry to have it over with. The two friends then witnessed it. Walter put this precious document in his pocket with a feeling of real triumph. At last his good name would be vindicated before all the world. Once again he could look any man in the face without a blush. It seemed almost too good to be true, yet there sat Ramon cowering in a corner, while he, Walter, held the damning proofs of the robbery in his possession. No, it was not a dream. Right was might, after all. Instead of asking to be set at liberty, Ramon now begged to be kept hid from the dreaded Vigilantes. "Give me just money enough to get away with, set me on shore after dark, and I'll take my chances," he pleaded. Only too glad to be well rid of him, the three friends willingly agreed to this proposal. After darkness had set in, Bill pulled Ramon to a distant spot above the town, among the sand dunes. Handing the discomfited wretch his own pocket-book, with the contents untouched, Bill gave him this parting shot: "Take it, and go to Guinea! If this is the last on ye, well an' good, but it's my 'pinion there's more rascality stowed away in that cowardly carkiss o' yourn." Without replying, Ramon stole away in the darkness, and was soon lost to sight. XVII A SHARP RISE IN LUMBER "Isn't that the Sacramento boat?" asked Charley, looking off in the direction of a rapidly approaching bank of lights. "How plainly we can hear the drumming of her big paddles. Listen!" "If it is, she's all of two hours ahead of time," was Walter's reply. "Yes, it's the old _Senator's_ day. She's a traveler all the time, and to-night she has the tide with her. Do you know, they say she's made more money for her owners than she could carry on one trip?" "Sho! You don't mean it." "True as you stand there." They stood watching the _Senator_ work her way into her dock, when Charley suddenly asked, "What are you so glum about to-night, Walt?" "I was thinking what I would do if I had a boatload of money." "Hope you may get it, that's all. Hark! Ah, here's Bill back again." By the way that Bill was rowing, he seemed in a great hurry. Greatly to the surprise of the two friends, he was closely followed up the side by a stranger, to whom Bill lent a helping hand as this person stumbled awkwardly to the deck. At first both Walter and Charley thought it must be Ramon returning. "Hello! what's up now?" both exclaimed in one breath. "What's up? Lumber's up. Got any?" answered a quick, sharp voice not at all like Ramon's. As nobody spoke Bill made a hurried explanation. "Sacramento's all burnt up, lock, stock, and barrel. Boat's goin' right back to-night. I seen her comin' lickety-split, fit to bust her b'iler; so I kinder waited round for the news. I heered this man askin' who had lumber, so I jest mittened onto him, and here he is." "Whar's this yer lumber--afloat or on shore?" the newcomer impatiently demanded. "Afloat," Charley replied. "Good enough! How's it stowed: so's it can be got at?" "It's a whole cargo. Never been broken out." "Good again! What sort is it? Can I see it?" "Come into the cabin and I'll get out the manifest. You can't see anything till daylight." "Burn the manifest!" returned the stranger, still more impatiently. "Daylight's wuth dollars now. Show me the man can tell what that thar lumber is, or isn't." "I can," Walter put in, "'cause I saw it loaded." "Then you're the very man I want. Talk fast. I'm bound to go back on that thar boat." Thus urged, Walter began the inventory on his fingers. "There's six two-story dwelling houses, all framed, ready to go up." "Whoop-ee! how big?" "About 24x36, high-studded, pitched roof, luthern windows. The rest is building stuff--all of it--sills, joists, rough and planed boards, matched boards----" "Any shingles?" the impatient man broke in. "Yes, a big lot; and clapboards too." "Talk enough. Whar's the owner?" "You're talking to him now," said Charley quickly. "Well, then, I reck'n we'd better have a little light on the subject, hadn't we?" the stranger suggested. Upon this hint Charley led the way to the cabin, where the parties took a good look at each other. The stranger glanced over the manifest, laid a big, brawny hand upon it, then, turning to Walter, but without betraying surprise at his youthful appearance, said pointedly, "Name your price, cash down, stranger, for the lot. I'm here for a dicker." Walter began a rapid mental calculation. "Those houses are worth all of twenty-five hundred apiece," he declared, glancing at Charley. "More," Charley assented positively. "Wuth more for firewood," added Bill. "Houses and all; all or none. How much for the hull blamed cargo?" the stranger again demanded, getting up to expectorate in a corner. "Lumber is lumber," observed Charley, wrinkling his forehead in deep thought. "Do I ask you to give it away? Name your figure," the would-be purchaser insisted. "Come up to the scratch. I've no time to waste here palavering. What do you take me for?" he added angrily. Walter again had recourse to his mental arithmetic. "Six times two fifty, fifteen; lump the rest at ten; freight money five, storage five more, insurance five. Forty thousand dollars!" he exclaimed desperately at a venture, feeling the cold sweat oozing out all over him. "It's mine. I'll take it," said the stranger, coolly suiting the action to the word by dragging out of his coat pockets first one chuggy bag of gold dust and then another, which he placed before Walter on the table. "Here's something to bind the bargain." Then, seeing Bill critically examining a pinch of the dull yellow grains in the palm of his hand, he added: "Oh! never fear! That's the real stuff. You get the rest when that lumber's delivered alongside Sacramento levee at my expense. Talk fast. Is it a whack?" "Hold on, stranger," cried the acute Charley, pushing back the gold. "We don't agree to no such thing, mister. We deliver it right here from the ship." The stranger smote the table with his clenched fist. "Can't waste no time loading and unloading," he declared; "that's half the battle. I must have this cargo ahead of everybody, up river. You say it's all loaded. That's why I pay high for it. I don't care shucks how you get it there; so fix it somehow; for it's make or break with me this time. _Sabe?_" "Why not tow her up and back, if he pays for it?" Bill suggested. The buyer caught as eagerly at the idea as a drowning man does at a straw. "Sartin. Tow her up!" he exclaimed. "I hire the boat and pay all expenses. How many hands of you? Three. All right. You get ten dollars apiece a day till the ship's unloaded." The man's eagerness to buy his way through all obstacles rather confused Walter, who now turned inquiringly toward Bill. "She draws nigh onto twenty feet this blessed minute," Bill said in a doubtful undertone. "Why, the river is booming!" cried the stranger, looking from one to the other, with eager, restless eyes, as this unforeseen difficulty presented itself to his mind. Again Bill came to the rescue. "I'll tell ye, mates, what we can do. Lash an empty lighter on each side of her; that'll lift her some; then if she takes the ground, we might break out cargo into the lighters, till she floats agin." The lumber speculator listened like one who hears some one speaking in a strange tongue. He, however, caught at Bill's idea. "Yes, that's the how, shoah," he joyfully assented. "I'll hire a towboat to-night, if one's to be had in 'Frisco for money. I don't know shucks 'bout these yer ships, but when it comes to steamboats I reck'n I kin tell a snag from a catfish." "I think we may risk it, then," observed Charley, who, as ship-keeper, felt all his responsibility for her safety. Walter then drew up the contract in proper form, after which it was duly signed, sealed, and witnessed. "Now, then," resumed the stranger, "you boys get everything good and ready for a quick start. Thar's your dust. You play fa'r with me, an' I'll play fa'r with you. Shake." He then put off with Bill for the shore. "Dirt cheap," said Charley, eying Walter sidewise. "Thrown away," groaned Walter peevishly, by way of reply. And to think that only the day before the lumber would not have paid for the unloading! XVIII A CORNER IN LUMBER By dint of hard work the _Southern Cross_ was got ready to cast off her moorings by the time the tug came puffing up alongside, early in the morning. They were soon under weigh, but the ship's bottom was so foul that she towed like a log. Bill steered, while Charley and Walter went forward to pass the word from the tug or tend the hawser, as might be necessary. It being smooth water here, in an hour or so the tow passed out into San Pablo Bay, where it met not only a stiff head wind, but a nasty little choppy sea. That made towing slow work, but by noon they were abreast of Benicia and entering the Straits of Carquinez, with old Monte Diablo peering down upon them on the starboard hand. Beyond this point the tow steamed across still another bay, for some fifteen miles more, without mishap. They had now left the coast mountains far behind, and were heading straight for what seemed an endless waste of tall reeds, through which both the Sacramento and San Joaquin wind their way out to the sea. So far plenty of water and plenty of sea room had been found. The worst was yet to come. The young navigators, however, pushed boldly on between the low mud-banks without delay, feeling much encouraged by their success thus far, and wishing to make the most of the short two hours of daylight remaining, after which the captain of the tug declared it would be unsafe to proceed. After seeing the ship tied up to the bank for the night, the tug pushed on in search of a wood-yard some miles farther on. It was quite ten o'clock the next morning before the boys saw her come puffing back around the next bend of the river above. She had run so far after wood, that the captain said he would not risk putting back before daylight again. All went smoothly until the middle of the afternoon, when, to their great annoyance, the ship suddenly brought up on a mud-bank, where she stuck hard and fast. A hawser was quickly carried out astern, at which the tug pulled and hauled for some time to no purpose. The _Southern Cross_ would not budge an inch. It being evident that the ship would not come off by that means, hatches were taken off, the boys threw off their coats, and, spurred on by Bill's report that he believed the river was falling, all hands went to work breaking out cargo into the lighters, as if their very lives depended upon their haste. It was now that Bill's foresight came in for the warmest commendations, as without the lighters the voyage must have ended then and there. They worked on like beavers all the rest of that afternoon, the tug giving an occasional pull at the hawser, without starting the ship from her snug berth. They, therefore, made themselves some coffee, and were talking the situation over in no very happy frame of mind, when a large, high-pressure steamboat was seen heading down the river, half of which she seemed pushing in front of her, and dragging the other half behind. "Stand by to haul away!" shouted Bill, with quick presence of mind, to the men on the tug, running aft to take another turn in the hawser. As the steamer passed by, churning the muddy water into big waves, the tug put on all steam, the hawser straightened out as tense as iron, the big ship gave a lazy lurch as a wave struck her, and to the unspeakable delight of all hands they found themselves once more afloat and in deep water. Although the ship was aground several times after this, they were so lucky in getting her off, that by noon of the third day the _Southern Cross_ lay snugly moored, stem and stern, to a couple of live oaks at the Sacramento levee. The first person to jump on board was the purchaser himself, followed by a gang of laborers, who had been waiting only for the ship's arrival to set to work at unloading her cargo. Meantime the boys set about making all snug aboard, and then after seeing the balance of the purchase money weighed out, on a common counter-scale in the cabin, they took turns in mounting guard over what had been so fairly earned. In plain truth, all three were fairly dazed by the possession of so much wealth. [Illustration: Arrival of the _Southern Cross_ at Sacramento.--_Page 254._] This duty of standing watch and watch kept the friends from leaving the ship even for a single moment, if indeed they had felt the least desire to do so. In fact all that there was left of the late bustling city was spread out stark and grim before their wondering eyes from the deck of the ship, and a dismal sight it was. Acres of ground, so lately covered with buildings so full of busy life, were now nothing but a blackened waste of smoldering rubbish. Here and there some solitary tree, scorched and leafless, lifted up its skeleton branches as if in silent horror at the surrounding desolation. Men, singly, or in little groups, were moving about in the gray-white smoke like so many uneasy specters. Others were carefully poking among the rubbish for whatever of value might have escaped the flames. But more strange than all, even while the ruins were ablaze about them, it was to see a gang of workmen busy laying down the foundations for a new building. There was to be no sitting down in sackcloth and ashes here. That was California spirit. All this time the lumber dealer was by great odds the busiest man there. He was fairly up to his ears in business, selling lumber, in small parcels or great, from the head of a barrel, to a perfect mob of buyers, who pushed and jostled each other in their eagerness to be first served. All were clamoring as loudly for notice as so many Congressmen on a field-day to the Speaker of the House. To this horde of hungry applicants the lumberman kept on repeating, "First come, first served. Down with your dust." The man was making a fortune hand over fist. Scarcely had our boys the time to look about them, when they were beset with offers to lease or even to buy the ship outright. One wanted her for a store, another for a hotel, another for a restaurant, a saloon, and so on. Men even shook pouches of gold-dust in their faces, as an incentive to close the bargain on the spot. As such a transaction had never entered their heads, the three friends held a hurried consultation over it. Charley firmly held to the opinion that he had no right to dispose of the ship without the owner's consent, and that was something which could not be obtained at this time. Walter was non-committal. Bill was nothing if not practical. Bill was no fool. "Ef she goes back, what does she do?" he asked, squinting first at one and then at the other. "Why, she lays there to her anchors rottin', doin' nobody no good," he added. "She won't eat or drink anything if she does," Charley said rather ambiguously. "Seems as though we ought to put her back where we found her," Walter suggested, in a doubtful sort of way. "Settle it to suit yourselves," was Bill's ready rejoinder. "But how does the case stand? Here's a lot of crazy _hombres_ e'en a'most ready to fight for her. 'Twould cost a fortin to get her ready for sea. Her bottom's foul as a cow-yard; some of her copper's torn off; upper works rotten; she needs calkin', paintin', new riggin', new----" "There, hold on!" cried Charley, laughing heartily at Bill's truly formidable catalogue of wants; "I give in. I vote to lease the old barky by the month--that is, if Walt here thinks as I do." "In for a penny, in for a pound," Walter assented decisively. So the bargain was concluded before the cargo was half out of the ship, so eager was the lessee to get possession. Walter drew up the lease, a month's rent was paid in advance, and the thing was done. "Well, now, boys, that's off our minds," said Charley gleefully; "my head's been turning round like a buzz-saw ever since this thing's been talked about." "And a good job, too, seein' as how we skipped without a clearance," Bill put in quietly. The two friends looked at him blankly, then at each other. It was plain that no such matter had ever entered their minds. Charley gave a long, low whistle. "By George, I never thought of that!" he exclaimed, in great ill humor with Bill. "What'll they do to us?" "No use cryin' over spilt milk," said that worthy. "Keep dark's our lay. Didn't Noah's Ark sail without a clearance, without papers or flag, and for no port?" he added. "We 'cleared out,' as the sayin' is, with a vengeance," Charley remarked, trying to turn the matter off with a joke. "There's only one thing for us to do," said Walter, "and that is to go right up to the custom-house and explain matters to the collector, when we get back to the Bay. Perhaps he'll let us off with a fine, when he finds we didn't mean to run away with the ship and turn pirates." The idea of turning the old, water-logged _Southern Cross_ into a pirate was so comical that all three joined in a hearty laugh. What to do with all their money was the most perplexing question. They could neither eat nor sleep for thinking of it. In every face they saw a thief, every footstep startled them. In their dilemma it was determined that the safer way would be to divide it up between them. Three miner's belts were therefore procured, and after locking themselves up in the cabin the three friends stuffed these belts as full as they would hold with the precious metal. But there was still a good-sized pile left to be disposed of when this was done, so Bill suggested sewing the remainder in their shirts. At it they went, without more words, sitting meantime in their trousers and undershirts; and a truly comical sight was this original sewing circle, stitching away for dear life under lock and key. But even when this operation was finished, a heap of the shining metal still lay on the table before them. All were so weighed down with what they had about them that they waddled rather than walked. Bill declared that if anything happened to the boat at their returning they would all sink to the bottom like so much lead. While thus at their wits' end, Charley's eagle eye chanced to fall upon an old fowling piece hung up by some hooks in the cabin. This was quickly torn from its resting place, the charges drawn, and while the others looked on in silent wonder Charley filled both barrels with gold dust, after which the muzzles were tightly fitted with corks. "She's loaded for big game. We take turns carryin' her, don't you see?" he remarked with a broad grin. Towards dusk the trio took passage on board the first boat bound for the Bay, nor did they feel themselves wholly safe with their treasure until they once more trod the deck of the old _Argonaut_, fairly worn out with a week of such rapidly shifting fortunes as no one but an old Californian has ever experienced. The three inseparables were snugly rolled up in their blankets, Bill loudly snoring in his bunk, when the distant booming of a gun caused Walter to raise his head and say drowsily, "Hello! a steamer's in." "I don't care if there's twenty steamers," Charley yawned, at the same time burying his nose still deeper under his blanket; "I was almost gone and now you've made me begin all over again. All ashore that's goin' ashore." XIX HEARTS OF GOLD Mr. Bright came in that steamer. As Walter's letter seemed to hold out fair hopes of recovering some part of the _Southern Cross_ and her cargo, the merchant had decided to look into the matter himself, though in truth both he and his partners had long regarded the venture as a dead loss. Had he suddenly dropped from the clouds, the _Argonaut's_ little company could not have been more astonished than when the merchant stepped on deck, smiling benignantly at the evident consternation he thus created. After a hearty greeting all round, though poor Walter turned all colors at the remembrance of how and where they had last met, Mr. Bright began by explaining that he had found them out through the consignee of the _Southern Cross_. "But where in the world is the _Southern Cross_?" he asked. "Here has the boatman been rowing me around for the last hour, trying to find her. Nothing has happened to her, I hope," he hastily added, observing the friends exchanging sly glances. This question, of course, led to an explanation from Walter, during which the old merchant's face was a study. His first look of annoyance soon changed to one of blank amazement, finally settling down into a broad smile of complete satisfaction when the story was all told. Then he shook his gray head as if the problem was quite too knotty for him to solve, how these boys, hardly out of their teens, should have dared, first to engage in such a brilliant transaction, and then have succeeded in carrying it through to the end without a hitch. "Pretty well for beginners, I must say," he finally declared. "Taken altogether that's about the boldest operation I ever heard of, and I've known a few in my experience as a business man. But," looking at Walter, "where's all this money? Quite safe, I hope." By way of answer, the young men brought out their treasure from various ingenious hiding-places, the fowling piece included. When all the belts and parcels of dust were piled in a heap on the table, Mr. Bright sat for some time with his hand over his eyes without speaking. What the merchant's thoughts were it were vain to guess. Finally he said, "You seem to have done everything for the best. Bill here was quite right about the ship. She is earning something where she is, at least. Now about the cargo?" turning to Walter; "I think you said in your letter that Charley here bought half of that in?" Walter gave a nod of assent. "Why, then," resumed Mr. Bright, "as the other half belongs to his partner, I don't see that we've anything to do with this money. Perhaps we may compromise as to the ship," he added, looking at Charley. Charley then explained his agreement with his partner, who had so mysteriously disappeared. "I sold out to Walter. Settle it with him," he finished, jamming his hands in his pockets and turning away. "Well, then, Walter, what do you say?" "I say that Charley ought to have half the profits. Why, when I wrote you, the lumber was worthless. Besides, Charley did all the business. Settle it with him." "I see. The situation was changed from a matter of a few hundreds to thousands shortly after your letter was written." Walter nodded. "And you don't care to take advantage of it?" Walter simply folded his arms defiantly. "But between you you saved the cargo," the merchant rejoined. "We've no claim. You must come to terms. Was there no writing?" Walter scowled fiercely at Charley, who, notwithstanding, immediately produced his copy of the agreement. The merchant glanced over it with a smile hovering on his lips. "Why, this is perfectly good," he declared. "Well, then, as neither of you has a proposition to make, I'll make you one. Perhaps Walter here felt under a moral obligation to look after our interests in spite of the unjust treatment he had received. That I can now understand, and I ask his pardon. But you, Charles, had no such inducement." "No inducement!" Charley broke out, with a quivering lip; "no inducement, heh, to see that boy righted?" he repeated, struggling hard to keep down the lump in his throat. "Axin' pardons don't mend no broken crockery," observed Bill gruffly. Mr. Bright showed no resentment at this plain speech. He sat wiping his glasses in deep thought. Perhaps there was just a little moisture in his own eyes, over this evidence of two hearts linked together as in bands of steel. The silence was growing oppressive, when Walter nerved himself to say: "You see, sir, Charley and me, we are of one mind. As for me, I'm perfectly satisfied to take what I put in to fit Charley out, provided you pay him back his investment, and what's right for his and Bill's time and trouble." Charley coughed a little at this liberal proposal, but Walter signed to him to keep quiet. Bill grunted out something that might pass for consent. But Mr. Bright was not the man to take advantage of so much generosity. In truth, he had already formed in his own mind a plan by which to come to an agreement. Changing the subject for the moment, he suddenly asked, "By the way, have you never heard anything of Ramon?" At this unexpected question a broad grin stole over the faces of the three kidnapers. "I was coming to that," Walter replied, bringing out from his chest the money and papers which Ramon had been so lately compelled to disgorge. The merchant took them in his hands, ran his eye rapidly over them, and exclaimed in astonishment, "What! did he make this restitution of his own accord? Wonders will never cease, I declare." "Well, no, sir, not exactly that; the truth is, he was a trifle obstinate about it at first, but we found a way to persuade him. That confession was signed in the very same chair you are now sitting in." Mr. Bright again said, with a sigh of deep satisfaction, "Marvelous! We shall now pay everything we owe, except our debt to you, Walter; that we can never pay." "If my good name is cleared, I'm perfectly satisfied," Walter rejoined, a little nervously, yet with a feeling that this was the happiest day of his life. "And his good name, too, why don't you say?' interrupted the matter-of-fact Bill, from his corner. "Seems to me that's about the size of it," he finished, casting a meaning look at the dignified old merchant, who sat there twiddling his glasses, clearly oppressed by the feeling that, as between himself and Walter, Walter had acted the nobler part. He could hardly control a slight tremor in his voice when he began to speak again. "I see how it is," he said. "You return good for evil. It was nobly done, I grant you--nobly done. But you must not wonder at my surprise, for I own I expected nothing of the sort. Still, all the generosity must not be on one side. By no means. Since I've sat here I've been thinking that now we are embarked in the California trade, we couldn't do better than to start a branch of the concern in this city. Now, don't interrupt," raising an admonitory hand, "until you hear me through. If you, Walter, and you, Charles, in whom I have every confidence--if you two will accept an equal partnership, your actual expenses to be paid at any rate, we will put all the profits of this lumber trade of yours into the new house to start with. Suppose we call it Bright, Seabury & Company. Fix that to suit yourselves, only my name ought to stand first, I think, because it will set Walter here right before the world." Neither Walter nor Charley could have said one word for the life of him, so much were they taken by surprise. Bill's eyes fairly bulged out of his shaggy head. Mr. Bright went on to say, "With our credit restored, we can send you all the goods you may want. Suppose we now go and deposit this money--one-half to the new firm's credit, one half in trust for Charles' former partner. I myself will put a notice of the copartnership in to-morrow's papers, and as soon as I get home in the Boston papers, and I should greatly like to see the new sign up before I go." It was a long speech, but never was one listened to with more rapt attention. Charley turned as red as a beet, Walter hung his head, Bill blew his nose for a full half-minute. "Where does Bill come in?" he demanded, with a comical side glance at the merchant. His question, with the long face he put on, relieved the strain at once. "Oh, never fear, old chap; you shall have my place and pay on the old ship," Charley hastened to assure him. "Then you accept," said Mr. Bright, shaking hands with each of the new partners in turn. "Something tells me that this is the best investment of my life. The papers shall be made out to-day, while we are looking up a store together. Really, now, I feel as if I ought to give a little dinner in honor of the new firm--long life and prosperity to it! Where shall it be?" "What ails this 'ere old ship where the old house came to life agin, an' the new babby wuz fust born inter the world?" was Bill's ready suggestion. "Capital! couldn't be better," exclaimed the merchant. "And now," taking out his notebook, "tell me what I can do for each of you personally when I get back to the States?" Walter spoke first. "Please look up my old aunty, and see her made comfortable." Mr. Bright jotted down the address with an approving nod, then looked up at Charley. "Send out a couple of donkey engines; horses are too slow." Mr. Bright then turned to Bill. "Me? Oh, well, I've got no aunt, I've no use for donkeys. You might lick that sneakin' perleeceman on the wharf an' send me his resate." When the two young men took leave of Mr. Bright, on board the _John L. Stephens_, after a hearty hand-shaking all round, that gentleman gave them this parting advice: "Make all the friends you can, and keep them if you can. Remember, nothing is easier than to make enemies." At a meaning look from Walter, Charley withdrew himself out of earshot. Walter fidgeted a little, blushed, and then managed to ask, "Have I your permission to write to Miss Dora, sir?" Mr. Bright looked surprised, then serious, then amused. "Oho! now I begin to catch on. That's how the land lies, is it? So that was the reason why you were prowling around our house one night after dark, was it? Well, well! Certainly you may write to Dora. And by the way, when next you pass through our street you may ring the doorbell." XX BRIGHT, SEABURY & COMPANY Thus the new firm entered upon its future career with bright prospects. A suitable warehouse on the waterfront was leased for a term of years. True to their determination to stick together, the two junior partners fitted up a room in the second story, and on the day that the doors were first opened for business they moved in. The next thing was to get some business to do. Charley had a considerable acquaintance among the ranchmen across the Bay, which he now improved by making frequent trips to solicit consignments of country produce. The sight of an empty store and bare walls was at first depressing, but their first shipments from the East could not be expected for several months. There was a sort of tacit understanding that Walter should attend to the financial end of the business, while Charley took care of the outdoor concerns. They were no longer boys. The sense of assumed responsibilities had made them men. The two partners were busy receiving a sloop-load of potatoes, with their shirt sleeves rolled up, when a big, burly, bewhiskered individual dropped in upon them. Scenting a customer, Charley, always forward, briskly asked what they could do for him. "I want to see the senior partner." Charley nodded toward Walter, who was checking off the weights. The man gave a quick look at the tall, straight young fellow before him, then said, "Can I speak to you in private for five minutes?" "Come this way," Walter replied, showing the stranger into the little office. The newcomer sat down, crossed one leg over the other, stroked his long beard reflectively a little, and said, "I've come on a very confidential matter. Can I depend upon the strictest privacy?" "You may," said Walter, quite astonished at this rather unexpected opening. "Nobody will interrupt us here." The man cast an inquisitive look around, as if to make sure there were no eavesdroppers near, then, lowering his voice almost to a whisper, said pointedly, "You may have heard something about a plan to aid the poor, oppressed natives of Nicaragua to throw off the tyrannical yoke of their present rulers?" "I've seen something to that effect in the papers," said Walter evasively. "So much the better. That clears the way of cobwebs. I want your solemn promise that what passes between us shall not be divulged to a human being." "I have no business secrets from my partners," Walter objected. "Your partners! Oh! of course not." "I've already promised," Walter assented, more and more mystified by the stranger's manner. "Nobody asked you for your secrets. You can do as you like about telling them," he continued rather sharply. "I'll trust you. You are a young concern. Well connected. Bang-up references. Likely to get on top of the heap, and nat'rally want to make a strike. Nothing like seizing upon a golden opportunity. 'There is a tide'--you know the rest. Now, I'm just the man to put you in the way of doing it, as easy as rolling off a log." As Walter made no reply, the visitor, after waiting a moment for his words to take effect, went on: "Now, listen. I don't mind telling you, in the strictest confidence, then, that I'm fiscal agent for this here enterprise. I'm in it for glory and the _dinero_. We want some enterprising young firm like yours to furnish supplies for the emigrants we're sending down there," jerking his head toward the south. "There's a big pile in it for you, if you will take hold with us and see the thing through." Walter kept his eyes upon the speaker, but said nothing. "You see, it's a perfectly legitimate transaction, don't you?" resumed the fiscal agent a little anxiously. "Then why so much secrecy?" "Oh! there's always a lot of people prying round into what don't concern them. Busybodies! If it gets out that our people aren't peaceable emigrants before we're good and ready, the whole thing might get knocked into a cocked hat. They'd say--well, they even might call us filibusters," the man admitted with an injured air. Walter smiled a knowing smile. "What do you want us to do?" he asked. "In the first place, we want cornmeal, hard bread, bacon, potatoes, an' sich, for a hundred and fifty men for two months. I can give you the figures to a dot," the agent rejoined, on whom Walter's smile had not been lost. "See here." He drew out of his pocket a package of freshly printed bonds, purporting to be issued by authority of the Republic of Nicaragua, and passed them over for Walter's inspection. "Now, the fact is, we want all our ready funds for the people's outfit, advance money, vessel's charter, and so on. Now, I'm going to be liberal with you. I'll put up this bunch of twenty thousand dollars in bonds, payable on the day Nicaragua is free, for five thousand dollars' worth of provisions at market price. Think of that! Twenty thousand dollars for five thousand dollars. You can't lose. We've got things all fixed down there. Why, man, there's silver and gold and jewels enough in the churches alone to pay those bonds ten times over!" "What! rob the churches!" Walter exclaimed, knitting his brows. "Why, no; I believe they call that merely a forced loan nowadays," objected the fiscal agent in some embarrassment. Seeing that he paused for a reply, Walter observed that he would consult his partner. Charley was called in and the proposal gone over again with him. As soon as advised of its purport he turned on his heel. "Not any in mine," was his prompt decision. "Mine either," assented Walter. The stranger seemed much disappointed, but not yet at the end of his resources. "Well, then," he began again, "you take the bonds, sell them for a fair discount for cash, and use the proceeds towards those provisions?" "Hadn't you better do that yourself? We're not brokers. We're commission merchants. If you come to us with cash in hand we'll sell you anything money will buy, and no questions asked; but Nicaragua bonds, payable any time and no time, are not in our line." So said Walter. "Not much," echoed Charley. "Your line seems to be small potatoes," muttered the stranger testily. Then quickly checking himself, he carelessly asked, "I suppose you'd have no objection to keeping these bonds in your safe for a day or two for me, giving me a receipt for them, or the equivalent? I don't feel half easy about carrying them about with me." "Why, no," said Charley, looking at Walter, to see how he would take it. "Yes," objected Walter, "most decidedly." "'No;' 'yes;' who's boss here, anyhow?" sneered the agent, dismissing his wheedling tone, now that he had played his last card. Even Charley seemed a trifle nettled at being snubbed by Walter in the presence of a stranger. After all, it seemed a trifling favor to ask of them. "My partner and I can settle that matter between ourselves. Once for all, we don't choose to be mixed up in your filibustering schemes in any way. Your five minutes have grown to three-quarters of an hour already. This is our busy day," he concluded, as a broad hint to the stranger to take leave, and at once. "Very well," said the unmoved fiscal agent, buttoning up his coat. "But you'll repent, all the same, having thrown away the finest opportunity of making a fortune ever offered----" "This way out, sir," Charley interrupted, throwing wide the office door. When the strange visitor had gone Charley asked Walter why he refused to let the bonds be put in the safe. "Now we've made an enemy," he said resignedly. "To let him raise money on that receipt for twenty thousand dollars, _or equivalent_--on Mr. Bright's name? No, sir-ee. Where were your wits, Charles Wormwood? That fellow's a sharper!" "Guess I'd better attend to those potatoes," was all the junior partner could find to say, suiting the action to the word. As was quite natural, much curiosity was felt as to what had become of Ramon, by his former business associates. In some way he had found out that Mr. Bright was in San Francisco, and taking counsel of his fears of being sent back to Boston as a confessed felon, he cast his lot among the most lawless adventurers of the day. Learning that a filibustering expedition was being fitted out at San Francisco against Lower California, under command of Walker, the "Gray-eyed Man of Destiny," Ramon joined it, keeping in hiding meanwhile, until the vessel was ready to sail. As is well known, the affair was a complete failure, Walker's famished band being compelled to surrender to the United States officers at San Diego. From this time Ramon disappeared. * * * * * Some five years later a young man, ruddy-cheeked, robust, and well though not foppishly dressed, drove up to the door of a pretty cottage in one of the most fashionable suburbs of Boston. Alighting from his buggy and hitching his horse, he walked quickly up the driveway to the house. The front door flew open by the time he had put his hand on the knob; and a young woman, with the matchless New England pink and white in her cheeks, called out, "Why, Walter, what brings you home so early to-day? Has anything happened?" "Yes, Dora; Charles Wormwood is coming out to dine with us to-day. He only arrived to-day overland. I want to show him my wife." THE END The transcriber made these changes to the text: 1. p. 152, "the the certificate" changed to "the certificate" 2. p. 224, "eend" changed to "end" 3. p. 246, "Charlay" changed to "Charley" 4. p. 281, "dimissing" changed to "dismissing" 
42831	----	available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) More: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/loveincloudcomed00bate LOVE IN A CLOUD A Comedy in Filigree by ARLO BATES Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1900 Copyright, 1900, by Arlo Bates All Rights Reserved TO MRS. E. L. HOMANS CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE MISCHIEF OF A MAID 1 II. THE MADNESS OF A MAN 11 III. THE BABBLE OF A TEA 19 IV. THE TICKLING OF AN AUTHOR 29 V. THE BLAZING OF RANK 43 VI. THE MISCHIEF OF A WIDOW 50 VII. THE COUNSEL OF A MOTHER 60 VIII. THE TEST OF LOVE 69 IX. THE MISCHIEF OF A GENTLEMAN 79 X. THE BUSINESS OF A CLUBMAN 89 XI. THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES 98 XII. THE WASTING OF REQUESTS 108 XIII. THE WILE OF A WOMAN 119 XIV. THE CONCEALING OF SECRETS 130 XV. THE MISCHIEF OF A LETTER 138 XVI. THE DUTY OF A SON 150 XVII. THE BUSINESS OF A LOVER 166 XVIII. THE MISCHIEF OF MEN 180 XIX. THE CRUELTY OF LOVE 191 XX. THE FAITHFULNESS OF A FRIEND 198 XXI. THE MISCHIEF OF A FIANCÉ 206 XXII. THE COOING OF TURTLE-DOVES 220 XXIII. THE BUSINESS OF A MUSE 227 XXIV. THE MISCHIEF OF A CAD 241 XXV. THE WAKING OF A SPINSTER 254 XXVI. THE WOOING OF A WIDOW 266 XXVII. THE CLIMAX OF COMEDY 277 XXVIII. THE UNCLOUDING OF LOVE 288 LOVE IN A CLOUD I THE MISCHIEF OF A MAID "No, my dear May, I positively will not hear another word about 'Love in a Cloud.' I am tired to death of the very sound of its stupid name." "Oh, Mrs. Harbinger," May Calthorpe responded, eagerly defensive, "it isn't a stupid name." Mrs. Harbinger settled herself back into the pile of gay cushions in the corner of the sofa, and went on without heeding the interruption:-- "I have heard nothing but 'Love in a Cloud,' 'Love in a Cloud,' until it gives me a feeling of nausea. Nobody talks of anything else." May nodded her head triumphantly, a bright sparkle in her brown eyes. "That only shows what a perfectly lovely book it is," she declared. Mrs. Harbinger laughed, and bent forward to arrange a ribbon at May's throat. "I don't care if it is the loveliest book ever written," she responded; "I won't have it stuffed down my throat morning, noon, and night. Why, if you'll believe it, my husband, who never reads novels, not only read it, but actually kept awake over it, and after that feat he'll talk of it for months." Pretty May Calthorpe leaned forward with more animation than the mere discussion of an anonymous novel seemed to call for, and caught one of her hostess's hands in both her own. "Oh, did Mr. Harbinger like it?" she asked. "I am so interested to know what he thinks of it." "You never will know from me, my dear," was the cool response. "I've forbidden him to speak of it. I tell you that I am bored to death with the old thing." May started up suddenly from the sofa where she had been sitting beside Mrs. Harbinger. With rather an offended air she crossed to the fireplace, and began to arrange her hat before the mirror over the mantel. Mrs. Harbinger, smiling to herself, gave her attention to setting in order the cups on the tea-table before her. The sun of the April afternoon came in through the window, and from the polished floor of the drawing-room was reflected in bright patches on the ceiling; the brightness seemed to gather about the young, girlish face which looked out from the glass, with red lips and willful brown hair in tendrils over the white forehead. Yet as she faced her reflection, May pouted and put on the look of one aggrieved. "I am sorry I mentioned the book if you are so dreadfully against it," she observed stiffly. "I was only going to tell you a secret about the author." Mrs. Harbinger laughed lightly, flashing a comical grimace at her visitor's back. "There you go again, like everybody else! Do you suppose, May, that there is anybody I know who hasn't told me a secret about the author? Why, I'm in the confidence of at least six persons who cannot deny that they wrote it." May whirled around swiftly, leaving her reflection so suddenly that it, offended, as quickly turned its back on her. "Who are they?" she demanded. "Well," the other answered quizzically, "Mrs. Croydon, for one." "Mrs. Croydon! Why, nobody could dream that she wrote it!" "But they do. It must have been written by some one that is inside the social ring; and there is a good deal in the style that is like her other books. I do wish," she went on, with a note of vexation in her voice, "that Graham would ever forget to mix up my two tea-services. He is a perfect genius for forgetting anything he ought to remember." She walked, as she spoke, to the bell, and as she passed May the girl sprang impulsively toward her, catching both her hands. "Oh, Mrs. Harbinger!" she cried breathlessly. "I must tell you something before anybody comes." "Good gracious, May, what is it now? You are as impulsive as a pair of bellows that could blow themselves." The butler came ponderously in, in reply to her ring as she spoke, and the two women for the moment suspended all sign of emotion. "Graham," Mrs. Harbinger said, with the air of one long suffering and well-nigh at the end of her patience, "you have mixed the teacups again. Take out the tray, and bring in the cups with the broad gold band." Graham took up the tray and departed, his back radiating protest until the portière dropped behind him. When he was gone Mrs. Harbinger drew May down to a seat on the sofa, and looked at her steadily. "You evidently have really something to tell," she said; "and I have an idea that it's mischief. Out with it." May drew back with heightened color. "Oh, I don't dare to tell you!" she exclaimed. "Is it so bad as that?" "Oh, it isn't bad, only--Oh, I don't know what in the world you will think!" "No matter what I think. I shan't tell you, my dear. No woman ever does that." May regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and wistfulness in her look. "You are talking that way just to give me courage," she said. "Well, then," the other returned, laughing, "take courage, and tell me. What have you been doing?" "Only writing letters." "Only! Good gracious, May! writing letters may be worse than firing dynamite bombs. Women's letters are apt to be double-back-action infernal-machines; and girls' letters are a hundred times worse. Whom did you write to?" "To the author of 'Love in a Cloud.'" "To the author of 'Love in a Cloud'? How did you know him?" Miss Calthorpe cast down her eyes, swallowed as if she were choking, and then murmured faintly: "I don't know him." "What? Don't know him?" her friend demanded explosively. "Only the name he puts on his book: Christopher Calumus." "Which of course isn't his name at all. How in the world came you to write to him?" The air of Mrs. Harbinger became each moment more judicially moral, while that of May was correspondingly humble and deprecatory. In the interval during which the forgetful Graham returned with the teacups they sat silent. The culprit was twisting nervously a fold of her frock, creasing it in a manner which would have broken the heart of the tailor who made it. The judge regarded her with a look which was half impatient, but full, too, of disapproving sternness. "How could you write to a man you don't know," insisted Mrs. Harbinger,--"a man of whom you don't even know the name? How could you do such a thing?" "Why, you see," stammered May, "I thought--that is--Well, I read the book, and--Oh, you know, Mrs. Harbinger, the book is so perfectly lovely, and I was just wild over it, and I--I--" "You thought that being wild over it wasn't enough," interpolated the hostess in a pause; "but you must make a fool of yourself over it." "Why, the book was so evidently written by a gentleman, and a man that had fine feelings," the other responded, apparently plucking up courage, "that I--You see, I wanted to know some things that the book didn't tell, and I--" "You wrote to ask!" her friend concluded, jumping up, and standing before her companion. "Oh, for sheer infernal mischief commend me to one of you demure girls that look as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouths! If your father had known enough to have you educated at home instead of abroad, you'd have more sense." "Oh, a girl abroad never would dare to do such a thing," May put in naïvely. "But you thought that in America a girl might do what she pleases. Why, do you mean to tell me that you didn't understand perfectly well that you had no business to write to a man that you don't know? I don't believe any such nonsense." May blushed very much, and hung her head. "But I wanted so much to know him," she murmured almost inaudibly. Mrs. Harbinger regarded her a moment with the expression of a mother who has reached that stage of exasperation which is next halting-place before castigation. Then she turned and walked vehemently up the drawing-room and back, a quick sprint which seemed to have very little effect in cooling her indignation. "How long has this nonsense been going on?" she demanded, with a new sternness in her voice. "For--for six weeks," answered May tearfully. Then she lifted her swimming eyes in pitiful appeal, and proffered a plea for mercy. "Of course I didn't use my own name." "Five or six weeks!" cried Mrs. Harbinger, throwing up her hands. "But at first we didn't write more than once or twice a week." The other stared as if May were exploding a succession of torpedoes under her very nose. "But--but," she stammered, apparently fairly out of breath with amazement, "how often do you write now?" May sprang up in her turn. She faced her mentor with the truly virtuous indignation of a girl who has been proved to be in the wrong. "I shan't tell you another word!" she declared. Mrs. Harbinger seized her by the shoulders, and fairly pounced upon her in the swoop of her words. "How often do you write now?" she repeated. "Tell me before I shake you!" The brief defiance of May vanished like the flare of a match in a wind-storm. "Every day," she answered in a voice hardly audible. "Every day!" echoed the other in a tone of horror. Her look expressed that utter consternation which is beyond any recognition of sin, but is aroused only by the most flagrant breach of social propriety. Again the culprit put in what was evidently a prayer for pity, couched in a form suggested by instinctive feminine cunning. "Oh, Mrs. Harbinger, if you only knew what beautiful letters he writes!" "What do I care for his beautiful letters? What did you want to drag me into this mess for? Now I shall have to do something." "Oh, no, no, Mrs. Harbinger!" cried May, clasping her hands. "Don't do anything. You won't have to do anything. I had to tell you when he is coming here." Mrs. Harbinger stared at the girl with the mien of one who is convinced that somebody's wits are hopelessly gone, and is uncertain whether they are those of herself or of her friend. "Coming here?" she repeated helplessly. "When?" "This afternoon. I am really going to meet him!" May ran on, flashing instantly from depression into smiles and animation. "Oh, I am so excited!" Mrs. Harbinger seized the girl again by the shoulder, and this time with an indignation evidently personal as well as moral. "Have you dared to ask a strange man to meet you at my house, May Calthorpe?" The other cringed, and writhed her shoulder out of the clutch of her hostess. "Of course not," she responded, taking in her turn with instant readiness the tone of just resentment. "He wrote me that he would be here." The other regarded May in silence a moment, apparently studying her in the light of these new revelations of character. Then she turned and walked thoughtfully to a chair, leaving May to sit down again on the sofa by which they had been standing. Mrs. Harbinger was evidently going over in her mind the list of possible authors who might be at her afternoon tea that day. "Then 'Love in a Cloud' was written by some one we know," she observed reflectively. "When did you write to him last?" "When I was here yesterday, waiting for you to go to the matinée." "Do you expect to recognize this unknown paragon?" asked Mrs. Harbinger with an air perhaps a thought too dispassionate. A charming blush came over May's face, but she answered with perfect readiness:-- "He asked me to give him a sign." "What kind of a sign?" "He said he would wear any flower I named if I would--" "Would wear one, too, you minx! That's why you have a red carnation at your throat, is it? Oh, you ought to be shut up on bread and water for a month!" May showed signs of relapsing again into tears. "I declare, I think you are just as horrid as you can be," she protested. "I wish I hadn't told you a word. I'm sure there was no need that I should. I--" The lordly form of Graham the butler appeared at the drawing-room door. "Mrs. Croydon," he announced. II THE MADNESS OF A MAN While Mrs. Harbinger was receiving from May Calthorpe the disjointed confession of that young woman's rashness, her husband, Tom Harbinger, was having a rather confused interview with a client in his down-town office. The client was a middle-aged man, with bushy, sandy hair, and an expression of invincible simplicity not unmixed with obstinacy. Tom was evidently puzzled how to take his client or what to do with him. He had, as they talked, the air of being uncertain whether Mr. Barnstable was in earnest, and of not knowing how far to treat him seriously. "But why do you come to me?" he asked at length, looking at his client as one regards a prize rebus. "Of course 'Love in a Cloud,' like any other book, has a publisher. Why don't you go there to find out who wrote it?" The other shook his head wearily. He was a chunky man, seeming to be made largely of oleaginous material, and appearing to be always over-worn with the effort of doing anything with muscles and determination hopelessly flabby despite his continual persistence. "I've been to them," he returned; "but they won't tell." "Then why not let the matter pass? It seems to me--" The other set his square jaw the more firmly amid its abundant folds of flabby flesh. "Let it pass?" he interrupted with heavy excitement. "If something isn't done to stop the infernal impudence of these literary scribblers there will be no peace in life. There is nothing sacred! They ought to be punished, and I'll follow this rascal if it costs me every dollar I'm worth. I came to you because I thought you'd sympathize with me." Mr. Harbinger moved uneasily in his chair like a worm on a hook. "Why, really, Barnstable," he said, "I feel as you do about the impudence of writers nowadays, and I'd like to help you if I could; but--" The other broke in with a solemn doggedness which might well discourage any hope of his being turned from his purpose by argument. "I mean to bring suit for libel, and that's the whole of it." "Perhaps then," the lawyer responded with ill concealed irritation, "you will be good enough to tell me whom the suit is to be against." "Who should it be against? The author of 'Love in a Cloud,' of course." "But we don't know who the author of that cursed book is." "I know we don't know; but, damme, we must find out. Get detectives; use decoy advertisements; do anything you like. I'll pay for it." Mr. Harbinger shrugged his shoulders, and regarded his client with an expression of entire hopelessness. "But I'm not in the detective business." The other gave no evidence of being in the least affected by the statement. "Of course a lawyer expects to find out whatever is necessary in conducting his clients' business," he remarked, with the air of having disposed of that point. "There must be a hundred ways of finding out who wrote the book. An author ought not to be harder to catch than a horse-thief, and they get those every day. When you've caught him, you just have him punished to the extent of the law." Harbinger rose from his chair and began to walk up and down with his hands in his pockets. The other watched him in silence, and for some moments nothing was said. At length the lawyer stopped before his client, and evidently collected himself for a final effort. "But consider," he said, "what your case is." "My case is a good case if there is any justice in the country. The man that wrote that book has insulted my wife. He has told her story in his confounded novel, and everybody is laughing over her divorce. It is infamous, Harbinger, infamous!" He so glowed and smouldered with inner wrath that the folds of his fat neck seemed to soften and to be in danger of melting together. His little eyes glowed, and his bushy hair bristled with indignation. He doubled his fist, and shook it at Harbinger as if he saw before him the novelist who had intruded upon his private affairs, and he meant to settle scores with him on the spot. "But nobody knew that you had a wife," Harbinger said. "You came here from Chicago without one, and we all thought that you were a bachelor." "I haven't a wife; that's just the trouble. She left me four years ago; but I don't see that that makes any difference. I'm fond of her just the same; and I won't have her put into an anonymous book." Harbinger sat down again, and drew his chair closer to that in which the other seethed, molten with impotent wrath. "Just because there's a divorced woman in 'Love in a Cloud,'" he said, "you propose to bring a suit for libel against the author. If you will pardon me, it strikes me as uncommon nonsense." Barnstable boiled up as a caldron of mush breaks into thick, spluttering bubbles. "Oh, it strikes you as uncommon nonsense, does it? Damme, if it was your wife you'd look at it differently. Isn't it your business to do what your clients want done?" "Oh, yes; but it's also my business to tell them when what they want is folly." "Then it's folly for a man to resent an insult to his wife, is it? The divorce court didn't make a Pawnee Indian of me. My temper may be incompatible, but, damme, Harbinger, I'm human." Harbinger began a laugh, but choked the bright little bantling as soon as it saw the light. He leaned forward, and laid his hand on the other's knee. "I understand your feelings, Barnstable," he said, "and I honor you for them; but do consider a little. In the first place, there is no probability that you could make a jury believe that the novelist meant you and your wife at all. Think how many divorce suits there are, and how well that story would fit half of them. What you would do would be to drag to light all the old story, and give your wife the unpleasantness of having everything talked over again. You would injure yourself, and you could hardly fail to give very serious pain to her." Barnstable stared at him with eyes which were full of confusion and of helplessness. "I don't want to hurt her," he stammered. "What do you want to do?" The client cast down his eyes, and into his sallow cheeks came a dull flush. "I wanted to protect her," he answered slowly; "and I wanted--I wanted to prove to her that--that I'd do what I could for her, if we were divorced." The face of the other man softened; he took the limp hand of his companion and shook it warmly. "There are better ways of doing it than dragging her name before the court," he said. "I tell you fairly that the suit you propose would be ridiculous. It would make you both a laughing-stock, and in the end come to nothing." The square jaw was still firmly set, but the small eyes were more wistful than ever. "But I must do something," Barnstable said. "I can't stand it not to do anything." Harbinger rose with the air of a man who considers the interview ended. "There is nothing that you can do now," he replied. "Just be quiet, and wait. Things will come round all right if you have patience; but don't be foolish. A lawyer learns pretty early in his professional life that there are a good many things that must be left to right themselves." Barnstable rose in turn. He seemed to be trying hard to adjust his mind to a new view of the situation, but it was evident enough that his brain was not of the sort to yield readily to fresh ideas of any kind. He examined his hat carefully, passing his thumb and forefinger round the rim as if to assure himself that it was all there; then he cleared his throat, and regarded the lawyer wistfully. "But I must do something," he repeated, with an air half apologetic. "I can't just let the thing go, can I?" "You can't do anything but let it go," was the answer. "Some time you will be glad that you did let it be. Take my word for it." Barnstable shook his head mournfully. "Then you take away my chance," he began, "of doing something--" He paused in evident confusion. "Of doing something?" repeated Harbinger. "Why, something, you know, to please--" "Oh, to please your wife? Well, just wait. Something will turn up sooner or later. Speaking of wives, I promised Mrs. Harbinger to come home to a tea or some sort of a powwow. What time is it?" "Yes, a small tea," Barnstable repeated with a queer look. "Pardon me, but is it too intrusive in me to ask if I may go home with you?" Harbinger regarded him in undisguised amazement; and quivers of embarrassment spread over Barnstable's wavelike folds of throat and chin. "Of course it seems to you very strange," the client went on huskily; "and I suppose it is etiquettsionally all wrong. Do you think your wife would mind much?" "Mrs. Harbinger," the lawyer responded, his voice much cooler than before, "will not object to anybody I bring home." The acquaintance of the two men was no more than that which comes from casual meetings at the same club. The club was, however, a good one, and membership was at least a guarantee of a man's respectability. "I happen to know," Barnstable proceeded, getting so embarrassed that there was reason to fear that in another moment his tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth and his husky voice become extinct altogether, "that a person that I want very much to see will be there; and I will take it as very kind--if you think it don't matter,--that is, if your wife--" "Oh, Mrs. Harbinger won't mind. Come along. Wait till I get my hat and my bag. A lawyer's green bag is in Boston as much a part of his dress as his coat is." The lawyer stuffed some papers into his green bag, rolled down the top of his desk, and took up his hat. The visitor had in the meantime been picking from his coat imaginary specks of lint and smoothing his unsmoothable hair. "I hope I look all right," Barnstable said nervously. "I--I dressed before I came here. I thought perhaps you would be willing--" "Oh, ho," interrupted Harbinger. "Then this whole thing is a ruse, is it? You never really meant to bring a suit for libel?" The face of the other hardened again. "Yes, I did," was his answer; "and I'm by no means sure that I've given it up yet." III THE BABBLE OF A TEA The entrance of Mrs. Croydon into Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room was accompanied by a rustling of stuffs, a fluttering of ribbons, and a nodding of plumes most wonderful to ear and eye. The lady was of a complexion so striking that the redness of her cheeks first impressed the beholder, even amid all the surrounding luxuriance of her toilet. Her eyes were large and round, and of a very light blue, offering to friend or foe the opportunity of comparing them to turquoise or blue china, and so prominent as to exercise on the sensitive stranger the fascination of a deformity from which it seems impossible to keep the glance. Mrs. Croydon was rather short, rather broad, extremely consequential, and evidently making always a supreme effort not to be overpowered by her overwhelming clothes. She came in now like a yacht decorated for a naval parade, and moving before a slow breeze. Mrs. Harbinger advanced a step to meet her guest, greeting the new-comer in words somewhat warmer than the tone in which they were spoken. "How do you do, Mrs. Croydon. Delighted to see you." "How d' y' do?" responded the flutterer, an arch air of youthfulness struggling vainly with the unwilling confession of her face that she was no longer on the sunny side of forty. "How d' y' do, Miss Calthorpe? Delighted to find you here. You can tell me all about your cousin Alice's engagement." Miss Calthorpe regarded the new-comer with a look certainly devoid of enthusiasm, and replied in a tone not without a suggestion of frostiness:-- "On the contrary I did not know that she was engaged." "Oh, she is; to Count Shimbowski." "Count Shimbowski and Alice Endicott?" put in Mrs. Harbinger. "Is that the latest? Sit down, Mrs. Croydon. Really, it doesn't seem to me that it is likely that such a thing could be true, and the relatives not be notified." She reseated herself as she spoke, and busied herself with the tea-equipage. May rather threw herself down than resumed her seat. "Certainly it can't be true," the latter protested. "The idea of Alice's being engaged and we not know it!" "But it's true; I have it direct," insisted Mrs. Croydon; "Miss Wentstile told Mr. Bradish, and he told me." May sniffed rather inelegantly. "Oh, Miss Wentstile! She thinks because Alice is her niece she can do what she likes with her. It's all nonsense. Alice has always been fond of Jack Neligage. Everybody knows that." Mrs. Croydon managed somehow to communicate to her innumerable streamers and pennants a flutter which seemed to be meant to indicate violent inward laughter. "Oh, what a child you are, Miss Calthorpe! I declare, I really must put you into my next novel. I really must!" "May is still so young as to be romantic, of course," Mrs. Harbinger remarked, flashing at her young friend a quick sidewise glance. "Besides which she has been educated in a convent; and in a convent a girl must be either imaginative or a fool, or she'll die of ennui." "I suppose you never were romantic yourself," put in May defensively. "Oh, yes, my dear; I had my time of being a fool. Why, once I even fell violently in love with a man I had never seen." The swift rush of color into the face of Miss Calthorpe might have arrested the attention of Mrs. Croydon, but at that moment the voice of Graham interrupted, announcing:-- "Mr. Bradish; Mr. Neligage." The two men who entered were widely different in appearance. That Mr. Bradish was considerably the elder was evident from his appearance, yet he came forward with an eager air which secured for him the first attention. He was lantern-jawed, and sanguine in color. Near-sight glasses unhappily gave to his eyes an appearance of having been boiled, and distorted his glance into an absurd likeness to a leer. A shadow of melancholy, vague yet palpable, softened his face, and was increased by the droop of his Don Quixote like yellow mustaches. The bald spot on his head and the stoop in his shoulders betrayed cruelly the fact that Harry Bradish was no longer young; and no less plainly upon everything about him was stamped the mark of a gentleman. Jack Neligage, on the other hand, came in with a face of irresistible good nature. There was a twinkle in his brown eyes, a spark of humor and kindliness which could evidently not be quenched even should there descend upon him serious misfortune. His face was still young enough hardly to show the marks of dissipation which yet were not entirely invisible to the searching eye; his hair was crisp and abundant; his features regular and well formed. He was a young fellow so evidently intended by nature for pleasure that to expect him to take life seriously would have seemed a sort of impropriety. An air of youth, and of jocund life, of zest and of mirthfulness came in with Jack, inevitably calling up smiles to meet him. Even disapproval smiled on Jack; and it was therefore not surprising if he evaded most of the reproofs which are apt to be the portion of an idle pleasure-seeker. He moved with a certain languid alertness that was never hurried and yet never too late. This served him well on the polo-field, where he was deliberately swift and swiftly deliberate in most effective fashion. He came into the drawing-room now with the easy mien of a favorite, yet with an indifference which seemed so natural as to save him from all appearance of conceit. He had the demeanor of the conscious but not quite spoiled darling of fortune. "You are just in time for the first brewing of tea," Mrs. Harbinger said, when greetings had been exchanged. "This tea was sent me by a Russian countess who charged me to let nobody drink it who takes cream. It is really very good if you get it fresh." "To have the tea and the hostess both fresh," Mr. Bradish responded, "will, I fear, be too intoxicating." "Never mind the tea," broke in Mrs. Croydon. "I am much more interested in what we were talking about. Mr. Bradish, you can tell us about Count Shimbowski and Alice Endicott." Jack Neligage turned about with a quickness unusual in him. "The Count and Miss Endicott?" he demanded. "What about them? Who's had the impertinence to couple their names?" Mrs. Croydon put up her hands in pretended terror, a hundred tags of ribbon fluttering as she did so. "Oh, don't blame me," she said. "I didn't do it. They're engaged." Neligage regarded her with a glance of vexed and startled disfavor. Then he gave a short, scornful laugh. "What nonsense!" he said. "Nobody could believe that." "But it's true," put in Bradish. "Miss Wentstile herself told me that she had arranged the match, and that I might mention it." Neligage looked at the speaker an instant with a disbelieving smile on his lip; and tossing his head went to lean his elbow on the mantel. "Arranged!" he echoed. "Good heavens! Is this a transaction in real estate?" "Marriage so often is, Mr. Neligage," observed Mrs. Harbinger, with a smile. Bradish began to explain with the solemn air which he had. He was often as obtuse and matter-of-fact as an Englishman, and now took up the establishment of the truth of his news with as much gravity as if he were setting forth a point of moral doctrine. He seemed eager to prove that he had at least been entirely innocent of any deception, and that whatever he had said must be blamelessly credible. "Of course it's extraordinary, and I said so to Miss Wentstile. She said that as the Count is a foreigner, it was very natural for him to follow foreign fashions in arranging the marriage with her instead of with Alice." "And she added, I've no doubt," interpolated Mrs. Harbinger, "that she entirely approved of the foreign fashion." "She did say something of that sort," admitted Bradish, with entire gravity. Mrs. Harbinger burst into a laugh, and trimmed the wick of her tea-lamp. Neligage grinned, but his pleasant face darkened instantly. "Miss Wentstile is an old idiot!" said he emphatically. "Oh, come, Mr. Neligage," remonstrated his hostess, "that is too strong language. We must observe the proprieties of abuse." "And say simply that she is Miss Wentstile," suggested Mrs. Croydon sweetly. The company smiled, with the exception of May, whose face had been growing longer and longer. "I don't care what she says," the girl burst out indignantly; "I don't believe Alice will listen to such a thing for one minute." "Perhaps she won't," Bradish rejoined doubtfully, "but Miss Wentstile is famous for having her own way. I'm sure I shouldn't feel safe if she undertook to marry me off." "She might take you for herself if she knew her power, Mr. Bradish," responded Mrs. Croydon. "No more tea, my dear, thank you." "For Heaven's sake don't mention it then," he answered. "It's enough to have Jack here upset. The news is evidently too much for him." "What news has upset my son, Mr. Bradish?" demanded a crisp voice from the doorway. "I shall disown him if he can't hide his feelings." Past Graham, who was prepared to announce her, came a little woman, bright, vivacious, sparkling; with clear complexion and mischievous dimples. A woman trimly dressed, and in appearance hardly older than the son she lightly talked of disowning. The youthfulness of Mrs. Neligage was a constant source of irritation to her enemies, and with her tripping tongue and defiant independence she made enemies in plenty. Her gypsyish beauty and clear skin were offenses serious enough; but for a woman with a son of five and twenty to look no more than that age herself was a vexation which was not to be forgiven. Some had been spiteful enough to declare that she preserved her youth by being entirely free from feeling; but since in the same breath they were ready to charge the charming widow with having been by her emotions carried into all sorts of improprieties, the accusation was certainly to be received with some reservations. Certainly she was the fortunate possessor of unfailing spirits, of constant cleverness, and delightful originality. She had the courage, moreover, of daring to do what she wished with the smallest possible regard for conventions; and it has never been clearly shown how much independence of conventionality and freedom of life may effect toward the preservation of a woman's youth. She evidently understood the art of entering a room well. She came forward swiftly, yet without ungraceful hurry. She nodded brightly to the ladies, gave Bradish the momentary pleasure of brushing her finger-tips with his own as she passed him, then went forward to shake hands with Mrs. Harbinger. Without having done anything in particular she was evidently entire mistress of the situation, and the rest of the company became instantly her subordinates. Mrs. Croydon, almost twice her size and so elaborately overdressed, appeared suddenly to have become dowdy and ill at ease; yet nothing could have been more unconscious or friendly than the air with which the new-comer turned from the hostess to greet the other lady. There are women to whom superiority so evidently belongs by nature that they are not even at the trouble of asserting it. "Oh, Mrs. Neligage," Mrs. Croydon said, as she grasped at the little glove which glanced over hers as a bird dips above the water, "you have lived so much abroad that you should be an authority on foreign marriages." "Just as you, having lived in Chicago, should be an authority on un-marriages, I suppose. Well, I've had the fun of disturbing a lot of foreign marriages in my day. What marriage is this?" "We were speaking of Miss Wentstile's proposing to marry Alice to Count Shimbowski," explained Mrs. Harbinger. "Then," returned Mrs. Neligage lightly, "you had better speak of something else as quickly as possible, for Alice and her aunt are just behind me. Let us talk of Mrs. Croydon's anonymous novel that's made such a stir while I've been in Washington. What is it? 'Cloudy Love'! That sounds tremendously improper. My dear, if you don't wish to see me fall in a dead faint at your feet, do give me some tea. I'm positively worn out." She seated herself near Mrs. Croydon, over whose face during her remarks had flitted several expressions, none of them over-amiable, and watched the hostess fill her cup. "Come, Mrs. Neligage," protested Bradish with an air of mild solicitation. "You are really too bad, you know. It isn't 'Cloudy Love,' but 'Love in a Cloud.' I didn't know that you confessed to writing it, Mrs. Croydon." "Oh, I don't. I only refuse to deny it." "Oh, well, now; not to deny is equivalent to a confession," he returned. "Not in the least," Mrs. Neligage struck in. "When you are dealing with a woman, Mr. Bradish, it isn't safe even to take things by contraries." IV THE TICKLING OF AN AUTHOR The entrance of Miss Wentstile and her niece Alice Endicott made the company so numerous that it naturally broke up into groups, and the general conversation was suspended. Miss Wentstile was a lady of commanding presence, whose youth was with the snows of yester year. She had the eye of a hawk and the jaw of a bulldog; nor was the effect of these rather formidable features softened by the strong aquiline nose. Her hair was touched with gray, but her color was still fresh and too clear not to be natural. She was richly dressed in dark green and fur, her complexion making the color possible in spite of her years. She was a woman to arouse attention, and one, too, who was evidently accustomed to dominate. She cast a keen glance about her as she crossed the room to her hostess, sweeping her niece along with her not without a suggestion that she dragged the girl as a captive at her chariot-wheel. Jack Neligage stepped forward as she passed him, evidently with the intention of intercepting the pair, or perhaps of gaining a word with Alice Endicott. "How do you do, Miss Wentstile," he said. "I am happy to see you looking so well." "There is no reason why I should not look well, Mr. Neligage," she responded severely. "I never sit up all night to smoke and drink and play cards." Neligage smiled his brightest, and made her a bow of mock deference. "Indeed, Miss Wentstile," he responded, "I am delighted to know that your habits have become so correct." She retorted with a contemptuous sniff, and by so effectually interposing between him and her niece that Miss Endicott could only nod to him over her aunt's shoulder. Jack made a grimace more impertinent than courtly, and for the time turned away, while the two ladies went on to Mrs. Harbinger. "Well, Alice," Mrs. Harbinger said, "I am glad you have come at last. I began to think that I must appoint a substitute to pour in your place." "I am sorry to be so late," Miss Endicott responded, as she and her hostess exchanged places. "I was detained unexpectedly." "I kept her," Miss Wentstile announced with grim suddenness. "I have been talking to her about--" "Aunt Sarah," interposed Alice hurriedly, "may I give you some tea?" "Don't interrupt me, Alice. I was talking to her about--" Mrs. Harbinger looked at the crimsoning cheeks of Alice, and meeting the girl's imploring glance, gave her a slight but reassuring nod. "My dear Miss Wentstile," she said, "I know you will excuse me; but here are more people coming." Miss Wentstile could hardly finish her remarks to the air, and as Mrs. Harbinger left her to greet a new arrival the spinster turned sharply to May Calthorpe, who had snuggled up to Alice in true school-girl fashion. "Ah, May," Miss Wentstile observed, "what do you settle down there for? Don't you know that now you have been brought out in society you are expected to make your market?" "No, Miss Wentstile," May responded; "if my market can't make itself, then it may go unmade." The elder turned away with another characteristic sniff, and Alice and May were left to themselves. People were never tired of condemning Miss Wentstile for her brusque and naked remarks; but after all society is always secretly grateful for any mortal who has the courage to be individual. The lady was often frank to the verge of rudeness; she was so accustomed to having her own way that one felt sure she would insist upon it at the very Judgment Seat; she said what she pleased, and exacted a deference to her opinions and to her wishes such as could hardly under existing human conditions be accorded to any mortal. Miss Wentstile must have been too shrewd not to estimate reasonably well the effect of her peculiarities, and no human being can be persistently eccentric without being theatrical. It was evident enough that she played in some degree to the gallery; and undoubtedly from this it is to be argued that she was not without some petty enjoyment in the notoriety which her manners produced. Should mankind be destroyed, the last thing to disappear would probably be human vanity, which, like the grin of the Cheshire cat in "Alice," would linger after the race was gone. Vanity in the individual is nourished by the notice of others; and if Miss Wentstile became more and more confirmed in her impertinences, it is hardly to be doubted that increase of vanity was the cause most active. She outwardly resented the implication that she was eccentric; but as she contrived continually and even complacently to become steadily more so, society might be excused for not thinking her resentment particularly deep. Dislike for notoriety perhaps never cured any woman of a fault; and certainly in the case of Miss Wentstile it was not in the least corrective. The relations between Miss Wentstile and Alice Endicott were well known. Alice was the doubly orphaned daughter of a gallant young officer killed in a plucky skirmish against superior force in the Indian troubles, and of the wife whose heart broke at his loss. At six Alice was left, except for a small pension, practically penniless, and with no nearer relative than Miss Wentstile. That lady had undertaken the support of the child, but had kept her much at school until the girl was sixteen. Then the niece became an inmate of her aunt's house, and outwardly, at least, the mere slave of the older lady's caprices. Miss Wentstile was kind in her fashion. In all that money bought she was generous. Alice was richly dressed, she might have what masters she wished, be surrounded by whatever luxuries she chose. As if the return for these benefits was to be implicit obedience, Miss Wentstile was impatient of any show toward herself of independence. If Alice could be imagined as bearing herself coldly and haughtily toward the world in general,--a possibility hardly to be conceived of,--Miss Wentstile might be pictured glorying in such a display of proper spirit; but toward her aunt the girl was expected to be all humility and concession. As neither was without the pride which belonged to the Wentstile blood, it is easy to see that perfect harmony was not to be looked for between the pair. Alice had all the folly of girlhood, which is so quick to refuse to be bullied into affection; which is so blind as not to perceive that an elder who insists upon its having no will of its own is providing excellent lessons in the high graces of humility and meekness. Clever observers--and society remains vital chiefly in virtue of its clever observers--detected that Miss Wentstile chafed with an inward consciousness that the deference of her niece was accorded as a courtesy and not as a right. The spinster had not the tact to avoid betraying her perception that the submission of Alice was rather outward than inward, and the public sense of justice was somewhat appeased in its resentment at her domineering treatment by its enjoyment of her powerlessness either to break the girl's spirit or force her into rebellion. The fondness of Alice for Jack Neligage was the one tangible thing with which Miss Wentstile could find fault; and this was so intangible after all that it was difficult to seize upon it. Nobody doubted that the two were warmly attached. Jack had never made any effort to hide his admiration; and while Alice had been more circumspect, the instinct of society is seldom much at fault in a matter of this sort. For Miss Wentstile to be sure that her niece favored the man of all others most completely obnoxious, and to bring the offense home to the culprit were, however, matters quite different. Now that Miss Wentstile had outdone herself in eccentricity by boldly adopting the foreign fashion of a _mariage de convenance_, there was every reason to believe that the real power of the spinster would be brought to the test. Nobody doubted that behind this absurd attempt to make a match between Alice and Count Shimbowski lay the determination to separate the girl from Jack Neligage; and it was inevitable that the struggle should be watched for with eager interest. The first instant that there was opportunity for a confidential word, May Calthorpe rushed precipitately upon the subject of the reported engagement. "Oh, Alice," she said, in a hurried half-whisper, "do you know that Miss Wentstile says she has arranged an engagement between you and that horrid Hungarian Count." Alice turned her long gray eyes quickly to meet those of her companion. "Has she really told of it?" she demanded almost fiercely. "They were all talking of it before you came in," May responded. Her voice was deepened, apparently by a tragic sense of the gravity of the subject under discussion; yet she was a bud in her first season, so that it was impossible that there should not also be in her tone some faint consciousness of the delightfully romantic nature of the situation. An angry flush came into the cheek of Miss Endicott. She was not a girl of striking face, although she had beautiful eyes; but there was a dignity in her carriage, an air of birth and breeding, which gave her distinction anywhere. She possessed, moreover, a sweet sincerity of character which made itself subtly felt in her every tone and movement. Now she knit her forehead in evident perplexity and resentment. "But did they believe it?" she asked. "Oh, they would believe anything of Miss Wentstile, of course," May replied. "We all know Aunt Sarah too well not to know that she is capable of the craziest thing that could be thought of." She picked out a fat bonbon as she spoke, and nibbled it comfortably, as if thoroughly enjoying herself. "But what can I do?" demanded Alice pathetically. "I can't stand up here and say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I really have no idea of marrying that foreign thing Aunt Sarah wants to buy for me.'" Whatever reply May might have made was interrupted by the arrival of a gentleman with an empty teacup. The new-comer was Richard Fairfield, a young man of not much money but of many friends, and of literary aspirations. As he crossed the drawing-room Mrs. Neligage carelessly held out to him her cup and saucer. "As you are going that way, Richard," she said without preface of salutation, "do you mind taking my cup to the table?" "Delighted, of course," he answered, extending his hand for it. "If Mrs. Neligage will permit me," broke in Mr. Bradish, darting forward. "I beg ten thousand pardons for not perceiving--" "But Mrs. Neligage will not permit you, Mr. Bradish," she responded brightly. "I have already commissioned Richard." Fairfield received the cup, and bore it away, while Bradish cast upon the widow a glance of reproach and remonstrance. "You women all pet a rising author," he said. "I suppose it's because you all hope to be put in his books." "Oh, no. On the contrary it is because we hope to be left out." "I don't see," he went on with little apparent relevancy, "why you need begrudge me the pleasure of doing you a small favor." "I don't wish you to get too much into the habit of doing small favors," she responded over her shoulder, as she turned back to the group with which she had been chatting. "I am afraid that if you do, you'll fail when I ask a great one." Fairfield made his way to the table where Alice was dispensing tea. He was by her welcomed cordially, by May with a reserve which was evidently absent-minded regret that he should break in upon her confidences with her cousin. He exchanged with Alice the ordinary greetings, and then made way for a fresh arrival who wished for tea. May responded rather indifferently to his remarks as he took a chair at the end of the sofa upon which she was seated, seeming so absorbed that in a moment he laughed at some irrelevant reply which she gave. "You did not understand what I said," he remarked. "I didn't mean--" "I beg your pardon," she interrupted, turning toward him. "I was thinking of something I was talking about with Alice, and I didn't mind what you did say." "I am sorry that I interrupted." "Oh, everybody interrupts at an afternoon tea," she responded, smiling. "That is what we are here for, I suppose. I was simply in a cloud--" Fairfield returned her smile with interest. "Is that an allusion?" May flushed a little, and put her hand consciously to the carnation at her throat. "Oh, no," she answered, with a little too much eagerness. "I can talk of something beside that book. Though of course," she added, "I do think it is a perfectly wonderful story. There is so much heart in it. Why, I have read it so much that I know parts of it almost word for word." "Then you don't think it is cynical?" "Oh, not the least in the world! How can anybody say that? I am ashamed of you, Mr. Fairfield." "I didn't mean that I thought it cynical; but lots of folk do, you know." May tossed her hands in a girlish gesture of disdain. "I hate people that call everything cynical. It is a thing that they just say to sound wise. 'Love in a Cloud' is to me one of the truest books I ever read. Why, you take that scene where she tells him she cares for him just the same in spite of his disgrace. It brings the tears into my eyes every time I read it." A new light came into the young man's face as she spoke in her impulsive, girlish fashion. He was a handsome fellow, with well-bred face. He stroked his silky mustache with an air not unsuggestive of complacency. "It is delightful," said he, "to find somebody who really appreciates the book for what is best in it. Of course there are a great many people who say nice things about it, but they don't seem to go to the real heart of it as you do." "Oh, the story has so much heart," she returned. Then she regarded him quizzically. "You speak almost as if you had written it yourself." "Oh, I--That is--Why, you see," he answered, in evident confusion, "I suppose that my being an embryo literary man myself makes it natural for me to take the point of view of the author. Most readers of a novel, you know, care for nothing but the plot, and see nothing else." "Oh, it is not the plot," May cried enthusiastically. "I like that, of course, but what I really care for is the feeling in the book." Jack Neligage, with his eyes on Alice Endicott, had made his way over to the tea-table, and came up in time to hear this. "The book, Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated. "Oh, you must be talking of that everlasting novel. I wish I had had the good luck to write it." "Oh, I should adore you if you had, Mr. Neligage." "By Jove, then I'll swear I did write it." Fairfield regarded the girl with heightened color. "You had better be careful, Miss Calthorpe," he commented. "The real author might hear you." She started in pretty dismay, and covered with her hand the flower nestling under her chin. "Oh, he is not here!" she cried. "How do you know that?" demanded Jack laughingly. She sank back into the corner of the sofa with a blush far deeper than could be called for by the situation. "Oh, I just thought so," she said. "Who is there here that could have written it?" "Why, Dick here is always scribbling," Neligage returned, with a chuckle. "Perhaps you have been telling him what you thought of his book." The face of Fairfield grew suddenly sober. "Come, Jack," he said, rising, "that's too stupid a joke to be worthy of you." He was seized at that moment by Mrs. Harbinger, who presented him to Miss Wentstile. Fairfield had been presented to Miss Wentstile a dozen times in the course of the two winters since he had graduated at Harvard and settled in Boston; but since she never seemed to recognize him, he gave no sign of remembering her. "Miss Wentstile," the hostess said, "don't you know Mr. Fairfield? He is one of our literary lights now, you know." "A very tiny rushlight, I am afraid," the young man commented. Miss Wentstile examined him with critical impertinence through her lorgnette. "Are you one of the Baltimore Fairfields?" she asked. "No; my family came from Connecticut." "Indeed!" she remarked coolly. "I do not remember that I ever met a person from Connecticut before." The lips of the young man set themselves a little more firmly at this impertinence, and there came into his eyes a keen look. "I am pleased to be the humble means of increasing your experience," he said, with a bow. Miss Wentstile had the appearance of being anxious to quarrel with somebody, a fact which was perhaps due to the conversation which she had had with her niece as they came to the house. Alice had been ordered to be especially gracious to Count Shimbowski, and had respectfully but succinctly declared her intention to be as cold as possible. Miss Wentstile had all her life indulged in saying whatever she felt like saying, little influenced by the ordinary restraints of conventionality and not at all by consideration for the feelings of others. She had gone about the room that afternoon being as disagreeable as possible, and her rudeness to Fairfield was milder than certain things which were at that very moment being resented and quoted in the groups which she had passed. She glared at the young man now as if amazed that he had dared to reply, and unfortunately she ventured once more. "Thank you," she said. "Even the animals in the Zoo increase one's experience. It is always interesting to meet those that one has heard chattered about." He made her a deeper bow. "I know," he responded with a manner coolly polite. "I felt it myself the first half dozen times I had the honor to be presented to you; but even the choicest pleasures grow stale on too frequent repetition." Miss Wentstile glared at him for half a minute, while he seemed to grow pale at his own temerity. Then a humorous smile lightened her face, and she tapped him approvingly on the shoulder with her gold lorgnette. "Come, come," she said briskly but without any sharpness, "you must not be impertinent to an old woman. You will hold your own, I perceive. Come and see me. I am always at home on Wednesdays." Miss Wentstile moved on looking less grim, but her previous sins were still to be atoned for, and Mrs. Neligage, who knew nothing of the encounter between the spinster and Fairfield, was watching her opportunity. Miss Wentstile came upon the widow just as a burst of laughter greeted the conclusion of a story. "And his wife is entirely in the dark to this day," Mrs. Neligage ended. "That is--ha, ha!--the funniest thing I've heard this winter," declared Mr. Bradish, who was always in the train of Mrs. Neligage. "I think it's horrid!" protested Mrs. Croydon, with an entirely unsuccessful attempt to look shocked. "I declare, Miss Wentstile, they are gossiping in a way that positively makes me blush." "So you see that the age of miracles is not past after all," put in Mrs. Neligage. "Mrs. Neligage has lived abroad so much," Miss Wentstile said severely, "that I fear she has actually forgotten the language of civility." "Not to you, my dear Miss Wentstile," was the incorrigible retort. "My mother taught me to be civil to you in my earliest youth." And all that the unfortunate lady, thus cruelly attacked, could say was,-- "I wish you remembered all your mother taught you half as well!" V THE BLAZING OF RANK The usual mass of people came and went that afternoon at Mrs. Harbinger's. It was not an especially large tea, but in a country where the five o'clock tea is the approved method of paying social grudges there will always be a goodly number of people to be asked and many who will respond. The hum of talk rose like the clatter of a factory, the usual number of conversations were begun only to end as soon as they were well started; the hostess fulfilled her duty of interrupting any two of her guests who seemed to be in danger of getting into real talk; presentations were made with the inevitable result of a perfunctory exchange of inanities; and in general the occasion was very like the dozen other similar festivities which were proceeding at the same time in all the more fashionable parts of the city. As time wore on the crowd lessened. Many had gone to do their wearisome duty of saying nothing at some other five o'clock; and the rooms were becoming comfortable again. The persons who had come early were lingering, and one expert in social craft might have detected signs that their remaining so long was not without some especial reason. "If he is coming," Mrs. Neligage observed to Mr. Bradish, "I wish he would come. It is certainly not very polite of him not to arrive earlier if he is really trying to pass as the slave of Alice." "Oh, he is always late," Bradish answered. "If you had not been in Washington you would have heard how he kept Miss Wentstile's dinner waiting an hour the other day because he couldn't make up his mind to leave the billiard table." Mrs. Neligage laughed rather mockingly. "How did dear Miss Wentstile like that?" asked she. "It is death for any mortal to dare to be late at her house, and she does not approve of billiards." "She was so taken up with berating the rest of us for his tardiness that when he appeared she had apparently forgotten all about his being to blame in anything." "She loves a title as she loves her life," Mrs. Neligage commented. "She would marry him herself and give him every penny she owns just to be called a countess for the rest of her life." A stir near the door, and the voice of Graham announcing "Count Shimbowski" made them both turn. A brief look of intelligence flashed across the face of the widow. "It is he," she murmured as if to herself. "Do you know him?" demanded Bradish. "Oh, I used to see him abroad years ago," was her answer. "Very likely he will have forgotten me." "That," Bradish declared, with a profound bow, "is impossible." The Count made his way across the drawing-room with a jaunty air not entirely in keeping with the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes. He was tall and wiry, with sandy hair and big mustaches. He showed no consciousness that he was being stared at, but with admirable self-possession saluted his hostess. "How do you do, Count?" Mrs. Harbinger greeted him. "We began to think you were not coming." "Ah, how do, Mees Harbeenger. Not to come eet would be to me too desolate. _Bon jour_, my deear Mees Wentsteele. I am so above-joyed to encountair you'self here. My deear Mees Endeecott, I kees your feengair." "Beast!" muttered Jack Neligage to Fairfield. "I should like to cram a fistful of his twisted-up sentences down his snaky throat!" "He must open his throat with a corkscrew in the morning," was the reply. Miss Wentstile was smiling her most gracious. "How do you feel to-day, Count?" she asked. "Does our spring weather affect you unpleasantly?" The Count made a splendid gesture with both his hands, waving in the right the monocle which he more often carried than wore. "Oh, what ees eet de weder een one land w'ere de peoples so heavenly keent ees?" he demanded oratorically. "Only eet ees Mees Endeecott do keel me wid her so great cheelleeness." Miss Endicott looked up from her seat at the tea-table beside which the group stood. Her air was certainly sufficiently cold to excuse the Count for feeling her chilliness; and she answered without a glimmer of a smile. "I'm not cruel," she said. "I wouldn't hurt a worm." "But," the Count responded, shaking his head archly, "eet ees dat I be not a worm." "I thought that all men were worms of the dust," Mrs. Harbinger observed. The Count bowed his tall figure with finished grace. "And all de weemens," he declared, "aire angles!" "It is our sharpness, then, that is to be admired," Alice commented. "Of course, Alice," Miss Wentstile corrected vixenishly, "the Count means angels." "So many men," Alice went on without showing other sign of feeling than a slight flush, "have turned a woman from an angel into an angle." "I do comprehend not," the Count said. "It is no matter, Count," put in the hostess. "She is only teasing you, and being rude into the bargain. You will take tea? Alice, pour the Count some tea." Alice took up a cup. "How many lumps?" she asked. "Loomps? Loomps? Oh, eet weel be sugaire een de tea. Tree, eef you weel be so goot weedeen eet." Just as the Count, with profuse expressions of overwhelming gratitude to have been permitted so great an honor, had received his tea from the hand of Miss Endicott, and Miss Wentstile was clearing her throat with the evident intention of directing toward him some profound observation, Mrs. Neligage came briskly forward with outstretched hand. "It would be generous of you, Count," she said, "to recognize an old friend." He stared at her with evident astonishment. "_Ciel!_" he exclaimed. "Ah, but eet weel be de _belle_ Madame Neleegaze!" She laughed as she shook hands, her dark eyes sparkling with fun. "As gallant as ever, Count. It is good of you to remember me after so many years." The Count regarded her with a look so earnest that he might easily be supposed to remember from the past, whatever and whenever it had been, many things of interest. Miss Wentstile surveyed the pair with an expression of keen suspicion. "Louisa," she demanded, "where did you know the Count?" The Count tried to speak, but Mrs. Neligage was too quick for him. "It was at--Where was it, Count? My memory for places is so bad," she returned mischievously. "Yees," he said eagerly. "Eet weel have been Paris _certainement_, ees eet not?" She laughed more teasingly yet, and glanced swiftly from him to Miss Wentstile. She was evidently amusing herself, though the simple question of the place of a former meeting might not seem to give much opportunity. "That doesn't seem to me to have been the place," she remarked. "Paris? Let me see. I should have said that it was--" The remark was not concluded, for down went the Count's teacup with a splash and a crash, with startings and cries from the ladies, and a hasty drawing away of gowns. Miss Endicott, who had listened carefully to the talk, took the catastrophe coolly enough, but with a darkening of the face which seemed to show that she regarded the accident as intentional. The Count whipped out his handkerchief, and went down on his knee instantly to wipe the hem of Miss Wentstile's spattered frock; while Mrs. Neligage seemed more amused than ever. "Oh, I am deesconsolate forever!" the Count exclaimed, in tones which were pathetic enough to have made the reputation of an actor. "I am broken een de heart, Mees Wentsteele." "It is no matter," Miss Wentstile said stiffly. A ring of the bell brought Graham to repair the damage as far as might be, and in the confusion the Count moved aside with the widow. "That was not done with your usual skill, Count," she said mockingly. "It was much too violent for the occasion." "But for what you speak of Monaco here?" he demanded fiercely. "De old Mees Wentsteele say dat to play de card for money ees villain. She say eet is murderous. She say she weel not to endure de man dat have gamboled." "And you have gamboled in a lively manner in your time, Count. It's an old pun, but it would be new to you if you could understand it." "I don't understand," he said savagely in French. "No matter. It wasn't worth understanding," she answered, in the same tongue. "But you needn't have been afraid. I'm no spoil-sport. I shouldn't have told." "She is an old prude," he went on, smiling, and showing his white teeth. "If she knew I had been in a duel, she would know me no more." "She will not know from me." "As lovely and as kind as ever," he responded. "Ah, when I remember those days, when I was young, and you were just as you are now--" "Old, that is." "Oh, no; young, always young as when I knew you first. When I was at your feet with love, and your countryman was my rival--" Mrs. Neligage began to look as if she found the tables being turned, and that she had no more wish to have the past brought up than had the Count. She turned away from her companion. Then she looked back over her shoulder to observe, still in French, as she left him:-- "I make it a point never to remember those days, my friend." VI THE MISCHIEF OF A WIDOW There were now but ten guests left, the persons who have been named, and who seemed for the most part to be lingering to observe the Count or Alice Endicott. May Calthorpe had all the afternoon kept near Alice, and only left her place when the sopping up of the Count's tea made it necessary for her to move. Mrs. Harbinger took her by the arm, and looked into her face scrutinizingly. "Well," she asked, "did your unknown author come?" "Nobody has come with a carnation. Oh, I am so disappointed!" "I am glad of it, my dear." "But he said he would come if I'd give him a sign, and I wrote to him while I was waiting for you yesterday." "So you told me." "Well," May echoed dolefully; "I think you might be more sympathetic." "What did you do with the letter?" asked Mrs. Harbinger. "I gave it to Graham to post." "Then very likely no harm is done. Graham never in his life posted a letter under two days." "Oh, do you think so?" May asked, brightening visibly at the suggestion. "You don't think he despised me, and wouldn't come?" Mrs. Harbinger gave her a little shake. "You hussy!" she exclaimed, with too evident an enjoyment of the situation to be properly severe. "How was it addressed?" "Just to Christopher Calumus, in care of the publishers." "Well, my dear," the hostess declared, "your precious epistle is probably in the butler's pantry now; or one of the maids has picked it up from the kitchen floor. I warn you that if I can find it I shall read it." "Oh, you wouldn't!" exclaimed May in evident distress. "Um! Wouldn't I, though? The way you take the suggestion shows that it's time somebody looked into your correspondence with this stranger." May opened her lips to protest again, but the voice of Graham was heard announcing Mr. Barnstable, and Mrs. Harbinger turned to greet the late-coming stranger. The gentleman's hair had apparently been scrubbed into sleekness, but had here and there broken through the smooth outer surface as the stuffing of an old cushion breaks through slits in the covering. His face was red, and his air full of self-consciousness. When he entered the drawing-room Mr. Harbinger was close behind him, but the latter stopped to speak with Bradish and Mrs. Neligage, and Barnstable advanced alone to where Mrs. Harbinger stood with May just behind her. "Heavens, May," the hostess said over her shoulder. "Here is your carnation. I hope you are pleased with the bearer." Barnstable stood hesitating, looking around as if to discover the hostess. On the face of Mrs. Croydon only was there sign of recognition. She bowed at him rather than to him, with an air so distant that no man could have spoken to her after such a frigid salutation. The stranger turned redder and redder, made a half step toward Mrs. Croydon, and then stopped. Fortunately Mr. Harbinger hastened up, and presented him to the hostess. That lady greeted him politely, but she had hardly exchanged the necessary commonplaces, before she put out her hand to where May stood watching in dazed surprise. "Let me present you to Miss Calthorpe," she said. "Mr. Barnstable, May." She glided away with a twinkle in her eye which must have implied that she had no fear in leaving the romantic girl with a lover that looked like that. May and Barnstable stood confronting each other a moment in awkward silence, and then the girl tossed her head with the air of a young colt that catches the bit between his teeth. "I had quite given you up," she said in a voice low, but distinct. "Eh?" he responded, with a startled look. "Given me up?" "I have been watching for the carnation all the afternoon." "Carnation?" he echoed, trying over his abundant chins to get a glimpse of the flower in his buttonhole. "Oh, yes; I generally wear a carnation. They keep, don't you know; and it was always the favorite flower of my wife." "Your wife?" demanded Miss Calthorpe. Her cheeks grew crimson, and she drew herself up haughtily. "Yes," Barnstable replied, looking confused. "That is, of course, she that was my wife." "I should never have believed," May observed distantly, "that 'Love in a Cloud' could have been written by a widower." Barnstable began to regard her as if he were in doubt whether she or he himself had lost all trace of reason. "'Love in a Cloud,'" he repeated, "'Love in a Cloud'? Do you know who wrote that beastly book?" Her color shot up, and the angry young goddess declared itself in every line of her face. Her pose became instantly a protest. "How dare you speak of that lovely book in that way?" she demanded. "It is perfectly exquisite!" "But who wrote it?" he demanded in his turn, growing so red as to suggest awful possibilities of apoplexy. "Didn't you?" she stammered. "Are you running it down just for modesty?" "I! I! I write 'Love in a Cloud'?" cried Barnstable, speaking so loud that he could be heard all over the room. "You insult me, Miss--Miss Calthump! You--" His feelings were evidently too much for him. He turned with rude abruptness, and looking about him, seemed to become aware that the eyes of almost everybody in the room were fixed on him. He cast a despairing glance to where Mrs. Harbinger and Mrs. Croydon were for the moment standing together, and then started in miserable flight toward the door. At the threshold he encountered Graham the butler, who presented him with a handful of letters. "Will you please give the letters to Mrs. Harbinger?" Graham said, and vanished. Barnstable looked after the butler, looked at the letters, looked around as if his head were swimming, and then turned back into the drawing-room. He walked up to the hostess, and held out the letters in silence, his fluffy face a pathetic spectacle of embarrassed woe. "What are these?" Mrs. Harbinger asked. He shook his head, as if he had given up all hope of understanding anything. "The butler put them in my hands," he murmured. "Upon my word, Mrs. Harbinger," spoke up Mrs. Croydon, seeming more offended than there was any apparent reason for her to be, "you have the most extraordinary butler that ever existed." Mrs. Harbinger threw out her hands in a gesture by which she evidently disclaimed all responsibility for Graham and his doings. "Extraordinary! Why, he makes my life a burden. There is no mistake he cannot make, and he invents fresh ones every day. Really, I know of no reason why the creature is tolerated in the house except that he makes a cocktail to suit Tom." "Dat ees ver' greet veertue," Count Shimbowski commented genially. "I do not agree with you, Count," Miss Wentstile responded stiffly. The spinster had been hovering about the Count ever since his accident with the teacup, apparently seeking an opportunity of snubbing him. "Oh, but I die but eef Mees Wentsteele agree of me!" the Count declared with his hand on his heart. Mrs. Croydon in the meanwhile had taken the letters from the hand of Barnstable, and was looking at them with a scrutiny perhaps closer than was exactly compatible with strict good-breeding. "Why, here is a letter that has never been posted," she said. Mr. Harbinger took the whole bundle from her hand. "I dare say," was his remark, "that any letter that's been given to Graham to mail in the last week is there. Why, this letter is addressed to Christopher Calumus." May Calthorpe moved forward so quickly that Mrs. Harbinger, who had extended her hand to take the letters from her husband, turned to restrain the girl. Mrs. Croydon swayed forward a little. "That is the author of 'Love in a Cloud,'" she said with a simper of self-consciousness. Mrs. Neligage, who was standing with Bradish and Alice at the moment, made a grimace. "She'll really have the impudence to take it," she said to them aside. "Now see me give that woman a lesson." She swept forward in a flash, and deftly took the letter out of Tom Harbinger's hand before he knew her intention. Flourishing it over her head, she looked them all over with eyes full of fun and mischief. "Honor to whom honor is due," she cried. "Ladies and gentlemen, be it my high privilege to deliver this to its real and only owner. Count," she went on, sweeping him a profound courtesy, "let your light shine. Behold in Count Shimbowski the too, too modest author of 'Love in a Cloud.'" There was a general outburst of amazement. The Count looked at the letter which had been thrust into his hand, and stammered something unintelligible. "_Vraiment_, Madame Neleegaze," he began, "eet ees too mooch of you--" "Oh, don't say anything," she interrupted him. "I have no other pleasure in life than doing mischief." Mrs. Croydon looked from the Count to Mrs. Neligage with an expression of mingled doubt and bewilderment. Her attitude of expecting to be received as the anonymous author vanished in an instant, and vexation began to predominate over the other emotions visible in her face. "Well," she said spitefully, "it is certainly a day of wonders; but if the letter belongs to the Count, it would be interesting to know who writes to him as Christopher Calumus." Mrs. Harbinger answered her in a tone so cold that Mrs. Croydon colored under it. "Really, Mrs. Croydon," she said, "the question is a little pointed." "Why, it is only a question about a person who doesn't exist. There isn't any such person as Christopher Calumus. I'm sure I'd like to know who writes to literary men under their assumed names." May was so pale that only the fact that everybody was looking at Mrs. Harbinger could shield her from discovery. The hostess drew herself up with a haughty lifting of the head. "If it is of so great importance to you," she said, "it is I who wrote the letter. Who else should write letters in this house?" She extended her hand to the Count as she spoke, as if to recover the harmless-looking little white missive which was causing so much commotion, but the Count did not offer to return it. Tom Harbinger stood a second as if amazement had struck him dumb. Then with the air of a puppet pronouncing words by machinery he ejaculated:-- "You wrote to the Count?" His wife turned to him with a start, and opened her lips, but before she could speak a fresh interruption prevented. Barnstable in the few moments during which he had been in the room had met with so many strange experiences that he might well be bewildered. He had been greeted by May as one for whom she was waiting, and then had been hailed as the author of the book which he hated; the eccentric Graham had made of him a sort of involuntary penny-post; he had been in the midst of a group whisking a letter about like folk in the last act of a comedy; and now here was the announcement that the Count was the anonymous libeler for whom he had been seeking. He dashed forward, every fold of his chins quivering, his hair bristling, his little eyes red with excitement. He shook his fist in the face of the Count in a manner not often seen in a polite drawing-room. "You are a villain," he cried. "You have insulted my wife!" Bradish and Mr. Harbinger at once seized him, and between them he was drawn back gesticulating and struggling. The ladies looked frightened, but with the exception of Mrs. Croydon they behaved with admirable propriety. Mrs. Croydon gave a little yapping screech, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. More complete confusion could hardly have been imagined, and Mrs. Neligage, who looked on with eyes full of laughter, had certainly reason to congratulate herself that if she loved making mischief she had for once at least been most instantly and triumphantly successful. VII THE COUNSEL OF A MOTHER If an earthquake shook down the house in which was being held a Boston function, the persons there assembled would crawl from the ruins in a manner decorous and dignified, or if too badly injured for this would compose with decency their mangled limbs and furnish the addresses of their respective family physicians. The violent and ill-considered farce which had been played in Mrs. Harbinger's drawing-room might elsewhere have produced a long-continued disturbance; but here it left no trace after five minutes. Mr. Barnstable, babbling and protesting like a lunatic, was promptly hurried into confinement in the library, where Mr. Harbinger and Bradish stood guard over him as if he were a dangerous beast; while the other guests made haste to retire. They went, however, with entire decorum. Mrs. Croydon was, it is true, a disturbing element in the quickly restored serenity of the party, and was with difficulty made to assume some semblance of self-control. Graham, being sent to call a carriage, first caught a forlorn herdic, which was prowling about like a deserted tomcat, and when the lady would none of this managed to produce a hack which must have been the most shabby in the entire town. The Count was taken away by Miss Wentstile, who in the hour of his peril dropped the stiffness she had assumed at his recognition of Mrs. Neligage. She dragged Alice along with them, but Alice in turn held on to May, so that the Count was given no opportunity to press his suit. They all retired in good order, and however they talked, they at least behaved beautifully. As Neligage took his hat in the hall Fairfield caught him by the arm. "Jack," he said under his breath, "do you believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote me those letters?" "Of course not," Jack responded instantly. "Not if they are the sort of letters you said. Letty Harbinger is as square as a brick." "Then why did she say she did?" Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The letter was evidently written here," he said. "She must know who did write it." "Ah, I see!" exclaimed the other. "She was shielding somebody." Jack regarded him with sudden sternness. "There was nobody that it could be except--" He broke off abruptly, a black look in his face, and before another word could be exchanged Mrs. Neligage called him. He went off with his mother, hastily telling his friend he would see him before bedtime. Mrs. Neligage was hardly up to her son's shoulder, but so well preserved was she that she might easily have been mistaken for a sister not so much his senior. She was admirably dressed, exquisitely gloved and booted, to the last fold of her tailor-made frock entirely correct, and in her manner provokingly and piquantly animated. "Who in the world was that horror that made the exhibition of himself?" she asked. "I never saw anything like that at the Harbingers' before." "I know nothing about him except that his name is Barnstable, and that he came from the West somewhere. He's joined the Calif Club lately. How he got in I don't understand; but he seems to have loads of money." "He is a beast," Mrs. Neligage pronounced by way of dismissing the subject. "What did Mrs. Harbinger mean by thanking you for arranging something with the Count? What have you to do with him?" "Oh, that is a secret." "Then if it is a secret tell it at once." "I'll tell you just to disappoint you," Jack returned with a grin. "It is only about some etchings that the Count brought over. Mrs. Harbinger has bought a couple as a present for Tom." "She had better be careful," Mrs. Neligage observed. "Tom thinks more of the collection now than he does of anything else in the world. But what are you mixed up in the Count's transactions for?" "She asked me to fix it, and besides the poor devil needed to sell them to raise the wind. I'm too used to being hard up myself not to feel for him." "But you wrote me that you detested the Count." "So I do, but you can't help doing a fellow a good turn, can you, just because you don't happen to like him?" She laughed lightly. "You are a model of good nature. I wish you'd show it to May Calthorpe." Her son looked down at her with a questioning glance. "She is always at liberty to admire my virtues, of course; but she can't expect me to put myself out to make special exhibitions for her benefit." The faces of both mother and son hardened a little, as if the subject touched upon was one concerning which they had disagreed before. The change of expression brought out a subtle likeness which had not before been visible. Jack Neligage was usually said to resemble his father, who had died just as the boy was entering his teens, but when he was in a passion--a thing which happened but seldom--his face oddly took on the look of his mother. The change, moreover, was not entirely to his disadvantage, for as a rule Jack showed too plainly the easy-going, self-indulgent character which had been the misfortune of the late John Neligage, and which made friends of the family declare with a sigh that Jack would never amount to anything worth while. Mother and son walked on in silence a moment, and then the lady observed, in a voice as dispassionate as ever:-- "She is a silly little thing. I believe even you could wind her round your finger." "I haven't any intention of trying." "So you have given me to understand before; but now that I am going away you might at least let me go with the consolation of knowing you'd provided for yourself. You must marry somebody with money, and she has no end of it." He braced back his shoulders as if he found it not altogether easy not to reply impatiently. "Where are you going?" he asked. "Oh, to Europe. Anywhere out of the arctic zone of the New England conscience. I've had as long a spell of respectability as I can stand, my boy." Something in her manner evidently irritated him more and more. She spoke with a little indefinable defiant swagger, as if she intended to anger him. He looked at her no longer, but fixed his gaze on the distance. "When you talk of giving up respectability," he remarked in an aggrieved tone, "I should think you might consider me." Her eyes danced, as if she were delighted to see him becoming angry. "Oh, I do, Jack, I assure you; but I really cannot afford to be respectable any longer. Respectability is the most expensive luxury of civilization; and how can I keep it up when I'm in debt to everybody that'll trust me." "Then you might economize." "Economize! Ye gods! This from you, Jack! Where did you hear the word? I'm sure you know nothing of the thing." He laughed in evident self-despite. "We are a nice pair of ruffianly adventurers," he responded; "a regular pair of genteel paupers. But we've both got to pull up, I tell you." "Oh, heavens!" was his mother's reply. "Don't talk to me of pulling up. What fun do I have as it is but quarreling with Miss Wentstile and snubbing Harry Bradish? I've got to keep up my authority in our set, or I should lose even these amusements." Jack flashed her a swift, questioning look, and with a new note in his voice, a note of doubt at once and desperation, blurted out a fresh question. "How about flirting with Sibley Langdon?" Mrs. Neligage flushed slightly and for a brief second contracted her well-arched eyebrows, but in an instant she was herself again. "Oh, well," she returned, with a pretty little shrug, "that of course is a trifle better, but not much. Sibley really cares for himself so entirely that there's very little to be got out of him." "But you know how you make folks talk." "Oh, folks always talk. There is always as much gossip about nothing as about something." "But he puts on such a damnable air of proprietorship," Jack burst out, with much more feeling than he had thus far shown. "I know I shall kick him some time." "That is the sort of thing you had better leave to the Barnstable man," she responded dryly. "Sibley only has the air of owning everything. That's just his nature. He's really less fun than good old Harry Bradish. But such as he is, he is the best I can do. If that stuffy old invalid wife of his would only die, I think I'd marry him out of hand for his money." Jack threw out his arm with an angry gesture. "For Heaven's sake, mother," he said, "what are you after that you are going on so? You know you drive me wild when you get into this sort of a talk." "Or I might elope with him as it is, you know," she continued in her most teasing manner; but watching him intently. "What in the deuce do you talk to me like that for!" he cried, shaking himself savagely. "You're my mother!" Mrs. Neligage grew suddenly grave. She drew closer to her son, and slipped her hand through his arm. "So much the worse for us both, isn't it, Jack? Come, we may as well behave like rational beings. Of course I was teasing you; but that isn't the trouble. It's yourself you are angry with." "What have I to be angry with myself about?" "You are trying to make up your mind that you're willing to be poor for the sake of marrying Alice Endicott; but you know you wouldn't be equal to it. If I thought you would, I'd say go ahead. Do you think you'd be happy in a South End apartment house with the washing on a line between the chimneys, and a dry-goods box outside the window for a refrigerator?" Jack mingled a groan and a laugh. "You can't pay your debts as it is," she went on remorselessly. "We are a pair of paupers who have to live as if we were rich. You see what your father made of it, starting with a fortune. You can't suppose you'd do much better when you've nothing but debts." "I think I'll enlist, or run away to sea," Jack declared, tugging viciously at his mustache. "No, you'll accept your destiny. You'll like it better than you think, when you're settled down to it. You'll stay here and marry May Calthorpe." "You must think I'm a whelp to marry a girl just for her money." "Oh, you must fall in love with her. Any man is a wretch who'd marry a girl just for her money, but a man's a fool that can't fall in love with a pretty girl worth half a million." Jack dropped his mother's hand from his arm with more emphasis than politeness, and stopped to face her on the corner of the street. "The very Old Boy is in you to-day, mother," he said. "I won't listen to another word." She regarded him with a saucy, laughing face, and put out her hand. "Well, good-night then," she said. "Come in and see me as soon as you can. I have a lot of things to tell you about Washington. By the way, what do you think of my going there, and setting up as a lobbyist? They say women make no end of money that way." He swung hastily round, and left her without a word. She went on her way, but her face turned suddenly careworn and haggard as she walked in the gathering twilight toward the little apartment where she lived in fashionable poverty. VIII THE TEST OF LOVE One of the distinctive features of "good society" is that its talk is chiefly of persons. Less distinguished circles may waste precious time on the discussion of ideas, but in company really select such conversation is looked upon as dull and pedantic. One of the first requisites for entrance into the world of fashion is a thorough knowledge of the concerns of those who are included in its alluring round; and not to be informed in this branch of wisdom marks at once the outsider. It follows that concealment of personal affairs is pretty nearly impossible. Humanity being frail, it frequently happens that fashionable folk delude themselves by the fond belief that they have escaped the universal law of their surroundings; but the minute familiarity which each might boast of all that relates to his neighbors should undeceive them. That of which all the world talks is not to be concealed. Everybody in their set knew perfectly well that Jack Neligage had been in love with Alice Endicott from the days when they had paddled in the sand on the walks of the Public Garden. The smart nursery maids whose occupation it was to convey their charges thither and keep them out of the fountains, between whiles exchanging gossip about the parents of the babies, had begun the talk. The opinions of fashionable society are generally first formed by servants, and then served up with a garnish of fancifully distorted facts for the edification of their mistresses; and in due time the loves of the Public Garden, reported and decorated by the nursery maids, serve as topics for afternoon calls. Master Jack was known to be in love with Miss Alice before either of them could have written the word, and in this case the passion had been so lasting that it excited remark not only for itself as an ordinary attachment, but as an extraordinary case of unusual constancy. Society knew, of course, the impossibility of the situation. It was common knowledge that neither of the lovers had anything to marry on. Jack's handsome and spendthrift father had effectually dissipated the property which he inherited, only his timely death preserving to Mrs. Neligage and her son the small remnant which kept them from actual destitution. Alice was dependent upon the bounty of her aunt, Miss Wentstile. Miss Wentstile, it is true, was abundantly able to provide for Alice, but the old lady seriously disapproved of Jack Neligage, and of his mother she disapproved more strongly yet. Everybody said--and despite all the sarcastic observations of that most objectionable class, the satirists, what everybody says nobody likes to disregard--that if Jack and Alice were so rash as to marry they would never touch a penny of the aunt's money. Jack, moreover, was in debt. Nobody blamed him much for this, because he was a general favorite, and all his acquaintance recognized how impossible it was for a young man to live within an income so small as from any rational point of view to be regarded as much the same thing as no income at all; but of course it was recognized also that it is not well in the present day to marry nothing upon a capital of less than nothing. It has been successfully done, it is true; but it calls for more energy and ingenuity than was possessed by easy-going Jack Neligage. In view of all these facts, frequently discussed, society was unanimously agreed that Jack and Alice could never marry. This impossibility excited a faint sort of romantic sympathy for the young couple. They were invited to the same houses and thrown together, apparently with the idea that they should play with fire as steadily and as long as possible. The unphrased feeling probably was that since the culmination of their hopes in matrimony was out of the question, it was only common humanity to afford them opportunities for getting from the ill-starred attachment all the pleasure that was to be had. Society approves strongly of romance so long as it stops short of disastrous marriages; and since Jack and Alice were not to be united, to see them dallying with the temptation of making an imprudent match was a spectacle at once piquant and diverting. On the evening of the day when the news of Alice's pseudo-engagement had been discussed at Mrs. Harbinger's tea, Jack called on her. She received him with composure, coming into the room a little pale, perhaps, but entirely free from self-consciousness. Alice was not considered handsome by her friends, but no one could fail to recognize that her face was an unusual one. The Count, in his distorted English, had declared that Miss Endicott "have een her face one Madonna," and the description was hardly to be bettered. The serene oval countenance, the dark, clear skin, the smooth hair of a deep chestnut, the level brows and long lashes, the high, pure forehead, all belonged to the Madonna type; although the sparkle of humor which now and then gleamed in the full, gray eyes imparted a bewitching flavor of humanity. To-night she was very grave, but she smiled properly, the smile a well-instructed girl learns as she learns to courtesy. She shook hands in a way perhaps a little formal, since she was greeting so old an acquaintance. "Sit down, please," she said. "It is kind of you to come in. I hardly had a chance to say a word to you this afternoon." Jack did not return her greeting, nor did he accept her invitation to be seated. He stooped above the low chair into which she sank as she spoke. "What is this amazing story that you are engaged to Count Shimbowski?" he demanded abruptly. She looked up to him with a smile which was more conventional than ever. "What right have you to ask me a question like that?" she returned. He waved his hand as if to put aside formalities. "But is it true?" he insisted. "What is it to you, Jack, if it were?" She grew visibly paler, and her fingers knit themselves together. He, on the contrary, flushed and became more commanding in his manner. "Do you suppose," he answered, "that I should be willing to see a friend of mine throw herself away on that old roué? He is old enough to be your father." "But you know," said she, assuming an air of raillery which did not seem to be entirely genuine, "that the proverb says it's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave." Jack flung himself into a chair with an impatient exclamation, and immediately got up again to walk the floor. "I wouldn't have believed it of you, Alice. How can you joke about a thing like that!" "Why, Jack; you've told me a hundred times that the only way to get through life comfortably is to take everything in jest." "Oh, confound what I've told you! That's good enough philosophy for me, but it's beneath you to talk so." "What is sauce for the goose--" "Keep still," he interrupted. "If you can't be serious--" "You are so fond of being serious," she murmured, interrupting in her turn. "But I am serious now. Haven't we always been good friends enough for me to speak to you in earnest without your treating me as if I was either impertinent or a fool?" He stopped his restless walk to stand before her again. She was silent a moment with her glance fixed on the rug. Then she raised her eyes to his, and her manner became suddenly grave. "Yes, Jack," she said, "we have always been friends; but has any man, simply because he is a friend, a right to ask a girl a question like that?" "You mean--" "I mean no more than I say. There are other men with whom I've been friends all my life. Is there any one of them that you'd think had a right to come here to-night and question me about my engagement?" "I'd break his head if he did!" Jack retorted savagely. "Then why shouldn't he--whoever he might be--break yours?" He flung himself into his chair again, his sunny face clouded, and his brows drawn down. He met her glance with a look which seemed to be trying to fathom the purpose of her mood. "Why, hang it," he said; "with me it's different. You know I've always been more than a common friend." "You have been a good friend," she answered with resolute self-composure; "but only a friend after all." "Then you mean that I cannot be more than a friend?" She dropped her eyes, a faint flush stealing up into her pale cheeks. "You do not wish to be; and therefore you have no right--" He sprang up impulsively and seized both her hands in his. "Good God, Alice," he exclaimed, "you drive me wild! You know that if I were not so cursedly poor--" She released herself gently, and with perfect calmness. "I know," she responded, "that you have weighed me in the balance against the trouble of earning a living, and you haven't found me worth the price. In the face of a fact like that what is the use of words?" He thrust his empty hands into his pockets, and glowered down on her. "You know I love you, Alice. You know I've been in love with you ever since I began to walk; and you--you--" She rose and faced him proudly. "Well, say it!" she cried. "Say that I was foolish enough to love you! That I knew no better than to believe in you, and that I half broke my heart when you forced me to see that you weren't what I thought. Say it, if you like. You can't make me more ashamed of it than I am already!" "Ashamed--Alice?" "Yes, ashamed! It humiliates me that I should set my heart on a man that cared so little for me that he set me below his polo-ponies, his bachelor ease, his miserable little self-indulgences! Oh, Jack," she went on, her manner suddenly changing to one of appeal, and the tears starting into her eyes, "why can't you be a man?" She put her hand on his arm, and he covered it affectionately with one of his while she hurried on. "Do break away from the life you are living, and do something worthy of you. You are good to everybody else; there's nothing you won't do for others; do this for yourself. Do it for me. You are throwing yourself away, and I have to hear them talk of your debts, and your racing and gambling, and how reckless you are! It almost kills me!" The full sunniness of his smile came back as he looked down into her earnest face, caressing her hand. "Dear little woman," he said; "are you sure you have got entirely over being fond of me?" "I couldn't get over being fond of you. You know it. That's what makes it hurt so." He raised her hand tenderly, and kissed it. Then he dropped it abruptly, and turned away. "You must get over it," he said, so brusquely that she started almost as if from a blow. She sank back into her seat, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, while he walked back to his chair and sat down with an air of bravado. "It's no use, Alice," he said, "I'm not worth a thought, and it isn't in me to--Well, the fact is that I know myself too well. I know that if I promised you to-night that to-morrow I'd begin better fashions, I'm not man enough to live up to it. I couldn't involve you in--Oh, don't, don't!" He broke off to turn to toy with some of the ornaments on the table. In a moment Alice had suppressed her sobs, and he spoke again, but without meeting her look. His voice was hard and flippant. "You see I have such a good time that I wouldn't give it up for the world. I think I'd better keep on as I'm going. The time makes us, and we have to abide by the fashion of the time." "If that is the way you feel," she said coldly, "it is I who have presumed on old friendship." He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed harshly. "We have both been a little unnecessarily tragic, it seems to me," was his rejoinder. "Love isn't for a poor man unless he'll take it on the half-shell without dressing; and I fancy neither of us would much care for it that way. My bank-account is a standing reason why I shouldn't marry anybody." "The sentiment does credit to Mr. Neligage's head if not to his heart," commented the sneering voice of Miss Wentstile, who at that moment came through the portières from the library. "I hope I don't intrude?" "Certainly not," Alice answered with spirit. "Mr. Neligage was giving me a lesson in the social economics of matrimony; but I knew before all he has to tell." "Then, my dear," her aunt said, "I trust he will excuse you. It is time we went to Mrs. Wilson's. I promised the Count that we would be there early." IX THE MISCHIEF OF A GENTLEMAN The Goddess of Misfortune sometimes capriciously takes a spite against an entire family, so that all of its members are at the same time involved in one misadventure or another. She shows a malicious impulse to wreak her disfavor on all of a connection at once, apparently from a knowledge that misery begets misery, and that nothing so completely fills to overflowing the cup of vexation as the finding that those from whom sympathy would naturally be expected are themselves in a condition to demand rather than to give it. She apparently amuses herself in mere wantonness of enjoyment of the sufferings of her victims when no one of them is in a condition to cheer the others. She illustrated this unamiable trait of her celestial character next day in her dealing with the Neligages, mother and son. It was a beautiful spring day, not too warm in the unseasonable fashion which often makes a New England April so detestable, but with a fresh air full of exhilaration. Even in the city the cool, invigorating morning was refreshing. It provoked thoughts of springing grass and swelling buds, it suggested the marsh-marigolds preparing their gold down amid the roots of rushes, it teased the sense with vague yet disquieting desires to be in the open. The sun called to mind the amethystine foliage, half mist and half leaves, which was beginning to appear in the woods, as if trailing clouds had become entangled among the twig-set branches. The wind brought a spirit of daring, as if to-day one could do and not count the cost; as if adventures were the normal experience of man, and dreams might become tangible with the foliage which was condensing out of the spring air. It was one of those rare days which put the ideal to shame. The windows of Mrs. Neligage's little parlor were open, and the morning air with all its provoking suggestions was floating in softly, as she rose to welcome a caller. He was not in the first springtime of life, yet suggested a season which was to spring what Indian summer is to autumn. A certain brisk jauntiness in face, dress, and manner might mean that he had by sheer determination remained far younger than his years. He had a hard, handsome face, with cleanly cut features, and side whiskers which were perhaps too long and flowing. His hair was somewhat touched with gray, but it was abundant, and curled attractively about his high, white forehead. His dress was perfection, and gave the impression that if he had moral scruples--about which his hard, bright eyes might raise a doubt--it would be in the direction of being always perfectly attired. His manner as he greeted Mrs. Neligage was carefully genial, yet the spring which was in the air seemed in his presence to be chilled by an untimely frost. "How bright you are looking this morning, Louise," Mr. Sibley Langdon said, kissing her hand with an elaborate air of gallantry. "You are really the incarnation of the spring that is upon us." She smiled languidly, drawing away her hand and moving to a seat. "You know I am getting old enough to like to be told I am young, Sibley," was her answer. "Sit down, and tell me what has happened in the month that I've been in Washington." "Nothing can happen while you are away," he responded, with a smile. "We only vegetate, and wait for your return. You don't mind if I smoke?" "Certainly not. How is Mrs. Langdon?" He drew out a cigarette-case of tortoise-shell and gold, helped himself to a cigarette, and lighted it before he answered. "Mrs. Langdon is as usual," he replied. "She is as ill and as pious as ever." "For which is she to be pitied the more?" "Oh, I don't know that she is to be pitied for either," Langdon responded, in his crisp, well-bred voice. "Both her illness and her piety are in the nature of occupations to her. One must do something, you know." Mrs. Neligage offered no reply to this, and for half a moment the caller smoked in silence. "Tell me about yourself," he said. "You cruelly refuse to write to me, so that when you are away I am always in the dark as to what you are doing. I've no doubt you had all Washington at your feet." "Oh, there were a few unimportant exceptions," Mrs. Neligage returned, her voice a little hard. "I don't think that if you went on now you'd find the capital draped in mourning over my departure." Langdon knocked the ashes from his cigarette with the deliberation which marked all his movements. Then he looked at his hostess curiously. "You don't seem to be in the best of spirits this morning, Louise," he said. "Has anything gone wrong?" She looked at him with contracting brows, and ignored his question as she demanded abruptly:-- "What did you come to say to me?" "To say to you, my dear? I came as usual to say how much I admire you, of course." She made an impatient gesture. "What did you come to say?" she repeated. "Do you think I don't know you well enough to see when you have some especial purpose in mind?" Sibley Langdon laughed lightly,--a sort of inward, well-bred laugh,--and again with care trimmed his cigarette. "You are a person of remarkable penetration, and it is evidently of no use to hope to get ahead of you. I really came for the pleasure of seeing you, but now that I am here I may as well mention that I have decided to go abroad almost at once." "Ah," Mrs. Neligage commented. "Does Mrs. Langdon go with you?" He laughed outright, as if the question struck him as unusually droll. "You really cannot think me so selfish as to insist upon her risking her fragile health by an ocean voyage just for my pleasure." "I suspected that you meant to go alone," she said dryly. "But, my dear child," he answered with no change of manner, "I don't mean to go alone." She changed color, but she did not pursue the subject. She took up from the table a little Japanese ivory carving, and began to examine it with close scrutiny. "You do not ask whom I hope to take with me," Langdon said. She looked at him firmly. "I have no possible interest in knowing," she responded. "You are far too modest, Louise. On the contrary you have the greatest. I had hoped--" He half hesitated over the sentence, and she interrupted him by rising and moving to the open window. "It is so nice to have the windows open again," she said. "I feel as if I were less alone when there is nothing between me and the world. That big fat policeman over there is a great friend of mine." "We are all your slaves, you see," Langdon responded, rising languidly and joining her. "By the way, I had a letter from Count Marchetti the other day." Mrs. Neligage flushed and paled, and into her eye came a dangerous sparkle. She moved away from him, and went back to her seat, leaving him to follow again. She did not look at him, but she spoke with a determined manner which showed that she was not cowed. "Before I go to bed to-night, Sibley," she said, "I shall write to the Countess the whole story of her necklace. I was a fool not to do it before." He smiled indulgently. "Oh, did I call up that old unpleasantness?" he observed. "I really beg your pardon. But since you speak of it, what good would it do to write to her now? It would make no difference in facts, of course; and it wouldn't change things here at all." She sprang up and turned upon him in a fury. "Sibley Langdon," she cried, "you are a perfect fiend!" He laughed and looked at her with admiration so evident that her eyes fell. "You have told me that before, and you are so devilish handsome when you say it, Louise, that I can't resist the temptation sometimes of making you repeat it. Come, don't be cross. We are too wise if not too old to talk melodrama." "I shall act melodrama if you keep on tormenting me! What did you come here for this morning? Say it, and have done." "If you take it that way," returned he, "I came only to say good-morning." His coolness was unshaken, and he smiled as charmingly as ever. "Tell me," he remarked, flinging his cigarette end into the grate and taking out his case again, "did you see the Kanes in Washington?" He lighted a fresh cigarette, and for half an hour talked of casual matters, the people of their set in Washington, the new buildings there, the decorations, and the political scandals. His manner became almost deferential, and Mrs. Neligage as they chatted lost gradually all trace of the excitement which she had shown. At length the talk came round to their neighbors at home. "I met Count Shimbowski at the club the other day," Langdon remarked, "and he alluded to the old days at Monte Carlo almost with sentiment. It is certainly amusing to see him passed round among respectable Boston houses." "He is respectable enough according to his standards," she responded. "It is funny, though, to see how much afraid he is that Miss Wentstile should know about his past history." "I suppose there's no doubt he's to marry Alice Endicott, is there?" "There is Alice herself," Mrs. Neligage answered. "I should call her a pretty big doubt." "At any rate," her companion observed, "Jack can't marry her. Miss Wentstile would never give them a penny." "I have never heard Jack say that he wished to marry her," Mrs. Neligage responded coolly. "You are quite right about Miss Wentstile, though; she regards Jack as the blackest sheep imaginable." Langdon did not speak for a moment or two, and when he did break silence his manner was more decided than before. "What line do you like best to cross by?" he asked. "I have been on so many," she answered, "that I really can't tell." "It is safe to say then that you like a fast boat." She made no reply, and only played nervously with the clever carving in her hand, where little ivory rats were stealing grain with eternal motionless activity. "Of course if you were going over this spring," Langdon said, "we should be likely to meet somewhere on the other side; Paris, very possibly. It is a pity that people gossip so, or we might go on the same steamer." She looked him squarely in the face. "I am not going abroad this summer," she said distinctly. "Oh, my dear Louise," returned he half mockingly, half pleadingly, "you really can't mean that. Europe would be intolerably dull without you." She looked up, pale to the eyes. "My son would be dull here without me," she said. "Oh, Jack," returned the other, shrugging his shoulders, "he'll get on very well. If you were going, you know, you might leave him something--" She started to her feet with eyes blazing. "You had better go," she said in a low voice. "I have endured a good deal from you, Sibley; and I've always known that the day would come when you'd insult me. It will be better for us both if you go." He rose in his turn, as collected as ever. "Insult you, my dear Louise? Why, I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything in the world. I give you leave to repeat every word that I have said to any of your friends,--to Miss Wentstile, or Letty Harbinger, or to Jack--" "If I repeated them to Jack," she interrupted him, "he'd break every bone in your body!" "Would he? I doubt it. At any rate he would have to hear me first; and then--" Mrs. Neligage, all her brightness quenched, her face old and miserable, threw out her hands in despairing supplication. "Go!" she cried. "Go! Or I shall do something we'll both be sorry for! Go, or I'll call that policeman over there." He laughed lightly, but he moved toward the door. "Gad!" he ejaculated. "That would make a pretty item in the evening papers. Well, if you really wish it, I'll go; but I hope you'll think over what I've said, or rather think over what I haven't said, since you haven't seemed pleased with my words. I shall come at one to drive you to the County Club." He bade her an elaborate good-morning, and went away, as collected, as handsome, as debonaire as ever; while Mrs. Neligage, the hard, bright little widow who had the reputation of being afraid of nothing and of having no feelings, broke down into a most unusual fit of crying. X THE BUSINESS OF A CLUBMAN The first game of polo for the season at the County Club was to be played that Saturday. The unusually early spring had put the turf in condition, and the men had had more or less practice. It was too soon, of course, for a match, but there was to be a friendly set-to between the County Club team and a team from the Oracle Club. It was not much more than an excuse for bringing the members out, and for having a mild gala, with fresh spring toilettes and spring buoyancy to add to the zest of the day. Amusement is a business which calls for a good deal of brains if it is to be carried on successfully. Of course only professionals can hope to succeed in a line so difficult, and in America there are few real professionals in the art of self-amusement. Most men spoil their chances of complete success by dallying more or less with work of one sort or another; and this is fatal. Only he who is sincere in putting amusement first, and to it sacrifices all other considerations, can hope for true preëminence in this calling. Jack Neligage was one of the few men in Boston entirely free from any weakness in the way of occupation beyond that of pleasure-seeking; and as a consequence he was one of the few who did it well. All forms of fashionable play came easily and naturally to Jack, and in them all he bore a part with tolerable grace. He was sufficiently adept at tennis in its day; and when that had passed, he was equally adroit in golf and in curling; he could lead a german better than anybody else; nobody so well managed assemblies and devised novel surprises in the way of decorations; nobody else so well arranged coaching trips or so surely made the life of a house party. All these things were part of his profession as a pleasure-seeker, and they were all done with a quick and merry spirit which gave to them a charm not to be resisted. It was on the polo-field, however, that Jack was at his best. No man who hopes to keep up with the fashions can afford to become too much interested in any single sport, for presently the fad will alter, and he must perforce abandon the old delights; but polo held its own very well, and it was evidently the thing in which Jack reveled most. He was the leading player not of his club only, but of all the clubs about. His stud of polo-ponies was selected with more care than has often gone to the making of a state constitution, for the matters that are really important must be attended to with zeal, while public politics may be expected more or less to take care of themselves. His friends wondered how Neligage contrived to get hold of ponies so valuable, or how he was able to keep so expensive an outfit after he had obtained it; but everybody was agreed that he had a most wonderful lot. The question of how he managed might have been better understood by any one who had chanced to overhear a conversation between Jack and Dr. Wilson, which took place just before luncheon that day. Dr. Wilson was chairman of the board of managers of the club. He was a man who had come into the club chiefly as the husband of Mrs. Chauncy Wilson, a lady whose stud was one of the finest in the state, and he was somewhat looked down upon by the men of genuine old family. He was good-humored, however; shrewd if a little unrefined; and he had been rich long enough to carry the burden of his wife's enormous fortune without undue self-consequence. To-day it became his duty to talk to Jack on an unpleasant matter of business. "Jack," he said, "I've got to pitch into you again." "The same old thing, I suppose." "Same old thing. Sometimes I've half a mind to resign from the club, so as to get rid of having to drub you fellows about your bills." Jack gnawed his mustache, twisting his cigar in his fingers in a way that threatened to demolish it altogether. "I've told you already that I can't do anything until--" "Oh, I know it," Wilson broke in. "I'm satisfied, but the committee is getting scared. The finances of the club are in an awful mess; there's no denying that. Some of the men on the committee, you see, are afraid of being blamed for letting the credits run on so." Jack did not take advantage of the pause which gave him an opportunity to speak, and the other went on again. "I'm awfully sorry, old man; but there's got to be an end somewhere, and nobody's been given the rope that you have." "I can resign, of course," Jack said shortly. "Oh, dry up that sort of talk! Nobody'd listen to your resigning. Everybody wants you here, and we couldn't spare you from the polo team." "But if I can't pay up, what else can I do?" "But you can't resign in debt, man." Jack laughed with savage amusement. "What the devil am I to do? I can't stay, and I can't leave. That seems to be about the size of it." Dr. Wilson looked at his companion keenly, and there was in his tone some hesitation as he replied. "You might sell--" "Sell my ponies!" broke in Neligage excitedly. "When I do I'll give up playing." "Oh, nonsense! Don't be so infernally stubborn. Harbinger'll buy one, and I'll buy a couple, and the others it doesn't matter about. You've always had twice as many as you need." "So you propose that I shouldn't have any." "You could use them just the same." Jack swore savagely. "Thank you," he returned. "I may be a beggar, but I won't be a beat." Wilson laughed with his oily, chuckling laugh. "I don't see," he observed with characteristic brusqueness, "why it is any worse to take a favor from a friend that offers it than to get it out of a club that can't help itself." Jack's cheeks flushed, and he began an angry reply. Then he restrained himself. "I won't quarrel with you for doing your official duty, Wilson," he said stiffly. "I'll fix things somehow or get out." "Oh, hang it, man," returned the doctor good-naturedly, "you mustn't talk of getting out. I'll lend you what you need." "Thank you, but you know I can't pay you." "That's no matter. Something will turn up, and you may pay me when you get ready." "No; I'm deep enough in the mire as it is. I won't make it worse by borrowing. That's the only virtue that I ever had,--that I didn't sponge on my friends. I'm just as much obliged to you; but I can't do it." They had been sitting in the smoking-room before the fireplace where a smouldering log or two took from the air its spring chill. Jack as he spoke flung the stub of his cigar into the ashes, and rose with an air of considering the conversation definitely ended. Wilson looked up at him, his golden-brown eyes more sober than usual. "Of course it is just as you say, old man," he remarked; "but if you change your mind, you've only to let me know." Jack moved off with a downcast air unusual to him, but by the time he had encountered two or three men who were about the club-house, and had exchanged with them a jest or a remark about the coming game, his face was as sunny as ever. People were now arriving rather rapidly, and soon the stylish trap of Sibley Langdon came bowling up the driveway in fine style, with Mrs. Neligage sitting beside the owner. Jack was on the front piazza when they drove up, and his mother waved her hand to him gayly. "Gad, Jack," one of the men said, "your mother is a wonder. She looks younger than you do this minute." "I don't think she is," Jack returned with a grin; "but you're right. She is a wonderfully young woman to be the mother of a great cub like me." Not only in her looks did Mrs. Neligage give the impression of youth, but her movements and her unquenchable vivacity might put to a disadvantage half of the young girls. She tripped up the steps as lightly as a leaf blown by the wind, her trim figure swaying as lithely as a willow-shoot. As she came to Jack she said to him in a tone loud enough to be heard by all who were on the piazza:-- "Oh, Jack, come into the house a moment. I want to show you a letter." She dropped a gay greeting here and there as she led the way, and in a moment they were alone inside the house. Mrs. Neligage turned instantly, with a face from which all gayety had vanished as the color of a ballet-dancer's cheek vanishes under the pall of a green light. "Jack," she said hastily, "I am desperate. I am in the worst scrape I ever was in, in my life. Can you raise any money?" He looked at her a moment in amazed silence; then he laughed roughly. "Money?" he retorted. "I am all but turned out of the club to-day for want of it. This is probably my last game." "You are not in earnest?" she demanded, pressing closer to him, and putting her hand on his arm. "You are not really going to leave the club?" "What else can I do? The committee think it isn't possible to let things go any longer." She looked into his face, her own hardening. She studied him with a keen glance, which he met firmly, yet with evident effort. "Jack," she said at length, her voice lower, "there is only one way out of it. Last night you wouldn't listen to me; but you must now. You must marry May Calthorpe. If you were engaged to her it would be easy enough to raise money." "You talk as if she were only waiting for me to say the word, and she'd rush into my arms." "She will, she must, if you'll have her. You wouldn't take her for your own good, but you've got to do it for mine. You can't let me be ruined just through your obstinacy." "Ruined? What under the canopy do you mean, mother? You are trying to scare me to make me go your way." "I'm not, Jack; upon my word I'm not! I tell you I'm in an awful mess, and you must stand by me." Jack turned away from her and walked toward the window; then he faced her again with a look which evidently questioned how far she was really in earnest. There had been occasions when Mrs. Neligage had used her histrionic powers to get the better of her son in some domestic discussion, and the price of such success is inevitably distrust. Now she faced him boldly, and met his look with a nod of perfect comprehension. "Yes, I am telling you the truth, Jacky. There is nothing for it but for us both to go to smash if you won't take May." "Take May," he echoed impatiently, "how you do keep saying that! How can I take her? She doesn't care a straw about me anyway, and I've no doubt she looks on me as one of the old fellows." "She being eighteen and you twenty-five," his mother answered, smiling satirically. "But somebody is coming. I can't talk to you now; only this one thing I must say. Play into my hands as you can if you will, and you'll be engaged to May before the week's over." He broke into a roar of laughter which had a sound of being as much nerves as amusement. "Is this a comic opera?" he demanded. "Yes, dear Jacky," his mother retorted, resuming her light manner, "that's just what it is. Don't you miss your cue." She left him, and went gayly forward to greet the new-comers, ladies who had just driven up, and Jack followed her lead with a countenance from which disturbance and bewilderment had not entirely vanished. XI THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES Mrs. Neligage escaped from her friends speedily, with that easy swiftness which is in the power of the socially adroit, and returned to the piazza by a French window which opened at the side of the house, and so was not in sight from the front of the club. There she came upon Count Shimbowski comfortably seated in a sunny corner, smoking and meditating. "Ah, Count," she said, as he rose to receive her, "this is unexpected pleasure. Are you resting from the strain of continual adulation?" "What you say?" he responded. Then he dropped into his seat with a despairing gesture. "Dis Eengleesh," he said; "eet ees eemposseeble eet to know. I have told Mees Wentsteele dat she ees very freesh, and--" He ended with a groan, and a snug little Hungarian oath under his breath. "Fresh!" echoed Mrs. Neligage, with a laugh like a redbird whisking gayly from branch to branch. "My dear Count, she is anything but fresh. She is as stale as a last year's love-affair. But she ought to be pleased to be told she is fresh." "Oh, I say: 'You be so freesh, Mees Wentsteele,' and she, she say: 'Freesh, Count Shimbowski? You result me!' Den day teel me freesh mean fooleesh, _sotte_. What language ees dat?" "Oh, it isn't so bad as you think, Count. It is only _argot_ anyway, and it doesn't mean _sotte_, but _naïve_. Besides, she wouldn't mind. She is enough of a woman to be pleased that you even tried to tell her she was young." "But no more ees she young." "No more, Count. We are all of us getting to be old enough to be our own grandmothers. Miss Wentstile looks as if she was at the Flood and forgot to go in when it rained." The Count looked more puzzled than amused at this sally, but his politeness came to his rescue. A compliment is always the resource of a man of the world when a lady puzzles him. "Eet ees only Madame Neleegaze to what belong eemortal youth," he said with a bow. She rose and swept him a courtesy, and then took from her dress one of the flowers she was wearing, which chanced to be very portly red carnations. "You are as gallant as ever, Count," she said, "so that your English doesn't matter. Besides that, you have a title; and American women love a title as a moth loves a candle." She stuck the carnation into his buttonhole as she spoke, and returned to her seat, where she settled herself with the air of one ready for a serious chat. "It is very odd to see you on this side of the Atlantic, Count," she remarked. "Tell me, what are you doing in this country,--besides taking the town by storm, that is?" "I weell range my own self;--say you een Eengleesh 'arrange my own self'?" "When it means you are going to marry, Count, it might be well to say that you are going to arrange yourself and derange somebody else. Is the lady Miss Endicott?" "Eet ees Mees Endeecott. Ees she not good for me?" "She is a thousand times too good for you, my dear fellow; but she is as poor as a church mouse." "Ah, but her aunt, Mees Wentsteele, she geeve her one _dot_: two thousand hundred dollar. Eet weell be a meellion francs, ees eet not?" "So you get a million francs for yourself, Count. It is more than I should have thought you worth." "But de teettle!" "Oh, the title is worth something, but I could buy one a good deal cheaper. If I remember correctly I might have had yours for nothing, Count." The Count did not look entirely pleased at this reminiscence, but he smiled, and again took refuge in a compliment. "To one so _ravissante_ as madame all teettles are under her feet." "I wish you would set up a school for compliments here in Boston, Count, and teach our men to say nice things. Really, a Boston man's compliments are like molasses candy, they are so home-made. But why don't you take the aunt instead of the niece? Miss Wentstile is worth half a million." "Dat weell be mouche," responded the Count with gravity; "but she have bones." The widow laughed lightly. The woman who after forty can laugh like a girl is one who has preserved her power over men, and she is generally one fully aware of the fact. Mrs. Neligage had no greater charm than her light-hearted laugh, which no care could permanently subdue. She tossed her head, and then shook it at the Count. "Yes," she responded, "you are unfortunately right. She has bones. By the way, do you happen to have with you that letter I gave you at Mrs. Harbinger's yesterday?" "Yes," he answered, drawing from his pocket the note addressed to Christopher Calumus, "I have eet." "I would like to see it," Mrs. Neligage said, extending her hand. The Count smiled, and held it up. "You can see eet," said he, "but eet ees not permeet you weedeen de hand to have eet." She leaned forward and examined it closely, studying the address with keen eyes. "It is no matter," was her remark. "I only wanted to make sure." "Do you de handwrite know?" he demanded eagerly. "And if I do?" "You do know," he broke out in French. "I can see it in your face. Tell me who wrote it." She shook her head, smiling teasingly. Then she rose, and moved toward the window by which she had come from the house. "No, Count," was her answer. "It doesn't suit my plan to tell you. I didn't think quickly enough yesterday, or I wouldn't have given it to you. It was in your hands before I thought whose writing it was." The Count, who had risen, bowed profoundly. "After all," he said, "I need not trouble you. Mrs. Harbinger acknowledged that she wrote it." Mrs. Neligage flashed back at him a mocking grimace as she withdrew by the window. "I never expected to live to see you believe a thing because a woman said it," she laughed. "You must have been in strange hands since I used to know you!" Left alone, the Count thoughtfully regarded the letter for a moment, then with a shrug he restored it to his pocket, and turned to go around the corner of the house to the front piazza. Sounds of wheels, of voices, of talking, and of laughter told of the gathering of pleasure-seekers; and scarcely had the Count passed the corner than he met Mr. Bradish face to face. There were groups of men and women on the piazza and on the lawn, with the horses and dogs in sight which are the natural features in such a picture at an out-of-town club. The Count heeded none of these things, but stepped forward eagerly. "Ah, Count, you have come out to the games like everybody else, I see," Bradish said pleasantly. "Eet ees extreme glad to see me, Mr. Bradeesh," the Count returned, shaking him by the hand. "Do you weelleengly come wid us a leettle, for dat I say to you ver' particle?" Bradish, with his usual kindly courtesy, followed the Count around the corner of the house, out of sight of the arriving company. "Something particular to say to me, Count?" he observed. "You do me too much honor." "Eet weell be of honor dat I weell to you speak," the Count responded. "Weell you for myself de condescension to have dat you weell be one friend to one _affaire d'honneur_?" Bradish stared at him in undisguised amazement. "An _affaire d'honneur_?" he echoed. "Surely you don't mean that you are going to fight? You can't mean a duel?" "Oh, _oui, oui_; eet weell be a duel dat eet calls you." Bradish stared harder than ever, and then sat down as if overcome. "But, my dear Count, you can't fight duels in America." "For what weell not een Amereeca fight? He have result me! Me, Count Ernst Shimbowski! Weell I not to have hees blood?" "I'm afraid you won't," Bradish responded, shaking his head. "That isn't the way we do things here. But who is it has insulted you?" The Count became more and more excited as he spoke of his wrongs, and with wide gestures he appealed to the whole surrounding region to bear him out in his rage and his resolution. He stood over Bradish like an avenging and furious angel, swaying his body by way of accent to his words. "You deed see! De ladies day deed see! All de world weell have heard dat he result--he eensult me! De Shimbowski name have been eensult'! Deed he not say 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Oh, _sacré nom de mon père_! 'Veelaine! Veelaine!' Eet weell not but only blood to wash dat eensult!" How an American gentleman should behave when he is seriously asked to act as a second in a duel in this land and time is a question which has probably never been authoritatively settled, and which might be reasoned upon with very curious arguments from different points of view. It is safe to say that any person who finds himself in such a position could hardly manage to incur much risk of running into danger, or even of doing violence to any moral scruples with which he may chance to be encumbered. He must always feel that the chances of a duel's actually taking place are so ridiculously small that the whole matter can be regarded only as food for laughter; and that no matter how eager for fight one or both of the possible combatants might be, the end will be peace. So far from making the position of a second more easy, however, this fact perhaps renders it more difficult. It is harder to face the ridiculous than the perilous. If there were any especial chance that a duel would proceed to extremes, that principals would perhaps come to grief and seconds be with them involved in actual danger, even though only the ignoble danger of legal complications, a man might feel that honor called upon him not to fail his friend in extremity. When it is merely a question of becoming more or less ridiculous according to the notoriety of the affair, the matter is different. The demand of society is that a gentleman shall be ready to brave peril, but there is nothing in the social code which goes so far as to call upon him to run the chance of making himself ridiculous. Society is founded upon the deepest principles of human nature, and if it demanded of man the sacrifice of his vanity the social fabric would go to pieces like a house of cards in a whirlwind. Bradish might have been called upon to risk his life at the request of the Count, although they were in reality little more than acquaintances; but he certainly cannot be held to have been under any obligations to give the world a right to laugh at him. Bradish regarded the Count with a smile half amused and half sympathetic, while the Hungarian poured out his excited protest, and when there came a pause he said soothingly:-- "Oh, sit down and talk it over, my dear Count. I see you mean that stupid dunce of a Barnstable. You can't fight him. Everybody would laugh at the very idea. Besides, he isn't your equal socially. You can't fight him." "You do comprehend not!" cried the Count. "De Shimbowski name weell eet to have blood for de eensult!" "But--" The Count drew himself up with an air of hauteur which checked the words on Bradish's lips. "Eet ees not for a Shimbowski to beg for favors," he said stiffly. "Eef eet ees you dat do not serve me--" "Oh, I assure you," interrupted Bradish hastily, "I am more than willing to serve you; but I wanted to warn you that in America we look at things so differently--" "Een Amereeca even," the Count in his turn interrupted with a superb gesture, "dare weell be gentlemans, ees eet not?" In the face of that gesture there was nothing more to be said in the way of objection. Time and the chapter of accidents must determine what would come of it, but no man of sensibility and patriotism, appealed to in that grand fashion in the name of the honor of America, could have held out longer. Least of all was it to be expected that Harry Bradish, kindest-hearted of living men, and famous for never being able to refuse any service that was asked of him, could resist this last touch. He rose as if to get out of the interview as speedily as possible. "Very well then," he said, "if you persist in going on, I'll do what I can for you, but I give you fair warning once more that it'll come to nothing more than making us both ridiculous." The Count shook hands warmly, but his response was one which might be said to show less consideration than might have been desired for the man who was making a sacrifice in his behalf. "De Shimbowski name," he declared grandiloquently, yet with evident sincerity, "ees never reedeeculous." There followed some settling of details, in all of which Bradish evinced a tendency to temporize and to postpone, but in which the ardor of the Count so hurried everything forward that had Barnstable been on the spot the duel might have been actually accomplished despite all obstacles. It was evident, however, that one side cannot alone arrange a meeting of honor, and in the end little could be done beyond the Count's receiving a promise from Bradish that the latter would communicate with Barnstable as soon as possible. This momentous and blood-curdling decision having been arrived at, the two gentlemen emerged from their retirement on the side piazza, and once more joined the gay world as represented by the now numerous gathering assembled to see the polo at the County Club. XII THE WASTING OF REQUESTS The exhilaration of the spring day, the pleasure of taking up once more the outdoor life of the warm season, the little excitement which belongs to the assembling of merry-makers, the chatter, the laughter, all the gay bustle combined to fill the County Club with a joyous atmosphere. Before the front of the house was a sloping lawn which merged into an open park, here and there dotted with groups of budding trees and showing vividly the red of golf flags. The driveway wound in curves of carefully devised carelessness from the country road beyond the park to the end of the piazza, and all arrivals could be properly studied as they approached. The piazza was wide and roomy, so that it was not crowded, although a considerable number of men and women were there assembled; and from group to group laughter answered laughter. Mrs. Harbinger in the capacity of chaperone had with her Alice Endicott and May Calthorpe. The three ladies stood chatting with Dick Fairfield, tossing words back and forth like tennis-balls for the sheer pleasure of the exercise. "Oh, I insist," Fairfield said, "that spring is only a season when the days are picked before they are ripe." "You say that simply in your capacity of a literary man, Mr. Fairfield," Alice retorted; "but I doubt if it really means anything." "I am afraid it doesn't mean much," he responded laughing, "but to insist that an epigram must mean something would limit production dreadfully." "Then we are to understand," Mrs. Harbinger observed, "that what you literary men say is never to be taken seriously." "Oh, you should make a distinction, Mrs. Harbinger. What a literary man says in his professional capacity you are at liberty to believe or not, just as you choose; but of course in regard to what is said in his personal capacity it is different." "There, I suppose," she retorted, "he is simply to be classed with other men, and not to be believed at all." "Bless me, what cynicism! Where is Mr. Harbinger to defend his reputation?" "He is so absorbed in getting ready for the game that he has forgotten all about any reputation but that of a polo-player," Mrs. Harbinger returned. "And that reminds me that I haven't seen his new pony. Come, Alice, you appreciate a horse. We must go and examine this new wonder from Canada." "We are not invited apparently," May said, seating herself in a piazza chair. "It is evidently your duty, Mr. Fairfield, to stay here and entertain me while they are gone." "I remain to be entertained," he responded, following her example. Mrs. Harbinger and Alice went off to the stables, and the pair left behind exchanged casual comments upon the day, the carriages driving up, the smart spring gowns of the ladies, and that sort of verbal thistledown which makes up ordinary society chit-chat. A remark which Fairfield made on the attire of a dashing young woman was the means of bringing the talk around again to the subject which had been touched upon between them on the previous afternoon. "I suppose," Miss Calthorpe observed, "that a man who writes stories has to know about clothes. You do write stories, I am sure, Mr. Fairfield." He smiled, and traced a crack in the piazza floor with his stick. "Which means, of course," he said, "that you have never read any of them. That is so far lucky for me." "Why is it lucky?" "Because you might not have liked them." "But on the other hand I might have liked them very much." "Well, perhaps there is that chance. I don't know, however, that I should be willing to run the risk. What kind of a story do you like?" "I told you that yesterday, Mr. Fairfield. If you really cared for my opinion you would remember." "You said that you liked 'Love in a Cloud.' Is that what you mean?" "Then you do remember," she remarked with an air of satisfaction. "Perhaps it was only because you liked the book yourself." "Why not believe that it was because I put so much value on your opinion?" "Oh, I am not so vain as that, Mr. Fairfield," she cried. "If you remember, it was not on my account." He laughed without replying, and continued the careful tracing of the crack in the floor as if the occupation were the pleasantest imaginable. May watched him for a moment, and then with the semblance of pique she turned her shoulder toward him. The movement drew his eyes, and he suddenly stopped his occupation to straighten up apologetically. "I was thinking," he said, "what would be the result of your reading such stories of mine as have been published--there have been a few, you know, in the magazines--if you were to test them by the standard of 'Love in a Cloud.' I'm afraid they might not stand it." She smiled reassuringly, but perhaps with a faint suggestion of condescension. "One doesn't expect all stories to be as good as the best," she observed. Fairfield turned his face away for a quick flash of a grin to the universe in general; then with perfect gravity he looked again at his companion. "I am afraid," he said, "that even the author of 'Love in a Cloud' wouldn't expect so much of you as that you should call his story the best." "I do call it the best," she returned, a little defiantly. "Don't you?" "No," he said slowly, "I couldn't go so far as that." "But you spoke yesterday as if you admired it." "But that isn't the same thing as saying that there is nothing better." Miss Calthorpe began to tap her small foot impatiently. "That is always the way with men who write," she declared. "They always have all sorts of fault to find with everything." "Have you known a great many literary men?" he asked. There are few things more offensive in conversation, especially in conversation with a lady, than an insistence upon logic. To ask of a woman that she shall make only exact statements is as bad as to require her to be always consistent, and there is small reason for wonder if at this inquiry Miss Calthorpe should show signs of offense. "I do not see what that has to do with the matter," she returned stiffly. "Of course everybody knows about literary men." The sun of the April afternoon smiled over the landscape, and the young man smiled under his mustache, which was too large to be entirely becoming. He glanced up at his companion, who did not smile in return, but only sat there looking extremely pretty, with her flushed cheeks, her dark hair in pretty willful tendrils about her temples, and her dark eyes alight. "Perhaps you have some personal feeling about the book," he said. "You know that it is claimed that a woman's opinion of literature is always half personal feeling." She flushed more deeply yet, and drew herself up as if he were intruding upon unwarrantable matters. "I don't even know who wrote the book," she replied. "Then it is only the book itself that you admire, and not the author?" "Of course it is the book. Haven't I said that I don't even know who the author is? I can't see," she went on somewhat irrelevantly, "why it is that as soon as there is anything that is worth praising you men begin to run it down." He looked as if he were a trifle surprised at her warmth. "Run it down?" he repeated. "Why, I am not running it down. I said that I admired the novel, didn't I?" "But you said that you didn't think it was one of the best," she insisted. "But you might allow a little for individual taste, Miss Calthorpe." "Oh, of course there is a difference in individual tastes, but that has to do with the parts of the story that one likes best. It's nothing at all to do with whether one isn't willing to confess its merits." He broke into a laugh of so much amusement that she contracted her level brows into a frown which made her prettier than ever. "Now you are laughing at me," she said almost pouting. "It is so disappointing to find that I was deceived. Of course I know that there is a good deal of professional jealousy among authors, but I shouldn't have thought--" She perhaps did not like to complete her sentence, and so left it for him to end with a fresh laugh. "I wish I dared tell you how funny that is!" he chuckled. She made no reply to this, but turned her attention to the landscape. There was a silence of a few moments, in which Fairfield had every appearance of being amused, while she equally showed that she was offended. The situation was certainly one from which a young author might derive a good deal of satisfaction. It is not often that it falls to the lot of a writer to find his work so sincerely and ardently admired that he is himself taken to task for being jealous of its success. Such pleasure as comes from writing anonymous books must be greatly tempered by the fact that in a world where it is so much more easy to blame than to praise the author is sure to hear so much more censure of his work than approbation. To be accused by a young and pretty girl of a fault which one has not committed and from which one may be clear at a word is in itself a pleasing pastime, and when the imaginary fault is that of not sufficiently admiring one's own book, the titillation of the vanity is as lively as it is complicated. The spirit which Miss Calthorpe had shown, her pretty vehemence, and her marked admiration for "Love in a Cloud" might have seemed charming to any man who had a taste for beauty and youthful enthusiasm; upon the author of the book she praised it was inevitable that they should work mightily. The pair were interrupted by the return of Mrs. Harbinger and Alice, who reported that there were so many men about the stables, and the ponies were being so examined and talked over by the players, that it was plainly no place for ladies. "It was evident that we weren't wanted," Mrs. Harbinger said. "I hope that we are here. Ah, here comes the Count." The gentleman named, fresh from his talk with Harry Bradish, came forward to join them, his smile as sunny as that of the day. "See," May whispered tragically to Mrs. Harbinger as the Hungarian advanced, "he has a red carnation in his buttonhole." "He must have read the letter then," Mrs. Harbinger returned hastily. "Hush!" To make the most exciting communication and to follow it by a command to the hearer to preserve the appearance of indifference is a characteristically feminine act. It gives the speaker not only the last word but an effective dramatic climax, and the ever-womanly is nothing if not dramatic. The complement of this habit is the power of obeying the difficult order to be silent, and only a woman could unmoved hear the most nerve-shattering remarks with a manner of perfect tranquillity. "Ah, eet ees so sweet loovly ladies een de landscape to see," the Count declared poetically, "where de birds dey twatter een de trees and things smell you so mooch." "Thank you. Count," Mrs. Harbinger responded. "That is very pretty, but I am afraid that it means nothing." "What I say to you, Madame," the Count responded, with his hand on his heart, "always eet mean mooch; eet ees dat eet mean everyt'ing!" "Then it is certainly time for me to go," she said lightly. "It wouldn't be safe for me to stay to hear everything. Come, girls: let's walk over to the field." The sitters rose, and they moved toward the other end of the piazza. "It is really too early to go to the field," May said, "why don't we walk out to the new golf-holes first? I want to see how they've changed the drive over the brook." "Very well," Mrs. Harbinger assented. "The shortest way is to go through the house." They passed in through a long window, and as they went Alice Endicott lingered a little with the Count. That part of the piazza was at the moment deserted, and so when before entering the house she dropped her parasol and waited for her companion to pick it up for her, they were practically alone. "Thank you, Count," she said, as he handed her the parasol. "I am sorry to trouble you." "Nodings what eet ees dat I do for Mees Endeecott ees trouble." "Is that true?" she asked, pausing with her foot on the threshold, and turning back to him. "If I could believe it there are two favors that I should like to ask." "Two favors?" he repeated. "Ah, I weell be heavenlee happee eef eet ees dat I do two favors." "One is for myself," she said, "and the other is for Miss Wentstile. I'm sure you won't refuse me." "Who could refuse one ladee so loovlaie!" "The first is," Alice went on, paying no heed to the Count's florid compliments, "that you give me the letter Mrs. Neligage gave you yesterday." "But de ladee what have wrote eet--" "The lady that wrote it," Alice interrupted, "desires to have it again." "Den weell I to her eet geeve," said the Count. "But she has empowered me to receive it." "But dat eet do not empower me eet to geeve." "Then you decline to let me have it, Count?" "Ah, I am desolation, Mees Endeecott, for dat I do not what you desaire; but I weell rather to do de oder t'ing what you have weesh." "I am afraid, Count, that your willingness to oblige goes no farther than to let you do what you wish, instead of what I wish. I only wanted to know where you have known Mrs. Neligage." "Ah," he exclaimed, "dat is what Mees Wentsteele have ask. My dear young lady, eet ees not dat you can be jealous dat once I have known Madame Neleegaze?" She faced him with a look of astonishment so complete that the most simple could not misunderstand it. Then the look changed into profound disdain. "Jealous!" she repeated. "I jealous, and of you, Count!" Her look ended in a smile, as if her sense of humor found the idea of jealousy too droll to admit of indignation, and she turned to go in through the window, leaving the Count hesitating behind. XIII THE WILE OF A WOMAN Before the Count had recovered himself sufficiently to go after Miss Endicott despite her look of contempt and her yet more significant amusement, Jack Neligage came toward him down the piazza, and called him by name. "Oh, Count Shimbowski," Jack said. "I beg your pardon, but may I speak with you a moment?" The Count looked after Miss Endicott, but he turned toward Neligage. "I am always at your service," he said in French. "I wanted to speak to you about that letter that my mother gave you yesterday. She made a mistake." "A mistake?" the Count echoed, noncommittally. "Yes. It is not for you." "Well?" "Will you give it to me, please?" Jack said. "But why should I give it to you? Are you Christopher Calumus?" "Perhaps," answered Jack, with a grin. "At least I can assure you that it is on the authority of the author of 'Love in a Cloud' that I ask for the letter." "But I've already refused that letter to a lady." "To a lady?" "To Miss Endicott." "Miss Endicott!" echoed Jack again, in evident astonishment. "Why should she want it?" "She said that she had the authority of the writer, as you say that you have the authority of the man it was written to." "Did you give it to her?" "No; but if I did not give it to her, how can I give it to you?" Neligage had grown more sober at the mention of Miss Endicott's name; he stood looking down, and softly beating the toe of his boot with his polo mallet. "May I ask," he said at length, raising his glance to the Count's face, "what you propose to do with the letter?" The other waved his hands in a gesture which seemed to take in all possible combinations of circumstances, while his shrug apparently expressed his inner conviction that whichever of these combinations presented itself Count Shimbowski would be equal to it. "At least," he returned, "as Mrs. Harbinger has acknowledged that she wrote it, I could not give it up without her command." Neligage laughed, and swung his mallet through the air, striking an imaginary ball with much deftness and precision. "She said she wrote it, I know; but I think that was only for a lark, like mother's part in the play. I don't believe Mrs. Harbinger wrote it. However, here she comes, and you may ask her. I'll see you again. I must have the letter." He broke into a lively whistle, and went off down the walk, as Mrs. Harbinger emerged through the window which a few moments before she had entered. "I decided that I wouldn't go down to the brook," she said. "It is too warm to walk. Besides, I wanted to speak to you." "Madame Harbeenger do to me too mooch of _honneur_," the Count protested, with his usual exuberance of gesture. "Eet ees to be me at her sarveece." She led the way back to the chairs where her group had been sitting shortly before, and took a seat which placed her back toward the only other persons on the piazza, a couple of men smoking at the other end. "Sit down, Count," she said, waving her hand at a chair. "Somebody will come, so I must say what I have to say quickly. I want that letter." The Count smiled broadly, and performed with much success the inevitable shrug. "You dat lettaire weesh; Madame Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; Mr. Neleegaze dat lettaire weesh; everybody dat lettaire weesh. Count Shimbowski dat lettaire he keep, weell eet not?" "Mrs. Neligage and Jack want it?" Mrs. Harbinger exclaimed. "What in the world can have set them on? Did they ask you for it?" "Eet ees dat they have ask," the Count answered solemnly. "I cannot understand that," she pursued thoughtfully. "Certainly they can't know who wrote it." "Ees eet not dat you have said--" "Oh, yes," Mrs. Harbinger interrupted him, with a smile, "I forgot that they were there when I confessed to it." The Count laid his hand on his heart and rolled up his eyes,--not too much. "I have so weesh' to tell you how dat I have dat beauteous lettaire adore," he said. "I have wear de lettaire een de pocket of my heart." This somewhat startling assertion was explained by his pushing aside his coat so that the top of a letter appeared peeping out of the left pocket of his waistcoat as nearly over his heart as the exigencies of tailoring permitted. "I shouldn't have let you know that I wrote it," she said. "But eet have geeve to me so joyous extrodinaire eet to know!" She regarded him shrewdly, then dropping her eyes, she asked:-- "Was it better than the other one?" "De oder?" he repeated, evidently taken by surprise. "Ah, dat alone also have I treasured too mooch." Mrs. Harbinger broke out frankly into a laugh. "Come," she said, "I have caught you. You know nothing about any other. We might as well be plain with each other. I didn't write that letter and you didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' or you'd know about the whole correspondence." "Ah, from de Eden_garten_," cried the Count, "de weemens ees too mooch for not to fool de man. Madame ees for me greatly too clevaire." "Thank you," she said laughingly. "Then give me the letter." He bowed, and shrugged, and smiled deprecatingly; but he shook his head. "So have Mees Endeecott say. Eef to her I geeve eet not, I can geeve eet not to you, desolation as eet make of my heart." "Miss Endicott? Has she been after the letter too? Is there anybody else?" "Madame Neleegaze, Mr. Neleegaze, Mees Endeecott, Madame Harbeenger," the Count enumerated, telling them off on his fingers. "Dat ees all now; but eef I dat lettaire have in my heart-pocket she weell come to me dat have eet wrote. Ees eet not so? Eet ees to she what have eet wrote dat eet weell be to geeve eet. I am eenterest to her behold." "Then you will not give it to me?" Mrs. Harbinger said, rising. He rose also, a mild whirlwind of apologetic shrugs and contortions, contortions not ungraceful, but as extraordinary as his English. "Eet make me desolation een de heart," he declared; "but for now eet weell be for me to keep dat lettaire." He made her a profound bow, and as if to secure himself against farther solicitation betook himself off. Mrs. Harbinger resumed her chair, and sat for a time thinking. She tapped the tip of her parasol on the railing before her, and the tip of her shoe on the floor, but neither process seemed to bring a solution of the difficulty which she was pondering. The arrivals at the club were about done, and although it still wanted some half hour to the time set for the polo game, most of those who had been about the club had gone over to the polo-field. The sound of a carriage approaching drew the attention of Mrs. Harbinger. A vehicle easily to be recognized as belonging to the railway station was advancing toward the club, and in it sat Mr. Barnstable. The gentleman was landed at the piazza steps, and coming up, he stood looking about him as if in doubt what to do next. His glance fell upon Mrs. Harbinger, and the light of recognition flooded his fluffy face as moonlight floods the dunes of a sandy shore. He came forward abruptly and awkwardly. "Beg pardon, Mrs. Harbinger," he said. "I came out to find your husband. Do you know where I can see him?" "He is all ready to play polo now, Mr. Barnstable," she returned. "I don't think you can see him until after the game." She spoke rather dryly and without any cordiality. He stood with his hat in his two hands, pulling nervously at the brim. "You are very likely angry with me, Mrs. Harbinger," he blurted out abruptly. "I ought to apologize for what I did at your house yesterday. I made a fool of myself." Mrs. Harbinger regarded him curiously, as if she could hardly make up her mind how such a person was to be treated. "It is not customary to have scenes of that kind in our parlors," she answered, smiling. "I know it," he said, with an accent of deep despair. "It was all my unfortunate temper that ran away with me. But you don't appreciate, Mrs. Harbinger, how a man feels when his wife has been made the subject of an infamous libel." "But if you'll let me say so, Mr. Barnstable, I think you are going out of your way to find trouble. You are not the only man who has been separated from his wife, and the chances are that the author of 'Love in a Cloud' never heard of your domestic affairs at all." "But he must have," protested Barnstable with growing excitement, "why--" "Pardon me," she interrupted, "I wasn't done. I say that the chance of the author of that book knowing anything about your affairs is so small as to be almost impossible." "But there were circumstances so exact! Why, all that scene--" "Really, Mr. Barnstable," Mrs. Harbinger again interrupted, "you must not go about telling what scenes are true. That is more of a publishing of your affairs than any putting them in a novel could be." His eyes stared at her from the folds and undulations of his face like two remarkably large jellyfish cast by the waves among sand heaps. "But--but," he stammered, "what am I to do? How would you feel if it were your wife?" She regarded him with a glance which gave him up as incorrigible, and half turned away her head. "I'm sure I can't say," she responded. "I never had a wife." Barnstable was too much excited to be restrained by the mild jest, and dashed on, beginning to gesticulate in his earnestness. "And by such a man!" he ran on. "Why, Mrs. Harbinger, just look at this. Isn't this obliquitous!" He pulled from one pocket a handful of letters, dashed through them at a mad speed, thrust them back and drew another handful from a second pocket, scrabbled through them, discarded them for the contents of a third pocket, and in the end came back to the first batch of papers, where he at last hit upon the letter he was in search of. "Only this morning I got this letter from a friend in New York that knew the Count in Europe. He's been a perfect rake. He's a gambler and a duelist. There, you take it, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it. You'll see, then, how I felt when that sort of a man scandaled my wife." "But I thought that you received the letter only this morning," suggested Mrs. Harbinger, with a smile. Her companion was too thoroughly excited to be interrupted, and dashed on. "You take the letter, Mrs. Harbinger, and read it for yourself. Then you show it to your friends. Let people know what sort of a man they are entertaining and making much of. Damme--I beg your pardon; my temper's completely roused up!--it makes me sick to see people going on so over anything that has a title on it. Why, damme--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Harbinger; I really beg your pardon!--in America if a man has a title he can rob henroosts for a living, and be the rage in society." Mrs. Harbinger reached out her hand deliberately, and took the letter which was thus thrust at her. She had it safe in her possession before she spoke again. "I shall be glad to see the letter," she said, "because I am curious to know about Count Shimbowski. That he is what he pretends to be in the way of family I am sure, for I have seen his people in Rome." "Oh, he is a Count all right," Barnstable responded; "but that doesn't make him any better." "As for the book," she pursued calmly, "you are entirely off the track. The Count cannot possibly have written it. Just think of his English." "I've known men that could write English that couldn't speak it decently." "Besides, he hasn't been in the country long enough to have written it. If he did write it, Mr. Barnstable, how in the world could he know anything about your affairs? It seems to me, if I may say so, that you might apply a little common sense to the question before you get into a rage over things that cannot be so." "I was hasty," admitted Barnstable, an expression of mingled penitence and woe in his face. "I'm afraid I was all wrong about the Count. But the book has so many things in it that fit, things that were particular, why, of course when Mrs.--that lady yesterday--" "Mrs. Neligage." "When she said the Count wrote it, I didn't stop to think." "That was only mischief on her part. You might much better say her son wrote it than the Count." "Her son?" repeated Barnstable, starting to his feet. "That's who it is! Why, of course it was to turn suspicion away from him that his mother--" "Good heavens!" Mrs. Harbinger broke in, "don't make another blunder. Jack Neligage couldn't--" "I see it all!" Barnstable cried, not heeding her. "Mr. Neligage was in Chicago just after my divorce. I heard him say he was there that winter. Oh, of course he's the man." "But he isn't a writer," Mrs. Harbinger protested. She rose to face Barnstable, whose inflammable temper had evidently blazed up again with a suddenness entirely absurd. "That's why he wrote anonymously," declared the other; "and that's why he had to put in real things instead of making them up! Oh, of course it was Mr. Neligage." "Mr. Barnstable," she said with seriousness, "be reasonable, and stop this nonsense. I tell you Mr. Neligage couldn't have written that book." He glared at her with eyes which were wells of obstinacy undiluted. "I'll see about that," he said. Without other salutation than a nod he walked away, and left her. She gazed after him with the look which studies a strange animal. "Well," she said softly, aloud, "of all the fools--" XIV THE CONCEALING OF SECRETS Where a number of persons are in the same place, all interested in the same matter, yet convinced that affairs must be arranged not by open discussion but by adroit management, the result is inevitable. Each will be seeking to speak to some other alone; there will be a constant shifting and rearranging of groups as characters are moved on and off the stage in the theatre. Life for the time being, indeed, takes on an artificial air not unlike that which results from the studied devices of the playwright. The most simple and accurate account of what takes place must read like the arbitrary conventions of the boards; and the reader is likely to receive an impression of unreality from the very closeness with which the truth has been followed. At the County Club that April afternoon there were so many who were in one way or another interested in the fate of the letter which in a moment of wild fun Mrs. Neligage had handed over to the Count, that it was natural that the movements of the company should have much the appearance of a contrived comedy. No sooner, for instance, had Barnstable hastened away with a new bee in his bonnet, than Mrs. Harbinger was joined by Fairfield. He had come on in advance of the girls, and now at once took advantage of the situation to speak about the matter of which the air was full. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but I left the young ladies chatting with Mrs. Staggchase, and they'll be here in a minute. I wanted to speak to you." She bestowed the letter which she had received from Barnstable in some mysterious recess of her gown, some hiding-place which had been devised as an attempted evasion of the immutable law that in a woman's frock shall be no real pocket. "Go on," she said. "I am prepared for anything now. After Mr. Barnstable anything will be tame, though; I warn you of that." "Mr. Barnstable? I didn't know you knew him till his circus last night." "I didn't. He came to me here, and I thought he was going to apologize; but he ended with a performance crazier than the other." "What did he do?" asked Fairfield, dropping into the chair which Barnstable had recently occupied. "He must be ingenious to have thought of anything madder than that. He might at least have apologized first." "I wasn't fair to him," Mrs. Harbinger said. "He really did apologize; but now he's rushing off after Jack Neligage to accuse him of having written that diabolical book that's made all the trouble." "Jack Neligage? Why in the world should he pitch upon him?" "Apparently because I mentioned Jack as the least likely person I could think of to have written it. That was all that was needed to convince Mr. Barnstable." "The man must be mad." "We none of us seem to be very sane," Mrs. Harbinger returned, laughing. "I wonder what this particular madman will do." "I'm sure I can't tell," answered Fairfield absently. Then he added quickly: "I wanted to ask you about that letter. Of course it isn't you that's been writing to me, but you must know who it is." She stared at him in evident amazement, and then burst into a peal of laughter. "Well," she said, "we have been mad, and no mistake. Why, we ought to have known in the first place that you were Christopher Calumus. How in the world could we miss it? It just shows how we are likely to overlook the most obvious things." Fairfield smiled, and beat his fist on the arm of his chair. "There," he laughed, "I've let it out! I didn't mean to tell it." "What nonsense!" she said, as if not heeding. "To think that it was you that May wrote to after all!" "May!" cried Fairfield. "Do you mean that Miss Calthorpe wrote those letters?" The face of Mrs. Harbinger changed color, and a look of dismay came over it. "Oh, you didn't know it, of course!" she said. "I forgot that, and now I've told you. She will never forgive me." He leaned back in his chair, laughing gayly. "A Roland for an Oliver!" he cried. "Good! It is only secret for secret." "But what will she say to me?" "Say? Why should she say anything? You needn't tell her till she's told me. She would have told me sometime." "She did tell you in that wretched letter; or rather she gave you a sign to know her by. How did you dare to write to any young girl like that?" The red flushed into his cheeks and his laughter died. "You don't mean that she showed you my letters?" "Oh, no; she didn't show them to me. But I know well enough what they were like. You are a pair of young dunces." Fairfield cast down his eyes and studied his finger-nails in silence a moment. When he looked up again he spoke gravely and with a new firmness. "Mrs. Harbinger," he said, "I hope you don't think that I meant anything wrong in answering her letters. I didn't know who wrote them." "You must have known that they were written by a girl that was young and foolish." "I'm afraid I didn't think much about that. I had a letter, and it interested me, and I answered it. It never occurred to me that--" "It never occurs to a man that he is bound to protect a girl against herself," Mrs. Harbinger responded quickly. "At least now that you do know, I hope that there'll be no more of this nonsense." Fairfield did not reply for a moment. Then he looked out over the landscape instead of meeting her eyes. "What do you expect me to say to that?" he asked. "I don't know that I expect anything," she returned dryly. "Hush! They are coming." He leaned forward, and spoke in a hurried whisper. "Does she know?" he demanded. "Of course not. She thinks it's the Count, for all I can tell." The arrival of Alice and May put an end to any further confidential discourse. Fairfield rose hastily, looking dreadfully conscious, but as the two girls had some interesting information or other to impart to Mrs. Harbinger, he had an opportunity to recover himself, and in a few moments the party was on its way to the polo-field. With the game this story has nothing in particular to do. It was not unlike polo games in general. The playing was neither especially good nor especially bad. Jack Neligage easily carried off the honors, and the men pronounced his playing to be in remarkable form for so early in the season. Fairfield sat next to Miss Calthorpe, but he was inclined to be quiet, and to glance at Mrs. Harbinger when he spoke, as if he expected her to be listening to his conversation. Now and then he fixed his attention on the field, but when the game was over, and the clever plays were discussed, he showed no signs of knowing anything about them. To him the game had evidently been only an accident, and in no way a vital part of the real business of the day. There was afternoon tea at the club-house,--groups chatted and laughed on the piazza and the lawn; red coats became more abundant on the golf links despite the lateness of the hour; carriages were brought round, one by one took their freights of pleasure-seekers, and departed. Fairfield still kept in the neighborhood of Miss Calthorpe, and although he said little he looked a great deal. Mrs. Harbinger did not interfere, although for the most part she was within ear-shot. Fairfield was of good old family, well spoken of as a rising literary man, and May had money enough for two, so that there were no good grounds upon which a chaperone could have made herself disagreeable, and Mrs. Harbinger was not in the least of the interfering sort. Before leaving the County Club Mrs. Harbinger had a brief talk with Mrs. Neligage. "I wish you'd tell me something about the Count's past," she said. "You knew him in Europe, didn't you?" "Yes, I met him in Rome one winter; and after that I saw a good deal of him for a couple of seasons." "Was he received?" "Oh, bless you, yes. He's real. His family tree goes back to the tree in the Garden of Eden." "Perhaps his ancestor then was the third person there." Mrs. Neligage laughed, and shook her head. "Come, Letty," she said, "that is taking an unfair advantage. But really, the Count is all right. He's as poor as a church mouse, and I've no doubt he came over here expressly to marry money. That is a foreign nobleman's idea of being driven to honest toil,--to come to America and hunt up an heiress." Mrs. Harbinger produced the letter which she had received from Barnstable earlier in the afternoon. "That crazy Mr. Barnstable that made an exhibition of himself at my house yesterday has given me a letter about the Count. I haven't read much of it; but it's evidently an attack on the man's morals." "Oh, his morals," Mrs. Neligage returned with a pretty shrug; "nobody can find fault with the Count's morals, my dear, for he hasn't any." "Is he so bad then?" inquired Mrs. Harbinger with a sort of dispassionate interest. "Bad, bless you, no. He's neither good nor bad. He's what all his kind are; squeamishly particular on a point of honor, and with not a moral scruple to his name." Mrs. Harbinger held the letter by the corner, regarding it with little favor. "I'm sure I don't want his old letter," she observed. "I'm not a purveyor of gossip." "Why did he give it to you?" "He wanted me to read it, and then to show it to my friends. He telegraphed to New York last night, Tom said, to find out about the Count, and the letter must have come on the midnight." "Characters by telegraph," laughed Mrs. Neligage. "The times are getting hard for adventurers and impostors. But really the Count isn't an impostor. He'd say frankly that he brought over his title to sell." "That doesn't decide what I am to do with this letter," Mrs. Harbinger remarked. "You'd better take it." "I'm sure I don't see what I should do with it," Mrs. Neligage returned; but at the same time she took the epistle. "Perhaps I may be able to make as much mischief with this as I did with that letter yesterday." The other looked at her with serious disfavor expressed in her face. "For heaven's sake," she said, "don't try that. You made mischief enough there to last for some time." XV THE MISCHIEF OF A LETTER The meditations of Mrs. Neligage in the watches of the night which followed the polo game must have been interesting, and could they be known might afford matter for amusement and study. It must be one of the chief sources of diversion to the Father of Evil to watch the growth in human minds and hearts of schemes for mischief. He has the satisfaction of seeing his own ends served, the entertainment of observing a curious and fascinating mental process, and all the while his vanity may be tickled by the reflection that it is he who will receive the credit for each cunningly developed plot of iniquity. That the fiend had been agreeably entertained on this occasion was to be inferred from the proceedings of Mrs. Neligage next morning, when the plans of the night were being carried into effect. As early in the day as calling was reasonably possible, Mrs. Neligage, although it was Sunday, betook herself to see May Calthorpe. May, who had neither father nor mother living, occupied the family house on Beacon street, opposite the Common, having as companion a colorless cousin who played propriety, and for the most part played it unseen. The dwelling was rather a gloomy nest for so bright a bird as May. Respectability of the most austere New England type pervaded the big drawing-room where Mrs. Neligage was received. The heavy old furniture was as ugly as original sin, and the pictures might have ministered to the Puritan hatred for art. Little was changed from the days when May's grandparents had furnished their abode according to the most approved repulsiveness of their time. Only the brightness of the warm April sun shining in at the windows, and a big bunch of dark red roses in a crystal jug, lightened the formality of the stately apartment. When May came into the room, however, it might have seemed that she had cunningly retained the old appointments as a setting to make more apparent by contrast her youthful fresh beauty. With her clear color, her dark hair, and sparkling eyes, she was the more bewitching amid this stately, sombre furniture, and in this gloomy old lofty room. "My dear," Mrs. Neligage said, kissing her affectionately, "how well you look. I was dreadfully afraid I should find you worried and unhappy." May returned her greeting less effusively, and seemed somewhat puzzled at this address. "But why in the world should I look worried?" she asked. Mrs. Neligage sat down, and regarded the other impressively in silence a moment before replying. "Oh, my dear child," she said dramatically, "how could you be so imprudent?" May became visibly paler, and in her turn sank into a chair. "I don't know what you mean," she faltered. "If you had lived in society abroad as much as I have, May," was the answer, delivered with an expressive shake of the head, "you would know how dreadfully a girl compromises herself by writing to a strange gentleman." May started up, her eyes dilating. "Oh, how did you know?" she demanded. "The Count thinks the most horrible things," the widow went on mercilessly. "You know what foreigners are. It wouldn't have been so bad if it were an American." Poor May put her hands together with a woeful gesture as if she were imploring mercy. "Oh, is it the Count really?" she cried. "I saw that he had a red carnation in his buttonhole yesterday, but I hoped that it was an accident." "A red carnation?" repeated Mrs. Neligage. "Yes; that was the sign by which I was to know him. I said so in that letter." It is to be doubted if the Recording Angel at that moment wrote down to the credit of Mrs. Neligage that she regretted having by chance stuck that flower in the Count's coat at the County Club. "You poor child!" she murmured with a world of sympathy in her voice. The touch was too much for May, who melted into tears. She was a simple-hearted little thing or she would never have written the unlucky letters to Christopher Calumus, and in her simplicity she had evidently fallen instantly into the trap set for her. She dabbed resolutely at her eyes with her handkerchief, but the fountain was too free to be so easily stanched. "It will make a horrid scandal," Mrs. Neligage went on by way of comfort. "Oh, I do hate those dreadful foreign ways of talking about women. It used to make me so furious abroad that I wanted to kill the men." May was well on the way to sobs now. "Such things are so hard to kill, too," pursued the widow. "Everybody here will say there is nothing in it, but it will be repeated, and laughed about, and it will never be forgotten. That's the worst of it. The truth makes no difference, and it is almost impossible to live a thing of that sort down. You've seen Laura Seaton, haven't you? Well, that's just what ruined her life. She wrote some foolish letters, and it was found out. It always is found out; and she's always been in a cloud." Mrs. Neligage did not mention that the letters which the beclouded Miss Seaton had written had been to a married man and with a full knowledge on her part who her correspondent was. "Oh, Mrs. Neligage," sobbed May. "Do you suppose the Count will tell?" "My dear, he showed me the letter." "Oh, did he?" moaned the girl, crimson to the eyes. "Did you read it?" "Read it, May? Of course not!" was the answer, delivered with admirable appearance of indignation; "but I knew the handwriting." May was by this time so shaken by sobs and so miserable that her condition was pitiful. Mrs. Neligage glided to a seat beside her, and took the girl in her arms in a fashion truly motherly. "There, there, May," said she soothingly. "Don't give way so. We must do something to straighten things out." "Oh, do you think we could?" demanded May, looking up through her tears. "Can't you get that letter away from him?" "I tried to make him give it to me, but he refused." It really seemed a pity that the widow was not upon the stage, so admirably did she show sympathy in voice and manner. She caressed the tearful maiden, and every tone was like an endearment. "Somebody must get that letter," she went on. "It would be fatal to leave it in the Count's possession. He is an old hand at this sort of thing. I knew about him abroad." She might have added with truth that she had herself come near marrying him, supposing that he had a fortune to match his title, but that she had luckily discovered his poverty in time. "But who can get it?" asked May, checking her tears as well as was possible under the circumstances. "It must be somebody who has the right to represent you," Mrs. Neligage responded with an air of much impressiveness. "Anybody may represent me," declared May. "Couldn't you do it, Mrs. Neligage?" "My dear," the other answered in a voice of remonstrance, "a lady could hardly go to a man on an errand like that. It must be a man." May dashed her hands together in a burst of impatience and despair. "Oh, I don't see what you gave it to him for," she cried in a lamentable voice. "You might have known that I wouldn't have written it if I'd any idea that that old thing was Christopher Calumus." "And I wouldn't have given it to him," returned Mrs. Neligage quietly, "if I'd had any idea that you were capable of writing to men you didn't know." May looked as if the tone in which this was said or the words themselves had completed her demoralization. She was bewitching in her misery, her eyes swimming divinely in tears, large and pathetic and browner than ever, her hair ruffled in her agitation into tiny rings and pliant wisps all about her temples, her cheeks flushed and moist. Her mouth, with its trembling little lips, might have moved the sternest heart of man to compassion and to the desire at least of consoling it with kisses. The more firm and logical feminine mind of Mrs. Neligage was not, however, by all this loveliness of woe turned away from her purpose. "At any rate," she went on, "the thing that can't be altered is that you have written the letter, and that the Count has it. I do pity you terribly, May; and I know Count Shimbowski, so I know what I'm saying. I came in this morning to say something to you, to propose something, that is; but I don't know how you'll take it. It is a way out of the trouble." "If there's any way out," returned May fervently, "I'm sure I don't care what it is; I'm ready for it, if it's to chop off my fingers." "It isn't that, my dear," Mrs. Neligage assured her with a suggestion of a laugh, the faint suggestion of a laugh, such as was appropriate to the direful situation only alleviated by the possibility which was to be spoken. "The fact is there's but one thing to do. You must let Jack act for you." "Oh, will he, Mrs. Neligage?" cried May, brightening at once. It has been noted by more than one observer of life that in times of trouble the mere mention of a man is likely to produce upon the feminine mind an effect notably cheering. Whether this be true, or a mere fanciful calumny of those heartless male writers who have never been willing to recognize that the real glory of woman lies in her being able entirely to ignore the existence of man, need not be here discussed. It is enough to record that at the sound of Jack's name May did undoubtedly rouse herself from the abject and limp despair into which she was completely collapsing. She caught at the suggestion as a trout snaps at the fisherman's fly. "He will be only too glad to," said Mrs. Neligage, "if he has the right." She paused and looked down, playing with the cardcase in her hands. She made a pretty show of being puzzled how to go on, so that the most stupid observer could not have failed to understand that there was something of importance behind her words. May began to knit her white forehead in an evident attempt to comprehend what further complication there might be in the affair under discussion. "I must be plain," the widow said, after a slight, hesitating pause. "What I have to say is as awkward as possible, and of course it's unusual; but under the circumstances there's no help for it. I hope you'll understand, May, that it's only out of care for you that I'm willing to come here this morning and make a fool of myself." "I don't see how you could make a fool of yourself by helping me," May said naïvely. The visitor smiled, and put out a trimly gloved hand to pat the fingers of the girl as they lay on the chair-arm. "No, that's the truth, May. I am trying to help you, and so I needn't mind how it sounds. Well, then; the fact is that there's one thing that makes this all very delicate. Whoever goes to the Count must have authority." "Well, I'm ready to give Jack authority." "But it must be the authority of a betrothed, my dear." "What! Oh, Mrs. Neligage!" May sat bolt upright and stiffened in her chair as if a wave of liquid air had suddenly gone over her. "To send a man for the letters under any other circumstances would be as compromising as the letters in the first place. Besides, the Count wouldn't be bound to give them up except to your _fiancé_." "That horrid Count!" broke out May with vindictive irrelevancy. "I wish it was just a man we had to deal with!" "Now Jack has been in love with you for a long time, my dear," pursued Jack's mother. "Jack! In love with me? Why, he's fond of Alice." "Oh, in a boy and girl way they've always been the best of friends. It's nothing more. He's in love with you, I tell you. What do you young things know about love anyway, or how to recognize it? I shouldn't tell you this if it weren't for the circumstances; but Jack is too delicate to speak when it might look as if he were taking advantages. He is furious about the letter." "Oh, does he know too?" cried poor May. "Does everybody know?" Her tears began again, and now Mrs. Neligage dried them with her own soft handkerchief, faintly scented with the especial eastern scent which she particularly affected. Doubtless a mother may be held to know something of the heart and the opinions of her only son, but as Jack had not, so far as his mother had any means of knowing, in the least connected May Calthorpe with the letter given to Count Shimbowski, it is perhaps not unfair to conclude that her maternal eagerness and affection had in this particular instance led her somewhat far. It is never the way of a clever person to tell more untruths than are actually needed by the situation, and it was perhaps by way of not increasing too rapidly her debit account on the books of the Recording Angel that Mrs. Neligage replied to this question of May's with an evasion,--an evasion, it is true, which was more effective than a simple, direct falsehood would have been. "Oh, May dear, you don't know the horrid way in which those foreign rakes boast of what they call their conquests!" The idea of being transformed from a human, self-respecting being into a mere conquest, the simple, ignominious spoils of the chase, might well be too much for any girl, and May became visibly more limp under it. "The simple case is here," proceeded the widow, taking up again her parable with great directness. "Jack is fond of you; he is too delicate to speak of it, and he knows that this is a time when nobody but a _fiancé_ has a right to meddle. If you had a brother, of course it would be different; but you haven't. Something must be done, and so I came this morning really to beg you, for Jack's sake and your own, to consent to an engagement." "Did Jack send you?" demanded May, looking straight into the other's eyes. Mrs. Neligage met the gaze fairly, yet there was a little hesitation in her reply. It might be that she considered whether the risk were greater in telling the truth or in telling a lie; but in the end it was the truth that she began with. Before she had got half through her sentence she had distorted it out of all recognition, indeed, but it is always an advantage to begin with what is true. It lends to any subsequent falsifying a moral support which is of inestimable value. "He knows nothing of it at all," she confessed. "He is too proud to let anybody speak for him, just as under the circumstances he is too proud to speak for himself. Besides, he is poor, and all your friends would say he was after your money. No, nothing would induce him to speak for himself. He is very unhappy about it all; but he feels far worse for you than for himself. Dear Jack! He is the most generous fellow in the world." "Poor Jack!" May murmured softly. "Poor Jack!" the widow echoed, with a deep-drawn sigh. "It frightens me so to think what might happen if he hears the Count boasting in his insolent way. Foreigners always boast of their conquests! Why, May, there's no knowing what he might do! And the scandal of it for you! And what should I do if anything happened to Jack?" Perhaps an appeal most surely touches the feminine heart if it be a little incoherent. A pedant might have objected that Mrs. Neligage in this brief speech altered the point of view with reckless frequency, but the pedant would by the effect have been proved to be wrong. The jumble of possibilities and of consequences, of woe to Jack, harm to May, and of general inconsolability on the part of the mother finished the conquest of the girl completely. She was henceforth only eager to do whatever Mrs. Neligage directed, and under the instigation of her astute counsellor wrote a note to the young man, accepting a proposal which he had never heard of, and imploring him as her accepted lover to rescue from the hands of Count Shimbowski the letter addressed to Christopher Calumus. It is not every orator, even among the greatest, who can boast of having achieved a triumph so speedy and so complete as that which gladdened the heart of Mrs. Neligage when, after consoling and cheering her promised daughter-in-law, she set out to find her son. XVI THE DUTY OF A SON Simple were this world if it were governed by frankness, albeit perchance in some slight particulars less interesting. Certainly if straightforwardness ruled life, Mrs. Neligage would have fared differently in her efforts that morning. She would have had no opportunity in that case of displaying her remarkable astuteness, and she would have left the life-threads of divers young folk to run more smoothly. Knots and tangles in the lives of mortals are oftener introduced by their fellows than by the unkindly fingers of the Fates, although the blame must be borne by the weird sisters. The three might well stand aghast that forenoon to see the deftness with which Mrs. Neligage wrought her mischief. A fisherman with his netting-needle and a kitten playing with the twine together produce less complication of the threads than the widow that day brought about by the unaided power of her wits. Jack Neligage had chambers with Fairfield in a semi-fashionable apartment-house. Both the young men had a certain position to maintain, and neither was blessed with means sufficient to do it without much stretching. Fairfield was industrious and Neligage was idle, which in the end was more favorable to the reputation of the former and to the enjoyment of the latter. Jack fared the better in material things, because the man who is willing to run into debt may generally live more expensively than he who strives to add to an inadequate income by the fruit of his toil. On this particular morning Dick had gone to church in the vain hope of seeing May Calthorpe, while Jack was found by his mother smoking a cigarette over the morning paper. He had just finished his late breakfast, and opened his letters. The letters lay on the uncleared breakfast table in various piles. The largest heap was one made of bills torn to bits. Jack made it a matter of principle to tear up his bills as soon as they came. It saved trouble, and was, he said, a business-like habit. The second heap was composed of invitations to be answered; while advertisements and personal letters made the others. Jack received his mother with his usual joyous manner. It had been said of him that his continual good nature was better than an income to him. It certainly made him a favorite, it procured for him many an invitation, and it had even the effect of softening the hard heart of many a creditor. He was in appearance no less cheerful this morning for his talk with Wilson at the County Club or for the mysterious hints of ill which his mother had given him. It was all confoundedly awkward, he had commented to Fairfield before retiring on the previous night, but hang it, what good would it do to fret about it? "Good-morning, mater," he greeted her. "You must have something mighty important on your mind to come flying round here at this time in the day." "I have," she said, "and I want you to try for once in your life to take things seriously." "Seriously!" was his answer. "Don't I always take things seriously? Or if I don't, it can't be in me, for I'm sure I have enough to make me serious. Look at that pile of bills there." Mrs. Neligage walked to the table, inspected first the invitations, which she looked over with truly feminine attention, and then began to pick up pieces of the torn-up bills. "How in the world, Jack, do you ever know what you owe?" she asked. "Know what I owe? Gad! I wouldn't know that for the world. Sit down, and tell me what disagreeable thing brought you here." "Why is it necessarily disagreeable?" she demanded, seating herself beside the table, and playing with the torn paper. "You said yesterday that you were in a mess." "Yes," she replied slowly; "but that was yesterday." "Does that mean that you are out of it? So much the better." Mrs. Neligage clasped her hands in her lap, and regarded her son with a strong and eager look. "Jack," she began, "I want you to listen to me, and not interrupt. You must hear the whole thing before you begin to put in your word. In the first place, you are engaged to May Calthorpe." The exclamation and the laugh which greeted this piece of information were so nearly simultaneous that Jack might be given the benefit of the doubt and so evade the charge of swearing before a lady. "Why in the world, mother," he said, "must you come harping on that string again? You know it's of no use." "You are engaged now, Jack, and of course that makes a difference." "Oh, bother! Do speak sensibly. What are you driving at?" The widow regarded him with a serene face, and settled herself more comfortably in her chair. "I came to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss May Calthorpe," she said, with all possible coolness and distinctness. "Indeed? Then I am sorry to tell you that you have wasted your labor. I haven't even seen May since we left the County Club yesterday." "Oh, I knew that." "What in the world are you driving at, mother? Perhaps you don't mind telling me who told you of the engagement." "Oh, not in the least. May told me." "May Calthorpe!" It was not strange that Jack should receive the announcement with surprise, but it was evident that there was in his mind more bewilderment. He stared at his mother without further word, while she pulled off her gloves and loosened her coat as if to prepare herself for the explanation which it was evident must follow. "Come, Jack," she remarked, when she had adjusted these preliminaries, "we may as well be clear about this. I made an offer in your name to May, and she has accepted it." Jack rose from his seat, and stood over her, his sunny face growing pale. "You made an offer in my name?" he demanded. "Sit down," she commanded, waving her hand toward his chair. "There is a good deal to be said, and you'll be tired of standing before I tell it all. Is there any danger that Mr. Fairfield may come in?" Jack walked over to the door and slipped the catch. "He is not likely to come," he said, "but it's sure now. Fire away." He spoke with a seriousness which he used seldom. There were times when lazy, good-tempered Jack Neligage took a stubborn fit, and those who knew him well did not often venture to cross him in those moods. The proverb about the wrath of a patient man had sometimes been applied to him. When these rare occasions came on which his temper gave way he became unusually calm and self-possessed, as he was now. It could not but have been evident to his mother that she had to do with her son in one of the worst of his rare rages. Perhaps the vexations of the previous days, the pile of torn bills on the table, the icy greeting Alice Endicott had given him yesterday, all had to do with the sudden outbreak of his anger, but any man might have been excused for being displeased by such an announcement as had just been made to Jack. "I'm not going into your financial affairs, Jack," Mrs. Neligage remarked, with entire self-possession, "only that they count, of course." "I know enough about them," he said curtly. "We'll take them for granted." "Very well then--we will talk about mine. You've hinted once or twice that you didn't like the way I flirted with Sibley Langdon. I owe him six thousand dollars." If the widow had been planning a theatrical effect in her coolly pronounced words, she had no reason to be disappointed at the result. Jack started to his feet with an oath, and glared at her with angry eyes. "More than that," she went on boldly, though she cast down her glance before his, "the money was to save me from the consequences of--" Her voice faltered and the word died on her lips. Jack stood as if frozen, staring with a hard face and lips tightly shut. "Oh, Jack," she burst out, "why do you make me shame myself! Why can't you understand? I'm no good, Jack; but I'm your mother." Actual tears were in her eyes, and her breath was coming quickly. It is always peculiarly hard to see a self-contained, worldly woman lose control of herself. The strength of emotion which is needed to shake such a nature is instinctively appreciated by the spectator, and affects him with a pain that is almost too cruel to be borne. Jack Neligage, however, showed no sign of softening. "You must tell me the whole now," he said in a hard voice. The masculine instinct of asserting the right to judge a woman was in his tone. She wiped away her tears, and choked back her sobs. A little tremor ran over her, and then she began again, speaking in a voice lower than before, but firmly held in restraint. "It was at Monte Carlo five years ago," she said. "I was there alone, and the Countess Marchetti came. I'd known her a little for years, and we got to be very intimate. You know how it is with two women at a hotel. I'd been playing a little, just to keep myself from dying of dullness. Count Shimbowski was there, and he made love to me as long as he thought I had money, but he fled when I told him I hadn't. Well, one day the countess had a telegram that her husband had been hurt in hunting. She had just half an hour to get to the train, and she took her maid and went. Of course she hadn't time to have things packed, and she left everything in my care. Just at the last minute she came rushing in with a jewel-case. Her maid had contrived to leave it out, and she wouldn't take it. The devil planned it, of course. I told her to take it, but she wouldn't, and she didn't; and I played, and I lost, and I was desperate, and I pawned her diamond necklace for thirty thousand francs." "And of course you lost that," Jack said in a hard voice, as she paused. "Oh, Jack, don't speak to me like that! I was mad! I know it! The worst thing about the whole devilish business was the way I lost my head. I look back at it now, and wonder if I'm ever safe. It makes me afraid; and I never was afraid of anything else in my life. I'm not a 'fraid-cat woman!" He gave no sign of softening, none of sympathy, but still sat with the air of a judge, cold and inexorable. "What has all this to do with Sibley Langdon?" he asked. "He came there just when the countess sent for her things. I was wild, and I went all to pieces at the sight of a home face. It was like a plank to a shipwrecked fool, I suppose. I broke down and told him the whole thing, and he gave me the money to redeem the necklace. He was awfully kind, Jack. I hate him--but he was kind. I really think I should have killed myself if he hadn't helped me." "And you have never paid him?" "How could I pay him? I've been on the ragged edge of the poorhouse ever since. I don't know if the poorhouse has a ragged edge," she added, with something desperately akin to a smile, "but if it has edges of course they must be ragged." Few persons have ever made a confession, no matter how woeful the circumstances, without some sense of relief at having spoken out the thing which was festering in the secret heart. Shame and bitter contrition may overwhelm this feeling, but they do not entirely destroy it. Mrs. Neligage would hardly have been likely ever to tell her story save under stress of bitter necessity, but there was an air which showed that the revelation had given her comfort. "Has he ever spoken of it?" asked Jack, unmoved by her attempted lightness. "Never directly, and never until recently has he hinted. Jack," she said, her color rising, "he is a bad man!" He did not speak, but his eyes plainly demanded more. "The other day,--Jack, I've known for a long time that it was coming. I've hated him for it, but I didn't know what to do. It was partly for that that I went to Washington." "Well?" Mrs. Neligage was not that day playing a part which was entirely to be commended by the strict moralist. Certainly in her interview with May she had left much to be desired on the score of truthfulness and consideration for others. Hard must be the heart, however, which might not have been touched by the severity of the ordeal which she was now undergoing. Jack's clear brown eyes dominated hers with all the force of the man and the judge, while hers in vain sought to soften them; and the pathos of it was that it was the son judging the mother. "I give you my word, Jack," she said, leaning toward him and speaking with deep earnestness, "that he has never said a word to me that you might not have heard. Silly compliments, of course, and fool things about his wife's not being to his taste; but nothing worse. Only now--" Ruthless is man toward woman who may have violated the proprieties, but cruel is the son toward his mother if she may have dimmed the honor which is his as well as hers. "Now?" he repeated inflexibly. "Now he has hinted, he has hardly said it, Jack, but he means for me to join him in Europe this summer." The red leaped into Jack's face and the blaze into his eyes. He rose deliberately from his chair, and stood tall before her. "Are you sure he meant it?" he asked. "He put in nasty allusions to the countess, and--Oh, he did mean it, Jack; and it frightened me as I have never been frightened in my life." "I will horsewhip him in the street!" She sprang up, and caught him by the arm. "For heaven's sake, Jack, think of the scandal! I'd have told you long ago, but I was afraid you'd make a row that would be talked about. When I came home from Europe, and realized that all my property is in the hands of trustees so that I couldn't pay, I wanted to tell you; but I didn't know what you'd do. I'm afraid of you when your temper's really up." He freed himself from her clasp and began to pace up and down, while she watched him in silence. Suddenly he turned to her. "But this was only part of it," he said. "What was that stuff you were talking about my being engaged?" She held out to him the note that May had written, and when he had read it explained as well as she could the scene which had taken place between her and May. She did not, it is true, present an account which was without variations from the literal facts, but no mortal could be expected to do that. She at least made it clear that she had bargained with the girl that the letter should be the price of an engagement. Jack heard her through, now and then putting in a curt question. When he had heard it all, he laughed angrily, and threw the letter on the floor. "You have brought me into it too," he said. "We are a pair of unprincipled adventurers together. I've been more or less of a beat, but I've never before been a good, thorough-paced blackguard!" She flashed upon him in an outburst of anger in her turn. "Do you mean that for me?" she demanded. "The word isn't so badly applied to a man that can talk so to his mother! Haven't I been saving you as well as myself? As to May, any girl will love a husband that has character enough to manage her and be kind to her." He was silent a moment, and when he spoke he waived the point. "Do I understand," he said, "that you expect me to go to Count Shimbowski and announce myself as May's representative, and demand her letter?" "Not at all," she answered, a droll expression of craftiness coming over her face. "Sit down, and let me tell you." She resumed her own seat, and Jack, after whirling his chair around angrily, sat down astride of it, with his arms crossed on the back. "There are letters and letters," Mrs. Neligage observed with a smile. "When Mrs. Harbinger gave me this one last night I began to see that it might be good for something. You are to exchange this with the Count. You needn't mention May's name." Jack took the letter, and looked at it. "This is to Barnstable," he said. "Yes; he gave it to Letty to be shown to people. Barnstable is the silliest fool that there is about." "And you think the Count would give up that letter for this?" "I am sure he would if he thought there was any possibility that this might fall into the hands of Miss Wentstile." "If it would send the damned adventurer about his business," growled Jack, "I'd give it to Miss Wentstile myself." "Oh, don't bother about that. I can stop that affair any time," his mother responded lightly. "I've only to tell Sarah Wentstile what I've seen myself, and that ends his business with her." "Then you'd better do it, and stop his tormenting Alice." "I'll do anything you like, Jack, if you'll be nice about May." He got up from his seat and walked back and forth a few turns, his head bowed, and his manner that of deep thought. Then he went to his desk and wrote a couple of notes. He read them over carefully, and filled out a check. He lit a cigarette, and sat pondering over the notes for some moments. At last he brought them both to his mother, who had sat watching him intently, although she had turned her face half away from him. Jack put the letters into her hand without a word. The first note was as follows:-- DEAR MAY,--My mother has just brought me your note, and I am going out at once to find the Count. I hope to bring you the letter before night. I need not tell you that I am very proud of the confidence you have shown in me and of the honor you do me. Until I see you it will, it seems to me, be better that you do not speak of our engagement. Very sincerely yours, JOHN T. NELIGAGE. The second note was this:-- SIBLEY LANGDON, ESQ. _Sir_,--I have just heard from my mother that she is indebted to you for a loan of $6000. I inclose check for that amount with interest at four per cent. As Mrs. Neligage has doubtless expressed her gratitude for your kindness I do not know that it is necessary for me to add anything. JOHN T. NELIGAGE. "You are right, of course," he said. "I can't show him that I know his beastly scheme without a scandal that would hurt you. He'll understand, though. But why in the world you've let him browbeat you into receiving his attentions I cannot see." "I felt so helpless, Jack. I didn't know what he would do; and he could tell about the necklace, you see. He's been a millstone round my neck. He's never willing I should do anything with anybody but himself." Jack ground his teeth, and held out his hand for the letters. "But, Jack," Mrs. Neligage cried, as if the thought had just struck her. "You can't have $6000 in the bank." "I shall have when he gets that check," Jack returned grimly. "If father hadn't put all our money into the hands of trustees--" "We should neither of us have anything whatever," his mother interrupted, laughing. "It is bad enough as it is, but it would have been worse if we'd had our hands free." Her spirits were evidently once more high; she seemed to have cast off fear and care alike. "Well," she said, rising, "I must go home. You want to go and find the Count, of course." She went up to her son, and put her hands on his shoulders. "Dear boy," she said, "I'm not really so bad as I seem. I was a fool to gamble, but I never did anything else that was very bad. Oh, you don't know what a weight it is off my shoulders to have that note paid. Of course it will be hard on you just now, but we must hurry on the marriage with May, and then you'll have money enough." He smiled down on her with a look in which despite its scrutiny there was a good deal of fondness. Worldly as the Neligages were, there was still a strong bond of affection between them. "All right, old lady," he said, stooping forward to kiss her forehead. "I'm awfully sorry you've had such a hard time, but you're out of it now. Only there's one thing I insist on. You are to tell nobody of the engagement till I give you leave." She studied his face keenly. "If I don't announce it," she said frankly, "I'm afraid you'll squirm out of it." He laughed buoyantly. "You are a born diplomat," he told her. "What sort of a concession do you want to make you hold your tongue?" "Jack," she said pleadingly, changing her voice into earnestness, "won't you marry May? If you only knew how I want you to be rich and taken care of." "Mr. Frostwinch has offered me a place in the bank, mater, with a salary that's about as much as I've paid for the board of one of my ponies." "What could you do on a salary like that? You won't break the engagement when you see May this afternoon, will you? Promise me that." "She may break it herself." "She won't unless you make her. Promise me, Jack." He smiled down into her face as if a sudden thought had come to him, and a gleam of mischief lighted his brown eyes. "The engagement, such as it is," he returned, "may stand at present as you've fixed it, if you'll give me your word not to mention it or to meddle with it." "I promise," she said rapturously, and pulled him down to kiss him fervently before departing. Then in the conscious virtue of having achieved great things Mrs. Neligage betook herself home to dress for a luncheon. XVII THE BUSINESS OF A LOVER Jack's first care, after his mother had left him, was to dispatch a messenger to May with his note. Then he set out in search of Dr. Wilson. After a little hunting he discovered the latter lunching at the club. Jack came straight to his business without any beating about the bush. "Wilson," he said, "I've come on an extraordinary errand. I want you to lend me $6000 on the spot." The other whistled, and then chuckled as was his good-humored wont. "That's a good round sum," he answered. "I know that a deuced sight better than you do," Neligage returned. "I've had more experience in wanting money. I'm in a hole, and I ask you to help me out of it. Of course I'm taking a deal of advantage of your good nature yesterday; and you may do as you like about letting me have the money. All the security I can give is to turn over to you the income of the few stocks I have. They 're all in the hands of trustees. My father left'em so." "Gad, he knew his son," was the characteristic comment. "You are right. He did. Can you let me have the money?" The other considered a moment, and then said with his usual bluntness:-- "I suppose it's none of my business what you want of it?" Jack flushed. "It may be your business, Wilson, but I can't tell you." The other laughed. "Oh, well," he said, "if you've been so big a fool that you can't bear to tell of it, I'm not going to insist. I can't do anything better than to send you a check to-morrow. I haven't that amount in the bank." Jack held out his hand. "You're a trump, Wilson," he said. "I'd tell you the whole thing if it was my secret, but it isn't. Of course if you lose anything by moving the money, I'll be responsible for it. Besides that I want you to buy Starbright, if you care for him. Of course if you don't I can sell him easily enough. He's the best of the ponies." "Then you're going to sell?" "Clean out the whole thing; pay my debts, and leave the club." "Oh, you mustn't do that." "I'm going into a bank, and of course I shan't have any time to play." Wilson regarded him with an amused and curious smile, playing with his fork meanwhile. Wilson was not by birth of Jack's world, having come into social position in Boston by his marriage with Elsie Dimmont, the richest young woman of the town. He and Jack had never been especially intimate, but Jack had always maintained that despite traces of coarseness in manner Wilson was sound at heart and essentially a good fellow. Perhaps the fact that in times past Neligage had not used his opportunities to patronize Wilson had something to do with the absence of anything patronizing in the Doctor's manner now. "Well," Wilson said at length, "don't do anything rash. Your dues for the whole year are paid,--or will be when you square up, and you might as well get the worth of them. We need you on the team, so you mustn't go back on us if you can help it." Matters being satisfactorily arranged both in relation to the loan and to the sale of the pony, Jack left Wilson, and departed in search of Count Shimbowski. Him he ultimately found at another club, and at once asked to speak with him alone on business. "Count," he began when they were in one of the card-rooms, "I want to add a word to what I said to you yesterday." "Each one word of Mr. Neleegaze eet ees treasured," the Count responded with a polite flourish of his cigarette. "Since you wouldn't give me that letter," pursued Jack, acknowledging the compliment with a grin and a bow, "perhaps you'll be willing to exchange it." "Exchange eet?" repeated the Hungarian. "For what weell eet be exchange'?" Jack produced Barnstable's letter. "I thought that you'd perhaps be willing to exchange it for this letter that's otherwise to be read and passed about. I fancy that the person who got it had Miss Wentstile particularly in mind as likely to be interested in it." The touch showed Jack to be not without some of the astuteness of his mother. "What weell eet be?" inquired the Count. "I haven't read it," answered Jack, slowly drawing it from the envelope. "It is said to contain a full account of the life of Count Shimbowski." "_Sacré!_" "Exactly," acquiesced Jack. "It's a devilish shame that things can't be forgotten when they're done. I've found that out myself." "But what weell be weetheen dat lettaire?" Jack ran his eye down a page. "This seems to be an account of a duel at Monaco," he returned. "On the next page--" The Count stretched out his hand in protest. "Eet ees not needed dat you eet to read," he said. "Eet ees leeklie lees." "Oh, very likely it is lies. No story about a fellow is ever told right; but the worst things always get believed; and Miss Wentstile is very particular. She's deucedly down on me for a lot of things that never happened." "Oh, but she ees extr'ordeenaire particle!" exclaimed the Count, with a shrug and a profane expletive. "She does not allow dat money be play for de card, she have say eet to me. She ees most extr'ordeenaire particle!" "Then I am probably right, Count, in thinking you wouldn't care to have her read this letter?" The Count twisted his silky mustache, looking both angry and rather foolish. "Eet ees not dat eet ees mooch dat I have done," he explained. "You know what eet ees de leefe. A man leeves one way. But she, she ees so particle damned!" Jack burst into a laugh that for the moment threatened to destroy the gravity with which he was conducting the interview; but he controlled his face, and went on. "Since she is so damned particular," said he, "don't you think you'd better let me have the other letter for this? Of course I hate to drive you to a bargain, but I must have that other letter. I don't mind telling you that I'm sent after it by the one who wrote it." "Den you weell know who have wrote eet?" "Yes, of course I know, but I'm not going to tell." The Count considered for a moment, and then slowly drew out the letter addressed to Christopher Calumus. He looked at it wistfully, with the air of a man who is reluctantly abandoning the clue to an adventure which might have proved enchanting. "But eet weell look what I was one great villaine dat fear," he said. "Nonsense," returned Neligage, holding out the letter of Barnstable for exchange. "We know both sides of the business. All there is to it is that we both understand what a crochety old maid Miss Wentstile is." Count Shimbowski smiled, and the exchange was effected. Jack turned May's letter over in his hand, and found it unopened. "You're a gentleman, Count," he said, offering his hand. "Of de course," the other replied, with an air of some surprise. "I am one Shimbowski." "Well, I'm obliged to you," observed Jack, putting the letter in his pocket. "I'll try to keep gossip still." "Oh, eet ees very leek," Shimbowski returned, waving his hand airily, "dat when I have read heem I geeve eet to Mees Wentsteele for one's self. Eet ees very leekly." "All right," Jack laughed. "I'd like to see her read it. So long." With the vigor which belongs to an indolent man thoroughly aroused, Jack hunted up Tom Harbinger before the day was done, and sold to him his second best pony. Then he went for a drive, and afterward dined at the club with an appetite which spoke a conscience at ease or not allowed to make itself heard. He did not take the time for reflection which might have been felt necessary by many men in preparation for the interview with May Calthorpe which must come before bedtime. Indeed he was more than usually lively and busy, and as he had a playful wit, he had some difficulty in getting the men at the club to let him go when soon after eight in the evening he set out for May's. He had kept busy from the moment his mother had left him in the morning, and on his way along Beacon street, he hummed to himself as if still resolved to do anything rather than to meditate. May came into the sombre drawing-room looking more bewitchingly pretty and shy than can be told in sober prose. She was evidently frightened, and as she came forward to give her hand to Neligage the color came and went in her cheeks as if she were tremblingly afraid of the possibilities of his greeting. Jack's smile was as sunny as ever when he stepped forward to take her hand. He simply grasped it and let it go, a consideration at which she was visibly relieved. "Well, May," Jack said laughingly, "I understand that we are engaged." "Yes," she returned faintly. "Won't you sit down?" She indicated a chair not very near to that upon which she took her own seat, and Jack coolly accepted the invitation, improving on it somewhat by drawing his chair closer to hers. "I got the letter from the Count," he went on. She held out her hand for it in silence. He took the letter from his pocket, and held it as he spoke again, tapping it on his knee by way of emphasis. "Before I give it to you, May," he remarked in a voice more serious than he was accustomed to use, "I want you to promise me that you will never do such a thing again as to write to a stranger. You are well out of this--" She lifted her eyes with a quick look of fear in them, as if it had flashed into her mind that if she were out of the trouble over the letter she had escaped this peril only to be ensnared into an engagement with him. The thought was so plain that Jack burst into a laugh. "You think that being engaged to me isn't being well out of anything, I see," he observed merrily and mercilessly; "but there might be worse things than that even. We shall see. You'll be awfully fond of me before we are through with this." The poor girl turned crimson at this plain reading of her thought. She was but half a dozen years younger than Jack, but he had belonged to an older set than hers, and under thirty half a dozen years seems more of a difference in ages than appears a score later in life. It was not to be expected that she would be talkative in this strange predicament in which she found herself, but what little command she had of her tongue might well vanish if Jack was to read her thoughts in her face. She rallied her forces to answer him. "I know that for doing so foolish a thing," she said, "I deserved whatever I get." "Even if it's being engaged to me," responded he with a roar. "Well, to be honest, I think you do. I don't know what the Count might have done if he had read the letter, but--" "Oh," cried May, clasping her hands with a burst of sunshine in her face, "didn't he read it? Oh, I'm so glad!" "No," Jack answered, "the Count's too much of a gentleman to read another man's letters when he hasn't been given leave. But what have you to say about my reading this letter?" "Oh, you can't have read it!" May cried breathlessly. "Not yet; but as we are engaged of course you give me leave to read it now." She looked for a moment into his laughing eyes, and then sprang up from her chair with a sudden burst of excitement. "Oh, you are too cruel!" she cried. "I hate you!" "Come," he said, not rising, but settling himself back in his chair with a pose of admiring interest, "now we are getting down to nature. Have you ever played in amateur theatricals, May?" She stood struck silent by the laughing banter of his tone, but she made no answer. "Because, if you ever do," he continued in the same voice, "you'll do well to remember the way you spoke then. It'll be very fetching in a play." The color faded in her cheeks, and her whole manner changed from defiance to humiliation; her lip quivered with quick emotion, and an almost childish expression of woe made pathetic her mobile face. She dropped back into her chair, and the tears started in her eyes. "Oh, I don't think you've any right to tease me," she quavered in a voice that had almost escaped from control. "I'm sure I feel bad enough about it." Jack's face sobered a little, although the mocking light of humor did not entirely vanish from his eyes. "There, there," he said in a soothing voice; "don't cry, May, whatever you do. The modern husband hates tears, but instead of giving in to them, he gets cross and clears out. Don't cry before the man you marry, or," he added, a fresh smile lighting his face, "even before the man you are engaged to." "I didn't mean to be so foolish," May responded, choking down her rebellious emotions. "I'm all upset." "I don't wonder. Now to go back to this letter. Of course I shouldn't think of reading it without your leave, but I supposed you'd think it proper under the circumstances to tell me to read it. I thought you'd say: 'Dearest, I have no secrets from thee! Read!' or something of that sort, you know." He was perhaps playing now to cheer May up, for he delivered this in a mock-heroic style, with an absurd gesture. At least the effect was to evoke a laugh which came tear-sparkling as a lark flies dew-besprent from a hawthorn bush at morn. She rallied a little, and spoke with more self-command. "Oh, that was the secret of a girl that wasn't engaged to you," she said, "and had no idea of being; no more," she added, dimpling, "than I had." Jack showed his white teeth in what his friends called his "appreciative grin." "Perhaps you're right," he returned. "By the way, do you know who Christopher Calumus really is?" She colored again, and hung her head. "Yes," she murmured, in a voice absurdly low. "Mrs. Harbinger told me last night. He told her yesterday at the County Club." "Does he know who wrote to him?" Her cheeks became deeper in hue, and her voice even lower yet. "Yes, he found out from Mrs. Harbinger." "Well, I must say I thought that Letty Harbinger had more sense!" "She didn't mean to tell him." "No woman ever meant to tell anything," he retorted in good-humored sarcasm; "but they always do tell everything. Then if you and Dick both know all about it, perhaps I had better give the letter to him." He offered to put the letter into his pocket, but she held out her hand for it beseechingly. "Oh, don't give it to anybody else," she begged. "Let me put it into the fire, and be through with it. It's done mischief enough!" "It may have done some good too," he said enigmatically. "I hope nothing worse will ever happen to you, May, than to be engaged to me. I give you my word that, as little as you imagine it, it's your interest and not my own I'm looking after. However, that's neither here nor there." He put the letter into his pocket without farther comment, disregarding her imploring look. Then he rose, and held out his hand. "Good-night," he said. "Some accepted lovers would ask for a kiss, but I'll wait till you want to kiss me. You will some time. Good-night. You'll remember what I wrote you about mentioning our engagement." She had at the mention of kisses become more celestial rosy red than in the whole course of that blushful interview, but at his last word her color faded as quickly as it had come. "Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "I had told one person before your note came. She won't tell though." "Being a 'she,'" he retorted mockingly. "Oh, it was only Alice," May explained, "and of course she can be trusted." It was his turn to become serious, and in the cloud on his sunny face there was not a little vexation. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Of all the women in Boston why must you pick out the one that I was most particular shouldn't know! You girls have an instinct for mischief." "But I wrote to her as soon as your note came; besides, she has promised not to say anything. She won't tell." "No; she won't tell," he echoed moodily. "What did she say?" May cast down her eyes in evident embarrassment. "Oh, it's no matter," Jack went on. "She wouldn't say half as hard things as she must think. However, it's all one in the end. Good-night." With this abrupt farewell he left his betrothed, and went hastily out into the spring night, with its velvety darkness and abundant stars. The mention of Alice Endicott had robbed him of the gay spirits in which he had carried on his odd interview with May. The teasing jollity of manner was gone as he walked thoughtfully back to his chambers. He found Fairfield in their common parlor. "Dick," he said without preface, "congratulate me. I'm engaged." "Engaged!" exclaimed the other, jumping up and extending his hand. "Congratulations, old fellow. Of course it's Alice Endicott." "No," his friend responded coolly; "it's May Calthorpe." "What!" cried Fairfield, starting back and dropping his hand before Neligage had time to take it. "Miss Calthorpe? What do you mean?" "Just as I say, my boy. The engagement is a secret at present, you understand. I thought you'd like to know it, though; and by the way, it'll show that I've perfect confidence in you if I turn over to you the letter that May wrote to you before we were engaged. That one to Christopher Calumus, you know." "But," stammered his chum, apparently trying to collect his wits, scattered by the unexpected news and this strange proposition, "how can you tell what's in it?" "Tell what's in it, my boy? It isn't any of my business. That has to do with a part of her life that doesn't belong to me, you know. It's enough for me that she wrote the letter for you to have, and so here it is." He put the envelope into the hands of Dick, who received it as if he were a post-box on the corner, having no choice but to take any missive thrust at him. "Good-night," Jack said. "I'm played out, and mean to turn in. Thanks for your good wishes." And he ended that eventful day, so far as the world of men could have cognizance, by retiring to his own room. XVIII THE MISCHIEF OF MEN Barnstable seemed bound to behave like a bee in a bottle, which goes bumping its idiotic head without reason or cessation. On Monday morning after the polo game he was ushered into the chambers of Jack and Dick, both of whom were at home. He looked more excited than on the previous day, and moved with more alacrity. The alteration was not entirely to his advantage, for Mr. Barnstable was one of those unfortunates who appear worse with every possible change of manner. "Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," was the visitor's greeting. "Damme if I'll say good-morning to you, Mr. Neligage." Jack regarded him with languid astonishment. "Well," he said, "that relieves me of the trouble of saying it to you." Barnstable puffed and swelled with anger. "Damme, sir," he cried, "you may try to carry it off that way, but--" "Good heavens, Mr. Barnstable," interrupted Fairfield, "what in the world do you mean?" "Is it your general custom," drawled Jack, between puffs of his cigarette, "to give a Wild West show at every house you go into?" Dick flashed a smile at his chum, but shook his head. "Come, Mr. Barnstable," he said soothingly, "you can't go about making scenes in this way. Sit down, and if you've anything to say, say it quietly." Mr. Barnstable, however, was not to be beguiled with words. He had evidently been brooding over wrongs, real or fancied, until his temper had got beyond control. "Anything to say?" he repeated angrily,--"I've this to say: that he has insulted my wife. I'll sue you for libel, damme! I've a great mind to thrash you!" Jack grinned down on the truculent Barnstable from his superior height. Barnstable stood with his short legs well apart, as if he had to brace them to bear up the enormous weight of his anger; Jack, careless, laughing, and elegant, leaned his elbow on the mantle and smoked. "There, Mr. Barnstable," Fairfield said, coming to him and taking him by the arm; "you evidently don't know what you're saying. Of course there's some mistake. Mr. Neligage never insulted a lady." "But he has done it," persisted Barnstable. "He has done it, Mr. Fairfield. Have you read 'Love in a Cloud'?" "'Love in a Cloud'?" repeated Dick in manifest astonishment. "You must know the book, Dick," put in Jack wickedly. "It's that rubbishy anonymous novel that's made so much talk lately. It's about a woman whose husband's temper was incompatible." "It's about my wife!" cried Barnstable. "What right had you to put my wife in a book?" "Pardon me," Neligage asked with the utmost suavity, "but is it proper to ask if it was your temper that was incompatible?" "Shut up, Jack," said Dick hastily. "You are entirely off the track, Mr. Barnstable. Neligage didn't write 'Love in a Cloud.'" "Didn't write it?" stammered the visitor. "I give you my word he didn't." Barnstable looked about with an air of helplessness which was as funny as his anger had been. "Then who did?" he demanded. "If Mr. Barnstable had only mentioned sooner that he wished me to write it," Jack observed graciously, "I'd have been glad to do my best." "Shut up, Jack," commanded Dick once more. "Really, Mr. Barnstable, it does seem a little remarkable that you should go rushing about in this extraordinary way without knowing what you are doing. You'll get into some most unpleasant mess if you keep on." "Or bring up in a lunatic asylum," suggested Jack with the most unblushing candor. Barnstable looked from one to the other with a bewildered expression as if he were just recovering his senses. He walked to the table and took up a glass of water, looked around as if for permission, and swallowed it by uncouth gulps. "Perhaps I'd better go," he said, and turned toward the door. "Oh, by the way, Mr. Barnstable," Jack observed as the visitor laid his hand on the door-knob, "does it seem to you that it would be in good form to apologize before you go? If it doesn't, don't let me detain you." The strange creature turned on the rug by the door, an abject expression of misery from head to feet. "Of course I'd apologize," he said, "if it was any use. When my temper's up I don't seem to have any control of what I do, and what I do is always awful foolish. This thing's got hold of me so I don't sleep, and that's made me worse. Of course you think I'm a lunatic, gentlemen; and I suppose I am; but my wife--" The redness of his face gave signs that he was not far from choking, and out of his fishy eyes there rolled genuine tears. Jack stepped forward swiftly, and took him by the hand. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Barnstable," he said. "Of course I'd no idea what you were driving at. Will you believe me when I tell you something? I had nothing to do with writing 'Love in a Cloud,' but I do know who wrote it. I can give you my word that the author didn't have your story in mind at all." "Are you sure?" stammered Barnstable. "Of course I'm sure." "Then there is nothing I can do," Barnstable said, shaking his head plaintively. "I've just made a fool of myself, and done nothing for her." The door closed behind Barnstable, and the two young men looked at each other a moment. Neither laughed, the foolish tragedy of the visitor's last words not being mirth-provoking. "Well, of all the fools I've seen in my life," Jack commented slowly, "this is the most unique specimen." "I'm afraid I can't blame the divorced Mrs. Barnstable," responded Dick; "but there's something pathetic about the ass." It seemed the fate of Barnstable that day to afford amusement for Jack Neligage. In the latter part of the afternoon Jack sauntered into the Calif Club to see if there were anything in the evening papers or any fresh gossip afloat, and there he encountered the irascible gentleman once more. Scarcely had he nodded to him than Tom Harbinger and Harry Bradish came up to them. "Hallo, Jack," the lawyer said cordially. "Anything new?" "Not that I know of," was the response. "How are you, Bradish?" "How are you?" replied Bradish. "Mr. Barnstable, I've called twice to-day at your rooms." "I am sorry that I was out," Barnstable answered with awkward politeness. "I have been here since luncheon." "I'm half sorry to find you now," Bradish proceeded, while Harbinger and Jack looked on with some surprise at the gravity of his manner. "I've got to do an errand to you that I'm afraid you'll laugh at." "An errand to me?" Barnstable returned. Bradish drew out his pocket-book, and with deliberation produced a note. He examined it closely, as if to assure himself that there was no mistake about what he was doing, and then held out the missive to Barnstable. "Yes," he said, "I have the honor to be the bearer of a challenge from the Count Shimbowski, who claims that you have grossly insulted him. Will you kindly name a friend? There," he concluded, looking at Harbinger and Neligage with a grin, "I think I did that right, didn't I?" "Gad!" cried Jack. "Has the Count challenged him? What a lark!" "Nonsense!" Harbinger said. "You can't be serious, Bradish?" "No, I'm not very serious about it, but I assure you the Count is." "Challenged me?" demanded Barnstable, tearing open the epistle. "What does the dago mean? He says--what's that word?--he says his honor ex--expostulates my blood. Of course I shan't fight." Bradish shook his head, although he could not banish the laughter from his face. "Blood is what he wants. He says he shall have to run you through in the street if you won't fight." "Oh, you'll have to fight!" put in Jack. "The Count's a regular fire-eater," declared Tom. "You wouldn't like to be run through in the street, Barnstable." Barnstable looked from one to another as if he were unable to understand what was going on around him. "Curse it!" he broke out, his face assuming its apoplectic redness. "Curse those fellows that write novels! Here I've got to be assassinated just because some confounded scribbler couldn't keep from putting my private affairs in his infernal book! It's downright murder!" "And the comic papers afterward," murmured Jack. "But what are you going to do about it?" asked Tom. "You might have the Count arrested and bound over to keep the peace," suggested Bradish. "That's a nice speech for the Count's second!" cried Jack with a roar. "What am I going to do?" repeated Barnstable. "I'll fight him!" He struck himself on the chest, and glared around him, while they all stood in astonished silence. "My wife has been insulted," he went on with fresh vehemence, "and I had a right to call the man that did it a villain or anything else! I owe it to her to fight him if he won't take it back!" "Gad!" said Jack, advancing and holding out his hand, "that's melodrama and no mistake; but I like your pluck! I'll back you up, Barnstable!" "Does that mean that you'll be his second, Jack?" asked Harbinger, laughing. "There, Tom," was the retort, "don't run a joke into the ground. When a man shows the genuine stuff, he isn't to be fooled any longer." Bradish followed suit, and shook hands with Barnstable, and Harbinger after him. "You're all right, Barnstable," Bradish observed; "but what are we to do with the Count?" "Oh, that ass!" Jack responded. "I'd like to help duck him in a horse-pond; but of course as he didn't write the book, Mr. Barnstable won't mind apologizing for a hasty word said by mistake. Any gentleman would do that." "Of course if you think it's all right," Barnstable said, "I'd rather apologize; but I'd rather fight than have any doubt about the way I feel toward the whelp that libelized my wife." Jack took him by the shoulder, and spoke to him with a certain slow distinctness such as one might use in addressing a child. "Do have some common sense about this, Barnstable," he said. "Do get it out of your head that the man who wrote that book knew anything about your affairs. I've told you that already." "I told him too," put in Harbinger. "I suppose you know," Barnstable replied, shaking his head; "but it is strange how near it fits!" Bradish took Barnstable off to the writing room to pen a suitable apology to the Count, and Jack and Harbinger remained behind. "Extraordinary beggar," observed Jack, when they had departed. "Yes," answered the other absently. "Jack, of course you didn't write 'Love in a Cloud'?" "Of course not. What an idiotic idea!" "Fairfield said Barnstable had been accusing you of it, but I knew it couldn't be anything but his crazy nonsense. Of course the Count didn't write it either?" Jack eyed his companion inquiringly. "Look here, Tom," he said, "What are you driving at? Of course the Count didn't write it. You are about as crazy as Barnstable." "Oh, I never thought he was the man; but who the deuce is it?" "Why should you care?" Harbinger leaned forward to the grate, and began to pound the coal with the poker in a way that bespoke embarrassment. Suddenly he turned, and broke out explosively. "I should think I ought to care to know what man my wife is writing letters to! You heard her say she wrote that letter to Christopher Calumus." Jack gave a snort of mingled contempt and amusement. "You old mutton-head," he said. "Your wife didn't write that letter. I know all about it, and I got it back from the Count." "You did?" questioned Harbinger with animation. "Then why did Letty say she wrote it?" "She wanted to shield somebody else. Now that's all I shall tell you. See here, are you coming the Othello dodge?" Tom gave a vicious whack at a big lump which split into a dozen pieces, all of which guzzled and sputtered after the unpleasant fashion of soft coal. "There's something here I don't understand," he persisted. Jack regarded him curiously a moment. Then he lighted a fresh cigarette, and lay back in his chair, stretching out his legs luxuriously. "It's really too bad that your wife's gone back on you," he observed dispassionately. "What?" cried Tom, turning violently. "Such a nice little woman as Letty always was too," went on Jack mercilessly. "I wouldn't have believed it." "What in the deuce do you mean?" Tom demanded furiously, grasping the poker as if he were about to strike with it. "Do you dare to insinuate--" Jack sat up suddenly and looked at him, his sunny face full of earnestness. "What the deuce do you mean?" he echoed. "What can a man mean when he begins to distrust his wife? Heavens! I'm beastly ashamed of you, Tom Harbinger! To think of your coming to the club and talking to a man about that little trump of a woman! You ought to be kicked! There, old man," he went on with a complete change of manner, "I beg your pardon. I only wanted to show you how you might look to an unfriendly eye. You know you can't be seriously jealous of Letty." The other changed color, and looked shame-facedly into the coals. "No, of course not, Jack," he answered slowly. "I'm as big an idiot as Barnstable. I do hate to see men dangling about her, though. I can't help my disposition, can I?" "You've got to help it if it makes a fool of you." "And that infernal Count with his slimy manners," Tom went on. "If he isn't a rascal there never was one. I'm not really jealous, I'm only--only--" "Only an idiot," concluded Jack. "If I were Letty I'd really flirt with somebody just to teach you the difference between these fool ideas of yours and the real thing." "Don't, Jack," Tom said; "the very thought of it knocks me all out." XIX THE CRUELTY OF LOVE What might be the result of such a match as that of May Calthorpe and Jack Neligage must inevitably depend largely upon the feelings of one or the other to another love. If either were constant to a former flame, only disaster could come of the _mariage de convenance_ which Mrs. Neligage had adroitly patched up. If both left behind forgotten the foolish flares of youthful passion, the married pair might arrange their feelings upon a basis of mutual liking comfortable if not inspiring. What happened to Jack in regard to Alice and to May's silly attraction toward the unknown Christopher Calumus was therefore of much importance in influencing the future. Since Alice Endicott knew of the engagement of May and Jack it was not to be supposed that the malicious fates would fail to bring her face to face with her former lover. The meeting happened a couple of days after. Jack was walking down Beacon street, and Alice came out of May's just in front of him. He quickened his steps and overtook her. "Good-morning," he said; "you've been in to May's, I see. How is she to-day?" The tone was careless and full of good-nature, and his face as sunny as the bright sky overhead. Alice did not look up at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the distance. To one given to minute observation it might have occurred that as she did not glance at him when he spoke she must have been aware of his approach, and must have seen him when she came out from the house. That she had not shown her knowledge of his nearness was to be looked upon as an indication of something which was not indifference. "Good-morning," she answered. "May didn't seem to be in particularly good spirits." "Didn't she? I must try to find time to run in and cheer her up. I'm not used to being engaged, you see, and I'm not up in my part." He spoke with a sort of swagger which was obviously intended to tease her, and the heightened color in her cheeks told that it had not missed the mark. "I have no doubt that you will soon learn it," she returned. "You were always so good in amateur theatricals." He laughed boisterously, perhaps a little nervously. "'Praise from Sir Hubert,'" he quoted. "And speaking of engagements, is it proper to offer congratulations on yours?" She turned to him with a look of indignant severity. "You know I am not engaged, and that I don't mean to be." "Oh, that's nothing. I didn't mean to be the other day." "I am not in the market," she said cuttingly. "Neither am I any more," Jack retorted coolly. "I've sold myself. That's what they mean, I suppose, by saying a girl has made her market." Alice had grown more and more stern in her carriage as this talk proceeded. Jack's tone was as flippant as ever, and he carried his handsome head as jauntily as if they were talking of the merriest themes. His brown eyes were full of a saucy light, and he switched his walking-stick as if he were light-heartedly snapping off the heads of daisies in a country lane. The more severe Alice became the more his spirits seemed to rise. As they halted at a corner to let a carriage pass Alice turned and looked at her companion, the hot blood flushing into her smooth cheek. "There is nothing in the world more despicable than a fortune-hunter!" she declared with emphasis. "Oh, quite so," Jack returned, apparently full of inward laughter. "Theoretically I agree with you entirely. Practically of course there are allowances to be made. The Count has been brought up so, and you mustn't be too hard on him." "You know what I mean," she said, unmoved by the cunning of his speech. "Yes, of course I can make allowances for you. You mean, I suppose, that as long as you know he's really after you and not your money you can despise public opinion; but naturally it must vex you to have the Count misjudged. Everybody will think Miss Wentstile hired him to marry you." She parted her lips to speak, then restrained herself, and altered her manner. She turned at bay, but she adopted Jack's own tactics. "You are right," she said. "I understand that the Count is only acting according to the standards he's been brought up to. May hasn't that consolation. I'm sure I don't see, if you don't mind my saying so, on what ground she is going to contrive any sort of an excuse for her husband." "She'll undoubtedly be so fond of him," Jack retorted with unabashed good-nature, "that it won't occur to her that he needs an excuse. May hasn't your Puritanical notions, you know. Really, I might be afraid of her if she had." It was a game in which the man is always the superior of the woman. Women will more cleverly and readily dissemble to the world, but to the loved one they are less easily mocking and insincere than men. Alice, however, was plucky, and she made one attempt more. "Of course May might admire you on the score of filial obedience. It isn't every son who would allow his mother to arrange his marriage for him." "No," Jack responded with a chuckle, "you're right there. I am a model son." She stopped suddenly, and turned on the sidewalk in quick vehemence. "Oh, stop talking to me!" she cried. "I will go into the first house I know if you keep on this way! You've no right to torment me so!" The angry tears were in her eyes, and her face was drawn with her effort to sustain the self-control which had so nearly broken down. His expression lost its roguishness, and in his turn he became grave. "No," he said half-bitterly, "perhaps not. Of course I haven't; but it is something of a temptation when you are so determined to believe the worst of me." She regarded him in bewilderment. "Determined to believe the worst?" she echoed. "Aren't you engaged to May Calthorpe?" He took off his hat, and made her a profound and mocking bow. "I apparently have that honor," he said. "Then why am I not to believe it?" He looked at her a moment as if about to explain, then with the air of finding it hopeless he set his lips together. "If you will tell me what you mean," Alice went on, "I may understand. As it is I have your own word that you are engaged; you certainly do not pretend that you care for May; and you know that your mother made the match. You may be sure, Jack," she added, her voice softening a little only to harden again, "that if there were any way of excusing you I should have found it out. I'm still foolish enough to cling to old friendship." His glance softened, and he regarded her with a look under which she changed color and drew away from him. "Dear Alice," he said, "you always were a brick." She answered only by a startled look. Then before he could be aware of her intention she had run lightly up the steps of a house and rung the bell. He looked after her in amazement, then followed. "Alice," he said, "what are you darting off in that way for?" "I have talked with you as long as I care to," she responded, the color in her cheeks, and her head held high. "I am going in here to see Mrs. West. You had better go and cheer up May." Before he could reply a servant had opened the door. Jack lifted his hat. "Good-by," said he. "Remember what I said about believing the worst." Then the door closed behind her, and he went on his way down the street. That the course of true love never ran smooth has been said on such a multitude of occasions that it is time for some expert in the affections to declare whether all love which runs roughly is necessarily genuine. The supreme prerogative of young folk who are fond is of course to tease and torment each other. Alice and Jack had that morning been a spectacle of much significance to any student in the characteristics of love-making. Youth indulges in the bitter of disagreement as a piquant contrast to the sweets of the springtime of life. True love does not run smooth because love cannot really take deep hold upon youth unless it fixes attention by its disappointments and woes. Smooth and sweet drink quickly cloys; while the cup in which is judiciously mingled an apt proportion of acid stimulates the thirst it gratifies. If Jack was to marry May it was a pity that he and Alice should continue thus to hurt each other. XX THE FAITHFULNESS OF A FRIEND The friendship between Jack Neligage and Dick Fairfield was close and sincere. For a man to say that the friendships of men are more true and sure than those of women would savor of cynicism, and might be objected to on the ground that no man is in a position to judge on both sides of the matter. It might on the other hand be remarked that even women themselves give the impression of regarding masculine comradeship as a finer product of humanity than feminine, but comparisons of this sort have little value. It is surely enough to keep in mind how gracious a gift of the gods is a genuine affection between two right-hearted men. The man who has one fellow whom he loves, of whose love he is assured; one to whom he may talk as freely as he would think, one who understands not only what is said but the things which are intended; a friend with whom it is possible to be silent without offense or coldness, against whom there need be no safeguards, and to whom one may turn alike in trouble and in joy--the man who has found a friend like this has a gift only to be outweighed by the love of her whose price is far above rubies and whose works praise her in the gates. Such a friendship is all but the most precious gift of the gods. To evoke and to share such a friendship, moreover, marks the possession of possibilities ethically fine. A man may love a woman in pure selfishness; but really to love his male friend he must possess capabilities of self-sacrifice and of manliness. It is one of the charms of comradeship that it frankly accepts and frankly gives without weighing or accounting. In the garden of such a friendship may walk the soul of man as his body went in Eden before the Fall, "naked and not ashamed." He cannot be willing to show himself as he is if his true self have not its moral beauties. It may be set down to the credit both of Dick and of Jack that between them there existed a friendship so close and so trustful. Even in the closest friendships, however, there may be times of suspension. Perhaps in a perfect comradeship there would be no room for the faintest cloud; but since men are human and there is nothing perfect in human relations, even friendship may sometimes seem to suffer. For some days after the announcement of Jack's engagement there was a marked shade between the friends. Jack, indeed, was the same as ever, jolly, careless, indolent, and apparently without a trouble in the world. Dick, on the other hand, was at times absent, constrained, or confused. To have his friend walk in and coolly announce an engagement with the girl whose correspondence had fired Dick's heart was naturally trying and astonishing. Dick might have written a bitter chapter about the way in which women spoiled the friendships of men; and certain cynical remarks which appeared in his next novel may be conceived of as having been set down at this time. More than a week went by without striking developments. The engagement had not been announced, nor had it, after the first evening, been mentioned between the two friends. That there should be a subject upon which both must of necessity reflect much, yet of which they did not speak, was in itself a sufficient reason for a change in the mental atmosphere of their bachelor quarters, which from being the cheeriest possible were fast becoming the most gloomy. One morning as Dick sat writing at his desk, Jack, who since breakfast had been engaged in his own chamber, came strolling in, in leisurely fashion, smoking the usual cigarette. "I hope I don't disturb you, old man," he said, "but there's something I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind." Dick, whose back was toward the other, did not turn. He merely held his pen suspended, and said coldly:-- "Well?" Jack composed himself in a comfortable position by leaning against the mantel, an attitude he much affected, and regarded his cigarette as if it had some close connection with the thing he wished to say. "You remember perhaps that letter that I gave you from May?" Dick laid his pen down suddenly, and sat up, but he did not turn. "Well?" he said again. "And the other letters before it?" "Well?" "It has occurred to me that perhaps I ought to ask for them,--demand them, don't you know, the way they do on the stage." Dick said nothing. By keeping his back to his chum he missed sight of a face full of fun and mischief. "Of course I don't want to seem too bumptious, but now I'm engaged to Miss Calthorpe--" He paused as if to give Fairfield an opportunity of speaking; but still Dick remained silent. "Well," observed Jack after a moment, "why the dickens don't you say something? I can't be expected to carry on this conversation all alone." "What do you want me to say?" Fairfield asked, in a tone so solemn that it was no wonder his friend grinned more than ever. "Oh, nothing, if that's the way you take it." "You knew about those letters when I got them," Fairfield went on. "I read them to you before I knew where they came from." "Oh, my dear fellow, hold on. You never read me any but the first one." "At any rate," rejoined Dick, obviously disturbed by this thrust, "I told you about them." "Oh, you did? You told me very little about the second, and nothing about the third. I didn't even know how many you had." Fairfield rose from his seat, thrust his hands into his pockets, and began to pace up and down the room. Jack smoked and watched. "Look here, Jack," Dick said, "we've been fencing round this thing for a week, and it's got to be talked out." "All right; heave ahead, old man." Fairfield stopped in his walk and confronted his friend. "Are you really fond of Miss Calthorpe, Jack?" "Oh, I don't object to her; but of course the marriage is for purely business reasons." "You're not in love with her?" "Not the least in the world, old man," Jack responded cheerfully, blowing a ring of smoke and watching it intently as it sailed toward the ceiling. "But then she doesn't love me, so there's no bother of pretending on either side." The color mounted in Dick's cheeks. "Do you think it's the square thing to marry a young girl like that, and tie her up for life when she doesn't know what she's doing?" "Oh, girls never know what they are doing. How should they know about marriage in any case? The man has to think for both, of course." "But suppose she shouldn't be happy." "Oh, I'll be good to any girl I marry. I'm awfully easy to live with. You ought to know that." "But suppose," Dick urged again, "suppose she--" "Suppose she what?" "Why, suppose she--suppose she--she liked somebody else?" Jack looked shrewdly at Dick's confused face, and burst into a laugh. "I guessed those letters were pretty fair," he burst out, "but they must have been much worse than I even suspected!" "What do you mean?" stammered Dick. "Mean? Oh, nothing,--nothing in the world. By the way, as the matter relates to my _fiancée_, I hope you won't mind my asking if she's written to you since our engagement." "Why--" "Then she has written," pronounced Jack, smiling more than ever at the confusion of his friend. "You haven't the cheek to bluff a baby, Dick. I should hate to see you try to run a kelter through." "She only wrote to say that she was glad the Count didn't write 'Love in a Cloud,' and a few things, you know, that she wanted to say." Jack flung the end of his cigarette away and stepped swiftly forward to catch his chum by the shoulders behind. He whirled Dick about like a teetotum. "Oh, Dick, you old fool," he cried, "what an ass you are! Do you suppose I'm such a cad as really to propose to marry May when she's fond of you and you're fond of her? It doesn't speak very well of your opinion of me." Dick stared at him in half-stupefied amazement for an instant; then the blood came rushing into his cheeks. "You don't mean to marry her?" he cried amazedly. "Never did for a minute," responded Jack cheerfully. "Don't you know, old man, that I've sold my polo ponies, and taken a place in the bank?" "Taken a place in the bank!" exclaimed Dick, evidently more and more bewildered. "Then what did you pretend to be engaged to her for?" "Confound your impudence!" laughed Jack, "I was engaged to her, you beast! I am engaged to her now, and if you're n't civil I'll keep on being. You can't be engaged to her till I break my engagement!" "But, Jack, I don't understand what in the deuce you mean." "Mean? I don't know that I meant anything. I was engaged to her without asking to be, and when a lady says she is engaged to you you really can't say you're not. Besides, I thought it might help you." "Help me?" "Of course, my boy. There is nothing to set a girl in the way of wishing to be engaged to the right man like getting engaged to the wrong one." Dick wrung his friend's hand. "Jack," he said, "I beg your pardon. You're a trump!" "Oh, I knew that all the time," responded Jack. "It may comfort you a little to know that it hasn't been much of an engagement. I've been shamefully neglectful of my position. Now of course an engaged man is supposed to show his ardor, to take little liberties, and be generally loving, you know." Dick grew fiery red, and shrank back. Jack laughed explosively. "Jealous, old man?" he demanded provokingly. "Well, I won't tease you any more. I haven't so much as kissed her hand." Dick's rather combative look changed instantly into shamefacedness, and he shook hands again. He turned away quickly, but as quickly turned back again once more to grasp the hand of his chum. "Jack Neligage," he declared, "you're worth more than a dozen of my best heroes, and a novelist can't say more than that!" "Gad! You'd better put me in a novel then," was Jack's response. "They won't believe I'm real though; I'm too infernally virtuous." A knock at the door interrupted them, and proved to be the summons of the janitor, who announced that a lady wished to see Mr. Fairfield. "Don't let her stay long," Jack said, retreating to his room. "I can't get out till she is gone, and I want to go down town. I've got to order the horses to take my _fiancée_ out for a last ride. It's to break my engagement, so you ought to want it to come off." XXI THE MISCHIEF OF A FIANCÉ The lady proved to be Alice Endicott. She came in without shyness or embarrassment, with her usual air of quiet refinement, and although she must have seen the surprise in Dick's face, she took no notice of it. Alice was one of those women so free from self-consciousness, so entirely without affectations, yet so rare in her simple dignity, that it was hard to conceive her as ever seeming to be out of place. She was so superior to surroundings that her environment did not matter. "Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield," she said. "I should apologize for intruding. I hope I am not disturbing your work." "Good-morning," he responded. "I am not at work just now. Sit down, please." She took the chair he offered, and came at once to her errand. "I came from Miss Calthorpe," she said. "Miss Calthorpe?" he repeated. "Yes. She thought she ought not to write to you again; and she asked me to come for her letters; those she wrote before she knew who you were." "But why shouldn't she write to me for them?" "You forget that she is engaged, Mr. Fairfield." "I--Of course, I did forget for the minute; but even if she is, I don't see why so simple a thing as a note asking for her letters--" Alice rose. "I don't think that there is any need of my explaining," she said. "If I tell you that she didn't find it easy to write, will that be sufficient? Of course you will give me the letters." "I must give them if she wishes it; but may I ask one question first? Doesn't she send for them because she's engaged?" "Isn't that reason enough?" "It is reason enough," Dick answered, smiling; "but it isn't a reason here. She isn't engaged any more. That is, she won't be by night." Alice stared at him in astonishment. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "I mean that Jack never meant to marry her, and that he is going to release her from her engagement." "How do you know that?" "He told me himself." They stood in silence a brief interval looking each other in the face. Fairfield was radiant, but Miss Endicott was very pale. "I beg your pardon," she said presently. "Is Mr. Neligage in the house?" "Yes; he's in his room." "Will you call him, please?" Fairfield hesitated a little, but went to call his chum. "Miss Endicott wants to speak to you," he said abruptly. "What does she want?" "I haven't any idea." "What have you been telling her?" The necessity of answering this question Dick escaped by returning to the other room; and his friend followed. "Jack," Alice cried, as soon as he appeared, "tell me this moment if it's true that you're not to marry May!" He faced her stiff and formal in his politeness. "Pardon me if I do not see that you have any right to ask me such a question." "Why, I came to ask Mr. Fairfield for May's letters because she is engaged to you, and he told me--" She broke off, her habitual self-control being evidently tried almost beyond its limit. "I took the liberty, Jack," spoke up Fairfield, "of saying--" "Don't apologize," Neligage said. "It is true, Miss Endicott, that circumstances have arisen which make it best for May to break the engagement. I shall be obliged to you, however, if you don't mention the matter to her until she brings it up." Alice looked at him appealingly. "But I thought--" "We are none of us accountable for our thoughts, Miss Endicott, nor perhaps for a want of faith in our friends." She moved toward him with a look of so much appeal that Dick discreetly turned his back under pretense of looking for something on his writing-table. "At least," she said, her voice lower than usual, "you will let me apologize for the way in which I spoke to you the other morning." "Oh, don't mention it," he returned carelessly. "You were quite justified." He turned away with easy nonchalance, as if the matter were one in which he had no possible interest. "At least," she begged, "you'll pardon me, and shake hands." "Oh, certainly, if you like," answered he; "but it doesn't seem necessary." Her manner changed in the twinkling of an eye. Indignation shone in her face and her head was carried more proudly. "Then it isn't," she said. "Good-morning, Mr. Fairfield." She went from the room as quickly as a shadow flits before sunlight. The two young men were so taken by surprise that by the time Dick reached the door to open it for his departing caller, it had already closed behind her. The friends stared a moment. Then Jack made a swift stride to the door; but when he flung it open the hall without was empty. "Damn it, Dick," he ejaculated, coming back with a face of anger, "what did you let her go off like that for?" "How in the world could I help it?" was all that his friend could answer. Jack regarded Dick blackly for the fraction of a second; then he burst into a laugh, and clapped him on the shoulder. "I beg your pardon, old man," he said, as cheerily as ever. "I'm going off my nerve with all these carryings on. If you hadn't written that rotten old novel of yours, we shouldn't have had these continual circuses." He went for his hat as he spoke, and without farther adieu took his way down town. Men in this peculiar world are to be envied or pitied not so much for their fortunes as for their dispositions; and if outward indications were to be trusted, Jack Neligage was one of those enviable creatures who will be cheerful despite the blackest frowns of fate. From indifference or from pluck, from caring little for the favors of fortune or from despising her spite, Jack took his way through life merrily, smiling and sunny; up hill or down dale as it chanced he followed the path, with a laugh on his lip and always a kindly greeting for his fellow travelers. This morning, as he walked out into the sunlight, handsome, well-groomed, debonaire, and jocund, certainly no one who saw him was likely to suspect that the world did not go smoothly with him. Least of all could one suppose that his heart or his thought was troubled concerning the favor or disfavor of any woman whatsoever. Jack in the afternoon took May for a drive. The engagement had thus far been a somewhat singular one. Jack had been to see May nearly every day, it is true, but either by the whimsical contrivance of fate or by his own cunning he had seldom seen her alone. She either had callers or was out herself; and as no one but Mrs. Neligage and Alice knew of the engagement there was no chance for that sentiment which makes callers upon a lady feel it necessary to retreat as speedily as possible upon the appearance of her acknowledged lover. So well settled in the public mind was the conviction that Jack was in love with Alice Endicott, that nobody took the trouble to notice that he was calling on May Calthorpe or to get out of his way that he might be alone with her. This afternoon, in the face of all the world, in a stylish trap, on the open highway, they were at last together without other company. Had not the mind of May been provided with an object of regret and longing in the person of Fairfield, there might have been danger that Jack would engage her fancy by sheer indifference. Any girl must be puzzled, interested, piqued, and either exasperated or hurt according to her nature, when the man to whom she is newly betrothed treats her as the most casual of acquaintances. If nothing else moved her there would be the bite of unsatisfied curiosity. To be engaged without even being able to learn by experience what being engaged consists in may well wear on the least inquisitive feminine disposition. The _fiancé_ who does not even make pretense of playing the lover is an object so curious that he cannot fail to attract attention, to awake interest, and the chances are largely in favor of his developing in the breast of his fair the determination to see him really aroused and enslaved. Many a woman has succumbed to indifference who would have been proof against the most ardent wooing. "Well, May," Jack said, smiling upon her as they drove over the Mill Dam, "how do you like being engaged?" She looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes which made her bewitching. "I don't see that it's very different from not being engaged," she said. "It will be if you keep on looking so pretty," he declared. "I shall kiss you right here in the street, and that would make folks talk." The color came into her cheeks in a way that made her more charming still. "Now you color," Jack went on, regarding her with a teasing coolness, "you are prettier yet. Gad! I shall have to kiss you!" His horses shied at something at that instant, and he was forced to attend to them, so that May had a moment's respite in which to gather up her wits. When he looked back, she took the aggressive. "It is horrid in you to talk that way," she remarked. "Besides, you said that I needn't kiss you until I wanted to." "Well, I didn't promise not to kiss you, did I?" "How silly you are to-day!" she exclaimed. "Isn't there anything better to talk about than kissing?" Jack regarded her with a grin; a grin in which, it must be confessed, there was something of the look with which a boy watches a kitten he is teasing. "Anything better?" repeated he. "When you've had more experience, May, perhaps you won't think there is anything better." May began to look sober, and even to have the appearance of feeling that the conversation was becoming positively improper. "I think you are just horrid!" she declared. "I do wish you'd behave." He gave her a respite for some moments, and they drove along through the sunlight of the April afternoon. The trees as they came into the country were beautiful with the buds and promise of nearing summer; the air soft with that cool smoothness which is a reminder that afar the breeze has swept fragments of old snowdrifts yet unmelted; the sky moist with the mists of snow-fields that have wasted away. All the landscape was exquisite with delicate hues. The supreme color-season of New England begins about the middle of March, and lasts--at the very latest--until the middle of May. Its climax comes in late April, when pearly mists hover among the branches that are soon to be hidden by foliage. Glowing tints of amethyst, luminous gray, tender green, coral, and yellow white, make the woods a dream of poetic loveliness beside which the gorgeous and less varied hues of autumn are crude. Something dreamlike, veiled, mysterious, is felt in these tints, this iridesence of the woods in spring; as if one were looking at the luminous, rosy mists within which, as Venus amid the rainbow-dyed foam of the sea, is being shaped to immortal youth and divine comeliness the very goddess of spring. The red of the maple-buds shows from afar; the russet leaflets of the ash, the vivid green, the amber, the pearl, and the tawny of the clustering hardwood trees, set against the heavy masses of the evergreens, are far more lovely than all the broad coloring of summer or the hot tints of autumn. Under the afternoon sun the woods that day were at their best, and presently May spoke of the colors which spread down the gentle slopes of the low hills not far away. "Isn't it just too lovely for anything!" she said. "Just look at that hill over there. It is perfectly lovely." Jack glanced at the hill, and then looked at her teasingly. "That's right," he remarked. "Of course spoony people ought to talk about spring, and how perfectly lovely everything is." "I didn't say that because we're engaged," returned May, rather explosively. "I really meant it." "Of course you did. That shows that you are in the proper frame of mind. Now I'm not. I don't care a rap to talk about the whole holy show. It's pretty, of course; but I'm not going in for doing the sentimental that way." She looked up with mingled indignation and entreaty. "Now you are going to be horrid again," she protested. "Why can't you stop talking about our being engaged?" "Stop talking about it? Why, good heavens, we're expected to talk about it. I never was engaged before, but I hope I know my business." "But I don't want to talk about it!" "Oh, you really do, only you are shy about owning it." "But I won't talk about it!" "Oh, yes, you will, my dear; for if I say things you can't help answering 'em." "I won't say another word!" "I'll bet you a pair of gloves that the next thing I say about our being engaged you'll not only answer, but you'll answer in a hurry." "I'll take your bet!" cried May with animation. "I won't answer a word." Jack gave a wicked chuckle, and flicked his horses into a brisk run. In a moment or two he drew them down to an easy trot, and turned to May with a matter-of-fact air. "Of course now we have been engaged a week," he said, "I am at liberty to read that letter you wrote to Christopher Calumus?" "Read it!" she cried. "Oh, I had forgotten that you kept it! Oh, you mustn't read it! I wouldn't have you read it for the world." "Would you have me read it for a pair of gloves?" inquired Jack wickedly. "You've lost your bet." "I don't care anything about my bet," she retorted, with an earnestness so great as to suggest that tears were not so far behind. "I want that letter." "I'm sorry you can't have it," was his reply; "but the truth is, I haven't got it." "Haven't got it? What have you done with it?" "Delivered it to the one it was addressed to,--Christopher Calumus." "Delivered it? Do you mean you gave it to Mr. Fairfield?" "Just that. You wrote it to him, didn't you?" Poor May was now so pale and miserable that a woman would have taken her in her arms to be kissed and comforted, but Jack, the unfeeling wretch, continued his teasing. "I didn't want you to think I was a tyrant," he went on. "Of course I'm willing you should write to anybody that you think best." "But--but I wrote that letter to Mr. Fairfield before I knew who he was!" gasped May. "Well, what of it? Anything that you could say to a stranger, of course you could say to a man you knew." For reply May put up one hand to her eyes, and with the other began a distressing and complicated search for a handkerchief. Jack bent forward to peer into her face and instantly assumed a look of deep contrition. "Oh, I say," he remonstrated, "it's no fair to cry. Besides, you'll spoil your gloves, and now you've got to pay me a pair you can't afford to be so extravagant." The effect of this appeal was to draw from May a sort of hysterical gurgle, a sound indescribably funny, and which might pass for either a cry of joy or of woe. "I think you are too bad," she protested chokingly. "You know I didn't want Mr. Fairfield to have that letter when I was engaged to you!" "Oh, is that all?" he returned lightly. "Then that's easily fixed. Let's not be engaged any more, and then there'll be no harm in his having it." Apparently astonishment dried her tears. She looked at him in a sort of petrified wonder. "I really mean it, my dear," he went on with a paternal air which was exceedingly droll in Jack Neligage. "I'll say more. I never meant for a minute to marry you. I knew you didn't want to have me, and I'd no notion of being tied to a dragooned wife." "A dragooned wife?" May repeated. She was evidently so stupefied by the turn things had taken that she could not follow him. "A woman dragooned into marrying me," Jack explained, with a jovial grin; "one that was thinking all the time how much happier she would be with somebody else." "And you never meant to marry me? Then what did you get engaged to me for?" "I didn't. You wrote me that you were engaged to me, and of course as a gentleman I couldn't contradict a lady, especially on a point so delicate as that." May flushed as red as the fingers of dawn. "Your mother--" she began; but he interrupted her. "Isn't it best that we don't go into that?" he said in a graver voice. "I confess that I amused myself a little, and I thought that you needed a lesson. There were other things, but no matter. I never was the whelp you and Alice thought me." "Oh, Alice!" cried May, with an air of sudden enlightenment. "Well, what about her?" Jack demanded. "Nothing," replied May, smiling demurely to herself, "only she will be glad that the engagement is broken. She said awfully hard things about you." "I am obliged to her," he answered grimly. "Oh, not really awful," May corrected herself quickly, "and anyway it was only because she was so fond of you." To this he made no reply, and for some time they drove on in silence. Then Jack shook off his brief depression, and apparently set himself to be as amusing as he could. He aroused May to a condition of mirth almost wildly joyous. They laughed and jested, told each other stories, and the girl's eyes shone, her dimples danced in and out like sun-flecks flashing on the water, the color in her cheeks was warm and delightful. Not a word more was said on personal matters until Jack deposited her at her own door once more. "I never had such a perfectly lovely ride in my life!" she exclaimed, looking at him with eyes full of animation and gratitude. "Then you see what you are losing in throwing me over," he returned. "Oh, you've had your chance and lost it!" She laughed brightly, and held out her hand. "But you see," she said mischievously, "the trouble is that the best thing about the ride was just that loss!" "I like your impudence!" he chuckled. "Well, you're welcome. Good-by. I'll send Fairfield round to talk with you about the letter." And before she could reply he was away. XXII THE COOING OF TURTLE-DOVES There is nothing like the possibility of loss to bring a man to his bearings in regard to a woman. Dick Fairfield had told Jack that of course he was not a marrying man, that he could not afford to marry a poor woman, and that nothing would induce him to marry a rich one; he had even set down in his diary on the announcement of Jack's engagement that he could never have offered his hand to a girl with so much money; what his secret thought may have been no sage may say, but he had all the outward signs of a man who has convinced himself that he has no idea of trying to secure the girl he loves. Now that the affair had shaped itself so that May was again free, he hurried to her with a precipitation which had in it a choice flavor of comedy. May always told him afterward that he did not even do her the honor to ask her for her hand, but that he coolly walked in and took up the engagement of Jack Neligage where it had been dropped. It was at least true that by nine o'clock that very evening they were sitting side by side as cosy and as idiotically blissful as a young couple newly betrothed should be. However informally the preliminaries had been conducted, the conclusion seemed to be eminently satisfactory. "To think that this is the result of that little letter that I found on my table one rainy night last February," Dick observed rapturously. "I remember just how it looked." "It was horrid of me to write it," May returned, with a demure look which almost as plainly as words added: "Contradict me!" "It was heavenly of you," Dick declared, rising to the occasion most nobly. "It was the nicest valentine that ever was." Some moments of endearments interesting to the participants but not edifying in narration followed upon this assertion, and then the little stream of lover-talk purled on again. "Oh, Mr. Fairfield," May began with utter irrelevancy, "I--" "You promised not to call me that," he interrupted. "But it's so strange to say Dick. Well, Dick, then--" The slight interruption of a caress having been got over, she went on with her shattered observation. "What was I going to say? You put me all out, with your 'Dick'--I do think it's the dearest name!--Stop! I know what I was going to say. I was frightened almost to death when Mrs. Neligage said the Count wrote 'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, I wanted to get under the tea-table!" "But you didn't really think he wrote my letters?" "I couldn't believe it; but I didn't know what to think. Then when he wore a red carnation the next day, I thought I should die. I thought anyway he'd read the letter; and that's what made me so meek when Mrs. Neligage took hold of me." "But you never suspected that I wrote the book?" Fairfield asked. "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me as if I really did know all the time. Don't you remember how we talked about the book at Mrs. Harbinger's tea?" "That's just your intuition," Dick returned. "I know I didn't suspect you, for it troubled me tremendously that I cared so much for you when I thought I was in love with my unknown correspondent. It didn't seem loyal." "But of course it was, you know, because there was only one of us." Dick laughed, and bestowed upon her an ecstatic little hug. "You dear little Paddy! That's a perfect bull!" She drew herself away, and pretended to frown with great dignity. "I don't care if it is a bull!" protested she. "I won't be called a Paddy!" Dick's face expressed a consternation and a penitence so marked that she burst into a trill of laughter and flung herself back into his arms. "I was just teasing," she said. "The truth is that Jack Neligage has teased me so awfully that I've caught it like the measles." The tender follies which make up the talk of lovers are not very edifying reading when set down in the unsympathetic blackness of print. They are to be interpreted, moreover, with the help of many signs, trifling in themselves but essential to a correct understanding. Looks, caresses, sighs, chuckles, giggles, pressures and claspings, intonations which alter or deny the word spoken, a thousand silly becks, and nods, and wreathèd smiles, all go to make up the conversation between the pair, so that what may be put into print is but a small portion of the ecstatic whole. May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield were not behind in all the enchanting idiocy which belongs to a wooing, where each lover, secure in being regarded as perfection, ventures for once in a lifetime to be frankly childish, to show self without any mask of convention. "Oh, I knew you were a man of genius the very first time I saw you," May cried, in an entirely honest defiance of all facts and all evidence. "I wish I were for your sake," Dick replied, with an adoring glance, and a kiss on the hand which he held. "And to think that this absurdly small hand wrote those beautiful letters." "You didn't suppose I had an amanuensis, did you?" laughed May. Then Dick laughed, and together they both laughed, overpowered by the exquisite wit of this fine jest. "Really, though," Dick said, "they came to me like a revelation. I never had such letters before!" May drew away her hand, and sat upright with an air of offended surprise. "Well, I should hope you never did!" she cried. "The idea of any other woman's daring to write to you!" "But you were writing to a stranger; some other woman--" "Now, Richard," declared May resolutely, "this has got to be settled right here. If you are going to twit me all my life with having written to you--" He effectually stopped her speech. "I'll never speak of it again," he said; "or at least only just often enough so that it shan't be entirely forgotten." "You are horrid!" declared she with a pout. "You mean to tease me with--" "Tease you, May? Heavens, how you mistake! I only want all my life to be kept your slave by remembering--" The reader is at liberty from experience to supply as many hours of this sort of talk as his taste calls for. There were, however, some points of real interest touched upon in the course of the evening. Dick confided to May the fact that Jack Neligage had sold his ponies, was paying his debts, and had accepted a place in a bank. Mr. Frostwinch, a college friend of Jack's father, had offered the situation, and although the salary was of course not large it gave Neligage something to live on. "Oh, I'll tell that to Alice to-morrow," May said. "She will be delighted to know that Jack is going to do something. Alice is awfully fond of him." The conversation had to be interrupted by speculations upon the relative force of the attachment between Alice and Jack and the love which May and Dick were at that moment confirming; and from this the talk drifted away to considerations of the proper manner of disclosing the engagement. May's guardian, Mr. Frostwinch, Dick knew well, and there was no reason to expect opposition from him unless on the possible ground of a difference of fortune. It was decided that Dick should see him on the morrow, and that there should be no delay in announcing the important news. "It will take us two or three days to write our notes, of course," May said, with a pretty air of being very practical in the midst of her sentiment. "We'll say next Wednesday." Dick professed great ignorance of the social demands of the situation, and of course the explanation had to be given with many ornamental flourishes in the way of oscular demonstrations. May insisted that everything should be done duly and in order; told him upon whom of her relatives he would have to call, to whom write, and so many other details that Dick accused her of having been engaged before. "You horrid thing!" she pouted. "I've a great mind to break the engagement now. I have been engaged, though," she added, bursting into a laugh of pure glee. "You forget that I woke up this morning engaged to one man and shall go to sleep engaged to another." "Dear old Jack!" Fairfield said fervently. "Well, I must go home and find him. I want to tell him the news. Heavens! I had no idea it was so late!" "It isn't late," May protested, after the fashion of all girls in her situation, both before and since; but when Dick would go, she laughingly said: "You tell Jack if he were here I'd kiss him. He said I'd want to some time." And after half an hour of adieus and a brisk walk home, Dick delivered the message. XXIII THE BUSINESS OF A MUSE The decadence of literature began insensibly with the invention of printing, and has been proceeding ever since. How far it has proceeded and whether literature yet exists at all are questions difficult if not impossible to answer at the present time, because of the multitude of books. No living man can have more than a most superficial knowledge of what is being done in what was formerly the royalty and is now the communism of letters. A symphony played in the midst of a battle would stand much the same chance of being properly appreciated as would to-day a work of fine literary worth sent forth in the midst of the innumerous publications of the age. Men write, however, more than ever. There is perhaps a difference, in that where men of the elder day deluded themselves or hoped to delude others with impressive talk about art and fame and other now obsolete antiquities, the modern author sets before him definite and desirable prizes in the shape of money and of notoriety which has money's worth. The muse of these days is confronted on the door of the author with a stern "No admittance except on business," and she is not allowed to enter unless she bring her check-book with her. The ideal of art is to-day set down in figures and posted by bankers' clerks. Men once foolishly tried to live to write; now they write to live. If men seek for Pegasus it is with a view to getting a patent on him as a flying-machine; and the really progressive modern author has much the same view of life as the rag-picker, that of collecting any sort of scraps that may be sold in the market. Dick Fairfield had much the attitude of other writers of his day and generation. He had set out to make a living by writing, because he liked it, and because, in provincial Boston at least, there is still a certain sense of distinction attached to the profession of letters, a legacy from the time when the public still respected art. Fairfield had been for years struggling to get a foothold of reputation sufficiently secure to enable him to stretch more vigorously after the prizes of modern literary life, where notoriety commands a price higher than genius could hope for. He had done a good deal of hack work, of which that which he liked least, yet which had perhaps as a matter of training been best for him, had been the rewriting of manuscripts for ambitious authors. A bureau which undertakes for a compensation to mend crude work, to infuse into the products of undisciplined imagination or incompetency that popular element which shall make a work sell, had employed Fairfield to reconstruct novels which dealt with society. In this capacity he had made over a couple of flimsy stories of which Mrs. Croydon claimed the credit, on the strength of having set down the first draught from events which had happened within her own knowledge. So little of the original remained in the published version, it may be noted in passing, that she might have been puzzled to recognize her own bantlings. The success of these books had given Dick courage to attempt a society novel for himself; and by one of those lucky and inexplicable flukes of fortune, "Love in a Cloud" had gained at least the success of immediate popularity. Fairfield had published the novel anonymously partly from modesty, partly from a business sense that it was better to have his name clear than associated with a failure. He had been deterred from acknowledging the book after its success by the eagerness with which the public had set upon his characters and identified each with some well known person. If the scene of a novel be laid in a provincial city its characters must all be identified. That is the first intellectual duty of the readers of fiction. To look at a novel from a critical point of view is no longer in the least a thing about which any reader need concern himself; but it would be an omission unpardonably stupid were he to remain unacquainted with some original under the disguise of every character. A single detail is sufficient for identification. If a man in a tale have a wart on his nose, the intelligent reader should not rest until he think of a dweller in the town whose countenance is thus adorned. That single particular must thenceforth be held to decide the matter. If the man in the novel and the man in the flesh differ in every other particular, physical and mental, that is to be held as the cunning effort of the writer to disguise his real model. The wart decides it, and the more widely the copy departs in other characteristics from the chosen person the more evident is it that the novelist did not wish his original to be known. The more striking therefore is the shrewdness which has penetrated the mystery. The reader soddens in the consciousness of his own penetration as the sardine, equally headless, soaks in oil. Fairfield was now waiting for this folly of identification to pass before he gave his name to the novel, and in the mean time he was tasting the delight of a first literary success where the pecuniary returns allowed his vanity to glow without rebuke from his conscience. Fairfield was surprised, one morning not long after the polo game, by receiving a call from Mrs. Croydon. He knew her slightly, having met her now and then in society, and his belief that she was entirely ignorant of his share in her books might naturally invest her with a peculiar interest. She was a Western woman who had lived in the East but a few years, and her blunders in regard to Eastern society as they appeared in her original manuscripts had given him a good deal of quiet amusement. Why she should now have taken it upon herself to come to his chambers could only become evident by her own explanation. "You are probably surprised to see me here, Mr. Fairfield," she began, settling herself in a chair with the usual ruffling of rag-tag-and-bobbery without which she never seemed able to move. "I naturally should not have been vain enough to foresee that I should have such an honor," he responded, with his most elaborate society manner. She smirked, and nodded. "That is very pretty," she said. "Well, I'll tell you at once, not to keep you in suspense. I came on business." "Business?" repeated he. "Yes, business. You see, I have just come from the Cosmopolitan Literary Bureau." Fairfield did not look pleased. He had kept his connection with that factory of hack-work a secret, and no man likes to be reminded of unpleasant necessities. "They have told me," she went on, "that you revised the manuscript of my novels. I must say that you have done it very satisfactorily. We women of society are so occupied that it is impossible for us to attend to all that mere detail work, and it is a great relief to have it so well done." Fairfield bowed stiffly. "I am glad that you were satisfied," he replied; "but it is a violation of confidence on the part of the bureau." "Oh, you are one of us now," Mrs. Croydon observed with gracious condescension. "It isn't as if they had told anybody else. They told me, you see, that you wrote 'Love in a Cloud.'" "That is a greater violation of confidence still," Fairfield responded. "Indeed, it was a most un-gentlemanly thing of Mr. Cutliff. He only knew it because a stupid errand boy carried him the manuscript by mistake. He had no right to tell that. I shall give him my opinion of his conduct." Mrs. Croydon accomplished a small whirlwind of ribbon ends, and waved her plump hand in remonstrance. "Oh, I beg you won't," she protested. "It will get me into trouble if you do. He especially told me not to let you know." Fairfield smiled rather sardonically. "The man who betrays a confidence is always foolish enough to suppose his confidence will be sacred. I think this is an outrageous breach of good faith on Mr. Cutliff's part." Mrs. Croydon gave a hitch forward as if she were trying to bring her chair closer to that of Fairfield. "As I was saying," she remarked, "we society women have really so little time to give to literature, and literature needs just our touch so much, that it has been especially gratifying to find one that could carry out my ideas so well." The young man began to regard her with a new expression in his face. As a literary woman she should have recognized the look, the expression which tells of the author on the scent of material. Whether Fairfield ever tried his hand at painting Mrs. Croydon or not, that look would have made it plain to any well-trained fellow worker that her peculiarities tempted his literary sense. Any professional writer who listens with that gleam in his eyes is inevitably examining what is said, the manner of its saying, the person who is speaking, in the hope that here he has a subject for his pen; he is asking himself if the reality is too absurd to be credible; how much short of the extravagance of the original he must come to keep within the bounds of seeming probability. Fairfield was confronted with a subject which could not be handled frankly and truthfully. Nobody would believe the tone of the woman or her remarks to be anything but a foolish exaggeration; if she had had the genuine creative instinct, the power of analysis, the recognition of human peculiarities, Mrs. Croydon must have seen in his evident preoccupation the indication that he was deliberating how far toward the truth it would in fiction be possible to go. "It is very kind of you," he murmured vaguely. "Oh, don't mention it," responded she, more graciously than ever. "You are really one of us now, as I said; and I always feel strongly the ties of the literary guild." "The guild owes you a great deal," Fairfield observed blandly. Mrs. Croydon waved her hand engagingly in return for this compliment, incidentally with a waving of various adornments of her raiment which gave her the appearance in little of an army with banners. "I didn't come just for compliments," she observed with much sweetness. "I am a business woman, and I know how to come to the point. My father left me to manage my own property, and so I've had a good deal of experience. When I see how women wander round a thing without being able to get at it, it makes me ashamed of them all. I don't wonder that men make fun of them." "You are hard on your sex." "Oh, no harder than they deserve. Why, in Chicago there are a lot of women that do business in one way or another, and I never could abide 'em. I never could get on with them, it was so hard to pin them down." "I readily understand how annoying it must have been," Fairfield observed with entire gravity. "Did you say that you had business with me?" "Yes," she answered. "I suppose that I might have written, but there are some things that are so much better arranged by word of mouth. Don't you think so?" "Oh, there's no doubt of it." "Besides," she went on, "I wanted to tell you how much I like your work, and it isn't easy to express those things on paper." It would be interesting to know whether to Fairfield at that moment occurred the almost inevitable reflection that for Mrs. Croydon it was hard, if her manuscripts were the test, to express anything on paper. "You are entirely right," he said politely. "It is easy enough to put facts into words, but when it comes to feelings such as you express, it is different, of course." He confided to Jack Neligage later that he wondered if this were not too bold a flout, but Mrs. Croydon received it as graciously as possible. "There is so complete a difference," she observed with an irrelevance rather startling, "between the mental atmosphere in Boston and that I was accustomed to in Chicago. Here there is a sort of--I don't know that I can express it exactly; it's part of an older civilization, I suppose; but I don't think it pays so well as what we have in Chicago." "Pays so well?" he repeated. "I don't think I understand." "It doesn't sell so well in a book," she explained. "I thought that it would be better business to write stories of the East for the West to buy; but I've about made up my mind that it'll be money in my pocket to write of the West for the eastern market." Fairfield smiled under his big mustache, playing with a paper-knife. "Pardon my mentioning it," he said, "but I thought you wrote for fame, and not for money." "Oh, I don't write for money, I assure you; but I was brought up to be a business woman, and if I'm going to write books somebody ought to pay for them. Now I wanted to ask you what you will sell me your part in 'Love in a Cloud' for." Whether this sudden introduction of her business or the nature of it when introduced were the more startling it might have been hard to determine. Certain it is that Fairfield started, and stared at his visitor as if he doubted his ears. "My part of it?" he exclaimed. "Why, I wrote it." "Yes," she returned easily, "but so many persons have supposed it to be mine, that it is extremely awkward to deny it; and you have become my collaborateur, of course, by writing on the other novels." "I hadn't realized that," Dick returned with a smile. "You've put so much of your style into my other books," she pursued, "that it's made people attribute 'Love in a Cloud' to me, and I think you are bound now not to go back on me. I don't know as you see it as I do, but it seems to me that since you took the liberty of changing so much in my other stories you ought to be willing to bear the consequences of it, especially as I'm willing to pay you well." "But as long as you didn't write the book," Dick observed, "I should think you'd feel rather queer to have it said you did." "I've thought of that," Mrs. Croydon said, nodding, with a flutter of silken tags, "but I reason that the ideas are so much my own, and the book is so exactly what I would have written if social duties hadn't prevented, that that ought not to count. The fact that so many folks think I wrote it shows that I might have written it." "But after all you didn't write it," Fairfield objected. "That seems to make it awkward." "Why, of course it would have been better if I had given you a sketch of it," Mrs. Croydon returned, apparently entirely unmoved; "but then of course you got so much of the spirit of 'Love in a Cloud' out of my other books--" This was perhaps more than any author could be expected to endure, and least of all a young author in the discussion of his first novel. "Why, how can you say that?" he demanded indignantly. "Do you suppose," she questioned with a benign and patronizing smile, "that so many persons would have taken your book for mine in the first place if you hadn't imitated me or taken ideas from my other books?" Dick sprang to his feet, and then sat down, controlling himself. "Well," he said coldly, "it makes no difference. It is too late to do anything about it now. An edition of 'Love in a Cloud' with my name on the title-page comes out next Wednesday. If folks say too much about the resemblance to your books, I can confess, I suppose, my part in the others." She turned upon him with a burst of surprise and indignation which set all her ribbon-ends waving in protest. "That," she said, "is a professional secret. No man of honor would tell it." She rose as she spoke, her face full of indignation. "You have not treated me fairly," she said bitterly. "You must have seen that the book was attributed to me, and you knew the connection between 'Love in a Cloud' and my other books--" "Other books!" exclaimed Dick. Mrs. Croydon waved him into silence with a magnificent gesture, but beyond that took no notice of his words. "You saw how everybody looked at me that day at Mrs. Harbinger's," she went on. "If you were going to give your name to the book why didn't you do it then?" "I didn't think of you at all," was his answer. "I was too much amused in seeing that absurd Barnstable make a fool of himself with Count Shimbowski. Did you know that the Count actually challenged him?" Wrath of celestial goddesses darkened the face of Mrs. Croydon as a white squall blackens the face of the sky. Her eyes glared with an expression as fierce if not as bright as the lightning. "What do you say?" she screamed. "Challenge my husband?" "Your husband!" ejaculated Dick, a staring statue of surprise. "Yes, my husband," she repeated vehemently. "He didn't make a fool of himself that day! A man can't come to the defense of a woman but you men sneer at him. Do you mean that that beastly foreign ape dared to challenge him for that? I'd like to give him my opinion of him!" When a man finds himself entertaining a wildcat unawares he should either expel the beast or himself take safety in flight. Dick could apparently do neither. He stood speechless, gazing at the woman before him, who seemed to be waxing in fury with every moment and every word. She swept across the short space between them in a perfect hurricane of streamers, and almost shook her fists in his face. "I understand it all now," she said. "You were in it from the beginning! I suppose that when you worked on my books you took the trouble to find out about me, and that's where your material came from for your precious 'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, my husband will deal with you!" Fairfield looked disconcerted enough, as well he might, confronted with a woman who was apparently so carried away by anger as to have lost all control of herself. "Mrs. Croydon," he said, with a coldness and a dignity which could not but impress her, "I give you my word that I never knew anything about your history. That was none of my business." "Of course it was none of your business!" she cried. "That's just what makes it so impertinent of you to be meddling with my affairs!" Fairfield regarded her rather wildly. "Sit down, please," he said beseechingly. "You mustn't talk so, Mrs. Croydon. Of course I haven't been meddling with your affairs, and--" "And not to have the courage to say a word to prevent my husband's being dragged into a duel with that foreigner! Oh, it does seem as if I couldn't express my opinion of you, Mr. Fairfield!" "My dear Mrs. Croydon--" "And as for Erastus Barnstable," she rushed on to say, "he's quick-tempered, and eccentric, and obstinate, and as dull as a post; he never understood me, but he always meant well; and I won't have him abused." "I hadn't any idea of abusing him," Dick pleaded humbly. "Really, you are talking in an extraordinary fashion." She stopped and glared at him as if with some gleam of returning reason. Her face was crimson, and her breath came quickly. Women of society outside of their own homes so seldom indulge in the luxury of an unbecoming rage that Dick had perhaps never before seen such a display. Any well-bred lady knows how to restrain herself within the bounds of personal decorum, and to be the more effective by preserving some appearance of calmness. Mrs. Croydon had evidently lacked in her youth the elevating influence of society where good manners are morals. It was interesting for Dick, but too extravagantly out of the common to be of use to him professionally. "I hope you are proud of your politeness this morning," Mrs. Croydon ended by saying; and without more adieu she fluttered tumultuously to the door. XXIV THE MISCHIEF OF A CAD The fierce light of publicity which nowadays beats upon society has greatly lessened the picturesqueness of life. There is no longer the dusk favorable to crime, and the man who wishes to be wicked, if careful of his social standing, is constantly obliged to be content with mere folly, or, if desperate, with meanness. It is true that from time to time there are still those, even in the most exclusive circles, who are guilty of acts genuinely criminal, but these are not, as a rule, regarded as being in good form. The days when the Borgias invited their enemies to dinner for the express purpose of poisoning them, or visited nobles rich in money or in beautiful wives and daughters with the amiable intent to rob them of these treasures, are over, apparently forever. In the sixteenth century--to name a time typical--success made an excuse more than adequate for any moral obliquity; and the result is that the age still serves thrillingly the romantic dramatist or novel-writer. To-day success is held more than to justify iniquity in politics or commerce, but the social world still keeps up some pretext of not approving. There is in the best society really a good deal of hesitation about inviting to dinner a man who has murdered his grandmother or run away with the wife of his friend. Society is of course not too austere in this respect; it strives to be reasonable, and it recognizes the principle that every transaction is to be judged by the laws of its own class. In the financial world, for instance, conscience is regulated by the stock market, and society assumes that if a crime has been committed for the sake of money its culpability depends chiefly upon the smallness of the amount actually secured. Conservative minds, however, still object to the social recognition of a man who has notoriously and scandalously broken the commandments. He who has not the skill or the good taste to display the fruits of his wickedness without allowing the process by which they were obtained to be known, is looked at askance by these prudish souls. In all this state of things is great loss to the romancer, and not a little disadvantage to bold and adventurous spirits. Were the latter but allowed the freedom which was enjoyed by their forerunners of the sixteenth century, they would do much to relieve the tedium under which to-day the best society languishes. This tendency of the age toward the suppression of violent and romantic transgressions in good society was undoubtedly largely responsible for the course taken by Sibley Langdon. Foiled in his plan of blackmailing Mrs. Neligage into being his companion on a European tour, he attempted revenge in a way so petty that even the modern novelist, who stops at nothing, would have regarded the thing as beneath invention. Mr. Langdon had sent Mrs. Neligage her canceled note, with a floridly worded epistle declaring that its real value, though paid, was lost to him, since it lay in her signature and not in the money which the document represented. This being done, he had called once or twice, but the ignominy of living at the top of a speaking-tube carries with it the advantage of power to escape unwelcome callers, and he never found Mrs. Neligage at home. When they met in society Mrs. Neligage treated him with exactly the right shade of coolness. She did not give rise to any gossip. The infallible intuition of her fellow women easily discovered, of course, that there was an end of the old intimacy between the widow and Mr. Langdon, but nobody had the satisfaction of being able to perceive anything of the nature of a quarrel. They met one evening at a dinner given by Mrs. Chauncy Wilson. The dinner was not large. There were Mr. and Mrs. Frostwinch, Mrs. Neligage, Alice Endicott, Count Shimbowski, and Mr. Langdon. The company was somewhat oddly assorted, but everybody understood that Mrs. Wilson did as she pleased, leaving social considerations to take care of themselves. She had promised Miss Wentstile, who still clung to the idea of marrying Alice to the Count, that she would ask the pair to dinner; and having done so, she selected her other guests by some principle of choice known only to herself. The dinner passed off without especial incident. The Count took in Alice, and was by her treated with a cool ease which showed that she had come to regard him as of no consequence whatever. She chatted with him pleasantly enough at the proper intervals, but more of her attention was given to Mr. Frostwinch, her neighbor on the other side. She would never talk with the Count in French, although she spoke that tongue with ease, and his wooing, such as it was, had to be carried on in his joint-broken English. The engagement of May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, just announced, and the appearance of "Love in a Cloud" with the author's name on the title-page, were the chief subjects of conversation. The company were seated at a round table, so that the talk was for the most part general, and each person had something to add to the little ball of silken-fibred gossip as it rolled about. Mr. Frostwinch was May's guardian, and a man of ideas too old-fashioned to discuss his ward or her affairs in any but the most general way; yet even he did now and then add a word or a hint. "They say," Mrs. Wilson observed, "that there's some kind of a romantic story behind the engagement. Mrs. Neligage, you ought to know--is it true that Richard Fairfield got Jack to go and propose for him?" "If he did," was the answer, "neither you nor I will ever know it from Jack. He's the worst to get anything out of that I ever knew. I think he has some sort of a trap-door in his memory to drop things through when he doesn't want to tell them. I believe he contrives to forget them himself." "You can't conceive of his holding them if he did remember them, I suppose," chuckled Dr. Wilson. "Of course he couldn't. No mortal could." "That's as bad as my husband," observed Mrs. Frostwinch, with a billowy motion of her neck, a movement characteristic and perhaps the result of unconscious cerebration induced by a secret knowledge that her neck was too long. "I tried to get out of him what Mr. Fairfield said when he came to see him about May; and I give you my word that after I'd worn myself to shreds trying to beguile him, I was no wiser than before." "I tell you so entirely all my own secrets, Anna," her husband answered, "that you might let me keep those of other people." "Indeed, I can't help your keeping them," was her reply. "That's what I complain of. If I only had a choice in the matter, I shouldn't mind." "If Jack Neligage is in the way of proposing," Langdon observed in his deliberate manner, "I should think he'd do it for himself." "Oh, bless you," Mrs. Neligage responded quickly, "Jack can't afford to marry. I've brought him up better than to suppose he could." "Happy the man that has so wise a mother," was Langdon's comment. "If you don't believe in marriages without money, Mrs. Neligage," asked Mrs. Wilson, "what do you think of Ethel Mott and Thayer Kent?" "Just think of their marrying on nothing, and going out to live on a cattle ranch," put in Mrs. Frostwinch. "I wonder if Ethel will have to milk?" Dr. Wilson gave a laugh full of amusement. "They don't milk on cattle ranches," he corrected. "She may have to mount a horse and help at a round-up, though." "Well, if she likes that kind of a burial," Mrs. Neligage said, "it's her own affair, I suppose. I'd rather be cremated." "Oh, it isn't as bad as that," Mr. Frostwinch observed genially. "They'll have a piano, and that means some sort of civilization." "I suppose she'll play the _ranz des vaches_ on the piano," Mrs. Wilson laughed. "Of course it's madness," Langdon observed, "but they'll like it for a while. I can't understand, though, how Miss Mott can be so foolish. I always supposed she was rather a sensible girl." "Does this prove that she isn't?" asked Alice. "Don't you think a girl that leaves civilization, and goes to live in the wilderness just to follow a man, shows a lack of cleverness?" The seriousness of the tone in which Alice had asked her question had drawn all eyes in her direction, and it might easily be that the knowledge of the interest which she was supposed to have in penniless Jack Neligage would in any case have given to her words especial mark. "That depends on what life is for," Alice answered now, in her low, even voice. "If she is happier with Thayer Kent on a cattle ranch than she would be anywhere else without him, I think she shows the best kind of sense." "But think what a stupid life she'll lead," Langdon persisted. "She doesn't know what she's giving up." "Eet ees _très romanesque_," declared the Count, "but eet weel to be _triste_. Weell she truthfully ride de cow?" Politely veiled laughter greeted this sally, except from Dr. Wilson, who burst into an open guffaw. "She'll be worth seeing if she does!" he ejaculated. Mrs. Frostwinch bent toward Alice with undulating neck. "You are romantic, of course, Alice," she remarked, "and you look at it like a girl. It's very charming to be above matter-of-fact considerations; but when the edge is worn off--" She sighed, and shook her head as if she were deeply versed in all the misfortunes resulting from an impecunious match; her manner being, of course, the more effective from the fact that everybody knew that she had never been able to spend her income. "But what is life for?" Alice said with heightened color. "If people are happy together, I don't believe that other things matter so much." "For my part," Mrs. Wilson declared, "I think it will be stunning! I wish I were going out to live on a ranch myself, and ride a cow, as the Count says. Chauncy, why don't we buy a ranch? Think how I'd look on cow-back!" She gave the signal to rise, and the ladies departed to the drawing-room, where they talked of many things and of nothing until the gentlemen appeared. Mr. Langdon placed himself so that he faced Mrs. Neligage across the little circle in which the company chanced to arrange itself. "We've been talking of adventures," he said, "and Mr. Frostwinch says that nobody has any nowadays." "I only said that they were uncommon," corrected Mr. Frostwinch. "Of course men do have them now and then, but not very often." "Men! Yes, they have them," Mrs. Wilson declared; "but there's no chance nowadays for us poor women. We never get within sight of anything out of the common." "You're enough out of the common to do without it, Elsie," laughed her husband. "Madame Weelson ees an adventure eetself," the Count put in gallantly. Mr. Langdon raised his head deliberately, and looked over to Mrs. Neligage. "You could tell them differently, Mrs. Neligage," he said. "Your experience at Monte Carlo, now; that was far enough out of the common." Her color went suddenly, but she met his eyes firmly enough. "My adventures?" she returned. "I never had an adventure. I'm too commonplace a person for that." "You don't do yourself justice," Langdon rejoined. "You haven't any idea how picturesque you were that night." Telepathy may or may not be established on a scientific basis, but it is certain that there exists some occult power in virtue of which intelligence spreads without tangible means of communication. There was nothing in the light, even tones of Langdon to convey more intimation than did his words that mischief was afoot, yet over the group in Mrs. Wilson's drawing-room came an air of intentness, of alert suspense. No observer could have failed to perceive the general feeling, the perception that Langdon was preparing for some unusual stroke. The atmosphere grew electric. Mr. Frostwinch and his wife became a shade more grave than was their wont. They were both rather proper folk, and proper people are obliged to be continually watching for indecorums, lest before they are aware their propriety have its fine bloom brushed away. The Count moved uneasily in his chair. The unpleasant doubts to which he had been exposed as to how his own past would affect a Boston public might have made him the more sympathetic with Mrs. Neligage, and the fact that he had seen her at the tables at Monte Carlo could hardly fail to add for him a peculiar vividness to Langdon's words. Doctor and Mrs. Wilson were both openly eager. Alice watched Mrs. Neligage intently, while the widow faced Langdon with growing pallor. "Madame Neleegaze ees all teemes de peecture," declared Count Shimbowski gallantly. "When more one teeme eet ees de oder?" "She was more picturesque that time than another," laughed Langdon, by some amazing perception getting at the Count's meaning. "I'm going to tell it, Mrs. Neligage, just to show what you are capable of. I never admired anything more than I did your pluck that night. It's nonsense to say that women have less grit than men." "Less grit!" cried Mrs. Wilson. "They have a hundred times more. If men had the spunk of women or women had the strength of men--" "Then amen to the world!" broke in her husband. "Don't interrupt. I want to hear Langdon's story." Alice Endicott had thus far said nothing, but as Langdon smiled as if to himself, and parted his lips to begin, she stopped him. "No," she said, "he shan't tell it. If it is Mrs. Neligage's adventure, she shall tell it herself." Mrs. Neligage flashed a look of instant comprehension, of gratitude, to Alice, and the color came back into her cheeks. She had been half cowering before the possibility of what Langdon might be intending to say, but this chance of taking matters into her own hands recalled all her self-command. Her eyes brightened, and she lifted her head. "It isn't much to tell," she began, "and it isn't at all to my credit." "I protest," interpolated Langdon. "Of course she won't tell a story about herself for half its worth." "Be quiet," Alice commanded. The eyes of all had been turned toward Mrs. Neligage at her last words, but now everybody looked at Alice. It was not common to see her take this air of really meaning to dominate. In her manner was a faint hint of the commanding manner of her aunt, although without any trace of Miss Wentstile's arrogance. She was entirely cool and self-possessed, although her color was somewhat brighter than usual. The words that had been spoken were little, yet the hearer heard behind them the conflict between herself and Langdon. "I am not to be put down so," he persisted. "I don't care much about telling that particular story, but I can't allow you to bully me so, Miss Endicott." "Go on, Mrs. Neligage, please," Alice said, quite as if she were mistress of ceremonies, and entirely ignoring Langdon's words except for a faint smile toward him. "My adventure, as Mr. Langdon is pleased to call it," Mrs. Neligage said, "is only a thing I'm ashamed of. He is trying to make me confess my sins in public, apparently. He came on me one night playing at Monte Carlo when I lost a lot of money. He declares he watched me an hour before I saw him, but as I didn't play more than half that time--" "I told you she would spoil the story," interrupted Langdon, "I--" "You shall not interrupt, Mr. Langdon," Alice said, as evenly and as commandingly as before. "Oh, everybody he play at Monte Carlo," put in the Count. "Not to play, one have not been dere." "I've played," Mrs. Wilson responded. "I think it's the greatest fun in the world. Did you win, Mrs. Neligage?" "Win, my dear," returned the widow, who had recovered perfectly her self-command; "I lost all that I possessed and most that I didn't. I wonder I ever got out of the place. The truth is that I had to borrow from Mr. Langdon to tide me over till I could raise funds. Was that what you wanted to tell, Mr. Langdon? You were the real hero to lend it to me, for I might have gone to playing again, and lost that too." Langdon was visibly disconcerted. To have the tables so turned that it seemed as if he were seeking a chance to exploit his own good deeds left him at the mercy of the widow. Mrs. Neligage had told in a way everything except the matter of the necklace, and no man with any pretense of being a gentleman could drag that in now. It might have been slid picturesquely into the original story, whether that were or were not Mr. Langdon's intention; but now it was too late. "I don't see where the pluck came in," pronounced Dr. Wilson. "Oh, I suppose that was the stupid way in which I kept on losing," Mrs. Neligage explained. "I call it perfect folly." "Again I say that I knew she'd spoil the story," Langdon said with a smile. The announcement of carriages, and the departure of the Frostwinches brought the talk to an end. When Mrs. Neligage had said good-night and was leaving the drawing-room, Langdon stood at the door. "You got out of that well," he said. She gave him a look which should have withered him. "It is a brave man that tries to blacken a woman's name," she answered; and went on her way. In the dressing-room was Alice, who had gone a moment before. Mrs. Neligage went up to her and took her by the arms. "How did you know that I needed to have a plank thrown to me?" she demanded. "Did I show it so much?" Alice flushed and smiled. "If I must tell the truth," she answered, "you looked just as I saw Jack look once in a hard place." Mrs. Neligage laughed, and kissed her. "Then it was Jack's mother you wanted to help. You are an angel anyhow. I had really lost my head. The story was horrid, and I knew he'd tell it or hint it. It wasn't so bad," she added, as Alice half shrank back, "but that I'll tell it to you some time. Jack knows it." XXV THE WAKING OF A SPINSTER Miss Wentstile was as accustomed to having her way as the sun is to rising. She had made up her mind that Alice was to marry Count Shimbowski, and what was more, she had made her intention perfectly plain to her friends. It is easily to be understood that her temper was a good deal tried when it became evident that she could not force her niece to yield. Miss Wentstile commanded, she remonstrated, she tried to carry her will with a high hand by assuming that Alice was betrothed, and she found herself in the end utterly foiled. "Then you mean to disobey me entirely," she said to Alice one day. "I have tried all my life to do what you wanted, Aunt Sarah," was the answer, "but this I can't do." "You could do it if you chose." Alice was silent; and to remain silent when one should offer some sort of a remark that may be disputed or found fault with or turned into ridicule is one of the most odious forms of insubordination. "Why don't you speak?" demanded Miss Wentstile sharply. "Haven't I done enough for you to be able to get a civil answer out of you?" "What is there for me to say more, Aunt Sarah?" "You ought to say that you would not vex and disobey me any more," declared her Aunt. "Here I have told everybody that I should pass next summer at the Count's ancestral castle in Hungary, and how can I if you won't marry him?" "You might marry him yourself." Her aunt glared at her angrily, and emitted a most unladylike snort of contempt. "You say that to be nasty," she retorted; "but I tell you, miss, that I've thought of that myself. I'm not sure I shan't marry him." Alice regarded her in a silence which drew forth a fresh volley. "I suppose you think that's absurd, do you? Why don't you say that I'm too old, and too ugly, and too ridiculous? Why don't you say it? I can see that you think it; and a nice thing it is to think, too." "If you think it, Aunt Sarah," was the demure reply, "there's no need of my saying it." "I think it? I don't think it! I'm pleased to know at last what you think of me, with your meek ways." The scene was more violent than usually happened between aunt and niece, as it was the habit of Alice to bear in silence whatever rudeness it pleased Miss Wentstile to inflict. Not that the spinster was accustomed to be unkind to the girl. So long as there was no opposition to her will, Miss Wentstile was in her brusque way generous and not ill-natured. Now that her temper was tried to the extreme, her worst side made itself evident; and Alice was wise in attempting to escape. She rose from the place where she had been sewing, and prepared to leave the room. "Go to your room by all means," the spinster said bitterly, regarding her with looks of marked disfavor. "All I have to say is this: if I do marry the Count, and you find yourself without a home, you'll have nobody but yourself to thank for it. I'm sure you've had your chance." Whether the antique heart of the spinster had cherished the design of attempting to glide into the place in the Count's life left vacant by the refusal of her niece is a fact known only to her attendant angels, if she had any. Certain it is that within twenty-four hours she had summoned that nobleman to her august presence. "Count," she said to him, "I can't express to you how distressed I am that my niece has put such a slight on you. She is absolutely determined not to marry." The Count as usual shrugged his shoulders, and remarked in mangled English that in America there was no authority; and that in his country the girl would not have been asked whether she was determined to marry or not. Her determination would have made no difference. "That is the way it should be here," Miss Wentstile observed with feeling; "but it isn't. The young people are brought up to have their own way, no matter what their elders wish." "Then she weell not to marry wid me?" he asked. "No, there's no hope of it. She is as obstinate as a rock." There was a brief interval of silence in which the Count looked at Miss Wentstile and Miss Wentstile looked at the floor. "Count Shimbowski," she said at last, raising her eyes, "of course it doesn't make much difference to you who it is you marry if you get the money." He gave a smile half of deprecation, and spread out his hands. "One Shimbowski for de _dot_ marries," he acknowledged, "but eet ees not wid all weemeens. Dat ees not honor." "Oh, of course I mean if your wife was a lady." "Eet ees for de _dot_ only one Shimbowski would wid all Amereecans marry," he returned with simple pride. Miss Wentstile regarded him with a questioning look. "I am older than my niece," she went on, "but my _dot_ would be half a million." The whole thing was so entirely a matter of business that perhaps it was not strange that she spoke with so little sign of emotion. Most women, it is true, would hardly come so near to proposing to a man without some frivolous airs of coquetry; but Miss Wentstile was a remarkable and exceptional woman, and her air was much that in which she might have talked of building a new house. "Ees eet dat de wonderful Mees Wentsteele would marry wid me for all dat _dot_?" Miss Wentstile took him up somewhat quickly. "I don't say that I would, Count," she returned; "but since you've been treated so badly by my niece, I thought I would talk with you to see how the idea struck you." "Oh, eet weell be heavenly sweet to know what we weell be mine for all dat _dot_," the Count asserted, bowing with his hand on his heart. She smiled somewhat acidly, and yet not so forbiddingly as to daunt him. "If we are yours what is there left for me?" she asked. "Ah," the Count sighed, with a shake of his head, "dat Engleesh--" "Never mind," she interrupted, "I understand that if I do marry you I get the name and not much else." "But de name!" he cried with fervor. "De Shimbowski name! Oh, eet ees dat de name weell be older dan dere was any mans een dees country." "I dare say that is true," she responded, smiling more pleasantly. "My sentiments for the name are warm enough." "De _sentiments_ of de esteemfully Mees Wentsteele ees proud for me," he declared, rising to bow. "Ees eet dat we weell marry wid me? Mees Wentsteele ees more detracteeve for me wid her _dot_ dan Mees Endeecott. Eet ees mooch more detracteeve." "Well," Miss Wentstile said, rising also, "I thought I would see how the idea struck you. I haven't made up my mind. My friends would say I was an old fool, but I can please myself, thank heaven." The Count took her hand and bowed over it with all his courtly grace, kissing it respectfully. "Ah," he told her, echoing her words with unfortunate precision, "one old fool ees so heavenly keend!" Miss Wentstile started, but the innocence of his intention was evident, and she offered no correction. She bade him good-by with a beaming kindness, and for the rest of the day carried herself with the conscious pride of a woman who could be married if she would. For the next few days there was about Miss Wentstile a new atmosphere. She snubbed her niece with an air of pride entirely different from her old manner. She dropped hints about there being likely to be a title in the family after all, and as there could be no mystery what she must mean she attempted mystification by seeming to know things about the Count and his family more magnificent than her niece had ever dreamed of. She sent to a school of languages for an instructor in Hungarian, and when none was to be found at once, she purchased a grammar, and ostentatiously studied it before Alice. Altogether she behaved as idiotically as possible, and whether she really intended to go to the extreme of marrying Count Shimbowski and endowing him with her fortune or not, she at least contrived to make her friends believe that she was prepared to go to any length in her absurdity. The announcement of the engagement of Dick Fairfield and May Calthorpe, which was made at once, of course produced the usual round of congratulatory festivities. May, as it is the moral duty of every self-respecting Bostonian to be, was related to everybody who was socially anybody, and great were the number of dinners which celebrated her decision to marry. It was too late in the season for balls, but that was of little consequence when she and her betrothed could have dined in half a dozen places on the same night had the thing been physically possible. The real purpose of offering multitudinous dinners to a couple newly engaged has never been fully made clear. On first thought it might seem as if kindness to young folk newly come to a knowledge of mutual love were best shown by letting them alone to enjoy the transports inevitable to their condition. Society has decided otherwise, and keeps them during the early days of their betrothal as constantly as possible in the public eye. Whether this custom is the result of a fear lest the lovers, if left to themselves, might too quickly exhaust their store of fondness, or of a desire to enhance for each the value of the other by a display of general appreciation, were not easy to decide. A cynic might suggest that older persons feel the wisdom of preventing the possibility of too much reflection, or that they give all publicity to the engagement as a means of lessening the chances of any failure of contract. More kindly disposed reasoners might maintain that these abundant festivities are but testimony to the truth of Emerson's declaration that "all the world loves a lover." Philosophy, in the mean time, leaning neither to cynicism on the one hand nor to over-optimism on the other, can see in these social functions at least the visible sign that society instinctively recognizes in the proposed union a contract really public, since while men and women love for themselves they marry for the state. Alice Endicott and Jack Neligage were naturally asked to many of these dinners, and so it came about that they saw a good deal of each other during the next few weeks. Their recent disagreement at first bred a faint coolness between them, but Jack was too good-natured long to keep up even the pretense of malice, and Alice too forgiving to cherish anger. The need, too, of hiding from the public all unpleasantness would in any case have made it necessary for them to behave as usual, and it is one of the virtues of social conventions that the need of being outwardly civil is apt to blunt the edge of secret resentments. Of course a healthy and genuine hate may be nourished by the irksomeness of enforced suavity, but trifling pique dies a natural death under outward politeness. Alice and Jack were not only soon as friendly as ever, but either from the reaction following their slight misunderstanding or from the effect of the sentimental atmosphere which always surrounds an engaged couple, their attitude became more confidential and friendly than ever. They sat side by side at a dinner in which the Harbingers were officially testifying their satisfaction in the newly announced engagement. Jack had been doing his duty to the lady on the other side, and turned his face to Alice. "What is worrying you?" he asked, his voice a little lowered. She looked at him with a smile. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. "I was flattering myself that I'd been particularly frolicsome all the evening." "You have; that's just it." "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that you've had to try." "You must have watched me pretty closely," she remarked, flushing a little, and lowering her glance. "Oh, I know you so well that I don't need to; but to be sure I have kept my eyes on you." She played with her fork as if thinking, while his look was fixed on her face. "I didn't think I was so transparent," she said. "Do you suppose other people noticed me?" "Oh, no," he responded. "You don't give me credit for my keenness of perception. But what's the row?" "Nothing," was her answer, "only--Well, the truth is that I've had a talk with Aunt Sarah that wasn't very pleasant. Jack, I believe she's going to marry the Count." "I'm glad of it," was his laughing response. "He'll make her pay for all the nasty things she has done. He'll be a sort of public avenger." Alice became graver. She shook her head, smiling, but with evident disapproval. "You promised me long ago that you wouldn't say things against Aunt Sarah." "No, I never did," he declared impenitently. "I only said that I'd try not to say things to you about her that would hurt your feelings." "Well, weren't you saying them then?" "That depends entirely upon your feelings; but if they are so sensitive, I'll say I am delighted that the 'venerated Mees Wentsteele,' as the Count calls her, is at last to be benefited by the discipline of having a master." Alice laughed in spite of herself. "She won't enjoy that," she declared. "Poor Aunt Sarah, she's been very kind to me, Jack. She's really good-hearted." "You can't tell from the outside of a chestnut burr what kind of a nut is inside of it," retorted he; "but if you say she is sound, it goes. She's got the outside of the burr all right." The servant with a fresh course briefly interrupted, and when they had successfully dodged his platter Jack went back to the subject. "Is it proper to ask what there was in your talk that was especially unpleasant,--not meaning that she was unpleasant, of course, but only that with your readiness to take offense you might have found something out of the way." Alice smiled faintly as if the question was too closely allied to painful thoughts to allow of her being amused. "She is still angry with me," she said. "For giving her a husband? She's grateful." "No, it isn't that. She can't get over my not doing what she wanted." "You've done what she wanted too long. She's spoiled. She thinks she owns you." "Of course it's hard for her," Alice murmured. "Hard for her? It's just what she needed. What is she going to do about it I'd like to know?" Alice looked at him with a wistful gravity. "If I tell you a secret," she said in a low tone, "can I trust you?" "Of course you can," was the answer. "I should think that by this time, after May's engagement, you'd know I can keep still when I've a mind to." Jack's chuckle did not call a smile to her face now. She had evidently forgotten for the moment the need of keeping up a smiling appearance in public; her long lashes drooped over cheeks that had little color in them, and her mouth was grave. "She was very severe to-night," Alice confided to her companion. "She said--Oh, Jack, what am I to do if she goes away and leaves me without a home? She said that as of course I shouldn't want to go with her to Hungary, she didn't know what would become of me. She wanted to know if I could earn my living." "The infernal old--" began Jack; then he checked himself in time, and added: "You shall never want a home while--" but an interruption stopped him. "Jack," called Tom Harbinger from the other end of the table, "didn't the Count say: 'Stones of a feather gather no rolls'?" The society mask slipped in a flash over the faces of Alice and Jack. The latter had ready instantly a breezy laugh which might have disarmed suspicion if any of the company had seen his recent gravity. "Oh, Tom," he returned, "it wasn't so bad as that. He said: 'Birds of one feder flock to get eet.' I wish I had a short-hand report of all his sayings." "He told me at the club," put in Mrs. Harbinger, improving on the fact by the insertion of an article, "that Miss Wentstile was 'an ext'rdeenaire particle.' I hope you don't mind, Alice?" "Nothing that the Count says could affect me," was the answer. Having the eyes of the ladies in her direction, Mrs. Harbinger improved the opportunity to give the signal to rise, and the talk between Alice and Jack was for that evening broken off. XXVI THE WOOING OF A WIDOW "Jack," Mrs. Neligage observed one morning when her son had dropped in, "I hope you won't mind, but I've decided to marry Harry Bradish." Jack frowned slightly, then smiled. Probably no man is ever greatly pleased by the idea that his mother is to remarry; but Jack was of accommodating temper, and moreover was not without the common sense necessary for the acceptance of the unpalatable. He trimmed the ashes from the cigarette he was smoking, took a whiff, and sent out into the air an unusually neat smoke-ring. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the involving wreath until it was shattered upon the ceiling and its frail substance dissolved in air. "Does Bradish know it?" he inquired. "Oh, he doesn't suspect it," answered she. "He'll never have an idea of such a thing till I tell him, and then he won't believe it." Jack laughed, blew another most satisfactory smoke-ring, and again with much deliberation watched it ascend to its destruction. "Then you don't expect him to ask you?" he propounded at length. "Ask me, Jack? He never could get up the courage. He'd lie down and die for me, but as for proposing--No, if there is to be any proposing I'm afraid I should have to do it; so we shall have to get on without." "It wouldn't be decorous for me to ask how you mean to manage, I suppose." "Oh, ask by all means if you want to, Jacky dear; but never a word shall I tell you. All I want of you is to say you aren't too much cut up at the idea." "I've brought you up so much to have your own way," Jack returned in a leisurely fashion, "that I'm afraid it's too late to begin now to try to control you. I wish you luck." They were silent for some minutes. Mrs. Neligage had been mending a glove for her son, and when she had finished it, she rose and brought it to him. She stood a minute regarding him with an unwonted softness in her glance. "Dear boy," she said, with a tender note in her voice, "I haven't thanked you for the money you sent Langdon." He threw his cigarette away, half turning his face from her as he did so. "It's no use to bring that up again," he said. "I'm only sorry I couldn't have the satisfaction of kicking him." She shook her head. "I've wanted you to a good many times," returned she, "but that's a luxury that we couldn't afford. It would cost too much." She hesitated a moment, and added: "It must have left you awfully hard up, Jack." "Oh, I'm going into the bank. I'm a reformed man, you know, so that doesn't matter. If I can't play polo what good is money?" His mother sighed. "I do wish Providence would take my advice about giving the money round," she remarked impatiently. "Things would be a great deal better arranged." "For us they would, I've no doubt," he assented with a grin. "When do you go into that beastly old bank?" she asked. "First of the month. After all it won't be so much worse than being married." "You must be awfully hard up," she said once more regretfully. "Oh, I'm always hard up. Don't bother about that." She stooped forward and kissed him lightly, an unusual demonstration on her part, and stood brushing the crisp locks back from his forehead. He took her hand and pulled her down to kiss her in turn. "Really, mater," he observed, still holding her hand, "we're getting quite spoony. Does the idea of marrying Harry Bradish make you sentimental?" She smiled and did not answer, but withdrew her hand and returned to her seat by the window. She took up a bit of sewing, and folded down on the edge of the lawn a tiny hem. "When I am married," she observed, the faint suspicion of a blush coming into her cheek, "I can pay that money back to you. Harry is rich enough, and generous enough." Jack stopped in the lighting of a fresh cigarette, and regarded her keenly. "Mother," he said in a voice of new seriousness, "are you marrying him to get that money for me?" "I mean to get it for you," she returned, without looking up. Again he began to send rings of smoke to break on the ceiling above, and meanwhile she fixed her attention on her sewing. The noise of the carriages outside, the profanity of the English sparrows quarreling on the trees, and the sound of a distant street-organ playing "Cavalleria" came in through the open window. "Mother," he said, "I won't have it." "Won't have what?" "I won't have you marry Harry Bradish." "Why not?" "Do you think," he urged, with some heat, "that I don't see through the whole thing? You are bound to help me out, and I won't have you do it." The widow let her sewing fall into her lap, and turned her face to the window. "How will you help it?" she asked softly. "I'll stop it in one way or another. I tell you--" But she turned toward him a face full of confusion and laughter. "Oh, Jack, you old goose, I've been fond of Harry Bradish for years, only I didn't dare show it because--" "Because what?" "Because Sibley Langdon was so nasty if I did," she returned, her tone hardening. "You don't know," she went on, the tone changing again like a flute-note, "what a perfect dear Harry is. I've teased him, and snubbed him, and bullied him, and treated him generally like a fiend, and he's been as patient, and as sweet--Why, Jack, he's a saint beside me! He's awkward, and as stupid as a frog, but he's as good as gold." Jack's face had darkened at the mention of Langdon, but it cleared again, and his sunny smile came back once more. He sent out a great cloud of smoke with an entire disregard of the possibilities of artistic ring-making which he sacrificed, and chuckled gleefully. "All right, mater," he said, "if that's the state of things I've nothing more to say. You may even fleece him for my benefit if you want to." He rose as he spoke, and went over to where his mother was sitting. With heightened color, she had picked up her sewing, and bent over it so that her face was half hidden. "Who supposed there was so much sentiment in the family," he remarked. "Well, I must go down town. Good-by. I wish you joy." They kissed each other with a tenderness not customary, for neither was much given to sentimental demonstrations; and Jack went his way. It has been remarked by writers tinged with cynicism that a widow who wishes to remarry is generally able to do a large part of whatever wooing is necessary. In the present case, where the lady had frankly avowed her intention of doing the whole, there was no reason why the culmination should be long delayed. One day soon after the interview between Mrs. Neligage and her son, the widow and Harry Bradish were at the County Club when they chanced to come into the parlor just in time to discover May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, when the lover was kissing his lady's hand. Mrs. Neligage was entirely equal to the situation. "Yes, Mr. Bradish," she observed, looking upward, "you were right, this ceiling is very ugly." "I didn't say anything about the ceiling," he returned, gazing up in amazement, while Dick and May slipped out at another door. She turned to him with a countenance of mischief. "Then you should have said it, stupid!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you see Dick and May?" "I saw them go out. What of it?" "Really, Harry," she said, falling into the name which she had called him in her girlhood, "you should have your wits about you when you stumble on young lovers in a sentimental attitude." "I didn't see what they were doing. I was behind you." "Oh, he had her hand," explained she, extending hers. Bradish took it shyly, looking confused and mystified. The widow laughed in his face. "What are you laughing at?" he asked. "What do you suppose he was doing?" Mrs. Neligage demanded. "Now you have my hand, what are you going to do with it?" He dropped her hand in confusion. "I--I just took it because you gave it to me," he stammered. "I was only going--I was going to--" "Then why in the world didn't you?" she laughed, moving quickly away toward the window which opened upon the piazza. "But I will now," he exclaimed, striding after. "Oh, now it is too late," she declared teasingly. "A woman is like time. She must be taken by the forelock." "But, Mrs. Neligage, Louisa, I was afraid of offending you!" "Nothing offends a woman so much as to be afraid of offending her," was her oracular reply, as she flitted over the sill. All the way into town that sunny April afternoon Harry Bradish was unusually silent. While Mrs. Neligage, in the highest spirits, rattled on with jest, or chat, or story, he replied in monosyllables or in the briefest phrases compatible with politeness. He was evidently thinking deeply. The very droop of his yellow mustaches showed that. The presence of the trig little groom at the back of the trap was a sufficient reason why Bradish should not then deliver up any confidential disclosures in regard to the nature of his cogitations, but from time to time he glanced at the widow with the air of having her constantly in his thoughts. Bradish was the most kindly of creatures, and withal one of the most self-distrustful. He was so transparent that there was nothing surprising in the ease with which one so astute as Mrs. Neligage might read his mood if she were so disposed. He cast upon her looks of inquiry or doubt which she gave no sign of perceiving, or now and then of bewilderment as if he had come in his thought to a question which puzzled him completely. During the entire drive he was obviously struggling after some mental adjustment or endeavoring to solve some deep and complicated problem. The day was enchanting, and in the air was the exciting stir of spring which turns lightly the young man's fancy to thoughts of love. Whether Bradish felt its influence or not, he had at least the air of a man emotionally much stirred. Mrs. Neligage looked more alert, more provoking, more piquant, than ever. She had, it is true, an aspect less sentimental than that of her companion, but nature had given to Harry Bradish a likeness to Don Quixote which made it impossible for him ever to appear mischievous or sportive, and if he showed feeling it must be of the kindly or the melancholy sort. The widow might be reflecting on the effectiveness of the turnout, the fineness of the horses, the general air of style and completeness which belonged to the equipage, or she might be ruminating on the character of the driver. She might on the other hand have been thinking of nothing in particular except the light things she was saying,--if indeed it is possible to suppose that a clever woman ever confines her thoughts to what is indicated by her words. Bradish, however, was evidently meditating of her. When he had brought the horses with a proper flourish to Mrs. Neligage's door, Bradish descended and helped her out with all his careful politeness of manner. He was a man to whom courtesy was instinctive. At the stake he would have apologized to the executioner for being a trouble. He might to-day be absorbed and perplexed, but he was not for that less punctiliously attentive. "May I come in?" he asked, hat in hand. "By all means," Mrs. Neligage responded. "Come in, and I'll give you a cup of tea." Bradish sent the trap away with the satisfactory groom, and then accompanied his companion upstairs. They were no sooner inside the door of her apartment than he turned to the widow with an air of sudden determination. "Louisa," he said with awkward abruptness, "what did you mean this afternoon?" He grasped her hands with both his; his hat, which he had half tossed upon the table, went bowling merrily over the floor, but he gave it no heed. "Good gracious, Harry," she cried, laughing up into his face, "how tragic you are! Pick up your hat." He glanced at the hat, but he did not release her hands. He let her remark pass, and went on with increasing intensity which was not unmixed with wistfulness. "I've been thinking about it all the way home," he declared. "You've always teased me, Louisa, from the days we were babies, and of course I'm an old fool; but--Were you willing I should kiss your hand?" He stopped in speechless confusion, the color coming into his cheeks, and looked pathetically into her laughing face. "Lots of men have," she responded. He dropped her hands, and grew paler. "But to-day--" he stammered. "But what to-day?" she cried, moving near to him. "I thought that to-day--Louisa, for heaven's sake, do you care for me?" "Not for heaven's sake," she murmured, looking younger and more bewitching than ever. Some women at forty-five are by Providence allowed still to look as young as their children, and Mrs. Neligage was one of them. Her airs would perhaps have been ridiculous in one less youthful in appearance, but she carried them off perfectly. Bradish was evidently too completely and tragically in earnest to see the point of her quip. He looked so disappointed and abashed that it was not strange for her to burst into a peal of laughter. "Oh, Harry," she cried, "you are such a dear old goose! Must I say it in words? Well, then; here goes, despite modesty! Take me!" He stared at her as if in doubt of his senses. "Do you mean it?" he stammered. "I do at this minute, but if you're not quick I may change my mind!" Then Harry Bradish experienced a tremendous reaction from the excessive shyness of nearly half a century, and gathered her into his arms. XXVII THE CLIMAX OF COMEDY Society has always a kindly feeling toward any person who furnishes material for talk. Even in those unhappy cases where the matter provided to the gossips is of an iniquitous sort, it is not easy utterly to condemn evil which has added a pleasant spice to conversation. It is true that in word the sinner may be entirely disapproved, but the disapproval is apt to be tempered by an evident feeling of gratitude for the excitement which the sin has provided to talkers. In lighter matters, where there is no reason to regard with reprobation the course discussed, the friendliness of the gossips is often covered with a sauce piquant of doubtful insinuation, of sneer, or of ridicule, but in reality it is evident that those who abuse do so, like Lady Teazle, in pure good nature. To be talked about in society is really to be awarded for the time being such interest as society is able to feel; and the interest of society is its only regard. The engagement of Mrs. Neligage to Harry Bradish naturally set the tongues of all their acquaintances wagging, and many pretty things were said of the couple which were not entirely complimentary. The loves of elderly folk always present to the eyes of the younger generation an aspect somewhat ludicrous, and the buds giggled at the idea of nuptials which to their infantine minds seemed so venerable. The women pitied Bradish, who had been captured by the wiles of the widow, and the men thought it a pity that so gifted and dashing a woman as Mrs. Neligage should be united to a man so dull as her prospective husband. The widow did not wear her heart on her sleeve, so that daws who wished to peck at it found it well concealed behind an armor of raillery, cleverness, and adroitness. Bradish, on the other hand, was so openly adoring that it was impossible not to be touched by his beaming happiness. On the whole the match was felt to be a suitable one, although Mrs. Neligage had no money; and from the mingled pleasure of gossiping about the pair, and nominally condemning the whole business on one ground or another, society came to be positively enthusiastic over the marriage. The affairs of Jack Neligage might in time be influenced by his mother's alliance with a man of wealth, but they were little changed at first. It is true that by some subtile softening of the general heart at the thought of matrimony in the concrete, as presented by the spectacle of the loves of Mrs. Neligage and Bradish, his social world was moved to a sort of toleration of the idea of his marrying Alice Endicott in spite of his poverty. People not in the least responsible, who could not be personally affected by such a match, began to wonder after all whether there were not some way in which it might be arranged, and to condemn Miss Wentstile for not making possible the union of two lovers so long and so faithfully attached. Society delights in the romantic in other people's families, and would have rolled as a sweet morsel under its tongue an elopement on the part of Jack and Alice, or any other sort of extravagant outcome. The marriage of his mother gave him a new consequence both by keeping his affairs in the public mind and by bringing about for him a connection with a man of money. Miss Wentstile was not of a character which was likely sensitively to feel or easily to receive these beneficent public sentiments. She was a woman who was entirely capable of originating her own emotions, a fact which in itself distinguished her as a rarity among her sex. No human being, however, can live in the world without being affected by the opinions of the world; and it is probable that Miss Wentstile, with all her independence, was more influenced by the thought of those about her than could be at all apparent. Mrs. Neligage declared to Jack that she meant to be very civil to the spinster. "She's a sort of cousin of Harry's, you know," she remarked; "and it isn't good form not to be on good terms with the family till after you're married." "But after the wedding," he responded with a lazy smile, "I suppose she must look out." Mrs. Neligage looked at him, laughing, with half closed eyes. "I should think that after the marriage she would do well to remember her place," was her reply. "I shall have saved her from the Count by that time, too; and that will give her a lesson." But Providence spared Mrs. Neligage the task of taking the initiative in the matter of the Count. One day in the latter part of April, just before the annual flitting by which all truly patriotic Bostonians elude the first of May and the assessors, the widow went to call on her prospective relative. Miss Wentstile was at home in the drawing-room with Alice and the Count. Tea had been brought in, and Alice was pouring it. "I knew I should be just in time for tea," Mrs. Neligage declared affably; "and your tea is always so delicious, Miss Wentstile." "How do you do, Louisa," was Miss Wentstile's greeting. "I wish you'd let me know when you are at home. I wouldn't have called yesterday if I'd supposed you didn't know enough to stay in to be congratulated." "I had to go out," Mrs. Neligage responded. "I was sorry not to see you." "There was a horrid dog in the hall that barked at me," Miss Wentstile continued. "You ought not to let your visitors be annoyed so." "It isn't my dog," the widow replied with unusual conciliation in her manner. "It belongs to those Stearnses who have the apartment opposite." "I can't bear other people's dogs," Miss Wentstile declared with superb frankness. "Fido was the only dog I ever loved." "Where is Fido?" asked the widow. "I haven't heard his voice yet." Miss Wentstile drew herself up stiffly. "I have met with a misfortune. I had to send dear Fido away. He would bark at the Count." Whatever the intentions of Mrs. Neligage to conciliate, Providence had not made her capable of resisting a temptation like this. "How interesting the instinct of animals is," she observed with an air of the most perfect ingenuousness. "They seem to know doubtful characters by intuition." "Doubtful characters?" echoed Miss Wentstile sharply. "Didn't Fido always bark at you, Louisa?" "Yes," returned the caller as innocently as ever. "That is an illustration of what I was saying." "Oh, Madame Neleegaze ees so continuously to be _drôle_!" commented the Count, with a display of his excellent teeth. "So she have to marry, ees eet not?" "Do you mean those two sentences to go together, Count?" Alice asked, with a twinkle of fun. He stood apparently trying to recall what he had said, in order to get the full meaning of the question, when the servant announced Mrs. Croydon, who came forward with a clashing of bead fringes and a rustling of stiff silk. She was ornamented, hung, spangled, covered, cased in jet until she might not inappropriately have been set bodily into a relief map to represent Whitby. She advanced halfway across the space to where Miss Wentstile sat near the hearth, and then stopped with a dramatic air. She fixed her eyes on the Count, who, with his feet well apart, stood near Miss Wentstile, stirring his tea, and diffusing abroad a patronizing manner of ownership. "I beg your pardon, Miss Wentstile," Mrs. Croydon said in a voice a little higher than common, "I will come to see you again when you haven't an assassin in your house." There was an instant of utter silence. The remark was one well calculated to produce a sensation, and had Mrs. Croydon been an actress she might at that instant have congratulated herself that she held her audience spellbound. It was but for a flash, however, that Miss Wentstile was paralyzed. "What do you mean?" exclaimed the spinster, recovering the use of her tongue. "I mean," retorted Mrs. Croydon, extending her bugle-dripping arm theatrically, and pointing to the Count, "that man there." "Me!" cried the Count. "The Count?" cried Miss Wentstile an octave higher. "Ah!" murmured Mrs. Neligage very softly, settling herself more comfortably in her chair. "He tried to murder my husband," went on Mrs. Croydon, every moment with more of the air of a stage-struck amateur. "He challenged him!" "Your husband?" the Count returned. "Eet ees to me thees teeme first know what you have one husband, madame." "I thought your husband was dead, Mrs. Croydon," Miss Wentstile observed, in a voice which was like the opening of an outside door with the mercury below zero. Mrs. Croydon was visibly confused. Her full cheeks reddened; even the tip of her nose showed signs of a tendency to blush. Her trimmings rattled and scratched on the silk of her gown. "I should have said Mr. Barnstable," she corrected. "He was my husband once when I lived in Chicago." The Count, perfectly self-possessed, smiled and stirred his tea. "Ees eet dat de amiable Mrs. Croydon she do have a deeferent husband leek a sailor mans een all de harbors?" he asked with much deference. Mrs. Neligage laughed softly, leaning back as if at a comedy. Alice looked a little frightened. Miss Wentstile became each moment more stern. "Mr. Barnstable and I are to be remarried immediately," Mrs. Croydon observed with dignity. "It was for protecting me from the abuse of an anonymous novel that he offended you. You would have killed him for defending me." The Count waved his teaspoon airily. "He have eensult me," he remarked, as if disposing of the whole subject. "Then he was one great cowherd. He have epilogued me most abject." Mrs. Neligage elevated her eyebrows, and turned her glance to Mrs. Croydon, who stood, a much overdressed goddess of discord, still in the middle of the floor. "That is nonsense, Mrs. Croydon," she observed honeyedly. "Mr. Barnstable behaved with plenty of pluck. The apology was Jack's doing, and wasn't at all to your--your _fiancé's_ discredit." Miss Wentstile turned with sudden severity to Mrs. Neligage. "Louisa," she demanded, "do you know anything about this affair?" "Of course," was the easy answer. "Everybody in Boston knew it but you." The Count put his teacup on the mantelpiece. He had lost the jauntiness of his air, but he was still dignified. "Eet was one _affaire d'honneur_," he said. "But why was I not told of this?" Miss Wentstile asked sharply. "You?" Mrs. Croydon retorted with excitement. "Everybody supposed--" Mrs. Neligage rose quickly. "Really," she said, interrupting the speaker, "I must have another cup of tea." The interruption stopped Mrs. Croydon's remark, and Miss Wentstile did not press for its conclusion. "Count," the spinster asked, turning to that gentleman, who towered above her tall and lowering, "have you ever fought a duel?" The Count shrugged his shoulders. "All Shimbowski ees _hommes d'honneur_." She made him a frigid bow. "I have the honor to bid you good day," she said, with a manner so perfect that the absurdity of the situation vanished. The Count drew himself up proudly. Then he in his turn bowed profoundly. "You do eet too much to me honor," he said, with a dignity which was worthy of his family. "Ladies, _votre serviteur_." He made his exit in a manner to be admired. Mrs. Croydon feigned to shrink aside as he passed her, but Mrs. Neligage looked at her with so open a laugh at this performance that confusion overcame the dame of bugles, and she moved forward disconcerted. She had not yet gained a seat, when Miss Wentstile faced her with all her most unrestrained fashion. "I shouldn't think, Mrs. Croydon, that you, with the stain of a divorce court on you, were in position to throw stones at Count Shimbowski. He has done nothing but follow the customs to which he's been brought up." "Perhaps that's true of Mrs. Croydon too," murmured Mrs. Neligage to Alice. "If you wanted to tell me," Miss Wentstile went on, "why didn't you tell me when he was not here? No wonder foreigners think we are barbarians when a nobleman is insulted like that." "I didn't mean to tell you," Mrs. Croydon stammered humbly. "It just came out." "Why didn't you mean to tell me?" demanded Miss Wentstile, whose anger had evidently deprived her for the time being of all coolness. "Why, I thought you were engaged to him!" blurted out Mrs. Croydon, fairly crimson from brow to chin. "Engaged!" echoed Miss Wentstile, half breathless with indignation. Mrs. Neligage came to the rescue, cool and collected, entirely mistress of herself and of the situation. "Really, Mrs. Croydon," she suggested, smiling, "don't you think that is bringing Western brusqueness home to us in rather a startling way? We don't speak of engagements until they are announced, you know." "But Miss Wentstile told me the other day that she might announce one soon," persisted Mrs. Croydon, into whose flushed face had come a look of baffled obstinacy. Mrs. Neligage threw up her hands in a graceful little gesture. She played private theatricals infinitely better than Mrs. Croydon. There was in their art all the difference between the work of the most clumsy amateur and a polished professional. "There is nothing to do but to tell it," she said, as if appealing to Miss Wentstile and Alice. "The engagement was that of Miss Endicott and my son. Miss Wentstile never for a moment thought of marrying the Count. She knew from me that he gambled and was a famous duelist." Alice put out her hand suddenly, and caught that of the widow. "Oh, Mrs. Neligage!" she cried. The widow patted the girl's fingers. The face of Miss Wentstile was a study for a novelist who identifies art with psychology. "Of course I ought not to have told, Alice," Mrs. Neligage went on; "but I'm sure Mrs. Croydon is to be trusted. It isn't fair to your aunt that this nonsensical notion should be abroad that she meant to marry the Count." Mrs. Croydon was evidently too bewildered to understand what had taken place. She awkwardly congratulated Alice, apologized to Miss Wentstile for having made a scene, and somehow got herself out of the way. "What an absolutely incredible woman! With the talent both she and Mr. Barnstable show for kicking up rows in society," observed Mrs. Neligage, as soon as the caller had departed, "I should think they would prevent any city from being dull. I trust they will pass the time till their next divorce somewhere else than here." XXVIII THE UNCLOUDING OF LOVE Miss Wentstile sat grimly silent until they heard the outer door downstairs close behind the departing guest. Then she straightened herself up. "I thank you, Louisa," she said gravely; "you meant well, but how dared you?" "Oh, I had to dare," returned Mrs. Neligage lightly. "I'm coming into the family, you know, and must help keep up its credit." "Humph!" was the not entirely complimentary rejoinder. "If you cared for the credit of the family why didn't you tell me about the Count sooner? Is he really a fast man?" "He's been one of the best known sports in Europe, my dear Miss Wentstile." "Why didn't you tell me then?" "Why should I? I wasn't engaged to Harry then, and if the Count wanted to reform and settle down, you wouldn't have had me thwart so virtuous an inclination, would you?" "I thought you wanted him to marry Alice!" "I only wanted Alice out of the way of Jack," the widow confessed candidly. "Why?" Miss Wentstile asked. The spinster was fond of frankness, and appreciated it when it came in her way. "Because I hated to have Jack poor, and I knew that if Alice married him you'd never give them a cent to live on." Alice, her face full of confusion and pain, moved uneasily, and put her hand on the arm of Mrs. Neligage once more, as if to stop her. The widow again patted the small hand reassuringly, but kept her eyes fixed full on those of the aunt. "You took a different turn to-day," the spinster observed suspiciously. "I had to save you to-day," was the ready answer; "and besides I can't do anything with Jack. He's bound to marry Alice whether you and I like it or not, and he's going to work in a bank in the most stupid manner." To hear the careless tone in which this was said nobody could have suspected that this speech was exactly the one which could most surely move the spinster, and that the astute widow must have been fully aware of it. "So you are sure I won't give Alice anything if she marries Jack, are you?" Miss Wentstile said. "Well, Alice, you are to marry Jack Neligage to save me from the gossips." "It seems to me," Alice said, blushing very much, "that if I can't have any voice in the matter, Jack might be considered." "Oh, my dear," returned Mrs. Neligage quickly, "do you suppose that if I made an alliance for Jack, he would be so undutiful as to object?" Alice burst into a laugh, but Miss Wentstile, upon whom, in her ignorance of the engagement between Jack and May, the point was lost, let it pass unheeded. "Well," she said, "I think I'll surprise you for once, Louisa. If Jack will stick faithfully to his place in the bank for a year, I'll give him and Alice the _dot_ I promised the Count." Mrs. Neligage got away from Miss Wentstile's as soon as possible, leaving Alice to settle things with her aunt, and taking a carriage at the next corner, drove to Jack's lodgings. She burst into his room tumultuously, fortunately finding him at home, and alone. "Oh, Jack," she cried, "I didn't mean to, but I've engaged you again!" He regarded her with a quizzical smile. "Matchmaking seems to be a vice which develops with your age," he observed. "I got out of the other scrape easily enough, and I won't deny that it was rather good fun. I hope that this isn't any worse." "But, Jack, dear, this time it's Alice!" "Alice!" he exclaimed, jumping up quickly. "Yes, it's Alice, and you ought to be grateful to me, for she's going to have a fortune, too." With some incoherency, for she was less self-contained than usual, Mrs. Neligage told him what had happened. "See what it is to have a mother devoted to your interests," she concluded. "You'd never have brought Miss Wentstile to terms. You ought to adore me for this." "I do," he answered, laughing, but kissing her with genuine affection. "I hope you'll be as happy as Alice and I shall be." "I only live for my child," returned she in gay mockery. "For your sake I'm going to be respectable for the rest of my life. What sacrifices we parents do make for our children!" * * * * * Late that evening Jack was taking his somewhat extended adieus of Alice. "After all, Jack," she said, "the whole thing has come out of the novel. We'll have a gorgeously bound copy of 'Love in a Cloud' always on the table to remind us--" "To remind us," he finished, taking the words out of her mouth with a laugh, "that our love has got out of the clouds." * * * * * The Riverside Press PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON & CO. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. U.S.A. * * * * * Books by Arlo Bates. LOVE IN A CLOUD. A Novel. THE PURITANS. A Novel. THE PHILISTINES. A Novel. THE PAGANS. A Novel. PATTY'S PERVERSITIES. A Novel. PRINCE VANCE. The Story of a Prince with a Court in his Box. By ARLO BATES and ELEANOR PUTNAM. A LAD'S LOVE. UNDER THE BEECH-TREE. Poems. TALKS ON WRITING ENGLISH. TALKS ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
46958	----	of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) LITTLE NOBODY BY MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER HART SERIES No. 53 COPYRIGHT 1886 BY GEORGE MUNRO. PUBLISHED BY THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY CLEVELAND, O., U. S. A. LITTLE NOBODY. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER XXVII. CHAPTER XXVIII. CHAPTER XXIX. CHAPTER XXX. CHAPTER XXXI. CHAPTER XXXII. CHAPTER XXXIII. CHAPTER XXXIV. CHAPTER XXXV. CHAPTER XXXVI. CHAPTER XXXVII. CHAPTER XXXVIII. CHAPTER XXXIX. CHAPTER XL. CHAPTER XLI. CHAPTER XLII. CHAPTER XLIII. CHAPTER XLIV. CHAPTER XLV. CHAPTER XLVI. CHAPTER XLVII. CHAPTER XLVIII. CHAPTER I. He was a Northern journalist, and it was in the interest of his paper that he found himself, one bright March morning, in New Orleans, almost dazed by the rapidity with which he had been whirled from the ice and snow of the frozen North to the sunshine and flowers of the sunny South. He was charmed with the quaint and unique Crescent City. It was a totally different world from that in which he had been reared--a summer land, warm, indolent, luxurious, where one plucked the golden oranges from the dark-green boughs, laden at once with flowers and fruit, and where the senses were taken captive by the sensuous perfume of rare flowers that, in his Northern land, grew only within the confines of the close conservatory. Then, too, the dark, handsome faces of the people, and their mixture of foreign tongues, had their own peculiar charm. Nothing amused him so much as a stroll through the antique French Market, with its lavish abundance of tropic vegetables, fruits, and flowers, vended by hucksters of different nationalities in the Babel of languages that charmed his ear with the languorous softness of the Southern accent. He had a letter of introduction to a member of the Jockey Club, and this famous organization at once adopted him, and, as he phrased it, "put him through." The theaters, the carnival, the races, all whirled past in a blaze of splendor never to be forgotten; for it was at the famous Metairie Race-course that he first met Mme. Lorraine. But you must not think, reader, because I forgot to tell you his name at first, that he is the Little Nobody of my story. He was not little at all, but tall and exceedingly well-favored, and signed his name Eliot Van Zandt. Mme. Lorraine was a retired actress--ballet-dancer, some said. She was a French woman, airy and charming, like the majority of her race. The Jockey Club petted her, although they freely owned that she was a trifle fast, and did not have the _entrée_ of some of the best houses in the city. However, there were some nice, fashionable people not so strait-laced who sent her cards to their fêtes, and now and then accepted return invitations, so that it could not be said that she was outside the pale of society. Mme. Lorraine took a fancy to the good-looking Yankee, as she dubbed him, and gave him _carte blanche_ to call at her _bijou_ house in Esplanade Street. He accepted with outward eagerness and inward indifference. He was too familiar with women of her type at the North--fast, frivolous, and avaricious--to be flattered by her notice or her invitation. "She may do for the rich Jockey Club, but her acquaintance is too expensive a luxury for a poor devil of a newspaper correspondent," he told the Club. "She has card-parties, of course, and I am too poor to gamble." Pierre Carmontelle laughed, and told him to call in the afternoon, when there was no gambling in the _recherché_ saloon. "To see madame at home, informally, with her little savage, would be rich, _mon ami_. You would get a spicy paragraph for your newspaper," he said. "Her little savage?" "Do not ask me any questions, for I shall not answer," said Carmontelle, still laughing. "Perhaps Remond there will gratify your curiosity. The little vixen flung her tiny slipper into his face once when he tried to kiss her, under the influence of a _soupçon_ too much of madame's foamy champagne." "Madame's daughter, perhaps?" said Van Zandt, looking at Remond; but the latter only scowled and muttered, under his breath: "The little demon!" He thought they were guying him, and decided not to call in Esplanade Street. But it was only one week later that he saw Mme. Lorraine again at Metairie. Her carriage was surrounded by admirers, and she was betting furiously on the racing, but she found time to see the Yankee and beckon him importunately with her dainty, tan-kidded hand. They made way for him to come to her where she sat among her silken cushions, resplendent in old-gold satin, black lace, and Maréchal Niel roses, her beautiful, brilliant face wreathed in smiles, her toilet so perfectly appointed that she looked barely twenty-five, although the Club admitted that she must be past forty. "It is fifteen years since Lorraine married her off the stage, and she had been starring it ten years before he ever saw her," said Carmontelle, confidentially. The big, almond-shaped dark eyes flashed reproachfully, as she said, with her prettiest _moue_: "You naughty Yankee, you have not called!" "I have been too busy," he fibbed; "but I am coming this evening." "_Quel plaisir_!" she exclaimed, and then the racing distracted their attention again. The blaze of sunshine fell on one of the gayest scenes ever witnessed. The old race-course was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people in carriages, on horseback, and afoot. The grand stand was packed with a living mass. The tropical beauty and rich costumes of the Louisiana ladies lent glow and brilliancy to the exciting scene. The racing was superb, and men and women were betting freely on their favorites. Gloves and jewels and thousands of dollars were won and lost that day. The most interesting event of the day was on. A purse of gold had been offered for the most skillful and daring equestrienne, and the fair contestants were ranged before the judge's stand, magnificently mounted on blooded steeds curveting with impatient ardor, their silver-mounted trappings glistening in the sunlight, and their handsome riders clothed faultlessly in habits of dark rich cloth fitting like a glove. It was truly a splendid sight, and the Jockey Club immediately went wild, and cheered as if they would split their throats. Even Mme. Lorraine brought her gloved hands impetuously together as the five beauties rode dauntlessly forward. "Jove! how magnificent!" Carmontelle burst forth. "But, madame, look!" excitedly. "Who is that little tot on the Arab so like your own? Heavens! it is--it is--" Without completing the sentence, he fell back convulsed with laughter. Every one was looking eagerly at the slip of a girl on the back of the beautiful, shiny-coated Arab. She rode skillfully, with daring grace, yet reckless _abandon_--a girl, a child almost, the lissom, budding figure sitting erect and motionless in the saddle, a stream of ruddy golden hair flying behind her on the breeze, the small, white face staring straight before her as she swept on impetuously to the victory that every one was proclaiming would perch upon her banner. Mme. Lorraine's face paled with blended dismay and anger. She muttered, loud enough for the Yankee to overhear: "_Mon Dieu_! the daring little hussy! She shall pay for this escapade!" But to her admirers she exclaimed, a moment later, with a careless, significant shrug of the shoulders: "She has stolen a march upon me. But, pshaw! it is nothing for her, the little savage! You should have seen her mother, the bare-back rider, galloping at her highest speed and jumping through the hoops in the ring!" "_Vive_ the little savage!" cried Remond, his dark face relaxing into enthusiasm. "She has stolen a march upon you, indeed, madame, has she not?" Madame frowned and retorted, sharply: "Yes, monsieur; but I will make her pay for this! The idea of her racing my Arab, my splendid Arab, that I care for so guardedly! Why, one of his slender hoofs is worth more to me than the girl's whole body! Oh, yes, I will make her pay!" The journalist's dancing gray eyes turned on her face curiously. "She belongs to you?" "In a way, yes," madame answered, with a sharp, unpleasant laugh. "Her mother, my maid, had the bad taste to die in my employ and leave the baggage on my hands. She has grown up in my house like an unchecked weed, and has furnished some amusement for the Jockey Club." "As a sort of Daughter of the Regiment," said one, laughing; but madame frowned the more darkly. "Nonsense, Markham," she said, shortly. "Do not put such notions into Monsieur Van Zandt's head. Let him understand, once for all, she is a cipher, a little nobody." She did not quite understand the gleam in the dark-gray eyes, but he smiled carelessly enough, and replied: "At least she is very brave." "A madcap," madame answered, shortly; and just then a shriek of triumph from a thousand throats rent the air. The meteor-like figure of the golden-haired girl on the flying Arab had distanced every competitor, and the applause was tremendous. In the midst of it all she reined in her gallant steed a moment before the judges' stand, then, before the dust cleared away, she was galloping rapidly off the grounds, followed by every eye among them all; while Mme. Lorraine, beneath an indifferent air, concealed a hidden volcano of wrath and passion. She stayed for the rest of the races, but her mind was only half upon them now, and she made some wild bets, and lost every stake. She could think of nothing but the daring girl who had taken her own Selim, her costly, petted Arab, and ridden him before her eyes in that wild race in which she had won such a signal victory. CHAPTER II. Van Zandt determined to keep his promise to call in Esplanade Street that evening. He felt a languid curiosity over Mme. Lorraine's charge, the daring girl whose whole young body was worth less to madame than one of the slender hoofs of her favorite Selim. He arrived early, and was ushered into an exquisite little salon all in olive and gold--fit setting for madame's ripe, dusky beauty. She was alone, looking magnificent in ruby velvet with cream lace garnishing and ruby jewelry, and the smile with which she received him was welcome itself. "Ah, _mon ami_! I was wondering if you would really come," she said, archly. "Sit here beside me, and tell me how you enjoyed the day?" She swept aside her glowing draperies, and gave him a seat by her side on the olive satin sofa. He accepted it with an odd sensation of disappointment, despite her luring beauty and the sensuous comfort and luxury of the room, whose air was heavy with the perfume of flowers in vases and pots all about them. He thought, disappointedly: "Am I not to see her Little Nobody?" Apparently not, for no one entered, and madame sat contentedly by his side, talking arch nothings to him, fluttering her fan coquettishly, and laughing at his careless repartee. Not a word all the while of her whom madame had sworn should pay for her madcap freak of to-day. By and by came Carmontelle, Remond, and Markham. They laughed at finding Van Zandt before them. "But, madame, where is your Little Nobody?" queried the gay Carmontelle. "We are come to lay our hearts at her feet. Know that she has supplanted you in the adoration of the Jockey Club. Her victory to-day makes us all her slaves." Madame gave utterance to a light, mocking laugh as she touched the gilded bell-cord close to her hand, and all eyes turned to the door. Five, almost ten, minutes passed, then it was softly opened, and a girl came in with a silver salver heaped high with luscious tropical fruit. Van Zandt recognized her as the winner of the race by the wealth of tawny golden hair that flowed down her back below her slim, girlish waist. He waited, with his eyes on the strange young face, for madame to speak some words of introduction, but none came. Just as any other servant might have entered, so was this girl permitted to enter. The fellows from the Jockey Club nodded familiarly at her, and received a sulky stare in return as she dispensed her fruit among them with impatient courtesy. When she paused, last of all, before Mme. Lorraine, with her salver of fruit, she seemed first to observe the tall, fair man by her side. She started and fixed her big, solemn, dark eyes half wonderingly upon him, and for a second they gazed silently and curiously at each other. He saw a girl of fifteen or so, very _petite_ for her age, and made to look more so by the fashion of her dress, which consisted mainly of a loosely fashioned white embroidered slip, low in the neck, short in the sleeves, and so short in the skirt that it reached the verge of immodesty by betraying much more than the conventional limit of the tapering ankles and rounded limbs. Madame had evidently aimed more at picturesqueness than propriety in choosing her dress, and she had certainly attained her point. Anything more full of unstudied grace and unconscious beauty than the little serving-maid it would be hard to imagine. The contrast of tawny golden hair with dark eyes and slender, jetty brows, with features molded in the most bewitching lines, and form as perfect as a sculptor's model, made up a _tout ensemble_ very pleasing to the journalist's observant eyes. There was but one defect, and that was a certain sullenness of eyes and expression that bespoke a fiery spirit at bay, a nature full of repressed fire and passion ready to burst into lava-flame at a touch, a word. For her she saw a man of twenty-five or six, tall, manly, and handsome in a splendid intellectual fashion, with fair hair clustered above a grand white brow, blue-gray eyes bright and laughing, a fair mustache ornamenting lips at once firm and sweet, a chin that was grave and full of power in spite of the womanish dimple that cleft it--altogether a most attractive face, and one that influenced her subtly, for some of the sullenness faded from her face, and with brightening eyes she exclaimed, with all the freedom of a child: "Oh, I know you at sight! You are madame's handsome Yankee, _n'est ce pas_?" He rose, laughing, and with his most elaborate bow. "Eliot Van Zandt, at your service," he said. "Yes, I am the Yankee. And you?" He saw the sullen gleam come back into her eyes, as she answered curtly, and, as it seemed, with repressed wrath: "Oh. I am Little Nobody, madame says. I have always been too poor to have even a name. Have some fruit, please." Madame tittered behind her elaborate fan, and the members of the Jockey Club exchanged glances. Eliot took an orange mechanically, and then the girl put the salver down and turned to go. But Mme. Lorraine's dark eyes looked over the top of her fan with sarcastic amusement. "Remain," she said, with cold brevity; and the girl flung herself angrily down into a chair, with her hands crossed and her tiny slippers dangling. With uplifted eyes she studied intently the face of the stranger. "Handsome, is he, madcap?" at length queried Carmontelle, full of amusement. The large eyes turned on his face scornfully. "Handsomer than any of the ugly old Jockey Club!" she replied, with decision. "We shall all be very jealous of this Yankee," said Markham. "Here we have been adoring you ever since you were a baby, ma'amselle, and you throw us over in a bunch for the sake of this charming stranger. You are cruel, unjust." He began to hum, softly, meaningly: "'Do not trust him, gentle lady, Though his words be low and sweet; Heed not him that kneels before thee, Gently pleading at thy feet.'" The song went no further, for the girl looked at him with large eyes of sarcastic amusement and said, curtly: "If I had such an atrocious voice as yours, I should not try to sing." A sally of laughter greeted the words, and the sulky countenance relaxed into a smile. Van Zandt studied the young face closely, his artistic taste charmed by its bright, warm beauty, full of Southern fire and passion. "How came she, the nameless child of a circus-rider, by her dower of high-bred, faultless beauty?" he thought, in wonder, noticing the dainty white hands, the "Delicate Arab arch of her feet, And the grace that, light and bright as the crest Of a peacock, sits on her shining head; And she knows it not. Oh, if she knew it! To know her beauty might half undo it." Mme. Lorraine, at his side, watched him with lowered lids and compressed lips. At last, tapping his arm with her fan, and smiling archly, she said, in an under-tone: "Beautiful, is she not, _mon ami_? But--that is all. Her mind is a void, a blank--capable of nothing but the emotions of anger or hatred, the same as the brute creation. I have tried to educate her into a companion, but in vain; so she can never be more than a pretty toy to me--no more nor less than my Maltese kitten or my Spitz puppy, although I like to see her about me, the same as I love all beautiful things." He heard her in amazement. Soulless--that beautiful, spirited-looking creature! Could it be? He saw the dark eyes lighten as the men began to praise her dauntless riding that day. They were very expressive, those large, almond-shaped eyes. Surely a soul dwelt behind those dark-fringed lids. Some one proposed cards, and madame assented with alacrity, without seeing Eliot Van Zandt's gesture of disgust. He refused point-blank to take a hand in the game, and said, with reckless audacity: "Do not mind me; I am always unlucky at play; so I will amuse myself instead with Little Nobody." Her eyes flashed, but when Mme. Lorraine vacated the seat upon the sofa, she came over and took it, not with any appearance of forwardness, but as a simple matter of course. Then, looking up at him, she said, with child-like directness: "And so you are a Yankee? I am surprised. I have always hated the Yankees, you know. My father was a Confederate soldier, madame says. He was killed the last year of the war, just a month before I was born." Mme. Lorraine looked around with a dark frown, but Van Zandt pretended not to see it as he answered: "Do you mean that you will not have me for your friend, ma'amselle, because I was born in Boston, and because my father fell fighting for the Stars and Stripes?" "A friend? What is that, monsieur?" she queried, naïvely; and Markham, to whom the conversation was perfectly audible from his corner of the card-table, looked around, and said, teasingly: "It is something that you will never be able to keep, ma'amselle, by reason of your pretty face. All your friends will become your lovers." "Hold your tongue, Colonel Markham; I was not talking to you, and it's ill manners to break into a conversation," said the girl, shortly. She broke off a white camellia from a vase near her, and held it lightly between her taper fingers as she again addressed herself to the journalist: "I like your word 'friend.' It has a nice sound. But I don't quite understand." "I must try to explain it to you," he replied, smiling. "I may tell you, since Markham has broached the subject, that the poets have said that friendship is love in disguise, but the dictionary gives it a more prosaic meaning. Let us find it as it is in Webster." "Webster?" stammeringly, and Mme. Lorraine looked around with her disagreeably sarcastic laugh. "Monsieur Van Zandt, you bewilder my little savage. She can not read." But a light of comprehension flashed instantly into the puzzled eyes. She pulled Eliot's sleeve. "You mean books. Come, you will find plenty in the library." He followed her into the pretty room beyond the olive satin _portière_, where they found plenty of books indeed. She pointed to them, and looked at him helplessly. He found Webster on the top shelf of a rich inlaid book-case, and was half-stifled with dust as he drew it down from the spot where it had rested undisturbed for years. He sneezed vigorously, and his companion hastened to dust it off with her tiny handkerchief. "Now!" she said, anxiously, spreading the big book open on a table before him. CHAPTER III. The leaves fluttered with her hasty movement, and a folded sheet of parchment fell out upon the floor. As he turned the pages to the F's she picked up the paper and held it in her hands, looking curiously at the bold, clear superscription on the back, and the big red seal; but it told nothing to her uneducated eyes, and with an unconscious sigh, she pushed it back into the dictionary, her hand touching his in the movement and sending an odd thrill of pleasure along his nerves. He read aloud, in his clear, full tones: "'FRIEND.--One who, entertaining for another sentiments of esteem, respect, and affection, from personal predilection, seeks his society and welfare; a well-wisher, an intimate associate.'" She stood by him, her hands resting on the table, trembling with pleasure, her face glowing. "It is beautiful," she exclaimed. "I thought the word sounded very sweet. And--you--you want to be my friend?" The most finished coquette might have envied the artless naïveté of her look and tone, yet she was "Too innocent for coquetry, Too fond for idle scorning." Touched by this new side of her character, he put his hand impulsively on the little one resting close by his on the table with a gentle pressure. "Child, I will be your friend if you will let me," he said, in a gentle tone, and not dreaming of all to which that promise was swiftly leading. "I shall be so glad," she said, in a voice so humble, and with so tender a face, that the people in the other room would scarce have recognized her as the little savage and vixen they called her. But Pierre Carmontelle, always full of mischief and banter, had deliberately sauntered in, and heard the compact of friendship between the two who, until to-night, had been utter strangers. He gave his friend a quizzical smile. "Ever heard of Moore's 'Temple to Friendship,' Van Zandt?" he inquired, dryly. "Let me recall it to your mind." He brought a book from a stand near by, opened it, and read aloud, with dry significance, in his clear voice: "'A Temple to Friendship,' said Laura, enchanted, 'I'll build in this garden--the thought is divine!' Her temple was built, and she now only wanted An image of Friendship to place on the shrine. She flew to a sculptor who sat down before her A Friendship the fairest his art could invent; But so cold and so dull that the youthful adorer Saw plainly this was not the idol she meant. "'Oh, never!' she cried, 'could I think of enshrining An image whose looks are so joyless and dim; But you, little god, upon roses reclining, We'll make, if you please sir, a Friendship of him.' So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden, She joyfully flew to her shrine in the grove; 'Farewell,' said the sculptor, 'you're not the first maiden Who came but for Friendship and took away Love!'" He shut the book and laughed, for he had the satisfaction of seeing a warm flush mount to the temples of the young journalist, but the girl, so young, so ignorant, so strangely beautiful, looked at him unabashed. Evidently she knew no more of love than she did of friendship. They were alike meaningless terms to her uncultured mind. Frowning impatiently, she said: "Carmontelle, why did you intrude upon us here? I wanted to talk to Monsieur Van Zandt." "And I, ma'amselle, wanted to talk to you. Madame Lorraine was very angry with you for racing Selim to-day. What did she do to you?" The large eyes brightened angrily, and a hot rose-flush broke through the creamy pallor of her oval cheek. "Beat me!" she said, bitterly. "No!" from both men in a shocked tone. "But yes," she replied, with a sudden return of sullenness. With a swift movement she drew the mass of hair from her white shoulders, which she pushed up out of her low dress with a childish movement. "Look at the marks on my back," she said. They did look, and shuddered at the sight. The thick tresses of hair had hidden the long, livid marks of a cruel lash on the white flesh. There were a dozen or so of stripes, and the flesh was cut in some places till the blood had oozed through. The girl's eyes flashed, and she clinched her little hands tightly. "I hate that woman!" she muttered, fiercely. "Oh, it is cruel, cruel, to be nobody, to have no one but her, to be nothing but a pretty plaything, as she calls me, like her Spitz and her cat, her parrot and monkey! I mean to run away. It was for that I rode to-day--to win the gold--but--" "But--what?" said Van Zandt, huskily. She answered with passionate pride: "When she beat me--when she flung my poverty in my face--when she said I should be starving but for her bread--I flung the purse of gold down at her feet--to--to--pay!" The hard glitter of the dark eyes dissolved in quick tears. She dropped the golden tresses back on her lacerated shoulders, flung her arms before her face, and hard, choking sobs shook the slight, young form. The two men gazed on her, pale, moved, speechless. Eliot Van Zandt thought of his fair, young sisters, scarcely older than this girl, on whose lovely frames the winds of heaven were scarce permitted to blow roughly. Why, if any one had struck Maud or Edith such a blow, he should have sent a bullet through his heart, so fierce would be his anger. He looked at Carmontelle. "Monsieur Lorraine--does he permit this?" he asked, indignantly. "Lorraine had been in a mad-house fourteen years--sent there by the madness of jealousy," was the unexpected reply. Madame's gay, shrill laugh rang out from the salon where she was winning golden eagles from her friends. The journalist shuddered and wondered if the brilliant woman ever remembered the man gone insane for her sake. Ma'amselle's hard, bitter sobs ceased suddenly as they had begun. She dashed the tears from her eyes, and said, with bitter resignation: "_N'importe_! It is not the first time--perhaps it may not be the last. But, _mon Dieu_, it is better to be only her plaything, petted one moment, whipped the next, as she does her mischievous monkey and snarling puppy. She says she should make me live in the kitchen if I were ugly instead of being so pretty. She wants everything about her to be pretty. But, say nothing of all this, you two," lifting a warning taper finger. "It could do no good--she would only beat me more." "Too true!" assented Pierre Carmontelle, sadly. CHAPTER IV. They returned to the salon, and Mme. Lorraine flung down her cards and arose. "Messieurs, I will give you your revenge another time. Now I must give some attention to my Northern friend. Come, Monsieur Van Zandt, let me show you my garden by moonlight." She slipped her hand through his arm and led him through a side-door and out into a tropical garden bathed in a full flood of summer moonlight. Carmontelle drew Little Nobody out by the hand. Markham and Remond followed. To Van Zandt's unaccustomed eyes the scene was full of weird, delicious splendor. Fountains sparkled in the moonlight, watering the stems of tall, graceful palm-trees and massive live-oaks, whose gigantic branches were draped in wide, trailing banners of funereal-gray moss. Immense green ferns bordered the basins of the fountains, white lilies nodded on tall, leafy stems, roses vied with orange-blossoms in filling the air with fragrance, and passion-flowers climbed tall trellies and flung their large flowers lavishly to the breeze. Madame, with her jeweled hand clinging to Van Zandt's arm, her jewels gleaming, walked along the graveled paths in advance of the rest, talking to him in her gay fashion that was odd and enchanting from its pretty mixture of broken French and English, interlarded here and there with a Spanish phrase. She was bent on subduing the heart of the young journalist, his coldness and indifference having roused her to a fatal pique and interest--fatal because her love was like the poisonous upas-tree, blighting all that it touched. She had brought him out here for a purpose. In the soft, delusive moonlight she looked fair and young as a woman of twenty, and here she could weave her Circean spells the best. She became soft and sentimental with her light badinage. Bits of poetry flowed over the crimson lips, the dark eyes were raised to his often, coyly and sweetly, the jeweled hand slipped until her throbbing wrist rested lightly on his. Every gracious, cunning art of coquetry was employed, and the victim seemed very willing indeed to be won. But when they bantered him next day he laughed with the rest. "_Ad nauseam_!" he replied, boldly. * * * * * But he went again that night to Esplanade Street, drawn by an indefinable power to the presence of the cruel, beautiful woman and her fawn-like, lovely dependent. "Madame Lorraine was engaged, but she would come to him soon," said the sleek page who admitted him to the salon, which a quick glance showed him was quite deserted. He waited awhile, then grew weary of the stillness and silence, and went out through the open side-door into the charming garden. The quiet walks gave back no echo of his firm tread as he paused and threw himself upon a rustic bench beside a tinkling fountain, but presently from beyond the great live-oak with its gray moss drapery there came to him the sound of a clear, sweet voice. "The little ma'amselle," he thought, at first, and deemed it no harm to listen. "It is a bargain, then, monsieur. You take the girl, and I am a thousand dollars richer. _Ciel_! but what a rare revenge I shall have for yesterday;" and Mme. Lorraine's low laugh, not sweet and coquettish now, but full of cruel venom, rang out on the evening air. The night was warm, but Eliot Van Zandt shuddered through all his strong, proud frame, as the voice of Remond answered: "Revenge--ha! ha! Mine shall be gained, too. How I hate and love the little savage in one breath, and I have sworn she shall pay for that slipper flung in my face. It is a costly price, but to gratify love and hate alike I will not stop at the cost." "You are right. Once I refused when you asked for her because I prized my pretty, innocent, ignorant toy. But yesterday the fires of hell were kindled in my breast. She is no longer a child. When she rode Selim there amid the plaudits of thousands, she became my rival, hated and dreaded, and I swore she should pay for her triumph at bitter cost. Last night did you see her with Van Zandt, her sly coquetry, her open preference? In her sleep, as she lay coiled on her cot, she murmured his name and smiled. It was enough. I swore I would hesitate no longer. I would give you your will." Rooted to his seat with horror, Van Zandt sat speechless, his blood curdling at Remond's demoniac laugh. "You have a _penchant_ for the quill-driver?" scoffingly said the Frenchman. "He is a new sensation. His indifference piques me to conquer him"--carelessly; "but to the point. I will drug her to sleep to-night, and you shall carry her off. Bring a carriage at midnight--all shall be ready." "Done! But when they ask for her--for the Jockey Club has gone wild with admiration over the little vixen--what can you say?" "I overheard her last night threatening to run away. She was in the library with Carmontelle and the Yankee. What more easy than to say she has carried out her threat?" Their low, jubilant laughter echoed in the young journalist's ear like the mirth of fiends. There was a promise of money that night, injunctions of caution and secrecy; then the conspirators swept away toward the house, and Van Zandt remained there, in the shadowy night, unseen, unsuspected, brooding over what he had heard uttered behind the drooping veil of long, gray moss. Carmontelle had said, laughingly, that a visit to madame and her little savage would furnish a spicy paragraph for his paper. He thought, grimly, that here was the item with a vengeance. Oh! to think of that heartless woman and man, and of the simple, ignorant, lovely child bartered to shame for the sake of a fiendish revenge! The blood in his veins ran hotly, as if turned to fire. "My God! I must do something," he muttered, and then started with a stifled cry of alarm. From among the shrubberies close by something had started up with a sobbing cry. It ran toward him, and fell down at his feet; it was poor Little Nobody. "You have heard? I saw you when you came!" she gasped, wildly. "Yes, poor child!" he answered. "Sold! sold, like a slave, to the man I hate!" she cried, fearfully, her dark eyes distended in terror. "Oh, monsieur, he kissed me once, and I hated his kiss worse than madame's blow. I flung my slipper in his face, and he swore revenge. Once in his power, he would murder me. Oh, you promised to be my friend"--wildly--"save me! save me now!" CHAPTER V. It was a strange, picturesque scene there in the starlit garden, with its stately palms, its immense rough cactuses, its fountains, and flowers. The man sat there with doubt, trouble, and sympathy looking out of his frank eyes at the girl who knelt before him, her delicate, tapering hands pressed together, her white face looking up piteously, the tears raining from her splendid eyes, and the long veil of golden hair sweeping loosely about her slender form, that passionate appeal thrilling over her crimson lips: "Save me! save me!" "Poor child, what can I do?" he uttered, almost unconsciously, and she answered, wildly: "Only tell me where to fly for refuge! I am dazed and frightened. I know not where to go unless to the deep, dark river, and fling myself in. But I do not want to die. I only want to get away from this terrible place to some happier spot! Ah! _certainement, le bon Dieu_ sent you here, monsieur, to help me, to save me!" All her trust was in him, all her confidence. He had promised to be her friend, and in a simplicity and innocence as complete as a child's, she claimed his promise. Nay, more, she claimed that God had sent him to her aid in this dark hour of distress. His mind was a chaos of contending emotions. That he must help her he had decided already in his mind. But how? No answer presented itself to the vexing question. His thoughts were in such a tumult that clear, coherent thinking was an impossibility. A moment, and he said, gently: "Yes, I will help you, my child. I were less than man could I let this thing go on and make no attempt to rescue you from so dark a fate. But--" He paused, and she waited anxiously with her straining gaze fixed on his troubled face. "But," he went on slowly, "I can not see my way clear yet; I must think, must decide. And it is not safe to remain out here longer. They may come out here and find me at any moment. Little one, can you trust me to go away and think it all over, and then come back to you?" A moment of silence, then she rose and stood before him. "Yes, yes, I will trust you," she said, gently; then, with sudden desperation, "Should--should you not come back I will never be taken by him. There--is--still--the--river!" "Do not think of that," he said, quickly; "I will soon return. Trust me wholly. Have I not promised to be your friend?" "Yes, yes," eagerly. She put out her hands as if to clasp his arm, then suddenly withdrew them. Frank and child-like as she was, she was coy and shy as a fawn. She clasped her delicate hands before her, and stood waiting. "Now, tell me, is there not some way by which I can gain the street without returning to the house?" said Van Zandt. "Yes, monsieur. Follow me," said the girl, turning swiftly and going across the garden to a small gate in the wall that opened on the street. She turned a key in the lock and opened it wide as he came up, thrusting shyly into his hand some dewy rosebuds she had plucked from a vine that clambered to the top of the wall. "Do not fail me, _mon ami_," she breathed, softly. "You can trust me," he said, again. "Now go back to the garden or the house. Be as natural as you can. Do not let them suspect your dangerous knowledge." She nodded her bright head wisely, and the next moment he was out in the street, the gate shut against him, alone with the thronging thoughts awakened by the occurrences of the last hour. He pulled a cigar from his breast-pocket, lighted it, and walked slowly along the wide and almost deserted street, under the shade of the tall trees that bordered the walk, his calmness gradually returning under the influence of the narcotic weed. Within the flowery garden the little ma'amselle, so strangely lovely, so ignorant and innocent, with that deadly peril menacing her young life, flung herself down upon a garden-seat and gave herself up to impatient waiting for the return of her knight, her brave Sir Galahad. "How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favors fall; For them I battle to the end To save from shame and thrall." CHAPTER VI. Van Zandt had gone but a few squares, with his eyes cast down and his mind very busy, before he stumbled up against a man coming from an opposite direction. Both being tall and strong, they recoiled with some force from the shock, each muttering confused apologies. But the next moment there was an exclamation: "Van Zandt, upon my word!" cried the musical voice of Pierre Carmontelle. "Why, man, what the deuce ails you, to go butting up against a fellow in that striking fashion?" "Carmontelle!" "Yes--or, at least, what is left of him after your villainous assault. Where were your eyes, _mon ami_, that you run up against a fellow so recklessly? And where have you been, anyway--to madame's?" Eliot Van Zandt laughed at his friend's droll raillery. "Yes, I have just come from Madame Lorraine's," he said. "And I came away in a brown study, which accounts for my not seeing you. And you--you were on your way there?" "Yes." The word was spoken in a strange voice, and an odd little laugh followed it. Then the big, handsome Louisianian suddenly took hold of Van Zandt's arm, and said: "Come, I have a great mind to make a confidant of you. Let us go and sit down yonder in the square, and smoke." When they were seated, and puffing away at their cigars, he began: "The fact is, I was in a brown study, too, Van Zandt, or I should not have run against you. I was going to Madame Lorraine's, and I found myself thinking soberly, seriously about the beautiful madame's wretched little slave and foot-ball, the Little Nobody you saw there last night." "Yes," Van Zandt answered, with a quick start. "By Heaven! it is a shame that the poor, pretty little vixen has no friends to rescue her from her tormentor!" exclaimed Carmontelle, vehemently. "For years this cruelty has been going on, and the girl, with her immortal soul, has been made a puppet by that charming, heartless woman. Would you believe it, the girl has never been given even the rudiments of an education? She is ignorant as a little savage, with not even a name. Yet I have seen this go on for years, in my careless fashion, without an effort to help the child. I can not understand what has roused me from my apathy, what has made me think of her at last--ah, _mon Dieu_!" This exclamation was called forth by some sudden inward light. He went on, with a half-shamed laugh: "What a speech I have made you, although I do not usually preach. Van Zandt, am I getting good, do you think, or--have I fallen in love with that Little Nobody?" There was a minute's pause, and Eliot Van Zandt took the cigar from between his lips, and answered, quietly: "In love, decidedly." "_Parbleu_!" After that hurried exclamation there was a moment's silence. Carmontelle broke it with an uneasy laugh. "I am forty years old, but I suppose a man is never too old to make a fool of himself," he said. "I believe you are right, _mon ami_. I could not get the child out of my head last night. I never noticed how pretty she was before; and those lashes on her sweet, white shoulders. I longed to kiss them, as children say, to make them well." "Poor child!" said Van Zandt; and then, without preamble, he blurted out the story of what had just happened. Carmontelle listened with clinched hands and flashing eyes, the veins standing out on his forehead like whip-cords. "The fiend!" he muttered. "_Peste_! he was always a sneak, always a villain at heart. More than once we have wished him well out of the club. Now he shall be lashed from the door, the double-dyed scoundrel! And she, the deceitful madame, she could plan this horrid deed! She is less than woman. She shall suffer, mark you, for her sin." "But the little ma'amselle, Carmontelle? What shall we do to deliver her from her peril? Every passing moment brings her doom nearer, yet I can think of nothing. My brain seems dull and dazed." "Do? Why, we shall take a carriage and bring her away 'over the garden wall,'" replied Carmontelle, lightly but emphatically. "Very well; but--next?" Carmontelle stared and repeated, in some bewilderment: "Next?" Eliot Van Zandt explained: "I mean, what shall we do when we have brought her away? Where shall we find her a refuge and hiding-place from her treacherous enemies?" anxiously. "You cold-blooded, long-headed Yankee! I never thought of that. I should have brought her away without thinking of the future. But you are right. It is a question that should be decided first. What, indeed, shall we do with the girl?" And for a moment they looked at each other, in the starlight, almost helplessly. Then Van Zandt said, questioningly: "Perhaps you have relatives or friends with whom you could place her? I am not rich, but I could spare enough to educate this wronged child." "I have not a relative in the world--not a friend I could trust; nothing but oceans of money, so you may keep yours. I'll spend some of mine in turning this little savage into a Christian." "You will take her to school, then, right away?" Van Zandt went on, in his quiet, pertinacious way. "Yes; and, by Jove, when she comes out, finished, I'll marry her, Van Zandt! I will, upon my word!" "If she will have you," laconically. "_Peste_! what a fellow you are, to throw cold water upon one. Perhaps you have designs upon her yourself?" "Not in the face of your munificent intentions," carelessly. "Very well; I shall consider her won, then, since you are too generous to enter the lists against me. What a magnificent beauty she will make when she has learned her three R's!" laughingly. "But, come; shall we not go at once to deliver our little friend from Castle Dangerous?" They rose. "I am glad I ran against you, Carmontelle. You have straightened out the snarl that tangled my mind. Now for our little stratagem. You will bring the carriage to the end of the square, while I go back to the garden and steal the bird away." "Excellent!" said Carmontelle. "Oh, how they will rage when they find the bird has flown! To-morrow the club shall settle with Remond; for madame, she shall be ostracised. We shall desert her in a body. Who would have believed she would be so base?" Van Zandt made no comment. He only said, as if struck by a sudden thought: "The poor child will have no clothes fit to wear away. Can you find time, while getting a carriage, to buy a gray dress, a long ulster, and a hat and veil?" "Of course. What a fellow you are to think of things! I should not have thought of such a thing; yet what school would have received her in that white slip--picturesque, but not much better than a ballet-dancer's skirts!" exclaimed the lively Southerner. "You are a trump, Van Zandt. Can you think of anything else as sensible?" "Some fruit and bonbons to soothe her at school--that is all," lightly, as they parted, one to return to Mme. Lorraine's, the other to perfect the arrangements for checkmating Remond's nefarious design. Carmontelle was full of enthusiasm over the romantic idea that had occurred so suddenly to his mind. A smile curled his lips, as he walked away, thinking of dark-eyed Little Nobody, and running over in his mind a score of feminine cognomens, with one of which he meant to endow the nameless girl. "Constance, Marie, Helene, Angela, Therese, Maude, Norine, Eugenie, etc.," ran his thoughts; but Eliot Van Zandt's took a graver turn as he went back to the starlit garden and the girl who believed him her Heaven-sent deliverer from peril and danger. "There is but little I can do; Carmontelle takes it all out of my hands," he mused. "Perhaps it is better so; he is rich, free." A sigh that surprised himself, and he walked on a little faster until he reached the gate by which he had left the garden. Here he stopped, tapped softly, and waited. But there was no reply to his knock, although he rapped again. Evidently she had gone into the house. "I shall have to go in," he thought, shrinking from the encounter with the wicked madame and her partner in villainy, M. Remond. Madame was at the piano, Remond turning the leaves of her music while she rendered a brilliant _morceau_. His hasty glance around the room did not find the little ma'amselle. "She will be here presently," he decided, as he returned with what grace he could Mme. Lorraine's effusive greeting. She was looking even lovelier than last night, in a costume of silvery silk that looked like the shimmer of moonlight on a lake. Her white throat rose from a mist of lace clasped by a diamond star. In her rich puffs of dark hair nestled white Niphetos roses shedding their delicate perfume about her as she moved with languid grace. The costume had been chosen for him. She had a fancy that it would appeal to his sense of beauty and purity more than her glowing robes of last night. She was right. He started with surprise and pleasure at the dazzling sight, but the admiration was quickly succeeded by disgust. "So beautiful, yet so wicked!" he said, to himself. "You were singing. Pray go on," he said, forcing her back to the piano. It would be easier to sit and listen than to take part in the conversation with his mind on the _qui vive_ for the entrance of her he had come to save. He listened mechanically to the sentimental Italian _chanson_ madame chose, but kept his eyes on the door, expecting every minute to see a _petite_ white form enter the silken portals. Remond saw the watchfulness, and scowled with quick malignity. "Other eyes than mine watch for her coming," he thought. The song went on. The minutes waned. Van Zandt furtively consulted his watch. "Past ten. What if that wicked woman has already forced her to retire?" he thought, in alarm, and the minutes dragged like leaden weights. "Oh, if I could but slip into the garden. Perhaps she is there still, fallen asleep like a child on the garden-seat." Mme. Lorraine's high, sweet voice broke suddenly in upon his thoughts. "Monsieur, you sing, I am sure. With those eyes it were useless to deny it. You will favor us?" He was about to refuse brusquely, when a thought came to him. She would hear his voice, she would hasten to him, and the message of hope must be whispered quickly ere it was too late. He saw Remond watching him with sarcastic eyes, and said, indifferently: "I can sing a little from a habit of helping my sisters at home. And I belong to a glee club. If these scant recommendations please you, I will make an effort to alarm New Orleans with my voice." "You need not decry your talents. I am sure you will charm us," she said; and Van Zandt dropped indolently upon the music-stool. His long, white fingers moved softly among the keys, evoking a tender accompaniment to one of Tennyson's sweetest love songs: "'Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done. In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun. "'There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near," And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear," And the lily whispers, "_I wait_."'" The man and the woman looked at each other behind his back. Remond wore a significant scowl; madame a jealous sneer. It faded into a smile as he whirled around on the music-stool and faced her with a look of feigned adoration. "Last night was so heavenly in the garden--let us go out again," he said, almost consumed by impatience. Time was going fast, and it lacked little more than an hour to midnight. He chafed at the thought that Carmontelle was waiting with the carriage, impatient, and wondering at the strange delay. "We will go into the garden," assented Mme. Lorraine. "Ah, you cold-looking Yankee, you can be as sentimental as a Southerner. Monsieur Remond, will you accompany us?" "Pardon; I will go home. I have no fancy for love among the roses," with a covert sneer. "Madame, monsieur, _bon soir_." He bowed and was gone. Van Zandt drew a long breath of dismay. What if he should stumble upon Carmontelle and the carriage waiting at the end of the square under cover of the night? It was impossible to follow. Mme. Lorraine's white hand clasping his arm, drew him out into the garden, with its sweet odors, its silence, and dew. His heart leaped with expectancy. "I shall find her here asleep among the flowers, forgetful of the dangers that encompass her young life." He declared to Mme. Lorraine that he did not want to miss a single beauty of the romantic old garden, and dragged her remorselessly all over its length and breadth. Perhaps she guessed his intent, but she made no sign. She was bright, amiable, animated, all that a woman can be who hopes to charm a man. He scarcely heeded her, so frantically was he looking everywhere for a crouching white form that he could not find. There came to him suddenly a horrified remembrance of her pathetic words: "There is still the river!" A bell somewhere in the distance chimed the half hour in silvery tones. Only thirty minutes more to midnight! With some incoherent excuse he tore himself away from her, and dashing wildly out into the street, ran against Pierre Carmontelle for the second time that night. "I have waited for hours, and was just coming to seek you. What does this mean?" he exclaimed, hoarsely. A whispered explanation forced a smothered oath from his lips. "Be calm. There is but one way left us. We will conceal ourselves near the door and wrest her from them when they bring her out," said Eliot Van Zandt. CHAPTER VII. But no place of concealment presented itself. The broad pavement showed a long, unbroken space of moonlit stone, save where one tall tree reared its stately height outside the curb-stone, and flung long, weird shadows across the front of madame's house. Carmontelle looked up and down the street, and shook his head. "I can see no hiding-place but the tree," he said. "We need none better, unless you are too stout to scale it," Van Zandt answered, coolly, turning a questioning glance upon the rather corpulent form of his good-looking companion. "You will see," laughed the Southerner, softly. He glanced up and down the street, and seeing no one in sight, made a bound toward the tree, flung out his arms, and scaled it with admirable agility, finding a very comfortable seat among its low-growing branches. Van Zandt followed his example with boyish ease, and they were soon seated close to each other on the boughs of the big tree, almost as comfortable as if they had been lounging on the satin couches of madame's _recherché_ salon. It was delightful up there among the cool green leaves, with the fresh wind blowing the perfume of madame's flowers into their faces. "I feel like a boy again," said the journalist, gayly. "Softly; we are opposite the windows of madame's chamber, I think," cautioned Carmontelle. "She will not come up yet; she will wait in the salon for Remond. It is but a few minutes to midnight." A step approached, and they held their breath in excessive caution. It passed on--only a guardian of the peace pacing his beat serenely, his brass buttons shining in the moonlight. Van Zandt whispered: "I am not sure but we should have invoked the aid of the law in our trouble." But Pierre Carmontelle shook his head. "The law is too slow sometimes," he said. "We will place the little girl in some safe refuge first, then, if Madame Lorraine attempts to make trouble, we will resort to legal measures. I am not apprehensive of trouble on that score, however, for madame really has no legal right to the girl. Has she not declared scores of times that her maid died, and left the child upon her hands, and that, only for pity's sake, she would have sent her off to an orphan asylum?" Steps and voices came along the pavement--two roystering lads, fresh from some festal scene, their steps unsteady with wine. They passed out of sight noisily recounting their triumph to each other. Then the echo of wheels in the distance, "low on the sand, loud on the stone." "Are you armed?" whispered the Louisianian, nervously. "No." The cold steel of a pistol pressed his hand. "Take that; I brought two," whispered Carmontelle. "We may need them. One of us must stand at bay, while the other seizes and bears away the girl." "It shall be I. I will cover your flight," Van Zandt said, quietly. Under his calm exterior was seething a tempest of wrath and indignation that made him clutch the weapon in a resolute grasp. He had pure and fair young sisters at home. The thought of them made him feel more strongly for madame's forlorn victim. Their hearts leaped into their throats as Remond's close carriage dashed into sight, whirled up to madame's door, and stopped. The door swung open, and Remond, muffled up to the ears, sprung out and went up to the house. Its portals opened as if by magic, with a swish of silken robes in the hall. Madame herself had silently admitted her co-conspirator. Most fortunately the back of the carriage was toward the tree, and the driver's attention was concentrated upon his restive horses. Silently as shadows the two men slid down from their novel hiding-place, tiptoed across the pavement, and took up their grim station on either side the closed door. Not a moment too soon! At that very instant the door unclosed, and Remond appeared upon the threshold bearing in his arms a slight, inert figure wrapped in a long, dark cloak. Madame, still in her diamonds, roses, and silvery drapery, appeared behind him just in time to see a powerful form swoop down upon Remond, wrest his prize from him, and make off with wonderful celerity, considering the weight of the girlish form in his arms. She fell back with a cry of dismay. "_Diable_! _Spies_!" Remond had recoiled on the instant with a fierce oath hissed in his beard--only an instant; then he dashed forward in mad pursuit, only to be tripped by an outstretched foot that flung him face downward on the hard pavement. Scrambling up in hot haste, with the blood gushing from his nostrils, he found his way barred by Eliot Van Zandt. "Back, villain! Your prey has escaped you!" the young man cried, sternly. A black and bitter oath escaped Remond, and his trembling hand sought his belt. He hissed savagely: "Accursed spy! Your life shall answer for this!" Then the long keen blade of a deadly knife flashed in the moonlight. Simultaneously there was the flash and report of a pistol. Both men fell at once to the ground, and at the same moment there was a swish and rustle of silvery silk, as beautiful Mme. Lorraine retreated from her threshold, slamming and locking her door upon the sight of the bloodshed of which she had been the cause. "Let them kill each other, the fools, if they have no more sense," she muttered, scornfully, heartlessly, as she retired to her salon. Remond's horses had been so frightened by the pistol-shot that they had run off with their alarmed driver, who had dropped the reins in the first moment of terror. There now remained only two of the six souls present a moment ago, Van Zandt and Remond lying silent where they had fallen under the cold, white light of the moonlight. But presently the Frenchman struggled slowly up to his feet, and put his hand to his shoulder with a stifled curse. "The dog has put a bullet through my shoulder. Never mind, we are quits, for I ran my knife through his heart," he muttered, hastening away from the scene of bloodshed. But Eliot Van Zandt lay still where he had fallen, with his ghastly white face upturned to the sky, and the red blood pouring in a torrent from the gaping wound in his breast. CHAPTER VIII. Carmontelle made his way with what speed he could, hampered as he was by the heavy, unconscious form of the girl, to the carriage which he had in waiting at the end of the square. His speed was not great enough, however, to hinder him from hearing the sharp report of the pistol as it went off in Van Zandt's hand, and a slight tremor ran along his firm nerves. "Somebody killed or wounded--and I pray it may be Remond, the dastardly villain," he thought. "I should not like for any harm to come to that noble young Van Zandt." Then he paused while the driver sprung down from the box and opened the door for him. He laid his burden down upon a seat, sprung in, and then the door was closed. "To the Convent of Le Bon Berger," he said. "_Oui_, monsieur." The man whipped up his horses, and they were off at a spanking pace. A happy thought had occurred to Carmontelle. He had a friend who was the Mother Superior of the Convent of the Good Shepherd. To her pious care he would confide the poor, helpless lamb just rescued from the jaws of the hungry wolf. When the carriage had started off, he drew the thick wrappings from the head of the unconscious girl and looked at her face. It was deathly white, and the long, thick fringe of her dark lashes lay heavily against her cheeks. Her young bosom heaved with slow, faint respiration, but he tried in vain to arouse her from the heavy stupor that held her in its chains. Mme. Lorraine had been more clever than any one suspected. She had given the drug to her victim in a cup of tea, before she went out to the garden. Consequently the narcotic was already working in her veins when she flung herself at Van Zandt's feet, imploring his aid, and in a very few minutes after he had left her she fell into a heavy sleep upon the garden-seat, her last coherent thought being of him who had promised to save her from the perils that threatened her young life. Carmontelle gazed with deep pity and strong emotion on the piquant and exquisitely lovely face, realizing that that beauty had well-nigh proved a fatal dower to the forlorn girl. Deep, strong emotion stirred the man's heart as he gazed, and he vowed to himself that however friendless, nameless, and lowly born was the girl, she should never want a friend and protector again. "I am rich and well-born, and she shall share all I have. When she leaves the Convent of Le Bon Berger, it shall be as Madame Carmontelle, my loved and honored wife, not the Little Nobody of to-night," he mused. "I will teach her to love me in the years while she remains a pupil at the convent." In such thoughts as these the time passed quickly, although the convent was several miles from Esplanade Street, and in the suburbs of the city. At length the carriage paused before the dark conventual walls and towers, the driver sprung down from his seat and came to the door with the announcement: "Le Bon Berger." "_Très bien_. Wait." He drew a memorandum-book from an inner pocket, and hastily penciled some lines upon a sheet of paper. "MADAME LA SUPERIEURE,--Pardon this late intrusion, and for God's dear sake admit me to a brief interview. I have brought a poor, little helpless lamb to the Good Shepherd. PIERRE CARMONTELLE." "Take that," he said, hastily folding it across. "Ring the bell, and present it to the janitor. Tell him Madame la Superieure must have it at once. Say I am waiting in distress and impatience." The man crossed the wide pave and rang the gate bell. There was some little delay, then a stone slide slipped from its place in the high gate, and the janitor's cross, sleepy face appeared in the aperture. He was decidedly averse to receiving Carmontelle's orders. It was against the rules admitting visitors at this hour. The superior had retired. Carmontelle sprung hastily from the carriage and approached him with a potent argument--perhaps a golden one--for he took the note and disappeared, while the Louisianian went back to his carriage to wait what seemed an inconceivably long space of time, restless and uneasy in the doubts that began to assail his mind. "If she refuses," he thought, in terror, and his senses quailed at the thought. In all the wide city he could think of no home that would receive his charge if the convent turned her from its doors. "_Mon Dieu_!" he began to mutter to himself, in fierce disquietude, when suddenly he heard the grating of a heavy key in a huge lock, the falling of bolts and bars, and the immense gate opened gingerly, affording a glimpse of the janitor's face and form against the background of a garden in riotous bloom, while beyond towered the massive convent walls. "_Entrez_," the man said, civilly; and Carmontelle seized his still unconscious burden joyfully, and made haste to obey. The janitor uttered an exclamation of surprise when he saw that strange burden, then he led the way, Carmontelle eagerly following, until they reached the convent door. It opened as if by an unseen power, and they went along a cold, dimly lighted hall to a little reception-room where two gentle, pale-faced nuns were waiting with the mother superior to receive the midnight visitor. She was a tall, graceful, sweet-faced woman as she stood between the two, her slender white hands moving restlessly along the beads of her rosary. "My son," she uttered, in surprise, as he advanced and laid the still form of Little Nobody down upon a low sofa, drawing back the heavy cloak and showing what it hid--the fair young girl in the loose, white slip, and the wealth of ruddy, golden curls. He looked up at her with a face strangely broken up from its usual calm. "Madame, holy mother, I have brought you a pupil," he said, "and I have to confide a strange story to your keeping." He glanced at the sweet-faced, quiet nuns. "Perhaps it were better to speak to you alone?" he said, questioningly. "No, you need not fear the presence of these gentle sisters of the Good Shepherd. No secrets ever pass beyond these walls," the mother superior answered, with grave, calm dignity. CHAPTER IX. Carmontelle saw the three nuns looking apprehensively at the pale, still face of his charge, and said, reassuringly: "Do not be alarmed. It is not death, although it looks so much like it. The girl is only in a drugged sleep." "But, monsieur--" began the mother superior, indignantly, when she was interrupted by his equally indignant disclaimer: "It is none of my work. Wait until I tell you my story." And he immediately related it without reserve. All three listened with eager interest. "Now you know all," he said, at last, "and I will be perfectly frank with you regarding my intentions. I am rich, and have none to oppose my will. I wish to educate this unfortunate girl and make her my wife." The superioress was gracious enough to say that it was a most laudable intention. "You will aid me, then? You will receive her as a pupil, train and educate her in a manner befitting the position she will fill as my wife?" eagerly. "_Oui_, monsieur," she replied, instantly; and he nearly overwhelmed her with thanks. "I leave her in your care, then," he said, finally, as he pressed a check for a large amount into her hand. "Now I will not intrude upon you longer at this unseemly hour, but to-morrow I will call to see how she fares, and to make arrangements." He paused a minute to anxiously scan the pale, sweet, sleeping face, and then hurried away, eager to learn how Van Zandt had fared in his valiant effort at holding his pursuer at bay. Springing into the carriage again, he gave the order: "Back to Esplanade Street." The mettlesome horses trotted off at a lively pace through the quiet, almost deserted streets, and in a short space of time they drew up in front of Mme. Lorraine's residence. All was still and silent there. The front windows were closed and dark, and the clear moonlight shone upon the bare pavement--bare, where but a little while ago had lain the forms of the two vanquished contestants. Carmontelle looked at the dark, silent front of the house for a moment in doubt and indecision. He felt intuitively that behind its dark portals was the knowledge he desired, that Mme. Lorraine could tell him how the contest had fared after his departure. Anxiety conquered his reluctance to arouse the household at that late hour. He again left the carriage, and in crossing the pavement to the door, slipped and fell in a pool of blood yet wet and warm. Horrified, he held up his hands with the dark fluid dripping from them. "So, then, blood has been shed!" he exclaimed, and rang a furious peal on madame's door-bell. "Whew! that was loud enough to wake the dead!" ejaculated the attentive driver from his box; but apparently Mme. Lorraine was a very sound sleeper indeed, for repeated ringings of the bell elicited no response. In despair, Carmontelle was forced to go away, although quite satisfied in his own mind that Mme. Lorraine had heard, but refused to respond through malice prepense. He drove next to Eliot Van Zandt's hotel, and met the startling information that the young man had not been in that night. "_Mon Dieu_! what has become of the brave lad?" he ejaculated, in alarm; then, fiercely: "I will seek out Remond, and force the truth from him at the point of my sword!" Fortunately for the now wearied horses, Remond's hotel was but a few squares further; but here he met the puzzling information that Remond had left an hour before, having given up his rooms, and declared his intention of not returning. In the dim, strange light of the waning moon, Carmontelle grew strangely pale. "There is some mystery at the bottom of all this!" he asserted. But, baffled on every side in his efforts after information, he concluded to give up the quest until day; so was driven to his own lodgings in the pale glimmer of the dawn-light that now began to break over the quaint old city. Weary and dispirited, with a vague presentiment of evil, he flung himself on his bed, and a heavy stupor stole over him, binding his faculties in a lethargic slumber from which he did not arouse until the new day began to wax toward its meridian. CHAPTER X. He had given his valet no instructions to arouse him; therefore the man let him sleep on uninterruptedly, thinking that his master had been "making a night of it," in the slang phrase that prevails among gay fellows. So, when he awakened and rang his bell, the midday sunshine followed François into the quiet chamber and elicited an exclamation of dismay. "_Diable_! François, why did you not call me?" "Monsieur gave me no instructions," smoothly. "True; but you should have aroused me anyhow, you rascal!" irascibly. "Now, hurry up, and get me out of this as quick as possible!" His toilet completed, he swallowed a cup of coffee, munched a few morsels of a roll, and was off--appetite failing in his eagerness to get at Van Zandt. On his way to the hotel he dropped in at the club. No information was found there. Neither Van Zandt nor Remond had been in the rooms since yesterday. He hastened on to the journalist's modest hotel, only to be confronted with the news that Eliot had not yet returned. Since he had dined, at eight o'clock last evening, he had not been seen by any one in the house. His room had remained unoccupied since yesterday. Carmontelle sickened and shuddered at thought of the blood before madame's door last night. "It is plain that Van Zandt was the one who was wounded, since Remond was seen at his hotel last night after the accident. Great heavens! what mystery is here? Is he dead, the brave lad? and have they hidden his body to conceal the crime? I must find out the truth and avenge his death, poor boy!" He flung himself again into his carriage and was driven to that beautiful fiend's--to the home of the woman who had so heartlessly plotted the ruin of the helpless, innocent girl. She was at home, looking cool, fair, and graceful in a _recherché_ morning-robe garnished with yards on yards of creamy laces and lavender ribbons. She was twirling some cards in her jeweled fingers. "Ah, monsieur, I have cards to the reception at Trevor's next week. Are you going? Perhaps you have come to say that you will attend me there?" The coquettish smile faded at the scowl he turned upon her face. "Madame, where is Van Zandt?" he blurted out, brusquely. It was no wonder she had been such a star upon the dramatic stage. Her puzzled air, the wondering glance of her bright, dark eyes, were perfect. "Monsieur--Van Zandt!" she repeated, in gentle wonder. "How should I know? I assure you he has not been here since last night." "Yes, I know," impatiently. "But what happened to him last night? Did Remond kill him here, at your door, where I found the pool of blood when I came back to look for him?" Her eyes flashed. "Ah, then it was you, monsieur, that carried off poor Remond's bride?" with a low laugh of amusement. "Answer my question, if you please, Madame Lorraine," sternly. "Tell me--did Remond kill our young Yankee friend last night?" Madame threw back her handsome head, and laughed heartlessly. "_Ma foi_, how can I tell? When I saw the two fools were fighting desperately, I ran in, locked my door, and went to bed. _Mon Dieu_, I did not want to be a witness in a murder trial!" "And you did not peep out of the window?" cynically. "_Ma foi_, no! I was too frightened. I did not want to see or hear! I put my head under the bed-clothes, and went to sleep." "Heartless woman! After you had caused all the mischief!" indignantly. "I deny it!" cried Mme. Lorraine, artlessly, fixing her big, reproachful eyes on his face. "I can not understand what all this fuss is about. I did but arrange a marriage for my pretty ward, French-fashion, with Remond, rich, in love with her, and a splendid _parti_. But the little rebel pouted, flirted, and held him at bay till he was wild with love and jealousy. She was romantic. I proposed that he run off with her and win her heart by a _coup d'état_. The priest was ready. All would have gone well but for the cursed intermeddling of that sneaking Yankee. I hate him! What did he have to do with her that he should break off the match? Do you say Remond has killed him?" She had poured it all out in voluble French, protestingly, and with an air of the completest innocence, but she met only a furious frown. "Madame, your airs of innocence are quite thrown away," he replied. "Your treachery is known. You would have sold that poor girl to a life that was worse than death. Your bargain in the garden was overheard," sternly. "Do you know what you have brought upon your head, traitress? Social ostracism and complete disgrace! The Jockey Club that has upheld you by its notice so many years, will desert you in a body. We can not horsewhip you as we shall Remond, but we shall hold you up to the scorn of the world." "Mercy, monsieur!" she gasped, faintly, dropped her face in her hands, and dissolved in tears. He had expected that she would scorn him, defy him, but this softer mood confounded him. He could not bear a woman's tears. He sat and watched her in silence a few minutes, fidgeting restlessly, then said, curtly: "Come, come, it is too late for tears unless they are tears of repentance for your sin." Madame flung up her hands with a tragic gesture. "_Mon Dieu_, how cruelly I have been misunderstood! I do not deny the plot in the garden, but the listener surely did not hear all. Remond was to marry the girl, I swear it! Poor little motherless lamb! do you think I would have allowed any one to harm a hair of her head? Oh, you wrong me bitterly! You have been deceived, misled." She flung herself with sudden, inimitable grace on her knees at his feet. "Carmontelle, you should know me better than this!" she cried. "I swear to you it was only a harmless plot to make her Remond's wife. It would have been better for her to have a home and protector, I--I am so poor," weeping, "I have lost so heavily at play that there is a mortgage on my home, and I could not keep the girl much longer; I must retrench my expenses. Yet only for this I am to be ostracised, disgraced, held up to the scorn of my friends. Ah, you are cruel, unjust to me. Oh, spare me, spare me! Say nothing until you can prove these charges true." What a consummate actress! what a clever liar she was! Doubt began to invade his mind. Had Van Zandt misunderstood her words? "Madame Lorraine," he said, sternly, "get up from the floor and listen to me. I will give you the benefit of a doubt. I will try to believe that your infamous plot went no further than the trying to force that helpless child into a hated union. Even that was infamy enough. Talk not to me of your French marriages. I despise them. But I will say nothing to the world--yet. I will not wrong you until I make sure." "Bless you, noble Carmontelle!" she cried, seizing his hand and pressing passionate kisses upon it. He drew it coldly away, and said, dryly: "If you really feel grateful for my clemency, tell me what you know about Van Zandt and Remond. I can not find either one, and I fear that something terrible has happened to the noble young Bostonian." She swore by all the saints that she knew nothing, had heard nothing since the pistol-shot last night. "I was so frightened I did not wait to see who was shot. I just ran in and went to bed. I did not want to be a witness of anything so terrible!" she shuddered. "You swear you are not deceiving me, madame?" sternly. "I swear by all the saints," fervently. "Then I must search farther for my missing friend," he said, sadly, as he turned to go. She caught his arm eagerly. "Now tell me what you have done with the little baggage who has caused all this trouble? By Heaven, Carmontelle, if harm come to my little daughter through you, I will hold you to account!" "Daughter!" he echoed, bewilderly, and she answered, dauntlessly: "Yes, my daughter. The secret is out at last, the secret of my shame! She was born before I met Lorraine. Her father was--well, no matter who, since he was a villain. Well, I put the child out to nurse, and made an honest marriage. Then the woman followed me with the child, and I had to invent a story to account for her to Lorraine. Now I am free to claim her, and you see that the law will support me in demanding her restoration to my care!" They stood looking at each other silently a moment, then Carmontelle answered, angrily: "Madame, I do not believe you. This is only one of a dozen different stories you have told to account for the possession of that child. Your last claim is made in order to support a claim for her return to you. The pretext will not avail you. The little ma'amselle is in safe hands, where she shall remain until she is trained and educated up to the standard necessary for my wife." "Your wife?" she gasped, white with jealous fury. "I have said it," he answered, coldly, and strode abruptly from the house. Mme. Lorraine fell down for a moment on the sofa in furious hysterics. Carmontelle, her princely adorer, had scorned, defied her; Van Zandt knew her guilt and despised her; worst of all, the little scapegoat of her tempers, her beautiful slave, the hated Little Nobody, had escaped her clutches. Furies! But suddenly she sprung up like a wild creature, tore open the door that Carmontelle had slammed together, and rushed after him. He was just entering his carriage when her frantic hand arrested him and drew him forcibly back. "Come into the house; I must speak with you further. Do not shake your head," wildly. "It is a matter of life and death!" He suffered her to drag him back into the salon. She turned her shining eyes upon his face with a half-maniacal gleam in them. "The girl--had she awakened when you saw her last?" hoarsely. "No," he replied. She smote her forehead fiercely with one ringed white hand. "My soul! I do not want to have murder on my hands. You must find Remond. I gave him the little vial with the antidote." "The antidote?" he stammered, almost stupidly. "Yes, the antidote. She is under the influence of a strange drug. I bought the two vials long ago from an old hag in the East as a curiosity, you see. One drug was to bring sleep, the other to wake at will. Without--" she paused, and her voice broke. "Without--" he echoed, hoarsely; and in a frightened, guilty voice, she muttered: "The one, without the other means--death!" "Fiend!" he hissed, fiercely. "No, no; do not blame me. I meant no ill. I gave Remond the antidote, to be used when they reached the end of their journey. How could I know you would take the girl from him and hide her? How could I know he would disappear? Find Remond quickly, or her death will lie at your door." "You speak the truth?" he cried, wildly. "Before God and the angels, monsieur!" With a smothered oath he thrust her from him and rushed out again, leaped into the carriage, and gave his orders: "Like the wind, to the detective agency." It was two miles distant, and the panting horses were covered with foam when they set him down at his destination. Fortunately the familiar face of the most skillful detective in New Orleans looked at him in surprise from the pavement. He beckoned him into the vehicle. In words as brief and comprehensive as possible he explained what he wanted done. He must find Remond at once--find him and bring him to the Convent of Le Bon Berger. "A life hangs on his hands," he said, feverishly. "Tell him not to fail to bring with him the antidote he received last night." "I will find him if he is in the city," the detective promised, ardently; and full of zeal, inspired not only by love for his profession, but genuine anxiety and grief over the startling case just confided to him, he sprung from the carriage to set about his task. And Carmontelle, with his mind full of Little Nobody, gave the order again: "To the convent!" He was possessed by the most torturing anxiety over his little charge, and doubt over madame's startling assertion. "Horrible! horrible! What possessed her to use a drug so deadly?" he thought, wildly. "Oh, it can not be true! I shall find her awake and waiting for me, the poor lamb! Madame Lorraine only invented that story to torture me." He spoke feverishly to the driver: "Faster, faster!" The man replied, in a conciliatory tone: "Monsieur, I dare not. I should be arrested for fast driving, and your speed would be hindered, not helped, by such a course." He knew that it was true, and with a groan sunk back in his seat and resigned himself with what patience he could to the moderate pace of the horses. It seemed hours, although it was but thirty minutes, before they drew up again before the dark, grim building where he had left his charge the night before. The janitor admitted him without any parley this time; but Carmontelle was so eager that he did not notice the solemn, sympathetic look with which the man regarded him. He rushed without delay to the presence of the mother superior. When she saw him, her countenance expressed the greatest dismay. She crossed herself piously and ejaculated, sorrowfully: "Oh, monsieur, monsieur, you have come at last!" "Madame, holy mother!" he cried, agitatedly, and paused, unable to proceed further. Something in her face and voice filled him with dread. "Oh, my son!" she uttered, sorrowfully, and speech, too, seemed to fail her. She regarded him in a pathetic silence mixed with deep pity. He made a great effort to speak, to overcome the horror that bound him hand and foot. A terrible fear was upon him. What if she had not wakened yet? With that awful thought, he gasped and spoke: "Where is she?" "Oh, _mon Dieu_! oh, holy Mother of Jesus, comfort him!" cried the good nun, piously. She advanced and touched him compassionately. "God help you, my poor son. She--she--has not awakened--yet." He turned his pale, frightened face toward her. "She sleeps?" he questioned, eagerly; and with a holy compassion in her trembling voice, she replied: "Yes, my son, she sleeps--in Jesus." "Dead?" he almost shrieked, and she answered, solemnly: "Yes." She thought he was about to faint, his face grew so pale and his form reeled so unsteadily; but he threw out one hand and caught the back of a chair to sustain himself, while a hollow groan came from his lips: "Too late!" With tears in her eyes, the good nun continued: "The little girl never awakened from the deep sleep in which you brought her here. We made every effort to arouse her, but all in vain. She sunk deeper and deeper into lethargy, her breathing growing fainter and fainter, and at last it ceased altogether." "When?" he questioned, huskily. "Three hours ago," she replied. If it had not been for her sacred presence, Carmontelle would have broken into passionate execrations of the wicked woman who had caused the death of that sweet young girl. As it was, he stood before her dazed and silent, almost stunned by the calamities that had befallen him since last night. Van Zandt had mysteriously disappeared, and Little Nobody was dead. The one, he feared and dreaded, had been murdered by Remond in his fury; the other lay dead, the victim of Mme. Lorraine's cruel vengeance. "Come," said the nun, breaking in on his bitter thoughts; "she lies in the chapel. You will like to look at her, monsieur." He followed her silently, and the low, monotonous sound of the chant for the dead came to his ears like a knell as they went on along the narrow hall to the darkened chapel, where the weeping nuns lay prostrate before the altar, mumbling over the prayers for the dead, and an old, white-haired priest in flowing robes bent over his book. Carmontelle saw none of these. He had eyes for nothing but that black-draped coffin before the altar, with wax-candles burning at head and foot, shedding a pale, sepulchral light on that fair young face and form that such a little while ago had been full of life, and health, and vigor. He stood like one turned to stone--speechless, breathless--gazing at that exquisitely lovely face, so faultlessly molded, and so beautiful even in the strange pallor of death, with the dark lashes lying so heavily against the cheeks and the lips closed in such a strange, sweet calm. His heart swelled with love, and grief, and pity. Poor child! she had had such a strange, desolate life, and she had died without a name and without a friend, save for him who stood beside her now, his face pale and moved, as he looked upon her lying like a broken lily in her coffin, with the strange, weird light sifting through the stained-glass windows on her calm face, and the monotonous chants and prayers making a solemn murmur through the vaulted chapel. "Is it death or heavy sleep?" he asked himself, with a sudden throb of hope; and he touched reverently the little hands that were crossed over a white lily the nuns had lovingly placed there. Alas! they were icy cold! His hope fled. "Too late! too late! If they find Remond, it will be all in vain," he muttered, and the mother superior looked at him inquiringly. Impulsively he told her all, and the nuns, at their prayers, murmured aves and paters more softly, that they might listen; the old priest, with his head bent over his book, lost not a word. It was a romance from that wicked outer world from which the convent walls shut them in, a breath of life and passion from the "bewildering masquerade" of existence, where "Strangers walk as friends, And friends as strangers; Where whispers overheard betray false hearts, And through the mazes of the crowd we chase Some form of loveliness that smiles and beckons, And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us A mockery and a jest; maddened--confused-- Not knowing friend from foe!" The mother superior gazed with dilated eyes as he poured out the moving story, clasped her long, white hands excitedly, and shuddered with horror. "Ah, _mon Dieu_! the wicked man! the cruel, heartless woman!" she exclaimed. "Shall they not answer for this crime?" "Ay, before Heaven, they shall!" Pierre Carmontelle vowed passionately, with his warm, living hand pressed upon the chill, pulseless one of the nameless dead girl; and in the years to come he kept that impulsive vow made there in the presence of the living and the dead. CHAPTER XI. To return to Mme. Lorraine the night when Eliot Van Zandt lay like one dead before her door in a pool of his own blood, deserted by the brutal Remond, who had left him for dead upon the pavement. She had peeped from the window as Carmontelle had charged her with doing, although she had denied the accusation, and she had beheld all that passed. If she had not conceived a passion for Van Zandt, he might have perished, for all she would have cared; but something of womanly softness stole into her heart as she gazed, and she murmured: "Can he be dead, or only in a deadly swoon? What if I go and find out?" Glancing up and down the street to make sure that no one was in sight, she slipped out and knelt down by the prostrate form. Pushing back his coat and vest, she laid her hand over his heart. "There is some faint pulse. He lives, he lives!" she murmured, joyfully. "Now, now is my chance to act the good Samaritan. I will take him into my house, nurse him, tend him, and gratitude may win for me that which beauty and fascination failed to conquer." She hastily summoned a confidential servant, a woman who had been in her employ many years, and the repository of many strange secrets. Together they managed to convey the wounded, unconscious man into the house, although the domestic expostulated with every breath. "Hold your tongue, Mima. It is none of your business. You have only to obey my orders," madame returned, coolly. "The underground chamber, please. His presence is to be kept a secret. You and I will have the care of him--you are quite skillful enough, after your experience as a hospital nurse during the war, to attend his wound. He will be hidden here, while to the world he will have mysteriously disappeared." They laid him down on a couch in the wide hall, and Mima took a lamp and went out. Soon she returned, and stood before her mistress, huge, and tall, and dark, with a malignant scowl on her homely foreign face. "Madame, your strange guest-chamber is ready," she said, with curt sarcasm. "But this heavy body--how shall we convey it down the stairs?" "You are big and strong enough," Mme. Lorraine replied, coolly. "You may go in front and carry his body; I will follow with his pretty head in my arms." And so, as if the fate that had stricken him down into seeming death had not been dark enough, he was borne, an unconscious prisoner, into an underground chamber beneath Mme. Lorraine's house--a luxurious chamber, richly furnished, but of whose presence no one was aware save herself and this servant, for it was entered by a door cleverly concealed among the oak panelings of the hall. The light of day never entered this secret chamber. It was illumined by a swinging-lamp, and the odor of dried rose leaves from a jar of _pot-pourri_ in one corner pleasantly pervaded the air, dispelling some of the mustiness and closeness inseparable from its underground situation. They laid Van Zandt down upon a soft white bed, and Mme. Lorraine said, coolly: "Now, Mima, you may examine into the extent of his wound." The large, masculine-looking woman went to work in quite a professional way on her unconscious patient, and in a short time she looked around and said, to the great relief of her mistress: "It is an ugly wound, very near his heart, but not necessarily a dangerous one, unless a fever sets in. He has fainted from loss of blood, and I will dress the wound before I attempt to revive him. You may go upstairs, for I see you growing pale already at the sight of blood, and I don't want you here fainting on my hands." "Thank you, Mima," said Mme. Lorraine, almost meekly; for one of her weaknesses, which she shared in common with most women, was that the sight of blood always made her very sick and faint. She staggered out of the close room, toiled feebly up the stairs, and drank two glasses of wine to steady her trembling nerves; then she extinguished the lights in the house, and retired to her bed. She was still awake when Carmontelle returned in quest of Eliot Van Zandt, and she laughed in her sleeve at his furious, ineffectual peals at the bell. Stealing to the window, she drew back a fold of the curtain and peered down at him, chuckling softly when she saw him take his angry departure. Then she returned to her silken couch, and slept soundly for hours. The sun was high in the heavens when Mima's rough, impatient hand shook her broad awake without ceremony. "Are you going to sleep all day?" she demanded. "You wouldn't if you knew what had happened. The little one's gone. I can't find her in the house or the grounds, and her bed ain't been slept in all night." She gazed suspiciously into madame's startled face, which was not so handsome now with the cosmetics washed from it, and that frown wrinkling her brow. She repeated Mima's word in apparently stupid amaze: "Gone!" "Yes, gone! Don't you know anything about it? Ain't you had a hand in it?" Mme. Lorraine, sitting up in bed in her night-robe of soft white linen, burst out, indignantly: "Look here, Mima, don't make a fool of yourself. If the girl's gone, it's none of my work. She threatened, the last time I beat her, that she would run away, and I suppose she's kept her word. I've noticed that some of the men that come here were sweet on her, and she's gone with one of them, no doubt." Mima stood like one petrified, looking at her, when she suddenly burst out again: "Oh, dear! perhaps she has taken Selim! Run, Mima, to the stables. Oh, the little wretch!--if she dared--" Mima interrupted, harshly: "She has not taken your idol. I knew she was in the habit of stealing him out for a wild canter sometimes, and I ran to the stables when I missed her. Selim was there all right, and the ponies, too." "Then she has gone off with some of the men; she has eloped, the little vixen, and may joy go with her! It is a good riddance of bad rubbish," madame cried, in such violent indignation that the servant's suspicions were disarmed. Seeing the impression she had made, the wily ex-actress went on: "I dare say that was the cause of the shooting last night. I was awakened by the report of a pistol, and jumped out of bed and ran to the window. I saw a carriage in front of my door, and two men scuffling on the pavement. Suddenly one fell to the ground; the other jumped into the carriage and drove rapidly away. No doubt the wicked little baggage was in the vehicle, and the fight was over her. Let her go, the little nobody. I shall make no effort to find her. But aren't you going to give me my chocolate, when I'm so weak I can scarcely speak?" pausing in her voluble tirade, and fixing a glance of reproach on the servant's dark, stolid face. Mima shrugged her broad shoulders sarcastically and retired, and madame sprung out of bed, thrust her feet into satin slippers, and huddled on an elaborate _robe de chambre_. "I suppose I shall have to dress myself now, having deprived myself of my little maid's services to gratify my desire for revenge," she muttered, half regretfully. "_Ciel_! but she had deft fingers and a correct taste. I can not replace her services by another, for the secrets of this old house are not to be trusted to a stranger. Well, I am a thousand dollars the richer, although Remond let the prize slip through his fingers after he had paid the price. And what a fortune it was that cast Van Zandt into my hands! I have fallen in love with the beautiful boy. It is really love, not the _penchant_ I have entertained for a score of others. Ah!" She paused in her soliloquy, for Mima entered with a tray on which glistened the gold and silver of a costly breakfast service, spread with delicate edibles. "Your patient, Mima, how is he?" she queried, anxiously. "He is doing well, and thinks he is in a hospital," said the woman. "It is best to humor him in that delusion for several days; for if he were to find out the truth now, he would fret and chafe, and perhaps bring on the fever I am anxious to avoid. So, madame, you would do well to stay out of the sick-room until he is well enough to bear the news that he is a prisoner of love," sarcastically. CHAPTER XII. Carmontelle stood for many minutes gazing like one dazed at the still and lovely features of the nameless dead girl. He was stunned, as it were, by the magnitude of this misfortune, and could only murmur over and over in accents of pity and despair combined: "Too late, too late, too late!" At length he too flung himself down before the altar with bowed head, although no prayers escaped his lips, for the stupor of despair was upon him. She was dead, poor unfortunate Little Nobody, and there was naught to pray for now. There the detective found him, two hours later, when he came with news--news at once good and bad. "I found Remond," he said. "He was about leaving the city by the steamer 'Ellen Bayne.' As he was about crossing the plank, I collared him and demanded the antidote. He was startled at first, and glared at me fiercely, then suddenly assumed a calmness that looked so much like acquiescence that I was completely deceived. He put his hand into his breast-pocket, and drew out a small vial of colorless liquid. I thought he was going to give it to me, and, thrown off my guard by his apparent coolness, released him and stretched out my hand. The cunning villain took instant advantage of my belief; he sprung away from me across the gang-plank, which was instantly drawn in, as the steamer was leaving the wharf. Standing on the deck, he looked at me with the leer of a fiend and immediately flung the vial into the river." "The fiend!" Carmontelle said, hoarsely. "But it matters not. She is already dead." And he led the dismayed and disappointed detective to the chapel, and showed him the silent sleeper there, with the cool white lilies on her breast. "How beautiful, how unfortunate!" murmured the kind-hearted detective, in reverential awe. His profession had made him familiar with all sorts of tragedies and sorrows, but this one seemed to him as sad and pathetic as any he had ever encountered. He looked with deep sympathy upon the man beside him to whom the girl's death was such a crushing blow, but words failed him. He could only look his silent and sincere sympathy. Suddenly there recurred to Carmontelle the remembrance of Eliot Van Zandt, whose fate was still wrapped in mystery. "Come, we can do no good here now," he said, mournfully. "The fiends have done their work too well. We must try to get at the bottom of the mystery that enshrouds the fate of my poor friend." After promising the mother superior to return and attend to the funeral obsequies of the dead girl, he went away, taking the detective with him to assist in the inquiry for the young journalist. It did not seem possible that they could fail in this search, but though the anxious quest was kept up for many days and nights, not a single clew rewarded their efforts. Eliot Van Zandt had disappeared as completely as though an earthquake had opened and swallowed him into the bosom of old mother earth. The detective could form but one conclusion, which he reluctantly imparted to his employer. "The young man was most probably murdered that night, and his corpse flung into the river, but no proofs will ever be found implicating Remond as the murderer. Nor is it likely that the Frenchman will ever turn up again in New Orleans. Fearful of detection, he will go abroad and plunge into new crimes befitting his evil nature, and the disappearance of poor Van Zandt will most likely remain forever upon the terrible list of unexplained disappearance of human beings." Days came and went, and it seemed as if he had uttered a true prophecy. In the meantime, a tomb in the convent cemetery had received to its cold embrace the shrouded form of Mme. Lorraine's beautiful victim, and the madame herself had been apprised of the fact by a brief and bitter note from Pierre Carmontelle. "The victim of your malice is dead and in her untimely grave," he wrote. "Remond has fled the city, and the Jockey Club has been told the secret of your guilt and his. They are wild with rage, but they spare you yet until they can make sure of your guilt, and bring your crime home to you. In the meantime, I tell you frankly that you are under constant espionage, and the task of my life is to avenge the death of poor little ma'amselle upon you and that cowardly Frenchman. Look well to yourself, for enemies encompass you and punishment awaits you." Madame grew pale beneath her rouge, and twisted the angry note nervously in her jeweled fingers. "A frank enemy!" she muttered. "He gives me fair warning. Like the deadly serpent, he gives forth his venomous hiss before he stings. He is very kind. Forewarned is forearmed, they say." She reread it with a nervous contraction of her brows. "So the little one is dead! I did not intend it, but--it is better so. Fate has removed an incumbrance from my path. Now for a call upon my guest, to electrify him with my news. Mima says he is fast recovering, and that I may venture upon a visit." She went to her dressing-room and donned a street costume of olive cashmere and silk, with bonnet and gloves and all the paraphernalia of walking costume. Then, with a choice bunch of flowers culled from her garden, she let herself through the secret entrance to the cellar chamber, and preceded by the frowning servant, was ushered into the presence of Eliot Van Zandt. He lay, pale and handsome and restless, among the white pillows in the luxurious room. The lamp that burned night and day shed a soft, roseate glow over everything, and brightened somewhat the pallid cast of his countenance. "Ah, Monsieur Van Zandt, my poor, dear Yankee friend, the cruel doctors and nurses have permitted me to call on you at last! And how do you find yourself this evening, _mon ami_?" she cried, fluttering up to his bedside, all smiles and sweet solicitude. His dark-gray eyes opened wide with surprise and displeasure. "Madame Lorraine!" he ejaculated, angrily, but she pretended not to understand the surprise and anger. "Yes, it is I," she said, sweetly. "Did you think you were deserted by all your friends? But it was the cruel doctors in the hospital; they would admit no one until you were out of danger. I came every day and begged until they gave me leave to see you. Ah, _mon ami_, I have suffered such anxiety for your sake!" with uplifted eyes and pensive air. "But, thank the good God, you are restored to me." The dark-gray eyes flashed with resentment, and a warm flush crept up to the young man's pale brow. He waved her away indignantly. "Madame Lorraine, your hypocrisy is intolerable!" he exclaimed, hotly. "Leave me. Your call is in the worst of taste, and most undesirable." With impetuous grace, she flung herself down on her knees beside him, surprise, dismay, and wounded love expressed eloquently on her mobile face. "Ah, _mon ami_, what have I done to receive this repulse? I come to you in friendship and regard, and you order me away! Good nurse"--turning her head around for a moment to scornful Mima--"is it that your patient is delirious yet, that he thus upbraids his truest friend?" "Get up from your knees, Madame Lorraine; you can not deceive me by your artful professions," Van Zandt cried, sternly; and looking wondrously grand and handsome in his anger, although he could scarcely lift his blonde head from the pillow. "I am not delirious; my mind is perfectly clear, and, in proof of it, listen: I was in your garden that night, and heard your nefarious plotting with Remond for the ruin of that poor young girl. She heard, too, and, distracted with terror, begged me to save her. It was I who brought Carmontelle to the rescue, while I held at bay the villain Remond. Now you understand why I loathe the sight of you--why I wish you to go out from my presence, never to enter it again." She wept and protested, as she had done with Carmontelle, that it was all a cruel mistake. She had but made a match, French-fashion, for her ward. Remond was pledged to marry her that night. She did not find him credulous, as she had hoped. He smiled in scorn, and reiterated his wish that she should leave the room. "Very well," she said, bitterly, "I am going, but not before I tell the news I brought; your officious intermeddling was fatal to the girl you pretended to save--it was the cause of her death." "Death!" he echoed; and the fair, stately head fell back among the pillows, the lids drooped over his eyes. Mima believed he was about to swoon, and hastily brought restoratives. "You should have held your cursed tongue!" she muttered, in an audible aside to her mistress; but Mme. Lorraine did not reply. She was watching that deathly pale face that looked up at her so eagerly as Van Zandt whispered, faintly: "Dead! Oh, you do but jest! It can not be!" "It is no jest. It is the truth. Do you want to hear how it came about? Remond had two subtle Eastern drugs, the one to induce heavy sleep, the other to awaken her at his will. Well, you and Carmontelle interfered, and so Remond ran away with the second drug, and--she died in her sleep." "No, no!" he cried, almost imploringly. "Ah, you regret your work when too late!" madame cried, triumphantly. "It is sad, is it not? But it is true as Heaven. Barely an hour ago I received a note from him, to say that she was dead and buried, the poor little wretch!" "It is your fiendish work!" he said, bitterly. "May Heaven punish you! Ah, the poor innocent little ma'amselle, it was hard for her to go like that. But--better death than dishonor!" He put his white hand up before his face, and a long, deep, shuddering sigh shook him from head to foot. Mima shook her mistress roughly by the shoulder and pointed to the door that led up the stairs to the hidden entrance. "Go!" she whispered, harshly. "I don't know what prompted you to this devil's work. You must have wanted to kill him. I don't know how this will result now. Go, and take your hateful face out of his sight!" Madame flung down her roses with a whimper, and trailed her rich robes from the room in a passion of disappointed love and hope. "He loved her--like the rest!" she muttered, fiercely. "I wish she had died before he ever saw her. But I swear I will win him yet, or--he shall never see the light of day again!" CHAPTER XIII. Van Zandt lay for a long time with his face hidden in his hands, long, labored sighs shaking his manly form, feeling as if a nightmare of horror had fastened itself upon him. It had been bad enough to lie here, bound hand and foot by the pain of his severe wound, and chafing fiercely against his misfortune, but with the inward comfort of the knowledge that by his bravery he had saved a girl, Little Nobody though she was, from a cruel fate; but--now! Now, at the sudden and cruel news Mme. Lorraine had maliciously brought, his heart almost ceased its beating, so awful was the shock. Dead, gone out of life in her maiden bloom, so beautiful, so innocent and ignorant, wronged irretrievably by a woman without a heart--a handsome creature, wicked enough to sell a young, immortal soul to ruin for a handful of sordid gold! Bitter, sorrowful, indignant were his meditations while he lay there, with his hand before his face, watched furtively by the big, ugly Mima, who, with all her rough ways, was a skillful and tender nurse, having spent four years of her life caring for wounded soldiers in an army hospital. She moved nearer to him at last, and said, uneasily: "Best not to take it so hard, sir. The girl's gone to a better place than this wicked world, where she never saw one happy day. You'll make yourself worse, taking on like this, and it can't do any good to the dead, so cheer up and think of getting well as fast as you can, and out of this lonesome place." He looked curiously at the hard, homely face as she spoke, for she had been shy and taciturn heretofore, wasting few words upon her patient. She had told him that he was in a private hospital, and he had not doubted the assertion, although, as days passed by, it seemed strange to him that he saw no face but hers about him. Another thing that puzzled him was, that it seemed always night in his room--the curtains drawn and the lamp burning. When he spoke of this to Mima, she answered abruptly that he slept all day and lay awake all night. "And I never see the doctor when he comes to visit me," he added. "You are always asleep when he pays his midday visit," she replied. In the languor and pain of his illness he accepted all her statements in good faith, although chafing against his forced detention, and wondering what his publishers and his home folks would think of his strange silence. He had resolved only this morning that he would ask Carmontelle to write to them for him to say that he was sick--not wounded--only sick. Now he looked fixedly at his strange, grim nurse, and said, sternly: "Never admit that woman, that fiend rather, into my presence again. Do you understand me?" "Yes, sir," Mima replied, soothingly; and he continued, anxiously: "Now, tell me, has any one called to see me since I was brought to this hospital? I mean, except that woman, Madame Lorraine?" "Lord, yes, sir; several gentlemen that said they was from the Jockey Club, and friends of yours. But the doctor's orders was strict not to admit anybody." "How came Madame Lorraine to get admittance, then?" with a very black frown. "Lord, sir, she wheedled the doctor with her pretty face!" He frowned again, and said, peremptorily: "When the doctor comes in again, you must awaken me if I am asleep. I must speak to him." "Yes, sir," meekly. "And if the gentlemen from the club come again, say to the doctor that they must be admitted. I am quite well enough to receive my friends, and I must get some one to write home for me. Will you do as I tell you?" looking at her with contracted brows, and a dark-red flush mounting into his cheek that alarmed her, experienced nurse that she was. "Yes, yes, my dear sir, I will do just as you say," she replied, eager to pacify him, for she saw that what she had been dreading all the time had come to pass, through the imprudence of Mme. Lorraine--her patient had been driven by excitement into a high fever. CHAPTER XIV. In the meantime, a strange event had taken place at the Convent of Le Bon Berger, through the curiosity of the old priest, who, while bending over his book in the chapel, had overheard Carmontelle's story of the mysterious drug and its strange antidote. Although outwardly absorbed in his devotions, he had listened with an excited gleam in his dim old eyes, and once had half started forward to speak, but checked himself quickly, and remained quiescent during the time that elapsed before Carmontelle and the praying nuns took their departure from the chapel. When all were gone, and there remained only himself and that still form in the black-draped coffin, he started eagerly forward and stood in excited silence gazing at the beautiful face of the dead girl. Once he lifted his old, wrinkled hand and pressed hers tenderly, then withdrew it, shuddering at that mortal coldness. It was no wonder that the old priest had been excited by the story of Carmontelle, for years ago he had been an enthusiastic traveler in Eastern lands, and an old witch--or sorceress, as she was called there--had given him two drugs to which she ascribed the mysterious properties possessed by those of which Carmontelle had spoken. He had kept them always, certainly with no intention of ever testing the strange power claimed for them, but only because they were part and parcel of the box of curiosities he had brought with him from that fascinating tour. To-day the two vials lay safely in the box, wrapped in a bit of yellow parchment on which, in a strange tongue, were inscribed the directions for their use. It flashed over him that the hour had come when the gift of the old hag, at whose strange leer he had shrunk and shuddered, was to be instrumental in saving a human life. But he was old and wise, and he knew that life is not always a blessing; that often and often it is but the bearing of a heavy cross, with lagging steps and weary heart, to a far Golgotha. In the dim confessional men and women, and even the young and tender, had poured their griefs and their sins into his compassionate hearing, and many had waited for death with infinite yearning, while some--and he trembled and crossed himself at the sad remembrance--had gone mad over wrong and ruth, and in despair had cut the Gordian knot of life. It was of all this he had thought when he had restrained his impulse to speak to Carmontelle; it was of this he was thinking now, as he stood there, old and gray and holy, by the side of that beautiful bud of life in the coffin. He was, as it were, weighing entity and non-entity in careful, metaphorical scales. He was solemnly asking himself, "Which is better--life or death?" From the saints and angels in that bright world beyond, where his pious thoughts continually rested, seemed to come a low, eager answer: "Death!" He looked again, with agonized doubt, at that fair, lovely face, so innocent in its deep repose. The mother superior had told him that the girl, had she lived, was destined to be the bride of Carmontelle. "I know the man--rich, generous, and worldly. As his wife, she will be a society queen. Her idols will be wealth and pleasure. She will be gay and heartless, forgetful of all holy things, living only for this world. Better, far better, the bride of Heaven." And crossing himself again, with a muttered prayer he went out of the little chapel, where presently the pale-faced nuns came again, muttering their pious aves for the dead. That night in his cell, impelled by some irresistible force within himself, he took out the small vial from the curiosity-box, and read the strangely lettered parchment, for he was an earnest student, and versed in Oriental lore. Great drops of dew beaded his temples as he spelled out the meaning of the parchment; and no wonder, for he read there that, although one lay as dead for three days, a few drops of the antidote poured between the lips would break that deathly sleep and restore life; but after those wondrous three days the drug could be of no avail--death must surely ensue. In the cold and cheerless cell the old priest shivered as with a chill. "What an awful responsibility lies upon me!" he muttered. "It is for me to decide whether to give her back to Carmontelle and the world, to be spoiled by its vanities, or leave her soul, now pure and unspotted, free to enter heaven." After an hour of painful meditation he put away the mysterious drug and spent the night upon his knees on the cold stone floor of the cell, calling on all the saints to uphold him in his pious resolve to save the soul of the lovely girl by the sacrifice of her life. And the next afternoon, in a shaken voice and a holy resolve written on his ashen features, he read the long Latin prayers for the dead to the assembled nuns and to Carmontelle among them, and saw the form of poor Little Nobody consigned to the grim vault in the convent cemetery. Two days and a night had thus passed while the girl lay in that death-like trance. A few hours more and the prisoned soul would be separated from the body, and the story of her brief life be ended. But when the shades of night again fell on the convent walls, a revulsion of feeling brought remorse to the soul of the old priest. He was haunted by the thought of the living girl prisoned in the vault among the dead. In the solitude of his cell that night a strange unrest grew upon him, and evil spirits seemed to people the gloom. He started up in terror from his knees, the great drops of sweat pouring over his face. "Yes, yes, it is murder!" he uttered, fearfully. "Heaven put the means of saving her in my hands, and I was too blind to understand. But I will atone, I will atone!" A sudden thought came to him, and he hurriedly sought a brother priest and the mother superior. To them, in deep humility, he confessed his error. "I was deceived by tempting devils, but I see my mistake in time to correct it," he said, humbly. "Several hours yet remain of the time, and I will restore her to life, by the aid of Heaven and this mysterious drug, and her return to life must be a secret." They went with him secretly to the dark vault. They took from the coffin that unconscious form and bore it in their arms to a secluded chamber. There they poured between the pale, sealed lips a few drops of the mysterious drug, and kept anxious vigil all night over her bedside. In a few hours they began to reap the reward of their solicitude. The appearance of the girl's face grew less death-like, a delicate moisture appeared on her skin, a faint color in her lips, and gradually a barely perceptible respiration became apparent. The drug had done its restorative work perfectly. Down on his knees went the anxious old priest, and he thanked Heaven for the life he had saved. When the morning light began to gild the convent spire, the dark eyes opened slowly upon the face of the mother superior, who was watching intently for this sign of life. The priests had retired, and they were quite alone. Tears of relief sparkled into the eyes of the good nun. "Dear child, you are awake at last!" she exclaimed, gladly; but the girl made no reply. Her lids had closed again, and she had fallen into a quiet, natural sleep that lasted until the chiming of the vesper bells. She awoke to find her slumber guarded by another nun, who had taken the place of the good mother. When the dark, puzzled eyes wandered around the room, she chirped sweetly: "Oh, my dear, you have slept so long, you must be very, very hungry. I will bring you some food." She came back presently with some light, nutritious broth in a bowl, and fed the girl gently from a tea-spoon. She swallowed languidly, and a few mouthfuls sufficed her appetite. Then she looked at the pleasant-faced nun, and said, languidly: "Good sister, I do not understand. Just now I was with Monsieur Van Zandt. He was wounded. Oh, how pale he was!" shivering. "Another minute, and I am here. How is it, and where is he?" The old priest had entered noiselessly, and the low voice was distinctly audible to his ears. He shuddered. He had just read in a paper of the mysterious disappearance of Eliot Van Zandt, who was supposed to have been murdered, and his body flung into the lake or the river. Hence the girl's strange words struck coldly on his senses. He thought: "Her soul has been parted from the body in that strange trance, and has taken cognizance of the man vainly sought for by friends and detectives. What if she could tell where he is hidden!" Muttering a prayer for the girl, he came up to the bedside. "Bless you, my daughter," he said, soothingly. "And so you have seen Eliot Van Zandt? Does he yet live?" She looked at him gently and with surprise. Perhaps, in the strange experiences of her trance, she was inured to surprises. "Holy father," she murmured, reverentially, then, gently. "I have seen him. He is not dead. He is not going to die. But he is very ill; he is dangerously wounded." The little nun chirped an "oh!" of vivacious wonder, but the priest silenced her by a warning glance. "Where is he? Where is Monsieur Van Zandt, my daughter?" he questioned, eagerly. "Where?" echoed Little Nobody. "Why, in the next room, doubtless, good father, for a minute ago I was with him, and then I found myself here so suddenly that it seemed a little strange to me." "Yes, it is strange," said the old priest, growing pale and hurriedly crossing himself. "But you are mistaken. He is not in this house. If you know where he is, tell me, daughter." She shut her eyes reflectively, opened them again, and answered, dreamily: "He was lying on a bed in a pretty room, where a lamp was burning all day. There was a red wound on his breast, and he was pale and ill. I do not know the house, but Madame Lorraine can tell you, for it was her servant, Mima, that I saw giving him a glass of water." CHAPTER XV. The nun looked at the old priest with round eyes of wonder. "Father Quentin, what strange thing is this?" she uttered, fearfully. "Ask me not to explain it, my good daughter; it is a manifestation of psychic power beyond human explanation," he replied, hastily quitting the room to seek the mother superior. As a result of his interview with her, he was soon on his way toward Esplanade Street and Mme. Lorraine. Seldom had the footsteps of such a holy man crossed the threshold of the gay and volatile French woman. She grew pale through her rouge and her powder when she read the name upon his card, and sent word that she was not at home. He told the little page that he would wait until madame returned, and took a seat in the quiet salon. Angry and baffled, Mme. Lorraine came down to him. _"Bénedicité_, daughter," said Father Quentin; but she looked at him inquiringly, without bending her lovely head. "I have come to see Eliot Van Zandt, who lies wounded in your house," he said, boldly. She gave a quick, nervous start, perfectly perceptible to his eyes, and her glance sought his, full of frightened inquiry. "The girl was right; he is hidden here," he thought, with fluttering pulses; but aloud he said, with pretended authority and outward calmness: "Lead me to his presence; I must see the young man at once." She had recovered her calmness as quickly as she had lost it. "Holy father, you amaze me!" she exclaimed, haughtily. "The man is not here. I read in my paper only this morning that he had most mysteriously disappeared. But come, I see you do not believe me. You shall search my house." He was a little staggered by her assurance. "I do not wish to seem intrusive," he said; "but my informant was very positive." Then he mentally shook himself. After all, he had no authority for his assertion, except the strange words of a girl who had just come out of a trance-like sleep--a girl who might simply have dreamed it all. But he followed her all over the pretty, elegantly appointed house, the little page carrying the keys and unlocking door after door until he was sure that not an apartment in the house remained unvisited. "You have a servant-woman, Mima," he said to her, as they descended the stairs. "Yes," she replied; "Mima is in the kitchen, preparing luncheon. You shall see her, too, holy father." Mima, at work over a dainty luncheon, bowed her head grimly to receive his blessing. "You have been nursing a sick, a wounded man, Monsieur Van Zandt," he said, trying to take her by surprise; but she did not betray as much self-consciousness as her mistress. "The holy father mistakes; I am a cook, not a nurse," she replied, coolly. And so he came away baffled, after all. Mme. Lorraine pressed a gold piece excitedly into the hand of the little page. "Follow the good priest, and come back and tell me where he lives," she exclaimed. * * * * * Father Quentin went his way immediately back to the convent, with the story of his disappointment, and concluded that Little Nobody's dream had been simply a dream, with nothing supernatural about it. The light that had seemed to shine momentarily on the mystery of Eliot Van Zandt's fate went out in rayless darkness. For the girl, she grew better and stronger daily, and submitted, with child-like patience, to the innumerable questions the good sisters asked her of her past life. They were shocked when she told them the story of her life with Mme. Lorraine, the life that she had counted of so little value that she had never even given her little white slave a name. They went to Father Quentin with the shocking story--that the girl had no name, and that that heartless woman had called her Vixen, Savage, Baggage, Nobody, by turns. She must be baptized immediately. The good priest was as heartily scandalized as one could wish. He chose a name at once for their charge. It was the sweet, simple one, Marie. And that same day, in the little chapel, surrounded by the tearful nuns, Little Nobody stood before the altar and received the baptismal name, Marie. The next day she was formally introduced into the convent school, which consisted of twenty young ladies, all boarders. She was cautioned to say nothing of her past life to her schoolmates. The priest said that she was a ward of his, and he wished the pupils to be very kind to Mlle. Marie, who, through the peculiar circumstances of her life, had not received necessary mental culture, and must now begin the rudiments of her education. For downright, honest, uncompromising curiosity and rudeness, no class of human beings transcends the modern school-girl. The pupils of Le Bon Berger immediately set themselves to work to torture the new scholar--the little ignoramus, as they dubbed her. Such ignorance as this they had never encountered before. They teased and chaffed her in their audacious fashion, and speedily made her understand her humiliation--a great girl of fifteen or sixteen beginning to learn her alphabet like a child of five years! She was used to being chaffed and despised, poor Little Nobody! It was the life at Mme. Loraine's over again, and the great dark eyes flashed in sullen scorn as they did then, and the small hands clinched themselves at her sides in impotent pain. "I shall run away from here!" she thought, bitterly. They had one habit with which they daily demonstrated to her their superior wisdom. At recess they would assemble in a great group and read aloud from the daily newspaper. Sitting apart under the great trees of the convent garden, the new pupil listened, against her will, to every word, and so there came to her one day, through this strange means, the news of Eliot Van Zandt's strange disappearance from the ranks of the living. With dilated eyes, parted lips and wildly throbbing heart she listened, and when the reader's voice came to an end, the group was electrified by a spring and a rush and a vision of golden hair flying on the wind, as the new pupil flew, with the speed of an Atalanta, into the presence of the mother superior. "What is the matter with Mademoiselle Marie? has she got a fit?" exclaimed the merry, mischievous school-girls. CHAPTER XVI. Little Nobody had flung down the spelling-book that had become her constant companion, and rushed impetuously to the presence of the good mother superior. In a few minutes more she had wrested from the gentle nun her whole story, from the hour when Carmontelle had brought her to the convent until now, when, through the fanaticism of Father Quentin, she was as one dead to the world outside, her young life solemnly devoted to Heaven. The dark eyes flashed indignantly, the pale cheeks crimsoned with anger. "How dared he?" she exclaimed. "Daughter!" The gently remonstrating tone had no effect on the excited girl. She continued, angrily: "Do you not see that it was wicked to shut me up for life? I do not want to be a nun. I will not be a nun! I tell you frankly their pale faces and black dresses give me the horrors! I shall leave here at once to find the poor Yankee that was wounded in defending me. He is in the power of Madame Lorraine, I am sure. I dreamed of him, and he was wounded, and in the care of Mima, her servant." The nun assured her that Father Quentin had been already to Esplanade Street, and that Mme. Lorraine and her servant had declared their ignorance of the journalist's whereabouts. Mlle. Marie's lip curled in unmitigated scorn. "As if their words could be taken for truth," she uttered, bitterly. "Ah, I know her falsehoods too well." The nun knew not what to do. The demand of the girl to leave the convent frightened her. She was compelled to falter a refusal. Then Marie flatly rebelled. Some of the spirit that had made Remond call her a little savage flashed into her eyes, and she vowed that she would not be detained. The mother went hastily to call Father Quentin. He firmly refused to grant the girl's wish. He was persuaded that to do so would be to insure her own eternal ruin. The passionate heart, the undisciplined temper, took fire at his flat refusal. To the poor girl it seemed that the whole world was arrayed against her. Why had the old priest saved her from death if she was to be immured forever, as in a living tomb, in this grim old convent? The sanguine youth and hope within her rose up in passionate protest. She pleaded, and when entreaty failed, she flung down a passionate defiance. Go she would! Eliot Van Zandt needed her to deliver him from Mme. Lorraine's baneful power. Should she torture him, destroy him, while she who owed him so much forsook him? Ah, no, no! The result was that the defiant, contumacious pupil was consigned to solitary confinement in a cell for the remainder of the day, until she should come to her senses and ask pardon of the priest and the good mother superior. She flung herself down, sobbing, on the cold stone floor, too angry to repeat the prayers Father Quentin had recommended her to address to the saints. Her thoughts centered around Eliot Van Zandt in agonizing solicitude. "He was my friend; he fought Remond to save me," she murmured; "and shall I desert him in the danger he incurred for my sake? Never, never! not if to find him I have to venture back into the spider's den, into madame's presence again." Day waned and faded, and the soft chiming of the vesper bells rang out the hour of her release. Pale and watchful, she knelt among the nuns and the pupils in the chapel, but ere the Aves and the Pater Nosters were over, she had flitted like a shadow from the cloister, and in "the dim, religious light" made her way into the garden, having first secured her hat and cloak from a convenient rack. Breathless she made her hurried way through the thick, dark shrubberies, praying now that Heaven would aid her to escape from the half-insane old priest. "Where there's a will there's a way." Desperation had made her bold and reckless. But one means of escape presented itself, and that was to scale the high stone wall with the bristling spikes on top. By the aid of convenient shrubberies she accomplished the feat, and, with bleeding hands and torn garments, dropped down upon the other side into the street. Fortunately, no one was passing, so her escape remained unnoticed. Panting for breath, in her eagerness she ran the length of a square and turned down a corner, losing herself in a labyrinth of streets. She knew not where she was; but that did not matter yet. She was only intent on putting the greatest possible distance between herself and the convent where she had been so nearly immured for life. After an hour's rapid walking through a locality of which she was totally ignorant, she came suddenly into a street with which she was familiar. From this she knew that she could make her way without difficulty to Mme. Lorraine's house. A sudden terror and reluctance seized upon her at thought of entering that house of danger, and unconsciously her footsteps slackened their headlong speed. "To go back into the lion's den--it is hard!" she thought; then, bravely, "But my friend risked his life for me. I can not do less for him." CHAPTER XVII. Weary and footsore, she toiled on toward Esplanade Street, that was still far away. She was but little used to walking, for Mme. Lorraine had never permitted her to leave the house, and her only excursions had been her stolen rides on the back of Selim, Mme. Lorraine's petted Arab. Her headlong pace at first began to tell on her now, and her steps grew slower and slower, while her slight figure and fair face attracted much attention from passers-by on the brightly lighted street, although her shy, frightened air protected her from insult from even the evil disposed. Her purity, so sweetly imaged on her young face, was a potent shield. At length she emerged into Esplanade Street. She had been several hours making her way from the convent to this point. It was nearing midnight, and the girl was vaguely frightened, although, in her almost infantile innocence and ignorance, she knew nothing of the "danger that walks forth with the night" in the streets of a great city. She had been more fortunate than she knew in escaping molestation and pursuit. Her chief fear had been of pursuit by the fanatical old priest, but her hurried glances behind her, from time to time, failed to discover any pursuer; and in a short while more she stood trembling before the dark, silent front of the house where her young life had been spent in semi-slavery as the plaything of giddy Mme. Lorraine. A strange impulse seized her to turn and fly away; a stronger instinct rooted her to the ground. "He is here! he must be here!" she murmured; "and I can not desert him, my good friend." She stood there a few moments gazing at the closed door, then walked rapidly to the garden gate by which she had let Van Zandt through that memorable night. By a strange chance of fortune she had the key in her pocket. Unlocking it softly, she let herself into the garden, and sunk down wearily on the rustic seat where she had fallen into such heavy sleep the night of her attempted abduction. Against her will her eyelids drooped, and slumber stole over her weary senses. The soft air coolly fanned her hot face, and the April dew fell heavily on her floating hair and thin summer dress; but, unconscious of the chill and dampness, she dreamed on until the first faint gray streak of dawn appeared in the east. Then she woke suddenly, lifted her crouching figure, and looked about her. Memory rushed over her in a bewildering flood. "I have been asleep when I ought to have been planning how to get into that house unperceived to search for him!" she thought, self-reproachfully. She knew that there would be no great difficulty about the matter, because Mima was always very careless about fastening up the back part of the house. Being slight and agile, she made an easy entrance into the house by the united opportunities of a step-ladder and an unbolted back window. With a throbbing heart and shining eyes, she found herself inside the house, and, as she believed, near to the kind Yankee friend in whom she took such an earnest interest. Every one was asleep at this uncanny hour of the dawn, she knew. Lightly and fearlessly she went from room to room until she had explored the whole house in a fruitless quest for Eliot Van Zandt. To her dismay and disappointment, her careful search was utterly unavailing, although from her knowledge of the house she was certain that she had left not a room unvisited. She had even peeped, by the aid of a hall-chair, into the transom over madame's door, and then into Mima's, too; but the sight of the latter placidly snoring among her pillows, and of madame slumbering sweetly, as if no unrepented sins lay heavy on her conscience, was all that rewarded her for her pains. Disappointed and dismayed, she crept into an unused closet in the hall, and crouching in the cobwebby corner, gave herself up to such intense cogitation that the tired young brain succumbed again to weariness, and she drooped forward upon the hard floor fast asleep. Day was far advanced when she roused herself, with a start, and again realized her situation. She heard steps and voices, and knew that the small family was awake and astir. Presently the hall clock chimed the hour of noon. "I have been very lazy," she said to herself, "and--oh, dear, I am very hungry!" She remembered then that the nuns had not given her any supper, because she had flatly refused to beg Father Quentin's pardon for her wilfulness. "Never mind," she said valiantly to herself, "I must not remember that I am tired and hungry until I find my friend." But hot tears came into the dark eyes, all the same. It was not pleasant to be tired and hungry and disappointed, and even in hiding like a dreadful criminal fearing to be captured. Suddenly the swish of a silken robe trailed through the hall met her ears--Mme. Lorraine! The fugitive could not resist the temptation to push the door ajar ever so little, and peep through the tiny aperture at her fair enemy. And then something very strange happened. Little Nobody, or Marie, as the nuns had called her, saw Mme. Lorraine stop abruptly at the end of the hall and press her white and jeweled hand upon a curious little ornate knob that appeared to form the center-piece of the carvings and panelings of the wainscoted wall. Instantly a section of the broad paneling glided backward through the solid wall, like a narrow door. Mme. Lorraine stepped lightly through the opening, and disappeared as the concealed door sprung quickly back into its place. Like one stunned, the girl fell back into her place of hiding. She had spent all her life in this strange house without a suspicion of the hidden room and the secret door, and its sudden discovery almost paralyzed her in the first moment. But presently her reason returned to her, and she murmured with instant conviction: "He is down there." Following a sudden reckless impulse, and thinking nothing of consequences, she bounded from the closet and pressed her little hand upon the knob in the wall. At first it remained stationary, but when she pushed harder it yielded so suddenly as almost to precipitate her down a short flight of steps on which it opened. Recovering her balance, she stepped softly downward, and the narrow door slipped soundlessly into its place again, and as if impelled by a ghostly hand. But the fact was, that by some clever arrangement of springs beneath the first step, the slight pressure of her foot on the boards was sufficient to close it. She found herself now on the narrow flight of steps, in thick darkness; but the momentary light that had glimmered through the open door had shown her a narrow passage and another door at the foot of the stairs. Thrilling with curiosity, and without fear, the girl groped her way softly downward to the passage, starting as the murmur of voices came to her from the other side of the door. "I was right. He is here!" she thought, and flung herself down on the floor in the darkness and listened with her ear against the door. It was Mme. Lorraine's clear, bell-like voice that was speaking. It ceased its impassioned utterances at last, and a deep, rich, manly voice replied to her--a familiar voice that made Marie's heart beat tumultuously and a sweet, warm color glow in her cheeks. "It is he," she whispered, forgetting hunger, weariness, everything unpleasant in exquisite relief and joy. CHAPTER XVIII. Almost a week had elapsed since the last visit of Mme. Lorraine to Eliot Van Zandt. During that time he had been very ill from the fever brought on by his agitation at her indiscreet announcement of the death of the girl in whom he had been so warmly interested. All Mima's skill and care had been required to ward off a fatal consequence to this relapse, and the woman had sternly forbidden any more calls from her mistress during this critical state. Mme. Lorraine was so frightened that she was very obedient to the mandate; but now the embargo had been removed, and she was free to visit the fascinating patient. He was better. Indeed, he was rapidly convalescing, owing to Mima's good nursing, aided by his youth and a strong constitution. So, on this lovely April morning, madame had made herself beautiful by every device of art at her command, and hurried through the secret door to visit the wounded captive whom she held in durance vile. Pale and wan, but exceedingly handsome still, Eliot Van Zandt lay upon a velvet lounge, his fair Saxon beauty thrown into strong relief by the dressing-gown of dark-blue silk that madame's care had supplied. At the entrance of the superbly dressed and handsome woman, his dark brows met with a heavy frown. "I gave orders, Madame Lorraine, that you should not be admitted again!" he exclaimed, with the frank petulance of convalescence. Madame gave her graceful head an airy toss. "No one can debar me from the privilege of entering any room in my own house," she replied, coolly. "Your own house?" starting. "Precisely," with a maddening smile; and for at least two minutes a dead silence reigned in the room that, with its swinging-lamp burning brightly, presented the appearance of night, although it was midday outside. Then he exclaimed, angrily: "I had already become convinced that there was something mysterious in my sojourn here. I have found out that I am in an underground apartment from which there is no apparent egress. I know that no living soul but yourself and your servant has been near me since I was ill. Am I, then, your prisoner?" Smilingly, she replied: "Do not call it by so harsh a word. It is true that you are in my house, hidden in an underground apartment; but it was for your own good that I brought you here. You had fatally wounded Remond, and the authorities were after you. I--I love you," falteringly. "I could not give you up to justice. So you are here--a prisoner, if you will, but a beloved and well cared-for one." "Yes, I have received skillful care and attention from your servant. I thank you," very stiffly; "but now I am well, I desire to go." "I am suspected of harboring you. My house is watched by officers of the law. Should you go out, you would be instantly arrested. _Mon Dieu_! that must not be!" She looked at him with tender, pleading eyes. He answered, curtly: "If I have hurt Remond, I am willing to answer to the law for my crime committed in the defense of the weak and the helpless. I have no wish to shirk my punishment. You understand me now, and you will let me go. I demand my release!" Clasping her jeweled hands together in pretended despair, she exclaimed: "But, good Heaven! _mon ami_, I can not let you be so reckless. Think a moment what will happen if they take you into custody. If the man dies, you may be--hung!" "I take all the risk; only show me the way out of my hated prison!" he exclaimed, impatiently; and, with sudden passion, Mme. Lorraine answered, boldly: "Then, by Heaven, I will not! There is but one way by which you can ever leave this room, whose existence is known to no human being but Mima, myself, and you." She saw him grow deathly pale to the roots of his hair, as he asked, with pretended coolness: "And that way, my darling jailer?" With something like a blush struggling through the cosmetics that covered her face, she replied firmly, although in a low voice: "As my husband." There was an awkward silence; the man was blushing for her; the dark-red flush went up to the roots of his hair; she saw it, and bit her lips. At last he said, with cool disdain: "You have already a husband in an insane asylum." She interrupted, eagerly: "No, no--not my husband. I am free--that is, I was divorced by law from him years ago." She came nearer; she flung herself, with a rustle of silk and heavy waft of patchouli, down by his side on the sofa. Looking up into his face with burning eyes, she exclaimed, wildly: "Do not look so coldly and scornfully upon me! Since you came to New Orleans, you have changed all my life. I never loved before. I married Monsieur Lorraine for wealth and position, without a single heart-throb for the man. But you I love, you I have sworn to win. What is there unreasonable about it, that your eyes flash so proudly? You are handsome, it is true, but I also am beautiful. You are gifted, but you are poor, while I am rolling in wealth. I can take you from your drudging life and make your existence a dream of luxury and ease. That is generous, is it not? But you have bewitched me; you have changed all my nature; you have taught me to love." "I never tried to do so," he replied, with unmoved coldness. "Cold-hearted Yankee! have you no feeling, no pity?" she demanded, reproachfully. "Look at me fairly," plucking impatiently at his sleeve. "Am I not fair enough to teach you to love me?" "No," he answered, curtly, shrinking from her touch, but looking straight into her impassioned eyes with cold, unmoved gray orbs. "Perhaps you already love some one else?" she burst forth, jealously. "No," in a cold, incisive voice. A low laugh of triumph broke from her, and she exclaimed: "Then I will not give you up. You shall be my husband." He gave her an angry stare, but she continued, unheeding: "To-night I leave New Orleans with my servant Mima. I have my reasons for this step. _N'importe_; they concern not you. I have made up my mind to be your wife, to bear your name, to go home with you to Boston. If you say the word, a priest shall be brought within the hour to make us one. Then we can escape together to-night and fly this fatal city which now holds imminent danger for you. Do you consent?" He looked with his cold, disconcerting gaze full into her eyes. "What if I refuse?" he queried. "You are a Yankee all over--you answer one question with another," she said, with a faint, mirthless laugh. "But my alternative is so bitter I shrink from naming it. Tell me, are you going to make me your loving wife?" "I would die first!" he responded, with passionate emphasis. She looked up at him, pale with wrath and mortification, and hissed, angrily: "You have chosen well, for it will come to that--to--to death!" "You would murder me?" he exclaimed, with a start; and she answered, defiantly: "If you can not be mine, no one else shall ever have your love or your name. If you persist in refusing my generous offer, I shall go away from here with Mima to-night; but I shall leave you in this cellar to starve and to die, and to molder into dust until the story of your mysterious disappearance that night has been forgotten of men." "You could not be so inhuman!" he uttered, with paling lips. "I can, and I will," laughing mockingly. "Take your choice now, monsieur--my time is limited. Shall it be love--or--death?" With ineffable scorn, although his handsome features had waned to a marble pallor, he replied, in a voice of proud disdain: "Such love--the love of a guilty, wicked woman like you, Madame Lorraine--leaves one no choice but death!" CHAPTER XIX. He never forgot the glare of rage the angry woman fixed upon him for a moment. Her eyes fairly blazed as she hissed, vindictively: "You have made your choice, and mine is the last human face you will look upon. A few days of isolation in this dreary chamber, without food or drink, and you will go mad with horror and die of starvation. Adieu, monsieur. I wish you _bon voyage_ to Hades!" She made him a mocking courtesy, and swept to the door, tearing it open with such impetuous haste that the listener outside had no time to step aside, only to spring up wildly and confront the angry woman, who immediately uttered a shriek of horror and fled up the narrow stair-way, disappearing through the secret door in an incredibly short space of time. In the darkness of the narrow passage she had taken the pale-faced, wild-eyed girl for a visitant from the other world, and had fled in fear and terror from the supposed ghostly presence. In her terror she had forgotten to shut the door upon Van Zandt, and with starting eyes he witnessed the strange scene. For an instant he fancied, like Mme. Lorraine, that it was a spirit standing there in the gloom of the narrow passage, with face and form like that of the dead little Mlle. Nobody. Then reason came to his aid. He sprung from the sofa, and just as the secret door shut behind the frightened madame, he caught the girl's cold hand and drew her into the room. "Oh, my little ma'amselle! So that wicked woman lied when she told me that you were dead!" he exclaimed. She answered, vivaciously: "No; for I have been dead and buried since I saw you, Monsieur Van Zandt. Don't you see that Madame Lorraine took me for a ghost? It was very fortunate for me, was it not?" and soft, sweet trills of laughter bubbled over her lips. In her joy at finding him again, she forgot hunger, fear, and weariness. And in her excitement and exhilaration she rapidly poured out all that had happened to her since that night, nearly two weeks ago, when he and Carmontelle had so ably prevented her abduction by Remond. He listened in deepest interest; and if Mme. Lorraine could have seen the joy that sparkled in his expressive eyes, she would have felt like plunging a dagger into the white breast of the girl who had brought that joy there by her return, as it were, from the dead. He laughed with her at the idea of Mme. Lorraine having fooled herself so cleverly in imagining Little Nobody a ghost. "But you must not call me Little Nobody any longer. I am Marie now," she said, brightly. "It is a sweet, pretty name," he replied; "but I wish I had been permitted to choose your name. It should have been something else--something unique, like yourself." She did not know what the word unique meant. She looked at him curiously. "What would you have called me?" she queried. "Perhaps I will tell you some day," he replied, with an odd little sigh; and then he changed the subject by telling her how glad he was that she had been saved from death, and how thankful that she had come to save him from the tortures of death by starvation. The dark eyes sparkled with eager joy. "Ah, how pleasant it is to have a friend!" she said, naïvely. "First you saved me, now I am going to save you. I heard everything she said to you. Oh, how cruel and wicked she is! And it must be dreadful," shuddering, "to starve! I can fancy some of its horrors, for, do you know, Monsieur Van Zandt, I am very hungry now? I have had no supper nor breakfast." "Poor child!" he exclaimed, and glanced at a covered waiter on a stand that contained the remains of his late breakfast. He drew off the dainty napkin, and she saw delicate rolls, broiled chicken, cold ham, preserves, fresh strawberries, chocolate and coffee, the whole flanked by a bottle of sherry. "I had no appetite for my breakfast, and Mima did not come back to remove the tray," he said. "Dare I offer you the remains of the repast? The chocolate is cold, but I drank none of it; I preferred coffee. Likewise, the broiled chicken is untouched--in fact, I eat nothing but a roll." "You shall see that I will do more justice to the fare than that," she laughed; and sitting down by the tray, she made a substantial meal, after which she declared herself much strengthened. It was very pleasant to have this bright, hopeful young creature with him, in lieu of the loneliness and the cruel fate to which Mme. Lorraine had doomed him. He listened with interest to her pretty plans for his release. She told him how, in her drugged sleep, she had beheld him in this very room, attended by the big, ugly, but skillful Mima. "Heaven must have sent you that vision," he said, with fervent gratitude. "Oh, how glad I am that I shall go free again into the world! I have sweet, young sisters little older than you, my child, who would grieve for me were I to die like this. Are you sure, quite sure, that you possess the secret of the opening of the hidden door?" Marie started. "It must be the same as that of the outside--must it not, monsieur?" she queried, with a confident air. "I am not sure, but I hope it is," he replied, with a sudden dawning anxiety. "I will go and see at once," she exclaimed, starting toward the door. "No, no," he said, and held her back. "But why?" she asked, turning on him her pretty, puzzled face. With a smile, he answered: "Do you not see that it would not be safe to venture to open the door while our enemies remain in the house? We must wait patiently here until night--until they are gone away. Then we shall be able to effect our escape unmolested." He spoke more cheerfully than he felt. A strange dread was upon him. What if they should not be able to open the door at the head of the cellar stair-way? What if he were indeed hopelessly immured within this prison, the life of the girl forfeited to the bravery and daring that had led her to seek and save him? "Oh, I could bear it like a man, alone, but for her to perish under the slow agony of starvation--Heaven forbid it!" he groaned, but breathed not a word of his fears to the girl who was full of hope and eager expectancy, looking eagerly forward to the hour of their release. In spite of his anxiety, he spent a not unpleasant day in the society of Marie. She was so lovely and so unique, in her total ignorance of the world, that she had a subtle charm for the man inured to the conventionalities of society. Then, too, she was constantly exciting his wonder by the general correctness of her language, although he knew that she was totally uneducated. But he easily accounted for this by recalling the fact that she had been brought up in constant contact with Mme. Lorraine and her visitors, and so unconsciously acquired the habit of correct speaking. "What a contrast she is to that wicked woman!" he thought, looking admiringly at the eager, earnest, mobile face, so innocently frank, all the feelings of her pure soul mirrored in her limpid eyes. Recalling madame's story that the girl was low-born, he frowned, and said angrily to himself: "I do not believe it. She has nothing low about her. There is some mystery about her origin, and Madame Lorraine does not choose to reveal it, that is all." Certainly, no girl born with the blood of a hundred earls in her veins could have had better instincts or more innate refinement than this Little Nobody. She was innocently frank, but she was also charmingly shy and modest. She was child and woman exquisitely blended: "Standing with reluctant feet Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood flee." Although she had been overjoyed at finding the reported dead man alive, she had been very undemonstrative in her joy. She had not offered him a single caress, such as one so young might have done; she had not even seated herself near him. She contented herself with looking at him across the breadth of the room, not as one afraid, but with a perfectly natural reserve, and she preserved this frank, unembarrassed demeanor throughout the whole day, which did not seem long to either, although dinner and supper were among the things that were not. Neither one remembered it, neither one was conscious of any sensation of hunger. "But how are we to know when night comes? It is always night down here," he said. "It was about midday when I followed Madame Lorraine down here. Have you a watch?" she asked. "Yes; and I have never permitted it to run down since I came here. It is now twenty minutes to four o'clock," he said. "Then it is now afternoon. By and by, when the watch tells us it is nightfall, I will creep up the steps and listen for sounds in the hall. When I hear them go away, it will be the signal for us to open the secret door and escape," she said. At eight o'clock, with her ear pressed against the secret paneled door, she heard mistress and maid going through the hall to the front door. It opened and shut. Marie heard distinctly the loud click of the key in the lock outside. They had gone, leaving their victim to perish, as they thought, by the slow pangs of starvation. Van Zandt was close by her side; she turned to him eagerly. "I have been feeling the door in the dark for a knob like that on the outside, but I can not find it," she said. "The surface seems perfectly smooth, not carved as on the outside. Will you bring the lamp, monsieur, and let us search for it?" With a sinking heart, he obeyed her request, detaching the swinging-lamp from its bronze frame and taking it up the dark stair-way in his hand. Even then, in his eager anxiety, his artistic eye took note of the gleam of the light on the girl's picturesque masses of red-gold hair, as it waved in silken luxuriance over her shoulders. CHAPTER XX. Marie did not see Van Zandt's eyes looking admiringly at her beautiful hair. She was gazing with eager eyes at the narrow door that had shut her in with him whom she had dared so much to find and save. She saw with some dismay that its inner surface was just what it had appeared when she had moved her fingers over it in the dark--perfectly smooth, without seam, knob, or lock, and no apparent way of moving it from its place. Van Zandt gave her the lamp to hold, and put his shoulder to the immovable door, but his whole strength availed nothing against its grim solidity. Then he spent an anxious hour trying the steps and the sides of the door in an effort to find its mysterious open sesame. Not an iota of success rewarded his frantic efforts. But he would not give way to despair. "I shall have to cut our way out," he said. "But, as I have no hatchet, it will be slow work with my jack-knife. You may have to hold that lamp for hours, ma'amselle, while I whittle a hole in the door big enough for you to creep through." "That is nothing. I shall not be tired," she replied, bravely. But she was not called upon for this exhibition of patience. The first few strokes of the knife revealed to him the appalling fact that the inside of the door was not of wood, but iron--iron so heavily coated with thick paint that it had cleverly deceived the superficial touch. Then indeed she caught a gleam of trouble in his eyes--trouble that was almost despair. Her own face paled, and a sigh of dismay escaped her lips. When he heard it, he forced a smile. "Do not be frightened; we will find some other way," he said. And they went back to the room and searched the walls carefully to see if there was any weak spot by which they might effect an escape. Windows there were none, and the ventilation of the room had been cleverly effected by pipes that were let into the ceiling above. The walls around were damp and cool, showing that they were built into the earth; but they were thick and heavy, and Van Zandt's jack-knife made no impression on the heavy oaken planks beneath the handsome wall-papering. Two hours were spent in this vain quest for means of egress from their prison, and drops of dew beaded the young man's face. He was weak from his illness and from the fast that had lasted all day, and sat down at last to rest and to think what he should do next. "Oh, how tired and weak you must be! I am so sorry I eat your breakfast! I shouldn't have done so, but I thought we should get out of here directly!" exclaimed the girl, regretfully. She brought him the wine and poured out a glass, which she forced him to taste. It ran warmly through his veins, and courage returned to him again. "Now, no more for me," he said, pressing back the little hand that offered the second glass. "Drink that yourself ma'amselle, and we must keep the rest for you, for we can not tell how long it may be before we get out of this." "I do not need it; I am strong enough without it," she replied, and replaced the untouched glass on the stand. Then she saw him looking at her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. "I have a new thought," he said. "Perhaps if we could make ourselves heard from down here, some one might come to our relief. Let us halloo, ma'amselle, with all our might." It would have been ludicrous if it had not been so pitiful to hear them shouting in concert at the top of their voices. Indeed, they paused now and then to look at each other with laughing eyes, and to pant with exhaustion from their efforts, but the shouting was kept up at intervals until Van Zandt's watch recorded the hour of midnight. Then he said, wearily: "There is no help for it. We shall have to pass the night here, I suppose." He opened the door and began to push his sofa out into the narrow little passage. "What are you going to do?" Marie asked him, with large eyes of wonder. "I am simply converting this passage into a temporary bedroom for myself," he answered. "Good-night, Ma'amselle Marie; I leave you my room and bed. Lie down and rest, and in the morning we will try to devise some new plan for our escape." He opened and shut the door, and Marie was alone. She threw herself wearily on the luxurious bed, and in spite of hunger and thirst and terror, slept heavily for hours. When she awakened, she felt sure that day must be far advanced. She found a large pitcher of water and poured out some into a basin and bathed her face and hands. Then she peeped out into the dark passage for Van Zandt. He was sitting up composedly on his sofa, as if he had been awake for hours. "Oh, dear, monsieur, I have kept you out in the dark for hours! Come in," she exclaimed; and he accepted the invitation with alacrity, pushing in his convenient sofa before him. Laughingly, he said: "I began to think you were a second Rip Van Winkle, Ma'amselle Marie;" and, holding out his watch to her, she saw that it was near the middle of the day. "Oh, how lazy I have been! Forgive me!" she cried, vexed with herself. "You must have been very tired waiting out there in the dark?" "No, for I was at work trying to find the secret spring of the iron door, but I only wasted my time and strength," he replied, sadly. "Oh, what are we going to do?" she burst out, in sudden terror. "That is what I was asking myself at intervals all through the night," said Eliot Van Zandt. "Oh, my child--my brave little girl! what would I not give if only you had not followed Madame Lorraine into this fatal prison! I could suffer alone with a man's fortitude, but for you to share my fate is too dreadful!" His voice broke and his eyes grew strangely dim. She answered, with pretty gravity: "It was through your goodness to me that you were first betrayed into her power; and if you have to suffer for it, I want to suffer, too. We are friends, you know. But we must not give up hope yet. I am more sorry than ever that I eat your breakfast; but take a little of the wine, and it will strengthen you." "After you," he replied, seeing that she would not be satisfied without seeing him take some. He held the glass to her lips, and she swallowed a few drops under protest. He went through the same form, saying to himself that he must save it all for her, for there was nothing else between her and utter starvation. "What shall we do next? Halloo again?" she asked, with a smile. "I do not believe my lungs are strong enough to go over that ordeal again. The wound in my breast is not quite healed over yet," he said. "But suppose we sing instead?" "I do not know how to sing," she answered. "Very well; I shall have to do all the singing," he replied, good-humoredly. "And, do you know, I think it is a rather good idea to sing, for who knows but it may penetrate to the street, and if it be known that Madame Lorraine be gone away, curiosity may lead some one to investigate into the cause of the mysterious noise, and then we may be found." "Oh, how clever you are! Do begin at once!" she exclaimed, with a hopeful light in her dark eyes. "I will," he replied; and somehow the first song that came to his mind was a sweet, sad love song he had been used to sing with his fair young sisters in the far-off Northern home he loved so well: "In days of old, when knights were bold, And barons held their sway, A warrior bold, with spurs of gold, Sung merrily his lay: 'My love is young and fair, My love hath golden hair, And eyes so bright and heart so true That none with her compare; So what care I, tho' death be nigh, I'll live for love or die!' "So this brave knight, in armor bright, Went gayly to the fray; He fought the fight, but ere the night His soul had passed away. The plighted ring he wore Was crushed and wet with gore; Yet ere he died he bravely cried: 'I've kept the vow I swore; So what care I, tho' death be nigh, I've fought for love, and die-- For love I die!'" The girl's beautiful eyes looked at the singer, dark and grave with the strange emotions swelling at her heart. She had heard Mme. Lorraine and the men from the Jockey Club sing their best, but it had not affected her like this. A strange, sweet awe stole over her, mixed with a buoyancy and lightness that was thrilling and yet solemn. With the strange, new sensation there came to her a sudden memory of the chapel at Le Bon Berger, and the soft, murmuring voices of the nuns at prayer. She felt like praying. He looked at her curiously, and she said, with child-like directness: "I can not sing, but the nuns at the convent taught me how to pray. I will pray to the good God, and perhaps He will hear me and save us." The next minute she had thrown herself down by a chair, bowed her golden head on her hands, and a low, soft murmur of prayer filled the room. He hesitated a moment, then went and knelt down by her side, and his deeper, stronger voice filled the room with a strong, manly petition for help and pity. Then he did not feel like singing again for awhile, so sweet and deep an awe pervaded his mind. Marie sat opposite, her tiny hands folded in her lap, a lovely seriousness on her piquant face. By and by he sung again, but this time it was one of the solemn chants, such as might be heard in the choirs of the old cathedrals. The day wore on like this, and the night fell again, with no sign that the persistent singing had attracted any attention from the outer world. Sadly enough, and with many grim forebodings, Van Zandt wheeled his sofa again into the narrow passage for his night's rest. As he bid her good-night, Marie said, sadly: "The oil is getting low in the lamp. I will extinguish it to-night if you have a match to light it in the morning." He was fortunate enough to find a little match-case in his pocket filled with matches that he carried for lighting his cigars; so Marie extinguished the lamp until morning, and they turned on a very dim light that day, for they feared that they should soon be left in total darkness. To-day, also, the last of the wine was used, Marie insisting that they should share alike, for both began to feel the deathly weakness of hunger paralyzing their energies. The singing at intervals was still persevered in, although Van Zandt's voice began to fail strangely from the weakness of hunger and illness. Hope failed him, too, as this, the third day of their mutual imprisonment waned to a close, and he regretted bitterly that he had allowed Marie to force him to take a share of the precious sherry. Faint and fainter waxed the light, and the two victims of Mme. Lorraine's malignity began to realize that the horrors of Cimmerian darkness were about to be added to those of starvation and isolation. "Sing something," said Marie, from the depths of the arm-chair where she was resting. He fancied that her voice sounded strange and faint, and his heart sunk heavily. He wished again that the poor child had never ventured into this horrible trap from which there seemed to be no release but death. But he had already wished it a hundred times before--alas, to no avail! "Sing," she murmured again, sadly. "See, the light is almost gone, but it will not seem so dreary when you sing." He said to himself that he would be willing to sing until the last breath left his lips, could he but lighten one pang of the suffering girl whose devotion to him had brought down such a cruel fate upon her head. So, although his throat was sore, his head dizzy, and his heart like lead in his breast, he sung feebly, but bravely, a song that yesterday she had said she liked. It was sweet; but sad. He had no heart for gay ones now: "Out in the country, close to the road-side, One little daisy there chanced to grow; It was so happy there in the sunshine-- No one the daisy's joy could know; Watching the white clouds, hearing a song there, List'ning in wonder all day long. 'Oh,' said the daisy, 'had I a song-voice, Yonder forever I'd send my song.' "It was a lark that sung in the heaven, While all the world stood still to hear, Many a maiden looked from her knitting, And in her heart there crept a tear. Down came the lark and sung to the daisy, Sung to it only songs of love; Till in the twilight slumbered the daisy, Turning its sweet face to heaven above. "Ah! for the morrow bringeth such sorrow, Captured the lark, and life grew dim, There, too, the daisy, torn from the way-side, Prisoned and dying, wept for him. Once more the lark sung; fainter his voice grew; Her little song was hushed and o'er; Two little lives gone out of the sunshine, Out of this bright world for evermore." He paused and looked at her in the dim light. The young face was very pale, the dark eyes hollow with purple rings around them. "I would give the world, were it mine, for food for this dying child!" he thought, in bitter anguish. With a languid smile and in childish innocence, she said: "I like your little song, Monsieur Van Zandt. Do you know, I think it suits us two? You are the lark, and I the little daisy. And--and--we need not hope any longer, I am afraid. We will soon be gone out of life, like the lark and the little daisy." The last words were so faint as to be scarcely audible. Her eyes had closed while she uttered them, and now the golden head fell languidly against the back of her chair. With a cry of alarm, Eliot Van Zandt sprung to her side, and discovered, to his dismay, that she was quite unconscious. CHAPTER XXI. "Unconscious, and not a drop of wine or water with which to revive her--not even a breath of fresh air, though the whole world is so full of it!" he murmured, in despair. He flew to the water-pitcher in a wild hope, and found there a few spoonfuls which he had begged her to drink in the morning. She had pretended to do so, but here it was untouched. So terrible was his own thirst that his heart leaped at sight of it, but not for worlds would he have appropriated even one small drop from his companion in misery. Hastily pouring it into a glass, he pressed it against her lips, moistening them gently until they parted, and a few drops of the precious fluid passed between them and down her parched throat. A sigh heaved her breast, and her eyes unclosed. Eliot Van Zandt cried out in joy and relief, and laying her head back against his arm, he gently forced her to swallow the remainder of the water. It acted like a charm, for withdrawing her head from his arm, she sat upright, and said, in a weak voice: "I kept the water for you; I did not want to drink it." "Nonsense, child; I am strong, and did not need it," lightly. "But do you feel better now?" "Much better; but I think I will lie down, monsieur, I feel so tired. Is it bed-time yet?" trying to smile. He looked at his watch by the light that was so feeble now that he could scarcely see the hands moving across its face. "Yes, it is bed-time. It is past ten o'clock," he said; then, with hesitation: "Are you not too sick for me to leave you, child? I can sit here and watch you while you sleep." Within himself he thought sadly that the conventionalities of the world were out of place now, when both were hovering on the border of the Unknown Land. Why not sit beside the dying girl and soothe her last sad hours? But with a pensive smile she answered: "No; go to your rest, dear friend. I shall do very well alone, but if I feel ill again I will call you." Thus dismissed, he wheeled his sofa, as usual, into the dark and gloomy little passage outside the door. Then, lingering to press the little hand and say good-night more tenderly than ever in the presentiment that weighed upon him, she startled him by a shrill, frightened cry: "Oh!" The light had given one expiring flare and gone out, leaving them in darkness. "Are you afraid? Shall I leave my door ajar?" he asked, gently. "No, no," she answered, quickly. "Very well, then; but I shall not go to sleep. I shall lie awake to guard you from any fancied danger," he said; and sighed, knowing that there was nothing to fear save the grim, gaunt hunger-wolf. He struck a match that he might smile once more, sadly but tenderly, into the pale, patient face. She smiled bravely in return. "My good friend, good-night," she said gently; and with a sigh he left her to hold a patient, wakeful vigil outside her door. Hours passed without a sound from the dark, inner chamber, where Marie lay huddled among the pillows in feverish sleep. At last, dizziness and weariness fairly conquered him; his head drooped to the arm of the sofa, and he, too, slept. It seemed scarce a minute since his heavy eyes had shut before he started up with a confused cry. Had some one called his name? Some sort of a sound certainly echoed in his ears; it resolved itself into _her_ voice. Marie's voice calling out loud and strange and incessant, with incoherent words. He tore open the door wildly and struck one of his precious matches. She lay there among the pillows, with vacant, wide-open eyes fixed on the ceiling, babbling in wild delirium of cool springs and fountains, of summer showers, of falling dew, her parched lips panting with fever. "Oh, my God! if the world were mine, I would give it for one draught of water for my suffering little darling!" he cried aloud, with the agony of a man's heart driven to bay. The dim flame of the match died into darkness again, and he stood by the bed, holding her hot little hand in his, listening in agony to her delirious ravings. "This is the cruelest hour of my life!" he muttered. "Death, when it comes, will not be half so bitter." By the aid of another match he looked at his watch. It was five o'clock, and outside he knew that the day was near its dawn; but within the chamber where he watched by the side of the dying girl all was thick darkness and gloom, and his stock of matches was running so low that he dared not light one as often as he wished. Agonized thoughts kept him grim company while he stood listening to her ravings for water to cool her poor parched tongue and lips. Soon she would be dead, and her harrowing sufferings all over. Then he would be alone with the dead girl until death mercifully came to his release. Here they would lie, uncoffined and unburied for years, moldering into dust, their cruel fate forever hidden from men. In his far-off home his sisters would grieve for him awhile, then he would be forgotten. The tiny flame of another match flared into the air at six o'clock. Her ravings had ceased, the hot flush had left her face, the little palms were cool again. She lay with wide-open eyes upon the pillow, breathing faintly--so faintly that he looked for every breath to be her last. In the anguish of that thought, a wild temptation came to him. Somewhere he had read that debilitated invalids were strengthened and restored to health by drinking the fresh, warm blood of newly slaughtered beeves. He tore open the blade of his knife and desperately punctured a vein in his arm. The hot, red blood spurted like a fountain, and he caught it in the wine-glass until it was full. A handkerchief bound tightly about his arm stopped the bleeding of the wound, and, with some difficulty in the darkness, and shuddering with weakness and emotion, he lifted Marie's head on his arm and pressed the glass to her lips. CHAPTER XXII. He scarcely dared hope that she would have enough strength to swallow his strange medicine, but, to his joy, the dry lips parted and clung to the glass until every drop of the liquid had been drained, then, with a long sigh of relief, her head fell back, and he laid it gently on the pillow. "Have I revived her, or--killed her?" he muttered, in a fright. Another match. If it had been the last one, he must have one glimpse of her face now. It lay pale, with shut eyes, and apparently lifeless, on the white pillow. He felt her pulse hurriedly. A feeble, thread-like pulsation assured him that life still lingered. He sat down sorrowfully in a chair by the bed, holding the pulse beneath his finger, waiting sadly for the last. Seven o'clock by the light of the last match, and the pulse still throbbed softly, and, he almost dared to hope, more strongly. "What does it mean? Has my experiment indeed given her a few more hours of life?" he wondered, gladly. It seemed so, for the thread-like pulse gradually grew stronger, and bending down his head, he caught a faint but regular breathing. "Marie," he said, softly, and a quickened breath that was almost a gasp assured him that she heard. "I am here by your side," he went on. "It is dark, and I have used all the matches, so I can not watch your face to see if you are better. Can you speak to me, dear?" "Monsieur," she uttered, faintly, and his heart leaped with joy at the sound. "You are better," he exclaimed, and she murmured a faint: "Yes." Then she seemed to fall asleep. He fought bravely against the deathly weakness that was stealing over him. A passionate prayer was in his heart: "Lord, send us help before it is too late!" Hours seemed to pass while he sat there in a strange half-stupor that most likely would merge into delirium, as hers had done. Oh, the gnawings of hunger, the pangs of thirst, how terrible they were! "Yet, thank Heaven, I have lightened hers for a little while by the life-fluid I freely gave!" he muttered. Suddenly, in the darkness, a little groping hand fell on his face. "Are you there still?" asked Marie's voice, weak but clear. "I am here still," he answered, taking the hand again in his own. The pulse was much better now. She continued, softly: "I feel stronger, but I was surely dying when you gave me the sweet, warm milk to drink. It put new life in my veins, but--" she paused as if a new thought had struck her mind. "Well?" he said, gently, and she answered: "I can not imagine where you found the milk. I hope you had some, too. It is so reviving. Did you?" "Yes, plenty," he replied, with a shudder, and she said: "I am so glad. But how dreary it is all in the dark! Sing again, please." It had seemed to him a minute ago that he was almost too weak to speak, but he made a great effort to please her, although he knew that it would exhaust his strength all the sooner. He sung with all the power that remained in his weak lungs. In the darkness and the gloom, the dear old hymn, learned at his mother's knee in childhood, sounded sweetly solemn: "Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me! "Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes, Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies; Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain--" There was a sudden, swift break in the voice that soared upward to the pitying heavens--his strength had not given out, but something wonderful had happened. From over their heads, and seeming to come through the small pipe provided to ventilate their darksome prison, had come the distinct sound of a human voice. "Halloo!" CHAPTER XXIII. In almost the last hour, when hope had deserted them, and they hourly expected death, succor had arrived. Van Zandt's singing had attracted attention at last, and now help was at hand. When that ringing halloo came down the ventilating pipe, he almost swooned with the suddenness of his joy and relief; and it was Marie, who, with a sudden accession of frantic joy, screamed shrilly back: "Halloo!" A voice came quickly back--a familiar voice: "Who is down there?" This time Van Zandt answered: "Two prisoners--Eliot Van Zandt and a lady. We are starving, dying! For God's sake, cut a hole quickly through the floor, and come to our aid!" "Ay, ay!" said a hearty voice that belonged to none other than Pierre Carmontelle; and then the iron will that had sustained Van Zandt through those four dreadful days gave way, and he fell in a heavy swoon to the floor. Marie could only moan helplessly: "Hurry, hurry! he has fallen down. I fear he is dead!" With all the haste that several eager men could make, it was almost half an hour before a square opening appeared in the ceiling large enough to admit a man's body. Then a faint light streamed into the dark underground chamber, fairly dazzling Marie's weak eyes. Several eager pairs of eyes looked down, but they could detect nothing yet, so intense was the gloom below. "It is dark as Erebus," said a voice--Markham's, Marie thought. "Van Zandt, where are you?" Marie answered, with a sob: "He is down on the floor, but he is very still, and I fear he is dead from starvation." A lantern at the end of a rope came quickly down the aperture. A man's body followed it quickly--Carmontelle! He came up to the bedside and looked with amazement into the wan, sweet face of the girl. "_Mon Dieu_, it is Little Nobody! But what does it mean? I thought you dead. I saw you entombed!" But he had to wait for his answer, for Marie very provokingly fainted dead away, and he had to halloo to Markham above for water and wine. "I think fresh air would do better than either just now," was the reply. "_Peste_! what a hot, musty smell comes up that hole! Take her in your arms, Carmontelle, stand on a chair, and hand her up to me." As the ceiling was low, this plan was effected without much difficulty; and Markham took the slight figure in his arms and carried her out to the cool, green garden, where the last beams of sunset were glinting on the shining leaves of the orange-trees and the tinkling waters of the fountains. The cool air and the refreshing water soon brought her back to life and hope again. But Van Zandt was longer in recovering. He had kept up the longer, but his collapse, when it came, had been more complete. They found that the wound on his breast was still unhealed, and that there was a mysterious fresh wound upon his arm. The bandage had been knocked off in his fall, and the blood was pouring out in a crimson tide. They stanched the wound, and at last brought him around so that, with the aid of three men, he could be hoisted through the hole in the wall. He was too weak to answer questions at first, and it was not until the next day that they learned the particulars of his imprisonment by Mme. Lorraine. They were inclined to chaff him considerably over the madame's fatal _penchant_ for his handsome face, and he bore it with all the equanimity he could. Indeed, their mirth seemed pleasant, although directed against himself, after those four solemn days in that dark, underground prison. But interesting as they found his romantic story, it was tame beside that of Little Nobody, who, having had a good night's sleep, nourishing food, and a good woman to watch and soothe her restless slumbers, was so much refreshed by the next morning that she could tell her strange story with far more vivacity than could Van Zandt, whose lungs, from his constant singing and hallooing without food for four days, had terribly taxed his strength and endurance. "If you had come even one hour later, I fear it would have been too late for me," he said, with a somber look in his gray eyes. But it was owing to his persistent singing that he had been rescued at last, for, although Carmontelle had never given up the search for him, he had not dreamed that the wounded man was concealed in madame's house, although it was believed that she was cognizant of his fate. "And this is how we chanced to find you," he said. "It was determined to arrest Madame Lorraine upon suspicion of complicity with Remond in making away with you. Markham and I volunteered to come with the officers to serve the warrant. As repeated ringings elicited no response, we thought something was wrong, and forced an entrance." "And then?" Van Zandt queried, curiously. "Oh, then we found not a living soul in the house, and were in a little, stuffy back room, like a servants' bedroom, debating what to do next, when the sound of your unearthly singing made the hair rise upon our heads in terror. We thought at first that it was something supernatural, it sounded so sweet and strange, coming, as it seemed, from the bowels of the earth, but presently Markham said that Van Zandt was a fine singer, and a wild suspicion came to me. I looked about and found a pipe fixed cleverly into the wall to secure ventilation, as it seemed to me, to some cellar-like apartment. I put my mouth to the hole and hallooed down it as loud as I could." "And thereby saved two lives that were almost ended. How can I ever thank you and bless you enough, Carmontelle!" Van Zandt exclaimed, with emotion. CHAPTER XXIV. Mme. Lorraine would have been chagrined indeed could she but have known what was transpiring in the house she had quitted so precipitately upon finding out that she was in danger of arrest upon suspicion of knowing the whereabouts of Eliot Van Zandt. The despised Little Nobody was installed in madame's own luxurious chamber, with a capable elderly woman in attendance. Eliot Van Zandt occupied another room, equally elegant, and Carmontelle and Markham had also installed themselves temporarily in a guest-chamber. In the kitchen a temporary cook held sway until such time as the young journalist could be moved to his hotel. Just now he was prostrated on a bed of sickness, having suffered a relapse from the reopening of his wound through his exertions in hallooing and singing. The cause of the slight wound upon his arm, which they had found freshly bleeding, he steadily declined to explain. "It is a mere nothing--the scratch of a pen," he said, carelessly, and indeed it very soon healed. The wound on his breast was doing nicely, too, and he began to talk of leaving for home very soon--as soon as he was able to travel. Carmontelle had written to his anxious sisters to calm their uneasy minds, and one day--it was a week after that tragic evening when he had rescued the prisoners--he held a very serious conversation with his friend over the subject of Little Nobody's future. Van Zandt had sat up in an easy-chair that day for the first time, and Marie had come in to see him. She looked bright and well again, and the young man shuddered as he thought how near she had been to death that night in the underground prison. "But for my timely thought, my terrible experiment, she must have been dead ere rescue came," he said to himself. "But she must never know. Perhaps she would shrink from me in horror did she but know the truth." Carmontelle had been very quiet while she remained in the room. He had watched both narrowly. When she had gone, he said, gravely: "Van Zandt, let us speak together as good men and true. Have you taken any thought for the little ma'amselle's future?" Van Zandt started and grew a shade paler. He scarcely understood this abruptness, this seriousness. "Her future?" he echoed, a little blankly. "I thought--I understood--that it was all planned out that night when we saved her. You were to educate her--afterward to make her your wife." Carmontelle frowned, and said, sternly: "Yes--but of course you understand that the plan is untenable now?" He looked straight into Van Zandt's beautiful blue-gray eyes with such a meaning expression that in a moment there rushed over the young man's mind a comprehension of the truth. Flushing darkly, he exclaimed: "Say no more. I understand you now," hoarsely; "you mean that--that noble child is--is compromised by her imprisonment with me those four long days?" Carmontelle, with a fierce throb of jealousy at his heart, answered: "Yes." Then, after a moment's blank silence on both sides, he added, sighing heavily: "Such is the cruel way of the world. For myself, Van Zandt, I know you are the soul of honor, chivalrous as the men of the South; and I can pay you no higher compliment than this. For her, I know she is pure as an angel. But--there is the cruel, carping world ready to point the finger of scorn always, and I--warmly as I love the girl--I could not have a bride of whom gossip could whisper even one blighting suspicion. The Carmontelles are very proud of their unblemished honor. I must not be the first to smirch it. I could have passed over her birth, her namelessness, for I could have given her my own proud name, and lifted her to my own station; but--this shadow from her misfortune in having shared your imprisonment is too dark for me to bear. My hopes are in ashes. Instead of being her husband, I must now claim the place of a father or a brother." It was a long speech for Carmontelle, who did not ordinarily deal in long sentences. When it was finished he wiped the great drops of moisture from his brow and waited for Van Zandt to speak. He did not have to wait long. "I understand you," the young man said, with apparent quietude. "The generous child, by her nobility in coming to seek and to save me, sacrificed her own future. I must--marry her--to appease the proprieties." With a quiver of pain and regret in his voice, Carmontelle said, gravely: "Yes." "I am ready to make her that poor reparation for all that she sacrificed for me," Van Zandt answered, instantly, and for a moment their hands met in a firm, close grip. Then the Southerner said sadly: "My God, there is no other way, or I could not give up the sweet hopes that for a few hours delighted my soul. But we have talked it over at the club--my friends and hers--and have all agreed that since the whole affair was so widely known, there could be no other way out of it in honor for that poor child than by marriage with you. Van Zandt, you look strange! Do you take it so hard, then? Great Heaven! can it be that you have some prior engagement?" "I am free--except from the claims of two young sisters, and the trammels of poverty," Van Zandt answered, quietly. "Poverty, yes, I had thought of that; but she shall not be a burden to you. I am rich, very rich. I will pay the poor child's dowry. I will make it forty thousand dollars, and when I die she shall be my heiress." "Stop!" Eliot Van Zandt said, with the first sternness he had shown. "You mistake me, Carmontelle; I will take no dowry with my young bride, save her own innocence and beauty." "But I claim the right--" "And I refuse to admit it." And they looked stubbornly into each other's eyes. CHAPTER XXV. Then Van Zandt said, sternly: "I will have no one say that I was paid to take the girl of my choice. I am not rich, as you know, but I will toil harder now that I have such an object in life. She shall not go shabby or hungry, I promise you." His voice was so full of feeling, despite its sternness, that Carmontelle was puzzled. He exclaimed: "Your pride does you honor, Van Zandt. But--you said--the girl of your choice. I do not understand!" Van Zandt hesitated, then said reluctantly: "Believe me, I do not want to make you feel your loss more keenly by what I must now admit; but, Carmontelle, the reparation I must make to Ma'amselle Marie is not such that I need money to condone the sacrifice. I--I love her, although I have never dared own the truth to my own heart until this hour." Through the breast of the elder man there went a pang of jealous pain, as he repeated, hoarsely: "You love her?" "Yes, since the first night I met her. But I scarcely dared own the truth to my own heart. What had I, the poor journalist, to do with that fair creature, whose beauty in itself was a rich dower? But now, when fate itself has given her to me, I can only rejoice." "Rejoice, yes, that is best--much best," Carmontelle said, after a long, constrained pause. "It is best," he repeated again, more firmly. "It was fate itself that gave her to me," Van Zandt said, solemnly; and in a burst of emotion he made clear the mystery of the wounded arm that had so puzzled his friend. "She was dying, and I gave my own blood to save her life. It is my own life that leaps through her veins, that sends the light to her eyes, the color to her cheek. But it is my secret. She must never know." "No, never; but by that noble sacrifice her life belongs to you, and I can be unselfish enough, Van Zandt, in my own disappointment, to wish that you may win her whole young heart!" Carmontelle exclaimed, lifted out of all selfish regrets by this strange revelation. And then they planned it all out before Van Zandt lay down to rest, taking Marie's consent for granted--Marie, the simple, ignorant girl who could not have told you to save her life what those two words, love and marriage, meant. She was as innocent as a babe over many things, poor Little Nobody! And, to do Van Zandt justice, he revolted at the thought of taking her, as it seemed, willy-nilly; but the world, the great wicked world, left him, as Carmontelle said, no other way. "I should have liked to woo and win my bride in the sweet old fashion," he thought, regretfully; then, with a new idea: "And what is there to hinder? The words of the marriage service will be almost meaningless terms to her untutored mind. I will take no advantage of the claims it will give me. I will hold her as sacred as an angel until I shall win her heart as well as her hand. At home I will place her in the school-room with my sisters. She shall have culture equal to her beauty, and I will work for her and worship her in silence until the child becomes a woman and her heart awakes from sleep." The very next day he said to her gently: "Ma'amselle Marie, I shall be going home to Boston in two more days." She cried out regretfully: "Oh, I am sorry; I am afraid I shall never see you any more!" "Will you go with me, dear, and be my little wife?" "I will go with you, yes; but--your wife--I do not understand," she said, in a puzzled tone, just as he had expected she would. "You would live with me always," he began. "You would belong to me, you would bear my name, you would do as I wished you, perhaps, and--" "Ah, your slave?" she interrupted, intelligently. Serious as he felt, he could not forbear a laugh; but he said, gently: "Not my slave, but my love, my darling, my treasure. I would never beat you, nor scold you, nor make your life sad, as Madame Lorraine did. I would be very kind to you always. Now, will you be my wife?" She replied, with childish frankness: "Yes, I will be your wife and go with you to your home. Then, perhaps, I will understand better your word, 'wife.'" He smiled and stooped to kiss her, but she drew back quickly, her innate shyness taking alarm. He did not press her, only said to himself: "My shy little wild bird, her heart is yet to win." It seemed to him the strangest thing he had ever heard of, this taking for a wife a young, untutored creature who actually did not understand what the words love, marriage, and wife meant. He told Carmontelle later of his thought. The Southerner was amused at the ignorance of the lovely girl--amused and sorry in one breath, and with a sigh of regret, he said: "Happy is he who shall have the pleasure of teaching her the meaning of those tender words." It was arranged that the marriage should take place just prior to Van Zandt's departure from New Orleans. Van Zandt himself undertook to make Marie understand the necessity for the marriage service that would make her his wife. She acquiesced readily, and asked that Father Quentin, the old priest at Le Bon Berger, be permitted to perform the ceremony. Her romantic fancy immediately invested the affair with a halo of romance. "I shall be a bride," she said, naïvely. "In madame's fashion books there are brides all in white, with veils on their heads. I shall be dressed like that, and the marriage shall be out in madame's garden by moonlight. All the Jockey Club shall come to see, and the nuns from the convent, too, if they choose." Van Zandt said it should be just as she liked. He employed Marie's good nurse to buy the simple white India muslin dress and tulle veil. Also a pretty gray serge dress and straw hat for traveling. Carmontelle presented her with a full set of large, lustrous pearls to be worn at the ceremony, and the rest of the Jockey Club, who had, since the day of Marie's splendid riding, felt almost a proud proprietorship in her, contributed a great box full of costly wedding-gifts--jewels, costly dressing-cases, perfume sets, glove-boxes full of tiny kid gloves--everything, in short, that they could think of on the spur of the moment, even adding a big photograph-album in ivory and silver containing fac-similes of their familiar faces. Father Quentin, only too glad to be forgiven for his treachery to Carmontelle, came to perform the ceremony and bless the wedded pair. But before this auspicious event a difficulty had arisen. A marriage license must be procured; but what name should be written in it for the nameless girl, Mme. Lorraine's Little Nobody? Pierre Carmontelle came quickly to the rescue. "I adopt Marie as my daughter. I am quite old enough to be her father. Let the name be written Marie Carmontelle," he said. And so as Marie Carmontelle she was given into the keeping of her handsome young husband. Everything was arranged as she wished. The priest grumbled at the oddity of the whole thing, but she was married, all the same, out in the beautiful garden, by moonlight, with the sweet scent of flowers all about her, and her young face pale with excitement and strange emotion. The Jockey Club came in a body to witness the wedding, and some brought sisters and friends, who were all agog over the romance of the affair, and said that the bride was as lovely as a dream, and that that wicked Mme. Lorraine ought to have been ashamed of herself for her cruel treatment of one so beautiful and innocent. The girl who but a little while ago had been friendless and nameless had suddenly come into a heritage of hosts of friends and one of the proudest names of New England. There was no wedding banquet. When the bride had been congratulated by everybody, and even kissed by some of the beautiful, warm-hearted ladies who had come to witness her strange marriage, her female attendant whisked her off upstairs to change her white dress for a traveling one; then, in a few more minutes, and with the sound of kind adieus in her ears, she was in a carriage riding away from all that her old life had ever known, except Eliot Van Zandt, who sat by her side, her shy little hand in his, and called her his wife. Soon they were on board the steamer that rocked at the wharf, soon they were sailing away on the breast of the broad Mississippi, leaving behind the glimmering lights and busy life of the quaint Crescent City, homeward bound, and Eliot Van Zandt, who little more than two months since had entered the harbor of New Orleans, careless, gay, and fancy-free, was taking home a bride to his ancestral home. He had asked himself rather nervously several times what his brother and sisters would say. CHAPTER XXVI. He thought more and more on this subject, for Marie, her first timidity got over, began to ask him artless questions about his home. He told her that his family consisted of five members. He had a brother older than himself, who was a lawyer in Boston. He was married, but had no children, and he lived in the old family mansion on Beacon Hill, with his two sisters, Maud and Edith, who were respectively nineteen and seventeen, and had not quit the school-room yet. The fifth person was Mrs. Wilson, their governess. "Maud is the elder. She is quite talented, and is writing a novel," he said. "Edith is an embryo artist. My brother's wife is very pretty and fashionable. I hope you will like them all." But a shudder crept over him at the thought of taking home a bride into that refined and cultured circle to place her in the school-room, to begin at the bottom of the ladder of learning. How shocked they would be, how his brother's wife would lift her pale brows in wonder! He dreaded her more than all the rest, for two reasons. One was that she had brought a little money into the once rich, but now impoverished Van Zandt family, and took airs on that account, and the other was that she had a pretty sister with a _dot_, and wanted to make a match between her and her brother-in-law. So Eliot fancied, and with some reason, that she would not take kindly to the new-comer. The further he got away from New Orleans, the more he was tormented by his dread of his home-folks. At last he made up his mind to give Marie some sight-seeing in New York, and to write to his brother, and, to some extent, prepare them for the shock they were to receive. When the letter was written and posted, he felt better. He had explained matters and invoked their good-will for his simple child-wife. However much they were disappointed, they would respect his wishes, they would not be unkind to Marie. So he gave himself up with a light heart to the pleasure of showing her the wonders of New York City. Several days were spent there, and then he took her to Niagara Falls for a few days more. He judged by that time that they would have got over the shock in Boston, and be ready, perhaps, to receive Marie with equanimity. In this hope, he took the train for Boston with his little bride. Throughout their long journey Van Zandt had adhered to his manly resolve of treating his little bride simply as a dear friend or young sister until she should have awakened from a child into a woman and given her heart unreservedly with a wifely love. On the steamer she had her separate state-room, at hotels her solitary suite of rooms, on the trains her comfortable Pullman sleeping-car, while the chivalrous young husband lounged away the long hours in a smoking-car with his favorite cigar. The young bride, in her ignorance and innocence, had not an idea but that this was the usual mode of procedure with husband and wife, and thoroughly enjoyed the long journey and the varied scenery through which she was being whirled. Its newness and the strong contrast to her Southern home made it all the more delightful. Eliot Van Zandt enjoyed her delight, her naïve questions, and even her utter ignorance of everything, although he sometimes caught himself wondering at the fact. But the truth was, that the girl's invariably well-chosen sentences, acquired from companionship with refined and well-bred people, made him often forget that she was totally uneducated, and that years of school-room drudgery yet lay before her ere she could take her place in the cultured world of Boston society. "There is one comfort. She is exceedingly intelligent, quick, and receptive. She will learn very fast," he told himself. One evening, at Niagara, when they sat together admiring the glorious falls by moonlight, she said to him, curiously: "You said once that if you could have chosen my name, it would not have been Marie. Tell me what you would have called me?" Turning to her with a smile, he replied: "The name that I always fancied I should like for my wife to bear was the sweet one of Una--no sweeter, I know, than Marie, but I grew to love the name from reading Spenser's 'Faëry Queen.'" Then he told her the pretty story, as well as he could, of the beautiful Una who personified Truth in the "Faëry Queen." She listened with sparkling eyes and eager interest. "From this hour I shall be called Una," she exclaimed. "But you have been baptized Marie," he said. "It shall be Una Marie, then," she replied, in her pretty, positive fashion, and he was pleased to assent. "From this hour, then, I shall call you Una, and you shall call me Eliot." "But, monsieur--" deprecatingly. "No more monsieurs," he replied, playfully. "They remind me too much of Madame Lorraine." "It shall be Eliot, then, always," answered the little bride. CHAPTER XXVII. Bryant Van Zandt was as much surprised and displeased as his brother had expected on the reception of the letter announcing his marriage. "Eliot had no right to do it. He promised our mother, before she died, to stay single and care for the girls until they had homes of their own!" he exclaimed, vexedly, to his wife, to whom he imparted the shocking news before breaking it to his sisters. Mrs. Van Zandt was a blonde of the very palest type. "Her skin it was milk-white, Her hair it was lint-white, Bright was the blue of her soft rolling eye." She was about twenty-eight, but looked younger through her fairness. She was rather pretty and petite, and, in her tasteful garb of blue and white, looked like an animated bisque doll. But her color took a warmer tint than usual just now, and frowning darkly, she exclaimed: "It was a shame for Eliot to go and make such a goose of himself. It would not have been so bad if he had married a girl with money, as you did, but to go and add another burden to the family is outrageous, I declare! What ever will the girls say?" "They will be very angry, I am sure," said the lawyer; but when it was told to them, they did not make as much ado as their sister-in-law. They looked grave and sorry, indeed, but Maud, the elder, said, sensibly: "It is very bad, but indeed, Bryant, I do not see how Eliot could have acted otherwise. _Noblesse oblige_, you know." It was the motto that had ruled the lives of the Van Zandts for generations, and Bryant could not say one word; but his wife made a little _moue_ of disdain. "_Noblesse oblige_ has nothing to do with it," she said; "or, if it had, it was the other way. He was bound to stay free for your and Edith's sake." Pretty Edith answered quickly: "No, no, for we shall not want him to help pay for our dresses much longer. Maud's book and my picture are almost done, and if we sell them, we shall have money of our own." "_Châteaux en Espagne_!" Mrs. Van Zandt muttered softly, with a covert sneer. She had no talent only for looking pretty and dressing well, and envied that of her more gifted sisters-in-law. They were used to her sneers, and they winced, but seldom retorted. The dreamy, dignified Maud looked out of the window with a little sigh, and the more self-assertive Edith exclaimed: "There's no use crying over spilled milk, anyhow, and Eliot's married for good and all. He has as much right to bring his bride home as you had, Bryant, so we may as well all make the best of it--there!" "No one disputes his right, Edith, we only deplore his imprudence," Bryant answered, flushing. "As for me, I married a woman who would be no burden upon me, but Eliot candidly owns that he has made a _mésalliance_." "Married a pauper and a nobody!" flashed his wife. "It is no such thing. Let me see his letter. He did not say that!" cried Edith, angrily. "Not exactly in those words, but it amounts to the same thing," Bryant Van Zandt answered. He threw her the letter, and said impatiently: "Well, you may fight it out among yourselves. I am going down-town." He put on his hat and went out. Edith and Maud read their brother's letter together. Its deprecatory, almost pleading tone, touched their loyal young hearts. "Poor Eliot, he could not help it. We must not scold," said Edith. "This old house is big enough for us all, isn't it, Maud?" "Yes," she answered; but the sweet eyes were grave with trouble as she fixed them on Mrs. Van Zandt. She burst out suddenly: "Oh, Sylvie, do not look so glum, please. Of course, we do not like it, and neither did Eliot, I fancy; but you must see there was no other way for a Van Zandt, so we must make the best of it." "Fancy a Van Zandt--one of the Van Zandts, of Boston--bringing home an A B C school-girl as a bride!" was the disdainful answer she received. Vivacious Edith cried out tartly: "You need not take on such airs, Sylvie. You are not so learned yourself. New York girls never know anything but dressing and flirting." "We marry into poor, learned families, and so adjust the difference," Mrs. Van Zandt replied, sarcastically. Both the sisters flushed hotly at this coarse rejoinder. Mrs. Van Zandt had been generous with her money, flinging it about her with the lavish hand of a spoiled darling of Fortune; but she was always conscious of its importance, never more so than when twitted with her execrable French, her questionable time in music, and her outrageous flirting, that sometimes drove poor Bryant wild with jealousy. And so to this household, with its discordant elements, its supercilious mistress, its dreamy student, Maud, its enthusiastic, artistic Edith, came Una with her impassioned soul, her shy sensitiveness, her innocence and ignorance, and her heritage of beauty, yet branded already "pauper and nobody." When she saw all those fair young faces grouped in the handsome drawing-room to meet her, her heart thrilled with timid delight. She had had so little to do all her life with the young and gay. All at once, as it were, she was thrown into a house full of young and handsome people, and it was most pleasant. With pretty confidence, quite untouched with self-assertion, she received their greetings, kind on the part of the girls, patronizing on that of Mrs. Van Zandt, and reserved as regarded Bryant. It was twilight when they arrived, and a cup of tea awaited them before the late dinner. Una sipped hers shyly under the fire of the strange eyes that were steadily taking in her _tout ensemble_, the simple, tasteful gray dress, the hat with gray feathers that seemed such a Quakerish setting for the lovely unique face, with its somber, dark eyes and slender, dark brows, its perfect chiseling, and its aureole of rich golden hair. "I shall paint her portrait," Edith whispered, in a stage aside. CHAPTER XXVIII. Bryant's wife was quite displeased when Eliot came frankly to her to ask that a separate suite of rooms be provided for his girlish bride. "Do you hate her so much, then?" she queried, arching her pale brows disagreeably. He started and looked annoyed. "Who said I hated her? You are very much mistaken in the idea, Sylvie," he said, curtly. "I love Una quite as well, I have no doubt, as Bryant loves you." "Why, then--" she began, but he interrupted quickly: "Simply because the love is all on one side yet. My wife is wedded, yet not won. Her heart is that of a child still, and although she bears my name, I will claim no rights save a lover's until I win her woman's love." Mrs. Bryant had only been acquainted with Una an hour, but she could have told Eliot a different story from that. Her quick eyes had seen the wealth of tenderness in the dark orbs of Una as they rested now and then on her husband's face, but Sylvie was more angry than any one supposed over this unexpected marriage. She was not unselfish enough to open the eyes of the blind young husband. "Oh, very well, if you choose to make a chivalrous goose of yourself, Eliot," she answered, tartly, "I suppose she can have the best suite of guest-rooms--the ones I have been fixing up for my sister. But I can write a word to Ida not to come." "Of course you will not. There are other rooms," he said, impatiently. Sylvie shrugged her shoulders. "Ida's used only to the best," she said, insolently. He regarded her for a moment in stern silence. Underneath his usual gentle, nonchalant manner slept a will that was iron when needful. After a moment he said firmly: "See here, Sylvie, my wife has the same right in my father's old house that Bryant's wife has. You have the best suite of rooms in the house, she must have the next best. If you have put anything from your own purse into the rooms, it can be removed into another room for Ida's use when she comes. Una knows, for I have told her, that the Van Zandts are poor--that we have nothing but this big, old-fashioned house, and such a small income that barely buys our sisters' dresses, and I have to eke out the rest by hard work. She does not expect anything luxurious, but I shall see that she has the best I can afford." So the gage was thrown down, and Sylvie picked it up at once. She had the petty meanness to strip Una's rooms of all the pretty things she had placed in them for Ida, and they looked rather bare when she finished her task of despoliation. But Maud and Edith brought the prettiest things from their own rooms to fill up the void, indignant at her petty spite. "I know what is the matter. She is mad because she can not marry Eliot to Ida now. It's what she's been fishing for all the time," Edith said, indignantly; and the sisters made a generous compact to fight the battles for the new-comer that their clear young eyes already saw were inevitable. There was one person who took kindly at once to Una, and that was the middle-aged governess, Mrs. Wilson. When she had come first to teach the little Van Zandts, she had been a forlorn young widow, having lately buried her husband and her only child. She had taught Eliot when a little lad, and she had taught his sisters, growing gray in patient service of her well-beloved pupils. Now, in the fair, innocent face and great, dark eyes of Eliot's wife, she fancied a resemblance to the little daughter that had been in Heaven so long. "I shall love to teach her all that I can," she said, with a dimness in her gentle brown eyes. "I love to look at her beautiful face with those solemn eyes so much like my dead Elsie's eyes." And loving her first for Elsie's sake, she soon grew to love her for her own. Never was there pupil so eager to learn, so thirsty for knowledge, so untiring in application as was the neglected Little Nobody, as Mrs. Van Zandt still called her contemptuously in her thoughts. CHAPTER XXIX The first few months of Una's stay in her husband's home passed quietly and uneventfully. Fortunately for all concerned, Bryant's wife went off to spend the summer at Long Branch with her mother and sister. In the generosity of her heart, she took Bryant with her, so the household that was left was very quiet and peaceable. The girls took their summer vacation from study, and Maud worked on her novel, Edith at her picture. In the school-room Mrs. Wilson and Una diligently climbed the ladder of knowledge through the long summer mornings. In the afternoons the four ladies took long country rides, and in the short evenings there were dinner and Eliot. They had music always to enliven them, and very often neighbors and friends dropped in and made the time pass agreeably. Often Eliot, who, as a newspaper man, had tickets to concerts, lectures, readings, and plays, took them out to pleasant entertainments. He managed, too, to buy Una a little brown pony to ride, and she had some charming morning canters by the side of her husband, who made the carriage-horse do service on his own behalf. Sylvie Van Zandt would have said it was a humdrum life, but Eliot and Una thoroughly enjoyed it. Nay, to her it seemed an elysium, this bright home, with its kind, friendly faces and gentle words, so unlike her life with Mme. Lorraine. Una had learned to read and write with perfect facility and surprising ease, and passed on to higher studies. Of French she already had some knowledge--indeed, as much as she had of English, having spoken either at will in her New Orleans home--so this language was very easy to acquire now. For music she developed a talent equal to that of her husband, and he was delighted to find that she had a sweet, low alto voice that blended in perfect harmony with his own. She began to read poetry and novels now, and their strange sweetness thrilled her very soul. She learned that wonderful word, Love, and some of its subtler meanings. It grew to be the theme of her thoughts and dreams, although in the exquisite shyness that offset her child-like frankness she never even named the word to Eliot. But, for all that, she began to comprehend its mystic meaning, and to say to herself, with deep tenderness: "It is what Eliot feels for me and I for him." Yet this blind young lover-husband said to himself sometimes, discontentedly: "She is very bright over other lessons, but very slow learning the one I am trying to teach her so patiently every day." Every day she grew more beautiful and graceful under the clever tuition of Mrs. Wilson, who delighted in her task of forming the unformed girl. They spent happy hours over the piano together, patient ones over books and blackboards. For several months she never even heard the words "A Little Nobody," under which she had chafed so often at Mme. Lorraine's. Life began to have a new, sweet meaning, whose key-note was love. She was so sorry when Eliot went away with his friendly hand-clasp in the morning, so glad when he returned in the evening. Sometimes she said to herself that she would not have minded kissing him now, as Maud and Edith did every morning; but, since the day when she promised to marry him, and then rejected his kiss, he had never offered another. "I should not care for a cold, duty kiss," he thought. "I will wait for her love and her kisses together." In the meantime, he worked very hard at his literary duties, trying to double the moderate salary he had enjoyed before his marriage, that his sisters might not feel the change. The pony had been quite an extravagance, but he had heard her express a timid wish for one, and by some severe self-denial in the matter of coats and cigars, had managed to gratify her wish. But he did not chafe against the silent sacrifices he made for her sake. Each one only made the dark-eyed girl dearer to his heart, and the memory of that last day in madame's prison always made him shudder and long to clasp her passionately to his heart. On his strong white arm there was a slight scar made by the wound of a pocket-knife. He often looked at it when alone, and said to himself: "To that little scar my darling owes her life." But Una, all unconscious of the debt, still sweetly ignorant of his blindness, went on with her studies, and her music, and her poetry reading, making him the hero of all in her silent, adoring fashion. There was one thing that touched and pleased him. She had not forgotten one of the many songs with which he had beguiled the dreariness of their imprisonment, and she had insisted on learning each one. The two that she liked best were "The Warrior Bold" and "Two Little Lives." Mrs. Wilson and the girls noticed that she had a fashion of humming over one little verse very often to herself: "It was a lark that sung in the heaven, While all the world stood still to hear, Many a maiden looked from her knitting, And in her heart there crept a tear. Down came the lark and sung to the daisy, Sung to it only songs of love, Till in the twilight slumbered the daisy, Turning its sweet face to heaven above." She never said to her young husband now, as she had said that time in their prison, "You are the lark and I the little daisy," but she thought it all the more, and the fanciful thought pleased her well. Maud and Edith, who had first taken Una's part out of generous loyalty to their brother, now began to like their sister-in-law more for her own sake. At first they said: "It is not so bad as we feared at first. She is learning very fast, and she is really very good and very pretty. And even although she is of obscure origin, she is a Van Zandt now, and that is enough." Maud used to read her whole chapters of the wonderful novel, and when Una's color rose and her eyes sparkled with mirth or feeling, the young authoress was delighted. She took it as a tribute to her genius, and was cheered and encouraged in her delightful work. Edith, on her part, appropriated the girl for a model, and made her pose for her benefit every day in the little studio at the top of the house. At last the two girls unanimously voted her a decided acquisition. "It is very fortunate Eliot had to marry her. She is a darling, and I can see that they are beginning to fall in love with each other," said Edith. "I am so glad that it will turn out a love-match after all," Maud replied, with enthusiasm. The days came and went, and brought the early, bleak New England autumn. It was time for Sylvie to come home, but Bryant came alone. His wife had gone to New York with her family to stay for the beginning of the social season. Every one but her husband was secretly pleased when she stayed until after the New-Year festivities. Maud and Edith were quite sure that they had got along more happily without her, although they were too polite to hint such a thing to Bryant. At last she came in the middle of January. Ida Hayes, her sister, a younger edition of herself, came with her, and straightway the halcyon days of Una came to an end. Sylvie came to her room that evening, when she was putting on her simple blue silk dress for dinner, with an air of importance and anxiety. "Have you come to your senses yet--you two?" she demanded, brusquely. "If you have, I shall be glad, for I do so want these rooms for Ida." Una, with her laces all awry, looked up blankly. "I--don't--think--I understand," she answered. "Pshaw! I mean, do you use the same suite of rooms as your husband?" The pretty, wondering face did not change its color, the dark eyes only looked amazed. "Of course not," Una said, and Sylvie's red lips curled. "Of course not!" she mimicked, sneeringly. "Why, you silly child, you talk very strangely. Bryant and I share the same suite of rooms, do we not? All husbands and wives do who love each other." CHAPTER XXX. Una commenced to fasten her laces with strangely trembling fingers. "Eliot and I love each other!" she said, slowly. "Oh, indeed?" said Sylvie, with a very incredulous giggle. "You did not when I went away. Have you done your courting since, as you had no time for it before you were married?" The wonder, the half-dazed comprehension in the girl's pale face ought to have made her less pitiless, but it had been her dream and Bryant's to marry Ida to Eliot. She had said to herself many times that she could never forgive the Little Nobody that had thwarted her plans. So with an angry heart and pitiless eyes she had thrust the point of a dagger into Una's heart. But with proud, somber eyes the girl-wife said, gravely: "You said you wanted these rooms for Miss Hayes. Very well, you can have them. I dare say Maud will give me another room." "Oh, dear no, I would not turn you out of your room for the world, child!" suavely. She knew that Eliot would not permit it. "I only thought that if you had given them up and gone to Eliot's these would suit Ida. She always had them when she came before, and it does seem foolish, does it not, for man and wife to occupy six rooms when three would be enough? I hoped you and Eliot had become reconciled to your forced marriage ere this." Driven to bay, Una cried out, angrily: "Mrs. Van Zandt, you are talking the wildest nonsense. There was no forced marriage." "Then why did Eliot write such a letter to my husband? Come to my room, I will show it to you since you dispute my word." She caught Una's cold hand and half dragged her with her to her own room, where behind locked doors she gave the ignorant wife that fatal letter to read--fatal, because in Eliot's haste and worry he had stated only the bare facts of the case, and Una could not read between the lines the love that had filled his heart. She read it--the lovely, trusting girl--every word. She comprehended it in part. What she could not fathom Sylvie pointed out in clearest language, and when she had made her cruel meaning clear as day, she said, maliciously: "_Noblesse oblige_!" A gasp, and the girl's heavy eyes turned dumbly on her face--dumb with a bitter, humble humiliation. Sylvie said, half deprecatingly: "He did not love you at first, of course. How could he? When he came he asked me to give you a separate suite. I remonstrated, but he insisted. Of course I thought you would win him while I was away, and he would get over his foolishness." Una had folded her white arms on the dressing-table, and was looking into her face with dazed, heavy eyes. She muttered, hoarsely: "Oh, this is too dreadful! What must he, what must you all think of me?" Sylvie replied, with cruel frankness: "Of course we all felt angry with you at first. We were disappointed, too, for we had all expected that he would marry sister Ida. There had been no engagement, but it was understood. But there, no one blames you or him, child. As I said before, Eliot could not have acted any other way. _Noblesse oblige_!" As if forgetful of her presence, Una murmured, sadly: "_Mon Dieu_! what shall I do?" Sylvie answered, with more sense than she had displayed in making these cruel revelations: "Do? Why, nothing but make the best of it, as Eliot and the rest of us have done. What has happened can not be altered now, so you must try to make him fond of you, so that he shall no longer regret taking you and losing Ida; and, for one thing, you ought not to be so extravagant. There is that pony he bought you. I know he could not afford it, really, for he is poor. And to-night I saw him bring you hot-house flowers. I am afraid he is running into debt just to pamper your whims. Now, if he had married Ida, it would have been different. She would have brought him a fortune, and could have paid her own bills." Pale as she would ever be in her coffin, Una stood listening, her heart beating wildly. "I am in his way. Oh, I wish I could die now!" she was thinking wildly. Sylvie, who had done all this out of sheer malice, gloated over the sight of her misery. To herself she said spitefully: "I am paying her back, the little pauper and nobody, for Ida's disappointment." Then suddenly she remembered that it was almost dinner-time. She said carelessly: "You had better go back to your room and finish dressing, Una; and remember, I would not have told you what I have, only that you disputed my word. I hope you will not run to Edith with it. It will only make matters worse. I dare say he will learn to love you in time." "I shall run to no one with it," Una answered, in a strange voice. She moved to the door as she spoke, and passed out. Sylvie laughed mockingly. "I have paid Eliot now for his insolence. I know he loves her to madness. I saw it in his eyes when she met him so coolly this evening. Well, this will put a stumbling-block between them that he will not easily pass." And humming an opera air with heartless indifference, she made some slight addition to her already elaborate toilet, and went down-stairs. Una's toilet, the light-blue surah silk with square neck and elbow-sleeves, was complete but for the handsome corsage bouquet Eliot had brought her an hour ago. She did not pin it on her breast; she took it in her hand and ran along the hall, then tapped softly at the door of the apartment that she knew had been designed for Miss Hayes's use. Ida opened it, dazzling Una's eyes with the glitter of her satin and jewels. She frowned slightly at the intruder. "I have brought you these flowers to wear," Una said, rapidly, thrusting them into Ida's white hand. Then she turned away and went along the hall with slow, lagging footsteps, down the broad, shallow staircase, and so to the drawing-room, her young face pale with emotion, and a strange, excited glitter in her dark eyes. CHAPTER XXXI. Eliot was sitting on a low _tête-à-tête_. He moved aside slightly to allow her room at his side. But Una did not seem to see her husband's involuntary movement. She went to the opposite side of the room and sat down by Edith, who, with her brown hair and brown eyes, looked very pretty in garnet velvet and cashmere daintily combined into a graceful dinner-dress. Maud was buried in a book on the other side of her, but she had taken time to honor the new arrivals by putting on her best black silk with a white lace fichu to relieve its somber tone. Vivacious Edith exclaimed instantly: "Oh, Una, the pretty flowers that Eliot brought you--you have forgotten to wear them. Shall I run and get them for you?" "Thank you--but no," as Edith rose. "I don't care for them. I--I have given them away." Eliot had heard distinctly the question and answer; but there was no time for comment. Ida Hayes sailed in--a bisque doll in Nile-green silk and velvet, with Eliot's roses pinned among the laces of her V-shaped corsage. "And to think that I went without cigars two days to buy Ida Hayes a corsage bouquet!" he said, ruefully, to himself. But the loss of the cigars was the least part of his mortification. He had fancied he was winning his way to his girl-bride's heart. This little incident showed him clearly his mistake. "She is not learning to love me. Perhaps she never will," he thought, gloomily. Ida Hayes, with the best grace in the world, sat down on the _tête-à-tête_ beside him. She was a belle and a beauty--had been for seven years, ever since she left the school-room at eighteen--and she could have been married well long ago, but she had seen no one she fancied until she met Eliot Van Zandt at her sister's wedding three years ago. Since then her heart, as well as Sylvie's, had been set on an alliance with him, and his marriage had been a bitter blow to her self-love. But she was a society woman. She did not wear her heart on her sleeve, and in the clear, pale-blue eyes upraised to his Eliot Van Zandt read no sign of her disappointed hopes. "I see you looking at my flowers. That dear little thing, your wife, gave them to me," she said, carelessly. He answered as carelessly: "Yes, and they harmonize well with your dress." But in his heart he longed to tear them from her breast and trample them beneath his feet. They had taught him a bitter lesson--one he would not soon forget. Dinner was announced, and he took Ida into the dining-room. Bryant gave Sylvie his arm, and Una followed with her sisters-in-law, hiding with a smile her pain at the preference Eliot had shown Miss Hayes. "How he must hate me, for he can not help thinking that but for me he would not have lost her. It was right to give her the flowers. She had really the best right to them," she said miserably to herself. The flowers, the lights, the china and silver of the well-appointed table flashed confusedly before her eyes. She could see nothing clearly but the pretty wax-doll face of Miss Hayes as she sat opposite to Eliot and talked to him incessantly. Glancing up and down the long table at the fair faces of the five ladies, she said, gayly: "Two gentlemen and five ladies! Only two have cavaliers. There are three of us too many." Una thought, with keen shame and inexpressible bitterness: "Only one too many, and that one is poor little me!" She made a great effort to eat, and swallowed some food, although it half choked her; but as soon as they rose from the table she slipped away and went up to the school-room, where Mrs. Wilson, whose impaired digestion abhorred late dinners, was placidly taking some milk and oatmeal by way of supper. "Oh, my dear, have you got a fever? Your eyes shine so brightly, and your cheeks are quite flushed!" exclaimed the good governess, anxiously. "I am not sick; I dare say I am excited. There is company, you know, and I thought I should not be missed if I stole away up here with you," Una answered, with affected carelessness. Mrs. Wilson smiled on her pupil, and answered, kindly: "I'm glad you came, dear; but, of course, you will be missed. Your husband would miss you, if there was a room full of company." Una answered in a strange tone: "No, not to-night; for Miss Ida Hayes is there." Mrs. Wilson put down her glass of milk and looked curiously at the speaker. She began to comprehend the cause of her strange looks and words. She said to herself: "This pretty little girl-bride has grown jealous of some meaningless attention of Eliot to Miss Hayes. She loves her husband, and the boy is somehow too stupid to see it, or, perhaps, he does not care. I would speak to him, but I do not like to meddle in so delicate an affair." Aloud, she said gently: "I like to have you up here with me, but your husband and friends will think I am selfish, dear; so you had better go back to the drawing-room. Miss Ida Hayes is not charming enough to make up to Eliot for your absence." Una turned around suddenly and looked at her gravely. "Very well, then; I will go, since you don't want me; but I shall go to my own room," she said. And she did, and there Edith found her, pretending to read, when she came to seek her half an hour later. "You selfish child! put down your book. We are going to have some music, and we want your alto," she said. "I can not sing to-night; my head aches," Una answered; and none of Edith's arguments could alter her refusal. She was obliged to go down alone and make excuses for her sister-in-law. "She has a headache, and can not come down," she said; and Sylvie laughed in her sleeve. "She is jealous of Ida," she thought, maliciously. CHAPTER XXXII. The rest of the family were already assembled at breakfast when Una entered the dining room the next morning, pale and grave-looking, after a wretched, sleepless night. Her place by Eliot was waiting for her, although she had half expected it would be filled by Ida Hayes. Eliot had been watching for her anxiously, and his glance was very tender, despite the episode of last night. "I hope your head is better," he said, kindly; and looking at him with a smile of wonderful sweetness, she answered: "It is well, thank you." In the long vigil of last night she had formed a noble resolve to win her husband's heart, and to make up to him by her womanly sweetness for all he had sacrificed in marrying her, a nameless girl of obscure birth. Sylvie's hints had not been lost upon her. She determined that she would not allow Eliot to be so extravagant for her sake again. The brown pony must be sold, the hot-house flowers must not be bought. She would have no more new dresses. She would not be a burden on him she loved. "Chocolate, Una?" asked Mrs. Van Zandt, who was presiding at the silver urn with graceful ease. She filled the china cup for the girl, laughing the while in secret at her pale, wistful face. "It was a hard blow to her pride," she said to herself, exultantly; then she turned her attention again to her husband, who had been reading from the morning paper when Una's entrance interrupted him. "Our old favorite on the boards again. It will be a treat," said Sylvie. "On what night did you say, Bryant?" "The sixteenth; that will be three nights off," he answered. "Exactly. We will all go. We will make up a theater-party. What do you say, girls?" "Splendid!" said Edith. "All right!" exclaimed Ida, and Maud added a more sedate affirmative. "And you, dear?" Eliot said, gently, to the silent girl by his side. She lifted her dark, mournful eyes to his face with a gentle smile, and said, wistfully, almost humbly: "Whatever you wish, Eliot." The sweetness of her smile and voice disarmed his resentment for her slight of last night, and leaning toward her, he said, in a tender whisper: "We will go, then, and I will bring you another bouquet; but mind, no giving it away this time." "Did you care?" she murmured back, with sudden radiance. They were rising from the table just then, and Una slipped her white fingers daringly through his arm, as she murmured the coquettish words. He looked down, saw the sudden radiance on her face, and a half-light broke upon his mind. "So you did it to make me jealous, madame?" he said, gayly. "Very well; you attained your desire. But I must be off now. Come to the library one minute. I want you." Inside the cozy little room, he said, kindly: "You will want a new dress for the theater-party. How much?" She drew back from him, scarlet with shame. "Oh, no; I have plenty of dresses--more than I need." "Very well, but you shall have a new dress if you wish it." "But I do not wish it," hurriedly. "And--and--oh, Eliot, I'm afraid I cost you too much money! Sell the brown pony. I do not care for riding any more, and it is a useless expense to keep it." His fair, handsome face grew suddenly stern. "Who has been putting such nonsense in your head?" he demanded. "It is not nonsense," Una said, shyly but firmly. "You are poor. You told me so long ago. So I know you can not afford the expense." "Nonsense--" he began; but the door opened, and Maud entered, followed by Edith. "Oh, excuse us, Una. We did not know you were here with Eliot. We just came in to say good-morning to him before we go in the drawing-room with Ida." He kissed them both, and they went out. He held out his hand to his wife. "By-by, Una. I suppose I must really tear myself away," he said. CHAPTER XXXIII. She put her small hand in his, and he felt the fingers curl around his own, gently detaining him. "Well, dear?" he asked, thinking that she was about to change her mind and say she would have the new dress. Her face dropped a little to hide the warm flush that rose over it as she stammered in desperate confusion: "Before you--go--I must make a confession. Last night I--I--told an untruth when I said I had a headache and could not sing. You--you will not call me your little Una, your lady of truth any more now, will you, Eliot?" She was so close to him, the supple, girlish figure leaned so near that he daringly slipped his arm around the small waist. A thrill of rapture ran through him as he felt her nestle shyly in his clasp. "So it was not a headache, my little Truth?" he whispered, lovingly. "What was the reason then that made you desert us all so unkindly?" "It was--was--a fit of ill-temper," Una exclaimed, remorsefully; then she turned round, so quickly, so lightly, he did not realize it until it was over, and slipping her arm around his neck drew his face down to hers, pressed a light, bashful kiss upon his lips, then tore herself from his clasp and fled the room. Strong man as he was, Eliot Van Zandt reeled backward into a chair, dizzy with delicious rapture at that light, shy but ardent pressure of Una's lips upon his own. It had come so unexpectedly, that moment of bliss after the bitterness and hopelessness of last night, it was like the dawning of a new day after a night of storm and darkness. Hope plumed her wings again in his heart. "She is going to learn to love me," he thought, happily, too blind still to understand the full meaning of that caress that had sent such a shock of rapturous delight through his whole being. He sat still a few blissful moments, going gladly over her looks and words. "Not a headache--a fit of ill-temper. Ill-temper over what?" he wondered, then suddenly: "Oh, my little love, my darling, you were vexed because Ida Hayes sat down by my side, because I took her in to dinner. Well, I shall bless the coming of Ida if through her coquetry my Una learns she has a heart." Meanwhile, frightened at her own boldness, her heart beating furiously, Una rushed upstairs, seeking solitude in which to hide herself from all. "What must he think of me?" she murmured, with crimson blushes. "I did not mean to do it. I do not know how I dared so much. Was he angry, I wonder? I could not look at him. I was so amazed at what I had done!" Her lips burned with the touch of his, her heart throbbed with pain and pleasure commingled. Walking restlessly up and down the floor, she murmured: "I love him so dearly that I must--I must win his heart! Then, and not till then, will he forgive me for the loss of Ida and her fortune. How shamed I felt over the proffer of the new dress! He will give me new dresses, but he will not give me his heart. He puts me away from him like a stranger. Shall I resent it? Ah, no, no; since he has sacrificed so much for me, I must sacrifice my pride for him. For his own sake, for his future happiness; I, the Little Nobody, obscure, unloved, penniless, uncultured, must make myself beloved by him until he shall bless the wayward fate that made him mine." The dark eyes glowed, the cheeks crimsoned with emotion, as Una thought, passionately: "I would that I could do some brave, noble, heroic deed that would challenge the world's admiration, so that he would forget my obscure origin and my misfortune that drove him to the sacrifice that saved me from the world's scorn, in sudden pride and love for me!" There was a light tap at the door. Mrs. Wilson had sent Edith to bring her tardy pupil to the school-room. "If you are sick, or otherwise engaged, she will readily excuse you," Edith said. "I do not want to be excused," said Una, as she hurried to the presence of the gentle governess. But that day she found books and lessons irksome in the extreme. Her heart and mind were full of the strange facts she had heard last night from the lips of Sylvie. She who had been wedded, yet no wife, for almost a year had only now found out that she was unloved, and the humiliation weighed her almost to the earth, in spite of her brave, sensible resolve to win Eliot yet, and make him forget that once he had sighed for Ida Hayes. She longed to throw down the irksome books and cry out to the gentle, placid Mrs. Wilson: "Away with books! Teach me the only lesson that interests me now--how to win my husband's heart!" She beat back the yearning impulse to claim this gentle woman's sympathy with bitter pride. "Shall I complain of him to her, to any one?" she thought. "Ah, no; it lies between us two and God! The bitter secret shall never pass my lips! Secret, did I say? Alas! it is known to them all, has been known all along. How they must pity me, the unloved wife, the perhaps unwelcome intruder in the home to which they had hoped he would bring Ida Hayes a loved and loving bride!" It did not look as if she was unwelcome when at the close of study hours Maud and Edith burst into the room. "Una, we are just dying to get hold of you!" Edith cried. "We want to talk about the theater-party. What are we going to wear, for I'm sure we can not afford new dresses." "And we want to look as nice as possible, for Ida and Sylvie will do all they can to outshine us," added Maud. "Of course they have lots of new things, so Edith and I have just made up our minds to have some of the pretty things in mamma's trunks upstairs. She gave them to us long before she died. So if you won't be offended, Una, dear, come with us, and we'll find something that we can fix over for the theater-party." "What is it all about?" queried gentle Mrs. Wilson, and Edith returned: "A popular actress who left the stage almost sixteen years ago has returned to it again, and they say she is as young, lovely, and spirited as when she retired to marry a rich aristocrat. All paint, of course, but Sylvie is just wild to have us go and see her play on Thursday night." CHAPTER XXXIV. Una went with the girls to ransack the trunks, but she steadily declined to accept any of the finery they spread out on the bed and chairs. "Eliot offered to give me a new dress this morning, and I told him I had plenty," she said, "so if I took any of these, he would think I had deceived him." "You dear little conscientious thing, you are well named Una," cried Edith, gayly. "But Eliot would never know, and, my dear, this rose-colored satin with lace flounces would make up lovely for you, and be so becoming." "It is too fine for me," Una answered, shrinkingly. "Not a bit. A gold dress would not be too fine for Eliot's wife," vivaciously. "And you know, dear, at a theater-party one dresses as if for a ball. We shall have private boxes, you know, and every one will want to look nice. Now, you really have nothing fit to wear." Una flushed sensitively, but she knew that it was true. She had nothing fine but the blue silk dinner-dress, except--and her heart throbbed painfully--the sweet, white dress with its filmy laces that she had worn for her strange marriage that starlit night in New Orleans beneath the green trees in the quaint semi-tropical garden. The dress, with the necklace of pearls, lay folded away in the bottom of her trunk. "I have the white dress I wore when I was--married," she said, dubiously. "Perhaps it will do." They went with her to look at it, and they were charmed with the quaint, pretty robe and the moon-white pearls. "You will look lovely in this. Why did you not show it to us before? And you never told us you had such splendid jewels." "Are they splendid? I did not know it. Monsieur Carmontelle gave them to me for a wedding-gift. I have more of them in a box given me by the Jockey Club." They exclaimed with delight when they saw the lovely things in the jewel-casket. There were diamonds, rubies, emeralds, all in the most tasteful and elegant settings. Una gave them _carte blanche_ to wear what they pleased, and accepting the offer in sisterly sincerity, the girls selected each a set appropriate to the costume selected for the occasion. "You will wear the pearls with the white dress, Una, I will take the diamonds to suit the rose-colored satin, and Maud can wear the rubies with the gold brocade!" exclaimed Edith, gayly. "Oh, how surprised Sylvie and Ida will be! They will expect us to look like dowdies, knowing we can not afford new dresses. But we will keep all a secret, and burst upon them Thursday evening in a blaze of glory!" "Agreed!" cried Maud, merrily, and Una's gentle, pensive smile added assent, although to herself she sighed apprehensively: "Perhaps Eliot will not like for me to appear in my wedding-dress. It will remind him of his sacrifice. But I have nothing else to wear." And when Eliot asked her that evening what kind of a dress she would wear, so that he might select her flowers in keeping, she answered, in a half-frightened tone. "White!" "It will suit you," he answered, kindly, but Una thought, sadly: "He would not say so if he knew it was my wedding-dress!" He lingered by her side, thrilled with the memory of the morning's kiss, and waiting to see if she would show him any more kindness. Una was very glad to keep him near her, but she was full of a blushing consciousness that made her even more shy than usual. Oh, that kiss this morning!--how had she dared to be so bold?--and yet she had a passionate longing to repeat the caress. Ida Hayes saw him lingering by his wife, and called him away to sing with her. "That duet we used to sing, you know," she said; and her familiar tone and coquettish smile half maddened Una with pain. She drew back without a word, and let Eliot pass her, and between Sylvie and her sister he had no more chance to speak to her in the drawing-room that evening. When the music was done he was drawn into a game of chess, and as Una was ignorant of the game she was perforce left out. She sat apart and talked to some callers who had dropped in, and when they left she was only too glad to find that the evening was over and the family were separated for the night. She went upstairs very slowly, and along the carpeted hall to her room, with a bitter sense of loneliness and disappointment, vaguely comprehending the malice of the two women who had so cleverly kept Eliot from her side all the evening. "They hate me for my unconscious fault," she thought, miserably. "Good-night, Una," a voice said, suddenly, almost at her side. It was Eliot who had followed her upstairs. As she turned round her white, startled face, he drew her hand in his arm and walked with her toward her door. "You forgot to tell me good-night," he said, smiling. "Or--did you deliberately snub me again because of--a fit of ill-temper?" Too truthful to deny the imputation, she said, bashfully: "I'm afraid so. I thought Miss Hayes wasn't going to let you off long enough to say good-night, so I came away." Pressing her little hand very close against his side, he replied, ardently: "I should like to see the Miss Hayes that could keep me from saying good-night to my darling little wife." They had reached her door. She paused, trembling with delight, but in the dim light he could not see the gladness in the beautiful dark eyes. He only felt the trembling of the form beside him, and thought that she was nervous and frightened. "Do not be afraid of me, Una," he said, hurriedly, and with sharp disappointment. Then he drew the little figure close to his heart, and held her there a moment, while he pressed on her warm lips the ardent kiss of a lover. A moment more he turned away and left her to enter her room alone, with some sweet, passionate words ringing in her ears: "Good-night, my darling, my little wife! Sleep well, and dream of your own Eliot." "Did he mean it? Is he learning to love me at last?" she whispered to herself, sobbing wildly with hysterical delight, and trembling with bashful pleasure. She unrobed and lay down on her dainty white bed, not to sleep, but to live over and over again, in fancy, his tender looks and words and his warm caress. But Eliot, in whom a passionate hope and longing had been stirring all day, went to his solitary room vaguely disappointed. "Poor darling! I frightened her by my vehemence," he said, remorsefully, to himself. "Her beauty and her gentleness tempted me almost beyond my strength. Ah, she little dreamed what a struggle it cost to leave her there and to wait, still wait, although half maddened with love and longing." For him, too, the drowsy god tarried to-night, and he tossed sleeplessly on his pillow, dreaming of Una just as Una was dreaming of him, with infinite love and yearning. Weary with the night's restlessness, Una slept too soundly next morning for the breakfast-bell to rouse her from her slumbers. Eliot, who had to be at the office by a certain hour, fidgeted uneasily, and at last sent Edith to see if she was awake. In a minute she came out on tiptoe. "She is sleeping so sweetly, I had not the heart to wake her," she said. "But, Eliot, you might just slip in and kiss her good-bye in her sleep." Her keen young eyes saw the sensitive color mount to his temples. "Una would not like it," he replied, gravely. Candid Edith shut the door softly behind her, and gave her brother a playful little shake as she went with him along the hall. "Eliot, you are a great goose, that's what you are!" she cried. "Una is your wife. You have a right to go in her room and kiss her if you like, and I don't believe she would object, either!" With a sigh, he replied: "You must remember how sudden our marriage was, Edith. My little girl had no time to learn to love me, or get used to me. Is it not right that I should leave her in peace until I shall have won her heart as well as her hand?" Edith stared at him in wonder. "Eliot Van Zandt, you are as blind as a bat!" she exclaimed, and darted away without another word. But although she would not say another word to Eliot, she made up her mind to lecture Una. So the first thing when Una opened her heavy eyes, she saw Edith sitting demurely in the big willow rocker by the bedside. She burst out unceremoniously: "You lazy girl, you have slept until breakfast was over, and your husband gone down-town. Poor boy! he waited and waited outside your door for you to wake, but you just dreamed on until he had to go. I told him to slip in and kiss you good-bye in your sleep, but he was afraid you would be angry. I do say, Una Van Zandt, you ought to be ashamed of yourself." Una was sitting up in bed very wide awake indeed now, a lovely picture of amazement and distress, with her loose, golden hair falling on her half-bare, white shoulders, her eyes dilated with wonder, her cheeks flushed from sleep. "Oh, Edith, what have I done now? I don't know what you're talking about," she faltered. "Don't you, Mistress Van Zandt? Listen, then: I'm talking about what a tyrant you are to my brother. Here you have been married to him almost a year and I don't believe you've ever given the poor boy as much as a kiss or one fond word. Do you think he is a stick or a stone, without any feeling, that you behave so heartlessly? I tell you it made me angry to see him this morning afraid to come inside this room to tell you good-bye. Don't you know he has a right to be in this room with you if he choose, only he is too afraid of you to assert himself? There is no other man on earth half so good and chivalrous as Eliot. Fancy Bryant being afraid to put his foot inside Sylvie's door. Why, they both would tell you it was all nonsense. You treat Eliot--" Una held out her hands entreatingly. "Hush, Edith, don't scold me so," she begged, with quivering lips; but she did not utter a word in her own defense. She was too wretched and heart-sick, feeling that Eliot's fault, his persistent avoidance of his wife, need not be held up to his sister's condemnation. "Far rather would I shield him by letting the blame rest wholly upon myself," she resolved, firmly. CHAPTER XXXV. Sylvie pretended to be very anxious that day over the appearance her sisters-in-law would make at the theater-party. "Have you anything new?" she inquired. "Because I have invited several young ladies and gentlemen, and ordered a supper here after the performance at the theater. Of course, I want you all to do credit to Bryant." "We haven't a new thing," declared Edith, lugubriously. "You and Ida will have to uphold the honor of the family by your elegant dressing, for Maud and I will be sure to look like dowdies." Mme. Sylvie did not seem to take the information much to heart. She said carelessly: "And Eliot's wife?" "Oh, she will be a dowdy, too," replied roguish Edith. So Sylvie and Ida could scarcely believe their eyes that evening when Maud and Edith sallied in, the dark-haired Maud in gold-colored satin, red roses, and rubies, and Edith in lustrous rose-color with white lace flounces, while diamonds flashed from her throat and ears. Both girls looked as handsome in their way as the bisque dolls who were splendid in Parisian toilets and a profusion of gleaming jewels. Sylvie stared in amaze and jealous displeasure. "You told me you had nothing fit to wear!" she exclaimed, acrimoniously. "I beg your pardon--nothing new," Edith replied, dimpling with mischief. "These are our mother's old dresses made over." "But diamonds and rubies--I am sure Bryant told me that all your mother's jewels were sold to help pay your father's debts when he failed!" Sylvie exclaimed, in wonderment and displeasure. "So they were," Maud answered. "But, Sylvie, these do not belong to us. We borrowed them from Una." Ida Hayes broke in with inexpressible anger and spite: "I thought Eliot was too poor to give such jewels to his wife." Edith flashed her a glance of scorn. "Fortunately poverty is no disgrace, Ida," she said. "But Eliot did not give them to Una. They were bridal presents from her Southern friends." "Dear me, Sylvie! and you said she was poor and a nobody!" Ida exclaimed, insolently, turning around to her sister. "Eliot said so," Sylvie answered; and forthwith there began a war of words that was fortunately stopped by Bryant's entrance, and his instant laying on the table of the heated subject of debate. On his part he was glad to see his young sisters so charmingly dressed and looking so lovely. He took the exciting fact of Una's jewels with manly equanimity. "There is no reason why Una should not have them," he said. "Her adopted father, Pierre Carmontelle, is one of the richest men in the South. If he and his friends gave her costly bridal presents, it was no more than she had a right to expect." Sylvie and Ida dared say no more, but their thoughts were full of rancor, and the former muttered, _sotto voce_: "I suppose she will come down presently covered with diamonds!" Meanwhile, quite a different scene was transpiring in Una's room upstairs. Fifteen minutes ago, as she had stood before her mirror, putting the last touches to her sweet, simple toilet, there had come a light, quick rap at her door. "Maud or Edith," she thought, and called out, carelessly: "Come in!" The door opened softly, and Eliot, her husband, appeared on the threshold, looking marvelously handsome in full evening-dress, a bouquet of pure white flowers in one hand, a long, white box in the other. When he saw lovely Una standing there in the soft, white robe, with the pearls around her bare, white throat, and her round arms uncovered, save by the dainty white gloves, her dark eyes shining with innocent joy at her own fairness, he uttered a cry of delight: "Oh, Una, how angelic you look! But," dubiously, "do I intrude?" "No," she answered, with a blush and tremor; so Eliot shut the door and came to her side. "I have brought you some flowers and an opera-cloak," he said, pulling it out of the box and dropping it on her shoulders. It was a dainty white cashmere affair, not costly but very pretty, with a shining fringe of pearl and silver beads. With the white dress and flowers, it made Una look bride-like and lovely as a dream. "Does it suit you? Will it be warm enough?" he asked, with shining eyes; and Una held out her hands to him with sudden tears on her lashes. "Oh, how good you are to me, who should expect so little from you! How can I ever requite your kindness?" she murmured, tremulously. He caught the white hands in his, and drew the dainty white figure into the clasp of his yearning arms. "Only love me, my darling!" he whispered, passionately, against her crimson cheek. "That will pay all." She lay still, trembling with rapture in the close pressure of his fond arms. She felt his kisses falling softly, warmly on her face, her lips, her hair. At last she drew herself from him, saying, with rapturous wonder: "You really want me to love you, Eliot?" Half smiling at her wondering tone, he exclaimed: "What a strange question, Una! Have I not been waiting almost a year for your heart to wake from its childish sleep and respond to mine? And how else could you requite aught I have done for you? Do you not know, my darling, that love must be paid in its own coin?" Doubting, wondering, she looked up into those glorious blue-gray orbs now full of a radiant fire impossible to describe. Something of the truth dawned on her bewildered soul. She cried out impulsively: "Oh, Eliot, then you do love me? And I have been so wretched, so afraid, so--" No more, for he had caught her in his arms, crushing her passionately to his breast, whispering that he had loved her always, always, and had grown so weary, so impatient waiting to win her heart. "There was no need to wait if you had not been so blind," answered truthful Una. "For I loved you, Eliot, from the very first!" CHAPTER XXXVI. If Edith had not come upstairs to see what kept Una dressing so long, they would have forgotten all about the theater-party in their absorption of each other. As it was, they started apart in surprise when she came softly in. "Oh, Eliot, I did not know you were here," she said, drawing back. "Come in, Edith, and congratulate us," he said, drawing Una to his side again. "We have just found out that we are in love with each other." "Every one else knew that ages ago," replied the saucy girl, laughing. But she kissed both with a great amount of girlish fervor, and to hide her emotion, exclaimed: "The carriages are waiting, and Sylvie is fuming with impatience, so you had better bring your bride down-stairs, Eliot." They went down together, and when the spiteful Sylvie saw the two handsome, happy faces, she was more vexed than if Una had indeed been covered with diamonds, as she had spitefully said. She could not help seeing that a reconciliation had taken place between the two, and felt instinctively that her cruel revelation to Una had precipitated the understanding it was intended to avert. But she could not avoid one poisoned shaft of malice at the happy girl, and so, with a sneer, she exclaimed: "Dear me! Una still posing as a bride at this late day? Your wedding-day must have been a very happy one, since you love to recall it so well." No one replied to the impertinent speech, for all, even Bryant, understood its spleen. Una only shrunk closer to her husband, and they went out to the carriages that were waiting to convey them to the theater. Two boxes had been taken for the evening, and there were twelve in the party, including the two ladies and three gentlemen that Sylvie had invited. Una was very glad that Sylvie and Ida did not come into the same box with herself and Eliot. Their cold, sneering looks made her shiver and feel unhappy, so she was glad when she found Maud and Edith with one other young lady and one gentleman as the evening's companions. The house was full, and the curtain had risen on the first act--a brilliant scene with a fine setting. Mme. Leonie had not made her appearance yet, and the audience felt at liberty to turn a good many curious lorgnettes upon the handsome theater-party. Una, all in white, with her waving golden hair, red lips, and large dark eyes, immediately fixed attention. The murmur ran from lip to lip: "A bride--a bride!" Eliot saw what a sensation her beauty was creating, and smiled in pride; but Una was too innocent to comprehend the truth. In fact, she scarcely looked at the audience. Her eager eyes intently watched the stage. She was anxious to see the great actress of whom the newspapers spoke in such lavish praise. So, while the adoring young husband by her side kept his fond eyes on her face, Una watched the stage, and her eagerness was soon rewarded by a sight of Mme. Leonie. Mme. Leonie was tall, beautiful, stately, and the black velvet robe, starred with diamonds, in which she was assaying a queenly rôle, became her well. Una gave a little gasp of honest admiration. Mme. Leonie's voice rose on the air clear, sweet, shrill, and Eliot Van Zandt turned with a quick start toward the stage. At the same moment, he became aware that Una's little hand had clutched tightly, spasmodically around his arm. He looked into her face. Its usual pure, creamy pallor had deepened to ashy whiteness, her dark eyes were wild and frightened. "Una!" "Oh, Eliot, look!" she whispered, tremblingly. "It is she--Madame Lorraine!" He turned his eyes to the stage, from which, a moment ago, that voice had given him such a start. Yes, Una was right. There she stood--the beautiful, cruel woman who had doomed him to such an awful fate; who had made Una's life so bitter, whose malice and spite had been so supremely fiendish--Mme. Lorraine! CHAPTER XXXVII. Every eye was turned to the stage, and tumultuous applause greeted the appearance of the favorite, so no one noticed the agitation of the young husband and wife who, tightly clasping each other's hands, stared with loathing eyes at the beautiful actress. It seemed to both an evil omen--this meeting with cruel, heartless Mme. Lorraine in the first hour of their supreme happiness after the months of doubt and reserve that had held them apart. All unconscious of the eyes that watched her--the eyes she believed closed forever in the sleep of death, the clever actress went on with her part, and, shrinking closer to Eliot's side, Una whispered with a strange, foreboding fear: "Let us go home before she sees us. Do not let her find out that we are still living." Man-like, he smiled at her terror, and whispered back: "My darling, we have nothing to fear from Madame Lorraine's hatred now. Can you not trust to your husband to protect you?" "Yes--oh, yes," the girl-wife murmured; but the chill foreboding of evil did not leave her mind, and she shrunk back into the shadow of the heavy box-curtain, praying in her heart that Mme. Lorraine's hateful glance might not find her out. Perhaps it might not have done so, for, to madame's credit be it said, she did not ogle the boxes after the manner of some actresses. She was intent on her part, and, beyond the knowledge that she had a large and fashionable audience, she took no particular interest in the throng of people. But a perverse spirit had entered into Eliot Van Zandt, and seeing the woman so cool, calm, and heartless, he longed to let her know that her vengeance failed of its aim and her victims escaped her. He pictured to himself her jealous, impotent fury when she should know that both he and her Little Nobody lived, and that they were happily married and beyond the reach of her venom. And in that last belief he made his great mistake. He whispered his thoughts to Una. In truth, he was longing to take his exquisite vengeance on his enemy. Una forced a smile of meek acquiescence. She said to herself that she could not let her splendid young husband know what a little coward she was, and how she feared her old tyrant and enemy. At the close of the third act Eliot said, eagerly: "Will you let me have your bouquet, Una? To-morrow I will bring you a sweeter one." With secret reluctance she let him have it. He wrote hurriedly a few words on a card and attached it to the flowers. Una looked over his shoulder. She read: "Compliments of Eliot Van Zandt and his bride, the 'Little Nobody.'" "Oh!" the girl cried, with a shiver; but Eliot had already thrown it upon the stage at the feet of the tragedy queen, who was bowing and smiling in response to an enthusiastic recall. Among a dozen floral tributes she saw that pure, white, bride-like one flung from the opera-box. She took it up, lifted it to her lips, and bowed, then scanned the name written on the card, while Eliot watched her with a triumphant smile, Una with nameless fear. Eliot was quite curious to note what effect that startling card would have upon the wicked actress. It seemed to him that she would be stunned, that she would fall to the floor in abject terror, crying out for mercy from him she had wronged. Una, too, expected every instant that she would fall down unconscious, overcome by fear and anger. Neither one comprehended the stoicism, the incomparable will-power of the gifted, wicked French woman. Terrible and overwhelming as was the knowledge thus suddenly acquired, Mme. Lorraine neither by word nor sign gave any evidence that she had received a shock. She merely stood still--very still--for a minute or so with her eyes riveted upon the card, and the audience, suspecting nothing of this strange by-play, received the impression that the writing on the card was rather illegible, hence the slowness of the actress in deciphering the name. At last, with an inward shudder, madame lifted her eyes from the bit of pasteboard upon which she had been gazing as one looks at a serpent hidden among flowers. Her glance went straight to the box where Eliot and Una, so beautiful, so happy, in their youth and love, sat with bated breath watching her face. She recognized them instantly; a subtle smile dawned on her face, she bowed profoundly. The audience, still unconscious of the truth, applauded madame's graceful courtesy to the echo, and kissing the tips of her fingers, smiling right and left, she retired. Una drew a long, sobbing breath of relief as the beautiful woman vanished from sight. Eliot smiled and whispered: "She accepts her defeat with equanimity. Her self-command is admirable, enviable." "I am so glad she took it so coolly; I dare say she does not care," Una murmured, gladly, and some of the stifling fear and dread left her heart. If she could have looked behind the scenes into madame's dressing-room, she would not have felt so confident. Mima had to exert all her skill to bring her mistress up to the mark to enable her to go on with the fourth and last act in the play. Her agitation upon reaching the dressing-room had been great, and Mima for a moment had been scarcely less shaken; but her nerves were very strong, and she soon began to reassure Mme. Lorraine. "It is nothing--pshaw! Do not let your mind be upset, madame. Be glad that the fair-faced lad lives. Your conscience is that much lighter, and for the rest, he was never worthy the passion of so magnificent a woman!" "He was the only man I ever loved!" madame cried, obstinately. "He was splendid, whatever you say, Mima, and to think that she, the Little Nobody, has come back from the very grave to part us, to win him from me! Oh, it is bitter! I will not endure it. He was mad to fling that defiance in my face. I will make him pay dearly, dearly for that insolence!" "Nonsense! You shall not get yourself into any more scrapes over that boy!" Mima cried, angrily. Mme. Lorraine laughed hysterically. "You shall see," she said. "I will come between them; I will part them. I swear it!" "Nonsense!" Mima said again. "You do not even know where they live." "I shall find out!" the actress cried, obstinately; and then she gave vent to a sudden cry of shrill delight. "Oh! oh!" "What is it, then?" curtly. "Fortune favors me. You know I am invited to a little _petit souper_ to-night after the theater. It is at the house of one of the Boston _bon ton_, and the name on the card is 'Mrs. Bryant Van Zandt.'" Even the imperturbable Mima started with surprise. "Well?" Madame laughed, and the laugh was not good to hear. "I have no doubt they are relatives of my Yankee friend," she said. "Perhaps, even they live in the same house. I shall be sure to go, and then--_che sarâ, sarâ_!" Her voice had a fiendish threat in its angry cadence. She went back on the stage, smiling, insolent. She looked once or twice into the box from whence the white flowers had been thrown to her, and smiled whenever she looked. And Una's blood ran cold whenever she met that smile. She instinctively felt that it was one of menace. She was very, very glad when it was all over, and she could nestle by Eliot's side in the carriage with her cold little hand in his. Maud and Edith rode with them, but they did not utter one word to even hint to them that Mme. Leonie, the actress, was Mme. Lorraine, the wicked woman who had been so cruel to them in New Orleans. Both said to themselves that it did not matter now. Let her enjoy her fame, if she could, since out of her cruel plans had come their wedded happiness. She would leave Boston to-morrow for Philadelphia, where she was to play next, and in all likelihood her path would never cross theirs again. So, dismissing the wicked woman from their minds, Eliot and Una waited with the girls in the drawing-room for the coming of the rest of the party who were a little late. At last there was a bustle, a murmur of voices and laughter in the hall--then entered Sylvie, Ida, and their guests--lastly Bryant Van Zandt, on his arm--Mme. Leonie! "Ah, girls! ah, Eliot!" Sylvie cried out, in pretty triumph. "See what a charming surprise I have brought you. Madame Leonie will honor us by taking supper under our roof." Not a tremor on the part of the actress betrayed the fact that she had ever seen before the two to whom she bowed with stately grace. For them, they were too amazed by her matchless impudence to even remind her of the past, and bowed coldly in acknowledgment of the introduction. Turning away with Sylvie, they heard her say, in clear, full tones: "Ah, Madame Van Zandt, what an aristocratic-looking young beauty is Mrs. Eliot Van Zandt! She is no doubt of one of the finest old families of Boston." Sylvie's cruel voice answered maliciously: "On the contrary, a little nobody that Eliot picked up somewhere on a Southern tour." The eyes of the young husband and wife met, his indignant, hers wet with tears. "After all, it is true, I am a little nobody," she said, faintly. "Oh, Eliot," with sudden animation, "what if we should force Madame Lorraine to tell us the truth to-night--to own frankly who and what I am?" "You are Una Marie Van Zandt, and my wife. The past need not matter, my darling," he replied, tenderly. But the idea had taken complete possession of Una. "Eliot, it maddens me to hear your brother's wife always flinging that slur upon me--a little nobody! Let us force Madame Lorraine to tell the truth to-night. She is in your power, for although her conspiracy against your life failed, she is amenable to the law for the wicked attempt. Let us seek a private interview with her, Eliot. Let us threaten her, frighten her into the confession of my origin, however humble," pleaded Una, with impassioned fervor. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mme. Lorraine wormed Una's story out of Mrs. Van Zandt with the greatest ease, Sylvie's spite making it an actual labor of love to place her sister-in-law in the worst possible light before the great actress who had deigned to express admiration for her beauty. In a little while the wicked woman knew that which thrilled her with cruel joy--that beautiful Una, living in the same house with Eliot and bearing his name, had never been aught to him but his wife in name only. "He never loved her, and would be glad if he had never seen her," Sylvie said, lying unblushingly in her hatred of Una. Mme. Lorraine condoled with her in politest phrases, hiding her exultation under an appearance of calmness. She said to herself: "His wife in name only! It is not so bad as I thought. It will be easy to part them now." Her opportunity soon came without an effort of her own, through Una's eagerness to find out the secret of her origin. Eliot had consented to Una's wish, and immediately after the elegant supper, which had been provided by the best caterer in Boston at Sylvie's expense, he sought an opportunity to speak to her alone. "Will Madame Leonie permit me the pleasure of showing her through our little conservatory? We have a rare plant in bloom there--a night-blooming cereus," he said. Madame protested she would be delighted; slipped her jeweled hand through his arm, and glided from the drawing-room by his side. The night-blooming cereus was not a feint. It was really there, but so also was Una standing by its side, pale and agitated, yet withal so lovely, that madame said to herself, with something like contempt for her companion: "He must be cold-hearted, indeed, to withhold love from one so beautiful." Eliot began abruptly: "Madame Lorraine, of course you know we recognized you immediately to-night?" The beautiful actress bowed mockingly. "Of course." He continued gravely: "Then, perhaps you can guess why I have brought you here?" Glancing maliciously from the pale, grave face of Eliot to the agitated one of his wife, madame said, scoffingly: "To congratulate you and your bride on your happiness, no doubt, monsieur!" "No; nor to reproach you with your wickedness," Eliot answered, sternly, his handsome face pale and set, his splendid eyes full of scorn. "I brought you here, madame, to say that in return for my leniency in not denouncing you to the law for your attempt upon my life, I demand at your hands one simple act of justice." "Justice!" she echoed, vaguely. "Yes, to me," said Una, drawing nearer. "Oh, Madame Lorraine, the time is come at last when you must tell me who and what I am. You have denied to me even a name, but however poor and obscure my origin, I surely have a right to some name, and I can no longer bear Mrs. Van Zandt's sneers at the mystery that infolds me. Speak, madame, and dissipate the cloud that veils the past." "Speak!" Eliot echoed, sternly. Then there was a moment of terrible suspense and silence. Madame had drawn back hurriedly from the two with an expression of alarm and trouble on her mobile white face. At last: "Oh, you know not what you ask!" she faltered, with emotion. Growing ashen pale, Una cried out hoarsely: "I am ready to hear--even the worst." Eliot came to her side and drew her cold hand gently through his arm. "Do not look so frightened, Una, my love," he said, gently. "If madame speaks the truth, she will say you are well-born and of noble parentage." Madame gave him a look of fierce wrath and scorn. "Are you so sure?" she sneered. "Better let me go, then, with your fatal question unanswered, and hug that vain delusion to your breast." Eliot answered dauntlessly: "Most willingly, only for Una's sake. She has some natural curiosity on the subject, and I have promised her it shall be gratified." The beautiful face of Mme. Lorraine grew positively fiendish with the evil smile that flashed across it. "A true daughter of Eve," she said; "but your Una, as you call her, if she persists in her curiosity, may purchase her knowledge at as bitter cost as did the adventurous lady of Eden." "I am not afraid of the truth, if you will only speak it and have done, madame," Una cried out, impatiently; and Eliot felt her tremble violently as she leaned against him. Then both looked at the clever actress in surprise. Her face had changed its expression, as if by magic, from hate and scorn to softness, gentleness, and poignant regret. Her splendid orbs were dim as with a mist of tears. Clasping her jeweled hands together in strong agitation, she faltered, pleadingly: "Do not press me so hard, for--oh, how can I tell you what you ask?" "Do you mean that there is shame, disgrace, linked with--my birth--my parentage?" Una demanded, almost wildly. Mme. Lorraine gave her a cunning upward glance full of a sort of contemptuous pity. "Listen to me, both of you," she said; "I have wronged you both, but Heaven knows how I repent of my evil deeds. I do not want to cause any more sorrow to either of you, as I must do if I tell Una what she asks. Therefore, let me go away, in silence, and be sure that in her case ignorance is bliss." "I will not believe you, Madame Lorraine, if you assert that aught of shame belongs to the parentage of my wife," Eliot said, hotly, and she uttered a long, long sigh. "Whatever it is, I have a right to some name, however humble," Una said; but Mme. Lorraine preserved a silence that was significant. Eliot drew his arm tenderly about Una's waist, as he said: "Dearest, you have a right to one of the proudest names in Boston. Why trouble your little head about the past?" But Una was obstinate. Sylvie's sneers had made her bitter and determined. She looked with dark, impatient eyes into the face of the woman who hated her with relentless hate. "Speak, madame," she said, icily. "Do you not see that you must reveal the secret now, whatever it be, that has thrown its stigma over my life?" "I am in your power, monsieur; you can denounce me for my attempted crime, if I refuse to answer you," madame said, looking at Eliot. "Do you still insist?" He looked at Una; she murmured "Yes" through pale, determined lips, but she did not see the covert triumph in the eyes of her foe. "Very well, then," said the actress, with a heavy sigh. She looked at Eliot with grave eyes. "Monsieur Van Zandt, I must make at least one condition," she exclaimed. "Yes?" he said, inquiringly. "It is this: you will leave me alone with your wife while I reveal to her her name and true identity. It will be best thus. The secret will then be her own, and it will be optional with her whether she should reveal it to you or not." He bowed affirmatively. "I have no objection to your plan, madame, and small curiosity over your secret. Whatever you may reveal to Una, it will in nowise lessen my regard for my wife." He went out and left them together. Mme. Lorraine turned her vindictive eyes upon Una hissing fiercely: "Do you not know that you are very foolish in this matter? Would I have treated you as I did for fifteen years, if you had not been--" "What?" asked Una, impatiently, as she paused significantly, and regarded her with angry, scornful eyes. Bending forward until her writhing lips almost touched the small, pink ear of the girl, Mme. Lorraine finished her broken sentence in a hissing voice like that of a serpent. It was as if Mme. Lorraine had struck the girl upon the face. She reeled backward with a low, gasping, terrified cry, and sunk to the floor. * * * * * Eliot waited almost an hour in the drawing-room for madame to return, and Mrs. Van Zandt grew angry and impatient at the detention of her guest by that Little Nobody. Eliot made all the excuses he could. They were talking about the flowers; Mme. Leonie loved them so dearly, etc. At last he went in search of the two. Madame was just emerging from the conservatory with a smile of triumph on her handsome face. As he would have passed her, she detained him with a hand laid heavily on his arm. "Do not go to her yet. She desired me to keep you away from her a little while until she can collect her thoughts and decide whether it is best to share her terrible secret with you or not." "But surely she needs me now," he said, quailing at the words. "Her terrible secret!" "She prefers to be alone, she said," madame returned, so positively that he decided, against his sense of duty, to humor Una's whim. He guessed it was not a pleasant revelation madame had made among the warm, sweet odors of the dim conservatory. The actress returned to the drawing-room, made her adieus, and departed. Then the rest of the party broke up, and the family retired to their several apartments. Eliot went to the conservatory for Una. "I can not leave her alone any longer in her trouble, poor child!" he thought, with a heart full of tenderness. To his surprise, the flowery retreat was quite deserted. "She has stepped out unperceived in the confusion of the leave-takings, and gone to her room," he decided, and a yearning impulse led him to seek her there. He knocked at first softly on the door, and receiving no reply, entered quietly, feeling that she needed him in the distress she was enduring over madame's revelation. But the room, like the conservatory, was deserted. Over the dressing-table the gas was burning brightly. Eliot's eyes quickly detected an envelope lying just beneath the light that bore in large characters his own name. CHAPTER XXXIX. He stood staring with frightened eyes at the white envelope, with its large black letters formed in Una's crude handwriting, dreading to touch it, for a swift instinct told him the truth. She had left him, he felt quite sure--left him almost in the very hour when the discovery of their mutual love for each other had paved the way to their wedded happiness. Mme. Lorraine, like the serpent crawling into Eden, had brought woe and pain where love and joy had reigned. All this flashed over him instinctively as he took the letter in his hand and tore it open, devouring in fierce haste the brief, sad note Una had written such a little while ago that the ink was scarcely dry upon the page. "This is my farewell to you, Eliot," it said. "I have learned the secret of my identity. Forgive me that I shrink from revealing it to you. I can only say that it comes between us, and divides us as effectually as the grave itself. I have left you forever. Do not seek to trace me, for nothing can ever induce me to live with you again. Give up the thought of me and obtain a divorce (it will be easy, for, thank Heaven, I have never been your wife, save in name only), then you can marry Ida Hayes, whom you loved before you ever saw me. God bless you for all your goodness to me. If you had known who I was that time in New Orleans, you need not have sacrificed yourself for my sake. God bless my--yes, I will presume to call them sisters this once--Maud and Edith! I have left them the jewels they wore to-night in memory of Una, to whom they were so kind. Forget me, Eliot, as soon as you can, for I am all unworthy of your name and your love. "LITTLE NOBODY." She had deliberately signed the name she hated so much, and he knew that her humility must have been great to drive her to such an act. With a groan he sunk into a chair and buried his face in his hands. "How could she, with her beauty and innocence, her high-bred air and noble soul, be lowly, even shamefully born, as this letter would have me believe?" he exclaimed. "No, no; it is only another of that wicked woman's falsehoods. She has taken Una with her, out of hatred for my darling and envy of our happiness. There can be nothing strong enough to come between us, my little love and I. Oh, why did I leave them alone together? I might have known that serpent's wiles. But I will follow and bring them back! Fortunately it is not too late." But he was mistaken, for when he reached madame's hotel, half an hour later, he was told that she had left Boston by the 1:30 train. "Just thirty minutes too late!" he muttered, wildly, and the sleepy night-clerk of the hotel looked at him in contemptuous amazement. He thought he must be some demented admirer of Mme. Leonie. Eliot knew that madame's next engagement was in Philadelphia, and he determined that he would follow by the next train. "Will she have the temerity to take Una with her, or will she try to hide her from me? The latter, most likely," he thought, sadly, and a presentiment grew upon him that his lovely girl-wife was lost to him forever. But he followed the actress by the next train to Philadelphia, only to learn that she had never arrived there. At a heavy cost, she had made her manager cancel her engagement, and neither herself nor the manager could be found there, nor a clew obtained to their whereabouts. Just as suddenly as she had returned to the stage, she disappeared from it, and the mystery of her disappearance was the topic of newspaper paragraphs for some days. Only one of the journalistic fraternity had any idea of the cause of her flight, and he was too proud and bitter to give it to the world. To his own family, under strict bonds of secrecy, he confided the truth, and Maud and Edith were indignant at the thought that wicked Mme. Lorraine had dared come beneath their roof, and loud in their protestations of disbelief in the story that there was a stain on Una's birth. But Bryant, Sylvie, and Ida preserved a significant silence that told more plainly than words their belief that all had happened for the best. They hoped secretly that Eliot would get a divorce, as Una had told him to do. CHAPTER XL. After the space of five years, let us look in again upon the Van Zandts. Eliot Van Zandt has a guest. Pierre Carmontelle! For five years the noble Louisianian has been a wanderer in foreign lands. He has returned at last cured of his passion for the girl he had loved, strong enough now to witness her happiness with another. Not since the day when he bid farewell to Eliot and his bride has he heard aught of their fate until now, when, strong in the consciousness of his conquered love, he goes to Boston, determined to visit the happy pair before his return South. "I shall see Van Zandt grown portly and important, the Little Nobody of old matronly and magnificent," he said to himself, with a smile. Fancy the shock of the reality when he found Eliot a grave, sad man, old beyond his years through the influence of sorrow for the young wife lost so strangely out of his life. It was several minutes after Eliot had told him his story before he could utter a word, so greatly was he affected by what had been told him. Then he called down the vengeance of Heaven on the head of the wicked woman. Eliot's grave, sad face, with its lines of suffering, told plainer than words all that he had endured. "Surely you pursued them?" cried Carmontelle. "As long as my means lasted--yes," said Van Zandt. "But that was such a little while. You know I had so little beyond my salary, and--there were my two sisters." "You should have written to me." "I did--your letter was returned to me--you had sailed for Europe." "And not a clew in all these years?" "None." "I need not ask if you have taken Una's advice and procured a divorce?" Carmontelle said, with quiet comprehension of the other's pale, grave face that flushed slightly, as he answered: "I am bound to Una while I live, although I have given up all hope of ever seeing her again." Carmontelle's steady eyes went over the worn sheet of paper on which Una had traced her pathetic farewell to her husband. "And Miss Hayes, whom she says here you loved before your marriage?" he said, abruptly. "I can not tell how she fell into such an error. Miss Hayes is my brother's sister-in-law. She visited here often, but we were never more than friends," Eliot answered, quietly, all unsuspicious of Sylvie's treachery. Then the ladies of the house came in, and the conversation drifted to other subjects. Sylvie was the same exquisitely dressed doll; but five years had changed Maud and Edith from pretty, vivacious girls to quiet, dignified young ladies. In Maud there was a greater change than in Edith, and the secret lay in the failure of her beloved novel. Three years ago the cherished book had been given to the world, and the cruel critics had ridiculed the immature work of the girl, saying that the wild flights of fancy, so fresh, so buoyant, could have emanated from none but a young, inexperienced brain knowing nothing of the hard, cruel world. Pretty, tender Maud did not have the spirit of a Byron to retort on her critics and write, despite their sneers, so she laid down her pen, as she said, forever, and nearly broke her heart in bitter humiliation over her cruel failure. So there lay the secret of the beauty so ethereally frail that one fancied, in looking at her, that the spirit would soon plume its wings for another world. Edith was made of different metal. When the picture on which she had spent so much time was voted as great a failure as Maud's book, she shed a few bitter tears, brushed them away, and began again. On her easel had stood, for some time, an unfinished portrait of Una. Turning to this now, she made a fancy picture of it, and boldly called it Una. Upon this portrait rested Edith's fame. When exhibited, it created a great sensation. She had many offers for it, but she rejected all to present the portrait to her brother. He was deeply moved, and declared that the gift of a fortune would not have pleased him so much. So Edith's fame was established. A few copies of the beautiful "Una" found ready sale. Then there came in orders for portraits. She had her own beautiful studio now, and made money enough to buy her own dresses, and Maud's, too; so Eliot was free now, but he had never begrudged the manly aid he lent to his sisters. Even now he spent very little for himself, but went on laying up his small savings carefully for Una, if she should ever come back. Pierre Carmontelle, who had traveled five years to get cured of an attack of the _grande passion_, fell straight into Cupid's net again when he encountered Maud's pensive beauty. She, on her part, was attracted to this noble man of forty-odd years as she had never been to younger ones who had bowed at her shrine. Never did anything come about more suddenly; for the Southerner, who had expected to remain in Boston only a day, stayed a month, and at the expiration of that time Maud was his promised wife. Of course they had talked to each other about Una, and when Maud wanted to defer the bridal-day six months, Carmontelle said, artfully: "Do not make it so long as that, my darling, because you and I want to go in search of Una just as soon as we are married, do we not?" "Yes," she answered eagerly; and thereupon agreed to get ready to be married in two months. Sylvie said that it was all hurried up in the worst of taste. She had not believed Maud would be so ready to snap up a rich man; but--ah! well, your romantic, novel-writing folks had an eye to the main chance, like everybody else. Edith answered daringly: "Why not say at once, Sylvie, that you're envious because Maud is going to be as rich as you are? Goodness knows, I'm glad one of the Van Zandts will be rich at last, so that you will not be able always to fling our poverty in our faces!" CHAPTER XLI. Maud declared that the trousseau must be a very simple and quiet one, since almost everything must come from the pockets of Eliot and Edith. But the brother and sister overruled her objections. "As if we had any other use for our savings!" cried Edith. "We are going to spend every penny. Do you think we are going to let our sister go to her rich husband plain and shabby?" So the order was given for several very handsome dresses, among them an ivory white satin, veiled in lace, for the bridal-dress. But before the bills came in from milliners and modistes the young authoress was able to pay them out of her own purse. And it came about in this wise. About four weeks after her engagement to the rich Southerner she received a visit from her Boston publisher. He put into her hand a check for several hundred dollars, the receipts from her novel which until now had not paid for the first costs of its publication. "I congratulate you, Miss Van Zandt," he said. "Your novel is suddenly becoming popular. The book-sellers report numerous calls for it, and in consequence I have large orders." Maud's lip quivered, and her blue-gray eyes, so like Eliot's, dimmed with happy tears. "At last!" she exclaimed, joyously. "Oh, I had ceased to hope or expect anything!" "I have taken pains to inquire into the cause of your success after the unfriendliness of the critics had so long injured its sale," he said; "and I have found out that the real merits of your novel have at last been discovered and revealed by a friendly critic." "I thought they were all my mortal foes!" she exclaimed. He smiled, and answered: "Not this one, at least, for he or she has been very frank, as well as very just. While the defects of your book are plainly acknowledged, its many beauties and merits are enthusiastically dwelt upon, and the fact of the author's tender youth is eloquently dilated on in excusing its faults." The girl's sweet eyes dilated wildly. "Who could have known that?" she asked him. "I can not tell. I understood that the writer is a reviewer of books for a noted New York magazine. I have not learned the name, but I will find it out for you, Miss Van Zandt," promised the genial publisher. "Pray, do so, if possible; and also please get the magazine containing the friendly review of my poor book. It will make me so happy to read it, and to write a letter of thanks to my good angel!" she exclaimed, fervently. Smiling at her enthusiasm, and promising to gratify her desire, the publisher took leave, and the very next day sent her the magazine. How gladly, how happily the young heart beat as her eager eyes devoured the column of reviews, and at last fell on "The Fatal Roses," her own romantic and high-flown novel, over whose non-success she had shed such bitter, burning tears. But they were tears of joy that glittered on her lashes now, as she went eagerly over the two full columns that had been given to "The Fatal Roses" by one who signed the, to Maud, startling name of "Una." "Una!" she cried out, wildly, and ran to seek Eliot, who was in the library with her intended husband. "Eliot! oh, Eliot, look! Our own darling Una!" she exclaimed, wildly, pointing with her taper finger at the startling name. Scarcely less agitated than herself, he took the review and read it hurriedly, then passed it to Carmontelle. "Can it be my Una?" he exclaimed, pale and agitated, his heart beating wildly. But the face of Pierre Carmontelle looked calm and grave. "Dear Eliot, dear Maud, do not give yourself up too ardently to hope," he said. "This may prove but a coincidence. The name may have been chosen as a _nom de plume_ by the writer." "My publisher promised to find out the name of the critic, if possible," Maud said; and to him Eliot went at once in a fever of anxiety. Mr. Dudley could not give him any satisfaction. He had written to the New York publisher, asking for information, but had not yet received his reply. As soon as it came, he would be happy to lay his letter before Miss Van Zandt and her brother. It was almost a week before the reply came, and Mr. Dudley forwarded it at once to Maud. The New York publisher wrote that he was unacquainted with his able critic, save by the name of Una. All his business with her was transacted through a Boston banker, whose name he gave, and whom the Van Zandts knew as the head of one of the most influential banks in the city. "She is here, then, in this very city, my lost Una--so near and 'yet so far!'" groaned Eliot. "But I shall go at once to Mr. Chesterton, with whom I have long had a friendly acquaintance." He went and elicited simply nothing. The great banker would give him no information. "I am not at liberty to speak one word on the subject, although I would gladly oblige you, Van Zandt, were it in my power!" he cried, affably. "At least tell me if Una is young, and if it is a real name, or a _nom de plume_," pleaded Eliot. "I regret that I am not at liberty to answer your questions," repeated courteous Mr. Chesterton. Baffled, but almost convinced by all this mystery that Maud's friendly critic was none other than his lovely, lost Una, Eliot went away in despair, and found a comforter in Carmontelle. "Leave it to me, Eliot, and I will find out all about the little runaway," he said, confidently. He went to a directory and found out the residence of Mr. Chesterton, a stately brown-stone residence in a fashionable and aristocratic street. A day or two later he said to Van Zandt: "I have found out all about the members of Mr. Chesterton's family. He has a handsome young wife, three small children, and a beautiful young governess." "Una!" Eliot cried, with a start. "Perhaps so; but we must not be too sure. I have not seen her yet," said Carmontelle. "But you will do so soon?" anxiously. A week later he came to Eliot where he sat with his sisters in the library, their favorite room, for here Sylvie seldom obtruded her presence. Maud, so lovely and happy now that she did not look like the pensive girl of a month ago, sprung up impetuously and caught his arm. "Oh, you look so happy, you surely found our darling girl!" Taking Eliot's and Edith's indulgence for granted, he pressed a light kiss on her pure brow. "You have guessed aright," he answered, "I have seen Mr. Chesterton's governess. She calls herself Mademoiselle Lorraine, and teaches French to the little Chestertons, but she is indeed no other than our Una." "Thank Heaven!" Eliot cried, springing up, "I will go to her at once." "Nonsense! She will not receive you," said his friend, and Eliot flung himself down again with a groan. "Listen," said Pierre Carmontelle, "Mademoiselle Lorraine goes out every afternoon to walk with her little charges. She is always closely veiled, and sometimes she walks past this very house, and looks up at the windows with eyes full of sadness. I saw her myself to-day, and recognized her in spite of her thick veil. I followed her, and when near the gate, I spoke to her; but afterward I was almost sorry I had done so, she was so terribly frightened." "Frightened!--but why?" cried Maud. And Eliot echoed bitterly: "Why?" "I can not tell you, I only know that she did not accord me any welcome. She only looked sorry and frightened and cried out sharply: 'Oh, you have hunted me down! This is cruel, cruel; but, oh, Monsieur Carmontelle, for God's sake, do not betray me to Eliot--to Mr. Van Zandt.'" "And then?" cried Edith, breathlessly. "Then her little pupils came around her and hurried her inside the gate. She looked back at me, waved her little gloved hand imploringly, and cried out again, 'Do not betray me to Eliot, or any one.' Then she vanished inside the banker's door." They sat looking sadly, and yet gladly, at one another. At least she lived, poor darling, and was out of the power of the wicked woman whose malice had lured her from home and love. "If I could only see her, only speak to her, my poor little Una, I am sure I could win her confidence!" Eliot exclaimed, passionately. "You are right; and indeed you must see her now," answered his friend. "Una must give you her confidence, must come home to you. It is not right that she, your wife, and my adopted child, should be slaving her young life away like this through some fancied duty." "I must see her. I will go to Mr. Chesterton since she denies me a sight of her. I will tell him my story, I will ask him to plead my cause with Una," Eliot exclaimed, in strong agitation; and just a little later he stood before the banker's mansion ringing the bell, and looking up in the darkness at the front of the great house, thrilling with the thought that his loved, lost bride was so near to him at this moment, that it seemed almost impossible but that they must soon come face to face. "And if she loves me still, as she said she did that happy night before she left me, I swear that no earthly power shall ever tear her again from my arms!" he vowed to himself. Mr. Chesterton was at home, and received his guest in the library with courteous surprise; but when the young man poured forth his agitated story, the banker became greatly interested and excited. "You are right. She is, she must be your wife. She came to us two years ago from the Convent of Le Bon Berger in New Orleans. My wife was once a pupil there, and wrote to the mother superior for a French teacher for our little ones. She sent us Mademoiselle Lorraine, who is as gifted and clever as she is lovely and winning. But I have always seen that she lay beneath the shadow of some sorrow. Wait, my young friend, and I will go upstairs and beg this proud young wife to give you an immediate interview," concluded the good man. CHAPTER XLII. Eliot waited in the large, elegant library with eager impatience, never doubting that Mr. Chesterton would succeed in his kindly mission. Una could not be so cruel as to refuse him an interview. "And once in her presence I will combat every objection she can raise until I persuade her to go home with me," he said to himself, firmly, and his heart began to beat lightly, happily, with the thought that soon Una would be with him, never to be torn from him again. "It is five years since I saw her. She was scarcely more than a child then. Now she is a woman, beautiful, gifted, intelligent. Oh, how I long to be wealthy, for the sake of my fair young wife!" he thought. Then it dawned upon him that the banker was staying a long time. The bronze clock on the mantel had chimed the quarters of an hour twice while he had sat there all alone. "He finds her hard to persuade," he exclaimed, rising from his chair and beginning to pace restlessly up and down the floor. Five, ten minutes elapsed. Then there came a step at the door. The handle turned. Mr. Chesterton entered--alone. Eliot turned to him in unutterable dismay. "Una!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, then paused, speechless. He saw a folded slip of paper in the banker's hand, and on his genial face disappointment and regret. "Van Zandt, I am sorry for you, upon my word!" he said, feelingly. "I used all my eloquence, but I have failed. She gave me this note for you," he added, thrusting the slip of paper into Eliot's hand. He took it in a dazed, lifeless way, opened it slowly, and read the words written in an elegant flowing hand, very different from the cramped, childish one in which Una had penned her farewell to him five years ago. "Oh, forgive me," it ran, "but I can not see you now, or ever again in this world. What I wrote you when I left you five years ago remains unchanged. There is a barrier between us cruel as the grave. You must seek freedom from the nominal tie that binds you to me. Then you will forget me and find happiness with some woman more blessed by fate than I have been. For me, I shall convince you that our separation is irrevocable by returning at once to New Orleans, there to enter a convent and take the veil for life. UNA." The cruel letter fell from his hand, and staggering heavily forward, Eliot dropped into a chair and bowed his face on the table. "Van Zandt!" exclaimed the banker. There was no reply. Rushing to Eliot's side, he lifted his head from the table, and it fell again heavily. The young man's overwrought feelings had culminated in momentary unconsciousness. A sharp peal of the bell brought the servants rushing to the scene, but not so soon but that Mr. Chesterton heard a gasp of terror from behind the curtains that divided the library from a pretty little parlor. Poor Una had crept in there for one stolen glimpse of the face of her beloved. The banker saw the lovely, frightened face peering around the curtain, and said, sharply: "Mrs. Van Zandt, I fear you have killed your husband!" With a stifled wail, she rushed forward and flung herself on her knees beside Eliot's unconscious form, catching his limp hands in both her warm, trembling white ones. "Dead! Oh, no, no, Mr. Chesterton, do not charge me with such cruelty!" she cried, gazing with straining eyes into that pale, handsome face. Her touch, her voice, her gaze, seemed to recall him to life, for suddenly his eyes opened wide on that lovely face. A cry of dismay broke from her lips, and dropping his hands, she rushed through the curtains and disappeared just as two servants entered at the other door. "Bring water and wine," said the banker. "This gentleman is ill." Both disappeared at once, and Eliot Van Zandt struggled up to a sitting posture, gazing wildly around the room. "Una--she was here!" he murmured, faintly. "She has gone," Mr. Chesterton answered, gravely. "Drink this wine, Van Zandt, it will revive you." "No; the water, please." He swallowed a few drops, and rose to go in spite of Mr. Chesterton's entreaties that he would stay until he was better. "I am all right. It was but a temporary faintness. Heaven bless you for your kindness to a miserable man, Mr. Chesterton," said Eliot, wringing his friend's hand fervently. Then he repossessed himself of Una's note that he had dropped on the floor, and went out of the room with a ghastly face. Mr. Chesterton, alarmed at his looks, followed him at a discreet distance until he saw him enter a car that would take him straight to Beacon Hill, then bethinking himself of an engagement he had for that evening, he hurried back home to don evening-dress and escort his beautiful wife to a soirée. Returning home in the small hours, he concluded to make a confidante of his wife and enlist her sympathies in Eliot Van Zandt's case. "What a romantic story!" exclaimed Mrs. Chesterton. "But I always thought there was something very interesting hidden in the past of our gifted governess. So she is a Van Zandt--one of the oldest, proudest names in Boston. My dear, I will speak to her in the morning, and see if I can not untangle the strange web of fate that has been woven around her life by that wicked Madame Lorraine." "I knew your sympathies would be drawn to this unhappy pair, Constance!" exclaimed the banker, fondly. But, alas! his story had been told too late. Morning found the young governess gone. She had left the house during their absence, and taken her trunks with her, flying like a thief in the night, not from pursuit, not from shame, but from a husband's love, the deepest, fondest, most passionate that ever thrilled a manly breast. "I must take the veil, then he will understand that all hope is indeed ended," she said, resolutely to herself. "I had no business returning here. Father Quentin told me it was wrong, but in my mad yearning to see his face, I would not listen. Now I must go back and stay there forever. Eliot will soon forget me, for it was more pity than love that he felt for me. When he realizes that all is irrevocably at an end between us, he will seek his freedom that he may return to his old love, his first love, Ida Hayes." With the thought of her rival, all the old-time bitter jealousy rushed over Una's heart, and she told herself that Eliot had never really loved any one but Ida, and that he could not but rejoice some day that fate had freed him from the incubus of Little Nobody. "I have spoiled his life for years, but at last he will be happy," she said, thinking bitterly of that year in which she had lived with Eliot, less to him, as she thought, than his sisters, or the governess even, wearing his name because it had been given not in love, but through an instinct of tender pity. She was older, wiser, now than she had been before Sylvie made that cruel revelation to her that winter night, and she chafed with shame at remembering the position she had filled in Eliot's home--that of a wife in name only, unloved and barely endured. "How they must have pitied and despised me!" she thought, with hot tears in her dark eyes as the express train rushed along through the night. "Ah, it is better, better for us both that things fell out as they did. I have a very jealous mind. I should never have forgotten that he loved Ida Hayes first, that he married me for pity's sake, so I never should have been quite sure of his heart. Ah, I wish--wish," with a choking sob, "that we had died together in madame's underground prison!" And in this wretched frame of mind, bitter and despairing, Una went away from Boston and her husband, back to the South and the Convent of Le Bon Berger. CHAPTER XLIII. Before the wedding-day rolled around Maud and her betrothed had persuaded Edith and Eliot to accompany them on their wedding-journey South. In fact, they were not hard to persuade, for Eliot, in a mood of desperation, felt almost ready to storm the convent walls and carry away his beloved, obdurate Una, while Edith was charmed at the idea of rushing so precipitately from the icy streets and freezing wind of Boston to the sunshine and flowers of a warmer clime. So, one bright March morning, about six years from the time of Eliot's former visit to New Orleans, the party found themselves driving through the streets of the Crescent City to the palatial home of Pierre Carmontelle, which, during the two months of his betrothal to Maud, had been elegantly refitted for his bride. New Orleans was in a great stir and bustle then, for it was the first year of the Southern Exposition. The city was crowded with visitors from all parts of the United States. Maud and Edith were charmed with the quaint old city, and the warm, sweet air, and took the greatest pleasure in threading the Exposition grounds, exclaiming with delight when now and then they encountered the familiar faces of Northern friends, sight-seeing like themselves. They were so busy daily "doing" the Exposition, that Eliot and Carmontelle did not get time to go down to the club, or they would have heard news that would have surprised them. It came upon them suddenly one day, when, on leaving the Exposition grounds, the four came face to face with an entering couple--M. Remond, the wicked Frenchman, and the no less wicked Mme. Lorraine. Madame was clinging to the arm of the dark-faced, elegant-looking Remond. She was in a tasteful Parisian costume, smiling and insolent, and looking not a day older than she did six years ago. When she met the startled regard of those four pairs of eyes, she uttered an exclamation of amazement, and her cheek momentarily whitened through its rouge. The next instant her insolent courage returned. She smiled a bright, cold, conventional smile, bowed, and passed quickly on with her companion. The others looked at each other with startled eyes. "What does it mean?" queried Eliot Van Zandt, hoarsely. "Let us call at the club to-night, and perhaps we can find out something," answered his brother-in-law. They went accordingly, and great was the sensation created among their old friends by their reappearance after the lapse of years. Markham, the bachelor, was there, with some crow's-feet about the eyes and gray hairs in his brown locks to attest the flight of time. When questioned about Remond and Mme. Lorraine, he replied, laughing: "Fancy their hardihood in coming here for their wedding-tour. They are married, you know." "No!" "Fact! It was announced in our papers two months ago. Married in Paris, and came here a week ago. I am told that they are staying at madame's house on Esplanade Street, but none of the Jockey Club has called on the wretches." "One there is who will call," Carmontelle said, boldly. "What say you, Van Zandt? Shall we go to Esplanade Street and have it out with that fiendish woman?" Eliot looked rather mystified, but he signified his assent. "I will go, but--when?" he asked, and his friend answered: "Now." "Oh, I say, lads, put it off till to-morrow," cried the gay Markham. "I should like to go and back you up in the row, but I have an engagement for this evening." "Sorry, but can't wait," Carmontelle answered. "Come, Eliot. Markham, adieu. You and the club will call at the Magnolias? Introduce you to my bride and her sister. Handsomest girls in Boston, and both geniuses." "Thank you--only too happy to accept your kind invitation," Mr. Markham said, genially; and then they were out in the street, bound for the presence of the woman who had wrought such woe to Eliot Van Zandt and his lovely bride. "Your object?" Eliot asked his friend, dubiously. "Can you not guess? She shall tell us the tale she told Una that night in Boston, and we shall be the judges as to whether the barrier is great enough to separate you and your wife forever. Who knows but that Una, in her strange commingling of pride and humility, may have exaggerated the trouble?" "I have always thought so--always believed that I could overthrow all her objections, and win her back if only I could have an interview with her again," Eliot said; then, sighing, "But I shall never have the chance. She will never come out of that grim convent again." "Who knows? We will hope so, anyhow;" and then they were silent until their carriage drew up before the front of madame's well-remembered house, once so familiar to the club in the days when she was such a fascinating siren and kept all her wickedness carefully hidden in the background. Lights glimmered brightly in the front of the house. The prim, ugly Mima opened the door to them and frowned darkly. Was Mme. Lorraine at home? She took their cards and said, curtly, that she would see if Mme. Remond was in. In another moment she came back and ushered them into the pretty salon. Remond was present, but retreated with a scowl upon their entrance. The bride, all in silvery white silk cut _décolleté_, with diamonds shimmering on arms and breast, rose smilingly and bowed. "This is an unexpected honor!" she said, with insolent _empressement_. "You know to what cause to attribute the honor," Pierre Carmontelle said, icily. "No," with a puzzled, inquiring tone; then, with a roguish ripple of laughter, "Ah, to congratulate me on my marriage, I suppose?" CHAPTER XLIV. "Scarcely," answered Carmontelle, dryly, for Eliot Van Zandt seemed to have no words at his command. He could only gaze in horror at the vindictive woman. The former went on curtly, and in tones of calm authority: "We are here, madame, to hear from your own lips the strange story with which you sundered two loving hearts five years ago." A sneer curled the lips of the handsome, heartless woman. "You use romantic phrases, monsieur," she said. "But true ones," he replied. "Well?" "We are waiting to hear the story you told Mr. Van Zandt's wife--the story that parted them," he answered again. She shot a quick, inquiring glance at Eliot's agitated face. "But you--you are divorced and married again, monsieur, are you not?" "No," he answered; "I shall never have any other wife but her whom you drove from me by your treachery that night." Madame was genuinely puzzled this time, for she exclaimed: "But Mrs. Bryant Van Zandt told me you hated Little Nobody, and would have married her sister Ida, only for the circumstances that forced you into a hated marriage." "It is false! I never loved Ida, nor one but the girl I made my wife!" exclaimed Eliot, indignantly; and his brother-in-law added: "He loved Una from the first time he met her here, and when she was imprisoned with him in your secret cellar, she must have died of starvation but that he opened a vein in his arm and fed the dying girl with his own blood. Does not that prove the love he had for his wife?" A bitter, ghastly change came over madame's rouged face, with a gasp, she reeled backward into a chair, and lifted her heavy eyes to Eliot's face. "You loved her like that?" she cried; "and I--oh, I believed that you hated her! I was so glad, so glad! But--yes, it is better so; my revenge is more complete, for I have made you both suffer where I believed that it was only her heart I broke!" "Fiend!" exclaimed Eliot. And Carmontelle echoed: "Fiend!" The angry woman only laughed mockingly, as she said: "Revenge is sweet! You scorned me, Eliot Van Zandt, for that slip of a girl, and now I have my pay!" And throwing back her handsome head against the silken back of her chair, she laughed low and exultantly. "We did not come here for recriminations, Madame Remond. We came, as I explained just now, to hear the story you told Una." "_Oui_, monsieur; but your friend there will be sorry when he hears it. In fact, his Una wished him never to know it," madame said, maliciously. "I have no doubt it was something very horrible, but doubtless it was an untruth. We wish to hear and judge for ourselves," was her opponent's undaunted reply. She glared at him, and muttered something uncomplimentary beneath her breath, but he continued, coolly: "Go on and tell us, please. We do not wish to detain your _estimable_ husband much longer from his amiable bride!" "Very well, then, since you will have it, here is Una's history in a nutshell: She is a child of shame." "You told me that once before; also, that she was your child, but I did not believe you," answered Carmontelle. She glared at him angrily, and said: "Well, part of it was untrue, but so much the worse for the girl. She might better be my child than the offspring of a slave with a taint of African blood in her veins!" "Woman!" Eliot had sprung at her fiercely and clutched her white shoulder in a grasp like steel. He shook her wildly in a tempest of rage. "Unsay that lie!" he hissed, fiercely, with blazing eyes. Madame turned, shrieking, to Carmontelle. "Make him take his hands off me!" she panted, in terror. "Do not let him kill me for telling the truth!" It looked indeed as if her life was in danger, for Eliot's face worked with fury, and sparks of fire seemed to flash from his angry eyes. It was with the greatest difficulty that Carmontelle dragged him away from the frightened woman and forced him into a seat. "Be calm," he said. "Do not let her lies put you into a passion." "Prove them lies if you can!" she screamed, losing her self-possession in anger at his incredulity. "I shall certainly endeavor to do so," he replied, calmly. "But go on; finish the details of your story. So our Una was a slave's child, you say? Who, then, was her father?" "You force me to disgrace the dead!" she flashed. "Very well, then, it was Monsieur Lorraine." "Lorraine dead?" he exclaimed. "Yes," sullenly. "I remember Lorraine well. He was an exceedingly homely man. Una does not resemble him in the least," said aggravating Carmontelle. Flashing him a fiery glance, she retorted: "No, but she resembles her mother, the beautiful quadroon whom he gave me for a maid when I came to this house a bride the last year of the war. Una was a pretty little infant then, and the young quadroon, in a fit of jealous fury, told me all. Lorraine whipped her cruelly, and in her rage she stabbed herself to death. The world says that I made him jealous and drove him mad, but it is untrue. Remorse over the quadroon's death drove him inside the walls of a lunatic asylum." She paused a moment, then added: "I have told you now the simple truth, the same that I told the girl in Boston. She is the daughter of Monsieur Lorraine and his beautiful slave, and was in infancy a slave herself, until the failure of the Southern Confederacy freed her in common with all the other slaves." She laughed aloud at the white horror of Eliot Van Zandt's face as he crouched upon a sofa at the further end of the room. "A slave's child the bride of one of the proud, highly born Van Zandts! I am well avenged!" she exclaimed, fiendishly. CHAPTER XLV. Carmontelle turned to his friend. "Poor Una!" he said; "it is no wonder she fled in dismay, after hearing such a tale of horror. Come, let us go. We have heard all that madame's malignity can invent to torture two loving hearts, and the only task that remains to us is to prove it false." "Which you will never do!" she exclaimed, with triumphant malice. "Time will prove," he retorted, as he led the agitated Van Zandt out of the house, ignoring the ceremony of adieus to its mistress. But his face grew very grave once they gained the darkness of the street. To himself he said, in alarm: "Can her tale be true? It sounded very plausible." To Eliot he said: "I shall put this affair in the hands of one who will sift it to the bottom. Then, if Madame Remond has lied to us, she shall suffer for her sin." "Poor Una! my poor little Una! How she must have suffered, bearing this bitter knowledge alone!" Eliot said, and a bursting sigh heaved his tortured breast. "She was a wise little girl, at all events," Carmontelle answered, gravely. "Of course, if madame's tale be true, there was no other way proper for either, cruel as it seems to say it." Eliot had no answer ready, but in his heart he knew that his friend spoke truly. Better, far better, that he and Una should suffer than to throw the blighting disgrace of his wife's parentage upon unborn descendants of the proud name of Van Zandt. He could hardly share the incredulity of Carmontelle. Madame's story had been so plausible it had shaken his doubts. Now, indeed, it seemed to him that all hope was over. He and Una were indeed parted forever. He went back to the Magnolias with his friend, and excusing himself from all society, went up to his room alone. He spent some time leaning from the window, his sad gaze roving over the moonlit city, thinking of Una, his lost bride, so near him that an hour's rapid walking would have borne him to her side, but sundered so widely apart from him by sorrow. There came to him in the stillness a memory of the song he had sung to her so often, and which she had loved so well, "The Two Little Lives." How well it fitted now! "Ah! for the morrow bringeth such sorrow, Captured the lark was, and life grew dim; There, too, the daisy torn from the way-side, Prisoned and dying wept for him Once more the lark sung; fainter his voice grew; Her little song was hushed and o'er; Two little lives gone out of the sunshine, Out of this bright world for evermore." "Poor little daisy!" Eliot sighed; then, bitterly, "Ah, if we had but died in prison that time, how blessed we should have been--never having this cruel knowledge to break our hearts!" He flung himself down on the bed and tried to sleep. A disturbed slumber, mixed with frightful dreams, came to him. His head was hot, and his thirst was excessive. He rose several times and groped his way to the ice-pitcher, drinking greedily, until at last he had drained it all. In the morning they found him there delirious. The old doctor shook his head. "Brain fever!" he said. "He has had some terrible shock, I think, from the symptoms. I shall send you a trained hospital nurse, Carmontelle, for there must be careful nursing here if we bring the poor fellow out alive." The nurse came, and was duly installed in his position, aided and abetted by Maud and Edith. Carmontelle, after a day or two, stole away from the house long enough to consult his family lawyer on the subject of ferreting to the bottom the story the wicked Mme. Remond had told him of Una's birth. At an early period of the narration of his story the lawyer became visibly excited. "Go on. Tell me everything," he said, nervously, and Carmontelle obeyed. When he had finished, Mr. Frayser cried out, eagerly: "Upon my soul, Carmontelle, I believe the good Lord himself has sent you to me. You know I was Lorraine's lawyer?" "I did not know it," was the answer. "Yes," said Mr. Frayser; "and my client died a few months ago, in an insane asylum." "So I was told by Madame Lorraine--or, as I should perhaps say, Remond." "Yes, she married that wretch some time ago, and they came on here after Lorraine's death, to look after his property." "Yes," said Carmontelle, rather indifferently. He was not much interested in the dead man's property. "Lorraine was immensely rich, you know," continued Frayser. "Madame thought she would step into the money without let or hinderance. She wanted to sell all the property in New Orleans and get away with the spoils." "Yes," absently. The little lawyer smiled. "Monsieur, you don't look much interested," he said; "but listen: Monsieur Lorraine left a box of private papers in my safe when he first employed me as his lawyer, at the time of his marriage to the actress. When I examined these papers, after his death, I found that the greater part of his wealth did not belong to him, but was held in trust for another person." "Another person!" Carmontelle echoed, brightening up with sudden curiosity. "A little child," continued Frayser, his little black eyes twinkling with fun at Carmontelle's eagerness. "Go on, go on." "It seems that Lorraine had an only sister who was married during the war to a very wealthy man, a colonel--_mon Dieu_! Carmontelle, what a coincidence! it was your own name--he was a Colonel Carmontelle!" "And lived in Alabama--and was killed in battle just before the close of the war. He was my cousin!" exclaimed Carmontelle, excitedly. "The same," replied the lawyer. "Well, his death was such a shock to his young wife that, when her little one was born, a month later, she died--of heart-break, or, at least, so say the letters of her friends, that were written from Alabama to summon him to come for the little orphan heiress." "Una!" exclaimed Carmontelle, radiantly. "Most likely," said the lawyer, smiling. "But permit me to go on with my prosaic story. According to these private papers, some of which are in the form of memorandums, Lorraine brought the babe to New Orleans with its negro nurse, and very soon afterward married, more for the child's sake than his own, and went to housekeeping on Esplanade Street." "All is clear as day. Thank the good God, Una's stainless parentage is established, and I will go this day and bring her to the side of her suffering husband," Carmontelle exclaimed, joyously. "I think you may safely do so," smiled the delighted lawyer. "But I have still more to tell you. The physician in charge at the asylum where Lorraine died wrote to me to come and make preparations for his burial. I went and heard a strange story. Lorraine, in his last illness, had recovered his reason and memory. He had dictated and signed a paper to be given to me. You shall read it yourself." He brought out from his desk the paper, and Carmontelle eagerly ran over the contents. Briefly, it was to the effect that Lorraine, just previous to the insanity that had overtaken him, had found out that his wife was false to him, and that she had married him only for the money which she believed to be his own. Realizing suddenly that he had made no arrangements by which his little niece would receive her inheritance, should he be suddenly stricken by death, and fearful of Mme. Lorraine's treachery in the matter, he had executed a will in which he left to the little Mary Carmontelle the whole of his own small patrimony, together with the wealth of her dead father. He had hidden the will in the library, intending to place it in Frayser's care, but his mind had suddenly gone wrong with the stress of trouble, and his removal by his wife to an insane asylum had put a sudden end to everything. "Madame knows all this?" Carmontelle queried, looking up from the paper. "Yes; for I confronted her with it when she came to me to settle up the property. She was as bold as brass, and declared that the child had died in infancy. I made a search in the library, all the same, for the missing will, but it could not be found. Doubtless that wicked woman has destroyed it. I would not take her word that the little heiress was dead, as she could offer no proof at all except the word of that grim maid-servant of hers, so I have been advertising in a number of papers for the child or young lady, as she is now, if living. You will see from that paper that I am appointed her guardian until her marriage." "She has been married nearly six years. Dear little Una! she is my cousin, and the name I gave her when I adopted her as my daughter was really her own. It is the oddest thing, too, that the nuns at the convent baptized her Marie, her own name, but in the French form. Fact is certainly stranger than fiction!" exclaimed Maud's husband, in wonder and delight. "It is wonderful, certainly," agreed Frayser, "and your visit to me to-day is one of the most wonderful things about it. I was beginning to give up all hope of finding the missing heiress, and Mme. Remond and her rascally husband were pressing me so furiously that I was beginning to fear I must make some concessions to them. But now all is made plain, and I can lay my hand on Lorraine's niece and heiress and oust her enemy from the place she has usurped so long. But I must tell you one thing, unless that missing will can be found, the ex-actress will make us trouble yet over Mrs. Van Zandt's inheritance." "Never mind about the will now. What is money when it lies in our power to reunite the crushed hearts of that long-parted husband and wife. Let us get into my carriage and go and fetch Una away from her convent to the side of her sick husband!" cried Carmontelle. "Agreed with all my heart!" answered Frayser. CHAPTER XLVI. Carmontelle found, as once before, his old acquaintance with the mother superior at the convent of good avail in securing admittance. The good woman met him in some wonder, and bowed stiffly to the little lawyer, who was looking about him in a good deal of curiosity. "What is the meaning of this visit?" she inquired, with calm dignity, although perfectly certain that it related to Una. She was not mistaken, for he immediately asked for her, and was told that Una would receive no one. "She is constantly engaged in devotion, fitting herself to retire forever from the world." "She will have to let the devotions go, and return to the world," Carmontelle answered, bluntly. "Monsieur!" reproachfully. "I mean what I say," he replied, earnestly. "I have to-day made discoveries that prove her the daughter of honorable parents--also heiress to a large fortune. There is nothing now to prevent her return to the world and to her husband, who has suffered so much from their separation." Madame, the superior, was unaffectedly happy at hearing this news. "Thank _le bon Dieu_ that it is so!" she exclaimed. "Oh, how the poor little one has suffered, believing the falsehood of wicked Madame Lorraine." She went hurriedly to seek Una with the joyful tidings, but it was some time before she returned. In truth, Una had been almost overcome by the shock of joy after the long night of sorrow and despair. "I am not the child of infamy! The blood that flows through my veins is noble and untainted! Heaven, I thank Thee!" cried the tortured girl, falling down upon her knees and hiding her face in her hands as she leaned forward upon her low cot bed. To the good nun's announcement that she was an heiress, she had paid no attention, everything else being swallowed up in the glad news that her birth was honorable. After the sorrow and despair she had experienced such a revulsion of feeling, such intense happiness rushed over her that her senses for a moment succumbed to the shock, and the nun, bending forward to look at her, presently found she had quietly fainted. The application of a little cold water soon revived her, and the mother superior exclaimed, cheerfully: "Oh, fy! my dear, I did not know that you would take my good news so ill, or I would have broken it to you more carefully." "Tell me more. What is my name? Who are my kinspeople, and why was I left so long to the cruel mercy of Madame Lorraine?" exclaimed Una, eagerly. "Come with me. Our old friend, Pierre Carmontelle, is down-stairs. He will tell you all." "Monsieur Carmontelle! He has always been my friend," cried the girl, thinking remorsefully of the way she had snubbed him that day in Boston when he had followed her to the banker's gate, frightened because she feared he would betray her to Eliot. Now she ran joyfully to his presence, and he started in surprise at her wondrous beauty that shone star-like from its setting of simple convent black. "Heavens, Una! how lovely you have grown!" he exclaimed, gayly. "I may take the privilege of praising you, although you are a married woman, since you are my kinswoman by two distinct ties." "Your kinswoman!" the girl echoed, amazedly, and he explained, laughingly: "You are my cousin's daughter for one thing, and for the other you are my sister-in-law." "What can you mean?" "I married Maud Van Zandt two weeks ago," he replied. The warm color came rushing into Una's pale cheeks. "Oh!" she cried, "how happy you make me. And dear Maud--is she here?" "She is at my home, the Magnolias. Have you any one else to ask about, _belle cousine_?" chaffingly. "E--dith?" falteringly, and blushing up to her eyes. "Edith is at the Magnolias, too. Ah, I see your eyes asking me about some one else. No wonder you are ashamed to speak his name after the shameful way you have treated him. Well, I will be generous, Mrs. Van Zandt. Eliot--ah! now I see how you can blush--is also at my home, and presently I am going to take another guest to the Magnolias--even yourself." "Not--not until you tell me all!" the girl faltered, trembling with such happiness that she could scarcely speak. So, then and there he told her all the story of Mme. Lorraine's treachery and cupidity--told her everything, except the story of Eliot's illness that might possibly terminate fatally, and so wreck the happy ending of their checkered love story. When he had finished the story, with the aid of the little lawyer, who was charmed with the beauty of the young heiress, he said, kindly: "Will you come with me to the Magnolias, now, Una?" She looked radiantly at the nun, who answered, with genuine happiness: "Of course she will, monsieur, as soon as she retires to her room and assumes her worldly garb. I am sorry to lose our sweet Una, but not selfish enough to regret her good fortune that has made it possible for her to be happy once more in the world. I see plainly that Heaven did not intend for her to be a nun." Father Quentin began to believe this, too, when she withdrew to acquaint him with the startling news, and when Una came down, after laying off her convent dress forever, in hat and cloak, to depart from Le Bon Berger, the old priest's aged hands were laid solemnly on her golden head a moment, and his quavering old voice tenderly blessed her and commended her to the care of Heaven. All the nuns and convent pupils were assembled to bid her adieu, and followed by their tears and blessings, Una went away with Carmontelle, her new-found kinsman, to the Magnolias. CHAPTER XLVII. No one met them in the library, to which he conducted Una. Maud and Edith were upstairs in close attendance upon Eliot. Carmontelle saw that the girl was trembling with nervous excitement, and brought her a sedative to drink. "No one knows anything yet?" she asked him. "No; and I am going to let you rest and recover yourself first, before I bring Maud and Edith to you; and Eliot you shall see last of all." He left her waiting there, and went upstairs to break the news to his young wife and Edith. Eliot was still delirious, and carefully watched by his attentive nurse. He beckoned the girls into another room, and told them everything, then stood smiling at their tears of joy. "Eliot will get well now with his wife come home to him," he said. "So run down to the library like good girls now, and kiss your sister Una, and break the news of Eliot's illness to her as gently as you can." They needed no second bidding, but flew softly to the library, and Una soon found herself in danger of being smothered in the energetic clasp of four round white arms, while dual tears and kisses fell on her golden head and lovely face. Una was glad, more glad than words could tell, at this happy meeting, but when the first joy was past, her dark eyes wandered eagerly toward the door. The two sisters understood. "You are looking for Eliot, dear," said Maud. "He can not come to you now, dear. You see, the poor boy is sick--he has had such trouble over losing you, Una--but now he will get well. You shall help us to nurse him back to health." And so, in gentle tones, they broke to her the news of Eliot's illness, and presently carried her off with them to look at him where he lay, with burning eyes and crimson face, among his pillows. But he did not recognize the fair young wife who looked at him with eyes full of love and grief, and pressed passionate lips on his hot brow. He only smiled vacantly, and turning from her, began to talk in his restless delirium, strange, disconnected, meaningless phrases that struck dismay to Una's heart, and chilled the blood in her young veins. "He will never get well; he will die, my love, my darling, my husband!" she cried out, shrilly, in sudden terror and despair. And Eliot turned his heavy head toward her, as if some chord of memory had been struck by her voice, and began to babble of other things--of the dark days of imprisonment in the cellar-room of the house on Esplanade Street, of the beloved little companion who had shared those horrors, and whose life he had saved by that desperate deed of self-sacrifice. She stood listening with dark, dilated eyes, hearing for the first time how her life had been saved that night. Carmontelle was standing close by her side. She turned her dark, amazed, tear-wet eyes on his face, and murmured hoarsely: "Is it truth, or the ravings of fever and delirium?" "It is truth," he answered; and, with a wild, remorseful cry, Una ran out of the room. He followed her into the next apartment. She had thrown herself into a chair, and was sobbing wildly. "Una, why do you take it so hard?" he expostulated. "Surely, no wife could object to such devoted love!" She looked up at him with agonized entreaty in her eyes. "Was it love, or--pity?" she cried. "I--I thought--Sylvie Van Zandt told me so--that he loved Ida Hayes before he ever met me, and would have married her but for that--trouble--that forced him to make me his wife." "It was a fiendish falsehood!" declared Carmontelle, emphatically. "Eliot never thought of Ida Hayes. He loved you from the first moment he saw you." "Ignorant Little Nobody as I was?" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Yes; ignorant Little Nobody that you were!" he replied, smiling. "He told me before he married you how glad he was that a strange fate had given you to his keeping. You were destined for my bride, you know, and Van Zandt, being poor, would not tell his love until that happy accident gave you to his arms." She exclaimed remorsefully: "Oh, what a wretch I was to believe Sylvie and doubt my noble husband! I thought, when I ran away, that he would get a divorce and marry Ida. But he loved me all the time, my noble darling! Oh, if I had known before that it was his precious life-current he gave me to drink, that time when we both believed I was dying, all would have been so different. I could not then have doubted his fidelity. No wonder I could not keep from loving him all the time, when it was his own life flowing in my veins and keeping me faithful to my husband." "Do not blame yourself for doubting him; it was but natural, my dear," said her cousin. "Mrs. Bryant Van Zandt is the only one to blame. She hated you because you spoiled her match-making. But now you will have your revenge on that treacherous doll. You will be much richer than she is, and can queen it over Sylvie and Ida in royal fashion." She smiled through her tears, but answered: "I do not care for the money, only to make dear Eliot rich. Oh, cousin, do you think he will get well? Heaven would not be so cruel as to take him from me now!" "I trust, indeed, that he will be spared to us," Carmontelle answered, evasively, for he was secretly alarmed at Eliot's condition. But he would not communicate his fears to the alarmed wife and sisters, only enjoined them to be careful and watchful over Eliot. Indeed, he himself often shared the vigils of the nurse, who was a rather old-looking man, and inclined to resent the aid he received from the family, declaring that he could care for his patient better alone. Una had taken a distaste to the nurse from the first, and her unaccountable aversion increased as Eliot grew no better with the lapse of days, and showed no sign of recognition of the dear ones who surrounded him. Carmontelle spoke to the doctor about the cross nurse, but he only laughed, and said that nurses were always jealous of interference with their patients, and that the man was splendid in his vocation; so Una tried to dismiss her antipathy to him as unjust and unfounded. But one night the physician declared that he saw a change in his patient--a crisis was approaching, and he hoped the change would be for the better. He left, promising to return at midnight, and enjoining the utmost quiet and care in the sick-room, so that Eliot might not be aroused from the deep slumber into which he had fallen. When he had gone, Johnson, the nurse, declared that he must have the sick-room alone with his patient. "The crisis is all-important," he said. "When he awakens it will be to life or death, and in spite of Doctor Pomeroy's flattering words, I fear it will be death. When he wakes, I must be alone with him that he may not be excited and frightened by your anxious faces. I hope you will all go to your rooms and rest. I will call each one immediately upon the slightest change in the patient." They all promised, but Una's pledge was most reluctant. She looked pleadingly at Johnson, and he returned her gaze sullenly, as it seemed to her, through the goggle glasses he wore. She went to her own room, just a little lower down the hall, and sat down at the window, consumed with suspense and restlessness. The hours passed slowly, drearily, and at last she could bear the torture of her thoughts no longer. "I will go to the room next to Eliot's and wait. No one will see or hear me, and it can do no harm," she thought. Wrapping a dark shawl about her shoulders, for the midnight hour was chilly, Una glided like a spirit along the dark corridor until she gained the little ante-chamber next to the sick-room. The outer door was ajar, and also the one that opened into Eliot's room. The anxious young wife moved softly across the soundless carpet and peered around the door. Then her shriek of terror, fear, and agony rang shrilly through the house. CHAPTER XLVIII. That agonized shriek brought Pierre Carmontelle rushing from his room, followed by Maud, while Edith came from another direction, and men-servants and maid-servants came flying up the stairs, all with one thought in their minds. The sufferer was dead, and that bitter cry had come from the lips of the bereaved young wife. But when they rushed into the room, a tragic scene greeted their eyes. Una, in the center of the floor, was struggling heroically with a man, who was holding a pillow over her face and head, and on the floor lay a gray wig and beard and goggle glasses. Una's assailant was Louis Remond. One fierce blow from Carmontelle's fist knocked the villain down, and before he could rise, an emphatic kick temporarily relieved him of consciousness. Two men-servants, comprehending the scene with uncommon rapidity, dragged the wretch out into the corridor and speedily bound him hand and foot. In the meantime, Una, from the bedside to which she had instantly flown, was explaining, through hushed sobs: "I peeped in at the door, and Johnson was holding a pillow down over Eliot's face. I screamed, and he rushed at me with the pillow, and would have smothered me in another instant but for your entrance." "The hound!" Carmontelle said, fiercely; then, kicking the disguises into view, he said: "These must have been knocked off in the scuffle. Johnson was Louis Remond in disguise." Una shuddered, then turned toward the bed. She stifled a cry of unutterable joy. Eliot was unharmed, for at that instant he opened his eyes naturally, like one awaking from a long sleep, and their calm, steady gaze rested on that lovely, agitated face with its dark, loving eyes and the golden hair shadowing the wan temples. "Una, darling!" he said, not as one surprised or excited, but gently and quietly, as one who has been very sick always accepts even the strangest things as a matter of course. The crisis had passed, and Eliot and Una had escaped the malignancy of the two enemies who sought their lives, for a plot was unearthed that night that led to the conviction of Mme. Remond as well as her husband. She was found in the house, in the guise of a female servant, and had arranged to take Una's life that night, by means of poison in her drinking-water, while Remond, who had bribed the hospital nurse, and so usurped his place, was to smother Eliot with a pillow. Fortunately, the cruel conspiracy was discovered and averted, and the two conspirators were soon tried, convicted, and sentenced to a long term in the penitentiary. Madame died before her term expired, but Remond escaped from prison and made his way out of the country, never returning to it, through fear of apprehension. At Mme. Remond's trial, when she found that everything was going against her, she sullenly confessed that she lied when she tried to palm off upon Una the story that she was of shameful parentage. "I thought, when I married Lorraine, that all the money was his, and I hated him and the heiress, too, when I found out the real truth. I only wish I had killed her when she was a baby, then all this trouble had been avoided," she said, with vindictive frankness. Eliot convalesced very fast, to the great delight of Una and the family, and one day, when the little lawyer had fretted over the missing will of M. Lorraine, she said to her husband: "Tell me what a legal document looks like?" He described it to her, and her eyes grew bright with excitement. "Eliot, you remember the great dictionary in which you showed me the definition of Friend, that first night we met? Well, there was just such a paper in that book, and if it has escaped madame's search, is there yet, and may prove to be the missing will." Her surmise was correct, and the lawyer was very happy when he got the legal document into his hands. It proved Una, beyond a doubt, Colonel Carmontelle's daughter, and the richest heiress in New Orleans. "But you loved me, Eliot, when I was only Little Nobody. I shall always be prouder of that, darling, than of my wealth," said happy Una. THE END. THE HART SERIES Laura Jean Libbey Charlotte M. Braeme Miss Caroline Hart Barbara Howard Lucy Randall Comfort Mrs. E. Burke Collins Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller Mary E. Bryan Marie Corelli Was there ever a galaxy of names representing such authors offered to the public before? Masters all of writing stories that arouse the emotions, in sentiment, passion and love, their books excel any that have ever been written. NOW READY 1--Kidnapped at the Altar, Laura Jean Libbey. 2--Gladiola's Two Lovers, Laura Jean Libbey. 3--Lil, the Dancing Girl, Caroline Hart. 5--The Woman Who Came Between, Caroline Hart. 6--Aleta's Terrible Secret, Laura Jean Libbey. 7--For Love or Honor, Caroline Hart. 8--The Romance of Enola, Laura Jean Libbey. 9--A Handsome Engineer's Flirtation, Laura J. Libbey. 10--A Little Princess, Caroline Hart. 11--Was She Sweetheart or Wife, Laura Jean Libbey. 12--Nameless Bess, Caroline Hart. 13--Della's Handsome Lover, Laura Jean Libbey. 14--That Awful Scar, Caroline Hart. 15--Flora Garland's Courtship, Laura Jean Libbey. 16--Love's Rugged Path, Caroline Hart. 17--My Sweetheart Idabell, Laura Jean Libbey. 18--Married at Sight, Caroline Hart. 19--Pretty Madcap Dorothy, Laura Jean Libbey. 20--Her Right to Love, Caroline Hart. 21--The Loan of a Lover, Laura Jean Libbey. 22--The Game of Love, Caroline Hart. 23--A Fatal Elopement, Laura Jean Libbey. 24--Vendetta, Marie Corelli. 25--The Girl He Forsook, Laura Jean Libbey. 26--Redeemed by Love, Caroline Hart. 28--A Wasted Love, Caroline Hart. 29--A Dangerous Flirtation, Laura Jean Libbey. 30--A Haunted Life, Caroline Hart. 31--Garnetta, the Silver King's Daughter, L. J. Libbey. 32--A Romance of Two Worlds, Marie Corelli. 34--Her Ransom, Charles Garvice. 36--A Hidden Terror, Caroline Hart. 37--Flora Temple, Laura Jean Libbey. 38--Claribel's Love Story, Charlotte M. Braeme. 39--Pretty Rose Hall, Laura Jean Libbey. 40--The Mystery of Suicide Place, Mrs. Alex. Miller. 41--Cora, the Pet of the Regiment, Laura Jean Libbey. 42--The Vengeance of Love, Caroline Hart. 43--Jolly Sally Pendleton, Laura Jean Libbey. 44--A Bitter Reckoning, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 45--Kathleen's Diamonds, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 46--Angela's Lover, Caroline Hart. 47--Lancaster's Choice, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 48--The Madness of Love, Caroline Hart. 49--Little Sweetheart, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 50--A Working Girl's Honor, Caroline Hart. 51--The Mystery of Colde Fell, Charlotte M. Braeme. 52--The Rival Heiresses, Caroline Hart. 53--Little Nobody, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 54--Her Husband's Ghost, Mary E. Bryan. 55--Sold for Gold, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 56--Her Husband's Secret, Lucy Randall Comfort. 57--A Passionate Love, Barbara Howard. 58--From Want to Wealth, Caroline Hart. 59--Loved You Better Than You Knew, Mrs. A. Miller. 60--Irene's Vow, Charlotte M. Braeme. 61--She Loved Not Wisely, Caroline Hart. 62--Molly's Treachery, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 63--Was It Wrong? Barbara Howard. 64--The Midnight Marriage, Mrs. Sumner Hayden. 65--Ailsa, Wenona Gilman. 66--Her Dark Inheritance, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 67--Viola's Vanity, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller. 68--The Ghost of the Hurricane Hills, Mary E. Bryan. 69--A Woman Wronged, Caroline Hart. 70--Was She His Lawful Wife? Barbara Howard. 71--Val, the Tomboy, Wenona Gilman. 72--The Richmond Secret, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 73--Edna's Vow, Charlotte M. Stanley. 74--Heart's of Fire, Caroline Hart. 75--St. Elmo, Augusta J. Evans. 76--Nobody's Wife, Caroline Hart. 77--Ishmael, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. 78--Self-Raised, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. 79--Pretty Little Rosebud, Barbara Howard. 80--Inez, Augusta J. Evans. 81--The Girl Wife, Mrs. Sumner Hayden. 82--Dora Thorne, Charlotte M. Braeme. 83--Followed by Fate, Lucy Randall Comfort. 84--India, or the Pearl of Pearl River, Southworth. 85--Mad Kingsley's Heir, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 86--The Missing Bride, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. 87--Wicked Sir Dare, Charles Garvice. 88--Daintie's Cruel Rivals, Mrs. Alex. McV. Miller. 89--Lillian's Vow, Caroline Hart. 90--Miss Estcourt, Charles Garvice. 91--Beulah, Augusta J. Evans. 92--Daphane's Fate, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 93--Wormwood, Marie Corelli. 94--Nellie, Charles Garvice. 95--His Legal Wife, Mary E. Bryan. 96--Macaria, Augusta J. Evans. 97--Lost and Found, Charlotte M. Stanley. 98--The Curse of Clifton, Mrs. Southworth. 99--That Strange Girl, Charles Garvice. 100--The Lovers at Storm Castle, Mrs. M. A. Collins. 101--Margerie's Mistake, Lucy Randall Comfort. 102--The Curse of Pocahontas, Wenona Gilman. 103--My Love Kitty, Charles Garvice. 104--His Fairy Queen, Elizabeth Stiles. 105--From Worse than Death, Caroline Hart. 106--Audrey Fane's Love, Mrs. E. Burke Collins. 107--Thorns and Orange Blossoms, Charlotte Braeme. 108--Ethel Dreeme, Frank Corey. 109--Three Girls, Mary E. Bryan. 110--A Strange Marriage, Caroline Hart. 111--Violet, Charles Garvice. 112--The Ghost of the Power, Mrs. Sumner Hayden. 113--Baptised with a Curse, Edith Stewart Drewry. 114--A Tragic Blunder, Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron. 115--The Secret of Her Life, Edward Jenkins. 116--My Guardian, Ada Cambridge. 117--A Last Love, Georges Ohnet. 118--His Angel, Henry Herman. 119--Pretty Miss Bellew, Theo. Gift. 120--Blind Love, Wilkie Collins. 121--A Life's Mistake, Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron. 122--Won By Waiting, Edna Lyall. 123--Passion's Slave, King. 124--Under Currents, Duchess. 125--False Vow, Braeme. 126--The Belle of Lynne, Braeme. 127--Lord Lynne's Choice, Braeme. 128--Blossom and Fruit, Braeme. 129--Weaker Than a Woman, Braeme. 130--Tempest and Sunshine, Mary J. Holmes. 131--Lady Muriel's Secret, Braeme. 132--A Mad Love, Braeme. The Hart Series books are for sale everywhere, or they will be sent by mail, postage paid, for 30 cents a copy by the publisher; 4 copies for $1.00. Postage stamps taken the same as money. THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. Transcriber's Notes: Added table of contents. Italics are represented with _underscores_. Several instances of the word "eat" being used where "ate" would seem more appropriate have been retained from the original. Page 14, changed "beauiful" to "beautiful." Page 59, added missing quote before "_Ciel_!" Page 69, changed "thinkng" to "thinking." Page 73, changed "and" to "an" in "chirped an 'oh!'" Page 83, changed "soemthing" to "something" ("something very strange"). Page 92, corrected end punctuation from period to question mark and added missing quote after "opening of the hidden door." Page 95, changed "sight" to "sigh" in "sigh of dismay." Page 126, corrected "Eilot" to "Eliot" in first line of chapter XXVIII. Page 130, corrected "he" to "she" in "under which she had chafed." Page 132, corrected "ready" to "read" in "read her whole chapters." Page 133, removed duplicate "the" from "the the dark eyes only looked." Page 135, changed "more sense that" to "more sense than." Page 136, changed "went down-staris" to "went down-stairs." Page 146, removed extraneous period after "too fine for Eliot's wife." Page 148, added missing period after "half-frightened tone." Back cover advertisement, normalized punctuation. Corrected "Barabara" to "Barbara" in #57. Corrected "Gorvice" to "Garvice" in #90. 
61344	----	generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 61344-h.htm or 61344-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61344/61344-h/61344-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61344/61344-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/happyisles00king_0 THE HAPPY ISLES [Illustration] * * * * * * _BOOKS BY BASIL KING_ _The Happy Isles_ _The Dust Flower_ _The Thread of Flame_ _The City of Comrades_ _Abraham's Bosom_ _The Empty Sack_ _Going West_ _The Side of the Angels_ _Harper & Brothers Publishers_ * * * * * * [Illustration: "THEY'LL SAY I STOLE HIM. IT'LL BE TWENTY YEARS FOR ME"] THE HAPPY ISLES by BASIL KING Author of "The Empty Sack," "The Inner Shrine," "The Dust Flower," etc. With Illustrations by John Alonzo Williams [Illustration] Publishers Harper & Brothers New York and London MCMXXIII THE HAPPY ISLES Copyright, 1923 By Harper & Brothers Printed in the U.S.A. First Edition K-X ILLUSTRATIONS "They'll Say I Stole Him. It'll Be Twenty Years for Me" _Frontispiece_ "That's a Terr'ble Big Wad for a Boy Like You to Wear" _Facing p._ 158 "Get Up, I Tell You" " 298 Mrs. Ansley Took Him as an Affliction " 362 THE HAPPY ISLES The Happy Isles Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on, Day and night, and night and day.... --Shelley. I At eight months of age his only experience of life had been one of well-being. He was fed when hungry; he slept when sleepy; he woke when he had slept enough. When bored or annoyed or uneasy he could cry. If crying brought him attentions it was that much to the good; if the effort was thrown away it did no one any harm. Even when least fertile of results it was a change from the crowing and gurgling which were all he had to distract him when left to his own company. Though his mind worked in co-operation with the subconscious more than with the conscious, it worked actively. In waking minutes there was everything to observe and register. His intimate needs being met, there were the phenomena of light and darkness. He knew not only the difference between them, but in a general way when to expect the turn of each. He knew that light brought certain formalities, chiefly connected with his person, and that darkness brought certain others. The reasons remained obscure, but the variety was pleasing. Then there was the room, or rather the spectacular surroundings of his universe. The nursery was his earth, his atmosphere, his firmament, the ether in which his heavenly bodies went rolling away into the infinite. And, just as with grown-up people, the nearness and distance of Mars or Sirius or Betelgueuse have gone through experimental stages of guesswork first and calculation afterwards, so the exact location of the wardrobe, the table, or the mantelpiece, was a subject for endless wonderment. At times they were apparently so close that he would put out his hand to touch them from his crib; but at once they receded, fixing themselves against the light-blue walls, home of a menagerie of birds and animals, with something between him and them which he was learning to recognize as space. There was also motion. Certain things remained in place; other things could move. He himself could move, but that was so near the fundamental necessities as hardly to call for notice. True, there were discoveries even here. The day when he learned that once his legs were freed he could lie on his back and kick was one of emancipation. In finding that he could catch his foot with his hands and put it in his mouth he made his first advance in skill. But there was motion superior to this. There were beings who walked about the room, who entered it and left it. Merely to watch their goings and comings sent spasms through his feet. Little by little he had come to discern in these creatures a difference in function and personality. Enormous in size, irresistible in strength, they were nevertheless his satellites. One of them supplied his wants; another worshipped him; the third lifted him up, carried him about, tickled him deliciously with his mustache or his bushy outstanding eyebrows, and otherwise entertained him. For the first his tongue essayed the syllables, Na-Na; for the second his lips rose and fell with an explosive Ma-Ma; the last sent his tongue clicking toward the roof of his mouth in the harsher sound of Da-Da; and yet between these efforts and the accomplishment there was still some lack of correspondence. Of his many enthralling interests speech was the most magical. In his analysis of life it came to him early that these coughings and barkings and gruntings were meant to express thought. He himself had thoughts. What he lacked was the connection of the sounds with the ideas, and of this he was not unaware. They supposed him a little animal who could only eat and sleep, when all the while he was listening, recording, distinguishing, defining, correlating the syllable with the thing that was evidently meant, so that later he should astonish his circle by uttering a word. It was a stimulating game and in it his daily progress was not far short of marvelous. If the nursery was his universe, his crib was his private domain, cushioned and soft, and as spotless as an ermine's nest. It was a joy to wake up in it, and equally a joy to go to sleep. Joy, Tenderness, and Comfort, were the only elements in life with which he was acquainted. Thriving on them as he throve on the carefully prepared formulas of his food, he grew in the spirit without obstacles to struggle with, as his body grew in the sunlight and the air. By the time he had reached the May morning on which his story begins he had come to take Comfort, Tenderness, and Joy, as life's essentials. Never having known anything else, he had no suspicion that anything else would lurk within the possible. The ritual that attended his going out was as much a matter of course to him as a red carpet to tread on is to a queen. He took it for granted that, when he had been renewed by bottle and bath, she for whom he tried to say Na-Na would be in a flutter of preparation, while she whose sweet smile forced the Ma-Ma to his lips would put a little coat on his back, a little cap on his head, little mittens on his hands, and smother him with adoration all the time she was doing it. On this particular morning these things had been done. Nestled into a canopied crib on wheels, he was ready for the two gigantic ministrants whom he could not yet distinguish as the first and second footmen. These colossi lifted his vehicle down the steps, to set it on the pavement of Fifth Avenue, where for the time being dramatic episodes were at an end. The town didn't interest him. Moreover, a filmy curtain, to protect him against flies as well as against too much sun, having shut him in from the vastness of the scene, he had nothing to do but let himself be lulled to his customary slumber. II Miss Nash, the baby carriage in front of her, furrowed a way through the traffic of the avenue, relatively scant in those days, and reaching the safety of the other side passed within the Park. She was a trained child's-nurse, and wore a uniform. England being at that time the only source of this specialty, examples in New York were limited to the heirs-apparent of the noble families. Between a nursemaid and a trained child's-nurse you will notice the same distinction as between a lady's maid and a princess's lady-in-waiting. Having entered the Park, Miss Nash stopped the carriage to lift the veil protecting her charge. He was already beyond the noises and distractions of the planet in his rosy, heavenly sleep. Miss Nash smiled wistfully, because it was the only way in which she could smile at all. A superior woman by nature, she clung to that refinement which best expresses itself in something melancholic. Daughter of a solicitor's clerk and niece to a curate, she felt her status as a lady most fittingly preserved in an atmosphere delicate, subdued, and rather sad. And yet when she looked on her little boy asleep she was no longer superior, and scarcely so much as a lady. She was only a woman enraptured before one of those babies so compact of sweetness, affection, and intelligence that they tug at the heartstrings. She was on her guard as to loving her children overmuch, since it made it so hard to give them up when the minute for doing so arrived; but with this little fellow no guard had been effective. Whether he crowed, or cried, or kicked, or snuggled in her arms to croon with her in baby tunelessness, she found him adorable. But when he was asleep, chubby, seraphic, so awesomely undefiled, she was sure that his spirit had withdrawn from her for a little while to commune with the angels. "No," she confessed one day to her friend, Miss Etta Messenger, the only other uniformed child's nurse among her acquaintance in New York, "it won't do. I must break myself. I shall have to leave him some day. But I do envy the mother who will have him always." "It don't pay you," Miss Messenger declared, as one who has had experience. "Anyone, I always say, can hire my services; but my affections remain my own. Now this little girl I'm with while I'm in New York, I could leave her to-morrow without a pang if--but then I've got something to leave her _for_." "And what does he say to things now?" Miss Nash inquired, with selfless interest in her friend's drama. Miss Messenger answered, judicially, "I've put it to him straight. I've told him he must simply fix a date to marry me, or give me up. As I know he simply won't give me up--you never knew a fellow so wild about a girl as he is about me...." The fortnight which had intervened between that conversation and the morning when our little boy's story opens had given time for Miss Messenger's affairs to take another turn. In the hope of learning the details of this turn Miss Nash sought a corner of the Park, not much frequented by nursemaids, where she and Miss Messenger often met, but Etta was not there. Drawing the carriage within the shade of a miniature grove of lilacs in perfumed flower, Miss Nash once more lifted the veil, wiped the precious mouth, and adjusted the coverlet outside which lay the mittened baby hands. Since there was no more to be done, she sat down on a convenient bench to her reading of _Juliet Allingham's Sin_. In the scene where the lover drowns she became so absorbed as not to notice that on a bench on the other side of a lilac bush Miss Messenger came and installed herself and her baby carriage in the shade of a near-by fan-shaped elm, bronze-green in its young leafage. Miss Nash looked up only when, her emotions having grown so poignant, she could read no more. She was drying her eyes when, through the branches of the lilac, the flutter of a nurse's cape told her that her friend must have arrived. "Why, Etta!" On going round the barrier she found herself greeted by what she had come to call Etta's fighting eyes. They were fine flashing black eyes, set in a face which Miss Nash was further accustomed to describe as "high-complexioned." Miss Messenger spoke listlessly, and yet as one who knew her mind. "I saw you. I thought I wouldn't interrupt. I haven't very good news." Miss Nash glided to a seat beside her friend, seizing both her hands. "Oh, my dear, he hasn't----?" "That's just what he has." Etta nodded, drily. "Bring your baby round here and I'll tell you." But Miss Nash couldn't wait. "He's all right there. He's sound asleep. I'll hear him if he stirs. Do tell me what's happened." "Well, he simply says that if that's the way I feel perhaps we'd better call it off." "And are you going to?" Etta's eyes blazed with their black flames. "Call it off? Me? Not much, I won't." "Still if he won't fix a date...." "He'll jolly well fix a date--or meet me in the court." "Oh, but, Etta, you wouldn't...." "I don't say I would for choice. There are two or three other things I could do, and I think I'll try them first." "What sort of things?" In the answer to that question Miss Nash was even more absorbed than in Juliet Allingham's sin. Juliet Allingham was after all but a creature of the brain; whereas Etta Messenger's adventures might conceivably be her own. It was not merely some one else's love story that held her imagination in thrall; it was the possibility that one of these days she, Milly Nash, might have a man playing fast and loose with her heart's purest offering.... III Anyone closely watching the strange woman would have said that her first care was not to seem distraught; but then, no one was closely watching her. On a rapturous May morning, with the lilac scenting the air, and the tulip beds in only the passing of their glory, there were so many things better worth doing than observing a respectably dressed young woman, probably the wife of an artisan, that she went unobserved. As there were at that very minute some two or three hundred more or less like her also pushing babies in the Park, the eye that singled her out for attention would have had more than the gift of sight. What she did that was noticeable--again had there been anyone to notice her--was to approach first one little group and then another, quickly sheering away. One would have said that she sheered away from some queer motive of strategy. Her movements might have been called erratic, not because they were aimless, but because she didn't know or didn't find the object of her search. Even if that were so, she neither advanced nor receded, nor drifted hither or yon, more like a lost thing than many another nursemaid giving her charge the air or killing time. There was nothing sinister about her, unless it was sinister to have moments of seeming dazed or of muttering to herself. She muttered to herself only when sure that there was no one to overhear, and with similar self-command she indulged in looking dazed only when she knew that no eye could light on her. As if aware of abnormality, she schooled herself to a semblance of sanity. Otherwise she was some thirty years of age, neatly if cheaply clad, and too commonplace and unimportant for the most observant to remember her a second after she had passed. At sight of a little hooded vehicle, standing unguarded where the lilac bushes made a shrine for it, she paused. Again, the pause was natural. She might have been tired. Pushing a baby carriage in a park is always futile work, with futile starts and stops and turnings in this direction or in that. If she stood to reconnoiter or to make her plans there was no power in the land to interfere with her. Her further methods were simple. Behind the bench on which Miss Nash and Miss Messenger were by this time entering on an orgy of romantic confidence there rose a gentle eminence. To the top of this hill the strange woman made her way. She made it with precautions, sauntering, dawdling, simulating all the movements of the perfect nurse. When two women, wheeling young laddies strapped into go-carts, crossed her path she walked slowly till they were out of sight. When a park attendant with a lawnmower clicked his machine along to cut a distant portion of the greensward, she waited till he too had disappeared. A few pedestrians were scattered here and there, but so distant as not to count. A few riders galloped up or down the bridle-path near Fifth Avenue, but these too she could disregard. Except for Miss Nash and Miss Messenger, turned towards each other, and with their backs to her, she had the world to herself. Softly she crept down the hill; softly she stole in among the lilacs. "My little Gracie! my little Gracie!" she kept muttering, but only between closed lips. "My little Gracie!" * * * * * "Oh, don't think, Milly," Miss Messenger was saying, "that I shan't give him the chance to come across honorable. I shall. You say that an action for breach doesn't seem to you delicate, and I don't say but what I shrink from it. But when you've a trunkful of letters simply burning with passion, simply _burning_ with it, what good are they to you if you don't?... And he's worth fifty thousand dollars if he's worth a penny. Don't talk to me! A fishmonger, right in the heart of East Eighty-eighth Street, the very best district.... If I sue for twenty-five thousand dollars I'd be pretty sure of getting five ... and with a sympathetic jury, possibly six or eight ... and with all that money I could set up a little nursing home in London ... say in the Portland Place neighborhood ... with a specialty in children's diseases ... and put you in charge of it as matron. You and me together...." "Oh, but, Etta, I couldn't leave my little boy, not till he's able to do without me. By that time there may be other children for me to take care of, so that I could keep near him. I've thought of that. He being the first, and his father and mother such a fine healthy young couple, with everything to support a big family...." During the minutes which marked his transfer from one destiny to another, Miss Nash's little boy remained in the sweet, blest country to which little babies go in dreams. When a swift hand raised the veil, lifting him with deft gentleness, he knew nothing of what was happening. While the cap was peeled from his head and pulled over that of a big, featureless rag doll shaped to the outlines of a baby's limbs, he was still on the lap of Miss Nash's angels. On the lap of these angels he stayed during the rest of the exchange. The strange woman's hand was tender. Lightly it drew over the little boy's head the soiled, cheap bonnet worn by the big rag doll; lightly it laid the little warm body into its new bed. Where he had nestled the big rag doll with his cap on its head gave a fair imitation of his form, unless inspected closely. By the time the veils were lowered on the two little carriages there was nothing for the most suspicious eye to wonder at. A respectable woman of the humbler classes was trundling her baby back to its home. The infant rested quietly. The rag doll, too, rested quietly when Miss Nash returned to her charge, as Miss Messenger to hers. Miss Nash had heard so much within an hour that she was not quite mistress of herself. Nothing was so rare with her as to neglect the due examination of her child, but this time she neglected it. Etta had given her so much to think of that for the minute her mind was over-taxed. Because the love theme had become involved with the compelling dictates of self-interest, which even a sweet creature like Miss Nash couldn't overlook, she laid her hands absently on the push-bar, beginning to make her way homeward. There was no question as to Etta's worldly wisdom. The choice lay between worldly wisdom and the warm, glowing, human thing we call affection. In Milly Nash's experience it was the first time such a choice had been put up to her. "Don't talk to me!" Miss Etta pursued, as they sauntered along side by side. "I simply love my children up to every penny I'm paid for it, not a farthing more; and if you'll take my advice, Milly Nash, you'll follow my example." Miss Nash felt humble, rebuked. Through fear of disturbing her little boy, she pushed as gently as a zephyr blows. "I'm not sure that I could measure it out, not with this little fellow." "This little fellow, fiddlesticks! He's just like any other little fellow." "Oh, no, he isn't. There's character in babies just as there is in grown-up people. This child's got it strong, all sweetness and loveliness, and so much sense--you'd never believe it! Why, he knows--there's nothing that he doesn't know, in his own dear little way. I tell you, Etta, that if you had him you'd feel just like me." "Just like you and be out of your heart's job--your heart's job, mind you--as soon as he's four years old, and they want to put him with a French girl to learn French. Oh, I know them, these aristocrats! When I get my alimony, or whatever it is, I'm simply going to provide for the future, and you'll be a goose, Milly Nash, if you simply don't come with me, and do the same." While Miss Nash was shaking her head with her gentle perplexed smile, the strange woman was crossing Fifth Avenue. Having accomplished this feat, she entered one of the streets running from that great thoroughfare toward the East River. Squalor being so much the rule in New York, the wealthier classes find it hard to pre-empt to themselves more than a long thin streak, relatively trim, bearing to the general disorder the proportion of a brook to the meadow through which it runs. The strange woman had left Fifth Avenue but a few hundred yards away before she and her baby were swallowed up in that kind of human swarm in which individuals lose their identity. Afraid of betraying some frenzy she knew to be within her by mumbling to herself, she kept her lips shut with a fierce, determined tightness. She was a little woman, and when you looked at her closely you saw that she had once possessed a wild dark prettiness. Even now, as she pushed her way between uncouth men and women, or screaming children at play, her wild dark eyes blazed with sudden anger or swam with unshed tears by fits and turns. The house at which she stopped was hardly to be distinguished from thousands of others in which a brief brownstone dignity had fallen, first to the boarding-house stage, and then to that of tenements. From the top of a flight of brownstone steps a frowzy, buxom, motherly woman came lumbering down to lend a hand with the baby carriage. "So you've brought your baby, Mrs. Coburn. Now you'll be able to get settled." The reply came as if it had been learned by rote. "Yes, now I'll be able to get settled. I've got her crib ready, though all my other things is strewed about just as when I moved in. Still, the crib's ready, which is the main thing. She's a fretful baby by nature, so you mustn't think it funny if you hear her cry. Some people thought I'd never raise her, so that if you ever hear say that my little girl died...." "I'll know it's not true," the buxom woman laughed. "She couldn't die, and you have her here, now could she? Do let me have a peep." By this time they had lifted the carriage over the steps and into the little passageway. Seeing that there was no help for this inspection, the strange woman trembled but resigned herself. The neighbor lifted the veil, and peered under it. "My, what a love! And she don't look sick, not a little mite." "Not her face, she don't. Her poor little body's some wasted, but then so long as I've got her...." "I believe as it'd be too much lime-water in her milk. She's bottle-fed, ain't she? Well, them bottle-fed babies--I've had two of 'em out of my five--you got to try and try, and ten to one you'll find as it's that nasty lime-water that upsets 'em." Having unlocked her door, which was on the left of the passageway, the strange woman pulled her treasure into a room stuffy with closed windows, and dim with drawn blinds. Turning the key behind her, she was alone at last. She fell on her knees, throwing the veil back with a fierceness that almost tore it off. She strained forward. Her breath came in racking, panting sobs. "My Gracie! my Gracie! God didn't take you! God wouldn't be so mean! I just dreamed it, and now I've waked up." Suddenly she changed. Drawing backward, she put her hands to her brow and pressed them down the whole length of her face. Her eyes filled with horror. Her face turned sallow. Her lips fell apart. "I'll get twenty years for this. Perhaps it'll be more. I don't think they hang for it, but it'll be twenty years anyhow, if they find it out." She sprang up, still muttering in broken, only partly articulated phrases. "But they'll never find it out. What's there to find? It's my baby! My precious only baby!" She was on her knees again, dragging herself forward by the sides of the little carriage, her eyes strained toward the infant face. "My little Gracie! I've missed you all the time you've been away. My heart was near broke. Now you've come back to me. You're mine--mine--mine!" He opened his eyes. It was his usual hour for waking up. For the first time in his history amazement gave an expression to his face which it was often to wear afterward. Instead of being in his own nest, downy, clean, and scentless, he was in a humpy little hole unpleasant to his senses. Instead of the Na-Na with her tender smile, or the Ma-Ma with her love, he saw this terrifying woman's stormy eyes, rousing the sensation he was later to know as fear. Instead of his nursery, spotless and gay, he was dumped amid the forlorn disarray of furniture that has just been moved into an empty tenement. Without getting these impressions in detail, he got them at once. He got them not as separate facts, but as facts in a single quintessence, distilled and distilled again, till no one element can be told from any other element, and held to his lips in a poisoned draught. All he could do was to wail, but he wailed with a note of anguish which was new to him. It was anguish the more bitter because of the lack of explanation. His only awareness hitherto had been that of power. He had been a baby sovereign, obeyed without having to command. Now he had been born again as a baby serf, into conditions against which his will, imperious in its baby way, would beat in vain. Once more, he knew this, not by reasoned argument, of course, but by heartbroken instinct. It was not merely the distress of the present that was in his cry, but dread of the future. There was something else in the world besides Comfort, Tenderness, and Joy, and he had touched it. Without knowing what it was he shrank back from the contact and sobbed. And yet such is the need for love in any young thing's heart, that when the strange woman had lifted him up, and cradled him on her bosom, he was partly soothed. He was not soothed easily. Though she held him closely, and sang to him softly, seated in the low rocking-chair in which she had rocked her baby-girl, he went on sobbing. He sobbed, not as he had sobbed in his old nursery, for the sport or the mischief of the thing, but because his inner being had been bruised. But his capacity for sobbing wore itself out. Little by little the convulsions grew calmer, the agony less desperate. Love held him. It was not the love of the Ma-Ma or the Na-Na, but it was love. It had love's embrace, love's lullaby. Arms were about him, he was on a breast. The shipwrecked sailor may be only on a raft, but he is not sinking. Little by little he turned his face into this only available refuge. A dangling embroidery adorned it, and in his struggle not to go down his little hands clutched at that. IV His first conscious recollection was of sitting on a high chair drawn up to a table at which he was having a meal. He could never recall whether this was in Harlem, Hoboken, Brooklyn, Jersey City, or the Bronx. Because they moved so often he had little more memory of places than he had of clouds. Tenements, streets, and suburbs of New York melted into one big sense of squalor. It was not squalor to him because he was used to it. It only obscured the difference between one dwelling and another, as monotony always obscures remembrance. Wherever their wanderings carried them, the background was the same, crowded, dirty, seething, a breeding place rather than a home. What marked this occasion was a question he asked and the answer he got back. "Mudda, id my name Gracie, or id it Tom?" The mother spoke sharply, as she whisked about the kitchen. "What do you want to know for?" The question was difficult. He knew what he wanted to know for, and yet it wasn't easy to explain. The nearest he could get to it in language was to say: "I'm a little boy, ain't I?" "Yes, you're a little boy, but you should have been a little girl. It was a little girl I wanted." "But you want me, don't you, mudda?" She dropped whatever she was doing to press his head fiercely against her side. "Yes, I want _you_! I want _you_! I want _you_!" He remembered this paroxysm of affection not because it was special but because it was connected with his gropings after his identity. Paroxysms were what he lived on. They were of love or of anger or of something which frightened him and yet was nameless. He thrummed to himself, beating time on the table with his spoon, while he worked on to another point. "Wadn't there never no Gracie, mudda?" She wheeled round from the gas-stove. "For goodness' sake, what's putting this into your head? Of course there was a Gracie. You're her. You don't suppose I stole you, do you?" He ceased his thrumming; he ceased to beat on the table with his spoon. The mystery of being grew still more baffling. "Mudda!" "What's it now?" "If I wad Gracie I'd be a little girl, wouldn't I?" She stamped her foot. "Stop it! If you ask me another thing I'll slap you." He stopped it, not because he was afraid of being slapped. Accustomed to that he had learned to discount its ferocity. A sharp stinging smart, it passed if you grinned and bore it, and grinning and bearing had already entered his life as part of its philosophy. If for the minute he asked no more questions it was in order not to vex his mudda. She was easily vexed; she easily lost her self-control; she was easily repentant. It was her repentance that he feared. It was so violent, so overwhelming. He loved love; he loved caressing; he loved to sit in her lap and sing with her; but her tempests of self-reproach alarmed him. As she washed the dishes or switched about the kitchen, he watched her with that trepidation which makes the children of the poor sharp-witted. Though under five years of age, he was already developing a sense of responsibility. You could see it in the gravity of a wholly straightforward little face, which had the even tan of a healthy fairness, in keeping with his crisp ashen hair. He knew when the moment had come to clamber down from his perch, and snuggle himself against her petticoats. "Mudda, sing!" "I can't sing now. Don't you see I'm busy! Look out, or this hot dish-water'll scald you." Nevertheless, a few minutes later they were settled in the rocking chair, he on her knee, with his cheek against her shoulder. She was not as ungracious as her words would have made her seem, a fact of which he was aware. "What'll I sing, Troublesome?" "Sing 'Three Cups of Cold Poison.'" So she sang in a sweet, true voice, the sort of childish voice which children love, her little boy joining in with her whenever he knew the words, but with only a hit-or-miss venture at the tune. "Where have you been dining, Lord Ronald, my son? Where have you been dining, my handsome young man?" "I've been dining with my true love, mither, make my bed soon, There's a pain in my heart, and I fain would lie doon." "And what did she give you, Lord Ronald, my son? And what did she give you, my handsome young man?" "Three cups of cold poison, mither, make my bed soon, There's a pain in my heart, and I fain would lie doon." "What'll you will to your mither, Lord Ronald, my son? What'll you will to your mither, my handsome young man?" "My gowd and my silver, mither, make my bed soon, There's a pain in my heart, and I fain would lie doon." "What'll you will to your brither, Lord Ronald, my son? What'll you will to your brither, my handsome young man?" "My coach and six horses, mither, make my bed soon, There's a pain in my heart, and I fain would lie doon." "What'll you will to your truelove, Lord Ronald, my son? What'll you will to your truelove, my handsome young man?" "A rope for to hang her, mither, make my bed soon, There's a pain in my heart, and I fain would lie doon." His next conscious memory was more dramatic. He had been playing in the street, in what town he could never remember. They had recently moved, but they had always recently moved. A month in one set of rooms, and his mother was eager to be off. Rarely did they ever stay anywhere for more than the time of moving in, giving the necessary notice, and moving out again. When they stayed long enough for him to know a few children he sometimes played with them. In this way the thing happened. The boy's name was Frankie Bell, a detail which remained long after the larger facts had escaped him. Frankie Bell and he had been engaged in scraping the dust and offal of the street into neat little piles, with the object of building what they called a "dirt-house." The task was engrossing, and to it little Tom Coburn gave himself with good will. Suddenly, as each bent over his pile, Frankie Bell threw off the observation, casually uttered: "My mother says your mother's crazy." Tom Coburn raised himself from his stooping posture, standing straight, and looking straight. The expression in his dark blue eyes, over which the eyebrows even now stood out bushily, was of pain, and yet of pain that left him the more dauntless. Though knowing but vaguely what the word crazy meant, he knew it was insulting. "She ain't." Frankie Bell, a stout young man, lifted himself slowly. "Yes, she is. My mother says so." "Well, your mudda id a liar." One rush and Frankie Bell lay sprawling with his head in the cushioned softness of his own dirt-heap. The attack had taken him so much by surprise that he went down before he could bellow. Before he could bellow his enemy was upon him, filling his mouth with the materials collected for architectural purposes. Victor in the fray, Tom Coburn ran homeward blinded with his tears. He found his mother at the stove, stirring something with a tablespoon. "Mudda, you're _not_ crazy, _are_ you?" His reply was a blow on the head with the spoon. The woman was beside herself. "Who said that?" Rubbing his head, he told her. "Don't you ever let them say no such thing again. If you do I'll kill you." She threw back her head, her arms outstretched, the spoon in her right hand. "God! God! What'll they say next? They'll say I stole him. It'll be twenty years for me; it'll be forty; it may be life. I won't live to begin it. I know what'll end it before they can...." He was terrified now, terrified as he had never been in all his terrifying moments. Throwing himself upon her, he clutched at her skirts. "Don't, mudda, don't! I'm your little boy! You didn't steal me. Don't cry, mudda! Oh, don't cry! don't cry!" When, in one of her sudden reactions, she sank sobbing to the floor, he sank with her, petting her, coaxing her, wiping away her tears, forcing himself to laugh so that she should laugh with him; but a few days afterward they moved. V "Mudda, can I have a book and learn to read?" The ambition had been inspired in the street, where he had seen a little boy who actually had a book, and was spelling out the words. Tom Coburn was now nominally six years old, though it was in the nature of things that of his age no exact record could be kept. His mother had changed his birthday so many times that he observed it whenever she said it had come round. Bursting into the room with his eager question, he found her sitting by a window looking out at a blank wall. Given her feverish restlessness, the attitude called attention to itself. The apartment was poorer and dingier than any they had lived in hitherto, while it had not escaped his observation that she was living on the ragged edge of her nerves. This made him the more sorry for her, and the more loving. He put his hand on her shoulder, tenderly. "What's the matter, mudda?" It was one of the minutes when a touch made her frantic. "Get away!" He got away, not through fear, but because she pushed him. He didn't mind that, though the rejection hurt him inside. He stood in the middle of the floor, pity in his young countenance, wondering what he could do for her, when she spoke again. "I've got hardly any money left. I don't know what to do." It was the first time his attention had been called to finance. He knew there was such a thing as money; he knew it had purchasing value; but he had not known its relation to himself. "Why don't you get money where you got it before?" "Because I ain't got a husband to die and leave me another five thousand dollars of insurance." "And did you have, mudda?" "Of course I had. What did you think?" The question voiced his inner difficulty. He had not known what to think. Having observed that a fundamental social unit was formed of husbands and wives, he had also understood that husbands and wives could, in the terms which were the last to hang over from the lingo of his babyhood, be translated into faddas and muddas. They in turn implied children. The methods were mysterious, but the unit was so composed. The exception to this rule seemed to be himself. Though he had a mudda, he could not remember ever to have heard of a fadda. He had pondered on this deficiency more times than anyone suspected. The effort to link himself up with the human family was far more important to him now than the ways and means of getting cash. Standing pensive, he peered into the blinding light, or the unfathomable darkness, whichever it may be, out of which comes human life. "Mudda, did Gracie have a fadda?" She snapped peevishly, her gaze again turned outward to the stone wall. "Of course she did." He came nearer to his point. "Did I?" "I--I suppose so." He approached still nearer. "Did I have the same fadda what Gracie had?" "No, you hadn't." She caught herself up hurriedly, rounding on him in one of her fits of wrath. "Yes, you had." The inconsistency was evident. "Well, which was it, mudda?" She jumped to her feet, threateningly. "Now you quit! The next thing you'll be saying is that your name is Whitelaw, and that I stole you. Take that, you nasty little brat!" A smack on the cheek brought the color to his face, and the tears to his eyes. "No, I won't, mudda. I won't say you stole me, or that my name is--" oddly enough he had caught it--"or that my name is Whitelaw. My name is Tom Coburn, and I'm your little boy." Rushing at her in the big outpouring of his love, he threw his arms about her and cried against her waist. He cried so seldom that his grief drove her to one of her paroxysms of repentance. Her self-reproaches abating, all she could do to comfort him was to promise him a book, and begin to teach him to read. The book was procured two days later, and by a method new to him. Doubtless some other means could have been adopted, but the necessity for sparing pennies had become imperative. Moreover, she had never willingly looked at print since the day when she opened a paper to find that, without knowing who she was, all the forces of the country had been organized against her. They went out together. After traversing a series of streets he had never been in before they stopped in front of a little shop, in the window of which stationery, ink, wallpaper, rubber bands, and books were arranged in artistic confusion. The impression on the fancy of a little boy already groping toward the treasures of the mind was like that made on the tourist in Dresden by the heaped up riches of the Grüne Gewölbe. The geography of the shop was explained to him before entering. The stationery counter was on the right as soon as you passed the door. The children's books were opposite, on the left. Books forming a cheap circulating library were back of that, and opposite these, where the shop was dark, were the wallpapers, in small, tight rolls on shelves. She was going to inspect wallpapers. The woman in the shop would exhibit them. He would remain alone in the front part of the shop, and close to the counter with the children's books. He was to keep alert and attentive, waiting for a sign which she would give him. When she turned round in the dark part of the shop, and called out, "Are you all right, darling?" he was to understand it as permissible to slip from the counter any small work on which he could lay his hands, and button it up inside his overcoat. He was to do it quickly, keeping his booty out of sight, and above all saying nothing about it. The plan was exciting, with a savor of adventure and manly incentive to skill. If in the Grüne Gewölbe you were told you could take anything you pleased you would have some of Tom Coburn's sense of enchantment as he stood by the book counter, waiting for the sign. He could see his mother dimly. More dimly still he could follow the movements of the shop-woman eager for a sale. Sample after sample, the wallpapers were unrolled, and hung on an easel where their flowers lighted the obscurity. Even at a distance he could do justice to their beauty, but more captivating than their glories were the wonders at his hand. Pages in which children and animals disported in colors far beyond those of nature were piled in neat little rows, and so tempting that he ached for the signal. He couldn't choose; there was too much to choose from. He would put out his hand without looking, guided by fate. "Are you all right, darling?" Curiously to the little boy, the question came just when he himself could perceive that the shop-woman had dived beneath the counter for another example of her wares. All the conditions were propitious. No one was entering the shop; no one was looking through the window. Without knowing the moralities of his act, he understood the need for secrecy. He stretched forth his arm. His fingers touched paper. In the fraction of a fraction of a second the object was within his overcoat, and pressed to his pounding heart. A few minutes later his mother came smiling and chatting down toward the exit, giving her address, which the shop-woman jotted in a notebook. "I think it will have to be the pale-green background with the roses. The room is darkish, and it would light it up. But I'll decide by to-morrow, and let you know. Yes, that's right. Mrs. F.H. Grover, 321 Blaisdel Avenue. So much obliged to you. Good morning." Having bowed themselves out they went some yards up the street before the little boy dared to express his new wonderment. "Mudda, what did you say you was Mrs. F.H. Grover for? And we don't live on Blaisdel Avenue. We live on Orange Street." "You mind your own business. Did you get your book? Well, that's what we went for, isn't it?" The expedition having proved successful, it was tried on other planes. Now it was in the line of groceries; now in that of hardware; now in that of drygoods; now in that of fruit. Needed things could be used; useless things could be sold, especially after they had moved to distant neighborhoods. While the procedure didn't supply an income, it eked out very helpfully such income as remained. It furnished, moreover, a motive in life, which was what they had lacked hitherto. There was something to which to give themselves. It was like devotion to an art, or even a religion. They could pursue it for its own sake. For her especially this outside interest appeased the wild something which wasted her within. She grew calmer, more reasonable. She slept and ate better. She had fewer fits of frenzy. With but faint pangs of misgiving the little boy enjoyed himself. He enjoyed his finesse; he enjoyed the pride his mother took in him. In proportion as they grew more expert they enlarged their field, often reversing their rôles. There were times when he created the distraction, while she secreted any object within reach. They did this the more frequently after she became recognized as his superior in selection. For a superior in selection the great department stores naturally offered the widest field for operation. They approached them, however, cautiously, going in and out and out and in for a good many days before they ventured on anything. When they did this at last it was amid the crowding and pushing of a bargain day. The system evolved had the masterly note of simplicity. The little boy carried a satchel, of the kind in which school-boys sometimes carry books. He stood near his mudda, or farther away, according to the dictates of the moment's strategy. On the first occasion he kept close to her, sincerely admiring a display of colored silk scarves conspicuously marked down to the price at which it was intended, even before their importation, that they should be sold. Women thronged about the counter, the little boy and his mudda having much ado to edge themselves into the front to where these products of the loom could be handled. The picking and choosing done, the mother still showed some indecision. "I'll just ask my sister to step over here," she confided to the saleswoman. "Her judgment is so much better than mine. Run over, dear, to your Aunt Mary," she begged of the boy, "and ask her to come and speak to me." Holding the scarf noticeably in her hands, she smiled at the saleswoman affably. "I'll just make room for this lady, who seems to be in a hurry." She did not step back; she merely allowed herself to be crowded out. From the front row she receded to the second, from the second to the third. Keeping in sight of the saleswoman, she looked this way and that, plainly for Aunt Mary to appear. At times she made little dashes, as Aunt Mary seemed to come within sight. From these she did not fail to return, but on each occasion to a point more distant from that of her departure. With sufficient time the poor saleswoman, who had fifty other customers to attend to, would be likely to forget her, for a few minutes if no more. The moment seemed to have come. With the scarf thrown jauntily over her arm where anyone could see it, the mother forced her way amid the crowds in search of her little boy. If intercepted she had her explanation. He had gone on an errand, and had not come back. When she had found him she would return and pay for the scarf, or decide not to take it. Her story couldn't help being plausible. "Aunt Mary" was a spot agreed upon near one of the side doors, and far from the center of interest in silk scarves. Agreed upon was also a little bit of comedy, for the benefit of possible lookers-on. "Oh, my dear, I've kept you waiting so long. I'm so sorry. Tell your mother this is the best I could do for her. I knew you were waiting, so I didn't let the lady wrap it up. Open your bag, and I'll put it in." The bag closed, the little boy went out through one door, and his mother through another. The point where she was to rejoin him was not so far away but that he could walk to it alone. VI "It's all right, mudda, isn't it?" He asked this after their campaign had been carried on for a good part of a year, and when they were nearing Christmas. He was now supposed to be seven. For reasons he could not explain the great game lost its zest. In as far as he understood himself he hated the sneaking and the secrecy. He hated the lying too, but lying was so much a part of their everyday life that he might as well have hated bread. "Of course it's all right," his mother snapped. "Haven't I said so time and again? We get away with it, don't we? And if it wasn't all right we shouldn't be able to do that." Silenced by this reasoning, even if something in his heart was not convinced by it, he prepared for the harvest of the festival. Christmas was an exciting time, even to Tom Coburn. Perhaps it was more exciting to him than to other boys, since he had so much to do with shops. As long ago as the middle of November he had noted the first stirrings of new energy. After that he had watched the degrees through which they had ripened to a splendor in which toys, books, skis, skates, sleds, and all the paraphernalia of young joyousness, made a bright thing of the world. Where there was so much, the profusion went beyond desire. One of these objects at a time, or two, or three, might have found him envious; but he couldn't cope with such abundance. He could concentrate, therefore, all the more on the pair of fur-lined mittens which his mother promised him, if, as she expressed it, they could haul it off. By Christmas Eve they had not done so. They had hauled off other things--a purse, a lady's shopping bag, several towels, a selection of pen-trays, some pairs of stockings, a bottle of shoe-polish, a baby's collapsible rubber bathtub, a hair-brush, an electric toaster, with other articles of no great interest to a little boy. Moreover, only some of these things were for personal use; the rest would be sold discreetly after the next moving. It was in the nature of the case that such grist as came to their mill should be more or less as it happened. They could pick, but they couldn't choose, at least to no more than a limited degree. Fur-lined mittens didn't come their way. The little boy's heart began to ache with a great fear. Perhaps he shouldn't get them. Unless he got them by Christmas Day the spell of the occasion would be gone. To get them a week later wouldn't be the same thing. It would not be Christmas. He couldn't remember having kept a Christmas hitherto. He couldn't remember ever having longed for what might be called an article of luxury. The yearning was new to him, and because new, it consumed him. Whenever he thought that the happiness might after all elude him he had to grind his teeth to keep back a sob, but he could not prevent the filling of his eyes with tears. It was not only Christmas Eve but late in the day before the mother found her opportunity. At half-past five the counter where fur-lined mittens were displayed was crowded with poor women who hadn't had the money or the time to make their purchases earlier. In among them pressed Tom Coburn's mother, making her selection, and asking the price. "Now where's that boy? His hands grow so quick that I can't be sure of anything without trying them on." With a despairing smile at the saleswoman, she followed her usual tactics of being elbowed from the counter, while she looked about vainly for the boy. At the right moment she slipped into the pushing, struggling mass of tired women, where she could count on being no more remarked than a single crow in a flock. The mittens were in the muff which was the prize of an earlier expedition. At a side door the boy was waiting where she had left him. Without pausing for words she whispered commandingly. "Come along quick." He went along quick, but also happily, projecting himself into the "surprise" to which he would wake on Christmas morning. They had reached the sidewalk when a hand was laid on the mother's shoulder. "Will you come back a minute, please?" The words were so polite that for the first few seconds the boy was not alarmed. A lady was speaking, a lady like any other lady, unless it was that her manner was quieter, more forceful, more sure of itself, than he was accustomed to among women. But what he never forgot during all the rest of his life was the look on his mother's face. As he came to analyze it later it was one of inner surrender. She had come to the point which she had long foreseen as her objective. She had reached the end. But in spite of surrender, and though she grew bloodlessly pale, she was still determined to show fight. "What do you want me for?" "If you'll step this way I'll tell you." "I don't know that I care to do that. I'm going home." "You'd better come quietly. You won't gain anything by making a fuss." A second lady, also forceful and sure of herself, having joined them they pushed their way back through the throng. At the glove counter a place was made for them. The saleswoman was beckoned to. The woman who had stopped them at the door continued to take the lead. "Now, will you show us what you've got in your muff?" She produced the mittens. "Yes, I have got these. I bought and paid for them." The saleswoman gave her account of the incident. Women shoppers gathered round. Floorwalkers came up. "It's a lie; it's a lie!" the boy heard his mother cry out, as the girl behind the counter told her tale. "If I didn't pay for them it was because I forgot. Here's the money. I'll pay for them now. What do you take me for?" "No; you won't pay for them now. That's not the way we do business. Just come along this way." "I'm not going nowheres else. If you won't take the money you can go without it. Leave me alone, and let me take my little boy home." Her voice had the screaming helplessness of women in the grasp of forces without pity. A floorwalker laid his hand on her shoulder, compelling her to turn round. "Don't you touch me," she shouted. "If I've got to go anywheres I can go without your tearing the clothes off my back, can't I?" For the little boy it was the last touch of humiliation. Rushing at the floorwalker, he kicked him in the shins. "Don't you hit my mudda. I won't let you." A second floorwalker held the youngster back. Some of the crowd laughed. Others declared it a monstrous thing that women of the sort should have such fine-looking children. Presently they were surging through the crowd again, toward a back region of the premises. The boy, not crying but panting as if spent by a long race, held his mother by the skirt; on the other side one of the forceful women had her by the arm. He saw that his mother's hat had been knocked to one side, and that a mesh of her dark hair had broken loose. He remembered this picture, and how the shoppers, wherever they passed, made a lane for them, shocked by the sight of their disgrace. They came to an office, where their party, his mother, himself, the two forceful women, and two floorwalkers, were shut in with an elderly man who sat behind a desk. It was still the first of the forceful women who took the lead. "Mr. Corning, we've caught this woman shop-lifting." "I haven't been," the boy heard his mother deny. "Honest to God, I haven't been." "We've been watching her for some time past," the forceful woman continued, "but we never managed before to get her with the goods." The elderly man was gray, pale-eyed, and mild-mannered. He listened while the story was given him in detail. "I'm afraid we must give you in charge," he said, gently, when the facts were in. "No, don't do that, don't do that," she implored, tearfully. "I've got my little boy. He can't do without me." "He hasn't done very well with you, has he?" the elderly man reasoned. "A woman who's taught a boy of that age to steal...." He was interrupted by the coming in of a policeman, summoned by telephone. At sight of him the unhappy woman gave a loud inarticulate gasp of terror. All that for seven years she had dreaded seemed now about to come true. The boy felt terror too, but the knowledge that his mother needed him nerved him to be a man. "Don't you be afraid, mudda. If they put you in jail I'll go to jail too. I won't let them take me away from you." "You'd better come with me, missus," the policeman said, with gruff kindliness, when the situation was explained to him. "The kid can come too. 'Twon't be so bad. Lots of these cases. You'll live through it all right, and it'll learn you to keep straight. One of these days you may be glad that it happened." They went out through a dimly lighted passageway, clogged with parcels and packing-cases which men were loading into drays. It was dark by this time, the streets being lighted as at night. The police-station was not far away, and to it they were led through a series of byways in which there were few foot-passengers. The policeman allowed them to walk in front of him, so that the connection was not too obvious. The boy held his mother's hand, which clutched at his with a nervous loosening and tightening of the fingers. As the situation was beyond words they made no attempt to speak. "This way." Within the police-station the officer turned them to the right, where they entered a small bare room. Brilliantly lighted with unshaded electrics, its glare was fierce upon the eyes. At a plain oak desk a man in uniform was seated with a ledger in front of him. Another man in uniform standing near the door picked his teeth to kill time. "Shoplifting case," was the simple introduction of the party. They stood before the man at the desk, who dipped his pen in the ink, and barely glanced at them. What to the boy and his mother was as the end of the world was to him all in the day's work. "Name?" She gave her name distinctly, and less to the lad's surprise than if she hadn't often used pseudonyms. "Mrs. Theodore Whitelaw." "Address?" She gave the address correctly. "Boy's name?" She spoke carefully, as one who had prepared her statements. "He's been known as Thomas Coburn. He's really Thomas Whitelaw. His father was my second husband." "If he's your second husband's child why is he called by your first husband's name?" She was prepared here too. "Because I'd given up using my second husband's name. I was unhappily married." "Is he dead?" "Yes, he is." Never having heard before so much of his private history, the boy registered it all. It was exactly the sort of detail for which he had been eager. It explained too that name of Whitelaw, allusions to which had puzzled him. He was so engrossed by the fact that he was not Tom Coburn but Tom Whitelaw as hardly to listen while it was explained to his mother that she would spend the night in the Female House of Detention, and be brought before the magistrate in the morning. If the boy had no friends to whom to send him he would be well taken care of elsewhere. The phlegm to which she had for a few minutes schooled herself broke down. "Oh, can't I keep him with me? He'll cry his eyes out without me." She was given to understand that no child above the nursing age could be put in prison even for its mother's sake. From his reverie as to Tom Whitelaw he waked to what was passing. "But I won't leave my mudda," he wailed, loudly. "I want to go to jail." The kindly policeman put his arm about the boy's shoulder. "You'll go to jail, sonny, when your time comes, if you set the right way to work. Your momma's only going to spend the night, and I'll see to it that you----" In a side of the room a door opened noiselessly. A woman, wearing a uniform, with a bunch of keys hanging at her side, stood there like a Fate. She was a grave woman, strongly built, and with something inexorable in her eyes. Even the boy guessed who she was, throwing himself against her, and crying out, "Go 'way! go 'way! You won't take my mudda away from me." But the folly of resistance became evident. The mother herself understood it so. Walking up to the woman with the keys, she said in an undertone: "For God's sake get me out of this. I can't look on while he breaks his little heart. He's always been an angel." That was all. She gave no backward look. Before the boy knew what was about to happen, she had passed into a corridor, and the door had closed behind her. She was gone. He was left with these strange men. The need for being brave was not unknown to him. Not unknown to him was the power of calling to his aid a secret strength which had already carried him through tight places. He could only express it to himself in the words that he mustn't cry. Crying had come to stand for everything cowardly and babyish. He was so prone to do it that the struggle against it was the hardest he had to make. He struggled against it now; but he struggled vainly. He was all alone. Even the three policemen were talking together, while he stood deserted, and futile. His lips quivered in spite of himself. The tears gathered. Disgraced as he was anyhow, this weakness disgraced him more. The room had an empty corner. Straight into it he walked, and turned his back, his face within the angle. The head with an old cap on it was bowed. The sturdy shoulders, muffled in a cheap top-coat, heaved up and down. But the legs in their knickerbockers were both straight and strong, and the feet firmly planted on the floor. Except for an occasional strangled sound which he couldn't control, he betrayed himself by nothing audible. The three policemen, all of them fathers, glanced at him, but forbore to glance at one another. One of them tried to say, "Poor kid!" but the words stuck in his throat. It was the kindly fellow who had brought the lad and the woman there who recovered himself first. "All right, then, boys. The Swindon Street Home. One of you can 'phone that we're on the way." He went over and laid his hand on the child's shoulder. "Say, sonny, I'm goin' to take you out to see the Christmas Tree." The thought was a happy one. Tom Coburn had never seen any Christmas Trees, though he had often heard of them. He had specially heard of the community Christmas Tree which was new that year in that particular city. It was to be a splendid sight, and against the fascination of splendor even grief was not wholly proof. He looked shyly round, an incredible wonder in his tear-stained, upturned face. In the street they walked hand in hand, pausing now and then to admire some brightly lighted window. The boy was in fairyland, but in spite of fairyland long deep sighs welled up from the springs of his loneliness and sorrow. To distract him the policeman took him into a druggist's and bought him a cone of ice-cream. The boy licked it gratefully, as they made their way to the open space consecrated to the Tree. The night was brisk and frosty; the sky clear. In the streets there was movement, light, gayety. At a spot on a bit of pavement a vendor was showing a dancing toy, round which some scores of idlers were gathered. The dancing was so droll that the little boy laughed. The policeman bought him one. When they came to the Christmas Tree the lad was in ecstasy. Nothing he had ever dreamed of equalled these fruits of many-colored fires. A band was playing, and suddenly the multitude broke into song. O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem! Even the policeman joined in, humming the refrain in Latin. Venite, adoremus; Venite, adoremus; Venite, adoremus, Dominum. Passing thus through marvels they came to the Swindon Street Home. The night-nurse, warned by telephone, was expecting them. She was a motherly woman who had once had a child, and knew well this precise situation. "Oh, come in, you poor little boy! Have you had your supper?" He hadn't had his supper, though the cone of ice-cream had stilled the worst pangs of hunger. "Then you shall have some; and after that I'll put you in a nice comfy bed." "He's a fine kid," the policeman commended, before going away, "and won't give you no trouble, will you, sonny?" The boy caught him by the hand, looking up pleadingly into his face, as if he would have kept him. But the policeman had children of his own, and this was Christmas Eve. "See you again, sonny," he said, cheerily, as he went out, "and a merry Christmas!" The night matron knew by experience all the sufferings of little boys homesick for mothers who have got into trouble. She had dealt with them by the hundred. "Now, dear, while Mrs. Lamson is getting your supper we'll go to the washroom and you'll wash your face and hands. Then you'll feel more like eating, won't you?" Deprived of his policeman, despair would have settled on him again, had it not been for the night matron's hearty voice. The deeper his woe, and it was very deep, the less he could resist friendliness. Just as in that first agony, when he was only eight months old, he had turned to the only love available, so now he yielded again. He was not reconciled; he was not even comforted; he was only responsive and grateful, thus getting the strength to go on. Going on was only in letting the night matron scrub his face and hands, and submitting patiently. As they went from the washroom to the dining room he held her by the hand. He did this first because he couldn't let her go, and then because the halls were big and bare and dark. Never had he been in any place so vast, or so impersonal. He was used to strangeness, as they moved so often, but not to strangeness on so immense a scale. It was a relief to him, because it brought in a note of hominess, to hear from an upper floor a forlorn little baby cry. His supper toned him up. He could speak of his great sorrow. While the night matron sat with him and helped him to porridge he asked, suddenly: "Will they let me go to jail and stay with my mudda to-morrow?" "You see, dear, your mother may not be in jail to-morrow. Perhaps she'll be let out, and then you can go home with her." "They didn't ought to put her in. I'm big. I could work for her, and then she wouldn't have to take things no more." "But bless you, darling, you'll be able to work for her as it is. They won't keep her very long--not so very long--and I'll look after you till she comes out. After that...." "What's your name?" he asked, solemnly, as if he wished to nail her to the bargain. "Mrs. Crewdson's my name. I'm a widow. I like little boys. I like you especially. I think we're going to be friends." As a proof of this she took him to her own room, instead of to a dormitory, where she gave him a bath, found a clean night-shirt which, being too big, descended to his feet, and put him to sleep in a cot she kept on purpose for homeless little children in danger of being too lonely. "You see, dear," she explained to him, "I don't go to bed all night. I stay up to look after all the little children--there are a lot of them in this house--who may want something. So you needn't be afraid. I'll leave a light burning, and I'll be in and out all the time. If you wake up and hear a noise, you'll know that that'll be me going about in the rooms, but mostly I'll be in this room. Now, don't you want to say your prayers?" He didn't want to say his prayers because he had never said any. She suggested, therefore, that he should kneel on the bed, put his hands together, and repeat the words she told him to say, as she sat on the edge of the cot. "Dear God"--"Dear God"--"take care of me to-night"--"take care of me to-night"--"and take care of my dear mother"--"and take care of my dear mudda"--"and make us happy again"--"and make us happy again"--"for Jesus Christ's sake"--"for Jesus Christ's sake"--"Amen"--"Amen." "God's up in the sky, isn't He?" he asked, as he hugged his dancing toy to him and let her cover him up. "God's everywhere where there's love, it seems to me, dear. I bring a little bit of God to you, and you bring a little bit of God to me; and so we have Him right here. That's a good thought to go to sleep on, isn't it? So good-night, dear." She kissed him as she supposed his mother would have done. He threw his arms about her neck, drawing her face close to his. "Good night, dear," he whispered back, and almost before she rose from the bedside she knew he was asleep. Somewhere toward morning she came into the room and found him sitting up in his cot. "Will it soon be daytime, Mrs. Crewdson?" "Yes, dear; not so very long now." "And when daytime comes could I go to the jail?" "Not too early, dear. They wouldn't let you in." "Oh, but I don't want to go in. I only want to stand outside. Then if my mudda looks out of the window, she'll see her little boy." Throwing herself on her knees, she clasped him in her arms. "Oh, you darling! How I wish God had given me a little son like you! I did have one--he would have been just your age--only I--I lost him." Touched by this tribute to himself, as well as by his friend's bereavement, he brought out a fine manly phrase he had long been saving for an adequate occasion. "The hell you did, Mrs. Crewdson!" Having thus expressed his sympathy, he nestled down to sleep again, hugging his dancing toy. VII He woke to his first Christmas. That is, he woke to find a chair drawn up beside his cot and stocked with little presents. He had never had presents before. It had not been his mother's custom to make them. Since she gave him what she could afford, and they shared everything in common, presents would have seemed to her superfluous. But here were half a dozen parcels done up in white paper and tied with red ribbon, and on them he could read his name. At least, he could read Tom, while he guessed from the length of the word and initial _W_ that the other name was Whitelaw. So he was to be Tom Whitelaw now! The fact seemed to make a change in his identity. He stowed it away in the back of his mind for later meditation, in order to feast his soul on the mystic bounty of Santa Claus. He knew who Santa Claus was. He had often seen him in the windows of the big stores, surrounded by tempting packages, and driving reindeer harnessed to a sleigh. He knew that he drove over the roofs of houses, down chimneys, and out through grates. Somewhere, too, he harbored the suspicion that this was only childish talk, and that the real Santa Claus must be a father or a mother, or in this case Mrs. Crewdson; only both childish talk and fact simmered without conflict in his brain. It was easier to think that a supernatural goodwill had brought him this profusion than that commonplace hands, which had never done much for him hitherto, should all of a sudden be busy on his behalf. Raising himself on his elbow, his first thought came with the bubbling of a sob. "My mudda is in jail!" His second was in the nature of a corollary, "But she'll like it when I tell her that Santa Claus took care of her little boy." The deduction gave him permission to enjoy himself. At first he only gazed in a rapture that hardly guessed at what was beneath these snowy coverings. What he was to get was secondary to the fact that he was getting something. For the first time in his life he was taken into that vast family of boys and girls for whom Christmas has significance. Up to this morning he had stood outside of it wistfully--yearning, hoping, and yet condemned to stand aloof. Now, if his mudda hadn't been in jail.... The parcels were larger and smaller. Beginning with the smallest, he arranged them according to size. Merely to touch them sent a thrill through his frame. The smallest was round like an orange and yet yielded to pressure. He was almost sure it was a rubber ball. He could have been quite sure, only that he preferred the condition of suspense. It was long before he could bring himself to untie the first red ribbon bow, his surprise on finding a rubber ball being no less keen than if he hadn't known it was a rubber ball on first taking it between his fingers. A handkerchief laid out flat, making the second parcel seem bigger than it was, sent him up in the scale of social promotion. By way of candies, nuts, a toothbrush with tooth paste, he came to the largest of all, a History of Mankind, written in words of one syllable, and garnished with highly-colored pictures of various racial types. If only his mother hadn't been in jail.... That his mother was no longer in jail was a fact he learned later in the day. It was a day of extremes, of quick rushes of rapture out of which he would fall suddenly, to go away somewhere and moan. When he begged, as he begged every hour or two, to be taken to the jail, he could be distracted by rompings with the other children, most of them in some such case as his own, or by some novelty in the life. To eat turkey and plum pudding at the head of one of three long tables, each seating twelve or fourteen, was to be raised to a point of social eminence beyond which it seemed there could be nothing more to reach. But in the midst of this pride the hard facts would recur to him, and turkey and plum pudding choke him. That something had happened he began to infer when his beloved policeman appeared at the home in the afternoon. Having seen him enter, the boy ran up to him. "Oh, mister, are you going to take me to the jail?" Mister patted him on the head, though he answered, absently, "Not just now, sonny. You know you're goin' to have a Christmas Tree. I've come to see Miss Honiton." Miss Honiton, one of the day matrons, having appeared at the end of the hall, the policeman turned him about by the shoulders. "Now be off with you and play. This has got to be private." He took himself off but only to the end of the hall, where they didn't notice that he lingered. He lingered because he knew that, whatever the mystery, it had something to do with him. He caught, however, no more than words which he couldn't understand. Cyanide of potassium! Only his quick ear and retentive memory enabled him to lay hold of syllables so difficult. His mother had taken something or hadn't taken something, he couldn't make out which. All he saw was that both of his friends looked grave, Miss Honiton summing up their consultation, "I'll let him enjoy the Christmas Tree before saying anything about it." The policeman answered, regretfully: "Do you think you must?" "I know I must. He ought to be told. He has a right to know. He might resent it later if we didn't tell him now." "Very well, sister. I leave it to you." The door having closed on this friend, Tom Whitelaw, so to call him henceforth, made his way into the room where the Christmas Tree was presently to be lighted up. But he had no heart for the spectacle. There was something new. In the grip of the forces which controlled his life he felt helpless, small. Even his companions in misfortune, as all these children were, could be relatively light-hearted. They could clap their hands when the Tree began to burn with magic fires, and take pleasure in the presents handed out to them. He could not. He was waiting for something to be told to him--something he had a right to know. One by one, the presents were cut from the Tree; one by one the children went up to receive this addition to what Santa Claus had brought them in the morning. His own name was among the last. When it was called he went forward perfunctorily at first, and then with a sudden inspiration. His package was handed him, not by one of the matrons but by a beaming young lady from outside. As she bent to deliver it he had his question ready. "Please, miss, what's cyanide of potassium?" He had repeated the words to himself so often during the half hour since first hearing them that he pronounced them distinctly. The young lady laughed. "Why, I think it's a deadly poison." She turned to the matron nearest her. "What is cyanide of potassium? This dear little boy wants to know." But the dear little boy had already walked soberly back to his seat. While the other children made merry with their presents he sat with his on his lap, and reflected. Poison was something that killed people. He knew that. In one of the houses where they had lived a woman had taken poison, and two days later he had seen her carried out in a long black box. The impression had remained with him poignantly. He had no inclination to cry. Tears could bring little relief in this kind of cosmic catastrophe. If his mother had taken poison and was to be carried out in a long black box, everything that had made up his world would have collapsed. He could only wait submissively till the thing he ought to know was told to him. It was told when the giving of the presents was over, and the children flocked out of the room to get ready for their Christmas supper. Miss Honiton was waiting near the door. "Come into my office, dear. I want to ask you a few questions." Miss Honiton's office was a mixture of office and sitting room, in that it had business furniture offset by photographs and knicknacks. Sitting at her desk, she turned to the lad, who stood as if to attention, a long thin sympathetic face, stamped with practical acumen. "I wanted to ask you if besides your mother you have any relations." His dark blue eyes, deep set beneath his bushy brows, she thought the most serious and earnest she had ever seen in any of the hundreds of homeless little boys she had had to deal with. "No, miss." "No brothers or sisters, no uncles or aunts?" "No, miss." "Didn't your mother ever take you to see anyone?" "No, miss." "Well, then, didn't anyone ever come to see her?" "No, miss." To the point she was trying to reach she went round by another way. Where did they live? How long had they lived there? Where had they lived before that? How long had they lived in that place? He answered to the best of his recollection, but when it came to their flittings from tenement to tenement, and from town to town, his recollection didn't take him very far. Miss Honiton soon understood that she might as well question a bird as to its migrations. For a minute she said nothing, turning over in her mind the various ways of breaking her painful news, when he himself asked, suddenly: "Is my mudda dead?" The question was so direct that she felt it deserved a direct answer. "Yes, dear." "Did she"--he pulled himself together for the big words--"did she take cyanide of potassium?" "Yes, dear; so I understand." "Will they take her away in a long black box?" "She'll be buried, dear, of course. There'll have to be a funeral somewhere." "Can I go to it?" "Yes, dear, certainly. I'll go with you myself." He said nothing more, and Miss Honiton felt the futility of trying to comfort him. There was no opening for comfort in that stony little face. All she could suggest to break the tension was to ask if he wouldn't like his supper. He went to his supper and ate it. He ate it ruminantly, speechlessly. What had happened to him he could not measure; what was before him he could not probe. All he knew of himself was that he had become a clod of misery, with almost nothing to temper his desolation. Two big tears rolled down his cheeks without his being aware of it. They did not, however, escape the eyes of a little girl who sat near him. "Who's a cry-baby?" she shrieked, to the entertainment of the lookers-on. She pointed at him with her spoon. "A grea' big boy like that cryin' for his momma!" He accepted the scorn as a tonic. "A grea' big boy like that cryin' for his momma," were the words with which he kept many a pang during the next few days from being more than a tearless anguish. Miss Honiton was as good as her word as to going with him to the rooms which housed the long black box. This he understood to be all that now represented his mudda. She had tried to explain the place as an "undertaker's parlor," but the words were outside his vocabulary. In the same way the why and the wherefore of the ceremony were outside his intelligence. He and Miss Honiton went into the dim room, and stood near the thing he heard mentioned as "the body." After some mumbled reading they went out again, and back to the Swindon Street Home. Back in the Swindon Street Home he was still without a wherefore or a why. He got up, he washed, he dressed, he ate, he went to bed again. He was in a dormitory now with three other little boys, all of them too deep in the problems of parents in jail or in parts unknown to offer him much fellowship. They cried when they were left alone in bed, or they cried in their sleep; but they cried. It was his own pride, and in no small measure his strength, that he didn't cry, unless he cried in dreams. Everyone was good to him, Mrs. Crewdson and Miss Honiton especially, but no one could give him the clue to life which instinctively he clutched for. That one didn't stay forever in the Swindon Street Home he could see from observation. The children he had found there went away; other children came. Some of these stayed but a night or two. None of them stayed much longer. By those sixth and seventh senses which children develop when they are in trouble he divined that conferences were taking place on his behalf. Now and then he detected glances shot toward him by the matrons in discussion which told him that he was being talked about. It was easy to deduce that he was in the Swindon Street Home longer than was the custom because they didn't know what to do with him. He inferred that they didn't know what to do with him from the many questions which many people asked. Sometimes it was a man, more times it was a woman, but the questions were always along the lines of those of Miss Honiton as he came out from the children's Christmas Tree. Had he any relatives? Had he any friends? If he had they ought to look after him. It was hard for these kindly people to believe that he had no claim whatever on any member of the human race. He began to hear the words, a State ward. Though they meant nothing to him at first, he strove, as he always did, with new words and expressions, to find their application. Then one evening, as Mrs. Crewdson was putting him to bed, she told him that that was what he had become. "You see, darling, now that your father and mother are both dead, the whole country is going to adopt you. Isn't that nice? And it isn't everything. You're going to have a home--not a home like this--what we call an institution--but a real home--with a real father and mother in it, and real brothers and sisters." He took this stolidly. He was not to be moved now by anything that could happen. A waif on the world, the world had the right to pitch him in any direction that it chose. All he could do with his own desires was to beat them into submission. He mustn't cry! His fears and his griefs alike focussed themselves into that resolve. It was the only way in which he could translate his stout-hearted will to endure. VIII To conduct him to his new home, Mrs. Crewdson gave up the whole of the morning she was supposed to spend in sleep after her all-night vigil. The home was in a little town a short distance up the Hudson. Though the railway journey was not long, it was the longest he had ever taken, and, once the river came within view, it was not without its excitements. His spirits began to rise with a sense of new adventure. There were things to look at, bridges, steamers, a man-o'-war at anchor, lumber yards, coal sheds, an open-air exhibit of mortuary monuments, and high overhead the clear cold blue of a January sky. On the other side of the river the wooded heights made a bold brown bastion, flecked here and there with snow. As he had not asked where they were going, or the composition of the family with whom the Guardian of State Wards was placing him, his protectress permitted him to make his own discoveries. New faces, new contacts, new necessities, would help him to forget the old. They got out at the station of Harfrey. Mrs. Crewdson carried the suitcase containing the wardrobe rescued when they had searched the rooms which he and his mother had occupied last. In front of the station they got on a ramshackle street car, which zigzagged up the face of the bank, rising steeply from the river, so reaching the little town. They turned sharply at the top of the ridge to run through the one long street. It was a mean-looking street of drab wooden dwellings and drab wooden shops, occupied mostly by people dependent on the grand seigneurs of the neighboring big "places." An ugly schoolhouse, an ugly engine house, two or three ugly churches, further defied that beauty of which God had been so generous. Having got out at a corner at which the car stopped, they walked to a small wooden house with a mansard roof, standing back from the street. It was a putty-colored house, with window and door frames in flecked, anæmic yellow. Perched on the edge of the ridge, it had three stories at the back and but two in front. What had once been an orchard had dwindled now to three or four apple trees, the rest of the ground being utilized as a chicken run. As the day was sunny, a few Plymouth Rocks were scratching and pecking in the yard. Having turned in here, they found themselves expected, the front door opening before they reached the cement slab in front of it. The greetings were all for Mrs. Crewdson, who was plainly an old friend. The boy went in only because Mrs. Crewdson went in, and in the same way proceeded to a cheery, shabby sitting room. Here there were books and magazines about, while a canary in a cage began to sing as soon as he heard voices. To a homeless little boy the haven was so sweet that he forgot to take off his cap. The first few minutes were consumed in questions as to this one and that one, relatives apparently, together with data given and received as to certain recognized maladies. Mrs. Crewdson was getting better of her headaches, but Mrs. Tollivant still suffered from her varicose veins. Only when these preliminaries were out of the way and Mrs. Crewdson had thrown off her outer wraps, was the introduction accomplished. "So I've brought you the boy! Tom, dear, this is Mrs. Tollivant who's going to take care of you. Your cap, Tom! I imagine," she continued, with an apologetic smile, "you'll find manners very rudimentary." Obliged to take an early train back to New York, Mrs. Crewdson talked with veiled, confidential frankness. A boy of seven could not be supposed to seize the drift of her cautious phraseology, even if he heard some of it. "So you know the main features of the case.... I told them it wouldn't be fair to you to let you assume so much responsibility without your knowing the whole.... With children of your own to think of, you couldn't expose them to a harmful influence unless you were put in a position to take every precaution against.... Not that we've seen anything ourselves.... But, of course, after such a bringing up there can't but be traces.... And such good material there.... I'm sure you'll find it so.... Personally, I haven't seen a human being in a long time to whom my heart has gone.... Only there it is.... An inheritance which can't but be...." He didn't feel betrayed. He had nothing to resent. Mrs. Crewdson had proved herself his friend, and he trusted her. Without knowing all the words she used, he caught easily enough the nature of the sentiments they stood for. These he accepted meekly. He was a bad boy. His mother and he had been engaged in wicked practices. Dimly, in unallayed mental discomfort, he had been convinced of this himself; and now it was clear to everyone. If they hadn't known what to do with him it was because a bad boy couldn't fit rightly into a world where everyone else was good. A young evildoer, he had no rôle left but that of humility. He was the more keenly aware of this after Mrs. Crewdson had bidden him farewell, and he was face to face with his new foster mother. A wiry little woman, quick in action and sharp in tongue, she would be kind to him, with a nervous, nagging kindness. He got this impression, as he got an odor or a taste, without having to define or analyze. Later in life, when he had come to observe something of the stamp which professions leave on personalities, he was not surprised that she should have worn herself out in school-teaching before marrying Andrew Tollivant, a book-keeper. As he sat now, just as Mrs. Crewdson had left him, his overcoat still on his back, his cap in his hand, his feet dangling because the chair was too high for him, she treated him as if he were a class. "Now, little boy, before we go any farther, you and I had better understand each other." With this brisk call to his attention, she sat down in front of him, frightening him to begin with. "You know that this is now to be your home, and I intend to do my duty by you to the best of my ability. Mr. Tollivant will do the same. If you take the children in the right way I'm sure you'll find them friendly. They were very nice to the last little boy the Board of Guardians sent to us." Staring in fascinated awe at the starry brightness of her eyes, and the wrinkles of worry around them, he waited in silence for more. "But one or two things I hope you'll remember on your side. Perhaps you haven't heard that the Board has found it hard to get anyone to take you. You're old enough to know that where there are children in a family people are shy of a boy who's had just your history. But I've run the risk. It's a great risk, I admit, and may be dangerous to my own. Do you understand what I mean?" "No, ma'am," he said, blankly. "Then I'll tell you. There are two things children must learn as soon as they're able to learn anything. One is to be honest; the other is to tell the truth. You know what telling the truth is, don't you?" He did know, but paralyzed by her earnestness, he denied the fact. "No, ma'am." "So there you are! And I don't suppose you've been taught anything about honesty." "No, ma'am." "Then you must begin to learn." He began to learn that minute. Still treating him as a class, she delivered a little lecture, such as a child of tender years could understand, on the two basic virtues of which he had pleaded ignorance. He listened as in a trance, his eyes fixed on her vacantly. Though seizing a disconnected word or two, fear kept him from getting the gist of it all, as he generally did. "It's your influence on the children that I want you to beware of. Arthur is older than you, but he's only ten; and a boy with your experience could easily teach him a good deal of harm. Cilly is eight, and Bertie only five. You'll be careful with them, won't you? Do you know that if we lead others astray God will call us to account for it?" "No, ma'am." "Well, He will; and I want you to remember it, and be afraid. Unless you're afraid of God you'll never grow into the good boy I hope we're going to make of you." The homily finished, he was instructed in the ways of the upper floor, where, in the sloping space under the eaves, he was to have his room. After this he came back to the sitting room, not knowing what else to do. He was in a daze. It was as if he had dropped on another planet where nothing was familiar. Whether to stand up or sit down he didn't know. He didn't know what to think, or what to think about. Cut loose from his bearings, he floated in mental space. As standing seemed to commit him to least that was wrong, he stood. Standing implied looking out of the window, and looking out of the window showed him, about half past twelve, a well-built boy, rosy with the cold, noisy from exuberance of spirit, swinging in at the gate and brandishing a hockey stick. From her preparation of the dinner his mother ran to meet him at the door. She spoke in a loud whisper that easily reached the sitting room. "Now be careful, Arthur. He's come. He's in there." Arthur responded with noisy indifference. "Who? The crook?" "Sh-h-h, dear! You mustn't call him that. We must help him to forget it, and to grow into being like ourselves." Arthur grunted noncommittally. Presently he strolled into the sitting room, whistling a tune. With hands in his pockets, his bearing was that of an overlord. He made a circuit of the room, eying the new guest, as the new guest eyed him back. "Hello?" the overlord said at last, with a faint note of interrogation. Still whistling and still with his hands in his pockets, he strolled out again. Tom Whitelaw's nerves had become so many runlets for shame. He was the crook! He knew the word as one which crooks themselves use contemptuously. If he should hear it again.... But happily Mrs. Tollivant had put her veto on its use. The gate clicked again. Coming up the pathway, he saw a girl of about his own age, with a boy much younger who swung himself on crutches. All his movements were twisted and grotesque. His head was sunk into his shoulders as if he had no neck. His feet and legs wore metal braces. His face had the uncannily aged look produced by suffering. Without actually helping him, the little girl kept by his side maternally. She was a dainty little girl, very fair, with shiny yellow hair hanging down her back, like a fairy princess in a picture book. The boy looking out of the window fell in love with her at sight. He was sure that in her he would find a friend. On entering she called out in a whiny voice, very musical to Tom Whitelaw's ear: "Ma! Bertie's been a naughty boy. He wouldn't sing 'Pretty Birdling' for Miss Smallbones. I told him you'd punish him, and you will, won't you, ma?" As there was no response to this, the young ones came to the door of the sitting room and looked in. They stared at the stranger, and the stranger stared at them, with the unabashed frankness of young animals. Having stared their fill, the son and daughter of the house went off to ask about dinner. To Tom that dinner was another new experience. For the first time in his life he sat down to what is known as a family meal. Attempts had sometimes been made by well-meaning women in the tenements to rope him to their tables, but his mother had never permitted him to yield to them. Now he sat down with those of his own age, to be served like them, and on some sort of footing of equality. The honor was so great that he could hardly swallow. Second helpings were beyond him. The afternoon was blank again. "You'll begin to go to school on Monday," Mrs. Tollivant had explained; but in the meantime he had the hours to himself. They were long. He was lonely. Having been given permission to go into the yard, he stood studying the Plymouth Rocks. Presently he was conscious of a light step behind him. Before he had time to turn around he also heard a voice. It was a whiny voice, yet sharp and peremptory. "You stop looking at our hens." The fairy princess had not come up to him; she had paused some two or three yards away. Her expression was so haughty that it hurt him. It hurt him more from her than from anybody else because of his admiration. He looked at her beseechingly, not for permission to go on studying the Plymouth Rocks, but for some shade of relenting. He got none. The sharp little face was as glittering and cold as one of the icicles hanging from the roof behind her. Heavy at heart, he turned to go into the house by the back door. He had climbed most of the hill when the clear, whiny voice arrested him. "Who's a crook?" At this stab in the back he leaped round, fury in his dark blue eyes. But the fairy princess was used to fury in dark blue eyes, and knew how best to defy it. The tip of the tongue she thrust out at him added insolence to insult. He turned again, and, wounded in all his being, went on into the house. Near the back door there was a sun parlor, and in it he saw Bertie, squatting in a small-wheeled chair built for his convenience. Bertie called to him invitingly. "I've got a book." "I've got a book, too," he returned, in Bertie's own spirit. "You show me your book, and I'll show you mine." The proposal being fair, he went in search of his History of Mankind. In a few minutes he was seated on the floor beside Bertie's chair, exchanging literary criticisms. He liked Bertie. He had a premonition that Bertie was going to like him. After the disdain of the fairy princess, and the superciliousness of the overlord, this was comforting. Moreover, he could return Bertie's friendliness by doing things for him which no one else had time to do. He could push his wheeled chair; he could run his errands; he could fetch and carry; he would like doing it. "I've got infantile paralysis." "I've got a rubber ball." "I've got a train." "I've got a funny little man what dances." Coming into the house, Cilly found them the best of friends, in the best of spirits. Without entering the sun-parlor, she spoke through the doorway, coldly. "Bertie, I don't think momma would like you to act like that. I'll go and ask her." Mrs. Tollivant hurried from the kitchen, scouring a saucepan as she looked in on them. Seeing nothing amiss, she went away again. Then as if distrusting her own vision, she came back. She came back more than once, anxiously, suspiciously. Bertie was enjoying himself with this boy picked out of the gutter. That the boy had been picked out of the gutter was not what troubled her, but that Bertie should enjoy himself in the lad's society. Wise enough not to put notions into Bertie's head, she stopped her ward later in the day, when she had the chance to speak to him alone. "I saw you playing with Bertie. Well, that's all right. Only you'll remember your promise, won't you? You won't teach him anything harmful?" "No, ma'am," the boy answered, humbly, as one who has a large selection of harmful things to impart. IX He had looked forward to Monday and school. After four days in the Tollivant household he was eager for relief from it. Except for Cilly's occasional, and always private, taunts, they were not unkind to him; they only treated him as an outcast whom they had been obliged to succor because no one else would do so. He had the same food and drink as they; his room was good enough; of whatever was material he had no complaint to make. There was only the distrust which rendered his bread bitter and the bed hard to lie upon. They didn't take him in as one of them. They kept him outside, an alien, an intruder. It was again a new experience in that for the first time in his life he was doing without love. When he was Tom Coburn he had had plenty of it at the worst of times. The Swindon Street Home was full of it. In the Tollivant house it was the only thing weighed and measured and stinted. He couldn't, of course, make this analysis. He only knew that something on which his life depended was not given him. He hoped to find it in the school. In any case the school would admit him to the larger life. It would bind him to that human family which he had so long craved to enter. In addition to that, it was at school you learned things. He was the more eager to learn things for the reason that Mrs. Tollivant had declared him backward. In the primary school Cilly was in the second grade; he must go into the first. He would be with children a year younger than himself. But the humiliation would be an incentive to ambition. He had already decided that only by "knowing things" should he be able to lift himself out of his despised estate. The school session was all he had hoped for. Miss Pollard, the teacher, put in touch with his story by Mrs. Tollivant, kept him near to her, and watched over him. He learned to discriminate between _his_, _has_, and _had_, as matters of orthography, as well as between _cat_, _car_, and _can_. That twice two made four and twice four made eight added much to his understanding of numbers. He sang _Roving the Old Homeland_, while Miss Pollard pointed on the map to the places as they were named. From Plymouth town to Plymouth town The Pilgrims made their way; The Puritans settled Salem, And Boston on the Bay. The air had a rhythm and a lilt which allowed for the inclusion of any reasonable number of redundant syllables. The Dutch lived in New Amsterdam, Where the blue waters fork; The English came and conquered it, And turned it into New York. A little history, a little geography, being taught by the simple method of doggerel, much pleasure was evoked by the exercise of healthy lungs. Listening to her new pupil, Miss Pollard discovered a sweet treble that had never before been aware of itself, with a linnet's joy in piping. A linnet's joy was his joy throughout the whole morning, with no more than a slight flaw in his ecstasy in the thought of two hours in the Tollivant home before he came back for the afternoon. As Cilly called for Bertie at the kindergarten, he walked homeward by himself. Happy with a happiness never experienced before, he had not noticed that his school-mates hung away from him, tittering as he passed. To well-dressed little boys and girls his worn old cap, his frayed knickerbockers, and above all his cheap gray overcoat with a stringy sheepskin collar, naturally marked him for derision. They would have marked him for derision even had his story not been known to everyone. He went singing on his way, stepping manfully to the measure. The Dutch lived in New Amsterdam, Where the blue waters fork; The English came and conquered it, And turned it into New York. They massed themselves behind him, convulsed by his lack of self-consciousness. The little girls giggled; the boys attempted to make snowballs from snow too powdery to hold together. One lad found a frozen potato which he hurled in such a way as to skim close to the singing figure while just missing it. Tom Whitelaw, unsuspicious of ill-will, turned round in curiosity. He was greeted by a hoot from the crowd, but from whom he couldn't tell. "Who's the boy what his mother was put in jail?" The hoot became a chorus of jeers. By one after another the insult was taken up. "Who's the boy what his mother was put in jaaa-il?" As far as he was able to distinguish, the voices of the little girls were the louder. In their merriment they screamed piercingly. "Gutter-snipe! Gutter-rat! Crook! Crook! Crook! Who's the boy what his mother was put in ja-aa-ail?" Crimson, with clenched fists, with gnashing teeth, with tears of rage in his eyes, he stood his ground while they came on. They swept toward him in a semicircle of which he made the center. Very well! So much the better! He could spring on at least one of them, and dash his brains out on the ground. There was no ferocity he would not enjoy putting into execution. He sprang, but amid the yells of the crowd his prey dodged and escaped him. The semicircle broke. Instead of advancing in massed formation, it danced round him now as forty or fifty imps. The imps bewildered him, as _banderilleros_ bewilder a bull in the ring. He didn't know which to attack. When he lunged at one, the charge was diverted by another, so that he struck at the air wildly. Shrieks of mockery at these failures maddened him, with the heartbreaking madness of a loving thing goaded out of all semblance to itself. He panted, he groaned, he dashed about foolishly, he stumbled, he fell. When pelted with pebbles or scraps of ice, he was hardly aware of the rain upon his head. But the mob swept on, leaving him behind. At gates and corners the boy baiters disappeared, hungry for their dinners. Most of them forgot him as soon as they had turned their backs. It was easy for them to stop for awhile since they could begin again. He was alone on the gritty, icy slope surrounding the schoolhouse. There was no comfort for him in the world. Faintly he remembered as a satisfaction that he hadn't cried, but even this consolation was cold. He wondered if he couldn't kill himself. He did not kill himself, though he pondered ways and means of doing it. He came to the conclusion that it would be foolish to kill himself before killing some of his tormentors. He prayed about it that night, his first prayer, except for the one taught him on Christmas Eve by Mrs. Crewdson. To the family devotions, for which all were assembled about eight o'clock, before the younger children went to bed, Mr. Tollivant had begun to add a new petition. "And, O Heavenly Father, take pity on the little stranger within our gates, even as we have welcomed him into our home. Blot out his past from Thy book. Give him a new heart. Make him truthful and honest especially. Help him to be gentle, obedient...." But savagely the boy intervened on his own behalf. "O Heavenly Father, don't! Don't give me a new heart, or make me gentle and obedient, till I kill some of them fellows that called me a crook, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen." X He killed none of the fellows who called him a crook, though during the first two years of his schooling he was called a crook pretty often. Whatever grade he was in, he was always that boy who differs from other boys, and is therefore the black swan in a flock of white ones. Whatever his progress, he made it to the tune of his own history. He was a gutter-snipe. His mother had killed herself in jail! Before she had killed herself both he and she had been arrested for thieving in a shop! There was not a house in Harfrey where the tale was not told. There was never a boy or girl in the school who hadn't learned it before making his acquaintance. Besides, they said of him, he would have been "different" anyhow. Being "different" was an offense less easily pardoned than being criminal. Dressed more poorly than they, and with no claims of a social kind, he carried himself with that bearing which they could only describe as putting on airs. It was Cilly Tollivant who first brought this charge home to him. "But I don't, Cilly," he protested, earnestly. "I don't know how to be any other way." Cilly was by this time growing sisterly. She couldn't live in the house with him and not feel her heart relenting, and though she disdained him in public, as her own interests compelled her to do, in private she tried to help him. "Don't know how to be any other way!" she exclaimed, indignantly. "Tom Whitelaw, you make me sick. Don't you know even how to _talk_ right?" "Yes, but...." "There you go," she interrupted, bitterly. "Why can't you say _Yep_, like anybody else?" He took the suggestion humbly. He would try. His only explanation of his eccentricity was that _Yep_ and _Nope_ didn't suit his tongue. But adopting Yep and Nope, as he might have adopted words from a foreign language, adopting much else that was crude and crass and vulgar and noisy and swaggering and standardized, according to schoolboy notions of the standard, he still found himself "different." For one thing, he looked different. Debase his language as he might, or coarsen his manners, or stultify his impulses, he couldn't keep himself from shooting up tall and straight, with a carriage of the head which was in itself an offense to those who knew themselves inferior. It made nothing easier for him that his teachers liked and respected him. "Teacher's pet" was a term of reproach hardly less painful than crook or gutter-snipe. But he couldn't help learning easily; he couldn't help answering politely when politely spoken to; he couldn't help the rapture of his smile when a friendly word came his way. All this told against him. He was guyed, teased, worried, tortured. If there was a cap to be snatched it was his. If there was one of a pair of rubber shoes to be stolen or hidden it was his. If there was an exercise book to be grabbed and thrown up into a tree where the owner could be pelted while he clambered after it, it was his. Because he was poor, friendless, defenseless, and yet with damnable pride written all over him, it became a recognized law of the school that any meanness done to him would be legitimate. But in his third year at the Tollivants the persecution waned, and in the fourth it stopped. His school-mates grew. Growing, they developed other instincts. Fair play was one of them; admiration for pluck was another. "You've got to hand it to that kid," Arthur Tollivant, now fourteen, had been heard to say in a circle of his friends. "He's stood everything and never squealed a yelp. Some young tough, believe me!" This good opinion was reflected among the lads of Tom Whitelaw's own age. They had never been cruel; they had only been primitive. Having passed beyond that stage, they forgot to no small degree what they had done while in it. The boy who at seven was the crook was at eleven Whitey the Sprinter. He walked to and from school with the best of them. With the best of them he played and fought and swore privately. If he put on airs it was the airs of being a much sadder dog than he was, daring to smoke a cigarette and go home with the smell of the wickedness on his breath. So, outwardly, Tom Whitelaw came in for two full years of good-natured toleration. If it did not go further than toleration it was because he was a State ward. On the baseball or the football team he might be welcomed as an equal; in homes there was discrimination. He was not invited to parties, and among the young people of Harfrey parties were not few. Girls who met him at the Tollivants' didn't speak to him outside. When Cilly, now being known as Cecilia, had her friends to celebrate her birthday, he remained in his room with no protest from the family at not joining them. None the less, it was a relief to be free from jeering in the streets, as well as from being reminded every day at school of his mother's tragedy. It was a relief to him; but it was no more. For more than that the wound had gone too deep. Outwardly, he accepted their approaches; in his heart he rejected them, biding his time. He was biding his time, not with longings for revenge--he was too sensible now for that--but in the hope of passing on and forgetting them. By the time he was twelve he was already aware of his impulse toward growth. It was in his soul as a secret conviction, the seed's knowledge of its own capacity to germinate. Most of the boys and girls around him he could judge, not by a precocious worldly wisdom, but by his gift for intuitive sizing up. Their range was so far and no farther, and they themselves were aware of it. They would become clerks and plumbers and carpenters and school-teachers and shoe dealers and provision men, and whatever else could reach its fulfillment in a small country town. He himself felt no limit. Life was big. He knew he could expand in it. To nurse resentments would be small, and would keep him small. All he asked was to forget them, to forget, too, those who called them forth; but to that end he must be far away. XI The road to this Far-away began in the summer vacation of the year when he was supposed to be twelve. It was the year when he first went to work, though the work was meant to last for no more than a few weeks. Mr. Quidmore, a market gardener at Bere, in Connecticut, some seven or eight miles eastward toward the Sound, had come over to ask Mr. Tollivant for a few hours' work in straightening out his accounts. Straightening out accounts for men who were but amateurs at bookkeeping was a means by which Mr. Tollivant eked out his none-too-generous salary. It was a Sunday afternoon in June. They were in the yard, looking at the Plymouth Rocks behind their defenses of chicken-wire. That is, Mr. Quidmore was looking at the Plymouth Rocks, but Tom was looking at Mr. Quidmore. Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant were giving their guest information as to how they raised their hens and marketed their eggs. It was a family affair. Mrs. Tollivant prepared the food; Cecilia fed the birds; Art hunted for the eggs; Bertie and Tom packed them. Mr. Quidmore was moved to say: "I wish I had a fine boy like your Art to help me with the berrypicking. Good money in it. Three a week and his keep for as long as the strawberries hold out." Tom saw Mrs. Tollivant shake her head at her husband behind Mr. Quidmore's back. This meant disapproval. Disapproval could not be disapproval of the work, but of Mr. Quidmore. Art already gave his holiday services to a dairy for a dollar less than Mr. Quidmore's offer, and no keep. It was the employer, then, and not the employment that Mrs. Tollivant distrusted. And yet Mr. Quidmore fascinated Tom. He had never before seen anyone whose joints had the looseness of one of those toys which you worked with a string. He was so slim, too, that you got little or no impression of a body beneath his flapping clothes. Nervously restless, he walked with a shuffle of which the object seemed the keeping of his shoes from falling off. When he talked or laughed one side of his long thin face was screwed up as if by some early injury or paralysis. The right portion of his lips could smile, while the left trembled into a rictus. This made his speech slower and more drawling than Tom was accustomed to hear; but his voice was naturally soft, with a quality in it like cream. It was the voice that Tom liked especially. In reply to the suggestion about Art, Mr. Tollivant replied, as one who sees only a well-meant business proposal, "We'd like nothing better, Brother Quidmore; but the fact is Art has about as much as he can do for the rest of his vacation." He waved his hand toward Tom. "What do you say to this boy?" At the glorious suggestion Tom's heart began to fail for fear. He was not a fine boy like Arthur Tollivant. The possibility of earning three dollars a week, to say nothing of his board, was too much like the opening up of an Aladdin's palace for the hope to be more than deceptive. It was part of his daily humiliation never to have had any money of his own. The paternity of the State paid for his food, shelter, and education; but it never supplied him with cash, or with any cash that he ever saw. To have three dollars a week jingling in his pocket would not only lift him out of his impotent dependence, but would make him a man. While Mr. Quidmore walked round him, inspecting him as if he were a dog or pig or other small animal for sale, he held himself with straightness, dignity, and strength. If he was for sale he would do his best to be worthy of his price. Mr. Quidmore nodded toward Mr. Tollivant. "State ward, ain't he?" Mr. Tollivant admitted that he was. "Youngster whose moth--" Mrs. Tollivant interrupted kindly. "You needn't be afraid of that. He's been with us for five years. I think I may say that all traces of the past have been outlived. We can really give him a good character." Tom was grateful. Mr. Quidmore examined him again. At last he shuffled up to him, throwing his arm across his shoulder, and drawing him close to himself. "What about it, young fellow? Want to come?" Entirely won by this display of kindliness, the boy smiled up into the twisted face. "Yes, sir." "Then that's settled. Put your duds together, and we'll go along. I guess," he added to Mr. Tollivant, "that you can stretch a point to let him come, and get your permit from the Guardians to-morrow." Mr. Tollivant agreeing that after five years' care he could venture as much as this, they drove over to Bere in Mr. Quidmore's dilapidated motor car. Mrs. Quidmore met them at the door. Her husband called to her: "Hello, there! Got a new hand to help you with the strawberries." She answered, dejectedly. "If he's as good as some of the other new hands you've picked up lately--" "Oh, rats! Give us a rest! If I brought the angel Gabriel to pick the berries you'd see something to find fault with." That there was a rift within the lute of this couple's happiness was clear to Tom before he had climbed out of the machine. "Where's he to sleep?" Mrs. Quidmore asked in her tone of discontent. "I suppose he can sleep in the barn, can't he?" "I wouldn't put a dog to sleep in that barn, nasty, smelly, rotten place." "Well, put him to sleep where you like. He'll get three a week and his keep while he's here, and that's all I'm responsible for." Mrs. Quidmore turned and went into the house. Her husband winked at Tom as man to man. "Can you beat it? Always like that. God! I don't know how I stand it. Get in." Tom got in, finding an interior as slack as Mrs. Quidmore herself. The Tollivant house, with four children in it, was often belittered, but with a little tidying it became spick and span. Here the housekeeping wore an air of hopelessness. Whoever did it did it without heart. "God! I hate to come into this place," its master confided to Tom, as they stood in the hall, of which the rug lay askew, while a mirror hung crooked on the wall. "You and me could keep the shack looking dandier than this if she wasn't here at all. I wish to the Lord...." But before the week was out the boy had won over Mrs. Quidmore, and begun to make her fond of him. Because he was eager to be useful, he helped her in the house, showing solicitude, too, on her personal account. A low-keyed, sad-eyed woman who did nothing to make herself attractive, she blamed her husband for perceiving the loss of her attractiveness. "He's bound to me," she would complain, tearfully, to the boy, as he dried the dishes she had washed. "It's his duty to be fond of me. But he ain't. There's fifty women he likes better than he does me." This note of married infelicity was new to Tom, especially as it reached him from both parties to the contract. "God, how she gets my goat! Sometimes I think how much I'd enjoy seeing her stretched out with a bullet through her head. I tell you that the fellow who'd do that for me wouldn't be sorry in the end...." To the boy these words were meaningless. The creamy drawl with which they were uttered robbed them of the vicious or ferocious, making them mere humorous explosions. He could laugh at them, and yet he laughed with a feeling of discomfort. The discomfort was the greater because in kindness to him lay the one point as to which the couple were agreed. Making no attempt to reconcile elements so discordant, all he could do was to soften the conditions which each found distasteful. He kept the house tidier for the man; he did for the woman a few of the things her husband overlooked. "It's him that ought to do that," she would point out, in dull rebellion. "He's doing it for some other woman I'll be bound. Who _is_ that woman that he meets?" Conjugal betrayal was also new to Tom, and not easily comprehensible. That a man with a wife should also be "going with a girl" was a possibility that had never come within his experience while living with the Tollivants. He had heard a good many things from Art, as also from some other boys, but this event seemed to have escaped even their wide observation. It would have escaped his own had not Mrs. Quidmore harped on it. "I do believe he'd like to see me in my grave. I'm in their way, and they'd like to get me out of it. Oh, you needn't tell me! Couldn't you keep an eye on him, and tell me what she's like?" For Mrs. Quidmore's sake he watched Mr. Quidmore, but as he didn't know what he was watching him for the results were not helpful. And he liked them both. He might have said that he loved them both, since loving came to him so easily. Mrs. Quidmore washed and mended his clothes, and whenever she went to Harfrey or some other town she added to his wardrobe. Mr. Quidmore was forever dropping into his ear some gentle, honeyed confidence of which Mrs. Quidmore was the butt. Neither of them ever scolded him, or overworked him. He was in the house almost as a son. And then one day he learned that he was to be there altogether as a son. XII He never knew how and when the question as to his adoption had been raised, or whether the husband or the wife had raised it first. Here, too, the steps were taken with that kind of mystification which shrouded so much of his destiny. He himself was not consulted till, apparently, all the principal parties but himself had decided on the matter. One of the Guardians, or a representative, asked him the formal question as to whether or not he should like it, and being answered with a Yes, had gone away. The next thing he knew he had legally become the son of Martin and Anna Quidmore, and was to be henceforth called by their name. The outward changes were not many. He had won so much freedom in the house that when he became its son and heir there was, for the minute, little more to give him. His new mother grew more openly affectionate; his new father drove him round in the dilapidated car and showed him to the neighbors as his boy. As far as Tom could judge, there was general approval. Martin Quidmore had taken a poor outcast lad and given him a home and a status in the world. All good people must rejoice in this sort of generosity. The new father rejoiced in it himself, smiling with a twisted smile that was like a leer, the only thing about him which the new son was afraid of. It was August now. The picking of the strawberries having long been over, the boy had been kept on for other jobs. He still worked at them. He dug potatoes; he picked peas and beans; he pulled carrots, parsnips, and beets; he culled cucumbers. The hired hands did the heaviest work, but he shared in it to the limit of his strength. Sometimes he went off early in the morning on the great lorry, loaded with garden-truck, which his father drove to the big markets. On these journeys the new father grew most confidential and lovable. His mellifluous voice, which was sad and at the same time not quite serious, was lovable in itself. "God, how I'd like to give you a better home than you've got! But it's no use, not as long as she's there. She'll never be anything different. She'd not make things brighter or cleaner or jollier, not even if she was to try." "Well, she _is_ trying," the boy declared, in her defense; but the only answer was a melancholy laugh. And yet now that he had the duties, of a son, he set to work to improve the family relationships. He petted the mother, he cajoled the father. He found small ruses of affection in which, as it seemed to him, he gained both the one and the other, insensibly to either. His proof of this came one morning as once more they were driving to one of the big markets. "Say, boy, I'm beginning to be worried about her. I don't think she can be well. She's never been sick much; but gosh! now I'll be hanged if I don't think I'll go and see a doctor and ask him to give her some medicine." As this thoughtfulness, in spite of all indications to the contrary, implied a fundamental tenderness, the boy was glad of it. He was the more glad of it when, on a morning some days later, and in the same situation, the father drawled, in his casual way: "Say, I've seen that doctor, and he's given me something he wants her to take. Thinks it will put her all right in no time." "And did you give it to her?" he asked, eagerly. The honeyed voice grew sweeter. "Well, no; that's the trouble. You can't get her to take doctor's stuff, if she knows she's taking it. Got to get her on the sly. Once when she needed a tonic I used to watch round and put it in her tea. Bucked her up fine." "And is that what you're going to do now?" "Well, I would, only she'd be afraid of me. Watches me like a cat, don't you see she does? What I was thinking of was this. You know she makes a cup of tea for herself every day in the middle of the afternoon while we're out at work. Well, now, if you could make an excuse to slip into the kitchen, and put one of these powders in her teapot--" he tapped the packet in his waistcoat pocket--"she'd never suspect nothing. She'd take it--and be cured." The boy was silent. "You don't want to do it, hey?" "Oh, I don't say that. I was--I was--just wondering." "Wondering what?" "Whether it's fair play to anyone to give them medicine when they don't know they're taking it." "But if it's to do them good?" "But ought we to do good to people against their wills?" "Why, sure! What you thinking of? Still if you don't want to...." The tone hurt him. "Oh, but I will." "Say I will, _father_. Why don't you call me that? Don't I call you son?" He braced himself to an effort. "All right, father; I will." "Good! Then here's the powder." He drew one from the packet. "Don't let none of it fall. You'll steal into the kitchen this afternoon--she generally lays down after she's washed the dinner things--and just empty the paper into the little brown teapot she always makes her tea in. Then burn the paper in the stove--there's sure to be a fire on--so that she won't find nothing lying around to make her suspicious. You understand, don't you?" He said he understood, though in his heart of hearts he wished that he hadn't been charged with the duty. XIII If you had asked the boy who was now legally Tom Quidmore why he was reluctant to give his mother a powder that would do her good he would have been unable to explain his hesitation. Reason, in the main, was in favor of his doing it. In the first place, he had promised, and he had always responded to those exhortations of his teachers which laid stress on keeping his word. Not to keep his word had come to seem an offense of the nature of personal defilement. Then the whole matter had been thought out and decreed by an authority higher than himself. The child mind, like the childish mind at all times, is under the weight of authority. The source of the authority is a matter of little moment so long as it speaks decidedly enough. It is always a means by which to get rid of the bother of using private judgment, which as often as not is a bore to the person with the right to it. In the case of a boy of twelve, private judgment is hampered by a knowledge of his insufficiency. The man who provides food, clothing, shelter, is invested with the right to speak. The child mind is logical, orderly, respectful, and prenatally disposed to discipline. Except on severe provocation it does not rebel. Tom Quidmore felt no impulse to rebellion, even though his sense of right and wrong was, for the moment, mystified. He lacked data. Such data as came to his hearing, and less often to his sight, lay morally outside his range. Like those scientifically minded men who during the childhood of our race registered the phenomena of electricity without going further, he had no power of making deductions from what eyes and ears could record. He knew that there was in life such an element as sexual love; but that was all he knew. It entered into the relations of married people, and in some puzzling way contributed to the birth of children; but of its wanderings and aberrations he had never heard. That man and wife should reach a breaking point was no part of his conception of the things that happened. There was nothing of the kind between the Tollivants, nor among the parents of the lads with whom he had grown up at Harfrey. That which at Harfrey had been clear unrelenting daylight was at Bere a gloaming haunted by strange shapes which perplexed and rather frightened him. Not until he was fourteen or fifteen years of age, and the Quidmore episode behind him, like an island passed at sea, did the significance of these queer doings and sayings really occur to him. All that for the present his mind and experience were equal to was listening, observing, and wondering. He knew already what it was to have things which he hadn't understood at the time of their happening become clear as he grew older. An illustration of this came from the small events of that very afternoon. On going back from his midday dinner to work in the carrot patch he fixed on half past two as the hour at which he would make the attempt to force on his mother the prescribed medicine. That time having arrived, he rose, brushed the earth from his knees, dusted his hands against each other, and started slowly for the house. A faraway memory which had been in the back of his mind ever since his father had made the odd request now began to assert itself, like the throb of an old pain. He was a little boy again. In the dim hall of the Swindon Street Home he was listening to the friendly policeman talking to Miss Honiton. He recaptured his own emotions, the dumb distress of the young creature lost in the dark, and ignorant of everything but its helplessness. His mother had taken something, or had not taken something, he wasn't sure which. The beaming young lady handed him his present from the Christmas Tree, and told him that cyanide of potassium--the words were still branded on his brain--was a deadly poison. Then he stood once more, as in memory he had stood so many times, in the half-darkened room where words were mumbled over the long black box which they spoke of as "the body." Now that it was all in far perspective he knew what it had meant. That is, he knew the type of woman his mother had been; he knew the kind of soil he had sprung from. The events of five years back to a boy of twelve are a very long distance away. So his mother seemed to Tom. So did the sneaking through shops, and the flights from tenement to tenement. So did the awful Christmas Eve when he had lost her. He could think of her tenderly now because he understood that her mind had been unhinged. What hurt him with a pain which never fell into perspective was that in trying to create in his boyish way some faint tradition of self-respect, he worked back always to this origin in shame. While seeing no connection between such far-off things and the task put upon him by his father, he found them jostling each other in his mind. You took something--and there was disaster. It was as far as his thought carried him. After that came the fact that, his respect for authority being strong, he dared not disobey. He could only dawdle. A delay of five minutes would be five minutes to the good. Besides, dawdling on a hot, windless summer afternoon, on which the butterflies, bees, and humming-birds were the only nonhuman living things not taking a siesta, eased the muscles cramped with long crouching in the carrot beds. There being two ways of getting to the house, he took the longer one. The longer one led him round the duck pond, whence the heat had driven ashore all the ducks and geese with the exception of one gander. For no particular reason the gander's name was Ernest. Between Ernest and Gimlets, the wire-haired terrier pup, one of those battles such as might take place between Bolivia and Switzerland was in full swing of rage. Gimlets fought from the bank; Ernest from the pond. When Ernest paddled forward, with neck outstretched and nostrils hissing, Gimlets scampered to the top of the shelving shore, where he could stand and bark defiantly. When Ernest swung himself round and made for the open sea, Gimlets galloped bravely down to the water's edge, yelping out challenges. This bloody fray gave the boy a further excuse for lingering. Three or four times had Ernest, stung by the taunts to which he had tried to seem indifferent, wheeled round on his enemy. Three or four times had Gimlets scrambled up the bank and down again. But he, too, recognized authority, and a call that he couldn't disobey. A long whistle, and the battle was at an end! Gimlets trotted off. The whistle came from the grove of pines climbing the little bluff on the side of the duck pond remote from the house. It struck the boy as odd that his father should be there at a time when he was supposed to be cutting New Zealand spinach for the morrow's market. Not to be caught idling, the boy slipped down the bank to creep undetected below the pinewood bluff. Neither seeing nor being seen, he nevertheless heard voices, catching but a single word. The word was Bertha, and it was spoken by his father. The only Bertha in the place was a certain beautiful young widow living in Bere. That his father should be talking to her in the pinewood was another of those details difficult to explain. More difficult to explain he found a little scene he caught on looking backward. Having now passed the bluff, he was about to round the corner of the pond where the path led through a plantation of blue spruces which hid the house. His glancing back was an accident, but it made him witness of an incident pastoral in its charm. Bertha, being indeed the beautiful young widow, the boy was astonished to see his father steal a kiss from her. Bertha responded with such a slap as nymphs give to shepherds, running playfully away. His father shambled after her, as shepherds after nymphs, catching her in his arms. Tom plunged into the blue spruce plantation where he could be out of sight. Hot as he was already, he grew hotter still. What he had seen was so silly, so stupid, so undignified! He wished he hadn't seen it. Having seen it, he wished he could forget it. He couldn't forget it because, unpleasant as he found it, he was somehow aware that it had bearings beyond unpleasantness. What they were he had nothing to tell him. He could only run through the plantation as if he would leave the thing as quickly as possible behind him; and all at once the house came into sight. With the house in sight he remembered again what he had come to do. He stopped running. His steps again began to lag. Feeling for the powder in his waistcoat pocket, he reminded himself that it would do his mother good. The house lay sleeping and silent in the heat. He crept up to the back door. And there at the open window stood his mother rolling dough on a table. She rolled languidly, as she did everything. Her head drooped a little to one side; her expression was full of that tremulous protest against life which might with a word break into a rain of tears. Relieved and delighted, he stole round the house, to enter by another way. She was now lifting a cover of the stove, so that she didn't hear his approach. Before she knew that anyone was there he had slipped his arm around her, and smacked a big kiss on her cheek. She turned slowly, the lifter in her hand. A new life seemed to dawn in her, brightening her eyes and flushing her sallowness. "You bad little boy! What did you come home for?" He replied as was true, that he had come for a drink of water. He had meant to take a drink of water after putting her powder in the teapot. "I thought," he ended, "you'd be lying down asleep." "I was lying down, but something made me get up." He was curious. "Something--like what?" "Well, I just couldn't sleep. And then I remembered that it was a long time since I'd made him any of them silver cookies he used to be so fond of." He liked the name. "Is that what you're baking?" "Yes; and you'll ..." she went back to the table, picking up the cutter--"you'll have some for supper if you'll--if you'll call me ma." "But I do." Her smile had the slow timidity that might have been born of disuse. "Yes, when I ask you. But I want you to do it all the time, and natural." "All right then; I will--ma." While he stood drinking a first, and then a second, cup of water, she began on the memories dear to her, but which few now would listen to. She had been born in Wilmington, Delaware, where Martin also had been born. His father worked in a powder factory in that city. It was owing to an explosion when he was a lad that Martin's frame had been partially paralyzed. "He wasn't blowed up or anything; he just got a shock. He was awful delicate, and used to have fits till he grew out of them. I think the crook in his face makes him look aristocratic, don't you?" The boy having said that he didn't know but what it did, she continued plaintively, cutting out her cookies with a heart-shaped cutter. "I was awful pretty in those days, and that refined I wouldn't hardly do a thing for my mother in the house, or carry the tiniest little parcel across the street. I was just born ladylike. And when Martin and I were married he let me have a girl for the first two years to do everything. All he ever expected of me was to get up and dress, and look stylish; and now...." As she paused in her cutting to press back a sob, the boy took the opportunity to speak of getting back to work. "I think I must beat it, ma. I've got all those carrots--" "Oh, wait a little while. He can spare you for a few minutes, can't he? Anyhow, nothing you can do'll save him from going bankrupt. This place don't pay. He'll never make it pay. His work was to run a hat store. That's what he did when he married me, and he made swell money at it, too." The family history interested the boy, as all tales did which accounted for the personal. He knew now how Martin Quidmore's health had broken down, and the doctor had ordered out-of-door life as a remedy. Out-of-door life would have been impossible if an uncle hadn't died and left him fifteen thousand dollars. "Enough to live on quite genteel for life," his wife complained, "but nothing would do but that he should think himself a market-gardener, him that couldn't tell a turnip from a spade. Blew in the whole thing on this place, away from everywheres, and making me a drudge that hardly knew so much as to wash a dish. Even that I could have stood if he'd only gone on loving me as his marriage vows made it his duty to do, but--" "I'll love you, ma," the boy declared, tenderly. "You don't have to cry because there's no one to love you, not while I'm around." The new life in her eyes was as much of incredulity as of joy. "Don't say that, dearie, if you don't mean it. You don't have to love me just because I'm trying to be a mother to you, and look after your clothes." "But, ma, I want to. I do." They gazed at each other, she with the cutter in her hand, he with the cup. What he saw was not a feeble, slatternly woman, but some one who wanted him. He had not been wanted by anyone since the night when his mudda--he still used the word in his deep silences--had gone away with the wardress who looked like a Fate. In the five intervening years he had suffered less from unkindness than from being shut out of hearts. Here was a heart that had need of him, so that he had need of it. The type of heart didn't matter. If it made any difference it was only that where there was weakness the appeal to him was the greater. With this poor thing he would have something on which to spend his treasure. "You'll see, ma! I'll bring in the water for you, and split the kindlings, and get up in the morning and light the fire, and milk the cow, and everything." Straight and sturdy, he looked at her with the level gaze of eyes that seemed the calmer and more competent because they were hidden so far beneath his bushy, horizontal eyebrows. The uniform tan from working in the sun heightened his air of manliness. Even the earth on his clothes, and a smudge of it across his forehead where a dirty hand had been put up to push back his crisp ashen hair, hinted at his capacity to share in the world's work. To the helpless woman whose prop had failed her, the coming of this young strength to her aid was little short of a miracle. In the struggle between tears and laughter she was almost hysterical. "Oh, you darling boy!" she was beginning, advancing to clasp him in her arms. But with old, old memories in his heart he dreaded the paroxysm of affection. "All right, ma!" he laughed, dodging her and slipping out. "I've got to beat it, or fath--" he stumbled on the word because he found it difficult to use--"or father will wonder where I am." But once in the yard, he called back consolingly, though keeping to the practical, "Don't you bother about Geraldine. I'll go round by the pasture and drive her home as I come back from work. I'll milk her, too." "God bless you, dearie!" Standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hand, her limp figure seemed braced to a new power, as she watched him till he disappeared within the plantation of blue spruces. XIV When a whistle blew at five o'clock the hired men on the Quidmore place stopped working. As a son of the house, Tom Quidmore paid to the signal only enough attention to pile his carrots into a wheelbarrow and convey them to the spot where they would help to furnish the market lorry in the morning. In fulfillment of his promise to his adopted mother, he then went in search of Geraldine. Of all the tasks that he liked at Bere he liked most going to the pasture. It was not his regular work. As regular work it belonged to old Diggory; but old Diggory was as willing to be relieved of it as Mrs. Quidmore of the milking. Brushing himself down, and washing his hands at the tap in the garage after a fashion that didn't clean them, he marched off, whistling. He whistled because his heart was light. His heart was light because his mother having been in the kitchen, he had escaped the necessity for giving her the medicine as to which he felt his odd reluctance. Leaving the garage behind him, he threaded a tiny path running through the beet-field. The turnip-field came next, after which he entered a strip of fine old timber, coming out from that on the main road to Bere. Along this road, for some five hundred yards, he tramped merrily, kicking up the dust. He liked this road. Not only was it open, free, and straight, but along its old stone walls raspberries and blackberries grew ripe in a tangle of wild spirea, meadow-rue, jewel weed, and Queen Anne's lace. He loved this luxuriance, this summer sense of abundance. To the boy who had never known anything but poverty, Nature at least, in this lush Connecticut countryside, seemed generous. The pasture was on the edge of a scrubby woodland in which the twenty acres of the Quidmore property trailed away into the unkempt. Eighty or a hundred years earlier, it had been the center of a farm now cut up into small holdings, chiefly among market gardeners. In the traces of the old farmhouse, the old garden, the old orchard, the boy found his imagination touched by the pathos of a vanished human past. The land sloped from the hillside, till in the bottom of the hollow it became a little brambly wood such as in England would be called a spinney. Through the spinney trickled a stream which somewhere fell into Horseneck Brook, which somewhere fell into one of those shallow inlets that the Sound thrusts in on the coastline. Halfway between the road and the streamlet, was the old home-place, deserted so long ago that the cellar was choked with blackberry vines, and the brick of the foundation bulging out of plumb. A clump of lilac which had once snuggled lovingly against a south wall was now a big solitary bush. What used to be a bed of pansies had reverted to a scattering of cheery little heartsease faces, brightening the grass. The low-growing, pale-rose mallow of old gardens still kept up its vigor of bloom, throwing out a musky scent. There was something wistful in the spot, especially now that the sun was westering, and the birds skimmed low, making for their nests. In going for Geraldine Tom always stole a few minutes to linger among these memories of old joys and sorrows, old labors and rewards, of which nothing now remained but these few flowers, a few wind-beaten apple trees, and this dint in the ground which served best as a shelter for chipmunks. It was the part of the property farthest from the house. It was far, too, from any other habitation, securing him the privilege of solitude. The privilege was new to him. At Harfrey he had never known it. About the gardens, even at Bere, there were always the owner, the hired men, the customers, the neighbors who came and went. But in Geraldine's pasture he found only herself, the crows, the robins, the thrushes singing in the spinney, and the small wild life darting from one covert to another, or along the crumbling stone wall hung with its loopings of wild grape. He was not lonely on these excursions. Companionship had never in the Harfrey schools been such a pleasure that he missed anything in having to do without it. Rather, he enjoyed the freedom to be himself, to wear no mask, to have no part to play. It was only when alone like this that he understood how much of his thought and effort was spent in dancing to other people's tunes. In the Tollivant home he could never, like the other children, speak or act without a second thought. As a State ward it was his duty to commend himself. To commend himself he was obliged to think twice even before venturing on trifles. He had formed a habit of thinking twice, of rarely being spontaneous. By himself in this homey pasture he felt the relief of one who has been balancing on a tight rope at walking on the ground. When he had climbed the bars Geraldine, who was down the hill and near the spinney, had lifted her head and swung her tail in recognition. Not being impatient, she went on with her browsing, leaving him a few minutes' liberty. Among the heartsease and the mallows he flung himself down, partly because he was tired and partly that he might think. With so much to think about thought came without sequence. It centered soon on what he was to be. Of one thing he was certain; he didn't want to be a market gardener. Not but that he enjoyed the open-air life and the novelty of closeness to the soil. Like the whole Quidmore connection, it was good enough for the time. All the same, it was only for the time, and one day he would break away from it. How, he didn't ask. He merely knew by his intuitions that it would be so. He was going to be something big. That, too, was intuitive conviction. What he meant by big he was unable to define, beyond the fact that knowledge and money would enter into it. He was interested in money, not so much for what it gave you as for what it was. It was a queer thing when you came to think of it. A dollar bill in itself had no more value than any other scrap of paper; and yet it would buy a dollar's worth of anything. He turned that over in his mind till he worked out the reason why. He worked out the principle of payment by check, which at first was as blank a mystery as marital relations. When newspapers came his way he studied the reports of the stock exchange, much as a savage who cannot read scans the unmeaning hieroglyphs which to wiser people are words. He did make out that railways and other great utilities must be owned by a lot of people who combined to put their money into them; but daily fluctuations in value he couldn't understand. When he asked his adopted father he was told that he couldn't understand it, though he knew he could. Long accustomed to this answer as to the bewilderments of life, he rarely now asked anything. If he was puzzled he waited for more data. Even for little boys things cleared themselves up if you kept them in your mind, and applied the explanation when it came your way. The point, he concluded, was not to be in a hurry. There were the spiders. He was fond of watching them. They would sit for hours as still as metal things, their little eyes fixed like jewels in a ring. Then when they saw what they wanted one swift dart was enough for them. So it must be with little boys. You got one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow; but you got everything in time if you waited and kept alert. By waiting and keeping alert he would find out what he was to be. He had reached his point when he saw Geraldine pacing up the hill toward the pasture bars. She was giving him the hint that certain acknowledged rites were no longer to be put off. He had lowered the bars, over which she was stepping delicately, when he saw his father come tearing down the road, going toward Bere, with all the speed his shuffling gait could put on. Used by this time to erratic actions on Quidmore's part, he was hardly surprised; he was only curious. He was more curious still when, on drawing nearer, the man seemed in a panic. "Looks as if he was running away from something," was the lad's first thought, though he couldn't imagine from what. "Is anything the matter?" From panic the indications changed to those of surprise, though the voice was as velvety as ever. "Oh, so it's you! I thought it was Diggory. What did you--what did you--do with that powder?" The boy began putting up the bars while Geraldine plodded homeward. "I couldn't give it to her. She was in the kitchen baking." He thought it wise to add: "She was making silver cookies for you. You'll have them for supper." There followed more odd phenomena, of which the boy, waiting and keeping alert, only got the explanation later. Quidmore threw himself face downward on the wayside grass. With his forehead resting on his arm, he lay as still as one of those drunken men Tom had occasionally seen like logs beside some country road. Geraldine turned her head to ask why she was not followed, but the boy stood waiting for a further sign. He wondered whether all grown-up men had minutes like this, or whether it was part of the epilepsy he had heard about. But when Quidmore got up he was calm, the traces of panic having disappeared. To a more experienced person the symptoms would have been of relief; but to the lad of twelve they said nothing. "I'll go back with you," was Quidmore's only comment, as together they set out to follow Geraldine. Having reached the barn where the milking was to be done, Quidmore was proceeding to the house. In the hope of a negative, Tom asked if he should try again to-morrow. Quidmore half turned. "I'll leave that to you." "I'll do whatever you say," Tom pleaded, desperate at this responsibility. Quidmore went on his way, calling back, in his creamy drawl, over his shoulder: "I'll leave it entirely to you." XV Left to him, Tom saw nothing in the duty but to do it. He was confirmed in this resolution by Quidmore's gentleness throughout the evening. It was a new thing in Tom's experience of the house. As always with those in the habit of inflicting pain, merely to stop inflicting it seemed kindness. Supper passed without a single incident that made Mrs. Quidmore wince. On her part she played up with an almost brilliant vivacity in making none of her impotent complaints. Anything he could do to further this accord the boy felt he ought to do. He hung back only from the deed. That made him shudder. He was clear on the point that it made him shudder because of its association in his mind with the thing which had happened years before; and that, he knew, was foolish. If it would please his father he should make the attempt. He should make it perhaps the more heartily since he was free not to make it if he chose. It was the freedom that troubled him. So long as he did only what he was told he had nothing on his conscience. Now he must be sure that he was right; and he was not sure. Once more he didn't question the fact that the medicine would do his mother good. The right and wrong in his judgment centered round doing her good against her own will. With no finespun theories concerning the rights of the individual, he was pretty certain as to what they were. A divine beauty came over the evening when, after he had gone to bed about half-past eight, his mother, in the new blossoming of her affection, came to tuck him in, and kiss him good night. No such thing had happened to him since Mrs. Crewdson had last done it. Mrs. Tollivant went through this endearing rite with all her own children; but him she left out. Many a time, when from his bed beneath the eaves he heard her making her rounds at night, he had pressed his face into the pillow to control the trembling of his lips. True, he had come to regard the attention as too babyish for a man of twelve; but now that it was shown him he was touched by it. It brought to his memory something Mrs. Crewdson had said, and which he had never forgotten. "God's wherever there's love, it seems to me, dear. I bring a little bit of God to you, and you bring a little bit of God to me, and so we have Him right here." Mrs. Quidmore, too, brought a little bit of God to him, and he brought a little bit of God to Mrs. Quidmore. They showed God to each other, as if without each other they were not quite able to see Him. The fact suggested the thought that in the matter of the secret administration of the medicine he might pray. One thing he had learned with some thoroughness while in the Tollivant family, and that was religion. Both in Sunday school and in domestic instruction he had studied it conscientiously, and conscientiously accepted it. If he sometimes admitted to Bertie Tollivant, the cripple, that he "didn't see much sense in it," the confession applied to his personal inabilities. Bertie was the cynic and unbeliever in the Tollivant household. "There's about as much sense in it," he would declare secretly to Tom, "as there is in those old yarns about Pilgrim's Progress and Jack and the Beanstalk. Only don't say that to ma or pop, because the poor dears wouldn't get you." On Tom this skepticism only made the impression that he and Bertie didn't understand religion any more than they understood sex, which was also a theme of discussion. They would grow to it in time, by keeping ears and eyes open. Now that he was away from the Tollivants, in a world where religion was never spoken of, he dismissed it from his mind. That is, he dismissed its intricacies, its complicated doctrines, its galloping through prayers you were too sleepy to think of at night, and too hurried in the morning. Here he was admittedly influenced by Bertie. "If God loves you, and knows what you want, what's the good of all this Now I lay me? It'd be a funny kind of God that wouldn't look after you anyhow." Tom had given up saying Now I lay me, partly because that, too, seemed babyish, but mainly on account of Bertie's reasoning. "It's more of a compliment to God," was his way of explaining it to himself, "to know that He'll do right of His own accord, than to suppose He'll do it just because I pester Him." So every night when he got into bed he took a minute to say to himself that God was taking care of him, making this confidence serve in place of more explicit petition. When he had anything special to pray about, he said, he would begin again. And now something special had arisen. He got out of bed. He didn't kneel down because, being anxious not to mislead God by giving Him wrong information, he had first to consider what he ought to say. Stealing softly across the floor, lest the creaking of the boards should betray the fact that he was up, he went to the open window, and looked out. It was one of those mystic nights which, to a soul inclined to the mystical, seem to hold a spiritual secret. The air, scented by millions of growing things, though chiefly with the acrid perfume of the blue spruces on which he looked down, had a pungent, heavenly odor such as he never caught in the daytime. There was a tang of salt in it, too, as from the direction of the Sound came the faintest rustle of a breeze. The rustle was so faint as not to break a stillness, which was more of the nature of a holy suspense because of the myriads of stars. Seeking a formula in which to couch his prayer, he found a phrase of Mr. Tollivant's often used in domestic intercession. "And, O Heavenly Father, we beseech thee to act wisely in the matter of our needs." What constituted wisdom in the matter of their needs would then be pointed out by Mr. Tollivant according to the day's or the season's requirements. Accepting this language as that of high inspiration, and forgetting to kneel down, the boy began as he stood, looking out on the sanctified darkness: "And, O Heavenly Father, I beseech thee to act wisely in the matter of my needs." Hung up there for lack of archaic grandiloquence, he found himself ending lamely: "And don't let me give it to her if I oughtn't to, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen." With his effort he was disappointed. Not only had the choice of words not taken from Mr. Tollivant been ludicrously insufficient, but he had forgotten to kneel down. He had probably vitiated the whole prayer. He thought of revision, of constructing a sentence that would balance Mr. Tollivant's, and beginning again with the proper ceremonial. But Bertie's way of reasoning came to him again. "I guess He knows what I mean anyhow." He recoiled at that, however, shocked at his own irreverence. The thought was a blasphemous liberty taken with the watchful and easily offended deity of whom Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant had begged him always to be afraid. He was wondering if by approaching this God at all he hadn't made his plight worse, when the rising of the wind diverted his attention. It rose suddenly, in a great soft sob, but not of pain. Rather, it was of exultation, of cosmic joyousness. Coming from the farthest reaches of the world, from the Atlantic, from Africa, from remote islands and mountain tops, it blew in at the boy's window with a strong, and yet gentle, cosmic force. "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind." Tom Quidmore had but one source of quotation, but he had that at his tongue's end. The learning by heart of long passages from the Bible had been part of his education at the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant. Rightly or wrongly, he quoted the Scriptures, and rightly oftener than not. He quoted them now because, all at once, his room seemed full of the creative breath. He didn't say so, of course; but, confusedly, he felt it. All round the world there was wind. It was the single element in Nature which you couldn't see, but of which you received the living invigoration. It cooled, it cleansed, it strengthened. Wherever it passed there was an answer. The sea rose; the snows drifted; the trees bent; men and women strove to use and conquer it. A rushing mighty wind! A sound from heaven! That it might be an answer to his prayer he couldn't stop to consider because he was listening to the way it rose and fell, and sighed and soughed and swelled triumphantly through the plantation of blue spruces. By morning it was a gale. The tall things on the property, the bush peas, the scarlet runners, the sweet corn, were all being knocked about. In spots they lay on the earth; in other spots they staggered from the perpendicular. All hands, in the words of old Diggory, had their work cut out for them. Tom's job was to rescue as many as possible of the ears of sweet corn, in any case ready for picking, before they were damaged. But at half-past two he dragged himself out of the corn patch to fulfill the dreaded duty. Nothing had answered his prayer. He had not so much as seen his father throughout the day, as the latter had gone to the markets and had not returned. The gale was still raging, and he might be waiting for it to go down. Since the scene by the roadside on the previous afternoon he had taken a measure of his father not very far from accurate. He, Quidmore, wanted something of which he was afraid. He was too much afraid of it to press for it urgently; and yet he wanted it so fiercely that he couldn't give it up. What it was the boy could not discover, except that it had something to do with them all. When he said with them all he included the elusive Bertha; though why he included her he once more didn't know. In God he was disappointed; that he did not deny. In spite of the shortcomings of his prayer, he had clung to the hope that they might be overlooked. He argued a little from what he himself would have done had anyone come with a request inadequately phrased. He wouldn't think of the manners or the words in his eagerness to do what lay within his power. With God apparently it was not so. There was, of course, the other effect of his prayer. He had only asked to be stopped if the thing was not to be done. If he was not stopped the inference was obvious. He was to go ahead. It was in order to go ahead that he left the corn patch. The kitchen when he got to it was empty. Both the windows, that in the south wall and that in the west, were open to let the wind sweep out the smell of cooking. Creeping halfway up the stairs, he saw that his mother had closed her bedroom door, a sign that she was really lying down. There was no help now for what he had to do. He stole back to the kitchen again. On the dresser he saw the brown teapot in which she would presently make her tea. He would only have to take it down, and spill the powder into it. The powder was in his waistcoat pocket. He drew it out. It was small and flat, in a neatly folded paper. Opening the paper, he saw something innocent and white, not unlike the sugar you spread on strawberries. Laying it in readiness on the table by the west window, at which his mother baked, he turned to take down the teapot. The gale grew fiercer. It was almost a tornado. With the teapot in his two hands he paused to look out of the south window at the swaying of the blue spruces. They moaned, they sobbed, they rocked wildly. You might have fancied them living creatures seized by a madness of despair. The fury of the wind, even in the kitchen, blew down a dipper hanging on the wall. There was now no time to lose. The noise of the falling dipper might have disturbed his mother, so that at any minute she might come downstairs. With the teapot again in his hands he turned to the table where he had left the thing which was to do her good. It was not there. Dismayed, startled, he looked for it on the floor; but it was not there. It was not anywhere in the kitchen. He searched and searched. Going outside, he found the paper caught in a rosebush under the window, but the something innocent and white had been blown to the four corners of the world. The rushing mighty wind had done its work; and yet it was not till two or three years later, when the Quidmores had passed from his life, that he wondered if after all his prayer had not been answered. XVI Of helping his mother against her will he never heard any more. When his father returned that evening he had the same look of panic as on the previous day, followed by the same expression of relief at seeing the domestic life going on as usual. But he asked no questions, nor did he ever bring the subject up again. When a day or two later Tom explained to him that the powder had been blown away he merely nodded, letting the matter rest. Autumn came on and Tom went to school at Bere. He liked the school. No longer a State ward, but the son of a man supposed to be of substance, he passed the tests inflicted by the savage snobbery of children. His quickness at sports helped him to a popularity justified by his good nature. With the teachers he was often forced to seem less intelligent than he was, so as to escape the odious soubriquet of "teacher's pet." On the whole, the winter was the happiest he had so far known. It could have been altogether happy had it not been for the tragic situation of the Quidmores. After the brief improvement that had followed on his coming they had reacted to a mutual animosity even more intense. Each made him a confidant. "God! it's all I can do to keep my hands off her," the soft drawl confessed. "If she was just to die of a sickness, and me have nothing to do with it, I don't believe I'd be satis--" He held the sentence there as a matter of precaution. "What do you think of a woman who all the years you've known her has never done anything but whine, whine, whine, because you ain't givin' her what you promised?" "And are you?" Tom asked, innocently. "I give her what I can. She don't tempt me to do anything extra. Say, now, would she tempt you?" Tom did his best to take the grown-up, man-to-man tone in which he was addressed. "I think she's awful tempting, if you take her the right way." To take her the right way, to take him also the right way, was the boy's chief concern throughout the winter. To get them to take each other the right way was beyond him. "So long as he goes outside his home," Mrs. Quidmore declared, with an euphemism of which the boy did not get the significance, "I'll make him suffer for it." "But, ma, he can't stay home all the time." "Oh, don't tell me that you don't know what I mean! If you wasn't on his side you'd have found out for me long ago who the woman is. Just tell me that--" "And what would you do?" "I'd kill her, I think, if I got the chance." "Oh, but ma!" She brandished the knife with which she was cutting cold ham for the supper. "I would! I would!" "But you wouldn't if I asked you not to, would you, ma?" The knife fell with a despairing movement of the hand. "Oh, I don't suppose I should do it at all. But he ought to love me." "Can he make himself love you, ma?" The ingenuous question went so close to the point that she could only dodge it. "Why shouldn't he? I'm his wife, ain't I?" The challenge brought out another of the mysteries which surrounded marriage, as a penumbra fringes the moon on a cloudy night. When his father next reverted to the theme, while driving back from market, the penumbra became denser. "Say, boy, don't you go to thinking that the first time you fall in love with a pretty face it's goin' to be for life. That's where the devil sets his snare for men. Eight or ten years from now you'll see some girl, and then the devil'll be after you. He'll try to make you think that if you don't marry that girl your one and only chance'll come and go. And when he does, my boy, just think o' me." "Think of you--what about?" The sweetness of the tone took from the answer anything like bitterness. "Think how I got pinched. Gosh, when I look back and remember that I was as crazy to get her as a pup to catch a squir'l I can't believe it was me. But don't forget what I'm tellin' you. No fellow ought to think of bein' married till he's over thirty. He can't be expected to know what he'll love permanent till then." It was the perpetual enigma. "But you always love your wife when you're married to her, don't you?" The answer was in loud satirical laughter, with the observation that Tom was the limit for innocence. Quite as disturbing as questions of love and marriage were those relating to the fact that the man who had done very well as a hatter was a failure as a market gardener. "A hell of a business, this is! Rothschild and Rockefeller together couldn't make it pay. Gosh, how I hate it! Hate everything about it, and home worst of all. Know a little woman that if she'd light out with me...." In different keys and conjunctions these confidences were made to the boy all through the winter. If they did not distress him more it was because they were over his head. The disputes of the gods affect mortals only indirectly. When Jupiter and Juno disagree men feel that they can leave it to Olympus to manage its own affairs. So to a boy of twelve the cares of his elders pass in spheres to which he has little or no access. In spite of his knowledge that their situation was desperate, the couple who had adopted him were mighty beings to Tom Quidmore, with resources to meet all needs. To be so went with being grown up and, in a general way, with being independent. Their unbosomings worried him; they did not do more. When they were over he could dismiss them from his mind. His own concerns, his lessons, his games, his friends and enemies in school, and the vague objective of becoming "something big," were his matters of importance. Martin and Anna Quidmore cared for him so much, though each with a dash of selfishness, that his inner detachment from them both would have caused them pain. And yet it was because of this detachment that he was able, in some sense, to get through the winter happily. Whatever might have hurt him most passed on the kind of Mount Olympus where grown-up people had their incredible interests. Told, as he always was, that he couldn't understand them, he was willing to drop them at that till they were forced on him again. As spring was passing into summer they were forced on him less persistently; and then one day, quite unexpectedly, he struck the beginning of the end. It was a Saturday. As there was no school that day he had driven in on the truck with his father, to market a load of lettuce and early spinach. On returning through Bere in the latter part of the forenoon, Quidmore stopped at the druggist's. "Jump down and have an ice cream soda. I'll leave the lorry here, and come back to you. Errand to do in the village." The words had been repeated so often that for these excursions they had come to be a formula. By this time Tom knew the errand to be at Bertha's house, which was indirectly opposite. Seated at a table in the window, absorbing his cool, flavored drink through a pair of straws, he could see his father run up the steps and enter, running down again when he came out. Further than the fact that there was something regrettable in the visit, something to be concealed when he went home, the boy's mind did not work. The tragedy of that morning was that, as he was enjoying himself thus, the runabout, driven by one of the hired men, glided up to the door, and Mrs. Quidmore, dressed for shopping, and very alert, sprang out. As she rarely came into Bere, and almost never in the morning when she had her work to do, Tom's surprise was tinged at once with fear. Recognizing the lorry, Mrs. Quidmore rushed into the drug store. Except for the young man, wearing a white coat, who tended it, the long narrow slit was empty. As he peeped above his glass, with the two straws between his lips, Tom saw the wrath of the wronged when close on the track of the wrong-doer. Wheeling round, she caught him looking conscious and guilty. "Oh! So you're here? Where is he?" Tom answered truthfully. "He said he had an errand to do. He didn't tell me what it was." "And is he coming back for you here?" "He said he would." "Then I'll wait." To wait she sat down at Tom's side, having Bertha's house within range. Whether she suspected anything or not Tom couldn't tell, since he hardly suspected anything himself. That there was danger in the air he knew by the violence with which she rejected his proposal to refresh herself with ice cream. "There he is!" They watched him while he came down the steps, hesitated a minute, and turned in the direction away from where they were waiting. Tom understood this move. "He's going to Jenkins's about that new tire." As she jumped to her feet her movements had a fierceness of activity he had never before seen in her. "That's all I want. I'm goin' back. Don't you say you seen me, or that I've been over here at all." Hurrying to the street and springing into the car, she bade the hired man turn round again for home. What happened between that Saturday and the next Tom never knew exactly. A few years later, when his powers of deduction had developed, he was able to surmise; but beyond his own experience he had no accurate information. That there were bitter quarrels he inferred from the sullenness they left behind; but he never witnessed them. Not having witnessed them, he had little or no sense of a strain more serious than usual. On the next Saturday afternoon he was crouched in the potato field, picking off the ugly reddish bugs and killing them. Suddenly he heard himself called. On rising and looking round he found the runabout car stopped in the road, and Billy Peet, one of the hired men, beckoning him to approach. Brushing his hands against each other, he stepped carefully over the rows of young potatoes, and was soon in the roadway. "Get in," Billy Peet ordered, briefly. "The boss sent me over to fetch you." "Sent you over to fetch me--in the machine? What's up?" His eye fell on a small straw suitcase in the back of the car. "What's that for?" "Get in, and I'll tell you as we go along." Tom clambered in beside the driver. "Mis' Quidmore's sick." "What's the matter with her?" "I'd'n know. Awful sick, they say." When they passed the Quidmore entrance without turning in Tom began to be startled. "Say! Where we going?" "You're not going home. Doctor don't want you there. Boss telephoned over to Mrs. Tollivant, and she's goin' to keep you till Mis' Quidmore's better--or somethin'." The boy was not often resentful, but he did resent being trundled about like a package. If his mother was sick his place was at home. He could light the fire, bring in the water from the well, and do the score of little things for which a small boy can be useful. To be shunted off like this, as if he could only be an additional care, was an indignity to the thirteen years he was now supposed to have attained to. But what could he do? Protest was useless. There was nothing for it but to go where he was driven, like Geraldine or the dilapidated car. And yet at Harfrey he settled down among the Tollivants naturally. No State ward having succeeded him, his room under the eaves was still vacant. Once within its familiar shelter, he soon began to feel as if he had never been away. The family welcomed him with the shades of warmth which went with their ages and characters--Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant overcoming their repugnance to a born waif with that Christian charity which doubtless is all the nobler for being visibly against the grain; Art, now a swaggering fellow of sixteen, with patronizing good nature; Cilly, who affected baby-blue ribbons on a blond pigtail, with airs and condescension; Bertie, the cripple, with satiric cordiality. If it was not exactly a home-coming, it was at least as good as a visit to old friends. He was touched by being included almost as a member of the family in Mr. Tollivant's evening prayer. "And, O Heavenly Father, take this young wanderer as Thy child, even as we offer him a shelter. Visit not Thine anger upon him, lest he be tempted overmuch." At the thought of being tempted overmuch Tom felt a pleasing sense of importance. It offered, too, a loophole for excuse in case he should fall. If God didn't intervene on his behalf, easing temptation up, then God would be responsible. And yet, such was the lack of fairness he was bidden to see in God, He would knock a fellow down and then punish him when he tumbled. In the midst of these reflections a thought of the Quidmore household choked him with unexpected homesickness. The people who had been kind to him were in trouble, and he was not there! He wondered what they would do without him. He could sometimes catch the man's cruelties and turn them into pleasantries before they reached the wife. He could sometimes forestall the wife's complaints and twist them into little mollifying compliments. Would there be anyone to do that now? Would they keep the peace? He wished Mr. Tollivant would pray for them. He tried to pray for them himself, but, as with his effort of the previous year, the right kind of words would not come. If only God could be addressed without so much Thee and Thou! If only He could read a little boy's heart without calling for fine language! For lack of fine language he had to remain dumb, leaving God, who might possibly have helped Martin and Anna Quidmore, with no information about them. Nevertheless, with the facile emotions of youth, a half hour later he was playing checkers with Bertie, in full enjoyment of the game. He slept soundly that night, and on Sunday fell into the old routine of church and Sunday school. Monday and Tuesday bored him, because for most of the day school claimed the children; but when they came home, and played and squabbled as usual, life took on its old zest. Only now and then did the thought of the sick woman and the lonely man sweep across him in a spasm of pain; after which he could forget them and be cheerful. But on Wednesday forenoon, as he was turning away from watching the Plymouth Rocks pecking at their feed, his father arrived in the old runabout. Dashing up the hill, Tom reached the back door in time to see him enter by the front. "How's ma?" He got no answer, because Quidmore followed Mrs. Tollivant into the front parlor, where they shut the door. In anticipation of being taken home, the boy ran up to his room and packed his bag. "How's ma?" He called out the question from halfway down the stairs. Quidmore, emerging from the parlor with Mrs. Tollivant, ignored it again. Bidding good-by to his hostess and thanking her for taking in the boy, he went through these courtesies with a nervous anxiety almost amounting to anguish to convince her of the truth of something he had said. "How's ma?" They were in the car at last so that he could no longer be denied. "She's--she's--not there." All the events of the past year focussed themselves into the question that now burst on Tom's lips. "Is she--dead?" The lisping voice was sorrowful. "She was buried yesterday." With his habit of thinking twice, the boy asked nothing more. Having asked nothing at the minute, he felt less inclined to ask anything as they drove onward. Something within him rejected the burden of knowing. While he would not hold himself aloof, he would not involve himself more than events involved him according as they fell out. His reasoning was obscure, but his instincts, grown self-protective from necessity, were positive. Whatever had happened, whatever was to be right and wrong to other people, his own motive must be loyalty. "I've got to stick to him," he was saying to himself. "He's been awful good to me. In a kind of a way he's my father. I must stand by him, and see him through, just as if I was his son." It was his first grown-up resolution. XVII Grown-up life began at once. His chief care hitherto had been as to what others would do for him; now he was preoccupied with what he could do for some one else. It was a matter of watching, planning, cheering, comforting, and as he expressed it to himself, of bucking up. Of bucking up especially he was prodigal. The man had become as limp as on the day when he had thrown himself face downward in the grass. Mad once with desire to act, he was terrified now at what he had done. Though, as far as Tom could judge, no one blamed or suspected him, there was hardly a minute in the day in which he did not betray himself. He betrayed himself to the boy even if to no one else, though betraying himself in such a way that there was nothing definite to take hold of. "I'm sure--and yet I'm not sure," was Tom's own summing up. He stressed the fact that he was not sure, and in this he was helped by the common opinion of the countryside. Toward the bereaved husband and his adopted son this was sympathetic. The woman had always been neurasthenic, slipshod, and impossible. With a wife to help him, Martin Quidmore could have been a success as a market gardener as easily as anybody else. As it was, he would get over the shock of this tragedy and find a woman who would be the right kind of mother to a growing boy. Here, the mention of Bertha was with no more than the usual spice of village scandal, tolerant and unresentful. Of all this Tom was aware chiefly through the observations of Blanche, the colored woman who came in by the day to do the housework. "Law, Mr. Tom, yo' pappa don't need to feel so bad. Nobody in this yere town what blame him, not a little mite. Po' Mis' Quidmo', nobody couldn't please her nohow. Don't I know? Ain't I wash her, and iron her, and do her housecleanin', ever since she come to this yere community, and Mr. Quidmo' he buy this yere lot off old Aaron Bidbury? No, suh! Nobody can't tell me! Them there giddy things what nobody can't please 'em they can't please theirselves, and some day they go to work and do somefin' despe'ate, just like po' Mis' Quidmo'. A little cup o' tea, she take. No mo'n that. See, boy! I keep that there brown teapot, what look as innocent as a baby, all the time incriminated to her memo'y." Nevertheless, Tom found his father obsessed by fear, with nothing to be afraid of. The obsession had shown itself as soon as they entered the house on their return from Harfrey. He was afraid of the house, afraid of the kitchen especially. When Gimlets barked he jumped, cursing the dog for its noise. When a buggy drove up to the door he peeped out at the occupant before showing himself to the neighbor coming to offer his condolences. If the telephone rang Tom hastened to answer it, knowing that it set his father shivering. As evening deepened on that first Wednesday, they kept out of doors as late as possible, the boy chattering to the best of his ability. When obliged to go in, Quidmore tried to say with solicitude on Tom's behalf: "Expect you'll be lonesome now with only the two of us in the house. Better come and sleep in the other bed in my room." The boy was about to reply that he was not lonesome, and preferred his own bed, when he caught the dread behind the invitation. "All right, dad, I'll come. Sleep there every night. Then I won't be scared." About two in the morning Tom was wakened by a shout. "Hell! Hell! Hell!" Jumping from his own bed, he ran to the other. "Wake up, dad! Wake up!" Ouidmore woke, confused and trembling. "Wha' matter?" His senses returning, he spoke more distinctly. "Must have had a nightmare. God! Turn on the light. Hate bein' in the dark. Now get back to bed. All right again." The next day both were picking strawberries. It was not Quidmore's custom to pick strawberries, but he seemed to prefer a task at which he could crouch, and be more or less out of sight. Happening to glance up, he saw a stranger coming round the duck pond. "Who's that?" he snapped, in terror. Tom ran to the stranger, interviewed him, and ran back again. "It's an agent for a new kind of fertilizer." "Tell him I don't want it and to get to hell out of this." "You'd better see him. He'll think it queer if you don't." It was the spur he needed. He couldn't afford to be thought queer. He saw the agent, Tom acting as go-between and interpreter. To act as go-between and interpreter became in a measure the boy's job. Being so near the holidays, he did not return to school, and freed from school, he could give all his time to helping the frightened creature to seem competent in the eyes of his customers and hired men. Not that he succeeded. None knew better than the hired men that the place was, as they put it, all in the soup; none were so quick to fall away as customers who were not getting what they wanted. When the house was tumbling about their heads one little boy's shoulder could not do much as a prop; but what it could do he offered. He offered it with a gravity at which the men laughed good-naturedly behind his back. They took his orders solemnly, and thought no more about them. For a whole week nothing went to market. The dealers whom they supplied complained by telephone. Billy Peet and himself got a load of "truck" into town, only to be told that their man had made other arrangements. To meet these conditions Quidmore had spurts of energy, from which he backed down gibbering. Taking his courage in both hands, the boy went to see Bertha. Never having been face to face with her before, he found her of the type of beauty best appreciated where the taste is for the highly blown. She received him with haughty surprise and wonder, not asking him to sit down. Having prepared his words, he recited them, though her attitude frightened him out of the man-of-the-world tone he had meant to adopt. Humbly and haltingly, he asked if she wouldn't come out and help to stiffen the old man. "So he's sent you, has he? Well, you can go back and say that I've no reply except the one I've given him. All is over between us. Tell him that if he thinks that _that_ was the way to win me he's very gravely mistook. I know what's happened as positive as if I was a jury, and I shall never pardon it. Silence I shall keep, but that is all he can ask of me. He's made me talked about when he shouldn't ought to ov, ignoring that a woman, and especially a widow--" her voice broke--"has nothing but her reputation. Go back and tell him that if he tries to force my door he'll find it double-barred against him." Tom went back but said nothing. There was no need for him to say anything, since his life began at once to take another turn. School holidays having begun, he was free in fact as well as in name. It was on a Thursday that his father came to him with the kind of proposal which always excites a small boy. "Say, boy, what you think of a little trip down to Wilmington, Delaware, you and me? Go off to-morrow and get back by Tuesday. I'd see my sister, and it'd do me good." The prospect seemed to have done him good already. A new life had come to him. He went about the place giving orders for the few days of his absence, with particular instructions to Diggory and Blanche as to Geraldine, and the disposal of the milk. They started on their journey in the morning. It was one of those mornings in June when every blessed and beautiful thing seems poured on the earth at once. As between five and six Billy Peet drove them over to take the train at Harfrey, light, birds, trees, flowers, meadows, dew, would have thrilled them to ecstasy if they had not been used to them. For the first time in weeks Tom saw his father smile. It was a smile of relief rather than of pleasure, but it was better than his look of woe. The journey wakened memories. Not since Mrs. Crewdson had brought him out to place him as a State ward with Mrs. Tollivant had he gone into the city by this route. He had gone in by the motor truck often enough; but this line that followed the river was haunted still by the things he had outlived. He was not sorry to have known them, though glad that they were gone. He was hardly sorry even for the present, though doubtful as to how it was going to turn out. Vaguely and not introspectively, he was shocked at himself, that he should be sitting there with a man who had done what he felt pretty sure this man had done, and that he should feel no horror. But he felt none. He assured himself of that. He could sleep with him by night, and work and eat with him by day, with no impulse but to shield a poor wretch who had made his own life such a misery. "I've got to do it," he said to himself, in a kind of self-defense. "I don't _know_ he did it--not for sure, I don't. And if nobody else tries to find out, why should I, when he's been so awful nice to me?" He watched a steamer plowing her way southward in the middle of the stream. He liked her air of quiet self-possession and of power. He wondered whence she was coming, whither she was going, and what she was doing it for. He couldn't guess. "That'd be like me," he said, silently, "sailing from I don't know where--sailing _to_ I don't know where----" Ten years later he finished this thought, repeating exactly the same words. Just now he couldn't finish anything, because there was so much to see. Little towns perched above little harbors. Fishermen angled from little piers. A group of naked boys, shameless as young mermen, played in the water. On a rock a few yards from the shore a flock of gulls jostled each other for standing room. A motor boat puffed. Yachts rode sleepily at anchor. The car which, when they took it at Harfrey had been almost empty, was beginning to fill with the earlier hordes of commuters. Soon it was quite full. Soon there were cheery young people, most of them chewing gum, standing in the passageway. Having rounded the curve at Spuyten Duyvil, they saw the city looming up, white, spiritual, tremulous, through the morning mist. Up to this minute he had not thought of plans; now he began to wonder what they should do on reaching the Grand Central, where they would arrive in another quarter of an hour. "Do we go straight across to the Pennsylvania Station, to take the train for Wilmington, or do we have to wait?" "I'll--I'll see." The answer was unsatisfactory. He looked at his father inquiringly. Looking at him, he was hurt to observe that his confidence was departing, that he was again like something with a broken spring. "Well, we're going to Wilmington to-day, aren't we?" "I'll--I'll see." "But," the boy cried in alarm, "where can we go, if we don't?" "I--I know a place." It was disappointing. The choking sensation which, when he was younger, used to precede tears, began to gather in his throat. Having heard so much from Mrs. Quidmore of the glories of Wilmington, Delaware, he saw it as a city of palaces, of exquisite, ladylike maidens, of noble youths, of aristocratic joyousness. Moreover, he had been told that to get there you went under the river, through a tunnel so deep down in the earth that you felt a distressful throbbing in the head. The postponement of these experiences even for a day was hard to submit to. In the Grand Central his father was in a mood he had never before seen. It was a dark mood, at once decided and secretive. "Come this way." This way was out into Forty-second Street. With their suitcases in their hands, they climbed into a street car going westward. Westward they went, changing to another car going southward, under the thunder of the elevated, in Ninth Avenue. At Fourteenth Street they got out again. Tom recognized the neighborhood because of its nearness to the great markets to which they sometimes brought supplies. But they avoided the markets, making their way between drays, round buildings in course of demolition, through gangs of children wooing disaster as they played in the streets. In the end they turned out of the tumult to find themselves in a placid little backwater of the "old New York" of the early nineteenth century. Reading the sign at the corner Tom saw that it was Jane Street. Jane Street dates from a period earlier than the development of that civic taste which gives to all New York north of Fourteenth Street the picturesqueness of a sum in simple arithmetic. Jane Street has atmosphere, period, chic. You know at a glance that the people who built these trim little red-brick houses still felt that impulse which first came to Manhattan from The Hague, to be fostered later by William and Mary, and finally merged in the Georgian tradition. Jane Street is Dutch. It has Dutch quaintness, and, as far as New York will permit it, Dutch cleanliness. It might be a byway in Amsterdam. Instead of cutting straight from the Hudson River Docks to Greenwich Avenue, it might run from a canal with barges on it to a field of hyacinths in bloom. But Tom Quidmore saw not what you and I would have seen, a relief from the noise and fetidness of a hot summer's morning in a neighborhood reeking with garbage. When his heart had been fixed on that dream-city, Wilmington, Delaware, he found himself in a dingy little alley. Not often querulous, he became so now. "What are we doing down here?" The reply startled him. "I'm--I'm sick." Looking again at the man who shuffled along beside him, he saw that his face had grown ashy, while his eyes, which earlier in the day had had life in them, were lusterless. The boy would have been frightened had it not been for the impulse of affection. "Let's go back to Bere. Then you can have the doctor. I'll get a cab and steer the whole business." Without answering, Quidmore stopped at a brown door, level with the pavement, in a big, dim-windowed building, with fire escapes zigzagging down the front. Jane Street is not exclusively clean and trim and Dutch. It has lapses--here a warehouse, there a dwelling tumbling to decay, elsewhere a nondescript structure like this. It looked like a lodging house for sailors and dock laborers. In the basement was a restaurant to which you went down by steps, and bearing the legend Pappa's Chop Saloon. While Quidmore stood in doubt as to whether to ring the bell or to push the door which already stood a little open, two men came out of the Chop Saloon and began to mount the steps. In faded blue overalls the worse for wear, they had plainly broken a day's work, possibly begun at five o'clock, for a late breakfast. The one in advance, a sturdy, well-knit fellow of forty or forty-five, got a sinister expression from a black patch over his left eye. His companion was older, smaller, more worn by a bitter life. All the twists in his figure, all the soured betrayals in his crafty face, showed you the habitual criminal. None of these details was visible to Quidmore, because his imagination could see only the bed for which he was craving. To the boy, who trusted everyone, they were no more than the common type of workman he was used to meeting in the markets. The fellow with the patch on his eye, making an estimate of the strangers as he mounted the steps, spoke cheerily. "I say, mate, what can I do for yer?" The voice with a vaguely English ring was not ungenial. Not ungenial, when you looked at it, was the strongly-boned face, with a ruddiness burnt to a coarse tan. The single gray-blue eye had the sympathetic gleam which often helps roguery to make itself excusable to people with a sense of fun. Quidmore muttered something about wanting to see Mrs. Pappa. "Right you are! Come along o' me. I'll dig the old gal out for yer. Expects you wants a room for yerself and the kid. Hi, Pappa!" Pappa came out of a dim, musty parlor as the witch who foretells bad weather appears in a mechanical barometer. She was like a witch, but a dark, classic witch, with an immemorial tradition behind her. Her ancestors might have fought at Marathon, or sacrificed to Neptune in the temple on Sunium. In Jane Street she was archaic, a survival from antiquity. Her thoughts must have been with the nymphs at Delphi, or following the triremes carrying the warriors from Argolis to Troy, as silent, mysterious, fateful, she led the way upstairs. They followed in procession, all four of them. The doorstep acquaintances displayed a solicitude not less than brotherly. The hall was without furniture, the stairs without carpet. The softwood floors, like the treads of the stairs, were splintered with the usage of many heavy heels. Where the walls bulged, through the pressure of jerry-built stories overhead, the marbled paper swelled into bosses. Tom found it impressive, with something of strange stateliness. "Yer'll be from the country," the one-eyed fellow observed, as they climbed upward. "Yes, sir," Tom answered, civilly. "We're on our way to Wilmington, Delaware, but my father felt a little sick." "Well, he's struck a good place to lay up in. I say, Pappa," he called ahead, "seems to me as the big room with two beds'd be what'd suit the gent. It's next door to the barthroom, and he'll find that convenient. Mate," he explained further, when they stood within the room with two beds, "this'll set ye' back a dollar a day in advance. That right, Pappa, ain't it?" Pappa assenting with some antique sign, Quidmore drew out his pocketbook to extract the dollar. With no ceremonious scruples the smaller comrade craned his neck to appraise, as far as possible, the contents of the wallet. "Wad," Tom heard him squirt out of the corner of his mouth, in the whisper of a ventriloquist. His friend seemed to wink behind the patch on his left eye. Tom took the exchange of confidence as a token of respect. He and his father were considered rich, the effect being seen in the attentions accorded them. This was further borne out when the genial one of the two rogues turned on the threshold, as his colleague was following Pappa downstairs. "Anythink I can do for yer, mate, command me. Name of Honeybun--Lemuel Honeybun. Honey Lem some of the guys calls me. I answers to it, not takin' no offense like." He pointed to the figure stumping down the stairs. "My friend, Mr. Goodsir. Him and me been pals this two year. We lives on the ground floor. Room back of Pappa." The door closed, Tom looked round him in an interest which eclipsed his hopes of the tunnel. This was adventure. It was nearly romance. Never before had he stayed in a hotel. The place was not luxurious, but never, in the life he could remember, having known anything but necessity, necessity was enough. Moreover, the room contained a work of art that touched his imagination. On the bare drab mantelpiece stood the head of a Red Indian, in plaster painted in bronze, not unlike the mummified head of Rameses the Great. The boy couldn't take his eye away from it. This was what you got by visiting strange cities more intimately than by trucking to and from the markets. Quidmore threw himself on his bed, his face buried in the meager pillow. He was suffering apparently not from pain, but from some more subtle form of distress. Being told that there was nothing he could do for the invalid, Tom sat silent and still on one of the two small chairs which helped out the furnishings. It was not boring for him to do this, because he swam in novelty. He recalled the steamer he had seen that morning, sailing from he didn't know where, sailing _to_ he didn't know where, but on the way. He, too, was on the way. He was on the way to something different from Wilmington, Delaware. It would be different from Bere. He began to wonder if he should ever go back to Bere. If he didn't go back to Bere ... but at this point in Tom's dreams Quidmore dragged himself off the bed. "Let's go down to the chop saloon, and eat." XVIII He was not too ill to eat, but too ill when not eating to stay anywhere but on his bed. He went back to it again, lying with his face buried in the pillow as before. The boy resumed his patient sitting. He would have been bored with it now, had he not had his dreams. All the same, it was a relief when about four o'clock, just as the westering sun was beginning to wake the Red Indian to an horrific life, Mr. Honeybun, pushing the door ajar softly, peeped in with his good eye. "I say, mate!" he whispered, "wouldn't you like me to take the young gent for a bit of a walk like? Do him good, and him a-mopin' here all by hisself." The walk meant Tom's initiation into the life of cities as that life is led. Not that it went very far, but as far as it went it was a revelation. It took him from one end of Jane Street to the other, along the docks of the Cunard and other great lines, and as far as Eighth Avenue in the broad, exciting thoroughfare of Fourteenth Street. New York as he had seen it hitherto, from the front seat of a motor truck, had been little more entertaining than a map. Besides, he was only developing a taste for this sort of entertainment. Games, school, scraps with other boys, had been enough for him. Now he was waking to an interest in places as places, in men as men, in differences of attitude to the drama known as life. In Mr. Honeybun's attitude he grew interested especially. "I don't believe that nothink don't belong to no one," Tom's guide observed, as the wealth of the city spread itself more splendidly. "Things is common proputty. Yer takes what yer can put yer 'and on." "But wouldn't you be arrested?" "Yer'd be arrested if yer didn't look out; but what's bein' arrested? No more'n the measures what a lot of poor, frightened, silly boobs'll take agin the strong man what makes 'em tremble. At least," he added, as an afterthought, "not when yer conscience is clear, it ain't." Fascinated by this bold facing of society, Tom ventured on a question. "Have you ever been arrested, Mr. Honeybun?" Mr. Honeybun straightened himself to the martyr's pose. "Oh, if yer puts it that way, I've suffered for my opinions. That much I'll admit. I'm--" he brought out the statement proudly--"I'm one o' them there socialists. You know what a socialist is, don't yer?" Tom was not sure that he did. "A socialist is one o' them fellers who whatever he sees knows it belongs to him if he can get ahold of it. It's gettin' ahold of it what counts. Now if you was to have somethink I wanted locked up in yer 'ouse, let us say, and I was to make my way in so as I could take it--why, then it'd be mine. That's the law o' Gord, I believes; and I tries to live up to it." Enjoying a frankness which widened his horizon, Tom was nevertheless perplexed by it. "But wouldn't that be something like burglary?" "Burglary is what them may call it what ain't socialists; but it don't do to hang a dog because yer've give him a bad name. A lot o' good people's been condemned that way. When I'm in court I always appeals to justice." "And do you get it?" "I get men's. I don't get Gord's. You see that apple?" They stopped before a window in Horatio Street where apples were displayed. "Now, do yer suppose that apple growed itself for any one man in partic'lar? No! That apple didn't know nothink about men's laws when it blossomed on a apple tree. It just give itself generallike to the human race. If you was to go in and collar that big red one, and git away with it, it'd be yours. Stands to reason it'd be. Gord's law! But if that there policeman, a-squintin' his ugly eye at us this minute--he knows Honey Lem, he does!--was to pull yer in, yer might git thirty days. Man's law! And I'll leave it to you which is best worth sufferin' for." In this philosophy of life there was something Tom found reasonable, and something in which he felt a flaw without being able to detect it. He chased it round and round in his thoughts as he sat through the long dull hours with his father. It passed the time; it helped him to the habit of thinking things out for himself. His mind being clear, and his intuitions acute, he could generally solve a problem not beyond his years. When, on the morrow, they walked in the cool of the day down the length of Hudson Street till it ends in Reade Street, Tom brought the subject up from another point of view. "But, Mr. Honeybun, suppose someone took something from you? What then?" "He'd git it in the nut," the socialist answered, tersely. "Not if there'd be two of 'em," he added, in amendment. "If there's two I don't contend. I ain't a communist." "Is that what a communist is, a fellow who'll contend with two?" "A communist is a socialist what'll use weepons. If there's somethink what he thinks is his in anybody's 'ouse, he'll go armed, and use vi'lence. They never got that on me. I never 'urt nobody, except onst I hits a footman, what was goin' to grab me, a wee little knock on the 'ead with a silver soup ladle I 'ad in me 'and and lays 'im out flat. Didn't do him no 'arm, not 'ardly any. That was in England. But them days is over, since I lost my eye. Makes yer awful easy spotted when yer've lost a eye." "How did you lose it, Mr. Honeybun?" "I lost it a-savin' of the life of a beautiful young lady. 'Twas quite a tale." The boy looked up expectantly while his friend thought out the details. "I was footin' it onst from New Haven to New York, and I'd got to a pretty little town as they call Old Lyme. Yer see, I'd been doin' a bit o' time at New Haven--awful 'ard on socialists they was in New Haven in them days--and when I gits out I was a bit stoney-broke till I'd picked up somethink else. Well there I was, trampin' it through Old Lyme, and I'd got near to the bridge what crosses the river they've got there--the Connecticut I think it is--and what should I see but a 'orse what a young lady was drivin' come over the bridge like mad. The young lady she was tuggin' at the reins and a-hollerin' like blazes for some one to save her life. I ain't no 'ero, kid. Don't go for to think that I'm a-sayin' that I am. But what's a man to do when he sees a beautiful young lady in danger o' bein' killed?" He paused to take the bodily postures with which he stopped the runaway. "And the tip of the shaft," he ended, "it took me right in the eye, and put it out. But, Lord, what's a eye, even to a Socialist, when yer can do somethink for a feller creeter?" Tom gaped in admiration. "I suppose it hurt awful." "Was in 'orspital three months," the hero said, quietly. "Young lady, she visits me reg'lar, calls me her life-saver, and every name like that, and kind o' clings to me. But, Lord, marriage ain't never been much of a fancy to me. Ties a man up, and I likes to be free, except when I'm sufferin' for socialism. Besides, if I was to marry every woman what I've saved their lives I'd be one o' them Normans by this time. When yer wants company a good pal'll be faithfuller than a wife, and nag yer a lot less." "Mr. Goodsir's your pal, ain't he, Mr. Honeybun?" "Yes, and I'm sick of him. He don't develop. He ain't got no eddication. Yer can see for yerself he don't talk correct. That's what I've took to in yer gov'nor and you, yer gentleman way o' speakin'. Only yer needn't go for to tell yer old man all what I've been a-gassin' of to you. I can see he's what they call conservative. He wouldn't understand. You're the younger generation, mind more open like. You and me'd make a great team if we was ever to work together." With memories of his mother in his mind, Tom answered sturdily, "I wouldn't be a socialist, not for anything you could offer me." They left it at that. Mr. Honeybun was content to point out the historic sites known to him as they turned homeward. There was the house where a murder had been committed; the store where a big break had been pulled off; a private detective's residence. "Might go out agin some day, if yer pop don't mind it," he suggested, when they had reached their own hallway. "I gits the time in the late afternoon. Yer see, our job at the market begins early and ends early, and lately--" there was a wistful note--"well, I feels kind o' fed up with the low company Goodsir keeps. Every kind o' joint and dive and--and--Chinamen--and--" Out of respect for the boy he held up the description. "You'd 'ardly believe it, but an innercent little walk like what we've just took, why, it'll do me as much good as a swig o' water when you wake up about three in the mornin', with yer tongue 'angin' out like a leather strap, after a three-days' spree." Unable to get the full force of this figure, Tom thanked his guide politely, and was bounding up the stairs two steps at a time, when the man who stood watching him spoke again. "If I'd ever a-thought that I'd 'a had a kid like you, it'd 'a' been pretty near worth gittin' married for." Tom could only turn with one of those grins which showed his teeth, making his eyes twinkle with a clear blue light, when adequate words for kindness wouldn't come to him. XIX The days settled into a routine. When they rose in the morning a colored woman "did" their room while they went down to the chop saloon for breakfast. Returning, Quidmore threw himself on his bed again. He did this after each meal, poking his nose deep into the limp pillow. Hardly ever speaking, he now and then uttered a low moan. Tom watched patiently, ready to tell him the time or bring him a drink of water. When the day grew too hot he fanned him with an old newspaper. "Why don't we go home, dad?" he asked anxiously on the third day. "I could get you there as easy as anything." "I'm not well enough." "You don't seem very sick to me. You don't have any pain and you can eat all right." "It isn't that kind of bein' sick. It's--" he sought for a name--"it's like nervous prostration." More nearly than he knew he had named his malady. In his own words, he was all in; and he was all in to the end of the letter of the term. Of that moral force which is most of what any man has to live upon some experience had drained him. He had spent his gift of vitality. All in was precisely the phrase to apply to him. He had cashed the last cent of whatever he had inherited or saved in the way of inner strength, and now he could not go on. "What's the good of it anyhow?" he asked of Tom in the night. "There's nothin' to it, not when you come to think of it. You run after something as if you couldn't live without it; and then when you get it you curse your God that you ever run." Tom shuddered in his bed, but he was used to doing that. There was hardly a night when he was not wakened by a nightmare. If it was not by a nightmare, it was by the soft complaining voice. "Are you awake, Tom?" "Yes, dad. Can I get you anything?" "No; I only wanted to know if you was awake." Tom kept awake as long as he could, because he knew the poor wretch was afraid of lying sleepless in the dark. To keep him awake, perhaps for less selfish reasons, too, the soft voice would take this opportunity of giving him advice. "Don't you ever go to wanting anything too much, boy. That's what's done for me. You can want things if you like; but one of the tricks in the game is to know how to be disappointed. I never did know, not even when I was a little chap. If I cried for the moon I wouldn't stop till I got it. When I was about as old as you, not gettin' what I wanted made me throw a fit. If I couldn't get things by fair means I had to get 'em by foul; but I got 'em. It don't do you no good, boy. If I could go back again over the last six months...." For fear of a confession Tom stopped his ears, but no confession ever came. The tortured soul could dribble its betrayals, but it couldn't face itself squarely. "Look out for women," he said, gently, on another night. "You're old enough now to know how they'll play the Dutch with you. When I was your age there was nothing I didn't understand, and I guess it's the same with you. Don't ever let 'em get you. They got me before I was--well, I don't hardly know what age I was, but it was pretty young. Look out for 'em, boy. If you ever damn your soul for one of 'em, she'll do you dirt in the end. If it hadn't been for her...." To keep this from going further, the boy broke in with the first subject he could think of. "I wonder if they'll remember to pick the new peas. They'll be ready by this time. Do you suppose they'll ...?" "I don't care a hang what they do." After a brief silence he continued: "I'd 'a left the place to you, boy, only my brother-in-law, my sister's husband, has a mortgage on the place that'd eat up most of the value, so I've left it to her. That'll fix 'em both. I wish I could 'a done more for you." "You've done a lot for me, as it is." "You don't know." There was another silence. It might have lasted ten minutes. The boy was falling once more into a doze when the soft voice lisped again, "Tom." He did his best to drag himself back from sleep. "Yes, dad? Do you want to know what time it is? I'll get up and look." "No, stay where you are. There's somethin' I want to say. I've been a skunk to you." "Oh, cut it, dad...." "I won't cut it. I want to say it out. When I--when I first took you, it wasn't--it wasn't so much that I'd took a fancy to you...." "I know it wasn't, dad. You wanted a boy to pick the berries. Let's drop it there." But the fevered conscience couldn't drop it there. "Yes; at first. And then--and then it come into my mind that you might be--might be the one that'd do somethin' I didn't want to do myself. I thought--I thought that if you done it we might get by on it. We got by on it all right--or up to now we've got by--but I didn't get real fond of you till--till...." "Oh, dad, let's go to sleep." "All right. Let's. I just wanted to say that much. I was glad afterward that...." The boy breathed heavily, pretending that he was asleep. He was soon asleep in earnest, and for the rest of the night was undisturbed. In the morning his father didn't get up, and Tom went down to the chop saloon to bring up something that would serve as breakfast. He did the same at midday, and the same in the evening. It was a summer's evening, with a long twilight. As it began to grow dark Quidmore seemed to rouse himself. He needed tooth paste, shaving cream, other small necessities. Sitting up on the bed, he made out a list of things, giving Tom the money with which to pay for them. If he went to the pharmacy in Hudson Street he would be back in half an hour. "All right, dad. I know the way. I'm an old hand in New York by this time." He was at the door when Quidmore called him back. "Say, boy. Give us a kiss." Tom was stupefied. He had kissed his adopted mother often enough, but he had never been asked to do this. Quidmore laughed, pulling him close. "Ah, come along! I don't ask you often. You're a fine boy, Tom. You must know as well as I do what's been...." The words were suspended by a hug; but once he was free Tom fled away like a small young wild thing, released from human hands. Having reached the street, he began to feel frightened, prescient, awed. Something was going to happen, he could not imagine what. He made his purchases hurriedly, and then delayed his return. He could be tender with the man; he could be loving; but he couldn't share his secrets. But he had to go back. In the dim upper hall outside the door he paused to pump up courage to go in. He was not afraid in the common way of fear; he was only overcome with apprehension at having a knowledge he rejected forced on him. The first thing he noticed was that no light came through the crack beneath the door. The room was apparently dark. That was strange because his father dreaded darkness, except when he was there to keep him company. He crept to the door and listened. There was no sound. He pushed the door open. The lights were out. In panic at what he might discover, he switched on the electricity. But he only found the room empty. That was so far a relief. His father had gone out, and would be back again. Closing the door behind him, he advanced into the room. It seemed more than empty. It felt abandoned, as if something had gone which would not return. He remembered that sensation afterward. He stood still to wonder, to conjecture. The Red Indian gleamed with his bronze leer. The next thing the boy noticed was an odd little pile on the table. It was money--notes. On top of the notes there was silver and copper. He stooped over them, touching them with his forefinger, pushing them. He pushed them as he might have pushed an insect to see whether or not it was alive. Lastly he noticed a paper, on which the money had been placed. There was something scribbled on it with a pencil. He held it under the dim lamp. "For Tom--with a real love." The tears gushed to his eyes, as they always did when people showed that they loved him. But he didn't actually cry; he only stood still and wondered. He couldn't make it out. That his father should have gone out and forgotten all his money was unusual enough, but that he should have left these penciled words was puzzling. It was easy to count the money. There were seven fifty-dollar bills, with twenty-eight dollars and fifty-four cents in smaller bills and change. He seemed to remember that his father had drawn four hundred dollars for the Wilmington expenses, with a margin for purchases. He stood wondering. He could never recall how long he stood wondering. The rest of the night became more or less a blank to him; for, to the best of the boy's knowledge, the man who had adopted him was never seen again. XX To the best of the boy's knowledge the man who had adopted him was never seen again; but it took some time to assume the fact that he was dead. Visitors to New York often dived below the surface, to come up again a week or ten days later. Their experience in these absences they were not always eager to discuss. "Why, I've knowed 'em to stay away that long as yer'd swear they'd been kidnapped," Mr. Honeybun informed the boy. "He's on a little time; that's all. Nothink but nat'rel to a man of his age--and a widower--livin' in the country--when he gits a bit of freedom in the city." "Yes, but what'll he do for money?" There was this point of view, to be sure. Mr. Goodsir suggested that Quidmore had had more money still, that he had only left this sum to cover Tom's expenses while he was away. "And listen, son," he continued, kindly, "that's a terr'ble big wad for a boy like you to wear on his person. Why, there's guys that free-quents this very house that'd rob and murder you for half as much, and never drop a tear. Now here I am, an old trusty man, accustomed to handle funds, and not sneak nothin' for myself. If I could be of any use to you in takin' charge of it like...." "Me and you'll talk this over, later," Mr. Honeybun intervened, tactfully. "The kid don't need no one to take care of his cash when his father may skin home again before to-night. Let's wait a bit. If he's goin' to trust anybody it'll be us, his next of kin in this 'ere 'ouse, of course. That'd be so, kiddy, wouldn't it?" Tom replied that it would be so, giving them to understand that he counted on their good offices. For the present he was keeping himself in the non-committal attitude natural to suspense. "You see," he explained, looking from one to another, with his engaging candor, "I can't do anything but just wait and see if he's coming back again, at any rate, not for a spell." The worthies going to their work, the interview ended. At least, Mr. Goodsir went to his work, though within a few minutes Mr. Honeybun was back in Tom's room again. "Say, kid; don't you let them three hundred bucks out'n yer own 'and. I can't stop now; but when I blow in to eat at noon I'll tell yer what I'd do with 'em, if you was me. Keep 'em buttoned up in yer inside pocket; and don't 'ang round in this old hut any more'n you can help till I come back and git you. Yer never knows who's on the same floor with yer; but out in the street yer'll be safe." Out in the street he kept to the more populous thoroughfares, coasting the line of docks especially. He liked them. On the façades of the low buildings he could read names which distilled romance into syllables--New Orleans, Savannah, Galveston, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma. He had always been fond of geography. It opened up the world. It told of countries and cities he would one day visit, and which in the meantime he could dream about. Over the low roofs of the dock buildings he could see the tops of funnels. Here and there was the long black flank of a steamer at its pier. There were flags flying from one masthead or another, while exotic seafaring types slipped in and out amid the crush of vehicles, or dodged the freight train aimlessly shunting up and down. The movement and color, the rumble of deep sound, the confused world-wide purpose of it all, the knowledge that he himself was so insignificant a figure that no robber or murderer would suspect that he had all that money buttoned against his breast, dulled his mind to his desolation. He tried to keep moving so as to make it seem to a suspicious populace that he was an errand boy; but now and then the sense of his loneliness smote him to a standstill. He would wonder where he was going, and what he was going for, as he wondered the same thing about the steamer on the Hudson. Like her, he seemed to be afloat. She, of course, had her destination; but he had nothing in the world to tie up to. He seemed to have heard of a ship that was always sailing--sailing--sailing--sailing--with never a port to have come out of, and never a port in view, _The Church of the Sea!_ He read the words on the corner of a big white building where Jane Street flows toward the docks. He read them again. He read them because he liked their suggestions--immensity, solitude, danger perhaps, and God! [Illustration: "THAT'S A TERR'BLE BIG WAD FOR A BOY LIKE YOU TO WEAR"] It was queer to think of God being out there, where there were only waves and ships and sailors, but chiefly waves and a few seabirds. It recalled the religion of crippled Bertie Tollivant, the cynic. To the instructed like himself, God was in the churches that had steeples and pews and strawberry sociables, or in the parlors where they held family prayers. They told you that He was everywhere; but that only meant that you couldn't do wrong, you couldn't swear, or smoke a cigarette, or upset some householder's ash-barrels, without His spotting you. Tom Quidmore did not believe that Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant would have sanctioned this Church of the Sea, where God was as free as wind, and over you like the sky, and beyond any human power to monopolize or give away. It made Him too close at hand, too easy to find, and probably much too tender toward sailors, who were often drunk, and homeless little boys. He turned away from the Church of the Sea, secretly envying Bertie Tollivant his graceless creed, but not daring to question the wisdom of adult men and women. By the steps of the chop saloon he waited for Mr. Honeybun, who came swinging along, a strong and supple figure, a little after the whistle blew at twelve. To the boy's imagination, now that he had been informed as to his friend's status, he looked like what had been defined to him as a socialist. That is, he had the sort of sinuosity that could slip through half-open windows, or wriggle in at coal-holes, or glide noiselessly up and down staircases. It was ridiculous to say it of one so bony and powerful, but the spring of his step was spiritlike. "Good for you, lad, to be waitin'! We'll go right along and do it, and then it'll be off our minds." What "it" was to be, Tom had no idea. But then he had no suspicions. In spite of his hard childhood, it did not occur to him that grown-up men would do him wrong. He had no fear of Mr. Honeybun, and no mistrust, not any more than a baby in arms has fear or mistrust of its nurse. "And there's another thing," Mr. Honeybun brought up, as they went along. "It don't seem to me no good for a husky boy like you to be just doin' nothink, even while he's waitin' for his pop. I'd git a job, if you was me." The boy said that he would gladly have a job, but didn't know how to get one. "I've got one for yer if yer'll take it. Work not too 'ard, and 'll bring you in a dollar and a 'alf a day." But "it" was the matter in hand, and presently its nature became evident. At the corner of Fourteenth Street and Eighth Avenue Mr. Honeybun pointed across to a handsome white-stone building, whose very solidity inspired confidence. Tom could read for himself that it was a savings bank. "Now what I'd do if it was my wad is this. I'd put three hundred and twenty-five of it in that there bank, which'd leave yer more'n twenty-five for yer eddication. But yer principal, no one won't be able to touch it but yerself, and twice a year yer'll be gettin' yer interest piled up on top of it." Tom's heart leaped. He had long meditated on savings banks. They had been part of his queer vision. To become "something big" he would have to begin by opening some such account as this. With Mr. Honeybun's proposal he felt as if he had suddenly grown taller by some inches, and older by some years. "You'll come over with me, won't you?" Mr. Honeybun demurred. "Well, yer see, kid, I'm a pretty remarkable character in this neighborhood. There's lots knows Honey Lem; and if they was to see me go in with you they might think as yer hadn't come by your dough quite hon--I mean, accordin' to yer conscience--or they might be bad enough to suppose as there was a put-up job between us. When I puts a few dollars into my own savings bank--I'm a savin' bird, I am--I goes right over to Brooklyn, where there ain't no wicked mind to suspeck me. So go in by yerself, and say yer wants to open a account. If anyone asks yer, tell him just how the money come to yer, and I don't believe as yer'll run no chanst of no one not believin' yer." So it was done. Tom came out of the building with his bank book buttoned into his breast pocket, and a conscious enhancement of life. "And now," Mr. Honeybun suggested, "we'll make tracks for Pappa's and eat." The "check," like the meal, was light, and Mr. Honeybun paid it. Tom protested, since he had money of his own, but his host took the situation gracefully. "Lord love yer, kid, ain't I yer next o' kin, as long as yer guv'nor's away? Who sh'd buy yer a lunch if it wasn't me?" Childhood is naturally receptive. As Romulus and Remus took their food from a wolf when there was no one else to give it them, so Tom Quidmore found it not amazing to be nourished, first by a murderer, and then by a thief. It became amazing, a few years later, on looking back on it; but for the moment murderer and thief were not the terms in which he thought of those who had been kind to him. Not that he didn't try. He tried that very afternoon. When his next o' kin had gone back to his job of lifting and heaving in the Gansevoort Market, he returned to the empty room. It was his first return to it alone. When he had gone up from his breakfast in the chop saloon both Goodsir and Honeybun had accompanied him. Now the emptiness was awesome, and a little sinister. He had slept there the previous night, slept fitfully that is, waking every half hour to listen for the shuffling footstep. He heard other footsteps, dragging, thumping, staggering, but they always passed on to the story above, whence would come a few minutes later the sound of heavy boots thrown on the floor. Now and then there were curses, or male voices raised in a wrangle, or a few bars of a drunken song. During the earlier nights he had slept through these signals of Pappa's hospitality, or if he had waked, he knew that a grown-up man lay in the other bed, so that he was safe. Now he could only lie and shudder, till the sounds died down, and silence implied safety. He did his best to keep awake, so as to unlock the door the instant he heard a knock; but in spite of his efforts he slept. This return after luncheon brought him for the first time face to face with his state as a reality. There was no one there. It was no use going back to Bere, because there would be no one there. Rather than become again a State ward with the Tollivants, he would sell himself to slavery. What was he to do? The first thing his eye fell upon was his father's suitcase, lying open on the floor beside the bed, its contents in disorder. It was the way Quidmore kept it, fishing out a shirt or a collar as he needed one. The futility of this clothing was what struck the boy now. The peculiar grief of handling the things intimately used by those who will never use them again was new to him. He had never supposed that so much sorrow could be stored in a soiled handkerchief. Stooping over the suitcase, he had accidentally picked one up, and burst into sudden tears. They were the first he had actually shed since he used to creep away to cry by himself in the heart-lonely life among the Tollivants. It occurred to him now that he had not cried when his adopted mother disappeared. He had not especially mourned for her. While she had been there, and he was daily face to face with her, he had loved her in the way in which he loved so easily when anyone opened the heart to him; but she had been no part of his inner life. She was the cloud and sunshine of a day, to be forgotten in the cloud and a sunshine of the morrow. Of the two, he grieved more for the man; and the man was a murderer, and probably a suicide. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he used these words in the attempt to work up a fortifying moral indignation. It was then, too, that he called Mr. Honeybun a thief. He must react against these criminal associations. He must stand on his own feet. He was not afraid of earning his own living. He had heard of boys who had done it at an age even earlier than thirteen, and had ended by being millionaires. They had always, however, so far as he knew, had some sort of ties to connect them with the body politic. They had had the support of families, sympathies, and backgrounds. They hadn't been adrift, like that haunting ship which never knew a port, and none but the God of the Sea to keep her from foundering. He could have believed in this God of the Sea. He wished there had been such a God. But the God that was, the God who was shut up in churches and used only on Sundays, was not of much help to him. Any help he got he must find for himself; and the first thing he must do would be to break away from these low-down companionships. And just as, after two or three hours of meditation, he had reached this conclusion, a tap at the door made him start. Quidmore had come back! But before he could spring to the door it was gently pushed open, and he saw the patch over the left eye. "Got away early, son. Now, seems to me, we ought to be out after them overalls." The boy stood blank. "What overalls?" "Why, for yer job to-morrow. Yer can't work in them good clo'es. Yer'd sile 'em." In a second-hand shop, known to Honey Lem, in Charles Street, they found a suit of boy's overalls not too much the worse for wear. Honey Lem pulled out a roll of bills and paid for them. "But I've got my own money, Mr. Honeybun." "Dooty o' next o' kin, boy. I ain't doin' it for me own pleasure. Yer'll need yer money for yer eddication. Yer mustn't forgit that." The overalls bound him more closely to the criminal from whom he was trying to cut loose. More closely still he found himself tied by the scraps of talk he overheard between the former pals that evening. They were on the lowest of the steps leading up from the chop saloon, where all three of them had dined. Tom, who had preceded them, stood on the sidewalk overhead, out of sight and yet within earshot. "I tell yer I can't, Goody," Mr. Honeybun was saying, "not as long as I'm next o' kin to this 'ere kid. 'Twouldn't be fair to a young boy for me to keep no such company." Mr. Goodsir made some observation the nature of which Tom could only infer from Mr. Honeybun's response. "Well, don't yer suppose it's a damn sight 'arder for me to be out'n a good thing than it is for you to see me out'n it? I don't go in for no renounciation. But when yer've got a fatherless kid on yer 'ands ye' must cut out a lot o' nice stuff that'll go all right when yer've only yerself to think about. Ain't yer a Christian, Goody?" Once more Mr. Goodsir's response was to Tom a matter of surmise. "Well, then, Goody, if yer don't like it yer can go to E and double L. What's more, I ain't a-goin' to sleep in our own room to-night, nor any night till that guy comes back. I'm goin' to sleep in the kid's room, and keep him company. 'Tain't right to leave a young boy all by hisself in a 'ouse like this, as full o' toughs as a ward'll be full o' politicians." Tom removed himself to a discreet distance, but the knowledge that the other bed in his room would not remain so creepily vacant was consciously a relief. He slept dreamlessly that night, because of his feeling of security. In the morning, not long after four, he was wakened by a hand that rocked him gently to and fro. "Come, little shaver! Time to git up! Got to be on yer job at five." The job was in a market that was not exactly a market since it supplied only the hotels. Together with the Gansevoort and West Washington Markets, it seemed to make a focal point for much of the food on the continent of America. Railways and steamers brought it from ranches and farms, from plantations and orchards, from rivers and seas, from slaughter-stockades and cold-storage warehouses, from the north and the south and the west, from the tropics and farther than the tropics, to feed the vast digestive machine which is the basis of New York's energies. Tom's job was not hard, but it was incessant. His was the duty of collecting and arranging the empty cases, crates, baskets, and coops, which were dumped on the raised platform surrounding the building on the outside, or which cluttered the stalls within. Trucks and vans took them away full on one day, and brought them back empty on another. It was all a boy could do to keep them stacked, and in order, according to sizes and shapes. The sizes in the main were small; the shapes were squares and oblongs and diminishing churnlike cylinders. Nimbleness, neatness, and goodwill were the requisites of the task, and all three of them the boy supplied. Fatigue that night made him wakeful. His companion in the other bed was wakeful too. In talking from bed to bed Tom found it a comfort to be dealing with an easy conscience. Mr. Honeybun had nothing on his mind, nor was he subject to nightmares. Speculation on the subject of Quidmore's disappearance, and possible fate, turned round and round on itself, to begin again with the selfsame guesses. "And there's another thing," came from Mr. Honeybun. "If he don't come back, why, you'll come in for a good bit o' proputty, won't yer? Didn't he own that market-garden place, out there on the edge of Connecticut?" "He left it to his sister. He told me that the other night. You see, I wasn't his real son. I wasn't his son at all till about a year ago." This statement coming to Mr. Honeybun as something of a shock, Tom was obliged to tell the story of his life to the extent that he knew it. The only details that he touched on lightly were those which bore on the manner in which he had lost his "mudda." Even now it was difficult to name her in any other way, because in no other way had he ever named her. Obliged to blur the outlines of his earliest recollections, which in themselves were clear enough, his tale was brief. "So yer real name is Whitelaw," Mr. Honeybun commented, with interest. "I never hear that name but once. That was the Whitelaw baby. Ye'll have heard tell o' that?" Since Tom had never heard tell of the Whitelaw baby, the lack in his education was supplied. The Whitelaw baby had been taken out to the Park on a morning in May, and had vanished from its carriage. In the place where it had lain was found a waxen image so true in likeness to the child himself that only when it came time to feed him did the nurse make the discovery that she had wheeled home a replica. The mystery had been the source of nation-wide excitement for the best part of two years. It was talked of even now. It couldn't have been more than three or four years earlier that Mr. Honeybun had seen a daily paper, bearing the headlines that Harry Whitelaw had been found, selling like hotcakes to the women shopping in Twenty-third Street. "And was he?" Tom asked, beginning at last to be sleepy. "No more'n a puff of tobacker smoke when yer'd blowed it in the air. The father, a rich banker--a young chap he was, too, I believe--he offers a reward of fifty thousand dollars to anyone as'd put him on the track o' the gang what had kidnapped the young 'un; and every son of a gun what thought he was a socialist was out to win the money. This 'ere Goody, he had a scheme. Tried to work me in on it, and I don't know but what I might a took a 'and if a chum o' mine hadn't got five year for throwin' the same 'ook without no bait on it. They 'auled in another chap I knowed, what they was sure he had somethink to do with it, and tried to make him squeal; but--" A long breath from Tom interrupted this flow of narrative. "Say, kiddy, yer ain't asleep, are yer? and me tellin' yer about the Whitelaw baby?" "I am nearly," the boy yawned. "Good night--Honey! Wake me in time in the morning." "That's a good name for yer to call me," the next o' kin commended. "I'll always be Honey to you, and you'll be Kiddy to me; and so we'll be pals. Buddies they call it over here." Echoes of a street brawl reached them through the window. Had he been alone, the country lad of thirteen would have shivered, even though the night was hot. But the knowledge of this brawny companion, lying but a few feet away, nerved him to curl up like a puppy, and fall asleep trustfully. XXI The next two or three nights were occasions for the interchange of confidence. During the days the new pals saw little of each other, and sometimes nothing at all. With the late afternoon they could "clean themselves," and take a little relaxation. For this there was no great range of opportunity. Relaxation for Lemuel Honeybun had hitherto run in directions from which he now felt himself cut off. He knew of no others, while the boy knew of none of any kind. "I tell yer, Goody," Tom overheard, through the open door of the room back of Pappa's, one day while he was climbing the stairs, "I ain't a-goin' to go while I've got this job on me hands. The Lord knows I didn't seek it. It's just one of them things that's give yer as a dooty, and I'm goin' to put it through. When Quidmore's come back, and it's all over, I'll be right on the job with the old gang again; but till he does it's nix. Yer can't mean to think that I don't miss the old bunch. Why, I'd give me other eye...." Tom heard no more; but the tone of regret worried him. True, if he wanted to break the bond this might be his chance. On the other hand, the thought of being again without a friend appalled him. While waiting in the hope that Quidmore might come back, the present arrangement was at least a cosy one. Nevertheless, he felt it due to his spirit of independence to show that he could stand alone. He waited till they were again lying feet to feet by the wall, and the air through the open window was cool enough to allow of their being comfortable, before he felt able to take an offhand, man-to-man tone. "You know, Honey, if you want to beat it back to your old crowd, I can get along all right. Don't hang round here on my account." "Lord love you, Kiddy, I know how to sackerfice meself. If I'm to be yer next o' kin, I'll be it and be damned. Done 'arder things than this in me life, and pulled 'em off, too. I'll stick to yer, kid, as long as yer wants me, if I never have another nice time in my life, and never see another quart bottle." The pathos of the life for which he might be letting himself in turned his thoughts backward over his career. "Why, if I'd 'a stuck at not puttin' others before meself I might still 'a been a gasfitter in Liverpool, Eng. That's where I was born. True 'eart-of-oak Englishman I was. Some people thinks they can tell it in the way I talk. Been over 'ere so long, though, seems to me I 'andle the Yankee end of it pretty good. Englishman I met the other day--steward on one of the Cunarders he was--said he wouldn't 'a knowed me from a born New Yorker. Always had a gift for langwidges. Used to know a Frenchman onst; and I'll be 'anged if I wasn't soon parley-vooin' with him till he'd thought I was his mother's son. But it's doin' my dooty by others as has brought me where I am, and I don't make no complaint of it. Job over at the Gansevoort whenever I wants one, which ain't always. Quite a tidy little sum in the savings bank in Brooklyn. Friends as 'll stick by me as long as I'll stick by them. And if I hadn't lost me eye--but how was I to know that that low-down butler was a-layin' for me at the silver-pantry door, and 'd let me have it anywhere he could 'it me?... And when that eyeball cracked, why, I yelled fit to bring the whole p'lice-force in New York right atop o' me." Tom was astounded. "But you said you lost your eye saving a young lady's life." Mr. Honeybun's embarrassment lasted no more than the time needed for finding the right words. "Oh, did I? Well, that was the other side of it. Yer've heard that there's always two sides to a story, haven't yer? I can't tell yer both sides to onst, now can I?" He judged it best, however, to revert to the autobiographical. The son of a dock hand in Liverpool, he had been apprenticed to a gasfitter at the age of seventeen. "But my genius was for somethink bigger. I didn't know just what it'd be, but I could see it ahead o' me, all wuzzy-like. After a bit I come to know it was to fight agin the lor o' proputty. Used to seem to me orful to look around and see that everythink was owned by somebody. Took to goin' to meetin's, I did. Found out that me and me class was the uninherited. 'Gord,' I says to meself then, 'I'll inherit somethink, or I'll bust all Liverpool.' Well, I did inherit somethink--inherited a good warm coat what a guy had left to mark his seat in the Midland Station. Got away with it, too. Knowin' it was mine as much as his, I walks up and throws it over my arm. Ten minutes later I was a-wearin' of it in Lime Street. That was the beginnin', and havin' started in, I begun to inherit quite a lot o' things. 'Nothink's easier,' says I, 'onst you realizes that the soul o' man is free, and that nothink don't belong to nobody.' Fightin' for me class, I was. Tried to make 'em see as they ought to stop bein' the uninherited, and get a move on--and the first thing I know I was landed in Walton jail. You're not asleep, Kiddy, are you?" Not being asleep, Tom came in for the rest of the narrative. Released from Walton jail, Mr. Honeybun had "made tracks" for America. "Wanted to git away from a country where everythink was owned, and find the land o' the free. But free! Lord love yer, I hadn't been landed a hour before I see everythink owned over 'ere as much as it is in a back'ard country like old England. Let me tell you this, Kid. Any man that thinks that by comin' to America he'll git somethink for nothink'll find hisself sold. I ain't had nothink except what I've worked for--or collared. Same old lor o' proputty what's always been a injustice to the pore. Had to begin all over agin the same old game of fightin' it. But what's a few months in chokey when you're doin' it for yer feller creeters, to show 'em what their rights is?" A few nights later Tom was startled by a new point of view as to his position. "I've been thinkin', Kiddy, that since yer used to be a State ward, yer'll have to be a State ward agin, if the State knows you're knockin' round loose." The boy cried out in alarm. "Oh, but I won't be. I'll kill myself first." He could not understand this antipathy, this horror. In a mechanical way the State had been good to him. The Tollivants had been good to him, too, in the sense that they had not been unkind. But he could not return to the status. It was the status that dismayed him. In Harfrey it had made him the single low-caste individual in a prim and high-caste world, giving everyone the right to disdain him. They couldn't help disdaining him. They knew as well as he did that in principle he was a boy like any other; but by all the customs of their life he was a little pariah. Herding with thieves and murderers, it was still possible to respect himself; but to go back and hang on to the outer fringe of the organized life of a Christian society would have ravaged him within. He said so to Honeybun energetically. "That's the way I figured that yer'd feel. So long as you're on'y waitin'--or yer can say that you're on'y waitin'--till yer pop comes back, it won't matter much. It'll be when school begins that it'll go agin yer. There's sure to be some pious woman sneepin' round that'll tell someone as you're not in school when you're o' school age, and then, me lad, yer'll be back as a State ward on some down-homer's farm." Tom lashed the bed in the darkness. "I won't go! I won't go!" "That's what I used to say the first few times they pinched me; but yer'll jolly well have to go if they send yer. Now what I was thinkin' is this. It's in New York State that yer'd be a State ward. If you was out o' this State there'd be all kinds o' laws that couldn't git yer back again. Onst when I'd been doin' a bit o' socializin' in New Jersey, and slipped back to Manhattan--well, you wouldn't believe the fuss it took to git me across the river when the p'lice got wind it was me. Never got me back at all! Thing died out before they was able to fix up all the coulds and couldn'ts of the lor." He allowed the boy to think this over before going on with his suggestion. "Now if you and me was to light out together to another State, they wouldn't notice that we'd gone before we was safe beyond their clutches. If we was to go to Boston, say! Boston's a good town. I worked Boston onst, me and a chap named...." The boy felt called on to speak. "I wouldn't be a socialist, not if it gave me all Boston for my own." The statement, coming as it did, had the vigor of an ultimatum. Though but a repetition of what he had said a few days before, it was a repetition with more force. It was also with more significance, fundamentally laying down a condition which need not be discussed again. After long silence Mr. Honeybun spoke somewhat wistfully. "Well, I dunno as I'd count that agin yer. I sometimes thinks as I'll quit bein' a socialist meself. Seems to me as if I'd like to git back with the old gang, and be what they calls a orthodock. You know what a orthodock is, don't yer?" "It's a kind of religion, isn't it?" "It ain't so much a kind of religion as it's a kind o' way o' thinkin'. You're a orthodock when you don't think at all. Them what ain't got no mind of their own, what just believes and talks and votes and lives the way they're told to, they're the orthodocks. It don't matter whether it's religion or politics or lor or livin', the people who don't know nothink but just obeys other people what don't know nothink, is the kind that gits into the least trouble." "Yes, but what do you want to be like that for? You _have_ got a mind of your own." "Well, there's a good deal to be said, Kiddy. First there's you." "Oh, if it's only me...." "Yes, but when I'm yer next o' kin it isn't on'y you; it's you first and last. I got to bring you up an orthodock, if I'm going to bring you up at all. Yer can't think for yerself yet. You're too young. Stands to reason. Why, I was twenty, and very near a trained gasfitter, before I'd begun thinkin' on me own. What yer does when yer're growed up'll be no concern o' mine. But till you _are_ growed up...." Tom had heard of quicksands, and often dreamed that he was being engulfed in one. He had the sensation now. Circumstances having pushed him where he would not have ventured of his own accord, the treacherous ground was swallowing him up. He couldn't help liking Honey Lem, since he liked everyone in the world who was good to him; he was glad of his society in these lonely nights, and of the sense of his comradeship in the background even in the day; but between this gratitude and a lifelong partnership he found a difference. There were so many reasons why he didn't want permanent association with this fairy godfather, and so many others why he couldn't find the heart to tell him so! He was casting about for a method of escape when the fairy godfather continued. "This 'ere socialism is ahead of its time. People don't understand it. It don't do to be ahead o' yer time, not too far ahead, it don't. Now I figure out that if I was to go back a bit, and git in among them orthodocks, I might do 'em good like. Could explain to 'em. I ain't sure but what I've took the wrong way, showin' 'em first, and explainin' to 'em afterwards. Now if I was to stop showin' 'em at all, and just explain to 'em, why, there'd be folks what when I told 'em that nothink don't belong to nobody they'd git the 'ang of it. Begins to seem to me as if I'd done me bit o' sufferin' for the cause. Seen the inside o' pretty near every old jug round New York. It's aged me. But if I was to sackerfice me opinions, and make them orthodocks feel as I was one of 'em, I might give 'em a pull along like." The next day being Sunday, they slept late into the morning. In the afternoon Honey Lem had a new idea. Without saying what it was, he took the boy to walk through Fourteenth Street, till they reached Fifth Avenue. Here they climbed to the top of an electric bus going northward, and Tom had a new experience. Except for having crossed it in the market lorry, in the dimness and emptiness of dawn, this stimulating thoroughfare was unknown to him. Even on a Sunday afternoon in summer, when shops were shut, residences closed, and saunterers relatively few, it added a new concept to those already in his mental possession. It was that of magnificence. These ornate buildings, these flashing windows, these pictures, jewels, flowers, fabrics, furnishings, did more than appeal to his eye. They set free a function of his being that had hitherto been sealed. The first atavistic memory of which he had ever been aware was consciously in his mind. Somewhere, perhaps in some life before he was born, rich and beautiful things had been his accessories. He had been used to them. They were not a surprise to him now; they came as a matter of course. To see them was not so much a discovery as it was a return to what he had been accustomed to. He was thinking of this, with an inward grin of derision at himself for feeling so, when Honey went back to the topic of the night before. "The reason I said Boston is because they've got that great big college there. If I'm to bring yer up, I'll have to send yer to college." The opening was obvious. "But, Honey, you don't have to bring me up." "How can I be yer next o' kin if I don't bring ye' up, a young boy like you? Be sensible, Kiddy. Yer ch'ice is between me and the State, and I'd be a lot better nor that, wouldn't I? The State won't be talkin' o' sendin' yer to college, mind that now." There was no controverting the fact. As a State ward, he would not go to college, and to college he meant to go. If he could not go by one means he must go by another. Since Honey would prove a means of some sort, he might be obliged to depend on him. The bus was bowling and lurching up the slope by which Fifth Avenue borders the Park, when Honey rose, clinging to the backs of the neighboring seats. "We'll git out at the next corner." Having reached the ground, he led the way across the street, scanning the houses opposite. "There it is," he said, with choked excitement, when he had found the façade he was looking for. "That big brown front, with the high steps, and the swell bow-winders. That's where the Whitelaw baby used to live." Face to face with the spot, Tom felt a flickering of interest. He listened with attention while Honey explained how the baby carriage had for the last time been lifted down by two footmen, and how it was wheeled away by the nurse. "Nash, her name was. I seen her come out one day, when Goody and me was standin' 'ere. Nice little thing she seemed, English, same as I be. Yes, Goody and me'd sniggle and snaggle ourselves every which way to see how we could cook up a yarn that'd ketch on to some o' that money. We sure did read the papers them days! There wasn't nothink about the Whitelaw baby what we didn't know. Now, if yer've looked long enough at the 'ouse, Kid, I'll show yer somethink else." They went into the Park by the same little opening through which the Whitelaw baby had passed, not to return. Like a detective reconstructing the action of a crime, he followed the path Miss Nash had taken, almost finding the marks of the wheels in the gravel. Going round the shoulder of a little hill, they came to a fan-shaped elm, in the shade of which there was a seat. Beyond the seat was a clump of lilac, so grouped as to have a hollow like a horseshoe in its heart, with a second seat close by. Honey revived the scene as if he had witnessed it. Miss Nash had sat here; her baby carriage had stood there. The other nurse, name o' Miss Messenger, had put her baby beneath the elm, and taken her seat where she could watch it. All he was obliged to leave out was the actual exchange of the image for the baby, which remained a mystery. "This 'ere laylock bush ain't the same what was growin' 'ere then. That one was picked down, branch by branch, and carried off for tokens. Had a sprig of it meself at one time. I always thinks them little memoriums is instructive. I recolleck there was a man 'anged in Liverpool, and the 'angman, a friend of my guv'nor's, give me a bit of the chap's shirt, what he'd left in his cell when he changed to a clean one to be 'anged in. Well, I kep' that bit o' shirt for years. Always reminded me not to murder no one. Wish I had it now. Funny it'd be, wouldn't it, if you turned out to be the Whitelaw baby? He'd a' been just about your age." Tom threw himself sprawling on the seat where Miss Nash had read _Juliet Allingham's Sin_, and laughed lazily. "I couldn't be, because his name was Harry, and mine's Tom." "Oh, a little thing like that wouldn't invidiate your claim." "But I haven't got a claim. You don't suppose my mother stole me, do you? That's the very thing she used to tell me not to...." The laugh died on his lips. As Honey stood looking down at him there was a light in his blue-gray eye like the striking of a match. Tom knew that the same thought was in both their minds. Why should a woman have uttered such a warning if she had not been afraid of a suspicion? A flush that not only reddened his tanned cheeks, but mounted to the roots of his bushy, horizontal eyebrows, made him angry with himself. He sprang to his feet. "Look here, Honey! Aren't there animals in this Park? Let's go and find them." To his relief, Honey pressed no question as to his mother and stolen babies as they went off to the Zoo. XXII The move to Boston was made during August, so that they might be settled in time for the opening of the schools. The flitting was with the ease of the obscure. Also with the ease of the obscure, Lemuel changed his name to George, while Tom Quidmore became again Tom Whitelaw. There were reasons to justify these decisions on the part of both. "Got into trouble onst in Boston under the name of Lemuel, and if any old sneeper was to look me up.... Not but what Lemuel isn't a more aristocraticker name than George; but there's times when somethink what no one won't notice'll suit you best. So I'll be George Honeybun, a pal o' yer father's, what left yer to me on his dyin' deathbed." The name of Tom Whitelaw was resumed on grounds both sentimental and prudential. In the absence of any other tie to the human race, it was something to the boy to know that he had had a father. His father had been a Whitelaw; his grandfather had been a Whitelaw; there was a whole line of Whitelaws back into the times when families first began to be known by names. A slim link with a past, at least it was a link. The Quidmore name was no link at all; it was disconnection and oblivion. It signified the ship that had never had a port. As a Whitelaw, he had sailed from somewhere, even though the port would forever be unknown to him. It was a matter of prudence, too, to cover up his traces. In the unlikely event of the State of New York busying itself with the fate of its former ward, the name of Quidmore would probably be used. A well-behaved Tom Whitelaw, living with his next of kin, and attending school in Boston according to the law, would have the best chance of going unmolested. They found a lodging, cheap, humble, but sufficient, on that northern slope of Beacon Hill which within living memory has more than once changed hands with the silent advance and recession of a tide coming in and going out. There are still old people who can remember when some of the worthiest of the sons of the Puritans had their windows, in these steep and narrow streets, brightened by the rising or the setting sun. Then, with an almost ghostly furtiveness, they retired as the negro came and routed them. The negro seemed fixed in possession when the Hebrew stole on silently, and routed him. At the time when George Honeybun and Tom Whitelaw came looking for a home, the ancient inhabitant of the land was beginning to creep back again, and the Hebrew taking flight. In a red-brick house of forbidding expression in Grove Street they found a room with two beds. Within a few days Honey, whose strength was his skill, was working as a stevedore on the Charlestown docks. Tom was picking up small jobs about the markets. By September he had passed his examinations and had entered the Latin School. A new life had begun. From the old life no pursuit or interference ever followed them. The boy shot up. In the course of a year he had grown out of most of his clothes. To the best of his modest ability, Honey was generous with new ones. He was generous with everything. That Tom should lack nothing, he cut down his own needs till he seemed to have none but the most elemental. Of his "nice times" in New York nothing had followed him to Boston but a love of spirits and tobacco. Of the two, the spirits went completely. When Tom's needs were pressing the supply of tobacco diminished till it sometimes disappeared. If on Sundays he could venture over the hill, to listen to the band on the Common, or stroll with the boy in the Public Gardens, it was because the Sunday suit, bought in the days when he had no one to provide for but himself, was sponged and pressed and brushed and mended, with scrupulous devotion. The motive of so much self-denial puzzled Tom, since, so far as he could judge, it was not affection. He was old enough now to perceive that affection had inspired most of his good fortune. People were disposed to like him for himself. There was rarely a teacher who did not approve of him. By the market men, among whom he still picked up a few dollars on Saturdays and in vacations, he was always welcomed heartily. In school he never failed to hold his own till the boys discovered that his father, or uncle, or something, was a stevedore, after which he was ignored. Girls regarded him with a hostile interest, while toward them he had no sentiments of any kind. He could go through a street and scarcely notice that there was a girl in it, and yet girls wouldn't leave him alone. They bothered him with overtures of friendship to which he did not respond, or tossed their heads at him, or called him names. But in general the principle was established that he could be liked. But Honey was an enigma. Love was apparently not the driving power urging him to these unexpected fulfillments. If it was, it had none of the harmless dog-and-puppy ways which Tom had grown accustomed to. Honey never pawed him, as the masters often pawed the boys, and the boys pawed one another. He never threw an arm across his shoulder, or called him by a more endearing name than Kiddy. Apart from an eagle-eyed solicitude, he never manifested tenderness, nor asked for it. That Tom would ever owe him anything he didn't so much as hint at. "Dooty o' next o' kin" was the blanket explanation with which he covered everything. "But you're not my next of kin," Tom, to whom schooling had revealed the meaning of the term, was bold enough to object. "Next of kin means that you'd be my nearest blood relation; and we're not relations at all." Honey was undisturbed in his Olympian detachment. "Do yer suppose I dunno that? But I believes as Gord sees we're kin lots o' times when men don't take no notice. You was give to me. You was put into my 'ands to bring up. And up I'm goin' to bring yer, if it breaks me." It was a close Sunday evening in September, the last of the summer holidays. Tom would celebrate next day by entering on a higher grade at school. He had had new boots and clothes. For the first time he was worried by the source of this beneficence. As night closed down they sat for a breath of fresh air on the steps of the house in Grove Street. Grove Street held the reeking smell of cooking, garbage, and children, which only a strong wind ever blows away from the crowded quarters of the cities, and there had been no strong wind for a week. Used to that, they didn't mind it. They didn't mind the screeching chatter or the raucous laughter that rose from doorways all up and down the hill, nor the yelling of the youngsters playing in the roadway. Somewhere round a corner a group of Salvationists, supported by a blurting cornet, sang with much gusto: Oh, how I love Jesus! Oh, how I love Jesus! Oh, how I love Jesus! Because He first loved me. They didn't mind it when Mrs. Danker, their landlady, a wiry New England woman, sitting in the dark of the hall behind them, joined in, in her cracked voice, with the Salvationists, nor when Mrs. Gribbens, a stout old party who picked up a living scrubbing railway cars, joined in with Mrs. Danker. From neighboring steps mothers called out to their children in Yiddish, and the children answered in strident American. But to Honey and Tom all this was the friendly give-and-take of promiscuity which they would have missed had it not been there. Each was so concentrated on his own ruling purpose that nothing external was of moment. Honey was to give, and Tom was to receive, an education. That the recipient's heart should be fixed on it, Tom found natural enough; but that the giver's should be equally intense seemed to have nothing to account for it. He glanced at the quiet figure, upright and muscular, his hands on his knees, like a stone Pharaoh on the Nile. "Why don't you smoke?" "I don't want to drop no ashes on this 'ere suit." "Have you got any tobacco?" "I didn't think to lay in none when I come 'ome yesterday." "Is that because there was so much to be spent on me?" "Oh, I dunno about that." Tom gathered all his ambitions together and offered them up. "Well, I guess this can be the last year. After I've got through it I'll be ready to go to work." "And not go to college!" The tone was one of consternation. "Lord love yer, Kiddy, what's bitin' yer now?" "It's biting me that you've got to work so hard." "If it don't bite me none, why not let it go at that?" "Because I don't seem able to. I've taken so much from you." "Well, I've had it to 'and out, ain't I?" "But I don't see why you do it." "A young boy like you don't have to see. There's lots o' things I didn't understand at your age." "You don't seem specially--" he sought for words less direct, but without finding them--"you don't seem--specially fond of me." "I never was one to be fond o' people, except it was a dog. Always had a 'ankerin' for a dog; but a free life don't let yer keep one. A dog'll never go back on yer." "Well, do you think I would?" "I don't think nothink about it, Kid. When the time comes that you can do without me...." "That time'll never come, Honey, after all you've done for me." "I don't want yer to feel yerself bound by that." "I don't feel myself bound by it; but--dash it all, Honey!--whatever you feel or don't feel about me, I'm fond of _you_." He was still imperturbable. "Well, Kid, you wouldn't be the first, not by a lot." "But if I can never be anything _for_ you, or _do_ anything for you...." "There's one thing you could do." "What is it? I don't care how hard it is." "Well, when you're one o' them big lawyers, or bankers, or somethink--drorin' yer fifty dollars a week--you can have a shy at this 'ere lor o' proputty. It don't seem right to me that some people should have all the beef to chaw, and others not so much as the bones; but I can't git the 'ang of it. If nothink don't belong to nobody, then what about all your dough in the New York savin's bank, and mine in the one in Brooklyn? We're keepin' it agin yer goin' to college, ain't we? And don't that belong to us? Yes, by George, it do! So there you are. But if when yer gits yer larnin' yer can steddy it out...." XXIII The boy was adolescent, sentimental, and lonely. Mere human companionship, such as that which Honey gave him, was no longer enough for him. He was seeing visions and dreaming dreams. He began to wish he had some one with whom to share his unformulated hopes, his crude and burning opinions. He looked at fellows who were friends going two and two, pouring out their foolish young hearts to each other, and envied them. The lads of his own age liked him well enough. Now and then one of them would approach him with shy or awkward signals, making for closer acquaintance; but when they learned that he lived in Grove Street with a stevedore they drew away. None of them ever transcended the law of caste, to stand by him in spite of his humble conditions. Boys whose families were down wanted nothing to hamper them in climbing up. Boys whose families were up wanted nothing that might loosen their position and pull them down. The sense of social insecurity which was the atmosphere of homes reacted on well-meaning striplings of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, turning them into snobs and cads before they had outgrown callowness. But during the winter of the year in which he became sixteen there were two, you might have said three, who broke in upon this solitude. In walking to the Latin School from Grove Street he was in the habit of going through Louisburg Square. If you know Boston you know Louisburg Square as that quaint red-brick rectangle, like many in the more Georgian parts of London, which commemorates the gallant dash of the New England colonists on the French fortress of Louisburg in Cape Breton. It is the heart of that conservative old Boston, which is now shrinking in size and importance before the onset of the foreigner till it has become like a small beleaguered citadel. Here the descendants of the Puritans barricade themselves behind their financial walls, as their ancestors within their stockades, while their city is handed over to the Irishman and the Italian as an undefended town. The Boston of tradition is a Boston of tradition only. Like the survivors of Noah's deluge clinging to the top of a rock, they to whom the Boston of tradition was bequeathed are driven back on Beacon Hill as a final refuge from the billows rising round them. A high-bred, cultivated, sympathetic people, they have so given away their heritage as to be but a negligible factor in the State, in the country, of which their fathers and grandfathers may be said once to have kept the conscience. But to Tom Whitelaw Louisburg Square meant only the dignified fronts and portals behind which lived the rich people who had no point of contact with himself. They couldn't have ignored him more completely than he ignored them. He thought of them as little as the lion cub in a circus parade thinks of the people of the city through which he passes in processions. Then, one day, one of these strangers spoke to him. It was a youth of about his own age. More than once, as Tom went by, and the stout boy stood on the sidewalk in front of his own house, they had looked each other up and down with unabashed mutual appraisal. Tom saw a lad too short for his width, and unhealthily flabby. He had puffy hands, and puffy cheeks, with eyes seeming smaller than they were because the puffy eyelids covered them. The mouth had those appealing curves comically troubled in repose, but fulfilling their purpose in giggling. On the first occasion when Tom passed by the lips were set to the serious task of inspection. They said nothing; they betrayed nothing. Tom himself thought nothing, except that the boy was fat. They had looked at each other some two or three times a week, for perhaps a month, when one day the fat boy said, "Hullo!" Tom also said, "Hullo!" continuing on his way. A day or two later they repeated these salutations, though neither forsook his attitude of reserve. The fat boy did this first, speaking when they had hullo'ed each other for the third or fourth time. His voice was high and girlish, and yet with a male crack in it. "What school do you go to?" Tom stopped. "I go to the Latin School. What school do you go to?" "I go to Doolittle and Pray's." "That's the big private school in Marlborough Street, isn't it?" The fat boy made the inarticulate grunt which with most Americans means "Yes." "I was put down for Groton, only mother wouldn't let me leave home. I'm going to Harvard." "I'm going to Harvard, too. What class do you expect to be in?" The fat boy replied that he expected to be in the class of nineteen-nineteen. Tom said he expected to be in that class himself. "Now I've got to beat it to the Latin School. So long!" "So long!" Tom carried to his school in the Fenway an unusual feeling of elation. With friendly intent someone had approached him from the world outside. It was not the first time it had ever happened, but it was the first time it had ever happened in just this way. He could see already that the fat boy was not one of those he would have chosen for a friend; but he was so lonely that he welcomed anyone. Moreover, he divined that the fat boy was lonely, too. Boys of that type, the Miss Nancy and the mother's darling type, were often consumed by loneliness, and no one ever pitied them. Few went to their aid when other boys "picked" on them, but of those few Tom Whitelaw was always one. He found them, once you had accepted their mannerisms, as well worth knowing as other boys, while they spared him a scrap of admiration. It was possible that in this fat boy he might find the long-sought fellow who would not "turn him down" on discovering that he lived in Grove Street. Being turned down in this way had made him sick at heart so often that he had decided never any more to make or trust advances. In suffering temptation again he assured himself that it would be for the last time in his life. On returning from school he looked for the boy in Louisburg Square, but he was not there. A few hundred yards farther, however, he came in for another adventure. The January morning had been mild, with melting snow. By midday the wind had shifted to the north, with a falling thermometer. By late afternoon the streets were coated with a glaze of ice. Tom could swagger down the slope of Grove Street easily enough in the security of rubber soles. But not so a girl, whose slippers and high French heels made her helpless on the steep glare. Having ventured over the brow of the hill, she found herself held. A step into the air would have been as easy as another on this slippery descent. The best she could do was to sway in the keen wind, keeping her balance with the grace of one of the blue spruces which used to be blown about at Bere. Her outstretched arms waved up and down, as a blue spruce waves its branches. Coming abreast of her, Tom found her laughing to herself, but on seeing him she laughed frankly and aloud. "Oh, catch me! I'm going to tumble! Ow-w-w!" Tom snatched at one hand, while she caught him by the shoulder with the other. "Saved! Wasn't it lucky that you came along? You're the Whitelaw boy, aren't you?" Tom admitted that he was, though his new sensations, with this exquisite creature clinging to him like a drowning man to his rescuer, choked the monosyllable in his throat. Though he had often in a scrimmage protected little boys, he had never before been thrown into this comic, laughing tussle with a girl. It had the excuse for itself that she couldn't stand unless he held her up. He held her firmly, looking into her dancing eyes with his first emotional consciousness of a girl's prettiness. His arm supporting her, she ventured on a step. "I'm Maisie Danker," she explained, while taking it. "I see you going in and out the house." "I've never seen you." "Perhaps you've seen me and not noticed me." "I couldn't," he declared, with vehemence. "I've never seen you before in my life. If I had...." Her high heels so nearly slipped from under her that they were compelled to hold each other as if in an embrace. "If you had--what?" He knew what, but the words in which to say it needed a higher mode of utterance. The red lips, the glowing cheeks, had the vitality of the lively eyes. A red tam-o'-shanter, a red knitted thing like a heavenly translation of his own earthly sweater, were bewitchingly diabolic when worn with a black skirt, black stockings, and black shoes. As he did not respond to her challenge, she went on with her self-introduction. "I guess you haven't seen me, because I only arrived three days ago. I'm Mrs. Danker's niece. Live in Nashua. Worked in the woolen mills there. Now I've come to visit my aunt for the winter." For the sake of hearing her speak, he asked if she was going to work in Boston. "I don't know. Maybe I'll take singing lessons. Got a swell voice." If again he was dumb it was because of the failure of his faculties. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for the give-and-take of a badinage in which the surface meanings were the less important. Foolish and helpless, unable to show his manly superiority except in the strength with which he held her up, he got a lesson in the new art there and then. "Ever dance?" "I'm never asked." "Oh, it's you that ought to do the asking." "I mean that I'm never asked where there's dancing going on." "Gee, you don't have to be. You just find a girl--and go." "But I don't know how to dance." "I'll teach you." Slipping and sliding, with cries of alarm on her part, and stalwart assurances on his, they approached their own doorstep. "Ow-w-w! Hold me! I'm going!" "No you're not--not while I've got you." "But I don't want to grab you so hard." "That's all right. I can stand it." "But I can't. I'm not used to it." "Then it's a very good time to begin." "What's the use of beginning if there's nothing to go on with?" "How do you know there won't be?" "Well, what can there be?" Had Miss Danker always waited for answers to her questions Tom would have been more nonplussed than he was. But the game which he didn't know at all she knew thoroughly, according to her lights. She never left him at a loss for more than a few seconds at a time. Her method being that of touch-and-go, reserving to herself the right of coming back again, she carried his education one step farther still. "Don't you ever go to the movies?" He replied that he had gone once or twice with Honey, but not often. To be on the same breezy level as herself, he added in explanation: "Haven't got the dough." "But the movies don't take dough, not hardly any." "They take more than I've got." "More than you've got? Gee! Then you can't have anything at all." It was not so much a taunt as it was a statement, and yet it was a statement with a little taunt in it. For once driven to bravado, he gave away a secret. "Well, I haven't--except what's in the bank." "Oh, you've got money in the bank, have you?" "Sure! But I'm keeping it to go to college." She stared at him as if he had been a duck-billed rabbit, or some variety of fauna hitherto unknown. "Gee! I should think a fellow who had money in the bank would want to blow some of it on having a good time--a fellow with any jazz." Once more she spared him discomfiture. Slipping into the hallway, she said over her shoulder as he followed her: "How old are you?" "Sixteen." She flashed round at him. "Sixteen! Gee! I thought you was my age if you was a day. Honest I did. I'm eighteen, an old lady compared with you." "Oh, but boys are always older than girls, for their age." "You are, sure. Anyways, you saved me on that slippery hill, and I think you ought to have a kiss for it. Come, baby, kiss your poor old ma." Though the hallway was dark, the kiss had to be given and taken furtively. Whatever it was to Maisie Danker, to Tom Whitelaw it was the entrance to a higher and an increased life. The pressure of her lips on his sent through his frame a dynamic glow he had not supposed to be among nature's possibilities. Moreover, it threw light on that experience as to which he had mused ever since he had first talked confidentially to Bertie Tollivant. Though instinct had taught him something in the intervening years, he had up to this minute gained nothing in the way of practical discovery. Now an horizon that had been dark was lifting to disclose a wonderland. With her light laugh Maisie had run into her aunt's apartment, and shut the door. Tom began heavily, pensively, to climb the stairs. But halfway up he paused to mark off another stage in his perceptions. "So that's what it's like! That's why they all think so much about it--and try to hush it up!" XXIV He himself found something to hush up when he recounted the incident to Honey in the evening. He told of meeting Mrs. Danker's niece on the ice-coated hill, and helping her down to the door. Of his sensations as she clung to him he said nothing. He said nothing of the kiss in the dark hallway. During the rest of the evening, and after he had gone to bed, he wondered why. They all hushed these things up, and he did as the rest; but what was the basic reason? As his first emotional encounter the subject was sufficiently in his mind next day to make him duller than usual at school. On his way home from school it so preoccupied his thought that he forgot to look for the fat boy. It was the fat boy who first saw him, hailing him as he approached. There was already between them that acceptance of each other which is the first stage of friendship. "What's your name?" "Tom Whitelaw. What's yours?" "Guy Ansley. How old are you?" "Sixteen. How old are you?" "I'm sixteen, too. What's your father do?" "I haven't got a father. I live with--" it was difficult to explain--"with a man who kind o' takes care of me." "A guardian?" "Something like that. What does your father do?" "He's a corporation lawyer. Makes big money, too." As Tom began to move along the fat boy went with him, keeping step. "What's your guardian do?" "He does anything that'll give him a job. Mostly he's a stevedore." "What's a stevedore? Sounds as if it had something to do with bull-fighting." "It's a longshoreman. He loads and unloads ships." They stopped at the corner of Pinckney Street The puffy countenance fell. Tom could follow his companion's progression of bewilderments. "Where do you live?" "I live in Grove Street." It was the minute of suspense. All had been confessed. The countenance that had fallen went absolutely blank. To himself the tall, proud, sensitive lad was saying that his future life was staked on the response the fat boy chose to make. If he showed signs of wriggling out of an embarrassing situation he, Tom Whitelaw, would range himself forever with the enemies of the rich. The fat boy spoke at last. "So you're that kind of fellow." "Yes, I'm that kind of fellow." This was mere marking time. The decision was still to come. It came with an air on the fat boy's part of heroic resolution. "Well, I don't care." Tom breathed again, breathed with bravado. "Neither do I." In the stress of so much big-heartedness the girlish voice became a croak. "I know guys who think that if another guy isn't rich they must treat him as so much dirt. I'm not that sort. I'm democratic. I wouldn't turn down a fellow just because he lived in Grove Street. If I liked him I'd stick to him. I'm not snobbish. How do you know you couldn't give him a peg up, and he'd be grateful to you all his life?" Thinking this over afterward, Tom found it hard to disengage the bitter from the sweet; but he had not much chance to think it over. Any spare minute he found pre-empted by Maisie Danker, who seemed to camp in the dark hallway. If she was not there when he entered, she appeared before he could go upstairs. The ice having melted in the street, she had other needs of protection, an errand to do in the crowded region of Bowdoin Square, a shop to visit across the Common which was so wide and lonesome in winter twilights, a dance hall to locate in case they ever made up their minds to visit it. She was always timid, clinging, laughing, adorable. The embodiment of gayety, she made him gay, which was again a new sensation. Never before had he felt young as he felt young with her. The minutes they spent swamped in the throngs of the lighted streets, between five and seven on a winter's afternoon, were his first minutes of escape from a world of care. Care had been his companion since he could remember anything; and now his companion was this exquisite thing, all lightsomeness and joy. He was later than usual in returning from school one afternoon, because a teacher had given him a commission to carry out which took some two hours of his time. As it had sent him toward the south end of the city, he had the Common to traverse on his way home. Snow had recently fallen; but through the main avenues under the trees the paths had been cleared. On the Frog Pond the drifts had been swept up, so that there could be a little skating. As Tom passed by he could hear the scraping and grinding of skates, and the hoarse shouts of hobbledehoys. At any other time he would have stopped, either to look on peacefully, or to take part in some bit of free-for-all, rough-and-tumble skylarking in the snow. But Maisie might be waiting. She might even have given up waiting, which would take all his pleasure from the afternoon. To reach home more quickly he followed a short cut, scarcely shoveled out, on the slope of the Common below Beacon Hill. Here there were no foot passengers but himself. Neither, for some little distance, were there any trees. There was only the white shroud of the snow, freezing to a crust. A misty moon drifted through a tempest of scudding clouds, while wherever in the offing there was a group of elms the electric lights danced through their tossing branches as if they were wind-blown lanterns. In spite of his hurry, the boy came to a standstill. It was a minute at which to fancy himself lost in Moosonee or Labrador. His _voyageur_ guides had failed him; his dog team had run away; his pemmican--he supposed it would be pemmican--had given out. He was homeless, starving, abandoned, alone but for the polar bears. It was not a polar bear that he saw come floundering down the hillside, but it might have been a black one. It was certainly black; its nature was certainly animal. It rolled and tumbled and panted and grunted, and now and then it moaned. For a few minutes it remained stationary, with internal undulations; then it scrambled a few paces, as an elephant might scramble whose feet had been sawn off. A dying mammoth would also have emitted just these raucous groans. Suddenly it squealed. The squeal was like that of a pig when the knife is thrust into its throat. It was girlish, piercing, and yet had a masculine shriek in it. Tom Whitelaw knew what was happening. It had happened to himself so often in the days when he was different from other boys that his fists seemed to clench and his feet to spring before his mind had given the command. In clearing the fifty odd yards of snow between him and the wallowing monster, he chose a form of words which young hooligans would understand as those of authority. "What in hell are yez doin' to that kid? Are yez puttin' a knife in him? Leave him be, or I'll knock the brains out of every one of yez." He was in among them, laying about him before they knew what had landed in their midst. They were not brutal youngsters; they were only jocose in the manner of their kind. Having spied the fat boy coming down to watch the skating, it was as natural for them to jump on him as it would be for a pack of dogs who chanced to see a sloth. With the courage of the mob, and also with its rapidity of thought-transfer, they had closed in silently and rushed him. He was on his back in a second. In a second they were clambering all over him. When he staggered to his feet they let him run, only to catch him and pull him down again. So staggering, so running, so coming down like a lump of jelly in the snow, he had reached the top of the hill, his tormentors hanging to him as if their teeth were in his flesh, at the minute when Tom first perceived the black mass. The fat boy had not lacked courage. He had fought. That is, he had kicked and bitten and scratched, with the fury of vicious helplessness. He had not cried for mercy. He had not cried out at all. He had struggled for breath; he had nearly strangled; but his pantings and gruntings were only for breath just as were theirs. Strong in spite of his unwieldiness, he was not without the moral spunk which can perish at a pinch, but will not give in. None of them had struck him. That would have been thought cowardly. They had only plastered him with snow, in his mouth, in his ears, in his eyes, and down below his collar. This he could have suffered, still without a plea, had not their play become fiercer. They began to tear open his clothing, to wrench it off the buttons. They stuffed snow inside his waistcoat, inside his shirt, inside his trousers. He was naked to the cold. And yet it was not the cold that drew from him that piglike squeal; it was the indignity. He was Guy Ansley, a rich man's son, in his native sanctified old Boston a young lordling; but these muckers had mauled the last rag of honor out of him. They were good-natured little demons, with no more notion of his tragedy than if he had been a snowman. As soon as the strapping young giant had leaped in among them, they ran off with screams of laughter. Most of them were tired of the fun in any case; a few lingered at a distance to "call names," but even they soon disappeared. Tom could only help the lumbering body to its feet. Cleaning him of snow was more difficult, and since it was melting next his skin, it had to be done at once. The shirt and underclothing being wet, and a keen wind blowing, his teeth were soon chattering. Even when buttoned tightly in his outer clothes he was dank and clammy within. It helped him a little that Tom should strip off his own overcoat and exchange with him; but nothing could really warm him till he got into his own bed. They would have run all of the short distance to Louisburg Square only that young Ansley was not a runner at any time, and at this time was exhausted. Tom could only drag him along as a dead weight. Except for the brief observations necessary to what they had to do, they hardly spoke a word. Speech was nearly impossible. The only aim of importance was covering the ground. The old manservant who admitted them in Louisburg Square went dumb with dismay. Having brought his charge into the hall, Tom was obliged to take the lead. "He's been tumbling in the snow. He's got wet. He may have caught a chill. Better call his mother." The fat boy spoke. "Mother's in New York. So's father. Here, Pilcher, help me up to my room." As the two went up the stairs, Tom was left standing in the hall. A voice at the head of the stairs arrested his attention because it was a girl's. Since knowing Maisie Danker, all girls' voices had begun to interest him. This voice was clear, silvery, peremptory, a little sharp, like the note of a crystal bell. Pilcher explained something, whereupon the owner of the voice ran down. On the red carpet of the stairs, with red-damasked paper as a background, her white figure was spiritlike beneath a dim oriental hall light. "I'm Hildred Ansley," she said, with a cool air of self-possession. "I see my brother's had an accident. Pilcher is putting him to bed. I'm sure we're very much obliged to you." She was only a child, perhaps fourteen, but a competent child, who knew what to say. Not pretty, as Maisie was, she had presence and personality. In this she was helped by her height, since she was tall, and would be taller, and more by her intelligence. It was the first time he had ever had occasion to observe that some faces were intelligent, though it was not quite easy to say why. "Little Miss Ansley knows what's what," he commented silently, but aloud he said that if he were in her place he would send for a doctor. Though her brother had had no bones broken, he might easily have caught a bad cold. "Thank you! I'll do it at once." She made her way to a table, somewhat belittered with caps and gloves, behind the stairs, at the back of the hall. Taking up the receiver, she called a number, politely and yet with a ring of command. While she was speaking he noticed his surroundings. If to him they seemed baronial it was because his experience had been cramped. Louisburg Square is not baronial; it is only dignified. For the early nineteenth century its houses were spacious; for the early twentieth they are a little narrow, a little steep, a little lacking in imaginative outlet. But to Tom Whitelaw, with memories that went back to the tenements of New York, to whom the homes of the Tollivants and the Quidmores had meant reasonable comfort, who found the sharing of one room with George Honeybun endurable, these walls with their red paper, these stairs with their red carpet, this lofty gloom, this sense of wealth, were all that he dreamed of as palatial. When Miss Ansley returned from the telephone, he asked if he might have his overcoat. Her brother had worn it upstairs on going to his room. "That's his," he explained, pointing to the soggy Burberry he had thrown down on a carved settle. "Oh, certainly! I'll run up and get it. I won't ask you to go upstairs to the drawing-room; but if you don't mind taking a seat in here...." Throwing open the door of the dining room, which was on the ground floor, she switched on the light. Tom entered and stood still. So this was the sort of place in which rich people took their meals! It was a glow of rich gleaming lights, lights from mahogany, lights from silver, lights from porcelain. In the center of the table lay a round piece of lace, on which stood a silver dish with nothing in it. He knew without being told, though he had never thought of it before, that it needed nothing in it. There were things so beautiful as to fulfil their purpose merely in being beautiful. From above a black-marble mantelpiece a man looked down at him with jovial eyes, a man in a high collar and huge black neckerchief, who might have been the grandfather or great-grandfather of Guy and Hildred Ansley. He had the fat good humor of the one and the bright intelligence of the other, the source in his genial self of types so widely different. Young Miss Ansley tripped in with the coat across her arm. "I'm sure my father and mother will want to thank you when they come back. Guy's been very naughty. He's always forbidden to leave the Square when he goes out of doors. He wouldn't have done it if papa and mamma hadn't been away. I can't make him mind _me_. But you must come back when everybody's here, so that you can be thanked properly. I suppose you live somewhere near us?" Tom found it easiest to answer indirectly. "Your brother knows everything about me. I've seen him once or twice in the Square, and I've told him who I am." "That'll be very nice." She held out her hand, and he accepted his dismissal. But before having closed the door behind him, he turned round to her as she stood under the oriental lamp. "I hope your brother will soon be all right again. I think they ought to give him a hot drink. He's--he's got big stuff in him when you come to find it out. He'll make his way." The transformation in her was electric. She ceased to be starched and competent, with a manner that put a thousand miles between him and her. The intelligence he had already noted in her face was aflame with a radiance beyond beauty. "Oh, I'm so glad you can say that! No one outside the family has ever said it before. He's a _lamb_!--and hardly anybody knows it." She held out her hand again. As he took it he saw that her eyes, which he thought must be dark, were shining with a mist of tears. Going down the hill he repeated the two names: Maisie Danker! Hildred Ansley! They called up concepts so different that it was hard to think them of a common flesh. Though Maisie Danker was a woman and Hildred Ansley but a child, there were points at which you could compare them. In the comparison the advantages lay so richly with the girl in Louisburg Square that he fell back on the fact, stressing it with emphasis, that Maisie was the prettier. "After all," he reflected, with comfort in the judgment, "that's all that matters--to a man." XXV A few days after his rescue of Guy Ansley from the snow Tom Whitelaw found himself addressed by that young gentleman's sister, aged fourteen. She had plainly been watching for him as he went through Louisburg Square on his way from school. He had almost passed the Ansley steps before the tall, slight girl ran down them. "Oh, Mr. Whitelaw!" As it was the first time he had ever been honored with this prefix, he felt shocked and slightly foolish. "Yes, Miss Ansley?" A little breathless, she was, as he had noticed during their previous meeting, oddly grown up for her age, as one who takes responsibilities because there is no one else to bear them. She had the manner and selection of words of a woman of thirty. "I hope you won't mind my waylaying you like this, but my brother would so much like to see you. You've been so awfully kind that I hope you'll come up. He's in bed, you know." "When does he want me to come?" "Well, now, if it isn't troubling you too much. You see, my father and mother are coming home to-night, and he'd like to have a word with you before then. He won't keep you more than a few minutes." What Tom obscurely felt as an honor to himself she put as a favor he was doing them. It was an honor in that it admitted him a little farther into privacies which to him seemed tapestried with privilege and tradition. His one brief glimpse of their way of living had not made him discontented; it had only appealed to his faculty for awe. Awe was what he was aware of in following his young guide up the two red staircases to the room where the fat boy lay in bed. It was a mother's-darling's room, amusingly out of keeping with the pudgy, fleshy being whom it housed. Flowered paper on the walls, flowered hangings at the windows, flowered cretonnes on thickly upholstered armchairs, flowered silk on the duvet, garlands of flowers on the headboard and footboard of the virginal white bedstead, made the piggy eyes and piggy cheeks, bolstered up by pillows of which some were trimmed with lace, the more funnily grotesque. Tom Whitelaw saw neither the fun nor the grotesqueness. All he could take in was the fact that beauty could gild the lily of this luxury. He knew nothing of beauty in his own denuded life. The room with two beds which he still shared with Honey at Mrs. Danker's was not so much a sanctuary as a lair. The fat boy's giggles were those of welcome, and also those of embarrassment. "After the scrap the other night got sick. Bronchitis. Sit down." Tom looked round to see what Miss Ansley was doing, but slipping away, she shut the door behind her. He sank into the flowered armchair nearest to the bed. The cracked girlish voice, which now had a wheeze in it, went on. "They've wired for dad and mother, and they're coming home to-night. Thought that before they got here I'd put you wise to something I want you to do." Waiting for more, Tom sat silent, while the poor piggy face screwed itself up as if it meant to cry. "Dad and mother think that because I'm so fat I'm not a sport. But they're dead wrong, see? I _am_ a sport; only--only--" he was almost bursting into tears--"only the damn fat won't let me get it out, see?" "Yes, I see. I now you're a sport all right, old chap. Of course!" "Well, then, don't let them think the other thing, if they were to ask you." "Ask me what?" "Ask you what the row was about the other afternoon. If they do that tell 'em we were only playing nigger-in-the-henhouse, or any other snow game. Don't say I was knocked down by a lot of kids. Make 'em think I was having the devil's own good time." Tom Whitelaw knew this kind of humiliation. If he had not been through Guy Ansley's special phase of it he had been through others. "I'll tell them what I saw. You and a lot of other fellows were skylarking in the snow, and I went by and got you to knock off. As I had to pass your door we came home together; but when I found you were wet to the skin I advised Miss Ansley to see that you hit the hay. That's all there was to it." In the version of the incident the strain of truth was sufficiently clear to allow the fat boy to approve of it. He didn't want to tell a lie, or to get Tom Whitelaw to tell a lie; but sport having been the object with which he had stolen away on that winter's afternoon, it was easy to persuade himself that he had got it. Before Tom went away Guy Ansley understood that he would figure to his parents not as a victim but as something of a tough. "Gee, I wish I was you," he grinned at Tom, who stood with his hands on the doorknob. "Me!" Tom was never so astonished in his life. His eyes rolled round the room. "How do you think I live?" "Oh, live! That's nothing. What I'd like to do is to rough it. If they'd let me do that I shouldn't be--I shouldn't be wrapped up in fat like a mummy in--in whatever it is they're wrapped up in. _You_ can get away with anything on looks." Sincere as was this tribute, it meant nothing to Tom Whitelaw, looks being no part of his preoccupations. What, for the minute, he was thinking about was that nobody in the world seemed to be quite satisfied. Here he was envying Guy Ansley his down quilt and his comfortable chairs, while Guy was envying him the rough-and-tumble of privation. "I shouldn't look after him too much," he said to the young sister whom, on coming downstairs, he found waiting at the front door. "There's nothing wrong with him, except that he's a little stout. He's got lots of pluck." Her face glowed. The glow brought out its intelligence. The intelligence set into action a demure, mysterious charm, almost oriental. "That's just what I always say, and no one ever believes me. Mother makes a baby of him." "If he could only fight his own way a little more...." "Oh, I do hope you'll say that if they speak to you about him." "I will if I ever get the chance, but...." "Oh, you must get the chance. I'll make it. You see, you're the only boy Guy's ever taken a fancy to who didn't treat him as a joke." Tom assured her that her brother was not the only fellow who had a hard fight to put up during boyhood. He had seen them by the dozen who, just because of some trifling oddity, or unusual taste, were teased, worried, tormented, till school became a hell; but that didn't keep them from turning out in the end to be the best sports among them all. Very likely the guying did them good. He thought it might. He, Tom Whitelaw, had been through a lot of it, and now that he was sixteen he wasn't sorry for himself a bit. He used to be sorry for himself, but.... Seeing her for the second time, and in daylight, her features grew more distinct to him. He mused on them while continuing his way homeward. To say she was not pretty, as he had said the other night, was to use a form of words calling for amplification. It was the first time he had had occasion to observe that there are faces to which beauty is not important. "It's the way she looks at you," was his form of summing up; and yet for the way she looked at you he had no sufficient phraseology. That her eyes were long, narrow, and yellow-brown, ever so slightly Mongolian, he could see easily enough. That her nose was short, with a little tilt to it, was also a fact he had no difficulty in stating. As for her coloring, it was like that of a russet apple when the brown has a little gold in it and the red the brightness of carmine. Her hair was saved from being ugly by running to the quaint. Straight, black--black with a bluish gloss--it was worn not in the pigtail with which he was most familiar, but in two big plaits curved behind the ears, and secured he didn't know how. She reminded him of a colored picture he had seen of a Cambodian girl, a resemblance enhanced by the dark blue dress she wore, straight and formless down the length of her immature, boylike figure, and marked at the waistline by a circle of gold braid. But all these details were subordinate to something he had no power of defining. It was also something of which he was jealous as an injustice to Maisie Danker. If this girl had what poor Maisie had not it was because money gave her an advantage. It was the kind of advantage that wasn't fair. Because it wasn't fair, he felt it a challenge to his loyalty. Nevertheless, he could not accept Maisie's offhand judgments when between five and six that afternoon he told her of the incident. This was at The Cherry Tree, one of those bowers of refreshment and dancing recently opened on their own slope of Beacon Hill. Bower was the word. What had once been the basement-kitchen and coal cellar of a small brick dwelling had been artfully converted into a long oval orchard of cherry trees, in paper luxuriance of foliage and blossom. Within the boskage, and under Chinese lanterns, there were tables; out in the open was a center oval cleared for dancing. Somewhere out of sight a cracked fiddle and a flat piano rasped out the tango or some shred of "rag." With the briefest intervals for breath, this performance was continuous. The guests, who at that hour in the afternoon numbered no more than ten or twelve, forsook their refreshments to take the floor, or forsook the floor to return to their refreshments, just as the impulse moved them. They were chiefly working girls, young men at leisure because out of jobs, or sailors on shore. Except for an occasional hoarse or screechy laugh, the decorum was proper to solemnity. It was the fourth or fifth time Tom and Maisie had come to this retreat, nominally that Tom should learn to dance, but really that they should commune together. To him the occasions were blissful for the reason that he had no one else in the world to commune with. To talk, to talk eagerly, to pour out the torrent of opinions boiling within him, meant more than that Maisie should understand him. Maisie didn't understand him. She only laughed and joked with pretty inanity; but she let him talk. He talked about the books he liked and didn't like, about the advantages college men possessed over those who weren't college men, about what he knew of the banking system, about the good you conferred on the world and yourself when you saved your money and invested it. In none of these subjects was she interested; but now and then she could get a turn to talk of the movies, the new dances, and love. That these subjects made him uneasy was not, from Maisie's point of view, a reason for avoiding them. Each was concerned with the other, but beyond the other each was concerned most of all with the mystery called Life. To live was what they were after, to live strongly and deeply and vividly and hotly, and to do it with the pinched means and narrow opportunities which were all they could command. In his secret heart Tom Whitelaw knew that Maisie Danker was not the girl out of all the world he would have sought of his own accord, while Maisie Danker was equally aware that this boy two years younger than herself couldn't be the generous provider she was looking for. They were only like shipwrecked passengers thrown together on an island. They must make the best of each other. No other girl, hardly any other human being except Honey, had entered the social isolation in which he was marooned, and as for her.... She was so cheery and game that she never referred to her home experiences otherwise than allusively. From allusions he gathered that she was not with her aunt, Mrs. Danker, merely for pleasure or from pressure of affection. Her father was living; her stepmother was living too. There was a whole step-family of little brothers and sisters. Her father drank; her stepmother hated her; there was no room for her at home. All her life she had been knocked about. Even when she worked in the woolen mills she couldn't keep her wages. She had had fellows, but none of them was ever any good. The best of them was a French Canadian who made big money, but he wouldn't marry her unless she "turned Catholic." "If he couldn't give up his church for me I couldn't give up mine for him; so there it was!" There was another fellow.... But as to him she said little. In speaking of him at all her face grew somber, which it did rarely. Either because he had failed her, or to get her out of his clutches, Tom was not sure which, her aunt had offered her a home for the winter. "Gee, it makes me laff," was her own sole comment on her miseries. As Tom had dropped into the habit of telling her the small happenings of his uneventful life, he gave her, across the ice-cream sodas, an account of what had just occurred between himself and Guy and Hildred Ansley. She listened with what for her was gravity. "You've got to give some of them society girls the cold glassy eye," she informed him, judicially. "If you don't you'll get it yourself, perhaps when you ain't expecting it." "Oh, but this is only a little girl, not more than fourteen. She just _seems_ grown up. That's the funny part of it." "Not more than fourteen! Just _seems_ grown up! Why, any of that bunch is forwarder at ten than I'd be at twenty. That's one thing I'd never be, not if men was scarcer than blue raspberries--forward. And yet some of them society buds'll be brassier than a knocker on a door." "Oh, but this little Miss Ansley isn't that sort." "You wouldn't know, not if she was running up and down your throat. Any girl can get hold of a man if she makes him think she needs him bad enough." "It wasn't she who needed me; it was her brother." "A brother'll do. A grandmother'd do. If you can't bait your hook with a feather fly, you can take a bit of worm. But once a fella like you begins to take a shine to one of them...." "Shine to one of them! Me?" "Well, I suppose you'll be taking a shine to _some_ girl _some_ day. Why shouldn't you?" "If I was going to do that...." The point at which he suspended his sentence was that which piqued her especially. Her eyes were provocative; her bright face alert. "Well, if you were going to do that--what of it?" The minute was one he was trying to evade. As clearly as if he were fifty, he knew the folly of getting himself involved in an emotional entanglement. Though he looked a young man, he was only a big boy. The most serious part of his preparation for life lay just ahead of him. If he didn't go to college.... And even more pressing than that consideration was the fact that in bringing Maisie to The Cherry Tree that afternoon he had come down to his last fifteen cents. At the beginning of their acquaintance he had had seven dollars and a half, hoarded preciously for needs connected with his education. Maisie had stampeded the whole treasure. To expect a man to spend money on her was as instinctive to Maisie as it is to a flower to expect the heavens to send rain. She knew that at each mention of the movies or The Cherry Tree Tom squirmed in the anguish of financial disability, and that from the very hint of love he bolted like a colt from the bridle; but when it came to what she considered as her due she was pitiless. No epic has yet been written on the woes of the young man trying, on twenty-five dollars a week, let us say, to play up to the American girl's taste for spending money. His self-denials, his sordid shifts, his mortifications, his sense at times that his most unselfish efforts have been scorned, might inspire a series of episodes as tensely dramatic as those of Spoon River. Tom had had one such experience on Maisie's birthday. She had talked so much of her birthday that a present became indispensable. To meet this necessity the extreme of his expenditure could be no more than fifty cents. To find for fifty cents something worthy of a lady already a connoisseur he ransacked Boston. Somewhere he had heard that a present might be modest so long as it was the best thing of its kind. The best thing of its kind he discovered was a toothbrush. It was not a common toothbrush except for the part that brushed the teeth. The handle was of mother-of-pearl, with an inlay in red enamel. The price was forty-five cents. Maisie laughed till she cried. "A toothbrush! A _tooth_brush! For a present that's something new! Gee, how the girls'll laff when I go back to Nashua and tell them that that's what a guy give me in Boston!" The humiliation of straitened means was the more galling to Tom Whitelaw, first because he was a giver, and then because he knew the value of money. With the value of money his mind was always playing, not from miserly motives, but from those of social economy. Each time he "blew in," as he called it, a dollar on the girl he said to himself: "If I could have invested that dollar, it would have helped to run a factory, and have brought me in six or seven cents a year for all the rest of my life." He made this calculation to mark the wastage he was strewing along his path in the wild pace he was running. There was something about Maisie which obliged you to play up to her. She was that sort of girl. If you didn't play up, the mere laughter in her eye made you feel your lack of the manly qualities. It was not her scorn she brought into play; it was her sense of fun; but to the boy of sixteen her sense of fun was terrible. It was terrible, and yet it put him on his guard. He couldn't wholly give in to her. If she could make moves he could make them too, and perhaps as adroitly. Her tantalizing question was ringing in his ears: If he was going to take a shine to any girl--what of it? "Oh, if I was going to do that," he tossed off, "it would be to you." "So that you haven't taken a shine to me--yet?" "It depends on what you mean by a shine." "What do you mean by it yourself?" "I never have time to think." This was a happy sentiment, and a safeguard. "It takes all I can do to remember that I've got to go to college." "Damn college!" He was so unsophisticated that the expression startled him. He hadn't supposed young ladies used it, not any more than they sneaked into barns or under bridges to smoke cigarettes. "What's the use of damning college, when I've got to go?" "You haven't got to go. A great strong fella like you ought to be earning his twenty per by this time. If you've got money in the bank, as you say you have...." He trembled already for his treasure. "I haven't got it here. It's in a savings bank in New York." "Oh, that's nothing! If you got it _any_wheres you can get at it with a check. Gee, if I had a few hundreds I'd have ten in my pocket at a time, I'll be hanged if I wouldn't. I don't believe you've got it, see. I know a lot o' guys that loves to put that sort of fluff over on a girl. Makes 'em feel big. But if they only knew what the girl thinks of them...." She jumped to her feet, allowing herself a little more vulgarity than she generally showed. "All right, old son, c'me awn! Let's have another twist. And for Gawd's sake don't bring down that hoof of yours till I get a chance to pull my Cinderella-slipper out of your way." XXVI It was after he had spent the first ten dollars he drew from his fund in New York that Tom felt the impulse to tell Honey of the way in which he was becoming involved with Maisie Danker. The ten dollars had melted. In signing the formalities for drawing the amount, he expected to have enough to carry him along till spring, when Maisie's visit was to end. He dreaded its ending, and yet it would have this element of relief in it; he would be able to keep his money. At a pinch he could spare ten dollars, though he couldn't spare them very well. More than ten dollars.... And before he knew it the ten dollars had vanished as if into air. Once Maisie knew what he had done her caprices multiplied. To her as to him ten dollars to "blow in"--she used the airy expression too--was a small fortune. It was only their instincts that were different. His was to let it go slowly, since the spending of a penny was against the protests of his conscience; hers to make away with it. If Tom could "draw the juice" for a first ten, he could draw it for a second, and for a third and a fourth after that. It was not extravagance that whipped her on; it was joy of life. Tom's impulse to tell Honey was not acted on. It was not acted on after he drew the second ten; nor after he drew the third. After he had drawn the fourth his unhappiness became so great that he sought a confidant. And yet his unhappiness was not absolute; it was rather a poisoned bliss. Had Maisie been content with what he could afford, the winter would have been like one in Paradise. But almost before he himself was aware of the promptings of thrift, she vanquished them with her ridicule. "There's nothing I hate so much as anything cheap. If a fella can't give me what I like, he can keep away." Time and time again Tom swore he would keep away. He did keep away, for a day, for two or three days in succession. Then she would meet him in the dark hallway, and, twining her arms around his neck without a word, would give him one of those kisses on the lips which thrilled him into subjection. He would be guilty of any folly for her then, because he couldn't help himself. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty dollars, all the hoarded inheritance from the Martin Quidmore who was already a dim memory, would be well thrown away if only she would kiss him once again. He lost the healthy diversion which might have reached him through the Ansleys because they had taken the fat boy to Florida. Tom learned that from little Miss Ansley a few days after the return of the father and mother from New York. One afternoon as both were coming from their schools they had met on their way toward Louisburg Square. Even in her outdoor dress, she was quaintly grown-up and Cambodian. A rough brown tweed had a little gold and a little red in it; a brown turban not unlike a fez bore on the left a small red wing tipped with a golden line. Maisie would have emphasized the red; she would have been vivid, eager to be noticed. This girl didn't need that kind of advertisement. Seeing her before she saw him, he wondered whether she would give him any sign of recognition. At Harfrey the girls whom he saw at the Tollivants, and who proclaimed themselves "exclusive," always forgot him when they met him on the street. This had hurt him. He waited in some trepidation now, fearing to be hurt again. But when she saw him she nodded and smiled. "Guy's better," she said, without greeting, "and we're all going off to Florida to-morrow. Guy and I don't want to go a bit; but mother's afraid of his catching cold, and father has to be in Washington, anyhow. So we're off." Though he walked by her side for no more than a few yards, Tom was touched by her friendliness. She was the first girl of that section of the world for which he had only the term "society" who had not been ashamed to be seen with him in a street. Little Miss Ansley even paused for a minute at the foot of her steps while they exchanged remarks about their schools. She went to Miss Winslow's. She liked her school. She was sorry to be going away as it would give her such a lot of back work to make up. She might go to Radcliffe when Guy went to Harvard, but so far her mother was opposed to it. In these casual observations she seemed to Tom to lose something of her air of being a woman of the world. On his own side he lost a little of his awe of her. The snuffing out of this interest threw him back on the easing of his heart by confidence. It was not confidence alone; it was also confession. He was deceiving Honey, and to go on deceiving Honey began to seem to him baser than dishonor. Had Honey been his father, it would have been different. Fathers worked for their sons as a matter of course, and almost as a matter of course expected that their sons would play them false. There was no reason why Honey should work for him; and since Honey did work for him, there was every reason why he who reaped the benefit should be loyal. He was not loyal. He had even reached the point, and he cursed himself for reaching it, at which Honey was an Old Man of the Sea fastened on his back. He told himself that this was the damnedest ingratitude; and yet he couldn't tell himself that it wasn't so. It was. There were days when Honey's way of speaking, Honey's way of eating, the smell of Honey's person, and the black patch on his eye, revolted him. Here he was, a great lump of a fellow sixteen years of age, and dependent for everything, for _everything_, on a rough dock laborer who had been a burglar and a convict. It was preposterous. Had he jumped into this situation he would not have borne it for a week. But he had not jumped into it; it had grown. It had grown round him. It held him now as if with tentacles. He couldn't break away from it. And yet Honey and he were bound to grow apart. It was in the nature of the case that it should be so. Always of a texture finer than Honey's, schooling, association, and habits of mind were working together to refine the grain, while Honey was growing coarser. His work, Tom reasoned, kept him not only in a rut but in a brutalizing rut. Loading and unloading, unloading and re-loading, he had less use for his mind than in the days of his freebooting. Then a wild ass of the desert, he was now harnessed to a dray with no relief from hauling it. From morning to night he hauled; from night to morning he was stupefied with weariness. In on this stupefaction Tom found it more and more difficult to break. He was agog with interests and ideas; for neither interests nor ideas had Honey any room. Nor had he, so far as Tom could judge, any room for affection. On the contrary, he repelled it. "Don't you go for to think that I've give up bein' a socialist because I got a soft side. No, sir! That wouldn't be it at all. What reely made me do it was because it didn't pay. I'd make big money now and then; but once I'd fixed the police, the lawyers, and nine times out o' ten the judge, I wouldn't have hardly nothink for meself. If out o' every hundred dollars I was able to pocket twenty-five it'd be as much as ever. This 'ere job don't pay as well to start with; but then it haven't no expenses." Self-interest and a vague sense of responsibility were all he ever admitted as a key to his benevolence. "It's along o' my bein' an Englishman. You can't get an Englishman 'ardly ever to be satisfied a'mindin' of his own business. Ten to one he'll do that and mind somebody else's at the same time. A kind o' curse that's on 'em, I often thinks. Once when I was doin' a bit--might 'a been at Sing Sing--a guy come along to entertain us. Recited poetry at us. And I recolleck he chewed to beat the band over a piece he called, 'The White Man's Burden.' Well, that's what you are, Kid. You're my White Man's Burden. I can't chuck yer, nor nothink. I just got to carry yer till yer can git along without me; and then I'll quit. The old bunch'll be as glad to see me back as I'll be to go. There's just one thing I want yer to remember, Kid, that when yer've got yer eddication there won't be nothink to bind me to you, nor--" he held himself very straight, bringing out his words with a brutal firmness--"_nor you to me_. Yer'll know I'll be as glad to go the one way as you'll be to go the t'other, so there won't be no 'ard feelin' on both sides." * * * * * It was a Sunday night. Tom had taken his troubles to bed with him, because he had nowhere else to take them. In bed you struck a truce with life. You suspended operations, at least for a few hours. You could sleep; you could postpone. He slept as a rule so soundly, and so straight through the night, that, hunted as he was by care, he had once in the twenty-four hours a refuge in which the fiendish thing couldn't overtake him. It had been a trying Sunday because Maisie had tempted him to a wilder than usual extravagance. There was enough snow on the ground for sleighing. She had been used to sleighing in Nashua. The singing of runners and the jingling of bells, as a sleigh slid joyously past her, awakened her longing for the sport. By coaxing, by teasing, by crying a little, and, worst of all, by making game of him, she had induced him to find a place where he could hire a sleigh and take her for a ride. Snow having turned to rain, and rain to frost, the landscape through which they drove was made of crystal. Every tree was as a tree of glass, sparkling in the sun. A deep blue sky, a keen dry wind, a little horse which enjoyed the outing as briskly as Maisie herself, made the two hours vibrant with the ecstasy of cold. All Tom's nerves were taut with the pleasure of the motion, of the air, of the skill, acquired chiefly at Bere, with which he managed the spirited young nag. The knowledge of what it was costing him he was able to thrust aside. He would enjoy the moment, and face the reckoning afterward. When he did face the reckoning, he found that of his fourth ten dollars he had spent six dollars and fifty-seven cents. Only three days earlier he had had the crisp clean bill unbroken in his hand.... He had been hardly able to eat his supper, and after supper the usual two hours of study to which he gave himself on Sunday nights were as time thrown away. Luckily, Honey's consideration left him the room to himself. Honey was like that. If Tom had to work, Honey effaced himself, in summer by sitting on the doorstep, in winter by going to bed. Much of Tom's wrestling with Virgil was carried on to the tune of Honey's snores. This being Sunday evening, and Honey less tired than on the days on which he worked, he had gone to "chew the rag," as he phrased it, with a little Jew tailor, who lived next door to Mrs. Danker. Tom was aware that behind this the motive was not love for the Jew tailor, but zeal that he, Tom, should be interfered with as little as possible in his eddication. Tom's eddication was as much an obsession to Honey as it was to Tom himself. It was an overmastering compulsion, like that which sent Peary to find the North Pole, Scott to find the South one, and Livingstone and Stanley to cross Africa. What he had to gain by it had no place in his calculation. A machine wound up, and going automatically, could not be more set on its purpose than Lemuel Honeybun on his. But to-night his absenting of himself was of no help to Tom in giving his mind to the translation from English into Latin on which he was engaged. When he found himself rendering the expression "in the meantime" by the words _in turpe tempore_, he pushed books and paper away from him, with a bitter, emphatic, "Damn!" Though it was only nine, there was nothing for it but to go to bed. In bed he would sleep and forget. He always did. Putting out the gas, and pulling the bedclothes up around his ears, he mentally waved the white flag to his carking enemy. But the carking enemy didn't heed the white flag; he came on just the same. For the first time in his life Tom Whitelaw couldn't sleep. Rolling from side to side, he groaned and swore at the refusal of relief to come to him. He was still wide awake when about half past ten Honey came in and re-lit the gas, surprised to see the boy already with his face turned to the wall. Not to disturb him, Honey moved round the room on tiptoe. Tom lay still, his eyes closed. He loathed this proximity, this sharing of one room. In the two previous years he hadn't minded it. But he was older now, almost a man, able to take care of himself. Not only was he growing more fastidious, but the self-consciousness we know as modesty was bringing to the over-intimate a new kind of discomfort. Long meaning to propose two small separate rooms as not much dearer than the larger one, he had not yet come to it, partly through unwillingness to add anything to their expenses, and partly through fear of hurting Honey's feelings. But to-night the lack of privacy gave the outlet of exasperation to his less tangible discontents. He rolled over on his back. One gas jet spluttered in the antiquated chandelier. Under it a small deal table was heaped with his books and strewn with his papers. Beside it stood an old armchair stained with the stains of many lodgers' use, the entrails of the seat protruding horribly between the legs. Two small chairs of the kitchen type, a wash-stand, a chest of drawers with a mirror hung above it, two or three flimsy rugs, and the iron cots on which they slept, made a setting for Honey, who sat beneath the gaslight, sewing a button on his undershirt. Turned in profile toward Tom, and wearing nothing but his drawers and socks, he bent above his work with the patience of a concentrated mind. He was really a fine figure of a man, brawny, hairy, spare, muscled like an athlete, a Rodin's Thinker all but the thought, yet irritating Tom as the embodiment of this penury. So not from an impulse of confession, but to ease the suffering of his nerves, Tom told something about Maisie Danker. It was only something. He told of the friendship, of the dancing lessons, of the movies, of the sleigh-ride that afternoon, of the forty dollars drawn from the bank. He said nothing of their kisses, nor of the frenzy which he thought might be love. Honey pulled his needle up through the hole, and pushed it back again, neither asking questions nor looking up. "I guess we'll move," was his only comment, when the boy had finished the halting tale. This quietness excited Tom the more. "What do you want to move for?" "Because there's dangers what the on'y thing you can do to fight 'em is to run away." "Who said anything about danger? Do you suppose ...?" In sticking in his needle Honey handled the implement as if it were an awl. "Do I suppose she's playin' the dooce with yer? No, Kid. She don't have to. You're playin' the dooce with yerself. It's yer age. Sixteen is a terr'ble imagination age." "Oh, if you think I'm framing the whole thing...." "No, I don't. Yer believes it all right. On'y it ain't quite so bad as what yer think. It don't do to be too delikit with women. Got to bat 'em away as if they was flies, when they bother yer too much. Once let a woman in on yer game and yer 'and can be queered for good." "Did I say anything about letting a woman in on my game?" "No, yer on'y said she'd slipped in. It's too late now to keep her out. She's made the diff'rence." "What difference?" Honey threaded his needle laboriously, held up the end of the thread to moisten it with his lips, and tied a knot in it. "The diff'rence in you. Yer ain't the same young feller what yer was six months ago. You and me has been like one," he went on, placidly. "Now we're two. Been two this spell back. Couldn't make it out, no more'n Billy-be-damned; and now I see. The first girl." Tom lashed about the bed. "It was bound to come; and that's why--yer've arsked me about it onst or twice, so I may as well tell yer--that's why I never lets meself get fond o' yer. Could'a did it just as easy as not. When a man gits to my age a young boy what's next o' kin to him--why, he'll seem like as if 'twould be his son. But I wouldn't be ketched. 'Honey,' I says to meself, 'the first girl and you'll be dished.'" "Oh, go to blazes!" Having finished his button, Honey made it doubly secure by winding the thread around it. "Not that I blame yer, Kiddy. I ain't never led no celebrant life meself, not till I had to take you on, and cut out all low company what wouldn't 'a been good for you. But I figured it out that we might 'a got yer through college before yer fell for it. Well, we ain't. Maybe now we'll not git yer to college at all. But we'll make a shy at it. We'll move." "If you think that by moving you'll keep me from seeing her again...." "No, son, not no more'n I could keep yer from cuttin' yer throat by lockin' up yer razor. Yer could git another razor. I know that. All the same, it'd be up to me, wouldn't it, not to leave no razors layin' round the room, where yer could put yer 'and on 'em?" This settling of his destiny over his head angered Tom especially. "I can save you the trouble of having me on your mind any more. To-morrow I'll be out on my own. I'm going to be a man." "Sure, you're going to be a man--in time. But yer ain't a man yet." "I'm sixteen. I can do what any other fellow of sixteen can do." "No fella of sixteen can do much." "He can earn a living." "He can earn part of a livin'. How many boys of sixteen did yer ever know that could swing clear of home and friends and everythink, and feed and clothe and launder theirselves on what they made out'n their job?" "Well, I can try, can't I?" "Oh, yes, yer can try, Kid. But if you was me, I wouldn't cut loose from nobody, not till I'd got me 'and in." Tom raised himself on his elbow, his eyes, beneath their protruding horizontal eyebrows, aglitter with the wrath which puts life and the world out of focus. "I _am_ going to cut loose. I'm going to be my own master." "Are you, Kid? How much of yer own master do yer expect to be, on the ten or twelve per yer'll git to begin with--_if_ yer gits that?" "Even if it was only five or six per, I'd be making it myself." "And what about college?" "College--hell!" The boy fell back on his pillow. Feeling he had delivered his ultimatum, he waited for a reply. But Honey only stowed away his sewing materials in a little black box, after which he pulled off the articles of clothing he continued to wear, and set about his toilet for the night. At the sound of his splashing water on his face Tom muttered to himself: "God, another night of this will kill me." Honey spoke through the muffling of the towel, while he dried his face. "Isn't all this fuss what I'm tellin' yer? The minute a girl gits in on a young feller's life there's hell to pay. That's why I'd like yer to steer clear of 'em as long as yer can hold out." Tom shut his eyes, buried his face in the pillow, and affected not to hear. "They don't mean to do no harm; they're just naterally troublesome. Seems as if they was born that way, and couldn't 'elp theirselves. There's a lot of 'em as is never satisfied till they've got a man like a jumpin'-jack, what all they need to do is to pull the string to make him jig. This girl is one o' them kind." Tom continued to hold his peace. "I've saw her. Pretty little thing she is all right. But give her two or three years. Lord love you, Kid, she'll be as washed out then as one of her own ribbons after a hard rain. And yet them is the kind that most young fellers'll run after, like a pup'll run after a squirrel." Tom was startled. The figure of speech had been used to him before. He could hear it drawled in a tired voice, soft and velvety. It was queer what conclusions about women these grown men came to! Quidmore had thought them as dangerous as Honey, and warned him against them much as Honey was doing now. Mrs. Quidmore had once been what Maisie was at that minute, and yet as he, Tom, remembered her.... But Honey was going on again, spluttering his words as he brushed his teeth. "It can be awful easy to git mixed up with a girl, and awful hard to git unmixed. She'll put a man in a hole where he can't help doin' somethink foolish, and then make out as what she've got a claim on him. There's a lot o' talk about women bein' the prey o' men; but for one woman as I've ever saw that way I've saw a hundred men as was the prey o' women. Now when a girl of eighteen gits a young boy like you to spend the money as he's saved for his eddication...." The boy sprang up in bed, hammering the bedclothes. "Don't you say anything against her. I won't listen to it." With that supple tread which always made Tom think of one who could easily slip through windows, Honey walked to the closet where he kept his night-shirt. "'Tain't nothink agin her, Kid. Was on'y goin' to say that a girl what'll git a young boy to do that shows what she is. And yer did spend the money a-takin' her about, now didn't yer?" Tom fell back upon his pillow. Putting out the gas, Honey threw himself on his creaking cot. "You're a free boy, Kiddy," he went on, while arranging the sheet and blanket as he liked them. "If yer wants to beat it to-morrer, beat it away. Don't stop because yer'll be afraid I'll miss yer. Wasn't never no hand for missin' no one, and don't mean to begin. What I'd 'a liked have been to fill yer up with eddication so that yer could jaw to beat the best of 'em, if yer turned out to be the Whitelaw baby." Tom had almost forgotten who the Whitelaw baby was. Not since that Sunday afternoon nearly three years ago had Honey ever mentioned him. The memory having come back, he made an inarticulate sound of impatience, finally snuggling to sleep. He tried to think of Maisie, to conjure up the rose in her cheeks, the laughter in her eyes; but all he saw, as he drifted into dreams, was the quaint Cambodian face of little Hildred Ansley. Only once did Honey speak again, muttering, as he too fell asleep: "We'll move." XXVII They did not move for the reason that Maisie did. Not for forty-eight hours did Tom learn of her departure. As Mrs. Danker kept not a boarding house but a rooming house, and her guests went days at a time without seeing their landlady, he had no sources of information when Maisie, as she sometimes did, kept herself out of sight. Watching for her on the Monday and the Tuesday following his Sunday night talk with Honey, he thought it strange that she never appeared in the hallway, though he had no cause to be alarmed. He was going to leave Honey, get a job, and be independent. When he had added a little more to his fund in New York, he would propose to Maisie, and marry her if she would take him. He would be eighteen, perhaps nineteen by the time he was able to do this, an early, but not an impossible, age at which to be a husband. On both these days he had gone to school from force of habit, but on the Wednesday he was surprised by a letter. Though he had never seen Maisie's writing, the postmark said Nashua. Before tearing the envelope he had a premonition of her flight. A telegram on Monday morning had bidden her come home at once, as her stepmother was dying. She had died. Till her father married again, which she supposed would be soon, she would have to care for the four little brothers and sisters. That was all. On paper Maisie was laconic. Since his mother's death no revolution in his inner life had upset the boy like this. The Tollivant experience had only left him a little hard and skeptical; that with the Quidmores had passed like the rain and the snow, scarcely affecting him. With Honey his need for affection had always been unfed, and for reasons he could not fathom. Maisie had made the give and take of life easy, natural. She had her limitations, her crude, and sometimes her cruel, insistences; but she liked him. He loved her. He was ready to say it now, because of the blank her loss had hollowed in his life. For the unformed, growing hot-blooded human thing to have nothing on which to spend itself is anguish. Sitting down at his deal table, he wrote to her out of a heart fuller and more passionate than poor Maisie could ever have understood. All he had been planning in rebellion against fate he poured out now as devotion. He had meant to cut loose, to go to work, to live on nothing, to save his money, and be ready to marry her in a year or two. And yet, on second thoughts, if he went through college, their position in the end would be so much better that perhaps the original plan was the best one. He thought only of her, and of what would make her happiest. He loved her--loved her--loved her. Maisie wrote back that she saw no harm in their being engaged, and she wouldn't press him for a ring till he felt himself able to give her one. For herself she didn't care, but if she told the girls she was engaged to a fellow, and had no ring to corroborate her word, she wouldn't be believed. In case he ever felt equal to the purchase she was sending him the size in the circlet of thread inclosed. Tom was heroic. He had never thought of a ring, and a ring would mean more money. Be it so! He would spend more money. He would spend more money if he mortgaged his whole future to procure it. Maisie should not be shamed among her friends in Nashua. Giving all his free hours to wandering about and pricing rings, he found them less expensive than he feared. Maisie having once confided to him her longing for a diamond, a diamond he meant to make it if it cost him fifty dollars. But he found one for twenty, as big as a small pea, and flashing in the sunshine like a lighthouse. The young Jew who sold it assured him that it would have cost a hundred, except for a tiny flaw which only an expert could detect. On its reception Maisie was delighted. He felt himself almost a married man. The rest of the winter went by peaceably. With Honey he declared a truce of God. He would go to college, and live up to all that had been planned; but Honey must look on his own self-sacrifice as of the nature of a loan which would be repaid. Honey was ready to promise anything, while, in the hope of getting through college in three years instead of four, Tom worked with increased zeal. Then, one day, when spring had come round, he stumbled on Guy and Hildred Ansley. It was in Louisburg Square, as usual. Having arrived from the south the night before, they were sailing soon for Europe. "Rotten luck!" the fat boy complained. "Got to trail a tutor along too, so that I shan't fall down on the Harvard exam when it comes. Wish I was you." "If you were Mr. Whitelaw, Guy," his sister reminded him, "you'd find something else to worry you. We all have our troubles, haven't we, Mr. Whitelaw?" "She's got nothing to worry her," the brother protested. "If she was me, with mother scared all the time that I'll be too hot or too cold or too tired or too hungry, or that some damn thing or other'll make me sick...." "All the same," Tom broke in, "it's something to have a mother to make a fuss." The girl looked sympathetic. "You haven't, have you?" "Oh, I get along." "Guy says you live with a guardian." "You may call him a guardian if you like, but the word is too big. You only have a guardian when you've something to guard, and I haven't anything." "Yes, but how did you ever ...?" Once more Tom said to himself, "It's the way she looks at you." He knew what she was trying to ask him, and in order to be open and aboveboard, he gave her the few main facts of his life. He did it briefly, hurriedly, throwing emphasis only on the point that, to keep him from becoming a State ward the second time, his stevedore friend had brought him to Boston and sent him to school. "He must be an awfully good man!" He was going to tell her that he was when the brother gave the talk another twist. "What are you going to do in your holidays?" "Work, if I can find a job." "What kind of job?" He explained that for the last two summers he had worked round the Quincy and Faneuil Hall markets, but that he had outgrown them. A two-fisted, he-man's job was what he would look for now, and had no doubt that he would get it. "After you've left Harvard what are you going to be?" "Banking's what I'd like best, but most likely I'll have to make it barbering. What are you going to be yourself?" "Oh, I've got to be a corporation lawyer. My luck! Just because dad'll have the business to take me into." "But what would you like better?" The piggy face broke into one of its captivating grins. "Hanged if _I_ know, unless it'd be an orphan and an only child." The meeting was important because of what it led to. A few days later Tom heard the wheezy girlish voice calling behind him in the street: "Tom! Tom!" He turned and walked back. During the winter the fat boy had expanded, not so much in height as in girth and jelliness. He came up, puffing from his run. "Can you drive a car?" Tom hesitated. "I don't know that you'd call it driving a car. I can drive--after a fashion. Mr. Quidmore used to let me run his Ford, when we were alone in it, and no one was looking. Since then I've sometimes driven the market delivery teams for a block or two, nothing much, just to see what it was like. I know I could pick it up with a few lessons. I'm a natural driver--a horse or anything. Why?" "Because my old man said that if you could drive, he might help you get your summer's job." "Where? What kind of job?" "I don't know. He said that if you wanted to talk it over to come round to our house this evening at nine o'clock." At nine that evening Tom was shown up into another of those rooms which marked the gulf between his own way of living and that of people like the Ansleys, and at the same time woke the atavistic pang. His impression was only a blurred one of comfort, color, shaded lights, and richness. From the many books he judged that it was what they would call the library, but any judgment was subconscious because the human presences came first. A man wearing a dinner jacket and scanning an evening paper was sunk into one deep armchair; in another a lady, demi-décolletée, was reading a book. It was his first intimation that people ever wore what he called "dress-clothes" when dining only with their families. He was announced by Pilcher, who had led him upstairs. "This is the young man, sir." Having reached something like friendly terms with the son and daughter, Tom had expected from the parents the kind of courtesy shown to strangers when you shake hands with them and ask them to sit down. Mr. Ansley only let the paper drop to his knees with an "Oh!" in response to the butler, and looked up. "You're the young fellow my son has spoken of. He tells me you can drive a car." Repeating what he had already said to Guy as to his experience with cars, Tom expressed confidence in his ability to obtain a license, if it should become worth his while. "It wouldn't be difficult driving such as you get in the crowded parts of a city. It would be chiefly station work, over country roads." He explained himself further. In the New Hampshire summer colony where the Ansleys had their place, the residents were turning a large country house into an inn which would be like a club, or a club which would be like an inn. It would not be open to ordinary travelers, since ordinary travelers would bring in people whom they didn't want. The guests would be their own friends, duly invited or introduced. He, Mr. Ansley, was chairman of the motor-car committee, but as he was going to Europe he was taking up the matter in advance. On general grounds he would have preferred an older man and one with more experience, but the inn-club was a new undertaking and not too well financed. More experienced men would cost more money. For the station work they could afford but eighty dollars a month, with a room in the garage, and board. Moreover, the jobs they could offer being only for the summer, the promoters hoped that a few young men and women working for their own education might take advantage of the scheme. Eighty dollars a month, with a room to himself, even if it had only been in a stable, and board in addition, glittered before Tom's eyes like Aladdin's treasure house. Having thanked Mr. Ansley for the kind suggestion, he assured him he could give satisfaction if taken on. All the chauffeurs who had let him have a few minutes at the steering-wheel had told him that he possessed the eye, the nerve, and the quickness which make a good driver, in addition to which he knew that he did himself. "How old are you?" It was a question Tom always found difficult to answer. He could remember when his birthday had been on the fifth of March; but his mother had told him that that had been Gracie's birthday, and had changed his own to September. Later she had shifted to May, to a day, so she told him, when all the nurses had had their children in the Park, and the lilacs had been in bloom. He had never asked her the year, not having come to reckoning in years before she was taken from him. Though latterly he had been putting his birthday in May, he now shifted back to March, so as to make himself older. "I'm seventeen, sir." Mrs. Ansley spoke for the first time. "He looks more than that, doesn't he?" Tom turned to the lady who filled a large armchair with a person suggesting the quaking, flabby consistency of cornstarch pudding. "I suppose that's because I've knocked about so much." "The hard school does give you experience, doesn't it, but it's a cruel school." He remembered his promise to Guy, if ever he got the opportunity. "Boys can stand a good deal of cruelty, ma'am. Nine times out of ten it does them good." "Still there's always a tenth case." He smiled. "I think I ought to have made it ten times out of ten. I never saw the boy yet who wasn't all the better for fighting his way along." Mrs. Ansley's mouth screwed itself up like Guy's when it looked as if he were going to cry. "Fight? Why, I think fighting's something horrid. Why _can't_ boys treat each other like gentlemen?" "I suppose, ma'am, because they're not gentlemen." The cornstarch pudding stiffened to the firmness of ice-cream. "Excuse me! My boy couldn't be anything but a gentleman." "He couldn't be anything but a sport. He _is_ a fighter, ma'am--when he gets the chance." "Then I hope he won't often get it." "But, Sunshine," Mr. Ansley intervened, "you don't make any allowance for differences in standards. You're a woman of forty-five. Guy's a boy of sixteen--he's practically seventeen, like Whitelaw here--your name is Whitelaw, isn't it?--and yet you want him to have the same tastes and ways as yourself." "I don't want him to have brutal tastes and ways." "It's a pretty brutal world, ma'am, and if he's going to take his place he'll have to get used to being hammered and hammering back." "Which is what I object to. If you train boys to be courteous with each other from the start...." "They'll be quite ladylike when they get into the stock exchange or the prize ring. Look here, Sunshine! The country's over feminized as it is. It's run by women, or by men who think as women, or by men who're afraid of women. Congress is full of them; the courts are full of them; the churches--the churches above all!--are full of them; and you'd make it worse. If Guy hadn't the stuff in him that he has...." Mrs. Ansley was more than ever like a cornstarch pudding, quivering and undulating, when she rose. "You make it very hard for me, Philip. I was going to ask Whitelaw, here, if when he's anywhere where Guy is--I know Guy will have to go among young men, of course--he'd keep an eye on him, and protect him." "He doesn't need protection, ma'am. He can take his own part as easily as I can take mine. If there's a row he likes to be in it; and if he's licked he doesn't mind it. If he only had a chance...." She raised her left hand palm outward, in a gesture of protest. "Thank you! I'm not asking advice as to my own son." Sailing from the room with the circumambient dignity of ladies when they wore the crinoline, she left Tom with the crestfallen sense of presumption. Half expecting to be ordered from the room, he turned toward his host, who, however, simply reverted to the subject of the summer. He told Tom where he could have lessons in driving, adding that he would charge them to club expenses, as he would the uniform Tom would have to wear. When Mr. Ansley picked up his paper the young man knew the interview was over. With a half-articulate, "Good-night, sir," to which there was no response, he turned and left the room. * * * * * The occasion left him with much to think of, chiefly on his own account. It marked his status more clearly than anything that had happened to him yet. He had not been shaken hands with; he had not been asked to sit down. He had not been greeted on arriving; his "good-night" had not been acknowledged when he went away. Mr. Ansley had called him Whitelaw, which was all very well; but when Mrs. Ansley did it, the use of the name was significant. This must be the way in which rich people treated their servants. Here he had to reason with himself as to what he had been looking for. It was not for recognition on a footing of equality. Of course not! He had no objection to being a servant, since he needed the money. He objected to ... and yet it was not quite tangible. He didn't mind standing up; he didn't mind the absence of a greeting; he didn't mind any one thing in itself. He minded the combination of assumptions, all fusing into one big assumption that he was in essence their inferior. Having this assumption so strongly in their minds, they couldn't but betray it when they spoke to him. With his tendency to think things out, he mulled for the next few days over the question of inferiority. Why was one man inferior to another? What made him so? Did nature send him into the world as an inferior, or did the world turn him into an inferior after he had come into it? Did God have any part in it? Was it God's will that there should be a class system among mankind, with class animosities, class warfares? Of the latter he was hearing a good deal. In Grove Street, with its squirming litters of idealistic Jews and Slavs, class warfare was much talked about. Sometimes Tom heard the talk himself; sometimes Honey brought in reports of it. It was a rare day, especially a rare night, when some wild-eyed apostle was not going up or down the hill with a gospel which would have made old Boston, only a few hundred yards away, shiver in its bed on hearing it. To a sturdy American like Tom, and a sturdy Englishman like Honey, these whispered prophecies and plans were no more than the twitter of sparrows going to roost. But now that the boy was working toward man's estate, and had always, within his recollection, been treated as an inferior, he found himself wondering on what principle the treatment had been based. He would listen more attentively when the Jew tailor next door to Mrs. Danker began again, as he had so often, to set forth his arguments in favor of dragging the upper classes down. He would listen when Honey cursed the lor of proputty. He had long been asking himself if in some obscure depth of Honey's obscure intelligence there might not be a glimmer of a great big thing that was Right. He had reached the age, which generally comes a little before the twenties, when the Right and Wrong of things puzzled and disturbed him. No longer able to accept Rights and Wrongs on somebody else's verdict, he was without a test or a standard of his own. He began to wander among churches. Here, he had heard, all these questions had been long ago threshed out, and the answers reduced to formulæ. His range was wide, Hebrew, Catholic, Protestant. For the most part the services bewildered him. He couldn't make out why they were services, or what they were serving. The sermons he found platitudinous. They told him what in the main he knew already, and said little or nothing of the great fundamental things with which his mind had been intermittently busy ever since the days when he used to talk them over with Bertie Tollivant. But one new interest he drew from them. The fragments of the gospels he heard read from altar or lectern or pulpit roused his curiosity. Passages were familiar from having learned them at the knee, so to speak, of Mrs. Tollivant. But they had been incoherent, without introduction or sequence. He was surprised to find how little he knew of the most dominant character in history. On his way home one day he passed a shop given to the sale of Bibles. Deciding to buy a cheap New Testament, he was advised by the salesman to take a modern translation. That night, after he had finished his lessons, and Honey was asleep, he opened it. It opened at a page of St. Luke. Turning to the beginning of that gospel, he started to read it through. He read avidly, charmed, amazed, appeased, and pacified. When he came to an incident bearing on himself he stopped. "Now one of the Pharisees repeatedly invited Him to a meal at his house. So He entered the house and reclined at the table. And there was a woman in the town who was a notorious sinner. Having learnt that Jesus was at table in the Pharisee's house she brought a flask of perfume, and standing behind, close to His feet, weeping, began to wet His feet with her tears; and with her hair she wiped the tears away again, while she lovingly kissed His feet, and poured the perfume over them. "Noticing this the Pharisee, His host, said to himself: "'This man, if He were really a prophet, would know who and what sort of person this is who is touching Him, for she is an immoral woman.' "In answer to his thoughts Jesus said to him: 'Simon, I have a word to say to you.' "'Rabbi, say on,' he replied. "'Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You gave me no water for my feet; but she has made my feet wet with her tears, and then wiped the tears away with her hair. No kiss did you give me; but she, from the moment I came in, has not left off tenderly kissing my feet. No oil did you pour even on my head; but she has poured perfume on my feet. This is the reason why I tell you that her sins--her _many_ sins--are forgiven--because she has loved much." He shut the book with something of a bang. "So they used to do that sort of thing even then!... The water for the feet, and the kiss, and the oil, must have corresponded to our shaking hands and asking people to sit down.... And they wouldn't show Him the courtesy.... He was their inferior.... I wonder if He minded it.... It looks as if He did because of the way He had it in His mind, and referred to it.... If the woman hadn't turned up He would probably not have referred to it at all.... He would have kept it to Himself ... without resentment.... The little disdains of little people were too petty for Him to resent.... He could only be hurt by them ... but on their account." He sat late into the night, thinking, thinking. Suddenly he thumped the table, and sprang up. "I _won't_ resent it. They're good people in their way. They don't mean any unkindness. It's only that they think like everybody else. Honey would call them orthodocks. They're courteous among themselves; they only don't know how far courtesy can be made to go. They're--they're little. I'll be big--like Him." XXVIII The resolution helped him through the summer. It was a pleasant summer, and yet a trying one. It was the first time he had ever done work of which the essence lay in satisfying individuals. In his market jobs the job had been the thing. Even if done at somebody's order, it was judged by its success, or by its lack of it. His work at the inn-club brought him hourly into contact with men and women to whom it was his duty to be specially, and outwardly deferential. He sprang to open the door for them when they entered or left the car; he touched his hat to them whenever they gave him an order. His bearing, his manner of address, formed a part of his equipment only second to his capacity to drive. To this he had no objection. It only seemed odd that while it was his business to be courteous to others it was nobody's business to be courteous to him. Some people were. They used toward him those little formalities of "Please" and "Thank you" which were a matter of course toward one another. They didn't command; they requested. Others, on the contrary, never requested. If their nerves or their digestions were not in good order, they felt at liberty to call him a damn fool, or if they were ladies, to find fault foolishly. Whatever the injustice, it was his part to keep himself schooled to the apologetic attitude, ready to be held in the wrong when he knew he was in the right. Though he had never heard of the English principle that you may be rude if you choose to your equals, but never rude to those in a position lower than your own, he felt its force instinctively. His humble place in the world's economy entitled him to a courtesy which few people thought it worth their while to show. Apart from this he had nothing to complain of. He made good money, as the phrase went, his wages augmented by his tips. He took his tips without shame, since he did much to please his clients beyond what he was paid for. His relation with them being personal, he could see well enough that only in tips could they make him any recognition. With the staff in the house he got on very well, especially with the waitresses, all six of them girls working their way through Radcliffe, Wellesley, or Vassar. They chaffed him in an easy-going way, one of them calling him her Hercules, another her Charlemagne because of his height, while to a third he was her Siegfried. When he had no work in the evenings, and their dining-room duties were over, he took them for drives among the mountains. Writing to Honey, he said that what with the air, the food, the fun, and the outdoor life, he was never before in such splendid shape. Honey was his one anxiety, though an anxiety which troubled him only now and then. "Go to it, lad," had been his response when Tom had told him of Mr. Ansley's proposition. "With eighty dollars a month for all summer, and yer keep throwed in, yer ought to save two hundred." "You're sure you won't be lonesome, Honey?" Honey made a scornful exclamation. "Lord love yer, Kid, if I was ever goin' to be lonesome I'd 'a begun before now. Lonesome! Me! That's a good 'un!" And yet on the Sunday of his departure Tom noticed a forced strain in Honey's gayety. It was a Sunday because Tom was to drive the car up to New Hampshire in the afternoon to begin his first week on the Monday. Honey was in clamorous spirits, right up to an hour before the boy left. Then he seemed to go flat. Pump up his humor as he would, it had no zest in it. When it came to the last handshake he grinned feebly, but couldn't, or didn't, speak. Tom drove away with a question in his mind as to whether or not, in Honey's professions of a steeled heart, there was not some bravado. In driving through Nashua he saw Maisie. It had been agreed that she should meet him by the roadside, at the end of the town toward Lowell, and go on with him till he struck the country again. They not only did this, but got out at a druggist's to spend a half hour over ice-cream sodas. Picking up the dropped threads of intercourse was not so easy as they had expected. It was hard for Tom to make himself believe that in this pretty little thing, all in white with pink roses in her hat, he was talking to his future wife. Since the fervor of his first love letter there had been a slight shift in his point of view. Without being able to locate the change, he felt that the new interests--the car, the inn-club, the variety of experience--had to some small degree crowded Maisie out. She was not quite so essential as she had seemed on the afternoon when he had learned of her departure. Neither was she quite so pretty. He thought with a pang that Honey's predictions might be coming true. Because they might be coming true, his pity was so great that he told her she was looking lovelier than ever. "Gee, that's something," Maisie accepted, complacently. "With four brats to look after, and all the cooking and washing, and everything--if my father don't marry again soon I'll pass away." She glanced at his chauffeur's uniform. "You look swell." He felt swell, and told her so. He told her of his wages, of the economies he hoped to make. "Gee, and you talk of goin' to college, a fellow that can pull in all that money just by bein' a shofer. Why, if you were to go on bein' a shofer we could get married as soon as I got the family off my hands." He explained to her that it was not the present, but the future for which he was working. A chauffeur had only a chauffeur's possibilities, whereas a man with an education.... "Just my luck to get engaged to a nut," Maisie commented, with forced resignation. "Gee, I got to laff." Some half dozen times that summer, when errands took him to Boston, they met in the same way. Growing more accustomed to their new relation to each other, he also grew more tender as he realized her limitations and domestic cares. With his first month's wages in his hand, he could bring her little presents on each return from Boston, so helping out her never-failing joy in the flash of her big diamond. That at least she had, when every other blessing was put off to a vague future. * * * * * In August, the Ansleys came flying back, driven by the war. It had caught them at Munich, where their French chauffeur, Pierre, had been interned as a prisoner. While taking driving lessons Tom had made Pierre's acquaintance, and that he should now be a prisoner in Germany made the war a reality. For the first few weeks it had been like a battle among giants in the clouds; now it came down to earth as a convulsion among men. The Ansleys had come to the inn-club because their own house was closed. With Guy and Hildred Tom found his relations changed by the fact that he was a chauffeur. Guy talked to him freely enough, as one young fellow to another, but Hildred had plainly received a hint to mark the distance between them. If she passed him in the grounds, or if he opened the car door for her, she gave him a faint, self-conscious smile, but never spoke to him. Mrs. Ansley freely used the car and him, always calling him Whitelaw. Philip Ansley was much preoccupied by the international situation. A small, dry man of slightly Mongolian features, and a skin which looked like a parchment lampshade tinted with a little rose, he had made a specialty of international law as it affected the great corporations. New York and Washington both had need of him. When he couldn't go there, those who wished his opinion came to him. Not a little of Tom's work lay in driving him to Keene, the station for New York, to meet the important men seeking his advice. Thus it happened that Tom brought over from Keene, so late one night that he got no more than a dim glimpse of the visitor, the man who was to leave on him the most disturbing impression of the summer. Having delivered his charge at the inn-club door, he drove his car to the garage, climbed the stairs to his room, and turned into bed. Before six next morning he was up for a plunge in the lake, this being the only hour he could count on as his own. It was one of those windless mornings late in summer which bring the first hint of fall. The lake was so still that each throw of his arms was like the smashing of a vast metallic mirror. Only a metallic mirror could have had this shining dullness, faintly iridescent, hardly catching the rays of the newly risen sun. Not leaden enough for night, nor silvery enough for day, it kept the aloofness from man, as well as from Nature's smaller blandishments, of its mighty companion, Monadnock. It was an awesome lake, beautiful, withdrawn, because it gave back the mountain's awesomeness, beauty, and remoteness. Tom's thrust, as he paddled the water behind him, broke for no more than a few seconds that which at once reformed itself. You would have said that the darting of his body, straight as a fish's, clave the water as a bird cleaves the air. After he had gone there was hardly a ripple to tell that he had passed. Built to be a swimmer, loose limbed, loose muscled, and not too bonily spare, he breathed as a swimmer, deeply, gently, without spluttering or loss of his control. In the limpid medium through which another might have sunk like a stone he had that sense of natural support which helps man to his dominion. Now on his right side, now on his left, he could skim like an arrow to its mark for the simple reason that he knew he could. He turned over on his back and floated. The quiet was that of a world which might never have known the velocity of wind, the ferocity of war. Above him the inviolate sky; around him the mountains nearly as inviolate! And everywhere the living stillness, vibrating, dramatic, with which Nature alone can quicken a dead calm! Turning over again, he was abandoning the crawl for the forearm stroke, to make his way back to the bathing cabins, when over the water came a long "Ahoy!" Nearer the shore, and a little abeam, there was another man swimming toward him. Tom gave back an "Ahoy!" and made in the direction of the stranger. It was perhaps another chauffeur. Even if it were a resident, or some resident's guest, the informality of sport would put them on a level. The newcomer had the sun behind him; Tom had it on his face. His features were, therefore, the first to become visible. A strong voice called out, in a tone of astonishment: "Why, Tad! What are _you_ doing up here in New Hampshire?" Tom laughed. "Tad--nothing! I'm Tom!" The other came nearer. "Tom, are you? Excuse me! Took you for my son." "Sorry I'm not," Tom laughed again. "Somebody else's." Coming abreast, they headed toward shore. Each face was turned toward the other. Adopting his companion's stroke, Tom adjusted himself to his pace. Though conversation was not easy, the one found it possible to ask questions, the other to answer them. "Look like my son. What's your name?" "Whitelaw." A light came into the eyes, and went out again. "Where do you live?" "Boston." "Lived there all your life?" "Only for the last three years or so." "Where'd you live before that?" "New York some of the time." "Where were you born?" "The Bronx." "What was your father's name?" "Theodore Whitelaw." There was again that spark in the eyes, flashing and then dying out. "How did he get that name?" "Don't know. Just a name. Suppose his mother gave it to him." "Lots of Theodore Whitelaws. Have come across two or three. Like the Colin Campbells and Howard Smiths you run into everywhere. What did your father do?" "Never heard. Died when I was a kid." Tom felt entitled to ask a question on his own side. "What do you want to know for?" The other seemed on his guard. "Oh, nothing! Was just--was just struck by the resemblance to--to my boy." The swerve which took them away from each other was as slight as that which a ship gets from her rudder. Tom continued to play round in the water till he saw the older man reach the bathing cabins, dress, and go away. That afternoon he was told to drive back to Keene both Mr. Ansley and the guest whom he, Tom, had brought over on the previous evening. As the latter came out to enter the car it was easy to recognize the swimmer of the morning. Tom held the door open, his hand to his cap. The gentleman gave him a swift, keen look. "Oh, so this is what you do!" "Yes, sir; this is what I do. Mr. Ansley got me the job." "Young fellow whom Guy has befriended," Mr. Ansley explained, as he took his place beside his friend. But in the Pullman, when Tom had carried in the gentleman's valise, there was another minute in which they were alone. The car was nearly empty; there were still some five minutes before the departure of the train. While the colored porter took the suitcase the traveler turned to Tom. He was a tall man, straight and flexible like Tom himself, but a little heavier. "How old are you?" "Seventeen, sir." A shadow flew across the face. "Tad is seventeen, too. That settles any--" Without stating what was settled by this coincidence of ages, he went on with his quick, peremptory questions. "What do you do when you leave here?" "I go back for my last year in the Latin School in Boston." "And then?" "I go to Harvard." "Putting yourself through?" "Only partly, sir." "Friends?" "Yes, sir." The questions ceased. The face, which even a boy like Tom could see to be that of a strong man who must have suffered terribly, grew pensive. When the eyes were bent toward the floor Tom took note of a pair of bushy, outstanding, horizontal eyebrows, oddly like his own. The reverie ended abruptly. Some thought seemed to be dismissed. It seemed to be dismissed with both decision and relief. But the man held out his hand. "Good-by." "Good-by, sir." It was not the questions, nor the interest, it was the last little act of farewell that gave Tom a glowing feeling in the heart as he went back to his car and Mr. Ansley. XXIX It was late that evening before Tom found an opportunity to ask Miss Padley, who kept what the inn-club knew as the office, the name of the guest who had questioned him so closely. Miss Padley was a red-haired, freckled girl, putting herself through Radcliffe. Unused to clerical work, she was tired. When Tom put his query she gazed up at him vacantly, before she could collect her wits. "The name of the gentleman who left this afternoon?" She called to Ella, one of the waitresses, in her second year at Wellesley. "What was it, Ella? I forget." As the house was closing for the night some informality was possible. Ella sauntered up. "What was what?" Tom's question was repeated. "Oh, that was the great Henry T. Whitelaw. Big banker. Partner in Meek and Brokenshire's. They say that he and a few other bankers could stop the war if they liked, by holding back the cash. Don't believe it. War's too big. And, say! He was the father of that Whitelaw baby there used to be all the talk about." Miss Padley looked up, her cheek resting on her hand. "You don't say! Gee, I wish I'd known that. I'd 'a looked at him a little closer." She turned her tired greenish eyes toward Tom. "Your name is Whitelaw, too, isn't it?" He grinned nervously. "My name is Whitelaw, too, only, like the lady's maid whose name was Shakespeare but was no relation to the play-actor of that name, I don't belong to the banking branch of the family." Ella exclaimed, as one who makes a discovery. "But, Siegfried, you look as if you did. Doesn't he, Blanche? Look at his eyebrows. They're just like the banker man's." "Oh, I've looked at them often enough," Miss Padley returned, wearily. "Got his mustaches stuck on in the wrong place. I'm off." Yawning, she shut her ledger, closed an open drawer, and rose. But Ella, a dark little thing, kept her snappy black eyes on Tom. "You do look like him, Siegfried. I'd put in a claim if I were you. I'm single, you know, and I've always admired you. Think of the romance it would make if the Whitelaw baby took home as his bride a poor but honest working girl!" Dodging Ella's chaff, Tom escaped to the garage. It was queer how the Whitelaw baby haunted him. Honey!--Ella!--and the Whitelaw baby's own father! But the haunting stopped. Neither Ella nor Miss Padley took it as more than a passing pleasantry, forgotten with the morning. The tall man who had asked him questions never came back again. The rest of the summer went by with but one little incident to remain in his memory. It was a very little incident. Walking one day in the road that ran round the lake he came face to face with Hildred Ansley. She had grown since the previous winter, a little in height, and more in an indefinable development. She was fifteen now; but, always older than her age, she was more like seventeen or eighteen. Her formal manner, her decided mind, her "grown-up" choice of words, made her already something of that finished entity for which we have only the word lady. Ella had said of her that at twenty she would look like forty, and at forty continue to look like twenty. Tom thought that this might be true--an early fullness of womanhood, but a long one. She had been playing tennis, and swung her racket as she came along. He was sorry for this direct encounter, since she might find it awkward; but when she waved her racket to him, it was clear that she did not. She felt perhaps the more independent, released from her mother's supervision and the inn. Her smile, something in her way of pausing in the road, an ease of manner beyond analysis, put them both on the plane on which their acquaintance had begun. The slanting yellowish-brown eyes together with the faint glimmer of a smile heightened that air of mystery which had always made her different from other girls. "How have you been getting along?" He said he had been doing very well. "How have you liked the job?" "Fine! Everybody's been nice to me--" "Everybody likes you. All the same, I hope, if they ask you to come back next year, that--you won't." "Why not?" "Oh, just--because!" Slipping away, she left him with the summer's second memory. She hoped he wouldn't take the place again--_because_! Because--what? Could she have meant what he thought she must have meant? Was it possible that she didn't like to see him in a situation something like a servant's? Though he never again, during all the rest of the summer, had so much speech with her alone, it gave him a hint to turn over in his mind. Driving the car back to Boston, after the inn-club had closed, he saw Maisie for the last time that year. Uncertain of his hours, he had been unable to arrange to have her meet him, and so looked her up in her home. A small wooden house, once stained a dark red, weather-worn now to a reddish-dun, it stood on the outskirts of the town. In a weedy back-yard, redeemed from ugliness by the flaming of a maple tree, Maisie was pinning newly washed clothes to a clothes-line stretched between the back door and a post. Two children, a boy of six and a girl of eight, were tumbling about with a pup. At sound of the stopping of the car in the roadway in front of the house Maisie turned, a clothes-pin held lengthwise in her mouth. Even with her sleeves rolled up and her hair in wisps, she couldn't be anything but pretty. She came and sat beside him in the car, the children and the pup staring up at them in wonder. "Gee, I wish he'd get married; but I daresay he won't for ever so long. Married to the bottle, that's what he is. It was six years after my mother died before he took on the last one. That's what makes me so much older than the four kids. All the same I'd beat it if you'd take a shofer's job and settle down. I'm not bound to stay here and make myself a slave." It was the burden of all Maisie's reasoning, and he had to admit its justice. He was asking her to wait a long four years before he could give her a home. It would have been more preposterous than it was if among poor people, among poor young people especially, a long courtship, with marriage as a vague fulfillment, was not general. Any such man as she was likely to get would have to toil and save, and save and toil, before he could pay for the few sticks of furniture they would need to set up housekeeping. Never having thought of anything else, she was the more patient now; but patient with a strain of rebellion against Tom's whim for education. She cried when he left her; he almost cried himself, from a sense of his impotence to take her at once from a life of drudgery. The degree to which he loved her seemed to be secondary now to her helpless need of him. True, he could get a job as chauffeur and make a hundred dollars a month to begin with. To Maisie that would be riches; but a hundred and fifty a month would then become his lifelong limit and ambition. Even to save Maisie now he couldn't bring himself to sacrifice not merely his future but her own. Once he was "through college," it seemed to him that the treasures of the world would lie open. Arrived in Grove Street, he found one new condition which made his return easier. Honey, who, for the sake of economy, had occupied a hall-bedroom through the summer, had reserved another, on the floor above, for Tom. The relief from the sharing of one big room amounted to a sense of luxury. On the other hand, Honey, for the first time since Tom had known him, was moody and tired. He was not ill; he was only less cast-iron than he used to be. He found it harder to go to work in the morning; he was more spent when he came back at night, as if some inner impulse of virility was wearing itself out. The war worried him. The fact that old England had met a foe whom she couldn't walk over at once disturbed his ideas as to the way in which the foundations of the world had been laid. "Anything can happen now, kid," he declared, in discussing the English retreat from Mons. "Haven't felt so bad since the bloody cop give me the whack with his club what put out me eye. If Englishmen has to turn tail before Germans, well, what next?" But to Tom's suggestions that he should go to Canada and enlist in the British army Honey was as stone. "You're too young. Y'ain't got yer growth. I don't care what no one says. War is for men. Yer first business, and yer last business, and yer only business, is yer eddication." It must be admitted that Tom agreed with him. He had no longing to go to war. Europe was far away while life was near. Education, Maisie, the future, had the first claim on him. It began to occur to him that even Honey had a claim on him, now that he was not so vigorous as he used to be. There were other interests to make war remote. On returning to town, after a summer amid the spaciousness, beauty, and comfort which the few could give themselves, he was oppressed by the privations of the many. Never before had he thought of them. He had taken Grove Street for granted. He had taken it for granted that life was hard and crowded and bitter and cold and ugly, and couldn't be anything else. Now he had seen for himself that it could be easy and beautiful and healthy. True, he had always known that there were rich people as well as poor people; but never before had he been close enough to the rich to see their luxuries in detail. The contrasts in the human scheme of things having thus come home to him he was moved to a distressed wondering. What brought these differences about? If all the rich were industrious and good, while all the poor were idle and extravagant, he could have understood it better. But it wasn't so. The rich were often idle and extravagant, and didn't suffer. The poor were nearly always industrious--they couldn't be anything else--and were as good as they had leisure to be, but suffered from something all the time. How could this injustice be endured? What was to be done about it? Wasn't it everybody's duty to try to right such a wrong? Because he had only now become aware of it he supposed that nobody but the Slav and Jewish agitators had been aware of it before. Louisburg Square, and all that element in the world which Louisburg Square represented, could never have thought of it. If it had, it couldn't have slept at night in its bed. That it should lie snug and soft and warm while all the rest of the world--at least a good three-fourths--lay cold and hard and hungry, must be out of the question. If the rich people only knew! It was strange that someone hadn't told them. What were the newspapers and the governments and the churches doing that they weren't ringing with protests against this fundamental evil? More than ever Honey's rebellion against the lor of proputty seemed to him based on some principle he couldn't trace. Honey was doubtless all wrong; and yet the other thing was just as wrong as Honey. He started him talking on the subject as they strolled to their dinner that evening. "Seems as if this 'ere old human race didn't have no spunk. Yer can put anything over on them, and they'll 'ardly lift a kick. It's like as if they was hypnertized. Them as has got everything is hypnertized into thinkin' they've a right to it; and them as have got nothink'll let theirselves believe as nothink is all that belongs to 'em. Comes o' most o' the world bein' orthodocks. Lord love yer, I'd rather think for meself if it landed me ten months out'n every twelve in jail, than have two thousand a year and yet be an old tabby-orthodock what never had a mind." They were seated at the table in Mrs. Turtle's basement dining-room, when, looking up and down the double row of guests, Honey whispered, "Tabby-orthodocks--all of 'em." At his sixteen or eighteen fellow-mealers Tom looked with a new vision. With the aid of Honey's epithet he could class them. Mostly men, they sat bowed, silent, futile, gulping down their coarse food with no pretense at softening the animal processes of eating. These, too, he had hitherto taken for granted. In all the months they had "mealed" at Mrs. Turtle's--in the years they had "mealed" at similar establishments in Grove Street--he had looked on them, and on others of their kind, as the norm of humanity. Now he saw something wrong in them, without knowing what it was. "What's the matter with them?" he asked of Honey, as they went back across Grove Street to Mrs. Danker's. Honey's reply was standardized. "Bein' orthodocks. Not thinkin' for theirselves. Not usin' the mind as Gord give 'em. Believin' what other blokes told 'em, and stoppin' at that. I say, Kiddy! Don't yer never go for to forget that yer'll get farther in the world by bein' wrong the way yer thinks yerself than by bein' right the way some other feller tells yer." Having reached their own house they stood, each with a foot on the doorstep, while Tom smoked a cigarette and Honey enlarged on his philosophy. "I don't believe as Gord put us into this world to be right not 'arf so much as what He done it so as we'd find out for ourselves what's right and what's wrong. One right thing as yer've found out for yerself'll make yer more of a man than fifty as yer've took on trust. Look at 'em in there!" He nodded backward toward Mrs. Turtle's. "They've all took everythink on trust, and see what it's made of 'em. Whoever says, 'I'm an orthodock, and I'm goin' to live and die an orthodock,' is like the guy in the Bible as was bound 'and and foot with grave-clothes. My genius was always for thinkin' things out for meself; and look at me to-day!" It was another discovery to Tom that Honey felt proud and happy in his accomplishment. Honey to Tom was a machine for doing heavy work. He was a drudge, and a dray-horse. He was shut out from the higher, the more spiritual activities. But here was Honey himself content, and in a measure exultant. "Been wrong in a lot o' things I have; but I've found it out for meself. I ain't sorry for what I've did. It's learned me. There ain't a old jug I've been in, in England or the State o' New York, that didn't learn me somethink. I see now that I was wrong. But I see, too, that them as tried and sentenced me wasn't right. When they repents of the sins what their lors and gover'ments and churches has committed against this old world, I'll repent o' the sins I've committed against them." This ability to stand alone, mentally at least, against all religion and society, was, as Tom saw it, the secret of Honey's independence. He might have been a rogue, a burglar, a convict; and yet he was a man, as the orthodocks at Mrs. Turtle's were not, and never had been, men. Having allowed themselves to be hammered into subjection by what Honey called lors, gover'ments, and churches, in subjection they had been trapped, and never could get out again. There was something about Honey that was strong and free. XXX To make himself strong and free was Tom Whitelaw's ruling motive through the winter which preceded his going to Harvard. He must be a man, not merely in physical vigor, but in mental independence. Convinced that he was in what he called a rotten world, a world of rotten customs built on a rotten foundation, he saw it as a task to learn to pick his way amid the rottenness. To rebel, but keep his rebellion as steam with which to drive his engine, not as something to let off in futile raging against established convictions, was a hint of Honey's by which he profited. "It don't do yer no good to kick so as they can ketch and jump on you. I've tried that. And it ain't no good to jaw. Tried that too. If the uninherited was anythink but a bunch o' simps you might be able to rouse 'em. But they ain't. All yer can do is to shut yer mouth and live. Yer'll live harder and surer with yer mouth shut. Yer'll live truer too, just as yer'll shoot straighter when yer ain't talkin' and fidgitin' about. Don't believe what no judge or gov'nor or bishop says to yer just because he says it; but don't let 'em know as yer don't believe it, because they'll hoodoo you with their whim-whams. Awful glad they'll be, both Church and State, to ruin the man what don't believe the way they tell him to." On the eve of manhood Tom thought more highly of Honey than he had when a few years younger. Having judged him drugged by work, he found that he had ideas of his own, however mistaken they might be. However mistaken they might be, they had at least produced one guiding principle: to keep your mouth shut and live! Taking his notes about life, as he did through the following winter, he made them according to this counsel. The outstanding feature of the season was the development of something like a real friendship with Guy Ansley. Hitherto the two young men had backed and filled; but in proportion as Tom grew more sure of himself the weaker fellow clung to him. He clung in his own way; but he clung. He was the patron. Tom was the fine young chap he had taken a fancy to and was helping along. "I'm awful democratic that way. Whole lot of fellows'll think they've just got to go with their own gang. Doolittle and Pray's is full of that sort of bunk. The Doolittle and Pray spirit they call it. I call it fluff. If I like a fellow I stick by him, no matter what he is. I'd just as soon go round with you as with the stylishest fellow on the Back Bay. Social position don't mean anything to me. Of course I know it's very nice to have it; but if a fellow hasn't got it, why, I don't care, not so long as he's a sport." "Keep your mouth shut and live," Tom reminded himself. He liked Guy Ansley well enough. He was at least a fellow of his own age, with whom he could be franker than had been possible with Maisie, and who would understand him in ways in which Honey never could. With the difference made by ten years in his point of view, he discussed with Guy the same sort of subjects, sex, religion, profession, vices, politics, that he had talked over with Bertie Tollivant. Merely to hear their own voices on these themes eased the adolescent turmoil in their brains. Hildred Ansley, having entered Miss Winslow's school as a boarder, was immured as in a convent. Her absence made it the easier for Tom to run in and out of the Ansley house on the missions, secret and important, which boys create among themselves. Guy had a set of maps by which you could follow the ebb and flow on the battlefront. Guy had a wireless installation with which you could listen in on messages not meant for you. Guy had skis, and bought another pair for Tom so that they could tramp together on the Fenway. Guy had a runabout which Tom taught him to drive. Guy had tickets for any play or concert he chose to attend, and invited Tom to go along with him. Doubtful at first, Mrs. Ansley came round to view the acquaintance almost without misgiving. "I think you're a steady boy, aren't you?" she asked of Tom one day, when finding him alone. Tom smiled. "I don't get much chance, ma'am, to be anything else." Lacking a sense of humor, Mrs. Ansley was literal. "I don't like you to say that. It sounds as if when you do get the chance--But perhaps you'll know better by that time. It's something I hope Guy will help you to see in return for all the--well, the physical protection you give him." "Oh, but, ma'am, I--" "That'll do. I know my boy is brave. But I know too that he's not very strong, and to have a great fellow like you, used to roughing it--It reminds me of the big Cossack who always goes round with the little Tsarevitch. Not that Guy is as young as that, but he's been tenderly brought up." "Oh, mother, give us a rest!" Guy had rushed into his flowered room from whatever errand had taken him away. "If I _have_ been tenderly brought up, I'm as tough to-day as any mucker down where Tom lives." "The dear boy!" She smiled at Tom, as at one who like herself understood this extravagance, moving away with the stately lilt that made her skirts flounce up and down. "It's Hildred that's sicking the old lady on to her little song and dance in your favor," Guy declared, when they had the room to themselves again. "Hildred likes you. Always has. She's democratic, too, just like me. Once let a fellow be a sport and Hildred wouldn't care what he was socially." "Keep your mouth shut and live," became Tom's daily self-adjuration. That Guy sincerely liked him he was sure, and this in itself meant much to him. The patronage could be smiled away. If he and his mother failed in tact they gave him much in compensation. In their house he was getting accustomed to certain small usages which at first had overawed him. Space didn't dwarf him any more, nor beauty strike him spellbound. He was so courteous to Pilcher that Pilcher, returning deference for deference, had once or twice called him "sir." The plays to which Guy took him were a long step in his education; the music they heard together released a whole new range in his emotions. He discovered that Guy was what is commonly called musical. He played the piano not badly; he knew something of the classics, of the great romanticists, of the moderns. Back of the library was a music room, and when other occupations palled, there Guy would play and explain, while Tom sat listening and enjoying. Guy liked explaining; it showed his superiority. Tom liked to learn. To know the difference between Mozart and Beethoven was a stage in progress. To have the cabalistic names of Wagner and Debussy, which he had often seen in newspapers, spring to significance was an initiation into mysteries. So with work, with sports, with amusements, the winter sped by, bringing a sense of an expanding life. He had one main care: Maisie was more unhappy. Her appeals to him to throw up college, to become a chauffeur and marry her, increased in urgency. He had come to the point of seeing that his engagement to Maisie was a bit of folly. If Honey were to learn of it, or the Ansleys ... but he hoped to keep it secret till he won a position in which he could be free of censure. Once with an income to support a wife, his mistakes and sufferings would be his own business. In proportion as life opened up it was easy for him to face trouble cheerfully. May had come round, and by keeping his birthday on the fifth of March, he was now more than eighteen. On a Saturday morning when there was no school to attend he and Guy had lingered on the roof of the Ansley house after their task with the wireless apparatus was over. Looking across the river toward Cambridge, where one big tower marked the site of Harvard, they were speculating on the new step in manhood they would take in the following October. Pilcher's old head appeared through the skylight to inform Mr. Guy that lunch was waiting. Madam wished him to come down. "Where is she?" "She's in the dining room, Mr. Guy." "Get along, Tom. I'll be ready with the runabout at two. You won't be late, will you?" Tom said he would not be late, following Pilcher through the skylight and down the several flights of stairs. He was eager to slip out the front door without encountering Mrs. Ansley. Mrs. Ansley was eager not to encounter him. With lunch on the table, it would be awkward not to ask him to sit down; and to ask him to sit down would be out of the question. It would be just like Guy.... And then Guy did what was just like him. "Mother," he called out, puffing down the last of the staircases, "why can't Tom have lunch with us? He's got to be back here at two anyway. He's coming out with me in the runabout." Tom was doing his best to turn the knob of the front door. "Couldn't, Guy," he whispered back, shaking his head violently. "Got to beat it." In reality he was running away. To sit at the table with Mrs. Ansley, and be served by Pilcher, required a knowledge of etiquette he did not possess. "Mother, grab him," Guy insisted. "He might as well stay, mightn't he?" Reluctantly Mrs. Ansley appeared in the doorway. In so far as she could ever be vexed with Guy, she was vexed. "If Whitelaw's got to go, dear--" "He hasn't got to go, have you, Tom? He don't have a home to toe the line at. He just picks up his grub wherever he can get it." To such an appeal it was impossible to be wholly deaf. "Oh, then, if Whitelaw chooses to stay with us--" "Oh, I couldn't, ma'am," Tom cried, hurriedly. "I've got to--" But Guy, who had now reached the floor of the hall, caught him by the arm. "Oh, come along in. It can't hurt us. The old lady's just as democratic as Hildred and me." Mrs. Ansley was overborne; she couldn't help herself. Tom also was overborne, finding it easier to yield than to rebel. There being but three places laid at the table, one of which was reserved for Mr. Ansley in case he came home for luncheon, Pilcher set a fourth. "Will you sit there, Whitelaw?" "Oh, mother, call him Tom. He isn't a chauffeur, not when he's in town here." If anyone but Guy had put her in this situation Mrs. Ansley would have deemed it due to herself to sail from the room. As it was, she endeavored to humor the boy, to keep Tom in his place, and to rescue the dignity which had never yet sat down at table with a servant. "I'm sure there's no harm in being a chauffeur. I'm the last person in the world to say so, dependent on chauffeurs as I am. Besides, we knew, of course, that some of the young people helping us at the inn-club were studying in colleges, and that they didn't mean to stay in those positions permanently." She grew arch. "But I'm not democratic, Mr. Whitelaw. Guy knows I'm not. It's his way of teasing me. He's perfectly aware that I consider democracy a failure. There never was a greater fallacy than that all men were born free and equal. As to freedom I'm indifferent; but I've never pretended that any Tom, Dick, or Harry was my equal, and I never shall." "You don't mean this Tom, do you, old lady?" "Now, Guy! Isn't he a tease, Mr. Whitelaw? But I do believe in equality of opportunity. That seems to me one of the glories of our country. So many of our great men have come from the very humblest origin. And if we can do anything to help them along--with Guy that's an obsession. If it's a fault I say it's a good fault. Better to err on that side, I always think, than to see some one achieve the big thing, and know that you had no share in it when you might have had. That's shepherd's pie, Mr. Whitelaw. We have very simple lunches because Mr. Ansley doesn't always come home, and in any case his meal is his dinner." She rambled on because Guy was too busy with his food to help her, and Tom too terrified. He was sorry not merely for himself, but for her. Compelled to admit him to breaking bread with her, she must feel as if he had been forced on her in her dressing room. As a matter of fact, he admired the way in which she was carrying it off. Long ago, having divined her as taking her inherited position in Boston as a kind of sanctifying aura, shrinking from unauthorized approach like a sensitive plant from a touch, she reminded him of an anecdote he had somewhere read of Queen Victoria. The Queen was holding a council. Present at it among others was a statesman sitting for the first time as a member of the cabinet. Obliged at a given moment to carry a paper from one side of the table to the other, this gentleman passed back of the Queen's chair, accidentally grazing it with his hand. The Queen shuddered and shrank away. The touching merely of the chair was a violation of majesty. "He won't do," she whispered to the prime minister. He didn't do. He passed not only into political but into social oblivion. Tom recalled the incident as he tried to choke down his shepherd's pie. He was the unhappy statesman. He wouldn't do. Amiable as Mrs. Ansley tried to make herself, he knew how she was suffering. He was suffering himself. And in on his suffering, to make it worse, bustled Mr. Ansley. Throwing his hat and gloves on a settle in the hall, he shot into the dining room at once. He was a man who shot, sharply, directly, rather than one who walked. Tom stood up. "Sorry I'm so late, Sunshine--" His eye fell on Tom. "Oh, how-d'ye-do? Seen you before, haven't I? Oh! Oh!" The exclamations were of surprise and a little pain. "Why, you're the young fellow who ran the station car for us." Mrs. Ansley intervened as one who pacifies. "He's going out with Guy at two o'clock, to help him run the runabout." "_Help_ me run it! Why, mother, you talk as if--" "And Guy couldn't let him go off without anything to eat." "Quite so! quite so!" Mr. Ansley agreed. "Glad to see you. Sit down." He helped himself to the shepherd's pie which Pilcher passed again. "Let me see! What was it your name was?" Tom sat down again. "Whitelaw, sir." "Oh, yes; so it was. You're the same Whitelaw who's been running about this winter and spring with Guy. Quite so! quite so! Oh, and by the way, Sunshine, speaking of Whitelaw, Henry looked in on me this morning. Ran over from New York about some business cropped up since the sinking of the _Lusitania_." "How is he?" "Seems rather worried. Lost several intimate friends on the ship, besides which the old question seems to be popping up again." Mrs. Ansley sighed. "Oh, dear! I hope they'll not be dragged through all that with another of their foolish clues. I thought it was over." "It's over for Eleonora. But you know how Henry feels about it. Got it on the brain. Pity, I call it, after--how many years is it?" Mrs. Ansley computed. "It was while we were on our honeymoon. Don't you remember? We read it in the paper at Montreal, after we'd come from Niagara Falls. That was the fifteenth of May, and Harry had been stolen on the tenth." Tom felt a queer sick sinking of the heart. The tenth of May was the last of the three dates his mother had fixed as his birthday. She had told him, too, that the day when he was born was one on which the nursemaids were in the Park, and the lilacs had been in bloom. Why this specification? If, as she had informed him at other times, he was born in the Bronx, where Gracie also had been born, why the reference to the Park and nursemaids, five miles away? He listened avidly. "How old would that make him if he were living now?" Again Mrs. Ansley reckoned. "Something over nineteen. I've forgotten just how many months he was when he disappeared." Tom was reassured. He was only eighteen; he was positive of that. He couldn't have been nineteen without ever suspecting it. Mr. Ansley continued. "Seems to me a great mistake to bring him back now, even if they found him. A lumbering fellow of nineteen, practically a man, with probably the lowest associations." "That's what Onora feels. She's told me so. She couldn't go through it. Even if he isn't dead in fact he's dead to them." "Henry feels that, of course. He doesn't deny it. He doesn't want him back--not now. At the same time when any new will o' the wisp starts up he can't help feeling--" Tom was back in his little hall bedroom, after the run in the car with Guy, before he had time to think these scraps of conversation over. The details for which he had to render an account were, first, his sickening sense of dread on learning that the Whitelaw baby had been stolen on the tenth of May, and, then, his relief that the child, if now alive, would be nineteen years of age. These sensations or emotions, whatever they might be called, had been independent of his will. What did they portend? Why was he frightened in the one case, and in the other comforted? He didn't know. That he didn't know was the only decision he could reach. Were the impossible ever to come true, were the parents of the Whitelaw baby ever, no matter how unwillingly, to claim him as their son, the advantages to him would be obvious. Why then did he hate the idea? What was it in him that cried out, and pleaded not to be forsaken? He didn't know. XXXI Luckily the questions raised that day died out like a false alarm. With no further mention of the Whitelaw baby, he graduated from the Latin School, passed his exams at Harvard, and spent the summer as second in command of a boys' camp in a part of New Hampshire remote from the inn-club and the Ansleys. October found him a freshman. The new life was beginning. He had slept his first night in his bedroom in Gore Hall, where his quarters had been appointed. He had met the three fellow-freshmen with whom he was to share a sitting room. The sitting room was on the ground floor in a corner, looking out on the Embankment and the Charles. Never having had, since he left the Quidmores, a place in which to work better than the narrow squalid room at the end of a narrow squalid hall, his joy in this new decency of living was naïve to the point of childishness. He spent in that retreat, during the first twenty-four hours, every minute not occupied with duties. Because he was glad of the task, his colleagues had left to him as much of the job of arranging the furniture as he would assume. On the second day of his residence he was on his knees, behind his desk, pulling at a rug that had been wrinkled up. His zeal could bear nothing not neat, straight, adjusted. The desk was heavy, the rug stubborn. When a rap sounded on the door he called out, "Come in!" looking up above the edge of the desk only when the door had been opened and closed. A lady, dignified, a little portly, was stepping into the room, with the brisk air of one who had a right there. As she had been motoring, she was wreathed in a dark green veil, which partially hid her features. Peeling off a gauntlet, she glanced round the room, after a first glance at Tom. "I'm sorry to be late, Tad. That stupid Patterson lost his way. He's a very good driver, but he's no sense of direction. Why, where's the picture? You said you had had it hung." Her tone was crisp and staccato. In her breath there was the syncopated halt which he afterward came to associate with the actress, Mrs. Fiske. She might be nervous; or she might suffer from the heart. For the first few seconds he was too agitated to know exactly what to do. He had been looked at and called Tad again, this time probably by Tad's mother. He rose to his height of six feet two. The lady started back. "Why, what have you been doing to yourself? What are you standing on? What makes you so tall?" "I'm afraid there's some mistake, ma'am." She broke in with a kind of petulance. "Oh, Tad, no nonsense! I'm tired. I'm not in the mood for it." Both gauntlets peeled off, she flung them on the desk. With a motion as rapid as her speech she stepped toward a window and looked out over the Embankment. "It's going to be noisy and dusty for you here. The stream of cars is incessant." Being now beyond the desk, she caught the fullness of his stature. Her left hand went up with a startled movement. She gave a little gasp. "Oh! You frightened me. You're not standing on anything." "No, ma'am, I...." "I asked for Mr. Whitelaw's room. They told me to come to number twenty-eight." Making her way out, she kept looking back at him in terror. When he hurried to open the door for her, she waved him away. Everything she did and said was rapid, staccato, and peremptory. "You've forgotten your gloves, ma'am." He reached them with a stretch of his arm. Taking them from him, she still kept her eyes on his face. "No! You don't look like him. I thought you did. I was wrong. It's only the--the eyes--and the eyebrows." She was gone. He closed the door upon her. Dropping into an armchair by the window, he stared out on a wide low landscape, with a double procession of motor cars in the foreground, and a river in the middle distance. So this was the woman who had lived through the agony of a stolen child! He tried to recall what Honey had told him of the tragedy. He remembered the house which five years earlier Honey had taken him to see; he remembered the dell with the benches and the lilacs. This woman's child had been wheeled out there one morning--and had vanished. She had had to bear being told of the fact. She had gone through the minutes when the mind couldn't credit it. She had known fear, frenzy, hope, suspense, disappointment, discouragement, despair, and lassitude. In self-defense, in sheer inability of the human spirit to endure more than it has endured, she had thrown round her a hard little shell of refusal to hear of it again. She resented the reminder. She was pricked to a frantic excitement by a mere chance resemblance to the image of what the lost little boy might have become. A chance resemblance! He underscored the words. It was all there was. He himself was the son of Theodore and Lucy Whitelaw. At least he thought her name was Lucy. Not till he had been required to give the names of his parents for some school record did it occur to him that he didn't positively know. She had always been "Mudda." He hadn't needed another name. After she had gone there had been no one to supply him with the facts he had not learned before. Even the Theodore would have escaped him had it not been for that last poignant scene, when she stood before the officer and gave a name--Mrs. Theodore Whitelaw! Why not? There were more Whitelaws than one. There was no monopoly of the name in the family that had lost the child. He didn't often consciously think of her nowadays. The memory was not merely too painful; it was too destructive of the things he was trying to cherish. He had impulses rather than ideals, in that impulses form themselves more spontaneously; and all his impulses were toward rectitude. It was not a chosen standard; neither was it imposed upon him from without, unless it was in some vague general direction of the spirit received while at the Tollivants. He didn't really think of it. He took it as a matter of course. He couldn't be anything but what he was, and there was an end of it. But all his attempts to get a working concept of himself led him back to this beginning, where the fountain of life was befouled. So he rarely went back that far. He would go back to the Quidmores, to the Tollivants, to Mrs. Crewdson; but he stopped there. There he hung up a great curtain, soft and dim and pitiful, the veil of an immense tenderness. Rarely, very rarely, did he go behind it. He would not have done it on this afternoon had not the woman who had just gone out--dressed, as anyone could see, with the expensive easy-going roughness which only rich women can afford--neurotic, imperious, unhappy--had not this woman sent him there. She was a great lady whose tragic story haunted him; but she turned his mind backward, as it hardly ever turned, to the foolish and misguided soul who had loved him. No one since that time, no one whatever in the life he could remember, had loved him at all, unless it were Honey, and Honey denied that he did. How could he forsake ...? And then it came to him what it was that pleaded within him not to be forsaken. * * * * * The lecture was over. It was one of the first Tom had attended. The men, some hundred odd in number, were shuffling their papers, preparatory to getting up. Seated in an amphitheater, they filled the first seven or eight semicircles outward from the stage. The arrangement being alphabetical, Tom, as a _W_, was in the most distant row. The lecturer, who was also putting his papers together as they lay on a table beside him, looked up casually to call out, "If Mr. Whitelaw is here I should like to speak to him." Tom shot from his seat and stood up. The man on his left did the same. Occupied with taking notes on the little table attached to the right arm--the only arm--of his chair, Tom had not turned to the left at all. He was surprised now at the ripple of laughter that ran among the men beginning to get up from their seats or to file out into the corridor. The professor smiled too. "You're brothers?" Tom looked at his neighbor; his neighbor looked at Tom. Except for the difference in height the resemblance was startling or amusing, as you chose to take it. To the men going by it was amusing. It was the neighbor, however, who called out, in a shocked voice: "Oh, no, no! No connection." "Then it's to Mr. Theodore Whitelaw that I wish to speak." Mr. Theodore Whitelaw made his way toward the platform, taking no further notice of Tom. For this lack of the friendly freemasonry general among young men, general among freshmen especially, Tom thought he saw a reason. The outward appearance which enabled him to "place" Tad would enable Tad to "place" him. On the one there was the stamp of wealth; on the other there must be that of poverty. He might have met Tad Whitelaw anywhere in the world, and he would have known him at a glance as a fellow nursed on money since he first lay in a cradle. It wasn't merely a matter of dress, though dress counted for something. It was a matter of the personality. It was in the eyes, in the skin, in the look, in the carriage, in the voice. It was not in refinement, or cultivation, or cleverness, or use of opportunity; it was in something subtler than these, a cast of mind, a habit of thought, an acceptance, a self-confidence, which seeped through every outlet of expression. Tad Whitelaw embodied wealth, position, the easy use of whatever was best in whatever was material. You couldn't help seeing it. On the other hand, he, Tom Whitelaw, probably bore the other kind of stamp. He had not thought of that before. In as far as he had thought of it, it was to suppose that the stamp could be rubbed off, or covered up. Clothes would do something toward that, and in clothes he had been extravagant. He had come to Harvard with two new suits, made to his order by the Jew tailor next door to Mrs. Danker's. But in contrast with the young New Yorker his extravagance had been futile. He found for himself the most opprobrious word in all the American language--cheap. Very well! He probably couldn't help looking cheap. But if cheap he would be big. He wouldn't resent. He would keep his mouth shut and live. Things would right themselves by and by. They righted themselves soon. The three men with whom he shared the sitting room, having passed him as "a good scout," admitted him to full and easy comradeship. In the common-room, in the classroom, he held his own, and made a few friends. Guy Ansley, urged in part by a real liking, and in part by the glory of having this big handsome fellow in tow, was generous of recognition. He was standing one day with a group of his peers from Doolittle and Pray's when Tom chanced to pass at a distance. Guy called out to him. "Hello, you old sinner! Where you been this ever so long?" With a word to his friends, he puffed after Tom, and dragged him toward the group. "This is the guy they call the Whitelaw Baby. See how much he looks like Tad?" "Tad'll give you Whitelaw Baby," came from one of the group. "Hates the name of it. Don't blame him, do you, when he's heard everyone gassing about the kid all through his life?" But that he was going in Harvard by this nickname disturbed Tom not a little. Considering the legend in the Whitelaw family, and the resemblance between himself and Tad, it was natural enough. But should Tad hear of it.... With Tad he had no acquaintance. As the weeks passed by he came to understand that with certain freshmen acquaintance would be difficult. They themselves didn't want it. It was a discovery to Tom that it didn't follow that you knew a man, or that a man knew you, because you had been introduced to him. Guy Ansley had introduced him that day to the little group from Doolittle and Pray's; but when he ran into them again none of them remembered him. So Tad Whitelaw did not remember him after having met him accidentally at Guy's. The meeting had been casual, hurried, but it was a meeting. The two had been named to each other. Each had made an inarticulate grunt. But when later that same afternoon they passed in a corridor Tad went by as if he had never seen him. He continued to live and keep his mouth shut. If he was hurt there was nothing to be gained by saying so. Then an incident occurred which threw them together in a manner which couldn't be ignored inwardly, even if outward conditions remained the same. Little by little the Harvard student, following the general sobering down which makes it harder for people in the twentieth century to laugh than it was to those who lived fifty years ago, was becoming less frolicsome. Pranks were still played, especially by freshmen, but neither so many nor so wild. The humor had gone out of them. But in every large company of young men there are a few whose high spirits carry them away. Where they have money to spend and no cares as to the future on their minds, the new sense of freedom naturally runs to roistering. In passing Tad Whitelaw's rooms, which were also in Gore Hall, Tom often heard the banging of the piano, and those shouts of song and laughter which are likely to disturb the proctor. Guy, who was often the one at the piano, now and then gave him a report of a party, telling him who was at it, and what they had had to drink. In the course of the winter his relations with Guy took on a somewhat different tinge. In Guy's circle, commonly called a gang or a bunch, he was Guy's eccentricity. The Doolittle and Pray spirit allowed of an eccentricity, if it wasn't paraded too much. Guy knew, too, that it helped to make him popular, which was not an easy task, to be known as loyal to a boyhood's chum, when he might be expected to desert him. But behind this patronage the fat boy found in Tom what he had always found, a source of strength. Not much more than at school did he escape at Harvard his destiny as a butt. "Same old spiel, damn it," he lamented to Tom, "just because I'm fat. What difference does that make, when you're a sport all right? Doesn't keep me from going with the gang, not any more than Tad Whitelaw's big eyebrows, or Spit Castle's long nose." On occasions when he was left out of "good things" which he would gladly have been in he made Tom come round to his room in the evening for confidence and comfort. Tom never made game of him. There was no one else to whom he could turn with the certainty of being understood. Having an apartment to himself, he could be free in his complaints without fear of interruption. It was late at night. The two young men had been "yarning," as they called it, and smoking for the past two hours. Tom was getting up to go back to his room, when a sound of running along the corridor caught their attention. "What in blazes is that?" By the time the footsteps reached Guy's door smothered explosions of laughter could be heard outside. With a first preliminary pound on the panels the door was flung open, Spit Castle and Tad Whitelaw hurling themselves in. Though they would have passed as sober, some of their excess of merriment might have been due to a few drinks. Tad carried a big iron door-key which he threw with a rattle on the table. His hat had been knocked to the back of his head; his necktie was an inch off-center; his person in general disordered by flight. Spit Castle, a weedy youth with a nose like a tapir's, was in much the same state. Neither could tell what the joke was, because the joke choked them. Guy, flattered that they should come first of all to him, stood in the middle of the floor, grinning expectantly. Tom, quietly smoking, kept in the background, sitting on the arm of the chair from which he had just been getting up. As each of the newcomers tried to tell the tale he was broken in on by the other. "Came out from town by subway...." "Walking through Brattle Square...." "Not so much as a damn cat about...." "Saw little old johnny come abreast of little old bootstore...." "Took out a key--opened the door--went into the shop in the dark--left the key in the keyhole to lock up when he comes outside again--just in for something he'd forgot." "And damned if Tad didn't turn the key--quick as that--and lock the old beggar in." "Last we heard of him he was poundin' and squealin' to beat all blazes." Yellin', 'Pull-_ice_!--pull-_ice_!'--whacking his leg, Spit gave an imitation of the prisoner--"and he's in there yet." To Guy the situation was as droll as it was to his two friends. An old fellow trapped in his own shop! He was a Dago, Spit thought, which made the situation funnier. They laughed till, wearied with laughter, they threw themselves into armchairs, and lit their cigarettes. Tom, who had laughed a little not at their joke but at them, felt obliged, in his own phrase, to butt in. He waited till a few puffs of tobacco had soothed them. "Say, boys, don't you think the fun's gone far enough?" The two guests turned and stared as if he had been a talking piece of furniture. Tad took his cigarette from his lips. "What the hell business is it of yours?" Tom kept his seat on the arm of the chair, speaking peaceably. "I suppose it isn't my business--except for the old man." "What have you got to do with him? Is he your father?" "He's probably somebody's father, and somebody's husband. You can't leave him there all night." Spit challenged this. "Why can't we?" "Because you can't. Fellows like you don't do that sort of thing." It looked as if Tad Whitelaw had some special animosity against him, when he sprang from his chair to say insolently, "And fellows like you don't hang round where they're not wanted." "Oh, Tom didn't mean anything--" Guy began to interpose. "Then let him keep his mouth shut, or--" he nodded toward the door--"or get out." Tom kept his temper, waiting till Tad dropped back into his chair again. "You see, it's this way. The old chap has a home, and if he doesn't come back to it in the course of, let us say, half an hour his family'll get scared. If they hunt him up at the shop, and find he's been locked in, they'll make a row at the police station just across the street. If the police get in on the business they're sure to find out who did it." "Well, it won't be you, will it?" Tad sneered again. "No, it won't be me, but even you don't want to be...." Tad turned languidly to Guy. "Say, Guy! Awful pity isn't it about little Jennie Halligan! Cutest little dancer in the show, and she's fallen and broken her leg." Tom got up, walked quietly to the table, picked up the key, and at the same even pace was making for the door, when Tad sprang in front of him. "Damn you! Where do you think you're going?" "I'm going to let the old fellow out." "Drop that key." "Get out of my way." "Like hell I'll get out of your way." "Don't let us make a row here." "Drop that key. Do you hear me?" The rage in Tad's face was at being disobeyed. He was not afraid of this fellow two inches taller than himself. He hated him. Ever since coming to Harvard the swine had had the impertinence to be called by the same name, and to look like him. He knew as well as anyone else the nickname by which the bounder was going, and knew that he, the bounder, encouraged it. It advertised him. It made him feel big. He, the brother of the Whitelaw Baby, had been longing to get at the fellow and give him a whack on the jaw. He would never have a better opportunity. The lift of his hand and the grasp with which Tom caught the wrist were simultaneous. Slipping the key into his pocket, Tom brought his other hand into play, throwing the lighter-built fellow out of his path with a toss which sent him back against the desk. Maddened by this insult to his person, Tad picked up the inkstand on the desk, hurling it at Tom's head. The inkstand grazed his ear, but went smash against the wall, spattering the new wallpaper with a great blob of ink. Guy groaned, with some wild objurgation. To escape from the room Tom had turned his back, when a blow from an uplifted chair caught him between the shoulders. Wheeling, he wrenched the chair from the hands of Spit Castle, chucked it aside and dealt the young man a stinger that brought the blood from the tapir nose. All blind rage by this time, he caught the weedy youth's head under his right arm, pounding the face with his left fist till he felt the body sagging from his hold. He let it go. Spit fell on the sofa, which was spattered with blood, as the wallpaper with ink. Startled at the sight of the limp form, he stood for a second looking down at it, when his skull seemed crashed from behind. Staggering back, he thought he was going to faint, but the sight of Tad aiming another thump at him, straight between the eyes, revived him to berserker fury. He sprang like a lion on an antelope. Strong and agile on his side, Tad was stiff to resistance. Before the sheer weight of Tom's body he yielded an inch or two, but not more. Freeing his left hand, as he bent backward, he dealt Tom a bruising blow on the temple. Tom disregarded it, pinning Tad's left arm as he had already pinned the right. His object now was to get the boy down, to force him to his knees. It was a contest of brutal strength. When it came to brutal strength the advantage was with the bigger frame, the muscles toughened by work. The fight was silent now, nearly motionless. Slowly, slowly, as iron gives way to the man with the force to bend it, Tad was coming down. His feet were twisted under him, with no power to right themselves. Two pairs of eyes, strangely alike, glared at each other, like the eyes of frenzied wild animals. Tad gave a quick little groan. "O God, my leg's breaking." Tom was not touched. "Damn you, let it break!" Pressed, pressed, pressed downward, Tad was sinking by a fraction of an inch each minute. The strength above him was pitiless. Except for the running of water in the bathroom, where Guy had dragged Spit Castle to wash his nose, there was no sound in the room but the long hard pantings, now from Tad's side, now from Tom's. In the intervals neither seemed to breathe. [Illustration: "GET UP, I TELL YOU"] Suddenly Tad collapsed, and went down. Tom came on top of him. The heavier having the lighter fastened by arms and legs, the two lay like two stones. The faces were so near together that they could have kissed. Their long protruding eyebrows brushed each other's foreheads. The weight of Tom's bulk squeezed the breath from his foe, as a bear squeezes it with a hug. Nothing was left to Tad but resistance of the will. Of that, too, Tom meant to get the better. The words were whispered from one mouth into the other. "Do you know what I'm going to do with you?" There was no answer. "I'm going to take you back with me to let that old man out of his shop." There was still no answer. Tom sprang suddenly off Tad's body, but with his fingers under the collar. "Get up!" He pulled with all his might. The collar gave way. Tad fell back. "Damned if I will," was all he could say by way of defiance. Tom gave him a kick. "Get up, I tell you. If you don't I'll kick the stuffing out of you." The kick hurt nothing but Tad's pride; but it hurt that badly. It hurt it so badly that he got up, with no further show of opposition. He dusted his clothes mechanically with his hands; he tried to adjust his torn collar. His tone was almost commonplace. "This has got to be settled some other time. What do you want me to do?" Tom pointed to the door. "What I want you to do is to march. Keep ahead of me. And mind you if you try to bolt I'll wring your neck as if you were a cur. You--you--" He sought a word which would hit where blows had not carried--"you--coward!" The flash of Tad's eyes was like that of Tom's own. "We'll see." He went out the door, Tom close behind him. It was a March night, with snow on the ground, but thawing. They were without overcoats, and bare-headed. A few motor cars were passing, but not many pedestrians. "Run," Tom commanded. He ran. They both ran. The distance being short, they were soon in Brattle Square. Tad stopped at a little shop, showing a faint light. There was too much in the way of window display to allow of the passer-by, who didn't give himself some trouble, to see anything within. At first they heard nothing. Then came a whimpering, like that of a little dog, shut in and lonely, tired out with yelping. Putting his ear to the door, Tom heard a desolate, "Tam! Tam!" It was the only utterance. "Here's the key! Unlock the door." Tad did as he was bidden. Inside the "Tam! Tam!" ceased. "Now go in, and say you're sorry." As Tad hesitated Tom gave him a push. The door being now ajar the culprit went sprawling into the presence of his victim. There was a spring like that of a cat. There was also a snarl like a cat's snarl. "You tam Harvard student!" Feeling he had done and said enough, Tom took to his heels; but as someone else was taking to his heels, and running close behind him, he judged that Tad had escaped. Back in his room, Tom felt spent. In his bed he was in emotional revolt against his victory. He loathed it. He loathed everything that had led up to it. The eyes that had stared into his, when the two had lain together on the floor, were like those of something he had murdered. What was it? What was the thing that deep down within him, rooted in the primal impulses that must have been there before there was a world--what was the thing that had been devastated, outraged? Once more, he didn't know. XXXII Life resumed itself next day as if there had been no dramatic interlude. Proud of the scrap, as he named it, which had taken place in his room, Guy made the best of it for all concerned. His version was tactful, hurting nobody's feelings. The trick on the old man was a merry one, and after a fight about its humor Tad Whitelaw and the Whitelaw Baby had run off together to let the old fellow out. Spit Castle's tapir nose had got badly hurt in the scrimmage, and bled all over the sofa. The splash of ink on the wall was further evidence that Guy's room was a rendezvous of sports. But sports being sports the honors had been even on the whole, and no hard feeling left behind. Tad and the Whitelaw Baby would now, Guy predicted, be better friends. But of that there was no sign. There was no sign of anything at all. When the Whitelaw Baby met the Whitelaw Baby's brother they passed in exactly the same way as heretofore. You would not have said that the one was any more conscious of the other than two strangers who pass in Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue. In Tad there was no show of resentment; in Tom there was none of pride. As far as Tom was concerned, there was only a humiliated sense of regret. And then, in April, life again took another turn. Coming back one day to his rooms, Tom found a message requesting him to call a number which he knew to be Mrs. Danker's. His first thought was of Maisie, with whom his letters had begun to be infrequent. Mrs. Danker told him, however, that Honey had had an accident. It was a bad accident, how bad she didn't know. Giving him the name of the hospital to which he had been taken, she begged him to go to him at once. After all the years they had lived with Mrs. Danker she considered them almost as relatives. The hospital, near the foot of Grove Street, preserved the air of the sedate old Boston of the middle nineteenth century. Its low dome, its pillared façade, its grounds, its fine old trees, had been familiar to Tom ever since he had lived on Beacon Hill. In less than an hour after ringing up Mrs. Danker he was in the office asking for news. News was scanty. Expecting everyone to understand what he meant to Honey and Honey meant to him, he had looked for the reception which friends in trouble and excitement give to the friend who brings his anxiety to mix with theirs. It would be, "Oh, come in. Poor fellow, he's suffering terribly. It happened thus and so." But to the interne in the office, a young man wearing a white jacket, Honey was not so much as a name. His case was but one among other cases. A good many came in a day. In a week, or a month, or a year, there was no keeping account of them, except as they were registered. Individual suffering was lost sight of in the immense amount of it. But the interne was polite, and said that if Tom would sit down he would find out. Among the hardest minutes Tom had ever gone through were those in the little reception room. Not only was there suspense; there was remorse. He had treated Honey like a cad. He had never been decent to him. He had never really been grateful. There had never been a minute, in the whole of the nearly six years they had lived together, in which he had not been sorry, either consciously or subconsciously, at being mixed up with an ex-convict. It was the ex-convict he had always seen before he had seen the friend. A second interne wearing a white jacket came to question him, to ask him who he was, and the nature of his business with the patient. If he was only a friend he could hardly expect to see him. The man was under opiates, he needed to be kept quiet. "What's happened? What's the matter with him? I can't find out." The interne didn't know exactly. He had been crushed. He was injured internally. The cause of the accident he hadn't heard. "Could I see his nurse?" There was more difficulty about that, but in the end he was taken upstairs, where the nurse came out to the corridor to speak to him. She was a competent, businesslike woman, with none of the emotion at contact with pain which Tom thought must be part of a nurse's equipment. But she could tell him nothing definite. Not having been on duty when the case had been brought in, she had heard no more than the facts essential to what she had to do. "Do you think he'll die?" "You'd have to ask the doctor that. He's not dead now. That's about as much as I can say." At sight of the big handsome fellow's distress she partly relented. "You may come in and look at him. You mustn't try to speak to him." He followed her into a long ward, with an odor of disinfectant. White beds, mostly occupied, lined each wall. Here and there was one surrounded by a set of screens, partially secluding a sufferer. At one such set they stopped. Through an opening between two screens Tom was allowed to look at Honey who lay with face upturned, and no sign of pain on the features. He slept as Tom had seen him sleep hundreds of times when he expected to get up again next morning. The difference was in the expectation of getting up. Blinded by tears, Tom tiptoed away. When he came next day the effect of the opiate had worn off, and yet not wholly. Honey turned his head at his approach and smiled. Sitting beside the bed, Tom took the big, calloused hand lying outside the coverlet, and held it in his own relatively tender one. More than ever it was borne in on him at whose cost that tenderness had been maintained. Honey liked to have his hand held. A part of the wall of aloofness with which he had kept himself surrounded seemed to have broken down. A little incoherently he told what had happened. He had been stowing packing-cases in the hold of a big ship. The packing-cases were lowered by a crane. The crane as a rule was a good old thing, slow paced, gentle, safe. But this time something seemed to have gone wrong with her. Though his back was turned, Honey knew by the shadow above him that she was at her work. When he had got into its niche the case with which he was busy he would swing round and seize the new one. And then he heard a shout. It was a shout from the dock, and didn't disturb him. He was about to turn when something fell. It struck him in the back. It was all he knew. He thought he remembered the blow, but was not certain whether he did or not. When he "came to" he had already been moved to the shed, and was waiting for the ambulance. He seemed not to have a body any more. He was only a head, like one of them there angels in a picture, with wings beneath their chins. He laughed at that, and with the laugh the nurse took Tom away; but when he came back on the following day Honey's mind was clearer. "I've made me will long ago," he said, when Tom had given him such bits of news as he asked for. "It's all legal and reg'lar. Had a lawyer fix it up. Never told yer nothink about it. Everythink left to you." "Oh, Honey, don't let us talk about that. You'll be up and around in a week or so." "Sure I'll be up and around. Yer don't think a little thing like this is goin' to bust me. Why, I don't feel 'ardly nothink, not below the neck. All the same, it can't do no harm for you to know what's likely to be what. If I was to croak, which I don't intend to, yer'd have about sixteen hundred dollars what I've saved to finish yer eddication on. The will is in the bottom of me trunk at Danker's." On another day he said, "If anyone was to pop up and say I owed 'em that money, because I took it from 'em...." He held the sentence there, leaving Tom to wonder if he had thoughts of restitution, or possibly of repentance. "I don't owe 'em nothink," he ended. "Belonged to me just as much as it belonged to them. Nothink don't belong to nobody. I never was able to figger it out just the way I wanted to, because I ain't never had no eddication; but Gord's lor I believes it is. Never could get the 'ang o' the lor o' man, not nohow." To comfort him, Tom suggested that perhaps when he got through college he might be able to take the subject up. "I wouldn't bind yer to it, Kiddy. Tough job! Why, when I give up socializin' to try and win over some o' them orthodocks I thought as they'd jump to 'ear me. Not a bit of it! The more I told 'em that nothink didn't belong to nobody the more they said I was a nut." Having lain silent for a minute he continued, with that light in his face which corresponded to a wink of the blind eye: "I don't bind yer to nothink, Kiddy. That's what I've always wanted yer to feel. You're a free boy. When I'm up and around again, and yer've got yer eddication, and have gone out on yer own, yer won't have me a-'angin' on yer 'ands. No, sir! I'll be off--free as a bird--back with the old gang again--and yer needn't be worried a-thinkin' I'll miss you--nor nothink!" It was a few days after this that the businesslike nurse who had first admitted him hinted that, if she were Tom, Honey would have a clergyman come to visit him. A few days more and it might be too late. Honey with a clergyman! It was something Tom had never thought of. The incongruous combination made him smile. Nevertheless, it was what people who were dying had--a clergyman come to visit them. If a clergyman could do Honey any good.... "Honey," he suggested, artfully, next day, "now that you're pinned to bed for awhile, and have got the time, wouldn't you like to see a clergyman sometimes, and talk things over?" There was again that light in the face which took the place of a wink. "What things?" Tom was nonplussed. "Well, I suppose, things about your soul." "What'd a clergyman know about _my_ soul? He might know about his own, but I know all about mine that I've got to know. 'Tain't much--but it's enough." Tom was relieved. He didn't want to disturb Honey by bringing in a stranger nor was he more sure than Honey that any good could be done by it. He was more relieved still when Honey explained himself further. "Do yer suppose I've come to where I am now without thinkin' them things out, when Gord give me a genius for doin' it? I don't say I've did it as well as them as has had more eddication; but Gord takes us with the eddication what we've got. Eddication's a fine thing; I don't say contrairy; but I don't believe as it makes no diff'rence to Gord. If you and me was before Him--me not knowin' 'ardly nothink, and you stuffed as you are with learnin' till you're bustin' out with it--I don't believe as Gord'd say as there was a pinch o' snuff between us--not to him there wouldn't be." A little wearily he made his confession of faith. "Gord made me; Gord knows me; Gord'll take me just the way I am and make the best o' me, without no one else buttin' in." * * * * * It was the middle of an afternoon. If anything, Honey was better. All spring was blowing in at the windows, while the trees were in April green, and the birds jubilant with the ecstasy of mating. "Beats everythink the way I dream," Honey confided, in a puzzled tone. "Always dreamin' o' my mother. Haven't 'ardly thought of her these years and years. Didn't 'ardly know her. Died when I was a little kid; and yet...." He lay still, smiling into the air. Tom was glad to find him cheerful, reminiscent. Never in all the years he had known him had Honey talked so much of his early life as within the last few days. "Used to take us children into the country to see a sister she had livin' there.... Little village in Cheshire called King's Clavering.... See that little cottage now.... Thatched it was.... Set a few yards back from the lane.... Had flowers in the garden ... musk ... and poppies ... and London pride ... and Canterbury bells ... and old man's love ... and cherry pie ... and raggedy Jack ... and sailor's sweetheart ... funny how all them names comes back to me...." Again he lay smiling. Tom also smiled. It was the first day he had had any hope. It was difficult not to have hope when Honey was so free from pain, and so easy in his mind. As to pain he had not had much since the accident had benumbed him; but there had always been something he seemed to want to say. To-day he had apparently said everything, and so could spend the half-hour of Tom's visit on memories of no importance. "Always had custard for tea, my mother's sister had. Lord, how us young ones'd...." The recollection brought a happy look. Tom was glad. With pleasant thoughts Honey would not have the wistful yearning in his eyes which he had turned on him lately whenever he went away. "There was a hunt in Cheshire. Onst I saw a lord--a dook, I think he was--ridin' to 'ounds. Sat his 'orse as if he was part of him, he did...." This too died away without sequence, though the happy look remained. The smile grew rapt, distant perhaps, as memory took him back to long forgotten trifles. Just outside the window a robin fluted in a tree. Honey turned his head slightly to say: "Have I been asleep, Kid?" "No; you haven't had your eyes shut." "Oh, but I must have. Couldn't dream if I was wide awake. I saw ma--just as plain as--" He recovered himself with a light laugh--"Wouldn't it bust yer braces to 'ear me sayin' ma? But that's what us childern used to call...." Once more he turned in profile, lying still, silent, radiant, occupied. The robin sang on. Tom looked at his watch. It was time for him to be stealing away. Now that Honey was better, he didn't mind going without a farewell, because he could explain himself next time. He was glancing about for the nurse when Honey said, softly, casually, as if greeting an acquaintance: "Hello--ma!" He lifted both hands, but they dropped back, heavily. Tom, who had half risen, fell on his knees by the bedside, seizing the hand nearest him in both his own. "Honey! Honey! Speak to me!" But Honey's good eye closed gently, while the head sagged a little to one side. The robin was still singing. * * * * * Two letters received within a few days gave Tom the feeling of not being quite left alone. _Dear Mr. Whitelaw_ In telling you how deeply we feel for you in your great bereavement I wish I could make you understand how sincerely we are all your friends. I want to say this specially, as I know you have no family. Family counts for much; but friends count for something too. It is George Sand who says: "Our relations are the friends given us by nature; our friends are the relations given us by God." Will you not think of us in this way?--especially of Guy and me. Whenever you are lonely I wish you would turn to us, in thought at least, when it can't be in any other way. When it can be--our hearts will always be open. Very sincerely yours, Hildred Ansley. The other letter ran: _Dear Tom_ Now that you have got this great big incubous off your hands I should think you would try to do your duty by me and what you owe me. It seems to me I've been patient long enough. It is not as if you were the only peanut in the bag. There are others. I do not say this purposely. It is rung from me. I have done all I mean to do here, and will beat it whenever I get a good chance. I should think you would be educated by now. I graduated from high school at sixteen, and I guess I know as much as the next one. I've got a gentleman friend here, a swell fellow too, a travelling salesman, and he makes big money, and he says that if a fellow isn't hitting the world by fifteen he'll always be a quitter. Think this over and let me know. With passionate love. Maisie. XXXIII The day after Honey was buried Tom went to Mrs. Danker's to pay what was owing on the room rent, and take away his effects. The effects went into one small trunk which Mrs. Danker packed, while Tom sat on the edge of the bed and listened to her comments. A little wiry woman, prim in the old New England way, she was tireless in work and conversation. "He was a fine man, Mr. Honeybun was, and my land! he was fond of you. He'd try to hide it; but half an eye could see that he was that proud of you! He'd be awful up-and-coming while you was here, and make out that it didn't matter to him whether you was here or not; but once you was away--my land! He'd be that down you'd think he'd never come up again. And one thing I could see as plain as plain; he was real determined that when you'd got up in the world he wasn't going to be a drag on you. He'd keep saying that you wasn't beholding to him for anything; and that he'd be glad when you could do without him so that he could get back again to his friends; but my land! half an eye could see." During these first days Tom found the memory of a love as big as Honey's too poignant to dwell upon. He would dwell upon it later, when the self-reproach which so largely composed his grief had softened down. All he could do as yet was to curse himself for the obtuseness which had taken Honey at the bluff of his words, when the tenderness behind his deeds should have been evident to anyone not a fool. He couldn't bear to think of it. Not to think of it, he asked Mrs. Danker for news of Maisie. He had often wondered whether Maisie might not have told her aunt in confidence of her engagement to himself; and now he learned that she had not. "I hardly ever hear from her; but another aunt of Maisie's writes to me now and then. Says that that drummer fellow is back again. I hope he'll keep away from her. He don't mean no good by her, and she goes daft over him every time he turns up. My land! how do we know he hasn't a wife somewheres else, when he goes off a year and more at a time, on his long business trips? This time he's been to Australia. It was to get her away from him that I asked her to spend that winter in Boston; but now that he's back--well, I'm sure I don't know." Tom had not supposed that at the suggestion of a rival he would have felt a pang; and yet he felt one. "Of course, there's some one; we know that. It must be some one too who's got plenty of money, because he's given her a di'mond ring that must be worth five hundred dollars, her other aunt tells me, if it's worth a cent. We know he makes big money, because he's got a fine position, and his family is one of the most high thought of in Nashua. That's part of the trouble. They're very religious and toney, so they wouldn't think Maisie a good enough match for him. Still, if he'd only do one thing or the other, keep away from her, or ask her right out and out to marry him...." Tom was no longer listening. The mention of Maisie's diamond had made him one hot lump of shame. He knew more of the cost of jewels now than when he had purchased the engagement ring, and even if he didn't know much he knew enough. A few days later he was in Nashua. He went, partly because he had the day to spare before he took up college work again, partly because of a desire to learn what was truly in Maisie's heart, partly to make her some amends for his long neglect of her, and mostly because he needed to pour out his confession as to the diamond ring. Having been warned of his coming, Maisie, who had got rid of the children for an hour or two, awaited him in the parlor. A little powder, a little unnecessary rouge, a sweater of imitation cherry-colored silk, gave her the vividness of a well-made artificial flower. Even Tom could see that, with her neat short skirt and high-heeled shoes, she was dressed beyond the note of the shabby little room; but if she would only twine her arms around his neck, and give him one of the kisses that used to be so sweet, he could overlook everything else. Her eyes on the big square cardboard box he carried in his hand, she received him somberly. Having allowed him to kiss her, she sat down at the end of a table drawn up beside the window, while he put the box in front of her. "What's this?" He placed himself at the other end of the table, having its length between them. Because of his waning love, because of the ring above all, he had done one of those reckless things which sometimes render men exultant. From his slender means he had filched a hundred dollars for a set of furs. He watched Maisie's face as she untied knots and lifted the cover of the band-box. On discovering the contents her expression became critical. She fingered the fur without taking either of the articles from the box. Turning over an edge of the boa, she looked at the lining. It was a minute or two before she took out the muff and held it in her hands. She examined it as if she were buying it in a shop. "That's a last year's style," was her first observation. "It'll be regular old-fashioned by next winter, and, of course, I shouldn't want a muff before then. The girls'll think I got them second-hand when they're as out of date as all that. They're awful particular in Nashua, more like New York than Boston." She shook out the boa. "Those little tails are sweet, but they don't wear them now. How much did you give?" He told her. "They're not worth it. It's the marked-down season too. Some one's put it over on you. I could have got them for half the price--and younger. These are an old woman's furs. The girls'll say my aunt in Boston's died, and left them to me in her will." Brushing them aside, she faced him with her resentful eyes. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the diamond flashing on the finger resting on a table-scarf of thin brown silk embroidered in magenta ferns. "Well, Tom, what's your answer to my letter?" At any other minute he would have replied gently, placatingly; but just now his heart was hot. A hundred dollars had meant much to him. It would have to be paid back in paring down on all his necessities, in food, in carfares, even in the washing of his clothes. He too clasped his hands on the table, facing her as she faced him. He remembered afterward how blue her eyes had been, blue as lapis lazuli. All he could see in them now was demand, and further demand, and demand again after that. "Have I got to give you an answer, Maisie? If so, it's only the one I've given you before. We'll be married when I get through college, and have found work." "And when'll that be?" "I'm sorry to say it won't be for another two years, at the earliest." "Another two years, and I've waited three already!" "I know you have. But listen, Maisie! When we got engaged I was only sixteen. You were only eighteen. Even now I'm only nineteen, and you're only twenty-one. We've got lots of time. It would be foolish for us to be married...." She broke in, drily. "So I see." "You see what, Maisie?" "What you want me to see. If you think I'm dying to marry you...." "No, I'm not such an idiot as that. But if we're in love with each other, as we used to be...." "As you used to be." "As I used to be of course; and you too, I suppose." "Oh, you needn't kill yourself supposing." He drew back. "What do you mean by that, Maisie?" "What do you think I mean?" "Well, I don't know. It sounds as if you were trying to tell me that you'd never cared anything about me." "How much did you ever care about me?" "I used to think I couldn't live without you." "And you've found out that you can." "I've had to, for one thing; and for another, I'm older now, and I know that nobody is really essential to anybody else. All the same--" "Yes, Tom; all the same--what?" "If you'd be willing to take what I can offer you--" "Take what you can offer me! You're not offering me anything." He explained his ambitions, for her as well as for himself. Life was big; it was full of opportunity; his origin didn't chain any man who knew how to burst its bonds. He did know. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. He just had it in him. When you knew you had it in you, you didn't depend on anyone to tell you; you yourself became your own corroboration. But in order to fulfil this conviction of inner power you needed to know things. You needed the experience, the standing, the rubbing up against other men, which you got in college in a way that you didn't get anywhere else. You got some of it by going into business, but only some of it. In any case, it was no more than a chance in business. You might get it or you might not. With the best will in the world on your part, it might slip by you. In college it couldn't slip by you, if you had any intelligence at all. All the past experience of mankind was gathered up there for you to profit by. You could only absorb a little of it, of course. But you acquired the habit of absorbing. It was not so much what you learned that gave college its value; it was the learning of a habit of learning. You got an attitude of mind. Your attitude of mind was what made you, what determined your place in the world. With a closed mind you got nowhere; with an open mind the world was as the sea driving all its fish into your net. College opened the mind; it was the easiest method by which it could be done. If she would only be patient till he had got through the preliminary training and had found the job for which he would be fitted.... "But what's the use of waiting when you can get a job for which you'd be fitted right off the bat? There's a family up here on the hill that wants a shofer. They give a hundred and twenty-five a month. Why go to all that trouble about opening your mind when here's the job handed out to you? The gentleman-friend I told you about says that business has got college skinned. He says colleges are punk. He says lots of men in business won't take a man if he's been to college. They'd want a fellow with some get-up-and-get to him." He began to understand her as he had never done before. Maisie had the closed mind. She was Honey's "orthodock," the type which accepts the limitations other people fix for it. He registered the thought, long forming in his mind subconsciously, that among American types the orthodock is the commonest. It was not true, as so often assumed, that the average American is keen to forge ahead and become something bigger than he is. That was one of the many self-flattering American ideals that had no relation to life. Mrs. Ansley's equality of opportunity was another. People passed these phrases on, and took for granted they were true, when in everyday practice they were false. There could be no breaking forth into a larger life so long as the national spirit made for repression, suppression, restriction, and denial. Maisie was but one of the hundred and sixteen millions of Americans out of a possible hundred and seventeen on whom all the pressure of social, industrial, educational, and religious life had been brought to bear to keep her mind shut, her tastes puerile, and her impulses to expansion thwarted. With a great show of helping and blessing the less fortunate, American life, he was coming to believe, was organized to force them back, and beat them into subjection. The hundred and seventeenth million loved to believe that it wasn't so; it was not according to their consciences that it should be so; but the result could be seen in the hundred and sixteen million minds drilled to disability, as Maisie's was. A young man not yet hardened to life's injustices, he saw himself rushing to Maisie's aid, to make the best of her. Experience would help her as it had helped him. The shriveled bud of her mind would unfold in warmth and sunshine. This would be in their future together. In the meantime he must clear the ground of the present by getting rid of pretence. "There's one thing I want to tell you, Maisie, something I'm rather ashamed of." The lapis lazuli eyes widened in a look of wonder. He might be going to tell her of another girl. "You know, as I've just said, that when we got engaged I was only sixteen. I didn't know anything about anything. I thought I did, of course; but then all fellows of sixteen think that. I'd never had anyone to teach me, or show me the right hang of things. You saw for yourself how I lived with Honey; and before that, as you know, I'd been a State ward. Further back than that--but I can't talk about it yet. Some day when we're married, and know each other better--" "I'm not asking you. I don't care." "No, I know you don't care, and that you're not asking me; but I want you to understand how it was that I was so ignorant, so much more ignorant than I suppose any other fellow would have been. When I went out to buy that ring you've got on--" He knew by the horror in her face that she divined what he had to tell her. He knew too that she had already been afraid of it. "You're not going to say that it isn't a real diamond?" To nerve himself he had to look at her steadily. Confessing a murder would have been easier. "No, Maisie, it isn't a real diamond. At the time I bought it I didn't know what a real diamond was. I'm not sure that I know now--" He stopped because, without taking her eyes from his, she was slipping the ring from her finger. She was slipping, too, an illusion from her mind. He knew now that to be trifled with in love, to be betrayed in a great trust, would be small things to Maisie as compared to this kind of deception. Her wrath and contempt were the more scathing to behold because of her cherry-colored prettiness. The ring lay on the table. Drawing in the second finger of her right hand, she made of it a spring against her thumb. She loosed the spring suddenly. The faked diamond sped across the table hitting against his hand. He picked it up, putting it out of sight in his waistcoat pocket. For a fellow of nineteen, eager to be something big, no lower depth of humiliation could ever be imagined. Maisie stood up. "You cheap skate!" He bowed his head as a criminal sometimes does when sentenced. He had no protest to make. A cheap skate was what he was. He sat there crushed. Skirting round him as if he were defiled, she went out into the little entry. He was still sitting crushed when she came back. She did not pause. She merely flung his hat on the table as she went by. It was a cheap skate's hat, a brown soft felt, shapeless, weather-stained, three years out of style. With no further words, she opened the door into the adjoining room, passed through it, and closed it noiselessly behind her. XXXIV For probating Honey's will he asked leave to come and consult Mr. Ansley. An appointment was made for an evening when that gentleman was to be at home. Tom, who had some gift for character, was beginning to understand him. Understanding him, it seemed to him that he understood all that old Boston which had once been a national institution, a force in the country's history, and now, like a man retired from business, sat resting on its hill. Old Boston was more significant, however, than a man retired from business, in that it was to a great degree a man retired from the pushing of ideals. Generous once with the hot generosity of youth, keen to throw itself into the fight against wrongs, ready to be slaughtered in the van rather than compromise on principles, old Boston had now reached the age of mellowness. It had grown weary in well-doing. It had done enough. Contending with national evils had proved to be futile. National evils had grown too big, too many, too insurgent. Better make the best of life as your people mean to live it. Keep quiet; take it easy; save money; let the country gang its own gait. A big turbulent country, with no more respect for old Boston than for the prophet Jeremiah, it wallowed in prosperous vulgarity. Let it wallow! With solid investments in cotton and copper old Boston could save its own soul. It withdrew from its country; it withdrew from its state; it withdrew from its own city. Where its ancestors had made the laws and administered them, it became, like those proud old groups of Spaniards still to be found in California, a remnant of a former time, making no further stand against the invader. With a little art, a little literature, a little music, a little education, a little religion, a little mild beneficence, and a great deal of astute financial and professional ability, it could pass its time and keep its high-mindedness intact. To Tom's summing up this was Philip Ansley. He was able, public-spirited, and generous; but he was disillusioned. The United States of his forefathers, of which he kept the ideal in his soul, had turned into such a hodgepodge of mankind, that he had neither hope nor sentiment with regard to it. In his heart he believed that its governments were in the hands of what he called a bunch of crooks. With congresses, state legislatures, and civic councils elected by what to him were hordes of ignoramuses, with laws dictated by cranks and fanatics, with the old-time liberties stampeded by the tyranny of majorities lacking a sense of responsibility, he deemed it prudent to follow the line of least resistance and give himself to making money. Apart from casting his vote for the Republican ticket on election days, he left city, state, and country to the demagogues and looters. He was sorry to do this, yet with the world as it was, he saw no help for it. But he served as director on the boards of a good many companies; he was an Overseer of Harvard, a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, the treasurer of several hospitals, a subscriber to every important philanthropic fund. His club was the Somerset; his church was Trinity. For old Boston these two facts when taken together placed him in that sacred shrine which in England consecrates dowager duchesses. When Tom was shown up he found his host in the room where two years earlier they had talked over the place as chauffeur, but he was no longer awed by it. Neither was he awed by finding Ansley wearing a dinner-jacket simply because it was evening. The conventions and amenities of civilized life were becoming a matter of course to him. "How d'ye do? Come in. Sit down. What's the weather like outside? Still pretty cold for April, isn't it?" Though he offered his hand only from his armchair, where he sat reading the evening paper, he offered it. It was also a tribute to Tom's progress that he was asked to take a seat. A still further sign of his having reached a position remotely on a footing of equality with the Ansleys was an invitation to help himself from a silver box of cigarettes. Having respectfully declined this honor, as Ansley himself was not smoking, he stated his errand. If Mr. Ansley would introduce him to some young inexpensive lawyer, who would tell him what to do in the probating of Honey's will.... The business was soon settled. In possession of Ansley's card with a scribbled line on it, Tom rose to take his leave. Ansley rose also, but moved toward the fireplace, where a few sticks were smoldering, as if he had something more to say. "Wait a minute. Sit down again. Have a cigarette." As Ansley himself lighted a cigar, Tom took a cigarette from the silver box, and leaned against the back of the big chair from which he had just risen. Once more he was struck by the resemblance between the shrewd close-lipped face, dropping into its meditative cast, and the lampshade just below it, parchment with a touch of rose, and an inner light. Ansley puffed for a minute or two pensively. "You've no family, I believe. You haven't got the complications of a lot of relatives." Tom was surprised by the new topic. "No, sir. I wish I had, but--" "Oh, well, for a young fellow like you, bound to get on--" He dropped this line to take up another. "I'm thinking about Guy. Occurred to me the other day that while he'd been dragged about Europe a good many times he didn't know anything of his own country. Never been west of the Hudson." Tom smoked and wondered. "I've suggested to him to take his summer's vacation and wander about. Get the lay of the land. Could cover a good deal of ground in three months. Zigzag up and down--Niagara--Colorado--Chicago--Grand Canyon--California--Seattle--back if he liked by the Canadian Pacific. What would you think?" "I think it would be great." "Would you go with him?" It seemed to Tom that his brain was spinning round. Not only was he too dazed to find words, but the question of money came first. How could he afford ...? But Ansley went on again. "It's a choice between you and a tutor. My wife would like a tutor. Guy wants you. So do I. You'd have your traveling expenses, of course--do everything the same as Guy--and, let us say, five hundred dollars for your time. Would that suit you?" He didn't know how to answer. Excitement, gratitude, and a sense of insufficiency churned together and choked him. It was only by spluttering and stammering that he could say at last: "If--if Mrs. Ansley--d-doesn't w-want me--" "Oh, she'd give in. Simply feels that Guy'd get more good out of it if he had some one to point out moral lessons as he went along. I don't. Two young fellows together, if they're at all the right kind, 'll do each other more good than all the law and the prophets." "But would you mind telling me, sir, something of what you'd expect from me?" "Oh, nothing! Just play round with him, and have a good time. You seem to chum up with him all right." Tom was distressed. "Yes, sir, but if I'm to be--to be paid for chumming up with him I should have to--" "Forget it. I want Guy to take the trip. It's not the kind of trip anyone wants to take alone, and you're the fellow he'd like to have with him. I'd like it too. You understand him." He turned round to knock the ash from his cigar into the dying fire. "Trouble with Guy is that he has no sense of values. Thing he needs to learn is what's worth while and what's not. I don't want you to teach him. I just want him to _see_. What do you say?" Tom hung his head, not from humility but to think out a point that troubled him. "You know, sir"--he looked up again--"that when Guy and I get together we talk about things that--well, that you mightn't like." "I don't care a hang what you talk about." "Yes, sir; but this is something particular." "Well, then, keep it to yourself." "I can't keep it to myself because--because some day you might think that I'd had a bad ... as long as we've just been chums ... and I wasn't paid--" Ansley moved away from the fireplace, striding up and down in front of it. "Look here, my boy! I know what young fellows are. I know you talk about things you wouldn't bring up before Mrs. Ansley and me. I don't care. It's what I expect. Do you both good. You're not specially vicious, either of you, and even if you were--" "It's not a matter of morals, sir; it's one of opinions." He dismissed this lightly. "Oh, opinions!" "But this is a special kind of opinion. You see, sir, I've always been poor. I've lived among poor people. I've seen how much they have to go without. And I begin to see all that rich people have more than they need--more than they can ever use." "Oh, quite so! I see! I see! And you both get a bit revolutionary. Go to it, boy! Fellows of your age who're not boiling over with rebellion against social conditions as they are'll never be worth their salt. Don't say anything about it before Mrs. Ansley, but between yourselves.... Why, when I was an undergraduate.... You'll live through it, though.... The poor people don't want any champions.... They don't want to be helped.... You get sick of it in the long run.... But while you're young boil away.... If that's all that bothers you...." Tom explained that it was all that bothered him, and the bargain was struck. He had expressed his thanks, shaken hands, and reached the threshold on the way out when Ansley spoke again. "Guy tells me that out at Cambridge they call you the Whitelaw Baby. I suppose you know all about yourself--your people--where you began--that sort of thing?" He decided to be positive, laconic, to do what he could to squelch the idea in Ansley's mind. "Yes, sir; I do." "Then that settles that." XXXV Between the end of the college year and the departure on the journey westward there was to be an interval of three weeks. Mrs. Ansley had insisted on that. She was a mother. For eight or nine months she had seen almost nothing of her boy. Now if he was to be taken from her for the summer, and for another college year after that, she might as well not have a son at all. Tom was considering where he should pass the intervening time when the following note unnerved him. _Dear Mr. Whitelaw_ Mother wants to know if when college closes, and Guy joins us in New Hampshire, you will not come with him for the three weeks before you start on your trip. Please do. I shall have got there by that time, and I haven't seen you now for nearly two years. We must have a lot of notes to compare, and ought to be busy comparing them. Do come then, for our sakes if not for your own. You will give us a great deal of pleasure. Yours very sincerely, Hildred Ansley. His heart failed him. It failed him because of the details as to customs, etiquette, and dress he didn't know anything about. He should be called on to speak fluently in a language of which he was only beginning to spell out the little words. It seemed to him at first that he couldn't accept the invitation. Then, not to accept it began to look like cowardice. He would never get anywhere if he funked what he didn't know. When you didn't know you went to work and found out. You couldn't find out unless you put yourself in the way of seeing what other people did. After twenty-four hours of reflection he penned the simplest form of note. Thanking Hildred for her mother's kind invitation, he accepted it. Before putting his letter in the post, however, he dropped in to call on Guy. Guy, who was strumming the Love-Death of Isolde, tossed his comments over his shoulder as he thumped out the passion. "That's Hildred. She's made mother do it. Nutty on that sort of thing." Tom's heart failed him again. "Nutty on what sort of thing?" Isolde's anguish mounted and mounted till it seemed as if it couldn't mount any higher, and yet went on mounting. "Oh, well! She's toted it up that you haven't got a home--that for three weeks after college closes you'll be on the town--and so on." "I see." "All the same, come along. I'd just as soon. Dad won't be there hardly. The old lady'll be booming about, but you needn't mind her. You'll have your room and grub for those three weeks, and that's all you've got to think about. Anyhow, it's bats in the attic with Hildred the minute it comes to a lame dog." While Guy's fat figure swayed over the piano, Isolde's great heart broke. Tom went back to his room and wrote a second answer, regretting that owing to the pressure of his engagements he would be unable.... And then there came another reaction. What did it matter if Hildred Ansley _was_ opening the door out of pity? Pity was one of the loveliest traits of character. Only a cad would resent it. He sent his first reply. Having done this, he felt it right to go and call on Mrs. Ansley. He was sure she didn't want him in New Hampshire, but by taking it for granted that she did he would discount some of her embarrassment. As Mrs. Ansley was not at home Pilcher held out a little silver tray. Tom understood that he should have had a card to put in it. A card was something of which he had never hitherto felt the need. He said so to Pilcher frankly. Pilcher's stony medieval face, the face of a saint on the portal of some primitive cathedral, smiled rarely, but when it did it smiled engagingly. "You'll find a visitin' card very 'andy, Mr. Tom, now that you're so big. Mr. Guy has had one this long spell back." It was a lead. In shy unobtrusive ways Pilcher had often shown himself his friend. Tom confessed his yearning for a card if only he knew how to order one. "I'll show you one of Mr. Guy's. He always has the right thing. I'll find out too where he gets them done. If you'll step in, Mr. Tom...." As he waited in the dining room, with the good-natured Ansley ancestor smiling down at him, there floated through Tom's mind a phrase from the Bible as taught by Mrs. Tollivant. "The Lord sent His angel." Wasn't that what He was doing now, and wasn't the angel taking Pilcher's guise? When the heavenly messenger came back with the card Tom went straight to his point. "Pilcher, I wonder if you'd mind helping me?" "I'd do it and welcome, Mr. Tom." Mr. Tom told of his invitation to New Hampshire, and of his ignorance of what to do and wear. If Pilcher would only give him a hint.... He could not have found a better guide. Pilcher explained that a few little things had to be as second nature. A few other little things were uncertain points as to which it was always permissible to ask. In the way of second nature Tom would find sporting flannels and tennis shoes an essential. So he would find a dinner-jacket suit, with the right kind of shirt, collar, tie, shoes, and socks to wear with it. As to things permissible to ask about, Pilcher could more easily explain them when they were both in the same house. Occasions would crop up, but could not be foreseen. "The real gentry is ever afraid of showin' that they don't know. They takes not knowin' as a joke. Many's the time when I've been waitin' at table I've 'eard a born gentleman ask the born lady sittin' next to 'im which'd be the right fork to use, and she'd say that she didn't know but was lookin' round to see what other people done. That's what they calls hease of manner, Mr. Tom." Under the Ansley roof he would meet none but the gentry born. Any one of them would respect him more for asking when he didn't know. It was only the second class that bothered about being so terribly correct, and they were not invited by Mrs. Ansley. In addition to these consoling facts Tom could always fall back on him, Pilcher, as a referee. Being a guest in a community in which two years earlier he had been a chauffeur Tom found easier than he had expected because he worked out a formula. He framed his formula before going to New Hampshire. "Servants are servants and masters are masters because they divide themselves into classes. The one is above, and is recognized as being above; the other is below, and is recognized as being below. I shall be neither below nor above; or I shall be both. I will _not_ go into a class. As far as I know how I'll be everybody's equal." He had, however, to find another formula for this. "You're everybody's equal when you know you are. Whatever you know will go of itself. The trouble I see with the bumptious American, who claims that he's as good as anybody else, is that he thinks only of forcing himself to the level of the highest; he doesn't begin at the bottom, and cover all the ground between the bottom and the top. I'm going to do that. I shall be at home among the lot of them. To be at home I must _feel_ at home. I mustn't condescend to the boys of two years ago who'll still be driving cars, and I mustn't put on airs to be fit for Mrs. Ansley's drawing-room. I must be myself. I mustn't be ashamed because I've been in a humble position; and I mustn't be swanky because I've been put in a better one. I must be natural; I must be big. That'll give me the ease of manner Pilcher talks about." With these principles as a basis of behavior, his embarrassments sprang from another source. They began at the station in Keene. He knew he was to be met; and he supposed it would be by Guy. "Oh, here you are!" She came on him suddenly in the crowd, tall, free in her movements, always a little older than her age. If in the nearly two years since their last meeting changes had come to him, more had apparently come to her. She was a woman, while he was not yet a man. She was easy, independent, taking the lead with natural authority. From the first instant of shaking hands he felt in her something solicitous and protective. It showed itself in the little things as to which awkwardness or diffidence on his part might have been presumed. So as not to leave him in doubt of what he ought to do, she took the initiative with an air of quiet, competent command. She led the way to the car; she told him to throw his handbags and coat into the back part of it; she made him sit beside her as she drove. "No, I'm going to drive," she insisted, when he had offered to take the wheel. "I want you to see how well I can do it. I like showing off. This is my own car. I drove it all last summer." They talked about cars and their makes because the topic was an easy one. Speeding out of Keene, they left behind them the meadows of the Ashuelot to climb into a country with which Nature had been busy ever since her first flaming forces had cooled down to form a world. Cooling down and flinging up, she had tossed into the azoic age a tumble of mountains higher doubtless than Andes or Alps. Barren, stupendous, appalling, they would not have been easy for man, when he came, to live with in comfort, had not the great Earth-Mother gone to some pains to polish them down. Taking her leisure through eons of years, she brought from the north her implement, the ice. Without haste, without rest, a few inches in a century, she pushed it against the barrier she meant to mold and penetrate. As a dyke before the pressure of a flood, the barrier broke here, broke there, and yet as a whole maintained itself. Heights were cut off from heights. Valleys were carved between them. What was sharp became rounded; what was jagged was worn smooth. The highest pinnacles crashed down. When after thousands of years the glacial mass receded, only the stumps were left of what had once been terrific primordial elevations. Dense forests began to cover them. Lakes formed in the hollows. Little rivers drained them, to be drained themselves by a nameless stream which fell into a nameless sea. Through ages and ages the thrushes sang, the wild bees hummed, and the bear, the deer, the fox, the lynx ranged freely. Man came. He came stealthily, unnoted, leaving so light a trace that nothing remains to tell of his first passage but a few mysterious syllables. The river once nameless became the Connecticut; the base of a mighty primeval mountain bears the Nipmuck name Monadnock. In this angle of New Hampshire thrust in between Massachusetts and Vermont names are a living record. The Nipmuck disappeared in proportion as the restless English colonists pushed farther and farther from the sea. They came in little companies, generally urged by some religious disagreement with those they had left behind. To escape the "Congregational way" they fled into the mountains. There they were free to follow the "Episcoparian way." As "Episcoparians" they printed the map with names which enshrined their old-home memories. Clustering within sight of the blue mass of Monadnock are neat white towns--Marlborough, Richmond, Chesterfield, Walpole, Peterborough, Fitzwilliam, Winchester--rich with "Episcoparian" suggestion. In the early eighteenth century there came in another strain. Driven by famine, a thousand pilgrims arrived in these relatively empty lands from the North of Ireland, sturdy, strong-minded, Protestant. Grouping themselves into three communities, they named them with Irish names, Antrim, Hillsborough, Dublin. It was to Dublin that Tom and Hildred were on the way. The subject of cars exhausted, she swung to something else. "You like the idea of going with Guy?" "It's great." "I like it too. I'd rather he was with you than with anybody. You never make game of him, and yet you never humor him." "What do you mean by that, that I never humor him?" "Oh, well! Guy's standards aren't very high. We know that. But you never lower yours." "How do you know I don't?" "Because Guy says so. Don't imagine for a minute that he doesn't see. He likes you so much because he respects you." "He respects a lot of other fellows too." A little "H'm!" through pursed-up lips was a sign of dissent. "I wonder. He goes with them, I know, and rather envies them, which is what I mean by his standards not being very high; but--" "Oh, Guy's all right. The fellows you speak of are sometimes a little fresh; but he knows where to draw the line. He'll go to a certain point; but you won't get him beyond it." "And he owes that to you." "Oh, no, he doesn't, not in the least." "Well, _I_--" she held the personal pronoun for emphasis--"think he does." In this good opinion she was able to be firm because she seemed older than he. In reality she was two years younger, but life in a larger society had given her something of the tone of a woman of the world. This development on her part disconcerted him. So long as she had been the slip of a thing he remembered, prim, sedate, old-fashioned as the term is applied to children, she had not been a factor in his relations with the Ansley family. Now, suddenly, he saw her as the most important factor of all. The emergence of personality troubled him. Since she was obliged to keep her eyes on the turnings of the road, he was able to study her in profile. It was the first time he had really looked at a woman since he had summed up Maisie in Nashua. That had been two months earlier. The place which Maisie had so long held in his heart had been empty for those two months, except for a great bitterness. It was the bitterness of disillusion, of futility. Rage and pain were in it, with more of mortification than there was of either. He would never again hear of a cheap skate without thinking of the figure he had cut in the eyes of the girl whom he thought he was honoring merely in being true. All girls had been hateful to him since that day, just as all boys will be to a dog who has been stoned by one of them. Yet here he was already looking at a girl with something like fascination. That was because fascination was the emotion she evoked. She was strange; she was arresting. You wondered what she was like. You watched her when she moved; you listened to her when she talked. Once you had heard her voice, bell-like and crystalline, you would always be able to recall it. He noticed the way she was dressed because her knitted silk sweater was of a pattern he had never seen before. It ran in horizontal dog-toothed bands, shading from green to blue, and from blue to a dull red. Green was the predominating color, grass-green, jade-green, sea-green, sage-green, but toned to sobriety by this red of old brick, this blue of indigo. Indigo was the short plain skirt, and the stockings below it. An indigo tam-o'-shanter was pinned to her smooth, glossy, bluish-black hair with a big carnelian pin. He remembered that he used to think her Cambodian. He thought so again. Having arrived at the house, they found no one but Pilcher to receive them. Mrs. Ansley had gone out to tea; Mr. Guy had left word for Miss Hildred to bring Mr. Tom to the club, where he was playing tennis. "Do you care to go?" Knowing that he couldn't spend three weeks in Dublin without facing this invitation, he had decided in advance to accept it the first time it came. "If you go." "All right; let's. But you'd like first to go to your room, wouldn't you? Pilcher, take Mr. Whitelaw up. I'll wait here with the car. We'll start as soon as you come down." Running up the stairs, he wondered whether it would be the proper thing for him to change to his new white flannels, when, as if divining his perplexity, she called after him. "Come just as you are. Don't stop to put on other things. I'll go as I am too." This maternal foresight was again on guard as they turned from the road into the driveway to the club. "Do you want to come and be introduced to a lot of people, or would you rather browse about by yourself? You can do whichever you like." He replied with a suggestion. As a good many cars would be parked in the narrow space of the club avenues, he thought she had better jump out at the club steps, leaving him to find a space where the car could stand. He would hang around there till Guy's game was over and the party was ready to go home. Having parked the car, he was in with the chauffeurs, some of whom were old acquaintances. True to his formula, he went about among them, shaking hands, and asking for their news. They were oddly alike, not only in their dustcoats and chauffeurs' caps, but in features and cast of mind. "You got a job?" he was asked in his turn. "Been taken on to travel with young Ansley. We stay here for three weeks, and then go out west." "Loot pretty good?" "Oh, just about the same, and, of course, I get my expenses." "Pretty soft, what?" came from an Englishman. "Yes, but then it's only for the summer." These duties done, he felt free to stroll off till he found a convenient rock on which to sit by the lakeside. Lighting a cigarette, he was glad of a half hour to himself in which to enjoy the scene. It was a reposeful scene, because all that was human and sporting in it was lost in the living spirit of the background. It was what he had always felt in this particular landscape, and had never been able to define till now--its quality of life. It was life of another order from physical life, and on another plane. You might have said that it reached you out of some phase of creation different from that of Earth. These hills were living hills; this lake was a living lake. Through them, as in the serene sky, a Presence shone and smiled on you. He had often noticed, during the summer at the inn-club, that you could sit idle and silent with that Presence, and not be bored. You looked and looked; you thought and thought; you were bathed about in tranquillity. People might be running around, and calling or shouting, as they were doing now in the tennis courts on a ledge of the hillside above him, not five hundred yards away, but they disturbed you no more than the birds or the butterflies. The Presence was too immense, too positive, to allow little things to trouble it. Rather, it took them and absorbed them, as if the Supreme Activity, which for millions of years before there was a man had been working to transform this spot into a cup of overflowing loveliness, could use anything that came Its way. So he sat and smoked and thought and felt soothed. It was early enough in the summer for the birds to be singing from all the wooded terraces and the fringe of lakeside trees. Calls from the tennis courts, cries from young people climbing on the raft in the lake or diving from the spring-board, came to him softened and sweet. It was living peace, invigorating, restful. XXXVI A woman passed along the driveway, and looked at him. He looked at her. The rock on which he sat being no more than a dozen yards from where she walked, they could see each other plainly. It seemed to him that as she went by she relaxed her pace to study him. She was a little woman, pretty, sad-faced, neatly dressed and perhaps fifty years of age. Having passed once, she turned on her steps and passed again. She passed a third time and a fourth. Each time she passed she gave him the same long scrutinizing look, without self-consciousness or embarrassment. He thought she might be a lady's maid or a chauffeur's wife. He turned to watch a young man taking a swan dive from the spring-board. Having run the few steps which was all the spring-board allowed of, he stood poised on the edge, feet together, his arms at his thighs. With the leap forward his arms went out at right angles. When he turned toward the water they bent back behind his head, his palms twisted upward. Nearing the surface they pointed downward, cleaving the lake with a clean, splashless penetration. The whole movement had been lithe and graceful, the curve of a swan's neck, the spring of a flying fish. Not till she was close beside him did he notice that the little woman had left the roadway, crossed the intervening patch of blueberry scrub, and seated herself on a low bowlder close to his own. Her self-possession was that of a woman with a single dominating motive. "You've just arrived with Miss Ansley, haven't you?" The voice, like the manner, was intense and purposeful. In assenting, he had the feeling of touching something elemental, like hunger or fire, which wouldn't be denied. "And you're at Harvard." He assented to this also. "At Harvard they call you the Whitelaw Baby, don't they?" "I've heard so. Why do you ask?" "Because I'm the nurse from whom the Whitelaw baby was stolen nearly twenty years ago. My name is Nash." A memory came to him of something far away. He could hear Honey saying he had seen her, a pretty little Englishwoman, and that Nash was her name. Looking at her now, he saw that she was more than a pretty little Englishwoman; she was a soul in torture, with a flame eating at the heart. He felt sorry for her, but not so sorry as to be free from impatience at the dogging with which the Whitelaw baby followed him. "Why do you say this to me?" "Because of what I've heard from the family. They've spoken of you. They think it--queer." "They think what queer?" "That your name is Whitelaw--that your father's name was Theodore--that you look so much like the rest of them. Mr. Whitelaw's name is Henry Theodore--" "And my father's name was only Theodore. My mother's name was Lucy. I was born in The Bronx. I'm exactly nineteen years of age. I've heard that Mr. Whitelaw's son if he were living now would be twenty." Large gray eyes with silky drooping lids rested on his with a look of long, slow searching. "You're sure of all that?" He tried to laugh. "As sure as you can be of what's not within your own recollection. I've been told it. I've reason to believe it." "I'd no reason to believe that I should ever find my boy again; but I know I shall." "That must be a comfort to you in the trial you've had to face." "It hasn't been a trial exactly, because you bear a trial and live through it. This has been spending every day and every night in the lake of fire and brimstone. I wonder if you've any idea of what it's like." "I don't suppose I have." "If you did have--" He thought she was going to say that if he did have he would allow himself to become the Whitelaw baby in order to relieve her anguish, but she struck another note. "I hadn't the least suspicion of what had been done to me till the two footmen had lifted the little carriage up over the steps and into the hall. Then I raised the veil to take my baby out, and I--I fell in a dead swoon." He waited for her to go on again. "Try to imagine what it is to find in place of the living child you've laid in its bed with all the tenderness in your soul--to find in place of that a dirty, ugly, stuffed thing, about a baby's size.... For days after that I was just as if I was drugged. If I came to for a few minutes I prayed that I mightn't live. I didn't want to look the mother and father in the face." "But hadn't you told them anything about it?" "There was nothing to tell. The baby had vanished. I'd seen nothing; I'd heard nothing. Neither had my friend who was with me, and who's married now, in England. If an evil spirit had done it, it couldn't have been silenter, or more secret. It was a mystery then; it's been a mystery ever since." "But you raised an alarm? You made a search?" "The whole country raised the alarm. There wasn't a corner, or a suspicious character, that wasn't searched. We knew it had been done for ransom, and the ransom was ready if ever the baby had been returned. The father and mother were that frantic they'd have done anything. There never was a baby in the world more loved, or more lovable. All three of us--the father, the mother, and myself--would have died for him." He grew interested in the story for its own sake. "And did you never get any idea at all?" "Nothing that ever led to anything. For a good five years Mr. Whitelaw never rested. Mrs. Whitelaw--but it's no use trying to tell you. It can't be told; it can't be so much as imagined. Even when you've lived through it you wonder how you ever did. You wonder how you go on living day by day. It's almost as if you were condemned to eternal punishment. The clues were the worst." "You mean that--?" "If we could have known that the child was dead--well, you make up your mind to that. After a while you can take up life again. But not to know anything! Just to be left wondering! Asking yourself what they're doing with him!--whether they're giving him the right kind of food!--whether they're giving him _any_ kind of food!--whether they're going to kill him, and how they're going to kill him, and who's to do the killing! To go over these questions morning, noon, and night--to eat with them, and sleep with them, and wake with them--and then the clues!" "You said they were the worst." "Because they always made you hope. No matter how often you'd been taken in you were ready to be taken in again. Each time they said there was a chance you couldn't help thinking that there _might_ be a chance. It didn't matter how much you told yourself it wasn't likely. You couldn't make yourself believe it. You felt that he'd _have_ to be found, that he couldn't help being found. The whole thing was so impossible that you'd have to go to his room and look at his little empty crib to persuade yourself that he wasn't there." To divert her from going over the ground she must have gone over thousands of times already, he broke in with a new line of thought. "But I've heard that they don't want to find him now--a grown-up man." She stared at him fiercely. "_I_ do. _I_ want to find him. They were not to blame. I was. It makes the difference." "Still he was their son." "He was their son, and they've suffered; but they can rest in spite of their suffering. I can't. They can afford to give up hope because they've nothing with which to reproach themselves. If they were me--" He began to understand. "I see. If you could find him and bring him back, even if they didn't want him--" "I should have done _that_ much. It would be something. It's why I pleaded with them to let me stay with them when I suppose the very sight of me must have tortured them. I swore that I'd give my life to trying to--" "But what could you do when even the child's father, with all his money, couldn't--?" "I could pray. They couldn't. They're not like that. Praying's all I've ever done which wasn't done by somebody else. I've prayed as I don't think many people have ever prayed; and now I've come to where--" "Where what?" The light in her eyes was lambent, leaping and licking like a flame. "Where I'm quieter." She made her statement slowly. "I seem to know that he'll be given back to me because the Bible says that when we pray believing that we _have_ what we ask for we shall receive it. Latterly I've believed that. I haven't forced myself to believe it. It's just come of its own accord--something like a certainty." The claim in the look which without wavering fixed itself upon him prompted another question. "And has that certainty got anything to do with me?" "I wonder if it hasn't." "But I don't see how it can have, when you never saw me in your life till twenty minutes ago." "I never saw you; but I'd heard of you. I meant to see you as soon as I got a chance. I never got it till to-day." "But how did you know?" "That it was you? This way. You see I'm here with Miss Lily. She's staying for a few nights at the inn-club before going to make some visits." "Who's Miss Lily?" "She was the second of the two children born after my little boy was taken. First there was Mr. Tad. Then there was a little girl. She knows Miss Ansley. Miss Ansley told her you were coming up, that you'd very likely be here this afternoon, so I came and waited. Even if I hadn't seen you drive up with her--if we'd met in the heart of Africa--I'd have known.... You've been taken for Mr. Tad already. You know that, don't you?" "I know there's a resemblance." "It's more than a resemblance. It's--it's the whole story. Mr. Whitelaw himself saw it first. When he came back after meeting you, in this very place, nearly two years ago, he was--well, he was terribly upset. If it hadn't been for Mr. Tad and Miss Lily--" "And their mother too." "Yes, I suppose; and their mother too. But that's not what we're considering. Whether they want you or not, if you _are_ the boy--" He tried to speak very gently. "But you see, I couldn't be. I had a mother. I don't remember much about her because I was only six or seven when she died. But two things I recall--the way she loved me, and the way I loved her. If I thought there was any truth in what you--in what you suspect--I couldn't love her any more." "I don't see why." "Because I should be charging her with a crime. Would you do that--to your own mother--after she was dead?" "If she was dead it wouldn't matter." "Not to her. But it would to me." "It couldn't do you any harm." "I'm the only judge of that." There was exasperation in the eyes which seemed unable to tear themselves from his face. "But most people would like to have it proved that they'd been--" "Been born rich men's sons. That's what you were going to say, isn't it? I daresay I should have liked it, if.... But what's the use? We don't gain anything by discussing it. You want to find some one who'll pass for the lost boy. I understand that; and I understand how much it would lessen all the grief--" She interrupted quickly. "Yes, but I wouldn't try to foist an imposter on them, not if it would take me out of hell. If I didn't believe--" "But you don't believe now; you can't believe. What I've told you about myself must make believing impossible." "Oh, if I hadn't believed when believing was impossible I shouldn't have the little bit of mind I've got now. Believing when it was impossible was all that kept me sane." "But you won't go on doing it, not as far as I'm concerned?" She rose, with dignity. "Why not? I shan't be hurting you, shall I? In a way we all believe it--even the Whitelaw family--even Miss Ansley." He jumped up, startled. "Did she tell you so?" "She didn't tell me so exactly. We were talking about it--we've all talked of it more than you suppose--and Miss Ansley said that you couldn't be what you are unless you were--_somebody_." He tried to take this jocosely. "No, of course I couldn't." "Oh, but I know what she meant." She moved away from him, speaking over her shoulder as she crossed the blueberry scrub, "It was more than what's in the words." XXXVII Except for a passing glimpse in Dublin, Tom never saw Lily Whitelaw till in December he met her at the ball at which Hildred Ansley came out. As to going to this ball he had his usual fit of funk, but Hildred had insisted. "But, Tom, you must. You're the one I care most about." "I shouldn't know what to do." "I'll see to that. You'll only have to do what I tell you." "And I haven't got an evening coat with tails." "Well, get one. If you look as well in it as you do in your dinner-jacket outfit--and you'd better have a white waistcoat, a silk hat, and a pair of white gloves. What'll happen to you when you get there you can leave to me. Now that I know you look so well, and dance so well, you'll give me no trouble at all." Her kindness humbled him. He felt the necessity of taking it as kindness and nothing more. Knowing too that he must school his own emotions to a sense of gratitude, he imagined that he so schooled them. With the five hundred dollars he had earned through the summer added to what remained of Honey's legacy, he had enough for his current year at Harvard, with a margin over. The tailed evening coat, the white waistcoat, the silk hat, the gloves, he looked upon as an investment. He went to the ball. It was given at the Shawmut, the new hotel with a specialty in this sort of entertainment. The ballroom had been specially designed so as to afford a spectacle. A circular cup, surrounded by a pillared gallery for chaperons and couples preferring to "sit out," you descended into it by one of four broad shallow staircases, whence the _coup d'oeil_ was superb. By being more or less passive, he got through the evening better than he had expected. Knowing scarcely anyone, he fell back on his formula. "I mustn't be conscious of it. I must take not knowing anyone for granted, as I should if I were in a crowd at a theater, or the lobby of this hotel. If I feel like a stray cat I shall look like a stray cat. If I feel at ease I shall look at ease." In this he was supported by the knowledge of wearing the right thing. Even Guy, whom he had met for a minute in the cloakroom, had been surprised into a compliment. "Gee whiz! Who do you think you are? The old lady's been afraid you'd look like an outsider. Now she'll be struck silly. Lot of girls here that you'll put their eye out." When he had shaken hands Hildred found a minute in which to whisper, "Tom, you're the Greek god you read about in novels. Don't feel shy. All you need do is to stand around and be ornamental. Your rôle is the romantic unknown." She returned after the next bout of "receiving." "You and I will have the supper dance. I've insisted on that, and mother's given in. Don't get too far out of reach, so that I can put my hand on you when I want you." He danced a little, chiefly with girls whom no one else would dance with and to whom some member of the Ansley family introduced him. When not dancing he returned to the gallery, where he leaned against a convenient pillar and looked on. It was what he best liked doing. Liking it, he did it well. He could hear people ask who he was. He could hear some Harvard fellow answer that he was the Whitelaw Baby. Once he heard a lady say, as she passed behind his back, "Well, he does look like the Whitelaws, doesn't he?" The New York papers had recalled the Whitelaw baby to the public mind in connection with the ball given a few weeks earlier to "bring out" Lily Whitelaw. Once in so often the whole story was rehearsed, making the younger Whitelaws sick of it, and their parents suffer again. The fact that Tad and Lily Whitelaw were there that night gave piquancy to the presence of the romantic stranger. His stature, his good looks, his natural dignity, together with the mystery as to who he was, made him in a measure the figure of the evening. From where he stood by his pillar in the gallery he recognized Lily in the swirl below, a slim, sinuous creature in shimmering green. All her motions were serpentine. She might have been Salome; she might also have been a shop girl, self-conscious and eager to be noticed. Whatever was outrageous in the dances of that autumn she did for the benefit of her elders. When she turned toward him he could see that she had an insolent kind of beauty. It was a dark, spoiled beauty that seemed lowering because of her heavy Whitelaw eyebrows, and possibly a little tragic. In thought he could hear Hildred singing, as she had sung when he stayed with them at Dublin in the spring, "Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives by kindness." Lily's beauty would not. It was an imperious beauty, willful and inconsiderate. He saw Hildred dancing too. She danced as if dancing were an incident and not an occupation. She had left more important things to do it; she would go back to more important things again. While she was at it she took it gayly, gracefully, as all in the evening's work, but as something of no consequence. She was in tissue of gold like an oriental princess, a gold gleam in her oriental eyes. An ermine stole as a protection against draughts was sometimes thrown over her shoulders, but more often across her arm. He noticed the poise of her head. No other head in the world could have been so nobly held, so superbly independent. Its character was in its simplicity. Fashion did not exist for it. The glossy dark hair was brushed back from forehead and temples into a knot which made neatness a distinction. Distinction was the chief beauty in the profile, with its rounded chin, its firm, small, well-curved lips, and a nose deliciously snub. Decision, freedom, unconsciousness of self, were betrayed in all her attitudes and movements. Merely to watch her roused in him a dull, aching jealousy for Lily. He surprised himself by regretting that Lily hadn't been like this. Imperious, willful, and inconsiderate Lily seemed to him again as she drank champagne and smoked cigarettes at supper. The party at her table, which was near the one at which he sat with Hildred, was jovial and noisy. Lily's partner, a fellow whom he knew by sight at Harvard, drank freely, laughed loudly, and now and then slapped the table. Lily too slapped the table, though she did it with her fan. In the early morning--it might have been two o'clock--Tom found himself accidentally near her when Hildred happened to be passing. "Oh, Lily! I want to introduce Mr. Whitelaw. He's got the same name as yours, hasn't he? Tom, do ask her to dance." With her easy touch-and-go she left them to each other. Without a glance at him, Lily said, tonelessly, "I'm not going to dance any more. I'm going to look for my brother and go home." A whoop from the other side of the ballroom, where a rowdy note had come over the company, gave an indication of Tad's whereabouts. Tom suggested that he might find him and bring him up. Lily walked away without answering. Hildred hurried back. "I'm sorry. I saw what she did. Try not to mind it." "Oh, I don't. I decided long ago that one couldn't afford to be done down by that sort of thing. It pays in the end to forget it." "One of these days she'll be sorry she did it. Your innings will come then." "I'm not crazy for an innings. But time does avenge one, doesn't it?" He nodded toward the ballroom floor, where Lily, with a stalking, tip-toeing tread was pushing a man backward as if she would have pushed him down had he not recovered his balance and begun pushing her. "It avenges one even for that. Two minutes ago she said she wasn't going to dance any more." "Well, she's changed her mind. That's all. Come and take a turn with me." The affectionate solicitude in her tone was not precisely new to him, but for the first time he dared to wonder if it could be significant. By all the canons of life and destiny she was outside his range. She could take this intimate, sisterly way with him, he had reasoned hitherto, because she was so far above him. She was the Queen; he was only Ruy Blas, a low-born fellow in disguise. If he found himself loving her, if there was something so sterling and womanly in her nature that he couldn't help loving her, that would be his own look-out. He had made up his mind to that before the end of his three weeks in Dublin in the spring. Her tactful camaraderie then had carried him over all the places which in the nature of things he might have found difficult, doing it with a sweet assumption that they had an aim in common. Only they had no aim in common! Between him and her there could be nothing but pity and kindness on the one side, with humility and devotion on the other. He had felt that till to-night. He had felt it to-night up to the minute of hearing those words, "Come and take a turn with me." The difference was in her voice. It had tones of comfort and encouragement. More than that, it had tones of comprehension and concern. She entered into his feelings, his struggles, his sympathies, his defeats. In the very way in which she put one hand on his shoulder and placed the other within his own he thought there might be more than the conventional gesture of the dance. "You don't know how much I appreciate your coming to-night," she said, when she found an opportunity. "If you hadn't come I should have felt it as much as if father, or mother, or Guy hadn't come. More, I think, because--well, I don't know why--_because_. I only believe that I should have. It's been an awful bore to you, too." "No, it hasn't. I've seen a lot. I like to get the hang of--of this sort of thing. I don't often get a chance." "I thought of that. It seemed to me that the experience would be something. Everything's grist that comes to your mill, so that the more you see of things the better." That was all they said, but when he left her she held his hand, she let him hold hers, till their arms were stretched out to full length. Even then her eyes smiled at him, and his smiled down into hers. Having seen other people go, he decided to slip away himself. But in the cloakroom he found Tad, white and sodden in a chair, his hands thrust into his trousers' pockets, his legs stretched wide apart in front of him. No one was there but the cloakroom attendant who winked at Tom, as one who would understand the effect of too much champagne. "Too young a head. Ought to be got home." "I'll take him. Know where he lives. Going his way. Ask some one to call us a taxi." Tad made no remonstrance as they helped him into his overcoat, and rammed his hat on his head. He knew what they were doing. "Home!" he muttered. "Home bes' place! Bed! God, I cou' go to sleep right now." He did go to sleep in the taxi, his head on Tom's shoulder. Tom held him up, with his arm around his waist. Once more he had the feeling that had stirred in him before, of something deeper than the common human depths, primitive, pre-social, antedating languages and laws. "He's not my brother," he declared to himself, "but if he were...." He couldn't end that sentence. He could only feel glad that, since the boy _had_ to be taken home, the task should have fallen to him. At Westmorley Court, where Tad now had his quarters, there was no difficulty of admittance. In his own room he submitted quietly to being undressed. Tom even found a suit of pajamas, stuffing the limp form into it. He got him into bed; he covered him up. Winding his watch, he put it on the night-table. All being done, he stooped over the bed to lift the arm that had flung aside the bedclothes, and put it under them again. He staggered back. There flashed through his mind some of the stories by which Honey had accounted for the loss of his eye. His own left eye felt smashed in and shattered. He was sick; he was faint. He could hardly stand. He could hardly think. The room, the world, were flying into splinters. "You damn sucker! Get out of this!" By the time Tom had recovered himself Tad was settling to sleep. XXXVIII Nothing but the knowledge that the boy was drunk had kept him from striking back there and then. His temper was a hot one. It came in fierce gusts, which stormed off quickly. The quickness saved him now. Before he was home in bed he had reconciled himself to bearing this thing too. It was bigger to bear it, more masculine, more civilized. He would never forget his racking remorse after the last fight. He didn't lose his eye, but he was obliged to see an oculist. The oculist pronounced it a close shave. "Where in thunder did you get that?" Guy demanded, a day or two after the occurrence. Tom thought it an opportunity to learn whether or not the boy had been conscious of what he did. "Ask Tad Whitelaw." "_What?_ You don't mean to say you've had another row with him! Gee whiz!" "No, I haven't had another row with him; but all the same, ask him." Guy asked him, with no information but that the mucker would get another if he didn't keep out of the way. It was all Tom needed to know. He had not been too drunk to strike with deliberate intention, and to remember that he had struck. Guy must have told Hildred, because she wrote begging Tom to come to see her. He wasn't to mind his black eye, because she knew all about it. She was tender, consoling. "I don't believe he's a cad any more than I believe that of Lily," she said, while giving him a cup of tea, "but they're both spoiled with money and a sense of self-importance. You see, losing the other child has made their mother foolish about them. She's lavished everything on them, more than anyone, not a born saint, could stand. It would have been a great deal better if they'd had to fight their way--some of their way at any rate--like you." "Oh, I'm another breed." "Another figurative breed--yes. As to the breed in your blood--" "Oh, but, Hildred, you don't believe that poppy-cock." Her eyes were on the teapot from which she was pouring. "I don't believe it exactly because I don't know. It only strikes me as being very queer." "Queer in what way?" "Oh, in every way. They think so too." "Then why do they seem to hate me so?" "I shouldn't say they did that. They're afraid of you. You disturb them. They're--what do they call it in the Bible?--kicking against the pricks. That's all there is to it. When they'd buried the whole thing you come along and make them dig it up again. They don't want to do that. They feel it's too late. You can see for yourself that for Tad and Lily it would be awkward. When you've been the only two children, and such spoiled ones at that, to have an elder brother you didn't know anything about suddenly hoisted over you--" "Of course! I understand that." "Mr. Whitelaw feels the same, only he feels it differently. _He'd_ accept him, however hard it was." "And Mrs. Whitelaw?" "Oh, poor dear, she's suffered so much that all she asks is not to be made to suffer any more. I don't believe it matters to her now whether he's found or not, so long as she isn't tortured." "And does she think I'd torture her?" "They haven't come to that. It isn't what you _may_ do, but what they themselves _ought_ to do that troubles them." "I wish if you get a chance you'd tell them that they needn't do anything." "They wouldn't take my word for it, or yours either. It rests with themselves and their own consciences." "A good deal of it rests with me." "Yes, if you were willing to take the first step; but since you're not--" [Illustration: MRS. ANSLEY TOOK HIM AS AN AFFLICTION] They dropped it at that because Mrs. Ansley lilted in, greeting Tom with that outward welcome and inward repugnance he had had to learn to swallow. He knew exactly where he stood with her. She took him as an affliction. Affliction could visit the best families and ignore the highest merits. Guy, dear boy, was extravagant, and this was the proof of his extravagance. He was infatuated with this young man, who had neither means, antecedents, nor connections. She had heard the Whitelaw Baby theory, of course; but so long as the Whitelaws themselves rejected it, she rejected it too. The best she could do was to be philanthropic. Philip, Guy, Hildred, were all convinced that this young man was to make his mark. Very well! It was in her tradition, it was in the whole tradition of old Boston, to help those who were likely to get on. It was part of what you owed to your standing in the world, a kind of public duty. You couldn't slight it any more than royalty can slight the opening of bazaars. An aunt of her own had helped a poor girl to take singing lessons; and the girl became one of the great prima donnas of the world. Whenever she sang in opera in Boston it was always a satisfaction to the family to exhibit her as their protégée. So it might one day be with this young man. She hoped so, she was sure. She didn't like him; she thought the fuss made over him by Hildred and Guy, more or less abetted by their father, an absurdity; but since she was obliged to play up to the family standard of beneficence, up to it she would play. She bore with Tom, therefore, wisely and patiently, never snubbing him except when they chanced to be alone, and hurting him only as a jellyfish hurts a swimmer, by clamminess of contact. Clamminess of contact being in itself a weapon of offense, Tom ran away from it, but only to fall into contact of another kind. It was a cloudy afternoon with Christmas in the near future. All over town there were notes of Christmas, in the shop windows, in the Christmas trees exposed for sale, in the way people ran about with parcels. He never approached this season without going back to that fatal Christmas Eve when he and his mother had been caught shop-lifting. He could still feel as he felt at the minute when he turned his face to the angle of the police-station wall, and wept silently. He wondered what Hildred would think of him if he were to tell her that tale. He wondered if he ever should. Partly for the exercise, partly to find space to breathe and to think, he followed the Boston embankment of the Charles, making his way to the Harvard Bridge, and so toward Cambridge. In big quietly dropping flakes it had begun to snow. Presently it was snowing faster. The few pedestrians fled from the esplanade. He tramped on alone, enjoying the solitude. The embankment lamps had been lit when he noticed, coming toward him, two young men, their collars turned up about their ears. They were laughing and smoking cigarettes. Drawing nearer, he recognized them as Tad Whitelaw and the fellow who had slapped the table at the dance. It was not hard to guess that they were on their way to see Hildred. He hoped that under cover of the darkness and the snow he might slip by unobserved. But Tad stopped squarely in front of him. "Let's look at your eye." The tone was so easy and friendly that Tom thought he might be going to apologize. He let him look. "Well, you got that," Tad went on. "Another time you'll get worse. By God, if you don't keep away from me I'll shoot you." Tom was surprised, but it was the sort of situation in which he could be cool. He smiled into the arrogant young face turned up toward his. "What's the good of that line of talk? You know you wouldn't shoot me; you wouldn't have the nerve. Besides, you haven't anything to shoot me _for_. I'll leave it to this fellow." He turned to Tad's companion, who stood as a spectator, slightly to one side. "I found him dead drunk the other night. I took him home in a taxi, and put him to bed. That's no more than the common freemasonry among men. Any man would do the same at a pinch for any other man." The companion played up nobly. "That's the straight dope, Tad. Take it and gulp it down. This guy is a good guy or he wouldn't have--" "Go to hell," Tad interrupted, insolently. "I'm only warning him. If he hangs round me any more--" Tom kept his temper by main force, addressing himself still to the companion. "I've never hung round him. He knows I haven't. Two or three times I've run into him, as I've done to-day. Twice I've stepped in, to keep him from getting the gate, this time as a drunk, the other time as a damn fool. I'd do that for anyone. I'd do it for him, if I found him in the same mess again." "That's fair enough, Tad," the referee approved. "You can't kick against it." Tad tried to speak, but Tom went on with quiet authority. "So that since he likes warnings he can take that one. I shan't let him be chucked out of Harvard if I can help it." Tad sprang. "The devil you won't!" Tom continued to speak only to the third party. "No, the devil I won't! I don't know why I feel that way about him, but that's the way I feel. And anyhow, now he knows." Still addressing the companion only, he uttered a curt "Good-night." The companion responded civilly with "Good-night" on his side. He neither looked at Tad, nor flung a word at him. Wheeling to face what had now blown into a snowstorm, he walked off into its teeth. But as he went he repeated the question he had put to Hildred Ansley. "Why do they seem to hate me so?" He thought of Lily, slippery, snake-like, perverted; he thought of the mother as he had seen her on that one day, in that one glimpse, a quivering bundle of agony; he thought of the father, human, sympathetic, with the iron in his soul. Then he saw them with their heaped up money, their luxuries, their pride, their domineering self-importance. He knew just enough of the lives they led, the exemptions they enjoyed, to feel Honey's protest on behalf of the dispossessed. Near an arc-light he stopped abruptly. The snow made a tabernacle for him, so that he was all alone. As he looked upward and outward millions and millions of sweet soft white things flew silently across the light. Out of his heart, up to his lips, there tore the kind of prayer which in times of temptation the Tollivant habit sometimes wrung from him: "O God, keep me from ever wanting to be one of them!" XXXIX In January, 1917, it began to occur to Tom Whitelaw that he might have to go and fight. He might possibly be killed. Worse than that, he might be crippled or blinded or otherwise rendered helpless. He had followed the war hitherto as one who looks on at tragedies which have nothing to do with himself. Europe was to him no more than a geographical term. Intense where his own aims and duties were concerned, but lacking the imaginative faculty, he had never been able to take England, France, and Germany as realities. The horrors of which he read in newspapers moved him less than a big human story on the stage. That the struggle might suck him into itself, smashing him as a tornado smashes a tree, came home to him first at a Sunday evening supper with the Ansleys. "If it does come," Philip Ansley said, complacently, "a lot of you young fellows will have to go and be shot up." "I'm on," Guy announced readily. "If it hadn't been for the family I'd have enlisted in Canada long ago." His mother took this seriously. "Well that, thank God, can't happen to us. Darling, with your--" "Oh, yes, with my fat! Same old bunk! But, mother, I'm losing weight like a snowbank in April. It's _running_ away. I'm exercising; I'm taking Turkish baths; I don't hardly eat a damn thing. I weighed two-fifty-three six weeks ago, and now I'm down to two-forty-nine." "Don't worry," his father assured him. "You'll get there. You'll make a fine target for Big Bertha. Couldn't miss you any more than she would a whole platoon." "Philip, how can you!" "Oh, they're all crazy to go." He looked toward Tom. "Suppose you are too. Exactly the big husky type they like to blow into hash." Turning to help himself from the dish Pilcher happened to be passing, Tom's eyes encountered Hildred's. Seated beside him, she had veered round on hearing her father's words. The alarm in her face was a confession. "Oh, I can wait," he tried to laugh. "If I've got to go I will, but I'm not tumbling over myself to get there." A half hour later Mrs. Ansley and the three younger members of the party were in the music room, where Guy was at the piano. The mother sat on a gilded French canapé, making an excuse for keeping Hildred beside her. Tom had already begun to guess that the friendship between Hildred and himself was making Mrs. Ansley uneasy. For all these years she had taken him as Guy's protégé with whom "anything of that kind" was impossible. But lately she had so maneuvered as not to leave Hildred and himself alone. Whether Hildred noticed it or not he couldn't tell, since she never made a counter-move. If she was not unconscious of her mother's strategy she let it appear as if she was. All the while Guy chimed out the _Carillon de Cythère_ of Couperin le Grand Mrs. Ansley patted Hildred's hand, and rejoiced in her two children. Guy's touch was velvety because it was Guy's; Couperin le Grand was a noble composer because Guy played him. Her amorphous person quivered to the measure, with a tremor here and a dilation there, like the contraction and expansion of a medusa floating in the sea. But when Guy had tinkled out the final notes she bubbled to her feet. "Darling, I don't think I ever heard you play as well as you're doing this winter. I think if you were to give a private recital...." In the general movement Tom lost the rest of this suggestion, but caught on again at a whisper which he overheard. "Hildred, I simply must go and take my corsets off. I've had them on ever since I dressed for church. It's Nellie's evening out. I'll have to ask you to come and help me." But as her mother was kissing Guy good-night Hildred managed to say beneath her breath, "Don't go away. I'll try to come back. There's something I want to speak about." Left to themselves, the two young men exchanged bits of college gossip while Guy twirled on the piano stool. They had the more to say to each other since they met less often than in their year at Gore Hall. Guy was now in Westmorley Court, and Tom in one of the cheaper residential halls in the Yard. Their associations would have tended to put them apart, had not Guy's need of moral strengthening, to say nothing of a dog-like loyalty, driven him back at irregular intervals upon his old friend. Now and then, too, when his mother insisted on his coming home for the Sunday evening meal, Hildred suggested that he bring Tom. "Let's hike it in by the Embankment," was Guy's way of extending this invitation. "I don't mind if you come along, and Hildred likes it. Dad don't care one way or another. He isn't democratic like Hildred and me; but he's only a snob when it comes to his position as one of the grand panjandrums of Boston. Mother kicks, of course; but then she'd accept the devil himself if I was to tote him behind me." Long usage had enabled Tom to translate these sentiments into terms of eagerness. Guy really wanted him. He was Guy's haven of refuge as truly as when they had been growing boys. Every few weeks Guy turned from his "bunch of sports," or his "bunch of sports" left him in the lurch, so that he came back like a homing pigeon to its roost. Tom was fond of him, was sorry for him, bore with him. Moreover, beyond these tactless invitations there was Hildred. They fell to talking of Tad Whitelaw. Guy swung round to the piano, beating out a few bars of throbbing, deep-seated grief. "One more little song and dance and Tad'll get this. Know what it is?" Confessing that he didn't know, Tom learned that it was Händel's Dead March in "Saul." "Played at all the British military funerals, to make people who feel bad enough already feel a damn sight worse. Be our morning and evening hymn when we get into the trenches." Tom was anxious. "You mean that Tad's on probation?" "I don't know what he's on. Hear the Dean's been giving him a dose of kill-or-cure. That's all." He pounded out the heartbreaking chords, with the deep bass note that sounded like a drum. "Ever see a fellow named Thorne Carstairs?" "Seen him, yes. Don't know him. Yale chap, isn't he?" "Was." The drumbeat struck sorrow to the soul. "Kicked out. Hanging round Tad till he gets him kicked out too. Lives at Tuxedo. Stacks of dough, just like Tad himself." There was some personal injury in Guy's tone, as he added, "Like to give him the toe of my boot." It was perhaps this feat of energy that sent him into the martial phrases of the Chopin polonaise in A major, making the room ring with joyous bravery. Having dropped into Mrs. Ansley's corner of the gilded canapé, Tom found Hildred silently slipping into a seat beside him. "No, don't get up." She put her hand on his arm in a way she had never done before. "I can only stay a few minutes. There's something I want to say." Guy was passing to the D major movement. His back was turned to them. They sat gazing at each other. They sat gazing at each other in a new kind of avowal. All the things he dared not say and she dared not listen to were poured from the one to the other through their eyes. She spoke hurriedly, breathlessly. "I want you to know that if we enter the war, and you're sent over there, I'll find a way to go too." He began some kind of protest, but she silenced him. "I know how I could do it. There's a woman in Paris who'd take me on to work with her. You see, I'm used to Europe. You're not. I can't bear to think of you--with no family--so far away from everyone--and all alone. I'll go." Before he could seize anything like the full import of what she was telling him she had slipped away again. Guy was still playing, martially and majestically. Tom sat wrapt in a sudden amazed tranquillity. Now that she had told him, told him more, far more, than was in her words, he was not surprised; he was only reassured. He realized that it was what he had expected. He had not expected it in the mind, nor precisely with the heart. If the heart has reasons which the reason doesn't know, it was something beyond even these. The nearest he could come to it, now that he tried to express it by the processes of thought, was that between him and her there existed a community of life which they had only to take for granted. She was taking it for granted. To find out if she loved him he would never have to ask her; she would never have to ask him. _They knew!_ He wondered if the knowledge brought to her the peace it brought to him. He felt that he knew that too. Having ended his polonaise, Guy let his fingers run restlessly up and down the keys. He had not turned round; he had heard nothing; he hadn't guessed that Hildred had come and gone. That was their secret. They would keep it as a secret. One of them at least had no wish to make it known. He had no wish that it should go farther, even between him and her, till the future had so shaped itself that he could be justified. That it should remain as it was, unspoken but understood, would for a long, long time to come be joy and peace for them both. Suddenly Guy broke into a strain enraptured and exultant. It flung itself up on the air as easily as a bird's note. It was lyric gladness, welling from a heart that couldn't tire. Caught by his own jubilance, Guy took up the melody in a tenor growing liquid and strong after the years of cracked girlishness. "Guy, for heaven's sake, what's that?" The singer cut into his song long enough to call back over his shoulder: "Schumann! 'To the Beloved'!" He began singing again, his head thrown back, his big body swaying. All the longing for love of a fellow on the edge of twenty, but for him made shamefaced by his fat, found voice in that joyousness. Tom had not supposed that in the whole round of the universe there was such expression for his nameless ecstasies. It was not Guy whom he heard, nor the piano; it was the morning stars singing together; it was the sons of God shouting for joy; it was all the larks and all the thrushes and all the nightingales that in all the ages had ever trilled to the sun and moon. "Don't stop," he shouted, when the song had mounted to its close. "Let's have it all over again." So they had it all over again, the one in his wordless, mumbled tenor, and the other singing in his heart. XL During the next week or ten days Tom worried over Tad Whitelaw. He wondered whether or not he ought to go to see the boy. If he didn't, Tad's Harvard career might end suddenly. If he did, he would probably have humiliation for his pains. He wouldn't mind the humiliation if he could do any good; but would he? One thing that he could do was to take himself to task for thinking about the fellow in one way or the other. It was the fight he put up from day to day. What was Tad Whitelaw to him? Nothing! And yet he was much. It was beyond reasoning about. He was a responsibility, a care. Tom couldn't help caring; he couldn't help feeling responsible. If Tad went to the bad something in himself would have gone to the bad. He might argue against this instinct every minute of the day, yet he couldn't argue it down. He remembered that Tad went often to see Hildred. He had been on his way to see her that afternoon before Christmas when they had met on the esplanade. She might be able to get at him more easily than anybody else. He rang her up. Her life as a débutante was so crowded that she found it hard to give him a half hour. "I'm dead beat," she confessed on the wire. "If it weren't for mother I'd call it all off." She made him a suggestion. She was driving that morning to lunch with a girl who lived in one of the big places beyond Jamaica Pond. If he could be at a certain corner she could pick him up. He could drive out with her, and come back by the trolley car. Then they could talk. That this proposal didn't meet the wishes of some one near the telephone he could judge by the aside which also passed over the wire. "He wants to see me about Tad, mother. I can't possibly refuse." Getting into the car beside her, he had another of those impressions, now beginning to be rare, of the difference between her way of living and all that he was used to. Much as he knew about cars, it was the first time he had actually driven in a rich woman's limousine. The ease of motion, the cushioned softness, the beaver rug, the blue-book, the little feminine appointments, the sprig of artificial flowers, subdued him so that he once more found it hard to believe that she took him on a footing of equality. But she did. Her indifference to the details which overpowered him was part of the wonder of the privilege. Having everything to bestow, she seemed unaware of bestowing anything. She took for granted their community of life. She did it simply and without self-consciousness. Had they been brother and sister she could not have been easier or more matter-of-course in all that she assumed. Except for the coming-out ball it was the first time, too, that he had seen her as what he called "dressed up." Her costume now was a warm brown velvet of a shade which toned in with the gold-brown of her eyes and the nut-brown of her complexion. She wore long slender jade earrings, with a string of jade beads visible beneath her loosened furs. The furs themselves might have been sables, though he was too inexperienced to give them a name. Except for the jade, she wore, as far as he could see, nothing else that was green but a twist of green velvet forming the edge of her brown velvet toque. Her neat proud head lent itself to toques as being simple and distinguished. He himself was self-conscious and shy. He could hardly remember for what purpose she had been willing to pick him up. A queen to her subjects is always a queen, a little overwhelming by her presence, no matter how human her personality. Now that he was before her in his old Harvard clothes, and the marks of the common world all over him, he could hardly believe, he could _not_ believe, that she had uttered the words she had used on Sunday night. All the ease of manner was on her side. She went straight to the point, competent, businesslike. "The thing, it seems to me, that will possibly save Tad is that he's got to keep himself fit in case war breaks out." That was her main suggestion. Tad couldn't afford to throw himself away when his country might, within a few weeks, have urgent need of him. He couldn't, by over indulgence let himself run down physically, as he couldn't by neglecting his work put himself mentally at a disadvantage. He must be fit. She liked the word--fit for his business as a soldier. "That's just what would appeal to him when nothing else might," Tom commended. "I wish you'd take it up with him." "I will; but you must too." "If I get a chance; but I daresay I shan't get one." She had a way of asking a leading question without emphasis. Any emphasis it got it drew from the long oblique regard which gave her the air of a woman with more experience than was possible to her years. "Why do you care?" He had to hedge. "Oh, I don't know. He's just a fellow. I don't want to see him turn out a rotter." "If he turned out a rotter would you care more than if it was anybody else?" "M-m-m! Perhaps so! I wouldn't swear to it." "I would. I know you'd care more. And I know why." He tried to turn this with a laugh. "You can't know more about me than I do myself." "Oh, can't I? If I didn't know more about you than you do yourself...." He decided to come to close quarters. "You mean that you do think I'm the lost Whitelaw baby?" "I know you are." "How do you know?" "Miss Nash told me so, for one thing." "And for another?" "For another, I just know it." "On what grounds?" "On no grounds; on all grounds. I don't care anything about the grounds. A woman doesn't have to have grounds--when she knows." "Well, what about my grounds when I know to the contrary?" "But you don't. You only know your history back to a certain point." "I've only _told_ you my history back to a certain point. I know it farther back than that." "How far back?" "As far back as anyone can go, from his own knowledge." "Oh, from his own knowledge! But some of the most important things come before you can have any knowledge. You've got to take them on trust." "Well, I take them on trust." "From whom?" "From my mother." She was surprised. "You remember your mother?" "Very clearly." "I didn't know that. What do you remember about her?" "I remember a good many things--how she looked--the way she talked--the things she did." "What sort of things were they?" "That's what I want to tell you about. It's what I think you ought to know." She allowed her eyes to rest on his calmly. "If you think knowing would make any difference to me--" "I think it might. It's what I want to find out." "Then I can tell you now that it wouldn't." "Oh, but you haven't heard." "I don't want to hear, unless you'd rather--" "That you did. That's just what I do. I don't think we can go any farther--I mean with our--" the word was difficult to find--"I mean with our--friendship--unless you do hear." "Oh, very well! I want you to do what's easiest for you, and if it does make a difference I'll tell you honestly." "Thank you." For a second, not more, he laid his hand on her muff, the nearest he had ever come to touching her. "We were talking about the things my mother did. Well, they weren't good things. The only excuse for her was that she did them for me, because she was fond of me." "And you were fond of her?" "Very; I'm fond of her still. It's one of the reasons--but I must tell you the whole story." He told as much of the story as he thought she needed to know. Beginning with the stealing of the book from which he had learned to read, he touched only the points essential to bringing him to the Christmas Eve which saw the end; but he touched on enough. "Oh, you poor darling little boy! My heart aches for you--all the way back from now." "So you see why I became a State ward. There was nothing else to do with me. I hadn't anybody." "Of course you hadn't anybody if...." "If my mother stole me. But you see she didn't. I was her son. I don't want to be anybody else's." "Only--" she smiled faintly--"you can't always choose whose son you want to be." "I can choose whose son I don't want to be. That's as far as I go." "Oh, but still--" She dismissed what she was going to say so as not to drive him to decisions. "At any rate we know what to do about Tad, don't we? And you must work as well as I." "I will if he gives me a look-in, but very likely he won't." And yet he got his look-in, or began to get it, no later than that very afternoon. He had gone to Westmorley Court to give Guy a hand with some work he was doing for his mid-years. On coming out again, a little scene before the main door induced him to hang back amid the shadows of the hall. Thorne Carstairs was there with his machine, a touring car that had seen service. In spite of his residence in Tuxedo Park, and what Guy had called his stacks of dough, he was a seedy, weedy youth, with the marks of the cheap sport. Tad was there also, insisting on being taken somewhere in the car. Spit Castle being on the spot as a witness to a refusal accompanied by epithets of primitive significance, Tad waxed into a rage. Even to Tom, who knew nothing of the cause of the breach, it was clear that a breach there was. Tad sprang to the step of the car. Thorne Carstairs pushed him off, and made spurts at driving away. Before he could swing the wheel, Tad was on him like a cat. Curses and maulings were exchanged without actual blows, when a shove from Carstairs sent Tad sprawling backward. Before he could recover himself to rush the car again its owner had got off. There was a roar of laughter from Spit, as well as some hoots from spectators who had viewed the scuffle from their windows. Tad's self-esteem was hurt. Not only had his intimate friend refused to do what he wanted, but he was being laughed at by a good part of Westmorley Court. He turned to Spit, his face purple. "By God, I'll make that piker pay for this before the afternoon's out." Hatless as he was, without waiting for comment, he started off on the run. Where he was running nobody knew, and Tom least of all. By the time he had reached the street Tad was nowhere to be seen. For the rest of the day the incident had no sequel. Tom had almost dismissed it from his mind, when on the next day, while crossing the Yard, he ran into Guy Ansley. Guy was brimming over. "Heard the row, haven't you?" Tom admitted that he had not. Guy gave him the version he had heard, which proved to be the correct one. He gave it between fits of laughter and that kind of sympathetic clapping on the back which can never be withheld from the harum-scarum dare-devil playing his maddest prank. When Tad had run from the door of Westmorley Court he had run to the police station. There he had laid a charge against an unknown car-thief of running off with his machine. He could be caught by telephoning the traffic cops on the long street leading from Cambridge to Boston. He gave the number of the car which was registered in the State of New York. His own name, he said, was Thorne Carstairs; his residence, Tuxedo Park; his address in Boston, the Hotel Shawmut, where he was known and could be found. Having lodged this complaint, and put all the forces of the law into operation, he had dodged back to Westmorley Court, had his dinner sent in from a restaurant, locked his door against all comers, and turned into bed. In the morning, according to Guy, there had been the devil to pay. As far as Tad was concerned, the statement was literally true. Thorne Carstairs had been locked in the station all night. Not only had he been caught red-handed with a stolen car, but his lack of the license he had neglected to carry on his person, as well as of registration papers of any kind, confirmed the belief in the theft. His look of a cheap sport, together with his tendency to use elementary epithets, had also told against him. Where another young fellow in his plight might have won some sympathy he roused resentment by his howlings and his oaths. "We know you," he was assured. "Been on the look-out for you this spell back. You're the guy what pinched Dr. Pritchard's car last week, and him with a dyin' woman. Just fit the description--slab-sided, cock-eyed, twisted-nosed fella we was told to look for, and now we've got our claw on you. Sure your father's a gintleman! Sure you live at the Hotel Shawmut! But a few months in a hotel of another sort'll give you a pleasant change." In the morning Thorne had been brought before the magistrate, where two officials of the Shawmut had identified him as their guest. Piece by piece, to everyone's dismay, the fact leaked out that the law of the land, the zeal of the police, and the dignity of the court had been hoaxed. Thorne himself gave the clue to the culprit who had so outraged authority, and Tad was paying the devil. Guy didn't know what precisely had happened, or if anything definite had happened as yet at all; he was only sure that poor Tad was getting it where the chicken got the ax. He deserved it, true; and yet, hang it all! only a genuine sport could have pulled off anything so audacious. With this Tom agreed. There were spots in Guy's narrative over which he laughed heartily. He condemned Tad chiefly for going too far. It was his weakness that he didn't know when he had had enough of a good thing. Anyone in his senses might know that to hoax a policeman was a crime. A policeman's great asset was the respect inspired by his uniform. Under his uniform he was a man like any other, with the same frailties, the same sneaking sympathy with sinners; but dress him up in a blue suit with brass buttons on his breast, and you had a figure to awe you. If you weren't awed the fault was yours. Yours, too, must be the penalty. The saving element was that beneath the brass buttons the heart was kindly, as a rule, and humorous, patient, generous. Tom had never got over the belief, which dated from the night when his mother was arrested, of the goodness of policemen. He trusted to it now. He was not long in making up his mind. Leaving Guy, he cut a lecture to go to see the Dean. He went to the Dean's own house, finding him at home. The Dean remembered him as one of two or three young fellows who in the previous year had adjusted a bit of friction between the freshmen and the faculty without calling on the higher authorities to impose their will. He was cordial, therefore, in his welcome. He was a big, broad-shouldered Dean, human and comprehending, with a twinkle of humor behind his round glasses. There was no severity in the tone in which he discussed Tad's escapade; there was only reason and justice. Tad had given him a great deal of trouble in the eighteen months in which he had been at Harvard. He had written to his father more than once about the boy, had advised his being given less money to spend, and a stricter calling to account at home. The father was distressed, had done what he could, but the mischief had gone too far. Tad was the typical rich man's son, spoiled by too easy a time. He had been so much considered that he never considered anybody else. He was swaggering and conscienceless. The Dean was of the opinion now that nothing but harsh treatment would do him any good. Tom put in his plea. The matter, as he saw it, was bigger than one fellow's destiny; it involved bigger issues. It was his belief that the country would soon be at war. If the country was at war, Tad Whitelaw's father would be one of the first of the bankers the President would consult. The Dean knew, of course, that the bankers would have to swing as much of the war as the army and navy. Henry T. Whitelaw was a man, as everyone knew, already terribly tried by domestic tragedy. You wouldn't want to add to that now, just at the time when he needed to have a mind as free as possible. This boy was the apple of his eye; and if disgrace overtook him.... But that was only one thing. Should the country go to war, it would call for just such young fellows as Tad Whitelaw; fellows of spirit, of daring, of physical health and strength. Didn't the Dean think that it might be well to nurse him along for a few weeks--it wasn't likely to be many--so that he could answer to the country's call with at least a nominal honorable record, instead of being under a cloud? If the Dean did think so, he, Tom, would undertake to keep the fellow straight till he was wanted. He wasn't vicious; he was only foolish and headstrong. Though he didn't make a good student, he had in him the very stuff to make a soldier. Tom would answer for him. He would be his surety. In the long run the Dean allowed himself to be won by Tom's own earnestness. He would do what he could. At the same time Tom must remember that if the college authorities stayed their hand the civil authorities might not. The indignation at police headquarters was unusually bitter. Unless this righteous wrath were pacified.... Having thanked the Dean, Tom ran straight to the police station. The Chief of Police received him, though not with the Dean's cordiality. He too was a big, broad-shouldered man, but frigid and stern through long administration of law, discipline, and order. He impressed Tom as a mechanical contrivance which operates as it is built to operate, and with no power of showing mercy or making exceptions to a rule. Outwardly at least he was grave and obdurate. The victory lay once more with Tom's earnestness. The Chief of Police made no secret of the fact that they were already considering the grounds on which "the crazy fool" could most effectively be prosecuted. The law was not, however, wholly without a heart, and if in the present instance the country could be served, even in the smallest detail, by giving the blamed idiot the benefit of clemency it could be done. Tom must understand that the nonsense had not been overlooked; it was only left in abeyance. If his protégé got into trouble again he would be the more severely dealt with because of the present lenity. Tom ran now to Westmorley Court, where he knocked at Tad's door. To a growling invitation he went in. The room was a cloud of tobacco smoke, through which the shapes of half a dozen fellows loomed dimly in the deepening winter twilight. Tad tilted back in the revolving chair before the belittered desk which held the center of the room. His coat was off, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his feet on the edge of the desk. A cigar traveled back and forth from corner to corner of the handsome, disdainful mouth. Tom marched straight to the desk, speaking hurriedly. "Can I have a word with you in private?" The owner of the room neither moved nor took the cigar from his lips. "No, you can't." He nodded toward the door. "You can sprint it out again." "I shall sprint it out when I'm ready. If I can't speak in private I shall speak in public. You've got to hear." The insolent immobility was maintained. "Didn't I tell you the last time I saw you that if you ever interfered with me again--?" "That you'd shoot me, yes. Well, get up and shoot. If you can't, or if you don't mean to, why make the threat? But I've come to talk reason. You've got to listen to reason. If you don't I'll appeal to these chaps to make you. They don't want to see you a comic valentine any more than I do. Now climb down from your high horse and let's get to business." It was Guy Ansley who cleared the room. "Say, fellows--" With a stealthy movement, which their host was too preoccupied to observe, they slipped out. He knew, however, when he and his enemy were alone, and still without lifting his feet from the desk or taking the cigar from his mouth, made the concession of speaking. "Well, if business has brought you here, cough it up." "I will. I come first from the Dean, and then from the Chief of Police." "Oh, you do, do you? So you're to be the hangman." "No; there's not to be a hangman. They've given you a reprieve--because I've begged you off." The feet came off the desk. The cigar was taken from the lips. Tad leaned forward in his chair, tense and incredulous. "You've done--_what_?" Tom maintained his sang-froid. "I've begged you off. I went and talked to them both. I said I'd answer for you, that you'd stop being a crazy loon, and try to be a man." Incredulity passed into angry amazement. "And who in hell gave you authority to do that?" "Nobody. I did it on my own. When a fellow gets his life as a gift he takes it. He doesn't kick up a row as to who's given it. For the Lord's sake, try to have a little sense." "What's it to you whether I've got sense or not?" "Nothing." "Then why in thunder do you keep butting in--?" "Because I choose to. I'll give you no other answer than that, and no other explanation. What you've got to do is to knuckle under and show that you're worth your keep. You're not a _born_ fool; you're only a made fool. You're good for something better than to be a laughing-stock as you are to everyone in college. Buck up! Be a fellow! After being a jackass for a year and a half, I should think you'd begin to see that there was nothing to it by this time." Never in his life had Tad Whitelaw been so hammered without gloves. It was why Tom chose to hammer him. Nothing but thrashing, verbal or otherwise, would startle him out of the conviction of his self-importance. Already it was shaking the foundations of his arrogance. In his tone as he retorted there was more than a hint of feebleness. "What I see and what I don't see is my own affair." "Oh, no, it isn't. It's a class affair. There's such a thing as _esprit de corps_. We can't afford to have rotters, now especially." Tad grew still feebler. "I'm not the only rotter in the bunch. Why do you pick on me?" "I've told you already. Because I choose to. You might as well give in to me first as last, because you'll not get rid of me any more than you will of your own conscience." Tad sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing, in a new outburst. "I'll be damned if I'll give in to you." "And I'll be damned if you don't. If I can't bring you round by persuasion I'll do it as I did it once before. I'll wale the guts out of you. I'm not going to have you a disgrace." "Ah!" Tad started back. "Now I've got you. A disgrace! You talk as if you were a member of the family. That's what you're after. That's what you've been scheming for ever since--" "Look here," Tom interrupted, forcefully. "Let's understand each other about this business once and for all." Looking from under his eyelids he measured Tad up and down. "I wouldn't be a member of the family that has produced _you_ for anything the world could give me." Tad bounded, changing his note foolishly. "Oh, you wouldn't wouldn't you! How do you know that you won't damn well have to be?" Walking up to him, Tom laid a hand on his shoulder, paternally. "Don't let us talk rot. We both know the nickname the fellows have stuck on me in Harvard. But what's that to us? You don't want me. I don't want you. At least I don't want you that way. I'll tell you straight. I've got a use for you. That's why I keep after you. But it's got nothing to do with your family affairs." They confronted each other, Tad gasping. "You've got a use for me? Greatly obliged. But get this. I've no use for you. Don't make any mistake--" Withdrawing his hand, Tom gave him a little shove. "Oh, choke it back. Piffle won't get you anywhere. I'm going to make something of you of which your father and mother can be proud." It was almost a scream of fury. "Make something of _me_--?" "Yes, a soldier." The word came like a douche of cold water on hysteria, calming the boy suddenly. He tapped his forehead. "Say, are you balmy up here?" "Possibly; but whether I'm balmy or not, a soldier is what you'll have to be. Don't you read the papers? Don't you hear people talking? Why, man alive, two or three months from now every fellow of your age and mine will be marching behind a drum." The boy's haggard face went blank from the sheer shock of it. The idea was not brand new, but it was incredible. Tad Whitelaw was not one of those who took much interest in public affairs or kept pace with them. "Oh, rot!" "It isn't rot. Can't you see it for yourself? If this country pitches in--" "Oh, but it won't." "Ask anyone. Ask your own father. That's my point. If we do pitch in your father will be one of the big men of the two continents. You're his only son. You'll _have_ to play up to him." Tom watched the hardened, dissipated young face contract with a queer kind of gravity. The teeth gritted, the lips grew set. It gave him the chance to go on. "There aren't a half dozen men in the country who'd be able to swing what your father'll be swinging. Listen! I know something about banking. Been studying it for years. When it comes to war the banker has to chalk-line every foot of the lot. They can't do anything without him. They can't have an army or a navy or any international teamwork. You'll see. The minute war is declared, _before_ war is declared, the President'll be sending for your father to talk over ways and means. Now then, are you to put a spoke in the country's wheel? You can. You're doing it. The more you worry him the less good he'll be. Get chucked out of college, as you would have been in a day or two, if I hadn't stepped in, and begged to have you put in my charge--" Once more Tad revolted. "Put in your charge! The devil I'll be put in your charge!" "All right! It's the one condition on which you stay at Harvard. Jump your bail, and you'll see your father pay for it. He'll have his big international job, and he won't be able to swing it because he'll be thinking of you. You'll see the whole country pay for it. I daresay we shan't know where we pay and how we pay; but we'll be paying. Say, is it worth your while? What do you gain by being the rotten spot in the beam that may bring the whole shack about our ears? Everybody knows that your father has lost one son. Can't you try to give him another of whom he won't have to be ashamed?" Tad stood sulkily, his hands in his trousers' pockets, as he tipped on his toes and reflected. Since he made no answer, Tom went on with his appeal. "And that's not the only thing. There's yourself. You're not a bad sort. You've got the makings of a decent chap, even if you aren't one. You could be one easily enough. All you've got to do is to drop some of your fool acquaintances, cut out drinking, cut out women, and make a show of doing what you've been sent to Harvard to do, even if it's only a show. You won't have to keep it up for more than a few weeks." The furrow in the forehead when the eyebrows were lifted was also a mark of dissipation. "More than a few weeks? Why not?" Tom pounded with emphasis. "Because, I tell you, we'll be in the war. _You'll_ be in the war. We fellows of the class of 1919 are not going to walk up on Commencement Day and take our degrees. We'll get them before that. We'll get them in batteries and trenches and graves. I heard a girl say, in speaking of you a day or two ago, that she hoped, when the time came for that, you'd be fit. She said she liked the word--fit for the job that'd be given you. You couldn't be fit if you went on--" His curiosity was touched. "Who was that?" "I'm not going to tell you. I'll only say that she likes you, and that--" "Was it Hildred Ansley?" "Well, if you're bound to know, it was. If you want to talk to someone who wishes you well, go and--" "Did she put you up to this?" "No, she didn't. You put me up to it yourself. I tell you again, I'm going to see you go straight till I see you go straight into the army. You ought to go in with a commission. But if you're fired out of Harvard they'll be shy of enlisting you as a private. If you won't play the game of your own accord, I'll make you." With hands thrust into his trousers' pockets, Tad began to pace the room, doing a kind of goose-step. His compressed lips made little grimaces like those of a man forcing himself to decisions hard to swallow. For a good four or five minutes Tom watched the struggle between his top-loftiness and his common-sense. While common-sense insisted on his climbing down, top-loftiness told him that he must save his face. When he spoke at last his voice was hoarse, his throat constricted. "If it's going to be war I'll be in it with both feet. But I'll do it on my own. See? You mind your business, and I'll mind mine." Tom was reasonable. "That'll be all right--if you mind it." "And if you think I'm giving in to you--" "I don't care a hang whether you're giving in to me or not so long as you--_keep fit_." "I'll be the judge of that." "And I'll help you." "You can go to hell." Tad used these words because he had no others. They were fine free manly words which begged all the questions and helped him to a little dignity. If he was surrendering he would do it, in his own phrase, with bells on. The mucker shouldn't have the satisfaction of thinking he had done anything. It saved the whole situation to tell him in this offhand way the place that he could go to. But a little thing betrayed him, possibly before he saw its significance. His points being won for the minute, Tom had reached the door. Beside the door stood a low bookcase, on which was open a package of cigarettes. Tad's goose-step brought him within reach of it. He picked it up and held it toward Tom. He did it carelessly, ungraciously, unthinkingly, and yet with all sorts of buried implications in the little act. "Have one?" Tom was careful to preserve a casual, negligent air as he drew one out. Tad struck a match. As the one held the thing to his lips and the other put the flame to it, the hands of the brothers, for the first time except in a fight, touched lightly. XLI "I can't see," Hildred reasoned, "why you should find the idea so terrible." "And I can't see," Tom returned, "what it matters how I find the idea, so long as nobody is serious about it." "Oh, but they will be. It's what I told you before. They'd made up their minds they didn't want to find him; and now it's hard to unmake them again. But they're coming to it." "I hope they're not taking the trouble on my account." "They're taking it on their own. Tad as much as said so. He said they'd stuck it out as long as they could; but they couldn't stick it out forever." "Stick it out against what?" "Against what's staring them in the face, I suppose." "Did he tell you what I said to him, that nothing would induce me to belong to the family that had produced him?" She laughed. "Oh, yes. He told me the whole thing, how you'd come into his room, how Guy had got the other fellows out, and the pitched battle between you." "And did he say how it had ended?" "He said--if you want to know exactly I'll tell you exactly--he said that when it came to talking about the war and the part he would have to play in it, you weren't as big a damn fool as he had thought you." "And did he say how big a damn fool he was himself?" "He admitted he had been one; but with his father on his hands, and the war, and all that, he'd have to put the brakes on himself, and pretend to be a good boy." Laughing to himself Tom stretched out his legs to the blaze of the fire. Hildred had sent for him because Mrs. Ansley was out of the way at her Mothers' Club. There was nothing underhand in this, since she would not conceal the fact accomplished. It avoided only a preliminary struggle. If she needed an excuse, the necessities of their good intentions toward Tad would offer it. Tea being over, Hildred, who was fond of embroidery, had taken up a piece of work. Like many women, she found it easier to be daring in an incidental way while stitching. Stitching kept her from having to look at Tom as she reverted to the phase of the subject from which they had drifted away. "The Whitelaws are a perfectly honorable family. They may even be called distinguished. I don't see what it is you've got against them." "I've got nothing against them. They rather--" he sought for a word that would express the queer primordial attraction they possessed for him--"they rather cast a spell on me. But I don't want to belong to them." "But why not, if it was proved that--?" "For one reason, it couldn't be proved; and for another, it's too late." The ring in his voice was strange; it made her look up at him. "Too late? Why do you say that?" "Because it is. You told me some time ago that it was what they thought themselves. Even if it _were_ proved, it would still be--too late." "I don't understand you." "I'm not sure that I understand myself. I only know that the life I've lived would make it impossible for me to go and live their life." "Oh, nonsense! Their life is just the same as our life." "Well, I'm not sure that I could live yours. I could conform to it on the outside. I could talk your way and eat your way; but I couldn't think your way." "When you say _my_ way--" "I mean the way of all your class. Mind you, I'm not against it. I only feel that somehow--in things I can't explain and wouldn't know how to remedy--it's wrong." "Oh, but, Tom--" "It seems to be necessary that a great many people shall go without anything in order that a very few people may enjoy everything. That's as far as I go. I don't draw any conclusions; and I'm certainly not going in for any radical theories. Only I can't think it right. I want to be a banker; but even if I _am_ a banker--" "I see what you mean," she interrupted, pensively. "I often feel that way myself. But, oh, Tom, what can we do about it that--that wouldn't seem quite mad?" He smiled ruefully. "I don't know. But if you live long enough--and work hard enough--and think straight enough--and don't do anything to put you off your nut--why, some day you may find a way out that will be sane." "Yes, but couldn't you do that and be Harry Whitelaw--if you _are_ Harry Whitelaw--at the same time?" "Suppose we wait till the question arises? As far as I know, no one who belonged to Harry Whitelaw, or to whom Harry Whitelaw belonged, has ever brought it up." But only a few weeks later this very thing seemed about to come to pass. It was toward the end of March. On returning to his room one morning Tom was startled by a telegram. Telegrams were so rare in his life that merely to see one lying on his table gave him a thrill, partly of wonder, partly of fear. Opening it, he was still more surprised to find it from Philip Ansley. Would Tom be in Louisburg Square for reasons of importance at four that afternoon? That something had betrayed himself and Hildred would have been his only surmise; only that there was nothing to betray. Except for the few hurried words Hildred had spoken on that Sunday night, anything they had said they had said in looks, and even their looks had been guarded and discreet. The things most essential to them both were in what they were taking for granted. They had exchanged no letters; their intercourse was always of the kind that anyone might overhear. Without recourse to explanation each recognized the fact that it would be years before either of them would be free to speak or to take a step. In the meantime their only crime was their confidence in each other; and you couldn't betray that. Nevertheless, it was with uneasiness that he rang at the door, and asked Pilcher if Mr. Ansley were at home. Pilcher was mysterious. Mr. Ansley was not at home, but if Mr. Tom would come in he would find himself expected. Tea being served in the library, Mr. Tom was shown upstairs. It was a gloomy afternoon outside; the room was dim. All Tom saw at first was a tall man standing on the hearth rug, where the fire behind him had almost gone out. He had taken a step forward and held out his hand before Tom recognized the distinguished stranger who had first hailed him in the New Hampshire lake nearly three years earlier. "Do you remember me?" "Yes, sir." They stood with hands clasped, each gazing into the other's face. Tom would have withdrawn his hand, would have receded, but the other held him with a grasp both tense and tenacious. The eyes, deep-set like Tom's own, and overhung with bushy outstanding eyebrows, studied him with eager penetration. Not till that look was satisfied did the tall figure swing to someone who was sitting in the shadow. "This is the boy, Onora. Look at him." She was sitting out of direct range in a corner of the library darkened by buildings standing higher on the Hill. The man turned Tom slightly in her direction, where the daylight fell on him. The degree to which the woman shrank from seeing him was further marked by the fact that she partly hid her face behind a big black-feather fan for which there was no other use than concealment. She said nothing at all; but even in the obscurity Tom could perceive the light of two feverish eyes. It was the man who took the lead. "Won't you sit down?" He placed a chair where the woman could observe its occupant, without being drawn of necessity into anything that might be said. The man himself drew up another chair, on which he sat sidewise in an easy posture close to Tom. Tom liked him. He liked his face, his voice, his manner, the something friendly and sympathetic he recalled from the earlier meetings. Whether this were his father or not, he would have no difficulty in meeting him at any time on intimate and confidential terms. "My wife and I wanted to see you," he began, simply, "in order to thank you for what you've done for Tad." Tom was embarrassed. "Oh, that wasn't anything. I just happened--" "The Dean has told me all about it. He says that Tad has given him no trouble since. Before that he'd given a good deal. I wish I could tell you how grateful we are, especially as things are turning out, with a war hanging over us." Tom saw an opportunity of speaking without sentiment. "That's what I thought. It seemed to me a pity that good fighting stuff should be lost just through--through too much skylarking." "Yes, it would have been. Tad _has_ good fighting stuff." There was a catch of the woman's breath. Tom recalled the staccato nervousness of their first brief meeting in Gore Hall. He wished they hadn't brought him there. They were strangers to him; he was a stranger to them. Whatever link might have been between him and them in the past, there was no link now. It would be a mistake to try to forge one. But in on this thought the man broke gently. "I wonder if you'd mind telling us all about yourself that you know? I presume that you understand why I'm asking you." "Yes, sir, I do; but I don't think I can help you much." The woman's voice, vibrating and tragic, startled him. It was as if she were speaking to herself, as if something were being wrung from her in spite of her efforts to keep it back. "The likeness is extraordinary!" Taking no notice of this, the man began to question him, "Where were you born?" "In the Bronx." He made a note of this answer in a little notebook. "And when?" "In 1897." "What date?" It was the crucial question, but since he meant to tell everything he knew, Tom had no choice but to be exact. "I'm not very sure of the date, because my mother changed it at three different times. At first my birthday used to be on the fifth of March; but afterward she said that that had been the birthday of a little half-sister of mine who died before I was born." "What was her name?" "Grace Coburn." "And her parents' names?" "Thomas and Lucy Coburn." "And after your birthday was changed from the fifth of March--?" "It was shifted to September, but not for very long. Later my mother told me I was born on the tenth of May, and we always kept to that." From the woman there was something like a smothered cry, but the man only took his notes. "The tenth of May, 1897. Did she ever tell you why she selected that date?" "No, sir." "Did she ever say anything about it, about what kind of day it was, or anything at all that you can remember?" Tom hesitated. The reflection that the wisest course was to make a clean breast of everything impelled him to go on. "She only said that it was a day when all the nursemaids had had their babies in the Park, and the lilacs were in bloom." There followed the question of which he was most afraid, because he often put it to himself. "Why should she have said that, when, if you were born in the Bronx, she and her baby were miles away?" "I don't know, sir." "What was your mother's maiden name?" "I don't know, sir." "She was married to Thomas Coburn before she was married to Theodore Whitelaw, your father?" "Yes, sir." "Where were she and your father married?" "I don't know, sir." "What _do_ you know about your father?" "Nothing at all. I never heard his name till she gave it at the police station, the night before she died." "Oh, at the police station! Why there?" Tom told the whole story, keeping nothing back. The man's only comment was to say, "And you never heard the name of Whitelaw in connection with yourself till you heard it on that evening?" "Yes, sir, I'd heard it before that." "When and how?" "Always when my mother was in a--in a state of nerves. You mustn't forget that she wasn't exactly in her right mind. That was the excuse for what she--she did in shops. So, once in so often, she'd say that I was never to think that my name was Whitelaw, or that she'd stolen me." There was again from the woman a little moaning gasp, but the man was outwardly self-possessed. "So she said that?" "Yes, sir." "And have you any explanation why?" "I didn't have then; I've worked one out. You see, my name really being Whitelaw, and her mind a little unbalanced, she was afraid she might be suspected of--your little boy's case had got so much publicity--and she a friendless woman, with no husband or relations--" "So that you don't think she did--steal you?" He answered firmly. "No, sir. I don't" "Why don't you?" "For one thing, I don't want to." "Oh!" It was the woman again. The sound was rather queer. You could not have told whether it meant relief or indignation. The man's sad penetrating eyes were bent on him sympathetically. "When you say that you don't want to, exactly what do you mean?" "I'm not sure that I can say. She was my mother. She was good to me. I was fond of her. I never knew any other mother. I don't think I could--" he looked over at the woman in the shadow, letting his words fall with a certain significant spacing--"know--any other--mother--now--and so--" Rising, she took a step toward him. He too rose so that as she stood looking up at him he stood looking down at her. There and then her face was imprinted on his memory, a face of suffering, but of suffering that had not made her strong. The quivering victim of self-pity, she begged to be allowed to forget. She had suffered to her limit. She couldn't suffer any more. Everything in her that was raked with the harrow protested against this bringing up again of an outlived agony. Her beautiful eyes, brimming with unspilled tears, gazed at him reproachfully. As plainly as eyes could tell him anything, they told him that now, when life and time had dug between them such a gulf, she didn't want him as her son. She might have to accept him, since so many things pointed that way, but it would be hard for her. Taking back a little boy would have been one thing; taking back a grown man, none of whose habits or traditions were the same as theirs, would be another. She would do it if it were forced on her, but it couldn't recompense her now for past unhappiness. It would be only a new torture, a torture which, if he hadn't drifted in among them, she might have escaped. When swiftly and silently she had left the room the man put his hand on Tom's arm. "Sit down again. You mustn't think that my wife doesn't feel all this. She does. It's because she does that she's so overwrought." Tom sat down. "Yes, sir, of course!" "She's been through it so often. For a good ten years after our child was lost boys used to be brought to us to look at every few months. And every time it meant a draining of her vitality." "I understand that, sir; and I hope Mrs. Whitelaw doesn't think I've come of my own accord." "No, she knows you haven't. We've asked you to come because--but I must go back. When my wife had been through so much--so many times--and all to no purpose--she made me promise--the doctors made me promise--that she shouldn't be called on to face it again. Whenever she had to interview one of these claimants--" "_I'm_ not a claimant," Tom put in, hastily. "I know you're not. That's just it. It's what makes the difference. But whenever she had to do it--and decide whether a particular lad was or was not her son--it nearly killed her." Tom made an inarticulate murmur of sympathy. "The worst times came after we'd turned down some boy of whom we hadn't been quite sure. That was as hard for me as it was for her--the fear that our little fellow had come back, and we'd sent him away. It got to be so impossible to judge. You imagined resemblances even when there were none, and any child who could speak could be drilled about the facts, as we were so well known. It was hell." "It must have been." "Then there were our two other children. It wasn't easy for them. They grew up in an atmosphere of expecting the older brother to come back. At first it gave them a bit of excitement. But as they grew older they resented it. You can understand that. A stranger wouldn't have been welcome. Whenever a new clue had to be abandoned they were glad. If the boy had been found they'd have given him an awful time. That was another worry to my wife." "Yes, it would be." "So at last we made up our minds that he was dead. It was the only thing to do. Self-protection required it. My wife took up her social life again, the life she's fond of and is fitted for. Things went better. She didn't forget, but she grew more normal. In spite of the past there were a few things she could still enjoy. She'd begun to feel safe; and then--in that lake in New Hampshire--I happened to see you." "If I were you, sir, I shouldn't let that disturb me." "It does disturb me. When I went back that year to our house at Old Westbury and spoke to my wife and children about it, they all implored me not to go into the thing again." "If I could implore you, too--" He shook his head. "It wouldn't do any good. I've come to the point where I've got to see it through. I have all the data you've given me--as well as some other things. If you're not--not my son--" He rose striding to the fireplace, where he stood pensively, his back to the smouldering fire--"if you're not my son, at least we can find out pretty certainly whose son you are." Tom also rose, so that they stood face to face. "And if you can't find out pretty certainly whose son I am--?" "I shall be driven to the conclusion that--" He didn't finish this sentence. Tom didn't press for it. During the silence that followed it occurred to him that if there was a war the question might be shelved. It was what, he thought, he would work for. The same idea might have come to the older man, for looking up out of his reverie, he said, with no context: "What do you mean to be?" "I've always hoped, sir, to go into a bank. It's what I seem best fitted for." There came into the eyes that same sudden light, like the switching on of electricity, which Tom remembered from their meeting in the water. "I could help you there." "Oh, but it would only be in a small way, sir. I'd have to begin as something--" "All the same I could help you. I want you to promise me this, that when you're free--either after Harvard, or after the war--you'll come to me before you do anything else. Is that a bargain?" To Tom it was the easiest way out. "Yes sir, if you like." "Then our hands on it!" Their right hands clasped. Once more Tom found himself held. The man's left hand came up and rested on his shoulder. The eyes searched him, searched him hungrily, with longing. Whether they found what they sought or merely gave up seeking Tom could hardly tell. He was only pushed away with a little weary gesture, while the tall man turned once more toward the dying fire. XLII In the April of 1920, nearly eighteen months after the signing of the Armistice, Tom Whitelaw came back to Boston, demobilized. He had crossed a good part of Europe almost in a straight line--Brest, Paris, Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, Fère-en-Tardennois, Reims, Luxembourg, Coblenz--and more or less in the same way had come back again. Now, if he had been able to forget it all, he would gladly have forgotten it. Since it couldn't be forgotten it inspired him with an aim in life. More exactly, perhaps, it made definite the aim he had been vaguely conscious of already. What he felt was not new; it was only more fixed and clear. He knew what he meant to do, even though he didn't see how he was to do it. He might never accomplish anything; very likely he never would; but at least he had a state of mind, and he was not going to be in a hurry. If for the ills he saw he was to work out a cure, or help to work out a cure, or even dream of working out a cure, he must first diagnose the disease; and diagnosis would take a good part of his lifetime. He was twenty-three, according to his count, but, again according to his count he had the seriousness of forty. With the advantage of a varied experience and an early maturity, he had also that of age. His achievements in the war had given him the kind of importance interesting to newspapers. They had begun writing him up from the days of the action at Belleau Wood. His picture had appeared in their Sunday editions as on the staff of General Pershing during his visit to the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. To Tom himself the only satisfaction in this was the possible diminishing of the distance between him and Hildred Ansley. It would not have been the first time in history when war had helped a lover out of his obscurity to put him on the level of the loved one. To Hildred herself it would make no difference; but by her father and mother, especially by her mother, a son-in-law who had worn with some credit his country's uniform might be pardoned his presumption. Public approval also brought him one other consideration that meant much to him. The man who thought he might be his father wrote to him. He wrote to him often. He wrote to him partly as a friend might write, partly as a father might write to his son. Between the lines it was not difficult to read a yearning and sense of comfort. The yearning was plainly for assurance; just as plainly the sense of comfort lay in the knowledge that somewhere in the world there was a heart that beat to the measure of his own. It was as if he had written the words: "My two acknowledged children are of no help to me; my wife is crushed by her sorrow; you and I, even if there is no drop of common blood between us, understand each other. Whether or not we are father and son, we could work together as if we were." The letters were full of a fatherly affection strange in view of the slight degree of their acquaintanceship. The man's heart cleared that obstacle with a bound. Tom's heart cleared it with an equal ease. To be needed was the call to which, with his strong infusion of the feminine, he never failed to answer instantaneously. As readily as the banker divined him, he divined the banker. If there was no fatherhood or sonship in fact there was both sonship and fatherhood in essence. Whitelaw wrote as if he had been writing to his boy for years, with a matter-of-course solicitude, with offers of money, with scraps of news. He talked freely of the family, as if Tom would care to hear of them. A few words in one of his letters showed that he knew more than Tom had hitherto supposed. "If Tad and Lily have been uncivil to you it was not because of personal dislike. In their situation some hostility toward the outsider, as they would call him, whom they might be forced to acknowledge as their older brother must be forgiven as not unnatural." During all the three years of Tom's soldiering this was the only reference to the question that had been left suspended by the war. Whether or not it would ever be taken up again Tom had no idea. He hoped it would not be. For him an undetermined situation was enough. Though during this period Henry Whitelaw was frequently in London and Paris they never met. When the one proposed that he should use his influence to get the other leave, Tom thought it wiser to stay, as he expressed it, on the job. Only once did he ask permission to run up for forty-eight hours to Paris, and that was to see Hildred. She was then helping to nurse Guy, who, while working with the Y.M.C.A., had come down with typhoid fever. Convalescent by this time, he would sail for America in a month or two, Hildred going with him. Tom himself being on the eve of marching into Germany, the moment was one to be seized. They dined in a little restaurant near the Madeleine. With the table between them they scanned each other's faces for the traces left by nearly two years of separation. Except that she was tired Tom found little change in her. Always lacking in temporary, girlish prettiness, her distinction of line and poise was that which the years affect but slowly, and experience enhances. He could only say of her that she was less the young girl he had last seen in Boston, and more the woman of the world who, having seen the things that happen as they happen most brutally, has grown a little heartsick, and more than a little weary. "It's all so futile, Tom. It's such waste. It should never have been asked of the people of the world." His lips had the dim disillusioned smile which had taken the place of the radiance of even a year or two earlier. "What about the war to end war? What about making the world safe for democracy?" She put up a hand in protest. "Oh, don't! I hate that clap-trap. The salt which was good enough to put on birds' tails is sickening when you see the poor creatures lying with their necks wrung. Oh, Tom, what can we do about it if we ever get home?" "Do about what?" "About the whole thing, about this poor pitiful, pitiable human race that's got itself into such an awful mess?" "The human race is a pretty big problem to handle." "Yes, but you don't think the bigness ought to stop us, do you?" "Stop us from--?" "From trying to keep the world from going on with its frightful policy of destruction. Isn't there anyone to show us that you can't destroy one without by that much destroying all; that you can't make it easier for one without by that much making it easier for everyone? Are we never going to be anything but fools?" His dim smile came and went again. "We'll talk about that when I get home. We can't do it now. Even if we could it's no us trying to reason with a world that's gone insane. We must let it have time to recover. I want to hear about you." She threw herself back in her chair, nervously crumbling a bit of bread. "Oh, I'm all right. Never better, as far as that goes. I've only grown an awful coward. Now that the fighting's over I seem to be more afraid than when it was going on. As far as pep goes I'm a rag." "It'll do you good to get home." "Oh, I want to get farther away than home. I want to get somewhere--to a desert island perhaps--where there won't be any people--" "None?" "Oh, well, dad and mother and Guy and--" "And nobody else?" "Yes, and you. I see you want me to say it, so I might as well. I want you there--and _then_ nobody else--not a soul--not the shadow of a soul--except servants, of course--" He grew daring as he had never been before. "Perhaps before many years we may find that island--with the servants all the time--but with your father and mother and Guy as visitors--very frequent visitors--but--" "Oh, don't talk about it. It's too heavenly for a world like this." She looked him in the eyes, despairingly. "Do you suppose it _ever_ could come true?" "Stranger things have." "But better things haven't." He put down his knife and fork to gaze at her. "Hildred, do you really feel like that?" "Well, don't you?" Her tone was a little indignant. "If you don't for pity's sake tell me, so that I shan't go on giving myself away." "Of course, I feel that way, only it seems to me queer that you should." "Why queer?" "Because you're you, and I'm only me." "You can't reason in that way. You can't really reason about the thing at all. The most freakish thing in the world is whom people'll fall in love with." "It must be," he said humbly. "Oh, cheer up; it isn't as bad as all that. There's no disgrace in my being in love with you. If you'll just be in love with me I'll take care of myself." They laughed like children. To neither was it strange to have taken their love for granted, since they had done it for so long. It was as if it had grown with them, as if it had been born with them. Its flowers had opened because it was their springtime; there was nothing else for it to do. It was a stormy springtime, with only the rarest bursts of sunshine; but for that very reason they must make the most of such sunshine as there was. They had not met for two years; it might be two years more before they met again. They could only throw their hearts wide open. She talked of her work. In her mood of reaction it seemed to her now a stupid, foolish work, not because it hadn't done good, but because it had done good for such useless purposes. A New York woman whom she knew, whose son had been killed fighting with the British in the earlier part of the war, had opened a sort of club for the cheering up of young fellows passing through Paris, or there for a short leave. "We bucked them up so that they'd be willing to go back again, and be blown to bits. It was like giving the good breakfast and the cigarette to the man going out to the electric chair. My God, what a nerve we had, we girls! We'd laugh and dance with those poor young chaps, who a few days later would be in their graves, if the shells left anything to bury. We didn't think much about it then. It's only now that it comes over me. I feel as if I'd been their executioner." "You're tired. You need a rest." "Rest won't reconcile me to belonging to a race of wild beasts. Oh, Tom, couldn't we make a little life for ourselves away from everyone, and from all this cheap vindictiveness? I shouldn't care how humble or obscure it was." He laughed, quietly. "There are a good many hurdles to take before we come even to the humble and obscure." "Hurdles? What kind of hurdles?" "Your father and mother for one." She admitted the importance of this. "But you won't find that hurdle hard to take if you're Harry Whitelaw." "But if I'm not?" "I'm sure from what mother writes that you can be." "And I'm sure from what I feel that I can't." "Oh, but you haven't tried." She hurried on from this to give him the gist of her mother's letters on the subject. "She and Mr. Whitelaw have the most tremendous confabs about you, every time he comes to Boston. The fact that he can't talk to Mrs. Whitelaw--she's all nerves the minute you're mentioned--throws him back on mother. That flatters the dear old lady like anything. She begins to think now she adopted you in infancy. You were her discovery. She gave you your first leg-up. And after all, you know, we've got to admit that during the whole of these seven years she might have been a great deal worse." He agreed with her gratefully. "As a matter of fact," she went on, in her judicial tone, "you must hand it to us Boston people that, while we can be the most awful snobs, we're not such snobs that we don't know a good thing when we see it. It's only the second-cut among us, those who don't really _belong_, who are supercilious. Once you concede that we're as superior as we think ourselves, we can be pretty generous. If you've got it in you to climb up we not only won't kick you down, but we'll put out our hands and pull you. That's Boston; that's dad and mother. When you've made all the fun of them you like, the poor dears still have that much left which you can't take away from them." Something of this Tom was to test by the time he and Hildred met again. It was not another two years before they did that, but it was a year. Demobilized in Washington, he traveled straight to Boston. He had made his plans. Before seeing Hildred again he would see her father. "It's the only straight thing to do," he told himself. After all the years in which they had been good to him he couldn't begin again to go in and out of their house while they were ignorant of what he hoped for. Hildred might have told them something; he didn't know; but the details of most importance were those which only he himself could give them. Having written for a very private appointment, Ansley had told him to come to his office immediately on his arrival in Boston. He reached that city by half-past three; he was at the office by a little after four. It was a large office, covering most of a floor of an imposing office building. On a glass door were the names of the partners, that of Philip Ansley standing first on the list and in bigger letters than the rest. In the anteroom an impersonal young lady reading a magazine said, by telephone, "Mr. Whitelaw to see Mr. Ansley." The business of the day was over. As Tom passed through a corridor from which most of the private offices opened he saw that they were empty. The only one still occupied was at the most distant end, and there he found Philip Ansley. He found also his wife. The purpose of Tom's visit having been made clear by letter, both of Hildred's parents were concerned in it. They welcomed him cordially, making the comments permissible to old friends on his improved personal appearance. They asked for his news; they gave their own. Guy was back at Harvard at the Law School; Hildred was at home, somewhat at loose ends. Like most girls who had worked in France, she found a life of leisure tedious. "Eating her head off," Ansley complained. "Can't settle down again." Mrs. Ansley was more heroic. "We accept it. It's part of what we offered up to the Great Cause. We gave our all, and though all was not taken from us we should not have murmured if it had been." Taking advantage of this turn of the talk, Tom launched into his appeal. For the last time in his life, as he hoped, he told the story of his mother. As he had told it to Hildred and to Henry Whitelaw so now he gave it to Philip and Sunshine Ansley. Hating the task, he was upheld in carrying it through by the knowledge that everyone who had a right to know it knew it now. He finished with the minute at which Guy first spoke to him. From that point onward they had been able to follow the course of his life for themselves. They had in a measure entered into it, and helped him to his opportunities. He thanked them; but before he could accept their goodwill again he wanted them to know exactly what he had sprung from. Hildred did know. She had known it for several years. It had made no difference to her; he hoped so to make good in the future that it would make no difference to them. They listened attentively, with no sign of being shocked. Now and then, at such points as the stealing of the first little book, or the final arrest, one or the other would murmur a "Dear me!" but sympathy and pity were plainly their sentiments. They didn't condemn him; they didn't even blame him. He had been an unfortunate child. There was nothing to be thought of him but that. After he had finished there was a silence that seemed long. Ansley sat at his desk, leaning back in his revolving chair. Mrs. Ansley was near a window, where she could to some extent shield herself by looking out. She left to her husband the duty of speaking the first word. "It all depends, my dear fellow, on your being accepted by Henry Whitelaw as his son." There was another silence. "Is that final, sir?" "I'm afraid it is." "Is there no way by which I can be taken as myself?" Mrs. Ansley turned from her contemplation of the Lion and the Unicorn on the Old State House. "No one is ever taken as himself. We all have to be taken with the circumstances that surround us." Ansley enlarged on this, leaning forward and toying with a paperweight. "My wife is quite right. Nobody in the world is just a human being pure and simple. He's a human being plus the conditions which go to make him up. You can't separate the conditions from the man, nor the man from the conditions. If you're Henry Whitelaw's son, stolen and brought up in circumstances no matter how poor and criminal, you're one person; if you're the son of this--this woman, whom I shan't condemn any more than I can help, you're another. You see that, don't you?" "Can't I be--what I've made myself?" "You can't make yourself anything but what you've been from the beginning. You can correct and improve and modify; but you can't change." "So that if I'm the son of--of this woman, you wouldn't want me. Is that it?" "How could we?" came from Mrs. Ansley. "But I know from Mr. Whitelaw himself that--" Ansley smiled, paternally. "Suppose we leave it there. After all, the last word rests with him." "I don't think so, sir. It rests with me." This could be dismissed as of no importance. "Oh, with you, of course, in a certain sense. They can't force you. But if they're satisfied that you're--" "And if I'm not satisfied?" "Oh, but, my dear fellow, you wouldn't make yourself difficult on that score." "It's not a question of being difficult; it's one of what I can do." They got no farther than that. Tom's reluctance to deny the woman he had always regarded as his mother was not only hard for them to seize, it was hard for him to explain. He couldn't make them see that the creature who for them was only a common shoplifter was for him the source of tender and sacred memories. To accuse her of a greater crime than theft would be to desecrate the shrine which he himself had built of love and pity; but he was unable to put it into words, as they were unable to understand it. He himself worded it as plainly as he could when, rising, he said: "So that I must renounce my mother or renounce Hildred." Ansley also rose. "That's not quite the way to express it. If she _was_ your mother, there can be no question of your renouncing her. But then, too, there can be no question of--of Hildred. I'm sure you must see." "And if I see, would Hildred also see?" Leaving her window, Mrs. Ansley, bulbous and quivering, lilted forward. "We must leave that to your sense of honor. In a way we're in your hands. It's within your power to make us suffer." "I should never do that," he assured her, hastily. "Hildred wouldn't want me to. After all you've done for me neither she nor I--" "Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so." Ansley held out his hand. "We trust you both. But the situation is clear, I think. If you come back to us as Harry Whitelaw, you'll find us eager to welcome you. If you don't, or if you can't--" A wave of the hand, a shrug of the shoulders, expressing the rest, Tom could only bow himself out. XLIII On the part of Philip and Sunshine Ansley the confidence was such that Hildred was permitted to take a walk with Tom before his departure for New York. "We're not engaged," Hildred reported as part of her mother's conditions, "and we can't be engaged unless you're proved to be Harry Whitelaw. Mother thinks you're going to be. So apparently the question in the long run will be as to whether or not you want me." "It won't be that. I'm crazy about you, Hildred, more than any fellow ever was before." "And that's the way I feel about you, Tom. I don't care a bit about the things dad and mother think so important. You're you; you're not your father or your mother, whoever they may have been. I shouldn't love you any the better if you became the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw. It would only make it easier." It was a windy afternoon in April, with the trees in new leaf. All along the Fenway the bridal-veil made cascades of whiteness whiter than the hawthorns. Pansies, tulips, and forget-me-nots brightened all the foot-paths. The two tall, supple figures bent and laughed in the teeth of the lusty wind. Rather it was she who laughed, since she had the confidence in life, while he knew only life's problems. He had always known life's problems, and though there had never been a time when he was free from them, he never had had one to solve so difficult as this. "But that's where the shoe pinches," he declared, "that I'm myself, so much more myself than many fellows are; and yet, unless I turn into some one else, I shall lose you." She threw back her answer with a kind of radiant honesty. "You couldn't lose me, Tom. I couldn't lose you. We've grown together. Nothing can cut us asunder. One can't win out against two people who're as willing to wait as we are." He was not comforted. "Oh, wait! I don't want to wait." "Neither do I; but we'd both rather wait than give each other up." "Wait--for how long?" "How can I tell how long? As long as we have to." "Till your father and mother die?" "Oh, gracious, no! I'm not killing the poor lambs. Till they come round. They'll _come_ round." "How do you know?" "Because fathers and mothers always do. Once they see how sad I'll be--" "Oh, you're going to play that game." She was indignant. "I shan't play a game. I shall _be_ sad. I'm all right now while you're here; but once you're gone--well, if dad and mother want a martyr on their hands they'll have one. I shan't be putting it on either. I'll not be able to help myself." "I'd rather they came around for some other reason than to save your life." "I'm not particular about the reason so long as they come round. But you see I'm talking as if the worse were coming to the worst. As a matter of fact, I believe the better is coming to the best." "Which means that you think the Whitelaws...." "I know they will." "And that I...." "Oh, Tom, you'll be reasonable, won't you?" He was silent. Even Hildred couldn't see what his past had meant to him. A wretched, miserable past from some points of view, at least it was his own. It had entered into him and made him. It was as hard to take it now as a hideous mistake as it would have been to take his breathing or the circulation of his blood. The farther it drifted behind him the more content he was to have known it. Each phase had given him something he recognized as an asset. Honey, the Quidmores, the Tollivants, Mrs. Crewdson, the "mudda," had all left behind them experiences which time was beginning to consecrate. Hildred couldn't understand any more than anybody else what it cost him to disclaim them. He often wondered whether, had he been born the son of Henry and Eleonora Whitelaw, and never been stolen away from them, he would have grown to be another Tad. He thought it very likely. Not that Tad hadn't justified himself. He had. His record in the war had gone far to redeem him. He had come through with sacrifice and honor. Having fought without a scratch for a year and a half, he had, on the very morning of the day when the Armistice was signed, received a wound which, because of the infection in his blood, had resulted in the loss of his right arm. This maiming, which the chance of a few hours would have saved him, he took, according to Hildred, with splendid pluck, though also with an inclination to be peevish. Lily, so Tom's letters from Henry Whitelaw had long ago informed him, had married a man named Greenshields, had had a baby, had been divorced, and again lived at home with her parents. Tom pondered on the advantages they, Tad and Lily, were assumed to have enjoyed and which he himself had been denied. Everyone, Hildred included, took it for granted that ease and indulgence were blessings, and that he had suffered from the loss of them. Perhaps he had; but he hadn't suffered more than Tad and Lily on whom they had been lavished. Tad with his maimed body, Lily with her maimed life, were not of necessity the product of wealth and luxury; but neither did a blasted soul or character come of necessity from poverty and hardship, or even from an origin in crime. He couldn't explain this to Hildred, partly because she didn't care, partly because he had not the words, and mostly because her assumptions were those of her society. She would love him just the same whether he were the son of a woman who had killed herself in jail, or that of a banker known throughout the world; but the advantages of being the latter were to her beyond argument. So they were to him, except that.... Thus with Hildred he came to no conclusions any more than with her parents. With her as with them it was an object to keep him from making any statement that might seem too decisive. If they left it to Henry Whitelaw and himself the scales could but dip in one direction. And yet when actually face to face with the banker, Tom doubted if the subject was going to be raised. He had written, reminding Whitelaw of the promise he himself had exacted, that on looking for work, Tom should apply first of all to him. Like Ansley, the banker had made an appointment at his office. The office was in the ponderous and somewhat forbidding structure which bore the name of Meek and Brokenshire in Wall Street. The room into which Tom was shown was shabby and unpretentious. Square, low-ceiled, lighted by two windows looking into yards or courts, its one bit of color lay in the green and red of a Turkey rug, threadbare in spots, and scuffed into wrinkles. Against the walls were heavily carved walnut bookcases, housing books of reference. A few worn leather armchairs made a rough circle about a wide flat-topped desk, which stood in the center of the room. On the desk were some valuable knickknacks, paper weights, paper cutters, pen trays, and other odds and ends, evidently gifts. A white-marble mantelpiece clumsily sculptured in the style of 1840 was adorned above by the lithographed head of the first J. Howard Brokenshire, also of 1840, and one of the founders of the firm. For the first few minutes the room was empty. Tom stood timidly close to the door through which he had come in. The banker entered from a room adjoining. "Ah, here you are!" He crossed the floor rapidly. For a long minute Tom found himself held as he had been held before, the man's right hand grasping his, the left hand resting on his shoulder. There was also the same searching with the eyes, and the same little weary push when the eyes had searched enough. "Sit down." Tom took the armchair nearest him; the man drew up another. He drew it close, with hungry eagerness. Tom was apologetic. "I must beg your pardon, sir, for asking you to see me--" "Oh, no, my dear boy. I should have been hurt if you hadn't. I've been expecting you ever since I read that you'd landed. What made you go to Boston before coming here?" There was confession in Tom's smile. "I had to see some one." "Was it Hildred Ansley?" Tom found himself coloring, and without an answer. "Oh, you needn't tell me. I didn't mean to embarrass you. The Ansleys are very good friends of mine. Known them well for years. If it hadn't been for them you and I might never have got together. Now give me some account of yourself. It must be nearly two months since I last heard from you." Tom gave such scraps of information as he hadn't told in letters, and thought might be of interest. With some use of inner force he nerved himself to ask after Mrs. Whitelaw, and "the other members of the family," a phrase which evaded the use of names. The banker talked more freely than he had written. He talked as to one with whom he could open his heart, and not as to an outsider. Mrs. Whitelaw was stronger and calmer, less subject to the paralyzing terrors which had beset her for so long. Tad was doing with himself the best he could, but the best in the case of a fellow of his age and tastes who had lost his right arm was not very good. He could ride a little, guiding his horse with his left hand, but he couldn't drive a car, or hunt, or play polo, or use his hand for writing. He could hardly dress himself; he fed himself only when everything was cut up for him. In the course of time he would probably do better, but as yet he couldn't do much. Lily had made a mess of things. It was worse than what he had told Tom in his letters. She had eloped with a worthless fellow, whom he, her father, had forbidden her to know, and who wanted nothing but her money. It was a sad affair, and had stunned or bewildered her. He didn't like to talk of it, but Tom would see for himself. He reverted to Tom's own concerns. "You wrote to me about a job." "Yes, sir; but I'm afraid it's bothering you too much." "Don't think that. I've got the job." The young man tried to speak, but the other hurried on. "I hope you'll take it, because I've been keeping it for you ever since I saw you last." Tom's eyes opened wide. "Over three years?" "Oh, there was no hurry. Easy enough to save it. I want you to be one of the assistants to my own confidential secretary. This will keep you close to myself, which is where I want to have you for the first year at least. You'll get the hang of a lot of things there, and anything you don't understand I can explain to you. Later, if you want to go into the study of banking more scientifically--well, I shall be able to direct you." He sat dazzled, speechless. It was the future!--Hildred!--happiness!--honor!--the big life!--the conquest of the world! He could have them all by sitting still, by saying nothing, by letting it be implied that he renounced his loyalties, by being passive in the hand of this goodwill. He would be a fool, he told himself, not to yield to it. Everyone in his senses would consider him a fool. The father of the Whitelaw baby believed that he had found his child. Why not let him believe it? How did he, Tom Whitelaw, know that he wasn't his child? The woman who had told him he was never to think so was dead and in her grave. Judged by all reasonable standards, he owed her nothing but a training in wicked ways. He would give her up. He would admit, tacitly anyhow, even if not in words, that she had stolen him. He would be grateful to this man--and profit by his mistake. He began to speak. "I hardly know how to thank you, sir, for so much kindness. I only hope--" He was trying to find the words in which to express his ambition to prove worthy of this trust, but he found himself saying something else--"I only hope that you're not doing all this for me because you think I'm--I'm your son." Leaning toward him, the banker put his hand on his knee. "Suppose we don't bring that up just yet? Suppose we just--go on? As a matter of fact--I'm talking to you quite frankly--more frankly than I could speak to anyone else in the world--but as a matter of fact I--I want some one who'll--who'll be like a son to me--whether he's my son or not. I wonder if you're old enough to understand." "I think I am, sir." "I'm rather a lonely man. I've got great cares, great responsibilities. I can swing them all right. There are my partners, fine fellows all of them; there are as many friends as I can ask for. But I've nobody who comes--who comes very close to me--as a son could come. I've thought--I've thought it for some time past--that--whoever you are--you might do that." As he leaned with his hand on Tom's knee his eyes were lower than Tom's own. Tom looked down into them. It was strange to him that this man who held so much of the world in his grasp should be speaking to him almost pleadingly. His memories filed by him with the speed and distinctness of lightning. He was the little boy moving from tenement to tenement; he was in the big shop on that Christmas Eve; he was walking with his mother in front of the policeman; he was watching her go away with the woman who was like a Fate; he was staring at the Christmas Tree; he was being pelted on his first day at school; he was picking strawberries for the Quidmores; he was sleeping in the same room with Honey; he was acting as chauffeur at the inn-club in Dublin, New Hampshire, and picking up this very man at Keene. And here they were together, the instinct of the father calling to the son, while the instinct of the son was scarcely, if at all, articulate. The struggle was between his future and his past. "I must be his son," he cried to himself. But another voice cried, "And yet I can't be." Aloud he said, modestly, "I'm not sure, sir, that I could fill the bill for you." "That would be up to me. It isn't what you can do but what I'm looking for that matters in a case like this." He stood up. "I'm sorry I must go back to a conference inside, but I shall see you soon again. What's your address in New York?" Tom gave him the name of the hotel at which he was putting up. Whitelaw had never heard of it. "Can't you do better than that?" "Oh, it isn't bad, sir. I'm not used to luxury, and I manage very well. I'm quite all right." "Is it money?" "Only in the sense that everything is money. I've a little saved--not much--and I like to keep on the weather side of it. The man who did more for me than anybody else--the ex-burglar I told you about--always taught me to be economical." "All the same I don't like to have you staying in a place like that. You must let me--" "Oh, no, sir! I'd a great deal rather not." He spoke in some alarm. "I've got to be on my own. I _must_ be." "Oh, very well!" The tone was not precisely cold; it was that of a man whose good intentions were sensitive. Tom did something which he never had supposed he would have dared to do. He went up to this man, and laid his hand gently on his arm. Instantly the man's free hand was laid on the one which touched him, welcoming the caress. Tom tried to explain himself. "It isn't that I'm not grateful, sir. I hope you don't think that. But--but I'm myself, you see. I've got to stand on my own feet. I know how to do it. I've learned. I--I hope you don't mind." "I want you to do whatever you think best yourself. You're the only judge." They had separated now, and the banker held out his hand. "Oh, and by the way," he continued, clinging to Tom's hand in the way he had done on earlier occasions. "My wife wants to see you. She told me to ask you if you couldn't go and lunch with her to-morrow." Since there was no escape Tom could only brace himself. "Very well, sir. It's kind of Mrs. Whitelaw. I'll go with pleasure. At one o'clock?" "At one o'clock." He picked up a card from the desk. "This is our address. You'll find Mrs. Whitelaw less--less emotional than when you saw her last and more--more used to the idea." Without explaining the idea to which she was more used, the banker released Tom's hand with his customary little push, as if he had had enough of him, hurrying out by the door through which he had come in. XLIV Before turning into bed that night Tom had fought to a finish his battle with himself. The victory rested, he hoped, with common sense. He could no longer doubt that before very long an extraordinary offer would be made to him. To repulse it would be insane. "As far as my personal preferences go," he wrote to Hildred, "I would rather remain as I am. Remaining as I am would be easier. I'm free; I've no one to consider; I know my own way of life, and can follow it pretty surely. But I'm not adaptable. You yourself must often have noticed that my mind works stiffly, and that I find it hard to see the other fellow's point of view. I'm narrow, solitary, concentrated, and self-willed. But as long as I've no one to consult I can get along. "To enter a family of which I know nothing of the ways or traditions or points of view is going to be a tough job. It will be much tougher than if I merely married into it. In that case I should be only an adjunct to it, whereas in what may happen now I shall have to become an integral part of it. I must be as a leg instead of as a crutch. I don't know how I shall manage it. "I'm not easily intimate with anyone. Perhaps that's the reason why, as you say, I haven't enough of the lover in me. I'm not naturally a lover. I'm not naturally a friend. I'm a solitary. A solitude _à deux_, with the servants, as you always like to stipulate, is my conception of an earthly paradise. "To you the normal of life is a father, a mother, a brother, a sister. To me it isn't. To have a father seems abnormal to me, or to have a sister or a brother. If I can see myself with a mother it's because of a poignant experience of the kind that burns itself into the memory. But I can't see myself with _another_ mother, and that's what I've got to do. Mind you, it isn't a stepmother I must see, nor an adopted mother, nor a mother-in-law; it's a real mother of my own flesh and blood. I must see a real brother, a real sister. They think that all they have to do is to fling their doors open, and that it will be a simple thing for me to walk in. But I must fling open something more tightly sealed than any door ever was--my life, my affections, my point of view. They are four, and need only make room for one. I'm only one, and must make room for four. "But I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it for a number of reasons which I shall try to give you in their order. "First, for your sake. You want it. For me that is enough. I see your reasons too. It will help us with your father and mother, and all our future life. So that settles that. "Then, I want to conform to what those who care anything about me would expect. I don't want to seem a fool. It's what I should seem if I turned such an offer down. Nobody would understand my emotional and sentimental reasons but myself; and when it comes to the emotional and sentimental there is a pro side as well as a con to the whole situation. "Because if I _must_ have a father there's no one whom I could so easily accept as a father as this very man. He seems to me like my father; I think I seem to him like his son. More than that, he looks like my father, and I must look like the kind of son he would naturally have. I'm sure he likes me, and I know I like him. If I was choosing a father he's the very one I should pick out. "Next, and you may be surprised to hear me say it, I could do very well with Tad as a brother. That he couldn't do with me is another thing; but there's something about the chap which has bewitched me from the day I first laid eyes on him. I haven't liked him exactly; I've only felt for him a kind of responsibility. I've tried to ignore it, to laugh at it, to argue it down; but the thing wouldn't let me kill it. If there's such a thing as an instinct between those of the same flesh and blood I should say that this was it. I've no doubt that if we come to living in one menagerie we shall be the same sort of friends as a lion and a tiger--but there it is. "The women appall me. I can't express it otherwise. With the father I could be a son as affectionate as if I'd never left the family. With Tad I could establish--I've established already--a sort of fighting fraternity. To neither the mother nor the daughter could I ever be anything, so far as I can see now. They wouldn't let me. They wouldn't want me. If they yield to the extent of admitting me into the family they'll always bar me from their hearts. The limit of my hope is that, since I generally get along with those I have to live with, the hostility won't be too obvious. I also have the prospect that when you and I are married--and that's my motive in the whole business--I shall get a measure of release." He purchased next morning a pair of gloves and an inexpensive walking stick so as to look as nearly as might be like the smart young men he saw on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. It was not his object to be smart; it was to be up to the standard of the house at which he was to lunch. To reach that house he went on the top of a bus like the one on which he had ridden with Honey nearly ten years earlier. He did this with intention, to make the commemoration. Honey's suspicions and predictions had then seemed absurd; and here they were on the eve of being verified. He got off at the corner at which, as he remembered, Honey and he had got off on that August Sunday afternoon. He crossed the road to see if he could recognize the home of the Whitelaw baby as it had been pointed out to him. Recognition came easily enough because in the whole line of buildings it was the only one which stood detached, with a bit of lawn on all sides of it. A spacious brownstone house, it had the cheery, homey aspect which comes from generous proportions, and masses of spring flowers, daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths, banked in the bow-windows. Being a little ahead of his time, he walked up the street, trying to compose himself and recapture his nerve. The story, first told to him by Honey, and repeated in scraps by many others, returned to him. Too far away to be noticed by anyone who chanced to be looking out, he stood and gazed back at the house. If he was really Harry Whitelaw he had been born there. The last time he had come forth from it he had been carried down those steps by two footmen. He had been wheeled across the street and into the Park by a nurse in uniform. Within the glades of the Park a change had somehow been wrought in his destiny, after which there was a blank. He emerged from that blank into consciousness sitting on a high chair in a kitchen, beating on the table with a spoon, and asking the question: "Mudda, id my name Gracie, or id it Tom?" The memory was both vague and vivid. It was vague because it came out from nowhere and vanished into nowhere. It was vivid because it linked up with that bewilderment as to his identity which haunted his early childhood. The discovery that he was a little boy forced on a woman craving for a little girl was the one with which he first became aware of himself as a living entity. To his present renunciation of that woman he tried to shut his mind. There was no help for it. He had long kept a veil before this sad holy of holies; he would simply hang it up again. He would nail it up, he would never loosen it, and still less go behind it. What was there would now forever be hidden from any sight, even from his own. At a minute before one he recrossed the avenue, and went down the little slope. In the rôle of Harry Whitelaw which he was trying to assume going up the steps was significant. The long, devious, apparently senseless odyssey had brought him back again. It was only to himself that the odyssey seemed straight and with a purpose. The middle-aged man who opened the door raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wide in a flash of perturbation. It was only for an instant; in the half of a second he was once more the proper stiffened image of decorum. And yet as he took from the visitor the hat, stick, and gloves, Tom could see that the eyes were scanning his face furtively. It was a big dim hall, impressive with a few bits of ancient massive furniture, and a stairway in an alcove, partially hidden by a screen which might have been torn from some French cathedral. Tom, who had risen to the modest standard of the Ansleys, again felt his insufficiency. Following the butler, he went down the length of the hall toward a door on the right. But a door on the left opened stealthily, and stealthily a little figure darted forth. "So you've come! I knew you would! I knew I shouldn't go down to my grave without seeing you back in the home from which twenty-three years ago you were carried out. I've said so to Dadd times without number, haven't I, Dadd?" "You have indeed, Miss Nash," Dadd corroborated, "and none of us didn't believe you." "Dadd was the second footman," Miss Nash explained further. "He was one of the two who lifted you down that morning. Now he's the butler; but he's never had my faith." She glided away again. Dadd threw open a door. Tom found himself in a large sunny room, of which the bow-window was filled with flowers. There was no one there, which was so far a relief. It gave him time to collect himself. Except for apartments in museums, or in some château he had visited in France, he had never been in a room so stately or so full of costly beauty. He knew the beauty was costly in spite of his lack of experience. On the wall opposite the bow-window stretched a blue-green Flemish tapestry, with sad-eyed, elongated figures crowding on one another within an intricate frame of flowers, foliage, and fruits. A white-marble mantelpiece, bearing in shallow relief three garlanded groups of dancing Cupids, supported a clock and a pair of candelabra in _biscuit de Sèvres_ mounted in ormolu. Above this hung a full-length eighteenth-century lady--Reynolds, Romney, Gainsborough--he was only guessing--looking graciously down on a cabinet of European porcelains, on another of miniatures, and another of old fans. Bronzes were scattered here and there, with bits of iridescent Spanish luster, and two or three plaques of Limoges enamel intense in color. Since there was room for everything, the profusion was without excess, and not too carefully thought out. A work-basket filled with sewing materials and knitting stood on a table strewn with recent magazines and books. He was so long alone that he was growing nervous when Lily dropped into the room as if she had happened there accidentally. She sauntered up to him, however, offering her hand with a long, serpentine lifting of the arm, casual and negligent. "How-d'ye-do? Mamma's late. I don't know whether she's in the house or not. Perhaps she's forgotten. She often does." She picked up a silver box of cigarettes. "Have one?" On his declining she lighted one for herself, dropping into a big upright chair and crossing her legs. It was the year when young ladies liked to display their ankles and calves nearly up to the knee. Lily, whose skirt was of unrelieved black, wore violet silk stockings, with black slippers which had bright red buckles set in paste. Over her shoulders a violet scarf, with bright red bars, hung loosely. In sitting, her sinuous figure drooped a little forward, the elbow of the hand which held the cigarette supported on her knee. Though she hadn't asked him to sit down, he took a chair of his own accord, waiting for her to speak again. When she did so, after an interval of puffing out tiny rings of blue smoke, her voice was languid and monotonous, and yet with overtones of passionate self-will. "You've been in the army, haven't you?" He said he had been. "Did you like it?" "I never had time to think as to whether I did or not. I just had to stick it out." "Did you ever see Tad over there?" "No, I never did." As she was laconic he too would be laconic. She didn't look at him, or show an interest in his personality. If she thought him the brother who after long disappearance was coming home again she betrayed no hint of the possibility. He might have been a chance stranger whom she would never see again. Lapses of silence did not embarrass her. She sat and smoked. He decided to assume the right to ask questions on his own side. "You've been married since I saw you last, haven't you?" "Yes." She didn't resent this, apparently, and after a long two minutes of silence, added: "and divorced." There was still a noticeable passage of time before she continued, in her toneless voice: "I've a baby too." "Do you like him?" A flicker of a smile passed over a profile heavy-browed, handsome, and disdainful. "He's an ugly little monster so far." She had a way of stringing out her sentences as after-thoughts. "I daresay he's all right." There followed a pause so long and deep that in it you could hear the ticking of the clock. He was determined to be as apathetic as herself. She had no air of thinking. She scarcely so much as moved. Her stillness suggested the torrid, brooding calm before volcanic or seismic convulsion. Without a turning of the head or a change in her languid intonation, she said, casually: "You're our lost brother, aren't you?" The emotion from which she was so free almost strangled him. He could barely breathe the words, "Would you care if I were?" "What would be the use of my caring if papa was satisfied?" "Still, I should think, that one way or the other, you might care." To this challenge she made no response. She was not hostile in any active sense; he was sure of that. She impressed him rather as exhausted after terrific scenes of passion, waywardness, and disillusion. A little rest, and she would be ready for the same again, with himself perhaps to take the consequence. Mrs. Whitelaw came in with the rapid step and breathless, syncopated utterance he remembered. "So sorry to be late. I'd been for a long drive. I wanted to think. I had no idea what time it was. I suppose you must be hungry." She gave him her hand without looking him in the face, helped over the effort of the meeting by the phrases of excuse. "So this is my mother!" It was his single thought. In the attempt to realize the fact he had ceased to be troubled or embarrassed. He could only look. He could only wonder if he would ever be able to make himself believe that which he did not believe. He repeated to himself what he had already written to Hildred: he could believe the man to be his father; but that this woman was his mother he rejected as an impossibility. Not that there was anything about her displeasing or unsympathetic. On the contrary, she had been beautiful, and still had a lovely distinction. Features that must always have been soft and appealing had gained by the pathos of her tragedy, while a skin that could never have been anything but delicate and exquisite was kept exquisite and delicate by massage and cosmetics. Veils protected it from the sun and air; gauntlets, easy to pull on and off, preserved the tenderness of hands wearing many jeweled rings, but a little too dimpling and pudgy. The eyes, limpid, large, and gray with the lucent gray of moonstones, had lids of the texture of white rose petals just beginning to shrivel up and show little _bistré_ stains. The lashes were long, dark, and curling like those of a young girl. Tom couldn't see the color of her hair because she wore a motoring hat, with a sweeping brown veil draped over it and hanging down the back. Heather-brown, with a purplish mixture, was the Harris tweed of her coat and skirt. The blouse of a silky stuff, was brown, with blue and rose lights in it when she moved. A row of great pearls went round her neck, while the rest of the string, which was probably long, disappeared within the corsage. Dadd appeared on the threshold, announcing lunch. "Come on," Mrs. Whitelaw commanded, and Lily rose listlessly. "Is Tad to be at home?" Lily dragged her frail person in the wake of her mother. "I don't know anything about him." Tom followed Lily, since it seemed the only thing to do, crossing the hall and passing through the door by which Miss Nash had darted out to speak to him. The dining room, on the north side of the house, was vast, sunless, and somber. Tom was vaguely aware of the gleam of rich pieces of silver, of the carving of high-backed chairs as majestic as thrones. One of these thrones Dadd drew out for Mrs. Whitelaw; a footman drew out a second for Lily; another footman a third for himself. "Sit there, will you?" Mrs. Whitelaw said, in her offhand, breathless way, as if speaking caused her pain. "This room is chilly." She pulled her coat about her, though the room had the temperature suited to the great plant of Cattleya, on which there might have been thirty blooms, which stood in the center of the table. With rapid, nervous movements she picked up a spoon and tasted the grapefruit before her. A taste, and she pushed it away, nervously, rapidly. Nervously, rapidly, she glanced at Tom, glancing off somewhere else as if the sight of him hurt her eyes. "How long have you been back?" He gave her the dates and places connected with his recent movements. "Did you like it over there?" He made the reply he had given to Lily. "Were you ever wounded?" He said he had once received a bad cut on the shoulder which had kept him a month in hospital, but otherwise he had not suffered. "Tad's lost his right arm. Did you know that?" He had first got this news from Guy Ansley. He was very sorry. At the same time, when others had been so horribly mangled, it was something to escape with only the loss of a right arm. She gave him another of her hurried, unwilling glances. "How did you come to know the Ansleys so well?" He told the story of his early meetings with the fat boy on the sidewalk of Louisburg Square. "Wasn't it awful living with that burglar?" Tom smiled. "No. It seemed natural enough. He was a very kind burglar. I owe him everything." To Tom's big appetite the lunch was frugal, but it was ceremonious. He was oppressed by it. That three strong men should be needed to bring them the little they had to eat and drink struck him as ridiculous. And this was his father's house. This was what he should come to take as a matter of course. He would get up every morning to eat a breakfast served with this magnificence. He would sit every day on one of these thrones, like an apostle in the Apocalypse. He thought of breakfasts in the tenements, at the Tollivants', at the Quidmores', or with Honey in the grimy eating-places where they took their meals, and knew for the first time in many years a pang something like that of homesickness. It was not altogether the ceremony against which he was rebellious. It had elements of beauty which couldn't be decried. What he felt was the old ache on behalf of the millions of people who had to go without, in order that the few might possess so much. It was the world's big wrong, and he didn't know what caused it. His economic studies, taken with a view to helping him in the banking profession, had convinced him that nobody knew what caused it, and that the cures proposed were worse than the disease. Without thinking much of it actively, it was always in the back of his mind that he must work to eliminate this fundamental ill. Sitting and eating commonplace food in this useless solemn stateliness, the conviction forced itself home. Somewhere and somehow the world must find a means between too much and too little, or mankind would be driven to commit suicide. During the meal, which was brief, Lily scarcely spoke. As they recrossed the hall to go back to the big sunny room, she sloped away to some other part of the house. Tom and his mother sat down together, embarrassed if not distressed. Pointing to the box of cigarettes, she said, tersely, "Smoke, if you like." In the hope of feeling more at ease he smoked. Still wearing her hat and coat, she drew her chair close to the fire, which had been lighted while they were at lunch, holding her hands to the blaze. "Do you think you're our son?" The question was shot out in the toneless voice common to Lily and herself, except that with the mother there was the staccato catch of breathlessness between the words. Tom was on his guard. "Do you?" Turning slightly she glanced at him, quickly glancing away. "You look as if you were." "But looks can be an accident." "Then there's the name." "That doesn't prove anything." "And my husband knows a lot of other things. He'll tell you himself what they are." He repeated the question he had put to Lily, "Would you care if I were your son?" Making no immediate response, she evaded the question when she spoke. "If you were, you'd have to make your home here." "Couldn't I be your son--and make my home somewhere else?" "I don't see how that would help." "It might help me." The large gray eyes stole round toward him. "Do you mean that you wouldn't want to live with us?" "I mean that I'm not used to your way of living." "Oh, well!" She dismissed this, continuing to spread her jeweled fingers to the blaze. "You said once--a long time ago--when I saw you in Boston--that you couldn't get accustomed to another--to another mother--now--or something like that. Do you remember?" He said he remembered, but he said no more. "Well, what about it?" Since it was precisely to another mother that he was now making up his mind, he found the question difficult. "It was three years ago that I said that. Things change." "What's changed?" "Perhaps not things so much as people. I've changed myself." "Changed toward us--toward me?" "I've changed toward the whole question--chiefly because Mr. Whitelaw's been so kind to me." "I don't suppose his kindness makes any difference in the facts. If you're our son you're our son whether he's kind to you or not." "His kindness may not make any difference in the facts, but it does make a difference in my attitude." "Mine can't be influenced so easily." Though he wondered what she meant by that he decided to find out indirectly. "No, I suppose not. After all, you're the one to whom it's all more vital than to anybody else." "Because I'm the mother? I don't see that. They talk about mother-instinct as if it was so sure; but--" She swung round on him with sudden, unexpected flame--"but if they'd been put to as many tests as I've been they'd find out. Why, almost any child can seem as if he might have been the baby you haven't seen for a few years. You forget. You lose the power either to recognize or to be sure that you don't recognize. If anyone tries hard enough to persuade you...." "Has anyone tried to persuade you--about me?" He began to see from whence Tad and Lily had drawn the stormy elements in their natures. "Not in so many words perhaps; but when some one very close to you is convinced...." "And you yourself not convinced...." She rose to her feet tragically. "How _can_ I be convinced? What is there to convince me? Resemblances--a name--a few records--a few guesses--a few hopes--but I don't _know_. Who can prove a case of this kind--after nearly twenty-three years?" In his eagerness to reassure her he stepped near to where she stood. "I hope you understand that I'm not trying to prove anything. I never began this." "I know you didn't. I feel as if a false position would be as hard on you as it would be on ourselves." "Then you think the position would be a false one?" "I'm not saying so. I'm only trying to make you see how impossible it is for me to say I'm sure you're my boy--_when I don't know_. I'm not a cold-hearted woman. I'm only a tired and frightened one." "Would it be of any help if I were to withdraw?" "It wouldn't be of help to my husband." "Oh, I see! We must consider him." "I don't see that you need consider anyone but yourself. We've dragged you into this. You've a right to do exactly as you please." "Oh, if I were to do that...." "What I don't want you to do is to misjudge me. Not that it would matter whether you misjudged me or not, unless--later--we were compelled to see ourselves as--as son and mother." "I shouldn't like to have either of us do that--under compulsion." Restlessly, rapidly, she began to move about, touching now this object and now that. Her hands were as active as if they had an independent life. They were more expressive than her tone when they tossed themselves wildly apart, as she cried: "What else could it be for me--but compulsion?" He was about to speak, but she stopped him. "Do me justice. Put yourself in my place. My boy would now be twenty-four. They bring me a man who looks like thirty. Yes, yes; I daresay you're not thirty, but you look like it. It's just as hard for me as if you _were_ thirty. I'm only forty-four myself. They want me to think that this man--so big--so grave--so _old_--is my little boy. How _can_ I? He may be. I don't deny that. But for me to _think_ it ...!" He watched her as she moved from table to table, from chair to chair, her eyes on him reproachfully, her hands like things in agony. "It's as hard for me to think it as it is for you." The words arrested her. Her frenzied motions ceased. Only her eyes kept themselves on him, with their sorrowful, fixed stare. "What do you mean by that?" He tried to explain. "My only conception of a mother is of some one poor--and hard-worked--and knocked about--and loving--and driven from pillar to post--whereas you're so beautiful--and young--young almost--and--and expensive--and--" A flip of his hand included the room--"with all this as your setting--and everything else--I can't credit it." She came up to him excitedly. "Well, then--what?" "The only thing we can do, it seems to me, is to try to make it easier for each other. May I ask one question?" She nodded, mutely. "Would you rather that your little boy was found?--or that he wasn't found?" She wheeled away, speaking only after a minute's thought, and from the other side of the room. "I'd rather that he was found--of course--if I could be sure that he _was_ found." "How would you know when you were sure?" She tapped her heart. "I ought to know it here." "That's the way I'd know it too." "And you don't?" In a long silence he looked at her. She looked at him. Each strove after the mystery which warps the child to the mother, the mother to the child. Where was it? What was it? How could you tell it when you saw it? And if you saw it, could you miss it and pass it by? He sought it in her eyes; she sought it in his. They sought it by all the avenues of intuitive, spiritual sight. She tapped her heart again. Her utterance was imperious, insistent, and yet soft. "And you _don't_--feel it there?" He too spoke softly. "No, I don't." In reluctant dismissal he turned away from her. With her quick little gasp of a sob she turned away from him. XLV To Tom Whitelaw this was the conclusion of the whole matter. A son must have a mother as well as a father. If there was no mother there was no son. The inference brought him a relief in which there were two strains of regret. He would be farther away from Hildred. They would have more trials to meet, more bridges to cross. Very well! He was not accustomed to having things made easy. For whatever he possessed, which was not much, he had longed and worked and worked and longed till he got it. But he got it in the end. In the end he would get Hildred. Better win her so than to have her drop as a present in his arms. If not wholly content, he was sure. In the matter of his second regret he was only sorry. It began to grow clear to him that a father needs a son more than a son needs a father. Of this kind of need he himself knew nothing. He was what he was, detached, independent, assured. He never asked for sympathy, and if he craved for love, he had learned to stifle the craving, or direct it into the one narrow channel which flowed toward Hildred. The paternal and filial instinct, having had no function in his life, seemed to have shriveled up. But the instinct of response to the slightest movement of goodwill, to the faintest plea for help, was active with daily use. It leaped forth eagerly; if it couldn't leap forth something within him fretted and cried like a hound when the scent leads to earth. As Paul the Apostle, he could be all things to all men, if by any means he might help some. If Henry Whitelaw needed a son, he could be a son to him. The tie of blood was in no small measure a matter of indifference. His impulse was like Honey's "next o' kin." He remembered, as he had learned in school, that kin and kind were words with a common origin. Whitelaw's truest kinship with himself was in his kindness. His kinship with Whitelaw could as truly be in his devotion. Devotion was what he could offer most spontaneously. If only that could satisfy the father yearning for his son! It could do it up to a point, since the banker identified kindness and kinship much as he did himself. But beyond that point there was the cry of the middle-aged man for some one who was part of himself on whom he could lean now that his strength was beginning to decline. That his two acknowledged children were nothing but a care sent him groping all the more eagerly for the son who might be a support to him. The son who was not a son might be better than no one, as he himself confessed; and yet nothing on earth could satisfy his empty soul but his own _son_. Not to be that son made Tom sorry; but without a mother, how could he be? Otherwise, to remain as what life had made him was unalloyed relief. He was himself. In his own phrase, he was more himself than most men. But to enter the Whitelaw family, _and belong to it_, would turn him into some one else. He might have a right there; an accident such as happens every day might easily make him the head of it; and yet he would have to put forth affections and develop points of view which could only come from a man with another kind of past. To be the son of that mother, and the brother of that sister, sorry for them as he was, would mean the kind of metamorphosis, the change in the whole nature, of which he had read in ancient mythology. He would make the attempt if he was called to it; but he shrank from the call. Nevertheless, he took up his job as assistant to the great man's confidential secretary. This was a Mr. Phips whom Tom didn't like, but with whom he got on easily. He easily got on with him because Mr. Phips himself made a point of it. A rubicund, smiling man, he had to be seen twice before you gave him credit for his unctuous ability. There was in him that mingling of honesty and craft which go to make the henchman, and sometimes the ecclesiastic. While he couldn't originate anything, he could be an instrument accurate and sharp. Always ready to act boldly, it was with a boldness of which some one else must assume the responsibility. He could be the power behind the throne, but never the power sitting on it publicly. With an almost telepathic gift for reading Whitelaw's mind, he could carry out its wishes before they were expressed. From sheer induction he could, in a secondary way, direct affairs from which he never took a penny of the profits over and above his salary. Again like the ecclesiastic and the henchman, he had neither will nor conscience beyond the cause he served. A born factotum, with no office but to carry out, he accepted Tom without questioning. Without questioning he set him to those duties which, as a beginner, would be within his grasp. He didn't need to be told that when a message or a document was to be sent to the most private of all offices, it should be through the person of this particular young man. Without having invented for Tom the soubriquet of the Whitelaw Baby, he didn't frown at it on hearing it pass round the office, as it did within a few days. Tom found Whitelaw welcoming, considerate, but at first a little distant. He might have been conscious of the anomalies in the situation; he might have been anxious not to rush things; he might even have been shy. Except to ask him, toward the end of each day, how he was getting along, he didn't speak to him alone. Then, on the fourth morning, Whitelaw sent for him. As Tom entered he was standing up, a packet in his hand. "I want you to take a taxi and go up to my house. Ask for my wife, and give her this." He made the nature of the errand clearer. "It's the anniversary of our wedding. She thinks I've forgotten it. I've only been waiting to send this--by you." The significance of the mission came to Tom while he was on the way. The thing in the packet, probably a jewel, was the token of a marriage of which he was the eldest born. It was to mark his position in the husband's mind that he was made the bearer of the gift. He had no opinion as to this, except that in the appeal to the wife there was an element of futility. In the big dim hall he met the second born. To answer the door Dadd had left the task of helping the one-armed fellow into his spring overcoat. As Tom came in the poor left arm was struggling with the garment viciously. Tad broke into a greeting vigorous, but non-committal. "Hello, by Gad!" Tom went straight to his business. "Your father has sent me with a message to Mrs. Whitelaw. I understand she's at home." "So you've got here! I knew you'd work it some day." "You were very perspicacious." "I was. And there's another thing I'll tell you. You've got round the old man. Well, I'm not going to stand for it. See?" "I see; but it's got nothing to do with me. Your father's given me a job. If you don't want him to do it you ought to tackle him." Whatever war had done for Tad it had not ennobled him. The face was old and seamed and stained with a dark red flush. It was scowling too, with the helpless scowl of impotence. Tom was sorrier for him than he had ever been before. Having taken his hat and stick, Tad strode off, turning only on the doorstep. "But there's one thing I'll say right now. If you've got a job at Meek and Brokenshire's I'll damn well have a better one. I'm going to keep my eye on you." Tom laughed, good-naturedly. "That's the very best thing you could do. Nothing would please your father half so well. You'd buck him up, and at the same time get your knife into me." As the door closed behind Tad Miss Nash came forward from somewhere in the obscurity. She was in that tremulous ecstasy which the mere sight of Tom always roused in her. She was so very sorry, but Mrs. Whitelaw wasn't able to receive him. If Tom would leave his package with her she would see that it was delivered. On the next afternoon as Tom was leaving the office Whitelaw offered him a lift uptown. In the seclusion of the limousine the father spoke of Tad. "He's a great care to me, but somehow I feel that you might do him good." "He wouldn't let me. I can't get near him, except by force." "But force is what he respects. In the bottom of his heart he respects you." "What he needs is a job--the smallest job you could offer him in the bank. If you could put it to him as a sporting proposition that he was to get ahead of me...." "That's what I'll try to do." In the course of a few days the lift uptown had become a custom. Though he had never received instructions to that effect, Mr. Phips so shaped Tom's duties that he found himself leaving the office at the same moment as the banker. Once or twice when things did not so happen Whitelaw came into the room where Tom was at work to look for him. If no one else saw it Mr. Phips did, that the lift uptown was the big minute of the banker's day. "I've got a son," the secretary pondered to himself, "but I'll be hanged if I feel about him like that. I suppose it's because I never lost him." "Tad's applied to me for a job," the father informed Tom in the limousine one day. "The next thing will be to make him stick to it." "I believe I could manage that, once we get him there," Tom said confidently. "I can't always make him drink, but I can hold his head to the water. I did that at college more than once." "I know you did. I can't tell you...." A tremor of the voice cut short this sentence, but Tom knew what would have been said: "I can't tell you what it means to me now to have some one to fall back upon. The children have given me a good deal of worry which their mother couldn't share because of her unhappiness. But now--I've got you." Tom was glad, however, that it had not been put into words. XLVI They came into May, the joyous, exciting, stimulating May of New York, with its laughing promise of adventure. To Tom Whitelaw that sense of adventure was in the happy sunlight, in the blue sky, in the scudding clouds, in winds that were warm and yet with the tang of salt and ice in them, in the flowers in the Park, in the gay dresses in the Avenue, in the tall young men already beginning to look summery, in the shop windows with their flowers, fruit, jewels, porcelains, and brocades, in the opulent crush of vehicles, and in his own heart most of all. Never before had he known such ecstasy of life. It was more than vigor of limb or the strong coursing of the blood. It was youth and love and expectation, with their call to the daring, the reckless, and the new. They reached a Saturday. Business was taking Whitelaw to Boston. Tom went with him to the station, to carry his brief-case, to hand him his ticket, to check his bags, and perform the other small services of a clerk for the man of importance. "I shall come back on Wednesday," the banker explained to him, before entering the train. "On Thursday I shall not be at the office. It's a day on which I never leave my wife. Though I often have to go abroad and leave her behind, I always manage it so that we may have that particular day together. I shall see you then on Friday." He saw him, however, on Thursday, since Mr. Phips willed it so. At least, it was Mr. Phips who willed it, as far as Tom ever knew. About three on that day he came to Tom with a brief-case stuffed with documents. "The Chief may want to run his eyes over these before he comes to the office to-morrow. Ask for himself. Don't leave them with anybody else." To the best of Tom's belief there was no staging of what happened next beyond that which was set by Phips's intuitions. By the time he rang at the house in Fifth Avenue it was a little after four. Admitted to the big dim hall, he heard a hum of voices coming from the sitting room. In Dadd's manner there was some constraint. "Will you step in here, sir, and I'll tell the master that you've come?" The library was on the same side of the house as the dining room, but it got the afternoon sun. The sun woke its colors to a burnished softness in which red and blue and green and gold melted into each other lovingly. A still, well-ordered room, little used by anyone, it gave the impression of a place of rest for ancient beauty and high thought. Rich and reposeful, there was nothing in it that was not a masterpiece, but a masterpiece which there was no one but some chance visitor to care anything about. In the four who made up the Whitelaw family there were too many aching human cares for knowledge or art to comfort. Tom's eyes studied absently the profile of a woman on an easel. She might have been a Botticelli; he didn't know. She only reminded him of Hildred--neatly piled dark hair, long slanting eyes, a small snub nose, and lips deliciously _moqueur_. The colors she wore were also Hildred's, subdued and yet ardent, umber round the shoulders, with a chain of emeralds that almost sparkled in the westering light. Whitelaw entered with his quick and eager tread, his quick and eager seizing of the young man's hand. Again the left hand rested on his shoulder; again there was the deep and earnest searching of the eyes, as if a lost secret had not yet been found; again there was the little weary push. "Come." Taking the brief-case into his own hands, he left Tom nothing to do but follow him. Diagonally crossing the hall, Tom noticed that the hum of voices had died down. Without knowing why he nerved himself for a test. The test came at once. Whitelaw, having preceded him into the room, had carried his brief-case to a table, and at once went to work on the contents. Perhaps he did this purposely, to throw Tom on his own resources. In any case, it was on his own resources that he felt himself thrown the instant he appeared on the threshold. He judged from the face of anguish and protest which Mrs. Whitelaw turned on him that he was not expected. Dimly he perceived that Tad and Lily were in the room, and some one else whom as yet he hadn't time to see. All his powers were focused on the meeting of the woman who was not his mother, and didn't want him there. He thought quickly. He would be on the safest side. He had come there as a clerk; as a clerk shown in among the family he would conduct himself. He bowed to Mrs. Whitelaw, who let him take her hand, though that too seemed to suffer at his touch; he bowed to Lily; he nodded respectfully to Tad. He turned to salute distantly the other person in the room, and found her coming towards him. He knew her free swinging motion before he had time to see her face. "Oh, Tom!" "Why, Hildred!" Her manner was the protecting one he had often seen in other years, when she thought he might be hurt, or be ignorant of small usages. She was subtle, tactful, and ready, all at once. "Come over here." She drew him to a seat on a sofa, beside herself. "Mrs. Whitelaw won't mind, will you, Mrs. Whitelaw? You know, Tom and I are the greatest friends--have been for years." He forgot everyone else who was present in the joy and surprise of seeing her. "When did you come? Why didn't you let me know?" "I didn't know myself till late last night, did I, Mrs. Whitelaw? Mrs. Whitelaw only wired to invite me after Mr. Whitelaw came back from Boston. Of course I wasn't going to miss a chance like that. I don't see New York oftener than once in two years or so. Then there was the chance of seeing you. I was ready in an hour. I took the ten o'clock train this morning, and have just this minute arrived." Only when these first few bits of information had been given and received did Tom feel the return of his embarrassment. He was in a room where three of the five others were troubled by his presence. He wasn't there of his own free will, and since he was a clerk he couldn't leave till he was dismissed. He would not have known what to do if Hildred hadn't kept a small conversation going, drawing into it first one and then another, till presently all were discussing the weather or something of equal importance. In spite of her emotion Mrs. Whitelaw did her best to sustain her rôle of hostess, Tad and Lily speaking only when they were spoken to. At a given minute Tad got up, sauntering toward the door. He was stopped by his father. "Don't go, Tad. Tea will be here in a minute." The voice grew pleading. "Stay with us to-day." Lighting a cigarette, Tad sank back into his chair, doing it rather sulkily. Whitelaw continued to draw papers from the brief-case, arranging them before him on the table. When Dadd appeared with the tea-tray Tom made a push for escape. "If you've nothing else for me to do, sir...." Whitelaw merely glanced up at him. "Wait a minute. Sit down again." Tom went back to his seat beside Hildred, where he watched Mrs. Whitelaw as she poured the tea. It was the first time he had seen her in indoor dress, all lace and soft lavender, her pearls twisted once around her neck and descending to her waist, a great jewel on her breast. It was the first time, too, that he had seen her hair, which was fair and crinkly, like his own. Except for a slight portliness, she was too young to seem like the mother of Lily and Tad, while she was still less like his. That she should be his mother, this woman who had never known anything but what love and money could enrich her with, was too incongruous with everything else in life to call for so much as denial. And as for the hundredth time he was saying this to himself Whitelaw spoke. He spoke without looking up from his papers except to take a sip of tea from the cup on the table beside him. He spoke casually, too, as if broaching something not of much importance. "Now that we're all here I think that perhaps it's as good a time as any to go over the matter we've talked about separately--and settle it." There was no one in the room who didn't know what he meant. Tad smoked listlessly; Lily set down her cup and lighted a cigarette; Mrs. Whitelaw's jeweled fingers played among the tea-things, as if she must find something for her hands to do or shriek aloud. Tom's heart seemed turned to stone, to have no power of emotion. Hildred was the only one who said anything. "Hadn't I better go, Mr. Whitelaw? I haven't been up to my room yet." "No, Hildred. I'd rather that you stayed, if you don't mind. It's the reason we've asked you to come." He looked at no one. His face was a little white, though he was master of himself. "This is the tenth of May. It's twenty-three years ago to-day since we lost our little boy. I want to ask the family, now that we're all together, what they think of the chances of our having found him again." Though he knew it was an anniversary in the family, it was Tom's first recollection of the date. In as far as it was his birthday, birthdays had been meaningless to him, except as he remembered that they had come and gone, and made him a year older. "Personally," Whitelaw went on, "I've fought this off so long that I can't do it any longer. It will be five years this summer since I first saw him, at Dublin, New Hampshire, and was struck with his looks and his name, as well as with the little I learned of his history." "Why didn't you do something about it then," Tad put in, peevishly, "if you were going to do anything at all?" "You're quite right, Tad. It's what I should have done. I was dissuaded by the rest of you. I must confess, too, that I was afraid to take it up myself. We'd followed so many clues that led to nothing! But perhaps it's just as well, as it's given me time to make all the investigation that, it seems to me, has been possible." Apart from the motion of Tad's and Lily's hands as they put their cigarettes to their lips, everyone sat motionless and tense. Even Mrs. Whitelaw tamed her feverish activity to a more feverish stillness. Hildred put her hand lightly on Tom's sleeve to remind him that she was there, but the power of feeling anything had gone out of him. While Whitelaw told his facts he listened as if the case had nothing to do with himself. His agents, so the banker said, had probably unearthed every detail in the story that was now to be known. On August 5, 1895, Thomas Coburn had been married in The Bronx, to Lucy Speight. Coburn was a carpenter who had fallen from a roof in the following October, and had died a few days later of his injuries. Their child, Grace Coburn, had been born in The Bronx on March 5, 1896, and had died on April 21, 1897. After that all trace of the mother had been lost, though a woman who killed herself by poisoning in the Female House of Detention in the suburb of New Rotterdam, after having been arrested for shop-lifting, on December 24, 1904, might be considered as the same person. This woman had been known to such neighbors as could remember her as Mrs. Lucy Coburn, though at the time of her arrest she had claimed to be the widow of Theodore Whitelaw, after having married Thomas Coburn as her first husband. The wardress who had talked to her on taking her to a cell recalled that she had been incoherent and contradictory in all her statements about herself, her husband, and her child. As a matter of fact, the early history of Lucy Speight had been traced. She was the daughter of a laboring man at Chatham, in the neighborhood of Albany. Her mental inheritance had been poor. Her father had been the victim of drink, her mother had died insane. One of her sisters had died insane, and a brother had been put at an early age in a home for the feeble-minded. A brother and two sisters still lived either at Chatham or at Pittsfield. He had in his hand photographs of all the living members of the family, and copies of photographs of those deceased, including two of Lucy Speight as she was as a young girl. He turned toward Tom. "Would you like to look at them?" The power of emotion came back to him with a rush. He remembered his mother, vividly in two or three attitudes or incidents, but otherwise faintly. A flush that stained his cheek with the same dark red which dissipation stamped on Tad's made the brothers look more than ever alike as he crossed the room to take the pictures from his father's hand. There were a dozen or fourteen of them, all of poor rustic boys and girls, or men and women, feebleness in the cast of their faces, the hang of their lips, the vacancy of their eyes. Standing to sort them out, he put aside quickly the two of Lucy Speight. One of them must have dated from 1894, or thereabouts, because of the big sleeves; the other, with skin-tight shoulders, was that of a girl perhaps in 1889. In their faded simper there was almost nothing of the wild dark prettiness with which he saw her in memory, and yet he could recreate it. He stood and gazed long, all eyes fixed on him. Moving to the table where Mrs. Whitelaw sat behind the tray, he held the two pictures before her. "That's my mother." Though he said this without thought of its significance, and only from the habit of thinking of Lucy Speight as really his mother, he saw her shrink. With a glance at the photographs, she glanced up at him, piteously, begging to be spared. Even such contact as this, remote, pictorial only, with people of a world she had never so much as touched, hurt her fastidiousness. That the son of this poor half-witted creature, this Lucy Speight, should also be her son ... but the only protest she could make was in her eyes. Tom did not sit down again as Whitelaw continued with his facts; he stood at the end of the mantelpiece, with its candelabra in _biscuit de Sèvres_. Leaning with his elbow on the white marble edge, he had all the others facing him, as all the others had him. The attitude seemed best to accord with the position in which he felt himself, that of a prisoner at the bar. "We've found no record in any State in the Union," Whitelaw went on, "or in any Province in Canada, of a marriage between a Theodore Whitelaw and a Lucy Coburn or Speight. The search has been pretty thorough. Moreover, we find no birth recorded in The Bronx of any Thomas Whitelaw during all the decade between 1890 and 1900. No such birth is recorded in any other suburb of New York, or in Manhattan. In years past I've been on the track of three men of the name of Theodore Whitelaw, one in Portland, Maine, one in New Orleans, and one in Vancouver; but there's reason for thinking that all three were one and the same man. He was a Scotch sailor, who died on the Pacific coast, and was never known to be in or about New York longer than the two or three days in which his ship was in port." He came to the circumstances, largely gathered from Tom himself, of the association of the woman with the child. She had harped on the statements, first, that she had not stolen him; secondly, that he was not to think that his name was Whitelaw. And yet on the night before her death she had not only given him that very name, but claimed it as legally her own. The boy--the man, as he was now--could remember that at different times she had called herself by different names, chiefly to escape detection for her thefts; but never before that night had she taken that of Whitelaw. Those who had worked on the case, the most skilful investigators in the country, were driven to a theory. It was a theory based only on the circumstantial, but so broadly based that the one unproven point, that which absolutely showed identity, seemed to prove itself. Lucy Coburn, feeble in mind from birth, half demented by the death first of her husband and then of her child, had prowled about the Park, looking for a baby that would satisfy her thwarted mother-love. Any baby would have done this, though she preferred a girl. "My son, Henry Elphinstone Whitelaw, was born on September 24, 1896. He was eight months old when on May 10, 1897, he was wheeled into the Park by Miss Nash, who is still with us. What happened after, as she supposed, she wheeled him back, we all know about." But the theory was that, at some minute when Miss Nash's attention was diverted, the prowling woman got possession of the child, through means which were still a matter of speculation. She had money, since it was known that five thousand dollars had been paid to her by a life-insurance company on her husband's death, and, therefore, the power of flitting about, and covering up her traces. Discovering that she had a boy and not a girl, she had given him the first name she could think of, which was that of her late husband. She could easily have learned from the papers that the child she had stolen was the son of Henry Theodore Whitelaw, though the full name may or may not have remained in a memory probably not retentive at its best. But on the night of her arrest, knowing that she was about to forsake the child for whom she had come to feel a passionate affection, she had made one last wild effort to connect him with his true inheritance. Why she had done this but partially was again a matter of conjecture. She may have given all of the name she remembered; she may have been kept from giving the full name through fear. It was impossible to tell. But she gave the name--with some errors, it was true--but still the name. The name taken with the extraordinary family resemblance--everyone would admit that--was one of the main points in the reconstruction of the history. He reviewed a few more of the proofs and the half-proofs, asking at last, timidly, and as if afraid of the family verdict: "Well, what does everyone say?" The silence was oppressive. The only movement on anyone's part came when Lily stretched out her hand to a tray and with her little finger knocked off the ash from her cigarette. It seemed to Tom as if none of them would speak, as if he himself must speak first. "I vote we take him in." This was Tad. "Since we all know you want him, father--well, that settles it. As far as I'm concerned I'll--I'll crawl down." Lily shrugged her slim shoulders. "I don't care one way or another. I've got my own affairs to think of. If he doesn't interfere with me I won't interfere with him." Again she knocked off the ash of her cigarette. "Have him, if you want to." It was Mrs. Whitelaw's turn. She sat still, pensive. The clock could be heard ticking. Her husband gazed at her as if his life would depend on what she had to say. Tom himself went numb again. She spoke at last. "If you're satisfied, Henry, I'm satisfied. All I ask in the world is that you--" she gasped her little sob--"is that you shall be happy." Rising she walked straight up to Tom. "I want to kiss you." When he had bent his head she kissed him on the forehead, formally, sacramentally. She went back to her seat. Without moving from his place at the table, Whitelaw smiled across the room at Tom, a smile of relief and tenderness. "Well, what do you say?" Tom looked down at Hildred, noting her strange expression. It was not a satisfied expression; rather it was challenging, defiant of something, he didn't know of what. But he couldn't now consider Hildred; he couldn't consider anyone but himself. He did not change his position, leaning on the white marble mantelpiece; nor was his tone other than conversational. "I'm awfully sorry, sir--I'm sorry to say it to you especially--but it's--it's not good enough." With the slightest possible movement of the head Hildred made him a sign of proud approval. Whitelaw's smile went out. "What's not good enough?" "The--the welcome--home." Tad spluttered, indignantly. "What the devil do you want? Do you expect us to put up an arch?" "No; I don't expect anything. I should only like you to understand that though it isn't easy for you, it's easier for you than for me." Tad turned to his father. "Now you're getting it! I could have told you beforehand, if you'd consulted me." "You see," Tom continued, paying no attention to the interruption, "you're all different from me. You're used to different things, to different standards and ways of thinking. If I were to come in among you the only phrase that would describe me is the homely one of the fish out of water. I should be gasping for breath. I couldn't live in your atmosphere." Tad was again the only one to voice a comment. "Well, I'll be damned!" Tom's legs which had quaked at first, began to be surer under him. "Please don't think I'm venturing to criticize anyone or anything. This is your life, and it suits you. It wouldn't suit me because it isn't mine. The past makes me as it makes you, and it's too late now to unmake us. It's possible that I may be Harry Whitelaw. When I hear the evidence that can be produced I can almost think I am. But if I _am_ Harry Whitelaw by birth, I'm _not_ Harry Whitelaw by life and experience. I can't go back and be made over. I'm myself as I stand." Still having in his hand the pictures of Lucy Speight, he held them out. "To all intents and purposes this is--my mother." "And I kissed you!" Tom smiled. "Yes, but you don't know how she kissed me. I do. She loved me. I loved her. I've tried--I've tried my very best--to turn my back on her--to call her a thief--and any other name that would blacken her--and--and I can't do it." The sleeping lioness in the mother was roused suddenly. Leaving her place behind the tea-table, she advanced near enough to him to point to the two photographs. "Do you mean to say that--having the choice between--that--and me--you choose--that?" "I don't choose. I can't do anything else. It isn't what you think that rules your life; it's what you love. I'm one of the people to whom love means more than anything else. I daresay it's a weakness--especially in a man--but that's the way it is." "If your first stipulation is love...." "Wouldn't it be yours, Onora?" "I'd try to be reasonable--when so many concessions have been made." "Yes," Tom hastened to say, "but that's just my point. I'm not asking for concessions. The minute they must be made--well, I'm not there. I couldn't come into your family--on concessions." Whitelaw spoke up again. "I don't blame you." Tom tried to make his position clearer. "It's a little like this. A long time ago I was coming along by the Hudson in the train. I was on my way to New York with the man who had adopted me, after I'd been a State ward. There was a steamer on the river, and I watched her--coming _from_ I didn't know where--going _to_ I didn't know where. And it came to me then that she was something like myself. I didn't know what port I'd sailed from; nor what port I was making for. But now that I'm twenty-three--if that's my age--I see this: that once in so often I touched at some happy isle, where the people took me in and were good to me. It was what carried me along." The mother broke in, reproachfully. "Happy isles--full of convicts and murderers!" "Yes; but they were happy. The convicts and murderers were kind. A homeless boy doesn't question the moral righteousness of the people who give him food and shelter and clothes, and, what's more, all their best affection. What it comes to is this, that having lived in those happy isles--awhile in one, awhile in another--I don't want to go ashore at an unhappy one, even though I was born there." Springing to his feet, Tad bore down on him. "Do you know what I call you? I call you an ass." "Very likely. I'm only trying to explain to you why I can't be your brother--even if I am--your brother." "It's because you don't want to be--and you damn well know it." "That may be another way of putting it; but I'm not putting it that way." Lily rose languidly, throwing out her words to nobody in particular. "I think he's a good sport, if you ask me. I wouldn't come into a family like us--not the way we are." "Wait, Lily," Whitelaw cried, as she was sauntering out. He too got to his feet. "You've all spoken. You've done the best you could. I'm not blaming anyone. Now I want you all to understand--" He indicated Tom--"that this is _my son_. I know he's my son. I claim him as my son. Not even what he says himself can make any difference to me." Tom strode across the room, grasping the other's hand. "Yes, sir; and you're my father. I know that too, and I claim you on my side. But we'll stop right there. It's as far as we can go. I'll be your son in every sense but that of--" He looked round about on them all--"but that of being your heir or a member of your family. I can't do that; but--between you and me--everything is understood." He got out of the room with dignity. Passing Tad, he nodded, and said, "Thanks!" To Lily he said, "Thank you too. It was bully, what you said." Reaching the mother whom he didn't know and who didn't know him, he bowed low. Sitting again behind the tea-table, she lifted her hand for him to take it. He took it and kissed it. Her little soblike gasp followed him as he passed into the big dim hall. He had taken no leave of Hildred, because he knew she would do what actually she did; but he didn't know that she would speak the words he heard spoken. "I'm going with him, dear Mrs. Whitelaw; but I shan't be long. I just don't want him to go away alone because--because I mean to marry him." XLVII As they went down the steps she took his arm. "Tom, darling, I'm proud of you. Now they know where we stand, both of us." "It was splendid of you, Hildred, to play up like that. It backs me tremendously that you're not afraid to own me. But, you know, what I've just said will put us farther apart." "Oh, I don't know about that. Father said we couldn't be engaged unless you were acknowledged as Mr. Whitelaw's son; and you have been. He never said anything about your being Mrs. Whitelaw's son. This is a case in which it's the father that counts specially." "But I couldn't take any of his money beyond what I earned." "Oh, but that wouldn't make any difference." They crossed the Avenue and entered the Park. They entered the Park because it was the obvious place in which to look for a little privacy. All the gay sweet life of the May afternoon was at its brightest. Riders were cantering up and down the bridle-path; friends were strolling; children were playing; birds were flying with bits of string or straw for the building of their nests. To Tom and Hildred the gladness was thrown out by the deeper gladness in themselves. "But you don't know how poor we'll be." "Oh, don't I? Where do you think I keep my eyes? Why, I expect to be poor when I marry--for a while at any rate. I expect to do my own housework, like most of the young married women I know." "Oh, but you've always talked so much about servants." "Yes, dear Tom, but that was to be on a desert island where we were to be all alone. We shan't find that island except in our hearts." "But even without the island, I always supposed that when a girl like you got married she...." "She began with an establishment on the scale of ours in Louisburg Square, at the least. Yes, that used to be the way, twenty or thirty years ago. But I'm sorry to say it isn't so any longer. Talk about revolution! We've got revolution as it is. With rents and wages as they are, and all the other expenses, why, a young couple must begin with the simple life, or stay single. I'd rather begin with the simple life, and I know more about it than you think." He laughed. "So I see." "Oh, I can cook and sew and make beds and wash dishes...." They sauntered on, without noticing where they were going, till they came to a dell, where in the shade of an elm there was a seat, and another near a heart-shaped clump of lilacs, all in bloom. They sat in the shade of the elm. They were practical young lovers, and yet they were young lovers. They were lovers for whom there had never been any lovers but themselves. The wonderful thing was that each felt what the other felt; the discoveries by which they had come to the knowledge of this fact were the first that had ever been made. "Oh, Tom, do you feel like that? Why, that's just the way I feel." "Is it, Hildred? Well, it shows we were made for each other, doesn't it, because I never thought that anyone felt like that but me?" "Well, no one ever did but me. Only Tom, dear, tell me when it was that you first began to fall in love with me." "It was the night--a winter's night--five, six, seven years ago--when I found Guy in a mix-up with a lot of hoodlums in the snow." "And you brought him home. That was the first time you ever saw me." "Yes, it was the first time I ever saw you that I began...." "And I began then, too. Since that evening, there's never been anybody else. Oh, Tom, was there ever anybody else with you?" Tom thought of Maisie. "Not--not really." "Well, unreally then?" As he made his confession she listened eagerly. "Yes, that _was_ unreally. And you never heard anything more about her?" "Oh, yes. When I was in Boston a few weeks ago I went to see her aunt. She told me that Maisie had been married for the last two years to a traveling salesman she'd been in love with for a long time, and that she had a baby." The thought of Maisie brought back the thought of Honey; and the thought of Honey woke him to the fact that he had been on this spot before. "Why--why, Hildred! This is the very bench on which Miss Nash and the other nurse were sitting--" "When you were stolen?" "When somebody was stolen." He looked round him. "And there's Miss Nash over there!" On the bench near the lilacs Miss Nash was seated with a book. "We ought to go and speak to her," Hildred suggested. Miss Nash received them with her beatific look. "I saw you leave the house. I thought you'd come here. I followed you. I had something to do, something I swore to God I'd do the day my little boy came back. I'd--" She held up a novel of which the open pages were already yellowing--"I'd finish this. _Juliet Allingham's Sin_ is the name of it. I was just at the scene where the lover drowns when my little boy was taken. I've never opened the book since; but I've kept it by me." She rose, weeping. "Now I can finish it--but I'll go home." Sitting down on the seat she had left free for them, they began to talk of the scene of the afternoon, which as yet they had avoided. "I hope I didn't hurt their feelings." "They didn't mind hurting yours." "They didn't mean to. They thought they were generous." "Which only shows...." "But _he's_ all right. Hildred, he's a big man." "And you really think he's your father, Tom?" "I know he is. Everything makes me sure of it." "Well, then, if he's your father, she must be your mother." "Yes, but I don't go that far. It isn't what must be that I think about; it's what _is_." She persisted in her logic. "And Tad and Lily must be your brother and sister." "They can be what they like. I don't care anything about them." "It's only your mother that you don't...." He got up, restlessly. It was easier to reconstruct the scene which Honey had described to him than to let her bring what she was saying too sharply to a point. "It was over here that the baby carriage stood, right in the heart of this little clump." She followed him into it. "Miss Nash and the other nurse were over there, where we were sitting first. And right here, just where I'm standing, the queer thing must have happened." "Are you sorry it happened, Tom?" "You mean, if it actually happened to me. Why, no; and yet--yes. I can't tell. I'm sorry not to have grown up with--with my father. And yet if I had, I should have missed--all the other things--Honey--and perhaps you." "Oh, you couldn't have missed me, I couldn't have missed you. We might not have met in the way we did meet, but we'd have met." He hardly heard her last words, because he was staring off along the path by which they themselves had come down. His tone was puzzled, scarcely more than a whisper. "Hildred, look!" "Why, it's Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw. She's changed her dress. How young she looks with that kind of flowered hat. I remember now. They always come here on the tenth of May. They've been here already this morning. Lily told me so. I know what it is. They're looking for you. Miss Nash has told them where we are. I'm going to run." "Don't run far," he begged of her. "I can't imagine what's up." He stood where he was, watching their advance. It was not his place to go forward, since he wasn't sure that he was wanted. He only thought he must be when, as they reached the bench beneath the elm, Whitelaw pointed him out and let his wife go on alone. She came on in the hurried way in which she did everything, her great eyes brimming, as they often were, with unshed tears. At the entrance among the lilacs she held out both her hands, their diamonds upward, as if he was to kiss them. He took the hands, but lightly, barely touching them, keeping on his guard. "Harry!" The staccato sentences came out as little breathless cries torn from a heart that tried to keep them back. "Harry! You--you needn't--love me--or be my son--or live with us--unless--unless you like--but I want you to--to let me kiss you--just once--the way--the way your other--mother--used to." 
57669	----	Internet Web Archive Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: The Internet Web Archive https://books.google.com/books?id=MUtBAQAAMAAJ (the New York Public Library) [Frontispiece: "Look out for a shot," warned The Thinking Machine sharply. p. 332] THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13 By JACQUES FUTRELLE Author of "The Chase of the Golden Plate," "The Haunted Bell," etc. NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1917 Copyright, 1905-1906, by American-Journal-Examiner (Copyright, 1907, by Dodd, Mead & Co. Under the title of "The Thinking Machine") ----------- By courtesy of William Randolph Hearst To _those two persons who made The Thinking Machine possible_ J. L. E., _who opened the way, and_ L. M. F., _who guided, advised and encouraged the hand that labored, these tales are gratefully dedicated_. CONTENTS THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13 THE SCARLET THREAD THE MAN WHO WAS LOST THE GREAT AUTO MYSTERY THE FLAMING PHANTOM THE RALSTON BANK BURGLARY THE MYSTERY OF A STUDIO THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13 I. Practically all those letters remaining in the alphabet after Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen was named were afterward acquired by that gentleman in the course of a brilliant scientific career, and, being honorably acquired, were tacked on to the other end. His name, therefore, taken with all that belonged to it, was a wonderfully imposing structure. He was a Ph.D., an LL.D., an F.R.S., an M.D., and an M.D.S. He was also some other things--just what he himself couldn't say--through recognition of his ability by various foreign educational and scientific institutions. In appearance he was no less striking than in nomenclature. He was slender with the droop of the student in his thin shoulders and the pallor of a close, sedentary life on his clean-shaven face. His eyes wore a perpetual, forbidding squint--the squint of a man who studies little things--and when they could be seen at all through his thick spectacles, were mere slits of watery blue. But above his eyes was his most striking feature. This was a tall, broad brow, almost abnormal in height and width, crowned by a heavy shock of bushy, yellow hair. All these things conspired to give him a peculiar, almost grotesque, personality. Professor Van Dusen was remotely German. For generations his ancestors had been noted in the sciences; he was the logical result, the master mind. First and above all he was a logician. At least thirty-five years of the half-century or so of his existence had been devoted exclusively to proving that two and two always equal four, except in unusual cases, where they equal three or five, as the case may be. He stood broadly on the general proposition that all things that start must go somewhere, and was able to bring the concentrated mental force of his forefathers to bear on a given problem. Incidentally it may be remarked that Professor Van Dusen wore a No. 8 hat. The world at large had heard vaguely of Professor Van Dusen as The Thinking Machine. It was a newspaper catch-phrase applied to him at the time of a remarkable exhibition at chess; he had demonstrated then that a stranger to the game might, by the force of inevitable logic, defeat a champion who had devoted a lifetime to its study. The Thinking Machine! Perhaps that more nearly described him than all his honorary initials, for he spent week after week, month after month, in the seclusion of his small laboratory from which had gone forth thoughts that staggered scientific associates and deeply stirred the world at large. It was only occasionally that The Thinking Machine had visitors, and these were usually men who, themselves high in the sciences, dropped in to argue a point and perhaps convince themselves. Two of these men, Dr. Charles Ransome and Alfred Fielding, called one evening to discuss some theory which is not of consequence here. "Such a thing is impossible," declared Dr. Ransome emphatically, in the course of the conversation. "Nothing is impossible," declared The Thinking Machine with equal emphasis. He always spoke petulantly. "The mind is master of all things. When science fully recognizes that fact a great advance will have been made." "How about the airship?" asked Dr. Ransome. "That's not impossible at all," asserted The Thinking Machine. "It will be invented some time. I'd do it myself, but I'm busy." Dr. Ransome laughed tolerantly. "I've heard you say such things before," he said. "But they mean nothing. Mind may be master of matter, but it hasn't yet found a way to apply itself. There are some things that can't be thought out of existence, or rather which would not yield to any amount of thinking." "What, for instance?" demanded The Thinking Machine. Dr. Ransome was thoughtful for a moment as he smoked. "Well, say prison walls," he replied. "No man can _think_ himself out of a cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners." "A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell, which is the same thing," snapped The Thinking Machine. Dr. Ransome was slightly amused. "Let's suppose a case," he said, after a moment. "Take a cell where prisoners under sentence of death are confined--men who are desperate and, maddened by fear, would take any chance to escape--suppose you were locked in such a cell. Could you escape?" "Certainly," declared The Thinking Machine. "Of course," said Mr. Fielding, who entered the conversation for the first time, "you might wreck the cell with an explosive--but inside, a prisoner, you couldn't have that." "There would be nothing of that kind," said The Thinking Machine. "You might treat me precisely as you treated prisoners under sentence of death, and I would leave the cell." "Not unless you entered it with tools prepared to get out," said Dr. Ransome. The Thinking Machine was visibly annoyed and his blue eyes snapped. "Lock me in any cell in any prison anywhere at any time, wearing only what is necessary, and I'll escape in a week," he declared, sharply. Dr. Ransome sat up straight in the chair, interested. Mr. Fielding lighted a new cigar. "You mean you could actually _think_ yourself out?" asked Dr. Ransome. "I would get out," was the response. "Are you serious?" "Certainly I am serious." Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding were silent for a long time. "Would you be willing to try it?" asked Mr. Fielding, finally. "Certainly," said Professor Van Dusen, and there was a trace of irony in his voice. "I have done more asinine things than that to convince other men of less important truths." The tone was offensive and there was an undercurrent strongly resembling anger on both sides. Of course it was an absurd thing, but Professor Van Dusen reiterated his willingness to undertake the escape and it was decided upon. "To begin now," added Dr. Ransome. "I'd prefer that it begin to-morrow," said The Thinking Machine, "because----" "No, now," said Mr. Fielding, flatly. "You are arrested, figuratively, of course, without any warning locked in a cell with no chance to communicate with friends, and left there with identically the same care and attention that would be given to a man under sentence of death. Are you willing?" "All right, now, then," said The Thinking Machine, and he arose. "Say, the death-cell in Chisholm Prison." "The death-cell in Chisholm Prison." "And what will you wear?" "As little as possible," said The Thinking Machine. "Shoes, stockings, trousers and a shirt." "You will permit yourself to be searched, of course?" "I am to be treated precisely as all prisoners are treated," said The Thinking Machine. "No more attention and no less." There were some preliminaries to be arranged in the matter of obtaining permission for the test, but all three were influential men and everything was done satisfactorily by telephone, albeit the prison commissioners, to whom the experiment was explained on purely scientific grounds, were sadly bewildered. Professor Van Dusen would be the most distinguished prisoner they had ever entertained. When The Thinking Machine had donned those things which he was to wear during his incarceration he called the little old woman who was his housekeeper, cook and maid servant all in one. "Martha," he said, "it is now twenty-seven minutes past nine o'clock. I am going away. One week from to-night, at half-past nine, these gentlemen and one, possibly two, others will take supper with me here. Remember Dr. Ransome is very fond of artichokes." The three men were driven to Chisholm Prison, where the Warden was awaiting them, having been informed of the matter by telephone. He understood merely that the eminent Professor Van Dusen was to be his prisoner, if he could keep him, for one week; that he had committed no crime, but that he was to be treated as all other prisoners were treated. "Search him," instructed Dr. Ransome. The Thinking Machine was searched. Nothing was found on him; the pockets of the trousers were empty; the white, stiff-bosomed shirt had no pocket. The shoes and stockings were removed, examined, then replaced. As he watched all these preliminaries--the rigid search and noted the pitiful, childlike physical weakness of the man, the colorless face, and the thin, white hands--Dr. Ransome almost regretted his part in the affair. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked. "Would you be convinced if I did not?" inquired The Thinking Machine in turn. "No." "All right. I'll do it." What sympathy Dr. Ransome had was dissipated by the tone. It nettled him, and he resolved to see the experiment to the end; it would be a stinging reproof to egotism. "It will be impossible for him to communicate with anyone outside?" he asked. "Absolutely impossible," replied the warden. "He will not be permitted writing materials of any sort." "And your jailers, would they deliver a message from him?" "Not one word, directly or indirectly," said the warden. "You may rest assured of that. They will report anything he might say or turn over to me anything he might give them." "That seems entirely satisfactory," said Mr. Fielding, who was frankly interested in the problem. "Of course, in the event he fails," said Dr. Ransome, "and asks for his liberty, you understand you are to set him free?" "I understand," replied the warden. The Thinking Machine stood listening, but had nothing to say until this was all ended, then: "I should like to make three small requests. You may grant them or not, as you wish." "No special favors, now," warned Mr. Fielding. "I am asking none," was the stiff response. "I would like to have some tooth powder--buy it yourself to see that it is tooth powder--and I should like to have one five-dollar and two ten-dollar bills." Dr. Ransome, Mr. Fielding and the warden exchanged astonished glances. They were not surprised at the request for tooth powder, but were at the request for money. "Is there any man with whom our friend would come in contact that he could bribe with twenty-five dollars?" asked Dr. Ransome of the warden. "Not for twenty-five hundred dollars," was the positive reply. "Well, let him have them," said Mr. Fielding. "I think they are harmless enough." "And what is the third request?" asked Dr. Ransome. "I should like to have my shoes polished." Again the astonished glances were exchanged. This last request was the height of absurdity, so they agreed to it. These things all being attended to, The Thinking Machine was led back into the prison from which he had undertaken to escape. "Here is Cell 13," said the warden, stopping three doors down the steel corridor. "This is where we keep condemned murderers. No one can leave it without my permission; and no one in it can communicate with the outside. I'll stake my reputation on that. It's only three doors back of my office and I can readily hear any unusual noise." "Will this cell do, gentlemen?" asked The Thinking Machine. There was a touch of irony in his voice. "Admirably," was the reply. The heavy steel door was thrown open, there was a great scurrying and scampering of tiny feet, and The Thinking Machine passed into the gloom of the cell. Then the door was closed and double locked by the warden. "What is that noise in there?" asked Dr. Ransome, through the bars. "Rats--dozens of them," replied The Thinking Machine, tersely. The three men, with final goodnights, were turning away when The Thinking Machine called: "What time is it exactly, warden?" "Eleven seventeen," replied the warden. "Thanks. I will join you gentlemen in your office at half-past eight o'clock one week from to-night," said The Thinking Machine. "And if you do not?" "There is no 'if' about it." II. Chisholm Prison was a great, spreading structure of granite, four stories in all, which stood in the center of acres of open space. It was surrounded by a wall of solid masonry eighteen feet high, and so smoothly finished inside and out as to offer no foothold to a climber, no matter how expert. Atop of this fence, as a further precaution, was a five-foot fence of steel rods, each terminating in a keen point. This fence in itself marked an absolute deadline between freedom and imprisonment, for, even if a man escaped from his cell, it would seem impossible for him to pass the wall. The yard, which on all sides of the prison building was twenty-five feet wide, that being the distance from the building to the wall, was by day an exercise ground for those prisoners to whom was granted the boon of occasional semi-liberty. But that was not for those in Cell 13. At all times of the day there were armed guards in the yard, four of them, one patrolling each side of the prison building. By night the yard was almost as brilliantly lighted as by day. On each of the four sides was a great arc light which rose above the prison wall and gave to the guards a clear sight. The lights, too, brightly illuminated the spiked top of the wall. The wires which fed the arc lights ran up the side of the prison building on insulators and from the top story led out to the poles supporting the arc lights. All these things were seen and comprehended by The Thinking Machine, who was only enabled to see out his closely barred cell window by standing on his bed. This was on the morning following his incarceration. He gathered, too, that the river lay over there beyond the wall somewhere, because he heard faintly the pulsation of a motor boat and high up in the air saw a river bird. From that same direction came the shouts of boys at play and the occasional crack of a batted ball. He knew then that between the prison wall and the river was an open space, a playground. Chisholm Prison was regarded as absolutely safe. No man had ever escaped from it. The Thinking Machine, from his perch on the bed, seeing what he saw, could readily understand why. The walls of the cell, though built he judged twenty years before, were perfectly solid, and the window bars of new iron had not a shadow of rust on them. The window itself, even with the bars out, would be a difficult mode of egress because it was small. Yet, seeing these things, The Thinking Machine was not discouraged. Instead, he thoughtfully squinted at the great arc light--there was bright sunlight now--and traced with his eyes the wire which led from it to the building. That electric wire, he reasoned, must come down the side of the building not a great distance from his cell. That might be worth knowing. Cell 13 was on the same floor with the offices of the prison--that is, not in the basement, nor yet upstairs. There were only four steps up to the office floor, therefore the level of the floor must be only three or four feet above the ground. He couldn't see the ground directly beneath his window, but he could see it further out toward the wall. It would be an easy drop from the window. Well and good. Then The Thinking Machine fell to remembering how he had come to the cell. First, there was the outside guard's booth, a part of the wall. There were two heavily barred gates there, both of steel. At this gate was one man always on guard. He admitted persons to the prison after much clanking of keys and locks, and let them out when ordered to do so. The warden's office was in the prison building, and in order to reach that official from the prison yard one had to pass a gate of solid steel with only a peep-hole in it. Then coming from that inner office to Cell 13, where he was now, one must pass a heavy wooden door and two steel doors into the corridors of the prison; and always there was the double-locked door of Cell 13 to reckon with. There were then, The Thinking Machine recalled, seven doors to be overcome before one could pass from Cell 13 into the outer world, a free man. But against this was the fact that he was rarely interrupted. A jailer appeared at his cell door at six in the morning with a breakfast of prison fare; he would come again at noon, and again at six in the afternoon. At nine o'clock at night would come the inspection tour. That would be all. "It's admirably arranged, this prison system," was the mental tribute paid by The Thinking Machine. "I'll have to study it a little when I get out. I had no idea there was such great care exercised in the prisons." There was nothing, positively nothing, in his cell, except his iron bed, so firmly put together that no man could tear it to pieces save with sledges or a file. He had neither of these. There was not even a chair, or a small table, or a bit of tin or crockery. Nothing! The jailer stood by when he ate, then took away the wooden spoon and bowl which he had used. One by one these things sank into the brain of The Thinking Machine. When the last possibility had been considered he began an examination of his cell. From the roof, down the walls on all sides, he examined the stones and the cement between them. He stamped over the floor carefully time after time, but it was cement, perfectly solid. After the examination he sat on the edge of the iron bed and was lost in thought for a long time. For Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine, had something to think about. He was disturbed by a rat, which ran across his foot, then scampered away into a dark corner of the cell, frightened at its own daring. After awhile The Thinking Machine, squinting steadily into the darkness of the corner where the rat had gone, was able to make out in the gloom many little beady eyes 'staring at him. He counted six pair, and there were perhaps others; he didn't see very well. Then The Thinking Machine, from his seat on the bed, noticed for the first time the bottom of his cell door. There was an opening there of two inches between the steel bar and the floor. Still looking steadily at this opening, The Thinking Machine backed suddenly into the corner where he had seen the beady eyes. There was a great scampering of tiny feet, several squeaks of frightened rodents, and then silence. None of the rats had gone out the door, yet there were none in the cell. Therefore there must be another way out of the cell, however small. The Thinking Machine, on hands and knees, started a search for this spot, feeling in the darkness with his long, slender fingers. At last his search was rewarded. He came upon a small opening in the floor, level with the cement. It was perfectly round and somewhat larger than a silver dollar. This was the way the rats had gone. He put his fingers deep into the opening; it seemed to be a disused drainage pipe and was dry and dusty. Having satisfied himself on this point, he sat on the bed again for an hour, then made another inspection of his surroundings through the small cell window. One of the outside guards stood directly opposite, beside the wall, and happened to be looking at the window of Cell 13 when the head of The Thinking Machine appeared. But the scientist didn't notice the guard. Noon came and the jailer appeared with the prison dinner of repulsively plain food. At home The Thinking Machine merely ate to live; here he took what was offered without comment. Occasionally he spoke to the jailer who stood outside the door watching him. "Any improvements made here in the last few years?" he asked. "Nothing particularly," replied the jailer. "New wall was built four years ago." "Anything done to the prison proper?" "Painted the woodwork outside, and I believe about seven years ago a new system of plumbing was put in." "Ah!" said the prisoner. "How far is the river over there?" "About three hundred feet. The boys have a baseball ground between the wall and the river." The Thinking Machine had nothing further to say just then, but when the jailer was ready to go he asked for some water. "I get very thirsty here," he explained. "Would it be possible for you to leave a little water in a bowl for me?" "I'll ask the warden," replied the jailer, and he went away. Half an hour later he returned with water in a small earthen bowl. "The warden says you may keep this bowl," he informed the prisoner. "But you must show it to me when I ask for it. If it is broken, it will be the last." "Thank you," said The Thinking Machine. "I shan't break it." The jailer went on about his duties. For just the fraction of a second it seemed that The Thinking Machine wanted to ask a question, but he didn't. Two hours later this same jailer, in passing the door of Cell No. 13, heard a noise inside and stopped. The Thinking Machine was down on his hands and knees in a corner of the cell, and from that same corner came several frightened squeaks. The jailer looked on interestedly. "Ah, I've got you," he heard the prisoner say. "Got what?" he asked, sharply. "One of these rats," was the reply. "See?" And between the scientist's long fingers the jailer saw a small gray rat struggling. The prisoner brought it over to the light and looked at it closely. "It's a water rat," he said. "Ain't you got anything better to do than to catch rats?" asked the jailer. "It's disgraceful that they should be here at all," was the irritated reply. "Take this one away and kill it. There are dozens more where it came from." The jailer took the wriggling, squirmy rodent and flung it down on the floor violently. It gave one squeak and lay still. Later he reported the incident to the warden, who only smiled. Still later that afternoon the outside armed guard on Cell 13 side of the prison looked up again at the window and saw the prisoner looking out. He saw a hand raised to the barred window and then something white fluttered to the ground, directly under the window of Cell 13. It was a little roll of linen, evidently of white shirting material, and tied around it was a five-dollar bill. The guard looked up at the window again, but the face had disappeared. With a grim smile he took the little linen roll and the five-dollar bill to the warden's office. There together they deciphered something which was written on it with a queer sort of ink, frequently blurred. On the outside was this: "Finder of this please deliver to Dr. Charles Ransome." "Ah," said the warden, with a chuckle. "Plan of escape number one has gone wrong." Then, as an afterthought: "But why did he address it to Dr. Ransome?" "And where did he get the pen and ink to write with?" asked the guard. The warden looked at the guard and the guard looked at the warden. There was no apparent solution of that mystery. The warden studied the writing carefully, then shook his head. "Well, let's see what he was going to say to Dr. Ransome," he said at length, still puzzled, and he unrolled the inner piece of linen. "Well, if that--what--what do you think of that?" he asked, dazed. The guard took the bit of linen and read this: "_Epa cseot d'net niiy awe htto n'si sih. 'T'"_. III. The warden spent an hour wondering what sort of a cipher it was, and half an hour wondering why his prisoner should attempt to communicate with Dr. Ransome, who was the cause of him being there. After this the warden devoted some thought to the question of where the prisoner got writing materials, and what sort of writing materials he had. With the idea of illuminating this point, he examined the linen again. It was a torn part of a white shirt and had ragged edges. Now it was possible to account for the linen, but what the prisoner had used to write with was another matter. The warden knew it would have been impossible for him to have either pen or pencil, and, besides, neither pen nor pencil had been used in this writing. What, then? The warden decided to personally investigate. The Thinking Machine was his prisoner; he had orders to hold his prisoners; if this one sought to escape by sending cipher messages to persons outside, he would stop it, as he would have stopped it in the case of any other prisoner. The warden went back to Cell 13 and found The Thinking Machine on his hands and knees on the floor, engaged in nothing more alarming than catching rats. The prisoner heard the warden's step and turned to him quickly. "It's disgraceful," he snapped, "these rats. There are scores of them." "Other men have been able to stand them," said the warden. "Here is another shirt for you--let me have the one you have on." "Why?" demanded The Thinking Machine, quickly. His tone was hardly natural, his manner suggested actual perturbation. "You have attempted to communicate with Dr. Ransome," said the warden severely. "As my prisoner, it is my duty to put a stop to it." The Thinking Machine was silent for a moment. "All right," he said, finally. "Do your duty." The warden smiled grimly. The prisoner arose from the floor and removed the white shirt, putting on instead a striped convict shirt the warden had brought. The warden took the white shirt eagerly, and then and there compared the pieces of linen on which was written the cipher with certain torn places in the shirt. The Thinking Machine looked on curiously. "The guard brought _you_ those, then?" he asked. "He certainly did," replied the warden triumphantly. "And that ends your first attempt to escape." The Thinking Machine watched the warden as he, by comparison, established to his own satisfaction that only two pieces of linen had been torn from the white shirt. "What did you write this with?" demanded the warden. "I should think it a part of your duty to find out," said The Thinking Machine, irritably. The warden started to say some harsh things, then restrained himself and made a minute search of the cell and of the prisoner instead. He found absolutely nothing; not even a match or toothpick which might have been used for a pen. The same mystery surrounded the fluid with which the cipher had been written. Although the warden left Cell 13 visibly annoyed, he took the torn shirt in triumph. "Well, writing notes on a shirt won't get him out, that's certain," he told himself with some complacency. He put the linen scraps into his desk to await developments. "If that man escapes from that cell I'll--hang it-I'll resign." On the third day of his incarceration The Thinking Machine openly attempted to bribe his way out. The jailer had brought his dinner and was leaning against the barred door, waiting, when The Thinking Machine began the conversation. "The drainage pipes of the prison lead to the river, don't they?" he asked. "Yes," said the jailer. "I suppose they are very small?" "Too small to crawl through, if that's what you're thinking about," was the grinning response. There was silence until The Thinking Machine finished his meal. Then: "You know I'm not a criminal, don't you?" "Yes." "And that I've a perfect right to be freed if I demand it?" "Yes." "Well, I came here believing that I could make my escape," said the prisoner, and his squint eyes studied the face of the jailer. "Would you consider a financial reward for aiding me to escape?" The jailer, who happened to be an honest man, looked at the slender, weak figure of the prisoner, at the large head with its mass of yellow hair, and was almost sorry. "I guess prisons like these were not built for the likes of you to get out of," he said, at last. "But would you consider a proposition to help me get out?" the prisoner insisted, almost beseechingly. "No," said the jailer, shortly. "Five hundred dollars," urged The Thinking Machine. "I am not a criminal." "No," said the jailer. "A thousand?" "No," again said the jailer, and he started away hurriedly to escape further temptation. Then he turned back. "If you should give me ten thousand dollars I couldn't get you out. You'd have to pass through seven doors, and I only have the keys to two." Then he told the warden all about it. "Plan number two fails," said the warden, smiling grimly. "First a cipher, then bribery." When the jailer was on his way to Cell 13 at six o'clock, again bearing food to The Thinking Machine, he paused, startled by the unmistakable scrape, scrape of steel against steel. It stopped at the sound of his steps, then craftily the jailer, who was beyond the prisoner's range of vision, resumed his tramping, the sound being apparently that of a man going away from Cell 13. As a matter of fact he was in the same spot. After a moment there came again the steady scrape, scrape, and the jailer crept cautiously on tiptoes to the door and peered between the bars. The Thinking Machine was standing on the iron bed working at the bars of the little window. He was using a file, judging from the backward and forward swing of his arms. Cautiously the jailer crept back to the office, summoned the warden in person, and they returned to Cell 13 on tiptoes. The steady scrape was still audible. The warden listened to satisfy himself and then suddenly appeared at the door. "Well?" he demanded, and there was a smile on his face. The Thinking Machine glanced back from his perch on the bed and leaped suddenly to the floor, making frantic efforts to hide something. The warden went in, with hand extended. "Give it up," he said. "No," said the prisoner, sharply. "Come, give it up," urged the warden. "I don't want to have to search you again." "No," repeated the prisoner. "What was it, a file?" asked the warden. The Thinking Machine was silent and stood squinting at the warden with something very nearly approaching disappointment on his face--nearly, but not quite. The warden was almost sympathetic. "Plan number three fails, eh?" he asked, good-naturedly. "Too bad, isn't it?" The prisoner didn't say. "Search him," instructed the warden. The jailer searched the prisoner carefully. At last, artfully concealed in the waist band of the trousers, he found a piece of steel about two inches long, with one side curved like a half moon. "Ah," said the warden, as he received it from the jailer. "From your shoe heel," and he smiled pleasantly. The jailer continued his search and on the other side of the trousers waist band found another piece of steel identical with the first. The edges showed where they had been worn against the bars of the window. "You couldn't saw a way through those bars with these," said the warden. "I could have," said The Thinking Machine firmly. "In six months, perhaps," said the warden, good-naturedly. The warden shook his head slowly as he gazed into the slightly flushed face of his prisoner. "Ready to give it up?" he asked. "I haven't started yet," was the prompt reply. Then came another exhaustive search of the cell. Carefully the two men went over it, finally turning out the bed and searching that. Nothing. The warden in person climbed upon the bed and examined the bars of the window where the prisoner had been sawing. When he looked he was amused. "Just made it a little bright by hard rubbing," he said to the prisoner, who stood looking on with a somewhat crestfallen air. The warden grasped the iron bars in his strong hands and tried to shake them. They were immovable, set firmly in the solid granite. He examined each in turn and found them all satisfactory. Finally he climbed down from the bed. "Give it up, professor," he advised. The Thinking Machine shook his head and the warden and jailer passed on again. As they disappeared down the corridor The Thinking Machine sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. "He's crazy to try to get out of that cell," commented the jailer. "Of course he can't get out," said the warden. "But he's clever. I would like to know what he wrote that cipher with." * * * * * * It was four o'clock next morning when an awful, heart-racking shriek of terror resounded through the great prison. It came from a cell, somewhere about the center, and its tone told a tale of horror, agony, terrible fear. The warden heard and with three of his men rushed into the long corridor leading to Cell 13. IV. As they ran there came again that awful cry. It died away in a sort of wail. The white faces of prisoners appeared at cell doors upstairs and down, staring out wonderingly, frightened. "It's that fool in Cell 13," grumbled the warden. He stopped and stared in as one of the jailers flashed a lantern. "That fool in Cell 13" lay comfortably on his cot, flat on his back with his mouth open, snoring. Even as they looked there came again the piercing cry, from somewhere above. The warden's face blanched a little as he started up the stairs. There on the top floor he found a man in Cell 43, directly above Cell 13, but two floors higher, cowering in a corner of his cell. "What's the matter?" demanded the warden. "Thank God you've come," exclaimed the prisoner, and he cast himself against the bars of his cell. "What is it?" demanded the warden again. He threw open the door and went in. The prisoner dropped on his knees and clasped the warden about the body. His face was white with terror, his eyes were widely distended, and he was shuddering. His hands, icy cold, clutched at the warden's. "Take me out of this cell, please take me out," he pleaded. "What's the matter with you, anyhow?" insisted the warden, impatiently. "I heard something--something," said the prisoner, and his eyes roved nervously around the cell. "What did you hear?" "I--I can't tell you," stammered the prisoner. Then, in a sudden burst of terror: "Take me out of this cell--put me anywhere--but take me out of here." The warden and the three jailers exchanged glances. "Who is this fellow? What's he accused of?" asked the warden. "Joseph Ballard," said one of the jailers. "He's accused of throwing acid in a woman's face. She died from it." "But they can't prove it," gasped the prisoner. "They can't prove it. Please put me in some other cell." He was still clinging to the warden, and that official threw his arms off roughly. Then for a time he stood looking at the cowering wretch, who seemed possessed of all the wild, unreasoning terror of a child. "Look here, Ballard," said the warden, finally, "if you heard anything, I want to know what it was. Now tell me." "I can't, I can't," was the reply. He was sobbing. "Where did it come from?" "I don't know. Everywhere--nowhere. I just heard it." "What was it--a voice?" "Please don't make me answer," pleaded the prisoner. "You must answer," said the warden, sharply. "It was a voice--but--but it wasn't human," was the sobbing reply. "Voice, but not human?" repeated the warden, puzzled. "It sounded muffled and--and far away--and ghostly," explained the man. "Did it come from inside or outside the prison?" "It didn't seem to come from anywhere--it was just here, here, everywhere. I heard it. I heard it." For an hour the warden tried to get the story, but Ballard had become suddenly obstinate and would say nothing--only pleaded to be placed in another cell, or to have one of the jailers remain near him until daylight. These requests were gruffly refused. "And see here," said the warden, in conclusion, "if there's any more of this screaming I'll put you in the padded cell." Then the warden went his way, a sadly puzzled man. Ballard sat at his cell door until daylight, his face, drawn and white with terror, pressed against the bars, and looked out into the prison with wide. staring eyes. That day, the fourth since the incarceration of The Thinking Machine, was enlivened considerably by the volunteer prisoner, who spent most of his time at the little window of his cell. He began proceedings by throwing another piece of linen down to the guard, who picked it up dutifully and took it to the warden. On it was written: "Only three days more." The warden was in no way surprised at what he read; he understood that The Thinking Machine meant only three days more of his imprisonment, and he regarded the note as a boast. But how was the thing written? Where had The Thinking Machine found this new piece of linen? Where? How? He carefully examined the linen. It was white, of fine texture, shirting material. He took the shirt which he had taken and carefully fitted the two original pieces of the linen to the torn places. This third piece was entirely superfluous; it didn't fit anywhere, and yet it was unmistakably the same goods. "And where--where does he get anything to write with?" demanded the warden of the world at large. Still later on the fourth day The Thinking Machine, through the window of his cell, spoke to the armed guard outside. "What day of the month is it?" he asked. "The fifteenth," was the answer. The Thinking Machine made a mental Astronomical calculation and satisfied himself that the moon would not rise until after nine o'clock that night. Then he asked another question: "Who attends to those arc lights?" "Man from the company." "You have no electricians in the building?" "I should think you could save money if you had your own man." "None of my business," replied the guard. The guard noticed The Thinking Machine at the cell window frequently during that day, but always the face seemed listless and there was a certain wistfulness in the squint eyes behind the glasses. After a while he accepted the presence of the leonine head as a matter of course. He had seen other prisoners do the same thing; it was the longing for the outside world. That afternoon, just before the day guard was relieved, the head appeared at the window again, and The Thinking Machine's hand held something out between the bars. It fluttered to the ground and the guard picked it up. It was a five-dollar bill. "That's for you," called the prisoner. As usual, the guard took it to the warden. That gentleman looked at it suspiciously; he looked at everything that came from Cell 13 with suspicion. "He said it was for me," explained the guard. "It's a sort of a tip, I suppose," said the warden. "I see no particular reason why you shouldn't accept----" Suddenly he stopped. He had remembered that The Thinking Machine had gone into Cell 13 with one five-dollar bill and two ten-dollar bills; twenty-five dollars in all. Now a five-dollar bill had been tied around the first pieces of linen that came from the cell. The warden still had it, and to convince himself he took it out and looked at it. It was five dollars; yet here was another five dollars, and The Thinking Machine had only had ten-dollar bills. "Perhaps somebody changed one of the bills for him," he thought at last, with a sigh of relief. But then and there he made up his mind. He would search Cell 13 as a cell was never before searched in this world. When a man could write at will, and change money, and do other wholly inexplicable things, there was something radically wrong with his prison. He planned to enter the cell at night--three o'clock would be an excellent time. The Thinking Machine must do all the weird things he did sometime. Night seemed the most reasonable. Thus it happened that the warden stealthily descended upon Cell 13 that night at three o'clock. He paused at the door and listened. There was no sound save the steady, regular breathing of the prisoner. The keys unfastened the double locks with scarcely a clank, and the warden entered, locking the door behind him. Suddenly he flashed his dark-lantern in the face of the recumbent figure. If the warden had planned to startle The Thinking Machine he was mistaken, for that individual merely opened his eyes quietly, reached for his glasses and inquired, in a most matter-of-fact tone: "Who is it?" It would be useless to describe the search that the warden made. It was minute. Not one inch of the cell or the bed was overlooked. He found the round hole in the floor, and with a flash of inspiration thrust his thick fingers into it. After a moment of fumbling there he drew up something and looked at it in the light of his lantern. "Ugh!" he exclaimed. The thing he had taken out was a rat--a dead rat. His inspiration fled as a mist before the sun. But he continued the search. The Thinking Machine, without a word, arose and kicked the rat out of the cell into the corridor. The warden climbed on the bed and tried the steel bars in the tiny window. They were perfectly rigid; every bar of the door was the same. Then the warden searched the prisoner's clothing, beginning at the shoes. Nothing hidden in them! Then the trousers waist band. Still nothing! Then the pockets of the trousers. From one side he drew out some paper money and examined it. "Five one-dollar bills," he gasped. "That's right," said the prisoner. "But the--you had two tens and a five--what the--how do you do it?" "That's my business," said The Thinking Machine. "Did any of my men change this money for you--on your word of honor?" The Thinking Machine paused just a fraction of a second. "No," he said. "Well, do you make it?" asked the warden. He was prepared to believe anything. "That's my business," again said the prisoner. The warden glared at the eminent scientist fiercely. He felt--he knew--that this man was making a fool of him, yet he didn't know how. If he were a real prisoner he would get the truth--but, then, perhaps, those inexplicable things which had happened would not have been brought before him so sharply. Neither of the men spoke for a long time, then suddenly the warden turned fiercely and left the cell, slamming the door behind him. He didn't dare to speak, then. He glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to four. He had hardly settled himself in bed when again came that heart-breaking shriek through the prison. With a few muttered words, which, while not elegant, were highly expressive, he relighted his lantern and rushed through the prison again to the cell on the upper floor. Again Ballard was crushing himself against the steel door, shrieking, shrieking at the top of his voice. He stopped only when the warden flashed his lamp in the cell. "Take me out, take me out," he screamed. "I did it, I did it, I killed her. Take it away." "Take what away?" asked the warden. "I threw the acid in her face--I did it--I confess. Take me out of here." Ballard's condition was pitiable; it was only an act of mercy to let him out into the corridor. There he crouched in a corner, like an animal at bay, and clasped his hands to his ears. It took half an hour to calm him sufficiently for him to speak. Then he told incoherently what had happened. On the night before at four o'clock he had heard a voice--a sepulchral voice, muffled and wailing in tone. "What did it say?" asked the warden, curiously. "Acid--acid--acid!" gasped the prisoner. "It accused me. Acid! I threw the acid, and the woman died. Oh!" It was a long, shuddering wail of terror. "Acid?" echoed the warden, puzzled. The case was beyond him. "Acid. That's all I heard--that one word, repeated several times. There were other things, too, but I didn't hear them." "That was last night, eh?" asked the warden. "What happened to-night--what frightened you just now?" "It was the same thing," gasped the prisoner. "Acid--acid--acid!" He covered his face with his hands and sat shivering. "It was acid I used on her, but I didn't mean to kill her. I just heard the words. It was something accusing me--accusing me." He mumbled, and was silent. "Did you hear anything else?" "Yes--but I couldn't understand--only a little bit--just a word or two." "Well, what was it?" "I heard 'acid' three times, then I heard a long, moaning sound, then--then--I heard 'No. 8 hat.' I heard that twice." "No. 8 hat," repeated the warden. "What the devil--No. 8 hat? Accusing voices of conscience have never talked about No. 8 hats, so far as I ever heard." "He's insane," said one of the jailers, with an air of finality. "I believe you," said the warden. "He must be. He probably heard something and got frightened. He's trembling now. No. 8 hat! What the----" V. When the fifth day of The Thinking Machine's imprisonment rolled around the warden was wearing a hunted look. He was anxious for the end of the thing. He could not help but feel that his distinguished prisoner had been amusing himself. And if this were so, The Thinking Machine had lost none of his sense of humor. For on this fifth day he flung down another linen note to the outside guard, bearing the words: "Only two days more." Also he flung down half a dollar. Now the warden knew--he _knew_--that the man in Cell 13 didn't have any half dollars--he _couldn't_ have any half dollars, no more than he could have pen and ink and linen, and yet he did have them. It was a condition, not a theory; that is one reason why the warden was wearing a hunted look. That ghastly, uncanny thing, too, about "Acid" and "No. 8 hat" clung to him tenaciously. They didn't mean anything, of course, merely the ravings of an insane murderer who had been driven by fear to confess his crime, still there were so many things that "didn't mean anything" happening in the prison now since The Thinking Machine was there. On the sixth day the warden received a postal stating that Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding would be at Chisholm Prison on the following evening, Thursday, and in the event Professor Van Dusen had not yet escaped--and they presumed he had not because they had not heard from him--they would meet him there. "In the event he had not yet escaped!" The warden smiled grimly. Escaped! The Thinking Machine enlivened this day for the warden with three notes. They were on the usual linen and bore generally on the appointment at half-past eight o'clock Thursday night, which appointment the scientist had made at the time of his imprisonment. On the afternoon of the seventh day the warden passed Cell 13 and glanced in. The Thinking Machine was lying on the iron bed, apparently sleeping lightly. The cell appeared precisely as it always did from a casual glance. The warden would swear that no man was going to leave it between that hour--it was then four o'clock--and half-past eight o'clock that evening. On his way back past the cell the warden heard the steady breathing again, and coming close to the door looked in. He wouldn't have done so if The Thinking Machine had been looking, but now--well, it was different. A ray of light came through the high window and fell on the face of the sleeping man. It occurred to the warden for the first time that his prisoner appeared haggard and weary. Just then The Thinking Machine stirred slightly and the warden hurried on up the corridor guiltily. That evening after six o'clock he saw the jailer. "Everything all right in Cell 13?" he asked. "Yes, sir," replied the jailer. "He didn't eat much, though." It was with a feeling of having done his duty that the warden received Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding shortly after seven o'clock. He intended to show them the linen notes and lay before them the full story of his woes, which was a long one. But before this came to pass the guard from the river side of the prison yard entered the office. "The arc light in my side of the yard won't light," he informed the warden. "Confound it, that man's a hoodoo," thundered the official. "Everything has happened since he's been here." The guard went back to his post in the darkness, and the warden 'phoned to the electric light company. "This is Chisholm Prison," he said through the 'phone. "Send three or four men down here quick, to fix an arc light." The reply was evidently satisfactory, for the warden hung up the receiver and passed out into the yard. While Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding sat waiting the guard at the outer gate came in with a special delivery letter. Dr. Ransome happened to notice the address, and, when the guard went out, looked at the letter more closely. "By George!" he exclaimed. "What is it?" asked Mr. Fielding. Silently the doctor offered the letter. Mr. Fielding examined it closely. "Coincidence," he said. "It must be." It was nearly eight o'clock when the warden returned to his office. The electricians had arrived in a wagon, and were now at work. The warden pressed the buzz-button communicating with the man at the outer gate in the wall. "How many electricians came in?" he asked, over the short 'phone. "Four? Three workmen in jumpers and overalls and the manager? Frock coat and silk hat? All right. Be certain that only four go out. That's all." He turned to Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding. "We have to be careful here--particularly," and there was broad sarcasm in his tone, "since we have scientists locked up." The warden picked up the special delivery letter carelessly, and then began to open it. "When I read this I want to tell you gentlemen something about how---- Great Cæsar!" he ended, suddenly, as he glanced at the letter. He sat with mouth open, motionless, from astonishment. "What is it?" asked Mr. Fielding. "A special delivery letter from Cell 13," gasped the warden. "An invitation to supper." "What?" and the two others arose, unanimously. The warden sat dazed, staring at the letter for a moment, then called sharply to a guard outside in the corridor. "Run down to Cell 13 and see if that man's in there." The guard went as directed, while Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding examined the letter. "It's Van Dusen's handwriting; there's no question of that," said Dr. Ransome. "I've seen too much of it." Just then the buzz of the telephone from the outer gate sounded, and the warden, in a semi-trance, picked up the receiver. "Hello! Two reporters, eh? Let 'em come in." He turned suddenly to the doctor and Mr. Fielding. "Why, the man _can't_ be out. He must be in his cell." Just at that moment the guard returned. "He's still in his cell, sir," he reported. "I saw him. He's lying down." "There, I told you so," said the warden, and he breathed freely again. "But how did he mail that letter?" There was a rap on the steel door which led from the jail yard into the warden's office. "It's the reporters," said the warden. "Let them in," he instructed the guard; then to the two other gentlemen: "Don't say anything about this before them, because I'd never hear the last of it." The door opened, and the two men from the front gate entered. "Good-evening, gentlemen," said one. That was Hutchinson Hatch; the warden knew him well. "Well?" demanded the other, irritably. "I'm here." That was The Thinking Machine. He squinted belligerently at the warden, who sat with mouth agape. For the moment that official had nothing to say. Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding were amazed, but they didn't know what the warden knew. They were only amazed; he was paralyzed. Hutchinson Hatch, the reporter, took in the scene with greedy eyes. "How--how--how did you do it?" gasped the warden, finally. "Come back to the cell," said The Thinking Machine, in the irritated voice which his scientific associates knew so well. The warden, still in a condition bordering on trance, led the way. "Flash your light in there," directed The Thinking Machine. The warden did so. There was nothing unusual in the appearance of the cell, and there--there on the bed lay the figure of The Thinking Machine. Certainly! There was the yellow hair! Again the warden looked at the man beside him and wondered at the strangeness of his own dreams. With trembling hands he unlocked the cell door and The Thinking Machine passed inside. "See here," he said. He kicked at the steel bars in the bottom of the cell door and three of them were pushed out of place. A fourth broke off and rolled away in the corridor. "And here, too," directed the erstwhile prisoner as he stood on the bed to reach the small window. He swept his hand across the opening and every bar came out. "What's this in the bed?" demanded the warden, who was slowly recovering. "A wig," was the reply. "Turn down the cover." The warden did so. Beneath it lay a large coil of strong rope, thirty feet or more, a dagger, three files, ten feet of electric wire, a thin, powerful pair of steel pliers, a small tack hammer with its handle, and--and a Derringer pistol. "How did you do it?" demanded the warden. "You gentlemen have an engagement to supper with me at half-past nine o'clock," said The Thinking Machine. "Come on, or we shall be late." "But how did you do it?" insisted the warden. "Don't ever think you can hold any man who can use his brain," said The Thinking Machine. "Come on; we shall be late." VI. It was an impatient supper party in the rooms of Professor Van Dusen and a somewhat silent one. The guests were Dr. Ransome, Albert Fielding, the warden, and Hutchinson Hatch, reporter. The meal was served to the minute, in accordance with Professor Van Dusen's instructions of one week before; Dr. Ransome found the artichokes delicious. At last the supper was finished and The Thinking Machine turned full on Dr. Ransome and squinted at him fiercely. "Do you believe it now?" he demanded. "I do," replied Dr. Ransome. "Do you admit that it was a fair test?" "I do." With the others, particularly the warden, he was waiting anxiously for the explanation. "Suppose you tell us how----" began Mr. Fielding. "Yes, tell us how," said the warden. The Thinking Machine readjusted his glasses, took a couple of preparatory squints at his audience, and began the story. He told it from the beginning logically; and no man ever talked to more interested listeners. "My agreement was," he began, "to go into a cell, carrying nothing except what was necessary to wear, and to leave that cell within a week. I had never seen Chisholm Prison. When I went into the cell I asked for tooth powder, two ten and one five-dollar bills, and also to have my shoes blacked. Even if these requests had been refused it would not have mattered seriously. But you agreed to them. "I knew there would be nothing in the cell which you thought I might use to advantage. So when the warden locked the door on me I was apparently helpless, unless I could turn three seemingly innocent things to use. They were things which would have been permitted any prisoner under sentence of death, were they not, warden?" "Tooth powder and polished shoes, yes, but not money," replied the warden. "Anything is dangerous in the hands of a man who knows how to use it," went on The Thinking Machine. "I did nothing that first night but sleep and chase rats." He glared at the warden. "When the matter was broached I knew I could do nothing that night, so suggested next day. You gentlemen thought I wanted time to arrange an escape with outside assistance, but this was not true. I knew I could communicate with whom I pleased, when I pleased." The warden stared at him a moment, then went on smoking solemnly. "I was aroused next morning at six o'clock by the jailer with my breakfast," continued the scientist. "He told me dinner was at twelve and supper at six. Between these times, I gathered, I would be pretty much to myself. So immediately after breakfast I examined my outside surroundings from my cell window. One look told me it would be useless to try to scale the wall, even should I decide to leave my cell by the window, for my purpose was to leave not only the cell, but the prison. Of course, I could have gone over the wall, but it would have taken me longer to lay my plans that way. Therefore, for the moment, I dismissed all idea of that. "From this first observation I knew the river was on that side of the prison, and that there was also a playground there. Subsequently these surmises were verified by a keeper. I knew then one important thing--that anyone might approach the prison wall from that side if necessary without attracting any particular attention. That was well to remember. I remembered it. "But the outside thing which most attracted my attention was the feed wire to the arc light which ran within a few feet--probably three or four--of my cell window. I knew that would be valuable in the event I found it necessary to cut off that arc light." "Oh, you shut it off to-night, then?" asked the warden. "Having learned all I could from that window," resumed The Thinking Machine, without heeding the interruption, "I considered the idea of escaping through the prison proper. I recalled just how I had come into the cell, which I knew would be the only way. Seven doors lay between me and the outside. So, also for the time being, I gave up the idea of escaping that way. And I couldn't go through the solid granite walls of the cell." The Thinking Machine paused for a moment and Dr. Ransome lighted a new cigar. For several minutes there was silence, then the scientific jail-breaker went on: "While I was thinking about these things a rat ran across my foot. It suggested a new line, of thought. There were at least half a dozen rats in the cell--I could see their beady eyes. Yet I had noticed none come under the cell door. I frightened them purposely and watched the cell door to see if they went out that way. They did not, but they were gone. Obviously they went another way. Another way meant another opening. "I searched for this opening and found it. It was an old drain pipe, long unused and partly choked with dirt and dust. But this was the way the rats had come. They came from somewhere. Where? Drain pipes usually lead outside prison grounds. This one probably led to the river, or near it. The rats must therefore come from that direction. If they came a part of the way, I reasoned that they came all the way, because it was extremely unlikely that a solid iron or lead pipe would have any hole in it except at the exit. "When the jailer came with my luncheon he told me two important things, although he didn't know it. One was that a new system of plumbing had been put in the prison seven years before; another that the river was only three hundred feet away. Then I knew positively that the pipe was a part of an old system; I knew, too, that it slanted generally toward the river. But did the pipe end in the water or on land? "This was the next question to be decided. I decided it by catching several of the rats in the cell. My jailer was surprised to see me engaged in this work. I examined at least a dozen of them. They were perfectly dry; they had come through the pipe, and, most important of all, they were _not house rats, but field rats_. The other end of the pipe was on land, then, outside the prison walls. So far, so good. "Then, I knew that if I worked freely from this point I must attract the warden's attention in another direction. You see, by telling the warden that I had come there to escape you made the test more severe, because I had to trick him by false scents." The warden looked up with a sad expression in his eyes. "The first thing was to make him think I was trying to communicate with you, Dr. Ransome. So I wrote a note on a piece of linen I tore from my shirt, addressed it to Dr. Ransome, tied a five-dollar bill around it and threw it out the window. I knew the guard would take it to the warden, but I rather hoped the warden would send it as addressed. Have you that first linen note, warden?" The warden produced the cipher. "What the deuce does it mean, anyhow?" he asked. "Read it backward, beginning with the 'T' signature and disregard the division into words," instructed The Thinking Machine. The warden did so. "T-h-i-s, this," he spelled, studied it a moment, then read it off, grinning: "This is not the way I intend to escape." "Well, now what do you think o' that?" he demanded, still grinning. "I knew that would attract your attention, just as it did," said The Thinking Machine, "and if you really found out what it was it would be a sort of gentle rebuke." "What did you write it with?" asked Dr. Ransome, after he had examined the linen and passed it to Mr. Fielding. "This," said the erstwhile prisoner, and he extended his foot. On it was the shoe he had worn in prison, though the polish was gone--scraped off clean. "The shoe blacking, moistened with water, was my ink; the metal tip of the shoe lace made a fairly good pen." The warden looked up and suddenly burst into a laugh, half of relief, half of amusement. "You're a wonder," he said, admiringly. "Go on." "That precipitated a search of my cell by the warden, as I had intended," continued The Thinking Machine. "I was anxious to get the warden into the habit of searching my cell, so that finally, constantly finding nothing, he would get disgusted and quit. This at last happened, practically." The warden blushed. "He then took my white shirt away and gave me a prison shirt. He was satisfied that those two pieces of the shirt were all that was missing. But while he was searching my cell I had another piece of that same shirt, about nine inches square, rolled into a small ball in my mouth." "Nine inches of that shirt?" demanded the warden. "Where did it come from?" "The bosoms of all stiff white shirts are of triple thickness," was the explanation. "I tore out the inside thickness, leaving the bosom only two thicknesses. I knew you wouldn't see it. So much for that." There was a little pause, and the warden looked from one to another of the men with a sheepish grin. "Having disposed of the warden for the time being by giving him something else to think about, I took my first serious step toward freedom," said Professor Van Dusen. "I knew, within reason, that the pipe led somewhere to the playground outside; I knew a great many boys played there; I knew that rats came into my cell from out there. Could I communicate with some one outside with these things at hand? "First was necessary, I saw, a long and fairly reliable thread, so--but here," he pulled up his trousers legs and showed that the tops of both stockings, of fine, strong lisle, were gone. "I unraveled those--after I got them started it wasn't difficult--and I had easily a quarter of a mile of thread that I could depend on. "Then on half of my remaining linen I wrote, laboriously enough I assure you, a letter explaining my situation to this gentleman here," and he indicated Hutchinson Hatch. "I knew he would assist me--for the value of the newspaper story. I tied firmly to this linen letter a ten-dollar bill--there is no surer way of attracting the eye of anyone--and wrote on the linen: 'Finder of this deliver to Hutchinson Hatch, _Daily American_, who will give another ten dollars for the information.' "The next thing was to get this note outside on that playground where a boy might find it. There were two ways, but I chose the best. I took one of the rats--I became adept in catching them--tied the linen and money firmly to one leg, fastened my lisle thread to another, and turned him loose in the drain pipe. I reasoned that the natural fright of the rodent would make him run until he was outside the pipe and then out on earth he would probably stop to gnaw off the linen and money. "From the moment the rat disappeared into that dusty pipe I became anxious. I was taking so many chances. The rat might gnaw the string, of which I held one end; other rats might gnaw it; the rat might run out of the pipe and leave the linen and money where they would never be found; a thousand other things might have happened. So began some nervous hours, but the fact that the rat ran on until only a few feet of the string remained in my cell made me think he was outside the pipe. I had carefully instructed Mr. Hatch what to do in case the note reached him. The question was: Would it reach him? "This done, I could only wait and make other plans in case this one failed. I openly attempted to bribe my jailer, and learned from him that he held the keys to only two of seven doors between me and freedom. Then I did something else to make the warden nervous. I took the steel supports out of the heels of my shoes and made a pretense of sawing the bars of my cell window. The warden raised a pretty row about that. He developed, too, the habit of shaking the bars of my cell window to see if they were solid. They were--then." Again the warden grinned. He had ceased being astonished. "With this one plan I had done all I could and could only wait to see what happened," the scientist went on. "I couldn't know whether my note had been delivered or even found, or whether the mouse had gnawed it up. And I didn't dare to draw back through the pipe that one slender thread which connected me with the outside. "When I went to bed that night I didn't sleep, for fear there would come the slight signal twitch at the thread which was to tell me that Mr. Hatch had received the note. At half-past three o'clock, I judge, I felt this twitch, and no prisoner actually under sentence of death ever welcomed a thing more heartily." The Thinking Machine stopped and turned to the reporter. "You'd better explain just what you did," he said. "The linen note was brought to me by a small boy who had been playing baseball," said Mr. Hatch. "I immediately saw a big story in it, so I gave the boy another ten dollars, and got several spools of silk, some twine, and a roll of light, pliable wire. The professor's note suggested that I have the finder of the note show me just where it was picked up, and told me to make my search from there, beginning at two o'clock in the morning. If I found the other end of the thread I was to twitch it gently three times, then a fourth. "I began the search with a small bulb electric light. It was an hour and twenty minutes before I found the end of the drain pipe, half hidden in weeds. The pipe was very large there, say twelve inches across. Then I found the end of the lisle thread, twitched it as directed and immediately I got an answering twitch. "Then I fastened the silk to this and Professor Van Dusen began to pull it into his cell. I nearly had heart disease for fear the string would break. To the end of the silk I fastened the twine, and when that had been pulled in I tied on the wire. Then that was drawn into the pipe and we had a substantial line, which rats couldn't gnaw, from the mouth of the drain into the cell." The Thinking Machine raised his hand and Hatch stopped. "All this was done in absolute silence," said the scientist. "But when the wire reached my hand I could have shouted. Then we tried another experiment, which Mr. Hatch was prepared for. I tested the pipe as a speaking tube. Neither of us could hear very clearly, but I dared not speak loud for fear of attracting attention in the prison. At last I made him understand what I wanted immediately. He seemed to have great difficulty in understanding when I asked for nitric acid, and I repeated the word 'acid' several times. "Then I heard a shriek from a cell above me. I knew instantly that some one had overheard, and when I heard you coming, Mr. Warden, I feigned sleep. If you had entered my cell at that moment that whole plan of escape would have ended there. But you passed on. That was the nearest I ever came to being caught. "Having established this improvised trolley it is easy to see how I got things in the cell and made them disappear at will. I merely dropped them back into the pipe. You, Mr. Warden, could not have reached the connecting wire with your fingers; they are too large. My fingers, you see, are longer and more slender. In addition I guarded the top of that pipe with a rat--you remember how." "I remember," said the warden, with a grimace. "I thought that if any one were tempted to investigate that hole the rat would dampen his ardor. Mr. Hatch could not send me anything useful through the pipe until next night, although he did send me change for ten dollars as a test, so I proceeded with other parts of my plan. Then I evolved the method of escape, which I finally employed. "In order to carry this out successfully it was necessary for the guard in the yard to get accustomed to seeing me at the cell window. I arranged this by dropping linen notes to him, boastful in tone, to make the warden believe, if possible, one of his assistants was communicating with the outside for me. I would stand at my window for hours gazing out, so the guard could see, and occasionally I spoke to him. In that way I learned that the prison had no electricians of its own, but was dependent upon the lighting company if anything should go wrong. "That cleared the way to freedom perfectly: Early in the evening of the last day of my imprisonment, when it was dark, I planned to cut the feed wire which was only a few feet from my window, reaching it with an acid-tipped wire I had. That would make that side of the prison perfectly dark while the electricians were searching for the break. That would also bring Mr. Hatch into the prison yard. "There was only one more thing to do before I actually began the work of setting myself free. This was to arrange final details with Mr. Hatch through our speaking tube. I did this within half an hour after the warden left my cell on the fourth night of my imprisonment. Mr. Hatch again had serious difficulty in understanding me, and I repeated the word 'acid' to him several times, and later the words: 'Number eight hat'--that's my size--and these were the things which made a prisoner upstairs confess to murder, so one of the jailers told me next day. This prisoner heard our voices, confused of course, through the pipe, which also went to his cell. The cell directly over me was not occupied, hence no one else heard. "Of course the actual work of cutting the steel bars out of the window and door was comparatively easy with nitric acid, which I got through the pipe in thin bottles, but it took time. Hour after hour on the fifth and sixth and seventh days the guard below was looking at me as I worked on the bars of the window with the acid on a piece of wire. I used the tooth powder to prevent the acid spreading. I looked away abstractedly as I worked and each minute the acid cut deeper into the metal. I noticed that the jailers always tried the door by shaking the upper part, never the lower bars, therefore I cut the lower bars, leaving them hanging in place by thin strips of metal. But that was a bit of dare-deviltry. I could not have gone that way so easily." The Thinking Machine sat silent for several minutes. "I think that makes everything clear," he went on. "Whatever points I have not explained were merely to confuse the warden and jailers. These things in my bed I brought in to please Mr. Hatch, who wanted to improve the story. Of course, the wig was necessary in my plan. The special delivery letter I wrote and directed in my cell with Mr. Hatch's fountain pen, then sent it out to him and he mailed it. That's all, I think." "But your actually leaving the prison grounds and then coming in through the outer gate to my office?" asked the warden. "Perfectly simple," said the scientist. "I cut the electric light wire with acid, as I said, when the current was off. Therefore when the current was turned on the arc didn't light. I knew it would take some time to find out what was the matter and make repairs. When the guard went to report to you the yard was dark. I crept out the window--it was a tight fit, too--replaced the bars by standing on a narrow ledge and remained in a shadow until the force of electricians arrived. Mr. Hatch was one of them. "When I saw him I spoke and he handed me a cap, a jumper and overalls, which I put on within ten feet of you, Mr. Warden, while you were in the yard. Later Mr. Hatch called me, presumably as a workman, and together we went out the gate to get something out of the wagon. The gate guard let us pass out readily as two workmen who had just passed in. We changed our clothing and reappeared, asking to see you. We saw you. That's all." There was silence for several minutes. Dr. Ransome was first to speak. "Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Perfectly amazing." "How did Mr. Hatch happen to come with the electricians?" asked Mr. Fielding. "His father is manager of the company," replied The Thinking Machine. "But what if there had been no Mr. Hatch outside to help?" "Every prisoner has one friend outside who would help him escape if he could." "Suppose--just suppose--there had been no old plumbing system there?" asked the warden, curiously. "There were two other ways out," said The Thinking Machine, enigmatically. Ten minutes later the telephone bell rang. It was a request for the warden. "Light all right, eh?" the warden asked, through the 'phone. "Good. Wire cut beside Cell 13? Yes, I know. One electrician too many? What's that? Two came out?" The warden turned to the others with a puzzled expression. "He only let in four electricians, he has let out two and says there are three left." "I was the odd one," said The Thinking Machine. "Oh," said the warden. "I see." Then through the 'phone "Let the fifth man go. He's all right." THE SCARLET THREAD I. The Thinking Machine--Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., M.D., etc., scientist and logician--listened intently and without comment to a weird, seemingly inexplicable story. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, was telling it. The bowed figure of the savant lay at ease in a large chair. The enormous head with its bushy yellow hair was thrown back, the thin, white fingers were pressed tip to tip and the blue eyes, narrowed to mere slits, squinted aggressively upward. The scientist was in a receptive mood. "From the beginning, every fact you know," he had requested. "It's all out in the Back Bay," the reporter explained. "There is a big apartment house there, a fashionable establishment, in a side street, just off Commonwealth Avenue. It is five stories in all, and is cut up into small suites, of two and three rooms with bath. These suites are handsomely, even luxuriously furnished, and are occupied by people who can afford to pay big rents. Generally these are young unmarried men, although in several cases they are husband and wife. It is a house of every modern improvement, elevator service, hall boys, liveried door men, spacious corridors and all that. It has both the gas and electric systems of lighting. Tenants are at liberty to use either or both. "A young broker, Weldon Henley, occupies one of the handsomest of these suites, being on the second floor, in front. He has met with considerable success in the Street. He is a bachelor and lives there alone. There is no personal servant. He dabbles in photography as a hobby, and is said to be remarkably expert. "Recently there was a report that he was to be married this Winter to a beautiful Virginia girl who has been visiting Boston from time to time, a Miss Lipscomb--Charlotte Lipscomb, of Richmond. Henley has never denied or affirmed this rumor, although he has been asked about it often. Miss Lipscomb is impossible of access even when she visits Boston. Now she is in Virginia, I understand, but will return to Boston later in the season." The reporter paused, lighted a cigarette and leaned forward in his chair, gazing steadily into the inscrutable eyes of the scientist. "When Henley took the suite he requested that all the electric lighting apparatus be removed from his apartments," he went on. "He had taken a long lease of the place, and this was done. Therefore he uses only gas for lighting purposes, and he usually keeps one of his gas jets burning low all night." "Bad, bad for his health," commented the scientist. "Now comes the mystery of the affair," the reporter went on. "It was five weeks or so ago Henley retired as usual--about midnight. He locked his door on the inside--he is positive of that--and awoke about four o'clock in the morning nearly asphyxiated by gas. He was barely able to get up and open the window to let in the fresh air. The gas jet he had left burning was out, and the suite was full of gas." "Accident, possibly," said The Thinking Machine. "A draught through the apartments; a slight diminution of gas pressure; a hundred possibilities." "So it was presumed," said the reporter. "Of course it would have been impossible for----" "Nothing is impossible," said the other, tartly. "Don't say that. It annoys me exceedingly." "Well, then, it seems highly improbable that the door had been opened or that anyone came into the room and did this deliberately," the newspaper man went on, with a slight smile. "So Henley said nothing about this; attributed it to accident. The next night he lighted his gas as usual, but he left it burning a little brighter. The same thing happened again." "Ah," and The Thinking Machine changed his position a little. "The second time." "And again he awoke just in time to save himself," said Hatch. "Still he attributed the affair to accident, and determined to avoid a recurrence of the affair by doing away with the gas at night. Then he got a small night lamp and used this for a week or more." "Why does he have a light at all?" asked the scientist, testily. "I can hardly answer that," replied Hatch. "I may say, however, that he is of a very nervous temperament, and gets up frequently during the night. He reads occasionally when he can't sleep. In addition to that he has slept with a light going all his life; it's a habit." "Go on." "One night he looked for the night lamp, but it had disappeared--at least he couldn't find it--so he lighted the gas again. The fact of the gas having twice before gone out had been dismissed as a serious possibility. Next morning at five o'clock a bell boy, passing through the hall, smelled gas and made a quick investigation. He decided it came from Henley's place, and rapped on the door. There was no answer. It ultimately developed that it was necessary to smash in the door. There on the bed they found Henley unconscious with the gas pouring into the room from the jet which he had left lighted. He was revived in the air, but for several hours was deathly sick." "Why was the door smashed in?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Why not unlocked?" "It was done because Henley had firmly barred it," Hatch explained. "He had become suspicious, I suppose, and after the second time he always barred his door and fastened every window before he went to sleep. There may have been a fear that some one used a key to enter." "Well?" asked the scientist. "After that?" "Three weeks or so elapsed, bringing the affair down to this morning," Hatch went on. "Then the same thing happened a little differently. For instance, after the third time the gas went out Henley decided to find out for himself what caused it, and so expressed himself to a few friends who knew of the mystery. Then, night after night, he lighted the gas as usual and kept watch. It was never disturbed during all that time, burning steadily all night. What sleep he got was in daytime. "Last night Henley lay awake for a time; then, exhausted and tired, fell asleep. This morning early he awoke; the room was filled with gas again. In some way my city editor heard of it and asked me to look into the mystery." That was all. The two men were silent for a long time, and finally The Thinking Machine turned to the reporter. "Does anyone else in the house keep gas going all night?" he asked. "I don't know," was the reply. "Most of them, I know, use electricity." "Nobody else has been overcome as he has been?" "No. Plumbers have minutely examined the lighting system all over the house and found nothing wrong." "Does the gas in the house all come through the same meter?" "Yes, so the manager told me. This meter, a big one, is just off the engine room. I supposed it possible that some one shut it off there on these nights long enough to extinguish the lights all over the house, then turned it on again. That is, presuming that it was done purposely. Do you think it was an attempt to kill Henley?" "It might be," was the reply. "Find out for me just who in the house uses gas; also if anyone else leaves a light burning all night; also what opportunity anyone would have to get at the meter, and then something about Henley's love affair with Miss Lipscomb. Is there anyone else? If so, who? Where does he live? When you find out these things come back here." * * * * * That afternoon at one o'clock Hatch returned to the apartments of The Thinking Machine, with excitement plainly apparent on his face. "Well?" asked the scientist. "A French girl, Louise Regnier, employed as a maid by Mrs. Standing in the house, was found dead in her room on the third floor to-day at noon," Hatch explained quickly. "It looks like suicide." "How?" asked The Thinking Machine. "The people who employed her--husband and wife--have been away for a couple of days," Hatch rushed on. "She was in the suite alone. This noon she had not appeared, there was an odor of gas and the door was broken in. Then she was found dead." "With the gas turned on?" "With the gas turned on. She was asphyxiated." "Dear me, dear me," exclaimed the scientist. He arose and took up his hat. "Let's go see what this is all about." II. When Professor Van Dusen and Hatch arrived at the apartment house they had been preceded by the Medical Examiner and the police. Detective Mallory, whom both knew, was moving about in the apartment where the girl had been found dead. The body had been removed and a telegram sent to her employers in New York. "Too late," said Mallory, as they entered. "What was it, Mr. Mallory?" asked the scientist. "Suicide," was the reply. "No question of it. It happened in this room," and he led the way into the third room of the suite. "The maid, Miss Regnier, occupied this, and was here alone last night. Mr. and Mrs. Standing, her employers, have gone to New York for a few days. She was left alone, and killed herself." Without further questioning The Thinking Machine went over to the bed, from which the girl's body had been taken, and, stooping beside it, picked up a book. It was a novel by "The Duchess." He examined this critically, then, standing on a chair, he examined the gas jet. This done, he stepped down and went to the window of the little room. Finally The Thinking Machine turned to the detective. "Just how much was the gas turned on?" he asked. "Turned on full," was the reply. "Were both the doors of the room closed?" "Both, yes." "Any cotton, or cloth, or anything of the sort stuffed in the cracks of the window?" "No. It's a tight-fitting window, anyway. Are you trying to make a mystery out of this?" "Cracks in the doors stuffed?" The Thinking Machine went on. "No." There was a smile about the detective's lips. The Thinking Machine, on his knees, examined the bottom of one of the doors, that which led into the hall. The lock of this door had been broken when employees burst into the room. Having satisfied himself here and at the bottom of the other door, which connected with the bedroom adjoining, The Thinking Machine again climbed on a chair and examined the doors at the top. "Both transoms closed, I suppose?" he asked. "Yes," was the reply. "You can't make anything but suicide out of it," explained the detective. "The Medical Examiner has given that as his opinion--and everything I find indicates it." "All right," broke in The Thinking Machine abruptly. "Don't let us keep you." After awhile Detective Mallory went away. Hatch and the scientist went down to the office floor, where they saw the manager. He seemed to be greatly distressed, but was willing to do anything he could in the matter. "Is your night engineer perfectly trustworthy?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Perfectly," was the reply. "One of the best and most reliable men I ever met. Alert and wide-awake." "Can I see him a moment? The night man, I mean?" "Certainly," was the reply. "He's downstairs. He sleeps there. He's probably up by this time. He sleeps usually till one o'clock in the daytime, being up all night." "Do you supply gas for your tenants?" "Both gas and electricity are included in the rent of the suites. Tenants may use one or both." "And the gas all comes through one meter?" "Yes, one meter. It's just off the engine room." "I suppose there's no way of telling just who in the house uses gas?" "No. Some do and some don't. I don't know." This was what Hatch had told the scientist. Now together they went to the basement, and there met the night engineer, Charles Burlingame, a tall, powerful, clean-cut man, of alert manner and positive speech. He gazed with a little amusement at the slender, almost childish figure of The Thinking Machine and the grotesquely large head. "You are in the engine room or near it all night every night?" began The Thinking Machine. "I haven't missed a night in four years," was the reply. "Anybody ever come here to see you at night?" "Never. It's against the rules." "The manager or a hall boy?" "Never." "In the last two months?" The Thinking Machine persisted. "Not in the last two years," was the positive reply. "I go on duty every night at seven o'clock, and I am on duty until seven in the morning. I don't believe I've seen anybody in the basement here with me between those hours for a year at least." The Thinking Machine was squinting steadily into the eyes of the engineer, and for a time both were silent. Hatch moved about the scrupulously clean engine room and nodded to the day engineer, who sat leaning back against the wall. Directly in front of him was the steam gauge. "Have you a fireman?" was The Thinking Machine's next question. "No. I fire myself," said the night man. "Here's the coal," and he indicated a bin within half a dozen feet of the mouth of the boiler. "I don't suppose you ever had occasion to handle the gas meter?" insisted The Thinking Machine. "Never touched it in my life," said the other. "I don't know anything about meters, anyway." "And you never drop off to sleep at night for a few minutes when you get lonely? Doze, I mean?" The engineer grinned good-naturedly. "Never had any desire to, and besides I wouldn't have the chance," he explained. "There's a time check here,"--and he indicated it. "I have to punch that every half hour all night to prove that I have been awake." "Dear me, dear me," exclaimed The Thinking Machine, irritably. He went over and examined the time check--a revolving paper disk with hours marked on it, made to move by the action of a clock, the face of which showed in the middle. "Besides there's the steam gauge to watch," went on the engineer. "No engineer would dare go to sleep. There might be an explosion." "Do you know Mr. Weldon Henley?" suddenly asked The Thinking Machine. "Who?" asked Burlingame. "Weldon Henley?" "No-o," was the slow response. "Never heard of him. Who is he?" "One of the tenants, on the second floor, I think." "Lord, I don't know any of the tenants. What about him?" "When does the inspector come here to read the meter?" "I never saw him. I presume in daytime, eh Bill?" and he turned to the day engineer. "Always in daytime--usually about noon," said Bill from his corner. "Any other entrance to the basement except this way--and you could see anyone coming here this way I suppose?" "Sure I could see 'em. There's no other entrance to the cellar except the coal hole in the sidewalk in front." "Two big electric lights in front of the building, aren't there?" "Yes. They go all night." A slightly puzzled expression crept into the eyes of The Thinking Machine. Hatch knew from the persistency of the questions that he was not satisfied; yet he was not able to fathom or to understand all the queries. In some way they had to do with the possibility of some one having access to the meter. "Where do you usually sit at night here?" was the next question. "Over there where Bill's sitting. I always sit there." The Thinking Machine crossed the room to Bill, a typical, grimy-handed man of his class. "May I sit there a moment?" he asked. Bill arose lazily, and The Thinking Machine sank down into the chair. From this point he could see plainly through the opening into the basement proper--there was no door--the gas meter of enormous proportions through which all the gas in the house passed. An electric light in the door made it bright as daylight. The Thinking Machine noted these things, arose, nodded his thanks to the two men and, still with the puzzled expression on his face, led the way upstairs. There the manager was still in his office. "I presume you examine and know that the time check in the engineer's room is properly punched every half-hour during the night?" he asked. "Yes. I examine the dial every day--have them here, in fact, each with the date on it." "May I see them?" Now the manager was puzzled. He produced the cards, one for each day, and for half an hour The Thinking Machine studied them minutely. At the end of that time, when he arose and Hatch looked at him inquiringly, he saw still the perplexed expression. After urgent solicitation, the manager admitted them to the apartments of Weldon Henley. Mr. Henley himself had gone to his office in State Street. Here The Thinking Machine did several things which aroused the curiosity of the manager, one of which was to minutely study the gas jets. Then The Thinking Machine opened one of the front windows and glanced out into the street. Below fifteen feet was the sidewalk; above was the solid front of the building, broken only by a flagpole which, properly roped, extended from the hall window of the next floor above out over the sidewalk a distance of twelve feet or so. "Ever use that flagpole?" he asked the manager. "Rarely," said the manager. "On holidays sometimes--Fourth of July and such times. We have a big flag for it." From the apartments The Thinking Machine led the way to the hall, up the stairs and to the flagpole. Leaning out of this window, he looked down toward the window of the apartments he had just left. Then he inspected the rope of the flagpole, drawing it through his slender hands slowly and carefully. At last he picked off a slender thread of scarlet and examined it. "Ah," he exclaimed. Then to Hatch: "Let's go, Mr. Hatch. Thank you," this last to the manager, who had been a puzzled witness. Once on the street, side by side with The Thinking Machine, Hatch was bursting with questions, but he didn't ask them. He knew it would be useless. At last The Thinking Machine broke the silence. "That girl, Miss Regnier, _was murdered_," he said suddenly, positively. "There have been four attempts to murder Henley." "How?" asked Hatch, startled. "By a scheme so simple that neither you nor I nor the police have ever heard of it being employed," was the astonishing reply. "_It is perfectly horrible in its simplicity_." "What was it?" Hatch insisted, eagerly. "It would be futile to discuss that now," was the rejoinder. "There has been murder. We know how. Now the question is--who? What person would have a motive to kill Henley?" III. There was a pause as they walked on. "Where are we going?" asked Hatch finally. "Come up to my place and let's consider this matter a bit further," replied The Thinking Machine. Not another word was spoken by either until half an hour later, in the small laboratory. For a long time the scientist was thoughtful--deeply thoughtful. Once he took down a volume from a shelf and Hatch glanced at the title. It was "Gases: Their Properties." After awhile he returned this to the shelf and took down another, on which the reporter caught the title, "Anatomy." "Now, Mr. Hatch," said The Thinking Machine in his perpetually crabbed voice, "we have a most remarkable riddle. It gains this remarkable aspect from its very simplicity. It is not, however, necessary to go into that now. I will make it clear to you when we know the motives. "As a general rule, the greatest crimes never come to light because the greatest criminals, their perpetrators, are too clever to be caught. Here we have what I might call a great crime committed with a subtle simplicity that is wholly disarming, and a greater crime even than this was planned. This was to murder Weldon Henley. The first thing for you to do is to see Mr. Henley and warn him of his danger. Asphyxiation will not be attempted again, but there is a possibility of poison, a pistol shot, a knife, anything almost. As a matter of fact, he is in great peril. "Superficially, the death of Miss Regnier, the maid, looks to be suicide. Instead it is the fruition of a plan which has been tried time and again against Henley. There is a possibility that Miss Regnier was not an intentional victim of the plot, but the fact remains that she was murdered. Why? Find the motive for the plot to murder Mr. Henley and you will know why." The Thinking Machine reached over to the shelf, took a book, looked at it a moment, then went on: "The first question to determine positively is: Who hated Weldon Henley sufficiently to desire his death? You say he is a successful man in the Street. Therefore there is a possibility that some enemy there is at the bottom of the affair, yet it seems hardly probable. If by his operations Mr. Henley ever happened to wreck another man's fortune find this man and find out all about him. He may be the man. There will be innumerable questions arising from this line of inquiry to a man of your resources. Leave none of them unanswered. "On the other hand there is Henley's love affair. Had he a rival who might desire his death? Had he any rival? If so, find out all about him. He may be the man who planned all this. Here, too, there will be questions arising which demand answers. Answer them--all of them--fully and clearly before you see me again. "Was Henley ever a party to a liaison of any kind? Find that out, too. A vengeful woman or a discarded sweetheart of a vengeful woman, you know, will go to any extreme. The rumor of his engagement to Miss--Miss----" "Miss Lipscomb," Hatch supplied. "The rumor of his engagement to Miss Lipscomb might have caused a woman whom he had once been interested in or who was once interested in him to attempt his life. The subtler murders--that is, the ones which are most attractive as problems--are nearly always the work of a cunning woman. I know nothing about women myself," he hastened to explain; "but Lombroso has taken that attitude. Therefore, see if there is a woman." Most of these points Hatch had previously seen--seen with the unerring eye of a clever newspaper reporter--yet there were several which had not occurred to him. He nodded his understanding. "Now the center of the affair, of course," The Thinking Machine continued, "is the apartment house where Henley lives. The person who attempted his life either lives there or has ready access to the place, and frequently spends the night there. This is a vital question for you to answer. I am leaving all this to you because you know better how to do these things than I do. That's all, I think. When these things are all learned come back to me." The Thinking Machine arose as if the interview were at an end, and Hatch also arose, reluctantly. An idea was beginning to dawn in his mind. "Does it occur to you that there is any connection whatever between Henley and Miss Regnier?" he asked. "It is possible," was the reply. "I had thought of that. If there is a connection it is not apparent yet." "Then how--how was it she--she was killed, or killed herself, whichever may be true, and----" "The attempt to kill Henley killed her. That's all I can say now." "That all?" asked Hatch, after a pause. "No. Warn Mr. Henley immediately that he is in grave danger. Remember the person who has planned this will probably go to any extreme. I don't know Mr. Henley, of course, but from the fact that he always had a light at night I gather that he is a timid sort of man--not necessarily a coward, but a man lacking in stamina--therefore, one who might better disappear for a week or so until the mystery is cleared up. Above all, impress upon him the importance of the warning." The Thinking Machine opened his pocketbook and took from it the scarlet thread which he had picked from the rope of the flagpole. "Here, I believe, is the real clew to the problem," he explained to Hatch. "What does it seem to be?" Hatch examined it closely. "I should say a strand from a Turkish bath robe," was his final judgment. "Possibly. Ask some cloth expert what he makes of it, then if it sounds promising look into it. Find out if by any possibility it can be any part of any garment worn by any person in the apartment house." "But it's so slight----" Hatch began. "I know," the other interrupted, tartly. "It's slight, but I believe it is a part of the wearing apparel of the person, man or woman, who has four times attempted to kill Mr. Henley and who did kill the girl. Therefore, it is important." Hatch looked at him quickly. "Well, how--in what manner--did it come where you found it?" "Simple enough," said the scientist. "It is a wonder that there were not more pieces of it--that's all." Perplexed by his instructions, but confident of results, Hatch left The Thinking Machine. What possible connection could this tiny bit of scarlet thread, found on a flagpole, have with some one shutting off the gas in Henley's rooms? How did any one go into Henley's rooms to shut off the gas? How was it Miss Regnier was dead? What was the manner of her death? A cloth expert in a great department store turned his knowledge on the tiny bit of scarlet for the illumination of Hatch, but he could go no further than to say that it seemed to be part of a Turkish bath robe. "Man or woman's?" asked Hatch. "The material from which bath robes are made is the same for both men and women," was the reply. "I can say nothing else. Of course there's not enough of it to even guess at the pattern of the robe." Then Hatch went to the financial district and was ushered into the office of Weldon Henley, a slender, handsome man of thirty-two or three years, pallid of face and nervous in manner. He still showed the effect of the gas poisoning, and there was even a trace of a furtive fear--fear of something, he himself didn't know what--in his actions. Henley talked freely to the newspaper man of certain things, but of other things was resentfully reticent. He admitted his engagement to Miss Lipscomb, and finally even admitted that Miss Lipscomb's hand had been sought by another man, Regnault Cabell, formerly of Virginia. "Could you give me his address?" asked Hatch. "He lives in the same apartment house with me--two floors above," was the reply. Hatch was startled; startled more than he would have cared to admit. "Are you on friendly terms with him?" he asked. "Certainly," said Henley. "I won't say anything further about this matter. It would be unwise for obvious reasons." "I suppose you consider that this turning on of the gas was an attempt on your life?" "I can't suppose anything else." Hatch studied the pallid face closely as he asked the next question. "Do you know Miss Regnier was found dead to-day?" "Dead?" exclaimed the other, and he arose. "Who--what--who is she?" It seemed a distinct effort for him to regain control of himself. The reporter detailed then the circumstances of the finding of the girl's body, and the broker listened without comment. From that time forward all the reporter's questions were either parried or else met with a flat refusal to answer. Finally Hatch repeated to him the warning which he had from The Thinking Machine, and feeling that he had accomplished little, went away. At eight o'clock that night--a night of complete darkness--Henley was found unconscious, lying in a little used walk in the Common. There was a bullet hole through his left shoulder, and he was bleeding profusely. He was removed to the hospital, where he regained consciousness for just a moment. "Who shot you?" he was asked. "None of your business," he replied, and lapsed into unconsciousness. IV. Entirely unaware of this latest attempt on the life of the broker, Hutchinson Hatch steadily pursued his investigations. They finally led him to an intimate friend of Regnault Cabell. The young Southerner had apartments on the fourth floor of the big house off Commonwealth Avenue, directly over those Henley occupied, but two flights higher up. This friend was a figure in the social set of the Back Bay. He talked to Hatch freely of Cabell. "He's a good fellow," he explained, "one of the best I ever met, and comes of one of the best families Virginia ever had--a true F. F. V. He's pretty quick tempered and all that, but an excellent chap, and everywhere he has gone here he has made friends." "He used to be in love with Miss Lipscomb of Virginia, didn't he?" asked Hatch, casually. "Used to be?" the other repeated with a laugh. "He is in love with her. But recently he understood that she was engaged to Weldon Henley, a broker--you may have heard of him?--and that, I suppose, has dampened his ardor considerably. As a matter of fact, Cabell took the thing to heart. He used to know Miss Lipscomb in Virginia--she comes from another famous family there--and he seemed to think he had a prior claim on her." Hatch heard all these things as any man might listen to gossip, but each additional fact was sinking into his mind, and each additional fact led his suspicions on deeper into the channel they had chosen. "Cabell is pretty well to do," his informant went on, "not rich as we count riches in the North, but pretty well to do, and I believe he came to Boston because Miss Lipscomb spent so much of her time here. She is a beautiful young woman of twenty-two and extremely popular in the social world everywhere, particularly in Boston. Then there was the additional fact that Henley was here." "No chance at all for Cabell?" Hatch suggested. "Not the slightest," was the reply. "Yet despite the heartbreak he had, he was the first to congratulate Henley on winning her love. And he meant it, too." "What's his attitude toward Henley now?" asked Hatch. His voice was calm, but there was an underlying tense note imperceptible to the other. "They meet and speak and move in the same set. There's no love lost on either side, I don't suppose, but there is no trace of any ill feeling." "Cabell doesn't happen to be a vindictive sort of man?" "Vindictive?" and the other laughed. "No. He's like a big boy, forgiving, and all that; hot-tempered, though. I could imagine him in a fit of anger making a personal matter of it with Henley, but I don't think he ever did." The mind of the newspaper man was rapidly focusing on one point; the rush of thoughts, questions and doubts silenced him for a moment. Then: "How long has Cabell been in Boston?" "Seven or eight months--that is, he has had apartments here for that long--but he has made several visits South. I suppose it's South. He has a trick of dropping out of sight occasionally. I understand that he intends to go South for good very soon. If I'm not mistaken, he is trying now to rent his suite." Hatch looked suddenly at his informant; an idea of seeing Cabell and having a legitimate excuse for talking to him had occurred to him. "I'm looking for a suite," he volunteered at last. "I wonder if you would give me a card of introduction to him? We might get together on it." Thus it happened that half an hour later, about ten minutes past nine o'clock, Hatch was on his way to the big apartment house. In the office he saw the manager. "Heard the news?" asked the manager. "No," Hatch replied. "What is it?" "Somebody's shot Mr. Henley as he was passing through the Common early to-night." Hatch whistled his amazement. "Is he dead?" "No, but he is unconscious. The hospital doctors say it is a nasty wound, but not necessarily dangerous." "Who shot him? Do they know?" "He knows, but he won't say." Amazed and alarmed by this latest development, an accurate fulfillment of The Thinking Machine's prophecy, Hatch stood thoughtful for a moment, then recovering his composure a little asked for Cabell. "I don't think there's much chance of seeing him," said the manager. "He's going away on the midnight train--going South, to Virginia." "Going away to-night?" Hatch gasped. "Yes; it seems to have been rather a sudden determination. He was talking to me here half an hour or so ago, and said something about going away. While he was here the telephone boy told me that Henley had been shot; they had 'phoned from the hospital to inform us. Then Cabell seemed greatly agitated. He said he was going away to-night, if he could catch the midnight train, and now he's packing." "I suppose the shooting of Henley upset him considerably?" the reporter suggested. "Yes, I guess it did," was the reply. "They moved in the same set and belonged to the same clubs." The manager sent Hatch's card of introduction to Cabell's apartments. Hatch went up and was ushered into a suite identical with that of Henley's in every respect save in minor details of furnishings. Cabell stood in the middle of the floor, with his personal belongings scattered about the room; his valet, evidently a Frenchman, was busily engaged in packing. Cabell's greeting was perfunctorily cordial; he seemed agitated. His face was flushed and from time to time he ran his fingers through his long, brown hair. He stared at Hatch in a preoccupied fashion, then they fell into conversation about the rent of the apartments. "I'll take almost anything reasonable," Cabell said hurriedly. "You see, I am going away to-night, rather more suddenly than I had intended, and I am anxious to get the lease off my hands. I pay two hundred dollars a month for these just as they are." "May I look them over?" asked Hatch. He passed from the front room into the next. Here, on a bed, was piled a huge lot of clothing, and the valet, with deft fingers, was brushing and folding, preparatory to packing. Cabell was directly behind him. "Quite comfortable, you see," he explained. "There's room enough if you are alone. Are you?" "Oh, yes," Hatch replied. "This other room here," Cabell explained, "is not in very tidy shape now. I have been out of the city for several weeks, and---- What's the matter?" he demanded suddenly. Hatch had turned quickly at the words and stared at him, then recovered himself with a start. "I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I rather thought I saw you in town here a week or so ago--of course I didn't know you--and I was wondering if I could have been mistaken." "Must have been," said the other easily. "During the time I was away a Miss----, a friend of my sister's, occupied the suite. I'm afraid some of her things are here. She hasn't sent for them as yet. She occupied this room, I think; when I came back a few days ago she took another place and all her things haven't been removed." "I see," remarked Hatch, casually. "I don't suppose there's any chance of her returning here unexpectedly if I should happen to take her apartments?" "Not the slightest. She knows I am back, and thinks I am to remain. She was to send for these things." Hatch gazed about the room ostentatiously. Across a trunk lay a Turkish bath robe with a scarlet stripe in it. He was anxious to get hold of it, to examine it closely. But he didn't dare to, then. Together they returned to the front room. "I rather like the place," he said, after a pause, "but the price is----" "Just a moment," Cabell interrupted. "Jean, before you finish packing that suit case be sure to put my bath robe in it. It's in the far room." Then one question was settled for Hatch. After a moment the valet returned with the bath robe, which had been in the far room. It was Cabell's bath robe. As Jean passed the reporter an end of the robe caught on a corner of the trunk, and, stopping, the reporter unfastened it. A tiny strand of thread clung to the metal; Hatch detached it and stood idly twirling it in his fingers. "As I was saying," he resumed, "I rather like the place, but the price is too much. Suppose you leave it in the hands of the manager of the house----" "I had intended doing that," the Southerner interrupted. "Well, I'll see him about it later," Hatch added. With a cordial, albeit preoccupied, handshake, Cabell ushered him out. Hatch went down in the elevator with a feeling of elation; a feeling that he had accomplished something. The manager was waiting to get into the lift. "Do you happen to remember the name of the young lady who occupied Mr. Cabell's suite while he was away?" he asked. "Miss Austin," said the manager, "but she's not young. She was about forty-five years old, I should judge." "Did Mr. Cabell have his servant Jean with him?" "Oh, no," said the manager. "The valet gave up the suite to Miss Austin entirely, and until Mr. Cabell returned occupied a room in the quarters we have for our own employees." "Was Miss Austin ailing any way?" asked Hatch. "I saw a large number of medicine bottles upstairs." "I don't know what was the matter with her," replied the manager, with a little puzzled frown. "She certainly was not a woman of sound mental balance--that is, she was eccentric, and all that. I think rather it was an act of charity for Mr. Cabell to let her have the suite in his absence. Certainly we didn't want her." Hatch passed out and burst in eagerly upon The Thinking Machine in his laboratory. "Here," he said, and triumphantly he extended the tiny scarlet strand which he had received from The Thinking Machine, and the other of the identical color which came from Cabell's bath robe. "Is that the same?" The Thinking Machine placed them under the microscope and examined them immediately. Later he submitted them to a chemical test. "_It is the same_," he said, finally. "Then the mystery is solved," said Hatch, conclusively. V. The Thinking Machine stared steadily into the eager, exultant eyes of the newspaper man until Hatch at last began to fear that he had been precipitate. After awhile, under close scrutiny, the reporter began to feel convinced that he had made a mistake--he didn't quite see where, but it must be there, and the exultant manner passed. The voice of The Thinking Machine was like a cold shower. "Remember, Mr. Hatch," he said, critically, "that unless every possible question has been considered one cannot boast of a solution. Is there any possible question lingering yet in your mind?" The reporter silently considered that for a moment, then: "Well, I have the main facts, anyway. There may be one or two minor questions left, but the principal ones are answered." "Then tell me, to the minutest detail, what you have learned, what has happened." Professor Van Dusen sank back in his old, familiar pose in the large arm chair and Hatch related what he had learned and what he surmised. He related, too, the peculiar circumstances surrounding the wounding of Henley, and right on down to the beginning and end of the interview with Cabell in the latter's apartments. The Thinking Machine was silent for a time, then there came a host of questions. "Do you know where the woman--Miss Austin--is now?" was the first. "No," Hatch had to admit. "Or her precise mental condition?" "No." "Or her exact relationship to Cabell?" "No." "Do you know, then, what the valet, Jean, knows of the affair?" "No, not that," said the reporter, and his face flushed under the close questioning. "He was out of the suite every night." "Therefore might have been the very one who turned on the gas," the other put in testily. "So far as I can learn, nobody could have gone into that room and turned on the gas," said the reporter, somewhat aggressively. "Henley barred the doors and windows and kept watch, night after night." "Yet the moment he was exhausted and fell asleep the gas was turned on to kill him," said The Thinking Machine; "thus we see that _he was watched more closely than he watched_." "I see what you mean now," said Hatch, after a long pause. "I should like to know what Henley and Cabell and the valet knew of the girl who was found dead," The Thinking Machine suggested. "Further, I should like to know if there was a good-sized mirror--not one set in a bureau or dresser--either in Henley's room or the apartments where the girl was found. Find out this for me and--never mind. I'll go with you." The scientist left the room. When he returned he wore his coat and hat. Hatch arose mechanically to follow. For a block or more they walked along, neither speaking. The Thinking Machine was the first to break the silence: "You believe Cabell is the man who attempted to kill Henley?" "Frankly, yes," replied the newspaper man. "Why?" "Because he had the motive--disappointed love." "How?" "I don't know," Hatch confessed. "The doors of the Henley suite were closed. I don't see how anybody passed them." "And the girl? Who killed her? How? Why?" Disconsolately Hatch shook his head as he walked on. The Thinking Machine interpreted his silence aright. "Don't jump at conclusions," he advised sharply. "You are confident Cabell was to blame for this--and he might have been, I don't know yet--but you can suggest nothing to show how he did it. I have told you before that imagination is half of logic." At last the lights of the big apartment house where Henley lived came in sight. Hatch shrugged his shoulders. He had grave doubts--based on what he knew--whether The Thinking Machine would be able to see Cabell. It was nearly eleven o'clock and Cabell was to leave for the South at midnight. "Is Mr. Cabell here?" asked the scientist of the elevator boy. "Yes, just about to go, though. He won't see anyone." "Hand him this note," instructed The Thinking Machine, and he scribbled something on a piece of paper. "He'll see us." The boy took the paper and the elevator shot up to the fourth floor. After awhile he returned. "He'll see you," he said. "Is he unpacking?" "After he read your note twice he told his valet to unpack," the boy replied. "Ah, I thought so," said The Thinking Machine. With Hatch, mystified and puzzled, following, The Thinking Machine entered the elevator to step out a second or so later on the fourth floor. As they left the car they saw the door of Cabell's apartment standing open; Cabell was in the door. Hatch traced a glimmer of anxiety in the eyes of the young man. "Professor Van Dusen?" Cabell inquired. "Yes," said the scientist. "It was of the utmost importance that I should see you, otherwise I should not have come at this time of night." With a wave of his hand Cabell passed that detail. "I was anxious to get away at midnight," he explained, "but, of course, now I shan't go, in view of your note. I have ordered my valet to unpack my things, at least until to-morrow." The reporter and the scientist passed into the luxuriously furnished apartments. Jean, the valet, was bending over a suit case as they entered, removing some things he had been carefully placing there. He didn't look back or pay the least attention to the visitors. "This is your valet?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Yes," said the young man. "French, isn't he?" "Yes." "Speak English at all?" "Very badly," said Cabell. "I use French when I talk to him." "Does he know that you are accused of murder?" asked The Thinking Machine, in a quiet, conversational tone. The effect of the remark on Cabell was startling. He staggered back a step or so as if he had been struck in the face, and a crimson flush overspread his brow. Jean, the valet, straightened up suddenly and looked around. There was a queer expression, too, in his eyes; an expression which Hatch could not fathom. "Murder?" gasped Cabell, at last. "Yes, he speaks English all right," remarked The Thinking Machine. "Now, Mr. Cabell, will you please tell me just who Miss Austin is, and where she is, and her mental condition? Believe me, it may save you a great deal of trouble. What I said in the note is not exaggerated." The young man turned suddenly and began to pace back and forth across the room. After a few minutes he paused before The Thinking Machine, who stood impatiently waiting for an answer. "I'll tell you, yes," said Cabell, firmly. "Miss Austin is a middle-aged woman whom my sister befriended several times--was, in fact, my sister's governess when she was a child. Of late years she has not been wholly right mentally, and has suffered a great deal of privation. I had about concluded arrangements to put her in a private sanitarium. I permitted her to remain in these rooms in my absence, South. I did not take Jean--he lived in the quarters of the other employees of the place, and gave the apartment entirely to Miss Austin. It was simply an act of charity." "What was the cause of your sudden determination to go South to-night?" asked the scientist. "I won't answer that question," was the sullen reply. There was a long, tense silence. Jean, the valet, came and went several times. "How long has Miss Austin known Mr. Henley?" "Presumably since she has been in these apartments," was the reply. "Are you sure _you_ are not Miss Austin?" demanded the scientist. The question was almost staggering, not only to Cabell, but to Hatch. Suddenly, with flaming face, the young Southerner leaped forward as if to strike down The Thinking Machine. "That won't do any good," said the scientist, coldly. "Are you sure you are not Miss Austin?" he repeated. "Certainly I am not Miss Austin," responded Cabell, fiercely. "Have you a mirror in these apartments about twelve inches by twelve inches?" asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly. "I--I don't know," stammered the young man. "I--have we, Jean?" "_Oui_," replied the valet. "Yes," snapped The Thinking Machine. "Talk English, please. May I see it?" The valet, without a word but with a sullen glance at the questioner, turned and left the room. He returned after a moment with the mirror. The Thinking Machine carefully examined the frame, top and bottom and on both sides. At last he looked up; again the valet was bending over a suit case. "Do you use gas in these apartments?" the scientist asked suddenly. "No," was the bewildered response. "What is all this, anyway?" Without answering, The Thinking Machine drew a chair up under the chandelier where the gas and electric fixtures were and began to finger the gas tips. After awhile he climbed down and passed into the next room, with Hatch and Cabell, both hopelessly mystified, following. There the scientist went through the same process of fingering the gas jets. Finally, one of the gas tips came out in his hand. "Ah," he exclaimed, suddenly, and Hatch knew the note of triumph in it. The jet from which the tip came was just on a level with his shoulder, set between a dressing table and a window. He leaned over and squinted at the gas pipe closely. Then he returned to the room where the valet was. "Now, Jean," he began, in an even, calm voice, "please tell me _if you did or did not kill Miss Regnier purposely?_" "I don't know what you mean," said the servant sullenly, angrily, as he turned on the scientist. "You speak very good English now," was The Thinking Machine's terse comment. "Mr. Hatch, lock the door and use this 'phone to call the police." Hatch turned to do as he was bid and saw a flash of steel in young Cabell's hand, which was drawn suddenly from a hip pocket. It was a revolver. The weapon glittered in the light, and Hatch flung himself forward. There was a sharp report, and a bullet was buried in the floor. VI. Then came a fierce, hard fight for possession of the revolver. It ended with the weapon in Hatch's hand, and both he and Cabell blowing from the effort they had expended. Jean, the valet, had turned at the sound of the shot and started toward the door leading into the hall. The Thinking Machine had stepped in front of him, and now stood there with his back to the door. Physically he would have been a child in the hands of the valet, yet there was a look in his eyes which stopped him. "Now, Mr. Hatch," said the scientist quietly, a touch of irony in his voice, "hand me the revolver, then 'phone for Detective Mallory to come here immediately. Tell him we have a murderer--and if he can't come at once get some other detective whom you know." "Murderer!" gasped Cabell. Uncontrollable rage was blazing in the eyes of the valet, and he made as if to throw The Thinking Machine aside, despite the revolver, when Hatch was at the telephone. As Jean started forward, however, Cabell stopped him with a quick, stern gesture. Suddenly the young Southerner turned on The Thinking Machine; but it was with a question. "What does it all mean?" he asked, bewildered. "It means that that man there," and The Thinking Machine indicated the valet by a nod of his head, "is a murderer--that he killed Louise Regnier; that he shot Weldon Henley on Boston Common, and that, with the aid of Miss Regnier, he had four times previously attempted to kill Mr. Henley. Is he coming, Mr. Hatch?" "Yes," was the reply. "He says he'll be here directly." "Do you deny it?" demanded The Thinking Machine of the valet. "I've done nothing," said the valet sullenly. "I'm going out of here." Like an infuriated animal he rushed forward. Hatch and Cabell seized him and bore him to the floor. There, after a frantic struggle, he was bound and the other three men sat down to wait for Detective Mallory. Cabell sank back in his chair with a perplexed frown on his face. From time to time he glanced at Jean. The flush of anger which had been on the valet's face was gone now; instead there was the pallor of fear. "Won't you tell us?" pleaded Cabell impatiently. "When Detective Mallory comes and takes his prisoner," said The Thinking Machine. Ten minutes later they heard a quick step in the hall outside and Hatch opened the door. Detective Mallory entered and looked from one to another inquiringly. "That's your prisoner, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist, coldly. "I charge him with the murder of Miss Regnier, whom you were so confident committed suicide; I charge him with five attempts on the life of Weldon Henley, four times by gas poisoning, in which Miss Regnier was his accomplice, and once by shooting. He is the man who shot Mr. Henley." The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the prostrate man, handing the revolver to Hatch. He glared down at Jean fiercely. "Will you tell how you did it or shall I?" he demanded. His answer was a sullen, defiant glare. He turned and picked up the square mirror which the valet had produced previously. "That's where the screw was, isn't it?" he asked, as he indicated a small hole in the frame of the mirror. Jean stared at it and his head sank forward hopelessly. "And this is the bath robe you wore, isn't it?" he demanded again, and from the suit case he pulled out the garment with the scarlet stripe. "I guess you got me all right," was the sullen reply. "It might be better for you if you told the story then?" suggested The Thinking Machine. "You know so much about it, tell it yourself." "Very well," was the calm rejoinder. "I will. If I make any mistake you will correct me." For a long time no one spoke. The Thinking Machine had dropped back into a chair and was staring through his thick glasses at the ceiling; his finger tips were pressed tightly together. At last he began: "There are certain trivial gaps which only the imagination can supply until the matter is gone into more fully. I should have supplied these myself, but the arrest of this man, Jean, was precipitated by the attempted hurried departure of Mr. Cabell for the South to-night, and I did not have time to go into the case to the fullest extent. "Thus, we begin with the fact that there were several clever attempts made to murder Mr. Henley. This was by putting out the gas which he habitually left burning in his room. It happened four times in all; thus proving that it was an attempt to kill him. If it had been only once it might have been accident, even twice it might have been accident, but the same accident does not happen four times at the same time of night. "Mr. Henley finally grew to regard the strange extinguishing of the gas as an effort to kill him, and carefully locked and barred his door and windows each night. He believed that some one came into his apartments and put out the light, leaving the gas flow. This, of course, was not true. Yet the gas was put out. How? My first idea, a natural one, was that it was turned off for an instant at the meter, when the light would go out, then turned on again. This, I convinced myself, was not true. Therefore still the question--how? "It is a fact--I don't know how widely known it is--but it is a fact that every gas light in this house might be extinguished at the same time from this room without leaving it. How? Simply by removing the gas jet tip and blowing into the gas pipe. It would not leave a jet in the building burning. It is due to the fact that the lung power is greater than the pressure of the gas in the pipes, and forces it out. "Thus we have the method employed to extinguish the light in Mr. Henley's rooms, and all the barred and locked doors and windows would not stop it. At the same time it threatened the life of every other person in the house--that is, every other person who used gas. It was probably for this reason that the attempt was always made late at night, I should say three or four o'clock. That's when it was done, isn't it?" he asked suddenly of the valet. Staring at The Thinking Machine in open-mouthed astonishment the valet nodded his acquiescence before he was fully aware of it. "Yes, that's right," The Thinking Machine resumed complacently. "This was easily found out--comparatively. The next question was how was a watch kept on Mr. Henley? It would have done no good to extinguish the gas before he was asleep, or, to have turned it on when he was not in his rooms. It might have led to a speedy discovery of just how the thing was done. "There's a spring lock on the door of Mr. Henley's apartment. Therefore it would have been impossible for anyone to peep through the keyhole. There are no cracks through which one might see. How was this watch kept? How was the plotter to satisfy himself positively of the time when Mr. Henley was asleep? How was it the gas was put out at no time of the score or more nights Mr. Henley himself kept watch? Obviously he was watched through a window. "No one could climb out on the window ledge and look into Mr. Henley's apartments. No one could see into that apartment from the street--that is, could see whether Mr. Henley was asleep or even in bed. They could see the light. Watch was kept with the aid offered by the flagpole, supplemented with a mirror--this mirror. A screw was driven into the frame--it has been removed now--it was swung on the flagpole rope and pulled out to the end of the pole, facing the building. To a man standing in the hall window of the third floor it offered precisely the angle necessary to reflect the interior of Mr. Henley's suite, possibly even showed him in bed through a narrow opening in the curtain. There is no shade on the windows of that suite; heavy curtains instead. Is that right?" Again the prisoner was surprised into a mute acquiescence. "I saw the possibility of these things, and I saw, too, that at three or four o'clock in the morning it would be perfectly possible for a person to move about the upper halls of this house without being seen. If he wore a heavy bath robe, with a hood, say, no one would recognize him even if he were seen, and besides the garb would not cause suspicion. This bath robe has a hood. "Now, in working the mirror back and forth on the flagpole at night a tiny scarlet thread was pulled out of the robe and clung to the rope. I found this thread; later Mr. Hatch found an identical thread in these apartments. Both came from that bath robe. Plain logic shows that the person who blew down the gas pipes worked the mirror trick; the person who worked the mirror trick left the thread; the thread comes back to the bath robe--that bath robe there," he pointed dramatically. "Thus the person who desired Henley's death was in these apartments, or had easy access to them." He paused a moment and there was a tense silence. A great light was coming to Hatch, slowly but surely. The brain that had followed all this was unlimited in possibilities. "Even before we traced the origin of the crime to this room," went on the scientist, quietly now, "attention had been attracted here, particularly to you, Mr. Cabell. It was through the love affair, of which Miss Lipscomb was the center. Mr. Hatch learned that you and Henley had been rivals for her hand. It was that, even before this scarlet thread was found, which indicated that you might have some knowledge of the affair, directly or indirectly. "You are not a malicious or revengeful man, Mr. Cabell. But you are hot-tempered--extremely so. You demonstrated that just now, when, angry and not understanding, but feeling that your honor was at stake, you shot a hole in the floor." "What?" asked Detective Mallory. "A little accident," explained The Thinking Machine quickly. "Not being a malicious or revengeful man, you are not the man to deliberately go ahead, and make elaborate plans for the murder of Henley. In a moment of passion you might have killed him--but never deliberately as the result of premeditation. Besides you were out of town. Who was then in these apartments? Who had access to these apartments? Who might have used your bath robe? Your valet, possibly Miss Austin. Which? Now, let's see how we reached this conclusion which led to the valet. "Miss Regnier was found dead. It was not suicide. How did I know? Because she had been reading with the gas light at its full. If she had been reading by the gas light, how was it then that it went out and suffocated her before she could arise and shut it off? Obviously she must have fallen asleep over her book and left the light burning. "If she was in this plot to kill Henley, why did she light the jet in her room? There might have been some slight defect in the electric bulb in her room which she had just discovered. Therefore she lighted the gas, intending to extinguish it--turn it off entirely--later. But she fell asleep. Therefore when the valet here blew into the pipe, intending to kill Mr. Henley, he unwittingly killed the woman he loved--Miss Regnier. It was perfectly possible, meanwhile, that she did not know of the attempt to be made that particular night, although she had participated in the others, knowing that Henley had night after night sat up to watch the light in his rooms. "The facts, as I knew them, showed no connection between Miss Regnier and this man at that time--nor any connection between Miss Regnier and Henley. It might have been that the person who blew the gas out of the pipe from these rooms knew nothing whatever of Miss Regnier, just as he didn't know who else he might have killed in the building. "But I had her death and the manner of it. I had eliminated you, Mr. Cabell. Therefore there remained Miss Austin and the valet. Miss Austin was eccentric--insane, if you will. Would she have any motive for killing Henley? I could imagine none. Love? Probably not. Money? They had nothing in common on that ground. What? Nothing that I could see. Therefore, for the moment, I passed Miss Austin by, after asking you, Mr. Cabell, if you were Miss Austin. "What remained? The valet. Motive? Several possible ones, one or two probable. He is French, or says he is. Miss Regnier is French. Therefore I had arrived at the conclusion that they knew each other as people of the same nationality will in a house of this sort. And remember, I had passed by Mr. Cabell and Miss Austin, so the valet was the only one left; he could use the bath robe. "Well, the motive. Frankly that was the only difficult point in the entire problem--difficult because there were so many possibilities. And each possibility that suggested itself suggested also a woman. Jealousy? There must be a woman. Hate? Probably a woman. Attempted extortion? With the aid of a woman. No other motive which would lead to so elaborate a plot of murder would come forward. Who was the woman? Miss Regnier. "Did Miss Regnier know Henley? Mr. Hatch had reason to believe he knew her because of his actions when informed of her death. Knew her how? People of such relatively different planes of life can know each other--or do know each other--only on one plane. Henley is a typical young man, fast, I dare say, and liberal. Perhaps, then, there had been a liaison. When I saw this possibility I had my motives--all of them--jealousy, hate and possibly attempted extortion as well. "What was more possible than Mr. Henley and Miss Regnier had been acquainted? All liaisons are secret ones. Suppose she had been cast off because of the engagement to a young woman of Henley's own level? Suppose she had confided in the valet here? Do you see? Motives enough for any crime, however diabolical. The attempts on Henley's life possibly followed an attempted extortion of money. The shot which wounded Henley was fired by this man, Jean. Why? Because the woman who had cause to hate Henley was dead. Then the man? He was alive and vindictive. Henley knew who shot him, and knew why, but he'll never say it publicly. He can't afford to. It would ruin him. I think probably that's all. Do you want to add anything?" he asked of the valet. "No," was the fierce reply. "I'm sorry I didn't kill him, that's all. It was all about as you said, though God knows how you found it out," he added, desperately. "Are you a Frenchman?" "I was born in New York, but lived in France for eleven years. I first knew Louise there." Silence fell upon the little group. Then Hatch asked a question: "You told me, Professor, that there would be no other attempt to kill Henley by extinguishing the gas. How did you know that?" "Because one person--the wrong person--had been killed that way," was the reply. "For this reason it was hardly likely that another attempt of that sort would be made. You had no intention of killing Louise Regnier, had you, Jean?" "No, God help me, no." "It was all done in these apartments," The Thinking Machine added, turning to Cabell, "at the gas jet from which I took the tip. It had been only loosely replaced and the metal was tarnished where the lips had dampened it." "It must take great lung power to do a thing like that," remarked Detective Mallory. "You would be amazed to know how easily it is done," said the scientist. "Try it some time." The Thinking Machine arose and picked up his hat; Hatch did the same. Then the reporter turned to Cabell. "Would you mind telling me why you were so anxious to get away to-night?" he asked. "Well, no," Cabell explained, and there was a rush of red to his face. "It's because I received a telegram from Virginia--Miss Lipscomb, in fact. Some of Henley's past had come to her knowledge and the telegram told me that the engagement was broken. On top of this came the information that Henley had been shot and--I was considerably agitated." The Thinking Machine and Hatch were walking along the street. "What did you write in the note you sent to Cabell that made him start to unpack?" asked the reporter, curiously. "There are some things that it wouldn't be well for everyone to know," was the enigmatic response. "Perhaps it would be just as well for you to overlook this little omission." "Of course, of course," replied the reporter, wonderingly. THE MAN WHO WAS LOST. I. Here are the facts in the case as they were known in the beginning to Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, scientist and logician. After hearing a statement of the problem from the lips of its principal he declared it to be one of the most engaging that had ever come to his attention, and---- But let me begin at the beginning: * * * * * The Thinking Machine was in the small laboratory of his modest apartments at two o'clock in the afternoon. Martha, the scientist's only servant, appeared at the door with a puzzled expression on her wrinkled face. "A gentleman to see you, sir," she said. "Name?" inquired The Thinking Machine, without turning. "He--he didn't give it, sir," she stammered. "I have told you always, Martha, to ask names of callers." "I did ask his name, sir, and--and he said he didn't know it." The Thinking Machine was never surprised, yet now he turned on Martha in perplexity and squinted at her fiercely through his thick glasses. "Don't know his own name?" he repeated. "Dear me! How careless! Show the gentleman into the reception room immediately." With no more introduction to the problem than this, therefore, The Thinking Machine passed into the other room. A stranger arose and came forward. He was tall, of apparently thirty-five years, clean-shaven and had the keen, alert face of a man of affairs. He would have been handsome had it not been for dark rings under the eyes and the unusual white of his face. He was immaculately dressed from top to toe; altogether a man who would attract attention. For a moment he regarded the scientist curiously; perhaps there was a trace of well-bred astonishment in his manner. He gazed curiously at the enormous head, with its shock of yellow hair, and noted, too, the droop in the thin shoulders. Thus for a moment they stood, face to face, the tall stranger making The Thinking Machine dwarf-like by comparison. "Well?" asked the scientist. The stranger turned as if to pace back and forth across the room, then instead dropped into a chair which the scientist indicated. "I have heard a great deal about you, Professor," he began, in a well-modulated voice, "and at last it occurred to me to come to you for advice. I am in a most remarkable position--and I'm not insane. Don't think that, please. But unless I see some way out of this amazing predicament I shall be. As it is now, my nerves have gone; I am not myself." "Your story? What is it? How can I help you?" "I am lost, hopelessly lost," the stranger resumed. "I know neither my home, my business, nor even my name. I know nothing whatever of myself or my life; what it was or what it might have been previous to four weeks ago. I am seeking light on my identity. Now, if there is any fee----" "Never mind that," the scientist put in, and he squinted steadily into the eyes of the visitor. "What _do_ you know? From the time you remember things tell me all of it." He sank back into his chair, squinting steadily upward. The stranger arose, paced back and forth across the room several times and then dropped into his chair again. "It's perfectly incomprehensible," he said. "It's precisely as if I, full grown, had been born into a world of which I knew nothing except its language. The ordinary things, chairs, tables and such things, are perfectly familiar, but who I am, where I came from, why I came--of these I have no idea. I will tell you just as my impressions came to me when I awoke one morning, four weeks ago. "It was eight or nine o'clock, I suppose. I was in a room. I knew instantly it was a hotel, but had not the faintest idea of how I got there, or of ever having seen the room before. I didn't even know my own clothing when I started to dress. I glanced out of my window; the scene was wholly strange to me. "For half an hour or so I remained in my room, dressing and wondering what it meant. Then, suddenly, in the midst of my other worries, it came home to me that I didn't know my own name, the place where I lived nor anything about myself. I didn't know what hotel I was in. In terror I looked into a mirror. The face reflected at me was not one I knew. It didn't seem to be the face of a stranger; it was merely not a face that I knew. "The thing was unbelievable. Then I began a search of my clothing for some trace of my identity. I found nothing whatever that would enlighten me--not a scrap of paper of any kind, no personal or business card." "Have a watch?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Any money?" "Yes, money," said the stranger. "There was a bundle of more than ten thousand dollars in my pocket, in one-hundred-dollar bills. Whose it is or where it came from I don't know. I have been living on it since, and shall continue to do so, but I don't know if it is mine. I knew it was money when I saw it, but did not recollect ever having seen any previously." "Any jewelry?" "These cuff buttons," and the stranger exhibited a pair which he drew from his pocket. "Go on." "I finally finished dressing and went down to the office. It was my purpose to find out the name of the hotel and who I was. I knew I could learn some of this from the hotel register without attracting any attention or making anyone think I was insane. I had noted the number of my room. It was twenty-seven. "I looked over the hotel register casually. I saw I was at the Hotel Yarmouth in Boston. I looked carefully down the pages until I came to the number of my room. Opposite this number was a name--John Doane, but where the name of the city should have been there was only a dash." "You realize that it is perfectly possible that John Doane is your name?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Certainly," was the reply. "But I have no recollection of ever having heard it before. This register showed that I had arrived at the hotel the night before--or rather that John Doane had arrived and been assigned to Room 27, and I was the John Doane, presumably. From that moment to this the hotel people have known me as John Doane, as have other people whom I have met during the four weeks since I awoke." "Did the handwriting recall nothing?" "Nothing whatever." "Is it anything like the handwriting you write now?" "Identical, so far as I can see." "Did you have any baggage or checks for baggage?" "No. All I had was the money and this clothing I stand in. Of course, since then I have bought necessities." Both were silent for a long time and finally the stranger--Doane--arose and began pacing nervously again. "That a tailor-made suit?" asked the scientist. "Yes," said Doane, quickly. "I know what you mean. Tailor-made garments have linen strips sewed inside the pockets on which are the names of the manufacturers and the name of the man for whom the clothes were made, together with the date. I looked for those. They had been removed, cut out." "Ah!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine suddenly. "No laundry marks on your linen either, I suppose?" "No. It was all perfectly new." "Name of the maker on it?" "No. That had been cut out, too." Doane was pacing back and forth across the reception room; the scientist lay back in his chair. "Do you know the circumstances of your arrival at the hotel?" he asked at last. "Yes. I asked, guardedly enough, you may be sure, hinting to the clerk that I had been drunk so as not to make him think I was insane. He said I came in about eleven o'clock at night, without any baggage, paid for my room with a one-hundred-dollar bill, which he changed, registered and went upstairs. I said nothing that he recalls beyond making a request for a room." "The name Doane is not familiar to you?" "No." "You can't recall a wife or children?" "Do you speak any foreign language?" "Is your mind clear now? Do you remember things?" "I remember perfectly every incident since I awoke in the hotel," said Doane. "I seem to remember with remarkable clearness, and somehow I attach the gravest importance to the most trivial incidents." The Thinking Machine arose and motioned to Doane to sit down. He dropped back into a seat wearily. Then the scientist's long, slender fingers ran lightly, deftly through the abundant black hair of his visitor. Finally they passed down from the hair and along the firm jaws; thence they went to the arms, where they pressed upon good, substantial muscles. At last the hands, well shaped and white, were examined minutely. A magnifying glass was used to facilitate this examination. Finally The Thinking Machine stared into the quick-moving, nervous eyes of the stranger. "Any marks at all on your body?" he asked at last. "No," Doane responded. "I had thought of that and sought for an hour for some sort of mark. There's nothing--nothing." The eyes glittered a little and finally, in a burst of nervousness, he struggled to his feet. "My God!" he exclaimed. "Is there nothing you can do? What is it all, anyway?" "Seems to be a remarkable form of aphasia," replied The Thinking Machine. "That's not an uncommon disease among people whose minds and nerves are overwrought. You've simply lost yourself--lost your identity. If it is aphasia, you will recover in time. When, I don't know." "And meantime?" "Let me see the money you found." With trembling hands Doane produced a large roll of bills, principally hundreds, many of them perfectly new. The Thinking Machine examined them minutely, and finally made some memoranda on a slip of paper. The money was then returned to Doane. "Now, what shall I do?" asked the latter. "Don't worry," advised the scientist. "I'll do what I can." "And--tell me who and what I am?" "Oh, I can find that out all right," remarked The Thinking Machine. "But there's a possibility that you wouldn't recall even if I told you all about yourself." II. When John Doane of Nowhere--to all practical purposes--left the home of The Thinking Machine he bore instructions of divers kinds. First he was to get a large map of the United States and study it closely, reading over and pronouncing aloud the name of every city, town and village he found. After an hour of this he was to take a city directory and read over the names, pronouncing them aloud as he did so. Then he was to make out a list of the various professions and higher commercial pursuits, and pronounce these. All these things were calculated, obviously, to arouse the sleeping brain. After Doane had gone The Thinking Machine called up Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, on the 'phone. "Come up immediately," he requested. "There's something that will interest you." "A mystery?" Hatch inquired, eagerly. "One of the most engaging problems that has ever come to my attention," replied the scientist. It was only a question of a few minutes before Hatch was ushered in. He was a living interrogation point, and repressed a rush of questions with a distinct effort. The Thinking Machine finally told what he knew. "Now it seems to be," said The Thinking Machine, and he emphasized the "seems," The man simply doesn't know himself. I examined him closely. I went over his head for a sign of a possible depression, or abnormality. It didn't appear. I examined his muscles. He has biceps of great power, is evidently now or has been athletic. His hands are white, well cared for and have no marks on them. They are not the hands of a man who has ever done physical work. The money in his pocket tends to confirm the fact that he is not of that sphere. "Then what is he? Lawyer? Banker? Financier? What? He might be either, yet he impressed me as being rather of the business than the professional school. He has a good, square-cut jaw--the jaw of a fighting man--and his poise gives one the impression that whatever he has been doing he has been foremost in it. Being foremost in it, he would naturally drift to a city, a big city. He is typically a city man. "Now, please, to aid me, communicate with your correspondents in the large cities and find if such a name as John Doane appears in any directory. Is he at home now? Has he a family? All about him." "Do you believe that John Doane is his name?" asked the reporter. "No reason why it shouldn't be," said The Thinking Machine. "Yet it might not be." "How about inquiries in this city?" "He can't well be a local man," was the reply. "He has been wandering about the streets for four weeks, and if he had lived here he would have met some one who knew him." "But the money?" "I'll probably be able to locate him through that," said The Thinking Machine. "The matter is not at all clear to me now, but it occurs to me that he is a man of consequence, and that it was possibly necessary for some one to get rid of him for a time." "Well, if it's plain aphasia, as you say," the reporter put in, "it seems rather difficult to imagine that the attack came at a moment when it was necessary to get rid of him." "I say it _seems_ like aphasia," said the scientist, crustily. "There are known drugs which will produce the identical effect if properly administered." "Oh," said Hatch. He was beginning to see. "There is one drug particularly, made in India, and not unlike hasheesh. In a case of this kind anything is possible. To-morrow I shall ask you to take Mr. Doane down through the financial district, as an experiment. When you go there I want you particularly to get him to the sound of the 'ticker.' It will be an interesting experiment." The reporter went away and The Thinking Machine sent a telegram to the Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana: "To whom did you issue hundred-dollar bills, series B, numbering 846380 to 846395 inclusive? Please answer." It was ten o'clock next day when Hatch called on The Thinking Machine. There he was introduced to John Doane, the man who was lost. The Thinking Machine was asking questions of Mr. Doane when Hatch was ushered in. "Did the map recall nothing?" "Nothing." "Montana, Montana, Montana," the scientist repeated monotonously; "think of it. Butte, Montana." Doane shook his head hopelessly, sadly. "Cowboy, cowboy. Did you ever see a cowboy?" Again the head shake. "Coyote--something like a wolf--coyote. Don't you recall ever having seen one?" "I'm afraid it's hopeless," remarked the other. There was a note of more than ordinary irritation in The Thinking Machine's voice when he turned to Hatch. "Mr. Hatch, will you walk through the financial district with Mr. Doane?" he asked. "Please go to the places I suggested." So it came to pass that the reporter and Doane went out together, walking through the crowded, hurrying, bustling financial district. The first place visited was a private room where market quotations were displayed on a blackboard. Mr. Doane was interested, but the scene seemed to suggest nothing. He looked upon it all as any stranger might have done. After a time they passed out. Suddenly a man came running toward them--evidently a broker. "What's the matter?" asked another. "Montana copper's gone to smash," was the reply. "_Copper!_ _Copper!_" gasped Doane suddenly. Hatch looked around quickly at his companion. Doane's face was a study. On it was half realization and a deep perplexed wrinkle, a glimmer even of excitement. "Copper!!" he repeated. "Does the word mean anything to you?" asked Hatch quickly. "Copper--metal, you know." "Copper, copper, copper," the other repeated. Then, as Hatch looked, the queer expression faded; there came again utter hopelessness. There are many men with powerful names who operate in the Street--some of them in copper. Hatch led Doane straight to the office of one of these men and there introduced him to a partner in the business. "We want to talk about copper a little," Hatch explained, still eying his companion. "Do you want to buy or sell?" asked the broker. "Sell," said Doane suddenly. "Sell, sell, sell copper. That's it--copper." He turned to Hatch, stared at him dully a moment, a deathly pallor came over his face, then, with upraised hands, fell senseless. III. Still unconscious, the man of mystery was removed to the home of The Thinking Machine and there stretched out on a sofa. The Thinking Machine was bending over him, this time in his capacity of physician, making an examination. Hatch stood by, looking on curiously. "I never saw anything like it," Hatch remarked. "He just threw up his hands and collapsed. He hasn't been conscious since." "It may be that when he comes to he will have recovered his memory, and in that event he will have absolutely no recollection whatever of you and me," explained The Thinking Machine. Doane moved a little at last, and under a stimulant the color began to creep back into his pallid face. "Just what was said, Mr. Hatch, before he collapsed?" asked the scientist. Hatch explained, repeating the conversation as he remembered it. "And he said 'sell,'" mused The Thinking Machine. "In other words, he thinks--or imagines he knows--that copper is to drop. I believe the first remark he heard was that copper had gone to smash--down, I presume that means?" "Yes," the reporter replied. Half an hour later John Doane sat up on the couch and looked about the room. "Ah, Professor," he remarked. "I fainted, didn't I?" The Thinking Machine was disappointed because his patient had not recovered memory with consciousness. The remark showed that he was still in the same mental condition--the man who was lost. "Sell copper, sell, sell, sell," repeated The Thinking Machine, commandingly. "Yes, yes, sell," was the reply. The reflection of some great mental struggle was on Doane's face; he was seeking to recall something which persistently eluded him. "Copper, copper," the scientist repeated, and he exhibited a penny. "Yes, copper," said Doane. "I know. A penny." "Why did you say sell copper?" "I don't know," was the weary reply. "It seemed to be an unconscious act entirely. I don't know." He clasped and unclasped his hands nervously and sat for a long time dully staring at the floor. The fight for memory was a dramatic one. "It seemed to me," Doane explained after awhile, "that the word copper touched some responsive chord in my memory, then it was lost again. Some time in the past, I think, I must have had something to do with copper." "Yes," said The Thinking Machine, and he rubbed his slender fingers briskly. "Now you are coming around again." His remarks were interrupted by the appearance of Martha at the door with a telegram. The Thinking Machine opened it hastily. What he saw perplexed him again. "Dear me! Most extraordinary!" he exclaimed. "What is it?" asked Hatch, curiously. The scientist turned to Doane again. "Do you happen to remember Preston Bell?" he demanded, emphasizing the name explosively. "Preston Bell?" the other repeated, and again the mental struggle was apparent on his face. "Preston Bell!" "Cashier of the Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana?" urged the other, still in an emphatic tone. "Cashier Bell?" He leaned forward eagerly and watched the face of his patient; Hatch unconsciously did the same. Once there was almost realization, and seeing it The Thinking Machine sought to bring back full memory. "Bell, cashier, copper," he repeated, time after time. The flash of realization which had been on Doane's face passed, and there came infinite weariness--the weariness of one who is ill. "I don't remember," he said at last. "I'm very tired." "Stretch out there on the couch and go to sleep," advised The Thinking Machine, and he arose to arrange a pillow. "Sleep will do you more good than anything else right now. But before you lie down, let me have, please, a few of those hundred-dollar bills you found." Doane extended the roll of money, and then slept like a child. It was uncanny to Hatch, who had been a deeply interested spectator. The Thinking Machine ran over the bills and finally selected fifteen of them--bills that were new and crisp. They were of an issue by the Blank National Bank of Butte, Montana. The Thinking Machine stared at the money closely, then handed it to Hatch. "Does that look like counterfeit to you?" he asked. "Counterfeit?" gasped Hatch. "Counterfeit?" he repeated. He took the bills and examined them. "So far as I can see they seem to be good," he went on, "though I have never had enough experience with one-hundred-dollar bills to qualify as an expert." "Do you know an expert?" "Yes." "See him immediately. Take fifteen bills and ask him to pass on them, each and every one. Tell him you have reason--excellent reason--to believe that they are counterfeit. When he gives his opinion come back to me." Hatch went away with the money in his pocket. Then The Thinking Machine wrote another telegram, addressed to President Bell, cashier of the Butte Bank. It was as follows: "Please send me full details of the manner in which money previously described was lost, with names of all persons who might have had any knowledge of the matter. Highly important to your bank and to justice. Will communicate in detail on receipt of your answer." Then, while his visitor slept, The Thinking Machine quietly removed his shoes and examined them. He found, almost worn away, the name of the maker. This was subjected to close scrutiny under the magnifying glass, after which The Thinking Machine arose with a perceptible expression of relief on his face. "Why didn't I think of that before?" he demanded of himself. Then other telegrams went into the West. One was to a customs shoemaker in Denver, Colorado: "To what financier or banker have you sold within three months a pair of shoes, Senate brand, calfskin blucher, number eight, D last? Do you know John Doane?" A second telegram went to the Chief of Police of Denver. It was: "Please wire if any financier, banker or business man has been out of your city for five weeks or more, presumably on business trip. Do you know John Doane?" Then The Thinking Machine sat down to wait. At last the door bell rang and Hatch entered. "Well?" demanded the scientist, impatiently. "The expert declares those are not counterfeit," said Hatch. Now The Thinking Machine was surprised. It was shown clearly by the quick lifting of the eyebrows, by the sudden snap of his jaws, by a quick forward movement of the yellow head. "Well, well, well!" he exclaimed at last. Then again: "Well, well!" "What is it?" "See here," and The Thinking Machine took the hundred-dollar bills in his own hands. "These bills, perfectly new and crisp, were issued by the Blank National Bank of Butte, and the fact that they are in proper sequence would indicate that they were issued to one individual at the same time, probably recently. There can be no doubt of that. The numbers run from 846380 to 846395, all series B. "I see," said Hatch. "Now read that," and the scientist extended to the reporter the telegram Martha had brought in just before Hatch had gone away. Hatch read this: "Series B, hundred-dollar bills 846380 to 846395 issued by this bank are not in existence. Were destroyed by fire, together with twenty-seven others of the same series. Government has been asked to grant permission to reissue these numbers. "Preston Bell, Cashier." The reporter looked up with a question in his eyes. "It means," said The Thinking Machine, "that this man is either a thief or the victim of some sort of financial jugglery." "In that case is he what he pretends to be--a man who doesn't know himself?" asked the reporter. "That remains to be seen." IV. Event followed event with startling rapidity during the next few hours. First came a message from the Chief of Police of Denver. No capitalist or financier of consequence was out of Denver at the moment, so far as his men could ascertain. Longer search might be fruitful. He did not know John Doane. One John Doane in the directory was a teamster. Then from the Blank National Bank came another telegram signed "Preston Bell, Cashier," reciting the circumstances of the disappearance of the hundred-dollar bills. The Blank National Bank had moved into a new structure; within a week there had been a fire which destroyed it. Several packages of money, including one package of hundred-dollar bills, among them those specified by The Thinking Machine, had been burned. President Harrison of the bank immediately made affidavit to the Government that these bills were left in his office. The Thinking Machine studied this telegram carefully and from time to time glanced at it while Hatch made his report. This was as to the work of the correspondents who had been seeking John Doane. They found many men of the name and reported at length on each. One by one The Thinking Machine heard the reports, then shook his head. Finally he reverted again to the telegram, and after consideration sent another--this time to the Chief of Police of Butte. In it he asked these questions: "Has there ever been any financial trouble in Blank National Bank? Was there an embezzlement or shortage at any time? What is reputation of President Harrison? What is reputation of Cashier Bell? Do you know John Doane?" In due course of events the answer came. It was brief and to the point. It said: "Harrison recently embezzled $175,000 and disappeared. Bell's reputation excellent; now out of city. Don't know John Doane. If you have any trace of Harrison, wire quick." This answer came just after Doane awoke, apparently greatly refreshed, but himself again--that is, himself in so far as he was still lost. For an hour The Thinking Machine pounded him with questions--questions of all sorts, serious, religious and at times seemingly silly. They apparently aroused no trace of memory, save when the name Preston Bell was mentioned; then there was the strange, puzzled expression on Doane's face. "Harrison--do you know him?" asked the scientist. "President of the Blank National Bank of Butte?" There was only an uncomprehending stare for an answer. After a long time of this The Thinking Machine instructed Hatch and Doane to go for a walk. He had still a faint hope that some one might recognize Doane and speak to him. As they wandered aimlessly on two persons spoke to him. One was a man who nodded and passed on. "Who was that?" asked Hatch quickly. "Do you remember ever having seen him before?" "Oh, yes," was the reply. "He stops at my hotel. He knows me as Doane." It was just a few minutes before six o'clock when, walking slowly, they passed a great office building. Coming toward them was a well-dressed, active man of thirty-five years or so. As he approached he removed a cigar from his lips. "Hello, Harry!" he exclaimed, and reached for Doane's hand. "Hello," said Doane, but there was no trace of recognition in his voice. "How's Pittsburg?" asked the stranger. "Oh, all right, I guess," said Doane, and there came new wrinkles of perplexity in his brow. "Allow me, Mr.--Mr.--really I have forgotten your name----" "Manning," laughed the other. "Mr. Hatch, Mr. Manning." The reporter shook hands with Manning eagerly; he saw now a new line of possibilities suddenly revealed. Here was a man who knew Doane as Harry--and then Pittsburg, too. "Last time I saw you was in Pittsburg, wasn't it?" Manning rattled on, as he led the way into a nearby cafe. "By George, that was a stiff game that night! Remember that jack full I held? It cost me nineteen hundred dollars," he added, ruefully. "Yes, I remember," said Doane, but Hatch knew that he did not. And meanwhile a thousand questions were surging through the reporter's brain. "Poker hands as expensive as that are liable to be long remembered," remarked Hatch, casually. "How long ago was that?" "Three years, wasn't it, Harry?" asked Manning. "All of that, I should say," was the reply. "Twenty hours at the table," said Manning, and again he laughed cheerfully. "I was woozy when we finished." Inside the café they sought out a table in a corner. No one else was near. When the waiter had gone, Hatch leaned over and looked Doane straight in the eyes. "Shall I ask some questions?" he inquired. "Yes, yes," said the other eagerly. "What--what is it?" asked Manning. "It's a remarkably strange chain of circumstances," said Hatch, in explanation. "This man whom you call Harry, we know as John Doane. What is his real name? Harry what?" Manning stared at the reporter for a moment in amazement, then gradually a smile came to his lips. "What are you trying to do?" he asked. "Is this a joke?" "No, my God, man, can't you see?" exclaimed Doane, fiercely. "I'm ill, sick, something. I've lost my memory, all of my past. I don't remember anything about myself. What is my name?" "Well, by George!" exclaimed Manning. "By George I don't believe I know your full name. Harry--Harry--what?" He drew from his pocket several letters and half a dozen scraps of paper and ran over them. Then he looked carefully through a worn notebook. "I don't know," he confessed. "I had your name and address in an old notebook, but I suppose I burned it. I remember, though, I met you in the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg three years ago. I called you Harry because everyone was calling everyone else by his first name. Your last name made no impression on me at all. By George!" he concluded, in a new burst of amazement. "What were the circumstances, exactly?" asked Hatch. "I'm a traveling man," Manning explained. "I go everywhere. A friend gave me a card to the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg and I went there. There were five or six of us playing poker, among them Mr.--Mr. Doane here. I sat at the same table with him for twenty hours or so, but I can't recall his last name to save me. It isn't Doane, I'm positive. I have an excellent memory for faces, and I know you're the man. Don't you remember me?" "I haven't the slightest recollection of ever having seen you before in my life," was Doane's slow reply. "I have no recollection of ever having been in Pittsburg--no recollection of anything." "Do you know if Mr. Doane is a resident of Pittsburg?" Hatch inquired. "Or was he there as a visitor, as you were?" "Couldn't tell you to save my life," replied Manning. "Lord, it's amazing, isn't it? You don't remember me? You called me Bill all evening." The other man shook his head. "Well, say, is there anything I can do for you?" "Nothing, thanks," said Doane. "Only tell me my name, and who I am." "Lord, I don't know." "What sort of a club is the Lincoln?" asked Hatch. "It's a sort of a millionaire's club," Manning explained. "Lots of iron men belong to it. I had considerable business with them--that's what took me to Pittsburg." "And you are absolutely positive this is the man you met there?" "Why, I _know_ it. I never forget faces; it's my business to remember them." "Did he say anything about a family?" "Not that I recall. A man doesn't usually speak of his family at a poker table." "Do you remember the exact date or the month?" "I think it was in January or February possibly," was the reply. "It was bitterly cold and the snow was all smoked up. Yes, I'm positive it was in January, three years ago." After awhile the men separated. Manning was stopping at the Hotel Teutonic and willingly gave his name and permanent address to Hatch, explaining at the same time that he would be in the city for several days and was perfectly willing to help in any way he could. He took also the address of The Thinking Machine. From the café Hatch and Doane returned to the scientist. They found him with two telegrams spread out on a table before him. Briefly Hatch told the story of the meeting with Manning, while Doane sank down with his head in his hands. The Thinking Machine listened without comment. "Here," he said, at the conclusion of the recital, and he offered one of the telegrams to Hatch. "I got the name of a shoemaker from Mr. Doane's shoe and wired to him in Denver, asking if he had a record of the sale. This is the answer. Read it aloud." Hatch did so. "Shoes such as described made nine weeks ago for Preston Bell, cashier Blank National Bank of Butte. Don't know John Doane." "Well--what----" Doane began, bewildered. "_It means that you are Preston Bell_," said Hatch, emphatically. "No," said The Thinking Machine, quickly. "It means that there is only a strong probability of it." * * * * * * The door bell rang. After a moment Martha appeared. "A lady to see you, sir," she said. "Her name?" "Mrs. John Doane." "Gentlemen, kindly step into the next room," requested The Thinking Machine. Together Hatch and Doane passed through the door. There was an expression of--of--no man may say what--on Doane's face as he went. "Show her in here, Martha," instructed the scientist. There was a rustle of silk in the hall, the curtains on the door were pulled apart quickly and a richly gowned woman rushed into the room. "My husband? Is he here?" she demanded, breathlessly. "I went to the hotel; they said he came here for treatment. Please, please, is he here?" "A moment, madam," said The Thinking Machine. He stepped to the door through which Hatch and Doane had gone, and said something. One of them appeared in the door. It was Hutchinson Hatch. "John, John, my darling husband," and the woman flung her arms about Hatch's neck. "Don't you know me?" With blushing face Hatch looked over her shoulder into the eyes of The Thinking Machine, who stood briskly rubbing his hands. Never before in his long acquaintance with the scientist had Hatch seen him smile. V. For a time there was silence, broken only by sobs, as the woman clung frantically to Hatch, with her face buried on his shoulder. Then: "Don't you remember me?" she asked again and again. "Your wife? Don't you remember me?" Hatch could still see the trace of a smile on the scientist's face, and said nothing. "You are positive this gentleman is your husband?" inquired The Thinking Machine, finally. "Oh, I know," the woman sobbed. "Oh, John, don't you remember me?" She drew away a little and looked deeply into the reporter's eyes. "Don't you remember me, John?" "Can't say that I ever saw you before," said Hatch, truthfully enough. "I--I--fact is----" "Mr. Doane's memory is wholly gone now," explained The Thinking Machine. "Meanwhile, perhaps you would tell me something about him. He is my patient. I am particularly interested." The voice was soothing; it had lost for the moment its perpetual irritation. The woman sat down beside Hatch. Her face, pretty enough in a bold sort of way, was turned to The Thinking Machine inquiringly. With one hand she stroked that of the reporter. "Where are you from?" began the scientist. "I mean where is the home of John Doane?" "In Buffalo," she replied, glibly. "Didn't he even remember that?" "And what's his business?" "His health has been bad for some time and recently he gave up active business," said the woman. "Previously he was connected with a bank." "When did you see him last?" "Six weeks ago. He left the house one day and I have never heard from him since. I had Pinkerton men searching and at last they reported he was at the Yarmouth Hotel. I came on immediately. And now we shall go back to Buffalo." She turned to Hatch with a languishing glance. "Shall we not, dear?" "Whatever Professor Van Dusen thinks best," was the equivocal reply. Slowly the glimmer of amusement was passing out of the squint eyes of The Thinking Machine; as Hatch looked he saw a hardening of the lines of the mouth. There was an explosion coming. He knew it. Yet when the scientist spoke his voice was more velvety than ever. "Mrs. Doane, do you happen to be acquainted with a drug which produces temporary loss of memory?" She stared at him, but did not lose her self-possession. "No," she said finally. "Why?" "You know, of course, that this man is _not_ your husband?" This time the question had its effect. The woman arose suddenly, stared at the two men, and her face went white. "Not?--not?--what do you mean?" "I mean," and the voice reassumed its tone of irritation, "I mean that I shall send for the police and give you in their charge unless you tell me the truth about this affair. Is that perfectly clear to you?" The woman's lips were pressed tightly together. She saw that she had fallen into some sort of a trap; her gloved hands were clenched fiercely; the pallor faded and a flush of anger came. "Further, for fear you don't quite follow me even now," explained The Thinking Machine, "I will say that I know all about this copper deal of which this so-called John Doane was the victim. _I know his condition now_. If you tell the truth you may escape prison--if you don't, there is a long term, not only for you, but for your fellow-conspirators. Now will you talk?" "No," said the woman. She arose as if to go out. "Never mind that," said The Thinking Machine. "You had better stay where you are. You will be locked up at the proper moment. Mr. Hatch, please 'phone for Detective Mallory." Hatch arose and passed into the adjoining room. "You tricked me," the woman screamed suddenly, fiercely. "Yes," the other agreed, complacently. "Next time be sure you know your own husband. Meanwhile where is Harrison?" "Not another word," was the quick reply. "Very well," said the scientist, calmly. "Detective Mallory will be here in a few minutes. Meanwhile I'll lock this door." "You have no right----" the woman began. Without heeding the remark, The Thinking Machine passed into the adjoining room. There for half an hour he talked earnestly to Hatch and Doane. At the end of that time he sent a telegram to the manager of the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg, as follows: "Does your visitors' book show any man, registered there in the month of January three years ago, whose first name is Harry or Henry? If so, please wire name and description, also name of man whose guest he was." This telegram was dispatched. A few minutes later the door bell rang and Detective Mallory entered. "What is it?" he inquired. "A prisoner for you in the next room," was the reply. "A woman. I charge her with conspiracy to defraud a man who for the present we will call John Doane. That may or may not be his name." "What do you know about it?" asked the detective. "A great deal now--more after awhile. I shall tell you then. Meanwhile take this woman. You gentlemen, I should suggest, might go out somewhere this evening. If you drop by afterwards there may be an answer to a few telegrams which will make this matter clear." Protestingly the mysterious woman was led away by Detective Mallory; and Doane and Hatch followed shortly after. The next act of The Thinking Machine was to write a telegram addressed to Mrs. Preston Bell, Butte, Montana. Here it is: "Your husband suffering temporary mental trouble here. Can you come on immediately? Answer." When the messenger boy came for the telegram he found a man on the stoop. The Thinking Machine received the telegram, and the man, who gave to Martha the name of Manning, was announced. "Manning, too," mused the scientist. "Show him in." "I don't know if you know why I am here," explained Manning. "Oh, yes," said the scientist. "You have remembered Doane's name. What is it, please?" Manning was too frankly surprised to answer and only stared at the scientist. "Yes, that's right," he said finally, and he smiled. "His name is Pillsbury. I recall it now." "And what made you recall it?" "I noticed an advertisement in a magazine with the name in large letters. It instantly came to me that that was Doane's real name." "Thanks," remarked the scientist. "And the woman--who is she?" "What woman?" asked Manning. "Never mind, then. I am deeply obliged for your information. I don't suppose you know anything else about it?" "No," said Manning. He was a little bewildered, and after awhile went away. For an hour or more The Thinking Machine sat with finger tips pressed together staring at the ceiling. His meditations were interrupted by Martha. "Another telegram, sir." The Thinking Machine took it eagerly. It was from the manager of the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg: "Henry C. Carney, Harry Meltz, Henry Blake, Henry W. Tolman, Harry Pillsbury, Henry Calvert and Henry Louis Smith all visitors to dub in month you name. Which do you want to learn more about?" It took more than an hour for The Thinking Machine to establish long distance connection by 'phone with Pittsburg. When he had finished talking he seemed satisfied. "Now," he mused. "The answer from Mrs. Preston." It was nearly midnight when that came. Hatch and Doane had returned from a theater and were talking to the scientist when the telegram, was brought in. "Anything important?" asked Doane, anxiously. "Yes," said the scientist, and he slipped a finger beneath the flap of the envelope. "It's clear now. It was an engaging problem from first to last, and now----" He opened the telegram and glanced at it; then with bewilderment on his face and mouth slightly open he sank down at the table and leaned forward with his head on his arms. The message fluttered to the table and Hatch read this: "Man in Boston can't be my husband. He is now in Honolulu. I received cablegram from him to-day. "Mrs. Preston Bell." VI. It was thirty-six hours later that the three men met again. The Thinking Machine had abruptly dismissed Hatch and Doane the last time. The reporter knew that something wholly unexpected had happened. He could only conjecture that this had to do with Preston Bell. When the three met again it was in Detective Mallory's office at police headquarters. The mysterious woman who had claimed Doane for her husband was present, as were Mallory, Hatch, Doane and The Thinking Machine. "Has this woman given any name?" was the scientist's first question. "Mary Jones," replied the detective, with a grin. "And address?" "No." "Is her picture in the Rogues' Gallery?" "No. I looked carefully." "Anybody called to ask about her?" "A man--yes. That is, he didn't ask about her--he merely asked some general questions, which now we believe were to find out about her." The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the woman. She looked up at him defiantly. "There has been a mistake made, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist. "It's my fault entirely. Let this woman go. I am sorry to have done her so grave an injustice." Instantly the woman was on her feet, her face radiant. A look of disgust crept into Mallory's face. "I can't let her go now without arraignment," the detective growled. "It ain't regular." "You must let her go, Mr. Mallory," commanded The Thinking Machine, and over the woman's shoulder the detective saw an astonishing thing. The Thinking Machine winked. It was a decided, long, pronounced wink. "Oh, all right," he said, "but it ain't regular at that." The woman passed out of the room hurriedly, her silken skirts rustling loudly. She was free again. Immediately she disappeared The Thinking Machine's entire manner changed. "Put your best man to follow her," he directed rapidly. "Let him go to her home and arrest the man who is with her as her husband. Then bring them both back here, after searching their rooms for money." "Why--what--what is all this?" demanded Mallory, amazed. "The man who inquired for her, who is with her, is wanted for a $175,000 embezzlement in Butte, Montana. Don't let your man lose sight of her." The detective left the room hurriedly. Ten minutes later he returned to find The Thinking Machine leaning back in his chair with eyes upturned. Hatch and Doane were waiting, both impatiently. "Now, Mr. Mallory," said the scientist, "I shall try to make this matter as clear to you as it is to me. By the time I finish I expect your man will be back here with this woman and the embezzler. His name is Harrison; I don't know hers. I can't believe she is Mrs. Harrison, yet he has, I suppose, a wife. But here's the story. It is the chaining together of fact after fact; a necessary logical sequence to a series of incidents, which are, separately, deeply puzzling." The detective lighted a cigar and the others disposed themselves comfortably to listen. "This gentleman came to me," began The Thinking Machine, "with a story of loss of memory. He told me that he knew neither his name, home, occupation, nor anything whatever about himself. At the moment it struck me as a case for a mental expert; still I was interested. It seemed to be a remarkable case of aphasia, and I so regarded it until he told me that he had $10,000 in bills, that he had no watch, that everything which might possibly be of value in establishing his identity had been removed from his clothing. This included even the names of the makers of his linen. That showed intent, deliberation. "Then I knew it could _not_ be aphasia. That disease strikes a man suddenly as he walks the street, as he sleeps, as he works, but never gives any desire to remove traces of one's identity. On the contrary, a man is still apparently sound mentally--he has merely forgotten something--and usually his first desire is to find out who he is. This gentleman had that desire, and in trying to find some clew he showed a mind capable of grasping at every possible opportunity. Nearly every question I asked had been anticipated. Thus I recognized that he must be a more than usually astute man. "But if not aphasia, what was it? What caused his condition? A drug? I remembered that there was such a drug in India, not unlike hasheesh. Therefore for the moment I assumed a drug. It gave me a working basis. Then what did I have? A man of striking mentality who was the victim of some sort of plot, who had been drugged until he lost himself, and in that way disposed of. The handwriting might be the same, for handwriting is rarely affected by a mental disorder; it is a physical function. "So far, so good. I examined his head for a possible accident. Nothing. His hands were white and in no way calloused. Seeking to reconcile the fact that he had been a man of strong mentality, with all other things a financier or banker, occurred to me. The same things might have indicated a lawyer, but the poise of this man, his elaborate care in dress, all these things made me think him the financier rather than the lawyer. "Then I examined some money he had when he awoke. Fifteen or sixteen of the hundred-dollar bills were new and in sequence. They were issued by a national bank. To whom? The possibilities were that the bank would have a record. I wired, asking about this, and also asked Mr. Hatch to have his correspondents make inquiries in various cities for a John Doane. It was not impossible that John Doane was his name. Now I believe it will be safe for me to say that when he registered at the hotel he was drugged, his own name slipped his mind, and he signed John Doane--the first name that came to him. That is _not_ his name. "While waiting an answer from the bank I tried to arouse his memory by referring to things in the West. It appeared possible that he might have brought the money from the West with him. Then, still with the idea that he was a financier, I sent him to the financial district. There was a result. The word 'copper' aroused him so that he fainted after shouting, 'Sell copper, sell, sell, sell.' "In a way my estimate of the man was confirmed. He was or had been in a copper deal, selling copper in the market, or planning to do so. I know nothing of the intricacies of the stock market. But there came instantly to me the thought that a man who would faint away in such a case must be vitally interested as well as ill. Thus I had a financier, in a copper deal, drugged as result of a conspiracy. Do you follow me, Mr. Mallory?" "Sure," was the reply. "At this point I received a telegram from the Butte bank telling me that the hundred-dollar bills I asked about had been burned. This telegram was signed 'Preston Bell, Cashier.' If that were true, the bills this man had were counterfeit. There were no ifs about that. I asked him if he knew Preston Bell. It was the only name of a person to arouse him in any way. A man knows his own name better than anything in the world. Therefore was it his? For a moment I presumed it was. "Thus the case stood: Preston Bell, cashier of the Butte bank, had been drugged, was the victim of a conspiracy, which was probably a part of some great move in copper. But if this man were _Preston Bell_, how came the signature there? Part of the office regulation? It happens hundreds of times that a name is so used, particularly on telegrams. "Well, this man who was lost--Doane, or Preston Bell--went to sleep in my apartments. At that time I believed it fully possible that he was a counterfeiter, as the bills were supposedly burned, and sent Mr. Hatch to consult an expert. I also wired for details of the fire loss in Butte and names of persons who had any knowledge of the matter. This done, I removed and examined this gentleman's shoes for the name of the maker. I found it. The shoes were of fine quality, probably made to order for him. "Remember, at this time I believed this gentleman to be Preston Bell, for reasons I have stated. I wired to the maker or retailer to know if he had a record of a sale of the shoes, describing them in detail, to any financier or banker. I also wired to the Denver police to know if any financier or banker had been away from there for four or five weeks. Then came the somewhat startling information, through Mr. Hatch, that the hundred-dollar bills were genuine. That answer meant that Preston Bell--as I had begun to think of him--was either a thief or the victim of some sort of financial conspiracy." During the silence which followed every eye was turned on the man who was lost--Doane or Preston Bell. He sat staring straight ahead of him with hands nervously clenched. On his face was written the sign of a desperate mental struggle. He was still trying to recall the past. "Then," The Thinking Machine resumed, "I heard from the Denver police. There was no leading financier or banker out of the city so far as they could learn hurriedly. It was not conclusive, but it aided me. Also I received another telegram from Butte, signed Preston Bell, telling me the circumstances of the supposed burning of the hundred-dollar bills. It did not show that they were burned at all; it was merely an assumption that they had been. They were last seen in President Harrison's office." "Harrison, Harrison, Harrison," repeated Doane. "Vaguely I could see the possibility of something financially wrong in the bank. Possibly Harrison, even Mr. Bell here, knew of it. Banks do not apply for permission to reissue bills unless they are positive of the original loss. Yet here were the bills. Obviously some sort of jugglery. I wired to the police of Butte, asking some questions. The answer was that Harrison had embezzled $175,000 and had disappeared. Now I knew he had part of the missing, supposedly burned, bills with him. It was obvious. Was Bell also a thief? "The same telegram said that Mr. Bell's reputation was of the best, and he was out of the city. That confirmed my belief that it was an office rule to sign telegrams with the cashier's name, and further made me positive that this man was Preston Bell. The chain of circumstances was complete. It was two and two--inevitable result, four. "Now, what was the plot? Something to do with copper, and there was an embezzlement. Then, still seeking a man who knew Bell personally, I sent him out walking with Hatch. I had done so before. Suddenly another figure came into the mystery--a confusing one at the moment. This was a Mr. Manning, who knew Doane, or Bell, as Harry--something; met him in Pittsburg three years ago, in the Lincoln Club. "It was just after Mr. Hatch told me of this man that I received a telegram from the shoemaker in Denver. It said that he had made a shoe such as I described within a few months for Preston Bell. I had asked if a sale had been made to a financier or banker; I got the name back by wire. "At this point a woman appeared to claim John Doane as her husband. With no definite purpose, save general precaution, I asked Mr. Hatch to see her first. She imagined he was Doane and embraced him, calling him John. Therefore she was a fraud. She did not know John Doane, or Preston Bell, by sight. Was she acting under the direction of some one else? If so, whose?" There was a pause as The Thinking Machine readjusted himself in the chair. After a time he went on: "There are shades of emotion, intuition, call it what you will, so subtle that it is difficult to express them in words. As I had instinctively associated Harrison with Bell's present condition I instinctively associated this woman with Harrison. For not a word of the affair had appeared in a newspaper; only a very few persons knew of it. Was it possible that the stranger Manning was backing the woman in an effort to get the $10,000? That remained to be seen. I questioned the woman; she would say nothing. She is clever, but she blundered badly in claiming Mr. Hatch for a husband." The reporter blushed modestly. "I asked her flatly about a drug. She was quite calm and her manner indicated that she knew nothing of it. Yet I presume she did. Then I sprung the bombshell, and she saw she had made a mistake. I gave her over to Detective Mallory and she was locked up. This done, I wired to the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg to find out about this mysterious 'Harry' who had come into the case. I was so confident then that I also wired to Mrs. Bell in Butte, presuming that there was a Mrs. Bell, asking about her husband. "Then Manning came to see me. I knew he came because he had remembered the name he knew you by," and The Thinking Machine turned to the central figure in this strange entanglement of identity, "although he seemed surprised when I told him as much. He knew you as Harry Pillsbury. I asked him who the woman was. His manner told me that he knew nothing whatever of her. Then it came back to her as an associate of Harrison, your enemy for some reason, and I could see it in no other light. It was her purpose to get hold of you and possibly keep you a prisoner, at least until some gigantic deal in which copper figured was disposed of. That was what I surmised. "Then another telegram came from the Lincoln Club in Pittsburg. The name of Harry Pillsbury appeared as a visitor in the book in January, three years ago. It was you--Manning is not the sort of man to be mistaken--and then there remained only one point to be solved as I then saw the case. That was an answer from Mrs. Preston Bell, if there was a Mrs. Bell. She would know where her husband was." Again there was silence. A thousand things were running through Bell's mind. The story had been told so pointedly, and was so vitally a part of him, that semi-recollection was again on his face. "That telegram said that Preston Bell was in Honolulu; that the wife had received a cable dispatch that day. Then, frankly, I was puzzled; so puzzled, in fact, that the entire fabric I had constructed seemed to melt away before my eyes. It took me hours to readjust it. I tried it all over in detail, and then the theory which would reconcile every fact in the case was evolved. That theory is right--as right as that two and two make four. It's logic." It was half an hour later when a detective entered and spoke to Detective Mallory aside. "Fine!" said Mallory. "Bring 'em in." Then there reappeared the woman who had been a prisoner and a man of fifty years. "Harrison!" exclaimed Bell, suddenly. He staggered to his feet with outstretched hands. "Harrison! I know! I know!" "Good, good, very good," said The Thinking Machine. Bell's nervously twitching hands were reaching for Harrison's throat when he was pushed aside by Detective Mallory. He stood pallid for a moment, then sank down on the floor in a heap. He was senseless. The Thinking Machine made a hurried examination. "Good!" he remarked again. "When he recovers he will remember everything except what has happened since he has been in Boston. Meanwhile, Mr. Harrison, we know all about the little affair of the drug, the battle for new copper workings in Honolulu, and your partner there has been arrested. Your drug didn't do its work well enough. Have you anything to add?" The prisoner was silent. "Did you search his rooms?" asked The Thinking Machine of the detective who had made the double arrest. "Yes, and found this." It was a large roll of money. The Thinking Machine ran over it lightly--$70,000--scanning the numbers of the bills. At last he held forth half a dozen. They were among the twenty-seven reported to have been burned in the bank fire in Butte. Harrison and the woman were led away. Subsequently it developed that he had been systematically robbing the bank of which he was president for years; was responsible for the fire, at which time he had evidently expected to make a great haul; and that the woman was not his wife. Following his arrest this entire story came out; also the facts of the gigantic copper deal, in which he had rid himself of Bell, who was his partner, and had sent another man to Honolulu in Bell's name to buy up options on some valuable copper property there. This confederate in Honolulu had sent the cable dispatches to the wife in Butte. She accepted them without question. It was a day or so later that Hatch dropped in to see The Thinking Machine and asked a few questions. "How did Bell happen to have that $10,000?" "It was given to him, probably, because it was safer to have him rambling about the country, not knowing who he was, than to kill him." "And how did he happen to be here?" "That question may be answered at the trial." "And how did it come that Bell was once known as Harry Pillsbury?" "Bell is a director in United States Steel, I have since learned. There was a secret meeting of this board in Pittsburg three years ago. He went incog. to attend that meeting and was introduced at the Lincoln Club as Harry Pillsbury." "Oh!" exclaimed Hatch. THE GREAT AUTO MYSTERY I. With a little laugh of sheer light-heartedness on her lips and a twinkle in her blue eyes, Marguerite Melrose bound on a grotesque automobile mask, and stuffed the last strand of her recalcitrant hair beneath her veil. The pretty face was hidden from mouth to brow; and her curls were ruthlessly imprisoned under a cap held in place by the tightly tied veil. "It's perfectly hideous, isn't it?" she demanded of her companions. Jack Curtis laughed. "Well," he remarked, quizzically, "it's just as well that we _know_ you are pretty." "We could never discover it as you are now," added Charles Reid. "Can't see enough of your face to tell whether you are white or black." The girl's red lips were pursed into a pout, which ungraciously hid her white teeth, as she considered the matter seriously. "I think I'll take it off," she said at last. "Don't," Curtis warned her. "On a good road The Green Dragon only hits the tall places." "Tear your hair off," supplemented Reid. "When Jack lets her loose it's just a pszzzzt!--and wherever you're going you're there." "Not on a night as dark as this?" protested the girl, quickly. "I've got lights like twin locomotives," Curtis assured her, smilingly. "It's perfectly safe. Don't get nervous." He tied on his own mask with its bleary goggles, while Reid did the same. The Green Dragon, a low, gasoline car of racing build, stood panting impatiently, awaiting them at a side door of the hotel. Curtis assisted Miss Melrose into the front seat and climbed in beside her, while Reid sat behind in the tonneau. There was a preparatory quiver, the car jerked a little and then began to move. The three persons in it were Marguerite Melrose, an actress who had attracted attention in the West five years before by her great beauty and had afterwards, by her art, achieved a distinct place; Jack Curtis, a friend since childhood, when both lived in San Francisco and attended the same school, and Charles Reid, his chum, son of a mine owner at Denver. The unexpected meeting of the three in Boston had been a source of mutual pleasure. It had been two years since they had seen one another in Denver, where Miss Melrose was playing. Now she was in Boston, pursuing certain vocal studies before returning West for her next season. Reid was in Boston to lay siege to the heart of a young woman of society, Miss Elizabeth Dow, whom he first met in San Francisco. She was only nineteen years old, but despite this he had begun a siege and his ardor had never cooled, even after Miss Dow returned East. In Boston, he had heard, she looked with favor upon another man, Morgan Mason, poor but of excellent family, and frantically Reid had rushed, like Lochinvar out of the West, to find the rumor true. Curtis was one who never had anything to do save seek excitement in a new and novel way. He had come East with Reid. They had been together constantly since their arrival in Boston. He was of a different type from Reid in that his wealth was distinctly a burden, a thing which left him with nothing to do, and opened illimitable possibilities of dissipation. The pace he led was one which caused other young men to pause and think. Warm-hearted and perfectly at home with both Curtis and Reid, Miss Melrose, the actress, frequently took occasion to scold them. It was charming to be scolded by Miss Melrose, so much so in fact that it was worth while sinning again. Since she had appeared on the horizon Curtis had devoted a great deal of time to her; Reid had his own difficulties trying to make Miss Dow change her mind. The Green Dragon with its three passengers ran slowly down from the Hotel Yarmouth, where Miss Melrose was stopping, toward the Common, twisting and winding tortuously through the crowd of vehicles. It was half-past six o'clock in the evening. "Cut across here to Commonwealth Avenue," Miss Melrose suggested. She remembered something and her bright blue eyes sparkled beneath the disfiguring mask. "I know a delightful old-fashioned inn out this way. It would be an ideal place to stop for supper. I was there once five years ago when I was in Boston." "How far?" asked Reid. "Fifteen or twenty miles," was the reply. "Right," said Curtis. "Here we go." Soon after they were skimming along Commonwealth Avenue, which at that time of day is practically given over to automobilists, past the Vendome, the Somerset and on over the flat, smooth road. It was perfectly light now, because the electric lights were about them; but there was no moon above, and once in the country it would be dark going. Curtis was intent on his machine; Reid was thoughtful for a time, but after awhile leaned over and talked to Miss Melrose. "I heard something to-day that might interest you," he remarked. "What is it?" she asked. "Don MacLean is in Boston." "I heard that," she replied, casually. "Who is he?" asked Curtis. "A man who is frantically in love with Marguerite," said Reid, with a smile. "Charlie!" the girl reproved, and a flush crept into her face. "It was never anything very serious." Curtis looked at her curiously for a moment, then his eyes turned again to the road ahead. "I don't suppose it's very serious if a man proposes to a girl seven times, is it?" Reid asked, banteringly. "Did he do that?" asked Curtis, quickly. "He merely made a fool of himself and me," replied the actress, with spirit, speaking to Curtis. "He was--in love with me, I suppose, but his family objected because I was on the stage and threatened to disinherit him, and all that sort of thing. So--it ended it. Not that I ever considered the matter seriously anyway," she added. There was silence again as The Green Dragon plunged into the darkness of the country, the two brilliant lights ahead showing every dip and rise in the road. After awhile Curtis spoke again. "He's now in Boston?" "Yes," said the girl. "At least, I've heard so," she added, quickly. Then the conversation ran into other channels, and Curtis, busy with the great machine and the innumerable levers which made it do this or do that or do the other, dropped out of it. Reid and Miss Melrose talked on, but the whirr of the car as it gained speed made talking unsatisfactory and finally the girl gave herself up to the pure delight of high speed; a dangerous pleasure which sets the nerves atingle and makes one greedy for more. "Do you smell gasoline?" Curtis asked suddenly, turning to the others. "Believe I do," said Reid. "Confound it! If I've sprung a leak in my tank it will be the deuce," Curtis growled amiably. "Do you think you've got enough to get to the inn?" asked Miss Melrose. "It can't be more than five or six miles now." "I'll run on until we stop," said Curtis. "We might be able to stir up some along here somewhere. I suppose they are prepared for autos." At last lights showed ahead, many lights glimmering through the trees. "I suppose that's the inn now," said Curtis. "Is it?" he asked of the girl. "Really, I don't know, but I have an impression that it isn't. The one I mean seems farther out than this and it seems to me we passed one on the way. However, I don't remember very well." "We'll stop and get some gasoline, anyhow," said Curtis. Puffing and snorting odorously The Green Dragon came to a standstill in front of an old house which stood back twenty feet or more from the road. It was lighted up, and from inside they could hear the cheery rattle of dishes and see white-aproned waiters moving about. Above the door was a sign, "Monarch Inn." "Is this the place?" asked Reid. "Oh, no," replied Miss Melrose. "The inn I spoke of was back from the road three or four hundred feet through a grove." Curtis leaped out, and evidently dropped something from his pocket as he did so, for he stopped and felt around for a moment. Then he examined his tank. "It's a leak," he said, in irritation. "I haven't more than half a gallon left. These people must have some gasoline. Wait a few minutes." Miss Melrose and Reid still sat in the car as he started away toward the house. Almost at the veranda he turned and called back: "Charlie, I dropped something there when I jumped out. Get down and strike a match and see if you can find it. Don't go near that gasoline tank with the match." He disappeared inside the house. Reid climbed out and struck several matches. Finally he found what was lost and thrust it into an outside pocket. Miss Melrose was gazing away down the road at two brilliant lights coming toward them rapidly. "Rather chilly," Reid said, as he straightened up. "Want a cup of coffee or something?" "Thanks, no," the girl replied. "I think I'll run in and scare up some sort of a hot drink, if you'll excuse me?" "Now, Charlie, don't," the girl asked, suddenly. "I don't like it." "Oh, one won't hurt," he replied, lightly. "I shan't speak to you when you come out," she insisted, half banteringly. "Oh, yes, you will." He laughed, and passed into the house. Miss Melrose tossed her pretty head impatiently and turned to watch the approaching lights. They were blinding as they drew nearer, clearly revealing her figure, in its tan auto coat, to the occupant of the other car. The newcomer stopped and then she heard whoever was in it--she couldn't see--speaking to her. "Would you mind turning your car a little so I can run in off the road?" "I don't know how," she replied, helplessly. There was a little pause. The occupant of the other car was leaning forward, looking at her closely. "Is that you, Marguerite?" he asked finally. "Yes," she replied. "Who is that? Don?" "Yes." A man's figure leaped out of the other machine and came toward her. * * * * * * Curtis appeared beside The Green Dragon with a huge can of gasoline twenty minutes later. The two occupants of the car were clearly silhouetted against the sky, and Reid, leaning back in the tonneau, was smoking. "Find it?" he asked. "Yes," growled Curtis. And he began the work of repairing the leak and refilling his tank. It took only five minutes or so, and then he climbed up into the car. "Cold, Marguerite?" he asked. "She won't speak," said Reid, leaning forward a little. "She's angry because I went inside to get a hot Scotch." "Wish I had one myself," said Curtis. "Let's wait till we get to the next place," Reid interposed. "A little supper and trimmings will put all of us in a better humor." Without answering, Curtis threw a lever, and the car pulled out. Two automobiles which had been standing when they arrived were still waiting for their owners. Annoyed at the delay, Curtis put on full speed. Finally Reid leaned forward and spoke to the girl. "In a good humor?" he asked. She gave no sign of having heard, and Reid placed his hand on her shoulder as he repeated the question. Still there was no answer. "Make her talk to you, Jack," he suggested to Curtis. "What's the matter, Marguerite?" asked Curtis, as he glanced around. Still there was no answer, and he slowed up the car a little. Then he took her arm and shook it gently. There was no response. "What _is_ the matter with her?" he demanded. "Has she fainted?" Again he shook her, this time more vigorously than before. "Marguerite," he called. Then his hand sought her face; it was deathly cold, clammy even about the chin. The upper part was still covered by the mask. For the third time he shook her, then, really frightened, apparently, he caught at her gloved wrist and brought the car to a standstill. There was no trace of a pulse; the wrist was cold as death. "She must be ill--very ill," he said in some agitation. "Is there a doctor near here?" Reid was leaning over the senseless body now, having raised up in the tonneau, and when he spoke there seemed to be fear in his tone. "Better run on as fast as you can to the inn ahead," he instructed Curtis. "It's nearer than the one we just left. There may be a doctor there." Curtis grabbed frantically at the lever and the car shot ahead suddenly through the dark. In three minutes the lights of the second inn were in sight. The two men leaped from the car simultaneously and raced for the house. "A doctor, quick," Curtis breathlessly demanded of a waiter. "Next door." Without waiting for further instructions, Curtis and Reid ran to the auto, lifted the girl in their arms and took her to a house which stood just a few feet away. There, after much clamoring, they aroused some one. Was the doctor in? Yes. Would he hurry? Yes. The door opened and the men laid the girl's body on a couch in the hall. Dr. Leonard appeared. He was an old fellow, grizzled, with keen, kindly eyes and rigid mouth. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Think she's dead," replied Curtis. The doctor adjusted his glasses rather hurriedly. "Who is she?" he asked, as he bent over the still figure and fumbled about the throat and breast. "Miss Marguerite Melrose, an actress," explained Curtis, hurriedly. "What's the matter with her?" demanded Reid, fiercely. The doctor still bent over the figure. In the dim lamplight Curtis and Reid stood waiting anxiously, impatiently, with white faces. At last the doctor straightened up. "What is it?" demanded Curtis. "She's dead," was the reply. "Great God!" exclaimed Reid. "How?" Curtis seemed speechless. "This," said the doctor, and he exhibited a long knife, damp with blood. "Stabbed through the heart." Curtis stared at him, at the knife, then at the inert figure, and lastly at the dead white of her face where it showed beneath the mask. "Look, Jack!" exclaimed Reid, suddenly. "The knife!" Curtis looked again, then sank down on the couch beside the body. "Oh, my God! It's horrible!" he said. II. To Hutchinson Hatch and half a dozen other reporters, Dr. Leonard, at his home late that night, told the story of the arrival of Jack Curtis and Charles Reid with the body of the girl, and the succeeding events so far as he knew them. The police and Medical Examiner Francis had preceded the newspaper men, and the body had been removed to a nearby village. "They came here in great excitement," Dr. Leonard explained. "They brought the body in with them, the man Curtis lifting her by the shoulders and the man Reid at the feet. They placed the body on this couch. I asked them who she was, and they told me she was Marguerite Melrose, an actress. That's all that was said of her identity. "Then I made an examination of the body, seeking a trace of life. There was none, although the body was not then entirely cold. In examining her heart my hand struck the knife which had killed her--a heavy weapon, evidently used for rough work, with a blade of six or seven inches. I drew the knife out. Of course, knowing that it had pierced her heart, any idea of doing anything to save her was beyond question. "One of the men, Curtis, seemed greatly excited about this knife after Reid called his attention to it. Curtis took the knife out of my hand and examined it closely, then asked if he might keep it. I told him it would have to be turned over to the medical examiner. He argued about it, and finally, to settle the argument, I took it out of his hand. Reid explained to Curtis that it was necessary for me to keep the knife, and finally Curtis seemed to agree to it. "Then I suggested that the police be notified. I did this myself by telephone, the men remaining with me all the time. I asked if they could throw any light on the tragedy, but neither could. Curtis said he had been out searching for a man who had the keys to a shed where some gasoline was locked up, and it took fifteen or twenty minutes to find him. As soon as he got the gasoline he returned to the auto. "Reid and Miss Melrose were at this time in the auto, he said. What had happened while he had been away Curtis didn't know. Reid said he, too, had stepped out of the automobile, and after exchanging a few words with Miss Melrose went into the inn. There he remained fifteen minutes or so, because inside he saw a woman he knew and spoke to her. He declared that any one of three waiters could verify his statement that he was in the Monarch Inn. "After I had notified the police Curtis grew very uneasy in his actions--it didn't occur to me at the moment, but now I recall that it was so--and suggested to Reid that they go on to Boston and send out detectives--special Pinkerton men. I tried to dissuade them, but they went away. I couldn't stop them. They gave me their cards, however. They are at the Hotel Teutonic, and told me they could be seen there at any time. The medical examiner and the police came afterwards. I told them, and one of the detectives started immediately for Boston. They have probably told their story to him by this time." "What did the young woman look like?" asked Hatch. "Really, I couldn't say," said the doctor. "She wore an automobile mask which covered all her face except the chin, and there was a veil tied over her cap, concealing her hair. I didn't remove these; I left the body just as it was for the medical examiner." "How was she dressed?" Hatch went on. "She wore a long tan automobile dust coat of what seemed to be rich material, and beneath this a handsome--not a fancy--gown. I believe it was tailor-made. She was a woman of superb figure." That was all that could be learned from Dr. Leonard, and Hatch and the other men raced back to Boston. The next day the newspapers flamed with the mystery of the murder of Miss Melrose, a beautiful Western actress who was visiting Boston. Each newspaper watched the other greedily to see if there was a picture of Miss Melrose; neither had one. The newspapers also carried the stories of Jack Curtis and Charles Reid in connection with the murder. The stories were in substance just what Dr. Leonard had said, but were given in more detail. It was the general presumption, almost a foregone conclusion, that some one had killed Miss Melrose while the two men were away from the auto. Who was this some one? Man or woman? No one could answer. Reid's story of being inside the Monarch Inn, where he spoke to a lady he knew--but whose name he refused to give--was verified by Hatch's paper. Three waiters had seen him. The medical examiner had made only a brief statement, in which he had said, in answer to a question, that the person who killed Miss Melrose might have been either at her right, in the position Curtis would have occupied while driving the car, or might have leaned forward from behind and stabbed her. Thus it was not impossible that one of the men in the car with her had killed her, yet against this possibility was the fact that each of the men was one whom one could not readily associate with such a crime. The fact that the fatal blow was delivered from the right was proven, said the astute medical examiner, by the fact that the knife slanted as a knife could not have been slanted conveniently by a person on her other side--her left. There were many dark, underlying intimations behind what the medical man said; but he refused to say any more. Meanwhile the body remained in the village where it had been taken. Efforts to get a photograph were unavailing; pleas of newspaper artists for permission to sketch her fell upon deaf ears. Curtis and Reid, after their first statements, remained in seclusion at the Teutonic. They were not arrested because this did not seem necessary. Both had offered to do anything in their power to solve the riddle, had even employed Pinkerton men who were now on the case; but they would say nothing nor see anyone except the police. The police encouraged them in this attitude, and hinted darkly and mysteriously at clews which "would lead to an arrest within twenty-four hours." Hatch read these intimations and smiled grimly. Then he went out to try what a little patience and perseverance and human intelligence would do. He learned something of Reid's little romance in Boston. Yet not all of it. It was a fact, however, that Reid had called at the home of Miss Elizabeth Dow on Beacon Hill just after noon and inquired for her. "She is not in," the maid had replied. "I'll leave my card for her," said Reid. "I don't think she'll be back," the girl answered. "Not be back?" Reid repeated. "Why?" "Haven't you seen the afternoon papers?" asked the girl. "They will explain. Mrs. Dow, her mother, told me not to talk to anyone." Reid left the house with a wrinkle in his brow and walked on toward the Common. There he halted a newsboy and bought an afternoon paper--many afternoon papers. The first pages were loaded with details of the murder of Miss Melrose, theories, conjectures, a thousand little things, with long dispatches of her history and her stage career from San Francisco. Reid passed these over impatiently with a slight shiver and looked inside the paper. There he found the thing to which the maid had referred. "By George!" he exclaimed. It was a story of the elopement of Elizabeth Dow with Morgan Mason, Reid's rival. It seemed that Miss Dow and Mason met by appointment at the Monarch Inn and went from there in an automobile. The bride had written to her parents before she started, saying she preferred Mason despite his poverty. The family refused to talk of the matter. But there in facsimile was the marriage license. Reid's face was a study as he walked back to the hotel. In a private room off the café he found Curtis, who had been drinking heavily, yet who, with the strange mood of some men, was not visibly intoxicated. Reid threw the paper down, open at the elopement announcement. "See that," he said shortly. Curtis read it--or glanced at it--but did not make a remark until he came to the name, the Monarch Inn. Then he looked up. "That's where the other thing happened, isn't it?" he asked, rather thickly. "Yes." Curtis rambled off into something else; studiously he avoided any reference to the tragedy, yet that was the one thing which was in his mind. It was in a futile effort to forget it that he was drinking now. He talked on as a drunken man will for a time, then turned suddenly to Reid. "I loved her," he declared suddenly, passionately. "My God!" "Try not to think of it," Reid advised. "You'll never say anything about that other thing--the knife--will you?" pleaded Curtis. "Of course not," said Reid, impatiently. "They couldn't drag it out of me. But you're drinking too much--you want to quit it. First thing you know you'll be saying more than--get up and go out and take a walk." Curtis stared at Reid vacantly for a moment, as if not understanding, then arose. He had regained possession of himself to a certain extent. but his face was pale. "I think I will go out," he said. After a time he passed through the café door into a side street and, refreshed a little by the cool air, started to walk along Tremont Street toward the shopping district. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the streets were thronged. Half a dozen reporters were idling in the lobby of the hotel, waiting vainly for either Reid or Curtis. The newspapers were shouting for another story from the only two men who could know a great deal of the circumstances attending the tragedy. Reid, on his return, had marched boldly through the crowd of reporters, paying no attention to their questions. They had not seen Curtis. As Curtis, now free of the reporters, crossed a side street off Tremont on his way toward the shopping district he met Hutchinson Hatch, who was bound for the hotel to see his man there. Hatch instantly recognized him and fell in behind, curious to see where he would go. At a favorable opportunity, safe beyond reach of the other men, he intended to ask a few questions. Curtis turned into Winter Street and strolled along through the crowd of women. Half way down Winter Street Hatch followed, and then for a moment he lost sight of him. He had gone into a store, he imagined. As he stood at a door waiting, Curtis came out, rushed through the crowd of women, slinging his arms like a madman, with frenzy in his face. He ran twenty steps, then stumbled and fell. Hatch immediately ran to his assistance, lifted him up and gazed into the staring, terror-stricken eyes and an ashen face. "What is it?" asked Hatch, quickly. "I--I'm very ill. I--I think I need a doctor," gasped Curtis. "Take me somewhere, please." He fell back limply, half fainting, into Hatch's arms. A cab came worming through the crowd; Hatch climbed into it, assisting Curtis, and gave some directions to the cabby. "And hurry," he added. "This gentleman is ill." The cabby applied the whip and drove out into Tremont, then over toward Park Street. Curtis aroused a little. "Where're we going?" he demanded. "To a doctor," replied Hatch. Curtis sank back with eyes closed and his face white--so white that Hatch felt of the pulse to assure himself that the heart was still beating. After a few minutes the cab stopped and, still assisting Curtis, Hatch went to the door. An aged woman answered the bell. "Professor Van Dusen here?" asked the reporter. "Yes." "Please tell him that Mr. Hatch is here with a gentleman who needs immediate attention," Hatch directed, hurriedly. He knew his way here and, still supporting Curtis, walked in. The woman disappeared. Curtis sank down on a couch in the little reception room, looked at Hatch glassily for a moment, then without a sound dropped back on the couch unconscious. After a moment the door opened and there came in Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine. He squinted inquiringly at Hatch, and Hatch waved his head toward Curtis. "Dear me, dear me," exclaimed The Thinking Machine. He leaned over the prostrate figure a moment, then disappeared into another room, returning with a hypodermic. After a few anxious minutes Curtis sat up straight. He stared at the two men with unseeing eyes, and in them was unutterable terror. "_I saw her! I saw her!_" he screamed. "_There was a dagger in her heart. Marguerite!_" Again he fell back unconscious. The Thinking Machine squinted at Hatch. "The man's got delirium tremens," he snapped impatiently. III. For fifteen minutes Hatch silently looked on as The Thinking Machine worked over the unconscious man. Once or twice Curtis moved uneasily and moaned slightly. Hatch had started to explain the situation to The Thinking Machine, but the irascible scientist glared at him and the reporter became silent. After ten or fifteen minutes The Thinking Machine turned to Hatch more genially. "He'll be all right in a little while now," he said. "What is it?" "Well, it's a murder," Hatch began. "Marguerite Melrose, an actress, was stabbed through the heart last night, and----" "Murder?" interrupted The Thinking Machine. "Might it not have been suicide?" "Might have been; yes," said the reporter, after a moment's pause. "But it appears to be murder." "When you say it is murder," said The Thinking Machine, "you immediately give the impression that you were there and saw it. Go on." From the beginning, then, Hatch told the story as he knew it; of the stopping of The Green Dragon at the Monarch Inn, of the events there, of the whereabouts of Curtis and Reid at the time the girl received the knife thrust and of the confirmation of Reid's story. Then he detailed those incidents of the arrival of the men with the girl at Dr. Leonard's house, of what had transpired there, of the effort Curtis had made to get possession of the knife. With finger tips pressed together and squinting steadily upward, The Thinking Machine listened. At its end, which bore on the actions of Curtis just preceding his appearance in the room with them, The Thinking Machine arose and walked over to the couch where Curtis lay. He ran his slender fingers idly through the unconscious man's thick hair several times. "Doesn't it strike you as perfectly possible, Mr. Hatch," he asked finally, "that Miss Melrose _did_ kill herself?" "It may be perfectly possible, but it doesn't appear so," said Hatch. "There was no motive." "And certainly you've shown no motive for anything else," said the other, crustily. "Still," he mused, "I really can't say anything until I talk to him." He again turned to his patient, and as he looked saw the red blood surge back into the face. "Ah, now we're all right," he announced. Thus it happened, for after another ten minutes the patient sat up suddenly on the couch and looked at the two men before him, bewildered. "What's the matter?" he asked. The thickness was gone from his speech; he was himself again, although a little shaky. Briefly, Hatch explained to him what had happened, and he listened silently. Finally he turned to The Thinking Machine. "And this gentleman?" he asked. He noted the queer appearance of the scientist, and stared into the squint eyes frankly. "Professor Van Dusen, a distinguished scientist and physician," Hatch introduced. "I brought you here. He has been working with you for an hour." "And now, Mr. Curtis," said The Thinking Machine, "if you will tell us _all_ you know about the murder of Miss Melrose----" Curtis paled suddenly. "Why do you ask me?" he demanded. "You said a great deal while you were unconscious," remarked The Thinking Machine, as he dreamily stared at the ceiling. "I know that worry over that and too much alcohol have put you in a condition bordering on nervous collapse. I think it would be better if you told it _all_." Hatch instantly saw the trend of the scientist's remarks, and remained discreetly silent. Curtis stared at both for a moment, then paced nervously across the room. He did not know what he might have said, what chance word might have been dropped. Then, apparently, he made up his mind, for he stopped suddenly in front of The Thinking Machine. "Do I look like a man who would commit murder?" he asked. "No, you do not," was the prompt response. His recital of the story was similar to that of Hatch, but the scientist listened carefully. "Details! details!" he interrupted once. The story was complete from the moment Curtis jumped out of the car until the return to the hotel of Curtis and Reid. There the narrator stopped. "Mr. Curtis, why did you try to induce Dr. Leonard to give up the knife to you?" asked The Thinking Machine, finally. "Because--well, because----" He faltered, flushed and stopped. "Because you were afraid it would bring the crime home to you?" asked the scientist. "I didn't know _what_ might happen," was the response. "Is it your knife?" Again the tell-tale flush overspread Curtis's face. "No," he said, flatly. "Is it Reid's knife?" "Oh, no," he said, quickly. "You were in love with Miss Melrose?" "Yes," was the steady reply. "Had she ever refused to marry you?" "I had never asked her." "Why?" "Is this a third degree?" demanded Curtis, angrily, and he arose. "Am I a prisoner?" "Not at all," said The Thinking Machine, quietly. "You may be made a prisoner, though, on what you said while unconscious. I am merely trying to help you." Curtis sank down in a chair with his head in his hands and remained motionless for several minutes. At last he looked up. "I'll answer your questions," he said. "Why did you never ask Miss Melrose to marry you?" "Because--well, because I understood another man, Donald MacLean, was in love with her, and she might have loved him. I understood she would have married him had it not been that by doing so she would have caused his disinheritance. MacLean is now in Boston." "Ah!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "Your friend Reid didn't happen to be in love with her, too, did he?" "Oh, no," was the reply. "Reid came here hoping to win the love of Miss Dow, a society girl. I came with him." "Miss Dow?" asked Hatch, quickly. "The girl who eloped last night with Morgan Mason?" "Yes," replied Curtis. "That elopement and this--crime have put Reid almost in as bad a condition as I am." "What elopement?" asked The Thinking Machine. Hatch explained how Mason had procured a marriage license, how Miss Dow and Mason had met at the Monarch Inn--where Miss Melrose must have been killed according to all stories--how Miss Dow had written to her parents from there of the elopement and then of their disappearance. The Thinking Machine listened, but without apparent interest. "Have you such a knife as was used to kill Miss Melrose?" he asked at the end. "No." "Did you ever have such a knife?" "Well, once." "Where did you carry it when it was not in your auto kit?" "In my lower coat pocket." "By the way, what kind of looking woman was Miss Melrose?" "One of the most beautiful women I ever met," said Curtis, with a certain enthusiasm. "Of ordinary height, superb figure--a woman who would attract attention anywhere." "I believe she wore a veil and an automobile mask at the time she was killed?" "Yes. They covered all her face except her chin." "Could she, wearing an automobile mask, see either side of herself without turning?" asked The Thinking Machine, pointedly. "Had you intended to stab her, say while the car was in motion and had the knife in your hand, even in daylight, could she have seen it without turning her head? Or, if she had had the knife, could you have seen it?" Curtis shuddered a little. "No, I don't believe so." "Was she blonde or brunette?" "Blonde, with great clouds of golden hair," said Curtis, and again there was admiration in his tone. "Golden hair?" Hatch repeated. "I understood Medical Examiner Francis to say she had dark hair?" "No, golden hair," was the positive reply. "Did you see the body, Mr. Hatch?" asked the scientist. "No. None of us saw it. Dr. Francis makes that a rule." The Thinking Machine arose, excused himself and passed into another room. They heard the telephone bell ring and then some one closed the door connecting the two rooms. When the scientist returned he went straight to a point which Hatch had impatiently awaited. "What happened to you this afternoon in Winter Street?" Curtis had retained his composure well up to this point; now he became uneasy again. Quick pallor on his face was succeeded by a flush which crept up to the roots of his hair. "I've been drinking too much," he said at last. "That and this thing have completely unnerved me. I am afraid I was not myself." "What did you _think_ you saw?" insisted The Thinking Machine. "I went into a store for something. I've forgotten what now. I know there was a great crowd of women--they were all about me. There I saw--" He stopped and was silent for a moment. "There I saw," he went on with an effort, "a woman--just a glimpse of her, over the heads of the others in the store--and----" "And what?" insisted The Thinking Machine. "At the moment I would have sworn it was Marguerite Melrose," was the reply. "Of course you know you were mistaken?" "I know it now," said Curtis. "It was a chance resemblance, but the effect on me was awful. I ran out of there shrieking--it seemed to me. Then I found myself here." "And you don't know what you said or did from that time until the present?" asked the scientist, curiously. "No, except in a hazy sort of way." After awhile Martha, the scientist's aged servant, appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Mallory and a gentleman, sir." "Let them come in," said The Thinking Machine. "Mr. Curtis," and he turned to him gravely, "Mr. Reid is here. I sent for him as if at your request to ask him two questions. If he answers those questions, as I believe he will, I can demonstrate that you are not guilty of and have no connection with the murder of Miss Melrose. Let me ask these questions, without any hint or remark from you as to what the answer must be. Are you willing?" "I am," replied Curtis. His face was white, but his voice was firm. Detective Mallory, whom Curtis didn't know, and Charles Reid entered the room. Both looked about curiously. Mallory nodded brusquely at Hatch. Reid looked at Curtis and Curtis looked away. "Mr. Reid," said The Thinking Machine, without any preliminary, "Mr. Curtis tells me that the knife used to kill Miss Melrose was your property. Is that so?" he demanded quickly, as Curtis faced about wonderingly. "No," thundered Reid, fiercely. "Is it Mr. Curtis's knife?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Yes," flashed Reid. "It's a part of his auto kit." Curtis started to speak; The Thinking Machine waved his hand toward him. Detective Mallory caught the gesture and understood that Jack Curtis was his prisoner for murder. IV. Curtis was led away and locked up. He raved and bitterly denounced Reid for the information he had given, but he did not deny it. Indeed, after the first burst of fury he said nothing. Once he was under lock and key the police, led by Detective Mallory, searched his rooms at the Hotel Teutonic and there they found a handkerchief stained with blood. It was slight, still it was a stain. This was immediately placed in the hands of an expert, who pronounced it human blood. Then the case against Curtis seemed complete; it was his knife, he had been in love with Miss Melrose, therefore probably jealous of her, and here was the tell-tale bloodstain. Meanwhile Reid was permitted to go his way. He seemed crushed by the rapid sequence of events, and read eagerly every line he could find in the public prints concerning both the murder and the elopement of Miss Dow. This latter affair, indeed, seemed to have greater sway over his mind than the murder, or that a lifetime friend was now held as the murderer. Meanwhile The Thinking Machine had signified to Hatch his desire to visit the scene of the crime and see what might be done there. Late in the afternoon, therefore, they started, taking a train for a village nearest the Monarch Inn. "It's a most extraordinary case," The Thinking Machine said, "much more extraordinary than you can imagine." "In what respect?" asked the reporter. "In motive, in the actual manner of the girl meeting her death and in a dozen other details which I can't state now because I haven't all the facts." "You don't doubt but what it was murder?" "It doesn't necessarily follow," said The Thinking Machine, evasively. "Suppose we were seeking a motive for Miss Melrose's suicide, what would we have? We would have her love affair with this man MacLean whom she refused to marry because she knew he would be disinherited. Suppose she had not seen him for a couple of years--suppose she had made up her mind to give him up--that he had suddenly appeared when she sat alone in the automobile in front of the Monarch Inn--suppose, then, finding all her love reawakened, she had decided to end it all?" "But Curtis's knife and the blood on his handkerchief?" "Suppose, having made up her mind to kill herself, she had sought a weapon?" went on The Thinking Machine, as if there had been no interruption. "What is more natural than she should have sought something--the knife, say--in the tool bag or kit, which must have been near her? Suppose she stabbed herself while the men were away from the automobile, or even after they had started on again in the darkness?" Hatch looked a little crestfallen. "You believe, then, that she did kill herself?" he asked. "Certainly not," was the prompt response. "I don't believe Miss Melrose killed herself--but as yet I know nothing to the contrary. As for the blood on Curtis's handkerchief, remember he helped carry the body to Dr. Leonard; it might have come from that--it might have come from a slight spattering of blood." "But circumstances certainly implicate Curtis." "I wouldn't convict any man of any crime on any circumstantial evidence," was the response. "It's worthless unless a man is forced to confess." The reporter was puzzled, bewildered, and his face showed it. There were many things he did not understand, but the principal question in his mind took form: "Why did you turn Curtis over to the police, then?" "Because he is the man who owned the knife," was the reply. "I knew he was lying to me from the first about the knife. Men have been executed on less evidence than that." The train stopped and they proceeded to the office of the medical examiner, where the body of the woman lay. Professor Van Dusen was readily permitted to see the body, even to offer his expert assistance in an autopsy which was then being performed; but the reporter was stopped at the door. After an hour The Thinking Machine came out. "She was stabbed from the right," he said in answer to Hatch's inquiring look, "either by some one sitting at her right, by some one leaning over her right shoulder, or she might have done it herself." Then they went on to Monarch Inn, five miles away. Here, after a comprehensive squint at the landscape, The Thinking Machine entered and for half an hour questioned three waiters there. Did these waiters see Mr. Reid? Yes. They identified his published picture as a gentleman who had come in and taken a hot Scotch at the bar. Any one with him? No. Speak to anyone in the inn? Yes, a lady. "What did she look like?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Couldn't say, sir," the waiter replied. "She came in an automobile and wore a mask, with a veil tied about her head and a long tan automobile coat." "With the mask on you couldn't see her face?" "Only her chin, sir." "No glimpse of her hair?" "No, sir. It was covered by the veil." Then The Thinking Machine turned loose a flood of questions. He learned that the woman had been waiting at the inn for nearly an hour when Reid entered; that she had come there alone and at her request had been shown into a private parlor--"to wait for a gentleman," she had told the waiter. She had opened the door when she heard Reid enter and had glanced out, but he had disappeared into the bar before she saw him. When he started away she looked out again. Then she saw him and he saw her. She seemed surprised and started to close the door, when he spoke to her. No one heard what was said, but he went in and the door was closed. No one knew just when either Reid or the woman left the inn. Some half an hour or so after Reid entered the room a waiter rapped on the door. There was no answer. He opened the door and went in, but there was no one there. It was presumed then that the gentleman she had been waiting for had appeared and they had gone out together. It was a fact that an automobile had come up meanwhile--in addition to that in which Curtis, Miss Melrose and Reid had come--and had gone away again. When all this questioning had come to an end and these facts were in possession of The Thinking Machine, the reporter advanced a theory. "That woman was unquestionably Miss Dow, who knew Reid and who eloped that night with Morgan Mason." The Thinking Machine looked at him a moment without speaking, then led the way into the private room where the lady had been waiting. Hatch followed. They remained there five or ten minutes, then The Thinking Machine came out and started toward the front door, only eight or ten feet from this room. The road was twenty feet away. "Let's go," he said, finally. "Where?" asked Hatch. "Don't you see?" asked The Thinking Machine, irrelevantly, "that it would have been perfectly possible for Miss Melrose herself to have left the automobile and gone inside the inn for a few minutes?" Following previously received directions The Thinking Machine now set out to find the man who had charge of the gasoline tank. They went away together and remained half an hour. On the scientist's return to where Hatch had been waiting impatiently they climbed into the car which had brought them to the inn. "Two miles down this road, then the first road to your right until I tell you to stop," was the order to the chauffeur. "Where are you going?" asked Hatch, curiously. "Don't know yet," was the enigmatic reply. The car ran on through the night, with great, unblinking lights staring straight out ahead on a road as smooth as asphalt. The turn was made, then more slowly the car proceeded along the cross road. At the second house, dimly discernible through the night, The Thinking Machine gave the signal to stop. Hatch leaped out, and The Thinking Machine followed. Together they approached the house, a small cottage some distance back from the road. As they went up the path they came upon another automobile, but it had no lights and the engine was still. Even in the darkness they could see that one of the forward wheels was gone, and the front of the car was demolished. "That fellow had a bad accident," Hatch remarked. An old woman and a boy appeared at the door in answer to their rap. "I am looking for a gentleman who was injured last night in an automobile accident," said The Thinking Machine. "Is he still here?" "Yes. Come in." They stepped inside as a man's voice called from another room: "Who is it?" "Two gentlemen to see the man who was hurt," the woman called. "Do you know his name?" asked The Thinking Machine. "No, sir," the woman replied. Then the man who had spoken appeared. "Would it be possible for us to see the gentleman who was hurt?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Well, the doctor said we would have to keep folks away from him," was the reply. "Is there anything I could tell you?" "We would like to know who he is," said The Thinking Machine. "It may be that we can take him off your hands." "I don't know his name," the man explained; "but here are the things we took off him. He was hurt on the head, and hasn't been able to speak since he was brought here." The Thinking Machine took a gold watch, a small notebook, two or three cards of various business concerns, two railroad tickets to New York and one thousand dollars in large bills. He merely glanced at the papers. No name appeared anywhere on them; the same with the railroad tickets. The business cards meant nothing at the moment. It was the gold watch on which the scientist concentrated his attention. He looked on both sides, then inside, carefully. Finally he handed it back. "What time did this gentleman come here?" he asked. "We brought him in from the road about nine o'clock," was the reply. "We heard his automobile smash into something and found him there beside it a moment later. He was unconscious. His car had struck a stone on the curve and he was thrown out head first." "And where is his wife?" "His wife?" The man looked from The Thinking Machine to the woman. "His wife? We didn't see anybody else." "Nobody ran away from the machine as you went out?" insisted the scientist. "No, sir," was the positive reply. "And no woman has been here to inquire for him?" "No, sir." "Has anybody?" "No, sir." "What direction was the car going when it struck?" "I couldn't tell you, sir. It had turned entirely over and was in the middle of the road when we found it." "What's the number of the car?" "It didn't have any." "This gentleman has good medical attention, I suppose?" "Yes, sir. Dr. Leonard is attending him. He says his condition isn't dangerous, and meanwhile we're letting him stay here, because we suppose he'll make it all right with us when he gets well." "Thank you--that's all," said The Thinking Machine. "Good-night." With Hatch he turned and left the house. "What is all this?" asked Hatch, bewildered. "That man is Morgan Mason," said The Thinking Machine. "The man who eloped with Miss Dow?" asked Hatch, breathlessly. "Now, where is Miss Dow?" asked The Thinking Machine, in turn. "You mean----" The Thinking Machine waved his hand off into the vague night; it was a gesture which Hatch understood perfectly. V. Hutchinson Hatch was deeply thoughtful on the swift run back to the village. There he and The Thinking Machine took train to Boston. Hatch was turning over possibilities. Had Miss Dow eloped with some one besides Mason? There had been no other name mentioned. Was it possible that she killed Miss Melrose? Vaguely his mind clutched for a motive for this, yet none appeared, and he dismissed the idea with a laugh at its absurdity. Then, What? Where? How? Why? "I suppose the story of an actress having been murdered in an automobile under mysterious circumstances would have been telegraphed all over the country, Mr. Hatch?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Yes," said Hatch. "If you mean this story, there's not a city in the country that doesn't know of it by this time." "It's perfectly wonderful, the resources of the press," the scientist mused. Hatch nodded his acquiescence. He had hoped for a moment that The Thinking Machine had asked the question as a preliminary to something else, but that was apparently all. After awhile the train jerked a little and The Thinking Machine spoke again. "I think, Mr. Hatch, I wouldn't yet print anything about the disappearance of Miss Dow," he said. "It might be unwise at present. No one else will find it out, so----" "I understand," said Hatch. It was a command. "By the way," the other went on, "do you happen to remember the name of that Winter Street store that Curtis went in?" "Yes," and he named it. It was nearly midnight when The Thinking Machine and Hatch reached Boston. The reporter was dismissed with a curt: "Come up at noon to-morrow." Hatch went his way. Next day at noon promptly he was waiting in the reception room of The Thinking Machine's home. The scientist was out--down in Winter Street, Martha explained--and Hatch waited impatiently for his return. He came in finally. "Well?" inquired the reporter. "Impossible to say anything until day after to-morrow," said The Thinking Machine. "And then?" asked Hatch. "The solution," replied the scientist positively. "Now I'm waiting for some one." "Miss Dow?" "Meanwhile you might see Reid and find out in some way if he ever happened to make a gift of any little thing, a thing that a woman would wear on the outside of her coat, for instance, to Miss Dow." "Lord, I don't think _he'll_ say anything." "Find out, too, when he intends to go back West." It took Hatch three hours, and required a vast deal of patience and skill, to find out that on a recent birthday Miss Dow had received a present of a monogram belt buckle from Reid. That was all; and that was not what The Thinking Machine meant. Hatch had the word of Miss Dow's maid for it that while Miss Dow wore this belt at the time of her elopement, it was underneath the automobile coat. "Have you heard anything more from Miss Dow?" asked Hatch. "Yes," responded the maid. "Her father received a letter from her this morning. It was from Chicago, and said that she and her husband were on their way to San Francisco and that the family might not hear from them again until after the honeymoon." "How? What?" gasped Hatch. His brain was in a muddle. "She in Chicago, _with--her husband?_" "Yes, sir." "Is there any question about the letter being in her handwriting?" "Not at all," replied the maid, positively. "It's perfectly natural," she concluded. "But----" Hatch began, then he stopped. For one fleeting instant he was tempted to tell the maid that the man whom the family had supposed was Miss Dow's husband was lying unconscious at a farmhouse not a great way from the Monarch Inn, and that there was no trace of Miss Dow. Now this letter! His head whirled when he thought of it. "Is there any question but that Miss Dow did elope with Mr. Mason and not some other man?" he asked. "It was Mr. Mason, all right," the girl responded. "I knew there was to be an elopement and helped arrange for Miss Dow to go," she added, confidentially. "It was Mr. Mason, I know." Then Hatch rushed away and telephoned to The Thinking Machine. He simply couldn't hold this latest development until he saw him again. "We've made a mistake," he bellowed through the 'phone. "What's that?" demanded The Thinking Machine, aggressively. "Miss Dow is in Chicago with her husband--family has received a letter from her--that man out there with the smashed head can't be Mason," the reporter explained hurriedly. "Dear me, dear me!" said The Thinking Machine over the wire. And again: "Dear me!" "Her maid told me all about it," Hatch rushed on, "that is, all about her aiding Miss Dow to elope, and all that. Must be some mistake." "Dear me!" again came in the voice of The Thinking Machine. Then: "Is Miss Dow a blonde or brunette?" The irrelevancy of the question caused Hatch to smile in spite of himself. "A brunette," he answered. "A pronounced brunette." "Then," said The Thinking Machine, as if this were merely dependent upon or a part of the blonde or brunette proposition, "get immediately a picture of Mason somewhere--I suppose you can--go out and see that man with the smashed head and see if it is Mason. Let me know by 'phone." "All right," said Hatch, rather hopelessly. "But it is impossible----" "Don't say that," snapped The Thinking Machine. "Don't say that," he repeated, angrily. "It annoys me exceedingly." It was nearly ten o'clock that night when Hatch again 'phoned to The Thinking Machine. He had found a photograph, he had seen the man with the smashed head. They were the same. He so informed The Thinking Machine. "Ah," said that individual, quietly. "Did you find out about any gift that Reid might have made to Miss Dow?" he asked. "Yes, a monogram belt buckle of gold," was the reply. Hatch was over his head and knew it. He was finding out things and answering questions, which by the wildest stretch of his imagination, he could not bring to bear on the matter in hand--the mystery surrounding the murder of Marguerite Melrose, an actress. "Meet me at my place here at one o'clock day after to-morrow," instructed The Thinking Machine. "Publish as little as you can of this matter until you see me. It's extraordinary--perfectly extraordinary. Good-by." That was all. Hatch groped hopelessly through the tangle, seeking one fact that he could grasp. Then it occurred to him that he had never ascertained when Reid intended to return West, and he went to the Hotel Teutonic for this purpose. The clerk informed him that Reid was to start in a couple of days. Reid had hardly left his room since Curtis was locked up. Precisely at one o'clock on the second day following, as directed by The Thinking Machine, Hatch appeared and was ushered in. The Thinking Machine was bowed over a retort in his laboratory, and he looked up at the reporter with a question in his eyes. "Oh, yes," he said, as if recollecting for the first time the purpose of the visit. "Oh, yes." He led the way to the reception room and gave instructions to Martha to admit whoever inquired for him; then he sat down and leaned back in his chair. After awhile the bell rang and two men were shown in. One was Charles Reid; the other a detective whom Hatch knew. "Ah, Mr. Reid," said The Thinking Machine. "I'm sorry to have troubled you, but there were some questions I wanted to ask before you went away. If you'll wait just a moment." Reid bowed and took a seat. "Is he under arrest?" Hatch inquired of the detective, aside. "Oh, no," was the reply. "Oh, no. Detective Mallory told me to ask him to come up. I don't know what for." After awhile the bell rang again. Then Hatch heard Detective Mallory's voice in the hall and the rustle of skirts; then the voice of another man. Mallory appeared at the door after a moment; behind him came two veiled women and a man who was a stranger to Hatch. "I'm going to make a request, Mr. Mallory," said The Thinking Machine. "I know it will be a cause of pleasure to Mr. Reid. It is that you release Mr. Curtis, who is charged with the murder of Miss Melrose." "Why?" demanded Mallory, quickly. Hatch and Reid stared at the scientist curiously. "This," said The Thinking Machine. The two women simultaneously removed their veils. One was Miss Marguerite Melrose. VI. "Miss Melrose that was," explained The Thinking Machine, "now Mrs. Donald MacLean. This, gentlemen, is her husband. This other young woman is Miss Dow's maid. Together I believe we will be able to throw some light on the death of the young woman who was found in Mr. Curtis's automobile." Stupefied with amazement, Hatch stared at the woman whose reported murder had startled and puzzled the entire country. Reid had shown only slight emotion--an emotion of a kind hard to read. Finally he advanced to Miss Melrose, or Mrs. MacLean, with outstretched hand. "Marguerite," he said. The girl looked deeply into his eyes, then took the proffered hand. "And Jack Curtis?" she asked. "If Detective Mallory will have him brought here we can immediately end his connection with this case so far as your murder is concerned," said The Thinking Machine. "Who--who was murdered, then?" asked Hatch. "A little circumstantial development is necessary to show," replied The Thinking Machine. Detective Mallory retired into another room and 'phoned to have Curtis brought up. On his assurance that there had been a mistake which he would explain later, Curtis set out from his cell with a detective and within a few minutes appeared in the room, wonderingly. One look at Marguerite and he was beside her, gripping her hand. For a time he didn't speak; it was not necessary. Then the actress, with flushed face, indicated MacLean, who had stood quietly by, an interested but silent spectator. "My husband, Jack," she said. Quick comprehension swept over Curtis and he looked from one to another. Then he approached MacLean with outstretched hand. "I congratulate you," he said, with deep feeling. "Make her happy." Reid had stood unobserved meanwhile. Hatch's glance traveled from one to another of the persons in the room. He was seeking to explain that expression on Reid's face, vainly thus far. There was a little pause as Reid and Curtis came face to face, but neither spoke. "Now, please, what does it all mean?" asked MacLean, who up to this time had been silent. "It's a strange study of the human brain," said The Thinking Machine, "and incidentally a little proof that circumstantial evidence is absolutely worthless. For instance, here it was proven that Miss Melrose was dead, that Mr. Curtis was jealous of her, that while drinking he had threatened her--this I learned at the Hotel Yarmouth, but now it is unimportant--that his knife killed her, and finally that there was blood on one of his handkerchiefs. This is the complete circumstantial chain; and Miss Melrose appears, alive. "Suppose we take the case from the point where I entered it. It will be interesting as showing the methods of a brain which reduces all things to tangible strands which may be woven into a whole, then fitting them together. My knowledge of the affair began when Mr. Curtis was brought to these apartments by Mr. Hatch. Mr. Curtis was ill. I gave him a stimulant; he aroused suddenly and shrieked: 'I saw her. There was a dagger in her heart. Marguerite!' "My first impression was that he was insane; my next that he had delirium tremens, because I saw he had been drinking heavily. Later I saw it was temporary mental collapse due to excessive drinking and a tremendous strain. Instantly I associated Marguerite with this--'a dagger in her heart.' Therefore, Marguerite dead or wounded. 'I saw her.' Dead or alive? These, then, were my first impressions. "I asked Mr. Hatch what had happened. He told me Miss Melrose, an actress, had been murdered the night before. I suggested suicide, because suicide is always the first possibility in considering a case of violent death which is not obviously accidental. He insisted that he believed it was murder, and told me why. It was all he knew of the story. "There was the stopping of The Green Dragon at the Monarch Inn for gasoline; the disappearance Of Mr. Curtis, as he told the police, to hunt for gasoline--partly proven by the fact that he brought it back; the statement of Mr. Reid to the police that he had gone into the inn for a hot Scotch, and confirmation of this. Above all, here was the opportunity for the crime--if it were committed by any person other than Curtis or Reid. "Then Mr. Hatch repeated to me the statement made to him by Dr. Leonard. The first thing that impressed me here was the fact that Curtis had, in taking the girl into the house, carried her by the shoulders. Instantly I saw, knowing that the girl had been stabbed through the heart, how it would be possible for blood to get on Mr. Curtis's hands, thence on his handkerchief or clothing. This was before I knew or considered his connection with the death at all. "Curtis told Dr. Leonard that the girl was Miss Melrose. The body wasn't yet cold, therefore death must have come just before it reached the doctor. Then the knife was discovered. Here was the first tangible working clew--a rough knife, with a blade six or seven inches long. Obviously not the sort of knife a woman would carry about with her. Therefore, where did it come from? "Curtis tried to induce the doctor to let him have the knife; probably Curtis's knife, possibly Reid's. Why Curtis's? The nature of the knife, a blade six or seven inches long, indicated a knife used for heavy work, not for a penknife. Under ordinary circumstances such a knife would not have been carried by Reid; therefore it may have belonged to Curtis's auto kit. He might have carried it in his pocket. "Thus, considering _that it was Miss Melrose who was dead_, we had these facts: Dead only a few minutes, possibly stabbed while the two men were away from the car; Curtis's knife used--not a knife from any other auto kit, mind you, _because Curtis recognized this knife_. Two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time." Every person in the room was leaning forward, eagerly listening; Reid's face was perfectly white. The Thinking Machine finally arose, walked over and ran his fingers through Reid's hair, then sat again squinting at the ceiling. He spoke as if to himself. "Then Mr. Hatch told me another important thing," he went on. "At the moment it appeared a coincidence, later it assumed its complete importance. This was that Dr. Leonard did not actually see the face of the 'girl--only the chin; that the hair was covered by a veil and the mask covered the remainder of the face. Here for the first time I saw that it was wholly possible that the woman _was not Miss Melrose at all_. I saw it as a possibility; not that I believed it. I had no reason to, then. "The dress of the young woman meant nothing; it was that of thousands of other young women who go automobiling--handsome tailor-made gown, tan dust coat. Then I tricked Mr. Curtis--I suppose it is only fair to use the proper word--into telling me his story by making him believe he made compromising admissions while unconscious. I had, I may say, too, examined his head minutely. I have always maintained that the head of a murderer will show a certain indentation. Mr. Curtis's head did not show this indentation, neither does Mr. Reid's. "Mr. Curtis told me the first thing to show that the knife which killed the girl--I still believed her Miss Melrose then--could have passed out of his hands. He said when he leaped from the automobile he thought he dropped something, searched for it a moment, failed to find it, then, being in a hurry, went on. He called back to Mr. Reid to search for what he had lost. That is when Mr. Curtis lost the knife; that is when it passed into the possession of Mr. Reid. He found it." Every eye was turned on Reid. He sat as if fascinated, staring into the upward turned face of the scientist. "There we had a girl--presumably Miss Melrose--dead, by a knife owned by Mr. Curtis, last in the possession of Mr. Reid. Mr. Hatch had previously told me that the medical examiner said the wound which killed the girl came from her right, in a general direction. Therefore here was a possibility that Mr. Reid did it in the automobile--a possibility, I say. "I asked Mr. Curtis why he tried to recover the knife from Dr. Leonard. He stammered and faltered, but really it was because, having recognized the knife, he was afraid the crime would come home to him. Mr. Curtis denied flatly that the knife was his, and in denying told me that it was. It was not Mr. Reid's I was assured. Mr. Curtis also told me of his love for Miss Melrose, but there was nothing there, as it appeared, strong enough to suggest a motive for murder. He mentioned you, Mr. MacLean, then. "Then Mr. Curtis named Miss Dow as one whose hand had been sought by Mr. Reid. Mr. Hatch told me this girl--Miss Dow--had eloped the night before with Morgan Mason from Monarch Inn--or, to be exact, that her family had received a letter from her stating that she was eloping; that Mason had taken out a marriage license. Remember this was the girl that Reid was in love with; it was singular that there should have been a Monarch Inn end to that elopement as well as to this tragedy. "This meant nothing as bearing on the abstract problem before me until Mr. Curtis described Miss Melrose as having golden hair. With another minor scrap of information Mr. Hatch again opened up vast possibilities by stating that the medical examiner, a careful man, had said Miss Melrose had dark hair. I asked him if he had seen the body; he had not. But the medical examiner told him that. Instantly in my mind the question was aroused: Was it _Miss Melrose_ who was killed? This was merely a possibility; it still had no great weight with me. "I asked Mr. Curtis as to the circumstances which caused his collapse in Winter Street. He explained it was because he had seen a woman whom he would have sworn was Miss Melrose if he had not known that she was dead. This, following the dark hair and blonde hair puzzle, instantly caused this point to stand forth sharply in my mind. Was Miss Melrose dead at all? I had good reason then to believe that she was _not_. "Previously, with the idea of fixing for all time the ownership of the knife--yet knowing in my own mind it was Mr. Curtis's--I had sent for Mr. Reid. I told him Mr. Curtis had said it was his knife. Mr. Reid fell into the trap and did the very thing I expected. He declared angrily the knife was Mr. Curtis's, thinking Curtis had tried to saddle the crime on him. Then I turned Mr. Curtis over to the police. When he was locked up I was reasonably certain that he did not commit any crime, because I had traced the knife from him to Mr. Reid." There was a glitter in Reid's eyes now. It was not fear, only a nervous battle to restrain himself. The Thinking Machine went on: "I saw the body of the dead woman--indeed, assisted at her autopsy. She was a pronounced brunette--Miss Melrose was a blonde. The mistake in identity was not an impossible one in view of the fact that each wore a mask and had her hair tied up under a veil. That woman was stabbed from the right--still a possibility of suicide." "Who was the woman?" demanded Curtis. He seemed utterly unable to control himself longer. "Miss Elizabeth Dow, who was supposed to have eloped with Morgan Mason," was the quiet reply. Instant amazement was reflected on every face save Reid's, and again every eye was turned to him. Miss Dow's maid burst into tears. "Mr. Reid knew who the woman was all the time," said The Thinking Machine. "Knowing then that Miss Dow was the dead woman--this belief being confirmed by a monogram gold belt buckle, 'E. D.,' on the body--I proceeded to find out all I could in this direction. The waiters had seen Mr. Reid in the inn; had seen him talking to a masked and veiled lady who had been waiting for nearly an hour; had seen him go into a room with her, but had not seen them leave the inn. Mr. Reid had recognized the lady--not she him. How? By a glimpse of the monogram belt buckle which he knew because he probably gave it to her." "He did," interposed Hatch. "I did," said Reid, calmly. It was the first time he had spoken. "Now, Mr. Reid went into the room and closed the door, carrying with him Mr. Curtis's knife," went on The Thinking Machine. "I can't tell you from _personal observation_ what happened in that room, but I know. Mr. Reid learned in some way that Miss Dow was going to elope; he learned that she had been waiting long past the time when Mason was due there; that she believed he had humiliated her by giving up the idea at the last minute. Being in a highly nervous condition, she lost faith in Mason and in herself, and perhaps mentioned suicide?" "She did," said Reid, calmly. "Go on, Mr. Reid," suggested The Thinking Machine. "I believed, too, that Mason had changed his mind," the young man continued, with steady voice. "I pleaded with Miss Dow to give up the idea of eloping, because, remember, I loved her, too. She finally consented to go on with our party, as her automobile had gone. We came out of the inn together. When we reached the automobile--The Green Dragon, I mean--I saw Miss Melrose getting into Mr. MacLean's automobile, which had come up meanwhile. Instantly I saw, or imagined, the circumstances, and said nothing to Miss Dow about it, particularly as Mr. MacLean's car dashed away at full speed. "Now, in taking Miss Dow to The Green Dragon it had been my purpose to introduce her to Miss Melrose. She knew Mr. Curtis. When I saw Miss Melrose was gone I knew Curtis would wonder why. I couldn't explain, because every moment I was afraid Mason would appear to claim Miss Dow and I was anxious to get her as far away as possible. Therefore I requested her not to speak until we reached the next inn, and there I would explain to Curtis. "Somewhere between the Monarch Inn and the inn we had started for Miss Dow changed her mind; probably was overcome by the humiliation of her position, and she used the knife. She had seen me take the knife from my pocket and throw it into the tool kit on the floor beside her. It was comparatively a trifling matter for her to stoop and pick it up, almost from under her feet, and----" "Under all these circumstances, as stated by Mr. Reid," interrupted The Thinking Machine, "we understand why, after he found the girl dead, he didn't tell all the truth, even to Curtis. Any jury on earth would have convicted him of murder on circumstantial evidence. Then, when he saw Miss Dow dead, mistaken for Miss Melrose, he _could_ not correct the impression without giving himself away. He was forced to silence. "I realized these things--not in exact detail as Mr. Reid has told them, but in a general way--after my talk with the waiters. Then I set out to find out _why_ Mason had not appeared. It was possibly due to accident. On a chance entirely I asked the man in charge of the gasoline tank at the Monarch if he had heard of an accident nearby on the night of the tragedy. He had. "With Mr. Hatch I found the injured man. A monogram, 'M.M.,' on his watch, told me it was Morgan Mason. Mr. Mason had a serious accident and still lies unconscious. He was going to meet Miss Dow when this happened. He had two railroad tickets to New York--for himself and bride--in his pocket." Reid still sat staring at The Thinking Machine, waiting. The others were awed into silence by the story of the tragedy. "Having located both Mason and Miss Dow to my satisfaction, I then sought to find what had become of Miss Melrose. Mr. Reid could have told me this, but he wouldn't have, because it would have turned the light on the very thing which he was trying to keep hidden. With Miss Melrose alive, it was perfectly possible that Curtis _had_ seen her in the Winter Street store. "I asked Mr. Hatch if he remembered what store it was. He did. I also asked Mr. Hatch if such a story as the murder of Miss Melrose would be telegraphed all over the country. He said it would. It did not stand to reason that if Miss Melrose were in any city, or even on a train, she could have failed to hear of her own murder, which would instantly have called forth a denial. "Therefore, where was she? On the water, out of reach of newspapers? I went to the store in Winter Street and asked if any purchases had been sent from there to any steamer about to sail on the day following the tragedy. There had been several purchases made by a woman who answered Miss Melrose's description as I had it, and these had been sent to a steamer which sailed for Halifax. "Miss Melrose and Mr. MacLean, married then, were on that steamer. I wired to Halifax to ascertain if they were coming back immediately. They were. I waited for them. Otherwise, Mr. Hatch, I should have given you the solution of the mystery two days ago. As it was, I waited until Miss Melrose, or Mrs. MacLean, returned. I think that's all." "The letter from Miss Dow in Chicago?" Hatch reminded him. "Oh, yes," said The Thinking Machine. "That was sent to a friend in her confidence, and mailed on a specified date. As a matter of fact, she and Mason were going to New York and thence to Europe. Of course, as matters happened, the two letters--the other being the one mailed from the Monarch Inn--were sent and could not be recalled." * * * * * * This strange story was one of the most astonishing news features the American newspapers ever handled. Charles Reid was arrested, established his story beyond question, and was released. His principal witnesses were Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Jack Curtis and Mrs. Donald MacLean. THE FLAMING PHANTOM I. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, stood beside the City Editor's desk, smoking and waiting patiently for that energetic gentleman to dispose of several matters in hand. City Editors always have several matters in hand, for the profession of keeping count of the pulse-beat of the world is a busy one. Finally this City Editor emerged from a mass of other things and picked up a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled some strange hieroglyphics, these representing his interpretation of the art of writing. "Afraid of ghosts?" he asked. "Don't know," Hatch replied, smiling a little. "I never happened to meet one." "Well, this looks like a good story," the City Editor explained. "It's a haunted house. Nobody can live in it; all sorts of strange happenings, demoniacal laughter, groans and things. House is owned by Ernest Weston, a broker. Better jump down and take a look at it. If it is promising, you might spend a night in it for a Sunday story. Not afraid, are you?" "I never heard of a ghost hurting anyone," Hatch replied, still smiling a little. "If this one hurts me it will make the story better." Thus attention was attracted to the latest creepy mystery of a small town by the sea which in the past had not been wholly lacking in creepy mysteries. Within two hours Hatch was there. He readily found the old Weston house, as it was known, a two-story, solidly built frame structure, which had stood for sixty or seventy years high upon a cliff overlooking the sea, in the center of a land plot of ten or twelve acres. From a distance it was imposing, but close inspection showed that, outwardly, at least, it was a ramshackle affair. Without having questioned anyone in the village, Hatch climbed the steep cliff road to the old house, expecting to find some one who might grant him permission to inspect it. But no one appeared; a settled melancholy and gloom seemed to overspread it; all the shutters were closed forbiddingly. There was no answer to his vigorous knock on the front door, and he shook the shutters on a window without result. Then he passed around the house to the back. Here he found a door and dutifully hammered on it. Still no answer. He tried it, and passed in. He stood in the kitchen, damp, chilly and darkened by the closed shutters. One glance about this room and he went on through a back hall to the dining-room, now deserted, but at one time a comfortable and handsomely furnished place. Its hardwood floor was covered with dust; the chill of disuse was all-pervading. There was no furniture, only the litter which accumulates of its own accord. From this point, just inside the dining-room door, Hatch began a sort of study of the inside architecture of the place. To his left was a door, the butler's pantry. There was a passage through, down three steps into the kitchen he had just left. Straight before him, set in the wall, between two windows, was a large mirror, seven, possibly eight, feet tall and proportionately wide. A mirror of the same size was set in the wall at the end of the room to his left. From the dining-room he passed through a wide archway into the next room. This archway made the two rooms almost as one. This second, he presumed, had been a sort of living-room, but here, too, was nothing save accumulated litter, an old-fashioned fireplace and two long mirrors. As he entered, the fireplace was to his immediate left, one of the large mirrors was straight ahead of him and the other was to his right. Next to the mirror in the end was a passageway of a little more than usual size which had once been closed with a sliding door. Hatch went through this into the reception-hall of the old house. Here, to his right, was the main hall, connected with the reception-hall by an archway, and through this archway he could see a wide, old-fashioned stairway leading up. To his left was a door, of ordinary size, closed. He tried it and it opened. He peered into a big room beyond. This room had been the library. It smelled of books and damp wood. There was nothing here--not even mirrors. Beyond the main hall lay only two rooms, one a drawing-room of the generous proportions our old folks loved, with its gilt all tarnished and its fancy decorations covered with dust. Behind this, toward the back of the house, was a small parlor. There was nothing here to attract his attention, and he went upstairs. As he went he could see through the archway into the reception-hall as far as the library door, which he had left closed. Upstairs were four or five roomy suites. Here, too, in small rooms designed for dressing, he saw the owner's passion for mirrors again. As he passed through room after room he fixed the general arrangement of it all in his mind, and later on paper, to study it, so that, if necessary, he could leave any part of the house in the dark. He didn't know but what this might be necessary, hence his care--the same care he had evidenced downstairs. After another casual examination of the lower floor, Hatch went out the back way to the barn. This stood a couple of hundred feet back of the house and was of more recent construction. Above, reached by outside stairs, were apartments intended for the servants. Hatch looked over these rooms, but they, too, had the appearance of not having been occupied for several years. The lower part of the barn, he found, was arranged to house half a dozen horses and three or four traps. "Nothing here to frighten anybody," was his mental comment as he left the old place and started back toward the village. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. His purpose was to learn then all he could of the "ghost," and return that night for developments. He sought out the usual village bureau of information, the town constable, a grizzled old chap of sixty years, who realized his importance as the whole police department, and who had the gossip and information, more or less distorted, of several generations at his tongue's end. The old man talked for two hours--he was glad to talk--seemed to have been longing for just such a glorious opportunity as the reporter offered. Hatch sifted out what he wanted, those things which might be valuable in his story. It seemed, according to the constable, that the Weston house had not been occupied for five years, since the death of the father of Ernest Weston, present owner. Two weeks before the reporter's appearance there Ernest Weston had come down with a contractor and looked over the old place. "We understand here," said the constable, judicially, "that Mr. Weston is going to be married soon, and we kind of thought he was having the house made ready for his Summer home again." "Whom do you understand he is to marry?" asked Hatch, for this was news. "Miss Katherine Everard, daughter of Curtis Everard, a banker up in Boston," was the reply. "I know he used to go around with her before the old man died, and they say since she came out in Newport he has spent a lot of time with her." "Oh, I see," said Hatch. "They were to marry and come here?" "That's right," said the constable. "But I don't know when, since this ghost story has come up." "Oh, yes, the ghost," remarked Hatch. "Well, hasn't the work of repairing begun?" "No, not inside," was the reply. "There's been some work done on the grounds--in the daytime--but not much of that, and I kind of think it will be a long time before it's all done." "What is the spook story, anyway?" "Well," and the old constable rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It seems sort of funny. A few days after Mr. Weston was down here a gang of laborers, mostly Italians, came down to work and decided to sleep in the house--sort of camp out--until they could repair a leak in the barn and move in there. They got here late in the afternoon and didn't do much that day but move into the house, all upstairs, and sort of settle down for the night. About one o'clock they heard some sort of noise downstairs, and finally all sorts of a racket and groans and yells, and they just naturally came down to see what it was. "Then they saw the ghost. It was in the reception-hall, some of 'em said, others said it was in the library, but anyhow it was there, and the whole gang left just as fast as they knew how. They slept on the ground that night. Next day they took out their things and went back to Boston. Since then nobody here has heard from 'em." "What sort of a ghost was it?" "Oh, it was a man ghost, about nine feet high, and he was blazing from head to foot as if he was burning up," said the constable. "He had a long knife in his hand and waved it at 'em. They didn't stop to argue. They ran, and as they ran they heard the ghost a-laughing at them." "I should think he would have been amused," was Hatch's somewhat sarcastic comment. "Has anybody who lives in the village seen the ghost?" "No; we're willing to take their word for it, I suppose," was the grinning reply, "because there never was a ghost there before. I go up and look over the place every afternoon, but everything seems to be all right, and I haven't gone there at night. It's quite a way off my beat," he hastened to explain. "A man ghost with a long knife," mused Hatch. "Blazing, seems to be burning up, eh? That sounds exciting. Now, a ghost who knows his business never appears except where there has been a murder. Was there ever a murder in that house?" "When I was a little chap I heard there was a murder or something there, but I suppose if I don't remember it nobody else here does," was the old man's reply. "It happened one Winter when the Westons weren't there. There was something, too, about jewelry and diamonds, but I don't remember just what it was." "Indeed?" asked the reporter. "Yes, something about somebody trying to steal a lot of jewelry--a hundred thousand dollars' worth. I know nobody ever paid much attention to it. I just heard about it when I was a boy, and that was at least fifty years ago." "I see," said the reporter. * * * * * * That night at nine o'clock, under cover of perfect blackness, Hatch climbed the cliff toward the Weston house. At one o'clock he came racing down the hill, with frequent glances over his shoulder. His face was pallid with a fear which he had never known before and his lips were ashen. Once in his room in the village hotel Hutchinson Hatch, the nerveless young man, lighted a lamp with trembling hands and sat with wide, staring eyes until the dawn broke through the east. He had seen the flaming phantom. II. It was ten o'clock that morning when Hutchinson Hatch called on Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen--The Thinking Machine. The reporter's face was still white, showing that he had slept little, if at all. The Thinking Machine squinted at him a moment through his thick glasses, then dropped into a chair. "Well?" he queried. "I'm almost ashamed to come to you, Professor," Hatch confessed, after a minute, and there was a little embarrassed hesitation in his speech. "It's another mystery." "Sit down and tell me about it." Hatch took a seat opposite the scientist. "I've been frightened," he said at last, with a sheepish grin; "horribly, awfully frightened. I came to you to know what frightened me." "Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "What is it?" Then Hatch told him from the beginning the story of the haunted house as he knew it; how he had examined the house by daylight, just what he had found, the story of the old murder and the jewels, the fact that Ernest Weston was to be married. The scientist listened attentively. "It was nine o'clock that night when I went to the house the second time," said Hatch. "I went prepared for something, but not for what I saw." "Well, go on," said the other, irritably. "I went in while it was perfectly dark. I took a position on the stairs because I had been told the--the THING--had been seen from the stairs, and I thought that where it had been seen once it would be seen again. I had presumed it was some trick of a shadow, or moonlight, or something of the kind. So I sat waiting calmly. I am not a nervous man--that is, I never have been until now. "I took no light of any kind with me. It seemed an interminable time that I waited, staring into the reception-room in the general direction of the library. At last, as I gazed into the darkness, I heard a noise. It startled me a bit, but it didn't frighten me, for I put it down to a rat running across the floor. "But after awhile I heard the most awful cry a human being ever listened to. It was neither a moan nor a shriek--merely a--a cry. Then, as I steadied my nerves a little, a figure--a blazing, burning white figure--grew out of nothingness before my very eyes, in the reception-room. It actually grew and assembled as I looked at it." He paused, and The Thinking Machine changed his position slightly. "The figure was that of a man, apparently, I should say, eight feet high. Don't think I'm a fool--I'm not exaggerating. It was all in white and seemed to radiate a light, a ghostly, unearthly light, which, as I looked, grew brighter. I saw no face to the THING, but it had a head. Then I saw an arm raised and in the hand was a dagger, blazing as was the figure. "By this time I was a coward, a cringing, frightened coward--frightened not at what I saw, but at the weirdness of it. And then, still as I looked, the--the THING--raised the other hand, and there, in the air before my eyes, wrote with his own finger--_on the very face of the air_, mind you--one word: 'Beware!'" "Was it a man's or woman's writing?" asked The Thinking Machine. The matter-of-fact tone recalled Hatch, who was again being carried away by fear, and he laughed vacantly. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know." "Go on." "I have never considered myself a coward, and certainly I am not a child to be frightened at a thing which my reason tells me is not possible, and, despite my fright, I compelled myself to action. If the THING were a man I was not afraid of it, dagger and all; if it were not, it could do me no injury. "I leaped down the three steps to the bottom of the stairs, and while the THING stood there with upraised dagger, with one hand pointing at me, I rushed for it. I think I must have shouted, because I have a dim idea that I heard my own voice. But whether or not I did I----" Again he paused. It was a distinct effort to pull himself together. He felt like a child; the cold, squint eyes of The Thinking Machine were turned on him disapprovingly. "Then--the THING disappeared just as it seemed I had my hands on it. I was expecting a dagger thrust. Before my eyes, while I was staring at it, I suddenly saw _only half of it_. Again I heard the cry, and the other half disappeared--my hands grasped empty air. "Where the THING had been there was nothing. The impetus of my rush was such that I went right on past the spot where the THING had been, and found myself groping in the dark in a room which I didn't place for an instant. Now I know it was the library. "By this time I was mad with terror. I smashed one of the windows and went through it. Then from there, until I reached my room, I didn't stop running. I couldn't. I wouldn't have gone back to the reception-room for all the millions in the world." The Thinking Machine twiddled his fingers idly; Hatch sat gazing at him with anxious, eager inquiry in his eyes. "So when you ran and the--the THING moved away or disappeared you found yourself in the library?" The Thinking Machine asked at last. "Yes." "Therefore you must have run from the reception-room through the door into the library?" "Yes." "You left that door closed that day?" "Yes." Again there was a pause. "Smell anything?" asked The Thinking Machine. "No." "You figure that the THING, as you call it, must have been just about in the door?" "Yes." "Too bad you didn't notice the handwriting--that is, whether it seemed to be a man's or a woman's." "I think, under the circumstances, I would be excused for omitting that," was the reply. "You said you heard something that you thought must be a rat," went on The Thinking Machine. "What was this?" "I don't know." "Any squeak about it?" "No, not that I noticed." "Five years since the house was occupied," mused the scientist. "How far away is the water?" "The place overlooks the water, but it's a steep climb of three hundred yards from the water to the house." That seemed to satisfy The Thinking Machine as to what actually happened. "When you went over the house in daylight, did you notice if any of the mirrors were dusty?" he asked. "I should presume that all were," was the reply. "There's no reason why they should have been otherwise." "But you didn't notice particularly that some were not dusty?" the scientist insisted. "No. I merely noticed that they were there." The Thinking Machine sat for a long time squinting at the ceiling, then asked, abruptly: "Have you seen Mr. Weston, the owner?" "No." "See him and find out what he has to say about the place, the murder, the jewels, and all that. It would be rather a queer state of affairs if, say, a fortune in jewels should be concealed somewhere about the place, wouldn't it?" "It would," said Hatch. "It would." "Who is Miss Katherine Everard?" "Daughter of a banker here, Curtis Everard. Was a reigning belle at Newport for two seasons. She is now in Europe, I think, buying a trousseau, possibly." "Find out all about her, and what Weston has to say, then come back here," said The Thinking Machine, as if in conclusion. "Oh, by the way," he added, "look up something of the family history of the Westons. How many heirs were there? Who are they? How much did each one get? All those things. That's all." Hatch went out, far more composed and quiet than when he entered, and began the work of finding out those things The Thinking Machine had asked for, confident now that there would be a solution of the mystery. That night the flaming phantom played new pranks. The town constable, backed by half a dozen villagers, descended upon the place at midnight, to be met in the yard by the apparition in person. Again the dagger was seen; again the ghostly laughter and the awful cry were heard. "Surrender or I'll shoot," shouted the constable, nervously. A laugh was the answer, and the constable felt something warm spatter in his face. Others in the party felt it, too, and wiped their faces and hands. By the light of the feeble lanterns they carried they examined their handkerchiefs and hands. Then the party fled in awful disorder. The warmth they had felt was the warmth of blood--red blood, freshly drawn. III. Hatch found Ernest Weston at luncheon with another gentleman at one o'clock that day. This other gentleman was introduced to Hatch as George Weston, a cousin. Hatch instantly remembered George Weston for certain eccentric exploits at Newport a season or so before; and also as one of the heirs of the original Weston estate. Hatch thought he remembered, too, that at the time Miss Everard had been so prominent socially at Newport George Weston had been her most ardent suitor. It was rumored that there would have been an engagement between them, but her father objected. Hatch looked at him curiously; his face was clearly a dissipated one, yet there was about him the unmistakable polish and gentility of the well-bred man of society. Hatch knew Ernest Weston as Weston knew Hatch; they had met frequently in the ten years Hatch had been a newspaper reporter, and Weston had been courteous to him always. The reporter was in doubt as to whether to bring up the subject on which he had sought out Ernest Weston, but the broker brought it up himself, smilingly. "Well, what is it this time?" he asked, genially. "The ghost down on the South Shore, or my forthcoming marriage?" "Both," replied Hatch. Weston talked freely of his engagement to Miss Everard, which he said was to have been announced in another week, at which time she was due to return to America from Europe. The marriage was to be three or four months later, the exact date had not been set. "And I suppose the country place was being put in order as a Summer residence?" the reporter asked. "Yes. I had intended to make some repairs and changes there, and furnish it, but now I understand that a ghost has taken a hand in the matter and has delayed it. Have you heard much about this ghost story?" he asked, and there was a slight smile on his face. "I have seen the ghost," Hatch answered. "You have?" demanded the broker. George Weston echoed the words and leaned forward, with a new interest in his eyes, to listen. Hatch told them what had happened in the haunted house--all of it. They listened with the keenest interest, one as eager as the other. "By George!" exclaimed the broker, when Hatch had finished. "How do you account for it?" "I don't," said Hatch, flatly. "I can offer no possible solution. I am not a child to be tricked by the ordinary illusion, nor am I of the temperament which imagines things, but I can offer no explanation of this." "It must be a trick of some sort," said George Weston. "I was positive of that," said Hatch, "but if it is a trick, it is the cleverest I ever saw." The conversation drifted on to the old story of missing jewels and a tragedy in the house fifty years before. Now Hatch was asking questions by direction of The Thinking Machine; he himself hardly saw their purport, but he asked them. "Well, the full story of that affair, the tragedy there, would open up an old chapter in our family which is nothing to be ashamed of, of course," said the broker, frankly; "still it is something we have not paid much attention to for many years. Perhaps George here knows it better than I do. His mother, then a bride, heard the recital of the story from my grandmother." Ernest Weston and Hatch looked inquiringly at George Weston, who lighted a fresh cigarette and leaned over the table toward them. He was an excellent talker. "I've heard my mother tell of it, but it was a long time ago," he began. "It seems, though, as I remember it, that my great-grandfather, who built the house, was a wealthy man, as fortunes went in those days, worth probably a million dollars. "A part of this fortune, say about one hundred thousand dollars, was in jewels, which had come with the family from England. Many of those pieces would be of far greater value now than they were then, because of their antiquity. It was only on state occasions, I might say, when these were worn, say, once a year. "Between times the problem of keeping them safely was a difficult one, it appeared. This was before the time of safety deposit vaults. My grandfather conceived the idea of hiding the jewels in the old place down on the South Shore, instead of keeping them in the house he had in Boston. He took them there accordingly. "At this time one was compelled to travel down the South Shore, below Cohasset anyway, by stagecoach. My grandfather's family was then in the city, as it was Winter, so he made the trip alone. He planned to reach there at night, so as not to attract attention to himself, to hide the jewels about the house, and leave that same night for Boston again by a relay of horses he had arranged for. Just what happened after he left the stagecoach, below Cohasset, no one ever knew except by surmise." The speaker paused a moment and relighted his cigarette. "Next morning my great-grandfather was found unconscious and badly injured on the veranda of the house. His skull had been fractured. In the house a man was found dead. No one knew who he was; no one within a radius of many miles of the place had ever seen him. "This led to all sorts of surmises, the most reasonable of which, and the one which the family has always accepted, being that my grandfather had gone to the house in the dark, had there met some one who was stopping there that night as a shelter from the intense cold, that this man learned of the jewels, that he had tried robbery and there was a fight. "In this fight the stranger was killed inside the house, and my great-grandfather, injured, had tried to leave the house for aid. He collapsed on the veranda where he was found and died without having regained consciousness. That's all we know or can surmise reasonably about the matter." "Were the jewels ever found?" asked the reporter. "No. They were not on the dead man, nor were they in the possession of my grandfather." "It is reasonable to suppose, then, that there was a third man and that he got away with the jewels?" asked Ernest Weston. "It seemed so, and for a long time this theory was accepted. I suppose it is now, but some doubt was cast on it by the fact that only two trails-of footsteps led to the house and none out. There was a heavy snow on the ground. If none led out it was obviously impossible that anyone came out." Again there was silence. Ernest Weston sipped his coffee slowly. "It would seem from that," said Ernest Weston, at last, "that the jewels were hidden before the tragedy, and have never been found." George Weston smiled. "Off and on for twenty years the place was searched, according to my mother's story," he said. "Every inch of the cellar was dug up; every possible nook and corner was searched. Finally the entire matter passed out of the minds of those who knew of it, and I doubt if it has ever been referred to again until now." "A search even now would be almost worth while, wouldn't it?" asked the broker. George Weston laughed aloud. "It might be," he said, "but I have some doubt. A thing that was searched for for twenty years would not be easily found." So it seemed to strike the others after awhile and the matter was dropped. "But this ghost thing," said the broker, at last. "I'm interested in that. Suppose we make up a ghost party and go down to-night. My contractor declares he can't get men to work there." "I would be glad to go," said George Weston, "but I'm running over to the Vandergrift ball in Providence to-night." "How about you, Hatch?" asked the broker. "I'll go, yes," said Hatch, "as one of several," he added with a smile. "Well, then, suppose we say the constable and you and I?" asked the broker; "to-night?" "All right." After making arrangements to meet the broker later that afternoon he rushed away--away to The Thinking Machine. The scientist listened, then resumed some chemical test he was making. "Can't you go down with us to-night?" Hatch asked. "No," said the other. "I'm going to read a paper before a scientific society and prove that a chemist in Chicago is a fool. That will take me all evening." "To-morrow night?" Hatch insisted. "No--the next night." This would be on Friday night--just in time for the feature which had been planned for Sunday. Hatch was compelled to rest content with this, but he foresaw that he would have it all, with a solution. It never occurred to him that this problem, or, indeed, that any problem, was beyond the mental capacity of Professor Van Dusen. Hatch and Ernest Weston took a night train that evening, and on their arrival in the village stirred up the town constable. "Will you go with us?" was the question. "Both of you going?" was the counter-question. "Yes." "I'll go," said the constable promptly. "Ghost!" and he laughed scornfully. "I'll have him in the lockup by morning." "No shooting, now," warned Weston. "There must be somebody back of this somewhere; we understand that, but there is no crime that we know of. The worst is possibly trespassing." "I'll get him all right," responded the constable, who still remembered the experience where blood--warm blood--had been thrown in his face. "And I'm not so sure there isn't a crime." That night about ten the three men went into the dark, forbidding house and took a station on the stairs where Hatch had sat when he saw the THING--whatever it was. There they waited. The constable moved nervously from time to time, but neither of the others paid any attention to him. At last the--the THING appeared. There had been a preliminary sound as of something running across the floor, then suddenly a flaming figure of white seemed to grow into being in the reception-room. It was exactly as Hatch had described it to The Thinking Machine. Dazed, stupefied, the three men looked, looked as the figure raised a hand, pointing toward them, and wrote a word in the air--positively in the air. The finger merely waved, and there, floating before them were letters, flaming letters, in the utter darkness. This time the word was: "Death." Faintly, Hatch, fighting with a fear which again seized him, remembered that The Thinking Machine had asked him if the handwriting was that of a man or woman; now he tried to see. It was as if drawn on a blackboard, and there was a queer twist to the loop at the bottom. He sniffed to see if there was an odor of any sort. There was not. Suddenly he felt some quick, vigorous action from the constable behind him. There was a roar and a flash in his ear; he knew the constable had fired at the THING. Then came the cry and laugh--almost a laugh of derision--he had heard them before. For one instant the figure lingered and then, before their eyes, faded again into utter blackness. Where it had been was nothing--nothing. _The constable's shot had had no effect_. IV. Three deeply mystified men passed down the hill to the village from the old house. Ernest Weston, the owner, had not spoken since before the--the THING appeared there in the reception-room, or was it in the library? He was not certain--he couldn't have told. Suddenly he turned to the constable. "I told you not to shoot." "That's all right," said the constable. "I was there in my official capacity, and I shoot when I want to." "But the shot did no harm," Hatch put in. "I would swear it went right through it, too," said the constable, boastfully. "I can shoot." Weston was arguing with himself. He was a cold-blooded man of business; his mind was not one to play him tricks. Yet now he felt benumbed; he could conceive no explanation of what he had seen. Again in his room in the little hotel, where they spent the remainder of the night, he stared blankly at the reporter. "Can you imagine any way it could be done?" Hatch shook his head. "It isn't a spook, of course," the broker went on, with a nervous smile; "but--but I'm sorry I went. I don't think probably I shall have the work done there as I thought." They slept only fitfully and took an early train back to Boston. As they were about to separate at the South Station, the broker had a last word. "I'm going to solve that thing," he declared, determinedly. "I know one man at least who isn't afraid of it--or of anything else. I'm going to send him down to keep a lookout and take care of the place. His name is O'Heagan, and he's a fighting Irishman. If he and that--that--THING ever get mixed up together----" Like a schoolboy with a hopeless problem, Hatch went straight to The Thinking Machine with the latest developments. The scientist paused just long enough in his work to hear it. "Did you notice the handwriting?" he demanded. "Yes," was the reply; "so far as I _could_ notice the style of a handwriting that floated in air." "Man's or woman's?" Hatch was puzzled. "I couldn't judge," he said. "It seemed to be a bold style, whatever it was. I remember the capital D clearly." "Was it anything like the handwriting of the broker--what's-his-name?--Ernest Weston?" "I never saw his handwriting." "Look at some of it, then, particularly the capital D's," instructed The Thinking Machine. Then, after a pause: "You say the figure is white and seems to be flaming?" "Yes." "Does it give out any light? That is, does it light up a room, for instance?" "I don't quite know what you mean." "When you go into a room with a lamp," explained The Thinking Machine, "it lights the room. Does this thing do it? Can you see the floor or walls or anything by the light of the figure itself?" "No," replied Hatch, positively. "I'll go down with you to-morrow night," said the scientist, as if that were all. "Thanks," replied Hatch, and he went away. Next day about noon he called at Ernest Weston's office. The broker was in. "Did you send down your man O'Heagan?" he asked. "Yes," said the broker, and he was almost smiling. "What happened?" "He's outside. I'll let him tell you." The broker went to the door and spoke to some one and O'Heagan entered. He was a big, blue-eyed Irishman, frankly freckled and red-headed--one of those men who look trouble in the face and are glad of it if the trouble can be reduced to a fighting basis. An everlasting smile was about his lips, only now it was a bit faded. "Tell Mr. Hatch what happened last night," requested the broker. O'Heagan told it. He, too, had sought to get hold of the flaming figure. As he ran for it, it disappeared, was obliterated, wiped out, gone, and he found himself groping in the darkness of the room beyond, the library. Like Hatch, he took the nearest way out, which happened to be through a window already smashed. "Outside," he went on, "I began to think about it, and I saw there was nothing to be afraid of, but you couldn't have convinced me of that when I was inside. I took a lantern in one hand and a revolver in the other and went all over that house. There was nothing; if there had been we would have had it out right there. But there was nothing. So I started out to the barn, where I had put a cot in a room. "I went upstairs to this room--it was then about two o'clock--and went to sleep. It seemed to be an hour or so later when I awoke suddenly--I knew something was happening. And the Lord forgive me if I'm a liar, but there was a cat--a ghost cat in my room, racing around like mad. I just naturally got up to see what was the matter and rushed for the door. The cat beat me to it, and cut a flaming streak through the night. "The cat looked just like the thing inside the house--that is, it was a sort of shadowy, waving white light like it might be afire. I went back to bed in disgust, to sleep it off. You see, sir," he apologized to Weston, "that there hadn't been anything yet I could put my hands on." "Was that all?" asked Hatch, smilingly. "Just the beginning. Next morning when I awoke I was bound to my cot, hard and fast. My hands were tied and my feet were tied, and all I could do was lie there and yell. After awhile, it seemed years, I heard some one outside and shouted louder than ever. Then the constable come up and let me loose. I told him all about it--and then I came to Boston. And with your permission, Mr. Weston, I resign right now. I'm not afraid of anything I can fight, but when I can't get hold of it--well----" Later Hatch joined The Thinking Machine. They caught a train for the little village by the sea. On the way The Thinking Machine asked a few questions, but most of the time he was silent, squinting out the window. Hatch respected his silence, and only answered questions. "Did you see Ernest Weston's handwriting?" was the first of these. "Yes." "The capital D's?" "They are not unlike the one the--the THING wrote, but they are not wholly like it," was the reply. "Do you know anyone in Providence who can get some information for you?" was the next query. "Yes." "Get him by long-distance 'phone when we get to this place and let me talk to him a moment." Half an hour later The Thinking Machine was talking over the long-distance 'phone to the Providence correspondent of Hatch's paper. What he said or what he learned there was not revealed to the wondering reporter, but he came out after several minutes, only to re-enter the booth and remain for another half an hour. "Now," he said. Together they went to the haunted house. At the entrance to the grounds something else occurred to The Thinking Machine. "Run over to the 'phone and call Weston," he directed. "Ask him if he has a motor-boat or if his cousin has one. We might need one. Also find out what kind of a boat it is--electric or gasoline." Hatch returned to the village and left the scientist alone, sitting on the veranda gazing out over the sea. When Hatch returned he was still in the same position. "Well?" he asked. "Ernest Weston has no motor-boat," the reporter informed him. "George Weston has an electric, but we can't get it because it is away. Maybe I can get one somewhere else if you particularly want it." "Never mind," said The Thinking Machine. He spoke as if he had entirely lost interest in the matter. Together they started around the house to the kitchen door. "What's the next move?" asked Hatch. "I'm going to find the jewels," was the startling reply. "Find them?" Hatch repeated. "Certainly." They entered the house through the kitchen and the scientist squinted this way and that, through the reception-room, the library, and finally the back hallway. Here a closed door in the flooring led to a cellar. In the cellar they found heaps of litter. It was damp and chilly and dark. The Thinking Machine stood in the center, or as near the center as he could stand, because the base of the chimney occupied this precise spot, and apparently did some mental calculation. From that point he started around the walls, solidly built of stone, stooping and running his fingers along the stones as he walked. He made the entire circuit as Hatch looked on. Then he made it again, but this time with his hands raised above his head, feeling the walls carefully as he went. He repeated this at the chimney, going carefully around the masonry, high and low. "Dear me, dear me!" he exclaimed, petulantly. "You are taller than I am, Mr. Hatch. Please feel carefully around the top of this chimney base and see if the rocks are all solidly set." Hatch then began a tour. At last one of the great stones which made this base trembled under his hand, "It's loose," he said. "Take it out." It came out after a deal of tugging. "Put your hand in there and pull out what you find," was the next order. Hatch obeyed. He found a wooden box, about eight inches square, and handed it to The Thinking Machine. "Ah!" exclaimed that gentleman. A quick wrench caused the decaying wood to crumble. Tumbling out of the box were the jewels which had been lost for fifty years. V. Excitement, long restrained, burst from Hatch in a laugh--almost hysterical. He stooped and gathered up the fallen jewelry and handed it to The Thinking Machine, who stared at him in mild surprise. "What's the matter?" inquired the scientist. "Nothing," Hatch assured him, but again he laughed. The heavy stone which had been pulled out of place was lifted up and forced back into position, and together they returned to the village, with the long-lost jewelry loose in their pockets. "How did you do it?" asked Hatch. "Two and two always make four," was the enigmatic reply. "It was merely a sum in addition." There was a pause as they walked on, then: "Don't say anything about finding this, or even hint at it in any way, until you have my permission to do so." Hatch had no intention of doing so. In his mind's eye he saw a story, a great, vivid, startling story spread all over his newspaper about flaming phantoms and treasure trove--$100,000 in jewels. It staggered him. Of course he would say nothing about it--even hint at it, yet. But when he did say something about it----! In the village The Thinking Machine found the constable. "I understand some blood was thrown on you at the Weston place the other night?" "Yes. Blood--warm blood." "You wiped it off with your handkerchief?" "Yes." "Have you the handkerchief?" "I suppose I might get it," was the doubtful reply. "It might have gone into the wash." "Astute person," remarked The Thinking Machine. "There might have been a crime and you throw away the one thing which would indicate it--the blood stains." The constable suddenly took notice. "By ginger!" he said. "Wait here and I'll go see if I can find it." He disappeared and returned shortly with the handkerchief. There were half a dozen blood stains on it, now dark brown. The Thinking Machine dropped into the village drug store and had a short conversation with the owner, after which he disappeared into the compounding room at the back and remained for an hour or more--until darkness set in. Then he came out and joined Hatch, who, with the constable, had been waiting. The reporter did not ask any questions, and The 'Thinking Machine volunteered no information. "Is it too late for anyone to get down from Boston to-night?" he asked the constable. "No. He could take the eight o'clock train and be here about half-past nine." "Mr. Hatch, will you wire to Mr. Weston--Ernest Weston--and ask him to come to-night, sure. Impress on him the fact that it is a matter of the greatest importance." Instead of telegraphing, Hatch went to the telephone and spoke to Weston at his club. The trip would interfere with some other plans, the broker explained, but he would come. The Thinking Machine had meanwhile been conversing with the constable and had given some sort of instructions which evidently amazed that official exceedingly, for he kept repeating "By ginger!" with considerable fervor. "And not one word or hint of it to anyone," said The Thinking Machine. "Least of all to the members of your family." "By ginger!" was the response, and the constable went to supper. The Thinking Machine and Hatch had their supper thoughtfully that evening in the little village "hotel." Only once did Hatch break this silence. "You told me to see Weston's handwriting," he said. "Of course you knew he was with the constable and myself when we saw the THING, therefore it would have been impossible----" "Nothing is impossible," broke in The Thinking Machine. "Don't say that, please." "I mean that, as he was with us----" "We'll end the ghost story to-night," interrupted the scientist. Ernest Weston arrived on the nine-thirty train and had a long, earnest conversation with The Thinking Machine, while Hatch was permitted to cool his toes in solitude. At last they joined the reporter. "Take a revolver by all means," instructed The Thinking Machine. "Do you think that necessary?" asked Weston. "It is--absolutely," was the emphatic response. Weston left them after awhile. Hatch wondered where he had gone, but no information was forthcoming. In a general sort of way he knew that The Thinking Machine was to go to the haunted house, but he didn't know then; he didn't even know if he was to accompany him. At last they started, The Thinking Machine swinging a hammer he had borrowed from his landlord. The night was perfectly black, even the road at their feet was invisible. They stumbled frequently as they walked on up the cliff toward the house, dimly standing out against the sky. They entered by way of the kitchen, passed through to the stairs in the main hall, and there Hatch indicated in the darkness the spot from which he had twice seen the flaming phantom. "You go in the drawing-room behind here," The Thinking Machine instructed. "Don't make any noise whatever." For hours they waited, neither seeing the other. Hatch heard his heart thumping heavily; if only he could see the other man; with an effort he recovered from a rapidly growing nervousness and waited, waited. The Thinking Machine sat perfectly rigid on the stair, the hammer in his right hand, squinting steadily through the darkness. At last he heard a noise, a slight nothing; it might almost have been his imagination. It was as if something had glided across the floor, and he was more alert than ever. Then came the dread misty light in the reception-hall, or was it in the library? He could not say. But he looked, looked, with every sense alert. Gradually the light grew and spread, a misty whiteness which was unmistakably light, but which did not illuminate anything around it. The Thinking Machine saw it without the tremor of a nerve; saw the mistiness grow more marked in certain places, saw these lines gradually grow into the figure of a person, a person who was the center of a white light. Then the mistiness fell away and The Thinking Machine saw the outline in bold relief. It was that of a tall figure, clothed in a robe, with head covered by a sort of hood, also luminous. As The Thinking Machine looked he saw an arm raised, and in the hand he saw a dagger. The attitude of the figure was distinctly a threat. And yet The Thinking Machine had not begun to grow nervous; he was only interested. As he looked, the other hand of the apparition was raised and seemed to point directly at him. It moved through the air in bold sweeps, and The Thinking Machine saw the word "Death," written in air luminously, swimming before his eyes. Then he blinked incredulously. There came a wild, demoniacal shriek of laughter from somewhere. Slowly, slowly the scientist crept down the steps in his stocking feet, slick as the apparition itself, with the hammer still in his hand. He crept on, on toward the figure. Hatch, not knowing the movements of The Thinking Machine, stood waiting for something, he didn't know what. Then the thing he had been waiting for happened. There was a sudden loud clatter as of broken glass, the phantom and writing faded, crumbled up, disappeared, and somewhere in the old house there was the hurried sound of steps. At last the reporter heard his name called quietly. It was The Thinking Machine. "Mr. Hatch, come here." The reporter started, blundering through the darkness toward the point whence the voice had come. Some irresistible thing swept down upon him; a crashing blow descended on his head, vivid lights flashed before his eyes; he fell. After awhile, from a great distance, it seemed, he heard faintly a pistol shot. VI. When Hatch fully recovered consciousness it was with the flickering light of a match in his eyes--a match in the hand of The Thinking Machine, who squinted anxiously at him as he grasped his left wrist. Hatch, instantly himself again, sat up suddenly. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "How's your head?" came the answering question. "Oh," and Hatch suddenly recalled those incidents which had immediately preceded the crash on his head. "Oh, it's all right, my head, I mean. What happened?" "Get up and come along," requested The Thinking Machine, tartly. "There's a man shot down here." Hatch arose and followed the slight figure of the scientist through the front door, and toward the water. A light glimmered down near the water and was dimly reflected; above, the clouds had cleared somewhat and the moon was struggling through. "What hit me, anyhow?" Hatch demanded, as they went. He rubbed his head ruefully. "The ghost," said the scientist. "I think probably he has a bullet in him now--the ghost." Then the figure of the town constable separated itself from the night and approached. "Who's that?" "Professor Van Dusen and Mr. Hatch." "Mr. Weston got him all right," said the constable, and there was satisfaction in his tone. "He tried to come out the back way, but I had that fastened, as you told me, and he came through the front way. Mr. Weston tried to stop him, and he raised the knife to stick him; then Mr. Weston shot. It broke his arm, I think. Mr. Weston is down there with him now." The Thinking Machine turned to the reporter. "Wait here for me, with the constable," he directed. "If the man is hurt he needs attention. I happen to be a doctor; I can aid him. Don't come unless I call." For a long while the constable and the reporter waited. The constable talked, talked with all the bottled-up vigor of days. Hatch listened impatiently; he was eager to go down there where The Thinking Machine and Weston and the phantom were. After half an hour the light disappeared, then he heard the swift, quick churning of waters, a sound as of a powerful motor-boat manoeuvering, and a long body shot out on the waters. "All right down there?" Hatch called. "All right," came the response. There was again silence, then Ernest Weston and The Thinking Machine came up. "Where is the other man?" asked Hatch. "The ghost--where is he?" echoed the constable. "He escaped in the motor-boat," replied Mr. Weston, easily. "Escaped?" exclaimed Hatch and the constable together. "Yes, escaped," repeated The Thinking Machine, irritably. "Mr. Hatch, let's go to the hotel." Struggling with a sense of keen disappointment, Hatch followed the other two men silently. The constable walked beside him, also silent. At last they reached the hotel and bade the constable, a sadly puzzled, bewildered and crestfallen man, goodnight. "By ginger!" he remarked, as he walked away into the dark. Upstairs the three men sat, Hatch impatiently waiting to hear the story. Weston lighted a cigarette and lounged back; The Thinking Machine sat with finger tips pressed together, studying the ceiling. "Mr. Weston, you understand, of course, that I came into this thing to aid Mr. Hatch?" he asked. "Certainly," was the response. "I will only ask a favor of him when you conclude." The Thinking Machine changed his position slightly, readjusted his thick glasses for a long, comfortable squint, and told the story, from the beginning, as he always told a story. Here it is: "Mr. Hatch came to me in a state of abject, cringing fear and told me of the mystery. It would be needless to go over his examination of the house, and all that. It is enough to say that he noted and told me of four large mirrors in the dining-room and living-room of the house; that he heard and brought to me the stories in detail of a tragedy in the old house and missing jewels, valued at a hundred thousand dollars, or more. "He told me of his trip to the house that night, and of actually seeing the phantom. I have found in the past that Mr. Hatch is a cool, level-headed young man, not given to imagining things which are not there, and controls himself well. Therefore I knew that anything of charlatanism must be clever, exceedingly clever, to bring about such a condition of mind in him. "Mr. Hatch saw, as others had seen, the figure of a phantom in the reception-room near the door of the library, or in the library near the door of the reception-room, he couldn't tell exactly. He knew it was near the door. Preceding the appearance of the figure he heard a slight noise which he attributed to a rat running across the floor. Yet the house had not been occupied for five years. Rodents rarely remain in a house--I may say never--for that long if it is uninhabited. Therefore what was this noise? A noise made by the apparition itself? How? "Now, there is only one white light of the kind Mr. Hatch described known to science. It seems almost superfluous to name it. It is phosphorus, compounded with Fuller's earth and glycerine and one or two other chemicals, so it will not instantly flame as it does in the pure state when exposed to air. Phosphorus has a very pronounced odor if one is within, say, twenty feet of it. Did Mr. Hatch smell anything? No. "Now, here we have several facts, these being that the apparition in appearing made a slight noise; that phosphorus was the luminous quality; that Mr. Hatch did not smell phosphorus even when he ran through the spot where the phantom had appeared. Two and two make four; Mr. Hatch saw phosphorus, passed through the spot where he had seen it, but did not smell it, therefore it was not there. It was a reflection he saw--a reflection of phosphorus. So far, so good. "Mr. Hatch saw a finger lifted and write a luminous word in the air. Again he did not actually see this; he saw a reflection of it. This first impression of mine was substantiated by the fact that when he rushed for the phantom a part of it disappeared, first half of it, he said--then the other half. So his extended hands grasped only air. "Obviously those reflections had been made on something, probably a mirror as the most perfect ordinary reflecting surface. Yet he actually passed through the spot where he had seen the apparition and had not struck a mirror. He found himself in another room, the library, having gone through a door which, that afternoon, he had himself closed. He did not open it then. "Instantly a sliding mirror suggested itself to me to fit all these conditions. He saw the apparition in the door, then saw only half of it, then all of it disappeared. He passed through the spot where it had been. All of this would have happened easily if a large mirror, working as a sliding door, and hidden in the wall, were there. Is it clear?" "Perfectly," said Mr. Weston. "Yes," said Hatch, eagerly. "Go on." "This sliding mirror, too, might have made the noise which Mr. Hatch imagined was a rat. Mr. Hatch had previously told me of four large mirrors in the living- and dining-rooms. With these, from the position in which he said they were, I readily saw how the reflection could have been made. "In a general sort of way, in my own mind, I had accounted for the phantom. Why was it there? This seemed a more difficult problem. It was possible that it had been put there for amusement, but I did not wholly accept this. Why? Partly because no one had ever heard of it until the Italian workmen went there. Why did it appear just at the moment they went to begin the work Mr. Weston had ordered? Was it the purpose to keep the workmen away? "These questions arose in my mind in order. Then, as Mr. Hatch had told me of a tragedy in the house and hidden jewels, I asked him to learn more of these. I called his attention to the fact that it would be a queer circumstance if these jewels were still somewhere in the old house. Suppose some one who knew of their existence were searching for them, believed he could find them, and wanted something which would effectually drive away any inquiring persons, tramps or villagers, who might appear there at night. A ghost? Perhaps. "Suppose some one wanted to give the old house such a reputation that Mr. Weston would not care to undertake the work of repair and refurnishing. A ghost? Again perhaps. In a shallow mind this ghost might have been interpreted even as an effort to prevent the marriage of Miss Everard and Mr. Weston. Therefore Mr. Hatch was instructed to get all the facts possible about you, Mr. Weston, and members of your family. I reasoned that members of your own family would be more likely to know of the lost jewels than anyone else after a lapse of fifty years. "Well, what Mr. Hatch learned from you and your cousin, George Weston, instantly, in my mind, established a motive for the ghost. It was, as I had supposed possible, an effort to drive workmen away, perhaps only for a time, while a search was made for the jewels. The old tragedy in the house was a good pretext to hang a ghost on. A clever mind conceived it and a clever mind put it into operation. "Now, what one person knew most about the jewels? Your cousin George, Mr. Weston. Had he recently acquired any new information as to these jewels? I didn't know. I thought it possible. Why? On his own statement that his mother, then a bride, got the story of the entire affair direct from his grandmother, who remembered more of it than anybody else--who might even have heard his grandfather say where he intended hiding the jewels." The Thinking Machine paused for a little while, shifted his position, then went on: "George Weston refused to go with you, Mr. Weston, and Mr. Hatch, to the ghost party, as you called it, because he said he was going to a ball in Providence that night. He did not go to Providence; I learned that from your correspondent there, Mr. Hatch; so George Weston might, possibly, have gone to the ghost party after all. "After I looked over the situation down there it occurred to me that the most feasible way for a person, who wished to avoid being seen in the village, as the perpetrator of the ghost did, was to go to and from the place at night in a motor-boat. He could easily run in the dark and land at the foot of the cliff, and no soul in the village would be any the wiser. Did George Weston have a motor-boat? Yes, an electric, which runs almost silently. "From this point the entire matter was comparatively simple. I _knew_--the pure logic of it told me--how the ghost was made to appear and disappear; one look at the house inside convinced me beyond all doubt. I knew the motive for the ghost--a search for the jewels. I knew, or thought I knew, the name of the man who was seeking the jewels; the man who had fullest knowledge and fullest opportunity, the man whose brain was clever enough to devise the scheme. Then, the next step to prove what I knew. The first thing to do was to find the jewels." "Find the jewels?" Weston repeated, with a slight smile. "Here they are," said The Thinking Machine, quietly. And there, before the astonished eyes of the broker, he drew out the gems which had been lost for fifty years. Mr. Weston was not amazed; he was petrified with astonishment and sat staring at the glittering heap in silence. Finally he recovered his voice. "How did you do it?" he demanded. "Where?" "I used my brain, that's all," was the reply. "I went into the old house seeking them where the owner, under all conditions, would have been most likely to hide them, and there I found them." "But--but----" stammered the broker. "The man who hid these jewels hid them only temporarily, or at least that was his purpose," said The Thinking Machine, irritably. "Naturally he would not hide them in the woodwork of the house, because that might burn; he did not bury them in the cellar, because that has been carefully searched. Now, in that house there is nothing except woodwork and chimneys above the cellar. Yet he hid them in the house, proven by the fact that the man he killed was killed in the house, and that the outside ground, covered with snow, showed two sets of tracks into the house and none out. Therefore he did hide them in the cellar. Where? In the stonework. There was no other place. "Naturally he would not hide them on a level with the eye, because the spot where he took out and replaced a stone would be apparent if a close search were made. He would, therefore, place them either above or below the eye level. He placed them above. A large loose stone in the chimney was taken out and there was the box with these things." Mr. Weston stared at The Thinking Machine with a new wonder and admiration in his eyes. "With the jewels found and disposed of, there remained only to prove the ghost theory by an actual test. I sent for you, Mr. Weston, because I thought possibly, as no actual crime had been committed, it would be better to leave the guilty man to you. When you came I went into the haunted house with a hammer--an ordinary hammer--and waited on the steps. "At last the ghost laughed and appeared. I crept down the steps where I was sitting in my stocking feet. I knew what it was. Just when I reached the luminous phantom I disposed of it for all time by smashing it with a hammer. It shattered a large sliding mirror which ran in the door inside the frame, as I had thought. The crash startled the man who operated the ghost from the top of a box, giving it the appearance of extreme height, and he started out through the kitchen, as he had entered. The constable had barred that door after the man entered; therefore the ghost turned and came toward the front door of the house. There he ran into and struck down Mr. Hatch, and ran out through the front door, which I afterwards found was not securely fastened. You know the rest of it; how you found the motor-boat and waited there for him; how he came there, and----" "Tried to stab me," Weston supplied. "I had to shoot to save myself." "Well, the wound is trivial," said The Thinking Machine. "His arm will heal up in a little while. I think then, perhaps, a little trip of four or five years in Europe, at your expense, in return for the jewels, might restore him to health." "I was thinking of that myself," said the broker, quietly. "Of course, I couldn't prosecute." "The ghost, then, was----?" Hatch began. "George Weston, my cousin," said the broker. "There are some things in this story which, I hope you may see fit to leave unsaid, if you can do so with justice to yourself." Hatch considered it. "I think there are," he said, finally, and he turned to The Thinking Machine. "Just where was the man who operated the phantom?" "In the dining-room, beside the butler's pantry," was the reply. "With that pantry door closed he put on the robe already covered with phosphorus, and merely stepped out. The figure was reflected in the tall mirror directly in front, as you enter the dining-room from the back, from there reflected to the mirror on the opposite wall in the living-room, and thence reflected to the sliding mirror in the door which led from the reception-hall to the library. This is the one I smashed." "And how was the writing done?" "Oh, that? Of course that was done by reversed writing on a piece of clear glass held before the apparition as he posed. This made it read straight to anyone who might see the last reflection in the reception-hall." "And the blood thrown on the constable and the others when the ghost was in the yard?" Hatch went on. "Was from a dog. A test I made in the drug store showed that. It was a desperate effort to drive the villagers away and keep them away. The ghost cat and the tying of the watchman to his bed were easily done." All sat silent for a time. At length Mr. Weston arose, thanked the scientist for the recovery of the jewels, bade them all goodnight and was about to go out. Mechanically Hatch was following. At the door he turned back for the last question. "How was it that the shot the constable fired didn't break the mirror?" "Because he was nervous and the bullet struck the door beside the mirror," was the reply. "I dug it out with a knife. Good-night." THE I. With expert fingers Phillip Dunston, receiving teller, verified the last package of one-hundred-dollar bills he had made up--ten thousand dollars in all--and tossed it over on the pile beside him, while he checked off a memorandum. It was correct; there were eighteen packages of bills, containing $107,231. Then he took the bundles, one by one, and on each placed his initials, "P. D." This was a system of checking in the Ralston National Bank. It was care in such trivial details, perhaps, that had a great deal to do with the fact that the Ralston National had advanced from a small beginning to the first rank of those banks which were financial powers. President Quinton Fraser had inaugurated the system under which the Ralston National had so prospered, and now, despite his seventy-four years, he was still its active head. For fifty years he had been in its employ; for thirty-five years of that time he had been its president. Publicly the aged banker was credited with the possession of a vast fortune, this public estimate being based on large sums he had given to charity. But as a matter of fact the private fortune of the old man, who had no one to share it save his wife, was not large; it was merely a comfortable living sum for an aged couple of simple tastes. Dunston gathered up the packages of money and took them into the cashier's private office, where he dumped them on the great flat-top desk at which that official, Randolph West, sat figuring. The cashier thrust the sheet of paper on which he had been working into his pocket and took the memorandum which Dunston offered. "All right?" he asked. "It tallies perfectly," Dunston replied. "Thanks. You may go now." It was an hour after closing time. Dunston was just pulling on his coat when he saw West come out of his private office with the money to put it away in the big steel safe which stood between depositors and thieves. The cashier paused a moment to allow the janitor, Harris, to sweep the space in front of the safe. It was the late afternoon scrubbing and sweeping. "Hurry up," the cashier complained, impatiently. Harris hurried, and West placed the money in the safe. There were eighteen packages. "All right, sir?" Dunston inquired. "Yes." West was disposing of the last bundle when Miss Clarke--Louise Clarke--private secretary to President Fraser, came out of his office with a long envelope in her hand. Dunston glanced at her and she smiled at him. "Please, Mr. West," she said to the cashier, "Mr. Fraser told me before he went to put these papers in the safe. I had almost forgotten." She glanced into the open safe and her pretty blue eyes opened wide. Mr. West took the envelope, stowed it away with the money without a word, the girl looking on interestedly, and then swung the heavy door closed. She turned away with a quick, reassuring smile at Dunston, and disappeared inside the private office. West had shot the bolts of the safe into place and had taken hold of the combination dial to throw it on, when the street door opened and President Fraser entered hurriedly. "Just a moment, West," he called. "Did Miss Clarke give you an envelope to go in there?" "Yes. I just put it in." "One moment," and the aged president came through a gate which Dunston held open and went to the safe. The cashier pulled the steel door open, unlocked the money compartment where the envelope had been placed, and the president took it out. West turned and spoke to Dunston, leaving the president looking over the contents of the envelope. When the cashier turned back to the safe the president was just taking his hand away from his inside coat pocket. "It's all right, West," he instructed. "Lock it up." Again the heavy door closed, the bolts were shot and the combination dial turned. President Fraser stood looking on curiously; it just happened that he had never witnessed this operation before. "How much have you got in there to-night?" he asked. "One hundred and twenty-nine thousand," replied the cashier. "And all the securities, of course." "Hum," mused the president. "That would be a good haul for some one--if they could get it, eh, West?" and he chuckled dryly. "Excellent," returned West, smilingly. "But they can't." Miss Clarke, dressed for the street, her handsome face almost concealed by a veil which was intended to protect her pink cheeks from boisterous winds, was standing in the door of the president's office. "Oh, Miss Clarke, before you go, would you write just a short note for me?" asked the president. "Certainly," she responded, and she returned to the private office. Mr. Fraser followed her. West and Dunston stood outside the bank railing, Dunston waiting for Miss Clarke. Every evening he walked over to the subway with her. His opinion of her was an open secret. West was waiting for the janitor to finish sweeping. "Hurry up, Harris," he said again. "Yes, sir," came the reply, and the janitor applied the broom more vigorously. "Just a little bit more. I've finished inside." Dunston glanced through the railing. The floor was spick and span and the hardwood glistened cleanly. Various bits of paper came down the corridor before Harris's broom. The janitor swept it all up into a dustpan just as Miss Clarke came out of the president's room. With Dunston she walked up the street. As they were going they saw Cashier West come out the front door, with his handkerchief in his hand, and then walk away rapidly. "Mr. Fraser is doing some figuring," Miss Clarke explained to Dunston. "He said he might be there for another hour." "You are beautiful," replied Dunston, irrelevantly. * * * * * * These, then, were the happenings in detail in the Ralston National Bank from 4:15 o'clock on the afternoon of November 11. That night the bank was robbed. The great steel safe which was considered impregnable was blown and $129,000 was missing. The night watchman of the bank, William Haney, was found senseless, bound and gagged, inside the bank. His revolver lay beside him with all the cartridges out. He had been beaten into insensibility; at the hospital it was stated that there was only a bare chance of his recovery. The locks, hinges and bolts of the steel safe had been smashed by some powerful explosive, possibly nitro-glycerine. The tiny dial of the time-lock showed that the explosion came at 2:39; the remainder of the lock was blown to pieces. Thus was fixed definitely the moment at which the robbery occurred. It was shown that the policeman on the beat had been four blocks away. It was perfectly possible that no one heard the explosion, because the bank was situated in a part of the city wholly given over to business and deserted at night. The burglars had entered the building through a window of the cashier's private office, in the full glare of an electric light. The window sash here had been found unfastened and the protecting steel bars, outside from top to bottom, seemed to have been dragged from their sockets in the solid granite. The granite crumbled away, as if it had been chalk. Only one possible clew was found. This was a white linen handkerchief, picked up in front of the blown safe. It must have been dropped there at the time of the burglary, because Dunston distinctly recalled it was not there before he left the bank. He would have noticed it while the janitor was sweeping. This handkerchief was the property of Cashier West. The cashier did not deny it, but could offer no explanation of how it came there. Miss Clarke and Dunston both said that they had seen him leave the bank with a handkerchief in his hand. II. President Fraser reached the bank at ten o'clock and was informed of the robbery. He retired to his office, and there he sat, apparently stunned into inactivity by the blow, his head bowed on his arms. Miss Clarke, at her typewriter, frequently glanced at the aged figure with an expression of pity on her face. Her eyes seemed weary, too. Outside, through the closed door, they could hear the detectives. From time to time employees of the bank and detectives entered the office to ask questions. The banker answered as if dazed; then the board of directors met and voted to personally make good the loss sustained. There was no uneasiness among depositors, because they knew the resources of the bank were practically unlimited. Cashier West was not arrested. The directors wouldn't listen to such a thing; he had been cashier for eighteen years, and they trusted him implicitly. Yet he could offer no possible explanation of how his handkerchief had come there. He asserted stoutly that he had not been in the bank from the moment Miss Clarke and Dunston saw him leave it. After investigation the police placed the burglary to the credit of certain expert cracksmen, identity unknown. A general alarm, which meant a rounding up of all suspicious persons, was sent out, and this drag-net was expected to bring important facts to light. Detective Mallory said so, and the bank officials placed great reliance on his word. Thus the situation at the luncheon hour. Then Miss Clarke, who, wholly unnoticed, had been waiting all morning at her typewriter, arose and went over to Fraser. "If you don't need me now," she said, "I'll run out to luncheon." "Certainly, certainly," he responded, with a slight start. He had apparently forgotten her existence. She stood silently looking at him for a moment. "I'm awfully sorry," she said, at last, and her lips trembled slightly. "Thanks," said the banker, and he smiled faintly. "It's a shock, the worst I ever had." Miss Clarke passed out with quiet tread, pausing for a moment in the outer office to stare curiously at the shattered steel safe. The banker arose with sudden determination and called to West, who entered immediately. "I know a man who can throw some light on this thing," said Fraser, positively. "I think I'll ask him to come over and take a look. It might aid the police, anyway. You may know him? Professor Van Dusen." "Never heard of him," said West, tersely, "but I'll welcome anybody who can solve it. My position is uncomfortable." President Fraser called Professor Van Dusen--The Thinking Machine--and talked for a moment through the 'phone. Then he turned back to West. "He'll come," he said, with an air of relief. "I was able to do him a favor once by putting an invention on the market." Within an hour The Thinking Machine, accompanied by Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, appeared. President Fraser knew the scientist well, but on West the strange figure made a startling, almost uncanny, impression. Every known fact was placed before The Thinking Machine. He listened without comment, then arose and wandered aimlessly about the offices. The employees were amused by his manner; Hatch was a silent looker-on. "Where was the handkerchief found?" demanded The Thinking Machine, at last. "Here," replied West, and he indicated the exact spot. "Any draught through the office--ever?" "None. We have a patent ventilating system which prevents that." The Thinking Machine squinted for several minutes at the window which had been unfastened--the window in the cashier's private room--with the steel bars guarding it, now torn out of their sockets, and at the chalklike softness of the granite about the sockets. After awhile he turned to the president and cashier. "Where is the handkerchief?" "In my desk," Fraser replied. "The police thought it of no consequence, save, perhaps--perhaps----," and he looked at West. "Except that it might implicate me," said West, hotly. "Tut, tut, tut," said Fraser, reprovingly. "No one thinks for a----" "Well, well, the handkerchief?" interrupted The Thinking Machine, in annoyance. "Come into my office," suggested the president. The Thinking Machine started in, saw a woman--Miss Clarke, who had returned from luncheon--and stopped. There was one thing on earth he was afraid of--a woman. "Bring it out here," he requested. President Fraser brought it and placed it in the slender hands of the scientist, who examined it closely by a window, turning it over and over. At last he sniffed at it. There was the faint, clinging odor of violet perfume. Then abruptly, irrelevantly, he turned to Fraser. "How many women employed in the bank?" he asked. "Three," was the reply; "Miss Clarke, who is my secretary, and two general stenographers in the outer office." "How many men?" "Fourteen, including myself." If the president and Cashier West had been surprised at the actions of The Thinking Machine up to this point, now they were amazed. He thrust the handkerchief at Hatch, took his own handkerchief, briskly scrubbed his hands with it, and also passed that to Hatch. "Keep those," he commanded. He sniffed at his hands, then walked into the outer office, straight toward the desk of one of the young women stenographers. He leaned over her, and asked one question: "What system of shorthand do you write?" "Pitman," was the astonished reply. The scientist sniffed. Yes, it was unmistakably a sniff. He left her suddenly and went to the other stenographer. Precisely the same thing happened; standing close to her he asked one question, and at her answer sniffed. Miss Clarke passed through the outer office to mail a letter. She, too, had to answer the question as the scientist squinted into her eyes, and sniffed. "Ah," he said, at her answer. Then from one to another of the employees of the bank he went, asking each a few questions. By this time a murmur of amusement was running through the office. Finally The Thinking Machine approached the cage in which sat Dunston, the receiving teller. The young man was bent over his work, absorbed. "How long have you been employed here?" asked the scientist, suddenly. Dunston started and glanced around quickly. "Five years," he responded. "It must be hot work," said The Thinking Machine. "You're perspiring." "Am I?" inquired the young man, smilingly. He drew a crumpled handkerchief from his hip pocket, shook it out, and wiped his forehead. "Ah!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine, suddenly. He had caught the faint, subtle perfume of violets--an odor identical with that on the handkerchief found in front of the safe. III. The Thinking Machine led the way back to the private office of the cashier, with President Fraser, Cashier West and Hatch following. "Is it possible for anyone to overhear us here?" he asked. "No," replied the president. "The directors meet here." "Could anyone outside hear that, for instance?" and with a sudden sweep of his hand he upset a heavy chair. "I don't know," was the astonished reply. "Why?" The Thinking Machine went quickly to the door, opened it softly and peered out. Then he closed the door again. "I suppose I may speak with absolute frankness?" he inquired. "Certainly," responded the old banker, almost startled. "Certainly." "You have presented an abstract problem," The Thinking Machine went on, "and I presume you want a solution of it, no matter where it hits?" "Certainly," the president again assured him, but his tone expressed a grave, haunting fear. "In that case," and The Thinking Machine turned to the reporter, "Mr. Hatch, I want you to ascertain several things for me. First, I want to know if Miss Clarke uses or has ever used violet perfume--if so, when she ceased using it." "Yes," said the reporter. The bank officials exchanged wondering looks. "Also, Mr. Hatch," and the scientist squinted with his strange eyes straight into the face of the cashier, "go to the home of Mr. West, here, see for yourself his laundry mark, and ascertain beyond any question if he has ever, or any member of his family has ever, used violet perfume." The cashier flushed suddenly. "I can answer that," he said, hotly. "No." "I knew you would say that," said The Thinking Machine, curtly. "Please don't interrupt. Do as I say, Mr. Hatch." Accustomed as he was to the peculiar methods of this man, Hatch saw faintly the purpose of the inquiries. "And the receiving teller?" he asked. "I know about him," was the reply. Hatch left the room, closing the door behind him. He heard the bolt shot in the lock as he started away. "I think it only fair to say here, Professor Van Dusen," explained the president, "that we understand thoroughly that it would have been impossible for Mr. West to have had anything to do with or know----" "Nothing is impossible," interrupted The Thinking Machine. "But I won't----" began West, angrily. "Just a moment, please," said The Thinking Machine. "No one has accused you of anything. What I am doing may explain to your satisfaction just how your handkerchief came here and bring about the very thing I suppose you want--exoneration." The cashier sank back into a chair; President Fraser looked from one to the other. Where there had been worry on his face there was now only wonderment. "Your handkerchief was found in this office, apparently having been dropped by the persons who blew the safe," and the long, slender fingers of The Thinking Machine were placed tip to tip as he talked. "It was not there the night before. The janitor who swept says so; Dunston, who happened to look, says so--; Miss Clarke and Dunston both say they saw you with a handkerchief as you left the bank. Therefore, that handkerchief reached that spot after you left and before the robbery was discovered." The cashier nodded. "You say you don't use perfume; that no one in your family uses it. If Mr. Hatch verifies this, it will help to exonerate you. But some person who handled that handkerchief after it left your possession and before it appeared, here did use perfume. Now who was that person? Who would have had an opportunity? "We may safely dismiss the possibility that you lost the handkerchief, that it fell into the hands of burglars, that those burglars used perfume, that they brought it to your bank--your own bank, mind you!--and left it. The series of coincidences necessary to bring that about would not have occurred once in a million times." The Thinking Machine sat silent for several minutes, squinting steadily at the ceiling. "If it had been lost anywhere, in the laundry, say, the same rule of coincidence I have just applied would almost eliminate it. Therefore, because of an opportunity to get that handkerchief, we will assume--there is--there must be--some one employed in this bank who had some connection with or actually participated in the burglary." The Thinking Machine spoke with perfect quiet, but the effect was electrical. The aged president staggered to his feet and stood staring at him dully; again the flush of crimson came into the face of the cashier. "Some one," The Thinking Machine went on, evenly, "who either found the handkerchief and unwittingly lost it at the time of the burglary, or else stole it and deliberately left it. As I said, Mr. West seems eliminated. Had he been one of the robbers, he would not wittingly have left his handkerchief; we will still assume that he does not use perfume, therefore personally did not drop the handkerchief where it was found." "Impossible! I can't believe it, and of my employees----" began Mr. Fraser. "Please don't keep saying things are impossible," snapped The Thinking Machine. "It irritates me exceedingly. It all comes to the one vital question: Who in the bank uses perfume?" "I don't know," said the two officials. "I do," said The Thinking Machine. "There are two--only two, Dunston, your receiving teller, and Miss Clarke." "But they----" "Dunston uses a violet perfume not _like_ that on the handkerchief, but _identical_ with it," The Thinking Machine went on. "Miss Clarke uses a strong rose perfume." "But those two persons, above all others in the bank, I trust implicitly," said Mr. Fraser, earnestly. "And, besides, they wouldn't know how to blow a safe. The police tell me this was the work of experts." "Have you, Mr. Fraser, attempted to raise, or have you raised lately, any large sum of money?" asked the scientist, suddenly. "Well, yes," said the banker, "I have. For a week past I have tried to raise ninety thousand dollars on my personal account." "And you, Mr. West?" The face of the cashier flushed slightly--it might have been at the tone of the question--and there was the least pause. "No," he answered finally. "Very well," and the scientist arose, rubbing his hands; "now we'll search your employees." "What?" exclaimed both men. Then Mr. Fraser added: "That would be the height of absurdity; it would never do. Besides, any person who robbed the bank would not carry proofs of the robbery, or even any of the money about with them--to the bank, above all places." "The bank would be the safest place for it," retorted The Thinking Machine. "It is perfectly possible that a thief in your employ would carry some of the money; indeed, it is doubtful if he would dare do anything else with it. He could see you would have no possible reason for suspecting anyone here--unless it is Mr. West." There was a pause. "I'll do the searching, except the three ladies, of course," he added, blushingly. "With them each combination of two can search the other one." Mr. Fraser and Mr. West conversed in low tones for several minutes. "If the employees will consent I am willing," Mr. Fraser explained, at last; "although I see no use of it." "They will agree," said The Thinking Machine. "Please call them all into this office." Among some confusion and wonderment the three women and fourteen men of the bank were gathered in the cashier's office, the outer doors being locked. The Thinking Machine addressed them with characteristic terseness. "In the investigation of the burglary of last night," he explained, "it has been deemed necessary to search all employees of this bank." A murmur of surprise ran around the room. "Those who are innocent will agree readily, of course; will all agree?" There were whispered consultations on all sides. Dunston flushed angrily; Miss Clarke, standing near Mr. Fraser, paled slightly. Dunston looked at her and then spoke. "And the ladies?" he asked. "They, too," explained the scientist. "They may search one another--in the other room, of course." "I for one will not submit to such a proceeding," Dunston declared, bluntly, "not because I fear it, but because it is an insult." Simultaneously it impressed itself on the bank officials and The Thinking Machine that the one person in the bank who used a perfume identical with that on the handkerchief was the first to object to a search. The cashier and president exchanged startled glances. "Nor will I," came in the voice of a woman. The Thinking Machine turned and glanced at her. It was Miss Willis, one of the outside stenographers; Miss Clarke and the other woman were pale, but neither had spoken. "And the others?" asked The Thinking Machine. Generally there was acquiescence, and as the men came forward the scientist searched them, perfunctorily, it seemed. Nothing! At last there remained three men, Dunston, West and Fraser. Dunston came forward, compelled to do so by the attitude of his fellows. The three women stood together. The Thinking Machine spoke to them as he searched Dunston. "If the ladies will retire to the next room they may proceed with their search," he suggested. "If any money is found, bring it to me--nothing else." "I will not, I will not, I will not," screamed Miss Willis, suddenly. "It's an outrage." Miss Clarke, deathly white and half fainting, threw up her hands and sank without a sound into the arms of President Fraser. There she burst into tears. "It is an outrage," she sobbed. She clung to President Fraser, her arms flung upward and her face buried on his bosom. He was soothing her with fatherly words, and stroked her hair awkwardly. The Thinking Machine finished the search of Dunston. Nothing! Then Miss Clarke roused herself and dried her eyes. "Of course I will have to agree," she said, with a flash of anger in her eyes. Miss Willis was weeping, but, like Dunston, she was compelled to yield, and the three women went into an adjoining room. There was a tense silence until they reappeared. Each shook her head. The Thinking Machine nearly looked disappointed. "Dear me!" he exclaimed. "Now, Mr. Fraser." He started toward the president, then paused to pick up a scarf pin. "This is yours," he said. "I saw it fall," and he made as if to search the aged man. "Well, do you really think it necessary in my case?" asked the president, in consternation, as he drew back, nervously. "I--I am the president, you know." "The others were searched in your presence, I will search you in their presence," said The Thinking Machine, tartly. "But--but----" the president stammered. "Are you afraid?" the scientist demanded. "Why, of course not," was the hurried answer; "but it seems so--so unusual." "I think it best," said The Thinking Machine, and before the banker could draw away his slender fingers were in the inside breast pocket, whence they instantly drew out a bundle of money--one hundred $100 bills--ten thousand dollars--with the initials of the receiving teller, "P. D."--"o.k.--R. W." "Great God!" exclaimed Mr. Fraser, ashen white. "Dear me, dear me!" said The Thinking Machine again. He sniffed curiously at the bundle of bank notes, as a hound might sniff at a trail. IV. President Fraser was removed to his home in a dangerous condition. His advanced age did not withstand the shock. Now alternately he raved and muttered incoherently, and the old eyes were wide, staring fearfully always. There was a consultation between The Thinking Machine and West after the removal of President Fraser, and the result was another hurried meeting of the board of directors. At that meeting West was placed, temporarily, in command. The police, of course, had been informed of the matter, but no arrest was probable. Immediately after The Thinking Machine left the bank Hatch appeared and inquired for him. From the bank he went to the home of the scientist. There Professor Van Dusen was bending over a retort, busy with some problem. "Well?" he demanded, as he glanced up. "West told the truth," began Hatch. "Neither he nor any member of his family uses perfume; he has few outside acquaintances, is regular in his habits, but is a man of considerable wealth, it appears." "What is his salary at the bank?" asked The Thinking Machine. "Fifteen thousand a year," said the reporter. "But he must have a large fortune. He lives like a millionaire." "He couldn't do that on fifteen thousand dollars a year," mused the scientist. "Did he inherit any money?" "No," was the reply. "He started as a clerk in the bank and has made himself what he is." "That means speculation," said The Thinking Machine. "You can't save a fortune from a salary, even fifteen thousand dollars a year. Now, Mr. Hatch, find out for me all about his business connections. His source of income particularly I would like to know. Also whether or not he has recently sought to borrow or has received a large sum of money; if he got it and what he did with it. He says he has not sought such a sum. Perhaps he told the truth." "Yes, and about Miss Clarke----" "Yes; what about her?" asked The Thinking Machine. "She occupies a little room in a boarding-house for women in an excellent district," the reporter explained. "She has no friends who call there, at any rate. Occasionally, however, she goes out at night and remains late." "The perfume?" asked the scientist. "She uses a perfume, the housekeeper tells me, but she doesn't recall just what kind it is--so many of the young women in the house use it. So I went to her room and looked. There was no perfume there. Her room was considerably disarranged, which seemed to astonish the housekeeper, who declared that she had carefully arranged it about nine o'clock. It was two when I was there." "How was it disarranged?" asked the scientist. "The couch cover was jerked awry and the pillows tumbled down, for one thing," said the reporter. "I didn't notice any further." The Thinking Machine relapsed into silence. "What happened at the bank?" inquired Hatch. Briefly the scientist related the facts leading up to the search, the search itself and its startling result. The reporter whistled. "Do you think Fraser had anything to do with it?" "Run out and find out those other things about West," said The Thinking Machine, evasively. "Come back here to-night. It doesn't matter what time." "But who do you think committed the crime?" insisted the newspaper man. "I may be able to tell you when you return." For the time being The Thinking Machine seemed to forget the bank robbery, being busy in his tiny laboratory. He was aroused from his labors by the ringing of the telephone bell. "Hello," he called. "Yes, Van Dusen. No, I can't come down to the bank now. What is it? Oh, it has disappeared? When? Too bad! How's Mr. Fraser? Still unconscious? Too bad! I'll see you to-morrow." The scientist was still engrossed in some delicate chemical work just after eight o'clock that evening when Martha, his housekeeper and maid of all work, entered. "Professor," she said, "there's a lady to see you." "Name?" he asked, without turning. "She didn't give it, sir." "There in a moment." He finished the test he had under way, then left the little laboratory and went into the hall leading to the sitting-room, where unprivileged callers awaited his pleasure. He sniffed a little as he stepped into the hall. At the door of the sitting-room he paused and peered inside. A woman arose and came toward him. It was Miss Clarke. "Good-evening," he said. "I knew you'd come." Miss Clarke looked a little surprised, but made no comment. "I came to give you some information," she said, and her voice was subdued. "I am heartbroken at the awful things which have come out concerning--concerning Mr. Fraser. I have been closely associated with him for several months, and I won't believe that he could have had anything to do with this affair, although I know positively that he was in need of a large sum of money--ninety thousand dollars--because his personal fortune was in danger. Some error in titles to an estate, he told me." "Yes, yes," said The Thinking Machine. "Whether he was able to raise this money I don't know," she went on. "I only hope he did without having to--to do that--to have any----" "To rob his bank," said the scientist, tartly. "Miss Clarke, is young Dunston in love with you?" The girl's face changed color at the sudden question. "I don't see----" she began. "You may not see," said The Thinking Machine, "but I can have him arrested for robbery and convict him." The girl gazed at him with wide, terror-stricken eyes, and gasped. "No, no, no," she said, hurriedly. "He could have had nothing to do with that at all." "Is he in love with you?" again came the question. There was a pause. "I've had reason to believe so," she said, finally, "though----" "And you?" The girl's face was flaming now, and, squinting into her eyes, the scientist read the answer. "I understand," he commented, tersely. "Are you going to be married?" "I could--could never marry him," she gasped suddenly. "No, no," emphatically. "We are not, ever." She slowly recovered from her confusion, while the scientist continued to squint at her curiously. "I believe you said you had some information for me?" he asked. "Y--yes," she faltered. Then more calmly: "Yes. I came to tell you that the package of ten thousand dollars which you took from Mr. Fraser's pocket has again disappeared." "Yes," said the other, without astonishment. "It was presumed at the bank that he had taken it home with him, having regained possession of it in some way, but a careful search has failed to reveal it." "Yes, and what else?" The girl took a long breath and gazed steadily into the eyes of the scientist, with determination in her own. "I have come, too, to tell you," she said, "the name of the man who robbed the bank." V. If Miss Clarke had expected that The Thinking Machine would show either astonishment or enthusiasm, she must have been disappointed, for he neither altered his position nor looked at her. Instead, he was gazing thoughtfully away with lackluster eyes. "Well?" he asked. "I suppose it's a story. Begin at the beginning." With a certain well-bred air of timidity, the girl began the story; and occasionally as she talked there was a little tremor of the lips. "I have been a stenographer and typewriter for seven years," she said, "and in that time I have held only four positions. The first was in a law office in New York, where I was left an orphan to earn my own living; the second was with a manufacturing concern, also in New York. I left there three years ago to accept the position of private secretary to William T. Rankin, president of the ---- National Bank, at Hartford, Connecticut. I came from there to Boston and later went to work at the Ralston Bank, as private secretary to Mr. Fraser. I left the bank in Hartford because of the failure of that concern, following a bank robbery." The Thinking Machine glanced at her suddenly. "You may remember from the newspapers----" she began again. "I never read the newspapers," he said. "Well, anyway," and there was a shade of impatience at the interruption, "there was a bank burglary there similar to this. Only seventy thousand dollars was stolen, but it was a small institution and the theft precipitated a run which caused a collapse after I had been in that position for only six months." "How long have you been with the Ralston National?" "Nine months," was the reply. "Had you saved any money while working in your other positions?" "Well, the salary was small--I couldn't have saved much." "How did you live those two years from the time you left the Hartford Bank until you accepted this position?" The girl stammered a little. "I received assistance from friends," she said, finally. "Go on." "That bank in Hartford," she continued, with a little gleam of resentment in her eyes, "had a safe similar to the one at the Ralston National, though not so large. It was blown in identically the same way as this one was blown." "Oh, I see," said the scientist. "Some one was arrested for this, and you want to give me the name of that man?" "Yes," said the girl. "A professional burglar, William Dineen, was arrested for that robbery and confessed. Later he escaped. After his arrest he boasted of his ability to blow any style of safe. He used an invention of his own for the borings to place the charges. I noticed that safe and I noticed this one. There is a striking similarity in the two." The Thinking Machine stared at her. "Why do you tell me?" he asked. "Because I understood you were making the investigation for the bank," she responded, unhesitatingly, "and I dreaded the notoriety of telling the police." "If this William Dineen is at large you believe he did this?" "I am almost positive." "Thank you," said The Thinking Machine. Miss Clarke went away, and late that night Hatch appeared. He looked weary and sank into a chair gratefully, but there was satisfaction in his eye. For an hour or more he talked. At last The Thinking Machine was satisfied, nearly. "One thing more," he said, in conclusion. "Notify the police to look out for William Dineen, professional bank burglar, and his pals, whose names you can get from the newspapers in connection with a bank robbery in Hartford. They are wanted in connection with this case." The reporter nodded. "When Mr. Fraser recovers I intend to hold a little party here," the scientist continued. "It will be a surprise party." It was two days later, and the police were apparently seeking some tangible point from which they could proceed, when The Thinking Machine received word that there had been a change for the better in Mr. Fraser's condition. Immediately he sent for Detective Mallory, with whom he held a long conversation. The detective went away tugging at his heavy mustache and smiling. With three other men he disappeared from police haunts that afternoon on a special mission. That night the little "party" was held in the apartments of The Thinking Machine. President Fraser was first to arrive. He was pale and weak, but there was a fever of impatience in his manner. Then came West, Dunston, Miss Clarke, Miss Willis and Charles Burton, a clerk whose engagement to the pretty Miss Willis had been recently announced. The party gathered, each staring at the other curiously, with questions in their eyes, until The Thinking Machine entered, rubbing his fingers together briskly. Behind him came Hatch, bearing a shabby gripsack. The reporter's face showed excitement despite his rigid efforts to repress it. There were some preliminaries, and then the scientist began. "To come to the matter quickly," he said, in preface, "we will take it for granted that no employee of the Ralston Bank is a professional burglar. But the person who was responsible for that burglary, who shared the money stolen, who planned it and actually assisted in its execution is in this room--now." Instantly there was consternation, but it found no expression in words, only in the faces of those present. "Further, I may inform you," went on the scientist, "that no one will be permitted to leave this room until I finish." "Permitted?" demanded Dunston. "We are not prisoners." "You will be if I give the word," was the response, and Dunston sat back, dazed. He glanced uneasily at the faces of the others; they glanced uneasily at him. "The actual facts in the robbery you know," went on The Thinking Machine. "You know that the safe was blown, that a large sum of money was stolen, that Mr. West's handkerchief was found near the safe. Now, I'll tell you what I have learned. We will begin with President Fraser. "Against Mr. Fraser is more direct evidence than against anyone else, because in his pocket was found one of the stolen bundles of money, containing ten thousand dollars. Mr. Fraser needed ninety thousand dollars previous to the robbery." "But----" began the old man, with deathlike face. "Never mind," said the scientist. "Next, Miss Willis." Curious eyes were turned on her, and she, too, grew suddenly white. "Against her is less direct evidence than against anyone else. Miss Willis positively declined to permit a search of her person until she was compelled to do so by the fact that the other two permitted it. The fact that nothing was found has no bearing on the subject. She did refuse. "Then Charles Burton," the inexorable voice went on, calmly; as if in mere discussion of a problem of mathematics. "Burton is engaged to Miss Willis. He is ambitious. He recently lost twenty thousand dollars in stock speculation--all he had. He needed more money in order to give this girl, who refused to be searched, a comfortable home. "Next Miss Clarke, secretary to Mr. Fraser. Originally she came under consideration through the fact that she used perfume, and that Mr. West's handkerchief carried a faint odor of perfume. Now it is a fact that for years Miss Clarke used violet perfume, then on the day following the robbery suddenly began to use strong rose perfume, which smothers a violet odor. Miss Clarke, you will remember, fainted at the time of the search. I may add that a short while ago she was employed in a bank which was robbed in the identical manner of this one." Miss Clarke sat apparently calm, and even faintly smiling, but her face was white. The Thinking Machine squinted at her a moment, then turned suddenly to Cashier West. "Here is the man," he said, "whose handkerchief was found, but he does not use perfume, has never used it. He is the man who would have had best opportunity to leave unfastened the window in his private office by which the thieves entered the bank; he is the man who would have had the best opportunity to apply a certain chemical solution to the granite sockets of the steel bars, weakening the granite so they could be pulled out; he is the man who misrepresented facts to me. He told me he did not have and had not tried to raise any especially large sum of money. Yet on the day following the robbery he deposited one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in a bank in Chicago. The stolen sum was one hundred and twenty-nine thousand dollars. That man, there." All eyes were now turned on the cashier. He seemed choking, started to speak, then dropped back into his chair. "And last, Dunston," resumed The Thinking Machine, and he pointed dramatically at the receiving teller. "He had equal opportunity with Mr. West to know of the amount of money in the bank; he refused first to be searched, and you witnessed his act a moment ago. To this man now there clings the identical odor of violet perfume which was on the handkerchief--not a perfume like it, but the identical odor." There was silence, dumfounded silence, for a long time. No one dared to look at his neighbor now; the reporter felt the tension. At last The Thinking Machine spoke again. "As I have said, the person who planned and participated in the burglary is now in this room. If that person will stand forth and confess it will mean a vast difference in the length of the term in prison." Again silence. At last there came a knock at the door, and Martha thrust her head in. "Two gentlemen and four cops are here," she announced. "There are the accomplices of the guilty person, the men who actually blew that safe," declared the scientist, dramatically. "Again, will the guilty person confess?" No one stirred. VI. There was tense silence for a moment. Dunston was the first to speak. "This is all a bluff," he said. "I think, Mr. Fraser, there are some explanations and apologies due to all of us, particularly to Miss Clarke and Miss Willis," he added, as an afterthought. "It is humiliating, and no good has been done. I had intended asking Miss Clarke to be my wife, and now I assert my right to speak for her. I demand an apology." Carried away by his own anger and by the pleading face of Miss Clarke and the pain there, the young man turned fiercely on The Thinking Machine. Bewilderment was on the faces of the two banking officials. "You feel that an explanation is due?" asked The Thinking Machine, meekly. "Yes," thundered the young man. "You shall have it," was the quiet answer, and the stooped figure of the scientist moved across the room to the door. He said something to some one outside and returned. "Again I'll give you a chance for a confession," he said. "It will shorten your prison term." He was speaking to no one in particular; yet to them all. "The two men who blew the safe are now about to enter this room. After they appear it will be too late." Startled glances were exchanged, but no one stirred. Then came a knock at the door. Silently The Thinking Machine looked about with a question in his eyes. Still silence, and he threw open the door. Three policemen in uniform and Detective Mallory entered, bringing two prisoners. "These are the men who blew the safe," The Thinking Machine explained, indicating the prisoners. "Does anyone here recognize them?" Apparently no one did, for none spoke. "Do you recognize any person in this room?" he asked of the prisoners. One of them laughed shortly and said something aside to the other, who smiled. The Thinking Machine was nettled and when he spoke again there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "It may enlighten at least one of you in this room," he said, "to tell you that these two men are Frank Seranno and Gustave Meyer, Mr. Meyer being a pupil and former associate of the notorious bank burglar, William Dineen. You may lock them up now," he said to Detective Mallory. "They will confess later." "Confess!" exclaimed one of them. Both laughed. The prisoners were led out and Detective Mallory returned to lave in the font of analytical wisdom, although he would not have expressed it in those words. Then The Thinking Machine began at the beginning and told his story. "I undertook to throw some light on this affair a few hours after its occurrence, at the request of President Fraser, who had once been able to do me a very great favor," he explained. "I went to the bank--you all saw me there--looked over the premises, saw how the thieves had entered the building, looked at the safe and at the spot where the handkerchief was found. To my mind it was demonstrated clearly that the handkerchief appeared there at the time of the burglary. I inquired if there was any draught through the office, seeking in that way to find if the handkerchief might have been lost at some other place in the bank, overlooked by the sweeper and blown to the spot where it was found. There was no draught. "Next I asked for the handkerchief. Mr. Fraser asked me into his office to look at it. I saw a woman--Miss Clarke it was--in there and declined to go. Instead, I examined the handkerchief outside. I don't know that my purpose there can be made clear to you. It was a possibility that there would be perfume on the handkerchief, and the woman in the office might use perfume. I didn't want to confuse the odors. Miss Clarke was not in the bank when I arrived; she had gone to luncheon. "Instantly I got the handkerchief I noticed the odor of perfume--violet perfume. Perfume is used by a great many women, by very few men. I asked how many women were employed in the bank. There were three. I handed the scented handkerchief to Mr. Hatch, removed all odor of the clinging perfume from my hands with my own handkerchief and also handed that to Mr. Hatch, so as to completely rid myself of the odor. "Then I started through the bank and spoke to every person in it, standing close to them so that I might catch the odor if they used it. Miss Clarke was the first person who I found used it--but the perfume she used was a strong rose odor. Then I went on until I came to Mr. Dunston. The identical odor of the handkerchief he revealed to me by drawing out his own handkerchief while I talked to him." Dunston looked a little startled, but said nothing; instead he glanced at Miss Clarke, who sat listening, interestedly. He could not read the expression on her face. "This much done," continued The Thinking Machine, "we retired to Cashier West's office. There I knew the burglars had entered; there I saw a powerful chemical solution had been applied to the granite around the sockets of the protecting steel bars to soften the stone. Its direct effect is to make it of chalklike consistency. I was also curious to know if any noise made in that room would attract attention in the outer office, so I upset a heavy chair, then looked outside. No one moved or looked back; therefore no one heard. "Here I explained to President Fraser and to Mr. West why I connected some one in the bank with the burglary. It was because of the scent on the handkerchief. It would be tedious to repeat the detailed explanation I had to give them. I sent Mr. Hatch to find out, first, if Miss Clarke here had ever used violet perfume instead of rose; also to find out if any members of Mr. West's family used any perfume, particularly violet. I knew that Mr. Dunston used it. "Then I asked Mr. Fraser if he had sought to raise any large sum of money. He told me the truth. But Mr. West did not tell me the truth in answer to a question along the same lines. Now I know why. It was because as cashier of the bank he was not supposed to operate in stocks, yet he has made a fortune at it. He didn't want Fraser to know this, and willfully misrepresented the facts. "Then came the search. I expected to find just what was found, money, but considerably more of it. Miss Willis objected, Mr. Dunston objected and Miss Clarke fainted in the arms of Mr. Fraser. I read the motives of each aright. Dunston objected because he is an egotistical young man and, being young, is foolish. He considered it an insult. Miss Willis objected also through a feeling of pride." The Thinking Machine paused for a moment, locked his fingers behind his head and leaned far back in his chair. "Shall I tell what happened next?" he asked, "or will you tell it?" Everyone in the room knew it was a question to the guilty person. Which? Whom? There came no answer, and after a moment The Thinking Machine resumed, quietly, very quietly. "Miss Clarke fainted in Mr. Fraser's arms. While leaning against him, and while he stroked her hair and tried to soothe her, she took from the bosom of her loose shirtwaist a bundle of money, ten thousand dollars, and slipped it into the inside pocket of Mr. Fraser's coat." There was deathlike silence. "It's a lie!" screamed the girl, and she rose to her feet with anger-distorted face. "It's a lie!" Dunston arose suddenly and went to her. With his arm about her he turned defiantly to The Thinking Machine, who had not moved or altered his position in the slightest. Dunston said nothing, because there seemed to be nothing to say. "Into the inside pocket of Mr. Fraser's coat," The Thinking Machine repeated. "When she removed her arms his scarf pin clung to the lace on one of her sleeves. That I saw. That pin could not have caught on her sleeve where it did if her hand had not been to the coat pocket. Having passed this sum of money--her pitiful share of the theft--she agreed to the search." "It's a lie!" shrieked the girl again. And her every tone and every gesture said it was the truth. Dunston gazed into her eyes with horror in his own and his arm fell limply. Still he said nothing. "Of course nothing was found," the quiet voice went on. "When I discovered the bank notes in Mr. Fraser's pocket I smelled of them--seeking the odor, this time not of violet perfume, but of rose perfume. I found it." Suddenly the girl whose face had shown only anger and defiance leaned over with her head in her hands and wept bitterly. It was a confession. Dunston stood beside her, helplessly; finally his hand was slowly extended and he stroked her hair. "Go on, please," he said to Professor Van Dusen, meekly. His suffering was no less than hers. "These facts were important, but not conclusive," said The Thinking Machine, "so next, with Mr. Hatch's aid here, I ascertained other things about Miss Clarke. I found out that when she went out to luncheon that day she purchased some powerful rose perfume; that, contrary to custom, she went home; that she used it liberally in her room; and that she destroyed a large bottle of violet perfume which you, Mr. Dunston, had given her. I ascertained also that her room was disarranged, particularly the couch. I assume from this that when she went to the office in the morning she did not have the money about her; that she left it hidden in the couch; that through fear of its discovery she rushed back home to get it; that she put it inside her shirtwaist, and there she had it when the search was made. Am I right, Miss Clarke?" The girl nodded her head and looked up with piteous, tear-stained face. "That night Miss Clarke called on me. She came ostensibly to tell me that the package of money, ten thousand dollars, had disappeared again. I knew that previously by telephone, and I knew, too, that she had that money then about her. She has it now. Will you give it up?" Without a word the girl drew out the bundle of money, ten thousand dollars. Detective Mallory took it, held it, amazed for an instant, then passed it to The Thinking Machine, who sniffed at it. "An odor of strong rose perfume," he said. Then: "Miss Clarke also told me that she had worked in a bank which had been robbed under circumstances identical with this by one William Dineen, and expressed the belief that he had something to do with this. Mr. Hatch ascertained that two of Dineen's pals were living in Cambridge. He found their rooms and searched them, later giving the address to the police. "Now, why did Miss Clarke tell me that? I considered it in all points. She told me either to aid honestly in the effort to catch the thief, or to divert suspicion in another direction. Knowing as much as I did then, I reasoned it was to divert suspicion from you, Mr. Dunston, and from herself possibly. Dineen is in prison, and was there three months before this robbery; I believed she knew that. His pals are the two men in the other room; they are the men who aided Dineen in the robbery of the Hartford bank, with Miss Clarke's assistance; they are the men who robbed the Ralston National with her assistance. She herself indicated her profit from the Hartford robbery to me by a remark she made indicating that she had not found it necessary to work for two years from the time she left the Hartford bank until she became Mr. Fraser's secretary." There was a pause. Miss Clarke sat sobbing, while Dunston stood near her studying the toe of his shoe. After awhile the girl became more calm. "Miss Clarke, would you like to explain anything?" asked The Thinking Machine. His voice was gentle, even deferential. "Nothing," she said, "except admit it all--all. I have nothing to conceal. I went to the bank, as I went to the bank in Hartford, for the purpose of robbery, with the assistance of those men in the next room. We have worked together for years. I planned this robbery; I had the opportunity, and availed myself of it, to put a solution on the sockets of the steel bars of the window in Mr. West's room, which would gradually destroy the granite and make it possible to pull out the bars. This took weeks, but I could reach that room safely from Mr. Fraser's. "I had the opportunity to leave the window unfastened and did so. I dressed in men's clothing and accompanied those two men to the bank. We crept in the window, after pulling the bars out. The men attacked the night watchman and bound him. The handkerchief of Mr. West's I happened to pick up in the office one afternoon a month ago and took it home. There it got the odor of perfume from being in a bureau with my things. On the night we went to the bank I needed something to put about my neck and used it. In the bank I dropped it. We had arranged all details at night, when I met them." She stopped and looked at Dunston, a long, lingering look, that sent the blood to his face. It was not an appeal; it was nothing save the woman love in her, mingled with desperation. "I intended to leave the bank in a little while," she went on. "Not immediately, because I was afraid that would attract attention, but after a few weeks. And then, too, I wanted to get forever out of sight of this man," and she indicated Dunston. "Why?" he asked. "Because I loved you as no woman ever loved a man before," she said, "and I was not worthy. There was another reason, too--I am married already. This man, Gustave Meyer, is my husband." She paused and fumbled nervously at the veil fastening at her throat. Silence lay over the room; The Thinking Machine reached behind him and picked up the shabby-looking gripsack which had passed unnoticed. "Are there any more questions?" the girl asked, at last. "I think not," said The Thinking Machine. "And, Mr. Dunston, you will give me credit for some good, won't you--some good in that I loved you?" she pleaded. "My God!" he exclaimed in a sudden burst of feeling. "Look out!" shouted The Thinking Machine. He had seen the girl's hand fly to her hat, saw it drawn suddenly away, saw something slender flash at her breast. But it was too late. She had driven a heavy hat pin straight through her breast, piercing the heart. She died in the arms of the man she loved, with his tears on her face. Detective Mallory appeared before the two prisoners in an adjoining room. "Miss Clarke has confessed," he said. "Well, the little devil!" exclaimed Meyer. "I knew some day she would throw us. I'll kill her!" "It isn't necessary," remarked Mallory. * * * * * * In the room where the girl lay The Thinking Machine pushed with his foot the shabby-looking grip toward President Fraser and West. "There's the money," he said. "Where--how did you get it?" "Ask Mr. Hatch." "Professor Van Dusen told me to search the rooms of those men in there, find the shabbiest looking bag or receptacle that was securely locked, and bring it to him. I--I did so. I found it under the bed, but I didn't know what was in it until he opened it." THE MYSTERY OF A STUDIO Where the light slants down softly into one corner of a noted art museum in Boston there hangs a large picture. Its title is "Fulfillment." Discriminating art critics have alternately raved at it and praised it; from the day it appeared there it has been a fruitful source of acrimonious discussion. As for the public, it accepts the picture as a startling, amazing thing of beauty, and there is always a crowd around it. "Fulfillment" is typified by a woman. She stands boldly forth against a languorous background of deep tones. Flesh tints are daringly laid on the semi-nude figure, diaphanous draperies hide, yet, reveal, the exquisite lines of the body. Her arms are outstretched straight toward the spectator, the black hair ripples down over her shoulders, the red lips are slightly parted. The mysteries of complete achievement and perfect life lie in her eyes. Into this picture the artist wove the spiritual and the worldly; here he placed on canvas an elusive portrayal of success in its fullest and widest meaning. One's first impression of the picture is that it is sensual; another glance shows the underlying typification of success, and love and life are there. One by one the qualities stand forth. The artist was Constans St. George. After the first flurry of excitement which the picture caused there came a whirlwind of criticism. Then the artist, who had labored for months on the work which he had intended and which proved to be his masterpiece, collapsed. Some said it was overwork--they were partly right; others that it was grief at the attacks of critics who did not see beyond the surface of the painting. Perhaps they, too, were partly right. However that may be, it is a fact that for several months after the picture was exhibited St. George was in a sanitarium. The physicians said it was nervous collapse--a total breaking-down, and there were fears for his sanity. At length there came an improvement in his condition, and he returned to the world. Since then he had lived quietly in his studio, one of many in a large office building. From time to time he had been approached with offers for the picture, but always he refused to sell. A New York millionaire made a flat proposition of fifty thousand dollars, which was as flatly refused. The artist loved the picture as a child of his own brain; every day he visited the museum where it was exhibited and stood looking at it with something almost like adoration in his eyes. Then he went away quietly, tugging at his straggling beard and with the dim blindness of tears in his eyes. He never spoke to anyone; and always avoided that moment when a crowd was about. Whatever the verdict of the critics or of the public on "Fulfillment," it was an admitted fact that the artist had placed on canvas a representation of a wonderfully beautiful woman. Therefore, after awhile the question of who had been the model for "Fulfillment" was aroused. No one knew, apparently. Artists who knew St. George could give no idea--they only knew that the woman who had posed was not a professional model. This led to speculation, in which the names of some of the most beautiful women in the United States were mentioned. Then a romance was woven. This was that the artist was in love with the original and that his collapse was partly due to her refusal to wed him. This story, as it went, was elaborated until the artist was said to be pining away for love of one whom he had immortalized in oils. As the story grew it gained credence, and a search was still made occasionally for the model. Half a dozen times Hutchinson Hatch, a newspaper reporter of more than usual astuteness, had been on the story without success; he had seen and studied the picture until every line of it was firmly in his mind. He had seen and talked to St. George twice. The artist would answer no questions as to the identity of the model. This, then, was the situation on the morning of Friday, November 27, when Hatch entered the reportorial rooms of his newspaper. At sight of him the City Editor removed his cigar, placed it carefully on the "official block" which adorned his flat-topped desk, and called to the reporter. "Girl reported missing," he said, brusquely. "Name is Grace Field, and she lived at No. 195 ---- Street, Dorchester. Employed in the photographic department of the Star, a big department store. Report of her disappearance made to the police early to-day by Ellen Stanford, her roommate, also employed at the Star. Jump out on it and get all you can. Here is the official police description." Hatch took a slip of paper and read: "Grace Field, twenty-one years, five feet seven inches tall, weight 151 pounds, profuse black hair, dark-brown eyes, superb figure, oval face, said to be beautiful." Then the description went into details of her dress add other things which the police note in their minute records for a search. Hatch absorbed all these things and left his office. He went first to the department store, where he was told Miss Stanford had not appeared that day, sending a note that she was ill. From the store Hatch went at once to the address given in Dorchester. Miss Stanford was in. Would she see a reporter? Yes. So Hatch was ushered into the modest little parlor of a boarding-house, and after awhile Miss Stanford entered. She was a petite blonde, with pink cheeks and blue eyes, now reddened by weeping. Briefly Hatch explained the purpose of his visit--an effort to find Grace Field, and Miss Stanford eagerly and tearfully expressed herself as willing to tell him all she knew. "I have known Grace for five months," she explained; "that is, from the time she came to work at the Star. Her counter is next to mine. A friendship grew up between us, and we began rooming together. Each of us is alone in the East. She comes from the West, somewhere in Nevada, and I come from Quebec. "Grace has never said much about herself, but I know that she had been in Boston a year or so before I met her. She lived somewhere in Brookline, I believe, but it seems that she had some funds and did not go to work until she came to the Star. This is as I understand it. "Three days ago, on Tuesday it was, there was a letter for Grace when we came in from work. It seemed to agitate her, although she said nothing to me about what was in it, and I did not ask. She did not sleep well that night, but next morning, when we started to work, she seemed all right. That is, she was all right until we got to the subway station, and then she told me to go on to the store, saying she would be there after awhile. "I left her, and at her request explained to the manager of our floor that she would be late. From that time to this no one has seen her or heard of her. I don't know where she could have gone," and the girl burst into tears. "I'm sure something dreadful has happened to her." "Possibly an elopement?" Hatch suggested. "No," said the girl, quickly. "No. She was in love, but the man she was in love with has not heard of her either. I saw him the night after she disappeared. He called here and asked for her, and seemed surprised that she had not returned home, or had not been at work." "What's his name?" asked Hatch. "He's a clerk in a bank," said Miss Stanford. "His name is Willis--Victor Willis. If she had eloped with him I would not have been surprised, but I am positive she did not, and if she did not, where is she?" "Were there any other admirers you know of?" Hatch asked. "No," said the girl, stoutly. "There may have been others who admired her, but none she cared for. She has told me too much--I--I know," she faltered. "How long have you known Mr. Willis?" asked Hatch. The girl's face flamed scarlet instantly. "Only since I've known Grace," she replied. "She introduced us." "Has Mr. Willis ever shown you any attention?" "Certainly not," Miss Stanford flashed, angrily. "All his attention was for Grace." There was the least trace of bitterness in the tone, and Hatch imagined he read it aright. Willis was a man whom both perhaps loved; it might be in that event that Miss Stanford knew more than she had said of the whereabouts of Grace Field. The next step was to see Willis. "I suppose you'll do everything possible to find Miss Field?" he asked. "Certainly," said the girl. "Have you her photograph?" "I have one, yes, but I don't think--I don't believe Grace----" "Would like to have it published?" asked Hatch. "Possibly not, under ordinary circumstances--but now that she is missing it is the surest way of getting a trace of her. Will you give it to me?" Miss Stanford was silent for a time. Then apparently she made up her mind, for she arose. "It might be well, too," Hatch suggested, "to see if you can find the letter you mentioned." The girl nodded and went out. When she returned she had a photograph in her hand; a glimpse of it told Hatch it was a bust picture of a woman in evening dress. The girl was studying a scrap of paper. "What is it?" asked Hatch, quickly. "I don't know," she responded. "I was searching for the letter when I remembered she frequently tore them up and dropped them into the waste-basket. It had been emptied every day, but I looked and found this clinging to the bottom, caught between the cane." "May I see it?" asked the reporter. The girl handed it to him. It was evidently a piece of a letter torn from the outer edge just where the paper was folded to put it into the envelope. On it were these words and detached letters, written in a bold hand: sday ill you to the ho Hatch's eyes opened wide. "Do you know the handwriting?" he asked. The girl faltered an instant. "No," she answered, finally. Hatch studied her face a moment with cold eyes, then turned the scrap of paper over. The other side was blank. Staring down at it he veiled a glitter of anxious interest. "And the picture?" he asked, quietly. The girl handed him the photograph. Hatch took it and as he looked it was with difficulty he restrained an exclamation of astonishment--triumphant astonishment. Finally, with his brain teeming with possibilities, he left the house, taking the photograph and the scrap of paper. Ten minutes later he was talking to his City Editor over the 'phone. "It's a great story," he explained, briefly. "The missing girl is the mysterious model of St. George's picture, 'Fulfillment.'" "Great," came the voice of the City Editor. II. Having laid his story before his City Editor, Hatch sat down to consider the fragmentary writing. Obviously "sday" represented a day of the week--either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, these being the only days where the letter "s" preceded the "day." This seemed to be a definite fact, but still it meant nothing. True, Miss Field had last been seen on Wednesday, but then?--nothing. To the next part of the fragment Hatch attached the greatest importance. It was the possibility of a threat,----"ill you." Did it mean "kill you" or "will you" or "till you" or--or what? There might be dozens of other words ending in "ill" which he did not recall at the moment. His imagination hammered the phrase into his brain as "kill you." The "to the"--the next words--were clear, but meant nothing at all. The last letters were distinctly "ho," possibly "hope." Then Hatch began real work on the story. First he saw the bank clerk, Victor Willis, who Miss Stanford had said loved Grace Field, and whom Hatch suspected Miss Stanford loved. He found Willis a grim, sullen-faced young man of twenty-eight years, who would say nothing. From that point Hatch worked vigorously for several hours. At the end of that time he had found out that on Wednesday, the day of Miss Field's disappearance, a veiled woman--probably Grace Field--had called at the bank and inquired for Willis. Later, Willis, urging necessity, had asked to be allowed the day off and left the bank. He did not appear again until next morning. His actions did not impress any of his associates with the idea that he was a bridegroom; in fact, Hatch himself had given up the idea that Miss Field had eloped. There seemed no reason for an elopement. When Hatch called at the studio, and home, of Constans St. George, to inform him of the disappearance of the model whose identity had been so long guarded, he was told that Mr. St. George was not in; that is, St. George refused to answer knocks at the door, and had not been seen for a day or so. He frequently disappeared this way, his informant said. With these facts--and lack of facts--in his possession on Friday evening, Hatch called on Professor S. F. X. Van Dusen. The Thinking Machine received him as cordially as he ever received anybody. "Well, what is it?" he asked. "I don't believe this is really worth your while, Professor," Hatch said, finally. "It's just a case of a girl who disappeared. There are some things about it which are puzzling, but I'm afraid it's only an elopement." The Thinking Machine dragged up a footstool, planted his small feet on it comfortably and leaned back in his chair. "Go on," he directed. Then Hatch told the story, beginning at the time when the picture was placed in the art museum, and continuing up to the point where he had seen Willis after finding the photograph and the scrap of paper. He had always found that it saved time to begin at the beginning with The Thinking Machine; he did it now as a matter of course. "And the scrap of paper?" asked The Thinking Machine. "I have it here," replied the reporter. For several minutes the scientist examined the fragment and then handed it back to the reporter. "If one could establish some clear connection between that and the disappearance of the girl it might be valuable," he said. "As it is now, it means nothing. Any number of letters might be thrown into the waste-basket in the room the two girls occupied, therefore dismiss this for the moment." "But isn't it possible----" Hatch began. "Anything is possible, Mr. Hatch," retorted the other, belligerently. "You might take occasion to see the handwriting of St. George, the artist, and see if that is his--also look at Willis's. Even if it were Willis's, however, it may mean nothing in connection with this." "But what could have happened to Miss Field?" "Any one of fifty things," responded the other. "She might have fallen dead in the street and been removed to a hospital or undertaking establishment; she might have been arrested for shoplifting and given a wrong name; she might have gone mad and gone away; she might have eloped with another man; she might have committed suicide; she might have been murdered. The question is not what _could_ have happened, but what _did_ happen." "Yes, I thoroughly understand that," Hatch replied, with a slight smile. "But still I don't see----" "Probably you don't," snapped the other. "We'll take it for granted that she did none of these things, with the possible exception of eloping, killing herself, or was murdered. You are convinced that she did not elope. Yet you have only run down one possible end of this--that is, the possibility of her elopement with Willis. You don't believe she did elope with him. Well, why not with St. George?" "St. George?" gasped Hatch. "A great artist elope with a shop-girl?" "She was his ideal in a picture which you say is one of the greatest in the world," replied the other, testily. "That being true, it is perfectly possible that she was his ideal for a wife, isn't it?" The matter had not occurred to Hatch in just that light. He nodded his head, with a feeling of having been weighed and found wanting. "Now, you say, too, that St. George has not been seen around his studio for a couple of days," said the scientist. "What is more possible than that they are together somewhere?" "I see," said the reporter. "It was understood, too, as I understand it, that St. George was in love with her," went on The Thinking Machine. "So, I should imagine a solution of the mystery might be reached by taking St. George as the center of the affair. Suicide may be passed by for the moment, because she had no known motive for suicide--rather, if she loved Willis, she had every reason to live. Murder, too, may be passed for the moment--although there is a possibility that we might come back to that. Question St. George. He will listen if you make him, and then he must answer." "But his place is all closed up," said Hatch. "It is supposed he is half crazy." "Possibly he might be," said The Thinking Machine. "Or it is possible that he is keeping to his studio at work--or he might even be married to Miss Field and she might be there with him." "Well, I see no way to ascertain definitely that he is there," said the reporter, and a puzzled wrinkle came into his face. "Of course I might remain on watch night and day to see if he comes out for food, or if anything to eat is sent in." "That would take too long, and besides it might not happen at all," said The Thinking Machine. He arose and went into the adjoining room. He returned after a moment, and glanced at the clock on the mantel. "It is just nine o'clock now," he commented. "How long would it take you to get to the studio?" "Half an hour." "Well, go there now," directed the scientist. "If Mr. St. George is in his studio he will come out of it to-night at thirty-two minutes past nine. He will be running, and may not wear either a hat or coat." "What?" and Hatch grinned, a weak, puzzled grin. "You wait where he can't see you when he comes out," the scientist went on. "When he goes he may leave the door open. If he does go on see if you find any trace of Miss Field, and then, on his return, meet him at the outer door, ask him what you please, and come to see me to-morrow morning. He will be out of his studio about twenty minutes." Vaguely Hatch felt that the scientist was talking rot, but he had seen this strange mind bring so many odd things to pass that he could not doubt this, even if it were absurd on its face. "At thirty-two minutes past nine to-night," said the reporter, and he glanced at his watch. "Come to see me to-morrow after you see the handwriting of Willis and St. George," directed the scientist. "Then you may also tell me just what happens to-night." * * * * * * Hatch was feeling like a fool. He was waiting in a darkened corner, just a few feet from St. George's studio. It was precisely half-past nine o'clock. He had been there for seven minutes. What strange power was to bring St. George, who for two days had denied himself to everyone, out of that studio, if, indeed, he were there? For the twentieth time Hatch glanced at his watch, which he had set with the little clock in The Thinking Machine's home. Slowly the minute hand crept around, to 9:31, 9:31½, and he heard the door of the studio rattle. Then suddenly it was thrown open and St. George appeared. Without a glance to right or left, hatless and coatless, he rushed out of the building. Hatch got only a glimpse of his face; his lips were pressed tightly together; there was a glint of madness in his eyes. He jerked at the door once, then ran through the hall and disappeared down the stairs leading to the street. The studio door stood open behind him. III. When the clatter of the running footsteps had died away and Hatch heard the outer door slam, he entered the studio, closing the door behind him. It was close here, and there was a breath of Chinese incense which was almost stifling. One quick glance by the light of an incandescent told Hatch that he stood in the reception-room. Typically, from floor to ceiling, the place was the abode of an artist; there was a rich gradation of color and everywhere were scraps of art and half-finished studies. The reporter had given up the idea of solving the mystery of why St. George had so suddenly left his apartments; now he devoted himself to a quick, minute search of the place. He found nothing to interest him in the reception-room, and went on into the studio where the artist did his work. Hatch glanced around quickly, his eyes taking in all the details, then went to a little table which stood, half-covered with newspapers. He turned these over, then bent forward suddenly and picked up--a woman's glove. Beside it lay its mate. He stuffed them into his pocket. Eagerly he sought now for anything that might come to hand. At last he reached another door, leading into the bedroom. Here on a large table was a chafing dish, many dishes which had not been washed, and all the other evidences of a careless man who did a great deal of his own cooking. There was a dresser here, too, a gorgeous, mahogany affair. Hatch didn't stop to admire this because his eye was attracted by a woman's veil which lay on it. He thrust it into his pocket. "Quite a haul I'm making," he mused, grimly. From this room a door, half open, led into a bathroom. Hatch merely glanced in, then looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had elapsed. He must get out, and he started for the outer door. As he opened it quietly and stepped into the hall he heard the street door open one flight below, and started down the steps. There, half way, he met St. George. "Mr. St. George?" he asked. "No," was the reply. Hatch knew his man perfectly, because he had seen him half a dozen times and had talked to him twice. The denial of identity therefore was futile. "I came to tell you that Grace Field, the model for your 'Fulfillment,' has disappeared," Hatch went on, as the other glared at him. "I don't care," snapped the other. He darted up the steps. Hatch listened until he heard the door of the studio close. It was ten minutes to ten o'clock when Hatch left the building. Now he would see Miss Stanford and have her identify the gloves and the veil. He boarded a car and drew out and closely examined the gloves and veil. The gloves were tan, rather heavy, but small, and the veil was of some light, cobwebby material which he didn't know by name. "If these are Grace Field's," the reporter argued, to himself, "it means something. If they are not, I'm simply a burglar." There was a light in the Dorchester house where Miss Stanford lived, and the reporter rang the bell. A servant appeared. "Would it be possible for me to see Miss Stanford for just a moment?" he asked. "If she has not gone to bed." He was ushered into the little parlor again. The servant disappeared, and after a moment Miss Stanford came in. "I hated to trouble you so late," said the reporter, and she smiled at him frankly, "but I would like to ask if you have ever seen these?" He laid in her hands the gloves and the veil. Miss Stanford studied them carefully and her hands trembled. "The gloves, I know, are Grace's--the veil I am not so positive about," she replied. Hatch felt a great wave of exultation sweep over him, and it stopped his tongue for an instant. "Did you--did you find them in Mr. Willis's possession?" asked the girl. "I am not at liberty to tell just where I found them," Hatch replied. "If they are Miss Field's--and you can swear to that, I suppose--it may mean that we have a clew." "Oh, I was afraid it would be this way," gasped the girl, and she sank down weeping on a couch. "Knew what would be which way?" asked Hatch, puzzled. "I knew it! I knew it!" she sobbed. "Is there anything to connect Mr. Willis directly with the--_the murder?_" The reporter started to say something, then paused. He wasn't quite sure of himself. He had uncovered something, he didn't know what yet. "It would be better, Miss Stanford," he explained, gently, "if you would tell me all you know about this affair. The things which are now in my possession are fragmentary--if you could give me any new detail it would be only serving the ends of justice." For a little while the girl was silent, then she arose and faced him. "Is Mr. Willis yet under arrest?" she asked, calmly now. "Not yet," said the reporter. "Then I will say nothing else," she declared, and her lips closed in a straight line. "What was the motive for murder?" Hatch insisted. "I will say nothing else," she replied, firmly. "And what makes you positive there was murder?" "Good-night. You need not come again, for I will not see you." Miss Stanford turned and left the room. Hatch, sadly puzzled, bewildered, stood staring after her a moment, then went out, his brain alive with possibilities, with intangible ends which would not be connected. He was eager to lay the new facts before The Thinking Machine. From Dorchester the reporter took a car for his home. In his room, with the tangible threads of the mystery spread out on a table, he thought and surmised far into the night, and when he finally replaced them all in his pocket and turned down the light it was with a hopeless shake of his head. On the following morning when Hatch arose he picked up a paper and went to breakfast. He spread the paper before him and there--the first thing he saw--was a huge headline, stating that a burglar had entered the room of Constans St. George and had tried to kill Mr. St. George. A shot had been fired at him and had passed through his left arm. Mr. St. George had been asleep when the door of his apartments was burst in by the thief. The artist arose at the noise, and as he stepped into the reception-room had been shot. The wound was trivial. The burglar escaped; there was no clew. IV. It was a long story of seemingly hopeless complications that Hatch told The Thinking Machine that morning. Nothing connected with anything, and yet here was a series of happenings, all apparently growing out of the disappearance of Miss Field, and which must have some relation one to the other. At the conclusion of the story, Hatch passed over the newspaper containing the account of the burglary in the studio. The artist had been removed to a hospital. The Thinking Machine read the newspaper account and turned to the reporter with a question: "Did you see Willis's handwriting?" "Not yet," replied the reporter. "See it at once," instructed the other. "If possible, bring me a sample of it. Did you see St. George's handwriting?" "No," the reporter confessed. "See that and bring me a sample if you can. Find out first if Willis has a revolver now or has ever had. If so, see it and see if it is loaded or empty--its exact condition. Find out also if St. George has a revolver--and if he has one, get possession of it if it is in your power." The scientist twisted the two gloves and the veil which Hatch had given to him in his fingers idly, then passed them to the reporter again. Hatch arose and stood waiting, hat in hand. "Also find out," The Thinking Machine went on, "the exact condition of St. George--his mental condition particularly. Find out if Willis is at his office in the bank to-day, and, if possible, where and how he spent last night. That's all." "And Miss Stanford?" asked Hatch. "Never mind her," replied The Thinking Machine. "I may see her myself. These other things are of immediate consequence. The minute you satisfy yourself come back to me. Quickness on your part may prevent a tragedy." The reporter went away hurriedly. At four o'clock that afternoon he returned. The Thinking Machine greeted him; he held a piece of letter-paper in his hand. "Well?" he asked. "The handwriting is Willis's," said Hatch, without hesitation. "I saw a sample--it is identical, and the paper on which he writes is identical." The scientist grunted. "I also saw some of St. George's writing," the reporter went on, as if he were reciting a lesson. "It is wholly dissimilar." The Thinking Machine nodded. "Willis has no revolver that anyone ever heard of," Hatch continued. "He was at dinner with several of his fellow employees last night, and left the restaurant at eight o'clock." "Been drinking?" "Might have had a few drinks," responded the reporter. "He is not a drinking man." "Has St. George a revolver?" "I was unable to find that out or do anything except get a sample of his writing from another artist," the reporter explained. "He is in a hospital, raving crazy. It seems to be a return of the trouble he had once before, except it is worse. The wound itself is not bad." The scientist was studying the sheet of paper. "Have you that scrap?" he asked. Hatch produced it, and the scientist placed it on the sheet; Hatch could only conjecture that he was fitting it to something else already there. He was engaged in this work when Martha entered. "The young lady who was here earlier to-day wants to see you again," she announced. "Show her in," directed The Thinking Machine, without raising his eyes. Martha disappeared, and after a moment Miss Stanford entered. Hatch, himself unnoticed, stared at her curiously, and arose, as did the scientist. The girl's face was flushed a little, and there was an eager expression in her eyes. "I know he didn't do it," she began. "I've just gotten a letter from Springfield stating that he was there on the day Grace went away--and----" "Know who didn't do what?" asked the scientist. "That Mr. Willis didn't kill Grace," replied the girl, her enthusiasm suddenly checked. "See here." The scientist read a letter which she offered, and the girl sank into a chair. Then for the first time she saw Hatch and her eyes expressed her surprise. She stared at him a moment, then nodded a greeting, after which she fell to watching The Thinking Machine. "Miss Stanford," he said, at length, "you made several mistakes when you were here before in not telling me the truth--all of it. If you will tell me all you know of this case I may be able to see it more clearly." The girl reddened and stammered a little, then her lips trembled. "Do you know--not conjecture, but know--whether or not Miss Field, or Grace, as you call her, was engaged to Willis?" the irritated voice asked. "I--I know it, yes," she stammered. "And you were in love with Mr. Willis--you _are_ in love with him?" Again the tell-tale blush swept over her face. She glanced at Hatch; it was the nervousness of a girl who is driven to a confession of love. "I regard Mr. Willis very highly," she said, finally, her voice low. "Well," and the scientist arose and crossed to where the girl sat, "don't you see that a very grave charge might be brought home to you if you don't tell all of this? The girl has disappeared. There might be even a hint of murder in which your name would be mentioned. Don't you see?" There was a long pause, and the girl stared steadily into the squint eyes above her. Finally her eyes fell. "I think I understand. Just what is it you want me to answer?" "Did or did you not ever hear Mr. Willis threaten Miss Field?" "I did once, yes." "Did or did you not know that Miss Field was the original of the painting?" "I did not." "It is a semi-nude picture, isn't it?" Again there was a flush in the girl's face. "I have heard it was," she said. "I have never seen it. I suggested to Grace several times that we go to see it, but she never would. I understand why now." "Did Willis know she was the original of that painting? That is, knowing it yourself now, do you have any reason to suppose that he previously knew?" "I don't know," she said, frankly. "I know that there was something which was always causing friction between them--something they quarreled about. It might have been that. That was when I heard Mr. Willis threaten her--it was something about shooting her if she ever did something--I don't know what." "Miss Field knew him before you did, I think you said?" "She introduced me to him." The Thinking Machine fingered the sheet of paper he held. "Did you know what those scraps of paper you brought me contained?" "Yes, in a way," said the girl. "Why did you bring them, then?" "Because you told me you knew I had them, and I was afraid it might make more trouble for me and for Mr. Willis if I did not." The Thinking Machine passed the sheet to Hatch. "This will interest you, Mr. Hatch," he explained. "Those words and letters in parentheses are what I have supplied to complete the full text of the note, of which you had a mere scrap. You will notice how the scrap you had fitted into it." The reporter read this: "If you go to th(at stud)io Wednesday to see that artist, (I will k)ill you bec(ause I w)on't have it known to the world tha(t you a)re a model. I hope you will heed this warning. "V. W." The reporter stared at the patched-up letter, pasted together with infinite care, and then glanced at The Thinking Machine, who settled himself again comfortably in the chair. "And now, Miss Stanford," asked the scientist, in a most matter-of-fact tone, "where is the body of Miss Field?" V. The blunt question aroused the girl, and she arose suddenly, staring at The Thinking Machine. He did not move. She stood as if transfixed, and Hatch saw her bosom rise and fall rapidly with the emotion she was seeking to repress. "Well?" asked The Thinking Machine. "I don't know," flamed Miss Stanford, suddenly, almost fiercely. "I don't even know she is dead. I know that Mr. Willis did not kill her, because, as that letter I gave you shows, he was in Springfield. I won't be tricked into saying anything further." The outburst had no appreciable effect on The Thinking Machine beyond causing him to raise his eyebrows slightly as he looked at the defiant little figure. "When did you last see Mr. Willis have a revolver?" "I know nothing of any revolver. I know only that Victor Willis is innocent as you are, and that I love him. Whatever has become of Grace Field I don't know." Tears leaped suddenly to her eyes, and, turning, she left the room. After a moment they heard the outer door slam as she passed out. Hatch turned to the scientist with a question in his eyes. "Did you smell anything like chloroform or ether when you were in St. George's apartments?" asked The Thinking Machine as he arose. "No," said Hatch. "I only noticed that the place seemed close, and there was an odor of Chinese incense--joss sticks--which was almost stifling." The Thinking Machine looked at the reporter quickly, but said nothing. Instead, he passed out of the room, to return a few minutes later with his hat and coat on. "Where are we going?" asked Hatch. "To St. George's studio," was the answer. Just then the telephone bell in the next room rang. The scientist answered it in person. "Your City Editor," he called to Hatch. Hatch went to the 'phone and remained there several minutes. When he came back there was a new excitement in his face. "What is it?" asked the scientist. "Another queer thing my City Editor told me," Hatch responded. "Constans St. George, raving mad, has escaped from the hospital and disappeared." "Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed the scientist, quickly. It was as near surprise as he ever showed. "Then there is danger." With quick steps he went to the telephone and called up Police Headquarters. "Detective Mallory," Hatch heard him ask for. "Yes. This is Professor Van Dusen. Please meet me immediately here at my house. Be here in ten minutes? Good. I'll wait. It's a matter of great importance. Good-by." Then impatiently The Thinking Machine moved about, waiting. The reporter, whose acquaintance with the logician was an extended one, had never seen him in just such a state. It started when he heard St. George had escaped. At last they left the house and stood waiting on the steps until Detective Mallory appeared in a cab. Into that Hatch and The Thinking Machine climbed, after the latter had given some direction, and the cabby drove rapidly away. It was all a mystery to Hatch, and he was rather glad of it when Detective Mallory asked what it meant. "Means that there is danger of a tragedy," said The Thinking Machine, crustily. "We may be in time to avert it. There is just a chance. If I'd only known this an hour ago--even half an hour ago--it might have been stopped." The Thinking Machine was the first man out of the cab when it stopped, and Hatch and the detective followed quickly. "Is Mr. St. George in his apartments?" asked the scientist of the elevator boy. "No, sir," said the boy. "He's in hospital, shot." "Is there a key to his place? Quick." "I think so, sir, but I can't give it to you." "Here, give it to me, then!" exclaimed the detective. He flashed a badge in the boy's eyes, and the youth immediately lost a deal of his coolness. "Gee, a detective! Yes, sir." "How many rooms has Mr. St. George?" asked the scientist. "Three and a bath," the boy responded. Two minutes later the three men stood in the reception-room of the apartments. There came to them from somewhere inside a deadly, stifling odor of chloroform. After one glance around The Thinking Machine rushed into the next room, the studio. "Dear me, dear me!" he exclaimed. There on the floor lay huddled the figure of a man. Blood had run from several wounds on his head. The Thinking Machine stooped a moment, and his slender fingers fumbled over the heart. "Unconscious, that's all," he said, and he raised the man up. "Victor Willis!" exclaimed Hatch. "Victor Willis!" repeated The Thinking Machine, as if puzzled. "Are you sure?" "Certain," said Hatch, positively. "It's the bank clerk." "Then we are too late," declared the scientist. He arose and looked about the room. A door to his right attracted his attention. He jerked it open and peered in. It was a clothes press. Another small door on the other side of the room was also thrown open. Here was a kitchenette, with a great quantity of canned stuffs. The Thinking Machine went on into the little bedroom which Hatch had searched. He flung open the bathroom and peered in, only to shut it immediately. Then he tried the handle of another door, a closet. It was fastened. "Ah!" he exclaimed. Then on his hands and knees he sniffed at the crack between the door and the flooring. Suddenly, as if satisfied, he arose and stepped away from the door. "Smash that door in," he directed. Detective Mallory looked at him stupefied. There was a similar expression on Hatch's face. "'What's--what's in there?" the detective asked. "Smash it," said the other, tartly. "Smash it, or God knows what you'll find in there." The detective, a powerful man, and Hatch threw their weight against the door; it stood rigid. They pulled at the handle; it refused to yield. "Lend me your revolver?" asked The Thinking Machine. The weapon was in his hand almost before the detective was aware of it, and, placing the barrel to the keyhole, The Thinking Machine pulled the trigger. There was a resonant report, the lock was smashed and the detective put out his hand to open the door. "Look out for a shot," warned The Thinking Machine, sharply. VI. The Thinking Machine drew Detective Mallory and Hatch to one side, out of immediate range of any person who might rush out, then pulled the closet door open. A cloud of suffocating fumes--the sweet, sickening odor of chloroform--gushed out, but there was no sound from inside. The detective looked at The Thinking Machine inquiringly. Carefully, almost gingerly, the scientist peered around the edge of the door. What he saw did not startle him, because it was what he expected. It was Constans St. George lying prone on the floor as if dead, with a blood-spattered revolver clasped loosely in one hand; the other hand grasped the throat of a woman, a woman of superb physical beauty, who also lay with face upturned, staring glassily. "Open the windows--all of them, then help me," commanded the scientist. As Detective Mallory and Hatch turned to obey the instructions, The Thinking Machine took the revolver from the inert fingers of the artist. Then Hatch and Mallory returned and together they lifted the unconscious forms toward a window. "It's Grace Field," said the reporter. In silence for half an hour the scientist labored over the unconscious forms of his three patients. The detective and reporter stood by, doing only what they were told to do. The wind, cold and stinging, came pouring through the windows, and it was only a few minutes until the chloroform odor was dissipated. The first of the three unconscious ones to show any sign of returning comprehension was Victor Willis, whose presence at all in the apartments furnished one of the mysteries which Hatch could not fathom. It was evident that his condition was primarily due to the wounds on his head--two of which bled profusely. The chloroform had merely served to further deaden his mentality. The wounds were made with the butt of the revolver, evidently in the hands of the artist. Willis's eyes opened finally and he stared at the faces bending over him with uncomprehending eyes. "What happened?" he asked. "You're all right now," was the scientist's assuring answer. "This man is your prisoner, Detective Mallory, for breaking and entering and for the attempted murder of Mr. St. George." Detective Mallory was delighted. Here was something he could readily understand; a human being given over to his care; a tangible thing to put handcuffs on and hold. He immediately proceeded to put the handcuffs on. "Any need of an ambulance?" he asked. "No," replied The Thinking Machine. "He'll be all right in half an hour." Gradually as reason came back Willis remembered. He turned his head at last and saw the inert bodies of St. George and Grace Field, the girl whom he had loved. "She was here, then!" he exclaimed suddenly, violently. "I knew it. Is she dead?" "Shut up that young fool's mouth, Mr. Mallory," commanded the scientist, sharply. "Take him in the other room or send him away." Obediently Mallory did as directed; there was that in the voice of this cold, calm being, The Thinking Machine, which compelled obedience. Mallory never questioned motives or orders. Willis was able to walk to the other room with help. Miss Field and St. George lay side by side in the cold wind from the open window. The Thinking Machine had forced a little whiskey down their throats, and after a time St. George opened his eyes. The artist was instantly alert and tried to rise. He was weak, however, and even a strength given to him by the madness which blazed in his eyes did not avail. At last he lay raving, cursing, shrieking. The Thinking Machine regarded him closely. "Hopeless," he said, at last. Again for many minutes the scientist worked with the girl. Finally he asked that an ambulance be sent for. The detective called up the City Hospital on the telephone in the apartments and made the request. The Thinking Machine stared alternately at the girl and at the artist. "Hopeless," he said again. "St. George, I mean." "Will the girl recover?" asked Hatch. "I don't know," was the frank reply. "She's been partly stupefied for days--ever since she disappeared, as a matter of fact. If her physical condition was as good as her appearance indicates she may recover. Now the hospital is the best place for her." It was only a few minutes before two ambulances came and the three persons were taken away; Willis a prisoner, and a sullen, defiant prisoner, who refused to speak or answer questions; St. George raving hideously and cursing frightfully; the woman, beautiful as a marble statue, and colorless as death. When they had all gone, The Thinking Machine went back into the bedroom and examined more carefully the little closet in which he had found the artist and Grace Field. It was practically a padded cell, relatively six feet each way. Heavy cushions of felt two or three inches thick covered the interior of the little room closely. In the top of it there was a small aperture, which had permitted some of the fumes of the chloroform to escape. The place was saturated with the poison. "Let's go," he said, finally. Detective Mallory and Hatch followed him out and a few minutes later sat opposite him in his little laboratory. Hatch had told a story over the telephone that made his City Editor rejoice madly; it was news, great, big, vital news. "Now, Mr. Hatch, I suppose you want some details," said The Thinking Machine, as he relapsed into his accustomed attitude. "And you, too, Mr. Mallory, since you are holding Willis a prisoner on my say-so. Would you like to know why?" "Sure," said the detective. "Let's go back a little--begin at the beginning, where Mr. Hatch called on me," said The Thinking Machine. "I can make the matter clearer that way. And I believe the cause of justice, Mr. Mallory, requires absolute accuracy and clarity in all things, does it not?" "Sure," said the detective again. "Well, Mr. Hatch told me at some length of the preliminaries of this case," explained The Thinking Machine. "He told me the history of the picture; the mystery as to the identity of the model; her great beauty; how he found her to be Grace Field, a shop-girl. He also told me of the mental condition of the artist, St. George, and repeated the rumor as he knew it about the artist being heartbroken because the girl--his model--would not marry him. "All this brought the artist into the matter of the girl's disappearance. She represented to him, physically, the highest ideal of which he could conceive--hope, success, life itself. Therefore it was not astonishing that he should fall in love with her; and it is not difficult to imagine that the girl did not fall in love with him. She is a beautiful woman, but not necessarily a woman of mentality; he is a great artist, eccentric, childish even in certain things. They were two natures totally opposed. "These things I could see instantly. Mr. Hatch showed me the photograph and also the scrap of paper. At the time the scrap of paper meant nothing. As I pointed out, it might have no bearing at all, yet it made it necessary for me to know whose handwriting it was. If Willis's, it still might mean nothing; if St. George's, a great deal, because it showed a direct thread to him. There was reason to believe that any friendship between them had ended when the picture was exhibited. "It was necessary, therefore, even that early in the work of reducing the mystery to logic to center it about St. George. This I explained to Mr. Hatch and pointed out the fact that the girl and the artist might have eloped--were possibly together somewhere. First it was necessary to get to the artist; Mr. Hatch had not been able to do so. "A childishly simple trick, which seemed to amaze Mr. Hatch considerably, brought the artist out of his rooms after he had been there closely for two days. I told Mr. Hatch that the artist would leave his rooms, if he were there, one night at 9:32, and told him to wait in the hall, then if he left the door open to enter the apartments and search for some trace of the girl. Mr. St. George did leave his apartments at the time I mentioned, and----" "But why, how?" asked Hatch. "There was one thing in the world that St. George loved with all his heart," explained the scientist. "That was his picture. Every act of his life has demonstrated that. I looked at a telephone book; I found he had a 'phone. If he were in his rooms, locked in, it was a bit of common sense that his telephone was the best means of reaching him. He answered the 'phone; I told him, just at 9:30, that the Art Museum was on fire and his picture in danger. "St. George left his apartments to go and see, just as I knew he would, hatless and coatless, and leaving the door open. Mr. Hatch went inside and found two gloves and a veil, all belonging to Miss Field. Miss Stanford identified them and asked if he had gotten them from Willis, and if Willis had been arrested. Why did she ask these questions? Obviously because she knew, or thought she knew, that Willis had some connection with the affair. "Mr. Hatch detailed all his discoveries and the conversation with Miss Stanford to me on the day after I 'phoned to St. George, who, of course, had found no fire. It showed that Miss Stanford suspected Willis, whom she loved, of the murder of Miss Field. Why? Because she had heard him threaten. He's a hare-brained young fool, anyway. What motive? Jealousy. Jealousy of what? He knew in some way that she had posed for a semi-nude picture, and that the man who painted it loved her. There is your jealousy. It explains Willis's every act." The Thinking Machine paused a moment, then went on: "This conversation with Mr. Hatch made me believe Miss Stanford knew more than she was willing to tell. In what way? By a letter? Possibly. She had given Mr. Hatch a scrap of a letter; perhaps she had found another letter, or more of this one. I sent her a note, telling her I knew she had these scraps of letters, and she promptly brought them to me. She had found them after Mr. Hatch saw her first somewhere in the house--in a bureau drawer she said, I think. "Meanwhile, Mr. Hatch had called my attention to the burglary of St. George's apartments. One reading of that convinced me that it was Willis who did this. Why? Because burglars don't burst in doors when they think anyone is inside; they pick the lock. Knowing, too, Willis's insane jealousy, I figured that he would be the type of man who would go there to kill St. George if he could, particularly if he thought the girl was there. "Thus it happened that I was not the only one to think that St. George knew where the girl was. Willis, the one most interested, thought she was there. I questioned Miss Stanford mercilessly, trying to get more facts about the young man from her which would bear on this, trying to trick her into some statement, but she was loyal to the last. "All these things indicated several things. First, that Willis didn't actually know where the girl was, as he would have known had he killed her; second, that if she had disappeared with a man, it was St. George, as there was no other apparent possibility; third, that St. George would be with her or near her, even if he had killed her; fourth, the pistol shot through the arm had brought on again a mental condition which threatened his entire future, and now as it happens has blighted it. "Thus, Miss Field and St. George were together. She loved Willis devotedly, therefore she was with St. George against her will, or she was dead. Where? In his rooms? Possibly. I determined to search there. I had just reached this determination when I heard St. George, violently insane, had escaped from the hospital. He had only one purpose then--to get to the woman. Then she was in danger. "I reasoned along these lines, rushed to the artist's apartments, found Willis there wounded. He had evidently been there searching when St. George returned, and St. George had attacked him, as a madman will, and with the greater strength of a madman. Then I knew the madman's first step. It would be the end of everything for him; therefore the death of the girl and his own. How? By poison preferably, because he would not shoot her--he loved beauty too much. Where? Possibly in the place where she had been all along, the closet, carefully padded and prepared to withstand noises. It is really a padded cell. I have an idea that the artist, sometimes overcome by his insane fits, and knowing when they would come, prepared this closet and used it himself occasionally. Here the girl could have been kept and her shrieks would never have been heard. You know the rest." The Thinking Machine stopped and arose, as if to end the matter. The others arose, too. "I took you, Mr. Mallory, because you were a detective, and I knew I could force a way into the apartments which I imagined would be locked. I think that's all." "But how did the girl get there?" asked Hatch. "St. George evidently asked her to come, possibly to pose again. It was a gratification to the girl to do this--a little touch of vanity caused her to pose in the first place. It was this vanity that Willis was fighting so hard, and which led to his threats and his efforts to kill St. George. Of course the artist was insane when she came; his frantic love for her led him to make her a prisoner and hold her against her will. You saw how well he did it." There was an awed pause. Hatch was rubbing the nap of his hat against his sleeve, thoughtfully. Detective Mallory had nothing to say; it was all said. Both turned as if to go, but the reporter had two more questions. "I suppose St. George's case is hopeless?" "Absolutely. It will end in a few months with his death." "And Miss Field?" "If she is not dead by this time she will recover. Wait a minute." He went into the next room and they heard the telephone bell jingle. After a time he came out. "She will recover," he said. "Good-afternoon." Wonderingly, Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, and Detective Mallory passed down the street together. THE END